Chris24601

Perhaps. I'd settle for you just floating (squid) or standing (lobster) there with a glow around you and doing the blast/punch animations for the form as appropriate... Hell, I'd settle for being in Mu Mystic pose and shooting blasts from your head for an alternate squid power animation if that's what it took.

Standard Code Rant applies on how feasible this is, but The concept is simple. I’d like to see an option for the Kheldian Nova and Dwarf forms in power customization options where, instead of becoming a squid or lobster, you remain in “human” appearance and maybe have a glowing aura to indicate you’re in an “alternate form.” Your other powers would still shut down and you’d only be able to use your form attacks; you’d just look normal while doing so. I recall a glitch on live where this would actually happen from time to time and I remember some people deliberately trying to trigger it so they could still enjoy their costumes without gimping themselves by using a human only build. So that’s what I’d like to see if it’s at all feasible.

A damage buff based on steady incoming damage actually would be pretty good for a sustained damage concept though because it requires building and maintaining the stacks to keep your damage up... rather like an inverted brute. That’s a solid sustained damage mechanic vs. build-up (the quintessential burst mechanic).

I haven’t seen much of this so-called questioning of self-esteem or insecurity that @Illy speaks of. What I see is people perfectly happy with the present difficulty who don’t like it when other people say the things they enjoy should be taken away... especially when there is plenty of more difficult content available if you choose to engage with it. And that does lead people to question the motives/psychology involved when the demand isn’t “add this” but instead “take this from others.” It gets further questioned when people start saying it’s unhealthy to not want a game that pushes back. Also of note, is that the skill level of the people replying here is by no means a representative sample of the player base. I see, at most, a few dozen regular posters on the forum and a couple hundred votes while the player base has over 1200 members playing simultaneously in the middle of a weekday and several thousand at once on weekends. We’re talking self-selected fractional percentages for a sample here. I know players who’ve never gone past SO’s (IOs and the auction house being too much effort) or the default difficulty settings and find the game plenty challenging. Illy mentioned wanting a challenging chess game, but most computer chess games have a variety of setting levels and plenty of people have trouble with even the lowest difficulty levels on chess matches and I highly doubt anyone here is playing at Deep Blue levels of difficulty. I will gladly support any OPTIONAL increases in difficulty presented (new zones, new villain groups, new difficulty toggles), but demanding other people change the way they play to satisfy your preferences, particularly in a long-running game with well established standards, is not going to fly.

Frankly, half the fun IS the gaps. One of the most annoying things SWTOR ever did was level syncing you to their zones so the opponents there would always be a threat. No going back to the starter worlds and just mowing through gangsters like the powerhouse Jedi who faced the Sith Emperor in single combat... no it has to be a challenge (because they have developed so little new content they need you to still run eight year old repeatable content as filler). Imagine if every time you traveled to Atlas Park you’d be exemplared down to level 5 so that the Hellions and Skulls there would always pose a threat to your hero? No more satisfaction in one-shotting an entire purse-snatching spawn with a single power that throws the villains back a hundred feet because we need everything to be a “challenge.” I’ll say the same thing I said elsewhere. There’s an even bigger gap between level 1 and 50 than between an SO and full-set IO build; so let’s just get rid of levels 2-50 to make it more challenging for everyone. The problem isn’t IO’s. The problem is some people think it’s too easy to get them in terms of continuing to develop your character; that they aren’t running the “RIGHT KIND” of content (in their opinion) to get those rewards. You wanting harder content shouldn’t take away the fun that people are having with the difficulty exactly where it is. Some people aren’t here for the “challenge.” Some people just want to blow off steam by punching digital fascists in the face and being able to plow through whole spawns of them IS THE FUN. I am not opposed to harder content. I love making Praetorians because of that extra level of challenge. But some nights I also just want to punch hordes of Nazis and space aliens in the face. The fact that I can do both in the same game with the same character just by choosing different settings and content is AMAZING. You don’t have to take away other people’s fun to get yours if your real goal is just to have more challenging content.

