TheMightyStorm

I didn't think kill-X kills counted unless the SF leader was in the zone with you. Is that wrong?

interesting question. I don't think so, since damage done is figured into aggro for priority. But you will end up annoying mobs minding their own business even if you miss.

If you're talking about a fight where a bunch of guys have just been aoed by someone else, then if you miss with your aoe, then you won't take that aggro away (most likely). But if the mobs haven't been hit by anybody yet (or haven't been damaged), they may pay attention ot you even if you miss.

Before a mob is damaged, misses count alot for aggro. After it's damage, they count for less. But mobs also seem to prioritize based on how close you are to them and some other factors. So, in a sense, I'm saying 'Any Given Sunday'. which isn't too helpful. But the punchline is that a miss is less aggroing than a hit.

please (pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease) don't DON'T do this for arctic fog. The soothing sound of the dry-ice mists flowing gently off my thighs keeps me in my happy place.

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Personally, I'm a fan of shadows.

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City of Werewolves: The Umbra?

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I had no problem superspeeding into a hurricane and slaming Bone Smasher on the stormies, which usually disoriented them, allowing me to placate and then AS.

Usually you can get in and land a hit before being pushed away, so if you have a mezzing attack rush in and employ it, then placate and AS. AS doesn't always have to be your opening strike.

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I tried this several times in Siren's Call, and it failed every time. I simply was not able to get close enough to a storm defender to hit them.

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and you shouldn't be able to! At all!!!

I can't believe they did this *weeping*

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Mantid, pick the answer that is most appealing to you and then fantasize it as the truth until release.

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Oooo... a new defender inherent....

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Exactly! Now let me drill a hole in your head and siphon out the happy.

yes that's right... siphon happy, the new Kin power requiring a black-and-decker cordless!

hold still... hey where are you going... Mantid! Come back!

*chases with drill*

I just want your lucky charms!

you had to get better at lockpicking first. Even if you were a theif. Usually by the time you'd gone through the Thieves' Guild schtick, you were good enough to pick your nose without dying.

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Once I6 hits test the patches for CoH and CoV will be almost the same so the patch back and forth from test to beta will not take the huge amount of time it does now. It will (supposedly) be much smaller.

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So would that mean those of us in Beta don't really need to worry about pre-downloading the patch or what?

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Mantid, pick the answer that is most appealing to you and then fantasize it as the truth until release.

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From what I've gathered, the 5th Column was entirely separate from Arachnos. Then the Council split off from Arachnos, and subsequently took over the 5th Column.

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Bingo.

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Oh god really? Then why are they lead by such a dashing swarthy gypsy of an AV? Was he too swarthy and dashing to be part of arachnos and had to take over the 5th? That would sadden me. I liked the 5th. They were not swarthy.

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It's the last straw for me. Farming Mancusans was the only decently fast way to raise my TRN stat, and I don't want to have to keep redoing those mind-numbing Conax missions to get them. So, I'm officially quitting. Goodbye, all.

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Oh come on, don't tell me that you think TRN isn't overpowered? The Dev's are concerned about fluxion balace in the upcoming PvPvF update, and are fully aware of how overpowering an early TRN grafted Graver is. I guess they could look away for PvL play, but when other symbiotes are involved, it is a different story.

It is people like you who keep abusing exploits like the Mancusan-knid bug, the Devonian air hammer temporary grafting, and other things that causes the Devs to react in a way that impacts the rest of us.

I bet you had a */insular Soma when the Resonance power had a -150% attenuate value instead of -15%.

Good riddance, and can I have your stuff?

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See this si the same crap that made them metastasize all the zones without a steady Mancusan spawnrate. The faction arcpole calculations are *based* on the Mancusan-knid bug, since we've been exhaling Prots through Venetian blinds-style sky vents on the zepptreyng for as long as the inn was located in the loading dock between sector 7 and the Maidenbower hills!

