Lxndr

Yes, it would be nice if these restrictions were removed.
Or I suppose I could handle the powers being buffed to "balance" the restrictions.

And at least in the case of Glacier, it'd be nice if it actually worked as the text said: "on OR NEAR" the ground. But testing on the Test Server shows me that you actually have to be on the ground, not "near" it.

Anyway. I'd love to actually see an entire list. It's one of the few holes that City of Data seems to have.

My only worry about Poison coming to Controllers is Alkaloid.

Look at every single starting skill that Controllers get in their Secondary. Each can be used at the low levels, especially in solo play. How useful they are is another matter entirely (Gale gets a bad rap, at least, though I've liked it).

Alkaloid, which requires one to target another player, cannot be really useful in solo play at the low levels. It's a good skill, I'll admit; the O2 boost of Poison, basically.



I'm really hoping, like they rearranged the Mastermind Force Field set, they'll rearrange Poison. Maybe put Envenom first, and Alkaloid second? I just worry that Poison for Controllers will be ruined by a bum starting power.

I know there's also powers like Rooted, that don't let you leave the ground.

And then there's powers like Hibernate, which will drop you if you're flying.

Tip taken. I know the AoE hold is vital - I have 6 controllers and 5 dominators. But playing without it is an interesting challenge that keeps me on my toes.

Still.. I'm still looking for an entire list. Any thoughts?

I have a few concepts for characters who are ALWAYS airborne.

One of them is an ice-related one. And so I wind up skipping Glacier, and probably won't do Hibernate.

Is there a list of ALL powers that require you to be on the ground? So I can bounce my "hey, always airborne" ideas up against them?

Where can I find such a list?

As I mentioned in the earlier post, this was not at all a complaint. Just a thought experiment, and perhaps a little of a criticism. Some posts I'm seeing feel like they have more invective than a thought experiment should bring. Maybe that's just the nature of a text-based medium.

I'm loving the rebuttals and suggestions I'm seeing in here. (The plant/storm is one I never would have considered.) And all the rebuttals about Demon Summoning are worthwhile - I hadn't really looked at that set much by the time I made this post.

Also, while the statements about Kinetics are valid, it still feels like the odd man out for me. That might be more gut feel than anything. (Also I'll admit way way back in the early days, they mentioned that a Kinetic Blast was in the pipeline. I might still be clinging to that in the back of my mind.)

I also wrote this while in chemotherapy, which does odd things to my brain. So, again: some apologies for fuzziness or lapses in judgement.

Perfect! Thank you very much.

I've just invited a friend to play CoH using the 'refer a friend' system.

Now, I'm really hoping to get her into Praetoria, because I personally just purchased the Going Rogue expansion, and I think it'd be fun to explore it with her, as she also explores the game.

So the question is: when she finally activates the trial (Since it's a ten day trial, we're waiting until we can ensure Double XP weekend is in the window) will I be able to start with her in Praetoria?

so I've been looking over the archetypes and considering powerset matches. Like trick arrow and archery, or fire blast and thermal radiation. thematic ones more than mechanical ones. I'm calling them 'conceptual holes.' I'd love to talk about these, if anyone has anything to add.

Granted, conceptualizing odd combos (mind/radiation!) can be fun. But it looks like some ATs got more thematic love than others.

It looks like, even now, Controllers have the most jagged puzzle pieces. Now, my first few characters were all controllers - I loved crowd control when I first found the game, and have not yet lost that love. But I remember from the early day looking at the controllers and going "how do I fit these puzzle pieces together?"

On the villain side, the jagged puzzle pieces are the Masterminds (7 vs the controller's 8)

I should note this is not a COMPLAINT. Simply an observation.

what do you all think? Am I being unfair?

----
conceptual holes:

Blasters have two different primaries without an easily matched secondary. (radiation and sonic). I21's Proliferation will not change this.

Brutes have one primary without an easily matched secondary. (Kinetic Melee). I21's proliferation will not change this.

Controllers have 4 primaries (earth, electric, illusion, plant) and four secondaries (ff, radiation, sonic, and TA) without easy matches. Poison might change this, but Time Manipulation will too.

Corruptors have one secondary (Pain Domination) without an easily matched primary. I21's proliferation gives us Psychic Blast, which probably matches. However, with Poison, this number will crop up again.

Defenders have one primary without an easily matched secondary. (Kinetics) I21 will also give them Time Manipulation, so two unmatches.

Dominators are tight. Everything has a match.

