ClawsandEffect

You clearly did not play the game long ago enough to remember it.

What you're complaining about was how it was for EVERYONE. And we were PAYING for it.

There was no auction house. There were no inventions. There was no way to reliably transfer money to your own characters. If you wanted to be able to afford your next round of SOs, you damn well ran around to all the different stores so you could get a couple thousand more influence by selling your drops at the proper store. Or you fought enemy groups with the same origin as you so you could slot the drops and save money that way.

Before that, there WERE no stores. You got your enhancements from your contacts, and that was your only option. And you weren't even allowed to buy them until you'd run a certain amount of the contact's arc. Having 1,000,000 influence before level 40 was unheard of, because there wasn't any way to earn it other than defeating enemies and mission rewards.

Free players aren't playing a gimped version of the game, they're just playing it old school.

So I guess you've never played an Invuln or an Ice either.

Same problem with both of them.

Your experiences and mine differ greatly.

I've been the last man standing on numerous TFs, while "stronger" characters were sucking pavement.

The key to playing a Regen effectively: Learn to anticipate what is going to happen, instead of expecting to be able to react after it's already happened. Remember you have inspirations. Know when you need to hit a heal and when your passive regen will see you through.

Regen has a learning curve to it. It's a harsh curve, and you WILL eat floor a lot while you're mastering it. But once you have it mastered, the things you can survive are impressive.

I think you're drastically underestimating the survivability of a well-played regen.

If it were as bad as you say, why do the people who know the numbers inside and out still like the set, seeing as how you're basically saying the only thing it's good at is dying?

If a Regen scrapper can pull off a double RWZ Challenge, then I think a well played Regen tank will be just fine.

If you're not familiar with what an RWZ Challenge is: You go into RWZ, find a spawn of level 54 Rikti that includes a minimum of 3 bosses and engage it, without losing agro at any time, and with no inspirations or temp powers. The spawns are usually 10-12 enemies, and always contain at least one level 54 Mesmerist. Now double that to 20 enemies, with 6 bosses.

That was done with a Claws/Regen scrapper. If a scrapper can pull something like that off with Regen, what would a tank be able to do with 1,000 more HP and similar ability to leverage KD for mitigation? (Because a character's survivability includes BOTH sets, not just one)

So, if you're convinced that the only thing Regen is any good at is dying, well......you're wrong.

My own personal Regen scrapper has outlived just about any powerset you can think of in his 6 year career at various times. I've outlived Invulns and Stone tanks. I've outlived SRs. I've outlived Katana/Willpowers.

How did I do that? Because I have a clue what I;m doing with the set and don't expect my secondary to sit there and passively do everything for me. If you play a Regen like a Willpower, of course it's going to die. Play your Regen like a REGEN and you'd be very surprised at some of the things you can pull off.

The first change was already done when Brutes were given Regen.

I've been trying to get the second for a while now. I'll bring it up now and then, hoping maybe one of the devs will decide it sounds like a good idea.

I may have had something to do with the -regen resistance and boost to Resilience, but it's hard to say for sure. The final numbers on it look suspiciously close to my suggestion in the S&I forums a while back. Doesn't mean I have any pull or anything, and for all I know they were planning on doing it anyway and I just happened to guess really close.

(I know, I know, shut up and let me feel good about it damn it! )

This made me smile.

I don't think of myself as a "forum guru". My knowledge was mostly cribbed from other people's brain sweat.

I'm quite flattered to be thought of in the same vein as the others you mentioned, though. Fine company indeed. I don't feel I deserve to be thought of that highly, but it makes me feel good that someone did.

It wasn't me that did the analysis, by the way. Getting that deep into the numbers isn't my strong point by any stretch of the imagination. Werner or Arcanaville are more likely.

For what it's worth though, a Regen/MA tank would be pretty damn tough. It would suffer from the same vulnerability to alpha strikes and massive burst damage as any other regen, but if you can softcap a Fiery Aura or Electric Armor tank, you can softcap a Regen as well (none of the 3 have any native defense powers). Once softcapped, you'd find yourself in a position of "if you don't die within 15 seconds, you never will"

I suggest Martial Arts because the 10% defense from Storm Kick would be huge as far as softcapping it goes. You'd only need to get to 35% on the types/positions you want to soft cap and Storm Kick will take care of the rest (since it will probably be part of your attack chain anyway)

Tanks are probably getting Energy Aura next, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it were Regen instead.

Wrong.

It's the BEST reason to play an AT. Playing an AT JUST because it's powerful and can do thing X with it's hands tied behind it's back is the superficial reason. Not the feel.

In the end, does it really make a difference how powerful you are compared to other ATs if you're enjoying yourself playing it?

So what if you're not the most awesome thing to ever grace the game? If you're having fun, who cares?

That's something people often forget. It's a video game. It's supposed to be FUN. Playing a weaker AT that I enjoy is FAR more fun to me than playing a powerful one I hate. If you're playing a character simply because it's a good farmer, regardless of whether you like it, is pretty dumb in my opinion.

Yes it does. I keep forgetting about that.

Provoke is useful for a scrapper who wants to tank, or a mastermind who wants to.

It's redundant bordering on completely useless for a tank or brute, and I can't imagine any other ATs that would WANT to take a taunt power.

I don't believe so.

I don't have personal experience with it, as I don't have an Electric Melee stalker at 50 in order to use the proc.

But since I know Smoke Flash does not put you back into Hide, it is reasonable to assume the proc doesn't either.

