MTeague

The only issue I really feel day-to-day playing is Control powers feel increasingly useless after 32 and carrying onward to 50, unless, the team really seeks out the "this mission arc will break your teeth and make you cry" arcs. When the team starts fighting massive amounts of Rularu, or some of the really hard Night Ward arcs, or the Belladonna / Number Six arcs, then you'll be very glad to have some controllers or doms on hand, and you'll be so glad for control, you won't care which it is. But for your average high end murderball doing nonstop ITFs or Radios? It's not worth joining most teams as a controller, unless you truly don't mind feeling like a seventh wheel / being carried. I have no viable solution to that, however. Teams aren't going to gravitate to the kick-your-face-in arcs when the other arcs provide the same rewards. If other mobs were beefed up to the point where teams no longer felt safe in most content without multiple tanks or a few controllers, that would be a step backwards in the idea of "bring what you got".

"Fun" varies from person to person. I'm willing to accept this is a role the original poster belives would be fun in a team. But this really strikes me as something leftover from the early years of other MMO's. The MainTank who holds threat like a champ but struggles with defeating anything on his own. Not because he's easily damaged, but just because his own damage output is so bad that what's a 2 minute win-or-die fight for a DPS class becomes a 12 minute epic battle for him solo. Each hit against him merely plinks against his armor, but because it takes him so long to kill they get like 2000 plinks in. And if a second group adds in, he'll be nibbled to death that much faster. For the playerbase writ large, I think the Defense/Support version would be viewed less charitably than petless masterminds. And the Control/Defense version.... even less than that. For good or ill, whether it's how you think the game should be or not, much of the playerbase holds fast to the idea that "Damage Is King". Support characters are often viewed through the lens of "Do you help us kill faster?" Hence why Force Fields is in such a bad place right now. Before IO's, Force Fields still shone strong because of the math behind "How much DPS does a dead Blaster do?" (yes, slightly more than 0, Rise of the Phoenix, Vengeance, Fallout, etc) With IO's, and Incarnate powers, the original perceptions of what is valueable on a team vs not, has changed. Now there is still challenging content out there that will make players VERY glad for a few Controllers on their team. But you have to go hunting for it, and most players don't touch it, because the rewards for doing so are no better than doing the easy missions that they can overpower. I consider this a damn shame. I also have largely given up hope of this ever changing. I think this might have been an interesting pair of AT's back in 2004 / 2006. I can't see how they survive in today's world. But, the HC devs have surprised me several times. If these catch they're eye, and if they have an idea for how to make it work, who can say?

Removing Dehyrdrate from Water Blast to put in a snipe? Bad trade in my book, so I vote no. I actually like that there are some sets that get no snipe at all, but which get other benefits in exchange. Bitter Frost Ray being a Hold is part of what makes Ice/Ice the Blastroller. I would want to keep those as-is. Of course, I also like KnockBack. Which from your post, you clearly do not. That said, I have nothing against your proposed changes for Electric Manipulation.

Sallydon. It needs to happen.

Starfire / Koriand'r may have considered him a pet.... of sorts.... he probably didn't mind, though.

I did solo a Nin/Nin stalker through 1-20 praetoria. Even before SO's were available. Though I did sugar-daddy the HELL out of him with Attuned IO's. Full ATO sets, Panacea, both +3% def uniques, both +Res uniques. I also mailed him some big inspirations for certain missions. It was not exactly a live-off-the-land character. I'm more worried about my upcoming Sonic/Sonic corruptor, though. THAT's gonna get rough. Even as a hoverblaster.

re: motive, it would not be unthinkable for some Heroes, and especially Vigilantes, to have an occasional Proactive arc. or even if you consider it reactive, it would be reactive to historical events. example of Hypothetical mission text: For a less Vigilante-minded one:

Not gonna lie, I keep hoping some April Fools day or other they'll turn Sally into a Apocolyptic Monster that requires 50+ T4 incarnates to defeat. Or have it so regular Sally still dies that fast, but as soon as she's killed an Elder Lovecraftian Horror spawns where she died. And do it without telling anyone. So the first person is like "oh hay, it's Sally, quick kill.... " *tosses firebolt* ROOOAAAARRRR "What? I can't.... I don't even" *dies*

Welll.... you have a point. I did my federal taxes tonight, which contributes to the "bad day" aspect, some. An evening slogging through the IRS Form 1040 instructions, and several schedules and sub-forms does not do wonders for my attitude. But I really can't blame it all on that, though. I chimed in on several other threads without being snippy. I suppose some of the Lore AMA's just irk me on a "No, that's a horrible direction to go with the story" level. And i'm ranting at you because.... you made me aware of it. Which is entirely unfair and uncalled for. I apologize.

