Carnifax_NA

I'd pretty much have faith (which could be incredibly silly of me but I'll run with it) that this change is a precursor towards upping the reward. They obviously don't want a repeat of the poor Eden trial and are trying to remove the Speed Run outliers before adding a proper reward.

Your Tier 2s are fine, give them some Poison-like debuffs and controls. I was more talking about making the 3rd pair of the Tier 1s ranged for variety (like the way you get different types of Demons, or an Arsonist as your 3rd Thugs Tier 1). You could also make them flyers of some sort, again just for variety.

I always felt I was missing out on my Necro MM because Zombie #3 is just like the other two (or would be if I didn't use him mainly as Soul Extraction bait).

6 weak melee tier ones are going to get slaughtered by AOEs later in the game, as well as the fact that it can be difficult to maintain BG mode with pure melee Tier 1s. The thoughts of having to keep track of 6 of the buggers when watching for Runners could also be demanding. Making 2 of them ranged means they'll tend to stick closer to you and they'll be better equipped for handling runners without aggroing extra spawns,

Or if you prefer the Resistance Underground Base under Imperial also has a Crafting Table and the entrance is fairly close to the Trading House

Ah I see. I misunderstood.

I really like that idea, along with the other attacks being little bugs rather than just venom / poison attacks. You could have fun with the animations as well.

Edit : Like the idea of there being lots of tier ones as well. I assume each would be small, and also only count as half a minion in terms of providing BG mode. Personally I'd probably make the level 18 pair armed with upgradable ranged attacks as oppose to melee (so they get more attacks, not more survivability), just for variety.

But for half the criteria you listed in your OP the kin will be less than stellar since they only bloom in buffing damage terms at 39. In the 40s and end-game the Kin will certainly blow away anything I mentioned.

I'd actually switch the Mind for a Plant thinking more about it. Seeds is that good.

I suspect part of the change was to in some way combat people saying Praetoria is too hard or that is was too boring waiting / resting between fights in it. A few other small changes, like improving Sprint, seem to be aimed at this idea of keeping people moving more compared to older CoH, and perhaps also a nod to the fact that they want people to enjoy the content rather than getting frustrated and aiming to clear the teens as quickly as possible.

I'll strenghten my previous comment and complain that they did it an issue too late if that helps?

Rabble, rabble, rabble. The Devs hate Praetorians and waited until they'd all moved on before making this change!!

(not serious though, I do think it was a small opportunity missed on their part though)

^This basically.

In fact I'd go as far as to say that it was a design flaw for them not to offer this change with Going Rogue since that's when everyone and their dog was running 1-20 content.

The thing is with two tweaks Dark would be a lot more attractive to a wider selection of secondaries. Make Life Drain do proper Tier 3 damage, or close to it (double it basically), and make the PvE version of Torrent Knockdown instead of knockback like they did for the Liche. Job done!

My 3 would probably be a Fire/Dark Corrupter, a Fort/Widow (dual builds are hella fun for SoAs) and an Earth/Fire Domi, just from playing the 3 as different alts recently.

This is terrible advice. Dark Astoria is a dreadful place to hunt tips and it isn't fun at all hacking zombies up for them, honest guv. Especially since they drop worthless Magical Salvage which as we all know is completely useless and no-one wants it.

(In other words my mid-20s Broadsword/Fire scrapper likes having the place to himself thank you Slicing Zombies up is indeed a great way to quickly garner tips and earn some non-trash Salvage in the process ).

My first character 5 years ago was a Illusion/Stormie so I'm used to knockback and general chaos at this stage

I noticed last night I could queue Power Push and Bone Smasher so as they went flying they also get clobbered which is great fun (and means they're probably dead anyway by the time they land).

Not sure why you're so down on Frost Breath, it hits far harder than either of the Dark cones . For a Corrupter it's the hardest hitting non-fire based cone available (3rd after Fire Breath and Flame Thrower). It actually does around the same damage as Fire Ball (but obviously Fire Ball has a massive AOE advantage)

Ice Storm (not Freezing Rain) is weak compared to Rain of Fire, but then nearly everything is weak compared to a Corruptors Rain of Fire.

If it's an i19 orientated build then it could be deliberately omitted because it's going to become an inherent.

Yeah, my secondary didn't help much, the cones coupled with Kins love of being in Melee range meant I was toing and froing way too much. Dark Miasma wouldn't have that problem.

My main issue with Dark Blast is how it ends with a whimper. The last 3 powers are basically ranging from situational (the nuke) to absolutely useless (the other two). Life Drain could really do with a Siphon Life style boost.

This is pretty much what I'd have gone for. Although personally I'd have picked Ice/Dark over Dark/Dark just because my Dark/Kin corrupter was unimpressive.

I wish Planty would do so more often though. My favourite is probably Dark Miasmas Fluffy. Drop him into a spawn and watch them miss, miss, miss. And if they do hit he just heals himself.

Storm is excellent, but it uses a lot of knockback in its powers. So don't be the guy who spams Gale to send things flying into another spawn while your minions chase after it and thus aggro the second spawn, learn to use Hurricane to edge-herd enemies into a kill zone (generally where Freezing Rain is doing its thing) rather than running blindly into the middle of the spawn and sending them flying and know when and where to drop Tornado so it works as a Stun and damage power without scattering things to the 4 winds (in small confined spaces it is gold).

Things like hovering above enemies and using Gale from straight above to turn the knockback into knockdown, using Hurricane & TP to TP behind a spawn (without aggroing a second spawn) and pushing them back towards your demons and the Freezing Rain kill zone, using O2 Boost on any alpha takers who are getting hit by Sapping attacks and combining the -knockback from Electric Fences with Tornado are all excellent ways to leverage Storms strengths without too much scatter or driving the meleers insane.

Sacrificing a Zombie as Alpha material every 5 minutes is actually a pretty viable move for Soul Extraction and alpha nullification. It'll set off your other pets who are in BG mode and while the pawn is being sacrificed you can lay down Dark Servant and the AOE Fear, order the Knights in to get the delicious melee attacks going and get the Lich to lay down his AOE fear usefully by directing him to attack an enemy towards the rear of the spawn.

It's trivial to resummon one and even with the new AOE upgrades Necro/Dark is pretty easy on the blue bar. The thing about Zombies is they don't actually need the 2nd upgrade that much (it's only Siphon Life, which does meh damage and is single target) so if End is an issue you can just do the first upgrade on him when you bring him back. Whereas the Spirit comes with Life Drain, a Phase, a ridiculously long ranged attack and a fairly heavy hitting melee hold attack.

If it's a Knight who dies then you only need to do the second summon and you'll get all their attacks, because upgrading a knight actually changes their model unlike most other Henchie upgrades. So the level 32 upgrade will give you Disembowel and Gloom as well as the usual upgrades which are listed with it (Head Splitter and Siphon Life).

I've a "Goto Aggressive" maneuver for my Zombie whipping boy which I use whenever Soul is ready to go, specifically for Ghost summoning and it works like a charm. With Hasten up I've had a pair of them out occasionally.

Great on teams too when you're missing a Brute or the Brute is a little timid and scared of the alpha.

I Frankenslot both Soul Extraction and Dark Servant, focus on using -ToHit/Recharge and Recharge IOs from the -ToHit sets topped up with Accuracy and either some damage (for the spook) or more -ToHit or Heal (for DS).