Aleshanee_NA

It was costumes and the whole being a superhero thing that got me into the game, and I've one character whose collected if not all, most of the badges.

But (aside from the people) it's pvp that keeps me in the game now and is easily top of my list. Heck not even all my chars have all their costume slots (and I'm a girl, I should live in Icon!)

After two and a half years I've seen every storyline, TF and mission the game has to offer hero side and any new hero picks and chooses my favorite ones now, and they are always tech heroes because I love the freaks arcs.

I love the base design editor - heck when you could get lots of prestige on test just by creating an sg I made several bases just for fun.

Bases are expensive but tbh I don't think that is why people seem less interested in them than costumes.

In my sg we have 6 bases. A main one for the main villain and main hero group and then 4 bases for the alt groups. All the alt sg's have enough prestige to make reasonably sized bases and we are a large group - we can have around 30 people online during the course of an evening.

The main group bases are overseen by the three sg leaders (I'm one of them) and we wanted to come up with a way of sharing the base feature, because it is so good.

We put four different officers in charge of the four base groups and they designed them as they wanted to, but they had to fit in a reasonable size social room. The idea was that four normal members a month could each have a room to do what they pleased with - design it around their char concept/host parties in there etc - just have a play around. Then at the end of the month when somebody else wanted a go that room would be passed on. That way within the sg, including leaders and officers in charge of a base, 54 people would get to have a go with it.

But we found that people just didn't really want to. The social rooms remain pretty empty!

So why don't people want to play with bases even when they can?
• It's time consuming - takes longer to build a base than it does to make a costume.
• Nobody gets to see it except the sg members who go into them - and even then the majority of rooms won't get visitors
• Once done it's kinda forgotten - you don't see it while you play, whereas your costume is very much on screen all the time.
• Bases are pretty buggy. Team mates can't get in even when permissions are set. You can get thrown out of your base for no real reason. Often things go wrong in the base editor leading to much frustration. People just don't want to play with buggy stuff (don't get me started on the arenas which kick you out mid match!).

I love bases - I love building bases - I don't think that the reason they aren't embraced in the same was as the costumes isn't totally cost related.

I think *individual* player housing using the same editor would be more popular though.

My mind/psi dominator is okay, I struggled with her a lot in the 20's and if it hadn't been for a sg friend who plays dominators a fair bit taking me under his wing and duoing a lot I'd have abandoned her. As much to do with bad power choices as much as anything else.

I really wouldn't want to swap a single one of her powers for my controller though. My controller is very fun and outdamages my domi over the course of a mission with no problem! My domi is more comparable with my defender than a controller.

Hmmm a dominator in my sg has been teamed with two kinetics and one rad corruptor a lot, and I'm fairly sure he has hasten and I've not heard him mention double domination before and he would have had two speeds and AM on him at times eg going into AV fights. Maybe it was something very specific with the buff from the Creys object and isn't achievable from other player buffs?

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Blaster: Devices: Trip Mine: 5% for 1 Toggle
Blaster: Devices: Time Bomb: 19% for 1 Toggle

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This is completely ridiculous by the way. It's *so* hard to hit someone with a time bomb, it's unbelievable. If they detonate when a trip mine sitting next to them blows, then I could see them being at 22% with the others, but as it is, they should do 100% drops still. Out of every 20 time bombs I set, I'm lucky if one hits.

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I know that these figures might not be right amd will wait to see the confirmed numbers for trip mine and timb bomb, but again the fact that it is these two powers which are our toggle droppers is a joke. In my opinion give taser a toggle drop and drop it from time bomb.

I had high hopes that we might finally see some attention for devices in Issue 7. Afterall it was months ago that Castle visited the blaster section and the issues were discussed in depth in a consolidated thread. Time bomb is all but a worthless power. It can do all the damage in the world and I still wouldn't take it as it is situational at best in pve and pointless in pvp.

Yay it really is back! Really missed it while it was down, didn't realise how much I used it!

Heroes created in April/May 2004 as well as being around last anniversary and this one should get something extra extra special too!

First off - thank you. It's been a long time since I felt my posts in the blasters section were even being read.

I've posted before about /devices, and I know one of the threads I posted in is linked to here, so I won't write an essay.