Masterminds have three primaries (Demons, Mercenaries and Thugs) and four secondaries (Pain, Poison, storm Summoning, and Thermal Radiation) without easy matches. And with the I21 proliferation, that'll become three and five, because Sonic doesn't have a good match either. And with Time Manipulation, more lack of matches.

Like Brutes, Stalkers and Scrappers have one primary without an easily matched secondary: Kinetic Melee. I21's proliferation will hurt the conceptual matches available to the Stalker, with Ice Armor without an ice melee.

Tankers are similar, with one secondary without an easily matched primary: Kinetic Melee. I21's proliferation will not change this.


----

Observations:

Buff sets don't easily match thematically with other sets. (Controllers and Masterminds are the biggest culprits here). Defenders and Corruptors have gotten thematic love, with blasts that fit their buffs.

Kinetics seems to be another unmatched "set."

----

thoughts:

we need a kinetic blast set for at least Defenders.
we probably also want a kinetic armor set for the melee classes.


some sort of Sonic Manipulation and Radiation Manipulatio nwould be lovely for Blasters.

----

for those curious what I considered "easy" matches, here's the entire list. I was trying to be generous:



BLASTER (2/0)

-Archery
-Assault Rifle
-Dual Pistols
*Devices

-Electrical Blast
*Electricity Manipulation

-Energy Blast
*Energy Manipulation

-Fire Blast
*Fire Manipulation

-Ice Blast
*Ice Manipulation

-Psychic Blast
*Mental Manipulation


conceptual holes:

-Radiation Blast
*none
-Sonic Attack
*none
----
BRUTE (1/0)

-Dark Melee
*Dark Armor

-Electrical Melee
*Electrical Armor

-Energy Melee
*Energy Aura

-Fiery Melee
*Fire Armor

-Stone Melee
*Stone Armor

-Various weapons
*Shield
*Invulnerability
*Super Reflexes
*Willpower

conceptual holes:
-Kinetic Melee
----
CONTROLLER (4/4)

-Fire Control
*Thermal

-Ice Control
*Cold Domination
*Storm Summoning

-Mind Control
*Empathy

-Gravity Control
*Kinetics


conceptual holes primary:
Earth Control
Electric Control
Illusion Control
Plant Control

conceptual holes secondary:
Force Field
Radiation Emission
Sonic Resonance
Trick Arrow

-----
CORRUPTOR (0/1)

Archery
*Trick Arrow

Assault Rifle
Dual Pistols
*Traps

Dark Blast
*Dark miasma

Electrical Blast
*Storm Summoning

Energy Blast
*Kinetics

Fire Blast
*Thermal

Ice Blast
*Cold Domination

Radiation Blast
*Radiation

Sonic Attack
*Sonic Resonance

conceptual holes: (psychic blast seems a good fit, and will be proliferating; but then, they're also getting poison)
*Pain Domination

---

Defender (1/0)

-Cold Domination
*Ice Blast
-Dark Miasma
*Dark Blast
-Empathy
*Psychic Blast
-Force Field
*Energy
-Radiation Emission
*Radiation Blast
-Sonic Resonance
*Sonic Attack
-Storm Summoning
*Electric Blast
-Traps
*Assault Rifle
*Dual Pistols
-Trick Arrow
*Archery


conceptual holes:
-Kinetics

----
Dominator (0/0)

-Earth Control
*Earth Assault
-Electric Control
*Electric Assault
-Gravity Control
*Energy Assault
-Ice Control
*Icy Assault
-Mind Control
*Psionic Assault
-Plant Control
*Thorny Assault

conceptual holes: none

-----
MASTERMIND (3/4)


-Necromancy
*Dark Miasma
-Ninjas
*Trick Arrow
-Robotics
*Traps
*Force Field

conceptual holes:
-Demons
-Mercenaries
-Thugs

*pain domination
*poison
*storm summoning
*thermal radiation
-----
SCRAPPER (1/0)

-Dark Melee
*Dark Armor
-Electrical Melee
*Electric Armor
-Fiery Melee
*Fiery Aura

-Spines
*Regeneration

-Weapons & Martial Arts
*Invulnerability
*Shield Defense
*Super Reflexes
*Willpower

conceptual holes primary:
-Kinetic Melee

(energy armor fits, and will be proliferating)
----
STALKER

-Weapons and Martial Arts
*Ninjitsu
*Super Reflexes
*Willpower

-Spines
*Regeneration

-Dark Melee
*Dark Armor
-Electric Melee
*Electric Armor
-Energy Melee
*Energy Aura

conceptual holes primary:
-Kinetic Melee
-----
TANKER (0/1)

-Dark Armor
*Dark Melee
-Electric Armor
*Electric Melee
-Fiery Aura
*Fiery Melee
-Ice Armor
*Ice Melee
-Stone Armor
*Stone Melee

-Invulnerability
-Shield Defense
-Willpower
*Weapons

conceptual holes:
-Kinetic Melee

I'm pretty sure mind/psi/psi is probably the most desired combination. Sadly, for concept, it would make more sense for my Dominator to skip all of the ancillary pools, and go with a patron (I consider him a "wanna-be" so he's not going to be unable to unlock his full potential). So, now I'm looking at the patron pools.

