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Been away for a bit but wanted to share some ideas for new powersets and changes to existing powers that I’ve been messing with on my personal server. These were really fun to work on and showed me just how much variety can be added for powers by recycling other effects that exist in the game. Hope you guys enjoy watching these and it sparks more discussion about power ideas! I don’t think there’s any end in sight to what’s possible in this game. My wife and I recently had our first baby so I won’t have time to make anything new or participate for awhile, but wanted to share these in the meantime. Disclaimer: I know some of this stuff doesn’t fit the balance vision for Homecoming, but I tried to make most of it follow similar formulas and patterns from other sets. Numbers can always be tweaked. Exo Blast Arcane Melee Tactical Armor Miscellaneous Power Changes (Includes Exo Blast)

...that the Homecoming Team has done a great job letting us know something ain't right, when we can expect it fixed, and what they're doing about it. Whether its those bright orange banners at the top of the official forums... ...or pings on their server status updates on the official Homecoming discord... I gotta give props to our volunteer team keeping the lights on and letting us know when the hamsters chew through the wiring!

The Witch's House, a virtual haunted house with Live monsters held its 5th annual Halloween Treat Giveaway. I think this year was better than ever! As usual, there were new things to see in the House. We had a ton of new scare actors helping us out, which was awesome and necessary, seeing as RL hit hard for many this year, and prevented them from being able to help out, much to their disappointment. The amazing RP community showed up once again, making this fun for all of us! (Haunted houses just are not much fun if people don't interact and race through, you know?) I got the privilege of handing out several billion worth of treats, thanks to amazing donors like @Amur, @ChiliBear, @Marine X, a large anonymous donor, and my helpful backstage support person (you know who you are! 🙂) My scare actors had a wonderful time and I appreciate them SO much, along with the very kind (but very busy!) GM Impervium and also GM Willow, who plugged along even while feeling quite ill (we all hope you're feeling better!) Visitors were overheard saying that the transformation chamber was one of their very favorite things in the House, and it's so appreciated! So, here are just a few of the people we had visit this year; there were many MANY more fabulous costumes and looks I could not capture because perhaps I was too busy, was hoping someone else captured it (you will note a difference in some of these pics, due to who took them). If you don't see your look here, it probably wasn't because I didn't love it, it was just a busy time!! Thank you ALL for coming, from the RPers who kept us laughing and sharing quotes all weekend, to the players who made the effort to transport over from another server (and there were a good number of those), to the xp focused players who decided they'd take a few minutes to see what the announcements were all about, we all really enjoyed having you there, and I hope you got great treats! ( I know the announcements get tiresome, but there is no other way to reach the majority of players; sorry for having to repeat the announcements so often). Thanks to those who helped out by announcing back on their home shards. I simply cannot be logging characters in to all the servers while I'm interacting with people, and certainly not if that also means I'm handing out treats.) Feel free to call out the characters you recognize! But no fair if their name is listed in the photo. 🙂 I noted the names of some, but felt it was unfair to list those when I could not list all. The House (Boo-17189 on Everlasting) remains open for the curious, with a few afk characters scattered about, but most of the time, no monsters, until Maintenance.

Downcast Storm/Dark Corruptor Hacker Beam/Archery Blaster

An homage to the Fantastic Four: Hightide: Science [ Water Blast / Marine Affinity ] Corruptor Counterforce: Science [ Gravity Control / Force Field ] Controller Hardrock: Science [ Stone Melee / Stone Armor ] Brute Firemaster: Science [ Fire Blast / Fiery Aura ] Sentinel

Hammer - Titan Weapons/Invuln Brute

The best MMORPG of all time launched 20 years ago today. No, not City of Heroes. City of Villains! I remember stepping into Breakout on the Liberty server on my Robotics/Force Field Mastermind. Still my favorite archetype/class in any MMORPG today. Now go forth, and do villainy!

One of the werewolves that popped out of a door must've been a Youtuber, he told me to lycan-subscribe.

(And as a bonus:)

She's only here to help... Honest! "PowerKore":

Stay away from Brenda. She'll say that a small penis is non-issue with her, but I'd still prefer she didn't have one.

