AkuTenshiiZero

I solo more often that not.

But that's because I play villains. I don't think there's enough players on redside to form a team.

Meh. Show started going downhill after Discord.

I didn't follow the beta. I didn't even know what Hybrid was supposed to be in the first place. The first I knew about the powers was when they went live.

And I think they're pretty crap.

They're weaker Destinies. Yeah, they're stronger than any pre-incarnate stuff...But we're over halfway through the Incarnate slots and thus far not much has proven to be impressive. I'm still waiting for the amazing power the devs were talking about, so far we've gotten things that could have been awesome if not for poor balancing. Really, who's going to pick Cryonic or Vorpal over "I nuke the world without aiming" Ion? Has anyone ever used Incandescence? And now this letdown.

Not sure if anyone here has heard of a Flash game called Ray Ardent: Science Ninja, but my friend enjoyed the game so much he created Ray Ardent as a Virtue character, and even got the original creator's blessing. Ray remains his main blueside character to this day.

I thought it was pretty awesome of the creator to actually be cool about it instead of flip out.

Was there any word on a car-door shield? I seem to recall hearing/seeing that at some point. I've been considering a car mechanic character and that would be the perfect thing to complete my concept.

A general "Skin" option would be appreciated. Lizards want shirts too.

Animal Pack already catered to the furries. No more.

*realizes it's Power*

Oh...

I'd say attempting to compare MMs to other ATs is like comparing apples to oranges. But ii's more like comparing apples to ostriches.

Pros:
Absurd damage potential. A MM can lay waste to legions with ease.
Self-contained team. You have six "people" with you, and a support set to back them up. All together you are basically a fully functional team.
Little personal risk. Your minions are disposable, when things go badly just order them to their deaths while you escape.

Cons:
Not very smart. Your minions have alot of power, but they're pretty bad at using it at the right times. I can't tell you how many times I've raged at my Assault Bot for firing Incendiary Missiles at one, low-HP target.
AoE. Back when MMs were villain-only, the common joke was that Sharkhead was designed specifically to make our lives hell. Demolitionist fire patches just crush MMs, as does any AoE-heavy enemy.
When things go bad, they go BAD. It's really hard to regain your footing if you lose all your minions in the midst of a raging battle. It takes quite a lot of time and sometimes as much as a full Endurance bar to get back to full strength, so when things go badly your best bet is to escape as quickly as possible.

Y'know, I made this thread too. Mine was dismissed as rage. Granted, I make no effort to conceal my temper or foul attitude around here. Someone has to tell it like it is and not hold back.

I play on at least 2x players. I know my limits. But the level of my difficulty is inconsequential, because 2x in NW is much harder that 2x in any pre-GR, non-TF content. EBs are not something that you throw in every three missions. Even Bosses are not designed to be used like PANCAKEing Zerglings. If I want the game to be harder, I'll make that decision. I run 2x because I like to have 5-6-man spawns with 1-2 LTs each, and it's worked out fine for years. Now running on 2x gets me multiple Bosses and EBs at once.

And I'm not even going to get into the horrifyingly bad power balance these things have. There's a reason why Pre-GR enemies have unique, mob-only powers or heavily nerfed versions of player powers, and that is that we are FRENCH TOASTing overpowered. This game was ALWAYS about throwing larger numbers of weak targets against the player, to make you feel like an unstoppable superhero. In the end, it all balances out and is very enjoyable. But now they've taken all those weaklings and given them some serious teeth. This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that there are still a ton of them, turning a "one man army" game into a "gang beating" game.

I've been at this for 6 years now. It's not because I'm an ignorant noob that I hate the direction the difficulty is going in. It's because I know the way the game was before Going Rogue DELICIOUS BELGIAN WAFFLEd over everything, and I really miss the way things were back then.

I still absorb damage with my face as much as possible. I just do it with Brutes instead of Corruptors.

I'd say that over the past year, with the Incarnate and Freedom hullabaloo, I've become more cynical. It's the game I've always loved, but it has a bitter taste to it now. Things are...messy. I don't feel the loving attention to detail the Devs used to put into the game. Now it's like "What? New enemy group? Give them that new powerset we just made. Balance? Pffft, it's fine." I feel like I'm not gettin gmy $15 a month's worth of stuff, either. Costumes and powersets used to be part of the subscription, nowadays there's no way to get the same amount of stuff with 400 PP a month.

