Stormwalker

I have another one to add after doing an outdoor mission on +2x7 that seemed to never end. Carnie Master Illusionists. It's not because they're dangerous (they are, but I don't mind that. Challenge is not a bad thing). It's because they spend half the fight phased out and so it takes freaking forever to defeat them, and it's that much worse when you have an outdoor mission that has tons of them in it, and you're just thinking, "Can this mission please end already?" and yet... more Master Illusionists wasting your time even more. So, I guess instead of just "Paragon Protectors" and "Master Illusionists", I should combine them into "Enemies that constantly waste the player's time". In fact, the whole reason I'm on +2x7 instead of +2x8 is because I got sick of getting three Master Illusionists in a spawn.

I'm really sick of arguing with you, and I'm really sick of all the gifs in your comments. They're really annoying. Think what you want, it's not worth it.

The problem with using damage numbers to estimate the amount of force being delivered is that damage numbers are specifically dependent on things that don't actually involve physics. Which is to say, the inherent AT damage scalar, and things like that. It will never match up to the visual effects of the powers. That's because the numbers are not determined by "let's put a reasonable value to what this power would actually do" and instead are determined by the requirements of game balance. As such, I disregard the numbers in cases like this. There is a minimum amount of force that has to be delivered to generate the effect we see on the screen. That minimum amount of force, by the way, is absurdly high in the case of Foot Stomp. The effect of causing the ground to quake hard enough to launch people around you into the air requires that you hit the ground ridiculously, ludicrously hard. It's multiple orders of magnitude more force than is required in the punching attacks in the SS set. If you can do Foot Stomp? You have legit Super Strength. To put this in other terms, the damage on your punching attacks with Super Strength? Is largely a measurement of how much you are holding back. Because if you hit someone remotely as hard as you hit the ground when you Foot Stomp? Well, that goes back to the Superman "world of cardboard" speech. If we're really honest about it, Foot Stomp just blows any semblence of realistic physics out the window. It can only be justified by handwaving it. And if you think that sounds different from what I was saying about Foot Stomp and who could do it earlier in the thread? You're absolutely right about that. Between then and now I sat down and did some math.

Nope. Having Foot Stomp disqualifies it from being a "cheap imitation". They have the strongest power in the set. They have the ability to strike the ground so hard they cause a locallized earthquake (yes, that is in the description of the power for the Family LT's, btw, see the Wiki for that). That is not a "cheap imitation" of Super Strength. That argument is not justifiable. It is, as you might say, simple logic. I'm not arguing with the statement that a certain amount of durability is needed. I'm arguing with the contention that Scrappers are not durable enough. The fact that a Family LT who only has 10% smash resistance can strike the ground hard enough to create a localized earthquake makes that contention laughable. My level 35 Ice Blaster with only one slot in Tough has more smash resistance than that! If that guy can do it, there's no reason a Scrapper can't. Period..

They have Foot Stomp. They are sufficiently strong to shatter the ground and launch people into the air. It's the strongest power in the set. That makes them genuinely Super Strong.. But again, what I'm actually getting at here is that in was stated in this thread that Super Strength requires a certain amount of durability to not damage yourself when you use it . The Family Lt's. don't have that, and yet they use Super Strength. Therefore, that particular justification for Scrappers not getting it doesn't fly by game mechanics. That's all I'm saying here.

They don't have Brute durability, though. Or anything even close to it. Having a 90% resist cap doesn't really matter if you only actually have 10% smash resistance, does it? And those guys have Foot Stomp.

Ok, so you've seen Juggernaut do it. I had not. Difficulty settings are irrelevant to my point. The argument has been made in this thread that Scrappers are not durable enough for Super Strength. But Family Lt's. have Super Strength, and Scrappers are substantially more durable than Family Lt.'s. On that basis, I reject the argument that Scrappers are not durable enough for Super Strength. For that matter, Scrappers of all stripes are durable enough to *endure* Super Strength attacks without being Disoriented and most Scrappers won't even be knocked down (sorry, Fire and Dark, time to slot those KB prot IO's). If you're durable enough to take Super Strength punches, you're durable enough to dish them out.

