Comicsluvr

An all-MM thing? I now have a valid reason to try a toon on Freedom! I'm even free most Sundays! Squeee!

And a release on the 6th gives us JUST enough time to get settled in before the double XP weekend later in March.

I believe I will squee...

I have to say that although I still believe that many of the Redside arcs are better than Blueside (Ghost Widow's origin story with Wretch encountered in the 20s is a wonderful tale), I AM finding much of the GR stuff good too. There have been many complaints over the years (some by me...) about Redside arcs not feeling 'Villiany' enough. Often we felt like errand boys rather than villians in our own right.

Yhen along came the Villian switching arc where I encountered a future version of myself. I was told I'd made a terrible mistake in the future and I had to fix it NOW or repeat the same mistake, I encounter myself several time during the mission, each time from farther into the future. The final ME was an awsomely powerful shadow of the future me when I've destroyed ALL life in the galaxy and still exist...utterly alone. My future self tells me NOT to steal the power in front of me of else everyone will die...but me.

So, in order to become a villian, I do exactly that, but this time I steal it ALL instead of merely part of it, the better to insure my victory and survival. To me THAT'S a villian...someone who KNOWS his decisions will bring about the deaths of everyone and he doesn't care.

Yeah...I praised the writers greatly that day...

Send me an email @Model Nine. We lagged a bit this past month while I was in school but starting this week I'm officially off Fri-Sunday so we can resume the fun...as soon as we round up the gang again lol. However it's always a hoot watching all the pets and MMs moving like an army!

I look forward to hearing from you.

Lately (as in, 'since incarnates') there has been increased chatter about Mezzing in general and where it affects Blasters in particular. There have been numerous threads filled with discussions as to how Blasters should be 'fixed' to 'deal with mez' and so forth. Personally, I don't think that Blasters are the problem. The problem, as I see it, is in the nature of how Mez works.

Think about ALL the attacks the enemy can throw at you (talking strictly PvE here). There's damage (in a variety of flavors), debuffs and Mez. Now damage is damage and we all have to live with that in one form or another. Debuffs are never fun but for the most part they leave us free to act. We may act slower, we may act ineffectively, but we can usually do SOMETHING. Mez, on the other hand, tends to be in a binary state...you are mezzed or you aren't. Being mezzed is never fun. Being perma-mezzed to the point of dying is even worse. The enemies that everyone hates and fears the most are the mezzers like CoT, Malta and Crey.

I think that part of this is due to the on/off nature of how Mez works now. Either you're asleep...or not, Stunned or not and so forth. I think that Mez should be changed to be a more progressive form of effect rather than an on/off state.

I don't want to wander into the Real World too far here but what happens when you're stunned by something? Normally you shake your head, try to recover, but in many cases you can keep moving albeit at reduced efficiency. Just like working while tired...you can still function just at reduced capacity. I think this is how Mez should work in CoH.

Instead of Mez being an on/off state, make it a cumulative debuff effect. Tier 1 Stun would slow you and reduce your Accuracy and Damage (for instance) but you could still act. Tier 2 would be worse and so on until you reached Tier 4 (where most Bosses are) and the Stun effect amounts to pretty much what we have now. The biggest change would be that if a squishie faced off against a Lt and a Minion and the former was throwing T2 Mez then the character would be debuffed but they could still act. Stacked Mez would still be bad but that's as it should me.

This would keep Bosses and higher dangerous because their Mez attacks would still shut down a normal character. However 1 Lt or 3 Minions would have to stack their effects in order to shut you down. While this is happening you could fight, run, pop an Insp or some combination of all three.

So...comments?

I'd like to see several things that I don't THINK would require much coding:

1) The captive's Health status. List them as a Pet or something.

2) The ability to give them Insps. Seriously, escort missions are the ONLY ones where buffers really rock solo. They can bubble/shield/heal/whatever the captive while the rest try to draw aggro and wish they had Heal Other.

Do this and I'm a happy camper.

I think that if the Devs wasted any code time on this, instead of giving us something we really want, you'd see a backlash.

Seriously man, think for yourself. It's a GAME! There are SO many variables that would go into calculating the weight of a character that the math alone could take a year. Or if you're going to make numbers up, why have a scale at all?

For me the difference is Power choices for solo vs team, Blaster vs Defender. I like themed characters as opposed to toons that just work well mechanically. So when I made my Ice/Ice Blaster my Power choices early on were damage at range, more damage at range, damage in melee or a Pool Power. Then I get Aim (which is even MORE damage...and it hits more often) and Build Up (same thing tilted the other way). I skipped Chilling Embrace because I didn't see the point of getting that close to the enemy when they hit so hard in melee. I didn't understand how important debuffs were.

