Llewellyn Blackwell

No the best blaster defenses are having multiple tricks in ones survival bag to compliment ones huge bag of killing ability. My personal preference is as Ive said before mental 2ndary for drain psyche, Force of Nature, Rune of protection, phase shift, tons of global recharge so they are pretty much always ready for use when needed. And plenty of CC, from world of confusion keeping any minnys that show up inbetween nukes, to Psi Tornado keeping just about everything bouncing. Full on wowtard DPS blasters that go glass cannon have no place to QQ if they do die often as they basically chose to die rather then destroy.

Eye balls of all ranks shred defense, only defense protected by def debuff res has any use against them, this is why some like myself call soft defense( def that comes from powers without said debuff res) something only farm toons build for. Fighting Ruls head on has always been my go to standard for a build, I love going out to the Storm palace on my blaster namesake and just doing the big circle for kicks for a few rounds. great way to earn while testing oneself against a real foe.

As the HC Team have previously pointed out that by the time you are fully decked out in the io sets you want, have all the accolades and temp powers etc collected that is the equiv of in other MMOs having beaten the top raid content and having all the best raid gear. When you have the best gear from a raid, you expect the raid to be much easier then before you have all the raid loot. So if you have fully IOd out etc then you should not be expecting any more real challenge. You have a completed character. use that to help others not as far along in their pursuit, roll a new alt, or use one of your alt build slots to create a SO only build, and unslot all your incarnate abilities. Having capped no few toons since HC, I have felt plenty of challenge and difficulty both while leveling and at cap while progressing through incarnate trees and what not. The reduction in difficulty is the reward for perfecting a character. We reduce the risk because we have gain the rewards and then get the ultimate reward of feeling god like. This isnt WoW where they keep jacking up the lvl cap, and invalidate all the top old loot with power inflation on even the common stuff a couple lvls into the new cap range. If you have a build in coh that has conquered all challenges you set before it, great job, do it again, or help others. Or make your own AE arc designed to abuse your toon and see if with a deck staccked against your super man he can still prevail.

Dark and Psi got added around year 3, so no they are not knew. In fact Dark/Mental may be one of the most powerful comboes from the old live days. As was mentioned above, drain psyche is a huge boost to ones survival on a blaster if it is used with thought. Dark brings to hit debuffing into the mix which gives another layer of protection. Basically I suggest stealthing into the center of groups for a drain psyche and psy shockwave, then push through groups to drag them, turn around and unload cones at them. You friend may need to learn to blast, but his power sets are very good options and will carry him to the top off of the mountain if he stays with it.

the biggest lame factor of the need to take hover and teleport is that they are both vertical travel powers. Most take SS and SJ because they blend so well and compliment each other. But if you can fly even hover then you can get up over any vertical barrier same with teleport. I actually think now that we have the mystic flight/tp combo for those who want teleport and flight, that normal TP should just remove the hover aspect and people will just need to be abit better at aiming and timing to avoid the odd fall here and there. Shame we dont have wall clinging that was really handy for night crawler. If I was going to make a defensive TP ability Id think one that was a toggle, and simply triggered like a defense roll that would then auto port you to the next foe youd tab target to to increase the use of a nightcrawler style tp attack chain. Or what about instead of hover, teleport came with a smoke effect that granted a short stealth buff to the tper, and a negative perception to foes around as this would both the most popular and iconic teleporting comic hero, and also the classic anime ninja teleport style.

Im not trying to come off as combative nor belittle your post but this is a great example of someone not really taking the time to make a well thought out post, but someone coming out half cocked. Team Teleport has always been a blah power only mildly useful for even niche builds like MM. Same with group fly. Assemble the team should indeed be what it gets changed to, However not at the cost of removing recall friend. I can only guess you dont TF much nor prefer the stealthy tactical strike approach of a team not interested in mass slaughter. Since year one TF builds using super speed, stealth, and recall friend as pool picks by lvl 14 was a go to pool choice for a serious tf commander intent on getting even the worst teams through TFs in a timely manner. ATT while very handy is so slow on recharge and not all that often to be had by more casual players that one cant always rely on taking turns with mish tp and att to keep the group together. Content is deisgned to be skipped or we wouldnt have stealth powers open to all. So the ability to offer some utility to the party in this way is a good thing imo. As far as recall foe, any power that cant hurt bosses or avs is basically a throw away power. there is very little in the way of content in this game where recall foe is actually more useful then a stalker going in ASing the big bad then smoke bombing to shed aggro, IMO that is what TP foe should be an attack like a snipe that instant kills a target, but should negate any reward or drops from that mob. Ive seen such mechanics for powers of similar concepts in RPGs for years. a potent attack that basically cant fail wont work on big story bosses, but on even the biggest scariest random mobs at the cost of no reward.

