UberGuy

I.. don't think you're using those terms the same way I am.

"Mods" in the context of "AT mods" has a specific meaning. While I probably see what you were going for there, a "buff" is not a "mod" in that context. A "buff" (or any effect) usually obeys (AT) mods. The fact that vet attacks work normally during a rage crash is not a function of the fact that they ignore "mods" in this context. It's because they ignore "(de)buffs".

While there are TFs and SFs I like a lot less than others, I think I can fairly say that the BSF is the only SF that I actively dislike, and that's the reason why. Having to go find Recluse's LTs one at a time and lead them through caves back to the central room doesn't help, but if it was just that, I'd just have low favor for the thing. The AT "requirement" makes me actively want to avoid playing it.

I do believe Gnome was explicitly searching for and sniping found transfers, but yes, I do believe his bullets were very cheap.

Of course, it should be considered that DPS is intended to be a measure of exactly those number of seconds. It just happens that average DPS is a convenient, fairly portable way to describe that.

Taking the average isn't useful just because of procs or crits or other explicitly random effects - we have attacks that deal different amounts of damage and recharge at different time intervals. Even if we ran around always firing a perfectly paced attack chain (which I'm pretty sure no one can do) with no random factors, randomness in when a given foe first falls into the chain could cause them to suffer different instantaneous rates of damage.

Combat in CoH is complicated enough due to large numbers of variables to make discussing it with accurate models impractical for people with normal attention spans (and, commonly, appetite for math). Averages are a simple, portable way to express that complexity that's within reach of most people's attention and math skill/willingness. The key is knowing when it can and can't be applied, and whether any quick fudge factors can be applied when it can't. That's been what a fair bit of this discussion has been about, along with some hyperbolic commentary.

They remain excellent attacks for ATs with low damage mods even at level 50. Primarily this means Defenders. Yes, the vet attack DPE is not good, but when they do damage a Scrapper or Blaster looks at as "eh, that's OK", that's pretty nice to be able to whip out at that level on any AT.

And I say this as someone who solos his Defenders on comparatively high difficulty settings as a matter of course, so it's not like I'm especially down on their damage dealing. I just recognize that the vet attacks are unusually powerful in their hands because they don't observe AT mods.

Edit: That said, I want to be clear I in no way consider them unbalancing. As Obitus says, what they can do for your character pales in light of things like IOs.

I habitually disable it (and the listing fee warning) before actually committing any transaction, because accepting it appears to correlate with the market selling the wrong thing. Just last night, after a mission with a friend, I was wondering if I still needed to be doing that. Right after I wondered that, my friend started cursing because she accepted the prompt and it sold the wrong thing. (It hadn't happened to her in a while.)

That it (still) does that really makes me wish we could disable it permanently.

I feel there's a serious flaw here. You do not account for enhancements.

Let's use the ED enhancement "cap" here. We'll call it 95%, right about where you land if you slot 3 even-level damage SOs.

A solo Defender's damage with this slotting, assuming no other sources of damage buff, looks like this.

0.65 * (1.0 + 0.95 + 0.30) = 1.4625

The 1.0 is base damage, 0.95 is enhancements, 0.30 is the solo damage buff.

Here's a Corruptor.

0.75 * (1.0 + 0.95) = 1.4625

I noticed when the change was still in beta, and had a hard time imagining it was a coincidence.

At levels before it's easy to hit ED slotting, a Defender will probably deal more damage per attack. They also gain access to attacks more slowly because their blasts are in their secondary powerset. So while a Defender deals more damage per attack, the Corruptor is more likely to have a fuller attack chain and deal better DPS with the same blast set.

One thing that bugs me for Corruptors is that they have lower AT mods than Defenders for melee (self) damage buffs. I have never liked that, and would like to see the Corruptor self damage mods raised to Defender levels. That way they would get the same relative benefit from powers like Aim or Power Build Up, and deal more absolute damage due to a higher damage modifier.

Edit: All the above intentionally ignores Scourge, but hopefully it's clear based on my earlier posts that I agree with the assertions about Scourge's benefits. I play some of the same blast sets on both Defenders and Corruptors and I definitely notice the difference in not having Scourge, even after the solo Defender buff, which I like very much.

Over all players over the course of the weeks or months of play, that will not happen. And that is the manner in which a great deal of this game's balance is done.

This is explicitly not how the devs balance the game. They account for random effects as an average increase, and use that number to balance against more static values. QV the change to Brute damage cap. With both ATs at the damage cap, Brutes deal more damage. However, Scrapper criticals raise Scrapper average damage at the Scrapper damage cap above Brute damage at the Brute cap, and this was the target to which the adjusted Brute cap was aimed.

EBs, absolutely yes. It's essentially why the AV -> EB scaling was added, given the frequency of AVs that were added particularly in CoV. (CoV starts throwing AVs fairly frequently at you in story arcs in the 30s, contrasted to the 40s in CoH).

