Neparos

Ironically in mission things, or in combat things that could feasibly be rped. Nothing like getting a "((Okay, let's go find the boxes we need to get))" in an rper group... so what is everyone doing in that warehouse to begin with?

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I would point out that while, with granite, a stone may be the best at handling aggro, at least in small numbers, with the granite on they can taunt only about half as often, they get their attacks only half as often and minus a SO of damage to boot. What this means is that a stone is often waiting for a recharge so he can taunt or attack, moves so slow he can't run over to someone right away. So us being the taunt bot is questionable. I would also point out that using granite solo means that you are getting exp and infl very slow! you are worse off than if you had debt. The other stone armours got the bat like everyone else. What they have done to burn in the latest update is crazy. Is burn even worth having now? I have at least one of every tank primary and they all are in need of buffs now! My inv that was a great team character before though, now is ok solo and a detractor to a team. I haven't played my fire or ice much but Think that ice is now at least as good as inv at low levels, but inv now sucks at low levels. or at least at mid levels mine is a 24. my ice is only a level 8 but seems a little better with chilling embrace up now then it did before [ very little play time mind you ] I have played the fire little mostly cause my friend is playing his character that is level near my stone and I have decided to push to get a level 50. I tend to fight about two levels lower stuff when I hunt while solo now with my nongranite armour and granite is just an emergency button when solo. I try to use the other armour when in a group also but the numbers even when -1's tend to dictate granite as my only option and then holding agrro is a problem with the slow recharge rate with granite. I also have faced psi babbage and psi clockwork king and can say that I have been one-shotted with both. My only hope with either is my earth's embrace but if either psi wails while it is down then I am looking at the floor. My minerals was just not enough, I had to pop greens and purples like m&m's and when they ran out a trip to hospital so I could buy more on the way back! Did that twice with babbage. Just so you know it is not all good in the stone tanker world. Maybe it is different for the 50's but I can say that I5 made the mid levels heck for my invuln tanker.
JJ

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But still, its better then being an invuln or an ice tanker where you run in, try to hold 5 +1 guys attention and get floored in 10 seconds. You get smushed like a bug with that craptacular 40% energy/negative/fire/ice resistance while running an invuln tanker, and your only hope is to abuse invincibility for what its worth and pray you have *awesome* back up.

Look at the bright side though: at least Granite Armor can still hit the resistance caps. Be thankful Statesman and Geko didn't "adjust" it so it only has 60% resistances six slotted with +3 SOs.

I'm getting the impression that *all* the tankers took it in the rear this Issue in some way or another regarding nerfs though. I am honestly thankful I do not have a 30 something invuln tanker right about now, or I'd be deleting it. But I am sure somehow we will get used to playing invuln tankers like they were pre nerf scrappers that hog a lot more endurance and do less damage... after all, anyone who hasn't canceled subscription yet seems capable enough of adapting to change...

... that is until the next amazing Issue of Nerfs!

There are a few issues I'd like to bring up on Issue 5:

1- Invuln, Super Reflexes and Ice tankers got hit way too hard. With Invuln, there's no point in slotting your non smash/lethal resistances, but rather all you do now is abuse your tough hide/invincibility. Ice Tankers are pretty much useless, as are Super Reflex Scrappers. Heaven knows why you nerfed these two sets. Had you have left htem alone (but nerfed all the other defense based stuff/monster accuracy) they would have both become very viable sets. Boost the slow causing effect on ice tankers to be about 50% or more while you're at it then you could call it a day with the sets. But instead you kicked ice tankers in the teeth while they are down, and I doubt anyone will bother playing one for anything besides novelty value. Super Reflexes scrappers get flattened very easily still, and you may as well just make a blapper and buy lots of defense insps for what its worth.

Ironically the Fire Tankers (you know, those burn abusing people you were supposedly nerfing everything for?) got off *very* light compared to invuln, and granite tankers are now the top "taunt bot" tanks in the game.


2- There are a couple of major bugs with the sound looping, and hostage missions causing mega lag. But you are aware of those.


3- Force Fields are somewhat broken now. This is because Sonics can do what Force Field does and do it better:

Sonics can debuff enemy resistances, Force Field doesn't get to debuff anything.

Sonics get resistance buffs which are *FAR* better for taking on +2s and +3s then defense is. This is because of the way resistances and defenses scale to level. You have the math though, not me. Bad guys also will get natural d20s and therefore circumvent the force field. You are basically at the mercy of bad luck, but with resitances do not have this problem.


Sonics also get Clarity, an earth quake power, and a targeted repulsion field power (instead of the self one force fielders get making it better).

