Eiko-chan

Yeah, Willpower has no glaring weaknesses to be shored up, so it depends on what the weakest part of the particular build is.

If you want a general, one-size-fits-all answer, though, I'd probably say Dark Miasma or Radiation Emission. The Willpower Tanker itself doesn't need a lot of buffs, and the myriad of debuffs those two power-sets employ will bolster every aspect of the Willpower suite.

But to be completely honest, that'd probably be my answer for any Tanker except maybe a Stone.

I rea-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-lly (</Dr. Cox>) do not want WoW-like scripted boss fights in this game. I find the whole idea of those dreary, dreadful, and down-right dumb.

I don't see "Challenge" as "having to memorise patterns."

The game is fine. Try taking on the final mission of the LRSF without any Shivans or Nukes. It's a really different challenge.

Ghost Widow is, ultimately, a balancing force for the Rogue Isles. Being bound to Arachnos, and not to Recluse specifically, she will work to ensure the organisation continues, which will serve as a counter-force on the more outrageous and dangerous plots and schemes of the other Lieutenants, as well as Recluse himself. As a ghost, Ghost Widow has an invested (and unchanging) interest in maintaining stability and order, which ultimately will translate into stability and order (and thus peace and prosperity) for the Etoille Isles.

As a human, her loyalties and motives are suspect. She is better for the world as a ghost.

And then you get a storyline of going to beat down Recluse for the dangerous maniac he is, so it's win-win!

I'm sorry, what part of "Toggles that are suppressed will continue to drain endurance and provide mez protection, but all other attributes will shut off." means you keep your defence and resistance? Neither of those are mez protection.

EDIT: Aaaaand, I just tested it in game, proving, as usual, that I am right and people telling me I have my facts wrong are the ones who are wrong. My Fire/Dark just ran into a bunch of Bane Spiders with 24% ranged defence (half that from set bonuses, half from Weave and Shadowfall). After a hold hit, she dropped to 12% ranged defence - the defence bonus from her suppressed toggles stopped being applied.

So, who's talking out of their butt?

That's fine. The mezzes still don't have to be toggle-dropping "I Win" buttons to give you your challenge and tactics. Just being unable to act for X seconds is a pretty big detriment to start with. You don't need to have cascade defence failure to go along with it.

It's bad enough that I can't do anything for the next 5 seconds thanks to that hold that got through; why should the rest of the group get a free shot on top of that?

If the only way NPCs can keep up with heroes is having a small random chance of killing the hero outright (which is often the end result of getting mezzed, at least for me), then your game's been designed poorly from the start.

I absolutely cannot stand losing because a small random chance went against me.

Losing because I bit off more than I can chew? That I can handle.

Whether they are unlikely to do that or not, I will always argue that it is the right choice.

NPCs with mezzes aren't fun.

PvP IOs do not drop often enough nor grant enough benefit (aside from giant prices at market) to make the effort of PvP to earn them worthwhile. And even at that, I know first-hand that PvEers still set up arena matches specifically to farm PvP drops, hoping to get and split the sale of an IO. In this case, there's no real point in doing zone PvP for them, so the PvP community does not see any increase from them.

When PvP zone missions gave better rewards than PvE zone missions, you did see people doing "PvP" for the rewards - and coupled with cries and threads of "Hey, leave me alone, I'm just doing missions/getting badges/getting nukes!" These people aren't there for the PvP; they're there for the reward, and would like to be left alone while they get them, thankyouverymuch.

You're stuck in the mindset that led to i13 in the first place; this thought that if you could just find the right incentive, the right combination of risk and reward, you could get everyone to come play your wonderful PvP game and flourish and grow and thrive. But this thought completely ignores the fact that lots of people don't like PvP, and never will.

If you want a robust and thriving PvP community, you cannot focus on the rewards that entice PvE players - levels, experience, "loot", new abilities. We might delve into that part of the game to get those rewards, but we won't like doing so and will try to find ways to get them without too much discomfort.

PvP or PvE, ultimately the reason we all play is because we enjoy doing so - we have fun. There is no reward great enough to make anyone endure large levels of "not fun", especially not in what is otherwise supposed to be entertainment.

Making PvP fun for PvPers should be the main focus. What rewards that would entail I cannot speak of - I'm not a PvPer. But I can pretty much guarantee that the rewards are not going to be the same things I seek as rewards in the PvE game.

AMONG PvEers. Trying to encourage the PvE crowd to engage in PvP is an exercise in futility; the subsection of people whose thought is "I'd PvP, except for ..." is a very small one, and not much worth targeting.

