Leo_G

Sorry, not gonna play Ice Armor until we get a compelling primary to go with it. I paired Spines with Dark Armor, Electric with Regen, Dark Melee with Willpower, Kinetic Melee with Energy Aura, Dual Blades with Ninjutsu (then there's my EM/EA and MA/WP too). Since my main is a Katana scrapper and I hate Broadsword I got nothing left.

Concept for Street Justice is reserved so none of that (just haven't gotten to making the character)...

We haven't gotten any good primary proliferation in forever (the last one was BS which is BS!)...I'd really like a chance to make an Ice melee stalker!! That's what I really want to make, but I'd bet a Titan Weapons/Ice Armor would be devilish...anything that comes near you is slowed long enough for you to back away then swing at em with cone Knockdown goodness....

I personally loved the story of 1st Ward and didn't even realize I was getting any reward besides exp until after I was done and I started running tips (then noticed how many merits I had). Frankly, if I want rewards, I can go do the aforementioned farmed content for that.

But I have to admit, this is more a solo-oriented thread of content in my eyes. I did run some missions of a few strangers I met when I was in 1st ward, but it was their missions and I had already done the ones they were on...I enjoyed the twists and turns but only the mission holder would really get a feel for them.

Yes, any tag-alongers could read the NPC dialog because much of what is said in those windows is said in chat for everyone to read, but it zips by so fast, I was forced to make a tab for the dialog so I could go back and reread anything I missed.

All in all, I liked it but unless there are some other twists (by my choices) in this thread, I probably won't run it on any other characters. This little thread of content will be [Y] character's bit of thread in the tapestry of the CoX lore, just like Vincent Ross' arc is [X] character's thread or Dean McArthur's arc is [Z]'s. The only time I'd ever run those arcs again is if I were teamed and primarily for the fun of it but will only be 'canon' for my X, Y and Z characters.

There are some arcs that just feel 'right' as a one-man show vs a team. Anyway, I'm hoping there's a good deal more content like this. I give it a thumbs up

Wow, and if you don't have a controller? Or you're solo? It'd be different if you were talking about a Blaster who has ranged (and high) damage, but this is basically a Tanker with no mez protection or armor (and probably low HP) trying to dispatch foes before they die.

Wouldn't be a problem if you chose the right set (Rad, Dark, Traps) though but it's ignoring the problem sets (Storm, FF, Kinetic) or the edge cases (Emp, Sonic, Thermal).

Not to sound like I'm on a high horse but...alot of you guys' ideas are just...bad. I mean, pairing shields/mez protection with the melee set? Come on...Just outright giving them mez protection as an inherent? No sacrifice needed? *shakes head*

Here's some questions for you:

-How much damage will this AT be capable of? Less than a Tanker?

-You think this AT should have every tool to support a team that a Defender or Corruptor has?

--The above answers might paint yourself into a corner. If the damage is less, how do you expect the AT to survive in melee for any viable amount of time to defeat regular foes?

--If it does more dmg, how can you justify giving them all the tools to aid a team AND mez protection?

--Downgrade the support powers? Then how do you even survive in a team situation at all if you can't rely on your mitigative powers?

-You do realize there are sets that work counter to melee, correct? Force Field has 2 powers, one being its tier 9, that practically eliminates melee for you. The bread and butter of mitigation for Storm is in Hurricane, a -ToHit repel aura.

-You do also realize support sets are balanced vastly different, yes? You can't plop empathy in the hands of a melee focused character and expect it to perform well...or Sonic. Heck, even Kinetic is primarily support and has dang near nil for mitigation for the caster.

There's a lot to be considered here that no one is bothering to address...

All the powersets I suggested?

Those.

Dunno why, but I'm sort of in agreement with Proton.

I tend to like 'showdowns' and 'call outs' where the foe is kind of the same as my character (at least in ability origin/use). No, not the dopplegangers...tired of fighting clones where there should be no clones (and even if you clone some of my characters, how in the world do they have powers that even come close to the original? You can't clone skill or knowledge!!)

There's some arcs where some person will challenge the magical might of my stormie with their own magic, or a costumed fighter will call out my melee guy and exchange fists/lock swords...just wish there was more of that. But general 'boss vs boss' is good. Loved the ending of the Shining Stars Arc, that tourney somewhere in the Praetoria Power arc was right up my alley, some of the newer villain stuff really challenged the arcane might of my sorceress, 1st ward was just oodles of fun solo for me...

If I were adding some new content, something where a cosmic force seeks out the truly strong or potentially powerful and snatches them up for a tournament of champions. There'd be matches where you face off against named foes as well as waves of forces to test you. So much fun

An artist is creative enough to make any method work...although I've yet to make every method work.

