Coming back to the game after a year break
By
ColJasmine,
Posted on: 2006-04-27 15:36 in Player Guides
Actually, there is a guide that just came up a few days back on Fire/Mace Tanks called "Being the Brute Squad," or something to that affect.
Tanks still tank, just not to the degree that they used to. You aren't invincible anymore.
Scrappers are still great solo'ers, especially the /regen set. I have a MA/Regen scrapper that I can use to solo Unyeilding missions pretty easily and invincible with a little caution. The invulnerable set for scrappers is not in the best shape right now... Dark/Dark is a good set, if a little endurance heavy.
My advice to you, if you want to solo, however, is to build a spines/regen scrapper. Spines gives you a lot of options to playstyle, and regen is just great.
Here is my understanding of the biggest changes affecting Tanks and Scrappers. Feel free to toss in corrections and opinions, all.
1. Enhancement Diversity, aka "ED". At high levels, this means the return on putting more than 3 of the same enh in a power is very small. At lower levels it can sometimes still benefit you.
The impact on Invuln is really pretty great, and many believe Invuln is now on the worthless side. (Many Blasters aren't happy with this either.)
2. Taunt cap. You can't hit more than 6 mobs with a single Taunt, though (as I understand) there is no limit to the number who can *be* in a taunted state at one time.
I don't find this a big limitation with my L31 Inv/Axe tank. I appear in front of some, hit some others, taunt some more, and this is usually sufficient to get a good herd going. I also have 2 slots in Taunt for recharging.
I thought the Taunt cap for Tanks was 17?
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Here is my understanding of the biggest changes affecting Tanks and Scrappers. Feel free to toss in corrections and opinions, all.
1. Enhancement Diversity, aka "ED". At high levels, this means the return on putting more than 3 of the same enh in a power is very small. At lower levels it can sometimes still benefit you.
The impact on Invuln is really pretty great, and many believe Invuln is now on the worthless side. Actually, many of us admit that tanks were overpowered. However, some of the defense nerfs and other nerfs have made some powers have substantially reduced value to the point where the power is no longer worth taking. For Invul Tanks, the reduction to resistance has made the non-toggle resists (Resist Elements and Resist Energies) and defense (Tough Hide) have questionable benefit. Some tanks are forgoing powers to take the Medicine Pool with Aid Self to become a "regen tank." Fire Tanks had a major reduction to the benefit of Burn, thereby reducing the substantial AoE damage done by Fire Tanks. Both are no longer "Uber." The days of herding an entire floor of baddies and standing in the middle of them taking little damage are gone. Now, Tanks solo fine, but need some support to handle larger crowds. It is also tougher to hold aggro for a large group. Generally, Stone tanks, when they get Granite Armor, are considered the best at taking damage. (Many Blasters aren't happy with this either.)
2. Taunt cap. You can't hit more than 6 mobs with a single Taunt, though (as I understand) there is no limit to the number who can *be* in a taunted state at one time. Actually, I think the taunt cap is 5. However, every hit generates a small taunt, which is called, "Gauntlet." This means that you have to be more active, running around to hit more bad guys, to hold aggro.
I don't find this a big limitation with my L31 Inv/Axe tank. I appear in front of some, hit some others, taunt some more, and this is usually sufficient to get a good herd going. I also have 2 slots in Taunt for recharging.
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Frankly, it takes a little more skill to be a really good tank now. And I think that is a good thing. However, there are some powers that need to be revisited. The Invul set now has 3-4 powers that are easily skippable. Fire Tanks really need some kind of knockdown protection, so they are not all forced to take Superjump to get Accrobatics. Ice is supposed to be improved with the defense changes in I-7.
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I just came back too only to find my Fire/Fire tank has been utterly trashed. Yes, I'm sure it's perfectly wonderful, and I just fail to see the beauty in the plan, but I do, in fact, FAIL to see the beauty in this plan. So now I'm trying to figure out what to do or just cancel the account again. Not sure. Coming back to burn ... I mean damn.
So, now I have a worthless lvl 42 fire/fire tank. I could start over or I could try and finish my way to 50 and get a Peacebringer. What does everyone think? Is it worth it to stick it out for eight more levels before hanging it up? Is the Kheldian worth the effort in effectiveness, cool-factor, or anything else or would it be a total waste of time?
Should I just start over with something else?
