New efforts!

[Ankhammon]

Here's a question for you all: if you could get 2 powers or AT's changed/upgraded/modified which would you choose?

Here's mine:

1. Mastermind pets gain the power to merge into a gestalt.   2 Malta Herc titans could fuse into a Zeus Titan, so adapt that to mastermind pets.  Of course the MM must have all pet powers, all pets summoned and fully equipped before they can merge.  Also time limits on the fusion and recharge time for the fusion power itself.

2. Kheldians: I believe it was a game lore thing about Warshades evolving in heavy gravity worlds hence they can't fly but can teleport, well game lore is fine and all but evolving a bit wouldn't hurt thus my changes to the Khelds would be:

a. PB and WS when first created can choose to either have energy flight, or teleport for travel power. Can't have both, can only be changed via respec. Or else use build #2 to have the alternate travel power.

b. PB's would have knockback stripped from most if not all their powers. It never made sense to me that ALL their powers had to have KB, and while I know how to mitigate KB it just seems absurd that all their powers have it.

c. power customization for Khelds.

My AT modification: Adjusting the Defender Inherent

We all know the endurance discount inherent for defenders was somewhat nice, but hardly really qualified as a fully functional inherent. It never quite felt defendery (to me anyway). "I get this nice discount to endurance if I don't do my job and let the team take lots of damage."

I would vote to have a Mez resistance (not protection) added to defenders inherent. As the defender loses health the resistance goes up. Kind of a slider from 5% at 95% health to 150% at 25% health or something like that. With a 5 second immunity from that mez type once it's broken.

It would work with the logic of defenders so that they can take their last breath helping their teammates kind of thing. For instances where the bleep hits the fan, it allows the defender to have a decent chance to get himself out of a bad situation and then have the endurance to get the team back up and running.

That added to the way defender inherent worked would have provided a very nice bonus to the AT and give it a different (yet very valuable) feel than that of a corrupter.

[Ankhammon]

Ranged AT's and epic/patron pools:

1: I know, to many powers but, i'd say every defense/resistance power that wasn't scorpion shield in the ranged AT's epics needed to be brought in line with scorpion shield.  Everyone would only pick scorpion shield, for a reason, defense was more useful than resistance as defense could apply to a wider variety of attacks.  I'd have made every one of them defense.

2: Power build up or power boost but only if the above change was implemented.  It was to easy to get beyond defense cap with it.  Thing was, I wouldn't want this power toned down without the above change, as it'd make power mastery/force mastery near useless and meaningless in the face of scorpion shield just being better by a landslide over the other epic pool shields.  The epic pool shields AND scorpion shield should have been in line with each other.  Power build up/power boost were the sole reason people would take force/power mastery, and it was to make certain powers they had super good.

In other words, the only good epic/patron pools either A: gave you defense directly or B: allowed you to increase the potency of some buff tremendously.  The others couldn't compete with those pools even remotely close.  I'd know, as I got over 50% defense using power build up and farsight(under time manipulation) on a defender.  And I could see why people loved to over focus on s/l/e defense from scorpion shield.

I think 1 was well on it's way to being fixed with the new IO stuff that was being put into I24. With many of the IO sets they were putting in resistances. That would allow players to build like they did with defenses to get a pretty strong resist set on even a squishy char.
This didn't solve the whole if you go defense, then a miss means no mez for me thing, but it was a definite step in the right direction.

For  2, I think the devs would have agreed completely with you. After the powers were out there, they couldn't just delete them. I know I read this about PBU somewhen.

[Taceus Jiwede]

1: I know, to many powers but, i'd say every defense/resistance power that wasn't scorpion shield in the ranged AT's epics needed to be brought in line with scorpion shield.  Everyone would only pick scorpion shield, for a reason, defense was more useful than resistance as defense could apply to a wider variety of attacks.  I'd have made every one of them defense.

I felt like I ran into this problem a lot on my blaster trying to raise his defenses without sacrificing damage.  I'm sure you experimented plenty as a ranged player but I found the best way to make up for not using scorpion shields was through Toughness and Combat jumping.  And then whatever +def secondary was (if you were a blaster) then with some well placed IO Sets focusing around Melee, and Ranged then once those were soft capped start getting S/L to 30% or close as possible.  With a few of the +3 Def all special IO's you could get pretty close this.  I was just shy of being soft capped without using scorpion shield, then the +res actually came in handy for any attacks that did roll past my def check.  So it wasn't impossible to do without scorpion shield, but it certainly wasn't cheap either.

