Powerbernie

Heh - nice guide. Lotsa nice information.
Just dinged 38 and got Ustop. Now im looking forward to the EPPs. Think i will go for EShuriken, guess i will be an AOE Monster.

One Question:
Most ppl advice against Stealth on Spiners. I myself made very good experience with it as it does not impact aggro itself but only the aggro range. So all mobs near enough to be in my SB range, get aggroed while those more far away dont notice me (Thats very nice for postI3 Inv scrappers as i dont want them to use ranged guns on me - but its prolly bad for herding guys).

Do you see any synergy with open PPs to Spines in general?
(I agree on Hasten and Stamina being nearly mandatory for a AOE monster).

As i went Leaping (Superjump) i have chossen JumpKick instead of the more popular CJ. Imo a heavily underrated attack. It offers KB at 100% - this means, when i cycle it with Ripper under PermaHasten i can keep a strong boss on his butt 50% of the time in average - a very nice addition to our SpineSet which misses CC options like KB. Your opinion on that?

This is an excellent step in the right direction.
Do not force ppl to team, encourage them to do so.

Now all im asking for is 2 or 3 more steps on the difficulty Slider...or a bunch more Elite Bosses if you choose highest difficulty. Hmm, you could change Bosses to Elite Bosses for Invincible the same as bosses become Luits for HardBoiled.....just an idea though.

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KB is not issue if you use hover and knock your enemy down toward the ground. KB also doesnt happen constantly unless you slot for KB.. I rarely get huge knockback...

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Yes that sounds good.
But he has already chosen Stealth and Speed pool. Next needs to be stamina, no way would i choose flight as third pool before Stamina.

Okay Starfox....as this is an official ENG thread i guess its okay to discuss Eng/Ice. Hope you agree, Snipefu.

First, this is not my main and its only lvl21...so i cannot speak for the highlvl game with this toon yet. But i found it an very good build so far so lets see...btw i solo 75% of the time, 20% i team with a controller-friend, 5% pickupteams.

1)
You are right that there are no guides to this as its an unusual combo. But i see the reason for that in the fact that Eng/Eng is very powerful and most Blaster go for AOE anyways. So the few who dont go AOE and choose a power like ENG usually take ENG as second too. Guys like you, me or Snipefu are rare across the boards....but thats no indication that our choosen combo is weak.

My main is Spine/Inv scrapper....when i started after Beta i was didnt meet a 2nd one on my server a loooong time....and on the forumboards i was a lone ranger too. 2 Updates later i am FOTM and every1 and his grandma talked about Spine/Inv. It changes faster than you can play....so stick to your choice no matter if its popular at the moment or not....that will change anyways.

2)
I have Chillbain and BuildUp so far from 2nd set. Same as you no icemelee attacks. But the fact that i choose only 2 icepowers so far doesnt mean they are weak. Its just that the good ones come at late lvls. Ice Patch looks great, a Slow-cone is perfect for soloing and even holding a target....whoaaaa. Ice will rock....in higher lvls.....up to then i live with ENG and Chillbain.

3)
Not to enter melee is the goal for me...nearly always works. Keypowers are chillbain and powerpush (lvl18). Powerpush is a 100% knockback - a mustbe for us.

Lets say you fight the usual 3 mobs in a mission:
Buildup, Aim, Snipe on Luit - dead or less than 10% Hp. a fast Bolt and hes gone. 2 minions left - one staying and shooting, the other one running at you. A bolt or two on the shooting mob while the other one runs to you. When he reaches you and draws his meleeweapon you activate Powerpush - followed by chillbain. The mob is KB before he can strike and then frozen in place some feet away from you with his sword in hand - hehehe. Another bolt on the ranged mob, then the rest on the frozen melee-mob. Perfect.

If i get surprised by a bunch of Mobs around a corner i use Torrent to make me room......KB on many of them ususally. Cycle through the mobs, never stay on one. powerpush on one, TAB on melee mob, Chillbain him, Tab on next, give him your dmgbolt, Powerpush next again.

