Basilisk

Short answer: Whatever a GM who may theoretically review your character deems is "crossing the line."

There's no hard-set rules about what is "too close" to infringement, it's dealt with on a case-by-case basis, typically when a character is petitioned. And when a petition occurs, it seems they do tend to swing the generic-hammer pretty liberally. Your best bet is just to create a character that's not liable to be petitioned, because no one here will be able to say "This is the line in the sand. Don't cross that and you're ok." It really is up to the GMs.

I've always been a little disappointed that the fight with Protean doesn't end up using the Doppelganger tech, since he is a shapeshifter. Maybe you get halfway through the fight and he decides to mock you by taking your form, so he escapes in a smoke cloud (despawning the Protean model) and respawns as a doppelganger.

Considering the character, it just seems like it would make so much more sense that his fight's gimmick would the tech that they introduced in that arc rather than some not particularly thematic out-of-the-blue annoying super energy drain.

I would love to see the shurikens customizable into a whole bunch of different thrown weapons, like knives, darts, throwing axes, chakrams, batarangs, whatever... I don't know if that was touched on in the talk or not, since I've only watched the video muted. Given what I know about the system, I don't think it's likely to be possible to do that, but a guy can hope, right?

Still, I'm glad to finally have a natural option for Doms. I've wanted for so long to be able to make Basilisk as a guy who's just able to petrify at a glance and not really have much else beyond that. So an earth/MA dom is so perfect, especially when I throw in some of the new fighting powers for kicks and punches. I'm looking forward to this.

You know, I would even be satisfied with a button in the store interface to just automatically upgrade your SOs/DOs/TOs with one click instead of having to go through and buy everything.

Or, since they seem to be consolidating a few things under the Trainers, it could be something you could do there. "Congratulations on reaching level 27, Basilisk. You are now able to purchase and use level 30 Single-Origin Enhancements. Would you like to automatically upgrade all of your current Enhancements to level 30? (Selecting this option will cost 1,234,567 Influence.)"

It really is the stopping to buy and place every enhancement one-by-one that annoys me about basic enhancements more than anything. Especially if you accidentally/deliberately wait until level 28 and start placing level 30 SOs and it keeps trying to play the combination animation. If they made that part of the system go away, I wouldn't mind having to take a side trip somewhere else to upgrade when I ding.

The new log in theme for CoH can only remind me of the Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan Main Theme

He used to be a fairly prolific poster here and I know that some people are still around who remember him. Muad_Dib passed away on Sept. 18th, 2011.

I know he was a polarizing figure during his time here, but my thoughts and sympathies go to his family, and I thought the CoH community would like to know.

A memorial page may be found here.

(Edited for content - Z)

I doubt you'll see yourself kicked off of a team for lacking antidote, in part because I doubt it's likely that /poison will be popular enough that people will know to expect it. I think it's something that is optional, but desired, especially in the case of stun-happy villain groups and situations where incarnate abilities like Clarion won't come into play such as WTFs.

Personally, my earth/poison is skipping both antidote and elixir of life on his main build, but I'm also making a second build with both powers in the event that they're needed. That way, I get the freedom of a few extra power picks and enhancement slots to go to more damage (because Earth/ needs it!) but also the ability to bring a more team-supporting build if it's needed.

I just got my second account reactivated. I played it for about a grand total of 10 minutes, then got so bored and frustrated at the lack of options that I've decided I'm hanging it up for good. Its only purpose from here on out will be to fill on TFs and such, because that's really all it's good for.

For a genre of game that relies so heavily on socialization to encourage people to keep playing, it's really a wonder that PS expects premium accounts to be in the least worthwhile, given that they've cut out basically any options for such. After all, why would I bother dropping any money on a sub/Paragon Rewards upgrades if the first time I log in, I can't stroll back into my favourite global channel and say "I'm back!" and be greeted warmly by all the people I left behind?

I expect an awful lot of premium players who decide to return will have the same experience as me.

I think that given the fact that the NPCs have traditionally had exclusive costume pieces (Freakshow arms, Council masks, Carnie masks, etc...) people have come to accept that you're only going to get "close enough" to recreating in-game groups. As such, there hasn't been a lot of impetus behind making a guide saying "this is how it is."

If you have something specific in mind, however, The Costume (Re-)Design Threadhas a lot of examples of other peoples' attempts or you can post and ask for help with your own canon group-inspired costume.

