JusticeBowler

I think the names themselves PK pointed out have an effect on the user... at least they do on me. Corrs and Doms especially. I am a little more flexible with the rest, though it depends on the specific pets the MM choses. A stalker is just a spy/ninja/ghost. I'm really surprised by just how dark so many folks on the Blue Side go. Vanilla Red Side has so much more developed and interesting content (not the big stuff, but that's largely shared with both sides anyway), especially if you want to be grey-to-black with red stripes. Why play a hero if you aren't heroic? It's so weird seeing all these folks in CoT costumes and burning red eyes, toting around Demons and generally being menacing in Atlas Park. Obviously they like the Blue Side population and the content... and sometimes I think Red Side just gets depressing visually with how dark everything is (I actually change my gamma when I play Red Side). When I play villains it is almost always RPed in my head that I'm undercover or possessed/cursed (Scirocco). Because being evil just isn't fun for me. But I doubt I'll have more than one character Red Side. It just ain't me.

The first thing I do to every girl toon I make is make her a human being. Even at small chest-max waist it is hardly an "extreme setting" looking in fact almost, but not entirely normal (I usually shorten the legs a bit too). I think the pose is as much a problem as anything. The standard attention pose has the poor girl pulling her shoulders back so tightly that you'd think someone was poking a needle into her back right between the shoulder blades. I'm not expecting "comics" to change (never much thought about that) nor other players... but I like making "normal" guys too and that's also tricky.

I'm convinced DO isn't worth worrying about. But I do like that stacking damage buff from those first blaster powers. I can feel the difference when I sneak the T1 and T2 in as much as I can. I do more damage than without them.

I hear a lot of people talk about gauntlet problems, but I've never experienced them. All my tanks control mobs better than controllers do and I don't even slot for taunt in my powers. I do use the taunt power aggressively as well as my PBAoEs, but I think the thing that does it more than anything else is have a second or two to group the mobs in the first place. If your team doesn't give you a chance to get the mobs attention, you can't hold it. And "shuffling around" can help the mobs tighten up because punch-voke has a small AoE effect on every hit, so if they are closer together you are stacking taunt even on mobs you aren't hitting. Now, that being said, anyone outside the immediate melee range is going to be hard to manage if blasters are throwing stuff around like kids on a nickelodeon channel game show. But that's why you have controllers and defenders to mitigate the crazy that's outside your wheelhouse.

In my game client it isn't available. It's only on Beta. I don't have the option for Mace under scrapper.

Was gonna say this too, generally the t1 is superior for attack chains? That depends on the peculiarities of the set and a host of uncontrollable variables most of the time in game play. An attack chain you use most of the time will shift around when the council shows up and drops your rchg or change again when a kin defender hits you with speed boost. Heck, even how fast you click the buttons or what part of the screen you glance for a second can change things dramatically. Even if there's a place for it in "pylon" configuration that wouldn't always be the case. At any rate, that's a small problem. The big problem is that defense that isn't "on demand in time of need and sufficient to make a difference at that moment" isn't really all that useful at all.

I'm talking about both, but in different contexts. And I looked at Beta Server and it appears they are adding these sets (at least for testing).

When I realized that Controllers got Traps I really regretted rolling my Traps Defender. There's just too many fun ways to make traps work with Controllers that feels more "game play creative" than on a Defender. The only downside is that it is such a late bloomer, but now that you can level up fairly rapidly... .wow. The way exemplaring works. .you should still have Poison Trap even for Positron's TF... I had Field Operative for my blaster... which is also a lvl 20 power.

I enjoy my Sentinel though I'm still working on the shorter range (I often can't figure out why I can't hit someone until I realize I need to get closer)... but on the flipside I haven't once accidently targeted a mob in another group! Here's the problem with Opportunity: 1. OffensiveO is ALWAYS useful. Even in many cases where you might want DefensiveO killing something faster is often the best defense there is. Too bad it is on the crappy power most people try to avoid taking/slotting and using as soon as they can respec out of it. 2. DefensiveO is only useful at random intervals and they are almost always unexpected and critical. 3. When I have met the following conditions: DO is needed.... (I'm badly hurt and at risk) AND DO is available (I've got the light around the power and I haven't accidentally hit the other button)... It has never been enough to save my bacon. Keep a purple and maybe an orange around (like you would on probably every other toon) and you are better off than what DO will do for you. I can't find numbers for either power. I have no idea how OO and DO stack up against defender boss-toggles, but my impression is that they stack up badly. It almost feels like I'm being fooled into thinking something is working when actually there's just a graphic on the ground under the mob, but no actual effect. I still enjoy my Sentinel. Especially in small teams (Duo. Trio) where a tank isn't "needed" but I can let loose with my Fire Blast of Crispy Goodness without dying from the aggro.

