PhroX

Mu at low levels (ie pre-Stamina). They can barely outdamage my regen cos their attacks suck. I can barely outdamage their regen cos I've got no frikkin' end...

You can't really customise the Soldier/Widow uniform much beyond colours, but at level 10 you unlock a "normal" cossie slot, in addition to the ones you can get at 20, 30 and 40, all of which give you free reign to make your SoA look however you want.

On a Widow, it's so easy to perma (I can't remember eaxctly, but at most you only need a few set bonuses even without Hasten. Either way, with it slotted to the ED cap with recharge*, you certainly don't need anything like LotGs or Purples) that I can't see any reason not to take it. Even if all you do it put it on auto and use it to buff your defense, it's a fantastic power and the ally buffing aspect is just gravy.

I can't check your build atm (I'm at work), but reading the other replies am I right in thinking you've taken Weave? If so, drop it straight away and take ML. It's better in every way. I really cannot see why anyone would take Weave on a Widow. The two prequisites aren't of any significant use to you (Tough alone doesn't help much - you need some SL res elsewahere for it to really come into it's own), and you've got far better powers to boost your defense.

On a Fort it's more debatable, as perma-ing it is much tougher, but even then, it's still a useful tool.

* The best slotting is probably 3 membrane Hami-Os as Person34 said, but the cheap option is to slot it with 2 lvl 50 Def/Rech IOs from whatever sets, 1 lvl 50 Def IO and a lvl 50 Rech IO from a THBuff set (one of them has a pure rech IO, I forget which exactly). This will get both def and rech pretty close to the ED softcap for 4 slots and not much inf.

Pretty sure the defender doesn't get it's full solo damage boost at level 1. it slowly ramps up as you get higher levels. Check the wiki (which I can't access at work) for the exact details

The best advice I can give to any new CoX player is this:

Play to have fun

Now, that might seem rather redundant. You're thinking something like "Of course I play games to have fun, why else would I play?". But from my experience, in many MMOs, it is expected that the fun will not come from just playing the game, instead it will come from achieving something, whether it's getting to level 50, or finding the Sword of Awesomeness or whatever. You play the game in order to achieve these things, rather than just playing for the sake of playing.

However, if you come into CoX with this kind of attitude, you're running the risk of being disappointed. I know I was when I first played. I'd come from playing other MMOs (partiuclarly EQ, but I'd tried a fair few later ones like WoW), and I tried to play CoH the same way. I picked a character I quite liked, then tried to get it to 50 as I thought I'd have to in order really experience the game (cos thats what otehr MMOs did). By about level 30, I was bored, and quit the game.

About 6 months later, I came back and tried CoH again. And this time something clicked. It didn't matter whether I had a level 50 or not. Hell, it didn't matter if I never got a character past level 20. What mattered was that jumping into a load of mooks and unleashing my superpowers on them was damn fun.

So, just do what you find fun. As others have said, teaming is pretty freeform, plus on top of this, the game isn't that challenging, so instead of playing a Radiation defender cos they're apparently good on teams at high levels (they are, but that's irrelevant), if what you really want to do is kick people in the face while being on fire, roll up that MA/FA scrapper. Sure, it might not be uber, but if you enjoy it, in the end, that's all that matters.

Part of the problem is that scrappers are so awesome, there's not much more they could add with the APPs

Even if Brutes are "better" than Tankers, I really can't see the latter becoming unwanted. Why? Well, think of it this way: many players still want "healers"...

This thread crops up pretty regularly

But anyway, I'll give my usual response - my DB/SR scrapper. I don't need to worry about anything other than my health bar, so I can just sit back, relax, kill stuff and look awesome doing so

I've not tried DP, but going by the numbers, I'd say defenders get the most out of it. Chem Rounds in particular are nasty with def modifiers and the so-so damage is less of a downside.

Regarding blasters, it's not so much that they're bad, but when it comes to just killing stuff (ie a blaster's job) there are better options. Whereas on a defender, the secondary effects are top teir (sonic is better offensively of course, but in terms of mitigation DP is very good)

Finished Divine Wars. Twas fun. Definite recommendation for any mecha fans. The only probelm is waiting for the second series...

