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Now, c'mon. Having almost gotten mine up to 50, I wouldn't rate it any worse than 'poke in the eye with a sharp stick'. Maybe ordinary root canal. Root canal without anaesthetic? I think you're selling Mind/Empathy short.
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Lol. Near the end of her levels I felt sorry enough for her that I was providing her DPS.
When you have a Grav/Storm controller running around with you as your DPS you have serious issues. I killed more Death mages in the parking lot at Portal Corp for her in one day than most people ever want to think of seeing. aahahhaha
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Well... yes. As a Mind/Empath, your DPS is other people. It's probably the closest you can come to the platonic ideal of the support class.
*waits to get flamed by a Mind/Empath with the fighting pool*
No matter how 'gimped' Kheldians may be, at least you can eventually do triple digits of damage to even cons. Shameless luxury!
@Mindshadow
Actually the coding is quite easy. The problem is that Jack & Company really liked the size of their bonus checks last year. Since the Khellys are fighting side by side with noobs, if the Khellys are made really buff, those noobs may actually level quicker than intended and subscription length may decrease. So the foot dragging is a delay tactic. Personally, now that I got a Khelly, I realize there is still no worthwhile 50+ content. I maybe can take on an orange minion if I employ the same guerilla (sp?) tactics I did as my Blaster. Hit & Run, rinse and repeat. Not terribly heroic, certainly not Epic, and gets really old after having done it for 50 levels and I wont do it for another 50. And with all the servers back to LOW population now that the peeps who got the game for Christmas with 30 days of free play have left, finding a team large enough to get the Khellys up to par is next to impossible. I really gotta laugh, right now the Devs are scratching their heads saying "Hmm, an AT with a -30%/-30% debuff sounded like a good idea, I wonder why it didnt work...." We told them it was a bad idea (it shouldve been obvious that it was) and now ever so slowly theyre going to bring the Khellys to the level they should have been at to begin with. The Devs stated that Khellys werent meant to be the best AT but the best at adapting. However, the way you fight battles at Level 1 is essentially the same at Level 50 so adapting isnt necessary. And since certain ATs give certain bonuses, not all the bonuses are useful. In a team I dont really need a defense bonus, Ill be blasting away from a (short) distance. Anyways, those of you who stay, I hope you continue to enjoy this game but it is ridiculous that they think we should pay for ATs that cant be used for another 4 or 5 months. My classmates at college have taken up WoW (which by the way DOESNT have XP debt, yet another annoyance of COH) and I have been thoroughly enjoying that. Happy Hunting.
Geez, gpa. I didn't realize that you were an expert on code programming for MMORPG's. On top of that you have the ability to read their minds and interpret the developer's motives. Kudos to you. You really are a superhero. I'm glad you are enjoying WoW. If it's so great, have fun playing it and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Actually my Associates degree is in Computer Science and I am currently going for my B.S. So yes I am. Try not to be too embarrassed. 
I'm hardly embarrassed. Working on a bachelor's degree and having real life experience in coding a live product (especially one with the size and scale of COH) are two VERY different things. You are hardly in a position to know that what you perceive as a simple fix is any such thing.
So many assumptions in your post... I wish I were still young and naive enough to be able to make assumptions like that. Good luck with your higher education goals. I'd try to tone down the righteous attitude when it comes time to apply for a job.
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Actually my Associates degree is in Computer Science and I am currently going for my B.S. So yes I am. Try not to be too embarrassed.
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That might be the best piece of unintentional comedy I have seen all week. Citing your two year degree as proof of your knowledge and experience in this industry is priceless.
I don't post a whole lot, but it really irks me when someone takes the time to bash a development team who has shown nothing but attentiveness and devotion to the fanbase. When they follow up their diatribe with a comment professing their expertise because they took HTML I and II and Intro to C at a community college, well I have to laugh. Maybe you will learn the difference between constructive criticism and being an know it all jerk by the time you get your bachelors.
Do the players and the devs a favor and go back to WoW.
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Actually my Associates degree is in Computer Science and I am currently going for my B.S. So yes I am. Try not to be too embarrassed.
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That might be the best piece of unintentional comedy I have seen all week. Citing your two year degree as proof of your knowledge and experience in this industry is priceless.
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Absolutely! BSCS and 25+ years industry experience here - and every time I play CoH I just shake my head with amazement that the whole thing just hangs together so well (perfect? no, of course not - human-real-time, [hot] scalable, distributed systems development is hard).
