firespray

All of my blasters have superspeed, due to me thinking hasten is the best power in the entire game. I usually take hover too, for vertical movement and hoverblasting.

I answered your question in the other thread you had posted.

Also, just as a note, crossposting (posting the same thread in two different parts of the forum) is against the forum rules here.

Also, welcome to the game.

Pretty much anything will work, like everyone else said. If you want a nicely balanced team, I'd go with probably a controller, a blaster, and a scrapper. Maybe something like:

Earth/Kin controller
Sonic/Mental blaster
Fire/WP scrapper

Due to the way the game calculates to-hit rolls, they are identical. So a 20% to-hit debuff would give the same protection as a 20% defense buff. The difference is though, that some enemies will resist your to-hit debuffs, so they'll be less effective. Other enemies will use defense debuffs on you too though, so it's kind of a crapshoot. I'm not sure which of the two is more common though.

45% defense is the softcap for everyone. Once you have 45% defense, enemies chance to hit you is floored, and any more doesn't get you anything (except more wiggle room if you get debuffed).

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Oh, come now. You went to such lengths as to invent Poisoned Caltrops and you didn't include the Flashbang Grenade? It's already in the game, as used by Mercenaries Spec Ops and PPD Ghosts (though the effects of either are different). I'd also probably go for some kind of longer-ranged stun gun as a single-target hold, myself. We need more of those.

Unfortunately, I don't have a good enough understanding of Control sets structure to comment on power balance and you haven't included any numbers to work with (not that it's very important, though), so I can't really approve or disapprove of the set's structure. I WILL agree with the thematic, of course, as I fully agree that a Devices Control set would be really, really cool. As a matter of fact, the game has enough powers in it to cobble one together, so that's a very justified call.

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Huh, I wasn't really aware of the fact that a flashbang grenade existed (never played a merc MM, and I don't often fight PPD). You could put it in certainly, maybe instead of the tear gas power. I'm assuming that it does -perception and stun anyway. Some kind of stun gun could work for the ST hold too, but for some reason, in my mind, electrical attacks say "stun" not "hold".

As far as numbers go, I'm not entirely sure what numbers stuff should have, but I'll try to think on it some more and maybe put some numbers in.

I'd really like to see a more natural feeling control set. Here's my idea for it.


1) Web Grenade: Web Grenade expels a strong, tenuous and very sticky substance that can immobilize most targets. The strands of webbing constrict around the target as he struggles, doing damage and making it difficult to attack. (standard web grenade animation).
End Cost: 7.8
Recharge: 4s
Damage: 30.6 smashing at level 50
Range: 80
Cast time: 1.37s
Accuracy: 90%
Mag 4 immobilize for 27.9s
Mag -100 KB for 15 seconds
Mag -100 KU for 12 seconds
Mag -1.6 fly
10% to-hit debuff for 27.9s

2) Neurotoxin Dart: This small dart carries a potent neurotoxin that can shut down a foe's central nervous system for a brief time. As a side effect, it interferes with hand eye coordination. (Animation would be pulling out a small dart gun and shooting the target.)
End Cost: 8.53
Recharge: 8s
Damage: 30.6 toxic at level 50
Range: 80
Cast time: 2.07s
Accuracy: 90%
Mag 3 hold for 22.4s
-100% regen for 22.4s

3) Wide area web grenade: This grenade bursts in a spray of sticky fibers which cover multiple foes. Like a standard web grenade, they constrict as the target struggles, dealing damage and slowing the affected foes. (Same animation as the already existing wide area web grenade.)
End Cost: 15.6
Recharge: 8s
Damage: 9.18 smashing at level 50
Range: 80
Radius: 30
Cast time: 2s
Accuracy: 67.5%
Mag 3 immobilize for 27.9s
Mag -100 KB for 12s
Mag -100 KU for 12s
Mag -1.6 fly
10% to-hit debuff for 27.9s

