ForeverLaxx

No, I don't. If the only way you can beat an encounter is to "overpower" it then maybe, but I don't do that. I just optimize my characters and use a strategy that doesn't require the use of sacrificial lambs to shove consumables on to. The fight takes longer, is harder, and I still come out on top? That means I got better at the game on a fundamental level and using items to make things super easy doesn't improve my skill as a player.

It's the "99 Elixir" problem. You think you'll only need the consumable for the really tough stuff, so you hold on to all the ones you find while you wait for the tough fight. Before you know it, you've beaten the game and didn't use a single one (and probably even left a few dozen laying on the ground due to running out of space). I'm very guilty of this, but I like to think it made me a much better player of those games. Being able to beat tough encounters without using items makes you think harder or optimize better. Usually.

Some people like dynamic/active combat, some people like combat based on dice rolls. For me it depends on the game and I find active combat where you're expected to manually dodge or block everything being thrown at you to be a huge hindrance when it's an MMO. Latency can be a major issue when performing the proper defense or mobility response due to the number of people and enemies you face, but what often ends up being worse is that you'll get people on your team that expect you to do the work that they don't want (ie; they force you to heal them through the fire instead of them just moving out of it). I played a fair amount of CO when CoH was shut down (and a bit while CoH was still up because my brother preferred it at the time). While there are aspects about the character creator I wish we could replicate, like moving chest decals to other parts of the body or having more asymmetry with leg and arm accessories, the overall graphics of the game I couldn't get behind. Everyone is an oddly shaped bug-eyed something and I felt like a parody character because of it. But swinging back to the topic of combat, I just cannot stand CO's combat system. I hate having to charge up attacks, I hate having an auto-attack in a setting that shouldn't be about sustaining DPS, I hated having to mash buttons to break out of effects, and I did not like having to manually block or dodge things. Why have super powers to reduce incoming damage or heal it off if you're expected to just avoid it manually? CoH's combat is more simple on the surface as everything is based on dice rolls, so things are going to hit or miss as soon as you hit the button. But because of that, you can actually rely on your defensive powers to do their job, showing that your super abilities are why you're avoiding damage instead of your twitch reactions. There are no latency concerns in this system either so you can more reliably know if you're in danger or not. This also lets you leverage certain quirks about how the system "tics" when affects are applied/dropped from you. Queuing up an attack against a Spectral Daemon Lord with his Chill of the Night aura on, you can get the game to land the hit roll before the aura affects you if you "joust" properly, which comes in real handy if you're melee and need that CC power to land to turn off said annoying aura. In the same manner, you can begin a jump around a corner and fire off a ranged attack to nullify most of the "root" that normally occurs when you fire an attack and pull mobs around a corner. Believing that CoH's combat is just standing around and having a slugfest until the other guy falls over is an overly simplistic view of it.

If you think you may fall in defeat, go to an area that the mob isn't set to be "neutral" at and go down fighting there. They'll wander back to their original positions, hopefully outside of re-aggro range, letting you stand back up. The only time I find Awakens useless is when it's an ambush spawn that takes you down since they'll immediately come back for you if you hit that button.

Nice assumption. It's wrong, though. The person I was talking about shows up in many threads about challenge or powerset changes and demands everything else be brought up to that level rather than taking a single powerset down. They don't seem to care what any baseline may or may not be. Power creep is already bad enough and we don't need more of it. Don't try to pretend you know what I like to play, what I find fun, what I find challenging, or implying that I'm a "nerf herder". That's such an idiotic boogeyman and frankly you're embarrassing for even taking it there. Being able to recognize an issue with the base game and the players' over-reliance on defense set bonuses doesn't mean I'm clamoring for those juicy nerfs. It's not something that can be easily changed and, frankly, I don't think the HC devs want to change it. It seems pretty clear to me that high-level builds being nearly untouchable gods of destruction is what they want, but that doesn't mean it doesn't trivialize what was already a fairly simplistic game. Most of what these builds save is time in a run, anyway, and the only real consequence is that half the team feels completely useless. So why don't you take your own advice and: because that's all you've done here. Whine about something that didn't exist because you wanted to get on a soapbox.

I've never taken the entire Primary and Secondary for any combination, and it's rare I take the full Primary OR Secondary alone as I find there are skippable powers in every powerset. Even the mighty Bio Armor has at least one skippable, in my opinion, and I don't have that power on my Water/Bio Sentinel.

The DoT isn't weak, it's just slow. It does the same, or more, damage as other blast set's AoE (barring Fire). The real problem with Dark Blast is that their cones don't line up very well and TT doesn't automatically convert KB into KD like most of the cone immobilizes in Control sets.

