Scientist

Council room of doom (kind of a tall doorway slot, big catwalked room behind, always multiple spawns, you see it a lot on Striga).

my MM: "Hmm, several bosses, big spawn, time to pull."

other MM: "Sounds good."

my MM: I start getting into position to put some traps down and pull with a nice ranged robot attack. I watch as the other MM sends his zombies through the slot. . .

[after near TPK]
my MM: "Um, why did you send the zombies in when we were pulling?"

other MM: "Thats how zombies pull."

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In most cases I've been on teams that can handle a full spawn quite nicely, but some setups have close multiple spawns, and we can't manage that. In that case taunt pulling, debuff pulling or even "body pulling" (scrapper or tanker runs in, smacks someone, and runs out) can work fine, as can targeting lts or bosses. Heck, the situation I just described above could have worked fine IF he'd waited till the traps were in place, sent only 1 zombie in, and pulled it back after it made its appearance to lure the baddies.

Many of the principals above such as using LOS still hold even for a spawn pull, and its vitally important to decide *what kind of pull* is going to take place. Who does the pulling may very likely switch off depending on whether its single mob or spawn pulling. Spawn pulling may also need discussion of aggro transfer at the right moment.

Example; my rad/rad defender and a Fire blaster fighting foes with mezzes. I debuff pull the spawn, zip around a corner, he Fireballs them as they near the corner to grab aggro. They can't hit him more than I can easily heal because of the debuffs, and it doesn't matter if he gets mezzed, he'll just hang out and recover some End, if I get mezzed the debuffs turn off and we die. This required more coordination then when I did it with a tank, but was still quite viable.

The same thing applies if your sniping blaster pulls, a melee may need to be ready to grab aggro before the baddie rounds the corner to keep the blaster from face planting, so if you are the main melee in a group, stand where you can see around the corner with the camera, even though you aren't visible.

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However, probably the EASIEST way, though, are by getting the Shivans in Bloody Bay. You can get them in relatively little time and risk (which is NOT necessarily true in Warburg). This reminds me: you CAN take your team to BB and get the Shivans even while in a TF. Nice to know.

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Really? That seems odd, as you have to take the "mission" to collect the meteor fragments, and normally you can't take missions on a tf.

I was also under the impression that the Shivans were capped at BB level, do they scale up in level with you past that? That at least gives some options for groups that don't have a rad/rad.

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For example, not everyone cares about having Shadow Cloak before level 15 - I took it early so I'd always have stealth and recall for doing Cavern of Transcendence Trials.

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I took it at 16 for the same reason, and was really annoyed that I autoexemped down to 15 for Positron. :-P

One note on your comment to take Stealth, I believe that its mutually incompatible with Shadow Cloak, i.e. you turn one on and the other turns off. So if you want full invisibility, Superspeed is a great choice, and Hasten carries over to other forms, nice when you are about to go into a tough fight.

Though beware, Shadow Shard Crystals (I think the name is something like that?) see through inviso and will start spawning their Unbound Nictus when you get near.

A groups of a few friends and I had picked up a tanker and a scrapper to do the Eden trial, and in we go.

Being a rad defender, I throw out the debuffs, and immediately see the scrapper and tanker change targets from the anchor to other foes, leaving the anchor till last. I was taken aback by this extraordinary behavior, and asked if they played a lot with rad defenders. Sure enough, the two of them played together regularly and in one of their alt sets one of them was a rad defender. I knew it!

Made it through the trial with only our suicidal blaster friend going down a few times, which is pretty much par for the course for him (myself and the Emp keep our rezes through various respecs for a reason) and one scrapper dropping once against the Titan. Everyone knew what to do, the tank went in, footstomped as he was going yellow, my debuffs turned on, and the Emp healed him, and we'd just destroy the DEs.

Then they asked us to Coalition with their, also small, sg, so I had to figure out how to set up coalition chat. . .

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Not really. Here are the parameters you can use with target_custom_next:
enemy - Hostile enemies
friend - Friendlies (including pets)
defeated - 0 HP targets
alive - Living targets
mypet - Inlcude only your pets
notmypet - Exclude your pets
base - Include only passive base items
notbase - Exlude passive base items
teammate - Include only teammates
notteammate - Exclude teammates

I think what you're looking for is "notenemy", or something like that.

