Gothika

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I got a question. Im now level 35 and I have barrage but not Whirling Hands. Next attack I get is Total Focus and I really want it but I also like Whirling hands. Should I swap Barrage with Whirling hands with respec? If so reasons would be appreciated.

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Barrage has to be taken, you can't respec out of it.

W00t! Male tushies inc!

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The females look like they're wearing an apron.
Seriously.

"BEWARE, VILLAINS, FOR I AM...THE MASTER CHEF! I'm ready to serve up some PAIN!"

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That's Iron Chef to you, pal!

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Controllers could replace dominators and corruptors only if you didn't actually need to HURT anything.


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I was pretty much with you up until here. My Gravity and Illusion Controllers can contribute just as much damage as my Mind Dominator, once you factor in buffs/debuffs and Containment. As an added bonus, the Controller buffs/debuffs can help the whole group. That doesn't mean Controllers are out of balance, though. It means that Dominators need a buff. I see no reason why they have such a low base damage when they can't buff/debuff and their base controls are less than Controllers.

ps: Why do I include Containment and not Domination? Because Containment is very easy to apply consistantly. Domination is only up a comparitively small amount of time. Dominators with Domination up are very good. The rest of the time they're underpowered, in my opinion.

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For those who have speculated that Newspaper missions are coming to City of Heroes, they aren’t…yet. That’s coming a little later in the year. I’d like to add something different to the CoH system…

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Police band radio receiver!

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It's more of an RP thing, really. You still had those titles bestowed upon you by those people when you did the deed that earned you the badge.

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By your logic though if I fall from grace I'd still have Stateman's Pal badge...so as I'm beating Statesman like a government mule I can have my Statesman's Pal badge title on? Now THAT doesn't make RP sense. Freedom Phalanx would be pretty desperate for reserve members if a villain is a reserve member...


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That just goes back to whether you think the badge is a physical object or a title. If when I rescued Statesman he gave me a medal that said 'Statesman's Pal', it makes perfect sense that I can add insult to injury while I'm kicking him around Galaxy City by wearing that medal he once gave me. He won't consider me his pal anymore obviously, but when he gave me the award I'm rubbing his nose in he did.

Same thing with the Freedom Phalanx Reservist badge. Sure, I'm not actually on their roster anymore, but I still have that badge they gave me. Being the rebellious villain, I decided not to mail it back to them when they revoked my membership.

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I'm hoping we can keep any badges we've already earned, since they're part of the history of the character. I'd even go further and say I hope we keep the original badge we earned. Just because a character falls or is redeemed, it doesn't change the heroic or villainous acts they did in the past. I don't think switching from hero to villain or vice versa should be a frequent occurance, though.

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The thing is several badges are titles bestowed on you by other people - Synapse's Cohort, Freedom Phlanax Reserve, etc. These ones have an alternated title (like Snyapse's Betrayer, etc.).

You really don't loose any badges - they just get new names if they change at all.

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It's more of an RP thing, really. You still had those titles bestowed upon you by those people when you did the deed that earned you the badge. You don't become Synapse's Betrayer until later on, when you become a villain. Does that mean Synapse came along later and replaced your badge when you weren't looking?

I guess it really depends on whether you think badges earned are actual, physical badges your character is getting or if it's more like a title or reputation. In the latter case, then yeah it would make sense that your badges change over. It still seems a bit revisionist to me though, as though the character's history is changing retroactively.

I'm hoping we can keep any badges we've already earned, since they're part of the history of the character. I'd even go further and say I hope we keep the original badge we earned. Just because a character falls or is redeemed, it doesn't change the heroic or villainous acts they did in the past. I don't think switching from hero to villain or vice versa should be a frequent occurance, though.

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L5R is the definition of a roleplaying CCG.

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Doomtown, too. Doomtown is the single greatest CCG ever. What other game can you play where you can kill zombie cowboys by drawing a better poker hand than your opponent?

