The_Alt_oholic

I"m against any power that causes an end crash to melee characters regardless of how powerful it may seem. On the other hand, I don't have a problem with squishes end crashing.

The reason for this is that the melee characters - especially Tanks - are in the thick of it and responsible for managing the agro (aka keeping it off the squishes).


To the original point, I definitely think that any Tank should take Taunt as early as they can fit it in. This is a matter or your priorities and character conception.
I've built mine (14 Tanks not all high enough to have Taunt as a power pick yet.)) adding Taunt as early as I can get it or until as early as I could fit in in after 20 (Stamina).
Taunt is the most powerful agro-tool and is important to any good Tanker's tool box. (My other posts in regards to Taunt are more detailed)


Any Tank without Taunt is just a Tanker acting like a Scrapper. A Tanker's job is to protect the team through holding agro and do damage; a Scrappers job is to do damage and protect teammates (in some cases, that might even be the Tank).


Quite simply, Taunt is yelling across the room to the enemy to come and fight you.
If you are fighting with a baseball bat, how can you pass that up?

My inv/war mace with a baseball bat picked Taunt as soon as it was available, and that is completely due to character conception.
Mini-maxing is great, but I find a lot of enjoyment of this game of playing characters that I like because of their character conception.
I would strongly suggest making a second tanker, thinking up a character conception, and then sticking to "character conception" power choices. You might be surprised at which of the two tanks that you like playing more.

This is an RPG after all, it isn't just about the number crunching.

I'm against this. The powers have knockback for a reason.

I'm for giving the melee powers that had knockback turned into knockdown turned back into knockback.

The funniest part of this whole debate to me is that one time I was teaming with a Tank. The were something/shield and were shield charging every group and knocking them all over the place. So why wasn't the Tanker kicked from the team? They were the leader. But still the knockback was hurting the team.
Being a Plant controller I started grabbing groups with my plant attacks before the tank could knock the enemies everywhere.
So when the mission ended the Tank quit the team.
I guess I ruined his fun, because, you know, ?/Shield Tankers are the only ones allowed to use knockback powers.

Seriously, if you don't want powers with knockback, then don't get powers with knockback. If a set has knockback in it and you don't want that set, then get another set.

There is no reason to change the game because some players can't adjust to using their knockback correctly and/or can't adapt to someone else using knockback. Players can't both adjust their playstyle to use knockback in a team friendly manner, and adjust to the way a player is using knockback - regardless of how they are using it.

Seriously, if we get -knockback enhances, I want to be able to slot knockback enhances in my powers that knockdown and get knockback instead of knockdown.
I like to be able to send the enemy flying regardless of the knockback haters. I don't tell them not to use their powers, they certainly can't tell me how to use my powers.
Kick me if you want, but you usually can't because I usually have the star.

So all you knockback powered heroes, start your own team and don't give up the star!

I agree.
For a system that was supposed to have no drops, AE tickets sure seem like a more than a drop equivalent. As you pointed out, you get a better shot of picking what you want (and regardless of the enemy type that you are fighting).

I would be glad if they were only good for purchasing unlockables - though I do think that they could be expanded with other things such as temp powers only-usable in the AE, etc.

The mission ticket-cap was a good idea, but that was only the first step. The DEVs have had to concern themselves with dealing with the power-leveling issue first.

I'm obviously anti-farming, so might as well put that out before I start on what I think will go in regards to farming with the i16 release.

I think that there will be a lot less farming of the nature that we have seen since the AE/MA's release.
I agree that if the AE tickets aren't nerfed quite a bit, that the systems will still draw some "normal" farmers (pre-AE farmers).

I wouldn't reduce the ticket drops any more, but I would scale an increase in the purchase of items other than the unlockabales. Lower level and common salvage (bronze) costs increasing 1.5x, (silver) mid level and uncommons cost increasing at least 2x, and (Gold) high level and rares costs increasing 3x.
And maybe those increase are too lenient.

This points to the fact that the AE isn't intended to be a farming tool. Hopefully, it would cut down on the farming arcs being created (which aren't supposed to be in the AE anyway).

Farmers farmed plenty before AE but it didn't have the kind of impact on the rest of the game that farming in the AE does now.

Part of the problem with the AE is the power-leveling aspect - which is being addressed.
The other part of the problem is the farming for superior rewards issue - which also needs to be addressed.

