MTeague

all of the piece from my old costumes are there, but some were combined / moved from where I remember them. One example is the "Metal Plates" belt. I remember it being it's own main choice in the belt lookup. (Although admittedly, that's 8 year old memory and is VERY suspect....) I eventually found the exact look for that belt. but it's under "Normal" belt, and then a sub-choice selection group between Cloth, Metal, and Metal Plates. so you might have to dig through a variety of the menu options, but anything that was not an outright temporary costume / temporary power, I'm pretty sure is still there in the costume creator.

I think that would be a reasonable expectation if this were a AAA gaming studio of large developer teams who focused on this as their primary job to pay their bills. I think it is a very human and very understandable want, but still unreasonable to ask the same of the HC dev team. They're focused on untangling the spaghetti code. I am a programmer. I don't work in games, but I write code for a living. In the last 23 years I have seen source files you wouldn't believe that most people I work with, myself included, were loath to touch for fear of breaking things in all kind of critical and interesting ways. Sooner or later you DO have to bite the bullet and get it done, but it's always a hard sell to get people to understand how that many man-hours were legitimately spent with absolutely no customer-observable impact and defend that time spent as a "Good Thing" to observers who want to see something flashy. If they do nothing for the first YEAR but just scale down the technical debt and make the code more modular and supportable and performant, then they will have spent that year wisely and well. Will some folks go to other servers in the meantime? Possibly. Does that mean the gaming experiance will really be better on those other servers. *very* arguable. Me personally, I'm content to say here because this is the one group looking to get above-board and negotiate a legal standing with the actual legal owners of the game. Perhaps that doesn't matter to you, but I'm able to make a living as a programmer specifically because of copywright laws. I'm fully aware that I'm being a massive hypocrit playing what is essentially a pirated game, and donating money to said pirates on a semi-regular basis. I can square that circle in my head by talking very fast and not looking at it long 🤣, but mostly, by telling myself that they're TRYING to achieve a legitmate and aboveboard deal. That counts for a very lot to me on a moral and ethical level.

It would dispense with a lot of existing Kheldian Lore, or at least have to be retconned in. But the real killer I think? It would require *Considerable* artwork to make it happen. I'm not sure that's the best bang-for-buck in development time. I don't think it's a bad idea, I just think it's fairly low in the "It would be nice if" pile, and not so much in the "there is a pressing need for" pile.

Mostly IO's. Keep in my dominator is NOT 50 yet, so many purple sets, I just can't do yet.... I am planning to change some up when I ding. Plant / Psi dom From Sets: Ascendancy of the Dominator (6 slotted to single target hold) : 8.75% recharge, 3.13% ranged defense Malaise's Illusions (6 slotted to Seeds of Confusion): 6.25% recharge, 3.13% ranged defense Basilisk's Gaze (4 slotted to AE hold): 1.25% ranged defense, 7.5% recharge Obliteration (6 slotted into Psychic Shockwave): 5% recharge, 3.75% melee defense Steadfast Prot +3% def all (in Mind Over Body) Gladiator's Armor, tele resist +3% def all (in Mind Over Body) Other Def: Manuevers (2 slots): 3.41% def vs all Combat Jumping (default slot only): 2.44% def vs all Link Minds (4 slotted) +6.67% def all (a few seconds away from being perma, but close enough for this discussion) Gives 26% ranged defense, 22% melee defense, 18% AoE defense, and 32% smashing / lethal resist (not defense) I will be changing up a few things at 50, but I find this plenty good enough for misc levelling. Also helps that I have a few stacks of Drain Psyche running for +regen to top me off, and option of throwing out a pretty darn strong Spirit Tree if I need to spike the regen for a tough fight.

I do love my Spines/Regen stalker. He's scrappy as all hell and I have no hesitation in being "acting tank" (or at least, "alpha soaker") for a 2-6 man group. And he's a STALKER, not a brute, not a tank. But at lvl 35, he's still tricked out well enough to have 50% smashing/lethal resist, 24% melee and ranged defense, and he's ridiculously durable for someone who isn't even a tank. For an actual tank though... the problem is balancing things. If you regen too weakly, you can't sustain enough damage, the set becomes labeled "fail" and people shun it like a skunk sprayed it. Except for we few contrary folks who enjoy doing "Garbage of the Month" builds just to see if we can make it work when everyone else says no. If you regen too strongly, then your character is literally an immortal god and nothing of this world (or the next) can harm them. And then every other set becomes "fail" by comparison. I don't know how you square that circle and still keep things even enough that nothing eclipses everything else. I certainly understand why they havne't been eager to try. On the other hand, with IO's and Incarnates, I'm not sure "balance" even is a thing anymore lol.

I mean there is Kick, Boxing, and Crosspunch, and if you do get all three, they can be surprisingly effective. And there's Project Will and Arcane Bolt. But...... NOT an AT that I would likely roll. I wouldn't object in principle to it existing, but I think they'd get way more bang-for-buck via Melee/Support or Support/Melee.

