CrushingAbyss

It's all about what you do.

All drama aside, I'd rather have all my Champion game info in one place/channel. But it doesn't really matter either way. I'll just join the new channel and keep it in the same tab as BMT and presto, no difference to me.

As far as BMT goes, although I don't think I got a copy of the Official Rules, it was pretty obvious after a day of lurking that BMT is for just that B-M-T. That's how I use it and that seems fine. Still, it is good to BS with all the other friendly, helpful people on Champion and if BMT of Champion isn't the place for it, there needs to be a place. I suppose Champions United is the designated area?

Yes, more Shadow Shard please!

I like the gravity geysers. They're fun and not at all hard to use or slow. Keep them but mark them all and adjust the aim as Samuel Tow said.

I also agree with Sam about the cop-out teleporters. Expand and improve the mole point network and dump the teleporters.

I think the shard would be a good place for a co-op raid event somewhat like the rikti ship. I don't think it should all be made co-op though.

CoX uses OpenGL and NVidia consistently writes better OpenGL drivers than ATI. ATI supports directX pretty well but they've historically been sloppy with their implimentation of OpenGL.

Hardware performance is important without a doubt, but don't overlook the quality of the software controlling it all.

As an example I was playing around with OpenGL frambuffer objects, doing some post processing effects (glow, depth of field). No issues on NVidia in XP or Linux (the proprietary binary drivers). Completely broken with the ATI card in my lenovo. It seems ATI only supports a selection of possible pixel modes (# bits/color/alpha) and integer/float modes for framebuffers, and has some odd caveats about copying buffers and the final display buffer.

Even with my novice mucking around with OpenGL it's pretty obvious ATI cards eat up more developer time and probably end up adding duplicated effort to build the shaders and post processing filters.

I'd like to give it a shot. It's a good day/time for me. I'd like to bring a 50 scrapper.

@capn toad

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I can't say I'm surprised. A patron power that was actually useful.

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Are you serious? It's a hold, like char from the blaster Flame EPP. You use it, if the target has resists then it won't work, if they have a BF they can get out of it.

Are you saying that the only way that this power is useful is if it's irrisistable? Please tell me I've misunderstood and you're not complaining that they took away your un-resistable power for which there is no counter.

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No, I think what he's pointing out is that standard holds are more or less useless in PvP

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Wait, then this means the tanker is the only AT that actually had a true inherent from day one, and it just got bumped up a bit with issue 3? (was that issue 3?)!!



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Nope, Scrappers had Critical Hits from the beginning. Tauntlet was added, and Tanker Taunt was made AoE downstream due to complaints that Tankers (previously) had to take the Presence pool in order to hold aggro well. (Tanker Taunt was originally single-target like Scrapper Taunt).

Containment was thrown in to address sucky Controller damage, and Defiance and Vigilance to, er, tantalize and frustrate the other two ATs.

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No, scrappers DID NOT have critical hits in the form of an inherent from the begining. Most definately not. I think katana's final power had a small chance, and maybe broadsword. they were specials tacked onto 2 maybe 3 powers total.

crits were added to all scrapper attacks with higher chances of crits vs lieuts, and even higher vs bosses to reinforce scrappers as the "boss killer" AT in teams.

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Okay, maybe I'm a newb or something but can someone explain to me the "hate" thing and pecking order of damage, I read that patch note about it and just didnt get it.

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The amount of aggro ("hate") you cause to a mob is determined by the amount of damage you cause, multiplied by your AT modifier.

For heroes
Tankers have the largest aggro multiplier.
Kheldians and Scrappers are close (kheldians might be a little higher)
I think Blasters are third, but since they cause alot of damage, it tends to bring their net aggro up.
controllers and defenders round out the bottom.

For villains
Brutes have the highest aggro multiplier

Not sure about Corruptors, Masterminds, Stalkers and Dominators.... I think Stalkers have the lowest, but because their Assassin Strike causes so much damage at once, they can get alot of aggro.

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What is your source of information? Testing or guessing?

I wouldn't be suprised to find out MM pets have = or > hate than brutes.

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Ok well to keep them nerfing revive and MoG I suggest we start talking those powers up.......ok never mind I could never post anything without laughing trying to do that.

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I kinda like revive :/ It could be better sure...

Keep em nerfin MoG. What MoG needs is say a 5 minute duraction. yeah. Just to be sure you're dead give it a pbaoe taunt-field.

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Maybe some day I'll grow up to be as smart as the two of you

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Well from reading through this thread, I'd say your chances are slim. But give it a shot anyway.

Sam, I guess I come at it from the other angle. I think the CoV story is pretty fun. I like the fact that we have the opportunity to tie our characters more closely to the story and major NPCs. I never wanted a superhero simulator, I wanted a fun superhero game.

