Tourian

I chose specific villian group(s), which would happen to be the Malta and KoA. Malta moreso; KoA for the cool look, mostly (we really need some KoA costume pieces... or accessories like the boot knife).

Although, while I loved the Malta as soon as I saw them (ambushing my high-40's blaster friend in Talos and outright wupping his butt - I didn't know whether to root for the bada** commandos or my friend ) I really started liking them after I did some Malta arcs of my own and learned their backstory.

When I figured out the relationship between the Malta and the various elements (might-for-right act, etc) of CoH's backstory, I was hooked. It was just one of those times when I felt the writers really did a great job twining everything together, and making a very good and quite believable story. So I guess I could have picked story instead... but nah.

Plus, the Malta are the only villian group that really and truly tries. I mean they bust out all the stops: Body armor, suppression and entanglement grenades, assault rifles, turrets, gun-fu cowboys, giant mechs (who combine to form bigger giant mechs, no less), really, really super-big Giant Mechs and of course we cannot forget the sappers, the only minion that's acctually worth a crap. Oh, and they're all part of an elaborate global-wide government conspiracy.

I really loves me paranoid black-ops. They so hugglez.

I love each and every one of you.
(Devs and players alike)

AV change... you guys ROCK. AV bonus for those of us who do them, and Elite boss for those of us who don't want to be bothered. That is a great compromise. Thank you.

I don't think we'll ever see a return to the days of the almighty tank, who can and did tank entire spawns. But honestly I think the game is ultimately better overall for it. Squishies can defintely take on a minion or two and its nice to see some previously "useless" powers gain more prominence. Increases the fun for all...

Except for the Tanker... I have numerous stories of these past couple weeks that mirror everything that's being said here - namely, fighting in instances where my absence would not be noted. Now then, that's not necessarily a terrible thing. You could make an argument that any AT in a team that knows what its doing could be swapped out for another, and it wouldn't hurt the flow of the battle. That speaks more as a strength of the CoH system than a weakness - There are no more "godmode" AT's that can trump everyone else's contribution to the team.

Now for my question: Where's our bone, States? What really irks me is that through all this balancing, we never got anything to counter it. I think the Tankers of Paragon could learn to live with the new system, and so could other AT's figure out that the Tanker cannot handle *everything* and they just might have to fend for themselves from a couple foes... but I would like to think of my Tanker as more than just a big sack of Hitpoints.

It's not so much a question of being "needed" on teams, as I said above you could really argue against "needing" any one AT (much like Defenders feel trumped over by Controllers in the high-end game). And I also do think the Tank contribution is still pretty good overall, but rather I would like to have something that makes we want to *play* my Tanker. Something that makes the game fun for the tanker. That's all most of us really want.