Steel_Shaman

I agree. Until recently, Fire Control was the only Primary I hadn't tried on a Dom. After reading on the boards about how low Fire's survivability was I was expecting a rough ride. The reality? He solos just fine. In Praetoria, no less. Now I just need to control my alt-itis long enough to get him out of there....

I really wish you were on Liberty.
I have more Doms than anything else. I have at least one of every primary and multiples of a couple of them. I think the AT is just a blast to play. Often I am the only Dom on a team though. I've actually had people tell me they can't play Doms because they have "no survivability powers." I'd like to know what a Control Primary is good for then? Oh yeah, spamming fulcrum-shifted fire cages, I forgot.

Bass, your "Mecha-Bull" has given me an idea for a "light hearted" character.......MechanoBull, a barroom mechanical bull that gained intelligence one day......oh that's so awful I may just have to create it.

So what you're saying is, don't play on Freedom and Virtue.
(I kid, I kid.)

You know, this is the central disconnect I have with Praetoria. I can and have soloed several characters through it. But I've also been playing since Issue 1, have all the Vet powers, can mail money and IO's to my alts if I feel like it, and know the game's mechanics quite well.

If Praetoria is really intended to be the new player introduction then why in the heck is it balanced to challenge people like me? As Techbot Alpha would say, "Logic:Failure".

I like the idea of two "paths" through Praetoria. I don't know how resource intensive designing something like that would be, but I think it would be a good idea.

Thank you. I'm looking forward to seeing the PopMenu you're working on. I use so many binds on my Warshade I think a PopMenu would be a neat idea.

I agree on all points, especially the Destroyers. I remember the first time I fought them on a Dominator: "Hmmm......that guy seems to be immune to CC. Ok, I'll hoverblast!" This was followed by the Big Dog throwing not one but TWO chunks of rock at me, both of which appeared to feature -Fly and took off over half my life by the time he was done. His Footstomp (seriously? A Tier 9 attack on a level 12 mob?) once I landed unceremoniously on the ground finished me off quite handily. My personal response to that has been to always run the Loyalist Responsibility arc on a Dominator. That arc has absolutely no Destroyer missions at all.

There is a difference between encouraging an activity and essentially forcing it by making all the other available options seem nonviable by comparison. Does the current Notice solo conversion method go too far into the "nonviable" area? Perhaps. I am however encouraged that the Devs are at least making the attempt to include as many players as possible in this new end game system. It's an effort I've never seen any developers of any MMO attempt before. I thank them for that.

Some may argue that the solo method HAS to seem totally nonviable for people to team. I honestly call hogwash on that. As has been proven time and again, all they have to do is make the teaming path faster and people will flock to it. How much faster it should be is up to the Devs. I'm sure they'll eventually figure out a balance. They have restored my faith in them just by doing this much.

With all the feedback they've been given, I'm sure they'll make the right decision. If they start to stray too far down the path to CrazyLand (in favor of either direction) then I have no doubt the forums will light up like a Christmas tree all over again and let them know.

I agree completely. My biggest problem early on was letting myself feel "trapped" into Dwarf form all the time. Once I started using inspiration macros so that I always had a break free handy, things really took off. It's hard to believe that something so simple can have such a big impact on a character.

People are looking at the shard requirement from the perspective of current earning rates. As you pointed out they aren't taking into account the fact they will be able to earn shards from everything their character does in I20.

I for one am going to laugh my rump off the first time I get a shard from a level 10 Outcast while exemped down to a friend's alt.

You don't get to add many friends using the above method do you?
I've watched Earth/ Doms and Controllers both drop an Earthquake and immediately follow with Stone Cages. I have 3 Earth Doms and an Earth Controller myself. Seeing people do that makes me want to send tells that would likely get me banned.

My personal gripes: On a Warshade, Double Mire plus Quasar is an absolutely devastating combo. Entire spawns vaporized. Of course, on a big team everything's dead or dying by the time I get the second Mire going........heck, sometimes if I run in and just hit Quasar half the spawn is dead before THAT finishes animating. This leaves me standing there going "I just crashed my End bar why, exactly?"

I absolutely will NOT run my Ice/Ice Dom with any Controllers. Other Doms are iffy, but Controllers are right out. Most Controllers seem to be under the delusion their AoE immob actually does significant damage. I can think of no other reason for them to run themselves out of endurance spamming the blasted thing. No really, I WANTED to waste that Ice Slick. AND all that endurance I'm spending on the 2 mobs I can get in my Arctic Air because the rest are locked in place all around the room. It's OK Mr. Controller, you just go back to spamming your AoE immob, I'll be fine.....