Ok fine, when they decided to add the ventilation ducts to the underground tunnels, they could have bothered to see if the Mancusan spawns would have a problem with knid, but they sure as [censored] knew about it when the server crashed everytime I sold my Gat-helm drops from the shining force cartridge.

I mean who's this game for anyway? Manticore's Dendrite faction short-stories or the paying customers?

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Original Post edited to add "but not" - Tar Patch and Freezing Rain are classified as differently.

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toss your head and giggle when you say that

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Second...why are there never resources for things the players want, but always enough to nerf them? It had to take some serious hacking of the system to add clicks that automatically shut off after 30 seconds, but that was worth the effort.

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Geko and I were both surprised to find out that the powers system already DID this, so no extra coding was involved. Trust me. If it involved engineering, we would have found a different solution.


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So, I was wondering how the DAmage taken/Health Healed/Mezed/Influence badges work? DO they work the same as the TF badges? or is that work in a diffrent way, because I dont want to waste time trying to get a head start and then find out I have to statr all over in i5.

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When a new badge goes into the game it begins to start tracking it's requirements for the player. Say we add a "100 Sky Raider Shield Generator" badge in an upcoming issue. Since we never tracked Shield Generators before, it begins tracking it as soon as the update goes up. Previous Sheild Generators are not counted.

But if we, in a later issue, add a "500 Sky Raider Shield Generator" badge, then we would have already been counting the Shield Generators, even beyond 100. So if, when the issue goes live, you had killed 501 Shield Generators, you would be issued the badge upon logging in.

So healing, damage taken, influence earn, debt, etc.... all that stuff is currently being tracked on your characters, so when the new badges go in, you will have a head start on them. No datamine required.

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I guess the question that still confuses and concerns me is A) why no monster badge for tf monster spawns and B) if supposedly they're aren't, then how'd I get babbageadge a couple weeks ago on synapse?

was there some confusion? An error? Are you going to pee-kay me the next time I try to train at Valkyrie?

why in the WORLD don't you people release the collection of all 4 helmets to all preorders, and stop with this nonsense?

ok right, but then I thought absorb pain didn't take away as much as it gave. So it would be a gain, right?

Woot for confusion!

..wha...?

you lost me.

you said 'imagine if CM' and then I was agreeing saying 'imagine if AP!' and now you're saying you didn't take the power and defenders need to heal self?

I'm confused.

to say nothing of absorb pain self. Free healing much?

Heh, I have a level 12 kin but I was shamed into making yet another Mighty Storm def. As far as I got, I was having fun with siphon speed and transference, or whatever that damage debuff/buff power is at low level. I was planning on getting null density (or whatever its called) and slotting it up for recharge so I'd never be without the mad hops.

on another note, while I was in grad school, I learned that the best thing I could do for my own sanity was tell myself jokes in my head, and laugh out loud at them. When I write on non-academic subjects (such as OMG HeRDz!), I tend to just put out what seems funniest in my head. I hope someone else finds it funny. If they don't, no great sweat. I enjoyed it so I wanted to pass it on, hopefully it doesn't hurt anyone when its out there. I put this up in the defender forum to see if anyone thought it was funny (besides me) and I got a decent enough response to update the doc with everything you see in pink, so I figured it was worth keeping around.

If it's not your speed, I can appreciate that.

You said it was funny in concept, just not something that made you laugh, and I think that's fine. I get a warm fuzzy feeling from stuff like (say) Calvin and Hobbes or Peanuts which isn't laugh-out-loud hilarious on every page, but generally pleasant.

Plus I'm a word-fetishist, and that makes most of this stuff funnier to me than it would be to normal well-adjusted individuals.

You bring up good points. There's a million things in the world you shouldn't take seriously, some of them are championed by those who may even believe you *should*, but you can't; and that's a process exterior to this trivial little playtime I put together here; like many people, I learned as I grew up that people would occasionally say things that seemed purpose-composed to irritate me, and in so learning I realized that there's absolutely no reason to be irritated on those grounds alone.

