MTeague

I do like Kick/Boxing/Crosspunch. If you take all three, Crosspunch becoms surprisingly strong and it's a nice additional melee AoE attack with a very reasonable cooldown. Some Tanks (SS immediately leaps to mind...) gets their AE very late in the game. Crosspunch can make up a lot of difference. And on my Mind/Kin controller, Fulcrum Shift plus Crosspunch with Containment on held mobs? Yes please. I haven't needed Weave thus far though.

My only quibble is that Purples + PvP + ATO are not always always always the best choices to slot into a given power. It really depends on what set bonuses you're trying to stack. Having a purple set whose set bonuses you can keep all the way back to a Posi 1, is nice, of course. But if you need to stack DEFENSE, you may be better off with a Kinetic Combat or Touch of Death set in certain attacks. Sometimes I use Eradication in a PBAE over the corresponding purple set (Rag? Armageddon? I always mix them up). But certainly, if the bonuses the purples bring to the table are worth it to you, then absolutely yes do slot them somewhere. Particularly if your ATO procs reinforce your main role, like Scrapper, Stalker, Tanker, Brute, etc.

I didnt' even know what Discord *was* when I joined City of Heroes. But I was in Ventrilo pretty much every night when I still played WoW. Either for guild raiding, or just to yap with friends on non-raid-nights. Voice chat can be fun. Much more like a conversation, I don't have to watch a chat log, I don't have to even dedicate much screen space to chat log. And for raiding, Warcraft has Extremely Unforgiving raid mechanics once you get into Progression Raids, and it was .... well, I honesly cannot think of how we could have ever pulled out some of those wins with the requires coordination if everyone had to pause and type and read. Compare to just calling out certain phases, adds, or the occasional "Debuff is on Bag, Bag, get out melee!". It was hard enough getting people to react to voice instructions when they were focused on maximal DPS output. They'd NEVER have read chat and reacted in time. I guess I don't Discord in CoH because I'm leery of having a "regular" group who I always play with, or certain days of the week I always play on certain hours. I've had games (cough WoW cough) turn into Full Time Jobs because of that. I'm kind of keeping everyone else at arms length, socialable and friendly, but no long-term-alliances. It's more of a me issue than a discord issue.

Who's a good Blaster!? Yes, you are!!

Well. Not until they beat up Destiny and take it's lunch money and write themselves in. I mean, even if they weren't on the original Destined One list, if they fulfil the eventual criteria, then clearly they were Destined all along, and Destiny just had them take the scenic route to get there.

Lorewise, I'd want any VEAT's or HEAT's to start with new contacts, maybe for Heroes Dark Watcher could give you a pep talk about being an Undercover Longbow agent, or Arbiter Sands could instruct you that you are an Undercover Arachnos agent, and impress upon you the urgency of getting the information he wants, and "Glory to Lord Recluse, et cetera, et cetera..." THEN have you go and make your first moral choice for Resistance or Loyalist.

I also strongly recommend learning the Auction House and Enhancement Converters. I have lvl 15's running around with 40 million who were not sugar daddied at all. Because I'd get a few yellow recipes, craft them, spend some merits on converters, convert them into something people will pay a few million for, and post for sale. Then buy MORE yellow recipes, and MORE converters, and it feeds from there. Orange Salvage can be excellent seed money. You can post those for 1 inf and someone will buy for at LEAST 400,000, probably more. Homecoming market is like any other market and prices can and will fluctuate, so double check current going rate for some things rather than trust the exact numbers in a 2019 guide. But the same principles (buy cheap, convert to expensive, post expensives for sale) still hold true, even if you might have to pay 20,000 for each yellow recipe instead of 10,000. If you end up millions ahead, you really won't care about ten thousand this way or that.

I don't think a single one of my 40 characters uses Weave at all. Not even the /SR scrapper. (though she does use Tough for the 3% uniques) It's not BAD mind you, I'm just... contrary... and when I see people say how certain powers are mandatory for all builds, etc, I make characters without those powers. Only about 15 of my 40 characters use Hasten, too. I guess where I'm going with that, is Weave is not necessary. It can be helpful sure. But on a team, your Defender shouldn't be the focus of enemy attacks, and, soloing, it's quite possible to build up good defenses without it. In any case, I prefer Manuevers over Weave to spread some love to the whole team. Eight players with Weave all have 5-7% defense. Eight players with Manuvers hanging out together give each other 24-30% defense.

I like it. If there was a Knives of Artemis costume in the super packs, and it only lasted 2 hours of in-game time (like a Jetpack), I'd want several charges built up for my Claws/SR scrapper. I'm sure there's blasters who would love a PPD Hard Suit look as well and would pour influence hand-over-fist into the sink to get them.

