DrunkFlux

Anytime a toon of mine was 50...I never entered them in AE, I only entered AE to hit 50 then I stopped entirely. I admit I relied on extra E merits ect to get extra inf to. This change is imo pretty badly thought out since it punishes everyone for the actions of a few exploiters exploiting an overpowered leveling/inf grinding system.

Least favorites: Nemesis and Ralaruu, for comparable reasons of what I feel is closer to fake difficulty. The trouble with both is, they aren't truely challenging so much as designed to say to defense (and to-hit also case of nemesis) that it's useless. It's bad design to outright take away options completely. Nemesis vengeance buffing is overpowered and tedious to deal with; after cleaning up a mob of nemesis, you must wait for the buffs to clear from the next mobs, which are always certain to be buffed; the vengeance on death that the lieutenants have has a massive radious. At least there is a counter, if annoying one that breaks gameflow. But.... ....Ralaruu are even cheaper; the overseers (all eyeball enemies in fact) have 200-300% to-hit rating. There is no way to get such a high amount of defense to counter that. Not even a tanker with all the locational defense IO's possible + elude can do that. I wouldn't be surprised if sucha to-hit exceeds the defense hard-cap. It's simply unfair and annoying. It's a good thing both villain groups aren't very common. Favorites: Malta Operatives, Arachnos, Banished pantheon I love enemies that present a challenge that you can deal with. Malta Operatives have a nice variety of tricks that you have to watch out for, mostly focused on CC and endurance drain. They require some amount of thinking and killing them in order as well as smart power use. I have a special love for them specifically for that reason. Arachnos are similar to Malta Operatives, but take variety to an even heavier extreme, there isn't a build in the game that can perfectly counter them because they have a bit of everything. High defense? Some rank widows, especially tarantula queens and fortunata mistresses can debuff defense with dominate, which is a psi-only attack with no locational, making them priority targets. If you have poor endurance resistance then the Mu become priority targets. Bane spiders are like RE4 chainsaw maniacs, able to inflict horrifying damage such you simply MUST deal with them. Only the brute force mechanical spiders are generic enemies. They also have a tremendous amount of lore backing them up. Not to mention another bias; My main on live was an arachnos widow, and I'm enjoying the new Arachnos widow I made a few weeks ago. Banished Pantheon possess a wide array of nasty tricks from anti-melee storm summoning, psionics, I think radiation and darkness abilities. They are in many ways brute force, but they have nasty secondary effects and are a group you simply cannot just casually yolo. Like Arachnos you have priority targets to deal with, there isn't truely a way to make a build completely invincible against them, and they have excellent lore and even star in an incarnate trial, when the rest of them are exclusively focused on praetorians. I also find there outfits to be especially unique; you cannot actually replicate them currently, but I'd happily make an ex pantheon or even banished pantheon themed character if it was possible.