So I’ve been baking my noodle on this some more and I think there are two relatively easy and non-controversial things that could be done in addressing difficulty. First, add new content that is more difficult. This could also involve revamping some older, but rarely played, content a la the Posi1/2 and Yin TFs (with the older version remaining available on Oroboros). I’ll further make no secret that the already more difficult Shadow Shard would be a good place to start. Second, adjust XP/inf/merit reward rates to reflect the actual difficulty instead of just their level (or average runtime in the case of merits). A level 54 Carnie Master Illusionist who phases, targets the psi hole, mezzes and spawns pets should be worth more XP/inf than a level 54 Council Archon with a rocket launcher and a kick attack. How much more would require some testing, but given that some of the tougher content literally takes WTF/SF level rewards to see it run at all, I’d say double is NOT unreasonable.

Another random thought I had involving increased difficulty of a sort for the Council would be to expand on their temporary alliance with Calvin Scott’s post-Praetoria faction and do some pallet swaps (which can be done in AE so would be theoretically possible for a regular mob) on the rest of the non-Seer IDF troops to represent the level 50+ Council foot soldiers getting upgraded gear based on Praetorian tech, just as was done for the war walkers. At level 50+ you could swap the Mek-Men for Clockwork (and the LT/Boss bots for the War Works BDU/ADUs + war walkers), the hover-bots for Orbs, the other troops for IDF soldiers, then throw in the Galaxies + actual Nictus (dwarves and novas) and Ascendant troops on top. The result would be a force with a solid array of debuffs (-regen from Praetorian plasma attacks, -resist from Ascendant troops and -recharge from Galaxy troops) for dealing with heroes. You could also phase out the War Wolves from the Council at that point to reflect that Requiem took his forces with him back to the 5th Column and, if I recall, Vandal was one of the ones who went with him and the Mek-Men and Valkeries were his designs so them leeping those designs would further serve to distinguish the two otherwise very similar factions from each other. I’m uncertain where Nosferatu shook out in the Council/5th Column divorce, but having his Vampyri belong to only one of the two factions in level 50+ to represent the split. Personally, I’d put him with the 5th Column because their robots, plus the war wolves and vampyri combined look like they escaped from some black and white film-era B-movie. Then maybe give the 5th Column LTs/Bosses the leadership buffs I mentioned previously so they’re threatening in a different way.

The main issue I see is the Standard Code Rant given it’s a rather extensive change. A slightly more scaled back option that avoids the pitfall you mentioned would be selecting your nemesis from a list of pre-generated ones (so they don’t have a particularly exploited weakness). Another option I could see that would actually make Origins matter more would be to link a pre-generated nemesis to you based on your origin and maybe AT. A third option would be to make your first radio mission assign you a random nemesis and then they periodically show up again and again. The reason I suggest this is because it’s not like Superman chose Lex Luthor to be his nemesis. It happened as part of his early adventures and circumstances clicking. Lex also points out that a nemesis doesn’t need to be physically similar or a dark mirror (I’ve seen several personal nemesis suggestions hinge on using mirrored powersets)... they just need to be your opposition.

Can I swipe this to add it to my list of “let’s update the Shadow Shard” concepts? Because I’m seeing a way to create a unified concept here. The short version was someone was asking to make the Shadow Shard co-op so red-side could get there. I suggested replacing the generic troops there with Vanguard (the people tasked with actually dealing with extradimensional theats; see Rikti and Praetoria) and moving the access point for the Shard from Portal Corps to the existing portals (currently used to reach the RWZ) in the Vanguard depots. Where your idea would be a nice addition is the idea that the Rulu’shin are stealing Incarnate power to break Rularuu free (via the extra mobs popping up in enemy groups); so Incarnates need to head into the Shard to steal it back by performing various repeatable missions scaled to Incarnate power levels to add some additional things to do inside the Shadow Shard (along with some revamping of the Shadow Shard TFs akin to Posi/Yin). Throw in a Circle of Thorns level adjustment (i.e. stop making the different mages and casters level locked to certain small bands... level 54 life mages and earth casters alongside the air/fire/ice casters and ruin/death mages would make their spawns far less predictable) since they’ve got a presence in the Shard and some high end Nemesis troops (I’d like to see some models with the steam pack players can get from the P2W vendor added for flying units in the Shard) and you could have another Incarnate Zone akin to Dark Astoria.