That's right, the one on Exalted on Monday. Unlike some people, though, I'm not aiming for 1st. I was second prize. I want one hour of play time with a dev.

Why?

Because if I win we will be playing one mission: The Lost Cure. And then we'll do it again and again and again until finally they get so tired of it that they agree to change the damn recharge on the Lost Curing Wand!

I finally with I21 managed to get my name for a character in-game and have been running around when I can as an Earth/Poison controller, both working up the chain and with level bumps on the beta server. Previous versions have been Earth/Rad controllers and there's definitely a noticeable difference between the two.

I don't find Poison to be a bad set by any means, but I think Oedipus_Tex's summation of the set is correct. A lot of the toys that it brings to a fight are nice, but generally get overshadowed by /Rad, which can do most of the same things to a large spawn that poison can generally manage only to a few targets.

The unique effects that poison has, such as -special and -heal, also suffer for the tiny AoEs. While they may be useful against a pesky boss, more often than not the mezzes I want shortened are the stacking ones that accompany large groups of Vampyr, ink men, and the like. Admittedly while as a controller, I can typically rely on my own mezzes to deal with such things, my earth/rad has a lot more freedom because of the ability to essentially nullify a spawn through rad toggles alone.

Poison's biggest advantage that I'm finding so far is its non-reliance upon toggles. Most of the debuffing you can put out stays effective if you become mezzed, die, run out of end, or what have you. They also have no anchor, so you don't need to worry about that. This is very nice; even though you need to pay attention, your debuffs stay up. If a Malta stun grenade hits you through your -tohit, you aren't immediately vulnerable to incoming fire assuming you managed to get the rest of the group sufficiently debuffed (admittedly, not always a safe assumption).

I think what I'm finding most frustrating about poison is the 8' radius. If it were up to a full 15', poison could probably easily hold its own against the other "competitive" sets like dark, rad, or cold. As it is, it's an "also-ran." What Poison brings to the table is almost the same as what Rad does, but the points where it's strongest (ST debuffs, in particular -res) are not valuable enough to counteract the points where it lags behind (AoE debuffs, self buffs, self heal, etc.)

This is ultimately an issue of area and time (not the new set!) The area covered by RI and EF (706.86 sqft) can be covered by both powers in roughly 5 seconds. To achieve similar coverage, Envenom and Weaken, with their mere 201.06 sqft coverage, would need to be deployed at least 4 times to cover the entirety of the same area. Now obviously it's unlikely that you'd need to cover the entire thing, but even attempting to get 2 activations off, you would be covering a mere 57% of the area of RI assuming no overlap. This will take about 18 seconds if you have both powers three slotted with recharge SOs. With a 30 second duration, you then have 12 seconds to use other powers before your first activation would be wearing off. This isn't enough to get a third activation going before the first is worn off. During the 18s cycle, of course, your character will be suffering plenty of incoming damage from the 71% or so of the spawn which you have aggroed but which are currently free of any debuffs. Assuming, of course, that you're not on a team which has slaughtered them horribly in the meantime, in which case "way to contribute a whole bunch of not a lot!"

If a 15' radius AoE is off the table, I would like at least to see Weaken's AoE to have half of the effective area of RI. This puts the radius at 10.6'. This would allow Poison to mitigate incoming damage from a decent chunk of a spawn while it recharges while also being less than RI/EF/Whatever.

Poison isn't bad, but its single target/small AoE focus is a huge detriment in a game which is all about the AoEs. The 8' radius is a nice step up from ST only, but it's still not enough to make a sizeable dent in most settings, especially since most other debuff sets get similar performance out of their powers without the same limitations. For 90% of the game, you're underperforming, and for the remaining 10%, you're roughly at par.

Poison isn't unplayable by any means. You can do just fine with it from 1 to 50 and beyond, and it's definitely a very active and different playstyle from pretty much all of the other debuff sets (outside of maybe TA). However, it's also hard from a performance point of view not to pick rad over poison based on the area of effect alone.

I wouldn't get rid of TOs, however, I would like to see them take a page from the IO system and be made levelless, equivalent to an even-con TO. This would mean that anyone who bought them would at least get benefit from them from 1 until whenever they chose to upgrade to DOs/SOs/IOs. This would let the player buy a set to get some basic functionality, run through the DFB sewer trial, and not have to worry about zipping past the point when they break on you.

