Llewellyn Blackwell

When it comes to the idea of throw away powers/power taxes Ive never been one to concur with this view point. While I expect to some extent within our AT system power tiers, I also believe in good design not having no fun/low fun powers as some kind of must take penalty for something a wee bit above average in power. If I had my way Id see the fighting pool split. With there being an offensive and defensive fighting pool. Offensive fighting would be basically light street justice for the masses. Defensive fighting would be tough and weave, as well as a cc res toggle, the ma attack that gives a def buff, and the chi push move. While Id be at it Id remove the silly 4 pool limit as well. let people spend their powers on what they want. And in general Id raise pool abilities up to be just a tad under main powers in effect because again while we may be an AT system we could get abit closer to free form with some minor tweeks.

Over all I do feel the idea is just pure want gimme. However there is among them one of the travel pools that is pure utility for the most part and imo deserving of a real face lift. Teleport. I think considering we now have examples of powers that can be buff or attack like the one in sorcery or Medicine, that the idea of merging teleport foe and recall friend has merit. The fact taht recall friend isa pure utility power and on that only has utility with actual team mates since we cant use it on hostages etc, makes me feel merging it with the rarely taken teleport foe wouldnt be horrific power creep. Now I also feel its other powers need a serious modernization. Long Range Teleport was a good effort but not enough imo. I feel that team teleport should be converted to team transport and made the final power, I also think since we need a new 5th power adding ATT on a faster more functional recharge as part of a pool is long overdue. Again this isa pure team utility power, It does not add to combat power directly and I feel that those burning powers on helping allies should not be left behind in the discussion of what to buff and why.

Alright Im not going to give you a build but I will throw some things at you for ya to ponder and you can PM me later here for more help or look me up in game on everlasting. Same name in game as here. First this works with anything primary/mental 2ndary. First the big deal about mental is Drain Psyche. You can take it at like 16, and well slotted will keep your end recovery at max, and by end game at leas ta 100 hp a sec regen as well. Just have to get into the middle of big juicy mobs. That moves us on to stealth. Invisibility and phase shift are great powers for a blaster especially the route Mental takes us down. Invis into the cent of groups, drain psyche, psy scream, nuke, and then if things are not dead ad looking mad phase shift while if in team the tank regrabs aggro, or if solo while you ponder your next move. Your on the right track with Sorcery. Personally Id accept mystic flight and its TP as your primary travel powers with sprint/ninja run or one of the shape shifts if your more a land runner thena flyer. I usually just take the blast for the 2nd and either no slot it or 5 slot it for a decent set bonus depending on toon and build. Heres the thing by the by. If your building for heavy global recharge to make drain psyche always ready, your rune of pro will have a very low cool down, low enough I find it pretty much all I need pre clarion to deal with most cc heavy mobs, but I also make heavy use of my defiance attacks. Your first 3 attacks including that subdual mod dot are attacks you can use while held, they also can easily be made good enough to be your single target dps chain for big bads they hit harder enough and fast enough. You also mentioned Leadership another good instinctive choice, especially if you team a lot. Vengeance is a super buff to both dps and survival, if your using phase shift well it should not be you who goes down first in a team. Veng and go mage tank. Speaking of mage tanking. I love Force of Nature from Force Mastery. Again with heavy recharge its going to be up often, drain psyches end recovery buff will work through its crash penalty, just have to be ready for the initial blue flatline messing with toggles, i usually pop a blue and phase right after to let things stabalize. World of confusion I slot with a purple confuse set, the confuse proc in it is so strong it combined with the power itself will see a fair few mobs taking time o swing once or twice on allies, thats attacks not coming at you, see it as a mitigation power. Psy Scream I purple slot for its cc effect as well. A blaster with some decent CC is pretty scary. Basically built well mental plus the right pools will turn into blaster into a high regen and recovery on top of high recharge in general, with numerous powers to help one react to excessive aggro, CC, and even face tank if its needed.