Rather than focus on any one individual pool, I'd rather just say that overall the pools with attacks need to have those attacks looked at. So many of them are just not worth the powerslot and are often only taken as a "tax" to get to something better, or chosen as a set/proc mule. The idea that these attacks are set to be weaker than standard powerset attacks is an archaic design choice that in some cases isn't even true depending on the pool attack in question. Making these attacks more comparable to standard attacks can open up build choices in at least the concept sector of builds if not the min/max ones. I'd avoid the use of "synergy" to do this, though. As someone earlier said, I'd rather the attacks be worth picking on their own merits rather than essentially forcing someone to take all the powers just so the two that stink are borderline not-entirely-useless. Currently, only Cross Punch (due to synergy, unfortunately), Air Superiority, and the two Experimentation attacks seem to pull some weight. Any other attacks chosen usually end up on Controllers due to Containment, most notably Arcane Bolt. With the wide variance of effects you can pull from Pool powers, it's going to be hard to bring up anything that isn't used for IO Set bonuses/proc mules without making them too good. Perhaps relaxing some restrictions, like how Stealth and Shadowfall can't be on at the same time (a silly restriction considering you can slot a Stealth IO into Sprint to get the same effect) should be considered. Animation/Interrupt times of other powers like Aid Self/Aid Other could be modified to make them more appealing, too. There are minor tweaks to the most annoying aspects of a power that could get other people to use them more without just straight buffing the power's primary strength/reason for selection. Overall though, the real problem is getting people to use Power Pool powers in a post-IO world that don't provide meaningful potential set bonuses or useful proc effects. The heavy emphasis on defense-capping and high recharge builds is always going to favor sets that can provide both. No pools besides Leaping, Leadership, Flight, Speed and Fighting provide the kinds of effects people want from sets besides Concealment, and since those powers lose almost their entire defense bonus while in combat and actively hinder aggro generation, it doesn't get included in the mule/set picks. I don't think this is an angle that can be changed, which is why instead I propose above an adjustment to what realistically can be changed, and that's the efficiency/desireability of attacks and ease-of-use of other powers like Aid Self. Greater discussion can be had over individual pools that probably need serious help or overhauled offerings, like Presence, but I don't think one megathread like this is the place to really get bogged down in a single pool discussion and will just drown out everything else that needs to be brought up in a more general sense.

This seeming obsession with trying to squash dissenting or negative opinion is troublesome. The implications that people can't handle anything that challenges them aside, the idea that only positive opinion/reinforcement is valuable is absurd. Instead of trying to make people be quiet when they don't agree, why not find out why they don't agree and determine if their stance has validity for the situation? I know that if I had been given only positive feedback on my art as a kid, I likely would have not improved much and wouldn't have gotten a scholarship for it down the line. Why improve when everyone tells you you're already perfect, right? Flaming isn't the same thing, of course, but I see almost none of that when the question of what to play gets asked. An opinion in the negative isn't flaming by default, but trying to silence them on the basis that is is not something I can get behind.

I took the full set on my Petless MM but didn't slot up Boxing or Kick. Might have to revisit that in the future, especially since the prestige attacks (sands of mu et al.) still do more damage than anything else she's using.

No AT for me ever really felt like it wasn't a fit, though I do tend to build for concept and pick whatever set combination in whatever AT will best support it. That said, I still haven't made a Peacebringer for some reason. To the matter of Masterminds, I found that playing one with Provoke as a Tankermind really changed things up compared to the more "standard" Mastermind wisdom. My first MM on the live servers, which I made on the CoV headstart launch, was a Necro/Poison. With the targeted healing being weak, an ability to heal myself directly, and my pets able to heal themselves a bit on their own, picking up Provoke and running around in Bodyguard Mode all the time felt like the correct thing to do. Only AoE damage was really a problem, and that's true for every MM.

I had no problem with Necro/Poison on live but I ran mine as a Tankermind with Provoke so maybe that's why. I can't say I've ever made something I regret since I get a lot of leeway to concept, but my Petless Masterminds are certainly the most masochistic characters I've made over the years both on Live and here in Homecoming.

Pretty sure they're a hardline "buff everything, no nerfs ever" person, judging from the posts I see them reacting to.

I try to avoid "same element" combinations where possible if only because I find it's the easy way to make something. That's not to say I won't do it, like my D3 Controller, but I'm more likely to combine sets that don't match on an elemental level than ones that do. Being able to color powers helps with the "immersion" problem, like my Dark Armor/Stone Melee Tanker that has his dark armors colored to look like sand. Sure, the actual resistances might not "match" but that doesn't matter to me. It's how the character looks that I find more important than the other things. I'm a slave to the theme insofar as that theme works with my plans and power customization rather than always pairing one set with its "natural" counterpart.

