MrTPF

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As an update i've now deleted my Stormie , didn't like the powers for whatever reason.

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That's a real shame. What in particular didn't you like, and how far did you get?

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Playing my Empath again and glad i didn't delete her. With Quicksand,Stalagmites and Earthquake now i find i've plent of time to cast these then get on with any healing thats needed.

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Stalagmites is one of the best powers in the Earth set and an amazing power across controllers in general. The reason being that, properly slotted with accuracy, it is one of the best imho openers for a controller: very fast, instant control, and low chance for return of aggro. It is even more useful to an /empath because controls such as earthquake and volcanic gases (and quicksand) root you for what feels like a long time when the tank needs healing from the alpha burst. Bear this in mind when considering your opening attack chains if you are the only empath. You will definitely get frustrated if team mates plant while you are rooted during a cast duration.

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Hoping come RA time if i 3 slot recharges and with my Hasten i might not need the Swift/Health/Stamina combo. I can't bear the thought of sacrificing 3 of my current powers just for Stamina!.

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Is that possible you reckon or is Stamina a must?

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Have discussed this before in other threads. You theory might be entirely sound, but only in the ideal peachy world. When you're up against clocks (oooh scary), cabal, carnies, malta or other saptastic scenarios you may find yourself in need of endurance, especially if you're having to work overtime. I tend to plan my builds for worst case scenarios rather than day to day scenarios. I'd rather have stamina and be in total control of the worst scenario, than trade it in and not be able to use other powers when I need them.

Another thing to consider is that you won't get Recovery Aura until 28 at the very earliest. While this is fine for things like Katie Hannon TF (30+) you may find yourself struggling earlier.

It also depends how you actually play your char. Spamming Stone Cages for example will really kill your endurace, especially without Stamina and RAs. Limiting Cages to once per mob and only when required would really help, and tbh not affect your control much at all.

In honesty, I rarely have issues with endurance after taking Stamina, but I wouldn't dream of losing it.

At the end of the day, try it all out. Respecs ftw, and it's not like respec trials are either difficult or long to complete.

Have fun

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Liberty is my Sonic/Ice Blaster over on Defiant


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Ah. Come to think of it, that sounds even more familiar now. The reason I ask is I think we've PuG'd quite a few times throughout your levelling on Liberty. Most recent occasion was probably over double xp weekend, with me on my ice tank, Block Of. I think at one point we had a full team with me, 5 blasters including you, and a couple of kheldians. Does that ring a bell?

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Thanks very much for the comprehensive Earth run down there.
I'm tempted to try the Earth/Storm for the fuller Controller feel but think i'll take the Earth/Empath here to 32 and see how it go's.

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You're welcome. I hope it helped. I guess it was a very personal view of how things worked, so many people may have different perspectives. I expect that my own perspective and experience would be a little different if I started an earth/emp now that I have a greater understanding of the game compared to back when I was very new.

In a way, I think it's a shame you're not going for /Storm, but earth/emp is still a very fun set and highly highly team oriented. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. ;D

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As you also said getting onto the right team with experienced players who know what to expect and when to expect it makes life a lot more pleasant but that's not something that happens all that often , for me anyways.

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My global is below. I've got alts at most lvls on Defiant, so give me a shout if you fancy . On Union, my alts are in the 30s.


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Actually no , when i think about what you wrote i'm gonna scrap this one and reroll as Earth/Storm.

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Yay! I'm SURE you'll enjoy it ;D. So so powerful and so so technically interesting. I ended up rolling an illu/storm to satisfy the urge, he's now 30.

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Thanks again for your comments , deffinatly sticking with Earth Primary.

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No problem, glad I could help somebody out. Feel free to give me a shout if you need anything further while you lvl up. Would be nice to hear how you get on

Btw, is Liberty-Belle a fire blaster?

Earth/Empathy was my first 50 and my main char for a very long time. I love playing team support, I love controlling and I love buffing, and this build gave me the opportunity to do lots of all of that. It is still one of my most favourite combinations and never fails to make me think 'god, I love this game!'

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Was thinking some control in between dishing out Heals would be the order of day but seems i was a little wrong. All i seem to have time to do , in a decent sized team anyways is Heal , Heal and Heal with no time to rattle of any of my Earth Shattering holds

Admitadly only at lvl 12 so far but as for power choice it looks like i'll have to take most of my secondarys as people when they see Empathy will expect these buffs etc? at the cost of the more "fun" Earth Troller moves.

