Mid_Boss

You've played a controller right? Well take a controller and replace his secondary sets, which are buff/debuff, and replace them with the powers of a blapper.

You hold, stun, knock down, teleport, slow, immobilize your enemies then unleash your attacks when they can't fight back.

Much like a spider traps a bug, wraps it up, then starts chewing on it when it's completely unable to escape or defend itself.

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DOOOM + 1

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No, it's not just Doom! This is a legitimate and real complaint and problem.

I have the same complaint. People just want to PL through AE now. Running around in a circle fighting the same enemies over and over is NOT my idea of fun. But when I put in my LFG description, and in my LFG shouts, "Not looking for farms" i still get invited to them left and right. AE HAS taken a lot of fun out of the game for me.

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Wierd, I put up my lfg and end up having to make my own teams. Guess youre wrong because my anecdotal evidence cant be.

l2p

For those of you who are lame. its okay to l2p.

Ae didnt ruin your game. You let your fear of AE ruin your game. You let your inability to get out of atlas/cap, turn off broadcast and hit up server channels for teams ruin your game. Im in several sg's and I just made a new one of all rads today on virtue with people on Vu2009.

Its not rocket science. THE DEVS do not need to fix anything. l2p

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Awww there's a troll that hasn't made it to my ignore list. Hey there little guy! Sorry I some how have missed you for this long.

It's depressing though. Your avatar picture is fantastic. Oh well. Guess you can't tell a book by its cover.

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DOOOM + 1

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No, it's not just Doom! This is a legitimate and real complaint and problem.

I have the same complaint. People just want to PL through AE now. Running around in a circle fighting the same enemies over and over is NOT my idea of fun. But when I put in my LFG description, and in my LFG shouts, "Not looking for farms" i still get invited to them left and right. AE HAS taken a lot of fun out of the game for me.

Stone Cages in Earth Control is skippable. Quicksand is excellent at keeping enemies in one spot and it doesn't stop the KD of earthquake or the KB of energy. Both of which are excellent damage mitigation.

The snipe is questionable. Pretty skippable.

Of all the sets, /ice is just about where the devs wanted it the most. It's getting changed very little. So it'll pretty much be the same that it is now, just more damage. Also, with the damage bump taken out of domination and put into your base damage, you'll benefit more from damage buffs because 1: They are magnifying a higher base damage 2: Doms have a very low damage cap which could have been reached on their own without any help with domination, enhancements, and a +damage in their secondary making kins usefull only for +recharge and made Soul Drain kinda pointless if anyone on your team has +damage buffs to give you. Now that there's no +damage in domination there's a lot more room for +damage buffs from outside sources making Sould Drain more valuable.

Since ice/ice is an entirely melee centric combo anyway I'd go with either Sirroco for survivability and endurance management or Widow for more damage

All the sets are getting a net increase in damage except for ice and maybe psi (arguably). Of all the sets, ice assault seems to be the only one almost entirely on the line with the new vision of doms. This is on top of the +damage doms are getting globally. Doms will, instead of being defender level damage, somewhere around corruptors or higher depending on sets chosen. /energy seems to be the one getting the most love though. /electric is being made into the fast hitting melee set while /energy seems more the slow heavy hitter. Which is better damage wise over all is questionable since electric has buildup and energy has power boost.

Speaking of power boost. I love this power. Just got it on my earth/energy dom. Power Boost + Domination = crazy mezzes.

Also, all of /energy's ranged attacks have a knockback component making them fodder for the Force Feedback's +recharge proc. +recharge proc, power boost, domination, melee attacks with stun components.... If there is such thing as too much control an /energy dom has it.

So, yes OP, there is a Santa Clause. And he brought us /energy for being good little villains.

I went with Earth/energy

You can never go wrong with Soulbound Allegiance's Buildup proc

So not only has their ranged mod been increased but their snipe damage been drastically bumped.

So.... Are snipes worth taking now or are they still not worth the set up time?

Earth/ice would be awesome. The two sets have a lot of synergy.

Power Boost + Earthquake + Bitter Ice Blast = One enemy with VERY low accuracy, great for boss stomping out of domination or AV fighting.

Quicksand only slows movement, Chilling Embrace fills that gap and it's added slow makes sure enemies wont be escaping your Earthquake since it's a terrible idea to take the Earth mass immob. Ruins the mitigation of earthquake.

Power Boost + earth control's -def debuff is... wow

The electric blast pet isn't all that bad, honest. Lightening Storm has a base damage of 45 while Sentinel has a base of 35 and follows you around while Lightening Storm is stationary. For blasters it give them a pretty big defiance boost and defenders, frankly, need all the damage they can get.

With my storm/electric I took thunderclap and slotted all my electrical attacks with Energy Manipulator's chance for stun proc. Minions are stunned by Thunderclap and all my electrical attacks, including thunderstorm and voltaic, has a 10% chance to stack another 2 mags of stun on them which will daze LTs and Bosses.

Went with Dark Mastery epic. Since Thunderclap and Short Circuit require melee range anyway Soul Drain is a natural choice. On teams with a healer I kick on Opressive Gloom adding even MORE stun mags to my combo

Doom..... DOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!

Sorry, I don't seem to be immune to this knee jerk reaction the forums have to any change that's ever happened even long before they even know what the change is.

I'm loving my plant/fire personally though most people go with /psi secondary because Shockwave is sick. Electric is also pretty good. No set has any real synergy with plant but then again you don't need any with plant.

Really, anything but /energy and /thorn is awesome. Both of those are terrible sets and should only be taken if you want a challenge.

