Lord Mayhem

You're doing it wrong. You can't stop reading until your eyes are gushing blood.

Mmmm big bloomers...

Oh, did I say that out loud?

If this was a loot-driven MMO like WoW or EQ then I'd agree with you, but CoH is still a pretty casual MMO when it comes to loot - the entire system is optional after all. In most MMOs you'd struggle to get by with vendor-bought gear, but this game is still balanced around SOs.

I don't think concentrating all the mez sets together or merging a few other categories would hurt things too badly - you'd still have PvP IOs and Purples and HOs as the pinnacle items to strive for, you'd still have orange sets being rarer than yellows and some categories still having one set that outshines all others by a large margin (Positron's Blast I'm looking at you), and you'd still have people looting a mez set and thinking it was junk.

What you wouldn't have is quite so many "junk sets" in circulation and not quite so many people looting a mez set that not only could they not use (perhaps on any character they had), but most powersets can't use (Confuse for example - Mind/Ice/Illu/Plant Control plus Ninjitsu and I think that's it), leading to the recipe being almost totally worthless on the BM/WW too. It would just make some of the junk that gets dumped on vendors a bit more widely useful.

Too late now though, obviously - I was just dreaming out loud.

Yeah I've read most of the others I think, I just forgot to check the European Lounge sub-forum until today...

For shame!

<hangs head and begs forgiveness>

Admittedly I've spent rather a lot of inf on my Bane, Crab and Widow builds (not started bidding for the IOs for the Fort yet), but the Bane and Widow are no slouch in the single-target damage department compared to my L50 Brutes/Stalkers/Scrapper - exceeding their capabilities in most cases - brute-wise only my pre-nerf EM/Elec and my SS/Dark approached them for ST damage and specifically burst, likewise my EM/EA Stalker. Over time my Widow can out-dps all of my brutes/stalkers/scrapper (claw scrapper probably comes closest).

The Bane also has burst damage that compares very favourably with the alpha-strikes on my Stalkers/Blaster and outdoes the Widow/Brutes/Scrapper (though the Bane does have slow-animating attacks and some redraw when setting up his debuffs, so he gets outpaced on dps over time - but not by much as he ends normal fights so fast - he hits like a truck which is why I slightly prefer him to the Widow). In terms of survivability my Bane and Widow are both soft-capped so they can out-survive my Bot/DM MM and most of my other L50s in most situations (RWZ challenge notably, against an RWZ L54 Rikti spawn with 3 bosses).

Also never underestimate fear of nerfage - some VEAT players may not be entirely truthful about their capabilities VEATs are incredibly good, even with basic IO sets (all of mine were cheaply frankenslotted before I went for the multi-billion full-on crazy of soft-capping and perma-hasten).

If you're talking about the melee/ranged/control/debuff/utility mix then Dominators and Blasters are very much in the same ballpark - they just can't tank as well as Khelds, but then Khelds give up a lot of that flexibility in order to tank (notwithstanding my WS once tanking Rom and his 3 Nictus, while in eclipsed nova form, only switching to dwarf to pop taunt occasionally and use dwarf mire).

A lordly chap named Lord Xenite mentioned it quite a lot in the post containing the following quote so I wanted to comment on that premise:
Yeah I think that's a very likely point. They may not realise how often you get mezzed at L40+ though - admittedly with Eclipse up being mezzed doesn't really get you killed even if you don't switch to dwarf (or had a build without it, heaven forbid), but still - I can see it being very annoying on the PB I'm planning who obviously won't have Eclipse and will want to stay in Human form as much as possible. Switching to Dwarf means dropping all those toggles I'll want him to use in human form, likely confining him to finishing fights in Dwarf (which probably isn't an ideal situation).

My problem is still that Warshades are also very hard to kill with Eclipse, Stygians, pets taking a share of aggro, and Dwarf form if you really need it - so the Peacebringer advantage isn't really an advantage over WSs and they still lag noticeably behind WSs on damage (or so I theorise from their power numbers and have heard, never having played one).

