Kaika

Honestly I prefer smaller teams but you rarely see them outside of SBB. Something that always bugs me is people who complain about everything being a steam roll but never play in small groups. CoH is a game that has a really big focus on force multipliers, even on SOs a team of 8 will usually always stomp due to this. Bring less people and you get less force multipliers and more personal responsibility, it's still very possible that things become a stomp, but even then you usually get to do more. I see messages in LFG all the time that clearly want a slower paced group but are still looking for 8 players, and that's honestly just not gonna happen with 8 players these days, no matter what your fighting, unless everyone is under-leveled, 8 players will evaporate it.

I actually do this quite a bit My stalker "Kaika" is normally Db/invun, but I also have alternate version where she became a PB named "Ghostflame". I have another alternate version where her mutation advanced and changed and now she in a TW/Bio scrapper going by the name of "Void Rat" to hide her identity, or something along those lines, still need to finish the back story. I even have a Preatorian version of her a Arc/nrg sentinel named "Woodwind" though you could argue that's technically a different character. My blaster "Unluck" due to her natural origin makes her rather flexible power wise, she is normally a AR/Nin but goes undercover in Arachnos as a Bane, and has another alternate character where she becomes a warshade. Basically the idea is that they are all from different story archs, in the characters overall story. Different variations based on different situations. I try to make sure every character can stand on their own though design/description wise, but try to leave hints to their identity, or even outright say it if I feel it doesn't take away from isolated story. As much as I find it fun I can't expect anyone to follow my own little internal lore for my characters, but there has been one or two occasions where someone has picked up on it.

First of all, There are tons of scenarios where a teaming build may differ from a solo build. The fighting pool for example is almost a given in most solo focused builds, but can be skipped for team builds as the extra survivability isn't often needed with support backing you up. On AT's like blasters I almost always take Scorpion shield from mace mastery due to it's extremely good def increase, however if I was making it for more team oriented play i would skip this in favor of something that adds more offense like fire mastery. Corrs and Def solo build will skip anything that can't be used on themselves, which there is quite alot in many support sets, as these have 0 use solo, but can often be absolutely amazing on a team. I mean just look at empathy, 6/9 of the powers in the set literally cannot be used solo. If you look at 4* speed run builds they forgo anything purely related to self sustain (aside from hold protection and LoTG mules) in favor of things that increases their DPS and ability to sustain the team, due to not needing it from the sheer amount of buff their teammates give them. Also runners are very much a issue on high optimized, high surviviability, high DPS builds. Enemies are more likely to run if: Alot of them die very quickly, They can't hit the target due to high defense, they are taking alot of instances of damage (Rain, caltrops, burn, ect). In really effective builds, this can happen extremely quickly, as you can often take out like 70% of the group in a few seconds, and it happens even faster if your set includes alot of DoTs. While only a few enemies might be left, if they all start running in a random direction, it can get really annoying really quickly. This is is a massive headache on well optimized stalker as well, as they always lack a taunt aura. It's also a huge headache when soloing AVs as without taunt aura they will inevitably run for the hills. It's very much a thing

I think they do, but I can't imagine they would. I recall the OG devs talking about controlling Rikti in the original invasion at the end of beta

Oh I know, I wasn't referring to those uses, taunt is a plenty useful power. I was referring to people taunting enemies already in melee with them, specifically like a AV in this case. They continue this regardless of whats going on in the fight, as if it's just another attack.

There are some tanks out there that for some reason taunt on cooldown, and just..... never stop. I've had the same thing happen to me in a MoM a while back, these also tend to be the types to slot taunt for duration which makes it even worse. Never understood this, since if you are in melee your taunt aura and punchvoke takes care of it, and if anyone is able to generate as much aggro as you they are likely as well equipped to tank the boss, spamming taunt on a enemy you are attacking is just waste time, or in this case worse. The few times I've seen this happen we tried to tell them to stop, and they didn't, i doubt anything malicious I just don't think they were paying any attention. The worst I've see was someone got confused at the final boss and hit Shalice with a tier 4 rebirth, giving her absurd regen.... yeah we lost XD

