Shin Magmus

Giant Monsters specifically were given a new passive power "Colossal" that causes them to gain +Max HP based on the number of players nearby. This was added to prevent people forming massive Leagues to remove all challenge from GM fights. It has the biggest impact vs U'kon Gr'ai, who is now hilariously tough to kill. So actually, the devs want monsters to present some sort of challenge no matter how many players are engaging. How effective was this change? Eh, results vary, but my Illu/Traps solo's all the GMs anyways so it's a moot point.

This is the crux of the issue, and it applies to farming in AE but it always applied to farming any enemy group or mission, even before AE. The reason that the first farmer was a Fire/Kin Controller was Fire Cages, and the reason that the first villain farmer was a Fire/Psy Dom was Fire Cages. Unless you character can instantly kill every enemy in a spawn, or has inherent Taunt procs, enemies will always try to run. So if you want to do an outdoor AE map, or want to speed-clear radio mishes or a traditional farm map in PI, then your only realistic choices must be Brutes/Tanks or niche Controllers/Doms. Lots of builds theoretically inflict massive damage on a low enough CD to be up every spawn, like a DP/Kin Corruptor completely loaded with dmg procs, but enemies run away while you're doing it. Having a powerset with a very strong autohit AoE Slow will not prevent enemies from trying to run, but it will make them run more slowly... partially mitigating the issue. I have a Fire/Psy Dom but Plant Control is the other good option and can do more damage in AE. You'll want your character to be able to apply as many of the 3x -Res procs as possible if you're solo farming, preferably very early in combat (Annihilation proc in Flashfire, followed by Fury of the Gladiator proc in Psychic Shockwave). Trying to farm without a plan is just an exercise in frustration, and chasing fleeing enemies around.

Bravely running away!

"There's no longer a disproportionately piss-easy option available, for me to turn my brain off and win for free, and that's terrible." It seems like NuCouncil are working as intended by bringing the difficulty up to that of the other available options. I recommend that people who complain (constantly) about NuCouncil read the patch notes for when they were released as to why: this is a choice of mission enemy faction that is supposed to have parity with Carnies and Arachnos. If solo leveling is that much of a chore for you, the Tunnel Witch AE mission is right there...

Well I hope you feel better and know that your opinions do have value. I recommend a break from this blighted forum, it can do wonders.

No, these players complaining about the EBs have been overwhelmingly disproven and disagreed with. The small number of players who don't want 5x Exp EBs, new badges, 10x Prismatic Aether, and sometimes any actually engaging gameplay at all, can just hide behind the rest of us. It's not hard to solo one of these EBs spawning at your level.

This is correct. The Halloween event seems to cap out at lv53 enemies, whereas TFs and MSRs will have lv54 Bosses and EBs; those are the situations that actually require Ultimate Insps.

This part is so real. I have a Grav/Time and I literally combat TP into the dead center of a group then TP target (using a macro) Singy onto my position so that his vacuum is centered inside the enemy clump. That character also has Wormhole and Fold Space, and uses them brilliantly. If for some reason a teammate complains about me helpfully condensing all the enemies into an intuitive, obvious, and telegraphed by both myself and my Singy single point... then they were in the wrong place.

I guess this is on Excel?

Unfortunately we can't hold players accountable for playing super duper badwrong; we can barely even point it out cus that's meanie weanie. The bad Fold Space user and the Empath not-using Fortitude or Adrenaline Boost both pat themselves on the back, chanting over and over in their heads: "I'm helping."

I like this part of the comment. I just want to chime in and say that, as long as the Fold Space user stands in an intelligent position: using Fold Space is basically purely beneficial as it groups enemies together for everyone to AoE. An example of doing this would be trying to teleport more enemies into the existing pile, in the corner where 2 doors meet and 10 enemies are already present. That said, every single person here complaining about this concept of someone else "taking away enjoyment" better not have a single Energy Blast character, nor spam Meteor, and better be liberally using KBtoKD enhancements: otherwise we'd have some hypocrisy going on.

The EBs are definitely tougher than any of the other enemies that can come out of the door, as is both expected and intended. However (like you say), the XP is a lot. Here's a video of my leveling build DB/Rad Scrapper (lv40) casually dispatching the supposedly more problematic EB in question: the Ancient Vampire. For 1v1s against melee ATs, I think Arisen Mummy is the most dangerous... but my lv50 MM dumpstered that one specifically because the Poison debuffs are all single target. None of them are difficult in a team, and generally only one of them will be even moderately difficult for your specific build in solo play. All of these EBs are easy enough to beat and none require a nerf.

In principle this is absolutely correct, people should just address the issue currently. In practice, Ultimo will state hyperbole such as the "15 minute fight" with an even-level EB in this thread's OP, while using a Mastermind (strong AT vs single bulky enemies) with Robotics (-600% regen set) and Elec Affinity (S-Tier set for MMs well-known for making pets very tanky) that defies explanation. Most people in this thread, and in the game CoH as a whole, cannot replicate Ultimo's gameplay experiences. I'd love to see a video of that fight from Ultimo, and his build, just to be able to understand how he got that result. That said, almost everyone did address the issue at hand regardless: "Should we nerf the Halloween EBs or prevent them from spawning for solo players?", to which the resounding responses were "no" and "no", unless I missed something.

You're the hero all true warriors strive to be, Snarky. I repeated the first mish of Virgil Tarikoss TF to get some of my defeat badges from that Legacy Chain enemy group.

That's a really nice box.

I agree with MAN-JOE, we should be providing comments that contain helpful hostility instead of unhelpful hostility. Oh, we did offer build advice, tactical advice, strategic advice, and factual data about the EB powers and AI... well that seems pretty helpful. Luminara's breakdowns of the EB attack patterns are bulletproof; all the advice is there for our friend Ultimo to solo defeat the Halloween EBs.

