Adeon Hawkwood

I believe you mean the frequently used AoE slow/stun/-regen power that happens to rez allies as a side effect.

That is a fair argument but at the same time it basically means you can't make ANY changes to how the powers system works. You can overhaul things and fix some longstanding bugs (like the HO issues) and open up the capability for cool new features but still sticks you with a lot of legacy issues.

Also, this isn't Everquest. People are just as attached tot heir characters but are (generally) less attached to their uber-loot. I think you'll find more people upset about not being able to import their costumes to CoX2 than not being able to bring over their IOs.

It's not broken but it IS far from optimal. There are plenty of cases where the basic setup regarding how powers works cause problems (the imbalance between Defense and Resistance and the general overpoweredness of buff/debuff sets being good examples). Several sets also suffer from design issues which can't really be solved without nuking them from orbit (Force Field for example). Additionally while the ATs work the basic setup of the Hero ATs is still essentially based on the old style MMO model of Tank-DPS-Support.

This is actually the reason I hope they do nuke the power system if they make CoX2. The base CoX power system is based on how other MMOs do it and I'd like to see what Castle, Posi and War Witch would do with a blank slate (especially Castle).

I would be very surprised if they did something like this. I could possibly see soemthing to allow you to covert your costume over but importing your entire character seems unlikely. Making an MMO sequel is always going to be a risky business. You will lose some of your customers who can't or won't make the switch and you risk splitting the player base and ending up with two MMOs neither of which has sufficient players. The main reason to do so is therefore to redesign the systems from scratch to update it and fix anything that seemed sensible at first but proved to be problematic in practice. Allowing import of characters (even if they are reset to level 1) forces you to adhere to certain aspects of the old design that might not have been optimal.

Rigel_Kent's original post was sarcastic, he does not really believe that Defender = Healer (this is made pretty obvious by the rest of the post detailing powers to put on auto-cast). You made a serious response to it and people were trying to gently point this out to you.

The devs stated (at some point) that this will be the case. When you switch sides you keep your current pool however if you do a respec you are limited to the pools from your current side (APPs for Heroes, PPPs for Villains). No word yet on what the new pools for both sides will be though.

Implication nothing, the math shows that you do need a 1.93 accuracy mod to get a 95% chance to hit on +2s with your tier 1 minions when they use most of their attacks (some attacks such as fire breath have a higher base accuracy). If you disagree then please, show me proof.

I agree, 95% accuracy is not essential (especially for secondaries like Storm which can bring significant defense debuff to the table). However the accuracy required for a 95% chance of hitting does provide a idea as to how much accuracy you want to slot. In terms of DPS there is an effective diminishing returns on slotting accuracy so you don't always want to slot as much as the chart shows.

In that case I'm really not sure what to suggest. The Mastermind Secondaries are buff/debuff sets so whatever you select you're going to have to do some buffing/debuffing unless you want to completely ignore your secondary. The reason I suggested Traps is two fold, first the powers are mostly on 90+ second recharge so you can just use a couple and then ignore the set until the next spawn and secondly because Traps works well in melee range which is sounds as if you enjoy. For example Poison Gas Trap is pretty bad if you place it and then try to draw enemies over it but if you jump into melee gather them round and THEN use PGT it works wonders.

It's 50 points. So little to no chance of overcoming it.
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Purple_Triangles_of_Doom

Probably because as Bill said it happens 2 seconds after the attacks so you've moved on to other attacks and assume the critical hit was for them.

Well the problem with that (besides the fact that Blasters get Surveillance in an epic pool) is that it would violate the Cottage Rule. Time Bomb is bad, but I don't think it's bad enough to need a Cottage Rule violating change. There are quite a few options that stick with the basic formula of "a big boom" without violating the cottage rule. Quite a few people in the other thread were in favor of a remote detonation option but personally I'd like a power where you just throw a satchel charge (kinda like a short ranged version of LRM Rocket).

Another useful slotting option is the Damage/Accuracy HOs. Three of them will ED cap a pet for damage and accuracy.

Don't forget +recharge. Depending on your secondary it can be VERY useful.


To answer the OPs original question here's a chart I made showing how much accuracy you need to slot to get a 95% chance to hit based on your pets level relative to you, your enemies level relative to you and the usage of supremacy and tactics. Obviously it's ignoring the possibility of defense (either enemies with defense buffs or you using defense debuffs).

You might want to check out this thread:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=223069

I believe the general consensus was:
1. Targeting Drone is ok
2. Cloaking Device is a glorified pool power and would be a good place to add some +dam
3. Time Bomb needs replacing with something useful

While there are some situations where a team needs all three (for example a Master of TF run) for general play all you really need is Damage. Everything else just makes delivering the damage safer.

Aggro management is easier to manage without than buffs/debuffs. I find a lot of players overestimate the need for aggro management against regular enemies. Good aggro management does make the game easier, but it is not required. I've taken alphas on my Blaster simply by using a purple inspiration beforehand and eating a green afterwards. It's not as effective as true tanking but as long as the rest of the team follows me in it gets the job done. And of course the right buff/debuff sets render the need for inspirations irrelevant (on mt Traps defender I use seekers to eat the alpha and rely on my defense for the rest).

Buffs and debuffs can also be dispensed with but doing so is more painful than managing without aggro management. As others have stated the all-blaster team is a viable option it's just that it has less margin for error than other teams. The primary advantage of buffs and debuffs is that they greatly increase the margin by which the team survives so if something weird happens (such as someone going AFK suddenly because their cat spontaneously combusted) it's not going to cause a cascading failure.

I think it's mostly social convention. Defilement of the dead is regarded as being bad in most cultures (baring special circumstances such as training medical professionals) and raising the dead as zombies would definitely fall under that heading. Not to mention that depending on how the magic system works raising the dead might also involve pulling the souls of the dead bodies out of the afterlife which most religions would regard as evil.

As such in fantasy Necromancy tends to be an "evil" form of magic. Even in works which have "good" Necromancy the good necromancers tend not to do things like raising zombies and if they have undead servants at all they will frequently be non-corporeal spirits who serve the necromancer willingly.

So no, necromancy doesn't have to be inherently evil but because of the nature of western society the raising of zombies would be considered "bad" by a lot of people.


A couple of examples:

In Diablo 2 the Necromancers were of the dead raising variety however they weren't really "good" they were said to be staunchly neutral acting only to preserve the circle of life.

Dominic Deegan also serves as an example of the "good necromancers don't raise the dead bit"
http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2008-06-28