Witch_Engine

Actually most marvel comics these days have ads for cars, T and M video games, MMOs, and DVD box sets. I opened a random issue of Nextwave to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, and the ads are, in order (not counting the ads for their own comic books in their own comic books):

Killzone Liberation for XBox
Animaniacs box set (no "kids" today would even know who they are as the series ended 14 years ago, and has been off the air for 10)
Age of Empires III for Xbox
Magic The Gathering Ad
World of Warcraft Ad
Nissan Sentra car Ad
Superman 1-4 box set (with over 20 hours of special interviews!)
Final Fantasy V Advance for DS (remake of a 17 year old game, again nothing any kids now would immediately identify with)
Gears of War for Xbox (rated M for mature!)

Nextwave is arguably one of their sillier, more 'kiddish' titles, so I though it'd be a good example as it's not part of all the 'mature' stuff like Civil War and whatnot.

I grabbed another issue off the shelf at random and did another run, this time for the X-Force remake, a blatantly 'extreme 90s' comic pandering unashamedly to the teenage need for blood, explosions and boobs plastered all over ever page. Ads this time were:

Afro Samurai on Spike TV
Hardcover Edition of Stephen King's "The Stand"
Halo Wars for XBox
Old Spice body wash
(and again, a bunch of ads for their own comics, a circular thing)

...Hotwheels and barbie dolls, indeed.
I could keep doing it if those aren't enough, or even start taking requests =)

Are you serious? Wow. This string of replies is the first time I've ever posted in one of his review threads, ever. The only other time I've ever directly responded to anything he's said about blight was in the blight thread...OVER THREE MONTHS AGO.

I have LITERALLY ignored him, refused to respond to him, and stayed the hell away from him for over three months, and it's him, not me, him, that keeps bringing it up again and again. The only reason, as I've stated, I bothered posting anything at all, is because I am still being harassed in game because of the drama, and asked him to STOP provoking people.

Apparently though, trying to completely ignore him and having it make the problem perpetuate, then, asking him to stop because it only creates drama, which I am NOT EVEN DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN, but filters to me as owner of the arc, after IGNORING HIM FOR THREE MONTHS, is 'jeering at him and hanging on like some kind of fanboy'.

It's pretty disgusting when someone can try to ignore the problem, but when it doesn't work and they make a plea for the other side to stop perpetuating this idiocy, they're now the bad guy. That's pretty twisted.

Actually, by all accounts of friends who were actually at Herocon, they actually made a mention that best faction was one of the most important categories to the devs, so go figure.

Wow, trashing the winners on the thread celebrating the win.
It's like I'm reading the reply of the Kanye West of City of Heroes. Stay classy, Lazarus.

Seriously, nothing would make me happier in the world. Venture knows that just mentioning this arc now creates a dramastorm, so why do it? If the arc was never mentioned again I would be utterly ecstatic because then maybe the drama about it would finally END.

Of course, a call to stop the drama by outside forces that I'm stuck in the middle of will probably just get called an attempt to keep the drama so that people can appear 'neutral' by taking the exact middle stance between us, but seriously now. Venture's beef isn't with me, it's with the people who liked the arc, and vice versa, and now I'm caught in the middle of it and things like what he's done in this thread aren't helping.

Yes, I came to post here, because once again, someone on the boards has done something that has created a headache for ME in game, outside of my control. Asking for people to stop fuelling the drama that any sane person would have already given up on a long time ago shouldn't make me a villain.

I tried shutting up about it, for three months, even. It did nothing. If being silent about it doesn't work, then what other options do I have?

I read the thread because I was linked to it by a coalition-mate.

Regarding ignoring him - if only it were that easy. He personally doesn't have to do anything any more aside from stir the pot like this, and he doesn't talk to me directly in game. It's the ripple effect that creates the drama. Every time this happens, I get another wave of people raging on BOTH sides of the arugment - either tearing me a new one about how horrible my arc was, venture was right, etc., or trumpeting that Venture was wrong and they will avenge my honor or whatever...by constantly bringing it to the forefront over and over, he's ensured others will do his dirty work pesterng me, it seems.

Ignoring Venture using game tools would literally do nothing to stop this and how it affects me when in the game, since that's not how the miserably is spread. As I said, this is the first time I've ever even responded in one of his threads - attempting to ignore him entirely has done literally squat to stop the problem.

Wow, you just can't let it go, can you? How many months ago did you have your cryfest about this arc, literally introducting me to yourself out of the blue with one of the rudest tells I've ever gotten in game, and then some of the follow up.

Grow up, man. I've never seen a supposedly 'mature' individual hold a grudge over something this petty and self-inflicted. I could have cared less about what you thought of the arc, except YOU chose to make a huge production about it, and apparently, STILL carry some sort of weird grudge I don't even understand.

