SmokinIndo

Suppressive Fire and Piercing Rounds both got significant buffs. Suppressive Fire's base recharge has been reduced to 8 seconds, which makes it a perfect Proc Monster. It's been given a significant hold magnitude, with cryogenic rounds giving it a mag 4 hold. And to top it off, it's base damage is on par with Pistols. I see Suppressive Fire as an almost mandatory pick for builds simply because of the chance for Procs, opportunity for set bonuses, and the hold. Now onto Piercing Rounds. To be honest, I think this ability is still mostly skippable. It's a -res, and even though it lasts for 15 seconds, I've always found powers with -res to be pretty average. The damage per animation second is low, and the cone is so narrow it's basically a single target attack. I would love to be proven wrong. The problem I'm facing is where I'm going to fit Suppressive Fire. I would love to swap out Pistols, but I'm locked into taking 2 of the first 3 powers in the set, and Empty Clips is an awkward and short range cone attack. When I do respec into Suppressive Fire, should I proc it, or try to get some juicy +defense with the Winter IO set? Has anyone taken the new DP for a spin? I'd love some feedback on the set.

I know that the experimental graphics settings are NOT supported, which is a shame because I think the Cel Shader looks awesome. It hides the dated graphics of CoH and creates a nice contrast against the murkier colors of the older zones. There's currently a bug, however, that's been present since the game's relaunch. With Cel Shader enabled, character thumbnails hide most of the details in the face. If I'm looking at a mission acceptance dialogue, the contact might be missing her hair. The same extends to player bios. If I want to read a character's description and powers, their portrait will be missing some details in the costume. Any plans on fixing this? I'm not a developer so i don't know how hard it would be to change this. I know quite a few people who play with Cell Shader turned on.

I knew my stats looked off, but I couldn't figure out what was causing it. I guess Power Boost was the culprit. LotG was supposed to be in Fortify Pack. I just forgot to put it in. Acid Arrow does activate Oil Slick, but I macro'd my taser dart to target oil slick. Is the fire proc still worth it? It's more AoE damage. I don't have an 5th slot for LotG. I would need to sacrifice a power to pick up vengeance in the leadership pool. So I'm using lions as a mule.

I'm currently running a level 50 incarnate beast mastery/trick arrow that's similar to this build, and I agree with this sentiment. Oh.... levelling up was an absolute nightmare. But once I got IO'd, my pets managed to stay pretty safe and kill everything. But I wasn't sure how I stacked compared to other MMs that have more defense/damage buffs.

