Llewellyn Blackwell

slotting Drain psyche like that makes ita power not even worth having. Build it to fast recharge and heal big and you will have a regen rate off of a large group to rival regeneration scrappers in high lvl play. WoC is def worth building as a confusion power if your going to be in melee range most of the time. Anything can pair with mental really its just about going close quarters rather then fearing the mobs. I tend to make psy shockwave a CC attack rather then build it for dmg. Cant say Ive been impressed by the patron pools on blasters really ever. On sentinels and scrappers I find them damn good though.

Base building? That is what my Devoted Servant Smith is for and why he is my right hand man in the club. Too long playing the game? Well only because flesh is weak and my old eyes dont endure the screen time as much these days. Forum time? Pff have to do something during my insomniac hours when the game pop is so quiet that its just mainly a solo game. I totally concur about civ 4, back in the day when Id play it Id have days Id be like Ill do an hour then get on with my day, next thing I know its bloody midnight.

Open with a nuke, very hard for even the best tankers to pull aggro off a blasters nuke. Then anything left living you unload your single target rotation which should hit even harder and only maybe a stalker can hit hard enough to steal your aggro typically. Granted a blasters main job is mass minion murder I leave the bosses to the stalkers and scrappers when in fast murder mode. move fast hit hard, and dont look back, if the team is keeping up good, if not even better as it means you are the team and they are the cheer leaders;)

So last night on everlasting I was on a PI radio team and there was this brute snarky on the team, who face planted more then my dark/bio scrapper, or the battle axe/shield scrapper leading the party, This wasnt one of your near perfect brutes was it? I was Llewellyn Blackwell. BTW if you ever want an ingame mentor for advice look me up;).

while the win the day thing was something i was unaware of and cant say i put much stock in it, as its often purely comical, or derogatory posts that tend to get the most reactions, I do tend to notice a trend were those who end up on my ignore list also often seem to have a pretty low positive rep to post ratio. I like to think my rep is what someone who tries to offer both advice, and banter while trying to mostly remain civil should be around with roughly a 50% positive rating compared to my post count. I dont expect everything i say to be liked nor agreed with but am pleasantly surprised when some of the things I do say get a few thanks and likes by posters who I tend to see as among the more socially inclined and civil sorts on among our forum community here. I do notice though that it seems like the posts I post more under the influence of my Berk persona I RP in game seem to get more likes and more animosity then those that are purely just this gamer at his keyboard. Guess I am just not as interesting in RL:(.

If your toon can support others even to a minor degree, then yes that means they are a hybrid able to provide more then one role. Defenders by design are just that, support and dps. Hence why we can get solo GM slaying offenders made quite easily. Perhaps you didnt mean to say that, but that is how your post comes across, as trying to enforce the idea of trinity game play, and made it sound like building outside of the box was pointless or worse bad building. If my blaster can take point, keep aggro on him, and is also mass murdering and healing himself, while also keeping mobs bouncing, and stunned, what role is he exactly? I know! His role is super bloody hero, that is his role,

You touch on something I have often pondered. The Path of the Dark makes it clear nictus have been on earth for several thousand years. There is no reason they should not be able to possess DE creatures the same as any other life form. So where are they in the praetorian earth? The world so closely mirrors our own prime earth that its hard to imagine khelds never made it there. I was recently talking with a few friends in game about praetoria and how it could draw in more players to start there, and we thought maybe some low lvl TFs there at the same range of posi, and synapse would be cool things to add. Maybe they could reuse some cool underground maps and do a praetorian tf where we learn that there is like a growing corruption in the hamidon ranks of nictus infused DE monsters. Id love to see something fun and different using like the eden trial under ground caverns. After all Hamidon and the DE are not really evil so much as a different form of live now competing to be dominant. Maybe there could be a TF where we make peace with the praetorian hamidon and find a way to finally end our worlds hamidon threat by transporting our hami to that world to give them both an actual companion. Because what I want more then any other content, is content that moves the game timeline forward, and part of taht should be phasing out old threats like Hamidon. Considering it has to be an us or the DE genocidal war with only one side surviving. I find it hard to imagine our world wouldnt throw everything at it at once from every faction to keep our world in the hands or sentient humanoids.