Anyhow, get the BS, a few years experience and a few hundred thousand lines of code under your belt, then tell us again how the devs have such a handle on things that they can not only put out CoH, but do it in such a way as to have the cycles left over to be as manipulative as you describe...
In the meantime, we'll be playing CoH 
True, I agree, splitting of slots between the forms just spreads things to thin. If the forms were designed to not have slots withing the form but to just buff and alter the human form stats while in that form I think it would work better.
Example (just using made up numbers here)
Nova Form
+75% damage buff
+20% end recovery
+20% accuracy
-10% Resist
Limited to 4 attack powers
Can not use powers other than those 4.
Slotting: Accuracy, End Recovery
(Slotting would increase the buff amount. one SO (33% increase to the +20% accuracy buff, would raise it to 27ish% accuracy buff). This slotting would be to the base Form power and powers within the form would not be slotted directly. So if you had taken and slotted one of the base attack the nova form used it would be boosted in NOva form. IF you had not taken it, it would function as unslotted with the nova form buff bonus.
Dwarf Form
+20% Resist to all but Psi (in addition to the bonus of your automatically run Shields in this form)
High Status Resistance
+20% End Recovery
Limited to 4 set attacks
-15% Damage debuff
Attacks limited to melee range
Slotting: Damage resist, End Recovery, Taunt, etc....
(again slotting is based on the Form power itself and not each power within the form.
Ok numbers are made up and way off im sure but this is how i think it would work well. Just based off of ideas that I have seen you and others throw around.
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Actually my Associates degree is in Computer Science and I am currently going for my B.S. So yes I am. Try not to be too embarrassed.
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Why do you need to go to college at all? You're already full of B.S.
If you guys read this (States/Geko/etc.):
Could you please consider giving us a direct shift from tank to nova & nova to tank?
I.e. no stoppover in human form where you can be caught without any benefits of either form? I'm building a form specialiast WS, and it is frustrating whenever I get nailed mid transform - especially going from nova to tank - and possibly have the transform interrupted/delayed by knockdown/etc. Then of course the inevitable death.
Guides: Dark Armor and IOs | SS/DA | Crabbing | Fortunata
Ever since I got my associates in computer science.. i have had two jobs. one as an overnight stocker at wal-mart and one loading deer blinds on the back of trucks .
Yah.. lemme tell ya.. that associates degree sure proves something to people.
Anyway.. im currently a full time student working on getting a REAL degree so I dont have to work the rest of my life as a manual labourer.
Anywho.. I may not know anything about the industry.. but I know that the guys at Cryptic have done something awesome and that they have worked their tails off to make this game great. Name another MMO that hands out free expansions like candy? name another one that interacts with the community like this? They do ALOT right.. and when they do make a mistake, they arent afraid to admit it and fix it. If there is one thing that gets under my skin.. its punk kids who think their 15 bucks a month entitles them to "slave master" type control over what goes in the game and how fast it happens.
Anyway.. ive been a part of ALOT of MMO communities.. and some of yall just dont know how good youve got it over here. I played wow, and it was a fairly good game, but I missed the V.I.P. treatment I got over here with cryptic .. so im back in COH and im going to stay here till they turn off the servers or release COH2.
Keep up the awesome job Cryptic. Yall have more than earned every cent you make.. but more importantly youve earned my respect and gratitude, and hopefully the respect and gratitude of alot of the other folks playing this game.
wow.. I didnt intend this to be a long, drawn out, a** kissing post. I need to go shoot an animal or something.. im turning into my wife.
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im turning into my wife.
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GO, HUNT!! KILL SKULS!
lol
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In the long run it's going to be a gain. Human survive ability is going to be about the same. A Nova is going to bit a bit squisher than before. And hopefully the Dwarf form will be a wash also with an increase in Health or the equivalent.
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I hope you'll forgive me if I just take a "wait and see" stance on that. It feels like all people are seeing is that there's a situational penalty, and they hate penalties.
I'd rather see a +15% boost per defense-boosting character on your team than a combined loss of the debuff with a reduction in hit points and the team bonus, which may very well see human form become less survivable in the long term.
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In large teams, a Kheldian is going to be just as powerful as now.
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No, it'll be more fragile, with the fewer hit points.
