Greycat

There's a *big* gap between "Don't play a dedicated healer" and "healing is useless/doesn't have a place." It does have a place. The reason "dedicated healers" are put down is - well, it's the difference between a mechanic who uses a full toolkit and one that walks around with a screwdriver and a grin. One's going to use all the tools at their disposal to fix - and *prevent* - problems, the other just looks silly and isn't really going to help much with your flat tire.

*laughs as I sleep groups of enemies and wander by to get glowies... even in the bunkers in Keyes... without drawing aggro.* Sleeps are far from useless. Don't give in to this mindset that just because damage "wakes" them it's useless. Sleeps will shut down things other controls won't, and even if the mob's woken up right away, they often won't have a key power available (for instance, dispersion bubbles - which generally resist other controls, PBAOE -tohit auras or armors.) They make life *much* easier and are underrated. *wanders over to shut down some AVs in a MLTF. They need a nap.* As for the rest? Honestly, yes, I find people not *noticing* the contributions, sometimes, but they'll happily take *full* advantage of, say, that Quicksand or Ice Slick patch bunching up an ambush for easy AOEing, or taking out that Sapper that's stuck in a bunch of vines, or casually breaking that Gunslinger that can no longer teleport away or energy blasting PP that will never MOG because they're in a hunk of ice. Lack of big orange number generation doesn't mean lack of usefulness.

Well, look at what you're getting here. With you talking about how you're presenting yourself ("I'm a dedicated healer,") you're seeing peoples' reactions and the *why* of it (which you don't get if, say, someone just doesn't respond to you.) You have to keep an idea of what's wanted and what you're putting out there. There's a reason, after all, cars are named Mustang and Bronco and other exciting (or, granted, utilitarian, but usefully utilitarian) things in most cases rather than "model 2018 sedan 2" - and they try to avoid accidental names that are... less appealing. (Just ask anyone who owned a brown Ford Probe.) I mean, going back to your OP: (snip) What people are telling you, basically, is that from experience (live and here,) the "Dedicated healer" might be... great (well, useful) through the teens, maybe even up to level 20. But after that it tends to be half a character, and not that effective or useful. COH has *always* had this difference people have had to learn. Most MMOs go by the "holy trinity" of tank, DPS and healer. There, yes, you need someone focusing on keeping you alive... though there's often an "and buffed" to it, too. Here - we don't need that structure. The buffs and debuffs are important (and are often delivered through the attacks/controls that most people who call themselves "dedicated healers" or "pure healers" skip and/or don't slot.) You want shockingly effective, you get a team of emp/* Defenders (or corruptors) that get their rotation of their buffs set up. They're pretty much untouchable. (There's a group called Repeat Offenders. On live - maybe on here, too, I haven't caught up with them - one of their subgroups was called the "Green Machine." Dedicated to Empaths who did exactly this and basically turned themselves into regen blasters. A single emp/something defender might be a bit underwhelming. A team of them reinforcing each other? Frightening.) So. In your case, Illusion/Emp by itself is not a bad combo. It's a fairly classic combination. (Not least for keeping *yourself* safe, with an inherent invisibility.) You mention PA and Phantasm, sure... but what *else* besides "and I'm a healer" are you bringing to the table? Are you just being invisible while throwing out green numbers and pets? Or have you taken and slotted your controls (yes, even the placeable fear, yes, even the PBAOE hold, yes, even the confuse) and the attack? How are your buffs? If people aren't getting hurt, are you doing more than just sitting back and waiting for PA to recharge? You want to keep the rest of the team alive and kicking, you do it through being proactive (with your controls and buffs.) And if you're doing that, drop that "Dedicated healer" tag if that's how you're advertising yourself. An ill/emp is welcome for all the other ways they can change fights. So be that.

I'm sad we didn't have more of a turnout.

This. 100% this. Mostly from prior experience with "dedicated healers" - like the 30-ish rad emission character who just took the healing aura, med pool, and no buffs or debuffs and didn't bother attacking - if someone describes themselves as a "healer" or "Dedicated healer," I pretty much write them off. (Yes, I know, "it's unfair." But it's from experience.) And yes, I play empaths and pain domination characters. "Healers" are just not needed. That whole secondary (or primary in the case of controllers and corruptors) is there, and I want to know you're interested in using it, because those controls and attacks (both as attacks and with their buff/debuff components) are of *far* more interest to me than something I can replicate with an inspiration. If one of my empaths (or pain doms) is in an MSR just "rocking the aura," one of three things has happened: 1. nothing is coming up as a visible target, so I'm watching for wherever the next pull is coming from, 2, I've gone to the rest room and will be right back, or 3, it's been a long day at work and I fell asleep. (Yes. This has happened. Finish work, get to the raid, get in the bowl, and at some point I wake up to the login screen because I just conked out.) Otherwise, I'm throwing out controls, attacks, running over to rez, getting impatient and blasting a gate to get some more Rikti into the bowl... something.

