AlienOne

Hey, I haven't been around for a long while... Lot of big life events have kept me from the scene for several years...How's everyone doing in my fav alien section of the internet? 🙂

Hey, everyone. Just wanted to make a quick video showcasing that I got City of Heroes working on the Steam Deck with a full controller layout and everything. The video cuts off a bit abruptly at the end, because my SD card got full about 2 minutes before I was actually ready to end the video, but I figured I'd share anyway. 'Ya never know who out there might be interested in something like this. Thanks for your time.

So, you're now stating that a volunteer team of people passionate about a game they love can't accomplish something from scratch? Or they can? Because your first post with the diagram suggested "can't be done" and "shut up if you don't know how to code yourself." Are you backtracking on that position? Check out what the all volunteer team of guys who created and released the game Black Mesa recently did in their free time. And yes, before you start in on how "it's not a good comparison," let's see: 1. Volunteers. Check. 2. Not paid for it while working on it and worked on it in their spare time outside of their normal jobs. Check. 3. Worked on improving an older game that had been out for years and years....from scratch. Check. I'm not so sure the people in charge here would like to be thought so little of. Like I said before, we get it. Making suggestions is easy. Doing the work is hard. That doesn't automatically mean that the suggestions shouldn't me made in the first place. And that's precisely what that diagram suggests.

Gotta call BS here. This is simply a diagram to shut down ideas/say something can't happen. Just because something doesn't exist in the game doesn't mean it can't be worked on/added. A diagram like this is something made by someone who is either not innovative or lazy. The best games out there became the best because the programmers actually tried new things instead of saying "oh, it can't be done. That's not how this works" when someone made a suggestion. How do you think Doom: Eternal just blew Doom (an already good game) out of the water? You think just because someone's not a programmer, they can't have a good idea? Would you be one of those Director-types on a movie set that wouldn't take suggestions from actors/camera guys simply because they're not the Director? Sorry if I piss some people off here, but code writers have (in my experience) always been this dense/lazy. Yes. We know. Your job is hard. Now flipping wipe that self-righteous smirk off your face and that Cheeto dust off your fingers and try something new--even if it's hard. Apparently, our particular species was able to land on the moon at one time. Pretty hard to imagine that now with diagrams like that. Oh, and the guy that said "we need to do this by the end of the decade" (JFK) didn't actually know how to land on the moon himself. Not sure if you knew that.

I wouldn't be opposed to this suggestion either.

I absolutely agree with all of this. FANTASTIC suggestions. Toggle suppression is sorely needed--particularly with Kheldians because of their form changing. If you Bi-form or Tri-form, it makes taking any toggle power outside the squid/dwarf forms basically impossible, because you're not going to get use out of it. Pets absolutely need to benefit from Eclipse buffs, and those buffs could drop when the player's eclipse drops as well. There are other ways to get status protection in builds through enhancements or incarnate powers, but putting status protection in the shields would make things a LOT easier (and more attractive to play through) for a lower level Warshade. Right now shields are completely worthless. Status protection would make them worth taking as you level up--you could always respec out of them later. The knock-to idea is very interesting. Several Warshade signature powers benefit greatly from having enemies clustered tightly together (eclipse, stygian circle, sunless mire, etc.), and yet several of their powers have built-in knockback. To me, that's just bad game design. It makes more sense for a Peacebringer because they're more single-target based. So, you could utilize the KB to keep larger clusters of enemies away as you concentrate on a single target. But, with a Warshade, you WANT larger groups of enemies nearby, because it makes you stronger. So, why have ANY KB in a Warshade power? It doesn't make any sense. So, an idea to make powers pull enemies towards you would thematically fit with all their signature powers. And, of course, any damage increase you could give them would just be gravy on all those great suggestions. Thanks for the post, Micro.

Squishor, unfortunately my human form guide is for Warshades, but from what I hear, Peacebringers have gotten a lot more fun to play in the latest iteration of CoH, so maybe I'll do a guide for that at some point in the future! 🙂

Thanks for the input, guys. To Redlynne in particular, thanks for taking the time to type all that out--some REALLY useful information there. I am not familiar (yet) with how everything works in the current version of CoH, so that was a big help to read. Once I get a 50 Warshade going on the servers, I'd like to start experimenting with what you talked about there to create some new builds. Thanks for the inspiration!

Thanks! Keep checking back....the parts that are currently invalid (Builds) will be updated and useful in the future.

