Golden_Avenger

I want an answer to a burning question.

Why does Ghost Widow hold through Mag 34+ status protection?
Why does she heal roughly 2K from even a single target in melee?

My team just burnt out trying to fight her.

2 Tankers (Inv/SS and Inv/EM)
2 Scrappers (Spines/Regen and MA/Dark)
1 Blaster
3 Controllers (Ice, Mind, I forget, with Rad, Kin, and Emp secondaries)

We cruised through the TF up to the Patrons. We smacked around Black Scorpion. We beat Sirocco with Mako as an add. We then beat Mako (couldn't overcome his Elude regen while the Spines scrapper was AFK) with 1 Shivan and a Chemical Burn Nuke just to make sure Elude wasn't going to be a problem.

But Ghost Widow is just unstoppable. We even tried a 7 Shivan approach - useless. She's just crazy, holding through any status protection possible (Uny+Uns+Stacked Buffs).

This team would have torn through any other Heroside TF in the game, but GW was just an insurmountable wall. Something needs to change here, in my opinion.

Having thought about this some more, as a Tanker I have no idea how I'm ever going to take 3 even-con minions seriously as a threat when I'm expected to dive headfirst into the same encounter spawned for a group of 8.

If:
Any collection of heroes is meant to be a valid group

Then:
1 tanker and 7 others who provide no defensive value to said tanker are a valid group.

It follows that:
A tanker must be able to engage a force tailored to be at least 8 times more challenging than his solo engagement.


If a tanker can reasonably expect to engage a force 8 times greater than his solo engagement, his solo engagement cannot possibly be adequately challenging to his capacities unless his abilities scale directly in proportion to the threat he faces. At which point he simply engages the 8 times stronger force solo, since he doesn't need a team.

The only way to prevent this is to make the scaling of ability dependant on the number of people in the team, which is thematically silly and subject to abuse.

Ouch, I may find myself agreeing with you now simply out of sympathy. Speedball indeed...

Now boys, play nice; you particularly, VPIVCI, or we'll find someone to play Speedball to your Nova.

Yeah, I'm with you there. It's hard to see a minion as anything but a minion, despire whatever fancy wrapper it's wearing, when they all have the same HP,, worth the same EXP, come in the same arrangements, etc. All of this makes it hard to accept as credible that Nemesis soldiers function on par with Rikti Infantry, who are equal to Malta troopers, who are the same as Carnie entertainers.

It's hard to believe someone the game says it hypnotizing and pickpocketing pedestrians in Peregrine Island is at the same power level as Dimension hopping world invaders who slaughtered most of the world's heroes.

Sorry, your definitions can't be correct, else every AV with the exception of Tyrant in the Praetorian arcs would be minions or lieutenants, since that's their relationship to Tyrant (the evil Statesman).

I just caught another post of Statesman's. Apparently, the experiment of spawn size in Peregrine Island is coming to a close, with an intent to reduce the size and number of spawns there. I concede this would go a ways towards improving the believeability of the capacity inherent to his vision of the 40+ terrestrial origin minion.

Given modern writing?

He'd be running the place inside a week.

*Snort* That's a whole other ball of wax, however.

Now Krunch is right, the Brood ARE minions. Note how they're not native to this planet, one of the things I mentioned above as being conducive to the believability of high-level minions?

Abomination - Archvillain
Rhino - Not quite an Archvillain, appropriate to Villain rank I mentioned above.
Wrecker - Archvillain
Wrecking Crew - Thunderball, Piledriver, and Bulldozer would all be appropriate adjutant Villains to the Wrecker's AV.
Mamamoth - no clue who this is.
Loki's Giants - If you're Thor, yeah these are even con minions. Note how one blow from Mjolnir drops them?
Amazons - Yes, the average Amazon is a minion. See below, but replace with Wonder Woman / Artemis / Hippolyta
Asguardians - Yes, the average Asgardian is a minion. Note, they also need to get saved by Thor, the Warriors Three, Sif, Balder, on a regular basis.
The entire Shi'ar Imperial Guard - Gladiator is easily an AV. The majority of the Guard are Villains, Bosses, and Lieutenant caliber opponents. I do not know of a minion class Guardsman. Now, the Shi'ar infantry that accompany them, that's minions.
Mamamoth again - Who?
Guardsmen (Stark flying suit model VII) - More Lieutenants. I suppose they could be considered minions, and they're not very tough. The original Guardsman was a Villain level opponent
Those funky hulkbuster armors Manbots? The Mandroids? - overrated, and more Boss/Lieutenants, there were only 5 total at a time after all.
War Machine armor - Erm, this was unique. Villain/AV material.
Blob - Villain/Strong Boss
Toad- Boss
Solomon Grundy- Archvillain
The Hand (any 3 of the ninja's you choose, daredevil and wolvie have at least 5 levels on em) - yes, these are minions. Dispatched in bulk, returned in pieces.
Sabertooth - Villain, bordering on Archvillain.

