Ultimo_

So I'm hearing that it balances later. Ok, I can deal with that. It's kind of unfortunate in a way, since endurance problems are most sever at lower level. I'll let you know how it goes, but I tend to level very slowly, and I have a lot of alts.



I took no offense, Uber, you took the time to explain, and I appreciate that. Perhaps I should explain where my ideas often come from, though.

Many moons ago, I played Champions. Many of you will remember. In Champions, you would purchase powers using points. The overall effect of the powers would be modified based on advantages and idsadvantages that the specific power had.

For example, an Energy Blast would cost 5 points per 1d6 damage. I could, however, add a modifier to that, such as No Normal Defense (which would make the power ignore normal defenses). This modifier would increase the cost per die to 10/1d6.

I envision a balanced game working similarly. That is, two identical powers should have identical stats. However, that's not the case in CoH. Look at Blasters and Defenders. A Defender's Energy Blast does far less damage than the Blater's identical power, yet costs the same endurance. To me, that's unbalanced. The Defender's power should cost less endurance.

The same basic idea should be applied to all ATs and all damage sources. That is, they should cost endurance based on the damage they do, modified by the special effects involved. To me, that's balanced. There's a lot of discussion on the boards about endurance woes, I think something along these lines might alleviate much of the complaining.

I got the numbers from Mids'. I didn't make anything up, and I am offended by the suggestion.

Part of why I posted was that I've only played Claws to around L10, and I thought it possible it would be outstripped later. However, it SO greatly eclipses everything I've played previously, that I can't imagine anything else coming close.

I think I stand by my suggestion. Personally, I think a degree of standardization would be good for the game. There seems to be a lot of arbitrariness.

And I'm not sure I like it.

I'll explain. I've recently been building a bunch of new characters, using power sets I've never used before. It's partly because I've been making characetrs that are intended as homages to existing characters, partly just to try new things.

Today I made a Claws/Regen Scrapper. All I can say is, Holy COW.

This character does enough damage to defeat one of my AE minions in one, sometimes two hits. He uses a miniscule fraction of the endurance that ALL my other characters use. He uses so little endurance, in fact, that he can fight through whole missions with Sprint turned ON!

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm wondering why all other ATs and sets don't behave this way?

I mean, just compare the first power of several sets (the comparison is similar throughout the sets).

Claws-Swipe - 20.7 dps
Broadsword-Hack - 12.1 dps
Dark Melee-Shadow Punch - 15.1 dps
Dual Blades-Nimble Slash - 14.1 dps
Martial Arts-Thunder Kick - 15.1 dps

Claws outpowers everything, and by a fair bit. The damage per endurance stats are similar, but less pronounced. Overall, endurance per second is about the same across all the sets, but Claws uses less because it defeats its foes faster.

I'll say this, too. Because I'm using Regeneration, I have no toggles to use endurance up. However, even when I fight with toggles off, I'm doing less damage than Claws will do.

Why don't I like this? Because everyone else is being short changed! I mean, Tankers are gasping for breath after one minion. Claws Scrappers can go through whole missions and never fall below 75% endurance.

This is my suggestion. Rebalance endurance use so it is relative to damage output. That is, if it takes 1% endurance to do 5 damage, it should take 1% to do 5 damage for everyone. Tankers will use less endurance, Defenders will use less endurance, Blasters would use more. Of course, powers with additional effects should use a little more endurance, but this too, should be standardized.

Ya, I took it for my martial artist, and have sorely regretted it. It looks goofy as blazes.

Ya, that's what I wondered, if they had made a tweak that affected normal mobs as well as AE ones.

There were comments regarding three similar events in this thread already. Memphis described something as happening "many times."

Besides, if it's happening because of a recent change, I may be the only one that's commented so far.

So it's not just me. Good, I'll file a ticket. Strange, it's happened on several characters, too. This is just the latest. On my Tanker, I didn't worry, I just waded in, but for a L10 Defender, they're just too much.

Since the AE received its "nerf," I've been unable to play it, my characters are getting devestated by the custom minions and such, all of whom do three times as much damage as my characters can do. With this going on, I abandoned the AE and started trying to do radio missions again.