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Can you combine these, for example using both "friend" and "notmypet" if you wanted to target a fellow MMs pets for buffing, say?

Trying to think of a way to combine these to get the effect someone else asked about in another thread, targeting an enemy PC in PvP without having to toggle through various NPCs in the way. . . If "enemy" refers to both, though, it may not be possible to distinguish.

Is there any way to get this into a text format, or at least something that I can print and refer to easily? I'm usually referring to these while I'm in the game, and toggling out to the web causes graphics problems, so I use a lot of printouts.

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As long as the Stomie was on the ground you could joust and stun them with Super Speed. The latest nerf has just made it easier.

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Hmm, had a friend with a MA scrapper try that in the arena for 5 minutes or so (prior to the recent changes); he only got close enough to trigger a queued up attack a few times, and all but one whiffed because of the to hit debuff. If one of the successful jousts had happened to be on an attack where his buildup was going, maybe it would have hit, but thats still a long shot.

Is your superspeed slotted up or something?

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And do any of these give you anything new to do? Shadow Shard may be visually appealing, but all you do is run around and hit things. Auto-exemping, PvP, old TF's - all ways to hit things. Bases: how many bases can you build, especially at these prices? Skills system - if it's essentially crafting, then it's the same old grind - hitting a "crafting skill" button instead of a "punch" button.

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The only way I know of to *really* get away from these kinds of things, to have puzzles solved by cleverness, to have signature foes, to have complex political machinations is. . . to have a live rpg. Which is why my CoH friends and I still get together for them.

Of course, the down side to a live game is spending 2-3 hours resolving a single fight, because now you have to look up each rule for how that debuff works in conjunction with the knockback and the blast, and crunch the numbers. . .

More basically, you need a much higher ratio of "people designing/running the game" to players then any MMO can support. Sure, maybe you could recruit "guest writers" who would make up new stories for missions for little or no pay, but thats window dressing. To actually have different mission success criteria takes a *lot* of work by programmers. And they seem to be working on it as fast as they can; look at the addition of ambushes inside missions, for example, that gave them a lot more dynamic feel. Mayhem missions coming up are another step in that direction. Some day we will surely reach the goal of being able to pull that lamp post out of the ground and hit Jurrasik with it.

Curious about just how hard it was to beat a storm, I dueled a MA/regen scrapper friend (lvl 24) in the arena with my Storm/dark defender (lvl 16). He was dubious about being repelled given that he had knockback resistance; I showed him!

It was a complete stalemate. His travel power is superspeed, no fly or superjumping; even when he tried dropping on me from a balcony the hurricane repelled him away. OTOH, I couldn't do enough damage to him to overcome his regeneration, even with my snipe and Dark Blast 4-slotted for damage (DOs), Hasten going and Freezing Rain dropping on him (which didn't knock him down of course).

After some experimentation, he found that when he charged in with superspeed, he could get close enough to swing at me about 50% of the time. He missed all 3-4 times he tried this, but he only has 1 SO in Accuracy and hasn't taken the mezzing MA attack in any case. His Brawl has no accuracies (we are poor on this server, and its not exactly high priority for a PvE scrapper). If he was a more PvP build with 2 Accuracies and had managed to nail me with a mezz, he would then able to finish me off in ~3 more attacks (tried this by turning hurricane off) generally before I could turn Hurricane on again.

For comparison, I'd tried my rad/rad defender some months back against a very similar scrapper of his, and it was also a draw; he whiffed enough with Rad Infection going that I could heal the remaining damage, but I couldn't out damage his regen.

So overall, I'd say it seems fair. Both scrappers stalemated against both defenders, but with more PvP builds I suspect the scrappers would beat them, since the defenders don't have a lot of options to go *more* PvP at those levels, while the scrappers can add more mezzing attacks and accuracy.

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(...and if only someone would tell me how to use "thought" emotes...)