One of my favorite blasters is a water/time who doesn't use hasten. She still has high cooldown reduction. Only thing I don't use typically in many builds are procs; I prefer having more defense and benefits. This is also due to uncertainty of the future of procs that I prefer not over-relying on them; https://www.midsreborn.com/builds/download.php?uc=1454&c=672&a=1344&f=HEX&dc=78DA6D93DB5352411CC7F7C09209121082A2A2725140E40876792E134C8319A79A9AE9C69C10F1CC1030804DFE11DD9EBA085A335DB4CB5BD7BFA87AE8F2DAF8403FF6F7DB01AB9D73F673F6B7BFCB77F7EC666ECDF7ADAEA64E30C57AAAA8D56AD939E8EBF9AA29A315F41C6BB71E7887C89C3DAB950AF915F5A2D61E08E3849C3AB75EA994AB75F57CFE06502B66335A49AFAC17B5BA5E2E31CB72B95C545345BDB0567788EFC5D24DBDA65FD78B7A7DC3262CE9BCB692AFD6D6F48A15BDDBCE7AA9E04956F49C2AEB64B45C1EBAF6F7C620680BC29B0C40A708B92DCE6E03FC9C19EE10EF22F93DE27DE4C90893AD050F3496823C8ACCA33C40BFBE87C447C010678736890DE4020419290F37CE1A184B70663F823C7C94781CD97F0C791A824C54C9647AC785F1C07BE207E4C18FC44F48F367E462007F8B08EE798619DDCF892F90A32F893B48DF2E721E96DD2B97DD1B65C2B804192D528E651A3D8331E4A44A9C21C691A104D2025AAC32A3358019AD60B45146667329C27806261DB28C63075713D9454EBD22BE26BE41C6DE225320DC49C18A731CCB84880E28E7A249838BCA0DDA89FD4827380D484D034D50EFE42C0D9A3C52938761AD210351418E18891C396A421A20E3B05CFAB03843463079A54C6FBB9C97B3F8AC51F867A0D8982C36F6188DE39BC406B189F46D11B79149D800BF0CF6375041A049DC226E23834F884FE9CC40F0845CFBC46FCCB867672C2C772D4CBB15A1DD8AD02E2E406454968D4EE23F9F0E11C3C4083236458C22E7205895C1EA25BC31EA65E215E4CC55E2356216C9612BE3525E9CE42448668264FA78E7EEB746F83F773ADD35CF580C8FCB329736302AC2EFBBF93F7E3FF61985DFCF2E93C29614A1D47C01C5FCDA37F9D719FDE2EE886B7DED1E7CEB1EECC1202117C4DC9DBBD5FA03EA0DD4E0 Hasten and procs are sacrificed in favor of effectively every other category a blaster could have. Granted this build lacks CC from temporal, but except in hamidon encounters in lady grey it isn't as important. Low damage resistance also, this just leads to me carefully monitoring health while I blast away. This is actually fairly common in my builds, high defense and leadership, low damage resistances and a tendency to not over-invest in procs. Hasten is usually only an extra; cooldown and feel for powers and how much of a difference it makes is what decides if I skip it. If hasten only removes a few seconds from a key power like say, my T9, then I won't bother with it. This build has 112.5% cooldown reduction global without hasten, and uses agility for higher endurance recovery and defense. My seismic/temporal manip blaster though is cooldown reduction to the maximum, so hasten is a clear pick.

Well a thought that never comes up, theres also plot alignment and character theme alignment to. Some characters of mine aren't compatible with others for sure, but it's true of anyone. I think it's smarter for higher flexibility in some ways, as I couldn't help but feel bothered by a conversation one toon had with another(though I let it pass, as I don't involve them in active plots anymore and haven't for a long time); like say, Toon A makes claim x problem is already solved, end of story. Toon B says otherwise. Player of toon B is put off by Toon A and potentially rper A. It's even more-so if Toon B in rp's very internal struggle is affected by X problem, a core part of there motivations in life, the reason they exist and were made by roleplayer B. That many of the characters behavior is affected by that issue, and it's not something easily resolved(or even intended to be). Which can create frustrations, of course there are different ways it might be resolved, discretion or otherwise, like Roleplayer B may just decide to use arms length. Or may already be doing so ahead of time if they know Roleplayer A already and figure plots incompatible or even serious RP not very compatible(for any number of reasons). It likely isn't a big deal in such a case. In the event someone's taking part in plots actively then there likely needs to be an agreement made.

Well at the time, my thoughts was also if a lot of people make the same bid I was thinking it cannot immediately process them, honestly maybe or maybe not on that(do we know for sure if say, 20 people all make the bids at the same time and price? or a few hundred?, probably wasn't the case for me though). Honestly it's not the end of the world for a bid to not immedietly go through, on work days prices tend to be more stable than on weekends, which is when I normally mess with the auction house; I am on an odd schedule and I actually work a weekend day, and two of my days are off during the normal work week. This changes the market a bit for me.

