Ultimo

So, I created a character. Based somewhat on Brainiac, the idea is that he's an AI inhabiting his own body, but also the bodies of the robot pets. I originally made him with Kinetics, as I'd never really used that set before. However, I found it underwhelming, and that it didn't synergize well with the bots (Transfusion works at the location of the enemy, and bots are usually at a range, so don't get the heal). So, I switched up. The second version has Electric Affinity... but I'm finding myself very inimpressed with it. Granted, I'm only just getting to L20, but I feel like I'm wasting my time. The heal, while it's nice that I can aim it where I need it, is kind of weak costly and slow firing. The debuff powers (Shock, Discharge) do almost NOTHING to enemy damage output, and there's no enhancing them. I haven't reached the buffing powers yet, but I'm uncertain what to expect. Does this set EVER get good? It seems like the only decent power is Faraday Cage, and it's really ugly, and has to be moved around constantly. What about Sonic Resonance? It strikes me as being the Resistance version of Force Fields... but without the PFF. I did consider Force Fields, but I already have a character with that combo. He's a powerhouse, but I don't feel like making the same character twice. I'd hoped for something a bit different. I did think about Time, but it doesn't LOOK like a Brainiac powerset... if you take my meaning. Not blasty enough. Really, the only one that really looks the part is Electric Affinity. Anyway, anyone have any thoughts? Should I stick with Electric Affinity or try something else?

Ok! So, I've made some variations, and decided on a Dominator, Earth Control/Radiation Assault (with Stealth). The concept of the character goes something like this (someone more versed in quantum physics is welcome to weigh in - that's a pun, by the way). He's a quantum physicist, doing research focused on the Higgs Boson, and it's interaction with fundamental particles. When the Rikti attacked his city (Toronto), the building housing his lab was collapsed, trapping him within. He used his research and what equipment he could scrounge together to try and escape. He did this by manipulating the connection between the particles composing the debris and the Higgs field, thereby effectively reducing its mass. However, he discovered that the matter didn't simply reduce in mass, but also in dimension, becoming greatly smaller. This didn't really help him, so he tried it on himself, and found he could shrink in size, allowing him to slip through the debris to freedom. Further enhancement of the equipment allowed him to increase the interaction with the Higgs field, thereby increasing the mass and size of matter. He uses this effect to increase the size of dust in the air, even the air itself, to contain targets, and also to increase the effective mass of his punches, allowing him to strike targets with tremendous force. What do you guys think? Is the physics even a little plausible?

I'm not sure which edition that comes from, I'd have to dig out the old rulebooks. Also, there were undoubtedly some house rules in effect, and some liberties taken with designing the villains.

I thought about that... but Phantom Army is kind of the only really good power in the set, and it just doesn't quite look right either as copies of the Ghost himself, nor as generic characters. So far, the best combo still seems to be the Dark Blast/Dark Armour Sentinel. He lacks the controls, and his powers are rather more direct than I would normally want, but overall it still "feels" better.

Ya, it's a lot of points. My version of an Arch-Villain, most of the characters I made for the heroes to fight against were a bit less extreme than this. Heroes started with 250 points, and a cap of 60 active points in any given power, so he's only a bit more powerful than that, power by power, with lots of Stun and Body, and plenty of defense. The "Villain Bonus" was something I saw them use in most of the Villains books. I suppose it represents their experience, or ruthlessness, or something. Really, it's just a number to let you make the villain in any way you like.

Just for the sake of amusement, and so people could see an old OLD picture of the character, I dug up an old Champions character sheet for the character. Ah, the good old days.

tidge has hit it kind of on the head... that is, a demonic character claiming to be something PROBABLY isn't. As for the rest, I did think about the Mastermind as a class, but none of the pets struck me as being quite in character, and as you said, he's not really manipulating his pets to do things for him... Of course, a confuse power is also a bit forceful in that regard... but it works. As I already have a Dark/Dark Controller, I might switch it up and make him a Dark/Dark Dominator. Right now, he's a Dark/Dark Sentinel. Anyhoo, I'll play with it for a bit and see what comes of it. Thanks for the input, everyone.

