Ukaserex

Although the previous posts have shown the OP to be...imprecise, I think I know what he's talking about.

For me though - it's not that there's too much arcane/magic stuff, but aside from Anti-Matter doing his premature gloating atop of the reactor, there's something missing for me.

Mother Mayhem doing her silly dialogue before the BAF is just, well, it's okay - but her wardrobe makes it ridiculous. Very hard to take her seriously as a threat. Siege and Nightstar seem to be more robot than human - which for me just moves it from comic book (caped crusaders) to sci-fi.

Maelstrom, when he shoots that camera in TPN, he talks about himself as a subordinate - basically a lackey. Well, okay, Galactus had the Silver Surfer, so I suppose a lackey can be formidable.

I think I got my best taste of "caped crusaders" and "heroes in Spandex" feel from this game in that Blood Coral arc, where I get empowered by the coral and at the conclusion of all the ambushes, all these heroes come in - and they look like they could be in the Avengers.

Mother Mayhem looks more like she should be part of Josie and the Pussycats.

Still, as long as my toons get to wear a cape and spandex, it's all good.

We had a very nice run tonight - and what a difference it made with the level 35 floor. About 500 merits more tonight than last week.

If you were one who got surprised by this floor I set, I'm sorry if it was inconvenient, but you're more than welcome to lead a raid in my place. Just ask me for the star.

Makes me glad I never considered playing another game.

Since this pando (I thought it was a thread about Pandas at first) thing is only active while downloading a new patch or a fresh install - and I'm guessing faster - other than my initial distrust and loathing of anything new, I don't see it as that big of a deal.

But - I am not at all typical, nor am I savvy about all the evils of the internet.

That bit about Adobe that Arcanaville mentioned - I'd not heard that. Good thing I don't keep banking records on my computer.

Personally, I think they (CoH) should leave well enough alone. The Launcher seems to work just fine. It's not broken, why fix it?

Back to the OP's original question.

Yes. There is a tendency to lump the same ATs together as though they are expected to perform and progress in a similar fashion. But, I think doing this is only going to lead to disappointment for someone.

I see comparisons: Corruptors vs Scrappers

What? Perhaps, when taking into account they dish out similar damage. Perhaps not. Player A may have his alpha attack slotted well, Player B not so well. Playstyles vary.

You could give me the "best" PvP Ice/ice/Cold Mastery Blaster build, throw me into Recluse's Victory and I may not shine like other players who haven't logged 4000 hours on their ice blaster like I have. They might beat me silly because of my tendency to lead with freeze ray, even on targets that aren't going to get held.

Different powersets within the same ATs are going to perform differently. Each player must compare and contrast with their own playstyles. Do they do nothing but team with others? Then maybe fire is the way to go, because they don't need to worry so much about mitigation. Maybe it's not, because they should bring more to the table in that context.

In the end, it's who had fun and who didn't. The one who had fun wins.
If you didnt' have fun, you take a moment and find out why. Do you need KB to buy you some time because your reflexes are slow? or is your damage just that weak? Or, are your tactics just that bad? Are your tactics sound, but your strategy in using that tactic poorly executed?
Only the one behind the keyboard can really make that call.

To the OP: if it means anything, I've looked at all my powersets across all ATs, and i've got more fire primaries and secondaries than any other powerset. For me, it's because I don't want to think about the delay in killing by holding or immobilizing or sleeping or fearing. I just want the NPC trying to kill me to be dead. When I solo, my objective is not XP, but merits. I want it over and done with ASAP so at the end of the day, I'll be closer to getting this goodie or that badge, whatever. Sets that mitigate damage are wonderful! They may not be suitable for every job, and that's ok. The fire/* corruptor isn't suitable for every job either.

Fire is great! They're all great.

For TFs - no question, Apex. It's like playing CoH and Dodge ball all at the same time. It was really hard my first two times running this, and then I upgraded my system and was able to see and hear the warning signs of the blue patches coming down. And, for 40 merits, it makes 20-25 minutes pretty productive!

For iTrials, the best told story is UGT. (not the best story necessarily, but the story told in the best way) The best trial rewards are UGT. The only thing is it's a little bit long. I like the bomb challenges, and the way there are different ways to do this.

MoDD gives a great deal of Astrals which also make it lucrative, but with the 60 thread bonus and guaranteed rare/very rare, I'd take UGT.