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I can understand your concerns entirely, as I'm sure most other low level Controllers would. But as you said yourself, things are still very early on in terms of your character's build. All the serious controls, most effective combos and imho the more fun powers in the Earth set become available at lvl 12 and later. Before that, you don't really have any hard aoe lockdown at your disposal not to mention the possible lack of any DO slotting, and since Fossilize seems to take a lifetime to recharge at that stage it's not a surprise that you might find yourself having to heal lots instead of disabling whole spawns like a Controller 'should'.

When played and slotted well, Earth control is a very powerful set with potential for some serious lockdown and some serious fun. Earth/Empathy is an entirely viable combination, and an especially fun combination for players that enjoy being kept on their feet at all times. Granted, as with most intensive builds, it may feel a little stretched to begin with as it did for me when pondering over which powers were more important and where to place slots, but as your character and your slotting begin to mature you will find that both your primary and secondary sets can receive the attention they deserve.

Looking back, I suppose I went through a similar evolution with my own Earth/Empath. My overall strategy from the start was to focus power choices and slots on my primary set, since that's where I felt I should have been performing as a Controller. As it turned out, however, things didn't really work out that way in terms of a levelling-up build and in terms of evolution of my gameplay style:

At early levels, I felt quite underpowered in terms of my primary set, unable to maintain control of larger spawns, particularly on larger teams. My natural response was to compensate by running around and spamming Healing Aura, much like you have been. Whether this was down to my inexperience in the game, or the inexperience of my team mates, or just the low level of my build and lack of powers and slotting was hard to say at the time, but now I'd guess it was certainly a combination of all three. To add to the frustration, most players at those levels didn't really understand the purpose of a Controller and would cry for heals instead which, lets admit it, have a more visual effect at those levels. Either way, my damage output was minimal so there wasn't much else to do but heal until the more effective controls came along anyway. My early build did focus more on Empathy.

As my understanding of the sets grew and my build matured with more slots and more powers, I felt much more competent at lockdown and was able to manage spawns in a far more efficient way, and on my own terms. Around lvl 20-25 I started to feel that my gameplay was becoming more balanced in terms of my primary and secondary powers. I could do a fair bit of control and a fair bit of Empathing, both of which I enjoyed, both of which were appreciated by my teams. At times and on some teams it felt quite tricky to juggle both sets to full capacity and to the full needs of the team, especially if there were no other Defenders present, and sometimes I'd find myself falling back on healing 100% until a particularly difficult moment was over, but these kind of scenarios became less and less frequent as I gained more experience with my char and better slotting. At this point, my build had a good measure of control in it, but may have been slightly tilted towards the secondary, taking Recall Friend to use with Resurrect etc, and respecing Stamina in pushed some of the better controls to later on than in my earlier builds.

By lvl 30 I was capable of serious lockdown, and while my heals were rather well slotted I felt they had started to become less critical. Why waste time on blanket heals when you can quite easily incapacitate entire spawns with a couple of moves instead? By this time I had also made plenty of good friends in game, which meant I had regular 8 man teams with intelligent players. I found that I would get easily bored unless I was on a full team playing on a relatively high mission rep, because larger more difficult spawns were so much more fun, and so much more satisfying, to lock down. Mishes with smaller teams/mobs were not a challenge.

After lvl 30, it felt like my build was finally maturing properly. I had lots of slots to play with, and had already taken almost all the powers in my primary set. I was very confident in the control aspect of things, and had little difficulty locking down most kinds of mobs. AVs were mostly no problem to hold either, due to the stacking nature of Volcanic Gases. On intelligent teams, healing was still second-place to controls and buffs. This is surely something you would have experienced yourself whilst lvling your own Empath. At mid to higher levels, Empathy seems far more useful for team buffs than for healing. I could perma fort at least 3 team members, RAs were up nice and often, nuking blasters and resistance tankers would be loving my regular AB etc. Heals were a nice backup and useful for alphas but overall were far less important than my controls, and far less needed. I quite often joke amongst friends that I'll be using less buffs and less controls so that I can work on my healing badges. Resurrect got used far far less regularly too (unless that was for healing badges as well hehe). I remember fondly wanting to fully slot rez with recharge at early levels because I needed it so often.

At later levels, I only played on full teams and only on invincible. Anything else was just not enough of a challenge and not enough fun.

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Anyone play this combo at higher lvls and have fun or are you just expected to be a Heal Bot?