I'd like to say concept and powers must converge to make a successful character and if either comes first is irrelevant. I say converge because I tend to come up with both at the same time *then* go to make the character. Rarely do I come up with a powers combo then make a concept around that (although I have) and rarely do I make a character concept without actually thinking of what type of abilities said character has (hmmm, nope, never did this).

When I first started playing CoV, I wanted to make a Plant character and thematically gravitated toward Thorns. So I was making a costume for a Plant/Thorn dom and really took a liking to him so formed a concept and backstory. He's actually one of the antagonists of the only published AE arc I have, he favors the devouring earth, he's got a sister who's trying to kill him who happens to be one of my top incarnated characters and the strongest foe in my gallery...he just spiraled into a lot of other things, seamlessly with all my other characters.

But my main character, back when I first started making characters in the game, I made to RP with. The concept being he's a teen with no powers, just able to learn really fast and trained since he was a toddler so now he's pretty much a Bad *** Normal. Name, look, backstory and all along with his powers being "non-powered Bad *** Normal". For secondary, this was easy: Super Reflexes. For primaries, I had to make a decision so...I picked everything that was normal. He can fist fight (Martial Arts) and he can use swords (Katana) but I ended up focusing on him being the swordsman. Bam, Kat/SR is my main. RPing with him, he developed a personality and a certain way he talked, mentors, enemies, friends and so on. This all is apart of his background.

Speaking of his friends, even for them, I formed their concept and powers together, one being a trained martial artist who is part of a clan with a blood mutation that allows them to absorb and manipulate kinetic force. I made this concept back when I made my main so it was *way* before Kinetic Melee was even presented in this game. It just so happens Kinetic Melee resembles taijiquan which fit that particular character so I made him...with a twist that he's the Pretorian counterpart to this particular character (since the actual concept of the original is a pacifist).

And the other friend is a girl who was my main's training partner. Bad *** of non-weapon martial arts as well as a master of staff...I can't make her non-weapon version without her being a Melee/Debuff AT and a pressure-point debuff set...but I'll eventually make her staff using version

Yup, concept and powers tend to come together or else I don't make the character.

No, the devs should implement a feature that lets you trigger your own music from your own play lists. I kinda do that now, when a climactic battles about to start I queue up my 'action' play list, or for boss battles pull up some old JRPG boss music or if I'm reading some piece of story that is kinda sad, I queue up the 'melancholy' play list. Sometimes I do it on teams. "Wait, hold on, let me switch music....okay let's go!"

The game should do this for me. If the world can be lazy self-entitled ***es, I want at least 1 chance to be that myself

I didn't realize CoX was slow paced compared to other MMOs...or that we have a lot of loot compared...

Trip Mine? One type of power that I'm not sure we have in the game quite yet is 'delayed effect' type powers. You can basically time when damage occurs, right (an attack does [X] dmg after w sec then [Y] DoT after z sec for u.n sec). I had suggested a Stalker melee set whose attack animations were all *really* fast but the damage of the attack was *really* delayed so that, you could activate the 3 fast/delayed dmg attacks then hit with the regular attacks creating a BURST as all the damage hit in a short period...basically what some of the projectile travel times result in in Psy Blast.

For trip mine, pretty simple. Shorten the cast time (and remove the interruptibility) but delay the actual proximity sensor. You'd be able to do exactly what you can do now with Trip Mines (even better, in fact, since the power would start recharging immediately after you click it vs waiting for the long interrupt period to finish) but also use it mid combat if the foe warrants its use (i.e. stays in place or is moving toward your mine).

For Time Bomb? Well, what about in-game proximity time bombs? You know the ones that start counting down when you get near them? And how you can destroy them with damage?

I say, keep Time Bombs ridiculous cast time and interrupt time but greatly reduce its recharge. I should be able to, as a Traps/Devices character, take 45min to an hour and a half to rig up half a warehouse with trip mines and time bombs so that, if a foe is folly enough to run across my mines or steps near my time bomb to trigger its countdown (or I can just shoot my own bomb to start the fireworks), I should damn well be able to vaporize the whole damned map in an instant, not just a couple spawns at a time. My tripped mines should cause my time bombs to explode resulting in a domino effect of epic tactical proportions!

But even in regular combat, those changes would be somewhat useful.

I've come up with past ideas for lots of sets including armor sets that'd be somewhat unique.

-Long ago, I suggested a type of 'Psionic Armor' which had a couple of toggles a click and the rest were passive powers. It's only mez protection was a moderate duration, short recharge 'Break Free' click. Several special things I suggested for it
---The tier9 was like Granite (with transparent psionic armor covering you) that wouldn't suppress while mezzed (the idea was before they made suppressing toggles when mezzed).
---The passives gave moderate buffs (one to def/res, another to def and another to regen/recover) but multiplied greatly while mezzed.
---The 'Break Free' mez protection casts a PBAoE *special mez* on all nearby foes depending what you got mezzed and if it overcame your magnitude protection while granting you short term resistance and protection. Got a low mag 2 sleep cast on you? It'd cast a mag 3 sleep to all around you. Got confused? It'd cast a mag 3 confuse + a mag 2. Got immobilized, stunned and have a sleep mag on you that got broken? You'd cast a mag 3+2 immobilize, a mag 3+2 stun and a mag 3 sleep. This was balanced around the fact you have no passive mez protection except the click with the break free duration.


