Safehouse

I think in one of the loregasms with Positron he said they were planning to have Dream Doctor and Rularuu - or something like that - essentially collapse the Shadow Shard to save the world from Battalion... 😬

Well I created a test build turning my KM/EA scrapper into a KM/EA stalker in mids and, although the proof of the pudding is really only in the eating, I will say the numbers (defenses, recharge, etc) actually look better - possibly virtue of some of the different IO sets I used with it - so that's a promising start. Now it'll just be a matter of rolling it out and seeing how I feel about how it plays. Yeah, having control over the crits I think is a big deal. I wish scrapper as an AT overall had better crit management. For its passive being all about crits, it struggles a surprising amount to pump out regular critical hits.

But-but-but my repulsing torrent!! 😭 Just kidding - any excuse to satiate my altitis! I'll give it a shot and see what comes of it. That said... I do feel it's problematic if the set is working really well on only one of the ATs for which it is intended 😞

I second the recommendation regarding XP boosters. Actually, given the recent patch, I second it even more emphatically than I would have before. The patch that just came out made it so that you now get DO and SO enhancements starting from level 1. TOs have been almost completely removed from the game. Moreover, there is now an "upgrade" button in the enhancement management screen that allows you to upgrade all of your slotted enhancements at once. Doing so costs a ton of inf, though, and if you wish to pursue that avenue you don't want to be restricting your flow of inf with XP boosters.

So I don't know how feasible "persistent" environmental damage is, although it's something I've always wanted to see a bit more of in COH; I haven't looked at the code or anything so I won't deign to speak for the devs, who have become intimately familiar with the spaghetti. However, I know there ARE powers, and even some movement auras, that affect the environment and have "crack the ground" effects. I'm thinking about how propel "throws" random things around, for example, or how various earth control/assault powers crack the ground. I wonder if those could be leveraged to at least achieve a temporary effect? Perhaps a "crack the wall" effect when enemies are thrown back into it? Or certain objects that get "propelled" when stricken? The effect might fade but it could lend some impactfulness to the attacks. I dunno, just thinking 🙂

I will say that my first (and currently only, despite numerous alts that I have listed in my sig) level 50 toon is my Kinetic/Energy/Mu Scrapper. Conceptually, I love Astellus. I love the mix of melee and ranged attacks I have available in my kit. It's the closest I've been able to create to a true representation of my "aether manipulation" style character that's always been in my head. It's such an original and funky (in a good way) set, that I can't stay away from it. KM has a big thing that EM does not have - a mix of melee and ranged attacks. It's one of the draws for me, even if I LOVE new energy melee and am quickly building up Safehouse (Energy/Invuln scrapper) as my secondary main, and the mix of skills is part of what has me going back to Astellus time and again. That said, I won't deny that there are issues with Kinetic Melee. I know in the "emergency buff" thread, KM did come up as one of the powersets that could do with a boost. Its damage is anemic, as seen in the thread about melee set performance where it came in last place (F tier, sob). Perhaps the live devs felt that, because it has so many ranged skills at its disposal, they needed to balance out its versatility by making it do less damage. I don't know, though. It could just have been accidentally undertuned. I've never been completely enamored with the animations and have advocated in the past for having alternate animations available. I also feel like something about the animation/sound effects detracts from the sense of "impact" that I'd love to get from KM. It doesn't FEEL like an impactful set. That's purely aesthetic, though. Mechanically, many of the later tier attacks suffer from languid, laborious animation times that add up to a pretty heavy impact on damage-dealing capabilities. Burst and Repulsing Torrent could both, IMO, do with a bit of a speed up. Focused Burst I definitely think could do with a reduction in animation time. I actually like the idea of Concentrated Strike, but I do wish it had the TF/ET treatment regarding crits. Moreover, it's become something of a "corpse blaster" skill - specifically when teaming. I noticed it a LOT during a teamup for the Winter Event yesterday (I don't team up that often so I just haven't noticed it). I would ready my "MASSIVE STRIKE OF DEATH" but by the time it actually went off, the mob I was aiming for was already dead. I WANT CS to be worth it. Also in agreement with the ongoing conversations about Power Siphon.

I still can't get over it. Love those moments of "wait, I'm playing my favorite game again" that still happen at least once a play session.

Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to the devs for everything you've done, between Issue 27, Page 1, and getting the Winter Event rolled out! You had quite the busy October/November! I wasn't here last year for the Winter Event, so this is my first time doing stuff like Baby New Year, Lady Winter, Lord Winter, etc, since 2011. The game's been back a year and a half now, so I would have thought that "first time back" nostalgia was long gone, but I actually got a huge wave of feels doing all these fun things again. Now to go open presents!

