Teeth

Huh? He didn't claim to have done it recently.

It used to, on both ends (players were locked into many hit animations as well). They changed that when it turned out that you could perma-hold an AV by chaining the three Flurry animations on it.

You are correct. It used to be "if you immobilize this guy, I win."

You forgot to offer her lots of knockback.

Probably finish off my Archery/Energy Blaster, then go back to the Dark/Ice Defender I started. I might do an Ice Tank first, but having a Psi hole annoys me. With school and such, that will all most likely last me until I can transfer my Widow blueside. I might roll a Dom in Praetoria at that point.

I don't have a hidden agenda. I just think it'd be reasonable to buff the base speeds on Teleport and Hover to compensate for the lower top-end speed in comparison to what we could do in Issue 4, and I'm not afraid to tell anyone!

(Well, I also think Trick Arrow and Force Fields need small buffs.)

Yes, that's the problem. It's pointless, frustrating, and thematically lame to have to save the same group of cops twice in a row in the same office from the same contact because my pactmate and I got different missions.

I can think of much loftier goals than being an accessory to Recluse's victory. Even if I had no goals of my own, Recluse is not a badass archvillain like Tyrant or Nemesis; he's a wannabe dictator of a tiny 2nd-world nation with an inferiority complex the size of the giant tower he hides in.

[Spoiler Alert!] Of course, for those who have played the arcs, the truth is even worse than that. You spend 45+ levels as the fall guy who lets Recluse win without suffering a Pyrrhic victory, then you do your final Patron arc to be elevated to the status of valuable minion. At this point, he enlists you to help with what turns out to be a ***** size competition (the goal of the LRSF being to "publicly humiliate Statesman," which probably doesn't bother him much and which has no effect on anyone else, including Recluse). If you succeed--which you must do by various roundabout means involving stolen technology and literally asking for permission from the Freedom Phalanx--you are then awarded "Servant of Recluse" status, which apparently is the zenith of your career as far as the canon story is concerned.

Compare this to heroside: Save the city umpteen times, save the world umpteen times, save a bunch of other dimensions, then save "a thousand worlds" (entire dimensions) at once. Then you, too, beat the Freedom Phalanx (Praetorians) and at least two versions of Statesman that are stronger than the real one, in the process rescuing the real Statesman as casually as you might rescue a missing fortune teller. You do this without permission, and without scavenging stolen technology from other groups. Then Statesman sends you to put the kibosh on Lord Recluse's master plan, which you also do without scavenging or permission. You beat him at full strength, unlike CoV players (who must use time travel to snipe him right after he finishes the hardest fight of his career).

Actually, other than Fire/Fire Doms, I think they're the highest single-target DPS possible.

That said, now that I think about it, I have my doubts regarding that combo at low levels. It seems like it might be a bit lacking in AoE. On the other hand, your options are limited if you want to solo the ITF (I think you need either Sonic Resonance or Cold Dom), and if it's even possible to duo the Statesman TF you'll probably need either Phatom Army or a Cage power to do it. Also, duoing Synapse without broadcasting for help on Babbage (or avoiding him) might push out Sonic. A Gravity/Cold Controller (for the combination of a Cage and Benumb) wouldn't help against Babbage.

You could try a Bots/Poison MM and a Fire/Fire or Fire/Psi Dom if you're willing to go red-side for a while, but I imagine that the LRSF is harder to duo than the STF, at least without a few Cage powers. I guess duo Sonic/Sonic Corruptors might have a chance with their two cages and crapton of -Res... Actually, though, duo Sonic/Sonic Defenders might work even better, except for Babbage. (Then again, with that much -Res, you might be able to drop Babbage without bothering to lower his Regen, especially with Shivans and whatnot.)

I'm probably overthinking this, though.

Tankers have attitudes? I thought they were just walking auras for me to send my Power Thrust targets towards.

This would be lovely. Really, I'd even be happy if they just let the badge progress meters keep giving a tooltip even after they reward ("294/200 Sorcerers killed").

Huh?
Archery and AR can perhaps do what you say, though even then I don't normally find myself intentionally leaving a +3 Boss to wail on me as a Blaster, it's just that Full Auto and Rain of Arrows thin the crowd a bit. As for things like my Energy/Mental or Ice/Elec, it seems to be necessary to kill the bosses now now now and then finish off any minions who survived your AoE's in the process.

Which Blasters are you talking about? "Kill them fast before they kill you" is indeed the Blaster credo, and Blasters are the best at it, but that still doesn't mean that they can do it well enough to be stable in their survival while doing so. This is especially true when you consider that AoE damage is not the primary feature of every single Blaster set, nor even of just the "good" ones.