Here's a great example. I was shooting trap with a friend of mine and my father, and I was doing poorly (We were firing from the down position, and I was trying out a new gun, getting frustrated, and then being annoyed at my own frustration), and I loaded and took off the safety, ready for my bird, when my friend made a comment along the lines of 'Remember, it's the little orange thing you're aiming for'. I turned towards him, literally weighing in my mind how much trouble I would be in if I shot him, and then realized I was being stupid; I missed again, and started laughing.

Point is, you come to a roadblock in your head where something is unacceptible, you can either sit there and fume or turn all the way around and go the other way. It's not easy sometimes, but I find my quality of life is higher if I *assume* everyone is joking.

For instance, I find this tactic works wonders when Statesman posts...

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I don't know, I found this guide's humor to be a bit long winded and roundabout.

It's funny in concept, but in execution, I found myself taking too long mentally to reach the ironic/ludicrous parts to be tickled enough to laugh.

Brevity is the soul of wit?

Plus the narrative tone was a bit mild and "informative" sounding, which kind of made the outrageous statements not as fun. Especially since the statements being made weren't being said in as ludicrous a fashion as they could've been.

This humorous guide does have a lot of ironic statements, but they're delivered so slowly and straightforwardly that they don't surprise you. You can see them coming, and when they arrive they're not so exceptionally ludicrous or well delivered that they're worth the wait.

Not to say that this "guide" wasn't an interesting read, just that it honestly didn't make me laugh. It's a nice idea for ironic posting, but could use some work if you want it to be uproariously funny for a wider audience. Also, I think that some people might have 1-starred your guide because the tone seems very critical of non-defenders, and some people might have taken those parts too seriously. Possibly because you didn't make fun of those non-defenders to an outrageous enough extent to where it was obvious that you were making fun of them in a light-hearted way. The too-serious tone of the writing (which I believe is supposed to add to the irony/comedic effect, but doesn't imho) also doesn't help, because some actually bitter people (which I'm definitely sure you're not one of) do snipe at other classes in a very similar style of writing.

Anyhow, the idea by itself is classic.

Party Leader: r U h33l0r?

Lord Stormhawk(me): No.. I'm Storm/, I'm a buffer/deb-

<kick>

Lord Stormhawk: $#@$$!!!!
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Anyhow, don't take this criticism the wrong way. I'm just trying to help you improve this guide. Comedians, like all writers, operate under the "Rule of 9's" I think, unless they're exceptionally talented. Basically this unofficial "Rule" says 9 out of 10 ideas a writer (usually a comedian) will think of for a joke are going to be bad. Any writer/comedian, even the good ones. And the way that you think up a lot of good jokes/gags is by thinking up say.. 100, and keeping 10, or thinking up rough material and revising and editing it until it's polished to a high sheen.

Okay, it's not -always- 9 out of 10 that are bad, but the point is: more often than not, the average writer is likely to think up something less funny than more funny. So only continual effort without giving up/getting discouraged is the only real way (or secret) to writing funny material consistently.

Hope this helps.

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I appreciate your time and effort, but I think you're rejecting some great comedy work from the likes of Andy Koffman (who I can't stand) and Monty Python (Who I think are great). Running a fine line between seriousness and overt humor let the audience play with the absurd nature of reality itself.

and anyway, I don't think of myself as a comedian. I was just trying to be wry. *really* wry. Picture me wringing out a washcloth.

it alarms me that this thread had 5 stars and then went down to 3... are people taking it seriously?

ok, so color me retarded, but isn't that MoG-like power in the epic power pool going to make this easy to do?

avonlea: excellent suggestions. I'll update with a new draft. New material will be in pink or something.

Are you a Healer? v.2c
a Guide by, The Mighty Storm

note: let me know if there are any mynocks chewing on the power cables.

Chapter 1: Are you a Healer

City of Heroes is a great game with wonderful content and a new action-packed pace for the MMO world. In this world, the only green commodity is health; that most precious substance, the elixir of life.

