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💟 Hello, Homecoming do-gooders, evil-doers, and other dimensional entities! 💕 Hey everyone, it's Cobalt Arachne! I'm one of the designers here on the Homecoming Team! Hope everyone is having a fabulous February! It’s that time of year again! Spring is a flingin' and to celebrate we’ve added a brand-new event mission! But beyond that, we’ve added a missing piece of City of Heroes history back to the game for the first time, allowing our players to experience what was a pivotal narrative moment in the series’ timeline! Tis the season and romance is the reason! Back during the Spring Fling event of 2008 (Wow… 17 years ago, crazy!), the development team running the game at that time organized a special live in-game event for players to experience a momentous occasion. The developers logged in as their signature characters for a special performance where two of the game’s NPC heroes, Manticore and Sister Psyche, were to be married, and they were going to let the players be a part of it. This was during the heyday of heroes vs. villains, so of course, the wedding would see the Arachnos bad guys interfere, and in the end the whole event devolved into an insane PvP free-for-all, with players having the opportunity to fight alongside and against the developers in a chaotic scrap. It was a unique experience, but one many remembered fondly but also one that many didn’t have the chance to experience, given the limited seating available and the short run of the event. Ah, good old 2008 screen resolution! @Arcanum brought forward a suggestion that we could re-create the wedding event in mission form, with the content added to the game in a way that could be experienced by those who weren’t players back then or didn’t have the opportunity to join the event when it was running. It was a fascinating and unique part of City of Heroes’ history, and we wanted to find a way to bring it back due to how limited the experience was originally. Since I myself also missed this event, the idea of recreating it and bringing it to life for everyone else who missed it to experience was particularly exciting, and I got to work right away on bringing the idea to life. Step aside Sela Vermont, Cobalt's organizing this timeline's wedding! With the idea in hand, I took the lead in designing a new mission experience that would emulate the happenings of the original wedding event, and in a fun way we could add to the game as part of this year’s Spring Fling event. For me, it was about ensuring two things: Faithful to the original event. Channeling the same fun/chaotic vibes. To ensure the first, we found an archived video on YouTube of the original event; From here I transcribed the wedding ceremony text and vows, this ensuring they had 100% historical accuracy. Everything Positron, Manticore, and Sister Psyche say during that ceremony is faithful to the original event. We even fished up the original special map version of Ouroboros that was used in the original and restored it for this occasion! Timelines? Time is not made of lines, it's made of circles! That's why Ouroboros is round! Next, to secure the second goal, after the ceremony we needed to recapture that element of instant chaos, with Lord Recluse appearing without warning and the whole event descending into a mad brawl! I wanted this mission to have something a little more unique, so I gave players a pair of AV helpers, which allowed for the mission design to lean a little more into the chaotic element by letting us have larger groups of enemies, since the AV helpers would ensure players didn’t run into completion issues. This helped in ensuring the vibe felt appropriate to the content! Wow! What a turn out! Seems like everyone was invited! Lastly, the Freedom Phalanx all received special wedding outfits for the original event, and not wanting the villains to feel left out, we gave the Arachnos elite their own brand new fancy outfits! After all, if you're going to crash your nemesis' super group's special occasion, a true super villain knows to do it in style! Evil never looked so fashionable! For those looking for something a little bit spicier at Level 50, might I recommend the team leader talking to Positron when they have both the Best Man / Maid of Honor + Wedding Crasher badges? There might be a dangerous surprise waiting in store! 💫 That's all for this Valentine's dev diary! It's our hope that everyone has fun with this year's Spring Fling event! Additionally, look forward to Issue 28, Page 2 and beyond, coming later this year! Everyone is working hard to create some really impressive stuff for our loyal heroes, villains, and Praetorians! 💌 Thanks for being awesome players, Homecoming! Here's to another year of City of Heroes in 2025! 💞

"Offloaded all the hardware-only physics effects to the CPU. This results in the same physics quality as enabling PhysX hardware, as has been requested, without having to actually update the PhysX libraries. The reason it's being done this way is because updating the libraries would break the game client for other servers that share the same game files. The impact on the CPU is negligible on modern hardware." We don't actually use the PhysX APIs any longer.

