Failsight

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People only resent bad tanks. If you run into this alot, perhaps tanking is not for you.

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Perhaps?! J_B's biggest complaint is that he has to be saddled with aggro management. I think there's no question that he'll be better off with a Brute playing whatever content he wants.

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If you've only seen people teleport into mobs with it you've been playing with poor players. Using it while surround is much better since then you get the damage buff from AAO. You have to teleport, but you can teleport to where you're standing. It has a long recharge, 90 seconds, which is why you don't see it more than once a spawn.

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This is exactly it. There's almost no reason to teleport into the mobs with Shield Charge unless you're using the knockdown to temporarily stop a dangerous foe (like a Sapper) to finish him off with another attack. In almost every other situation (except for Tankers/Scrankers holding aggro on two separated groups), it is far more effective to hit it once you're in the group and point blank in order to get the highest damage buff from AAO.

Most people can usually frankenslot to get Shield Charge down to 45 seconds or a bit less, but that's still too long for twice on the same group in almost all circumstances.

I'm hoping to be able to want to play a Dom again once Castle makes his proposed changes.

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Am I the only one that thinks that Brutes will be hugely popular Blueside because of the fact that they'd be able to team with Defenders constantly? Brutes are the most buffable AT in the game, and bringing them around Controllers and Defenders just seems like it'd make Brutes into powerhouses. I'm not saying anything negative about Tanks, I just think that will be a distinctly popular reason to take a Brute onto a team. They have damage comparable to Scrappers, and can achieve Tanker defenses, and all they really lack is an AoE version of Gauntlet, since their sets have aggro auras. Use Taunt and they could tank fairly well.

And on the other side, I think Tanks would be fairly popular Redside just because they're still the only AT with defensive sets as their primary, solving the issue of having Brutes and/or Masterminds off-tanking when Tanks can do it better in a low-buff environment.

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You're not the only one who thinks that Brutes will be popular blue-side. They're popular red-side, and they'll be very common side-switchers. I think what's being said by many in this thread is that they won't be popular blue-side to the detriment of the Tanker population.

Overall, I agree with Arcana in that Brutes will probably displace more Scrappers than Tankers, even though they'll probably displace the odd Tanker here or there (while Tankers will be doing the same, or better, red-side).

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Well with the fast approaching I15 and the return of Reichsman and then Tyrant with the new expansion, there seem to be a plethory of Statesman clones. If I were Lord Recluse, it would be time to ring the alarm bells because three Statesmen are two Statesmen too many.

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Hey, the more Statesmen, the more Statesmen I got to punch in the face!

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TBH, if it hasn't really been "OMG, we need x of this and y of that" in co-op zones, it won't be any different with side-switching. There really shouldn't be any AT rebalancing that needs to be done that hasn't been done, or at least suggested via thorough playtesting, already.

But in the other thread, weren't you just getting answers like, "it depends," and, "it's situational," so though it's more constructive (in that they're actually saying something), you're not really getting much of an answer, other than, "all Tanker primaries have their strengths and weaknesses; choose which playstyle suits you best and we can give you advice."

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instancing is still relatively new. city of heroes was a pioneer in many ways.

how many of us remember waiting 'in line' to kill that one gnoll? or that one mob with a 4 hour respawn rate for his drop and hoping you could 'tag' or outdmg everyone else in the area enough to get said drop this time.

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Problems with non-instanced content really only occur when people have to compete for a scarce resource, especially if you need it to attain an important goal. For an example of where non-instanced content works, Rikti invasions aren't instanced, yet there isn't a problem, because they allow players to collaborate rather than compete. Warhammer zone quests (or whatever they are called) are another example of where non-instanced content works perfectly fine, because it allows everybody to work together towards a common goal.

The benefit of good non-instanced content is that it facilitates immersion in the world and gets you to meet other players along the way. Poor non-instanced content hurts immersion (I just defeated that named mob and it's already back?) and creates hostility between players (well, in a PvP game, the latter may actually be a feature, not a bug).

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Non-instanced content is simply always a problem in high traffic areas: either "resources" become too scarce, in that enemies become too hard to find, or resources become too scarce, as in...well, look at our raids and invasions and the lag they bring.

Basically, non-instanced content is great for: middle-to-upper level content (I think everyone is sick of competing against everyone else to kill 10 fluffy bunnies at level 1 using their only attack), where there's supposed to be a great big battle (up to a manageable size), and where there's enough game world plot to do so.

The way CoX handles its mission design as primarily instanced, IMO, is far superior compared to other games that simply shovel content into non-instanced areas that don't need to or shouldn't be. The lesson that all future MMOs need to learn is that balancing instanced and non-instanced content is a vital mechanism in controlling the flow and experience of your game.