Yes, which is a very large part of why I say they aren't as self-sufficient. If they were as self-sufficient as a Dominator or a Stalker, a good or bad team would have little direct effect on the Blaster. A bad team can slow down an entire mission, but it (by definition) shouldn't be the bane of something self-sufficient.

Dang-blasted Monty Haul Devs, grumble grumble...

They're still squishier than a Stalker, who has defenses and can ignore mezzers. The lenience in play style from having support on the team is far more obvious to a Blaster than to a Stalker.


This is only true when you approach caps, which is a marginal case. A Scrapper with Fortitude gets a larger absolute damage buff than a Brute with Fortitude; on the other hand, a Brute who decides to solo a map while the rest of the team is AFK will be swimming in Fury and yelling SMASH, while the Scrapper is going to wish that the Empath would come back and Fort him again. They'll both win in both cases, but it's not a binary comparison.


I still prefer "blazing fast and steady."


Yes, actually. Jack Frost doesn't benefit nearly as much from Adrenaline Boost as a Scrapper does, Phantasm doesn't benefit from Fort as much as a Blaster does, etc.


I'll give you that one. I don't have any HEATs above 30.


Still, in all cases, I'm not asserting the difference to be absolute--merely present. A Scrapper with Forge gets more of a boost than a Brute, regardless of whether either could solo without it; a Controller who AM's her pets and four other heroes is creating more of an effect than she would by AM'ing only her pets, but a Fire/Psi Dom who sprints into a spawn set for 8 and flattens it doesn't care whether he's solo or on a full ITF. Though the Hero AT's are generally self-sufficient, their relative potential is still more intimately tied to teams than it is for Villains.

Edit: And I don't even notice that CoV is "dirtier." It's hard to tell the difference easily when your graphics settings are bottomed out.

I don't understand what you mean. Are points being awarded for specialization or self-sufficiency?

Blasters are obviously less self-sufficient than Stalkers; they do better damage, but they're made of paper.

Scrappers really are less self-sufficient than Brutes. Brutes have a lower base damage but the ability to ramp it up to a higher level than Scrappers normally can, but since Scrappers have higher base numbers, they respond better to external buffs. (If you think Scrappers are as self-sufficient as Brutes, imagine trying to use a Scrapper in Granite Armor.)

Masterminds are obviously more self-sufficient than Tanks. Tanks do make it easy for other AT's to do their jobs unmolested, so they have their own role to fill.

Defenders are more reliant on other other AT's doing damage than Corruptors are, but they are a stronger force multiplier, so the asserted dichotomy is obvious here.

Doms and Controllers are both game-breaking death machines, but a Controller still doesn't really hit his full potential without having other players to buff. The Controller is also marginally less self-sufficient in that she may have endurance issues (obviously this varies by secondary) and is likely to be hoist with her own petard (mezzed and then eaten by minions).

VEATs are a good force multiplier, but they're also rather self-sufficient, while HEATs need some serious IO work to solo well.

True, but I also said "that you want to see." I don't think we need a Healer set.

I think my druid character is using it with Rough Leather pants.

Nah, he's just over-exaggerating the time frame. I've seen Circuit Boards go that high on both sides for twenty minutes or so, but the salvage prices always drop back down if you can wait a few minutes.

In point of fact, I still get salvage cheaper in CoV. But recipes (or even expensive completed enhancements)? Good luck!



(Amusing anecdote: I was once watching Scientific Theories in CoH because I really wanted to craft something for an upcoming TF. During a ten minute period, they went from 100,000 to 500,000 in the last 5 listings, then 1,000,000, then 10,000,000. Then, five minutes later, I got one for the bid of 5050 that I put up when they were at 100,000.)

The 20% endurance discount to your main 3 armors fails (horribly) to make up for the fact that Death Shroud and Cloak of Darkness are not discounted. Shroud costs as much as 2 normal armors from any other set--just like the other damage auras, except that both other damage aura sets get endurance management powers! Turning off Cloak gets you immobilized (and hurts your defense a bit), which is even worse for a Brute than it is for a Scrapper.

If running the equivalent of 5.5 armor toggles with no endurance management assistance wasn't bad enough, there's the part where doing so is still leaving you weaker than other sets. You have to fill a knockback hole with IO's; your damage toggle is unusually weak (less damage than Fire but no compensating debuff or endurance discount); you have a partial hole to Energy damage, which is rather common; you have no protection from defense debuff; your heal, which you need, is the single most expensive power in the game (other than crashing powers) and yet barely even as effective as many other self-heals. Even your self-rez only works situationally.

Edit: You might try playing a Dominator. They're pretty Scrappy. Again, though, you might need to get to higher levels to see their full potential. (Might. The endurance help from Domination makes things easier, as does the status protection, and now that their base damage was increased they can kill pretty fast at all levels.)