So I'm the brave soul that decides to roll Beasts/Trick Arrow. I know it's not the best pairing due to Trick Arrow's lack of +defense, but I rolled it anyway because it fits thematically and let's face it, having an active secondary as a mastermind is just too cool. Sometimes I feel like a blaster with how much damage my Ice Arrow does. Beasts/Traps was a close option, but I desperately want to have a bow as part of my costume whenever holstered ranged weapons are added to the game. The goal is to be able to solo x8/+1, although if I can fight tougher enemies then that's a plus. I want to be able to take on the game's most challenging content. I want to give my pets the best possible defense without sacrificing their damage output, so I'm not going to use Fortify Pack. I will be running Barrier nonstop to shore up my pets' defense. I'm going to spam flash arrow for the -toHit on enemies. In addition, I'm going to be running bodyguard all the time. Let me know what you think. Link to Build This Villain build was built using Mids Reborn 3.4.7 https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn Poacher: Level 50 Natural Mastermind Primary Power Set: Beast Mastery Secondary Power Set: Trick Arrow Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Leadership Power Pool: Fighting Ancillary Pool: Mace Mastery Villain Profile: ------------ Level 1: Summon Wolves (A) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff (3) Shield Breaker - Chance for Lethal Damage (3) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Recharge/Pet +AoE Defense Aura (5) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (5) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Damage/Endurance (7) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Accuracy/Damage Level 1: Entangling Arrow (A) Gravitational Anchor - Chance for Hold (7) Gravitational Anchor - Recharge/Accuracy (46) Gravitational Anchor - Immobilize/Recharge (46) Gravitational Anchor - Immobilize/Endurance (50) Gravitational Anchor - Immobilize (50) Gravitational Anchor - Immobilize/Recharge/Accuracy Level 2: Flash Arrow (A) Cloud Senses - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (9) Cloud Senses - Chance for Negative Energy Damage (9) Cloud Senses - ToHit Debuff (11) Cloud Senses - Accuracy/ToHitDebuff (11) Cloud Senses - Accuracy/Recharge (42) Cloud Senses - ToHit Debuff/Endurance/Recharge Level 4: Call Hawk (A) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (13) Thunderstrike - Damage/Endurance/Recharge (13) Thunderstrike - Damage/Endurance (15) Thunderstrike - Damage/Recharge (15) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (17) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage Level 6: Train Beasts (A) Endurance Reduction IO Level 8: Call Ravens (A) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage (17) Shield Breaker - Chance for Lethal Damage (19) Positron's Blast - Chance of Damage(Energy) (19) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (21) Impeded Swiftness - Chance of Damage(Smashing) (21) Shield Breaker - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge Level 10: Ice Arrow (A) Gladiator's Net - Chance of Damage(Lethal) (23) Unbreakable Constraint - Chance for Smashing Damage (23) Unbreakable Constraint - Recharge/Accuracy (25) Superior Entomb - Recharge/Chance for +Absorb (25) Ghost Widow's Embrace - Chance of Damage(Psionic) (27) Neuronic Shutdown - Chance of Damage(Psionic) Level 12: Summon Lions (A) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Endurance/Pet +Resist +Regen (27) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Damage/Endurance (29) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Damage (29) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed (31) Call to Arms - Defense Bonus Aura for Pets (31) Expedient Reinforcement - Resist Bonus Aura for Pets Level 14: Hasten (A) Recharge Reduction IO (31) Recharge Reduction IO Level 16: Poison Gas Arrow (A) Fortunata Hypnosis - Recharge/Accuracy (46) Fortunata Hypnosis - Sleep/Recharge/Accuracy Level 18: Fortify Pack (A) Endurance Reduction IO Level 20: Acid Arrow (A) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage (33) Annihilation - Chance for Res Debuff (33) Positron's Blast - Chance of Damage(Energy) (33) Shield Breaker - Chance for Lethal Damage (34) Shield Breaker - Accuracy/Recharge (34) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff Level 22: Summon Dire Wolf (A) Soulbound Allegiance - Chance for Build Up (34) Soulbound Allegiance - Damage/Recharge/Accuracy (36) Soulbound Allegiance - Damage/Recharge (36) Soulbound Allegiance - Damage (36) Sovereign Right - Resistance Bonus (37) Edict of the Master - Defense Bonus Level 24: Disruption Arrow (A) Endurance Reduction IO Level 26: Tame Beasts (A) Endurance Reduction IO Level 28: Oil Slick Arrow (A) Ragnarok - Damage (37) Ragnarok - Damage/Recharge (37) Ragnarok - Damage/Recharge/Accuracy (39) Ragnarok - Damage/Endurance (39) Ragnarok - Chance for Knockdown Level 30: EMP Arrow (A) Lockdown - Chance for +2 Mag Hold (43) Lockdown - Accuracy/Recharge (43) Lockdown - Recharge/Hold (43) Lockdown - Endurance/Recharge/Hold (45) Lockdown - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge/Hold (45) Lockdown - Accuracy/Hold Level 32: Maneuvers (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed Level 35: Tactics (A) Endurance Reduction IO Level 38: Kick (A) Empty Level 41: Tough (A) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All) (42) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3% (42) Steadfast Protection - Knockback Protection Level 44: Weave (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed (45) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance Level 47: Scorpion Shield (A) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All) (48) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed (48) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance (48) Luck of the Gambler - Defense Level 49: Power Boost (A) Recharge Reduction IO (50) Recharge Reduction IO Level 1: Supremacy Level 1: Brawl (A) Empty Level 1: Sprint (A) Empty Level 2: Rest (A) Empty Level 1: Swift (A) Empty Level 1: Hurdle (A) Empty Level 1: Health (A) Panacea - +Hit Points/Endurance (39) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery (40) Miracle - +Recovery Level 1: Stamina (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End (40) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Accuracy (40) Synapse's Shock - EndMod/Increased Run Speed Level 1: Alpha Howler Wolf Level 1: Howler Wolf Level 22: Dire Wolf Level 12: Lioness Level 1: Pack Mentality ------------

There's always next year for holstered pistols and bows....

A little bird on Reddit said there were big changes coming to Masterminds in page 6. Any word on what that might look like? I know that Masterminds pets don't scale well with the new relentless content that they've added. I tried playing the new content with a mastermind and it's brutal. My pets die instantly and I spend the majority of the run spawning and respawning. If masterminds get a buff, that would be a welcome change.

The ability to access the AE from a portable workbench or from the base.

Lady Grey TF. I like the difficulty, the length, and the story. A lot of fun characters pop up (CW King, Hamidon.), and the Hero 1 reveal at the end was one of the most memorable moments in the game.

If I solo with the group size set to x8, I can always get a good power rotation in with every mob. Every buff, debuff, and heal I have goes into making sure I survive and the enemy does not. Solo play is very satisfying. Playing with a team is a different story. Because I can solo mobs at x8, any additional help means that I don't need to use a full power rotation. I can get by on missing a debuff or forgetting to toggle my aura. The more people join the team, the less reliant that I and my teammates are on my abilities. It gets to a point where I don't have to use my secondary power set because nobody is taking damage and enemies are getting deleted. It makes any powerset not designed for max dps utterly trivial. There needs to be an enhanced difficulty for group play to keep the enjoyment going.

