Elite Bosses and Arch-Villains in Dark Astoria

Explain how the Fifth Column, despite their auras, are EXACTLY THE SAME as the ones I've fought on Khan or anywhere else - they might have Focused Accuracy, but they're still the same cannon fodder they've ever been. Yet, they give us progress on the incarnate path!

If Requiem and Reich are EBs, then the Bosses should be Lts, the Lts minions, and the Minions Underlings.

Originally Posted by Shubbie Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.

Then, how come, when I leave DA and do the STF, Black Scorpion can one shot me if I'm not careful? While, if I fight him from a DA mission, I can solo him in seconds?
Have I suddenly stopped being an incarnate when I leave DA? If so, what are all these Lore pets and Judgement powers doing in my tray?

At least someone gets it.


Additionally I hate the EB to AV mechanic. Some characters have no ****ing business ever being AVs. Arbiter Sands on the STF; he's a nobody in the grand scheme. I beat his head in solo back in Faultline. He's got no story or lore rationalization for suddenly popping up 8 times stronger than me.

A character who's roughly on peer with the player character shouldn't suddenly be able to take on 7 others. Instead of bloating them up to an AV, they should not have been used for a challenge in team content to begin with. Either give said character backup in the form of additional EBs, or have them subbed out by someone worthy of challenging eight heroes of any given level. In the case of Incarnate content, there should be very few individuals that fit the bill considering the smack down we lay on Reichsman, who as the dialogue states, is roughly on par with what Statesman used to be, meaning we're now AT that level or above.

So, as an example, if they had Tub Ci spawn EB class "Honored Ancient Spirits" to back him up in his mission when teams run it, or have additional Ravagers spawn for teams in the encounter with Mot's Avatar in Dream Doctor's arc, that'd be a-ok with me...

But, specifically for DA, I object to catering to teams on principle. Teams have a ton of trials and content to run, AND they're vastly more rewarding for the purpose of powering up Incarnates. Leave DA to the soloists and small teams and go back to running trials if DA fails to please on a large team, because trials are for that.



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So, having him scale up and be in an AV in DA sometimes would fix that? Introducing more inconsistency will fix the consistency problems?

No, it doesn't.


As I said in my previous post, enemies shouldn't be used in that way.



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You need to read a comicbook. When a villain goes up against a team, they get a power increase for story reasons (exceptions of course...poor Shocker)...of course the inverse is true, when a powerful villain goes one on one with a hero, sometimes they lose power (depending on the hero they go up against).

It's called keeping the story interresting

That said, I think a majority of the villains that should spawn as AVs should, and when needed they should gain increased power through other means, rather than downgrading to EB.

Of course I like the idea of one on one superhero fights akin to Spider-Man vs Venom. Venom wouldn't power down to an EB

And of course, it would stop people saying "so and so signature character is a pushover" when they solo them at EB, when these characters are suppossed to be tough and thusly a character should be built to solo them.

It's the difference between the comic book characters who have solo tiltes the likes of Spider-Girl, Batman, Wolverine, and those characters who are meant to be strictly team characters...Mr Immortal.

And again you just ignore things which have been said:
What about teams sized 4-6 players?

They're not small teams, they're not soloers and they can't do trials.
Are you seriously suggesting that there should be an entirely new zone for those groups because "on principle" DA isn't for them?

No, I never said it would.
The point is that the game is already inconsistent. Disallowing an extra option for larger teams isn't going to change that.

DA is meant to make soloists feel more powerful than any other character in game? Great, it does that fine. Giving us the option of AVs isn't going to change that.

Uh-huh. When dozens of people tell you you're wrong and one person agrees with you, it means that only one person "gets it".

Anyway, what do you care? You quit COH forever to go play that other superhero MMO, remember?

Since when is a regular AV a challenge for 8 level 50s with Incarnate powers??? They're barely a challenge for ONE. By the time you've got Lore pets and level shifts and IOs coming out of your ears, pretty much any character that cares about fighting AVs solo can do so, especially if they choose not to follow the arbitrary no-temp no-insp forum "rule" for what "soloing" means.
I want these enemies to be as strong in DA as they would appear elsewhere. Y'know, so that I can destroy them with ease anyway. Them being weaker doesn't mean I'm more powerful, it just means they're weaker.

I enjoy that he ignores the fact that everyone in this thread has said it should be optional, yet he insists that it will impact his own personal enjoyment of the encounters.

Fun logic you have there, dude. Can I borrow some of those crazy pills?

Like I said earlier, this is the same guy that thinks that tankers are "underpowered."

Until the option exists to run the trial Incarnate path solo, there's no need to give teams more options for the DA path. They already get a whole path to themselves that is faster than the only option open to solo players.

And this isn't even about that DA doesn't allow teaming and locks them out like trials lock out soloists or that DA discourages teaming in some way. It's about complaining DA's content is not satisfying to powerful teams and doesn't cater to them.

Newsflash: DA is too easy for teams because it's not designed for teams. It's not designed for teams because it is intended to be the solo Incarnate tract.
Take the hint.


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Entitlement and spite to not make good design decisions.

Yes. You are an outlier that doesn't reflect the majority of players who probably still can't solo AVs.


But hey, as long you want the devs to cater to extreme minorities, I know a Tanker player who thinks they have damage issues. He'd like that looked into so they could do things like solo AVs as well as some melee ATs can.



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HA! THERE IT IS! See? I told ya guys.

...so, like the 13-page sticky in the tanker forums and the AT review that's happening right now? Seems you've already won that argument. So yes, just as that's being catered to, so should this. And if one of the original launch ATs, having already gone through several iterations, and with a large and loyal group of players, is still subject to change at a minority request, surely something that's been live for under a week and with no dev comment (as far as I'm aware? Correct me if I'm wrong on that) on its WAI-ness is at least worth a review.

I think that makes his responses something people should be able to empathize with, if not necessarily agree with. When you put in AVs, then suddenly the tougher enemy is the "real" one - the EBs are just watered down versions for those who aren't up to snuff. Granted, they are anyway, but it's just the pretense that's at stake. A pretense that's in the heart of the Dark Astoria solo storyline.

If they can't get the mechanics right to balance the classes versus the silly regeneration of AVs and GMs, balance the monsters. I can see why this would be a deliberate choice on the Devs part, if it is.

We're not talking about every EB in the game scaling, just the arc bosses that you would normally see at AV level, and the type of player that solo's AVs are aparently a small enough outlier that the feature was already added in the first place.

Anyway, an option doesn't hurt anything. Especially an option that ALREADY EXISTS, but is just not being applied.

I'd like to hear a good reason why they shouldn't scale, but I don't believe a good reason exists, but no one has given a good reason yet.

You (and just about everyone else) would know better than me; my only 50s are a scrapper and a Controller, and I only really play the scrapper. Those are my only real alts, too. I blame the lack of Broadsword for tankers..

I'm having a really hard time imagining a character with Incarnate powers that would be unable to solo a 50 AV using inspirations, for one thing. But heck, make it a "nightmare mode" for all I care - EBs that scale up to AVs if you do something special or turn on some certain setting, rather than AVs that scale down. It's just disappointing that the Incarnate zone has far fewer worthy foes for an Incarnate than Peregrine Island does.