Neiska

My favorite top 3 - Robots/EA, Demons/Time, Thugs/Traps. Playing with a Robots/Dark now which seems promising, and tinkering with a Demons/Thermal in MIDS.

Well, it's sort of like this. I see the various activities as tools to make my own entertainment, rather than rely on the game to entertain me. Games like Minecraft, Conan, various "building" games and so on. Here's some examples off the top of my head - - Using the inf I get from AE to form my own little SG of villains, and assign them my own missions, essentially rping a contact and actually awarding them. Like a "I have assembled you here to retrieve X thing. Go to X place and do X newspaper missions, and I will give you X reward." Which both fosters community, roleplay, and rewards low levels and can make them feel like their actions actually matter. - Using the inf i get from AE to help support rp events, such as costume contests, rp games, dice games, we just had a 500 mil Friday the 13th themed costume party and contest last night as an example. - Go accolade badge hunting, which I reserve solely as an activity for characters I want to take all the way to the max. The same with T4 incarnates. I get my T1 3rd rank on nearly everyone, just for the level shift. I go t3 on builds i want to see what they are capable of, but I only go full T4 on the builds I truly enjoy. Most of which are MMs, Tankers, and my Crabber. - Do Ouro missions by myself, both to catch up on stories and lore, at my own pace and time instead of random speeds with random people. etc. -Eventually I do want to learn how to base build, but the little I have tried to do I had difficulty with the unwieldly interface, which has only increased my respect for the base builders of talent out there. Anyway, I guess what I am trying to say is I don't see as story missions as the main part of the game, at least not anymore, not for me personally. I mean, who gets excited to go "wow I get to play through the Dr Graves chain for the 435th time!" When you just want to get to the end point with a build and see what it can do, the process to get there would be very mind numbing without other options. Just explaining how I see things. I see all the different activities as options, many of which only come to fruition at level 50. Thats the part of the game I enjoy most, the post-50 things. Not the climb to get there. I can understand if that's all a person does is get to level 50 before starting over, then yes I would agree that would be the game in its entirety for them. But for some of us, combat is a side activity. I much prefer "community" activities, be it games, contests, roleplay, farming to help people level, just hanging out and roleplaying, chatting about game mechanics, and so on. Best wishes!

Itfs, incarnate content, making friends, power building, farming, badge hunting, accolades, crafting, building a financial empire, etc etc etc? If you ask me there is more things to do at 50 than not 50, if all you do on the way to 50 is do combat missions.

Respectfully but strongly disagree, which might be the crux of the argument. For many of us, the game "starts" at 50, and everything leading up to that is more or less a long, clunky, unnecessarily grindy prelude to where the real game and fun is. I am not saying you are right or that I am wrong, only that not everyone agrees with "everything after 50 is filler." Maybe its filler to you. It isn't to me. And if we are going by "when the game was first released" argument, then by the same logic anyone who plays added ATs/Powersets/Story Arcs are also "playing the game wrong?" I hasten to add that you didn't precisely say those words, and I am not trying to "put words into your mouth." I only extrapolate for context of your point if it was applied to other things. As far as the topic itself, personally I feel that the troubling number of "you are playing the game wrong" stances might be in fact driving people away, and certainly doesn't "attract" new players. And I still stand by my original point that perhaps the best bang for the buck would be for the HC staff to start a social media account, perhaps even as one of the characters in the game. Like a Ms Liberty or Recluse twitter page, which has possibility to be not only free recruitment but highly amusing as well. I am unsure of the legal grounds of such a thing, but if that is murky then still a plain HC social media might do some well to shine a light on the servers.

I shall take your word for it. 👍

No thank you, I'm good. I don't click random links from strangers on the internet. 👍

If you knew the group wasn't for you to begin with, you could have just ignored them at the start and avoided contact entirely. I would call that the high ground. Far as 801 goes, well, I would say that's on them. But if you know what they are, what they are about, and you know beforehand that you wont jibe well, and you join them anyway, then yes, I would say you are knowingly leaping into a situation there. That's just stirring the pot or adding to it, to my mind.

Personally, I wouldn't call trying to manipulate strangers solely to see if you shouldn't play with them as taking the high ground, but that's just me.

Not insinuating the person I responded to was the Gatekeeper, only the argument itself is Gatekeeping.

