MonteCarla

Agreed, Psyonico. Everyone I've asked in game has been having normal service from CoH this weekend. I'm suspecting it's a location thing.

I've had some incredibly bad lag all weekend on CoH, starting Friday night US time (Australian Saturday morning). I've often got stuck at the "Retrieving Character data from..." screen after choosing a server. When I do get through, performance varies from decent to a surreal slideshow of characters teleporting around mid animation pose. Nothing else has been affected, and other online games (eg Champions Online as a good control experiment) have played fine, so I doubt its anything on my end at this point.

Let me check in with the 5 Shivans in my bag.... see what they think.

I hear you! The costume creator is one of the best things in this game. And it kind of sucks when your teammates make you transparent, covered in ice or fire and look like they have colored dirty candyfloss coming off their feet. (eg Darkest Miasma with green or pink tints) ( My pink force bubbles are great though, and great at identifying which teammates are comfortable with their masculinity 😛 ) Oh, and Fade in Controller's Dark Affinity - wonderful power numerically, a shame it has to make your entire team almost totally invisible! As a solution, would it be possible to have a setting to "Ignore Buff VFX from other players?" so that I see my pink bubbles on everyone, but players who've selected not to don't see them? And don't get faded out. Each status effect knows who the caster is, so some client-based screening could take place? In theory.

What an awesome idea for a thread, Scarlet! 🙂 CoH is a masterpiece of game design. Teaming is easy and meaningful, and you're rewarded for getting over that social energy hump. The support powersets are the best I've ever come across, each noticeably impacting the entire team in different ways. And the other powersets are balanced but each with their own quirks and wonkiness that means I'm still exploring them after 90+ level 50s. And the invention system is equally balanced but wonky, with all sorts of strange patterns in it to explore. Homecoming have really added to this: - LFG channel as part of the default setup for every player. Putting task forces together is a joy here. - The economy is wonderful. The steady feed of low end salvage, converters and binning recipes and enhancements of different levels all make it function smoothly with a smaller population than Live had. The best way to riches is not Market PVP where you're undercutting other players and flipping items, but converter roulette where you're making the items other players want, essentially working for your money - Double XP. The grind is gone. I can now level an alt in around 24 hours of playtime. This and the economy make the game a great sandbox for making new characters the X-Men approach to superheroes. The Superman way still works too thanks to the Incarnate system. - New costume items. The costume creator is still world class. I'm happy that we no longer have items gated behind badges or task force completion. - Sentinels. A great character class of new players to flesh out some common concepts without advanced build-fu and millions of inf, and also a viable alternative for the old hands to play around with. - Powerset proliferation. No more of that "villains can't have Empathy, it's too nice. Here's a Pain-based set" nonsense! ( always a pet peeve of mine 🙂 ) - AT proliferation. So glad I can make a Hero Dominator without having to mess around villain-side or gold-side first. - Null the Gull. Talk to a seagull instead of doing 11 missions in case you want to do a quick strike force on the other side of the tracks. (and track your Portal Jockey progress) Yeah. I am stoked that this game survived, and thrived, and got better. And made gaming history as the first game to get official sanction for private servers after it was shuttered. It also had the best community, and still does.

Sonic/Mental gives you access to 4 cones, with some good fast recharges. Howl: 8s Shockwave: 11s Siren's Song: 16s (and does very good damage now) Psychic Scream: 12s You could easily get a all-cone attack chain going. I played one back on Live and did just that, with the only downside being that it didn't mesh great with Drain Psyche, the signature move of MM and now the sustain power.

Yeah... is City of Heroes a good simulator for what superheroes do in comics or movies? CoH combat has two modes. Most of the time you're steamrollering big packs of minions, like the Avengers infiltrating a Hydra base. Sometimes you stop to take on one (or maybe more) big tough bags of hit points that need 8 superheroes to beat them up through sheer persistence. That's like the Avengers beating up Thanos together. What you don't get much of in CoH is the team vs team action, like the X-Men fighting the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, or the airport fight scene in the Civil War movie. But, to capture that sort of action in a game, you really need to go turn-based to some degree. Freedom Force did a pretty good job of this, for example. (Or CoH PvP) CoH is basically Diablo II style combat dynamics with a superhero skin over the top. And I think it's this way for a number of solid game design reasons?

