MTeague

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?

Just a couple days ago, I was doing the Vanessa DeVore arc in First Ward, where you defend the cemetary against an incursion of Talons of Vengeance. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Vanessa_DeVore_(Contact)#Part_Three:_The_Darkest_Hour We were all lvl 29 (high as you can be without outlevelling the arc). I think a 6 man team, +2 with bosses. We had a Brute, Blaster, Corruptor, Dominator, Controller, MM. Might have been one other. It's a hot door. At least it was this time. We weren't expecting it. We wiped. So okay, we form back up, get psyched, pop a bunch of inspirations and hop in. We wipe. FAST. in under 2 seconds per person as we zone in. They just ganked the bejeesus out of us as we materialized. Even with 4 lucks, there were so MANY talons right there, and some of their bosses and lieut's have brutal debuffs. I decide okay, we need to reset this mission. Only, I can't. No one else has missions in the Ward, and it's a mixed Hero/Villain team. It wouldn't let me select a Sharkhead mission with heroes, or a Talos mission with Villains. That's when the MM says, "do you mind if I switch characters?". Sure, just send me a tell. He brings his Stone tank. Now, he was probably a 50 exemplared down. Probably kitted out the wazoo. But of course, even exemplared down to 29, as a TANKER, he still had access to Granite. Best goddam advertisment for Granite Tank that I ever saw, ladies and gentlemen. The rest of us zoned in and tried to get some damage off before we died. Barely any. Granite tank is just getting smacked around and taking it like a champ. Gradually trying to move them away from the door so the rest of us can zone in. Then once one set was lead away, he'd taunt another set over to him. I think the rest of us still died like 4-5 times EACH just breaking the door (so many more than 16 mobs at the door, was not mechanically possible for Granite to take them all). But the Granite tank? Just kept going. Never died once. I'm SURE my Inv tank could not possibly take a sustained beating like that. He was in awe once though. Either that mission, or the one after (stop sorceress serene), something managed to KD him. Though granite and all his IO bonuses, somehow enough Knock effects were piled on him all at once to successfully ragdoll him even so. I rolled a Stone tank after that group broke up lol.

Not sure why Ouro is a deterrent. If I feel like joining a team for, say, the Ghost Widow arc.... I really don't care if it's someone's chosen patron at 35+, or if they're doing it via Ouro flashback. Ouro would stop people from joining halfway through.... but if I'm joining for a patron arc, I probably *Want* to do the whole arc.

I never knew I wanted a travel power where my character is being repeatedly ragdolled for hellion golf distance in any direction I choose until I read this sentence.

I mean, I sort of do this now on a limited time basis on my blaster. P2W Jump Pack plus Speed of Sound. Zoom at full speed jump for height then kind of "tap" "tap" "tap" for the jumpjets as I move along. Does have the max duration of the Jumpjets though before they forcibly detoggle and go to cooldown. But I can make it over half the distance from the top of the Westerman building to Mercyview Graveyard in First Ward before it runs out!

For truly 100% brand new MM types..... it's always fun thinking what could be plausible for EVERY Origin. Elementals I suppose are every bit as fungible as the elemental control sets. "Gardener" MM's with plant based pets could be amusing. (Carrion Creepers instead of Gang War?) Snakes. Why did it have to be Snakes? Will Smith style Men In Black, if we could make them sufficiently distinguishable from Crey Agents.

Illusion Control / Phantom Armor / Mirror shows that custom pets CAN, in principle, be done. They'd have to decide how much they want to let you finesse it. Could you choose a different look for your first T1 pet than your second T1 pet? etc. They'd have to decide if they want "custom henchmen" to be a thing for all existing humanoid groups (Ninjas, Mercs, Thugs), and whether to include the non-humans (Beasts, Bots, Demons, Undead). They'd have to decide if the wailing and gnashing of teeth is worth it if any can't do it. "If they can have custom ninjas why can't I have custom wolves!", etc. The visual upgrades for pet buffs is a thing too. Maybe they just say, hey, if you want custom pets, you forsake that, it's on you to keep track of your buffs. I think that would be a more than fair trade. I'm hopeful they will decide to allow it. But it wouldn't surprise me if they decide it's too much time and aggravation. But if they DON'T want to do true custom pets, then I'd like a few different choices for each pet type. ex Thugs. Vanilla look. Or a more Family-style gangsters. Maybe a Syndicate look (only no swords, just guns). Mercs: Vanilla look. Or something higher tech like Sky Raiders-ish. Maybe even D.U.S.T.-like. Beasts: Vanilla look. Or Beastman look (humanoids, but with digitigrade legs, wolf head, big cat head, etc), or not sure what else. Necros: Vanilla look. Or something more like Banished Pantheon dead. Or something along the lines of Apparitions for a more disembodied spirit / soulbinder take. you get the idea. (note: I say "style" or "like" or "along the lines of" etc, because yea, I'm guessing they would not want them to look EXACTLY like any NPC's. Maybe I'm wrong? But that's my guess.)

