khy

I think the reason I like Rad in theory, it has lots of interesting secondary effects. Its heal scales on enemies hit, its taunt aura doubles as -tohit and -def on enemies, stuff like that. I definitely don't see rad/ as the tankiest set but it looks so fun!

I would like to soak up hits and remain standing. To laugh off attacks, and sneer at danger. I'd like to be able to lure everyone in to attack me, while the rest of my team cleans house. Radiation might not be the best choice for this, but it seems like a good set. Solid, lots of buffs. Gamma Boost in particular seems nice, health when you need it and End the rest of the time. I'm struggling trying to decide on a secondary though. I'm not a farmer, I'm interested in grouping more often than not. It seems to me like for big group content AoEs are king since you're going to be drawing in big crowds, yes? I know that Beta Decay will be AoE taunting, but I'm curious if there's a secondary which generally works better in group content. And, of course, any recommendations for slotting would be greatly appreciated.

That's fair. My personal experience is that while I use bodyguard mode quite a lot when doing content solo or in a very small group, whenever I engage with difficult high-end content I prefer to enjoy it with other people. When I'm doing KW, PI Radios, DA, etc. I find that I don't have to rely on bodyguard mode very much if at all. Oftentimes, even on sets where I'm directly in the action like when I play as /marine and use Whitecap to knock down entire groups, I can go an entire mission taking little damage while my pets get squished like grapes. Resummoning/rebuffing is easier now than it ever used to be, an I am entirely grateful for that change but even with that it can be a distraction for the MM to be resummoning and rebuffing. Either you do it after combat while the rest of the group rushes ahead, or you do it mid-combat and half the time the pets just die again before you can get both buffs back on 'em. So the idea of using the summoner's health pool to extend the lives of the demons seemed like a fitting option for those like me who tend to spend the majority of these group missions near or at full HP. But I know that my experience is quite possibly radically different than others who play, so I just felt like tossing my two cents out there.

That's precisely why I thought it'd work best as a toggle. If you're wanting your pets to soak up damage from you being hit, you'd turn it off. If you're on a team with a tanker or two, maybe you're at max health more often than not and you'd gain more damage and utility from keeping your pets alive. Giving the player the ability to choose which is more important is the goal. I agree it's easier, I just thought that giving all pets a ST heal seemed... not lazy, per se, but uncreative. Like there are other options that can be looked at to achieve the same goal in different ways, thus introducing wider variety in the (already quite varied) powers.

Some ideas for improving the play experience of thugs/beast/demons. 1) Thugs - instead of just giving them a heal and calling it good, I think it would be more interesting to give them an alternate. Give each of the baseline thugs an absorb instead. Something that would last 45s with a 60s cooldown would be ideal IMO. This gives them a boost to survivability while also giving them a unique feel to the other MM sets. If that isn't enough, focus on the idea of 'Enforcers protect the grunts' and give one of the Enforcers a regen aura. Extra regen combined with absorbs should allow the pets to be a little meatier, without just giving them all self heals and calling it a day. 2) Demons. What if all Demon/ masterminds had an ability - blood pact - available from level 1. It'd be a toggle power so they could turn it on/off at will. When a demon would take fatal damage, deal 5/10/15% unresistable damage (based on the tier of pet) to the Mastermind and instead heal the demon in question to 50% health. The idea being that the MM uses their own well-being in order to keep their pets in the fight. It fits the demon-summoning theme, and adds a new layer of risk and reward to the mastermind. Turn it off and the pets act exactly like every other MM pet - turn it on, and you have to watch your own health much more closely but don't need to worry about pets being out of the action too long. Just beware big nukes that can wipe your entire team at once... 3) Beasts. Rather than giving them more heals, what if instead beasts gained a new innate power : Cornered. Beasts gain a damage boost based on lost health, up to 50%. If an attack that does more than 50% of the beast's health would kill it, it instead is reduced to 1 HP and gains 5 second untouchable (This effect would have an unenhanceable 180s cooldown). The idea here is that wounded/cornered beasts become more aggressive and more damaging the closer they are to death. But since MM pets are squishy and vulnerable to being 1-shot, big damage nukes would give the MM at least a few seconds of big damage and a chance to pop an AoE heal if they so choose. Obviously the numbers would be adjusted based on feedback and testing, but the goal of these suggestions would be to make each of the sets feel more unique and less like the other sets. Just giving every pet a self-heal can help their survivability overall but does nothing to really help each set stand out.

Just wondering what setting would be causing low FPS on a new graphics card. I just upgraded to a GeForce 5070 ti and am seeing average framerate of around 20-25 fps. I've already checked drivers and they're the latest available, but of course that might be part of the problem? I run the game at 2560 x 1440 resolution, and have a 144hz GSync monitor if that matters.

