Justaris

Ultimately so long as your friend persists in that paradigm of thought, he is unlikely to fully embrace or enjoy this game because it has and continues to have a fundamentally different approach - and one that makes it distinct and that many players count as a strong positive.

So as to how to convince him that CoX has a strong end-game, well, there may already be an insurmountable perception problem on his part and if that is the case then of course there won't be much you can do to overcome it. In addition to the end-game that CoX has always had (making alts, badgehunting, PvP, min/maxing with Inventions, player-made AE arcs and playing missed content using the flashback system), the Incarnate system allows for very difficult 'raid' style content to further progress one's level 50 characters.

This will be roughly analogous to the high-end 'raids' he will know from other MMOs but unlike many of those raids he would not be shunned if he did not happen to have a top-tier build right out of the gate. Badge runs aside (which are a special case), I have rarely if ever seen people pick and choose who gets on teams for Incarnate trials or refuse a spot to anyone for any reason. You might try selling it from that vantage, unless he prefers to grind just so he can be given the honor of a spot on a raid.

Well obviously this is an incredibly broad question, since you seem to have missed a large portion of the life of the game, so the changes would take a huge amount of time to go through and would probably be overwhelming to you in any event.

I would recommend you make a brand new character for now to get reacquainted with the game and perhaps come back to your old characters at some later time once you are again comfortable with the way things work. If you have specific questions feel free to ask them either in this thread or elsewhere on the Player Questions forum and I am certain you will get plenty of swift and helpful replies.

If you do happen to be feeling ambitious, you can find a breakdown of all the changes to the game at ParagonWiki, which has it broken down into the changes in each individual Issue.

I find that people tend to drastically overstate the endurance demands of a Dark Armor tanker. The toggles are actually fairly cheap, and most of the endurance woes come either from attacking with your secondary (which has nothing to do with Dark Armor) or from using Dark Regen. Granted, Dark Regen has a very steep endurance cost and it is the centerpiece of the powerset, but even so it is manageable.

Add in Theft of Essence proc and it's more than manageable, it's almost criminal.

Welcome back!

I will try to address this in stages, because what you are asking here is a very open-ended series of questions that really do not have straightforward answers. For starters, the idea of support - all Defender primaries do this in one way or another, using some combination of debuffs, controls, buffs and heals. If we were to assemble a list of what powers are most helpful, we would first have to answer the clarify the question - most helpful for what? And the answer would be a short list of powers from a variety of different primaries - there is no one best answer.

I would advise against "going full empath" because the gains from this approach are minimal and the costs are significant - the best empaths make good use of their secondary powerset rather than ignoring it and an overemphasis on healing quickly becomes far less useful once you reach the mid-game to say nothing of the late-game. This is not to say healing is not useful, but it quickly trails behind buffs and debuffs once these powers are available and slotted, to the point that a team where these powers are in place rarely if ever requires healing and certainly not enough to warrant a character solely dedicated to that role.

As for what people want or what is most in demand, again it depends on the situation. Empaths, Colds, Kins and Rads are the most often requested overall, but different tasks favor different powersets. Resistance and Defense buffs, especially when combined are very powerful for steamrolling over most missions. -Resistance and -Regen debuffs are often key when taking down single difficult foes such as Archvillains or Giant Monsters. Kins are often desired (or even demanded!) by Stone tankers since Speed Boost almost entirely obviates the drawbacks of using Granite Armor. And specific niche cases may make a certain primary more desired against a given foe or for a given task (Cold, for instance, is very good for the STF because it can make short work of Ghost Widow with Benumb, an opponent who otherwise represents one of the most difficult parts of the TF).


Lastly, the issue of pvp. This really has to be divided into arena and zone pvp since the two types of play are quite different. I have relatively little knowledge of pvp in general and almost no knowledge of current zone pvp, so take this with a grain of salt, but from I know, Defenders play one of two very defined roles in pvp. You can either be a healer (Empath) or a debuffer (usually Rad). I imagine things are a bit different in zone given the heal decay which would be in effect, but I will let others speak to that.