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Friend finally told me how to do this, just type /e in the chat window followed by whatever you want the thought bubble to say.

Got a lot of use out of this in Pocket D villian/hero missions, nice way to make snarky heroic/villianous comments while seeming to be a perfect teammate, good rp opportunities there.

On another subject, when I first tried participating in a Hamidon raid, I kept dc'ing or locking up, even with graphics settings turned way down. I was afraid I'd have to wait till I got a better computer/video card. Then I tried it in Safe Mode (check box when you are logging in); the graphics were pretty crude, but it was doable! A friend who was unable to do the Arachnos Lab missions previously due to lag loved it too.

Use /window_scale tray 0.8 to reduce the size of the power/insp window, though, or it will be way too big.

Very nice guide, TMS, especially since it includes tactics, which are one of the hardest parts for a new storm player to get. I was originally not too impressed with my storm/dark defender compared to my rad/rad, but after playing the latter to 50 and going back to my storm I was much more successful because I'd learned how to use Line oF Sight and soft controls effectively, and that made the difference.

I went the hasten/superspeed (+ eventually Teleport, planned just in time for Terra Volta) travel powers route. Since, like Fly, superspeed is not suppressed by just using Hurricane, its really handy for running around and "touch debuffing" as TMS describes. Its a great in mission travel power for most layouts (we hates Oranbega, we do). Unlike during my 50 levels as a rad/rad defender, I can actually *force a -acc debuff on those stupid ranged attackers!* It will also give me full inviso when I pick up Steamy Mist, which with the recall friend/teleport will be nice for missions where I want to get myself or the team past baddies to reach an objective. Much of my play time is in short segments (~1 hour) so we can't always fight to objectives.

Just to expand on the /Dark secondary, which I also have, the Tentacles is very nice for those times when you want to debuff with hurricane but *don't* particularly want to do pushback/knockback, such as fighting on catwalks, or when you have tanks or AoE users on the team who need everyone clumped up. Its even useful for yourself if you want to keep everyone in the Snowstorm.

A couple of notes on protecting yourself from mezzing, since this is usually a major worry of defenders. Rad/* defence, while extremely powerful, shuts off almost instantly if you are mezzed (Choking Cloud and Lingering Radiation may buy you a few seconds), because its all toggles. Storm/dark has a few more options. The Tentacles is a click, and the -Acc debuff on it gives it some lasting "defense". Using Freezing Rain in most fights is also good for this, while foes are running out of it and bouncing, they aren't shooting at you, giving you a bit of recovery time. And the Hurricane debuff also persists for a bit, in addition to the fact that you can force it on foes by swooping/superspeeding over to them. So overall I think Storm (and especially Storm/Dark) has a definite edge there, providing its played very actively. You can't just stand there like a scrapper or tanker and not get mezzed, you'll have to work at it. The Diso Queen build TMS mentions, of course, has even more "mezz defense" since it can neuter things like sappers and voids very fast.

Does anyone happen to know what the actual defense and resistance values are for Ice Shield (unslotted)?

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One thing I always wanted to see in an AV mission are two AV's in the same room not fighting each other but working together to fight your team. I think the added difficulty would be very nice to help spice up some AV battles. Most of the time they are over really fast with the right team on your side.

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Heh, I was in a mission where this happened; I don't remember the story arc, but it was one of the 45-50 ones with (IIRC) Neuron and somebody else. Our usual team of tanker/rad defender (me)/Emp defender/sked controller/warshade had been blowing through most of the AVs we'd encountered so far, so charged in on this one in a large room. Fighting, fighting, then people start going red. Surprise, another AV jumped in from the side, with his entourage in tow! We actually had a couple of people drop in that one and had to combat rez them, first time in awhile for that team, it was quite exciting.

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Hey Hey!
I think one other developer posted once in here ...a long time ago. Statesman ya?

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Yes, it was actually in response to a post where I'd asked about how a toggle debuff (e.g. RI, EF) works on a mob that explodes when it died. I was wondering if it was better to hang the debuff on the Fake Nem or the Warhulk in those common "2 bosses in the group" spawns in PI.

