Seldom

Classical and oldies.

Yeah, I'm no fun. But soaring orchestal tunes are way better than many might think when accompanying superhero/villain fights, flights, and so on. And oldies (50's-60's music) tend to be fun, a great mix with a fun game.

Though I've been known to throw on some cheesy love songs as my executioner brute destroy mobs, just because somebody singing about their darling whilst he does a built up energy transfer to the face is hilarious in my book.

Also note that stalkers get a buff to their critical chance when within 30' of team members, each additional member boosting your chance by 3%. As such, an melee-heavy teams a 'scrapping' stalker adds more damage than a scrapper. So if your team is grouped up, get in shoulder to shoulder and you should help with damage contributed.

It would be so awesome if they did they allowed all weapons as a 'back' option, with a 'reverse' combat aura trick- they'd have your weapon on your back, but when you go into combat mode (drawing your weapon) it disappears.

Similar approach for scabbards/holsters, a handle/grip shows in them until you draw your weapon.

I've always liked the idea of a support/melee character. The idea I thought of was this: take support sets, remove one or two powers to replace with the most basic self defense. Then make most all abilities be PbAoE or close range.

For instance, radiation emission as 'radiation aura:'

1. Energized Resolve:
auto +4 mez protection, +mez resistance, +5% resistance to all
2. Radiant aura: heal (as seen in radiation emission)
3. Infective Aura: radiation infection, anchored on self)
4. Nuclear Reinforcement:
toggle, +20% resistance to energy, +15% resistance to all else but psychic
5. Accelerate metabolism
6. Enervation Aura: enervating field, anchored on self.
7. Lingering Radiation: same as in radiant emission, but is a PbAoE not targeted AoE.
8. Choking Cloud. Same.
9. Nuclear fallout: Auto/PbAoE blast power automatically triggers fallout on your location when you are defeated. Larger radius.

Other powers that might need tweaking: single target shields become weaker, shorter-lived PbAoE cast buffs for all allies in range. These do not apply to the caster. Ranged single target debuffs become melee single target debuffs. Cones become PbAoE. Knockback powers become knockdown/knock up. For instance, hurricane could becomes "typhoon", a PbAoE KU/debuff. Basically, you get a character with lowered/more limited support but added survivability. This is still a very powerful setup, so I'd suggest giving even lower stats, with an inherent that can be used to raise them.

Redside AT: Predator
Melee/debuff aura (.75% melee mod/.65 debuff mod/.75% armor mod)
HP: blaster values
Inherent: bloodlust (+ damage/endurance for foes defeated)

Suggested primaries: (melee)
axe, mace, broadsword, katana, energy, ice, superstrength, kinetic combat, dual blades, dark, martial arts, electric, fire, spines

Suggested secondaries: (debuff/armor) kinetic aura, radiation aura, dark aura, sonic aura, Frigid Aura, Fiery Aura, poisonous presence, storm aura

Blueside AT: Guardian
Buff/debuff aura (.75% buff/debuff mod/ .75% melee mod/.75% armor mod)
Hp: scrapper values
Inherent: steadfast (+res for enemies in melee range)

Suggested primaries: (debuff/armor) kinetic aura, radiation aura, dark aura, sonic aura, Frigid Aura, Fiery Aura, Force shields, storm aura

Suggested secondaries: (melee)
axe, mace, broadsword, katana, energy, ice, superstrength, kinetic combat, dual blades, dark, martial arts, electric, fire, spines

In general, it greatly increases the effects of a click power if that power is activated while power boost is up. Here is a link that shows the exact rundown of what it boosts; (It boosts many effects.)

http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/power...lt.Power_Boost

That's in /earth, it's the same power in all assault sets.

Like any game, this one has its strengths and weaknesses.

The Strengths:

Extremely varied powers: not only will different archetypes play completely differently, different power sets within each powers et will be a totally different play experience. To go even further, even the interaction between your primary and secondary can make the game play differently. A character with fire blast will play veeerry differently than one that uses an assault rifle, or sonic attacks.

Excellent multi-player co-op play: you won't really need any particular player on your team, but just about any new player can compliment the team in some way. Not only that, but different types of team mates change the dynamic while staying pretty darned good. (Just note: this works best when all members are comfortable/knowledgeable of what their characters are capable of.)

Fun explosions: You can make characters that are capable of crazy feats of madness, blowing up stuff, controlling it, punching it, you name it.

Excellent customization: You can make a unique, memorable character to suit a huge many concepts, thanks to the excellent character creator and power customization.

Soloability: many characters can easily solo from level one to level 50, should teaming be less your thing, or less opportune.

The weaknesses:

Old engine: this game was made a while back, so it has pretty distinct limitations. Lots of new additions, but it definitely has its quirks. Also, the game can be pretty demanding on CPU hardware.

Kill stuff: most of the game is about pounding on stuff. This is very much a combat, stat-based game.

Cliques: many players have been in the game awhile, with established social groups. As such, often times they do not associate much outside of these groups. As a newcomer, meeting people can be a trick as they are often in instanced missions, using global channels, or involved in other group events. As a newcomer, it's sometimes tough to get accepted without a track record.