Placing a "This is not recommended for new players" already does that, it implies a higher level of difficulty. Also blueside bland? You're stating an opinion as a fact, and while I wont disagree that maybe it's a bit more bland then gold side for vets, this is more likely due to overexposure and it being easier. It's easier for a good reason too as it's designed for NEW PLAYERS that are just coming to grips with the game and learning the basics of the system. I spend alot of time in help and alot of time directly helping new players and never once have I heard complaints about the game being bland to a fresh player, in fact if anything they are usually overwhelmed. CoH is a extremely complex game, especially compared to other current MMOs and I think it's something alot of veterans forget as we learned most of this ages ago. I was actually going to suggest this very thing but they added it themselves, as this is a common issue that crops up in help chat. I often see players asking "Is _________ set/AT just bad, did I make a mistake choosing it" and more often then not they are in Preatoria getting stomped. Adding "Not recommended for new players" is the correct move because to put it simply it's "Not recommended", if someone wants more challenge there is nothing stopping them from checking it out. Difficulty aside, another reason I would want to direct new players to blue/red side is population. Lets be honest, gold side is normaly fairly empty, aside from maybe a solo player or two in a corner of the zone. It's not the best idea to drop newer players effectively alone in the deep end of the pool, with no one to teach them how to doggy paddle. Help chat can help with this, but that's assuming they know it's there and can figure out how to switch to help chat. It also gives players the wrong impression about the games health when they don't see another soul around, and in a MMO it's very important to get the impression of a healthy population. AP on blueside is just about always populated regardless of server, even mercy usually has quite a few players around in the starting area. When players pop into Nova Preatoria and see a ghost town they may assume the games dead. This is another question I've seen pop up multiple times in help chat. I want to state I'm not against putting a bit of info stating that it's a "More Challenging experience" or something to that effect, in fact I think that's actually a very good idea as it gives a better impression of what it's like. However I feel the "Not recommended for new players" tag is VERY warranted, as more challenging difficulties tend to not be recommended for newer players.

There is a good reason for this, for one regen is weaker on stalkers then it is on other ATs due to their lower HP pool, the trade for a active heal is honestly a good thing due to this, but it doesn't make up for it entirely. Stalker WP also loses quick recovery for Hide, which while it nets them more def, it loses the only thing in the set that could even be argued as offense. Basically the set will keep you up right, and that's about it, and it's not even that amazing at that. Honestly, even on other ATs, while perfectly serviceable, it' wouldn't really be considered "meta" for alot of the same reasons. Other sets can survive just was well, if not better, and provide offensive benefits, the big upside of WP there is it's easy to play nature. Does this mean it's a bad set and characters using it are weak? Of course not, it's perfectly viable and can work very well. Remember "Meta" only means as much as you want it to mean, CoH is not a game where you need to build into or even care about meta. Anything can be made into a monster.

So the more I mess with a Ice mastery on stalker the more I realize it is REALLY held back by Frigid wind, as it makes the set just Mu but worse. Both Mu and Ice have almost the same layout ranged attack Snipe AoE Utility Pet While Electric Shackles and shiver are different powers, I doubt anyone is diving into the sets for those powers (I honestly think Shackles is better anyways) The real difference is Ball Lightning and Frigid wind... and its not good To compare: Ball Lightning 16 Target Max 15 Foot Radius 80 Foot Range Target AoE 32 Second recharge 10.20 DPA (At lvl1) 18.92 End cost LVL38 End drain Frigid Wind 10 Target Max 30 Degree Arc 40 Foot Range Ranged Cone 36 second recharge 10.03 DPA (at lvl1) 21.06 end cost LV41 Slow Unless you are the worlds biggest slow fan, I don't see how this would make people want to pick up the set outside of RP reasons, or not going past the snipe. From the start a ranged cone is just a awful choice on a melee AT like stalker, as it basically NEEDS to be used from range to be effective. I'm aware energy mastery has energy torrent which is IMO even worse, but at the very least that pool comes with alot of unique self buff powers that can really make it tempting to take regardless. Ice mastery has nothing like this, the only thing really notable that it gets to separate it from Mu (outside of theme) is shiver, which is hardly worth taking the set itself for. At the moment though Frigid wind just feels like it holds the set back so much that I won't even be taking it on my ice stalker, which is a shame because I really wanted too. I'm not entirely sure what you could do here outside of entirely reworking the power, even if you made the stats equivalent to ball lightning across the board, just the fact it's a ranged cone would hold it back. Maybe make the cone MUCH larger, so it can still be used in melee and make the rest of the stats line up the same. The animation is large enough to support a bigger cone without having to change it, in-fact it looks like it should be bigger.

As someone who helps run and participates in CCs, these powers are the bane of my existence, people tend to keep them on at all times and just obscure everyone's costume. Most people stop when asked, but some people are unresponsive or just trolling. While I'm all for using it to help lowbies out, these sets all have plenty of powers that can help out lowbies alot more.

Yeah stalkers miss out on a few melee sets, TW being one of them It's mostly fairly accurate but the tiers here are very up to debate. I personally feel putting rad armor in C teir is a crime considering how much offense it can add to a build and how tanky it is when built right, but for the most part it's pretty accurate. Croax's guide is still excellent.

This isn't a buff to placate, this is how it currently operates on live. This is in response to a bug fix right above it, which fixed the "Cancel on damage" Flag thats been broken on stalker for forever. Basically this change is just preserving the functionality of placate as it currently is, while fixing a bug that caused it to work like that. It's why on live atm if a bane placates you, even if you hit them, you still can't target them. That's why it just got added, as originally this bug fix was a nerf to both the ATO and placate. All this does is retain it's current functionality and makes it official as it was simply bugged before to work like this.