Saying PBs have heals as an advantage over an Eclipsed Warshade, is like saying a /Regen scrapper has heals as an advantage over a soft-capped /SR or /Shield scrapper - the PB like the Regen has the heals because they need to use them as part of their ongoing playstyle to survive, whereas the res-capped Warshade like any def-softcapped characters takes very little damage over time (albeit the def-capped one will experience spikes more than the very slow HP loss the res-capped character takes).

Basically I don't see it as a PB advantage in the same way that I avoid Regen, because having survivability based on click-heals means that you lose time in your attack chain for doing damage, and on a PB it's another thing to pay attention to, when the Eclipsed warshade can usually ignore their HP bar and only pay attention to their Eclipse buff (until fights are over and they can pop Stygians to top off HP/end).

Being totally honest (and I haven't played my Warshade a great deal this year), I still think Warshades are in a pretty good situation and comparable to VEATs in damage/survivability in the right conditions, and add usefulness to a team beyond damage in certain situations (tanking, ghost & recall team, pulling, etc.), even if it's not quite as universally useful as providing +def (and maybe +dmg and +ToHit) to the team all the time.

Peacebringers are my main problem, because at the moment my sole impetus for playing a PB would be that I've never played a PB before and consequently don't have a L50 PB - otherwise I'm really struggling to feel enthusiastic about playing one.

I was going to say that, but you beat me to it

What do all of you guys sound like when you sing karaoke? Do you try to imitate the artist who did the original song, do you sing in your own voice, or is there a singer in your vocal range that you always tend to sound like?

When I sing karaoke solo I tend to stick with either Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra or Robbie Williams tracks, as I don't struggle to reach any notes in their vocal ranges. Plus I like their music (not my favourites though), most karaokes have at least a few of their tracks (usually lots) and I know most of their hits by heart without needing the teleprompter, which helps. I don't consciously try to mimic them, but I've been consistently told over the years that I do sound a lot like one of those three - big Tom - which is ironic, because my speaking voice is certainly nothing like his, I have no Welsh relatives (well, a couple by marriage, none by blood), and I sound nothing like him inside my head when I'm singing. Sadly it also doesn't translate into women throwing their underwear at me either

This is something I hadn't heard anywhere else and which makes me very happy - thanks for relaying this info. I really hope the Devs manage to add this at some point.

I'm an infrequent forum poster at best, but I'm moving towards posting less as well. The main thing I dislike about the combined forums is ironically that they're so busy - I know there's no solution to that, except that I need to be even more selective about what I read, but still...

I just can't keep up with discussions here like I could on the EU forums, due to the volume of replies and new threads, so it just feels more impersonal to me (I feel more distanced from the community, but ironically closer to the Devs). That's even though I continue to only read the same sub-forums I did before (mainly General chat, Comic & Hero/Villain Culture & Archetypes/Powers - plus Dev/Community Digests of course). There's no way I can spare the time to keep up with most of what's being posted on those sub-forums, whereas I could on the old EU forums.

I try to be more selective and skim-read a lot more, but Comic & Hero/Villain Culture in particular grows so fast here that I could waste hours daily just trying to read everything that might interest me in that single sub-forum (plus I have to be so much more careful not to run into spoilers for US movies or TV series we haven't seen yet on this side of the Atlantic).

I've noticed that the time I spend on the forums when I do visit has gone up, but the frequency of my visits are decreasing because I just know that when I visit I'll end up spending more time on the forums than I want to. Tbh I probably need to give up posting, go back to lurking, read Dev Digest daily again, and just resist skimming any other sub-forums until weekends when I have more time to burn.

This is exactly how I feel. In fact this whole thread is like an explanation of why I vastly prefer playing redside to blueside.

Someone wrote in one of the GR threads that redside will be dead after GR's launch, as everyone will be able to play the redside ATs on blueside where they can get teams, and it just didn't ring true for me. Sure, I prefer redside ATs to blueside ATs (all except for Blasters, who I can't wait to take redside), but I also prefer redside content to blueside content, hence why 14 of my 17 L50s are on redside. GR's appeal for me is that, after a completely new newbie experience, I'll be able to play blueside ATs on redside where the best quality content is - hopefully a lot more people will think that way too. GR could be the "saviour" of redside.