1. It's not off-topic, because the topic is about Super Strength and Hand Clap is specifically cited by some people as an example of something a scrapper "couldn't do". 2. Regarding Juggernaut and Hand Clap, I've never once seen him do it, or anything really like it. 3. In fact, Superman and the Hulk are the only ones I've ever seen do that move, though I'm sure anyone else on their level could, and I obviously haven't read every comic book ever. 4. Actually, that's not why Family don't mutate. They use a purer cut of Superadine that the keep to themselves that doesn't cause the Troll mutations. 5. I've never once had a problem with that Family Lt. on a Scrapper. Not once. In fact, the only time I've ever been defeated by him was on a Defender, and that was because that Defender's DPS was so low he got mobbed because he couldn't take the waves out fast enough. And to make it clear, I've run that arc on fifteen Scrappers of various powersets.

I wouldn't have a problem, if the "Enhanced Strength" set was implemented, with Tankers and Brutes getting it (for that matter, I wouldn't have a problem with making a version of it as a Blaster secondary, either). Especially since, as I noted, "Hand Clap" is kind of outside the realm of even most Super Strength heroes - it's kind of a Superman/Hulk level thing, and they're a higher tier of Super Strength than a lot of other "Super Strength" characters. I'm pretty sure Juggernaut couldn't do Hand Clap. So the Enhanced Strength set might represent even a lot of those heroes better than Super Strength does. I do think at that point you have to start looking at actually porting SS to Scrappers and Stalkers in the name of fairness. Actually, it occurs to me that Hand Clap isn't even really a function of super strength. It's more a function of Super SPEED and Super Durability. Because the force of the blow comes from the velocity of the hands as they're brought together - causing the air to be unable to move out of the way fast enough creating a shockwave akin to a sonic boom - and that velocity (and the force of impact resulting from it) is the thing you need the super durability to endure. You don't actually need Super Strength to do that. You need to be able to move your arms really fast and endure an enormous impact. The Hulk gets to cheat a bit here because his hands are HUGE which means he doesn't have to move them quite as fast to accomplish the same effect. Also, running some Family missions yesterday reminded me that Family lieutenants use SS attacks. I think most scrappers are more durable than a mobster who has done a little too much Superadine.

Yeah, I don't know if it's possible, either, but it's the best thing I can think of while retaining the original feel. Simply replacing them with teleport pads to the appropriate destination would definitely be possible in the engine, but would give up some of that feel.

Yeah, on a Hero this one can feel pretty OOC. A Vigilante might have an easier time applying "the ends justify the means" to this one. Assuming you believe Mender Lazarus' justifications for why it needs to happen. I haven't run it in a while, though, so I don't remember the details of it all that well. Speaking of OOC, this reminds me of something else that should have been on my list: The "go undercover in the Skulls" mission in the Eagle Eye arc in Kings' Row. I autocomplete this mission on basically every character, because getting in a fight where the loser is going to be killed as part of their undercover op is wildly out of character for most of my heroes. Not for fear of their own lives, but because they're basically condemning someone else to death by participating. My heroes (especially the ones that use weapons that deal "lethal" damage) do understand that sometimes a villain is going to die just because they absolutely refuse to yield and they have to be stopped, but this really isn't one of those situations. They'd have found a different way to get the information they needed. And, yesterday reminded me of ANOTHER story arc that drives me a little crazy, but in this case because it's an Idiot Plot (if you don't know the term, it's a story where "the consequences could have been avoided if ANYONE involved had chosen not to be an idiot at any point"): The Wheel of Destruction arc. Going to spoiler this bit for those who haven't run the arc, since I'll be spoiling the whole plot: Yeah, that arc drives me slightly nuts.

Regarding the travel powers: I do think there should be some advantage to flight, since the price you pay for it is being slower than the other travel powers (though Afterburner and Evasive Maneuvers help a lot with this). And I think the design of the Rogue Isles may have something to do with the fact that, in the early days of CoH, Flight was widely regarded as the "worst" travel power (which never stopped me from taking it, because if I could have ANY super power in RL, I'd choose Flight without hesitation). But I also think they overdid it a bit. There are parts of the Isles (Cap, Grandville) which can be a pain even with Super Jump, and Super Speed in those zones is Hell. Regarding the collision detection: I think this is largely an old-tech problem, honestly. By the standards of its day, CoH isn't that bad. It only looks bad when comparing it to much more modern games. Regarding NPC's getting stuck: Yeah, this one should actually have been on my list. That one multitiered outdoor industrial map on blueside that shows up in several missions is a real problem for any character with KB (or in the case of that <bleep> Psychic Clockwork mission, anyone with KD!) is a nightmare for this. If you don't have a PBAoE to "unstuck" them with, or if they get stuck in a place the PBAoE can't hit them due to "target blocked", it's even worse. Someone was just saying on chat the other day on Torch that we need an "NPC unstuck" command, and I have to say that would be really nice (though I don't know if it's actually feasible to do). Regarding gravity geysers: Yeah, the Shard is another place where Super Speed is Hell, for exactly this reason. We need something like Phantasy Star Online 2's "jump pads" where it actually launches you directly to the intended destination instead of just propelling you in vaguely the general direction. These are one of the (numerous) reasons nobody runs Shard TF's.

