Primantis

I generally only give advice if asked. Either directly or indirectly. If a Brute is running around with no toggles, I assume its a challenge build or something and just roll with it. The game is pretty easy, people don't have to have bleeding edge meta builds. If one is super eager to give out advice then I recommend politely messaging the person first and asking if they are open to build or play style suggestions.

In some games, yes. very much so! However, to be fair, CO gave you plenty of warning and a heads up of when to block. The mobs would get a huge exclamation point over their head and starting an obvious wind up animation; which was your queue to block. It was quite forgiving, we aren't talking Dark Souls-level of reflexes here. Even if it was your very first time fighting a boss or mob, the game let you know when to block. Still it could be overwhelming if there were several stronger mobs at once! However that would usually be the players fault for gathering so many xD (You could also get juggled IIRC! As blocking was the only way to prevent the knock back, as I don't remember the defensive passives having any innate KB resistance like we have here in CoH)

I agree with everything you've said! I take both Seeker Drones and Trip Mine mostly for the 'neat' factor, and get marginal use out of them. Trip Mine can also be used to "fish' for the Force Feedback +Rch proc; as it has a 90% chance to go off after you lay one. Which can come in handy from time to time. But its used almost entirely for the Lulz If seekers "readied" faster and their debuff had a much larger AoE I think they'd be much more useful in their intended purpose. They can take forever to go off sometimes (and I'm still not sure if they apply the debuff upon death or not? I think they do, but I'm not sure) Also, anyone remember when Poison Trap was an absolute proc *monster*? That was a fun time!

"Wow! I didn't know a Defender could do that!" Never gets old! xD

I'll be honest, I seldom use Seekers as anything other than "alpha sponges", and view their debuffs as a nice secondary effect that might come in useful if they actually explode next to targets worth debuffing. Doing so gives you a few good seconds to set up your PGT or whatever you wanna do next. (Or just lets the team rush in without worry of the alpha if you have no tank, or the tank is too timid)

I could have sworn at some point one of them was called "Poison Gas Trap".. I even remember using the acronym "PGT" for it.. Must be Mandella Effect or something!

I really enjoy Traps! But there's certainly a few aspects about the power set that just don't mesh well with today's teams.. That being it's a very "Campy" power set. By campy I mean, you literally set up a camp. While teams are extremely mobile! Here's some random idea's I've thought of during my time playing my various Traps Defenders. T8/T9 are obvious candidates for adjustment. If we must stick to the cottage rule than I'd like the idea of making Time Bomb work like Omega Maneuver. I think Trip Mine would be pretty serviceable if the animation time were halved and the interrupt was removed. Even if that meant upping the recharge on the power. Now in order to mitigate the fact that so much of the set is stationary, on longish cooldowns. I would like to suggest one of the following; Triage Beacon and/or Acid Mortar be mobile. Following the player until they expire. Would be preferable if they could clip through enemies and allies though, as that would lead to some congestion with FFG. (Especially on MMs) Or The ability to "recall" your Traps. Essentially coded as Team Teleport but it only selects your Traps and places them where you aim the reticle. This could potentially replace the T9. Especially if it did something else on the side. Make Trip Mines immune to the Teleport if you're too worried about people cheesing in 20 mines on top of an AV.

Might have been Tera If you "turtled" for to long you'd run out of your block gauge. Which was called "Re" I think, for reasons I can't remember. If you ran out of block and the big-bad-boss you were tanking decided to do a super powerful attack you could be in for a very bad time. So you wanted to block for the split second of each attack as to not run down the meter. Doing so also opened up several counter attack moves on your part which could recover some of the gauge and add additional threat. Some times you couldn't block specific attacks however and had to use your iframe! (Doooodge! as Piccolo from TFS would yell) Tanking was fairly fun and dynamic in Tera! You wanted good ping though. I have nothing against CoH's combat system, outside of the overall "HP sponges" that most AV's end up being. It's too bad the game came to a close just when the devs were experimenting in iTrials. As the combat mechanics there are much more interesting than anywhere else in the game. I believe the game can handle more dynamic combat encounters. It's just everything up to iTrials was programed to be "tank and spank".

So much this There's nights where I wait several hours with no teams in sight.. I finally decide to lead my own when a buddy jumps on and we'll have a full team in minutes. Sometimes with excess people waiting for a spot! Lots of people want to team, few want to lead.

Indeed CoH's writing felt like a homage that took itself seriously and developed into its own thing CO's writing came off as gimmicky and a parody. Which is fine for a silly mobile game or an Adult Swim skit, but hard to stretch for an entire MMO.

That's just horrible! The kind of stuff I'd expect more in certain other MMO's, but certainly not CoH. I second the notion that you might consider bringing it up with a GM. Part of me also wonders if it was all the same guy who just had a butt load of alt accounts. That would explain why this whole posse suddenly jumped your poor daughter. Also just out of curiosity, was this in team chat? Or was it General? I've noticed General can get quite toxic or political very often, I opt to just turn it off on all of my toons.

This is a classic strat in MMOs! The best way to get a question answered is to have your friend answer it (incorrectly) in help/zone/broadcast chat. Then sit back as all the know-it-alls correct your friend xD

My general policy is it's gotta be so badly misinformed that it could have destructive or very negative consequences. Your inspiration example for instance isn't gonna entirely ruin someone's day. They might go "oh, wait I think they left out an important detail" but that's about it. An example of when I'd intervene would be like.. Someone telling Tankers to "not to take their Mez Protection because its useless". Or heck something like telling an Invuln to skip Invincibility. Outside of some sort of Iron-Man/challenge build of course.

A lot of it depends on what I'm playing. If I'm on my Cold Defender or Kin I just buff as we go. No need to stop the gravy train. If someone is off doing their own thing, then they miss the buffs. If I'm on something like my Time Defender I'll usually tell the team "Buffs by the door, if you want them stick around". Wait a few moments, then buff. From then on out I "Buff on the go" trying to catch as many people as I can in the radius of my two PBAOE buffs. The single target buff goes out to who I think would benefit the most. Although I can be forgetful about that one as it's not on my action bar! I just use a keybind for it.

I would just bake it into the +recovery bonuses. Kind of like how they have positional/typed defense both baked in.