Rigel_Kent

The presence of LTs is important to one of my story arcs. I use both of the following tricks:

1) BOSS DETAIL: I add a Boss detail, selecting a custom LT as the "boss." Boss details let custom critters of any rank be selected. Set multiples in the settings if needed. If set as an optional objective, easy spawn size, and no special animations or dialog, players won't really tell the difference between your forced LT spawn and a randomly generated one.

2) GROUP W/O MINIONS: I make a version of the custom group without minions, using it in details where I can't force a "boss" of my choosing. Definitely keep it to Easy spawn size. You can swap a capital I with a lowercase l to camouflage the minion-less group, making it appear to be the same as the regular group.

Defender Radiation Infection will wipe out targets' to-hit, while Tenebrous Tentacles should keep the targets from escaping. So once you've got those two set up, you might concentrate on damage boosting powers: AM, EF, and blasts of course.

Life Drain is of questionable use since Radiant Aura already gives you a top notch self heal.

With the cone heaviness of /Dark I find that trying to stay in PBAoE range a little bit clumsy. I'd skip Choking Cloud for that reason, but I wouldn't call it a mistake to take it anyway.

Fistful will be a bit more user friendly with a sixth slot containing a common range IO or centriole. You can swipe the slot from Health maybe.

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You just keep going on like you have. You warn the player of their fault and leave them to continue playing their copyright infringing character.

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Only a federal court has the authority to determine whether a character is a copyright infringement under federal law.

The standard in this game, since GMs and players aren't lawyers and don't know jack about intellectual property law (but think they do), is copyright no-nos. Is a name too similar to something whose publisher might sue? Is a costume too similar to something whose publisher might sue? Then it's a copyright no-no.

For more information on the difference between copyright infringement and copyright no-nos, see Marvel vs NCSoft, where NCSoft's pleadings outline several meritorious defenses to the charges of copyright infringement, even when a few of the exhibits show definite copyright no-nos (fairly accurate Wolverines, Hulks, etc.)

Well, if you include AT damage modifiers, you also have to include all the resistance debuffs and damage buffs defenders get.

Better to just keep it simple and go by straight damage scales as an estimate, I'd say. It's hard enough accounting for the presence or lack of Aim.

I like your idea too! Bodyguard does seem rather unheroic now that you bring it up.

Re: Heroic necromancy: Summoning ghosts and spirits are more themely for heroes than skeletons and zombies.

If redemption tweaks an AT's powers, I'd like to see redeemed MM pets get a lot more survivability, but exact a heavy price when lost. Very long recharges, very high endurance costs might do it. Dropping the lowest tier of pets altogether in favor of a big buff/debuff power for the remaining pets might do it.

Also, the suicide bomb power has as much a chance of surviving unmodified going blueside as the touchy-feely heal-centric (as the devs play the set) Empathy did going redside.

Whoever made it up, presenting a "code of conduct reminder" for something that isn't in the code of conduct is telling. It's industry-wide: nobody takes EULAs seriously, producers or consumers.

If you really like storm but really hate knockback, Cold seems like it should be at the top of your list.

As for secondaries, well, the best sets all have knockbacks or scatter in them. /Elec and /Rad are the only knockless scatterless options. So I'd urge you to accept at least a little knockback from your secondary.

Controlled cone knockback like (Dark) Torrent and (Sonic) Shockwave is handy. Aimed correctly, they're an excellent placement tool, with a bonus of more debuff from Torrent or decent AoE damage from Shockwave. With /Ice, pair Ice Storm with a slow or immobilize to eliminate scatter, and Freeze Ray and Bitter Freeze Ray grant temporary immunity to knockbacks as well. Heck, even Psi skipping TK Blast or Archery skipping Explosive Arrow are still solid sets -- I skipped TK Blast on a Dark/Psi for concept reasons and did just fine spamming WD all day.

The medium isn't very conducive to multi arc storylines. It's not like you can put out six Harry Potter books and reasonably expect people to read the seventh. AE runners have more than just time limitations. They might have trouble keeping a team together, they might outlevel the arc, they might be slow soloers and run out of patience, they might at any point be unable to complete a mission and unwilling to continue.