I put this under "suggestions" cause I wasn't sure where else to put it. There's one idiot player who's always kneeling in the same spot in Oro. I want to suggest he get a life and go play the game and stop kneeling there. If anyone else sees him or her, I suggest you tell him to get the hell up and get out of there.

Introducing Rampart, a SJ/SR Brute. After a horrific accident involving a pair of clockwork and a defibrillator, paramedic Johnny Gage joins the Powers Division as an undercover agent.

I'd not planned on posting this one, but I keep getting private chat compliments. Apparently, it makes an impact that I didn't anticipate. So, here's COLD FORGE, my Ice Blast/Fire Manipulation Blaster.

Haven't posted here in a while, but I got a few villains to show off! The Icepick (Spines/Ice), a frost-skinned mutant enforcer! And Braintrust (Mind/Energy), a mad scientist obsessed with unlocking the power of the human mind!

One life per character. It would change everything! Carefully selecting teammates, more necessary planning. No more zergers. It would bring more life into your City of Heroes Experience!

Been on a bit of a break, but back with the unsinkable Sea-Dog, somewhat inspired by Freedom Force's Man-O-War.

The stigma isn't about experienced players PLing up a new alt. It's about new players sitting a door, not learning the game, then attempting afterwards to play on teams without even the knowledge of how to get from one zone to another. Playing SOME of the normal leveling up is a good tutorial for the game, after which if you wanna PL... knock yourself out. That's not any kind of rule. That's just good advice.

truthfully, i found it funny. /altinvite is for only your alts on your account. you tried to invite a name that was already in use by another character, hence the response. if you had invited someone that did not exist you would have gotten the message... this was meant to be humourous, because often there are players that have multiple accounts and try to invite an alt from another account, either on purpose or accident. hence the response... so, please, they were not being offensive, just trying to be light hearted for a common error. 🙂

If it's rushing in and dying quickly, it IS acting like a Blaster.

The Cotton Calamity, Radiation Blast/Storm Summoning Corruptor I wasn't quite high enough level to get pictures of the fun Storm powers!

It's been awhile but Fire/DA Brute Beam/Poison Corruptor SJ/WP Scrapper AR/Devices Blaster

Hey everyone! I'm Noctara, a brand-new player on the Victory server. I love the game so far — something charming about its classic feel makes it even better. I was wondering if any players here wouldn't mind teaming up with a newcomer sometime. I'd love to learn the ropes and join a guild if that is a thing while I am at it. Either way, it's great to meet you all, and I'm excited to be part of this awesome community!

Lyrics, the singing superheroine.

Or... just don't use the power if you don't want to potentially be changed into a Rikti monkey...

A few recent ones: "Voltsting", "The Fallow Shepherd", and "Voltaura":

Here's a few of my favorites I've accumulated overtime! Ignious - Hero - Sentinel - Fire/EnA Qidarae - Hero - Corrupter - Seismic B/Marine A, she is an ancient island goddess. Urazeal - Hero - Sentinel - Dark B/Bio, He's a father, and his daughter was trapped by an eldritch god, and he made a deal to become it's host in preparation for taking over the world and the god would set his daughter free. He now devotes his life to stopping this eldritch take over. Valomyr - Hero - Peacebringer Vermillion Void - Hero - Dominator - Gravity Controller/Dark Assault, Astronaut trapped in a cosmic void that binds to his suit.

