Warlord

[Brou]

This was my experience with Warlord too... except I made the mistake of putting on the suit.

I basically got creamed the moment I entered the battlefield, on Warlord's first attack, as did pretty much everyone else.  I still had the suit for a while after the mission was over, so I said "screw it" and decided to take it for a joyride around Vibora Bay.

What a disaster.  Enemy groups I'd soloed easily, trivially on my own were a nightmare in the suit.  I couldn't take hits worth a damn, and the damage output I was capable of was sorely lacking - and I'm a Glacier AT, my damage ain't great to begin with!  Then the suit expired and I'm back to normal and I'm like, "What the hell, is the suit a developer dick-move trap or something?  Am I playing Kaizo Champions Online here?"

Now I'll admit, I'm a silver player with no access to the Power Armor powerset - I can't make a freeform PA character or a character with The Invincible archetype.  So... I'm rather inexperienced about Power Armor and how to use it effectively.  I'm also statted as a Glacier, and as far as I'm aware that doesn't change when you put on the suit.  So that's probably another big problem.

Still, it begs the questions - why does the suit exist and what kind of benefits does it offer?

It's a showcase for the Invincible. Many power armor powers can be toggled simultaneously. Were you using more than one at the same time?


edit: Fixed quote

[Kaiser Tarantula]

Think your quotebox got butchered there, Brou.

Yes I was, actually, and it's neat how it could do that.  Burns energy like you wouldn't believe though, and I really didn't see too much of an advantage in it compared to my regular ol' ice attacks.  You have to toggle everything off to use your energy builder or anything else, and sometimes powers would come off toggle for no apparent reason.  Of course, I only figured that out after the alert, because we pretty much wiped on the Warlord fight within thirty seconds of it starting.

Problem is, the suit doesn't exactly come with an instruction manual, nor are there any enemies between getting the suit and fighting Warlord in order to acclimate yourself and get a grip on controlling it.  It's basically flying blind unless you've had experience with Power Armor or The Invulnerable AT before.  Really didn't help that the whole team was basically attempting to blitzkrieg the alert, zerg rushing everything without regard to strategy.

As a showcase for The Invincible, the suit in the Warlord alert really ain't all that great.  Definitely not inspiring me to want to unlock that archetype as a silver player, that's for sure.  It went down in one attack, didn't even get to see what hit me, to be honest.  I'm pretty sure that I'd have had better odds simply staying as my usual Glacier self.

[dwturducken]

Problem is, the suit doesn't exactly come with an instruction manual...

Being a child of the 80s, this immediately evoked:


But, to the point of what you were saying with it, I have unlocked The Invincible with Zen, in unlocking a freeform character I had made that was a recreation of my main from CoH, and I have to admit to still getting the hang of it. Granted, I've been focusing on a higher level character in the hopes of getting him to max and using him for Zen harvesting, but I wasn't aware of the simultaneous power use thing. Given how energy intensive each power is, that's probably a good thing. Also, he's still in the teens, so I'm probably only scratching the surface, at this point.

[Kaiser Tarantula]

Statesman's Ghost, you mean the learning curve for PA is that steep?

Yeah, I'm definitely not encouraged to play PA or unlock The Invincible.  Being a silver player, my character slots are limited, and I definitely don't want to waste them on characters that are a chore to play.

It's also plainly apparent that putting on the suit was definitely the wrong choice for that alert.  With no instructions, no tutorial, and no information whatsoever before throwing you into a boss fight that can potentially one-shot you, even on a Tank AT, the suit looks more and more like some dastardly Kaizo trap than a viable way of clearing the alert.

Maybe if I start playing CO again, I can get some people who aren't bumrushing the alert and can help me do this thing properly.

[SARobb]

*mutters something incoherent about needing to dab the coffee on the monitor*
Holy Crackers it's been a while since I'd seen that ... ah when TV programming was worth watching.

[SARobb]

Statesman's Ghost, you mean the learning curve for PA is that steep?

I don't think so tbh.  I think PA (the Invincible) in general is a fairly well-rounded AT.  What I don't like about it is the self heal at lvl 17 and shield at lvl 21.  I can see where that would make leveling solo with it a pain. Personally I grab my block enhancers/forms/self-heals before more than the basic attacks. 

I use many of the beam attacks for a light based character, but for the sake of argument, I may make an Invincible tonight and see how I fare with it. 

[Xev]

I vaguely remember using the suit when this alert came around last time which was probably not too long after I started playing. Mainly, I remember having the this has no instruction manual and seems to suck anyway reaction too.

Might be interesting to give it another go now that I know it's supposed to show off Invincible.

[SARobb]

I'm going to amend my statement now... I did create an Invincible and ran with it for the first few levels.  It might be my general aversion to most PA weapons, but I hated every minute of it.  It's not that I had any problems street sweeping - but the power selections just rubbed me wrong ...

• Power Bolts - Ok - I use these on many different builds - very "Laser-y"
• Tactical Missiles - Eew. just. eew.  While not a bad power, I prefer the power-bolts power  which feels like it does more damage quicker with its tap component
• Mini Gun - meh.  Not overwhelming dps wise for the amount of end it chews up
• Invulnerability - quintessential tanking power - good stuff
• Micro Munitions - Fun, noisy/blast-y - imo to early... I'd prefer the shield first.

I had to stop after that, mostly because I was finding the AT to be effective - but not at all fun for me. YMMV though, This is part of the reason I went gold ATs just feel to restrictive after being spoiled since launch with Free-Form builds before Free-Form was special.

[dwturducken]

I didn't mean to imply that it had a steep learning curve. I actually enjoy the AT more than what I was doing with the character as a FF. For me, the problem is one of changing habits I played the character more as a blaster as FF than the "blank" that the AT is, and the energy management wasn't as fickle.

[SARobb]

Agreed, it really wasn't difficult at all to 'get into it'. As a matter of fact I think it would be great for someone that wasn't as spoiled on FF (me).

[Xev]

Woot! Won his foot!

err

*ahem*

Yes, this alert is acceptable.

Edit:
Not to get off topic but 3 minutes later I looted Hi-Pan's hat!

[SARobb]

Woot! Won his foot!

I actually haven't run this alert yet... altitis ftw.  Might hop on Barrage tonight and see what's cookin' tho.

[Xev]

It's been a lucky day to play : ) I never get costume pieces in regular alerts except the Grab Helmet that I think prolly everyone has too many of already and I haven't done that many Warlords.

Edit:
Well, I caught a glimpse of a/the sploit at least. They ran up to the elevator doors, went through them, and my guess is they did the same thing until the end.

It needs to be fixed but until then it's a neat magic trick I say! You still have to fight Warlord at the end and if you can do that you should have been able to make it to him anyway - and on top of that, they're winning without half the team sometimes. So, kudos.

I was with a sploit team that let me chase them to the end (Warlord) somehow and they fought a clean fight as far as I could tell. Clean as they get in CO at that level anyway  : )

[Xev]

OK so like with any fight, when you start getting used to it and get in enough good teams it starts to get a lot easier.

Still though, in a decent 3ish minute Warlord fight (it's not a tricked out team) where he is tossing flames everywhere and by the end of the fight, as a melee, you are still standing toe-toe with him in the only spot not covered with fire (he's got fire on the other three sides of himself) and then he starts yelling "Burn, hero, burn!" while shooting his flame thrower in the only spot you can stand in as you dig in and just kinda do your pay attention to where your feet are and when to block thing while still clinging to enough agro to keep him on you, so you come out smelling like roses - this is still a pretty decent moment for me. Have had this pleasure twice, now.

Bravo, guys who made this fight fun.