So, if you accept that many people won't complete the multiarc, and still want to do it, that's fine. There are advantages to multiarcs -- custom critter space economizing, for instance. Just, for gosh sakes, remember than multiarcing is not a free pass to make them all five-mission arcs. Unless you're shooting for Dev's Choice, ten loading screens is almost always too many. Try a little harder to keep the same amount of story but with fewer loading screens.

Doh. I used this one on a Rescue Captive as a fake "Aid Self" to heal himself and run away after you rescue him.

Does the dev in charge of this decision realize that there will always be a preferred long animation for farming unless the number of animations is reduced to 1? Better to kick it over to the animation guys, have them make all these animations interruptible, and not have to deal with the issue on the scripting side ever again.

Wasn't Bridger one of the old EU CoH forum mods?

"Parodies and derivative works are not allowed."

Further proof nobody reads the EULA: Niviene sort of made the above up. The word "parody" does not appear in either the EULA or the code of conduct. Closest is a vague ban on uploading or transmitting other people's copyrighted materials without permission. (Bonus trivia: the EULA grants permission to make non-profit derivative works of CoH/V game content, so parodies of CoH/V itself are OK!)

Anyway, the literary definition of "parody" is much broader than the legalese definition. Yours is a literary parody, humor by imitation -- imitation of a genre (unscripted television), not a single work, still counts under the broad literary definition. Niviene mentions "parodies" in a more legalese sense. I read "no parodies or derivative works" as meaning "no derivative works, even obvious fair use such as derivative works that are parodies." That legalese definition seems narrowly concerned only with copyright no-nos.

So, if yours is a parody under the broad literary definition (humor by imitation), that alone isn't enough to get in trouble. (Otherwise Circuit Boy's "world's worst pick up group" LGTF parody arc would be toast!) Just as long as it's not something a legally untrained GM might think is a copyright no-no. To avoid copyright no-nos, changing names, costumes, etc., is a good start. (Avoiding copyright infringement is a different task entirely, but no need to go down that road.)

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How do you compliment a well played Trick Arrow Defender?

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I just try to keep up.

Psi blast is definitely not lacking in the uniqueness of concept department. At least not until dominators can get redeemed, anyway.

But, as with most concept builds, you end up playing the "okay how can I make this concept not suck" game. IIRC my level 2* psi/mm manages by having two primaries (one of which is Aim) and many many secondaries.

I think Wormhole should be high knockup instead of high knockback. I think I used that trick a few times in Portal....

Someone's gotta say it.

Probably the biggest reason Cold defenders are underplayed is because there's no heal in the set. Sad but true.

Does it make the few that do exist even more valuable, though? I think so.

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Psi/ really needs to be buffed back to what it should have been in the first place (aka, the defender version without the nerf it got on the way).

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As a thought exercise, I thought about what Psi for blasters would look like if Castle kept the power lineup, including Psi Dart and Aim and dropping Psychic Scream and Subdue, but copied the numbers from the defender versions.

Result: Still crummy at AoE, still crummy at utility, still crummy damage typing, still a great ST DPS set about as good as Ice in that department. What changes is it gets a bit more range, gets a bit better at stacking ST recharge debuffs, but most importantly, it concentrates its ST DPS strength in two badass powers, allowing Mental Blast to be more easily skipped to pick up some other power. Sounds like a modest and reasonable buff to me. Oh, sure, PvPers will invade this board and wail and gnash their teeth, but Castle's changes tying PvP damage to animation time and giving all defense sets psi protection should be sufficient.