Not much competitive play: this isn't big for me, but the player vs. player aspect is very small.

Graphics: the original art is quite blocky and plain. They've made a good number improvements, and the new stuff is quite good, but the old engine/models are still there.

Note: Tk (telekinesis) uses repel, not knockback. I'm not sure if repel uses any physics, are just a set 'push rate' away from the caster.

A while back both I and another dominator had TK active on the same boss. I don't recal if you could get the standstill you asked about going. I think it sent the target along the first caster's trajectory, but I can't say for certain. (Both doms were pushing the targets into corners/walls/etc.)

Yes, power customizations are on a costume slot basis. But you can save them, so simply save the power customization you prefer, and load it on other costumes. Does that help?

I've always wondered why so many people do not think of exemplaring when they invest in level 50 Io sets, when level 30-ish yield similar results with a larger breadth of availability.

I'd be interested in seeing the overlap between the "wait to 50 for IO's, buy level 50 IO's" and those that cringe at the idea of exemplaring down for the strike target. Probably not a huge number, but I wonder if it's a contributing factor.

But that is a tangent. Instead, another (possibly tangential) thought: with the masses of players doing TF's/SF's, I wonder if the devs will use the times from WST runs in merit reward readjustments? The larger pool of numbers to grab from seems a god opportunity for reward standardization.

My take on things: (trivial as it may be)

I play this game for the xperience of controlling a super-powered character. I enjoy this game more than other games of the same, if not other genres, as it gives so many possibilities...but this is just a symptom. To be more exact, it gives enough of the right possibilities that by the time I'm done I can have a character that is unique enough and true enough to an idea that it can stand on its own.

Before power customization, I had to be conternt with conveying this through name, bio, and costume. The powers were hit and miss, because as an experiencial level they'd appear much the same as from another character totally different. The devs did something very cool in that now we CAN customize characters' abilities and arsenal to not just be unique and diverse, but pretty darned accurate to a concept we come up with. Granted there are limitations, but you can have many takes on the same power just with some tweaking. An earth controller can be the manipulator of rock, diamond, lava, plastic, multi-colored candy formations, large ice formations, burning coal, magical hellstone, reeking piles of manure, the list goes on. Before they'd be the guy that controls rocks.


Power pools/patron/ancillary pools are our powers too- here's where I sometimes sense a disconnect with devs at some points. These are in some way stated as being outside the player's abilities, yet still in their repituire.
...what?
Power pools/ancillary/patron abilities can be as important to a character as their primary and secondary. A fire/fire/fire character has that last x/x/fire because they can control fire in the first two spots. A fire/fire/mace character is someone who is skilled enough with technology and weaponry to know how to handle himself with both fire and a customized arachnos mace.


Just look at all the character built along the 'quick' theme. Heck, take Synapse. Give the guy superjump instead, see how his character holds up. He is defined by an extra ability. I greatly enjoy the ability to make powers from the primary/secondary 'my own,' to fit into a character's concept. I think the work done on it was exemplary, and is a subtle but main reason I still am playing- because it solidifies the experience of playing 'my character' in gameplay.

This has the downside, though, of making all the more apparent the areas where there is an exemption. A character that siphons away energy into death-dealing blasts, all in the same green color to coorelate the connection between the two...has neon orange glow when he hits his speed mode, and has e a purple glow in his energy deflection aura-why? Well, handwave it away, and try to pretend it's not there. Because his mastery over speed increase is...um...he found it on the street at level 6? No way. It's him using his energy reservs to function faster. It's his power, because he could learn it just as easily as he could learn a new energy attacks. He can get better at using it using enhancements just like he can with powers he picked at character creation.

Hey devs: you've done an awesome job at allowing us to experience play as not just unique characters, but characters that can be detailed and refined to give the experience of playing a super-powered being as fully realized as in many a comic book- let's complete that by making the last few abilities that we can learn and enhance fit the bill as much as the two sets we get at the start. The more a player can distinguish and 'claim' their character, the more they will grow attached to it. That means more time in your game playing with it- a win/win for you and your customers.

-That's my overinflated two cents anywise.

The biggest issue I see with any vehicle in this game is that the engine just doesn't do a 'moving platform' of any type. Think of anything that moves in this game- you can't stand on top of it as it moves. Everything that moves is either 'slippery,' (cars/blimp) intangible (moving boats) or 'blocks.' (skyraider vehicles/etc.) The best the game can do for moving characters is a straight coordinate change- teleport. This is why we have shield charge as a burst teleport, not a 'running forward' charging power. The game just doesn't seem to be capable of moving a character along a path.

I play with a gent that has it as his main villain. It has a very cool built-in combo: the lich bomb.

Put the pet detonator on the lich, send it in. I blows up, killing stuff, you resurrect it with soul extraction, then summon a 'live' lich. You can have two boss pets around pretty easily, with AoE spike damage to boot.

