Geek_Boy

Like I said in the other thread, while it really sucks that I'm not going to get a badge for the 10 hour Invincible Faathim TF, at least I understand the reasons why.

Does it suck? Yes. Yes, it does.

Do I want you spending hundreds of hours mulling over data t find a way to get me a badge that I can go earn again instead of fixing bugs or adding new content? No. No, I don't.

I can live without the badges if you can promise you'll be devoting the time to getting me some new powers, new zones, and the CoV open beta open as soon as possible.

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I'll pop in here so you guys have a new target.

The original Task Force Datamine took 3 months to finish. That was to go over 2 months worth of data.

We now have 18 months worth of data. We looked for a more effecient solution, but our estimates still come out at 2 years to datamine and get you your badges.

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While I really hate this (especially after spending about 10 hours over the last 2 days finishing a Shard TF with my level 50), at least I can understand it.

Of course, I don't see myself doing that one again, so I doubt I'll ever get the badge.

CURSE YOU, FAATHIM!

Two things:

1) I’ve only played the Trick Arrow set up to level 10 on a Controller and level 6 on a Defender. It’s a ton of fun at the lower levels, but I worry about it’s effectiveness in the later levels (I would throw more time into the Test Server, but I have a Burn Tanker I want to get as high as possible before I5 goes live for obvious reasons). I’m not looking at any of the final powers and thinking, “Yes! That will be the giant killer!”

2) You could do a “healing umbrella” pretty effectively. How about a PBAoE heal for smallish numbers that comes from an arrow shot straight up into the air? The arrow emits an inhaled painkiller (a la Max Payne) that helps your team keep going. I think the lack of a heal could be troublesome since there are no toggles anywhere in the set (this is from memory, so feel free to correct me). There are plenty of ways to get around having a heal, but if one ends up being needed, this seems like the most thematically accurate one to me.

I ran the last few Freaklympics missions on Live last night and thought I would do them on Test, too.

My build (in no particular order):
Level 31 Fire/Ice Tank
Blazing Aura: 2 Accuracy, 4 Taunt
Fire Shield: 6 Damage Resist
Healing Flames: 1 Heal
Consume: 1 Accuracy, 1 Endurance Recovery
Plasma Shield: 6 Damage Resist
Burn: 6 Damage
Frozen Fists: 1 Acc
Taunt: 1 Range Increase
Ice Patch: 1 Recharge Reduction
Boxing: 1 Accuracy
Hurdle: 1 Jump
Health: 1 Heal
Stamina: 6 Endurance Recovery
Hasten: 6 Recharge Reduction
Combat Jumping: 1 Defense
Superjump: 1 Jump
Acrobatics: 1 Endurance Reduction

This is my build on Live, so I haven't made any changes yet.

All of the missions were set on Invincible and were taken on solo. Unfortunately, this is an older arc so everything spawned at even level or +1. I'm used to fighting +2's and +3's in my missions, so this isn't typical of my average missions.

Was it a challenge on Live?

Of course not. Fire/Ice is God Mode. Herd, Ice Patch, Burn, Level, Repeat. I'm out of practice herding-wise, so I was only grabbing a room or two at a time.

Was it a challenge on Test?

Mmmmm, not so much. The change to Burn is a pain, but nothing that I can't get over. I was still never in danger of dying and only hit Healing Flames once or twice in the 4 or 5 missions I did. Whereas on Live I could only grab a room or two at a time because of the maps I was in and my own rustiness, on Test it was a practical decision. Even with Ice Patch down, the fliers were getting out of Burn range every chance they could get, so having too many runners was a real pain since Burn was taking so long to come back. Whereas on Live I would just grab a runner and smack a Burn patch down on him, on Test I was still waiting for it to come back. Since I'm only really working with 2 non-burn attacks and they don't have any damage in them, it kinda sucks when you have 6 or so guys running around with half their health.

Endurance was a big issue since I normally only use Taunt and Burn once I have a group together. Frozen Fists and Boxing are for bosses, supplemental damage when I'm being impatient, or to keep agro on someone who is trying to get out of my little ring of death. Now, I have to take at least 1/4 of an even level LT's health with my melee attacks. Some of this will be solved once I get to level 38 and pick up Greater Ice Sword. At 32 I'm taking Tough, but at 33 I'll be slotting Consume. I didn't encounter anything that I couldn't handle and only used one CaB in the missions, but I got pretty low a few times and expect things to get a lot hairier in a mission that actually spawns at Invincible.

Will I be changing my build?

