Patient_V

Nice, had fun skimming it. You really made judicious use of the star system; I only used 1 and 5. In the interest of fairness:

"Satanic Hamster" "5" " Afura, Mann, Man, Hamster, Suiseiseki, Acrasia, Sabril, Snow, Breeze, Lost, Dream, Acrasia, Sabril, Lost, Dream,Makii,Man Hamster" "It\ss a Satanic Hamster!"

***A quick note: I’m not giving shoutouts to active players because I have been or will be talking to you in-game.***

I remember my first ever pick-up team - we went to the Hollows, I had a blast, and I was sold on COH. Those guys are still on my Emp’s server friend list, and I don’t think I saw any of them again after that day.

I remember “modifying” a player named Red Cobra’s costume for my first scrapper, my MA/Regen namesake. (Thanks for the inspiration!)

I remember the first time I had a mission in Oranbega. It blew my mind - fifteen levels of warehouses, caves, and thugs, and then suddenly crystals, torchlit caverns, underground libraries, portals, mages, ghosts, demons! More like Oran-WHOA.

I remember discovering the Shadow Shard zones and spending entirely too much time out there soloing and exploring on my Kat/SR. There was such a pervasive sense of isolation and awe the first time I made it out to the Storm Palace that I don’t think I’ve felt since.

I remember grinding out the last few levels to 50 by grinding DE GMs with my Emp defender buddy in PI. Dec 2004 was a magical time in CoH for me: lv50, Winter Lord bonanza, frozen lakes, the promise of PvP in the future.

I remember learning about the Fighting pool for Regens from my friend Kariss, who would later quit the game in disgust over the HO nerf. I miss Centriole-slotted Head Splitter and Golden Dragonfly.

I remember being so excited at respec’ing into Tough so I could tank Infernal on my Regen, then getting two-shotted the next time I saw him because I didn’t know the last patch switched his axe’s damage type to fire.

I remember taunting Hamidon on my Regen and healing taunters on my Emp. Justice Avenger and Auger in particular- thank you for leading so many of those raids.

I remember trying out TP Foe in Talos for the first time. I dropped a bunch of Tsoo Sorcerers into an enhancement store, then stood back as a lowbie team walked in to sell and enhance up. Sorry, guys.

I vaguely remember being respectful to the Cryptic developers. Vaguely. I might have dreamed this one up.

I remember my friend quitting the game because Blizzard, the crowning jewel of Ice Blast, was such a disappointment. (He would return, but I don’t think he was wrong.)

I remember skipping classes to get on the Test server the day I4 went up. My roommate and I were on different floors of our townhouse, and we ended up spending much of the day shouting “Are you in yet?” “I can’t get in!” “I’m in!” “I disconnected!” “Screw this regen jerk ,he won’t stop running!”

I remember life before travel suppression, and how utterly soul-crushing that experience was. One of the poorest, most indefensible decisions I’ve seen in this game’s history.

I remember Whirlwind suppressing rooting and five-slotted Hurdle. Those of you who arrived too late to experience this have my condolences. (You can almost replicate this on a Kin with Inertial Reduction, Siphon Speed, and a power that causes redraw, but it’s not the same.)

I remember painfully learning which attacks were non-positional on my SR scrapper in PvP, and enjoying MoG entirely too much when it gave positional and typed defense.

I remember being the only Emp for the Lions Den’s first two Test matches. Tribute waxed us.

I remember rolling through PvP zones with a Penance team, switching sides to keep things relatively even, and the unspoken zone-wide truce that went into effect the moment a Goon set foot in the zone.

I remember the Penance crew: Krole, Demon Sorcerer, Crescent Sun, Loan, YO, Chu, Lab, Shurl, Electric Heroine, Satic, Marbs, and Sorrow (and probably someone I forgot, I’m so sorry). You guys were the reason I logged into the game every day, and I’ll never forget the experiences we had, good and not-so-good. I’ve kept tabs on a couple of you outside of the game, and I’ve seen some of you pop into the game over the last few years, never staying for long. I hope you’re all doing well.

I remember this . Yes, we all disconnected within two minutes of the start of the match, but I'm still not letting you guys forget that one.

I remember camping PvP hospitals, pulling drones to the other side of the map, TPing people out of the hospital, and even exiting a PvP zone with confuse stacked on you to see what mischief you could accomplish. Early zone PvP felt like the Wild West.

I remember the pranks of the Sitting Ducks and Tribute (warning: offensive lyrics). That Kronos stunt still cracks me up. And Satanic Hamster’s attempt to spawn multiple Kronos Titans in Bloody Bay, too. Penance brought at least one Kronos to the eventual showdown in Skyway.

I remember being so gosh darn proud of Rift and Mikey and the Lions Den gang for going out on top. No one handed them anything, and they had to rebuild from scratch after the Penance split. Rift, I loved your tournaments and can-do attitude - more than anyone, you deserve credit for giving life to Victory’s PvP community. Mikey, thanks for putting up with me, bud. We had some great Ice/Dev + Ice/Rad duels, and I still smile when I think about your DM/Invuln scrapper.

