Starsman

Vox_Populi noted it does.

Nice thread, you are right, it's hard to find low level arcs. Here is my attempt at one:

Arc Name: Forever Lost
Arc ID: 135563
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 5-29
Difficulty Level: Easy to Medium (each mission contains 2 or 3 bosses, would recommend heroic play for squshier ATs)
Creator: @Starsman
Synopsis: Sgt. Suzanne Bernhard's daughter has been "recruited" by the Lost, now she needs help to get her back before they transform her into an abomination. All missions contain 2 or 3 bosses, these can be easily downgraded to lts by changing your difficulty to Heroic.

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I have both on my Ice Tanker and they stack. No worries.

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Just out of curiosity, did you buy it or got it PvPing?

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I said you'd tire of your pursuit and stop talking; as in disappear from the forums. That happens a lot. Some quit the game, others just quit the forums.

That's not inconsistent with believing its not a safe bet that you'll quit CoX for Champions Online specifically. I'd give that only a 60% chance of being true in the short term after CO release, and only a 40% chance of being true a year after CO launches. Not good enough odds.

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Let's make a bet: he will go to CO, hate it and come back, thats what I think he will do.

I THINK they will stack. Not 100% sure though.

Also, you may purple out your entire character's builds, both of them, before getting your hands in that thing.

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The current Pretora story arc is extremely loose (like most content from those days.) We visit certain zones, cities and the such, but we never really see anything outside of isolated outdoors. I never seen an arc that mentions what I said, I was guessing that based on the trailer where Tyrant's empire seems like a paradise. Being who he is, I would not be shocked of him going through any means necessary to achieve that perfection.

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Nothing in the past content presents Praetorian Earth as being, or seeming, a utopia.

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I doubt Praetorian Earth consists of one single town, city or even country. I bet it's a round planet with loads of land. And that trailer they showed, makes Tyrant's empire look like an utopia.

It is very likely the "war thorn" areas we saw on that comic were the remnants of the loosing side.

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you guys are all missing the obvious bonus if JB's idiotic predictions come true.


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The real bonus is he will roll a hero brute.

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Just guessing Pretora will be a "paradise" that became such via rather immoral choices, Tyrant rules the world after all. The kind of world that is free of genetic defects due to all people that carry these deffects are either killed or forced to never have children.


[/ QUOTE ] Is this really in the storyline? If so then maybe I need to pay attention to arcs alot more. Does anyone know who gives an arc that mentions this?

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The current Pretora story arc is extremely loose (like most content from those days.) We visit certain zones, cities and the such, but we never really see anything outside of isolated outdoors. I never seen an arc that mentions what I said, I was guessing that based on the trailer where Tyrant's empire seems like a paradise. Being who he is, I would not be shocked of him going through any means necessary to achieve that perfection.

After all, Tyrant and Statesman are the same man, with different decisions made through life. Both are likely driven by the same motives: a better tomorrow, but made very different moral choices.

All i ponder is: where is Pretorian Recluse?

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[edit: Oh, I should mention, there is no maximum "tether," if you keep a mobs attention, he'll follow you all the way across a zone. I've personally pulled Eochai halfway across zones before in multiple zones (Kings, Steel, Talos, and Creys Folly). Mobs that turn away and return to their spawn point aren't doing so because they're beyond any tether, it's because you hit the aggro cap and they were pushed off.]


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There is also an additional mechanic at work there, not sure if it's threat degradation or special AI code that will make a foe that has not been attacked for X amount of time give up on following you if you are Y feet away, but a critter can give up on following you even without reaching the cap if you don't regularly re-taunt or hit him (why its easier for tankers and brutes to herd than scrappers.)

As for Kruunch:

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As far as your opinion on whether herding is tanking ... shrug.

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That's not an opinion, that's the general terminology used by this game in the last few years, at least 3 if not more.

Tanking is the process of taking damage for your team, you can't do that solo. Saying "solo tanking" denotes you are tanking for your team without the need of buffs or additional tanks to hold excess aggro.

Herding CAN be done while tanking, but solo, large amounts of mobs on you simply is herding. You can try to use your own terms but you will find yourself in a lot of arguments due to plain misunderstanding.

Actually, going back to the OP, for noobs, the firs thing they have to learn is the definition this game's community has for Tanking, Herding and Pulling (witch many wrongfully call herding.)

I don't think we are talking of just a coop. I think this will open up a third faction. The trailer makes quite a focus on "shades of grey". They note how Tyrant's world looks like a paradise. I think Pretora is just going to be a new "neutral" or "gray" faction.

You very likely will require the expansion to either switch sides or start in a non-native faction.
You will be able to be hero, villain, or rogue.

Just guessing Pretora will be a "paradise" that became such via rather immoral choices, Tyrant rules the world after all. The kind of world that is free of genetic defects due to all people that carry these deffects are either killed or forced to never have children.

I expect players to be able to switch sides at any level, but also would expect a revamped new player experience, one where you may go from level 1 to 20 inside the "tutorial" that will not only guide you through the beginning steps, but all the way through your pick of faction.

