Weird Noob thing you did in CoH/V

[Shenanigunner]

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So I thought Heck, I can do that. I rolled an Empathy defender.

 

I dunno. I've never really understood why H**l*rs became so disliked and deprecated. I know, it's a trope/necessity/anchor in other MMOs and now, especially with

 

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before you could hit 50 just dinking around in an afternoon, and there weren't 89 ways to beef up low level toons

 

it's not really a useful niche build any more, but in between tanking and bashing and zapping, I really-really-really enjoyed running a first-rate healer, with a killer bind set on the numpad and a "zero drops" goal for myself.

 

But I guess, in the current game, with an ever-rising pyramid of maxed builds starting at Level 3, someone to watch your spandexed ass isn't the asset it used to be. Sigh.

[Akisan]

Way, way, back, before I knew about keybindings, before I knew about ED, before ED was a thing, I had an Invul/Mace Tank.  I didn't know Teleport could be used while rooted (I'm not even sure I knew TP was a thing, at the time), and didn't like the idea of having to constantly toggle my mez resist on and off all the time... so I skipped Unyielding.  Which naturally led to me being Held all the time... so I 6-slotted all my passive defences (including Health).

 

Not all bad - I couldn't die, so I did end up in a great damsel in distress moment where a team of 8 of us got swarmed by several spawns' worth of purple Tsoo.  The 7 of them bailed/hosped (I couldn't, because held), regrouped, and came back in after a few minutes... to discover that I was still held, as a roomful of +4 Tsoo couldn't overcome my regen.

 

5 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

it's not really a useful niche build any more, but in between tanking and bashing and zapping, I really-really-really enjoyed running a first-rate healer, with a killer bind set on the numpad and a "zero drops" goal for myself.

 

But I guess, in the current game, with an ever-rising pyramid of maxed builds starting at Level 3, someone to watch your spandexed ass isn't the asset it used to be. Sigh.

 

Yeah, miss my Empath too.  Bit off topic, but probably the most fun I ever had with her was running an ITF with 7 scrappers (varying levels), before Incarnates.  You know it's been a rough haul when you get to Rommie & the scrappers had to decide which one was sacrificial bait, because we weren't likely to beat him without abusing Vengeance.

 

On second thought, it'd probably be the team I got the best ever complement from: I got honestly complemented on my skill as an Empath, and noted for how large of a difference I was making, after we TPK'd. TBF, that team was crazy, and we were regularly (and intentionally) taking on double & triple spawns of +4s while in the high 30s.

 

*sigh*

Feeling all nostalgic now.  May have to see if I can find a group that'll run SOs to 50 with me.

[FupDup]

My first HC toon was a DP/Dark Corruptor, but I skipped a ton of the /Dark powers because I basically wanted to play like a semi-tanky ranged character instead of an off-support like Corrs are designed to be. It was still fun, but definitely not getting the most out of the AT. I know I'm going to cause a lot of cringes when I say this, but I legitimately would've been better off playing a Sentinel at that point because it would give me the playstyle I was looking for but without skipping half of my secondary. 

[Snarky]

11 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

I dunno. I've never really understood why H**l*rs became so disliked and deprecated. I know, it's a trope/necessity/anchor in other MMOs and now, especially with

 

 

it's not really a useful niche build any more, but in between tanking and bashing and zapping, I really-really-really enjoyed running a first-rate healer, with a killer bind set on the numpad and a "zero drops" goal for myself.

 

But I guess, in the current game, with an ever-rising pyramid of maxed builds starting at Level 3, someone to watch your spandexed ass isn't the asset it used to be. Sigh.

I am on a Fire Fire Blaster now.  When I pug, leading or joining, I do not comment about team setup.  But, since I usually run Dark types, I really ache at the lack of Defenders on modern teams.  We see Tanks/Brutes 3/4 time.  But true blue Defenders?   Pretty Fing rare.  

[Luminara]

16 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

I've never really understood why H**l*rs became so disliked and deprecated.

 

Because the game offered multiple ways to mitigate damage and defenders were being told not to use them.  Because leaders would pack the team with 6 blasters/scrappers, a tank and one defender who had one heal and go ballistic on that defender when things got bad.  Because Kins, Storms, Darks, Rads and FFs (5 of the 6 original sets) were being excluded from teams for not being "healers".  Because people decided that they weren't going to pay money to play a defender and be told "Emp or GTFO".

 

Because this isn't a game for morons, and only morons look at the defender archetype and think, "healer".

[Jack Power]

17 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

...I've never really understood why H**l*rs became so disliked and deprecated....

 

6 hours ago, Snarky said:

... But true blue Defenders?   Pretty Fing rare...

 I'm with mr. Snark. A true City of Heroes Empathy defender isn't a healer. Not in the same way as has been popularized in other games. Back in the olden days of CoH, the dislike Shen is refering to was an influx of poorly built, healing aura-on-auto, I'll be popular since I'm a healer kind of players. 

 

The true empath in CoH was rocking RA and fortitude and was held in very high regard by most every team.

 

My own newbie thing is proabably the fact that I made the misstake of ranking empathy over every other defender build. I'm cured of that now I think, since I have loads of defender but no one empath. Might be the next thing for me...

 

//Jack

[Marshal_General]

I think the reason defenders are rare is that people look at the power list and around half the powers only work in a group and not on themself.

[Maelwys]

On my very first toon on Live, a Kat/Regen Scrapper, I discovered that poking robotic enemies with my little pointy stick didn't deal very much damage.
Council Mekmen; Sky Raider Forcefield Generators, Malta Titans, etc.
And so I decided that I needed an alternative attack chain that did NOT deal lethal damage; for use on those sorts of enemies.