I disagree. All pets should have only 2 powers. 1. Knockback 2. Group fly and every few minutes they should yell out “sitter looking for farm”

So I ended up dumping the Storm / Marine I'd posted previously and replaced them. So introducing my newest 50, Waxwork : Fire / Marine Controller : Master of molten wax. Cossie itself is plain enough (spectrum coloured white with orange to give that "lava lamp" feel) but like the way the "Slime" Aura + Bubbles Path Aura + Hot feet + Toroidal Bubble come together to give a "pool of molten wax" feel.

Continuing the trend of monster-people - "BugZap":

You keep going around and around in this circle as though someone were standing behind you with a gun pointed at your head, forcing you to take the power, then forcing you to use the power at the most inopportune moments. Naw, dawg. You're doing it to yourself. Methods to deal with Devolution have been posted. Pick one and use it instead of pissing in the wind and passive-aggressively telling everyone off for not agreeing with you.

This i sonly a QoL request, do not know how easy or hard this is to do But I took a screen capture to show what I am talking about... If you look at my power trays, you see the standard 3 expanded trays, and you see the spacing I left to make room to see enhancements and the other 5 trays I added, you can tell the added trays have a different scale, so it does look tacky, when I enter some missions the inspiration tray is moved to the middle of the screen, which is annoying. Could it be possible to be able to expand the trays from 3 to 10, while if I do want to have a rogue tray elsewhere on my screen, I could click the + and then place the tray anywhere on the screen, this way both styles can be accomodated? Thank you V/R

I know it's been said time and again here that Magisterium needs fixing. I also know of at least 2 people who are likely to chime in here saying no changes need to be made, or that changes can't be made because our wonderful devs are simply not that talented, or some other negative thing. And, I also know that anything posted in the Suggestions forum has an extremely slim chance of making it into the game at all. But, here goes anyway... (This is an LFG problem, but just to highlight what a league leader has to deal with) You form your teams up just like you want them, trying to optimize for which team will attack which AV, zone in, and you've lost the star and/or LFG has swapped teams 2 and 3. Mini-Tyrant needs to not exist at all when you go in. Too easy for a griefer to pull him and make everything more difficult than it already is. AVs regen tick is a problem when going for Triple Threat. It's semi-unpredictable and a lot of times happens immediately after a kill order has been given. I tell my league we can do everything right and STILL have this essentially come down to a coin flip - it's not fair. It would be nice if Nega's shield status was displayed in the AV window, but that's optional. As a league leader, I have a lot to watch for in terms of when to give the kill order, and since I need to be on Chimera to know his TP status I have to rely on the Nega team to tell me his shield status. It would be better if I could just see that myself in the AV window since I can't be in 2 places at once. I can make an educated guess based on what's in the window already - I get that. Really should just move the badge award for Triple Threat to right after final AV is dropped, and Ready to Rumble to after Black Swan is taken down. It would give a leader the option to attempt Really Hard Way and not risk losing another badge. I'm hearing it's not just me who finds the cutscene to be blurry. I think a change was made a few patches back that messed that up. It would be nice if the Quills wouldn't even work unless you were within range, but that's optional. It's just too easy to waste some precious seconds firing it on a column that's already been addressed, but just hasn't faded away yet. Mini-Tyrant phase should just be removed... or fix Mini-Tyrant. That's incredibly frustrating to do everything right then run into that little bug. I've been tracking my badge runs this year, and out of 30 Triple Threat runs I've only had 10 successes. That's a serious outlier for me compared to everything else I run. As for the regen tick - which someone is going to chime in here and say is just normal so get over it - I've heard some suggestions: Do away with it entirely in this trial only Make the regen tick not work once the AV is under 5% Have the IDF drop a handful of temp powers that will squelch the AVs regen for X amount of time Have an indicator show up a few seconds before they regen, like the Nova Fist warning for Marauder, in this trial only Have the amount of the regen amount tied to their remaining health, so if they normally regen 5% have it drop to a 2% regen tick below a certain health level, and 1% below another level Give more than 5 seconds between the first and last AV to credit the Triple Threat badge Have Luna sell something that prevents an AVs (maybe any AV in the entire game?) regen tick for X amount of time I'm sure there are other ideas, too. I really hope someone is looking at fixing this trial - it's a lot fun, but it can be incredibly frustrating, too.

