Frostweaver

I was Frostweaver (Champion's hands-down best Tanker) and Aggressive. Most people will remember me, however, as the one who got into a year-long argument over whether or not Energy armor was 'useless' on the CoH boards.

What's even worse is when you say something that is transparently REAL truth, and utterly indisputable fact, and then weirdos think it's some kind of Opinion. "You probably shouldn't let a three year old use a loaded firearm as a toy" "Licking the bleach off the cap is a bad idea." "No, you won't be able make your own MMORPG on the weekends using Unreal in less than a year." Sometimes these blatantly ridiculous claims MUST be forced into the light of understanding. Or you get gun accidents, or chemical burns. Or Steam. No. all opinions, Paradigms, beliefs, and are not equally Valid. That's what 'Judgement' is for. and discriminating between sense and nonsense. I believe stronghly that you should not allow your toddler to play with a straight razor. No matter what YOU believe, I am going to argue against it, and do what's necessary to prevent it. Because, if you believe your toddler is okay playing with a gun or straight razor, you are WRONG. This attitude that 'every Opinion is valuable' and that arguing against stupid opinions is somehow wrong or impolite or bigoted, is an even MORE destructive and pervasive force in our society. Sometimes you just cannot agree to disagree.

I would like to point out that there is also a vitally important form of mitigation that you have completely ignored... One not neccessarily reliant upon teammates. Slows. While Ice Melee is not the best DPS set in the game, slowing incoming enemy attacks gives a HUGE boost to the survivability of sets like Reflexes and energy. And after playing an ice tanker for 5 years (Before shutdown), I can tell you that that massive attack slow from your aoe is the REASON it is the best tanker in the game. It is non-positional... if they are within melee (Or short range) their damage is cut by 50% or more. It doesn't matter whether it is ranged, melee, or aoe. It doesn't matter what type it is... And it STACKS with the outstanding defense provided by the ice defense set as well as the fairly decent resist and heals.

Oi, I remember this conversation from a decade ago... CoH was balanced specifically around NOT needing a healer in the party. a little healing can speed you up IF the rest of your team doesn't have much self-heal, but in general, pick up groups tend to have at least two people with minor heals of some sort and most of the party can self-heal their way through most encounters... a good defender or controller can slow down the incoming damage or increase the outgoing damage to the point where Healing becomes pretty much superfluous. Carefully put-together groups MIGHT be able to benefit from a healer, but in general if you want to play an empath, play a kinetic instead. That aoe heal/debuff is a delicious feature in an incredibly buff-rich set, and will more than keep a group with a decent tank alive even if they have no healing of their own. IMO, Empathy is not a 'healer' set. Sure, it has several, but late game you will actually spec OUT of 'healzor' stuff because it is unneccessary, and empathy has better late-game buffs. Defenders, especially, have the tools to keep a team with a tanker alive even if they don't have a single healer.

Question: CoH had quite a long run... as a result, later added art assets often did not... Match, the original art assets, especially for costuming textures. Many of us art guys wanted to fix it for YEARS and were willing to throw in a free and clear art release for the privilege, but NCsoft was NOT biting. They didn't even want to SEE replacement textures. The question is, would you guys be willing to look at donated texture assets made by those of us who love the game, in order to update some of those incredibly old first-generation art assets and maybe make the old 'no shader' costume stuff look a bit better?