The auction house lists enhancements running down from lowest level to highest level -- minimum level at the top and maximum level at the bottom -- but the recipes reverse this, with the highest-level recipes at the top and the lowest-level recipes at the bottom. Can this be made consistent, so that both enhancements and recipes are listed in the same order, so that those of us who, due to advancing age, sometimes have problems picking out the tiny number at the top of the enhancement symbol without leaning forward to peer at the screen don't have to scroll in different directions depending on where we're searching?

... and now I have Crone's disease!

Here’s my latest hero: Mito-Man! Super fun Regen/Axe Tank. Pictured here talking with his best friends in Pocket D and showing off his amorphous blob physique around Paragon City.

A few more of Eeleanor that I think turned out rather nicely:

No. You should probably go read more about fascism from a reputable source if you do not understand what fascism is. I could outline the various characteristics of fascism, but that's not really what this forum is for and would likely result in moderator activity.

That won't change anything. People will power level past all the content either in events or AE farms or saved mission farms. Edit: City of Heroes/Villains does something I am not aware of other MMORPGs doing. Giving players reason to actually experience the lower levels while leveling up. A lot of players I've met hail from the World of Warcraft school where the game doesn't start until you are at max level. And it is difficult to change that mindset.

I was taking the Montague mission in the Library, and noticed, for the first time, (sad but true), Infurno, who's listed as a tribute to a player. That's all. Neither Wiki nor her character info lists who this player was, or why they were given this honor. I think that's very sad! If someone is given an honor like that, I think it should be part of that to say why it was given, at the very least! Also, I think that here on the forums, perhaps in Gone but not Forgotten, there should be a pinned list of who is immortalized, where, and why.

I think this version of "Miss Molten" turned out better: And the slightly tweaked version I ended up going with:

Truly exceptional! I may have to... ahem... "be "inspired" by it... ;-) I don't think it's nearly as good as yours, but I think "Miss Molten" turned out pretty well:

My Elec/Elec/Mu Brute "Live Wyre":

Go FULL DEFEAT ALL! Once you've killed all the enemies the map converts to PVP and you can't exit the mission until only one of you is left alive.

I like it! Thanks, Devs.

Some variant comic book covers. I asked Google Gemini to do a retro 1960s and retro 1980s style.

The return of @Diantane. Many of their followers waited with baited breath for the wise words of their leader. Why play anything in this game without their blessing? Doing so would be foolish and a waste of time. Unless fun is defined by @Diantane, none can be had.

I can't seem to decide on a single design I want to stick with, ATM, so here's "Psilver":

As some of you may know, the Sentinel Archetype haven’t got their solid identity compared to other ATs. Being a “ranged Scrapper” proved to be fundamentally flawed, as it’s damage don’t even come close to a Scrapper, and it’s reduced Target Cap means it’s AoE is gutted out in overall damage it can do against a group of foes. And if one were to play a ranged Scrapper, then a pure ranged Blaster can already do that job far better in terms of DPS. So what can be done to Sentinel without overshadowing an existing Archetype? Well, instead of being a “ranged Scrapper”, the Sentinel could become a tanky ranged archetype instead. There are superheroes and villains that have a combination of high ranged damage and survivability. Iron Man having his faithful armor that shoots strong energy blasts, War Machine with a similar armor but with a multiplicity of weaponry, The Sentry that uses both melee and ranged powers on top of regenerative abilities, Mr. Freeze with his body suit that can withstand damage and can dish deadly ice projectiles in return, et cetera. With those in mind, it’s only fair that the Sentinel should be reworked into putting emphasis on survivability as a ranged counterpart of a Tanker, but also an opposite where the Sentinel focus on single-target damage and debuff* with less Target Cap. Their DPS still won’t reach the likes of Scrappers, Corruptors or Blasters, but they make up for it with a much more impressive survivability at a mid-range combat if all else fails, and in terms of debuff-inflicting, they surpass the Defender in damage. * Perhaps increasing the value equal to Defender so that any of the Sentinel’s blast power other than Electric Blast (already great on Sent) and Fire Blast (already great and never going wrong with DoT) will have more time to shine without dealing with the Defender’s low damage scalar. Again, to make up for low target cap and mid-range. Vulnerability should probably be enhanced with enemies taking more damage than it already does to make up for the Sentinel’s more limited Target Cap, as well as more severe reducing Resistance to mezzing and debuffs to make it a much more effective Force Multiplier, but otherwise it’ll be left as is. Armor secondaries would be touched accordingly since Super Reflexes is easily a favorite of Sentinels, and I found lot of good uses with Energy Armor, so it’s likely that Defense-oriented Armors and Super Reflexes will remain top tier. Instead, the Resistance-oriented Armor would be buffed to be ahead of Scrapper and Brute, but still behind Tanker’s versions, with the Sentinel’s Resistance cap increased (perhaps around 80 or 85%). The Snipe-replacing powers will probably have to be buffed to have a stronger secondary effect or stronger damage output depending on one’s want. Or have at least one “Tesla Cage” type where it deals Extreme Damage to make up for a lack of Snipe; Tesla Cage is part of what makes Electric Blast so good on Sentinel. As tempting as it is to remove / replace Sentinel entirely, I do not want to see an Archetype that the HC team had put some effort and time to put on. All being said, what would be your idea to improve the Sentinel other than removing it?