In regards to being told how to play all the time: This can apply to any archtype, in fact I was recently told my night widow was gimp purely for not being a corruptor/defender when it came to support. Granted the same tools acted like everyone wasn't taking them for granted(as if they needed to be worshipped constantly just for playing support archtypes), as if the mastermind wasn't around and I didn't exist, but being told I didn't matter was kinda insulting(didn't help I mistook one of them as the kin when it was the mastermind, it was still rude they acted like everyone else didn't exist). I only find tankers/brutes annoying when they are gathering more than the target cap, and i think it's because many of them fire farm most of the time, and never actually come to the realization that there is a cap of 16. It mostly effects people who are leveling more than people who are already at max level with alpha slot though, and lower level teams. I admit I feel fire farms are the "Big game hunters(A money map in starcraft)" of city of heroes; they teach bad habits in players. Big game hunters in starcraft generally taught players to only mass one unit armies without scouting, upgrading, or doing any fundamental and also not expand. Fire farms teach players to ignore the agro cap and often disregard the entire team, rely on incarnate powers in builds ect.

SR is only troublesome for scrappers/stalkers and only due to it's AoE defense coming especially late, at level 35, with it's passive at being at 28(which effectively makes almost zero difference, defense is usually only effective at about 30%+ by itself, and needs to be at 40%+ to truly be effective by itself). With it's AoE defense being what I'd call cardboard until 35 for those two AT's, it can be very off-putting for a lot of players, frankly I think the third toggle should be in the same tier as what brutes and tankers have. But my SR tanker says a lot about any claim that SR is a "gimp" set, she out-tanks a lot of nasty situations, in fact I only had a few deaths on her and I was tanking even when I was leveling her, often holding agro even with the mobs being +5 to her. Tankers and brutes SR is 100% fine for them, it's just the power set order for stalkers and scrappers that needs to be looked at, sentinels to but sentinels are garbage anyways and need a look serious look at.

Ok, I will make some corrections, they were still saying it was well more then that, but seems both sides were wrong here; at least one of them was claiming it was well over a million :/. Now I admit, i'm even angrier at myself for this mistake.

So I had an arguement with some people in help and while one person being erroneous about prices wouldn't be so bothersome, multiple people spreading misinformation bothers me to no end. They made claims the prices were far, far higher(like millions for rares). So I wanted to clear up some things: Crafting components are seeded(corrected, this is a far better word) to prevent hyper-inflation. Prices are about 10k(average price remains usually 500, occasionally hitting 1000) for common, 50k for uncommon(average tends towards 5-10k) and 1 million(though average tends towards 500k) for Rare. If the purchase isn't going immediately it's because other people are bidding for the same or higher then those(though if same, may take a lot of people bidding?). Bidding for higher then that will get you the components instantly, but your effectively wasting influence doing so. Anyone who claims the prices are higher either have not been on homecoming during it's first days, or is lying. This is why 90% of the time components are usually less than the prices listed above. Edit: So I was actually wrong to a degree; price for rare is 1 million as the cap. That said, rather than remove this post, I'll keep it here; the prices were being exaggerated significantly higher than some of the people in chat.

So I looked up today just now on google specifying homecoming, and I saw one post for an option to propagate costume color changes across colors, when it kind of just hit me. What about a system in-game to change all costume slots on a character to a completely different set of costumes at the press of a command/button? And also an option to tie saved costumes to specific characters and an improved sorting tool for already saved costumes? It'd save tremendous amounts of time for those who need more than 10 costume slots to be able to change multiple slots to pre-saved costumes on demand, it'd serve as a work around for the game engine limit of only 10 costume slots.

