EmperorSteele

I already have the badges on my badger, so i won't be actively going for them on any other characters. However, i'll still help people looking to get them.

I think we should have gift-wrapped this thread for BigBoss with all the good news he's been getting =P

Devs hate villains =)

Also, liking these changes, can't wait for them to go live!

You know that the devs added the LFG queue just FOR people having a hard time finding groups, right? Or has that not been working out for you?

Well, just use your imagination, come up with a backstory and give your character a "voice". Then use that "voice" when speaking with other players. Everything will evolve from there.

Sometimes these things don't come to you right away. Don't sweat it! Make several characters (there's 12 default slots per server for a reason), and figure out what sticks. Play normal story arcs and see which NPCs backgrounds seem interesting or compatible with your character ideas.

-Aside: Heck, my current main (and absolute fave) I didn't have totally fleshed out until around level FORTY. I left her background ambiguous so that when I started fighting the Crey Corporation (who have a penchant for cloning heroes) and finally went up against Countess Crey (who my hero very closely resembled, both in looks and powers), 2 and 2 added together and viola, I decided that my character was a runaway clone of the Countess herself. Only took a year and a half of play =P /aside

What you might want to do is make a mental list of traits. Happy-go-lucky? Easy to anger? Unlucky? Slightly crazy? Honorable and Dependable?

From there, figure out your character's motivation. Is he searching for something or soemeone, and his career path (hero/villain) is simply a means to an end? Does he have an innate desire to see good done? Does he just hate the world? Mix it up: Maybe he's a sociopath who's a hero because it means he gets to beat the crap out of people without getting in trouble? (Which, btw, is a fairly common character type, the Heroic Sociopath)

Whatever you decide, you'll have to back up his traits and motivation with a bit of history, and make sure things mesh. Which isn't as hard as it sounds. Someone who loses their parents to violence when they're young might decide to embark on a quest to see evil abolished, or maybe decide that no one is allowed to be happy and turn into a villain... or they might eventually get over it. Someone who gets super powers in a freak accident might decide to become a super hero like the ones they've always idolized, or perhaps greed will set in and they'll take whatever they can. (As an aside, a very good X-Men character played both sides of this... she was a teleporter, and used her powers to steal everything she wanted... but she did so quietly, because who wants the Avengers comming to kick their butt? However, she realized life was now boring because there was no challenge in anything, so she returned everything she stole, and became an X-Man)

Only YOU know what you'll find interesting. Like I said, roll a few characters, try a few different career paths (roll a Praetorian or two, a hero, and a villain just to see all the early content and get a feel for the various NPC groups) and just go with whatever interests you.

Going by the OPs logic, every attack power in the game should be merged into one because they're thematically and/or functionally identical to one another. They do damage.

As for Repel, I think it could use a buff: perhaps a small +s/l defense component. After all, if you can knock away bodies, why not knives and bullets? Otherwise, it's a fine, albeit situational power that's quite good if you know how and when to use it.

IR is also a good power. It stacks with Ninja Run, allowing you to jump faster, further, and with more maneuverability than someone with SJ. Yes, really. It stinks that you have to recast it and that it comes so late in the set, but if those two limitations didn't exist then it'd be better than Super Jump in every way.

The only thing I don't like about Kin is dealing with Activation delay and Arcanatime. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to heal myself or a teammate off a bad guy with half health and he's dead just as i click the button >_> Stupid over-efficient teammates...

Well the ITF has literally thousands of enemies for you to defeat over the course of 4 missions, with a disproportionately large number of them being Bosses and EBs. The trials, on the other hand, are single missions whose minion/lt/boss ratio is closer to normal play. The BAF does provide more bosses, but it also has minions and LTs who don't fight back and hence, i BELIEVE, don't offer rewards outside of iXP.

Of course, maybe it is just perception. I apologize for making my observations sound like facts =)

My teammates and I (Patty-Sue Ivanova, a Mind/Kin Controller) were sent by Portal Corp to investigate a dimension over-run with psychic clockwork. The team had two tanks; one Invulnerable, one Fire-armor. Neither had any protection against the Clox psychic assaults, but they still fared well... until we came upon the Clockwork King!

He took the tanks down in scant moments, then went after the empath before she could resurrect them. A psychic shockwave sent more of my team retreating before they, too, fell. Without hesitation, I dove in, determined to save the rest of my team and give them time to regroup. Popping Indomitable Will and a few inspirations, I brushed aside the Clockwork King's attacks, either through dodging or healing. I used Mass Confusion to turn his summoned allies against him. And finally, just as my IW faded, his mez protection also dropped, allowing me to hold him so that my team -having recovered but were content to sit back and watch me work- could finally jump in and defeat him once and for all.

