Seldom

Somebody else posted about a truck being attached to their characters' head. If you experienced an issue with an object being randomly placed on your character, it may be related.

*Edite* Link: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...=222208&page=2

Silly peoples.

May I introduce you to "Crab soldiers:"

Venom Grenade Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate Damage over Time (Toxic), Foe -Resistance

Frag Grenade Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate Damage (Lethal/Smashing), Foe Knockback

Frenzy PBAoE, Moderate Damage (Lethal/Energy), Foe: -Defense

Omega Maneuver Summon Omega Bomb: PBAoE, Superior Damage (Smashing/Energy)

Heavy Burst Ranged (Cone), High Damage over Time (Lethal), Foe: -Defense

AND
Bile Spray Cone Damage over time (Toxic)
or
Disruptor Blast Ranged (Targetted Area of Effect), Moderate Damage (Smashing, Energy), Foe: Knockback
or
Ball Lightning Ranged (Targeted Area of Effect), Moderate Damage over Time(Energy), Foe: -Endurance
or
Dark Obliteration Ranged (Targeted Area of Effect), Moderate Damage(Negative), Foe -Accuracy

That's right. 6 AoE's, (I didn't include the melee cone even) 5 usable often. Oh yeah, and the venom grenade not only does decent damage, its debuff makes all other AoE's hit harder, and it is easy to lay down constantly.

I <3 my crab.

On my main? When I have my costumes/bio in order, have all possible badges, have done all possible missions, and have a build I am satisfied with that has reached its maximum potential of what I wish it to do.

On secondary characters? When I have the bio, powers, and costumes adequately adapted to convey the story/concept of that character, and they are not lacking in their functionality to solo/assist a team.

Some of mine I'm a bit 'meh' about:
Crab: Arachnon
Blood widow: Aranae

The one I like, just, bacause I like obscure words, is second spider: 'Viduate.' ...yes, he is a widow.

The background on seers tempts me very much to make several psychics in praetoria. Should add an extra layer for a resistance character.

For AT's: (excluding melee)

Dominators are my favored archetype, capable of far more powerful control than a controller could ever dream of. To get to that point, however, they need a lot of IO investment. With Just SO's they're still powerful, but their survivability skyrockets only once you obtain key control powers and get them well slotted. For attacks, think of yourself as a 'blapper,' a blaster with melee attacks that shoots stuff out of reach, punches close up stuff. The plus is that you can make close stuff unable to punch back.

VEATS:
depending how you play them, they can be more ranged or more melee. All in all, there's a good chance you might be both. These come in widow/soldier forms, and their biggest asset is the high defense they give themselves and team. (I'm look at the maneuvers/mind link powers in particular: these stack well.) Pre 24: widows are ranged mini-claws scrappers. Soldiers are mini-AR blasters with armor. Post 24: Night widows are meta-claws scrapper/stalkers, capable of excellent team buffs, high defenses, stealth strikes, and ranged damage. Fortunatas are meta-dominators, exchanging domination and most AoE mez for bigger attacks/defenses. Banes are meta-stalkers, with team buffs, debuffs, and some heavy stealth strikes. Their ranged attacks can be strong as well. Crabs are meta-tank/blaster mastermind-whatnots. Basically they have good armor, a good heal, decent melee, good buffs, amazing AoE, and pets. They have less single target/heavy strikes, though.

Controllers: Their control/support abilities were originally 'offset' by low damage. Now, however, their double-damage to controlled stuff makes them beat many other archetypes' damage, but only when leveraging containment from specific buff/debuff abilities and limited damage powers. They're always great on teams, protecting/weakening/strengthening. For solo damage, Illusion/ and Fire/ are the damage dealers. For secondaries, /storm, /trick arrows, /rad and /kinetics are your best bets.

Khelds:
Their inherent buffs them by team-mates, and they get different buff by members' archetype. This migth seem to skew them away from solo play, but they can still perform well. Their transformations let them change roles according to situation, going from all-around humans (moderate shields/melee/ranged/et.c) to blaster squids/tanker dwarves. Warshades have siphon powers that give them excellent buffs based on enemies.

Blasters:
Damage, both in AoE, range, and often melee. The melee should be done wisely, as there's no armor to be had. Kill them before they kill you, many sets have limited mez for particular threats. (They are the closest analogue to dominators for this reason.)

Defenders:
Every primary significantly changes how you will play. Most leverage battles by weakening foes, or strengthening your team/yourself. Blasts do more damage the more alone you are. If you are thinking of soloing, avoid primaries that focus on team buffs, as you will often lack a target for them. Dark/, Rad/, Traps, and Trick arrow are decent solo sets, as they have many potent debuffs, and tricks to keep you alive. (Trick arrow takes some getting used to, I have to admit.)

Corruptors: the defenders' mean cousin. They do medium damage until their enemies are hurting, at which time they break out the crazy and start doing blaster damage. (Only to the damaged foes.) The secondaries all play differently, but corruptors all have set that weaken foes, making them all a bit better at soloing. Still, sets like /cold, /thermal, /pain, and /sonic are a bit more team based, especially at the beginning.

