pawstruck

Huh. That's interesting. I just can't get my head around the 10-target cap on the nuke or the massive amount of lethal damage being able to compete.

A really solid analysis of each of the three sets. I wish I'd read it a bit earlier, ha! I ended up trying both /rad and /plant, and Zect seems right on just about every point. Mechanically, I think /time would be quite superior synergy. Unfortunately I couldn't re-imagine my character ("Green Redneck," LOL) with /time. I have to really beef up the conceptually "normal" sets - pistols, swords, etc. - to get myself to believe they'd really be superheroes. If I get the feeling I'm playing "regular guy with gun," my interest in a character wanes. 😞 Anyway, I did AR/rad to 16 and AR/plant to 25. Annnnnd now I'm starting to think I overestimated the recent buffs for AR. Its damage feels very anemic. Maybe it's just because I use DO's/SO's until 30, but damn it feels like I do no damage compared to my Water and Psi blasters... oof. You guys think AR still sucks?

Very cool, Biostem! The weapons look great with that color scheme.

Of /time, /plant, and /rad, which do you guys think is best for Assault Rifle? I like /plant because it's kinda unique, but I think there's some anti-synergy with the AOE sleep and AR's many cones. /Rad is very cool too, but has tons of melee/pbaoe. At least /rad has some +rech. /Time is probably objectively the best, but I'm so tired of /time... Thoughts?

Hi guys. Long time lurker on this thread. Help me with this one: Caveman who gained superpowers either through contact with a meteor, volcano, primal/black magic, or some combination thereof. Somehow he was transported to our time/dimension/whatever. Right now I have him as Earth/Stone blaster, but that could change to Savage/? Scrapper (see below). I'm at work right now, but will upload my current costume when I get home. Tentative name: "Simeous." Mega bonus points if you can fuse that idea with dinosaur. I hate the monstrous lizard head, though, so try doing it without that. 🙂 I've tried the dinosaur thing maybe half a dozen times with no satisfactory results. Perhaps the concept is too busy. Feel free to thin it out or use various elements and show me how cool you are. 😎

"The entire game is on farm."

If you've fired your guns recently, there shouldn't be redraw. I think you only redraw if you haven't attacked for a fairly long time.

It's a shame, because I think Direct Strike or whatever it's called might be one of my favorite animations in the game. So great to Zeus-strike a guy with lightning. Unfortunately, the aesthetic doesn't outweigh the "feel" that I just can't do the damage that I want.

Very interesting stuff and great guides. Thank you! 🙂

But then it might as well not even be a power. It's just a thing that's always effective, always hitting everyone?

I'm never going to have billions of influence, and I'm okay with that. However, my alt is a DP/dark blaster with the idea of blapping behind it. (So I guess first of all, tell me if this is a terrible combination.) The heart of my question is: Doesn't blapping rely on getting purple'd out and having really high melee defense or something? Will I be disappointed in later content as I run in and just die under the Sunless Mire animation, before Hail of Bullets can even go off? Sorry if this seems like a stupid question; I'm not totally familiar with the meta way of playing CoX...

Storm Cell is an excellent mechanic that feels great to have up but isn't intuitive to use. If there was a solution to that, I wouldn't mind the objectively middling damage of the set, just for thematic/aesthetic reasons.

Oh man, I forgot about SS. Fully agree. I don't think the animations or the mechanics "feel" like super strength. Titan Weapon does the "oh shit that's gonna hurt" thing better, and Street Justice the "that's how I'd fight if I had superpowers" jam. Rage feels like a beta version of Brute's Fury that they just couldn't figure out yet.

My main was a BM/Nature MM... I do agree, the menagerie of animals you get is pretty blase. A tiny bit of customization would really help. I'll add here that I think Savage Melee is everything claws should have been, but better. I like all the animations but one, and the "pounce" teleport is pretty satisfying to use. (I do wish it had a low-mag knockdown, though... how did I just jump on you and you barely flinched?)

LOL. I always wonder how that power in particular is supposed to hurt things like Kraken and Hami. "Ow! Stop!"