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Why not giant robot running around loose *on* a secret Moon Base Zone?

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You, sir, win at life lol

Thanks Chaos for contributing ideas. Good ideas at that!

Most people on these forums just go:

"Booo that wont work!!"

"Well... do you have any ideas?"

"Of coarse not. But... I know yours is stupid!"

No, as in a reward for doing their job. If people are getting injured it would be an incentive to focus more on support, when people aren't getting injured they'd focus more on damage.

It would certainly make more passive sets *cough*forcefields*cough* more fun to play and would make them a + to any team, even if the team already has decent support.

Defenders are already losing out to controllers on hero side. Now that they'll be losing to corruptors as well it's high time their joke of an inherent is finally put down like Old Yeller.

My idea! Switch their inherent around. Give them a damage boost for doing their job. The healthier a team is, the more damage the defender puts out.

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I hear its very time consuming, VERY...Almost sounds to me like it almost wont be worth really using unless you have a LOAD of time to put into making missions/arcs.

The person said it was like waiting forever for a 3 minute ride

I can see it now. People that have little going on in their life and a tad bit of writing skill will be the ones getting the badges for the MA.

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Yay for DOOM!

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I think the mission architect is going to cause a situation where the creative department will almost completely stop creating new quality story arcs.
What a friend told me when I mentioned what issue 14 was going to have he concluded something rather similar.
This is a very dangerous issue. When you put the creative direction in the hands of the community, that gives some of them a message similar to that of Neverwinter Nights.
"You make your own content, we're through."

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That a bad thing? I was a huge NWN fan back before I got sick to tears of their handling of the game's bugs and issues. Player made content was a BIG reason why that game was such a huge hit. There were tons of persistent worlds. It was like having a hundred little free MMOs begging you to come play. Too bad the sequel bombed like the Titanic.

I look forward to our new player content overlords.

Do not criticize the emp, or any defender in general, for taking and using attacks, not taking teleport ally, or both. You will be immediately and gleefully kicked from my teams.

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Am I the only one completely amazed that we are getting shields over something "super"? I just don't get how a super hero comic book MMO would get hand held shields instead of Psi Melee or growth/shrinking or even dual pistols. Shields just seem very "WoWish" and not very super. This isn't LotR or WoW or anyone of a million fantasy based MMOs with Paladins and Witches....we have broadswords, battle Axes, Mace, and now Shields.....can we keep it "super" now"?

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I said this a long time ago. Expect a verbal beat down from "City of Heroes should be more like every other MMO!" advocates

So the answer is

No

What, if anything, will stop the mission creator from being abused for farming and power leveling?

Will mission design cost prestige and infamy?

Will mission design have a minimum level? If it were made 50s only that would go far to solve the complaint that there's nothing to do once you're 50 except start another character.

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QR:

VG is actually 6 psudo-pets (IIRC) and I would never make an earthie without it. Hold > stun

Though yes, I completely agree with the Stalag + Thunderclap combo. I love it. Works great for knocking out those hurricanes on KHTF.

Hurl bolder? Bah. Had it, hated it. my Earth/Storm/Earth is not built for damage, it's built for max control. VG is a must, Hurl boulder is a waste of time. I also opted for Quicksand over Snowstorm. Mostly because I did not want a toggle with how much End trouble I had early on. Also, I prefer the def debuff over the recharge slow.

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I may opt for VG over bolder. Depends on if I'm craving some damage at that point. I'm finding, at lvl 35 now, that teams are rolling so fast I barely have time to throw my mezzes and debuffs out before the fights over unless the enemies are +3 or +4. So I may go for pure control since bolder is one of those attacks with a stupid long animation.

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Fissure I look at as a damage power. It CAN do stun, but only with a 50% chance on those that it hits (and at mag 2).

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Actually Mid's says it has a 50% chance for a mag 2 stun and another 50% chance for a mag 1. As for jumping into the fray for thunderclap, I've never had a problem with it and I think I've died maybe 3 times so far total and none of them were from jumping in for thunderclap. The only thing about thunderclap is the long animation time.

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Hi there! Thanks for the guide. I'm a huge fan of Earth and Storm. Though I must admit, I haven't tried them together. So take what I say with that in mind

My main reaction is: no VG and no QS?

With all that Storm gives you I can understand certain other powers that would be must haves to a /Sonic might be considered disposable to /Storm. Nevertheless, Volcanic Gasses is one of the best AoE holds in the game AND it sets up containment. It's great to be able to Earthquake one mob while you VG another. You can save your team time and time again by controlling two spawns at once. VG lets you do that in a very orderly way.

Quicksand is a fantastic defense debuff, sure.. but it's a wonderful slow that keeps enemies in Earthquake and Freezing Rain without stopping the knockdown, which is what Stone Cages does. I understand taking Snow Storm OR Quicksand... but in that case I'm taking Quicksand because it has the added defense debuff AND it's NOT anchored to an enemy who might be slaughtered before the rest of the mob, freeing them of the slow.

Agree with you about Salt Crystals. It sure looks cool, doesn't it?

Anyway, hope that helps. Thanks for giving two of my favorite sets some love!!

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Snowstorm is better than quick sand, in my opinion. Sand only slows movement while snow storm slows power recharge as well. With earthquake and freezing rain going, nothing's going very far anyway.

As for volcanic gases. It is a great move but I just don't have room for it and I already have 3 aoe stuns. If you don't go for Stone Mastery as your epic I'd suggest picking up Volcanic.

P.S The console fanboy crack was just a joke. No one is as delusional as those freaks.