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There are always going to be scenarios where a team will need a good deal of Empathy attention, but the only times I've felt my primary has taken a back seat was a) when playing the Imperius Task Force and b) when fighting GMs. I soon discovered the Cimerorans' status protection and clear mind buffs rendered most of my controls more or less useless. I fell back to playing the TF as an almost full time Empath, and as a result this is probably the only TF I would rather do on any alt other than my Earth Controller. As for GMs, well, there's not much hope of holding one for any serious duration and although in terms of debuffage Earth has some nice stacking -def and nice slows, it doesn't have any debuffs particularly useful for GMs such as -regen or -res.

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Don't get me wrong i don't mind the Healing part but could i get away with just Healing Aura and Heal Other plus prob RA or do i need Rez,Fort etc?

I would just like to try a few more of the Earth powers without getting booted off a team for not being able to Rez someone

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Build your char the way you want to build him/her. Play him the way you want to play him. Enjoy him. You're a Controller! If you're booted from a team for not having rez or enough 'healz' then you're better off without that team. It would probably be one of those teams that start crying for the leader to invite a 'healer' at the first sign of any tricky situation. I suspect most sensible players would agree. Besides, you've already played Empathy to 50, so choose the powers you find interesting and new. Some people might be surprised to find an Empath, whether Defender or Controller, without Rez, but I'd be far happier with Fort if it came to a choice. I guess this does raise the question though, should you try a different secondary?

Play your char the way you find interesting and the way you find useful. As you lvl up, your needs will change, your build will adapt and so will your gameplay. Eventually, you'll find that you'll probably be able to take almost all of your primary and almost all of your secondary powers anyway. My 50 has all powers from Earth except Stone Prison, Salt Crystals and Animate Stone. I'm considering respecing into Stone Prison at some point, but I've respec'd out of both Crystals and Animated Stone in the past. I have all powers from Empathy except Absorb Pain, which I also removed during a respec and to be honest, I don't miss it.

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Thinking of rerolling Earth to a differnet secondary before i go too much further but not sure what a better combo would be?

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I've often toyed with the idea of starting another Earth Controller with a different secondary but I love my Earth/Empath too much. I've not got any personal experience with different Earth/ combos, but from general knowledge and experience of other sets as my primaries I'd say it would probably go well with all the secondaries, it just depends how you play it:

FF - a nice set, with lots of low maintenance powers (long duration buffs, pbaoe toggles etc) that would allow you to focus more on your primary more of the time. Doesn't seem to have any major synergy with Earth control, although some of the later powers do provide disorient and KB. Force Bolt and Force Bubble are awesome controls. Not sure about possible endurance issues.

Kin - again, no major synergy other than giving you lots of additional recharge, and which Controller would say no to that? Lots of buffing on this set if you like that sort of thing, but it might take away the focus of controls if you don't like doing too many things at once. The buffs would be great on your pet too. The debuffs would possibly make you a little more useful against AVs/GMs.

Rad - lots of anchors, so as long as you're tidy with your controls this would work well and fill in nicely against AVs/GMs too. In the absence of a tank or other form of herding, you could probably pull rather nicely with the anchors to group up the mobs, then slap your controls on them. Not sure about possible endurance issues.

Sonic - similar comments to FF, I guess. Liquefy would add some nice stacking for holds and -def.

Storm - zomg. Many people say this is 'uber' lockdown. I've drooled over Earth/Storms for a long time, but didn't want to start another Earthy. This would probably be my choice for the most control, the most fun, and the most challenging to play well. Lots of stacking effects (slows, stuns, KBs), an anchor for pulling, and some nice -res in there too. Really nice conceptually if that's your thing.

TA - lots of slows to stack with yours, a single target hold to stack with yours, lots of debuffs to throw onto mobs you lock down, a really nice set though I'd prefer to play it as a primary. The redraw of the bow might be annoying for some.


Hope this helps, and if you have any specific questions feel free to get in touch, either here or in game. My global is below.

Big gratz on #6, Tommy

Shame I wasn't nice enough :P

Now to work on your WS and get your evil One to 50 and reach 400 badges and... and... and...

Paragon Wiki usually has the answers though not much in this case. You could also look into the War Wall Defender badge.

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You won't need any ***/regen scrappers surely, unless both your healing and t's healing is that bad....???

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Ahem!

SR/Regen? Saturday/Sunday?

*slaps Tommy, pay attention!

Shame you can't make it, Nine Claws. And shame I (probably) can't make Saturday. Next time.

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Hello there! I'm having some issues with making macros

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Hope I can help then.

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Ideally I'd like to be able to target a minion of mine, say his specific pet name and lastly use the Equip Mercenary power.