Maybe take the argument about what AT Spider-Man is to another thread? It's off-topic. Also, putting fifty bazillion images in every post makes your comments hard to read.

The thing with SS is that, well... outside of Rage, the set is honestly not very good (well, it has a lot of potential mitigation in Hand Clap and Foot Stomp, but as an offense set it's pretty weak without Rage). However, Rage is blatantly, hilariously, overpowered. It makes an otherwise subpar set pretty good all by itself. I mean, as I've noted, my Inv/SS Tanker at level 28 has better damage output than some of my Scrappers did at that level, while also being vastly tougher. When I copied her over to Brainstorm the other day, made her level 50, and filled out her full build plan? She had far better damage output than she ought to for how tough she was. And I didn't even proc her out much; her new build plan is based on one of Infinitum's, and it's far more defensive than offensive. But when Rage is double-stacked, nothing else matters, she crushes everything effortlessly. It's like playing a Scrapper with Tanker defenses. Personally, I think the reason we never got SS for Scrappers on Live is the Devs didn't want to touch the bear trap that is Rage. Because if they reworked/nerfed Rage, a lot of players would get very mad. But they didn't want to just put a band-aid on it by giving Scrappers a modified SS without Rage, either. So they just kept kicking that can further down the road so they didn't have to deal with it. I think the HC devs will probably address it eventually. But I suspect (to be clear, I do not have any inside information; this is just conjecture on my part) they're not in a great hurry to do so, because any decision they make will be unpopular with some portion of the player base, and there are plenty of other things on their to-do list which will be more well-received.

Yes, I slotted a recharge SO in my two anchor toggles (Radiation Infection and Enervating Field) on my Rad Defender before I got her high enough to make IO sets worthwhile. I got tored of waiting for them to recharge between fights. The recharge definitely helped.

I wouldn't be unhappy with SS being ported to Scrappers and Stalkers, as I've said. With or without Rage. But there are a lot of people who seem to have vociferous objections to this (see the rest of this thread). The idea of this proposal was to produce something they wouldn't object to but would still satisfy my desire to have a Scrapper who has superhuman strength.

Something similar to the High-Leg Leotard options that Rebirth has. A variant of the Labeaux body that lines up correctly with the Labeaux Thong bottom without having to use belts to hide the problem. Gloves and boots that go with the existing Metal top and bottom pieces (why did the original devs create these with no matching gloves and boots, anyway?) Gloves that go with the existing Hearts Plus top (i.e. where the texture on the gloves matches the texture on the sleeves of the top) More thigh-high boot options. Metallic thigh-high boots, especially. I have a character who really wants these to go with the Cybertech metallic jacket and the Metallic Dress Mini. Starshot pattern on boots, please (especially thigh-high boots, please. I'd use this immediately on one of my mains) A Stars pattern on boots similar to the one on tops and bottoms with stars down the side. A short version of the DVD Cape A non-translucent version of the DVD Cape (and a short version of that, too). More translucent capes More capes with awesome textures like the Impervium Mantle. A cape pattern similar to Scallops but with more stripes. Scallops makes a nice cape for a patriotic character since it kinda evokes the stripes of the flag, but more stripes would be better. More chest emblems. EDIT: And one big one that I forgot. Jump FX for jetpacks. We have them for rocket boots. I have a couple of characters with powered armor that would REALLY love to have a jetpack that fires when they Super Jump for maximum Bubblegum Crisis goodness.

My biggest annoyances: Paragon Protectors Paragon Protectors (yes, they're so annoying they get listed twice). Five defeat all missions out of 7 at the start of the Synapse TF. Paragon Protectors (oops, that's three) The Citadel TF being basically the same mission 10 times. Honorable Mention (since I listed Paragon Protectors 3 times): Trying to get around on redside on a Super Speeder.