4) Poisoned Caltrops: You throw a handful of caltrops coated with a mild toxin on the ground. The caltrops do damage, and slow the movement and recharge of anyone crossing them. (Standard caltrops animation, maybe making the caltrops themselves colored.)
End Cost: 7.8
Recharge: 45s
Damage: 22 ticks of 0.5 lethal and 22 ticks of 0.5 toxic, total of 22 damage at level 50
Range: 25
Radius: 15
Cast time: 1.07s
Accuracy: N/A
Mag 50 afraid for 22.5s
Run speed -80%
Recharge -50%
Jump height -50000%

5) Tear gas: You fire a tear gas grenade into a crowd of your foes. The potent fumes blind and disorient your foes. (You pull out a grenade launcher to fire the grenade for the animation. The grenade releases white fumes when it lands. AoE -perception, - to hit, stun)
End Cost: 10.4
Recharge: 90s
Damage: N/A
Range: 70
Radius: 25
Cast time: 2.1s
Accuracy: 60%
Mag 3 Stun for 14.9s
10% to-hit debuff for 14.9s
-90% perception for 14.9s

6) Triage Beacon: You place a beacon on the ground that increases the regeneration rate of all nearby allies. This would be the standard triage beacon power from the traps powerset.
End Cost: 13
Recharge: 200s
Damage: N/A
Range: N/A
Radius: 40
Cast time: 2.17s
Accuracy: N/A
150% regen buff for 90s

7) Neural Scrambler: You set a small neural scrambler device on the ground. It emits powerful electromagnetic waves that disrupt and scramble brain waves. (I see this one as being kind of the signature power for the set. You would set a device on the ground, maybe something similar to a triage beacon, Then it would emit multicolored waves from the top.)
End Cost: 14.5
Recharge: 240s
Damage: N/A
Range: N/A
Radius: 30
Cast time: 2.17s
Duration: 60s
Accuracy: 67.5%
Spawns pet every 5 seconds. Pet uses random mag 3 PbAoE mez effect with base duration of 10s. Mezzes chosen randomly from among fear, stun, hold, immobilize, sleep, and confuse.

8) Toxin Grenade: You fire a grenade into your foes that releases a toxic gas. The gas causes your enemies to choke and vomit. The fumes sicken your foes, reducing their regeneration rate. (You pull out a grenade launcher and fire a grenade. It releases toxic green fumes when it lands.)
End Cost: 15.6
Recharge: 240s
Damage: N/A
Range: 80
Radius: 20
Cast time: 2.1s
Accuracy: 60%
Mag 3 Hold for 14.9s
-100% regen for 14.9s

9) Hunter Drone: You summon a powerful hunter drone which is armed with dual pulse rifles, as well as smaller drones of its own. (The summon animation would be the wrist tapping animation that bots masterminds use. The drone would float down from above and remain hovering nearby. The drone itself would be a metallic sphere, with a pulse rifle mounted on the lower right and left [in a similar place to skids on a helicopter]. The front would have an electronic eye or camera, and the top would have a port where it would release it's mini-drones. It would have pulse rifle blast, pulse rifle burst, photon grenade, a "pulse rifle full auto" similar to a battle drone's full auto, and seeker drones)
End Cost: 26
Recharge: 240s
Range: 80
Cast time: 2.03s
Summon hunter drone with

Anyway, that's my idea for the set. I'd love to see something similar implemented at some point. And I'd love to hear any suggestions for improving it. Especially something to replace triage beacon with, I'm not fond of it, but couldn't think of anything better to put in there.

Edited to add some numbers in. Hopefully someone can give me some idea of whether they look feasible, and not too over or under powered.

The other day my wife and I were running a synapse tf with a pickup group. We had an experience that was so funny I had to share it.

During the next to the last mission, one of our teammates asked if she could go afk briefly to use the restroom. Jokingly, me and another guy on the team said no, no bathroom breaks. I even said something about "didn't you know you're supposed to wear diapers for these long TFs?" I assumed she would laugh a little at the joke and go to the bathroom. We started fighting really soon after that, so I didn't pay her any more attention really.

