ZemX

Redside population. Sure, it was never what the blueside pop was, but with higher server pops in general, it was enough for pretty regular strike forces and pick-up teams. I joined CoH initially when it was just heroes and then quit when my friends moved on to the next game. I came back on my own eventually after CoV released and really ended up liking the Rogue Isles. It was newer. It was generally better written, I thought. I maybe remember one of my original heroes and ALL of my villains. I'll second this one. I miss 3D sound. Wish there was a way to fix it here, but it seems not to detect it even if you use something like Creative Alchemy to re-enable DirectSound3D.

Can you tell how well that proc is working in Ignite? I know I used to have a Ragnarok:KD in Caltrops on one of my stalkers back in the day and it seems to work okay. But the PPM mechanics would seem to suggest the proc rate is really low if it's calculated on the pet's power that ticks at an absurdly high rate (5/s). Curious how often it would hold them in place without Oil Slick backing it up.

I did say just a little bit. They each emphasize more what the AT is designed to do. Defenders defending and Corruptors... offending. 🤪 More I think about it though, the more I think it's likely I'll just alternate between them until they're both 50. Assuming I can stop making Stalker alts long enough to do that.

372 is "accurate"-ish given the in-game bug that shows 100% scourge for the full duration. It's 186.295 unenhanced damage at level 50 (10 seconds of 0.2s ticks of 3.7259 fire damage = 50x3.7259 = 186.295) How many of those ticks actually scourge is, of course, up to the health % of the enemy. It's also fair to think of Corruptor Scourge as just tacking on 25% damage to every attack for the purpose of comparing them with Defenders. That doesn't happen on every attack in practice, of course. It's somewhere between zero and 100% damage bonus. But averaged out over the lifetime of the character, it should amount to a 25% bonus. Defender is 161.27 (50x3.2254). Solo then, I'd compare them as Defender + 30% Vigilance and Corruptor + 25% Scourge. You get 209.65 for Defender and 232.86 for Corruptor. Again, the Defender will do that damage reliably every time (if it doesn't kill the target early) and Corruptor will vary wildly but over the long term average out to that damage from Ignite. As for making it useful, yeah, I always had to rely on a Patron immob with my AR/Dark Corr on Live. I used Black Scorpion which was slow to stack but also AoE. Good for igniting most LTs at least. As a result, I'd usually not bother taking Ignite right away at 26. Suppose I could take PGaze at 28 and then drop it later. Have no other use for it and Web Envelope is just a more useful control in general than a single hold. Almost as fast to recharge, lasts longer, does -Fly and -Rech too. Usually can't justify room in the build for both.

Did I screw up buying this on Origin or does buying it on Steam send you to Origin for launching AND updates anyway? Yesterday I tried to hop on and play for a little bit in the evening and it said it needed to update. The patch notes looked pretty minor.... and then it started downloading. Slowly. I checked my internet and there was no issues. Speedtest was as fast as it should be. I eventually gave up. Now when I try to resume it looks like it's downloading the entire game again (or at least combing through all 100+GB of files already installed. Not sure. Gave up again. If Steam handles the updates itself... that would probably have been better. As for the game, I haven't gotten far yet. Just played a little of the intro. The lighting is the biggest improvement I see. Maybe even more-so than the textures.

Just passed 20 and this is how it's been going so far, but already I'm using Soul less and less. Slotted Panacea and Perf Shifter. Picked up Ninjitsu's +end clicky. And I don't even have any endrdx slotted in attacks yet.

You know what game, oddly enough, had a Super Leaping mechanic I like better? Saints Row 4. Goofy game, but it had super powers for the protagonist and leaping was done with a charge/release mechanic. So holding down the button charged the leap and releasing the button caused you to start the leap. But your height was based on how long you held the button (up to a maximum of course). While in the air, you could start "charging" the next jump before landing so your feet only momentarily touched the ground if you were chaining jumps. So you could bounce along just like leaping in this game, but you couldn't control your height (well, with jump... that game also had a dash/glide mechanic that let you transition the jump into gliding if you wanted to stop gaining altitude after leaping). In any case... it felt a lot more like leaping than just flying upward and back down like it does in this game.