I often use an analogy for high power/overpowered characters. This applies to dragons/gods/demons to. A racing game, and the heavy weights. The heavyweights in racing games are the cars/characters/craft with the highest top speed, and the worst handling and acceleration. If they do not compromise in handling and thrust, they sacrifice in other categories. These require care, lots and lots of care. Collisions when they occur(and they occur more if your inexperienced) are much more unforgiving. High power characters are heavyweights. They require care and caution in approaching roleplaying. Often also discretion even when your on them casually. My most overpowered characters can if I mishandle them cause tremendous cringe. I rarely involve them in major plots, if they are involved, it's likely more indirect for a reason, if I ever get them directly involved, it's usually with an intent to knock them down a peg intentionally, OR as indirect antagonists. I think this way partly inspired by star treks' Q. Q in star trek, for those who have never watched The Next Generation, is an omni-potent being who can change things at literally the snap of a finger. He has generally no real limits to his abilities. He bends and changes reality on a whim. What makes people enjoy his plots is how he uses those powers; to prank lesser beings. He's not a good guy, so much as a prankster teacher. His lessons range from teaching humility (like in Q who) to teaching moments like being careful what you wish for or even out of the box thinking. If Q was just a fixer in every single episode without any lessons taught, he'd have been far less interesting and even just creating a snooze. Often, my most roleplayed characters are significantly less powerful, though still very, very capable in there own right. Alma may be able to mop the floor with council and displays immense talent, but she's young and inexperienced, she makes up for with raw talent, but her talent outstrips wisdom somewhat. Thats just an example, but my characters make mistakes because I want them to be more human like. And it creates room for plotlines that you do not see when your character is in a perceived utopia. Sometimes I even distort things on people, with one character of my own, due to not seeing the whole picture, draws a conclusion that is in contradiction to what's happening, only to reveal the problem shortly after. Though I try to also provide opportunities to show other perspectives(though I try to do this with other roleplayers). I call that the "perspective rule", simply, not all of my characters have all the facts of one another. Only if they are in the same off-screen locations and regularly run into one another. Thats harder to do with a more powerful omni-potent being, hence why I rarely mess with them(though I do have them). I think also, the more powerful a character is, the shorter their lifespan as interesting characters in plots. The brighter a star burns, the quicker it burns out. O type stars explode before planets even form around them. Super overpowered characters can become boring in only a few sessions. Or even just one session. So little story telling gets involved with them as a result. And this also applies when a person hears of your characters stories from others. It can hurt roleplay with them before they even get involved with your plots. So this means even MORE care has to be taken with them. This applies even WITH a well crafted backstory. It's not just backstory, but HOW you roleplay the character actively.

Depends on the character theme, though chars I don't rp often it can also be a result of my altitus; many minor alts tend to collect dust. But for unplayable characters; Mystic Chaos/Amanda of the Wild (Same toon, diff iterations) For a character thats currently hard to roleplay and I have shelved, is a character who thematically is so overwhelmed with "Magic pollution" she'd become horribly mutated. However, the character she was most friends with was also roleplayed by someone who've I come to despise(a godmoder and also RL beliefs are to extreme and dangerous, even terrifying), this also got in the way of another character rp'd by a different friend as they hang out with the person I despise. This has resulted in the character being effectively shelved; as much as I enjoyed the character I havent really been able to move them forwards much. It also didn't help that same player wanted to push the development 'against' the planned character development arch for the character; she's trying to regain her humanity, he wanted her to get rid of it. Not to mention it was I who got the player who ruined it all into this game to begin with. I'd need to visit on it sometime with a mage themed toon. But it is to me a tragedy that still scars my account a little, I do not want to get rid of the character, but I've a hard time wanting to rp her because of how badly a friendship was ruined. This is also a result of redundancy; two other characters are similar in theme, although not anywhere as severe, both are also much more powerful playstyle wise, this has further compounded the situation shelving the toon even further. Ultimately, until I really get back into RP in a major way in this game this character is just going to remain shelved. I can think of a character in a comparable situation in star trek online to the above; the same friend came from STO, but I have fixed the toon by effectively "Aborting" and retconning everything said above person had ever rp'd with me, and even outright killing some sides of the character I was trying to kill off to begin with. But it's unfortunate that I'm unsure what to do with Mystic Chaos.

As a major fan of water blast, and it's high overall performance, I could see a case, besides geyser and steam spray are both fire damage :). Everything in water is a good power, so you have some very good options for a very high damage and versatile build that still has knockdowns, self heal to supplement your secondary. And if your roleplaying, could rp it as like gasoline or oil blasting or something :).

