ThunderCAP

Martial Arts Taunt paired with Shield still "growls" to me, the same happens probably with any other power (apart from Psy Melee, which changes the taunt, that was the only exception). It's growling like a Lion both with animation effect and sound effect, it's the same as if you choose Savage melee but it doesn't make sense. Why would all shield users roar? Cap.America doesn't roar ^^. From the quote it seems like you fixed an error to make it the "normal taunt" it should be, but I don't think that you choose a growling sound and cat animation as normal taunt, right?

In the beta I see the Shield Taunt still "growling" (both audio/visual animation) like Savage Taunt. I thought it was fixed instead, shouldn't that be related to the quote? I was waiting for this taunt to finally get a fix... so I can create a non-lion character with shield finally.

Oh finally you're linking BuildUP to cancelled animation issues. All clicky buffs, including Hasten, Rage, BuildUP, Aim, Conserve and similar stamina/regen/damage ones, cancel animations for very long, possibly for the duration of the buff (most time they do, rarely they don't). I tried to report this several times in several different forms for a couple of years (while I tried to understand it further, so I wasn't as certain one year ago as I'm now instead, several characters/tests later). There are some rare powers/attacks that are not affected by the bug, but the majority are. It doesn't matter how or when you click them, if you use your mouse or an automatic macro or the green circle auto-spamming them, or if you're standing still or running or attacking, when those buffs activate you will have something like a 75% chance to stop getting animations (not sure about ranged, but I checked the melee ones with different chars and with friends too, the latter didn't notice till I made them notice they were playing without animations here and there... people nowaday concentrate far too much on big numbers and math and the skills-bar... it's one of the reasons I can find for this huge bug to get ignored for so long by the community). This huge bug goes unnoticed for several reasons. First there are many peoples that concentrate more on damage numbers and skill-bar than actually watching the animation of the character, peoples who blindly click the attacks and watch the screen, the character movements, are fewer that you may think. My own friends noticed the bug only after i told them about it just cause of those reasons. Another reason is that your character was entirely fine and animated till about level 30 (now 25 after the latest updates) cause BuildUP/Conserve powers are not available at low levels so it gets vastly ignored (most people keep creating new characters, which are well animated till then). For testing reasons you may want to use a Super Strength tank and activate Rage all the time, you will see the majority of time you're creating air-explosion but not actually punching anything, it's like you make peoples explode with your mind. There are some attacks that are immune to this bug, for example in Super Strength while the old animations are always affected, the new ones are not (never, immune to the bug). The pool powers are affected too, some sets are more affected than others, but the majority of the attacks have the animation cancelled by BuildUP and similar, if you want to test it I suggest using Super Strength and putting the old animations or use a pool power attack or a mastery attack (you will see it shoots lasers/lightning etc. with no body animation).

Forcing low-level attacks (tier 1-2) to be taken (and spammed) in all sentinels builds is a bad idea and it always was. We just got that removed from tanks and you want them back to sentinels. I'd say to devs to just make the inherent passive as it should be. Enough with these clicky and bugged buffs, more so if they are weak and not worth the constant visual distraction from the action. Bugged, cause if you use auto-macros to activate them it will affect your animations for several seconds, randomly not going out, that's tested from me several times and reported several times (rage, energize, build up, hasten, all of the clicky buffs cause that when activated by macros), so macros are not an option to transform into "passive" things that should simply be passive from the get go. There were some other developers in the past that said something like: "if something is meant to be passive, just make it passive". The players have enough strategy in the builds and positioning and rotations/vs/precision(conscious strategic attacks aimed with precision to some specific targets), no need to add fake layers that are just a distraction at best or annoying at worst.

Hi, Power customization files saved in the beta are not working on the live server, from yesterday (before they did). The file gets ignored in live, even if the game recognizes that the file exists when you try to rewrite upon it with the same name, but in the list there is none and you cannot load it. I managed to load one by doing a manual copy-paste of the file's content into another. Thank you.

This is Shadow Maul from Dark Melee. Same as Flurry and Sands of Mu. Can we please adjust this "effect's height" issue anytime in this century? Isn't that just a value to change (maybe copy the value from other powers effects height when flying)? I'd like to play Dark Melee with a flying character and here it is how it looks while hovering/flying, the effect is completely and evidently dislocated. Let's wait 500 views?