I am not sure why I need to repeat what I posted before. It was pretty clear, but I will use one sentence answers to explain the differences between PVP Zones and the Arena.


The Arena was designed from combat with individuals and groups in a separate environment from other players.

The PvP Zones were designed for combat between anyone that can attack each other in that zone.

It has nothing to do with "being polite". If you go into a PvP Zone, you should know that anyone that can attack you may very well do so. Don't expect people to hold their fire because you want to use a PvP Zone in a non-standard manner. I think it is more impolite to expect to be able to use a PvP zone in a non-standard manner than it is impolite to use a PvP zone in the manner for which it was designed.
PvP Zones were not created for one-on-one dueling. If you don't like getting attacked by someone else when you are dueling, then take your fighting to the Arena.
Complaining about being attacked in a PvP Zone by players that you don't want to get attacked by is pointless. The point of a PvP Zone is that players can battle one another on one huge map where everyone can participate.

This is a very basic concept. If you can't understand it at this point, then you won't understand it.

If you want to duel "in peace", then go to the Arena.

Characters are free to attack targets that are available in PvP zones and you and whoever else you are dueling with are both available targets to every other player in a PvP zone. It should be no surprise when another player attacks you in a PvP Zone - as that is the entire point of a PvP zone.

A lot of standard PvE chat going on in this thread. I find it surprising as Phantastik answered your question with the first post.

If you want to duel without being interrupted, do it in the Arena.

The PvP zones are open for combat by anyone against any available targets. Do not expect to be immune to the zone dynamics just because you want to duel. The zones aren't about dueling - that is an option in the Arena.
I think it is rude to duel and to expect not to be interrupted doing so in the PvP zones. By going into a PvP zones instead of dueling in the Arena you are letting other players know that you are willing to fight anyone that can fight you in the PvP zone. It's as simple as that.

The Arena is for duels (and various other "closed" battles) where other players don't get involved. Like Phantastik said, there might be people flying around monitoring the fight, but they can't actually be involved with the combat (aka they are only spectators).
If you are trying to duel hero vs. villain try the Arena terminals in the Pocket D or the Rikti War zone.

With open Beta, I assume that there are quite a number of players on the Test side lately.

Which drive are you running CoH on?
Have you checked for defragging on your drive that only has 25% free?
Are you running other programs while you are running CoH?

I'm not a numbers cruncher, so I can't show you exact numbers.

Tankers have an inherent power called Gauntlet that has a +agro built into it.

Tanker attacks and damage/effect PBAoE's have a base +agro added to them from the individual power (in most cases) and the additional +agro from Gauntlet.
If another player can do enough damage, they will pull the agro away from you.

Taunt (the power) is by far the strongest and most powerful +agro tool.
If you have an enemy Taunted (that is with the Taunt power), the only one that will be able to pull the agro away is another Tank.

For this to make sense, here's basically what went on.
Originally, there were no inherents and Tanker attacks didn't draw any more agro than other attacks did.
The only way for a Tank to hold agro was Taunt.

Many Tanks were build that didn't have Taunt.
The DEVs look at the AT and think "the Tanks aren't taking Taunt and that is really what they are supposed to be using to defend their teammates. That, after all, is what Tanks are supposed to do" (this is a mythical guess about actual dialog)
So over the course of time, Tanks were given the inherent Gauntlet and also had +agro added to their attack powers - so that they would be pulling agro even when they weren't intentionally trying to do so.

These powers aren't a strong as Taunt, but they at least make a Tanker do at least some of what they were intended to do - draw agro in order to protect the team.
So if you are a Tanker that really wants to protect the rest of the team, take Taunt and use it.

Taunt won't get everyone in a multiple mob situation, so you will need to slot some recharges and click through targets to get different parts of a large mob each time if you want to keep all the agro.

But this is all from someone that jumps char/servers/sides/ATs like crazy, so I do have experience with Tanks, but I am not a "full time Tanker", so maybe that actually makes my advice better in some cases as I am actually seeing how Tank behavior affects the rest of a team.

I was thinking that it would be a good to be able to do this as well.
It could be added to the difficulty setting contacts as another slider option to be able to play as your level or lower.
Yes, it would be helpful to get safeguards at a lower level and to play them at a more challenging setting if so desired.
It would be also good for playing the lower level arcs so that you don't have to cut-off your xp for fear of out-leveling them.