Forgive me for jumping into this thread, but I've been bored at work so I started reading some of the forums I don't usually frequent such as this one, and some of the stupidity stuns me.

I'll say a bit about how I play. I'm not a "marketeer". I use the market to sell what I don't want and buy what I do want. I might occasionally do something like vendoring underprice recipies to get enough inf for a new character to buy DOs or SOs, but I don't do any of the fancy stuff some people do. Nor do I farm. I run missions and TFs. And, although I play a lot, I'm a chronic altoholic so most of my time is spend on lower level characters with low earning capacity. And yet I don't have any problem getting what I want from the market. Why? Because a) I'm patient and b) I don't have ridiculous expectations.

What it seem to me that people like Evil_Legacy are basically saying is "I want everything now".

They talk about people never seeing a purple drop. Well, that's KINDA THE POINT. They're ULTRA RARE. To compare with other MMOs, well, I dunno what the top raid boss in WoW is, but how many people have gotten the loot that he drops? Very very few. I remember back in the days of EQ when, despite a total population of over 100k, probably less than 500 people had even seen some of the final bosses (eg, Plane of Time during the PoP era), let alone actually got some of the loot from them. Purples are the equivalent of this - the average player is NOT EXPECTED TO HAVE THEM - except at least there's a chance, no matter how small, that a normal player coudl get lucky and get one. And on top of that, this top end raid gear elsewhere is often no-drop, so there's only one way to get that. Should WoW add a store from which anyone can buy the top end gear?. (Incidentally, I've had one purple drop. And I sold it)

And other than purples, it's really not hard to get the IOs needed to get a decent build. And even this is far more than you need to do any content in the game as the devs intended it to be done (ie not soloing +4x8). To give an example: my DB/SR scrapper. I soloed a lot, but did a fair few TFs and a bit on mission teaming. I never level locked or tried to avoid exp. I bought DOs as 12 and 17, SOs at 22 and frankenslotted IOs from 27 through to 50, where I started looking at getting sets. When I hit level 50 (about 6 months ago), I converted my merits into inf by buying LotG+rech IOs. Combined with what I'd earned I had around 850m inf.

This was the first character I'd really IOed out (mainly I've just frankenslotted with the odd set), so I didn't quite know what to expect in terms of cost. I was confident I'd be able to get a good build, but thought it migth take most of my inf. In truth, I put together the bulk of my build - barring luxuries like, ironically enough those LotG+rech I'd just sold - for at most 250m. Yes, that's less than a third of what I'd earned while going from 1-50, playing normally. Now, sure, the build can be improved a bit, and I'm slowly doing so, but I'm softcapped to all, have a great attack chain and am sustainable end wise and as such can do pretty much anything in the game including soloing stuff that is designed to be fought be an entire team.

Sure, to get the totally ultimate IO build it will cost a lot, and will take a fair bit of time to get there, but to go back to comparing to other MMOs, think about how long it takes to get the top end gear there, given it usually comes from raids.

If you're prepared to actually put in a bit of time into seeing how the market works, then you'll quickly see there's no problem. Inf is easy to get, there's usually a decent supply of drops, and, apart from purples, there's always another way to get stuff (merits, tickets etc). Of course, if you can't be bothered to do this, it's easier to just come on the forums and complain...

tl:dr - the market isn't broken, the players who want everything handed to them on a silver platter are

Oh, and paragraphs are your friend...

My personal take on the "cottage rule" is that powers won't change so much that can no longer be used for their original purpose. That way, people who did like the old version, no matter how few they are, don't lose a power they liked. So while Energize has changed a lot from CP, it does still provide a nice decrease in End costs.

Actually, IMO the closest we've come to breaking this rule since the Grav changes is with the alterations to Domination, where it flat out lost the damage boost. Yes, doms were compensated with increased damage all the time (and are better for it), but the actual functionality of the power changed more than, say, Energize.

Stealth IO are "120 procs", so they're dependant on the level of the power they're slotted in, not the IO itself. If you have access to the power, you have access to the stealth.