cohRock

@Frosticus, It appears you are telling me that I'm focused on the wrong thing. Instead of the debuff aspect of Smoke Flash (emphasized in its description), consider the buff aspect, which is the 12 seconds or so a ninja gains of critical hits. It is certainly an aspect worth thinking about. I know the Cold Armor set allows essentially unlimited endurance via Energy Absorption (60 sec base recharge), but the closest I see in Cold Domination is Heat Loss (360 sec base recharge). I'm wondering if you were confused, or Cold Dom. offers some other method of +Recovery or lowering of endurance cost. @kelika2, Yes, granting a short term temporary ability, and having the ninja use it at max effectiveness, are two different things. As I understand the placate mechanic, foes would only stop attacking the one ninja and still have free rein to attack everyone else. I may have to play with it, though, to see if the +crit bonus works out as Frosticus points out.

Thank you for pointing out that Repair has a function not covered by healing. Still, with a 120s base recharge and its single-target effect, I'm not sure the +end is worth it.

I am building an MM -- Ninjas/Cold/Chill. He is level 10 now. How useful can I expect the Smoke Flash power to be? It feels very situational. With the buffs and debuffs available from Cold Domination, I'm not sure an AoE placate would add much. The build skips all the primary bow attacks already, depending on three prestige attacks for direct damage. He is taking all Cold Domination Powers, though. This set of powers leaves a lot of room for pool powers and Chill Mastery: * Flight: Hover * Fighting: Boxing (two slots, Acc and Disorient), Tough * Leadership: Assault, Tactics * Speed: Hasten * Chill: Flash Freeze, Frozen Armor, Hibernate If he chooses not to take Smoke Flash, alternative choices wold include Air Superiority and Maneuvers. AS would allow him to drop the occasional foe who comes up to melee him in the air, or drop any flying foe, really. Maneuvers of course would add to everyone's defenses, including his own. With Flash Freeze offering an AoE sleep, the AoE placate from Smoke Flash seems even less important. (Admittedly, it doesn't come up as often, though, and is probably not as effective on Lts and above as the placate.) The point is, there is a lot of large-group mitigation already inherent in Cold Domination, with a little extra from Chill. What do you think of my analysis? Would you trade out Smoke Flash for something I have suggested, or maybe something else?

I'm glad at least someone has found uses for the Medicine Pool. I don't remember if in the old days any of my guys used it or not. I'm sure it was not common, though I strongly agree with you about the Leadership being the best pool. What's really nice is that at least two of its powers can fit into most builds without sacrifice. A lot of folks here probably don't remember the "old old days", when Fitness (Stamina, Health, Hurdle, Swift) was a pool, not inherent. So must builds would take at least Health and Stamina. Now (since issue 15 or so) the whole pool is gifted at level 2 or 3, builds have a lot more flexibility.

I appreciate the well-placed defender love. There are five other ranged dark/dark archetypes, though. What about DPS for them? dark/dark blaster: theoretically it should be the highest DPS, even solo. I'm not sure survivability would be as good, but Dark Manipulation does include some nice mitigation. dark/dark corrupter: same power sets in OP, but with pri and sec reversed. I would expect DPS to be clearly greater non-soloed. dark/dark defender: (OP is here) dark/dark dominator: combines the controller's dark control with the defender and blaster attack set. Should be good DPS. dark/dark sentinel: lower DPS, but possibly the highest survivability. DPS is great and all, if you aint da'id. dark/dark controller: likely even lower DPS, but spinach meatballs to the patient! Yesterday in a solo BNY mission, my young dark/storm controller took down Snaptooth by repeatedly Possessing the lieutenant. Not fast, but it was fun!

I made a beam rifle / SR sentinel. He's only level 4 so it will be a while b4 it matters, but I have a question about the Enduring power. (It replaces Lucky in traditional SR builds.) In addition to its recovery boost it grants 7.5% base defense to psychic damage. That puzzles me. Don't SR's melee, ranged, and AOE defenses already cover psychic (as well as every other damage type)? What good is the specific psychic defense when you are already better covered by SR's more global defenses? Wouldn't it have made more sense for the psychic protection to be resistance? Is it worth investing any slots in? My initial plan is to 3-slot for endurance recovery. With recharge from Quickness and recovery from Enduring, this all sounds like it might be pretty darn nice. His template adds Tough for smash/lethal resistance, and Weave and Combat Jumping for a little extra "everything" defense. I don't expect a scrapper, but I'm hoping for a nice level of survivability.