I've been able to do a /macro upg "local text %target $$ powexec_name Equip Mercenary". And while that works, it doesn't call out the pets name only his "class".

Is it possible to do what I'm trying to accomplish?

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Not in any generic way I'm afraid. You'll need to have a separate configuration for each pet that you'd like to call if you want to target them specifically by name. Also, you won't be able to achieve this with mere macros (at least I couldn't) so you'll have to use a bind. Assuming your pet name is Bob, an example would be,

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>/bind X "+$$powexecname Equip Mercenary$$petselectname Bob"</pre><hr />

This will automatically select Bob and equip him. The problem here is the bind only works with that little + addition, but that would cause you to say any message you add twice. Try it to see what I mean.

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Also, is it possible to make the macro perform a power that requires a target? Such as summoning minions or using a targeted Area attack while saying/emoting something?

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Yes, but you'll still have to execute the actual mouse click yourself. An example to call for backup whilst summoning your soldier mercs would be:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>/bind x "say Need backup!$$powexecname Soldiers"</pre><hr />

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I'd love to be able to turn AIM &amp; Build Up into a single key-press

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I've never used this bind myself, but it should work based on the principle I mentioned above. Below is a mechanism I just tested successfully on my blaster.

For the purpose of this example, I will be allocating the bind to key X. Replace X with any key of your choice. The example might even work with a mousebutton, though I've not tested that.

You will need two new bind files for this technique. You can't get away with just typing binds into the console in-game. For the sake of simplicity I will assume these files are in the root of C:\. You should update the file paths in the example below to better reflect your folder setup.

<ul type="square">[*]Step 1 - Create bind file #1: c:\bu_aim_1.txt

This will fire off Build Up and immediately rebind the upstroke of your key to Aim by loading the other file. The following line should go into your file:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>X "-$$powexec_name Build Up$$bindloadfile c:\bu_aim_2.txt"</pre><hr />
[*]Step 2 - Create bind file #2: c:\bu_aim_2.txt

This will fire off Aim and immediately rebind the downstroke of your key to Build Up by loading the other file. The following line should go into your file:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>X "+$$powexec_name Aim$$bindloadfile c:\bu_aim_1.txt"</pre><hr />
[*]Step 3 - Load the system

You must now add the files to your current setup. You can do this by typing the following into the in-game console or by adding it (without the forwardslash) to an existing bind file:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>/bindloadfile c:\bu_aim_1.txt</pre><hr />[/list]

As I might have mentioned before, this system is sometimes affected by lag. You will have most success if you press the key slowly (ie with a micro-pause when it is held down) rather than tapping it fast.

Hope you find this useful

TeamPlay First!

Possibly also a 50 spines/dark or 50 storm/nrg.


Those of you interested in helping out, here are the details.

Heh! Thanks for the tip, LostNinja

Ideally I'd prefer not to have to edit stuff, as sometimes it does mess up the file, and I'd prefer to be able to play demos using the game standalone without TweakCOH.

I guess for now though I can look up the entity names or the fx names for when a char dings 50 and try to prune the text file based on their location in the order of things.

Shame the console commands don't work. I wish I knew what command line argument TweakCOH was using.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone

And there was me thinking it was another reference to the whole SG1 thing

As I mentioned above I can use TweakCOH already, the problem is due to the length of the demo I often have to wait for it to capture thousands and thousands of screenshots until it gets to the part I'm interested in.

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You can't.

You can't activate more than one power with a single button press, whether it's toggles or click powers.


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For shields on my tankers I use a similar bind the one already stated, ie, pressing the same key multiple times to activate each shield.

Just wanted to add, however, that it is possible to activate two powers with a single key, it just requires a bit more complexity with chaining up bind files. Although lag seems to affect the success rate of binds like this, I've used them successfully on many of my defenders for buffing, eg applying both FF bubbles to the same ally with one key.

Please note I haven't tested this extensively on all powers, I've only used this in combinations I needed to.

I've recently been trying to capture screen shots from some demo files I recorded (various chars dinging 50), but have been running into problems and was hoping somebody could shed some light on the issue. I usually run my demos by dragging the demo files onto one of several shortcuts I have. The shortcuts are shown below:

[1] "D:\Games\City of Heroes\CityOfHeroes.exe" -demoplay
[2] "D:\Games\City of Heroes\CityOfHeroes.exe" -demodump 1 -demoplay
[3] "D:\Games\City of Heroes\CityOfHeroes.exe" -demodump 1 -demofps 25 -demoplay

When I drag onto shortcut [1], the demo plays correctly and I can issue console commands normally. However, when I issue 'demodump 1' to the console, the demo player crashes.