I pack in as much defense as I can *after* hitting permadom. Permadom is just too damn good not to shoot for. Constant Status Protection alone is totally worth the price of the IO's. I don't care as much if my Dom gets softcapped defenses though. Most things are gonna be locked down or beating each other up from Seeds of Confusion or holds, or stunned by Psychic Shock Wave. After I have permadom, I favor ranged defense > melee defense = AOE defense. I don't totally redo power choices for it though. If I don't have Weave, ok, I don't have Weave. I don't need it on every character, and I prefer some flexibility rather than *always* taking the same pools on every character every time.

Actually that's not how i read it. I read it as a desire to channel people into other people's SG instead of people having personal SG's, so that then there can be a more populated "guild chat" and someone can set out organized and structured goals that other people should want to work for, instead of people doing what they darn well please with their own evening. Becuase you bring back Prestige, you bring back upkeep. Then someone's personal huge decorated superbase? SHUTS DOWN and can no longer be entered or used until the upkeep is paid. Admittedly, it could be done without upkeep... but the way I read it the original poster would be fine and dandy with 80% or more of the personal supergroups ceasing to exist and people needing to look for a new group to join. Maybe I'm just being very uncharitable in my interpretation however. These things happen after a long day at work.

There's always Kick / Boxing / Crosspunch too. If you take all three, they DO boost up quite nicely. And if you were already planning to get Weave, you're already dipping into that pool some. And, Kick becomes a VERY reliable Knockdown vehicle (40% chance), which is mitigation along with damage. If I was gonna do it I'd say Kin/Sonic, but it depends how much you plan to do this as a solo feat vs if you'll be teaming a lot. Dark/, Rad/, and Time/, are all very solid choices too.

You may wish to look at how virtually every other game in existence is run.

My position remains 100% unchanged. a) I do not have a high opinion of the perceptiveness and rational thinking of a crowd of gamers, and their ability to step back and consider alternate points of view and whether or not there's other angle they should consider. Case in point. I see /Regeneration roundly panned by the vast majority of players. I've never had a problem with it and quite frankly I suspect many people have never touched it, and are going purely by groupthink and crowd opinion instead of actually TRYING IT. And anytime I see power changes in any game... EverQuest, Diablo2, WoW, CoX, Fallout, etc... that I consider measured and well reasoned, there is always a massive wailing and gnashing of teeth on the forums for that particular game. Without fail. b) ultimately this is not and at root can never be some kind of democracy . Fundamentally, the devs are hosting us. We play at their sufference and they can show people the door at any time. That they are a much more levelheaded and reserve that for only gross misbehavior doesn't mean that the fundamental ownership has in any way changed.

Hm... the vote is missing a choice. I vote "I think the devs should act when they see fit, as they see fit, whether or not the playerbase agrees with them."

Some stalker sets are more single target focused, some are more AE-friendly. But if you solo a lot, you're unlikely to be in a situation where you NEED to burn down a host of mobs all at once. Caltrops is a hidden gem in /Ninjistu. Stops incoming damage from melee foes cold as they slowly try to escape the pain-field, and you get total free hits in the meantime. Also, the Stalker ATO's are *extremely* nice, to the point of being game-changing. Unless you're doing a deliberate live-off-the-land build, I heartily recommend slotting both ATO procs at lvl 10 or as close as you can after. Even if you move them around later with unslotters.

Defender. To be clear, I'm not talking about "first impression on Homecoming." I'm talking "first impression" which for me means Live, back in issue 0 or maybe 1. I don't always solo. But when I do, I drink DosEquis But I do solo at least some on every character, and I have a certain minimum "Okay. You're supposed to be Super Hero or a Super Villian. So you should darn well FEEL super." On live this meant setting difficulty to at least "Rugged", I think the Homecoming analog would be +2x1 With Solo Bosses ON. Back in Live, I simply couldn't get a defender past that. Not even a major story arc mission. Just a door mission with Skulls or 5th Column ("Council" didn't exist at that time... it was 5th Column). All they did was rack up impressive levels of debt. My scrappers, tankers, controllers could manage just fine. Blasters were squishy but if I hoarded my inspirations I could generally burn the boss down before it burned me down. But a Defender? Solo? Back then. Uh-uh. I pretty much HAD TO team to progress in any way, and then the character stopped feeling Super. Sure, they could heal Bob the Scrapper, or they could toss out some bubbles, or put out some Rad Debuff anchors. And they could help out a team. But if they were 100% guaranteed to die and rack up debt solo, then they weren't a hero... they were a sidekick at best. I did not roll another Defender for a long, long time. Not until after IO's were a thing. Now of course, I have four Defenders, which tops the spread among my alts. (Most AT's I have 3 of, some only 2). IO's and ATO's and general changes along the way changed things Considerably.

Another good reason to NOT have a Road Map is sometimes, hopefully not often, but sometimes, you will find that what sounded like a good idea is simply not feasible in any realistic timeframe, and the idea, however good it might be from the end user point of view, has to be put into the trash can. Not simply shelved or "maybe we can look at it later" but, "Sorry you have no CONCEPT of the amount of code rewriting that would have to occur, we are not spending 3-4 years on just this one idea, we just ain't gonna do it." Now imagine if they had to say something like that AFTER it had appeared on a road map? No matter how many disclaimers were on that road map? The rage (however irrational) would be legendary.