MoM is exceptional. If they scaled it down so I could solo it, I'd take that one every time, assuming I could "hold" Shalice Tillman and Heal Aurora and damage the avs fast enough. For leagues, it seems to require several different powersets which may not be in the league at the time. Several times I wanted to run this but couldn't because we didn't have one component of the puzzle in the league. (need a reliable pull/taunt for Storm Voids, and for getting AV out of the pink patches, holds for Shalice, Heals for Aurora Borealis, Debuffs/Buffs to tackle final AV in three minutes. )

Are we, as a server, ever going to draw a line in the sand regarding the lowest level that we'll allow to participate in the msr?

Last week, we saw a level 1 show up. @noyjitat asked them to bring something else. Still - are we going to leave this up to the raid leader - where different leaders have different opinions on which level it should be?

Is the msr considered a "server event", or just a zone event? Either way, under that rationale, anyone that can get there should be allowed to participate.

I'm planning on leading the msr tomorrow - and I don't have a problem making the hard call - level 35 and up. But, if I do that, I don't want to have 9 level 50s and 4 level 36 through 49s.

Is there still demand for the msr? The last couple of times I stepped up to lead the raid, we had less than 24. Doesn't seem worth while to me.

What do you folks think?

Above and beyond any response I could have asked for. Thanks much!

I'm sure this is not a popular thought - but aren't free players given an option to pay a couple bucks for chat access?

The whole free to play - isn't it really free to pay?

I subscribe, because I think it's better value. I'm sure a lot of people have their reasons -financial or otherwise for not subscribing.

But, as a vet player, I find myself discriminating against the free player - because they usually act so desperate. "lft" , "lft" , over and over again. I look at their power choices and, because of free status, they have no bonuses. Some of you might regard SOs as adequate, and they can be - but overall, recharge is slower, regen is less, recovery is less, damage is less, everything is comparitively less. (compared to IOs)

I don't want to team with most of them. Some are returning vets who may be savvy about how to play their character, and anyone can usually pick these players from the rest, based on their chatter.

On the other hand, I fully realize that if I don't team with newer players and let them see how much real fun can be had, they may never subscribe. I just wish CoH gave people a better reason to subscribe other than more characters and incarnate content. (for those that have been playing long enough to unlock everything else. )

I feel like the line in the sand ought to be drawn at level 40 - just high enough where they can feel powerful - but not high enough to be fully developed. But, I guess that's another topic.

According to Paragon Wiki, http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Connected

There's an option to talk to one of three npcs to get some side missions to do right before I enter the first mission door.
My badger is level 50, and I can only get this arc through Ouroboros. When I tried to get the side mission from Maros, I got the usual nonsense about how it looked like I had something more important to do.

I have a character on an alt account that can talk to vincent ross, and can also talk to maros - but I want the badge on my main character.

1. Is it possible to get this badge through ouro on my hero turned villain?
2. If so, what am I missing?

If not, can my 50 team with my level 27 and do the arc and get the badge that way?

I agree with the idea that there should be a larger carrot to provide motivation for teaming - but although I can appreciate your perspective, I figured I'd share a few things.

1. There is already an XP bonus for teams of 8, as opposed to soloing.
2. The leader position for most iTrials and a couple of tfs can be a frustrating spot, especially in PUGs. I'd love to see some sort of motivating factor here - but this is what I think would happen if there were.

Players who have poor communication skills and inadequate knowledge of the trial/tf/mission objectives would jump in the leadership spot and create a lousy experience for their teammates that weren't familiar with the content. (and also a lesser experience for those that were more familiar with it)
I think that CoH is having some growing pains at the moment. Some folks really don't have a problem leading, but they are frustrated with some of the players not being willing to be led. A team leader gives direction, and yet one or more players do what they want to do, either ignoring, or completely missing the instruction.

The better leaders probably spend more time on Beta becoming familiar with the new content and share that knowledge with some of the more accomplished players on live (when it hits live). Those are the players that should get something special. I've no idea what.

As it is, there are already several badges for mentoring.

Yeah, I know, none of that helps a lot of players get the team they want when they want it. Maybe if we can increase our subscriber base, we might get that a little easier.

In the meantime, understand your servers ebb and flow of population size. If there's more than 100 unhidden folks on your server's larger global channels, you shouldn't have much trouble getting any team together.

