cohRock

I made two characters early this morning, and both got the names I wanted.

* (Freedom) Petri Dish: Nature/Water defender
* (Justice) Hydroelectric Dan: Water/Electric blaster



What unexpectedly available names have you gotten recently?

Why is "Sue" a disallowed pet name??

Is this going to be posted on YouTube? I tried to view it on twitch.tv but nothing happens, just the CoH logo .. and nothing.

The Mystic Fortune buffs all last 20 minutes, dead and/or alive.

To consider SS damage, there are basically two modes -- pre-Rage and post-Rage. A tank cannot get Rage until 28, while a brute can get it at 18. Once you have it, it is providing an 80% damage buff (and 20% toHit buff) about 95% of the time. Brute's can add their Fury damage buff to that. In my opinion this factor makes tank SS and brute SS very hard to compare. (Other sets typically get a Build-Up power instead, but that buff is active maybe 20% of the time.)

Here is a quick table comparing Super Strength damage to that of Stone Melee, for the first three attacks. Both are classic, smash-damage, tank secondaries.

As of 21:35 Eastern, the conversation still not posted on YouTube.

I think Captain Mako through the schedule out of whack. Darn super-villains!

I'll overview three of my controllers who have great synergistic powers. Very interested in your feedback on my guys, and to hear about your guys as well.

* Colt Blue -- ice/force field
Sounds kind of old fashioned, and definately old; Colt is my first controller, and first 50. He's a control powerhouse, though. Arctic Air is one of the best powers in the game. Tie that with Dispersion Bubble's mez protection (except sleep), The synergistic gem of this build, though, is you can become the best alpha-strike tanker in the game.

Say what -- Alpha strike tanker? Picture this scenario -- huge mob ahead, possibly including an AV or GM. Here's what you can do.

1) ask teammates to stand back for a moment, until you signal them to come in.
2) enable Arctic Air (AA), Dispersion Bubble(DB), and Personal Force Field (PFF)
3) run into mob and annoy them. You are minor distraction because they know you can't hurt them with PFF up. eventually they'll release their alpha strike on you though. laugh at the 27 damage they did
4) call in team
5) mob will quickly switch attention from you.
6) release PFF, instantly nerfing the foes with AA and adding to everyone's defense with DB
7) extend the nerf with either Ice Slick or Glacier
8) if you had Jack up, he probably died bravely, and quickly. resummon him


* Frozen in TIme -- ice/time/psionic
You already know I love AA, a large aura with multiple debuffs centered on you. What could be better? Another large debuff aura, with even more debuffs: Time's Juncture (TJ).

-- AA: confuse, -speed, -recharge, and old-fashion mozy-away fear
-- TJ: -speed, -damage, -toHit

Once you can get it from the Psionic Mastery epic, add a third debuff toggle:

-- World of Confusion (WoC): confuse, with a much smaller radius, but stacks with AA

He has the Malaise Illusion damage proc in both AA and WoC. He's protected by Farsight, and with Hasten and three recharges in Indomitable Will, he won't likely be mezzed. All he needs is a pick-your-nose emote to show his ultimate disdain for the foes around him.


* Too Much of Anything -- dark/storm/leviathan
This guy is only 30, and already he has stacked PBAoE stun with Heart of Darkness + Thunder Clap. His two Haunt pets are up a lot of the time offering a nice distraction even if they aren't doing a lot of damage yet. But in the final build, his name becomes clear:

-- stacked stuns
-- two haunts
-- Umbral Beast
-- Water Spout
-- Lightening Storm
-- Coralax
-- Tornado

That's a lot of pets and pseudo pets attacking a lot of stunned foes...

I have a 50 controller, Frozen in Time, who needs two more Enhancement Catalysts (EC) to complete his superior archetype set. I copied him to the Beta server and bought a set of 24 Super Packs, 120 bonuses altogether. Only one of those was an EC.

So he "bought" another Pack. The sixth set of cards offered the second EC. So out of 150 bonuses there were just two ECs, classified as "very rare". The x100 reward merit bonuses are also classified as such, but I got six of those. Was that just luck of the draw, or are some very rares rarer than other very rares?

