biostem

Now, I'm not going to pretend to be as wise or experienced as some of the fine folks on these forums, but having just come back to CoX after nearly 10 years, here are a few tips I have for new or returning players: When you're selecting a particular power, see if there's a button or box that says something like "show more info" or something to that effect. It's usually in the column to the left or right of where you're making the selection, and it'll show you the recharge time, accuracy, damage, and other vital statistics for your potential power pick, (and other powers in the set, depending upon which screen you're looking at). You don't need to be fully versed in all the stats, but if you don't like a lot of down-time early on, then maybe a set with shorter recharge times will be more to your liking. Generally speaking, there's an opportunity cost with regard to range and damage - if you're primarily playing a ranged attacker, then be aware of the tools available to you, to keep enemies at bay - immobilizes, holds, or even just taking hover from the flight power pool, can make a lot of difference. Similarly, not every power set or archetype can heal themselves, and even though you can eventually take "aid self" from the medicine power pool, it has some draw backs that makes it less than ideal in an emergency situation. Green inspirations are great, but you may not always have some on hand. Certain powers, like a placate or teleport, may be able to save your life as well. At some point before CoX originally shut down, the fitness power pool was made inherent. What this means is that somewhere around level 2-4, you get swift, hurdle, health, and stamina for free. Now, while these 4 powers aren't amazingly powerful on their own, what they do is make you heal, run/fly & recover endurance a little faster. If you throw a couple slots into stamina in particular and slot in some end recovery enhancements, it'll provide a better stream of "fuel" for your powers. hurdle is also very useful for those opting to take superspeed, since you can clear obstacles a bit more easily. I wouldn't bother devoting slots to the other powers, unless you really have ones to spare, (maybe looking to take advantage of an iO set bonus or such). My experience with powersets may not be too applicable to the game in its current form, since I left the game before players could cross over from hero to villain or visa-versa, but here are my thoughts: I leveled a stone armor tanker to 50, as well as a kinetics defender, and both are (or at least, were), really great on teams. It's a little slow going solo in either case, but still fun. I had a dark/regen scrapper who was quite powerful and very self sufficient. I also enjoyed playing my mercs/traps mastermind, (though the soldiers do mostly lethal damage, which gets highly resisted in the later levels). Traps had some great debuffs that made up for it, though. I also had a shield/super strength tanker, who was a beast, and could really bowl through group after group of enemies. I had a radiation/radiation defender who was quite powerful solo and on teams, but took some time to build them up, and I recall there being a lot of toggles and short-range powers to manage/position yourself for. I also vaguely recall playing a claws/ninjitsu stalker, who I enjoyed playing because you got 1-2 mid-range attacks. I think I've rambled on for long enough, but I just want to leave off by saying that if you don't fall in love with a particular power set with the first 10 levels or so, then you may be better off rerolling from scratch, instead of continuing to punish yourself. Cheers!

Hrm, I could replace it with something else then. In any case: Here's Toxic Melee. Design Intent: Toxic Melee's big thing is damage over time and debilitating the enemy's damage output (whereas my planned corrosive sets are more about gutting the enemy's protective capabilities and my planned bio sets are about rampantly spreading AoE and self heals), it is nasty and hard to resist and will typically leave enemies struggling to fight back as their damage is weakened and their max HP drops. It has a healthy mix of AoE and ST damage as well as some controls. Fluff: You have the gift of a poisonous touch that very few living things can bear to stand up to. You don't hit the hardest up front, but you don't need to as almost nothing walks away from even the smallest touch of yours without lasting damage; while your foes will grow weaker and weaker as your poison courses through them. You are a versatile melee combatant who is capable against any number of foes, but the inorganic or similarly poisonous foes who can resist your toxic touch will give you no end of trouble. (This is the brute tree) T1: Poisonous Touch (Melee, Single target, Fast Animation, Minor Toxic damage, minor Toxic DoT; inflicts "poisoned" proc that reduces enemy damage and reduces max HP.) T2: Toxic Lash (Melee, cone. Fast animation, minor toxic damage, minor Toxic DoT. inflicts "poisoned" proc.) T3: Venemous Injection (Melee, Single Target, Medium Animation. Moderate Lethal/Toxic Damage. Moderate Toxic DoT. If an enemy has the poisoned proc already on them, Venemous Injection inflicts a brief hold as they have to go through the vomiting animation.) T4: Venom Dosage (Self, Toggle, Moderate +Damage, Moderate +Recharge, Minor +To Hit) T5: Venemous Bite (Single Target, High Toxic/Lethal/Smash damage, Superior Toxic over time, inflicts the poisoned proc and has a chance to induce Nausea and disorientation) T6: Taunt T7: Chem-Spray (Short range cone, Moderate Toxic Damage, High Toxic DoT. Has a chance to disorient.) T8: Neurotoxic Syringe (Single target, superior toxic/lethal damage, extreme Toxic DoT, induces nausea and poisoned proc.) T9: Ypres Offensive/Vomit Comet (TPBAoE, creates a lingering patch of superior toxic damage with a lingering toxic DoT and poisoned proc that also induces nausea.) What would be interesting with toxic melee is if you could build up toxin levels in your target to eventually hold/immobilize them. I was kind of thinking, (since you were careful to differentiate it from corrosives), that this set would be more about neurotoxins - so shutting down a target's ability to move or react. Perhaps it could work like "X number of poison counters triggers a slow, Y triggers a slow + -recharge, all the way to a full-on hold". It would make this a great set for more prolonged fights...

