Thoughts on "more slots"

Forbin was. I saw no indication that he was aware of the distinction, which is why I chimed in.

Really? No new powers at all or enhancements to powers just a series of global upgrades? That seems...less epic then one would hope. That makes Incarnate content just sound like "super deep purple IO slots".

I was kind of hoping we would see something more akin to EQ's alternate advancement where it added and enhanced existing power in new and interesting ways rather then just more buffs to your stats. Of course this is the only way I would want CoH to be like EQ.

It is like that. The one I saw was an enhancement you give to one of your powers (in addition to the six slots you already have in it) that adds some kind of insane damage AoE with a debuff on top.

That sound much, much better and considerably more interesting. I'll have to get a few more character to level 50 then before the new content comes out.

Again, you ignore context. That was in response to the claim that there was no power which needed many slots that you couldn't take earlier than level 47, when in fact there are several, therefore there is reason to look for a couple more slots at 50. Inventions ARE a solution, but they are a solution to a great many other things that have alternate solutions, as well.

If, however, I wish to have LRM Rocket, then this means both that I have to take it at level 47, which I can, and that I have to take something which I ostensibly do not need at level 49. As this is the final power pick in the game, I keep thinking it ought to be something awesome.

I don't challenged that Inventions can make something better, but I DO challenge the notion when they are brought up as the sole solution in what is a fairly common problem. And I say fairly common because the game post 30 has been one power pick to six slot picks, and right at the end it dumps two power picks with just six slots between them. I would honestly much rather have 48, 49 and 50 be slot levels.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

What context? The APP/PPP's can be changed any time you want with a respec. There is no way to pick all 5. They are extras. You are treating them like they are essential to the AT. There are no "facts" that these powers need to be 6 slotted.

Other solutions were offered. You are blind to even considering them.

I have LRM rocket on my blaster. It is situational at best. It is also the last pick in the set. What from that set are so important you need to 6 slot? You don't. They work fine with just a couple of slots.

They were not brought up as the SOLE solution. You can:
- use SO's and six slot using 50 slots.
- use s/HO's and get great benefits
- avoid the market and not even use IO's

You six slot your level 38 powers like Revive? Or the 32 power for MM's? You really don't have extra slots from all these choices?

EDIT -
Let's take a different look. You bring up LRM Rocket. Here are the choices:
Body Armor (41 Auto: Self +Res)
Cryo Freeze Ray (41 Ranged, Minor DMG(Cold), Foe Hold)
Sleep Grenade (44 Ranged (Targeted AoE), Minor DMG(Smash), Foe Sleep)
Surveillance (44 Ranged, Foe -Res(All), -DEF(All))
LRM Rocket (47 Sniper (Targeted AoE), Superior DMG(Smash, Lethal), Foe Knockback)

Okay, for my blaster, I took Body Armor for a mule on resist IO unique, Surveillence for debuffing, and LRM Rocket because I like the power. My 49 power was the rez from the medicine pool b/c I wanted Aid Self at some point. So that leaves Cryo Freeze Ray and Sleep Grenade if I chose to take those instead. What is the difference in slotting if I choose to 6 slot LRM rocket at 47 with 50 slots, leaving only 2 total for my 49 power. I am asking for you to put into context how important those 2 powers are for leveling just one level.

This.

Thank you for that explanation. Although now knowing that I still don't see the need for more slots. Sure they'd be useful if we got them, but hardly necessary since Fitness has never been a required powerset to make the game playable.

No I wasn't. You can easily choose to plan your build ahead of time and put normal and incarnate slots where they will be most effective. So if you are going to slot your alpha with a global end redux you can use the normal slots that you'd normally fill with end redux to boost your Stamina.

Only Alpha effected stats and it effected you power's states, not your base stats. The other one I mentioned added, If I recall correctly, a choice of Mez or Debuff effect to almost all attacks. For the other 3, one was a choice of AoE Allie Buff, one was a choice of AoE attack, and one was a choice of Praetorian themed pet summons. Each slot had a choice of around 4 "enhancement branches" which had effects that ramped up based on the rarity of the "Incarnate enhancement" you slotted. Of course that's all subject to change and who knows what slots 6-10 might be.

Saying this would have been infinitely more effective and sounded considerably less misleading than "More slots via incarnate system". =/

With just "a couple of slots" with SOs, LRM is entirely worthless and, above that, pointless as a power pick. I honestly don't know how people can take attacks and not slot them for damage and accuracy at least, but for me if I'm going to pick a power, I want that power to be at least marginally well-slotted. LRM does not have to be a situational power and, indeed, isn't one if slotted well.

And, again, you ignore the bulk of my post. Didn't you quote that part? The part where I said:

Yes, I can do this. It also means that the last few levels for my character are entirely devoted to things I don't need, and often don't want because I put off that one power till the end when I didn't have to slot it and probably didn't really need to use it for the actual levelling up process. This is canibalising my final power, making the "achievement" of hitting level 50 decidedly "meh." Oh, great, another power I didn't need, followed by just three more slots. It's underwhelming, and it didn't have to be.