While there is a spectrum to it, the two general camps are going to be "PvP, Awesome!" and "PvP, Ewww!" Trying to get the "Ewww" camp to buy into your PvP is simply not going to be particularly successful. You can make rewards enticing enough to make the lighter parts of the "Ewww" camp do the PvP, but they're not going to be enjoying it. They're going to be doing it for the rewards, and not for the joy of the PvP experience itself.

Trying to encourage PvP with "Look at this awesome stuff you can get!" is not going to get you a healthy, happy, and hopping PvP community; it's going to get you a bunch of people in it for the rewards, and those looking for actual PvP fun and excitement left with little challenge and rewards that don't even benefit the part of the game they actually enjoy.

Games with thriving PvP communities are - to the best of my knowledge, universally - that way because the PvP gameplay itself is an enjoyable experience - often for both the veteran and new-comer. The rewards that come from PvP might be gravy, but the gravy is never going to be good enough when you keep trying to feed meat (PvP) to the vegans (PvE).

Longbow Nullifiers and their Beanbag have the same problem, and it's not a solely high-level one.

I've said it in-game, now I say it here: AI enemies should never have "I Win" buttons, even if PCs have them. The AI can't have its day ruined, its fun diminished, its enjoyment stolen. PCs can.

If your enemies have to have mezzes, they need to be short and easily broken.

Not being able to do things is Not Fun(TM).

Oh, I didn't assume you'd never been on a TF. In fact, I actually assumed you had, and were just misrepresenting or misremembering how those TFs you'd been on actually worked.

Even if the Boss limit was as little as one minute, the damage route would almost certainly still be the faster route to defeat. And if you can manage to keep an AV held for five minutes (for instance), without the PToD breaking it out, you deserve the win anyway.

So I really don't see the problem here. I'm already used to debuffing AVs into oblivion (I run several Darks, and a Traps, and frequently group with Sonics and Rads); I don't see holding them as much different.

Bill: Quick, start a thread about vet rewards!

Well, first, I'd be the villain. Heroes suck.

Now, for serious: yes, I would honestly not participate in such missions simply because they are PvP related. I don't like PvP. I don't want to play PvP. I have no interest in competing against other players. That's why I don't play FPSes, why I only play RTS against AIs, why I avoid large swaths of online gaming.

I'm a freaking carebear. I don't want to compete. That's why you guys call us "carebears".

And a few issues ago they changed every Villain accolade to completely remove the need several of them had for PvPing, because we carebears had no interest in PvPing despite all the incentives in place for us to do so.

I don't begrudge you folks your PvP; different strokes, different folks, and all that. But any attempts to tie PvE and PvE benefits into the PvP system are poorly conceived, even more poorly executed, and demonstrably the wrong way to go.

No, we wouldn't. We would be pissed (and justifiably so), and endlessly complain that linking costumes to PvP is a really, really, really bad idea.

i13 was an attempt to make PvP more appealing to us "carebears", and we all know how well that went over. Attempts to force PvP, or even encourage PvP, among the PvE crowd are destined to fail. Those that want to PvP will do so; those that want nothing to do with it should not be enticed into it.

Trying to get people that don't want to PvP on their own to engage in it with the lure of phat lutz, or anything else, is just stupid.

Stupid heroes. I'll Go Rogue just so I can sabotage your Gemini Park.

Muahahahaha!

If you make the held time required anything higher than 30 seconds for a minion, then you would instantly assure that just holding enemies to death would automatically be the slower way to do it.

The way you talk, I'm not sure you've ever been on a high-level TF. Enemies drop like flies. It wouldn't take a very long timer to make damage the "fast" way. My Fire/Dark solo drops entire groups in less than 30 seconds.

In most programming languages, arrays count from 0, not from 1, because the computer itself will start any progression at 0. They probably could have coded the command to react to the programmed slot+1 so it would count from 1 like we're used to, but they didn't and it would probably cause too much upheaval to change it now.

Funny. When I say No, thanks, it's because that's what society makes us do, and not because of any general thankfulness for the invitation.

I suppose I might be thankful for the reminder that I forgot to hide that particular character from searches, though.

That's probably the difference between an introvert and an extrovert talking there.

Dangit Bill, what did I say about agreeing with me?

Not all of us do. I find doing that a bit silly. RPers RP; you don't need a sign saying so.

Belts and tails were mutually exclusive until i17. The tech to create the animated tails pretty much served as a perfect chance to also move the tails to their own slot.

Note, I rejoined and started playing again a little after i12, so I only got to experience the old PvP a little bit.

But if it makes you guys feel any better, as a primarily PvEer, I'll agree that the new PvP system is fairly ridiculous. I'm not sure I'll ever understand the reasoning behind making PvP gameplay so utterly unlike PvE gameplay.