Kid_Gloves

Praetoria 1-20 should be free-access content. The zones are deader than dead, some great story content is going fallow and if I were someone to purchase the content now I'd feel honestly cheated - because it's just a slog to go through.

Opening it up to free players would mean there'd be a bit more life there. Probably not much more thanks to the DIB trial, but as it stands it's only slightly more active than Boomtown.

I'm going to add my voice to the 'Storm is all useful!' crowd. If someone says you should never use (x) power no matter what, ignore them.

Ninjas as a set are very melee-centric, which means you're probably going to be in melee too. This means under most blast-through-minions scenarios, you won't be wanting Hurricane on in teams. That said, there are many situations where Hurricane is a life-saver - especially against AVs or similar that are immune to the knockback and repel.

Personally I find having personal attacks on a ninja/storm MM can get a bit micro-heavy. Ninjas themselves need more attention than bots or mercs do, and storm is a set that requires a lot of active input from you. I find in most cases my nin/storm is clicking powers pretty much constantly anyway, leaving no -time- for personal attacks.

As a quick run-down of storm in teams:

Gale: use if enemies are near walls, or use to sweep stragglers into the melee. This requires you to be fairly mobile, so hover or combat jumping can help here. Many bosses are not KB-resistant to the magnitude that Gale delivers, so it can be very handy in keeping things like Freakshow bosses from dealing big damage to squishy friends.

O2 Boost: use to heal minions, or as a sleep/stun/end.drain rescue on allies. This isn't just a heal, so don't treat it as just a heal. I've had melee team-mates of all types go from 'eek, Carnies!' to 'meh. Carnies.' because of this power.

Snow Storm: the damage mitigation from this is quite respectable, but it suffers from being a targeted toggle. Especially useful for grounding fliers. Use when you can, but don't get irate when your toggle target dies in two seconds.

Steamy Mist: do not leave home without it. Remember to turn off if you're escorting NPCs.

Freezing Rain: So, so powerful. Use, use often. If anyone complains about you using freezing rain, call them stupid. Because they are.

Hurricane: On teams this one is situational. Don't run it constantly, but instead turn it on as required. It can be great for providing a temporary wall to block runners, or even to keep an ambush group from joining the fight effectively. It's also good for AVs or other large, melee-centric, kb-resistant types.

Thunder Clap: This is probably the weakest power in the storm set. It is good for stunning minions, but in most cases minions will die so fast in teams that its effectiveness is questionable. No-one will object to you using it, but chances are good no-one will notice either. Personally I skip this one.

Tornado: Be careful with this, it can be a real problem-causer. However, it makes a great 'we're being overwhelmed!' panic button - since it applies a fear effect as well as throwing everyone around. I've used it effectively to prevent team wipes. If you are teamed with someone who has an AoE immobilize that grants KB-resist to the target, tornado becomes a lot more viable. While the kb-resist is in effect the tornado won't throw anyone around. Instead it will just deal unresistable damage and apply fear to nearby enemies. Against AVs it's strongly recommended - both for the constant damage and the -def. AVs bring their own KB resistance. Remember that tornado is a pet, so if it has a target and you are close enough it won't change targets. Thus, you can place it directly on an AV who is surrounded by minions and there's a very good chance the tornado will just hug the AV.

Lightning Storm: As already mentioned in earlier posts: The damage is respectable, and with good positioning you can make the KB into KD. The end.drain is just icing.

ATTENTION ALL HEROES!

If your superpowers include powers over water, earth or similar - your assistance in Queensland, Australia would be greatly appreciated.

Queensland has been hit by some of the worst floods in decades - with many people today returning to homes devastated by raging waters.

If your powers could be useful in helping out with the massive task of repairing the roads, getting food and water to the communities and suburbs isolated by water, or simply helping to clean out the massive devastation, we could use your help!

If you don't think your powers are quite up to the challenge, you can still be a real hero and help out with the flood appeal by going to http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html and doing what you can.

Your help is greatly appreciated in our time of need.

Thankee for the suggestions, all!

I'm sitting on Steel Sorceress and Tin Witch Mk II while I make a final decision. I've created both as characters, so at least they're less likely to get nabbed!

Poor Tin Witch needs a new name. Someone nabbed it while I was re-concepting her.

Anyone want to throw ideas at me? She is/was a robotic spell-slinger.

Edit: And yes, she was around long before this 'Tin Mage' imposter with his TF thing showed up.

