Legree

Agreed. It also helps that your character automatically turns to face an already targeted foe when they trigger a power, regardless of which way they were facing when they trigger it. Not having to manually turn allows for a much more fluid style of play, especially for ATs like Blasters and Dominators who weave in and out of melee range. The fact that most enemies have both melee and ranged attacks helps as well - in a lot of games once a mob runs up to you it'll stay there until you go down or it goes down. Not so here, with ranged mobs like snipers retreating out of melee range, and if you kite a melee mob it'll often take a ranged shot at you before chasing after you. The morale mechanic, whereby mobs will actually break from combat also adds to this. For all that City of Heroes' animations lock down a character when in progress the actual fights, I find, are a lot more mobile than in most other MMOs I've played.

Since the return of HC I've rolled a lot of alts - some new ideas, some old ideas that never got much game-time on live, and yes, a couple of old favourites in my two original 50s. What I've found though is that nostalgia aside I don't get much from those two now, due to that 'been there, done that' feeling, and I'm finding new (to me) or less familiar sets more interesting. So I'd say go for it. Street Justice is a lot of fun (and has fantastic animations) and if a different AT matches your character's original concept better then go for that too. One thing I have done with my ever expanding alt roster is tried not to use any individual powerset on more than one character, and certainly not on more than one of a particular AT. Doing this has pushed me away from some of my 'comfort zone' picks (Willpower, Super Reflexes, Martial Arts, Claws...) and in all cases I've found the new versions of old ideas more interesting, because they all play a bit differently now, not only from how they used to but also from each other.

The problem of a character like Superman being able to fix almost any problem instantly - and do so faster than just about any other hero - is one that DC writers have struggled with for decades. When every character is Superman it's hard to keep things interesting unless every enemy is Superman too. Personally I think the "I can solo +4x8" is worthless as a brag. Solo what? Council? Freakshow? Custom enemies in AE? I'm guessing it's not Malta or Carnies... On the other hand I do think the Incarnate system that has enabled this has also coarsened some discussions comparing the relative strengths and weaknesses of ATs and powersets - often boiling down to "how does it perform at 50+3?" as the ultimate measure of whether or not it's good. Hence the emphasis on AoE capability and the bizarre flip whereby Masterminds have gone from being seen as one of the strongest ATs in the game to one of the underperformers.

I just click on their shields... ???

It is. So many things about this game remind me of so much of what I've missed in other MMOs for the last seven years. It took me a while to drop back into the forums... and I'm trying to resist refighting old battles. The only thing I miss in the forums is the Paragon Studios Devs. I appreciate that for obvious reasons it would be unwise for them to even publically acknowledge the existence of Homecoming or the other servers, but I like to think that maybe a few of them have done some anonymous browsing of these forums, if only to see how much their work over the years on this game is still enjoyed by so many players.

I don't know about the second upgrade (no MM that high yet) but the first upgrade still auto applies when you zone in - to the extent that I see/hear the f/x of it being applied as soon as I zone in.

Then whatever solution you propose make it PVP-only. Not only not designed for PVE, but impossible to implement into PVE. Past nerfs driven by (or perceived to be driven by) 'PVP balance' are rightly seen as a bad thing. Power Creep driven by 'PVP balance' should be seen in the same way.

I still can't quite get alongside the idea that Brutes = Tankers. I daresay that an optimised IO'd Brute can tank as well as a Tanker but levelling with SOs or even basic IOs a Brute really compares more to a Scrapper (only a bit tougher) than an actual Tanker. Not for nothing were Masterminds regarded as the original redside tanks, and I recall more than one occassion on live when a Brute had to explain to the rest of their team that soaking up alphas and holding all the aggro wasn't really part of their job description. Which is to say I think both ATs still have a role - certainly my experience on a Tanker is different from a Brute in many ways. Still I guess Brutes are the new hotness (literally in the case of spines/fire...)

