Fuzun

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Dark Defender's can pitch hit for Controllers in most circumstances. And Ice/Ice Blasters.

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I wouldn't say Ice/Ice blasters could, they only have single target control and not the AoE control controllers specialize in. Dark defenders can manage as a substitute with their fear cone and black hole.

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There are lots of AoE control available. Defenders, Peacebringers and Warshade can pinch hit if Controllers are not avail or down

I suspect they will be needed to take down Lord Recluse. He is still a Mastermind in part anyway. If you don't tackle his hechmen spawns, you will eventually be overwhelmed. Bane Spiders are very nasty. Even more so in large numbers. In case some didn't know, they have Stalker-like abilities.

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We'll be spending plenty of time fighting mobs as it is, there's no reason to make us trudge through a long, annoying TF again. At least not to get our first pieces...If we wanna go do it again then cool but those of us that can only bare to do the Hero-side TFs once (or however many times til we got badges) we shouldn't HAVE to do them again to get a piece for doing them...

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I hate to play DEV-il's advocate, but that's the reason they put in the auction houses: so you don't have to run the TFs/Trials to get what you want.

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And to provide a counter point, It seems that the extremely rare recipients from Pools B, C and D are going to be the desireable ones. That is if the devs are true to form. That's OK for C and D. But trying Pool B to story arcs means that there will be a finite supply of those recipies. And the supply is going to be small 40'ish CoH arcs, 12 character per server, X accounts playing on a server. And the number won't be that high as recipies are going to be spread in level range. And to top it off man players have already completed arcs or have out leveled them further limited the supply.

Now you have a very simple Economics 101 situation. Low Supply, High Demands. And if what I surmise about the recipes being highly desireable, demands will be very high. In case people don't get it, Low Supply + High Demand means high prices. I don't want to get into a situation where I'm bidding against a large, active SG with millions or billions of Influece available to its members.

Small, finite supply in a situation like this one is a very, very bad idea.

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Who said it has to be small chance from a TF/trial? Why can't it be small chance from anything (killing mobs/mission complete/etc)?

Why the need to have any item linked to specific events like this?

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Because the Evil Doctor says that they want four pools to work through. Currently, that's enemy defeats, task forces, trials, and story arcs. They aren't willing to get rid of a pool at this point.

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I understand that, and I'm saying I think it's a crap idea and it's why this thread has 1000 posts with different complaints and desires.

Restricting any of this to specific events is a bad idea, IMO.

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This is as good as any for my reply. Two points about Story Arc Only Drops and why it's a very bad idea. First is I like the chance to EARN my rewards. I LIKE to play. I'm one of the group that doesn't mind grinding (within reason) to get something I want.

The second point is a lession in Economics. 39 Story Arcs in CoH, 12 Characters per account on a Server, X number of Story Arc Recipie drops. 39 * 12 * X * # of accounts. Now this number is going to be must smaller as a lot of characters have out leveled or completed Story Arcs. And not all X drops are avaiable in all level ranges. Bottom line is you've created a finite supply of a rare item. Demand will be large by the very nature of the beast. IF the Iventions for the drops are "goods" things player want demands multiples (x 5 to be exact as that's the cap IO benefit limit). And more demands because characters are tapped out of Story Arcs (fully or partially). To sum it up: Low Supply, High Demand.

In order for my level 50 to get those things, I would have to buy them via the auction house. IF as I suspect they are very "desired" for the power gamers, I'll be competing against active SG that have millions or billions of Influency at their disposal. Don't think it won't happen, it will.

And a third thing I just realized, you'd be creating a new type of gold farmer. Dispostable character to get the story arc drops.

Anything that has a small supply of rewards to characters is a very bad thing. It's rare loot in a game where there you state you don't want it. And don't get me wrong finite supply can be a good thing when not applied to characters. The Items of Power from the SG Trial. It provides a good incentive for SG's to raid.

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Also, Hong Kong Phooey has inspired many a monk

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Well, he IS the #1 super guy.

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And mustn't forget...

Quicker then the human eye!

Oh man. I should have seen it. I wouldn't t have seen it if you hadn't it pointed out. Excellent obfuscation.

Well to add my own speculations to sthe Shadow Shard, et al.

I I that the Shadow Shard may be Ralaruu's dimension of Origin. I think he was/is an incredibly power being that was the sole occupant of the Shadow Shard originally. So I think he was sort of an Eru in the beginning type situation. But he didn't create his own creations to populate his dimension. Somehow Ralaruu discovered other dimensions, and for reasons unknown he embarked on a campaign to conquer and absorb other dimensions.