This I agree with completely. I actually think you should be allowed to choose to NOT betray Sirocco, and do your level best to help him achieve his scheme. You should be railroaded into off-camera failure.... You succeeded at this, but it turned out there was a vital component he was missing, or was otherwise sabtotaged by someone ELSE, so that his gambit ultimately fails... but you the player should have the choice of trying to help even if the ultimate outcome is still the same.

People are certainly free to incorporate as much of the AMA Lore digests as they want into their personal headcanon. Until and unless the HC Devs say that they consider themselves 100% bound to those and intend to treat the unimplemented future lore points as gospel, I will feel completely free to disregard any AMA lore point that I don't like.

Well, i have done Praetoria 1-20 with a Nin/Nin stalker. Quite doable (I did sugar-daddy him with the stalker ATO's though). Just do keep in mind Praetoria loves it's laser-guided ambushes that see right through Hide and any other form of stealth. Not every mission will have them, but some will have several waves of them, and it can be... irksome... if they catch you while you're trying to sneak past other mobs.

I came to that conclusion late last night as I started to take my Sonic/Sonic corruptor through the first couple missions in Nova Praetoria. Kinda had that "let's take another look at that map...." moment. I may still be enough of a Stubborn Damnfool ID10T to proceed anyway. I really like the character name and concept. But several story arcs that I'm going to want to do will have laser guided ambushes that are going to be ROUGH without any help from his secondary, just Burn-Or-Die options. Soloing Praetoria, Sonic Cage might be useful to cage a boss while I clear up some adds, but even Hoverblasting, without sustains, it will be the roughest Praetorian I've rolled so far, bar none. Definitely going to need to sugar daddy him with a plethora of helpful IO uniques, but many won't be slottable until he's most of the way through the journey. i may need to also build up a stockpile of LARGE inspirations in my email for him to draw upon.

Your options are enjoy the 1-20 praetorian experience OR, delete and reroll OR, go to Imperial City, Studio 55 to Pocket D, then to the AE station there, and level up in AE until 20, then choose hero/villain. If you've barely levelled him yet, I'd do the delete/reroll. (well, actually, no, I'd be stubborn and do Praetoria, slog or no slog. But I reallly enjoy the choice the 1-20 arcs offer there).

I went with Corruptor because I wasn't sure if I'd want both Dark Blast AND Gloom, and of the two, Gloom looked better to me. Whereas in Dark Miasma, there was no question in my mind I was taking both Tar Patch and Twilight Grasp. I did had some issues soloing him through various arcs. At very low levels, he simply didn't have enough To-Hit debuff to make enough difference, and I'd levelled him before you could use SO's right out of the box at lvl 1, so acc/dam weren't super great at low levels, either. And I ran him on +2x2 with Bosses, so, some of that was on me being arrogant/overconfident during the levellling phase before his powers build up enough and he amassed enough set bonuses. (Hubris never hurt anyone, right? It's a buff I hear....) He matured in the 20's, as his attuned IO's reached SO levels, and slotting started to reach optimal levels for his bread-and-butter.

does looks like a couple contacts are badge locked though. I commonly get several of those badges during other arcs, or when I see someone else calling out for a beatdown on Scrapyard, etc. Gennerally smacking around the Family because Family. But could explain why you didn't get some options. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Unlockable_Contacts I could see having some of those requirements relaxed.

