Quixotik

So, yeah. More Powersets or level 50-60 or more powers in existing sets.

Archery still needs a Secondary set. Shields needs an Offensive set. A Rocket-Pack travel powerset... and it would seem we will need Swinging travel powerset soon.

I had it on my AR/NRG but found Surveillance to be the MM power I needed the least and traded it out for Cryo-Freeze Ray, Body Armor, and LRM Rocket.

I have a 49 power pick coming, but it won't be Surveillance. Not enough bang for a high-value power choice. If it were an AoE with high +Perception as well as the other stuff it could have utility, but as is, I wish they had added something better to MM like a self-buff or anti-mez stimulant.

The big improvement over Elec.M for FM is Consume versus Powersink. Powersink is a Brute/Tanker melee power, you have to be in Melee to drain/buff. Consume only gives a big Buff/small damage, but is a 20 foot PBAoE for 0.52 Endurance vs. 13.00 for Powersink. So Consume is alot more supportive of any Nuke powers.

And eventually you get Burn and Hotfeet which is excellent damage mitigation whereas Electric Man. has only Lightning Clap. Add in Fire Mastery and you get Bonfire and RoP which makes you, that's right, da bomb!

Anyway, I am having some fun with it.

Electric... Fire Manipulation? Yes. Fire manipulation has incredible synergy with Electric Blast!

You don't get very good utilization of the Endurance Drain, but since I have a level 42 EB/EM/EM I can tell you the END drain in Electric is overrated by the Dev team.

Minions don't have large END-heavy powers so they bounce back fast and even Throwing Knives on a Boss is high damage to a squishy. Plus, by the time you drain anything it has done high damage already and is in melee with you if you used Powersink (10ft. PBAoE). So END Drain looks good on paper, but is very likely to get your Blaster killed before it works.

So, why Fire Manipulation? Short Circuit, Ball Lightning, Combustion, Consume, Hot Feet are all 15-20 foot PBAoE's.

Consume only requires 0.52 Endurance allowing you to use Thunderous Blast easily since any Buff or Inspiration can restore half a point of End making you Boss-like in your endurance usage and turning the tables on them as it were.

Hot Feet plus Super Speed is the perfect ranging combo, giving Electric Blast some much needed damage mitigation.

In the past FM was looked down on for it's lack of good Melee attacks. Now that Blaster Melee damage is lowered FM looks alot better for many sets especially those with nukes.

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I think they should ad new powersets for CoX for I-15 this year please make list of powerset you like in I-15.

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As a long time player of CoX, new powersets hold the most interest for me.

Notably missing are a Secondary powerset for Archery, an offensive set for Shields, an additional Scrapper epic.

I am also wondering about the promise that new powersets are coming once we get some other things like Mission Architect done.

So yes, I think a major focus of I-15 should be new powersets and new cross-over powersets. In fact some new powersets could be constucted from elements of old ones like an Archery Secondary could have elements of Trick Arrow and Devices/Traps.

I would also like a new travel powerset that is sort of a cross between jumping and flight that uses the Zero-G pack. You'd have, Zero-G Jump, Hover, and Blast-Off a very fast but short-lived flight-mode that takes a minute to recharge.

Anyway, new powersets are number one on the runway for me.

My advice is Archery/Devices or AR/NRG. AR becomes very good support for teams with Build-Up and Boost Range despite mostly Lethal Damage while Archery does well with some traps, trops, and super accuracy from TD.

I'd go AR/Dev only for RP reasons based on your toon. No Aim, no BU, no Boost Range for your Cone damage and lethal damage is gimpy.

AR/Dev remains a casualty of the Enhancement Diversification nerf Issue. TD should give a Damage Bonus to all AR powers.

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Holy Necro-Post Batman!

Quick! Kill the Zombie Thread before it infects the other threads and we all end up among the Undead Horde!!!11!1!

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hmmm, found it on page three, why is it not out of date after 3 or 4 years? oh well.

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Tonight...my OS lit 100% of the time. I was teamed with a Kin controller and must have used OS about 10-15 times in two missions...sometimes in back to back spawns. 100% of the time I lit it with BA.

The Emp/El defender lit it 2 for 2 with Ball Lightning. Way cool...waaaay cool. So much more efficient to let someone's AoE do the trick rather than wasting a Blazing Arrow.