Fake Nemesis will still send you flying with just 2.

I believe their staff is mag 9.5-mag 11 or so. 12 points will stop it, less than that they'll still play ping pong with you.

This one is deceptively useful.

How, you ask?

....You can slot it in any version of Charged Brawl that exists in the game. The sleep effect in it is only mag 1, and has a very low chance to happen, but you can still slot sleep sets in the power. People frequently forget that Charged Brawl HAS a sleep component, because it's so weak and they never see it happen.

That means you can have a chance to Placate on an /Electric Manipulation blaster, or an Electric Melee stalker. Or a Dominator. You could use it on a scrapper, tank, or brute too, but I can't imagine why you'd want to bother, especially with the tank.

If you leave your email tab alone without mousing over it for a while it will fade and stop blinking. I noticed that a while back while I was playing.

Then if you mouse over it again the word will turn red again. I don't know how long it takes to fade, because I wasn't timing it, due to the bad guys trying to kill me.

No. Tanker Taunt is autohit in PvE, while Provoke requires a to-hit check.




Don't know, I've never used it.

Truth.

Not to be harsh about it, but your tactics and difficulty setting are very likely the main reason you're eating pavement so much.

You're playing a Mind Control/Empathy Controller, and trying to solo it at +1/x2. That means you have set your missions to spawn enemies 1 and sometimes 2 levels higher than you, and they are set to spawn enemies for 2 players instead of just one.

Also, have you noticed that the vast majority of your secondary (Empathy) powers are completely useless to you while solo? There are only 3 powers in the entire set that you can use on yourself. For a controller to solo well, it generally needs to have a secondary that is better designed for soloing. Radiation Emission, Storm, or Cold would have been better choices for a solo Controller. A character's ability to defeat things is a combination of BOTH powersets, and you happened to choose the weakest soloing secondary set available to controllers.

Regarding accuracy: You do realize that a number of enemies can debuff your to-hit, right? If you're fighting one of those groups you will miss a lot because they are lowering your chance to hit. If you are NOT fighting one of those groups, I suspect your enhancement slotting is the culprit.

Regarding group play: You have a decent character for teams, but your BUFFS will be more useful than your heals in the late game. There is more strategy going on than you think there is, it's not a constant zerg rush. Unless the only groups you've been in are sewer runs, which IS a zerg because you are exemped to levels 2-5 and most of the team lost all their best powers, or haven't got to them yet. A level 2 tank cannot tank all that well, and a level 2 defender won't defend all that well. At that level, you'd still be killing rats in other MMOs.

If you have teamed in other things, pay closer attention to who is targeting what enemies, and who is doing what and when. Communication is at a minimum amongst experienced player because everyone already knows what they're supposed to do. When a team is running like a well oiled machine and crushing all opposition, everyone IS performing their appointed role. It can look like chaos to an inexperienced player, I will admit that much, but if you watch a little closer to an experienced team, you'll start seeing the tactics going on, they just aren't talking about them because they don't need to.

Is the tank jumping in first?
Is a controller with an AoE locking them down after the tank jumps in?
Is the blaster opening up with an AoE right after that?
Is the scrapper or stalker targeting a boss or a specific enemy? (because dangerous enemies aren't always bosses)
Are the defenders spending a lot of time buffing or debuffing? (it's not always obvious what they're doing, just because you don't see green numbers doesn't mean they aren't doing anything)

Pay attention to the ORDER things are happening in, that's a good way to tell a good team from a bad one. If things are happening more or less in the order I laid out, you're on a good team. If the blaster is starting fights and wiping the team before the tank can get the enemy's attention you're on a bad one (or you have a bad blaster). Now, if things are happening in more or less the order I laid out and the fight is over in a few seconds, you are on a GREAT team. That means everyone knows their role, and doesn't need to be told when to do their part. The best teams I've ever played on communicated very little, because everyone was already on the same page and knew what to do.

Above all else: This game is NOT made in the Tank/Healer/DPS mold of so many other games. All character types are useful, none are essential. A team composed of nothing but Defenders, for example, is one of the most potent forces in the game. Most other games would punish you severely for daring to take nothing but healers on a quest (defenders are not healers, but their role comes the closest to it), but in this game, the opposition just melts in the face of so many buffs and debuffs being stacked. An all defender team is quite frequently turning everyone on the team into gods and all of the enemies into kittens, simultaneously.

I don't know if anything I just said will help any, but your perception of what this game is is very obviously being colored by other games. You're expecting THIS game to work exactly the same way, and it just doesn't.

Like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XKHuGpqOHY

Being able to use buffs on yourself has nothing to do with it. You can't target yourself to use the buffs.

I can only imagine all the bugs that would crop up if they allowed one AT to target itself. Imagine hitting "Closest Target" and hitting yourself with a Built Up tier 9 attack.

It's also possible the inability to target yourself is so baked into the base programming of the game that it would be impossible to change it without rewriting large chunks of the base programming, which they shouldn't do unless there is a very pressing reason to do so. This isn't such a reason.

Congrats!

I've been a father for just over a year now. It has drastically reduced my available gaming time, but I still manage to log on a couple times a week most of the time.

Depends on your secondary I suppose. If you have any long recharge powers you want to occasionally have back RIGHT NOW, it'd be a good pick. If you're a softcapped SR, you can live without it.

So, every SG would have an NPC standing around in Atlas? Or would it be one NPC for all of them?

Because if every SG got their own NPC, that would get ludicrous quickly.