So, I'm trying to recreate another of my old characters from my youth. The character is loosely based on the Atom or Ant-Man, with a bit of Molecule Man thrown in. In essence, he can make things shrink or grow. My first thought was to make him a Controller or Dominator, with Earth Control powers to represent him enlarging dust particles and debris around a target. However, I've not really found a secondary that I'm finding satisfying. I think I like the idea of him using controls, but I'm just having trouble fitting into the concept. Any thoughts? Should I try a different AT? What power sets? I figure he'll end up getting Stealth (representing him getting so small he can't be seen), but beyond that... I'm undecided. Any thoughts are helpful.

I understand, but sometimes there might be names that just won't fit. For example, another character was using the Traps set, and I wanted to rename the Force Field Generator to something like, Graviton Accelerator... but it wouldn't fit. Sure, I could just name it something else, but sometimes it's nice to have more flavour in the naming.

Hm. Well, I don't think I'll be using it. Got the Adaptation powers, but the effects are these glowing lines and wisps all over the character. Not at all what I wanted for his look. I could just use Invulnerability, but I already have SO many characters with it. I mean, it's effective but I was hoping to try something different.

I actually have another bots character, who is more mechanical. I named his bots numerically in binary... so for example, Unit 1000, Unit 0100, etc.

So... I've agonizing a bit over a character, and thought I'd see if anyone had any ideas that might inspire me. It's going to be tough, because the issue is largely one of concept. The character is called The Black Ghost. He's based on a character from my youth when I made comics. The idea is, he's kind of an ultimate power bad guy. Really, I shouldn't be trying to play him at all, he's not going to be nearly as powerful as he ought to be. He claims to be Satan himself, though it's never confirmed one way or the other. The idea is that he's almost omnipotent, but rarely gets directly involved in things, preferring to manipulate events and people. He presents as a vaguely humanoid column of smoke and shadow, with great long horns coming from where the head would be, and baleful glowing red eyes. He is surrounded by shadow and smoke all the time. In game, I made him using the Spectrum pieces in black, and then gave him the Smoky aura and path aura, in black. Of course, he has no glowing eyes, since the aura is used for smoke. My first thought was to make him a Sentinel, Dark Blast and Dark Armour (which DOES give him access to red eyes via Soul Noir)... but I feel like he should be less... direct? I thought about making him a Dominator or Controller, but then that takes away the Dark Armour, and makes him overly squishy. I thought about trying him as a Tanker, but he's too punchy, and too much in the middle of the action. I thought about making him as a Warshade, but that didn't quite feel right either. I'm just having trouble deciding how to make the character in a way I find satisfying. So, here I am. I know it's a hard thing to suggest something that will work for my concept of the character, when you're not as familiar with the concept, but going from what I've put down here... what do you think? Any ideas?

I have a bots MM with a similar issue. The tier 1 bots are what I called "Dire Pawns" (the character is Lord Dire). I had to put little extras in each name, so each is unique (ie. one is Dire Pawn, the next is Dire-Pawn, the last is Dire.Pawn). It's a bit annoying, but manageable. It's hard to work around insufficient letters though.

A minor issue I've been encountering is that there's not enough space for my pets to have names. For example, if I wanted to name my Commando Mjr. "Dutch" Schaefer, there's just not enough space for all the letters. I'd only get as far as Mjr. "Dutch" Sc before running out of letters. So my suggestion and request is for more letter space for pet names! I can't imagine it would be hard to do.

