biostem

I realize this is the blaster forum, but I've had great fun on my storm/ninjitsu sentinel. It's great fun!

Just keep in mind that being in combat, or even being on a team with someone else who is in combat, (even if they are a good distance or zones away), can sometimes mess with this process and prevent slotting or changing abilities.

Think of it like this; There are 5 "tiers" of Incarnate components; Base materials, (threads and shards), then tiers 1-4 which are used for actually crafting the Incarnate abilities. You will always need some amount of tier 1 components no matter what level of Incarnate ability you are trying to create. Beyond that, the higher tiers will also require a component of their equivalent level/tier. In order to get to the highest rank/tier, you need to combine two rank 3 Incarnate abilities within the same base Incarnate ability, (so two t3 musculatures to make a t4, etc). You basically convert those base materials into all other Incarnate components. Some, though, can be particularly expensive if you don't then make use of another currency, namely "Empyrean Merits" - Those can be used to directly create T3 or T4 components. You often get a big chunk of threads or Empyrean merits whenever you level past 50.

Those already exist.

Do the laws against things like using flamethrowers even exist within the CoH universe? Even sanctioned groups, like the PPD, use heavy weaponry openly and at times, within mere feet of civilians. For me, it's CoV not having hit the mark, with respect to allowing our villain characters to pursue their own machinations; When you create a villain, it should give you a few basic "tracks" as far as what your character's motivations are, such as power, madness, wealth, etc, with systems in place to switch said motivations, with all but a few contacts serving to help you further your goals, not theirs...

I've had good results with radiation armor/savage melee. Shield defense/dark melee is also really good. Back on live, I also had great fun with an ice armor/stone melee tanker.

I think part of the issue is that some people only have X amount of time to play the game, and in their mind, would they rather play a character with only a few powers and struggle against some "lesser" enemies, or sit in an AFK farm and do other stuff, so they can play what is, in their opinion, a "fully fleshed-out" character. Game knowledge be damned - they'd rather struggle with learning their end-game character than slog through yet another "kill all" or "find the glowie" mission in a confusing cave map. The only ways to get people to behave in a desired way is to punish them for deviating from the "correct" way to play or to reward them for adhering to said "correct" playstyle. Some possible solutions, IMHO, would be: 1. Grant players a significant amount of reward merits for completing non-flashback story arc completions, (while sub-50). 2. Grant players significant amount of XP for completing said sub-50 story arcs, (again while being sub-50). 3. Related to 1 & 2 above, implement a system whereby one can still follow the chain of contacts and storyarcs, even if they have outleveled them, and still have those missions provide level appropriate enemies. 4. Dramatically improve how mission objectives are tracked & handled. For instance, if a glowie passes through your field of vision, mark it on the map and/or provide visual/directional indicators, beyond just the audio ones. Give hostages +1000000000 perception, or whatever amount would be necessary, so they can still see the player through stealth/hide/etc. No more stealth kill-all's! Respect a player's time and don't pad out missions with things like portals generate endless enemies - either have them grant XP and be endless, or have them be limited; If it can kill you, it should grant XP.

Sort of tangential to this topic, but I think being in "TF mode" should not override the AFK auto-logout. I don't have the data, but I wouldn't be surprised if many of the people hanging out, seemingly AFK, at the SG portal, (or other such POIs), were in TF mode to avoid being auto-logged-out...

To what end, though? Is "killing all" any less valid than making liberal use of stealth & ATT/teleport target? You can look at the time-based bonus challenges to see what the original devs thought as far as approximate completion times would/should be, (not that I'm saying that's a hard & fast rule).

Sure, but not fundamentally changed. CoH should *not* be made into a "modern game". At some point, enough "improvements" will make CoH into something else, and that is what I'm against.

That's defense, which empathy already grants, or damage resistance.

Have to disagree with this sentiment; Sometimes you like a thing for what it *IS*, not what it can become. If you invest heavily, (emotionally, time-wise, etc), in something, hoping it'll reach some greater heights in the future, then you will forever be unhappy and never looking at "the now". If someone doesn't like CoH for what it is, then they aren't going to stick around for what it might become in the future...

Other than the SR power, what is "evasion" in this context?

Hmm.. I'm leaning towards electrical affinity, forcefields, or traps.

"We" haven't failed anybody. Everyone who plays this game, last time I checked, needs to be an adult, or if under 18, have parental supervision. As such, any conduct by a person in-game is their own responsibility. If you wanna PL to 50 yet haven't done any low-level content, then that's on you. If you, OP, want to advertise some sort of free service where you help these "misguided" people, then knock yourself out, but don't try to lump everyone together as if we have some collective responsibility to "help" those that choose to play in a way that you don't approve of...

So you genuinely believe that if you asked people, (at least those who fall outside of the "don't care" category), why they created an exact copy of [character X], they'd honestly answer that since they were able to play [character X] on some other Marvel or DC game, that it's ok in 3rd party titles?

I think you are being too generous in assuming that those creating obvious ripoffs don't know that what they are doing is wrong/against the ToS; At this stage of the game, and given the relative ease with which one can create a HC account, I'm inclined to believe that they just don't care...

I just set it to autofire...

I meant more like a circle around their feet or something...

The problem, IMHO, is that no matter what macros are provided to the player, unless they actually understand how the commanded pet behavior actually impacts things like how and when your pets will attack, much less what bodyguard mode is. I'm all for adding attack defensive, follow defensive, and other such macros as options, (perhaps in the powers window that can be dragged to the actual power bar). In addition to this, I'd love to see some sort graphical representation or other such indicator when pets are in bodyguard mode and/or within supremacy range.

IIRC, when you go to level up and a power pick is available, you can select the power and click the (i) to see the power info in the left pane, without being locked into actually taking said power... EDIT: Just to clarify, if you want to see stats for a primary power, the info will be displayed in the central or right pane instead of the left one.

Before they made the improvewents to bane spiders, and even now if you want crab & bane builds but don't want the spider legs, this is a great combo!

I have a 50 katana/ninjitsu scrapper, (I kind of prefer the scrapper/sentinel version over stalker's), and with divine avalanche's short recharge time, I am nearly untouchable, (with the heal and end recovery powers being very useful to aid me in maintaining my assault and healing up any damage that does get through).

Try a titan weapon/ninjitsu scrapper - it takes a bit to get past the momentum mechanic, but once you do, it's an off the wall combo!

Well, many of electric affinity's powers need to chain off of friendly targets, and a MM always has those available. Farady cage also provides very good resists and status protection in a fixed AoE, which also greatly benefits all your pets without having to go through multiple applications or such...