Yup. The creation of that channel to get people who used Help for idle conversation wasn't a great idea. Most of the people that complained about the conversations in Help weren't answering questions and now that General exists, people go there to ask questions because of how much activity that channel has compared to Help. Unfortunately, many people in General aren't interested in helping people so now we have a Help channel that gets no use and a General channel spreading misinformation. Such a great system.

You can only play on one side at a time. I have characters across all alignments, but with how simple it is to cross factions due to Null I feel like villain-side is always going to be a relative ghost town and if anything changes to incentivize players to *stay* redside rather than flip over for a single SF, that will just take away from the hero population. Ultimately, I don't think this is a problem that can be fixed in a traditional sense as the influx of new players is practically 0.

One thing to keep in mind, which I don't think many people seem to be pointing out, is that any increase in villain population that's sustained is going to reduce the hero population. We aren't exactly adding lots and lots of new players every week like a live game would. The whole game for both sides could start to feel empty if "too many" people migrate. Not really sure this is an issue that could realistically be fixed or considered, though.

By taking the Ferry to Port Oaks, taking the stairs up to Pocket D (there are no mobs to stop you), talk to Null to become a Rogue/Vigilante/Hero, exit to King's Row, try not to die to the Clockwork as you bound over to the Tram, then take that to Atlas Park. That's the "no SG base" version, anyway.

Feels weird to win something. I never win anything. Anyway, to the topic at hand... Anything you do to increase action in the zone will have to be done carefully. I prefer starting my characters redside but always end up making all of them a rogue just so I can find group content when I need it. Adding rewards and other incentives to the Rogue Isles isn't going to have the desired effect so you probably don't want to use this route. The reason for this, I think, is that all you'll get are people who swap over to run the thing that has more rewards, then swap back over. That's not going to fix a population issue. In a game that started with you playing the hero, playing the villain is going to be less popular by default. Something like only 20% of the playerbase was red-side on the live servers so this is pretty big uphill battle. Common complaints of redside content are mostly relegated to "I always feel like a dumb lackey moron", Super Speed is actively discouraged by zone design, getting access to Epic (Patron) pools is a chore compared to heroes who do nothing, and you fight enemy groups that are tougher through almost all levels as a villain/rogue than you would as a hero/vigilante. I'm personally not against challenging foes, but I know some people who quit being a villain after their first Snake or Arachnos mission. I'm not sure if that can even be addressed. Zone layout, too, might be a tall order -- I don't know what kinds of resources you have available and redesigning or added to zones to make them more speedster-friendly may not be possible. I get the idea of following a Patron for ability access since you're not "gaining" new powers yourself so much as using the tools provided by one of the Big Bads, but having to do a mission chain that requires you defeat an EB/AV at the end is a bit mismatched to the hero equivalent of "do nothing for Epics". Again, I'm not sure if this could be modified other than to just award the badge for choosing a Patron but that won't fix the population problem either I don't think. It's just a complaint I hear sometimes. That really only leaves the way red-side missions are worded. You're almost always a lackey. Judging from how things have been added in the past, the prospect of creating new contacts and mission lines that give you more of a personal "choose your own adventure" feel is probably the most realistic thing the HC team could do in order to get more people red-side and to stay there. Yeah, they'll still be a villain, but if missions allowed players to more effectively create the reason they're doing something beyond "me dumb crony killing rock people for shiny stones that crazy caster man wants" players might stick around. That provides a different kind of experience than the heroside where it's almost expected that you're just reacting to things happening and trying to put a stop to them because that's your job. Heroes are reactionary and villains are proactive, and right now, villains don't feel very proactive. The biggest hurdle though is Null the Gull. I know why he exists, but he's a contributing factor to this problem and I'm not sure that's going to be changed.

It must be clear? Clear to whom? The people who want to get rid of someone? Because I've personally been a victim of a coordinated ignore chain orchestrated by someone who decided I sided with one group because of one utterance while ignoring all other words/context and convinced a slew of people I was some evil individual that didn't warrant interaction of any kind beyond an /ignore. This sort of "policing" is just going to swing things in the opposite direction, if indeed it's even far in the current direction to begin with (I don't believe it really is). My take on it is that the person who lashes out at a potential "goader" isn't any better than the person goading them. It shows lack of restraint and a justification for their behavior based upon the actions of another individual they have no control over. Everyone has bad days, so that doesn't mean it's a "one-and-done" offense or anything, but maybe if someone is getting GM attention for overreacting to a potential troll post, then the post being reacted to could be reviewed at the same time? Seems more fair to me to judge all parties involved instead of just the guy yelling "leave me alone" at the person who's been subtly kicking the desk for 45 minutes. Then again, this is a text medium and lots of things are taken to mean something they aren't. Some people just don't beat around the bush and get to the point directly, which often comes off as being rude or dismissive. Should that person get "punished" for not flowering up their posts? I don't think so, but in your system of mob rule that could very easily happen.