Not many minions on your list, I think you may be confused...

If 3 of them equals one of us, and every hero 6 levels under them is meaningless to them, as is the case between them and us, there are enough of them, scattered throughout the city and sourrounding areas that, given the general lack of heroes throughout the rest of the world due to the Rikti War, unchecked super villains would control the remainder of the Earth.

Just playing out the scenario to it's logical conclusion. Even if they were fighting each other tooth and nail, each faction would have it's own continent or so. That's why I can't believe the Earth-native factions having minions as powerful as that being proposed.

Seems a hell of a lot of work to "fix" something that doesn't seem "broken" now. I'm all for upping the difficulty of Lieutenants and Bosses, and, as I said before, adding a rank between Boss and Archvillain. I'm all for adding HP to Minions to compensate for AOE, and as Statesman mentioned earlier, upping the damage of classes that would be incorrectly impeded by this.

But a minion is a minion. There can't be endless numbers of them at the power level proposed without game-world consequences. Consequences the background of Paragon City, at this time, doesn't seem able to bear.

Statesman,

It's all well and good to have enemies who have such overwhelming power that three of the assistants they consider their minions can challenge heroes mentioned in-game by NPC's in the same breath as the Surviving 8.

But in such a case, such a caliber of minion, present in the numbers that blanket Peregrine Island, would have conquered the entire Western Hemisphere and beyond long ago. Heroes would have no chance whatsoever given how badly they outnumber us.

Therefore we chose to believe they are considerably less impressive than you describe. And thus far, our gameplay experience bears this out. And if you chose to go the route you're describing, it's going to shatter our suspension of disbelief irrevocably.

If Nemesis, or the Rikti, or the Malta Group, or whoever, has that many guys, and they're that tough, we're all dead. End of story.

Hi, 6 SO Damage Slotted Knockout Blow. Welcome to last week.

I can make this very simple.

Krunch is lauded for being a leading element in a chorus of voices that resulted in Super Strength Tankers receiving an attack that can dispatch an even con minion in a single blow.

People laud Krunch because, for a Tanker, dispatching an even con minion in a single blow makes them feel heroic.

Statesman is saying that he wants to move City of Heroes to a place where a hero is challenged by three even con minions.

If a Super Strength Tanker can dispatch an even con minion in a single blow, how can he feel challenged by that? And if that minion is changed so it can no longer be one shotted, how can he still feel heroic?

These desires appear to be mutually incompatible, unless we're all reduced to eggshells with hammers that strike first or die. Which is hardly the superheroic model.

We don't want to forfeit the feeling of being super to improve a perceived game balance deficiency.

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Perhaps the issue between the MMOG and comic viewpoints here is less divisive than it seems. Does anyone disagree that fighting a couple of +4 bosses solo is wrong?

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On a regular basis? No. But on occasion, where their abilities are something I'm very strong against? Yeah, I'm ok with that. The Human Torch doesn't have much to fear from Pyro's fiery birds after all.

I think we need a new category of enemy though, to illustrate Comic villainy between the Boss and the Archvillain, at roughly the two +4 boss level. Call them the Villain, the unique costumed enemy that doesn't make the city tremble at their approach, but is still someone you run from when you see them rob the bank down the street. They're your Electro's, your Sandmans, your Mirror Masters and your Boomerangs. Guys without minions, without support, who strap on a costume and try to rob a bank anyways.

We're missing those kind of guys, the ones who aren't organizational geniuses or the ones lacking in personality but have some power. Paragon would be a more interesting place with them here too.

The Hydra have their own parallel dimension of origin, accessed through certain Portal missions. Perhaps this badge is there?

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The problem is that this isn't a comic. This is an MMOG based on the comic book genre.


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I think you're missing something crucial here. I'm not here because this is a MMORPG. I'm here because it's a Comic book game. That's why we talk about comic book look and feel all the time, or at least why I do and why I thought you did.

I've spent my time in MMORPG land, back from the days this was all text Aber, DIKU, and LPMuds through the graphical revolution to the modern day. The medium is irrelevant, really. It's all the message. You will get a hell of a lot more customers for a Comic book that happens to be a MMOG than a MMOG that's sort of like a Comic book. Else you just get as some have put it, "Elves in Spandex."