As far as awards, the raids have a ton of enemies at... don't they generally spawn at 54? So it kind of makes sense that killing them en masse is giving you a rain of merits. That's honestly irrelevant to what you're asking about, though. I want to say I've ended up with more than that, but given there are chunks of the arc you're not fighting Rikti (which are what drop the merits, after all,) but rogue Vanguard, Nemesis, etc.... it "makes sense" that they're not dropping. Regardless of that, though, you're still working for Vanguard. So while you wouldn't get them for individual defeats (since you're not fighting Rikti at that point,) there should still be a good Vmerit reward at the end. If this were implemented, I'd imagine that, say, the first time you run through (both "each arc" and "finishing the whole thing," you'd get a bonus reward, but even repeating, getting a reasonable vmerit reward for finishing the arc would make sense and make running them more desirable. (Of course, that comes back to "need more stuff to spend them on besides an HVAS, storage (once) and then converting." No, I do not want unlockable costume pieces to come back, that sucked.)

It is, under "moooo."

I generally need more than "I want to slot more stuff in there" as a reason for change, tbh. Want more slotting options, look at the sets available and come up with something useful that's missing or gives a new and interesting option.

... Don't give them to the Rikti drones. (Granted, the "continuous Rikti drone explosion"was one bug that had me laughing for a while...)

To be blunt? I don't care what you do on your private server. I'm not saying that to be an ass, I'm saying it because what goes on there is ... pretty irrelevant here. The HC team has shown they're concerned about how things actually *turn out* when they're available. They've earned my trust with what they expect the end results to be. I may not always *agree,* but I know it's not just "ooh I can turn this on" and spaghetti-against-wall development, seeing what sticks and just taking the resulting mess of what didn't as fine.

... *Small volunteer team.* Keep repeating that when you want to say things like this. Adding *anything* takes more time than it did on live. This is not Cryptic/NCNorCal/Paragon with full time paid developers and support staff. They'll do what they can, as they can, and as they see it as not detrimental to the game or their talks with NC.

I would. I want to keep my specifically chosen ST confuses. They're exceptionally useful, especially early. Large aoe controls in general need recharge looked at, as I recall, though.

Er... no thanks. This would make life hell for any support AT with a sleep in a solo/small team, and if you're shutting down an AV ... just no.

I think there's generally been technical reasons for us not having it (or having it yet.) Not that I'd be against getting it, mind you.

I'll generally argue on the side of "sleeps *are* useful!" but even I wouldn't argue with something like this. 🙂

Yeah, having a "music" channel itself, I think, would be great.

And don't forget the things that were "fillers" in bread and the like in the middle ages (and up... there's a reason we have things like the FDA.) Sawdust, plaster...

Why would they logically be shared? Defeats are counted simply from buffs/debuffs affecting defeats (for instance) to keep force multiplying but low damage ATs from getting screwed for helping in a team. The others, though, are individual achievements (or ... not exactly "achievements.") I can't see agreeing to this because "it's tedious for badge hunters." To me, doing so would cheapen it for the people who *are* doing those things. I'm happy when my emps or pain dom characters hit healing badges because it shows I'm doing my job. Not because "oh, I stood around on my brute while someone else did this." Not to mention the pure abuse this opens up. Full team, 1-2 people leaving a healing aura on auto, one in lava or whatever, and they *all* get damage taken and healing badges, even though only one would be taking damage? At that point, you might as well just throw all the badges in the P2W vendor as freebies, as they'd be worthless otherwise. We have people asking for things to work towards. Badges are it. And are one of the few times I agree they should remain "a grind."

Any damage would break a sleep, unless it's coded in to part of the sleep itself (like mesmerize.) So if you added damage to Flash Freeze, it likely would not, but if you hit them with a damaging Shiver (or frost breath from the Ice epic,) it would break. (That said, if you're - say - hopping into the middle of a group of COT where a ruin mage just put up a dispersion bubble, broken right away or not, the sleep would shut that down, so it would still be helpful in keeping the mob defense down.)

And yeah, I like the idea of more options. Though I'd lean more towards more granularity - No incarnates, alpha only, all powers, for starters.

No need for "special LFG channels." If this were implemented, they'd likely be advertised just like Master runs and other "special circumstance" runs. "Non Incarnate ITF LF3m." Then you could just not join. Of course, if you did join, you could always ...oh, I don't know, say something before quitting, too, or better yet ask the team leader before asking for an invite or before the TF started. People *do* answer questions.

I've only seen this happen once - I was on a - probably task force at one point. I don't recall characters, power sets, anything, really, but I and one other character attacked an enemy at the same time. Might have been with two KBing attacks. The target started sliding after and into the other person. (I *want* to say they were held, it was something *really* obviously not the NPC's natural movement.) Only lasted a few seconds, but it was amusing. Also, we may not have a vacuum effect, but check out the AOE TP Foe we're getting. My warshades are just *giddy* waiting for this to go live.

If you're hungry enough, almost anything can be food. Just depends how much effort you want to put into chewing.

Pfft. Amazing server. I'm *still* waiting for my Jovian Sunspot. Doesn't even have exotic ingredients. Not like I'm asking for a Sha'chai...

I find them useful. Especially when facing things that have KB resistance that I need to move somewhere... since they typically don't have repel resistance. (Or, IIRC, cleaning up the times immobs have left mobs strung out.) They're a slower, more controllable repositioning power than knockback for groups. I kind of wish I could grab one more often. I do agree with the idea of "change Force Bubble's radius to match Dispersion's," as it makes it a little more awkward to use currently.