Solarverse

Picking up Acrobatics and Combat Jumping will fix that hole. If you are building just for Arena, then you only need one big hitter and a follow up...you will never have time to get off anything more than that. So you will have plenty of room to insert those two abilities into your build. Also, Arena PvP, don't even bother picking up Assassin's Strike...it's useless in Arena PvP. Your target will die long before you even set up for AS. Your job as the Stalker in Arena PvP is to Stun your target, so that your team can obliterate your target in milliseconds. That is your only function. So you want your biggest hitter that also stuns/slows/Immobs, whatever you have to stop your target long enough for your team to obliterate your target. When you enter the world of Arena PvP, you enter a whole different type of PvP. It's not the same as Zone PvP at all and requires a completely different build to be a productive member of your team.

In Arena matches, yes. Regular zone PvP, no.

I think this thread needs to gain a bit of awareness. I just created a thread asking for the same thing, unaware of this thread's existence. This thread needs more momentum. +1

This right here. I went there once, to get the badge, shook my head at all the players begging for power levels...and then walked right back out never to return. Call me crazy, but I actually enjoy teaming with people and running Task Forces instead of standing around watching some gimp Brute, with a build that works for only one thing, to do the work for me. No thank you.

Here here, I'll drink to that good Sir.

I agree, that is super annoying at times.

Just curious if anyone would like to see Ice added to the Ancillary Epic Pool Powers for Defenders and Corruptors. What say you?

The Hollows would be a perfect place to put a Hogger-like mob so we could have some CoH equivalent of the Hogger raids in WoW. That would be an awesome idea!

IMO, people often outgrow something and then feel this way. Just an opinion. The hollows was never hard, IMO, just dangerous to navigate, which is annoying, not hard, IMO. I see the the refrain of "This game went from being challenging to easy." on every single game board on the Internet I visit. The rub for me is that what so many people refer 'back' to as 'hard' was just tedious and/or time consuming, tricking the brain into making it seem more valuable, IMO, or was nothing more than a puzzle you had to simply learn to avoid or that once learned, made it trivial. What so many gamers want, IME, is the 'feeling of playing it the first time', after they mastered it. Monotonous and time consuming do not count as 'hard' to me. I see wanting to 'make games hard like they were' as chasing smoke... As the saying says, "you can never really go home" ... The thing is, not every zone was like that though, only the Hazard Zones. The Hollows was changed to make travel safer, so therefore doesn't really feel like a Hazard Zone any longer. You do make some good points though...although I can't say I have outgrown this game...I'm not sure that could EVER happen! :D I still love the game with a passion...I just miss Hollows the way it once was. :(

For me, what I loved about it before is the fact that it was hard. It was scary and it kept me on the edge of my seat. I was so terrified of that place, I bought Hover just to get across the Gultch. The mobs were higher level, and there were more random Trolls who threw instant dead rocks at me. Everything in there was hard...however, with teamwork, everything in there was completely beatable. For the level that zone was made for...it was downright hard. Which was why it was called a "Hazard" zone. I never understood why it was changed. Nobody was forced to go there (although it was a hot spot for people) and they had Kings Row as another option if they felt like Hollows was too difficult. The Hollows was not for everybody. Some people want it easy. Some people want it to be challenging. The people who wanted it easy already had an option. Sadly, now that Hollows is gone, the people who want a challenge no longer have that option. I feel as though the game has been dummied down for people who want things easy. How do I like it now? Meh...now, I go there for Frostfire only. If somebody is trying to form a Frostfire team, I happily oblige them. Chances are, you yourself has ran Frostfire with me a time or two and simply did not know it. However, that is the only use I see for Hollows now. This game went from being challenging to easy. I miss the way that it was before all the changes. That's just me though....and one thing I have learned, how I see things and feel about things, almost ALWAYS is just the opposite of how all of you see things and feel about things. So much so I am thinking about changing my name to Opposite-Man.

That was EXACTLY what I loved about it back then! It was called a hazard zone for a reason, now...it's just another zone to me. Yeah, well, most sane people hated when missions were placed deep in them pretty much blocking off progress because you can't reach the door... Haha, I guess you can call me coo coo then, lol.

That was EXACTLY what I loved about it back then! It was called a hazard zone for a reason, now...it's just another zone to me.