I think on OP chars it boils down to whether or not if the person rping the OP character seems to insist on being in charge of everyone and everything that toon is about, and like I mention above if they don't respect other players boundaries. Or when a player seems to want out of a plot, trying to drag them into it or if they rp something affecting someone else mentions they are NOT ok with, they then try to cover it up by saying they didn't say that(even though it's plainly in view of everyone). It really does boil down to the player IMO. The problems of an OP character become more apparent with a bad RPer than it does a good one. OP characters are like heavyweights in a racing game; sure they seem fun and have the best top speeds, but if your bad at the racing game, you'll still score last or heaven forbid get lapped by everyone. Starting small helps. And even if your toon is 50, theres nothing wrong with them remaining IC wise balanced or grounded. Besides, it's more satisfying when you give say, that high over-all performer of yours say, flaw of inexperience/arrogance just enough and then deliberately put them in a situation they cannot just blast their way out of :D.

I should mention some other tips that help ensure your character can work. Some things that, if your making your character stupidly overpowered, your very likely to fail in. 1: Don't Godmode others. Doing mean things unto others toons(or even mirror versions) without consent is at 'best' off-putting, at worst it just ticks the other player off. Godmoding is when your doing onto others things they didn't give consent for. This goes hand in hand with the tip the original poster made in part 1 also; another good reason to avoid making overpowered characters is so the temptation to do something to others without there consent isn't there as much. Being an across-all-dimensions/universes all-knowing super deity is all but 100% certain to lead to godmoding someone. And course, there is no challenging such an overpowered character. Not even cthulhu himself could challenge such a being. When someone asks you "Is there even any challenging your character?" that should be a MASSIVE red flag. Even more-so if they seem to be a friend saying it at the time. 2: Treat others as equals always. Being demanding, authoritarian and insisting your in charge all the time over others is another good way to put others off from your roleplaying. Even more-so when you seem to think everyone should be like you. No one is entitled to lord over everyone else. Combined with the above, your more likely to see someone actually throw a wall up at you. In fact, if your incapable of not lording over others, always having to have authority, you'll likely fail at #1 and every other form of etiquette. 3: If someone seems to want out of a plot, give them an out for gods sake. Maybe the person is seeing the plot being unfun or unfair, or just going to drag on and on and they have a life outside of RP. When you insist on dragging someone through something they aren't enjoying, anything, guess what happens? They throw a strike at you, and are all the more likely to get that wall thrown at you rather than a bridge maintained. They remember you for the bad experiences you put them through, rather than the good ones. Even if they gave you consent initially you need to be aware it might not be there cup of tea. When you fail #2 and insist on lording over others, you WILL fail this part, I guarantee it. In fact, this, combined with the above two are all but certain to lead to falling outs. And get you on ignore eventually or at the least, pushed out of major plotlines. 4: When multiple people seem to dislike your RP, it's likely you. There is a saying in that, when a person has a long string of people they call crazy or accuse of being horrible, chances are, that person is the real villain, not the victim. You can choose to change and adjust your behavior but if your unwilling to, more and more people will take notice of your habits of doing the three above deadly sins of bad roleplaying. 5: Learn to read people a little. Not everyone may bring up problems they have with you until it's already to late. In fact, I watched some videos of late and found it's NOT uncommon. And if they do finally get around don't tell them "You should have told me earlier", just note it. Remember, if your the one making mistakes, it's not there fault, it's yours. Telling them they should have mentioned earlier is putting the blame on THEM. They won't like that.

Played it last night on Malicious, I was impressed with the new mechanics. Granted I was playing a tanker who was fresh incarnate near the end(not complete mind you), with on minimal IO's, and it was a super reflex(we had resist shields from a few thermal corruptors also). I only died 3 times; I like the extra abilities can be countered. Teleport is invaluable in this TF, as it makes avoiding many of the patches much easier to dodge(note it just makes it easier). All in all it's a nice challenge. Actually bringing buffs/debuffs from support AT's is actually important and useful in this TF, rather than just bringing an over IO'd super toon. If anything, this TF reminds us the power of buffs/debuffs/cc in the game when for a while max defense blasters could just melt everything without difficulty.