Indeed. infact games that still refuse to find ways to allow groups to rapidly meet up at the given bit of content they wish to actually spend their time playing are constantly shedding players in large part because of this. Travel around the city should be as optional as RPing, using IOs over SOs, or PvP. The idea it may save 5 or 10 min overall on the longer multi zone spanning TFs is some huge issue is silly, Just look at the later content like pen yin and the signature story arcs. Its clear the paragon devs saw that the old system was archaic and asked too much time investment in single play sessions for a great many players. Even now many I meet in game are shy and dont really want to try TFs because of bad memories from an old posi.syn, or sister psyche that ran into the many hours range and ended in failure and a waste of time to those who look at less then the big reward as a waste of time even when there is xp and drops still. I just feel that taking this command away without a really viable alternative added will only push some of us to play solo on a private server. I understand many who played both this and champions are choosing that route as playing coh solo on a private server allows them to basically make free form characters

First of all, I will respond to and state whatever points I wish and do so ina civil manner. You are totally in the wrong to try and tell me how to post. As long as I am not violating the forums rules Ill post as often as I like and respond to whomever I wish. So you can just keep your efforts at being a forum dictator to yourself. I am Bentley bloody Berkeley and you are no one of import to me. As to your first complaint. Ive laready stated multiple times I am fine with an alternative that does not work in pvp as long as it preserves the QoL factor for base builders and the expanded cityscapes people are making. As for cheating death, a break free and a ethereal shift does just the same in any and every situation. In outdoor zones or on TFs people just use /ah to restock as needed some even use AH storage to stock pile meds and larges to access via the /command quickly. Death is merely an annoyance these days costing travel time at most outside of purely for bragging rights master of badges. Most would argue that travel inbetween actual playing of content is less fun then anything else. Most modern online games allow for instant to mission travel to make grouping as easy and painless as possible which encourages pugging over just soloing. You also admit you dont actually stay in pvp zones while leveling you clearly are one that only hangs in them after making a pvp uber build taht basically destroys all balance and fun for anyone more casual daring to enter a pvp area. Which highlights ofcourse the poor quality of the pvp design of coh as there is just too much of a possible imbalance between players in pvp even at the same lvl.

I dont think you got my point, my point is we all are helping in our own way to expand this game world, I didnt suggest it be just for those actively base building etc. Though you know that would be a great way to encourage and reward really well done AE arcs actually;) An honorary dev badge and a few non game breaking /commands

because on live one of the two most active servers of coh was virtue, in fact between virtue and freedom the main meta game server where basically each about 40% of the active player population, CoH has always had a unquie draw to role players that no other MMO has ever had. Meanwhile it was a fact that pvp on coh was deemed by the parent company and the developers as a failure because far too few actively made use of it, and those that did almost exclusively exploited the system to farm for the ultra valued pvp recipes. So Role players typically make up in coh lets say conservatively 30% of the player base accounting for those on the RP server that dont really RP, while PvPers make up less then a single percentage point in CoH if the modern player population metrics follow the pattern of the old live servers. Ive yet to see one PvPer chime in and state hey I spend all my game time in the pvp zones, and that includes staying in one like bloody bay once they reach the min level and street sweep there to lvl further. That is what someone has to do to really qualify as an active pvp zone player in coh, and no one does that. If you spend less then a fraction of your total play time in the pvp zone you cant really defend it as meaningful enough to be a reason for devs to do anything concerned with it in my book.

Ive long wished that for the O portal we could pick between the techy looking wrist panel activation, and a spell caster style one so at least those who are magical themed vs those who use devices could be separate.

