MoonSheep

agreed. i would go further, most people building squishies for defence are trying to IO their way out of a lack of experience playing the AT and are dulling the potential benefits of leaning into the particular qualities of certain squishy ATs (doms, defs)

it depends what sets you’re bringing when i bring along my mind/fire i’m mostly using it for the high damage output which is on par with a lot of dedicated damage dealers. energy would have similar credentials having a helpful mastery like ice to pickup sleet also allows for useful contributions i often use my mind dom to confuse the harder foes at the start of combat to reduce the danger, i’d imagine plant would have similar benefits hard mode enemies are min/maxed, bring a min/max dom

i would have assumed there would be one also, it’s quite common on those maps do i have a hidden agenda? am i part of a nemesis plot? who knows. stay alert

i appreciate your detailed response but i disagree with your views gradual progression is what makes an MMO fun in my view. even during the early issues things would be challenging or perhaps slow, but rarely impossible to me, what the early issues encouraged was team play and cooperation. modern day City of Heroes is City of Me Me Me

what a memory - makes me think of when a +2 damage DO dropped around lvl 12 ish on my first character, a blaster. looking at those precious green numbers on the enhancement i remember thinking damn, slotting this is going to be a game changer

i’m happy to add some data to the conversation this weekend through testing a few tank and brute builds, i’m curious to see what the difference is at x1

i think in general a scrapper is a great all rounder, not seeing as many on teams thesedays though - not receiving enough hype?

i think at +0/x1 a scrapper would be a much better choice than a brute. having to maintain fury with limited battles is tough at the start of each mission the brute would be starting with a significant disadvantage compared to the scrapper and spend the first few battles “catching up” in terms of damage output

in game tests seem to suggest tanks outperform brutes across almost all powersets. can you link me to your tests? edit: for x1 missions i would imagine brutes would be further disadvantaged by not building sufficient levels of fury, giving further advantage to a tank or scapper

this is outdated advice - tankers now outpace brutes in gameplay due to the wider AoEs their inherent provides

Whiff Melee does need quite a buff

i think what OP is referring to with the view on “holy trinity” is that oldschool CoH required much more cooperation between support ATs, damage and tanky type characters you’d often be very pleased to see a controller with ice slick or a rad to help buff and debuff. this would be complimented by a strong tank type lead to take the alpha, with blasters and scrappers ready to mash things up this compares to modern HC CoH where the focus is primarily just on damage, as support ATs have less value

i find teams under level 25 still have a mostly familiar CoH feel, after that it things disappear quite quickly low level teams are mostly non existent due to DFB, which i find a shame as some of my most memorable experiences are those low level teams where teamplay is the pathway to success i agree that instant SOs make things a lot easier, as does many of the goodies available from P2W vendors progression is too quick thesedays, combined with an ability to circumvent the designed game mechanics i appreciate people say “well you don’t have to engage in those buffs”, but we’re an MMO community. if we’re on track and i’m driving driving an 80hp fiat 500 and everyone is in a 400hp mustang, it’s not going to be an enjoyable experience to me, the game felt more meaningful when progression was a moderate rate and you’d invest in your alt and its journey

i do find running TFs on enemies buffed incurs a classic CoH feel as people are forced to play together to succeed when i saw this thread i was a bit annoyed as i’ve been meaning to make a post for weeks on why i think the game has decayed into its current state IOs have ruined CoH and were a mistake. they introduced a materially significant increase in character strength without the game responding by increasing enemy strength or difficulty IOs have allowed people to reject teamplay and solo everything in the game - this has led to the demise of support and control ATs which aren’t needed or valued

on a more constructive note - the game has lost its appeal. everything has been watered down to homeopathic levels of challenge and doesn’t hold my interest much anymore i log on and play because of the nostalgia, but a game without challenge and gradual progression isn’t interesting to me. if i wanted auto win and solo play i’d buy the sims

haha, i knew this would be downvoted. i completely agree mate. to manage expectations, people are highly offended at the thought of having to play CoH let me summarise the three types of responses you’ll be receiving: 1. muh playstyle 2. having to work to achieve in-game items is unbearable, everything should be instantly available 3. every game should be a sandbox pickup and play FPS because that’s the style i enjoy can’t believe you expect MMO mechanics in an MMO, so unreasonable man

psi mastery 🙂 whilst we’re in discussion i do also think psi assault on doms is quite forgettably average thesedays. it used to be S tier on live. but now it’s not bad, not good, just there doing its thing i think it remains a popular choice because of how good it used to be i suppose for context on my position, i play fire assault and like quick, high end damage. energy assault also appealing for the same reason

interesting that psi mastery is so popular despite being a dreadful choice for dominators

it would be nice to have a new powerset that isn’t accompanied by a goofy combo mechanic

as i’ve mentioned on other kin posts - it’s such a forgiving set that i would just slot what feels fun. even 2acc/3dmg/1rech in all your attacks would be effective. having FS, a strong heal, transference and siphon speed to hand makes it flexible to play however you want my kin/sonic is mostly SOs and some random crap thrown in because i like the IO icons, does speed runs, HM content etc fine

don’t forget the no enhancements option

i recommend running them with enemies buffed for that classic CoH feel 😎

fold space pulls enemies from around you to your location, bunching them up nicely. helps to contain situations where things are scattered around, i love it on my kin i’m not sure people use TP as much, it’s still a slightly clunky travel power. i take combat TP, teleport target and fold space

i liked the old SK system too, it was a bit of fun and a good concept CoH is still a fun game but not challenging enough to hold my attention for long thesedays. you can do pretty much anything in the game and still succeed edit: edited my grumpiness

Low level mission teams are almost non existent thesedays with DFB and double XP catapulting people to level 20 the days of running frostfire, lowbie kings row missions etc are long gone. the extreme pace of the game removes the gradual learning curve people experience through running that type of content most of us have less free time compared to 15 years ago, spending 2-3 months of regular gameplay to reach 50 is out of the question for many of us, can always be nostalgic though 😀 apart from the absolutely crawl lvl 39-45 used to be.. not nostalgic about that