Marine, I just reported this on a different topic, it would be great if you also share your experience there (also the part where you noticed a difference with Savage Leap, which I didn't test, I saw a difference with Shield Charge instead, so your experience would be valuable and a real addition):

I think you fixed Spring Attack damage and in the process you broke its knockdown... making the power worse, it's very delayed now (not istant). You made Spring Attack do the damage-only at begin, then after a while the enemies fall (which is hilarious). I used it very often in the past as dash+"early-defense-knockdown"+taunt+DMGprocs for recharge based tanks/brutes (perfect for invulnerability dudes that are already recharge-based cause of DullPain, more so if you get Martial Arts or similiar sets which have an useless aoe of 8 radius so little that it gets 2 enemies at best for brutes, while Spring has a decent area even for Brutes -15 vs 8 radius- and it becomes a good initiator...). After this bug not anymore. HOW TO reproduce the bug It's very evident, and it's also very easy to test it. But If you want to clearly see the difference "before/now" you can create a character with both Shield Charge (that was mechanically identical) and Spring Attack, and you can test it even with low level enemies that you one-shot (no need to look for specific ones), since the difference is visible even then: Shield Charge will make the corpses knockback istantly with the damage, while Spring Attack will only do damage, the corpses will just fall on the ground where they are (since they're dead already they cannot be knockbacked anymore so late). REASONS to fix it 1) VISUALLY it loses all the "impact" feeling, instead of an human missile now it's like you miss the hit all the time, the knockdown has become a visual hindrance where enemies just faint after a while by themselves. 2) MECHANICALLY it loses the "defense" AND "movement" reasons to get the power. Spring Attack would need some more love already, but if you teleport in a pack of mobs and they still stand and shoot you all at once... you understand that it's like I slowly walked there and got shot by 40 mobs. (it depends on how fast the enemies are, but still..). So I think you fixed a bug that made Spring Attack lose much of his damage (not the main reason to use it, imho, just one of four and easily substituted by more damage in other powers) and you implemented a bug that's even worse and made even me (one of the few players that still used it) delete the power from my builds cause it lost all its utility-side. SOLUTION If for any reason you have troubles in fixing the bug that you just implemented, you may check the Shield Charge values, possibly copy/paste part of it into Spring Attack, since it's mechanically identical apart from damage, recharge time and animation. You may see in S.Charge how to put knockdown and damage both early but if you need to choose one, knockdown should come first and damage afterwards. Personal Note Please when you "fix" a power, test it afterwards at least once in game (this is a video-game not a board-game, animations are important and there are far too many powers with broken animations that make us skip entire sets till we feel forced to create that one character that doesn't have evident bugs, it heavily limits our customization possibilities which are the strong point of City of Heroes), this particular bug also breaks the power's gameplay so it should get even more priority, but there are also other visual bugs that I reported and are still there after years, Flurry's height while hovering for example and similar attack in dark melee).

Could this "less lag" have a chance to finally and completely resolve the animation/cancelling that's spreading like a sickness or is that related to specific powers and therefore it's a bug client/related?

Now a word about pools in general: the greatest minds or the experienced persons in a specific field (masters) are not common. That doesn't mine all pools, just public/massive ones. You don't take a random person to make a game, you take the person that mastered a specific field or a person that made you think he's got a great mind. The more public-pools you do to take decisions, the more errors you will make. It would be different if you only got experts in the pools or you use those only to receive more info/opinions. In fact pools should give you more info, but never take final decisions directly, that's for leaders or masters (which should also take responsibility for their final decisions because that changes and improves the decision it self). In this specific case, it's not completely bad cause I'd guess that most players would also be comics experts, and you're asking which word sounds better in a comics environment (superhero game), yet recently I think public-pools are getting overestimated by society so don't do the same error as the majority and be careful about that. More info: OK Direct Decisions: NOT OK Better if experts-only in most cases (not all).