Looking at the tougher enemies in the game, they largely have ways of mitigating the typical player build advantages. Devouring Earth have their buff pets, Nemesis has their Vengeance-buffing LTs, Carnies target the Psi hole in a lot of defense sets and their mobs drain your END if defeated in melee, Malta has Sappers, Cimorarans have their -def on each attack, IDF has -regen with their plasma blasts, etc. Further, a lot of these are found tied to the LT level. The DE buff pets are spawned by their LTs, Nemesis LTs are infamous for their Vengeance, Carnie illusionists with their phasing mechanic are LTs (and the bosses are worse). So what I’d like to see is something like stackable leadership buffs added to the LT’s and Bosses (and EB/ABs naturally). These might be one or more of the classic leadership buffs; defense, damage, to-hit; or they could be more exotic depending on the opponent type (mez protection, resistance, recharge speed). One LT might mean a fairly trivial +2-5% buff while bosses might be +5-10%. That would mean it would barely be noticeable at default solondifficulty because you’d only find, at most, a single LT in a spawn and maybe 2-3 stack if you’re really unlucky with your aggro. But it starts to get more significant in larger spawns with more LTs and then bosses in them. Depending on the size of the buffs, a x8 spawn might completely obliterate the softcap defense advantages and pull down the accuracy enough that you can’t just shoot through Sky Raider force field drones like they’re not even there. If you give some variety to the leadership buffs based on the LT/Boss type then each spawn will be a bit different based on its composition to add some variety. Making the LTs and Bosses into actual leaders who make their minions fight better also makes sense thematically. More exotic buffs could be lampshaded with some mobs in open world spawns mentioning they finally got their bid at Wentworth’s filled (i.e. the villain groups also have IOs). It could also be something phased in; even with attunement, few of the IO sets with good bonuses can be slotted before level 27 and it’s not until the 30s when you start getting fewer powers and more slots that you can really fit many of the 5-6 slot bonuses (where a lot of the recharge and defense bonuses lay) into the build. So you could reasonably have this only apply starting with the level 30+ mobs and maybe not even all of them. Then at 40+ leadership buffs from LTs and Bosses become more ubiquitous and at level 50+ you start seeing more exotic buffs related to the enemy groups’ own Incarnate access. Which in terms of future high level content is something that needs to be addressed. In Homecoming are Incarnate abilities still “cosmic” powers limited only to the few (i.e. rare outside of the player heroes) or are they something that just naturally emerges at level 50+? If the latter, then it’d interesting to see some of the 53+ Boss mobs start to employ Incarnate abilities; a Council boss throwing out a Clarion or an Ionic Judgement would be a game changer (which is why I suggest 53+; if you play difficulty +0 or +1 then you’ll never see them; +2 would mean half might have Incarnate power, +3 or 4 guarantees they turn up.

Standard Code Rant applies, but I second the idea of making the Shadow Shard co-op and getting it a general update. To that end, I have a few suggestions; Cosmetically the zone as a whole is fine; it’s a vast alien realm and feels that way. What could stand some updating in terms of appearance are the human NPCs throughout the zone. Back when the Shadow Shard was first implemented, Rikti still ran around naked and there was no Vanguard. But lore marches on and it’s now been established that Vanguard is THE organization tasked to deal with extradimensional threats. They are also more than willing to work with villains to keep those threats contained. So my first suggestion is this; as part of making the landing zone co-op, replace the fatigue-wearing troops with Vanguard troops and make the Firebase and other human outposts explicitly Vanguard installations. As this is an NPC model swap (and for ones that already exist) my hope is that would be easier to implement. The second related suggestion is; now that it’s an explicitly Vanguard operation, the zone access to it can be made through the existing Vanguard depots with no new art assets required; just the same sort of pop-up menu that comes up when multiple zones/instances are possible and with both the RWZ and Shadow Shard as destination (the current big portal in the Firebase being the destination for them). Beyond that, I’d like to see some actual story arcs developed for it; perhaps related to other groups trying to exploit the Shard (the Circle are there and Nemesis has a base there) and explore more of the lore of the Shard. While it would be a deviation from the original dev’s plans, but the Shadow Shard would also be an excellent way to do an alternate “Oncoming Storm” (made even more interesting given the Letter Writer’s identity) that doesn’t require as much in the way of new art assets to produce.