The problem is that i'm the bad guy for thinking the game needs some polish, because the current player base likes things the way they are. But that's the keyword... "current". Nobody here is considering all the players who were on here at the start and have since left. The game is massively smaller than it was at launch, where there were multiple instances of city zones throughout the server. Games that have a challenging curve at endgame have long lifespans. People continue playing the same content on MMOs and ARPG because it gets progressively harder and more difficult each run. There's nothing like that in City of Heroes, and it's killing the game. My criticism isn't because I hate the game. It's because I like the game and I want to see it flourish.

Why don't I just play the game with my arms tied behind my back? I'm sure that will make the game more challenging.

That's because I didn't say that. I talked about removing attunement, which I think is fair balance. You already lose powers you had past the max level of whatever task force you're on. And this makes sense for balancing purposes. You're playing with level 14s who still have TOs.

I'm one of the people playing, and I'm not having fun. If constructive criticism isn't your thing, then continue playing a broken game that's soon to have zero players.

This is the biggest concern for me. People who are against increasing the difficulty are playing damage dealers. Anyone who plays a support class knows that support is pointless on teams. Even tanks aren't needed as most characters can cap defense with set bonuses. You don't need to hold aggro against enemies that are dead. As a /nature controller, my biggest contribution is increasing the speed something dies from .5 seconds to .4 seconds. It does a huge disservice for support players, and actually makes the class feel WEAK, as opposed making characters feel powerful.

I'd start with taking away attunement. Make it so that playing on a lower level team would actually take away set bonuses. Also give task forces the option to play without IOs for a special reward. Badges or titles would be a really good incentive. Doing task forces in that challenge mode would require players to switch to a build with only SOs. Maybe an even greater challenge mode would require players to switch to a build with only TOs, for even cooler badges/titles. I'm not a game developer, but these sound like easy ideas to implement, with good incentives for the player.

Not just SOs. I use normal IOs/incarnate powers to solo missions. It's a reasonable challenge, but my point is that if I can do it solo, then playing with a team is trivial.

I played the LRSF with a group of people who weren't level 50 and we didn't have IOs. We actually failed. I think your comments about CoH always being easy is a gross exaggeration. It was far more challenging than what it is currently. Even if the LRSF was figured out after a week, it still required a well-built team to finish it. Granite tanks used to herd entire maps, but they needed SB to do it. Support classes were still useful. They aren't useful anymore. They're expendable, which actually makes the classes feel weak, contrary to wanting to be powerful. I also remember when teams weren't automatically sidekicked to the team leader. If you were three levels below the mission difficulty and you didn't have a mentor, you were shit out of luck.

I already do this. I solo mobs at +2/x8, which gives me at least some semblance of a challenge. At least I can buff my animated stone and have it actually matter. The problem with playing with SOs is that people actually put time and energy into their builds. Asking them to throw it away is an enormous waste of effort. At least if there was a more challenging difficulty, people's builds and incarnate powers could actually count for something. It'll be hard with incarnates and IOs. Without them, you wouldn't stand a chance.

I don't think is true at all, at least not before issue 9 when IOs were introduced. CoH used to be a challenging experience. Debt was extremely crippling to XP gain. You had to walk everywhere before level 14. You actually needed to invest in the fitness pool. TFs/SFs took hours to finish. The LRSF was such a rare achievement, and people wore Archvillain as a badge of honor.

This is dumb. It doesn't matter if 7/8 team members have nothing but TO enhancements. If one person on the team has incarnates/set bonuses, then they're going to stomp the whole map. The rest of the team can wait by the map door. If I could find a dedicated team that to play with, who agrees to only use TO enhancements, then I'd be all for it. But this an unrealistic expectation. Far less unrealistic than someone turning their difficulty all the way down so they can give have their power fantasy.

