Dromio

Well, I've been saying for more than a year that FF makes a far better secondary than a primary. It's good to have that confirmed.

Thanks for the response Castle

Though I would answer no in both cases, I think it's a mistake to simply ask if Stalkers feel overpowered without specifying PvP or PvE. Broken down like that there might be more answers that would point out to the players that are SO concerned with Stalkers in PvP that changes to the AT really need to be PvP specific.

In PvE Stalkers are just fine. Barely.

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Unfortunatley, since it seems to be the only efficient pvp power early on in the powerset, it's the only one used. That seems unfair and unbalanced for both the stalker and their prey. can't we tweak the numbers a bit, tone it down a little and bring the other attacks up in damage a little?

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Good lord no. At that point you might as well just have transferred the Scrapper AT.

I believe that what's down the line is that they are going to make AV class foes not able to be one-shotted. And that players in PvP will be considered AV class foes. I think that's a good compromise that won't effect PvE in any noticeable way, but will remove the complaints about one shotting (and replace them with complaints about two shotting).

Stalkers worry me simply because I'm sure the player base will get them unneccessarily brought down, and they really don't have a lot of wiggle room in PvE.

I agree with this post.

Our SG has a guy in it that hasn't been logging into CoV. Turns out he's been having a ton of fun logging into CoH as his NRG/Ice blaster and going to Bloody Bay to kill Stalkers. It's pretty ridiculous the kill numbers he comes back with.

I think the Stalker debate is one that will be resolved with patience, and I certainly hope that the developers exercise that patience.

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I see absolutely no reason to have this fixed for one set of NPCs and not the other.

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One would assume it's because different code sets control "citizen" NPC AI as opposed to mob NPC AI.

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It actually makes perfect sense to me even without the technical reasons explanation.

1) the ones who are supposed to fight alongside you, you have to be able to fight alongside. You can't fight without Hide as a stalker, and the enemies are balanced assuming you have the assistance, so they had to fix them to see you and help even when you're Hidden. Not to mention the ones who give you stealth themselves with Shadowfall or Steamy Mist.

2) the hostages don't help you and don't need to fight alongside you. You are meant to clear to them and then lead them out. Sure you might get ambushed, but you can hide, kill the ambush, then uncloak and finish leading the hostage out. Much more reasonable.

It does not really make sense that you could keep hold of the hostage during a fight if your fighting style involves striking from shadows anyway. They'd give you away with a muffled warning or something to your enemies. Better to let them go then find them again after you clean up the ambush

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I like that the hostages can't see you when hidden. I had a mission the other day where I didn't clear the way out, so I would lead the hostage to a safe place, then hide so she wouldn't follow me. I'd then go and clear the enemies out. Then I go back, unhide, and she follows me to the next safe place.

It was very cool. Very real. She cowers in a safe spot while I go and clear out the next set of bad guys, then we move forward.

I like the hostage stuff the way it is.

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*3 - There is nothing you can say to justify a situation where someone can be killed from FULL HEALTH, in one attack.

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So how are you planning on dealing with those pesky inspiration popping blasters? Or those pesky inspiration popping Scrappers? Or those pesky inspiration popping Brutes?

It's all well and good to make dramatic proclamations, but as long as you have inspirations you are going to have the possiblity of a one shot kill from any of those AT's and possibly controllers as well. And that one shot kill could easily happen from Stealth, and even from long range.

As far as I'm concerned they can make any changes they want to Stalkers in PvP, as long as it doesn't effect the AT in PvE.

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And if you think I am the only Bubbler who likes it...you *really* need to get out and talk to experienced Bubblers more.

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I like Force Bolt quite a bit as well. What a great power. Not overpowering by any means, but useful at low levels (especially) and at high levels. Nothing like clearing out the Minions and then keeping a boss on his backside for the entire rest of the battle.

One of those great little powers.

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This makes sense, because you shouldn't be taking more slots from your secondary than your primary (which is called your primary for a reason) and then complaining because your primary isn't performing at an effective level.

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Another person that's never played a Force Field defender.

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With a good high level Defender, you don't always need a Blaster.

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You have to be getting your damage from somewhere, and not all Defenders can substitute for a Blaster by any means. Maybe I'm weird but I would never pull a Defender onto a team if I were looking for a damage dealer, I'd get a Blaster or Scrapper. Or even a Controller depending on the levels we're talking about.

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Now that is what we're talking about with the perception problem. With tar patch, my dark defender can up total team damage by 30%, and, in long battles, by 60% with stacked tar patches. Do the math: the increase in damage by my 1 defender will be like adding 2 or 3 blasters if you're running an eight person team. And my DDD will be doing some other nutty things.

The only defender that can't increase damage is FF.

Just something to chew on. In large teams, blasters and scrappers are not the kings of damage. Defenders are through their buffs and debufss.

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Well the post indicated that a Defender could take a Blaster's place. I mentioned that not all of them could, and I stand by that. As you mentioned, a FF defender can't increase party damage. As an FFer that was my point.

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With a good high level Defender, you don't always need a Blaster.

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You have to be getting your damage from somewhere, and not all Defenders can substitute for a Blaster by any means. Maybe I'm weird but I would never pull a Defender onto a team if I were looking for a damage dealer, I'd get a Blaster or Scrapper. Or even a Controller depending on the levels we're talking about.