Within the game experience there are 2 ATs which hold the key to the liquor cabinet where the bottles of this elixir of life reside. These are the Defender, noble and majesticly sillhouetted against the evening sky, and the Controller; a kind of parasite, that has a wretched beauty that can only be appreciated by the flesheating worm or the family of leeches.

A controller's primary purpose is to turn the game into a shooting gallery in which the villains do not fight back. A defender's primary purpose is to turn the game into a holocaustian slaughter house where the mobs do not have an opportunity to fight back before being dismembered wholesale.

There are other ATs but their contributions are largely irrelevant, except in as much as they crave health. They crave health because they serve no other purpose than to absorb punishment that might accidentally hurt a controller or a defender. This punishment is often received during brilliant and unconventional tactical maneuvers such as the 'lol you don't need end' frontal assault, or the 'lolz, look a glowy' feint which results in pulling 3 spawns at once. Of course, there's the ever popular 'musste Herdz!' t-shirt wearing tanker corps.

Because of these strategic masterminds, the best solution to any problem will often be seen as healing. Since, the theory goes, if you can't *die* you can't *lose*. Unless you were somehow a loser beforehand. I'm not saying they are; just in general.

As a result, a defender or controller will often receive personal messages eloquently requesting the pleasure of their company and the boon of their health-restoring capacities.

common forms are:
"r u healer?"
"We need healz"
"Can u healz?"
"empath?"

and the ever popular

"LFH 4 FF"

which is a complicated shorthand to state 'Looking for a Healer to assist us in the Hollows with Frostfire, who is difficult, apparently'.

Please keep in mind that Frostfire is best soloed or duoed.

In all these cases, the answer you should give is 'no'.
However, if you find yourself overwhelmed by the bohemian charm of the request, you will need to read further into the duties of a healer.

Chapter 2: The duties of a healer

The duties of a healer may seem cut and dried, but they are in fact subject to a rigorous hierarchy of needs.

First, determine if you have full endurance. Using a heal with less than full endurance is risky behavior that may leave you without the precious energy to useyour other powers. Be sure that the blue bar is completely full, as it is better safe then sorry.

Then, if your bar is completely full, and you are, therefor, in the best possible position to use a heal, determine if there are any defenders or controllers without full health. It is best to heal these ATs because they are the only ones capable of returning the favor. Essentially, healing any other AT is a bad investment. Concentrate on powersets that have a radial heal; as these will be the most likely to accidentally heal you.

Finally, observe the rest of the combat. Are there other ATs with health falling into the yellow or red? If so, retreat to a safe distance, conserving end to heal yourself, since the combat is doubtlessly going badly. Remember; your life is more valuable because you are in the selfless position of support.

Above all, do not use a heal on someone who is near death, as they will most likely die, and end up being a waste of endurance; the invaluable fuel which makes your powreful support role possible.

As previously mentioned, a controller is a degenerate form of defender, which appears noble in the same way that a poisonous toad appears noble when it elects not to eat its own young, but there is a key difference in playstyle which should be noted.

A controller isn't just another healer out there, working the job, and living in the now. They have responsibility. You see, a controller is healing for two. Your pets need that endurance converted to pure serum of living energy because only *they* will stay with you for your entire career, or the next 2 minutes, whichever comes first. Only *they* will aggro mobs without your permission and exercise seemingly incoherent, nearly random strategy on your behalf. The other ATs will be doing this same thing, but they will be doing it for themselves; more piglets shoving their brethren away from the teet, hoping to stuff more hot milk into their fat little bodies, while the others starve. Your pets, by contrast, will simply be too stupid to know any better, rather than actively in competition with you. In fact, anything they kill will give you xp. This is completely different than the other teammembers, who will take xp from you through the mechanism of 'shares' (see finance).

Never heal another team member if your pet could use healing. This is one of the few cases where overhealing is completely acceptible.