Oh, you want dialogue. And here I was thinking this attempt to play rules lawyer was a petulant response to being slapped on the wrist by a GM, as indicated by the thread you started yesterday, which was subsequently locked for... violating the code of conduct. Again. Okay, well, from a dialogue perspective, your suggestion is inane. The user agreement, terms of service and code of conduct are applicable to players. Players, not NPCs. NPCs have no brains, no free will, no self-determination, no ability to accept or decline and no choice but to do what they're scripted to do and throw the text written for them onto the screen. They're no more obligated to adhere to the same moral or ethical guidelines that a player does than a bush, or a building, or a rock, or the Talos Island ferry would be. They are not alive, they are not capable of adapting, they are not in need of constant attention from a team of GMs to prevent them from doing things like filling chat windows with racist comments or sending /tells of a sexual nature to unwilling recipients. Players require a code of conduct and enforcement of that code because players have the wherewithal to behave in any manner they choose. Villainous NPCs were written to be villainous. Not mildly off-putting. Not slightly unethical. Not faintly untrustworthy. Not quirky or socially awkward or simply in need of a good lecture. VILLAINOUS. We're not pummeling them into unconsciousness for minor mistakes on their 1040's or jaywalking, we're doing it because they're villainous. They're the bad guys, they say and do bad things. They bomb buildings. They take, and sometimes execute, hostages. They engage in illegal genetic alteration. They steal, lie, kill, and worse, and that's why we play and are given license to beat them to a pulp. Expecting villainous NPCs to be written according to the standards to which players are held would result in all villainous NPCs being removed from the game, as well as the entirety of City of Villains, because all of that material is outside of the boundaries of acceptable player activity and behavior. No bank heists to foil, or engage in. No terrorist plots to dismantle, or conduct. No Nemesis, no Rikti, no Hellions, no bad guys, no game. Everything villainous NPCs do violates the basic expectation of player behavior and would result in excision from the game, and the entire half of the game predicated on being a villain. All that would be left would be Barbie Dress Up With Extra Flashy Lights. You have the option to avoid content which you find objectionable. If you don't like the way an NPC is written, don't click on that NPC. If you don't like an action an NPC is asking you to undertake, don't do it. If you don't want to beat up Nazis, or take down drug dealers, or put the kibosh on the plans of soul-stealing asshats trying to summon a demon, you don't have to. You can choose not to engage with any content in the game, and that choice exists because it allows people who don't like things to avoid them, rather than requiring the game to be redesigned to fit fifty thousand different moral codes and ethical belief systems which are constantly shifting over time and with political tides. The very notion that the game should be redesigned in the way you've asked is backwards, short-sighted, destructive, and, honestly, selfish. It kills the game. Period. Regardless of your motivation or intention, it's still the worst possible direction that the game could take because it inevitably leads to its death. It places egregious restrictions on the people who write for the game, disallowing any semblance of the behaviors, actions or even thoughts which make villainous NPCs villainous, and deprives players of any NPCs with which to interact in the spirit and nature of the game (i.e. issue a beatdown). So there's your dialogue. It's an abysmal idea and even attempting to peddle it was a mistake. And then trying to justify it by bring up real-world political hot buttons to shame people into agreeing with you so they didn't look callous, and using that psychologically manipulative bullshit as a cover for lashing out because your ego got a boo-boo, you go and act like the very kind of NPC you're campaigning against the game having. You've essentially asked to have yourself written out of Co*. Well fucking done. Oh, no, sweet cheeks, you're in it with me. I live in this mud, you're just something I happened to notice wiggling in it.

Nice! That reminded me I haven't posted Man Clay, who is also a little bit waxy.

