Shrikefire

I fought him some more. Now I've seen him miss KO blow several times, but only when my health is full. It seems if I'm damaged it hits rather automatically and doesn't show up in hit logs when it kills me. Gonna test some more. Maybe I just have terrible streak breaking luck.

Regardless, KO blow should be showing up in my hit logs whether it hits, misses, kills me, or whatever. Whenever it kills me, its no where in my combat logs. No damage received, hit rolls, anything

Is it auto hit? I'm trying to solo him as a 31 hero on my 31 night widow. I have 51.01% melee defense when I'm hide suppressed, and yet he is repeatedly ending my life with KO Blow. I haven't seen it miss. When I check my combat logs, it doesn't even say anything about it.

More than I could ask for, ty.

ok LJ, I made things generally easier. Herr Zerstoerung is not going to one shot people anymore and should go down more smoothly. Der Kommandant is no longer /rad, he's devices, though honestly that guy seems to be a cinch no matter what I do to him. Heh.

Fixed statue name just because, and Stahlfaust no longer has ET or TF unfortunately. He does however retain buildup, since his hardest hitter is now bonesmasher. His elec armor is unchanged, since he will currently NOT pop PS for whatever reason and would be too easy on a lower difficulty. Elec armor EBs are not hard, it was really his ET that made him too strong. I also made a change in the powerset of the last boss, which you did not reach.

Most importantly, you no longer fight 5th Column. You're up against the Wehrmacht. I had to make sacrifices in the US Military to get in the file space, but it should be fairly balanced and I do like that idea a lot more.

All in all, I decided that balancing the arc around my IO'd ss/invuln was not a good idea. Hopefully it's not too easy, but if you feel like finishing it you should have a smoother ride :]

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Arc #77928 Heroes at War - 1944
Rating: 1 star
Pros: German enemies actually speak German
Cons: Huge outdoor maps with hard to find objectives, ridiculously powerful custom enemies, minor plot issues

Plot Overview

Alright, I have to be up front about this. I didn't finish the arc. Not for a lack of trying, however. I'll get to that later. However, I can't do a full synopsis like I usually do. The plot however has your hero travel back in time to help out in key battles of World War II, where the German forces have superpowered soldiers of their own.

Mechanics

The custom bosses are quite simply too hard. I'm not even talking AVs bumped down to elite bosses, I mean regular bosses that are one-shotting my level 50 SR scrapper who's fully slotted with hamidon enhancers with a 60 something percent chance to hit.

Every mission that I played (I got to mission 3 before I couldn't go any further) took place on an outdoor map. The first one was the coastal map with the ridiculously huge island in the corner. Not too far in, I see the boss I have to kill, Herr Zerstoerung. I run in to attack, and he instantly uses rage and hits me with knockout blow, killing me practically instantly. I die a total of 3 times against Herr Zerstoerung before I finally kill him, which took me far too long due to the fact that his invulnerability was also on extreme difficulty. I'm fairly certain it took about as long as it used to take me to solo an archvillain back around Issue 2. Keep in mind that he is Boss rank. After all that work, now I just have to find and rescue an American Sergeant. After a bit of searching through the huge map, I find him tucked in a corner.

The second mission takes place in the burning forest map filled with battles between 5th Column and American soldiers, where my only objective is Rally at the statue. I assumed that it was a defend object detail, and I was correct. 5th column soldiers are standing around a hero statue named Rally at the statue. I dispatch them and the ambush, and my objective is now Defeat Derr Kommandant, who spawned nowhere near the statue. After searching through the confusing and smoky map, I find Derr Kommandant, an elite boss. Just from looking at him I can tell he's extreme radiation, since he has choking cloud on. Reading his description also tells me that he's a mercs mastermind, that I correctly guessed was also on extreme. He wasn't as bad as Herr Zerstoerung, mainly because he doesn't have anything like KO Blow to use on me, and because this time I used every purple and orange in my insp tray before running in. He spawns an ambush of 5th Column when he gets to 75% health, and judging from my NPC dialogue tab he apparently spawns an allied ambush at 50% health of American soldiers, though by the time I killed Derr Kommandant they still hadn't shown. They probably aggroed on 5th Column soldiers before reaching me.

The third mission takes place on the absurdly mammoth destroyed city map of Psychic Clockwork King fame. My three objectives are to defeat two bosses, and rescue one captive. The first one I run into is a boss named Stahlfist, who is beating down some American soldiers and smack talking them in German as he kills them. Well, I head in to fight him. I learn quickly that he's Energy Melee, guess what difficulty. Energy Transfer difficulty. He didn't even have build up active, he must have used it on the American soldiers. Regardless, he energy transfers me, with no damage buffs on him, for over 1900 damage. He's also electric armor, so even if I somehow could manage to survive such an assault, since once he uses buildup I'm toast even through my high defense even if that last one was a lucky shot, it would take me forever to kill him once he uses his tier 9 power, all through which I'm going to have built up energy transfers and total focuses being used on me. So I quit there to prevent myself unnecessary stress.