So yes, I tanked an AV. With a petless Controller. I've never felt more powerful before or since!

Venture plays at -1 with bosses off, and assumes everyone else should play that way, so don't mind him.

=P

Playful ribbing aside, I too clamor for a way to make enemies more powerful. Big problem for me is i test my arcs on a Mind/Kin who's fairly bianry about the types of challenges she can handle. Either she destroys things with no effort, or it's too difficult. I'd like to be able to tweak enemies into a "challenge sweet-spot".

For instance, if I make a boss, he has no resistence to psi attacks, and Mind's attacks are non-positional, and so anything other than WP or Dark armor doesn't have any meaningful defense against me when I test the arc. So it feels too easy. I can't make a single enemy be +3 or +4 without turning up my difficulty settings for the entire map.

It's also be nice to make an elemental enemy with fire, ice, earth and electric powers. Custom enemies don't get APPs. We can't give them any kinds of resistences, defenses, or weakneses without assigning them an armor set which takes away from our abilitiy to give enemies varied attacks.

More variety is always better. And sure, some people will create arcs that are too tough. But i still say the positives from allowing greater creativity outweigh any potential negatives!

DAMN! That was my niche for a while, too! @#$%^&*

Haha, anyway, Cool Story, Sis!

The whole rest of the world is the 51st state =P

Comparing the various ATs is akin comparing different fruits.

A Sonic/Kin Corruptor with IOs is going to out-damage an Electric/Devices Blaster with -1 SOs.

A Fire/Em Blaster is going to out-damage a Forcefields/RadBlast Defender by such a large factor it's not even funny.

A Dark/Dark Defender is probably going to get more mileage (not necessarily do more point-for-point damage, but will be far more survivable and useful) than an Ar/Pain Dom Corruptor.

The comparisons are mostly between Corrs and Defs. Defenders have higher buff/debuff numbers, but Corrs do more raw damage, which is more important solo than on a team.

Blasters -usually- put out more damage than either AT, but short of a few self-defense abilities and panic buttons, don't bring much to a team. The only exceptions might be some AV fights where the rest of the team doesn't have significant regen debuffs and the Blaster's damage is the only thing keeping the AVs health dropping.

The fairest comparison to make would be to roll one of each with similar power-picks. The closest I can come up with would be Energy Blast coupled with Devices/Traps. I'd even give a nod to Psi Manipulation for its debuff and control potential, but Corrs and Defs don't have anything thematically similar.

Well, I have no problem with Illu "not being the best", HOWEVER, i think LM's point is that Ill is now the WORSE of all the controller sets for this particular raid.

TBH i think Illu players just need to blast things with their APPs during the escape phase and deal with the change of pace just this once. If future content further marginalizes our abilities, though, that'd count as a Bad Thing.

As for LM's question about one given powerset being targeted against, I'm not quite sure there IS one. I'm mostly positive that Cim traitors were given mez resistence so they couldn't be farmed as easily by fire/kins, but that affected most controllers, too.

Also, I don't think the Devs sat around thinking of a way to completely mitigate illusion. They just wanted a mob type that couldn't be controlled, period. They let the mobs be debuffed and knocked around (though i'm noticing the LTs don't seem to get knocked around as much as i remember on test), but that's it. They threw Controllers a bone and let us sleep/hold/immob/stun the Minions, but fear and confuse still don't work on them, which makes sense because they're brainwashed by an Incarnate-level Mother Mayhem.

You can still lay down an AoE on minions. You can still slow down and snipe LTs. You can still debuff AVs and keep adds off the team's back during the final phase. Ill/rad isn't totally useless, but it's not King of this particular Hill with its normal playstyle. Adapt and prosper!

... I don't get it, where's the terrible pun?

Well, if you need ideas, you should slot all your damage powers as attacks first and foremost. I've seen a LOT of people slot mesmerize and Dominate for mez duration and then complain that they solo too slowly. Well, yeah, not slotting your attacks for damage is going to do that!

Total Dom IS worth a power pick, BUT, you need to 6-slot it, and get hasten. Click hasten just before or after every time you use the power. Preferably power-boosted, too. See, Mind doesn't have any other AoE control that allows you to keep Containment. Mass Hypnosis breaks, Fear and Confuse don't offer containment, and TK needs to be kept on for 3 end per second and it pushes your foes away from you.

I'll be honest, even though the game is "Balanced around SOs", Total Dom is a power that benefits GREATLY from IO set bonuses and Alpha slotting. You can more than double its duration, and bring its recharge down to just over a minute, allowing you to use it quite often and reliably.

