Mister_Leebo

Server's are back up.

No one has ever complained to me about my AOE energy/fire build. Embrace the knockback (but skip power push) because the truth is it is damage mitigation.

Hey all, MrLeebo here!

I'll be starting an Apex TF in an hour or so, and I'll be bringing a tank and healer and my blaster. Just a little heads up in case anyone might be interested in showing us the ropes since I only recently got back into the game and haven't done the new TFs yet. Cheers.

A big advantage she will have is Boost Range, which will allow her to start shooting enemies from outside the normal range (as well as make teleportation very useful). Energy Manipulation is a nice power for Blappers, but the Assault nuke and other AoEs are not very useful compared to some of the other powersets even if you can get the enemies lined up in the cone. She'll want to focus on survivability, since melee moves like Bone Smasher will be so tempting. A scrapper is not a good pairing for such a character in the normal game, an empath works will, but a Blapper can run with other support characters as well. That build is excellent for taking out a single foe, but not as good at doing a blaster's traditional job of decimating an entire spawn.

/Energy is useful in PvP because of the high magnitude stuns (at the cost of range) and attacks, but Assault has always felt less powerful to me then some of the other powersets.

Hello,

I have been an avid CoH player until a couple years ago when the "Can't connect to DBserver" madness pretty much ended my ability to log on. Now I've decided to come back, but the problem persists.

The problem: When selecting my server (Victory), the game freezes for about 15 seconds before returning to the log in screen with the above message.

The problem is sporadic. I have made exceptions for the coh client and coh launcher in my firewall and have been able to log in one time out of every ten tries. I have verified my coh install as well.

I have determined with Fiddler that I am not sending any web traffic to the servers after clicking on Victory (but I ping them just fine), which suggests a firewall. Even with my windows firewall disabled, I am unable to connect, though. Any thoughts?

Edit: I should mention that my brother and wife have been able to connect with their computers on the same network and have never had this issue.

Edit: firebind.com tells me that all the UDP ports from 7000-7100 that CoH uses had payload send failures.

I am just began playing the game again yesterday after 230 days hiatus. I played just fine. This morning I get this error when trying to connect to Victory and Virtue.

I believe this issue was why I quit in the first place.

Ice has several control powers inherent, which is pretty nice.

For a more straight-forward approach, Energy has good damage, and the knockback will keep you safe. A Solo Blaster will probably take Hover, as to rain plasmic death upon their foes from a distance that is safe from even Elite Bosses.

A solo blaster will want to approach a mage-tank roll, opting for powers like Tough and Weave, Health and Stamina to increase survivability for the big baddies.

I might check it out...

Energy gives a ton of knockback, making it a very survivable blaster. Ice allows you to freeze your enemies, thus boosting your ability to survive. Fire's survival is all about killing them before they kill you, making it have the possibility of being the _most_ survivable, but this rarely works out in practice (or without practice).

I'd say my Energy/Fire had hell-solo levels around 30. But seeing as I got Nova at 32, my problems quickly disappeared, since Nova solved my problems with facing a large group of tough enemies. Admittedly this was when SOs where the hit new thing, so I can't imagine a blaster having difficulty in today's environment.

Just remember, when levelling a blaster, most secondaries give you an immob. Almost universally the bad guys ranged attack is weaker than their melee so keep your distance.

The Electric Primary definitely needs help when doing Endurance Drain. A good Ice Tank or other Electric users can make it work. I've never been a fan of /Fire's PBAoEs though...

Hasten makes SS the clear winner here. That's the route I almost exclusively go. Since Super speed lacks vertical mobility I make up for it by getting Hover from flight. This is perfect, since now I can travel to hard to reach places (when running) also get that Blaster invulnerability by hugging the ceiling bonus.

Also, SS allows me to jump into a spawn, drop a Nova, and vacate the area before it goes off, which is a scary thought.

So we can just call it CoR now?

After 5 years of faithful service to Paragon City, FBG is going to flip like a switch. Does this have the potential to make certain ATs (like Corrupters, whose job is often done better by Controllers/Dominators and Blasters/Defenders) obsolete?

5th Column are on the moon. They stole Portal Corp. technology, stole Warburg's nuclear weapon technology, built a lunar missile launching facility, and are currently in the final phases of holding all of Paragon City at ransom.

I think the ITF suggests there are still big plans for the Column in CoH's future.

Blasters work great in and out of teams. You are required for almost any hero-side Task Force to get off the ground.

Early game is usually trivial for blasters, with 25 or 30 being where I expect difficulties to start (and end at 32). At 50, you've finally earned the ability to slot yourself hardcore and solve any problems you had on the way up.

Blasters have the best pick of the Inventions, since any blaster can slot almost every purple there is. Regeneration and recovery set bonuses are slottable without trouble. Procs get you over the damage cap you've been sitting at. With the best accuracy of any AT in the game, you can attack +5s easier.

Aim + Build Up + Sniper Attack is my favorite openner on a difficult enemy, since it is also an ender. If an enemy is stubborn enough to survive, the Defiance damage bonus on Sniper attacks is particularly high.

I make Stalkers feel bad, because they Build Up and Assassin Strike to critically wound the Boss. I use Build Up and Nova to Critically wound the entire spawn, and then Consume puts me back at full endurance.

Dominators and Controllers don't like me because they don't have time to lay down their holds or anchors before the mob is destroyed.

Brutes, Tanks and some Scrappers love me because we work beautifully together.

Blasters in general are required for the hero-side game to function.

These raids are always a party. I need to get on another, if anything to fuel my addiction to Vanguard Heavies.