Masterminds: these make others do the work for you. Binds make pet control far easier, and can help your characters win more easily. They also have a defensive mode that makes pets take most of your damage. The secondaries all help you and the pets kick butt better, but the ones that can keep you pets from getting hit often give the most mileage. (/Traps, /Dark, Forcefield)

Does that cover things okay?

In my experience, most of AR seems pretty good. The Beanbag speed-up helped its utility a lot. The only odd child to me is 'ignite." It's an attack power that actively discourages enemies from getting damaged by itself. Immobilizes make it good, but without those it's very limited in usability. It's also pretty small.

I know it's a longshot, but keeping the cttage rule in mind, what if burn was a low damage +terrorize patch, targeted. The patch does its thing, but the target is given a medium/high damage over time to self power, which attempts to duplicate itself onto nearby mobs for a certain period. This power also has a full-body fiery aura attached. Yes, I'm talking about an 'ignite patch' that literally sets a foe on fire. (That is drenching a foe in burning propellant.) The 'contagious,' nature of the fire mean that once you light an enemy on fire, they run crazed and ablazed, and any foes they brush against also catch fire. It's then an odd sort of AoE, where it isn't an immediate area attack, but can become so when the foe comes near other foes.

Note: there would be a limit to the number of transfers of the fire, so that it would not violate target limits indirectly.

Though I know religion is avoided, it would still be cool to have some big cathedrals around. I'd second the schools/firestations/postoffices/etc. Just more of the stuff you see in cities. (This for paragon.)

The rogue isles could use cathedrals as well, due to the historical roots. But hey, I'm biased toward gothic architecture. (And how cool it would be to have my characters hanging out on gargoyles of a cathedral spire.) It would be cool to see some local arachnos/civilian interaction centers. Perhaps food ration stations, (complete with nutri-paste!) or something of the like to show how the people of the isles live their lives.

THE best debuffs vs. AV's, in terms of effectiveness, are -damage. Mind you, this is just in reference to how much bang you get from the power after it hits the AV...AV's have reistance to all debuffs except -damage, so no matter what, your -damage debuff have full effect. All other debuffs suffer from 60-87% resistance.

Past that, the handiest ones to get are -resistance, as they have LOTS of that, and -Regen. AV's heal back remarkably quickly via their regeneration, so -regen makes every bit of damage last longer. -Defense can be handy, as it's not uncommon for AV's to have defense-boosting powers, so these can help vs. those AV's. -Recharge and -tohit are handy, but have less effect than the previously described debuffs. -Speed is pretty meh.

(Oh, and yes, resistance can go negative. It's part of why NPC's with sonic attacks can be so painful.)

Actually, my preference is a Energy Melee/dark brute. Post 38, every attack you do can stun bosses. Your auras mez so many things that you can pop up the difficulty and go to town, full fury. The auras mez the rabble, your personal attentions keep the big stuff woozy. Plus, two of your biggest mezzing punches kill well as well. The mitigation from EM/ help with some of the /DA squishiness. Also, the things that damage /DA most are energy attack based..many of these are robots. Which are vulnerable to smashing/energy.

A new graphics card...check. Ultra mode...check. Apply....
GEEZ!
Captain Ironsides didn't realize how old his armor looked until he updated his graphics. Time to cash in all those tailor tokens...

If I am a winner, I permit NC Interactive, Inc. and NCsoft Europe Limited to use my name, likeness, photograph, hometown, and any comments that I may make about myself or this contest that I provide for advertising and promotional activities. I also certify that I am at least 13 years of age and am eligible to participate in this contest.

As one of my main characters is an EM/ brute, I'd have to say that while the I did like the furiously fast old ET, I can see why they changed it. It does change how the set looks/works, but It's still effective. The mez reduction on total focus was does mean you have to work a bit harder to keep full stuns down on hard targets, but I can understand why they did it. It was really high damage AND stuns on an attack that really wasn't that slow to recharge.

Whirling hands I can't weigh in on, as I skipped it.

But "stun?" it's an 8th-tier power with long cast time and low damage. I'd love for it to either receive the 'beanbag' treatment (extremely fast new animation) or the 'clobber' treatment. (Damage added.) I'd prefer the former...this way there's some fast mitigation to give breathing room to the long-casting big-hitters. Big enemies weighing in on you, and you'd still like to pop off some enemies? Pop a stun on 'em here and there, very fast. Then you have room to do the big "I'm jumping!" "I'm striking!" total focus/energy transfers without worrying as much about the oncoming waves of damage for those times you're stuck in your theatrics.

Heck, give stun the old ET animation. No big imbalance to damage output, but a boost to mitigation.

Hm. I always wanted villains to be able to travel to Paragon AS villains, and do wickedness there. The obvious problem is that PvP in PvE zones would be disastrous..and in theory, there's no way a villain with wits would show her/his face in public when literally hundreds of heroes are about.

