The_Spad_EU

As a general rule Knockback is bad; either because it is used badly or because it is designed badly.

The former is a result of people either not knowing or not caring how KB affects a team (doing things like opening on groups with Hand Clap, slotting Knockdown powers for Knockback, etc). The latter is the result of unpredictable knockback (Kheldians, for example) so that you basically can't play the powerset without some knockback and you can never be sure when it'll kick in.

Build budget potentially makes a big difference here so what are your constraints?

My reasoning goes like this: The free points you get are just that, free. You're not paying for them, which is kind of the purpose of "free", they're a bonus for being a subscriber.

As a subscriber you get access to everything that Premiums have to pay for, plus Incarnates, plus SSAs, plus *some* powersets, costumes, emotes and so forth. This is similar to pre-Freedom (booster packs) with the only real difference being the Powersets.

Sure, a powerset may be 800 points and you only get 400 a month (or 550 if you're T9) but you might not want all the new pay-for powersets (I haven't bought StJ yet because I don't have a concept I want to play) so you can just wait a month or, if you really want it right now, you can pay for it.

As long as the devs continue to provide at least some of the new powersets, costumes and emotes to VIPs either for free or at least "VIP-exclusive in-game unlockable" then I don't mind having to "buy" some stuff on the market (even if it's with free points). If they start making every single new thing purchase-only, then I might start to change my mind.

I found this one interesting:

I don't play on Freedom, but I would imagine that it is by far the "worst" server for that sort of thing due purely to the number of players and the law of averages.

The invention system has been in place for 4.5 years, so either the decline is so slight that it's doubtful you could link it to the introduction of the Invention System in any meaningful way or I've really missed something, because I've rarely come across anything that matches what you're describing.

And I wasn't just referring to WoW, but any online interaction between people (which in this context is primarily MMOs as well as other online games but frankly could be extended to things like Facebook and Twitter quite easily), for which I present to you [Link removed. ~Mod13] by way of explanation. CoH is still miles above the majority of other experiences in terms of maturity and general behaviour.

I haven't really noticed any issues, certainly not ingame where I've seen loads of new players commenting on how helpful and welcoming the game is compared to most other MMOs.

As for the forums, the only time I really see anything even approaching animosity is when people do really dumb things, like posting the same thing over and over again worded slightly differently in the hope that people won't notice, or who ***** and moan about something that's been in place for months but that they hadn't noticed until today, or - as we've had recently - cry that the end of the world is coming on the basis of some beta patch notes which a) aren't final and b) most of the time they haven't even played yet, or who make inflammatory posts that are basically designed to wind people up.

Even in the context of all that, the worst that this game has to offer in terms of community is still leagues above the kind of childishness and abuse that you get in a lot of other MMOs and, indeed, regular online games.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011...city-of-heroes

Interview with Brian Clayton about Freedom and the like.

Everything is going to struggle in the teens as you get more powers but are pre-SOs (or comparable IOs) but anything with End Recovery powers is a good place to start.

Elec as mentioned, Kinetics, Ice Armour, Dark Melee, Energy Aura - in fact DM/EA is a very good combo for it as you get Dark Consumption at 18, Energy Drain at 28 and Energize at 35 - but it's always going to suck until you've got the enhancements to make those powers really effective.

Which server are you playing on? Most have one or more global channels dedicated to finding teams and/or arranging Task Forces and the like.

It was supposed to be 3 months before they realised they couldn't award Reward Tokens in advance, now it's "Unknown".

Everything else aside, Drain Psyche would be sickeningly powerful on a Tank. I want it now.

Union is the "other" RP server as it was the EU RP server before the list merge.

That's not to say that RP doesn't happen on other servers.

2nd. And it's the weekly window for it (12-2 GMT/BST on Thursdays).

Though quite why they've decided to move "patch Tuesday" to "patch Wednesday" the last few weeks is something of a mystery.