Peacemoon

I’ve seen Badge Tours in game. No need for teleporters in the Hollows anymore, and not because it’s too easy. There is a hospital station at the entrance so if you release from death you get ported back to the entrance gate. Back in the old days you’d get sent to Atlas Park hospital...

Well I suppose to go way back to the start the brute was a more aggressive version of the Tank villains. Lines got blurred when every AT became available to everyone. The same issue applies to Defenders and Corruptors. For quite a few builds a Defender will outdamage the Corruptor with the same sets. So the elephant in the room is a lot of these ATs were not designed to be direct competition with each other.

People who have a bad attitude. Whether you’re technically right or wrong, if you have a bad attitude I really can’t be bothered. If you’re nice, funny and polite but the worst player ever I will at least make sure I help you finish whatever thing we’re doing, and sometimes might just stick around for company too!

You know sometimes I read these threads and feel like melee players have their own little balance game going on, completely oblivious to how they fare compares to other ATs 😏 I don’t think Brutes will ever be useless whilst we still have controllers, defenders, corruptors, dominators and masterminds who have a fraction of the defence and even less damage, and control and support that is not as important as it once. 😏 Sometimes it does feels like a two tiered game, but that’s just my current mood.

Is this because tanks AoE hits more targets, rather than the actual damage themselves? Damage multipliers only account for half the story. To be honest I think all melee are overtuned in this game, even in the 20s Brutes and Scrappers especially often run off and solo the whole TF, even at +2 or +3. And if you always have to trade off damage for more defence, then surely the sweet spot is where you’ve traded off as little damage as possible to get enough defence to survive. Anything more than that is superfluous. Which is why people prefer Brutes and Scrappers generally. Also the game is about having fun - tankers should do enough damage that they can have fun. To be honest i wish the same principle was applied more to other ATs, like Defenders and Corruptors, who take a big hit in damage for the support they bring.

This is also why I think we’ve moved into a meta where damage trumps all. A good character, and a good team is largely dependant on how much damage potential they can maximise. Things that offer great defence are unfortunately less important to these days...

I think you should be able to cast them on teammates to give them temporary powers 😄 Cause in teams, your teammates are basically advanced henchmen!

Demon/cold and demon/thermal has been awesome for me and my husband. You get two sets of shields (defence and resist) to make your pets really tough, plus heals from thermal, and some great debuffs later on. The demons bring their own shield and heal, plus /cold brings even more res with their arctic aura. Thematically it fits beautifully too, since the demons themselves focus on fire and ice, and there are even useful ice and fire apps for later on. You can have a lot of fun with character creation. We went for arcane mages, inspired by the Ancient One and her monks from Doctor Strange. If I could I’d give them martial arts too! was tempted to go ninjas, but we really wanted the sorcery. Freezing Dragonfly and Flaming Dragonfly MM is not my favourite AT, but together these two have been a blast!

I think I would just highlight a lot of support-type ATs can feel a bit defeated on speed runs. MMs do have a problem bypassing mobs with their pets active, but if you’re with a few melee or ranged that can run to the end and brute force the mission, then half the team can often feel like a third wheel. It’s probably the weakest part of the game. My advice would be to not feel too defeated on your MM, as this effects other ATs too, and if you are in this position focus more on your secondary. It’s what a lot of my controllers do when they’re in this position.

I’m not very sympathetic to the ‘plight of force fielders’, sorry 😏

Well, I’m sorry if this is too direct, but there is a stigma because it is an incredibly lazy way to play, just casting a few shields and thinking this is your contribution sorted and let everyone else do the actual fighting. Even though shields are amazing, playing with someone with this mindset feels like trying to lug a deadweight up a mountain. You might as well play without them because they’re just slowing you down rather than speeding you up. And I’ve played FF Defender before the shields were AoE, and it takes at most 30 seconds to shield a whole team for 4 minutes. So there really is no excuse for standing around doing nothing. Luckily we have the MM AT now, which accommodates this play style much better than a Defender does.

@MTeagueis right that Praetoria is more of a solo 1-20 experience. It tends to be slower but that’s not always a bad thing when relearning the game. There are a handful of missions with difficult ambushes, so don’t be too disheartened if you struggle against those, they don’t happen that often outside of Praetoria. Biggest advice I can give you is get familiar with bodyguard mode for your MM (activated by setting pets to defensive+follow) as ambushes will tend to aim for you directly and ignore your pets; bodyguard mode will split the damage between you and your henchman.

There are always RP teams on Everlasting and if you formed something like this I’m sure people might be interested. But your post does highlight how these made up rules can get very complicated and excessive very quickly 😜

Let’s get rid of all status projection and just given melee extra status resistance. I would love to see the reaction 😁 There is not much gameplay in perma-immunity. You just activate a toggle and you’re immune.. but that’s the way it’s always been I guess. (another post which makes everyone glad I don’t make design decisions!)