I'd never complain about fighting the Sea Witch. For me at least she's the redside's Frostfire - an Elite Boss with a nasty set of powers who shows up at a point when EBs aren't a regular occurance. That said, where she differs from Frostfire is that he's almost always taken on by a team, whereas by the nature of redside the Sea Witch is mostly faced by soloists or small groups. Now that I think of it I'm now wondering what that fight would be like spawned for a full team. It's already easy to aggro multiple groups as you get blown around the map, and with more mobs on the ship... That sounds awesome. Must remember to get a team together next time I do it. But yes, too many Bosses or EBs can be a serious hurdle for some ATs. I recall one mission somewhere in the 40s which was nothing but that, and they all did Psi damage. My /Inv Brute took one look at that mission and fled.

<Snip> for quote length, but so many good ideas here. As much as I am an ardent defender of the Rogue Isles as a villain-centric setting I must admit it would be nice if there was more interaction (direct or indirect) between the two sides, outside of PVP zones and co-op content of course. One of the few letdowns of my early experience of the game was the first time I joined a team to rob the bank in Atlas Park. I actually thought we were going to the Atlas Park, and would be fighting player heroes. Of course I knew nothing about MMOs back then and so the fact we'd have been one-shotted by any passing 50 didn't occur to me, but still... Related to that there was a suggestion back on live for competitive bank missions - that is to say a team of villains and a team of heroes would be put on the same map, with all the usual objectives in place, but with the player teams taking the place of the NPC bank robbers and NPC heroes respectively. I rarely PVP in any MMO, but I still think that's an idea with a lot of merit.

Did civilians lose their invulnerability at some point late in the live game? I remember you could always target them, but the first time I shot at one and he actually fell over I was actually quite startled. Then I used an AoE to clear them out of the way inside the Bank, so yeah I got over my shock pretty quickly.

There are already quite a few missions where you do fight a superhero rather than (or in addition to) a standard enemy faction Boss, including every mayhem mission (redside safeguards only instead of protecting the bank you rob it - much more fun). Just the other day I fought Flambeux in the Atlas Park Bank (I guess she must have heard the call while he was at Wentworths...) Other than heroes showing up working alongside (but not part of) Longbow and the like, there's also heroes of the Rogue Isles, like the Sea Witch, who you can fight as a boss in a Port Oakes story arc and then again as a (really tough) Elite Boss in Sharkead 10 levels later, and of course the big names start to show up once you hit 40+. Overall I think redside compares quite favourably to blueside in this particular respect.

The pet that burns twice as bright burns half as long. I think with the Arsonist it's less his need to Brawl that runs him into melee and more his Fire Breath, which is quite short range. Combine that with the fact he throws out AoEs and fire damage and he becomes such a spectacular aggro magnet I just assume he's going to die and regard any time he's actually up as a bonus. One of my Thugs/ MMs names the pets after days of the week, so the Arsonist is Monday... because nobody likes Monday.

Taunt (the tank's) followed by Energy Torrent (mine).

I did this a few times with my 50s, and honestly I found it extremely dull. I'd much rather see how a new character handles enemies on level as they progress than go back and god-mode it through content that I know I now outclass. YMMV, of course, but I honestly wonder how many of the people who are PL'ing to 50+3 right now are still going to be playing a few months from now.

You are. City of Heroes has always been about the journey, and for most of the game's run the endgame was 'now roll a new alt.' The rush to endgame is nuts, seeing as there's very little of it, and perhaps more importantly, it's very unlikely there'll be more any time soon.

That's Positron (Part 1) Get it from Positron in Steel Canyon. I do love that final fight. I always feel a little bit proud if my shadow self is the last one standing

I love the Sea Witch. Having fought her in Port Oakes (when she's just a Boss) I was totally unprepared for what a threat she becomes in Sharkhead. She was the last time my MM dropped difficulty (under the old range where you could only go up to +2 x2) until lvl 40+ when the AVs started showing up. The next time I got a villain into the 20s I made a point of taking that arc again to see if they would do any better. Nope. Sea Witch 2, Legree 0. My first villain to hit Sharkhead in the HC era will surely see if - for once - I can down her first time.