Castle, if you wouldn't mind telling us if you've fixed it, cuz if you haven't, I need to go buy a Lotto ticket NOW.

....and FYI folks...it still knocks down after its been ignited and burns out...it just doesn't last too long after it burns out.

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OSA rarely works on open maps for me. I'll go test it and report back in an edit...... My TA/Archer is on the Hospital Rez Pad waiting for possible fixes to TA even as I write this!

Edit: Nope, not fixed. 5 for 15, could not kill any same level Boss. 3 trips to Hospital.

The Merit Reward System is helping Task Forces and Trials. Players want the Merits and the TF's are fun, so that's the good part.

The Merit Reward System is taking the place of Wentworths and the Black Market. There is rarely any IO Recipe for sale that you want now, so everything is either 10 million+ and perma-sold-out or there are 20-90 for 1000-10,000.

Obviously no one or few players are willing to risk Merits on a Random Roll which in turn caused Wentworths/BM to fail as a source of needed items.

It may be that the Merits needed for Random Rolls is too high, or maybe it's about right and no one wants another Blood Mandate or Call of the Sandman over and over and over....

To fix Wentworths/Black Market balance add a free Random Roll at the end of TF's and Trials to go along with the Merits. Example: Player completes Positron TF, receives 55 Merits and 1 Random Rare Recipe from the TF Pool. That way you'll preserve what Wentworths/Black Market was before Merit System and you'll keep all the positive things that the Merit System is adding to the game.

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Okay, I realize this is a really broad problem, but there's some specific examples I have in mind.

We need the same standards applied everywhere in the game.

I know this looks obvious at first, but when you look at it, it's actually very clear how many PvP problems stem from simple double standards in design. For example:

1) APP v PPP. This is transparently biased. The PPPs are held to a standard (no "best" pool) that appears nowhere else in the game, and are utterly worthless in PvP as a result. In fact, despite the promise of being stronger, they are actually weaker than the APPs in every measurable way. For example:

1A) Defenders and Corrupters both have access to Soul Drain as an epic power. They're virtually indistinguishable- except that the Corrupter version takes twice as long to recharge.

2) General borked villain power values.

2A) Mastermind PFF has four times the recharge of the Controller or Defender versions, or even the Blaster Epic. There used to be a reason for this, but MMs havn't been able to command their pets from inside PFF since i7 went live.

2B) Dominator Powerboost. It appears in a secondary powerset, just like the blaster version, but has twice the recharge, that is to say, the same recharge as the Controller Epic.

2C) BuildUp and Aim. These are totally absurd. The Brute and Stalker BuildUps, despite appearing in primary powersets, give only an 80% damage buff, the same as the Tanker secondary buildup. Meanwhile the Scrapper Primary and Blaster secondary give +100%. Corrupter and Dominator Aim give +42.5% Damage/ +42.5% ToHit, while the Blaster primary gives +62.5 Dmg/ 37.5% ToHit. Secondary Defender Aim gives +50%/+50%.

Honestly, if the devs simply stopped designing the game to penalize villain players, they might actually do better in PvP.

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*thumbs up* don't forget tankers having higher dmg, more hp, and higher resistance cap then brutes. I thought tankers were only suppose to take damage better then brutes, and not deal more damage? they should fix this in pvp.

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I think balance is pretty good. CoX PvP is very difficult and mastering one character build takes a long time. The problem is that not all powersets can PvP and you won't know that until you have invested many hours into trying to make the AT combo work in PvP. Virtually all AT's can help a team in PvP.

Bottom line. I have played on Villian teams where we had the right combo and held off a much larger force of Hero players so badly they couldn't leave there base for 30 minutes and I have done almost the same with a Hero team of the right make up. So it is balanced. It is just very challenging.

I've been pvp-ing online for 9 years in various games. Most of them aimed for better, but not perfect, one on one balances. CoX is more team-balanced. Thats fine, better in some ways, but it means that some days you're a diamond and somedays you're dirt. Thats balance too!

I don't think you will ever get a Rare Recipe out of PvP wins alone.

Multi-specced PvE/PvP character builds was suggested by many players when PvP first started in CoH, fine by me, but nothing doing.

