EmperorSteele

Huh, hadn't factored in dual boxing and a mission full of helpers! I still feel like the 24 merits per minute is overblown, as I assume you'd have to find the GMs AND the helpers, and that itself would take a minute or two. But even so, that's a very high merit per minute ratio, and needed to be squashed. The rest of my point still stands about there being plenty of quick or easy ways to get merits. Just maybe, not THAT quick and easy!

I'm pretty sure having a swimming pool that close to a dance floor is a safety hazard, especially with alcohol involved! But if you don't care about that, then you should go crazy and have the pool SURROUNDING the dance floor, with the bar smack in the middle! Also, good work on the beds, they look great!

I disagree about having to do unfun stuff. Every story arc and TF in the game awards merits. You should be able to fund your builds just by doing one or two TFs a night. Heck, right now, Dr. Q is the weekly, and you can get almost 300 merits running it once (144 for subsequent runs). Takes about an hour and a half, as long as you and your teammates all have P2W teleport powers and access to a base macro. And since it's mostly defeat-alls, your chances of making some bank are pretty high! By contrast, you're not gonna be able farm GMs without either a) a team or b) an already high-end build. GMs are only worth 6 merits a piece. and so you'd have to be able to kill them in less than 2 minutes for the merit/reward ratio to be conquerable to doing, well, anything else. Example: Apex/Tin Mage can be done in a half hour easily, and award 80 merits. Hamidon raids net 80 merits, and are often completed in under 20 minutes (once they get started, anyway). If you're tired of doing the same three Task Forces (Ms Liberty, Lady Grey, and Imperious), many later-level hero side story arcs award 40+ merits, and with a team can be blasted through in around an hour. I don't know what kind of content you mean when you say you'd rather "play the game", but in most cases, if you are, funding your alts shouldn't be an issue =/

I don't want to give the illusion that all homecoming players are min/maxers or anything, but there's a couple possible reasons you may not be finding many builds: One, Elec isn't a top-tier set; Two, Elec/Kin is a sapping combo, which... doesn't work in PvE. You can drain a baddie down to nothing, and a half second later they'll get a spike of endurance and be able to shoot. It's a good soft control in PvP, but for most other content, folks have found it's not worth pursuing. Hopefully someone else comes through for ya, good luck!

That sounds hilarious, looking forward to seeing what was done!

Maybe something broke when they made him the hero side "talk to" for the incarnate origin?

Everyone in this thread has made some really awesome stuff! From Alien worlds to modern cityscapes full of kitbashed yet recognizable staples! I'm in awe of the lot of you! I've scoured this thread and other resources looking for inspiration on how to do things. But there was one special feature, that one MAGICAL thing, that's eluded me thusfar. Maybe someone else already did this, and I missed it, in which case I'll be mad because I was tearing my hair out trying to make my concept work. I was going through each and every single item, trying to find the one thing that might make a suitable substitute for what I wanted to do. The editor actually has similar objects, but they were too bulky or fancy for what I had in mind. But then I found it! The one thing that will bring my concept to life and make me truly happy with my endeavor... That said, I am proud to present my humble contribution to the proceedings: I MADE A DOOR! (Two blank pegboards flipped around with a 5 lb barbell shoved into them. It's so simple now that I've done it, but getting there was rough!)

So, maybe this was answered once already, but, I noticed that we're not paying for a lawyer anymore (and haven't been for a while). As I understand, this individual was a key player in the talks with NCSoft. Is there anything you can disclose about what's going on there?

I'll also throw my hat in for Primal. Power Boosted Farsight, especially combined with Time's Juncture (if you run it) puts you well past the defense cap, and that's without any IOs or other fancy tricks. This type of combo IS in line for an "adjustment", but that may not be for a while, so I'd say enjoy it while you can!

The textures and pumpkins were there last year 😃

That's an interesting test, @FUBARczar. Though I play exclusively on Excel and never heard of it being run (feels bad, man). In any event, it makes sense: Doms are supposed to be a pure offense AT, but they trade raw power for control, and controls don't work very well against +4 enemies. Doms don't have any self defense, buffs, or debuffs, unless you go out of your way to build for it. Also, are all these characters SO's only, or are they all loaded with VR ATOs, IO sets, incarnate abilities and/or P2W buffs? Because those later few things would skew the results a LOT, especially if we're talking about baseline damage and the ability of controls to affect the mobs. Here's a test I would propose: SO's only, no incarnates or outside buffs, regular run at +0/x8. See if Doms stay on the bottom compared to other ATs doing the same test or not. I predict completion times will be higher, and that some ATs will trade places (I feel like the 4-man Controller group were all Illusion/*, good luck keeping a good time WITHOUT perma PA!) Though I guess an argument could be made that the Devs here are looking at endgame performance, and that DOES mean IOs and Incarnates and all that, so if WITH all that Doms fall behind, then it is something worth looking at. Maybe allowing Domination to up the secondary effect/debuff mods on their blast powers?

