Col. Kernel

Nice Fist Full of Yen reference

So, puns is it? I like to think that I put the P U in pun, tho I'm certain I'm not the only one. First mish of the ITF; "If we had to escort the young ladies out, would we be Sybil Shepherds?" At the end of the last mish of the ITF: "So Romy drew a great big sword, but in the end he barely nictus." Most of my pun names are IT related and it's too early to type up explanations for all of them, particularly given that I had 2 typos in the preceding sentence. One I saw on Live was El Dap (LDAP, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol). I chatted with him a bit, think I had an IT pun name at the time as well but I don't recall it.

YW. We've been breaking the game since issue 6 or so.

I used to love the lines from the Desperate Guy and Turndown Girl in Pocket D. Many of the good ones seem to be gone nowadays but man Turndown Girl had some epic burns. Desperate Guy <some lame pickup line> Turndown Girl "I like your approach. Now let's see your departure." That's the only one I recall at the moment, sadly.

Fair enough. I do enjoy teaming, regardless of the level difference.

Next time on the ITF, go the same way the team does, and pull down the towers on them. That's my idea of a rockin' good time on my Storm/Energy Def.

Not going to happen because it's a radical departure from CoH as we know it. Having said that, I'd love to see more actual character stats, the lack of them confused me no end when I first started playing. But, and it's a great big but, you'd also have to allow different ways to do the same thing, e.g. holding up a collapsing wall/ceiling. So for a char with a very high Strength that'd obvious, a stormer might be able to do it with wind, etc, etc, etc.

An elemental blast set is exactly what I had in mind when I read the OP. It's probably a Radical Departure from base CoH, but I'd love to see multiple power choices So the T8 would be a rain, and you'd have to pick one of Freezing Rain, Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, Torrential Downpour, etc. Yes, I made the last one up. What I'd really like to see is that you take the T8 and then you select which of the previous you're casting at the time of casting. That's not going to happen tho.

I am generically opposed to this because it ties the powerset to an origin, even if only in name alone. Having said that, I'm not opposed to a more varied blast set. So what are you looking for in a blast/buff set? Would it be the animations, or perhaps several different types of elemental damage? Get more specific about effects, and less specific about the origins of the power (e.g. there's no Magic type damage in CoH) and lets talk about what you're after in detail.

If no one else told you yet, join the Repeat Offenders global channel. We're on Everlasting and we do stuff like this all the time. Look for Retro RO teams, join the appropriate SGs and follow the build specs, or just play with us for the normal insanity. We did some all poison teaming a couple of weeks ago and it was nuts.

I haven't read the entire thread yet, and given my load at work and in personal life, it's likely to be some time before I can. However, I would like to add two suggestions tied to the MM's Inherent since you haven't touched on those yet. 1) A short leash - henchies should NOT leave Supremacy range unless specifically told to, even when Aggressive. Edit: So the only reasons the henchmen should ever leave Supremacy range is if they are told to go to a location outside of range, or if they are given Attack My Target orders outside of range. Perhaps the cursor for those commands could be made to change colors if it's outside Supremacy radius. /Edit 2) This one's less well defined than the prior one but IMO as important. MMs end up with fewer or no pets for various reasons. Maybe someone wants to play a whip wielding character and pets aren't in the concept, maybe it's a small map and they're asked to leave their T1s behind to prevent crowding, maybe it's a speed run TF and the hencies all die along the way to the end or next objective, and by the time the MM resummons them the fight is over. So the MM inherent should buff the MM in some fashion when they have fewer/no henchmen out. Discussions I've had with others on the subject of possible buffs range from Supremacy applying to the MM (i.e. the MM auto-buffs themself) when the henchmen aren't out, to the secondary approaching Corrupter numbers but still being weaker, to increased damage, etc. The discussion has also mentioned this inherent buff taking effect only if the MM didn't take a henchman power, or having the buff gradually increase as fewer henchmen are in play, e.g. if the MM loses 1 T1 they get a tiny buff, or don't summon T1s at all they get a larger buff - same for T2s and it's cumulative.

Wait a minute, you can't play the game when you're SKd? I've been playing since I3 and never knew that!

Cottage Rule, that's not going to happen.

The point is that the set plays differently. I greatly enjoy my stormers, pretty much as they are. Sure, they're more effective on a smaller team, or with tougher mobs (e.g. LGTF, ITrials, ITFs, DA mishs, GMs, etc) but that doesn't mean you have to change one of the central powers of the set. I've tanked the ITF with my old stormer, including solo pulling down the towers to the team. If it's not broken, why try to fix it?

