Blood Red Arachnid

I have very limited experience with power sets, since my general trend of gameplay is to make characters in pairs and them raise them to 50 at roughly the same rate. I don't have a lot of alts on a whim because of this. However, there were a couple of powersets that I do notice aren't as good as they should be.

#1: Energy Melee. This set is lacking in... well... everything. The movements are slow, the damage and effects are mediocre, the lack of AoE gimps the set, and the set isn't flashy. Energy Melee is so bad that, when Kinetic Melee was released, I deleted an IOed out EM/Elec level 50 stalker and rolled a KM/Elec stalker from scratch. I have never looked back. The set isn't very good and is no fun to play.

#2: Darkness Manipulation. Maybe it is because I rolled it with Beam Rifle, but I find myself skipping nearly every power in Darkness Manipulation because I can't find an appropriate time to use it. There are some good powers in the set, but most powers require the player to be at point blank range when they use it, and as far as blasters go that is suicidal and clunky to use.

#3: Ice Control. This set is fun to use, but nonetheless I can see several balance issues with it. First, it is based on -recharge, which is only good after enemies have used up all their attacks and thus is outdated for modern gameplay that usually kills enemies before they use all their attacks. Near useless on AVs that seem to maintain an attack chain no matter what, and completely useless on trial AVs who have 100% resist to -recharge. The AoE sleep does damage which makes it incompatible with many interface powers. Ice Slick, while a hilarious power, is nullified anytime anyone anywhere uses an AoE Immobilize on enemies, which happens a lot. The PBAoE freeze requires the user to be on the ground (not just near it), and limits any hovering toons.

Lo and behold, the thread has been hijacked by obvious troll.

Decent video. The biggest issue I see is kind of hard to explain. In the video, there will be parts where you'll have the camera go to a scene where your character stands around for a second, then do whatever it is that he is going to do, then stand there for a second, and then go to the next scene that is the same thing. I'm not sure what to call these parts before and after the action (transitions?), but these take away from the flow of the video. Its like those guys who shoot a video by themselves with themselves in it, but don't cut out the part where they drop everything then walk up to turn the camera off.

Some things also seem randomly thrown together. There are parts where the character attacks, then goes to air guitar for a bit, then does another attack. This abruptly stops the flow of any feelings in the video, since it is throwing different concepts together with no adequate transitions and no rhyme or rhythm to the motions. What you should do is cut out the parts where you go to do something, and instead have the main action of interest be most if not all of the scene. For example, your character should never abruptly go into air guitar in any scene. What should happen is, when one scene transitions to another scene, that other scene should be your character already IN the air guitar emote, which would then transition to another scene where your character is already beating the snot out of some CoT. With clever splicing you can put the air guitar moments during the guitar solos to have the video sync up with the music better, creating more harmony and better flow of concepts.

Guess I'm the only one who didn't find the God quip funny.


Anyway, powerful characters really does come down to what we consider a "character". Nearly any fictional universe can create an omnipotent being that controls everything, and because of this we are left with trying to pick out omnipotent is better than another, and do so on an immeasureable scale. However, something I rarely see happen is when the main protagonists or antagonists are one of those omnipotents. To think of "character" as being someone whom the story follows, has development, and changes in response to the plot, we would find a lot of those one-offs or forces of nature eliminated. With that, the "most powerful" fictional character that is as protagonist or antagonist that I can think of is Goku from DB/Z/GT.

You can also get into a debate on what constitutes "power", but I'll keep that aside for now.

I like Phineas and Ferb. I like Marvel. Together... not sure how well that could work out. Maybe it's just the gut reaction I have against crossovers. I won't be disappointed to be proven wrong, though.

^What they don't tell you is that a lot of the complainers are the ones that refuse to take kids to R-rated movies.


Anyway, am I the only one who thinks the Rock might be able to play a good Lobo?

Not sure I really support improving AoE holds, since AoE holds are already some of the best abilities in the game, even with low recharge and low accuracy and issues like being PBAoE in some sets. A hold is effectively a temporary death to enemies, since it gives them no way to do damage and no way for enemies to mitigate incoming damage. An AoE hold multiplies this by 16, essentially killing the group that it gets used.

Nukes were looked at mostly because they couldn't be used, and short range blaster abilities were improved since their short range was causing danger to blasters. AoE Holds are extremely useful powers that can equate to an "I win!" button when used against most enemy groups in the game, and to my knowledge no one skips these powers.

