Lazarillo

My general ideal for Energy Melee's single target abilities, which I've honestly thought would be the most fun ever since the animation changes were made way back in the day: Give Energy Punch the Heavy Blow animation. Increase the damage (and associated costs) very slightly to compensate for the new animation being slightly longer. Give Stun the "old" Energy Punch animation. Increase it to Mag. 4 (the same as the "old, old" Total Focus). Do not increase the damage. It is now a pure, but powerful, mitigation tool. Give Energy Transfer the "old" Stun animation, speeding it up by about 50%. Given this would also increase its already over-the-top DPA, it should also increase the self-damage component. The cost of ET has always been too easy to mitigate, IMO. This (potentially) makes it a true double-edged sword. Give Total Focus the "old" Energy Transfer animation. This also speeds it up a bit, and, frankly, the current ET animation looks a hell of a lot more like a "Total Focus" than an "Energy Transfer" to me. This buffs the DPA, but not in a completely out-of-line way, I think. I also had the idea of fixing Whirling Hands by having it do a small AoE centered on everyone. This would increase the range slightly, and potentially do more damage but only if a large number of enemies were gathered around. I was never sure how practical such would be, though. And then HC did a similar mechanic with the Sentinel version of Beam Rifle...

I'm honestly a little confused...the offense isn't notably different at all, so why be a "Huntsman" at all in that case? Why not just be a pure Crab?

Can't comment on that, I just want to wear Dark Watcher's jacket and yet also have Vanguard gloves.

Not necessarily. And believe me, I'd like something like that to be the fix, too. But I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect it to be so simple.

After accidentally blowing what was effectively several levels of precious early Veteran experience that I can't get back this morning, crafting a Barrier Radial Epiphany when I actually needed a Barrier Core Epiphany, all I can say is... Please? Pretty please? I'll be your best friend?

So regular Jackets have a regular and a "sleeveless" option, that allows them to be paired with some of the larger gloves and such that would typically be restricted by the sleeves. Any chance something similar can be given to the trench coat look?

Because of the way Recharge works, the more you have, the less it does, which can make it kind of hard to gauge. One thing I do is I've edited the database in Mids to only show the "permanent" effects of Destiny powers when I'm trying to figure out my builds. Perhaps look at that and see how close you are? If you're within a couple seconds, the full potency of the power is probably keeping it permanent. Also, bear in mind that certain edge cases (Domination) aside, being a few seconds off on permanence is not going to make a colossal difference

Ran into this problem just now too. It wouldn't be a problem if the team either weren't locked at the level they begin at (we were all level 15 by the time we got to her) or if the EB had the proper range, but the two combined make it pretty infeasible to complete, and you don't discover it 'til you're almost done. Very unfortunate.

Might be planned IO mules even if they're not being used as such yet. Might be they are being used as mules, but the character's exemped too low to benefit. Might be to fill a prerequisite. Might be they just needed to fill a power slot because builds tend to be a lot less stingy with those than with Enhancement slots.

Well, yes and no. They weren't meant to be so, but their pets were. It didn't work that way, which is why Bodyguard came in, but that was the idea.

My main namesake character is a Time Manipulation/Radiation Blast Defender. I like to point out to teammates that the little blue shield beside my name is to indicate that I'm there to be a tank. Having a melee based debuff aura toggle that floors enemy accuracy, an erectable bubble that ensures all those highly inaccurate, reduced-damage attacks come exceedingly slowly, and up to three PBAoE attacks depending on level, mean I'm pretty good at gathering up a big old gaggle of enemies around me and holding their impotent attention. Doesn't do so well against hard targets (I've debated dropping a concept power or two for a taunt, though), and if I'm not at Incarnate level, I can be taken out by the very, very rare mezzes that actually get through, but other than, I definitely feel more like a Tanker than a Defender.

So I can see where the idea comes from. Very Batman-y, coming out of nowhere and using the advantage of surprise for the psychological effect. In execution it needs a little...something, though. As noted, mixing the Manipulation sets with some Defense set elements would give a mix of control and armor for survivability. But the question is, for an AT that uses Stealth, what's it using Stealth for? Is it just the standard "critical hit on your first attack" that Stalkers and VEATs get? Or am I missing something? If it is, then, meh, we've got that already. This could maybe be where the idea of a passive comes in, like you do an automatic PBAoE Confuse or Terrorize or the like when coming out of Hide. I'd definitely lean heavily into the control with this concept, I think, to make it work best.

I mean, from the sound of things, the code is indeed pretty cryptic. ...I'll just see myself out.

I typically don't mind having to take a travel power separately, to be honest, since they're pretty much all good out of the box, and with inherent Fitness, Enhancement slots are at a much greater premium than power slots anyway. I got no beef with Afterburner either, for the reasons mentioned above, though I'd argue Mystic Flight needs...something. Granting a teleport power sounds nice, but given the combined Endurance costs of flying and then teleporting (and the fact that no Enhancements can benefit the teleport side), it's pretty lacking.

Sorry, y'know it didn't even occur to me, 'cause I used it from back when the servers were closed down before there was a "launcher", but you just launch it directly from the directory CoH is installed in, rather than going "through" Tequila.

Also prolly worth noting that the costume creator for Titan Icon (at least, I never messed around with the "in-cty" part) can be used while offline, so if you're net's down and you just want to screw with the costume creator, you can use it for that.

Then it's not worth it, straight up.

Yeah, I'm aware of what the mission is and how it's needed for the badge, I was more curious if there was anything to explain why it was connected to the lore of the character, I guess.

So I was sorta wondering the other day, 4/5 of the badges required for the Atlas Medallion have an obvious connection to the hero in question: Top Dog is on top of his statue, Pupil is all facts about him, and Slayer and Silver Bullet were (at the time) the two badges for defeating 5th Column, and fighting Nazis was kinda one of Atlas' notable feats. ...but where does Spelunker fit in? Does anyone know if there is any sort of intended Lore connection there, or if it was just thrown in as a different type of activity to do?

Finished tweaking and re-published an old arc I did back in the day. Would love if anyone has any sort of feedback on it, or just wants to enjoy some lowbie villainousness (or Rogueishness? I actually flagged it as Rogue since I could only pick one, and it's somewhat...mercenary, more than evil). It ties to the end of the Hollows arc/Cavern of Transcendence Trial, so you'll probably get more out of it if you're familiar with those, but I tried to make it clear enough without having played them.

It's almost...gratifying that this server is big enough that even the Chinese Gold Farmers are starting to take note. Mostly annoying. But almost gratifying.

What is the uptime on Noxious Gas, anyway? There aren't any numbers for it at all.

In fairness, I'm not sure either of those really violate the cottage rule. Both powers fully retained their original effects, they simply applied them differently; instant healing went from a toggle to a click, but was still about making sure that you, well, healed instantly when you took a hit. Energy Transfer had its animation time increased, but simply went from dealing self damage in order to have the best DPA of any melee attack in the game to...dealing self damage in order to have the best DPA (if less) of any melee attack in the game. Cottage rule means changing the way a power works entirely. Nerfing a power does not violate it.

Then just "a second ranged attack identical to the first one with the same endurance, recharge, and relative damage values as the melee attack"?

I've seen some players who treat it as both. Can't speak to whole SGs, but "I took a time portal to 7 years in the future and...no time passed. What happened to the world that caused it suddenly to blink out and them come back?" seems to be the basis for a lot of bios, at least.