I personally would be absolutely fine with an O-Portal style revamp to the old base teleporter. In which anyone can drop a portal and then enter a passcode to a given base. Still abit more clunky then having macros for each base and not needing to keep a list of bases and their pass codes written down, but as long as its a low cool down that makes it actually useful like the Oportal that would be a good start. Id also want to see as another brought up more base portal access in zones, with more diverse thematics. FOr example for serious RPers perhaps in a barely used zone like Kallisti we could take one of those nice fancy buildings, mark it as Super Base, and thus create an in game building to identify as the physical in game world base location. In other zones something like the helicopter being a base access would be fine. Or waht about even adding it to the list of locations the tram system and ferries go to. Id also love to see it added to the list of places longe range teleport can take you, and as an addtional teleport aspect to the expanded power tray along side mystical teleport on the sorcery pools mystic flight ability. Considering how few people seem to take longe range teleport especially imo it clearly needs something like this to make ti more appealing to players in general and compete with the ever popular super speed/super jump combo so very very many use.

Exactly, a tank can become pretty lethal for standard solo play with an optimal power set combo and a serious IO set investment, just like every other AT can. People keep talking about the damage cap but that is something evena brute or scrapper wont ever hit outside of large team content with tons of buffs flying around like an MSR. Most solo will never hit abovea 200% dmg bonus and taht only for brief periods using build up or a capped fury bar etc. The idea that at tne extreme end of the spectrum a brute may be able to rival or even surpass a tank completely is talking about a .001% of the time scenerio. We dont need a major change or even minor tweeks to account for something only an extreme fraction of the population might ever encounter. Its the same reason why we dont need to be changing things based on pvp, because at most based on our typical population numbers its unlikely more then a dozen people are actively playing in pvp at any given moment. Same with extreme challenge seekers. The vast majority of the players play at a relaxed casual level putting concept before optimal power builds and hence wont even be trying to do things like Master of challenges.

Better then good......ITS GREAT! Because seriously frell herding, frell tank and spank, frell corner pulling. All terribly boring ways to play any game.

Uhm bud I mention support in the same first paragraph you quoted that you evidently missed. The thing is the first ATs to ever solo GMs in coh were trollers and offenders. Its just the nature of their very potent debuffs that surpass in long drawn out fights the very best DPS orientated AT. That is what lead to the creation of ruptors and doms. Both of whom actually are first and foremost killer ATs not support or CC ATs. their aspects taken from troller and defender where the aspects that increase the ability to solo kill the biggest and baddest things in CoH in long drawn out fights no other AT can really hope to go the distance in nor do enough debuffing of the big bads to actually tear into them enough. I am not in the camp that says tanks are bad or obsolete, I am an advocate for them being damn fine as is. If you enjoy playing a tanker and see them as good at what they do already then we are of like mind on the subject. And a Shield/dark melee be it tank or scrapper is a monster and Id certainly hope it feels fun for you because if it did not then I would be thinking "what the frell!".

On the subject of how many choose to and enjoy the tanking role, that is abit unfair, its well known in the wider MMO world that in any given mmo only a small percentage of players regularly play tanks or support roles. WoW I believe revealed a few years back that in their total pop on any given day only about 5% of players were on tank or support roles. Most people play these games to be killers basically. High DPS classes are always played much much more then any other. In CoH we have quite a few AT for that need, And no matter what some say here, a few have pointed out that even on day one in a team with enough buffs and debuffs a designated point man was more a quality of life feature then a need. That with such buffs even the squishiest became tanky as hell. People imo need to recognize that if they dont enjoy playing a tank, that is not some crime, nor does it mean the tank is made or played wrong. Its just a class few will honestly ever choose and even if it was identical to a brute or better then a scrapper in every way many would likely just based on the name tank ignore the AT. In part because of the perception that such are responsible for keeping aggro off of others. Many dont want to feel responsible for anyone in any way even themselves in MMO, hence the trinity, as many who want to do DPS want to not have to pay any attention to their own survival. These are broader MMO truths, and asking the HC team to overcome something no other MMO dev team has really ever managed to tackle in a way that increases the player pops desire to play a tank is really silly imo. This is why some of the more modern MMO like Guild Wars 2 basically threw out the trinity and made every one a self contained trinity. This was also true of DDO with multi classing for its peak era of popularity. Players build to be all in one and not need anything from each other so when they did team up they basically could not be stopped by any content designed for the classic trinity.

