Gilia

How about the Controller pops it on HIS OWN pet that fights in melee and we can see what it's like?

Or we get a /Pain or /Thermal do the same -res debuff with a bigger area and then see how it goes.

It was proliferated in Issue 16.

Cited by who exactly? Why no link? Why no quote?
So? The EXACT same slotting on /FF now offers 28% defense to everything. 28% defense is much better than 39% resistance. That's actually still the case if the buffed target already has resistance (which is your claim). Why is that? Let's say they already have 20% resist to the type in question, and it becomes 59%. That's a effective damage reduction of 49% (the ratio of the original 80% to the now 41% that you'd take). Adding 28% defense would be an effective damage reduction of 56% (the quotient between 50% of hits they were taking, and then 22% while buffed).
In the cases where there is no resistance in place, Defense is just flat out better.
Again, so what? More importantly sonic isn't a damage type, and as such I'm becoming suspicious that this whole post was a joke.

I have a feeling that the devs have a better grasp about how damage mitigation works than you do.

Brief intermission. You realize that much of the player base argued MMs would never get a worthwhile AoE heal because it would be broken, and that's why /Dark's AoE has such a small radius? Check it out, I'll even cite a thread where it was brought up:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=123200

You sure do. I realize you were kidding here, even though it offered no value to your position, but most everyone realizes that the game's balanced around SO's. You could have just said that. I'll go ahead and skip the rest of the fluff here.

That's why everyone plays /FF now. Oh was it the debuffs that made it over powered? But Thermal could do all that and has decent heals in place of a small chunk of the resists...

Hahahaha... the difference of two toggles (the -res and the Heal vs Dispersion) is enough to balance the set? If that were true (it's not) they could have just changed two powers in /Sonic to proliferate it.
Wrong. Healing is based your max hit points. That's the difference in healing power for the other healing sets as well. In fact, it's a whole tenth of a percent higher for MMs.
You don't suppose that's to balance the fact that a MM is more in a position to spread Forge out? They don't need 4 allies to maintain Forge, while a Corruptor does?
7.79 is the standard mez protection from an MM. These changes happened with the other proliferated sets. So the idea that "Thermal works" but "Sonic couldn't," when they applied the same rules to the others MM secondaries as they did to /Thermal is just ridiculous.

Because it wouldn't be as good as the sets in place now. Doesn't seem like a good enough reason to me.

Well, Rad and Kin would allow you to give a big recharge bonus, and with kin a damage bonus, to ALL your pets. To balance that, if they were proliferated, those numbers would have to be lowered or powers replaced in some way. Such a way that they probably wouldn't be popular choices anyhow.

But how do you conclude that Sonic would be too powerful?
Sonic, in large part, depends on having allies. First because of the ubiquitous shield buffs (in this case resists), but mostly because Disruption Field and Sonic Repulsion are anchored to allies. I think the only real argument against it would be Sonic might be nicer on MMs. You wouldn't need to team to get the full effect of Disruption Field, which is really a gemstone in the set.

Ultimately, I think they split Sonic and FF between Corrs and MMs to give them some unique flare to each AT at the release. I don't think there's much of a good reason not to proliferate it now though.

A curious thing about MMs is with the exception of Darkest Night, there are no anchored toggles. That means there's no anchored -res at all. Perhaps this was intentional, because anchored powers (such as /Rad and /Sonic lean on) might be easier to maintain as a MM, since you don't need endurance to keep attacking once your henchman are out.

Who knows. If they proliferated /Sonic Resonance to MMs I'd make a Thugs/Sonic that same day. There's not a much else I would really like to see proliferated.

Edit: A follow up thought. /Sonic doesn't add much that /FF doesn't. It has some -res and a ST mez protector instead of Force Bolt, PFF, and Repulsion Bomb. I would argue Liquefy is less effective than Force Bubble due to its recharge, but of course that just depends, YMMV, etc. All that together, and I think /FF may out right be better than /Sonic for MMs (if it were proliferated).

Also I realized that the argument from an anchor does not hold much water since Controllers can already do this. In fact, the number of sets that could benefit nicely from the anchors for Controllers is probably more than the hypothetical MMs.

So in conclusion, there is no good reason IMO not to proliferate.

Placate actually doesn't recharge faster than it does with any other set. Build Up does, however. It has a base recharge of 72 seconds instead of the normal 90. I think that was to balance what Dechs was talking about, rather than to fit the recharge times of the attacks. Because the set was balanced around (w/ SOs) having a pretty consistent 37.5% damage buff, the recharge was lowered on Build Up to make it a more consistent buff.