Me personally, I honestly wish they would revert the Hollows back to its original state. It never needed a rehaul in my opinion. I miss the original, so many great memories there. All those extra contacts were never needed nor wanted. The ONLY reason people go there now is to do the Trials and Frostfire. I'm just curious...if the Devs came out and said, "Hey! We are reverting Hollows back to its vanilla state!" would you be excited, or would you try and stop the change? How do you feel about Hollows as it stands now? How did you feel about Hollows then?

Is that the powers they shoot from their rifles? I have always said I wish the Devs had made the Beam Rifle blasts look like theirs. Theirs is very wicked looking, whereas Beam Rifle looks very blah to me.

I was noticing this last night on my Grav Dom with Dimension Shift. The poqwer would animate before my character even moved to cast the power.

You're right -- I don't understand that. Absorb has a max and a current value, like HP. Both are determined by effects, with current absorb being unable to exceed max absorb. (Ordinarily, max absorb is 0.) I don't know what the max absorb cap is, and I don't know if it's determined by the caster or by the target. I do know that it's at least in the low thousands. On a tanker who already has Dull Pain or Hoarfrost, an Absorb power would benefit them while a +maxhp power just... doesn't. On a squishy who needs mitigation now, a few hundred points of absorb works quite well in a way capping their maxhp similarly fails to accomplish. When almost every use case I can imagine is different, it's pretty hard for me to understand how they're identical. The way I understand it goes like this. Absorb acts like a Force Field with a set amount of hit points. It does not regenerate. So once it is gone, it's gone, unless reapplied. Absorb is actually a heal. Every Dev of every game I have ever played that uses the Absorb mechanic has always said that it was a heal power, under the animation of absorb. Think other games here, when if you are hit, you are auto healed for the damage you are hit, up to a certain amount of hit points. So they animate this with a shield effect, and presto, you have a new type of heal. Now if it works differently in this game, then please explain. This is something that was added after I left the game. So I may not have a full understanding of how Absorb in this game works...however, I would say my understanding of it is correct, if the original Devs pulled the Absorb idea from other games.

Allow me to put this to rest. Please...hear me out here. Somebody had asked if a server was the unofficial pride server. Which was a fine question to ask. One person says, "I'd like to believe that in 2019, LGBT individuals are welcome on any server." That in itself shouldn't have sparked controversy, it was meant with well intentions...but it was responded to with a bit of aggressive debate. The reaction to the aforementioned comment was met with offense taken, which in turn...spawned an unnecessary and sometimes offensive debate that spiraled out of control. Now, to be fair, the OP already got their answer to their question from a Discord channel that was designated for the LGBT Community. So having said that, the OP knew the answer to their question before making this post. Do I feel like the OP was looking to start a heated debate? No, I do not believe so. I believe the OP simply sought confirmation. The only mistake the OP made, was not thinking their question through very well before posting. HOWEVER, in all fairness, we have ALL made that mistake on these boards. We are all human. And as much as we would all like to pretend that we are perfect on these boards...we all deep down know better. So, if we could all please, cut the OP some slack, and let's simply answer the question and move on, shall we? Not every question asked on these boards has to be a headache by people over analyzing a question and giving an answer that is equally over debated. The OP meant no harm, and neither did the poster who said, "I'd like to believe that in 2019, LGBT individuals are welcome on any server."

This happens from time to time, good news is that it's a rare occurrence. It has only happened to me one time, and I run that TF at very least 3 times a week. (Yes, you heard that right, I am an Altaholic.)

Here is something most players don't seem to understand. Absorb is nothing more than a +Max Hit Points ability. The only difference is that once it is gone, it's gone. I would rather see the power made better somehow, like perhaps a slight regeneration bonus on top of the +Hit Points...not make it weaker by making it an Absorb.

After reading everything here, it becomes very clear to me, that it is VERY sad that we even have to have this conversation.

This right here. I have read the comments that flowed this one, all I can say is, I play on Excelsior, what some have deemed the "Family" server. I am sure I have played with many LGBT people...and not once were any of them denied the human right to exist and play a game. The LGBT are a part of us, not separate. So play whatever server you wish. It is your right...and like the quoted post says, you are welcomed anywhere. Separate yourselves if you wish, that is your choice, but to do so takes you a step in the wrong direction.

