Dispari

Also since I'm hitting myself, the hit rolls are pretty staggeringly high. Even if he wasn't level 16 to my 51, a normal enemy my level wouldn't have a 95% chance of hitting me. Or even someone with zero defense. It's practically a free pass to autohit a high damage attack.

There are a ton of AVs, GMs, scripted events, and even bosses that can kill players in one hit. Just because they only named Recluse doesn't mean more don't exist. I have a widow with about +40% total HP, who is over soft-capped at all times, and she can still die. Not generally due to me being a blithering idiot who refuses to learn how to play, but because the game just works that way sometimes.

Off the top of my head, the following things can all kill her in one or two shots: Lord Recluse, Ghost Widow, Statesman, Bobcat, Goliath War Walker, Battle Maiden, Battle Maiden's blue patch, Back Alley Brawler, Citadel, Positron, Hamidon, Weakened Hamidon, Honoree, Romulus, Thorn Tree, rikti Pylons, and basically any AV or turret from the new trials. Heck there are plenty of EBs that can, like Longbow Ballista, and even regular boss Bane Spiders, Cimerorans, and Knives can one-shot her if they crit.

So despite having 50-60% DEF, self heal temps, Smoke Grenade, hide, and Placate, unless my character is at 100% full HP at all times during all this content, there's always a risk of me just dying randomly. There's also nothing I could really do to prepare myself or pay more attention in those situations other than spam greens as fast as possible every time I take any damage of any kind. Or just don't fight and hide behind a rock. I don't believe that a harsher death penalty would serve to teach me anything, other than "death really sucks a lot more than it used to," and maybe "I should play a sturdier AT or perhaps another game." And it certainly wouldn't go very far against lower level, less prepared characters and players. Especially those running around Praetoria.

It would certainly take all the appeal out of Vengeance, and make me hate the character and even the game. She died last night when I was playing the game while cooking, and had no access to a mouse, and couldn't reach a green when a Cim boss hit me. I just rezzed when the coast was clear and kept moving. Had I been severely punished, all I would've learned is "Um, don't play CoH while cooking I guess." Maybe that's the moral you're going for though, I dunno. Personally, I like that I can play CoH while cooking and not get stressed over it.

Since someone earlier was asking why MMOs don't need to have severe death penalties, I'll fill in on another reason based on this paragraph.

Different powersets, and different archetypes, have varying predispositions for dying. Meaning, severe death penalties would hurt (and discourage) Blasters far more than it would Tankers. It would also discourage powersets like Fire Armor, which is designed to not be super tough, but just resurrect when you die. It would also more greatly value the ability to resurrect people or keep them from dying in the first place, which would put a heavier emphasis on the classic "tank-healer-DPS" mold that we want to keep out of our game, and let people continue to keep playing whatever they feel like.

Why does the death penalty need to increase? You say yourself it's barely more than what we have, so what does this achieve?

It would be impossible for there to be no death penalty at all, unless characters were just invincible. Even in CoH, just the timeout from combat, having to rez or be rezzed without toggles and possibly dying again, or in the worst case walk back from the hospital are a form of death penalty.

With my Dominator, the worst death penalty is that I have to wait for Domination to recharge, as I'm a lot weaker without it.

The point I was trying to make is, just because everyone else does it, doesn't make it a good idea.

I think you'll find a lot of people playing CoH who can still muster accomplishment out of the game even if they don't lose significant and/or effort work when they die. I think it would be terribly boring if the only way to measure accomplishment is the act of not dying. Fortunately, our playerbase and developers are far more creative than that.

There are many billions of reasons why death penalties don't particularly work in an MMO. My personal reason is that MMOs are about social interaction. They're more about having fun than competing or "winning." You don't have limited lives to beat the game with because there's no way to beat the game. And you don't need limited lives to pit yourself against other players and see who comes out on top because the game's not about that. So, death is a part of the game, but it need not be severe.

If every other genre of game jumped off a bridge, would MMOs do it too?

Yup; take a look at this post to see why.

You can stack more than one. I've done it just from attacking normally. Rain powers make it a lot more obvious, as they can kill +3 lieutenants easily.

1) Incarnate stuff is bugged in arena.

2) I doubt it's WAI, as all patches (including things like Caltrops) are now nukes that stack the debuffs to their maximum, for the entire patch duration, on all targets. Reactive's DoT can turn Rain of Fire into a power that can wipe out spawns of 54s including lieutenants.

You're welcome.

Well, they did attack Nerva.

I would go core on Pyronic, and maybe Ion depending on what you're going for. Radial for everything seems like a good choice though -- other than Pyronic which has kind of lame Radial bonuses.

Ion, Void, and Cryonic only get the 20% damage proc. Which on the whole isn't that great (on average it only adds about 32.126 damage at rare, which is only about 7.5% more damage). Pyronic at its best, however, adds a lot more damage (102.816, which is about 24% more damage). If it's your goal to just do lots of damage, Pyronic is the way to go. If however you want to debuff or mez, the other powers have great options. In my opinion, Void has the best debuff.

It's worth noting though that Ion has some interesting perks that make it worth having. It hits a huge number of targets (up to 40) and the chain mechanism allows it to leap to nearby spawns or even hit the same target more than once. Its secondary effect of end drain is also not very useful unless you're already doing end drain, so in the context of a not super useful Radial effect, it may be worth taking Core anyway. Unless the hold is valuable to you (it's mag 4, but the duration is short and the proc is low chance).

In answer to the OP, I don't think Cryonic is very good. I would stick with the Pyronic. And no, you can't as of yet break down powers (my Dom has a Musculature laying around I wish I could do something with).

All the info for all the stuff can be found in my guide too, if anyone wants to see an out-of-game reference list.

I just stood next to a Pylon for several minutes (they have a 25 foot radius AoE attack) and my MVAS seems to be fine.

They also fly so I don't know how it could take falling damage. But even so, falling damage can't kill things and is a special mechanic. If in theory they can take falling damage but nothing else can target them, they still can't be killed.

They're targetable but not buffable, and aren't affected by AoE buffs. Enemies don't attack them, or even be alerted by their presence.

No, -DMG is resisted by +RES. It definitely is not unresistable.

On the other hand, this could be cause and effect. Add more stuff to do redside without simultaneously adding things blueside, and there will be more villains.

Speaking as a math nerd, Googol and Googolplex are lame. They don't end in a number of zeroes that is divisible by three, and therefore fail to properly name a set of numbers. By which I mean, instead of naming the thousandths place (1000-999,000), it instead is the name of 10,000 (except with a lot more zeroes).

Googol (and -plex) have no real mathematical significance, other than making big numbers for "regular people" easier to relate to or imagine.

Well, it's a fairly simple pattern. It goes:

Hundred (first set)
Thousand (three zeroes)
Million (six zeroes)
Billion (nine zeroes)
Trillion (twelve zeroes)
Quadrillion (15 zeroes)
Quintillion (18 zeroes)
Sextillion (21 zeroes)
Septillion (24 zeroes)
Octillion (27 zeroes)
Nonillion (30 zeroes)
Decillion (33 zeroes)
Undecillion (36 zeroes)
Duodecillion (39 zeroes)
Tredecillion (42 zeroes)
Quatturodecillion (45 zeroes) <--Our number falls here
Quindecillion (48 zeroes)
Sexdecillion (51 zeroes)
Septendecillion (54 zeroes
Octodecillion (57 zeroes)
Novemdecillion (60 zeroes)

And so on. After million, everything is done with prefixes, and it's basically just like counting. The "n zeroes" can also more easily be expressed as 10^n, such as Undecillion being 10^36.