Golden Azrael

So, you want to be a TANK. But which one? I could tell you. But I don't know 'you.' The following list has been 'shamelessly' cropped from 'you know who's' thread. Tanker Armor Rankings IMO (Not 'my' opinion, but taken with regards, to that other authorative 'Tank Build' thread.) 1. Invulnerability 1.* Stone Armor (QoL reasons) 2. Shield Defense 3. Dark Armor 4. Willpower 5. Ice Armor 6. Super Reflexes 7. Radiation Armor 8. Electric Armor 9. Fiery Aura. This top ten. I'd aggree with or disagree with depending on which tank I was playing. They could all be Number 1. Having played all of them, I'll give you my cursory overview. 1. Stone Amour. Old School Granite hard tank. Even in Non-Granite form! I rolled Stone/Stone. It's secret? Being well endowed with defence in the 3 'most' damage types. S*L. Energy. Psi. You like the sound of that? I do. Arachnos don't. You get Dull Pain. A damage tick. A slow. With Stone melee you get two AoE attacks that deal damage. ...and knockdown. Which means you can keep the mobs on their Az'. This is an old school tanker's dream. And since the Stone Armour 'patch' you can now run 'non-Granite' with ease without walking through treacle. Well 'ard. 'Pass us a neural grenade, 'arry. This one looks like a bit of an 'ard case.' Strengths. Old School Tank. The holy trinity of damage is covered with Defence capped(!) S*L, Energy and Psi. Weakness. S*L Resist. 2. Invulerability. A great beginner's tank. Pair this with anything. Though Super Strength and Energy Melee would be my picks! A good 'beginners' tank due to Dull Pain MOAR and bigger heal tick button, Invincibility giving you plus to hit and defence per mob bonus. You can easily reach the S&L cap and exceed it. An old school, classic tank which does exactly what it says on the tin. If you don't like Rage Crash, you don't HAVE to take Rage. Later on, fit IO procs to boost SS's mediocre (waiting on a HC update) non-Rage damage. With Handclap (under-rated) you can fit knockdown and a dam proc and a force feedback to make this power an interesting proposition AND pair it with Super Stomp for a double Buashakka. If you really want an outstanding 'Lights OUT' single target tank. Invul' Energy is eye wateringly 'Good Night Vienna.' All those stubborn to kill Warwolves and Vamps? Hit them with ET, Total Focus and it's KO time. The AoE and Cone also thin the mob(s) with buttery smoothness. Relentless tanking here. You want to hit like a truck? Invul/Energy is the Mother Trucker! Should be the answer to all those 'This is my 1st time as Tanker' posts which wonder what they should roll 1st. Strengths. Scaling Defence and To Hit Toggle called 'Invinciblilty.' You surround yourself with mobs. You get harder to hit. They are easier to hit! Weakness. Psi hole. Can you fill it? 3. Shield Defence. The Advanced Tank with Lightning Fast MOB decimation. This is an advanced tank. Not one I'd suggest for a beginning. There's no heal. No end recovery. There's lots(!) of toggles. BUT. The 1st two armour give you in a few levels what Reflexes will take much longer to give you. It isn't that long before you have enough AOE, Range AND Melee defence to breeze through the 1st twenty levels. Then you get the Damage bonus toggles. Resistance to debuff 'Click.' And then the crowning glory. Shield Charge. Then? It's a world of hurt for mobs IF you pick the right primary to go with it. So. What attacks would you go with Azrael (seeing as you're shooting yer mouth off about tanks?) Elec Melee on a Tank. You get Lightning Rod which stacks with Shield Charge to leave a mob reeling. And then you have Thunderstrike. Put a ForceFeedback in that...? Mobs spend alot of time on their backside with mine. You could also try Martial Arts if you want better single target KER-POW! And one trick with this, is to pad the build out with...Fighting Pool's Cross Strike and Superjump's Teleport Spring Attack. Add that to Shield Charge, Dragon's Tail, that's four AoE. Plus if you get Mighty from Incarnate Judgement? Mobs spend ALOT of time on the ground. What's left? Has a slither of health and gets KERRRRRR-POWED!!!! Another recent choice to come to my attention is Dark Melee. Think about it. All that -to hit with Shield's Defence? You da Guv'nor. Strengths. 