These are straight questions. Don't tell me, "Well it depends on your playstyle ..." just skip it. Tell me your opinion. My playstyle was a fire/fire tank with burn that worked. I might or might not care about PvP, but I want to be able to group, and I want to be able to solo when I cannot find groups, and I want to continue to be able to do that all the way up in level, not just to 20 or 30.
I read the earlier posts. Spines/regen is not my thing. Any other suggestions?
Can you make something worthy out of the Kheldian? I mean I saw such things as Bright Nova in there and thought hmm ... no defense ... that will work great until about level 30, and then you will get aggro for one tenth of a second and have XP debt. Dwarf looked OK. Defenses that cannot be detoggled sounds like a good thing on paper.
And then I see things like Group Energy Flight and have to ask myself why it is that we just don't learn. Why is this POS any better now than it was in the flight pool?
Can you make a good hybrid from one of these things? Scrapper/Blaster type? Or is it doomed to failure for one reason or another?
Tell me your opinion. I've been gone for two years and just about concluded that I should have stayed away. Am I mistaken?
This really is not the right forum for this discussion, but I'll give you my advice anyhow.
Your tanker is going to require some reworking. Maybe you have a free respec stashed away, maybe you don't. Try /respec in the chat window to find out. Either way, from the sound of it, you are pretty hacked off right now. I would let your tanker be for the moment and try to rekindle an interest for the game rather than mucking with something that already frustrates you.
My recommendation: Go and get that 14 day free trial of City of Villains being offered at the mmorpg website and try the Brute AT. The AT, whatever else may be said of it, is fun and different than anything else. It is a rollicking good time solo. It should cure many of your woes. After the 14 days, you can come back to CoH refreshed, or stay and play in CoV.
Keep an eye on the tanker forums. Someday you will want to rebuild that tanker, and sooner or later, someone will give you an idea that gets you excited to brush the dust off. But I think you should enjoy playing the next eight levels, rather than grinding them. I think a bad experience will taint Kheldians for you, even if you might really love them.
My two cents. Good luck.
Go. Play. Enjoy.
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Should I just start over with something else?
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Yes.
It's a totally different game- think of it as "City of Heroes II."
High level characters can't do what they used to do; on the other hand, some of what they used to do was go AFK under 80 badguys with a message saying "Taunt on Auto- Recall Me As Needed".
I pretty much had to give up my high-level Scrapper- he sits on the porch and tells boring stories about when he was a kid and could take on fifty purples and not die.
And I have some problems, in detail, with how they did some of the nerfs. Everyone's a backseat driver, or at least I am.
But my new heroes go out there and they take risks, dammit, and they fight the good fight. And they pay attention, and they work together, and they're fun.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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I've been gone for two years....
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It is hard to pick up where you left off after being gone for two years on anything: knitting, model making, Baldur's Gate, etc. It is hard to get your bearings even if everything remains static. This is a dynamic, changing game. No matter what you do, you will be starting over.
I'm also back after about the same length of time, used to have a MA/SR Scrapper (even back then people laughed about that build but I had fun) now I got CoV added on for the same price, and am refreshing my memory with a Gravity/Beam Dominator. It's weird but fun...love the look of the new zones. Outdoor missions! I was sent into a door on a boat, and immediately ejected...went "in" again a few times, then realized that I actually was in a private walled off instance of that part of Mercy Island as a mission, complete with boats, dock, shoreline and buildings. How cool is that? Do they have that in CoH now too?
What are the purple swirly vortexes?
Anyway, having a really good time getting back into it.
CoH has had outdoor missions since around Issue 2 or 3, but they're usually in distinct zones rather than private instances of the regular zones. There's a couple graveyards, some downtown areas vaguely resembling Steel Canyon, some wrecked cities resembling Boomtown, etc. A little later in City of Villains on the other hand, you get to visit maps of Steel Canyon and Skyway City.
The swirly vortex is a teleporter for Supergroup Bases.
Well, i recently subbed back to this game, and was curios how tanker and scrapper skills are now. When i left back in may last year,, tanker and scrapper were THE archtypes to be.
Also, if these archtypes have been nerfed to hell and back, what archtype is the quickest and most efficient to solo level?
At the mo, i have a 40 fire/war mace tank and 32 dark/invun scrapper. But i really want to start from scratch to get used to it again. Any help would be appreciated.