Uhm if its one minion you bloody ignore it and move on, all your admitting to is terrible play style. Blaster rolls into a nemmy group, because nemmy are not exactly lowbie zone mobs, and nukes, everything but bosses die, scrappers clean up the bosses, blasters move on. That is how smart team play using the original DPS ATs worked way way back. ATs may change but the basic best way to deal with nemmy's is still the same. One does not spend time on minions, minions that manage to not be caught in the initial blast are free to be tag along spanws on the next groups. Sooner or later everything is dead. Be smarter and dont make the game harder then it actually is.

I also want to address the rumor of early game balance and team play. I began in year one. I mained blasters from the start I capped or near capped literally every blaster combo possible and deleted every one of them playing mainly solo by the time psi/ment was released for blasters, at that time my only year one toon left was my kat/sr scrapper T'Keron Valmaz. Anyone saying we needed folks in those early days is lieing, it was the era of fire tanks herding entire maps to solo aoe to death. of perma end powers like unstoppable and old MoG. And even in that era offenders existed that could solo GMs because of the right mix of debuffs on a single build. Of Fire/kin troller PLvers, and SGs using that service to grow their ranks and brag about being the biggest SGs with the most capped players. Of everyone slotting 1 acc and 5 dmg in every offensive power allowing for far higher DPS then we can even do now with all that is available to us. Of easy perma hasten on every build. Really the only thing that any builds struggled with in that early era by my recollection is endurance issues pre stamina. Like that was it, the one big challenge that was a given to overcome by lvl 20 in build design. There was no need for clever or complex builds. No need for well balanced trinity style teams. We were the first community to start mocking wow players as it was born and rose to fame by calling trinity play wowtardism. CoH players by and large have always been here for the fantasy of being a super hero. Not some mere tavern fly of an adventurer struggling to earn his next night of drunken revelry by going tomb raiding to defile the resting place of the long dead. Yes one could make pure support builds, but even in year one emp defenders that never blasted tended to get called out for only using half their class.

Oh my oh my oh me oh my I fear the Op took a blinding crit to their eye. Since HC began I have capped 2 stalkers that I kept, 1 scrapper that I capped and kept, and exactly 0 brutes. I have several more in the works but frankly they get played more for their flavor then for their power, because anyone who thinks a brute makes a stalker 2nd class as a killer is just a bloody barmy ol berk that makes this ol berk look very unberkish by comparison. A brute first has to build up their rage to even be in the running with scrappers. They never are in the running with stalkers. Stalkers can consistantly one shot everything up to bosses from early game to end game. They can take out EBs in around 4 hits if the EB isnt tanky to the stalkers specific primary dmg type. They can consistently solo TFs at level because of how hardy they can be mixxed with their top tier ST DPS. Brutes take effort to make tanky compared to actual tanks. Brutes dmg takes time to build up, and requires a very un team friendly( when there are actual people needing someone to front line for them, because brutes tend to just kinda charge ahead recklessly. I see brutes face plant all the time during leveling content. I see them die all the time in capped TFs as well. Maybe more often then anything cept maybe firex3 kamikaze blaster builds. Yes a brute can be made godly, so can every other AT. And Brutes have never been the go to to make solo AV and GM killer builds. So to you OP I as kindly as I can say, say learn to play stalkers and scrappers far more before you try to draw any conclusions.

I cant tell if this is meant to be serious or not. Because yes my stalkers typically bring useful utility like recall friend to be able to speed up tfs, My regen users almsot always take the healing pool to be able to res others. Ive been on teams for example way way out in a door in some hazard zone, that get nearly wiped cept my unstoppable wolverine type, and when its over I can res em all back up, and this always gets tons of thanks and props from folks when I do such things. At incarnate level this is even less true, blasters mostly carry clarion making them a valued buffer to every AT lacking cc pro but not wanting to use clarion. My characters who rarely die and use veng also take barrier on the branch that can raise 2 allies at a time to help keep folks on their feet. My blaster a psi/ment brings plenty of soft CC as does any heavy KB set. Dmg sets like dark be it melee or ranged are also a potent debuff making every dark melee, and dark blast user no matter the AT a useful 2ndary debuffer. The idea the heavy killer ATs cant do anything else, or shouldnt is such truly terrible build advice Id give this post of yours negative 9000 rep if I could.