-I still want my idea for 'Bone Armor' to be looked into by a dev. The concept of that armor was basically 'breakable' or 'ablative' armor. It'd have several standard +def/res armor toggles, some passives and a click.
---The armor itself would provide great defense to many types including psionic but not fire but once the armor 'breaks' (below a high % of HP) the defense lowers.
---The armor itself would provide great resistance to many types including fire but not psionic, *however* it only provides this great resistance when the armor is broken/fractured (in the low % of HP) and only a bit while HP is high.
---The click basically shifts the point at which the % kicks in or gives out (so the resists are present at a higher % and the defense keeps trucking at a lower %) while improving base HP.
---The tier 9 is a toggle that would be a 'Bone Golem' or 'Bone Puppets', summoning a pet (or pets depending how the set goes/is balanced) that will take some of your damage for you a la Mastermind Body Guard. The pet(s) wouldn't do anything else or be targetable and only be there to take some of your damage but the endurance cost to maintain them would quickly ramp up the longer you kept it(them) around. (if there are multiple pets, each would have a certain amount of HP more than the others, so as you share damage, they fall apart 1 at a time so you go from taking 1/4 dmg to 1/3 dmg then 1/2 dmg until all pets expire) The toggle itself would have a long recharge.
---Beyond all that uniqueness, it has a special damage aura that does no damage when at 100% and begins to ramp up the damage as your HP gets lower, doing more damage than any dmg aura power when at something around 20% HP.
---Lastly, a passive that, upon catastrophic armor failure (death), you go 'nova' and explode in a wave of bone/armor fragments, dealing great amounts of damage to anyone in range. This power would suppress for 30sec after being rezzed.
---The visual theme should be something like what Spines/Thorns has: a visual for bone/spines, a visual for wood/thorns, a visual for crystal and a visual for metal.

-I also had a concept for a 'Goo Armor' set that used a special enemy toggle power. The toggle would stack small mags of holds and immobilizes on the target and while you had it toggled, it'd improve your regen and recovery. The concept was, you encased the target in goo and was leeching off of them. Powerful, because even if the foe wasn't held you get high regen/recovery, but the downfall is it has a short 10-15ft range (slottable to something like 25ft) to simulate someone escaping from your goo.

-Another was a type of 'Intangibility Defense' with the concept being 'Ghost Aura' or if you were a type of character that was a spectre or ghost or even just an extra-dimensional character. Problem with this set is, it'd require reworking of the phase mechanics. You'd need the 'phased attacks phased' mechanic that is in PvP to be implemented into PvE, do something (like remove) the 'no phase' period of phase shifting powers, NPCs that currently say they phase but are actually 'untouchable' (Carnie Illusionists etc) would need to be changed to simply phase shifted and the ability to use certain powers on phased targets would need to be worked into the game as well as more overall use of phase shifting powers (yeah, a lot of work). But the idea of the set was, it'd have powers to phase shift a target or targets (the initial idea had a settable AoE pseudo-pet that if you walk on it, can phaseshift any that didn't have protection to intangibility, NPC or ally player) while you yourself could shift in and out of phase. While unphased, you'd have a bit of defense and regen but while phased, you'd be more resistant, more defensive, higher regen and do more damage. Basically, if you can manage to phase a target, you'd be very hard to beat but while unphased, you're not much to worry about...except you can phaseshift on command, nullifying attacks completely.

I've got others but it's been a while and those are the ones that have specific new mechanics that aren't present in the current game yet.

How about 'all around, beast/monster costume support'? Hoods, hats, monsterous gloves, legs, feet and snouts.

Several things I noticed when making my tiger TW/WP scrapper that is an alternate form of my main character:

-The new nifty gloves like Barbarian, Kote and Warrior gloves (and alot of other variations) are not made in a monsterous hand type.

-The barbarian braces and rings for the hands do not support fur or patterns underneath them.

-No 'briefs' option for the monsterous legs (but male body types tend to lack overall options for bare-legs + shorts/briefs).

-Spiked Collar in the Shoulder options section isn't visible with any type of Beast head (which is a CRYING SHAME!!!).

-Skin tones *still* show up through even animal fur...I don't understand this at all. Even set to white, I can still see peach through white fur...

All in all, I still think he turned out good (if not constrained...lots of stuff I wanted to do but knew I couldn't)...









*sorry, not in a position to crop/edit them together.