I did however point out that the ethereal shift temp power we can now stack to a high number of charges from P2W allows the exact same thing,a click that can be used in virtually any emergency to get 30 seconds of breathing room, which is then enough to use an o portal, or just run the frell away. So the so called exploit of this for pvp is not nearly as exploity as some might say because there is a tool that allows for such trickery at least in pvp, as for the master of badges, they are for sheer bragging rights, and in no way a factor that really warrants this being removed as only a fraction of the population ever has been active in TFs let alone master runs. Taking away something many use because a tiny tiny subset who claim to seek challenge would then try to negate that challenge just tells me the challenge itself should be the thing removed. Things there purely for braggarts are not a positive addition to the community in any game.

Here is something to consider, dev is short for developer, the main people wanting to preserve this are part of the expanded city movement using the new outdoor base trick the HC devs have given us that was never meant to be in the game either. Basically all of us because of the bases are actively contributing to development of an expanded game world for everyone to enjoy. We are basically now all devs if we choose to be by participating in that. So since we all actually are able to assist even in a small way with developing our game world Id argue its appropriate we have access to a single dev command that is essential for assisting us in that goal. Here is what I suggest a poll askign how many base builders value this, and how many players actively participate in pvp, and link that poll to a window upon logging into the game so everyone playing is aware of this debate. If there are more builders wanting it then people playing actively in pvp on a daily basis then maybe just maybe the HC team needs to reflect on which faction matters more. And taht is my argument, how many pvpers spend as many hours a day playing pvp as we who RP and base build? I mean I can spend all day RPing in this game. How many spend hours actively engaged in pvp because I am very doubtful there are any.

Yes PvP something even at the height of the game was used by a mere fraction of a percentage of the population, and that was to exploit it by having allied SGs and VGs farm each other. It was literally one of the reasons used to justify shuttering live because it along with city of villains, and going rogue aka the praetorian zone had such a poor activity rate of player use it was indeed quantifed as bad design and a waste of the dev time and resources put into developing them, and why they never bothered to try to balance things after ED. Because ED was shown to have had a huge negative impact on player retention, and while eventually IOs and sets gave us more, a great many who left never came back to give the game another chance. I myself love good well balanced PVP. City of never has nor can ever have it because of the sheer chasm of power possible between two characters. I love good well balanced open world pvp as well as long as they have anti gank and anti grief systems in place to punish those not fighting fair. Again City of has never had that and really cant have that. Ive been on a brute and held my own against a tank,scrapper, defender and blaster and repeatedly beat each to near death juggling targets and using my KBs/KDs and disorients to hinder them. But ofcourse because I was one to four I couldnt actually finish any off because like I said 1 to 4 and couldnt risk giving any single one enough attention to overwhelm them so eventually I just popped a phase shift, hit my jump pack, and left them behind after hitting each with air superiority. Neither side felt satisfied by that. they all were mad because one OP brute couldnt be killed, and I was disgusted by so called heroes playing more like a group of gang rapists. In a game based around comic books, it actually should penalize the blue siders for behaving like that. Granted that was all back when cov first launched. and because of fights like that I and many others logically abandoned pvp, just as the developers did. But as I have said, my soul goal is preserving this for RPers and the base network being developed by players. Many of whom dont use the forums and know this discussion is even happening. How many of those unaware, who are using this tool as part of the reason to work hard on numerous bases to expand our cityscape are going to feel like the rug has been pulled out from under them, and like all their energy has been wasted and plans ruined if this is just yanked away entirely rather then a good compromise found. I have a couple bars filled with base code macros to access a large network of amazing player made zones that each took hundreds of hours if not more to create in each case. Making city scapes designed to be traveled between is a huge thing at this time with the base building community. And becomes all for naught if we cant travel quickly between them to simulate just walking down the street because we have to keep popping back to random sewer hole entrance which kills immersion.

