Sunpulse

I'm hardly the only one thinking this. The rise and fall of server population can show some indication.

And sorry to rain on your parade, but it's always fine and dandy when people come on the forum screaming how much they love the expansion and people agreeing with them, but as soon as someone mentions what they don't like... oh no, that's just wrong. They're just trying to be negative and bring the game down. Well news flash. There's always two sides to every story.

1. I didn't do herocon or read up on it. They never mentioned it on the GR site or in any noticeable way were anyone who decided to read up on it, would be like oh.. only 1-20 huh.

2. Yes.. there is CoP.. which was beaten in 18 minutes by a Victory group. All this way for 18 minutes of fun, a badge and ability to buy more of the same IOs already in game. Tip missions are all right. But they lack substance.

3. Acutally they were quite fond of allusions to overhaul and the game being different than you ever seen up to this point. And the side switching part is actually a nice thing. Not arguing that. But outside of that, you're pretty much stuck with lack of content unless you level a new character. IMO, mind I say opinion, expansions should have a lot of new content to go along with it. CoX is the only game I've seen, well not even that, really GR is the only xpac I've seen where that's not true.

4. A preview is better than nothing. And depending on how long you have to wait, well then kills some the hype of waiting until GR... when it's really waiting to i19.

5. Those things were change due to Praetoria... kind had to without a broken story.

All in all, unlike CoV, though people had issues with it. GR is just a glorified issue. Which sure expacs are generally issues... but still more robust than an issue. It's cool to bring in new people and all, but the word is i19 is a while away from coming out. And my qualm is that GR brings nothing to keep me wanting to play. It's too easy to switch sides and I've never been a big fan of the end game too much. Hoped new expacs would make it better.

The fallacy with that is that Demon Summoning and Dual Pistols have been out for months now. There's no shortage of level 50s of those sets.

And expansions are supposed to expand your playing in many areas. Hell most expansions I've ever seen focused mostly on expanding things to do at the ultimate level. Many even upping the level you can get to. We've been level 50 for years with the same boring powers and nothing added. All we've gotten is power proliferation and new epic-ats. Now we finally get 4 new powersets for that ATs. DS which I think is actually great, and DP has some great animations. But most people agree that DP and KM are pretty lackluster. Maybe that will change for KM as people get higher and learn more about it. And Elec is so similar to other control sets that it's not that exciting in my opinion.

They have had years and years to work on a new expansion. Why is it's strange that people would think it would come with more stuff to do at level 50. It's not like they've only had a few months to come out with it and have stuff ready for release.

Which as I was saying is pretty retarded. I like playing my 50s, I have tons of fun with my current ones. One I've never tired of playing. I want to do stuff with it. Why bother releasing an actually expansion if you have to wait for several issues to even make good use of it.

None, I'm not suggesting they should be able to. Just point out that not only can't 50s go there yet, but you have to create a whole new toon to play the new content. Means all those lowbies you have yet to lvl are no good since no one will start blue or red anymore.

If you buy more. And an alt driven game is a fallacy. It's no surprise why the servers died steadily over time. Only the hardcore love so many alts. Many people like to make concepts they enjoy and play those through content and bring them through new content that is released. And for such an alt driven game the arch are seriously lacking in diversity. Having the same powers but on one too you get -def instead of of -recharge does not make an interesting different power.

Are you suggesting people should solo so that it takes longer to hit 50 and they can hit all content? That is pretty ludicrous. Why play an MMO if you aren't getting into the social aspect of the game. And only reemphasizes to me the game's lack of end game content.

Depending on how much dmg you get from elsewhere you really don't need to slot for dmg like the above posters are saying. IN my build I slot both Roots and Strangler with control IOs. Albeit purple ones. Changing it to dmg only put me up 18 more dmg that's not worth it. I also disagree on them being your PRIMARY dmg dealing abilities as a plant/storm. Here's my take.

1) Seeds of Confusion is primary dmg. As a plant/storm it's easy to get in and affect the whole group. With my seeds slotted with coercive persuasion they mobs are confused the whole fight. The reason it's the highest dmg is because every last one of hose mobs are going to take the alpha strike and continuously kill each other. With Rain down under them they are taking even MORE dmg. And those bosses help mop stuff up fast.

2) Creepers: These bad boys are nice. Mine are slotted with Ragnaroks. And it's a lot of dmg.

3) Fly Trap: Slotted well this baby does a lot of dmg on foes. I've seen it thorns rip through half a LTs health.

4) Tornado/Lightning Storm: Then of course there are these. Both do good dmg and can be cast and forgotten. As I said in a previous post. I get streams of orange 20s on bosses and my tornado is only 4 slotted.

With all these damage options, there's really no absolute need to slot your strangler and roots for dmg. You can slot them for holds and ensure what you strangle is out of the fight for a good long time (bosses) or that the only need to keep usings roots is the dmg and to keep up the -KB. On a team you can lock down hordes of enemies for a while.

It all depends on if the person is trying to IO or not. I would assume they are. In that case there's really no reason to 6 slot Freezing Rain.