Playing an 80s mix tonight:

Talk Talk - Talk Talk
Elvis Costello - Pump It Up
The Smiths - What Difference Does It Make?
This Mortal Coil - Another Day
Siouxie and the Banshees - Monitor
Cocteau Twins - Peppermint Pig
Tears For Fears - The Working Hour
The Cure - Charlotte Sometimes
Big Country - Porrohman
Dead or Alive - Spin Me Round

Edit: Bonus tracks!

Oingo Boingo - Just Another Day
Kajagoogoo - Too Shy
Frida - I Know There's Something Going On
Blondie - Rapture
Cindy Lauper - She Bop

Last 10 I listened to:

Splashdown - Beguiled
Depeche Mode - Black Celebration
Ivy - Kite
Mazzy Star - Bells Ring
Cocteau Twins - Serpentskirt
Lush - Desire Lines
Belly - Superconnected
Curve - Doppelganger
BT - Blue Skies
Lamb - Teenage Sensation

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I'm with ya quason if they take that same ability away from every other AT combo that can do it. We aren't the first and won't be the last.

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Whatever they do to get rid of the one-shot kills should apply to all ATs, yes. Including the infamous TP Foe into stacked trip mines insta-death. The coding to get rid of it would probably be somewhat tough to do, though. Maybe some kind of maximum damage per second someone can receive? I'm not sure how they should do it. They'll be doing it somehow though, Dev's have already said that. They're just hung up on the 'how' right now.

As for if Stalkers are 'overpowered', from the standpoint of difficulty in setting up kills and number of kills, probably not. The problem is it isn't fun to be one-shot, or even to die from the stun/placate/AS combo*. People don't like situations where they feel they can't fight back. It's the same principle as why there's mez suppression and Breakfrees. If Controllers worked the same way against players as they did against mobs, they wouldn't necessarily be 'overpowered'** but it would be horribly unfun for the victim.

I think they have the balance right for Stalkers as far as killing power vs Defense. The issue they're looking at is how much fun it is for the victim. Thing is, they can't go too far or then the Stalkers won't be fun to play. Balancing 'fun' is even harder than balacing power. I don't envy the Devs on that task.


*Frequently by the time you hit that Breakfree, you've already been Placated and AS has started. Without some kind of non-targetted attack to interupt the AS, you're doomed.

**Well, Illusion would be way overpowered, but Illusion plays more like a hybrid than a regular Controller.

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As to who created the box, I don't think anyone really knows. It was opened 3 times, iirc, first by people who became greek gods (can't recall the names offhand), second by the women who became the Furies of greek legend, and thirdly by Marcus Cole and Stefan Richter who became Statesman and Lord Recluse.

It is doubtful any of the greek gods created the box. It is described as magical and technological, as well as being 'alien'. Also, it is doubtful any of the characters of greek mythology would take that kinda time to build it with the intent of making others into gods.

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Prometheus is a Titan (well, technically not one of the original titans, but he's still considered one). They predate the gods and goddess (Zeus, Hera and the like) in Greek mythology. And before the Titans there's Gaia and Chaos.

Add me to the list missing Ghost Widow. I also got mine at a Gamestop brick & mortar.

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As we were fighting the player controlling Manticore in the end of beta event, he started letting loose some smack talk. Pretty funny. Asked who wanted the "enema arrow" and then plugged his Web of Arachnos book.


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Glad you enjoyed it. After all, what is a good super-powered battle without witty banter.
If you think I've got a smart mouth, you should spend some time with Sister Psyche.

~M

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That Web of Arachnos comment was my favorite, and I managed to get a screenshot of it with the UI up for posterity.

Except for the lag, I had a ton of fun last night on my Ice/Kinetic Corruptor named Ice Princess. I think I got to speed debuff and throw ice at every single hero and agent at some point over the course of the night.

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With Enhancement Diversification comes a benefit for ALL City of Heroes powers.

Every power, across the board, is getting a 13.33% reduction in its Endurance cost.

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It's a start, but it's not good enough. Bump the endurance reduction up to 20% and add in a 20% across the board recharge reduction as well.

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Of course, beyond just the size of the zones, there's the problem of terrain. What happens if you're driving in Talos and drive off a cliff into the ocean? Do you die? What about falling into a canyon in Faultine?