Wish I could help, but I recently used the Rating system myself to remind me of the habits of a particular individual that likes to strawman an argument to vilify you and get a bunch of people to ignore you for no reason, so I would too would love if how that system works is clarified. I should clarify myself that my post has no relation to EmmySky's post and have no idea why someone would say that in the Help channel. Reading my response looks like I'm being accusatory, heh.

I play solo, build for concept, and will eventually try to optimize that concept into something I think is neat. I wasn't able to do much of this on Live because I could never afford it, so maybe I'll get around to using IO Set builds this time instead of totally ignoring them like I did on Live. I also team, but only when I feel I want to and don't actively seek it out. I'll often stand around for hours waiting for someone else to start a TF that I want to run because I'm never comfortable with the star (don't like being in the spotlight, I guess). Sometimes I wish my contributions to the team were obvious, other times I'm glad I could literally afk and no one would notice. Depends on my mood. I also PvP, but I hear no one likes those types. Thankfully for the rest of you, I don't PvP here often because I get that fix in other games better suited to it. This is probably why I don't min/max so much around these parts (no reason to when I'm not fighting players and nothing is really a DPS check in a group). I try to go for badges when I can but sort of shelved the idea of having a dedicated badger like I had on Live. My completionist streak took a hit once I got older, though it still comes back now and again. I guess what I'm saying is, most people aren't going to fit in any one particular box. I'm mostly in the "solo" category, but not entirely and it really depends on what I feel like doing at any given moment. I change characters so much that I don't even have a single 50 after spending a year on the server so I think it'll be some time before I even get around to doing all the stuff everyone else is. And that's okay.

I try to avoid doing a repeat powerset whenever possible. That's not to say I won't make an Elec Melee character and an Elec Blast character, but it does mean I won't have two Elec Blast characters. For character design I try to be whatever fits the concept and since I don't repeat powersets that usually means I don't repeat a look. However, I do have a few that end up being similar in appearance, mostly in the "street clothes" category since that field is a bit limited overall, but those aren't primary outfits usually and don't bother me.

Really looks like a group of people all hit Dark on each vote for some reason and only Dark Melee/Dark Armor really warranted the discussion (Dark Blast's wonky cone situation notwithstanding). Darkness Affinity is pretty fine overall, and while I'm not fond of having powers that are basically auto-skip in nearly all situations I'm also not terribly keen on sets that make you want to take every power in them as that limits Pool selection and character diversity. That said, Black Hole could get a really nice usability update if it were converted into something similar to Worm Hole where you pull one group of foes to another location. This has nice synergy with both Tar Patch and Darkest Night and still fits in the theming idea of what a Black Hole sorta does. With that out of the way, though, there are three powers I think could use a minor tweak: Tar Patch, Darkest Night, and Fade. Both Tar Patch and Darkest Night are similarly troublesome at times due to their long activation and animation lockout. There are times where I'd throw a patch down in an area, and during the animation someone pulls the spawn to them and half the group isn't debuffed. One could argue that I should wait to debuff them, I suppose, but it can also happen solo if you get too close to a group and facepull them. Darkest Night is in this same kind of boat where the duration to summon the debuff is so long that the enemy spawn could be defeated and the guy you anchored it to is half-dead by the time it kicks in. In all honesty, this seems like a combination of a slow cast time and too much outgoing damage compounding on each other but the point remains. Plus, as another poster stated, while the change to allow anchors to remain active on defeated foes is very nice and welcome, this can leave the power recharging too slowly overall if you don't cancel it "in time" for the next pull so maybe a second or two of recharge reduction for these types of powers is in order. Now there's Fade. Great power; pretty strong and welcome teambuff for what it gives. I do not like how it constantly flickers, though. I don't have epilepsy or anything, but the way everything affected by it is constantly flickering starts to grate on my eyes after awhile. It's such a good buff that I don't want to avoid using it, but I feel like I'm being physically punished for doing so. Maybe something can be done about this? I admit I haven't played my D3 Controller recently and maybe this was already taken care of, but if not, please please please have a look at adjusting the persistent animation effects.

You have the option to make things more difficult (though really, just slower) already. Why do you want to force that mode of play on everyone else just because you personally enjoy it? Most of this game's playerbase came here for two reasons: first, they could be a superhero. Second, it wasn't a slog that required an inordinate amount of time or personal skill to have fun. Both of these factors run against the notion that things should be harder by default. If you want things to be harder, then turn things up. Don't be surprised if your team gets smaller when you do it, though.