Peacemoon

A lot of people like mind control because it’s different and effective in its own way. Wouldn’t mind adding a damage-less immobilise to mass hypnosis to help with containment, reducing the cooldown on mass confuse and tweaking telekinesis, but otherwise Mind Control is a great set. My main was Mind control on live and really enjoyed it. I’m against just turning it into every other control set. Mind has a unique and fun play style and toolkit, not replicated in the other sets.

It’s a great power and worth taking as early as possible. Even if you don’t have endurance issues, can be a great help to the team. To be fair I think the +regen is more useful and I slot with 4 doctor’s enhancements, focusing on heal and recharge. This is for the +resist mainly. Twilight’s grasp I slow with nictus for the same reason - the full set.

There is a reason April Fool patch notes aren’t usually actually implemented into the game 🤔

I’ve never known April fool patch notes to actually be implemented into the game. It’s a bit weird.

I did team with an energy blaster over the weekend who was making our scrapper want to swallow his katana...!

I think the majority of this post is about group content rather than solo. I agree when playing solo you can do all sorts of things to make the game more interesting, and actually playing solo is one of the things I often do at high level to do just that. But in a team setting you’re going to have difficulty convincing everyone else to take the harder route to complete something without being able to offer them any incentive. I think that’s what this whole post is about. Not how can we take away nice things, but how can we incentivise playing on more challenging modes. Most games have harder modes or difficulty settings for just this reason, whether you’re playing PS4 games or other MMOs. I suppose I fall into the category of players that enjoys a challenge. Maybe I’ll try form a TF with certain conditions attached and see who is willing to join me! A good place to start would be old school Positron TF from Ouroboros...

And the added risk of failure, whereby people quit and you just can’t carry on with only 2-3 of you. Once upon a time I remember most TFs ended in failure 😆

There is the ‘no enhancements’ challenge mode currently for ouroboros. Of course that is the sledgehammer approach - it’s a bit of a shame to spend all that time gearing up your character if the only challenge mode would be to negate them all. Of course, if it were just one option of many... I haven’t tried the buffed enemies/debuffed players option yet. Running the two at the same time would probably cause a lot of difficulty. I’ll have to give it a go sometime on an ouroboros story arc.

Yes I think the best solution would definitely be towards the ‘challenge modes’ solution to unlock harder versions of existing content. This way a) everyone currently enjoying can continue to do so. b) people who want to do ‘hard mode’ stuff can. Even if it were less efficient in terms of merit/time. c) as long as there were no unique rewards no one would have to if they didn’t want to. d) more ways to play and enjoy the game we all love. Also let’s just say something pro IOs. They made the game much more interesting and enjoyable. Before IOs came out slotting just SOs became quite boring. With set bonuses and the rest it really gave the game that extra level of depth it needed. If we didn’t have IOs it would be nowhere near as fun or customisable as it currently is. Yes a side effect was it made the game easier by empowering player characters who delve into IOs, but it was a price worth paying definitely. Plus CoH has always had overpoweredness. The first powers to get a nerf were Tankers with Fire Aura. They would round up half a map, literally, and herd the mobs into a burn patch where they would all die. That power got nerfed many times. Mobs didn’t use to try run out of burn patches either! Anyway my point is, there is a lot of flexibility on character power levels In CoH and on the whole it’s what makes the game great. So I for one would not be asking for any of that to be changed!

Not everyone is trying to build a consensus to get rid of incarnate abilities. It is just a discussion about the game’s difficulty with peoples thoughts and ideas. Incarnates only effect the 45-50 bracket anyway. There have been many ideas on how to create optional extra challenges for those that want them without effecting the default game (mine were as such). Or people suggested a compromise whereby incarnates were limited but the alpha slot would be usable at all levels (I’m not in favour of this either but for different reasons). I don’t think you need to label everyone in such a negative way.

Yes I soloed it on my controller, and he didn’t even have IOs 😆

A lot of that was because the ingame map was disabled, otherwise it would have been much easier to coordinate. I have seen what Galaxy describe happen randomly in good teams, whereby we just don’t stick together because we don’t need to. It would be difficult to build this into the game though. With the ‘click the clickies at the same time’ groups still did the mission as one team, and just split up once all the mobs were dead.

For randomness I think focusing on procs would be a good way to simulate this. Procs for damage and +def (good luck, oh they missed!) Grav would work but also Mind has confuse powers which could simulate chaos. Lots of ways you could take this.

