Sir Myshkin

Make every zone PvP Capable. Flag all characters initially as PvE only. Give us a toggle to turn PvP on, and allow all alignments to freely roam all zones. Add in an alignment system patch so that all players equally effect everyone unless on the same team, and if a player that is a Hero or Vig continously targets other Hero/Vig, they will be shifted into Rogue/Villain status, and a Villain that teams/supports Vig/Hero continously will slowly be "redeemed" by their actions. Add destructible items throughout all zones.

Recently made a change to my Rad/SS (about two weeks ago), did a semi sacrilegious thing and dropped Cardiac Core into the build, runs perfectly without Ageless; I just have to be a little mindful if/when Hasten and Rage dump at the same time.

Hell, I am (obnoxiously) rich. And *I* wouldn't do it.

I hear a combination of glitter and cat videos does some whacka-doodle thing to people's brain chemistry and causes them to feel happiness. Since I couldn't find one together, here's a glitter video, and a cat video! I also discovered something about this game:

On the topic of why taking the Taunt power isn't always necessary: There are multiple levels of threat aggregation in this game that a Tanker (or realistically any character) can take advantage of as a means of aggro-collection. In order: Exist Damage Taunt (Not the ability, just the function) Debuff A Tanker, by simply existing, will draw attention to itself, but so will pretty much anything, so they punch something and deal damage, which generates threat against themselves. Using the ability triggers Gauntlet, which causes Taunt, which builds additional threat. It is possible to do enough damage to override Taunt from a threat threshold. which typically requires an extreme amount of offset, but I have both caused, and seen others cause a shift from a Tanker onto another character and it typically requires the Tanker to be either not attacking, or having a very poor selection of damage output. What happens if we have two Tankers however? Will they share taunt, will one grab aggro over the other, what will happen? That's where the final step in threat analysis in the AI comes into play: Debuff. Debuff is the key factor in why Ice Armor was the King of Taunt, not only was Icicles an active component dishing out constant damage flow, but it in combination with Chilling Embrace were doing multiple levels of debuff (rech, slow, -dam) ontop of any other component that might be contributing from an attack set. I do not carry Taunt on my Rad/SS/Soul. I have also never lost aggro to any other build I've teamed with. Between Beta Decay being an active low-yield Taunt toggle, having Rage multiplying my damage output, and being able to throw out Darkest Night as an anchor I know for certain I am hitting the extremes of threat generation. Given that, no I don't have, need, or otherwise think about taking the actual 'Taunt' power. If another player wants to challenge that stack of utility, I'll gladly shut everything off and step aside and let them see how much attention they suddenly earned.

Over the years I have seen plenty of people delete a buff simply because they don't like the aesthetics of it, and that seems to be the most common complaint against active buffs. Stuff like Ice Shields, any of the AoE stealths like Steamy Mist, Shadow Fall. Heaven forbid you hit someone with Grant Invisibility and they can't see any of themselves. The whole functionality of being able to delete buffs stemmed around the same time as powers like Force Field and Sonic shields being turned into AoE effects. The debate quite literally boiled down to "I don't care if it makes me unstoppable, I don't like the look of it, so I don't want it."

Whenever I play my Storm/Nrg Defender and there's a Tank (point body) on the team, I always send them a tell apologizing in ad-- Oh crap, gotta go! chases after Tornado... But seriously, I end up taking point when playing that build because of how aggressively fast it is and Tornado moves on to the next target the moment its current spawn is gone. I take ownership of its aggro and quite literally don't have time to wait for the Tank. Especially when there's two out (which is all the time).

There's apparently quite a few of us poking a stick at the market lately. 😄

I've always had the mindset that a Scrapper is a character who's in for the fight, and a Stalker is a character who'd rather avoid the fight. Daredevil is definitely the "in for a fight" type of character [Scrapper]. Also, Street/Ninjitsu if you go for the Netflix DD, Street/SR if you go for the Comic version.

