Overboard

Session 23-24
Katie Hannon TF on Invince with a team of L31-33. Mary spawned 35, 35, 35, 36, 36, 36, 37, 37, 37, and finally 38.
Wha?

L35 and L36 were trivial 3-5 minute affairs with no defeats. L37 was usually a team wipe on spawn because of the instant aggro (despite stealth+ss, a long standing gripe of mine about ambushes). Regroup and take 10 mins to seperate the bosses from the AV, which actually took a little skill and made things interesting. Then 20 minutes of repetitive button mashing to kill the AV. Lastly, the L38 ... BAM! BAM! BAM! Thats the sound of hitting your head against the purple patch 'brick wall'. Once the AV was alone, it was a draw.

TF not completed as a result of an artificial limit imposed by the devs that penalizes skilled players. Every combat has become either trivial or impossible. We bumped down a notch and ran it against a max L37 AV with the team mostly at L33 at this point.

Session 25-27
Started Manticore at L33 against mostly L35-37. Finished at L33.9. Some 'street sweeping' in Eden of +4, +5 DE to get everyone to L34

Session 29
Freakshow respec. Slotted L32 powers really kick in. The tank tanks, the controllers control ... Fulcrum Shift, Inferno, Transference ... every other group. We ran it twice, to get it for a guy who couldnt make it the first night.

Session 30-32
More 'street sweeping', this time in Creys against to get everyone to L35 for Numina. Started Numina with half the team at L36 and fought L41-L42. For two sessions we had trouble with disconnects during the last mission. We had to keep aborting and restarting to insure that we all received the TF award and hence the accolade.

Session 10-13
By now we've realized that we can only get better than +3 by starting a TF at minimum level. We start Sister Psyche at L20 against L26. That was grueling with just DO's, resulted in incredibly long fights. Second night of the TF we made L22 and SO's which kicked the pace up. When we reached Clamor, the new AV buff patch was on live. First attempt vs a +3 Clamor was fought to a standstill. She couldnt touch us, and we couldnt sustain enough dps to bring her down. We dropped down a notch and reset the mission. Completed against a +2 Clamor ... again this is with the huge AV buff before it was reduced.

Session 14
Moonfire TF spawned L27-L29 against our roughly L25. At this point we've been doing about a level every 2 hours.

Session 15-16
Citadel TF. Nothing noteworthy.

Session 17-18
First night ran Striga contacts to unlock the Hess TF. Second night ran the Tf against +3's.

Session 19-22
Ran Croatoa contacts against +2's. Individually, did costume, aura, and L30 store missions. Completed the Sky Raider TF against +3's.

Session 1
First thing we overlooked ... getting cash to change the difficulty. Oops. Four invince missions took us to L8. We'd start out against +2's and finish against even con. We had one complete wipe and two close calls.

Session 2
A couple missions took us to L11.

Session 3-5
Ran Spelunker and started Positron at L12 with DO's. The TF was spawning L16-18. With effort, we managed to get upto
L14 and started sailing. We reached L16, and so were auto-exemplered back to 15 with two missions for no xp.

Session 6
Bloody Bay missions against +2 Arachnos to get L17.

Session 7-9
Started Synapse at L17 having forgotten that Clocks cap at L20. If we had remembered, then we wouldve started at L16 instead. Two missions got us to L18, and we were L20 by the time we got to Babbage and the AV. Being even con, neither put up much fight. This predates the AV buff.

The Premise
Eight players plan a hero team capable of leveling from L1-50 on Invincible missions, by collaborating on AT, powerset, and power selection. The intent is for the 8 toons selected to only play as part of the team, and the team only runs when all 8 are available.

The Background
Collectively, the Top Ten SG/VGs had accomplished nearly every aspect of CoH/CoV, but a significant portion of our veteran SG members had little interest in CoV or Issue7. At the time of Issue7's announcement, the lack of new hero content and no use for L50's had left us inventing things to do. In a game where the endgame was to re-roll, how could we make this time, the 4th 5th... 12th time, more interesting? What we came up with was a team of eight on max difficulty, start to finish.

The Team
I'm not suggesting that this is the best or only set of builds that could accomplish the goals, but it is result of the thoughts of eight experienced players. Overall, choices were made with the team in mind, but a few were the result of personal preference.

Invuln/SS Tank
Dark/Dark Scrapper
Empathy/Dark Defender
Kin/Rad Defender
Ice/Rad Controller
Earth/Sonic Controller
Fire/Energy Blaster
Ice/Ice Blaster

The tank needed to be a true tank, and we felt either Invuln or Stone would fit the bill with an HP buff being essential. Personal choice opted for Inv/SS. The scrapper secondary was chosen to fill the psi gap left by Invuln. The Dark primary was chosen to leverage the large mob sizes, but without sacrificing single target dps. Healing is a great early game buff, and we wanted one non-aggroing buffer, hence the Empath. To avoid late game obsolescence, Dark blast was chosen for its aoe immob and disorients. The early defender Kin buffs were felt to be essential, and Rad blasts pbaoe attack and -def complement the melee nature of the buffs. We would've liked a debuffing defender, but given that the essential Rad powers are available fairly early to a controller we opted to go that route. Sonic gave us a good combination of protection and -res to up damage later on. The Ice and Earth primaries were largely chosen for the knockdown patches and limited number of pets. Ice/Ice blaster to assist scrapper in boss takedowns, and pick off running targets since in most cases we'd exceed the tank aggro limit. The Fire/Energy was a pure damage build, focusing on aoe. In retrospect, I kinda wish we had gone Ice/Energy and Fire/Fire.