What do Corruptors offer that Defenders don't? Those aren't the sole criteria upon which a proposal should stand or fall. Anyway, this AT would be able to contribute tanking and damage to any team they are on, plus with more targets brought to bear, they could further act as a buffer for their human teammates.

I had a suggestion for a Melee-ish Pet AT called the Duo. My thought was that reducing the pets to a single pet would help alleviate both the risk of an OP AT as well as making it easier to manage, and modifies defensive toggles to double as support auras. Your proposal is definitely intriguing, but it seems more like , well, just a duo of you and 1 powerful pet. Mine is more of a single-player team, only with you on the front line instead of directing things form the back. Still, very cool idea!

Well, in my original proposal, your secondary consists of your pets and your defenses, so you're sacrificing a good deal of survivability in order to have those pets, and they only really add to your damage. The current MM is more of a "lead from the back" implementation, where you send your pets in to do the dirty work and support/command them from the rear. Sure, certain builds can run in with bodyguard on then blast/attack personally, but it's not the same as what I'm talking about...

Ok, that's a good analogy to base the discussion around. I still think it might be better to have the defensive powers in the primary but maybe you want to hybridize it with something else? If the defense is in the same set as the pets I feel that limits build flexibility since all 9 powers would be must-haves. Well, I can see your point regarding the secondary power set, but I don't think putting the defenses in the primary would work out better. What would you put in the secondaries, then? Other support powers, perhaps? What if each summoned pet contributed to your defense in a more active way - like for each T1 pet, you get a bonus to s/l res, the T2's give energy/neg energy, toxic, fire, cold res, and the T3 gives some status protection? Thus you're incentivized to keep your pets alive, and could theoretically do without one or more of the defensive toggles, as long as you keep your pets alive? Feels too much like the bodyguard mechanic, IMO. *shrugs*

I remember in Guild Wars 1 that each team member could cast a "vote" to skip a cutscene, (I forget if you needed everyone to agree, or just a majority, however). Perhaps it would be up to the team leader, or they could just set an option right at the onset? Heck, they could probably just speed up the actions, (since I think the game engine actually plays out a script with the NPCs/characters involved)...

Well, think of it sort of like the tanker<->scrapper or defender<->corrupter dynamic - whereas a regular MM is damage & support focused, this AT would be centered around tanking/crowd control and damage. I fully acknowledge that such a class would need a lot of tweaking, but I feel there is a niche to be filled for players who want pets, but also want to be in the thick of things, trading blows with the enemy up-close...

This AT would NOT have bodyguard mode, (instead would be the mechanic where your pets share in a portion of any healing you receive and they're damage gets buffed by them not having enemy aggro or just a damage buff based upon how many enemies have aggro on YOU). Your point about few MMs taking their personal attacks is noted, but by adding in the defensive toggles in their place, it'd make passing over any such powers a tough decision to make, (as it should be, IMO).

Well, that's true to an extent - you're basically dipping into power pools and relying on out-healing the incoming damage. I want to be able to play the tank for my own little group of minions, without having to spam heals or rely on weaker power pool attacks...

I wonder if they could implement a global XP and inf bonus based upon the % disparity between the hero and villain sides, (like if there's 20% more people playing as heroes, villains get a 20% buff to XP and inf)...

I love playing masterminds, but one thing I'd like to see is a variation on the class that leads from the front and mixes things up/tanks for their pets. The way I'd see this implemented would be something like this: The AT's primary would be similar to a tanker's melee set. The secondary would be nearly identical to a Mastermind's primary, but the personal attacks and special power would be replaced with various defensive and status protection toggles/powers. As a class ability, I'm thinking of a passive effect called "Lead by example", which heals your pets for a % of all healing you receive, (while they're within a certain distance of you), and a damage bonus based upon you having aggro and them not being targeted by said enemies, (or perhaps tie the damage buff into the taunt from the melee primary set). Your thoughts? As an example, here's a modified MM primary, (which would be this AT's secondary): 1. Temp invulnerability 2. Soldiers 3. Dull Pain 4. Equip Mercenary 5. Unyielding 6. Spec Ops 7. Invincibility 8. Commando 9. Tactical Upgrade

A little of both. It was sitting unimplemented in the game code, and the SCORE/HC team had to do some tweaks and modifications to get it implemented and playable. Thank you all for the info. I rolled up a dark/bio sentinel last night and played a bit. Seems like a fun AT. I only got a handful of levels in, but I can't wait to try her some more. Is dark/bio a good combination, or do you suggest any others? Sonic/ninjitsu looked interesting...