Yep that’s why my main suggestion is using the challenge settings for TFs to up the difficulty for more rewards. It keeps the base game the same but allows people to challenge themselves. You can theoretically already do this, but with no extra rewards or even badges I’d have a hard time convincing anyone to do so! Then it would just be a case of developing different preset modes for different reward multipliers. Some ideas would be: i) No enhancement bonuses. No set bonuses or procs or unique. Let’s do this the old school way! ii) Buffed enemies (like in Ouroboros). I don’t know how buffed this makes them from a numbers point or view, but it would be fun fighting ‘elite’ versions of regular mobs. We’re not just fighting regular clockwork you find in the Atlas Park car park, but the royal guard! iii) Debuffed players (again like in Ouroboros). This one sounds the least fun to me, but the best super hero stories have our heroes overcome their worst enemies whilst suffering from some ‘debuffed state’. So this could mimic that. Something like the heroes have been poisoned by the main story AV. iv) Constant ambushes - who doesn’t like getting a constant ambush attacking the rear guard of the TF? (Probably not doable with current tech - the other options have Ouroboros equivalents that could easily be ported in). Maybe you could tick each box for multiplied rewards (E.g. x1.5 merits rewards). And tick extra boxes for a bigger multiplier. SO... Who wants to join me for an old school run, fighting the AVs elite mobs and while overcoming some awful poisoned state?! Who is heroic enough?

On Mind/ it is often quite misunderstood. Generally the Mind Controller, as an individual, can put out the most damage of all the sets. Levitate, Mesmerise and Dominate form a solid attack chain, with no DoTs and just pure damage, even better with procs. Terrify is a good aoe damage providing you use containment. (Mass hypnosis is a good primer for this if you’re solo). But when pets come into the mix things get more complicated. Pets do reasonable damage, but can be slow, unreliable, aggro stuff and target the wrong stuff, for which you have no control. Still they do give good raw numbers, but the most important factor is that pet controllers can focus on their other abilities without affecting their damage, as the pets continue to chip away undeterred. The biggest drawback of mind control is the greater focus on the individual player to do all the damage. This really comes front and centre when fighting AVs, because you need to leverage so many debuffs that your character simply struggles to do everything required all at the same time. Anytime the Mind Controller is debuffing, they aren’t attacking. Pet controllers can let their pets do the damage while they debuff, and pets are also much more reliable against a single big target they can all focus on. However, Mind Control is often used by Dominators to solo AVs. I haven’t as much experience here but they generally focus on stacking the single target confuse (which has an enormous duration when slotted) to such high magnitudes that it overcomes the AVs defences so that they don’t fight back. Also you can apply confuse without aggroing. It’s sort of like a psychic assassination... But of course Dominators have access to massive damage attacks that the Controller does not. I don’t have as much expertise with Doms so I’ll leave it at that. Certainly for a duo it light be fun to mix the Dom and Controller. Have both characters take the same primary so they are thematically linked.

It’s really the AV killing that you’ll need to consider the most as you’ll need to be able to debuff them to survive their damage and also overcome their resistance and health regen. So it depends how much you want to choose your characters based on that niche requirement (bearing in mind most AVs can be set to elite bosses, unless you are trying to duo TFs). For that the focus is generally more on the secondary than the primary. At least one of you should be /rad /dark /cold. Personally I favour Dark as the -hit and -damage from Twilight Grasp, Darkest Night and the Dark Servent can lower their damage to survivable amounts. Plus the heal is pretty good and aoe. Dark is also pretty amazing outside of AVs and gives you stealth, rezz, a -res/slow patch, +def with fade and +regen/recovery. I find it really fun. For the primaries, again with the AV niche you want at least one of you to access some pets, so they can be killing while you’re controlling/debuffing. Illusion/ Dark/ and Fire/ are generally the best for pet damage. As for combos it depends if you want to double down on stuff or have more variety! Mind/Dark and Dark/Dark would be fun. Or Mind/Time with Dark/Dark. If you do go down the dark route (I am really biased here! Ha!) you could also try something like Dark/Dark controller with Necromancer/Dark MM. Me and my brother played this combo and it was fun. Both dark control and necromancy bring lots of pets, and also both /dark sets bring an extra pet on top of that as well! Disregarding everything I’ve just written though, you can have a lot of fun with thematic duos. I wouldn’t get too caught up on AV killing potential personally unless you really think you will want to try duo everything in CoH.

Can agree with all of this. My dark/dark has soloed the clockwork king in the portal corps mission and also the GM in the hollows trial. That was without any set bonuses too. (For the hollows trial I did cheat and confuse one of the igneous bosses to use as my pet with my haunts!) Granted not the most challenging, but I wasn’t geared either.

Another thing is if you go Earth/storm end recovery might be an issue, depending on how you manage your powers. I’d advise only running assault from leadership, you won’t need the other two anyway as locked mobs don’t attack (much!) and everyone will have capped accuracy because of earth control anyway!

This is good advice. I think defender or maybe even some controllers are a good way to go. Certainly my Earth/storm has carried many lowbie TFs before. A mixture of earth controls all doing massive -def, freezing rain and also the o2 heal (which is admittedly weak). It’s a great combo for locking mobs and making them vulnerable for allies. If you properly slot stalagmites too it is an amazing aoe stun. Also earthquake keeps everything knocked down. Not sure if you’re talking about being level 50 and exemplering down, but if you are then the epic enhancement sets for stun and hold would make you pretty godly at all of the above.