Then I made a Cold/Ice Defender and the differences were a bit startling. Early on I had not one but TWO powers that only worked on teams. And I had to cast them on EVERY team member individually back then. Then I got to Frostwork and discovered the same thing...I need an ally to make my powers work? I was bummed. Benumb has a two minute recharge base so that one wasn't going to happen very often. In the end I wound up with an Ice Blaster who occasionally teamed and got to use his 'other neat powers'. Not all Defenders are like this (FF get to use more of their powers on themselves) but the perception is the same I think. Maybe this, and the years of Defender players grousing about low damage, set the stereotype that exists even now.

Then I discovered what I call Aggressive Defenders. I made a TA/Archery Defender and fell in love. Buffs for the team? Nope...no Healing Arrow here. Just LOADS of debuffs for the enemy that, by the way, work great solo too. Now THIS was fun! I still love the character more than my Archery/Device Blaster because he has so many options.

As was said before first impressions are important. If your first Blaster was AR/Devices then you might appreciate Defenders a little more because Devices is more of a buff/debuff set so you'll understand how important that is. If your first Defender is Dark/ or Rad/ or Storm/, all sets light on team-specific buffs versus buffs the Defender benefits from, you might not fall into the 'Defenders solo so badly' rut as others have.

All in all I still feel that Blasters need more damage, and more choices for Secondaries, since other ATs have gotten closer to them damage-wise.

I'd like to think that we can agree that part of the problem is perception. Some Blaster players think that Mez is the issue. Some think that too little damage is the issue. Some don't even think there IS an issue. In that regard we need to agree to disagree and move on I think.

I don't have the Dev's data so I can't say whether Blasters are underperforming or not. I know that with Defiance the way it is now they're a LOT more playable. But then I'm not a twitch gamer who builds his toons with 15 billion Inf either.

The biggest problem with Mez, and not just for Blasters, is its pass/fail nature. Either it's on or it isn't. I see THIS as being the big issue. No player enjoys watching his toon stand and sleep because he burned all his Break Frees and nobody has any Awaken powers. Being mezzed isn't just about defeats, damage does that, but it's about the helpless and boring feeling of being perma-stunned to death and not being able to DO something about it.

Rather than changing Blasters to deal with Mez why not change Mez to be what it always should have been; A series of debuffs that negatively affect the character but leave them free to act?

Example: Sleep currently puts the character out until he wakes on his own or gets hit for damage. Wouldn't it be better if Sleep acted as a debuff, reducing the character's recharge time due to sluggishness? Or debuffing Accuracy because they're sleepy? Instead of standing like a goon when Stunned why not have it act like an Accuracy and Damage debuff because you can't focus as well while Stunned?

Let me be clear that Held and Immob should remain the same. However there are defenses against Immob (Combat Jumping) and you can still attack while Immob'd. Held should remain Held if for no other reason than players can still use it against the enemy and I don't see a problem with having a few powers that shut a character down. However there are so MANY currently that players are becoming frustrated.

And this goes for both sides as well. How many players take a Sleep power, especially the big area Sleeps? Not very many. Wouldn't you at least consider it if it worked as a debuff instead of a 'they're out...DON'T throw your 9-damage area Immob on them!' power?

Don't fix the symptom, fix the problem.

I have no problem stepping out of the TF tree to get xps so if we hit a dead zone we can run other stuff for a level or two.

I usually run the Midnighter Arc right after DFB because I have way too many toons that were over 35 when the Midnighter Arc was created. I forget which ones have the badge and which ones don't and then when I try to join an ITF...DOH shut out! I hate that. So I include the Arc in my list of must-haves early on.

Although Wendy's comment about TF commander rings true...don't mind that at all.

Actually my idea (two of them combined = dangerous) was to make a set team that played once a week or so to do this. We all start at lvl 2 out of the tutorial and do sewers to 12 and DOs. Then on to Posi and up the ladder. Any time we hit a low spot we run radio mishions or tips to fill the gaps.

However I'm not familiar with all of the TFs so I wondered where the gaps might be. This sounds like it might be feasible...I think I'll try it. Thanks gang!

I'm working on an Elec/Elec Blaster and VS is coming up. I don't usually like the 60-second recharge pets, however I feel I may be using it wrong. My question is how do YOU use it? Do you try to have it out all the time? Or summon it only for the tougher mobs? Or use it like Seeker Drones and summon it into a mob to take the Alpha?

Thanks in advance.

Ok for me this is an easy one:

1) Increase the base damage to the point where, with 3 Damage SOs and either Aim or Build Up you can 1-shot a Lt. I say aim or build up since sone sets don't have one of these and I wouldn't want those sets shut out.