I'm not necessarily opposed to allowing anyone to go anywhere anytime. But I have zero expectation that this would increase people coming to redside, and I say this as a redside enthusiast. Unless you completely rewrite all redside mission text, you will have a sizeable fraction of the player base who just don't ever want to set foot in the Rogue Isles. They just don't want to be the Bad Guy. Full stop. Not even in a game. Those players, no incentive or lowering of mechanical barriers will ever budge, not one iota. You also have X people who would try it, but who are immediately turned off by being treated like a lackey at low levels. They want to be Doctor Doom right out of the gate at level one, and don't like the idea of having to build up Street Cred before the missions treat you like a Big Bad. Then you have the "I would play redside if more people played redside, but people play blueside, so I play blueside" players who are caught in a self-reinforcing feedback loop. @Clave Dark 5 is right on that point. If you have a regular squad you team with a few times a week, SG or not, can be just random global friends, play blueside with them, but bring up the idea of maybe playing redside one night a week. Same way there's "Tanker Tuesday" groups, maybe see if they want to try Redside Wednesday or Redside Monday, just to shake things up a little. They may shoot the idea down fast, but you don't need hundreds of people to come over to red, just a semi-regular group you play with. Don't even really need a full group, a squad of 5 or even just a duo partner can be fun, too. Another thing, is that there's also players who do play redside, but tend to be very Lone Wolf on thier villains. Some of that is becuase of population realities, but some of it is also mental roleplay vs world. After all, if you imagine your villain to be a Big Bad who will eventually bid for world domination, then why exactly is your villain agreeing to help out my villain? etc. So some redside players may be more standoffish for those reasons.

You can fairly reliably use Aid Self in combat once your relevant Defense is in the low 40's or better. There's still no guarantee even at softcap, lucky hits will happen, but I have zero expectation to be able to use Aid Self in battle any earlier than that. Alternately, if you have Caltrops or another area-denial power, you can run through a door, break line of sight, toss Caltrops behind you at the doorway, then Aid Self while they're busy realizing that it's no fun to step on sharp things. Don't expect Aid Self to be a pool power that's just as reliable as Reconstruction or Dull Pain. It was never intended to be. As far as costing you endurance despite interrupt, well, I believe the Blaster snipes go on cooldown if you happen to be interrupted in battle. (which can happen if you start an out-of-battle snipe, and then get jumped by something else before it goes off). Would you be okay with Aid Self not costing endurance but having to wait for it come off cooldown instead? I think Aid Self is better as-is personally.

This. It's not that that hard to build up 100 mil on a character and drop it for 10 packs. Not even farming, though that will CERTAINLY do it if you have a mind to. Just play missions, do tips, story arcs etc, and save up your recipes. Craft, convert, post for sale, and before you know it you have quite a bit of inf. I don't see freebies as needed, and I'm not sure why the devs would want to hamstring one of their own big influence sinks. That said, their call, not mine, and maybe they'd like the idea.

My Mind/Kin turned several repeated wipes vs IDF into a solid win, and then we steamrolled for the rest of the night. If you're only doing a Peregrine Island radio mission vs Council marathon, okay, maybe you don't need a controller. But the nastier the foes you're up against, the more help a Controller is to the team. I focus on Malta, Carnies, Ruluaru, IDF, Awakened, Shepherds, Arachnos/Longbow, Vanguard, Animated Arcana, etc.

Despicable Me Minions. Except for the We'd-Be-Sued-Into-Oblivion aspect.

I could totally see someone buying you a case of good beer. Or some really good coffee. LOTS of people use one or the other as the answers to life, the universe, and everything.

IKR? I'm hoping I can start earning some real-life Incarnate XP. And man oh man, I want me some real-life Ouroborous. How cool would it be to flashback to like, 2019 right about now?

My take on it? A good tank should be willing to adapt to what the team needs. If the team is kitted out well and can take the stray mobs here and there as the tank runs off to the next spawn, then do that, keep the pace going, keep gathering up the mobs, etc. But have enough awareness to stomp on the brakes if your team, for whatever reason, can't take that. Maybe you suddenly found yourself on a team of people who are levelling up their very first characters and dont' have any IO's yet. It does happen. Maybe you weren't looking and OH, this isn't all Council trash, this is First Ward Shepherds. Or Night Ward Awakened. Or IDF. Or other mobs that REALLY lay on the hurt. You leave half the pull alive to get the next before people are ready and you're probably looking at a team wipe. Be smart enough to adapt in those situations. Also be aware of what the team's expectations are for how to handle missions. Joining a team that wants Kill Most when you want Speed Runs, or joining a team that wants Speed Runs when you want Kill Most, is Instant Headache, just add water. Find out what it is first, and decline if it's not your flavor. *Everyone* will be happier for it.