So... I've been working on fleshing out my Fantastic Four homage characters, and I'm a little stuck on the Thing. My original plan was to give him Stone Armour and Stone Melee, but I find I rather dislike the look of Stone Armour. Sadly, there's no way to completely hide the rock bits on him, so I started considering alternatives. I could just go with Invulnerability, but I've used that set on LOTS of characters, and wanted to try something new, but still thematic. In the comics, Thing's rocks aren't actually ROCKS. They're lumps of hardened muscle and tissue. Indeed, his original look wasn't rocky at all. This led me to consider Bio Armour, but I know very little about it. Based on Mids, it looks like a hybrid Resistance/Defense set with a bit of Regeneration thrown in. My question is, how does it perform? Is there anything I should know about the set to make it work?

Sigh, so many people putting words in my mouth. I never said I wanted to win. In fact, I specifically said I shouldn't win. No one should be defeating AVs on their own. All I said was that AVs and EBs shouldn't be defeating players before the players can do anything. If my character has 800 health and Wretch does 400 damage with Hurl, the fight is over. I can't stay to fight, because his next attack kills me, or I'm already dead, because I'm stunned and knocked down and not able to react to the next attack. To be clear, AVs and EBs should definitely be doing significant damage. It's just TOO significant at present. Well, they're supposed to be... but often aren't, because after one attack, the hero is either running away and there's no battle, or stunned and dead on the next attack. I'll point out again that my Defender defeated by Hopkins had about as much defensively going on as was possible for him. His Defense would have been at the cap, owing to Steamy Mist, Maneuvers, Combat Leaping, Hover, Weave and three purple inspirations, Hurricane would have debuffed Hopkins' Tohit, and his resistance would have been bolstered by Steamy Mist and Tough. He still didn't last 2 seconds. People keep saying there are ways to mitigate the damage, but the evidence of my own eyes says otherwise. People keep calling up old threads, even OLD old threads now, that say some similar things, but rarely the same things. The Defenders Balance thread was about Defender damage relative to other ATs, and had NOTHING to do with AVs or EBs. The State of Invulnerability thread was about Invulnerability's suceptibility to debuffs, compared to defense sets, and had NOTHING to do with AVs or EBs. The Damage Output thread was about Defender damage specifically, but was against an AE enemy, who was using powers NPC enemies don't have (which I didn't know). The Game is Tedious was about Endurance costs, and had nothing to do with AVs or EBs. The Calystix thread was about the AV pets doing excessive damage, which someone pointed out was due to them spawning as if the EB was an AV. You may notice I also did take advice on the matter and did defeat Calystix. However, it was a thread about that one particular EB, who was behaving in an abnormal way. The Lex Luthor thread had nothing at all to do with damage. I expect it's to show that I was using SOs. That's normal when I plan builds, I never plan out the IOs because I don't have any, and am unlikely to be able to get them. They're just too expensive, especially at lower level. When a character gets to L50, THEN I consider the sets. I have none at that level yet. The Mids' plans are about power selections and timing of selections. The slotting is more or less irrelevant. Again, that's not what I said at all. In fact, I said the opposite. I said I shouldn't be soloing AVs. What I did say is the AV shouldn't be taking me out before I have any chance to fight back. Refer again to the Defender that took on Hopkins. The reason I was in his face is because throughout the TF, I had been doing the tanking. Teleporting in with Hurricane running would debuff the accuracy of the enemy, making it possible for me to get their attention and not get killed. Except that Hopkins hit me once and that was all it took. I was PART of a team, but was dead before anyone could do anything. We had a healer, but that was irrelevant because I was dead before anyone could do anything. There were damage dealers, but they were ranged attackers too, and weren't able to debuff enemy accuracy to survive. So... ya. I never said I wanted to solo task forces. I never said I wanted to solo AVs. I think I should be able to solo an EB, though it should be a hard fight. I agree, going by the builds I posted, the slotting is pretty basic. In essence, while leveling, I build as defensively as possible, maxing out my defenses as well as I can with SOs before worrying about increasing damage. Even slotting expressly for durability, it's not enough. But, here I am posting again late at night, reacting to barbs and misrepresentations of things I've said. I shouldn't do it, but that's what the thread seems to be about now. People talking about ME, and not about the subject. As I said before, I'm going to remake the AE mission for testing. Many times, things I've posted about were anecdotal, occurrences in battle, which made