DoctorNick

It's not the idea that counts. It's the implentation. If the epic power pools are overpowered, well that's bad. If not, then okay. Who's tested these things yet?

I should say my own little thing that a lot of people post on these boards that the games to hard yadda yadda yadda. And is this an instance of the devs pandering to them? This gives me pause. The most FUN I've had in this game was on respec trials and sewer trials. The fun factor is the challenge factor.

None of this effects my ats, except mission difficulty, but thanks for communicating. Good job. And don't nerf regen .

Blasters don't have a role in teams? You're lvl 50 and never herded wolves using alpha strikes? Heck, most of my post 40 groups were blaster alpha strike groups (me emp defender). I'm not saying nerf alpha strikes. I don't really see a need for that. But lemme tell ya somethin. I played 45 lvls exclusively in groups with my emp defender (I semi-retired him when they changed PI a while back). About 90 percent of my groups were duoing with, or at least involving one or more, blasters.

Well, my main is a 45 emp/psi defender. But right now I've been playing a dm/regen scrapper, who's 27. Soloing compared to my emp defender - well it's a joke. But that's neither here nor there. All my scrappers solo better than my emp defender by a huge margin. My regen scrapper isn't better than my other scrappers, and is less effective than my fire/dev blaster.

I can't say if the high end game needs tweaking for regen. But from the point of view as a healer, scrappers and tanks at high lvl are so strong they rarely need healing. I duoed Inferno with an invul scrapper. He needed about 2 heals, hehe. But that doesn't mean I want to gimp them.

Here's the thing about healing. It becomes useless to advance at high lvls. At lvl 45 I don't need to improve my heals. Here's why. The people that *need* the heals - mainly blasters - don't have enough hps for my heals to be bigger - my heal other refills their bar easily. And the people that don't really need the heals I have plenty of time to top them off. My healer was sked to lvl 50s a ton so I've seen most of that content.

But honestly, the easiest class I played was fire/dev blaster, if you're talking about leveling fast. Granted, this was pre-smoke grenade nerf, but the aoe stuff is incredibly useful. I quit him because he was just too easy.

My regen scrapper is lvl 27. I understand that at 28 with instant healing we get a lot better. Gee, that would be nice to get my great power and have the class nerfed. As is, I don't see my regen scrapper any better than my other pre-30 scrappers.

The OP's point hasn't been addressed, and cuppa joe's response doesn't actually respond to it. The KEY is loot. And then raid content. Those are the two big holes missing in Coh. You can talk about explorers, blah blah blah. IN 99 percent of rpgs there is loot and in most mmos getting the best loot requires raiding. Why? Acheiving difficult objectives and getting substantial rewards is funner than achieiving trivial objectives with no rewards.

The "casual gamer" doesn't want big stuff that requires strategy and an effort and spending some time doing something. Fine. But ultimately it makes for a shallow game, where you do the missions over and over in the same time of environments (how many warehouse mishes have lvl 50s done?).

And. There's practically no endgame. Hamidon. Okay. How many players in this game have killed him? .01 percent I'd say. How does that effect the "casual gamer"? How many will kill him? Not many. Most will just either quit or restart at lvl 50. Heck I got my healer to 45 and there was no reason to continue - he could heal fine as is, there were no new powers I needed, and I'd been sked so much I'd seen most of the 50 lvl content (and all my travel badges, including Hamidon).

Those who say "it's the journey, not the destination" I argue in a great game it's the journey AND the destination. Lvl 50 should have a ton of stuff to do and have fun.

I really don't get the attraction of Epic AT. As an emp defender, at lvl 45, I pretty much felt I didn't need to lvl any more. I could heal 50s fine then. Maybe it's different with other classes. I'd been sked so much and seen so much 50 lvl content I just started a new class. There just isn't enough high end raid content for me to care about epic AT.

/agree. I've posted this before. Others have as well. Don't get why you can't do this.

Grouping vs. soloing is a zero sum game. The less people that group the less people can solo.

Now, you can encourage grouping by having loot. But Coh has no loot.

People do group in Coh but from my experience the majority is duos. That tends to be the groups I get. You got tfs, which I've done a lot, and which are fun. But none post 40.

Here's what gets really tedious in Coh. Alpha strikes. Alpha strikes ruin the strategy of this game. I've been in so many groups where the blaster just runs in a boom, dead grp. Okay, I'm gettting exp. But what's the point?

Also, post 40 most scrabber/tanker builds don't need heals. Why? So they can solo? So why have defenders?

There are some great zones at high lvl, but because of the reliance on damge, because once builds can stack certain powers they're nigh on invincible, the game becomes tedious.

Statesman, I really would like to hear your opinion on damgage versus support.

Damage stacks. That is, solo classes like scrappers and blasters combined can bring quick kills to a group that rakes in the exp.

Yet these classes, blasters and scrappers, also solo better than any class (save for fire tankers and fire controllers).

So these guys stack together better than any of the classes, but they also solo the best.

Why shouldn't emp defenders be the best groupers? If I could say anything in one sentence it would be that. So much is dependent upon damage in this game, well, its just outta whack. We're the only class who has a half our stuff other only.

I'm not saying defenders are useless, no. We have our role. But do you honestly think leveling a defender is the same as leveling a scrapper? I mean, come on.

It's inevitable that you have criticism. It's important that it shouldn't be based on personal attacks, even if the criticism is wrong.

It's legitimate for players to talk about game mechanics. It's not legitimate for them to rip the red names with insults.

Really, it's a game we like and we want to make it the best it can be. We can be wrong. The Devs can make mistakes. The important thing is to keep in mind we're all just interested in having a fun time in game.

The ultimate logic to this is, if everyone can solo fast, everyone should be able to solo equally fast.

Most defenders, I'm betting, take twice as long to 50 as blasters. Please, tell me the "logic" of that. I'd like to see some datamining on that.

And if everyone can solo so fast, why should you create a class (empathy) that has half its powers as OTHER ONLY. Please justify that. What's the point of having an other only class in a soloing game?

And is the argument that everything in Coh should be soloable. Should you be able to solo Hamidon? Why bother investing in servers? The stuff is on your comp, you can solo offline.

And I don't buy the "casual gamer" argument. I've got a full time job. I group. I don't even have a super group. Just pick up groups. Because that's what I enjoy.

I can solo at lvl 41 as a emp/psy defender. I probably have the worst build imaginable for soloing. I mean I have all my heals, leadership buffs, etc. - I'm TOTALLY slotted for grouping.

But I can solo missions np. I can solo white cons (depending on zone) np.

And I'm a group build. And you have a solo build and you can't solo? Are you kidding me? Do you not have a keyboard? Is the mouse unplugged?

You want to solo? It's quite easy (and boring). Make a fire/dev blaster, or scrapper with invulnerability. I'd go with scrapper. You can solo to you your hearts content. There are many other builds, but these 2 can get you started.

Lemme give a "profession de foi". (okay, fancy french blah, it means my take).

I was just duoing docks with a blaster. A lvl 50 controller was helping us out smoking the mobs. I also know the controller had been pled. He's a nice guy and that's all good.

But I didn't like it. I don't like being helped. It ruins my game experience. By no means was it easy, two 41s clearing docks isn't exactly cake, even with a controller, cause he'd go afk. We coulda done it alone. But he *was* helping us.

I don't want help. I am a superhero! But at least the guy got me outta debt .

Pling doesn't hurt other players? It's the same as people buying characters. They haven't bothered to play their class, learn their AT, and develop a modicum of strategy.

I.e,, you group with them, they get you killed.

Aside from the fact that it's just gimp.