Don't even get me started on Archery characters and explosive arrow either.

I've been playing my Warshade a LOT recently. The idea of having Inherent Fitness functioning in forms intrigued me, so I picked Starless Knight back up. It's been a ton of fun. I keep getting comments on him from my SG mates, but tonight I got the ultimate compliment: I logged into my SG's vent to hear two of my friends discussing the baby Warshades they had just created.

To the OP: if you haven't read Dechs's guide on Warshades, do so. It's quite good and filled with excellent advice. Conveniently, he's posted in this thread and has a link to his guide in his sig.

Oh and if you haven't tried this yet, do the following: with Eclipse running, charge into a large spawn, hit Sunless Mire, go Dwarf, then Dwarf Mire. Finish off the nearest minion (should only take one hit from a double-mired dwarf) then go human again and trigger Unchain Essence off him. I promise you'll giggle at the result. And any Brutes running with you at the time will probably need therapy.

I can't speak for Hyperstrike, but for me the problem isn't just the level shift. It is that the Devs have decided to go down the route of absolutely requiring not only teaming, but teaming to do specific content and specific team sizes. They're choosing not to allow the Incarnate system the same flexibility you see in pretty much the rest of the game. I simply can't get behind that philosophy, as I feel it completely contradicts the flexibility that I've always thought was CoH's greatest strength.

In CoH you don't need the "holy trinity" of MMO's to do content. You also can get pretty much any number of people together you want and advance your character. I've always perceived the TF content as being there for people that liked large teams. TF's have up to now been one of many ways to play. I don't want them to become the only way to play. The Devs have said they want to create an "end game for all". If that truly is their goal, they are failing miserably right now because what they are providing us with is "end game for all that like TF's."

I truly feel sorry for people that play at off hours and/or on very low population servers. I simply don't see how the current design direction is going to work for them.

I suppose you missed the entire next to last paragraph of my post, didn't you?
You know absolutely nothing about my playstyle. And continually highlighting the two M's in MMORPG isn't going to change the fact that the Devs have changed the direction of this game. They are moving it toward an endgame raid style of play, which I do not think is good for CoH. I am giving my feedback on that change, and stating what I as a customer would like to see happen with future content development, nothing more. You and others like you seem determined to tell me I don't have the right to give that feedback.

I am not protesting against what the Devs are doing because I can't participate. My play schedule most certainly allows me enough time to run a TF pretty much anytime I wish. My ability to participate is not the point. The point is that CoH was not exclusionary until now, and I feel that making it so is bad for the game.

I'm not going to go away, I'm not going to shut up. I'm going to keep telling the Devs how I feel because I am under the impression they would actually like to know how the players regard their game. All the players, not just the ones that have a particular point of view. If you absolutely cannot stand that, there's no one making you read these threads you know.

I'm not throwing a fit. I'm stating my point of view. You're the one responding with enough venom to choke a snake.

You are forgetting that up until now, there was no avenue of "power" that was closed to anyone because of playstyle. You could completely IO out a character in the most expensive of builds without having to run TF's at all. The fact that the Incarnate System requires running TF's to advance your character is a departure from that philosophy.

As for your comments about "sucking it up." Simply put: NO. This is a game. Why in the devil should I do something in a game that I do not enjoy? That's just silly. I "suck it up" and do things I don't want at work because I have to. I would prefer not to be faced with the same type of choices in my leisure time.

And what is with people flinging around all the insults? People ask for the Devs to give us more options and suddenly everyone that doesn't like the idea feels the need to insult them? Marvelous.

I team every single night. Last night I ran two TF's with my SG. For the first TF we had 4 players, for the second, we had 5. But to advance my Incarnate character I have to run TF's that require 8 people? Why is that, exactly? What makes needing 8 people better than needing 4 or 5? Nothing.

All I want is for the Devs to give us options. That's it, just options. Some people are extremely opposed to that though. It's amazing to me how determined to deny things to others people have become these days.

I feel pretty much the same way. For the moment I'm playing the game as I always have and completely ignoring the existence of the Incarnate System, since it seems determined to ignore my existence. My friends finally got me to seriously try a Corruptor (Ice/Dark) and he's proving to be quite entertaining. That, and I recently rerolled my namesake character. So those projects will keep me busy for now.

Same here. It takes so long now the first time it happened I thought the game had crashed while loading.