To me this practice is no less abhorent then the SGs back in the day that used to use it as a recruiting tool " Join us and be lvl 50 today!" adverts disgust me to no end. While I as one who really doesnt care to farm, still always strive to create a welcoming environment in game especially for new players and recent returnees. Just yesterday I saw someone in PI struggling to just wipe out lvl 49 minion and LT mobs on a lvl 50 ruptor. Id met them a few times over the last week while running PI radio mish teams and new they were either new to the game or freshly returned. So after watching them, struggling with taht group while tossing thema barrier to help them and a few blues I asked if they would like to tag along with me to a trip out to the Storm palace. Once out there while clearing we chatted it up. I looked at their build window, saw they were dark blasts. I was on a dark melee and had a few attuned to hit debuff sets on hand from the leveling phase and passed them over, likely a good 20 mil worth, I offered a bit of fine tuning build advice mainly on their pool choices, they had both super speed and flight with afterburner which seemed abit wasteful to me. We had got a nice bit of casual inf about 5 mil, I had a purp recipe drop always nice, they had their alpha nearly unlocked. And the player a long time lvie player and very recent returnee was super thankful and even offered to pay me back when they could. I said no pay it forward to another down the line. we became global buds. and our game likely has one more old live player very happy to be back and more then likely will be sticking around knowing our community is still the best in any mmo ever. I say frack off to anyone charging for PLing. If it seems to become a growing trend I will once again push for an auto level 50 option at P2W which Id much prefer over seeing people exploiting others in game for such an option.

Well personally I dont go after malta because none of my characters origin concepts connect to malta while characters like my namesake in game have a long history with the nazi and the nictus so council are a personal enemy. But so are the nicti, nemesis, the circle of thorns, the skulls and the hellions. Why do i face any given content? Well it varies on my mood, if Im trying to build inf I favor TFs to liquidate the merits because Im not much of one for farming. If I have a guy hit 50 I tend to like to stress the build so I favor going out to the shard typically, as packs of wisps and the like tend to be more stress on a build then most other group types. And once Ive reached a point on the build taht little real challenge exists I then focus on the most challenging foe types because I get a wicked pleasure from mass murdering foe types most seem to fear facing. I basically have 3 main moods. RP mode where I build groups to run content connected with my character concept. Earn mode, which often means TFs or soloing story arcs moving swiftly and with purpose, this is common when Im playing a stalker, and then Show off mode where I build teams often of lowbies while running radios, but picking the group types most hate, to basically be the one man hero with a bunch of side kicks so I both get the pleasure of helping those who cant do what I can, while also getting to revel in my characters powers. Funny enough actual character progression IE leveling is rarely a motivation in and of itself for me. I infact always put more play time in a day on a completed character then on leveling new alts. For me the game is its most fun to play when progression for a character is a thing of the past. I like being able to just enjoy the play without leveling up, having to shop for IO sets etc. I just want to play the content with a complete character. Hence why some months back i actually did seriously suggest them adding auto 50 option to P2W. I prefer running content exemped then at level to be sure as well.

Well this explains enough about you as a person taht I think Ill just put you on ignore. This aint rome with service required for citizenship and a warlord turned emperor. And its currently so fast and easy to earn tons of inf gold farmers wont bother. Those operations prefer to target games with high populations of obvious whales. Path of Exiles is very popular for farming operations because its barely even seen as something to curb, and people with money are obvious because of the cash value associated with cosmetics there. Even on live coh barely had a active gold farming scene.

You know this is a great question to open up on. What your basically saying is well its just too annoying to bother with. I see that same alternate word/phrase sued in game all the time when any of the more challenging groups come up. Oh i hate carnies their end drain on deaht is so annoying, Oh not arachnos they are so annoying with all there tricks, Oh being blind is such an irritation lets just avoid them and run council mishes. Oh not Crey i hate all their buffing and debuffing and that one type of PP that gets original MoG and is so hard to finish off because I cant be bothered to save an alpha strike for when they are at 25% health. Basically in game, when people say something annoys them about a given faction what they really mean is they dont like the challenge such and such faction or content comes with inherently. You know back in the old days of live, for ATs like scrappers it was seen as a right of passage to go do a solo circle of the storm palace. Partly because it was also an endless mob fest farm in the pre AE era. The challenge of the mobs be damned. Then came AE and easy farming with the weakest foes and the deck stacked in the players favor as much as possible. The sheer popularity of such farming shows just how little challenge the majority of players really want to engage in.