I'm sure there are lots of people that play this game for the power fantasy. That's fine. They have the option to solo everything at -1 with bosses as lieutenants and AVs as EBs. For the rest of us, I don't think I'm alone when I say that with set bonuses and incarnates, this game is easy AF.... and it's boring. The game is losing population, and I think it has to do with the fact that there's no challenge left. All this talk about buffing ATs is silly. Even the most gimped build can solo everything at +4/x8. We've got videos of people soloing iTrials. Something is fundamentally broken here. Most MMOs make leveling a brain dead slog, and save the fun and challenging content for endgame. City of Heroes has the opposite problem. Leveling is actually decently hard and rewarding, since you're usually poor, don't have IOs, and certainly don't have incarnate powers. You rely on SOs, and having them drop is an amazing feeling. But once you hit 50 and you get those late-game buffs, your character steamrolls everything. There is no option for challenging content past 50. Incarnate trials are a joke. I've never had an iTrial fail on me. Why give a fuck about challenging content? Because without it, there's no point in teaming. Mobs die so fast as a group, I can just stand by the door and nobody will notice. Controllers don't have to activate a single power, and why should you? When discussing builds for my controller, I had someone tell me "The best control is damage. They can't hurt you if they're dead." He's absolutely right. Controllers have no purpose on teams. Neither do defenders or corrupters. The only thing that matters is damage. Pure damage carries teams in this game. Everything else is irrelevant. You don't need healers, buffers/debuffers, or controllers. I would love to see a new difficulty that increases enemy levels to +8, and there needs to be incentive to play at that level. Give all new badges for defeating enemies, taking damage, healing, ect. at +8 difficulty. As far as my character "feeling" powerful, the current EZmode makes my character feel weak and insignificant on my team. I would feel way more powerful if I knew that my active healing was keeping my team from wiping, or if my holds were actually keeping the team from taking damage. Right now, I feel weak being a healer on a team that doesn't need to be healed. My Earth/Nature controller solos missions at +2/x8. That's pretty broken. Earth is the lowest-tier controller primary in terms of damage. And this is the AT that doesn't have to do anything when she's on a team, since mobs are wiped before I even lay down my control field. I don't have to spam heals, the team barely even notices when I drop Overgrowth. The only way to appreciate what I offer my team is by soloing. At least my animated stone supports my heal and buffing capability. EDIT: Some quick fixes for the difficulty. I'd start with taking away attunement. Make it so that playing on a lower level team would actually take away set bonuses. Also give task forces the option to play without IOs for a special reward. Badges or titles would be a really good incentive. Doing task forces in that challenge mode would require players to switch to a build with only SOs. Maybe an even greater challenge mode would require players to switch to a build with only TOs, for even cooler badges/titles. I'm not a game developer, but these sound like easy ideas to implement, with good incentives for the player.

By default, the story arcs on redside presume that your villain is nothing more than a mook that only cares about his next score. So what if Dean MacArthur's arc gives a voice to your character or presumes info about you? That's better than doing the millionth hit for the Family and having no ambition of your own. A huge staple of comic book villainy is obtaining power and using that power to change the world. CoH understands this since arch-villains at the head of every group, like Nemesis, Dr. Vahzilok, Crey, and Requiem, are ambitious in their bid for power. Myself and others make villains to share the same space as this bunch. Here's an example of what proper villain content looks like. I find a tip that reads my character's internal monolgue. I act on my latest scheme and kidnap a powerful wizard with knowledge about the Flames of Prometheus. I blackmail him and use his knowledge of the mystic arts to take the Flames for myself. Sound familiar? That's how the Mortimer Kal arc starts. Or maybe I pillage a dying dimension for items of power, and I find a man on the verge of death, who bargains with me for his life. He agrees to serve me if I let him live, and he feeds me tips about the Praetoreans which I use to strike fear into the city. That's how Mr. G's arc starts. There's lots of ways to go about doing this. As you can tell, I'm a big fan of internal monologues, and I think they play a big part of being a proactive villain. I want to see more content follow in these footsteps

Right now, the Rogue Isles shouldn't be called City of Villains. It should be called City of Mercenaries. 95% of story arcs written in City of Villains follow this basic premise: a contact needs somebody to be his muscle, so he "hires" you to go beat up bad guys. The real villain is the contact your working for, while you're nothing more than his goon. It's pathetic that this is the overwhelming majority of arcs in CoV. Despite Going Rogue introducing "rogue" alignments, the "villain" alignment is what's been missing from this game since it's inception. Only recently with some of the newer updates did writers start to figure this out, but the game ended before they could keep it going. Mr. G's arc in St. Martial is an example of a good villain arc. You actually feel like a villain because you're trying to spread your power and influence across the city. You're trying to control your enemies through fear and oppression. It's all about power. And the entire time, you're a leading contributer to the direction of the story. You aren't simply being told what to do. You are actually taking initiative and enacting plans that your character created. There are small moments in the game where you see potential in the writing. The inner monologues of the villain alignment missions are a perfect example of what a real villain would be like. You aren't trying to make a quick buck. You have a master plan to rule the world, and you are taking the necessary steps to see that plan fulfilled. Money isn't as important as removing that pesky hero who will no doubt be an obstacle for you going forward. Even the stories where my character is SAVING THE WORLD make me feel more villanous than just being some cleaner doing a hit for the Family. Fighting Mot or Rula-Wade actually makes me feel like a villain, because the story explicitly describes my using these events as a springboard for my eventual rule. When saving the world makes me more evil than most of the content that redside offers, that's how you know your writing ain't up to par. When I saw that CoH was introducing two new arcs, one of them being for rogues, I groaned. This game was always made for rogues. It's time we start making it for villains.