Hi dev-type people (and all)

First up, I think one of the neat things about the Praetorian arcs is how your actions in one mission can affect others.

However, there are a few issues with this where it falls apart, and could be fixed with a few simple changes.

The main issue I've found so far is with Dr. Stafford - who is not available as a contact in the resistance/warden arc of Imperial City if you complete the loyalist/responsibility arc first.

The issues are:
* There is nothing that notifies the user that they are about to 'destroy' their ability to do future arcs when doing Interrogator Kang's missions.

* There is no actual indication when you reach the missing arc of why it is missing. You just ... get no contact, no morality mission and no explanation as to why.


SUGGESTION:

1. Put some text in Kang's missions letting the user know that they're about to perform a destructive action by accepting the mission, preferably while they still have a choice to not complete said action. [Dr. Stafford is a resistance contact. By completing this mission you will be unable to complete some of the resistance content if you have not already done it]

2. Put something at the point where the contact would be offered informing the player why not. This could be done 'in character' - the contact could say that unfortunately Dr Stafford (or whomever) has been captured.


In summary: There's a cool thing happening here with Dr. Stafford - tell the player about it rather than relying on them going forum-hunting to discover what happened to their mission arc.

And apply the same logic to any other contacts/scenarios that have similar things happen.

-KG

My overall experience with /storm as a MM, coupled with my new (lvl 20) Demons/Storm MM:

On Demons
The various MM personal attacks on the demons set are quite nice. The damage is respectable and the secondary effects are nice. I've taken all three, and use all three with frequency well beyond what I've done with any other MM build.

On Storm
o2 boost on a MM is more worthwhile for the status protection and +perception than the heal. The heal is nice for topping things off, but your Ember Demon (lvl 12+) can cover the bulk of your healing needs even with just its single target heal. For this reason I see o2 boost as delay-able until higher levels as a stun-breaker for your ember.

Snow Storm on MMs in general is a bit of a mixed blessing. Its requirement to be toggled on to a target is often a liability - especially with the amount of damage being thrown around. Useful more for its -fly, it synergises very well with melee-heavy minion sets (ninjas, I'm looking at you). Demons have pleanty of ranged damage, so it is less useful. Nice, but I find it very situational - and you get ample -speed and -recharge with freezing rain. I'm not yet sure how just FR + demon prince work together, but I'm expecting it'll be nice.

Steamy Mist doesn't synergise quite as well with demons as Shadow Fall, since Shadow Fall covers the resistance holes that the demons own resistance has. That said, outside of psi and negative, your demons resistance with this running is very nice. The confuse resistance is also extremely lovely on any MM, for obvious reasons.

Freezing Rain is a staple of any stormy build, and if you don't take it you're just being weird.

Hurricane I find is a lynchpin of any controller, corrupter or defender build, but more of a emergency-defense for a MM. The knockback it invokes can be difficult to work with, given its pulse nature, making it - for me - less appealing. Nice, but not essential. Can be skipped.

Thunder Clap is, as has already been mentioned by many, extremely skippable. I found it useful for my ninjas because they are so squishy so a minion-stun was useful, but demons are made of sterner stuff than ninjas...

Tornado is a love it or leave it power. I love it, but many don't. If you have some form of -kb effect, Tornado is a brutal damage dealer. Demons has no immobilise effect, so unless you pick one up in your epic pool it'll be throwing things around a lot.

Lightning Storm I personally love for the damage it deals. There's reasons not to take it, but that doesn't stop me!

YMMV, of course. This is just my own observations.

Nice site! There's a lot to take in at once - if you want to make it very new-player friendly, having a 'Start Here' page would be great - with a quick overview of what each section is about, complete with links! If you want to make it -very- new-player-friendly, a section on 'picking a server' would be handy as well, with little things about each server population (Virtue: roleplayers, Justice: lots of aussies/nz-ers, etc.).

You may want to make some brief mention about picking heroes vs. villains as well - the site is obviously hero-geared, but a few notes on the similarities, differences and so-on could be quite helpful to the new player.

In the costumes section, some discussion on do's and don't's of color would be ideal. I cannot remember the thread (and my link-fu is terrible!) but there is a guide on good vs. bad color choices somewhere, and the importance of branching out beyond 2 colors for looking good. It may be more than you're after, but customisation is what CoX is all about!

Also (from my reading), some notes in the 'archetypes' section that not all variations of each archetype fit neatly and there is a lot of overlap. Roles can be shared, archetypes can be tweaked out of their 'designated' role.