Well actually yes becuase yes power gamer/min maxxers are indeed driven to remove challenge. Example play a zelda game only with the base hearts and never get more or carry fairies, thats challenge mode. Getting all the upgrades and beign as powerful as possible, thats easy mode. Same thing here We dont make our characters min max so we feel challenge, the only challenge there is putting in the time to aquire inf, and understand the game well enough to know which sets to buy and how many slots to put in a given power. Nor am I insulting or being critical of that. I just prefer transparency in these discussions when people try to talk about adding challenge. You know why so many especially tank players fear and loathe the shadow shard? Or those soft capping def via set bonuses and pools? Because the mobs there challenge them with things like psi dmg, def shredding, and phase shifting to remove them from the fight for periods of time in a way they cant resist. IE actual challenge. Hell in the trials the biggest challenge isnt the mobs, its getting the players to actually take down targets at the same time when needed. And when one can use forum guides and build videos to make a toon without really knowing much about it, yeah most min maxxers are not the build designers, the forerunners that lead the way, they are copy and paste types. I can honestly say every one of my toons is a personalized build, and each of them is pretty damn effective even the ones intentionally made less powerful to reflect being a mere human. And I never post nor share builds actively. Even when i help a new player who is asking for help I dont say drop this this and this and take that that and that. I say well hm maybe you might like mystic flight over normal flight, and snag a free teleport in the mix. Hm maybe only 5 slot your attack powers and take advantage of these strong 5 part sets so you have more slots to use on your other powers. I make loose suggestions and nudge them so they can explore and learn on their own.

Yeah no sorry terrible idea. And you think a zone like striga sees little action? Bud I can put together a fast moonfire or hess run any time of the day and it almost always fills because Striga is a beloved zone. Many consider the final mission of the Hess TF one of the coolest things to see. Every time I have a first timer in the group I tell them to look out the window of the control room in the previou mish to see the giant robot and every time I have people even those who have run the tf before go wait what omg thats awesome screenshot time or something along those lines. Many regularly run the arcs for the useful temp powers like the emp grenades which with a build up is basically a nuke on robot and freak foes. The wedding ring and even its short lived echo are things basically people always get. The war wolf whistle the same. really only the holy shotgun tends to be seen as why bother. I mean yeah some bitch about the cave maps but well those type of folks are always gonna complain about basically anything that isnt just a one giant room kill all map imo. Turning it into a co op zone sure I guess, but why bother, go rogue and go over, or go full vigilante. You also may not of gotten the memo, but part of the plan after the death of statesman was to turn recluse well not good but more neutral. Never forget his help in saving the world from Darren Wades twisted plot. So I personally think if new content is added or old content reworked it should be in the direction of arachnos moving away from villain and towards the rogue/vigilante alignment.After all that is basically were Vanguard and Lady Grey operate. Now what I could get behind is having boom town rebuilt into New Praetoria and put some of the oh so lovely praetorian cityscapes there. Because blue side always deserves more, and gold side is such a tragedy to not be seen more. I recently got someone who had never played gold side to try praetoria, they had literally never stepped into it even for a flashback arc, and were utterly blown away by the visuals of that region. All that work, making those areas, they need to be seen more in the heavily trafficked part of the game world. Hell just say there was some teleport the entire city secret plan and have actual praetoria just appear as a new island and make it a co op zone or pvp zone for blue and red to freely go to. Remove or replace specific NPCs as needed. and dont fret new arcs etc yet just have it be for pvp/pve interaction and street sweeping for now, but get that beauty of a game space brought into the mainstream world.

Personally I feel HOs should of been entirely removed when they finally fixxed the exploited bug many had used them for for several years on live. as soon as that fix occurred we saw maybe the sweetest QQ in the history of MMOdom from those who had abused an exploit that the devs long warned would be fixed once they could figure out how to. The fact is once that fix came about, HO became a relic of a pre IO set era and one only worth getting if you saw IOs and sets as too much trouble to learn about and wanted to keep it as simple as farming hami. Same with the utterly defunct ones from the crystal titan. While I understand you feel like because you can pick either an HO or merits, that there thus should be some kind of equality, like more HOs for the hami raid since its worth more merits. But imo that is just wanting more not really a need for the game. Id instead suggest we push to see HOs removed and a few new IO sets of varying quality, maybe sets to suit niche powers that currently require franken slotting to really use well like attacks that also heal or buff def. Sets only gained by the content or via merit vendor, and thus have their merit prices based on the merit rewards that one can choose instead of a random part of these hypotheical new sets. For example a purple rare set from hami proper, with its parts costing 100 merits or risk RNG for a part you might already have. Do something similar with the sets made for the other easier to farm runs that currently give HOs as an option. I also think these new niche sets would carry on some of the spirit of the old HO era, by improving aspects of powers normally not possible. Imagine sets that allow for buffing dmg and the debuff aspect of powers, dmg and buff or utility aspects of powers. Perhaps sets for defense that add useful things like absorb or healing proc specials in them. Dmg res sets that also do fun things like move speed to help stone tankers as another niche example so TP didnt feel like such a must for them. To summarize I do not agree we need to balance out merits to HOs on the reward table. we need to remove and replace HOs entirely with new kinds of sets. Id allow current HOs to be turned into something like brainstorms, where the RNG would grant a random part to these new sets. I feel this would enrich our game space, and bring something from the archaic early days of CoH into the modern post IO era.