I don't think that's true. You can test this very simply by leaping straight upward to a fixed height with SJ. Then do it again with a temp jet pack. The jet pack is faster. However, Super Jump is faster than the Jet Pack by a LOT horizontally. JumpSpeed, I am convinced, is only the horiztonal speed component. Your speed vertically is either fixed by the power or maybe it depends a little on JumpHeight stat, but it's definitely not the same as JumpSpeed. You can also try just hopping along the ground with SJ instead of holding down the jump key. It's no faster than going all the way up and back down. Feels, yes. I think this is just a greater perception of speed you get by being closer to the ground. If that's what you're after then great. But it's not actually faster in the upward direction, which is what's being asked for here.

Not sure how it wouldn't feel slower when it has both less JumpHeight and less JumpSpeed, by a lot, than Super Jump does. Does it somehow have a faster upward speed than SJ despite having a lower max height?

I suspect the problem mentioned here is about vertical speed, which has always been lackluster on SJ. So much so that if I need to go more up than over, I'll use a temp Jet Pack instead. "Jump speed" stat in game is horizontal travel speed so while I haven't tried Mighty Leap or its Takeoff, I suspect it's no faster going up than SJ. It just goes a little faster horizontally.

Everyone is making this too complicated. It's very simple: Is using your AoE immob the way you use it helping the team or slowing it down? If you think it's helping, for any of the reasons mentioned, then there's no problem, is there? But if someone is doing it just because they can and they don't care if it's slowing the team down... they're just being an ass, aren't they?

So I've just started a Scrapper version of my Staff/Nin Stalker and this was one of my worries going in. Having only Form of Body on the Stalker there wasn't a choice, but... while I was certain I would use the different stances leveling up the Scrapper, I figured it was likely I'd settle back into Form of Body anyway permanently. Well, not so much a worry then, but a slight disappointment at having a choice I'll end up not making much use of. So it's good to see people are finding use for the stances later on. It's eventually a zero sum game anyway, isn't it? If I need more blue, I need it. Getting it some other way means giving up potentially recharge or damage maybe in other ways (like choice of Alpha slot) or extra slots given over to +end procs. That sort of thing.

Your math isn't the problem. But you've chosen pretty much the most favorable comparison for a Scrapper though by assuming a 16% crit rate against a boss (which they won't see against every boss) while giving the Sentinel no Opportunity. Not that I know how to properly compare the overall benefit of SCS vs. Opportunity here either, but one is clearly a best case and one is a worst case. That's just an unfair comparison. Also, this is a single target and everybody takes one swing. I get that that's just easier to calculate, but it's also nothing close to a real-world comparison of the overall damage output of each AT involved here. This same thought experiment would make Stalkers look like gods in need of a serious nerf. Sentinels have generally more and larger-area AoEs than Scrappers. That makes them more likely to hit more targets even if the caps are the same. The design then suggests that while Sentinels are not the boss busters that Scrappers or Stalkers are, they can probably do equal or better real-world AoE overall damage already with pretty much similar survivability. If they need a tune up, it's not by much.

Good? Why should a Sentinel ever even equal a Scrapper in damage? or a Stalker for that matter? I see in some of the past posts the idea that a Sentinel was supposed to be a ranged Scrapper but if there ever was such a thing what would be the reason to play a melee scrapper then? And don't anybody even think about bringing up Sentinel hit points because (a) You inherently get some additional survivability just from being able to avoid melee combat when you choose, (b) the convenience of attacking from range, and (c) I play Stalkers, who have the same hit points, and despite forum wars much longer and bloodier than this one were never allowed to do much if any more damage than Scrappers outside of maybe bursting a single boss. I get that Sentinels might currently be TOO low in damage, but I also get the feeling reading here and from all the comparisons that a lot of people feel it's justified for Sentinels to have at least Scrapper level damage if not something approaching Blasters. Or am I misreading it?