I have a mind/KIN guide that you can peruse to check out my extended thoughts on all of Mind's powers: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=122388

As for Sonics, eeh, i haven't played around with that set much myself, either. Just go with your gut, see what you use a lot and don't, then drop from your build anything that doesn't work out. We have respecs for a reason =)

Local Man.

I respect you. I like you. I find you to be a very intelligent, upstanding individual who's nothing but an asset to our community, these forums and the game overall. And i can definitely understand your frustration over all of this. So what I'm about to say... well, i feel really bad saying it, but it needs to be said.

"Tough break". Ill/Rad has been king of the hill for a long time. It's only natural that eventually, the devs would come up with something that takes advantage of the combo's weakspots. Heck, the entire trial is biased against controllers. About the only thing that works reliably is KB and slows.

I'm pretty sure the devs mentioned something about designing some of the new content around the most popular powers (as in, making those powers less effective), and making less-used powers more useful. Heck, i worked REPEL into my mind/kin build, for crying out loud!

I'd say for you, Lingering Radiation is your best bet for asserting your usefulness during the escape phase. Target an LT and slow him (and everyone around him) down. Slows and KB are pretty much the only good tools Controllers have. Most of the Epic pools have at least one good power for this phase: Ice Storm, Energy Torrent, Psi Tornado, Fissure, Water Spout and Disruptor blast are all AoEs/cones with either slow or KB. I'd rank PsiNado and Ice Storm as the most useful, but i might be wrong.

I think this is most of the reason the Devs gave us a third build for getting our Alpha slot, because they knew a lot of characters would be up s*** creek without a paddle using their normal builds. If you haven't already, take advantage of this third build slot and try to get as much KB and Slow into your build as possible.

I should note that Lamda is more forgiving, so making a third build just for one encounter might be a bit much. We'll see what else the devs have in store...

The LFG system makes it very easy to PuG these trials. None of that "global channel" nonsense. Just flag that you're looking for a run, and you'll be popped in automagically.

If you want to get your ALPHA first, you need to do some research. First, you unlock it doing a somewhat-tough-to-solo arc, or just get in on one of the raids. Then, there's 4 types of "enhancements' you can place into the alpha "Slot". To make a basic one requires you to either do 3 tasks, or collect and convert enough shards to make the components.

The STF/LRSF, KahnTF/BSF, ITF, LGTF, and CoP all offer components. These are guaranteed to appear in a pop-up window at the end of each task (you however forgo merits in choosing components). The Hamidon raid has an option for 4 shards, which can be crafted into a component of your choice. You can also get a certain component with 150 vanguard merits at a vanguard workstation.

It should be noted that, especially if you defeat most of the critters in each TF instead of stealthing, you can gain a very good number of shards to convert into components. Anecdotally, I had my uncommon after ONE DAY by pretty much running 3 TFs and a ritki ship raid. So you should be able to slot your Alpha without too large of a time investment, a few days at most if you can stand running at least one TF a day and maybe run a few other missions to collect extra shards.

The difference between a Common and Ultra Rare alpha isn't a lot. A common Alpha will give you 33% of an attribute across each of your powers. At ultra rare, it's... still 33%. However, it usually has 4-5 extra enhancement effects tacked on (For instance, Nerve starts out with Acc, but gives hold duration, confuse duration, defense, taunt durration and flight speed at the UR level), and MOST of the enhancement value surpasses ED. Rare and Ultra rare also give you the Level Shift, which is probably what will benefit you most.

And since each level of an Incarnate tree is crafted using the levels below it (the ultra-rare requiring two rares!), you're going to be repeating your work a lot and crafting/converting a lot of shards and components. But again, i got my ultra-rare shortly after they came out, and i'm not a hardcore player. I just had shards saved up...

The problem with Mind and "locking down" foes is that slept foes will wake up if attacked, Fear'd foes will retaliate if attacked, TK's hold will be nullified if the anchor is killed, and confused mobs aren't contained... sure they're not attacking you, but you're not doing double-damage and they can still run around and escape from AoEs.

Solo, it's a monster because you don't have other players mucking you up. In a team setting, it loses its luster. Though being able to lock down multiple EBs or even AVs at once never gets old.

Its best tool, IMO, is Mesmerize. It's a 3.5 mag sleep which means even most AVs will go to sleep in one hit. VERY handy for taking care of an ambushing AV that your party isn't ready to take care of yet... just as long as no one attacks it, anyway =)

Check the other t4 insps! I bet there's bids for 2B on those, too! Go go go!