If you are trying to tank against enemies that are using a lot of end drain and you are having trouble, I would suggest a change in tactics - rather than try to tank for the team, either pull some back and eliminate them piecemeal or else adopt a more aggressive zerg strategy and mow them down before they can muster much drain on you.

In other words, if you are playing tri-form, try playing more towards damage than defense. Even if they do get some drain off, if you are killing them then you can swoop down and use Stygian Circle to recover endurance and health back to full. Not every team needs to have someone in a tanking role and if you find that you are having to fill that role (and it is not working out well), then consider whether the role needs to be filled at all - many times you may find the answer is no.

Well, as was just mentioned above, they also have greater functionality than the new LFG channel since they can be monitored even while playing on another server. So while the relatively new LFG channels might eventually gather momentum, I very much doubt many people will leave the old global channels anytime soon since they remain superior in some respects.

As it is not a binary proposition, I imagine people will continue to make use of the globals even if they do begin to use the LFG chat more.

And here I was looking forward to reading some criticism of my arc.

@Justaris
Available on weekends - Yes

More or less what Amy said. Without slots cannot really comment much more other than to say that when you do move the powers around make sure you keep Howling Twilight where it is.

Unfortunately, in the current pvp environment Warshades do not really have too much to bring to the table - you have already highlighted most of the problems so I wont retread them again.

What it really comes down to is that you are unlikely to be able to bring down another player on your own with a Warshade.because you lack significant debuffs of the right type (-res, -def) and you lack strong burst damage. Outside of specific niche situations like buffing yourself with Sunless Mire off of a group of nearby NPCs in a zone you are not likely to be able to pull off a kill before your opponent either kills you, runs away or heals up. That is the bad news.

The good news is that you can make yourself quite a nuisance in terms of disruption. You have slows, you have a good stun and an immobilize you can spam. Nebulous Form for phase and built-in teleport mean that you can easily evade or survive most attacks so long as you aren't taken completely by surprise. If you don't mind a adopting a somewhat unorthodox (some might say cheap) strategy, you can likely pick up arena victories by biding your time until sudden death and then winning in the eleventh hour. In zone play, you can choose a few good spots to run to with obligingly placed NPCs to give you Eclipse and Mire, then about-face and deal suddenly decent burst damage to your unfortunate foe.

This is by far one of the least pvp suited of any of the ATs due to its heavy pve focus and reliance on living and dead enemies to fuel the key powers, but if you are determined to go for it then the above is the approach I would recommend.. You may also consider putting Nova form back in to give you more damage when you really need it. Good luck.

My advice is to play what you want to play rather than what you feel is going to be more in demand with other people. Empathy is an excellent buff powerset, don't get me wrong, but it really sounds like you might be taking it more so that you can get people to team with you, and you should be able to get teams regardless. As for the healing role being less useful as you go up levels, that is true, but a good empath brings far more to the table than just a healing role and the buffs from Empathy remain some of the best in the game at any level.

Which brings us to Storm. It really sounds to me like this is what you want to make, but you are concerned about the knockback and about other people not giving you a place on teams if you are Storm. While it is very easy to play a Storm badly (especially with respect to powers like Gale or Hurricane), most players appreciate someone who plays Storm intelligently. Combined with Ice, you will be relatively high-damage (for a Defender) and should be able to deal with playing solo all the way up to playing in large teams with little problem.

Storm does just fine in a large team environment if you just put a little thought into what you are doing (i.e. maybe Gale is not the best choice to attack all those mobs surrounding the Willpower tanker, but use Snow Storm and Freezing Rain and all is well). If you aren't used to using knockback and repel effects you might play around for a bit solo to get a sense for where things are going to go when you knock them around. Flying and using your KB more or less straight down is also popular, though keep in mind you will still spread them around somewhat unless you use a wall or other obstacle to halt their momentum. Corners are your friends.