Nerf Skyway City into a crater and buff Steel Canyon (ex. replace the uniform grey towers with the sleek modern skyscrapers pulled from the Praetoria maps).

To be fair to our current devs, that’s a problem inherited from all the way back to Jack Emmert’s decision to use completely different ATs for the villain-side expansion despite the fact that requests for being able to faction swap (which comic characters do all the time) were already a thing during CoV’s beta. But Jack being Jack wanted to enforce the different feel of the Isles using the villain ATs, and making them more independent rather than team role focused, but only the MM was a truly unique concept rather than a sort of priority swap of a hero-side AT. So when side-swapping inevitably became possible the end result was that, yes, there was a whole chunk of ATs who’s mechanics weren’t that different and whose major distinctions then were power set options. Options which player demands for power set proliferation and the dev team’s need for content available to as many players as possible (particularly once Freedom hit and they decided to add power sets to the cash shop) further eroded the distinctions. Basically, hindsight is 20/20 and we’re living with decisions made 15+ years ago by people at least two leadership teams removed (Stateman/Jack > Positron > War Witch > Homecoming) from those decisions. There’s no fix that will satisfy everyone, because 15 years of inertia won’t let it. The fact is that Brutes and Tankers were never that different; which wasn’t a problem when the Red/Blue barrier stood inviolable (co-op in the RWZ not withstanding). Short of a CoH2 where you’re rebuilding the system from scratch and everyone starts in this new game from scratch, I think the best solution is just to accept that there are going to be relatively redundant ATs with only the finest nuances between them that individual players have preferences for. There are tons of legacy mechanics in CoH that are redundant, but still maintained for those who like them. I get the sentiment to try and eliminate that... for me it’d involve nuking Skyway from orbit/giving Steel Canyon an Atlas Park-style revamp... but, particularly at the toon level, you risk destroying the very reason someone currently enjoys the AT (new power sets that do things differently are another matter entirely, that’s a new option not a change to an existing one). TL;DR... blame Jack Emmert for causing this mess, not our current crew for trying to fix it.

Speaking from experience; extroverts generally don’t get the introvert mindset. I’m a borderline introvert. I have a friend who is an EXTREME extravert to the point that spending even an hour by himself gives him fits and anxiety. He doesn’t care what you’re doing... he just wants to be around someone. He is literally incapable of processing that someone like me can spend an entire day interacting with no one but my own thoughts and feel recharged by it. The easiest way I’ve been able to explain it to him is in terms of energy; Extroverts expend energy on solo tasks and recharge by spending time around others. Introverts recharge by spending time on solo times and expend energy when interacting with others. Now I’m borderline. I generally prefer to solo, but I can group for tasks that require it. What I REALLY like with MMOs though is the chat channels. Reading and knowing I can chime in if it’s something I care about or have advice to give lets me participate with others at exactly the level I’m comfortable with.

I don’t gamble, but in this case I’d almost be willing to bet that most of the tank players won’t even notice that bruise is missing amidst the general damage tweaks.

Cool beans. In other words, even on live the big servers weren’t that much more populated than they are now (even Freedom only popped red the weekend of new content releases then dropped back to yellow). Also, for real numbers, as of 4:40 pm EST on a Thursday (1:40 pm Pacific... the very definition of “off-peak” hours) every shard except Test has 250 - 550 players (average of 381 per shard). That’s thirty full teams worth of players on the smallest populated server. That’s one full team in nearly every zone in the game during one of the deadest times you’d find in North America (i.e. work hours on a weekday). That sounds like the opposite of underpopulated to me.