Speaking again about mobs. Sometimes there is such huge variance between the new and the old. I was fighting the max level family group in a praetoria mission, and their heavy weapon gunners just tore through my controller. It was a bit of wake up as I’d been happily hopping through missions until then. But their massive damage, control resistance and perception through stealth just made me have to reduce the difficulty as just one would kill me in seconds! I was fighting each group based on wether they had a heavy gunner in it or not. So on one hand they made the game more challenging and interesting. They have new powers (based on the resistance group?) but on the other hand it was a bit of a gear change in difficulty. But maybe this shows that some of the older groups could be buffed up a bit. Like Crey, and that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Although I realise once Homecoming starts changing stuff too much, it might turn people off the game. So not sure how much can be done?

Some thoughts: At low level I think things are generally fine. After level 20 player power goes up substantially in a curve and mob power doesn’t keep up any longer. Mobs are not balanced around IOs. They are still balanced around DO/SOs. I still remember those days clearly, and things were so much harder. Teams of 5 or more after 20s just steamroll everything. Particularly as high geared melees can take on a whole spawn themselves without the team supporting them. Task forces are much easier now because everyone is sidekicked/exemplered to the max level. ‘Back in the day’ it was not unusual to start a Synapse task force with half the group as level 16/17, and it made it more challenging when fighting level 20 clockwork. Now-a-days everyone is at the top of the bracket, so most enemies are same level or only +1. I actually don’t have a problem with incarnates as much because by the time you get to 50 I think you’ve deserved the chance to overspec your character. They aren’t active below 45 anyway, and you can unlock them without doing incarnate trials. I think for these reasons I find myself playing a lot more solo content, or team up for low level stuff, as I find the higher end team stuff a bit boring to be honest. Things like citadel or numina can be a bit of a grind because there is little risk of failure, and the final AV fight can be an anticlimax. Sometimes it’s a case of rushing to get some powers off even though they’re not needed. So suggestions and advice? Well here are some ideas: 1) For Task Forces, especially signature ones, mobs should really be at least +2 or +3. With new sidekick system they should be made higher level. Their level should be based on the team leads level and not auto set. This would instantly make them harder and more akin to the difficulty they once were. 2) Ouroboros allows you to challenge yourself on its story arcs. Allow us to do the same for TFs. The option for no enhancements, no inspirations, mobs buffed, players debuffed are already there. However they’re never used because, why would you? Allow rewards for a TF to be substantially buffed if these options are selected. E.g. double merits for choosing a no enhancement run. (Random numbers- but the principle would be good). Pros: people can OPT IN to more challenging versions of old content, and get more rewards for doing so. For those that like it as it is, things continue as normal. 3) Consider buffing mobs above 30 to take into account IOs. Yes we have to be really careful here as the variance between low geared and max geared is extreme. To be honest I’m really hesitant with this unless we... 4) Standardise enhancements. Get rid of SOs and let the shops sell IOs that scale. (Make crafting regular IOs cheaper than buying them). This lets shops be useful again and reduces the gap between the haves and have nots. Give the shops mission arcs that reward you with some ATO enhancements. Or random IO recipes, to encourage people to get into crafting. Put crafting stations in every shop so you don’t have to goto the university. Enhancements are a lot more complex then ever before, even I as someone who knows far too much about this game had to really study the subject to get a good understanding. It is not friendly for a new player and far too many pitfalls. 5) Travel - okay this is not completely related but travelling at the moment is a case of hopping everywhere via your SG base. I think that’s fine, but the /enterbasebypasscode command should only work at base portals. Occasionally I’m in a team where someone doesn’t know about this and they are seriously disadvantaged (and yes I do try help them out), but it’s another example of hidden power not available to the masses, or else it would simply be a power unlocked at low level. There is already a base teleporter power as a day job, so... So in summary I suppose it is a range of issues from mob difficulty generally, to how things like sidekicking work now to change everyone’s levels, to fully decked out IO’d characters next to someone with DO/SOs, and hidden advantages if you know how to use them through / commands. Some of these are not healthy for the game, but this is just my opinion. Peace out!

Just to add to what is mentioned here, mob awareness is as always, critical. Unfortunately this often comes with experience and failure, but pin point the most damaging enemy mobs to your minions and isolate them with anything you can. Holds, debuffs, overwhelming damage etc. Enemies with lots of aoe and splash damage are particularly good at wiping out your henchman, so start with them first.

So is it more AR for Defenders do you think or AR in general?

I’m glad this was able to help you ScurvyParrot!

In addition to the other replies, you can move powers such as Sorcery’s translocation to a different place, have it take a spot on your normal power bars (with your regular keybinds) if that is useful to you.