Cycloid

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I use "hero" or "villain" seeing as how that is exactly what they are...

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Works for me.

Dakan. Rick Dakan. Say it like "bacon."

It's not the "uberest" Inherent, it is of no use solo, and it isn't yet enough in PvP, but I am amazed to hear people say they don't notice it in PvE. I will never take Taunt--getting a villain's attention that way isn't in my character--and so I rely on Gauntlet completely as a consistent part of everything I do as a teamed Tanker. In fact, it often seems to overachieve--a piddling Taser Dart gets aggro off of a group of high damage dealers and onto me, and that's even without Invincibility thrown into the mix.

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I love making characters with rich backstories, and even write some shorts about my mains... and I do RP "a bit" in game, for instance, if I am playing an Alien, I will refer to everyone as "human" or things like that.

However, when someone talks about Superman Returns, or the games bugs, or computers, I will chat about it with them.

How do you handle that? If I break my character and start in on a conversation like that, does it revoke my RP status? To be considered an "RPer" are you your character from log in to log out?

I really know nothing about "RP." I just enjoying getting into my characters... just kind of curious about how others do it.

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I can do a kind of half-measure where I can discuss a topic of the day without really breaking character, but for information about a game bug or something similarly immersion-breaking, I place the comment in [brackets].

That's really the *only* part of RPing which requires an extra effort from me, and the rest of the time I find it to be easier than not RPing. If I were to switch mindsets every few seconds, I'd get brain whiplash.

"Been a paying customer for longer? Well, you'd better expect to pay a heavy price for the same opportunities as newer customers!"

Bravo, Positron! You haven't changed a bit.

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That's an acceptable answer. Sometimes I forget you're more responsive then other devs.



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you guys do realize that the other devs doesn't let _castle_ sit in the same launch table at the cafeteria right?

_castle_ has to sit down alone by himself...except when cuppa is feeling nice.

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And Cuppa is out to E3.

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And CuppaJo works for the publisher and not the studio, and the US headquarters of the publisher is in Texas, and the studio is in California.

Sounds like it's too easy for y'all.

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"You should need a team to beat me solo."

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It's not just for regen scrappers any more!

Oops, fanning flames. Carry on.

Upon reflection, these numbers are going to take a lot of fights firmly into the predetermined stalemate category. Two Melee types could conceivably wail on one another for minutes with little progress, whereas in I6, at least the toggle drop effect of Brawl happened often enough to change things up by allowing a mez to get through or something like that.

So, uh...


Whoops!

Not silly at all. Working from preexisting music:

Action:

Yoko Kanno "Inner Universe"

Quiet moments:

Michael J. Nelson "Jupiter"

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Actually Im pretty certain he's talking about Masterminds when he says "Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors and Dominators are NOT at the bottom of this list, by any stretch".

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Why would he say this if Masterminds are *already* confirmed as getting a boost?

The thread is on the right track.

Uh-oh. Tough questions emerging about AT system!

Blaster: "Hey, why does a Scrapper get both superior damage and superior defenses?"

That's because Scrappers take such a risk to fight in melee range.

Blaster: "But I take a *greater* risk at melee range, right?"

That's right.

Blaster: "To do less damage than the Scrapper would? Why?"

Because you're a Blaster.

Going by those descriptions on the AT select screen, one might think Blasters are the "damage kings," but the actual multipliers combined with the time one can survive to inflict damage in most real-world situations suggest to many that the Scrapper comes out on top. On the other hand, the Tanker description states they are second only to the Scrapper in melee power, and of course Blasters trump them there, so at least Blasters are out-meleeing *someone.*

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So, I've been reading around the tanker forums, get a grasp on how things will be. And I've stumbled upon a couple of sayings that there will be no more detoggling.

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A major overstatement. Let's not put too much stock in forum "sayings" on features the player base hasn't tested yet.

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And although tanks damage isnt te best (Aside from SS), it still can kill quite a few AT's, Brute vs. Tank would be tough. But Tanks still can dish out some insane damage with PVP specced.

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Super Strength isn't the highest damage Tanker secondary. Nor is it the second highest damage Tanker secondary.

The 5th Column Mek Man has got my vote.

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As far as I know - the devs have no plans for including an alternate method to get isolator if you did not get it in outbreak.

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Or "you could not get it in Outbreak" or "you completed the requirements in Outbreak, because the datamining would have been too much work, so no, you don't get it anyway."

For completeness' sake.

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Explain to me how this is "balanced" please....

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Because the cases you mentioned didn't include Giant Monsters.

A great thread! I hope I have a chance to post my own origin here soon.

Who are these other Cycloids? I'll knock 'em flat! (Unless they are, you know, Regen. Or Stone. Or if they move around.)

It's a disturbing rationalization to read: that Controllers are permitted to use many Defender powers more effectively as secondaries than Defenders can as primaries purely by virtue of the fact that they are Controllers. The difference in effectiveness in even the more team-oriented sets used by both is minimal enough even at the baseline, and some Defenders face the idea that they may arguably be less effective users of their own primaries than another Archetype.

Controllers meanwhile benefit from a primary and secondary which combine their effectiveness together to control and debuff enemies while buffing themselves and teammates, with significant damage from pets and a few standout powers which is further augmented by the debuffing and by Containment. Certain Controller builds thus seem perilously close to one-man bands, upstaging the effectiveness of other Archetypes and seeming particularly dominant in PvP combat.