Uhm bud as someone whose first capped toon was a kat/sr I am very familiar with defense and its strengths and weaknesses in this game. But that isnt what your really talking about or complaining about, its soft defense and defense failure spirals when facing mobs that debuff it. You also go on about incoming dmg and how a slight decrease in defense leads to a massive increase in incoming dmg. All of that is good. Soft defense from pools and sets is a newb trap and always has been. I only ever give a fig myself about defense when on a defense set. I prefer dmg res from sets and pool powers far more then soft defense for a reason. 45% def is so low to me when it comes to def users that anyone depending on such a low number as to may as well not matter. but here is what happens if I am surrounded by 16 mobs, they walked right into my trap and they die. Does not matter what toon or build I am on, they die. They die because I dont waste time with spread sheets and character builders. i envision a character I build the character i play the character, I fine tune the character to suit my playstyle and fit into the concept I have created for them. So by the time I am facing huge mobs I know a given characters abilities and limits and how to use tricks to reduce the risk to my character. If your character suddenly becomes easy meat because of a mild def debuff it means you didnt have enough def in the first place. Or relied too much on pure def. There is a reason for a power like elude on SR its so you can stack up such high lvls of def that even a ton of debuffing wont eat through to a critical level. Its also handy when fighting mobs that use leadership and vengeance like nemmy bots. As someone who has stood against the crystal titan without ambrosia trusting in his elude to see me through, as someone that survived the rularuu invasion on the same kat/sr, and to this day loves going to the shadow shard and facing them def shredding giant eyeballs etc I just think you see a problem where I see as close to balance perfection as a game can be. Also D&D hasnt really used the always miss on a one rule in about 20 years. The alternate 1 is -10 and 20 counts as a 30 for adding up numbers and determining a hit replaced it around the time that optinal rule was put in a 3E book and made a standard option to choose. Most RPGA run events Im familiar with use that rule as well. because while yes we want critical strikes and fumbles, both of those should require abit more then 1 bad luck roll. Hence why 3E added critical confirmation rolls, and when you roll a 1 and it calculates as a miss only then do you roll on the possible fumble chart and really even on that chart the only 2 really fubar moments are hit a near by ally, or toss your weapon more feet then you can reach with a single non provoking step. Granted I play kenzerco's hackmaster myself these days and consider it the ultimate pnp rpg. Now there is a system so complex it begs to have a pc version made.

From this statement you make me think your from the 3E+ era of pen and paper D&D rather then the older eds. The big difference between 2nd and 3rd can be summed up that in 2nd ed a fair bit of the challenge is playing a character who was largely dictated by the luck of the dice. You want to be a bard, a paladin, a ranger, a druid or the like you better have dice that love you or those wont be on the menu. 3E + put all the control really in the hands of the players. sure rng dice stat gen still existed but most from that generation on seemed to prefer point buy stat systems so everyone was essentially equal. To say self limiting is silly really isnt. Especially in video games be they single or multi, A great example is when I replay a classic like elder scrolls 4 oblivion, I use tons of mods, but I also basically remove leveling up and building states by using console commands to put my lvl and stats to max. Then lower base health so that even in top armor it only takes about 3 arrows from a avg town guard to kill me. So that no matter the build I use, I also have to always be wary and ready to kill quick or flee quicker. Helps keep an old game like that causing my heart to beat faster when danger lurks near. In CoH you can make plenty of fun and effective characters that are still very far down on the meta and can still play and be useful in the high end content. granted I basically ignore I trials outside of maybe once per character for kicks. They are really rather dull content. However when I ran a doc Q yesterday despite having team mates basically working against me and got me killed just about every time I stuck with the pack, every time I went off solo I was basically untouchable. That was rather amusing to me considering several of them got on the case of the energy blaster, but none of them recognized how a dark melee/bio needs to get first strike in a rush to maintain their dps and regen rates. Sometimes the self gimping in coh is from being with a team funny enough;) I had one character back on live I intentionally never updated to inherent fitness. He was another batmanesque scrapper I made and also avoided powers that felt to super human in his 2ndary. For example he was a WP but I skipped the beloved rise to the challenge as it was too much regen for my concept. I also intentionally didnt give him top end sets and in fact made sure all his dmg powers didnt have more then 60% enhancment increases. As I wanted him to feel more mortal, more human. Yet despite those self gimps I routinely performed so well on him I had people frequently compliment my play and my character and would if asked about my build have their mind blown when they understood how much stronger he could of been. Its doing things like that imo that actually do warrant a sense of pride and accomplishment in a video game. not simply being good at the game meta. but by being damn good when going against the meta. Batman isnt meta and that is why he remains the true Icon of the costume vigilante.