Sorry but a forum isnt an echo chamber, and while you might not like it their reply wasnt really trolling, just pointing out the obvious. Personally I wouldnt want a sec of dev time waste on this either. Its just such a non issue in my eyes. There are battles to be fought that matter far more then people drinking like toddlers just having moved beyond the sippy cup stage.

Who the hell listens to in game sound effects? Im listening to my own chill music and an audio book while playing. If you have issue with in game sound effects we do have the option to turn down sound effects in game. Its not like this is a modern game with audio instructions and the sound effects of powers will drive one mad if you listen to them for too long. I mean we all know that is what filled the rooms of Arkham Asylum. While it would be nice to have NPCs be a bit more alive in their behavior, trainers and tf contacts especially need to stay static for ease of access. If anything we need more varied drink animations with different types of glasses, shot glasses, wine glasses, whisky bottles etc.

And sadly may well be enough for me to lose faith in the home coming team, the HC servers and maybe CoH in general coming back till my bro gets around to setting up a personal server. He already is on the fence to abandon HC because of the debate raging over well rage in SS and the fear they will neuter one of his most beloved power sets. He and I are of the same mind in that we would rather play as just a coupel of RL friends on a personal server then deal with a dev team making changes we dont agree with most of the time. Hell look at DDO a game where for more then 12 years people have been decrying travel time to mish entrances and how it hurts the community by not allowing an instant teleport to the currently set quest. When people want to play together they want to play, not wait around for each other. This so called exploit, which imo does not meet the traditional definition of the term which among other things requires it to grant a distinct and significant advantage in negating the challenge of content. Travel time isnt part of a challenge, its filler, that for those that enjoy flying around like myself cool, for those who just want to run content every second not running content is a waste of their time. As you pointed out, the change from sister psyche to penny yin shows the live team devs recognized the error and flaw in the older content design. Had the game not shut down its not hard to guess all the old TFs would of been turned into ozone missions and their replacements would of like penyin been in one zone, of much shorter duration, and focus on playing the game rather then be a super power travel simulator. Honestly Ive been finding these debates of late against bad suggestions and negative choices from the HC devs like the kb to kd IO which now ahd people being highly rude to those who dont want to use them and kcking them from groups has been really hurting my desire to log on. I find myself enjoying Warframe more because it focuses on the fun of games, playing them in a fast fun frenetic style. I loved CoH so much, wished nearly every day for 7 years it would come back, but now it feels like a corrupt a wish where those in control of it are just not seeing the good aspects that I see and seem to embrace the worst flaws of it as things to hold up and celebrate. I mean PvP, master badges for braggarts? these are the things you want to place as more important than QoL no matter how that QoL improvement began as, its so damn loved by everyone Ive shared it with I already can bet some will find it being taken away to be such a bad choice they may too leave the game again and just treat this as an animate dead spell rather then a raise dead spell.

