InsipidClownfish

I have one slot holding a pirate themed name and costume, another with a medieval name and costume. No powersets have struck me with something I'm happy with both thematically and that I actually enjoy playing. Going to try both out with Staff and see how that goes.

It is an easy question for me. Keep Mercurial Blow because it'll be the one I'm forced to take as a tanker!

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Beast_Mastery#Call_Swarm

Your wish has been granted! Sort of.

Nah. They are exclusive, like all stealth powers. One or the other. I forgot about that and spent a respec earlier than I planned just to dump one of them.

I'm also playing a fledgling Illusion/Dark and just want to raise the question of invisibility. Is there any valid reason to choose Superior Invisibility over Shadow Fall? Assuming, of course, a Stealth IO is involved.

I WANT to choose Superior Invis. But the min/maxer in me screams Shadow Fall.

All of this arguing for the ST immob assumes I want to bash my head against AVs all day. Sorry, but I'm not speccing into an immob that I use in a fraction of the content; you'll just have to be happy with the -regen I can provide. Yes, controllers can (and should) deal damage when they get the chance. But I've never come across a situation where that damage was the tipping point.

And against bosses? I'd rather spend that time stacking holds. Maybe the first hold will even overpower.

I play a Grav/Time and really like it, at least thematically. Here is how I do it.

There is no reason to need to "track" who you have Gravity Distortion on. Anything that benefits from Impact! is single target, so just throw it on a guy before you use Propel/Lift. My ST damage chain is Gravity Distortion-->Propel-->Repeat. You won't be able to run this without a bunch of recharge (and I think even I have something like a .15 second gap at the moment) but Chronoshift helps out with that.

Time Crawl? Don't worry about it. I used it while leveling just for Time Stop's extra mag, but after dropping Time Stop I only toss it out on an uncontrolled boss or an AV. The extra debuffing is rarely worth it, especially in a fast moving team. And I honestly don't notice any difference to my debuffs with or without it.

And I ended up respeccing out of Temporal Selection. Yes, it is a decent buff, and yes, it makes your heals beefy. However, at a 120 base recharge (versus 60 in comparable powers) I didn't feel it was worth it. From a selfish angle, it doesn't help me at all. From a teaming perspective, 25% damage bonus is nothing and 150% regen is totally overshadowed by the fact that the most common conditions for a health bar is either capped or dead, while Temporal Mending has a healing over time component with a fraction of the micromanagement. The recharge is nice but ultimately worth the sacrifice, in my opinion. All together they DO make one nice buff. Just not worth it when I am trying to do my controller thing. And in iTrials? Keeping Temporal Selection on three or four people out of 16/24 feels like a waste of time. (I WOULD take it on a Defender/Corruptor who only has pew pew to do, however.)

Anyway, there is some light on my Grav/Time. The only micro-management you have to worry about in the pairing would be Temporal Selection, and that issue is going to also apply to any controller out there.

Yup, I think I'm going to make an Illusion/Dark. Since I could never really get into Masterminds, maybe this'll do the trick for me.

I'm happy it has a longer animation time. It means it doesn't completely invalidate a Mind dom who is trying to perma-confuse an AV. Dark shouldn't outperform all the old sets; the to-hit debuffing should be tasty enough.

While I'm happy to see some changes to Gravity, it also means I'm going to need a respec. Which is fine because I think I can free up some slots on overslotted powers to optimize my build a little more.

I think I am going to drop Propel. Yes, it is amazing compared to what it was. But Lift is now amazing too (at least on paper, I haven't tested it yet) and actually has a higher DPA than Propel. I was never a fan of the clutter Propel caused, and now I have solid reason to take Lift over Propel. (Yeah. I think Lift did more DPA before too. But if I recall, not by much.)

Trading in Propel for Lift will also allow me to skip Crush. I rarely ever use it on my high end build, and when I do I feel like I could be doing something more useful. Not to mention if I really need to spam an immob on an AV I still have crushing field.

With a power selection freed up from dropping Crush I'll pick up Dimension Shift. However, since I am already specced into Phase Shift, I may drop Phase for a travel power. Sure, playing two phases off of each other might be fun, but I dropped the travel for performance, not preference. Still undecided on that, though.

But I'm not likely to respec right away. What are the other Grav players out there thinking?

Does this apply to Beam Rifle and Munitions? I don't think I'm going to go Munitions anyway, but it would be nice to know.

I could see using a blast set with each power set to a different color of the rainbow. Energy Blast would work great for that, I'd think.

Oh hey, I just was wondering something about Bruising. From what I am seeing in Titan Weapons, since Defensive Sweep is their first attack and a cone, does it apply to every enemy hit? Is this as awesome in practice as it sounds?

I can't roll Dark/Dark. The difference in animations alone make it an unappealing choice for me. I could work something out, I'm sure, but in the end I'd likely be unhappy with it and lose interest due to cosmetic reasons.

I'm fairly certain I'm going to roll with /Psi. Dark/Fire feels too much like hellspawn and I've never been much into those kinds of characters. However, I'm also considering Dark/Ice, depending on if I can come up with a concept I like using an ice sword with.