Just for comparison, the way the game ended before I1 when it was only up to level 40 was ideal. 38 was your final power pick, then the next two levels were both slot picks to refine that final power, or optionally something else. But because of how groups of three arrange themselves, we would have ended up with power picks at 41, 44, 47 and 50, with a power at 50 that would not be slottable, so they flipped 49 and 50 around. Personally, I'd have picked a more interesting solution, such as levelling up twice at 50, once for a power, once for slots, or such as spacing powers out even more and cutting out one power pick, or just giving out more slots at 50.

Yes, the current system works. My car works, too. It doesn't mean it's not a piece of junk and it doesn't mean it can't work better if the folks at Pimp My Ride wanted to pay me a visit.

It depends on the power. Some I do, some I don't. Total Focus I six-slotted, Headsplitter I six-slotted. I'm pretty sure I six-slotted Detonator, too. I'm not sure how that's relevant, however.

Two points:

1. This means that your final power pick which ought to be your best... Really isn't, because you're forced to deliberately put off a crappy power choice for last because of how the system is designed. Rather an anti-climax if you ask me. My game starts "ending" from around 47 or 48.

2. "Levelling just one level" will no longer be relevant as of I19, taking into account the Incarnate system. It will no longer be a case of "I'll be shelving this character anyway, who cares about the last few levels?" and be more a case of "I must take on tougher challenges now." That last power will have to last me through possibly ten Incarnate levels, if not more, so I REALLY have to make sure it's something that doesn't need slots, rather than something which needs them but I'm simply not going to use it.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I much prefer getting my "Best" power early on rather than waiting. Given how this game is orientated towards encouraging alts your approach doesn't gel with the design of the game as a whole. I like getting my awesome powers by 38 at the latest and then having some fun augmental powers to peruse in the 40s. Having to wait until 47 or 49 for a game changing power would frankly suck.


On the plus side The incarnate System seems to be designed to appeal to people on the other side of the fence where the game doesn't "End" until 47 or 49.

I think this is kind of a matter of semantics. I'm perfectly fine with "the game" in the sense of progression ending at 50 and there being a whole bunch of stuff to do with that accumulated power. It's what I do with my 50s, especially my newer ones who didn't have to do every arc in existence and then some just to hit 50.

But the thing is... We have sort of a middle ground. There's progress, but there really isn't progress. You get new powers, but you don't need them. If the game will end and have me fight things with a static power level, then do that. I won't complain. On the flip side, if there's progress, then let there be progress. Probably the biggest thing that turned me off Champions, at least mechanically, was that I kept taking stat boosts, and I never actually "felt" anything change. If the game's going to be static with no big power leaps, then so be it, but this kind of "semi-progress" is just... Eh. And especially 47 and up, the way power picks are bunched up. I keep thinking there has to have been a better way than to just flip level 50 and level 49.

The Incarnate system will indeed be interesting and, yes, will actually help with slots overall, at least in the Alpha slot, provided it manifests as the same thing I saw in Beta (and why wouldn't it?). In fact, I ran a few numbers back then, and I came to the conclusion that you can grab the Musculature Boost and gain about as much extra damage as the third level 50 Common Damage enhancement I have slotted in every attack. On, say, a Blaster who has approximately 10 attack powers, that means I can shave off a mass of slots for other things. Or I can get a roughly 9% damage increase across the board.

Of course, when I was planning this, those "more slots" were intended to go for endurance reduction, and with Stamina becoming inherent, the drive to do that is much lessened, to the point where I'll look into snagging either a general increase or something else entirely, like a recharge boost, though I don't remember if one existed.

To boot, we only ever saw the first two Tiers of Incarnate Boosts in Beta, which ignored ED by progressively increasing amounts and added more dual-aspect effects, even if the "secondary" aspect was rarely inspiring. I can imagine the T3 and T4 powers in that slot would be even stronger, and if they bypass ED by even more, I might just take a straight boost and deal with slotting as I always have.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Thanks Sam for the reply. It helped explain a lot. I will focus on the last 2 points since I think that is what I am misunderstanding.

I view the APP/PPP as extras - the bells and whistles of an AT. IMO, you best/final pick is at 32/38 for an AT. For example, if I saw an MM not take their lvl32 buff but have 4 PPP's because that is how they wanted to (it's their choice to the play the AT how they want), then I would not consider that a good selection of powers because they are skipping an extremely great power IME.

APP/PPP's can be changed between the sets. That for me says they are not vital in any way. Look at PPP's before we could change them and were locked into 1 set. They were all clones essentially of each between patrons, slight differences, but nothing game changing.

I mentioned before, on some toons like my corruptors, I just took the armor power so I could slot resist or def IOs. My widow has no PPP (or APP) powers. Again, I don't see how these powers have now become essential. I even pointed out that I have been on teams like for the ITF, where I am 35 SSK'd with a 50 leading, and still able to play. I have all those APP/PPP powers missing and still dish out damage/buffs/etc. I used your LRM rocket example leaving you only a sleep and hold left as choices. Just how many slots you talking here to be effective? I don't use either and my blaster keeps on blasting.