The Results
Typically, each session has been about 2 hours. By the third session we had started Positron and switched to DO's. Since a true Influence economy is non existant, we had no qualms about funding this project with our L50's. Plus, we had planned to run in SG mode for prestige all the way to L50. In Positron, we managed well against +3's and +4's, but outleveled the TF with two missions still remaining. At this point, just the 4th session, we realize that regular missions on Invince simply won't be difficult enough. The best we could hope for was +1 to +3 mobs. So, since TF's spawn mobs at the upper end of the TF's range, we decided to start TF's at the minimum level and adjust the slider up as we leveled. We managed +6's in Sister Psyche with just DO's, but it was grueling and not worth the xp/time, +5's were quite doable. Our main concern was that eventually we would run out of TF's. By Session 12 we were on SO's, rendering +4's trivial and +5's not much effort. The Purple Patch made the +6 brick wall quite evident. A spawn was either easy or tedious, with no appreciable gain in xp. Now, at 32 sessions and L36, with leveling rates slowing, we're running out of ways to generate missions that even come close to +5's. We will continue on to L50, but there really isn't anything that we expect will present a challenge.

As I get time, I'll try to post more of the details... problems we encountered in attempting to generate missions that presented some degree of challenge. In between trivial and hopeless is a range of combats that would be considered challenging and entertaining. For a number of reasons, we saw this 'range' diminish rather quickly, leaving just the trivial or hopeless. I've reached some conclusions, but I'm curious to know what other people see here or in their own related experiences.

Wow, I'm kind of amazed, and quite thankful.

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I checked in a few Hurricane changes today that QA is going to look at. In Theory, these changes should mean that for PvE, Hurricane acts Exactly as it did before the previous change, while in PvP, it should act exactly as it does currently. Hopefully this change will get a green light from QA -- I've spent quite a bit of time on it over the last few days.

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Wow, excellent news.

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This is getting dull.

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Now take your medicine and like it!

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No.

I already got hit by the IH nerfs. The last of which was a poorly thought out solution for a number of reasons. The travesty that is the IH clicky does not justify another poor solution.

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CommunistPenguin wrote:

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My suggestion is suppression of the repel effect if its on you for x amount of time. It is already in the game for some powers, so it might be easy to put in.

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I already asked _Castle_ about that in a PM. His reply:

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Suppression did not work. I spent 3 days working with various options to get it to the shape it is currently, and while it isn't exactly what I wanted, it is the only way I could get it to work.

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I'm very impressed with the speed of his reply; even though I don't like the Hurricane change, I'm personally inclined to cut him some slack, so please don't jump all over this just because I put it in the forums.

Sailboat

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When Issue4 first hit Test Server, Hurricane in the Arena had no repel whatsoever. I'm guessing it was zone specific, not sure if that could extend to the other PvP zones as well or not. Personally, I'd rather see that PvP-specific solution instead of the current one that affects PvE. Granted, that probably won't satisfy the PvP enthusiasts, and I imagine PvP Stormers outnumber PvE Stormers... but its a thought ...

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so i tested it out, and while the power istn completely gutted, i found that the less repel was more likely to create scatter than the old repel. Basically the old repel was strong, so they all went in one direction more or less. THe new repel is weak, so some get pushed, some dont, some run at you, some dont, etc.

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Not only that, but the new Hurricane is far less effective at countering the scatter from Freezing Rain. (Actually, I'm being too nice, its now completely ineffective in that regard.) Thats a significantly negative impact on PvE Storm Defenders.

The last PM info from Castle, would seem to indicate that they appreciate the impacts. But, if the goal is to 'remove positioning' from a debuff set, then they need to rework the set to eliminate the scatter. I'm certainly not anxious to see changes on that scale.

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What good is a push power that can't push anyone.

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To me, it's not a push power (or atleast isn't any more ). Now it's designed for what it does. It debuffs accuracy and range, with some repel and knockback. It's not useless, though it can no longer do what many people were doing with it: position enemies.

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Well over a year ago, and long before PvP ... I vigorously defended the Storm set against complaints that it underperformed compared to the other Defender primaries. The basis of my argument was that the sets strength lies in its unique ability to position mobs. Stormbringer and Zapping may remember those discussions. As CommunistPenguin points out a few posts ago, the set is as much about positioning as it is debuffing. If a Storm Defender can't use positioning to counter the sets scatter effects in PvE, then the synergy of the set is lost or at least reduced.