A dark storm splits the sky. Upon a high peak is a castle whose banners flutters in the wind. Deep in the bowls of the ancient fortress, reclines a Gatekeeper enjoying a beverage. One of his underlings creeps in -"M-my lord, I bring terrible tidings!" The Gatekeeper then replies - "..Speak." The pathetic underling continues its whining in an annoying nasal tone. "W-we have received reports that.. that... that people are deciding for themselves what they enjoy!" This statement makes the Gatekeeper bolt upright. "What? IMPOSSIBLE." The underling nods its head empathically. "It's true! It's true! I swear it!" The Gatekeeper casts down its beverage in disgust, and its voice echo's throughout the entire castle. "This Shall NOT stand!" The Gatekeeper begins to pace, accenting its cold joyless words with over emphasized body language. "How DARE they! YOU! Write this down! Take their Newspaper missions! Take their Veteran levels! Take their alternate options of play! Make them pay money for Features!" The underling nods as it frantically scribbles down the Gatekeepers commands. "B-b-but what of Raids my lord? Task forces?" The Gatekeeper pauses and turns its hate filled gaze upon its groveling servant. "NO. I enjoy those! NONE SHALL TOUCH THEM." The underling prostates itself pathetically on the floor. "Forgive me my lord! Banish the thought!" The Gatekeeper narrows its eyes, but nods, and slowly sinks back into its throne. "You have my commands. Now, BEGONE! Leave me." The underling nods, as it slowly backs out of the room. "Y-yes! At once your excellency!" as it turns and flees down the hallway. The Gatekeeper allowed itself a smug look of gloating self arrogant satisfaction, and reclined back into darkness amidst its thoughts. How dare these new interlopers have fun on their own terms! Well, we shall soon see who has the last laugh, even if I will be alone, for only I enjoy the game PROPERLY. All else is PRETENSE. FALSE. A Sick imitation, nothing more. Surely, no one else's opinion or preference of enjoyment mattered but its own. The figure became consumed by these narcissistic thoughts for hours, and the storm continued to rage outside.

Fair! Just be aware that EA is one of the busiest sets. But there are some skippable powers that let you nab the power picks, slotting is another matter however. If you go this route I hope it works out for you! Tempted to blow the dust off my Demon/EA and make a few tweaks myself.

I use a fully slotted tactics, so I have accuracy there anyway. But even without it, your question really depends on the mission difficulty. +4/8 they might struggle, but I've had little issues on 3 or less. Not really no, I focus more on the resist/sustain than Defense. My melee defense is 30%, and everything else is around 19%. This is out of barrier however. Hasn't been an issue no. On paper it might be terrible, but it is fire and forget. But I do find to be a noticeable improvement. Free damage is free damage after all. I have no idea if the proc is bugged, beause it's really hard to tell. But I have my enflame slotted and proced anyway. It does great for me, but your mileage may vary. The -9.4% resistance from Lash/Corruption/Crack Whip? One lasts 2 seconds, the others last's 4 and 5 seconds. In order for you to reap the full benefit from the -res you more or less would be doing that "nonstop" to maintain the -28% resistance. Personally wither or not I take them largely depends on my secondary. Some sets like FF are very passive and have all the time in the world to take use those attacks, and the space to slot them. But Electric is a very busy set, you are healing, applying abosrb, dropping a cage, using enflame, bonfire/cc power of choice, managing pets, keeping an eye on everyone's END, so on. To me there simply isnt space in the build for them, both in power picks or slotting, or time to use in the rotation. It would be difficult to even keep a 5 second one up regularly, which would be 9.4% res debuff. I'm not saying such a thing wouldn't work, just might not be for EA's style. But if you want to give it a try then I say go for it.

I cited my numbers when they were fully slotted. My Faraday Cage is 6 slotted with Unbreakable Guard, and my T2 demons has one +resistance. And yes, I have tough as well, but bodyguard mode isn't shown in mids and I don't have RoP. Here's a screenie -