It hasn't worked. The foes I'm getting in the radio missions are obnoxiously hard! I mean, I'm playing on Heroic. I shouldn't be seeing a spawn of two orange minions and a red Lieutenant. Even if it was only one such spawn, I'd not worry, but this is a common thing now. I rarely see a white conn foe of any kind in a radio mission anymore. It makes it rather hard on a lowbie Defender.

Was something changed? I mean, it's possible I missed it in all the changes lately. The alternative is that something got borked in the recent changes.

Of course, it could be just me, but I don't know why that would be.

Heh, "Kheldians kheld?"

Ya, I realize Defenders are designed to defend, I just don't see why that means they should not have the ability to do damage or defend THEMSELVES.

I realize this isn't so for all the sets (Rad and Dark, for instance, are useful to the Defender as well as his mates), but I just feel the didn't get the balance right. In my mind, the easiest fix is a boost to Defender damage output. Not into the scrapper/Blaster realm, of course, but higher than it is now. I mean, Defender attacks are less powerful than many MINION attacks. That's pretty weak.

I say that because scrappers have a relative balance of offense and defense.

Heh, I know there's no team bubbles there, but I almost exclusively solo. Personally, I don't think the ability to buff someone else is a tradeoff for less defense and damage, because if I'm soloing, I can't buff anyone. If I could bubble myself, I might say, ok, but that's not what they did.

I don't have access to Epic ATs, so the Crab is out. Besides, the look wouldn't fit the concept.

I didn't say TANK with PFF, but I can take that initial Alpha! I've done it on my MM, jump in and soak up the initial strike, then the team wades in. The Tanker can then get aggro and take more diffused damage. PFF is one of my favourite powers.

I kind of stuck Assault on there as an afterthought. Nothing else I wanted to add, so I just went to the Leadership pool. Maybe I should switch the powers around? Assault instead of Manuevers? I took Manuevers first because it works well with the bubbles.

A good point that I can make a second build for teaming! Boy I love that the devs gave us that ability!

As many of you may know, I've been struggling for a long time to find a way of devising an adequate homage to Iron Man. I tried him as a Blaster, but he's just too squishy. I tried him as a Tanker (my favourite class), but the lack of blasts just makes the character feel wrong.

Now I'm playing a FF/EB Defender. If I go by Mids', I'm actually kind of excited (posted the build below) because by L24 he'll have decent defenses, and blasts! With the PFF he can even take Alpha Strikes better than many Tankers! The only thing I'm finding (admittedly still only L10), is that he has no survivability yet, and no ability to do damage! MINIONS do three to four times as much damage as I do!

That leads me to the question, what do you think? Have I finally got it? What do you more experienced Defenders think of the build? Any suggestions or comments?

Before I post the build, I will say one final thing. Defenders DESPERATELY need a damage boost. If we take Scrappers as the midpoint (balance of offense and defense), Tankers get more defense at the expense of offense, Blasters get offense at the expense of defense, and Defenders get less offense AND less defense! That seems unbalanced to me.

