UberGuy

I stay in touch with Quat outside of CoH, so if it's him, he's very good at hiding it.

Yeah, I've always been a bit confused by the occasional complaints about the pace of combat in CoH. For an MMO, its pace of combat has, frankly, amazed me. It's the only MMO I ever investigated that felt like an FPS, and I am positive that this actually was an important aspect of why it was the only MMO I ever really wanted to play.

Sure, you don't actually aim your powers here the way you would in an FPS, and that took some getting used to. At least in the context of the rapid, 3D movement - the toHit roll mechanics were, at their core, familiar to me as a player of pen & paper RPGs. But the almost unfettered 3D movement? Totally natural to an FPSer.

And yeah, that was the thing that hurt about I13's PvP changes. IMO, they stripped CoH of what I considered its single most important PvP game-mechanical differentiator - the fast-paced, 3D movement. I didn't even play CoH PvP to speak of and it killed me that they stripped that from it.

I meant to mention it in my original reply, and forgot. I'm with the folks who really don't think that much of lifetime subscriptions.

On the somewhat negative side of things, paying that way amounts relinquishing the ability to vote with my wallet by going else where. In a sense, you're saying "here, have a bunch of money, and you basically get to not care about my opinion from here on out".

On a more positive outlook, I'd rather pay in an ongoing way so that if I do like a game, and if it does last a long time, my payments continue to support it.

I think most of us are inferring a special case scenario attached to the question in the OP poll that affects how folks would answer. I know I'm assuming that a "saved" CoH would benefit from a cash infusion to use as start-up funds. Given no other option, I would strongly consider buying a lifetime sub to enable that. However, I would much rather have some other mechanism to provide such a boost, plus the option to pay a subscription and/or buy things in an in-game store to provide the ongoing income.

I have to say, I think it probably is too much. Edit: I mean $1000 is too much. $500 is probably still too much, but its a lot closer.

The weird part, is I could see myself paying it anyway.

But the problem is, I could only do that because I'm a single guy with a significant disposable income. I don't think I know anyone else in real life who could legitimately justify that cost up front, even if it's a reasonable amount to imagine spending if you paid a standard sub (or anything like it) over the long haul.

There are a couple of reasons here. The first is the matter of cash flow. Throwing a grand out there puts a big dent in most people's cash on hand - money they need in any given month to pay bills, buy real-world stuff like groceries and gas, etc. Even if they can dip into savings or credit (ew) to pay it, that is going to be a big chunk out of those reserves that a lot of people keep on hand for unexpected expenses.

Now, people definitely do blow that kind of money from time to time on various non-critical stuff, like new TVs, new computers, etc. If you don't see yourself needing any of those other things for long enough that you can manage the dent in reserves, then sure, you might be able to justify the spend.

Of course, if you're married, unless your spouse is also seriously in love with CoH, I could see it being a hard sell. And actually, that makes me think of something, for those couples who do game together ... multiple lifetime subs per house seems really painful at $1000.

I think it's almost certainly too much for most people. The sticker shock factor is probably too strong.

I've been the cat herder for four successful attempts so far on Justice. I'll toss my observations here in case they are of use.

Forming a league for this badge is more annoying than pretty much any others, because I think you do need to be really picky. I don't like doing that, but in my experience, failing to do so means you don't get the badge.

• You need to have a vast majority of +3s. Too many +2s will make it unlikely you will succeed, and too many of anything less just makes it worse.
• You want as much -resistance as you can get. As far as I know, Arcanaville is correct, and Tyrant is completely immune to -regen. Bear this in mind if you're someone who normally spams -regen powers like Lingering Rad or Howling Twilight ; unless they do something else you want, you are losing DPS by spamming them.
• You want as much DPS as you can get. The lower Tyrant's HP go, the higher his regen gets. At some point, he may match your DPS with his increased regen, and you'll stop making progress. Corruptor Scourge is very useful here, because it effectively increases DPS as his HP falls. No league I formed pulled it off with less than about 1/3 of the league being +3 Corruptors, though some such leagues still failed if there was not also sufficient -res.

The rough priority of things I want on the league so far looks like this.

• +3 Corruptors who debuff DR
• +3 Corruptors with decent DPS potential (before Scourge)
• +3 support folks of other types who can debuff DR
• +3 support folks of other types who can buff DPS, give +def or heal.
• +3 high single-target DPS types such as Blasters, Stalkers, Scrappers and Brutes
• +2 versions of all the above +3 things, in roughly the same order
• One person you can trust to taunt Tyrant out of the inevitable cluster of Flow Lightning patches that appear at his feat every time he summons it.
• Badge collector characters who don't fit any of the above criteria

My leagues have usually been around 1/3rd -2/5ths Corrs, about 1/2 other debuffing or DPSing characters, and the rest assorted badge toons who didn't otherwise map to a category. Since that clearly meant not everyone could get the badge, I've run the thing five nights now, with a sixth planned for Thursday night, so people can rotate in their badge characters while others run the support/DPS characters we need (when those aren't the same thing).

One thing I learned that can be very important is trying to keep Tyrant still after each Flow Lightning summons. If he keeps moving around, all your melee DPS and some of the Lore pets will have a hard time delivering DPS on him. I had one attempt change from not making any progress to getting the badge just by asking the tank to sit still as best he could between lightning patches.

On the matter of Ultimates, a +3 with an Ultimate literally delivers twice as much damage as a +3 without an Ultimate (or a +2 with an Ultimate). Everyone has been asked to bring them. While it's not always mandatory to run one for the whole fight, you do have to keep an eye on the timer. Usually I would pop mine when he got to around 80% health, and three would get me through the rest of the fight.

Finally, have folks bring things that can boost damage. I recommend at least T3 rage inspirations. T4s are nice if you have them, but I would save Astrals for Ultimates.

Team inspirations are also nice.

If anyone has holiday Present inspirations that boost damage, many folks don't realize that they boost it for 16 people in a 30' radius, and the boost is scaled by the number of people affected. Basically, popping it while standing in a crowd slams everyone's damage to the cap. I don't think any are for sale on the market, but people may have them stored in base or on characters.

Edit: Based on experimental results reported by other posters, Degenerative Core Interface is useful for this fight, as -maxHP has an effect on time-to-defeat similar to that of -res, but with Degenerative Core being a more effective on time-to-defeat than Reactive Core, just as a function of the specific numbers they gave the respective effects.