Sovera

As I have posted here EM has a number of uses other than defense or -fly resistance. Foremost the fact we don't need to waste slots to enhance our flight speed (61 mph without EM, 87mph with). With its cost being lowered to 0.26 it is quite acceptable. If none of my points are of interest, well, yes, change your build as per your desire as is your right. But do so informed.

That's a lot more acceptable to be run all the time. My fruit basket (with a bottle of Jack under the apples) is on your way.

EM + Hover. I'm testing some more and the behavior may not be completely well tuned. Something is not quite right. I tested EM + Hover and the pylons did 12 KB causing a somersault. The overlaping is no longer happening and I'm solidly at -4 KB instead of bouncing from 4 and 8.. I left combat, disabled and re-enabled EM and now the pylon is no longer doing knockbacks. When I'm hit I am shown 8 KB from the pylon. I am now attacking the pylon and losing EM's defense buff, but I am not being KBed and when I am hit the KB is shown as 8 magnitude. Disabling EM makes the pylon still do 8 KB but now it knocks me back. Re-enabled EM and attacked close to the ground (enough for Burn to be activated). Not being KBed. Tried floating off the floor. Still not being KB. Pylon is sometimes doing 12 KB and I'm not being KBed. Enabled EM and disable all forms of flying. KBs worked. I am... lost... and.. confused... Original test the -KB worked. Second test now I was being KBed non stop. Test a third time and no KBs.

Looking a second time -KB going up to 8 is from an overlap. I don't think those count. But I'm going to check on a pylon. Okay. It is good to re-re-test things. I don't know if there were changes or if it was a leftover from previous pylon DPS tests, but EM is no longer doing anything against pylon KBs compared to my first test. I could have sworn the 8 -KB was not an overlap and was solidly in place but this is not the case now as it keeps on bouncing between 4 and 8. The pylon is tossing me around so I don't see any extra protection. I don't see what KB resistance is doing since resistance diminishes the distance we are thrown backwards, but since it is baked into a power enabling us to fly, and since when flying we are not thrown back but somersault in place...

Don't undersell EM. While it is too expensive to be run all the time Next patch will lower the cost to a much more reasonable 0.26. It serves a triple function: A) Eliminates the need for Fly to be slotted to reach the fly cap. With my build, without EM, Fly will be going at 63 MPH, and while, yes, it can reach 87mph with two slots dedicated to Fly IOs EM takes care of it. B) Having one slot dedicated to a -KB IO is not enough to completely protect against KB. My Fire Armor character has only only one -KB so 4 points of protection, and Lightning Storm, pylon blasts, some attacks from Talon and Enlightened, will go through my defenses and my -KB and make me bounce. Some power sets will ignore this completely and won't care. Again, we can dedicate more slots to -KB IOs or have EM on which pushes that 4 -KB to 8 -KB. For example pylons no longer made my fire armor character bounce around. C) LotG mule. Not all sets care about this, but it is a use the old Afterburner had in taking this and EM takes up the role. Of course that if you have enough slots to distribute for fly speed and for extra KB protection, play a melee with a armor set that offers complete KB covered, or have a power set with enough defense powers that can slot LotGs then it is a less attractive proposition. Otherwise it is a nifty one slot wonder. Also, Hover with another 20kpm tacked on is a 50 kpm in combat movement. AKA no longer old Hover slightly faster than Sprint.

I may be missing something, but your costs seem different than what I have. I've been saying that EM has too high a costs for something that is meant to be on all the time. Bopper said EM's costs will be lower but he probably has insider knowledge. I did notice there have been some small patches without patch notes, but this is from the PTS.

The pulsing toxic damage is unresistable. Using Barrier before the Pylon does not stop me from taking damage. Barrier fills up my toxic resistance and gives me oddles of defense and even so damage happens. So orange insps will do nothing. What Barrier and insps are good for is for ignoring all the mobs surrounding the pylons so said pylons can be burned down in seconds which is the normal way of doing it. In all my time in HC wipes from pylons can be counted on one hand. A few deaths happen, but not from meleers and rather the squishies confronted with a ton of angry mobs shooting everywhere as everyone focuses on the pylon. I minimize this in my runs by popping Barrier before we pull. It does nothing for the pylon but keeps squishies safe-ish. Results have been satisfactory.

