Ultimo

Debuffs will too... things like Snow Storm.

You CAN'T think the icon for Combat Teleport is appropriate...

If it's not broken when the Defender applies it to someone else, why would it be broken when it's the Defender who gets the benefit?

So, Domination does a couple of useful things (increases control magnitude, restores endurance, etc.). What I don't know is whether it does anything to boost the Dominator's secondary? It doesn't seem to... is that how it's supposed to be? If it's NOT affecting the secondary powers, perhaps something can be done to have it do so? A boost to critical hit chance, or reduction in endurance cost, or some such...?

I think it would be more useful if it did a bit of damage. Total Domination, too. As it is, the duration of each is so short and the recharge so long, that they're of only occasional use.

Actually, your comment gave me an idea! What if, instead of the Rampage missions (where you do newspaper missions until sent to "Paragon City" to rob a bank) taking you to an instanced mission area, it instead sent you to actual PARAGON CITY, where hero players are playing! You would be given a temporary buff power that would only be active while in Paragon, that reduces the effect of player powers on you by a substantial amount (perhaps enough to make you as tough as an AV?). The NPC enemies would still affect you normally, but PCs would have to gather to fight you, or you would overwhelm them. If not as part of the Robbery missions, then perhaps as part of some other story arc or something? Not sure if it would even be possible...