Don't know what to tell you. I did that mission just last week on a Blaster, and both bosses stayed relatively put. It was just your basic "pop inspirations and burn 'em down" encounter for both fights. Of course, I did use Glue Arrow on them, which may prevent them from jumping.

We could have a new Inherent called "Chew Bubblegum". Kinda like Fury? Except it starts full, and the more you attack, the more it wears down. Until you are all out. of bubblegum. 😁

I have a real hard time choosing any Dominator secondary OTHER than Psi Assult. Drain Psyche. leaving out every other power. giant -Regen debuff, huge personal +Recovery +Regen boost, for an AT with few normal self-healing options (though there's always Entropic Chaos procs...). Being your own debuffer to rip down the EB's, AV's, GM's regen? is vey vey nice. Psychic ShockWave is also huge though. Admittedly, it's your T9, lvl 38 to get it. But if you already have enough +Recharge for Perma Dom, this thing comes back FAST, and it's a strong PBAE that just wrecks most mobs, and also applies the -Recharge to them and also Stuns them, AND, the stun effect benefits from Domination. It's a perfect followup to a cast of Seeds of Confusion. (admittedly, yes, there are other dominator primaries, but did I mention I really really looooves me some confusion?)

I definitely think it's best if the person forming the TF sets the expectations in the message that they spam to LFG channel. And I think that even if, to you, there is a blindingly obvious and clear "default" for the TF, still specify that when sending messages to LFG channel. Because I guaran-dam-tee there's gonna be people out there who disagree with what you think the "default" should be for a given TF. And really you only have to type it once. How much harder is it to say "Forming Citadel TF, +0 speed run for quick merits, pst", or "Forming Citadel TF, +2, kill lots for exp and merits! pst" vs "Forming Citadel TF, pst". Might cost you entire seconds to type it out, and you avoid SO MUCH headaches once the group forms. Sure, there's no guarantee everyone actually READS your full text, (because, you know, reading is HARD...), and sure, there's no guarantee people will honor it. You may still have a pair of stalkers dead set on speed running it and finishing the mission no matter what you do. You may still have a Tank or Brute who's less sure of themselves and wants a slower more methodical clear. These things happen. But you at least would have set the tone, and it's entirely on THEM at that point if they don't like it, and you'd be entirely justified to kick them if they're causing grief.

I ran an Archery / Tactical Arrow blaster through 1-21, turning of XP for a long time at 9, and 14, and 19, so as not to outlevel any content. A blaster DID, admittedly, get dicey at times. Esp at lvl 9-12 range. But I made it through the vast majority of Praetorian missions without dying. Although I popped a lot of inspirations, including a bunch of Double Inspirations from Superpacks. And I did trick her out with Attuned everything. 4 ATO's from each blaster ATO set, Regenerative Tissue +25% regen, a couple of Entomb's for Ice Arrow, etc. This was most decidely NOT a live off the land character.

Levitate can be nice because it's Smashing damage for those pesky robots and Banished Pantheon zombies that take verrrry little damage from Psi. Also the flip up and knockdown is a few seconds where you can put a loose mob under control without it beating upon you. Totally agree on going wild with Confuse. having an AE to go with it to tag mobs is also nice, but evne if a few here and there are 100% killed by other confused mobs, even if it costs a few xp per kill, you get a lot more xp per time. and it's just plain FUN 🙂

I also main'd an Enchanter back in the EQ days, and my main character was specifically chosen to emulate that. Mind/Kin Controller Mezzes (sleeps), Charms (Confuse), Stuns (Holds) Slows + Hastens (Siphon Speed, Speed Boost) Enemy Debuffs (Siphon Power, Fulcrum Shift) Team Buffs (Siphon Power, Fulcrum Shift, Increase Density) Mana Replenishment (Transference) Never regretted it once. It is true, Mind does not get permanent pets like Fire, Dark, and most other (all other?) control sets. But c'mon if you Charm Solo'd at all in EQ, you can totally do this in CoH. And you'll probably have quite a bit of fun, though it might be a little iffy getting off the ground at first. Full disclosure, Confuses are among my most favorite powers in the game. I am entirely biased on this matter.

Hephaesto, my Fire/Thermal Corruptor back on Live, became a Fire/Fire Sentinel here. He's FAR more what I wanted the original character to be. A well nigh indestructable being of living steel and fire, but who throws fire and sets things on fire, but doesn't magically summon fire swords. If Sentinels existed back when City of Villians was first released, it's exactly what he would have been. Instead, back in live, I had to choose between making him tough like a brute, or being able to throw fire but being squishy. He worked as a Corruptor, but I was never really happy with it.

I would love this. I'm sure it would be.... Unfun... to code. I think some animations / powers are regrettably intertwined. But the biggest reason I have never made a Tri-Form character is I *hate* the look of the squid. I know, lots of people love it, and all power do you. It doesn't do it for me.

This is true. I have switched costume colors sometimes when making a new character because of this, or gone to helmets / hoods.