Hello @... Demon/EA is my 2nd favorite MM pairing and have played one quite a bit so hopefully I can help. The good - Demon/EA is one of the most survivable builds out there. I have outlasted some tanks and brutes before. You still aren't a tank without aggro tools however, but in terms of sheer raw survivability this is definitely up there, especially for a non-melee build. This build is capable of withstanding some truly impressive things, outdoing tankers/brutes in some instances. You are as tough as they are, but if they run out of END they often splatter. You on the other hand, should "never" run out, while being just as tough. The bad - Unfortunately, it won't win any DPS races. Demons by itself is good, but EA does very little to support it. It does have Empowering Circuit for a bit of +damage, but that's all to speak of. Playstyle - I have always had the best results from Demons when playing aggressively. I usually keep the prince and t2 pets in aggressive, and t1 pets in defensive. But to me this set definitely performs better when being aggressive with it, rather than defensive than Robots. You will want to be close to your pets to keep them inside your Faraday's Cage and to keep everything in range of your heals and absorbs. Slotting - You will definitely want to build for recharge, to make your Absorb/Heal as fast as possible, but also to get your Hell on Earth perma. Luckilly for MMs, this is easy to do with many options for Luck of the Gambler Global Recharge, but you can slot 2 pieces of the Supremacy set for 10% recharge reduction each time, and 4 parts of the other for another 10%. This is a total of 40% without any other sets considered. Powers Breakdown - Demons - I rank them 5/5 for Single target damage, but only 2/5 for AoE. They aren't "terrible" at AoE, but they aren't great either. Unless you "want" to take them, I would skip Corruption, Lash, and Crack Whip. They are decent picks in some builds, but with the MM damage penalty on personal attacks and increased END cost, they are rarely worth it. Plus /EA is a fairly busy set. T1 pets - I usually slot the T1 pets with a 2 piece AT for the 10% recharge time, a damage proc, and accuracy. Being as they are -3 to your level, they will need all the accuracy that they can get. T2 pets - I slot them with another 2 piece for another 10% recharge time from Supremacy set, but I also slot them with a +resistance as it does affect their buff. This is also a great spot for Soulbound chance for Buildup, as your Hellfire Gargoyle is your main AoE damage pet. T3 Pet - Hes also great for damage procs, and a 4 piece of the Command of the Mastermind set for another 10% recharge. Special Power - Hell on Earth - A great mule power, but with enough +recharge you can get this up to perma. I would use it on your Hellfire Gargoyle or Prince, depending on circumstance. It is both a 35% +damage buff, but also can spawn little hellspawn cinders which can add some DPS and more bodies on the field. The great thing about Electric Affinity is these temporary pets also benefit from all your +resistance effects, making them quite durable. At top end my cinderlings don't really "die," they last until they expire. Which if you can Perma Hell on Earth, more or less means you have a lot of free recharge pets that follow you around when spawned in combat. For Slotting I put 2 recharges in, a few of the pet IOs, but you can also slot it for Overwhelming Chance to KD unique. Electrical Affinity - My favorite MM secondary, I would rate it 5/5 for survivability and support. Not everyone likes this playstyle, however. Shock - Obligatory Powerpick, I usually don't slot it and either use it on Bosses/Elite Bosses or as a ranged Pulling power to aggro the next group without having to move. Rejuvenating Circuit - Your heal which is both cheap, fast to recast, and generous with targets affected. It does bounce however, so be aware of that for ranged targets. Energizing Circuit - Another great power that with enough slotting can give effective "infinite" END for everyone, especially if you recast it as part of your rotation. Faraday's Cage - "The" defining power in the set. Not only is it a 18% all res buff, but also makes you, your pets, and team mates immune to things like Knockback, Endurance Drain, Status Effects. Ideally you will want to keep all your demons inside of it while they fight. Empowering Circuit - Your only +damage power that gives 22% Damage to the first target, a bit less to others, but also gives them a bit of tohit as well. Defibrillate - A skippable power, in my opinion. Especially if you tend to solo more than team. Insulating Circuit - Your primary power, best used pre-pull to help absorb the alpha strikes. But fully slotted it can extend