At least on Everlasting were RP by and large rules the creation of and power choices for characters, a great many are still based first and foremost on their choice of travel pool. Want to RP a speedster you better have SS or no one will treat you like a speedster. Want to be seen as a superman leap tall buildings type yep going to need some SJ and Fly, why both? because SJing then hitting fly once you hit your jumps peak is a much faster rise into the sky and for superman types that technique is essential for the concept. Every real magic rp toon is taking sorcery if just for mystic flight for the cool floating runes while not having to waste their aura on that effect. I myself let concept entirely decide, My pure humans, yep ninja run/sprint/rocket pack, hover board. Rather tough on one of my stalkers as I favor stalkers always carrying recall friend and feel bad when I cant do that on a stealth toon. Long Range TP actually is very good, especially if like me your not trying to abuse the whole /command to go to your base(( I try to restrict myself to only using it to hit my base fast for the trainer and vendor which feels more rpish then using the ozone vendor)) Knowing how the HC devs feel about that command has had me trying to discourage folks from growing used to it. My biggest gripe with LRT is it doesnt include every zone and really should. It also should have a lower cooldown, and no real casting time. Its not a frelling temp power, vet power or accolade, it is a power pick it is a cost to the build and should not be hindered by such lameness. Id fix the teleport pool by making recall friend, and tp foe one power, make team teleport be the last pick and function like the team transporter p2w power but of course no real cooldown being able to be used frequently and effectively. Just off the top. I actually see very few lacking an actual travel power in my play time, so frankly I think its only hard core meta gamers trying to squeeze every drop of combat power out of a build that entirely forsake travel powers. And as to the pools in general, yes they could use some revamping, but I cant think of any pool that is never taken by any body ever. Each can be made useful in various builds depending on playstyle. like obviously if you solo most of the time youd never take veng just as an obvious example. If anything the issue is how many players dont take the truly most useful powers like invisibility, recall friend, the healing pool, because omg I have to take powers to help others before the powers to help myself how horrible. I mean when you are ona team of full stealthers it is a thing of such glorious beauty that I doubt those who have never been in such a team can comprehend how much more heroic it feels to focus on the objectives, and saving the day rather then mass murder mode.

You know what really slows down game play? Other players. You act like face rolling is the norm but as one who frequently pugs for TFs that are not at cap and thus stripping the adverage and bad builds of the crutch of incarnate power, that they frequently slow down my characters that could solo the content faster. yet I dont forsake teams nor QQ about the slowing down as just an annoyance rather than a form of challenge, because yes delaying tactics do frequently kill the average players who are not nearly as rare as the forum mythology of everyone being able to solo +4X8 would suggest. Keep in mind a lot of those folks on these very forums who talk about running at that do not do so against challenging mobs and are usually fire farmers. Who ime often get in over their head trying to play like that in normal content. For example in the case of fake nemmy and their bubbles, if they get that bubble off its a sign of sloppy/bad play, good players time a strike strong enough to finish them off when they are around 30% health. Smart blasters stealth now like stalkers to easily get in range for pbaoe nukes to insta kill anything but bosses and even those will usually be only a a strong hit or two from death at best. Stalkers facing mobs their primary dmg is less well resisted by usually equals endless one shotting for them even of bosses at several +s above baseline. We have the tools to negate what you refer to as an annoyance, its usally a lack of using said tools or foresight that allows such delaying tactics to even happen. See it all the time on Manticore TF which my stalker can also solo, Ill say to the team, leave the bosses to me I can take em fast and hard but if you open with a nuke first they will almost for sure activate their undying mode and drag out fights. Yet time and again I become forced to basically solo way ahead of the team to make sure PPs drop quick and easy and end up wiping out the rest of the group while the party catches up My point is basically that your point can as easily be applied to other players in a party causing the very same annoyance you are putting entirely on the game. Basically you either deal with mobs as they come, build to negate their various tricks to make them fast and easy kills, and if you really want to control your game play you have to do it solo as other players can be just as much of a delay cause as a game mechanic. Now I like to party and even pug with toons that can just as easily solo, actually thats my personal benchmark for a character even leading teams and TFs, being able to carry the full weight alone if such must be done. I personally hate party leaders who cant carry their own weight, up the dif and basically use the party as a pack of minions carrying them. Such players/builds should always be joining not leading. Leadership is for those who lead not those who just build a party then basically sit back quietly expecting the xp to roll in. Sorry but I was in a terrible Moonfire pug today, and 6 out of the 8 of us seemed to have no real ability to build let alone play at more then a snails crawl. My stalker and one stealthy ice def did everything we could to help keep it moving timely but by the gawds the kill alls dragged on because the rest of the party basically had to stick together and tank/heal just to live, and could barely whittle down a boss as 6 in the time in took my 1 to kill entire groups. Normally Id use teleport to bring the group to boss rooms etc, but these 6 were just not worth taking that time or giving that courtesy to. Damn TF took a bloody hour when 40 min is much more reasonable run time for a moonfire. 20 minutes, not merely 2 wasted because of players who simply were and this is putting it kindly at a very mediocre level of play/build ability. Nor do I say this to be an evil elitist. I just want to stress how your complaint about having time wasted twiddling thumbs in game is paltry next to the impact teams can have on such. I mean we had 2 blasters but they clearly had such bad recharge they couldnt nuke nearly often enough. A tank taht needed the empath glued to him to stay alive. A brute that was eating dirt all the time. I got killed a couple times early on due to having expectation of the team actually being helpful. But in fact they were not collectively worth their scaling. I know this is ranting callow, and unkind towards my fellow gamers but its also a harsh fact. One I feel people who stick to mainly SG and static groups, and mainly stick on capped incarnate toons are largely too insulated from to have a good feel of the actual pulse.