I'm going to make a Robotics Mastermind. For the secondary set, I'm thinking of Storm, but for this question it could be any set with a heal. If you already have a fairly quick heal in your secondary, why would you want Repair with its 120 second recharge time? It sounds sort of useless as a means to help keep your Robots alive active.

I am surprised at the unanimity -- "don't bother with the Medicine Pool." Nothing to add, really -- I just thought someone might defend it.

Thanks everyone. Sounds like he should stick with Assault and Tactics. I didn't remember about the end procs in inventions sets, so that will be a long term goal. I made "Too Much of Anything" already, but he's a villain, so the Atlas Medallion won't work for him. There seems to be an equivalent Villain Badge, Marshall. Eventually he will become rogue to gain access to hero-side, but obtaining the Atlas badge is not sufficient for villains or rogues.

I am planning a tentative build for a dark/storm controller. He can heal others but not himself. Plus, it looks like mid-career and later, endurance might become an issue. How well might the Medicine Pool be at alleviating both problems? I'd need 3 of its powers: Injection: alleviate an ally's status debuff, or debuff an opponent Aid Self: self-heal Field Medic: enhances all healing powers (according to MID's Reborn), and gives Aid Self the extra benefit of improving endurace recovery Alternatively, those three power slots could be assigned to Recall Friend, Assault, and Tactics. How effective will the Medicine Pool be in battle? Is it worth the sacrifice of the other three Pool powers?

I've been away from game for long time. (Truthfully, it was away from me.) I'm planning a Beast/Kinetics mastrmind, and towards the end of the build, I'm not sure what powers to give him. Here is initial plan (he is 15 now): Villain Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.7.2.10 https://github.com/Crytilis/mids-reborn-hero-designer Click this DataLink to open the build! Oddtistic: Level 49 Natural Mastermind Primary Power Set: Beast Mastery Secondary Power Set: Kinetics Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Leadership Villain Profile: Level 1: Summon Wolves -- Empty(A), Empty(3), Empty(5), Empty(7), Empty(19), Empty(34) Level 1: Transfusion -- Empty(A), Empty(3), Empty(11), Empty(40), Empty(40), Empty(40) Level 2: Call Hawk -- Empty(A), Empty(5), Empty(7), Empty(9), Empty(31), Empty(34) Level 4: Combat Jumping -- Empty(A) Level 6: Train Beasts -- Empty(A), Empty(9) Level 8: Super Jump -- Empty(A) Level 10: Repel -- Empty(A), Empty(11) Level 12: Summon Lions -- Empty(A), Empty(13), Empty(13), Empty(15), Empty(15), Empty(33) Level 14: Siphon Speed -- Empty(A), Empty(43) Level 16: Call Ravens -- Empty(A), Empty(17), Empty(17), Empty(23), Empty(23) Level 18: Fortify Pack -- Empty(A), Empty(19), Empty(39), Empty(43), Empty(43) Level 20: Increase Density -- Empty(A), Empty(34), Empty(36), Empty(36) Level 22: Assault -- Empty(A) Level 24: Tactics -- Empty(A), Empty(29) Level 26: Summon Dire Wolf -- Empty(A), Empty(27), Empty(27), Empty(29), Empty(31), Empty(33) Level 28: Inertial Reduction -- Empty(A) Level 30: Speed Boost -- Empty(A), Empty(31) Level 32: Tame Beasts -- Empty(A), Empty(33), Empty(37), Empty(37) Level 35: Transference -- Empty(A), Empty(36), Empty(37) Level 38: Fulcrum Shift -- Empty(A), Empty(39), Empty(39) Level 41: Call Swarm -- Empty(A), Empty(42), Empty(42), Empty(42) Level 44: [Empty] Level 47: [Empty] Level 49: [Empty] Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A) Level 1: Supremacy Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A) Level 2: Health -- Empty(A), Empty(21), Empty(25) Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A) Level 2: Stamina -- Empty(A), Empty(21), Empty(25) Level 1: Alpha Howler Wolf Level 1: Howler Wolf Level 1: Pack Mentality Level 12: Lioness Level 26: Dire Wolf ------------ Note when he takes Inertial Reduction at 26, the plan is to respec, and at lvl 8 take Recall Friend rather than Superjump. But that still leaves 3 or 4 powers at the end of the build. He has all primary powers unless I decide Call Swarm at 41 is overkill. He plans to skip Siphon Power in Kinetics due to all the other buffs. That is just my thinking now. I think I wold like to try out the newer Power Pools at the end of the build. What choices are good, helping the survivability and effectiveness of my pets, team, and self, in that order? Btw, when soloing, the Repel power is very fun. I've been getting a lot of clockwork missions, and even their bosses are helpless against it. Due to end cost, it is situational, but still very useful.

