DrMike2000

I was turning a brisk trade crafting common IOs on my new batch of characters in their 20s, and watching them evaporate within the hour on four of them, when I got stopped dead in my tracks.

One of my characters had a Luck of the Gambler +Recharge!

This was especially odd, since I'd just been duo-ing radio missions, so it must have been one of those very rare Pool C or D drops you occasionally get from bosses these days.

Sold it straight away, 50-odd million in my piggy bank, cha-ching! Begrudgingly went back to crafting for 3-5 million per batch of fiddly work after that..

Interesting points, BudunkBdunk.

In a multiplayer game its important to have a consistent visual language. In Freedom Force, as an example of a single player game, you could just choose a special FX for any power separate from its game mechanics. If you wanted a cold damage to look like a fireball, you could do it, and no-one would be confused beyond yourself.

In CoH, opening up that level of customisation would have possible impact on teammates, or even worse PVP opponents - a Fire Tanker sees you flinging fireballs around, appraches you with a false sense of security and gets whacked with some hefty cold damage!
(You could already do this to some extent by calling your Ice Blaster "Flaming Man" and giving him a red costume covered in flames, I guess )

You do lose some cool options that make sense by blocking this level of customisation. Fearsome Stare with Fire Breath graphics would be suitable for an illusionist/stage magician character, for example - you frighten opponents with an imaginary fire breath that doesnt do any fire damage.

If it were up to me, I'd err on the side of giving the players too many options to choose from. But I can understand why the power customisation is restricted to some degree.

There are two new invention sets for holds, which have set bonuses that dont suck, unlike the original hold IOs.

Basilisks Gaze: +2.5% recovery for 3 pieces, +7.5% Recharge for 4. Nice!
Lockdown: +3% Damage for 2, double Defence bonus for slots 5 and 6. Pretty cool!

Thats if you're into IOs, of course. If you stopped playing some point in I9, you may have missed them.

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And the tiaras dammit!

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Luke Cage and me couldnt agree more.

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A girl with a shoulder kitty that is actually a werecat and has a male or huge costume option for it's shifted form. (The shoulder kitty would actually be the character in this case)

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Cool! I really like that idea.

Much cooler than my idea.
I'm going to make a girl who can turn into a boy, and her cat is a were-cigar!

Electric Blast trades some damage for safety, in the form of controls via End drain and holds.

With a Dark Defender around you aren't going to need that safety, so I'd advise your friend to NOT slot for End drain. Treat Short Circuit as a high accuracy damage attack, so six slot it for damage, recharge and a little bit of accuracy, maybe even squeeze a damage proc in there. Do the same for Ball lightning, but put more accuracy in because it doesnt have an acc bonus like Short Circuit.

Take the punches from the secondary and use them well - damage and recharge again to get as high a damage output as possible.

Aim and Build Up are required, as is Hasten to get those two self-buffs and the AoEs recycling as fast as possible.

Dark + Blaster works very well, but works best with a blaster's blaster like a Fire Blaster. So my main advice is to make your Elec Blaster concentrate on damage output as much as possible.

For your own power choices, my main advice is to avoid Shockwave,a s this will knock enemies out of your Tar Patch.
Get Howl though, for the -Res it provides on a group. Siren's Song is probably not necessary since you have Fearsome Stare.

So per-spawn tactics:
You lay down Tar Patch, Fearsome Stare them, Howl as your buddy closes to melee range and unleashes Short Circuit and Ball Lightning to kill the minions, he then cleans up the bosses and lieutenants with his electrified fists.
Next Group!

Use Darkest Night and Twilight Grasp as required.

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It doesn't. The highest defense applicable (25% in this case) will be used.

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Well that's sad, I can see why its done this way, but to be honest it doesn't make sense to me..

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Its pretty hard to build up redundant defence these days.

A primary powerset will give you one or the other, eg Ice Armour gives you typed defence and Super Reflexes gives you positional Defence.

But most external buffs cover both bases so as not to favour one scheme (positional/typed) over the other.

e.g. Force Field's Defelection Shield covers Melee AND Smashing/Lethal, Insulation Shield covers Ranged/AoE AND Fire/Cold/En/Neg.
Set bonuses from IOs are now given out as both typed and positional.

I agree with your postulates.

I think Tankers do poor damage-per-endurance, and an across the board end cost reduction wouldnt go astray, let alone a toggle to do so.
I also agree that too many Tankers can become a bit redundant, but so too can too many FF defenders, or too many Controllers, oir a combination thereof. This problem exists across any archetype who trades damage for safety.

I kind of like your stances solution, but feel that its already covered a bit with dual builds. The most obvious use for dual builds for most Tanks would be a solo build (attacks slotted for end redux and dam, defensive powers underslotted) and a team build (less damage, better defences, one attack swapped for Taunt).

Switching builds is do-able often enough to account for variable team composition during one play session, but has the extra hassle of visiting a trainer and setting it up in the first place.