Chapter 3: Slotting to be a healer

The best possible slotting for any healing power is one end-redux SO. This will help alleviate the burden of producing life from cold unliving meat. I've seen healers with 6-slotted end reducers in their healing powers, and while I do not recommend it, it is another viable way to play the role of healer. Under no circumstance slot recharge reducers or heal boosters, as these will simply encourage your team to request more heals, and ultimately burden your endurance even more; making your healing inefficient. With careful management, you can avoid spending more than 5 endurance an hour on healing, even in the most desperate trials and hazard zone teams.

In addition, avoid using more than a single healing option. Many players mistakenly take healing aura *and* heal other, as well as, in some cases, regeneration buffs. These are redundant and will serve only to distract you. It's best to pick one skill, such as you basic heal, and use it sparingly. This is better than having several options for healing, and accidentally using too much or 'overhealing'.

A quick note on Overhealing. Over healing doesn't just necessarily occur when healing someone past their hitpoint cap. In fact this rarely happens. Usually overhealing occurs when the defender or controller heals the teammate more times than is strictly necessary. This can happen because the teammate has a respite, or has rest fully recharged and is fully capable of healing themselves. Some tankers have self-heals which they do not slot fully to keep themselves afloat. If a tanker's self-heal is not fully slotted and properly enhanced, any healing performed on them is overhealing, and an inefficient waste of endurance.

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Empathy and the self-sacrificing absorb pain -

Empaths are in a unique position, in as much as they can heal another without using endurance. They trade some of their own health for a health boost on another. Empaths should keep in mind that they will still have to restore their own health in some way, and that this will often use endurance, but even if it does not, you use up animation time that could be spent on more valid powers. I recommend saving this power for emergencies, such as when a good friend, who is a member of the opposite sex and likes you very much (possibly a spouse) *and* is a defender or controller is in desperate straits (though remember not to waste the heal if they are close to death, as they will most likely die anyway).


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Chapter 4: Describing your role to teammembers

Don't bother, anyone who read the description of a blaster and actually rolled one up isn't capable of understanding your role, let alone how to breath without visual aids and an iron lung.

Chapter 4b: Communication

The hallmark of good communication is clarity, precision, and brevity; a good healer can have none of these things. When you wish to apply a preemptive healing skill, such as a regenerative buff, instruct a subject carefully, with innuendo, and at great length about where they should stand, and what the disposition of other teammembers should be whilst you are applying the buff, so that you are not ambushed, thereby requiring you to retreat a safe distance of one mile (past tether range on a sniper), or, conversely, time is not wasted after the application of the buff putting the now blessed hero to work, utilizing the buff in your service. In general, it is best to apply buffs the instant before someone pulls, and only to one hero in the group at a time, so that, in the confusion, no buffs drop, and thereby send the carefully calculated risk and reward matrix into a tailspin.

Courtesy of Avonlea; Do not request that players should 'gather' for buffs such as adrenaline boost or one of those touchy-feely empath things. This merely makes you a more inviting target to villains with aoe powers, and can result in a team wipe, or the necessity of undue endurance expenditure for purposes of self-preservation. Instead, it is best to put any such buffs on autocast, or, at least, use them as soon as they are ready, to insure that you, yourself, are buffed. It's almost certain that some other hero will stumble into the area of effect and receive your boon; do not be alarmed, as this costs you nothing that you were not already willing to spend on yourself.

Chapter 5: Most effective supporting power choices

The most effective healers don't simply concentrate on healing (occasionally), they take other powers which help them provide the most effective total benefit to the team they join. This obviously include hasten and stamina. Dont' question this.

But what else? Well, every healer should take Vengeance. It's key for 3 reasons; if the group needs a healer, and recruits you, there will inevitably be dead bodies stacked like cordwood, and I'm not talking about the villains... Vengeance is a power which requires a dead body to function and results ina great payoff to the defenders and controllers in the team who can really use the extra buffing.