Good In Theory? Perhaps.

In Practice? I took Air Superiority, Laser Beam Eyes and Energy Torrent. Yeah.
OK, so Air Superiority was actually semi-useful as damage mitigation since it dealt reliable knockdown; but the number of funny looks I got whenever a 'bot critter popped up and I suddenly sheathed my sword and broke out the kirk headslap and pew pew glowy hands. And it honestly took me quite some time to realise that I was actually dealing WORSE damage over time than I would have with my Katana.
To make matters worse, Weapon Redraw delay was a real thing back then, and even tapping "Build Up" triggered it... 🙃
 

Edited March 8 by Maelwys

[Skyhawke]

Early on, Sky-Hawke was a MA/Inful Scrapper...and I took Hover, Air Superiority and eventually Fly. Best part? Till I got Fly, I'd use Hover to travel at times. I once Hovered across Skyway to get to a mission that was in an area a bit over my level. 

[SeraphimKensai]

I made an elec/elec blaster when CoH launched because I never tried a blaster on beta. That character made it to lvl 13 and was hovering at such a slow pace. Since I was new to blasters I found myself with more debt than experience it seemed. I rolled an empath/energy defender and an Invuln/axe tank that I took to lvl cap (40 back then). Empathy were largely in demand (due to people not understanding how to leverage the other buffing/debuff sets and no IOs existing so people actually took damage, and used to gather for RA. My tank was rooted to the ground and unable to move while using unyielding (so I made him a teleporternto get around with mez protection on, but I managed to get Unstoppable perma.

 

I once took a lvl 1 character and got him into the middle of Founder's Falls to team up with some friends back, only for team to break up by the time I got to the mission. That toon never left Founder's but was eventually deleted and replaced with a gravity/rad controller after the lvl cap went to 50 as my SG did lots of private Hami raids.

[Skyhawke]

Ha, this thread reminded me of this. How many of us was this?

 

 

[Shenanigunner]

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I once took a lvl 1 character and got him into the middle of Founder's Falls to team up with some friends back, only for team to break up by the time I got to the mission. That toon never left Founder's but was eventually deleted...

 

One of my proudest achievements was taking a new roll, without XP point one, from Altas Plaza to Portal Plaza, without acquiring one XP point or a single defeat. In the old days, before there were nineteen different quik-travel alternatives. I think I used the rule of no trams, either... I had to walk, zoning through city gates all the way.

 

One of those things that's been power-creeped out of having any real value. But it was fun then.

[Azari]

I’d sometimes get low lvl toons stuck in high lvl zones too. I never deleted a toon for that, but I’d usually broadcast for a high level toon to SK me so I could run out or TP me away. Usually there was at least one person willing to help a stuck lowbie out.

[SeraphimKensai]

1 hour ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

One of my proudest achievements was taking a new roll, without XP point one, from Altas Plaza to Portal Plaza, without acquiring one XP point or a single defeat. In the old days, before there were nineteen different quik-travel alternatives. I think I used the rule of no trams, either... I had to walk, zoning through city gates all the way.

 

One of those things that's been power-creeped out of having any real value. But it was fun then.

I used to do that with my old PvP team before AE. We had a rule that if your character died on the way there it was bad luck and you had to delete it and make a new one. Back in the era of dumpster farming.

[Shenanigunner]

3 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I used to do that with my old PvP team before AE. We had a rule that if your character died on the way there it was bad luck and you had to delete it and make a new one. Back in the era of dumpster farming.

 

I seem to remember a significant DFR - Die For Real - contingent on Live, at least earlier on. Even toons with DFR in their name. It was good community to give them extra coverage on missions.

[Snarky]

19 hours ago, Luminara said:

Because this isn't a game for morons, and only morons look at the defender archetype and think, "healer".

[tidge]

I was playing from launch day... and I shudder to think how much time I spent in every door mission going back to the door to exit the instanced map.

[Shenanigunner]

2 minutes ago, tidge said:

I was playing from launch day... and I shudder to think how much time I spent in every door mission going back to the door to exit the instanced map.

 

Well... the exit button is kinda sorta y'know cheating... 

[tidge]

1 minute ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

Well... the exit button is kinda sorta y'know cheating... 

 

In my defense, at launch I don't think that option was that obvious.

[Crysis]

18 minutes ago, tidge said:

I was playing from launch day... and I shudder to think how much time I spent in every door mission going back to the door to exit the instanced map.

 

OMG this was me also until like level 10 of my first ever character during Live days.  I felt sooooo stupid once I realized the button was there.

[Jack Power]

35 minutes ago, Crysis said:

 

OMG this was me also until like level 10 of my first ever character during Live days.  I felt sooooo stupid once I realized the button was there.

Was it there from the beginning?

 

//Jack

[xotos]

On my very first char I did not know you had to put enhencements until at least lvl 15 if i remember right.

[Infinitum]

I didn't know you could pick more than one pool power at first so I would always end up with fly because I like fly - and back then the fitness pool wasn't inherant so needless to say I had yuuuge endurance issues for a few months till I realized my error/stupidity. 

[Infinitum]

On 3/8/2024 at 3:10 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

Back in the era of dumpster farming

We talked about this the other night.  The freakshow farm - lure the whole map into a dumpster then massacre them. 

[BazookaTwo]

My first character was an AR/EM. That meant I had a serious love for punching things and sending them across the map. All the better if I slotted Knockback so I could you know, follow up with my ranged powers. 

 

We all follow the tank, so I would of course, also target through the tank. 

 

You can imagine the love I got.