And to be extra-picky on this front (spot the controller-freak!) I'd personally reword the controller description to say they 'neutralise' or 'lock down' enemies. Holds are common ways of doing this, but most controller primaries and secondaries have altogether different ways of doing this that are easily as effective. Special mention of the importance of locking down high-irritation enemies would be good - a controller who locks out that Tsoo Sorcerer, Malta Sapper or Spectral Demon Lord is much more useful than one who spams their AoE controls then faceplants from immob-agro.

Not wanting to rain on your parade, but...

This idea has cropped up quite a few times over the years. It's an interesting one, but runs into a few key sticking points.

* The confused pet would have to suddenly adopt a pet-like AI so it could follow you around. I can't see the dev's wanting to code all that for one power, since it raises lots of fun questions like 'what happens to the AI when it wears off?'

* It'd come at the expense of something Mind already has, which would mean making significant changes to people's already-existing characters.

* Mind has done fine without a pet for years now.

The concensus usually comes out as 'it's nice having a set that doesn't have a pet, if you want a pet for a controller pick any one of the other sets'

Illusion works very well for the psychic-types who want a pet.

I think I got the general summary of how these posts usually work out. Let see if this one goes in any different direction.

Personally I love the sleeps in mind.

Mesmerise has the big advantage of being mag-4. It'll knock a boss out of action in one application, and it'll detoggle Positron's very irritating radiation debuffs with one click - even without domination.

Mass Hypnosis can be used for all sorts of fun. It'll let you 'open' without taking a whole fun of alpha, it can keep a side-group from agro-ing the team, it can be used to 'stealth' through missions by putting everyone to sleep and just strolling past, and even in a big 'AoE damage-fest' team it can buy a few critical seconds of protection for a squishy when all your other controls are otherwise busy, and without attracting a sudden deluge of agro your way. With some work it can also be used quite effectively to keep groups of AVs locked down (LRSF).

I think skipping the sleeps is silly, but I know it's a hotly contended topic.

On the topic of viable builds, check the 'guides' section. Mind/psi is a common enough build that there's a few good guides there, even if some are a little dated.

You can't compare two powers without looking at the rest of the powers in the set. Both sets' powers are designed with the other powers being considered - they have to be.

When I do powerset comparisons, I think of the first four powers as 'key every-fight powers' while the latter five are more 'handy tools for interesting situations'.

Seeds of Confusion is a first-four power for plant, so forms a key part of its control ability. Without it available every fight, plant would be the red-headed stepchild of control sets.

Mass Hypnosis is a more obvious comparison than Mass Confusion It lets a mind controller do similar things. It's superior in that it doesn't agro, letting the solo or small-team mind controller really pick their battles, but it's a sleep - so the large-team mind controller will get limited mileage out of it.

Mass Confusion is a very handy 'I want that spawn gone please' power, especially when coupled with terrify. I think its' utility compares well to that of a controller pet: handy, speeds up soloing considerably but not really essential for doing the key job of controlling.

Trick Arrow will probably never be a mainstream powerset because:

* None of the things it does have a direct, obvious benefit to the other team-mates own characters in the form of big, visible buffs or giant green numbers.

* It doesn't heal, and other MMOs have trained people that healing > all.

Most players suffer from some degree of scrapper-lock - even when they aren't scrappers. So all the enemies are falling over, or moving slowly, or dealing much less damage? There's no big in-your-face obvious -message- stating this is the case, so TA isn't doing anything... right?

If debuffs on enemies were visible on the target window, I expect sets like TA would see a surge in popularity.

The base hit chance of an even-level NPC enemy is 50%, not 100%.

If my memory serves, defense directly modifies their chance to hit. Thus, a def. value of 20% comes straight off their base 50%, leaving them with a 30% chance to hit you.

This is all from the dredges of my memory, so if I'm way off base someone please correct me.

To OP:

Of the three secondaries you mentioned, I'd take pain off the list because (as others have mentioned) it is reactive and ninjas die pretty fast if they start getting hit.

I've played more than one nin/* to significant levels (40+), and they work best when you can stop things from swinging at them frequently. As such, the sets I found work well with nin/* are:

FF: because they become much harder to hit! As mentioned, it does suffer from boring-ness, but as also mentioned ninjas require more micro than most other MM primaries. I couldn't level my nin/FF significantly - mostly because I hate reapplying FFs.

