Alvan

Why not just post a reply in the original thread instead of copypasteing it into a new one?

http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/sh...t321561#320912

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
(When an Ice Tank pops 5 defenses, what's a villain going to do about it? bleed on him?)


[/ QUOTE ]

hey! I only hogged every fort from the empaths :P

[/ QUOTE ]

*nods*

Would have said "When an Super Reflex Stalker pops 5 def..." but that would have been judgemental, since they weren't on our side

Well, that was almost fun.

At its best this was great fun, dodging a couple of stalkers while trying to take a corruptor. But not as whole. There was much lacking. Some observations:

1. I've noticed the Stalker/Any-Other-AT ratio in villain side is getting quite boring, tonight there were a couple of nice Doms there, but I think I saw only one, maybe two brutes. Stalkers and Masterminds are becoming a norm in PvP. It's becoming an arms race - I don't want to go out without an empath to give me Clear Mind to boost my perception, because without it the only thing left to attack is that Mastermind ... who just went phase shifted...

2. The heroes have better understanding of teamwork and how they should work together. I don't think I saw a single Hold+Critical combination or any villains even remotely force-bubbled. In the beginning there were some ice shields, but they didn't last long. I think the problem with all villains being able to attack is that they easilly ignore the buff/debuff side of their powers, which costs them dearly in PvP (except the stalkers who work just fine solo, see observation 1)

3. Base-"camping" (more like base-swarming) is a double-edged sword as someone (Lineage?) pointed out - the further the attacking force gets into the base, the better the PvE defenses get, so the "if one side gets pushed back, head to Ground Zero" rule was getting opposition from the side that was getting rushed.

4. Bloody Bay lacks rewards. This is a clear and sad point, but without the Bounty system, PvP gets dull much more easilly. I think I made less than 10 pvp reputation points during tonight's battle. With Bounty I would have walked out with maybe an SO more, now I just got bored. Also the Inspiration merchant at BB makes things boring at points (When an Ice Tank pops 5 defenses, what's a villain going to do about it? bleed on him?)

5. The old "oh well, they're 50s" argument pops up every once in a while. The actual problem isn't the level, it's the optimization. The only PvP-optimized characters on the villain side are the Stalkers, whereas CoH players have created various working builds and tuned them to the maximum to all archtypes.

6. Union isn't a PvP server. Treating it like one is a mistake. We should be much more light-hearted in the gaming than we tend to be.

That's just random rambling. I had few good moments, had a great team, but all in all, I think we could improve the event somehow - both sides building teams that work as teams, getting diversity in the ranks (yeah, I'm the best to talk - Ice/Nrg blaster), moving things over to Siren's Call... something.

(Too tired to check for typos/thought errors)

Well, the heroes have the same "get meteors, then firebases" -mission. So, hanging at the places where you get attacked is a good idea. (And also probably the reason you get attacked there, the opposite side is doing the same things you do)

Coldest War, Ice/Dev/Mun Blaster with 3 holds (2 are 3-slotted with hold durations, 1 is 1-slotted)

[ QUOTE ]
My SVG is in a Coalition with E.V.I.L. University, but they show up as E.V.I.L. on our base portal...

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, the base portals, for some reason (working as intended?) pick the first word in your SVG Name and display it as the name. Seriosly annoying. Considering that words like "Evil" and "Fallen" are very common beginnings for a Villain group name.

- spokesperson for the E.V.I.L. University.


PS. We do not have anything to do with the other, uneducated forms of E.V.I.L.
PPS. Who might be more evil by nature, but nurture vs. nature is always a good subject for a debate.

Wonderful

[ QUOTE ]
Errr, guys please can we keep the topic about what it was created for!... the creative Pvp binds people have invented for themselves!....Thx.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, let's try and get back on the tracks, sorry about the intermission.

So, has someone made some trash-talk that has stuck to your mind? All I've gotten is "die u n00b", which really isn't worth the note.

[ QUOTE ]
Thank you for taking the time to write a long thought out post, and I apologise if you thought I was "having a go" as what I had written was only meant in jest.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good to know, I sort of took it quite seriously at those dark AM hours (as you might noticed ). These are the dangers of teh internets

I know that this following might cause strong reactions in people, so please take a moment and consider your words before posting a reply to this. The TP Foe is Unfair thread got heated enough, let's keep civilized.

[ QUOTE ]
What about, "Hi I'm general Gamma, I camp by my hero base and use a full tray of insps when fighting then run away when they run out"

far more apt I think.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah yes, you guys, you were floating in the water outside the hero base when we went looking for evil villains who are trying to harness the powers of the Shivans or disrupt Longbow operations in Bloody Bay. I know you might have not been looking for trouble, but it's a war out there, so trouble tends to find you.