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It shows your character diving to safety at the last minute and your vehicle goes flying off the cliff to explode in a giant fireball when it lands at the bottom.

I just did a quick test. All the villains were the same distance away when I Wormholed them, and the exit point was the same distance away from me (pulled them from out of aggro range to a couple of feet away from me). These were all Nemesis minions and Lts. No other powers were used beforehand.

vs one even con: Knockback

vs two even cons: Knockback

vs a group of 9 -3s: no Knockback, just Knockdown.

vs the same group of -3s after killing four jaegers, leaving 5 targets: Knockback with a lot of scatter. These didn't Knockback in the same direction, it was more of an arc so they ended up farther away from each other than they started.

Your guess is as good as mine as to what's going on here. The only thing that seemed to affect the Knockback was against the one large group of villians. Didn't have time to do more testing, and more is definitely needed. I'm still very unhappy with the Wormhole change, enough so that it's likely I'll be retiring this character.

Edit: By the way, there was also a very subtle change to Crush. At first I thought they actually lengthened the activation time slightly because it seemed longer somehow. I think what actually happened though is they 'stretched' the animation to cover the whole activation time, instead of having that bit at the end were there's no animation but you're still rooted in place for about half a second. A very minor change that has no actual effect on anything really, but it was noticable since I've been using Crush for over a year now, heh.

Going to quote you in reverse order, sorry.

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There are many ways to play the game. This change allows for another one that is equally, arguable even more, effective.

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The Wormhole change is also arguably less effective, it just depends on what you consider 'effective'. The fact that it's so easy to split hairs on the change seems to me like it's best to leave things as they are on live now and work on another, more effective change.

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Should Propel get an AoE disorient along with it? Hell yeah. That makes even more sense.

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This would be the more effective change that still gets my vote.

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With responses like this, is it any wonder the devs are so hard pressed to CARE about anything said on these forums?

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For the most part, this thread has been very civil even though there's clearly two camps regarding the whole Wormhole fiasco. I've seen Dev responses in threads far, far more inflammatory than this one. It's pretty disappointing that a calm thread with well over 400 posts about issues that greatly affect Gravity Controllers doesn't have a single red comment while far less civil threads get much more attention. Too polite for our own good, I suppose.

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IMO, you want another AoE hold, and that ain't gonna happen. Yes, it is not as good as GDF, but it is nearly as good as Stalagmites and Flashfires (the knockback thing drops it a tier below those).

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I don't want another AoE Hold. What I want is a Disorient added to a different power (added to Propel or replace DS imo) so the current Wormhole, one of my bread and butter powers I use in every fight, isn't sacrificed so Gravity can get an inferior version of a power other sets get at half the level. I'd also love it if a dev would comment in this thread so we know they're at least listening to the large number of Gravs who don't like this change, even if it's to disagree with us.

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about the suggestion to use wormhole as a disorient power, by selecting the destination the same as its start, placing the mob exacly where it was. If you use it for that, whats the point in having the option of selecting the destination, you may as well just call the power gravity sickness.

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Also, bear in mind that just because you have a mob targeted does not mean you'll necessarily have the point on the ground where the mob is standing targeted. You more likely have some point behind the mob targeted, and that's where it'll go when it ports (not that it'll stay there or anything, of course). To target a mob, then target the point on the ground where the mob is currently standing, not only defeats the purpose of the teleport effect (which is starting to look more and more like a liability instead of a useful effect), it also eats up valuable time in a game whose combat is very fast paced. The time you spend making sure you don't send the mob out of melee range of your scrappers or tankers (time another controller with another power wouldn't need to spend) could be the difference between a teammate being knocked out or not. We need to be able to cast our powers reasonably quickly in combat, and dithering around making sure our targeting is right doesn't do that.

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There's also the issue that the targets are still subject to Knockback from the Wormhole even if the destination point is in the same spot as where the targets originated. So even if all you want to do is use Wormhole strictly for the Disorient, the Knockback will fling targets away from melees even if you try to target the destination point right next to the melee.

I've also noticed that even when you try to use the environment to try to contol the Knockback effect, the targets will frequently just rebound off the objects and land some distance away. This happens to me frequently when trying to use corners to control the Knockback, the villians just bounce backwards into the wall and rebound in some random direction.