Of course you can! The entire second half of Captain America: First Avenger is "Tank scouting ahead." Except "scouting" is "plow through everything like a madman until you reach the end and have the team drop in from above." I do it all the time! Just imagine a massive imposing force ripping through a hallway, floor after floor of an office building and hordes of villains going "Wait... what was that? Run after it!" Finally get to the end and clear out the end objective and just smugly be all "It's good, I got it, move on."

Nope, nopity nope nope. I understand that the phase of voice communication in games has grown, and a lot of it started on consoles and has leaked aggressively into the PC side of things in the last few years because consoles lacked a reasonable means of chat otherwise. But I tend to play at hours when the rest of the household is asleep, and when they aren't it's chaos, and in either case I have no interest in audible conversation that isn't sufficed with text-chat. I also prefer to have music playing over anything else, and I have all of CoH's sound completely disabled to boot. It's nothing personal towards anyone, but I don't want to talk, and I don't want to hear other people talk, and I don't want to hear the stuff in the background, or the noises, or any of it that comes as sound-baggage because of a cheap headset or a loud roommate or that bag of Cheetos they insist on munching down and ... I just can't deal with it. Thankfully I haven't dealt with anyone really who's even mentioned Discord, and most of the folks who tend to run iTrials and larger events (MSR/Hami) on Everlasting still actively use the game chat for communication.

This, this, this. Super emphasized for importance. I have had, in recent recollection, some folks that have gotten very distraught about a team not packing together when they called out AoE buffs. I'm all for some bonus goodies to help the team run better and what not, but I am incredibly unlikely to intentionally reverse what I'm doing, back track to the rest of the team, and then wait for those buffs to go off when they could have been much better served in combat. I know it used to be a thing way back before Issue 9 to hold up and get those team buffs so no one missed out because we weren't all sporting god-like builds, but that time has passed and calling that stuff out is a chore more than a benefit. Let it fly in combat and move on, no reason to call out, bunch up, or otherwise for those buffs. Most players will recognize what's going on without being told, and if they want in you'll suddenly find them glued to you a bit more than before waiting for the next dose.

@RageusQuitus2 Earth/Storm/Stone Build, fully capable of handling any content, but with late-achieved Storm abilities it really is a 45+ build when it comes to the damage front. This will cause enough general chaos and hard KD effects that you won't have to worry too much about Stony staying alive. Against an even-con AV, this thing will be 100% fine against most of them, and all of your damage is packed into force multiplying Lightning Storm, Tornado, letting Stony do its thing, and pounding in those Seismic Smashes and Fossilize while Freezing Rain rips apart their resistances. Once you get a couple FF+Rech procs going you'll be dropping your whole arsenal every 15-20/s. Since you did got Gravity/Storm, I pulled this that you could merge it into the Storm above (swap out Primaries, remove Hurl, there will be enough space/slots to accommodate). Either one is more than capable of taking on an AV purely because of Storm alone, but Gravity has a bit more focus on ST capacity than Earth does so might do it a bit faster (but it's honestly pretty close trading out Singularity for Stony). Gravity also has a much more interesting dynamic with Dimension Shift, Wormhole, Tornado, and Lightning Storm. You can set Tornado on a group, Dimension shift them, wormhole in another group, and drop Lightning Storm inside and just... watch them disappear. Dimension Shift doesn't have a notable capacity and immobilizes whatever gets locked inside, Wormhole has a pretty good range on its cast... it super-maximizes Storm's damage and is oddly fun, and also a useful solo skill for utter safety, but unless you make a team aware of how it works they may not understand what's going on and it confuses people so... be careful with it.

You can tell when someone has never leveled a character to 50, set all their enhancements attuned, and then went back and run Positron and Synapse Task Forces with most (or all) set bonuses, slots, enhancements (even if scaled) , plus the exemplar +5 level abilities, and felt that intoxicating difference of power. The most risk-free Posi 1 I’ve ever done was with a team of exemplar players who were—at minimum—IO basics and level 25+, and I have never cleared Posi 2 since as fast as that team did either. I still level my characters through teams and missions as much as possible, and never step into an AE farm unless I’m 50 for laughs, but I am certainly more incentivized to play those early TFs and missions exemp over fresh. Just saying.

