khy

I suppose I'm just a bit overwhelmed with all the options on Blue. On Red, I've done so many of the great mission arcs - Television, Radio, Tons of really fun and interesting arcs are out there. But it's contained within a very specific set of zones and I don't have to worry about out-levelling if I don't want to. On the flip side you have COH. Where there's multiple overlapping similar-level zones like IP, Croatoa, Brickstown, etc. How do I know which arcs in which zones are the good ones that are fun and have interesting content vs how many are just busywork to help someone level? The well-written stuff vs the boring dreck?

I've spent hundreds of hours playing MMs. I just can't stay away - they're just the most fun I have in this game. My main is a Bots/FF and he's loads of fun, but lately I've been branching out. Mercs/Storm is amazing and I love watching the shells being thrown around with the winds. Necro is, of course, hilariously fun with ghosts and spirits and zombies everywhere. And who doesn't love throwing birds in other people's faces? But in the end, I always seem to come back to Bots and Mercs as my favorite sets. Now, I don't like to play solo. This game is just more fun in a group so that's my playstyle. I want my henchmen to be doing the damage while I aid my teammates. And that's what I like to focus on as a goal - Buffing friends, debuffing enemies, and doing OK damage so I don't feel useless. I'm not looking to top any damage charts but I don't want to be tickling enemies either! But I'm hoping to up my game a bit. There's a few things that are tough for me to decide upon and I'd like some advice on them. 1) Slotting - My initial instinct is always to 6-slot my 'main' powers (All the henchmen and my big Force Field Buffs), then slap entire sets in at once. But I see so many other people who 'frankenslot' and put a mix of various different things in different places. How can I tell when that should be done vs just going all in on a single set? Is there a good guide out there I can check out? I know I can just copy other people's sets, but I'm hoping to learn what to be actively looking for so I understand WHY other people slot the way they do. 2) Incarnate Powers - What's generally recommended for an MM, especially a bots/ff MM? My initial instinct is to go 'Nerve' to boost my bots' accuracy which always feels lacking, and get some Defense Buff power out of it. But on the other hand, my bots sure could use the +attack from musculature. The other bonuses it has aren't very helpful for me though. How does 'Interface' work with bots? Does it only offer procs on my attacks, or ALL of my bots attacks? Is there a clear winner for usefulness here? What are the other 'go to' Incarnate options, and why? 3) Auras, Procs, and Me. Obviously there are some really important IOs to get my mitts on first, because they grant auras. What I'm unsure of is how to determine what works where. A few examples of things I'm unsure about : Sovereign Right - Resist All. Does that apply to me as the MM or to my Pets? If it applies to pets, does it apply to all of them or just the ones I slot it into? Superior Command of the Mastermind - the AoE Defense Aura, does it center on me or on the pet it's slotted into? How do I know when an enhancement is a 'proc' versus when it's a constant effect? Do I specifically look for the word 'chance'? If I put a constant-effect IO into a healing power does it affect me all the time or does it affect the person I use the power on? (Panacea HP/End, Numina's Regen/Recovery, etc) 4) Lastly, how do level/incarnate shifts affect my pets? If I'm Level 50+1 does that make my Battle Drones level 47 or 48? This may sound kind of basic but the systems don't give me clear info to go on and I want to learn more details. Too much of my knowledge of the game predates IOs and Incarnate content.

I played a ton of CoH back in the day. Love the game, love the community. But recently I've introduced a few new people to the game and the discussion came up of stories, storylines, arcs, and Lore. Now obviously one can easily go to the Wiki to get lots of the plot and storylines, but why do that when they're in game? So I'm curious - approaching the game from a perspective of 'I don't know any of these groups!', what storylines are worth doing in what order to introduce a new player who isn't interested in just farming XP and hitting 50 ASAP to check out. Now obviously Villain-side is going to be easy - it's all linear! But hero side is much more spread out. There's a multitude of zones and I never know which contain fun and engaging storylines, and which are just sort of filler-ish. Are there good questlines in specific trial zones like the Hollows? How important are zones like Faultline? Are there good storylines that introduce major factions, like Praetorian Earth, the Carnival of Light, and the Banished Pantheon? What storylines should one do to experience major events like the big ones regarding Stateman? What order should 'Signature Arcs' be done in? Obviously this is a huge open-ended question but I'm trying to approach the game from a fresh perspective.

I definitely think that older content getting a revamp (TF/SF) to be available and challenging to higher end groups would be ideal. Weekly TF/SF helps encourage players to engage in that older content, and anything that can improve that and encourage more and more players to see some more of the game's content and zones is ideal. There are so many wonderful areas that just never get visited or used. So many zones that feel hardly ever touched. People run the same content over and over and while it's fun content, there's so much more that could be explored.

1) Super-speed allowing you to run up the side of vertical buildings. 2) Controller/Mastermind hybrid with control powersets primary, pet powersets secondary. 3) A new powerset similar to thermal (IE : Group heals and buffs) that buffs defense and not res. Cold would be ideal if it had an aoe heal. 4) Grappling Hook pool. Basically a targetted teleport but not instant, instead it 'pulls' you rapidly to the point you target and holds you there until you target a new spot. Customizable to look like a hook or webs or whatever. Powers would include movement hook, wrap (A hold), spinning strike (PBAoE of swinging it in a circle around you), and grab (Pulls an enemy to you). Just a few from the top of my head.

S'why I kept my suggestion to new pets. New pets is easy, you just pick a model, choose the powers, adjust the damage to be in line with other incarnates and you're done. It's as close to copy-paste as you're gonna get, but it's one that'll make the players happy (I absolutely guarantee Malta lore pets would be a hit).