Very good question! I'm stinking rich, thanks to learning the art of converter-roulette. I never buy converters, but run task forces etc to get my merits. And I play a slightly different game from the average player. I barely know what being mezzed is thanks to the START vendor buffs I wear constantly. I have whatever I want in terms of set items on every character I make. Do I want 5 LotG +Recharges and both ATIO sets? Snap my fingers and make it so! I've never believed that my experience of this lifestyle is enhanced by other people not having it, so yeah, why shouldn't we make everything free? Plusses: People still struggle with affording basic gear, like SO's. The influence curve for them remains really badly balanced, so a new player with no specialist knowledge will find levelling up ruined by their hard-won enhancements going off. Suddenly when you get to 40, you have more inf than you need. Making these free would fix that bad experience. Minuses: I really enjoyed figuring out the auction house, and seeing theory become practice, and millions roll in when I worked out the way to get rich. It started with merits->converters->list at 1 inf to get 1,000,000 per 5 merits, and then I advanced on to using those merits to craft up batches of common recipes and flip them to rares. Working out the best sets for doing this was a lot of fun, and changed as I went. Memorising which enhancements sell well was fun. Knowing I wasn't just flipping and price-gouging, but making things my fellow players needed was awesome. This would have been a lot less fun if everything was free. (I also enjoy showing other players how to make a few mill from their merits if they're struggling) I'd hate to take that path away from anyone. Going to extremes: if we gave everyone the P2W buffs for free, then why not just make those buffs innate, like Fitness? Everyone gets Mag 4 mez protection, +5% Defence and +7.5% Resistance and so on. Everyone gets a Team Transporter. Probably not a great idea. Games work on a desire-satiation cycle. I need to defeat that enemy. Feels good to work a little on it by pressing buttons and see them fall over. I need to get to level 20 to unlock Power X. If I do missions this evening I'll get there, solo or teamed or whatever. Ah, feels good to have done that. I want to do all 6 task forces to get +5% Hit points. Ahh, did that today and it felt great! Similarly, amassing inf for some goal feels good, that state of wanting something and figuring out how to get it, and then getting it is really satisfying. Games provide simple little microcosms for us. I don't know how to become stinking rich or save the world in complex real life, but I enjoy doing both in this simplified little game world. It's not pointless at all, its entertainment. I made a character a while back and decided not to twink her with a big 200 million inf email, but earn everything from scratch. I had some backstory about her crunching expensive materials in her hands, like Superman doing the coal to diamond trick. 🙂 It felt really cool - with my market knowledge I was loaded after a couple of task forces. To conclude: - Make SO's free (and they don't go off). - Keep everything else as it is.

Yeah, team XP is great. You get a team size bonus factored in, up to 2.5x for a full team of 8. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Experience Combined with the number of bosses you get when teaming, and all the natural benefits of being on a well-balanced team, it can make the early levels fly by. I've often found myself in the low 20s after doing both Positrons, for example.

Early on in Homecoming I was having similar problems with affording basic gear, and met a very nice player who explained to me how to never want for money for SOs and IOs again. 1. Earn merits. 2. Buy Enhancement Converters 3. List them for 1 inf each and they'll sell for 50,000+ This makes 5 merits worth about 750,000 inf, at least. To earn merits: 1. Do story arcs. Croatoa, Faultline, Striga or the Hollows net you between 50-100 each. Older story arcs through contacts can be a bit tricky to get, but often pay out well. Or Ouroborus them. Freakalympics (level 25) is a good one for 57 merits. 2. Do Hero Tips. 10 missions + 1 alignment mission get you 40 merits 3. Join Giant Monster teams. Adamastor gives 10, Lusca 22 these days, and normal ones give 6. A group patrolling the city will easily get 50 merits 4. Do Task Forces, especialyy the weekly, which gives double merits 5. Get all the exploration badges in a zone for 5. Page like this on the wiki have little Copy tags next to each badge. Paste them into chat to get a thumbtack for the badge. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Atlas_Park#Exploration_Badges This will keep you comfortably off while devoting your time to fighting crime.

There are a few sets that enhance both Defence and Recharge: Basilisks's Gaze (small Def bonus) Stupefy (but 6 slots means adding Knockback) Malaise's Illusions and Coercive Persuasion (6th slot can be a damage proc that aggros) Cloud Senses ( no downsides 🙂 ) But yeah, you're usually choosing between one or the other per-power.