Just make Mind Control the best set in the game and I'm happy =P

Weaken Resolve is normally for if you don't have much in the way of debuffs. It does a small amount of -def, res, and tohit, and lasts just long enough for you to get a few hits. Makes a nice proc-gun, but you have plenty of rad powers for -def, which you can slot -res procs into, soooo the utility of this power is a bit superfulous in your case. Wall of Force is really only good if you're starved for AoEs, OR you need an AoE with Knock so you can slot a FF + Rech proc into it. Also, not sure what the 13.3 seconds is, I've only ever seen it do all its damage up front, not in ticks. Either Mids is wrong, or the 13.3 is a cooldown on being able to knock down foes with subsequent casts? Also, it should be mentioned, it's a RANGED attack, with an 40 foot reach. PS is a 7 foot melee attack, so you're comparing a fresh apple to an old orange.

For some reason I thought you meant "redneck" and was going to suggest the Trucker badge. I know there's one or two Feakshow related badges that use l337-speak (such as Pwnz), which is about as nerdy as this game gets.

MT: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that everyone on Praetoria thought Hamidon was dead, and it's just his creatures out beyond the fences? Isn't that what the big reveal at the end of Underground was, that Cole never defeated Hami and it's been watching humanity this whole time? Or was it simply the lie that Cole COULD beat Hamidon, even though he couldn't, he merely bargained with it?

So apparently the original plan for CoV WAS to pick a faction to join, buuuut seeing as the 5th Column were literal Nazis, well... the idea didn't keep. But then they wound up replacing the 5th with the Council before CoV launched anyway, but by that time it was way too late to go back to the original plan.

Of my dozen or so characters, only 1 is completely finished (all T4s, badges, all story arcs complete, etc). I have maybe two others who are Incarnate'd out, but nothing too extravagant.

I dunno if it counts as "One" thing, but I'd rework some of the ATs and their role(s) on a team. The issue I have with ATs is two-fold. One: The Villain archetypes were made with soloing in mind, and also were supposed to represent a "dark mirror" of sorts to the heroside ATs. It's not one-for one, obviously, but it's not hard to see that Brutes are "just angry tankers" and that stalkers are "just invisible scrappers with controllable crits, lol". Adding onto that, all the "mirror" ATs share most of the same powersets. Especially sets that came later in the game's life. And this was all FINE while the two games were separate. But now that you can have any AT on any side at any time? Well, while it's nice to just do what you want, it has made some ATs a bit superfluous when you're talking about the endgame or meta or what have you. One specific idea I've had was to rework Stalkers: Instead of being "Scrappers but with AS and mandatory Hide", I'd do something a little more creative with them. Think about, say, Batman. He hides in the shadows, and uses tricks, gadgets, and subterfuge to manipulate and finally take down his foes. For Stalkers, I'd bring this a bit more into play. Remove most of their armor powers, and give them light mezzes and debuffs. Sure, you might only have 12.5% defense, but you could also assail the baddies with flashbangs, fears, immobs, confusion, and other effect to keep you safe and pick them off. This would A) Make them more than just "Invizibul skrapperz lol", and B) give them some utility on a team besides just DPS. Ninjitsu is already a bit like this, but they dropped the ball on the other secondaries. I'd do other things, like make Tanks more AoE-centric, give Controllers a way to compete with Domination (maybe by extending Containment to all mez types?), etc. But the Stalkers one is something I've actually put some thought into. Though I should add that I don't expect HC to actually do this. We're just spitballing here, right? 😃

I'd probably give it a cone or slash damage attack, especially the Tank/Brute/Scrapper versions. Let it keep up with the Jones's, so to speak. At the very least, buff Whirling Hands' damage. I played an Inv/EM on live, and while I never minded the single-target focus of the set, I also skipped half of it. When I recreated the character here, I made her Inv/Rad instead, not just to play with the New Shiny, but because I recognized that a Tank, who's always surrounded by dudes, should probably have more than one AoE option (And Rad has a cone, a patch, and an PBAoE, AND a chance for all of its powers to do splash damage?! Dayum!). So in that regard, EM isn't a great set for Tanks, at least, not in my opinion. If changing what powers are in the set isn't an option, then maybe a slight endurance and recharge reduction is in order. If it's supposed to be a single-target damage factory, let it be a more efficient one. Yeah, it's ST damage would then be slightly off-curve, but you're still talking about being out-done by most other tanker secondaries when you consider kills per hour or XP per minute or whatever other larger-scale metric you can think of.

So, I have this Inv/Rad Tank, and I was choosing powers and slotting them haphazardly as I leveled her up, not really paying attention to her build, just getting her up there. I eventually tightened things up a little bit and she became really fun to play, soloing +4/x8 missions and AVs and all that. Buuut I felt she wasn't as good as she COULD be. Little global recharge, endurance hog, damage was good but could probably be better, etc. So I opened up Mids, compiled a build, showed people, got feedback, took some suggestions, and overall came away with all her stats better than they ever had been! This was gonna be great! I went in-game, respec'd, picked all the powers and correctly placed all the slots, bought up all the enhancements I needed, aaaaand... ... Nothing. Well, maybe not "nothing". Her endurance management is better, but other than that? She's not doing anything she couldn't do before. It feels like nothing really changed. Kinda feels like a wast of an evening and all the inf and merits I spent. Kinda having buyer's remorse on the whole thing, y'know? What about the rest of you? Any of you ever have something like this happen?