So reading some comments, here goes. Firstly, most players don't actually like optimizing 'that' much. The challenge difficulties require that as much as humanly possible. Also, optimizing means leadership: Maneuvers and tactics. Two, when teaming is required, yes, you start seeing teammates for there powers and builds and not as people. CoH was awesome because teaming was fun but optional. Key word being fun. It wasn't required. Guild wars teaming was required, everyone, myself included, began to only see people for the build and not as people. And player behavior reflected it by saying "Well the monk sucks" rather than "He sucks" or "The boonprot is not built correctly" ect. You are not a person, your a build in guild wars, period. It's why I love CoH so much more. But the challenge settings rub me off as whether or not you have maneuvers and tactics. Players shouldn't experience this: Three: Any content can be trivialized if people take maneuvers/tactics and they all have them across the team. Not everyone wants to have to do that, but handling the highest of the challenge settings almost requires it, at the very least 3-4 stacks tactics to hit anything reliably through the mob def buffs. Otherwise yeah, you need support archtypes. That last point is obvious just looking over the numbers the mobs get, you don't even have to play the game to know what those numbers are. But many players under-estimate the power of 5+ players stacking maneuvers. even 3+ is pretty potent in normal gameplay(though not enough if you don't have any def yourself). So, again, Maneuvers and tactics. Honestly glad it's a separate setting and not a universal everyone has to play it that way like some players might want(just so they can brag they are good at the game and other people aren't cause that makes them think they are better than everyone.) I've little interest in it myself, I tried building an SR tanker for it and the mids build rubbed me off as over-specialized and to impractical. All tanker builds require a force fielder to become combat-fit on the top setting, everyone in fact requires one in practicality. And maneuvers + tactics.

to-hit is calculated as to-hit score(baseline 75) and accuracy multiplied after, but you can get debuffed. And sentinels are more likely to due to shorter range, it's a problem that being a longer ranged archtype can circumvent, and Sentinels are more likely to suffer it. I rarely have to-hit problems with just 1 accuracy SO, tbh. I only expect it when enemies are +4 to me(or +5 if joining a team on a leveling char). I find also you can 'rig' against the to-hit checks a little by stalling an attack in an attack chain, simply use something else or just stop attacking for a half second, and odds are you might stop getting consecutively bad attack rolls. It seems the RNG has a degree of clock-run mechanics in it alongside it's seed(if it has one, I suspect the RNG in this game is like Classic doom or Doom 2's RNG; runs more clock like). I never had accuracy problems on my Beam/Bio Sentinel. In fact, the only real problem I had was just not doing the damage to make having the extra survivability worth it. She was insanely tough though.

So to explain whats happening here, me and my supergroup doing the weekly strike force, but we forgot holds.(OH NO!), seeing we couldn't defeat the green mitos(maybe?), we decided to just hamikazi Hamidon down with lore pets, we overwhelmed him easy. to our surprise(and to be honest, I laughed myself silly), the mission wouldn't end, and we absolutely had to defeat the green mitos inspite the fact that Hamidon himself was dead. So, wasn't sure where to put this to be honest. Bug reports? Suggestions? I dunno, Hamidon was dead you'd think the mitos would go with him like in an actual hamidon raid :D. We 'eventually' managed to defeat the green mitos from procs, 1 blaster with cryonic rounds + stun shot(for hold), it was still very funny that they didn't also die with hamidons defeat. I'm just not sure if this should have gone in suggestions or bug report.....