Before I begin, let me say I really don't expect this to happen. It would be a ton of work. However, I made the suggestion back in the old days, so I thought it might be worth making again, if only for the sake of discussion and amusement. Agendas One of the issues I've always had with playing villains in City of Heroes is that we're always stuck being little more to lackeys, doing jobs for the lackeys of the minions of the lieutenants of Lord Recluse. Hardly in character for my character based on Dr. Doom. We should be able to develop schemes and plans of our own. To this end, I developed a system that might allow us to do so. I call it the Agenda System. This system would become available to villains at L22, by which time they are more or less coming into their own, and can get Single Origin enhancements. They would begin by selecting an Agenda from a list. There would be MANY possible Agendas, but some would be restricted to higher levels. For example, a L22 villain isn't going to be trying to conquer the world. His goal would be much more modest. Once you have selected an Agenda, you would select a METHOD from a second list. This would allow you to choose the precise means by which you hope to achieve your overall goal. For example, if you want to take over the world, you might try to do it by building an army of robots, or summoning an army of demons, or by building an orbital laser cannon to ransom the world... and so on. Once you have selected the Method, you would be given a list of goals by which you would make that method happen. You would now do missions to achieve these goals. Again, there would be some variety in this. For example, if you wanted to conquer the world with an army of robots, you're going to need a base of operations, computer components, software, metals to construct them from, weapons, manufacturing equipment, and so on. The list would be LENGTHY, potentially HUNDREDS of units of each item. The intent is that this should take you some considerable time, as you achieve your goals. Ideally, you would be able to recruit other players to help with these goals, assigning them as missions yourself, as if you were a contact. As you get closer to completing your goals, the opposition will get tougher and tougher. You would start encountering actual superheroes, not just ranking Longbow or what have you. You might even start encountering the members of the Freedom Phalanx. Once you have achieved all your goals, you are ready to proceed with your planned method of achieving your agenda. You will enter your lair for one final mission. In this mission, you will face overwhelming opposition; it is not intended that you will win. After all, you can't actually conquer the world, it would kind of upend the whole game. Even in defeat, you will recieve some excellent rewards (to be determined). However, if you somehow manage to beat the no-win scenario, you will trigger several effects. First, you will set off a worldwide event that is in keeping with your method of achieving your agenda. For example, if you're conquering the world with robots, an army of hostile robots will swarm all over all zones, EVERYWHERE, attacking players and NPCs alike. Eventually, the army of robots would be destroyed, and your plan would fail. Indeed, whatever method you chose would eventually backfire and/or fail, so status quo would be maintained. At the same time, you would recieve a personal buff, increasing your abilities to Arch Villain status, and you would be flagged for zone PvP. This means anyone would be free to attack you, anywhere. Of course, because you're essentially now an AV, you'll be more than a match for any single player, possibly for MANY players. This buff would last for a specific duration, or until you're defeated. Once it's all over, you can select a new Agenda, and start again. This would give our villains some agency, some ability to have schemes of their own. The Agendas might be quite modest, or they might be cosmically grand... but this would all require a lot of work to make happen. Even so, I would love to see something like it. Lord Dire wearies of being a lackey to a minion of a lieutenant of some other villain. Here is an example: Lord Dire calls up the list of Agendas, and chooses conquer the world. He next selects the Army of Robots Method. He is now given a list of objectives and necessary materials. First on that list is to establish a base. He starts with this mission, raiding and taking over a base from the Council. His objectives now change to a list of materials needed to build his robots, including 10,000 units of steel, a high capacity generator, 100 fabrication machines, 1000 computer chips, 1000 preprogrammed AI units, 2000 sensor units, 10,000 battery units, 10,000 feet of assorted wiring, 5000 units of titanium armour. These can be acquired in regular missions, where they will appear randomly as glowies in small amounts, or as part of Agenda missions he can do specifically to get these items, but in slightly larger amounts. He could also assign Agenda missions to other players, letting them gather materials for him. He goes through missions, both regular, grouped and Agenda, gathering materials here and there. As he does so, his opponents become more and more powerful and numerous, even appearing in missions having nothing to do with his Agenda (eg. while on a Task Force, radio or other mission, a hero, up to and including a member of the Freedom Phalanx, might appear somewhere in the mission as a random encounter.) He might also have to endure occasional ambushes in the open world. He will also get random missions where his base is under attack (usually by the group he took it from, in this case the Council). He would be unable to gather materials while his base is under siege. Any defeats he suffers will cost him some of his resources. This also happens if he sends other players on missions for him. If they're defeated, he loses some of his gathered materials. Eventually, he finishes gathering all the components on his list. It might have taken months of actual gameplay, and many levels on the character. At this point, he goes back to his base and waits for the army of robots to be constructed. All he needs to do now is survive endless waves of powerful foes for a set amount of time (say, 20 minutes). These foes will start strong, but get even stronger as the mission goes on. In the last 2 minutes, the enemies will pull out all the stops, and the absolute strongest foes will attack, a whole team of AV level Freedom Phalanx heroes... Statesman, Manticore, Synapse and all the rest. They all attack together, and Dire has to survive for those last 2 minutes. IF HE DOES NOT, he is defeated. His base is destroyed around him (cutscene?), and he is thought destroyed (this does not count as a defeat). He is awarded some really good stuff (xp, recipes, salvage, etc.) for completing his Agenda. IF HE DOES miraculously survive or defeat the final 2 minutes... He is elevated to AV status, and flagged for PvP wherever he goes. At the same time, sirens sound all over the game, both Paragon and the Rogue Isles, in all zones. Armies of robots will continuously spawn in all zones, attacking everything they see, both PCs and NPCs. This assault will continue until a set number of robots are defeated (say... 10,000?). At that point, the raids end. Dire will retain his AV buff for 1 hour of game time. Once it's gone and the robot raids are defeated, his Agenda is finished, and he will recieve the rewards as above for completing it. At this point, he can now choose another Agenda (or the same one, if he wishes). What do you think?

But that's the point of why I posted. I wasn't seeing any point, so I asked what the point is, and people have replied. Granted, I'm not at the endgame level, but there's a LOT of game that happens prior to that. Most of the groups I'm in are a pretty mixed bag. The class I seem to see most often is Brutes (though I can't quite fathom that either... my Brutes are always rather squishy, but others don't seem to have that problem... a topic for another thread, I think). What I didn't consider is the secondary effects, like the -Tohit on Darkness. My Controllers are Mind Control, Electric Control and Gravity Control, Mind Control, I haven't played all that much, so I can't say much there. Electric Control I played to L22, but found it incredibly tedious and of limited value. Of course, there's not any significant secondary effect. Draining Endurance is really of minimal value against NPCs in my experience. Gravity Control... I"m not sure if there's a secondary effect. I'll have to look.