You are no Ubar-DMG-Dealer, you are a crowdcontroller. You keep mobs frozen or on their butt - those can not hit you, take advantage of it.

4) On your chosen powers:
Looks good to me. You will need Stamina so choose Fitness as next free pool. Hasten is good, slot it. In lvl22 i advice to have it slotted so you can go for permahasten with SO enhancements. Stealth is great with SuperSpeed.
Slot one or two of your Bolts heavily (6), 1Acc, 5 Dmg. PowerPuah and Chillbain need no extraslots, mubbe 2 but not more for now.
6Slot Snipe by all means. The Snipe as an opening attack is invaluable. Keep Luits/Bosses an their but with Powerpush, its your best defense. So go Powerpush in lvl18.

Btw its perfect to do Powerpush, Chillbain, Powerburst.
You knock them away, freeze on spot and give him your hardhitting attack....nice attack-cycle.

5) Teaming
When teaming with controller friend i wait for him to "control" the mobs first. Those who are not held get my KB and freeze. Then big dmg vs the held Luit/boss. I tend to use snipe vs held mobs as it leaves the other bolts active....i can use all of them fast if something surprising or just bad happens. Snipe hasd not best DPS but its 6slotted....not all my attacks are in lvl21, and i guess its the same with you.
Torrent is the "lets run" attack. Sometimes things go bad. If the controller then tries one last desperate try to hold i ususally give a Torrent in the crowd to get as much aggro as possible...and kb as many as possible. Aside from that i use my normal bolts vs the mobs and powerpush/chillbain those who attack the controller while he spams new holds.
(He knows my freeze and knows how to get out of mob melee range in time).

6) Pickupteams
Hmm, mubbe this is our weakness. ENG/ICE is a set not build for Pickupteams. They will be shouting for you not to KB, not to freeze. They are not used to your strategy or tactics...all they want is a fast dmgdealer....ok its not always like that but fact is normally i dont go too well in a pickupteam. This build is excellent for solo or in team with some friends who know your powers and play with a strategy that takes your strength into account. In pickupteams you have to find your own strategy i fear.

So Nuff blubbering....hope it helped.

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any advice for an ice manipulation?
This is my first toon so I thought ice would be cool for freezing mob but I start regretting it. Energy manip sounds cool. Anyway since I have Ice manip, I can only keep it so any help? I'm level 15 and I have only ghibslain taken (really useful) thanx

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Ya im looking for advice on ENG/ICE too.

Different from you i dont regret it as i found it an extremely rocking combo. But im unsure about my ice-highlvl-powers.

So any1 with advice on things to consider playing Eng/Ice in higher lvls?

Btw Starfox, why do you regret it? I freeze the melee mobs on spot, knock the ranged-dmg mobs off their feet and do fast, good dmg.....havent seen the downside to this combo yet...what exactly is your problem, what powers did you choose?

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To some people that's like saying, "yeah, uh, that movie 'The Bible' is as good or better than that old book that it was based on."


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What - who would disagree here ?
The movie only covered a small part of the book - therefore left out most of the crap

Me thinks the higher-lvl hazard zones have less problems as more ppl can solo them. My scrapper was able to solo from 22+ in DA and i saw many others do the same there. Missions stop being a a challenge in higher lvls for many builds so hazard-zone-soloing is a viable alternative.

But pre22.....well i dont think that there are many who prefer attacking 20 mobs instead of 3 solo.....maybe some areaBlasters but they are more the exception then. That leaves those zones for teams only.....lol i cant remember ever being part of a "Lets go to Faultline, kick some [censored] and fall in the canyon" - Team. If you build a team there are good chances that 1 or 2 teammembers are SS and you have the choice of doing a mish with them or break the team to go to fault with the non-SS.....easy decision imo.