Psionic Dart: 1->0.84 psi / 80->100' / 1s cast / 4->3s recharge / 5.2->4.37 end (from new dom version currently on test)
Mental Blast: 1.64->1 psi / 80->100' / 1.67s cast / 8->4s recharge / 8.528->5.2 end
Telekinetic Blast: 1 smash + 0.96->0.64 psi / 80->100' / 1s cast / 10->8s recharge / 10.192->8.528 end
Psychic Focus: same
Will Domination: 1.24->1.96 psi / 80->100' / 1.1s cast / 20->14s recharge / 10.192 end
Psionic Lance: same except 150->175'
Psionic Tornado: same except 80->100'
Scramble Thoughts: same except 80->100'
Psychic Wail: same

For some reason, the ideas "wormhole knockup not knockback" and "now you're thinking with portals" simultaneously entered my mind. If we're folding space with gravity, who says we can't fold it toward a more convenient direction?

Also, making it knockup would retain lulz factor when slotted for knock and used around Atlas Park.

This is getting a little ahead of the game, but one potential problem I'm anticipating with defenders has to do with concepts, going rogue, and power proliferation.

Specifically, I'm finding myself sitting down with a ranged blast + buff/debuff concept, then asking myself: why should this character be a defender rather than a redeemed corruptor? I like "crits to finish off hurt enemies" on most of my characters -- it's a nice kind of extra that makes sense with any concept, even heroic ones. I like "end discounts when I suck" on hardly any of my characters -- my defender/corruptor characters just aren't nursy-wursy enough (if they were, they'd be controllers or masterminds). APP/PPP stuff will play a small role, marginally stronger buff/debuffs will play a tiny role, but yeah, direct concept competition between defender and corruptor is the thing I'm worried about for the defender AT.

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-Needed in a team but doesn't always need a team
-Good damage output (doesn't have to be insane, just not 5 mins for every enemy)
-Fun from early levels (don't wanna wait till 30 to have fun)
-Fast at leveling

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I'm thinking offender. You get all of the above, plus the added bonus of never having trouble finding a team when you want one.

Some combination of Cold/Dark/Radiation/Storm primary, plus Archery/Energy/Psi/Sonic secondary. There are other offender options, of course, but these are the sets that get rolling before level 20, with big single target attacks for faster soloing.

Focus on powers that deal damage, boost your damage or speed, or heal yourself, since those are the ones you'll use soloing, and are also usually the fun ones. With the possible additions of Darkest Night/Fearsome Stare (just 1 or the other will do for low levels), Hurricane, and Radiation Infection, if you like the occasional ego trip of tanking for an 8-man team with a "squishy" archetype by abusing your overpowered to-hit debuff.

Well, I'd tell the OP to reroll a /Psi defender, but there aren't any /Psi defender guides I know of either. And that version of the set rocks.

Psi blast for blasters is pretty vanilla. I'd focus on finding a guide for your secondary (/Eng is fine) and pretty much follow an Ice primary guide for the primary, equating powers like Psi Dart = Ice Bolt, MB = Ice Blast, TK Blast = BIB, Psychic Focus = Aim, Will Dom = BFR, snipe = snipe (no equivalent in Ice), Psi Tornado = Frost Breath (but crappier), Scramble = Freeze Ray (but much crappier), nuke = nuke. If you find yourself at some level along the way with only 3 primary powers and 6 secondary ones, that's fine, really.

Welcome!

Is this your first RPG? Your first MMORPG? What kind of games have you played before? One of the best ways to explain strategy in this game is to compare it to other RPGs. Some things are the same, some things are very different.

The one thing I'd change about gravity control would be... well, compare ice control's secondary effects to gravity control's.

Block of Ice: -0.3 move speed, -0.3 recharge speed (-37.5% for controllers, -30% for dominators)
Gravity Distortion: -0.5 move speed (-62.5% for controllers, -50% for dominators)

So the first baby step I'd make would be secondary debuff parity. I think gravity's move speed debuffs should be at least a 1:1 exchange from ice's move+recharge speed debuffs. So grav powers should be a minimum of -0.6 move speed, which would be -75% for controllers and -60% for dominators.

And of course, as a baby step, I doubt it precludes any of the other good ideas for improvement offered in this thread.

Assassin Strikes almost got a half a boss. Got as far as test IIRC before Castle flinched from NPCs who cheat using damage resistances.