LifeGuardian

I remember being in the beta, and coming out of the beta, that everybody was real down on Shields, and I was like "you guys are nuts, shields is gonna be fantastic" and... well, there we are.

So I take any word that KM is terrible with a grain of salt -- I hope it's every bit as terrible as shields was

Speaking of... can it be used with shields? It would be kind of strange for a "propless" set (no claws, no spines, no DB) to be restricted that way, but you never know.

I'm back. Again!

MA/Shields is a fantastic combo. The concept works well, whether you choose the kicks, the punches, or a mix (I was excited to see the new animations but ultimately just kept the kicks). It doesn't hurt to mix in a brawl when just grinding or bored, because you do get that nice shield-smack (even if it's hard to figure out if or how a Talsorian shield to the face would hurt).

The AAO damage boost and Shield Charge gives MA/Shield a great AOE combo that is also nice soft control with two bites at the knockdown apple. Even if they nerf Shield Charge considerably, it'll still be a nice and hard hitting combo. Not better than every other combo with shields for damage, but arguably the best in terms of its mitigation potential.

Well, I was a bit of a pioneer -- I'm at least kinda sure I was the first MA/Shield to level 50 on Victory, certainly one of, and of forum-using players, I was one of the first overall. I was working on his softcap build on pencil and paper before Mids' was updated

I don't think I still have his build in a file, so I'll have to recreate it in Mids' to link it.

What I remember most about him is the excellent burst AOE combo of BU+AAO+SC+DT. It was actually more effective to just wade in and do it all in melee, rather than using SC to enter combat (putting the AAO after). If the modifier has changed, I'm sure it'll be even more fantastic. So far I haven't done much with him. I'm literally having to relearn how to play, I changed my playstyle and use of keyboard and all completely for... that other game.

By far the favorite character I've played in any MMO, you can't go wrong. And RallyPoint, too, is a loose homage to Cap, I just wrote his own little mythology to make him fresh.

Can't neglect my other three Scrapper 50s, either, but Rally is definitely the favorite.

So, does that arc still exist with all the player characters?

So I've spent several months in another world, where the tanks are scrappers, the scrappers are blasters, and the blasters fall over if you blow on 'em. Where the defenders never buff or debuff and a controller's best move might make someone stop to tie their shoe. I've spent months learning to cringe at the word pug not because of whacky fun like FF defenders hitting PFF and saying "ready!" but more because they mean constant beratement and hostility from total strangers (which I've never found in CoH, and didn't know to appreciate it before). Months scheduling the kind of content that I would just ask for in a forum channel and set up on 20 minutes notice.

Bah, fleh, and meh. I'm back.

I've got tons to do -- gotta go back to editing my Coyote Task Force which has gotten pleasing reviews but is also bugged as crap in my absence apparently. But I wanted to announce myself again, ask if MA/Shield still kicks butt (I may post my build later and check if it's been altered by patches), and find out if the scrapper challenge is still out there with all our Scrappers in it.

A pbaoe knockdown power (probably a click, not a toggle) would be great, as would a toggle slow. But TK is also making things *not* move, with your mind. Think of Neo, or Sylar, or Peter stopping bullets telekinetically.

That's why my own idea would be telekinetic armor, to contrast from Willpower. Willpower operates on the effect of will -- be it natural or supernatural -- on one's own person. It makes you resist attacks on body and mind, it lets you recover from injuries faster.

A Telekinetic Armor would reflect the effect of the will, or the character's psychic ability, on other things, namely bullets, swords, energy blasts, or enemies themselves.

I might do up an idea for it, but I think such a set would be great for a bag of tricks feel like Dark and/or click-o-rama like Regen.

Aside from a "Psionic Melee" set that had no summoned weapons at all, I'd rather see a "Psionic Weapons" set than a "Psionic Blades" set, so that it could have many such options, like psychic versions of the hammers from Stone Melee, a DB-style attack, a Focus/Impale style attack (ANY Psionic melee set would have to have a Focus/Impale clone).

I'd love something like "Telekinetic Melee", but since it would almost demand lots of KD/KU/KB, people would whine. But it would lend itself to a Telekinetic Armor secondary with a slow aura, for instance.

I put the money into a steadfast pretty early on in the build, and had Focus Chi slotted with Guassian's around the time Cimerora opened up, but I played without Weave until level 49, so don't let people scare you out of Shields by the non-IO performance. Get that steadfast before you're out of the teens, though -- run Posi a couple times if you have to.

It's 3.75% fixed, base, regardless of teammates in range. Then it's additional whatever it is for 1 to 3 teammates in range, that's enhanceable. I can't even remember the number because it's just gravy anyway. You're still giving it a nominal enhancement to that portion even with a LOTG. Base slot for kismet, LOTG, or if you're feeling very saucy, the +Res PvP IO.