You thugs leave Leo alone. He is a perfect example of the hypocrisy of Paragon under the rule of the Tyrant State. Sure Leo has had his share of troubles, but know what he didnt do, beat a teen age mutant boy nearly to death and create the Clockwork King. No that would be Blue Steel, Ya know that blood thirsty shield slinger in KR. Also lol the frost fire arc is easy as can be at level solo or in a team. If you need to pull and tank herd and choke point to exploit limited AI to win, your playing at a dif above what your team really should be running at. Personally I only run the hollow arcs on each toon for the easy fast merits. I personally see Frosty as someone just over the line as a rogue. But deep down he wanted to be a hero. Acting like picking on him is some how noble PFFT I say.

This is just simply false, and very much against the nature of some power sets. Some power sets by design thrive when facing many enemies, and suffer against just a couple. These are power sets by design meant to face and defeat numbers that would overwhelm other sets. A great example would be regen vs will power. Will powers rise to the challenge is dependent upon mobs It is not uncommon for the sudden depletion of mobs around a will power user to actually get sucker punched and dropped because their regen factor vanishes out from under them. Meanwhile a regen thrives against a single AV and will be able to go toe to toe with that lone AV in a way a will power cant. These solo vs group designs are not accidents. They are options to build specialists that do specific tasks better. This entire thread is frankly talking about a terrible idea for the kind of setting we are playing in a super power game. I can recall back in D&D there was a mechanic added in a campaign setting to allow massive numbers of weak creatures like kobolds to become real threats even to guys with max AC. It was called Overwhelming numbers, and while on paper and in theory it sounded logical and a good idea so the masses of kobold minions of the dragon could actually hinder and hurt the high level party the adventure was designed for. I ran that campaign over the years for many groups, it was called Dragon Mountain and is one of the older iconic boxed sets. And not one player of any of the warrior classes ever did other then complain and in some cases outright quit the game if such a BS mechanic was being added just to make trash mobs become a threat. There is also a lot of talk about adding challenge to the game. We dont need to. You want challenge you make a challenge build, not a meta build. You make a poor man build not a half a bil build. There is plenty of challenge in CoH for challenge gamers. Power gamers are not actually challenge gamers, as the point of being a power gamer is to reduce challenge and stack the game in your favor negating as much threat to your character as possible. I understand this as I have and can be both types depending on my mood. I have a stalker that I took no heal powers with, did not take the end defensive power, built to run with teams and has vengeance, ignored the ever useful body mastery for weapon mastery because he is a batman homage. I made him as human as I can. I even refuse to give him an incarnate lvl shift and yet he still performs very well running lvl 50+ content because I know how to use what I have. However I wont claim for a 2nd he is on par with a different stalker I built to be a super natural god like entity, nor my dark/bio RP character that still ended up so powerful because of the concept I was after with him that he ended up a pretty good farm build even though I dont really like farming at all. I personally oppose any attempt to push for content designed for top tier builds and players. I do not want content that I have to be picky about who joins, and will make casuals feel like dead weight on.

While its certainly debated, from my own study of the topic most seem to agree that the celts who lived along the danube is the source of the word. And has nothing to do with gods from over seas. Keep in mind the celts are the first wave of invasive migrants from europe to hit the isles of the modern UK. The original settlers will sadly remain a major mystery as much as those tribes in the americas that got wiped out by the new plagues brought by the various foreign travelers. We know of a whopping one modern britain who had DNA traved to the oldest known set of remains called chedder man. Who was among those ancient brits some 8 or 9 thousand years ago. Then came wave one of the germaic tribes as the romans would collectively refer to the peoples of central europe. Then came the romans, who after they left then saw wave after wave of their own cousins, all peoples of largely celtic ancestry. Even shamanic traditions like the druids are not native to the isles of the UK. Basically there was a people on those islands that likely lived in ways very much alike the tribes of the americas. they had lived largely undisturbed for many centuries. then came wave after wave of people from the mainland. There is so much overlap between the various celtic influenced cultures it tends to make discussing the myths a real pick what you like system. For example you have the irish daoine sidhe, and the scottish daoi sith as a very simple way to highlight the similar word usage. And we dont even want to get into words like fae and fairy. which the tuatha are technically considered part of in myth traditions. Needless to say though real world mythology can only be sued with a grain of salt for coh character concepts etc. I mean gods are a great example. Yes Zeus exists in CoH, Statesman is somehow connected with that entity, though the post jack/cryptic era of coh sotry rewrites and the concept of incarnates and the well has muddied the waters of that idea a fair bit. However the concept of how gods came into being in cohlore actually makes them sound a lot like the idea of fairy folk from the pov of them being more an intangible spirit. Such beings feeding upon human psychic energy is what created gods in coh. I tend to see all the beings like the tuatha, fir bolg, and red caps as variants of humanity altered by magic and mutation. Same with the minataurs and cyclops. My approach is to when starting with a real world myth basis try to look for comparable things in coh lore and ponder how the concept should be altered to better adapt to cohverse.