Other than the bug, who still exists and is a pain, yes (we can't leave Tin Mage's first map via helictopter and need to relog to clear it) the rest is definitely some first world problems. In close to two years I can count on the hands of one finger the number of times there were wipes on the pylons and it is more likely a squishy died from all the hydras than a melee from the irresistible toxic damage.

Anything burns down Vandal. I did it on my Fire/Elec Tanker who has terribilus ST damage. Despite what I said above KM is not that bad all. A super heavily procced Fire/KM, and no Gloom, with only one -res proc gave me 3:30 pylon times compared to my Fire/MA baby who got 3 minutes with two -res procs (four without). So with Gloom on top of it the numbers should be close to the best under EM. I need my Focused Accuracy to ignore -tohit debuffing though.

To put it perspective you joined the wrong group and then complained you couldn't hit anything. While he was a bit more rude than needed it is obvious there were crossed wires and you joined for content you did not sign up for and he got someone who joined who did not like the content they showed up for.

When the patch notes -are- about travel powers having feedback on them is not something I find weird myself.

The whole thing about Fly being 'superior' is a relic from the early issues of the game. Anything now has the ease of use that Fly has with a jetpack costing 5k. Superspeed. The fastest in a straight line. Arch nemesis: walls. Super speed needs to go around them. Cake layer cave room, needs to find the lil ramps. Yes, back in the day. But now with one click the SS character activates their jetpack, clears the wall, and carries on at SS speeds. Same with cake layer room. Super-jump. Mid way speed. Terrible at getting all the way up there a really tall place since it means the character needs to land on a ledge so they can jump again. Back in the day that is. Nowadays they purchase a jetpack and climb all the way up. Not even a 10 million purchase. Just 5k for half hour. Teleport. Really fast. Terrible at navigating offices. Between animation and inability to click on 'thin air' a teleporter character will be much slower in navigating narrow spaces. Back in the day that is. Nowadays they purchase Athletic Run for free and run around in missions from pack to pack with no hassles in using their main travel mode. Where is Fly's 5k purchase that completely negates the downsides of the power? The jump pack allows to push the speeds to cap, but without AB the cap is already near reached so jump pack or not the bottleneck is AB. I took Fly back on live because I loved it. And I put up with the -horrible- 58mph cap to slowly float after everyone. Returning to HC it was with immense pleasure that I discovered AB, and then further tremendous pleasure when Bopper posted the interactions of the jump pack and AB (because I never have slots I would consider dropping into a travel power as opposed to getting something like another 0.20 EPS). Are the changes terrible and the devs hate Fly? No. But the paradigm that Fly is da bestest and laziest travel power is incredibly outdated when all other travel powers have their shortcomings easily solved by a minuscule sum and a click.

Are we talking in teams or solo? I vaguely remember taking my Fire Armor through one of your teams and surviving without much problem because we spammed Barrier. You're the expert with the hundreds of times you must have taken teams through the missions, how long do enemies usually survive with all the AoEs flying around? Not on your list but Ice Melee's Ice Patch can do a lot of mitigation (not 100% mitigation as mobs stop flopping and start hitting after the first seconds, but still mitigation). I've posited that a Dark/Ice should be pretty durable between Dark Regen huge heal and short CD and Ice Patch giving breathers. Dark/EM and sharing the stuns should also bring out of the box mitigation. Dark/Stone same thing with a spam of Fault on top of Oppressive Gloom though I am not sure how much this actually plays out in real game instead of spreadsheets. Ice Armor has a little bit of all worlds. Some DDR, some debuff protections, quick recharging endurance clickie, mitigation with the aura. To be honest your missions are so out of common experience I have no shared ground to give an opinion. They are missions built to take Tanks apart. The only real survival is not so much the tank but the massive AoE damage to kill stuff before it kills us