I would venture to say that the reading comprehension failure lies on the side of the OP, if there is any to be found here. If you anticipating an entire new City of Rogues content then yes, it appears you are not going to receive what you initially thought you were going to get, but that is entirely the fault of your own preconception here.

As has already been mentioned upthread, you can continue to do Rogue Tips as a Rogue - these are missions which have story elements specifically tailored to the Rogue alignment. It may not be the full contacts, zones, or whatever else you were apparently expecting, but this is Rogue game content. It does exist and you have already been pointed in the right direction. If you feel that is insufficient, that is your opinion, but to say there is nothing to do as a Rogue or that there is no Rogue-oriented content at all is an untrue statement.

I play my Stalker markedly differently on a team than I do solo and I will freely admit that Stalker is not one of my favorite ATs, so perhaps others will be able to better address this, but...

When I am teaming I adopt much the same function on my Stalker than I do when I play a Scrapper - I identify the most dangerous targets in a given mob and then eliminate them with extreme prejudice. I also play watchdog to squishies on the team, taking on enemies that slip by the tank or that rez up behind the tank so that they do not run amok. Naturally there is also the stealth aspect, the Stalker is a natural choice for stealthing missions, but really any AT who takes the right powers can fill the role just as well.

Once I get into a rhythm with a team, I find that my presence takes out those annoying bosses or lts that would otherwise be speedbumps to the overall steamrolling of the team, and in my own way I keep the team rolling.

I am aware that some Stalker players play towards a more scrappy role with more time spent out of hide in the thick of things, but honestly I would play a Scrapper or Brute if I wanted to play that way, so I adopt a hit-and-run style that seems to work out just fine.

1. Warshades
2. Masterminds
3. Defenders
4. Corruptors
5. Controllers
6. Tankers
7. Peacebringers
8. Blasters
9. Dominators
10. Night Widows
11. Banes (prefer Huntsman builds)
12. Fortunatas
13. Crabs
14. Brutes
15. Scrappers
16. Stalkers

Well, you are welcome to ask about specific abbreviations you do not understand either here on the forums or in the Help chat channel in-game, but a few commonly used ones are:

AT = archetype, such as Defender, Stalker, Blaster, Brute, Warshade
PST = please send tell
LFT = looking for team
TF = Task Force, a group of linked missions with a fixed team requiring everyone to be at a minimum level and a team of a minimum size. New players cannot be added to a TF team once begun, so it is generally considered rude to quit a TF or to join one when you know you do not have time to do more than a mission or two (as the team cannot replace you once you quit and may have to start over from scratch if too many people bail).
SF= Strike Force, same as TF but villainous.
ITF= Imperious Task Force, a popular co-op task force level 35+ that takes place in Cimerora and requires access to the Midnighter Club to reach (you have to unlock access to this area by doing a story arc and getting a badge at the end).

For teams, with the sidekicking feature it really doesn't matter and teams are often formed across wide level ranges. The only general rule is that you generally do not want to be more than ten levels below the average on the team since you will have far less in terms of powers to contribute, but even this is relateive as some team leaders wil not much mind how much you contribute so long as you are active and fun to have around.

As for time to assume teams, that is entirely dependent on the team leader doing the inviting. Many teams will form up on the fly and begin playing and add as they go, while others try to recruit up to a full team of eight before starting, and that's a personal preference issue.

The only hard and fast exception to this is Task/Strike Forces which do have a specified minimum level which everyone must meet in order for the team to start and a minimum team size, and therefore do have some down time while they are recruiting up to form.

Actually, I believe Dechs_Kaison's tank is Dark/Fire (build here) and he has a rather lenghtly thread dedicated to Dark Armor in general and that tanking build in particular. It works just fine.

As for the Cloak of Fear question, I would tend to agree with the overall consensus that the endurance cost generally is not worth the effect, though I have got good Set Bonuses out of it. I rarely run it on my Dark tanks, though several of them do have it.

1) Yes, Fitness powers now work across all forms, so slotting Stamina does now benefit you across all forms. This is a relatively recent change, only a few issues ago.

