ExeErdna

Friday at 03:04 PM

To me, when I first saw BWI they reminded me of the best selection from Praetoria's mobs. You gotta freed Seers, IDF heavies, their tech is PPD and they have some former Resistance and Syndicate members. Since BWI is supposed to come together after the whole Mag Trial and post-incarnate stuff.

I still think the Praetorian Duray or even both of them have something to do with this group because neither of them died during Sutter's Task Force. Seeing Hill's Warriors being more or less "passive" around them as well. So the events of Mortimer Kal and Adm. Sutter are pretty much directly tied to the creation of BWI in a way.

I now see them as their own mob, their vision alone is what makes them dangerous. Many a time I came off an elevator and they saw me before I saw them. That's more fearsome than any other faction in the game. You really can't be like they're like Malta especially rolling solo or with squisher characters. Even at base level they can drop a maxed incarnate with ease. I've seen them stalemate one of my regen tankers I was testing and then win because all the debuffs finally caused a crash.

Maybe sometime down the line BWI be given a Strike Force. Since I don't see "heroes" directly busting down doors of this group. Yet maybe somebody from Longbow willing to look the other way and make it known they feel slighted by this group.

June 19

I can agree on skipping the -regen picks due to they're too slow, yet keep Temporal Selection because you can buff the pet out with it when it's off CD most allies will be fine with the healing/buffs Time can provide as is. Yet dumping a Temporal on the Wheel makes it better. When Pyro is up on mids I did plan on making Pyro/Time since the -to hit is around 40% with the auras.

June 17

4 hours ago, Shin Magmus said:

While Jubilee is still the absolute lamest of the X-Men, her powerset is in a workable state now. Having played around ToHit debuffs for most of my CoH career, I can easily envision a scenario where my Controllers or Doms can safely solo purely off the back of Glittering Column, Hypnotizing Lights (proc-bombed as an attack but used for the Sleep, same as Symph Control), and chilling with Incendiary Aura. It's unfortunate that the set doesn't have a traditional reliable 16 target AoE Stun, but that won't actually impede my ability to survive. As long as you understand that you're leveraging debuffs as much as mezzes, it works.

This is how I feel about the set now it's stable for what it wants to do and when mids get updated for Pyro I'm for sure gonna post my main testing build which was a Pyro/Therm troller

June 16

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

We see that in practice, this does not nearly make up for the Tanker advantage.

Those people don't actually care about melee classes, to the extent that they believe this they can play Blasters and Corruptors.

It's also broadly sophistry. People are like, "Four star content is the hardest in the game." Sure, by some measure, but it's hard in a very specific way (and a way that was specifically designed to undervalue mitigation in general and defense in particular). It's not representative of the rest of the game. This is kinda like saying, "The hardest thing in baseball is to do a super-fastball pitch (arguably true), so we don't need to care about whether someone can hit or catch a ball." Perhaps true if you only care about pitchers, but ignores 90% of the game.

That's because Brutes shine with double offensive auras where Tankers shine with there as well. Yet often times their ATO pulls them over the cap armor dependent. Yet then you have Energy Aura and Regen now that people wanted because it played differently compared to what's expected from a Tanker. Since both lack an offensive aura they need to have a decent overall attack power or else they're just a ticking time bomb before their defenses get overwhelmed. That's one of the worse things to happen is when you realize how your build is crashing. Most other AT's are basically like "don't pull that aggro" Yet the MAIN ONE that's supposed to do that should never be struggling to do that job.

The issue with 4 Star runs there is a reason why most runners of it say "EVERYBODY NEEDS BARRIER CORE" Since even with everybody most like min-maxxed it still ain't enough.

June 16

1 hour ago, Warboss said:

I don't think it's a "you problem" it's a game balance/game mechanics issue (maybe power sets as well...). One that needs to be addressed by resolving procs and other AT shortcomings PRIOR to nerfing Tanks, or any other AT.