1st two Tier Armour powers give you Melee, Range and AoE! Only Reflexes can beat that! Shield CHARGE(!) = Mob DeVaStAtIoN. Weakness. Toggles. MoAR Toggles. The end drain adds up. No Heal. No stamina return. Resistant numbers are weak. So-so Tier 9. 4 Dark Armour. Mulberry Rules. This is the Thinking Tank. This is the thinking person's Tank Armour set. It's biggest problem is end. One the penny drops to put in 'Theft of Essence' unique that works off Dark Regeneration's heal? You're golden. That and putting double end reduction SOs in all powers over ten and at least one in all Dark Melee attacks below ten. As for toggles. At least one SO end red! I put damage procs in taunt, dark regen... Naturally, I wanted to team this Armour set up with? Dark Melee. -To hit. Damage in BUILD UP and Consumption and before long, you're stacking armour procs with attack procs. Sands of Mu rains floating numbers on a mob. IF there is one tank that shines much brighter because of the 'radiating' chances to AOEs for tanks? It seems to be Dark Armour and Dark Melee for me. Mobs like Arty take rumble in the jungle style beating with this tank as numbers spike, proc, float and stack with an intriguing malaise of doom. When you've taken your training Tank wheels off with Invul/SS? And the 'other' tanks? This is absorbing and rewarding. Strengths. Unusual damage mitigation. (eg. Confuse toggle.) Damage DoT tick. Dark Regen'. -To hit from complementary Melee set. Weakness. Endurance nightmare. End heavy set. Toggle heavy. Dark Regen' sucks end. But you can fix all of that... 5. Willpower. The Heals a lot...but with caveats. This? Can laugh mobs. (But not Malta Sappers?) Due to the insane amount of heal and regen? It's high rated and I can see why. But I only think it's really good when it gets a build. To take it to the 'next level.' You'll probably want to take Tough on this to absorb the alpha somewhat. I paired mine with Stone Melee to re-forge the one I rolled on live. At Level 50 and with incarnates? Very robust. It's a passive tank. No tik of damage. But WP is popular. I stripped my build for parts. The only tank I chose to do so. But I'll just fill it with SOs. And it can be enjoyed like so. In my heart of hearts. I prefer the more 'regeneeeeee' tanks with buttons that decide with your brain power...WHEN you need to shield absorbs/armour attacks to match the threat or peak battle time you're experiencing. That's why I like Regen on my Scrapper. I get to choose. On my WP tank, on the way up, I could come a cropper 'waiting' for WP to kick in. When you're built out for WP and defence capped with high resists? This is less of an issue as WP weaves it's web of heal. Strengths. Insane healing. You need to be surrounded by mobs. Weakness. It's passive. Toggle heavy. Do you need Tough to survive the alpha to get your healing to kick in? 6. Ice Amour. Classic tank that does things differently. Pure Class. Beginner or Advanced. The play rewards. So satisfying. If I was doing my desert island disks Tank? This is the one Tank I'd probably want to take with me. You get Dull Pain. Defence stacking. Damage Tik. End return. You can't kill me Alpha Strike God Absorb Power. It's called 'Hibernate.' The only downside is a lack of resist. So, you'll have to take Tough. And prob' build in some Resistance with a build out. Not a lot of damage though? NOT so fast, Luthor! We Ice tankers are in the whole sale damage game. We're all about 'teh' tick over time, the DoT and the AoE. You can choose Musculature incarnate pick. Interface tick pick. And? ASSAULT RIGHT SIDE TIER 4 for double hit procs. And you realise Ice had that Homecoming Dev' brew powers pass, right? All of a sudden, 'Where did the mobs go to?' They 'melted' away.... Absorbing. (I almost said Engorging. I guess I really like Ice Tank...) Sure the single targets are a bit 'meh.' Ice Sword. Is 'ok.