Failsight

Swipe actually does more upfront damage than Poison Dart. Poison Dart's toxic damage is higher, but not enough to offset the rest of the damage.

Honestly, I take both when I can and don't even think about it.

It has average acc, which means it whiffs no more than a set like Dark Melee or Energy Melee. Super Strength ends up getting Rage as a perma tohit boost, possibly relatively early (if a Brute) and thus pre-SO, which helps soften the slope from beginner's luck's loss, and many other melee sets, especially on the Scrapper side, have an inherently higher accuracy, which really only matters pre-SO in most cases.

Some other sets have higher up-time tohit buffs than Combat Readiness and other Build Up-type damage/tohit buffs to make up for it, as well.

There's also the fact that due to its combo-based nature, StJ will "feel" its misses in terms of DPS and in anticipating those yellow circles where other sets won't.

Quite honestly, with how the Devs have streamlined and eased the 1-20 run over the many previous issues, I really don't think that there are many systems that new players need to learn right away. Enhancements? TOs are hardly worth the time, and the extended training reminds you about them (if you haven't picked up on them yet) at level 10. Inspirations? I don't remember which level, but I think it was pretty darn early.

To be quite honest, the only things a new player needs to learn right off the bat are how to move, how to activate powers, how to talk to NPCs, and how to level. That's exactly what the new tutorial teaches. Anything else can be learned during play.

No, you can't help it if the majority of players are hyperactive FPS players that can't concentrate long enough to read a paragraph of text. However, does that mean CoX should not teach in a way they can learn?

If you really want to read blocks of text, ask the Devs to make the Help files more accessible and useful. Seriously. They kind of suck.

Because I don't assume the majority of people have been to an Apple Store in the last half-year (I happen to be a technician in a Canadian store, where we, you know, actually do all our repairs instead of shipping half them off to depots), here's the general flow (without getting into details that can get me into trouble):

1) Customer walks in, is either greeted by a salesperson and walked through the purchasing process or browses to the Mac/iDevice of their choice.

2) Product gets rang through, options are given for such thing as extended warranty and extended training. Customer may or may not get these things at this time.

3) Customer is offered a "personal setup" where said customer can learn the basics of usage, some neat tips-and-tricks, and is set up with all their accounts, but is not bombarded with things like "how to use iTunes" or generally anything more advanced than how to search Google in Safari.

4) If customer buys the extended training (either they realized they needed it already or going through the initial tutorial convinced them they really do need to learn), they can schedule appointments over a longer period of time to learn at their own pace.

Both 3) and 4) are completely optional, but are there to serve specific purposes. The personal setup is there not only to teach a "newb" (in our gaming terms) some of the basics, but is also there for them to figure out whether they need more training or if they can figure it out themselves. It's meant to be short, informative, empowering, not overwhelming, and as stated before, optional.

So the comparison really follows through like this: old tutorial = handing a tech manual over to customer; new tutorial = guided longer-term interactive hand holding.

Ideally, you offer both. A smart company, however, invests in the latter if they wish to keep more customers for longer. Why? Because the majority of people need time to absorb material before moving on to new things. Intelligently structuring this information is important.

Again, this is all designed for what are "average consumers". We may not be average consumers, and that's okay. But I certainly can't blame Paragon for trying the same technique as an Apple Store. It's proven pretty successful, and factually so (i.e. studies and financial metrics have proven it out, it's not just my bias).

There are certainly places I wish the tutorial felt deeper. Optional asides that let new and old players alike explore that first tutorial more without forcing them to spend more time in there (i.e. no badges or extra rewards for staying longer, just lore Easter Eggs, etc.) than they would like. It's bare-bones. Perhaps too much so right now. But the overall sentiment and structure makes sense.

No offense, but it really sounds like some people here are really on a crusade here. You've been here since I2, I've been around since maybe...I3?

1) What was the last time you needed to play the tutorial to learn something?

2) Assuming you're a bright person and can learn all the systems that were introduced in the old tutorial, do you think that other new players actually did? Research says...no, they learned later, because really, they just wanted to get to the game proper.

3) Though there's nothing wrong with having a bias (people generally do hate change no matter how much they deny it), objectively, the goals of the tutorial are as follows:
[a] Introduce enough systems to allow new players to get started
[b] Hook players into the game/gameworld

While there are certainly ways that the new tutorial could do both better, I fail to see how it fails it worse than the old tutorial. The old tutorial was so plain and dull that guaranteed most players would pop into Atlas or Galaxy not having read or understood any of the tutorial, and would just end up blindly asking how to do things.