The funny thing is procs aren't a problem either, the problem isn't the ATs or Procs it's AE and how people farm. Yet are they really the problem? No, it's more so an excuse. Not everybody is running papers/strike forces or trails. Most people miss out a a massive chunk of stories because how fast you level even without the boosters. Procs are nice on support classes like Defender, Corruptors, Controller, Dominators and Masterminds just to toss out a bit of extra dmg on something that normally doesn't do damage. Yet what the nerfs to Tankers seems to be return them to how they were before the buffs when they used to "bruise" without giving them that back... Or when they had to fix it so Irradated Ground took melee sets. Which personally more consistent on Brutes than it is on Tankers since the absorb is so small you really wouldn't notice it like that. The thing for Tankers they need a solid offensive state so they aren't just taking damage

June 15

32 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

Is the change to the rest of the game worth it to stop this subgroup? Will we see tanks become mostly a memory for 2 or 3 years with no reaction? who benefits from this "balancing"? will it make the game better?

It won't because hitting Tankers this hard is just gonna make them buff them in a few months or year when people stop rolling tanks except for the few die hards and people running trials. People are still gonna be running AE at work spending billions on outright buying what they want off the market. Seeing how mobs are getting buffed and how I see that they MAYBE need to keep their DPS intact because of how I'm seeing BWI and 50+ Wyvern and Freaklok gonna be a problem for Tankers that aren't min-maxing or proc bombing. It reminds me of when Powertech was grossly nerfed in PVE because of PVP antics in SWTOR. To me to never nerf because of a subset of players that aren't really interacting with the greater game. That's how you over nerf and then in PVE the class is gonna end up lagging behind. All due to it's too strong in a corner you just can't knock the house down...

June 15

9 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Procs are a huge, huge, perhaps dominant, feature of CoH's meta across every AT. That's perhaps the exact reason why you can't say, "Well, before we do anything else, first we have to fix procs." Like, you think that people are upset in this thread, wait until every single engaged builder in on the boards turns out to post fifty times each about their feelings on your proposed proc fix.

But it's also just straightforwardly true that large target caps are a big deal, they've been a big deal everywhere, and Tankers who get enlarged AoE areas and relaxed target caps without any loss of base damage to their AoE attacks have a huge advantage, even without procs.

It's because they unironically need that advantage if they can't consistently do damage which allows them to hold aggro what's the use of a Tanker? This is pretty much reverting the buffs they got a while ago when people really weren't using them. Are procs really the problem? Or is it a VERY small subset of the player base making murderballs playing AE all day the issue?

June 14

From what I played with Grav/Rad on live. Making it an adaptive AOE hold with a bit of damage is all it needs. Not all the older AOE holds need to be a field now.

June 14

10 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

It's not.

Procs actually skew things slightly in favour of Brutes.

Tanker's AoEs and Cones being capable of hitting 60-100% more Targets for full damage (and having 50% more coverage area in most cases!) is the problem. However it's a problem that only really becomes overtly troublesome whenever you are surrounded by enough targets for those AoEs and Cones to consistently achieve full target saturation. Like AE Farming (which is irrelevant for AT balance) and when steamrolling through content at +Nx8 (which isn't)

To me when soloing getting surrounded is bad. I rolled up a Regen/Savage Tanker and I started pulling mobs and getting surrounded on purpose. The lost of attack power hurts now from when playing groups there wouldn't be this issue but, at that point I'm just a meat shield. So the "murderball" of having double damage auras is messing up the metrics of this whole design choice. Sure Fire/Dark/Elec/Bio and Rad/Spines can do what they do without much input. Yet what about the others that don't have that? Them now being weaker doesn't solve a problem it creates another one. To attempt to stop the murderballs the other sets get hit a bit too hard, especially with how enemy regen got bumped up it feels a bit excessive.

June 14

1 hour ago, Shin Magmus said:

Keep in mind that powers like Glittering Column basically have 2 powers within them, and allowing the set to slot Accurate Tohit Debuff sets may make one power enhanceable but the other not receive any benefit: worst-case example being that you slot Cloud Senses and it makes the Glitter Explosion debuff go up but fails to affect the Glitter Aura debuff at all. Set/Slotting related bugs like this are very common on HC, any time the devs change what kind of sets a power takes. This is still an issue on Fault even where it's supposedly WAI, where slotting TAoE sets does nothing to even buff the accuracy of the Stun/KD component of the power: which has lower than 1.0x base acc. That second power doesn't accept those sets, so your enhancement does nothing. You have to use more universal enhancements like Hamis to get around the issue.