In the realm of powers that 'affect enemies', there's a fine line between Debuffing and Control. Where does/should positioning fall? The original powerset designs don't seem to favor either, as the repel/kb powers are roughly split between Defenders and Controllers. If the devs have decided that positioning should be strictly a Control function, then I would expect to see some significant upheaval in the sets as that decision runs counter to the original design.

I guess what I'm trying to say is ... to me, Hurricane is/should be a push power. The debuffs make it viable to use.

/agreed on your Hurricane points, and thanks for the Grav idea. Does sound like a reasonable approximation of early defender blasts.

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s'ok OC, you can just be our h34l3r now with that leet buffed 02 boost.

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Hey, no need to be insulting.

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If you can't stomach another Defender, might I point you to a Controller? The Hurricane adjustment is less prevailent there, as with immoblizes, you can effectively lock them in place, and move them ever so until they're in a group. No more need for a handy corner, as they're stuck in place with the immoblize / hold.

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Yeh, I've been meaning to level a controller. Haven't taken one past L12, as I always find myself missing the blasts (pre ED, of course). Corners made packing easier and more effective, but they weren't strictly necessary. Snowstorm plus Freezing Rain was enough slow and knockdown that you could pack a group in open field by running circles, moreso pre-ragdoll. Couldnt get the pack small enough to get the AoE from Lightning Storm, but it was tight enough for a blasters AoE or a spiners Spine Burst.

My apologies if my posts sound 'whiney', I'm just disappointed this change affected PvE. I had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that it wouldnt.

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Before it was the challenge of trying to keep things in once spot without an Immoblize. Now it's a matter of keeping things debuffed and trying to keep them where I want them or don't want them.

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Well, the challenge is certainly increased, but at some point the time of execution becomes such that positioning is no longer practical. It may be -possible-, but it may not be practical, given your teams limited patience. To be honest, I have to play with it more, but as Stormbringer pointed out ... ragdoll had already added to the 'challenge' and this change may have put us over the edge.

On the 'upside', my Storm/Elec only needs one or two TF badges. Once those are completed, I won't really have a use for him. I'd consider rolling a Storm/Dark, but I'm not sure I can stomach playing another defender in this post I5 era.

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I'm sitting here scratching my head about what's causing this huge uproar over this change...It still has one of the highest, if not THE highest, to-hit debuffs in the game; it has the only (that I can recall) range debuff in the game. Now the enemies stay in the debuff radius longer, since they're knocked back slightly less. And to top it all off, the endurance cost you spend for all these benefits is now 17% lower than Hover...

Perhaps I'm just not pessimistic enough, but I really fail to see where all the DOOOOOOM-speak is coming from.

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Because the fun of Hurricane in PvE was packing a dozen mobs into a tiny area, debuffing them and then letting your team AoE them. Keeping the mobs debuffed wasn't a problem. Endurance cost wasn't a problem. For an adept Storm Defender, there's no inherent advantage in this change.

Just for background ... I don't pvp. I levelled my Stormer from Launch to Nov2004. That was the most fun I've had in this game.

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dood, have you tried herdicaning recently?

it's a pain in the [censored] after ragdoll physics!


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Yeh, I came back not too long ago. Finally got around to respec'ing my Stormer to deal with ED, the HO nerf, and the defense nerf. Ragdoll and the aggro cap nerf certainly messed with herdicanning. It was a ton harder than before, but I was enjoying the 'challenge' of trying to make it work while running some of the new TFs. Now it looks like positioning is completely dead, which was the best part about the Storm set, imo.

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the nerf was inappropriate.

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QFT. Good to see you still defending the set, Stormbringer.

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Long long ago, in a post far away, one of the devs mentioned the way -Resistance worked. Now, What I've heard that post mentioned was that -Res wasnt actual -Res but a damage multiplier. Is this correct, or is this one of the fallacies just randomly flying around?

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Perhaps this is the post? Geko on Resistance Debuffs

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What tweaks would you like to see for Super Groups?

What new features?

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We need quality of life features... SG-wide email, Event calendars, Roster exports to other apps/web, uniforms by rank, cross-SG communication...

The members of our SG are now sprawled across five in-game SG's because of the 75 hero limit. Many of the members enjoy playing some alts, and many have specific characters for certain events/play sessions. The leaders of our SG pour countless hours into managing this at the expense of being able to play and enjoy the game.

Make SG management easier.

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I amstrongly starting to suspect the figure for Fly is too high. All numbers I have derived from Fly + a tested power yeilded low figures for the tested power.

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I calculated the results for Snowstorm, Steamy Mist, Hurricane, Assault, and Fly independent of Vennom's numbers. I provided him with the time-to-drain values and he calculated the same results (within 0.01). I did tests using each of the toggles with fly and then all toggles without fly. I could run further combinations, but without fly they get very lengthy.

I concur with Kate. JFS has some great people. And anyone that compliments a Storm Defender is A-OK in my book.