Axterix

What'd I'd do to fix /Energy:

1. Add 16.5% defense to psi to Entropy Shield. Psi is too common to have such a huge hole in a set that lacks layered defenses. If Entropy can stop stuns, holds, and sleeps from effecting my mind, it can stop some damage as well.

2. Boost the def debuff resists to match SR levels. Like SR, Energy is almost entirely dependent on defense to survive. Current amount is too low.

3. Change Dampening Field to a toggle and add an AoE taunt component to it.

4. Swap Energy Cloak and Drain Power's positions in the set.

5. Add some toxic resistance to Damping Field and/or Energy Protection. Not really needed, but wouldn't hurt.

Overall, relatively minor changes, leaving it feeling about the same flavor-wise. The addition of psi defense and more def debuff resistance help remove the major weaknesses of the set. Moving up Drain Power boosts one of the main perks of the set, the ability to skip stamina.

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So why can Mr. Superspeeder over there who phases through objects by accelerating his molecules, etc, hit my guy who becomes a living shadow, or enters the ethereal plane?

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For the exact same reason Mr. Superspeeder who accelerates his molecules to match an enemy or an enemy who enters the same plane of living shadow currently cannot.

Limitations of the system.

Personally, I think it'd make phase shift more interesting if the phase shifted can hit the phase shifted. Make phase shift a useful power when fighting carnies. And it'd add an interesting new twist for the PvPers as well.

Also, since phase shift would no longer be complete invulnerability, it'd be more acceptable to make such powers last longer and/or be more common.

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Well I see the idea but I think it's just too' lazy of the Devs not explain why he can now hit you though PS.
I think a better fix would've been to just make him ignor anything that's PSed. PAs included. That would solve the tanking prob.

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Personally, I've always felt that phased things should be able to hit phased things. Then they could add some phased out mitos to hami, ones who can only hit phased targets

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Electric/ needs more than anything to have its end drain boosted on most of its powers, and to have the PvP-only nerf from that effect removed, especially since everyone has Stamina these days, anyway. Otherwise, the end drain is about as useful as... something not useful.

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Won't happen, I'd expect. The all or nothing factor. If it works reliably, it would do a decent job of shutting things down. So maybe it'd work at an acceptable level for a /energy or /elect blaster, but those with other secondaries would have something not useful. Also worth noting that, because it is a debuff effect, defenders do it better. So the devs will balance the strength of it based on defenders, not blasters. And again, the all or nothing aspect means...

Another thing worth noting about elect is the all or nothing nature of its secondary effect. Which means unless you build around it, which requires certain outside of the primary power choices, it is of limited value, none is many cases.

The devs attempted to partially rectify this with the chance of getting back some endurance, but that was overall pretty worthless.

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I gotta ask, what do you think needs to be improved with Elec/? I mean, I'm all set with mine, I love it!

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Well, for starters, there ought to be a fix that adds animation time into the damage formulas for powers. Basically, the first two attacks for elect (and energy) should do a bit more damage than they do. But that'd be a universal fix across all ATs and power sets.

I wouldn't mind Tesla Cage getting a bit higher base damage.

But most importantly, sparky. Needs a damage boost and to be changed to assist you, rather than shoot things at random. Do those two things and you'll have a power that is worth slotting that'll do damage where you want it, rather than spreading it out and getting you unwanted aggro from all over.

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Either or really. Elec's slower and lower damaging than the other sets. At least, it was. Not sure about the numbers.

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It is the same, in terms of its 2 single target attacks, the snipe, and its radial AE. TB is a bit lower on its potential ticks, the price it pays for range, I guess. But overall, it uses the same formulas as the other original sets. Formulas that ignore activation time, of course.

Anyway, to restate what is wrong with Elect, Elect lacks one attack compared to the other sets.

Most sets will have a snipe, 2 AEs, a control power, the first 2 single target attacks, a nuke, aim, and then the 3rd hard hitting single target attack.

