Lightshades?

Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades The way you play changes your IO slotting..

Heh, well that's essentially the 'background' for my PB. Born on Earth, No shapeshifting, now if only I could get that Mez and Damage stuff

Yeah, it'd be popular. I bet money it'd be more popular than the two current Kheld Types.

NEVER!

*ahem*

Well, it would definitely be more popular than Peacebringers. Given the popularity of "Rock the Toggle" VEATs, it might even be more popular than Warshades.

Nothing, however, will ever eclipse my TriFormShade. And by that I mean that it will always be my favorite.

Heh, I wasn't referring to you existing diehard Tri-formers, but rather the CoH popuplation as a whole...but I'm sure you knew that

Yes, of course I knew that.

I was just making it unmistakably clear that "us existing diehard Tri-formers" will never be swayed from our opinion that a war-tankmage-shade is the best thing ever.

I keep hearing that - maybe I should try one someday

If you need any more convincing, please give this a read. I think it's pretty well written, of course, I may be slightly biased.

Hmmm...that's...pretty tempting

Now that my Human Only PB is about as maxed out as I can get her (6-purple sets, all accolade powers, few LotGs, Miracle Uniq., etc.) maybe it's really time to give Warshades a real try. The Highest I've played one is lvl 12.... Hmmm... Hmmm...

From a purely metagame perspective, I'd expect something like that would be popular, yes. It would address the principal shortcomings most often cited in human-only build variants and give them a third AT that played to that construction. Not only would this be superior from a metagame standpoint but would also probably been seen as official Dev endorsement of the human-only variant as desirable. Not that such endoresement is needed to play and enjoy a human-only, but likely the recognition would be welcome.

However, from a story/RP perspective, it doesn't make a great deal of sense, at least as presented here. I'd think you'd need a better explanation than just that they were born on Earth to explain their lack of shapeshifting since this is a racial ability and there's already game lore stating that the forms are based on other alien species encountered by the Kheldians. While I suppose it's possible that every single Kheldian symbiote came into contact with a member of each of those species, it seems more likely that the form was adopted and continued within the Kheldian race. In other words, I can't see this alone as a justification, at least not one that I'd buy.

Also, I generally oppose direct comparisons to VEATs or "let's make Khelds more like VEATs" suggestions on principle, so I'll just say that while this idea would almost certainly be popular, especially to those who don't care for the forms, I'd prefer improving Kheldians in a way that's more in keeping with their design rather than trying to homogenize them and make them more like Soldiers/Widows. That said, the complaints about shapeshifitng in the OP are valid ones. I'd just argue that the solution isn't to circumvent the shapeshfiting mechanic but rather to fix it.

And while I suppose there's nothing preventing both from happening simultaneously in a perfect world, there's also the matter of parity - if the HEATs now have three ATs, what do VEATs get? Aside from the hate of the Devs, that is?

No. With eclipse, if you are not the first one to every spawn, you're doing it wrong.

In fact, on TFs, I stealth to the back to start there and work my way forward. The rest of the team can meet me in the middle.

While Star Seer has a valid point in that the shifting animations could certainly stand to be cut down and streamlined, I have to vehemently disagree with staying in one form for 90% of a mission on a tri-form build, let alone an entire Task Force. While the shapeshifts we have now could use improvement, they aren't nearly so bad as to force a player to stay in one form for that reason alone. It's annoying and as an aggregate it's a significant amount of time lost that could be time spent dealing damage, but it's not in and of itself a reason not to shift or to shift only once per mission.

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Originally Posted by Justaris While Star Seer has a valid point in that the shifting animations could certainly stand to be cut down and streamlined, I have to vehemently disagree with staying in one form for 90% of a mission on a tri-form build, let alone an entire Task Force. While the shapeshifts we have now could use improvement, they aren't nearly so bad as to force a player to stay in one form for that reason alone. It's annoying and as an aggregate it's a significant amount of time lost that could be time spent dealing damage, but it's not in and of itself a reason not to shift or to shift only once per mission.

As I am a fan of form-shifting, you could oftentimes catch me form-shifting mid-battle against a single enemy. So, to be honest, the following list contains the only improvements I would like to see done to form-shifting:

1. Return form-shifting to what it used to be so that with the help of keybinds a power from Nova or Dwarf forms could be executed virtually at the same time as a Human-form power.
   
   
2. Add a fail-safe to Dwarf form so that being hit by a mezzing attack will merely cost the Kheldian time in the shift process, but not completely de-toggle the shift process!
   
   
3. Add a gameplay feature that allows Kheldians to dedicate a power-tray per form and ensure that form-switching also replaces the correct tray at a screen position designated by the player.

I believe that for what it allows a Kheldian to do, form-shifting should come with a price, i.e. you lose some time in battle, and anything done to correct DPS-loss due to shape-shifting, in my opinion, should be accomplished in ways other than merely decreasing the time it takes to shift forms, and definitely not by adding another Human-only Kheldian variant.

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Originally Posted by Star_Seer The only reason to shift out for a peace bringer is to use reform essence.

Actually, one of my most favorite tricks is to taunt enemies to me in Dwarf form, and then when they swarm, use White Dwarf Flare and quickly switch to Human-form and call out my Photon Seekers coupled with Pulsar — heal myself if I need to — and switch to Nova to finish everything off.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Star_Seer Build up has such a short duration that most of it is squandered in the time it takes to shift back to nova and find a suitable target.

Which is why I try to save Build Up for when I'm about to mostly make use of my Human-form attacks.

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Originally Posted by Star_Seer I like the wishfull thinking tag on the thread - kind of sums up keldians

I see Kheldians as wish fulfillment actually

EDIT :: By no means do I mean to imply that Peacebringers are perfect, especially not in comparison to Warshades, but if I were to improve Peacebringers specifically, I'd do so by adding a self-stacking -Res debuff component to every Peacebringer attack rather than re-design the AT.

What he said. I agree with these three points wholeheartedly and in retrospect this is as good or better than streamlining the form shift animations themselves. I think I lose more time due to failed shifts these days than I ever did when I could rely on my binds always trayswapping and formshifting reliably.

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Originally Posted by Star_Seer I actually think Warshades are fine and that they recieve a significant payoff for having to put up with clunky mechanics - I don't really think that the same can be said for Peacebringers and its a bit of a shame really, they show a lot of promise but ultimately end up falling a bit flat in my opinion.

I think what makes the biggest difference over-time is that Warshades have a pet (or 2 or 3) that can be responsible for large amounts of both DPS and slow-debuff. It really makes a difference, especially when fighting tougher targets.