Tocharon

a good example are thunderstrikes and red fortunes, both have a 2.5% ranged defense set bonus( technically speaking thunderstrikes get more since it also has negative energy set bonus, but more on that latter), for the purposes of ranged defense only you wouldn't more than a combined total of 5 complete thunderstrikes and red fortunes( that would give you 5*2.5), however you found a set that has a set bonus for ranged defense of 3.% you could add that to your ranged defense set bonuses.

An interesting question here, if side switching will be allowed,
does that mean we will see new epic and patron pools,
-Obvsiously if a Brute goes blue before 40, he won't be getting a Patron Pool, and it would make sense he would get epics instead
-If a blaster goes red, he now would be able to get a Patron Arc now, wouldn't he?

I do suspect the respective new pools will follow the same pattern as the pools, currently available to that AT, and even some of the same powers reused

for what its worth, if they were doing a CoX 2.0, one of the things I would do, would be EVERYONE starting in the same newbie zone, and by say lvl 5 or so decide on which faction they want to join. Just to use an example here, Professor X and Magneto in their Newbie Days, teamed up, and for a time Magneto fought the good fight, it was only later that he discovered the power of the Red Side of the Force

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The thing is, you don't LET a Blaster use Build Up or Aim. You hold them before they even think about it =p. And at that point, they're dead.

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in PvP 1.0 maybe,
in Pvp 2.0 I'm not sure here,
1-Even w/o hoarfrost Blasters have more HP, and with it no question
2-Remember set HP bonuses and +HP accolaides are based on % of base HP, meaning that AT's with larger HP, get larger absolute bonuses same with damage buffs and damage set bonuses
3-even held, that doesn't stop blasters from hitting with their tier 1 & 2 primary powers and building up defiance, and building up defiance( and given how mez is treated in pvp, I could see an argument for removing that feature for pvp)
4-Above all else with shortened mez durations + many blasters running around with acrobatics+mex suppression, I wouldn't count on being able to get enough damage in before the hold ends, and they hit phase shift or hibernate on a 1 on 1 situation( which usually isn;t the case anyway)

I suspect one of the things that will come out with Going Rogue, that blasters will become the primary ranged types seen on both sides.

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3. Massive armada of nigh endless ambushes.....NOT Better

I still wonder if the ambushes in that last mish need to be looked at and scaled back a notch.

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You kiddin' me? I love the endless waves of murder and mayhem. My Crabbie had his day in the sun keeping those ambushes back! AOE FTW!

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same with my huntsman,

in terms blaster vs. dom, I'd say the fight would favor the blaster,
1) Blaster = more damage by a big degree
2) Blaster = more base HP
3) the Blaster mez ghetto mez protection, which is the only mez protection in the pvp zone, combined with mez suppression and reduced mez durarions

Earth Assault, depending how they do it, it could be interesting

Illusion, I really wish they would just give illusion to dominators
Arrow/ TA corrupters could be interesting

Electric Armor for tanks makes me wonder what the resist will look like

personally I can vouch for fire/energy being fun,
-Fire pretty much solves whatever AE problems energy has,
use flashfire + ae immobilize, let your imps handle the small fries, while you take on the boss or Lt
-the graphics mesh well thematically IMO

It may not be the strongest combo out there, depending on what you want to do, but I'd say its a fun and effective build,
my fire/energy dom besides being my first villain 50, has always been one of my favorite toons, and more so now

i admit i wasn't crazy about the change, but it doesn't spell doom for dominators in pvp, like the VEAT changes did for the VEATs, damage wise dominators are still in a much better position than they were in PvP 1.0 non-perma

i only had an hour to check it out breifly,
based on what i saw, dom's still have a place in pvp 2.0 unlike VEATs, granted it was only a brief test

I have both a widow and a spider,
as others stated, once VEAT's were up there with stalkers and blasters in terms of pvp effectiveness( specifically forts), but now, I'd say their on the lower rung, of my builds, my huntsman perhaps performs the best between the debufs, and WAWG( which often i wish was a fast recharging ST web grenade).
Basically it was a combination of things,
-defense is worthless for the most part now, I understand defense is very difficult to balance with the way the game is set up, but for pvp purposes its worthless
-status effects are largely marginal( the main reason WAWG is useful is for anti-fly and anti-SJ reasons)
-Damage on veats were brought down a lot for the purposes of pvp( perhaps under the mistaken assumption the two former points were functional), they just don't have good burst damage in pvp anymore

In other words,
1 on 1 vs. a blaster, my VEAT will die, in fact 1 on 1 vs. a great many number of builds, my VEAT will die, with that said if your intent on pvping with a VEAT, your best bet is on a team working as fire support.