There's some variation on that, of course. Fire replaces the control with another AE (probably RoF), ice swaps out the snipe for bitter freeze ray, that sort of thing.

For elect, the big single target attack goes for Sparky. Seems like an okay trade off. Fire and forget, will do a lot of damage for its activation time over its life. But the problems with it (the already stated low damage, random targetting) mean it isn't worthwhile.

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Nooo! We can't let the paranoia end this easily. Cloaking Device has been NERFED! THE SKY IS FALLING! Aglets, those plastic pieces on the ends of shoelaces have a sinister purpose! DOOMMM!!!!! *dives back down into his bunker* CLANG!

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We can keep crying doom easily enough.

New content designed to stop the one thing that might remotely be used to justify devices as being balanced, stealth to get a decent alpha. And I betcha the developers did it just to screw up devices, because they are upset that we abbreviate 'em both to dev. Hence why they really want to call the set gadgets.

Paranoia on! Doom on!

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Those of us that remember having to take Provoke to keep our blaster teammates from getting run over - and how much that absolutely sucked - might just notice. Taunt is one thing, but even with slotting for recharge (yes, I do this) it's just not up often enough.

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You probably wouldn't.

The big factor back then was that only invul with Invincibility had a taunt aura. Adding that to stone, fire, and ice (2x over for them) was the important thing.

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Good input; "animation" is a little ambiguous, and I didn't know VG actually had a damage component!

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Yup, it does, not impacted by containment though, due to its "pet" nature.

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Rad's staying off my "best teaming" component until I play either of my rad toons three session in a row were somebody doesn't *seem* to be deliberately killing my anchors first in every fight despite explanations. ^_^ Anyway, I'll think about it.

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Hehe, yah, that's a fact of life, although once you adapt to your team, it doesn't tend to be much of a problem most of the time. Really, if your team is killing off your anchors just like that, it means you either aren't targetting them well or the team doesn't really need 'em, so no biggie. Me, I'm often blasting my own anchors when playing my rad or darks...so that shows how much I worry about that The ol' getting your anchors blasted thing might be worth mentioning somewhere though for those it annoys.

I figured you were going for a slot for each of the secondaries with those 3 categories in that area, hence the suggestion of retitling it or adding an AV debuffing one. People love rads and kins for AVs, worth noting.

Good guide, though I'd suggest a few changes for the next version. Some opinion, some just some phrasing that I think could stand to be clarified a bit for, well, better clarity.

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# Most noticeable animations: Earth, Ice
# Least Noticeable animations: Mind, Gravity

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I'd suggest replacing animations with graphics. Animations makes it wound like you're talking about the character's animations. At least to me

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Earth:
Area hold is pulsing. Some minor -Def, quicksand with major -def. Damage is smashing + lethal.

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Volcanic Gasses is fire damage, so that gives earth some fire as well.

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Most Common:Radiation, Kinetics

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In my experience, the most common secondary has been empathy, especially with all the illusion/emps running around. Rad is quite a bit down the list, I see more /storm than /rads. Least on my server.

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Best Teaming: Empathy, Kinetics

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Rad belongs on here because of -regen and slow for AVs, in my opinion, coupled with emergency powers like EMP and always useful things like RI, EF, and AM. Although perhaps an AV debuffing category would work instead.

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Best Defensively: Empathy, Sonic, Forcefield

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Think you meant best buffs or best team targetted powers? The term defensive is a bit misleading, as I'd rate both storm and rad ahead of empathy in terms of "defense", with multiple debuffs.

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Fire/Kinetics
Fire/Kinetics is what I believe to be the most overwhelming controller set in terms of raw power. A developed and talented controller with these sets can take on just about anything. On the flip side, however, is the fact that the controller doesn't reach anything like full power until level 38. This is not a build for the impatient, and if you're the type who likes to solo exclusively, I wouldn't recommend this build. If you're group-oriented and can put up with a long haul, however, the reward is vast power and, yes, soloing ability. Many Kinetics powers are melee-oriented; this creates strong synergy with imps, and scrappers and tankers will especially appreciate what you bring to the table.