Yeah that certainly seems like a "next issue" sorta thing. I would also change the message when creating a praetorian character to recommend they do the praetorian tutorial even if they have done the others, as it's what establishes the setting and introduces you to the unique faction system. Without it you're just awkwardly dropped in Nova Praetoria with no introduction. Praetor White doesn't even give you the faction specific conversation, and you get no proper introduction to the factions. You also miss out on how to do missions for your faction undercover. As of now, I can see players assuming they wont learn anything from this as they likely wont be starting here and just skipping it assuming they wont miss anything. Is there also a way we can get the origin attacks and athletic run placed directly on the hot bar at character creation? ATM you need to retrieve them from your powers list and new players would likely have no idea there is a extra attack waiting for them in there, as there is no indication and I can't imagine why anyone would think to look.

Love the changes, the game is filled with new player "Traps" currently and this does a pretty good job at addressing alot of them. The new icons for the orgin powers look good, and I'm all for them starting to scale later. Athletic run by default is a good call, considering it's the first thing I always recommend to any new player to pick up. I have to agree with the others who have brought it up, but if we can, it would be nice to have the LRT from either 10 exploration badges OR one accolade. If I had to choose one, it would probably be 10 exploration badges as it more likely to happen naturally, so still a good change in my book. The updated buttons for Primal and praetorian earth look great. I've been wanting that "Not recommended for new players" text on Pretoria and the EATs ever since the requirements were removed. I'm looking forward to seeing the changes to the stats pages as some of them are just nonsensical (Widow has a 2 in control despite fort being very control focused and SoA has a 3 despite having a AoE imob and a hold tops) that's needed a update for ages. The only thing here I'm really on the fence about is handing out a jet-pack at level 1, while this is something people recommend to alot of new players it feels odd without any context or earning it in any way. I would rather see this given at the end of the tutorial or maybe near the start of any of the early contacts, that way it's still easy and likely a new player will obtain it, but isn't just on their character from the get go and is still "earned". We could even maybe include it as part of the tutorial to introduce them to the P2W vender.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here and say they just like to fix bugs and don't tend to think about how long that bug has existed, if players even know it's a bug and if it would be nerfing players. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. I recall a while back they tried to remove the 100% crit from hide on burst, despite the set historically under preforming (granted not on stalker) and the power itself being very lack luster. To their credit after the backlash they reverted the changes, at least until the set gets revamped, but it shows that they tend to see bugs as something "to be fixed" first and often just don't take into account the impact it will have on players because.... its a bug. Alot of these cases tend to be things many players considered a feature, and would only even know it's a bug if you looked behind the scenes. I don't wanna assume some kind of malice or seeing stalkers and master minds as a "acceptable casualty" because I don't think they think like that, or at least I hope they don't.

This. We can do this without nerfing an entire AT, and in a way that enforces the established meta for that AT even harder. The fact that this wasn't an initial consideration concerns me.

I have to agree with those stating that this stalker change is unnecessary and damaging to the class. Res sets on stalker already get a bad rep as is and all this will do is make the situation worse. In the middle of a large group combat, there are usually plenty of AoEs flying around even on a team, even with capped def it's not uncommon to get hit by something or have a DoT effect on you, effectively rendering this proc useless. Currently this proc is considered essential to stalker play, and by nerfing it, you are in turn nerfing stalkers as a whole. This seems to be a "Fix" no one asked for, as it's been this way since they revamped stalkers, as far as I was aware this was intended. Remember these are all variables invisible to the players. Please going forward, consider if a "Fix" is nerfing players, and if anyone is even asking for it to be fixed.

I think Wispur brings up a excellent point here, as this system is already contradicting the labels in character creation. I was personally on the fence about this one, since encouraging players to make more diverse teams isn't a terrible idea. However it's not really needed and quite frankly any system that labels Master Minds as "Support" and Corrupters as "Damage" is already flawed just by a comparison of support numbers. I'm of the opinion that long time players will just ignore the system, as that not how we build teams. New players I think will strictly stick to the system, likely to their detriment, as I suspect they will take it as a hard "This is what this AT does" rather then a suggestion. Remember new players likely don't know what all the ATs do, and if they play other MMOs, are used to games where roles are strict and non-flexible. This system implies that CoH is the same way, which it is not, the lack of hard roles has always been one of the best parts of this game. What I would recommend instead is simply to give out the bonus for bringing 5 differing ATs, any 5, rather then sticking to these weird and frankly misleading definitions of a ATs role. That way it still encourages players to diversify their team, but does not shoe horn them into bringing something they may not need to get the bonus, and possibly teach new players extremely limited definitions of what a specific AT does.