The Controller concept is as follows:

The Controller is at the same time the weakest and yet the most powerful of the archetypes. The Controller has few offensive attacks and possesses the fewest hit points. But the Controller has access to a range of powers that no one else has: the Control power sets. Armed with these powers, a Controller can affect the behavior of villains - from freezing them in place to routing them away. Armed with such abilities, the Controller is the backbone of many groups involved in large-scale battles - but the Controller depends upon his teammates for protection.

Hit Points: Low
Damage: Low

Primary Power Category - Control
Secondary Power Category - Buff

The "Low" hit points are much less of a vulnerability when they get an entire buff set as a secondary, and when that secondary is not uniformly inferior to its use as a Defender primary, and particularly when their entire primary serves as highly effective damage mitigation. The "Low" damage isn't low at all when augmented by the buffs and debuffs available in secondaries--and by Containment, especially with its 3x (!) PvP damage.

Where am I going with all this? Controllers outcontrol Defenders, but also outdamage them (I believe significantly, especially in PvP), are arguably as survivable or more survivable, and at most are only slightly less effective in their use of the very same buff/debuff powersets (and in some situations, they are more effective with those same powersets).

The above description makes it seem as if Controllers were supposed to be as fragile as Defenders or even more so, as low-damage as Defenders or even more so, made them seem as if their primary was vastly more defining than their secondary in the way they played, and ultimately suggests they were supposed to have been as team-dependent as a Defender or more so. I don't believe that any of this has been made true in the game as it stands, and Controllers are, almost without exception, notably more effective both solo and in teams than Defenders are.

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If the devs haven't fixed the actual imbalance, changing toggle drops will be the equivalent of "passing around" the short end of the PvP stick to a different archetype for a bit.

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Or possibly keeping it just where it is, since as it stands lots of Heroes have nothing but Brawl in this department and still need to be able to drop an opponent's toggles to stand a chance of victory.

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Try to make toggle-dropping more power-based and less random.

I'd like to see Tanks get one high magnitude attack that can stun the other melee-ers through status protection. Sort of an Assassin Strike, but high magnitude instead of high damage. It would really bump up their threat level in PvP, without much effect on PvE.

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A very interesting suggestion. I myself have been considering more and more that if the numbers with defense and resistance are considered to be about where they should be and toggle dropping is being brought into line, perhaps Tankers should be granted some offensive punch in a form which would still play and feel differently than the attacks of the Scrapper. I thought about a sort of slow, impressive Tanker "super attack" that would hit one target extremely hard every now and then, but generate massive aggro--a kind of Aggro Alpha, if you will. This would also benefit the Tanker faintly though noticeably in solo and PvP battles, but in a very tangible and fun way!

What do you think?

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Due to our rare ranged attacks being treated like melee I've noticed my Hurl Boulder has been missing alot as well. Just wanted to throw that in there.

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Mine misses without a MISS! indicator. Serious issue.

Myself and a certain heroine met in game and are now together in real life

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Their role is to take the brunt of a spawn's aggro just long enough in order for the rest of the team to be able to eliminate the mobs.

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Statesman! Gah! And was that the "let's make it sound as fun as we can" version!?

Pure player-of-Cycloid opinion follows:

I don't want a melee fighter who is inherently inferior to the Scrapper and quite possibly all other Archetypes except for his ability to "take the brunt of a spawn's aggro just long enough" for the rest of the team to do something that feels fun and superheroic for them. "Short-term meatshield/yeller of insults" is, I firmly believe, not what you wanted for the Tanker, either.

I DO want the other side of the coin from the Scrapper: an effective melee fighter Archetype who is the king of staying alive, as the Scrapper is the king of melee damage.

Does this mean Tankers might sometimes be able to solo as effectively as Scrappers, or even to solo tougher targets at a *significantly* slower pace dependent on slotting? Yes. That's OK. Defensive primary! That's special!

Tanker defensive primaries should be notable and special in PvP and PvE, allowing Tankers a kind of toughness no other hero can approach. Right now, this just isn't so. The base numbers are sometimes just too low, Enhancement Diversification has taken away most decisions about how to customize the powers and led to much heavier slotting of secondaries, Endurance costs cut into effectiveness in other roles. Minimized primary, minimized Archetype; the combined effect has cut into the playability, usefulness and fun of Tankers.

These days, the Tanker is being defined by his HP and Gauntlet, because that's all he needs for the short-term meatshield role you described. The Archetype deserves better. More effective primaries with special characteristics (e.g...random ideas...toggles that don't drop as easily as those of other Archetypes, clearly superior performance to Scrapper secondaries as is lacking with, say, Invuln vs. Regen or especially Ice vs. Super Reflexes, *something*) are needed to define and give life, dimension and *fun* to the role of the Tanker.

Blaster Defiance, Controller Containment: these are examples of pretty good ideas with pretty good implementation. They feel comic-booky and make it interesting and *rewarding* to play those kinds of Heroes differently than the others. The Tanker AT has not got anything like this right now, and the players are feeling it, particularly with increasing PvP content showing them just how they don't matter.

Define the Tanker role as something fun and highly distinct.