Safehouse

After having been primarily a scrapper/brute/blaster player for my entire time playing COH (including live), I finally rolled my first dominator for an RP concept yesterday. It's Grav/Energy and, other than learning how the playstyle differs for dominator compared to scrapper/blaster, I am absolutely in love with it. Procyon Centauri might be among my favorite characters I've played, at least at early game! Really excited to take this up to endgame.

I thought I replied, but I didn't. Thank you for really laying it out for me and explaining why you make the selections you make. It makes sense. The light form bit doesn't seem nearly as punishing as I was expecting when I was doing my reading on Peacebringer skills on the wiki, now that you've explained how the whole process works. You must really specialize in kheldians :). Just rolled my first PB yesterday.

I notice this build has musculature core as the alpha slot... any other thoughts/recommendations as far as incarnate priorities go? Also, from a newbie, how does perma light form actually work? I'm guessing you have to set both hasten and light form to automatically trigger somehow. Moreover, how do you counter the crash from both light form and hasten? Does being "perma" naturally prevent the crash from occurring?

Sure that's fair, I mean this is eco-friendly powerset recycling, not eco-intensive powerset recycling, ha. I see what you mean. Water blast, to name one, has no snipe that I can think of, and as I understand it it's perfectly fine without one.

Thanks Shadeknight! Just joined the discord. I'm new to RP (although I make detailed concepts for all my characters) and a bit overwhelmed with all the info to get started, but looking forward to hopefully starting to engage more in the RP community here as I gather my courage!

I will never unsee this.

I love the idea of this set. I was playing with the idea in my head some time back because I love the aesthetic of the praetorian clockwork blasts. The only thing that would make me love this more would be if it came with an option to shoot from the hands rather than mounted weaponry, if you so chose. One of the reasons I haven't really gotten "into" beam rifle is because it doesn't have an option like that (even if the actual aesthetic for the blast is closer to what I want for my character thematically than what energy blast can provide). Acknowledging that that's a totally selfish and very specific/likely infeasible idea. I notice it doesn't look like there's a classic "snipe" ability like you see from most blast sets. Any reason you decided to forego that?

I agree, and think it would be a good idea. I discovered Tina Macintyre's arc just after dinging 44 - almost outleveled her - while trying to find something to do while leveling up for Gaussian's arc in RWZ (he's level 45). I loved her arc, especially that final mission, and couldn't believe I never did it before. As someone who prefers doing arcs while leveling rather than through Ouro if I can, I'd have hated to overlooked this gem during my leveling experience.

This is entirely anecdotal, so please take this with a grain of salt, but I didn't touch or even think of IOs when the game was live. Knew about them, but I think the most I ever did was SOs. I never kitted out, planned builds, or anything of the like. Now, in Homecoming, I have done a TON of IO building, in no small part because I've found IOs so easy to get, and I actually think I understand crafting and auction house better than I ever did during live. Again, can only speak to my personal experience, but I suspect there could be others like me out there who fell in the 80% on live but now plan builds and go out of the way to build them.

Overall, I don’t have anything new of substance that I can bring to this thread. Just wanted to state that I agree that it would be good to see harder level 50 content that’s balanced around IOs, maybe even some stuff around incarnates. I think Positron said in a post Mortem or one of his lore posts post-shutdown that the intent was to ultimate introduce Battalion midway thru incarnates (like issue 25), and they would basically stomp our collective incarnated-out butts. It would be cool to see that happen.

I adore my kinetic/EA/mu main, Astellus. He was pretty end starved in the low-mid levels, but from the mid-30s onward, especially with IOS, that all changed. It feels so fun, although sometimes I wish I had some different animations (just to fit the themes of my character better), and it’s almost exactly the mixed melee/ranged set I always wanted. As an RP fan, I feel like the kin/EA combo lends well to superheroes with multiple powers (enhanced strength, energy absorption and emanation, invisibility, etc, etc). How are you feeling about it now a few months later?