If you really think that throwing that amount of information at a brand new player is a successful way to teach, you must think that throwing entire university courses at a student in a week is also a great idea. Even if you can handle it, not everyone can.

And if you don't care for it? At least it's blessedly short.

The extended tutorial is a good thing for new players who haven't had the chance to make new friends in game yet, who can teach them all the systems. Also, it's a known fact, at least with computers, that when a "friend" "promises" to "teach" a new computer buyer how to use it, that person buying the computer is likely to not learn much more than how to mess up more often than not. The same goes here.

Whether people like Macs or not, Apple Stores definitely get something right: at time of purchase, they give customers a chance to get started, learn just enough to get going, and have a choice to come back over an extended period of time to learn anything they want to in a (hopefully) engaging and personal manner.

The same idea goes here: it's there for people who need that guiding hand in order to learn. And if you're a pro and don't need it? No one is forcing you to do it.

Hehe never going to stop the complainers. Most melee archetypes will probably argue against the bunny hop, but I'll agree that any normally non-melee AT that can benefit from fighting in melee (Blasters, Doms, some Corrs and Defs, some Stalkers, the rare others) can definitely benefit from constant bunny hopping in combat, and regular melee ATs can make use of it on occasion just to catch runners or quickly gain aggro if desired, though there will be other options for them as well.

It does tend to lower DPS, but it's a lot safer.

/Energy's one problem (in melee) is keeping a (non-Perma-Dom) attack chain that doesn't KB enemies. It's not a bad melee set damage-wise, but not the most effective, and is probably my top pick as top ranged assault set. Whirling Hands is pretty low on the scale when it comes to damage, though it is definitely more effective than it used to be. Just...not if you're aiming for a set with PbAoE, and AoE for Doms is really the Holy Grail to build for due the general effectiveness of Dom AoE mezzes. It's balanced but it's not burst. So maybe I should rephrase: it's not terrible, it's simply not the best choice when aiming for AoE.

As for /Energy in melee, it's really only effective when combined with immob and some hard mez so the enemies don't get knocked around, forcing you to chase. Its melee on its own is great, but not enough to be a top melee assault set (probably would put /Earth first), and combined with the potential for kb-and-chase (if your immob misses or your set's immob doesn't have -kb), it's not the best melee combo.

So if /Energy isn't particularly good at AoE or melee ST, but its inherent ability for ranged attacks is KB and it has some good damage ranged attacks...I'd say it's more of a ranged soft control set that can hit hard in melee, with caveats.

And /Fire's Combustion, combined with Embrace is one of the best when it comes to AoE damage on Doms, Breath is deadly at mid-to-close range due to solid damage and high accuracy, and its ranged attacks don't KB like /Energy's, so I'd say it's a more suitable melee set than /Energy by far. It's much better damage overall, just not as safe, which is balanced. However, the point of Doms is to mez first, then damage. Assuming the mezzes work, damage is far more important than the soft controls in the assault set when building for a top tier Dom (not that that's everyone's goal).

I like /Energy. It's a fun set. I just don't choose it to go melee, because there are better choices out there in that category. That's all there is to it.

TBH, I don't know that there's a Dom assault set that isn't at its best in melee with perhaps the exception of /Energy, as Push is fantastic and Whirling Hands is terrible (though the rest of the set pans out evenly). /Fire is always a good one, but you already have one. /Psi only gets good with Shockwave. You already mentioned /Thorns and /Earth which are pretty good. /Ice really isn't bad at all; it's melee is better ST than AoE. /Elec is good due to having Build Up instead of Power Boost, though probably not as good as /Fire (and its AoE is a bit less straightforward).

Honestly, other than perhaps a Mind/Energy, I wouldn't play any Dom at range given the choice.

If the enemies are clumped up, it's even easier, considering inherent Fitness' Hurdle--especially if you get Combat Jump (for the obvious LotG goodness): just JUMP and scream! When you land, you'll be ready for Shockwave again if you're going perma.

Also, loving the SO. Toss it out there first before SF and by the time you're in melee range to smack baddies around proper, it's spread to a fair amount of a large spawn. Just remember that if you're in Domination, use it on a tougher enemy and let it spread from there, as I don't think that Domination affects the chain beyond the initial target.