So yeah, if we allow Accurate Tohit Debuff sets in GC, please make sure they affect both debuffs: thank you.

Yeah, that's what I was wondering because currently when slotting the column. I do a 5 piece Dark Watcher and Acc/Dmg hami. When full slotting Clouded Senses is just better. Also might help with some higher-tiered enemies outright ignore it since the acc atm is too low.

1 hour ago, Kai Moon said:

Yeah, Rocket Twirl's range should be 0.

Catherine Wheel's current behavior is to get within 100 feet of the target, then fire off the PBAoE (hitting nothing), then continue getting closer to use single-target ranged attacks.

Compare to Demon Prince's Frozen Aura, which has a range of 0. Demon Prince uses its ranged attacks, then runs into melee before using Frozen Aura, as expected.

I think the wheel's AI is set to "normal" when it might need to be set to "melee" since this is an issue with a lot of pets where they hang back and aren't as aggressive as one may think. Since I remember with earlier testing the Wheel would often chase enemies into rooms. This is when I noticed my Wheel chased down a runner and almost killed it. It was during one of those "All Paragon Protector" Warehouse missions. Also, this was the time I was reporting that the wheel was also getting stuck on corners. If you would move too fast around objects or around corners it would need to be resummoned because the commands wouldn't work at all.

June 12

3 minutes ago, tidge said:

I gotta write: Suggesting Trapdoor (and Pylons) as a means of balancing power sets and ATs seems like it is really muddying the waters when it comes to relative performance. Even the vaunted Ston analysis showed fractions of a minute in differences between three different melee ATs (at level 50).

My measure of a stable build is non-incarnate slotted 50 versus Malta 50+2/8/bosses and AV's on since they're now the most "fair" group at the 50 currently. Once the KW update rolls out that's gonna change to Cray. I take missions where I have to kidnap or grab an item, so I can always reset the mission. To me you're not REALLY supposed to be soloing AVs yet can I GET TO THEM? Can I handle the alpha strikes without Incarnates or excessive buffing? Since I play like I'm in a group what can I do for this group. Which means on Lady Grey can I with this character run ALL the way to Penny can save her? If a Tanker has a hard time doing that there's a problem. Many tankers can't deal with Hami's debuffs. Yet I sure as hell wanna see how much can a Regen Tanker really can hang versus a real Hami.

To me a Tanker should be able to hang versus +3 enemies from 2 pulled groups. BWI, Wyvern and Freaklok should be the newer higher end testing measure for a stable build. What's a DPS test when you need to factor in being debuffed while doing the DPS. Like versus BWI and Wyvern it was a shitshow with my building logic with +3 and +4 enemies. The only tanker that I made on Brainstorm that was stable versus that newer higher end foes was my Stone/Stone/Earth

June 11

6 minutes ago, Shin Magmus said:

I really think that if you're going to post test times, it should be the same powerset but on different ATs: to assess whether the Tanker performs better or worse with Broadsword than the Brute with Broadsword etc. Also, you will never convince the dev team (or even Shin) that Tankers are in trouble just because their solo clear time is slower than the other 3 ATs, because Tankers are also tougher solo than the other 3 ATs.

On large teams you have buffs flying left and right, so the main time that Tanker increased bulk is really noticeable is... on small teams or when soloing. The devs will see the tankiest AT dealing the least damage as WAI. You need something else to make your case. That's why I hone in on the AoEs because it is a literal quote from design statements and devs that "Tankers are AoE specialists", but the way I see them after these changes they are not... and in fact reduced to being AoE shittylists.

Yeah, I can agree, Tankers were never really AOE specs unless you were running Elec, Staff, and Titan which can reach out pretty well. Yet most secondaries have 1 really good AOE and the rest are ok. It's why to me at least Primaries with damage always stood out.

June 9

On 6/7/2025 at 5:50 PM, Hamborgini said:

Female > Head > Detail 2 > Seer

Female > Body > Belt > Seer

These two costume pieces occasionally lose the coloring from color 2 seemingly at random, even on first loading the character list. Once the bug happens, it stops color 2 from applying to these two costume pieces in every head/body variation they appear in across every costume on every character and across all accounts on the same computer. I'm not sure what's causing it, because I can't get it to happen consistently. Completely restarting the client is the only fix I've found when this happens.