Used to use super speed all the time, and still also use speed of sound on a few characters. It's a powerset that tbh, requires good or even intimate knowledge of the maps your navigating to get the most out of it, placing it closer to "Difficult yet awesome" category, alongside teleport(which just needs some good bind setups tbh). Only the shadow shard is impossible to efficiently navigate on superspeed, the vents are unreliable at best(doesn't help hurdle changes your jump physics which can sometimes mess with the vent launch trajectories). Even Terra volta has an on-foot route to the power plant, although they are unfortunately somewhat or well hidden, which imo should be fixed if possible(like, make some proper roads to the place? it makes no sense to have to jump through an obscure hole in a wall next to some ramps, or worst, concealed by some boxes). But those are the only two examples I can think of where super speed isn't very useful(it's still slower than flight/super jump in terra volta, and the routes are way to long in shadow shard for ground travel+vents). Even Grandville can be navigated with a little bit of practice villain side.

I'll also mention, my play and how I mesh with a team depends largely on how it paces, how many people have judgements ect. If I see lots of judgements going off and my defense rates are constantly high, then yes, I'll rush off to wipe a mob off the map by myself here and there. I stick with the team in between judgements and T9 recharge(though I spec with very high recharge on top of everything else, I can nuke every other mob for this reason). So in a sense, i'm still working with the team, think of me as a nuclear skirmisher(relative speaking). 🙂

Most of the time, no one complains(In fact, often players are left awestruck, a blaster soloing and leaving a mass of destruction in there wake, first time I saw a blaster do the same inspired me in fact to roll blaster). And when I 'don't' rush to the next mob to T9 them, that mob is getting judgemented by someone else. I do it to make sure my Tier 9 blast and judgement are getting the most effective use, if things survive, I drag them to the team. I'm actually a very cautious player, but thing is my blaster is just that effective, and I try to bring leadership buffs on all toons so they still get some benefit with me in the area. I don't stray that far ahead or sideways from the team when I play. And this is 50+4 fighting, mind you. There isn't really a 'right' way to play city of heroes, which is honestly the beauty of it. New difficulty settings, sure, I won't be able to on a blaster. I wouldn't expect that kind of play to work(though already came up with a standard on making it play smoothly). Not even sure i'd even support the difficulty; trying to stick together won't work any better than "Split and mow the lawn!" unless the teams total defenses and to-hit is enough to counter the mobs formidibly high to-hit defense buffs. In fact, the content won't even be remotely fun without lots of to-hit in the team; nothings more frustrating than seeing nothing but miss on 95% of your attacks when you know you should hit more(it's different if they are +5 to you, but only +3 yeah...). But really, how you have fun and how I have fun, theres a saying, live and let live man.

I know this is a bit of a joke and this'll be very obvious but.... I think it'll also be useful and greatly appreciated on Relentless, even critical, that teams do not neglect leadership: Maneuvers and Leadership: Tactics. The more people with stacks of those in a team the more the to-hit and defense rates of the mobs will be counter-acted. I do agree healing will be very weak/overly situation as it always is, even more-so with the damage buff. And you still want to be killing the mobs efficiently, you'll NEED to-hit buffs that are consistently available. Ranged AT's of all types should strongly consider support hybrid over assault. Assault won't be as valuable because if you and teammates are dying, well damage isn't helping as much, especially when your damage is zero all the time from being dead. Only pick assault if your like a defender/controller who's already buffing everyone elses defenses highly, even then, I still highly recommend getting the two leadership powers above, even more-so if your a defender. And VEATs...well if they don't take the built in leadership powers they are just worthless teammates. The most successful tanker will be the one with better support overall in relentless, rather than the one who's got the raw stats and very well built but is not well supported. Support will just be far, far more valuable. My blaster is already specced to better assist tankers in this regard, though I have to respec tactics in(planned to at some point anyways even before this difficulty came up, for the concept of "High performance in all other areas"). In fact if I decided to run a team on relentless I'd just flat-out exclude all who don't have those leadership powers and are IO'd out. The what I call the Team Qirex rule(from the wipeout franchise, RIP): If your not the best, your unceremoniously shown the door. Edit: On the last comment, I only take this kind of stance as, to be honest, I probably won't even touch relentless with a 50 foot pole: Having to go with only the most extreme best teams with only top tier builds, powersets ect kind of imo goes against the spirit of the game. The "LEadership tactics" requirement is what I consider to even be able to ENJOY the difficulty; missing a huge majority of your attacks is never fun, no matter the difficulty setting, less so if you know its from number fixing.