Freezing Rain: Use this power for what it is; a def/resis debuff. I'm assuming Elec/ will have -KB/KD built in like most of the primaries. In this case mostly it will be used with your immob on the mobs unless you specifically want the KD effect.

Slot: 4 or 5. 2 Enzyme Exposures for defense debuff and endurance. And optional Achilles Heel -resis proc. That puts the power at -47.1% defense and with -resis proccing -50% resis.

Snow Storm: Don't know why it wasn't mentioned. One of the most powerful slows in game. With 2 Tempered Readiness you will get -62.5% recharge (not changeable) and -92.3% Speed. While at the same time getting some recovery and saving slots.

O2 Boost: Great Heal and buff. Sucks can't use it on yourself. 5 slot with Doctored woulds to get the bonuses. Makes the heal more useful. Maybe less slots if you solo a lot, but it's nice to heal pets. Or those times you're teaming.

Steamy Mist: One of those ones where slotting is depending on your build and playstyle. Great slot to fit in a Luck of the Gambler recharge. For me I 4 slot it with LotG set for the bonus. I had the slots to spare. Give 5.78% defense.

Hurricane: It's a nice power to turn on when you need it. Not used that much if you are playing well but it's extremely useful to use on teams when you pull A LOT of enemies. Not only in pushing them into one place but helping to not take hits. Depending on your build and how you slot Mist and possibly Manuevers, you can effectively soft cap your defense to the enemies the hurricane is hitting. I only slotted with 1 End Redux.

Tornado: AMAZING POWER! Not only does it chase enemies and has a powerful KB/KD, but it has a small def debuff built in. If you aoe immob mobs and release this on top of them it's -62% defense. And to top it off it's great damage. On lower lvl mobs I see a constant stream of orange 40s scrolling. Only 52 mobs with Freezing Rain down, a stream of 20s. With a group of enemies immob and this dropped right on top of them the numbers get scary. This power destroys minions and LTs and eats through bosses health fast.

I 4 slot mine with Soulbound Allegiance. The potential for more dmg that I describe can be reached easily by slotting it more. I didn't have the slots to spare and 2 of the SBA IOs I used in my Fly Trap (chance for build up and the 3 effect one)

Lightning Storm: I love this power. I love releasing it above a group. I love it's range. I love when a mob runs at me and a lightning bolt comes crashing down on it doing a lot of damage and throwing it. I love when a strike kills a mob. Anyhoo. Great power. With the reacharge you can have 2 out at once. Great for when minions and LTs die almost instantly they tick down bosses for you. I 5 slot mine with Apocalypse.

All in all, /storm is a great power and I asbolutely love it now that I finally got one to 50 and slotted well. Some very good abilities. Some good release and forget abilities that will go on doing there own dmg with no direction from you. And some great debuffs in Freezing Rain and Snow Storm. Realize Rain is for def/resis debuffing and Snowstorm for Slow/Rech debuffing.

Pretty much everything I have but the spirit tree and I went psi mastery.

See, I've had the exact opposite reaction to VEATs... I play and play and still can't seem to see why they are any good at all. They might as well be a stalker (Night Widow at any rate) from the way they feel. I ultimately quit my NW because I just didn't like it anymore. There was no different feel to it. There was nothing that really stood out in my experience.

HEATs from the very start caught my interest. From anyone knowledgeable in WoW's Druid (more so post TBC), Khelds are very much like them in the playstyle. I LOVE that. And personally I would love to see some kind of shapeshifting powerset of it's own.

I loved my Shade from the first level all the way through 50 and slotting it up.

That's the point. There isn't supposed to be 1 clear goal for an AT that's built to be able to 'swap' between roles.

I'm a firm believer in, if you stay in 1 form too long on a shade you are doing something wrong.

P.S. Looknig to maybe try a Crab Spider out to see if that changes my opinion of VEATs... but I do so hate lvls 1-15.

Well I'm already all slotted up. I went with what you posted and it's been working great. Don't really see a need to change any of it.

Thanks, guy.

I'm a firm believer in total control over pets in MMOs... though CoX has some problem with pets actualyl responding to commands a lot of times.

Unless using def for BG I keep all my pets on passive. I don't like for them to do anything I don't tell them too.

I have all the keypad commands bound to control pets individually or together. I also bind the normal 1 key to be an all attack button. And ctrl-lbutton to be an all pet goto mouse over area, just like used for teleportation, but for easy control of stopping pets from chasing. It's not flawless by any means, cuz the AI sucks... but it helps a lot.

Also I don't see why they couldn't put more pet functionality into MM pets so that you could turn off melee or range attacks if you want. Personally they should allow you to enable disable any of your pet attacks like other games allow.

Yes they do have a brawl. And that is the reason they run into melee pre-seeker drones. I don't even pay that much attention to the Protector Bot and I have no problem noticing him swinging his stubby arm in an upward swinging backhand to an enemy's face. Not sure what is distracting you from seeing it.

Why would you want to. I can totally see it for the normal ATs... but for Khelds... that would just be very odd and out of place.

But I agree that EATs could use some love. It's as if they think they are complete or something else. Heck, it could be something cosmetic if they feel all the powers are where they need to be already. But rather than letting you tint, maybe have choices in the way your Nova or Dwarf looks.