I have never had Placate fail to work. Mileage may vary though.

The major improvement to PvP that needs to be made first is there need to be new maps setup like Sirens Call is for higher levels. One clvl'ed to 40 and one clvl'ed 50. Different terrains, but otherwise exactly like Sirens Call. Maybe different rewards and mobs, but the pure player vs player gameplay offered on SC.

Something is not working.

One day into month 49 now and no 48 month Vet Reward. My account said yesterday was indeed the completion of 48 months. I also see some people have their reward from last week.

Not a big deal, but it would have been nice to have gotten the reward yesterday, on the actual day.

Archery/Trick Arrow Blaster?

Great! Ready for Blasters to get an Arrow Manipulation secondary and to see some other new powersets and archetypes.

Characters getting stuck or shelved/dropped? You must mean levels 35-42 or there abouts. Hard to find a team mostly and solo XP is so low it takes about a week of solid play to gain a level that could have been had in one day on a team with the same effort.

Double XP, my favorite, please let us know as early as possible as many players will want to set aside time to be rooted to their computers.

reply to first post;

I agree the main difficulty for PvP is the disparity between the powersets. I also feel that some disparity is inherent in many sets, but makes for a better team experience for what it brings to the mix, strength to the team at the expense of some weakness that is solved by another teammate. However there is no reason to carry this line of game design to the point where it breaks some other part of the game for the player... like PvP accessability!

I will give one example only. Force Fields as a Primary. It should be great for a Defender in PvP, but is useless for self-defense in PvP because even the lowest To Hit Buffing power cuts through Dispersion Bubble allowing most opponents to hit at 85-95% and of course Force Fields has no Heals and Defenders have low HPs. So a non-rewarding PvP experience is likely and you rarely see Force Field defenders in PvP or really in the PvE game anymore. Not saying you never see them, but it is rare these days even though FF works very well in PvE.

There is a simple solution in my example; Make Defender Dispersion Bubble immune to To Hit Buffs or highly resistant and give Controllers, MMs, Dispersion Bubble Bots, minor To Hit Resistance since it is not their Primary and they do not rely on it as much having other control powers and/or Bodyguard. Dispersion Bubble could still be defeated by Defense Debuffs, but not To Hit Buffs.

My example is really an obvious flaw and offers an easy and balanced fix, but it will most likely never happen unless Cryptic Devs get a little more pro-active about fixing the really bad PvP sets. What could it hurt? Would FF Defenders suddenly take the PvP crown from Stalkers? No. Would FF Defenders suddenly own the PvE game? No, the mobs don't use To Hit Buffs unless they are EB's or AV's and I don't see FF Defenders soloing AV's if Dispersion Bubble became immune to To Hit buffs. All it would really do is make Dispersion Bubble function in PvP like it does now in PvE and that is supposedly a balanced level of Defense for the AT and the team.

Anyway, fixes like this that would not hurt the game, but defeat obvious PvP flaws should be added as soon as they pass Test and they should be added for testing as fast as possible, not 2 years from now.

Stealth is Bugged on the PvP maps like it was in the Rikti War Zone on Test. In that instance it was the XP Debt Protection system interfering with Stealth causing a Suppression effect to occur and that is what my testing is showing me now on the PvP Maps on Live.

Running two Stealth powers, Cloaking Device and Stealth IO/Unbounded Leap, the Mobs on Siren's Call see me at 30 feet. If I turn Cloaking Device off they see me at 60 feet. Also the Stealth Effect is winking on and off like it is being hit by Suppression every 5-10 seconds.

It effects other players too as Stalkers are visible every 10-15 seconds for several seconds to my characters with no +Perception.

It also occurs to me that this might be on purpose, but I don't think it is. It seems like the old Bug from Test. Still many players will be using their Free Respec based on what they think has happened to Stealth and Stealth IO's so maybe an official response to it is in order?

When my character has been Placated in I-9 ..by Spines most recently it has lost the Stalker as the Target, and the only way I can re-target is to click on the Stalker with my Mouse-Pointer. Control-Tab sends me to the next nearest Target and not the Stalker.

I don't know if this is right or wrong for Placate, just providing info.