[FloatingFatMan]

b. PB's would have knockback stripped from most if not all their powers. It never made sense to me that ALL their powers had to have KB, and while I know how to mitigate KB it just seems absurd that all their powers have it.

Hell NO!  KB is a perfectly viable tactic and has kept me alive in many a hugely outnumbered mob of goons.

c. power customization for Khelds.

Hell YES! :p

[Ohioknight]

As a roleplayer I liked City of Heroes because the developers gave us more straight-up roleplaying features than most MMORPGs.

This is why I never cared at all for "learning the game" or using MIDS to create optimum builds and virtually nothing for play strategy. 

To me, by far the most important feature of a character build in CoH beyond the costume was the description.  Which is to say the origin, since that's how I used them -- a severely limited story space in which to tell a complete story about WHO THIS CHARACTER WAS.  A Super-Hero origin story with some distinctive, original aspect and hopefully style in that STUPIDLY small number of spaces-characters-letters -- a terrifying exercise in forced editing.

Once you had the name, costume and description, you got to run that guy around that fantastic city, show off your creation, and FIGHT EVIL (YAY).  Powers and all the rest came after who the character was and had to be rationalized.  My Dark Melee characters were just fast punchers -- I colored the effects so they weren't dark and I didn't take that attack with the tentacles because they weren't using "dark energy from another dimension" they were just punching fast.

In Six years I think I played two characters through to 50.  "Endgame" has no interest to me -- "Startgame" is my area of enthusiasm.  And the idea of "farming" experience in AE (which isn't even "real life") just strikes me as totally pointless.

[Angel Phoenix77]

This is why I never cared at all for "learning the game" or using MIDS to create optimum builds and virtually nothing for play strategy. 

To me, by far the most important feature of a character build in CoH beyond the costume was the description.  Which is to say the origin, since that's how I used them -- a severely limited story space in which to tell a complete story about WHO THIS CHARACTER WAS.  A Super-Hero origin story with some distinctive, original aspect and hopefully style in that STUPIDLY small number of spaces-characters-letters. 

A terrifying forced exercise in editing.  Once you had the name, costume and description, you got to run that guy around that fantastic city, show off your creation, and FIGHT EVIL (YAY).  Powers and all the rest came after who the character was and had to be rationalized.  My Dark Melee characters were just fast punchers -- I colored the effects so they weren't dark and I didn't take that attack with the tentacles because they weren't using "dark energy from another dimension" they were just punching fast.

Truthfully, when the game was up I never used Mids myself. I would choose a powerset combo that sounded interesting than I would just play. I was amazed on the powerset combos I chose worked out, such as I was getting bored with blasters and scrappers so I chose a controller and rolled a grav/rad and it was awesome :)

[FloatingFatMan]

Truthfully, when the game was up I never used Mids myself. I would choose a powerset combo that sounded interesting than I would just play. I was amazed on the powerset combos I chose worked out, such as I was getting bored with blasters and scrappers so I chose a controller and rolled a grav/rad and it was awesome :)

I found respeccing to be the most boring thing you could do in CoH.  I'd rather spend 24 hours chatting to others in Pocket D or similar, than 30 tedious minutes second guessing my build choices.

[Angel Phoenix77]

I found respeccing to be the most boring thing you could do in CoH.  I'd rather spend 24 hours chatting to others in Pocket D or similar, than 30 tedious minutes second guessing my build choices.

Oh I know what ya mean :), I only repecced in 6 years only 3 times, how I made my character they were adequate in either teams or solo :). I would rather run missions than respeccing.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Truthfully, when the game was up I never used Mids myself. I would choose a powerset combo that sounded interesting than I would just play. I was amazed on the powerset combos I chose worked out, such as I was getting bored with blasters and scrappers so I chose a controller and rolled a grav/rad and it was awesome :)

The great thing about CoH is just about any power combo could be really freaking good if used correctly.  Some of my strangest creations were my best.

I found respeccing to be the most boring thing you could do in CoH.  I'd rather spend 24 hours chatting to others in Pocket D or similar, than 30 tedious minutes second guessing my build choices.