your pets effective health by roughly 20-25%. Amp Up - Sadly, this power doesn't work on pets, only players. Again, if you solo more than team, I would skip it. Auxillary Pools Leadership - I would suggest Maneuvers to help with pet defense, Tactics to help their accuracy, and Vengeance to serve as a mule for LotG Global Reduction. Sorcery - Some might be surprised by this suggestion, but you can take Shield Ward to stack +absorb with your Hellfire Gargoyle/Prince, Mystic Flight for mobility, but most importantly Enflame. Enflame goes a long way to help Demons mediocre AoE damage quite noticeably. You can have it up effectively permanently, only having to click it roughly once a minute, and can be slotted for damage procing as well. You "can" take Rune of Protection, but it isn't needed with Electric Affinity. Speed - Haste, obviously. But I also recommend taking Burnout. This is because you can use Hell on Earth, then Burnout, then immediately use Hell on Earth again on a different pet for a big boost in both damage and cinders on the field. Do be warned however that your Recovery will take a dip when Burnout wears off, but that is only a minor problem for EA. Fighting - The standard kick/boxing, tough, weave. If you find your own defenses lacking you can 4 slot kick/boxing with kinetic combat for another 4/2% S/L/Melee defense. Teleportation - You can take teleport self/combat teleport, but the real gem here is Fold Space which will let you pull things into your killing area, rather than you having to relocate yourself. Epic Pools Heat Mastery - My favorite epic power for this setup is Bonfire. This is because 1. It's a form of CC making things bounce inside your Fardays Cage, letting your pets wail on them. 2. It is a form of AoE damage, even if it's a dot. 3. You can slot it for damage procs as well as Annihilation -res. Mu Mastery - Fitting for theme if you care about such things, Electric Fences is one of the best Damage/Immobilize powers you have access too. It's a good immobilize, which you can actually get better than perma as it lasts 17 seconds with a 20 second recast to start, this is before all your recharge bonuses and so on kick in. The downside is it requires another power pick to take, neither of which is of great help - Static Discharge doesn't do enough damage for the cost, and you will already be resistance capped without Charged Armor. But if theme matters to you, then this might be worth taking for you. Mace Mastery - Web Envelope is very similar to Electric Fences mechanics wise, but does have the weapon draw animation, but doesn't waste precious power slots. Incarnates - Alpha - Musculature, no contest here. Your pets need every bit of damage they can get. Interface - I almost always recommend Degenerative, for the simple fact you can't really get -maxhp effect anywhere else, and you can slot -res effects into some powers. Judgement - Your choice here. Mighty can do an AoE Knockup to act as a tool to buy time if you need it in an emergency, but Ioun is the most thematic. Destiny - This is where Demons/EA really shines. Typically, a build has to pick 2 of the 3 following effects - Effortless END management through Ageless, Status Protection through Clarion, or Superior Durability through Barrier. However, with EA you can effectively have all 3 - Faradays Cage gives you and your pets Status Protection, and Energizing Circuit gives you "effective" infinite END, which leaves you free to take Barrier. To put it bluntly, you sort of get 2 incarnate effects through Electric Affinity, which is why it is a very potent set, even though its entirely defensive minded. Hybrid - I would go Support. Yes, if you want to juggle pets they can benefit from Assault, but I personally think its too much work for too little gain over simply using Support. If that doesn't bother you, then Assault might be the optimal choice. How it all comes together - So you have +absorb, heal, status protection and immunity, with a few damage buffs. You might get the best results by playing aggressively once you have all your tools, trying to keep as much of the fight inside your big bubble of demonic DEWM through Fold Space/Web Envelope/Electric Fences/Bonfire, and use powers like Hell on Earth and Enflame to support your pets as much as possible. The highlight of the playstyle - Though combined total effects, you never have "low" levels of survivability, only peaks of "not capped." You use Barrier, with absorb/heals/capped resists being plenty to manage the downtime when barrier isn't up. And since you and your pets are all resistance capped, you can take a truly stupefying amount of damage with bodyguard mode, absorbs, and heals. Anyway, know that was a lot to throw at you. But I hope it all helps!