Seriously, these kind of suggestions hurt my soul. If anything imo every Boss mob in the game should have veng for when their minions inevitably get beat down around them. Every LT should have at least one leadership toggle, Also Nemmys should have every mob with a self destruct to really throw the middle finger up from the big Nem himself. There are many very good little falvor ways to give mobs logical upgrades without going full power boost for them. Yeah missing a bunch in a row feels lame, but that is usually a build issue, as well made builds( not meta builds just builds taking into account things like being debuffed etc) usually have things like build up/aim, and the leadership acc toggle to help compensate for the ahrder to hit mobs. Its pretty rare to miss with a build up strike if you gave it a full 6 part set to optimize it. I suspect the issue is so many stick maybe 1-2 recahrges in such powers and the build up IO proc and call it a day rather then upgrade its to hit bonus enough etc.

I do understand many of the issues people have with red side writing, but in general they seem to forget several factors about the game world we play in. 1. character level. Our character's level isn't just some game metric, it has a reflection in the game world as ones security level based on what that character is actually capable of power wise. For good and bad this is a large part of why CoH was often called even by those who loved it city of side kicks because until your max level you are just that a side kick, a lackey, at best an unaffiliated amateur trying to make a name for themselves in the shadow of living gods. 2. World lore and social structure. In a world with a being like recluse its not hard to see him as basically the global godfather of all would be bad guys, with maybe Crey being the closest rival controlling the vast majority of the worlds corporate entities and wealth. Hence why villains being motivated based on money rather then being glory mongers seeking infamy, is rather trite, You can never hope to be in the same wealth and global influence range as a international super corporation or a world leader also possessed by an ancient deity. One has to come up with the right concept to be a big bad on their scale that makes sense but isn't motivated by petty mortal matters. Even then such concepts are the kind you typically use a generic concept to level up the build with then doa name change and write the bio for because if I am going to be a bad guy Im going to be the worst bad guy. 3, Zone and content. Ironically Ive always preferred going red side to street sweep on certain vigilante characters, it just feels more heroic. Meanwhile i tend to feel like a borderline criminal in brickston fighting crey security on what is basically their property seeing as Crey owns so much of paragon. Its one of those things were sometimes it feels more right being bad blue side and good red side. 4. Design. Red side and its ATs were actually designed with solo play as the focus. one of the biggest gripes about blue side at the time was needing teams for so many ATs. hence why red side ATs like doms, and ruptors are more naturally inclined to handle content solo from a low level compared to defenders and trollers who tend to be late bloomer builds when it comes to being solo GM slayer builds. Even MM the red side tank counterpart was much much easier to level up then a tank simply due to over all dps at the time of CoV launching. I have 1 maxxed rogue, His name is T'Keron Valmaz and he was what I call my original rogue. Long before we had CoV and going rogue he existed as your classic anti hero blue side on live. His concept and name is drawn directly from the lore about Infernal, and is imo the perfect example of how to make a good bad guy in the game world. He has no care for wealth, nor power over the short lived mortals. Valmaz only seeks to regain his full power and reclaim his position as lord of all demonkind. T'Keron always fights for control defiant and desperate to finish his goal of for once and all ending the infernal race even at the cost of his own life and infact any sacrifice needed. Funny enough the heroic human aspect is chaotic, and willing to pay any price to see what he sees as the ultimate evil finally defeated for the sake of all existence. Valmaz is a primordial entity and all about maintaining the order of the multiverse, he is lawful in the extreme, always keeps his word and honors any pact made in full as long as the agreed upon price is willingly paid. T'Keron fights with passion and driven to do what he feels is right. Valmaz fights cooly and with focus, killing only those foolish enough to try to do him harm in this half mortal shell he now chafes under the skin of. 1 toon, 3 characters as their is also the hybrid form. One a villain one a vigilante, one a rogue. Then there are my non maxxed villains, based on figures from true crime history like Bela Kiss. A serial predator of women and expert poisoner, as well as said to be a dabbler in the occult, and who was serving as a soldier in WW1 when his crimes were uncovered and he vanished from history apparently possessed of an almost supernatural sense of when the law was closing in on him and able to escape seemingly into thin air. He is driven not by wealth, not by power, but by a dark hunger as any true monster is. One must keep in mind that for someone to truly accept they are evil is itself deemed a sign of mental illness. Sane people do not even when they do horrific actions see themselves in the wrong. Its a large part of what causes PTSD in soldiers who struggle to come to terms with the lives they have taken at the command of others. Because by numerous spiritual practices killing, even in self defense is no less wrong then killing in wanton murder. This goes back to some of the most ancient laws of history such as the famous eye for an eye tooth for a tooth or the price of blood gold to keep peace after a fight ended in ones death. Even now days we see heavy controversy around things like the Death Penalty because there are those that deem any life taking as an evil act. Its a very divisive and complex issue why some wouldnt play bad guys, or why some play varying shades of grey rather then black and white. Ultimately imo that is why CoH has always had the best community of any mmo, because here we get a concentration fo those who take great enjoyment in embracing the fantasy of being pure of heart, always noble, and willing to selflessly sacrifice for those helpless to save themselves.Most other MMO communities reek of the mercenary me me me attitude that can curdle ones stomach into bile.

