_Toxa_

I was on the edge of my seat for i24. There were so many great things coming with that issue...

Really, CoH: Freedom was a big turn-around for the game...the rate of development increased tremendously. I agree that CoH was, in a lot of ways, the best it has ever been, and was -so close- to being a lot better.

Considering that, as a 7-year vet, I've been playing this game for nearly 1/4 of my life...yeah, there's no way I can call CoH "just a game".

I still recall logging into the game for the first time, after a friend from SWG recommended it. Arriving in Atlas Park with that great theme music (I need to download that somewhere and use for a ringtone or something).

I remember meeting my friend under the Atlas statue. We chatted for a bit, and then when she had to go, she said "watch this...."

...and proceeded launch skyward with Super Jump, I watched her character disappear into the sky. Coming from SWG, I never saw anything like that, or even imagined it. It was awesome.

The Secret World for me. At the very least, it's unique. SWTOR was way too much like WoW: Star Wars Edition. The other two superhero MMOs are pretty much garbage, STO is kind of interesting, but also kind of bleh.

My feelings toward NCSoft right now prevent me from considering GW2.

I'm enjoying TSW. It's quite a different experience, especially with the Investigation quests that require detective work within and outside of the game. Very story driven, and the game is quite beautiful if you have a pretty good machine to run it. Other than that, there aren't many MMOs that appeal to me right now. I thought SWTOR was rather dull and uninspired, and right now I just can't see myself giving money to NCSoft for GW2 after what they did to Paragon and the CoH community.

For the record, I -believe- if you register with the TSW site, you can download and play the game for 3 days.

Is the issue with list items not showing up fixed?

Is anyone bothering to keep the build updated?

Is there a central, reliable location to download the most recent build?


Until each of those questions can be answered with a "Yes", I'm keeping the cork on the champaign.

Depending on what your difficulty settings are and the enemies you are fighting, "most everything gone" is a dangerous proposition for a Defender. I have really tried to like the nuke powers, but a Defender's nuke is somewhat underwhelming to begin with. Lieutentents tend to survive, and minions weathering the blast isn't uncommon.

With the proposed changes, I may not be able to wipe a full x8 group in one hit, but then again, I never could. To me, a nuke really needs to live up to it's name in order to justify that crash, which is particularly bad for those Defenders who live and die by toggles. If the nuke can't do it's job -with- the crash, then by all means make it a mini-nuke that doesn't crash, and gets used more often.

An ineffectual "nuke" becomes a hard-hitting AoE and available for just about every fight without penalty? Yes please!

To the OP:

As you have probably guessed by now, the forums are a hotbed for healer-hate. It's a long-standing grudge, harbored by a significant portion of the forum community that goes waaaaaaay back (at one time, I would have counted myself among those people). The word "heal" or "healer" is almost treated like a dirty word, and quite a few posters will jump at the opportunity to denounce dedicated support builds, like it's some kind of disease that might spread if not for the unfailing efforts of these valiant forum-goers. The stigma of healing goes on even now, despite the fact that the Devs have deliberately increased the value of healing in late-game content by pitting us against enemies with heavy buffs, debuffs (especially the -def variety), devastating attacks, devastating auto-hit attacks, debuff resistance, and so on.

It's pretty clear to me that you don't play a "buff-bot" or a "heal-bot". You have a character theme and you're trying to stick with it. There's nothing wrong with that. I've been around my fair share of "dedicated empaths", and they were all fine players. Frankly, I've never been on a team were someone was concerned that the Defender wasn't blasting enough, but if you used this forum as a gauge, you'd come to the conclusion that it happens a lot.

Anyways, I'm glad you were able to get the badge, and I'm sorry that you had to set up a build that you didn't enjoy in order to get around some clumsy reward system. I agree with your proposal that the badge should be granted on the lower reward table.

My Time/Psy defender is going to love I24, assuming the changes make it through unhindered (a fairly precarious assumption).

If so, I'll have a ST attack chain of Will Dom, TK Blast, and Psy Lance. All. The. Time.

The crashless nuke is also kind of a big deal, because right now my AoE is limited to lolPsy-tornado and Psy Scream. I have Psychic Wail, but it's collecting dust because using it requires too much situational preparedness.

I can't wait to try this...

It makes me wonder, is it possible to change the music in a similar way? I really want the "Welcome to Nova Praetoria" song back, and some Praetorian art to go with.

I would not rule out Time.

The PB AoE debuff, Time's Juncture, is a powerful soloing tool, but that doesn't mean you have to dive into Melee range when teaming. As a Time Defender, you have the potential to grant Super Reflexes to everyone on your team (minus the DDR), and this is before factoring in the -Acc. On large teams, sometimes I hang out on the fringes of a fight and provide a haven for squishier players, sometimes moving in for healing and -Acc debuffing if necessary. Or sometimes, depending on team composition, I may end up tanking.

Time is a beastly set, and affords quite a bit of flexibility.

I've had a renewed interest to play Defenders lately, and so the debate between Defender and Corruptor is going on in my head constantly when making new Defenders, and later on when I reach 50 and begin to wonder if I would have been happier rolling a Corruptor.