it difficult to know just what was going on. Using the AE allows me to control the conditions. The plan now will be to test a representative character of each AT against a representative AV. Sigh, so many people putting words in my mouth. I never said I wanted to win. In fact, I specifically said I shouldn't win. No one should be defeating AVs on their own. All I said was that AVs and EBs shouldn't be defeating players before the players can do anything. If my character has 800 health and Wretch does 400 damage with Hurl, the fight is over. I can't stay to fight, because his next attack kills me, or I'm already dead, because I'm stunned and knocked down and not able to react to the next attack. To be clear, AVs and EBs should definitely be doing significant damage. It's just TOO significant at present. Well, they're supposed to be... but often aren't, because after one attack, the hero is either running away and there's no battle, or stunned and dead on the next attack. I'll point out again that my Defender defeated by Hopkins had about as much defensively going on as was possible for him. His Defense would have been at the cap, owing to Steamy Mist, Maneuvers, Combat Leaping, Hover, Weave and three purple inspirations, Hurricane would have debuffed Hopkins' Tohit, and his resistance would have been bolstered by Steamy Mist and Tough. He still didn't last 2 seconds. People keep saying there are ways to mitigate the damage, but the evidence of my own eyes says otherwise. People keep calling up old threads, even OLD old threads now, that say some similar things, but rarely the same things. The Defenders Balance thread was about Defender damage relative to other ATs, and had NOTHING to do with AVs or EBs. The State of Invulnerability thread was about Invulnerability's suceptibility to debuffs, compared to defense sets, and had NOTHING to do with AVs or EBs. The Damage Output thread was about Defender damage specifically, but was against an AE enemy, who was using powers NPC enemies don't have (which I didn't know). The Game is Tedious was about Endurance costs, and had nothing to do with AVs or EBs. The Calystix thread was about the AV pets doing excessive damage, which someone pointed out was due to them spawning as if the EB was an AV. You may notice I also did take advice on the matter and did defeat Calystix. However, it was a thread about that one particular EB, who was behaving in an abnormal way. The Lex Luthor thread had nothing at all to do with damage. I expect it's to show that I was using SOs. That's normal when I plan builds, I never plan out the IOs because I don't have any, and am unlikely to be able to get them. They're just too expensive, especially at lower level. When a character gets to L50, THEN I consider the sets. I have none at that level yet. The Mids' plans are about power selections and timing of selections. The slotting is more or less irrelevant. Again, that's not what I said at all. In fact, I said the opposite. I said I shouldn't be soloing AVs. What I did say is the AV shouldn't be taking me out before I have any chance to fight back. Refer again to the Defender that took on Hopkins. The reason I was in his face is because throughout the TF, I had been doing the tanking. Teleporting in with Hurricane running would debuff the accuracy of the enemy, making it possible for me to get their attention and not get killed. Except that Hopkins hit me once and that was all it took. I was PART of a team, but was dead before anyone could do anything. We had a healer, but that was irrelevant because I was dead before anyone could do anything. There were damage dealers, but they were ranged attackers too, and weren't able to debuff enemy accuracy to survive. So... ya. I never said I wanted to solo task forces. I never said I wanted to solo AVs. I think I should be able to solo an EB, though it should be a hard fight. I agree, going by the builds I posted, the slotting is pretty basic. In essence, while leveling, I build as defensively as possible, maxing out my defenses as well as I can with SOs before worrying about increasing damage. Even slotting expressly for durability, it's not enough. My ranged characters usually DO stay out of melee range. It makes no difference when the ranged attacks of the enemy do nearly as much damage as the melee attacks. But, I'll be evaluating that in my next series of tests. At the moment the only reference I have was my Controller being splattered by Hurl, which did almost 700 damage. But, that was an AE character and isn't a fair test. As I've mentioned above, the Defender often referred to had as much defense as possible, and it made no difference. But, here I am posting again late at night, reacting to barbs and misrepresentations of things I've said. I shouldn't do it, but that's what the thread seems to be about now. People talking about ME, and not about the subject. As I said before, I'm going to remake the AE mission for testing. Many times, things I've posted about were anecdotal, occurrences in battle, which made it difficult to know just what was going on. Using the AE allows me to control the conditions. The plan now will be to test a representative character of each AT against a representative AV.