I understand that recently there's be a realization that Broadsword can do some crazy things for Stalkers... so I assume Titan and Axe might not be available for them because of some similar mechanics for DPS by controlling crits. But why not Mace? Stone is thematically linked to Stone tankers and their once unique god-like powers (though I don't remember Stone tankers always taking melee to match), but I can't see immediately why it would be broken for scrappers. I'd really like to make a Mace scrapper, but I think I'm stuck making a Brute (and I'm not fond of playing Brutes really) anyone know the history/logic behind this? I know nothing is simple to change, but "turning Mace on" looks straight forward. Titan is "new" so its story might be different from the rest.

I'd go to the Hollows before Faultline... 11 is too low for that content.

Does he... walk like an Egyptian? Sort of... with the Powerslide. But then I get the purple dust everywhere. I'd love to make a mummy and be able to get the zombie walk animation!

Now THAT is even more annoying than the Hero Planner Purple People Eaters. I'm done explaining to people that Ice Blast isn't underpowered. They refuse to be convinced by maths or real play examples. They don't want to be. Time to move on.

VEATs already do that.

I've mentioned to folks (when I've asked for help about a build and they respond by talking about how all the grapes fit in various powers) that I might have one character MAYBE that'll get to enjoy SOME purple slotting some months from now, but that what I need is to know how to build with common IOs and what order to take powers in order to progress nicely and exemplar well... I'm not interested in whether they can build an invulnerable monster with all the same things everyone else uses to build an invulnerable monster with enough money. I want to know if, when I reach level 30 I can Tank +3 in a team doing Manticore's TF. That might make the difference whether I roll an WP or a Fire tank. Yeah, I know both of them can be demigods with Incarnates, but that's not the problem I'm trying to solve. You know who does as good a job as I've seen? Redlynne. But Redlynne can also take weeks to get a build perfected. Very few people are willing to put in the time and understand the underlying mechanics as well as the tactical interplays between sets. They load up Hero Builder grab the shiny powers and start dropping hypothetical purples in various spots until they can figure out how to soft cap defense, get permahasten, and blow something up. I could do that too (and then take a two hundred hours of farming to be able to afford every IO to make it go). The truth is, their builds are boring. They are all the same. They solve all the same problems in all the same ways. And to be honest they are playing a completely different game than I am. I LOVED LOVED LOVED that recent post about a Master of Confusion build. That and Redlynne's NO GET HITSU revisit are in a completely different league than all the other builds I've read since Homecoming began. They are just on another level. /end_sympathetic_rant

I made an Egyptian guy. There's actually some nice costume pieces for it... but guess what.. you have to wear a Scottish Kilt and Roman Feet or Greek Feet... because? Reasons... I guess someone never finished the costume set. I saw a girl do a fabulous Egyptian... you know what made it work? The TALONs skirt. Someone just needs to add that to the guy model for kilts... and the girls also get the "Roman Sandal" which is actually just a sandal that anyone should be able to use.

As soon as I saw the "Spectrum" color/style option I thought... why not just add and Alpha Channel to that? I mean, if you can color your head ... transparent... then you can put whatever do-dads you want on it and looks as weird or wonderful as your ascetic sense can compose. For that matter the rest of the body parts as well. I floating suit of Vanguard armor with no one in it would look very cool.

Just my $0.02 less Federal and State Taxes and Tariffs... I think people are "coming back home" still and probably will be for several more months. They are revisiting their main toons and their favorite content and grinding the high end rewards to grape out their sets. Once people have gotten this stage out of their system we'll see two things, a slow decline of server load and more interest in Red side content. (I think we'll also start to see other COH revival groups generating interesting content and drawing off a few folks too.) Interest is maximally hot right now and nostalgia is setting everything on fire mostly Blue side. But keep in mind, even on the Blue side with 5 Atlas Parks and 3 Talos Islands and 2 PIs... the Hollows will never again see the likes of the Taxibot service. Sure you can get people to go out and do Frostfire, but I've not been able to get a Transcendence Trial going since we've started back and the zone is essentially empty. Perez Park... wow I remember herding the blobs back in the day... usually only as 2 or 3 people in the whole zone. I've sat chatting in Croatoa for 20 mins on the broadcast channel and never gotten a reply. That's just the way things are right now.

