Dr Harmony

Yeah, I'd agree with that. Even for villains, its not a big enough part of gameplay.

It would be better if the "only affect team" powers were noticeably better at helping a team than the "affect everyone" powers, like someone said earlier.

Take Storm and Force Field. Storm allows you to solo well, FF less so. But on a team, when the FF-er rocks up, you get a sense of security that Storm doesn't give you. You know you're getting 40% extra defence unless the FF Defender is asleep at the keyboard, whereas the Stormy gives you maybe a comparable to hit debuff on someone who might be over there by now, and if the Defender can close first.

That's a good balance in my opinion. Solo-able set with some shaky team support vs rocksolid team support that doesn't solo as well (but still gets some self buffs btw). Both sets have a niche.

Newer sets specifically Time, kind of upsets this balance. Everyone including the caster gets the buffs reliably. I cant see a downside, and consequently some of the older sets look a bit lacking.

Debuffers currently do pay for their self-buffing to some degree against AV's and Elite Bosses with purple triangles.

Radiation Infection wont provide the team the same margin of safety that Force Field or Cold shields do in that situation.

Whether that's enough to balance the inability to self-buff, I'm not sure.

I really like having the option to make a character whose power depends on being in a team. I'm currently playing two such characters, and enjoy the fact that I'm pushed into forming teams, rather than just defaulting to solo. (So are my seven teammates, I hope)
I'm glad that there are support sets that solo well too, and I play them.

"Only useable on others" is a legitimate disadvantage to give a power.
Just like "7 foot range" is. It would be nice to be able to use those powers on myself, just like it would be nice if all my Scrappers attacks had their range extended to 80ft so I wouldn't have to run around as much.
Or maybe I should play a Blaster instead?

Empaths would indeed benefit from self targetting. Fortitude itself is close to the entire Super Reflexes set. Adrenalin Boost makes it crazy, and turns the Empath into a Super Reflexes/Regen Scrapper with ranged attacks. I've played in an empath duo, I know the numbers bear out in real play here.

So rather than mahsing all support sets into one model, lets keep them diverse. If you want a self-targetting empath, play Time Manipulation. You can boost your own defence, recovery and regen (sort of) that way as awell as your team. You won't be able to buff a single ally as well as an Empath, but that's balance.

Subdue has an 80% chance of applying a mere 7 second Mag 3 immobilise if it hits. It is an unreliable control.

The Blaster Subdual in Mental Manipulation works 100% of the time when it hits, an applies a 17s Mag 3 immobilise, more like a Controller power with lowered magnitude.

Subdue in Psychic Blast is a flaky control power, its not just you, Rik.

Having seen your list now, I'd expand my earlier suggestion to any team-dependent Corrupter/Defender. Choose from one of the following support sets:

Sonic Resonance
Pain Domination
Thermal
Cold Domination

None of them are brilliant at solo-ing by any means, but they can all do it at a pinch when you find yourself in an empty zone. But you kind of need a team to really power through the levels, and when you do, you really feel your contribution. Its a very different mindset from playing a more independent character. You might find you like it as a change of pace.

You've done Kin and Rad, both of which are very self-supporting, so are Dark, Storm and Time.

Pain Domination is a road less travelled. I've been pleasantly surprised how good it is. With Tactics, and some recharge slotting, it will give you and your team perma-snipe round the clock in I24.

Try it on a Corrupter with any snipe blast set. I've done Beam Rifle, and my main complaint is Anguishing Cry (a pbaoe -res debuff) is at odds with the ranged set. Give Electrical Blast a go. It needs the third single target blast, and plays well at close range with Short Circuit, Ball Lightning, and Anguishing Cry.

I'd say that, yeah, it indicates some degree of skill - in that you've figured out how to get what you want from the game.

I used to take ages to crawl through the lower levels. Now I can get a character to 50 in around 50 hours typically, without really trying. The game has got easier, with smoothed out XP curves and patrol XP and so on, but mainly, I've got more skillful at navigating the game world. I know what to do, how to get on teams, how to use global channels, what each powerset and enemy group does, how to make inf and buy good recipes, and so on.

If all else is equal, is a player with a 50+3 Tier 4 incarnated character more skilfull than a player who plays just as well but only has a level 30 character after say a year's play? I'd say so.

Yep. Recolor your secondary and explain it as Water.

As well as magicwand's suggestions, Water/Force Field could look pretty "hydrokinetic", where you surround yourself and allies with protective water bubbles.

