EmVee

I play my mastermind using a lot of macros/binds, so placement of AoEs and choice of targets is usually in my hands. I often split my minions to attack different targets and micro-manage them. I can choose which range my Commando starts attacking, so I know which attack is about to come.

I've never noticed a -runspeed on the Spec-Ops either.

I certainly wouldn't complain if Mercs had a few improvements though.

This is what I'd change:

Remove grenade from the medic. It's pointless and usually gets him killed fast. Make the AI heal/stim faster and more often, priorising stim on the MM himself. (100% of the time healing/stimming would be fine with me once the last upgrade is avaiable!).

Make serum last longer. 60 Seconds is not long enough, make it 180s, or at least 120s.

Improve spec-ops damage slightly, even with full damage slotting the sniper rifles do poor damage, and the general attacks are no better.

As a lvl 50 mercs mastermind:

The set seems more 'controller' in it's application. The damage may not be as high as with other sets, but when teaming damage is not really a high priority. I reached the mid-forties without getting the first debt badge, and solo'd EBs for breakfast. (Using serum to tank)

The mercs heal/stimulant made my MM much more survivable solo. I needed to be patient for the medic to apply it to me though (usually using goto, to make him stand next to be first)

Commando used to run out of endurance a LOT... until I slotted an end redux SO in his set, and it never happened again. I now have a lvl 50 dam/end IO which does the same job.

I now have three dam/mez Hami's in Spec Ops, which maximises the damage, hold, immob AND stun durations of their attacks (awesome mez potential). The damage is quite low on them anyway, but they are there to provide control. I plan to add up to three acc/tohit debuff ones as well once I have the inf.

Kinetics and Electrics works well together due to the endurance draining properties of both (short circuit and transferance for example). It will certainly have a bit more damage output than Darkness. You can skip a travel power if you wish due to Inertial Reduction (a super jump)and may also skip stamina if you wish once you get Transference later on. This could allow for more attacks and a more offensive addition the build if required.

That said, Defenders in general are not very high damage (even kinetics with the boosts) and while certainly soloable, they can be a little slow paced in comparison to most other ATs.

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Seeing as how your only lvl 7 tbh i wouldnt waste a respec if your not happy id start again, getting to lvl 7 is very easy as im sure you know

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But... would he not lose the respec anyway if he starts again?

I say use the respec. You'll get another one anyway when i11 comes in the next few weeks

Doctor Devious

In a dingy looking medical lab underground in the Rogue Isles, the Doctor sat patiently surrounded by test tubes, centrifuges and various other medical paraphenalia. A quiet radio broadcast plays in the background, echoing against the hard tile walls of the lab. A female newsreaders voice announcing the current events of the day in bite-size format.

"...and that was a statement by Big Lunk in Paragon City this morning..."

With a soft *click* the Doctor turns off the radio and turns his attention back to his work. Peering into his state-of-the-art electron microscope - a souvenier from one of his many unwelcome 'outings' into Crey Laboratories - he examines a small sample of the nano-plague, mumbling to himself in a broken tone.

"Well, well... nothing too interesting on a genetic front here. It's all rather... basic. The robotics within is mildly impressive however".

In the background stand three virtually identical looking men in grey jumpsuits, genetically engineered clones that the Doctor uses to do his bidding. He points to the first with an ageing iodine-stained finger.

"You... Alpha X. Come here" the Doc says coldly.

The first clone steps forward and stands next to the Doctor, no emotion or thoughts showing on its familiar face. The Doctor rolls up the sleeve of the clone and injects a hypodermic syringe into the forearm.

"Good. Now I can observe the cycle under test conditions" he explains, clearly expecting no response from the clone.

"Now. Go and lie down, be a good chap."

Still showing no hint of thought or emotion the clone turns and heads into the next room, a slight hiss of the door as the environmental seal closes behind it.

The Doctor smiles to himself, poring over a variety of scientific papers. "What's next on the agenda? ...ah yes..." He barely manages to stifle a laugh as he gets up and begins changing out of his lab coat. Throwing on his hat and scarf with a swift energy that seems out of place on his frail form, the Doctor stretches out the pains in his back from the hours at his desk, and swallows a few plain grey tablets.

"Field research, my favorite!" He grins gleefully.

Looking good

I've only just started taking more on an interest in this, and registered on the site the other day. There's certainly some excellent work on there.

Once I get around to working out how to do anything on the site, then I'll add a few articles myself (I've never used Wiki before!).

Doctor Devious didn't end up drinking anything anyway. I think he was more surprised that Professor Terror had copied his outfit, even down to the colouring.