I don't use keybinds either, what I do is drag the commands from the pet window to my tray. 3 Rows of trays, with tray 1 being t1 pet follow, attack, guard, etc. Tray 2 being the same for the t3 pets, and tray 3 being for t3 pet. I also put the all follow, all attack, all defend command there too. So i can still manage all my pets as i need with a few mouse clicks. PS - I use "Advanced" pet window, not the base one.

And I'll just point out that the first post of removing the AE is in post #5 of this thread was where the whole move/remove AE discussion began. And no matter how you try to slice or rationalize it, my original response to this has always been - more options are good. CoH is, and always has been, "play your way." And this is removing options, for new players. Players, even new ones, should have the right to decide if they want to use AE or not. Who are you, I, or anyone else to tell them otherwise? They are free to get rushed/farmed, just as they are in any other game. Also, I will add that moving the AE from starting zones, will likely have minimal effect anyway. At level 10-12 people usually move into the next newbie zone. So what difference would it be from being able to immediately use it, from using it the next zone over? It's not as if a new player once they learn its location, cant just make an alt and run there anyway, right? I would call that a strawman as well. You say "new players shouldn't be catapulted out of the gate." I agree they "shouldn't," but I don't agree with taking away the option to do so, if they so choose. Players, even new ones, should be able to choose their activity, just the same as doing any other - contact missions, random patrols, base building, roleplaying, playing the AH, etc etc. The real strawman here is the argument that power leveling a new player will somehow magically make them disinterested in playing, when it is entirely just as likely a new player can go "wow, this is awesome, I can make as many characters as I want, try any powers I want, as many ATs as I want, and can have the money to do so, and it won't take years of game time." True, SOME might go "eh, this game is too fast." But SOME are just as likely to go "...this awesome." And who are we to tell anyone otherwise? Players, new and old, will like what they like. And I take a pretty dim view of using questionable moral/for the greater good arguments to try and persuade their decision on how to enjoy the game.

@UltraAlt

Well, this isn't exactly how I planned to spend time on a Monday morning, but here we go. Nor do I go looking for it, but I would not call seeing it in /General channel or seeing them posted in these forums at least once a month as "going out of my way to look for it." Take this very thread which in no way was started meant to do with farms at all whatsoever, and yet here we are. Again. Ah, yes. Me respectfully posting my side of things is so very much alike to painting a target on my own back. We can't have a civil discussion about it, no no no, of course not. Better to just label the opposition whatever term is convenient for the moment or make insinuations in the most vague possible terms that's all the better to devalue their points instead of addressing them. How dare I defend my own opinion and forms of enjoyment which are in no way against the rules. FOR SHAME! (am I doing it right @Snarky?) Perhaps what you don't understand is that this is no longer NCsoft, and that HC in all likelihood could give a flying sack of leaky rat farts about what DEVS said on live on any relevant policy. Moreover, I disagree - even if AE as removed, there still would be farming, merely a different version of it. But I will get to that point in a moment. And yet it rings true. The live DEVS have zero authority as to what goes on in HC, just as the HC staff might have had to say on live. Unless of course, one of the HC staff also happened to be on the staff during live, in which case they are the same person, but I doubt that is the case. Let me elaborate in simpler terms - you are comparing apples to oranges. The policies on Live to the policies in HC as some sort of validation to suggest that ever since the live Dev's "backed down" as you put it, everything that ever came after that was somehow null and void and "wrong?" It doesn't matter what they did or didn't do on live. The staff aren't the same people. It isn't the same game. It isn't the same company. That was over a decade ago, in a different time, with a different community. You are really setting the bar for nostalgia goggles here. I think you are perhaps the confused one in this scenario. You seem to be suggesting that the current HC staff, allow the decisions made a decade ago by the staff of another company dictate their own policies now? That doesn't strike you as a bit ridiculous? I think you vastly over estimate the value of your opinion on HC policy. Or are you expecting the staff to be in a meeting to go "We are about to make a decision on policy. Quick! TO THE FORUMS! We simply MUST hear the opinion of UltraAlt! What would he do? We need answers, STAT!" Your opinion bares no greater weight than mine, thank you very much. Right, first off, nobody involved would agree on what the term "abuse" would mean in such a situation. But let's play hypothetical here. For the sake of argument lets say by whatever reasons you care to pick, AE was removed. Gone. Poof! Pixies magically klepped it in the night. You know what would happen? A few things - Firstly, farming would still happen. People would simply figure out what now the most expedient way to level. Whatever activity that happened to be. It could be a specific story arc, or a certain mission, or just standing around on autopilot. "That" would be the new "farm." As an example I would point to DFB. People used to run that to 20 or so until it was nerfed into the ground. Now, people may run it once for the badge, and move on. Or run it a few times. What they do instead is do other things. And, for the record, doing the work and figuring out the way to play the game most efficiently is not cheating/exploiting, its simply playing smarter. Unless of course, rules state doing X thing is wrong, which they don't in this case. There are even rules fo rmultiboxing, so, am I to assume you are going to say that since Live had different rules on multiboxing, that we are cheating by doing it now on HC, even though the rules are different now? Here's a news headline for you then. People like to make alts. People can still be attached to their alts. Or to MANY alts. And this might shock you to your very being but, people might be just as attached to their alts/farmers as you are to your own character. Shocker, I know. Another obvious fact of life. You seem to like to suggest that there is an entire horde of farmers just cranking out multiple armies alts without rhyme, reason, or thought. Let us pretend for a moment that they were - So what? What business is that of yours what others do in their time? Hint: It isn't. Up and until this post I had thought it was a mutually respectful discussion until that point, until I seemed to detect a level of platitude in your latest reply. And one thing I have been hesitant to bring up until now is I suspect that some of these voices saying "nerf AE" might in fact have harder and harder times filling their task forces or teams, or simply finding themselves fewer people to play with. And they might possibly feel that by removing the AE tool, suddenly all those people who were farming will now suddenly add to the pool of possible team mates. I am not suggesting in any way you are such a person, but I think it would be a bit childish to pretend that might not be a cause of outcry against AE for some. You think Door sitting is wrong. Good for you. Then don't do it. Many others feel it isn't wrong. And their opinion and gameplay is just as valid as your own, whatever yours happens to be. Because until HC staff comes out and states "Doorsitting is wrong" then your opinions are only just that, not a fact, rule, or policy. So stop using your mere opinion as some sort of moral high ground to lecture people whose game hobby has exactly nothing to do with yourself. You want to go out and do contact and news paper missions? Fine. Go do it. I am happy for you. Maybe if you spent more time playing and having your own fun, and less time worrying about what other people are doing for fun, you may have more of it. Because attitudes like yours in fact drive away many players. The argument of "I am RIGHT, therefor all who don't believe precisely as I do are WRONG" is a source of needless grief in the world. You like to play a certain way. And that's okay. But other's like to play a different way. And that's okay too. Even if YOU don't like how THEY play. Their play, isn't ABOUT you, or what you THINK is right, or wrong, or what is exploiting, or what isn't. Because HC has made their policy already pretty clear about it. Which would make that play, not exploiting. But for what it's worth, thanks for helping me kill a bit of time at work. Cheers!

