False_Fiction

Thanks for the replies folks. As it happens I already had a printed version of "How to draw comics the Marvel way". I actually learned something out of it, but I just haven't practiced enough. I think I kinda gave up when I saw some links on youtube showing how easily Jim Lee could draw a fantastic comic scene out of nowhere. Of course, he's a genius and I'm a newbie but still.. he makes it look effortless while I can't even draw a straight line!

Anyway, thanks again for the tips. I will try and practice and maybe post my shameful sketches on the boards so I can get some constructive criticism from you lot.

PS: Btw, I'm a big fan of your work, Chris. Maybe this means nothing coming from a silent user of this board section, but I just wanted to say it. You, sir, are talented. Keep it up, pretty please!

Dear artists,

I've always wanted to know how to sketch comic characters. I even got myself a pen tablet (not too fancy, just something to play with).

The thing is, I have no basic art knowledge what-so-ever. I'd like to know what do you consider to be the best point of start. My logic tells me it should be basic anatomy. Then maybe work on perspective/angles. And then shading. And finally coloring.

I guess my problem is that I give up too easily. I'm graduated in Marketing and Management, but I've always loved art and I'd love to know how to sketch. It just seems too damn difficult. I can barely sketch the shape of a head properly.

I know that in a way talent matters, which I don't have at all. But I guess practice can do wonders if I actually put some effort into it.

I wonder how did you lot started and how long did it took you to start actually being able to do your own stuff.

Hope you can enlighten me a little!

Cheers.

Are your team mates picking maneuvers aswell? Just wondering, so I can play with mids a bit.

Rad/Sonic is probably the most damaging Defender combo (ST wise) available and a fantastic soloer (including AVs and GMs).

Dark/Psi will be an excellent team toon, with a very controllerish feeling. You'll have tools (stuns, sleeps, holds, -rech, -tohit, -res, -regen, +fear, +heal, awesome pet, etc) to handle almost every possible scenario.

I'd stick with Dark/Psi if you think you'll be teaming a lot. Rad/Son, as I said, will be a faster soloer but also able to bring a lot of benefits to any team.

You really can't go wrong with either of those.

I consider myself to be quite an experienced Storm player. What I can tell you right away is that Storm is not easy to play with. At least not until you realize how to play with it.

Things to know when playing a Storm toon:

- It requires a brain. Seriously. Rad and Dark are just too easy to play with and it's hard to mess up when playing those sets. A bad/careless Stormy, on the other hand, can lead yourself and your team mates to frustration.
- It requires patience.
- It requires a lot of moving around. Positioning matters. A lot.
- It will piss off people if you don't use your positioning tools correctly.
- You'll be awesome when you get your key powers and learn how to use them.

Storm powers:

Gale v O2 Boost

This has been debated ever since Storm set was released. Gale is a huge KB cone and, imo, a very decent positioning tool - specially on indoor maps. O2 boost is a decent heal -when slotted- and provides some status protection.

If you decide to go with O2 boost, know 2 things: a) you might get a "Wtf?! Heal!!!" out of a few less bright team mates ; b) You'll be a lot busier trying to keep the status protection on the squishies, when you could be doing some more debuffing/cornering.

As a Storm/Dark, I like playing it as an offender. I'll take the alpha, I'll herd, I'll position the mob where I want them to be, I'll debuff and I'll mezz. Also, my build is too tight so I don't have spare slots to spend on O2 Boost and make it a decent(ish) heal. Sure, I could stick with O2 Boost and put an Endreduction on it and use it on squishies. But I prefer Gale.

TL;DR - Pick your poison. O2 Boost = decent heal, good status protection (sleep, stun and end drain) to your team mates. Gale = Better positioning; knockback = 2, 3 seconds of damage mitigation.


Snow Storm

I've seen way too many players skipping this power. Myself, I find it awesome. -62,5% recharge translates in a awful lot damage mitigation. Also, it slows down the enemies, taking the most out of a lot of location AoEs attacks (Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, Blizzard, etc) and location AoEs debuffs (Freezing Rain, Disruption Arrow, Tar Patch, etc).

Do you need to slot it for +Slow? You could, but I find and Endurance Reduction to be the best choice. Keep in mind that Freezing Rain on top of Snow Storm caps the +Slow component (I could be wrong about this).


Steamy Mist

Take it, slot it, and use it all the time. It is that good. ~30% resistance to some nasty damage types like Fire, Cold and Energy (and confuse resistance), paired with some defense and stealth. What's not to like?

Use it correctly! Don't stand back, leaving your team mates out of Steamy Mist's radius. That would be a waste of its damage mitigation potential.

Also, if you pair it with Super Speed, you'll be granted full invisibility.


Freezing Rain

I honestly think this is one of the best debuffs in the whole CoX universe. Unslotted, FR will debuff the foes resistance and defense by 35% and 30%, respectively. As if that's not enough it adds up +slow, -recharge and knockdown to the equation. Better yet, it will be perma with 3 L50 recharge IOs.