# I like the Ice Fists. I don't like Greater Ice Sword ('Great' it is not.) But for that classic 'we do thinks differently' around here, classy, quintessential 'old school' Tank feel? This is the one (well, along with Stone Armour.) In case it wasn't clear. Yeah. I took Ice Melee with this. And did I mention you can make the ice mat perma to keep mobs just falling over all the time? There are differing forms of mitigation, right? And ice has boat loads of them. rg. Slow. (Slow is one of the greatest debuffs in the CoH game.) Pull mobs to corner. Bunches up. Ice Mat. Though you could pair Ice Armour with any melee and get good mileage. If you held me at gun point? I'd say this was my favourite tank. One thing you have to watch on Ice (and Fire armour) Tanks is the debuff of your regen'. With high octane Arachnos settings? They'll debuff your regen drive chain to crawl. Then you'll probably need your 'Mercy ME!' Ice Cube God Absorb Power. (Hibernate.) Top Tip? Fit this with SLOW DEBUFF RESISTANCE!!! Strengths. Defence. Stamina. Heal. Damage Tick. God Absorb (Hibernate.) Slow debuff. Ice Melee gives you immutable Ice Mat. Weakness. Resist for S*L needs attention through the IO build out. It's a Regen set. A weakness to being 'slow' debuffed. 7. Super Reflexes. Capped by L20s. Nuff said? So you can get Melee, AoE and Range capped by your 20s? Insane? Right? (*Hands you the pen and paper to sign up straight away.) But there's no passive tick of damage. No heal. (You do get a very good resist power which kicks in around...) No stamina return. *UNLESS you count the tier 9 'God' power which takes forever to recharge and tries to get you killed when it blows out. But it was the one armour set (along with Ice) that I didn't get to do before Live CoH got canned. Pair it with Street Justice for some AoE combo stacking. And it's a nasty street fighter tank. You like dat? You wanna be Bat Man? Bat-Girl (who doesn't want to be Bat Girl...?) Reflexes will allow you to just focus on being untouchable whilst you deliver 'The Smackdown.' Strengths. Defence capped for all positions. Resistance that kicks in as you lose health. A pocket hasten! Weakness. It's a passive set. No damage tick. No heal. No stamina return. No buttons to press outside of 'punitive' Tier 9 which can get you killed... 8. Radiation Armour. Regen style set. Absorbs. Insane Tier 9 res plus Damage. You gotta try this. I recently did Radiation Armour on a Tank follow my test on a Brute. (Wash your mouth out, Azrael, we don't do 'Brute' talk on dis 'ere Tank Forum....) Absorb. Heal. Boat loads of end recovery. Probably the best Tier 9 outside of Ice Armour. With it's uber resistance and insane damage boost. What are you waiting for? Roll one now. Pair it with ANY Melee attacks. (Fire reoommended.) You'll turn Mobs to butter. You have a damage Tick. You get MOAR heal. MOAR STAMINA. Haven't you rolled it yet? I paired mine with Broad Sword. Substantial Def' to stack with Radiation's resistance... Try it. I did. Slash and burn. or BURN and Slash. Radiation armour. The future. Strengths. Heal. Stamina. Absorb. Damage Tick. Godly Tier 9 which boosts Resistance and Damage! Weakness. It's an active armour set. You have to keep an eye on that absorb and heal button. 