This would be a way for solo-ers to take advantage of the SSK system. There are a good deal of them. I try to team, but there are times that I solo that I would like to run lower level arcs that have been locked out.

I can see how this might interfere with Ouroboros, but I had always felt that was for replaying missions versus playing them in the first place.

I have a couple different PBs and WSs.
Only one of them is three build (due to levels of other characters) and at least one all "human" form .

I always run multiple trays that I flip for "mode". Each tray will have the power and transform for those powers. I tried running 3 trays with flips, but that was a little much.
So mainly that character runs sets of trays with flips. Usually the active one is for squid and dwarf forms. As the transforms into the forms are in there own tray, I can turn that form off before flipping trays or wait to change strait into the other form once I get to the other tray. This allows me to change into human form briefly between the squid and Dwarf forms.
Usually I hang back and blast as the squid. If an enemy closes, I switch to human form, and, if I have that enemy target, the autofire on the human form's big melee attack goes off. I flip trays and then turn into the Dwarf form to heal or tank. If the enemies are back out of melee range, I'll switch back to squid form.
I've slotted up the melee attack a bit, so it seems to work well to add it into the attack combo.

I also take the med pool on Kheldians as the heal goes a long way until the Dwarf form is available and slotted up a bit.

I had thought that I had read that they did a work around on this so that higher level enemies were brought down to the teams level.

Yeah, found it here unless it changed back...

A critter that spawns higher than the level range chosen will be brought down.
A critter that spawns lower than the level range chosen will not be brought up.

-http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...=release+notes

This may only be happening for capped missions. However, if it isn't working on uncapped missions, I think it is a bug. Apparently, it is intended for the creatures to scale down to the level of the characters in a mission.

Exemplaring
I'm against Exemplared characters keeping all their powers. I think the Exemplar system works in a fine and fair manner now.
I see - in no way - the reasoning behind allowing a higher level blaster to unleash with a Nova on level 5 Hellions. It just isn't necessary and it makes now sense.
Please keep the Exemplaring system the way it is now in regards to powers. It makes sense though it may be a little confusing to some to begin with, they will learn to adjust to it.
The enemies in the game are static, they can't adjust to the fact that a level 1 has a level 50 build of powers.

Rush to 20
I'm against increasing the rewards for the first 40% of the game. (I'll probably have to cut-off xp gain to get an Atlas Bank job in Kings Row (aka a Raptor Pack))
It has been decreased before by increasing xp gain and reducing the effects of debt itself and the effects of debt through patrol-time.
Many players have argued that they can't really play until they are level 20 due to Stamina. I would rather see END reduced in the lower levels than to see the levels artificially forced again.
That's 40% of the game content that is already being rushed-by by many.
If you increase lower level character end-recovery then that resolves the main reason to rush to 20. (or is it just a rush to get a full cape? - it was a badge of honor. Rushing the levels to get it belittles the cape.)
So if End Recovery is taken care of then the rush is only to 14 for a travel power. I'm a Vet, so I can get them at level 6. I'm willing for everyone to have the ability to pick a travel power at level 6 if that can stop this rush to 14 (reduced from 20 by the improved end recovery).

So if End Recovery and Travel Powers are covered, there should no longer be a reason to rush. Getting to level 6 is not that hard to do.

If we keep this rush, then 40% of the content will pretty much be lost. Characters will not be able to complete arcs before they out-level them (can't really do it already in many cases without clamping xp gain). Atlas, Galaxy, Kings Row, the Hollows, Skyway City, Steel Canyon, and recently new and improved Faultline become waste lands.
I know that some will say that that has already become the case, but it is not true. I'll admit that I do tend to level to 5 and then go to Kings Row to run Police missions - this is primarily to get the flight pack. I do tend to enjoy Police missions more than running around zones because the missions are localized. I would really like to see the lower level contacts reworked to localize their arcs.

Conclusion :: So this is a fix for the MA with out fixing the MA?
I hope when super-sidekicking and increased mission settings go into effect, the impact of the MA exploit craze will be nullified.
I certainly hope that Custom Creature groups will be corrected to require having at least one type of minion, lt, and boss before being a valid group for a published mission.
If this is the case, then players will go back to running these lower level missions - I think some of them are the best in the game. I would hate to see this 40% of the game lost completely to new players that have not experienced them (adding badges to the end-arc AV missions on those lower level arcs would be a good thing as well).