If I were designing this I’d put the contact(s) for it in the Vanguard base in the RWZ since it’s technically a co-op and not hero exclusive content. The thing for me is, while many people did a lot of trials; they were kinda done to death in waves as, other than BAF and Lambda they released one at a time months apart. That really robbed them of a lot of momentum and it was hard past the first few days to get anyone who took charge of organizing them to NOT want it to be a speed run (basically as soon as the most efficient tactics were figured out, anything but the fastest optimal approach was discouraged). I only got one toon on live well enough slotted to get a slot on a Magisterium trial and then only once where it was all a blur because the person in charge had already worked all the mechanics out and you were so focused on your one part in the plan you missed what was actually happening as a whole (unlike a movie where you can cut to each hero as they do their part, you’re stuck just seeing what your little part of the team is doing). And these days you get much better Incarnate rewards from just about anything else so your characters are left kinda floating around the outskirts of the Praetorian War where you get the Prelude (Anti-Matter Collision/Instant Army/Hero’s Epic), Interlude (Dark Astoria) and Aftermath (New Praetorians/Last Bastion), but not the main event. The result is it feels like you watched every Marvel movie up to Captain Marvel and then had to figure out what happened in End Game with only Spider-Man Far From Home as your reference. That’s why I think an alternative path to experiencing those events would be helpful. The other reason is that; while I’ve no idea the coding difficulty to make up missions based on the trials would be; we at least know that the maps and mobs associated with them already exist in the code so there wouldn’t be any effort needed to create new art assets for them. The biggest trick, I imagine, would be adapting the mechanics to something soloable. Constantly respawning mobs would need to be made finite; Any sort “must do X, Y and Z simultaneously” to advance would probably need to become just “must do X, Y and Z” to advance (or have the window enlarged enough that it’s possible for a single character to do both in the window with a little effort); etc. Likewise, a decision would need to be made as to whether these missions would be entirely solo or if the mechanics would work better by incorporating allied NPCs to play the role of other teammates in the real trials and/or the offscreen NPC ally’s goals that came up in the hero doppelgänger arc and in some of the First/Night Ward arcs where less fun multiplayer mission mechanics in the trials get handled by offscreen NPCs in other parts of the trial so long as you reached a trigger point for them. A mix would probably be best. Lambda would probably work as a long solo mission shutting down the guns/portals, raiding for supplies then fighting Maraurder, but the raw power of the Hamidon Avatar or Well-Empowered Tyrant might best be shown using a team of allied NPCs for the fight while having to do simultaneous elements in the BAF might be better served by offscreen NPC assistance (ex. Once you stop a wave of the escaping prisoners you get a comm saying heroes are moving into position to intercept the rest of the escapees so you can focus on Siege and Nightstar and a later one about them intercepting the adds to the final fight). Another prospect too is splitting some of the trials up into separate missions. The Underground Trial could be split into several missions using separate floors of the map with each mission pushing deeper into the Hamidon’s realm. Lambda could be broken up into the exteral raid that ends when the turrets and portals are downed, then the raid the base interior would be the next mission and finally fighting Marauder and his reinforcements would be a third mission. From a storytelling perspective, I think there’s also a lot better sense of how the situation is escalating if the trial stories are experienced in order. For example, waking up the citizenry in the TPN trial is more important when it’s coming on the heels of finding out that Cole made a bargain with Hamidon for time to prove humanity worthy of being spared and the Hamidon has now decided that time was up and that humanity failed its test. Likewise, the cascade of failures as the initial invasion efforts in Apex/Tin Mage are turned back, then the BAF, Lambda Sector and Keyes Reactor all fall. The deal with Hamidon falls apart, the people are turned against Cole when the TPN campus is seized and then the Seer Network is lost and the incarnates storm the Magisterium for the final showdown. Having these in a story form you could play through in the same time span as a long story arc really hits home that Praetoria’s fall wasn’t some years long stalemate as trials came out months apart, but an implosion that happened in a matter of days or even hours and ended with Cole nuking his own Magisterium and Anti-Matter wiping the rest clean when he blew his reactor up.