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Maybe its just my experience from playing an earth/rad prior to my fire/kinetics, but I do think this sells fire/kin's early development short. Makes a good soloer early and only gets better as it goes along.

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The Hollows I can understand not having Stores/Trainers because there isn't one in Perez either. Add it to Perez before you move to the Hollows.

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The Hollows and the zones like it should all be redone anyway. They need to lose the everything in one zone crap. Sure, have missions there. Sure, have story arcs related to it. But when dealing with outcasts, let's spend some time in Boomtown and SC. Maybe an outcast recruiting drive amongst the Hellions in King's row, that sort of thing.

The Hollows seems like a good idea, but all it accomplishes is people doing the same missions over and over again, because of convenience. Yup, that certainly does a lot to help with the repetitive nature of CoH people complain about.

So here's to the Trolls setting off an even bigger bomb in the Hollows.

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Interestingly enough with extreme support (say a sonic defender and a FF defender) I wonder if my Blaster wouldn't make the best tank. Ice Storm and Frost Breath and you got more than five mobs ticked at you in seconds. If you really have some good support why not just Blizzard to kill the minions and then tank the Bosses and stray Lts.

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Problem with ice storm is it makes mobs scatter. Even with 3 slow SOs, plenty can still move decently, especially if higher level than you.

I've got a pair of AE blappers, one is ice/fire manip. The cone factor of breath is a big downside. Ice storm is used to finish off wounded mobs, inspire some fear, after the other AEs. The other is elect/fire manip. Better route to go. No cones, 2 applications of short circuit shut most mobs down. Both work better with a tank in the mix though...with that much AE fire power...tank to snag aggro and draw the mobs a bit closer to each other and then you let go with the AEs.

But if you're looking at tanking with extreme support, well, why not just get a tanker? Higher starting defense means you won't need extreme support and the taunt factor means everyone can unleash...barring AE knockbackers in certain situations, of course.

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Should a skilled Tanker be able to corral EVERY mob? With a lot of skill, it should be possible - but it's certainly not required to be a good Tank. As long as the Tanker can hold onto aggro so that his teammates are facing less than they'd normally face (i.e. 3 minions), then the team has an advantage. Namely, each teammate can quickly eliminate his opposition...and then come to the Tanker's aid at the end.

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As others have mentioned, that doesn't work. If everyone eliminates their opposition, that leaves 3 minions for the tanker. Which means either A: the tanker should be tanking a large chunk of the mobs while the others do their thing (which would include control from the controllers) or B: the tanker needs to hit harder so his 3 are dead too.

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End result? Well, no one was that familiar with their builds. The Controller was defeated by getting too close to another spawn. The Peacebringer carelessly tossed off attacks and ended up aggroing too much. After those two defeats, we settled down and functioned fine.

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I'd have to agree with the not familiar aspect. Team like that should be able to mow through stuff, even carnies. Of course, it'd take a bit different team play. The earth controller should be the first player to do bad things to CoS, assuming the mission was indoors.

And the peacebringer probably thought he was grouping with a tank, not a scranker Really, with kinetics in the mix, combustion, FSC, short circuit, ball lightning, plus whatever the peacebringer had should have had most of the baddies dead right quick.

Personally though, my biggest problem with State's post is that he was targetting that which hurt him the least. Now, that's smart game play, nothing wrong with that, although, like others here, as a person with a tank mentality (to protect and not get served) I don't want that which hurts me the least, but rather that which hurts others the most.

I don't want to be a summertime tank, who can only tank some of the time, only some of the mobs. Give me defenses to hang against anything. Not I'm a god and don't need any help defenses (especially not with granite's penalties), but I'm tough and my primary is worthwhile for more than just its taunt aura.