Mid's will prevent you from having to second guess.  Not that you have to respec but if you do then its nice to have something to see it on before doing it in game. 

[Sinistar]

Two particular powers that I seldom employed as they are:

I've wanted this change for years. I'd like Devices' Time Bomb, which is singularly useless in its present form (in my experience), changed to a triggered bomb. Click it once to set it; click it again to detonate it.

Also, make Super Speed more versatile by making speedsters able to run up sheer surfaces, like buildings, the way The Flash can. I took SS once, because the character's theme called for it. But the lack of vertical mobility in places like Skyway City had me avoiding SS after that.

Gotta agree with you on super speed, a few of my characters had it and I hated that lack of vertical movement.

[Shifter]

KB is a perfectly viable tactic and has kept me alive in many a hugely outnumbered mob of goons.

If KB is used correct, it can be very helpful.  For example, my bubble defender would KB runners back to the tank and up against nearby walls to help mitigate damage. I personally avoid KB as I play a Tank 99% of the time and find it counter productive to my primary role most of the time, but will happily team with anyone good player that has KB. However, for PuGs/people I don't know, I will honestly admit that if two similar people wanted to join me and one has a KB heavy set, I would most likely go with the non-KB person. Personally, I don't care to much one way or the other, but like to avoid possible team drama situations. KB in the wrong hands is most def a qualifying catalyst for that.

[houtex]

re: respecs.  I used it once.  ONCE.  My characters were what they were, period, and that's because I wanted them built that way, for good or bad.  Even if I took a power that later wasn't so great for that character... oh well. 

The only time I ever used respec was to get superjump.  Because TP wasn't handy when hunting candy canes, but superjump is just perfect.  And at the time, that's the only way you could get it.  Silly reason, sure, but hey, I wanted candy. :)

Excepting that, no respecs, I made my characters the way they were supposed to be (according to me) and no Mids either. Just "I need dis" and get KB/KD/KU protection.  Or moar defense.  Whatever.  And if there wasn't anything I could do about more Psi protection?  Well, I'd best to be handling the Psi powered enemies first, then.

Which brings me to re: KB

KB is hella handy. However it's generated, that is time that that particular enemy/enemies is/are not firing off powers at me.  More time that I can be bustin' their chops/messin' with their brains/zappin' them with stuff.  Just like when *I* would get knocked down/thrown around, I was helpless.  Hold/mez, any of that action against the bad guys(tm) is good stuff if you're the offensive one.  Less hurtin' more smackin'.  Slot for KB, that's me.

Oh, sure, for a brute or scrapper, that's a bit annoying when the enemies fly off into the distance, but I just had combat jump turned on, and every enemy I was engaged with as a brute/scrapper was put on follow, so I'd just jump up (of course I had made myself be able to avoid being -jump and -hold. :) ) and catch up to them and pummel them some more.  Mostly.  Every so often they'd get my jump turned off with sticky stuff or whatever, but no worries.  You know what?  He'll come back.  You're next, punk.

So excepting the luckyness of that on their side, I's a jumpin' fool, andy they went down.  I LOVED the chase.  Because then?  All the other enemies had to stop whatever they were doin' and come after me.  That's combat not happening unless they're ranged, and guess which ones go down first anyway?  Ranged.  For that reason.  Frackin' sappers/psi/-def generating jerks. :)

"Run, foo, that makes me *happy*! - my scraptankbrutes.

[Ironwolf]

I see the Knockback hatred and have to repeat, I used to run an ALL knockback team.

You were required to have Knockback, Disorient, Stun or other such power to get on the team and you HAD to use those powers. You could use non-Knockback powers but we wanted Chaos - pure and unadulterated.

It was by far the most fun I have ever had and once you get used to the fact that:

1. No bad guys can hurt anyone because they are all flying in the air
2. Everything dies really fast
3. Aggro control is completely unnecessary when they don't have time to move to shoot back

It wasn't nice and neat - it was glorious chaos. You felt incredibly super powered with people flying through the air constantly. My greatest memory was facing some elite boss and him getting hit by multiple people flying in the air and dying before he hit the ground. It was impressive.

[Scendera]

I had a duo or two built around that..."If it can't stand, it can't swing" was one of the mottoes there. I ended up adjusting that tactic and taking it to EQ2, as much as is possible....certain notoriously tough or annoying mobs magically become VERY easy when permanently on their arse.