I'd like to add that I have no idea why people are jumping on J_B for liking what he sees from CO. That's totally up to him, and if other people think that CO looks like trash (I'm of that opinion ATM), then so be it.

I'm no fan of J_B, but sometimes the trash thrown out at him is more of a waste of electrons than the oddly mangled "facts" that he presents.

Just the majority of the ones who reply to you, J_B.

My mistake. Apologies.

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The addition of Shield Charge which is often used makes it the set use much more Endurance.

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When I hit buildup, then 1-shot a group full of minions for 13.52 endurance, I'm not left with a sense of how endurance intensive shield defense is.

That isn't meant as a disagreement to any comparison between the primaries... It's just that not all endurance costs are endurance problems.

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This. Properly played, Shield Charge will save you endurance.

It's not Shields itself that makes people complain about its endurance, it's that many players find it a requisite to add both Tough and Weave on top of it--both of which are endurance heavy toggles. The same often goes with Invulnerability: Tough and Weave take their toll on endurance, and aren't always necessary for the added survivability.

True enough. But for the most part, any Tanker with a modicum of buffs really shouldn't have difficulties in any team that isn't totally leaving out to dry. Solo, no Tanker should really have issues, either, unless you start pitting them against AVs or higher, but are probably not too far behind Scrappers in being able to do so (there really are a relatively select number of any AT builds that can successfully solo AVs compared to the myriad of possible builds).

The only thing that bothers me about your posts in this thread is that you seem far more down on Shields than is necessary. For Tankers, it's a very solid set that also happens to mitigate the Tanker's traditional weakness (damage) a fair bit.

On a typical ITF, though, with some buffing, more often than not, it really won't matter between, say, an Inv/SS and a Shields/SS: both are probably buffed enough to be impossible to take down, and both are probably damage capped. Except that Shields has the added benefit of Shield Charge at that lovely damage cap. Let's just say my SD/SS was out-damaging Scrappers at that point, while still gathering quite a bit of the aggro throughout the TF (we had another Tanker--a Dark--that was a bit overmatched, mainly because (s)he was sk'd up, though only from 45). That's why I'm saying I had an easier time with the Shields Tanker: I was taking out enemies far, far faster in comparison to my Inv/SS, and with a moderate level of buffing, neither were ever in any danger of defeat (even when I forgot to turn Invincibility on with my Inv ).

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I ran an ITF a few days ago as a Shields Tanker. Never died. Not even tanking Rommie. Had an easier time than even my Inv Tanker.

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Did you have a defender or controller who wasn't Kinetics?

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No more than I did with the Inv. The ITF isn't really all that hard to tank if the rest of the team is doing the smart thing and ripping at Rommie as much as they can.

I ran an ITF a few days ago as a Shields Tanker. Never died. Not even tanking Rommie. Had an easier time than even my Inv Tanker.

Depends on the player, depends on the build. Out of the box, Inv has better survivability. I just built my Shields a bit better. Both are SS, so it has nothing to do with secondary.

No, you're right. Clobber deserves an effects boost to match its damage boost. I don't have any suggestions better than yours off the top of my head, though. The thing I worry about is that they might change animations to a longer one.

My personal preference would have been to balance out the set a bit more, assuming they've hit their overall DPS/DPA goals for War Mace by sliding a bit of damage off Clobber back on to Shatter and Crowd Control, mainly because Clobber really is surprisingly powerful--perhaps too much--for its animation, and like I said, I'm afraid that another look might warrant an animation slow down.

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The ends always justify the means. Whenever someone trots out that cliche it means they don't understand what they are talking about, or are using examples when the ends were undesirable in themselves and the means were moreso.

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Sorry, but gotta point out that this is as much utter BS as saying that the ends never justify the means. The reality is that sometimes the ends justify the means and sometimes they don't. To judge whether something is justified or not is partly personal and largely societal. That's why ethics and morality exist and that's why we have legal systems, especially ones that differ from country to country, culture to culture.

Anyway, I could go on, but it's really off-topic. Back to the OP, I'm glad you've started to enjoy what the MA can offer you. I'm not a big fan of farming, mainly because it bores me to death but different strokes for different folks. It's more like working a part-time job--it seems like work more than fun--and I'm not paying money to do that. The MA lets us stretch our creative wings a bit if we choose to do so, while giving more content to play. I think it's been a really great addition overall. It's right up my alley.

I'm usually hanging between 50-60 KB for long to very long arcs. They're usually only around 30-40 KB before I start filling in text (as much in mission as contact text).

I'm really trying to not make custom enemy groups, just using custom critters for bosses and "specials." I find that the stock enemy groups are far more balanced and create a better playing experience with less work, since the Devs did all of that already. Even doing frankengroups (mixing and matching critters from various enemy groups) works out well, since they all take almost no space up.

