MTeague

Mind/Kin for me. In addition to @EmperorSteele's excellent post above, the combo has several points additional strengths that make it perfect for me. a Non-Aggroing Confuse. I see so many players who still can't get past a slight loss of XP-per-kill when you can get much better and safer XP-per-time with Confuse. And the fact that the cast causes no aggro means you never have to start a fight wtih boss aggro if you don't want to. Two casts of Confuse and the boss is your unwilling ally and you can KEEP him confused for free hits for basically forever. You do need to be aware of certain mobs that have extremely high resistance / protection to confuse (looking at you, Nemesis and Arachnos Huntsman...), but they are definitely the exception. Repel, a power I once considered only good for funsies, can contribute quite a bit of emergency ragdoll defense if you slot it with a KB to KD enhancer. Despite the name "Repel", this power has no actual Repel effect. It's just a PBAE Knockback aura. Which you can shazam into a KnockDOWN aura with just it's default slot. And once you get Transference, the end cost is greatly mitigated. Telekneisis can be very useful levelling up, as an extra guaranteed source of Hold Magnitude. Later on that becomes less important, as you get the Lockdown Chance for +2 Mag Hold IO's, and once you can chain Mass Dominate with Dominate. I eventually respec'd out of it, but it did save my and my team's bacon levelling a few times. Allll the kin buffs. Siphon Power, i eventually respec out of because Fulcrum Shift, though if you're maintain an Exemplar / Flashback build, Siphon power totally deserves a spot. Siphon Speed, very easy to stack twice. Doable to get a third stack with Hasten. This lets you CRAP out the Hold Magnitudes or Confuse Magnitudes. You're not a Perma-Dom Dominator... but you can shut down the big bads all the same. Increase Density is *very* easily overlooked among Speed Boost and Fulcrum Shift, but while it may not be flashy, granting every squishy on your team Hold, Stun, and Knockback protection for the entire duration of the team, is quite nice. Speed Boost, Fulcrum Shift, no writeup necessary.

I remember several very well done missions in AE in live that no longer exist. If I could host some of them, even very clearly labeled as "Not mine, I can take no credit, posted purely for homage", I would. Someday, I may get wild and crazy and see if I can reconstruct a couple of them as Tribute to the original author/mission. But heck, I in the Base Editor, I can barely manage to get below my SG base and start creating the beginning shell of an island, or above where I'd like to someday have an Airship or Starcruiser. I doubt my Mission-Builder-Fu will be strong enough to create good looking mission maps with all the tiny details that add up to so much.

Well, I tried to roll an Ice Controller, and go figure, the name Kelvin was long since taken. But whoever has the name, if you haven't already done so, please do me the favor of taking Jack Frost, and naming him Hobbes. 😀

I'm actually very glad to see this. I've been constantly wanting to TRY Stone Armor and constantly saying "But I has to see mah costume... at least SOME of it....". This could bridge that gap nicely.

He is serious. And stop calling him Shirly.

I love fighting Malta, in part because everyone hates them so much. But my 2 main characters are a Mind Controller and a Plant Dom, and both have Confuse. Confuse makes malta, super easy. My next 2 characters are a Stalker (stabbitize the sapper) and an SR scrapper (sapper can't touch this). all of which make Malta really a non-issue for me. I used to really dislike fighting Carnies, because they have Very high Psi defense, and that was an issue for my Mind/Kin. Esp the Master Illusionists. With Nerve alpha, it's not a problem anymore. So I'd probably say Freakshow annoy me the most because it feels like I always have to kill them twice.

Anytime iTunes chooses "(Wish I could Fly like) Superman" by the Kinks. I always hear this in my head playing my Invul/SS tanker.

I want my character to be able to enter City of Heroes Gyros, or El Super Mexicano, or Up N Away Burger, order food, and eat. 🙂 More seriously? Add three zones on the moon. One, a Blueside zone where humanity is trying to further the space program for science and runs into problems and needs supers to help out. Two, a Redside zone where Arachnos is building a Giant Moonbase Laser. Because C'MON. One Million Dollars!!! Three, a PvP zone. Because you couldn't believably have red and blue on the moon without some kind of hot-spot. I don't know how many people would USE it, but could throw the PvP'er s a bone.

"World Wide Red" is probably one of the best mission arcs I've seen in the entire game, in AE or not. Pratoria or vanilla. It's full of Malta sure, but it's awesome story-wise and people should really take the time to treat themselves to it and READ IT some day. It's FAR longer than 5 missions. It's longer than some task forces I've been on. I don't care. Maybe you prefer short paperbacks. Some of us enjoy long and complex stories.

Converter Roulette if I stay in game. Fire up the slow cooker if I don't.