Strange. I accept that for whatever reason your character wasn't given new contacts. All I can say is if anything I had too many contacts at that point, and had to choose to whether to turn off XP or to accept that I'd be outlevelling several of them and then need to move onto Grandville. Though I also did quite a few Tip missions around then. But there are quite a number of redside arcs in the 30's. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Villain_Story_Arcs some are 30-34 (nerva + st martial) some are 30-39 (st martial) some are 35-39 (nerva + st martial)

Whirlwind, and all similar powers (Kinetics/Repel, SonicResonance/SonicRepulsion, ForceField/RepulsionField, etc), I would like to see changed. currently, they're toggles, low maintence cost, but highly unappealing endurance cost per affected mob. I get that the extra cost is prevent you from holding entire spawns helpless and chain-ragdolled into a corner as you murdalize them. I agree that some way to prevent you from doing that to every spawn on an entire map is necessary. I would like to see, ZERO cost per affected mob, but, have the toggle forcibly deactivate after X seconds (like P2W jump packs, or some intangible powers), and then enter an enforced cooldown period. I believe this would prevent the power from being rampantly abused, but would allow it to be used as an "oh crap!" cooldown without having to fear that if you misjudge it, you'll be burned out of END and helpless and surrounded.

.... I'm confused. I mean, I *am* a big praetoria fan, and I like the wards, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, they remain 100% optional. There's still plenty of Redside content. You can easily ding 50 redside without going near praetoria. I've done it on several redsiders on Excelsior. However, there are certainly stretches where you might need to do a Mayhem mission to be introduced to your next contact. Whereas Blueside, every contact and his brother introduces you to more contacts every couple of missions, just for the asking. Were you not doing newspaper/mayhems?

Prior to Ouro, I think Task Forces were the only way the game auto-exemplar'd you down to a certain level range. So I'm sure it was just low-hanging fruit for the original devs to recycle it. Plug-and-Play solution, you know? It probably *did* make it a lot more controllable to handle things like the varied Ouro badges though. TF Mode probably still needs to be "in force" to allow for any credit to be earned towards any Ouro badge. Though I wouldn't object to an "ouro is not involved" means of just choosing to exemplar yourself at any point to do old missions outside of Ouro.

stinks a little but hey, twice, very likely someone else was there to get the badge for killing her twice. unfortunate if they would not join your team, but they weren't reading chat, and just listening to music as the tooled around, it can happen. Almost certainly no malice, just obliviousness and/or legitmate competition for the spawn if maybe they ALSO had a team looking for Sally. Those are the breaks for any non-instanced world-spawn kind of mob, though.

Wait. Are you talking the Controller primaries? (Mind Control, Fire Control, Earth Control, etc?) or Controller Secondaries? (much more of which contain buff/debuff/healing)

All ideas are good to bat around. But my personal rule of thumb, which of course not everyone is obliged to subscribe to, is that every powerset pairing should be able to handle every story arc solo, at +1x2 with bosses. That's my minimum threshold before I consider a character "viable". (I should say that, so far, I've been able to manage that with everything I've thrown at it.... even if a couple characters needed to play Captain Hit-And-Fade and whittle down certain particularly troublesome missions.... even my redside empath/psi defender) But my first impression on reading your post is, "So how do I defeat mobs?" Teaming is great. If you like teaming, wonderful. Nothing says you ever have to solo. But I think every AT / powerset combo should be able to do so.

My OCD hair-splitting "well, technically...." tendancies require me to dispute this. An awful lot of Blasters get more in the toolkit. Even a Fire/Fire blaster gets Immob's, and Hot Feet for some localized dmg / fear, and doesn't Rain of Fire cause some "run away", too? Nevermind the Blastroller of Ice/Ice with Slows, Holds, Sleeps, and a Ice Slick. Energy and all it's glorious "fly the friendly skies!" Knockback. There's soft control and mitigation tools that Blasters get too. Some much more than others, but nobody is 100% pure damage, even if it's clearly thier main focus.

Goldside is Best Side. The Wards are my favorite zones. I also absolutely love the choices offered at each of the goldside 1-20 arcs. Sure, it's somehing of a magician's choice... you only really choose between Loyalist and Resistance, and it doesn't reallllly shape the landscale for all time to come. You're still just one player in an MMO. If you choose to arrest a certain masked telepath to deliiver her to Praetor Tillman, she escapes sometime after the mission is complete. The writers need to maintain some continuity, but in the moment, you the player get a lot more agency to decide than any other story arcs. I realllly want to see that kind of branching choice mechanic made available for AE. But I'm having a bit of trouble with this statement: Specifically, how? did I miss something when I wasn't looking? Sure, Praetorian Hamidon was going to munch on Praetoria if Cole hadn't bargained him down. How's that affect Primal Earth? If Primal Earth never discovered Praetoria or vice-versa, how would Primals have been affected in any way?