Angelic_EU

BAF: Fine. Really like the new AoE buff. Even my non-alpha Zombie/Dark was enjoying it and making some good contribution.

Lamb: Fine, until the running around stage. Pets still hopelessly lost and trailing way too far behind out of sight out of Supremacy range, agro-ing unnecessarily to have any really use in them.

Keyes: Haven't taken my MMs to there yet. But I can already see the problem: again, pets trailing too far, or out of LoS, and agro-ing unnecessarily.

/regen.

You get +def buff often even before Destiny and AoE buff already. Now you are getting +Def and +Res left right and centre; plus your own regen on top.

For stalker? WP and Nin, I suppose. I would have suggested Regen too had I not have one at lv42. I found the animation time for KM is too long for Regen to function. Often I found myself being hacked to death before the an animation ends and I can click one of the heal.

That said, there are ways to make KM/Regen absolutely wonderful for stalker. I no expert, so good luck.

I thought Spirit Alpha helps to speeding up the recharge of the Lore Pets. It was not the case when I time mine last night. Did I get that wrong?

Does the Interface proc carry forward to the Lore Pets attacks?

Also, once we are allowed to colour the Lore Pets, the MM community will be screaming for pet customerisation once more - and louder too. I am not against it though. I have been wanting it for ages.


Edited: In terms of grinding, generally I don't like it much either. BUT so far, I am enjoying the trials. I think mostly is because I have 2 lv53 already and one more on its way. So I am now at the stage of enjoying being a 53. As far as I can see, those merits, threads and i-salvages are interchangeable one way or another. For my 53s, it really weren't that much of a trouble or grinding getting all those that I needed. That said, pushing to T4 does require a bit of grinding since you have to redo all the previous powers. Still, I am enjoying it so far. Too bad that there are not many Mo runs going around (in Virtue and Union). Like playing football, tennis, etc., it is always doing the same things: it's the people you are playing with that matters.

To be fair, you have to ask yourself what do you want from your MM first. Most people would go for bots/traps for GM/AV/or just general tough foes soloing. If you want tankermind, bots/ff is not bad an option either.

I have a demons/therm that is built for heal/buff/debuff, in which debuff is mainly in the form of -res and -regen. The pets are almost at res cap with psi at about 40% or so.

I have a zombies/dark that is built for an insane amount of -tohit, and then heal and -regen. It can kill Hero 1 and the other vanguard looking guy together in one of the Alpha missions. But the lower tier zombers do need constant care as they die easily. (though I needed to use a few blue as there was a -end debuff on me).

I have a thugs/poison, which I don't know what to do with it anymore (but it can tank Stateman for as long as it take in a LRSF).

I have heard /storm is such a good fun to play. But I have never tried it once.

If you just want something fun and something to put a smile on your face, pick any.

Ah, I will take the Storm Elemental Radial Superior Ally for more extreme -tohit for my zombies/dark!

Oh those! Thanks. They don't look very impressive...

To be fair, their do a good deal of -def. May have it for my sonic/kin just to make her more of a debuff type.

I should have enough i-xp and other stuff to 'level' my bane and demons/therm to lv50+3. I have been holding that off until now: the new lore pets are here! I like the fact that some pets have secondary effect that stack with certain powersets, which vastly increast their usefulness. Otherwise, with that many choices now, it is easy to make a thematically matching mini-team of your own. Here is my plan:

Arachnos for my bane - mainly for thematic reasons. My mini Arachnos team. Originally I wanted the Robotic Drone ones. They do -regen too although I have not checked the exact value. Still debating on which.

Rularuu for my demons/therm - again for thematic reasons. A herd of demons and Rularuu do look intimadating!

Robotic Drones for my bots/FF - hopefully, there will be a decent sum of -regen stacking.

Phantom for my zombies/dark - either that or Polar Light. Can't decide. Besides, I am not sure what exactly is Polar Light. Need to see one first. This MM does a lot of -tohit. It seems not much -tohit are available with the lore pets. Probably will pick one that goes with the theme.


Anyway, all others are good as well. It seems there is a lot of -def going on with the lore pets. Just out of interest, which one are you going to pick for your characters?


(by the way, if you don't have the game switched on, here is a good reference: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Lore_Slot_Abilities)

Demons and Bots are fine, I my experience. Not sure about Mercs and Ninjas since I never have them at a higher levels.

As to Zombies, I would rather they have better resistance than your new proposal. It is a good idea nonetheless and thematically make sense as well. With good enough resistance - better still with some heal powers alongside - Demons are rather tough pets. Likewise with Zombies, just scale up the resistance value, I suppose, will make them a lot less flimsy.

Having more Defence for Ninjas are always good, and that is indeed something we have been looking forward for quite some time already.

BUT I think the most pressing issue for MM, and all other pet owners as well, is the movement AI. Sort that out first will be a significant improvement of QoL that has long been over due. (Last night, I noticed that runners are far more intelligent in negotiating obstacles: they jump when necessary instead of circulating on the ground thinking to jump or not; and they seem to know how trace a clear and direct path to run away.)

RE point 4: I think Stalker crit can go above Cap as well.

