Prof_Backfire

For most heroes, I recolour their powers to match their costumes and general colour scheme... which often varies between costumes.

But I do something different for some of my buffers' costumes: I recolour the powers to match their effects, going by colour-coded enhancements. Resist buffs are purple, endurance buffs are blue, heals and regen are green, and so on.

It's really hard to judge what's an 'odd' combo in this game, because concepts can justify anything.

I do have a rare AR/Fire Blaster, which is quite the fun killing machine. I tend to only really use one powerset or the other, though. Or more specifically, I think I've kinda got at least three attack chains for certain situations: Burst/Slug/Buckshot for single target/short range, M30 Grenade/Flamethrower/Full Auto for ranged AoE, and Fire Sword/FSC/whatever for melee.

Forget this, how about porting it to Tankers?

For the record, most Australians also consider XXXX to be dog urine. (Fosters is cat urine) Queenslanders are... special.

Having recently returned to the game and experiencing the wonders of inherent Stamina, I've been fully enjoying having three more powers to play around with, and actually have the chance to pick powers outside of the ones needed to optimise my build or whatever.

However, after messing with that a bit, I realised that the consequences of making the Fitness pool inherent are:

1: Most characters now have at least 3 more powers to choose from than before.

2: There is one less power pool for those characters to pick from.

And with players being so used to having to grab the Fitness pool to be viable, suddenly they might not know what to do with those new powers.

And so, the solution I came up with was relatively simple on the surface: Add a new Power Pool. But then- what power pool should be added? What don't the existing pools cover? How can it be made distinct from the Epic pools and other power pools without recycling powers?

Since the existing pools exist basically to either add a travel power with a toy or two to go along with it, or to provide characters with powers they can't normally obtain, including defences (Fighting), healing and rez (Medicine), team buffs (Leadership), taunting (Presence) and so on. But what kind of powers do the pools currently lack?

Controls, as the thread title suggests.

And my suggestion for the new pool is fairly simple- a set of generic status effect-inducing powers, mainly intended to give non-Controller/Dominator characters some limited ability to control the positioning and actions of enemies. These are generic, vanilla effects- they aren't particularly powerful (enough to work on most minions and lts, but require stacking for others) and don't do any damage, debuffs or other effects like pretty much every other powerset's controls.

That's the general gist of my suggestion, and here's a more specific suggestion of the way I'd do it. (with working names)

1st tier: Generic Immobilize
A ranged single-target immobilizing power (possibly involving bolas or a lasso or something) with a moderate potency, no additional effects, and a short to medium recharge time. Mainly ideal for stopping runners, keeping melee-based enemies away from squishies (could stack with Blaster's tier 1 secondaries for extra effectiveness) and being a dick to greys.

2nd tier: Generic Hold
A ranged single-target hold, with moderate potency, no additional effects, and a moderate to long recharge time. Similar to the above except protecting you from attacks as well, and it might be handy for stacking with Epic holds on bosses, and so other ATs can be more useful during Hami raids.

3rd tier: Generic AoE Immobilize
A ranged, targeted AoE immob (using glue or a net?) designed for basically the same purpose as the tier 1 power but works on groups. Moderate to long recharge, and as above, no additional effects.

4th tier: Generic AoE Hold
A ranged or PBAoE hold power that can lock down an entire spawn if you're lucky, but still with only moderate potency, a long recharge time, and again, no additional effects at all.

Any thoughts on this?

PvP zones tend to be pretty barren, so just put together a team from wherever you can find one and set a time and place. (best to recruit more than you need just in case)

See if you can include at least one decent PvPer so if any wannabe ganker comes after you they'll get their *** kicked instantly.

...what the heck's with those guys in the background? Have they got automatic grenade launchers or something?

They eat up far, far more inf than you think at first. Kinda like drugs and Warhammer.

It's a common mistake for MMs to think Leadership is perfect for them, but truth it, you're balanced around your pets being your damage and HP and so on and so your core buff values (which determine how powerful pretty much all your buffing powers are, including your secondary) are surprisingly low. Ultimately, you're really only getting the same benefit that a Scrapper, Tanker or Brute would get from Leadership.

That said, it's still worth it if you can spare the slots and endurance. (which with inherent Stamina has become MUCH more likely) Every little bit helps, especially if others on your team have Leadership too.

I'm surprised this thread went as long as it did without devolving into an overlong argument between two posters, really.

The thing is, most comic book writers (and writers in general) aren't [I]trying[I] to be sexist, and it's extremely obvious when they are. The key is to get writers to consider sexual equality when writing characters of the opposite sex, and have good examples to look at.

I've heard pretty bad things about the Batman Beyond comic, (on /co/ mind) so I'm wary about it. At least if it does turn out a stinker it's easy to pretend it never happened.

...I'm pretty sure even with comic sexpots it's pretty rare that they're featured ***-first on the cover, and when they are they're called out on it by pretty much everyone.

It's inherently tied to the Arena, which has been deader than dead for years.

The devs should just forget about PvP, really. The tiny minority that's actually interested in it has been ungrateful and uncooperative, the game was never balanced around it, and it's just not fun.

I missed ya, Steelclaw. You make this game way too funny.

It's bored.

If you want to go classic, look at sets like Spines that are only still in because of the grandfather clause- they're too different from the norm for the devs to release them today, and have things that set them apart from the new shinies.

A lot of the Dark sets still seem delightfully weird and hard to classify, with their consistent but varied effects and distinctive look.

I think controllers in general will do alright in teams and solo, though some will be better than others and you may not be very fast at killing for a while. Dominators also work, though better at solo.

While VEATs are pretty popular in here, I think I ought to mention Kheldians (HEATs) are probably also great both solo and in teams, mainly due to being able to adapt to any situation and having extremely flexible builds. They can be tricky to slot though, and you gotta watch out for those Voids and Quants.

There's a reason this game seems to be relatively slow to attract players (due to being ancient by MMO standards) but is really good at retaining them, the constant flow of new content keeps people hanging out for the next carrot.