I think these turned out rather nicely:

My first attempt at a comic book cover. It got the book dimensions wrong, though. Source image: Result:

Here's a bunch of my most recent 50, an Elec/Elec/Mu Brute - "Live Wyre":

Snippets of Issue 2 of Soul Star, titled, of course, "SUSPECT DEVICE". Much love to Stiff Little Fingers.

Don't worry about the Anti-AI crowd, not even a little bit. All they do is make comments but otherwise they do nothing. They have no organization, no lobbyists, no funding, no plan, and no clue. They'll make comments about AI wasting water, while eating rice and beef. The Anti-AI crowd are disruptors. They ONLY exist to disrupt while contributing nothing to society. On Reddit they are a dime a dozen. Ignore the disruptors. No one is going to hold their hands and shut down AI for them.

Are artists like Lee Falk, Jerry Siegel, Joe Schuster, Bob Kane, Jack Kirby or Stan Lee credited anywhere on the characters you've created in CoH? They all contributed to creating the superhero genre that this game is based around, and I'll bet real money any of your characters are in some way, regardless of how slight a similarity, derivative of earlier works by other artists. I'll bet real money you aren't crediting any of them either. I get that people don't like AI and that's ok, but these kinds of comments are a little hypocritical.

A few more I've been tinkering with...

For as long as I have been here (the drop of Redside… “event?” This has been the case. Whether it was an abusive X-farm in aE on live, double exp weekend, new/updated powers, or seasonal event. This has been an endless cycle of chasing the new shiny. To now ask “ Did events kill the game?” Ignores twenty years of history of how players have played the game. Events did not kill the game. Events have been a solid enjoyable steady experience our players have enjoyed for years and years.

Have played RPG's since they were invented in 1977 (Apple II) and MMO's when they were invented in 1999. My favorite position is a tank. Unlike most tanks on this game where players use them the same way they would use a brute or scrapper, a tank is supposed to jump into a large group (Taking the ALPHA) and keep the baddies away from the team. If they can't do this, they aren't a real tank (just a melee character doing minimal dps (with their weaker secondary attacks). Taking the alpha is a tank's primary task. When the team moves forward, then stops right before a group, the tank runs ahead straight into them. When the tank has their full attention, the team can safely engage. Have played dozens of combinations for tanks in this game and most can take the alpha pretty well until their mid 20's. The sets that fail to take an alpha without dieing, can't be a real tank. COH is not like most MMO's where there is always a dedicated healer with the priority to protect the tank. So a COH tank set must be able to take the alpha and keep themselves alive to keep doing this. This why most sets will fail. From looking at the builds of other new players, I can see that most tankers train an even amount of attacks and defenses (a scrapper with more armor/health). An alpha tank puts everything into defense (including the fighting pool) well into their teens. The first attack I train is taunt. Then none again until tiers 7, 8 and 9. Later I wil train the rest as fillers. I have found that the most defensive pure alpha tank is one with a very high health absorbtion (1,000+ at 50 using SO's), a strong heal (based on the number of foes in melee range) and does not allow the melee baddies to touch them. This is raditation armor and ice melee (ice has the ice patch making the nearby foes to slip and fall). Many tanks have Super Strength for the Foot Stomp AoE. But Ice has Frozen Aura which does slightly more AoE damage as Foot Stomp (same 20 second base recharge), but also freezes the foes in place. There are more defensive sets like Invul, but they don't have both a large absorbtion and a heal.