Is there any consensus as to the value of these pools?

Let's say I'm a casual player (which I am).

Let's also say that I'll sell what drops to stores (or perhaps use them), but won't interact with the auction house at all. (I might, but I'd rather estimate low.)

Let's also say I'll be in SG mode 100% of the time.

Now, looking at this guide on enhancement costs which I know is old, but I suspect costs at the stores haven't changed much since 2006.


It looks like I'll need exactly 131,670 to fully slot DOs by level 12, and another 239,400 to fully slot DOs by level 17. That's 371,070.

Then come SOs at level 22. I will need 1.1 million to fully slot them out. In other words, it'd be nice to have earned at least 1.5 million by level 22.

From what I recall (I am a returning player, after two years), these are difficult levels to get. I remember begging and/or gifts from friends.

So now I'm wondering.. what my earning expectations should be? If I want to be fully slotted at 12, 17, and 22 (and further). As I recall, SG mode demolishes one's inf earnings at some point.

A friend of mine and I are going to be starting in Praetoria, so I can't even transfer inf to our new characters. So I just want an idea of a baseline ballpark of what to expect.

(I also recall the feeling that villains were poorer than heroes; does this mean that Praetoria might be the same way?)

I've also been considering an E/E dom.
Unfortunately, I game on a budget - I won't have any IOs or procs or whatever they call themselves. And sadly, every single post I've found yammers on about these set bonuses, and makes it difficult to judge the powers on a whole.

Can anyone help?

Nope, no satellite here.
I did however recently upgrade my OS. It used to work fine before the OS upgrade (and in fact still works fine on a related laptop, whose OS also got upgraded).

So, it's been a long time since I played City of Heroes. But hey, free weekend, right?

Now, I download the installer, which runs fine.
Then I run cohupdater, which insists on checksumming (which seems to go fine) then it reaches "requesting patch" and sits there, never actually doing anything.

Anyone have any ideas what I could maybe do to get this to work?

Yeah, the scaling-to-HP mez protection is an off-the-top-of-my-head attempt to address the issue. But I'll admit I *loved* the old Defiance, and really want to see something that encourages people to play in the red. That was exhilarating, y'know? But getting buff/melee combined would be better than getting that exhilaration.

I like the Enforcer's scale-to-group-size protection, though. The Daredevil's probably should be a fixed number, though, you're right. If that's the case, I'd probably ALSO give them the old blaster-style Defiance, which was not enough in and of itself, but isn't bad stacked on top of inherent mez resistance.

IMHO, I'd avoid Force Field AND Sonic Resonance for these two sets. My original post (which I'd saved) had lists of suggested powers. FF and SR weren't on there, and now you're reminding me why. Looking at the powersets again, I should probably revise my suggestion from 'more ally buffs than self buffs' (since that seems to be just emp and pain) to 'more than 3 ally-targeted powers'.

That said, I think there's an argument for keeping Hurricane, Repel and Gale the way they are (since I'm tossing away FF and SR, I won't address the other powers you mentioned). They're 'oh crap' buttons. With Hurricane and Repel, too many enemies around you? Turn the power on, they're scattered. Yay. Same use as Hand Clap, really (only Repel doesn't have any secondary effects - at least Hurricane debuffs).

The other powers - Freezing Rain, Sleet, Lightning Storm, Tornado... they are good powers. A melee individual can certainly use them profitably, despite the scatter they cause. Hell, when I am a melee individual teamed with someone with these powers, I'm pretty good, even if said individuals are unskilled in their use (yay random pick-up groups). When said individuals are skilled in their use, I'm better. I'd like to think our DareForcers would, over time, become skilled in their use.

As for Oil Slick Arrow - while I love Trick Arrow, I think I'd suggest not including it with these guys. Mostly it's conceptual, I think it's just silly for someone to be pulling out a bow and arrow, and then a sword, and then a bow and arrow, etc. etc. all while in the middle of combat, too. I don't know. Thoughts?