Invisibility. I won't repeat the great reasons of who spoke before me, but I will add something for the stealth voters that seem to prefer it for its versatility, cause it's not, it's the less versatile of the two terms. Being stealthy is a way to reach the state of being invisible, invisibility is the goal for a ninja and doesn't matter if you reach it with cosmic powers (bend light), psionics (control other minds) or with training (being incredibly stealthy), invisibility is the final goal and the one that takes it all. Invisibility is a word that can be used for ninjas too, stealth instead seems an understatement for whoever already reached the invisibility state, in a way or another, granted or obtained by sweating. Batman: “Invisibility is a relative thing, Superman. All it takes is practice, and a matchless knowledge of the city.” —John Byrne’s Man Of Steel #3 As we know, Batman doesn't have any superpower and is sort of a ninja, but he is so good that can foul even Superman's senses (he constantly does that). The Invisible Woman (which can count on cosmic power and great training) is still not at the level to foul Superman, cause the cosmic power doesn't help at all against him and hers training is not enough alone. Being incredibly stealthy as Batman is the greatest invisibility you could ever achieve in fiction, there is no super hearing or telescopic/micro/thermal vision that can detect a person able to use your mind and habits against you (and he doesn't need psychic powers to enter your mind so there is no real counter, the only real one would be to reach his intelligence and training levels). The power in City of Heroes comes from the old Invisibility, it's not at "stealthy-only" level, it doesn't make you just good at not being detected, it makes you disappear completely (or very close to that), it gives you the same mastery as Batman or (less) the Invisible Woman. So whatever ninja in City of Heroes with that power would actually be so good at being stealthy that he reached the invisibility's state (to not be seen thanks to incredible training, or superhuman abilities). A simple (human) detective would be stealthy, but not invisible. A ninja would be invisible and take that power in City of Heroes. A powered-up person would be invisible (not just stealthy), and so in City of Heroes too.

My bad, apparently I was one-shotting dudes with half barrage even... it was just that causing the missing 2nd hit 😕 I didn't figure out I already had that much damage in the test server without enhancements.

I just edited my first post with some more info (the "Just in case:" part) and possibly improved the details in all the parts. I was using Electric Armor and a tanker with Energy Melee in both servers (public and test) with different customization colors.

In the public server you can see 4 numbers of damage when using barrage, in fact it hits 2 times and each time it does smash and energy damage, therefore for each hit you see 2 numbers (like all the rest of energy melee powers) with a total of 4 damage numbers for Barrage's usage. In the test server Barrage is doing less damage then Energy Punch (it shouldn't) and in fact it's doing only 1 hit, half of what it should do, and you can see only 2 numbers (1 smash and 1 energy) like all the other single attacks, while being instead a two-punches attack. I just tested on both servers and the difference is evident 4 numbers vs 2 numbers, and in the public server Barrage does more damage compared to Energy Punch while being lesser damage in the test server (I know Energy Punch got improved, but it should still do less damage then Barrage in total, plus the 2 hits problem remains also for impact effects and sounds, all should be double). Just in case: I was using Electric Armor and a tanker with Energy Melee in both servers (public and test) with different customization colors. Please let me know if you cannot reproduce the bug and need help or a proof, but I highly doubt it since it should be easy to spot that's doing just 1 hit instead of 2 (2 damage numbers instead of 4).