9. Elec Armour. Psi. Elec Emperor. Pocket Regen. Sign me up. Why is it no.8. I don't know. I didn't pick this particular order of tanks. Someone else did. *Points finger to the other thread. But Elec' Armour is good. Very good. It has Psi. It has Elec. Sappers? Who dey? You look at them before you deliver 'The Gift!' Psi? That ticks, Arachnos. So, what did you pair it with? War Mace. AMEN. This is like a pocket rocket Regen set. With a single button. Plus you 'Power Sink' which can drain the life out of mobs to the point that their arms get really heavy and they stand and stare at you. Then? It's your turn. With War Mace. Crowd Control. Shatter. Wince. That's going to hurt in the morning son. Probably my 2nd favourite tank!!!!!!!! DIE COUNCIL MOBS, DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! (*Brian Blessed Voice.) Strengths. Heal button is a pocket Regen Tank. Elec sap immunity. Robust Psi Resist. Lightning Reflexes Pocket Hasten. Power Sink to leave mobs with their end around their ankles. Weakness. S*L resist numbers are mediocre. 10. Fiery Armour. Burn, BURN everything 'regen' set. Another regen style armour (along with ice, fire, rad, bio...) It burns. Everything. Things melt. No knockback protection. You take Acrobatics or fit a SteadFast UNIQUE IO. What did I pair it with? Fire, ofc. I'd done Fire/SS Tank. Which is sound when you proc SS for damage. But the Fire Melee AoE? IS hard to resist as it stacks with your Fire Armour. It's relentlessly burny. Burn mat. Burn tick. AoE. AoE. AoE. DoT. DoT. DoT. Go away and roll one. It does what it says on the tin. Caveat. If a mob kills your regen drive chain? You're dead. I've had Carnie mobs just throw me out the mission and all the way over to the HP. Humiliating. Answer. Slow Resistance. Try Ageless Radial Tier 4. DON'T leave home without it...or the Arachnos will make sure you never go home. Again. Ever. Strength. You can burn everything. AoEs. DoTs. Weakness. No Knock Down protection. Regen' style drive chain leaves you vulnerable to Slow Debuffs. And eventual death. 10. Bio. Compelling. Regen. Again. Why is Bio at number 10? It's not. You're seeing things. This has absorbs. End. Heal. Insane Tier 9 (you have to try it for yourself. I won't explain it. It's that good.) Aborbs. Tick of Damage. Thoroughly modern Armour set for Tanks. It's the future. (Along with Radiation, ofc. Which it is kind of similar to in design.) I paired BIO with? SPINES! Spine Burst is great AoE decimation. Spines is a very compelling melee set. Addictive. ROLL THIS. NOW! Suck it and see. Watch for the Qills, though. (Which stacks with Bio's tick.) Strengths. Toggle your armour to have MOAR Res', Stamina or Damage. Heal. Stamina. Absorbs. A fantastic Tier 9. You liked Rad? You'll love this. Weakness. Active tank. Have to keep an eye on those Absorbs. When that's gone...you don't have that many Hit Points. Conclusion. Tanks. Better since the Tank patch. They now are truly gods. The radial impact off their AOE attacks? Game changing. But they now pack a substantial damage punch along that radiating power. Ergo. You are robust dealers of wholesale damage over time. Because you're a 'god' you're also very safe. So much so, even Farmers have taken notice. The synergy of their attacks and armour are thus Re-Forged anew. I rolled ten tanks in a row. (Not sure that's healthy...) Top Tank TIP! You would do well to put RESIST to SLOWS in your build. eg. Winter's Gift (20%) to start with. Avalanche. And the other 'cold' style expensive sets. AND. Ageless Radial T4. All this adds up. Then, you can go into a +4x8 Arachnos mob mission and....it's going down. Top Tank TIP no.2! You do damage WHOLESALE! ie. Over time. AND? WIDE. You can self farm! -1x4 or -1x8 in the Hollows. Pop the odd luck. And the Trolls won't know who hit them. By the time you hit your 20s, 30s, 40s, that -1 will turn into +0, +1, +2... So, what flavour of Tank ARE YOU? My advice? Roll all of these. And start taking them to L10. One of these you will(!) take to L50. Azrael.