You also need to be able to pass the mental hurdle of "but if I frankenproc, that's a power with IO's from four different sets! the set bonuses! won't someone think of the poor abandoned set bonuses!". That's the hurdle I'm still stuck on. I can proc out a couple powers per character (ie, Infrigidate on a /Cold), but I start to agonize over lost set bonuses if I go too wild.

The advantage for Scrapper to me? Nobody really expects me to tank. They all expect me to scrapperlock.

Most fun for me? Beast/Empath. Note that I say "Most Fun". I do NOT say "most effective." but concept wise, my Beast/Empath is a Crazy Pet Lady who treats her spirit animal guardians like housepets, and is all "AAAAAAAH YOU SHOT DAISY!" when mobs shoot at the T1 wolves. They're all named like normal housepets. I took Boxing and Kick and Crosspunch to get right in there and melee alongside the pets (also helping keep them in range of pet aura IO's and Supremacy, and making it each to catch them all in healing aura, and because the Fighting pool attacks are DIRT CHEAP compared to most MM attacks. I made the character 100% as a joke idea, but it proved to be very fun and the character grew on me.

I wouldnt' object to that. But keep in Mind, Fearstome Stare does zero damage. Terrify is a primary AE nuke for Mind. Get containment, Terrify. I would not want to lose that damage output. If I have to keep the damage OR get -ToHit, I'll keep the damage.

Math is super important! Without math Google Maps couldn't tell me where to go, and I couldn't order dinner online! We neeeed math!

Single Target Sleep is how Mind parks EB/AV's. Don't yank that away without giving Mind something else in it's place. Although I do agree, don't be messin' with Confusion. Loooooves me some Confusion.

Which is just begging for the "It's not how you say it, but it is how I say it." Although there's something to be said for the wisdom to pick your battles.

Clearly, Ms Liberty is NOT two places at once. One or both of them is a Nemesis Automaton.

I mean, Blaster Primaries are better at Ranged Damage than....pretty much anyone else. So in that sense, they're King of Ranged. But I agree, they're not JUST ranged. Quite a bit of their secondary trees are chock full of melee powers, and degrees of control (some soft control, some short-term hard control). And heck the primaries are worthy of discussion of debuffing or soft controls that some bring. Where you solo and say "Get Outta My Face!" with Power Thrust / Ki Push, or whether a tanker is holding aggro for your Fire Blapper as they Fire Sword Circle down a crowd of mobs, or whether the Controller is locking mobs down helpless for your Martial Kombat blaster to bamph in with Burst of Speed / Dragon Tail, they have solid melee options as well. Some players may 100% ignore those, but doesn't mean they're not there.

100% leaving AT behind, and focusing Strictly on Powersets, can we come up with something? sure. Storm Summoning: is chaotic ragdolly goodness. It offers a solid mix of debuffs, Knockbacks,, and damage output. When soloing, Hurricane almost entirely prevents death because it savages enemy to-hit so severely. is that a complete description? NO. O2 boost deserves mention as a low level protector against some status protection and against Energy Drain. No discussion of Storm is really complete without pros/cons of KB-to-KD and FF +Rchg procs. Steamy Mist deserves mention as a source of stealth / team stealth, Defense, and a slotting option for several very nice unique IO's. Kinetics: is the Team SuperSerum. At least at high levels. Fulcrum Shift spikes the damage output of the entire team in glorious ways, and Speed Boost, between the movement speed and the giant +Recharge and +Recovery, is always good to have around. is that a complete description? NO. No discussion of Kinetics is complete without discussion of how it tends to lure you into melee. Fulcrum, Siphon Speed, Siphon Power, Transfusion, Transference... all want you in melee. As much as many players hate KB, Repel is worthy of mention as a tool to potenitally play goalie with, running around sending enemies flying away from your squishies. Increase Density should always be mentioned as a source of Clear Mind, and equally, should be mentioned that while all friendlies nearby get the +Energy/Smashing resists, only hte DIRECT TARGET gets the Clear Mind effect. Where I'm going with this? At some point any such guide is either going to be incomplete by nature, OR, is going to have to start with a TLDR: Just Read The Damn Powers, and a link to the wiki.

I know Focus is a flat out better power. But I just don't like the idea of projecting out waves of force from claws. I skip both Focus and Shockwave (yes, yes, I'm Doing It Wrong(tm)....) and rely on Spin and Eviscerate for AE damage. Evisc also tends to join my single target attack chain because of enhanced crit chance.