But yeah. The estimate on how I work is quite close.


I had then and usually have a full tray of whooping 10 insps (Gamma is lv 24, so only 10) when I leave the hero base in Bloody Bay, because I have basically have to: Gamma is fully reliant on Insights on spotting Stalkers (so a good half of my insps are usually these), Lucks to keep him alive when more than 2 people attack him (even if they don't offer their proper benefit against a built-up Stalker or a Mastermind with tactics, they're generally better than Sturdys when surrounded by too many enemies) and Break Frees to free himself from random holds. Without inspirations, he's Held, Assassin's Striked and bashed into million bits before he has had a chance to react.

And yes, I have Teleport to get away when people start ganging up on me or things look otherwise really bad (if I get struck by an AS, I run, but it's usually too late at that point). I use it to move around when immobed or slowed. It's a good power that way - it can be used to move yourself to a beneficial position. Sometimes that means being "not here".

A huge, big "Yup" to the fact I go and get more inspirations when I run out. As said before, Gamma is blind without insights, and running around without them in Bloody Bay is just asking for trouble. I go and renew my stocks at every pause that happens, be it from getting defeated, defeating a group of Villains or just generally running out of Insights because nothing has happened in a while. Also, buying 3 Respites is a faster way to get back into action than Resting.

But you are wrong in one aspect: I do not "camp outside the Hero base". I usually am found near the Villain base because that's where the action in Bloody Bay tends to happen. There, where the Villains can go and buy inspirations to boost themselves for battle if needed, where the drones protect them if they need a safe place and where they have a ton of automated defenses pointed at us. But if there isn't a battle going on there, I'm usually checking out recent hot-spots of activity to see if a battle continues or couting the area for people who are going in or coming out of the door missions in the Boardwalk.

Also one thing you forgot to mention in your accurate characterization is that I also have the dreaded Teleport Foe. The power that has been deemed unfair by everyone. Sometimes people try to run away and all that, they and need to be brought back into the battle. I haven't used it to teleport people into mobs or drones. Only to myself or my teammates. Once I accidently teleported a person from a combat with a hero, but I blame it on the fact the hero was behind a rock so I couldn't see the blue name-tag until it was too late, but that was an isolated incident I think.

What I'm trying to say is that I am in Bloody Bay with Gamma for one reason: the PvP (+ of course occational leveling / resistance buffing at the indoor missions as well). Gamma isn't my main character, he was built for the S4 tournament and PvP probably is what he'll be doing for as long as he is in the game.

Why on earth?

Because it's fun outmanouvering the stalkers, out-blasting the corruptors, bringing down the shielded masterminds, holding the dominators and toggle-dropping the brutes. And sometimes getting the taste of your own bitter medicine from someone manages to outwit you, using their own bag of tricks. That's the essence of PvP for me in Bloody Bay with Gamma.

Since I've bared things about how evil a PvP-player I am, I might as well tell you how there is one more reason to hate me: I do PvP with the PvP rating in mind. While that makes me quite callous in ways when it comes to PvP (it, in the end, is the defeat that matters), it in itself sets some boundaries for my actions - I try not to attack the same person repeatedly. Unless they of course specifically come asking for trouble (attacking me again or Stalkering next to me). Even then I might just leave, not engaging in another round of combat. This Rating-centric vie might also cause me to target one person from a group I fought earlier to get that one sweet point of reputation out of him/her before leaving the of the group alone by getting out of the place. With no actual rewards from PvP, the rating is really the only thing I can evaluate how I'm doing on a given night. Did the rating go up, or down? If it did, how much compared to the previous night.

As a sad note, I must admit that I sometimes get carried away by the moment - a long, huge fight at the Villain Base will make me charge in, fully Lucked, combat as long as possible and then try to escape (failing 90% of the time, and getting debt from the base defenses), rinsing and repeating as needed. When this happens, it's usually a more primitive instinct than intellect at work, so sorry about it.

As a parting gift for my post, here is a piece of advice: The next time you see a significantly smaller (say, two Heroes) group of "physically weak" Heroes (squishies) charging your big (say, 6 Villains) group of Villains, you should assume they have evened out the odds somehow and you really should reconsider your basic strategies. (It might be also that they are not playing with a full deck... if they're really just charging out at you in all their squishyness). I have met many people who can deal with this sort of challenge, so I know it's not impossible.

As I said in the beginning, I know this sort of a post will rouse negative feelings in many people, but I consider a post where I explain things better thank blurting out something really wise like "omgwtflol, headshot, headshot".

"/t $target, Roses are red, violets are blue, insights are yellow, I can see you" (followed by appropriate stalker-spankage)

General Gamma: lover, poet maybe, not a fighter...

