quixoteprog

I made up a red side Fire/Rad controller a few weeks ago. I like him fine. But probably should have done some other secondary. The debuffs in Rad seem to only ever be worthwhile in groups because in solo they eat up so much end that I am better off just using it to do damage. Not posting a build to get detailed build help. Just looking for general tips on skipable powers and if there is a specific point where they usually take off.

This is not exactly true. Spamming FLG to find a fire farm is pretty much the same as using it to do DFB. That IS true. But there are people who panhandle in the AE mission room. It is nothing I would call a problem. I just don't understand it. Random guys will come up and ask to door sit my mission. I probably should not find it annoying, but yeah, kinda? Not because it would cost me that much. It wouldn't. It's just that fire farming doesn't require ANY kind of special resources to start. There are TONS of tutorials out there telling people how to do it. You can create a second account and make up your own guy and FF yourself until your hearts content. There are challenges in running at +4/x8 with solo bosses on and in getting your clear times down and optimizing your inf./hour. That is as much why I do it as to finance my alts. But creating a second account and getting a farmer to 50 who can PL your main account toons up to 30ish is a breeze. If you are impatient with your level progression, even with XP boosts and patrol XP and mission groups then why not just make up a FF of your own?

I am fine with PA jumping into melee, because the members of Phantom Army are invulnerable. Phantasm on the other hand, is not PA. 😄 It can die in a couple swipes from a boss and DOES. It would be nice if the decoy he summons jumped into melee and he did not. But if I had my preferences I would have them both stay at ranged. (by both here I mean Phantasm and his decoy, not PA. PA, as you said, should jump in there and mix it up.)

While it is nice that MM pet AI got fixed it would be cool if the Phantasm AI got something similar so that he no longer runs in for a hug after blasting mobs with a ranged attack. At least, I assume that's what he is doing since he doesn't even HAVE any melee attacks.

I'm cool with some missions forcing you to lead the hostage to the exit. In fact I think it would be cool to have them be vulnerable to attack, the way some mission NPCs are. It would need to be a special class of escort mission, though. Not the norm. One CLEARLY MARKED as special where you NEED to read the briefing if you want to succeed. Like in some timed missions where it warns you there will be a time limit. In this case it would be CLEARLY spelled out in the mission briefing that the hostage would be vulnerable and the bad guys would try to kill them. If you DID succeed, however, you would get a much bigger XP/INF. bonus. Because it would be very difficult, and probably frustrating for some people. And harder for some ATs than others. But as long as it was optional, people could ignore it if they don't want to do it. There is at least one mission in RWZ where you have to be careful not to meet any of the patrols; which are all drones so having stealth does not help in avoiding them. If you aggro any patrol you trigger repeated attacks by bosses and will eventually fail the mission. I think because you aggro a named mob you are not supposed to kill. The most frustrating aspect of that mission for ME is that it is not clearly spelled out that this mission is different from the other 99% of those you go on where what is written in the briefing is just flavor text you can ignore or read if you want.

I never ran a fire controller back then. I think you got 3/cast, at least. Which meant you could have at least 9-12 out. To my knowledge there was no "cap" but I could be wrong on that one.

Just a guess, but I will go out on a bit of a limb and say that all of the initial origin based contacts fit this same template. There is a reason why so many people breeze by the early contacts content by doing DFB. So much of it is not bad so much as meh. At least that is the case for CoH. It's a bit better for CoV I think, but not by much. Say what you will about DFB but it is a pretty cool mission arc. It is much more fun to me than any of the missions given by starter contacts and the rewards are WAAAY better than anything you get from them. Probably too good. But be that as it may it might be cool if you were rewarded with a SO, or something like that, when you finished all of a beginning contacts missions.

