Ultimo

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.

It's neither an exaggeration, nor misleading. I came out of a mission one time just as a Rikti ship passed over me. It fired its DOT beam, and I was oneshotted. Another time, I was in the Manticore TF on my Defender. The bodyguard guy punched me ONCE, and I was dead. Yes, he left me with one health, but did enough damage to kill me a DOZEN times over. You're going to say that's not overkill? That I had one health is little more than a semantic "not defeated," since any minions or a strong breeze finishes you off. Big bold messages are fine, because they WARN you to move or take action to avoid defeat. I'm absolutely FINE with that. However, most high end villains do enough damage to kill a lot of characters many times over, just with basic attacks, with no warning and no way to avoid or survive them. It isn't submitting to your point to say that characters with 1 hit point are effectively defeated. That mechanic actually accomplishes NOTHING, since so many attacks are DOTs and you're usually under attack by SEVERAL foes. It's a meaningless gesture so they can say "Oh no, you can't be oneshotted," when the reality is quite different. So... you're saying I'm wrong to say many or most characters can't survive attacks that do several times their maximum health? That I should adapt to the game mechanics? How, exactly? The enemy attacks with, for example, KO Blow. It "rolls" a 2, or gets a streakbreaker, meaning it's guaranteed to hit. It does 3000 damage to my character with 255 health. How do I adapt to that? Stay away from him, you say? Good plan. But he throws a boulder and does 1000 damage, stuns and suppresses flight. Now what? Pop some inspirations? He's guaranteed to hit, so defense is useless. He's doing 10 times my maximum health, so resistance is useless. He's stunning and knocking me down, so I can't actually USE them until I stand up, by which time he's done that last 1 point of damage... Tankers can sometimes survive, but even at that, not for long. Other characters are just screwed. Controllers have less health than anyone, and rely on their controls for defense... meaning they have NO defense against Bosses, Elite Bosses, Arch Villains and Giant Monsters. How is that Controller supposed to withstand even ONE attack from Wretch or Ghost Widow? Since characters are GOING to get hit, it MUST be possible to survive and react to getting hit. Minion damage is fine. Lieutenant damage is fine. Boss damage is fine. Elite Bosses often do way too much damage. Arch Villains and Giant Monsters also do WAY too much damage, almost all of the time. You may say this makes it too easy for Tankers to survive... and I say they're SUPPOSED to survive. That's what makes them TANKERS. I'm also aware of HOW to make IOs. That isn't the problem. The problem is that I have NEVER had any of the recipes I need for ANY of my characters drop, and I've NEVER had any of the ultrarare salvage needed to make them, even if I did get them... and there's NO way I can afford 500 billion inf PER CHARACTER to buy the stuff needed. Making them isn't the issue. Getting what's needed is the issue. The stuff needed is too rare, and too expensive. I will say, I don't feel attacked, I thank you for your concern, and I reply in kind. This has been the source of frustration for me dating back to the earliest live days, so if I come across with inappropriate enthusiasm, I do apologize.

Actually, I had another thought after reading some comics (and I'm always looking for ways to let the game more closely resemble the comics). If you look at heroes in the comics fighting big bad guys, even ultrapowerful AV/GM level enemies, they don't get taken out immediately, but they DO get knocked around a lot. What if, instead of having vastly overpowering damage, they instead had a tremendous boost to secondary effects? So, an enemy using Haymaker would not instantly oneshot a Defender or Controller, but would do more reasonable damage but also knock them FLYING. Boost the secondary effects instead of the damage?