Page 6 is looking mighty fine! I knew there had to be some fun stuff in the works behind the scenes. So glad to see a sonic manipulation set. As someone else says, it brings us one step closer to maybe having a sonic assault set for dominators. Moreover, I've always considered sonic assault to also work, thematically, as a "vibrations" power. I never really cared too much about sonic before, but now I'm thinking I may try out a sonic/sonic blaster to create a "vibration" style superhero. If we ever get sonic assault, I could see earth/sonic being a good "vibes" combo as well, now that I think on it. Hmmmm 😉

I have a couple of ideas I've been bouncing around. One is something that is kinda like energy/radiation melee, but neither melee sets REALLY cover it. Stole this table from an earlier post, because I'm a fan of the layout they used. I think many of the animations could come from street justice and some from kinetic melee, with the addition of some light/particle effects. Part of the idea has to do with being able to close gaps and propel yourself along... so kinda higher mobility melee: Explosive Melee Name Animation Level Description Rush Rib Crack (with explosive bursts behind, and no backstep) 1 Melee, Minor Damage (Energy/Fire), gap closer, chance for KD Flash Bang Heavy Blow (bright explosions from hands) 1 Melee, Moderate Damage (Smashing/Fire), Foe Blind Scattershot Sweeping Cross (with small blasts following the sweep of the fist) 2 Melee, wide cone, Moderate Damage (Energy/Fire), foe KD Power Surge Combat Readiness 6 Self +Dmg, +ToHit, Special Burndown Spinning Strike (propelled by explosions!) 8 Melee (Targeted AoE), Heavy DMG (Smash/Fire), Foe Disorient, Chance for Blind Impose (Not sure if there's anything for this) 12 Ranged, Gap Closer, Foe Taunt Low Blow Not sure, is there anything with a "sweep the leg" animation? 18 Melee, High Damage (Smash/Energy), Foe -Speed, -Defense Bunker Buster Focused Burst (without the KM windup) 26 Ranged, High DMG (Energy/Fire), Foe Disorient -Res Cannon Crash Crushing Uppercut (with, you guessed it, explosions!) 32 Melee, Extreme DMG (Smash/Fire), Foe Knockup, Disorient, Blind I'm sure the damage numbers would need some balancing - I'm not great at powerset design and this is my first stab at it. BUT, the idea is to create a powerset that is primarily a single target DD set. Impose could be replaced with "Disengage" for stalkers, maybe an animation that has them take a back step propelled by explosive bursts, and placates foes? Something would also be replaced with an assassin strike. If you want to get a sense of where I drew some of my inspiration, check out Bakugo from My Hero Academia.

That sounds about right. Heavensward in particular gives me vibes reminiscent of Final Fantasy 4. By Shadowbringers, the story has gone in a really cool direction, and all of the characters have been fleshed out immensely. The Shadowbringers story, especially in the beginning, has an intense and chilling aspect to it. Sometimes it feels like being in a really good, interactive movie.

For how different it is in so many ways from COH, FFXIV became the game in which I took refuge after the shutdown. The world, story, and music so quickly absorbed me to the point that I've now sunk 4000 hours into it. It scratches a different itch than COH - perhaps because of the fantasy writer in me - but my time there has been phenomenal. And the most recent expansion, Shadowbringers, has had my favorite story in the game to date. My experience with the community has been great as well. It's the first game since COH that managed to pull me out of my shell and make me stop being afraid of group content. Found a guild (a free company) that gave me a new home. It's such that I still play it, even alongside CoH!

I think this has been discussed already in regards to Scrapper, but Critical Hit feels like it needs tweaking, if not a complete rework. I'm of the opinion that scrappers are in a weird spot right now, particularly in light of the fact that stalkers seem to be better at the thing that scrappers are supposed to be known for, namely critting, and critting reliably. Again, I'm not sure what can be done with it, but I feel like scrappers need an identity, and a start would be giving critical hit a closer look.