Most of the powers in Time Manipulation seem too good to pass up. I just hit level 22 on my Grav/Time, but I'm asking this question in regard to all controllers; or whatever you personally paired with /Time.

So what power selections did you, or would you, skip in Time Manipulation? "None" is not a valid answer. I'm sure the choices vary between primaries, but that is part of the fun.

I haven't picked up Time Stop yet and I'm not sure I am going to. I want to, but I have a hard time justifying the power for most game content. There are a few encounters where the healing debuff would be nice. Other than that I am perfectly happy with Gravity Distortion. I don't feel like I need a one-two combo to hold bosses, because when I start building for recharge Gravity Distortion will be coming around in under three seconds, and maybe closer to two.

One power that I considered skipping before I tried it was Distortion Field. I feel like it fills a void in Gravity Control and at this point would consider dropping Crushing Field before Distortion Field.

I sort of want to justify dropping Temporal Selection, but I don't think I could. Temporal Selection + Farsight looks like a powerful combo on a high recharge build where TS could be kept on three or four teammates.

So what has everyone else considered skipping or dropping out from Time Manipulation? I'm glad there is no glaringly skippable powers, but it does make coming up with that 'perfect' build a lot more difficult. I like diversifying my builds with Power Pools and APP's, so taking all nine /Time powers just doesn't sit right with me.

Alright, looks like I'll be sticking to Virtue. As long as I can find teams and the community hasn't turned to mush there isn't much point in the VIP server, I suppose.

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'll start planning out some characters while I wait for my hardware to be delivered.

Hey all. I'm returning to City of Heroes in a few days and would like some help to mentally ease into things. I haven't played since before the game went free to play and everything feels foreign to me. I had to quit CoH when the first incarnate slot was hot stuff due to video card issues. I'm finally getting a new card and some more memory by this Friday and in my desire to jump into an MMO again I downloaded the game and already signed for the VIP subscription.

Anyway, I have a few questions, but would also appreciate any advice you see fit to dole out.

I've always played on Virtue, mostly because of the community. With there being a VIP server now, would my best bet be to stay at Virtue or to migrate to Exalted? I was never a role-player, but I did enjoy the effort role-players put into their characters. Did the f2p player-base change any of that? Also, what is the population of the VIP server like? Teaming is a core part of the game, after all.

What items on the market would you consider must buys? I'm not overjoyed that I'll have to pay extra (or wait a few months with the VIP subscription) to unlock some of those new sets, but whatever. If it keeps my favorite MMO alive I'll do it.

Has the formula for a character's survivability changed at all? Specifically when it comes to defense and the 45% softcap. I'll probably end up playing something with time manipulation and be squishy anyway, but it is worth noting. Any changes to core combat mechanics are also worth mentioning, if you could.

So I'm happy I'll be playing again in a few days, but until then I'm stuck to the forums. How has everyone been? (Yeah, I realize that nobody knows me, but I might know you!)

Happens to me all the time too. I think it is because I use the mouse to turn, so when the pointer disappears then reappears due to holding down the right mouse button I can't locate it again (usually in a big fight).

Every alt I create has the ultimate goal of being that one character that I just can't let go of. Usually this ends up leaving me playing one character exclusively for a few months, only to drop it for another character which I will play exclusively for a few months without looking back.

A good character for me needs a balance between min/maxing stats, theme, and enjoyment. Which means the magic combo doesn't come together as often as I'd like. I'm picky. =D

Edit: forgot to say what I'm playing now! SS/Fire/Pyre brute! I know it is something of a FotM build, which I don't like, but hey it is fun! Before that it was my DP/Kin corrupter.

My mildly IO'd SS/FA/Pyre brute can main tank pretty much any content except Apex/Tin Mage without trouble. (assuming average team makeup) Last time I ran Tin Mage I was getting my teeth kicked in any time I had to handle big aggro, but my last Apex was cake. Differences were largely due to what support sets were there, but that isn't something you can control whether you pick a tanker or a brute.

All I can say is on a brute it is just amazing, though the rage crashes have me looking at a Claws/FA. That said, I originally considered a FA/SS tank too, but I didn't feel that the extra damage sacrificed would be worth it considering you can make up a lot of survivability with IO's.

I was goofing off in Mids' and was surprised to see that a scrapper's APP shuriken and exploding shuriken both have a mag4 taunt value. Curious to see if it was some mistake I checked Rex Tomax, but confirmed it there as well. It is almost as if they are being treated as tanker attacks.

So seeing as Weapon Mastery is something of the underdog of scrapper APP's, I was curious what reasons/applications this could have. Does anyone use weapon mastery other than thematically? Or when push comes to shove, is the taunt just an oddity that ends up serving no real purpose beyond theory-crafting?


Edit: Nevermind, I've since realized other APP's have taunt too, just not pyre, which I was comparing it to. >_<;;

I'd never skip them on a tank. On a scrapper it feels much more like a personal preference. I didn't take them on my MA/Inv. But if I ever get around to respeccing him (as he still has the fitness pool, which has since been changed to an inherent), I think I will take them. I would be taking them mainly for the status resists over the damage resists, though.