biostem

So I've been toying around with various builds and powersets, and was just looking for some feedback from the more experienced Dominator players out there. I messed around with doms to a very limited degree while CoX was still live, but while going over the sets available, dark/earth seemed like an interesting combination to me. That being said, I have some experience with darkness control, but was looking for input on earth assault and/or the combination of dark/earth. Thank you all in advance for any insight you can provide. The biggest downfalls I can see with earth assault is that it mainly does lethal damage, which can be highly resisted, and all the knocks, (up, down, back), may be annoying to teammates. Thanks again!

Not that it's ideal or exhaustive, but you can kind of get a feel for powers in your primary and secondary sets by messing around with the power customization options, (you can at least see the animation and such).

I played CoX from about 2004 to 2009. I bought a CO lifetime subscription when that game launched. Before I get into my opinions on both, I just want to thank the CoH:H devs so very much for bringing CoX back to us! That being said, here are a few of my thoughts, (in no particular order): 1. I very much dislike the early levels in CoX, since you have so few attacks and waiting for a power to come off of cooldown can be quite frustrating. The origin powers and the ones you can get from the P2W vendor can alleviate that somewhat. CO' use of an "energy builder" as your basic attack, generally followed by a spammable/no-cooldown second power keeps downtime to a minimum. The downside to that system, however, is that if you are freeform or otherwise get an even better power later on, (also often with no cooldown), then that earlier power basically ceases to have a purpose. You can basically create a workable "attack chain" with just your energy builder and a solid no-cooldown attack in CO. CoX basically pushes you to create an attack chain or to take powers like hasten to fill the gap. 2. I'm not sure when they implemented the change, but when I left CoX, you basically "had" to take the fitness pool, and you couldn't get your full-on travel power until level 14. In CO, at launch, you basically got your travel power as soon as you completed the tutorial, (around level 4), and you could skip that once you've completed it at least once. This, by itself, made CO's zones feel small. 3. I tend to gravitate toward "pet classes" in any game I play. In CoX, the Mastermind had deep and highly customizable pet controls. CO's are severely lacking, and pets there feel more like an afterthought. I like some of the options they have, (like being able to summon a duo of wolves, and changing their appearance to dino, spirit wolves, bears, etc), but without the tools to properly control them, it's just not as fulfilling. 4. The ability to completely respec your powers in CO means that, other than concept/RP reasons, you can go from a super-strong tank to a fire-throwing glass cannon in only a matter of minutes, provided you have the in-game currency or saved up/store bought respec to do so. In some respects, this is great, since you can realize nearly any build on a single character, (and there are items you can buy in the "questionite store" in-game that improve your "super stats", regardless of which ones you picked), but for the long-term longevity of the game, this can lead to people just sticking to that single character. While the AT/class system in CoX can be restrictive at times, it can also force you to learn how to expand your boundaries and "learn your role" a bit better. 5. As others have mentioned, the enhancement system in CoX allows for greater flexibility than in CO. Yes, you can rank-up powers in CO, and some even have 1 or more nifty other abilities you can purchase, but you could never explicitly affect just 1 aspect of said power, (like range, recharge, etc). 6. One thing which I think is a double-edged sword in regard to CO is the ability to target yourself with powers. This basically means that there may only be 1 "bubble" power necessary in force field, since you can place it on yourself AND your allies. The same goes for most heals - a heal-other becomes a heal-self if you just target yourself or include "targetself" in a keybind. This, coupled with many such powers having no cooldown also means that you can just out-heal most incoming damage as long as you have energy to keep it up, (which isn't hard). 7. Touching on the "double-edged sword" nature of CO, it is really hard to keep an enemy permanently locked down, and this includes taunts. It is quite difficult to keep an enemy's attention in CO, which means that it is difficult for a "tank" to adequately protect their more squishy teammates. This isn't a big deal if you're all playing freeform characters, as you just make sure to take a shield or heal, (unless you;re playing as one of the F2P ATs, which are more restrictive). 8. CO implemented some pretty interesting gimmicks, but didn't seem to really develop or take advantage of them. For instance, there are many destructible objects littered around the game world in CO, and you can lift and throw them depending upon your strength value, (or with a telekinesis power from the mental/psychic tree). The problem is that it's rarely worth the effort, and it's usually more time consuming and does less damage if you try to do this. 9. I'll finish off by talking about "content". I have never run out of content before hitting the level cap when I played CoX, and that's before several updates were released. In CO, if I'm playing a freeform character and want the quests to remain challenging, I'll run out of content in the early to mid 30's, (max level is 40). Sure, I can grind out those last few levels by doing alerts, (queueable instanced quests where you can be placed into a random team), or I can slog it out in Vibora Bay, (the last true expansion they added ages ago, which has many instances that look the same and are quite dull), or just artificially slow things down by doing lower level content. I like that I can choose to stick with or abandon a contact in CoX without worrying that I'll run out of content to run, and I can even change my reputation to make said missions harder or easier as I see fit. Anyway, those are my thoughts...