This is old as time though, and yes, annoying. Even back when I RPed in text only MUSHes the grid would be VAST, I am talking in the order of 300+ rooms, all of them with their own description. Travel through a park, reach a city, all the streets, the alleys, the shops. Keep traveling, leave the city, climb a mountain, more paths. But players would log in the OOC zone. Port to the IC grid, walk 3-4 rooms to reach the central square and then from there only to their private houses. In all the games I've (tried to) RP there is always a central hub. And it's nice that RP happens in guilds, it's nice RP happens here and there, it's nice that RP happens in scheduled events, but if there is no central hub I can go and sit and meet people then RP is doomed as far as I am concerned. Pre-mega servers GW2 was my golden years of RP. I had my race's home city for RP (ASURA REPRESENT!), then there would be the little nooks and corners each krewe (guild) had staked claim to around said city, then the RP in the human city (as always players flock to human races), and then guilds would have their own staked claims in the open world. As a -very- social character with a lovely friend whom I duoed with this was the best. We would check our race city, RP some, bounce around the other krews and be welcomed with suspicion or hostility (ICly krewes don't mingle well because of industrial espionage). As a merchant we would bounce around the other guild's homes trying to strike sells (so, hear me out, we put this on your roof and it collects sun power and heats your bath water! AND we then recycle and filter the water so you don't need to throw it away and fill it up again!). The RP was organic and the early efforts at creating quick moving story from the devs was not well accepted in terms of game play (temporary content that disappeared once the event was done, and I'm not talking of rewards but big things like destroying a whole city and later on rebuilding it), but for RP it was -amazing-. Until the megaserver nation attacked and that was the beginning of the end. I digress. But my point is having those RP spots was the best. Then I try games like Rift which used to have a RP population, ask where the RP spots are. There is only one. Go there. It's empty. Check later. Empty. Check many days in a row. Empty. Be told that there is RP but in guilds. Then I try ESO and on a good day I could find 3-4 persons in the RP spot. Be told RP happened in guilds. What is the point if I log in and no one is around to RP with? For all the faults WoW and WoW RP has my favorite thing is to flying around the city and see 30+ roleplayers around. Some are in the Cathedral Square, some are in the many taverns, some are by the park, some by the fields where it is common to have the RP spars and perform RP group tactics. There is basically a room for all. My little mage apprentice almost never stuck around in taverns and would nearly always be over the parks to enjoy the sun and greenery. My lush battle hardened warrior usually spent her days in some tavern or other having liquid lunch. It is true that CoH does not have this. We used to have the Galaxy Girl 9PM meetings which were my alternative to PD back in issue 6-7 all the way to 14, I think, which was when I left. But now we have Pocket D, and the myriad myriad bases. My current little barbarian paladin has no particular place in PD but I try not to over think it. She is not there to have a drink. She is there because other people are there (just like me 🙂 ). I saw attempts at using Atlas for RP, but I never understood it. Why try to RP around non RPers? Who wants to be trying to have a 'serious' conversation while a non RPer is talking about a movie or talking about their favorite farming builds and both chats are mingling? I rather prefer to have RP happen away from the PvErs to avoid this. The way to hook people into moving away from Pocket D is not easy though. All games I tried to RP in had their official RP place and then efforts made to bring it outside which slowly petter and die. If we go X off meta place for RP, find it empty, we can either sit there and idle waiting for others to come or we leave for the RP spot we know people are at. Now, one thing CoH does have and that beats WoW handily is that in WoW we RP only against imaginary enemies. We write text, we say there is an enemy there, etc. We either fight grey mobs or empty air. In CoH when we want to RP a fight we do a TF, or a radio mission, or an arc, or write an AE arc and customize mobs, or even just pick one random AE arc and run it ICly like a gosh darned quest. And with thousands of arcs we get enough 'quests' to last for a while without mentioning making our own. I -love- this of CoH.

People need to stop saying we can go at Fly + old AB speeds with just new Fly. We COULD if we dedicate slots to Fly. And not everyone has the slots for such a niche endeavor. Without those slots its just 61mph. What we DO get is faster speeds that old Fly + AB with Fly + EM (from 72mph to 87 mph) then further pushed to 102mph with build in new AB.

That's my own reaction to it. And there is no point in mentioning 'old' AB because it is out of context. Old AB exists in the old travel power setting. New AB exists in the new travel power setting. In a vacuum new AB transplanted to current game is a benefit. But when all the other pools got their own benefits as well AB just stinks. But, yes, it's still better than what we have now which is why I have stated my piece in the early pages of the thread and have not brought it up again. And, again, the old paradigm that flight is 'better' could do with re-examining when all travel powers can pick a flight pack for 5k and get tridimensional movement for perpetuity but Flight has no equivalent to increase their speed since caps prevent it. I'll insist that people pick their travel power for theme more than they do for min maxing. While not everyone roleplays most people still have a theme and stick to it. And from that point of view do we need to balance powers for the min maxing angle?

