Senbonbanana

When my presence on a team isn't contributing to the overall effectiveness of the team, then I feel useless. If I'm DPS, and I'm not helping kill stuff faster than it could be killed while alone, then I'm not contributing. If I'm a healer/buffer, and my heals/buffs aren't helping the team stay on their feet in the action more than it would while they played solo, then I'm not contributing. If I'm a controller, and my controls aren't helping keep things locked down, and thus teammates safer than they would be alone, then I'm not contributing. If I'm a tank and can't hold agro and/or survive long enough to do my job, or if stuff is melting before agro enters the discussion, then I'm not contributing. In all 4 above cases, I see no difference between pushing buttons uselessly at a fight, or sitting at the door pushing no buttons. My presence isn't wanted, nor needed, for the team to survive. I am a leach, and might as well be on a farm where me leaching is expected. Please note, this isn't a problem on teams that stick together. When we're rolling as a ball of death, it's hard for me to tell if I'm making an impact or not. I assume I am helping, even if only a tiny bit. Those good feelings go out the window when half (or more) of the team zooms off in different directions, leaving me behind wondering what I'm here for.

If someone is hanging back for the sole purpose of "babysitting" me because I'm too slow for the other 6 speeders, then what's the point of me even leaving the door? I'm not wanted (shown by most everyone zooming off, save for my babysitter). I'm not needed (shown by them not struggling mowing down a pack in a timely manor alone). At that point, I might as well join a farm if my time on a team amounts to being completely and utterly useless. I don't like feeling useless on a team, I like feeling like I'm contributing...even if only a little bit. Teaming is one of, if not THE most, fun aspect of this game for me. Why bother joining a team if it's all soloers going off doing their own thing? And ultimately...why bother playing a game that isn't fun to me anymore? Sorry to vent... I've been struggling with these feelings of the game I loved leaving me behind, and this article (and subsequent thread here) dredged them all up again. I guess you could say I'm coming to terms with the fact the game I loved is gone. Despite my feelings on the matter, the meta is what it is, and speed is the name of the game today. Perhaps I'm just a dinosaur from a by-gone era that is facing the inevitable and inescapable feelings of being left behind in a world forever moving forward.

I think the article makes some good points, though I don't agree with 100% of it. I stopped playing CoH as much because I despise the "rush DPS" or "GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO" mentality that has pervaded CoH: HC (not sure if other servers have this problem or not, HC is my home, I have no desire to start over on another server). I don't necessarily want to move at a snail's pace stopping to smell the roses with every pack, but I do want to stick together as a team, slowing down if a member needs to rest... leave no one behind is how I like to approach most teams. It's one thing to be on a team that advertises itself as a speed run team. I don't mind those at all, as I can set my expectations accordingly! What I truly despise is being on a team of 8 that consists of 1-7 soloers that all go in different directions. There is no sticking together as a team. Why bother playing a support class at that point? Why bother being on a team at all? And ultimately.... why play a game where teaming up to defeat harder enemies is a "selling point" I very much want to experience, but in reality teams largely consist of soloers going their own way team be damned? It does not make me feel good to be so useless on a team I might as well stand at the door AFK, my presence (or absence) at a fight makes 0 difference... and in the case of soloers zooming off to different mobs apart from the other team members, trying to keep up with them may slow things down. I don't know if the patch in beta will speed up or slow down things much. Maybe the game has simply changed into something I don't like. Maybe I'm just getting old. I don't know. All I know is, as much as I like the new powersets and other changes the HC team has brought us, I do not like the speed meta and the new norm of someone (or multiple someones) zooming off in different directions from the primary team in order to speed things up. There's no faster way to make me feel useless than to prove that my presence on a team is meaningless.

Wait.... that's possible?? 🤯 Yes, please please please make this accessible from the options UI! I'm by no means a new player, but I had absolutely no idea those slash commands existed, thus had no idea showing all that info was even possible.

According to Wikipedia, in September 2008 the game had just shy of 125,000 subscribers (CoX didn't go free to play until 2011) in US and Europe (15 servers total; 11 USA and 4 Europe). ~125k scattered across 15 servers (with higher concentrations on some servers, lower on others) sounds a lot closer to what I remember things being like when CoX was at it's prime.

Where did you get this info? There were 11 servers hosted in the USA. A max player count of 16,500 for the entire United States does not sound right, at all.

Congratulation (and THANK YOU) to each and every person that made this possible!!!

Short, sweet, and to the point: It would be awesome if there was an option to sort characters on the character select screen. The ability to sort by name, level, AT, etc would be absolutely amazing! Longer: I didn't play for an extended period of time, and upon logging in again all of my characters had been rearranged in a random order. To my dismay, the only option to sort them was manually clicking and dragging each one into the spot I wanted. Not unreasonable, but I'm afraid they'll get jumbled again if I go on hiatus. A way to sort them by level, AT, name, or other parameters would be a huge time saver!