I like it a lot too, but man does the T2 blast take forever to animate. The root lasts so long. I also think Swap Ammo doesn't do enough.

Which powersets in the game represent their theme best and worst, do you think? I mean both visually and mechanically. Worst: For me, there is no set that lets me realize the psychic feel. Mass Confusion and Telekinetic Blast are as close as it gets, but many of the other psychic powers in the game seem... vanilla; just the same stock stuns or sleeps that every control set has. I wish psy blasts had some unique mechanic... maybe each blast built up to a free Confuse effect, like the Seers have? I dunno; it's just a theme I've never been able to realize in the game. Best: Storm Summoning really recreates the hectic, "is there a storm in here?!" feeling well. Elec blast's -End is really cool; I love it. Ice control really feels icy. 🙂 What are some of the power sets or combos that you guys have found the most flavorful?

I've always wondered about this. It's got me amused and depressed at the same time. Weird. To be fair though, you could probably do the same thing with other MMORPG's if they had an auto-power feature. Pretty sure a WoW Paladin could do nothing but spam Flash of Light for a large portion of that game's lifetime. Still, I think most of us here seem to agree that CoX in its current state struggles to force people to think and play hard for much of its content.

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. 🙂 I suppose it should have been obviously unfair to judge the content of the endgame by a speedrun... I'll take some of the advice in this thread and try it out.

I played a lot back on live, but the only endgame content I ever did was one Hami raid. I am definitely new to the Homecoming additions, and only recently figured out the extent of the IO and Incarnate systems. So I get to 50 on my blaster, get as many good IO sets as I can afford, and unlock my Alpha slot. I'm feeling pretty good about my character and am enjoying seeing his power level continue to rise after level 50. Then I join a "speed Kahn" task force to get my first level shift... and I haven't played CoH since. My problem was that I was completely irrelevant the entire time. There was no challenge in anything. The multiple-incarnate, whatever-super-build level Brute charged into enormous mobs alone and just melted them. Thunderous Blast? Yeah right, the mob was dead before it even animated. I would ask that you not get bent out of shape and scold me over this if there's something I'm missing here. I'm just not sure if the endgame stuff is even interesting because people seem to build uber-characters that don't need support, or even a team at all, to beat content. Meanwhile my whole team is chatting about doing X or Y to increase their damage by another 1.5% and I'm just like... Why? Who cares? Damage doesn't matter if you're just stomping the game already. I really love making costumes, writing backstories, and coming up with cohesive heroes with odd powersets. But I was also hoping that there was some real "meat" to the endgame where even this dated combat system would be pushed to interesting levels. Am I wrong? P.S.: Love the game and really grateful for Homecoming, so again, please don't flame if I'm missing something.

I greatly appreciate all the effort and skill the devs put in. I have to say, though, that the SFX for Symphony Control killed the set for me, which was gonna be a major highlight of Page 4. 😞

I have crippling alt-itis, but I personally think that the character creator is at least 50% of this game. Nothing here demands a ridiculous level of skill or knowledge, so CoX is really just about playing pretend (RPG) to me. It's actually a little embarrassing, lol. I should probably be channeling this creativity and love into something real/productive...

Just made a character like this theorycrafting Soul Drain with HoB. Excited to hear that it works, can't wait to try it out. I went with the ghost/westerner theme.

Cool thread. Top three: 3. Farming Hydra in the Perez Park river 2. Being able to innocently make a cat-themed character before I knew what a furry was 1. The game being difficult* *I could write an essay on this, but I'll just say that I remember seeing a purple-name and my heart stopping for a second. Used to be my ice/ice blaster was never more than two or three ranged attacks from death, and I was grateful to see a Controller or Defender join the team to keep me alive. I do like the "super-super" feeling of an IO'd character, but there were definitely a lot of great things lost with the power creep.

Are there really that many people out there clamoring for names? I almost always get what I want or some slight variation, but... thanks for your generosity, I guess. P.S.: I really do not understand people who feel the need to mention ignoring someone, much less in their sig... Is the name "Narcissus Man" taken? 🤐