Might be abuseable. It is a convenience item, but it would only provide a very rare service. IMO it should be easier just to tell people to go to RWZ to see a "demonstration" or fight a random on the street than it would be to make a dummy power.

As interesting as this idea is, I am afraid it would be a ton of work to do for little benefit. You would essentially need to make a power for every single aura and have it so the character could get ahold of these aura powers in a manner that wouldn't completely clutter the powers tab with all of those auras.

We have path auras and combat auras that allow you to kind of turn them on and off. But, if you really wanted to cease using an aura, there is another way around it. First, duplicate the costume of your character into another costume slot. Then, in this second slot, change the costume so the aura is off. Then, in the game, if you wanted to turn the aura on and off, just type "/cc #" where the # is the slot where you have put the costume with the aura that is on or off.

There are more ways to increase the difficulty than level shifts. From what I have seen, most enemies in the game don't have innate resistances and defenses, and most of them have the same to-hit as any other of their kind. Also debuffing and buffing powers aren't used as often since they accumulated and can be kind of strong at that point. Many AE arcs have taught me that lesson.

I suppose the biggest issue with level shifts is that the solution to shifted enemies is to shift the players, and ideally it shouldn't just be about that. I'd more readily embrace elemental, tactical, and certain mezz weaknesses that can be exploited, much like how Hamidon is handled. The "solo" route is a bit problematic for this method, though, since it turns into AT and powerset discrimination more than anything else. So the closest we can get to that is weird gimmicks that the battalion can have.

But since that can of worms is already opened, I do expect the battalion to be a minimum of +2 or so. That way the enemies range from 52 to 56 for solo content, and in any trial content it would be... maybe a bit higher.

I know how the OP feels. I was playing a game recently that had this series of updates happen over the span of 3 years or so:

#1: Public: "X in PVP is a problem and should be fixed!"
Devs: "We're working on it."

#2: An unpopular PVP update is put into the game.

#3: Public: "X in PVP is still a problem and should be fixed!"
Devs: "Alright, we got this." and then they fixed the problem.

#4: Unpopular PVP update is reversed several years later, reversing all subsequent changes after that update. Was implemented with a "vote" that was largely a publicity stunt.

#5: Public: "X in PVP is back again and is a problem! Fix it!"
Devs: "No! This is what YOU voted for, what YOU wanted, and we gave it to you. YOU said that this isn't a problem back when YOU voted!"


And hence, my frustration with that MMO. There is a large level of discontent for their player base from these developers, and it shows up quite frequently. They'll go back on their word, reverse updates, refuse to fix problems, make more problems with their attempted fixes to other issues, implement changes with an explanation that makes no sense on any level, and all the while their response to the players is a giant inflatable middle finger hidden behind generic corporate lingo. It is just annoying when there is a legitimate problem, and it won't be fixed because of some petty office politics and immaturity from the developers.


Everything in CoH seems so chill compared to some of the other games I have played. The few annoying things the devs do are only mildly annoying, and their reasoning for doing these things is fairly logical. If I screw up in the games or on the forums (since I am ought to, what with my familiarity with 18+ stuff and my off-beat sense of humor), I'll get generic'd or a stern warning before I get perma-banned forcing me to purchase the game all over again.

The community in this game is good enough that problems won't suddenly arise from an immaturity crime wave. If I see a player anywhere in the game, I can safely assume that the player is doing absolutely nothing wrong, and hasn't done anything wrong in at least the past month. It isn't like some of these other games I have played, where the players will agree to the ToS then break every option while whining about their right to play the game as moderators drag them kicking and screaming out the game. No, the games moderators know things are good, so the community operates autonomously without need for constant intervention.

You never realize what a privilege it is to have good communication between you and the devs until it isn't there anymore.

My response to the wall is to try again, but harder. When I see a challenge, I accept.

The closest thing I've had to the mezz issue is when I was going through Nightward with a blaster, and every group of elementals could chain-hold for awhile. My response was to figure out which were the mezzers, then take those out first and reserve the basic abilities for when I do get mezzed.

I wouldn't pay much money at all. Although I could see the usefulness in the suggestion. I have plenty of characters who thematically would have alternate movesets, from being possessed to simply not using their their weapon. It would save on names, too, if we could have one character switch powers instead of having to make alts.

