Ultimo

Protector Bots can project Force Bubbles, so they can take Defense. My usual focus is to get my personal defense as good as possible, as soon as possible (not PFF, as that takes me out of the fight). To that end, my priorities were Dispersion Bubble, Maneuvers, Tough and Weave. The Protector Bots are the only ones with extra abilities, so they get the extra slots. The Battle Bots and Assault Bot are really only about damage, so that's all they get. It's not really necessary to slot them for endurance reduction, unless you plan on recasting them a lot... and I generally don't have to. Against most things, my build is more than adequate, capable of grinding down armies of foes with little difficulty. My usual approach is defense first, then damage. However, I don't usually bother with the single bubbles (Deflection/Insulation), as they don't benefit ME, and my bots are more than capable enough on their own. Until Calystix, that is. Against him, NO amount of damage slotting would help, and while having more Defense might allow the bots to survive a little longer, it's not going to help much when one hit will wipe them all out. In any case, I'll tinker with the build in Mids' and see what I come up with.

I can try... All SOs now, I focused mainly on defense (Being a FF Mastermind)... I'll see what I can do.

It hasn't been the melee powers. His pets throw these cones of pebbles, and he throws this blue wave spray thing, all AOE ranged attacks... and the bots are instantly wiped. I even tried souping up the Assault bot with three large purple inspirations, 2 medium orange and three small damage.... and he was still oneshotted. Doesn't seem to be any way to engage him. With my PFF, I could go in and take his alpha... but the bots only last about 2 seconds longer.

Dunno... he's doing an awful lot of damage, I thought something in the caves might be buffing him... like I say, every attack is strong enough to oneshot my bots... even the Assault Bot goes down on the first hit. That's not usual.

So, I'm on my Bots/FF Mastermind. I'm doing missions leading up to fighting this guy Calystix the Shaper. He's a red conn elite boss in this mission. So, I buff up my bots, and send them to the attack. He conjures 4 coral critters. They attack ONCE and wipe my bots out. ALL at once, all oneshotted. So, I retreat, resummon and go back. I spread out the bots, and then attack again, expecting to keep them out of the AOEs that oneshotted them. The bots engage and are all immediately oneshotted. My summon powers hadn't even recharged yet. I repeated the process 4 times, then gave up. There's just no way to withstand the kind of damage he's doing. Is there some trick to this guy I'm not seeing? I've been all through the map looking for something that might be buffing him, 800 damage per attack seems rather extreme... and that's his PETS.

Ya, I did comment a couple of times that I couldn't hit anything, but not in quick succession. The third time I mentioned it, it was part of my preamble, explaining why I was going to leave the group, because I figured an explanation was warranted. I didn't respond to his snarkiness, because I didn't think it was worthwhile. I mean, I did leave in the middle, and I had commented at being unable to affect anything, so I wasn't sure he was in the wrong at all. In any case, as I say, I really came here to vent a little, and to remind people to be nice to each other. Thanks all.

So... I was playing my L26 Psi/Psi Dominator. Someone posted in LFG they were recruiting for Positron 1, which I always enjoy, so I said I was up for Positron. Invitation to group appears, and I join. However, I noted the mission was in Atlas Park... and when I looked, I realized the name of the leader wasn't the one calling for Positron. Not wanting to just quit right away (I hate doing that) I thought I'd give it a chance. The mission was L53, so everything there was purple to me. I couldn't hit anything, and when I did hit, I was doing next to nothing. The enemies ignored my holds and sleeps entirely. I commented a couple of times that I couldn't hit them, and after getting killed while everyone else ran on ahead (I was held), I said again that I wasn't able to do anything to them... I couldn't hit them, couldn't hurt them, they were WAY over my head. I was trying to explain why I was about to quit the group, because I hate leaving in the middle of something, but the leader said, "Well quit bitching and just leave." It left a bad taste in my mouth. It seemed unnecessarily rude. I mean, he invited me to a group WAY over my head, KNOWING I was trying to get into a Positron (low level) TF. What's my point? Don't be like that. It's not necessary to be rude to people, especially when you knowingly throw a low level character into max level content.

I solo most of the time. I don't want my ability to play to be contingent on someone else's allowing me to do so.

Again, turning off xp means I never get to leave that zone for any reason.... never get to gain new powers, never get to do higher level taskforces, never get to do most of the game. And if I turn on the xp gains so I do get access to the rest of the game, it means I can never go BACK to King's Row. Once Batman has fought Darkseid, does he never go back to Gotham?

Ya, Super Strength. In fact, I've always thought the SS set was rather underwhelming, with little that suggests actual STRENGTH (anyone can HIT things, strength is about lifting and moving heavy things), and that it relies overmuch on one or two powers (KO Blow and Rage, in particular).

Actually, back in the day, I had several stories I'm in the process of trying to recreate... assuming I can relearn how to DO it. I'll post a blurb when I finish the first. Not precisely. If I stop getting xp, I don't progress at all, and can't do most other content if I choose to. I don't mind if I don't get xp for THAT ZONE, I just don't want everything there to be trivial. Keep your eyes peeled for my World War 2 arc. Originally, it was 5 missions long, beginning in North Africa, then leading to a battle in the hills of Sicily, then post-DDay Europe, then two missions to track down and capture the last of the German enhanced agents. Each mission was filled with easily defeated allied and enemy soldiers (who could be dangerous, collectively), several allied superhumans based on some of my own characters, and many enemy superhumans, in most missions, more than one! The final mission had a whole team of enemy superhumans for you and your allies to fight. I'll keep you all posted, but I'll reiterate my original suggestion, that we be allowed to do radio missions in all zones.