Dark: much like FF, only you're debuffing the enemy instead of buffing the ninjas. The -dam on the enemies means your ninjas tend to survive hits, but get used to calling them back into defensive or fighting right up there with your flip-out-and-kill buddies. Dark is my second-favourite for ninjas, because of all the extra fun things you can do with it. Ninjas and tar patch is all kinds of cruel.

Storm: Freezing rain's knockdown adds a lot to your ninjas survivability. The rest of the set is fun in general, but storm is an acquired taste and requires practice to use well. Poor use of gale, hurricane, tornado or lightning storm will not make you friends! That said, /storm is my favourite secondary to pair with ninjas. In the late-game, tornado + hurricane + lightning storm is great in many EB/AV fights.

Trick Arrow: Aside from the obvious synergy if you take the attack primaries, trick arrow does wonders in the 'so much for their attack speed and damage' area. Trick arrow does take a bit to get started - the early levels are a struggle, but once you get past 20 the set really starts to shine. At 35, oil slick + disruption arrow + oni is all kinds of pyromaniac fun.

I would avoid:

Pain: Because by the time you get to do anything with it, your ninjas are dead. Ninjas require not being hit, and pain doesn't provide a whole lot of that.

Traps: Because ninjas are mobile in ways that traps aren't.

Poison (even though I took one to 50!): Because poison is fantastic against single targets, but as soon as you run into more than one or two enemies you're relying on your ninjas' own natural survivability awesomeness to stay alive. Ninjas don't have natural survivability awesomeness, so there's an obvious synergy deficiency there.

Caveat: Everything in this post is my own opinions from my own experiences. YMM and probably will V.

Or....


Put a no-PvP timer on when you respawn in the hospital. somewhere in the 10-30 seconds range.

Just like when you zone in.

Make this apply only to hospital-spawns, so combat-rezzes are still possible.

No zone changes needed, bounties can still be got inside bases, but if you want to leave the zone then there is no-one who can stop you.

It doesn't reqire any redesign of geometry, it doesn't require any rework of powers, it doesn't rely on drones - that can be outsmarted. You can't outsmart a timer, you can only wait it out.

And if you're still in the zone when the timer expires, then you're obviously still keen on PvP. Of course, you may well have decided to leave the safe area, toggle up, maybe prep the ground they're standing on which is about to kick in any second now.... 2.... 1.... game on!

Simple and effective, and involves the least amount of change to the zone itself. What's not to like?

Players will always find a way around drones, drones suffer from having to go through the game mechanic. They're super-deadly and auto-hit, but they still have to acquire a target and are limited by their fire rate, range, position, etc.

You can teleport past them to a safe area and never be threatened by them. You can phantom-army them. You can even throw MM pets at them.

So based on all of this, more drones or better drones isn't the solution. They will *always* be bypassed, and each additional special-case applied to them will just make the whole situation more confusing and harder for a casual player to get to grips with.

The solution:

A timer of invincibility after you respawn from hospital - exactly like when you enter the zone.

The siren's call bounty will never get this, because dying means you are invalidated as a bounty target. The bases remain raidable from the perspective of people who are hunting for such a target, and yet - most importantly - someone who does want to leave the zone can just stroll out past the campers, probably with time to wave, and get to the helicopter without any problems.

Zoning time is not an issue - if you're killed in the same zone then you have no zoning time. If you're killed in a different zone (i.e. in a mission) then you have the 30-second zone-in timer anyway.

Enough with the high-tech, only-works-when-facing-south-on-a-tuesday solutions. This needs a brute-force, no-nonsense, easy-to-understand solution.

It's not nearly as bad from the hero side. Yes, villains can get into the hero base - but typically attacking a hero inside the hero base results in a quick, arbiter-assisted trip to your base.

In addition, none of the hero bases have a vulnerable respawn point. Any hero has the time to toggle up and enter the 'proper' PvP prepared. Villains can and often are targeted right on their respawn points - just fresh from dying and with no chance to hit any toggles.

It's bad design.

Post deleted by Kid_Gloves

Please make some changes to the effect for Trick Arrow: Flash Arrow.

While the illusion controller only goes 'bam!' with flash occasionally, the trick arrow set is encouraged to spam this to keep the enemy accuracy down. FLASH FLASH FLASH constantly is really unpleasant.

I find myself having spending more time watching the TA user to see when they're going to use the AAAAGH MY EYES! power so I can look away from my screen in time. I'd rather be focusing on the enemy and worrying about them.

Add more trick-arrow users and it becomes a strobe-light festival. I pity anyone with epilepsy being around trick-arrow users.