Story

I really like the fact that the enemies actually speak German. I can only read a little bit of German, so I'm not sure if the NPC dialogue is syntactically correct, but the fact that they're not speaking English was nice. However, while I realize the 5th Column are awesome, I really wish people would stop using them in WWII arcs that take place in Europe. I know I'm being nitpicky here, but the 5th Column's name comes from the fact that they were insurgents on American soil who performed a sneak attack on Paragon City during the war. The 5th Column never fought in any battles in Europe during World War II. Also, the presence of warwolves, vampyr, and robots in World War II makes me go absolutely nuts. If you are going to use the 5th Column, make a custom group with only the soldiers in it, and call their faction Wehrmacht or something.

Final Thoughts

I really wish I could have gone through and played the entire thing, but the custom bosses are just far too difficult. They need to have their powers turned down so none of them have build up, and extreme difficulty should be saved for very rare cases.

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I've been playing it with my ss invuln brute, and I've been kinda worried about the difficulty but haven't had any feedback about it before.

I had some trouble killing the custom bosses, but usually not a lot. I can dumb it down though. Herr Z especially, I dont understand him.

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I'd like to put mine up for review

Arc title: Heroes at War - 1944
Arc ID: 77928
Morality: Heroic
Enemy groups: 5th Column, Storm Korps (custom)
Description: Play through some of the key American led battles of WWII in the European theatre, with a twist - this alternate history includes metahumans fighting on both sides of the war. It's you against the Storm Korps!

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For you then, Laser Jesus, since Venture is apparently done. I missed the cutoff somewhere in those 50 pages :P

I'd like to put mine up for review

Arc Title: Heroes at War - 1944
Arc ID: 77928
Morality: Heroic
Enemy groups: 5th Column, Storm Korps (custom)
Description: Play through some of the key American led battles of WWII in the European theatre, with a twist - this alternate history includes metahumans fighting on both sides of the war. It's you against the Storm Korps!

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Ok post my arc up for Critiquing, it seems to be bouncing between 4 and 5 stars with 14 plays so far.

Arc Id: 82059
Arc name: A proper heist.
Recommended level range: 5-14
Faction: Longbow, Mooks, PPD
Description: You're new in the Rogue Isles and your broker is some way off offering you that elusive bank job, however you hear about someone looking for new talent for a bank job of their own...

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I liked it, was entertaining and easy. Couple grammatical issues but nothing that made me want to stop playing the arc. :P This is mine:

Arc Title: Heroes at War - 1944
Arc ID: 77928
Length: Long
Factions: 5th Column, Storm Korps
Description: I put you on the beaches of Normandy for the first mish and the remaining three center around the Battle of the Bulge. One defeat all. Intended for higher level characters.

I tried posting this in the suggestions forum but it doesn't seem to have done well there. anyway!

I think "Zone Vistas" would be cool. You could place a large "window" that looks out onto some characteristic part of each of the CoX zones. Jackpot or the Giza for St Martial for instance.

Obviously it'd really be a 2-D object made to look like it had depth. I think it'd be similar to blown up versions of tech tp beacons. It'd give bases a more interactive and personal feel, instead of the preexisting implication that all bases exist in the oblivion that is baseland.

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I have a question, if this has been shared or if a dev would like to comment.

Will we be able to pick between different versions of power sets? Will I be able to say whether I want the Blaster (blue) Energy Blast or the Corruptor (red) Energy Blast? Will I be able to pick between Blaster and Defender Psi Blast? Will I be able to pick between Scrapper and Tanker Fire Melee? Will I have to use the Brute Dual Blades, or can I pick the Stalker version if I want BU/Placate?

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Since when is corruptor energy blast red? is that a i14 thing or something

I think that they should up the energy defense in Kinetic Shield so that, when slotted, an EA brute is basically softcapped to energy defense. It fits thematically.

If that happened, then the energy resistance in Energy Protection would become largely superfluous (kinda already is). I think in that case Energy Protection could be replaced by Power Boost. Probably not on a blaster's timer, but still.

Perhaps the negative energy and toxic res could then be shunted to Dampening field, though I doubt many people would really miss them regardless.

That way everyone who enjoys the protection from energy protection will still get it, but EA would still be helped significantly by replacing a power.