To those asking for higher values on the defense: if you're hoping for another set that will really help you softcap, that's exactly why you probably won't get it. From the way devs have started upping foe tohit in newer content, the idea that you can have characters with only a 5% chance to be hit is something devs are almost certainly not comfortable with. Still, a small bonus with rare recipes would be most likely to get anything of the sort.

Also, claws' set here has a very powerful beginning bonuses, so the helpful but still not 'drop 150 mill inf good' bonuses work out. The only thing I might say to counter balance would be to make a good number of the recipes be pool A drops.

Mind/psi and Mind/energy are similar in that they do decent damage but focus on survival- but do it in different ways. /Psi has drain psyche to help your regen to heal you while things are held. Energy has a bunch of stuns/knocks to keep things from hurting you as much, and power boost to up control durations.

Play-wise, psi has a 'jack of all trades' approach, being quite decent at AOE, range, and pretty good at melee. Energy is much more single target based, but will do more damage to that target. Against hard targets, drain psyche from /psi doubles as a -regen debuff vs. AV's and heroes, while powerboost just lengthens what you have.

Mind/earth is very similar to mind/energy, just stick 'meleemeleemelee' in there. While energy is control/knock that is both close and ranged, /earth is control/knock that is both close and close focused. It has some ranged options, but it's basically a "punch you in the face" set. It also has a more AoE, but again in closer range.

From what I've heard, the statesman/recluse task forces are the targets.

Understandable, and the values on the defense sets were what I assumed considering devs' stance on softcaps.

I thought the suggestion was a good one- it's a 'good' set, not a MUST HAVE! set. (Which I think the game needs to have, particularly for the limited ranged AoE set choices.) Swapping the dam/range for dam/rech and putting a range in the quad instead might please some more, but that's a small tweak, and perhaps an unnecessary one. I'd keep a proc in it, I personally find the 'flavor' procs bring to sets to be a good thing. That said, an extra triple might work for frankenslotting as there are fewer recourses in ranged AoE sets.

Just to note, however: it's rare to have endurance paired with recharge, this is usually reserved for rare and effect sets.

I have a few....

A Fire/MM blaster with all colored blue/midnight blue, dark palette. He takes attacks his foes with burning dark soul energy, so the almost black fire/waves with hints of blue embers makes the fire/psychic blast more ethereal.

A Fire/Rad 'pure radiation' controller- the fire/ effects are on 'dark' with light green colors to make them a bit less apparent, while the glow part is accentuated in a sickly green. All of the radiation is likewise sickly green, giving an opaque, mucky green haze to all effects. Perfect for the 'Nuclear leak' look.

An EM/Dark brute that manipulates life forces, shielding himself in life-draining death energy, and life energy channeled into deadly blows. So the energy melee is a bright green against the black/green dark armor powers...the dark armor powers are mostly dark but the faint tendrils are a more 'lively' green to accentuate anything that can effect a foe.

A dark/dark corruptor that wears a failed experimental suit that emits a continuous flow of blinding, sickening smog. As such, all dark powers are switched to a light, dull greyish color, and all powers are restricted to purely 'smoky' powers. As such, he's a walking, puffing ball of pollution.

As to the set choice: in a targeted mob, many procs role by their target. An AoE with a snipe set might have too strong an effect on the proc...and yes, I was surprised about the lack at first look. Not that it would be a big deal, but the AoE sets are already balanced by the AoE rules, so it was probably easier.

As to the whole range thing: my Arch/EM blaster is buil around range. Boost range is huge, but besides that I found frankenslotting with the damage/range HO's was pretty easy. (the damage/range can be found for very affordable rates) You lose set bonuses, but get range, so there it is. (My blaster has boost range+3 dam/rnge HO's for +120% range on all attacks, so hitting stuff from afar seems easy.)

What would the values for the melee or cold/fire defense values be? (The built in pairs for AoE & S/L) for the number you chose, I'm assuming the .94 for each. If the devs add more defense bonuses, I think your layout actually seems probable. (As it's a common enough value.)

*shrugs* offhand, seems workable. The -res might be replace with something else...I like the -res, but they may find its effect on other damage capabilities problematic, so I might see another effect, like -speed. (Less valuable, but the defense bonuses would make it still worthwhile.)

This will seem weird but...Mercy Island. I especially love the clock tower and buildings with their alleyways in that area.Yes the place can be a trick to get around, but I just find the old architecture to be quite beautiful despite the situation it's in. It's also not build in a more 'artificial' straight grid, meandering in some of the ways that older streets do.

On the other end, Imperial city. It's got a straight structure and shining class and steel...yet it's twice as believable as many other 'city' areas, to me at least. Sky scrapers, apartments, little seating and food spots, parks and civil structures all believably situated. It's still a place I enjoy flying around, just for the look and design.

You're in luck- the warzone is open to all 1-50 now. Just make sure the sub-35's are in a team led by a high level lead character, so that they don't get killed.

(You sound like you may be a returning vet- just so you know, the team leader or set mission set all members to the leader/set mission level, avoiding the old troubles with sidekicks. Just FYI if you hadn't found out. )