You seem to be unaware that within months of launching cov was deemed a failure by NC Soft. It never had even close to the popularity of blue side even at launch day. Even paragon Studios later admitted it would of been better never to have added faction pvp, kept pvp to arenas and duels and simple had one single larger world. Thats why Praetoria was made to be left behind from the get go and they didnt create any unique praetorian ATs. If not for are very vocal but very small open world pvp fanbase here on HC my vote would be to remove alignments entirely and let people wander and play were they will. There was no damage to be done to red side, because it was basically deemed DOA by the company. The only hard core red siders Ive ever known are the types who use being a villain to try to justify very negative RP like racism, sexism, and the like. Basically the people who stuck red side were mostly dicks, driving off those few who wanted to be red side but behave in a civil fashion still.

The best cure for this is within our own hands. One of the main reasons I ever adopted the mantle of bentley berkeley way back on live was to act as mentor in character to new players. Ive taught so many on HC about earning inf, how to use sets, that I cant even begin to count them all. I am but one though, yet if I can reach out to so many over the course of 8 or 9 months I cant even begin to count them, then how many must not bother reaching out at all for so many to still wander the streets of paragon unaware? Its not enough to wait for someone to ask for help. Use your eyes, read bio pages, look at builds. Its not hard to spot the inexperienced and try to reach out to them. Be a hero not just to NPCs but to the young sidekicks in need of mentors.

I have a character who uses my RL age and bday and they are mentioned in his bio along with a line like now nearing 40 he continues his war. Had someone start chatting at me on the toon in the D saying how old I was making them feel because they were about the same age as myself because of all the talk of age and dates from game lore being used in the bio to give the characters past substance. Like mentioning the year the rikti attacked and how he was only in his early 20s then etc. Funny enough most of my characters are now late 30s or older, I dont make 20 something young heroes like i did when i was a 20something.

First come and all that, I lost one of my fave names on Live Marcus Cole( whom i made the day after the update that officially killed statesman off and made it no longer off limits)) One of the first I tried to remake here on HC and it was already nabbed. Thats the luck of the draw and what not. What I would suggest is put the names you want on your friends list, who knows maybe you will catch the owner on and be able to sweet talk them letting you have the name.

