macskull

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a) it's an anti-farming thing

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This is actually what it is, but

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b) this is actually how boss spawns were supposed to work in the first place, and it's actually been broken all this time

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is how it will be commented on, if a redname actually gets to it. I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I'd've slapped myself silly if I'd seen myself write this a year ago, but since the I13 PvP changes, I14 pet changes, PSW changes, and MA bans/deletions, I've got a somewhat cynical view of the way things are done around here - change things with little or no warning, don't ask for feedback, and then chalk it up to a long-standing bug when people find out something's different (PvP travel suppression anyone?).

That being said, it's not going to change my farming at all. My farming characters are more than capable of handling the odd boss or two - and besides, it's just another opportunity to drop a pool C or D recipe.

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Now, other ATs... can all hit their stealth cap with Stealth/Stealth Power (I.E. Shadow Fall) and a Stealth IO

[/ QUOTE ]Non-stalkers/arachnos will cap their stealth with just two stealth powers, no need for the IO. (571.5ft PvP cap, 389ft from each stealth power). Stalkers and Soldier of Arachnos need 3 sources of stealth in order to be capped, but other ATs only need 2 (1 if you're in Illusion Controller or you're teamed with an Illusion Controller)

Non-arachnos can see Non-stalker/arachnos from 581.5ft when the target is at the stealth cap and the viewer is at the perception cap. Normal ATs can see stealth-capped Arachnos at 301ft, and capped Stalkers at 10ft. Arachnos can see normal ATs at 689.1ft, other Arachnos at 408.6ft, and Stalkers at 117.6ft.

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^^ This.

The reason Stalkers have a higher stealth cap is simply because that's necessary for them to do what they do - Assassin's Strike. You're not really very assassin-like if everyone can see you, are you? Stalkers need the time to set up an AS uninterrupted or their biggest advantage is worthless (contrary to popular belief, getting an AS off against a competent player is, while easier than it was in I12, difficult). VEATs have a higher stealth cap than the average AT because again, they have controlled criticals from hide, though they don't require an interruptible set-up time. The best counter to a Stalker is not to stack up lots and lots of perception (though that helps), but to always be moving. A Stalker can't AS you if you're always moving (unless they're really good at predicting where you'll run by them or land from a jump).

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You aren't going to get banned for getting for going from 9-16 in one mission. The people that got characters deleted and accounts temp banned were based on certain criteria (one of the presumed "qualifications" was training from 1-50 within a short - probably 10-hour - period).

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But see that is the thing they haven't encourage PvPing at all with the new enhancements, all they have done is encourage arena farming. That's it.

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As should have been obvious ahead of time. It's almost like they're admitting that PvP sucks so bad that they have to bribe people into playing against their will. But even that didn't work, because the devs have never heard of the concept of “perverse incentives”.

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That is what I do not understand, if there are a metric ton of people complaining, recommending, etc... that PvP 2.0 is terrible and the results are blatantly obvious then shouldn't everything be reverted to how it was until a better solution can be found?

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An interesting note here is that PvP was redesigned for... PvP rewards (Cathedral of Pain, base raids, and rewards in general). The rewards added in I13 and I14 might've brought a few new people in just on the merit of being rewarded for PvPing, but the complete reworking of the system probably drove away more potential PvPers than rewards brought in.

Apparently the people that were positive about the I13 PvP revamp outnumbered the people that were negative about it by a more-than 2:1 margin. I don't think I'm too far off the mark to say that most of the people that were praising it were the ones who did not PvP much if at all under the old rules, and still aren't PvPing. If everyone that said they liked the new PvP was actually PvPing, the zones would have more population than they did prior to I13 (because the people that like the system would've been more than enough to replace those that left due to the changes).

The developers have stated that they're happy with the way PvP is working now - from their viewpoint the system is now "balanced" as well as they can get it. I am under no illusion that they're happy with the actual PvP population, however. What the developers consider to be fun and balanced and what the players consider to be fun and balanced are two very different beasts, and I've been trying to point that out for quite some time. I don't think it will make any difference - after all, you can't change options on-the-fly in zones as you can in the arena. Once a "no base resistances" option is added to the arena options, I doubt I'll be spending much time, if any, in zones.