I don't start clearing maps without people in the mission unless its a lower level TF, and usually I ask for permission to do so. I am fast on the way to the next mission, though I wait for others, i'll defend the door but I consider it rude to be clearing mobs when people still have to enter the mission. That said, if i'm on a high performance toon, you can bet i'll play with a speed runners mindset once everyones in the mission. I'll even split from the team if I see an opportunity to safely wipe a mob solo. I do this for efficiency sake; mobs die faster everyone gets experience faster.

It isn't just how OP a character is but often, when they also lack flaws and are 'perfect' in the eyes of the person who made them. Even if they are just OP in one thing, if they are uninteresting, or tend to just expect everyone to worship them ect, it gets old fast. In fact, the more used such a character is, the more it reflects on the roleplayer IMO. The most annoying time I had with someone was when they tried to make my own demi-god like character(this was star trek online btw) even more 'godlike' in there eyes. They didn't get or understand how I was nerfing them, or how I was making them, ICLy, harder to approach without being annoyed by them. I was doing those changes for a reason, it was called character development and a character arc. My character has makes mistakes and HAS made mistakes before, all the time. At the same time, I prefer the character to still mess up, it allows for plots, allows for people to see them as more than just someone whos overpowered. He wanted her to be flawless, which is not the point of said character. The point is that she can be annoying to other characters :D, and they don't always like her, and she makes mistakes of which the consequences of she has to deal with. Said player also made his own character insanely overpowered, more overpowered than anything I ever made, even the cthulhu like entities I'd sometimes throw into my STO roleplay. Entities made to pose a major threat to anyone. And he makes all his own characters to 'perfect' with one another, to much so, with no room for internal conflicts. His character was nothing but a stand in for his own power fantasy. and he'd break IC/OOC in the few moments we decided to pvp for craps and giggles(his character was specially built for pvp, I even told him that, and he still let it get to his head). He rp'd the results when I told him not to. That same character of mine he tried to change, though, is also often my least played. My most played in 'that' game is an orion(a mostly normal person often thrown into situations she's certainly not really equipped for). So onto CoH roleplay(most part). Another annoying time was when another character of mine was trying to get there humanity back. Said same roleplayer again tried to 'oh but being human is bad, become 'more'(by changing species to the same as his characters(which is all of them), yeah.......). Again slowly got annoyed, especially after getting to know the player more found I liked absolutely nothing about him, but the biggest contributing factor at the time of defriending was the bad roleplay habits. His characters also had a "Oh I'm here to conquer the universe but i'm a good guy" design, it's really just him saying "Oh i'm gonna MASTER this new game to become the best ever!". Which was majorly off putting to me, he was a munchkin. I played this game for YEARS and I know there are things I don't know about every power set. I remember a moment we pvp'd in CoH, I told him not to really rp the results. I destroyed him pretty badly(dominators afterall tend to beat controllers 1on1), and he still tried to rp it when I told him not to. I was still annoyed. I believe in keeping RP and pvp separate, anyone worth there salt in CoH knows how insanely imbalanced the game is, so making rp and pvp results mix would just break rp right there. It told me he was more interested in 'winning' over others than rp tbh. Or that his character(a pure support build btw, I even warned his character was NOT the best build for solo play). That he placed his very characters performance on pvp and in-game exclusively, and also tended to just want to skip to being overpowered at the same time. I talked with others here and there later(in CoH) and they even had the same conclusion. Ultimately, his insistence of rping the way he did and trying to change others around him but not allow his own characters to develop with the world, and simultaneously not respect other characters development, and tendency to more-so make his characters overpowered and not really having an IC/ooc line, plus learning more about other things about him I really didn't like, ultimately lead me to defriend him(and even outright despise him later). None of his characters were interesting and ultimately all the same. And he seemed to insist everyone elses characters be the same as his. It was especially bothersome to me.