Glad that worked for you. I’m not on Spectrum and still had the problem; which only developed months after I began playing and years after the router was installed. The company that provided my router (Frontier) also doesn’t include any advanced settings (and it’s password was not set to “admin” but the address and password are printed on the router label so the user can access it); you can set the network name and wifi password for the router. That’s all Frontier will let the end user control via router access. I am also in the same time zone as the VPN exit point (both are EST) I’m using so it’s not some time zone miss-match causing my problem either. So I’m glad you found a solution for your Spectrum issues, but to pretend it’s the one true universal fix when it’s not doesn’t help others who don’t have Spectrum internet (Spectrum isn’t even available in my area) but still have the problem.

One reason I went with SWTOR when CoH shut down was that its tab-targeting and trays full of powers on recharge timers was the closest I could find to CoH. If you've not played it, its worth doing the free-to-play version just for the vanilla level 1-50 fully voiced stories there if you're looking for a change of pace. Beyond that though development slowed to a comparative crawl as what were once eight separate storylines consolidated down to two and then one (recently back to two again) due to EA/Bioware channeling all the profits off the game to whatever their latest attempt at a WoW-killer happens to be. Its also the last outpost of the old Expanded Universe in that its lore aligns with what is now considered non-canon by Disney; but after Rise of Skywalker is probably the canon of preference for die-hard Star Wars fans as a whole.

Honestly, I have a family and a full time job. I’ve been back since October and I have ONE level 50 who’s done CoV content as a rogue through about 35 when I picked up my patron pool (and the contacts/missions started getting much darker than I’d prefer for a lovable Rogue). I’ve got a 35 Praetorian (who only did Warden missions) who won’t be going through the portal until they finish Night Ward and a 43 hero I’ve been running the issue 0 (and now issue 1) arcs on. I haven’t even scratched the surface of the old content I haven’t played in seven years, much less the newer content. I don’t see myself getting tired of the content here for a LONG time.

So, one of the things I've always lamented about the Incarnate Trials is that, when you can even find one being run here (the new rewards system makes them unnecessary) those running them want to speed through them without any regard to the story. So my suggestion is this; take the assets (maps, opponents, dialogue, etc.) and create a story arc that's essentially a stripped down solo-able version of the Praetorian War. It'd really help tie a lot of the late game story content together if there was a way you run those stories and the other late-game bits (the level 50 Night Ward arc and the post-Praetorian "New Praetorians (and villain equivalent)" and "Last Bastion" arcs more or less in sequence instead of having to cobble it together. Obviously mechanics would have to be scaled back/down to account for it being solo-able, but we don't need the rewards to be as great either because we've already got veteran levels to provide the incarnate xp and materials we need. I, for one, would like to understand WHY I'm being teleported from node to node every 30 seconds in the TPN trial for example and being able to actually stop to read the attached story would help a lot. Standard Code Rant applies, but it feels like an area where existing mission writing technology could be applied in some fashion.

Actually, given the more grounded real-world setting of the show Arrow, using arrows makes a lot of sense. Kevlar is great at stopping low mass high velocity projectiles (i.e. bullets). Its crap at stopping high mass low velocity attacks (i.e. knives and arrows). Also, I'm speaking in terms of the proposed balance patch; an area where under-performing lethal damage could be made to shine is basically being the Armor Piercing damage type that is good against things with armored shells and more vulnerable innards (fleshy or circuitry) while not so good against targets that have no vulnerable innards to damage (zombies, ghosts, Primal clockwork, devouring earth constructs).

The funny thing to me is that Lethal should generally be LESS resisted by hard targets. Actual modern and historical armor is REALLY good at soaking up kinetic impacts that are spread out. You may get knocked down more often from a large blunt force, but falling over is not the same thing as being wounded. There’s a reason just about every armor piercing weapon in history; spears/pikes, arrows, bullets, tank shells... has been a piercer (lethal in this game’s parlence). Bullets and similar penetrators are the best design possible by the laws of physics for pushing through material and leaving holes in it. Heck, modern armor piercing rounds are specifically designed to not just push aside the armor plating (or super-dense skin as the case might be) and then go richocheting high velocity fragments off the inner walls of the armor to rip up the soft interior. In other words, lethal should probably be less resisted by “crunchy on the outside chewy in the middle” targets (people in armor, robots with internal components) and more resisted by uniformly crunchy (ex. devouring earth, clockwork) or no diversified anatomy targets (blobs, energy monsters, ghosts).