As such, why not 'force' the villain into a disguise? As soon as they enter a city zone of the wrong faction, they activate either a cloaking device or disguise. (Which supresses their powers.)

I'd lean towards the disguise, making them appear as civilian, cops, etc. The only trick, then, is travel powers. It's one thing for a villain to look just like a civilian or NPC...it's another for them to superspeed away.

The cloaking device would mean the villain would stay invisible...however this undermines Paragon/heroes, especially when the 'invisible' villain goes for a dance under Atlas, chatting all the time.

The OTHER option would be to 'force' them into a random new NPC form, a "Hero disguise." These would put the villain into one of many ultra-cheesy hero/costumes with corresponding cheesy names, ("Super Heroic," "Captain Clean" "H.U.G.S." "Miss Kindness," etc.) with correspondingly over-the top bio's when the villain is clicked for info. ("I love to save puppies! Your cash is safe with me!" "I stake out banks to make sure that no villain comes near them! Especially not <$villain'srealname!> ")

There was a recent thread about top 5 improvements to the game, and it made me think back of all the updates. More specifically, the additions to this game. It took a sec for me to realize that "Oh yeah! That wasn't always here!" That there have been some really smart updates to the game experience that I pretty much forgot they were introduced; they're second nature in the game now.

My list:

• Icon. I remade my first character way too many times, just getting his legs/boots right. Thank goodness for icon.
  
• Global chat/friends: There was a time when you couldn't track/talk to a friend outside of a specific character. This is the only list I use now.
  
• Consolidation of enhancements, enhancement availability: tp range? Cone range? Really? ..And when vendors wouldn't sell some enhancements live travel power enhancements. So glad that's over.
  
• Break frees. When squishies no longer were out of luck once mezzed, and they hadn't eaten their mez prevention candy.

What stuff has been introduced that you forget is/was 'new?'

The guess of 'paid up and unbanned' is the safest bet.

People who haven't been reported, are helpful with bugging things, haven't made characters/engaged in behavior where GM's had to intervene, and helped provide feedback when asked to do so are all possibilities, but that's conjecture.

Damage mods, courtesy of paragonwiki (limiting to psychics)

Blaster Ranged: 1.125
Dominator Melee: 1.05
Blaster melee: 1.0
Fortunata (Widow) melee: 1.0
Fortunata( Widow) ranged: 1.0
Dominator ranged: .950
Controller melee: .55
Controller ranged: .55

That's if all that matters is orange numbers. Other factors: Controllers get way more debuffs/buff, in theory. How a controllers play will varry wildly by your secondary. Teams make your secondaries way better, no matter what. (In net effect: buffs x more=more, more thing pounding weaker things=faster victories, etc.) The containment makes the damage higher, but requires setup. Blasters work pretty good solo, you just have to stay on your toes. More damage from defiance, but less damage when mezzed. (Being limited to tier ones can be a pain at times.) Dominators act the same way solo or on teams: stop stuff from hurting you, (and team, if necessary) kill it. Domination is wonderful to fill endurance, escape mez, mez bosses, stop knock back, and so on. Fortunatas can be deadly, but juicy on the endurance. You will also have to be a claws scrapblasterthingy until 24, when you get your fortunata promotion. The fortunata team buffs help you, but also make the team great.

Doh! My bad. But good to know it's not just me going nuts.

...again.

Hello.

I recently recolored the powers for my Invulnerability/ tanker, and noticed that no adjustments to his 'invulnerability' power visually altered the power. All other powers seemed tintable. (Sans auto powers, of course.)

I switched from default to bright, no dice. I tried the dark variation: no difference. Note: this is on a costume slot other than the first. I have not tested if this issue is present on the default slot, or with invulnerability (the power) on a custom pallet altered pre-issue 17.

Um, you do know that shark's sight is among their weakest senses, yes?

I know you'd like something thematic, but there may be a better way to phrase your aim power.

Recharge speed inspires are hard to imagine when most powers' strength is at least partially balanced by recharge. The devs have said they were at least somewhat okay with the effects or invention +recharge bonuses on power balance, due to the level of investment/rarity of achieving high recharge. Inspirations would do the same, if not worse, for a FAR cheaper entry fee, if not blowing those high-recharge characters' power balances off even further.

What I would like to see is orange inspires buffed to help resist debuffs. As is, purples are far superior in coverage, as their dodging ability not only nullifies damage, is nullifies many mez and debuff powers as well. It would make sense, then, that oranges make not just the damage that hits you less effective, but also the extra stuff. (Barring mez, as that is covered by break frees.) As such, it would help resist -speed, -recharge,-end,-recovery, and -regen.

Testing out his new Going Rogue incarnate abilities, the Ocho discovers a new incarnation: street pizza.

If I am a winner, I permit NC Interactive, Inc. and NCsoft Europe Limited to use my name, likeness, photograph, hometown, and any comments that I may make about myself or this contest that I provide for advertising and promotional activities. I also certify that I am at least 13 years of age and am eligible to participate in this contest.