We don't treat "new ideas" like this. We treat "[censored] awful ideas" like this. Don't know, and don't care. WoW is not CoX. CoX is not WoW. Two very different games with two very different game design philosophies and two very different user bases. And that's setting aside that "popular to watch" is almost certainly not equivalent to "popular to play".

Here's a few I'm fairly proud of. Petrograd, my good old blaster from live. Sameowri, my latest toon. Gretta Gobbo, my titan weapons scrapper (without all the bio gunk on). Oouod, a weirdo. Speaking of weird, I'm slightly obsessed with making headless costumes work...

Devil-Kid Dark/Fire Sentinel, Son of Satan but as a teenager kind of hero.

How could not love this as a primary attack set? It may take me 5 minutes to wind up, but you'll regret it...eventually!

I guarantee you the OP has spent far more time typing in this thread than I’ve spent as a Rikti Monkey since 2019.

User-created content is subject to the content restrictions within the Code of Conduct. In-game content should be edited/rewritten/removed as needed to also fall in line with the same Code of Conduct. Lt. Harris' arc is one that constantly comes to mind, as it is goes beyond "comic book" villainy, and is an early contact, setting the tone for new player experience. Westin Phipps also, though that one is lampshaded slightly more due to the character's writing/dialogue. Much of the Crusader/Power arcs in Praetoria would need to be looked at. Even St. Martial's casino and Slot Machine contact are examples of gambling. These are just a few examples, as I've not gone exhaustively through the wiki and compared to the standards posted above, I'm instead going off my own recollection.

You left out a very important line in the section you quoted, probably because it dismantles your entire argument Correction, please heed the following in the section you quoted: "(Yes, we know City of Villains exists)". That's to prevent this exact (bad faith) argument from being made. The game content is held to a different standard, because it's made by a team of people writing missions, and it all had to go through a vetting and editorial process. But a single player making the decision to be edgy has no such guardrails. I know you were encouraged to re-make the thread after removing the parts we initially found problematic, however, this thread is straying further and further from the stated objective of tackling objectionable content, so...

Well then, that's enough toxicity for one thread.

Ok, I wasn't actually aware this was a thing, but apparently NPCs get the benefit of streakbreaker now? I'm not sure when this started, but it can't be allowed, it renders characters depending on not getting hit completely defenseless. I was running a mission this afternoon, a low level Super Reflexes Scrapper. He doesn't have his status protection yet, but his defense is as good as can be at low level. An enemy hit him with a hold, which was FORCED to hit by streakbreaker... and that was it. The character couldn't break free, couldn't fight back, he just stood there and got attacked again and again and again, with no way to do anything. He would have been FINE, but the hold was FORCED to hit him. His defense, not getting hit, was rendered completely irrelevant by the streakbreaker. Of course, that was a hold. However, if it was just a normal damaging attack, it would have been much the same... NPC damage (Bosses and higher, anyway) is SO much higher than ours, one hit can essentially end the fight, if you don't have other defenses. Now, it's fine for US, because we're the players. We need to be able to fight back. The enemy doesn't need to have that freedom, they're MEANT to be defeated. We should get the benefit of streakbreaker, but NPCs should not.

this is something that bugs me a lot as it often doesn’t make much sense to build for defense. this’ll probably turn into an arguement, but here’s my observations which are purely team focused as i don’t solo: - building for defense reduces the overall potential of a lot of alts - you can often do more with your squishie if you don’t build for defense - the game has minimal penalties for dying, building for defense often tries to solve a problem that doesn’t exist - i often feel people who prioritise building every alt for maximum defense and resistance without thinking if it’s actually needed tend to be less experienced players, positioning and mob strategy is just as effective - a lot of people simply ask for a S/L cap build on the forums to copy and paste onto their squishie, then run off and play it as a scrapper like the rest of their alts. i often notice buffs received in this game are woefully underslotted, many people would be better suited playing sentinels rather than defenders and corrupters - an entire build specialised for softcap defense can be replicated by typing /ah before the mish and buying medium purple insps, therefore it’s an inefficient and poor strategy for most builds - people over estimate how much combat they’ll see whilst hiding at the back of the team during missions - overall the majority of people don’t need to build for defense