[Samuraiko]

I see the Knockback hatred and have to repeat, I used to run an ALL knockback team.

You were required to have Knockback, Disorient, Stun or other such power to get on the team and you HAD to use those powers. You could use non-Knockback powers but we wanted Chaos - pure and unadulterated.

It was by far the most fun I have ever had and once you get used to the fact that:

1. No bad guys can hurt anyone because they are all flying in the air
2. Everything dies really fast
3. Aggro control is completely unnecessary when they don't have time to move to shoot back

It wasn't nice and neat - it was glorious chaos. You felt incredibly super powered with people flying through the air constantly. My greatest memory was facing some elite boss and him getting hit by multiple people flying in the air and dying before he hit the ground. It was impressive.

You would have loved it, then, when my husband and I invented "Council Skeet Shooting."

While waiting to start a Hess, we were standing around on Striga when we suddenly had the bright idea of me Teleport Foe-ing some random Council into within arm's reach, then promptly nailing him with the biggest Knockback punch I had, at which point he would then attempt to blast him out of the sky. And bonus points if he hit him with a ranged attack that ALSO had knockback on it, thus sending him even further.

Then a friend with Wormhole showed up, and started porting them into midair. At which point hubby and I would both cut loose with ranged attacks.

While the three of us were standing there laughing ourselves sick, ANOTHER Hess team of 8 wandered by, saw what we were doing, and decided to join in the fun. So we soon had 16 people standing up near Moonfire, one of us shouting, "PULL!" and then lighting up some poor Council schmuck in a barrage of attacks.

Great fun.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[Power Gamer]

Samuraiko, Ironwolf and Scendera...YOU ARE SICK!  :o

AND YOU WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN, without inviting me.

PLEEEEAAAASE.

[Scendera]

Soon as it can be arranged! *grin*

[gypsyav]

Samuraiko, Ironwolf and Scendera...YOU ARE SICK!  :o

AND YOU WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN, without inviting me.

PLEEEEAAAASE.

And me!!! Don't forget me! Council skeet shooting sounds like fun.

[MM3squints]

I see the Knockback hatred and have to repeat, I used to run an ALL knockback team.

You were required to have Knockback, Disorient, Stun or other such power to get on the team and you HAD to use those powers. You could use non-Knockback powers but we wanted Chaos - pure and unadulterated.

It was by far the most fun I have ever had and once you get used to the fact that:

1. No bad guys can hurt anyone because they are all flying in the air
2. Everything dies really fast
3. Aggro control is completely unnecessary when they don't have time to move to shoot back

It wasn't nice and neat - it was glorious chaos. You felt incredibly super powered with people flying through the air constantly. My greatest memory was facing some elite boss and him getting hit by multiple people flying in the air and dying before he hit the ground. It was impressive.

I think there are three groups that hate knock back:

1. The min/maxers that think kb will misplace a group of adds from the group when they throw a AoE, lowering the effecency for xp/inf/change to get IOs per min .Honestly if they cared about that, they should just make a ss/fire brute and farm and go nuts on the council map +4/+8 and find other group of min/maxers to run TFs and Trails (course if you really was only for min/maxing, there is only one TF you would run over and over again) If you play in groups, that means you should be playing for fun and it is excepted to see anything go including kb. That's the beauty of CoX, it caters to people who are hardcore min maxers, and casual players

2. They can be melee. I don't play melee because of the limitations compared to range. One of the limitations is that it is annoying to chase down a target every time a target gets KBed. The last state of the game, there was no chain attack to pull the target back (I think if there was chain attack, kb would be a non-issue for melee, and would actually be fun because you can make a yo-yo effect on a target)

3. The group of people who think they are better than everyone, so they tell them how to play their game. They can leave the group and find a new one, if they are team leader, they can kick the individual, or they they can play solo, but please do not drone on and on in team chat how to play the game. The way I see it they don't pay the other person 15 dollar a month or if the other person is F2P, they don't pay for the other person's store item, so they should not tell them how to play.

[FloatingFatMan]

  Mid's will prevent you from having to second guess.  Not that you have to respec but if you do then its nice to have something to see it on before doing it in game.

I found Mids, though an excellent utility for many, to be even MORE boring to use than respeccing!