Thank you for the continued support! Side question. The weekly discussion ~2 weeks ago was regarding underperforming powersets that need a boost. Are the powersets mentioned in that thread being looked at for possible patch or hotfix in the near future?

I can agree with those sentiments. For myself, much as I love the current supply of Lore pets the options for 'paramilitary themed' characters is severely lacking. Hence why I'd love it if Knives of Artemis or Malta were available. I'm a huuuuuuge fan of theming on my Lore choices.

Request : New Lore Pets. Knives of Artemis, and/or Malta Operatives. I really would love a Zeus titan lore pet. I can already see it - Malta Core Superior Ally would be a Zeus Titan side-by-side with a Gunslinger. It... would be so beautiful...

Just tossing out an idea here, see if anyone thinks it's interesting. The first EAT was Kheldians showing up. Before Issue 3 they weren't around. So what if the PEAT was something similar - an alien race showing up out of nowhere to ally with the Praetorians? Aliens like, say... another version of the Rikti?

Force Bubble, Hurricane, etc. Powers that don't just knockback enemies but physically shove them back. I kind of hate them. Wouldn't it be nice if there was an IO to change that part of the power into something that DOESN'T scatter groups of mobs? EDIT - To elaborate, a good example is Hurricane. Hurricane's kind of an important part of a /storm build since it has a large tohit debuff to apply to enemies. Combined with Steamy Mist, it's one of the only two real 'survival' powers the set has. Using it is difficult though as you have to carefully 'herd' enemies with it, trying only to touch the edge lest you scatter them all around you and drastically mess up AoEs. It goes from a useful tool with the -tohit to a liability with the repel. Take Repel out of the equation, and suddenly it becomes a useful PBAoE debuff power. Likewise with force bubble - take out the repel and you get a good PBAoE knockback power. With a KB to KD IO it becomes a useful toggle ability. Now I'm sure there's people out there who prefer the ability with the repel, and that's fine. S'why I think an IO that changes the repel to some other ability would be handy and make the power a LOT more useful for those who don't like repel, without upsetting those who do like it.

I'd cast my vote for taking a good look at all underperforming MM specs, Mercs especially but not the only ones. Just going off of the testing done in this thread : MM Primary Comparison: Standardized Environment Testing In terms of clear times (Which is the best measurement for DPS I can tell from those charts) Necro, Robots, and Mercs are all noticeably worse than the other MM sets. Doing the same controlled environment run, Mercs took 50% longer to clear the same content, while Necro and Bots took 25% longer. When he starts in on IOs and procs, Robots drop to dead last. All 3 need some form of boost to damage to bring them closer to the rest of the pack. Ninjas were able to clear the content rapidly but at the cost of having to be re-summoned CONSTANTLY because they were dying in DROVES holy crap. You'd think zombies or Robots would be the 'suicide into the enemy' option but nope, that's ninjas. IMO Mercenaries is the most in dire need of a boost, followed by a smaller buff to bots and necro to bring them closer to the other MM sets and make them more competitive. Ninjas would probably be a lot more viable with some melee positional +Def to balance out how they get in close and get massacred a lot.

Creating new content is very, very, very time intensive. I thought there's a good chance that something like a small zone-wide XP boost might be less so, or other small incentives that could encourage people to check out some of the hazard/trial zones. But mostly when I posted this I didn't know if anyone else really felt strongly about the underpopulated zones at all. I love the variety and I felt it a great shame that many of the zones rarely get used.

Well, I do have a lot of attacks yes. But that's primarily because I like having situational options. Channelgun/Longfang for longer ranged (Helps to have more than just the one in rotation) when dealing with ranged-only hami orbs or when fighting high flying enemies that constantly bouncing is obnoxious. Slice and Arm Lash for strong melee and also soooo cool looking. And Suppression/Venom/Frag are my primary group damage dealers, doing the bulk of the work. Though truthfully it's usually not any fixed rotation but whatever I feel like. If I'm attacking a strong single enemy (AV or EB) I stick with Channelgun/Fang with some arm strikes if they get in close, and only bother to use Venom to keep up the debuff. I'm sure I could focus more heavily on a smaller set of attacks but variety is the spice of life and all that. As for pets, I won't say they're the most effective but thematically they're perfect and I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. 3 various arachnobots fighting side-by-side with a big crab spider. I love the whole 'be a part of the huge evil group' aspect. Honestly if I could do missions alongside other Arachnos agents I would (And yeah, almost certainly gonna be doing arachnos lore pets), it's just so FUN with the roleplay of being in such a huge awesome organization after all. Plus they are super useful for ablative armor, if nothing else. The ton of recharge is mainly because I want to be able to summon and resummon pets constantly. Honestly with where I am now (~44ish) I find them helpful enough just as a distraction. And against big badass enemies who fixate on me they do tend to do good work. I will definitely look into more procs, I feel like I could stand to gain some more tankiness. I moved a slot from Combat Training Offensive to Defensive to drop Shield Wall in there, and stuck Steadfast into the Crab Spider Armor because I think I'm fairly covered on the status effects aegis helps with. Wondering what your opinion is on the various incarnate slots and abilities?

In addition to the weekly TF/SF and all, what if there were encouragements to have people visit and quest in some of the less-used zones? The Trial zones, or pretty much all of red side, or even the PvP zones. Perhaps something like an XP boost for lower-level (1-30) zones, an inf boost for higher level zones? Or maybe bonus salvage? Or heck, just merits based on enemies fought or something. I dunno. It just seems like such a waste that there's some REALLY amazing zones out there that don't get much use. What do you guys think?