Phantasm has two major issues that hinder its effectiveness: 1. Energy Torrent. This cone power has a range of 40 feet. NPCs are programmed to use ranged cone attacks at half the max range, to increase the odds that it'll hit more than one target. Apparently 20 feet is close enough that the Phantasm will decide it might as well close to melee range. Replace Energy Torrent with Explosive Blast and this issue goes away. 2. Decoy Phantasm dies immediately if the target the Phantasm summoned it against dies. Since Decoy Phantasm is a huge portion of Phantasm's total damage output, the pet's total effectiveness can vary wildly depending on what it chooses to summon the decoy against. If the Decoy were made to not die with its target, Phantasm would have much more consistent damage output. Also, its powers should really be changed to do knockdown instead of knockback. AoE knockback is bad enough, but AoE knockback in the hands of an NPC that is completely incapable of using it judiciously? No thank you.

100 toons but a Kheldian ain't one.

Speaking as one of those people that selects a concept, chooses AT and powers accordingly, then applies min/max techniques within those choices to see how far something can be pushed I can firmly say that the ND implementation does not appeal to me at all. Ability to mix/match primary and secondary, perhaps, but selecting multiples of the same power, auto-granting all inherents/travel powers, using the highest base modifiers for each category? No thanks. Finding ways to min/max within a set of limitations is the interesting part - free reign with no restrictions is boring, imo. Maybe that's just me, but the build paradigm and the costume creator are what draw me to this game. The actual act of combat with static targets driven by rudimentary AI in a system where hits are determined by math instead of aim isn't all that interesting to me - which is why this is the only MMO I've actually enjoyed - the dressing around the gameplay appeals to me. Now, if the implementation were something like ... ... Choose 1 AT inherent. ... Choose any primary from any AT ... Choose any secondary from any AT ... Deny access to ATO sets as there is no applicable AT ... Choose 1 base modifier from existing ATs ... ie, blaster mods for all thing, or defender mods for all things, but not a mix of mods for range, melee, buff/debuff, etc. ... Same rules for Pool choices and slotting ... Choose any "Epic" from any AT ... that might be interesting. Point is that the constraints are what make building interesting, speaking only for myself here.

Joke O'lantern, Dark/MA Dom

The Sinful Shortstack, Fire Control/Psionic Assault Dominator

I can spend hours tweaking a build, looking for hues, minimizing clipping of things and such. A few I've concocted; Felstar Tekksuta Aeon Chronicler Shinedown Shadowstorm Miss Golden Age ( Formerly Ms Patriot on Virtue - Live ) Crescent Moon Hyper Zoom Kid And my ode to Fallout New Vegas ... the Last Thing You Never See 1st Recon