I love all of these ideas. I think turning the Security Chiefs into repeatable contacts who offer hunts would be a great idea for those who occasionally enjoy street-sweeping. If they offered missions for every faction in a zone, to arrest 50 members of that faction, and gave you a choice of 3 factions when you went to them, then I'd use them often (such as those times when you're close to levelling and don't want to start an arc you know you'd outlevel before finishing). Then they could add something similar redside.

I think that's exactly what it will do - CoV already did that for me - the only arc content I really enjoy on blueside are Striga/Croatoa/Hollows (i.e. zones that set the precedent for CoV style contacts) and Faultline/RWZ (post-CoV revamps), plus the Kheldian arcs and certain high level arcs (most of the L35+ blueside arcs seem ok, despite making you run around too much and having too many one-off filler missions on the same contact, because they're only offered by a single contact so the mission dialogues do feel written specifically for them, rather than being generic).

This is exactly the nub of the problem. I found it so hard to plot my way through blueside I had to tabulate all of the contacts in an MS Word table for my own use to work out which contacts shared arcs, who referred who, who offered which arcs - so that I could refer to it when offered 3 contacts after a safeguard. I did the same for redside because I'm pedantic, but I didn't need to - I can remember which contacts offer which arcs on redside because each contact is deeply tied into the story of the arc they offer, and they're all so much more memorable than any pre-I1 content from blueside.

Like you say blueside contacts are just forgettable mission dispensers - from L1 until L30-35, I find - only then do you start getting a single contact per origin/level-range offering a certain arc, so you can recall easily who offers what (e.g. Gordon Stacy is the only one who gives "The Revenant Hero Project" arc). It's particularly insane at L20-25 where there are 6 contacts for each of the 5 origins offering the same content, all based in either Talos or Indy Port. One of the origins - science - has no arc in that range, so you have 30 contacts at L20-25 across two zones, with only 5 "pools" of missions they draw from, but only 4 story arcs in total for that range (and a ton of filler).

By comparison CoV arcs are shorter and more fulfilling, there is a story-based reason their contact is offering them, the story is clearer and more focused, they are more memorable and they have less single mission filler before/after - and some CoV contacts offer multiple arcs.

If the Devs do revamp the blueside contacts (hopefully cutting them down to 1 contact per level range, per origin) then all the one-off filler missions they remove (hunts included), that have nothing to do with the arcs, wouldn't have to be wasted - hunts could be added to the Security Chief of the zone they're set in as repeatable missions, and all other filler could be added to the newspaper (lord knows it needs some handcrafted missions in there).

Then the only other change I'd like to see is mayhem and safeguard missions either being added to Ouroboros, or once you outlevel them have them being selectable from the brokers that can offer them (with an auto-exemp feature), because at the moment they're the only content in the game I feel is mandatory in each level range on redside, as you need the explore badges from them for an accolade power, and it's a hassle to obtain them later if you miss any.

However I'm more than willing to wait until after GR for all of this and I'd trade most of it away in exchange for getting some new map tilesets for indoor maps - running around the same offices, sewers, warehouses, labs, etc. is getting samey after 3+ years. Often I can get 20% of the way into a map and know off by heart the layout of the entire map from there to the end.

Nothing in-game now can affect PBAE radius - Boost Range does nothing for PBAEs, but it pushes out the range at which Targeted AEs and Location-based AEs can be aimed/fired (but again their radius remains unchanged).

Boost Range does boost the area covered by a cone, just by virtue of increasing its range - the degree of the arc stays the same, but as the cone is pushed further out from you, the furthest end of it has a wider spread - that, plus the additional range, makes it cover a much larger area than usual.

That's what I get from reading the coverage too.

I'm really hoping that GR matches CoV in terms of content added - it's likely going to sell for the same price, a graphics update is being applied around the same time, it's adding new powersets and new costume pieces (we're not sure about archetypes yet) and a new starting location, plus new features (side-switching as opposed to bases), so the least it should have is as much content as CoV's L1-40 launch had - after all, content should be much easier/quicker for the Devs to create nowadays, what with the mission architect system in place (as it was designed mainly for the Devs and their new hires, but tweaked and released to us).