I never thought about the advantage of having two shield guys in the same team. Yeah, that's solid DEF in the maths. Usually two of something would be overkill and you'd want to balance with some other secondary, but that's a special case. I'd probably go Brute and Scrapper or even Brute and Stalker given what I read about the crazy output of the Broadsword/Shield Stalker.

It depends on how you define "underperforming". There's a lot of debate on these forums as to what that means on a given set or power within a set or the relationships between what's possible given purple IOs and Incarnate powers. Take for example Ice Blast. It has no snipe. If someone thinks that is under performing, so we add a snipe, then some other blaster might say, hey they get slows and holds and -rchg AND they get a snipe, that's not fair! The gameplay is all relative: "how fast and how safe (and how fun) can I kill stuff" is a calculation with factors in it. Using power X how fast and safe and fun can I kill a boss? If I use power Y how much faster or slower, safer or riskier, more or less fun, is it to kill a boss? If we buff power Y the relationship between X and Y changes. Even though X is unchanged, because we have a choice of which power to change, X is "less fast, less safe, or less fun" because Y has been improved. Gameplay isn't absolute. Our brains are comparative machines. We all have a "gut feeling" how much Rad's -DEF is worth in terms of it's attack doing less straight damage than Fire which has no secondary effect. If we took the absolute best power/powerset/AT/whatever in the game (if such a calculation could be made) and then tried to use some massive Excel spreadsheet and thousands of hours of testing and years of development to try to make sure every other set was as awesome as the best set.... Wait, we've done that. We've got 25 Issues of people trying to keep balance and fairness (and yet still diversity of utility) in the game and what we have is the result of all that. ALL of those changes were controversial to somebody. Resistance to change got so bad that the board moderators banned /jranger for heaven's sake. I'm not opposing more change now, but I am pointing out that all change is relative and viewed by all parties differently. If you buff Brutes defensive sets even a fraction of a hair Tanks are going to point out that you are putting them out of business. If you make Stalkers crit too easily, scrappers are going to complain. That why we end up with weird stuff like buffing Defender damage when they solo, because it really was a problem, but you can't put Blasters out of a job. I don't reflexively oppose change, but even "good/reasonable/arguable" changes have consequences for game balance for everyone else. And it is important to keep that in mind too.

This post made me happy. I don't know how you'll get much XP (confuse does up net xp per minute, but that's assuming a team around you doing damage you get credit for). But it looks fun. I'm wondering if there is another secondary... Rad? that can sub in for envenom... that's really useful pull from the poison set though.

There might actually be a sort of answer to this. After all, once you hit soft caps in +DEF & -TOHIT across damage types or designations then adding more of that isn't really helping. You are probably better with a sonic defender and a bubble defender (assuming they both know what they are doing with their build) than two of either. Once you have all the Recovery you need to fire anything you have at any time more Recovery doesn't help (and most high level players build around sustainable builds anyway, so they don't actually get anything out of these buffs except to compensate perhaps for someone supplying a lot of +RCHG). I have no idea if there is a cap on +RCHG... get a group of 8 KIN defenders together and test it. Because of the way the game mechanics work, (the clamp and the streak breaker) a team of 8 defs for all the amazing power, couldn't tank Lord Recluse. He will hit and it will wipe people out. And even that team, once they hit the defender max of 400% damage there's no more damage to get. How many Sonics are needed for that? At cap, you are better off adding Brutes, Blasters or Scrappers... probably Fire since you'd have all the secondary effects you need already. (Apparently there is a way to get broadsword stalkers to crit in crazy ways, but I don't know if crits allow you to by pass the damage cap.) Once an AV can't Regen, then that's a sort of max as well. Anyway, I suspect that there might actually be a perfectly balance (or several variants of balance) I suspect it is around 5 or 6 Defenders of a variety of types and then 2 or 3 brutes unleashing holy heck in a handbasket locked at max damage.

Svengjuk the Ice Tank votes, "No" on measure Varkarrus1 The overall effect of this would shift the power balance even more strongly against DEF sets in melee.

There is no benefit if people don't want the game to play this way. The Clamp (and the streak breaker) have been around for a very long time without controversy or even much interest. They are what they are. You aren't "improving" anything.

With the Sentinel reduced HP pool I don't see how you can avoid getting that RES in there. We just don't have enough HP to absorb a sudden shock from a big hit getting through.