First I have to consider the fact that Defenders get the buff & debuff goods early on, which (as this thread points out) is pretty valuable for pre-35 content.

Then I begin to weigh the value of better buffs, debuffs, and healing vs. Scourge, and the general damage advantage that Corruptors retain while teamed (which falls off when solo). Invariably, I end up looking at something like this:

A Time Defender, with a Power-Boosted Far Sight and running Maneuvers, will reach about 43% Defense vs All. With a Steadfast and Gladiator unique, the Defender soars past the normal soft-cap, and sits at a healthy 49%. Add -Acc debuffing, and the Defender is effectively Incarnate-capped to everything within spitting distance.

Meanwhile the Corruptor, with the same powers and slotting, stalls out at roughly 38%. Still shy of the normal soft cap by a non-trivial amount before adding in debuffs.

The significance of this becomes more tangible when the Corruptor has to spend slots to accommodate specific +Defense bonuses, or take extra Power Pool powers that offer +Defense.

So that's usually how my analysis goes, and for that reason every Corruptor I've ever made ends up being re-rolled as a Defender.

Follow-up

I went into the Font Book app, and began disabling fonts that did not appear in the list of OSX Lion fonts, provided by Apple on their support site: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5098?v...S&locale=en_US

So far, so good. I've left the Paragon Market browser open for some time now without a crash, and I opened the market browser after playing for a couple hours, again with no crash. I'll follow-up again if it turns out to be a fluke...

So far I've used -KB for:

Telekinetic Blast on a Time/Psy defender, so I'm not constantly knocking things out of debuff range. The KB is probably useful for Blasters, but my Time and Rad defenders like mobs neatly packed and ready for processing.

Explosive Blast on a Time/Nrg defender, for the reason mentioned above, although less useful since all of the other attacks still do KB.

Crane Kick on a MA/SD scrapper - I like the animation more than Cobra Strike, but the KB always made the power annoying, except for the occasional "Crane Kicked off a rooftop". Problem solved.

Repulsing Torrent on a WP/KM Tanker - Just 'cause.

I also have a Claw/EA Brute who is now looking to take up Shockwave, and the word on the street is that it's very good.

If the enhancer wasn't unique, it would probably change my thoughts on PBs, but a modified Solar Flare just isn't enough, sadly.

The Bonfire thing is tempting, but I'm going to sit that one out see how it plays out before rolling up a new character to take advantage of it. My money says it'll get pounded down.

Very interesting stuff, thanks for the information Mister Rik. I'd like to try this, and although I don't have a convenient way to create a fresh install of Lion to compare font libraries with, I found that the Apple website has a list of all the fonts that come with their OS. That might suffice...

On the same page where the fonts are listed, they also mention that you can use the Font Book application to disable fonts - I wonder if that could work as well.

My 'natural themed' Scrapper originally started out as MA/SD. Then when StJ came along, I was swept away by the animation for Spinning Strike, so I transferred my 50 MA/SD off-server and remade her with StJ.

Since then, I recently brought the MA/SD version back, and to be honest I still feel conflicted.

The point about having those massive Crushing Uppercuts is not to be underestimated. It's very satisfying to see a 3-combo, AAO saturated Uppercut crit with a Hecatomb proc. Hell, throw in a double-strike!

So yeah, I definitely miss having that. That said, I also like MA, in part for character-theme reasons (it looks/feels more disciplined, which fits my character), and I find it easier to leverage the AoE of Dragon's Tail better than Spinning Strike and... er.. uh.. whatever the Cone attack is called. But on the OTHER hand Spinning Strike has one of the greatest animations in the game! I also prefer not having the combo system, but that would probably change if they just made those points last a couple-few seconds longer before vanishing.

It's interesting though, that of all the characters I've made and re-made, only the choice between MA/SD and StJ/SD has left me so conflicted and tormented that hardly a day goes by that I don't think about changing...AGAIN.

So I've heard this rumor in fleeting whispers: "Soon", there will be some sort magical enhancement that, when slotted, will convert Knockback to Knockdown. I've heard this from several un-related people in-game on several un-related occasions, but I can't find a single reference to it anywhere on the interwebs.

Is there any truth to it?

Time Manipulation has become my new obsession. Radiation Emission was my first love in this game, but I recently discovered just how beastly TM can be. It has completely renewed my love for Defenders.

My Time/NRG Defender has a complete attack chain of ...Power Blast->Power Burst.

I don't know where I'd fit snipe in there, but I feel like I want to! Frankly I don't like using Total Focus much, maybe I can just drop it.

I recently switched my StJ/SD scrapper to MA/SD, and I put my store-bought Hecatomb set in Storm Kick (well, it's 5-slotted with Hecatomb including the proc, along with a Mako's proc too). Now I've been operating under the assumption that the store-bought PPM procs will serve best in longish recharge attacks like Clobber, Crushing Uppercut, KO Blow, etc.. Eagle's Claw fits that description, but it's also an attack that is mostly relegated to EC-->DT bombs.

Would Storm Kick work better with the normal "20% chance" Hecatomb proc? Or should I put the whole set somewhere else? (I have my Scrapper ATO set in CAK).