All TFs have always been at the max end of their level range. Doing one back in the old days would require at least half the team to be at the max lvl range if you didnt want everything conning purple. The idea behind the 5 lvl range to the best of my guesses has to do with the idea the very max thing you should be able to beat is 5 lvls above you. So doing a TF at its min lvl is like a ultimate challenge mode from the pre challenge setting days. And yeah its kind of a blind side to the over eager new comers. No idea how hard it would be for them to remove that aspect from TF codes and not sure I care enough even for a second to be spent on it with other things to take up their time.

Now for the meat of this thread the OP. I myself lead TFs actively and have done so since way back in the early years of live. My first 6 months or so of leading, after I had completed my first AV solo killing scrapper I lead TFs to basically ghost off from the team on the final mish and take out the AV before they usually could get close. This was almost universally disliked, and gained me infamy and animosity. People did not want to be made to feel extraneous and just there as bodies to get the TF going and make getting to the final mish faster so I could fuel my ego and hog the fun and glory of defeating an AV. I then had to as the Last Son of Krypton did in a film of my early childhood confront the dark side of my psyche, take hold of my ego, my pride, my revelry in the power I had that so many did not that I now used to abuse and mistreat by the throat, bare it to the ground, drag it into the raging torrent and drown it so I could become a true leader. Now lets unpack the small amounts of info you have given us, that I know you think make you seem good and blameless and show how you are in need of the same internal battle and mayhap arm you with the will to win out over your darker nature. First you point out that your the Lead, then admit you hang back and do not take point. No matter your AT, no matter the build the nature of alpha/beta psychology means people will not respond to, nor respect those who do not lead by being the tip of the charge. Hence why my main and the namesake of my forum handle as a blaster still always is first into the fray, that even tanks,brutes, and scrappers struggle to keep up with me because I a never hesitate, slow, nor expect anyone else to take a risk greater then myself. Now lets look at your admitted lack of verbal interaction. As a TF leader I always begin every TF by stating I do not micromanage, I do not know nor can play your toon better then you( even if this isnt always true especially with ATs and power sets Im highly skilled with)) there may be moments on this TF where specific tactics like ghosting to the end room and recalling or the like will greatly speed up the run, and all I ask is when such moments come please try your best to stick to such plans. By making such a statement I have extended a hand of respect, showing them I trust each of them to do their best and am asking for the same respect and trust in turn. Not demanding it nor acting like because I have the star I am entitled to their subordination. After every mission I will say well done, and if I saw anything note worthy done by a player like recalling a down ally and rezzing them, jumping to the aid of a ally in dire straights and taking a share of their aggro, things I as a leader try to always be paying attention to, I call it out and say good job, and in general say well done and well fought team after every mission. I do this to keep up morale, and make everyone feel I am not just a mastermind treating them as mindless minions. This why your warning, which was in fact an order you gave and simply expected to be followed, and treated being ignored as a them problem instead of a you problem likely seems to occur for you so often. Then you come here basically complaining that time and again poor you try to give direction and are ignored and never do any of the poor fools show a sign of recognition of your wisdom and skillfully leadership. You want people, strangers to give your words consideration, to follow your directions, to trust what you say, then you must first show the same to those you wish to follow you. The fact you basically admit you have no faith in others, and expect them to ignore you and see that as their failing and not yours is exactly why you are experiencing this consistent failure to lead. Stop trying to be a Zodd and start trying to be an El!