Shield, apart from Shield Charge. Too passive. Invul'. Too passive. No tick of dam in either of those. Energy. Though improved, is not AOE focused. Reflexes. Nice for defence. But very passive. If it's AoE you want. It's Rad/Fire. You get to press the buttons. 2 damage ticks. AoE attack bounty with Fire. AoE Armour bounty. Def' will turn them to butter. Fire will melt the butter. As an alt to Fire, you could try the AoE leaning Spines. (Also could go Fire/Spines. Plenty of tick damage, AoE burst damage, AOE over time damage...Burn which also melts mobs...etc.) The Rad/Fire or Fire/Spines tanks allow you to level quickly and earn a boat load of influence and absolutely rake it in at L50. These also 'alt' as farming tanks (for these tanks, ANY mission can be a farm.) This means you can print money as you play these L50s and fund all future builds with relative ease. Damaging but 'safe.' In the Hollows with Fire? I was doing -1x8 and with the odd luck inspire I was giving the 'Master' Class to the Trolls. Breezed through Steel 'Outcasts' Canyon and gave the 'bird' to Warriors in Talos. 'You want fries with dat?' Azrael.

Amen. Azrael.

I like the maxed out Psi Res. Cool mix of power sets with Savage and Dark Armour. It should hold your interest, no problem. Azrael.

The good news, since the 'Tank patch', Brutes and Tanks are more 'their OWN thing. If you want that balance of survive and damage, a Tank will serve you well. Just using SOs, a levelling Tank is mucho fun for me. Roll ten tanks. Play them all to L10. You'll soon learn what you like and don't like. And then go with the 'winner' of your taste buds. I rolled ten tanks and got them all to L50 because I became Tank obsessed. They've all got their own character. Some are passive, some are active. Sounds like you might like the latter. Azrael.

That's the thing with some power sets in CoH. Some (especially on tanks) can be very passive. Bio/Spines, for example, you're really 'in the mix' and have to pay attention to get the best out of bio' and spines. Which I like. Azrael.

Rad is a very nice armour set. It's up there with Bio, Dark, Invul and Stone. You'll get passive 'tik' damage. Always good. Rad as your 2ndary will give another tick as well. It has some bone crunching melee attacks and some decent AoE 'smash' with Atom. You could have fire with that with some AoE melting. (I did a fire/fire tank.) Mace is sound and brutal mix of strong single attacks and AoE 'crowd control.' I'd go Rad as your Armour. If you're not sure which Attack set. Just roll 3-4 different versions of your rad' armour alt and run it to L10 (with double xp on...) and you'll soon see which you like best. Mind made up. The priority is to get to L50 and start making 'coin' (influence.) As playing a L50 will bring in money. Lots of it. After a week or two of play you could have 100-200 million. Max out your build and save money to go towards your next build. How to get to L50. Double your xp. Team up on starter level up teams. Task Forces. Tip mission groups. Casual Pick and and Play teams. L50 P.Island teams often will include 'lowbies' to give you a leg up. Join a L50 farm. Being a tank, you can 'self farm' at even lower levels if you take a 'damage wholesale' approach. Eg. -1x4, -1x8 with chomping the odd 'luck inspire.' Azrael.

A billion is always nice. 🙂 Good initial post. Thought provoking. I think when the next patch drops (and it should drop like a truck) it will bring players back and the market will go into over drive again. We've got a 'growing base' of players who've probably reached a plateau of knowledge to do 'enough' to get what they want done. Azrael.

2nded. And is it 'just me' or do the mobs now 'bounce off walls' when you clobber them/blast them against the walls? I never noticed them bouncing off the walls before. Azrael.

Ah, Hello No.6. A very intriguing dev' diary. A friend introduced me to Sonic Manipulation. The 1st thing he sent me? A screen shot of the sonic 'fist' (which works similar to Power Thrust from Energy Manipulation...) sending a mob flying in the tutorial zone. He said, 'Have you seen this? Yes, he's zooming along the floor...' The amount of Council Vampires that I've 'bowled' using that power... That sold me on Sonic Manipulation. L50. 1 billion in influence. Tier 3 incarnates. All in short order. That one power sold me on Sonic Manipulation. I'm a big fan of knockback/down/across/up. It's iconic. It's superhero iconic. I'm glad HC devs get that. I take it Sonic Manipulation Tier 1 Sonic 'Thrust' uses this new vector mechanic? Regards, Azrael.

SOme good ideas. You move so fast in Elude Bullet Time that you effectively debuff enemies. I like it. Azrael.

I've come to be far more understanding of this issue as it came to affect me. (Human nature.) I was certainly one of the 1st to mention Sonic disruption arrow giving me nausea (the revamp to trick arrow was pending and I gave my feedback.) I drew the comparisons to sonic on live (even though it didn't affect me at the time.) I didn't take the sonic dis' arrow when I was duoing on HC. My Duo partner didn't think it was 'that bad.' I told them I couldn't team with that power selection (we were going for a dual concept at the time.) In the end they didn't use that power. I just didn't take it. And I stopped doing Longbow missions that featured it. It didn't affect them. It did affect me. In the end, they compromised. There's no point having an unhappy player. If someone suffers from particles, farming too long, motion sickness from playing CoH too long or Hurricane. I take them at their word. I'm glad the developers are laser focused on inclusivity and responded well to user feedback. And there are options in game, I hadn't thought of, to minimise my own malaise and applying some common sense to my CoH habits. I think the last I saw of the Sonic Arrow, it's a veryyyyyy slow pulse outward. (I'da been happier if it was just a static set of circles but it was much improved from the pulsing effect of yore. It's not the only power that had pulses. Some of the self buff powers for blasters have them eg. Stone blaster, Elec Blaster. Something about those fast pulse outwards rubs me the wrong way. I wish I could just turn them off. I've tried with the colours to make the effect less bright. I'll try with the particle count next or turn the graphics down to a very basic setting to maybe they don't show at all. Azrael.