Love the hollows btw - cool are, cool contacts, cool missions. When you do some missions there you get familiar with the are and while exploring you find some spots which you remember later for good hunting. But this is not the case for faultline.....noone motivates you to explore this area - mubbe there are some cool spots, but i save myself the time to find out with my SS-char.

Btw i like some of the ideas mentioned here - mobile army hospital and that.

My idea is a bit different:
Give temporary Powers as rewards in the hazard-zones.
Lets see.....you bring a contact into each zone. He could give ya missions like "Defeat X mobs Y". Then he gives you a temporary power which is good vs those mobs and only active in this zone.
Like a "Holy Sword" in Dark Astoria or the "Torch of Trollslaying" in Boomtown

This way ppl would be motivated to go to these Hazard-Zones for several reasons:

1) The fun.
Experiencing these temporary powers in missions was always great fun. Getting them for hunting in a dedicated area would be fun too.

2) The raised effectivness
If the temporary power is good then it will raise the effectiveness of a team bringing bigger XP. If a contact would let you even choose between 2 different powers (1 heal, 1 attack) then it would be even better.

Just an idea

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ive been hearing that on the next update that is due on december 28th???? that max level will be extended to 75. but i can not find anything about it. i would have dismissed it but i've heard it from 3 other people. on 2 different servers..????


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[censored]? What are the devs smoking? Are they cr8zy?



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*imagines Statesman sitting in front of his PC smoking and laughing*
*starts to smoke while doing the Atta mission*
*feels happy about working in the Netherlands*

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Let's just hope I3 is tested a LOT more than I2 was before official release.

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Issue 3 is in internal test already. QA reports suggest that it is already better than sucktastic. Your mileage may vary.

-jg

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Just wanna say that your Issues rock, Gaffer.

Most ppl complaining about some content not working on the day the update goes live just miss the experience of other games.

Once you have experienced updates and even expansions which you had to pay for go live with 95% of content not working, 50% still not working after 3 month you get another view on things.

CoH updates have the most stable and best tested content i ever experienced in my MMO-life.....pls go on with this excellent work

What about this:

CoH OR CoV: reduce subscription to 12$
CoH AND CoV: 15$

Would make some happy customers

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If you dont think lvl 50s are canceling in mass then your just not paying attention.


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*Hides under a stone to not be stomped by the huge Stampede of lvl50 players*
*Comes to the open again realizing that 99.9% of CoH players never reached this lvl*

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All you carebears think your good because you can kill computer AI that I mastered 10 minutes after starting my first character, in comic books heros fought all the time. Give us a pvp server atleast where we can transfer and escape carebear land.


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Yay that would be nice.
And pls give them their own forum too, we could call it "Trollheim".

*Hands Balron a bucket for his tears*
You know im too much of a carebear


And i vote for issue 8 to be lamest.
Have searched everywhere i could......but damn it seems to bring no new content at all.....and it will take just so long till its getting live....what are the devs doing......damn

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Besides, $30 a month usually isn't in the budget of most people who play this game. .(those that get their parents to pay or young working people paying for themselves.)

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Who commissioned the poll that told you that?

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It's called common sense. The age range for most people that play this game are kids to young adults, with a minority in adult customers. Parents aren't going to pay $30 a month just so their kids could waste their time playing some time consuming MMO when they could be studying or doing something else constructive to their development. I certainly wouldn't even pay the $15 for my kids to play MMOs, knowing the addictive qualities and detrimental side effects of it firsthand, if I had kids that is.

If you really want to be anal about it we could find online polls for this I'm sure. There are many studies done on the nature of MMOs and its subscribers.


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Erm...yes....and the result is that the average age is way higher than 20....at least of those i know of.
MMo players are usually no kids, they are mainly adults. My online guild has an average age of 30 and none of my friends whom i play CoH with is younger than 30. The oldest is Grandpa himself, playing together with his son and grandson.

