ClawsandEffect

Good luck convincing the devs to create an entirely new set of animations and a new combat stance for a set of powers that is functionally identical to Sonic Attack.

When the instructions are as simple as "Don't nuke the people we're trying to sway to our side.", the whole "we shouldn't have to follow instructions to succeed" argument falls flat on it's face.

The entire trial revolves around the effort to sway the general populace into seeing that Emperor Cole is the bad guy. Lobbing grenades into a crowd of civilians isn't going to help that goal.

It doesn't make AoE-centric characters useless on the trial, becuase there is a whole other thing they could be doing while the single target people are dealing with the civilian situation. The instructions in this case are NOT complicated, and it should be common freaking sense that you shouldn't kill the people you want supporting your efforts.

The problem with defining the Tanker's role is that comic books and other MMOs disagree on what a tank is.

In comic books, the "tank" is the invulnerable super-strong stereotype. They are usually the toughest member of a team, and usually deal quite a bit of damage. This is problematic in video game design, because you cannot have one AT that is simultaneously the toughest AND among the top damage dealers. Dealing exceptional damage and being the toughest member of a team at the same time is not fair to other members of that team.

Comic books have writers that can decide who is going to win a given fight beforehand, regardless of the actual power levels involved. (See Squirrel Girl defeating Dr. Doom for a prime example) If they want Superman to lose to a toddler with a sharpened stick, they can make it happen. Video games have no such ability. Everything in a game is determined by the numbers involved. To that end, tanks have lower damage so they don't outshine the other melee ATs in every measurable way.

Other MMOs view the "tanker" as nothing more than a punching bag. Your average fantasy MMO tanker builds to be as indestructible as possible within the confines of that game. That almost always means the tanker sacrifices all or most of their damage dealing ability. Especially when you consider that, quite frequently, Tank and Melee DPS are two different ways of building the exact same character class.

The difference there is the fact that in CoH a tank is actually a viable damage dealer. If you don't believe me, go play any other game and watch how much damage the appointed tanker is actually dealing compared to their teammates.

I see CoH's Tanker role as being a mix of the two ideas of what a tank is. They are meant to hold the agro of attacking enemies, and they are capable of adding a respectable amount of damage to the fight as well.

If there is a tank on the team, they are the one that picks the fight. Their job from that point forward is to ensure that they remain the primary target of the enemies in question. They do that through passive taunt auras, and active taunting, which includes both the power Taunt, and attacking with their own damage dealing powers.

They are NOT meant to be the primary damage dealer on a team. If they were capable of the same kind of damage output as a blaster, they would make pretty much every other AT in the game redundant. Insane levels of survivability and extreme damage output should not be found within the same AT.

I personally believe that Brutes should have their survivability reduced somewhat to preserve that balance. The only reason I find it tolerable is that a Brute cannot even hope to reach Tanker levels of survivability by itself, it absolutely requires outside support to reach that point.

When you want additional melee damage, invite a Scrapper, Stalker, or Brute, because they have more damage than a Tanker.

If you are specifically looking for someone to keep the battlefield under control, invite a Tanker, because no one in the game can do that job better. A Tanker can move the battle to any point in the map they choose.

A GOOD Tanker is the team's strategist, choosing which enemies are engaged, and when. The more difficult the task ahead of you is, the more important the Tanker's role becomes.

A BAD Tanker is one who engages enemies willy-nilly with no thought to the agro they have spilling off them onto their teammates.

It is not difficult to tell a good Tanker from a bad Tanker. It's usually apparent within the first couple fights in a mission.

This is my first, and so far only MMO.

IOs were definitely a game changer for me. I started about a year and a half before they were introduced, and once I figured out all the tricks to making your character awesome, I took it and ran with it.

Now I have characters that can do all kinds of ridiculous things. AV soloing? Check. RWZ Challenge? Check. RWZ Challenge on a blaster? Check. Giant Monster soloing? Check. All of which would have been patently impossible without IOs.

Knowing that I can make my Broadsword/Dark Armor scrapper unique among Broadsword/Dark Armor scrappers via how I slot him makes the game that much better for me. Before IOs, well, if you saw one scrapper with a specific powerset, you pretty much saw them all, because the powers chosen tended to be very very similar. With IOs, I can have the exact same powers chosen as another character and they will have completely different capabilities and strengths because of the sets I chose to slot.