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But when solo or in a small team, a Kheldian will be better than one is now. Remember you aren't going to always be able to get on a large team with your Kheldian. (Well you might be able to, but not me ).
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One side effect of hitting 50 was a) finding a very active supergroup, making a ton of friends, and being able to team in just about any level range, even it requires sidekicking.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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In large teams, a Kheldian is going to be just as powerful as now.
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No, it'll be more fragile, with the fewer hit points.
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How so?
I assume from the comments about teams that you're talking about human form. (Dwarf form will clearly be more fragile, since it doesn't gain anything).
Currently, with a full team of seven +res members (each member is +10%, right?), you'll have 40% resists (before shields), and your HP (according to geko) is 13% more than blasters. If we say that base blaster HP is 100, an attack doing 100 points of damage will do
100 * (1.0 - .4)
------------------ = 53%
113
of your health.
With base blaster HP and no negative resistances, you'll have 70% resists on the same team, and the 100-damage attack will do
100 * (1.0 - .7)
------------------ = 30%
100
of your health.
(Oddly, I think Nova form comes out a wash in this change.)
How are you more fragile?
I think I'll finally toss my two cents of suck into the arena of whatever this is =^.^=
I've played my warshade sparingly as of late due to regular ATs eating my time, but I've still made it to 38 with 1 bub to go for 39. I've used three respecs trying out all the powers, but I have skipped dwarf (I don't have the slots, I'm generally in human).
I kept nova. I've never slotted it, and I never will. Having fly on demand and mire into aoe is too handy.
I've taken the control type powers (inky aspect, grav well, grav snare, grav em, etc)
I've taken my nuke (quasar), corpse bomb, and pets.
I have eclipse, though it only has one slot at the moment.
I played the whole way up using unslotted nova and human form. I've burned 3 respecs playing with different human form setups.
Here's my beef with the warshade.
Three of my powers (corpse bomb, pets, heal) require corpses that I am not able to make very well on my own, short of quasar. Nova is too squishy to manage, unless I have used eclipse prior to going nova. This buys me enough time.
My pets are very squishy, and I have no way to heal them. Due to their long fire range, they tend to stop next to other groups on the street to shoot the one I am fighting, thus agroing more mobs on them. They move slow enough that they are quite good at agroing random crap; they'll show up for the fight I'm in with a quarter of their HP beat down. I have tried slotting them many ways (everything from 6 recharge to the standard "phantasm slot of 1 acc, 3 dmg, 2 rech) and it's bloody difficult to keep two out consistantly, due to the need to make a corpse just as they reset.
I have "lost" pets due to activating on a corpse only to have it fade before the 5 second animation completes, so no pet pops out.
I have trouble using the corpse bomb effectively many times due to things getting scattered all over by knockback. It sucks as a cleanup for quasar, but that's fine. It makes a decent team power.
My biggest beef with the warshades is the reliance on corpses for pets. They die quite easily unless I take agro, and I die quiet easily when Eclipse isn't up.
Actually, it's corpses in general. By the time I've made one, my endurance is suffering and I can't take advantage of whatever I have just defeated without burning a blue. Eclipse can fix this, I suppose.
I can't control that well, due to only having one hold and one snare, both single target. Gravity well is also an end hog.
My cone disorient is more of a panic button, as it always knocks back and scatters things apart too far for me to easily keep a handle on. I use it as such, as all experimentation with my playstyle and this power have proven that it isn't effective (for me) in any other situation.
Warshades have no real way to stack disorients / holds to deal with a boss. Minions are no problem, as inky aspect handles that...until they full speed drunken stumble right out of the aoe range. If it's a larger group this happens quite quickly, due to them all going different directions.
My endurance gets demolished, though I hope that a six slotted eclipse will fix this. I do have stamina six slotted, as you can imagine.
Notice a recuring theme? Eclipse seems to be the only power that salvages warshades. It's a whole bunch of suck on the way up (I avoid bosses like the plague, and I stick to even cons or less) to reach a power that'll make me (I suspect) quite viable at 40, once it has devoured six slots.
I realize many classes are redefined by their level 32 or 38 power (old unstoppable, elude, etc) but they typically are able to function prior to that.
Not warshades. Until I had quasar six slotted, I couldn't solo or even safely contribute in a group without taking stupid amounts of damage. I can't fathom having less hp than I do now, even with the removal of the resist penalty. Judging by the damage I take from quantum before and after eclipse, it won't make a bloody difference other than garunteeing the 1.5 shot kill.