On the plus side, VEATs might become useful again, provided they've got someone with +perception on their team.

A triform PB really ends up playing more like a /Regen Blaster. Treat it as such.

It should be able to as of I15, might want to double-check the patch notes though.

The new site looks awesome and is quite a bit more streamlined than the old one, in my opinion. Also, how did I not know about the Frisky Frosts picture before now?

o.O Kheldarn has Frets on Fire!

Anyways, here's my desktop - well, my laptop anyways (the desktop is currently out of commission). 13" MacBook, a few years old, it's my school computer. The background screenshot was taken by a friend of mine during a game of Halo - we were playing on a custom map and I was jumping down from a ledge hoping to score the winning kill, but he got me first and I just so happened to fall that way.

I think this thread should be moved to the Forum

There've been reports of increased lag after I15 launched, but I'm not sure if there's any one problem to attribute it to.

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Yes PvP is broken.

Sadly, the only ppl I see playing PvP now are ppl who obviously dont understand the new i13 rules. There may be a few exceptions, but not so many I think.

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There was this one BS/Regen Scrapper in Freedom RV last night who maintained that Regen sucked because it has no defense or resistance, and was then trying to claim that Doms sucked before the I15 buffs. Kinda sad really.

Yeah, gonna go with MA. I've seen a total of two MA Stalkers across the three servers I'm on, over the course of more than two years of playing. MA isn't a bad set in and of itself, but every other Stalker primary has something to overshadow it:

* Claws has Focus and Shockwave (ranged attacks, whee).
* Dark Melee has a self-heal, a fear with a nasty tohit debuff, and one of the best cones in the game with Shadow Maul.
* Dual Blades... meh, nothing here really. This set's all kinds of messed up and I've only seen a few more of these than I have MA.
* Elec Melee has a lot of AoE - Jacob's Ladder, Chain Induction, Thunder Strike, and Lighting Rod (which doesn't break Hide).
* Energy Melee has two hard-hitting single-target attacks other than AS, though they come at the expense of long animation times.
* Ninja Blade has Divine Avalanche, very useful for building up +def to get back into Hide in the middle of a fight without having to use Placate. The reason this set's more common than MA or DB, I think, is because of the thematic pairing with Ninjitsu.
* Spines has Impale and Throw Spines, as well as Spine Burst, and is capable of putting out decent amounts of AoE.

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Haven't changed my slotting since just before I13 - it's still two level 50 recharge IOs (the change to Mire hadn't been mentioned as anything more than "I'm looking at Dwarf Mire but probably won't do anything with it yet" when I did my current build).

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Tiger is several years old now, and every machine that can run Tiger can run Leopard.

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Unfortunately that is false.

I am currently maintaining an iBook (700 MHz G3) that can run Tiger just fine but, alas, cannot run Leopard. Leopard requires G4 or higher.

This of course has nothing to do with CoH for Mac since this is an old PPC Mac that cannot run CoH in any form.

I suspect that you meant to write the following true statement.

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Tiger is several years old now, and every Intel machine that can run Tiger can run Leopard.

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Leopard is only officially supported on 867MHz and faster G4 processors. However, using 3rd-party utilities, you can run it on G4 processors of lower clock speeds, and I believe there were reports of it running on lower-speed G3 processors as well, similar to the people that got Windows 7 running on a Pentium II. (You can also use 3rd-party software to run OS 9.2 and earlier versions of OS X, such as 10.2 and 10.3, on non-G3 systems.)

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Unfortunately PvP died with i13. It was special before, not everyone liked it. It's pretty horrible now, and most of the good PvPers left the game or turned to PvE instead.

What is left now is just a parody.

Sorry to sound so "negative", that's not my tone usually... but on this precise issue I cant help it. I still hope that one day the devs will realize this horrible thing that is i13 pvp and change their mind. Talking about it might help.