In your list there are: Powers completely unplayable at the moment (Super Strength) Powers that underperform so much that it cannot be ignored even by the most blinded role player (Kinetic, SS without rage, other) Powers with evident bugs (invisible Katana, SS animation bugs I personally reported) Powers with weapons (didn't I speak about those already? Of course you don't know what's happening with me if you don't put any effort to understand or even read at all) Powers that force you into very very specific concepts (spines, claws, dark, ice, savage) and cannot be molded in different ones. So let's say you're one of those... thousands... of players that played with Super Strength when the game was live (did you read the list of peoples that still play that set for roleplay reasons, even in its ultra-underperforming and very disturbing actual state?) or want to actually make the most common concept on this world, a brainless puncher (the very majority of superheroes in comics), what set remains for you? Are you suggesting Spines ^^ ? An hint: they just deleted Energy Melee from the equation. I used all the other sets for much more then an year now and would like to return to my mains but with all the bugs and changes it's pretty impossible. There is Martial Arts (which is still a too narrow concept even if not like Spines or Claws etc, it forces you on kicking around, not punches, the alternate animation punches come far too late for a tank and the aoe is a tripping kick, not exactly good to substitute Super Strength right?), Electric Melee (good choice), Psionic Melee (just cause its pseudo-combo-mechanics is really ignorable and it is strong enough and bugless, yet it's difficult to not get forced into laser-swords by it), Energy Melee (it was just underperforming before... while now? Now it's a different set with the same name). So in the end, yes, Electric Melee only. If you want to create the most common concept in the world there is... that. By the way, since you seem to like to ignore any possible problem that's not specific number-balance I will enlighten you to another: Electric Melee still forces you to transform into a lightning (since that is the strongest power in that set can't be ignored), so you still need to mold your concept there. Now let's check the big picture: The devs have got a superhero game in their hands, which in "live" could create various kind of Supermen, Namors, Heracles, Spidermen, Novas, Captain Marvels, Shazams, Silver Surfers, Cyborgs, Thors (should I keep going? I could write 70% of the DC and Marvel rooster by doing this) and now in the Homecoming server it's not able to do that anymore. All these characters/concepts could be made with Super Strength with the possibility to substitute it with Energy Melee, Electric Melee (Psionic Melee? Radiation Melee if you like combos). By "deleting" these sets (by either patches, or heavy visual bugs, or changing the basic mechanics) they force such players in a long search for unsatisfying alternatives, which is what I personally did for a couple of years now and am very close to the uninstall button (for the 2nd time actually). In fact I didn't want to speak about the complete low-priority that's being given in important problems like NEW bugged animations (which I reported several times in the past year) which make several sets and pool powers unplayable for any person that want to see the actual fight animate in front of them and not just the numbers (it's a videogame, not a pen&paper's). But no. Let's think about an attack doing 55 damage instead of 50 or let's transform the only real substitute for SS into a combo-cone set that was not. Since I'm never the guy who just see problems and actually tries to help with them (actively reporting and contacting and suggesting) I will give you my solution to this entire problem: 1) Give more importance to roleplay, visual aspects, and old loves. The game is already full of animations you can re-use (for example, one of the best animations in the game is still locked into a single pool power that's mostly unusable, Spring Attack, and the game lacks dashes because of its old age, now all melee classes in new mmorpgs got dashes, you could use that animation in so many ways and to improve sets or pool-sets, and of course it's just one example) 2) When you have got pure fire to adjust, like Energy Melee or Super Strength, just balance the old ones and create new alternative sets where you're creative. New sets won't disturb anyone, they will be ignored if peoples don't like them. Do not completely transform the old ones since you evidently cannot even start to imagine what role-play or animation issues you're going to face (I feel like the game is being adjusted by pvpers), just... BALANCE the old sets (no revolutions) and CREATE ALTERNATIVES by reusing old animations. This way you can put at good use your creativity without risking to destroy solid bases for concepts or the old love of some players here and there. I suggested some time ago a "Flying Impact" set as an alternative to Super Strength (which is instead grounded-only due to its best power being Foot Stomp anti-hover) but also balance the old one so it's playable again, for those who want to use it and like the "Hulk" feeling of it (with Rage as well). The same could be done with Energy Melee. If the new one is so fun, create an "Explosive Melee" (or whatever) with it and just balance the old one by changing the animation times.

Energy Melee is now a combo set. It wasn't. There are no more combo-free sets in the game, peoples disliking them will uninstall, whatever you care about it or not. If a person dislikes weapons (redraw animation putting weapons out from nowhere, may defeat immersion), they now only got Electric Melee, that's all. I already said I enjoy Titan Weapons (the old one, which a good majority of players didn't want to use even when it was the top overpowered set ever existed cause it was too complicated) therefore I was already sure I could enjoy the easy 2-attacks-combo of this new Energy Melee set... but I'm not always in the mood or in the proper archetype to like combos. Plus I know several peoples that avoid sets containing combos or cones much more then I do (and for good reasons I'd say). There was no reason to completely transform Energy Melee into a combo-set. If you want another combo-set make a new one with it, but to destroy all the "easy-smash" sets in the game is bad thinking. There are times you just want to relax, or archetypes that need a relaxing approach cause they are more intense already (tanks and supports). I would even suggest that we need new relaxing sets in the game, instead they're getting deleted one by one, by patches or bugs or far too bad performance. Plus the cone is another issue: you should know that putting a single cone power into a set full of single target powers with shorter range is naive and always was (for other sets too). To properly use the cone you should put yourself in a perfect position to get 2 guys instead of one and as far away as possible, to get the most of the angle. The closer you are, the more narrow the cone area gets, therefore a combo like this "SingleTarget > Cone > SingleTarget" is disturbing as mechanic, cause the cone just creates a positional need that's not a requirement for the other 2 attacks, while the single target ones force the cone to a shorter range... diminishing its efficiency (summary: these kind of powers create problems to each other when used in combo). And "Single > Single > Cone" doesn't make sense either cause the 3rd one will be used like it's a single target with no proper positioning. This is one of the reasons I liked Titan Weapons, cause you can make a combo like "Cone > Cone > AoE" (cause there are several cones in that set) which is far better then the previous examples. If the devs want to put cones, they should either create a set with more cones (3, or 2+1AoE) or not at all. Personally, I would have avoided entirely to put more AoEs in Energy Melee, I always went totally fine with Whirling Hands alone (less powerful but with faster recharge compared to the AoE of other sets, you can spam it with the proper build), and if you want energetic hands (visually) and to concentrate on AoE there is Electric Melee already, with similar animations and elements too. But... if you really want to add another aoe in EM, then just transform Total Focus into one and call it a day, like other players said even before me that power was begging to be transformed into Thunder Strike (or a different version of it, maybe with less radius but more damage or 100% stun etc.).