That said, Professor Terror was only 3ft tall. It was like wandering into a bar and seeing your own mini-me serving

Welcome to the EU!

I used to roleplay on Virtue myself, but moved here back in 2005.

What sort of times will you be planning to play (I'm assuming the time difference might be a factor here?)

I second Shannon's opinion

Yes, slotting end reductions in your pets reduces the amount of end they use. I've only needed one in my boss pet when he's fully upgraded, but he always used to run out of endurance and didn't after slotting a single SO.

You'll get a good amount of influence back from your current enhancements after a respec, will at least be able to get some lvl 35 SOs to tide you over until you have the time/influence to start slotting IOs

Fitness - I'd probably go swift/hurdle/stamina instead of health, as you already have two self-heals in your build.

On Accolades: Quite a few accolades only appeared in the game by the time a fair few of my characters were in the 40+ range. Villain accolades for example, only appeared when the 40+ content was added, so I'm sure I'm not alone here. I don't think it's fair that some people can use them when they are exemplared down, and others can't.

Characters can ONLY get accolades at a low level by teaming with higher level players that have the missions, or can help them farm the right mobs.

I therefore suggest ALL toons retain accolades when exemplared regardless of what level they attained it.

On set bonuses: I don't see them as too much of a problem, as you lose them if you exemplar down to a lower level. You want to play in a zone where PvP players don't have all there super set bonuses? Bloody Bay is probably the best one. It's always a compromise between choosing lower level sets to retain the bonus, or higher level sets to get the best % on your enhancements.

I hate 'dualling' PvP. This game is profoundly unbalanced against standard solo with different ATs. Mixed teams is where things start getting interesting though, and generally much more fun and a fairer time. A team of well-oiled PvE players wouldn't fair badly in the zones I feel. I imagine a few 'trashtalkers' would probably shout 'gank' though.

I'd add one more to you list Cognito:

PvEers hate debt

Seriously... I very, very, rarely take a non-lvl50 toon into the zones anymore, because I can always be sure of wracking up some debt. For something that is meant to be a fun distraction from standard co-op PvE, I find it irritating that I get punished for it. Shouldn't it at least be half debt like the RWZ?

On a different note I made a suggestion for 'Bantamweight Battle night' a while back (level 12-13 PvP night). I've had a very busy time of things in RL lately so haven't had time to organise this. I might get around to it soon though.

It's called 'Mothership Raid Chat'

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Not really, the novelty of that junk wore off a while ago!

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For you maybe, but I actually got around to joining my first raid only two weeks ago, and they are still a weekly occurance.

Friday evening and Sunday lunchtime seem to be the regular slots.

Original Hero:
Dimension Diva - Originally created on the US virtue server, and moved over to Union a year later.
Most Notable Alias(es):
On defiant I occasionally play Street Warrior (AR/Dev blaster), who's currently at 37. I also have 4 other alts in the late 20's on Defiant.
Supergroup(s):
None on Defiant
Account Created:
Sept 2004
Veteran Rewards Time:
37 months
What Are You Doing Now?:
Recently started a brute for some silly carnage. Also trying to find some stuff in the game I haven't done yet (The villain SFs spring to mind). Playing a few other PC games (not MMOs though blegh), and own an xbox 360 (which is currently sent away for repair - shoddy buildwork!)
What would make you return to CoH?:
I never left. I just think about leaving and then they go and add something new that keeps me here, damn them!

Insert Coin to play

Have fun in TR! I've been thinking of giving it a look myself.

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To OP post i can't think of anything a stalker would bring to a team that is necessary or or other ATs can't do better.

Atm i run a new team with fire/dark draggin 2-3 grp tar patch and aoe begin from team.

We use stalkers at lowér lvl as teamfiller to get bosses each pull They have zero use for the team and i tell them so and just stay back not to [censored] it up. But i guess they hare happy enough beeing 5 lvls lower getting insane exp.

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The problem here is that only buffing and autohit debuffing toons (ie. very few powersets in the game) are much use at all when five levels lower.

You're creating a self-fullfilling prophecy by inviting a stalker in the team and already expecting them to be not much use, which they will be if they have to face +5's

There is more to this game than just getting XP. I play my stalker for FUN.

Well-played stalkers can add a great deal to a team. The main problem is players that use stalkers as one-trick-ponies and only using one power in the whole set. Stalkers are not squishy and can take far more punishment than most people give them credit for. They just take more thought to play well than a brute (or a scrapper for that matter to which they are often compared).

Pocket D is the common meeting point for most RP on villains, try there most evenings after 9pm.