As far as I am concerned, Absorb Pain is absolutely the worst power for a Defender to get - though I concede that the Medicine Pool is a hearty second.

As a Defender, you have few enough hit points as it is. It drains a lot if not all of your HP and leaves you without the ability to be healed. Some would argue that it is great to be able to avoid debt by using it to heal to heal a tank so that you can fall as a team beings to wipe, but I don't want to fall in battle and I can't help the team if I'm laying on the ground. I strongly suggest not to take Absorb Pain. I'm sure some Tankers will tell you how great it is, but look who's talking. (It was someone that has never played an Empathy Defender that told me that you don't get debt from falling in battle when you use Absorb Pain. So I don't know for sure that it doesn't, but that is what I was told.)

To elaborate on why the Medicine Pool is a bad idea for an Empathy Defender I would like to point out that ::

1. Your Primary Heals are far superior to the Med Pools heals.
2. Clear Mind is far superior and lasts longer than the Med Pool anti-Mez.
3. They are all interpretable powers.

I suggest getting Heal Other, Healing Aura, and Clear Mind as early as possible.
Then I suggest getting Recovery Aura as early as possible.
Then I suggest getting Fortitude, Regen Aura, and Adrenaline Boost as early as possible.

I just dinged my first Defender to 50 on Friday Night/early Saturday AM EST. He's an Empathy/Electric and focus completely on team support. He doesn't have the Fitness Pool. I took the Leadership Pool instead. As a team buffer, the Leadership pools ablity to increase accuracy, damage, and defense can go a long way on a big team. When you have to pull it out, Vengeance can be extremely powerful - I don't like to have to use it, but when it needs to be used, it can save the rest of the team.
I've stated before I think Defenders become more powerful related to how big a team they are on as the more team mates that they have to take advantage of their debuffs and to use their heals/buffs on magnifies their effectiveness.
I do have to be careful about how much END I use on that character, but, with 3 Recharge Redux in Hasten and Recovery Aura, Recovery Aura can recharge fairly quickly. However, when that character is on a big team, I don't need to worry about taking down foes with my attacks. That's the rest of the teams job. I'm there to make sure that the rest of the team can stay up and take down the enemy as efficiently as possible.

The DEVs set the level that they did for a reason.

Your proposing to be able to keep agro magnet on about 6+ groups. This still seems a bit high to me.

The game isn't really meant for a Tanker to run and agro magnet a bunch of groups for the team to decimate.
The mechanics seem clear to be fight a group or two at a time. That means on a large team it is useful to have more than one Tank on a team to keep all the agro - if you are going to rely on Tanks for that purpose.

The point of a Tanker managing agro is to watch out for the team and not to round up as many bad guys as possible.

The problem is that many Tanks just want to use their agro management powers to round up as many bad guys as possible.

In regards to the safety of the team, I don't see the necessity for rounding up/herding an entire room of bad guys.

The only reason to be able to round up as many bad guys as possible is for farming. The DEVs are against farming.

I really don't see any change happening to cap on how many enemies that a Tank can hold agro over per use of power.

If you really want to control more agro, put 3 recharges in Hasten and Taunt. I believe the agro cap is per use, so if you change around your targets, you can control a good number of foe with Taunt.

As you know, I've always promoted the use of Taunt as it is the best agro keeping mechanic for Tankers. If a Tanker has something Taunted, only a higher level Tanker can pull the agro away.

The quickest way is to run "normal"* content with a large team. Make sure to have open salvage space.
The same goes for any other kinds of drops.

But I think you might be asking about specific salvage, in that case ::

1. Make sure you have open salvage space.
2. Find a mob.
3. Right click on one member of said mob.
4. Get info.
5. See what they drop.
6. Check the others in the mob.
7. If you don't see the kind of drops you want, find another enemy group and repeat.
8. Find the kind of drops you want, fight them!

In regards to enhancements fight enemies that have the same Origin that your character does. There are, of course, stores and contacts that will sell them to you for a fixed price as well.

But I would rather answer the question with a question :: Why would you want to avoid the Market?

At least sell the salvage that you don't want/need to use.

*Not AE missions

There are several things that you have to look at in regards to Defenders.