Changing it to smoke would be much easier on the eyes. Otherwise I'll only be playing with trick-arrow defenders/controllers when I'm fighting on the back lines, and the white flash doesn't completely nuke out my vision.

Since this is their primary team-defence power (-def!) I can see this being used a lot. Please, think of the eyeballs!

So it's exactly the same post, only this time remembering to add:

Character: Locus
Server: Infinity

[ QUOTE ]
Not able to log in since my computer-with-CoH is internet-less until Saturday

So unfortunately it's all old shots - oh well..

Locus - gravity/radiation controller.

http://www.foxforcefive.org/gallery/...iring_weapon_1
http://www.foxforcefive.org/gallery/...id=Locus_FFF_1
http://www.foxforcefive.org/gallery/...amp;id=Locus_3
http://www.foxforcefive.org/gallery/...amp;id=Locus_2

1st shot - cape went away again. It's still the same costume
2nd shot - SG colors... but there for completeness.

3rd + 4th shots - most accurate representation

[/ QUOTE ]

Not able to log in since my computer-with-CoH is internet-less until Saturday

So unfortunately it's all old shots - oh well..

Locus - gravity/radiation controller.

http://www.foxforcefive.org/gallery/...iring_weapon_1
http://www.foxforcefive.org/gallery/...id=Locus_FFF_1
http://www.foxforcefive.org/gallery/...amp;id=Locus_3
http://www.foxforcefive.org/gallery/...amp;id=Locus_2

1st shot - cape went away again. It's still the same costume
2nd shot - SG colors... but there for completeness.

3rd + 4th shots - most accurate representation

My first guide!

This one is a guide to what controllers do, aimed at people coming at it fresh, or who want someone else's opinion on the matter


Kid Gloves' Guide to Controlling

Certainly not the end-all and be-all, but hopefully a good place to start.

[ QUOTE ]
Here's an idea. We want precise target control with Wormhole, devs want AoE disorient with Wormhole.

We can have both.

Wormhole teleports one enemy, single target and precise. But the exit spot gets the AoE disorient, weak AoE control at level 26. We all get what we want.

The single target grab allows us to throw FF gens, auto-turrets, and DE stumps away from the team. The AoE disorient on exit allows a fig leaf of AoE control. They can even split the to-hit rolls like they do with Blind's hold/sleep setup so the teleport has the normal accuracy and the disorient has the AoE penalty accuracy.

Wormhole gets a clear buff instead of a 50/50 berf. Vote!

[/ QUOTE ]

Yay! I likes!

But therein lies the problem. Wormhole is not (either in old or current incarnation) ideal for controlling non-engaged enemies, because they wake up entirely too soon and they hate *you*, the controller.

If you're after non-killzone control, dimension shift is still superior to wormhole in either of its incarnations.

A controller has two key roles: preventing additional agro, and killzone control.

Preventing agro is fine with sleeps, etc. Dimension shift actually does this job remarkably well up to the point that your team-mates become interested in the additional agro.

Wormhole on live is pure killzone control. It can be used to selectively move a specific target to a specific point - that can be one of:

1) enemy defender removal. DE spores, sappers, sky raider FF generators, tsoo sorcerers, rikti guardians, etc. are all enemy defenders, and can benefit with being singled out of a group and dealt with sepeartely (either by a lone scrapper or fed to your singularities)

2) debuff management. similar to above, but can be used to move your own debuffs to more tactically significant places. As a /rad, I feel this advantage more than others. But if you're teaming with a defender there's a good chance you'll meet someone else who uses anchor powers. They will like you if you move their debuff-anchors into more useful locations. Especially if one of them has done a runner from the fight then got snagged by an accidental immobilize.

3) too many bosses. Sometimes a scrapper may be in over their heads. Having two red-con paragon protectors all over you is never fun. I have yet to meet a scrapper who has objected ot me taking the PP he wasn't playing with and feeding it to the singularities. It's faster than hitting GD twice, and more effective too.

You can't do any of this with new wormhole. What you can do is very briefly disorient a group. If its a killzone group, you create player agro - anything from 'don't do that please' to 'you have been kicked from the team'. If it isn't, you get a similar experience to using crushing field without any additional support, then show your superior concrete-kissing skill.


Wormhole as it was did not favor the brute-force controller. It was a finesse power, not a brute one. It's been changed to a brute power. It has some very nice looking short-term effects, but it doesn't appear to have staying power.

And - as has been said many times - it doesn't address the key grav issue.