Honestly with everything going on in my life, outside of Homecoming I’m sticking to solo games with worlds I can get really immersed in. Got back into Skyrim and The Witcher. Also been playing Ori and the Will of the Wisps. As a random other game, my wife and I have taken to playing Binding of Isaac together.

I felt like I didn’t need to say anything; anything I would have said was already said. I was going to just read this thread and then go back to browsing the forum. Then it hit me: I’m browsing this forum, which wouldn’t be here if City of Heroes weren’t back. That mere fact kind of floored me. After years being gone, my favorite game truly is here. CoH was a refuge for me during difficult times, and when it was gone, that left a gaping hole. I’m now going through the hardest time of my life; the fact that City of Heroes and its community is back means more than words can say. So thank you to all the GMs, for everything you do - both publicly and behind the scenes - to keep things up and running here at Homecoming. You’re all heroes to me.

Question is... are we talking a hero or villain? The closest character I can think of to this concept is Flambeaux from the Shining Stars storyline and I find her alignment suspect...

So I haven't really RP’d much at all, in part because I’m nervous and a bit shy about it even though I so badly want to. But I HAVE sat in Pocket D and observed a ton of RP and have gotten a strong sense of what my tastes are. I think my biggest thing is: people telling their whole backstory within seconds of meeting. “Nice to meet you. I’m Clark Kent. You may know me as Superman out on the streets.” ”I’m Bruce Wayne. *wipes away a tear* When I was a boy, my parents were murdered right in front of me. The event traumatized me, and now I’m determined to...” And so on... You don’t spill your entire life story when you meet somebody. That’s the sort of stuff that folks earn over time as you bind with them and become friends. It’s the same way with characters. Let that relationship grow! In Pocket D you might not even know if you’re talking to somebody of the same alignment. Have your character build a rapport with that character before you spill your guts. Unless I guess part of your character’s schtick is that they overshare.

Missing from the week 76 notes are the remarks regarding Kinetic Melee. There were numerous comments indicating that it needs some buffs, including some feedback on how it could be improved (animation times for later tier attacks being too long as the set stands, for example), specifically around page 3/4 of the thread. I think it merits some mention here.

I want to throw my support for buffs to Kinetic Melee and Kheldians (specifically human form PBs), although I kind of feel like both could use more than just an emergency buff. Personally, I'd love some alternate animation options for kinetic melee, as well as some reduction on cast times or some improvement on the damage. A buff in the short term could help though. Similarly, I think kheldians could use more than just a damage buff, but it could be a start. All just imo though.

I apologize that I fell off midway through testing EM for scrappers through the levels from 1-50. My wife and I lost our baby and have been wrestling with the fallout and heartbreak from the loss these last couple of weeks. That has had to take priority. I likely will not be doing detailed posts about the leveling but I wanted to say at a high level: I love EM on scrappers. Combining EM/Energy Aura with Mu Mastery has made for a powerfully destructive force. I can't wait for this to go live. Thank you devs for your hard work on this.

I’ll take it.

Having played with an EM/EnA on scrapper in beta, it feels really nice to play. Level 22ish right now, and it’s truly enjoyable.

I started with SOS at about level three. I’ve kept at least one fully upgraded stamina enh on each of my skills, but actually updated after level 20 to have at least two stamina in each of my toggle skills. The effect is noticeable. Although, in truth, I do share @aethereal’s observations regarding EM seeming more end heavy at low levels; I haven’t usually had to slot that much stamina. It probably will naturally go away as I level up and I really should try to collect some data on this. It might help to share more than “feels end heavy” if I can.

I'm sure it's not a big deal if you remove Tequila. Even if there's a major problem with the new HC launcher, it's easy enough to reinstall tequila. For me, personally, I'm holding onto Tequila until HC launcher comes off beta, but I've been using the HC launcher exclusively since starting with it.

Glad I’m not the only one experiencing the end issues. I’ve pretty consistently caught myself chugging blue insps to get by. My Mandible and Maxilla mishap was, I believe, an anomaly brought on by some poorly timed wife aggro, so I was sitting in the mish while the ambush piled on to me on top of attacking the bosses. Chernobog, Morana, and Veles all went down with relative ease. I almost felt bad for Cherno with how fast I wiped the floor with him. I agree that, if EF is truly to be the new signature mechanic of the set, I’d really like to see it come into play sooner.

Thanks! I could do it, but if I did you might not like the grade you get. I was never good at doing homework before home room the day it was due...