Please feel free to point out any mistakes, information that is no longer relevant or not updated, or anything you feel should be added to this guide. I feel this thing has been a "work in progress" for over 10 years at this point, so it's more "fluid" than it is "this is how things should be done." It's only meant to be a help to anyone wanting to really get into the "Warshade lifestyle"....haha! Also, I'm aware I need to update the build links in the build section. I'll work on that when I can this weekend.

Holding this section for Photo of current build/enhancement screens

SUMMARY A human-former is a very adaptable and unique build for City of Heroes. The closest I could compare it to would be a scrapper who "happened" to have a frew "controller-type" powers, and had a major damage buff as well. Although you may not be able to do as much damage as a blaster, your surviveability and ability to stand toe-to-toe with extremely difficult enemies (and continue to put out a continuous stream of attacks) will more than make up for the loss of damage output for not choosing "nova" form. A "Blapper" who might be pretty frustrated with the amount of times his Blaster dies would be extremely satisfied with this playstyle. Also, it is important to realize that, as illustrated in the build section above, there is no *one* way to build a human-form Warshade. There may be an optimized way to build a human-form Warshade for your particular play style, but everyone's play style and end goals for their human-former are going to be different, and therefore there are going to be many different possibilities for how your particular Warshade can be built. One may say, "THIS is the best way to build a Warshade!" but then not take into consideration play style, budgetary constraints, or power preferences. What they really mean is "This is the best way to build a Warshade for me!" That's the beauty of playing a Kheldian. Some might see the sheer number of power choices on a Kheldian as a negative thing, but I see it as a positive thing. To me, more choice offers more flexibility for more playstyles. As a final note, the most important thing to remember while building and playing your human-form Warshade is to be patient! Building (and playing) a human-form Warshade that causes teammates to send you tells after a mission complimenting you on how awesome your Kheld is doesn't happen overnight... ...It takes practice! Have fun! Alien

VIDEOS This section of my guide isn't meant to be a "how-to" on attack chains or "how a human-form Warshade SHOULD be played." It is merely a section I decided to include for entertainment/informational purposes to illustrate what a human-form Warshade was/is capable of, and (hopefully) to provide some inspiration for future human-formers to show off their accomplishments. I will be updating this section as I acquire more links to videos (and as I have time) that fit these specifications. Please feel free to send me a personal message, if you think you have a video that is a good example of what a human-form Warshade is capable of. Here's the first couple of videos I made back when Mission Architect was first implemented and I was starting to really test the limits of what my human-form Warshade could handle (before the difficulty settings, before Incarnate powers, and before level shifting): Video 1: Enemy Hordes (with Vengeance) Video 2: Enemy Hordes (without Vengeance) The following videos are the best examples of the sort of fights a Chaos™ human-form Warshade would trip out over. While a "stable" human-former may thoroughly enjoy a long fight with an AV, a Chaos™ human former would rather fight 100+ enemies at once (They're also a great illustration of how useful Orbiting Death is in large mobs): Video 3: 100+ enemies Video 4: Scrapperlock! The next couple of videos are the very first test I did with +4x8 mobs (no bosses at first, and then with bosses added) when i16 was first released (before level shifting and Incarnate powers): Video 5: No Bosses Video 6: With Bosses PICTURES *WORK IN PROGRESS!!!* *NOTE* A lot of the video links in this section are OLD. I would hope to update these at some point in the future, but they are here more for historical/archival purposes at this point.