The key here would be to dynamically balance damage, defenses, status protection, healing, and so on, as people choose powers - you take melee powers and your ranged damage decreases, you take defensive powers, and your damage drops yet again, (but perhaps melee damage drops at a slower rate than ranged damage). You start taking heals or buffing powers, and both damage and defenses get reduced. The problem would be maintaining that fine balance. As another responder pointed out, you can go full freeform in Champions, and it generally results in high damage, high defense flying bricks that can heal themselves and others, while locking down enemies, summoning pets, and so on...

Beyond the more obvious graphical improvements, I'd like to see either a no-cooldown T1 attack power, (or something like the at-will's that Neverwinter has, just so it doesn't feel like you're sitting there waiting on cooldowns so much). Beyond that, I'd like a bit more customization with regards to pet/minion summons. Perhaps adding more powers to each powerset, to the point where you probably can't take all of them - so make having to decide which ones to take more significant, but still very effective. It'd be great if you could run across another fire/ blaster, for instance, yet have drastically different powers, since there'd be so many good ones. Perhaps something akin to Champion's Power House, where we could test powers on dummies or holograms, before being locked into a selection, would be nice. I like how they added more members to several factions in a later update, (like female skulls, hellions, etc) - but with such a wide selection of costume pieces to choose from, how about mixing it up even more, among NPCs.

Is overcomplicating things by a huge amount. You know what binds I use most often on my MMs? SHIFT+RBUTTON "petcom_all Goto" SHIFT+Q "petcom_all Defensive Follow" CTROL+Q "petcom_all dismiss" ... and the actual button macros the game provides me. The most useful of those is the Shift-and-right-click. I have to left-click to confirm placement, but, it's a LOT faster than moving my mouse to the GOTO macro, clicking it, then moving the target circle to the desired location and clicking again. Control+Q gets a lot of use too, 'cause I don't want to drag my pets through half the zone on my way to the next mission. And the Shift+Q, is just a quick "panic-shift-to-Bodyguard-NOW" control. ... Mind, I have set up far more, and occasionally use it. But I find that just a few, key binds (pun not intended) makes for a much easier, smoother experience managing those pets. I use: /bind numpad7 "petcomall attack aggressive" - makes pets attack my target then switch to any other nearby enemies /bind numpad5 "petcomall follow defensive" - engages bodyguard mode and makes the pets follow me, only attacking if they are attacked first /bind lalt+lbutton "petcomall goto passive" - moves pets to the designated location when I alt-click, and they ignore everything along the way

I feel like an ice blast/thermal reverberation corruptor or similarly specced defender might work. The defender might be a little slow if you plan on soloing a lot, so a corrupter might be better in that case...

First you say "Your opinion is valid. So are ours.", then go on to immediately contradict yourself by saying "Ae spam in chat is harmful". I contend that you are using loaded language by calling it "spam", and further, my experience has not been that chat is flooded with AE or PL request. Is it at all possible that you are subjectively making more of this than it actually is? Perhaps you've had some experience or otherwise detest the act of PL-ing or AE farm missions to such a degree that you simply don't want anyone to partake in those activities?