Yeah confuse is quite a devious and aggressive power. You’re right that a real pacifist wouldn’t confuse enemies into hurting themselves. That’s like Psycho Mantis saying he didn’t hurt Meryl, and it’s not his fault she shot herself in the head! To be honest I don’t think people really appreciate just how evil confuse really is. One of the most evil things you can do is get two people who are comrades, to fight and kill each other. I’m CoH it is always portrayed as some sort of benign non-aggressive way of defeating foes because of the no-aggro, but it is actually really cruel. It really fits villainous characters very well. If npcs reacted more emotionally to confused allies it would really be more apparent I guess. Also you’re probably right that a pacifist is more likely to be a controller who will lockdown foes as a defence and run away/sidestep/wait for support. Would be an interesting character in a comic! I would suggest getting invisibility/stealth. If you do play solo a pacifist can complete many missions without any combat, or very limited. Only fighting when absolutely paramount.

It depends how you want to go about this. Are you still a pacifist if you stand in a team with everyone killing stuff around and you doing no harmful actions? Technically yes, but sounds like it sort of goes against the principle of the idea. It’s like signing up to the military but refusing to shoot and defend your teammates. So even though it fits the rules does it really fit the concept? Unless you aim to be a medic who doesn’t hurt people themselves? In game you might (rightly) annoy people with a rigid concept that prevents you from doing any ordinary actions. So bear that in mind, people are only human after all. What about pets doing damage for you, such as a mastermind with Empathy? You refuse to get your hands dirty but your minions can do the work for you. Similar to the above but pets aren’t so bothered, and usually a natural way to play a MM. Otherwise you will have a hard time earning xp without leeching off of others. If you can’t deal damage you won’t be able to earn xp solo. Confuse could do the heavy lifting for you, but you still need to deal some damage yourself to get any xp; you can’t just be a spectator. A Controller’s single target controls actually do reasonable damage, none are really zero damage. So if you want to avoid doing damage yourself you’re looking at either a MM or Illusion controller, A Controller that focuses purely on no damage powers (Mind, Ice and Plant can do quite a bit of AoE control without dealing damage), or just standing around in a team leeching until you get kicked 😜 Also is you do go this route, I would advise using a lot of power pool powers - there are some really good ones that don’t actually deal any damage yourself. Such as Leadership. Empathy is an obvious choice but there are other buff sets that don’t actually deal much damage. For example radiation emission only really does damage on Fallout (easily skipped) and EMP (only against robots - and would they count?)

Dark Blast - that might be pretty neat, more for increasing personal survivability since allies will be pretty close to soft cap with shields. FF as a primary does give very good shield numbers. But true that you might get ‘good enough’ with it as a secondary. In which case both Corruptor or Controller would be good (or MM if you like that AT). FFs main weakness is lack of debuffs to increase killing speed, so the more you can mitigate that with the other set you choose, the better.

Ideally a bit of both. I like there to be a strong theme but also interesting synergy where I can.

😳😳🤣🤣

So I’m trying to come up with some fun duo concepts to put to my husband to try and entice him to play with me. Wondering what ideas people have or concepts that they have used in the past?! Some ideas I’ve had: 2 electrical cyborgs/robots - elec/elec blaster and controller. 2 special agents like “men in black” Devices Blaster and Traps Defender. With pistols or AR or a mix. Husband and Wife Demons who argue a lot - both are Demon Summoners but on is /Cold and the other /Thermal. That would be a lot of demons! 2 Stalkers, perhaps with ninja blade. 2 martial artist scrappers with identical (or reversed) outfits. Ryu and Ken? Some sort of bioshock concept big daddy (hulk - probably a brute) teamed with a little kid character who controls it (a mind controller?) Bonus points if the duo is a good theme as we as fun gameplay interactions!

Who else got super excited clicking into this thread? 😄

Not really for me, AB does massive recharge bonus which is much superior IMO. They are very different buffs in my opinion just similar recharge and duration.

Fortitude, Recovery Aura, Regeneration Aura and Adrenalin Boost do not have any comparatives in Pain/, and the sets are quite different aesthetically.

Support and Damage.

Dam/Mezzx2 works quite well in pets like singularity, because you only have a few slots to boost everything you want. In single target holds it works well if you want to use them as an attack, although holds have great set bonuses so you miss out on them. My Defenders with Char/Dominate tend to run 4x the epic hold set (with proc), another damage proc, and the entombed absorb proc. It gives the hold good durations and you get damage from the procs plus a good shield (about 200 at 50). No damage/mezz though sorry.