Parabola

Thanks. Be well.

You are absolutely correct in your assumption that I've done none of those things. This is because, as I said before, I am not looking for personal challenge. I believe that balance problems are detrimental to this game as a whole, mainly due to how the teaming experience for the average player deteriorates at high levels. I may be wrong about this but whether that is the case or not it certainly doesn't make me selfish or lazy and I very much resent that accusation. I would like you to retract that comment.

The volunteer dev team have said they are taking a look at powers and balance and I have merely stated that I approve of the approach. This is not because I am looking for personal challenge, it is because I feel that it will result in a better functioning teaming game which is the bedrock of an mmo. I would like you to retract the insult.

This is clearly just one of those things that people see differently. I see a glaringly obvious, plain as day problem. Some people agree, you and others don't. I am delighted the devs have indicated they are exploring all of this but I am sorry if that prospect isn't so appealing for other people. As has been said many times in this thread we all need to wait to test the actual changes before passing judgement one way or the other. I will say that in many ways the very fact that custom AE content has had to be created to challenge very high power builds/teams kind of proves the point that this challenge is lacking in the regular game. Also I totally get the 'make your own challenge/gimp yourself if that's your idea of fun' argument. My counter would be if the game was rebalanced so that it was more challenging you would be just as capable of tailoring your experience by the far simpler lowering of the difficulty slider. There are plenty of settings below +4x8 to explore but sadly none above that.

Absolutely this. The game simply doesn't push back hard enough for the level of super we can now easily attain. It barely manages it if you're solo and it certainly doesn't in a team. And this is an mmo. Soloing is great but teaming is supposed to be a huge part of the game.

This would certainly be a start. I'd also remove the level shift in non-incarnate content altogether and take a very serious look at what incarnate powers are doing on top of that. I find the homogenized 'everyone gets a nuke/buff/pet power' a little unsatisfying quite apart from what those powers do balance wise. I've gone on about this before but in particular the level shift makes zero sense to me. Incarnate powers already make characters more powerful, why does the headroom of the difficulty slider need to be lowered in order to make them feel more so? When we have people calling for higher options like +5 or x10 how does it make sense to have a system that effectively reduces the cap from +4 to +3 specifically for the most powerful characters?

I don't think I've seen those of us arguing for greater game balance resorting to insults. It rather undermines your position if this is your counterargument.

Because they can? I'm sure if they feel that hasten also needs changes it will be looked at. I'm on the fence about whether it is a balance problem in of itself anyway. It only permas when you add in serious global recharge and that doesn't seem broken to me. You can argue that a majority of builds take it and therefore it should be made inherent but where do you stop with that? Making travel powers inherent? The fighting pool?

I think this confuses two problems. Problem A is that time and powerboost together are too powerful in relation to other options amongst defence granting powers, both in support sets and elsewhere. Problem B is that the overall state of game difficulty means that damage dealers are mostly more effective than support in the endgame. We shouldn't fix a problem with another and we shouldn't simply leave an imbalance in place for the same reason. Time/powerboost is an outlier amongst the buffs available to support sets, reigning it in will allow the room to make powerboost a more generally useful power to more sets. Seperately, the overall game difficulty and power balance between AT's can be looked at to try to make support more valuable in the endgame. Edited to add: This is also why I don't buy the 'procs are the only thing making AT's x, y and z playable, therefore we shouldn't touch their mechanics' argument. We should look at these as two issues seperately, procs should work in a balanced way and then if AT's or powersets need help they should get it. We shouldn't accept one problem as a fix for another.

I think we all get that you are very attached to this particular combination. But don't you agree that being able to provide 32% defence, to absolutely everything, for everyone around you including yourself, is a bit much? Yes it takes two powers to do it but even tanks have to invest more power picks and many more slots to achieve defences with many more holes in them.

Maybe if the interaction with defence buffs was reigned in it would leave space to boost it's interaction with other effects. It could then be a more worthwhile choice for a greater range of sets.

To be fair this is only because of the no activation time base tp command that the devs have already said they are unhappy about. But your point still stands - teleport as a whole could really use some love. Theme 10/10, mechanics 1/10.

It might be the best of the offensive armour sets (some would argue for fire here) but I wouldn't say it is the best overall. It just doesn't have the defensive chops when the going gets really tough. Rad is my current pick for the best all round armour set at the minute.

I don't buy this argument. People play tw because it's op therefore it should stay op? People talk a lot about feeling super in this game in these discussions. The thing is they are playing a game where you blast fire out of your hands or wave a 12 foot sword around. How is that not super regardless of the numbers? All characters do super things down to the lowest performing sets. But of course this isn't what people actually mean when they talk about feeling super. They are talking about the power of their character vs others. They are talking about their ability to solo 4/8 such and such a tf. But in order for one build to feel more super than all the others, all the others naturally feel less super. In order for one character to be able to run team content at max difficulty all their teammates need to feel less super watching them do it. This isn't good for the game. We can all be super together but a little give and take is necessary.

I've seen you post this a few times and it annoys me no end I can't remember exactly. Is it repel or disruption field or something like that? It'll be something silly like prestige power slide.