With the introduction of crafted Invention Origin enhancements, particularly the IO sets that have one enhancement that grants a global bonus (like the Luck of the Gambler set's 7.5% +Recharge IO, or the Karma set's Knockback Resistance IO), having 'mule' powers that you take for the single slot which will accept one of these globals is pretty common. Combat Jumping and Hover, for example, will both accept the LotG+Rech enhancement. Good to know. Thanks!

It was created by the devs. This is the newest powerset builder and it contains info on it. Great & tyvm! :-)

I used to play on Victory from around '04 to '09 - Biostem, Glacial Gauntlet, Beta Wave, Actuator, and many more were characters I played. I led a few Rikti mothership and Hamidon raids. Fun times!

That seems to be the case, and as I level up, it'll probably be less of a concern. Right now, with the 1st tier minions being my main source of damage/defense, I've been super-concerned with keeping them alive. Perhaps I'll play around with things and find a happy medium. Thanks!

I've only just found CoH:H, (played the original CoH/CoV), and never heard of this AT. I can't seem to find a comprehensive list of the powersets anywhere. Can anyone point me to a resource for more info about this class/AT? Was it created by the CoH:H devs, or was it something the original devs never got to implement before the game was shut down? Thank you all in advance!

Mastermind is quite possibly my favorite class to play! I'd love to see something akin to a "single player Superteam" primary set. It'd be something like this: Name: Superteam Summoning 1. Power bolts 2. Summon new recruits (1st would be a blaster, 2nd would be a scrapper, and 3rd would be a different blaster or maybe a stalker or dominator - these would all be fairly weak interpretations of these classes, and have fairly generic appearances) 3. Power burst 4. Equip teammate 5. Energy Torrent 6. Summon experienced teammate (1st would be a tanker and 2nd would be a defender - again, these would be fairly generic interpretations of each AT, and would powers appropriate for their role - like Invuln/SS for the tanker, and empathy for the defender - though all scaled for pet levels) 7. Rallying Cry - Buffs & heals your "teammates" 8. Summon veteran teammate (I'm on the fence here, but I think an illusion, mind, or gravity controller would be awesome as the top-tier summon for this set. Otherwise, it could be swapped out with the tank spot for the T2 pet and given the typical "flying brick" treatment). Alternatively, what if the personal attacks and such were geared around YOU being the so-called "flying brick" that represents the superteam? The tier 7 power could be a toggle that grants you status protection and a modest damage resist buff, (obviously not on par with a true tank, but then you could always engage bodyguard mode as needed). If this were to be done instead, then I'd swap out the tank pet for another ranged or melee attack, (or perhaps a team pet/robot, since many superteams have those as well). Your thoughts?

I'm just so ecstatic to be back! I was digging through some of my archives, and here's a pic of my character "Beta Wave" from the end of CoH beta launch event:

One of my earliest characters was a rad/rad defender, who I tried to play like superman, because I desperately wanted to laser-beam-eye things to death! He ended up performing pretty well, eventually, but I think it took doing the Terra Volta trial, then copying to the test server to try out different builds, (since they didn't show the numbers back then). Cheers!

Inside. Street sweeping like we did back in the very beginning was not a thing on Live for some time. Rikti Warzone and places like Dark Astoria, Hazard Zones, are not always terrible for drops and things, but XP is generally better from instances, unless I am mistaken. OK, Thank you!

Thank you so much, The Philotic Knight!

I'm sorry - regarding the 2nd point - is XP better *in* missions, or outside? Originally, I thought it was outside, but you're saying it's better *in* instances? Thanks!

So I played CoH/CoV for about 5 years, ('04 to '09), and really enjoyed it. I briefly came back when it went F2P, but never really stuck around. Now that nostalgia has set in, and I started playing again, I'm remembering why I loved the game so much. Anyway, I just wanted to say "hi" and mention a few observations/request some feedback: 1. I love that fitness is now inherent! I no longer have to worry about fitting it into my build, and while the need to manage energy consumption is lessened by this, it's still a great change, IMO. 2. I love being able to play villain ATs as a hero, (and visa-versa)! 3. No longer having to wait until level 14 to get your travel power, and not requiring you take a lower tier power is fantastic! OTOH, Perez Park won't be quite as scary anymore, LOL! Do you folks bother with the lower tier travel pool powers anymore? I could see combat jumping still being useful, and I was reading the info for what appears to be a newer medicine power, "serum". 4. I noticed while leveling up the other night that I can actually show the specific information regarding powers. This is an amazing change! Can you do this from the character creation screen as well? 5. I used to do a lot of "street sweeping" when I played the original run of CoH, but does it still hold that you get better XP from that? I've run a bunch of the quests for Twin Shot, and while I enjoyed the banter, the XP didn't seem all that great. 6. Do the same basic rules apply with regard to "kill stealing"? I used to basically avoid attacking groups others were engaged with or "helping" others, unless to throw down a heal or something that didn't do damage. Thank you all in advance!