The document below is part of a larger document obtained by a Portal Corps researcher, from Dimension PQ53-874a. It seems to show plans to upgrade an eerie game version of our world.
See plans from a parallel dimension -- Bases 2.0
= - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - =

Empowerment Stations 2.0
========================
Rewriting a system that players seldom use is not an effective use of our resources. Hence Empowerment Stations will be significantly upgraded to a level where players will want to use them. Day Jobs and other types of small buffs and powers (aka abilities) have been implemented in the years since Empowerment Stations were offered. We will review all such capabilities when deciding what to implement in the 2.0 version. One purpose of the upgrade is to offer a "salvage sink" to absorb otherwise unused salvage at the market.

* current set of abilities will be reviewed, with some eliminated or modified, and some added
* duration of abilities will change from fixed at 60 minutes to 50/90/120 minutes
* player origins will affect available abilities
* invention salvage will still be used, but the paradigm will change from "recipe" to "fuel"

At a top-level, Empowerment Stations will still appear the same, with three tiers of tech stations and three tiers of arcane stations. Players will notice differences when interacting with them, however.

Tier 1: Enchanting Crucible and Radiation Emulator
--------------------------------------------------
These will offer ten tier-one abilities, each with a 50-minute duration, and common to players of all origins. The Enchanting Crucible will accept any two pieces of common arcane salvage to fuel each ability, while the Radiation Emulator will accept any two pieces of tech salvage. Any player of any origin may use either type of Empowerment Station.

Tier 2: Arcane Crucible and Linear Accelerator
----------------------------------------------
Both will offer the functionality of their Tier 1 counterparts. Additionally, the Arcane Crucible will offer four additional abilities to players of magic, mutation, and natural origins, The base cost for any of the six additional abilities is three pieces of common arcane salvage plus one piece of uncommon arcane salvage. The duration of all 14 abilities can be extended to from 50 to 90 minutes at the cost of an additional piece of uncommon salvage. Linear Accelerators will offer the same four additional abilities to players of tech, science, and natural origins. They will accept the same quantities of salvage for fuel, but of the tech variety.

Tier 3: Mystic Crucible and Supercollider
-----------------------------------------
Both will offer the functionality of their Tier 1 and 2 counterparts. There will be a set of two unique abilities offered for each origin. The Mystic Crucible will offer both new abilities to players of magic and mutant origin, and one of them to players of natural origin. The Supercollider will offer both to players of tech and science origin, and the other unique ability to players of natural origin. The base cost of each tier 3 ability is four pieces of common salvage and two pieces of uncommon salvage. An additional piece of uncommon salvage will extend the duration of any ability from 50 to 90 minutes, or an additional piece of rare salvage will extend the duration from 50 to 120 minutes. The salvage used must match the Enhancment Station's type.

The document below was obtained by a Portal Corps researcher, from Dimension PQ53-874a. It seems to show plans to upgrade an eerie game version of our world.
= - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - =

City of Heroes Freedom
Software Development Overview for Bases 2.0
6 August 2011


Goal
====
Rewrite the software for bases so that it is properly documented, maintainable, and extensible.


Scope
=====
The software for supergoup and villaingroup bases shall be rewritten from scratch. It was originally designed by a new team as part of the City of Villains release. The team was talented but under heavy time pressure to get the system implemented. They were not only building the base infrastructure itself, but the associated systems of base raids, Cathedral of Pain Trial, and Items of Power. The result is legacy software which is complex, poorly documented, and generally considered "read only" by the current development team.

The new design will be developed from scratch. Version 2.0 will concern itself with only bases, but extensibly designed so that systems such as base raids and functioning Items of Power can be naturally added at a later date.