Well Since you are askin, and brought up your profession Ill tell ya but its not going to be a pretty response be fair warned. I have numerous close family members and had close friends among the trucking community, and the following is in their own words almost identical out of each of their mouths describing those among their profession. Truckers are the most dangerous, self centered, me me me drivers on the road. They are all about the time is money, 9 out of every 10 are on meth or coke, and the other one is either drunk or smoking pot while driving. They will avoid stopping whenever possible, skip weigh stations and doctor their logs, cut people off without a seconds thought, and warn each other about cops locations and speed traps at every opportunity to be the foxes out smarting the hounds. These are basically univeral truths that every trucker Ive known talks about freely among their brethren and close friends/family and do so with a certain pride and zest as if it makes them wild outlaws. Since these things to some extent are also part of the infamous reputation of truckers. many drivers are wary and defensive around truckers. Now I am not saying you actually come under any of the above, maybe your the exception to the rule, pure as the dope your fellow truckers favor and are blissfully unaware of the reputation of truckers.

I a META player? No not by a long shot and perhaps you have a looser definition of the term META as it applies to game play then myself. In COH a META player is one taht builds only the most recognized best power combos in any given AT for specific functions. They only play either solo or in static groups designed to optimize their teams buffs, CC, and DPS. And in the case of the topic of this discussion they only use KB powers that have been converted to KD, because that is surprise surprise the current META for KB powers in the build community. What I described above in my post is simply good tactical use of a powers soft CC aspect to help reduce stress on my puggles. By the fact I was not using my builds full DPS potential and instead using a rrather weak pool attack and a weak temp power attack to turn a scrapper into a support CC part of the time I was not anywhere near META, the fact I was ona pug full of folks leveling random builds all barely high enough to even be on the TF I was anything but META. being good at a game doesnt make you META. Yes META players are good, hell even great at the games they play, they achieve that by turning the game into an exercise in grinding/farming and pure math working the numbers to always be in their favor down to the last .00001%. When games especially mmorpg have catered to the demands of their meta playerbase, every time Ive seen that happen its lead to the MMO losing its unique charm, and the community that gives it the heart and soul drift away till only math e sport jocks are left and few if any people remain to join pugs for the casual newcomers to play with leading to high attrition of potential new players. Fortunately unlike some of those other games COH doesnt take a lot to make a character able to function in even high lvl harder content. This is a good thing as it means casuals and newcomers can enjoy all the game has to offer. Something we see some power gamers complain about on these forums wanting content only the best builds and best teams can accomplish and want cosmetics, and other special perks gated behind it to have as trophies to lord over the dirty have nots. The very fact my main ol berk is a psi/ment blaster rather then a dark ment should tell you I put flavor and concept well above meta power. Because as someone who knows every blaster set from live intimately I can assure you Dark Primary is basically the best for every DPS set with access to it. And yes I do have a dark melee scrapper, and I do have a dark blast sentinel. But they are not my mains, and they are dark users because of RP concepts first and foremost. There is a line between META and just a good builder/player, though like I said maybe your definition of META is just so loose that basically anyone not outright bad at a game qualifies. But to be META in a game like LOL trust me its not merely enough to be good at the game and hold your own.

You bring up the its not worth the time takes to much effort argument, but as Ive tried to point out that isnt really applicable in actual game play most of the time. Usually a team is either going to be plowing through so easy it simply does not matter if there is wasted DPS. Or its going to be challenging enough content that there will be adequate seconds to position oneself. Let me give an in game example from just last night. I joined a penny yin that was forming because I knew the one starting it and figured I could enjoy TFing without leading for once. Here was an interesting surprise, almost all the team, leader included were below lvl 25. I was the only decked out 50 in the group, and fortunately have my build made with exemping in mind. But I also keep a healthy supply of temp powers in case, which turned out to be a good thing. I noticed pretty quick even the brutes and tanks in the team were hard pressed to handle the aggro and the supporters struggling to keep up with the dmg. So I started making use of the Force of Will KB wave, and the temp power energy wave KB from P2W . My approach with these powers has been the same since Live when it comes to group KB attacks. as I approach the group I use it to send the front ranks of the mobs flying back, I fly through the group and turn around and then do another to send the back ranks flying forward. Just that simple technique kept groups all KB CCed enough that the tank and brutes on the team no longer were being on the low side of health, no longer did the healing support seem to be struggling to keep up with the incoming dmg. Had the team been the typical Pen Yin composed mainly of exemped decked out Attuned IO set up 50s I would ofcourse not bothered and not needed to do that. I use my powers as the situation demands. The above is what a skilled player using KB will do. People here bitching about KB are in fact bitching about unskilled play which is a player issue that only improves with play time. It does not need a game fix. The game is working fine, and players who use KB will either learn to use it well, or drop the character in search of a build they are better with. The META gamers who just want herd tank and spank do not deserve any more ground given to them beyond what has already been with the KBto KD IOs already added. If they WANT more build power without using those, all they really want is more POWAH! without having to make a very reasonable build trade off for their preferred play style. If they get their demand catered to time and again this game will lose its heart and soul and become a dull as frell wasteland of only meta builds and only meta players.