The lights are based on the time of day from what I've noticed, they're only on at night.

June 9

11 hours ago, MC333 said:

Thank you very much for all the work done to bring us a new power set.

Tested: Controller and Dominator, solo play, majority at level 50, across a wide variety of zones/maps and against a wide variety of enemies.

While I really like the set overall, I have found 2 powers to be underwhelming.

Sparkling Chain - frustratingly ineffective due to short 15' radius of chain hops.

Majority of enemy spawn groups in the game include enemies spaced more than 15' apart.

Sparkling Chain is usually only able to hit a fraction (often a small fraction) of an enemy group, while other AOE Immobilizes are able to routinely hit a lot more enemies.

How to improve?

- Increase the chain jump radius to 20' or 25' to improve the potential coverage area. (At 20' or 25' radius the coverage would still be significantly less than all the targeted AOE immobilizes which have 30' radius.)

Incindiary Aura - overall feels lackluster, Blast Off occurs infrequently.

Pyro is hard on endurance and Incindiary Aura could use a little more incentive to justify the added end cost of the toggle.

How to improve?

- Maybe increase Blast Off chance and allow multiple Blast Off to occur simultaneously to add mitigation and theme flavor.

- Or maybe add some -RES to the Aura itself ("combustible properties")

I get where you're coming from especially, on the aura. Personally, the effect needs to cover more of that 20ft radius for more visual feedback. Since it's the same radius as Hot Feet and that has the visual aspect that helps it feel more impactful. Also, multiple blasts do happen it's often time the sound is drown out and the "Blast Off's" are stacking between the aura, the pet and what you're casting. The problem I think is bothering you is how the Blast Off procs are inconsistent sometimes. As it'll hit 1 guy like 4 times and the rest of group is just debuffed, so, the frequency could be buffed to be a bit more snappy. That "Pow" sound is Incendiary going off. I don't want it to be like "firecrackers" since they'll roll into the "annoying sounds please turn that off" That Hurricane, Repel and Sonic Repulsion currently have.

Sparking Chain is fine because it's supposed to be used after a Glittering Column. If Sparking Chain was buff to be like that it could risk pulling 2 mobs which would just cause more problems later. Since that's an issue I've have when playing Trollers when I first started throwing out that AOE Immo can makes things worse if you hit 2 groups by mistake. I like it being a bit more contained than other AOE Immos

June 7

From my time testing tankers I realized Tankers are melee controllers. So to me they either NEED to be able to sweep through mobs and soften them up for other players. Or IF their damage is low their debuffing/mezzing should be high. A Lowbie troller using their AOE Immo or a Fire Blaster using Fireball should NEVER pull aggro off a Tanker. If a Tanker now is gonna be lower damage they need a higher aggro cap which means their AOE's need to be made bigger. Which is now a cascading effect of problems. Since if they are weaker people will expect something else is stronger. Since Brutes can get wild with their damage numbers they just prefer to have double auras to be a ball of damage. While if you would mirror the build on Tanker it would be a slightly bigger ball of aggro. It's why Fire, Elec, Dark, Ice, Bio/Spines, Rad are popular across both AT's

When they don't have a proper AOE aura like with Regen and EA they have to make it up with being extremely solid almost to the point of unkillable. That's a traditional thought process of the Tanker yet when ALL the damage and AOE are pulled down to prevent the "murder balls" it's hurting the Invincible/Broad Sword which was already lacking normally. Since one thing personally about Tankers they should be the BASELINE of melee damage and defensive scaling. Since Brutes SHOULD scale higher damage wise because their builds are often extremely hot and unstable. Scrappers have amazing offensive and defensive selection of powers not too strong and not too weak. Stalkers being the powerhouses because they often give up AOE attacks and defensive ability for stealth and high burst. Finally, Sentinels are sitting in the same lane as Scrappers but with Blaster sets.

Instead of going for "everything should be closer to the same" It should be "Everything needs to stand out" letting Tanker's keep their baseline damage doesn't make Brutish Murder Ball less appealing due to stability. Upping their AOE isn't just for the murder balls it's for Titan weapons, the Super Strength, Staff Mastery, The War Mace, Broad Swords, etc. The Regen/Axe shouldn't be weaker because the Fire/Rad is just gonna be stronger. Let them both be strong in their own way.