Now the build:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Warpath: Level 50 Technology Defender
Primary Power Set: Force Field
Secondary Power Set: Energy Blast
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Power Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Personal Force Field -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(3), DefBuff-I(3)
Level 1: Power Bolt -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(5), Dmg-I(5), Dmg-I(7), Dmg-I(7)
Level 2: Force Bolt -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(9)
Level 4: Energy Torrent -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(9), Dmg-I(11), Dmg-I(11), Dmg-I(13)
Level 6: Hover -- Flight-I(A), Flight-I(13), Flight-I(15)
Level 8: Air Superiority -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(15), Dmg-I(17), Dmg-I(17), Dmg-I(19)
Level 10: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A), Jump-I(46)
Level 12: Dispersion Bubble -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(19), DefBuff-I(21), DefBuff-I(21)
Level 14: Fly -- Flight-I(A), Flight-I(23), Flight-I(23)
Level 16: Boxing -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(25), Dmg-I(25), Dmg-I(27), Dmg-I(27)
Level 18: Health -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(29), Heal-I(29)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(31), EndMod-I(31)
Level 22: Tough -- EndRdx-I(A), ResDam-I(31), ResDam-I(33), ResDam-I(33)
Level 24: Weave -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(33), DefBuff-I(34), DefBuff-I(34)
Level 26: Power Burst -- RechRdx-I(A), Acc-I(34), Acc-I(36), Dmg-I(36), Dmg-I(36), Dmg-I(50)
Level 28: Repulsion Field -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 30: Repulsion Bomb -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(37), Dsrnt-I(37), Dsrnt-I(37), Dsrnt-I(39)
Level 32: Maneuvers -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(39), DefBuff-I(39), DefBuff-I(40)
Level 35: Explosive Blast -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(40), Dmg-I(40), Dmg-I(42), Dmg-I(42)
Level 38: Nova -- RechRdx-I(A), Acc-I(42), Acc-I(43), Dmg-I(43), Dmg-I(43), Dmg-I(50)
Level 41: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(45), RechRdx-I(45)
Level 44: Temp Invulnerability -- EndRdx-I(A), ResDam-I(45), ResDam-I(46), ResDam-I(46)
Level 47: Total Focus -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(48), Dmg-I(48), Dmg-I(48), Dmg-I(50)
Level 49: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Acc-I(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 1: Vigilance

Well, I adjusted them, they don't have the grenade anymore. They must have changed them between the time they were created and now.

However, I still have the following problem (the numbers come direct from the combat log of my character).

Burst - 6.22 damage x4 = 24.88
Slug - 37.81 damage
Buckshot - 20.98 damage

Total = 83.67 damage in one "round" (since they fire one right after another, a round is about 3 seconds). That's ONE minion.

My L8 Defender, trying to solo this mission, has 187.4 health.

Power Bolt - 2.43+9.74 = 12.17 damage
Energy Torrent - 3.65+8.03 = 11.68 damage

Total = 23.85 damage in one "round"

Since the typical spawn is three minions, in three seconds, they'll do 251.01 damage in three seconds. They have 80 health each, and since I gave them Standard Regeneration, they have no particular defenses (they heal faster rather than having defenses). In other words, to defeat ONE minion, it would take four "rounds" or roughly 20 seconds. In that time, I'm dead, many times over.

Now, I realize that this is a Defender, but he's still supposed to be a super hero, and he's getting torn to shreds and embarrassed by minions. That's not fun. It can take HOURS to clear a single mission when you have to retreat to rest after every minion, let alone every battle.

Having played only to L10 on my Nrg/Dev Blaster, I can't say much, but so far I'm very disappointed. The Web Grenade has appalling accuracy. The Taser has such a short range that I'm actually in melee to many foes and it has about a 3 second disorient, making it useless. Targeting drone is handy, but I don't notice much difference yet.

My goal with this character was to emulate Iron Man in his earlier days (when he did a lot of tinkering in battle). It really doesn't capture that feeling at all.

I wonder if another variety of Devices power set might be designed that is more of a gadgeteering set. You know, the kind of thing Mr. Fantastic, Iron Man and Batman seem to do a lot of?

That is interesting. Mine definitely do have it, and they are on standard..

They were made a while ago, perhaps I need to edit them or something...

I agree with all of this. I made an arc set in WW2, and wanted to make troops thet represented normal troops. That means assault rifle. At standard minion levels, they get Slug, Burst, Buckshot and M30 Grenade. Now, they also get the throwing knife (the Japanese get shuriken). Taking either my L6 or my L42 Blaster results in the same thing. Near-instant death. The slug on its own does nearly a third of his health. Add in the other four attacks, and neither Blaster lasts more than a few seconds. Worse, the L6 guy actually has FEWER attacks than these minions, and does less damage!

The minions are overpowered in general, but do need some kind of ranged power. As stated though, it has to be in line with other powers.

What I'd like to see them do is allow us to select the specific "origin" power the custom characters get.