I use Quicktime screen record because I'm kind of poor. The videos don't come out looking good at all. If you have money to spend and want to make high quality videos, I'd highly suggest going with something else.

I'm pretty sure that would've been hilarious, but it brought back a bad memory from my 4th grade.

There are definitely too many random events going on right now. The game needs fewer but more significant and rewarding events.

I wrote a lengthy post about it in another thread a long time ago:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...&postcount=115

...Some stuff happened and I'm kind of lost. Who is Statesline again?

I never really paid attention to it at all. As far as I considered it, Ourobos was quite literal in that it was just events that took place in the past.

I said it once and I'll say it again:

ONE of those incarnate abilities is going to be a transformation power. You'll change into some giant monster or beast or creature or something, with a temporary powerset and just wreak havoc all over the place.

I do worry that the game may be getting a bit easy. Of course, I don't have any toons that play a +4/X8. I tried it once, and though I was moderately successful it just felt like a long drag more than it actually felt like it was a super fun but challenging thing to do.

One of the funner things I did was when I left AVs on doing DA arcs and found myself having to power through several AVs. It was hard and I died a lot, but by golly did I do it! Well... except for Diabolique and her phase power. I did something similar with the recent Belladonna arc and left AVs on, only to discover that the final AV in the arc level shifts as you fight him. Yes, it was a long and epic battle... that I lost. Came back again properly prepared for that level of difficulty, then managed to beat him the second time through.

But more than just having bigger numbers, I think that difficulty could be found in the game by requiring the proper tactics to stop a couple of gimmicks. The hard part about this is that CoH at it's core isn't very gimmick friendly. The characters move fast, the AI isn't the wisest out there, there isn't a lot of dodging, and the versatility of the system requires that obstacles be tailored to be capable of being handled by both characters with defense and characters with none at all. You can throw in several kinds of weaknesses, but this ultimately becomes about power discrimination and AT discrimination more than anything else. Every enemy that launches attack will go straight for your character and will initiate the hit rolls and damage calculation.

As much as I like having to deal with an AV that becomes stronger with time, the fact is that not nearly everyone in the game is ready for that, and many times I question if they are even capable of it. I suppose you could make enemies that have very specific weaknesses like to recharge or having low accuracy but high power, and just make them optional "challenge" events. But, we'll have to make enemies with strange and unusual tricks to them that you have to figure out to beat, unless we can greatly increase the AI of the enemies of the game. This means things like patches with unresistable damage, and enemies that get increased regen from nearby objects, and stuff like what we've already seen.

I'm not against it though. I look at Touhou bullet hells and they make me drool. Give me a complex fight and I'll figure it out.

Along with Luminous blast and energy blast, doesn't illusion control also count as a "light" power set? Although it falls into a different category, nonetheless there are many attacks that blast an enemy with light.

Most angelic characters I've seen just become peacebringers and ignore the ingame lore. I have yet to see one be a peacebringer and completely warp the lore (kheldians are spirits while nictus are evil spirits or something like that).


As far as wind goes, the closest thing we have to a wind powerset is Storm Summoning, which has Gale, Hurricane, and Tornado. That is... kind of lacking, so it would be nice if we managed to get some wind based powerset.

I use the presence pool on my PB whenever I need to tank with it. Sadly, that is more frequent than it should be... The cool thing is I think I'm the only PB who has ever been the main tank at the MoM trial and lived to tell the tale.

Anyway I think I love the devs of this game. I commented on another game that I never look forward to any of their updates, and yet Paragon seems to get me giddy with every announced update.

I've never skipped it, and I wouldn't think of doing so, either. Concentrated Strike already has really high DPAT, and the buildup recharge ability is always a plus.

What I do is take advantage of concentrated strike's recharging ability. Build up, at a 90 second recharge, is always going to take longer than Concentrated Strike (20 second recharge), requiring 450% recharge rate in Build up and not in concentrated strike to break even. Rather, what would be a better move is to only 1-slot Build Up with a recharge (or to-hit boosters), and instead rely on the ATO proc and/or Placate and CS to continually recharge Build Up. This frees up a few slots for whatever you might need.

I'd just use the buildup of transfer tokens over the months and move them elsewhere.

But ultimately I would delete characters that I don't have a lot of fun playing.