Quantumizer

Thank you!

I'm in the process of installing the CoH beta (just started stage 3), and I am currently subscribed. I don't yet see bio armor as available, but I also cannot yet select even some of my purchased sets (like Blast Rifle). Will Bio Armor be available after full download? Or is there a select group of VIP beta testers who are the only ones with special access to that powerset?

Thanks.

Oh, well. Thanks for the answer!

Hi all,

Since the "Who Will Die" story arc bundle is on sale, I wanted to buy it for my VIP account, anticipating the day where I might have to play "Premium" for a few months. Unfortunately, when I go to the store, I cannot even put it in my basket.

Is there a way to buy VIP content while you are a VIP? Or will VIP content that came out while I was a VIP remain accessible to me if I fall back to a Premium player? If not, is there a way to suspend my VIP status long enough to buy the content? Or -- if I fall back to premium at some point -- do I just need to bite the bullet and pay full price at that time (unless another sale comes along)?

Thanks!

Does anyone know what are the boots and gloves on the character in the Titan Weapons splash screen in the game launcher? This is the rather ominous-looking character with the minotaur axe, the hood, the skull mask, the skull belt, (organic armor pants?), and with red and gold themed costume. I've searched in the costume creator for them, but no luck.

Thanks.

Is anyone else having issues with the character creator? I can no longer access the Beam Rifle powerset (I did purchase it, and even have a defender with beam rifle). Also, I cannot access "disco" bottom (bare or as a pattern on tights)... I don't even see it as a choice, even though it has always been a choice since I started playing the game five years ago. And I cannot access certain pieces that I know I purchased (such as barbarian ring shoulders).

I didn't see this in a known issues list. Is anyone else having this problem?

EDIT: Oh, weird... I don't have these issues creating a character on a different server.

Thanks, all. I thought perhaps that was the case... leadership seemed a natural pool for an MM (ok... for necromancers it might be a stretch), so I though, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if I could get vengeance even while solo!" I guess that's what is referred to as "exploitative"

Can you activate "Vengeance" if you're a mastermind or controller and one of your pets drops? Or only when an actual player teammate is defeated? How about Fusionette or Faultline, or another signature hero when they're teamed up with you?

Thanks.

Hi all, thank you for the thoughts. This has been very helpful. Here's how I'd summarize what I've learned:

Blind invites: Don't accept them unless prepared for extra communication and/or an interesting tale to share on the boards. I like what seebs said about seeing blind invites as an opportunity to help other players learn the game. My default is always thinking that everyone else on the team knows more about playing than I do. Maybe after almost three years of paid time that's not true anymore.

Communication: I shouldn't be afraid to make suggestions or ask for help if things aren't going well. I like what Chyll suggested about making a light-hearted comment early on that both encourages a positive rapport and establishes some base expectations. I play at weird times, so I do a lot of soloing... I need to remember that a team is different and I might need to make some adjustments based on team makeup or the playstyle of the others.

Manners: I feel terrible about quitting without comment or attempting to set things aright. I'll not do that in the future.

Strategy and roles: I'll realize that on a team with an unusual makeup, it might be necessary to reconsider traditional roles, and to -- in a casual way -- find out what other people are thinking. And I won't try to tank with a scrapper without good support, especially at such a low level with such undeveloped defenses.

Thanks again, all.

I had a team experience a few nights ago that keeps nagging me, and I was hoping I could get some outside perspective on it and the questions it raised for me.

So, my level 7 Elec/SR scrapper was shopping in KR when I received a blind invite. Ok, I thought... why not? I accepted and found myself in the middle of a team of five -- count 'em, five -- time manip defenders, a controller, and I think a blaster. I was sk'd up to 11, I think. No other melee types. We finished some ho-hum save-level bank mish, then pulled up somebody's +2 mission... all reds and purples, skulls... large packs, most with two bone daddies in them. Team wipe twice. Third time, I charge a pack to start hacking down a boss, go down, then swivel camera to see all the defenders bunched up a ways back. I got pissed, hit the hospital, then hit the quit button (a few seconds later, I saw most of my former teammates materialize back at the hospital, too -- another wipe). I never have quit without saying something.