MISCELLANEOUS ATTACK CHAINS I get asked about attack chains a lot. "What attack chain is optimal?" "Which attack chain do you use?" "What's the highest DPS attack chain you can have on a Warshade?" Firstly, the main thing you have to keep in mind for a Warshade is several of your attacks are situational. For example, you're not going to use Stygian Circle to heal or recover endurance unless you already have bodies on the ground. It may screw up your timing/rhythm/surviveability if you hit Eclipse when there is only 1 enemy next to you. Sunless Mire is also most effective when there are more enemies around. Unchain Essence requires a dead body and has a high recharge attached to it. Your pets require a dead body, and using any one of the aforementioned powers may interrupt your attack chain flow and timing, and ultimately lowers your DPS. Therefore, you can't really place some of your key signature powers in a specific chain of events without consistently being aware of your situation. This is something else I love about Warshades. There are some ATs in this game that are so surviveable that you can basically run to grab a drink out of the fridge and use the restroom with a group of enemies gathered around your character beating on him/her, and come back and your character won't even have a scratch. That's nearly impossible with a Warshade. You have to constantly be rolling with the punches, considering which power is best to use when, what would be most effective, when you should stun or hold, and what is the best opening attack for a specific enemy type. It is usually best to think of a Warshade's attack chain in two parts: the "Buildup/Explosion" and the "Takedown." "The Buildup/Explosion" There are two specific powers on a Warshade that are most effective when used FIRST. They are Eclipse and Sunless Mire. Both of these powers are more effective with more enemies nearby, and therefore can be used to their maximum capacity if used directly after entering the center of a large mob. I usually hit Eclipse first, because I am first and foremost thinking of my surviveability. If I can't live long enough to pull off any of my next few attacks, there's no sense in running in the middle of the mob to begin with. Therefore, I will use Eclipse first, and then Sunless Mire next. Now, we have (hopefully) a capped resistance percentage in every resistance category, and a fully saturated Mire, which has significantly multiplied our ToHit buff and damage output. We can now start thinking about an attack chain. If you have picked Unchain Essence in your human-form build, this is a power that I also like to use towards the beginning of my attack chain. It creates dead bodies quickly, and subsequently allows me to build momentum in getting the rest of the enemies down in the mob. With that said, this is my usual mindset when approaching a new mob: 1. Target a minion (enemy with the lowest HP) towards the middle of a mob 2. Run in the middle of the mob 3. Eclipse 4. Sunless Mire 5. Use Gravity Well on minion (which is usually an insta-kill) 6. Unchain Essence on the dead body 7. Dark Detonation on the next nearest enemy If you've chosen Provoke, I would use that at this point to call any enemy back to you that might have gotten knocked back in the previous attack chain's sequence, and then use a Stygian Circle (if you need to heal up) and create a pet on one of the dead bodies at your feet. By this point, most mobs in most solo or team situations (unless you're going against +4s which will have a much higher amount of HP) are going to be pretty decimated. Heck, if you're quick enough, you can stay 2 steps ahead of most teams by having nearly every mob down to just a few "stragglers" by the time the team gets to the mob you've currently hit. You should only have the bosses and a few LTs left, and can start an entirely different sort of attack chain--part 2, if you will... "The Takedown" I don't claim to be a math magician for DPS outputs, but I have had discussions with people who were, and they informed me that there is, in fact, a couple of very good single-target high DPS attack chain sequences, which are best for taking down the bosses and LTs that don't go down during your initial "damage explosion," or for those of you who are interested in taking on AVs: 1. Gravity Well>Ebon Eye>Shadow Blast>Ebon Eye (rinse and repeat) or 2. Shadow Blast>Gravity Well>Shadow Blast>Essence Drain (rinse and repeat) *NOTE* This is not meant to be a "be all, end all" way to use your powers as a human-former. It's just a suggestion for how you might best utilize your powers most effectively in *most* situations. COST As you can see from any of the setted human-only builds, it's going to cost you a good chunk of money to set out a human-form Warshade. There's no sense in posting average market costs in a guide, because that not only severely dates it, it's also not an accurate representation of the market. Market prices have soared and plummeted so many times over the years that not even the people who claim to study the market can predict what will come next--similar to the American stock market during the 2000s. What I will say is this: try to get some good advice from the experts on properly playing the market (if you don't already know how) before you try impulse buying everything in one of those sets. Luck of the Gambler +Global Recharges, Numina +Regen +Recovery, and Miracle +Recovery will always be on the expensive side, as well as any Knockback Protection IO, due to their popularity. However, I advise you to try taking it out of your Pine's build and see your endurance recovery percentages drop before you decide outright that you're not going to get them. They're quite useful. Also, as an alternative to paying excessive prices on the market, try a regular diet of Task Forces. You can get exactly what you want via the merit system without paying a "dime" of influence--it's what I do!