The more global recharge you build up in Set bonuses, the better Hasten becomes. I'll typically have around +100% global, which means perma-Hasten, so +170% recharge on top of slotting in individual powers. This means: AoE stun is up every group for Controllers/Dominators Aim/Build up is up more frequently Nukes on Blasters/Defenders/Corrupters and Sentinel up more frequently Dominators get perma-Domination Powers loaded with damage procs can be left unslotted for Recharge to improve the proc chance, but still cycle quickly. Powerset specific buffs like Empathy auras and Fortitude, self heals in armor sets, etc. are up more frequently There are a few characters where recharge is not a big goal, but they're more the exception than the rule.

To follow up on this - after reading this thread I took Mary Alpha (39 MA/DA Brute with 90% S/L resists) out for a spin last night. Someone was requesting help with Nosferatu in LFG, and I signed up, and we beat his little EB ass, and then continued with this arc. The team of 6 had 3 Tanks - Shield, Rad Armor (he said he was testing a new build) and Ice Armor, a Corrupter, myself and a VEAT. In the final mission we faced three AVs at once: Maestro, Requiem and Vandal. I took down Requiem and Vandal, and mopped up maestro at the end. Everyone else's health bars went up and down considerably, with a few deaths, while mine stayed rock solid, with the occasional blip being corrected by Dark Regen. Not for lack of aggro either, I taunted 2 out of 3 AVs. I think the universe was trying to tell me how tough Dark Armor Brutes can be 🙂 I also took a peep at the other's builds and saw I alone had taken Tough. For these Resist/Damage Aura sets like Dark, Electric, Fire and Rad, Tough makes a big difference.

Always Idealist, and maybe a 4/2/1 split for Savior/Ambiguous/Destructive

I've made a couple of Dark Armor brutes, one at 50 (Rad Melee) and one currently abandoned at 39 (Martial Arts) They're both very solid and have 90% S/L and Psi resistance, 50%+ to most other damage types, and Dark Regen slotted for heal and recharge and the +End proc in there. I've clocked high defences on both too, 44% vs Melee on the Martial Artist by stuffing her attacks with full sets of Touch of Death! 😄 The set shines in amongst large groups - who are stunned from Oppressive Gloom, taking damage from your aura, and feeding Dark Regen for your end needs. You'll need to keep pressing that Dark Regen button when its up, but you've got a great layered defence of not taking much damage and having a big old heal on tap. I don't think you can judge any tanky set by level 16 - they take the longest to mature. Baby tanks (including Brutes) are not very tanky, and you can only judge really by 30 maybe? The essentials for me are: - Tough to bolster your S/L Resists - Slot both Brute IO sets for good resist bonuses - the two uniques (Shield Wall and Reactive Defences) for +8-18% extra resistance vs all. The guide in my signature has some details on numbers.

Pick a primary that has some built-in self-defence. I'd highly recommend Energy Blast because of the knockback that's baked into it all attacks. You get this for free, no extra animation time or endurance cost or anything, as you blast. Otherwise, pick a primary with a hold at least so you can use a bit of active defence against troublesome enemies. You only need to survive the current fight - your sustain power at level 20 will typically fix you up between groups as you solo. Building for Ranged Defence: - Thunderstrike set is cheap and wonderful for single target attacks. - Artillery is a cheap and good set for Ranged AOE attacks. - The Steadfast and Gladiator's Armor uniques are worth getting. You can take Fighting and slot them in Tough, or wait until your Epic Armor. /Sonic Manipulation, /Ninja Training and /Plant Manipulation have sustains at level 20 that can take Resistance IOs. /Time could slot these at 30 in Time Lord. - All six Gaussian's in Build Up or Aim - Blaster's Wrath is a good expensive set for a big +Ranged Def bonus Mez Protection - Defiant Barrage: Chance for Status Protection in one of your Tier 1 or 2 attacks - Inner Will in Martial Combat can be used like a Break Free - The P2W Defence bonus adds +5% Defence and Mag 4 Mez Protection. If you can afford this, use it!

I remember this from my first villain ever, a Mind/Psi Dominator. Confusing a Longbow boss never worked, because they'd still turn Tactics on and neutralise it. It was very frustrating and I had to find other ways around them. See the thread about Vulnerabilities in Powers and Archetypes today - this was a great example of a naturally occurring one.