Bottom line is the new Wormhole stinks. I'm glad the devs are trying to come up with creative ways to help Gravity, but this isn't the solution. Sometimes that just happens, something that looks like a good idea just doesn't work out. I hope the devs are looking at the feedback they're being provided with and realise that perhaps it's time to go back to the drawing board. There's been some excellent suggestions in this thread for other powers that could be adjusted instead of Wormhole to try to address the control gap, my favorite still being the idea of a Disorient effect added to Propel that radiates from the impact point. Regardless, I'd rather wait another issue for the devs to go back and come up with something else than have Wormhole changed for the worse.

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A single-use AoE Lift seems a bit like a waste of endurance to me. I mean, it would need to have a higher cost than Lift, probably by a fair bit. Otherwise, why use the regular Lift?
For three seconds of villains lyring down (provided they're not knockback resistant or partially held). How long can you keep that up before your endurance runs out, especially if you have any toggles up to keep you alive for longer?

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I always figured if they added an AoE Lift, it would be something along the lines of no damage, but with a Disorient upon landing. Just the Knockup by itself wouldn't be very good for controlling a group, imo.

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I expect what the devs are looking for is something that is a single, small tweak that will fix the powerset without having to move powers around or fundamentally change their role. Certainly nothing requiring re-coding if it can be avoided - just some number juggling on an excel spreadsheet.


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I agree and this is one of the reasons I don't like the change to Wormhole (fundamentally changes a power that can't be duplicated by any other) while I do like the suggestion of adding an impact based area Disorient to Propel. Having an Area Disorient centered on an enemy target keeps the theme of Propel, there are already other powers that have effects centered on enemy targets (Transfusion and Transference for example) so there's already code in place, and any damage lost to the set by increasing the recharge on Propel can easily be made up with Lift and Crush.

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This does sound like a pretty good solution, my only worry woudl be that it'd reduce the utility for controllers who want to spam a direct damage power over and over for damage on AVs or held opponents; there's no way we're going to get a worthwhile AE disorient with the recharge time propel currently has. Then again, as much as I love the idea of pounding the ever living stuffing out of a target with a rain of sofas and forklifts, it might be the overall least painful solution. As much as I dislike dimension shift, it does seem like it'll be very powerful in PvP.

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As someone who's always had Propel and never respecced out of it, I can tell you it's fairly meaningless in AV battles. Against Held opponents I use it all the time, but relying on Lift and Crush for damage instead of Propel gives you about the same damage over time, if not more (I believe Crush on Live is the best damage over time power in the Gravity set if slotted for damage, though I'm not sure if Propel has overtaken it now with its new damage). So a longer recharge time on a Propel with an AoE Disorient on impact shouldn't really hurt overall Gravity damage much if Lift and Crush are slotted for damage.

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IMO it'll also be an even more inferior power if made single target, after all I haven't heard people talking about how ungodly good detention field is and that's better than a single target dim shift (and available to defenders too, so if it was that good you'd think you'd hear from them about it). Then again, that's just my opinion and it's not an especially well informed one since I don't really read the defender forums.

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Detention Field isn't hailed as a wonder power, it's true. However, it isn't reviled nearly as much as Dimension Shift and Black Hole from what I've seen. Faint praise, I know. I guess the best judge of the relative usefulness of Detention Field vs Dimension Shift would be a Grav/FF Controller. Which power would a Grav/FF rather have?

Edit: And seeing as the person I'm quoting is a Grav/FF, which would you rather have if you had to choose one, and only one? (I'm honestly curious, a lot of us aren't in the position the Grav/FFs are)

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Anogther good way to do disorient on propel is to make it an AOE from the point of the impact. You throw an object, it hits the target for damage, and the boom from the impact causes an AOE disorient.

I'd take that power.


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I like that idea. I'd take it, too. Keeps the flavor of the original power better than a cone, imo. Also easier to use than a cone. Powers like Transference already work on the same 'AoE around a target enemy' principle, so shouldn't be too hard to code either.