As for reasons to switch at lvl 50, i can think of several.

I have high level villains in Triumph I regret making because I know no one villain side, the character was mainly solo and during the initial CoV launch when people were trying the new faction. I would be happy to change those to heroes so I can do stuff with my heroic friends.

Badge hunters would love this, they would get to earn every single badge in both sides of the game (provided the badge is not a good/bad badge earned by the same requirements on both sides) like TF badges or a villain that wants the MSTF badge or a hero that wants the LRSF master badge. You can bet your toes that badge hounds will be all over this.

There is also plain and simple content, even at 50 you can do all content via Ouroboros. I love the villain side content and would be happy to rerun it all with my tanker.

Finally there is min/maxing, people that will find having a Tanker in CoV teams or a Stalker in a CoH team extremely interesting and useful.

If I sat down to look for more reasons I bet I would find them, all that would encourage a lvl 50 to switch sides.

All that said I would expect certain ATs to at least undergo renaming once they switch sides. A hero mastermind does not sound very heroic, perhaps a Hero Mastermind would be renamed Commander, and a villain defender an Offender.

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i would fear more for dominators of any at. they would be totaly pointless. permadom isnt a cheap thing to get on a 50 dom

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I think you missed the part where Castle is buffing non-Domination damage to current Domination levels.

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that only helps doms level faster. does nothing for them come 50 when they can slot for perma dom.

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It allows me to not bother with perma dom and go for other things, like soft capped defense.


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and they still lack ANY team buffs, and they still wont be doing corruptor/blaster levels of dmg.

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Apparently, unless the corruptor has +dmg or -res, the dom will do more damage.

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What do you mean by "taunt cap"? Are you saying that you can have 30 mobs attacking you at one time, but cannot keep that many taunted (ie: they'll peel as soon as anybody sneezes)? If you are, you're mistaken. Someone brought up the aggro cap a couple months ago and I tested it. That screenshot has 18 rikti monkies, 17 around me and one taunted at range - solo. The 18th would not attack me. After I killed one, the 18th turned and attacked me.

At any given time, you cannot have more than 17 mobs attacking you at once. If you lose aggro on something (say to another player) then extra mobs will be able to fill that back to 17, but never any higher. If you can prove me incorrect (screenshot or preferably a demo), please do.

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Just as a note: the aggro cap is per player, a team can theoretically aggro 136 critters, but only 17 will pay attention to each player. Anything over the cap, goes to the blaster (who the defender may be doing a better job of protecting than you are.)

It's easy for a tanker to think he is actually the center of such a team's aggro if buffs are keeping everyone else alive.

Nah, now that we know Dom damage will be boosted, I'm already building a Dominator that will have capped defenses. He will replace tankers, scrappers, brutes, controllers, corruptors, masterminds, kheledians, stalkers, etc,etc etc!

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All I can say is that with real tanks Redside, The brute and mastermind numbers are going to decline drastically. 'tankerminds' and 'brutanks' are going to be showed up as the poor second rate alphastoppers that they are.

I have played my tanker co-ops with the villains many times, and without fail they are almost shocked at how much MORE capable tanks are of keeping a team, and even a team full of pets, alive.

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^^^

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With side-switching actually on the way, how do you think this will impact tanks?

Personally, I think there are room for tanks and brutes in 1-50 content, but I'm not sure what the general public will think.

Somebody had to start this thread.

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First off, I want to say to everyone "I told you so."

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I thought you were the one saying it would not happen because then no one would play tankers.... so your "I told you so" would only be valid if:

A) It didn't happen
B) Once it happens everyone quits their tanks and no one ever again rolls tanks.

Option B lays in the future so you'll have to wait to toss the line then.

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And then hopefully there will be a Collector's Edition with lots of extra trinkets.

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/preorders collector's edition
System: you have earned the Happy Fanboi Badge

WOHOO!!!!

Assumptionware:

<ul type="square">[*]In a recent interview Positron noted he is working in Issue 18.
This expansion is being worked on.
At worst, this expansion will come with Issue 18.
We are about to see Issue 15. That leaves 3 issues to go. 4 if you count issue 15 as it's not out yet.

Lets average 3 months per issue. We may be talking somewhere between 9 to 12 months for this to launch, placing launch somewhere in Quarter 1 2010.

[*]Recently Positron noted in an interview "Power customization was something we were not able to do while we were at Cryptic, that's all I can say at the moment":

Assumption: Power Customization will be part of this expansion.
[*]Recently Positron noted in an interview that they hired a lot of people precisely to work on a visual upgrade to the game.

Assumption: Enhanced graphics will be part of this expansion.
[*]A while back some players got a survey that asked people about potential features and what they would be more happy about. Between the things listed there we saw a new advancement system that would give us global character slots to put special enhancements on. This may be another potential new feature on this expansion.[/list]

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Q: When will City of Heroes Going Rogue launch?

A: When it’s ready. We are not announcing the date at this time.

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Darnit!!! Blizzard bought NCSoft!!!

Check this study out.

Does not analyzes endurance efficiency just damage output.