Additionally, if you have a combat rez, such as howling yipping dark craziness, or whatever it's called, or mutation, you shoudl certainly take it. after all, it will avoid any overhealing, since the target will already be dead, and incapable of using respites or self heals (note: firetanks and regen scrappers have a self-rez, so you should never rez them), and it will buff them, protecting your investment of endurance. Keep in mind the dark line rez is an aoe rez which requires a target, so you should slot it for endurance reduction, and never use it unless several people die close together, since otherwise it could be a waste.

Also to consider is the medicine power pool. This is, perhaps, the most indispensible pool available to a healer, as it contains the holy grail of useful-anytime healing powers; heal self. Yes that's right. No other power guarantees that you will not waste your energies on the unworthy. No other power guarantees that you *always* heal the *most* deserving target in the team. Take this early and slot it fully, half with interrupt reductions, and half with recharge reductions. This will allow you to heal yourself as often as you take damage.

But at what threshold should you consider it imperative to heal yourself?

Consider the expectations of one of those couples with a bumper sticker which reads 'proud parent of an honor student'. 90% is an 'A'... but is it enough? No, of course not. When measured on the honor student scale, a 90 percent is a C; average. An 80 percent is an F; total failure. A 95% is a B. To truly convince your FBI director father, and district school supervisor mother that you are trying hard, you must get a 98% or better. This should be your threshold for healing. When you see your life dip below the 97% full line, into 'but you're not an average student, are you, honey' territory it's time to say 'no mom...' sheepishly and hit the books, by which I mean the self-heal. This is the only case in which you do not want to adhere to the end-saving regimen of your other powers, because when it comes to our baby, damn the expense.

Finally other powers, such as fallout, fallout, or fallout leverage a dead teammate as a weapon, and can be far more effective than allowing that teammate to live. In fact, most teammembers will see that they are worth more dead than alive, and request that you stop healing them; alleviating your burden and increasing the team's defender and controller survivability overall.

Also, make sure your team turns off 'prompt to team teleport' as this will allow you to move the bomb at will.

Additionally it has been suggested that phaseshift is a useful power, since, while under its influence, you can easily argue that the crisis of human suffering taking place within your team is not even happening in the same dimension, and therefore is outside your jurisdiction. It would actually be ideal if you could first use blackhole or some similar power to phase shift all the enemies, and then phase shift yourself, so that, not only can your team not require your life-giving power, but also they cannot truly argue they need it, as all the villains are currently in a dimension where everyone looks the same; except with a mustache. In the long run, it is easier to remove villains from the field of battle than to heal, so techniques such as using wormhole, repel, gale, hurricane, and so forth to shuffle enemies towards clusters of police drones are worth considering.

Chapter 6 I think: Conclusion

The role of a healer can be highly rewarding. There's no question that a healer is the lynch pin of a team, provided that team is completely comprised of defenders or controllers. They can turn the tide of battle assuming they feel like it, and overcome impossible odds by using their debuffs or holds instead of wasting time and effort keeping some suicidal PLed Warshade from dying.

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I'd like to thank Gammaraystorm, ZealotOnAStick, Quason, Rasalgethi, and the Communist Penguin for their assistence with this guide. Honestly, I didn't even come up with this material, it's just a collection of their ideas and work. So if anything rubs you the wrong way here, you can ask them to clarify.

I'd also like to thank Avonlea who actually *did* help. Unlike the people who I claimed helped above. The people above actually helped in the same way a Kheldian 'helps'

"OMG! Galaxy! Plz save me!! *runsaway*"

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We are continuing to look at the set. Being one of the new sets in the game, it is going to be scrutinized beyond just the Training Room server.

If the set continues to prove itself sub-par on the Live servers, then some adjustments will be made.

This was one of the hardest sets to define. It falls out of line with the "normal" Defender sets. It isn't a buff set, its a debuff set. Its really a different playstyle than Defenders have had before.

For those who complain that the Archetypes who have the fewest sets were overlooked... the next planned powersets are melee based.

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I propose a change that will make this set easier to balance and more similar to the defender norms.