In a manner of speaking, yes! This is true, which is the problem here. I say I think there's a problem, someone else says they think there isn't... neither is right because it's a matter of opinion (ie. subjective). Now, I'm not suggesting a massive change. Yes, scrappers and tankers and the like will last longer still, but the damage being done now is such that even scrappers and tankers (lower level tankers, anyway) aren't lasting any longer than the squishies. However, I've not done those tests yet, so I can't say for certain just how much of a difference there is. You're forgetting the character is solo, there are not allies there. As I've mentioned before, buffing resistance is of very limited value. My Defender that Hopkins took out instantly was about as well defended as he could be, and it made no difference. I've also said that the enemies need to remain a threat. That means a threat to sturdier characters as well. There's a balance point there that needs to be found. Strong enough to be a threat to the tough guys, but not so strong that they overwhelm the squishy guys. Again, no one is forcing you to read it. In the end, the character has to attack the enemy, which means the enemy is going to attack HIM. If the character cannot survive being attacked, there's no game to play. But, I've said this before. Anyway, I think I'll leave it be for now, until I've run some tests with different ATs against more normal foes at even level.

As I said, I'm not expecting anyone to solo an AV. What I'm saying is that everyone should be able to put up some kind of fight before they have to either run away or be defeated. Consider this. My Controller fights an AV. Scenario 1, the AV hits my Controller once, does 700 damage, and the Controller runs away because another hit finishes him. Scenario 2, the AV hits the Controller, but does 150 damage. The Controller has another 650 health, so he throws a couple of control powers, maybe a heal, maybe a debuff. The AV hits him a few more times, and finally the Controller runs away before he's finished. Maybe it's me, but I find scenario 2 FAR more fun to play, because I had a chance to DO something. The AV did just as much damage, just not all at once. I don't know, maybe I've not been clear enough. Does this help?

I'm afraid not. But that's part of the point of making this thread, to get away from the anecdotal stuff and do some testing everyone can replicate. In fact, I'm realizing that the numbers really are beside the point. My position is simply that EBs and AVs do too much damage. Whether it's 700 damage, 7000 damage or 11000 damage is really not the point. It's that whatever damage they're doing is too much for many characters to be able to fight against. Again, not WIN against, just fight. I refer you to my hockey analogy. It's playing the game that's fun, not necessarily winning (though, that's fun too). With enemies doing so much damage, there's no fight, and therefore no fun.

I'm not going to report anything. I can understand how some of my posts are being misconstrued. The character being hit has 1017.4 health. Now, this is in the AE, so I understand this isn't a fair test. However, you wanted me to show you a screenshot. There it is.