They are different beasts, Bopper. One I use between missions where my endurance costs is only the one of my toggles. When I arrive to my destination I toggle it off and off it remains until I need to head to the next mission. Evasive maneuvers is meant to be used all the time. Not between missions.

True, but since I do want the LotG I'll pick it, but it's no different from me picking Vengeance. It's not for a pressing desire to actually use it on dead team members. That said I prefered picking and slotting Afterburner. I'm not yet sure I will actually use Evasive with its 'modest' cost of 0.52, AKA twice the cost of a regular toggle.

With the caveat that anything is survivable with experience (running away if too debuffed, killing problematic mobs first, killing everything before they kill us), and anything is survivable in a team since everything is dead in seconds, then Invulnerable or Shield. Ice is also very good at staying alive though I don't play it myself. Stone is the most survivable, but it's masochism. I know there are stone lovers out there and I respect your life choices, but I won't tell new players to go stretch on a rack while someone dressed in leather whips them. 😜 You're still seeking the most strong best perfect super tank, Strider, and that's fruitless. It depends on how you play, how wary you are. At some point everyone will die because of this or that. Some combos can AFK in the middle of combat and not care (invuln), some need to use clickies to survive (rad), others will kill before being killed (fire). If you're having fun with your Dark then carry on. You'll be fine.

It's a bit tight, but one FF proc in both mallets and Mids say it should be kinda alright. Until Seismic Smash opens there will both be gaps and usage of Stone Fists. But we'll see. Currently PLing her to 22 so I can start with Posi.

Good job, Jimmy. Is evasive maneuvers still 0.52? because I wouldn't rank that as modest.

I would have loved to love Stone Melee, but then I look at its only AoE and go Ogodwhy. Double the animation of Dragon Tail (one of the weakest AoEs) and 8 points less damage. Y u do dis, devs? But not gonna lie that I'd love to just lay the wham with the hammers. Hmm.. I can do Seismic Smash, Stone Mallet, Heavy Mallet, Stone Mallet. I'll go roll one since I have a little volcano kitteh.

I don't want to put too much of a fine point in it, but, considering the problems pets get mostly arrive in the form of the big level shift that steals damage and durability, bragging about a +1 solo ITF is a bit eh. I have stopped playing MMs a long while back when softcapped defense only meant they survived longer but would suddenly be vaporized. If the poor things got agro they just disappeared. Not ALL of them. But then there's what others in this thread have mentioned. Welp, the Arsonist is dead, welp. I'm not going to waste my summon +upgrade just for one. Keep playing, another one dies. Ok, I'll summon now. Summon, upgrade. Resume playing. Argh, now another one died. The fact is, saying that the upgrade powers are a downgrade and better not used for some of the minions tier is NOT A SOLUTION! It is a PROBLEM that UPGRADING a minion makes it perform WORSE. Clever ruses like not upgrading are contrary to the way the game is intended to be played. The fact is that the team will have to give MMs a pass so that upgrades are indeed upgrades. Now the fact the upgrades are not automatic also means the MMs get screwed in a myriad ways when exemplaring. They get fewer minions at certain cut points, and those pets don't get powers from the upgrades. It's a double whammy. Other ATs simply don't get access to their powers exemplaring, but MMs don't get access to their powers AND become objectively weaker on top of that.

You can solve that last problem with a keybind that summons them at your feet. /bind lshift+1 powexec_location forward:3 little bots /bind lshift+2 powexec_location forward:3 heal bots /bind lshift+3 powexec_location forward:3 big bot Change to the actual names of the pets and whatever keybind you'd like to use than left shift + number. If someone happened to read my posts during the Tanker patch they would know I advocated for some sort of reverse KB PbAoE replacing Taunt. For all purposes Fold Space. So, people might think I would be all over Fold Space since it is very much what I'd like? No. Never picked it. Have no intentions of picking it up. Having to use the clunky Teleport who is useless for anything but crossing zones is a hard no and then I need to pick two useless powers. Hard no. For those who like Combat Teleport and Teleport kudos to you though, I watch your use of Fold Space with -deep- envy. Trust me.

You don't pick AB. It comes for free when you pick Fly. You may decide not to use it though and that's your prerogative.