What I mean is, big enemies (GMs, AVs and even EBs) shouldn't be hitting us quite so hard. Many of them will instantly defeat a hero in one attack. For example, if an AV hits my Defender with a Fireball that does 3500 damage, and my Defender has 255 health... that's ridiculous overkill. Yes, he's going to survive with 1 hit point, until the DOT or one of the adds, or the AV's next attack finishes him off. There's no point even trying to fight a foe that can do that kind of thing. My thinking is always that a player fighting carefully and intelligently should be able to defeat any foe, given enough time, regardless of AT or power sets. I do understand the risk of being a bag of hit points, but the idea is to find that balance point, where the enemy is strong enough to be a threat, but not SO strong as to be instantly overpowering. I also understand the influence of IOs. The thing is, not everyone has them, especially at lower level. Same with Incarnates. Since they can't be available to everyone, the game can't be balanced around them. Doing so makes the content unplayable by anyone who doesn't have them. Witness the 'balance' at Star Trek Online. There are now many enemies that my characters simply cannot do anything to. DPS has become SO absurdly high on high end builds, that enemies became trivial. In response, they started making enemies balanced around that level of DPS, which most players can't achieve. The result is what I said. Most players simply can't do anything to the enemies. Here, the problem is that some enemies simply do so much damage that many or most characters simply can't fight them. I suppose my basic argument is, the upper level of enemy damage needs to be brought down substantially, and their resilience needs to be buffed somewhat. This latter can be done via more health, but could also be done by giving them self heals, or some other special mechanic to restore themselves (I'm thinking of Malak in Knights of the Old Republic, absorbing the life energy of trapped Jedi). Truthfully, I don't expect anything will actually change. It's been this way for too long now. Perhaps another way around it is to make IOs more accessible? If everyone can have them, then it's fine to balance the game around them. And yes, I know everyone CAN have them, but the cost is such that it's not really possible for most people. Between the rarity of getting the ones you want, and the rarity of the materials needed to craft them, and the cost in influence to buy them... it's not usually possible. Anyway... still kind of rambling.

It's something I've said for YEARS, informed by decades of running Champions pen and paper RPG. Villains NEED to be weak enough to fight, but strong enough to challenge. It's a bit of a balancing act. If the bad guy kills you instantly with one attack, there's no game, because there's nothing you can DO. It doesn't matter if you're a squishy, you NEED to be able to fight back, and that means you need to survive, especially when the character's defense is based on defeating a foe before he can hurt you too much (eg. a Blaster). In Champions, I used to use the Enemies books, and I found almost all the enemies were capable of obliterating my players' characters almost immediately, so I went through and tweaked them all, reducing their damage and defenses, and adding to their Stun (health) pools. This meant the heroes COULD withstand the enemy while being able to whittle them down. In a game like this, it means reducing the damage for top end enemies, reducing their defenses and regeneration, but ADDING health. Attacks that do large amounts of damage need to be avoidable. This way, players can WIN if they fight carefully. If they make mistakes, they should lose, but they need to be ABLE to win. I'll use an example from another game. Elder Scrolls Online has a number of "World Bosses" in the various zones. The older ones are strong, but CAN be fought, even by solo players. This is because they don't do SO much damage that it's impossible to fight through it. They do have attacks that can do HUGE damage, even oneshot damage, but they're telegraphed, or can be interrupted. That means players can fight in relative safety if they're careful and smart. It's FUN. The newer ones are what CoH seems to have, giant bosses that don't NEED telegraphed oneshot attacks because EVERY attack is a oneshot attack. It's just not any fun trying to fight them. There's a LOT of this in City of Heroes, enemies that just do SO much damage, there's not really any way to fight them. A rule I made for my Champions gaming was, enemies should never have the ability to do more damage than the players (unless they're a particularly strong enemy, but even then it shouldn't be much more). For example, my heroes had a 60 active point limit on their powers. Most enemies had the same limit. Elite enemies (like Doctor Destroyer, Champions' version of Doctor Doom) were allowed up to 75 points. The exception was Stun (health), which was made larger depending on the 'rank' of the villain. Anyway, I'm weary and I feel like I'm rambling. I think I've made my point, if not hopefully I can clarify another time.