"Healing arrow" This arrow contains potent medicines which must be injected directly into a hero's eye in order to have an effect, requires a roll ot hit. The arrow graphic appears on the hero's eye (random chance left or right).

I know, If I had the chance... *I'd* take this power... and slot it for recharge...

"oops.. sorry Tom... missed your cornea that time... let me try again...*thwack*...ere we go. You should feel better in no time!"
Tom: "Aaaaaaauuuugh!"

The comics are repleat with examples of stealthy heroes jumping into the midst of villains, and taking them out one at a time, while their fellows are confused and unable to react.

Personally, I think this randomization crap is hurtful to the game. The more times the engine rolls dice to figure out what's happening the less control we have over gameplay, and the less we get out of it as customers and players.

but, if you're dead set against stealth being always effective (since, after all, even with stealth on, you are still attacked and followed by villains once you attack), then it should have some kind of fear/sleep effect that goes with it to simulate the fact that the villains might only get off one-shot, and be confused/scared, or be unable to act until they're woken up by a player effect. This obviously isn't to make stealth more effective than it was before, it's to bring it partly back to where it was from where it is.

Before, if you had a disorient or hold you could take out single targets silently. This made sense; that's something a hero should be able to do. Risk and reward is in play because your reward is low (it takes a while to do this and is hard to accomplish usually) and your risk is moderate (if you whiff a hold or diso then your target will call for some help). This meant you could do some things very safely, but it took a long time. I'm not aware of any abuses where stealth could somehow allow you to wipeout a group without retaliation. Anyone you attacked would fight back, and massive disorients/holds are only available to controllers, whose playstyle is on the slow/safe side anyway.

Now, stealth is meaningless except to bypass a group safely, for instance running around in higher level areas. Furthermore, if you accidentallly catch a little aoe, you're visible, which is bogus. Being injured doesn't mena you've been seen, but now it's effectively the same thing. If you attack with stealth on, it's only for a defensive bonus, one which is irrelevant because of the way the game works; the 'real' effect of stealth is making the enemy more innaccurate, but you have to actually move (or not move) to make it work, in this game, standing still with your defensive bonus is unheroic, uninteresting, and untrue to comics.

Try looking at batman or The Predator or nightcrawler or any number of other heroes with stealth. They use this during combat and it's not for +def, it's to confuse their enemies and take groups apart piecemeal.

All suppression is bogus because of this. Heroes use their powers like flight, invisibility, teleportation, raygun eyes, and whatever else in combat. All of their powers work in combat. Even if it's a 'I need to concentrate' kind of power, they use it. That's the point of having powers. It doesn't matter if you pick superman or random minor character guest-mutant #1000 on the x-men series, they *all* use their powers, and they don't suppress during combat.

It's your job to make the villains worth fighting, not ripping out the abilities of heroes at random to avoid them being 'too heroic'. This system worked fine until 3 months ago when suddenly it became necessary to suppress everything. You haven't stopped herding, you haven't stopped the meaningful parts of jousting, and you haven't stopped pling. All those things are still completely doable. But you *have* taken a bunch of fun-factor out of the game.

And before you accuse me of being a pler or something who "just wants Monty Haulism", take a deep breath. I'm not interested in being insulted by you again for the totally reasonable attitude that I don't think a game that hamstrings you in combat is enjoyable.

Manticore, I would like to hug you because you are a defender *and* shot statesman in the chest with an arrow (in the comic), which I find cathartic and inspiring.

A) Will we ever be able to shoot statesman in-game with our blast powers to work off hostility?

B) Will there ever be an /em hug emote so that we can shower your in-game representation with adoration?

C) Do you plan on hosting an event wherein you pretend you are going to shoot an apple off statesman's head and then miss horribly? Requiring the immediate intervention of someone with an awaken?

D) I want your hat.

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Yeah, we really do...

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...

BAD DEV. NO COOKIE.

Edit: Oh, I just BET there's a 'witch hat' temporary power. That would so rock.

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I'll take that bet.

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You'll lose.