AVs yes, in general, though I don't think every AV has to be soloable, and I expect it to be relatively hard (or at least time consuming) and require a relatively uncommon build to achieve. Given this game's balance model and existing mechanics, it's going to be nigh impossible to make AVs that a team of mythical average gamers can defeat that some tweaked out single character doesn't have a shot at. While it's possible to imagine mechanical changes to the game that aren't direct nerfs that would specifically disallow soloing AVs, I have to wonder what the true degree of gain would be for that effort. I also think it's worth noting that all AVs should not probably be considered equally hard (and heaven knows they're not today). In particular, it seems reasonable to me that TF/SF AVs be harder than those met in story arcs. Nictus Romulus is a good example.

I have no problem with GMs being soloable, but generally it's only really possible because they tend to be immense bags of HP who hit back really hard. To date, the only way to solo them is to ream out their regen rate. GMs are truly attrocious reward for the time currently required to be invested in defeating them solo. (It's not great on a team, either.) So while I wouldn't object to them being "unsoloable" on principle, I don't care at all that they are soloable by some people, because it provides no real advantage.

I don't expect GM fights to change much at all because of Incarnate levels. Some more direct buffs to things like DPS and DPE may open up more people to soloing them, but level shifting will matter to them very little because of their own level normalization features. An incarnate character will likely find non-incarnate content AVs easier, possibly significantly so. I think this is to be expected and a non-issue so long as there is new content (including AVs) aimed at incarnate-enabled characters.

You don't appear to grasp the difference between "understand" and "accept".

For the general populace they are not keen on it. They engage in it when they do with the supposed justification that they only need to do it to save more people than they harm. Bearing in mind, of course, that in their view, being enslaved is not harmful.

In the same way, no. Truly good people view that as a right that should never be abrogated. Cole and his ilk view it as a "nice to have" that sometimes has to be surrendered for the survival of the many.

Again, it's possible to understand a position without automatically agreeing with it. To assume that those who do not agree with you fail to do so because they cannot truly understand your perspective is the hubris at the heart of many of the greatest villains in history, both fictional and real.

They need more WOM in their computer: Write Only Memory.

To my knowledge, defense has never been applied after the accuracy mods. It hasn't changed, it just sounds like you had some bad information on how it always worked.

I think it's worth noting that at least one game in the industry has gone free to play and increased its revenue. DDO did this, and it now sustains itself wholly on micro transactions for in-game perks (some of which affect character progress). I heard but have done no research to confirm that LotRO is switching to this same model.

I'm not saying that CoH should or even could make the switch to such a model, but it has been done successfully.

Hm, no, sounds like you have some bad info.

The soft cap for defense is 45% for all ATs. By "soft" cap we mean that, for most situations and foes, getting more that 45% defense doesn't cause enemies to miss any more often.

The hard cap varies by AT and level, but is generally much higher. So much higher above the soft cap that no one really bothers thinking much about it.

Actually, I could not disagree more. Specifically, the characterization of all Villains as Chaotic Evil smacks of applying a shoe-horn to find a place to list the last two alignments of the CoH/V and D&D categories not already mentioned.

All villains do not fit cleanly in the Chaotic Evil alignment. If Rogue covers Neutral Evil (and I think that's an overly restrictive of Rogue, too), I believe there is plenty of room for Villains to be Lawful Evil. There are plenty of examples villains who espouse strong loyalty to order and tradition while heartlessly striking down innocents to enforce order and tradition through fear and oppression. Edit: Just because Recluse might fit Chaotic Evil, it is not reasonable to cast all villain motivations based on his image.

On the matter of Rogues, while I do think that Neutral Evil does fit Rogues, I also feel that Chaotic Neutral and even (True) Neutral fit. Just because you're breaking the law, and even if you're willing to break your word, it doesn't mean you're willing to harm innocents. In fact, the Rogue Morality mission has you risk absolutely overwhelming punishment (attacking an Aribiter is usually like ordering a death sentence with a side of torture) to spare the lives of innocent bystanders, when you could just take the job and be paid.

Edit 2: As I think about it, the same thing applies to heroes. All heroes are not Lawful Good. Basically I think this effort at alignment categorization ran aground when it tried to keep Primal and Praetorean "alignments" distinct. They aren't, and so there should be overlap.

I assume that the majority of those are enhancements that were previously crafted for the purpose of slotting (such as in a frankenslotting or low-budget build), and either never got slotted or have been removed in a respec (without realizing they would be worth more if "sold" back during the respec). The rest were probably what Eric said - people who crafted things for sale before realizing they cost more to craft than they can be reasonably sold for.

Once you've crafted something like this, your choices are to sell it at a loss (because the demand is so low it won't sell at its crafting price in any reasonable period of time) or to delete it. Deleting it is a 100% loss, so instead, people choose to sell it at a loss.

Nope, that's correct.

I once tested that proc in Dark Servant by dropping him on an even-level spawn of Nemesis minion troops in PI. It took quite a while, but he slowly procced them to death, especially when they couldn't get away from him because he kept rooting them.

The crowning moment was when he killed the last minion, who was running away, with Twilight Grasp.