Frankly, that's something I'd like to see implemented through all tiers of enhancements, but I think because it treads so closely to territory claimed by the IO system, TOs are likely the only place where the devs are likely to risk implementing, given that they provide such a weak enhancement and are obsoleted fairly quickly. Honestly, I've always found CoH's system of making you weaker as you level up to be fairly wrongheaded.

I'll also second (eighth/ninth?) the call for a standardization of DO and SO names. There's tricks to find your way through the menus, like remembering colours or realizing that they're ordered alphabetically by function, but it's a layer of unnecessary obfuscation and doesn't add enough verisimilitude to make up for the loss of functionality. (I'm wearing 15 gauntlets, 3 helmets and 10 earrings, huh? Serge must be having a fit!)

Freedom, freedom, freedom, oi!!

"Super heroes" is a trademark co-owned by DC Comics and Marvel Comics.[1]

[1] "United States Patent and Trademark Office latest status info for trademark serial #78356610

My biggest problem with redside can be aptly illustrated by the following:

Level 35 to 39 content

• Automatic Villainy (Technician Naylor): Devouring Earth, Longbow, Nemesis
• Blurring the Lines (Agent Arthur Bell): Longbow
• Bravo for the Shadow Shard (Technician Naylor): Longbow
• Crossfire (Arbiter Leery): Arachnos, Longbow
• Devil May Care (Johnny Sonata): Arachnos, Circle of Thorns, Longbow, Wailers
• Fat Cat City (Basse Croupier): Carnival of Shadows, Arachnos, Longbow
• Johnny's Squeeze (Jezebel Jones): The Family, Longbow
• The Missing Maidens (Jezebel Jones): Carnival of Shadows
• No One Gets It (Arbiter Leery): Arachnos, Longbow
• The Secret of the Circle (Magus Mu'Drakhan): Circle of Thorns, Longbow
• A Traitorous History (Magus Mu'Drakhan): Circle of Thorns, Longbow

Level 40 to 44 content

• Absolute Vengeance (Arbiter Daos): Malta
• Apt Pupil (Number 204): Arachnos, Nemesis, Longbow, Arachnoids
• Arachnoid Appetizers (Terrence Dobbs): Arachnoids
• The Arachnoid Cure (Terrence Dobbs): Arachnoids
• Armor Wars (Black Scorpion): Crey, Arachnoids, Malta
• The Bane of the Heart (Westin Phipps): Arachnos, Longbow, Crey, Turrets
• Breaking Knives (Arbiter Daos): Knives of Artemis
• Building a Better Vermin (Terrence Dobbs): Arachnoids, Crey
• ***** in the Armor (Black Scorpion): Arachnos, Ghosts
• The Circle's Plot (Mage-Killer Zukhara): Circle of Thorns
• The Crey Intrusion (Regent Korol): Crey
• The Hammer of the World (Scirocco): Circle of Thorns, Longbow, Rularuu, Arachnos, Carnival of Shadows
• Killer Instinct (Capt. Mako): Longbow, Knives of Artemis
• Kuhr'Rekt Diplomacy (Ambassador Kuhr'Rekt): Council, Longbow, Rikti
• Kuhr'Rekt Revenge (Ambassador Kuhr'Rekt): Longbow, Rikti, Arachnos, Vindicators, Freedom Phalanx
• Life and Death (Ghost Widow): Circle of Thorns, Arachnos
• Miss Francine the Freakshow Teacher (Westin Phipps): Freakshow Longbow
• Mystic Mayhem (Ghost Widow): Longbow, Circle of Thorns, Crey Carnival of Shadows
• The Perfect Killing Machine (Capt. Mako): Circle of Thorns, Arachnos, Coralax
• Power from the Past (Sister Airlia): Cimerorans, Longbow
• Project Fury (Dr. Forrester): Arachnoids, Arachnos
• The Rebels (Westin Phipps): Rogue Arachnos, Longbow
• Shucking Souls (Mage-Killer Zukhara): Arachnos, Circle of Thorns
• A Wind Called Serafina (Scirocco): Arachnos, Nemesis, Longbow, Malta, Knives of Artemis