June 6

23 hours ago, The Volt said:

Would we be able to get (sorry, this list may be long):

Everything from this image of a Praetorian PPD, the bigger gloves, boots, legs, belt, shoulders, and helm. If possible variants without the PPD logo would be amazing.

The larger IDF chest piece that also goes round the back, and the IDF belt with the leg pouches.

The armoured leg variant of the PPD legs from these TEST guys. Also their chunkier shoulders, chest piece, and boots.

Also TEST have a variant of the chest piece without the yellow lines which would be nice to have:

The Longbow belt that has the leg pouches.

The Wyvern chest piece, and maybe their boots too.

The Tsoo hat, belt, and face covering.

The Tsoo long skirt.

The long tattered skirt.

The Resistance armoured legs (as modelled by the Seed Hunter)

I know some of these have been denied before due to the clipping issues (I think the IDF Chest piece in particular is a major offender) but I figured I'd shoot my shot.

This is a good selection of stuff to be ported to the players I know it'll be harder to get those armor pieces over to the female models tho. Eventhough how much I want that PPD chest and shoulders for my Arsenal/Traps troller.

June 6

Brillant Barrage should work more aligned with how Glittering Column should work as an AOE. I've noticed the Barrage has a weird LOS between me and the enemy feature which has down me honestly too often. Due to I'll attempt to stack the barrage on top of column even if I'm not that far out from it and it just refuses to work. I've even experienced this is melee range where it wouldn't click. IMO the LOS has to go before release because it's gonna get complaints.

June 1

Personally drop the taunt from Tree and give it some sort of anti mez. Let the Taunt gimmick be unique to Pyro

June 1

From what I've been playing with on Trollers I'm really understanding how this wants to be slotted

Sparkling Cage: is either a skip or 5 slots with Decimation taking a build up proc is up to choice.

Dazzle: is a 4 slot with Basalisk's Gaze

Sparking Chain: is either a 5 slot purple immo set or 6 slot immo set or add a 50 dmg piece in place of the hold proc. Then Overpowering Presence.

Glittering Column: Either 2 slot d-sync/hami (end/-def/-tohit), 5 slot dark watcher or 6 slot with a 5 piece dark watcher and a 50 dmg piece.

Hypnotizing Lights: 6 slot with either Overpowering Presence or Overwhelming Force

Multipurpose Missiles: 6 slot with Will of the Controller

Incendiary Aura: 2 slot with d-sync/hami (end/-def/-tohit)

Explosive Bouquet: 6 slot purple hold set or use a 6 slot Lockdown

Catherine Wheel: 6 slot Cupid's Crush

Edit for Doms

Put Dominating Grasp in Sparking Chain, Ancendency of the Dominator in Hypnotizing Lights and Ragnarok in Multipurpose Missiles

June 1

2 hours ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

Don't be dumb like me kids; take Roots. I don't even really know why I skipped it, but don't be like me. That made a huge difference in being able to take out a spawn and puts my Plant troller a lot closer to my Elec controller at the same level. It still seems a tad slow against even level mobs (I still think my Elec is killing faster), but definitely not as slog-like.

So, for other testing feedback:

I like the new adaptive recharge for Seeds--it feels much better to play with, especially when you're running at smaller team sizes like I tend to do with solo. I also kind of like that you don't have to rely on Seeds as the crutch of the entire Plant Control set.

I still think Spirit Tree needs work--the regen part seems fine; my health does pretty well when near it in the middle of a mob, however, this thing is not able to keep aggro from me whatsoever; I have yet to see the mobs be more interested in it than myself, and perhaps this is because I don't use it to take an alpha strike.

I will bump this character up again so I can test Creepers now that they're not bugged.

Yeah, Spirit Tree was not holding aggro well at all since I was testing this versus Carnies. Creepers hold aggro more consistently than the Tree, I also miss my whole point of my building was the drop multiple of them to keep a group healed. The most consistent way the Tree holds aggro you have to pull at near max range and somewhat break Line of Sight. The reason why I used Carnies as a test because we know the first thing most of the mobs do is Blind so anytime I got instantly held, I knew the aggro failed. To me, Vines isn't worth slotting for dmg tragically.