I've had similar problems with a Dominator in Praetoria, especially against Destroyers, since their Bosses and some Ltnts have a lot of hold/immob/sleep resistance. Praetoria is also quite heavy on multiple Boss encounters, and having a second Boss show up in an ambush just as I finish off the first and Domination drops is painful. My solution is to charge up my Domination bar with a quick bit of street sweeping on the way back to the mission door. That, and some purples and reds, has got me through even the toughest fights so far.

A few years ago players in Star Wars The Old Republic were complaining that they couldn't solo daillies designed for two players (plus companions) so the devs buffed the already strong companions (of which every player has one out all the time) to make these daillies doable by anyone. They later walked it back slightly but a companion in SWTOR will still out-DPS you... and out-heal you, out-tank you... It makes an utter mockery of most regular levelling content. Anyway, I think the question of whether Incarnate powers are OP will become less of an issue in time. Someone else mentioned forming specifically non-Incarnate teams for high level but non-Incarnate content and I imagine that's the way it'll go in time once the novelty has worn off - much in the same way that we see people specifying 'speed' or 'normal' when forming teams for ITF now.

Robotics/ damage is widely regarded as a bit underwhelming until the later half of the game, so why not add a damage component to the Tier 1 summoning power? Dropping a crate full of killbot onto a mob's head should be worth at least moderate smashing damage with a chance for knockdown.

This. I find this takes the sting out of almost any annoyance. That said I'll nominate the blue science base maps. I like the caves and find them an interesting environment to fight in, but the multi-level science bases are mostly just a succession of long, wide, open corridors and I find them rather dull. In general I like the difficult enemy groups - dealing with stacking debuffs from Vahzilok at level 2 (yay for science origin) or being chain held by Circle of Thorns at level 12 makes me think harder about ways to counter these threats on different ATs... even if the answer is only "always carry a break-free." The one exception I'd make to that is that the newer content does have a tendency to go a bit overboard on multiple boss ambushes - either more than one at a time or one after another. I always enable bosses fairly early on - usually by level 5 - so that boss fights feel like boss fights, but there's a few encounters that can be exceedingly rough on lower level characters, especially melees who don't have many options other than stand and fight. But these are minor things, and insignificant compared to the sheer joy of being able to play the game again.

The game has always had a gleeful disregard for the likely level of a character when it comes to the placement of mission objectives. If you arrive in Port Oakes at level 6 and get Drea the Hook as your broker then good luck running the gauntlet of +3 mobs in Dockside to reach him. Likewise the trip to either of the subs for the first mayhem can be similarly alarming if you pick it up too early. Or you could swim, I suppose. I rather like it - it keeps things interesting and there's always travel powers for those who want to use them. The one that does strike me as a bit mean though is Kings Row. Following the original levelling route - i.e. do your City Hall contact but not Twinshot or Habashy - you'll be sent to KR around level 5 or 6 and every mob around the monorail station will be at least +3 to you. Still, I guess it does mean that new arrivals will learn the location of the hospital quite quickly.

I've seen a few like this. The best ones are those that spend 30 minutes asking for a specific AT or powerset for a 'speed' ITF. My favourite though was one I saw playing out on LFG on [server name redacted] a week or so ago. "ITF LFM. 7/8 No Tanks or Brutes." then "ITF LFM. 7/8 Need CC." then "ITF LFM. 7/8 Need Any." and finally, from a different player presumably on the same team "Can someone please join [redacted]'s ITF? He says he's being shunned by the server." I can only imagine that was a fun team to be on.

Let's get those people to work, shall we? If such a group is really serious, then I am sure that HC/SCoRE would be really serious at looking at what they could come up with... Writing new content? Sure, why not. AE's a good testing ground for that. But rewriting existing content? <Bleep> no. Never. I like the Rogue Isles as they are, and have no desire to see the existing story arcs reworked. "Beating people up for information"? How do you think we get those clues after we defeat <boss> and his crew? It doesn't need to be spelled out, nor should it be. It would be as out of place as it would if half the story arcs on blueside played out like they were written specifically for dark 'n gritty 90s anti-heroes.