Level 45 to 50 content

• Alone in the Darque (Efficiency Expert Pither): Arachnos, Nemesis, Rularuu
• Ancient History (Operative Grillo): Snakes, Circle of Thorns
• Brain Power (Ghost Widow): PPD, Longbow, Council, Malta
• The Code Merlin (Tavish Bell): Crey, Circle of Thorns
• The Conference of Evil (Viridian): Family, Nemesis, Longbow, PPD, Freakshow, Crey, Council
• Crimson Hunt (Shadow Spider): Malta, Knives of Artemis, Longbow
• The Destiny Raids (Black Scorpion): Longbow, PPD, Arachnos, Nemesis
• Escaped! (Operative Grillo): Crey
• The Great Grun Gathering (Vernon von Grun): Council, Malta, Longbow
• Indigo Hunt (Shadow Spider): PPD, Longbow
• Iron Fist (Capt. Mako): Longbow, PPD, Crey, Malta
• Light and Darkness (Abyss): Council, PPD
• Politics, Cimeroran Style (Sister Airlia): Longbow, Cimeroran Traitors, Cimerorans, Family, Crey
• Snake Fest (Operative Grillo): Snakes, Crey
• The Spirit City of Hequat (Scirocco): Carnival of Shadows, Circle of Thorns, Arachnos, Mu
• Time after Time (Black Scorpion): Rogue Arachnos, Arachnos, Ghosts
• The TV Invasion (Television): Freakshow, Devouring Earth, Nemesis, Family
• The TV Report (Television): Arachnos, Knives of Artemis, Malta, Arachnoids
• Video Killed the Radio (Television): Council, Arachnos, Freakshow
• Vigilante Justice (Tavish Bell): Council, Arachnos, Scrapyarders, Longbow, Crey
• Vindication (Abyss): Longbow
• Von Grun's Lament (Vernon von Grun): Devouring Earth
• Von Grun's Redemption (Vernon von Grun): Devouring Earth, Longbow, PPD, Crey
• Von Grun's Science (Vernon von Grun): Devouring Earth

From level 35 on, a full 75% of the arcs on redside alone (not counting RWZ shared-morality arcs) feature either Longbow or Arachnos or some reskin or offshoot thereof. I ******* HATE both groups, especially post-35 when they start getting ridiculous powers like the Nullifier grenade. I'm not opposed to encountering difficult groups — I like Malta, Knives, Rularuu, even the odd Arachnoid mission, but I like them to be varied, and there just isn't enough variety for me redside.

As I was lying in bed last night, an idea came to me. The morality system as it is is great, but it doesn't really capture the kind of quick doublecross that you get ever so often in comic books, where for one story arc, everyone is thinking that Hero X has turned to the dark side, when really he's been working his own angle to take down Badguy Y. This story is so prevalent even the City of Heroes comics went through and had Manticore go through that arc one, in issues 10, 11, and 12.

What I propose is that in Fort Trident heroside and Fort Cerberus villainside, a new contact be added representing Longbow and Arachnos, respectively. These contacts give you a line about how they'd like you to go undercover for them and see what the other side is up to, then they open up a menu similar to that in the pillar of Ice and Flame. Instead of your side, the arcs shown belong to the opposite morality. Once selected, you are allowed to run the arc you've chosen in TF mode, your contact being given via cell phone, but all missions are located at a portal beside the contact, while "talk to" missions are accessed via a "radio" sitting by the contact. Once you exit TF mode either via completing the mission or by quitting the "Task Force," you are returned to the contact (and returned to your proper alignment, possibly gaining one mission's worth of progress towards vigilante or rogue in the process.)

Once your chosen arc is completed, the contact says "Thanks for your help" and locks down, disallowing any more doublecross arcs. This is to try and limit the function to one arc per character. This way, if a player only wants that "one important arc" from the other side, they don't have to grind out tips for a week to go over and back, possibly breaking character along the way. However, if there are multiple arcs they want, the only way to access it is by changing alignment the old fashioned way (as old fashioned as a system that is just over a year old can be, anyways.)

Pros:

• Could make Hero access to the PPPs easier.
• Broadens access to existing content
• Allows heroes to do "that one arc" without having to go all the way over and all the way back.

Cons:

• Could devalue the morality system
• Easy access to mission doors and talk-to contacts could skew merit rewards for arcs. They may need to be rebalanced for the doublecross arcs.