Well, even if there's no official subscriptions as such, I know I personally would be willing to do a recurring $10 / month donation, if the day ever comes when that's allowable. I don't mind an up-front price, and I don't mind a subscription. And I recognize they have costs to cover, and the simple fact that hey, they're putting forth a lot of effort to restore a game I love, to maintain it, to carefully and gradually expand upon it. And that has value to me. I don't mind in the slightest if they profit from this, if and when they are eventually able to do so legally. What I don't want, is for the game to become microtransaction-based. Let the "P2W" vendor's name be only an ironic joke, and not the sad reality of too many other games.

For my Plant / Psi dom, my pools are: Speed: Hasten, nothing else. Leaping: Combat Jumping, nothing else (LotG mule, minor defense) Flight: Hover (LotG mule, minor defense), Fly (travel) Leadership: Manuvers (LotG mule, defense), Tactics, Assault Psi Mastery: Link Minds (LotG mule, defense), Mind Over Body. Psi mastery mostly just because my attacks are already all Psi, but also I really wanted to play around with Link Minds and see how close it comes vs not to the Widow version. (Not nearly as close as I'd hoped, but still, it ain't bad). I don't need indomitable will, because Permadom. Scorpion Shield may be better for personal defense, but I still have quite a lot from set bonuses, and I prefer to contribute a decent chunk of defense to the entire team. Psi Assault brings in Drain Psyche to allow me to heal up and for -Regen for the biggie-wiggies. Plant Control also brings in Spirit Tree, which is also nice maintenence healing, and lets me slot the entire preventative medicine set for the 8.75% recharge and the absorb proc.

basically correct. And yes, there are some Non-Positional-Attacks in the game. Very few, but they are there. They say Neener Neener to your positional defenses. Non-Positional attacks can only be defended against via Typed defense (smashing, lethal, etc). Otherwise they just hit you.

Honestly, even if the talks with NCSoft are slowing down new content.... taking that as a complete given for the sake of the argument.... I still want them to stay the course. I would rather they give as much of a try as can be given to be a legit operation, and thus buy protection from possible legal hammers, then have them flip birds at NCSoft and always live under the threat of a shutdown. This isn't a game I want to play for a few months and be chomping at the bit for the next shiny thing. I could spend YEARS in city of heroes, EASY. Hell, I did it on Live, and I'm looking to do it again here. Plus, I make bank as a software developer myself. I'm not in the gaming industry, but still. I'm a programmer. I'm able to make a living because of copyrights on software. I have some ethical quandries squaring that with playing a game that I know the HC team does not really have full rights to. The siren song of remaking my characters was too strong to resist, but I would really like the legal issues resolved and agreements reached.

So, I've tanked in other MMO's. Specifically, Warcraft. Expectations were kinda sky-high there. Tanks were expected to know every mechanic of every boss in every raid to know the maps of every instance, small group or raid to have full court vision at all times to pickup adds to properly manage every cooldown so as to not faceplant and not be the tank with the spiky healthbar. to know and mark killzones and priority mobs to kill. Clearly, quite a bit of this does not and cannot be expected to carry over into City of Heroes. It's a far more casual game, and very little even rises to the content of "Progression Grinding Endgame Encounters". I know of nothing in the CoH that can consistently wipe an experienced premade group for 3 hours a night for 2 weeks straight while they learn how to get their execution down perfectly. (And this is a GOOD THING, I am SO DONE with the WoW treadmill). But... I find myself massively gunshy at joining any group with my Tanker. I don't want to be complete Faily McFailtank by not even being AWARE of what groups are expecting from me in this game. So.... what are fair expectations of a CoX Tanker, in your view? ===== By G'Quan, I can't recall the last time I was in a fight like that! No moral ambiguity, no hopeless battle against ancient and overwhelming forces! They were the bad guys, as you say, and we were the good guys! And they made a very satisfying thump! when they hit the floor. - Citizen G'Kar, Babylon 5, Season 3, *A Late Delivery From Avalon*

Well, on one hand, yes, using a Shivan does mean you're kind of not defeating them in a fair fight using just your own character's powers. But there's something to be said for realizing when the other side is already playing unfair, and being every bit as unfair, right back at them. Refa: Why? Why did you do this? Londo: To guarantee your cooperation! And because sooner or later, you would do it to me. Yes, we are returning to the old ways, Refa, and poison was always the instrument of choice in the old Republic. Being something of a sentimentalist, I got here first. - Babylon 5, Season 3, "Ceremonies of Light and Dark"

Mind/Kin is a nice combo but it can be will be slow to start. It works best if you're fully willing to use Confuses to protect yourself and your team. Levitate is some team-friendly knockup damage mitigation (boss ain't attacking while flung into the air or getting back up) Terrify (the Cone-Fear) is really more of a personal damage vehicle than much else. But it is nice to apply damage to a crowd after Mass Confuse to ensure exp will be had by all. Transfusion Siphon Speed is easy to stack and the +20% recharge you get from it stacks. Very nice for unleashing lots of mags of hold for EB's / AV's. Increase Density will give hold/stun/knockback protection to everyone else and smashing/energy resist. But it's not nearly as "noticeable" as the rest of the /Kin powers. Speed Boost / Fulcrum Shift <mic drop>

I really think Caltrops is wildly underrated by a lot of people. It doesn't do a ton of damage, but it slows the heck out of mobs and they take time trying to get off the caltrops and that's FREE HITS on them. At the very least it's a period of no incoming damage from them. No, you don't want to use Caltrops on the pack that a tank just pulled for AE nuking, but if a group of melee has gotten past to your squishies, toss those bad boys on the ground! I would like to see Triage Beacon become Triage Drone however.... something mobile that could follow you.