I've never even posted in your review threads before now, and I've never so much as once sent you a tell in game, ever, but seriously, you're just being childish at this point.

I fail to see why you apparently care SO MUCH about this arc that you are still making pathetic pot shots at it, even now. I can only assume it's because you want to get a reaction out of people, as an attention thing or something.

But...they do? Except for the hit points, I covered all of that in the original post, exactly as you said...

I fail to see how bonuses to leadership powers and an inherent that benefits the team as well as their pets is 'support'. Stalkers cause debuffs and fears with their assassin strikes, and bane spiders have Defender level buff/debuff mods, and I don't think anyone would call either of those classes support classes in the sense you are talking about here. The fact that his inherent boosts the team doesn't negate the fact he still dishes out a ton of damage, nor the fact that he still benefits from those inspirations himself.

Furthermore, it IS possible to make a class get a greater benefit specifically from a pool power - all that you would have to do is add a qualifier to the power that checks 'if archetype = Leader, add this additional effect', or one of many other possible workarounds. You also say giving them high leadership mods would make powers such as Weave stronger - this is flat-out wrong. Tankers have the same mod as Defenders on Weave, but the mod of Scrappers on Maneuvers.

Charisma encourages aggressive play, as outlined in the description, simply due to the fact that in order to get inspirations on a mission, and hence fuel the inherent, they have to defeat foes, and, to benefit from that bonus, they have to defeat foes QUICKLY. If an inherent which functions best by attacking foes as quickly as possible isn't proactive, I don't know what is.

As 'Character Definition' goes - the leader should do exactly that, lead by example. How is it not character-defining for a "leader" to go 'look I am inspired to deal tons more damage, or dodge all attacks, follow my lead and you can too?'. That's what the inherent does, and it's more or less the definition of leading by example.

As far as terrible yield...eating 1 tier 3 yellow and 2 tier 3 reds (or double that number of tier 1s) matches the bonus to pets given by Supremacy. Given that you can do between 3-7x that if you empty out your tray (and it still buffing yourself) AND have the advantage of not just being able to buff accuracy and damage, but also survivability, heal them, give them mez protection, give them endurance...as well as to your team, I want to see what you consider an impressive yield.

It's a good thing, I guess, that the writeup for leader repeatedly says exactly that, and their abilities are set up to do exactly that, in that exact order.

...again, I did. I even outlined exactly what sort of protections they would be - and amoung them were a straight up shield, and a passive self protection power. I don't know what entry you read, but it wasn't the one I wrote.

...this was exactly the entire point of leader. It seems to me you're arguing against something that nobody was disagreeing with in the first place. The Leader, as designed, DOES do powerful damage on his own, does have reasonable defenses and self-sustainability options, and the idea is that his folowers are only there to help, not to be the focus. The idea behind their inherent is to allow the Leader to bring the pets up to his level, not to have them do the work and 'play defender' to them as you put it.

I don't really know what you're arguing against here, except that you seem to have taken the exact writeup I wrote for Leader, and then going 'this is all wrong, do it THIS way' and then literally typing EXACTLY what I wrote for leader. It boggles the mind.

That would indeed be pretty cool. Considering how many MMs don't know how to effectively use Bodyguard, something like this which is comparable in complexity would probably need a big popup for players explaining it, like MMs get, that of course nobody will read. :P But yeah, I think that would definitely enhance their tactician feel I was going for a lot.

I quite like the idea of ensuring every Oppressor has a personal buff/heal as an option, regardless of set. That would go a long way to helping them early on. I don't want to give them too much control or buffs, though, so a fear might be overdoing it. My biggest fear is that if you make them too powerful, then the tradeoff between the safety of the Corruptor vs the Oppressor goes out of whack, which makes Corruptors less desireable to play. Fear in Undermine might work great though, that's a good suggestion and definitely would help them against tougher foes.

I don't really want to give the Leader Bodyguard mode - my thoughts on this are, combined with their already semi-decent personal protections, and higher damage, it would potentially unbalance them - they'd be able to pseudo-tank which I feel makes them too sturdy, and because they kill things faster than a MM, would also turn them into a sort of powerhouse since while the pets die faster, so do the enemies.

I would LOVE an assault rifle Assault set. A mix of AR and Devices/MA powers would be absolutely fantastic, and great for natural characters. That's more for a thread on new powersets though - I tried to present these within the current framework of the game, so I refrained from suggesting new sets as well - just changes that would be required of the old ones.