What I meant was that as a Controller or Dominator, you're not really providing damage, protection or support for the team. Your damage is going to be largely slow to inflict. Solo, this is how you defeat your foes, slowly but safely. In groups, though, your damage is trivial, and most enemies are defeated before you do anything significant. Your protection of the team is marginal too. Sleeps are usually broken right away, and immobilizes don't prevent enemy attacks. Holds are better, but are either single target on foes that get killed immediately, before the presence of the hold means anything, or have such short duration and long recharge, that they're more or less irrelevant. Of course, bosses and higher ignore all of that anyway. Your support powers are the most useful, but even then it's only marginally, because they're your secondary, and as such are relatively weak. Dominators don't even have THAT much, as their secondary is more dps, such as it is. Yes, I find Controllers and Dominators reasonably capable on their own, but I find their ability to contribute meaningfully to teams kind of dubious.

This is a suggestion for a very minor cosmetic change to this power. Specifically, it ought to leave a short trail of sparkles behind you as you move, kind of like the misty stuff Flight and Hover has. Nothing as dense as an actual Path Aura, just a little trail of sparkles similar to the ones the power generates around the character.

So... it's never seemed quite fair to me that Defenders (and Corruptors, Masterminds, etc.) can't actually use their defensive powers THEMSELVES. For example, my latest project involves making a Green Lantern homage, and I really like the idea of Force Fields. It's totally in character. However, I can't use any of my powers to defend ME (except PFF, but you can't fight with that active, and Dispersion Bubble just lacks the personality of the smaller bubbles... and very often makes it hard to SEE - and yes, I know there's a minimal FX setting). I never quite understood WHY we can't use our own bubbles on ourselves. Now, you might suggest that would make Defenders (etc.) OP, but I don't agree. I find them to be... honestly rather weak. Their damage is pretty minimal, and they have next to no personal defenses. Sure, they can take things like Combat Jumping, Tough and Weave and the like.... but I don't know why they're FORCED to... I mean, they HAVE defensive powers, they're just not allowed to USE them. Moreover, if they take the team buffs, that's three power slots that are doing nothing for them when they're solo (which is most of the time, in my experience). I find that distressing, because it puts them at an even GREATER disadvantage. So, my suggestion is to allow characters with these kinds of power to use them on THEMSELVES. Perhaps they could have a lesser effect, or shorter duration or something... but they really should be able to use them for their own sake. First Responders are always taught... Help yourself FIRST, you're no use to anyone if you're dead.

Must be a level thing, then. By L22, none of my Controllers or Dominators are of much use to teams (or often, even to themselves). Perhaps by later levels that changes.

So... in my ongoing effort to make characters I like to play, often based on existing comic characters, I've tried out pretty well all the ATs. This has led me to wonder about the control specialists, Controllers and Dominators. What is their point? I mean, I know, they can control enemies... but that really seems like an irrelevant ability when facing minions and lieutenants, who typically melt like butter before the controls are actually useful. Moreover, most of their controls take the form of sleeps, which are usually immediately broken, or immobilizations, which don't really do anything to protect the group, as those enemies can still attack. Sure, Controllers have some support in their secondary, and Dominators have some blasts and such in theirs... but in each case, they're not really especially powerful, making them of limited use. I mean, Defenders have WAY more support ability, and both Blasters and Corruptors do WAY more damage. Indeed, both ATs are VERY low in damage output, and even lower defensively. So, I find myself trying to decide what exactly the point is of these ATs? Their primaries are of next to no use to groups, and their secondaries are of very limited use. Am I the only one wondering this?

Ya, I was looking at it in the character creator... but it's aesthetic just isn't quite working for me... A bit too crystally, and dusty, if that makes any sense. Right now, I'm trying a Peacebringer again, but I'm finding myself missing the controls and the team support abilities. I may have to go back to the Defender or Corruptor.

There are others... I believe there are darkness sets that do it, at least. I'd have to look. Another alternative is to put an aura on your hands (or wherever you like) that activates when you enter combat. Just clicking a power will put you in combat mode, which will activate the aura.

My Sorceror character uses Grav/Time. It's pretty fair, but doesn't quite feel like the Lantern. Electric Control was nice because he was creating constructs of electricity to contain foes, and that's very Green Lantern. Much of what he does is about making energy constructs. Neither Gravity Control nor Time Manipulation makes constructs. Force Fields kind of does, but it's so weak, and really doesn't help him solo. In fact, the only real reason I was taking Force Fields was for the PFF, which seems very in character.... but kind of a waste if the whole rest of the set is useless to me... and the PFF is very situational. So, still struggling with him. I'll get him to where I want him, it's kind of fun to experiment... if a bit repetitious.