I can't resist a thought on both the 'buffs not nerfs' and 'just make new harder content' arguments. Say 5% of powersets are overperforming and the rest sit somewhere along the good to decent to energy melee scale. Bumping everything up to the level of the 5% powersets means adjusting 95% of the sets in the game, taking a huge amount of development time. Reigning in the outlier(s) to the good level means not having to touch the rest of the good sets. It might also mean that the decent sets can be left alone as they are no longer so far away from the target powerlevel. That means more resources can be poured into the energy melee's of this world which can only be a good thing. Also buffing to the level of the outlier will never end. Something will be found to be the new outlier and everything else will have to be buffed to that. That's power gallop not creep. And it would do terrible things to the already problematic difficulty balance. Which brings me to adding new harder content. Again think about how much content we already have in the game. Adding new content is clearly time consuming and will only add up to a few % of the overall available content. Does it make more sense for the devs to work on trying to make 95% of the game more engaging with a balance pass or adding 5% more content? Obviously I'm making numbers up to make a point but I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from. In my opinion rebalancing is a healthy and necessary part of the ongoing maintenance of an mmo. The devs have given every indication of both a deep understanding and love of this game. I see no reason to fear changes that they might make. I've enjoyed making proc monster defenders but if they change so be it. Similarly with individual powersets. I love my tactical arrow blasters but am happy for the set to be reigned in a little so that other manipulation sets become more viable.

Delighted to see this announcement. Also a little saddened (but in no way surprised) by some of the reaction to it. This is absolutely the right direction to be taking devs. Keep up the good work.

I've found the answer is to use the test server to try out builds before committing to a respec in game. Once you get familiar with the process it doesn't take long to do. I've not played a build yet that worked out in game exactly how I thought it would from mids.

Energy absorption you'll absolutely want. More defence and end management rolled into one power is great. Dark consumption is probably not worth taking in its current form though. It takes forever to recharge so isn't worth the slots as an attack and you shouldn't have enough end problems to justify needing another refill power. If you do have some end issues try a theft of essence proc in drain life.

I wouldn't describe myself as a dm guru but I have been playing a lot of it on tanks and really rate it. My tips for slotting are as follows: 6 slot the tanker ato with the +res into smite. Split the other ato 3/3 for the juicy e/n res. Put the three with the most recharge (including the absorb proc) into soul drain and the other three into shadow maul. Fill the rest of shadow maul with procs. Slot the acc/dam and dam/end winter io's in life drain and fill the rest with procs. This is a good attack that happens to heal not vice versa. Slot 5 pieces of hecatomb in midnight grasp (without the dam/rech) and add another proc. The rest will depend on secondary/epic but this is the foundation I've used twice now (rad/dm and shield/dm). I put another two winter io's in shadow punch to give it some basic enhancement for exemping and more slow res but as you are ice you likely won't need that part. You will want an aoe from the epic with this combo. I'd probably go with soul which will give you the decent dark obliteration, gloom and also the toggle for extra protection. This soul drain slotting works really well for a minimal investment in slots. The absorb is a handy bonus; you will tend to be using soul drain at the start of a fight so it always goes off and gives a little buffer exactly when you might need it. Oh, and shadow maul is absolutely worth taking these days. It is much, much better than it used to be. On a tank the cone is massive and it does good damage. The animation time has been trimmed to the point where it's bearable too.

No, that mechanic is unique to SR (and the reactive defences proc). Ice does get some resistance, unfortunately the bulk of it is to cold damage which isn't all that useful.

SR and EA are generally considered to be better than Ice but nothing holds aggro like Ice if that's your thing. They are all sets with big psi holes so that's something to bear in mind. I am a big fan of EA on brutes, you can get really good def numbers against the common stuff, it has end recovery, a heal, and even a stealth power (some people hate this on a brute, I like the extra utility). Also if kinetic is your primary I think EA looks really good with it.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that rad armour is the answer to more or less everything.

Just to pick up on this part. I don't have a huge amount of experience with other mmo's but I've always understood CoH to be one of the more accessible for new players. Anyone can team with anyone in most content. There is level gated content (task forces and trials) but there is also plenty to do outside of this. This also isn't a game where only the endgame matters. If you read around this forum you will find veteren players who predominantly play at lower levels, I myself prefer the lower level teaming game than the endgame. The game mechanics themselves are deceptive. They are straightforward to pick up but have a surprising amount of depth when you dig into them. The vast range of powerset combinations can feel a little overwhelming but there are very few bad choices out there (and the devs are working on these). The game for the most part isn't built around rigid role based combat. You will rarely have 'a job' to do that might get you called out for your inexperience. Mostly the most important things anyone can bring to a team is being friendly and a willingness to get stuck in. Much has been done in this version of the game to make the in game economy more accessible for players starting out too. Back on live this was one area of the game that did present a high bar for entry. I had many years of play under my belt but was still very poor overall and felt somewhat excluded. But it's very different here. There is absolutely no need to chase the most expensive top end builds (they aren't that much better than cheaper alternatives) but if you want to you can get there from nothing in reasonable time. There are many guides around on this (and everything else) in the guides section of the forum. And lastly and most importantly the community really is friendly. We love this game to bits and are delighted to have it back. We want to spread that joy around as much as possible and welcome newcomers. So, welcome to the game and enjoy your stay!

Clicky-clacks! Really heartwarming story that.