2) Increase the base recharge time to something insane like 45 seconds or something. Enough to prevent sniping your way to 50 easily but not so much that you can't hit every other spawn or every spawn with good slotting.

3) Increase the base range for PCs only so that they at least equal enemy snipers. I once had a Snipe with a range IO in it and the Crey snipers STILL had more range than me. Plain wrong...

In a team Blasters would do what they do now: Damage. Solo they would use their niche, which is Damage, to counter Mezzing by taking out the enemies with a pre-emptive strike. Mezzing Bosses would still be a challenge as they should be.

That was my worry and why I added the caveat of Tips missions. My theory is to start a brand new team and run Sewers to lvl 12 (and DOs). Then Posi 1 and 2. Then do the Midnighter Arc to open up Cim for later. Then Synapse and so on. My hope is to do each TF only once. If somone in the team isn't high enough we do tips or whatever to get them high enough.

By the way, I'm not thinking of doing this all at once mind you but as a set team running once a week or so.

I was wondering if anyone had ever tried leveling their characters simply by playing TFs and the occasional tip mission? Is this feasible? If so are there any major slumps to look out for?

Thanks in advance

Ok gang, I missed out on the last all-MM ITF so I wanna do one this weekend. I'm thinking of a kill-most for XPs and to see how quickly it can be done. I have a lvl 35 or a lvl 37 MM ready to go. Any takers?

Great idea. The seat belt breaks so just don't let the kids drive the car. How about fixing the seat belt? I'm not a programmer but to me the pet AI should be rediculously simple:

Is my T1 attack ready? (y/n) If yes then checkinrange. If no then check T2 power ready.

Run through the whole cycle once. If no powers are in range, close to range. Run it again. For pets with no melee attacks they should stop at the range of their shortest power. Pets wil melee attacks would eventually wind up closing to melee, firing ranged powers as they go. Buffing pets would be a bit more complex but seriously, isn't the AI just a long string of If/Then statements?

Castle used to talk about the pet AI all the time but I honestly can't see why it's so hard given what the pets are supposed to be doing.

Of all the MMs I have (and there are many...) I like the following in order for the following reasons:

1) Necro/Dark: Classic set with loads of things to do well into the EPP/PPPs. The -To Hit you can toss out helps Pet survivability a lot. Also great for teams because of the AoE heal, conceal and Tar Pit.

2) Thugs/Time: My second fave to play. As was said before, a buff for the Brute, lots of good synergy with the Enforcers, AoE heal and so forth.

3) Demon/Therm: Another theme-heavy set with great resistances, pet buffs and heals.

My usual tactics for Melee-centric pets is to Team Teleport right into the mob and drop whatever AoE I have (Tar Pit, whatever). Saves them hovering on the edge of the spawn not using their best attacks.

As for the Brute I have a special button just for him. I moved the Brute's control button to my power tray and edited it to Goto/Aggressive. I press it and a target reticle appears (like Teleport). Drop it in the middle of the next spawn and there he goes. No other micromanagement needed, you can buff him/Insp him before sending him in and he acts like a pocket tank. This works great for Black Knights too btw.

Good luck!

Ok so swapping out the T1 on SS Tanks is no good. My SS Brutes however...Thanks for the tips

Bruising is tied to the T1 attack and only for Tanks right? I have one with SS that I was going to swap out his first attack with Air Sup bit I wanted to make sure I'm not losing the Bruising.

I have WAY too many toons to write about so I'll focus on just two...the extreme ends of my spectrum if you will.

Doctor Zombie is a little like Mr Freeze from Batman. His wife died and he wants her back. The kinds of experiments he was conducting were illegal in the U.S. (and most civilized places) so he went to the Isles. There he found he needed funds so he traded his expertise in magic for money and equipment. Once he managed to reanimate his beloved he became a Hero (briefly). However he realized that memories are long and is now back in the Isles. He only wants peace and solitude to be with his wife now.

Total Violence is a Brute, literally and figuratively. The victim of scientific experimentation too horrible to explain, he lives with constant pain now. The only way to suppress it is to increase his adrenalin production. Doing heavy labor is good...but it doesn't pay very much. So he's a criminal. He takes what jobs are offered in exchange for money, fleeting graps at power and repairs to his numerous cybernetic systems. In the end he's a closet suicide who wants someone to put him out of his misery. But his innate desire to hurt people and break things has proven too valuable and time and again someone saves him from the brink of death or revives him. To paraphrase Doc Holliday from Tombstone "Total Violence has a great hole through the middle of him. He can never steal enough or kill enough or inflict enough pain to fill it. He wants revenge...for being born."