The issue with your idea, it then means the supply of them being put on the ah dries up because people then just vendor them. People should have to interact with the community to some extent. Especially because who do you think makes all those rare IOs selling on the ah? Those taking the time to buy converters and actually use them on their virtual roulette spinning. Whats next having vendors pay top prices for rare IOs so we can just vendor them to? Pretty soon we would be all forced to play solo self found rather then enjoy the robust and active economy.

Im curious what the nay sayers think is truly crossing the line. Becuase on Everlasting there is a MAGA SG for example, very political charged characters there. There are at least 2 vice squad themed SGs were the members are all pimps and hookers and drug dealers or at least so called cops pretending to be such. There are numerous cult themed VGs. Ive seen characters drawn from every mythology inlducing mainstream religions and they dont seem to be getting genericed. I know Jesus the Messiah for example and he has been around since at least my coming to HC. CoH itself is steeped in greek mythology, which has seen a resurgence in greece of people following their ancient faith long surpressed by christians in the region. So ultimately we cant really let peoples personal views of what society deems mythology be a reason to condemn some characters but not others.

Funny enough on another long lasting MMO game forum for DDO aka Dungeons adn Dragons Online, simply saying one doesnt like something is considered an off topic derailment of a forum thread. Basically over there say when something to do with PvP comes up, a great many who hate on pvp will chime in saying no I hate pvp dont do this, and the forum admin will again have to delete and clean up threads and post again that personal feelings are not relevant and unwanted, and time and again do point out that in statements like "I hate PvP and dont want dev time spent on it in any way nor see the game balanced first for pvp rather then pve," That the problem part of that post is the I hate pvp part of the statement. In other words at least if I was to go by my broader mmo forum etiquette experience, Saying I dislike or hate something and leaving it at that would be seen as a troll post. Were as stating I feel dev energy could be spent on anything else would be seen as acceptable feedback and a contribution to the discussion at hand. I fully admit mya bove is basically an off topic post bordering on a full derailment, but it was only done so in an effort to educate and quell further back and forth. On Topic, frankly I concur that the original design of various powers factored in their 2ndary effects as not a given to balance out their actual greater impact if able to be 100% relied upon. A good example is sapping. Sapping on blasters is notoriously unreliable but still something one can build a viable focus to do if one really ones at the cost of DPS. If one could 100% calculate their sapping powers and their success they could likely up their DPS and streamline their sapping power rotation. I get that some people really hate random, especially the math guys who like to meta the game play to death. I just personally feel if they get their way, it takes away some of the surprise fun factor of things. I like being surprised by a KB effect on an attack that isnt a 100% chance to KB as an example. To me that is not just fun, but the way the game should be for everyone. I dont think being able to remove the RNG even with build choices improves the game so much as dumbs it down.

Because casual players who just log on to play and mainly join pick up groups are basically excluded from any real inf earning due to the way rewards are doled out. While I am not saying Fire AE farms should earn well, What I am saying is there is no reason they reward so much more. For example street sweeping. Rescued mugging victims could give a single reward merits when rescued making street sweeping perfectly viable but so many resist the idea of making common street sweeping reward anything of value.