Defense is not working in PvP, especially for Heroes who face the two-hit Stalker AT's. Basically, any To-Hit buff is more than enough to break through 70% plus Defense 90-95% of the time. I will explain.

My BS/SR Scrapper has Parry, Dodge, Focused Fighting at maximum Defense slotting, so stacking 2 Parry's on a street mob grants about 70% defense to Melee attacks and I can easily keep 3 stacked. In comes a Stalker, hits Build Up, 90-95% successful hitting with AS, SR has no Heals so it's an instant win/defeat. Also means that your game mechanics for Defense don't work. Or it could be a Bug, but you should try this test because you are telling players that Defense is good when it is not.

And I don't need to tell you what this means to players with Force Field Defenders whose defense is much much lower. They might as well not even have a Force Field although at the level of PFF defense, buffed attacks are usually deflected.

Obviously PFF is too high, but perhaps a (Foe) Acc Minus effect needs to be added to the regular Defense mechanic since Accuracy Debuffing works fairly well.

Doctor Brainstorm, you mention that some rare drops will be from Mission/Story Arcs, but as they are currently coded, only the Mission Owner receives Mission Arc rewards. Will this be changed to allow teammates of the Mission Owner to receive Drops and Recipes too?

If you are Flying after a foe and Que any Archery attack while out of range your character stops, draws, and fires a phantom arrow. The attack remains ready and qued, but the full firing animation plays. Add this to a set with very long activation times already like Archery and anything you are chasing is long gone or standing on yer head.

Hehe, me again.

One thing you might be overlooking is that Regeneration only has one Toggle, Integration. If attacks now have 64% chance (we'll say) to knock a random toggle out then that hurts Regeneration harder than any other Armor set since Integration is the mainstay of Regeneration's functioning now. Unless you are saying you want players to run Dull Pain and Instant Healing constantly now, but if you wanted that why did you make IH a Click Power? I thought you were trying to get away from players running IH constantly?

In gameplay it works like this;

Say I am Invulnerable. I will be running Temporary Invulnerability, Unyielding, probably Invincibility, maybe Tough. The aforementioned attack has a 64% chance to drop a random toggle, not a big deal, but could be if certain things were linked to it.

Now say I am Regeneration. The same attack has a 64% chance to knock out Integration? This is much worse and you will soon see players starting battles by clicking IH and Dull Pain, then they will just retreat till those powers recharge. It's bad in PvE as well since almost the very first day that I-8 was out my character was hit by a single hit from a single Smasher Elite= Stunned when Integration was dropped, and dead in 3 seconds. That contradicts the main purpose of the Scrapper AT which is to focus on Bosses and other very dangerous, but single targets. Anyway, you have made Integration too unreliable/prone to toggle-dropping and players will adapt in ways you don't like because they make game-play duller, less reactive.

Domination seems like an "I Win" power now. Dominators in PvP always seem to have Domination available. They can Hold my Invulnerable Tank through 3 Strength of Wills and Unyielding. Then as soon as I emerge from the Hospital my Tank is Held and killed in about 30 seconds over and over again. No other players involved. Just one Dominator. So perhaps they were too weak in I-7, but now Domination is too much and too easy.

I-8's Winter Event;

Next time, instead of giving everyone a Hold/Mez Temp Power, how about a Mez Resistance Temp Power? That would be more balanced. Think about it.

Bane Spider Commando Lieutenants are very much overpowered. They should be Boss rated. They do as much damage as a Boss, but much faster. Activation time seems under one second for most attacks.

Most Arachnos now feature new Mezzing skills. I think they are overpowered as a whole and incur too much debt to be fun. I will follow the mission arcs, but otherwise avoid them. It reminds me of what was done with the CoT. Each minion started getting new Mezz powers with each new issue of CoH till they became probably 2 levels higher than rated in effectiveness. Since I have already done the story-arcs, I usually decline teams and contacts offering CoT missions. I guess Arachnos is next.

It would be okay if the missions paid double XP to offset the XP Debt, but I am not interested in extra risk missions for average XP. You should recognize the gaming value of having high XP rewards attached to high risk missions and the lowering of player interest when no bonus level XP is offered for battling these over-powered factions.

Still, I like high risk missions, but the rewards are higher for those missions in every game I can think of.... except CoX.