As I've already mentioned, you can use it paired with Snow Storm for some serious -recharge and -movement. It also helps you keeping them cornered with Hurricane, Gale or Lightning Storm.

You do NOT want to slot this for damage. Your priority is to maximize the recharge, then get some Defense Debuff and Endurance Reduction. You can easily get good numbers with 4 slots only and some frankenslotting.


Hurricane

Some players love it, others hate it. I love it very much and it can be used in many ways. The most typical is to use it after you corner the baddies - it will keep them in that spot, debuffed to the eyeballs and getting constantly repelled and kb'ed. However, Hurricane alone isn't enough to keep them in place as the baddies can often escape from the corner. This is where Gale, for example, becomes extremely handy. But other powers can be used, such as Freezing Rain (keeps them on their bottom, while getting repelled by Hurricane) and Lightning Storm (if you place it strategically it will knock the foes back to the corner). And, of course, if you have a /Dark defender with Tenebrous Tentacles or a controller with AoE immobilizes your task becomes much easier.

There are other uses for Hurricane such as:

Herding - Turn your steamy mist and superspeed/flight/SJ on and go harass some foes. Then run back and hide in a corner. Lay your Freezing Rain a few feet before the corner so they start getting debuffed and kocked down before they get to you. If you feel like it, you can also try and get them into the corner you were hiding at, using Hurricane and Gale.

Melee safety - Protect yourself and the squishies from melee attacks simply by standing back with the Blasters/Trollers/Defenders/Squids and turning Hurricane on. The repel, knockback and debuff will keep you safe for most cases.

Smart debuffing - Yea, I didn't know what else to call it here. What I mean here is that you can and should run around a spawn debuffing them while keeping them packed or at least not scattering them too much. You don't need the foes to be inside the hurricane for them to get debuffed. The debuff works even if you are a few feet away from them (I don't know the exact distance, maybe some1 will jump in and give you the right numbers).


Thunder Clap

It's probably one of the coolest looking powers in game. However, I wouldn't advise you to take it unless you have any other Stun power to stack it with. If you go with Dark Mastery, for example, and pick Oppressive Gloom, then it might be a good pick.

Still, I would advise you to go with Electric Mastery so you could use Power Sink + Short Circuit and become a very effective sapper (end drainer).


Tornado

Another love it or hate it power. This is probably the power I find more situational in the whole set (on pair with Thunder Clap, unless you have another stun to stack with).

I use it mainly for AV/GM fights or against foes that wont get KB'ed or even on small rooms (like those rooms in the Reactor mission of Respec Trial) for some safe and yet not-so-messy chaos. It's DoT potential should not be overlooked.

It does a very decent damage over time while it adds up a little more -Defense to the game. It also has KB (obviously) and disorient components. While I haven't tried - or better yet, I haven't bothered testing - you can slot it with the Achilles proc. I'd probably put it on Freezing Rain instead tho.


Lightning Storm

And finally, the power most Stormies look forward to - the awesome cloud. How you use it, it's pretty much straight forward but you'll learn with time that there are optimal ways of placing it.

Lightning Cloud has a very tiny cone and it can hit up to 3-4 foes if your lucky/smart enough.

So how do you get it to hit multiple foes? Well, if you've ever played a Scrapper, you'll probably have experienced that some powers (like Eviscerate, Headsplitter, Ripper) can hit several foes if they're lined up or really tight together. The same logic can be applied to Lightning Cloud. However, LS has a knockback component which means if you hit 3 foes at once they'll fall back and get scattered a little. By doing so, it's every unlikely LS will hit the 3 of them again. Unless... you keep positioning the mobs with other storm tools. For example, if you manage to corner up 5-8 foes and place LS really close to them and lay Freezing Rain to keep them in place, LS might hit several foes more than once.

Keep in mind LS will hit the closes target(s). Also, you can turn knockback into knockdown by simply placing the cloud right above the mobs. It's not very practical or easy to do without Hover but it will decrease the scattering/kb and increase the chances of LS hitting multiple foes.


That's about it. These are my basic thoughts on Storm set. Eventually you'll come with your very own ideas and opinions about the set and its powers and you'll become - I hope - a fan of Storm goodness.

When it comes to Electric Blast, I'll leave it to someone else to look into it more deeply but basically I would pick the two blasts, ball lightning, short circuit and maybe aim and Thunderous Blast if you really want a (very very awesome looking) nuke. Voltaic Sentinel would add some more DPS but I can't find the duration, end cost and cast time very appealing.

Like I said earlier, I would advise you to go Storm/Elec/Elec for the sake of Power Sink + Short Circuit. I have that combo on my Elec^3 blaster and it makes everything really easy and safe.

As for the slotting and IO bonuses, I'd recommend you to slot endurance reductions on most powers as Storm is a bit endurance heavy (yet another reason to go with Elec mastery and grab Power Sink). Endurance recovery bonuses are always very handy on a Stormy.