My main issues are:

• Trip mine - I think this is bugged as it often fails to detonate, especially in pvp I've noticed this a lot recently.
• Lack of build up - Since ED meant we could no longer 6 slot for damage (which we were able to do as we had targeting drone and no build up) we struggle to reach the same damage output as other blaster secondaries. Maybe add a 33% damage buff to targeting drone as a solution to this.
• Cloaking Device - Needs to have higher stealth for pvp as it's currently not worth it (I took the stealth power pool instead).
• Taser - Please can it toggle drop (and maybe have a small -end component)
• Time Bomb - Currently worthless imo (teams won't wait for it and timing is hard to get right especially in pvp). Maybe it could release a poison during it's countdown to 'hold' people at it's location.
• Auto Turret - Needs a lot of love, needs a bigger taunt on it, especially in pvp.

Nice detailed guide!! Really helped answer a lot of my questions and I'm definitely making a mind controller as my next char now

I'm suprised and please to see a red name on the blaster boards!!

For me defiance doesn't work because I never use the section of my health bar between half full and empty!

I don't work on numbers generally but as far as defiance goes, I can honestly say I never felt it useful on my main, a lvl 50 blaster.

The only time I have ever been able to say "ooh defiance is up" is the split second I die. If it kicked in sooner it would be great but generally when I die, I die fast. One on one with a boss I can see it might be useful but in a team situation it doesn't work.

If I'm at half health I'd rather take a heal insp than wait and use defiance. Same in pvp.

Thank you! This is a great move forward for my ice tank!

I thought CoH had launched/was due to launch in Korea - there is a separate site for them anyway (if you click on the flags at the top).

The MMORP market is a huge one and you certainly don't need the most subscribers to be successful.

Been playing since the end of COH beta, 3 level 50's and still not bored - in fact there is so much to do in game now I have trouble deciding who I want to play and what I want to do. Two of my level 50's are among my most played characters still and despite writing the arena off as unbalanced and not fun when it was first out I even love a bit of pvp now!

My sg is extremely active at present - this week we have had between 35-40 people online every evening in our SG CG and seen a good few people return to the game in recent months. As a Euro I play in off peak times and the servers are always green but there seems to be more people around and I get a lot of team requests/invites from pick ups as well.

I don't agree with ever decision made on the game and there are changes I want to see (please fix ice tanks and please give targeting drone a small damage buff) but since it's launch it's never been more fun!

I took my ice/ice to Croatoa for the TF. The TF was pretty buggy (missing map, non intuative missions and mission briefing missing ... but thats another post).

First up my health ... despite having two empaths on the team I died, the whole team died, and that was quite a lot. I was taking a lot of hits.

Secondly, and maybe more worryingly, I found the aggro management to be much harder than normal. When the AV spawns (10 times) with a mob in the first mission I was unable to get the mob aggro before somebody died. I was taunting and running icicles (waste of end but it looks quite nice) but I was still unable to pull aggro of a team mate. With a team of 6 I found it hard to keep the larger ambush mobs on me. In fact I felt like a deadweight on the team at times.

I was exemped to 30 and didn't have chilling embrace (through respec I got this after 30) but I shouldn't have to rely on one power to make my tank work.

I agree strip the def out of EA and leave it primarily as a tool for recovering end and put more def into wet ice. Either that or if we are going to take more hits give us resistance (which goes against what the set is all about, but as a pure def set it isn't working atm).

Some excellent research and numbers here - thanks.

I know we might only be a minority group (which is telling enough in itself) but please devs can we get a response on this - just to let us know you are still reading!

I was one shotted in two consecutive missions on Sat, I'm meant to be a tank

Thank you for listening States. Cries of frustration, cry of help, however you want to phrase it we appreciate that you are listening and respond to our PMs.

Thank you for your testing Circeus, I've already PMd you before to say how much your testing is appreciated on behalf of all ice tanks.

Now down to business ...

Firstly the ice tank issue isn't an issue 5 problem only - it is and has been an issue on live for a while. The current changes on test only compound the problem. You only have to see how rare ice tanks are to realise that we are underperforming in our role as a tank.

First off defence. I appreciate that you are trying to achieve balance, and that everyone wants their characters to be strong but the changes on test are too far imo. I love that EA regains end, I'll even overlook that it now seems to offer no defence at all but couple that with the seeming lack of any defence from wet ice and its too much. Yes the changes you mention to accuracy will help, but they are not ice specific.

The main problem is one shots, and certain enemies (such as DE) that cut through our defence and leave us as vunerable to one shots/fast death as the squishiest members of the team. Yes we are a defence build but please give us some damage resistance or another way to avoid these humiliating deaths!

Please look at icicles, the damage it does its awful. Maybe give us some extra offence as our defence. Fire tanks get burn, why not make icicles count for something other than end drain? If we are the weakest of the tank sets why not give us more damage to compensate?

Aleshanee on Victory

fire/dev blaster - one of many changing outfits!