TeChameleon

My plant/stormie/psi was the first 'troller I was ever able to get 'into', and became my second main so fast it was a bit scary. Since hitting fifty, I've piled on obscene levels of recharge (as in, I can have two Lightning Storms out at all times, with occasional overlap to a third), and the mobs get chewed down in an eyeblink. I have to run on x8 just to notice them.

Since adding Incarnate powers, I can handle (usually, there are a few exceptions)... probably four x8 spawns simultaneously without any real difficulty. One gets fireballed into oblivion with Pyronic Judgement, one gets locked down with a quick application of Vines and maybe Roots, one gets bounced all over the place by Hurricane (and prevented from hitting much of anything in the process), and the last one gets my usual Seeds-Roots-Creeprs-Tornado-Lightning Storm combo.

Outside of the purely mechanical end of things (i.e. Plant/Stormies are going to utterly murder most content with a casual flair that will leave Scrappers writhing in furious envy), it's absolutely glorious seeing a pair of mobs that were sneaking up to gank you getting blown over your head to land in a charcoal-broiled heap ten metres in front of you as your Lightning Storm takes exception to their presence. Or watching a massive spawn simply implode as you, your army of pets and pseudo-pets, and each other all start ripping into them.

It is heavy on the blue, but that's pretty manageable, unless you're in some kind of strange situation where you can't buy inspirations for a long while.

Hmm... that being said, Infernus_Hades, my Plant/Storm controller can do exactly what you just described your Ice/Stormie doing... and completely annihilate the mobs in the process. With the high-recharge build I've got on him right now, he's able to rip through most mobs like they were tissue paper- I've actually found myself wondering why I seemed to be moving slightly slower than usual... and then found out after the fact that I was taking on three +0/x8 spawns simultaneously.

Gravity really does need some work, though- my mid-level Gravity/Kinetics 'troller is something I love conceptually, I really like the costume I put him in, and I have a really hard time playing him because his powers are such a kludge.

Ah, derp... just read things more carefully, and discovered that my memory was faulty- Small Fears was included in the list of 'played, but not reviewed'- I was thinking of your run through one of my other arcs >.O

Huh. Hey Coulomb- was poking through the thread, and discovered that I cannot for the life of me find your review of Small Fears, which I could swear I remember you doing (well, that and you rated it, at least >.>).

I've done some recent editing of it- would you be interested in a re-run, or is this one of those 'buried in requests, maybe next millennium' things?

Pity, because Archery also has very impressive AoE, especially after level 32. Rain of Arrows does a hefty level of damage, especially with aim and buildup running. Add in Fistful of Arrows and Explosive Arrow, and you'll be erasing spawns so fast that the rest of the team will complain that you're not leaving anything for them

... I just love the contemptuously dismissive 'wonderful' 'amateur effort' story arcs. It just speaks so well of the complete disregard the posters have for any effort that may have been made.

In other news, FIX THE [censored] USELESS AE SEARCH ENGINE!

Poof! There go a significant chunk of the causes for contention between Farmers and Storytellers. See, what's getting lost in the rhetoric here is that Storytellers (or whatever the hell you want to call those of us who want to use the AE as a tool to... er, tell stories) aren't pissed off because the farms somehow 'diminish' their story (... well, I'm not entirely sure about Venture ). We're annoyed because you can't even find our story because of the enormous legion of numbnuts who clog the system with their crappy one-off wannabe farms that they publish half-finished and then forget about forever.

And yes, I'm sure there are half-finished, forgotten stories published out there too; it's just that attempted farms take vastly less effort, so they breed like rabbits, as every ninny who thinks they've found a fabulous shortcut is going to make part of one. And then promptly give up when they find that it actually takes work to make a decent farm.

AE is bloated to the point of toxicity with useless garbage, a significant percentage of which doesn't even actually work. Chop the bloating, and we'd likely be in better shape.

Speaking as one who couldn't really care less if you farm 'til you're blue in the face and fall off your computer chair, I'd still like to see the AE cleaned up somewhat. Get rid of all the broken, unplayable arcs owned by people who don't have an active sub/access to the AE building, for starters.

Maybe put a system into place where, if your arc hits the one star mark after five votes, it gets booted out of the system. Not necessarily locked out, or anything, just cleared out for the time being so that the already creaky search engine isn't so hideously clogged. Or at least let us flag arcs so that the devs can sit an intern down to give them a look-see and check if they're worth the disk space they're occupying.

Indeed.

Granted, the thing that's always kinda bugged me about this question, at least in regards to characters with more physical powers (Spiderman, the Thing, Superman, etc.), is that it basically demands that they store two entirely different sets of trained reflexes in their heads; one for 'with powers', and one for 'without powers'.

