DrMike2000

Forget about story arc merits, they're devalued now.

The new Tip system is by far and away the best way to get what you want.
For example, a Croatoa arc (around 5-6 missions?) gets you 8 merits, lets say 1.5 merits per mission. Maybe 2 at best.

10 Tips missions and the morality mission get you a Hero or Villain merit, which I'd value at 100 merits*, or about 9 merits per mission. Unlike story arcs, these can be done casually, and with teams of any mixed level makeup (which Ouroborus doesn't always allow). If you only have time to do 2 today, you get rewarded for doing exactly 2. If you do all 5, you get that amount of reward. You can team or solo or change every mission as you fancy.

The only downside is having to stop after 5 for your day, which only really penalise those with heaps of playtime. Which is not you, Plain Guy.

I used to farm the Spy Hunt story arc for merits on my Stalker, racking up 16 per run. This took 20 minutes of playing followed by a 90 minute wait while I did something else. On a good evening I could do this 3 times for 48 merits, and it almost felt like an exploit.
These days I just do 5 tip missions for 50 equivalent merits. If I want to team, I team, if not I solo.



* 5 random rolls = 100 Reward Merits or 1 Hero Merit, 1 specific recipe of your choice = 125-240 Reward Merits or 1 or 2 Hero merits

I disagree there, Ian.
Radio missions already have some limited plot or frills beyond what's required by the game mechanics. First time I saw the P.L.O.T. device I laughed, and was more entertained than if it had just been "Recover the objective". Adding some personality NPC dialog is in the same vein.

MY FF/Sonic ran Dispersion (with Red Fortune), Manouvers (Red Fortune), CJ (basic slotting), Tough (with Aegis + SteadFast Unique) and Weave (Red Fortune).
So the expensive toggles had at least 50% end redux, possibly 95% in some.

I also had aound +10% Recovery from IO bonuses I think, and the Atlas Medallion and Portal Jockey accolades for 5 extra Endurance each.

My attacks had over 50% end redux typically, and I still ran out of endurance. Adding the Performance Shifter unique to Stamina on top of 3 end mod equivalents helped out a lot.

During longer battles, I'd turn off Tough, that also helped big time.

If you're looking hard for a situation where FF wins out, Malta is about as good as it gets.

Mez protetcion and End Drain Resistance go a long way against them. Even then, the FF-er themselves can get sapped, and everyones mez protection goes down. A Stun grenade still means "stay next to the FF-er for 30 seconds or become stunned".

I think the OP is correct. In most situations, Cold offers a much wider variety of tools than Force Fields does. Super Reflexes is in a simialr situation with Shields. The old sets still work, but the newer more versatile ones are a bit better.

Energy Aura has no Toxic or Psi Defence, which hurts in the late Villain-side game.
It has mediocre Smashing and Lethal Defence, especially if you don't want to be invisible.

They're the main reasons I havent played this set.

I have really enjoyed the extra personality displayed by the NPC villains and heroes in the tips missions.

Adding this for radio missions would be kind of nice. No additional tech required, and a good community building exercise to open it up to player suggestions.

/signed

I remade my level 43 MA/SR Scrapper as a Stalker and took her to 50. I loved it. I missed Dragons Tail a bit at first, but the combination of hard ST damage and control was great.

I havent played a Stalker with AoE attacks though. that experience may spoil you for St sets like Martial Arts, I wouldn't know.

Cool!
I've never managed to get very far with Cold Domination myself, but I can see it would make an awesome duo. I love the Dark Mastery pool. Soul Drain, double Sleet, Blaster level rain powers... nice! Its good to see them working in practice like the numbers would predict.

That downstairs triple spawn room of death makes a very good demo. Been there, died many times...

And hats off to you for managing to do all this completely manually. I can see how your stealth powers help out a lot with that for setting up each group in quite a leisurely manner.

How would they interact with Build Up and Aim, which are CoH's closest existing equivalents?