Don't get obsessed about recharge bonuses. Having 2 permanent Lightning Storms would be delightful, yes, but you can achieve greater things if you try and balance your build a bit more. Myself, I went for 36% ranged defense paired with very decent endurance recovery and I can still get 2 lightning clouds out for 20 seconds or so. That's more than enough for me. As a result, I rarely die and I tend to play very aggressively.

Hope this helps a little.

PS: Damn, this is a long post. I got carried away I guess eheh.

I think you'd be better of with Ice Mastery. It doesn't take much effort to cap S/L defense with Snow Armor.

However, if you're dead set on Primal Mastery I'd go with Temp Inv. Unless you want to get some sort of bonuses out of Repulsion Bomb that is.

Still, it doesn't hurt to "fix" power descriptions accordingly.

EDIT: Have you moved to US servers for good, Carni?

So, I've been toying with a couple combos on mid's (Rad/Fire, Fire/Ice, Rad/Ice, Rad/Elec) and I keep looking at the numbers on CB and Blaze. The first one says its an Extreme damage power, while Blaze is "only" High damage. However, if you compare both powers 3 slotted with 3 damage IOs the difference is huge: 264 for CB and 376,1 for Blaze.

Now, I've been playing mmorpgs long enough to know that Fire is always the most damaging element. What I don't get here is the discrepancy between both powers descriptions and its damage numbers.

Sure, CB has a stun and -def as secondary effects and Fire is supposed to do extra damage. But if you bring Bitter Ice Blast to the equation, it also does more damage as a Superior attack than CB. And Shout (Heavy dmg) does the same damage than CB.

Does anyone else feels like they should either add up a little more damage to CB or at least change the power descriptions?

I wouldn't PvP with a pure blapper. It can work, but the true potential of blasters lies in its fast, raw, ranged damage. Usually melee powers like Energy Transfer and Total Focus are finishers.

However, you can never go wrong with Fire, Ice or Sonic primaries paired with Energy or Electric secondaries. Those are good blappers and very decent PvPers.

Myself, I'd rather try something less common like a Rad/Elec (haven't seen one yet). If you ditch PvP, Elec^3 are awesome, crazy and safe blappers.

Hello.

I've just got back from break and I'm having troubles getting the updater to connect. It is not blocked by firewall/AV.

Iirc there was a solution to this, implying changing the path of CohUpdaterEU.exe. The updater keeps on trying to connect (try #13 atm) with no success.

I like it. I also have to say that I suspect the OP and OminousVoice are the same person

Anyway, I do think it's time to upgrade the soundtracks of CoH.

Ah, there it is. Useless topic then :-)

Howdy. Everyone knows this awesome tool. It's got everything you need to plan our toons' builds.

What I'd like to see is an option that would list the total (I know you can see the salvage to each IO in there) amount of salvage and IO recipes you need to buy to make your build.

This is not really necessary since the new AH is much more easier to handle with when it comes to buy salvage, but I think it would be a nice addition do Mids.

This could be included in "Window" or "View" tabs as "Auctioning -> Total salvage ;; Auctioning -> Total recipes".

EDIT: And the total craft cost, since we're at it :-)

This morning I've gathered a 5 man team for Positron TF (Part I). Me, as leader, was unable to enter indoor missions. I would click on the doors and nothing would happen. I've tried to re-zone, relog, reboot and it wouldn't solve the issue.

Finally, we've decided to quit TF and start over, this time with a different leader and the problem was solved.

Just thought I should post the solution here.

I'd go with this:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1,704
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Level 19 Magic Controller
Primary Power Set: Earth Control
Secondary Power Set: Radiation Emission
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Teleportation

Hero Profile:
------------
Level 1: Fossilize Empty(A)
Level 1: Radiant Aura Empty(A)
Level 2: Radiation Infection Empty(A)
Level 4: Stone Cages Empty(A)
Level 6: Super Speed Empty(A)
Level 8: Accelerate Metabolism Empty(A)
Level 10: Hurdle Empty(A)
Level 12: Stalagmites Empty(A)
Level 14: Health Empty(A)
Level 16: Recall Friend Empty(A)
Level 18: Earthquake Empty(A)
Level 20: Stamina Empty(A)

If you want you could swap Earthquake with EF. I wouldn't, but it's a matter of preference I guess. You really don't need LR for this TF.

You see, Lusca really is a giant monster. So, even when you think you're close to the tentacle, you're actually 60-70 yards away. My guess is you're dropping the PA too far away from the tentacle.

Well, that's because other games don't have defenders but mages >_<

I would say a decently built D3 or Storm/D2. Just because they can take the alpha, debuff and mezz the mobs all at once. Also, they are quite more fun imo.

On the other hand, a FF defender would turn everyone into Tanks.

What's this? A scrapper ghosting stuff instead of killing everything on sight, clearing the path for the weaklings? Shocker!

I'd like it very much for concept toons. Performance wise, it would be sub-par.

Yea, guess I've posted this in the wrong section. It's just that I'm a bit pissed off.

It's about time they learn to make launch the patches/maintenances at dead hours like 3am to 8am or so.

This patch is killing me. It started as super nasty rubber banding and now I just can't connect to the game.

What now? Sit and wait?