I, too, love to enforce censorship upon things that hurt nobody yet I personally dislike. Remember, that one individual's perception that there is no harm, is not reality. I appreciate you see things a certain way, I hope you can accept others don't see things how you do. There are plenty of examples of how such spam warps perception of the game and disenfranchised new players. A society is a collective group that share values, behaviors ideas and agree upon good and bad. We all must be considerate of others, and not assumptive. Assuming something doesn't harm others and then doing that activity is counter to courtesy. We could assume dropping trash on the road is unharmful and do it, and require that proof be given to stop us. Those that do not believe in climate change use this argument, that pollution can't be causing change. If you assume dfb spam does no harm, you may be failing to consider that it does, just based on your belief. Courtesy and conscientious attitudes dictate that we think about the negative reprocussions of our behavior BEFORE we act, and do our best to avoid harming others, even if we don't have proof it would, or believe it won't. So, we all play together. No one cares about pl'ing or farming, or how fast people level. It is evident that spamming chat DOES cause harm, and people DON'T like it. The harm that it does to the long term viability of the game is evident. We don't ask that you have our opinion, just that you respect it, much as we respect your desire to run dfb. Everyone who resorts to "they just want to control me, kill my fun, make me play their way," etc, is missing the real point: how you play is not the issue, it is how chat spam and how powerleveling overwhelming all modes of play, and the negative effect it has on NEW players that is the issue. I firmly believe we should keep all these forms of play AND prevent the negative reprocussions of them. Please refrain from sarcastic snarky comments such as the censorship comment. It's really not helpful or kind. Once we have an official definition from the devs/admins, (or whatever group/entity is in charge), then and only then can we make an objective statement about what does or does not constitute "harm". That being said, it is also important to recognize the circumstances surrounding an interaction, as that will modify the threshold for what is or should constitute harmful actions. For instance, if the devs determine that advertising for powerleveling teams is a valid use of chat, it may still fall under the purview of "harm" if someone were to follow you around, stand in your way, and ask to be PL'd or the like, in local or via tells... If members of our community leave due to believing the game is terrible, because all they know of it is AE, dfb, so on... There's harm. If new players are only ever exposed to pl'ing and miss all the other parts of the game, and believe the game is crap, and leave.... There's harm If people make it to 50 in a day or two, have no clue what they are doing, and frustrate others... There's harm. If what we want is new players to fall in love with the game the same way we did in issues 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 etc.... Let's figure out how to do just that. Harm exists when it exists. Your definition of "harm" is so loose and general as to be nearly useless. If a player leaves because they don't feel that they are leveling fast enough, then there is harm. If a player leaves because they can't fully slot themselves with the best enhancements at all times, then there's harm. You have a very subjective, and clearly non-unanimous definition of harm. There are already tools in-game to filter out chat you don't like and you can either shut off XP gain or avoid AE outright, so why not make use of those, instead of worrying about what other people's subjective experiences may be?

I, too, love to enforce censorship upon things that hurt nobody yet I personally dislike. Remember, that one individual's perception that there is no harm, is not reality. I appreciate you see things a certain way, I hope you can accept others don't see things how you do. There are plenty of examples of how such spam warps perception of the game and disenfranchised new players. A society is a collective group that share values, behaviors ideas and agree upon good and bad. We all must be considerate of others, and not assumptive. Assuming something doesn't harm others and then doing that activity is counter to courtesy. We could assume dropping trash on the road is unharmful and do it, and require that proof be given to stop us. Those that do not believe in climate change use this argument, that pollution can't be causing change. If you assume dfb spam does no harm, you may be failing to consider that it does, just based on your belief. Courtesy and conscientious attitudes dictate that we think about the negative reprocussions of our behavior BEFORE we act, and do our best to avoid harming others, even if we don't have proof it would, or believe it won't. So, we all play together. No one cares about pl'ing or farming, or how fast people level. It is evident that spamming chat DOES cause harm, and people DON'T like it. The harm that it does to the long term viability of the game is evident. We don't ask that you have our opinion, just that you respect it, much as we respect your desire to run dfb. Everyone who resorts to "they just want to control me, kill my fun, make me play their way," etc, is missing the real point: how you play is not the issue, it is how chat spam and how powerleveling overwhelming all modes of play, and the negative effect it has on NEW players that is the issue. I firmly believe we should keep all these forms of play AND prevent the negative reprocussions of them. Please refrain from sarcastic snarky comments such as the censorship comment. It's really not helpful or kind. Once we have an official definition from the devs/admins, (or whatever group/entity is in charge), then and only then can we make an objective statement about what does or does not constitute "harm". That being said, it is also important to recognize the circumstances surrounding an interaction, as that will modify the threshold for what is or should constitute harmful actions. For instance, if the devs determine that advertising for powerleveling teams is a valid use of chat, it may still fall under the purview of "harm" if someone were to follow you around, stand in your way, and ask to be PL'd or the like, in local or via tells...

So after finding CoH:H and reigniting my love of the game, I've been on a character-creating spree. One minor nuisance, however, is that if you apply the 2 colors across your entire costume, then deselect that option and start editing another piece, you may have to bounce between previous categories in order to see which specific row & column of a color you used. What if there were 5 or so little squares at the top that reflected the last few colors you actually applied to a costume part, (with an option to lock a particular color so it won't be cleared/replaced). Your thoughts?