I specified plenty already, re-read:

I won't battle the obvious keyboard-lions that are and will come out. There is value in easy sets, more so for tanks. You can read plenty of guides about the value of easy sets in both defense and offense for tanks, I won't write those off for you and it really won't matter in there. Cause the point remains: there are peoples who like easy sets, there are archetypes who need them more then the rest, just leave out the useless showing off.

Tanks are very often leading the team and are the first ones to engage enemies, they also save their mates when necessary and must decide where to go next, therefore checking enemies, map, mission and health bars for himself and the whole team, they have plenty to do already and need (like some tank guides specified very often in the past) easy sets to really shine at their role. Complicated sets both in defense or offence (like Combo-attacks or Clicky-defenses) are not good for tanks that want to take their role seriously without getting over-stressed over it, they can't really put their brain also on which combo to use while they check literally everything more then a support (since they're also in the first line in the middle of the action and leading). This kind of combo-set is a good way of thinking for other, damage-dealing focused archetypes, which often don't even check the enemies they should kill first and just blindly unleash damage therefore they will like to put some mind in combos or else they get bored. I'd suggest to create a combo system for those and leave tanks (and probably brutes too) with a version of the set free of such complications. Energy Melee wasn't some sort of "half-TitanWeapons" and never should be imho and that comes from a person that used Titan Weapons with a tank and got fun with it (with the help of macros). Also I find the addition of a cone disturbing, cause the cone is the most complicated kind of attack to put in a combo where all the other attacks have got a different range. The positioning problem and different range create another "absorbing-attention" matter. I find that the only real solution is to transform Total Focus into Thunderstrike for a simple reason: Thunderstrike was never thought as a bad power while Total Focus was and they share the animation and stats pretty much equally, the only real difference is that one is aoe and the other is not. The aoe in there solves everything cause even if the mates kill your target during your long animation, you still hit the rest of the group. I'd suggest to make Total Focus slightly more damaging but with a slightly concentrated aoe (1-2 radius less? Tanks would still use it as an aoe while other archetypes would us it as an "easy-to-use-cone" kinda). "Boring" sets have value (and peoples that appreciate it) and energy melee was one of those (which are getting deleted one by one therefore leaving peoples that like to attack with shut-down mind unsatisfied for whatever reason, tanks concentrated in everything else or peoples that simply want to relax in their mmorpgs).

Energy melee was a simple set, now it's complicated and also lost its chain-freedom.

UPDATE: It still occurs.

This bug forces me to use only Psionic Melee in combo with Shield, cause the taunt keeps growling with all the other sets that I tested (I didn't test the weapon-sets but the rest are affected by the growling sound and animation which don't make sense). It still occurs.

This unacceptable bug, which transforms the pve in a game without animations and unbalances pvp, still occurs and it's the only reason I can't use my preferred set (Super Strength) for months. It is very evidently a bug, which occurs far far too often to be ignored and completely deletes rooting and animations for the duration of Rage it self, which is huge. I just made 1 attempt in the test server and the bug immediately occurred by flying around enemies and making them "explode with knockback" with no animation and rooting. Please fix this.

Please notice I reported a way/bug that can be exploited to permanently cancel animation and it still occurs (I just tested it again), it occurs by simply moving+flying(hover) with Rage active, when the bug kicks in (which occurs about 3 times of four Rage activations, for me = the far majority of times) you skip animations for the entire duration of Rage (the effect is exactly the same as the video I posted in the following link):