"Clean-Room Design"
===================
The current software will be available for reference, but it will be replaced, not "fixed". The data files defining how bases appear will be retained, however. It may be useful and/or necessary to modify these files. Any modifications must be accompanied by a scriptable conversion routine to transform the current files into the new format. A 2.0 base must appear to players just as their 1.0 base did. They may of course edit their base, but the upgrade itself should not affect the look and feel of pre-existing bases. Hence:

* artwork for base items will be maintained
* geometry of base items will be maintained so that adjacent items function as they do now
* data files will be maintained, though likely upgraded
* existing code will go away


Features
========
This effort is not undertaken to add new features, or change the way bases work from a player perspective. However, two features will be added and the functionality of one base system will be extended.

* players will be able to undo, save, and restore their base edits
* during editing, a hold-all room will exist for temporary storage of any item or base room
* Empowerment Stations will offer enhanced buffs and powers that players will actually use

Undo/Save/Restore
-----------------
For whatever reason, this basic editing paradigm is unavailable to a player editing their 1.0 base. A player will be able to save his current valid base design to a local disk file, and restore a saved design from the disk file. Undo will be of limited scope. When a player enters base-edit mode, their base design will be temporarily saved on the server. When done editing, the interface will allow an Accept or Abandon, with the Abandon button causing the "undo" state to be restored. Levels of undo will often be indirectly available during edit, as any valid base structure can be saved locally or restored at any time.

Hold-All Room
-------------
A player editing his base will have access to a hold-all room. It will be a drop area for any items and/or existing rooms with items already placed. Editing mode may not be completed until the Hold-All Room has been emptied.

Empowerment Stations
--------------------
See plans from another dimension -- Empowerment Stations

Deviations
==========
A player entering his 2.0 base should not notice any difference to how their base appeared under 1.0. Anything they could do editing their 1.0 base must still be doable to their 2.0 base. Any deviations to this principle must be individually approved by agreement of the project lead, the CoH lead designer, and the CoH producer.


Manpower
========
We provisionally estimate that it will take two engineers six months to implement this change, with 70% of their time allocated to the project.

My second account went premium the other day. (My main account will remain VIP.) Because I wanted to do First Ward with one of the guys, I bought the First Ward Zone Pack from the Paragon Market. I noticed there is no Night Ward Zone Pack. Does the First Ward Pack include Night Ward?

None of my guys on the second account are 30 yet, so I cannot just check contact list to find out.

I appreciate the feedback, folks. Metal Mettle is not the type to go villain, even for just a bit. So Soul Mastery is out, but other options remain.

Metal Mettle is my level 45 SuperReflexes/DarkMelee tank. For reference, his current build and final planned powers are at the bottom of this post. He already has three fighting pool powers -- Boxing, Tough, and Weave. With the upcoming changes and additional direct-damage multi-target power in the fighting pool, I'm considering getting the full set. To fit the two new attacks, I'd drop Dark Consumption (DC, taken at 35) and Touch of Fear (planned at 49). He doesn't need the extra endurance from DC, and it is currently used simply as a low-damage (very-slow recharge) AoE.

If you don't know, the 3 fighting pool attacks will buff each other. Use one, and the next one does more damage (can't remember if more accuracy also). Also, the knockback effect of Kick will be changed to knockdown. This sounds attractive to me because dark melee has always seemed shy on direct damage attacks. One possibility is not to pick up Kick, but take Smite instead, depending on the total intra-power buffage given the 3 fighting pool attacks.

Am I crazy? Is anyone else considering taking all five fighting pool powers?