Honestly, if you took someone with always-on superstrength and suddenly took it away... uhm... duh they're going to have problems? It'd be like expecting Bruce Lee to fight at peak capacity under four gravities without any chance to adjust. Or take the Human Torch, for example. Yeah, he'd be smart to do at least some basic self-defense training, but it's not something he's going to be able to use often; if he's up against foes it would do any good against, he'd run the risk of seriously injuring, or even killing, them, because he'd frankly have to be stupid to turn his flames off deliberately just to punch some guy (and I don't think even the Torch is that dumb, unless he's trying to impress a girl, anyways...).

My take? Characters of the 'zappy' power variety (like Black Lightning, Cyclops, the Human Torch, or the Green Lanterns) are well-served by learning some basic, baseline-human-type self-defense. Powers or not, their bodies work the same way as everyone else' for giving or taking a punch.

Characters like your standard flying bricks (Superman, Captain Marvel, Thor, even Iron Man to a certain degree) would actually be hindered in some respects; undergoing extensive training to learn to dodge attacks instinctively isn't going to help you much when you need to be able to decide in a split-second to get between your not-bulletproof teammate and that incoming sniper round, or the concrete-atomizing energy blast, and learning to punch properly (again, instinctively) for optimum damage, when you need to be able to constantly excercise fine control to keep from turning regular guys' heads into a fine red mist, isn't going to help much.

Eh. Cap's shield... I was watching Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes with my wife, and I commented "Forget Mjolnir, Captain America's shield is the most magical weapon on the show." I remember at one point it went from blunt-force-trauma-smashing to slicing cleanly through something to bouncing off a wall without damage and finally getting caught in Captain America's hand in one throw. I don't even want to know how the physics behind that one work...

For that matter, I'm pretty sure it was that same episode had him smash a castle turret to flying rubble with one throw.

Captain America's shield: making physicists cry since 1941. Also, Captain Photon... just be thankful that I don't know that song well enough for your comment to get it stuck in my head, or I might have had to hunt you down.

My Plant/Storm Controller is a favourite of mine, and quickly became one of my mains. Some of the heaviest AoE damage I've ever seen a Controller, and a deep toolkit for control and survival, from Knockback to holds to confuses to stuns to (if you like, although I don't see much point) sleeps... I think the only control types that Plant/Storm can't access are fears and caging.

Only caveat I've got about it is that you'll want to invest fairly heavily in recharge, and maybe recovery. If you do, you'll have a beast like you wouldn't believe on your hands.

.. I think Wendy has pinpointed a major source of my loathing for the locked door. The devs have set things up so that the optimum way to run the Lambda, especially, involves a high-speed scavenger hunt that will murder squishies over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

I don't know; maybe I just suck at Lambda-ing. But the single-minded insistence that the only way to do it is for everyone to rush off the second the box/tube-thing is dead, leaving any squishy unlucky enough to be trapped in an animation because they were actually helping kill the damn thing to die horribly and be trapped in the hospital. Again. Because at that point, typically the only things left alive are bosses. Which do obscene amounts of damage, even to a +3 squishy.

And the Keyes... yeah. "Do this perfectly, and with loads and loads and loads of dedicated healers that we've been teaching you for the entire rest of the game aren't necessary, or be locked in a hospital repeatedly!" Whee. Not doing that crap again.

The Underground Trial? No clue, I've only ever managed to do it once, and we wiped completely against the first regenerating whatever it is. *shrug*

Wolverine's martial arts skills are very much dependent on the writer, depending on whether they favour his 'samurai' aspect or his 'berserker' aspect. Wolvie's good, no question about it, but I would seriously question whether or not he's anywhere near Shang Chi or Iron Fist's level. A lot of what he's able to do is because of his healing factor- take a licking and keep on ticking, basically.

As to 'do some heroes rely on their powers too much'... eh. The whole 'Superman doesn't know how to fight' thing tends to be played up by writers who prefer Batman. The big blue boyscout has fought (on a semi-regular basis) people who can rip out his spine with one hand and then floss with it. In those kinds of situations, you either learn to fight or you get dead. That recurring motif is something of an oddity, really; writers seem to have gotten it so firmly in their heads that even entire storylines dedicated to fixing it tend to get forgotten (like the one where he fought demons in an alternate dimension for a millenia-plus, for example).

In all honesty, I find the question a bit disingenous; unless the heroes in question are surviving by pure dumb luck all the time, or are consistently going up against foes that don't have a prayer of hurting them, they're going to learn to fight in some fashion. Please note that that doesn't necessarily mean 'learn formalized martial arts', which is what the OP seems to be implying as a necessity. There's only so many effective ways to punch someone, after all; they can be learned from experience as well as by donning white pyjamas with coloured belts and tossing one another around. And the whole point of martial arts is to take down your foe quickly and with minimal collateral damage. If you can do that with a lightning bolt from half a mile up, there's not a lot of point in giving the guy a karate chop to the throat.