Now from the Shard Shadow TFs we learn that Ruladak, Fathiim, and Landaruu were resurrected to serve Rularuu. So that may indicate that Rularuu can't do original creations that Eru could. And since these recreations have some autonomy and Rularuu wasn't around to control themse folks things go out of hand and we have the resulting canarge we know see as the current Shadow Shard.

So I think that everything tied to Rularuu in the Shardow Shard ultimately come directlly or indirectly from Rularuu. The People of Paraon I think are inhabitants of a parallel Paragon City that Rularuu ravaged yet Fathiim shields and protected them from being absorbed into Rularuu himself.

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A new twist to add to this thread, which explains the results seen by Dersk against Eochai: the inherent taunt of Pool Powers (Air Superiority, Kick, etc.) works on all critters for tankers. Brutes do not get any inherent taunt from these powers.

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Sigh. Why am I not surprised by this?

Well put, Crowley. Well put.

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iakona is right about that the aggro auras for Brutes.

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Yes, but I have dev confirmation that this a bug. Of course, it'll probably take months to get fixed.

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And the Lord Recluse Strike Force is gonna that much harder. Brutes won't gonna be able to keep aggro w/ just their taunt araus. No taunt == splatted squishies x8.

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Except AVs ignore threat rating as of I7, do they not?

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I think the Gauntlet change came in sometime after the CoV end-of-Beta event, as I remember the devs talking about how all the taunt effects basically shut down the AV/GM ability to attack.

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Ok I've said some negative things about Tanker being broken was back in issue 5. But I begrudging accepted it as the new status quo. The aggro cap did limited how much one Tanker had t deal with in terms of damage. I still like play the role of a tank if I can even if I'm not playing a Tanker. With that said...

Quit with the half-[censored] attempts to fix things. All you are doing is really screwing with the causual players. The casual players go by why they readll in the game manual (if they read it) and by the ingame power descriptions. They don't come to the boards. 1/2 probablu don't even know the boards exist.

Forget Gauntlet as an Inherent power which it ain't. It's just another secodary effect added to certain powers like Knockback. Just make the Taunt power the Inherent ability. Add Taunt as in inherent power from level 1 or 6 or whatever. That will make it clear in no uncertain terms. Taunt is needed and you should be using it all of the time.

Edit: And this is the 3 rewrite of this post. The first two would have gotten be banned for life.

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So I wonder if someone who was in CoH since before Beta, but he was 10 at the time is still allowed to do the "old man" spiels...

(No, I'm not talking about anyone in particular, just a general random thought)

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Well I do remeber Temp Invulnerabiity being a click power. And I remember think it was pretty much useless.

I remember getting into Perez Park my 4th or 5th day CoH beta, getting my Defeat 10 CoT mission completed. Then heading to the futherest, remoted mission door in Perez. My first cave map had the infamous 4 level cavern. I remeber being totally bewildered during the entire mission because it was an 8 man team.

I remeber leaving the mission and trying to leave the Perez Maze with my Skin intacts. I rememer actually making to the edge of the park with an enterance in sight. And I remember the heart-ache of being Recall Friend'ed by my mentor back into the middle of the Lake surrounded on all side by Hyda. And then dicovering the joy of the Hospital Express.

I remember getting Hover, and loving this game. And I remeber getting real extremely lucky in meeting up with the Altas Blimp. And then disoverying that one can actually land on said Blimp.

I remember Hover Patrolling over KR looking for those CoT green flickers of light at night. I also remeber the heart-ache of find another hero beating me to the spawn.

I have it etech into my memory when I finally got Fly. It was the embodiment of a kids dream of being a super hero. It still being a tear of joy to my eye when I think about it.

I remember my first time into Boom Town and marveling at it in person for the first time. I also remeber being in awe of a level 32 character that was just sitting around in Boomtown.

I remeber loving to play tourist in CoH beta. Just flying around visiting all of the zones that I could get into. I would spend hours just flying around and enjoying the zones. And I still so flying around playing tourists in zones today. I'm still see new things I havent seen before even after 2 1/2 years of play.


I remember seeing Talos Island and Founder Falls from the air, seeing off of the green circles of light, and thinking that the CoT are very brazen in those zones. (They actually were just DE Trees of Life back when they stuck around forever.) And I remember see DE Emanators for the first time. They conned are Lieutenants. All of the new players just standing around staring at them, not daring to get too close to aggro them.

My RL friend and SG mates filled me in on the CoH background. And I marvled at seeing Rikti in FF for the first time. They seems strange, mysteries and ominous specially with that strange gated walk of theirs.