That's exactly what I was thinking, Daemon. Give Ice Slick a chance to apply a small Hold or Sleep (4 seconds or so?) to immobilised targets, using the Block of Ice/Flash Freeze graphics.

Make the hold duration the same as the duration of the knockdown animation, and the chances the same, and you lose nothing from applying the immobilise over the top of the slick. Or, if another player spams their area immobilise, it doesnt gank your control.
(This could also give the set another place to slot Basilisk's Gaze, which is always nice)

For Flash Freeze I'd remove the damage and reduce the cooldown a lot. 30s base wouldn't be unreasonable.

There's a few skills in CoX I notice in other players.

1) Knowledge of the character build system. Can you put together a character who's effective, or are you, for example, leaving your mez protection too late because you dont get what it does? Most players get this, occasionally you meet a new player who hasn't acquired this yet.

2) Teaming skills. Do you drag your team into an old story arc mission full of greys, or get flustered if you run out of radio missions or tips?
3) If you're field leader, eg Tanking, can you keep up a good pace an know when to break for the next spawn, or do you stand around waiting for everyone to say "ready"?

4) Twitch skills. Can you survive big high level groups of enemies on a Blaster? I've got a friend who amazes me by doing just this, hopping around keeping the enemy AI confused, hitting insps, ducking in for a Drain Psyche and pulling off things I couldn't do easily on a similar build.

5) Special enemy knowledge. Do you make sure someones tagging the Immunes Surgeons quickly, or let everyone just try to overpower them with DPS? Do you try to stop Paragon Protectors god-moding or just batter them for a minute until they drop?

None of this is hard and fast. I've seen "Picasso builds" - people who terrible looking builds who do play really well through twitch skills.

Its always a pleasure to run across a teammate with any of these skills though.

I'm not really into the key-matching idea.
I didn't really enjoy it that much in the other superhero MMO I played, which did selll itself as more "twitch", or action-oriented, and relied a lot more on realtime response than CoX does. Hammering the Z key wasn't difficult, just annoying, and no fun.

Like it or not, THB, one of CoX 's appeals for many players is the lack of fast reaction time involved. This could be because of the player, or their computer, or their connection. Its still present, sure, you need to be on your toes to play most characters at a moderate challenge level. But its not a core requirement, the games more build-strategy RPG and resource management (eg insps)

I'd prefer to see mez remain binary rather than become a debuff. The occasional mez isnt terrible, but chain-mezzing is the real buzz-killer.

An idea for dealing with chain-mez (and some other situations).

Everyone gets a "Recover" innate click power with say a 2 minute cool down, probably unaffected by any bonuses like Strength of Will. Clicking this wipes any existing mezzes sitting on the character, and reduces or wipes any debuffs. No pro-active protection is provided, you can get immediately held or debuffed again.

This means it can be used in the following situations that afflict both the mez-protected and unprotected:

- Just fought some Tsoo, and have 6 Siphon Speeds stacked on you.
- Fighting a magic enemy and have crazy To Hit debuffs on you.
- Your recharge is debuffed to the point you can't use any attack powers.

For "squishies", this replaces the 4 break frees you carry in case Plan A goes South. The recharge on this should be long enough that you can't lean on it as a per-spawn tactic, but its there for emergencies, kind of like Rest in early levels.

I remember I was surprised how effective a Kinetics Defender was against AVs. Much of this was due to the -50% damage you can put out straight away with Fulcrum Shift and Siphon Power.
Of course, this trick didn't work against Infernal, who has massive Fire resistance and does Fire damage.

Yeah, I think I've paid an extra $100 or so whilst keeping my subscription up.

That's like buying a whole extra game, and I feel like I've had my moneys worth for sure with all the new stuff thats been added. I'm a big fan of the new model.

It makes sense for CoX to adopt this, since I imagine it has a small but loyal fanbase compared to many other MMOs. I imagine its much more common for a player of any comparable sized fantasy MMO to jump ship than for a CoX player, due to the fairly unique genre here. I say "imagine", I may just be projecting, since thats what keeps me here. But I doubt I'm the only one.

I'm really torn.

Brute pros:
- Higher cap on resistance, but I dont think Ill reach above 75% on anything anyway.
- Higher hit points
- Fury powered damage aura is a bit more powerful than the base Scrapper one
- The lower damage buff from Combat readiness (as opposed to standard Build Up) matters less on Brutes.

