agentx5

A guide of recommended tactics would help, or a few video clips put together to illustrate. I read what you are staying, and comprehend the words, but don't fully understand. I guess that's just that I've not seen that in action like you're describing it. Unfortunate, because it sounds awesome. This would be good knowledge to share, maybe?

1. That wasn't the discussion Redlynne and I were having. 2. Just FYI... Knockback isn't ALWAYS bad, it's situational. 2a. Imperious is a good example of bad knockback. Hitting lots of enemies who are clustered and scattering them makes melee characters want to scream, and even makes AoE-focused blasters or controllers unhappy. That's bad usage. But's it's not the knock itself that's bad, it's the usage & positioning. Going in the middle and scattering enemies everywhere is... just don't... please... 2b. I do however get behind the far back ranged enemy who is playing it safe, and single-target hit them with a magnitude 16 to 20 knock to toss them into the fray, hopefully right next to my melee teammates so they only have to turn and hit the enemy I just tossed. 3. Knock-up/Knock-down AoE is much better. 4. And even better is knock-to, negative-repel, is far better than AoE knockback away from a singular origin point in 3D space. But that requires a demonstration, so awhile ago I had created a video for this for a different Crytpic game (Champions Online), using another different game (i.e.: Dragon Age II : Force Mage powerset : Pull of the Abyss) but it fell on deaf ears due to lack of developers & money. But this video is still helpful to illustrate what good knock power design and knock-to/anti-repel looks like (start from the 2:00 minute mark to get to the point): Knowing how Cryptic codes knocks and repels, it's possible to make a "Pull of the Abyss" effect is just handled as a negative value repel function. (Champs did do it, but they did it for a gamble-box vehicle/mount power... *sigh* But it proved it's possible to use negative-repel values and have it attract to a point instead of repel from). If there's more "pull"/negative-repel than distance, what you see is what I jokingly call the toilet-bowl orbit/swirl (you can see a little of that in the video above), but that's a minor side-effect and WOULD be something valuable in all team-mob games with large groups of mobs (like CoH TaskForces/StrikeForces).

Ok that's a good point actually. I get what you're saying now, maybe I didn't understand what you meant before. Yes, having the team benefiting from sticking together around the Kheldian is starting to sound like a REALLY GOOD idea. And if that means more Kheldians leading teams, I'm all for it. It's win-win. I like win-win. :-)

Redlynne, I appreciate what you're trying to suggest, and I like that; but I feel you missed the main point of my post. I may have been too verbose, so let me be more succinct & clarify if I can? The goal (not to lose sight of it in these specifics) would be to buff the Inherent Power for Kheldians, called Cosmic Balance. There are multiple way we can discuss on doing that, but IMHO that would be the best thing because it would encourage Peacebringers and Warshades both to WANT to be on a team, as in it could be a reason you'd want to play the archetype, and something that'd make it stand out. Whether that's like Leadership pool powers with defense, accuracy, mez resist, whatever; ultimately what I feel would be most important and most impactful without being game breaking is to reward being a part of a full team. And that goal in turn is because teamplay is fun. So In that I think, we can agree that's a good idea, yes?

Sure why not, with one change if I may. I like the intent, but remove the radius part please for two reasons. 1. First, as a Blaster who moves a LOT in combat, I can tell you I'm often going to be 80 ft or so away at times. I mean heck, when I boost the range on my sniper attack it's 240 ft. And how often have we seen teams split up in combat. It's rare to see a team that sticks all within 60 ft of one another. Yes I know a divided team is often a dead team on +4/x8 difficulty, but it happens often. Most people just don't have situational awareness enough alone to keep any sort of tactical formation going on. In short, 60 ft isn't enough, that's my first point. 2. Second, as a person who codes stuff like this, there's two ways you can check this, and neither are great on server performance (and both can be sources of a memory leak if not handled very carefully): heartbeat check or interrupt check. 2a. Heartbeat works by having the computer(s) check conditions periodically, a time based cycle. It will have latency from anyone crossing in or out of the maximum radius in order to trigger the conditional. If you make it more responsive with faster checks, it lags resources down for client and server both. If you make it less responsive, then it can be frustrating with moving targets. 2b. Interrupt works "on trigger" conditions, and will require some new core coding functionality to make it function correctly and it increases the demand on server & client internet communications. More importantly I'm not sure if the CoH engine is setup with functions to actually be an entry trigger, and it will be the burden on the other player's client to inform the server and the other players that they've entered or exited the radius. Client-side interrupt checks are also prone to tampering and reverse engineering, although I doubt that's an issue in this specific context. It all depends on WHAT and HOW specifically to which method is the lesser of two impacts on performance, but this is much easier, if I may: Counter-counter-proposal: Not triggered by PBAoE radius, but simply a check that runs with all the other buffs checks (code efficiency), and sees how many teammates are in the active map, range independent. That way you get the benefit without any responsiveness latency or potential performance issues.