One of them is the fact that Defenders really are a support class AT when it comes down to it.
Many players don't want to be support for other players, they want to be the ones doing things.
The fact is that may players don't even want to be supported by a support class AT of any kind. You can see that that is quite prevelant in the postings in the Tanker forums. They don't say that they don't need other players, but, if you look at the things that they want, they usually have to do with powers that other ATs could bring to a team that they think that the Tank AT is lacking.

Defenders are very powerful on full teams. They are still fairly powerful on small teams. When they are alone, most of the Defender power sets just don't hold up and the inherent does nothing for them. Their powers are great for helping others but many times those powers can not be used to help themselves.

All the other inherents -- except for the PB and WS (which are epics) -- do something to help the character even if they aren't on a team. (Tankers will argue that Gauntlet doesn't help them when they are not on a team, but the -Range makes enemies close into their melee range which does help them).

It can be very thankless to be a Defender on a large team where their powers are the most powerful (the more chars on a team, the more chars that can benefit from the Defenders heals/buffs/debuffs). Most defender power sets have you running shepherd over a flock of rampaging wolves. And the wolves, for the most part, don't care what happens to you.

On the fun scale, for most people being a Defender is just too much work.

Sure, Controllers can be a support class as well, but that depends on the Controllers build.
If you flip a defender and try to make them an "attack" build, it simply does not work with most power sets (storm Defenders are great "tankers".)

I'm currently working one of my defenders up to 50 on Triumph. I'm up to 49 now. He will be my first 50 defender. He's one of the first 22 characters that I made the first 4-7 days that I played CoH way back when (some 60 months ago according to my vet badges).

First off, I agree with some of your other points in your post.

I have to say, that it is hard for me to believe that an individual with two masters degrees could think that the Signature characters were the "revolutionary" part of Champions the RPG.

If you have played 3 RPGs and one of them was Champions, and you created a character - you would know the difference between Champions and the other systems.

I think that anyone that has ever played Champions the RPG would agree that the mechanics of the game are the major innovation.

You can be smart and still be a dummy about some things.
Obviously, if HE thought that the Signature characters were what made Champions the RPG so popular, then he is a dummy. However, I think it is quite clear that he never really played Champions the RPG or is it that he is really so far removed from actually gaming that he can't see that Foxbat having all of his powers in an a single OAF (Obvious Accessible Focus - aka an item which can be taken away from him quite easily) was a joke.

Seriously,they buy the joke characters (that everyone I ever played Champions understood were either jokes or examples of how not-to-make-characters) and don't buy the innovative system that made the Champions name noteworthy?

It doesn't seem too intelligent to me.

There has been chatter about CoH2 for a while now.
CoV is CoH2.
CoH:GR will be CoH2.5

Are they starting over from scratch? No.

CoV was a stand alone game. You didn't have to have CoH to play it, and you had the option of linking to the two together. CoV has higher RAM requirements that CoH.

CoH:GR won't be stand alone, but it won't be a "must have" either. It may very well have higher system requirements than CoH or CoV (aka CoX or CoH ... might as well just call it CoH at this point as it was CoH:Mac, CoH:AE, and will be CoH:GR.)

I'm not sure how you can say "CO is what CoH was supposed to be" unless you work for Cryptic. If you work for Cryptic, you shouldn't be posting here about how your game is a better version of CoH.

If Champions Online is what "CoH was supposed to be", I'm glad that I have what I have rather than "what it was supposed to be".

Champions Online is huge letdown to me. I'm a big fan of Champions the RPG since it was released up to the first hardbound book. It is a great system; it was revolutionary to pen-and-pencil RPG'ing. Too bad that great system isn't in Champoins Online.
Micro-transactions, 8 total character slots, the quick-money grab of "life-time" memberships to people buying the game before they play it -- it just starts adding up to something that not only trivializes the name of a great pnp RPG name, but doesn't interest me at all.

Seriously.
With a the problems that we have here - and I see quite a few faults -, this is one of the best games that I have ever played.
By-and-large, the people that I play with are great gamers here. The majority of them are not rude and they like to play the game the way that it was intended.
I have to take time now to take action against situations and players that I don't want to deal with in the game. This has only really come to a head recently since AE was released.
But, even in this time of turmoil, I still love this game.

I love Champions the RPG too. What Cryptic did to it stinks.

Yeah, looks like you have your Rep Meter on.