After a while, the 'auto-turning' of the camera starts making me feel queasy. Is there a way of turning the auto camera turning off? And some of the motions and particle fx up close are too much even after a short while. It must be why I tend to pull my camera view out at distance somewhat. (I used to play 'over the shoulder.') I've found I can't farm as intensely as I used to. And the culprit seems to be lots of fire farm particles, flashing lights etc. So I guess the 1st step is to take more breaks from play, limit my sessions and take the particle slider right down. Azrael.

I think the Radio Missions and the Tips missions were some of the more impressive innovations from Live. Maybe a new innovation would be 'street sweeping' missions. 'Take down a Lead Fire Outcast in Steel.' As simple as that. Or take down '5' Lead Outcast Bosses in Steel etc. 'Take down a gang of Clock Works' on the roof tops. etc. It would be quite easy for the fan base to suggest ideas as the narrative and task are quite simplistic. The AE can be used to submit broad ideas. It would add another layer of pick up and play which is one of CoH's primary strengths. You could even have Street Sweeping badges (are there any?) Street Sweeper King! Street Sweeper 'Word on the Street.' Street Sweeper Beat Down (100 mobs street sweeped.) etc. In addition. I think finding a way to integrate the AE content of the community into the actual game would be the easiest way to add content to the (largely empty zones) game. Even if the ideas (for mobs, villains, heros, arcs, mission ideas, street sweeping ideas...etc.) there serve as a basis for the devs to tool with their more specialised equipment. Azrael.

A sound build, there. Shield and Dark Melee. There's a thought. Azrael.

Stone/Stone Tanker I like. Left him alone on a fire farm. Not a scratch. It's pretty immutable. Azrael.

Cheers, Luminara. Azrael.

I think bright colours are worse than dark ones. I think decreasing 'bright' and 'particle' numbers could help. I've done that to a few powers. I guess it's like migraine sufferers complaining about bright colours and lights setting off their symptoms? Just because it doesn't affect me (hurricane doesn't...) doesn't mean it doesn't affect some people. As I found out with sonic arrow -res. Azrael.

What's the option for supress fx when close? (I'll have to have a look around...) On your 2nd point. They already did for Sonic -res arrow (as the live devs did for Sonic Blast/Defender Sonic on live.) I do agree with your point last paragraph. My sympathies with your wife. I think your suggestions are helpful. I'll take note of some of those for myself. I think some of the symptoms I'm currently suffering is because of long duration play. And I think the problem is. Each time you go back...it doesn't take long for these symptoms to re-emerge. One thing I have called for is shorter mission content/arcs and more tips. Maybe this will help with shorter duration of play. Azrael.

Yes. Sonic. Being the notable offender on Live. I was somewhat dismissive. 'What's the big deal? If can't be that bad...surely it can't affect people...' Until it happened to me. Sonic pulsing circles on the -Res Arrow. Made me feel ill. My duo partner at the time couldn't wrap his head around the fact that it affected me (though it didn't him...) We were both playing the Def' Trick archers. And this power set was up for a power pass. And I made my suggestions crystal clear on the forum and why. And ironically, it's a power that is linked to the original Sonic stuff that caused nausea on live. There are a few different pulsing hypno effects like this in the game. Noticeable. Toggles/auras for blaster self buff on Stone. And blaster elec! Also the drain aura 'skirt' on Elec Dominator. (I tried to put it on the darkest colour to notice it less...) When you can see it, you can't unsee it. You know that feeling just before a storm when it feels like your head is heavy or someone's gripping your brain? Extended playing of CoH can cause people to say they have head aches etc and needing to go lie down. I remember one of the original developers of Bungie (who created the FPS shooter Marathon on the Mac...) suffered from motion sickeness. ('Never happen to me.' I said at the time.) In the triple edition boxed set, there's a background story booklet with one of the developers with a metal sick bucket laying on a bed or something. Looked really ill. Too much play testing for him. Azrael.