I'm not sure yet. I may be moving some of those Taunts out of Blazing Aura for some damage. Depending on how many Recharge Reductions it takes to make a real difference, I might throw one or two in Burn. I'll wait for someone more mathematically inclined to crunch the numbers on the DPS there. I still have no use for most of the powers in my secondary. I still feel I need Tough and Weave for some defense. With their reduced effectiveness, I'll be watching for some numbers on that too, though.

Was it fun on Live?

As fun as anything that's not challenging can be. There weren't enough enemies of high enough level to really start making things interesting because of the level the storyarc is set at. Freakshow are probably my favorite enemies, so I had a good time in what is probably my favorite storyarc.

Was it fun on Test?

Hmmmm. This is a tough question. The changes to Burn were more tedious than anything else. I could still kill an even level minion with one application if they didn't throw off their Dull Pain, but LT's required 2 and will continue to until I get to level 38.

The boss at the end just about took out all of my End before he went down. Again, I'm looking forward to someone doing some DPS calculations on replacing some Damage with Recharge Reductions in Burn to see if trading that damage pays off with being able to fire it off more often. One nice thing about the timing is that as soon as Burn is about to come back up, I know that Ice Patch is about to go down. With careful planning it was actually a little easier to keep everyone in the circle of death than on Live since I had an easy visual cue for Ice Patch.

It was more difficult and I did have to pay more attention, but I would pay an extra $5 a month to reduce the recharge on Burn a little. The change in damage didn't bother me too much (though it was certainly noticeable), but the change in recharge put me through three distinct stages: First I was annoyed, then I was accepting, then I started thinking up how to change my slotting around to deal with it. I'm not wild about it since the whole idea behind Fire Tanks is that they're not as strong defensively since they have damage built in. Can I live with it? Yeah. Will I be deleting this toon? I certainly don't plan on it.

Risk vs. Reward:

I gained about 200K Influence and about 5 bars of XP in my total time online last night. This included the Freakshow missions and a few Sky Raider missions that also concluded a storyarc. I didn't feel like doing the Sky Raider missions again (or ever again - I hate those guys with a melee character) and didn't think to write down all the numbers, so I have to estimate the difference in rewards. Three and a half bars or so of that came from the missions that I also did on Test.

On test I gained about 175K or so Influence and about 4 bars of XP from the Freakshow missions. The difference wasn't all that noticeable on each individual baddie, but I noticed a nice difference overall. Mission bonuses were unchanged (as were the 500XP/Influence glowies in the final mission).

So in the end, I'll just say that I think the devs have overdone it a bit, but the sky hasn't fallen just yet.

--edit--

I just read the other posts in this thread and I'm amazed at how many people threw away their one post to say "u sukk, Stat3s." Some people have had some honest to goodness problems supported with ::gasp:: information from their testing, but the rest of you need to step back a second. Is it any wonder that the devs "don't listen" when you're not saying anything?

Also, if Ice wasn't my secondary I would be screwed. The Fear effect on the few mobs that I tried Burn on outside of my Ice Patch ran as soon as they had one or two tics of damage on them and didn't come back. Something definitely needs to be toned down. Either reduce the recharge, remove the Fear effect, or change the way the damage is done (DoT even after they leave).

I spent about 2 minutes with Trick Arrow this morning and have to admit that I was thinking, "A Defender hold at level 1? Sweet!"

Ah well, can't say that isn't a reasonable change. Can't wait to play around with it some more this weekend.

Every one of my toons has started out in Galaxy City. The friend who introduced the game to me sent me there on my first one and I soon realized why. The people in Atlas Park make me wish that I could just /ignore everyone in the zone at once. I swear, every time I'm there for more than 2 minutes, I have to /ignore at least one player . . .

Then again, I tend to play CoH like it's a single player game with built-in AIM.

Oh, and I heart Vazhilok. Sure, they're a challenge but they also give an XP bonus. Even with a little bit of debt once in a while you can still level much more quickly by fighting them.

This is actually an update:

Legends of Paragon

We're a group of slightly more mature players (16 years of age and up) who are open to all lifestyles and like to play this game to have a good time. We don't do drama and we're not here to PL you. SG chat is a constant source of entertainment and we are ultimately a helpful bunch.

We have members in all level ranges, are fairly alt-friendly (though we'd like to get to know you before you have us invite all 8 of your toons), and are glad to have new players as well as grizzled vets.

There are three simple rules at this point:

1) You must be over the age of 16. We aren't a group of perverts or anything, but we don't want any parents mad at us for using potty-mouth words or talking about the things adults talk about.