I think Statesman, with his great professed love of the genre, wants to give us a Comic book to play, one where we're each the hero. And from the way things have been so far, with the breaking of the mold regarding speed of combat, playstyle, etc., he's done exactly that.

I'm just expressing the concern that in trying to get his message across in his chosen medium (MMORPG), it's always clear that the medium has to expand for the message to get across; that he doesn't restrict his message to the bandwidth of his medium.

I want to go Cosmic, I want to wander the Stars of his universe. I think he can take me there. It almost makes me weep, the potential of what he's put before us. We just need to make sure that the zealots bound by what has come before in the MMORPG medium do not strangle this wonderous child while it's still young.

Actually...

I have a lot of problems with this. Minions are by definition, nearly faceless, interchangeable, and indistinct. While villains of both extreme caliber (read: High Security level) and indistinctiveness are possible, how many Robot menaces, Alien Invasions, etc., can you tolerate?

If I have to see, and fight, the same three things over and over again, they lose distinctiveness. Unless I'm in way over my head, (i.e. an Earthbound hero fighting the defenders of a Cosmic foe), something indistinct shouldn't be overwhelmingly challenging from a Comic perspective, else the powers that be would make them more distinctive.

The continuously decreasing threat posed by minions in City of Heroes matches the Comic format perfectly. For three opponents to be a challenge for the highest level of a hero, they need to be near peers of the hero; if so many villains exist at that power level, the idea that they're both working collectively in a structure and haven't won yet is pretty ludicrous.

Bosses being made into miniature AV's, that's good. Lieutenants being made peers of the current Bosses? Sure. But teeming hordes of faceless minions where any three equal one of the world's finest heroes, is tearing the bounds of credibility.

Interesting. I remember completeing that mission less than a month ago, but as I said, no badge. Well this was the first iteration, they may have another one they'll do. I can wait.

Negotiator - You were instrumental in stopping a war between the Clockwork and the Skulls
Spelunker - You have freed a local fortune teller from the clutches of the Circle of Thorns
Plague Stopper - You were key in stopping a plague from overtaking Paragon City
Spirit Warriors - You stopped a war between the Banished Pantheon and the Circle of Thorns
Pwnz - You have arrested on of the higher ranking members of the Freakshow
Redeemer - Did not appear as part of retroactive credit. Bugged? New?
Mystical Savior - You saved a cabal of mystics from being used by the Banished Pantheon
Corrupter - You prevented a Non-Aggression pact between the Circle of Thorns and Nemesis
War Wall Defender - You foiled a plot to undermine the War Walls that protect Paragon City
The Doctor's Ally - You have uncovered the fate of Doctor Freidkin.
Frontline - Did not appear as part of retroactive credit. Bugged? New?
Emancipator - You have defeated the Clockwork King in a dimension where he realized his full potential
Meteorologist - You have crushed Nemesis' weather controlling equipment.


I haven't done the 45-49 missions yet, so no badges for them.

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2. As a Tanker lands more and more blows, he'll start doing more and more damage. The longer the fight, the more powerful the Tanker becomes. I can't say that the Tanker will do as much damage as a Scrapper - but it'll certainly be more than he does now. This ability really gets to the core of a comic book Tanker. He's extremely powerful - but at the start of a fight, he holds himself back some. As the battle progresses, he lets loose....I prefer this system to a power because this way it's inherent. It's simply the nature of the Archetype. And it also sets the Tanker apart from the Scrapper's criticals.


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If you're ok with this basically guaranteeing that Tankers wailing on an AV will solo them eventually, so be it. Literally, I can sit in combat with most of them, grinding them ever so slowly to paste, forever. My primary attack roughly keeps pace with AV natural health recovery. If that damage is slowly increased, their defeat is guaranteed.

I'm good with it, but I think we want to be sure that you are too.

Total Focus takes longer to animate -3.3 seconds - and refreshes in 20 seconds. But then again it's also level 38. which counts for how much we don't know.

Halth,

I tried to refrain from guesses on the magical sounding Badges in the middle of the list. With Tsoo, Banished Pantheon, and Circle of Thorns missions all falling into those categories, there's just too much room for doubt. Any missions you can tie strongly to those Badge names are welcome however.

For me, there's just been too damn many, too long ago.

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There is also the patient zero story arc, where it turns out you and Dr. Vahzilok are working towards the same goal.

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It's too late in the progression, and "Plague Stopper" is far more apt to describe the Vahlizok Plague arc.