I tend to 5-star the good stories I play, because I know almost everyone will give it a lower score, and even a single 4 can drop a story from the first 5 pages to the 15th or so. At that point it doesn't even matter.

Things I like:
Cool Custom Critters,
Clues and Dialog (especially if I'm not the leader),
Comedy (Comics are comical).
99.99% complete is a plus,
and CoH/V lore compliant,

Things I dislike:
Multiple AVs in a mission (EBs are okay),
Standard enemies being the map default,
and the Ruladek map (you should be ashamed).

I tend to prefer shorter arcs since I can't invest much time lately.

I like @BentSpear's Zombie one, and Topple the Pyramid.
The first has a prodigal array of custom zombies to fight, and the second one I find hilarious and enjoyable.

Another of my favorites has been @Violet Diamond's arc Lights, Camera, Action! was really good, and just a few minor tweaks would have made it perfect. Sometimes I feel that the better an arc is, the more it is critiqued since everyone can sense how close it is to being something really special. Then again, terrible arcs usually have a lot to be said about as well, so...

I'll try to post other great ones that I find.

Arc Name:[u] Anything for the Star Challenge[u]
Arc ID:[u] 1899[u]
Faction: Neutral
Creator Global/Forum Name: @MrLeebo
Difficulty Level: Hard, a stone tank died on it,
Synopsis: This story speaks of everyone's need to be loved and highly rated. Join a skilled hacker as you attempt to bolster your missions' score by destroying the competition.
Estimated Time to Play:One hour.
Link to More Details or Feedback: Send me a message if you like, or just play the story and see for yourself. This is my humor story, but also is focused on team-oriented tactics, so be prepared.

Arc Name:[u] The Wall of the Ziggurat[u]
Arc ID:[u]2283[u]
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @MrLeebo
Difficulty Level: Medium
Synopsis: Remember that gaping hole in the Ziggurat where villains are still escaping? This story arc pretty much revolves around the prison, the inmates, and how the whole thing got started.
Estimated Time to Play:One hour maximum
Link to More Details or Feedback: Send me a message if you like, or just play the story and see for yourself. Took a bit of a beating now that they've removed Prisoners from the Standard enemy category.

Basic Resistance and Mez Protection should be tied to the critter's status as an AV, EB, Boss or whatever. Still won't stop me from Hover blasting most foes, but at least less of the difficulty will be dependent on whether the author chose Regen or not for their AV. All AVs could use a minimum amount of resistance, and mez protection.

If the navigation clues are exactly the same, you can make two collection missions where say 9 of the bombs do not have a clue, and the tenth is spawned in the back (if its a working indoor map) so as to help insure the ordering is maintained. Spawning objectives can get annoying if it requires backtracking through already cleared areas though, which might not be avoidable.

Since the navigations will be the same, the mission will only appear once at the top, and clicking on either group of collections will decrement the value independently. This is also useful if you want to make the clue contained in one of many possible sources (like not the computers but the Bookcase).

A defeat all using nothing but the Arachnos Heat Seeking Drones. No XP just lots and lots of explosions.

On an 8-man relentless team the mobs actually attacked a defendable object in one of my missions. It was surprising because I'd been used to this not being a big issue. We only had a few seconds to respond or else the object would have been destroyed.

Furthermore one of the ambushes didn't actually reach the truck so we ended up having to clear a whole bunch of the surrounding area in an outdoor map just to complete the objective.

If you want to post your arcs and you're on Freedom, you can publish them from any character on any server.

This is a very short guide demonstrating the use of a simple Windows feature you might not have known about to improve the process if you, like me, sometimes prefer to edit your Mission Architect files by hand rather than in the editor. This is especially handy for fleshing out dialog and descriptions so you can simultaneously spellcheck/factcheck without having to deal with crashing, spammers, or that annoying text box in-game which keeps dropping the cursor or ignoring key presses.

Now I'm running Windows XP, there might be tiny differences in the name/location of the toolbar interface for Vista. If you're a Mac User, maybe someone will write a similar tutorial!

The taskbar is the bar on your Desktop which the Start button sits on. Typically to the right of the start will be some quick links, then labels for all your running applications, and finally the clock on the far end. If you'd like a nicer way to reach your MA content without navigating the Windows Explorer or keeping a mess of links on your desktop, here's a place you can put that link.

Here's how you add a custom Toolbar:

1. Right click on the Taskbar. You have to avoid hitting any symbols or program labels that are already on there or you'll bring up the wrong context menu.
2. Mouse over the top item, the Toolbars header.
3. Select the option New Toolbar...
4. Navigate to your CoH or Test folder. Since MA is still on test, my content is at C:/Program Files/CohTest/. When the issue goes live, I'll use my ../City of Heroes/ folder instead. These folder paths may be different for your system.
5. Click the folder and then press OK.

A new item will be added to your Taskbar. You'll notice you can immediately browse the items in the folder using the '>>'. You can also right click the label and use Open Folder to bring up the Windows Explorer at that location.

You can remove the toolbar when you're done with it by returning to the Toolbars menu and unchecking your custom toolbar.

I really like my Ice/Fire tank. At level 50 I frequently get complimented for being the first in, most survivable, and most damage-dealing tank... much to the annoyance of those who believe their builds are superior. Its unfortunate when a lot of that cred is lost to freak accidents like two high-damage criticals landing at the same time, though.

The only thing I'd change would be if there was a clean, concise solution for being able to tank Lord Recluse before the red pylon on the STF without relying on a tray of purples or temporary powers.