Although, that might be useful for some groups, for others it would be misleading. I know on my server, there are at least 20 SGs, if not more, that have been around since bases came out, or shortly thereafter, that haven't earned any prestige in the last year and a half.

On Liberty, the #1 SG still has two or three semi-active people, the #2 SG has a whole lot more, and they've only been around a couple of years.

If an SG wants to recruit more people, it should host/lead events and recruit from those that attend and fit in with the members of the group.
(at least, that's one way) If all the members are active, and you can demonstrate an advantage to being in the group, then people are more likely to join.

Uh...hate to break it to you, but your response in no way answers my question.

I already have several pvp capable toons- I'm trying to make them better.

I could have sworn I asked this already, but anyhow -

I'm trying to take advantage of the cheaper PvP IOs, but when I try to get my build together in mids, it tells me that I've got like 70% resistance with a two sets of glad armor in Tough and Frozen armor. I know Mids' isn't calculating the diminishing returns, that's in the little known issues section. But, when I click on PvP, it shows me the PvP bonuses, as well as the PvE bonuses. Is that actually correct? If I slot the required amount, when I'm in the arena or a pvp zone, I get both the pve and pvp bonuses from pvp ios?

Or is that another glitch?

And is there another "hero builder" that you guys use that will calculate the diminishing returns properly?

I didn't have any PvP IOs or recipes stashed up before converters went live. I had several toons that were needing kin combats and reactive armors, I (suppose foolishly) used my reward merits for those first.

But, even still, after the supply for my toons was taken care of, I still managed to make over 20 billion. (as well as have a healthy stash of panacea sets, glad procs and Shield Wall procs.)

I like it!

From my perspective, surely not in the majority, but nevertheless, there is nothing I want on my leagues more than an empath when I'm on my tank.

A ranged heal that doesn't require an accuracy check! This is an invaluable tool.

Playing an emp defender is not very easy. Playing one well is darn tough.
The better defenders use primary and secondary powers. True, their damage isn't anything to get excited about, but there are a lot of scrappers and blasters who hit build up + Aim and the big ST damage attack and leave a sliver of health on the npc. That makes it a safe shot for the empath.

When I'm on my emp, I see more. I do more. It's exhausting.
Emping at low levels is even harder, because the teammates don't have much endurance or many defenses. They rely on me doing a better job. Pressures on. They go down in my line of sight, that makes me look bad. (obviously, some folks are just careless sometimes -doesn't make me or them bad players, things can happen)

When you're on a good league that doesn't need you to heal them, smile and enjoy it! The last thing you want is to have to heal everyone and not be able to.

I'll be honest. On my fire tank, with burn, fsc and fireball, I rarely use combustion. The animation is too long and damage too minimal for the effort. (for me, anyway)

No, it is not. It is a marginal attack. It does good AoE damage, but I do not miss it on my fire/fire brute at all.

I have had a fire/fire tank for a very long time. Have earned 10 million prestige with it just in the past year, and I can tell you this - built properly, it's a wonderful tool.

However, the damage it does pales in comparison to the brute. I didn't believe it at first. I had to make one myself.

The leveling journey with the tank, in my opinion, is faster. You get burn at 18 on the tank, and at 28 with the brute.

The tank is more survivable, but not much more. The threat levels are the same, so you can taunt just as effectively as the brute - and possibly better because of the increased damage.

They are both fun. Make one of each.

I'm sure it's been said, but me, I call almost everyone in game that I come across "Kiddo". It has nothing to do with age, but more because that's the role that I play. An old curmudgeon. If I'm 45 and you're 50, I'm still gonna call you kiddo.

Not because of who you are, but because of who I am.

What origin SO does he need? I run my farms at +4, and I have a demon farm which drops Magic SOs, or a freak Farm that drops Tech or council which seem to drop a little of everything.

I'm always selling these, and I'm almost positive I've sold several 53 end mod SOs.

Let me know, I'll save them.

I think, given the number of different ATOs available, if you only have 1 ATO set that you want, it would probably be a better idea to sell the one you have, and then bid for the one you want.

Say you spend a converter trying to change the stalker acc/dam to a brute fury proc.

It *could* happen in one shot, or it could convert to a Soldier of Arachnoe, or an MM or a Dominator or a controller or any of the sets besides the one you want.

It's an iffy game.

Changing from a Celerity Run, hoping for a stealth proc are far better odds.