And yet, Fire/Fire still looks awesome because it's spewing little sparks and flames that fall to the ground and persist for a few seconds. It's a minor, cosmetic, environmental thing that makes it LOOK more powerful than it is (indeed, I was convinced my Fire Dominator was actually doing decent damage because of it).

Uuuughhh. So, tonight I got on the Positron 2 task force with my Electric Control/Force Fields Controller, based on Green Lantern. Wow, what a painful experience. Three, four attacks, and he's OUT of endurance. Conductive Field is worthless, in part because I'm usually some distance away (having no defense), and partly because it seems to do essentially nothing. The team was rolling through whole groups of enemies in the time it took me to defeat ONE minion, and even then I was only barely able to do it. Just not any fun. I mean, the Electric Control set looks pretty awesome... but the performance is REALLY underwhelming. I also have been watching some episodes of Justice League Unlimited, and the Lantern just seems to hit a lot harder than the Controller is capable of doing. I mean, my Tanker hits enemies for 50-60 damage with his basic punch attack. My Controller's basic "blast" attack does around 5 damage (10 if the enemy is controlled, so against bosses, the hardest to hurt, I do the least damage possible). So, I believe I'll be abandoning the Controller experiment. He's just not capturing the combat style of the Green Lantern. So what are my alternatives? Perhaps I'll go back to the Defender...? I've been toying with the idea of doing Electrical Affinity and Electric Blast... but I don't know much about the former. It would be replacing Force Fields, which I have always been underwhelmed by. What say you all, what would you suggest, and what do you think about Electric Affinity?

Again, I know there's an enhancement that does what you say. I'm suggesting that the set needs a revamp, and this is one of the elements I think it should have. You don't want to have the option of knockdown or knockback, fine. I'll change my suggestion. Super Strength in the comics always does tons of knockback, so it should always do tons of knockback in the game. All Super Strength powers should always do lots of knockback. Is that better? No? I'm not sure what retcon you mean... unless you're referring to my suggested revamp? I've not read a recent Hulk comic, I'm really only familiar with comics before they went to crap. I'm not looking for more damage or anything. I'm suggesting that the set perform more like we see it in the source material. Attacks that are the result of hitting a target with a giant boulder or other object that takes up a lot of space... should be area effect. This makes it more useful too, of course, but the set is really short on AOE (as are many melee sets, but one thing at a time). I realize the environment can't actually be smashed up. That's not what I suggested. I said we could use some environmental COSMETIC effects, like debris, dust and rubble (as Stone Melee produces) as well as cracks on the ground and surrounding walls (if possible). Things like mailboxes and trees already produce stuff that flies around when certain effects occur near them, these should be happening when Super Strength attacks are happening nearby, too. None of that is ACTUALLY smashing the environment, it just LOOKS like it is. There's already a vague yellow shockwave on most of the attacks, imagine if a cloud of dust and debris accompanied it.

I don't have and can't afford any fancy special enhancements, and I'm sure I'm not alone. My suggestion would be doable with even normal enhancements. As it is, if I want to slot for knockback, I have to give up slotting for something else, which puts me at a disadvantage. That would be fine, except that Super Strength should be doing tons of knockback by default... because that's how it works in the comics and shows. Since lots of people wouldn't want that, I tried to come up with a way to give the set the effect it SHOULD have, without inconveniencing anyone who doesn't want that knockback. I'm trying to please everyone, if you see what I mean. The hand clap is used in the comics, usually by the Hulk... and it's kind of his finisher. It should be a big deal, but now it's kind of underwhelming. Watch the Hulk vs Saitama video, and watch for the hand clap near the end of the fight. It's awesome. WAY more that I was hoping for in this game, but it gives you some idea of what I'm after. I agree, ripping up more appropriate objects would be great. I'd be all in for that, I just don't know if it's possible. As far as I'm concerned, Hurl is ok, it just needs a couple of tweaks. First, it needs to be an AOE. It's a big rock, it takes up space. Second, it would be nice if it were bigger. I mean, it's a smaller rock than Stone Melee gets. Super Strength should look stronger, and it doesn't. Third, it should be available sooner. I mean, it's really the only power that lets us lift something heavy, and that's kind of the whole point of being super strong. It's iconic, and should be something we get earlier. The animations are ok, in general. Punch, with its one handed smash animation, is fine. Haymaker is fine with the two handed smash, but it's kind of misnamed, since a haymaker would be a long, telegraphed cross (more like Cross Punch or KO Blow). In fact, most of the animations are ok, except for Jab, which I'd drop entirely. As far as how the attacks look, it's more about how they interact with the environment. Again, watch the videos, there's TONS of collateral damage... windows smashing, dust flying, smoke and debris everywhere... just from the shockwaves of the punches. That's something kind of typical of super strong battles in the comics and shows. I'd just like to see some more of that kind of thing. As I say, I think the animations themselves are ok... both the original ones and the alternates (though the alternates look kind of awkward in some cases). I can have Hulkish smashes or Supermanish punches, and that's fine. It's the results of the punches that need tweaking.