Since we're making this an educational thread -- this mistakes two things. First, there is only one set-type enhancement that gives a +tohit bonus all the time (the misleadingly named Karma +6% Accuracy), and only a few that give proc +tohit (like Gaussian's). It's worth making the distinction because there *is* some kind of bonus which affects hit chance that's making Defense ineffective, which is Accuracy. Accuracy and ToHit apply at different stages of the hit calculation, but Defense only works against ToHit. To counteract this, most Defense sets (SR included) get elusivity in PvP, which *does* work against accuracy. This is one implementation of Arcanaville's proposed anti-accuracy which... well since she's here, perhaps she'll generously explain since she can do a better job than I can. And perhaps renew her campaign to get a version of it in PvE? I'm not terribly familiar with PvP builds but as far as I can tell there's some misinformation that's hurting the no-Defense advice. Realistically Elude *should* help a great deal in PvP because if it's slotted for Defense it ought to still floor enemy ToHit (since it would be the biggest bonus, calculated first to bypass PvP diminishment, and do >-70% -- with the rest of the set counteracting Tactics/Aim/BU/etc ToHit) and then SR's elusivity should dramatically reduce the effects of accuracy slotting. It's possible that I'm forgetting something about PvP (notably, I'm basing this in part on the idea that stacked ToHit and Accuracy bonuses should be scaling down to the point of near-irrelevance at absurd investment levels, and that inspirations are affected by this diminishment as well) so perhaps I'm mistaken. Either way, it's not the voltage that kills you, it's the +acc. The other error is that 'softcap' is a point of functional maximum effect before the game actually cuts off the stat (a hard cap), so Defense has a softcap (usually 45) well below most archetypes' hard cap (around 200). If Resistance had a softcap, it would be 100% -- but the hard cap is always below that. Here is what I can tell you...on Live, I played as a Stalker with a min/maxed build. I also PvPed, I pretty much lived in WB...and when RV came out, I moved to there. Once IO's came out it changed everything. I was getting smacked through Elude like I had nothing. This happened very consistently. Accuracy bonuses in sets + ToHit buffs that people could get in the Epic Pools, plus the other bonuses in IOs made life as a Defensive Stalker miserable. If this person you speak of has a way to counter that, great. However, Elec is where it's at until then. I lost my faith in Defensive sets for PvP in the level 50 zones. Pre RV, Defense probably is still functional. However, most players who PvP shoot for high accuracy and high +tohit, and almost always stacked, as most on a team will all have tactics. IMO, running with Defense in PvP is just far too risky.

I have to ask....is this for PvP? If so, don't waste your time with Defensive sets in PvP. With all the +ToHit going around with IO's these days, your Elude will get you face planted. For PvP, I suggest Elec Armor. You can get 75% Resists with IOs easy and reach the soft cap on almost everything. Toxic/Dark/Psionic being the exception. Toxic around 24%, Negative around 62% and Psionic around 70%...which Negative and Psionic still gives you close to soft cap resist. Couple this with a Self heal and you're golden. My two cents, just in case you are trying to build for PvP.

I have seen this as well. However, I always chopped this up to latency. Even though you are stopped in your screen, the servers have not yet caught up to your actions, so you hit AS before your character has actually stopped. This is why I always wait till approximately .5 seconds before initiating my AS...if I am in a real hurry, I will smash and bash my Shift + 3 Key (I use a button on my mouse for Shift) until it fires off. Now what I am seeing in game, is AS activating with the spiny circle around the ability, then all of a sudden, a Scrapper or another stalker or Tank/Brute will jump in, Collision will move my character a foot or two...and suddenly I get a message saying "Interrupted" above my head, even though I took no damage and my character was in position prior to collision moving me.

Spring Attack is a funny little thing. It alerts enemies to your presence, but doesn't actually break Hide, so you can follow it up with a quick auto-crit ST attack after nuking a group of enemies with it. Lightning Rod works the same way (and I assume so does Shield Charge, though I've never tried that one myself). Since Hemorrhage is actually better than AS when used from Hide anyway, it's a natural follow-up, making Spring Attack a much better choice for a leap-in attack than the one actually native to Savage. That's good info, thanks. I knew LR didn't, my main Stalker is Elec/Elec, but since SA is a pool power, I honestly didn't think it worked the same way, so that is awesome info. Thank you.