The demo player also crashes if I drag a demo file onto either shortcut [2] or [3].

I used the same shortcuts and commands to capture screenies pre i12 and that worked ok. The crashes happen on both Vista64 and XP32.

Strangely, I can launch the demo and capture screenies from the start without any crashing using TweakCOH. The downside is, the few seconds I want snapshots of are well into the demo, and with TweakCOH I have to capture frames from the very beginning of the demo. Needless to say, it's not the most efficient way of doing things, especially when the demos are long.

So, my questions are:

<ul type="square">[*] Have the console commands changed?[*] Am I using the wrong commands or shortcuts?[*] How can I achieve this without TweakCOH?[/list]
Thanks lots

The command to change cossies is cc, so as your primary slot is designated as 0, changing to the 5th slot should be

/bind x "cc 4"

Nice idea, I love the carnage wrought by my fire/fire blaster. He's currently lvl 32 or 33 on Union - I haven't played him in a while, so this would be a fun way to ressurect him. Give me a shout when you catch up

I currently reserve tuesday nights for our KB team, so any other night would be preferable for me.

Good luck with the team!

Well done Red Force 1, we teamed a few times in PI, big gratz on your new 50 and big gratz (yet slightly smaller so as not to steal the glory) to the Generic Supergroup 101

Surely now it's time to respec out of all your tasty IOs and give them to the poor.

Hey Alvan. I'd like to compliment you on this very interesting approach to writing a guide. It was certainly a refreshing read. Much of the time, these kinds of guides seem to focus on describing each individual power's abilities and best potential slotting, less often taking the time to offer practical advice and guidance on styles of gameplay and how to actually best use those powers. Of course, understanding the dynamics behind one's powers is often the first step at becoming a better hero (or villain), but understanding the dynamics of using one's powers could possibly offer much more. Well done for trying to highlight this distinction, if future guides follow your example a little then perhaps you've help many more than just budding empaths.

With most guides, I tend to learn as much from the following discussions as I do from the guides themselves, so I hope that any new players take the time to consider the varied opinions in this thread and experiment with their own play style.

The extended debate above on fortitude seems to revolve around which AT benefits the most from the buff, or which AT would be able to serve the team better having received the buff. Is the relative level of team members never a consideration for all you empaths when dishing out the goodness?

How's your team going guys? Is it still on? I've not got a Kheldian on Union, but still very interested to hear the outcome

Best of luck

I'm sure it will lag me to hell but I'll try to make it

Be where?

Pocket D?

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Mr TPF, you need to get a decent 'puter, so you can appreciate the power of the dark side. It's calling to you...

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Oh... parts have been ordered... it is coming, my precioussss, it is coming....

Well it depends how picky we want to be

Somebody announcing a Spelunker mish might think "yeah that's definitely one for the Badgers' channel". But one might easily argue it's also a notable event worth announcing the same way as a TF. Similarly, somebody wanting to arrange a buy-sell farming session for the Consignment House badges could get away with posting to both, ie a badge effort or an event. And finally, a general announcement for a Raid could be relevant both to Events but also to Badgers since badges are involved

Most of the stuff I see on either of the channels could arguably be posted quite justifiably in both of them. The only things I can think of that we do get on one but perhaps wouldn't fit into the other channel are:

- Announcement of cossie contests (Events, not Badgers')
- Discussion and queries on badge collecting (Badger's, not Events)

And if we aren't forgiving enough to allow those, then we could always merge the two under a new more broadly encompassing name.

Of course that might annoy some people that will have to change channels, but seriously if they are gaining one free global channel slot, isn't that enough?

I agree with Dark Spider on raid leader channels.

Keeeerrr-GRATZO!

Very well done dude!!! Gratz to the most awesome aoe scrapper I have ever seen

(when backed up by us (and my epic blast) of course)

Was a really fun mish actually, nice big fat mobs of Malta and Zeus Titans to smash up. Shame about the location of the ding, just tucked away behind the doorway... I was recording a demo file coz I knew the 50 was very close, but it happened the exact moment I had turned around to Clear Mind and de-ice Moobix. I'm trying to figure out a way to rotate camera angles or change player anchors in demos, so if that's possible I'll get you the screenie

Anyway, I'm glad we could all be there with you. Good job dude, and here's to many more hours of teaming together

(even if it is with your dodgy villains :P)