Scrapper pros
- Crits and damage from the first second of a fight.
- I might want Weapon Mastery.

Has anyone who played these two sets together got any advice, or is there any other catch with either on either archetype that I'm missing?

I'd say the worst problem is being mezzed for too long.

Get rid of chain mezzing with a suppression mechanism like Johnny suggests.

Change those Mag 3 30 second stun grenades to Mag 5 15 seconds or soemthing. This way a Scrapper can still get overpowered by a big horde of Malta, but Blasters etc dont spend the whole mission staggering. Having a break free wear off and till be stunned is the worse - give Break Frees some mez resistance as well so this doesnt happen.

I too have done a Fire Armor Scrapper, and realised that no taunt aura means mobs running around from Burn. But, it's not the end of the world. Burn's mostly front loaded these days.

If you're having endurance issues, you can take Consume, so I wouldnt waste your epic on that.

I'd have a look at where you can get Immobilises from to help with keeping enemies in your Burn patch and not running around.

Dark Mastery has Tenebrous Tentacles, which can do a whole group. But you want them clumped up first, which means enter melee to clump, jump out, Tentacles, back in, and then Burn.
Blaze Mastery (my pick) has Ring of Fire, which can keep a Boss immobilised pretty quickly.

Theres also the Spectral Interface ability, which adds a chance to immobilise (4 seconds only) to all attacks.
And maybe the Razzle dazzle proc in Sweeping Cross? Does that take Stun sets?

Empathy or Sonic.

Empathy suits Blasters and others who really appreciate the mez protection and defence.

Sonic is better on melee-ers who close in to bring the Disruption Field to the enemies and can stack the resists with their own. Sonic on a Kheldian is fantastic, by the way.

I've got an Electric Armour Tanker with massive resists.

The basic armours, Tough and Tier 3 Resilient Core Alpha Slot give you 87%+ to Smashing/Lethal, well over 90% to Energy, and 50%+ to all other types except Toxic.
I capped myself to 90% S/L with the PvP unique IO that adds +3%, although this was more a vanity thing than practical, just to see those pale blue numbers in my Combat Attributes.

From 22 onwards (basic Powers + SOs) you can be sitting in the high 70s to Smashing/Lethal, and at 90% vs Energy.

Your Toxic resistance will always be a weak point.

Might of the Tanker (the attuned IO set for Tanks) has a proc that adds up to 3 stacks of extra resistance, greta for shoring up your fire/cold/dark resistances.

In I24, set IOs will be getting meaningful resistance bonuses. The ones which currently provide 2% stun protection and other uselss bonuses like that will gain paired resistance bonuses (eg +2% Stun/Smash/Lethal Resistance or +2% Fire/Cold/Hold or whatever, these numbers are guesswork).
This will change the way you can build for resistance a bit, say by slotting Titanium Coating in your resist powers. At the least, you wont need that PVP IO to cap smashing/lethal.

But I still suspect an Electric Armour Tanker will be the way to go.

I paired mine with Martial Arts tog et the defence bonus, and built some layered defence on top of this.

Yeah, I take breaks from the game fairly often, several months at a time. If I get bored, I find something else to do.

I always feel refreshed on CoH afterwards.

I also tend to play different variations of CoH to keep it fresh - eg working heavily with a supergroup for a while, followed by a string of experimental lowbies, and now followed by incarnating out several existing characters who I'd shelved way back.
After that I'm thinking of starting a new villain - I havent been redside in years.

So far, I've always come back one way or another.

Break frees negate knockback as well as other mezzes for the duration of thir effects.

And like you say, the base empowerment buff exists (which incentivizes supergroups, a good thing.)

So any clued up or informed f2p player can get around knockback with a bit of preparation.

"Lack of self heal" has never been an issue for me in the 40s or above.
Inspirations drop like candy, and your need for greens tends to far outstrip the rate at which they drop when you're hardly ever getting hit.

Add in the Med Pack temp power (60 seconds base recharge, no interrupt) for emergencies and you're done.

Electricity Manipulation works pretty well with Electrictiy Blast - it turns you into a viable sapper of sort.

Fire Manipulation may be worth thinking of. You get two fiery sword attacks which may suit your concept, even if you need to color them blue to match your electrical powers.
Mechanically, you get a lot of in close area damage - its not as survivable as Elec x2 but it pumps out the damage.