I ended up rolling an elec/sd stalker, but I may also roll a dm/sd scrapper. Now my only issue is finding enough time to play them all...

Wouldn't something like a team recall, except for enemies, be more practical? Maybe require you to have defeated at least 75% of the enemies the old fashioned way first, just to cut down on exploiting this ability...

The chat has been very friendly from what I've experienced, but you may still want to shut it off and perhaps create a custom window just for NPC chat, XP, and powers info, just to be safe...

Try: /bind lshift+lbutton "powexecname translocation" Cheers!

OK, so I went with something like this: /bind numpad8 "inspexec_pet_target insight" It allows me to target a pet or click their health bar from the pet menu, then click8 on the numpad to instantly give them a respite (small green) inspiration. After doing some testing, though, the range where this will work is pretty short - you need to be like within 20' of a pet to give it an inspiration. I wonder if this is similar top giving them to another player...

I appreciate the feedback! As I started writing, I was leaning more toward an energy shield of variable size and number, so you could make 2, shrink it down, and use them to punch enemies, or combine them, grow it much larger, and hide behind it before retaliating...

Basically my idea is this: You throw a generic "disc", (it could be solid, energy, or a little of both). Now, in my head I could see the animations/attacks fitting in to both a ranged only and a ranged/melee hybrid set, (basically you'd hold the disc like a shield and do various shield bash attacks). The catch is that it'd need some sort of gimmick. One thought that occurred to me was knockdowns, but I was thinking that if we said the disc had razor sharp edges, it could cause bleeds/DoTs or it could be an energy disc like Tron. Perhaps the disc could return after being thrown, thus having a chance to hit for a 2nd time, or it could ricochet off of random objects to hit multiple targets. Your thoughts? 1. Disc toss - basic attack with a chance to hit twice and/or knock down the target. 1a. Disc bash - You attach your disc to your forearm and slam it against your target. Chance of knockback. 2. Disc throw - A stronger throw of your disc, which does more damage and has a greater chance to knock down your target and hit them on the return trip. 2a. Edge strike - With your disc on your forearm, you catch your target with the edge, doing more damage with a small chance to stun them. 3. Low throw - You throw your disc toward your target's feet/ankles, doing moderate damage and slowing them, with a small chance to outright immobilize them. 3a. Low strike - With your shield held in 1 hand, you make a wide swing toward all enemies in an arc in front of you, knocking them down and dealing light damage. 4. Disc shove - You brace yourself behind your disc for a moment then spring forward, repelling all targets in front of you, dealing minor damage, and applying a minor tohit debuff as they are caught off-guard. 5. Charged disc throw - You channel energy into your and hurl it with all your strength, dealing heavy damage to all targets in a line/row. This attack has a high chance to hit any targets in that row a 2nd time when the disc returns. 6. Aim 7. Disc flurry - You conjure or otherwise pull out several discs and hurl them toward all enemies in front of you. Each disc has a small chance to knock down the enemy and/or hit them a 2nd time. 7a. Disc barrage - Placing a smaller disc on each fist, you unleash a torrent of punches that deal moderate damage with a chance to stun any enemies hit in a narrow cone. 8. Dual discs - You hurl a disc out from each hand, in a wide circular pattern. Enemies hit by these discs supper a minor resistance debuff, in addition to possible getting knocked down. 9. Decapitating disc - You hurl a devastating disc at roughly neck level of your foes. Enemies take significant damage, have a high liklihood of getting knocked down, and enemies of boss level or lower that are below 15% health are defeated outright.

That's very odd. I've noticed when trying to drag inspirations to pets that sometimes they vanish rom the tray, but then the game seems to register that the pet was a little too far away from me, so said insp got placed back into the tray. In doing some digging, I found the below command, which may be good to simply target a pet then give them a respite or something: /inspexec_pet_target petname

IIRC, one of the back options is a hockey/sports equipment bag with all sorts of sporting equipment sticking out of it a la Kasey Jones...

LOL! Thanks!

Understood & TYVM! :-)

I saw the option to change my costume at the trainer. Is in in there somewhere?

Hey gang! So I'm considering creating a shield user, and was looking for some input regarding what attack set to take with it, and whether I should go scrapper, tanker, or brute, (do stalkers get shields)? I was considering elec for the double tp/rush abilities, but some of the other melee sets look enticing, too. What are your thoughts? Thanks!

So I didn't realize until I was creating my 2nd character that you can customize the appearance & color of your powers. My only issue is that I can't seem to find how to do so *after* the character has been created. If a way to do this does exist, can someone please enlighten me. Thank you kindly!