Memphis_Bill

Except, of course, theme. Or wanting to run specific arcs. Or just "I feel like it." The whole "Everyone will just be heroic" is as ridiculous a statement as "Free server transfers? Everyone will move to Freedom." Yeah. Didn't happen any of the times they offered those. Hell, people moved *OFF* of Freedoom.

*sigh*

Not true, but I'm not getting into a multipage argument about it any more. Read Arcanaville's (first) post in the version of the thread in A&T General.

Short form: The only way the "cottage rule" would no longer be a factor is if the devs said "The hell with it, we're just replacing everything randomly, regardless of what it does to the set or the game."

Nah. While the dev team's concentrated on 50 for a bit, you've still got to *get* there... and the path can be a great deal of fun. Or, at times, frustration, admittedly (thinking of Masterminds, 18-23, vs Scrapyarders... bloody demolitionists.)

It's good that 50 isn't a dead stop as far as progress, with the incarnate stuff. But try to enjoy the entire trip.

/this.

You really need to look over the powersets and just what they're offering. They'll usually give some sort of idea of how they're best played. My Plant/Thorn and Ice/Psy both (later, for the ice/psy) really like melee. My mind/fire, pretty much ranged, ranged, ranged. Sometimes it'll depend on the pairing, as you'll find yourself skipping powers on one that you "depend on" on another.

(This isn't unique to doms, either. Masterminds, Controllers and Defenders are like this many times, as well.)

Plant/psi... You will, eventually, be spending a good bit of time in melee. Seeds of Confusion and Carrion Creepers will make this a safe place to be. Drain Psyche will help you (and not your targets,) and Psychic Shockwave, while not *as much* of a lawnmower as it was depending on who you ask, still is going to do a number on everything in there. You'll probably start turning up team size fairly early (well, at least when you hit SOs) just so you can laugh louder as you kill more stuff. (At 25-26, I was chewing up big groups of Scrapyard's followers with my plant/thorn. With some lucks, admittedly, but the carnage was glorious.)

No.

True. I was looking more at the chatter (from both ghosts and red caps) about Croatoa being pulled "into the spirit world," and how we have to keep going there to fight this, that and the other.

Hmmmm.....

Going to link to it, but wait on some details before doing other updates. Thanks!

Hmm. Have to see if it's essentially what was dug up when I put the Kheld lore guide together. Thanks for the tip - PM'd.


True, but there's the question of energy expenditure, as well.

... which is one of the questions with Khelds. How did they get *here?* They're extra*galactic* beings.

Now, that isn't neccessarily meaning "from *another* galaxy," but outside our own. If we look first to satellite galaxies (which, yes, are galaxies of their own, but satellites of ours,) we're actually comfortably close. The Canis Major dwarf galaxy is "only" 25,000 light years from us. At 1/10 the speed of light - 250,000 years. Yes, longer than modern humans have been around... but the Nictus have been around for a while (and there's the question of when the Mu and Orenbangans were around and had their civilizations.) Other satellites:
Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical - 70,000 LY
Large Magellanic Cloud - c. 160,000 LY
Bootes Dwarf galaxy - 190,000 LY
Small Magellanic Cloud - 206,000 LY

That, of course, is "coming directly here." We don't know how old the Kheldians are, and given they get their forms from other life forms they've bonded with, they've obviously made some pitstops along the way.

While we don't know about the native Kheldians (the ones that bond to form Peacebringers,) the Nictus we know use cysts - once one's in place, they can use them as "shortcuts" of a sort to get from place to place. It does, however, weaken them (so there may be an absolute limit to how far a Nictus at full strength can travel in one "hop.") Even sending cysts out somewhat blindly (think "emergency measure" as opposed to some directed targeting) could conceivably star-hop their way around - but some of the distances they're implied to have covered are still quite vast.

Then again, being energy-based, I'd say they have a *few* advantages over organic beings when it comes to interstellar travel. (Just have to deal with that 10 year lifespan.)

It's a slap in the dom to faceinators!

It's Kheldians, not Keldarians, by the way. So what we have so far -

In-dimension aliens:
Kheldians
- Nictus sub-branch
Mefnanim - Bright Nova form source
Hulmanim - Dark nova form source
Kurukt - White Dwarf form source
Ruktur - Dark nova form source

Shivans

Going through other non-human groups, it's "what do you consider alien" time:
Rikti - Extradimensional
COT ghosts/Demons - Extradimensional/magic (somewhat grey area)
DE - native to this world/non-alien
Croatoa critters - "spirit world," though some are (from comments) formerly residents of Salmanca. That "grey area" again.
Coralax - native, oceanic
Hydra - extradimensional
Ruularu - extradimensional

Now look at Repulsion Field, which is closer to Repulse - Force Bubble does repel, Repulsion Field does knockback.... and does cost end for each enemy.

Just to be technically correct....

IF they re-ran the script, the people coming back would not see a "Name purge." Their names would have been marked as available until the account became active again. Any name that someone else took, that character would be "Generic ### ### ###" and have a free rename token.

They would NOT be coming back to an account full of "Generic."

Now, how this would work with non-subscribed "premium" characters, I don't know. I'm running off the *assumption* that it's comparing the sales database as a record of "who's active," and until a Premium player buys something, they wouldn't have recent information there. And going by "Last played," well, I can subscribe for a year and be in the hospital for six months, never touching COH - and they'd want to avoid accidentally genericing a paying VIP customer.

I agree *something* needs doing - I'd suggest running the script and freeing up all Trial accounts over 90 days old, for instance - but how they'd pull this off with non-trials - I'd think it'd take a bit more work.

Personally, I'm not missing it one bit.

>.>

... just like CO and DCUO did?

Pretty much all of this. I'm "eh" about getting a taunt aura on my Energy/Energy, as I did play her like a "heavy Stalker" (and back when PVP zones actually had people *in* them, I laughed many times at being called "That $*#$& Stalker with the stuns.") But, I'm just not going to enhance that part of it. *shrug*

I *get* having some concern that it's "too much like Electric," I'm a little bit in that camp - but for the most part, yeah, I see this as *really* good.

No, they aren't. They're adding an effect to a power. That is not "breaking the cottage rule."

Conserve Power - END discount.
Energize: END discount... plus a heal.

Basic purpose stays the same.

This has, of course, been pointed out multiple times already. With, I believe, that *exact same example.*

Now, they *are* doing it (arguably, as you could see it as "AOE control," but it's a somewhat weak argument to maintain) with Repulse for Stalkers.

Regardless, go read Arcanaville's post. I'd say up a ways, but it may be a page back or something for you - this thread's only two pages long for me.

That explains the look of horror on Statesman's face.

/this.

And the aforementioned "Post Issue 21 dom goodies." I'm *really* hoping for dark/dark.

Huh?

We're not losign the heal. It's being moved out of the energy drain and into Conserve Power - now Energize - a la Electric.

Usually when someone looks at doing this, they consider taking one of the Stalker Trinity and making it inherent - the AS (rarely, but a slottable inherent isn't unheard of - see Kheldians and their travel powers for AT-specific ones, or Inherent Fitness,) Placate or Hide.

Of them, the most sensible one is Placate - there's no set that goes in it, and unlike hide, it's in the attack set. Drop the recharge down some, make it inherent and use the resulting power pick at 12 to add something else (or reshuffle powers.) The biggest issue a direct "drop-in" power has there is that it's going to (a) require a respec to get, and (b) the stalker now has to rebuild more dramatically, and depending on what's done, it may require more slot shuffling than inherent fitness (for example.) It could have a much greater impact on builds.