I agree with the OP in one sense, that Power pools are boring, and it would be nice if they offered something flavor wise to the game. All they currently offer are travel power, attacks or combat oriented buffs/debuffs. That is mainly because other than hunting badges there is almost nothing to do in the game besides fight stuff. The problem with his solution, as many have pointed out, is that the effective result of all his suggestions would be to mostly just raise the combat power of players. Something we certainly DON'T need in a game that is already pretty easy. It would be nice to have some non-combat centered powers, but to do that you would first need some kind of compelling non-combat related activities for them to effect. Travel is the most obvious one and that is already covered by the existing powers. It would be nice to add some "sensory" powers, like the P2W vendor power that lets you uncover parts of the map, but also applies to clicky objectives and hidden enemies. That is about the only non-combat related activity I can think of that might be useful in this game.

Yes, it is!

If you think they are out of control NOW, I remember back in the day, prior to Enhancement Diversification and the pet changes (I think pets used to last 5 minutes and recharge in 5 minutes, until they made it so that you could only have one out at a time, but they stayed out and could zone with you) You could also slot Hasten and Accelerated Metabolism with 4-5 recharge SOs and get them and PA perma by the time you got Phantasms and by 33-4 you could be running around with 3-4 Phants out spamming Energy Torrent and summoning decoys. Anything that was not flat on its back was busy fighting Phantom Army or on of your 3 Phantasm's decoys. THAT was broken. Now, they can just solo AVs and GMs, which I think is fair. The short answer is, this game is not balanced. It never was. In my opinion it is one of the reasons it never got much traction beyond its core fan base. Some ATs are easy mode because they have extremely effective damage mitigation built in, while others require a lot of thought and consideration to do anything more than +1/x1 because the only damage mitigation is strategic playing.

I never said they were GOOD at healing. Skill and desire don't always coincide. They may THINK they are good at it, and that is all that is required for them to start issuing orders. There are a sizable number of people who just want to fill a niche. This game does not really have those. Most team lack even a Glory Hole for a healer to fill.

Or, even a P2W power, like the rocket board or Void Skiff, that is essentially just a Ninja Run version of power slide. One that looks like a skateboard another that looks like an ice block or board. Instead of jumping you could build a ramp?

Power levelling I find ridiculous. In this game more so than in any MMO. Now, for base redesign? THAT would be worth 30 million inf. 8-] Getting good enough to make one that looks like anything but a big warehouse full of shelves and benches would take way more time than getting to 50.

I think it is because Empathy is billed as this awesome support set for people going ALL IN on support. Some people like that. It gives them a sense of purpose to feel like they are filling a much needed roll. And it kind of is a really good healing set. Or, at least really focused on just support. I don't know of another support set that is more support focused. You get no "attack/debuf" oriented power but five buffs, two AoE and three single target. An AoE heal and a single target heal. You also get a second BAD single target heal that I am not counting since I don't think anyone takes it because it damages you and you already have umpteen other things that heal damage. Those other sets you mention may offer more useful powers, in this game, since they have healing, buffing and debuffing. Empathy is all about helping the team, even at your own expense, and so draw people more focused on the team. Unfortunately in this game you really don't have TEAMS because you don't need them. You form groups where you zip through content that half the people could solo and so there is no need to communicate or coordinate anything. Hence you get the bossy empath who is trying to fulfill the role of healer, that is not needed, on a team, that is not needed. It makes them feel frustrated with a group that "won't listen". While the the rest of the group steamrolling through content is wondering why this guy is nattering on about buffs when my health bar has not budged in three missions and I can barely get two licks in on a boss before he is dead. Believe it or not, however, there are times when it can be useful. I run a mind/empathy controller who usually just hold stuff and hands out buffs willy/nilly as they come up. But on rare occasions he will find himself in a group so incompetent that he actually has to pay attention to the health bars of some of his fellow player. Probably because the tank has yet to figure out how to buy enhancements or something. I don't know.