Oh, and I'll mention something else. All my minions were intended to have Assault Rifle and a melee power set. The Japanese got Martial Arts. There was nothing for me to give the Germans or Americans! Martial Arts was inappropriate, and things like Dark Melee had inappropriate powers or effects (darkness, Hurl and so on). How about a basic Brawling power set?

I posted this elsewhere, but I thought it appropriate here too.

I've been tinkering, and I've noticed that my generic troops are mowing down my blasters in a matter of seconds. That's MINIONS, even a low as green conning ones.

They're Minions with Assault Rifle and Regeneration (since regen offers little resistance or defense).

That means each minion has Burst, Slug, Buckshot and M30 Grenade! Each one does a significant amount of damage AND only burst has no knockback component. I'm finding this has made my minions almost impossibly destructive juggernauts to lower level characters.

I haven't looked yet, but perhaps the level limits on the abilities in the list are a little off. I mean, 4 offensive powers like that by L6? On a Minion? Access to the M30 should be later, if at all, for minions.

What I'd really wanted was minions with Burst and nothing else. Perhaps an Underling level could (should) be added?

What I've done is add a number of opposing patrols. As they encounter each other, they attack (though, they seem not to have much of a detection range for each other, as opposed to detecting ME).

There's been countless farming threads, and I've stayed out of it until now. Let me just say this:

I don't care what other people do as long as it doesn't hurt my ability to enjoy the game. That is, let them farm, just don't hinder my gameplay. However, the farming HAS hindered my gameplay. Since the MA went live, I've been unable to get a team for anything except MA farms. I've been trying to get teams for my trio of new characters (L1-10), but it has been completely impossible. The only missions are farms.

Now, even this I would have no real trouble with, except that there's NOTHING to them. They can't put even a LITTLE thought and story into it? I mean, the point of playing is to have fun, not to grind xp (or let others do it for you).

I suppose from some perspective, doing sewer runs doesn't have any more story to it, but there is still a goal in mind - usually to reach King's Row via the sewers. The farms don't have even this little.

Hm. I updated my drivers, but had to roll back because my card stopped working. I guess the new NVidia driver doesn't run a 7600GS.

Hm, it HAS been a while since I updated my drivers. Let me try that and I'll report back.

(Actually, I'm suprosed I didn't think of this sooner)

I hope it's not the card, I only recently got it (recently being a few months ago).

Hm. I'm not finding any heating issues. The card is reading at normal temp and the fans are both running normally (I don't even have the sides on the machine, so it's got plenty of ventilation). Are you sure this is just a hardware issue? I've had no problems on any other games.

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/k...9-18-03-16.jpg

This is what I've been getting. It started when I-14 came out, as little spots and lines in the edges of the UI. This new thing happens when working on missions, and is accompanied by a framerate drop to around 0.7 fps.

Any idea what might be the problem?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Anyone notice that mobs seem to run away... ALOT. Been playing my crab since I12 launch and it seems like just about everything runs and its quite annoying.
EDIT--- This happened when I was fighting scrapyarder as well... Basically he ran instantly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh dear god I hope they tone down the run away AI. I was about to pull my hair out last night after doing a COT and a Council story arc with my dark scrapper. The Thorn Casters always, and that's not hyperbole, run away and often all the way across the floor map. The Council are almost as bad. And don't be me started on how much the Croatoa witches run away, argh. For us melee folks this is incredibly unfun and frustrating.

A few issues back is when it got to be intolerable, they changed something in the AI that caused this excessive runaway.

By the way my toon last night was a level 37 Dark/Dark scrapper running orange/red baddies. The CoT Guides run away infrequently, the ghosts run away quite a bit, the behemoths and bosses seldom run away.

[/ QUOTE ]

As I and others have said, it's especially bad when you have them anchored with Snow Storm or something, or you have pets attacking, because they run away into every single other group on the map and bring the whole bunch running back to you. It's immensely frustrating. I've actually STOPPED playing my Masterminds entirely because of this.
Maybe if they despawned after they ran away, that would help? I mean, if they run away, presumably it's to escape. They're not going to do so if they return to where they started from.