I remember largely checking out of the game from 2008 to 2010 due to my entire friends list disappearing as a result of life in general and the I13 PvP changes. I never dropped my sub and I still logged in regularly, but I rarely teamed and didn’t participate in global channels. Truth be told, I wanted the old days back, but I knew that even if the players I missed returned, I wouldn’t have time for the game.

I remember coming back in 2010 after seeing a sweet BS/Shield costume in the forums and thinking “Man, that looks cool.” Sometimes, that’s all it takes.

I remember thinking as recently as last week how amazing it was that I had become reinvested in the game over the previous two years, learning names and making new friends. Some of the players I remembered as immature had grown up, and I was surprised with how much I enjoyed just logging in and chatting every now and then. The community on Victory is something special.

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I don’t know what’s going to happen to CoH in the coming months - maybe it will get shut down as planned, maybe the end will be delayed, and maybe it will resurface at some point in the future. To all the players on Victory, and even those from other servers that I butted heads with on Test, thank you for making my time with CoH so special. I’m not planning on moving to another game (I’m not an MMO player), so if you would like to keep in touch with me, leave me a message on my global @Patient V. or shoot me a PM on the forums.

Take care of yourselves.

I'd want a pretty significant reworking of Unstoppable (i.e. damage, defense, psi res, regen, etc.) on my tank if the up time is dropping to more of a One With the Shield range. Burnout hijinks are too good to give up right now without getting something solid in return.

Nice job writing this out – it was fun to watch you work through it. A few quick notes on the topic.

Not all weapon sets were created equal: while you can circumvent the redraw and rooting for many powers, rooting is firmly in place for others. The Dual Pistols power set is by far the worst offender, but there are others out there with key powers that root the character model. (On the flip side, you can cancel some weapon-based powers with other powers in the same set.)

It’s worth noting that non-weapon sets can make just as much use from this as weapon-based sets by using temporary powers like the St. Louis Slugger. Canceling lengthy animations like Thunder Strike or Energy Transfer won’t impact your DPS in a direct sense, but it allows the player to reposition quicker than he otherwise would have been able to (to line up a cone, close distance with a different mob, etc.). It also allows you to play more aggressively in PBAoE-heavy environments like the iTrial AV fights by removing much of the risk from powers with lengthy cast times, and letting characters with important PBAoE abilities (Poison Trap) to get in and out significantly faster.

The trick falters a little bit in environments where temporary powers aren’t permitted. You used to be able to get the draw animation to play regardless of whether or not the temporary power was clickable; unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Something changed in I19 or I20, and as far as I know, the only non-Paragon Market weapon-based temporary power currently available in iTrials is the Dimensional Grounding Ray from the Dr. Kahn Task Force.

This feels like nitpicking because Paragon Studios done so well since 2010, but quickly

- among other flaws, Dual Pistol's inability to cancel the rooting effect of its lengthy animations means technically-skilled players can't eek out better performance of the set (see: Trick Arrow, Broad Sword, Assault Rifle)
- Kheldians lost the ability to animation cancel when shifting out of forms (but the new instant shift is pretty nifty)
- Titan Weapons is about as well-balanced as Black Scorpion and Scirocco on a seesaw

Really sorry it didn't work out, GL.

Ever see the movie Old Yeller?

In on non-Rad support character. @Patient V.

Only if defeated fliers leave Wile E. Coyote-style impact craters.

A Tuesday night ITF saw an Elite Boss version of Romulus Augustus 2.0 repeatedly spawn with regular Cimeroran Traitor groups in every mission. It's been a few weeks since my last ITF, so I don't know if this is a known issue or not. While it was somewhat detrimental to the immersion factor, it was also a nice change from the norm. The EB appeared to have all his powers from the final fight, including Extra Lives (for kicks, the team defeated an EB on the courtyard dais three times to eliminate the Nictus Essences before dispatching the AV Romulus Augustus that remained).

The difficulty was set to +0/1 for the eight-man team. I didn't think to do a spawn headcount at the time, so I'm not sure if Romulus was replacing any bosses or if he was just added as an extra, but all the regular Minotaur and Cyclops EBs were in place on all the missions. I did load up a couple +0/8 missions from Marcus Valerius after the ITF, but didn't see any Rom EBs.

Mission 1

Mission 2

Mission 4

It'll be interesting to see if we get rolled back again (and if we do, how far). If I lose 30 minutes of Croatoa badging and I have to redo tips (again), I'm petitioning for an alignment change token.

Side note, some micro transaction games give players small items/perks as an apology for server downtime. Not saying it's necessary here, but it's nice to have the potential for something like that down the line.

Kin/Sonic or whatever is needed, @Patient V.

Off the top of my head, the abysmal respec system and the need to run Montague's arc to unlock Cimerora for every single character.

I'd call Recluse's towers a gimmick (in the negative sense) long before I'd whine about an OHKO or location-based auto-hit power, but neither of those is bad design.

Dibs on his cape.