I know there's been a lot of power rearrangements since I left, but six months ago, these were the powers I recommended:

DAREDEVIL

Recommended primary powersets (Melee): Ice Melee, Fiery Melee, Martial Arts, at least one of Broadsword or Katana, at least one of Battle Axe or War Mace, Electrical Melee

Recommended secondary powersets (Buff): Radiation, Kinetics, Storm, Cold, Thermal, Traps


ENFORCER

Recommended primary powersets (Buff): Dark Miasma, Poison, Storm Summoning, Kinetics, Radiation

Recommended secondary powersets (Melee): Dark Melee, Spines, swords/axes/mace, Electrical Melee, Energy Melee

So I was thinking about some character types I might never be able to make, but want. Conceptually, really. The biggest one in my case would be someone with the storm summoning and katana powersets. Or how about a martial artists with the tricks from Traps/Devices? And it's been said by some that Radiation Emission could almost work as a more 'active' scrapper secondary.

Thus comes my suggestion, to create two new Archetypes, one for the villains and one for the heroes, that combine the Buff and Melee power types.

I also kind of miss the seat-of-your-pants feel of the old Defiance for Blasters, so some of this might give that kind of feel.

--------------------

Our new AT on the Hero side would be:

The Daredevil (Melee/Buff)

NB: Almost all the Buff powersets could work, except maybe Empathy or Pain Domination, and same for the melee powersets. I am NOT recommending changing any of the powers in the Buff sets - a Katana/Kinetics Daredevil won't be able to Speed Boost himself, sorry. I'd suggest avoiding any Buff powerset that has more ally buffs than self buffs.

"But what of Status Protection?" some of you might decry. I'm glad you asked. That's where the Daredevil's suggested inherent comes in:

For each 10% Health lost, the Daredevil gains 1 magnitude protection against all status effects. Additionally, being at low health invigorates the Daredevil, increasing his Endurance Recovery inversely proportional to his Health loss.

Thus at 90% or higher, no protection. From 80-90%, 1 point of protection, and so on. Compare to Integration, which gives 10.38 points at level 50 if City of Data is correct. A Daredevil would have 9 points at 10% health, not quite as good as Integration but then... the Daredevil is supposed to survive by debuffing the enemies more than by protecting himself!

The Endurance Recovery says exactly that - so 10% health lost means a +10% endurance bonus, 50% health loss means a +50% endurance bonus, and so on.

--------------------

Our new AT on the Villain side would be:

The Enforcer (Buff/Melee)

(yeah, I like the old name for the Corruptor, so now I bring it back)

"And what about their Status Protection," you ask. The Enforcer's inherent, once again, comes to the rescue:

For each member of the team, including the Enforcer, the Enforcer gains 1.2? points of protection against all status types. Additionally, as their teammate's health goes down, their damage and accuracy goes up.

This means the Enforcer, at maximum, will have 9.6? points of status protection, slightly more than the Daredevil's maximum. Again, though, the Enforcer is supposed to be using the other tools at their disposal more than the status protection, and as an auto power this cannot be toggled off. The other half is basically an old Defiance-type bonus using a Vigilance-style check.

----------------------

Clearly, the inherents can easily be changed (although since they're melee folk, status protection should be considered). But I think these would be awesome combinations to play. Kinetics/Energy Melee! Dark Melee/Dark Miasma! Spines/Poison!* (Or from earlier, MA/Traps, or Katana/Storm)

*Of course, if Poison is ever given to a non-Mastermind, Noxious Gas needs to be somehow addressed since nobody else has any Henchmen to target. I'm hoping the Devs already have some ideas, because a Plant/Poison Controller needs to exist.

[ QUOTE ]
I have a mission where the objectives are to beat up four AV class enemies in a row. They are Apollo, Mars, Diana, and Minerva.

The word "god" is also censored in the editor. So that's why you'll be reading about "göds" instead.

[/ QUOTE ]

Any particular reason why you just didn't say 'deities'? I mean, "Gambit" is a cool sounding word, but 'God' is just a boring one-syllable honk. 'Deity' at least sounds cool.

On the other hand, umlauts are cool...

So Leadership powers... they'll root again?

[ QUOTE ]
Even assuming defiance is working as intended (which it's not, I constantly have a persistent 10 on my defiance bar in Talos even if I'm at full health, screenshots have been posted before showing this)

[/ QUOTE ]

Didn't the OP show that the BAR was bugged, but Defiance was actually kicking in immediately, regardless of what the bar might currently be displaying?

Arcana,

Your 'interesting data points' chart for the damage buff, could you whip up a similar one for the to hit buff? I'm pretty sure it will look dismal but I'd still like to see it, if you have the time.