You know, somebody always has to come last, but my boy kinetic melee... ya hate to see it with a set you love 💔

Let's Talk Levels 10-20 of Energy Melee Continuing from the post I made yesterday, I wanted to share my experience today of leveling 10-20 on EM. Still a great experience, although not perfect. Primarily just noting some observations that I have. I've always kinda struggled with the 10-30 range on characters, so I anticipate similarly having some "blah" moments in the 20-30 window. What I Did To start I want to emphasize that managing 20 levels in 2 days is something I've never done before, but here we are. Here's what I did during that window: Ran to the Hollows and did David Wincott->Flux->Julius->Talshak, while also doing Shining Stars arc two. Somehow this made me outlevel Talshak and I couldn't do the Karsis stuff (yet) Shining Stars arc three Midnighter storyline Ran back to Kings Row and finished off Shauna Stockwell->Eagle Eye New powers I obtained between 10-20 included: Dull Pain (12); Fly (14); Unyielding (16); Whirling Hands (18); Resist Elements (20) Continued to use/upgrade SOs. Also grabbed exploration badges to test out the new long range teleport accolade. How Did Things Go With the Next Round? Again, still very early in the game, so I think there's a lot of room for opinion changing. A few not-as-awesome items of note did reveal themselves. Admittedly, some of the things I experienced could have to do with user error. Lesson learned: I should have used Energy Aura and not Invulnerability - I am intimately familiar with the ins and outs of EnA, whereas invulnerability is a set I've never gotten far with, either Live or Homecoming. So I'm working on a bit of a learning curve with Invuln. Struggled a bit with squishiness, to my surprise, given I'm 'invulnerable.' Always had a hard time with Frostfire for whatever reason, but on Safehouse I got pretty frustrated (the lack of unyielding pre-level 16 hurt me). Also got wrecked by... Mandible and Maxilla. Part of that was my wife distracting me during the ambush so I got dogpiled by Skulls. Anyway, this isn't an invuln focused feedback, sorry... Bone Smasher wrecks face. Especially crit Bone Smasher. Love it. I'm having some End issues. By level 20 I only have 2 toggles to keep up - temp invuln and unyielding - but managing those AND hitting things with my attacks drains my end bar quickly if I'm not careful. Either I have to work on my end management (totally possible), or skills are sapping my energy a lot faster than expected (and possibly faster than intended?). I don't remember the last time I got "too tired" before today. Having also playtested the level 50 EM/Inv scrapper for funsies, and having familiarized myself with things, I catch myself wishing the energy focus mechanic came sooner. Since total focus is not available until late-set, I will be well into my 20s before I can start to play with it. I really would love to be able to have some sort of slight energy focus at lower levels. Again, until I actually reach the point of the mechanic coming into play I won't know how different it "feels" to me from the earlier levels until I get there. Didn't get as many new toys to play with in EM this set of levels. Somewhat by necessity to counter squishiness, Just whirling hands, which is a nice AoE. I like it. I'm not writing it love letters, but it's not bad at all. I'll pick up power crash later - I wanted something a little harder hitting. The Bottom Line The short version: Still like it. Suffers a bit from the "low-mid level blahs," and I struggle with end. Still on board overall! I remain happy with it. Perhaps less enamored than I was originally, but that's probably because the "oo shiny" effect is wearing off and I'm actually starting to dig into the meat and potatoes of the gaming experience with it. It feels end starved a little bit, but I'm glad I can slot SOs to help combat that. Still, I remember thinking kinetic melee drained end fast, and this powerset goes farther than that. I'm still in the camp of "this will be my new main powerset if it goes live like this." I may end up using EnA on live instead, unless I can start to feel good with invulnerability, but EnA is a late bloomer with lots of end hungry toggles so for all I know end issues could be worse there. We shall see. The Next Steps I'd love to see a bit more excitement and flair out of the skills that I pick up over the next ten levels. 22 should bring me power crash. 26 should bring me total focus. So we'll be starting to see the effects of energy focus start to come into play. Plus shiny new AoE to play with! Gameplay-wise, I'm looking forward to the 20s a fair lot: playtesting the new story arc. I also anticipate doing the Faultline story arc, Graham Easton, Laura Lockhart, and probably Striga Isle, maybe some Croatoa too. I'd be surprised if level 20-30 takes just a day. The experience curve is steep and my baby is coming any time now. I'll try to keep the feedback coming 🙂

I'm torn. Currently I'm testing out EM/Invul on beta and I like it. I have a kinetic/EnA/Mu scrapper at 50 that I think could be pretty cool with EM instead. We'll have to see! Energy is one of my favorite armor sets and it's so pretty. I could see EM/EnA being lots of fun.

I have been posting in the higher-level EM changes thread, but on the beta server I've been leveling an EM scrapper, so I'm not sure where it makes more sense to post. I am posting about how the set feels as I level up scrapper. Currently have it to level 16 and anticipate posting thoughts on levels 10-20 later today. Below is my post about the first ten levels. Feels good. Bonesmasher wrecks face; especially when it crits!! Levels 10-20 so far have continued to be an absolute blast and I still love it. I struggled against Frostfire, but honestly I've always had a bit of a weirdly hard time with him. If it makes more sense to post here I can do so as well.