I don't think it does, because once enhanced the amount of time actually shaved off is pretty low.

The only tip I would say is if you pick up Cloak of Fear (I would!), then you want to almost always AS something you won't actually one hit, so the fear effect can trigger and stack with CoF. If it does, you'll fear down everything nearby.

Well, Vigilance manifests as a +damage buff, the same way a small red would, so yes, it should effect the psuedo pets.

Don't forget that Defenders don't get Build Up, Defiance, Scourge, etc, so while you might out damage a lot of other Defenders, you may still lag behind your Blaster/Corruptor cousins.

Yes, what they said. S/L isn't helping you at all, and Carnies are hard because Mind Control and Illusion powers are only typed as Psionic.

Carnies also use a ton of AoE attacks, which you don't have quite softcapped.

Drop your attempts at S/L defense, allow your melee defense to drop a bit and get the AoE at least a little higher, if not capped.

Aegis proc (which is unique) and Reactive Armor's proc could be used to get you some Psi resistance to help with those troublesome Carnies and Rikti.

Gloom would be worth slotting for damage. It's one of the best Brute attacks.

More than anything else, Deflection is your Melee defense toggle. You only have it slotted for resistance. That's helpful too, the S/L resists on it are the same as Tough's. BUT If you put 2 slots in it for defense that's 5% melee def you don't need to find elsewhere.

Edit:
Also note that Grant Cover would give you defense debuff resistance. That's a very good thing to have, especially if you rely heavily on defense. If there's something you could give up, that might be more handy.

Assuming you meant S/L defense then yes (as the previous link almost shows). For most setups it seems that it's possible, if you're willing to give up enough power picks, slots, etc, and feel the character will still be viable.

If you mean all 3 positional defenses... I would say no, that's not doable. If it is by some stretch, I can't imagine it's still a viable build.

I believe fall damage calculates based on your Z coordinate when you left the ground compared to your Z when you hit the ground. So, if they land where you knocked them up they shouldn't (and I've never seen them) take damage. However, the hang does float them to the side a little, so it's very possible to have them just inch off the side of a building and then fall straight down.


I'm also not convinced that enhancing the knockback adds much mitigation. I've had Lift maxed out ED-wise on Knockup and most of the time, the mobs stand straight up while still up in the air. They will often fire back before they hit the ground. On the other hand, I've used Air Superiority with Vanguard Medal and they clearly take more time to recover. It's consistent, whatever is going on there.

All the power pool and epic power pool attacks will cause redraw (with the single exception of the Assault Rifle of Blaster Munition Mastery).

For a single IO, I would go with Kick and the Kinetic Combat proc (knockdown). You could possibly go with Boxing and a Pounding Slugfest proc, but the chance on Boxing and on that proc are much lower than Kick/KC proc. That would give 'em some mitigation ability. There's not much else you can do with only one slot.

When my Spider was young (on virtue as a matter of fact) people would ask me why I didn't take Maneuvers all the time. The truth was I toggled it off between fights and wouldn't turn it on for insignificant fights. That's just how I do toggles at a low level, turning them on and off as appropriate instead of being forced to rest every 3 minutes.

Yeah, 90% is a huge exaggeration, at least if you include both those powers. Bring up their power info to see if they have it. Passing up Maneuvers as a Wolf/Bane/Crab/whatever is beyond silly.

Just so you know, there is no Tactical Training: Tactics. I'm assuming you mean TT:Leadership, which is similar to Tactics from the Leadership pool. In that case, I would say it probably didn't fit in their build. Most people are equipped with their own Acc and ToHit buffs that the +10% (base) a wolf would give them would have no effect. So, I could see why if power picks were stretched thin for a concept or a certain build's goals that could get left out.

The metaphor trailed off a bit too soon. The defenders will make the wall as weak as tissue paper and then destroy it faster than the scrappers knocked it down with brute force.

There's far more to it than that. With Scrappers you have immediate gratification: there's no waiting for a team, there's no setting up a mob with debuffs, all you do is kill. Sure the death might take a little longer, but I've been so frantically hitting my attacks I've lost all sense of time passing. You also have the solo factor: ATs/powersets that solo well will tend to be more popular because it's not always easy or fun to make a team. Lastly, the formula for a good Scrapper is easy: softcapp (or add heavy defense to a resist/heal based set), and get the recharge for the best attack chain. Support classes are not so simple. You have lots of choices to weigh, and once combat begins there's dozens of directions you could take. Simple is popular, even if it's not the most powerful.