However, on the other hand it shouldnt turn you away from CoX : from a PvE perspective, this game is fantastic !

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Yeeeaaaaaah, pretty much this.

That being said... in reply to the OP, what are you looking for, exactly? Melee, ranged, solo, team, arena, zone?

Since you said you're not completely discounting redside, if you decide to go that route you could do an SS/Fire Brute and a Fire/Kin Corruptor.

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Thank you Macskull, but why the sad face?

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That was in response to Ether's joke in the post above mine.

Go Phase + Shadow Meld. Shadow Meld is kinda like a second MoG (without the resists or repel protection).

One of the instances of Pocket D was like that during the 5th Anniversary event on test. Everyone was saying "there's PvP in Pocket D on test!" and I was like "Meh," but I didn't find out until a few days later that it was I12 rules.

X(

Looks awesome.

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The problem here is that apparently the people who did not like the I13 changes are a minority. I've been told that including PMs and feedback (both positive and negative) on the I13 beta boards, the number of players who like the new system was greater than the number of players who didn't, by more than a two to one margin.

I'm going to go out on a limb and make the assumption that most of the positive feedback (i.e. "things are way better now than they used to be!") came from people that didn't PvP much, if at all, before the changes. My question now is, where are those people? I'm not seeing more people in the zones than I did prior to I13.

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To compound on this, because I've been thinking about it quite a bit:

They say that they got more positive feedback than negative over the PvP changes. Having no reason to doubt that (it was said that most of the positive feedback was in PMs so I can't dispute it), I think it may be something like this.

* It seems as though a very vocal minority did not like the PvP changes. Coincidentally, that minority also happens to be the group that spent the most time PvPing (i.e. people who spent most of their in-game time in the arena or zones, either on live or on test). This is at least somewhat backed up by the fact that not one person I've talked to who participated in I12 PvP in any great amount prefers post-I13 over pre-I13.

* The "silent majority" that prefers post-I13 PvP over pre-I13 PvP... who and where are they? To me, it seems likely that the ones who prefer the new PvP were those that tended to always be solo in zones and didn't like teaming. It also seems like those who prefer the new PvP were those that very rarely ventured into a PvP environment under the old rules, didn't do well, and instead of trying to PvP more often and learn to work with the system, simply gave up. Are these people now spending more time in the zones?

The problem here is this: the people that spent the most time PvPing before the changes did not like the changes. Those who PvPd on occasion - some like, some don't. For those of us who PvPd a lot under the old rules, we seem to have a consensus that post-I13 PvP isn't nearly as fun as pre-I13. In regards to zone PvP, there's really nothing we can do about that because there is no way to adjust options on-the-fly as there is in the arena. That's why those of us who are still around for the PvP should be pushing for arena options. Now, I'm aware that more options is not necessarily a good thing, and the existing options have caused quite a bit of a split in the higher-end playerbase. That being said, every checkbox we can get that will get us closer to being under the system we really enjoyed would be a step forward.

MoG has repel resist.

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Sounds like you had lots of fun. I'm a newb so I was never around for i12. Could you elaborate on the rules and what PvPing with i12 rules was like?

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In short, I12 was just like PvE in terms of how powers worked. There were a few things that were different but for the most part, powers did the same damage in PvP as they did in PvE, mezzes lasted their normal PvE duration, slows actually slowed, travel suppression was identical to PvE, there was no heal decay or diminishing returns, and buffers and debuffers were significantly more useful than they are now.

The problem here is that apparently the people who did not like the I13 changes are a minority. I've been told that including PMs and feedback (both positive and negative) on the I13 beta boards, the number of players who like the new system was greater than the number of players who didn't, by more than a two to one margin.

I'm going to go out on a limb and make the assumption that most of the positive feedback (i.e. "things are way better now than they used to be!") came from people that didn't PvP much, if at all, before the changes. My question now is, where are those people? I'm not seeing more people in the zones than I did prior to I13.