My guess is these are people who have played other MMOs. Ones where a healer is a vital part of the team. In games like that the healer is usually tasked with keeping people alive, especially the tank, something that is only possible if the people at least occasionally listen to them. Since this game is NOT such a game they probably are going crazy trying to keep order so that they don't get blamed for a party wipe. Something that rarely happens. I would give them a break since being a healer/buffer in this game is a bit like being the admiral of the Mongolian Navy. With no coastline in a country that is mostly mountains and desert you pretty much just show up to state functions in your pretty uniform and bow. Fill out paperwork.

Without content to match this it would only serve to make a very easy game incredibly easy. The current ITF trials and such all seem to be designed to challenge people WITHOUT Incarnate slots unlocked and level shifts. People routinely run missions set at +4/x8 NOW. The progression should be something like, design content that people CAN'T do, and THEN give them powers that allow them to complete that content. That would give us a sense of progression and accomplishment at having overcome adversaries.

As I said before, I don't know why they even have the distinction between hero and villain zones. Technically everyone can go to any zone any time they want. You just need to stop by Pocket D and get NtG to switch you. If we have to keep the PvP aspect, instead of forbidding someone from entering a zone of the wrong alignment why not just have a zone prompt you, similar to the way you get prompted in coop zones, with a message saying, " in order to enter this zone you must go 'under cover'". The prompt gives you options to switch alignments right there. Similar to what Null the Gull does. Heroes become vigilantes and villains become rogues. When you leave you go back. Problem solved. Everyone can go to everywhere.

There are quite a few hero zones that are sparsely populated. I don't think it is in any danger of killing the game. Especially not after it has died and returned once already. And if it was so horrible, suuuuuch a hardship on heroes to lose a zone or two it would probably be almost as easy to just copy the zone, give it a minor remake with darker textures, and then call it "Iron Canyon" or "Nightway City". Then you have a new zone on the cheap.

I don't think it is true that remaking an existing zone is any less work than creating an entirely new one. IIRC I read a dev. interview from back in the day talking about the rework to Faultline and DA that said they discovered that do those was just as much work as making an entirely new zone from scratch.

I think this is as close to what you are wanting as exists. I think the only version still available is in the web archive : http://web.archive.org/web/20140625171903/http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/

Better yet, remake all the zones to allow players of any type. Players from opposing sides would need to "flag" themselves as open to PvP in order to attack each other. Something similar to how WoW does it. Then, anyone could go anywhere. I think it would be interesting to just have your status of villain/rogue/vig/hero be something that doesn't show up until someone tries to attack you. Might keep people on their toes when people start throwing around AoE powers in big groups. But that is just me. I don't think most people would go for that. I just don't see why the populations are segregated the way they are anymore. It might have made sense years ago when it came out. When they were trying to go for some kind of PvP factions vibe, but I don't think that ever took hold in this game so probably should just concede defeat on that and let people go wherever. If they want to fight another player they can change a setting, like turning off bosses or setting no AV to EB.

Probably just something they missed in turning off the Winter Event.

I second that. I have one character that has made it past lvl 20 on redside, that I have not yet caved in an switched to blue with. Some of the missions are cool but soloing is almost all you can do. There seems to be a red side version of Twin Shot's story arc that, to me at least, is almost, but not quite, as annoying. Other than that it just seems to be fighting a lot of zombies and snake men. Also, a good guide to Praetorian/Gold Side stuff would be cool as well. I find that to be even worse than Red Side. Not only is it very scarce of other players it seems to have just the one primary story arc and every zone looks almost exactly the same.

Since you seems to be belligerently ignoring the point I keep making over and over, I'll just stop engaging with you on this. It is like talking to a wall, that Mexico is going to pay for...

Hate to tell you but women have naughty bits down there too. They might still all be MALE, but could be TDD women got no boobs to speak of. Or possibility 3 is they are enither one and instead have got some kind of Chthonic writhing mass of tentacles down there of which they do not speak. Only way to find out is to offer one a hand job and see what happens. While there is no way in Shub Nigaurot that I'm volunteering for THAT mission, I await YOUR further updates with a mixture of intrigue and terror.