... random aside: why would Bishop dodge? He's getting powered up by the blasts, I'd half-expect him to be jumping in front of the bloody things.

And I guess my question is, does that matter? Have the devs said anything one way or another (my search-fu on this has proven weak), or are we just kind of stuck with it for no stated reason?

I mean, no response to my whining about them during trials has been positive, and the stated reason for them doesn't really hold up, given that the most likely result of trying to regroup in the hospital would be getting trapped behind those sodding doors again.

The actual effect of the locking doors is 'get the hell out of the hospital as fast as you are physically able' and reactions ranging from annoyance to frothing hatred. Why is this irritating mechanic getting foisted on us still? It's not working as intended (if the stated reason is, in fact, the real reason, anyways), it's not fun, and at best it's aggravating.

Well, with the caveat that while I'm a longtime blaster, I haven't played an Ice/Ice, here's my shot at things. I juggled a lot of stuff around, while trying to remain true to the way you originally built things (although I did drop stimulant for fly, since I had no idea why stimulant was in there, and I figured you'd likely be happier being able to get around a little faster...). Smashing and Lethal Defense got dropped somewhat, and I raised your Ranged Defense significantly instead, since by all indications, you have absolutely no intention of getting into melee.

I also boosted your recharge rather nicely, I think... the only thing I'm not sure I did all that well with was your Endurance- it should be tolerable, but it's not fantastic. Oh, and I ditched most of the resistance, since it was taking a lot of slots for not a lot of effect. Oh- one word of warning: I avoided purples (except for two Fortunata Hypnosis ones, but those are dead cheap anyhow), but several of the enhancements you already had- specifically, the Steadfast Protection unique and the Basilisk's Gaze sets- are quite expensive, since they have highly desireable effects.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.951
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Frosted Bang: Level 50 Mutation Blaster
Primary Power Set: Ice Blast
Secondary Power Set: Ice Manipulation
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Flight
Ancillary Pool: Cold Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Ice Bolt -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(3), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(3), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(34)
Level 1: Chilblain -- TotHntr-Acc/Rchg(A), TotHntr-EndRdx/Immob(7), TotHntr-Acc/EndRdx(7), TotHntr-Immob/Acc(9), TotHntr-Acc/Immob/Rchg(9), TotHntr-Dam%(11)
Level 2: Ice Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(11), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(13), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(13), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(43)
Level 4: Frost Breath -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dam%(15), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(17), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(17), Posi-Dmg/Rng(19)
Level 6: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(19), RechRdx-I(21)
Level 8: Freeze Ray -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(21), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(23), BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(23), EoCur-Acc/Hold/Rchg(29)
Level 10: Chilling Embrace -- TmpRdns-Acc/Slow(A), TmpRdns-Acc/EndRdx(48)
Level 12: Ice Storm -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(25), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(25), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(27), Posi-Dam%(27)
Level 14: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
Level 18: Bitter Ice Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(33), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(50)
Level 20: Weave -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(33), LkGmblr-Rchg+(33)
Level 22: Build Up -- AdjTgt-Rchg(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(34)
Level 24: Ice Patch -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 26: Bitter Freeze Ray -- Lock-Acc/Hold(A), Lock-Acc/Rchg(36), Lock-Rchg/Hold(36), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(36), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(37), Lock-%Hold(37)
Level 28: Hover -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(29)
Level 30: Shiver -- TmpRdns-Acc/Slow(A), TmpRdns-Rng/Slow(34), TmpRdns-EndRdx/Rchg/Slow(37), TmpRdns-Acc/EndRdx(39), TmpRdns-Acc/Dmg/Slow(46), TmpRdns-Dmg/Slow(48)
Level 32: Blizzard -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(39), Posi-Dam%(39), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(40), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(40), Posi-Dmg/Rng(40)
Level 35: Freezing Touch -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(42), BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(42), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(42), EoCur-Acc/Hold/Rchg(50)
Level 38: Fly -- Zephyr-ResKB(A)
Level 41: Flash Freeze -- FtnHyp-Sleep/Rchg(A), FtnHyp-Acc/Sleep/Rchg(50)
Level 44: Frozen Armor -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(45), LkGmblr-Def(46), LkGmblr-Rchg+(46)
Level 47: Hoarfrost -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(48)
Level 49: Hibernate -- RechRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Defiance
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Heal(A), Mrcl-Rcvry+(45), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(45)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(A), P'Shift-EndMod(43), P'Shift-End%(43)
Level 4: Ninja Run

Uhm... hmm.