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thanks for off loading some of my abilites on others. Why get a tank, when a controller can lock down almost the same number with an AOE hold. 2 Controllers can make me useless.

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And the real beauty of it, in a bad situation...the controller, who really doesn't want aggro, will get it cleared! Talk about fire and forget.

While the tanker, who controls by getting aggro, well, can't get aggro.

And then consider the outdoor train missions like the fight between the CoT and their other dimension or Nem vs Nem Rex...many double sized groups coupled with multiple groups in close proximity. Those ar some of my favorite missions, except, well, no more of that.

Gotta love how they thought that one through.

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It could be argued that tankers should have been bricks, with offense primary/defense secondary, and given melee powersets with the slow recharging heavy hitting attacks that people have wanted for tankers for a long time (and to some extent, already have). However, that doesn't really leave room for characters like Spider-Man, Nightcrawler, Beast, Wolverine, Batman, and the like - melee characters who are not bricks, and who are thematically quite different..

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They'd be "scrappers". Really, comic book melee types tend to fall into two types...the bricks, who hit hard but slow and resist damage, and the scrappers, who hit fast and dodge hits. A few exceptions exist, healers like Wolverine or the Hulk, but they still tend to fall into brick or scrapper categories based on how they act, how they attack.

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God, tankers with mature offense never had trouble defeating enemies in a reasonable amount of time. Ever. Ever. Ever. I'm so tired of that canard. Yes, you had 70% base scrapper damage, but you also had some hard-hitting attacks in most of the secondaries. If you had trouble defeating enemies in a reasonable amount of time, you were neglecting your attacks and blaming game mechanics.

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Yah, always felt it had more to do with slotting and when powers became available than anything. A scrapper gets some good hard hitting attacks early, tankers didn't. Scrappers got AEs early. Most tankers did not. Means tankers had longer fights, which made their endurance situation worse. Once you had stamina, it got easier. And once you got your big attacks, easier still.

Of course, it is also helpful to keep in mind that the most common tanker melee set is Super Strength, which was a weak set with a very late AE.

Basically, for most people, the word tanker means Invul/SS.

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And, scrappers could not tank as well as tankers. Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. That was never true, is not true, and never will be true. A completely reasonable argument could be made that they could tank well enough, and that I'll grant you.

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Actually, you could make that argument pretty easily. Took a scrapper more slots, more levels, but eventually, they got there. As an example, an I2 invul scrapper outtanked most non-invul tankers, most of the time, including having better aggro abilities (as they had invincibility for the aura, while non-invul tankers did not).

Basically, a mix of the power of the invul set coupled with things like bad aggro, non-stacking armors, and such.

I agree it could use a bit of love. About the only thing I see it really having going for it is that it is one of the sets that has less need for hasten. Mostly, the readying the bow bit has to go, just way too annoying with the various secondaries.

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2) Throw a smoke grenade
2a) If this is post-I5 (or on test) wait a few seconds for suppression to wear off so you still have total invisibility

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If you have Super Speed, SS+Cloaking Device eliminates the need for step 2.

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5) When you finish laying the mine, you'll start backing up immediately. As soon as you're back far enough, hit flamethrower or full auto quickly. As long as the cone attack was pressed *before* the mine went off (even if the explosion throws them out of the cone range once the attack animation starts) you'll still hit them all.

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If you hit jump right before you activate your follow up power, you can continue to move backwards while the power begins to activate.

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Well why would it be wrong to be able to kill 50 in one shot if you have an extremely powerful AoE (i.e. Nova)? If someone can herd 50 even level minions into a central area, why would it be wrong for a Blaster to be able to kill 50 even level minions? The minions are all clustered together and are within range of the Nova. What's wrong? The only thing wrong i see here is the fact that someone was able to herd 50 minions so the Blaster could Nova them.