Einherjar was just a suggestion - I agree benevolent spirits would work, but my problem with that was just that you still have the problem of the zombies - and undead being traditionally not a very heroic thing to haul around. With Einherjar, my thoughts was you get the big back-from valhalla viking warriors instead of zombies (which fits the mythological theme of a lot of the game) who when they fall, you raise as warrior spirit types (fitting the viking theme and letting Grave Knight work thematically), you get the sword-weilding Valkyries so Grave Knights wouldn't have to be really changed in powers, and could have a sorceror instead of the lich without it straining credibility or feeling like you're playing an 'evil' set the way Necromancy often feels. Again, just my thoughts on it, and it's purely an arbitrary one based on personal preferences.

Thank you for the comments and feedback, it's appreciated!

While I appreciate the feedback, I had to wonder at points if you even read the post completely.
Here's my thought proccesses behind some of your points (obviously, still just my opinion of course) or notes where you missed something. Just found some things that made me go 'huh?' or made me double check that I did in fact include something you seemed to have missed. Don't mean it to sound snarky or anything in this reply, so please don't take it that way. We're all friends here.

- The Leader requiring more damage to survive - this is a red herring - defenders would deal less damage than a Leader would, and they work just fine. Yes they have buffs, but many cannot be used on self, and the leader would still get both defensive powers and pets fairly early on. I see no need to give them uber damage.

- Pets WOULD be weaker than MM pets. As you noted, you get them later, and you do not have access to Supremacy. That means they're hitting 10% less and dealing 20% damage right out the gate, and as a secondary set they would further be reduced, as a common sense thing for how secondaries are for every class except Dominator.

- Leaders do not have Bodyguard mode. It says this right in the original post (it says specifically they lack Supremacy, Bodyguard is part of Supremacy.)

- Healing power early on? It says right in the spot where the replacement powers are noted that the powers there are presented in no particular order. I never stated at any point what level the heal would be awarded, so it's sort of a moot point.

- Protections less than a scrapper. I think that it's pretty apparently already the case. As for PBAOE for pets...the only armor buff they'd get that would apply to the pets is the alternate Res leadership toggle they get. Compare this to what a thermal MM can do.

- If anything, compared to some Arachnos Soldier builds, the Leader would be definitely more fragile. I think you feel that Leader would be uber because you think the pets would be MM strength, and because you wanted them to do scrapper level damage on top of that - which would just be brokenly strong, and silly.

- I don't get where you think the Oppressor would be an uber squishy build. Compare them as written to a Dominator or Corruptor. Dominators deal more damage, can completely control their foes, and have pets. Corruptors would deal comparable damage with Scourge, and have the advantage of being able to use almost all their powers from a safe range. If anything, it would be harder to play than either of those classes. (As an aside, I play villains more than heroes.)

- Oppressor inherent being too strong - a Sonic Resonance defender, or Dark Miasma corruptor can already get far superior self protection to anything Shock and Awe provides, and that's independant of team size, or number of enemies nearby, to say nothing of other sets. Even with the full 8 foes (which, if you've played shields, you can empathize how hard it is to consistently keep that many enemies in melee range at times), with their squishy level HP, they'd still be taking far more than enough damage to sink them under direct fire - not uber at all. By comparison, their best-case scenario protection possible is about the same protection as a low (20 or lower) level Electric Armor stalker who does not use hide or placate, and who has all foes in melee at all times. I don't really see that as uber, but that's my take.

- As for soloing, Defenders solo just fine, have even less protections and less damage than the Oppressor would. Yes, they have range, but the higher damage means they also have to spend less time comparatively in the actual danger of combat. The reason, as noted in the post, for the sliding scale on their inherent is so that they do remain playable without being overpowered, depending on team size, of which solo is a team size. I don't see them being any harder to solo than a defender or corruptor, ultimately. As for getting a decent chain going - again, they are no different than defenders in this respect.

- I don't really see how these are "quite similar" to existing ATs, as you mentioned? There are no classes in the game that would really play out at all like either of these - there is no current way to get controllable pets and high levels of personal offense anywhere in the game, and while it IS technically possible to play a mastermind who is at the forefront of combat, it won't be in an attacking role like a Leader would. Similarly, there is no melee buffing class in the game, on either side. You can't even fake it, except maybe by making a VEAT that takes only their melee attacks, and that's still not even really comparable.

- I don't get where the Kheldian comment comes from? The post states what bonuses a Kheld gets when teamed with these classes - this one is just strange.

Whoops! Thanks for catching that. I was cut/pasting the headings from leader since I had them formatted for bb code, and missed changing those over. Fixed now.

I think it may just be a case of differing playstyles. I've found no real issues with it aside from endurance - it's just a different mindset. Similar to a Stone brute, you take a more tankerish role than a scrapperish one - yes you deal less damage, but you have more survivability instead (via your controls in Dark's case). Obviously, it can't match the insanity that is Granite form, but it's hardly fragile.