If I may offer a suggestion, from the perspective of a non-Kheldian player? If y'all are wanting Kheldians to be buffed in a way that more people would play them, why not just make their inherent power "Cosmic Balance" do more? That would also have the benefit of encouraging more teamplay, which in my experience is what matters more. I want to see Kheldians leading teams more, being kind of a go-to class/archetype for leading teams. And it's partly because for the Kheldian player, the reason for wanting more people on the team is that it makes them stronger where the team lacks. I mean wasn't that the original design intent? Maybe instead: 40% +Dmg 15% DmgRes 20% res(rech) -2 mag Not a major change per se, but would definitely make people take another look at playing a Warshade or Peacebringer on Homecoming Servers.

Same here. In fact, I'm more likely to say something if I see they wrote something in for character information details. The majority of players (at least on Torchbearer at the hours I play) don't write much of a story, so I'm excited to see something thought-out there. Sometimes it's comedy gold, sometimes is PvP or PvE bragging rights, sometimes it lame super-sayan-eqsue god-modding BS, and sometimes it's REALLY well thought out and matches the costume(s) perfectly. But frankly I'm just glad to have SOMETHING there at least, in info, typically when I going to check to see what powersets people who are joining the team have. Speaking of, is there a keybind command that displays the personal info of the target you have selected? That would be convenient, and good to share.

As a Blaster main with a BFF who plays a top tier stalker, I must say we absolutely LOVE a geared up Kinetics Defender on the team. He assassinates priority hard targets while I wipe everything else out with my AoEs, but add in Fulcrum Shift and that near-perma damage cap (quad damage) unlocks some absolutely jaw-dropping feats of damage. I mean level 54's just absolutely melt, it's glorious! Don't get me wrong, any support is great when you are on a damage-prioritized archetype like Stalker, Scrapper, Blaster, Corrupter, Brute, or Sentinel. But as a non-Defender-main I must say I get giddy when I see a Kinetics Defender join the team, because I know what we can do together, provided mobs stay grouped up for Fulcrum Shift that is. That's why I don't understand most of the responses here labeling it a B tier. Is it just something unique to Torchbearer's Defenders then at the hours I play? Is it player skills thing, where certain powersets in the with good enhancements in well-experienced hands do so much better? And I'm also kind of concerned for my Empathy/Rad Defender character I'm leveling, now reading this topic and the other pinned topic shouting "YOU DO NOT NEED HEALING", as it doesn't look like she'll be able to help very much. (In fact the reason I went empathy is that I felt it fit her theme and I felt maybe some variety is better rather than just Kinetics). I can already keep perma Fortitude on two members of the team, but it just doesn't seem to do as much to help? What is the primary focus power, Adrenaline Boost? Healing Aura? If there's something to learn, please share. I've not seen any other veteran level 50 Empathy defenders around to ask, and maybe there's a reason for that.,, And finally, I'm a bit confused as to what is all the praise for Sonic secondary. I can tell my defender is more about the secondary effects than the damage, but specific powers in Sonic have so many of you here singing its praises?

Oh yeah I love fireball on my main character! You see, I have Rain of Fire currently instead of Flame Breath because it's fire-and-forget AoE, but unfortunately it doesn't proc anything past the initial spellcast, not like how Bonfire keeps proc'ing things like KB-->KD effects. I've been curious about Flame Breath, especially since a veteran level 165 with a Fire/Nrg build similar to said they liked it and that you could use the hand-out cast animation (instead of looking like you're trying to spew all over everyone). But looking at this list it make me have doubts on using a respec to try out Flame Breath. Is the time-to-cast an issue in combat? Also, not sure what to think about Flares. I used it a lot leveling up, but with enough cooldown redux (recharge) at level 50 I don't have to wait and can usually chain single targets between Blaze and Blazing Bolt with a fireball, build up, aim, or something else thrown in between that cycle. I guess this data just leaves a whole lot more questions on a wide variety of powers. Seems some of it comes down to how it functions in a combat situation, rather than raw numbers. Or like you said, Roderick, maybe there's a better alternative and that's why the % is noticeably lower for certain powers.

Wow! Flares and Flame Breath apparently suck compared to all other fire powers? Only about 50% of Fire Blasters take them, each, and similar for Corruptors. I wonder why that is? Slow cast time? Mediocre damage?

Now these are the kinds of modifications I was looking for! Dear community, more of this please! ^_^ PS: I wonder if music files can be overwritten too. Is that possible?

Only 5 Merits and a badge? No wonder nobody does it. Heck don't see many people in First Ward in general. Maybe it could be part of an accolade or a bit more Reward Merits?