MTeague

If you refuse to farm And you refuse to use Converter Roulette.... My sympathy levels are quite low. However, EVEN THEN, you can still do it. Join a bunch of TF's, get a big pile of Merits, and you can buy the Purple recipes with Merits. Ya, it'll cost a TON of merits. And you could far far far far faster if you learned to play the market. But even if you take the market off the table, you can pile up merits and get your purples, one recipe at a time.

See this is why Knockback can be FUN. 🙂

ohhhh yea, those are GIANT to-hit buffs for ALL the baddies. They must practically negate half of your defense I swear. If you can't pick them out of hte pile quickly, consider RUNNING. down the hall and around a corner. THEN rip up the DE when they follow you, then go back and slice up the emanator (badges and all...)

I thought you could build something pretty darn close to the Maelstrom armor with creative use and recoloring of certain Black Knight chest detail pieces. More hair options would be nice though. I mean, okay, I get we're not about to have Apachii Skyhair adapted for CoH. But I remember thinking "jeez I can have exposed brain or a salad on my head, but I can't have long hair AND a Fedora?" I get that tall spikey Mender Silos style hair is incompatible with most hats, but more options to have it long in the back, or a low ponytail, something.

Not silly at all. Sure, all of our characters are just fictional avatars, pixels on a screen, on a video game of make-believe. But an awful lot of us poured a great deal of time and effort and care into making our characters. Some of us created very fleshed out backstories, secret identity names for their characters, and we all spent YEARS playing them, for... perhaps a disturbing number of hours per week 🙂, week after week, month after month year after year. Maybe with a break for some other game, or for real life, but even if we put it down, we always assumed it would BE there if we came back. And usually it was. Until some exec had a sufficiently bad day and decided to take his ball and go home and kill the entire world and multiverse we'd all lived in for eight years. It would not surprise me at all if to some people it hit them as if someone they knew had died. Maybe not a family member, but at least as if you'd walked into the office (back when you could still DO that....) and found out a co-worker had had a heart attack or a bad car accident and didn't make it.

I refer to my Mind/Kin Controller as my main and still think of him as my main, regardless of how much actual playtime he gets. But he does get a fair bit of playtime as I'm gradually doing every single Ouroborous flashback on him. Why is he my main? He was my main on Live. He was the first character I ever created on Live. He powersets were chosen to be as close as I go get to an EverQuest Enchanter, who was my EverQuest main, the game I played immediately before CoH (although their names are different.... Grenndel Mindwalker the gnome enchanter, and Cygnus-X1 the Mind Controller.... Cygnus was taken, but Cygnus-X1 still refers to the Rush songs, so, good enough for me. Second character I created on Homecoming (created my main villain first on HC, because thought that name might be at higher risk of being taken) First character I leveled to 50 on Homecoming. My favorite control set, Mind. I looooves me some Confuse. And I loves being able to force enemies into fighting each other without them even knowing I'm there. headcanon, he's the organizing force of every one of my heroes, and bands them together as a force for good. headcanon, he's been around for a few thousand years guiding humanity as a hidden hand (think Gandalf here....) He can pretty much march into any mission map, solo, regardless of type of enemies or size of spawn, and win. It may take him a LONG TIME, and lots of enemies may defeat each other, but he can get it done. Malta, np, Carnies, np, Freakshow Super Stunners, np, Nemesis, np, Rularuu, np. Bring it. He won't be able to solo AV's and GM's, but EB's wont' stop him. And really.... if I were forced to delete EVERY CHARACTER BUT ONE.... I'd keep him.

Is this like opening the trunk in Repo Man?

I still use Cognitive on my Mind/Kin controller, because Confuses are my favorite thing period. No, it's not optimal. I don't care. I'll probably use Cognitive on MOST characters who I can remotely justify it on (Dark Domintor, Plant/Psi Dominator, Empath's, etc, because i just really really love Confuses. I'll probably use Pre-Emptive on all my Electrical themed characters, because theme overrides effectiveness for me. I'm not sure if my Spines stalker will use Paralytic or Degenerative, depends how I decide to theme "Poison" aspect of it. Lots of posted builds may say what's optimal. That's a very different thing from hard data on what people choose.

I'm all in favor of more Animations / Blast Emanation Points. I don't think they should be done for only one set. And I wouldn't want to see any one set that's overly tied to a Tech-Suited look, as I think all sets should be justifyable for all Origins. Yes, I know Crab Packs are a failing in this regard, but it's a failing I don't want repeated, and honestly, I'd like more Crab Pack looks... a crab back with Skeletal spider arms, or Arachnoid arms, or translucent/ghostly/celestial arms, etc, would go a LONG way to making Soldiers easier to fit into any Origin. I suppose Archery will always be tied to a Bow, but I'd want any new blast emanation points useable by Fire Blast, or Ice Blast, or Rad Blast, etc.

I can totally understand that. If they saw it happening, they saw you having full court vision and picking up adds before they could wreck the squishies. If they didn't see it happen they're just like "oh god is that guy pulling extra spawns for giggles? WTH man, you looking to wipe us?" Esp if it was earlier in live before people became so overpowered and less risk-averse.