But that's kind of the point, there was no single reason but several. - They were sued by marvel. The case was dropped but I think it would be silly to think that didn't impact their decision. - The game was profitable, but not profitable enough. - The main owner, cryptic, sold their rights to NC soft. - The new owner had other projects going on as well such as Guild Wars. - Keep in mind that NCsoft suffered a 6-million-dollar loss in Q2 of 2012, and actually went bankrupt in 2013. They also closed several of their studios, not just CoH. - There was also a declining player base even 10 years ago. Those that remained were like us, die hard fans, but even back then numbers were slowly lowering. - Let's also take a moment to look at the other games at the time. The main games at the time were - WoW, Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, EVE, Rift, Lord of the Rings Online, and Diablo 3 also came out that year. - CoH wasn't the only MMO to end either. There were other titles such as Vanguard, Warhammer Online, and a whole host of much smaller MMOs that have come and gone. But the truth of the matter is, is that unless we were sitting on the board meeting, none of us will truly know. NCsoft did publish a few statements - To their fanbase - To our Community, Thank you. Thank you for your years of support. You've been with us every step of the way, sharing in our challenges, encouraging us to make City of Heroes better, more than everyone else thought it could be. We couldn't have come this far without you. I implore you all, focus on the good things of CoH and Paragon Studios. Don't dwell on the "how" or the "why", but rather join us in celebrating the legacy of an amazing partnership between the players and the development team. And this is a statement they left with IGN - Both NCsoft and Paragon Studios are incredibly proud of the success of City of Heroes, but unfortunately, the continued support of the franchise no longer fits within our long term goals for the company. All employees at Paragon Studios are affected by this decision, including the management team. We will begin the City of Heroes sun setting process immediately with the goal to officially stop our service offerings for the franchise on November 30, 2012. This was a very tough decision to make and wish the best for all Paragon Studio employees in their next ventures. So there wasn't really any single cause. If I had to put it all together I would say that NCsoft looked at the various points above, and decided to trim down on side products that while profitable, they may not have been able to keep affording the servers. maintenance, staff, and all the other assorted upkeep costs. The fact they closed several studios and products at roughly the same time sort of implies this. Now if they had bought CoH, let it run a year, and closed it down by itself then I agree it could have been a case of the greedy bean counters at play. But everything mentioned here suggests something larger was at work. I mean, they actually went bankrupt shortly after CoH was closed. Which also tells me that at the time they closed it, it was a sinking ship, and they were trying to avoid bankruptcy. So they closed CoH and their other products that didn't meet whatever cost/profit ratio they decided upon and tried to upright the ship. Obviously, that didn't work. Hope this helps! PS - Another thought occurred to me. NCsoft bought CoH in 2007. But the game actually went free to play before the shutdown in June of 2011. Which I suspect was kept alive by NCsofts other products at the time, as well as those annoying ingame advertisements that some of us remember. If I was a company like NCsoft facing bankruptcy, a game in such a state would be the first thing to go. If it was kept alive by ingame advertisements, those likely were enough just to keep the lights on and the staff paid. But that's just me musing.