As for the other point, I am aware of the incarnates and still play my 50's. I think you misunderstood me there. I am trying to say that what is the difference between a 49 and 50 that you can't do? Are the mobs suddenly tougher or changed between those levels? Are you saying lvl54's are too tough? That would be an extreme.

Anyhow, I still can't see what powers you are referring too in the APP/PPP that are vital. You can skip them entirely or take one or 4, change them whenever you have respecs available, and don't define the AT. You also have options that you don't want to use (like your comment about having to use IOs, which you don't have too).

Just like I said the Incarnate System might not be the "answer" or "solution" we were looking for as far as wanting more regular slots.
But it's very likely going to be what we're going to get for that for better or worse. *shrugs*

I see. Let me explain and hope to put things more in perspective:

For the longest time, most of my 50s were Blasters. I have no idea WHY, since Blasters are my least favourite AT of those I can play at all, but there you go. These Blasters first even became viable at around 42 to 44 when I could grab their Epic shields and so provide myself some measure of protection and survivability enough to go wild with my attacks. And as we all know, going wild with your attacks is a surefire way for a Blaster to do some awesome things.

Over time, I've grown to adore certain powers. Personal Forcedield, in addition to saving my *** countless times, has been vital for my Energy/Energy Blaster both in setting up for Nova by herding things AND for causing Tac Ops to waste their stun grenades, Gunslingers to waste their ice bullets, Sappers to waste a shot and die while they animate, Dark Ring Mistresses to waste their Mask of Vitiation and so forth. In essence, PFF allowed me to strike first AFTER my enemies have expended their alpha. Foce of Nature, thereafter, was great at helping me get a leg up on EBs. Char, in addition, has been a boon to my Fire/Fire Blaster, Fire Shield has saved my life so many times, and despite how much people poo on it, I would never trade Rise of the Phoenix for anything in the world.

And then there's Munitions Mastery, the set which carried my first Blaster to 50. Between Cryo Freeze Ray acting as a third hold in addition to Beanbag and Taser, Sleep Gas Grenade letting me pick spawns apart one by one and LRM + Full Auto letting me take spawns apart all at once, the entire set basically made my Blaster. JUST AR/Dev sucks really, really bad. AR/Dev/Munitions, on the other hand, is well serviceable. I have since swapped Sleep Gas Grenade for Surveillance, which I may once again swap out of now that I've turned off bosses. We'll see. But the point is, at least for Blasters, Epics make the character for me.

To the point, in fact, that I feel a lot of the things in Blaster Epics - namely the shields - should have been in Blaster secondaries all along. If I were allowed to unlock Epics as early as, say, level 32 so that I could have the shield by 35, then my Blasters would be A TON more fun to play.

For everything else... Eh, not so much, I can see what you mean.

It's not really a case of what's VITAL for a character, Blasters notwithstanding, so much as what I WANT to take. I took my Time Bomb and six-slotted it. I took Rain of Fire and I think I six-slotted that. I take all my Mastermind attacks, and I slot those heavily. Five slots for the single-target ones, six for the AoE one (an extra endurance reducer). Really, not many of the powers I mentioned have much of a point, to say nothing of a strong benefit. But I wanted the powers nevertheless, and I found the slots to put in them. The problem is that for my 47 and 49 powers, there isn't much I can do to compensate. I can't pull slots from my other powers to them, because they come after most of my slots have already been allocated.

I want to have the ability to slot these powers if I so happened to have slots left from elsewhere. It's not vital that I do, it's not mandatory that I do, and I manage just fine without it. But I still WANT to have that ability. A couple more slots at 50 would be cool, but I know that won't happen. But if I can sacrifice slots from elsewhere... Why not? Seriously, why not?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

The Incarnate system may not bring more slots, but depending on what you want out of it, it can free up previously unavaliable slots. You can replace slotting across the board with an Incarnate Boost, freeing a slot of it per power if you wanted to.

So, yes, I agree.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

While an extra slot or so at 50 to allow 6 slotting the lvl 49 power would be nice, I'd really like to see a couple extra slots come along a bit lower.

I was thinking that if you got 3 slots at levels 23 and 27 (instead of just 2) that would benefit every AT across the board for the additional slots "needed" for 3 new Inherent powers.

And I say "needed" but with alignment merits it wouldn't be a big deal to put one slot in Health to drop a Numina's and Miracle in, and throw a Performance Shifter proc in the default Stamina slot.

That was a great explanation Sam. We still differ, but I can see you pointer much better now. I guess we will see if the devs have some surprises or not in the future (like the fitness pool announcement).

Also for more information you didn't need to respec, once you opened the Alpha slot a THIRD build was opened. So you could just keep your two other builds and rebuild using the third one.

Pretty much agree.

Is it not possible that one of the Incarnate Powers IS the granting of traditional slots?

Possible for future ones. But of the first few we've seen, no. (Unless what is in alpha and was sneak peeked on test has changed that drastically)

Seeing as how there is only alpha in I19 and the rest are supposed to be "spread over issues" that would be a looooong wait if one of the Incarnate slots grants traditional slots.