No one is pretending it wasnt orignally a GM command. However this is not live, and the HC team has already made numerous changes based around QoL such as the option to double our experience gain, Adding a very unbalalnced set like Bio armor that clearly was not fine tuned enough yet to be balanced against existing sets. The introduction of the sentinal aka mage tank AT that basically obsoletes the peace bringer entirely. The It wasnt in live or wasnt meant for players because its meant just for GMs is honestly not much of an argument in my book. Its an appeal to authority position which sure you guys have the authority but that doesnt make you actually right nor actually offer a really good counter to the many reasons this is a good QoL feature for a great many players. The majority of base builders making great use of the expanded base features you all have worked so hard to give us are Role Players. All of us Role players have by and large always found the black hole sewer entrance portal to bases so anti immersive as to be a reason to not bother with bases as a RP location. Had the live dev team had the sense to place them by helicopters or use a door point attached to some fancy SG base building it would of nullified a lot of the negative feeling of that old base portal access. We are talking about a game world where everyone is teleported to hospital akin to star trek. Virtually everyone agrees the base tp vet power is laughable at best and an insult to the player base at the worst. Heck why doesnt long range teleport include an option to teleport to bases as well? Why not give sorceries msytic flight an additional portal to base option alongside the teleport almost no one bothers with? We are in a world of living gods, Of tech that can rival said gods. The first thing anyone sane would do with that tech is have a teleport system to access their bases of operation quickly in emergency situations. PVP isnt enough of an draw to the general population to justify taking it away, shaving a few min off of travel times is a positive not a exploit. Go ahead and take it away and see how the base builders network and activity drops like a stone in the sea. I mean if your going to kill a great Role play and social tool just because it may well make more of us consider moving on to private servers etc, and certainly wont help your cause to be the rebirth server so to speak. See the advantage of this accidental feature, see how it blends so perfectly with all the effort youve put into expanding SG bases, and the work of base builders and SGs to expand the game world that this feature makes essential. Because the load times to access bases or travel around multiple zones is not fun, the travel in general for many is not fun. I myself love flying so I dont mind at all flying from mish to mish and across zones. However because fly is my go to TP I am often late to the mish in many teams and miss out on XP and drops because no one wants to waste their precious game time not playing and I never ask any to wait for me to arrive to start the fun. This so called exploit improves the social dynamic of the game, it improves the sg base aspect of the game. Without it why even play on a server with others and many cool sg bases its a pita to go visit and enjoy. Taking it away undermines one of the main bits of work you all have done with the expanded SG bases. MY SG base builder buddy has been making thematic entrances for our bases to make traveling between them seem logical and immersive. Having to go back to whatever sewer hole in the city to then go to another base makes such attention to detail pointless.

on the subject of collision I consider it essential to role play immersion which I place before meta game dumbing down for those not willing to think and adapt. on the subject of MM, yes they were indeed the counterpart to the tank. Many wrongly thought brute the counterpart to the tank, its not its the scrappers, the stalker was actually the counterpart of the blaster. Vil Ats got designed around basically solidifying certain atypical hero side play styles. many solo blasters in the early days took stealth and used snipe in much the way AS was used. MM basically got made to reflect the increasing popularity of the time of the pet tanks that became SOP in hami raids, as illusion pets were far more valued to hold aggro during a certain era. I know they shove brute into the tanking sub class now days but that is in part due to later changes to the AT to appease certain vocal forum outcries, same as happened to stalkers to increase their survival factor as many could not adapt to a squishy melee hit and run play style, The changes also came about after going rogue because the merging of red and blue made the old view of vil ats as being more for solo centric play somewhat passe. It was also due to the sheer lack of use of red side and the AT by the total playerbase, it was after all deemed a failure by both cryptic and NC soft based on the player metrics. So they relented and altered some vil AT to be more like hero AT to increase their over all use. This has lead to the current debates of brutes being too OP in comparison to tanks and if they make them obsolete, much as some say about stalkers vs scrappers. I think you missed the subtle point I was trying to make with the comment about tanks and leadership. If one wants to talk being optimal, and being as useful as possible to a team, which tanks are mainly meant for, as lets face it for mainly solo play the other melee options blow tanks out of the water for fast fun game play, then leadership which due to tanks nature as a defensive primary make greater use of 2nd to only defenders. And a tank with vengeance never need fear if a blaster over aggros and ends up eating dirt and risking getting the team overwhelmed as the veng buffs will make the tank completely unstoppable and also make the rest of the party hardy enough even if support is lacking or down, the party will all be in lite tank mode themselves.

One could argue many power set combos are inherently gimped. For example one of the reasons dark melee has always been held up so high and is so common, is between its to hit debuff basically acting as a layer of defense, it also has a decent self heal that is basically a must have partner for any 2ndary set that does not include good self healing like say one of my old faves SR. I love SR but we all know that without reliable healing it really cant perform very well in a lot of content at higher difs. Also frankly when you reacha certain level of player ability and build ability that makes just about every toon end up an unstoppable AV solo killer at the least, one could see just about anyone not at that thresh hold as a liability. And while that is not a nice way to see them its also not wrong to see them as such. However Id never deny anyone a spot on my TF teams for such reasons, only being a negativity spewing icehole will earn that. Oh and arguing with any orders I do happen to give. Berk aint in the buisiness to be second guessed nor challenged by infants.