The Tanker toggles idea is ultimately a bit too fiddly and AT specific - a better solution would be a stances system across all AT's, which I somehow doubt will happen, especially now that dual builds are here.

You've got to be kidding!

The Mars and Venus chest symbols are gender-exclusive!!???!!

This isnt a case of needing to make new geometry, but of a deliberate decision by someone. Why?

I know these symbols also stand in for male and female, but its not like its going to open up the floodgates for strange gender-bending characters like "Man-Woman" or "Female-Man" if they did allow them.
And it blocks an option for characters like female Martians and male Venusians.

Go figure...

I dont see it as a problem.
The Achilles proc sort of compensates for a secondary effect that does very little once everyone's slotted for accuarcy.

-Def is nice against Rikti drones or other defence-packing critters, but against the run of the mill PVE content, most characters have their atacks slotted to hit 95% of the time anyway, because nobody likes missing.
When it works, it works very well, but its situational.

A Sonic/ blaster will still output more -Res than a IO'd out Rad Blaster, without having to use up slots or influence to do so.

I've taken a Dark/Rad Defender to 50 and slotted Achilles procs in Neutrino Bolt, Irradiate and Neutron Bomb and it didn't feel game-changingly big. It felt more like the difference between running Assault or not, its there if you look for it.

Its a cool fun set for solo or small teams.

On large teams you get the following problems:

- Dimension Shift really annoys teammates
- Wormhole mildly annoys teammates
- Propel takes so long to animate that your target often dies before it lands.

Solo, all these problems evaporate and you're left with a great Blasttroller set.

That would be great. I find emptying my pockets is currently very fiddly and annoying.
I'd love to have a "dump all salvage for a fixed price" option like this.

Do Aim and Buildup damage buffs transmit to the Sentinel?
Does it do more damage during the ten second windows for these powers?

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Starting from nothing, a Damage enhancement or a End Redux enhancement will offer the same damage per endurance benefit.

But the damage one offers superior dmaage per second too, so its a no brainer which one to slot currently.

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It is a no brainer. You slot for End Redux.

My SS/Inv Brute could solo maps set to diff 2 with maybe a single Rest break from the early teens onwards. 1 Acc and 2 End Red was all I slotted initially in her attacks. I didn't start slotting in Damage until the 30s.

I play the pre-20 levels a lot, and with a very few exceptions I don't see what all the fuss is about End. Anyone who slots for Damage before End Redux has noone but themselves to blame for their pre-Stamina troubles.

Smurphy's Endurance Dysfunction Guide should be a sticky in every AT forum.

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Thats a very Brute-centric view.

I could counter by assuming that everyone is a Defender with injured teammates and prove that Damage slotting gives better DPE than End redux slotting

Very good idea.

Starting from nothing, a Damage enhancement or a End Redux enhancement will offer the same damage per endurance benefit.

But the damage one offers superior dmaage per second too, so its a no brainer which one to slot currently.

Writing code to switch innapropriate enhancements on an origin switch would not be impossible.

Failing that, allowing Origin switch on a respec could also work. It makes in-game sense - a previously Magical hero has an "incident" at Terra Volta and becomes a Science hero with modified powers - well as much game sense as the nucelar reactor/Respec Trial thing ever did .

I've got a couple of characters who I hadn't quite concepted out before I started playing them, and would like to switch origins on them. Not enough to really keep me awake at night, but it would be nice to be able to do so.

So /signed.

I was about to suggest Bitter Freeze Ray but then had a "duh!" moment - grab Dominate instead.

Having two fast firing holds will be very useful for locking down bosses, like a Paragon Protector or bank mission boss who has a god-mode power. Liquefy is a hold, but a short lived and unreliable one.

I reckon that will serve you much better than World of Confusion ever will - that just provides intermittent unreliable minion mitigation and a bit of extra aggro.

Do you regularly run out of Endurance, or run low?

If not, I'd say that it isn't worth slotting, unless you have lots of slots devoted to End Reduction that you could then free up for Recharge, or some back up plan like that.

Sonic/Ice?

Thats a really nice combination, one I dont think I've ever seen in game. Ice provides a lot of the direct "get out of my face" mitigation that Sonic lacks a bit IMHO.

The slotting all looks cool. A few odd points.
- Sonic Cage has a high base accuracy (1.4), so you dont need two Accs in there.
- Hasten is unslotted? I'd try to get 3 Recharge if you take it.
- World of Confusion really is a bit rubbish and doesnt deserve 5 slots. Damage procs are maybe better than actual damage IOs in here too, Im not 100% sure.
- Mass Hypnosis has 2 sleep enhancers. What are you planning to do where an enemy has to be asleep and thus untouched for more than the base 30 seconds? Side aggro management?

For when you come to consider sets, I would like to point out that 5 pieces of Aegis give 4.65% AoE/Fire/Cold Defence and 6 pieces of Thunderstrike offers 3.75% vs Ranged/Energy/Neg.