Knockback and knockdown are functionally the same as a soft control. There is SOME difference if the enemy has to make his way back to you, or if you knock him off a cliff or something, but that's very situational. My goal was to allow players who don't want knockback to have knockdown instead, while players who do want knockback to have it. Super Strength wouldn't be getting something for nothing, there's already a knock effect, all we would be doing is changing WHICH knock. I wonder at the balance. The issue is that Super Strength is one of the original sets, and it's been kind of left in the dust. It's not BAD, performance wise, but it lacks the flavour of having actual STRENGTH. Hand Clap is a very thematic power, and it's one of the few. It's something many comic characters do, and it's always a very damaging power. My suggestion was to simply add a damage effect in a cone. Otherwise, it would remain unchanged. I really wasn't suggesting hurl as anything other than a boulder, because it would be hard to rationalize how that would work. I mean, you can rip up a chunk of rock from the ground, but pulling a car out of thin air? As I say, it's more a matter of presentation. I'd just like the set to FEEL stronger. A bit of a visual tweak, and some AOE would probably be enough. Even if they dropped JAB (which is a useless power and lacks ANY sense of being strong), and added a variation of Cross Punch a bit further up the chain (maybe make Punch the first power, then Haymaker, then Cross Punch?), that would be enough.

I'm sure it could be worked out, but let's leave that aside for the moment then, as it's not a change specific to Super Strength, and focus instead on my other suggestions.

Ah, I think I see. I hadn't considered sets and set bonuses, just basic enhancements. You're right, that also would need to be addressed. I suppose it could easily be done by making duplicates of the enhancements, so there would be identical damage and knockback options. My thinking is that if there are powers you want to actually knock foes away... you slot them for knockback. I don't know how you've slotted your cone power, but if you replaced the damage enhancements with knockback enhancements that did the same thing as the damage enhancement, but additionally made the power do knockback... I'm not seeing how it's any different that if it already did the knockback and you just put the damage enhancements in it. I mean: Power does knockback by default. You add damage enhancements, it does additional damage and knockback. This is how it is now. Power does knockdown by default. You add knockback enhancements, it does additional damage and knockback. I'm not seeing how this is any different. Power does knockdown by default. You add damage enhancements, it does additional damage, but only knocks foes down. This is the only thing that's different, and it's something you would CHOOSE. The idea here was to give people the choice.

Or Repulsion Field. I agree. Perhaps exceptions could be made for those kinds of powers. In either case, knockback should do a bit of damage, based on the distance knocked (even if the target doesn't travel the full distance), so it's a bit more desirable to have (and more in keeping with what we see in the comics). Any power you have is going to be slotted. Since I'm referring to attack powers, you're likely going to be slotting them for damage. So, if you don't want the knockback, you use damage enhancers. If you do want the knockback, you use knockback enhancers. If done as I suggest, the damage would be the same, you would lose nothing, and gain the choice of having knockback or knockdown. As it is, if I have no control over whether I have knockback or not. If I use knockback enhancers now, they take up slots that might have had other things in them. My idea simply allows you to have the choice and not use up the slots you might have used for damage filled with knockback enhancers that don't actually benefit you. I'm not seeing how you lose anything with this.

But that's why I suggested that knockback enhancers should also serve as damage enhancers. That way you can have knockback but not lose a damage slot.