It looks surviveable, but I'm not sure how much you're actually going to be doing beyond simply 'not dying'. You didn't slot your most potent debuff (Freezing Rain) or your hold (and didn't even take your AoE hold), you don't have enough recharge to for your Lightning Storm, Creepers and Tornado to fill the gaps, and Flytrap (at least in my experience) just isn't sturdy enough to tank for you.

Also, on a fast-moving team, the Flytrap, Tornado and Creeper-patch don't move quickly enough to keep up with you, and Lightning Storm doesn't move at all. You also won't likely want to run Hurricane all the time, either, since Roots -KB doesn't prevent the repel component, so things constantly slide slowly away from you, which, unless you're quite good at Herdicaning and can pile them in a corner, isn't a good thing for an AoE beast like Plant/Storm.

Basically, if my experience with Plant/Storm is any indication, with this build, you'll be reduced to spamming Roots a lot of the time, if not most of the time.

Hey Bubba- sorry, I've been meaning to respond to this for a while, life has just been crazy. Thanks for the video! Nicely creepy, albeit slightly sparse.

Hrm... Local, either you're on teams that move significantly faster than the ones I'm used to (and based on the chatter in the ones I'm used to, they move pretty quick according to many people's expectations), or else you're grossly underestimating the amount of recharge I've got stuffed into my build; I often have seeds recharged fast enough to fire twice in a spawn that's even slightly problematic. The only teams that I've had difficulty getting controls off in are ones that are moving so fast that even on my blasters I'd have trouble getting more than one or two attacks off (admittedly, this is a subjective comparison, as I don't dual-box, but the speed is roughly equivalent by feel, at least).

As I said, I'm expecting that my build is something of a weird outlier- I already had so much recharge when Incarnates rolled around that I wound up going Musculature for more damage and the immobilization bonus (since a lot of my damage comes from stuff that would slap non-Rooted mobs all over the map), for example- and my playstyle is also a bit odd by all accounts, but I would contend that it is possible to have a high-damage controller that doesn't sacrifice dramatically in control.

Hrm... not 100% sure I agree with that, Local; I'm pretty sure that Plant/Storm is something of an outlier, true, but mine puts out enough control to deal with three or four x8/+0 spawns solo without any particular difficulty (unless they're confuse-resistant, in which case it drops down to two spawns with some difficulty :/), while still doing more than enough damage to wipe them out promptly. Admittedly, a respectable chunk of that damage is coming from the confused mobs, but it's still damage that I'm arguably responsible for.

Eh. *waggles hand* I'm not sure that controllers have to sacrifice as much control as one might think to gain solid damage. That being said, just about any pair of heroes or villains is greater than the sum of its parts in CoH.

By the way, Muon... I'm fairly certain that the Stone Dom set (Earth Assault?) has a couple of the hammers... just throwing that out there.

Rolling an Electric Control/Time here (already reserved my name, heh). Looks like it's going to be fun.

Oh, and MM? I dunno- there are a few Controller combos that lend themselves to ridiculous amounts of damage, like my beloved Plant/Stormie...

... I just did a brief check. According to the forum dates of the Arc Listing by Genre thread, I created Small Fears during issue 14s beta. The map honestly wasn't overused when I created the arc.

EDIT- apologies if that came off snippy. It's just that I'm not sure what to do with that criticism, and it rankles a bit. The map works better for the story than anything else I've run across (and in the i14 open beta, it really was a little before that map got so overused )

Whoo, thanks! This, along with Bubbawheat's kind review, has actually given back some of my confidence in my writing... it was kind of flagging, although I'm not really sure why- maybe just a rough few months *shrug*

Nice to see that the work I put into it paid off, though. Was fun to do, there's something weirdly appealing about seeing just how far you can push the CoH costume creator for making weirdies, ghosties and goblins.

Thanks so much for the review, Bubba, and the kind words. The sound quality was fine, although I'm torn between "Enter Sandman" as the background music being so hilariously wrong it's perfect, or it just being perfect

I'm oddly thrilled that the Dark Clown got some screentime during the Phobia fight- that's easily my favourite of the Fear-demon designs (probably at least partially because the reaction of one of my testers was "AH! EVIL CLOWN!", hehehe...)

Ah, well. I'm really looking forward to the trailer.

... okay, I was trying to hold off on this, but I'm going to explode if I don't let it out. Mother Mammaries' hospital map wasn't nearly so overexposed when I created this arc in its original form back in i14, *sigh* Wish I had enough plays on Small Fears to blame it on copycat creators

Oop... aye, sorry Backfire. I completely forgot that these Storyteam runs tend to be extremely lowbie-heavy. Small Fears is balanced as a modestly challenging (depending on team composition) 45-50 arc. It's more than a little likely to do rather unpleasant things to a team full of lowbies.

... also, I think that's the highest praise I've ever gotten from someone who couldn't complete the first mission O.o