For the same reason, I'd always played Corruptors instead of Defenders once CoV came out. There is almost never such a thing as too much damage on a team. The more damage you have, the faster you go (and the less support you need unless it's the kind that gives you more damage). So in general, I'd always preferred to have the higher damage scalar, Scourge, earlier damage powers, and... "good enough" support secondary. There is of course no question which one I'd prefer on a team where I was the only (or maybe one of two) support ATs. Was doing some lowbie teaming at around 20 on my Dark/AR defender last night and it was super nice to already have everything I'm not skipping in Dark Miasma except for Dark Servant available to me. But we'll see how far I get before I decide one way or the other which mirror character to drop (if I ever do). Should be fun.

Sorry. I meant the part about Hamidon always spawning at a minimum of 50 regardless of the level of the team. It does sound like this was always the case and I have some vague recollections along those lines too. Just not sure of it.

Was it like that on Live? I can't recall. There's no mention of it on CoH wiki or Paragon Wiki archive. Unofficial Homecoming Wiki mentions the level now goes down to 35 for players joining but says Hamidon is "still" 50 which implies it was this way all along. In any case, I've only been back a few months and the only LGTF I've completed, the team didn't know about Hamidon being 50 either. The leader was 40 and so we ran into a brick wall on that mission. We assumed it was a bug, called a GM, who also didn't seem to know it was supposed to be 50, and cleared the mission for us. Then again, it's always been a poorly designed TF because of that encounter since it requires you to know ahead of time what to bring with you on the team, which also goes against most of the design philosophy of the entire rest of the game.

Nice! For what it's worth, I made a similar decision (so far). I have my old AR/Dark Corruptor concept from Live resurrected (pun intended since he's basically an undead knight). And I've got both an AR/Dark and Dark/AR version of him going on Everlasting right now at around level 20 so far. I still can't decide. The Defender doesn't feel weak solo thanks to Vigilance and the support has been great on teams. On paper... the Defender ATOs also look just a bit more appealing to me. In the early levels, so far, I give the nod to the Defender. Having more of the support powers earlier has made him feel safer as well as more useful on teams. But I think the Corruptor will catch up later because I kind of don't care about the later Dark Miasma powers except for Fluffy and even it just does more of what I already do. Should be interesting!

Right, but it looks like that endurance reduction starts at zero when everyone on the team is at full health and then scales up from there as people take damage. Which is fine if you only react to damage with healing or something but if your support set is about proactively preventing damage, all that endurance you're spending on debuffs goes to... sabotaging your own end bonus, no? I suppose it's mostly irrelevant though and the decision between Corruptors and Defenders (outside of a few special cases) still boils down to whether or not you want to support more or damage more.

Good to know. I didn't realize Mid's was that far out of date. It'll make me think about it some more. Dark Servant directs to two different pages on CoD but the powers all look identical in effect. Is that true or is there some difference there also between the ATs? Still not sure I like Vigilance. Definitely nice solo, but if I read things right, it disappears on a team when nobody is hurt? I get that that's about Defenders being more support focused but it would be nice if they always got something on a team. Like at least a small end discount per teammate that then scaled up when people got hurt.

This is true if you only solo. I don't find immobilize all that uncommon on teams however. Also in this case, TA has a Tier 1, mag 3 immobilize on a base 4 second recharge. That's going to be fast and easy to stack on a boss. On my AR/Dark Corruptor, I would leave it till later possibly because I'd depend on Web Cocoon which is (a) Not available until 35 and (b) Not very fast to stack mag without a whole lot of recharge and global recharge. But it does have a generous duration at least.