I'm sure I read someone saying GR is supposed to have four big zones - if each zone covers a ten-level spread that's forty levels right there, with perhaps the other ten levels following in the next issue (like they did for original CoH and CoV).

"Once upon a time there were three alternate versions of the same man who went to war, and they were each assigned very hazardous duties. But I took them away from all that and now they work for me. My name is Zeus."

I want to read your edition of 1984 - I had to read mine twice (once for pleasure, a second time on my degree course) and I don't recall any dual pistol gun-play in it

Yes I've considered it, but do VEATs pay dps/survivability for their mez protection by comparison? I don't believe so. Maybe the payment should be in versatility/flexibility /shrug - if not form-limited or form-restrictive, then perhaps being duration based.

I personally wouldn't want shapeshifting eliminated either, as it's the one thing that makes HEATs really stand out (even if it does make them trickier to play than other ATs and require more attentiveness than most).

I also feel that the "jack-of-all trades" tag only applies to Kheldians intending to tank, i.e. ones taking dwarf form, slotting it well, and often playing in groups that need/want tanking - even then you need to work hard to maintain aggro as you lack a taunt aura. Also if CoV has proved anything it's that tanking isn't needed except for perhaps some AVs/GMs. I slotted dwarf well on my tri-form WS, sacrificing human form usefulness, and yet 99.9% of the time my WS is basically just a damage dealer as tanking is not needed/wanted. Besides tanking and damage-dealing I don't see any other roles Kheldians can claim (my WS only controls as well as some of my Blasters, less well than some of my Corruptors/Defender, certainly not on par with my Controllers/Dominators).

As for mez protection, limiting it to human-form only would be a balance in itself for Peacebringers over Warshades (as I feel WS's do their best work in nova form backed by mire/eclipse), and would be no help whatsoever to my WS playstyle.

Personally I'd still like to see mag2-3 passive mez protection for nova and human forms of both Kheldians, just so that being mezzed wasn't guaranteed in large spawns from factions where every minion/lieut has a chance of mez on their basic ranged attack (Carnies, Rikti, Malta's grenades, etc.), but not high enough to guarantee mez immunity against persistent mez-specialised bosses/lieuts (if you don't otherwise take care of them).

Then to close the gap between PBs and WSs, and because PBs favour human form moreso than WSs, maybe PBs could have a further mez protection buff to stack on their passive, either click-based and duration-limited, or (my preference) on the later toggles.

The Blaster-solution might work too - letting PBs and WSs use their (first) 2 single-target ranged attacks in human and nova forms when mezzed, like Defiance (Mk2) allows - the blasts on human form look pretty weak on paper, but this would be a big boon to nova form.

As for other ways to improve PBs (and notably damage output) compared to WSs, I like your -res idea from your other thread. Some other solutions might be making the bonus damage for PBs self-buff based (like Blaster Defiance or Brute Fury) - perhaps even make it like Dominator Domination, where you build a bar by attacking, then release it as a self-buff with an inherent power button. You could make this bar form-dependent, as from what I've read PBs don't form-dance as much as WSs (again, not played a PB, so not totally sure) - then a PB could build the bar up in any of their 3 forms, then trigger the buff (which could be 30-60secs of enhanced damage, perhaps with some mez protection like Domination has), but switching forms might zero your existing bar (this would be similar to Warrior Rage in WoW, where, when I played it, changing stances would zero all of your built-up Rage - admittedly WoW's Rage is used to power attacks, rather than as a direct damage boost, but the principal is similar so I mention it here).

I'd also like to see Dwarf forms getting a damage/taunt aura to help them tank better in those cases where you might like to try and fill in for a tanker (or a brute/mm built for tanking), for those who enjoy that playstyle. It wouldn't affect me much with my WS, but it might help PBs - maybe that could be made PB-only as well to close the gap between both Kheldian ATs /shrug.

Oh I like your idea for turning the PB heal into a PBAE heal too, but then I'd like to see the same done with /Storm's O2 Boost as well because I dislike playing characters with targeted heals (but otherwise love /Storm), so I'm probably biased. Turning PBs into more of a support-role Kheldian might ultimately be the best way to differentiate them from the damage/survivability kings that WSs are.