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.958
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Metal Mettle: Level 50 Technology Tanker
Primary Power Set: Super Reflexes
Secondary Power Set: Dark Melee
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Focused Fighting -- GftotA-Def/EndRdx(A), GftotA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(3), GftotA-Def(9), GftotA-Run+(15)
Level 1: Shadow Punch -- Acc(A), Dmg(7), Acc(34), Dmg(43), Dmg(48)
Level 2: Focused Senses -- GftotA-Def/EndRdx(A), GftotA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(3), GftotA-Def(9), GftotA-Run+(15)
Level 4: Shadow Maul -- Acc(A), Dmg(5), Dmg(5), Dmg(11), Acc(27)
Level 6: Practiced Brawler -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(7)
Level 8: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff(A)
Level 10: Boxing -- Acc(A), Dmg(11), Acc(37), Dmg(46)
Level 12: Evasion -- GftotA-Def/EndRdx(A), GftotA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(13), GftotA-Def(13), GftotA-Run+(19)
Level 14: Taunt -- Zinger-Taunt/Rchg(A), Zinger-Taunt/Rchg/Rng(42), Zinger-Taunt/Rng(43), Zinger-Dam%(43)
Level 16: Siphon Life -- Nictus-Acc/Heal(A), Nictus-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(17), Nictus-Acc/EndRdx/Heal/HP/Regen(17), Nictus-Heal(27), Nictus-Heal/HP/Regen/Rchg(34), Dmg(34)
Level 18: Agile -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(40)
Level 20: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/EndRdx(A), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(23), Aegis-ResDam(25), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(25)
Level 22: Dodge -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(42)
Level 24: Lucky -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(42)
Level 26: Quickness -- Run(A)
Level 28: Soul Drain -- Acc(A), AdjTgt-EndRdx/Rchg(29), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx/Rchg(29), AdjTgt-Rchg(31), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(31), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx(31)
Level 30: Recall Friend -- Winter-ResSlow(A)
Level 32: Weave -- GftotA-Def/EndRdx(A), GftotA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(33), GftotA-Def(33), GftotA-Run+(33)
Level 35: Dark Consumption -- Acc(A), RechRdx(36), EndMod(36), RechRdx(36), RechRdx(37), Acc(37)
Level 38: Midnight Grasp -- MotTanker-Acc/Dmg(A), MotTanker-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), MotTanker-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), MotTanker-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), MotTanker-Dmg/Rchg(40), MotTanker-Rchg/Res%(40)
Level 41: Conserve Power -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(50)
Level 44: Physical Perfection -- EndMod(A), Heal(45), EndMod(45), Heal(45), EndMod(46), Heal(46)
Level 47: Hasten -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(48), RechRdx(48)
Level 49: Touch of Fear -- Acc(A), Fear(50), ToHitDeb(50)
Level 1: Brawl -- Acc(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Run(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx(A)
Level 2: Swift -- Run(A)
Level 2: Health -- Heal(A), Heal(21), Heal(23)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(19), EndMod(21)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 0: The Atlas Medallion
------------

My tanks and brutes always take Taunt, and my scrappers almost always take Confront.

I two-slot Confront with:

* Perfect Zinger: Taunt/Range
* Perfect Zinger: Chance for Psionic Damage

It already is quick to recharge, and slotting this way expands its range past 80 feet as well as the 20% chance of damage. Consider that you likely have only a 5-7% chance to hit a MoGged Paragon Protector with a normal attack, and 20% ain't so bad. Especially when I've defeated such a Paragon Protector with Confront.

It would be nice if Taunt and Confront were bound more tightly to a set's flavor. For example, why not let it build Perfection on a staff character? Since the recharge is so long for Taunt, it would always add 1 level of perfection for tanks and brutes. And since the recharge is so short for scrappers, it would have a 50% chance to add 1 level of perfection for scrappers.

After reading this thread, I *still* don't know what's wrong with Energy Melee. Energi Zed, my WP/EM tank, has no problems with it. He even enjoys it. Just recently he achieved tier 2 alpha (Spiritual Core Boost), adding 33% disorient to almost every damage attack, as well as Stun. EM was good before, now it's awesome.

Me. According to some quantum physicists, I can create a whole new universe just by deciding between Twinkies and Ho-Hos at the 7-11. Then we have both a Twinkie Universe and a Ho-Ho universe, etc...

Some of you know this already, but I'm guessing a lot of you don't. Let's say you're on a low-population server, and play at odd times. You turn 14, but can't find anyone to open an Ouroboros Portal for you.

If you are in a super group that has a base with portals, that's not a problem. Head to your base, and take the portal to Echo:Galaxy City. Once there, take the zone's train to Ouroboros. Get your badge and power!

Note that this does not help members of villain groups. Their bases cannot have portals to Echo:Galaxy City. You'll just have to keep begging on the Help Channel, hoping someone might hear and answer your plea.