Hello @Ukase I might be able to offer some advice if I saw your build setup. But just so you know a MM will never match a Brutes damage 1 on 1. But it can exceed it in other ways. But if damage is what you value most in a build/at, then MMs might be frustrating. But for others the AT can be quite powerful. A LOT depends on your primary/secondary pairings, possibly more than other ATs. But /Time is a strong contender, and you will notice a bump once you get the ye old Power Boost + Farsight/Chrono. But it helps knowing beforehand that MM's overall are very customizable in how they fight, but aren't concerned with damage as much as they are about controling the engagement in a variety of ways, such as buffing, debuffing, slowing, knockdown/knockbacks, so on. With /Time in particular it shines in a few ways - 1. As mentioned its quite easy to softcap defenses for you and pets with Power Boost + Farsight, but Power Boost also affects the healing of your Chrono Shift. This does lock you into the /Mace pool if you wish to do this however. 2. You can stack the -SPD with your Time's Juncture with Distortion Field, slowing enemies considerably. 3. Slowed Response adds a bit of -RES that adds to damage taken. As far as Damage itself, here are a few things that can help - 1. If you were unaware, you can "drag and drop" red inspirations onto your pets. Just click and drag it to their hp bar in the pet window, and if you are in range they will "use" it. This works for all inspirations except rez. 2. Some pets can slot chance to damage procs. This is great for a set like /Time where they have a Mule (Gangwar) for their pet IO sets. It may not sound like much but it I've found its noticeable. Some pets can slot more than one of these, and they also stack with your Interface Incarnate ability later. 3. A few things with Gangwar itself. Not only can you slot it with the pet Aura IO's, but you can also slot damage procs into it as well, making it hit a bit harder. But you can also slot the Chance to Knockdown unique there as well, which is particularly effective when paired with my next point. 4. With Thugs, it is strongly recommended to take Burnout. You can pop Gangwar, then Burnout, and immediately use another Gangwar. It is a very strong ability that is great against tough single targets. 5. Another option that does well with /Time, is taking Bonfire from Heat Mastery. Doing this will lock you out of Power Boost, but Bonfire is one of the best Proc/CC powers MMs have access too. You can load it up with damage procs and a knockdown, and pretty much locks things into flopping about in a patch of fire while they take damage. I still recommend Power Boost, but this is an option if you want more damage. I am afraid without seeing your build this is all the advice I can offer. Overall /Time is very strong, but it's more of a Support/Defense secondary than offensive. MMs have a few options for more Damage/Offense such as /Storm, /Kinetics, or /Dark Miasma, but not very many. Hope it helps!

Have to disagree here, whole-heartedly. It was a multitude of issues at the time, not a bunch of greedy CEO bean counters as suggested. They were sued by marvel, had other side projects going on, and a whole host of other considerations. Here is an older video that explains it pretty well - So please don't throw in "Capitalism BAD" into the discussion, especially when its untrue.

I agree to a point. While there are certainly people who care not for theme, flavor, "fun", and only go for what is .0024% the most numerically superior in the majority of content, I would bet there are just as many people who use builds that are purely for fun, theme, how they look, or even how they play, or whatever other reason they happen to like a sub-optiomal build. Heck I have met a handfull of people who picked their AT's/Powers based entirely on how they looked visually. After some discussion they explained they are sort of a "story teller" for their SG, and run their own little roleplay in AEs/Bases and the like. And so they would take powers that gave them visual tools for that. Their choices weren't combat oriented at all, which I thought was a pretty awesome thing to see.

Pretty callous attitude toward a small group of people who work solely for the pure joy of the game and sharing that joy with thousands of random strangers, entirely on their own time and entirely for free without so much as a dime in personal profit. Personally, I am ecstatic we get updates at all under such circumstances. Not sure who is making a shocked Pikachu face about people coming and going. I would say that is the normal state of affairs.

Present a problem or point of contention, add opinion A, sprinkle opinion B, add in a bit of @Snarky and the new players will come! It's Science!