I always want MMs to be able to travel with their pets in close proximity - that is in fact the major reason behind the testing. I have been living in hope for years. When I heard about the update to Group Fly, I was rather happy. Although, as soon as I tested it, I know it was not what I have expected.

Yes, I know the keybinds. It was on top of the MM section long before the EU-US forums merge. When I said it felt 'fiddly', I meant it was much like the point-click-travel sequence of TP. It is a solution but methinks not a very efficient nor elegent one. I use GOTO alot in trials and tfs, but use it for regrouping them or just moving them in position before a fight.

Yes indeed, it is not a fight-and-forget everyday movement power. It needs a whole different mindset to make it work. It seems that you are putting up too much just in order to keep Group Fly in your powertray. Admirable, although I prefer otherwise. Or to put it this way, Group Fly is a movement power. The -tohit change does not in anyway improve the movement portion of it. It gives the impression that it is fine to use it now but in reality it is causing a fair bit of problems to pets. That sadden me... (and again, I really do not like the blue aura. It looks funny against a the night sky.)

I was indeed very excited to learn about the change to Group Fly. I always wanted it but the -tohit part was (so I thought) keeping me not choosing it after all these years. I had to try the new Group Fly mainly for my MMs. I tested the old Group Fly on Live and the new one on Test for my lv50 Zombies/Dark. All pets are out and upgraded. They would be moving around and attacking as normal like every MM would under just about any circumstances. And here is what I have found: in short, still not worth it. Don't take it. If you do, make sure everyone around you has Nulled it first.

1) The end cost is too high. It requires a few end reds in order to make it on most of the time. Too much investment.

2) Originally I thought the passengers (i.e. my pets) will be slower than the caster. I was wrong. With one lv50 fly IO in Group Fly, and with another lv50 fly IO in Swift, the caster can go at about 49mph. The pets will be fly at above top speed: 58mph. So the pets do move quite fast. BUT the major problem with pets is that they don't keep flying: they have this stop-and-go movement AI in them. Flying in a strange line, the pets will fly a bit, stop, think, fly a bit more, stop again, think a bit more, fly a bit, then ALL fall off the fly aura. I have tested this on a number zones: GV, from LR building straight head non-stop to the ferry; BM in Cap straight ahead to as far into the sea as possible; Cap again, on Aeon City in circle non-stop. The pets never fail to fall off the aura.

Another interesting issue I have noticed is that if you Group Fly in midair way above the ground, and when the pets fall off, they will stay on the spot they land. They will not follow at all (whether they are under Def-Follow or Pass-Follow). Then auto summon kicks in and they then stay on the auto summon spot. If you Group Fly on the ground level, they might catch up on foot - like they used to. In fact, they spend most of the time on foot instead of flying. I have tested this in open area with little or no obstacles and in Cap near the hospital area with mobs and obstacles here and there. If you Group Fly just above 8ft to 10ft off the ground, the pets will still follow close enough, but they are having so much trouble negotiating small objects - they are stuck far too often than on foot. They lose the ability to jump over an obstacle and they just do not always know how to fly over it instead: they ended up hovering up and down on the same spot.

3) Fighting in midair within Group Fly is another problematic issue. I tested this on Aeon City and in Shark near the trainer. I issue the attack-my-target command to my zombies while flying with them inside Group Fly (about 20ft to 30ft above ground). They fly off and attack. The problem occurs when they return to me after the attack: most often they do not return to me at all! After the attack, they will 'Super Speed' themselves off the Group Fly aura towards ANY random directions and stay solidly there ignoring ALL commands. After may be a minute or so, they will run back to the MM. This happens most often with the tier 1 pets. They will 'Super Speed' themselves to any different directions nearly 7 to 8 times out of 10 attacks. The higher tier ones also do that but less often, say, half of the time.

This causes a major problem for MM; in fact, it creates more problem to them as the pets scatter around uncontrollably often out of sight and out of supremacy radius (which makes the new change to supremacy useless under the circumstances).

4) The faint blue coloured aura is very distracting; and may I say not very good looking either. It is surely another way to stop people from using it all the time. It needs a min FX option.


I have not test Group Fly with Lore pets and other non-MM pets. But I have a strong feeling that they will behave the same. In essence, Group Fly will not help the pet owners to ferry their pets with them in a single fighting unit; on the contrary it helps to scatter the pets - and worst, other people's as well.

Shame. I do want to have Group Fly permanently on my MMs. But I know full well that it will cause great deal of problems to myself AND my teammates' pets. So unfortunately I have to say that I will respec Group Fly out of and Null Group Fly on ALL my characters, especially those with pets. I would suggest those who are thinking of having new Group Fly respec'ed in, try it out on Test first. And please do tell people you have it and will use it so they can Null it accordingly.

So, not much of a QoL change to Group Fly after all. Back to waiting-my-pets-to-catch-up-with-me.

Can any one point me to the direction where I can find a sample melee fortunata build? Or just post one here just to give me some general idea?

Many thanks.