Cut to the start of the next mission. We're gathered inside the door waiting for everyone to zone in, and she says "Guys, I REALLY have to go pee, can I please go, I promise it won't take long." Apparently she didn't realize we were joking.

I told my wife and we had to stop playing for a couple minutes we were laughing so hard.

Wow, having tried to solo LR myself a few times, and never really getting anywhere with it, I know how hard this is. Major congrats on taking him down powerforge.

The flier thing definitely sounds like a bug.

The techs can rebuild towers though, so you have to make sure you kill the last of the techs present at whatever tower you just killed.

As far as I know though, once a tower and any techs associated with it are dead, no MORE techs will respawn.

There's a program called CoH Splasher that does just this. You can find it here .

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I don't understand why some people claim that certain things can't ever be seen as good. A common complaint I see is the concept of a Necromancer mastermind doing good deeds but who is to say that all necromancers are evil or cannot be redeemed? What if the person is a scientist who has managed to learn the secret of bringing the dead back to life? This same scientist has decided to dedicate his research to reviving the dead in order to combat crime.

His view of the death is that the person who used to inhabit the body are long gone and now the corpse can be used in order to protect those who are still living. Changing the story around, you can even use the same concept with a magical character. In reality it's the same concept as a demon summoner forcing demons to fight against their own kind.

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The problem with this kind of thinking is that good and evil aren't judged in the mind of the necromancer. They're judged by society. Sure, the necromancer might think he's "good". But society views desecrating corpses as "evil". People might even acknowledge that he does good with them, but most people will see the act of bringing a corpse back to life as evil.

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Instead of making another thread, I'll ask it here:

Does a team setup exist that can only fail? Perhaps not in every situation, but specifically in the harder end game content (STF, LRSF, for instance)? I was thinking of a team of nothing but empathy defenders, simply for low DPS, but they do have damage buffs so they might still have 'uber pwnage skilz'.

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Yep, Smurphy is right as usual. 8 empathy defenders are beastly, almost as good as 8 rads. In fact, most buff/debuff sets are great stacked. The only exceptions I can think of to this would be stacking forcefield or sonic, since 2 of them is enough to get you to the (soft)cap.

In terms of teams that would be very difficult to finish a STF on, I can think of a couple.

All tanks would be very, very difficult. Mostly for ghost widow. Low damage, combined with everyone needing to be in melee so she can heal off of all 8 of you would make her ridiculously hard to beat.

An all blaster team would be really tough too. No-one to tank the AVs would be a bad scenario.

I'm not specifically saying it would be impossible for these teams to complete an STF, but it would be very, very difficult.

The only 1 of the 4 I've used is acrobatics, and that was on a dark armor tank that didn't have any other kind of knockback protection.

/unsigned to all these suggestions.

I like farming, leave me alone.

I'm a big fan of more powersets for everyone, but blasters only really lag behind in terms of secondary powersets. For primaries, they're right up there with everyone else.

Sonics are nice to have, but I was mostly basing my choices off of STF runs. That being the case, I don't really consider a sonic to be necessary. By the time characters are close to level 50, I expect them to be able to take care of themselves. Barring stupidity, or a rare accident, people don't die very much.

It's also a matter of playstyle. I like the carnage of a damage heavy team.

I went touch of the nictus heal, heal/recharge, and heal/accuracy, and efficacy adaptor end mod, end mod/recharge, end mod/recharge/accuracy. 40% accuracy, 75% heal, 75% end mod, 60% recharge.

The "best" would probably be 8 fire/rad controllers or rad/sonic defenders. Stacked AM plus rad debuffs, plus perma-held everything but AVs is incredibly potent.

For the rare times I'm looking for specific ATs and powersets for something in came (STF for example) I usually go for something like this.