Say I Build Up and fire off a few attacks, and have 3 seconds of buff left. I then start charging an attack which can charge for 4 seconds.

Does Build Up apply if it was active when I started or release? Either way, I've got some odd decision making to do. If the Build Up buff wears off, I get best bang for buck releasing 3 seconds in. If the buff applies from starting the chargeup, then I'd be best off starting a lengthy charge up just before Build Up ends, in this case getting in a quick filler attack before charging.

I quite liked the charge and maintain powers in CO, but I think there are a few hurdles to bringing them over to CoH.

Oh yeah, and leave my instant-tap knockback alone

I'm no huge Tanker connosieur, but my Invulnerable/Kinetic Tank is performing fine so far now that I'm over the initial hump with Invulnerability. I havent taken Sonic Siphon yet, so I cant comment on that.

Kinetic Melee would really fit the vibe of "Sonic Melee". If you do re-roll, I'd definitely pick it over Energy Melee.

"Knightly Arts" would be better off as "Weapons Master", including more modern variants as well as the medieval versions. This way it could include present day superhero characters such as Taskmaster or Terminator (Slade Wilson) as well as medieval themed ones.

Same game mechanics, but let the mace be replaced with a nightstick and so on, just like the current War Mace customisations allow for a range of different concepts.

I'm not clear if you're asking for multiple weapons within the one pool or the player chooses on weapon to apply across all powers from this pool. If its the first (multiple weapons) then will the costume UI fit this for choosing weapons? I'm not sure.

Final note - a lance without a horse wouldn't look too cool. And what do you do with your lance attack if the enemy is already in conventional melee range?

Are Reward Merits and Vanguard Merits deletable too?

Login emotes tied to day jobs could be a nice twist on this idea.
eg checking the police Scanner/Paper for Patroller/Criminal, digging for Grave Digger, clipboard if you were logged out in a hospital, book in a university and so on.

Not that it's something thats ever bugged me, and I wouldn't really want the devs to spend much time on it.

Full power customisation on the other hand, right down to power effects and animation and attachment point, would be incredibly awesome. A lot of work, but well worth it. I'd much rather see that sort of power in player hands than have the devs develop another powerset in fact, since most game mechanic points are covered now, but many concpets aren't.

e.g. rather than make a "Raygun blaster" set with whatever fixed game mechanic, allow existing sets to be turned into rayguns that shoot fire, energy, ice etc.

For Emp/Archers and an Emp Controller, dont slot for end mod, you don't have any crashing nukes.
Slot for recharge first, and for heals if you have the slots - it also provides between 500% and 1000% regen depending on slotting. You can always find a situation where there s just a little bit more incoming damage and you need that extra regen.

Biospark's advice on Doctored Wounds is excellent, if you're up for acquiring 6 sets of them (for Regen Aura and AB). The End/Heal piece is skippable for these powers, the other 5 give you around 82% heal and capped recharge.

Tip missions are very group friendly.
Everyone works together to do missions of the same alignment, and everyone gets merits for doing them - either normal merits for Rogues and Vigilantes, or Alignment Merits for Heroes and Villains.

Its like running radio missions but getting merits for doing so, and it seems to be the activity of choice for much of Paragon and the Rogue Isles at the moment.

So you don't need to solo story arcs any more to get merits.

Yeah, definitely slot Regeneration Aura with 3 Heals as well as 3 Recharges (or 4 Heal/Rech IOs to come pretty close)

Adrenalin Boost also provides the same +Regen bonus, so what you're seeing with unslotted Regen Aura is basically 1/4 of the Regen bonus you'll achieve later on - double it for slotting and double it for two powers. Thats when it really gets noticeable. At 20 times the base regen you're going from zero to full in 12 seconds or so. One unslotted aura takes about 48 seconds to fill your health bar.

Recovery Aura on the other hand gives you all the End you can eat without slotting.