And I remeber the Rikti Invasion to close out the CoH Beta. See a Ritki Mothership appear in the skys in the various zones. Spawns of Hydra appearing in Stell Canyon and all throughout Paragon City.

I remember gathering in Talos Islands preparing for and awaing "IT to begin. The players around the tram just talking and organizing things. I'm just sort of look around, spot something and trying to get everyones attention. "guys"...."Guys!"...."GUYS! HELLLO!!!!! SPACESHIP TO THE NORTH!!!!!!!!! INCOMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Rikti everywhere. Heroes valently fighting against overwhelming odds. Man it felt like being in a one of the big comic publisher world ending epic event. I remeber getting mezz'ed and mezz'ed over and over by one Rikti LT. And I remember being determinded to dropped that one LT if it took me the rest of the night.

We finally cleared the hill to the Noth of the Tram in Talo. And the fleet moving heroes start faning out looking for more Rikti incusions. I remeber getting a bit to lot and getting smack hard by a Tsoo. And then getting a drive by heal by a friendly Defender. (Acutall it was move of a suicidal drop healing as the Defender was a Teleporter and I was 100 ft in the air).

I got lots more but I think I'll stop here....

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I'm in the dark, what was Posi referring to when he mentioned a project between Cryptic and Microsoft?

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Cryptic is doing the Marvel Univere MMORPG.

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It will be interesting to see how they try to make these Safeguard missions as fun as Meyham missions. Cause that is going to be a huge factor.

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What he says doesn't bode well to me. Preventing destruction from happening? Every great once in a while it can be a challenge and might fun for people. An example, i thinkg, would be the preventing 30 Firbolg from Escaping mission in Croatoa. That type of prevention can get flustrating as hades. If they can't incorporate smashing objects or through obstacle into the mission itself, I predict that the safeguard missions will go over like a lead ballon.

Now what I would like to see would be having to get to a certain location to prevent a bomb from exploiding. Having to smash your way through walls or piles of stuff to make it there in time. Or Arachnos has developed this huge building sized Death Ray complex. The Ray is on a countdown to firing at Paragon City. There is no single vital spot. You have to start smashiing all of the equipment in the complex to disable it before the countdown reaches zero. That's the sort of thing I'm envisioning for safeguard missions. Smashing stuff with a purpose.

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Obviously, you've never tried building a fully functional base.

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hey, it only took us... how months has it been now?

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Be careful about adding new stuff now, the rent could get to be more than our income...

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It doesn't matter if you spend it or not. You are going to pay rent on it. Banked Prestige isn't except from rent.

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You have to wonder what the Mag of Domination's status protection is, though. Remember, Controllers have a fairly easy time stacking enough magnitude to break through most status protection.

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I can see the protection level being as good as or better then Tanker/Scrapper levels. The protection is going to be up for 90 seconds. Any mezz effects on the Dom. will hit like a ton of bricks when Domination ends.

I think this change makes Domination truely unique. Dominator (for brief periods of time) are truely the masters of Domination.

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Great work Arcanaville. We all felt Lucks were overpowered based on the in-game description numbers & expected some kind of nerf to them eventually. Of course even these numbers are likely still too high.

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I'm not sure they haven't been like this for quite awhile. The numbers are consistent with my experiences back through issue 3.

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I concur this this as well. I've had situations with my Kheldians back when they were lowbies that seems very inconsistant. I had used 2 Lucks to supposedly (nearly) floor a Quantum Gunner accuracy. I got hit 2 in 5 or 3 in 5 attacks o too many occations.

And those numbers explain every single combat weirdness that I've noticed in the far and recent past when inspirations were involved. Situations where Accuracy should have been floored or capped where no where near those limits.

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Yeah, but who carefully scans their iconbar after every fight?
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I carefully scan my iconbar during a fight...with my Kheldians. It can be the difference between dropping Dwarf form and laying the hurt on a boss, or turning yourself into a sitting duck. Kheldians the one AT that voluntarily turns off Tanker level mezz protection in combat. Go figure....

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For those of you remember the CoV End of Beta event with the signature heroes battling all the players, we found a very curious problem during that event: It quickly became completely impossible to know who/where your target was. There were so many characters taunting continuously, that it was not only not fun, but essentially not playable.
So, we are trying to make sure that Taunt Ping Pong doesn't become a major concern in PvP. We want Gauntlet to be a bonus which helps, but it is not meant to replace Taunt or related powers.

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I don't think this is anything to worry about in actual play. How often are you going to have a situation where you have hundreds of players vs one or two, as you did then? Which is what gave you the 'ping pong' effect.