Chewing it over afterward, I tried to understand why I was so pissed. Maybe it was because I understood my job as DPS, and I understood the defenders' job as... well... to defend. Why didn't I have at least 3x Temporal Selection on me (+90% dam, +450% regen), and why weren't the defs bunched up around me to keep me in their healing auras? They were all standing back in their collective auras. Sure, I know ranged AT's stay at range, but with no tank, everything is going to be in melee pretty soon anyway, and you better keep your DPS alive so he can cut down the real problem children (freakin' bone daddies). I guess I could have hung back there with them, but that looks kind of goofy... the scrapper hanging back waiting for whatever happens to come his way.

But then I started wondering about my own culpability. Maybe I wasn't right to think of my role as so central. Or do the roles shift with such a drastically unbalanced makeup (I would have thought if anything the scrapper becomes more central -- there being only one -- but I could be wrong). Maybe I should have taken one look at the team makeup and either asked for some backup, or politely departed. Should I have made some comments and suggestions on tactics? Were my own tactics brash and cavalier? (I am, after all, an SR scrapper, not a Stone tanker). Would all this be a non-issue if I just hadn't accepted a blind invite in the first place?

Does anyone have any thoughts or opinions on this? Thanks.

P.S.
Since this is an exercise in introspection, I warmly welcome all honest comments, even those that reflect negatively on my gameplay, manners, personality, intelligence, heritage, or personal hygiene

Is anyone familiar with the math for the scaling damage resistance of Agile, Dodge, and Lucky? Also, I assume they stack; is that right? Thanks.

Thank you for taking the time to write and update this guide. I have a few follow-up questions, if you don't mind.

First, I'm wondering if these recommendations are for a "tanker's tank". Would you build differently if you're mostly soloing (I play at weird hours).

Second, regarding travel powers... I usually don't pick them up early (if at all) -- unless for concept -- since Ninja Run and Raptor Pack and the various teleport temps get me around pretty well. The only time I generally regret not having one is when I get a mission in Dark Astoria and my mission teleporter is down. So, if I skip the two picks for travel powers, what do you recommend instead?

Third, I'm wondering about the passives besides RPD. Do you even take resist elements/energies, and if so, when?

Lastly, I see there are only two attacks picked by level 20. I usually have 3 or even 4 (which is maybe is part of why I'm not currently as successful with Invuln. as I know I should be). Sands of Mu and Blackwand would fill some of the gap if you have those temps(I do), but I'm wondering if you have some tricks for getting by with two attacks, especially when soloing?

Many thanks again.

Thank you all for your advice and encouragement. And thanks, BeornAgain, for the model build. I'll stick with Invulnerability and see where it takes me.

I have a level 22 inv/dual blades scrapper. She waaaaay underperforms my level 18 willpower/claws scrapper. I thought it might be better for a tank, so I made an Invul/MA tank for I21; he's only level 10, but he's not feeling so invulnerable either... and he's eating end like a t-rex gorging on an apatosaurus. I took a Fire/EM to level 48, and I don't ever remember feeling so much like a punching bag.

Does Invul just take time to develop? Does it not come into its own until after Invincibility? Is it mainly a defense set? Please help me gain perspective on this. Thanks.

Defenders are getting fire in I21??? ROCK!

Speed boost, indeed. Pff. Tell those pals of yours that force fields are where it's at. How does SB compare with +35% defense (bubbles plus dispersion field)? Or pinning guys helpless against a wall with your Repulsion Field and watching them wriggle as you blast them to smithereens?

No one has mentioned Energy... it's very fun, especially in combo with FF... once you get skilled at knocking foes into walls or the floor (get hover), an FF/Energy defender adds quite a bit of controller-y type power (and the ability to impart awesome, incredible, indestructibleness on his team members).

But... if you gotta go Kin, it's kinda hard to go wrong with Kin/Sonic.

I'm in a similar boat as you... six years since starting the game, but only two years and two months of paid time. Rewards are never NECESSARY... they're mostly costume parts and free costume changes. The only reward that has significantly affected my game is the Sands of Mu, and only for starting characters. And the respecs are nice for trying out different builds.