As I mentioned, the point I'm making is that I think all characters should have the ability to fight back against all enemies. Controllers, for example, might not HAVE any resistance. There are powers they can take (eg. Tough) that would give them some, but depending on the type of damage or whether that particular Controller took the power, they might not have any resistance. However, this is also why I need to test sturdier characters. Another reason I'm doing things this way is to control for other variables. In the wild, there might be damage coming from other enemies, or other attacks, or debuffs affecting damage, or what have you. I'm trying to get clean data. Um... of course I have an agenda (sort of). I don't expect to see them change anything, but I'd kind of like it if they did. Why else would I post? I've never made claims that were wrong. Everything I've said, all the numbers I've provided have either been straight from the combat log, were observed in damage floaties or were determined by logic (eg. My Brute had 1400 health, so I assumed Serafina's attack did 1400 damage). I will readily admit, and have done so, that there have been occasions when the numbers seem impossible. Hopkins' 3000 damage punch, for example. I've never been able to replicate it, so I can't explain it... but it did happen. In any case, I'm done arguing about this. If you have to call me a liar, you go ahead. The numbers I've posted in this thread were taken right from the combat log. However, what I didn't know was that the AE powers would perform differently than regular NPCs. This is something else that needs to be addressed actually, as it's made it VERY hard to make playable AE enemies. ZemX is also correct, I wasn't using Temporary Invulnerability, I was using the Invulnerability AE tool, making the character immune to damage. The other thing I should say is, I didn't notice the enemies were +4! Since the AE enemies aren't using the powers the regular enemies use, I can't really test with them. I'll have to try and use an enemy I can try and standardize from. This is a matter of opinon, I understand that. I think everyone needs to have a chance to fight back, because that's what the game is about. If you disagree on this fundamental philosophy, that's fine. I simply think otherwise. Again though, I'm not saying everyone should be able to BEAT any enemy... just that everyone should be able to put up some kind of fight. Excessive damage prevents even this. Again, I didn't realize my tests were against +4s. I'll address that. I also realize that the game works as it is. Lots of people play it, and have been playing it. I don't think they'll change anything. I'm just bringing this up for discussion to offer an alternative point of view. Ya, I realize testing in the AE isn't exactly the same is in the wild, but I'm trying to control the conditions, as I mentioned. It is a valid confound though. I'm not sure. I chose it for testing because it's on the high side for damage, and I need to consider the extremes. However, AE powers are apparently not appropriate for this purpose. I have no problem with anyone disagreeing with me. Saying I've posted before isn't disagreeing with me, it's browbeating. It's talking about ME and not talking about the subject at hand (the testing I'm doing). I'm trying to do some real testing. That's the reason for this thread. I've taken the numbers from the combat log under controlled conditions, and posted them here so people can identify any confounding factors I might have missed (such as the +4 level, which I hadn't noticed). Discussing the tests, even disagreeing with my results, I have NO problem with. It seems, however, that my tests need to be done again with a regular NPC, since AE numbers aren't reflective of the NPCs in the wild.

And, your point is what exactly? Yes, I've brought up the issue before. Other have brought it up before. People have been bringing it up for 20 years. So what? If you think these browbeating, bullying tactics are going to make me stop posting my thoughts, think again. I'll post what I like. If you don't want to discuss it again, no one is making you read the thread. If you're worried that the developers might actually change something in a way you don't approve of, don't worry. They haven't changed it after all this time, they're not going to change it now. Bullying me isn't going to make me stop posting. Also, I take offense at the suggestion that I'm doing anything underhanded with my tests and numbers, so don't do that. You're welcome to disagree, but don't be disagreeable. My tests are based on a simple principle. Since every character is going to encounter the same content, every character needs to be able to have fun DOING that content. Squishies are going to have to fight AVs and EBs solo, so they need to be able to DO it. Not necessarily WIN, just FIGHT. The reason is that the fight is where the fun is. If the fight is over in 2 seconds, there's no FUN being had. Therefore, my tests specifically use characters with the lower defenses, since even these characters should be able to have the fun of actually fighting the enemies. Perhaps it will help to put it in other terms. I'm a hockey player, a goalie. I would LOVE to play a game against NHL players, just to see what it's like. I know I'd get slaughtered, but the outcome isn't the point. It's the GAME that's fun. If it was over in 2 seconds, there wouldn't be any fun. I've not yet had a chance to do any further testing to post. I'll post further analysis of that. Also... The Rikti Invasions thread had nothing to do with enemy difficulty. It talked about making the invasions more engaging. The quote from Enemy Design was a comment I made, not a thread. That was someone else's thread. The Silver Mantis thread wasn't about her damage, it was about trying to defeat her when she heals constantly. The Something of an Experience thread did refer to Mr. G's extreme damage, but in the context that he was attacking me as I was coming out of an elevator, giving me no chance to defend myself. You may remember that others noted having the same problem. The Giant Monsters thread was started by someone else, and my comments were a little off topic, which is why I started THIS thread. However, Giant Monster damage DID come up in the discussion, if you recall. The Enemies and Damage thread described something of an aberration (ie. Hopkins doing 3000 damage, which is NOT normal for him), but is the only other thread directly on this topic that I've started recently. So... ya. Which of us is being deceptive here?