+/- recharge, +/- regen, +/- recov, slow, hold, TP of any variations are all good guess of TM. I would say + def too with the underlying concept that you know what is going happen next and you aviod it. Self dublication would be a good thematic pet.

I might have an offensive power, or two, too in the form similar to Propel/Forcebolt or Wormhole.

I have a feeling whoever dream this up is a Doctor Who's fan, or at very least enjoy watching and has watched it more than once. TM is a support set. So, if my feeling turns out to be right, we can start imagining what the good Doctor would do with his time vortex in defeating his enemies.

I think we are worrying too much at this stage - and it is still very early to do so. There are legitimate issues to be discussed and worked on. But to be fair to them, we should wait for more details in the coming weeks.

I do not profess to know much about the economics of the game industry. But from I understand, if the basic maintenance costs is sufficiently low (after all the game has been made, the staff are employed and the servers are running, nevermind how many of us logging on), it makes good business sense to offer free sample to the customers - think of all the free food and drink and perfume samples you are getting. This in fact has been a tried and tested marketing strategy: from test driving a car, trying the coat on in the shop, reading the latest magazines/books in the bookshop, listening to a segment of a song, and the list goes on... Try'n buy: always a good way to make more money.

In the long run, it is going to attact more curious and casual players to this game, widening the player base. The more the merrier - this is after all an MMO. There is already a solid core player base in this game; no harm adding on a few more casual players now and again. More than 4000 players logged on for the 7-year invasion event. Think of how many more casual by-standers will try this game just to see what the fuss is about. As far as I am aware, the other 2 hero-theme MMOs are not doing so great. So there are some potential hero MMOers out there hoping to find a home for their alt-hero/villain-ego. Openning the door to them is wise move.

Some players, core or otherwise, might not want to pay for the full sub at one time or another - most common reason for this game is being real-life issues. Having some kind of modular/hierarchical payment scheme will suit more people, while having the F2P option will help keeping them in the community. For myself, at one time, I really did not have much time to play this game due to personal matters. But I still log on time and again just to chat with some old SG/Coalition friends. Occationally, one thing led to another, I found myself doing a tf. I enjoyed that kind of on-and-off relationship very much and that is why I am still in the game. i21 is just making this kind of arrangement easier to most without them to make any financial committment unless they want to (whether they want to or not largely depends on how attractive and flexible the payment system is, and the contents it offers, which at this stage better not to spectulate too much yet).

Some games have tried this kind of F2P/Microtransation before. As far as I am aware, most of them are making more money. Even if they did not, they managed to generate some good publicity. I think it is the business trends at the moment for the game industry. Better get the transition done now than giving the chance to other competitors to consolidate their market position.

I get the feeling that some people are worried that the VIPs do not seem to be exclusive enough, or 'VI' enough. I think partly because we just do not have enough information to imagine how the new Freedom setting will plan out. Indeed, the Paragon Rewards scheme appears to be a bit vague at the moment; likewise with the end-game contents. To be fair, there is no immediate need to give out too much info yet. But I think a teaser or a trail will certain help easing the misunderstanding and generate a more positive expectation. i21 seems to be a bit of a shock to most and opinions are starting to polarise - as always anyway, no surprise here.

I am inclined to be in favour of i21 with reservation on some minor issues. Only one new power? There is an unbalance distribution of powers available to some ATs - MM's primary and blaster's secondary are the two I can think of. Would there be more? Or at least some powersets porting around between ATs. I personally think we still need more end-game contents and some revamp work on those old and largely deserted zones. We need more zone events too, like invasion. End-games are important, but contents and events that everyone can take part are equally important too.

Anyway, Happy i21!!

http://www.cityofheroes.com/eu/uk-fr..._overview.html

Bright colour scheme for, say, Dark Miasma. And dark colour for the MM version of /Traps. I want my /Dark MM look as though she is floating on clouds and I want to colour my MM's FFG in all black so it the bubble effect won't show up (at the moment corr and def versions can do that).

And yes please, different skins for the MM's pets.

From my experience in doing endless trials in the pass couple of weeks, getting to damage cap is relatively easy. I suppose the simple fact is that, with more people, there is a higher chance to have a kin there - just simple probability. So brute will pull ahead in those situations.

On the other hand, with the up-coming AoE buffs, it is more likely that you will get a buff from the buffers - their work will be easier and so likely that their will do it more regularly. So with a scrapper, you will still have good res buffs. Also, don't forget the Destiny buffs too.

So, in reality, both ATs are more or less even. Only a some unique settings can tell them apart. I personally prefer brute. I like watching my fury bar goes up - like I am working towards a goal for better damage.

No. It is the first answer I can think of.

Yes, it is annoying to have a massive pet window: 6 pets, Acid Mortar, FFG and Seeker Drones (2 of them).

Various different models for Targeting Drone: some futuristic, some mystical, some others..

To have the option to change the standard standing pose automatically into certain kinds of emotes, like Hero Stance 1, one of the beasty emote, crouching or drinking tea. The same applies to the current Hover pose as well. It looks really cool with Villain 2 emote while hovering but often the emote got reset when Hasten is on auto or someone cast as shield on you.

Essentially alternative animations/emotes for standing and hovering.