I've been following some tutorials, improving on my art. Here's my warlock:

Depends on the level of the enemies. -ToHit is subject to purple patch reduction, so let's take that 50% and hit it with some math. If the targets are +0, there's no change, it's 50%. If the targets are +1, your 50% would be 90% effective. 50 * 0.9 = 45%. You're still where you want to be. If the targets are +2, your 50% would be 80% effective. 50 * 0.8 = 40%. You need at least 5% Defense. If the targets are +3, your 50% would be 65% effective. 50 * 0.65 = 32.5%. Now you need at least 12.5% Defense to get back up to the soft cap. If the targets are +4, your 50% would be 48% effective. 50 * 0.48 = 24%. You're going to have to scrape together at least 21% Defense at this point. The "at least" in each of those calculations is there because lieutenants and higher ranks have higher base Accuracy multipliers. Lieutenants have 1.15 Accuracy, bosses/EBs/snipers have 1.3 Accuracy, GMs and AVs have 1.5 Accuracy. That number is a multiplier used for each power they have, so figuring out exactly how much -ToHit or +Defense you need is... a very long, tedious job that I'm not going to volunteer for. In practice, the rank-based Accuracy modifier doesn't make much difference, though, so you can ignore it. Use the above-listed numbers as a reference and go to town on their asses, you're not going to get hit often enough to worry about the discrepancies.

Jesus christ this thread is an absolute dumpster fire.

In my experience: multiple Sentinels on a team simply increases the chances that ONE of them will remember they have Vulnerability to use.

Folks who don't care for PvP, no worries, it's just a discussion. If anyone is unaware, our characters can perform differently in PvP environments than they do normally. Maybe it's time that they should perform the same or at least be as close to the same as is reasonable. None of it has to be across the board. A) In zones B) In some zones C) As an option for arena Why? There are a lot of content assets in the PvP. Making that content more accessible might be good. (folks complain about things being 'gated' all the time) There is more to do in PvP zones than just PvP. Some of the best (opinion) mini games are in PvP zones. Some great earned buffs are available in PvP zones. I think @Darmian had once suggested making PvE copies of the zones so folks who don't want to PvP could enjoy them. Maybe that's the way to go.

Kid Quick Electric Sentinel

Osborn Elmidore. It struggled with some details and Arachnos, but I think it's an alright representation. Zhen Tzart. It... Well it really wanted them to be running away from enemies. Sometimes it gets an idea in its head and it's not letting it go. Lukhan. It got their outfit better than I expected. It's a rough one to explain.

A few more, reflecting the duality of her offensive & defensive adaptations... *Note, I'm aware Gemini messed up some details...

I've always wanted to have hero vs villain battles in all the zones. We have the Arena matches and the full PVP zones. But what about something for all zones? Since many don't want to PVP, we can't have a full open world pvp, but maybe we can have a small version of it. How? Let players DUEL others. 1 can invite another to a duel and have 1v1 battle. Or a team can "duel" another team, up to 6v6. And wherever the duel is accepted, 100m in every direction becomes their duel area. If a player leaves that area, the duel ends with the one who stayed in the area getting the win. And to have more people take part in it, just have a simple reward, like 2 merits per win, 1 merit per loss. Even with such a small amount, you can earn a lot by getting into more duels. If this can implemented, even temporarily like a seasonal activity or just in one zone to start "Khalisti Wharf please" I think it would bring a lot more excitement to all areas. And because no one is forced to do it, PVE players won't cry and complain about it. What are your thoughts, pvpers?

So, over the past 24 hours we've had a few crashes take down Excelsior and Everlasting (you know, the servers most of you play on). Just in case anyone was wondering, this is unrelated to the issue from the weekend (or clicking too many doors in Trick or Treat :P). The issue is that vRack (the LAN which lets the servers in the cluster talk to each other) keeps failing, for reasons unknown. Hopefully OVH will clear up the issues sooner rather than later, but until then we're kind of at their mercy.

Ghost Trace DP/Ninja Blaster