So... thoughts on an Enhanced Strength set for Scrappers (and Stalkers? I don't see why not) Starting with Jab, Punch, Haymaker, KO Blow - these would be faster animating versions of the SS attacks. As such, their base DPA would be higher than the corresponding SS attacks. This will be offset by the replacement for Rage later in the set. Otherwise, unchanged. Replace Hand Clap with one of the following (personally, I prefer the first one, as it's more thematic, but it would require a new animation): Hammer Strike - a single-target KD punch (an overhand punch to slam the enemy to the ground, or possibly a two-hand overhand strike) A cone similar to the one from Street Justice (but without the combo mechanic), but with KD instead of Disorient. I don't have a name for this one yet. Confront in place of Taunt, as expected with Scrapper sets. Nobody will take it, of course. Nobody ever does. In place of Rage, one of the following: Hot Blood - basically, a weaker version of Rage. Smaller buff, but also smaller crash or possibly no crash. Possibly not able to be perma'd if no crash. This suits Scrapper themes, as many (but not all) Scrappers are somewhat hot-blooded. Exactly how much weaker can be tuned to obtain appropriate DPS with the faster animations for Jab/Punch/Haymaker/KO Blow Build Up - No explanation necessary. In place of Hurl, one of the following: Hurl - given the same treatment as Jab, Punch, Haymaker, and KO Blow. Faster animation. Possibly a smaller rock. Fastball - much faster, lower damage, use the Claws "Focus" animation (maybe), throw a fist-sized rock at very high velocity. In place of Foot Stomp: Crash - Jump up and hammer the ground with all your might. Animation similar to Total Focus, but maybe less "floaty" (this may require jumping higher to get the activation time right). Higher damage than Foot Stomp, but less KU (or maybe only KD, since we aren't Superman here). Smaller radius than Foot Stomp. Feedback is welcome. If this gets enough interest/feedback, I might write it up as a fresh Suggestion, but I'd like to refine the ideas some first.

I wouldn't say that leveraging the element of surprise or misdirection is exclusive to Stalkers. Stalkers specialize in it. I don't think Spider-Man takes it far enough to call it a specialty. In fact, I'd even say Batman is a scrapper rather than a stalker, and he uses stealth more than Spider-Man does. Some of the Robins might be Stalkers, though (not Dick Grayson, though. He's a Scrapper if ever there was one. He enjoys the fight too much). That's off-topic, though, so let me say something more relevant to the topic at hand: One thing that did come to mind regarding the idea of a replacement for Hurl for an "Enhanced Strength" set... if you used a *small* object, like a handheld rock, and wanted to really launch it at someone, you might be able to steal the animation from Claws' Focus for it. I'm not 100% sure you could - I'd have to go watch the animation again - but it always kinda reminded me of a wind-up and throw animation. Maybe call the power "Fastball"?

Yep. We may disagree on his primary, but I think we'd both agree that he's one of the prime examples of a Super Reflexes scrapper. I'd say the Ur-Example, but there's probably someone else who came first that I'm forgetting.

It should be noted that I wasn't really thinking of the cosmically strong types when I said that. I mentally put them in a different category. Though I recognize I didn't convey that very well. I'll concede this point.

I mean, if they were willing to put in a new throw animation (probably a one-handed throw) for it, then you could do something like Propel, where it randomly generates an object from a list of possibles to throw. Tire (or entire wheel), mid-sized rock, appliance, etc. I don't know that they'd want to put in a new animation, though, and Hurl works just fine for a Scrapper. It's a matter of how much work they wanted to put in on it. My first impulse for how to implement an Enhanced Strength set would be to take SS, nerf Rage some, drop Hand Clap, and speed up the animations a bit so it's faster (which would fix the poor DPA with a nerfed Rage without requiring other adjustments). The fact that Scrappers have a smaller AoE radius than Tankers automatically makes a Scrapper Foot Stomp weaker than the Tanker version without any other changes.

Maybe, but that 10-20 times human strength range is perfectly capable of throwing big rocks. Though, the idea of picking up a smaller rock and absolutely sending it at someone is very scrapper-like.

Probably drop Hand Clap, replace it with something else. That's kind of a Superman/Hulk special. Even most of the other characters being used as examples can't do that one.