Well, if fennoscandinavian counts, I'm Finnish

My main in CoH is originally Russian, and I took the conscious choise of not trying to emulate an accent through text, except for an odd "Da" here and there. It would have been too easy to go overboard with the silliness and since the character is already a bit silly, I opted out. Would have only turned Coldest War into a comic sidekick at best.

In a foot-notish sort of way, there is a Communist SG in the US servers, homepage can be found at http://www.cccpgroup.us/ ... Not sure if there are any articles about simulating foreign accents in there, but at least lots of good ideas for (Soviet) Russian based characters. You should check it out.

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, so all Brutes taunt automaticly, but it angers me. Greatly.

I usually do missions with a team, so that means a LOT more enemies. So everyone is blowing the living [censored] out of them with ranged attacks. As a brute, I have no choice but to attack close to them. So I choose a target, go up to them and land a hit. Next thing I know the whole mob is onto me, and this usually means 8-15 enemies firing at me at once. This is stupid, even if I run away they fire again, and it's even worse if they knock me down.

I know them all hitting me means lots of rage, but whats the point if I'm dead? I don't want xp debt. Is there _anything_ I can do at all about it :\

[/ QUOTE ]

This sounds like you were doing a hostage mission and the enemies chose you as the "guy who is protecting the hostage", which means they'll focus their attacks on you until something hits them more than you do. If you see the hostage following you and you're on the team, move behind the other guys, since you've been singled out.

At least that's how it seems work.

I don't think brutes have auto-taunt, do they?

Well, this calls for introduction of the new standards in higher evil education:

E.V.I.L. University

Amongst the greatest villains who have ever lived, there have been a good deal of Doctors, Docs and Dr:s. Where do these people go to get their degrees? Where do they get their qualifications to call themselves Doctors? The answer is E.V.I.L. University.

The EVIL-U is your perfect opportunity to become a respected member of the supervillain community with low payments of Prestige and Salvage every now and then. (For more Prestige, we might not even publish those photos of you taken at that party back then...)

In realistic terms: We're a small (because we don't do random invites) Villain Group of people who know how to speak English (and not just "omgwtfpwns" or other dialects of teh interwebs) and who like to enjoy the game as much as possible (meaning we are actually not that much in a hurry to get levels, more to get a taste of the content in the game). We promise to try and organize as much events as possible, thus becoming a well-known force of evil.

For EVIL-U, it's the quality, not the quantity, that counts.

Contact persons: Lady Argenta, Toy, Forked Tongue, CT-909, Thrym.

At the moment we share (and will probably share until eternity) our webspace with our do-gooder counterpart at This Web-address

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm going with the "nameless minions" thing for my Mastermind. My soldiers will be named something like "Operative 9A" and "Operative 5D", just so that there isn't any of that pesky emotional attachment involved.

Easier to send them to die if they're just statistics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Naming them Richard and Judy will get you over that hurdle

[/ QUOTE ]

That'll just make one accidentaly "forget" to give them buffs before sending them against archvillains. :P

I'm going with the "nameless minions" thing for my Mastermind. My soldiers will be named something like "Operative 9A" and "Operative 5D", just so that there isn't any of that pesky emotional attachment involved.

Easier to send them to die if they're just statistics.

Name: College of War
Motto: Higher Education For Heroes
Website: The College of War
Colours: White / Brown
Contacts: Coldest War, High Priestess, Tenebra, Magister Barnab (contact us through in-game email or send a /tell)

About us:

With the current boom of single-archtype supergroups, it feels strange to advertise a completely normal one.

The College of War was created by 5 veteran players (most who had been playing ever since the US servers came online) with the purpose of creating a supergroup that doesn't "spoil the experience" for new players.

Many big supergroups have the problem that the old players are too eager to help a new person get into the game, actually spoiling the fun that is making mistakes and learning some things the hard way. So, with College of War we have established some strange-ish ground rules: No powerleveling, no "oh my god, your build isn't teh best!! here, make your character like this and u will pwn!", no spoiling what having the Omega Clearance tells you, etc. The low-level experience is as interesting as the high-level one, and growing up is a vital part of playing the game.

There is no actual "theme" in the College of War Supergroup - we come from all Origins, Archtypes and histories. We are just a community of learning and enjoying the game in all the ways possible. Activities we have been doing include a weekly Wednesday Task Force (or WTFs for short), participating in the S4 Tourney (as Army of Lovers), Death Race 2000, following cool story-arcs, hunting monsters and other stuff. Well.. generally having fun.

The only criteria for new people who want to join is that they can speak fluent English and want to enjoy the game "one step at a time".