Thats what I built my Sonic/Energy Defender around and its worked really well for me.

Give all player characters unslottable inherent toggles called Overdrive and Conserve.

Overdrive increases damage maybe 30%, adds some accuracy perhaps +10% To Hit, and increases end cost of all powers by 100%. It gives you worse damage per endurance but better damage per second, representing the times when the hero (or villain) goes all out.
It should not be a sustainable way of life, even for a Willpower-er with Staminaand Quick recovery slotted, hence the large end cost.

Conserve decreases your damage output by 20% but gives you +30% on all end costs. It results in better damage per endurance, but a lower damage per second, for when the character is going slow and steady.

Both Overdrive and Conserve have negligible end costs.

Pros:
1) This helps out low damage classes like Tankers and Defenders in the early pre-Stamina game. They can improve their DPE by using Conserve mode.

2) It adds a tactical element to high level content - fighting an AV with a regularly recurring god-mode for example, you might pop Overdrive to try and get down that last sliver of health before they pop Unstoppable, even though it will drain you.

3) You can ignore this system completely and nothings changed!

4) This could be added as part of the main game, or as a bonus like the Mutant Super-Booster pack.

Cons:

1) Damage is probably not enough penalty. A team Controller or tauntbot Tanker could leave Conserve running without any penalty. Maybe need to add a Power Boost style effect to controls and debuffs to each as well.

2) Numbers would have to be crunched to make sure that there wasn't some magic spot where a power with say +50% damage and +50% end slotting was unanimously improved by either toggle.

The first Freedom Force had a similar system. Champions pen and paper allowed players to "push" their powers for exorbitant END cost, and both those features added a lot to the games if you used them.
Would this work here in CoX?

I dont know if its untrue to the source material, Heraclea.
Its just that its hard to find comics about characters below level 20. Early New Mutants, for example, would show Sunspot and Cannonball both regularly running out of juice, having problems controlling their powers and basically needing all sorts of enhancements as they trained with their powers.

Justice League, FF, the X-Men and the Avengers dont do this because they're level 30+ at least.

Id disagree with removing Stamina and the endurance mechanism - I've currently got 4 out of 10 characters not using it and getting by OK. (PeaceBringer using set bonuses and forms, Fire/Rad duo using AM and Sonic/Mental Blaster using set bonuses and Drain Psyche to top up)

That said, I think Tankers (and maybe Defenders) could definitely do with a bit of an endurance discount on their powers. Doing low damage per second compared to Blasters and Scrappers is cool, and part of the deal when you choose these archetypes. Doing low damage per endurance is the problem here.

I know it drove me away from my first attempt at tanking.

I'd suggest a Dark/Dark Defender - one of my earlier characters. The playstyle changes a bit throughout your early career, giving you a few milestones to look forwards to.

You start off with OK single target damage and a very nice combat heal, which will get you through the early levels either solo or on a team. You can get some extra mitigation from the slow in Tar Patch as well as this power providing extra damage output through the Resistance debuff.

Level 12 - Fearsome Stare can make you stand in for a Controller quite easily on teams

From Level 16 to 23 you start to grow decent AoE damage, and have the ability to survive solo aggro-ing enough enemies to make this worthwhile. You should also pick up Stamina to be able to sustain decent AoE damage output.

This character scales rather nicely between teams and solo, and can fill in a few different roles such as Controller, damage dealer, even Tanker on a team, depending on who else is present.

It also changes playstyle a bit as you acquire key powers, which should stop you getting bored.

Dual Defenders are great.

My best duo involving a Blaster was Dark/Rad Defender and Fire/Energy Blaster. I duo'd most of the Prateorian AVs with these two.
Any Blaster will work, but a Dark Defender adds -Res, best heals in the games which also pack some -Regen and heaps of -To Hit and -Damage.

Its a great parental set to play to enable your wild blaster kid to go to town!

Dark/Sonic would be even better for taking down AVs for the extra -Res. Oh yeah, and both grab Stimulant, so you can keep each other unmezzed.

I'd still love to see:

- Melee/Buff-Debuff AT
- Blast/Armour AT
- Vehicles, even if they're just travel power emotes pulled out of hammerspace

New content would be cool, but I find its the characters I keep coming back for. There's enough content in there to keep things fresh almost indefinitely for me now. Things like a revamped co-op Shadow Shard would be lovely, but not something that I'm absolutely hanging for.

If it bothers you, just start up your own subplot/rumours about a randy shapechanger who pretends to be Captain Mako in order to sleep with gullible young villains.
Drop a comment that your character knows someone else who got tricked this way, thats all.

Don't feel obliged to burst their bubble.
Responding like this in character kind of keeps the peace and preserves continuity on both sides. In their mind, their character is special enough to sleep with Mako. In your mind, they're being fooled by a sleazy morphing wannabe.