Fitness at level 2 changed the game for me as well. No longer do I have to plan my build around taking 3 specific powers by level 20. I can actually take all my primary and secondary choices instead of feeling the need tio cram in the Fitness pool.

And the last thing that changed the game for me is: Ninja Run. If I don't want, or can't fit in a travel power, I don't feel like I'm stuck Sprinting everywhere. I still take a true travel power quite frequently, but A) I don't feel like I have to, and B) I don't have to take it right away.

I concur about the aggravation of people PLing to extremely high levels in DFB.

There was one Fire/Fire blaster who was absolutely convinced that Blazing Aura was his best power, because: "It kills everything instantly, and I just have to stand there!"

Turns out he had been killing level 1 and 2 Hellions with it and had never used it on anything his own level (43).

The regen scrapper that didn't understand what a toggle was because he didn't get his first one until level 16 (and had never had a combat level higher than 5), was amusing as well. I watched him get repeatedly held while complaining that his mez protection wasn't working. (granted, this one could just be him being dumb)

There are untold numbers of people who have no idea how to play their characters. It's arguably worse than AE babies, becuase at least the AE babies can use their higher level powers and maybe figure out how they work. DFBabies have no clue about anything above level 10, because they either don't have access to it, or they're using it on level 1 NPCs.

It's kinda sad really.

Incarnate content is one of the only things I'm aware of that you MUST be VIP to access. You can purchase access to just about everything else.

Why can't you accept that the villains actually have a cohesive plan that is working perfectly for a change?

Because YOU can see the events coming does not in any way mean your characters can.

For example: Why would the heroes in this scenario think that anyone would be STUPID enough to murder the daughter of probably the most powerful hero on the planet? It catches the heroes off guard simply because it is, on the surface, an incredibly stupid thing for the villains to do. Think about it. Like him or hate him, would you want to be the guy Statesman is coming after because you killed his daughter?

In my opinion the arcs break down like this:

SSA1: Hero victory, but instead of being sent home with their tails between their legs, the Villains actually have a backup plan.

SSA2: Hero victory. They stopped what the Villains were trying to do, but he villains make it clear that it isn't over yet.

SSA3: Villain victory. Statesman's daughter is dead. Doesn't get more "bad guys win" than that.

SSA4: Villain victory. Malaise is dead, but he took Sister Psyche out of commision in the process. Could almost be a tie, but Sister Psyche fighting for her life, Statesman missing, and the Phalanx in disarray is a bigger hit to the Heroes than losing Malaise is to the Villains.

The problem with your assertion that the heroes are being idiots is your assumption that the heroes are familiar with superhero tropes. Which is kind of silly seeing as how they ARE a superhero trope.

In order for them to see everything coming, they would need to have access to metagame information that we have as players.

And furthermore, if the Heroes were reacting the way you think they should, the Villains would get a mudhole stomped in them, yet again.

The way it's playing out, the Villains get to win, and they get to make the Heroes look like chumps while they do it. Given the sheer number of times the reverse scenario has happened, it's about time the Villains get to win one.

You can get just as much recharge as you have there and more defense by doing the following:

Pick up Eviscerate, slot it with 6 Obliterations. Add the 6th Obliteration to Spin. Put Doctored Wounds in all 3 of your click powers and replace the Crushing Impacts with Kinetic Combat in your single target attacks. Still maxed out on 5% recharge bonuses and gains some defense.

With the buff to Resilience a little while back, it is now a good idea to slot both it and Tough as much as you have spare slots for.

Consider swapping the Decimation in Soul Storm for Basilisk's Gaze. 7.5% recharge for 4 slots as opposed to 6.25% for 5 slots.

Either add a 3rd slot to Hasten or use enhancement boosters and you should have perma Dull Pain capability.

AFK PvP farming is easy to stop if you want to do something about it yourself:

Kill the character doing the farming. Only one of them will be set to auto-rez, because the other is set to auto-attack. Kill the one auto-attacking and their farming is ruined.

This thread needs more:

I'm more interested in what they're going to do with the 4-legged skeleton they have now.

It would suck if we never got anything other than non-combat pets, especially with the way people have been clamoring for an animal mastermind of some kind for years now.

I could see a "Wolfpack" mastermind primary. Tier 1 pets would be regular wolves, tier 2 would be direwolves, and the tier 3 would be a werewolf of some kind.

No idea what the personal attacks in that set could be though.