Mean while force field powers focus on spacing. While force bolt and repulsion bomb are kind of neat, Repulsion field is a big useless endurance hog, and Force Bubble is useless because every enemy in City of Heroes has either an uzi, a long range blast, or a bow and arrow. Even the Freakshow tanks, who you THINK would be close range only get those god awful team whiping grenades! As soon as you put up a force field, everything will argo on you, and you will die because they all have mega sniper accuracy now. Ironically Force Bubble would be a great power on a tanker, because tankers can handle that argo. Oh wait, a fire tank or earth tank only.

Now don't get me wrong, I would love to have an auto hit magic spacing bubble in Soul Calibur 2, where spacing actually means something... but in a game like City of Heroes where every villain and their momma is a Pathfinder Sniper its worthless.

NPC versions of your heroes comming and going in your base would be a cool idea. It'd also be cool from an RPing stand point to be able to interact between your different characters in base like this. A interface that lets you put words in the second character's mouth, or do animations/move to spots in base would be just all too cool. I could picture Maileah and her adopted dragonling arguing back and forth over the TV, or messing around in the lab.

As for your base being raided, when the raids happen (ie the daily time thing), all the NPC people could be cleared out before the raid starts. This is why we have raid times and such .

It'd be a hard thing to code in, and would mostly be eye candy, but it would be a very cool addition to the imersion factor in CoH and CoV.

In the future, it would be wise to make it so *every* task force has a badge associated with it. Badges are easier to track and monitor on a character then sovegneirs anyways.

Saddly from what I understand to do with databases, it is *very* difficult to re-structure a database long after it has been in use, especially with the given magnitude we're talking about here (200,000 people times 8 possible characters per server = very very very big database querry/reshuffle).

Oh, and the Task Force Commander badge sounds like a good idea. If you can get some resources on it, it might be worth it to make that 3d costume peice a reward from doing that. A reward for doing all the Freedom Phalanx task forces would be very cool and would encourage me to get off my butt and do them all


As for the Shadow Shard task forces... they are a massive pain in the [censored] due to both travel time, and hunting missions. A typical Shadow Shard task force looks like "Okay go to Fire Base Zulu to get the job. Now go out to the Charlie Point to beat the snot out of 50 Nemesis'. Now talk to the Fire Base Zulu contact. Now go to door mission. Now talk to the contact. Now take thing in door mission all the way to Atlas Park. Now go back to Fire base Zulu, now go bet up 50 more Nemesis' out in the boonies. Now visit the Fire Base Zulu Contact. Now do another clear all door mission. Now talk to the Fire Base Zulu contact. Now talk to some guy in Atlas Park's basement." Repeat X number of times then "Clear all Ruthulu out of a massive Orenbanga map(!?)"

This litterally took me and 3 of my closest friends (whom I would call "pro" at this game, as they have been here since beta) at least 10 hours in total to finish this task force. We never wanted to do this one again. Compared to say a well run Synapse task force which would take a good team about 2 hours and you rarely need to leave the yellow line zones.

Less running around, more beating on bad guys. Oh and make it so you can phone your contact earlier on to keep things moving.

I think part of the problem is range just doesn't count for much these days. Just about every single bad guy in the game has some kind of a ranged attack that almost always out ranges the blasters. In fact a lot of the time when a blaster does his ranged AOEs or what ever, the bosses and LTs immediately return fire and down the blaster, unless they were taunted first.

I say give all the blaster powers a good range increase across the board, ESPECIALY the Snipe powers. This way a good blaster could get in a few good hits at long range, and have that range actually mean something.

And I don't see why blasters can't have that %500 damage cap as well. First of all to really use that cap pre Hami O you would need the help of Fulcrum Shift, which you need to be point blank on your enemies anyways. Second off, Blasters are supposed to be the "kings of dps". They get no defense other then range, no buffs, no heals. All they have going for them are their nukes. Finally, Blasters are THE most squishy things in the game, period. Its pretty piss weak to see scrappers and even fire tanks out mowing blasters when blasters should be the ones nuking everything.

There are nothing wrong with "Blapper" powers as is, provided you're in a good team. A good total focus here and there can really put the hurt on a boss, especially after all his minions have been mowed. But Blapper powers require that you have excelent mob and argo control, or that boss will hit back and kill the blaster. Its a little like being a rogue in other games: you need to hit things you KNOW won't be hitting back any time soon.

I'm a Domesticus 50 MA/Regen scrapper who loves being with my friends. They let me go and maul stupid LTs and even let me keep them for food, so they're nice! It sure does feel kind of crappy being on a leesh sometimes . *smells a bunch of bad guys* Let me go let me go, *growls* kill kill kill! *gets let loose, goes and mauls a Kronos*