INCARNATE POWERS The Incarnate system is something that was introduced in issue 19, and completely revolutionized the end-game experience for many veteran players, and in some ways even made creating builds more interesting and flexible, due to things like endurance reduction, recharge bonuses, and Defense bonuses. I am going to attempt to share my thoughts on Incarnate powers, and what effects they have on the human form Warshade. *NOTE* There are FAR too many powers to name individually, so any time I refer to an Incarnate power, please just assume that I am talking about the Tier 4 (T4) version of that category. I will always refer to the T4 version of whatever power category I am referring to. It’s also important to note that you can pick up EVERY category if you want, and switch them out as situations warrant, so don’t feel restricted to one. ALPHA Cardiac Core Paragon and Radial Paragon Both Core and Radial Paragon can prove to be quite useful to a human-form Warshade, depending on what sort of build you have, and what kind of budgetary constraints have governed said build. Individuals who are able to afford “purpled” builds (builds with 5 or 6-slotted very rare sets) most likely will NOT need the Cardiac Alpha, due to the amount of endurance recovery afforded to them. However, a more casual player who may not be able to afford a higher-end build would greatly benefit from both endurance reduction and some extra resistance. The extra resistance means fewer enemies are needed for Eclipse to cap all your resistance categories. If you are extremely worried about endurance issues, then by all means, take Core Paragon. Otherwise, I feel someone going for this Alpha power is better fitted with Radial Paragon. Not only do you still get a good endurance discount and the same resistance percentage, but you also get some enhancements to fear effects, if you happen to have picked the Presence power pool (or have the power Fear Incarnate). Either Cardiac works well, however. Musculature Core Paragon and Radial Paragon Obviously, this power can be a great benefit to a human-former, and I don’t really need to go into the “whys.” Extra damage is extra damage, and if you’re into building as much damage into your build as possible, this is the Alpha for you. Chaos™ human-formers can greatly benefit from this power. Nerve Core Paragon and Radial Paragon This Alpha can be extremely important for the Order™ Warshade builds… Either T4 buffs your Defense by 20%, and this can make a huge difference with how you decide to slot your human-former for the 32.5% mark or for softcapping a specific category. For a Chaos™ human-former, this power isn’t a priority. Spiritual Core Paragon and Radial Paragon This is a very beneficial Alpha power for human-form Warshade builds. Not only does it enhance recharge rates, it can also enhance stun effects, slow effects, and ToHit Buffs—all of which a Warshade depends on. People wanting to focus more on recharge need to pick up Core Paragon, and people who want to enhance their slows and ToHit effects will pick up Radial Paragon. DESTINY Ageless Core Epiphany and Radial Epiphany Ageless Core Epiphany would be most useful for the human-formers who are IO/SO purists and are following my “IO/SO-only” guides, due to the benefits to endurance values as well as recharge rates. Otherwise, any other human-formers will most likely skip over this power. Also, I believe the Core is better than the Radial, unless you’re worried about getting debuffed, and if you’re worried about that, you’re most likely an Order™ human-former—and if you are, then you’d still probably be better off with Barrier or Clarion. Barrier Core Epiphany and Radial Epiphany Order™ human-formers will benefit greatly from the extra defense these powers give. This is also a great teaming power for Task Forces. The resistance values should be moot with Eclipse running, but if you’re AV soloing, this might come in handy. Clarion Core Epiphany and Radial Epiphany This is quite possibly (in my opinion) the most beneficial Destiny power for human-form Warshades. Mez protection is something I begged the developers to give us for YEARS. Now we have it, and I couldn't be happier. The Core T4 is obviously the better choice because it means you will have mez protection of some sort at all times. I highly advise getting this power and having it on standby for those especially pesky mob groups that spell “perma-hold” for a human-former (i.e., Malta, Knives of Artemis, Circle of Thorns, etc.) Rebirth Core Epiphany and Radial Epiphany This power may or may not be useful for Order™ human-formers, depending on the AV soloing situation and the build they are using, but for the most part, this is probably not a power you’re going to be picking as a Warshade, due to the amazingness that is Stygian Circle. INTERFACE Diamagnetic Core Flawless Interface and Radial Flawless Interface This can be a very useful power to keep in your arsenal for soloing AVs, due to the ToHit and regen debuffs. However, it’s not an absolutely important choice, and one that I’d like to see tested. Gravitic Core Flawless Interface and Radial Flawless Interface I can also see another possible use here for soloing specific AVs, but would need to see an example of it to encourage using it above all others in specific situations. Paralytic Core Flawless Interface and Radial Flawless Interface This one can be incredibly useful for AVs who dish out devastating attacks or have high defense. Would like to see an example of this in action as well. Reactive Core Flawless Interface and Radial Flawless Interface This one is the most recommended from both myself and several other members of the Kheldian community, due to the amount of extra damage it can add to your attacks, as well as the chance to have a damage resistance debuff added to your attacks. Depending on your priority (damage or debuffs), both of these T4 powers come highly recommended. LORE All powers in this category are not an absolute necessity for any human-former in order to function. They are just nice to have, and thusly all power recommendations here would be highly subjective. I’ll just mention that Cimerorans have very good single-target damage, and Warworks have –regen attacks, both of which could be very useful for AV soloing—assuming “not using pets” isn’t part of your challenge. JUDGEMENT Also another situation where recommending one power over another isn’t going to give you an advantage or a disadvantage, so any points I make here would be moot. Pick whatever fits you best here, or whatever fits your theme if you want. Something to point out is Void has a great debuff, Ion hits up to 40 targets, and Pyronic does the most damage (though not by much). HYBRID Will fill out this section soon! *WORK IN PROGRESS!!!*