dugfromthearth

I have a concept character that would go well with rings of fire, so I want to try fire/ controller (since a dom doesn't really use the rings of fire).

thermal seems a natural pairing with it for the concept.

I used to like controllers as a hero AT, but I got frustrated soloing them, so when dom's came to heroside I switched to them.

How well do controllers solo now? And how well would a fire/thermal solo? I am interested in the 1-40 range, not end game.

any fire/thermal guides?

20 hours real time or in-game time?

real time, no problem.

in-game time, problem

I have a new character.
Went to King's Row.
Had to go into the police station to get a radio.
In the station I checked for missions - the police station was being raided.
Thought that was odd since I was in the police station.
Went outside, the mission location was the police station.
Zoomed the map out, the mission was actually the building right behind the police station.
Went to the unmarked building, went inside and it looked exactly like the police station I had just been in.

And Becktrees did not lift a finger to help.

do the faces really affect your enjoyment of the game?

I mean I take a minute to choose a face when I make a character, but in game I almost never see someone's face from closer than 10 feet or more.

I play in a 3rd person view so I never see my own face, and I would have to zoom into first person view and walk right up to see someone else's face in detail

the general appearance of faces I see is fine for me when playing the game. I would rather the devs made new backpacks or wings than revised faces

that hair is awesome

I can imagine orange hair with black stripes on a tiger character
or a savage with black hair and red blood stripes

I'd have to see how the whole character looks but I am happy to have male hair that is actually decorated.

I don't know about the rest of you, but my male characters are costumed superheroes and unusual and exotic is de riguer in their costumes.

I am simply amazed that your whole team would listen and cooperate

The trouble with the argument against forced teaming for incarnate stuff is that if all incarnate stuff is teaming, there is no need to get it if you don't team.

If I can only get pvp stuff by pvping, and the pvp stuff is only used for pvping, then there shouldn't be a problem for non-pvpers.

Likewise if the point of getting incarnate powers is to do incarnate content, and both rquire teaming then it shouldn't be a problem for non-teamers.

They did not remove any of the other content to add in incarnate trials. Nothing was taken away from non-teamers. Something was added for people who team.

I plan on never doing incarnate trials. Not because I don't like teaming, I love teaming, but because I don't like the high levels. I do not begrudge high level players their content. As I do not begrudge pvpers their content, villains their content, badgers their content, roleplayers their emotes, etc.

If you choose to limit yourself to certain parts of the game you will miss other parts. It simply is not fair to complain and not want those other parts of the game to exist.

thanks for the info - I think it is the in game detailed info that lists it as a chance to hold.

I will slot for hold if the issue is just covering the gaps between pseudo pets

that's teaming

soloing with a tanker is not at all stressful, ymmv

well the toughest creature in an early MMO was a rabbit

and they have eggs that hatch in a snake mission redside

and rikti ships drop bombs that have to be destroyed

so a GM rabbit that drops eggs that have to be destroyed or they hatch AV rabbits would make for an interesting event

I play CoH for 2 reasons: the fun of the combat and the easy teaming. (I love the costume creator but would not play the game for it.)

The combat system is great for me because of the multiple villains to 1 hero rule and the amount of variance that creates in combat. Each fight is a little different, positioning and moving can make a big difference, the fight is not all or nothing (the bad guy is fully effective until defeated), etc.

My preferred AT now is dominator which gives me the sort of tactical play I like, at least at low levels. Hold the most dangerous foe, work on taking out the others, there is thought to it all (my second favorite AT is tanker which is relaxing - just wade in and knock them down mindlessly).

But a problem I have had at higher levels is that the tactical part basically goes away. With so many powers, there is no real challenge. However, my dom now has rain of fire and fireball. With those I decided to try more foes in my missions. I have done 3x a few times and it brings back the tactical challenge. AoE control foes, AoE blast them, then finish them off toe to toe.

Each fight is now interesting once again, although it makes the missions much longer.

nope, they get deleted long before they can age

you voted in the wrong election

I know a guy who will get you a moon base in 2020

with my limited knowledge

1. What must one do to acquire the resources needed to make Inventions - recipes and salvage? Can this be done by just playing Story Arcs and regular missions like I always have, or do I need to run Architect missions or farm Alignment missions or such?

you can find recipes and salvage but most likely you will have to buy stuff at WW to get exactly what you need.

2. Is it possible to build specifically at level 50, using only level 50 Inventions, or do I have to have a menagerie of different numbers on my Enhancements screen?

You can build just with lvl 50 enhancements. They will still work if you exemplar down, but the set bonuses will not. So if you do not care about set bonuses you are fine.

3. What defines "cheap" vs. "expensive" sets? Market price? Ticket cost? Merit cost? Is there any way to tell which is which before I commit to it?

Cost in WW. The cost is the recipe + salvage. Salvage usually is not the expensive part. Salvage ranges from 100 to 2 million influence (there may be some exceptional salvage). But recipes range from 100 to 1 billion influence and possibly more.

4. Does everyone have to build for Defence? Seemingly, whether your sets provide defence or not, and even whether you're melee or not, everyone suggests building for defence. What else should I build for as a general thing? Recharge? Endurance? What?

Depends on your character. Defense is useful to everyone so it is the most recommended. Recharge is usually the other thing built for. It is rare that you need to build for endurance since most sets will have END reduction in them already.

5. Is it possible to develop a basic template that's at least generally applicable to a whole AT with whatever amount of tweaking, or does every character essentially require starting a build design from scratch?

The sets are semi generic - range damage, melee damage, etc. In that sense you can assemble a character out of those. Plus there are some unique IO's that probably every build wants if you can afford them.

6. How much work is it to put together a decent, "cheap" build at the level cap as opposed to, say, buying a full set of Common Inventions, assuming I have the build worked out beforehand?

it is a sliding scale. Buying and making a cheap set for an attack is no harder than regular IO's. It is squeezing the last bit out of a build that takes the time.

the basic answer to your question is that it is game breaking

controllers getting aoe attacks that benefit from containment is game breaking. Various other powers are game breaking. At higher levels, everyone is over powered. That is the result of epic pools and IOs.

You don't see teams at level 20 doing +3/x8 (or very rarely) but in the 40's teams are usually pushing the highest levels of difficult and they are not very difficult

so what you are really asking is, if it is okay to make characters overpowered at level 40, why not sooner?

you list thematic reasons - superheroes with mixed range and melee. But in the game they don't mix very well. If you have mostly melee attacks, having several ranged attacks doesn't do anything for you, and vice versa.

scrappers don't want a ranged attack, they want a big AoE - ranged or not.

As for melee attacks - you can already get air superiority, punch, kick, and a few others from power pools. If you want them for thematic reasons - they are there. Few take them, because they are only useful for thematic reasons.

Now if you want more varied AT's - sets with defense powersets and ranged powersets type of thing - then you should look at SoA's. A crab has team buffs, massive aoe, defenses, and mezz defense. If that is not game breaking then you should be able to have an AT that has blaster ranged attacks and scrapper defenses.

I was thinking today of posting on the Freedom board to see if anyone wanted to team for Praetoria starting content.

I'm not interested in going villain afterwards.

But if you start this let me know and I will see if I can join. I just can't play tues/wed

although I have deleted every other character except my current main, which I expect to eventually delete - my one and only lvl 50 is not deleted.

It is on a different server with my defunct old super group, but I keep him in case I ever see them on and can then go play with them.

it is an ill/rad controller who I found insanely boring to play so I am never tempted to play him. I could delete him without caring, but since I don't play on that server it makes no difference.