RogueDemonhunter

Some of the servers can be very quiet at times (not really hero side but the other two)but your old stomping grounds "Virtue" isn't amoung them. It's quite populated. Main thing is to check into ad find out what the global channels for your sever or servers are and try to get on one or more of them. Global chat is still the coolest mmo feature since sliced bread. Oh wait!... ;p Not actually a mmo feature but you get the idea. My main sever is the much quieter (but still not dead yet thank you very much) Victory. I have characters on Freedum (said with affection), Virtue, Pinnacle, Protector and a coupe on Justice, Triumph and something else... really can't recal. So I know the "feel" for each. Virtue and Freedom you wont be lonely even withought knowing the globals.

Anway, welcome back. AE didnt kill the game, just like ED didn't Kill the game. It has it's faults but it still the most option filled game with things to do... so many now my current main that I brought out of Preatoria can't even get them all done. It's crazy the shere amount of content. Staggering almost.

I took 6 months off for finacial reasons a while back but came back last spring. Haven't given up again yet. Real block for me was finaly figuring out how to market a tidge (not quite a billionare yet but encroaching on it. lol) so I could actualy slot and set bonus up some toons. That's fun stuff.

Still the only one unless DC one also breaks from mmo norm of eventualy covering up your avatar with the armor/costume of the latest update to keep up with the crowd. Unless you picked Stone armor or elec, or a PB and want to run their defensive finals. Honestly needs to be a choice there... but I dont have a stone armor and my elec is designed to be a partial energy/flesh being, the PB is shelved until it's mezzes match or something anything really... just a bone tossed it's way to make 30+ bosses not horrible, anyway so nevermind. (shrugs) Honestly there really aught to be options for those two armor final's at least. They break CoH's unspoken costume promise.


Enough from me... Welcome back .... sucker. Just kiddin!

PS: Haven't made an AE mission myself. I tried but it wouldn't let me make a version of "Rescue 21 Magicians" that had 21 npc's that would attach as fightin' pets (grin) as you rescued them. The AE engine whatever thingy wouldn't accomodate it, so I'll just play other folks creations.... hmmm Rescue 21 fight with you magicians... sigh. It would have been GLORIOUS!

Rescue the Debutantes hero side... unless I'm on a team. Why do escortees still require my stealth toons, whatever their class to shut off a good portion of their defences just to cart their lazy butts to the door? Can't we just hand the rich chic's an emergency transporter? I'm sure their rich daddies made them mediport capable. Hint... hint...

Also throw in some Ring mistress debutante guards... constant Master Illusionist fighting is getting me down.

But... but... I hate doing backgrounds. ;p

All of these are fun options. All you ave to remeber with a soloing defender is.

Can I manage a boss while solo?

Folks will say that this blast or that blast type has better AoE... blah blah blah. On a defender it's not the minions that will be your pitb (pain in the butt). It's hard targets. On a cor it doesn't hurt as much cause of Scourge. On a Defender you want -damage resistance somewhere and - regen if you can. Also being able to Mez the boss is nice. It's absolutely needed if you lack enough of the other two debuffs I just mentioned to have the boss melt. The only excetion to this being fulcrum shift and even so the set that has that is debuffing the heck outa that boss anyway. Pretty sure it applies a healthy... or rather unhealthy dose of -regen.

to that end.

Be sure you have

-damage resist
and or -regen

Single target (multi even nicer) stacking mez of some sort... even if it's self stacking with 2 applications.

Traps is excellent if you think you want a force field theme but since it lacks a mez or mez stacking component I'd say pick your blast carefuly. Mind you any such hole can be fixed when you hit 41 (when the bosses that really need that kind of treatment start showing up).

If you want force field set though and want to solo withought going insane... speedwise Sonic blast. Any other blast and you better hope you picked one that can mez "the boss" while you whittle it slowly to death.

Dark Miasma has the advantage of being very debuffy (has both solo friendly damage increasing debuffs) and a host of soft controls and one hard one, potent enough that it even keeps a fire blasting corruptor safe and Masterminds were romping about not too long ago, at least decently with it with and a mere 3 pistol attacks, with zero pets... before we got Dual Pistols of course. Now I presume those people might feel rather silly.

Rad and cold debuff foes well enough that they kinda melt anyway.... Pick whatever peashooter you want. I would still advise safety of something that can mez a boss... but whatever you like.

Side note... Both Rad and Cold can hurt a target's defence badly enough that even in early levels you can happily craft a bunch of temp powers like the stun nades and extra damage stuff, and vet temp your heart out and be fairly certain those blows will land consistently. Rad can do this to a whole pack though, so it wins in that department.

A dubuffin Defender plays much like a cor that doesn't have scourge but now has a higher base damage (when solo) and better debuff's. Is it enough that that I would make a Dark/Whatever vs a Whatever/Dark? I don't realy know. I have lots of both and the Dark/Fire is the most insane soloer despite lesser heal/debuff... I find it's enough. I think with something like Traps where the differences might be more noticeable...

I am tinkering with a theme Traps/Archer that I made just for the 2X exp weekend (got it to 22 and still did his 3 early banks and 2 real contacts... hehe) and his debuffs are sweet and even with just SO's hes got 20% ish defence to all. His blasts are really stinkeroo though, except fistful and fire arrow thingy. So it's "tactics" running to hit stuff with crafted temps and vet-temps seeing it through. Would a cor have been better and at least scourge with those first two blasts? I wager not by much... Would this Defender version suck leveling 1-22 withought leadership pool and massive.. I mean MASSIVE use of vet temps and crafted temps? An absolutely and resounding yes to that.