2) You must log on at least every 14 days. We want active members and if you're not, you'll be booted.

3) Don't be a jerk.

If you're interested in joining us, get in touch with one of our Mythos: CaptLibertarian, Bodicea, Single Boi, ElectricInferno, Platinum Man, or Dark Kristen. One of us is normally on, even if we're not on our main characters. If nothing else, you can send me a tell at my global handle (same as my name here).

Our new website is still under construction, but it has some basic stuff on it: www.angelfire.com/games5/lopcoh

Usually it's more of a pecerption problem than anything else. A friend of mine who is one fine healer got booted from a team because he didn't have the powers that the tank needed to be effective.

The TANK.

That he had to heal every five seconds to keep alive.

And they booted HIM from the team.

And kept the tank that needed a certain set of powers to keep him alive.

So it's not always a matter of the defender not being useful so much as people being stupid.

Since there isn't an official thread open about the travel powers changes, I'm guessing this is where I should come to whine about them.

First of all, I like the idea of suppression. I think it works, but the problem is that it is applying to certain defensive powers. I know the official dev statement is "this is working as intended. Turn off Invincibility while you travel," but that doesn't cut it in my mind and I'll explain why.

Okay, Invincibility "damages" enemies in melee range adding to your accuracy and defense while also taunting them. That's why your travel powers are supressed if you get too close to a mob with it turned on. That almost makes sense until you realize how integral Invincibility is to keeping a scrapper alive and that other scrapper defensive sets (and tanker sets) don't have the same penalty.

If I have Invincibility on I do have a chance of agroing groups that I would not have without it on, so I've made a habit of not traveling with it a lot of the time anyway. If I'm in a place like the Hive and am surrounded by groups of monsters, I tend to leave every defense on though. Why? Because if I'm close enough for Invincibility to agro them I already screwed up and need all the help I can get.

So now I need to choose between a defense bonus that can agro a mob I get too close to (but that I can normally get away from between SJ and SS) or having my travel powers supressed every time I get to close to a Skull in Perez Park on my way to a mission. Is that a game-breaker? No. Is it annoying? To the extreme.

If I was, say, a regen scrapper though I could leave every single power in my defensive set on and have no problems whatsoever. While it almost makes sense that Invincibility would supress your travel power, does it make the same amount of sense that if my regen scrapper (and I do have one that I'm pulling through the 20's right now) should have their travel powers supressed if they heal damage from someone they accidentally agroed while moving through a zone?

I don't think it makes sense for a regen to have their powers supressed, but it does follow the same logic as why an invuln is being supressed. My solution isn't to apply it to everyone because the players that are currently being supressed are having it done (in my opinion) unfairly. I say remove the supression for all non-damaging powers.

Now I realize that since Invincibility "damages" enemies in melee range to determine how many are there, that might be more difficult than I'm anticipating. If that's the case then let us know, but if it's just a matter of the devs thinking that it should work that way then I respectfully disagree.

Now I'm off to play my Warshade.

Just wanted to say that I think this is much better than the original proposal. The lengthening to 300' and the "not in a mission" rule definitely help.

I'm still of the opinion that the one minute timer is too short, though. Several people (myself included) have suggested a five minute timer, but I would even go for a three minute one. One minute just seems way too short.

And no, I didn't read the rest of the thread. Once people became more interested in insulting each other than discussing the topic at hand I lost my patience for it. I feel sorry for the poor devs that have to read every word of this thread.

Doing very well. This morning Lady D was level 49, so maybe we'll have our first level 50 by the time I get home from work. I had her outleveled for about two days before she kicked it into high gear recently. We may have our first Kheldian today as well.

Traitor!!!

SG Name: Legends of Paragon

Level Range: 5-50 (almost)

Website: OnTheEdgeGear.com

Info: Just a group of people who get together to have a good time while playing our favorite MMO. Our only requirements are that you log on at least once every 14 days and that you not be a complete and total jerk. We really don't discriminate other than these two rules. Just be sure to keep your SG channel open as this is usually at least as entertaining as the game itself.

How to get in: If you're interested in joining us, check the site for a list of who can recruit. The site is fairly new, but it's being updated heavily right now. Contact one of us and we'll give you a shot.

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Done.

While we're at it we also support multi-team matches (like 4 teams of 2 Heroes each all duking it out).

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/em Glee!

<edits with Microsoft Word - changes a few formats - saves to hard drive>

This is awesome. Thanks so much for the post. You've got me dying to get to level 40 now, though.