The last time I know we were given hard data on AT popularity (2 years ago), Blasters were winning out by a bit (with Scrappers the closest behind). They are simple, can solo, and will give you the immediate gratification of anything on default difficulty dropping dead in seconds. Not many advocate (then or now) that Blaster's are inherently better than Defenders. Popularity is traced to other factors.

Based on the original power sets and that Rikti and Carnies used to be a very large portion of high level content, I believe this was an intentional caked in "catch all" weakness. Of the original power sets, the only set that had defense against Rikti's mezzes was Stone Armor Tankers. Even then, Minerals can't be used with Granite Armor. There wasn't supposed to be an easy way around it. We were supposed to be susceptible to certain groups to maintain their difficulty.

There is the already mentioned thematic reason. After all, how does an /SR Scrapper justify dodging an attack on his mind?

As far as that all is concerned, I'm glad it's the way it is and that it hasn't changed.

However, when I can Dominate a Rikti Drone (who have high ranged and melee defense) much more easily than I can hit it with Power Blast, I realize that it's unintended side effects don't always make sense.

QFT, now twice. Ignore Stone Jaguar's advice, he's either trolling or spreading ignorance.

You know he's already soft capped, right? These changes wouldn't help.


You're softcapped, so resists, regen, and recharge are the three things you can give some attention now. You only have 2 LotG:recharges, which can be bought with 2 alignment merits. Pick up a few more and put them in Phalanx Fighting, Grant Cover, and get a slot into Battle Agility to put one there. (Take it from Conserve Power). Alternatively, when i19 makes Fitness inherent you could pick up Maneuvers, Stealth, Grant Invis, or Hover and pop the 5th one in there.

I can't imagine you have endurance troubles. Replace Gift of the Ancients franken slotting for LotG franken slotting to get some more regen.

In Physical Perfection replace a Blue and Green IO with 2 pieces of Numina's: the proc (also 2 alignment merits) and a straight heal. That will net you more regen and more recovery.

If recovery becomes an issue, you could put the Miracle proc in health, and a Miracle: Heal. Shouldn't need to though.

When i19 changes, I would remove the slots from Boxing, move Phalanx Fighting way up, and take Haymaker. Give it the slots from Boxing. Once you get some more money you can look at upgrading that set and getting the ranged defense elsewhere.

With all that, if you have any free slots put a resist IO in Deflection. It has the same resists that Tough does, after all. Honestly, I would rather have that than the second slot in Active Defense. The occasion where doubling up Active Defense is useful will be much more rare than when some extra S/L resist will. I'm thinking like when the Rommy's fluffies die and you don't move it might come in handy. Or if you decide to solo a ton of Rikti Mezmerists at once...

I was DMing a Warcraft d20 group when WoW came out. I had read all the Warcraft books. I was sold before I knew anything about the game. In the first three months I saw the disparity between casual and hardcore gamers, and the community had little opposition to it. I knew it would only grow and I jumped ship before it got really bad. I came sulking back here, of course.

The only thing I will typically call out for TFs is Kheldians. They need more love. I think they are horrendously underrrated for TFs, especially Peacebringers. Because their inherent will help them fit in no matter what the remaining 6 are, even more so if they are triform. The versatility is invaluable.

Frankly I can let it go if the leader/organizer of a TF is pushing for a powerset or an AT, but if most of the team is doing it: ie "we won't start till we get a kin." I'll go do something else.

Mostly irrelevant side note: I've been threatened to be kicked from a TF because I wasn't buff botting everyone on my /Thermal controller. No one was dying or anything, I was buffing everyone who had any share of the aggro and keeping the squishes from getting mezzed, etc. It wasn't even the leader of the team. Somehow this "you have to play one way to do this or get out" attitude has seeped into the community. It needs to be removed. BY FORCE!

...Maybe not by force.

Yeah, you are confused. That's not how Power Boost works. There actually is no "mez magnitude buff" mechanic in the game. Rather, Dominator's powers each have an additional application with the conditional statement "if Domination." The increase in duration that Domination suggests is actually just for that second application, as well.

Sorry if it was mentioned and I missed it... it seems too obvious to not have been mentioned though.

The devs said the disparity in time:merits for true TFs vs story arcs/ouro TFs was (in large part) the time it takes to organize a team. If the TFs became soloable, the current reasoning would mean they are worth less... even for teams.

That's not a good thing.

Now, reducing the minimum team size? That might be better. Especially since some servers are lightly populated. It could also mean only having to find two or three fillers instead of seven to start a TF you intended to solo.

I think there's a great balance now on "forced" team content and soloable content. Especially with Rogue/Vigilantes around to help fill out TF teams.