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The number of players wasn't the cause of the problem. That problem probably wouldn't have been obvious with normal PvP play except after a lot of playtime, or if had occured to someone. The number of players brought that problem to light and very quickly. A saying from the software development world is that all bugs are shallow with many eyes.

And that issue did happen to me during the PvP testing session during CoV beta. My Villains got taunted, and with the number of player around me I didn't know who did it. So I couldn't respond. And it never occured to me then or afterwards that is was a problem.

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So it comes down to the issue of melee not wanting to be weak against anything. I can back that up with statements from melee players concerning the new electric set. The set has built in weaknesses and the players are complaining up a storm about how it is retarded for any melee set to have a weakness.

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you realize that most of the complaints are due to the fact not that the set is weak but it forces them in SJ just like fiery aura. that is the complaint

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Look past that and see the root of the problem. The melee player does not want to have the weakness of knockback or immobilization and thus feels compelled to eliminate the weakness. Otherwise, what is forceing them to get SJ? If they accepted the weakness then they could pick any travel pool they wanted, but melee players don't want any weakness. They can't handle it.

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The isue of being forces into certain powers for some melee ATs, if the nature of status effects in the game. It's too binary. It's either too much or nothing. The same for Knockback. I think the current Knockback mechanics are borked. Certain AT power sets have too damned much KB, and most other sets don't have any at all. And this is totally genre breaking as well. Super Heroes who are primarily melee do get knocked backed occasionaly. A hugely power attack, they got caught off guard, the bad guy tosses oil under the hero, etc. Having it happen occasionally (some melee ATs more often than other melee ATs) is definately in genre. It can make fights fun, exciting, and unpredictable. As it stands now, it being KB'ed at a sneeze for some and getting a specific pool for some defense, or its not in a million years for the rest.

And so there is no mistake, I am in favor of ALL melee ATs be vulnerable to Knockback. Not all of the time, but occasionally. Some less likely to be knockback than others. Tankers > Brutes > Scrappers,Stalkers is how I would see it. And maybe some variable win the AT power sets as well. For Tankers possibly - Stone, Ice > Invuln > Fire.

And to at least to keep on topic. My stand on TD at the old levels is that is was a kludge, a bad ideal to try to balance overpowered defenses. The old levels TD leves after the Global Defense Reducation moved into the realm of totally broken game mechanic. It was totally outside of the games genre. (And for me and others, the games genre is just as important as anything else). TD dropping at much reduced levels is acceptable. It's very much in genre, The underdog always have a chance of gettting a bit of an edge or winning.

Toggle Dropping turned me off of PvP fights in general. But not for the reasons you think. It was because it was an 'I Win' button in my fights. It didn't seem fair to me when it was a factor in my wins. With the TD reductions, I can start having fun and fair fights again. If I win, I want it to be cause I kicked their tails, not because I got lucky. Although I don't mind winning a knock down, dragged out, knuckle fights by getting lucky.

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I think part of the frustration many folks have with Kheldians comes in the teens, especially if you solo. Without any form of mezz resistance and lots of aoe attacks, you might as well be a neon-lit dart board. You'll need to play carefully and stragically with this build until you get dwarf or find a team.


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bah! those people had either a Tanker or Scrapper as main

I find my PB easier to play than my blaster and my controller at those levels. I'm more experience though. I suffer from minor altitis and while I was levelling Hand of Baahr to 50, I also levelled one of every other AT to their 20s or 30s (my first toon is a level 32 energy/dev blaster).
I definitely can't charge a group of red/purples and expect to live, but I soloed my late teens this weekend all the way to invincible and played with +2 teams, so I know how to handle those situations the smart way.

I should get Dwarf by tonight if I get to play...

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I think it's a deliberate conspiracy on the part of the devs. One or more a sadists. You don't get Dwarf form until level 20. You don't have access to SO enhancers, either. And you get a story arc and missions involving the Tsoo once you hit level 15. Everyone know how much "fun" Tsoo are especially when your missions at 17/18 when you start getting the ranged mezz Inkmen. It's pure tortue. There you are as Dwarf Form and blissful mezz protection is hanging there just out of touch, beconning you.... It's just pure torture, I tell you! Pure torture!!!!

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This is how it's worked for me when tanking or blasting, too. Stuff that isn't taunted is easy to piss off. Stuff that is taunted keeps hitting the tanker until taunt wears off.

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I have noticed more than once the last few weeks now that I am actively playing my tank where I have had a small mob aggro'd via punchvoke and aura, the blaster or PB starts gettting attacked anyway in retaliation to a blast (not an AOE even) and when I taunt they then stay on me....go figure....