I remember when I first played Champions Online, superstrength there felt an order of magnitude better than in CoH. 1) You could pick up objects like cars and throw them. 2) You did hefty knockback with many attacks, say a charged Roomsweeper, and it was OK to do so. We can't do 1) in CoH because the engine doesn't support it, so impact decals and effects are probably the best we can do there. 2) is iffy, because knockback is unpopular in CoH. This is because the gameplay meta here revolves around herding up tens of enemies and using AoEs on them, so any scatter is bad. Champions saw you generally fighting smaller groups, and also had lunge attacks in most melee sets to make closing the distance less of an issue. I think SS just needs the first three attacks (Jab, Punch, Haymaker) getting a bit of love. Instead of 2,4 and 8s recharges, make them 4, 8 and 10s and give them better animations and SFX. Less stubby little jabs and more gorilla swipe. Haymaker should do actual Knockback similar to Martial Art's Crane Kick. That would go a long way to making the set feel more super-strong.

I don't know if a system based purely on damage types would work in an RPG like CoH, because players would just min/max. e.g every Fire Tank could afford to take a weakness to Fire to bump up their other resistances, and still sit above the cap. Or, take a vulnerability to a damage type that you rarely face, eg Cold or Toxic, and ignore enemy groups that use that type.

I decided to check it out recently, and found that there's no visual option to NOT pop spines out of your entire body. That turned me off enough to not play it, and I may not be alone there?

Electric Armor on Brutes is the best set to build for Resistance. I wrote up a big guide on building Resistances for Brutes way back. You can easily hit the 90% to Smashing, Lethal (needs Tough and Brute ATIOs) and Energy (just happens) and can also reach it for Fire/Cold and Psionic if you go for it. I found this to be a lot of fun and ended up with a supremely tough character who's defences would never get bypassed by debuffs, unlike Defence based characters. You won't need Recovery bonuses thanks to Energize and Power Sink - getting their Recharge up via set bonuses is a better bet than trying to enhance Recovery itself.

I've played Sonic Resonance to 50 twice on Defenders. Here's my 2c: You've picked the right powers to skip. It's one of the worst support sets for solo-ing, as it gives you +18% Resistance and Mez Protection from Sonic Dispersion, Sonic Siphon and Liquefy. So hopefully you're planning a team build here. It's not a great set overall, and I think this got overlooked early on in I5 because Sonic Blast was so good. Both have been balanced a bit by the HC team though, so we're in a better place. Sonic Siphon - 1 slot wonder with Acc is fine. Clarity - 1 slot with End redux or recharge? Disruption Field - 1 slot for end redux (maybe 2?) Liquefy - slot for -To Hit and Recharge. Cloud Senses is the premium set here because it gives you +Recharge and +Ranged Def Sonic Barrier, Sonic Haven and Sonic Dispersion - Put the Steadfast Protection and Glad. Armor uniques in here for +6% Defence And choosing from here: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Category:Sets_for_improving_Resist_Damage - Unbreakable Guard gives you +Melee Def at 4 slots - Aegis gives you +Area Def at 3 and 5 slots - Impervious Skin gives you +5% Recharge at 5 slots. The low slot demand on your secondary means you can spare the slots for your blasts. - Corrupter uniques are worth slotting. You could split Scourging Blast across 2 powers to get the +Recharge bonus twice. - Single target blasts: Thunderstrike gives +Ranged Def for 6 slots, Annihilation gives +Recharge for 5 slots - Cone Attacks: Artillery gives +Ranged Def for 6 slots, Positrons Blast gives +Recharge for 5 slots, and increases the range of the cone - Nuke can take Obliteration for +Recharge and +Melee Def for 6 slots - Shriek can take Stupefy, but it's got good damage now, so its better slotted as a damaging attack - Siren's Song can take Call of the Sandman unique for a fairly reliable self-heal as a gimmick, maybe on top of the Posi set. Sonic Attack doesn't take any special damage procs beyond the Knockback ones in Shockwave.

I never knew about this, it sounds way cool! Looks like the big hurdle is defeating the Seed of Hamidon for Germinator Terminator. Is that like a whole league event, or could a single team pull it off? https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Between_Realities_Badge

An example: Storm Blast covers Smashing, Cold and Energy Fire Manipulation covers Fire and Lethal Force of Will pool gives you Psychic Experimentation gives you Toxic Soul Mastery for Negative Energy And of course, damage procs can add extra damage types in there if you skip some of these. I'm not sure how you'd put all this together into a coherent build in terms of either game mechanics or concept, but it can be done.

Did the CoT or any of your teammates have +To Hit? That can rip through SR's defence and ignores defence debuff resistance.