That's a HORRIBLE idea. Storm is an incredible set as is. The problems people have with it are, IMO, because it plays completely differently from every other powerset in CoH. Storm is all about positioning. Your positoning prior to activating a power changes the mob's positioning. If you play intelligently the mobs will be where you want them to be, e.g. against a wall in a debuff patch. If you don't play smartly your teams AoEs and debuffs won't be effective. Storm's job isn't about debuffing the mobs, it's about positioning them. Put a KD>KB in Tornado and you're in complete control.

Who's got time for that? I certainly don't. I barely have time to play here.

If I want KB I'll take a KB powerset. Don't make me waste a slot on something that's native to a few powersets. As for the rest of you haters, I hope they never change KB. KB is a powerful control and a great tool. The problem you all have with it is that you don't want to learn to use it. I had a Storm/Energy Def on Live who could tank a 50+4 ITF. He wouldn't have been able to do that without KB. And I'm not talking about Hurricane either, that's Repel, not KB. The mobs go where I tell them to go, usually into debuff patches dropped by my team mates, but sometimes up against a wall or into a corner if they started all spread out. KB is a tool, learn to use it.

Counter point: If you're not 50 you're there for the XP more than to assist the team.

I've tanked a 50+4 x 8 ITF with a Storm/Energy Def. Used wisely, KB is incredible for both mitigation and damage (e.g. knock the mobs away from you back into a damage or debuff patch).

That works too, but more powersets = more replayability. And this set will play differently than Time Manipulation. That's the really nice thing about buff/debuff sets. While the difference in playing different melee sets is like the difference between playin squash and playing racquette ball, While the while playing different buff/debuff sets is like the difference between playing hockey and playing piano.

I'm pretty sure there's a badge in Praetoria for swapping alignments repeatedly, and that you can't get it unless you both play the tutorial and make the necessary alignment changes at the correct times.

Spock: "Random factors of chance have operated in our favor." McCoy: "We got lucky." Spock: "I believe I just said that, Doctor."

Back on Live Trickshooter posted a Probability Distortion buff/debuff set. I'd love to see the devs attempt to implement it on HC. Follow the link above to see the archive.org capture of his original thread. I'm not going to post it here because I'm not doing all the formatting and images that he included.

First off, thank you for publishing this. I'm "recently" back to Homecoming and haven't leveled any of my MMs yet. I run my MM binds a bit differently. I dislike loading the file from disk for each tier of pet (or for any other binds) simply because you're tied to that computer for that character. So I have a bind file that creates binds. Also, my henchman buffing is handled by quickly tapping the decimal (numpad . ) key. Here's my BeastMastery bind file for example. ctrl+NUMPAD1 powexec_location self "Summon Wolves" ctrl+NUMPAD2 powexec_location self "Summon Lions" ctrl+NUMPAD3 powexec_location self "Summon Dire Wolf" ctrl+decimal "powexec_name train beasts$$powexec_name tame beasts$$target_custom_next mypet" NUMPAD0 "bind numpad4 petcomall agg$$bind numpad5 petcomall def$$bind numpad6 petcomall pass$$bind numpad7 petcomall att$$bind numpad8 petcomall fol$$bind numpad9 petcomall stay" NUMPAD1 "bind numpad4 petcompow wolves agg$$bind numpad5 petcompow wolves def$$bind numpad6 petcompow wolves pass$$bind numpad7 petcompow wolves att$$bind numpad8 petcompow wolves fol$$bind numpad9 petcompow wolves stay" NUMPAD2 "bind numpad4 petcompow lions agg$$bind numpad5 petcompow lions def$$bind numpad6 petcompow lions pass$$bind numpad7 petcompow lions att$$bind numpad8 petcompow lions fol$$bind numpad9 petcompow lions stay" NUMPAD3 "bind numpad4 petcompow dire wolf agg$$bind numpad5 petcompow dire wolf def$$bind numpad6 petcompow dire wolf pass$$bind numpad7 petcompow dire wolf att$$bind numpad8 petcompow dire wolf fol$$bind numpad9 petcompow dire wolf stay" I don't use a dedicated bodyguard bind because it's easy enough to select the tier of pet you want doing bodyguard duty and hit 58 or 85. I usually use add for target_enemy_near, and save multiply, divide, and subtract for buffing/debuffing commands from my secondary. I apologize for any errors in this example file, none of my MMs are high enough to even call their T2s yet. If you find errors let me know and I'll correct them. Edit: The Train Beasts never fires on my decimal bind. Pretty sure it would if I remove the target command. I'll have to think on this.

One could hope for a return of... what was it called on the Titan Network... City Information Tracker? You ran a side utility and it would tell you when you last logged each of your characters, along with some info on them.