You can't catch up as far as I know... rewards are based on paid time, and you actually have to wait for that time to elapse. However, temp powers are available that fill some of the gaps... for instance, you know that that shiny City Traveller vet reward that lets you take a travel power at level 6? Just buy yourself a jet pack, or do a safeguard in King's Row and you'll be flying right alongside the 5 year vets. Need a ranged AoE for your scrapper? How about building a plasmatic taser?

Also, with Freedom coming up, I think you'll be able to buy your way into useful powers. But again, the vet rewards are cool and shiny, buy not having them will in no way gimp your characters.

Maintenance window is 7am - 9am (Eastern time) every Thursday. So that's the day I usually get to work on time.

Thank you for the thoughtful and useful advice. You've really given me some insight into the shortcomings of my slotting. I'll definitely be replacing Temperature Protection with Hasten, finding a slot for the Kismet +Acc, and make a number of the other slot configuration changes that you recommended.

I'm still wondering about ranged defense. Community consensus seems to be that building for S/L/N/E should be the primary concern. I understand that psionic damage is relatively rare, but it still pops up with plenty of factions -- Arachnos, Carnies, Rikti. Anyway, even with my original build I had 33/33/31/31 for S/L/N/E, plus 33 for ranged. But you don't think I could maintain that ranged defense and still address the weaknesses in my original slotting? Putting the two Mako sets back into ET and TF would restore the ranged def to just over 32. Is there any reason to not build for ranged def, assuming I can handle for, say, the underslotting of Barrage and EP for accuracy and damage?

Thanks again for all your efforts.

I noticed that (in Mid's) Numina's +Regen/+Rec no longer has "for 120 seconds" in its description. Does this mean that the power in which the Numina's is slotted no longer needs to be activated or toggled on in order to get the bonus? If so, is the same true for Miracle +Rec and Regenerative Tissue +Regen?

It would be nice to be able to slot these in something other than an automatic health power.

She's a pretty standard boss until she turns on her Power Surge, at which point she seems to become essentially unbeatable (unless you're a psionic, I guess). Is there anything to be done besides wait out the... two minutes? Three?

I wonder if people might comment on this Fire/EM build. I have moderately decent finances, enough to feel okay putting together two or three Kinetic Combat sets, but I don't feel able to totally purple out. Trying to not gimp powers for set bonuses, I built with the following goals in mind:

1. Ranged defense. Fire has no resistance to psionic, and most psionic will be tagged as ranged (correct me if I'm wrong about that). Ranged attacks also seem to encompass the most (to me) oppressive of secondary effects -- end drain and slow. A ranged defense that can be soft-capped with a small purple pill powerfully mitigates those issues.
2. S/L defense. A few encounters with Devouring Earth disabused me of the notion that FA's resistance to S/L was good enough to skip getting S/L defense to 32.5% at least.
3. Regeneration. I figure this is another good layer of defense, especially for a resistance-based powerset (since there will always be some damage to heal). I boosted it to 254%.
4. Hit points. More hit points = more regeneration and more time to hit panic buttons when necessary.
5. Recovery. FA runs a lot of toggles, and I want to run Focused Accuracy, too.
6. Accuracy. Who can't use more accuracy? I'm not sure I got enough, though, and I'm open to suggestions on how to acquire more.

I also built for 8 points of KB protection (do I need 12?), and 20% slow resistance to stack with Temperature Protection (for 40% slow resistance).

I boosted ranged and S/L defense up to 33% each, and N/E is up over 31%. But... AoE defense suffered (23%). I figure I'm somewhat vulnerable to the following: psionic AoE, cold AoE, and toxic AoE (unless any of those are also tagged ranged or S/L/N/E). Are those small ****** in the armor? Am I overlooking anything?

I didn't build for recharge, nor take Hasten. Is that a big deal for this character?