Depending on the name, there is always using "stupid name tricks" like using "l" for "I" etc. for now. Not exactly optimal, but you might get by, depending.

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Unfortunately, I'm over my bandwidth cap for the month, so I'll be out of Open Beta for a while (no b/w to d/l the new client) but good luck to everybody! Hope to see some good discussion on the hard work done to make this client a reality!

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Enough to cancel my second account over a PvE nerf to a powerset due to PvP IO builds. If a power is changed due to IO builds, guess what.. that's balancing the power around the IO build, not the SO one.

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Out of curiosity, what change was that?

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This one I think

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That's a bug fix, though. Not anything due specifically to PvP or IOs, as far as I'm aware.

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Enough to cancel my second account over a PvE nerf to a powerset due to PvP IO builds. If a power is changed due to IO builds, guess what.. that's balancing the power around the IO build, not the SO one.

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Out of curiosity, what change was that?

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In the last year or so, WoW went from 8 million to 11 million subscribers. (At least if the commercials are to be believed.) This was done despite the release of two major competing PvP oriented games.

Guess what else... rewards were made more easily obtainable, and better to boot.

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I've been out of WoW for a while now (with no intention of going back), so I'm not sure what changes they've made to rewards. It was a pretty lame grindfest to get them before, though.

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I'd love to see this game have a scenario whether it's a TF, Trial or zone event that's insanely hard but has a chance of an insanely great reward for sucess.

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That's what TFs are supposed to be like. Which is why I think the Devs really need to look at revamping disliked TFs, and having badge/Accolade awards tied to all of them, one way or another. The insanely great rewards are the Merits that we use to pick the rewards we want (the fairest system I've seen, IMO). It's just that many of the old TFs are just not fun enough. LGTFs and ITFs are still fun, because they truly feel like something out of comic books. With that in mind, maybe they should look at re-doing many of the old TFs.

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I just don't agree with the seemingly constant 'what can't I do now in this issue that I could before' philosophy that persists even after Statesman is long gone.

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I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but not since ED and the GDN has there been a game-wide decrease in cross-AT baseline performance. Otherwise, most issues have come with an increase in said cross-AT baseline performance.

IOs, of course, are not baseline performance. They are supposed to be like the non-stock items from other games like WoW. TF and Trial pool drops are supposed to be those rare drops, which we can now work towards without running TFs. Ultra Rare recipes are actually easier to gain in this game than most--all you need to do is play the game within range of a level 50 recipe drop.

With the Merit system, the flexibility has been given to the Devs to go back and redesign old and disliked TFs. They can simply concentrate on making compelling story arcs and let the Merit system worry about reward. It'll be a great system, especially with some highly possible tweaks down the road (like rewards being affected by difficulty), now there just needs to be the content that keeps us coming back.

Loot is automatically a time sink in any MMO. This MMO simply kept (and still keeps) it marginal. There's not a single person who can't get by without IOs in PvE. The game isn't balanced by anything but the most basic loot (SOs).

Also, if you choose not to PvP, I don't really see how it affects you. There has been very little done to PvE due to PvP changes.

Ultimately, the goal for this MMO seems to be to reward people who put in the time with high rewards, while maintaining high levels of playability for casual gamers so that they remain competitive with those who grind.

Merits, in effect, slows down the rate that those high rewards are given out to grinders, simply because they (not all, but many) were grinding something that gave out rewards at a rate higher than acceptable for the Devs. Simultaneously, it allows casual gamers an actual better chance to work toward what they want over time.

In other words, this is a correction to a system in order to close the competitive gap between hard core and casual gamers, while still allowing the hard core gamers to gain more with more effort.

People who still run a Katie a day and then go off to do whatever else are going to gain well.

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I mean really I am starting to suspect that the developers just salt these forums with their close friends or maybe even post as random customers.

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If you really think that, you're a paranoid git.

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Meanwhile a game like WoW which exists in a saturated market and has terribly outdated graphics and a crumbling infrastructure is pulling in MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of subscribers simply by listening to customer demands and giving them some or not most of what they ask for.


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So does that mean you support grinding?

Look, I don't know how many times I've said it now, but Yes, there are problems with this game! Throwing tantrums and insults, then quitting isn't going to make it better. So, either you love the game enough to stick around and give proper feedback in a calm, collected manner, working with the community as a whole, or you unsubscribe and save yourself the stress of reading people's replies that happen to disagree with you.

I13 is a largely foundational system change. The fundamentally important thing is to make sure these founding systems work and are flexible and expandable enough to support future changes and additions. Merit and PvP tweaking can come over time and are not set in stone.