Anyway, I've blathered too long.

Enjoy! They can be fun. Just make sure you can handle those late game bosses one way or another... preferably all three. Debuff/Mez/Damage.

I'm hoping you get some answers here too.

I have a Spines/Regen and a Spines/Dark both made for PVE on a theme (The Inside Out Man) and both run like dreams there. I'd say the hat tipping toward Dark armor guy there... but the Regen's no slouch either. Both are meant to be locked into the 20's. level wize for recipe hunting. I'd like to know which would be better in the PvP zone bloody Bay for fightin' with my pals... or whoever happens shows up.

Or should I just make a Rad or Cold/something defender or a something/Rad or cold corruptor?

Hope Ghoulie gets his answers... and I beg for a little advice too please.

Absolutely splendid stuff.

There is a low level Damage Resist set that has 4 pnt Kb protection in it. Forget the name but if you look it up in market it starts at level 10 i think. Maxes in the the 20's or 30 tops. Last time I checked they were under 10 mil but they are worth that much at least by principal alone. I glady pay out that or more to folks being generous enough to actualy list one in the genral market. When I tried to find it in merit rewards I couldn't. Perhaps a second pair of eyes can find it, but I'm pretty sure it's oddly absent form the merit recipe selection options.

Little distressing and annoying since the Def set Karma one is selectable.

Appart from those two your stuck going deep into leaping pool for acrobatics as we did for fire dark and ninja beore the invention system. You could also take hover but will still get "flipped" in mid air. You want Combat Jumping for immob protection anyway I think....

There is a unrelated to karma and (whatitsname lowbie damage resist set) set bonus offered for having 4 of something. Dang it. My memeory is terrible. I'll re-edit this post if I can find the name... unless I'm beaten to it. Which is likely. It's probably a melee set....

Good luck. Modern DA is fun.

EDIT: The Resist set with the 4 pnt KB protection is called Steadfast Protection.

***A special note for those making the suggestion, "Just be more creative with your names."

Hellooo! (using a sutably silly voice) Rest assured I HAVE NO BLOODY PROBLEM making up character names. Been here a while... Haven't stopped making alts... to the point I have only 3 50's and a large number twixt 1-49. I am quite capable of making odd names, varriations on names, hyphenating normal names or just plain slightly misspelling them. Haven't ressorted to numbers yet unless you count a wee robotic toon called "Defense Unit 12"... So please stop with that argument. Not all those suggesting a more agressive stance vs names held on dead or mostly dead accounts have trouble making names, hyphening names, splitting names, slightly miss-spelling names or just plain being goofy with names. Some folks do and those of us that see fit to agree with them that it is indeed sad that they can't use names claimed and held by such accounts should not be villified and simply told off to go do what we've been doing for the last 1-7 years allready. Thank you very much.

My latest toon in fact to illustrate creativity and craziness in naming is a Rad blasting/Dark miasma "poofin" skunkish looking Corruptor named "Pepe' Le PewPewPew". Naming not a problem for me... okies?! I even can let pride go and just be silly.

Get it? Got it? Good....

(That's a winking grin emoticom by the way... remember the tone of the above is not overtly snarky but meant to be 'heard' as a humorous, "Slightly snarkey" tone.)

I merely replied to the OP with a sensible and fair solution to this long standing problem... issue... slight annoyance (depending on creativity and willingess to "Make do").

Baring rarities like that young fellow who hadn't played for 3 years but dearly loved his toon.... Most of thse names could be set free. There could always be a special petiton for such things. Something very resonable.

I personaly know 5 friends in victoria here alone that have played... theyre done for sure. They are not going to re-sub (pay cash) just to delete characters. Those names one Vic, Freedom and Virtue are Taken. TAKEN and they don't need to be. Mind you 3 of them at least are 50's and the CoH active players would be sheet outa luck with those even if a resoanble name unlocking proceedure existed. A draconian one would free them all up... the current one... is a foolishly low setting of level 6 or 14 tops accomplishes almost nothing for us. 14... as I've said before you can sneeze and get a toon to 14 these days. That's too darn low to leave all those names... correction. The Good the Bad and the Silly, in limbo on accounts that never get touched again, or don't after a number of years.

Anyway, my 2 cents.

Perhaps a grandfather clause for such names? A warning when you take them that a pre-existing but currently innactive account has a character on this server with that name and if they return your outa luck.

"This name is in use but on an innactive account. It will be given to you, and the innactive account will earn a free rename token. All this is done with the understanding that should that account reactivate and the name be petitioned by the owner of the elder character, you may loose it and gain a rename token of your own. With this in mind, do you still wish to enter game/tutorial with the current name selection? Yes? No?

I think that would be plenty fair. Perhaps too hard to set up? (shrug) I dunno! I went to art college not MIT.

Whatever the case. The argument I make isn't that all the "GOOD" names are taken needlessly. My beef is that that "ANY" name is taken, and kept locked out needlessly.

I'm merely suggesting that the current policy is far too generous to the absentees while needlesly penalizing active players.

Ok, forgive this old gal for rambling. Hope I haven't offended anyone.... much.

Cheers!

Heather aka @Roguedemonhunter

Well I missed this. Missread it totally. Thought it was the 30th. However, I read now... and clearly that date is for voting. My bad.

Whoops!

Anyway, If I'm allowed to vote...

1) Henri
2) Christopher Robin
3) Techbot Alpha