So quick story time: As a kid I'd imagined up a ninja dude who uses a staff and gadgets to beat up bad guys. It's dumb but w/e. When I started playing CoH back in the day, neither Staff nor Ninjitsu were made yet, so I rolled my guy as a Kat/Dark and had a decent time with him. Fast Forward to now, where HEY, I can roll a Staff/Nin scrapper! Finally! So I did... and he's kinda underwhelming so far. He's only level 18 or so, so it's not like I'm expecting anything great outta him, but... playing him just feels like a drag. Due to the combo system, I end up repeating the same moves in the same order every fight... which I guess happens with my other characters anyway, but that doesn't feel forced. With staff, it's like "if you want the most damage, better click the orange circle on this long-animation AoE when there's only one bad guy left. No? Boy, you just wasted a lot of time building up a combo for nothing!" It doesn't feel satisfying, I guess. Is this maybe a late-blooming combo? Does it maybe not synergize very well and that's what I'm feeling? Is there anything I should look forward to while I level him? Gimme some hope here, guys!

Point of correction: You get Phantom Army at 18. Phantasm comes in at level 32. Yeah, you can get the most bonkers power in the game at level 18. But, it doesn't get SUPER bonkers unless you go out of your way to get all the juicy recharge needed to make it perma. Mind/Kin is my all time favorite combo for soloing. Of course, it can also be a little boring. Mass hypnotize, fulcrum shift, then pick off one by one. Sometimes maybe whittle the foes down to a sliver of HP then terrorize them all to death in one attack. When played "right", you'll never take a single point of damage while solo. It's kinda slow, but super safe. But also, don't expect to be soloing AVs without some kind of help. A secondary with better -regen would probably be better suited to pair with Mind if that's what you want to do. EDIT: Ninja'd!

I agree with VV. It's nice not feeling like you HAVE to take every power in a set, because EVERY power is "so good". And for those who can take the "clunky" powers and do good things with them, then all the more power to 'em!

Yeah, he gets in dude's faces, like a Scrapper. Doesn't really attack from the shadows or anything like, say, Batman. Though he IS good at vanishing when he needs to, so, you could still make an argument for Stalker. My first instinct for a secondary would be SR, because his whole shtick is "reading people" and dodging BEFORE they even attack. Though I guess he's still limited by what his body can actually do, so it's not like he's matrix-dodging anything, as SR implies.

So, every time I toy around with AE, I end up running into a wall of some sort. I'm sure we all do. Some of these things that we'd like to do are, well, pipe dreams (like cutscenes; I doubt we'll ever get those =P). But a few are simply because something is broken. First: Dialogue is broken. Not just the "Unaware" dialogue that goes off as soon as you enter the mission, but also the spawn-in dialogue which never goes off at all, or sometimes 75%/50%/25% text won't always go off if you beat a baddie down too quick. If the HC Devs ever take a look at AE, this is the thing that needs to be fixed first! Second: Clunkiness. The editor can be clunky. Sometimes text doesn't appear correctly, or you get weird symbols. Sometimes AE mucks up a critter's appearance or powers. Though it does seem better than how I remember on Live, so maybe some work was done there already? Still, room for improvement. Third: Enemy spawn configurations. If I have a group with 5 distinct minions, and the game only chooses one of them and repeats them five times for a spawn, that's a little wonky. Or if I have a bunch of rescues, and the game chooses the same random guy instead of the other dozen available choices, well, that's not cool. Make sure the game chooses separate mobs when available. Or, there might be times when a creator DOES want all the mobs to look the same for a specific instance, in which case, they should be allowed to just check a box instead of having to make a whole new enemy group of just the one character. This starts to get into pipe-dream territory, because I'm sure there are those who want to make a spawn of all AVs (like at the end of MLTF/ and multiple times in the LRSF), and if we're gonna work on spawning rules, that would be a logical next step. Or being able to control what level custom critters are (they're all 1-54 by default, though I imagine there are cases where a creator would want a custom critter to be overleveled or underleveled in certain scenarios). Fourth: Clue clean-up. In the rest of the game, clues are discarded once you accept a new mission, and the story synopsis is replaced with one that includes the latest details. This would be nice to have for AE missions, instead of what ends up being a huge, messy list of clues after 4 or 5 missions. (3 clues per mission isn't a lot, but that's 15 clues by the end of a 5-missiona arc!) So that's the low-hanging fruit, stuff that's bugged and should be fixed, or is close enough. Beyond that? I imagine we'd all like more maps, an option for contact dialogue trees, having in-mission dialogue trees (which can lead to someone attacking you or leaving you alone, depending; see DA arcs for a lot of this!), that sort of thing. Maybe even branching missions, or missions that change based on choices you made before. But those are a bit more pipe-dream than things that can probably be fixed. Anyway, that's my 2 cents. What's everyone else's low-hanging fruit fix list?