Statesman (IIRC) responded that, basically, neither would protect you since the game does something like;
1. declare warhulk defeated
2. apply explosion due to warhulk defeat
3. check for effects that might reduce damage, but since toggle debuffs don't affect "defeated" foes, RI/EF has no effect.

Useful to know for us squishy melee fighting types, I make sure I back off now.

This does get me wondering what happens in a PvP encounter with Fallout involved, is the explosion from that un-debuffable? Hmm, now theres an obscure thing to test, if anyone is feeling ambitious. . .

I've taken Death Shroud at early levels on my two /DA scrappers, and it is a big help. I did a simple test to decide; on Test, I took it at about 8th level (no slots in it), turned it on, and jumped between 3 white Skulls and stood there, running unslotted (one TO End reduction) Dark Embrace. Two dropped and one ran, I was down to about 20% hit points. If it can do that completely unslotted, that tells me it will be doing a good job of whittling down more typical yellow/orange foes while I'm busy once slotted.

I do have to be a bit careful on teams, where there are more foes around. I definitely need to have some support to survive the aggro it generates in large spawns. But if I'm on a team, I expect that the tanker will hold some, the defender will debuff some, the blaster will take some aggro off me, etc.

Recommended!

I'd also strongly suggest taking Divine Avalanche to get some melee defense (base 20%), its the best single reason to combine Katana with DA I think.

I took it at lvl 8, and immediately was able to fight about +1 higher con mobs just because of that, even before slotting it heavily, and come out with more hit points (less down time) so it accelerated my whole pace from that point on. I expect it to be even more effective once it has more slots and SOs. See the Divine Avalanche Scrapper Guide for more details on this.

Whats nice is even at higher levels you will still get lots of use out of it, and can cycle it in and out of attack strings based on how tough the foes are and whether you need single or double stacking and such. Smack a minion next to a boss, he's easier to hit, and get the defense against the boss! What could be cooler?

It strikes me that a way of (1) making the blaster melee sets more interesting and (2) rewarding the extra risk taken by a blaster in melee is by adding something like the Katana Divine Avalanche parry into each blaster melee pool at relatively low level (with the possible exception of Devices, since it gets other goodies).

For those not familiar with it, its a fairly low damage (~2.2x Brawl IIRC?) but decent and reasonably quick attack that generates about 10 seconds of +20% melee only defense. If you are willing to use it for every other attack and use Hasten, you have somewhat lower dps but can stack it.

This allows you to build a much more survivable "blapper" if you like that, but doesn't give exceptional advantage to a blaster staying at range.

Setting up a Katana/DA scrapper, and wasn't planning to take Hasten till the 30s, because there is just too much other interesting stuff in Dark Armor and it would be hard to spare the slots as well. This Divine Avalanche tactic seems very interesting, though, its like having a controller put a melee only force field on you in a way (about the same +Def) even if you don't double stack it.

How well do these attack chains work with, say, 1 Recharge DO/SO in Divine Avalanche but no Hasten? What percentage of the time can you double stack, and does it mean feeding other attacks into the chain? Is it worth going 2 recharge and only 2 Accuracy Debuffs, is there better *net* Defense?

I'm wondering about the "+down" and "-down" prefixes on a lot of these binds; I don't see them listed in the master keybind list, I assume it refers to "while this key is pressed down/released do X", but where are these documented, and which is which?

Well, thats a good news/bad news result, I guess.

Sounds like it doesn't really matter which mob you pick, then, either way the damage is not decreased. So I don't have to worry about choosing the right anchor, just running awaaaay! :-)

Right, I've already read and personally observed that things like the Embalmed are prevented from exploding when either RI or EF is around them, even when they're not the anchor. I was wondering about the explody-on-death ones.

Rad/rad defender here, I'm getting to a point where I'm running into more exploding-when-they-die mobs (sky skiffs, some mages, etc.). I'm wondering if the damage from the explosion is reduced by Enervating Field, or if its not, due to the fact that the mob is already defeated "as its happening".

This obviously has an impact on who I want to anchor my debuffs on.

Has anyone checked this for sure?