So I was curious about common volume and wanted to see how much could be shifted out of the market over the last couple of days. I tossed out several dozen fair market bids slightly under vendor value (nothing that would look abnormal). The bids filled within minutes, mostly as quick as the server could parse where the property came from, convert it to my piece, and fill the bid. I thought “huh, that was... quick.” I decided to amp it up and went 150 stacks, noted roughly where the market sat and went to run a TF. An hour later the stacks were about 70% complete. Filled it back up and logged for the night. Next day I checked back in, all stacks were filled and the market was still stable around that bid value, and the common available salvage was UP from where I started. I was not putting what I purchased back on the market, I sold it all to the vendor to break even, and despite that the pile had gone up. I went another 170 in, 1,700 pieces. 24 hours rolled, market went up by 1,000 supply, and all stacks filled, and the average bid was down to 100-150. The supply of commons is increasing day over day, even over-extending purchase volume by a huge margin. I had expected to slightly shift the other direction and chew into the supply a little bit that didn’t happen at all. Given this, I’m curious how many characters are sitting out there holding that supply, or are they sourced from abandoned/deleted toons and what asking price they were dropped at, and why those players haven’t just vended that stuff by now. The biggest question I wanted an answer to was whether I could in fact buy out the surplus of common salvage (not like it’s actually be that much cost wise). Unless I did it collectively across multiple characters in one fatal shot, doing it daily off one character has already proven impossible... and that’s with the fact that player traffic is actually down right now! Im definitely not going to, I was just wondering what the effect might be. I also don’t feel like throwing out half a billion influence on salvage that’s clearly sitting on inactive characters/accounts just to prove a point 😅

Oh man, I want to put that in all my character descriptions now. They'll be curious and go to the powers listing and see a mile-long bonus sheet, but nothing that says "nunyas," which will inevitably get that tell... "What's a Nunyas?"

Do you know how to push it to the limit though? You gotta take the highway...

To pull more specifically from what Sovera linked to: Set bonuses Set Bonuses are always on, even if the power in which the Set is slotted isn't activated, and even if that power is greyed out due to exemplaring! However, you do start to lose the bonuses if you exemplar more than three levels under the level of the IOs in the Set. Let's give an example: Let's say you have a full set of six Set IOs in a level 41 power. Three of the Set IOs are level 30, the other three are level 20 – so, you're getting 5 Set Bonuses from the six Set IOs. Now, if you exemplar down to level 35, the power is greyed out because you're under the level of the power. However, all five bonuses are still working! Level 35 is higher than the level 30 and level 20 IOs. Now, if you exemplar down to 27, you still get all 5 Set Bonuses because you are within 3 levels under the level 30's. However, if you exemplar down to level 26, you've gone too low for those 3 30s, and so, it's like they don't exist. However, at level 26, you're still over the level of the three 20s, and so they still 'work' and are giving you the first two bonuses of the Set. The Set Bonuses of Purple (Very Rare) Sets and PvP Sets are immune to the effects of exemplaring. However, the aspects of the power that they buff (e.g., Accuracy or Damage) are affected by exemplaring just like any other enhancement. As for where to place them, put them where you find them the most needed/useful, but be mindful that they tend to focus more on damage and recharge than they do on accuracy and endurance which can be hindrance for some higher-costing powers, and two of their bonuses are designed in a way to try and offset that a bit but don't necessarily fully compensate.

Hey, you're in luck, there's a PSA for that! I had to link it, the irony of your comment was too good considering I posted right after you did in that thread.