The look of it is, in my opinion, the best part. It's completely and utterly unique - other powers like the Mace and the Guns can be used by other classes. Also the closest we can get to tentacle powers like Dr Octopus or Omega Red. Not the same, obviously, but god knows if I was a superhero I'd want huge mechanical claws/arms that do things for me because I'm lazy 😄

Consider this post part love-letter to the devs, part request for build advice, and part just discussing one of the coolest looking ATs in the game. To begin? Kudos to the artists and devs who worked on the Crab spiders, both the NPC and PC variants. The huge claws look just cool as shit, the animations are fantastic. They look and feel impressively powerful to use. I know that as a crab I could keep using my arachnos gun, and it may in fact be more advantageous to do so - but c'mon. Those arms are GREAT! Why wouldn't I want to use them instead? Then there's the powers they get. I love playing as Masterminds and Crabs being quasi-masterminds but more active is right up my alley. Sacrifice some support in exchange for a huge amount of extra offense? Sign me up baby! So I went and put together a fun build that, IMO, gives me all the coolest looking attacks the archetype has. Perhaps not the most effective (I'm guessing that this build is actually seriously mediocre) but the powers I chose are the ones that feel badass to use, the ones that make me grin as I lay down suppression and summon in bombs and nuke the crap out of my enemies. That said, I acknowledge it's not ideal - but I'd like to try to get the most out of it that I can! And I'm hoping someone here might be able to look at what I've got, and perhaps offer some constructive criticism on slotting. Specifically, I'd really love to be able to get my pets out 100% of the time, and load up the rest of my abilities with as much damage and defense as I can. Could anyone give me some assistance here? |MBD;14087;942;1256;BASE64;| |GwY3ACwK7Ab6bpFEmB9vfJohtK4U6dqzvKUua4Rybw+bH/szsmbR6eqr00XKVy8LtAW| |Y0mfsu/fd7Ktql9BLf/0V1dKHjL5xA5pIjHf/q6Uzd+NjNMrgFrqySPj7fUrpqpS6SR| |cyg4pmUCgmFlcdzkdi7VF/L7R7BxJkHCriVGMO2Q60enrqHrHIIRXdmfrDWhRM2344L| |g8jCPItFNKdm74C8JCGKETFTQT6Gvmg0xfnBX0zljjQkOpWc/kBtLuHur+NEVJf5iv8| |547ogf+qiN5gM8MERLTJCctXFNcwpKYM8bLg0s0fGiGW8KTX59uHQ4TSZPlEburjYe6| |7lJCLubQhQuExq87CTVpHvtV7Qw/xY72PMiHrWbUlxCxvpqhc3tH9B5C4HnRpLfcdh0| |0quIOmFd80mGvV3V1R9IGdjNXOe76XmATxRwx/HwdT/RjJZGMeTMn/gAk05BNph9fnP| |VKcsu9LqDiGvRCwfFqvQ0dTm+N4rgAPBW+jMaBB6Bvbqfo99hXmSlHlOFlTHboW2qv9| |/9wzkQBbjduEyzx+BQ1/4ZSI6SH6H/kXZ+mDSeIEm5RDs8y4xfqaMQFPAT8iyCiZR57| |XP5n2rdnZks9L0sT635g7TrSAr20L3sIMldRlr5tvA76FnjnYMM+qWaap247xAn6FiZ| |57XyZrBT+S5TP7c4/U1CpjU5OJ4Xwgts0Z9VW/xCqYMh00k8CyMsx7lydfmE9uAZMGx| |eRMwFN8GWsO35LnIn5dCh8OoFoHTfxVYVRXOBumcAaP3bXTNecGfEs963Xp0JmunBd5| |ydZPyPA9cuBMQJM4aKYES+lCpsFyTaXPlw1SK8lBjHuqR+qtdSQOTRPGhl98DCSWg9W| |vFlZWlFpLa6JLg48sLWaj+tkimDgLIz1YqczaNvDM6fZS43g2dasm5wWDTWatHTSUoO| |eg8U0yBjumEO9eqG5arED1K2Qe5AXvRvKzzEzEmdrImYCnhB/J883jl3ksdJTcy8PFa| |h8YviBrzgX4EsHkGJDqL80icpTwFytF5ct5wWCtRWtl4RF2rAigY2jcxxqRt8VOVL9T| |BJXpoBYzbMN0y3iOSltnfopvvM+DykGejfjVkJJbu0pXueLGeAA/0udbEuN4MZqIjB9| |M9gYyeov28qBAkJDPQW+OO9rYIqvv+/M7q3Wib/wB/0OFWgrrV3fsJAvHH2v8x3AtBP| |ipd5LO49+7U+l+PM0LphNtAP9fpkw1WelfTLuTrNebH4WlVdcO|

Most of the powers and whatnot are pretty self-explanatory, but there's a few things I'm unclear about. 1) Wormhole. What is the point of this power? I'm struggling to see the use for it. 2) Singularity - what's the best way to slot this power in particular? 3) Fulcrum Shift - Is this power auto-hit? Mid's doesn't show an accuracy but it shows you CAN slot accuracy enhancements, so I'm wondering if they're necessary or if that's a trap. 4) Since I have Transference for endurance, do I need to put a ton of Recovery IOs into Speed Boost or is that a waste?

I often find I have a difficult time with certain powersets such as Cold, Force Field, Sonic, etc. that lack in any healing capabilities. Medicine is one option available but without at least 3 power investment it's a slow, interruptible heal. Even enhanced it feels lacking compared to powerset heals. What I'm wondering is if there's some other solution I'm unaware of. A temporary power, a prestige power, a pet that has a regen or healing aura, something like that. Or do I just pick up Medicine and call it good?

I almost always play MMs because... they're interesting and unlike other MMO classes. I've been branching out a bit and come up with some fun character ideas - but I'm really not familiar with how best to slot my characters. Specifically, I've been wanting to try to build a water/pain corruptor. Probably not the most ideal of combos, but it's for a specific character idea I have. I just haven't got a clue what the best way to slot it would be! Which powers are useful to slot, which are a waste, etc. I know I'm going to pick up Fly/Hover/Evasive and GW will be my patron, but other than that I feel lost in the woods trying to figure out what to take, leave, and what powers deserve slots/which don't. Any chance someone out there with the experience I am lacking could put together a quick build in Mids that I could use as a reference to how best to slot that combo?

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?