Grant Cover is another power that can get by with the base slot if you're in a pinch, even if it's defense and not endurance, since it's a pretty cheap toggle.

How would you judge it? I'd say just mine for all Scrappers with more than 50 hours of patrol time.

My guess? The swords are most popular. I'd bet that MA is in the middle or toward the top, despite the forums -- the forum users know about its actual performance relative to other primaries, casual players just know it looks fantastic.

My guess is that Spines is probably the least popular, again, because of its appearance and that it's hard to understand. DM is also hard to understand, but it'll have a lot of people that play it because they'll play anything called "dark".

I'm actually pretty okay with Tanks as they are... I was pitching it mostly as a sop to the complaints than out of any real genuine need.

I've got my Invuln/Energy up to level 35 -- thinking I would just like to see if Energy Transfer is any good. Even unslotted, I was impressed. And I don't really mind the animation (I miss the old one though).

I'm still not sure I wouldn't rather build the WP/SS I thought of, but I think I'll play the Invuln up to level 50. I kinda wish that Total Focus had the same kind of AOE as Thunder Strike, though.

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If Going Rogue will mean less proliferation, I'll probably play at least a couple brutes.

The thing is, there's no indication at all that Going Rogue will mean ATs will be available on both sides at creation, but rather that you'd have to level on one side, and roleplay it over toward the other side in Praetoria. Any brute you want to play blue side you'll probably have to play red side for a while.

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City of Heroes Going Rogue will introduce a new alignment system that helps players explore the shades of gray that lie between good and evil. For the first time, hero characters can become villains and vice versa, enabling hero archetypes to cross over to the Rogue Isles™ and villain archetypes to experience Paragon City™. Clearly marked missions, in addition to behaviors and decisions made by the player, will move a hero's or villain's moral compass, which could eventually change the hero's or villain's alignment. Going Rogue will also introduce two primary new fictional characters representative of this alignment shift in the game's lore: Maelstrom, a pistol-wielding hero gone rogue, and Desdemona, a demon-summoning villain who has been redeemed.

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Emphasis added.

It's referred to as a character process, not one for players or accounts -- characters changing sides, not ATs just being universally provided at creation.

If Going Rogue will mean less proliferation, I'll probably play at least a couple brutes.

The thing is, there's no indication at all that Going Rogue will mean ATs will be available on both sides at creation, but rather that you'd have to level on one side, and roleplay it over toward the other side in Praetoria. Any brute you want to play blue side you'll probably have to play red side for a while.

I played a Storm/Ice during Issue 12 beta, and it was just incredibly fun using the rain powers together, using the holds to keep bosses stuck for tornado and LS. If you don't want to try sonic or electric, that would be my recommendation blue side, unless you want to try a storm controller, mastermind, or corruptor.

Well, my idea was that Tankers would get a desired benefit (more damage) as a function of their archetype role (gaining and holding aggro). Yeah, it works like Against All Odds, but that's just one powerset. Plus, this would work even for enemies aggro'd at range.

Got this idea reading the side-switching thread.

I think it's fair to say that the Devs mean for Tankers to be, in general, the 4th most damaging melee class in a one-on-one fight, or soloing on heroic. Fair enough. But I was trying to think of a way for Tankers to get more damage in a way that encourages Tankers to team, or at least to get lots of enemies.

Brutes get Fury and "gauntlet-lite". So how about Tanks get Gauntlet and "Fury-lite"? Here's my idea -- give Tanker taunt (and only that, not pool powers or Brute and Scrapper versions) a self-buff component to damage, a short-term, self-stacking buff that gives a certain percentage damage buff for the number of enemies currently aggro'd to the Tanker.

I think that would be an interesting coding problem, perhaps, but it would mean that it's at least 5 if five are in range, and a cap of 17 -- so if you're at the aggro cap, you get credit for 17 enemies when hitting taunt for the self-buff. 5% damage buff for each enemy would be a 25% damage buff with a full taunt, and up to 85% at the aggro cap. Taunt's base recharge is 10 seconds, so make it a 10 second or 15 second buff (although the longer it is, since it's self-stacking, the lower the base number would probably be).

The goal here would be that, just through keeping as many enemies aggro'd as possible -- with gauntlet and auras and taunt -- for a Tanker to sustain something like a 100%-125% average damage bonus to themselves at the aggro cap and maybe a 25-45% average damage bonus if they have 5 enemies aggro'd to them.

Maybe don't make it taunt, but make it a secondary effect of Tanker attacks?

I don't know, you can rip the idea apart all you want, I just thought it might be a way to give Tankers a self-buff like a lowkey Fury.

My Coyote Task Force originally had the final mission locked at level 54, and it includes all three of States, LR, and Tyrant. I think level 54 States is a tougher challenge than even the Devs give (the LRSF guys are level 53 Heroes, right?). Sufficed to say... we couldn't do a damn thing with him, and I had to edit the mission later. Even with multiple Shivans and Heavies, there was no getting past his unstoppable, especially when he starts spamming his AOEs when low on health.