What many in this thread seem to be willfully ignoring, is at its core what the Op is asking for is for play time to be equally rewarded. The best analogue I can come up with is the idea of best in slot gear in a typical MMO only being found in Raids. In a raid orientated MMO that is perfectly acceptable, a game like EQ or WoW qualify as Raid MMO. CoH has never even come close to this aside from the era when HOs were bugged and allowing all sorts of exploiting that still is a stain on this games otherwise fairly clean record. Basically influence earning and its rate of gain being clearly better for some activities is much the same. Imagine your at a arcade, we can all pick the games we want to play, but the air hockey table always gives the most reward tickets, even if you hate air hockey you will likely spend your time playing it to get the most tickets for your game time. Folks keep saying they are glad so many of the Carrots used by companies in MMO to motivate players are a thing of the past. However this seems to only apply when the carrots for content they dont favor remain stale. We no longer see PVP IOs only dropping from pvp kills, A similar thing as well. Basically what is being asked for here is for those who do just enjoy casual pugging of radios etc to not be so much less rewarded. A typical citadel run takes the avg pug between 45min and an hour, they get a healthy 40 merits. Yet people playing radio mishes for the same time, even if theya re actually getting more content done in the same time, get radically less rewards. The real debate is should activity A reward more then activity B or C? Should people who find the very play approach of raids, or even TFs, or even just teaming in general be deemed a inferior player and forced to devote more play time and energy to a single character to compensate for the lack of earning power? Hence those working hardest, and actually playing the most risky way, solo actually are not being properly rewarded for their greater risk. Im going to dig into ancient D&D history to make a point. In the foundation of D&D there is a campaign setting called Greyhawk. In it there is a group of characters known as the circle of 8. These 8 characters are much like Statesman and his group in CoH. They are NPCs based upon the original characters of the original beta testers. Their exploits helped shape the history and lore of the game setting. However for all their great power and milestone moments, they pale in comparison to the 1 traitor. Rory the Traitor is an infamous icon of D&D, because his player was the first cut throat party killer. His player killed and robbed from the rest of the players, and then went off on his own. Each Week 2 groups got ran, Rory's group and the 8, and Rory rapidly outpaced the team. 1 player getting all the xp, and all the loot while shouldering all the risk was the power leveler, the team by its very nature of being safer, and sharing the risk and rewards progressed at a fraction of the rate. So maybe trying to find a better balance between hard core earner and casual player is not some terrible thing and deserving consideration and debate rather then petty personal attacks, handwaving, and clear and blatant trolling for giggles while offering no meaningful discussion.

Ive been playing my human form PB again lately and part of the issue in putting the finger on the pulse of the problem is to really use a kheldy right you want to be on a big team, but being on a big team also means so many buffs it can be hard to tell how much your actually doing. I also have to say that imo the change focus if any should be one that helps all khelds, PB and WS, human form, tri form, or form specialist, as much as possible. So changes specific to a sub set feel overly me me me rather then trying to be objective. My issue for khelds focus around a simple truth. Both PB and WS as form users are meant to be blaster and tanker types, maybe not as good as the real thing but good enough to not be worthless in the role, and to be able to adapt as needed. Now days blasters are pretty beefy, and sentinels are pretty blast tanky full time. So the tri form thing as is feels obsolete, far too much flavor vs effect. Nor am I really sure what the fix is for the forms, as for human form users, again for PB especially sentinel feels a real rival. The fact sents get access to epic pools really gives them a further layer of diversity that makes khelds feel a very restrictive choice taken entirely for the lore and unique story arc at the cost of having a bane foe to worry about. Something I would kinda think cool but wouldnt make form lovers happy is changing the forms to mutually exclusive toggles, that grant the human form the base benefits of the form, and the abilities, much like how having mystic flight grants teleportation. Basically making the human form go more tanky, or more blastery while preserving and being able to use the actual human build. Id make the old forms travel form toggles like the coyote and carpet and give them as inherents to khelds just so those who love the forms could use them for RP still. Not a perfect fix but imo that would be how to make both sides of the kheld coin remain unique and compete with similar ATs, but would sadly I admit make the actual forms a thing of pure flavor. However I argue they have been for a very long time anyways. I mean blaster, offender, ruptor, dom, stalker, scrapper, sent, all the VEAT branches are all very good at dmg, and sustaining, or ccing enough to negate loads of aggro. So much so that Dwarf is worse then almost any other option for a tank point man, and Nova is def way below any AT with a nuke attack on the aoe dps. Considering the average team composition I see in pugs, you know what the forms really should be to take on needed roles, a healer form, and a CCer form. Because tanks.scraps. brutes, etc never short supply, dps never short supply, but having some CC when its really needed, or someone to step into support role when things get harry now that is often a need hard to fill when it is actually needed. My Human Former I recently respecced to go perma light form, and more hybrid rather then melee focus. As such i had a fair few powers free to do different things with, I grabbed the heal other power, as well as sorcery for its buff ally powers, and even stealth for grant invis. Basically in addition to max res to everything but psi, tons of self healing, plenty of dps, I also can help allies, even took barrier for rezzing allies, and vengeance to buff the team when an ally does drop. Funny how much more I get thanked for getting someone up and active then I do for being able to walk into massive groups not die, and nuke leaving only a few scattered bosses barely alive. Also give khelds bloody epic pools and be able to unlock the vil patron pools, just give them access to blaster and tank pools equally, imo taht would be a good quick fix to start letting khelds diversify a wee bit more.