Thanks for any insight you can give! Here's the build:


Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Copper Sun: Level 50 Science Tanker
Primary Power Set: Fiery Aura
Secondary Power Set: Energy Melee
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Fire Shield

• (A) Reactive Armor -
  
  Resistance/Endurance
• (3) Reactive Armor - Resistance
• (3) Reactive Armor - Endurance
• (48) Reactive Armor - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge

Level 1: Barrage

• (A) Kinetic Combat -
  
  Accuracy/Damage
• (5) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance
• (7) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Recharge
• (7) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance/Recharge

Level 2: Energy Punch

• (A) Kinetic Combat -
  
  Accuracy/Damage
• (11) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance
• (29) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Recharge
• (33) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance/Recharge

Level 4: Blazing Aura

• (A) Endurance Reduction
  
  IO
• (5) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Damage
• (9) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Recharge
• (31) Scirocco's Dervish - Damage/Endurance
• (34) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• (50) Scirocco's Dervish - Chance of Damage(Lethal)

Level 6: Bone Smasher

• (A) Kinetic Combat -
  
  Accuracy/Damage
• (11) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance
• (23) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Recharge
• (23) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
• (25) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge
• (27) Focused Smite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge

Level 8: Healing Flames

• (A) Miracle -
  
  Heal/Recharge
• (13) Miracle - Heal/Endurance/Recharge
• (15) Miracle - Heal/Endurance
• (21) Numina's Convalescence - Endurance/Recharge
• (34) Numina's Convalescence - Heal/Recharge

Level 10: Combat Jumping

• (A) Blessing of the Zephyr -
  
  Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range/Endurance
• (45) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points)

Level 12: Plasma Shield

• (A) Reactive Armor -
  
  Resistance/Endurance
• (13) Reactive Armor - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
• (48) Reactive Armor - Resistance
• (48) Reactive Armor - Endurance

Level 14: Consume

• (A) Eradication -
  
  Accuracy/Recharge
• (15) Eradication - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (34) Efficacy Adaptor - EndMod/Accuracy
• (42) Eradication - Damage/Recharge
• (46) Efficacy Adaptor - EndMod/Recharge
• (46) Efficacy Adaptor - EndMod

Level 16: Whirling Hands

• (A) Obliteration -
  
  Damage
• (17) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge
• (17) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge
• (19) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (19) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
• (43) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage

Level 18: Burn

• (A) Eradication -
  
  Damage/Recharge
• (21) Multi Strike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• (27) Eradication - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (33) Eradication - Accuracy/Recharge
• (42) Eradication - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge

Level 20: Super Jump

• (A) Winter's Gift - Slow
  
  Resistance (20%)
• (29) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range/Endurance
• (50) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points)

Level 22: Kick

• (A) Accuracy IO

Level 24: Tough

• (A) Aegis -
  
  Resistance/Endurance
• (25) Aegis - Resistance
• (46) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge

Level 26: Fiery Embrace

• (A) Recharge Reduction
  
  IO

Level 28: Build Up

• (A) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control -
  
  To Hit Buff/Recharge
• (33) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance
• (40) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Recharge/Endurance
• (42) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff
• (43) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Endurance
• (43) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up

Level 30: Weave

• (A) Gift of the Ancients -
  
  Defense/Endurance
• (31) Gift of the Ancients - Defense
• (37) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance

Level 32: Temperature Protection

• (A) Steadfast Protection -
  
  Resistance/+Def 3%

Level 35: Energy Transfer

• (A) Mako's Bite -
  
  Accuracy/Damage
• (36) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance
• (36) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge
• (36) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge
• (37) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
• (37) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal)

Level 38: Total Focus

• (A) Mako's Bite -
  
  Accuracy/Damage
• (39) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance
• (39) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge
• (39) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge
• (40) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
• (40) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal)

Level 41: Focused Accuracy

• (A) Endurance
  
  Reduction IO
• (45) Endurance Reduction IO

Level 44: Physical Perfection

• (A) Regenerative Tissue -
  
  +Regeneration

Level 47: Taunt

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO

Level 49: Maneuvers

• (A) Gift of the Ancients -
  
  Defense/Endurance
• (50) Gift of the Ancients - Defense

------------
Level 1: Brawl

• (A) Empty

Level 1: Gauntlet
Level 1: Sprint

• (A) Empty

Level 2: Rest

• (A) Empty

Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift

• (A) Empty

Level 2: Health

• (A) Numina's Convalescence -
  
  Heal
• (31) Numina's Convalescence - +Regeneration/+Recovery
• (45) Miracle - +Recovery

Level 2: Hurdle

• (A) Empty

Level 2: Stamina

• (A) Endurance Modification
  
  IO
• (9) Endurance Modification IO