I have a peacebringer as well, currently level 26. I don't have stamina. I have hasten, but it isn't slotted. I took it for lack of anything better to do at one of the levels and use it as a situational power only. I play strictly in nova form, only going human to blap. I won't be taking dwarf.
I die a lot. I never solo, as this toon is part of a 3 person perma group that usually has additional people with us, for a total of 4-6 players on the team. I plan on getting up to 31 and then using my respec to build out into a full blown blapper just for giggles.
I enjoy the PB a lot more, thanks to my unhealthy addiction to blaps. I won't say it is better, but it certainly is more focused and capable of functioning on the way up than warshades were. I can be in human and feel very useful, other than my lack of stamina and hasten. I get to fire off one round of attacks, then morph nova for something to do while the powers reset.
I can't say I have a beef with PBs yet, as I haven't gotten close enough to 40. I will say they're amusing, at the very least.
*******************STILL READING?*********************
It's 3am PST on a Friday, and I'm fresh home from turtle racing (los angeles, yay) so this is mostly a ramble that won't make much sense, I am sure.
The short points I was attempting to getting to (and never did) - Reducing HP = bad. Reducing end cost even a fraction = good. Tweaking warshades to have stronger control options = wet dream. Making the warshade pets independant of corpses, more resiliant to damage, and less craptastic over all = mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I can live with the -30% resistance, but I don't think I could live with blaster hp. At least I have a teaming option to help reduce the resistance penalty (though upping the team bonus would be nice), I won't have an option as a warshade to up my HP. We don't get that funky dull pain action the peacebringers get, and our two heals require corpses and a boatload of endurance, or heavy slotting and melee range combat to function worth a darn.
If I could beg one thing of the devs, it would be to make the warshades more viable as a human earlier than level 38. Either that, or make the powers a little more combo friendly, as opposed to counter intuitive.
Wubbas!
Katze Alleine (38 warshade, Triumph)
Alleine (26 peacebringer, Triumph)
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To everyone else: Kheldians are NOT as gimped as people say. Mine is very good, sometimes outperforming others, often filling in and saving the day. They're harder sure, and maybe weaker, but with these changes they'll be graet. Normally I try to stay out of debates like this, but wanted to give a warning to new Kheldians, and reassurances to States that not everyone disagrees.
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To everyone else:
Don't lump PBs with WSs. PBs are in much better shape, with a better thought out power selection and implementation.... with far fewer dumb ideas like corpse targetting with no real controls available to select corpses.
For all people truly playing a particular AT:
- some believe themselves to be too powerful and need to be nerfed
- some believe everything is OK, even when it isn't
- some believe things need help, when they're fine
- some believe truly that a broken thing is broken when it is
- some believe that the previous people are whiners
- some believe they are entitled to step up to the plate and classify everyone else as full of crap, and that their subjective observations reveal the Real Truth and now everyone can go home
So can we just let off on these "don't believe what the naysayers are saying, everything is fine with all Kheldians in all ways because I happen to like my peacebringiner" posts?
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with far fewer dumb ideas like corpse targetting with no real controls available to select corpses.
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Assuming you have the pet summon and have no target, activating it will target the nearest corpse. I use that frequently to get a target for corpse bombing, which does -not- auto target a corpse.
All the same, the window on using a corpse is very small. You have a very limited amount of time to start the pet before you risk losing it. When you need end the most is to make use of the bodies, and that's when you are least likely to have the quarter bar of end to pull any of the stuff off.
I rarely have blue left to take advantage stygian circle (corpse heal). I often have to pop a blue in order to make a pet out of my recent conquests, and it has to be a 33% or greater to be able to make a pet after a quasar. The only power I don't usually have an end issue with is the corpse bomb; with corpse booming I generally have more of a placement issue. Rarely is a recently deceased near enough living things to be worthwhile.
Here is my 2 cents. I am newer kheldian. I have both a peacebringer and a warshade. From what I noticed Warshade is much harder over all. It is a minicontroller. I got my controller to lvl 50 but he had better crowd control. If warshades are more on the support end of things then I think it would be best if they had abilities like vengence thrown into their powers or able to make pets and heals off of alies. Peacebringers generally are ok from what I've played so far.