Fair warning: Massive wall of text incoming. Read at your own risk! I solo 90% of the time. Maybe more than 90%. I pretty much only group when I want to run a TF. As such, my builds are constructed mostly for solo survivability. That said, all of my builds have functional attack chains and are quite capable of dishing out their share of damage. They are generally not built for exemplar play, however, so no promises about a functional attack chain at level 15 (though I have soloed Task Force Commander on almost all of these (all except the blaster, who has only soloed two of the TF's so far), meaning they are perfectly capable of soloing AV's when exemplaring as long as I remember to pack Envenomed Daggers - and the Energy/Energy Scrapper and the Claws/SR scrapper didn't even have those). It should also be noted that I build my characters to specific concepts, and I restrict their power selection by those concepts. Very few of my Scrappers take ranged attacks from their Epic pools, because very few of my Scrappers can justify those attacks within their concepts. Of course, some of them have ranged attacks within their primaries, which helps a lot since those attacks have better unity with their primary concept. But, for example, you will rarely see me taking a Snipe from an Epic pool on one of my Scrappers (I think my Dark/Dark/Dark scrapper has a ranged attack in his build plan, because it's not hard to work that in to his concept at all. My DB/Energy scrapper currently has Laser Beam Eyes in her build plan, and I have been arguing with myself over that one for a couple of weeks now - not whether I can justify it (she's Tech origin, so it's definitely possible), it's just a question of how).. 1). In some builds, it's very easy to have both. One of my three mains is Kitten America, a Claws/SR/Energy scrapper. This is one of the easiest "have your cake and eat it too" builds there is, because if you have sufficient recharge (and Super Reflexes helps with this), you can have very strong single-target (Follow-Up -> Focus -> Slash) and AoE (Follow-Up -> Spin -> Shockwave) attack chains with only five attacks slotted (you have to take either Strike or Swipe, which I use as a mule for two-piece Blistering Cold for the extra slow resistance). This leaves plenty of room for my travel powers (SJ and Infiltration), Combat Jumping, Boxing (another mule for Blistering Cold), Tough, and Weave. I even found room for Conserve Power and Focused Accuracy, both of which are of highly situational benefit but are really nice to have in those moments when you need them. Similarly, my second main, the Energy/Energy/Energy scrapper Stardriver did not give me much trouble fitting in everything I wanted. Her attack chain is Energy Transfer -> Total Focus -> Energy Transfer -> Bonesmasher -> Energy Punch in single target situations, with Whirling Hands regularly subbing in for BS + EP in AoE situations. It's not the best AoE output, but that's Energy Melee for you, and when you are one-shotting minions left and right you don't miss the AoE so much. Energy Aura gives you just about everything you could want in survivability. Fairly easily soft-cappable defenses (though Negative Energy is only 44.9% in my build, and it took some work to get it that high), a heal with endurance discount, an end steal that adds extra defense (which helps patch that minor deficiency in negative energy) and reasonably good resists. Plenty of room after taking my five attacks to fit in Hover, Fly, Evasive Maneuvers, Boxing (again used as a mule here - slow resist is important!), Tough, Weave, Conserve Power (not that I really need it unless I am getting end drained a whole lot), Physical Perfection (more regen never hurts when 2/5 of your attack chain is self-damaging) and Focused Accuracy. 2). Some builds are a little tricker, but you find ways to strike a balance. My third main is Skylancer, my Energy/Energy/Force blaster. She is built for soft-capped ranged defense, reasonable Smash/Lethal resist (Tough + Temp Invulnerability, with Force of Nature available if I need it - though I very rarely do) and Personal Force Field is available for absolute emergencies (I think I've used it once). Even though she's a concept character first and foremost, she doesn't skimp on offense. I don't waste slots on KB -> KD (except in Nova, for convenience), because I have Hover and blasting things straight into the ground so they bounce is more effective KD than KD. Also, it means I still have access to my KB in situations where it can be useful (as well as for self-defense. I did mention that I solo a lot, right?). Even though she's a hoverblaster, she does have Combat Jumping for Immobilize Protection and she slots two KB prot IO's. If something DOES get into melee with her, it's going to eat a Total Focus for hefty damage, followed by a Power Thrust to get it out of her face. I'll also note here that Skylancer has soloed the Posi 2 and Synapse TF's when exemplared down (with only Envenomed Daggers outside her normal