I'm a member of the European Villainous Immorality League with my main villain. I've seen a few other groups there too (The Corporation is another, though I don't know much about them yet).

Most of my characters are on Union, thought I do have a few in the late 30's on Defiant too.

I think there are players like this on both servers to be honest. Weekends seem the worst times, probably due to the age of said players. I was playing in a group today on Union and had someone similar.

I recently got my 36 month reward and know this game backwards, but I don't tell people how to play or what powers to pick unless they ask for advice!

I've noticed Defiant IS lot less populated, though I couldn't tell you why.

You have my sympathies!

/slight rant

Stalkers seem to be one of the easiest ATs to play very badly. It also seems a lot of bad players pick stalkers.

It irritates me no end to see players only using AS and then moving away waiting for hide to recharge (at higher levels too!), especially when playing in a bigger team they become completely surplus to requirements.

I was running a team this morning with my Stalker (usually the only way I can get a good team is to start my own). After having a very successful run of missions with team of 5, I hesitantly invited two other Stalkers into the team (both similar names and the same DM/SR build). It wasn't long before I started to get tells from other team-members that they weren't pulling their weight. Sure enough they were doing the occasional AS but then moving away and waiting for hide to recharge. They were not even using AS on reasonable targets - just minions with half a bar left and such. Their builds were very specific too, only one attack and AS - Obviously one-trick PvP builds.

The final straw was when we started suffering a few deaths in the group (due to the increase in mob sizes) and I look round to see they are both standing around afk in the middle of the fight with hide on.

The hardest job as a Team Leader is kicking people (I don't usually do so unless I feel people are purposely trouble)

I didn't waste any time in booting them though. It's people like this that make me reluctant to invite ANY stalker into a team, as it's such and easy AT to abuse.

Yes I could have sworn that was the case but wasn't sure. I joined the Union Mothership Raids channel this week for the first time when I found out it. I was sure it was 7pm, and after logging in about 6:45 it had changed to 9pm.

I'm certainly up for one though, as I haven't tried it yet.

I think it will depend completely on what the numbers are.

It could be +10% per mob, or +200% we just don't know!

As a comparison for regen - Instant Healing with three heal slots, give's just under 1000% regen. With Fast Healing giving 150%.

We have no idea how this will compare yet. There won't be any other self heals in the Willpower set (that I know of), but with decent resistant/defense it should help sustain the tank longer.

Guess we'll have to see when it hits test.

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I'd love to participate in this, and always have, but very few people accepted my low level challenges.

At lvl 10-15 the characters suffer from exemp code so much, that the only real benefit they get is the number of insp slots which isnt reduced. Whether this is a problem we should discuss maybe.

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Good point on the inspiration slots, that would be the biggest advantage for higher levels I'd imagine. There's no easy way around this, but mixed level teams might be a good idea. I guess the best way to start this would be setting a reasonable time - either weekday evening, or weekend afternoon or evening, and then going on and getting as many people spreading the word in-game (on both heroes and villains) as possible to get them in Pocket D.

This is something I've been deliberating over for a quite a while, and I'm looking for some input.

Arena PvP is rare and almost non-existant for the most part.
Most PvP is very 'elitist' in that a minority of players take part, and most of the tournaments are at lvl 40-50. Not many people have the time/will to get characters to a high level, and many high level characters are not built for fighting other players. Zone PvP is generally more accessible, but even so most of the people taking part in regular zone PvP are 50, as they don't have to worry about debt. PvP is still a rare passtime to most of the population in this game.

My main thought is setting up a low-level PvP event for level 12-13 (Bantamweight). This type of tournament will be easier to play for newcomers, slower paced due to no travel powers, more team-focused and more open to every player in the game. If this took off, people could regularly build new characters up to the level quite easily which would mean more participants and more fun. It would probably have to be on the live servers too, in order to increase the passing interest of non-forum players (which are probably in the majority) and draw more in.

Now, obviously this is not without its problems in terms of certain powersets/ATs (which I'm sure others will point out), though pentad teams could be a great option for this. Also players will have a much great choice of characters overall due to the far easier task of having a lvl 12 character, and hopefully the emphasis would be on fun.

One big question is whether to have a cap on the upper level of the character allowed - HO'd 50s would have a clear advantage for example, although IO builds won't as they wouldn't get the higher level set bonuses exemplared. However I imagine most 50 HO builds wouldn't be optimised for level 12-13 play and people are very unlikely to change a live build for this level.

Thoughts?

I teamed with a fire tank in their late 30's recently, that didn't have plasma shield. It did make me wonder how they coped with mezzing opponents for such a long time (and they kept getting mezzed in the mission we were doing).