I’d honestly be okay with expanding each of the Praetorian zone bands from where they are now to say Nova 1-15, Imperial 10-20, Neutropolis 21-30, First Ward 30-40, Night Ward 40-50 (so the top end there would lead directly to the level 50 Night Ward missions) and then make the New Praetorians arc specifically a level 50 instead of 35-50 to be part of the Praetorian capstone (along with the Night Ward arc and Number Six/Last Bastion arcs). The other thing I’d love to see is a Non-trial version of the Incarnate trials; something where you could slow down enough to actually see the story (I still don’t know exactly what’s going on in the TPN trial and why I’m being teleported from building to building by the teams practically every minute). I think there’s actually a reasonable story tucked into the Incarnate trials if you could ever run them in order at a slower pace and being able to do it more easily on your own terms would help with a lot of things in the end game feeling rather disjointed. Being able to do in order; - Tina McIntyre’s arcs (Anti-Matter Collision/Instant Army) - Maria Jenkin’s (A Hero’s Epic) - Apex and Tin Mage TFs - Level 50 Night Ward arc - A story arc based on the Incarnate trials (BAF, Lambda, Keyes Reactor, Underground, TPN, Minds of Mayhem, Magisterium... with a contact link after “Minds of Mayhem” to the first Dark Astoria contact ) - New Praetorians (and Villain mirror) and the Last Bastion arcs ; that’s a rather tight and cohesive story going on there. Even more so if you could take the Praetoria content all the way to 40-44 and get put in touch with Tina on exiting to Primal Earth. I haven’t played enough Red-side to know if there’s a reasonable mirror for Tina/Maria there; but if there isn’t, maybe there should be. Take a cue from the MMO I played while CoH was gone and mirror the missions with a couple of new contacts with a much more selfish agenda. Say instead of defeating Praetors Barry and Keyes to stop their plans you’re just out to steal the Clockwork tech (thus why late level Arachnos now has warworks ACUs... you stole the tech for them in exchange for a big payoff). Then instead of facing the Praetorians to save Paragon city you’re invading them and looking to weaken the Praetorian forces enough to conquer the Praetorian dimension yourself... with the twist being your efforts are what actually triggers the Praetorian War/Cole’s Invasion of Primal Earth (so your involvement with all the heroes is just you covering your tracks/cleaning up the mess you made).

So, a little update on this; I rolled the blaster, but also gave a corruptor a shot just to see how the differences felt. My biggest note is that one reason I didn’t see above that I think really sets Tac Arrow apart from Trick Arrow on an archery build is the way it helps cover up one of archery’s big weaknesses; it’s rather resisted damage type. Trick Arrow has the same early level of control/debuff as Tac Arrow, but doesn’t open up the damage any... you’re still stuck with Archery’s lethal with a bit of smashing in the explosive arrow and a smattering of fire damage in the fire arrow and later by igniting the oil slick. The difference that the significant energy damage in the spammable electro-net, plus some cold damage and some toxic damage cannot be understated. The first particularly helps against foes like undead and robots who traditionally resist lethal pretty hard, but are generally weak to energy. I know in one situation where I faced the Dirge of Chaos the corruptor had no problem locking it down with ice arrow, but it took forever to wear through it’s health and those times where you saw the health tick up just slightly were frustrating. I took the Blaster up against ot and not only did the increased damage in general help, but the stacks of electro-nets made its health drop steadly and much more rapidly (still not as rapidly as something that isn’t so lethal resistant, but enough to not feel completely gimped). So to conclude; it’s not just the “more damage” that helps Tac Arrow shine; It’s the fact that all it’s added damage is of types that aren’t found in Archery and so help against targets Archery is traditionally weakest against.