If anything I wish origins mattered a bit more, and that say, by completing certain key missions costume options would unlock so that we could show our alignment to certain factions more closely.

Anyway, different take on it I guess. I like the way things are heading. Well, except for PvP. That can just die, or move it to it's own server. Whatever.

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Tanks haven't been ignored, they have had the entire concept and gameplay switch from under them. They took MANY of the Tank suggestions and put them in Brutes. This makes tanks angry.

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They tried fury on tanks and discovered that it was grossly overpowered. It was a good idea so they kept it around. What's wrong with that? The game is better for it. Would you swap fury for less HP, less base damage, and another serious gutting of your primary? Statesman thought not so he shelved the idea.

Tanks may have been ignored, and that's debatable certainly, but they were'nt the only ones. Anyone remember the AV MAG change, and the 8mo+ it took it add the stupid purple triangle "fix"? I'd say controllers have at least as big a complaint about being ignored as tanks.

You want to talk pathetic damage and inability to solo? My invuln/axe was a breath of fresh air after my I3 grav controller! Propel was garbage in those days, no containment, and when you finally hit 32 your pets added marginal damage at best.

My only advice is to find something you enjoy playing and quit obsessing over an AT that is actually doing pretty well. It worked for me. Parked the grav at 44 around I4 and never looked back.

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Essentially, each hit (if successful) will give you a short term damage buff. Different powers would have different buffs; but if you could string enough hits together you can "peak" your damage.

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Quoted from Statesman.

And then he gave it to brutes.


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No, they tried to give it to Tanks and found it was obscenely overpowered (look at the output Brutes can do and imagine that with Tanker defenses even now).

It's not as though they stole something from Tanks to give to Brutes; they just repurposed an idea they couldn't make work with Tanks.

Be angry about the fact that they haven't even tried to fix #3 on that list, and have subsequently hacked away at #1 and #2, not about something they actually haven't done.

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Exactly. They tried it and it was overpowered on a tank.

The fixed #1. I don't really feel compelled to comment on #2 at this time. #3 was a non-issue in my mind. Tankers have all kinds of great knockup/down/back and disorients attached to their attacks. Some are even AoE. Tanks can play the front-man of most teams. What's not comic-booky about that?

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The difference between PvP players and PvE players is that
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otherwise, an enemy Brawl could knock all your toggles off.

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PvP players would actually be OK with this change.

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No they wouldn't and you know it. They would whine non-stop like they do about everything else. Even though it had no bearing on their pvp game.

Electric guitar, or just air guitar
Flipping through a phat stack of cash (counting bills)
The Robot dance
shoulder roll/tumble
squirt guns
bark like a dog

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Statesman, why are you guys still screwing around trying to make a fundamentally broken concept work? You've known (or should've known) from day one that SR can't be balanced the way it is implemented, because it's either too good vs minions and LTs or it's too bad against bosses.

I and others suggested a simple fix in the first few weeks the game was out and it still appears to be the best solution:

Make SR give a flat dodge chance in addition to the regular "miss" chance that any other character would have. If a fully slotted SR scrapper has a 66% dodge chance, then that's exactly how much the power is reducing the number of debuffs and damage he's taking. By 66%. So if you decide that the balancing point is 40% or 30% or 10% or 80%, that's where you set the bar at and you leave it alone.

It's easy to implement, it's easy for players to understand, it solves most of the problems with SR, and it just makes more sense for what the power pool is supposed to represent.

Is there any particular reason why you can't go with the best solution, when it also happens to be the simplest and easiest solution?

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I like it. I always thought +DEF was a bit over-complicated idea to build a set around. So many other factors mess with ACC and DEF it just turned into a big mess.

My first gut reaction to Statesman's team's change: Scaling resistance with the player's hit points? Oh come on, can you come up with something more complicated and less intuitive please?

Stigmatus your idea is simple and elegant in comparison. I'd much rather see a dodging defensive set than a +DEF set. +DEF is just broken in CoH. Throw it away and try again devs, please.

States, I hope the +RES numbers are HUGE. Because as it stands taking ED into account, SR is busted.

Has your team run the numbers of a 32 level SR scrapper in a PvP situation? 6-slotted toggles and passives with +DEF Vs. the standard 2x ACC SOs?

Instead of adding +RES to a defense set, make the +DEF of the set actually matter. As it is, I might as well not run any toggle defenses in the arena and save the endurance.

Are SRs not supposed to be able to PvP until lvl40 when they have Elude and some slots in it?

They'll leave the Invuln version alone and nef the regen version only. Rationalization: dull pain increases the regen rate of IH and INT beyond what the devs think is reasonable.