Really? No one has offered up "Automatic" yet? I am also fretting over the Corruptor/Defender choice but in my case it's AR vs Archery to go with Dark Miasma. It's an old character from live that I did as an AR/Dark corruptor, so I wondered if I should try Dark/AR Defender this time but... not feelin it yet. I like the damage and earlier attacks and... the support stuff always seemed "good enough" to me. Helps that Tar Patch is the same either way in my case. And yeah, Ignite definitely scourges. I used to use it with Black Scorpion's Web Envelope although you will have an immob in your secondary to keep them fleeing out of the patch. It's a slow animation but... it's going to look especially evil dropping an oil slick, an entangling arrow, lighting your foe on fire... and then walking away while they burn. The walking away part is important so be sure to have the "Walk" power at the ready! ETA: Come to think of it... maybe "Semiautomatic" as a joke since the AR side is fully automatic and the TA side isn't any automatic. 🤪

That's the hard part of the trade-off for me. I have a few Rad Armor Stalkers and on one I went healing with the two AoEs in the secondary, but they can accept damage procs, so it's popular to turn them into proc-nukes. With relatively long base recharge times, the procs tend to be pretty reliable on each activation, is the way I understand it. But I still didn't put more than one proc in them because I didn't want to lose the set bonuses.

Well first off, we're talking about pick-up teams because a regular group would have already worked this out. But second, if you're telling me you regularly join random groups that clear +4 spawns which have been immobilized over a scattered 30ft radius area in "seconds", ummm... I"ll just have to say you and I are playing different games or else I have really bad luck with pick up teams. I'm sure people will now jump in to tell me how this is possible, even though I haven't said it isn't. I'm saying it isn't common. At least not on Everlasting in pick-up TFs and mission teams it isn't.

Check out Croax's tier list and builds thread in this forum. There are a whole ton of builds in there to start with. You might also consider Rad Armor as a secondary if you want AoE. It has two powers, Radiation Therapy and Ground Zero which can be turned into proc nukes if you want to go that way. And as a hybrid resistance/regen/absorb set it's more sturdy that a simple resistance vs. defense debate would lead you to believe. Regarding any AoE though, when comparing sets to see which one has "better" AoE than another, I think people tend to ignore the A in AoE too much. Area is a big deal (pun intended). A 7ft 50deg cone is lucky to hit two enemies without first packing them together. Wider 7ft cones like in BS and NB can more easily hit three nearby attackers, but won't reach beyond them. Meanwhile slightly longer cones like in Staff, DB, IM, FM can easily hit multiple rows of enemies with a little positioning. And of course Claws and Spines have their long range cones. I haven't seen any really good comparison of melee AoE sets. The old DPS spreadsheet a lot of people will point to is terrible for AoE. You only have to see Ninja Blade at the top by a mile to know it's seriously borked (mostly because it unrealistically assumes you will always hit the target cap for AoEs and Golden Dragonfly once had, essentially only on paper, the ability to hit ten targets). Also.. DPA is kind of not as relevant for AoE as it is for ST. You don't have an unbroken AoE attack chain in any of these sets so the only damage you're hindering with a slower animating AoE is that of your other ST attacks. That's not nothing, but has to be weighed against how many targets you hit with that AoE. That is multiplying your DPS. Reliably hitting ten targets with an AoE is far more important than just hitting two or three with a tiny cone, no matter how quick it is. Never tried Spines. Can't get past the aesthetics myself, but it sure looks fantastic on paper. I've tried Staff, Ninja Blade, and Ice Melee to 50 so far and Staff is an AoE beast out of that group because of more generous areas and faster recharge, not to mention some combo mechanic add-ons. Ice is quite nice as well though seems a bit slower. Ninja Blade.. not so much. I can usually hit three with Flashing Steel and it's fast, but Golden Dragonfly is rarely more than one hit, maybe two unless things are super packed tight, and it suffers from a 50% hidden crit because it's still classed as an AoE. bleah. I've had some lowbie Rad Melee, Street Justice, Savage, and Elec Melee stalkers but none as caught on with me as much as the previously mentioned ones. Elec definitely has plenty of AoE even if you discount Jacob's Ladder for its small cone area. I'll probably ramp that one up next. Street Justice, for all its popularity, isn't that great in AoE. Spinning Strike sort of behaves like a decent cone even though it's implemented as a TAoE w/6ft radius but it still won't hit its target cap of 10. Six if you have them absolutely packed together. It's a great ST bruiser tho.