I think when they nerfed their damage was the exact same time they nerfed elusivity( sp), which unfortunately that and DR basically killed defense, if they hadn't adjusted damage at the same time, i'm pretty confident VEAT's would be where they should be, but as it is, I'm pretty sure their underperforming as an AT

I personally can't stand playing controllers,
1) They solo very slowly for a good chunk of their career, and in some cases their entire career
2) I'm the last person you want playing an emp on whatever team your on, I hate playing a buff bot

You'll have a percentage of each going over to the other side I suspect, roughly in equal numbers. On the bigger picture, it'll be interesting to see how some of the content will work out with different AT's, I do see some people being scared off by the number of elite bosses you see red side

Keep in mind all mez protection was converted into mez resistance, which I'm pretty sure applies to breakfrees and diciplines.

i think the thing is the big change in performance in forts,
before, Forts were slightly better than blasters, that is solid damage in pvp, and enough defense that was semi-reliable vs. people with the more extreme accuracy and to-hit options.

Now, the defense isn't really worth much, and their damage relative to other AT's was drastically reduced.

Add to that with status effects marginalized, DR and some of the changes that followed litterly destroyed a fort's effectiveness in pvp, under the current setup, i think you could make a solid argument for uping their damage a little for pvp.
Am I saying you can't rep now under the current conditions, not at all just difficult. The max slotted ranged attack, is maybe 200 something in RV( I'm ignoring the Shark ranged attack which is actually much better in pvp, than your standard ranged attacks, and also ignoring assault, se bonuses or aim),
their are a lot of builds out their capable of a lot more ranged burst damage, some of whom wouldn't be considered ranged types.

but good luck trying to use those offensively, about the only scenario i can imagine to use either is if you see a hero or villian hudle

my complaint is the lag,

to the OP, i'm pretty sure what the person saw was power custimization

on the other hand, i'm sure i'm not alone in seeing new powersets and AT's as my favorite adds

no worse than facing a blaster or a SS type really

really it makes sense when u think about it,
with control now marginalized in pvp,
it was natural for doms to function as blasters in pvp
now whats really going to be interesting will be side switching
, heck the main reason i play red side in pvp, is i hate fighting stalkers

looks at some of archtupes found in comics
Nick Fury, Agent of Shield - merc/ traps, except his version of traps would have all the cool powers that Spiders, Traps, Devices have

Tarzan( and a number of other similar to him) would have Animal Mastery

the Herceloids( the old cartoon from my youth) Monster Mastery

Commissioner Gordan - Police Mastery

for guides
see
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....e=0&fpart=1
their under the SoA section

for what its worth dual builds now there is now reason why you can't have both on the same toon, i have a fort and NW build on my widow
Now i admit on my spider i would love to have triple builds, one for a crab, another for a bane, and a third for a huntsman

what he said, formerly SoA were quite good in pvp, however they got hit hard with a number of nerfs, with the result being their now on the lower rung of PvP AT's. I could understand maybe tooning them down a little, but what happened was a little redeculous, they went from an AT up there with blasters and stalkers to being down there with WS's. It was basically a series of tweaks that did it, that each in of itself would've been fine in it of itself, but together hit the SoA really hard in PvP

on the flip side their still fun and good in pve

defense has always been a problem in PvP with many of the tweaks that they've done.

The fundimental problem is that, Defense and To-hit/ Acc have never been effectively balanced together, in normal PvE
mobs don't typically have or use to-hit buffs, now switch to MA missions with custom mobs who do have to-hit buffs, and do use them, you see very different results vs. most PvE mobs, in other words Defense only really works when to-hit buffs aren't a factor

Just my two cents here,
I'd vote Fort or Huntsman builds over other villain epic builds, primarily because of the range, tools available, and variety of IO's that can be fitted with
Crabs- only one w/o stealth + having decent resists( one of advantages over other soldier builds) not being what once was + limited utilility of pets in PvP, lowers its utility here, its only real advantage here is having range and dull pain

NW's - it is possible to make ranged NW, but it won't be quite as good as a Fort is at range, w/o some of the other advantages, pve wise you'd want the standard NW build, which is primarily melee, which isn't the greatest in PvP( heck a NW's main advantage over a fort in pvp, is Elude, which while not being what it once was, is still decent in pvp)

Bane build, a standard bane build has the same problems as a standard fort build w/o having access to elude, going for a ranged bane( ie using primarily the ranged mace attacks), will only annoy you

Overall I think it is a very good addition, and one I hope is a popular addition.
-in the future I do hope they add a feature where you can set the level range of the MArc's much like how the flashback missions have level ranges, and with similar functionality. While there is sort of a back door way to do this now, as well as adding a search feature for this. Two primary reasons, one is i think this will enable a lot more exposure to created story arcs, and lets be honest here even though a arc may be available 1-54, it doesn't mean that a lowbie would have the same chance as say a 50 to complete it

claws has covered much of it,
of particular notes on the difference between pve and pvp
-even before DR wacks, people slot for a whole lot more accuracy than what critters normally have
-availability of to-hit buffs, critters don't normally use to-hit buffs, with some exceptions of course
-in terms of to-hit resistance, the VEAT's are kings here, in between the passive accuracy power combined with the possibility of double tactics, not to mention using aim or build up

in other words there are some huge differences in pvp mechanics from pve mechanics, that you will really have to research.
unfortunately to my knowledge, short of going through all of the release notes, there isn't one place either in-game or out, that summerizes what those differences are in one easy FAQ