50 in October

I don't think /SR needs any changes at all. That said, if you absolutely insist on buffing my Claws/SR scrapper.... I guess I'll muddle through the day one way or another. One thing of note: striking the three passives into just one passive does eliminate two LotG +7.5 recharge mules. though it's not exactly difficult for /SR to come up with 5. It would STILL have 5 possible places in set, with Elude (4 without), and the three toggles plus passive plus Combat Jumping is about the lowest of all possible hanging fruit.

Put Energy or Fire damage on Entangling arrow. Tactical Arrow already has this on their version. Admittedly yes, Tactical Arrow's version is a Blaster Secondary T1, not a Support T1, but still. Do that, there's an in-set way to light Oil Slick Arrow. T The damage can be as low as 1 hp, if you're afraid of this somehow being overpowered. And don't let it take any other kinds of IO sets beyond what it already takes. Just nonzero and FWOOOM! we can light Oil Slicks in-set. Done. Pour yourself a glass of whatever. I would not refuse Glue Arrow or Entangling arrow having additional -ToHit or something to be Defense-By-Any-Other-Name, but I'm not convinced it's needed. I would not refuse Flash Arrow having higher numbers, but again, I'm not convinced it's must-have. I do acknowledge that for Masterminds in particular, and even more so on Ninja Masterminds, having some kind of heals is *very* helpful. It's not always easy keeping your cannon fodder expendable resources valued employees summonable bro's standing. The T1's are squishy on a good day. However, /Cold Domination works right fine with ice shields and slows, but no heals. So I think Trick Arrow can work just fine with -ToHit and Glue Arrow. Maybe the To-Hit numbers need tweaking for this specific case, to make the effective defense contribution at a similar level. Then dip into Sorcery for Spirit Ward or Medicine for Heal Other as you see fit.

Honestly, if I had Infinite Time and other magic wands..... well ... first, I'd ensure I could retire filthy stinking rich in real life.... but after that.... I'd probably eliminate Arachnos entirely. Like zorch it out completely. Make the Rogue isles more of a No-Man's land of multiple balanced villain factions where your character plays them against each other and gradually claims areas of power for yourself. I get that they wanted a "Dark Reflection" of City of Heroes. I get that they wanted to have their own Doctor Doom nemesis to Statesman. But as implemented, the City of Lackeys feel in the low levels of City of Villains is very much offputting. I'd love it a heck of a lot more if certain areas were under Council control, others Family Control, others ruled by Crey, others by the Tsoo, each with some new Big Bads in each faction, rather than Recluse and the Patrons. But, no magic do-overs.

Wait, since when does Claws have Combos? Are you just talking about building stacks of Follow Up? Also, Dominators get Claws? Are you talking Thorny Assault?

I blame Google.

I'm not morally opposed to a change or anything, but I'd certainly file this under "Really Good Problems to Have". I'd just splurge on Winter-O's and kit out some new characters if I got close to the limit. Ultimately though, I just don't really value Influence. It's useful to me to buy things to kit out my characters, of course. But I don't chase it as an end in itself. If I were at max influence cap, but all my existing characters have all the IO's I want, and I therefore play "for nothing" because I don't get any influence.... okay. I'm fine with that. What was I gonna do with the influence anyway? Maybe I'd host a Backstory Competition or something? But full disclosure, I'm also the kind of player who can leave loot behind in Skyrim dungeons or Fallout zones and not care. I have some packrat tendancies in real life, but not so much when gaming

There's plenty of other options to Blap other than Martial. But Martial is CRAZY good fun. If you can squeeze it in, I recommend the Experimentation Pool as well. Speed of Sound/Jaunt, <filler>, Adrenalin Boost. The Combination of Burst of Speed and Jaunt will let you pretty much bamph around the battlefield at will. Pop directly into melee unless a few attacks, Bamph out to range, and blast away. Melee gets close? Bamph, now you're 30 feet away and across the Whirlpool or Tar Patch or Freezing Rain or whatever your team has. and Adrenalin Rush is just a very tasty thing to have on tap. Don't overlook Ki Push and the Kicks. Ki Push is a mag 4 hold (gets bosses in one hit) for 4 seconds and does ragdolling after. That's like 6 seconds of free hits on anything less than an EB. The Kicks can easilly knockdown mobs, ragdolling them until Ki Push is back up. Admittely, if you're AE'ing for a team, you're probably not using Ki Push at all. But it reallllly makes your life easier soloing. And it's hilarious to watch.