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You should give WM another try Kruunch. Invul no longer suffers from knockback that WM used to do. Fire Armor synergize well with all the KD from the WM set. Clobber is now the best power in WM, in case you missed it.

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I have a L24 Shields/WM Tanker (talk about your Endurance woes ... eeesh). They did a nice job (thus far that I've seen) with War Mace in terms of the set being closer to on par with other Tanker secondaries. My three issues still with War Mace is that it still feels subpar to Axe in terms of damage

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War Mace at that level should consume as much endurance as any other primary, they all use the same endurance per damage done for few exceptions (dark shadow maul gets a bonus discount, and Fire gets extra DoTs.) In the long run, War Mace has much higher AoE potential than Battle Axe, and Battle Axe slightly better single target damage.

Both sets benefit from increased accuracy.



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WM in my mind doesn't give you the same secondary mitigation that SS or Axe does (or even the reliability of Energy's disorients), it does have explosive damage when combined together.

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At higher levels, once you get crowd Control, that cycles every 12 seconds instead of every 20 and can knock down 10 foes (although with arguably more effort than Foot Stomp with it's huge range) you do a lot of knock down. As with damage, WM ends doing drastically higher AoE mitigation via Crowd Control than Battle Axe, but better single target mitigation due to all attacks in Axe doing Knock Down. Note that randomness may actually allow BA to match this by also spamming whirling axe, that also knock downs but randomly.

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while Dark... has a self heal (up to 20% of your HPs when slotted) which is almost always up (and works amazingly well when coupled with Dull Pain which boosts your HPs)

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Note that click heals are based on class base HP, not actual HP. So when you say "20% heal," it's actually more like 10-11% on a character with a slotted Dull Pain up.

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Nitpick: to be exact, a 20% heal would be 12.5% on a character with slotted Dull Pain up and no accolades.

Formula to calculate this being:

FinalHeal = OriginalHeal * (1/(1+HPBuff%))


Basically, HP buffs equate damage resistance to all damage types AND also healing resistance.

Things have changed. The devs now have the ability to allow a power to affect shifted foes. Hammi does it, and PvP code was made to allow any power affect shifted foes if the caster is shifted himself.

The idea of making it a toggle is no longer impossible. Actually, it never was. If you made it a 2 second duration with .5 second pulse, it would keep trying to refresh. Once the target unshift he may be able to toss an attack if he is lucky but he will be unshifted immediately by the subsequent shift pulse in less than .5 seconds. That, as i noted, was before tech was added. Now a shift can affect a shifted foe and stack on top if the dev so desire.

As for the knockback in wormhole, the kb in wormhole is not there to mitigate but to simulate an effect (you get sucked in and toss the other side) that likely will never change. The disorient after the porting is the mitigation effect. However I seen many gravs manipulate this effect. If you point it up they will be shoot up and then down, with very minor scatter. If you point it to a wall or corner, instant herding as no tanker can achieve. If you hover and point it straight down: knockcown.

The radius is balanced against it's incredible ability to bring the foe to you so i doubt that will ever change either.

Now, I do admit I have not used the power myself but have teamed with many that do and I seen the effects of wormhole and never seen anyone do scatter with it and rarely do foes off a mob stay behind due to the radius being too small. Not sure how hard it is to pull off, but seems that most people that have bothered to get that far have figured it out quickly.

The problem with the set lies at the low levels where other sets have other types of soft control. Sleeps specially. These, too, can be hard to do much on AoE heavy teams, but at least they help mitigate damage. By making DS a togle it can work as it does now giving the user an option to just turn it off. If so it is determined, they can cap how long the toggle can be on to 30 seconds top.

IF the duration is capped there is suddenly a second thing you can add to it: damage over time. You can claim that this other dimension is extremely hot, cold, whatever, causing the foes that are sent there to suffer damage over time while there. Might mitigate a bit the fact the team can't harm these foes and not become a tool that would allow the caster to safely kill anything because you only have 30 seconds before it crashes.

There is only one real issue with grav and it has been noted here a few times. Fixing that one issue would fix Grav: Dimension Shift. It's not a problem exclusive to grav, though, its an inherent issue to shift powers in this game.

Reordering powers is out of the question, according to the last I heard from the devs.
The devs also won't change the use of a power so no matter what, dimension shift will remain a shift aoe.

The idea of making the power a low end cost toggle, though, is a darn good one. It would allow for a part of the mob to be shifted for the amount of time needed, no longer than needed. It still would not be the ideal for many, but given level range, it would sure beat sleep powers. It's recharge should be lowered to 60s to be more in line with Telekinesis, but endurance should not be based on a per-foe basis as TK as you already are in a position where you can't attack these foes.

I'd also lower the hit cap from 16 to 7, this would allow to split a decent sized mob without being forced to shift the entire thing.

Separate thing, and more in the lines of the game itself, I would make some interface option that the user was able to change on the options screen that made shifted foes not targetable so that clicking on them or tabing won't select them. The option, as noted, should be something the user be able to change and by default turned off in PvP zones while by default on in PvE. This would make shift powers more useful as players would be less likely to waste endurance and time hitting a shifted foe.