There are young kids in MMos for sure but i kinda doubt they are the majority. And even to young kids it wouldnt matter at all if its 15$ or 30$.....they spend double that amount of money on mobile phones each month so what?

And the older ones? Who of them cares if its 15$ or 30$? Most i know play at least 2 games anyways, so they already pay for 2 accounts.
Making it 30$ would start flame for sure, and lead to some ppl leaving the game.....but it would not make it die.

And you can be damn sure that at this very moment there are some ProductManagers sitting together analysing the market and calculating if its an option to raise 30$ or not....cause thats what those guys are paid for.

Decision is not made yet. If it was we would see the official announcement.

And dont be too sure that it will not be 30$. Its not as much as you think. I personally know a couple of MMo-lovers who play up to 3 MMos at the same time. Therefore paying 3 accounts which exceed 30$ easily.

Same to all those who even have 2 CoH accounts anyways. To me personally it would be too much, but think about it....how much do you pay for your flatrate internet connection alone? I have a flatrate only to play MMos....together with my phone it costs about 40$.......and the CoH account only 15$.....a arise to 30$ would raise total from 55$ to 70$....its not that much.

What would happen if they charge 2x15$?
Huge flamethreads would start on boards.....so what? Do you think any company who wants to make money cares as long as those who flame buy the stuff anyways? EQ and AO for example lived on that....ppl playing those games hated and mostly still hate the companies who own the games.....but they still pay and play.

If its 30$ a month in future it would be end for me and probably a couple others.....but there would still be more than enough to make good money with it.

Just take a look at WoW and their foolish "Restricted-to-local-Server" strategy....they make lots of money with it........flamethreads on forum are gigantic.....ppl start hating the company now before game has even gone live......but there will be enouh ppl who pay and play anyways.

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That person, though they'll keep putting money into the account of ncsoft, or SOE, or whatever, won't go any direction towards bringing in new players... in fact, they may warn against such things. I've met EQ players like that. Who say "It's a terrible game, don't play it." And then go home and play it themselves.

That's the direction I feel CoH is heade.d..what started off as a marvelous game is slowly being butchered...

incompetant updates, nerfing blaster defense (by upgrading monster offense beyond what many blasters can handle), and their recent policy of "we're not going to tell you jack"...

yeah, I'll play. I'm not going anywhere... but when the discussion comes up, I'll make a point to tell people about just how crappy this game is, or is at least becomming.

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I have met ppl like that too. And i noticed you to be one of them as your recent posts on Blasterforum shows your bitterness.

Therefore my advice: leave this game, MMOs are not for you.
If you cant stand playing a character who looses some of its power without getting into serious emotional trouble than you should quit and never play a MMo again.

Whatever MMo you play there will be fixes and nerfes. No MMo on this planet will provide you with a character having the same topranking place among characters for years. If you cant stand seeing other chars becoming more powerful then yours then it is a clear sign that MMos are not good for you.

Living with nerfs can actually be fun - showing all the doomsayers what you still can do. And having a bit humor about it (I played my engineer to 200 in AO - i know what it is to play a class that is unwanted in teams and useless in pvp - Note: that changed after 2 years). Develop some humor or show others what you can still achieve by using tactics, superior skill or just new and fresh ideas.

If you cant do that - honestly leave. you will feel better.
You can come up with a new Hate-thread every day if u want. And noone can prevent you from doing so. But obviously this is no fun for you - so i would consider it a waste of money.

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Mine in the Virtue Kingdom, being a Magic Empathy Defender, is "Go Toad!"
Princess Peach

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ROFL
Me thinks u would do well with my spine scrapper "Mini Bowser".
So far my cry is "VIVA COLONIA".
Mubbe i should change it to "Go Luigi" lol.

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Great story as always!!! Geeze, how many people are there here from AO?

Katt

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Well, huge masses it seems.
After FC messed AO up with the SL crap we all stopped playing it and waited for a new game as good as AO in the beginning. Looks like we found it