Yeah both of these are my only (slight) disappointments to come out of that video. For purely gameplay reasons I'd like to see a market merger and that all archetypes plus all zones be available to all players from the beginning (extra options = good, playerbase not being split = good).

Admittedly I can also see very good story reasons why the Devs would want to keep them separate - and probably programming/code-base issues too - and also economic reasons. Though I hope the Devs wouldn't be swayed by that as the in-game economy is still entirely optional and not central to gameplay (and I say that as a marketeer who uses IOs exclusively) and could easily adapt to a merger.

I'm guessing the time taken to do the missions to switch sides (and any other penalties that switching sides may impose) would prove prohibitive.

Heck, one mission would make it not worth doing for a Luck Charm for me personally (it's not like 25-75k inf takes long to earn at any level), and I'm pretty sure switching sides will take longer than one mission. Admittedly I often can't be bothered to zone through a base portal to use one of my stored Luck Charms rather than just paying for one (as long as they're not selling for over 100k reliably), so your mileage may vary (and it's true I do zone very slowly nowadays).

It will be interesting to see if the side-switching process will make it less attractive to use it purely to move a couple of purple sets from blueside to redside, though. Mainly because of lack of frequent availability redside, not so much to save inf.

Yeah this is a big issue for me as well; the Devs have to find a way to make inspiration trades/gifts between factions work.

I thought he looked more like John Preston.



Oh wait, a Dual Pistols powerset, a utopian city with underlying issues and a regime that polices the thoughts of its populace? I think it's clear which movie the Devs were inspired by when they came up with Going Rogue...

No complaints here!

This page on Paragon Wiki explains where the Jet Pack Vendors are for both heroes and villains. The only thing incorrect on that page is that you don't need to be L40+ anymore to enter the Shadow Shard as a hero, as the level limits on hazard zones were removed in I16.

However it is still much easier for a villain to reach their Jet Pack Vendor (there are no enemies between the ferry and the vendor in Grandville, and you can reach that zone by ferry from Cap au Diable easily at most levels) than it is for a hero (who likely needs to use the Green Line train to get to Peregrine Island, then travel the full length of the island - by sea is probably safest at low level - to Portal Corp, then zone in to Firebase Zulu to get to the vendor).

Raptor Packs last for 2 hours of use (so turn them off when you're not actually flying, to conserve them, and note they do use endurance as a toggle but much less than Fly), and cost just 10,000 inf, though you get one free for completing the level 5-9 Mayhem/Safeguard missions. Alternatively you can buy a jetpack booster pack from the NC Store for real money, which grants an unlimited use flying pack to all of your characters, but it only lasts for 1 month real time.

This has been my experience too (though I levelled my Warshade to L50 pre-Inventions and IO'd it up later).

My Warshade is awesome in large groups of mobs (I duo'd to L50 with a friend using mainly hazard-zone spawns), but I can't see how a Peacebringer could be as good from the powers they get (basically they lack mires & eclipse to buff nova form, no decent pets, nor any end-recovery tools).

The only thing I can see PBs have going for them is better survivability/tanking when solo against small spawns - I've always assumed they were meant as the solo Kheldian AT - but the I16 difficulty changes mean that even solo WS's can have huge spawns all the time now. And really the survivability of a PB (with 3 heals and +hp) isn't something it can brag about over a WS, as with perma-Eclipse, Stygian Circle and Dwarf my WS is near unkillable.

The main WS weakness is to mezzes, which the PB also shares, and a switch to Dwarf cures that for both of them - though the WS Dwarf will be doing more damage than PB Dwarf thanks to Mire(s) and will have much higher resists while Eclipse lasts.

So PB is currently the only archetype in CoH/V that I have never played.

The only characters I have that approach my Warshade for awe-inspiring effectiveness are both of my VEATs and my Archery/Energy Blaster, though admittedly the latter three are heavily purpled (my WS only has one purple set atm). My WS was notably more awesome than the Blaster on just SOs. For area damage the Blaster wins for burst damage (but isn't as survivable), while the Warshade beats the Crab for consistent area damage due to better pets, higher damage and shorter animation times on attacks - the Crab only wins on having mez protection.