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That could be a duration issue. Taunt-effect's duration can be extended with Taunt Enhancements. If you are using a slow activation/recharge attack for the taunt-effect (or aura misses), the taunt'effect's duration may end before your next attack.

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my aura (mud pots) and my aoe both have taunt duration in them, as do my taunt - so not sure...may have to do some more scientific testing - but I constantly see stuff that just seems that taunt holds aggro better than mudpots, etc.

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Something to bear in mind, is that our Taunt Auras have a maximum number of target they will affect. And it's not a continous effect, they pulse at a certain rate. So you can have NPCs there are within the AoE of Mudpots but not taunted. Those NPCs aggro can be drawn to a Blaster that does damage to them.

I've been playing Tankers since the 2nd Wave in the CoH Beta. I have never ever seen an NPC under taunt aggro on anyone but my Tankers. Every case I've seen of a Blaster or other player "drawing aggro from Tanker" is the NPC not being taunted. I've seen NPCs blasted to a sliver Health by a teammate go running by my Tanker. The NPC always stop and turn their attention to my Tanker.

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Well the only possible solution to this issue is to have the henchmen affected to have their dmg resistance be taken into account after the dmg split by BG is taken. To hit checks dont make sense since they are volunteering to take the dmg for their master.

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The would be unbalanced between all of the Mastermind Primaries. The devs would be shooting themselves in the foot.

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I'm playing a Ninja/Trick Arrow build. I dont see myself or any other Melee based MM using the "bodyguard" feature much. Partly because I keep my Pets in PASSIVE/Attack My Target or PASSIVE/Follow Me, and AGGRESSIVE/GOTO the majority of the time. The only time they are ever in Defensive is when I summon them and thats it.

Why not give the melee based MM some sort of "bodyguard" feature while our Pets are away from us. Its that or increase the melee based MM's HP, the Pet's DPS, or some sort of new Defensive power in our 2nd powersets.

Im sure someone has already mentioned it... but how will the AI for the PET be handled in the case of being attacked in Defensive/Follow Me mode?

Will the PET run up and get into Melee range or just turn and shoot the attacker? I'm guessing that they'll turn and shoot: if that's the case, could the sucky arrows/darts that the ninjas are throwing out do some kind of 95% hit and stun/slow/disorient/(any debuff in general).

Because knowing that my ninja is bodyguarding his master with those same arrows that do very little damage as when you tell them to attack isnt at all comforting .

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Man after all of the time and people still don't know the behaviour of their henchmen? Well let me spell it out for people. Pet's have a LEASH on them. This leach limited how far they will move from a certain point. If the pets go beyond the leash length, they will returned to the limits of the leash. Pet's will everything that they can do so tay within the limits set by the leash.

OK the next question should naturally be what is the "certain point" I spoke of. Let's call it the anchor point to be more accurate. The anchor point is determined by the command you give the pet. When you issue a 'goto' command, the anchor point becomes whereever you potitioned the targeting circles. When you issues a 'stay' command, their anchor point becomes the exact location the henchman/pet is currently standing. When you issue an 'attack my target' command, the anchor point become the foe that you had targetted. And when you your issues a 'follow' command the anchor point become you and and you location. If you move or the 'attack my target' target moves the anchor point moves as well.

Now remember pets can and will move within the distance of their leash. Just because you henchmen on Bodyguard, they will not just stand around doing nothing. And any hechman in defense mode will aggro on any foe that damages you or any of you other henchmen. The key is that you need to be close enough so your Bodyguards can attack (remember the leash.)

Bodyguard is a very good thing for Mastermind in PvP and PvE. And think on this. Bodyguard gives effectively you up to 75% damage resistance to ANY and ALL damage in the game. No other AT in the game can do that. Not Scrapper, Brutes, Stalker or Tankers. Not even Khedian Dwarves or an Warshade capped out with Eclipsed which is one of the best defense powers in the game. The AT with the least Health in the game could potentially tank the Hamidon in place of a Tanker. That is mind boggling to me. How about you?

I''m amazed that Masterminds are jumping for joy over thing.

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Ok, so now my MM will be two shot. Whoopdy doo.

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"Two shots instead of one? You've just doubled my life expectancy! I HATE YOU!"

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The_Foo - Master of Understatement

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Another couple of questions:

Will bodyguard still work if the MM is Mezzed?

Will Hences count as bodyguards if they themselves are mezzed?

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I would thing Bodyguard would still work so long as the basic requirements are met. Supremacy range, line-of-sight, and Defensive/Follow status on pets.

However when you or a pet is Confused technically you/they are now an enemy. In that situation, I don't think that Bodyguard would work.

Now Confuse powers will be FOTM for use against Mastermind in PvP.