Tanking Theory has been talked about several times in this thread since the game came back, I'll link both of them at the bottom for you. There's a lot of different perspectives towards what a tank role should fill and not necessarily one that fits in just CoH, or is exclusive to CoH. Don't take that as me trying to justify any experience you had, but trying to outline that some peoples approach to the role aren't going to be a cookie-cutter experience for everyone. Like this as an example: A typical--and traditional--expectation of the Tanker's role on a team was to engage, absorb the alpha, assure the team is good, and then prep the next spawn. It was/is not abnormal for this process to involve leaving behind a straggler (or two) at low health which the team (as in seven other individuals) should be able to handle safely on their own as the Tanker progresses for the next spawn to set up, pack together, alpha, etc. I have met my share of players who do not prefer this method, but it is one of the most common and widely adopted practices. Specifically to here, back at the beginning of the year Tanker's received a significant overhaul to their performance. Your profile says you've been here since April 2019, but just in case you missed some of it, one key aspect was improvements to the Gauntlet inherent. Taunt functionality works much better/cleaner now than it ever did before, and collection and control of aggro is easier. Taunt is still a useful tool (particularly at forcing ranged enemies into melee), but it isn't necessarily a forced requirement depending on how a Tanker is build and played. There are multiple methods of accruing enemy ire: taunt itself, damage, and debuff. Since Gauntlet spams taunt out of everything damage-based a Tanker does now, 'taunt' is often easily covered outside of exclusively specific (and ranged) needs (sometimes), then Damage (improved AoE range of effect, some sets even have damage auras which can act like a taunt zone), and Debuff (whether toggles or general abilities, also many sets that carry these too). The "Taunt" ability has become more of a choice due to game improvements more than "I just don't want it." By the time a lot of players get to 50, get their builds fleshed out, slotted, and IO's in place, then pack in Incarnate abilities on top of that, having a team split up is not necessarily a bad thing if all players involved are competent and self-managed (capable of handling their own) at any given difficulty level. Some times having an 8-top team stick together spawn-to-spawn is bad efficiency. I've built my fair share of characters that are not only more than capable of laying out an entire spawn quickly on their own, but can do it in relative self-contained safety. If you have more than four players on a team who can dish out 500 AoE damage every 6-8/s, having them clumped together is likely wasting damage. Again, not trying to justify it, just detailing that a case can be made for the circumstance. Ultimately your concern comes down to a lack of communication between the team members involved. Speak up on the team and express your thoughts and see what's going on. More players are willing to dial back than you might think. Its really easy to get into a specific mental mode (especially on high-end melee builds) of just bull-rush when teams can plow through content like a hurricane. Above all, if you're the lead on the team than take control of the situation, you are after all ultimately the one with the power to choose a different point-guard if the dynamic isn't working. The hardest thing in this game isn't going to be the content, but the simple act of not communicating with the players around you.

Correct, you won't get them to stack from the same source, they will only refresh, but you can have multiple -Res effects going that are from different abilities/procs/etc. So Annihilation, Achilles', and FotG -Res procs can all impact debuff on the same target. An additional foot note to clarify based on what @tidge said is that those procs technically become "sourced" from the target itself, so you cannot get multiple stacks of any one of those on a single target in the game (like two or more Achilles' going at the same time). This is where those procs become slightly inefficient from a grand-scheme of things when multiple players carry them. Each following trigger will only refresh the duration while its up. Edit to add: Also... a bit to Tidge's point, having multiple of a given -Res proc in the same character build may not--generally speaking--be worth the inclusion. There are very few circumstances I've seen where consistency of having a second one has made a worthwhile addition into a build. Whether it be something like a proc in a toggle, plus an attack, or having the same one in two different AoE/Cone abilities for better saturation across a group.

+26.50 % Damage Enhancement +Converts existing KB into KD based off percent scale +Adds chance to proc KD (I think it's 2PPM, but I don't know what I did with my cheat sheet to verify it) That one Unique actually does a tremendous amount. I don't always have room for it, but it is an excellent add to AoE/Cones to spread crowd control for sets lacking utility.