Maneuvers at .39 eps
Weave is just shy at .33 eps
IW is only .21 eps

City of Data is a good place for numbers http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/
But Mid's is also good http://www.cohplanner.com/

Yes, thank you. The tangent started with the speed of flight, and that's why I referenced the base speed. I should have been more clear.

Don't forget slot starved tri-form Peacebringers who, staying out of melee, had a few throwaway picks. That doesn't make it anymore useful, but that's the only reason any of my characters have it.

There may be some confusion here, because you said speed cap and the person responded to did not.
It's not quite doubled, but it maxes out with a single IO now because...

http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/pat...patch_not.html

It's already been said a few times, but to reiterate it's largely because there's mostly farming, pvp, and post-50 min/maxed for speed/high difficulty task forces. I would imagine that Fly is still the most popular travel power, as it was ages ago when it seemed like most of the forum community hated it for being expensive End wise and the slowest travel power.

I never thought about travel powers much until I realized on some of my teleporters I was using Raptor Packs just because I got sick of shift+clicking or not being able to type while traveling around. With the aforementioned changes in i19 and the City Traveler vet badge, I'm pretty sure the handful of teleporters I still have will be respeced to pick up Fly (besides the poor Warshade :-/). They mostly only have TP now because I wanted Recall on them and used up my 4 power pool picks.

On the other hand, one of my RL friends who virtually never consults or posts on the forums takes Fly on every single character. She just likes it that much more than the other travel powers and isn't a min/max, PvP, farming, etc etc.

Well let's see, Call to Justice is +40% damage, +10% to hit for the whole team for 30 seconds, and Frenzy varies, but let's call it at it's weakest, which is the generic +60% damage, +30% recharge for 20 seconds. How are either of those negligible?

And 6 minutes isn't bad at all for a totally free permanent temp power.

As far as with Dominators, Call to Justice isn't bad at all, since you're missing Build Up and everything. Frenzy is awesome. I would just have to say for Dominators the Rogue/Vigilante powers are kind of worthless. Most Dominators will have enough control that they won't have much use for those by the time they hit level 20.

Let me help you.
Not everyone takes Psionic Mastery. You can't rate an entire AT's mez protection based on one of 5 powers in one of 8 possible pools... You should try playing the game before you make such ignorant remarks.

Mock? An insulting mimicry? That close enough for you? He said the same thing you did as to show how foolish you sound? Yeah... I think you might not know what it means.

Check it out, there's this thing called "Google." You like type the word you want to know about it and it shows you stuff on the "web." You have to actually read what comes up, which might be new for you, but I'll help you out a bit:
http://www.google.com/search?client=...utf-8&oe=utf-8
(Click that ^)

Good one, coal. Epitomizing trolling while accusing someone else... classic.

There seems to be a few trolls on this board that don't know how metaphors work. This is an example of hyperbole. The Tanker is not literally immovable, there's no inherent KB protection, nor is the Tanker literally irresistible. We don't get attacks that ignore resistance. It applies to AVs insofar as the description of a Scrapper did. The description is meant to convey in strong terms that the Tanker can doll out a lot of damage whilst being someone who does not go down easily.

This.
There's nothing in the description that would suggest (even if English isn't your first language and you mistake the rhetoric for literalism) that they can one shot an AV, or even take them down in 60 seconds. If the Tanker is built with soloing AVs in mind by a player who has half an idea of what she's doing, the Tanker will solo AVs.

It's simple.

LOL learn how to read...
Boy if mez is anywhere near as bad as you seem to think it is those first 40 levels must have been rough.

Get real.

LOL he was MOCKING YOU because you keep bringing up other ATs in a random and irrational fashion. Citing powers that other certain sets of other ATs get against Blasters as a whole... You have argued several times that FF/ Defenders are better than Blasters on the basis of Dispersion Bubble alone.

Now you're trying to call him out for something you've been doing... hahaha...

I disagree about slotting Lightning Field for EndRedux/EndMods. The value is relatively low at base (-3% end every 2 seconds), and there's no -Recovery. This builds only source of -Recovery is Power Sink, so alone it wont' be flooring anyone's endurance without a second round of Power Sink, and by that time Lightning Field will only serve to help keep it there... we're talking about a fight that's lasted almost a minute for that to come up.

If he had gone with //Mu, that might be another story. Ball Lightning tossed in the mix, and you can start talking Endurance bottomed out.

With perma-Energize (a global 59% EndRedux) and PowerSink every 22 seconds, you could get away without any endurance reduction. Stamina, PS proc, and Numina's proc all amplify that fact.