2) There are no particular Sets which are tailor-made for Khelds, though there are many that work well. Like any other character, it comes down to deciding what bonuses you want to put a premium on and gathering as many of those kind of bonuses as you can. Recharge tends to be a popular choice.

3) Macros and binds are distinct things here. Both remain with the character and are stored serverside, binds can also be saved to your hard drive using slash commands, while macros are grey player-made buttons in your power tray and have to be remade on each character. You will NOT need to redo either of them when playing on another computer, but if you have rotating binds that make use of bindloadfile commands, these will not work because those files are not present on the other computer. Basic trayswitching binds should work fine on any computer because they are stored serverside.

In fact, when making a new Kheld, I would highly recommand logging into an old Kheld and using the /bindsavefile command to copy the binds and then /bindloadfile to load them on the new Kheld. This works very nicely, though of course the power names are different so both need to be same type (both PBs or both WSs) for this to work.

Energy Aura should be significantly better after the coming changes, but it plays just fine now. It is demonstrably subpar compared to other Brute secondaries, yes, but subpar does not mean unplayable. I really cannot tell you whether or not you should make one because I do not know what sort of player you are or what you enjoy.

It boils down to what New Dawn said above. If you want one, make one. Decide for yourself. I have one and I like him, and I look forward to seeing how he plays once the changes go into effect.

Obviously you are frustrated here, but I have to say that my experience playing these ATs does not match yours and frankly I find them very fun to play and quite powerful when played well (the Warshade in particular feels almost overpowered in many situations).

I would suggest that you post your builds for review, as it may very well be that some of us could assist you in tweaking your builds and maybe having more fun with your Khelds as they are now. To address the issues you did mention specifically above:

1. Voids/Quantums/Cysts

This is a common complaint and, to be fair, one that can really be difficult to deal with in the early levels or if one is trying to play on jacked-up difficulty settings (which I know many people enjoy doing). However, these have already been nerfed multiple times.

Again, speaking from personal experience, these enemies are not the game-breaking, instant-death enemies that they might appear to be. Quantums are easily dealt with unless they are bosses, in which case either your difficulty is up high or you are on a large team. If the former and you are having trouble, turn the diff down. If that latter, your teammates should be helping out. Voids can stun you, which often does end up a death sentence, but no worse than being stunned by a Malta guy, and the solution is the same - mez them first and take them out. As for Cysts, unless the team reacts poorly and rushes the Cyst I rarely see problems with them anymore as most people know how to handle them. Outside of Master runs, I cant recall the last time a Cyst caused more than a minor hiccup when playing my Khelds. Again, this is my experience talking and I am not trying to say yours is incorrect - I take you at your word that you are having these problems to this degree, but given that I and others have been able to do much better on builds without any special advantages such as purpled-out builds or full T4 incarnate powers, I would suggest that there may be room to do better within the AT as it current stands.

2. Under-performance?

More or less addressed above, but you have only to look at several of the Kheld forum regulars to see that many of us perform very well. Again, Warshades tend to do better than the peacebringers who could use a bit of an improvement in performance relative to their dark cousins, but I wouldnt call either of them a complete waste to play - my peacebringer may not be the juggernaut my warshade is, but he is a sturdy melee combatant with a dash of healing and a bit of control thrown in and he is an asset to a team.

3. Balance/parity versus VEATs

This is another sticking point, and ultimately it comes down to fundamentally different design. There will always be people that feel that the VEAT design got it right and that Kheldians were a failure. If you enjoy the VEAT design more or if you do not enjoy the way Khelds work, that is fine and it is no mark against you as a player, but it does not necessarily meant that there is a fundamental design flaw with the Kheldian ATs that requires a total revamp - it may just be that these ATs are not for you.