Well... my main is technically Ultimo, a Radiation Blast/Invulnerability Sentinel, with Flight and Fighting. However, I actually play him relatively little. My highest level hero is Thor Odinsson, a War Mace/Electric Armour Brute with Superleap and Mu Mastery. My main and highest level villain is Lord Dire, a Robotics/Force Field Mastermind with Flight and Mu Mastery. I feel like Dire would win. Thor struggles quite often, with endurance issues and general squishiness. Dire, on the other hand, is a juggernaut, with his bots being nearly invulnerable most of the time, and Dire himself safe inside his Personal Force Field. Thor does hit pretty hard though, so he might be able to take out the bots if he can land a hit here or there. I've tried making these characters in the AE, but the balance there is so screwed up that it's nearly impossible to get a fight that might resemble the real thing. Melee characters in the AE obliterate almost anything they touch, especially if they're given any of their medium or high level powers.

I was making a character whose name should have an umlaut to be spelled correctly, but I couldn't get the game to recognize it. I tried copy/paste, but that didn't work either. Is there a way to put a letter with an umlaut (or other special characters) into a character's name or bio?

I'd actually been considering dropping Hell on Earth, I wasn't convinced of its usefulness. It takes SO long to recharge, has such a limited range and seems to do so little... I went with Spirit Ward instead.

Ya, he's about L20 now, so I figure I'll stick it out for a bit. I feel like there's more effective combos, but it works conceptually, at least.

I thought about using Dark as a secondary, but I already have two characters using it, and wanted something different. Plus, the Electric powers LOOK like stuff Baron Mordo might use.

Usually, I plan a character in Mids to L50, using only SOs. I don't want to waste what little influence I have on IOs or sets that I'm going to outlevel, so I just use SOs until I get to 50 (though, none of my characters are there yet).

You'll forgive me while I vent a little. Tonight, my Mercs/Radiation Mastermind was doing the Mr. G arc. At the end of it, you have to decide whether to betray him or not. I asked about it in chat, but people were too busy making jokes to actually answer my questions, so I chose the betrayal option. I went through to the vault and stole the money, but he was waiting to attack me when I came out. The vault area is a tiny space, so when he did his massive damage AOE attack, it oneshotted all my mercs and left me with 1 health, and left me held (as if he needed even MORE of an advantage). Of course, his next attack did that 1 damage. So I respawned back at base and returned to the mission. I went down the elevator into the vault, where he was standing RIGHT in front of the door. He knocked me to 1 health as I was entering the room, and finished me off before I'd even finished animating the entrance into the room. My mercs never even had a chance to appear. He did this over and over and over and over and over. There was literally NO way to even enter the room. I sucked down purples. I chowed down on oranges. I tried putting on choking cloud (which he ignores, being an EB). There was literally no way to get in the room, let alone FIGHT him when he's oneshotting my pets all at once. I'm sorry, but this strikes me as BAD DESIGN. It was literally impossible for me to fight back against this. The damage was WAY over the top, doing hundreds of damage in a single attack (I have 588 health on this character). In the end, someone else had to come in and do my mission for me. What fun. I mean seriously, WHAT FUN? I've commented before about the excessive damage some enemies do. I was told that it was group content, and my character wasn't supposed to be in melee, and all the usual rationalizations. This was a solo mission, and he was standing at the only entrance into the room. Bad design.

Still more of the same. I've tried everything I can think of, short of uninstalling and reinstalling it. Any chance that would work?

Ok, so it's not bugged. I thought because I was L15, the enemies would scale to my level and also be L15. I didn't think they would all be max level. Seems strange then, that people broadcast for teams and say "Suchandsuch TF, +3, yadda yadda" if you can't actually change the level.

So, I've never hosted a Strike or Task Force, so I thought I'd start the Tarikoss one tonight. Never having tried it before, I started it out on my own. My character is L15, which is the minimum for this SF. However, it was not possible to even try, not because I was outnumbered badly (which was what I expected), but because ALL the enemies were L20, +5 to my character despite my difficulty being set to -1. It seemed strange, so I thought I'd come here and see if this was normal. If it is... why would they open up the SF to L15 characters if the missions are a minimum of L20?