Just finding this thread, sounds like a blast. I'm just picturing an entire Amazon Jungle of Carrion Creepers causing chaos galore. But for your Plant/Sonic's -Res toggle - drop it on a Dominator. They tend to have a fair number of melee attacks and will probably be least shy about getting up close and personal. Esp if you tell them, you're going to put the toggle on them, and if they've got Sonic bubbles up to make them much less squishy. My Plant/Psi dominator usually lives in melee (Drain Psyche, and all...)

I cry a little bit when I see "Does not do the Confuse route". Confuse, is frickin' AWESOME. Confuse = completely free hits on the confused mob, and it's not hard to keep a mob perma-confused. Plus, the confused mob will help your team fight. "But you lose xp", not really. If the confused mob does 100% of the damage to an enemy and kills it solo, then and ONLY then, do you not get exp. If people deal at least ONE SINGLE hp of damage to the target before the confused mob kills it, you get like 50% of the exp you would have gotten if your team killed it outright. And the Exp you get scales up the more damage your team does to it. And you kill FASTER (and safer). It's not about XP per kill, it's XP per TIME. Levelling, Confuse is great. At 50? Confuse a Sapper. Watch and giggle as it saps the Malta Zues Titan instead of your friends. Same with Carnie Ring mistresses. They'll toss their Mark of Vitae on an enemy, not you or a teammate. Rikti Guardians? They'll bubble you and give you Accelerated Metabolism. Knives of Artemis? Their caltrops instantly stop hurting you and start hurting and slowing them, and they run away all slowly and it's free hits baby. Mass Confuse is every bit as good. a) stacked with regular confuse, it's a one-two-whammy to confuse any boss. b) one cast and your squishes are safe to alpha strike whatever. c) just got jumped from behind? Mass Confuse / Terror, they're all beating each other up, you've damaged all of them, group will get plenty of exp for the kills without turning to focus on them. And with good +Recharge, yes it possible to Confuse EB's and even AV's. It's rare that you would need to, true, but i've saved groups where we didn't have a tank and the big bad would whomp down the squishes too fast. Popped Hasten, got good confuse rotation going while the rest held back and sure enough, confused, then everyone UNLOADED on it during free hit and we wins. Most of the time though, for EB's / AV's, you're better of with Hasten, Dominate (with Lockdown proc), Mass Domination (with Lockdown proc), and Telekneisis to rapidly dump mags of Hold. My main is a Mind/Kin/Psi. For Mind, I took every power. Every last one of them. And use them all. Not in every fight, the right tool for the right job. For Kin I skipped Siphon Power and Inertial Reduction. Took everything else. He's a blast to play.

There's MANY villian groups it makes no lore-wise sense for. But I admit, I would cheer if I saw two Rikti Mentalists merge together and form a glowing ball of ghostly rage and said "Power Overwhelming!!" Blizzard would probably object to that specific one though. And lorewise, Rikti != Protoss.

Something like this might be easier to rationalize too, if there were more "styles" of crab-pack. Maybe a translucent energy crab pack. Maybe a boney / spikey organic crab pack (I'm thinking Kerrigan Queen of Blades here). It could also make it easier to justify Crabs with different origins, or even make a crab-pack appealing to a NON crab as a costume choice, if it didn't come with an Arachnos logo and have two choices that are both high-tech instead of something that might be psionic/natural/magic/mutant. It would be controllable to have it appears vs not, same way there are Auras that are always on or Combat only. That said. I am a programmer. (NOT with homecoming, or any game company, i do medical software). I know full well this could be a VERY large undertaking, in terms of artwork, in terms of code invasiveness, etc. I do not beleive this can qualify as "Best use of limited man-hours" anytime soon. But I think it's entirely reasonable to put the idea on an "It would be nice if..." list, as long as we don't form expectations.

Because Zer0 has a sniping tree and melee trees. "Striking from nowhere / Killing with accuracy / This is who I am."

if the target was walking back and forth they might have moved outside of range during the interrupt period.

If you solo at all, don't underestimate Spore Burst. A well timed sleep can save you big levelling up. That said, if you plan to group most of the time, it's probably not worth it to you.