Here are my ideas for improvements.
1. Allow the teaming boost to apply to forms. Some might say that would make us 2 powerful but isn't the purpose of the build to team with other people. I hate the fact that once i change I cant get that nice bonus anymore.
2. High Low the different races. I feel that kheldians should not have blaster hp but should have around 10% deff debuff to all damage. Also if warshades are more support orented give them the same xp and boost the peacebringer damage to compensate. Peacebringers and crowd controll and support = debt.
3. Corpse based power is counter storyline. I know that Warshades are the darkside trying to be good but if we are "arresting'" people why are we harvesting their essence? Follow the logic train.
4. I would like to see a buff for teaming with other kheldians. I team up with some other squids now and then it would be nice to know we actually help each other out stat wise.
Statesman I respect you a lot. People don't like diversity in this game they just claim too. If they didn't they would realize that Warshades are best for human, and peacebringers are best for transfermations. Both different but not better. But everyone want's things equal.
I just hope that Issue 4 will live on test long enough to get some decent testing of any new changes before going live since defender/controller/blaster hit points seems like to much of a hit to make up for -30% debuff for any non-teamed kheldian.
My experiance is that the -30% is calculated off of your total resist and not a direct reduction.
Ex.
Shining Sheild is ~27% Resist Smash/Lethal base and after Kheldian Debuff it is 27% / 1.3 = 20%
and not 27% - 30% for -3% resist.
if slotted Shining Sheild is 54% with 1 EndRedux, 5 Resist and after Debuff is 41.5% for a total of 12.5% debuff.
Now lets look at hit points, I believe when I am around 750 a blaster/defender/controller is around 600.
Time to do some comparisons with difference in resist and hit points to show difference to before and after changes
750 hp @ 41.5% ~ 1060
600 hp @ 54% ~ 920
Therefore we would be taking a hit point reduction for when we are solo, but now we need to look at the numbers for teamed since teaming with 2-3 other heroes seems to be common and where Kheldians are mainly aimed.
Example for 2 additional heroes
750 hp @ 48.6% ~ 1110
600 hp @ 65% ~ 990
Lets look at a full 8 hero team
750 hp @ 75% ~ 1310
600 hp @ 85% ~ 1110
so from the formula of:
Effective Hit Points = total hit points + (total hit points * (total resist + (total resist * kheldian buff)))
However with my guess on hit points doesn't make this a fact that after the changes Kheldians will take more damage because if I have an error of around 12.5% on the hit points things will equal out.
Also with other changes that will be made will make more of a difference also so I am not going to get all worked up over what is being proposed for changes as long as we get time to test out the changes and give the devs some feedback and some data on test for them to review the results.
<Clap> <Clap> <Clap>
Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"
<sigh> Viv says its no longer "all me".
http://wendy-mags.mybrute.com/
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My experiance is that the -30% is calculated off of your total resist and not a direct reduction.
Ex.
Shining Sheild is ~27% Resist Smash/Lethal base and after Kheldian Debuff it is 27% / 1.3 = 20%
and not 27% - 30% for -3% resist.
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This is opposite of my experience, especially since that isn't how other Resistance Debuffs (Enervating Field, Freezing Rain) are calculated.
Sgt Liberty - 50 Martial Arts / Super Reflexes
Verdigris Eagle - 50 Archery / Energy Manipulation
Stormeye - 50 Storm Summoning / Electric Blast
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My experiance is that the -30% is calculated off of your total resist and not a direct reduction.
Ex.
Shining Sheild is ~27% Resist Smash/Lethal base and after Kheldian Debuff it is 27% / 1.3 = 20%
and not 27% - 30% for -3% resist.
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This is opposite of my experience, especially since that isn't how other Resistance Debuffs (Enervating Field, Freezing Rain) are calculated.
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After doing some more thinking on this there are 2 ways that the Debuff could be applied.
1) would be a percentage of your total resistance percentage.
2) direct reduction from your total protection
I am going to do some testing on this tonight to get a better understanding of how the debuff is working since a direct -30% would make incoming damage very high compared to what I feel I have experianced.
Once I get some numbers together I will post my results so we can have a better understanding of how the Issue 4 changes are going to effect us.
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why the heck is this going to take so long?
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Because any data change has a ripple effect across systems - even something which seems as small as powers adjustments. We need to playtest, QA, etc. in order to ensure stability.