Yes, but I don't want to STOP progressing... I just want to keep playing in the zone I like for that character. This suggests an alternative, that we be allowed to "sidekick" ourselves to whatever level we want (only lower levels). I thought simply letting us do the radio missions would be simpler.

Ya, I could do that, but then there would be no randomness, it would be the same thing all the time. Of course, that would also let me use my own bad guys...

Interestingly, perhaps, I find Brutes to be TERRIBLE at lower level. I made one based on the Hulk, and he was getting squashed by pretty much everything he met. I switched from Regeneration to Willpower, and that helped, but he is STILL awfully squishy at around L24.

My search fu might be inferior, but I can't imagine this hasn't been commented on before. I hate activating my police radio and getting that message. I think my character should be the one deciding what is beneath his notice! The reason for this is simply a matter of personal preference and RP. For example, I have a character who is a "street level" hero, based in King's Row. It's like Batman being in the dingy, grungy Gotham City. The problem is that not only has he outleveled the street thugs, but he can't even do RADIO missions, which would scale to his level. I'd like to suggest that this restriction be removed. Let us do radio missions, whatever zone we're in. I'd even do them for no xp.

I'll confirm, the endurance definitely goes to MY character.

Turns out the game wasn't crashing, just taking a long time to save. I tried it again, and it finished saving after a couple of minutes.

Just as it says in the title. I adjusted the colours of my powers, then tried to save them. I typed in the new name for the customization, pressed enter to save, and the game freezes, then crashes to the desktop.

Thanks to all for the advice. The character is L28 now, all SO (except the PShifters). I don't use Snow Storm at all... I find it causes foes to run around aggroing whole maps, and it costs a lot of endurance for little benefit. My usual slotting (and this is the case on all my characters) is one endurance reduction, one accuracy and 3 damage (or relevant effect, if the power doesn't DO damage). However, that's been ENTIRELY insufficient on this character. I'll look into the Numina's and other such things you've suggested. Thanks again!

Back in the day, the reason I stopped playing CoH was because I found the endurance "game" far too frustrating. My characters couldn't walk and chew gum. I felt like I was fighting my POWERS more than the ENEMIES... and I'm back here again, feeling the same frustration, especially on my Defender, Ch'ih Sung Tsu. A storm god, his powers are Storm/Electric. I was going to give him some pools to boost his defenses, but he simply can't DO anything. I run through my attacks once, maybe twice... and he's OUT of endurance. I three slotted Stamina. I put THREE endurance reducers in every attack and toggle (except Hover)... and STILL was out of endurance in moments. Someone told me about Performance Shifter with the +Endurance proc... so I put one of those in Stamina. It helped... but not much. Then I noticed my Electric attacks can all take End Mod enhancers, and I wondered what would happen if I put one of those Performance Shifter +Endurance enhancers in EACH attack. If they proc every time I attack... I would be getting endurance BACK when I attacked. So, I'm trying it out. So far... I think it's working better. Each attack currently has the PShifter, an accuracy and a damage SO... and it SEEMS to be better. My question is how the procs would work. It says in the description that the proc should happen once every 90 seconds (in Stamina). The question is whether EACH one would proc each 90 seconds, independently of the OTHER procs, or if they would ALL go on "cooldown" if one procs? If it's the latter case, it seems to me that having multiples would be kind of pointless, the one in Stamina would be doing all the procs, putting all the ones in the attacks on cooldown. Anyway, it's an experiment. I'll let you know how it goes once I've had some time to play with it.

It was really more about this kind of thing. Group 1 meets a spawn of enemies. The controller controls them all. They are now all immobilized, but are still attacking. This doesn't really help the team at all. The enemies have taken no damage, and are still able to do damage. OR the controller puts them all to sleep. Now, the very first attack will wake them up. Those that aren't awakened are still asleep for about 2 seconds... Group 2 meets a spawn of enemies. The blaster hits them with an AOE attack, and they're all defeated... or the Tanker taunts them, and they can't attack the rest of the group. The Defender heals or bubbles or does whatever his powers do, protecting the group. In either case, the group is being helped, either by having damage done to the enemy or protection provided to the group. It made me wonder why one would bother with the controllers. I mean, even if you lock down the enemy, you still have to defeat them, so a blaster is preferable. The lockdown will wear off and with the lengthy cooldown on anything that's not an immobilize, it can't be used again the way a Tanker will be able to taunt, or a Defender will be able to heal or bubble or what have you... so those would be preferable to the controller too. Moreover, Bosses and higher are immune to the controls, meaning the controller is providing NOTHING against them, except a pittance of damage. Now, some good points have been made in defense of the controllers, but I'm still kind of unconvinced. I do still enjoy playing my controller... but on his OWN. I still don't feel like I'm contributing anything of value to groups.

Well... I don't know that it would BREAK anything... those tier 1 powers are generally not all that powerful... but I don't think that's the way to go. I'd just rather they make that first power useful to the AT... for each AT.

Think of it this way, then. A character who has a power at tier 1 of their secondary that is more or less worthless... has ONE LESS power at his disposal than other characters who have a useful power at that tier. This puts him at a disadvantage relative to those others. Now, it's not likely to be a huge problem, but it IS a disadvantage that many would say shouldn't exist. My Tanker is required to take Jab. I find it to be a more or less worthless power. It uses endurance to make an attack that does almost nothing, endurance better used by other attacks. This means my Tanker has one fewer attacks to use than other characters. More, if he wants to substitute some other attack in its place, it means using a second slot to do it.

You see, I have the opposite point of view. Because that first power is the only one you have no choice of, it's necessary they all be more or less equal so no set is at a disadvantage you have no control over. Where there's no choice, there's no meaningful choices to make beyond "Don't take that power set," and that should never be a choice.

Again, if they can do that for other players, why is it OP for them to do it for themselves?