Thanks to all for the considered responses. However, I think a significant point is being overlooked. An enemy like Barracuda is a threat to both squishies and tanks, because while her damage is lower, she can sustain it longer because of her durability. Against her, ANY character can at least make an attempt to fight back, whether squishy or not. Against most other AVs, this is not the case. If you can't make any effort to fight back, there's no GAME to play. The argument, "get a tank," is unproductive, because most of us are soloing most of the time. Resistances and such do help, but not much. Having 75% resistance is meaningless if you're still taking 700 damage and you have 800 health. The next hit still defeats you, so there's no fighting back. Just "keeping back" also doesn't help much of the time. I made a Mastermind and tested him in the AE against his "nemesis." The nemesis threw a boulder at him (Hurl) and did about 70% of his health in one shot. So, I kept back, and let his bots fight. They needed healing, so I moved close enough to do that, and took another Hurl, and was instantly defeated. There wasn't anything I could do but NOT BE THERE... which again, means there's no game. Fighting the enemy is the game, for all ATs. If you can't do it, there's no game. However, I'll do another test, this time with a Tanker, and post the results for evaluation. Again, I appreciate the discussion!

So, the subject came up in another thread, and I didn't want to derail it again with this discussion, so I'm starting a new one. To be clear, I do NOT expect anything in the game to change. It's been this way far too long to change it now. On the other hand, I would not oppose a change, I even recommend it. The idea here is to discuss what I see as an issue with enemy damage output. It began in the Manticore TF, when my Defender was instantly wiped out in one attack by the AV Hopkins. He did over 3000 damage with one punch, which was more than THREE TIMES my character's maximum health. That was a bit of an aberration, I'm not sure how he got his damage that high... but then I started doing some testing in the AE. My premise is that enemies should never do so much damage that they immediately defeat the character. It doesn't matter if it's one attack or two attacks, if there's no opportunity to fight back... it amounts to the same thing. Enemies doing so much damage means there's no GAME, because the players can't DO anything (except run away, if they get the chance). To test damage, I created an AE mission, and created a Minion, Lieutenant, Boss, Elite Boss and Arch Villian, all with only ONE power: KO Blow. I then entered the mission with my Mastermind (he has 803.2 health at L50), turned on Invulnerability and let each of them hit me to see how much damage they did. Here's what I found. The Minion hit me for 555.3 damage. The Lieutenant did 832.95 damage. The Boss did 1388.26 damage. The Elite Boss did 1943.57 damage. The Arch Villain did 2498.88 damage. ALL of these are excessive. If anything but a minion hit the character with this attack, the fight is over, guaranteed. He'd be left with 1 health, unless he had already taken even 1 damage from jumping, or some other attack. A second attack would likely already be on its way, so there is no FIGHT here. Every one of these is doing several times the character's MAXIMUM health. Years ago, I ran a Champions pen and paper game, and came to the realization that most of the enemies published for the game were unusuable for exactly this reason. They were capable of taking out the heroes before the heroes could make any kind of a fight out of the encounter. It was NO FUN. Even if you're sure to lose, the fun is in the fighting back. My solution there was to scale back the damage output of the enemies, so they did only as much or slightly more than the heroes were capable of themselves. I then added a pile of health to them, so the fights would last longer, giving the heroes the chance to fight, but the enemy the durability to threaten them. It WORKED. This principle seems to exist in this game, even. There is an AV called Barracuda who seems to follow this scheme. I did some testing, and found that most AVs (spawned as EBs) had attacks that did as much as 700 damage in one hit, and a minimum of 200. This meant that two hits was all that was needed to take out almost any character, which means there's NO FIGHT. The hero either runs away after the first hit (if he can), or he's defeated on the next one. Barracuda was different. Her attacks ranged from around 100-150 damage. This made them HURT, but it wasn't enough to prevent me trying to fight back... and she was likely to win because she had many times my health. Fighting her was FUN, even if I was at a disadvantage, because I was able to DO things. Not so with Hopkins, Vandal, or ANY of the others. Again, I don't think anything is going to change... but it seems to me the damage scaling is way out of whack. I thought this in the past, too. I'd suggest examining damage output, to see if a better balance could be found, but I'm interested to see if anyone agrees with me. What does the community think of these numbers? Do they think they're appropriate? Have they any ideas that might help correct the imbalance? I'm just curious, really.