In short, based on my experience with these ATs, I disagree that a revamp is indicated here. Tweaks, sure, particularly with respect to pbs, but not a revamp, and I believe you are overstating the threat that our special enemies (V/Q/C) represent. I would be happy to help you with your builds and play tactics if you wish, as I am sure the other regulars would as well, but if you decide these ATs are not your cup of tea, well that would also be understandable.

The upside is that any level 20+ mob can drop Tips, even those that are very far below your level, so you only need to go hit a hazard zone with lots of level 20+ grays and start killing until the Tips roll in. For blueside I like Dark Astoria for this. For redside I will usually find the Ghost of Scrapyard and wipe out lots of his strike buddies.

I could make either time, though actually the earlier time would work better for me. I enjoyed it very much the last time I came to one of these, looking forward to doing it again.

You also need to remember the context of that guide when going to apply it to your own situation. Generally speaking, you skip the blasts in human form because it is far more efficacious to slot the blasts in the Nova form which will outperform the similar human blast powers. You want to pick up the utility powers in human form and, when you have no good choices, you pick up either powers that offer good benefit with minimal slotting (such as Hasten) or powers that can serve as IO set mules with no real anticipation of actual use (although here again, you want to balance this against your need for slots in the powers you do intend to use).

In specific, you do not have many slots in either Stygian Circle or Unchain Essence and you do not have Quasar at all - these are areas you might address. Also, as noted above, you have overslotted your LOTGs. The problem now becomes that, because you have slotted the forms so exhaustively you have relatively little wiggle room for adding slots to any more human-form powers. This is where it becomes more of a playstyle call as you work out how many slots you can spare from here or there and what you consider to be of higher priority. There is certainly nothing wrong with a forms specialist build - this is actually one of the more common variants and it works just fine.

Striking the perfect balance in a tri-form build is a challenge, no doubt about that. My Warshade remains one of my tightest builds out of any character I have, and for me this is part of what makes the character so satisfying - that I truly have to think and work out how to get the most from his build and customize him to the way I want him to play.

I think this has been fairly well addressed at this juncture, but I do want to add that one common thread I see often with newcomers to tri-form builds in general and to Warshades especially is an over-emphasis on playing in any one form.

When the OP asked if he/she should "play in human form when Eclipse is down" and the response given was "You are all forms at all times!", this is what was meant, but given how commonplace this paradigm problem appears to be it would seem that we have not done as well as we might have in explaining what is meant by this. Therefore, here goes:

A common pitfall I see players fall into when trying to play a tri-form or even a dual-form build is encapsulated in the question "which form should I play in"? The answer is, as noted earlier, "all of them". Often players are (understandably) used to the defined ATs from their prior experience in CoH and adopt similar approaches to what is a fundamentally different AT. They play Blaster and remain in Nova form for minutes or even missions at a time. They play Tanker and do the same in Dwarf. While this is not necessarily the "wrong" way to play, it is not the method of play advocated by a tri-former and if the player in question is trying to make a tri-form build work with that approach, frustration is all but inevitable.

The solution is to to be all things at all times, to shift forms multiple times within a single battle, always reacting to the demands of the situation. You might drop into Human form to hit Hasten, fire off Gravitic Emanation to stun the mobs, then Mire off of them and shift to Nova to lay down some quick damage, then shift to Dwarf to absorb any stuns from the surviving mobs (if any still standing have mez effects, since you would have targeted those first while in Nova). Then you might drop to Human again to fire off Circle or to use Unchain or Dark Extraction. By that time Eclispse is back up and you might lead with that and then go to town in Nova. So the answer to the earlier question would be "sometimes". You do not want to play in human form any more than you want to always be in Dwarf or in Nova, but you want to make use of the tools available in all three, changing forms whenever the situation calls for a tool available in another form.

Keep in mind that all of this shifting, kiting, mezzing and blasting is taking place in a very short amount of time. Bounce around. Ultimately the key to really being powerful in a tri-form build is mastering the timing and knowing when to shift to what - this means getting a feel for the durations of your powers and the cycles of your various attack and mez chains so that the engine of destruction that is the Tri-Form Warshade never actually needs to stop moving.