Um, 1000 is a lot of characters, and on just one server?! Dayam, I thought I had it bad in the NCSoft days, with more than 116 characters. Just when I thought I'd get my toes wet, I'm staring up at at an impossibly high tidal wave.

Okay, thanks guys. I must have clicked it by mistake the first time, not realizing I had done anything.

I just started playing two days ago and have created 5 characters. At the end of the character creation, it always asks if I want to play the tutorial. If I say no, another choice pops up, Hero (Atlas) or Villain (probably Mercy). If yes, there are three choices, the classic hero tutorial, villain tutorial, and Galaxy City invasion. There appears to be no way to start a character in Praetoria. That said, one of my characters started directly there seemingly at random. I selected I wanted to do the tutorial, and instead of being asked which one, he was sent directly to Praetoria. Is being born a Praetorian really a random event, or is there a way to force it?

I am experienced player from NCSoft days, and just started back. My first character is a scrapper with two skill sets unfamiliar to me, Savage Melee and Radiation Armor. He is level 3 hero right now, having made it thru the Galaxy City starting zone. His chosen powers currently are Savage Strike, Alpha Burst, and Gamma Boost. What things are important for me to know about this archetype?

Hi. I have a large number of saved characters from the old Mids, when the game was run by NCSoft. I see that Mids Reborn loads them just fine. I'm hesitant to use same directory to store new characters because I'd like to keep them separate. Is there easy way to set new default directory, and should I bother? * http://r0k.us/rock/games/CoH/HallsOfHeroes/

@ColdZero Thank you. The new manifest works. I have the game now and am able to log in. 🙂

I just downloaded Tequila and ran it. The GUI came up, but its text window reported: Manifest download error for http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37952257/Tequila/titanicon.xml The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found. Is this a temporary problem, or do I need to do something else?

I'll add two votes for William's Square. One for here, and the other for being the song leading off my CoH website since Dec. 2012. * http://r0k.us/rock/games/CoH/HallsOfHeroes/ I find it peaceful and somehow somber and hopeful at the same time. The first time I heard it, I felt, "Yes! This is a place of heroes." -- Rich

Thanks, everyone. If I were running a CoH server, I would have made the same decision, even if an import capability were easy to implement. After all this time, it would probably divide the player base between vets and newcomers. Some newcomers would quickly become newleavers as a result. And actual vets without Sentinel backup files wouldn't be the happiest either. @Ironblade and @Turric, hi! It is really nice to see familiar names. If history is anything to go by, I'll likely be creating characters on multiple servers. -- Rock

Herotu, heh, been there, done that: * http://r0k.us/rock/games/CoH/HallsOfHeroes/Infinity/RetconTheNever-Was.html

Cool! and Thank You! I'm just in the process of returning now. One of my questions was whether MIDS would still work. Now I find out it will be even better than the great tool I remember. Will the new version read old character files from before the official servers went down?

Before the official servers shut down a tool became available that could catch your character from the IP stream and save their attributes to a text file. Those files offered hope that if CoH came back, one could regenerate their guys and gals. I forget the name of the tool, but I saved all of my folks and wrote the files to a CDRom, which i cannot find right now. Can these files actually be used to remake your original guys? After so many years, it might be considered an unfair advantage, so I would understand if the regenerative capability were not actually implemented. That said, I'd reincarnate a few if it is possible. Can it be done, and if so, how? Should I bother looking for that CDRom? (BTW, I haven't downloaded the game yet, so as far as I know there is a button at the start of the first "make a character" page that accomplishes this.) -- Rock --- http://r0k.us/rock/games/CoH/HallsOfHeroes/