I have an FF/Dark (shelved) at 38 and a Dark/Energy (happy) at 39.

I think to a large extent the developers HAVE to be happy with defenders, simply because of all the overlap. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Dark primary is the only Defender set that's seen major changes; they can change that set without worrying about how it will spill over to Controllers. When you look at improving Storm or FF or really any of the other primaries you have to balance changes for two AT's rather than one, and that's not a small task.

I see a lot of the issues this game has run into post-release as related to overlapping power lists. I certainly hope that we are learning from that, and not including overlaps in CoV.

To me Radiation and Dark are the two lines that should be held up as examples of how Primaries should be. With my Dark Defender I took eight of the nine powers in my Primary line (even before the Dark Pit change), all are usable solo or in a group, and most if not all are usable in a wide variety of situations. I think Rad is similar. That's the mark of a good Primary. I can say without hesitation that Force Field isn't even vaguely in that ballpark, that city, or even that county. I'm hoping that the evaluation of the DEF based sets will bring some changes to FF.

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I liked alot the Blue King comic because it was obvious that they were using stuff that was in the game we play everyday . The way the heroes were dressed the same we can dress our own heroes . The bold words relating to things we do in the game . I also liked the art and colors .

The TopCow comic is not bad thought.

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I agree 100%. This isn't bad, but I think it was easier to identify with the earlier heroes, they were more like my in game characters in terms of power levels etc.

There are currently no options for changing the look of the swords in katana or long sword, though they have said they want to add something like that.

If that's not what you meant, please clarify and we'll try to answer.

Thanks!

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Well, I ask one thing. Stop trying to nerf me to your play style. HO's and accolades are optional as is the Arena.

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I think most people just want more options, which is a good thing. They want to be able to see if someone has Hamidon ENH before they battle them in the Arena, or have an option to level Hamidon ENH in the options for the battle (much like the ability to disable travel powers).

For the most part, no one is trying to nerf your style, they're just asking for more options.

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This Hamidon nerf is huge. I literally LITERALLY now have to farm the Hamidon 40+ times. Thats for ONE character to be viable in high end PvP.

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Well that's sort of what this thread is about right? The ability for you to "viable in high end PvP" without having to farm Hamidon for uber loot at all. I don't see this as a nerf, I see it as an indication that:

- Characters were never meant to have a lot of Hamidon ENH

- They don't want the Hamidon encounter to be a factor, or just a small factor, in PvP.

I think this is just the first step, but I'm expecting more down the line, possibly limiting Hamidon ENH, having an option to remove them, or having an indicator that a person has them.

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I believe Statesman already comment on the SS/Scrapper issue. I don't recall the exact wording he used but that was the gist of it is was to keep certain power sets unique to certain ATs

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Kinda like Energy Blasters or Rad Defenders? Not trying to take a shot at you, just making the point that a lot of powersets are shared across archetypes and it in no way takes away from the core archetype.

I don't want to derail the thread, I've already discussed this topic at length in others, I'd just be interested to see what reasoning the dev team has for making such an arbitrary restriction. It just doesn't make a lot of sense.

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I'm not surprised they would do this, I think the shared powersets have caused them no end of grief. Currently there's the debate about the controller/defender shared powersets (why are controllers secondaries nearly as good as Defender primaries?), and the tanker/scrapper shared sets (do invul scrappers obsolete Tankers?).

I'm betting they'll try to stay out of that situation from here on out.

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I agree, Umagon. Automated and uncontrollable, that’s not a direction I really want to go. I wish they would discuss this with us a bit more.

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That would be no different from critical hits, which are automated and uncontrollable, and thus don't change tactics much, if at all. Anyway, there is precedent for them making that kind of change.

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For those of us who weren't in Beta, and with the possibility this might be a live event, can those who were clue us in to what that event was like? For example is this going to be a minion plague for a few hours to fight, which if you aren't on then you will miss? Was the beta one annonced beforehand, so you could be sure to be there? Did it last for days, so you had a better chance of participating?

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It was kind of announced in advance, we knew there was going to be something happening that night. Personally, I had an absolute blast that night, it was a huge amount of fun. I think there were like 8 instances of Galaxy City, and in mine there were almost 100 heroes fighting the Rikti. A huge bunch of us were running around finding the spawned knots of Rikti (and they would spawn mostly in large groups, like 15 - 20 guys) and then run over them. Most of the higher level people (level 15, remember it was beta, and on one of the newer servers, I think Pinnacle) got into this massive fracas outside the hospital with Rikti that just kept on spawning. I swear that battle lasted 30 minutes or more.

Finally all that were left were the Rikti around the hospital so everyone was there throwing themselves into the battle. Even lower level heroes (I was only level 7). I remember that was the first time I had been ressed. Oh, and there was a main Rikti boss that was taunting us over chat. Anyway, when that battle was finally over (I think I died 7 times that night) we all when to Justice Plaza and took screen shots, which I still have someplace I think. I can try to post them if anyone's interested. In the screen shots you can easily count almost 90 heroes.

I don't recall having any tremendous lag that night. Really I don't recall any, but I'm sure there had to be some. I remember that was the first time I had seen super jump, and a lot of other powers.

It was awesome!