powers), and has duoed Citadel with a Katana/Dark Armor scrapper friend of mine (whcih was a cakewalk, as it happened; if I'd realized it was going to be that easy, I'd have tried to solo that one, too). Energy is not exactly the strongest of Blaster primaries, but it's pretty good for single-target damage and Skylancer can dish it out just fine. Furthermore, she brings Maneuvers AND Tactics to the table in terms of team utility. I don't feel like soft-capping her ranged defense or investing in some damage resistance has blunted her offense at all. If anything holds her back in the offensive regard, it's that her concept demands that she be a flying/hovering blaster and not a grounded blapper, which limits the mileage she can get out of her secondary. She seems to be able to hold her own just fine in teams, though, so I'm not too worried about it. Now, I'll be first to admit, I had a lot of help coming up with Skylancer's build from folks who know way more about blasters than me. But I still think it makes a good example of how you can achieve reasonable defensive goals while keeping a strong offense. 3). Some builds, you spend a lot of time tinkering with until you finally make it work. Now, where the builds start to get tricker in terms of meeting my survivability requirements and still getting the offense I want is with my Willpower builds. I have two level 50 Willpower scrappers. One of them, Stormy Walker (Staff/WP) is built for soft-capped Melee, Lethal, Energy/Negative, and Fire/Coild defense. She's not soft-capped to Smash, and she doesn't really need to be because she's hard-capped to S/L resistance. The only reason she's soft-capped to Melee/Lethal is Guarded Spin. Similarly, Dancing Edge, my redside DB/WP street samurai scrapper, is soft-capped to E/N and almost to F/C, but not to S/L. She has resists to handle the S/L. And my several other not-yet-50 WP scrappers (like Impulse Drive, who is level 45 and is KM/WP) and brutes are similar. Now, you might be asking, why did I bother soft-capping E/N on a set that is largely not a defense set? Well, I can answer that in two words: ENDURANCE DRAIN. One thing I discovered very early on with Dancing Edge was that she had major problems with Malta, and significant issues with any enemies that had electrical attacks (Arachnos, Praetorian Clockwork, etc.), due to the endurance drain eating her alive. The solution to this was to soft-cap Energy defense - if the Sapper/Mu/etc. doesn't hit you, it can't drain your endurance, and only being hit 5% of the time kept the end drain to manageable levels. Ever since I soft-capped their E/N defense, neither of my WP scrappers has issues with those enemies anymore. (As for why I soft-capped or near-soft-capped F/C, honestly that was mostly a side-effect of slotting winter sets for slow resistance). So, what did I give up to achieve that soft-capped E/N defense? Mostly, what I gave up was recharge. Fortunately, Willpower doesn't really NEED recharge. Offensively, it does make some difference, but it's not as bad as you might expect. For example: Dancing Edge uses BF -> Attack Vitals as her attack chain. This is not the optimal DB attack chain, obviously, but since the combo system was changed so that missing an attack doesn't drop the combo, it's not as far behind as it once was... and the optimal DB attack chain requires enormous amounts of recharge. She also has Typhoon's Edge to give her some extra AoE punch as well as to provide a place to slot some more slow resistance, and similarly she uses Power Slice (since either Power Slice or Nimble Slash is required) as a mule for a bit of E/N resistance (2-pc. Touch of Death, IIRC). And then there's my Inv/SS tanker, Sylvie Stardrive. She's only level 37 (as of tonight), but I copied her to Brainstorm and tested out her level 50 build - which is based on one of Infinitum's but with a few changes for personal taste - and, yeah, even though it's a more defensive build than offensive, I could have sworn I was playing a Scrapper. Except for, you know, the fact that my health meter wasn't moving. She's a monster. I'm not worried about her damage output at all - she does just fine, and she's nearly indestructible to boot. So, all of that to say this... unless you are going to absurd lengths for defense, in most cases I think you can meet reasonable defensive requirements - enough to solo on fairly high difficulty settings - while still retaining plenty enough damage output to be a solid contributor on a team.

They didn't fold Victory in to give players another server, they did it to bring another valuable and worthwhile person into the HC team. Victory was just a bonus that came with her. It's not always about us, folks.

I underestimated the foot traffic the event was going to see. 😵 We'll be moving Sigil, Kadabra Kill, and the Ouro crystal down to the main floor in Pocket D on *Friday with a fix patch, which should alleviate things.

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Needs fake shark repellant spray.