Dull Pain is going to get it good. Non-perma even with hasten. The % might even be lowered to make it less than the tanker version. It won't matter that scrappers have less HPs for DP to operate on. Reason has no place here.

QR and Stamina take a 50% chop.

Resilience is made +4% DEF toxic and a toggle with 0.5eps. Regener's were complaining about not having enough toggles for PvP toggle-drop defense.

Scrapper HP overall was found to be too high, making them too good at tanking AVs in teams with defenders. Tanks cried, "Der stealin errr jubs!!". HPs lowered to that of current blasters. You really are blappers with status protection now.

Some people are still using MoG. Revised MoG to crash your END before and after MoG activation. Since there is no viable way to actually predict when you will activate MoG before pressing the power activation button, we have decided to crash regener's END every 7 seconds during the time MoG is up but has not been activated. Just to be safe. Enjoy suckas.

Thanks States, great work on I5!

I was skeptical of the changes when they first went to test but I've been completely suprised by how well they added the fun back into the game. Good work. The new missions and new zone are fantastic.

Good work States.

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I have an electric blaster. I've never felt the lack board folks talk about. I've always thought that particular stigma was just one of those evolved pieces of Conventional Board Wisdom (TM) that doesn't match all that closely to reality.

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Look closer.

The only two sets missing a third single target are Elec and AR. AR makes the trade off by getting some nice AoE attacks. Elec's AE attacks are only better than Energy and Ice... both of which have some groovy attacks. The only really attractive thing about the set is Short Circuit, and to get any use out of it you have to totally gimp your AE damage.

Elec Primary is kind of middle of the road. It can AE, but it's not good at it. It can zap a single guy, but it's not real good at it. The only really good thing is the drain, and if you want to play with that then you're probably better off making a Defender.

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Elec deals ALL energy damage. AR deals lethal/smsh, energy deals half S/L and half energy. Elec does more effective damage because it's damage type is by far less resisted across all viliian types. AT first glance on paper, it doesn't look as good. In practice it's a powerhouse.

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Every AT complains they are not needed at high levels. True, but in the case of defenders, I suspect a big reason why they cannot find teams might be because of people's misconceptions of their capabilities.

Naturally, all defenders are not created equal, but your entire post demonstrates my point completely. Something such as:

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I have a 49.9 Blaster. From about level 1 to level 50, I would have traded 7 Defenders for 1 Tanker in a second. Defenders made me safer, but Tankers made me safe.

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1 Tank > a hypothetical 2 FF + 2 empathy + rad + dark + storm + kinetics? In the same 8 person spawn of mobs?

Whatever works for you, I guess.

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I'd throw the tanker to the wolves and take 7 of any defenders (except bubblers, sorry guys), preferably some rads and darks, AS LONG as they had actually taken and slotted their secondaries! A defender without slotted blasts is handicapped.

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Tanker herds 100+ wolves (over half the map of this instanced outdoors mission)
and calls for us to come visit.

I watch as the inv/ss tanker, with double-rage (recharge SOs + Hasten) uses
1 acc/5 dam Foot Stomp to ARREST THEM ALL.

One power activation. Already at the damage cap from double-rage.

Damage cap should *require* other teammates to be reached. Reaching it on
your own (except maybe for blasters/scrappers) should not be possible.

This is a TANKER doing this.

I know you gave tankers a little melee damage love, but this is too much.

Let's see how many forum 1-star ratings I get for suggesting all AEs be removed
from Tankers and Scrappers...

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50 spines/regen here. AoE scrapper. You get 5 stars. Although I'm curious how you would suggest spines be updated if you took all the AoE away... I'd be for splitting damage 50/50 toxic/lethal and bumping base damage up 50%. Now watch me tear through other melees PvP like tissue paper! Muhahahahah!

You hit the nail on the head alright. Fellow defenders (dark/rad myself), TANKS make you useless late game, not controller secondaries. They don't need you for damage, for defense, for ghetto control. Your simply not needed to a tank-centric team.

Anyways, defenders have a secondary too. One common thing I see is a defender at lvl30 with nearly all their primaries, a bunch of (useful usually) pool powers, and 1 secondary power, usually unslotted. Look, it's your fault if you completely ignore your secondary and then complain about controllers who devote powers and slots to their secondary. If a team is doing O.K. without your heals/debuffs, switch over to blasting. Take your AoEs and slot them up defenders!

Honestly, controllers are a defense/defense build. They should, by design, protect a team better than a defender. It's unfortunate that defenders fixate on their AT name and ignore damage dealing.

I'm for boosting defender secondaries myself. Reduce END drain and increase base damage. Doesn't look like this is happening though. The new defender sets look very "controller-ish", much like dark/