Sure! I make self-use Spreadsheets when doing testing, like when I cloned a build using no temps/epics/pool attacks and slotted analogous blasts similarly across both sets, in order to fairly compare Psychic Blast (a set that was recently buffed by the HC dev team) with Seismic Blast (a set that has never been buffed and desperately needs it). Here it is:

Pass your builds back and forth in real time on Homecoming's official Discord, in either at-build-general or the specific channel for your AT, to get actually good advice and not get bogged down with some of the... questionable builds on the forums.

I'd make a Poison/Fire Defender, maximally proc out Envenom, Weaken, and Poison Trap (Trap needs 70% acc slotting), then take as much passive automatic support as you can like full Leadership and just go nuts. In terms of keeping up with the team and killifying everything, while also just noticeably helping your teammates murderize faster, this is one of the best options you can pick. The "fastest" sets are the ones that either have more toggle/passive support and damage going on, or that can buff teammates out of combat (using the time spent when jumping between groups) to therefore focus on attacking. Examples of very slow sets include Traps and Trick Arrow: which will not be able to use even half of their powers on a fast team. For fast sets, you want both a high impact toggle that's always contributing, and a high impact debuff you can throw onto the group (or really even just the bosses in the group) every fight. Examples of fast sets include Poison (toggle debuff + AoE -res click debuff), Cold Dominmation (4m shields + toggle buff + AoE -res click debuff), and Sonic Resonance (4m shields + toggle buff + AoE -res toggle debuff + single target -res click debuff). One thing to consider is that really fast teams might not let your powers fully recharge between fights, so powers like Sonic's Disruption Field and Poison's Venomous Gas (but also short CDs on Weaken/Envenom) mean that those powersets will always bring their debuff even when your team is blitzing. Conversely, some other good sets may have to "skip a fight" because Sleet or Tar Patch haven't recharged yet. For the actual blasting set, as long as you avoid picking something overtly bad like troll Energy Blast, or set-up based (slow) like Storm Blast / Beam Rifle, then you can throw your AoE attacks out and keep up with the team. There's plenty of good enough sets for this, although the best results will still be Fire Blast, Ice Blast, Assault Rifle, and Water Blast. You can also make Psychic Blast and Seismic Blast work (even though Meteor is absolutely terrible) because they have a 16 target AoE which accepts KB sets, meaning you can slot the Force Feedback proc into Upthrust and Psionic Tornado. That FFB proc is a big deal in AoEs because it's statistically very likely to go off when used against max targets. Extreme bonus recharge speed will accelerate your gameplay and ensure that the whole "powers not being recharged" thing from the first paragraph happens less often. As for AT, your obvious choices are basically only Defender or Corruptor. The other ATs that can used ranged attacks are often loaded with powers that heavily incentivize being in melee: Controllers, Dominators, HEATs, and VEATs. There are specific 100% ranged attack builds on some of those ATs that can still be decent, but they are generally always worse than using proc'd out Seismic Smash for example. A 100% pure ranged Huntsman (gun attacks) or Crab Spider is the main viable option here for going fast and having a good AoE -res click debuff in Venom Grenade. Finally there's Sentinels which are a slap-in-the-face of an AT and are 100% reliant upon taking Melee attacks at level 35 to even get decent DPS. Sentinels heavily crutch on Melee attacks / Hecatomb even more than Blasters do.

It's like Goldilocks and the three EBs! Just right!

Also, for the record it is impossible for a Bots MM to have to fight any single target of this power level for 15 minutes unless you specifically didn't take a bunch of important powers. Bots -Regen was moved to the personal attacks, each of which inflict a stacking -200% Regen: totaling -600% if you take them all. For reference, the best Support powerset debuffs are typically only -500% (Traps is double this), so that's a lot. Even just spamming one of those attacks would halt the EB's passive Regen, turning the fight into a winnable battle of attrition where he can't heal. You also should have access to Shock and Discharge, increasing your total -Regen to a staggering -725%. On that note, Elec Affinity is widely known to be S-Tier on MMs as you can make your pets practically immortal just by spamming the main 2 defensive powers (Heal and Absorb) while keeping everything in Faraday Cage range. MM's are notoriously weak to KB and reliant on Clarion Destiny to fix it (at lv50), but Elec Affinity MMs can use the awesome might of Faraday Cage to completely remove that weakness as early as level 16: nice! Basically you had the ideal AT to solo tanky single target enemies, and 2 mostly ideal powersets to do that, and yet you still lost. Since this defies explanation, can you post your build?

This is a fun forum.

Well the Elite Bosses aren't a problem for any of my characters; I just tested a fight against a few. Here you go, I recorded one on my MM to have a fair comparison: Ultimo... why do you even play CoH? I want to know honestly, why do you play a game where all you do is ask for the game to be nerfed and enemies to be made easier, just to accommodate the absolute lowest level of player skill and knowledge... ad infinitum? I can't really say anything that hasn't already been said in this thread and your other threads. You make the weakest builds possible for your characters, then play as poorly as possible (stubbornly refusing all advice), and then complain on the forums when you don't win. In a team scenario this wouldn't preclude you from winning, so you also only solo; You are the architect of your own demise. If you want to be a solo player you have to be willing to learn and improve, and if you don't want to learn and improve then you need to team up with others.

Most people lack the awareness to even know how good or bad they truly are at something. Being rude has always been about intent. When I'm rude, it's because I am intending to be rude. The person on your team who doesn't know what enhancements are isn't intending to be rude, so no.

The power you're thinking of is Death Coil.