I’d like to second the notion of completing out the Kings Row arc. Not only is it one of my favorite arcs in the early game, but KR is my fave early zone. It’s a good early hero arc for your character to “establish fame” in a way. With the investment I personally have in the storyline and its characters, I really want to see it to completion. Laura Lockharts arc is my favorite one bar none. It made me INVESTED in taking down the associated enemy groups, and I spent the levels after seeking them out for destruction. The Striga Isle arc, starting with Stephanie Peebles, is another favorite. I also love the Rikti War Zone story arcs. The game takes on such a different tone when you enter the RWZ that I wish I saw more of - that feeling that you’re going to... well.. war. As far as arcs I don’t like? I’m really not a fan of the Twinshot arc, though it does get better. I agree it should have started at level 1. It’s kind of jarring to get tutorial stuff starting 5 levels in.

An at-50 version sounds great! I would say I’ve spent the least time with characters at Endgame. I tend to get to 50 and then roll something new, so I’m sure I’ve missed a lot of good stuff.

Rolled a rad/WP scrapper a couple days ago - seems like a REALLY fun combo so far. Maybe the 22nd of its kind to reach 50? We shall see. My main is an NRG/NRG blaster - the literal number one blaster combo 😆 I also have a kinetic/energy scrapper. Another fun combo that Looks pretty and is surprisingly low on the list.

Welcome home! Sometimes I’m still awed by the fact that I’m playing my old favorite game again. I remember when news was first breaking last year about servers and Homecoming and all that, I thought “no way, this can’t be real; I can’t hope again.” Have fun!

Thanks for the responses both of you (Just saw Snarkys response from Feb)! I tried it out and wasn’t feeling super great with it, so I rerolled with a rad/will scrapper. While I can’t find any builds for it, I’m having loads of fun leveling it so I think I’ll stick with it for now. i hope Energy Melee will get some of the love it deserves. I think the potential is there to be loads of fun.

Not much to add that hasn’t already been said, so I just want to throw some extra emphasis on mez issues. Every time I see a buckshot or quantum or any other mob known for its knockdown or other mez related abilities, I dread dealing with it because pretty often I find myself barely able to fight back unless I have break frees, and then I end up with hp in the yellow or orange. Maybe I’m just still trying to learn the AT, but it’s not fun to end up on my butt for a not-insignificant proportion of my encounters. I would love improved mez protection. But I’d be open to the blaster-like ability to shoot tier 1/2 skills while mezzed. I’m open for anything. My emphasis is more on the fact that the current mez situation in human form is NOT fun.

Oh yes i like accretion disk, I may not have made that clear. I think it’s a cool name and a cool power 🙂

Absolutely love astrophysics. I enjoy reading books about it on my free time 🙂 I definitely prefer blazar to relativistic jet actually! It’s short and to the point but still conveys that sense of raw power! magnetars are among the coolest phenomena out there imo. I wonder if there’s a way to come up with a power that has to do with creating a magnetic field so intense it shreds Spacetime itself? 😆

So to preface this I like all of this. I think it would be a great way to introduce additional customizabilty to the Peacebringers archetype while still keeping it unique from the other archetype epic power pools. I don’t really have much to bring in the realm of mechanical improvements, just to add my voice as someone who thinks this would be a nice addition. My only note for naming would be, instead of quantum ray, maybe call the snipe something like “relativistic jet” or something like that? I associate Peacebringers with bright, hot matter or plasma in space, whereas I associate Warshades with gravity, black holes, the absence of light and heat. Relativistic jets are these huge beams (sometimes hundreds of thousands, or even millions of light years long) of ejected radioactive matter that shoot from massive black holes at close to the speed of light (hence relativistic). In terms of astrophysics it is a good example of a “snipe” in terms of raw destructive power and reach in the universe. It would lend itself nicely to creating a dichotomy between accretion disk (intensely bright and hot infalling matter that orbits a black hole, falling IN) in the tank pool and relativistic jet (matter shooting AWAY from a black hole) in the DPS pool. Just my two inf. Otherwise I don’t have anything to offer 🙂