Let me ask all those campaigning for global KD a simple question what if it became a universal change and suddenly hurricane using bad guys like tsoo sorcers could put you in a state of perpetually bouncing because you did not get pushed out of the area? What if they decided to add an entire faction taht was pure energy blasting and those ATs lacking good KB protection ended up bouncing half the fight? Because I suspect none of you would want to see that change made for the E side of pve. And if I was running the game that would be the price the players would have to pay to have their want. suffering endless KD from then on in virtually every fight at a magnitude even tanks wouldnt be able to resist. Id give every mob air superiority in place of brawl. Every common minion a magnum pistol with a 100% KD effect. Every supa troll punch would lay anyone on their ass and so on. So tell me true would you anti KB fanatics that want KD everything be willing to live in that world to get your wish? Because my philosophy is always corrupt a wish when it comes to constant whinery.

Its generally accepted by historians that the ancient roman festival of Saturnalia is the source for modern christmas. Just as the term pagan was used by early roman christians to denigrate rural romans who kept to the old faiths, they co opted the old faiths holy festivals. Saturnalia was basically a month long time of drunken revelry and orgy parties. Damn bit more fun then this modern consumerism driven time of lame ass family gatherings. Ill take a good drunken orgy any day!

Nope see what your doing is basically the your a bigot if you hate racist fallacy. In the above issue, one faction would basically be broad brushing everyone who uses KB as a faction worthy of denigration and isolation. The other a player who is on a case by case basis choosing as they have every right to, to identify a specific individual they are going to have inevitable conflict with due to widely differing POVs and removing them from their social circle. Choosing to remove oneself from a TF is a far cry from the other sides attitude which is I will kick you from a team, even a TF already well underway if you dont submit to my will. Something I saw not rarely enough back in the days before I always lead TFs on live. People intentionally stringing along people on TFs just to boot them before the last door as a way to punish them for not playing as they demanded.

As has been brought up before the ultimate meta reality would be people would put pressure on those who do not want to go KD over KB and lead to harassment and black listing, and the creation of such an IO would be seen as tactic permission from the HC devs to behave as such. Its not an equal exchange. KD is seen as stronger from the META group, thus from the meta perspective this would be straight massive power creep. Nor do other sets inherent have a universal reliablity. fir dots for example actually rarely get to be of any meaningful % increase to DPS unless fighting HP punching bags that will last long enough for the dots to consistently run their course many times. Back on live there was a post crunching the numbers and the only time a fires dot really really gives a meaningful DPS bonus is against GMs and then only with smaller teams that cant burn it down rapidly. Thus it is a myth that other sets have some big special perk over KB and its oft complained unreliability as a major reason to offer an alternative. Here is your alternative, Dont take powers with KB, Dont use sets with KB. If others using KB bothers you play solo or in static groups like a good little control freak that cant handle pugs being pugs. What is being asked for here is short sighted as always in this topic. I feel the better answer would be to increase the base dmg of all KB powers to the point that those who favor META DPS will be hard pressed to resist the lure of powerful energy blasting that requires skill to use in an optimal manner. People are trying to use the bad play of players lacking skill and experience with a power set to justify this. That would be like wanting tanks give more resistance because they played with a tanker that didnt slot anything in their defensive power set, and never used a taunt power. Mobs being knocked into game objects is also not a reason, that is a bug issue, one that needs to be addressed directly rather then altering powers to reduce the chance of it happening. It would also undeniably make powers that create knock back auras insanely powerful as if the mob is staying in that area rather then being pushed out of it, it results in a perma KD bouncing lock down. something of incredible power that anyone with a set with psi tornado and the recahrge to spam it is familiar with the very potent nature of. If hurricane trapped people in it in a perpetual state of dribbling, then people would go from finding tsoo sorcerers and the like annoying to fearing them like no other and we all know everyone would endlessly complain about such. Giving something like this only to the players and not the mobs would be an extreme imbalance of the playing field PVE wise and likely be detrimental to many in pvp as well though I certainly cant say much as I avoid pvp.

May the time of Saturnalia be one of drunken revelry and hedonistic bliss to all. From your neighborhood ancient roman and the Midnight Club!