Johnny, you don't have a "zealousness for Tankers", you have a grossly misconceived notion of what Tankers should be based on a description that doesn't actually fit the comic book characters on which they are supposed to be based.

On the very first day I started playing, I could read the pretty, happy words next to the Tanker description in the character creator that said "Damage: Medium". You've been playing longer than me, how have you not noticed that before?

You have a zealousness for having a Tankmage.

Well, starting your MM in Atlas or Galaxy wouldn't be side switching either -- it would just mean all the ATs are available as heroes or villains. Can't bait and switch from something nobody's offering.

I agree, though, that it would be lame to make it wait until level 50 -- although if it all centers on the Praetorians, those aren't exactly designed for a sewer team to deal with.

I think that right around the time the first respec and ouro open up, Praetoria should open up.

Whereas I am gonna guess that a stone/stone *tank* might well hold them all at once. There's still a fundamental anything-you-can-tank-I-can-tank-better truth to the Tanker archetype that Brutes nor Scrappers can touch.

Blueside, it'll be Brutes and Scrappers that are the interchangeable parts for most teams, not Brutes and Tanks, at least no more or less than they see Scrappers and Tanks and interchangeable.

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are going to be showed up as the poor second rate alphastoppers that they are.


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One or two purple inspirations lets any melee AT stop an alpha in its tracks.



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Inspirations aren't an unlimited resource. If someone has to eat two purples to take an alpha, they'll run out before the end of the mission when running as point.

If constant purple popping isn't a problem, then neither is doing the same with reds for a Tanker.

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Sarrate, are you a fan of the show "Angel"?

"Angel, I fear you may be looking for a logical pattern in the rantings of someone who doesn't think logically."

-- Wesley

Popping inspirations is something that apparently only non-Tanks are intended to do, which is why Johnny sees this as a balance issue. Or something. I guess.

I still think Tanks are going to be the melee class that really makes out on this deal. Brutes playing blueside are going to be doing it basically as a different flavor of Scrapper, not a flavor of Tanks, while Tanks playing redside will basically rob Brutes of half of their combined Scrapper/Tank role right now for villains. People would no more look for a Brute over a Tank redside to fill the aggro-holding role than they look for a Scrapper over a Tank blueside now.

Only people with the misconceived delusion that Tanks should have Tank mitigation and Scrapper/Brute damage would be upset by this.

On Blueside, Brutes will be no more suited to really sub for a tank than a Scrapper, and a Scrapper will still generally be better than a Brute for pure damage. Brutes on blueside will become, musically speaking, the baritones, the [censored] child of the male vocal register, not quite able to hit the notes the tenors (Scrappers) can or provide the deep resonance and authority that the basses (Tanks) can.

On Redside, however, Tankers will be... kind of like little aggro holding gods. Frostweaver is totally right. I haven't played the thing, but I've read the wiki page, and I gotta think I'd rather have a fully IO'd Inv tank or Ice tank on an LRSF than a fully IO'd granite brute.

Ninjitsu scrapper will be waiting a while, I bet.

My guess for next round of proliferation --

Scrappers -- Energy/Energy
Tankers -- Electric/Electric
Controllers -- ?/Cold Domination
Defenders -- Thermal/Fire
Blasters -- Rad/?
Brutes -- ?/Regen
Stalkers -- ?/Invuln
Corruptors -- Archery/Trick Arrow
Masterminds -- ?/Sonic
Dominators -- Illusion/?

Arc Name: Coyote Task Force -- Welcome to the Freedom Phalanx
Arc ID: 114659
Faction: Arachnos, PPD, Longbow, custom, others.
Author: @LifeGuardian
Levels: Recommend only level 50s, level 40+ allowed
Length: 5 missions, very long
Morality: Hero
Synopsis: An old mentor needs your help. He needs to congratulate you on being invited to join the Freedom Phalanx! Very long TF-style extreme challenge. More than a dozen AVs, including signature AVs. Story is loosely a sequel to STF and a hero story arc. NOT FOR SOLO OR CASUAL PLAY!

There are a couple of quirks with this one -- it's hard to get things to spawn in sensible places and so on. I hope you guys throw teams together and give it a shot, though. Please don't down-rate for things like that -- if villain X spawns way off in the middle of nowhere, there's not much I can do about that until they make the MA more dynamic. Please share any feedback!

In the arc I published, there is a group that's nothing but bosses, but A) it's for plot reasons (I needed kheldians, and all the novas and dwarves are bosses), and B) they're only an enemy in one mission, a total of, I think, three mobs.

I did see one arc with an outdoor mission that was nothing but custom EBs, though.