Quite so. The other day, my scrapper went to Talos to participate in the Rikti raid (the usual battle on the hill), but got zapped as I was crossing the street from the tram. It did several pulses of damage in one shot, and KOed me instantly. It doesn't stop there. What about fire attacks, with their burning DOT? How about the electric attacks that do the same thing, or darkness, or ice... or any of the many DOTs. The thing is, I think some are getting hung up on semantics. What is a "Oneshot?" One way to look at it is any attack that does more damage than the character's maximum health. Another is a single attack (even one with several pulses of damage) that defeats the character in one shot. The game is specifically set up to prevent this, but it does it in such a way as to make essentially no difference. If an enemy can defeat you before you have any chance to respond, that's what I consider a oneshot. I hope that's clearer. To evaluate this, I tried a little experiment in the AE. I created a mission with several of the standard AVs, including Hopkins, Clockwork King, Countess Crey, Vandal, and several others. I then took my Controller in (since he's got the least defense), and turned on Invulnerability, so they couldn't actually damage him. I then each in turn attack the character for 10 seconds, and added up the amount of damage done. I also noted the highest damaging single attack and the lowest. A couple of the AVs (eg. Clockwork King) couldn't be tested, because they were too low level and just ran away. The results were interesting. MOST of them did around 1600 damage over 10 seconds. The highest was 1890, the lowest was 1325. The highest damage attack was typically around 500-600 damage. Hopkins had the high, just shy of 700. The lowest damage attacks were usually around 200 damage. The lowest (with one exception) was 188. Generally, the enemies would hit the Controller for around 550 damage. He has around 800 health, meaning the next attack WILL defeat him. Whether he has 100 health or 1 health is meaningless if the attacks are doing a MINIMUM of 200 damage. The exception to all this was Barracuda. Her attacks did anywhere from 100-150 damage. What does all this mean? Against most AVs (which were all spawning as EBs, so as actual AVs they would be even STRONGER), the Controller would have NO opportunity to fight back. He would either be immediately defeated, or would have no choice but to run away, since staying means the next hit defeats him. There's NOTHING to do. The difference is Barracuda. Her attacks were strong enough to hurt, and she WOULD win a one on one fight almost every time, but her damage was low enough that the Controller COULD fight back. He didn't have to flee immediately. Frankly, that's just a LOT more fun, and allows for players to use other strategies to fight back. Maybe do some hit and run tactics, or something. You get the idea. My position is simply that AVs and EBs should have their damage scaled back to more reasonable levels. They already have many times our health, they're going to win most fights, one on one. The same is true with GMs. I hope this is clearer, I feel my thoughts on the matter have been poorly organized and expressed.