Its perception. In the thick of fighting, you attack 20 times a minute easily, so you'll be missing at least once per minute, which adds up to a lot of misses over several hours play.

And each miss can seem special at the time.

"That hit was going to stun the Sorceror before he could teleport away"
"That was my best attack recycling, now I have to wait 20 seconds for it to recharge"
"I'll now have to use two other attacks to take that guy down"
"Because I missed, that Freak got a chance to activate his heal"
"I'm almost out of Endurance!"
"I'm at 5% health"

and so on.
There aren't that many misses that you don't notice, because each attack is intended to do something, however small.

I disagree with what you're saying there, je-saist.

The Blaster secondaries do not need to be patterned along such tight lines. The game is not poorer for the existence of pattern-breakers like Devices or Energy Manipulation but richer.
It's harder to balance because of them, yes, but more fun to play.

I think a Martial Arts themed Blaster secondary would be really well received by the player base, and I have every confidence that our dev team are capable of creating one that isn't hideously out of whack.

Oh, and Inertial Compulsion is a terrible name.



On to your ideas, Doc...

Cobra Strike as a Tier 1 hard control is too much for a Blaster, even if its just minion level stun at melee range. I think it would need either a less than 100% chance of stunning, a short duration of 4 seconds or so (similar to a knockdown) or just be changed to a knockdown maybe? call it Judo Throw even?
This is the power you can use while mezzed as well, so making it a melee has disadvantages... Hmm...

Burst vs Dragons Tail: Just give it both animations as alternates. Everybody's happy! Come to think of it, being able to choose Kinetic Melee style anims vs Martial Arts anims would be a real bonus across the set.

Power Siphon... Currently no Blaster sets have alternate build ups do they? A PBAoE one like Soul Drain is usually able to reach higher heights at greater risks, and I guess we'd have to consider Soul Drain + Aim + Nuke next to a Tanker or other safety provider to make sure it wasn't too good.
I'm not massivley sold on Power Siphon yet in KM, and it works a lot like a temporary version of Blaster defiance.
This might be a risky move in a set thats breaking a few patterns already.

For the missing Tier 8 - would Caltrops work? Its thematic, and provides safety over more attacks.

Overall, I really like the idea though. Marrying Martial Arts and KM in a blaster secondary would be awesome.

I dont think inherent Fitness will make much of a difference to the level 1-10 experience.

I hardly ever run out of endurance then, due to having fewer ways to spend endurance. The crunch usually comes in during the teens, once Ive picked up some AoEs and toggles, and have a smoother attack chain.

Health wont make a difference to rest time between fights even, that's still limited by the recharge on Rest.

So you'll run a bit faster and jump a bit higher. It wont be game-changing in the way that 3 extra vet attacks are.

My Dark/Rad Defender controls the powers of light and darkness, and did so before power customisation come to think of it.

I highly recommend the combo. Rad provides pretty much the one debuff that Dark doesn't, and Dark give you the safety to get up close and mass-Irradiate the bad guys with impunity.

Defence (from double Fortitude) and Regen will see you through fine.
Slotted Fortitude alone from one Controller and one Defender is 42% Defence to absolutely everything. Hover will softcap you.

There's no way that 3 Empaths need any more survivability. Just make sure you all take Assault.

Expensive versions of the new temporary powers like Envenommed Dagger, Kinetic Dampener and both Grenades with longer charges/number of uses.

They're mutually exclusive with the base powers, but let you carry 100 grenades, or a 2 hour Kinetic Dampener, for 20 million per crafting.
They don't allow the rich to do anything they can't already do, but make people pay for convenience.

Illusion also benefits from any self-buff to Recharge, which means Kinetics or Radiation.

Radiation really is the best choice numerically. I enjoyed Illusion/Storm a lot though.
You've got a good set of anti-AV skills there, with Tornado doing the damage blender on top of Freezing Rain while the Phantom Army tanks for you.