1 stone/* tank
1 empathy controller or defender
1 radiation emission controller or defender
1 kin controller or defender
2 competent blasters of any flavor
2 miscellaneous, if I have my choice it's usually another blaster and another buffer/debuffer.

My fire/mm is only level 22, but it's by far my favorite blaster. My others are a fire/dev and archery/energy, both at level 50. I actually found archery to get a little boring above level 40 or so, since it was pretty much aim, buildup, RoA every single mob. It got a little too repetitive for my tastes. I tend to not be super fond of sets that have a single, set-defining, really awesome power, and are otherwise a bit sub-par.

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There will be so many Dante clones/ripoffs out there, it won't even be funny.

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Dante?



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Is it sad that the first thing I thought of was not the video game dante, but the divine comedy dante?

The most noticeable incident recently was on an STF I was doing. We were in the thorn tree mission, and I was stealthing to the tree room to TP the rest of the party. I made it past 90% of the map just fine, but just a short way from the entrance to the tree room, all of a sudden a whole spawn of CoT just opened up on me and killed me. I'm pretty sure none of the CoT enemy types have increased perception, and I hadn't had any trouble with any CoT earler on in the map, and I was running into them frequently in the tight tunnels there. It wasn't the room with the rogue isles villains either, I made it past that room fine as well. The only powers I was running at the time were superspeed, rock armor, and hasten on auto-activate.

Does activating non-attack powers negate stealth for awhile.

Specifically, one of my characters has superspeed and the celerity +stealth IO, but sometimes, enemies that don't have increased perception see me anyway. I'm suspicious that it might have something to do with hasten being on auto-activate, and it taking down my stealth.

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With Ouroboros, AE, sidekicking, and exempting - you can do everything on one character. Okay, one character per side (red/blue).

Having more than one character takes up server resources and ties up valuable hero names that others cannot take. This is an RPG - and your character is very important. When a new player finds out they can't get the name they want - they quit. You have cost CoX one new player for every alt you have. That's a lot of money for development your selfishness has cost all of us.

And you can only play one character at a time (if you have multiple accounts - one per account). So having more than one is just a waste.

And when you play alts you aren't connected to your main. It is an RPG - you can only have fun from the satisfaction that comes from truly knowing and inhabiting your character. You can't possibly have fun having alts - so why have them (I know, I tried it out and hated it)?

Alts fill up supergroups. The devs have had to waste time making SGs larger so that selfish people could have alts.

And alts make it hard for everyone else to have fun. I see somebody on and make a friend. Later they aren't on. Maybe they are - but on an alt. I don't know. It just looks like my new friend is missing. Alts kills friendships and community - and everyone knows that community is what keeps MMO's alive.

I call upon the devs to solve this problem that is driving away new players, giving existing players ennui and making them quit. Reduce all accounts to 1 character redside and 1 character blueside. Stop selfishness from ruining my game.

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Honestly, with CoGoRo coming out, we can switch sides, so having a hero and a villain is needless frippery. We can just switch sides on our 1 character when we want to.

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My gut feeling

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This is why humanity is in such dire straits.

We keep trying to hit nails with screwdrivers and such.

Why on earth would you feel something with your gut? Yes, it's large has a modicum of sensitivity. But it's a poor data gathering tool.

Use your mind instead!




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This is an even worse idea. Your brain doesn't have a sense of touch. If you want to feel something, use your hands and fingers.

What would you think of adding merits for completing a dev's choice story arc. It would be in keeping with the idea of a toon being able to level from 1-50 completely within the mission architect and end up in roughly the same place moneywise as a non AE character.

Running normal content, most characters will get enough merits for several rare rolls by the time they reach level 50, counting merits from story arcs and maybe the odd tf here and there.

Running normal AE missions, you can use your tickets to buy rare recipe rolls.

Running devs choice missions doesn't give tickets, and as of right now, doesn't give merits either, so there's no way to get rare recipe rolls from them.

Adding merit rewards for completing a devs choice story arc (at the same merit per average minute or hour of completion rate as normal story arcs) makes sense.