Admittedly at L50 for both soloing and teaming I prefer my purpled-up Bane Spider and Night Widow as they're just good at almost everything and require less faffing around than the Warshade (i.e. no form-dancing or buff prep re: eclipse/mires), but the WS can still take apart a large spawn faster than them.

I IO'd my WS for recharge first, to make Eclipse permanent and keep 3 pets out comfortably, but then I went for defence bonuses and managed to get around 25% to ranged attacks, which notably helps against Rikti/Carnies/Malta because many of their ranged attacks have low-mag stuns, and with Warshades thriving on big spawns you're very likely to get stunned. As I'm mostly hovering in nova after miring/eclipsing I don't care about melee def.

Sure, you can go for mez resist, but even 100% status resist (which is impossible to get for all mez types) only halves the mez duration you suffer - I tried going the full mez-resist route on my L50 Blaster and tbh I wasn't that impressed so I switched his secondary IO focus (after +recharge) to +def - better to avoid mezzes than mitigate them, imho.

That's another thing that puts me off playing PBs - hardly anyone recommends them. And on paper I just don't see any good synergies between their powers like WSs have with mires/eclipse/stygian/forms.

That said I probably will play a PB one day - it's one of only 4 ATs in the game I don't have at L50 yet and I'm currently working on the other 3. But I'm really not that enthusiastic about playing a PB - if I do get a PB to L50 it will probably be more because I want to have one of every AT at L50 than because I'll actually enjoy it.

So Warshades certainly don't feel like fail to me, even compared to VEATs, though I suspect Peacebringers might - time will tell.

Funnily enough this is exactly what I'm planning to do for my next dominator (which will be a Yeti shaman-type character that can use ice magic), or at least I will once I've finished levelling my Plant/Electric Dominator (and a few other current projects).

I'm sure Ice/Earth will have terrible end issues, not just because of Arctic Air, or because the I15 dom changes seem to have given doms worse end issues than they had before (or so it seems for my three doms), but because Stone Melee - which Earth Assault borrows most of its powers from - is a very end-heavy set too. My friend has a Stone/Shield Brute, which I duo'd with all the way to L50, and it had worse end issues than any of his other dozen or so L50s, and much worse than any of my 17 L50s ever had.

But if it is possible to make it work then an Ice/Earth dom should have a ton of mitigation in melee and be rather effective.

Oh, you did not want to go and do that! Now you've opened the door for me to request another map.

When I made my third Council-heavy arc "Overshadowed by History" there was one map I searched for in MA yet couldn't find, but I knew it existed as I recalled playing a Striga Isle mission on it. What I needed was a Council tunnels map with hatches in the floor that you drop down through at the beginning (see this picture for reference), which then led on to a fairly standard layout Council base - however I didn't want to use the Mega-Mek maps from the Hess TF (which are already in MA), because the Mega-Mek had nothing to do with my arc story.

I don't play on blueside much, so it wasn't until recently that I re-discovered that particular map and was able to type /whereami to get the map name, and also pin down exactly which mission it was used in:

Map name: COUNCIL_VAMPYRI_LAIR
Map type: Council unique
Used in mission: Destroy the Vampire Lab
On the arc: Return to Vampyr Mountain (L25-29)
From contact: Tobias Hansen
In the zone: Striga Isle

So I'd be very grateful if you could add this map to the MA please, Dr. Aeon - if you do then I promise not to kidnap and beat you up in-game for at least two weeks... (actually, is it even possible to avoid a "kidnap and beat up Dr Aeon" mission in CoV? There are so many of them! ).

Oh and I would also love to see all of the maps added to MA that Kobolt_Thunder, Dark_Respite and Zamuel listed earlier in this thread. Thanks Dr. A!

Oh and while you're at it, and because I know Mad Science is capable of anything, I would also like to have Christmas four times a year...
...and a flying car...
...and a full scale Optimus Prime statue in my garden...
...and a moonbase with a death-ray that can target Earth...
...and a pony...






...a gold-plated cybernetic pony with lasers for eyes and rocket-assisted hooves!