So yeah, the way I play the game hasn't changed much. The way I view it has changed immensely.

I've noticed that Paragon Studios has a habit of creating a new system (Power customization in this case), tricking it out, releasing it with fanfare and whatnot, holding it up as the future of online gaming...

...And then forgetting it exists a year later. Bases, IO Sets, MA, Power customization, Ouroboros, all things that got a handful of updates and then got lost under the pile of new things to be forgotten. I'm honestly shocked they haven't stopped updating Incarnate content yet.

Personally, I'd love to see a set of "Throwing" animations, to make it look like you're putting some physical effort into lobbing fireballs at people. But I know better than to hold my breath for an update to old content.

Remember how you put them at five level intervals, and attached an Exploration badge to each?

Remember how you made a very nice and useful accolade power for getting all of them?

Remember how you made it so these missions can be easily outlevelled, forcing you to either live without said accolade or spam lowbie area chat with LFTs, hoping against hope that someone else in this game still does Mayhems/Safeguards?

Remember when you introduced a system which allowed you to repeat any mission except the above?

Yeah that.

Remember that?

Can you freaking fix it finally!?

Just to clear up why I think the way I do: First of all, I have always held the opinion that balance in CoH is very good. I feel that every set, if isolated, can do what it is meant to do. I feel that pools and IO sets are added to what should already be a fully-functional powerset.

I am also very new to the idea of a defensive set. I prefer resistance personally, and the creation of a defense-based character is sort of an experiment. I really haven't got much idea what I'm doing, and frankly my opinion on defense is fairly low. I've seen my friend's SR Brute get crushed like paper at crucial moments while running Elude. I'm wary, to say the least, but at the same time I've done virtually everything else in the game. I need something outside my experience to invest some time into, and a defense Tanker is where that train of thought points.

Finally, I try to find a good balance between concept and execution, but tend to hold concept higher. I want to be an effective tank, but I want it to be my tank. I don't want to get Weave because I just don't like Fighting. I'd rather have Hover/Fly/Afterburner because I just prefer it. You see where I'm going with this? I honestly could stand to slot a bunch of IO sets if I need to, but the point is I just can't do a cookie-cutter build because it is not my nature. And if a cookie cutter build is required for tanking, then...No.

At this point I'm rambling and the purpose of this thread is lost. I can see that Tankers get higher bases on their defense/resistance stats. That's good enough for me. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to attempt a non-Fighting, flying Tanker, figure out a way to soft-cap it, and tell the conventional methods to suck eggs. Cuz that's how I roll.

As I have said every time this comes up: The fate of my conceptual demonic greaser hangs in the balance. I simply cannot effectively play a demon stuck in 1950's style without access to horns and aviator shades.

Just an FYI: Gamestop does stock NCSoft time cards, which is the only way I'm currently able to maintain my VIP account. To put it bluntly, my credit is not exactly stellar, and I most likely will not be able to have another credit card for several years. So for me there really is no option to buy points.

So, before I commit to this thing, I just want to know...

Is Shield any good? Because honestly it looks like it relies heavily on set bonuses just to function. It just seems to me like it's weak. I'm looking to take this character to Incarnate level and function as a main tank, is this a feasible goal without spending god-awful amounts of inf to squeeze every tiny drop of positional defense I can get out of set bonuses?

I'm fairly satisfied with Stone on paper, I'm sure I'll be satisfied with it in game.

Is there a good reason why I should make a Tanker instead of just another Brute? Because I have two Brutes already, and every time I try to make a Tanker some voice in the back of my mind says "Why tank when you can tank AND damage?" It has always seemed to me like Tankers are inferior to Brutes, just because Brutes have nearly the same defensive ability with vastly superior damage.

I think the yellow robot looks like someone from one of the Quake games. Or was it Unreal. I really don't know, I got out of FPS's after Doom II.

The blue-ish elf-ish looking chick reminds me of someone from Neopets. I think. I dunno I was into Neopets for like...a few days.

No ideas on the devil guy, other than he may just be a generic nobody.

A lot of people are saying the cyborg next to the zombie is Kano. It looks nothing like him, so I doubt it is. I really doubt they would get Bowser, Dr. Eggman, Zangeif, and M.Bison perfect and then cheap out on Kano.

Speaking of which, I really hope the major cameo characters have a decent speaking role. Even just a few lines each, it'd be a shame to have Dr. Eggman without him complaining about some "blasted hedgehog" taking all the glory.