I can only comment on fire/atomic (as that's my only fire blaster so far), but it seems to work really well.

I think you also need someone in a lab coat looking at a beaker full of a colored mystery liquid and someone sitting at a computer typing furiously while lines of code scroll by to really get it to work.

I'm most interested in finding out when it'll be put on the beta servers so I can read the patch notes! I'm still holding out hope for reworks on some power sets!

I have a BS/shield scrapper I've gotten into the mid 30s, and I'm pretty underwhelmed with him. BS just feels..... okay at best. I'm hopeful the Homecoming team will get around to bringing BS and Axe into line with WM, as they could both use a couple of buffs.

I was on a team with someone that dinged vet level 1000, but no badge or anything was given to them. That's quite the accomplishment, would it be possible to have a badge added for those with extremely high vet levels (1000+)?

I've been messing around on a stone/psy, and so far I am not impressed. /Psy seems like a very.....underwhelming secondary. The boggle mechanic doesn't seem to make any sort of difference what so ever. Does it get any better, or is /psy at or near the bottom in terms of good secondaries? EDIT: I take, slot, and love Lightning Rod on every Electric Melee toon I play. I don't care what kind of damage it does, it looks friggin' awesome, it's one of my favorite looking powers. The fact it has a bigger radius and is an excellent attention grabber on a tank, I can't think of a reason not to take it.

I don't like the giant summons BP or Longbow have, so I took Tsoo on my Inv/SS tank. So far, I like them. They do good damage and thus far they've survived being in melee with me. Longbow fit my toon the best thematically, but I hate how big the giant robot is and how much it gets in the way.

My Inv/SS tank could use the last few levels to 50 and a several million inf to finish IO'ing out his build. That would help me personally! 😜 Joking aside, welcome to Excelsior. We're a friendly bunch!

I exclusively team on my tanker, but while rage is up I feel like I'm doing good damage. My PBAOE recharges in ~6 seconds while hasten is running. Getting rage to stack is awesome, even if it only lasts a few seconds. The worst part is FS doesn't come until level 38. That's a looooong time to go without any sort of AoE outside of pool powers.

I've read dark/dark is super fun and resilient once your endurance problems are under control through IO sets and incarnates. I have an Inv/SS that's got mostly IOs. Not much hits, and what does get through the defense only tickles. The rage crash is almost unnoticeable, biggest problem is the end crash as Inv. The -dam is annoying, but your inherent still works even if you're only doing 1 damage. The -def doesn't even phase me anymore, and if it does I've got a couple of purples and greens on standby in my tray. So yeah, +1 to Inv/SS

I notice it on my Inv/SS, but it's not crippling. In fact, it's more annoying than anything. Pop a blue and/or purple and keep on smashing face. That being said, I hate the -damage portion. I hated the -def on my SS/fire brute (going splat on him during rage crash wasn't uncommon, whereas on Inv/SS tank it is rare so far). The -end can be fatal if you're not paying attention to how much of your blue bar is remaining.

I made my first tank (Inv/SS) and I've been following this build loosely (also natural inspired, but taking fly and laser beam eyes for character concept). I've focused on the IOs for Inv power choices, and currently at level 36 I feel very, very tanky. I haven't slotted out cross punch (or any attacks) yet, so my damage does feel a bit anemic, but I love the knockdown and right now it's my only AoE attack. I think it'll fit right in next to foot stomp.

One thing I would love (and would make me pick my crab back up) is the ability to hide the crab arms when out of combat, or the ability to not use the crab backpack at all. I *hate* the animation the crab arms do while in flight (and flight is my preferred method of travel). It's already been said, but worth repeating: Fortunata animation times and damage on many of it's powers is shit.

Those are some damn fine costumes!!! I'll end up making an alt on Everlasting just to watch and see everyone's costume. Can Inf be mailed cross-server, or no?

My vote would be for /fire. There's plenty of AoE in /fire to tag mobs after Seeds, and /fire does good DPS to boot. My favorite dom so far has been my plant/fire.

I thought rad/fire outshined spines/fire on the brute farming side? I know my rad/fire farmer feels subjectively faster than my spines/fire did before I rerolled him. I was never good at getting the cones lined up, and the PBAoE (quill explosion? blanking on the name -.- ) felt.....anemic for such a long animation time.

I'm surprised to just now see /spines mentioned. I'm only just now looking into making a tank (the AoE and damage changes may sway me away from brutes, if only to give tanking a try) and boatloads of AoE damage appeals to me (I like lots of orange numbers around me lol). IDK why it's not mentioned more, unless it's damage is just *that* bad compared to other sets? EDIT: I'm also surprised to see /fire not mentioned as much as sets like /cold, or even SS.