May 31

24 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

It isn't terrible, but in its current form, I'd swap seeds out for stalagmites in a heartbeat if I could. Big AoE instead of a cone, longer range, 16 target cap. Yes please.

Probably the biggest downside is just that the Stun enhancement sets aren't as good as the confuse ones, but that isn't the power's fault. I mean, a tohit debuff proc on a stun set? What were they thinking? Then another one has a knockback proc, not only terrible, but often actually detrimental. Stun has the worst procs ever.

The best one in theory is the immo proc so they don't wander off yet that doesn't stop that most of the time I'm just putting "Will of the Controller", "Ragnarok" or "Avalanche" in stuns,

May 31

2 hours ago, arcane said:

I don’t understand this bullshit argument about “I’ll die if 6 of 16 enemies can attack me”. I build for like 0% resistance and 5% defense and even I smell some bullshit.

You're misunderstanding the point on purpose, When you open with a confusion IT SHOULD WORK. Which goes back to me saying knockdown is more of a consistent CC. Since now AOE Confusion is barely doing its job outside of Arsenal. Instead of fighting each other, I get hit.

May 31

3 minutes ago, ApolloInferno said:

Just want to make sure I clarify so I'm sure people understand:

Live Version of Seeds is confusing the whole group. When adding the Contagious Confusion and short Recharge, it was very easy to stack the confuse through the mez resistance that the Cimeroran enemies get when they activate Shout of Command. In my opinion, Power in this format can be built with or without Contagious Confusion and still function as a control power.

Test Ver 2 Seeds confuses most of the group. But this is an important distinction. With many cimeroran groups having more the 10 enemies to hit I could randomly die depite using contol power in same way. This version forces you to do a pre mez or a follow up mez to be consistent. The power even with adaptive recharge is also not up each group so you really need to have a second AoE mez on reserve for the next group (otherwise i would die). Contagious Confusion would fix the issue most of the time but procs and the cone would randomly fail me depending on the situation.

In my opinion, it can be frustratingly random with how seeds fails. If i were to guess the reduction of target cap on a cone is a dbl headed nerf because your limited on how many targets you can hit anyway with the arc degree and range. Vs the new mez patches and targets Aoe mez are superior to it in everyway now. Kinda no reason to use this power with just the sleep being better. And after i test holds i expect those 2 will be better and dropping seeds might be an option.

Seeds cap just cant be 10 if you want to use it. It needs to be higher then that or reverted to 16.

This is something I've noticed it isn't as consistent. It's kinda why I liked using Malaise over the Purple because it has range which can get to like 67.4 ish feet with an alpha helping it out. That extra 17 feet can help with that cleave. I also agree it seems like Spores is just better than Seeds atm

May 31

8 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

What good are defenders? bad damage compared to corruptors and defender buffs are not that much better. Defender inherent isnt as good also.

I unironically see defenders are better than corrupters. Corr's main ability comes online too late so with all the AT's that can "crit" they're the worse. Defenders simply having more debuffing across the board are more consistent.

Which is where the issue from Tanker and Brute is. Brutes are great for the "double aura" setup while tankers are basically melee controllers. This is using Dark armor as a baseline. Brutes can use their set to keep cooler overall with less debuffing and resistance while doing more dmg. Tanker is the other way around. Yet personally the hit to Tanker's damage isn't good .85 is too deep of a cut. dropping off 5% sure yet that 15 hurts them while Brutes can really ramp up their damage.

May 31

2 hours ago, Vanden said:

The Gremlins' new melee attack hits much too soon in its animation, and they don't seem to be using Jolting Chain at all on my Dominator.

The fixed Jolting Chain (player version) hits like 8 targets on the first and second jump, at that point it's barely even a chain, might as well just make it a ranged AoE. Fewer targets hit per jump just makes more thematic sense.

I did notice both issues on my Elec/Elec troller

Electric Brawl and Charged Brawl are all the duo are using now. I haven't seen Jolting Chain at all now and don't think they're even using Shock. Since on Live before moving into melee they both would use Jolting Chain and use it the moment anything ran out of their melee range.

The player version just really confirms at late game, Ball Lightning is the overall better choice Than Jolting Chain. It's why I spec'd the way I did because the Gremlin's coverage

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