For me, Street Sweeping is an alternate to doing verbose story arcs. (TFs, and the Story arcs can very long winded...for those that are time constrained. I generally find you could cut half those arcs in half and never notice, story wise.) The mission equivalent of 'Street Sweeping' is tips. So, I wonder. Could there be street sweeping tips? Take out the 'Lead Stone' in Steel for 'x' xp. Beat the tar out of Trolls in the Hollows. (One of the things I like about the earlier mission arcs. THEY'RE SHORT and SWEET! And they are the ones I have the fondest memories of.) Wincott. Flux. etc. That would be cool. Save a citizen from a Tsoo mob in Steel. Actual in the open city missions for each zone. Like the location tips. Short, sweet and simple. I'd also expand on the mission tips. Using AE dev' choice to fill the tip cookie jar. I've rinsed the P.Isle tips to death. There are a lot of community talents out there...who have done decent AE content. I wonder if we can't use that as a platform to put more content in the game. NOW that the game is by the community FOR the community? Need more 'bite size' content. MOAR! Azrael.

AE will advance (at some point) at HC's dev' behest. One such idea, I recall, on the road map for Paragon Chat, was for the user to have their own RP zone map. You'd be the GM and you could invite players to your zone and presumably(?) do missions on your zone where you see fit. Interesting idea. So instead of AE just being a mission, it would allow zone maps for missions to take place on. A kind of alternate reality or pocket universe to the 'real' City. But, I'd like to see the best of Developer's Choice AE come into the game! eg. Let the AE 'Dev' Choice' fit into my below suggestion. My 1st idea would be to pad out the tips missions, particularly the end game tips around P.Isle. The tips missions could do with far more variety of 'pick up and play' content. AE users can even 'paint out' mission/story ideas for the dev's to expand on/nail down with their more advanced mission tools. I generally find the TFs too long. The Strikeforces are a step in the right direction. I'd create 'Tip' arcs with a beginning, middle and end. I'm sure many CoH players are time constrained so whilst the weighty Raids and TFs and Incarnate Arcs are suitably long. It might be nice to expand the single mission tips and create mini-arcs of beginning, middle and end (3 missions and no more...) to those that haven't got hours and hours of play at night or the weekend. Azrael.

New mission and costume creation stuff they've been working on? Intrigue. I had a soft spot for Galaxy and Statesman. Narratively two pointless acts of destruction. ('BOOOOO to Wade.') Lay waste to your 'other' starter zone and then kill your main IP. They brought Superman back to life... Azrael.

Good point on the rock into mob idea. Have it 'ker-POW' like a mini-meteor power. You lob a rock like that into a group and you'd expect some knockback and splash damage? In addition. I'd like to see Handclap promoted to moderate damage. Azrael.

I think tuning certain missions to certain AT strengths would be challenging but give purpose to having certain ATs. There is a bit of 'I don't need anyone else' to the incarnate system. Good and bad thing. I understand the argument that CoH was shut down before the Incarnate system was finished. I wish they'd just used the Epic system and extended that. (I don't like the interface or the design of the incarnate system, full stop.) As for end game content. Yes. 'MoAR' as always. More strike forces, TFs (Shorter ones, hopefully) but, especially TIPS. For the new 'pick up' and play casual player base. But I've rinsed the tips missions to death. They could certainly do with some love. (I'm fed up of Carnie and Dev' Earth tips...) But I do like some of the other Nem' Tips. Don't get me started on the Arachnos tips. (Not a big fan of Arachnos. Think the devs went overboard including them everywhere when there were loads of other good mobs sets that could have been expanded) I'd just take the developer picks from the AE and use the best community content as tips. There'd be loads to choose from that way and 'COULD' add much diversity to mission content.) Another massive missed opportunity was the PB/WS arcs for those EPic ATs. It would be a big task. But it would be nice to have AT specific 1-50 arcs for all ATs. With some content that plays to a given ATs strengths. Anyone want to take that on? Azrael.