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The two are opposite sides of the same coin. A tanker able to survive that many mobs means big reward, little risk. A blaster able to take that many mobs out with just 1 shot means big reward, little risk. One means a long fight doesn't matter. The other means the fight is super short. Both lead to herding. The greatest rewards should stem from greater risk, not the safest route.

Some sort of hardcoded can't pull more cap doesn't appeal to me at all. It means if you have a skilled group that's rocking the place, you can't push yourself any harder. Nor can you really nerf the melee archtypes enough that they can't herd. They'll pop insps, they'll get buffs, and they'll do it. So unless you nerf them to the point where they have blaster defenses, they'll find a way to herd. You want to reward skill, keep an element of risk, the instant death must go.

And at the worst, if it all works somehow, and you stop mass herding but leave the 9th tier powers alone, it just means you're herding less mobs, at even less risk, just gotta do it more often.

Fights that are over instantly aren't fun. A bit of chaos, a bit of potential for chaos, that's what makes for engaging gameplay and helps to develop more skilled players.

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Nerfs: Mr. Emmert through out the lecture constantly said that arising to challenges =fun. He said that all Ats should be able to do a mission on heroic solo. However, if invincible offers no challenge prepare yourself for the nerf bat (there goes my illusion/rad <sigh&gt.

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Guess that means we pretty much all get nerfed. At least all my characters seem to wind up being set to invincible eventually. As long as you throw just 2-3 mobs at me though, that'll be the case. Making levels mean more would just hurt grouping. Weakening the players wouldn't be the answer either. Hardcore players can handle more than non-hardcore. Casual players, exploring concepts, can be a lot weaker characters than an optimized one.

Increase the size of the spawns, as well as the levels, when we kick up the difficulty. That'll help even with tankers/scrappers, as bigger spawns, at least in the 40s, means more of the likes of sappers, psionic users, and the like.

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Right after that he said that if you can agro 50 guys and not be defeated something is wrong.

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Amen to that. And being able to kill 50 in one shot is wrong as well.

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He also stated that no one should be able to cap with out a defender. I’m assuming this means defense but it’s one of those shorthand notes and could also mean damage.

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I'd agree with that. There should be a defensive benefit to having a defender along for any class. The 50 mob situation, for instance...bad if you can do it solo. But grouped with support, why not?

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He mentioned that the 30’s game and above is NOT Balanced (his emphasis). He said that he wanted to make it more challenging and exciting to get a Yes!! I beat it feeling. He didn’t mention specifics other than differing damage types.

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I'd agree with that, it isn't a challenge for certain builds, it isn't balanced. SOs really start to break those builds at 22, but with additional powers and enhancement slots leading into the 30s, it becomes much more prevelant. Don't know about the YES! I beat it feeling though. That's fine for some things, optional things, which provide an additional reward to justify it. But for day to day play, a lot of times it is nice and relaxing to just churn through some stuff. That stuff shouldn't be boring, but it also shouldn't be a Yes, I beat it! type situation. Intenseness can often be coupled with frustration. Like PvP, it should be avoidable a lot of the time.

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The level 45 mob ambush on Numina's task force isn't exemplar related. When a friend and I duo'ed this tf, we were both 38 and got this exact same ambush. I died, /bugged it and moved on.

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Yah, the family one. I'm guessing it searches for mobs of the right faction at or above the player's level. Since family stop at 30ish from the IP/Talos zone/contacts and then there are 2 missions in the 45-50 range...you get the 45s.

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1) They happen in the wrong zone -- not Exemplar related, but if I have to go kill 20 Sky Raiders in Terra Volta, why are they ambushing me in Crey's Folley, etc.

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Same reason they always do. Ambushes pick a player to go after for some reason and then spawn where that player is. No different than it is with any regular mission.

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WarOnDrugs1 - (4154, 0.0, 2067.2) - In the grass patch by Yellow Line. Go to tram's back support and look to your right as you go north. It is next to a patch of grass.

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Looks like some numbers got swapped here. Should be 4514 instead of 4154.