Ok went after a few GMs solo on my main, a tricked out Fire/Rad Stalker, she normally eats all the GMs for breakfast. Babbage: Real Glow up in the look department with the glowing eyes and the increases size. He took longer Solo then he would on live, but I was able to take him down without lore, assault hybrid, or daggers. Still though, he did hurt me a bit, and his end drain did become a slight issue for a bit, otherwise though, just a bit beefier, make sense considering he is the one most likely to be fought by lowbies. Adamaster: Now this was a fun fight, Loads more HP, could actually hurt me if I got careless, and at 50% he starts making you get away from him and using a Mag: YES KB on you, knocking you far off the platform and into the ditch below. Without lore, assault, or daggers I was only able to match his regen. Still manged to kill him with just assault and without Lore or daggers, honestly 10/10 fight Jurassik: I barely damage this guy at all, at first I thought he was just super beefy, due to him suddenly having a massive 40% fire resist?! I'm not sure why he was given fire resist as he has 0% res to fire on live and none of the rock type enemies that I'm aware of do. Just seems odd to go from 0% to 40% like that, just... why? It only makes him any harder for fire based characters. Either way I was able to get him down to about 25% using everything but pet temps before I got bored and went on to fight the other ones. Eochai:.... Yep 30% fire resist, least that's normal though, still not happening without the kitchen sink. The pumpkin patch really needs a ground marker or a warning or something, atm it feels a bit cheap since it just knocks you down immediately in heavy unavoidable damage, and effectively instantly kills pets. it really feels like the kinda thing that should have a warning. I can imagine this guy will be the bane of every MM's existence come next halloween. Either way I'll come back on another toon that's not fire damage Scrapyard: Well he took quite a bit, but I was able to get him down. Took a long time and a ton of daggers, but I don't feel bad about it with him getting a 3000 heal every 15 seconds or so. I think it would be nice if the heal was toned down, or maybe turned into a "get away from this area" sorta thing as he is lacking anything like that and it feels like it would be punishing to groups with Res based tanks as it can be dodged. I would however love to see the Scrapyarders following him con even, as the event itself is the strike not just scrapyard. Considering he is leading the group and constantly yelling out orders, it seems odd that they do basically nothing that's not to the players benefit. Probably could stand to be a little bigger too. The rest of them weren't up or I didn't wanna go through the effort of spawning them (PLEASE make Caleb less of a pain to spawn >.<). All and all I would say it's a massively welcome change. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the big res numbers, particularly on Jurassik lowered a bit and them given more HP to compensate if need be. I was never a fan of enemies having particularly large resist numbers to specific types and I'm aware that's how it is on live for some atm, it's just magnified by how much these are a DPS race. This isn't a big deal for me though as it's always been the case for some enemies, and on a team there will be plenty of buff/debuffs to mitigate that a bit, if I can come close to soloing them a team of 8 certainly can. It just never feels good to be significantly weaker due to a choice made in character creation, specially when damage is so important.

Is there any way we can get the bow to hang at a slight angle, currently it looks a bit awkward IMO since the part where the string should be, is either in my head, or would be wrapped around my head when I fly

Found another BUG, this time in Frigid Wind: It's currently criting 100% of the time out of Hide as opposed to the 50% chance it should have Honestly though, I kinda like it, gives you some reason to take it over Ball lightning in Mu for reasons other then aesthetic, but it's clearly a bug

Found another Bug with Frozen Spear: When you miss, the projectile still hits the enemy as if it hit. This is the case with both normal and quick form

Messed around with a bit of Ice Mastery for stalker, seems to be good. I only took The snipe and cone though. It feels directly comparable to Mu, which is a good thing but with its own strength and weaknesses Frozen Spear: Yep it's a snipe, a really good one at that with it's exotic damage type, CC and slows, definitely giving moonbeam a run for "best snipe", and much better then zapp's fairly useless end drain BUG: For the quick form snipe the sound effect isn't timed correctly and plays before it's fired Frigid Wind: It's ball lightning (Same DPA) but, a cone, a long thin cone that basically needs to be used from range. This makes it rather difficult to use while in Melee, which limits it's usefulness compared to Ball lighting. On top of that it has a MASSIVE 24 end cost for some ungodly reason, compared to Ball Lightning's 18. If anything this needs to change the most, as I would already consider it a downgrade from ball lighting just due to being more difficult to hit the target cap with when you are in melee. Otherwise though, it works just fine and get's the job done if you are willing to deal with the small arc.

As cute as that is, "Freem!" does really seem fitting for a claw swipe, It's why I (and apparently others) assumed it was some kinda bug.

I appreciate the tip, but I'm aware of how to handle them, just that it has added difficulty for most of the ATs effected.