I admit, most of my characters who have knockback at all, have some kind of non-targetting PBAE or rain. Honestly, It's been more of a help than a hindrance for me when something gets stuck in a wall. But I have seen LOTS of people talking in General chat or Help chat when a mob is stuck and they have NO means to damage it.

Cleo is way back in Nova Praetoria. The final Responsibility Arc is you and Kang helping prevent a disaster at Keyes' Reactors. And they find info about Cole planning an invasion of Primal Earth, etc. The choice was Loyalist: prevent Kang from releasing the classified info and causing possible panic Resistance: let Kang share the information with the public

My Fire/Fire/Fire sentinel runs 7 toggles normally, and he doesn't even have Tough or Weave. Manuvers/Tactics/Assault Fire Shield, Plasma Shield, Molten Embrace, Cauterizing Flames and sometimes Fly, for an Eighth

I hear that. Even the final "Responsibility" arc, for my first character who conceptually is all about protecting the people of praetoria.... just got soooo disilllusioned with Cole and all the Praetors that at the end of that arc, I just couldn't bring myself to take down Inspector Kang. I let him tell the people, and that counted as a Resistance choice.

also: Welcome aboard! CoH is a great ride. You should have a blast. It's probably easiest to start Blueside (as a Hero), but at some point, after you have your feet wet, I would encourage you to try out Redside. Villains are fun!

I'm not against the idea as such, I just can't think of any reason I'd ever use paragonchat ever again. I mean, I appreciate alll that they did to create it. And the sheer number of man-hours that went into it. But I'd far rather use the real game.

I yield, I yield!

There's SO much power creep in the game already. I can't get behind adding Even More incarnate abilities until there's ALSO content that requires those abilties. Even that I don't know I'd support this idea. This isn't WoW and I wouldn't expect to be playing just a few "Main's" in a constant chase for "Progression".

Well I suppose one must be specific exactly which Hydra one is referring to. 🙂 The CoH Hydra maps are actually a bit of a wake up call with all the Toxic Damage flying around. Happily the most recent time I found myself dealing with that was my Fire/Fire/Fire Sentinel, so I just put Healing Flames on Autocast. +14% toxic res per stack, enough recharge to stack it 3 times

That's hardcore. I think I'd have to ease myself into it with just "no enhancements" at first. That right there would still be a big hump to get used to. Your set bonuses? silly rabbit, No enhancements, so no set bonuses. And you're gonna miss. A LOT. Because no more +Acc in any of your powers. Suddennly that extra innate acc in MA and Archery doens't look so useless, and it's "Group Hug" on your teammate who are running Tactics. (or any of the leadership buffs, really) And you're gonna get hit a lot more, and harder. No set bonuses, so only an SR or something like that is going to run around with any kind of Softcap going on. And no one has any +Res or +Def enhancements going on. And no one has extra life totals from set bonuses, either. All in all, that right there is like you're fighting a host of MUCH high level enemies. Becuase they have a much easier time hitting you, you have a harder time hitting them, when you do hit, you hit for less because your attack powers have not +Dam slotted, and no host of dmg procs anyone. You'd reallly appreciate bubbles of ANY KIND, FF/Ice/Sonic/Thermal, and as much as you're gonna want lots of leadership toggles going on, you also have much more endurance issues.... so you'd likely want an Empath for Recovery Aura, a Kin for Speed Boost, or the thing Elec Affin can do whose name I can't remember. You might even need to *gasp* rest! between fights! I definitely can see it being fun, but I also think it's a thing I'd want to do only a few times a week, not constant gameplay. I do get nostalgic on Endgame Progression Raiding sometimes, and this would scratch that itch nicely. But at the same time... I cancelled that WoW account for a reason and I'm never going back lol. Gameface for a saturday, I can do. But it can never be a full-time job ever again, like in the WoW days.

You want to make a TF *very* difficult? Use the "No Enhancements" challenge option. (already exists in game)

I do always hear this line in my head at the start of every 5th Column mission:

Having the 5th Column gradually morph into a Hydra-Esque organization is not entirely implausible. I mean, they have to recruit / brainwash from current generations as time goes by, and the VAST majority of the populace (correctly) sees the Nazi roots as morally bankrupt and abhorrent. This is not to say Requiem or the Center are in any way changed, but the average grunt may just be sold on "be the new ruling class / super man" as opposed to "and exterminate everyone else". EXCEPT.... there's a 25-29 story arc... "The Unknown Ubelmann".... where you find a WW2 Era nazi time travelled to the future to learn all he can about modern technology and what went wrong in the war so he can take it back in time and change history and make sure the Germans won.... and it's said his presence is "good for morale" among the 5th Column's general ranks. If you change THAT much of human history, half the people might cease to exist as their parents never meet up, etc. So you'd have to be pretty dedicated to the Nazi ideas to consider the presence of someone actively trying to change human history to ensure the Axis won to be a morale-boosting thing, instead of "shoot him dead now to ensure my family isn't wiped from history"

City of Dark Souls?

okay, I have never personally tried Elec Affin yet, I have a healthy backlog of alts to work my way throuigh before I create any more.... at least until a really cool name pops into my head.... But my understanding is Electric Affinty can chain it's powers off it's own pet. The T3 power, Galvanic Sentinel. IF that is true... then you can always at least chain it off your pet to hit you. Anyone able to confirm this? or am I hallucinating again?