New efforts!

[Risha]

Hehe, I wasn't going to make a mind/empath but I did have an empathy/dark defender in mind.  Though mind/empathy could work to.

Risha was a mind/empath, and more squishy than pretty much anything else I played (but she was my first).  As much as I love/d her, I am not going to do a mind/empath again because she's so difficult to solo.  I was about to do another overhaul on her (#4 I believe) when NCSoft announced the closure.  I'm not sure how many of us played mind/empaths, so if someone disagrees, I will bow to you, but in my experience...just...not again.

[LaughingAlex]

  Risha was a mind/empath, and more squishy than pretty much anything else I played (but she was my first).  As much as I love/d her, I am not going to do a mind/empath again because she's so difficult to solo.  I was about to do another overhaul on her (#4 I believe) when NCSoft announced the closure.  I'm not sure how many of us played mind/empaths, so if someone disagrees, I will bow to you, but in my experience...just...not again.

Well when I said Mind/empathy I was saying controller :).  I could see problems with mind/ on a controller though, to be honest, it was a set I didn't enjoy as much, partly because I felt like I was just there to stop enemies from attacking but do zero of the damage, which isn't something I enjoyed much in city of heroes.  A mind/ dominator though, is another story for me.  I tended to enjoy dominators more than controllers I found, and often all the same corruptors and defenders in general were archtypes I enjoyed far more than the controller in the later days of the game and when the game comes back I likely won't be playing controllers.

Probably either a corruptor or mastermind will be my first pick.  Or even defender, but i'd be playing a setup that can both dish out heavy damage AND support a team effectively.

[Arcana]

ask target what that cost them. so many outsourced projects being used that probably already have backdoors built in

To be fair, that wasn't a problem with questionable code.  That was a problem with questionable security protocols.  More specifically, and relevant to this discussion, it was a problem of people more interested in getting paid to perform security work than actually doing it correctly.

[KennonGL]

Well when I said Mind/empathy I was saying controller :).  I could see problems with mind/ on a controller though, to be honest, it was a set I didn't enjoy as much, partly because I felt like I was just there to stop enemies from attacking but do zero of the damage

The first controller I ever built was a Mind/Radiation controller.  And this was back before containment.  Psi-Borg's damage was pretty poor in those days.
On the other hand, his control was just silly powerful.  A damage/sleep, a damage/hold, a confuse, a terrorize, and more....

I used to say that he took forever to defeat anyone, but by golly NOBODY moved the entire time :)

Controllers quickly became my primary AT [followed by Tanks].  I played everything, and nearly every powerset combo at one point or another, but
Psi-Borg was always one of my favorites.

[Arcana]

The first controller I ever built was a Mind/Radiation controller.  And this was back before containment.  Psi-Borg's damage was pretty poor in those days.
On the other hand, his control was just silly powerful.  A damage/sleep, a damage/hold, a confuse, a terrorize, and more....

I used to say that he took forever to defeat anyone, but by golly NOBODY moved the entire time :)

I'd have to agree.  Mind/Emp could be a bit slow (but at lower levels, not *that* slow compared to the average controller) but I wouldn't ever describe it as "squishy."  Played with aggressive lean on mind control, it was pretty untouchable when solo.  Not only a lot of control, a lot of AoE control on relatively quick recharge.  No other controller had the same ability to basically lock down or neutralize everything. 

Also, Confuse, sleep, and terrorize were knocked as control by many, in particular regarding team synergy, but if we're talking about soloing those controls have enormous advantages in compensating for their deficiencies with durations that often might as well be forever.

[LadyVamp]

Technically, you don't have to write code that works to get paid.  You only have to convince people your work was worth being paid for.  This industry is full of people far better at convincing people to pay for work than delivering work.  If your priority is getting paid, focusing on functionality is not your best path to success.  Nor is it the most commonly successful one.

Truer words, Arcana, have never been spoken.  I work with an army of such programmers.

[Arcana]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/09/us-airbus-a400m-idUSKBN0OP2AS20150609

Apparently, the A400M has an interesting engine control software system.  The system requires a set of engine calibration data to properly manage the each engine.  On three of the four engines, somehow the ground systems used to load this software wiped this information.  This means three of the four engines contained software that could not properly operate the engines.  This data is sufficiently critical that if the engine software fails to contain it or its corrupted, the software is designed to shut the engine off.  So when does the engine software first check to see if this data is present?

When the engines are running at 400 feet.

Not on the ground, not at start up, not during the checklist.  At altitude.

I'm sure the software designers had a really good reason for doing that.  And even after killing four people, a fundamental rule like avionics software must perform every integrity check it is ever going to perform first on the ground would be too difficult to implement, because reasons.

From the article:

"It is not unusual for engineers, facing finite resources, to focus on known risks and manage remote ones by putting extra checks in place, like the ones that appeared to fail the A400M."

Indeed.

"Nobody imagined a problem like this could happen to three engines," a person familiar with the 12-year-old project said."

They needed someone with a better imagination.  At some point, when someone said "if there's a problem with this system the engine will be safely shut down" I would have asked "what happens if the same problem happens to all four engines?"  And they would say "its inconceivable that the exact same problem could affect all four engines at the same time."  And apparently they'd be right, because it only happened to three.  Unfortunately the plane seems to need at least two.

The next time someone tells you a failure mode is inconceivable, hand them this article, and ask them how many tombstones have to have "killed by lack of imagination" etched into them.

[LaughingAlex]

The first controller I ever built was a Mind/Radiation controller.  And this was back before containment.  Psi-Borg's damage was pretty poor in those days.
On the other hand, his control was just silly powerful.  A damage/sleep, a damage/hold, a confuse, a terrorize, and more....

I used to say that he took forever to defeat anyone, but by golly NOBODY moved the entire time :)

Controllers quickly became my primary AT [followed by Tanks].  I played everything, and nearly every powerset combo at one point or another, but
Psi-Borg was always one of my favorites.

I will admit for pure support Controllers were pretty much unmatched at it.  I used to play controllers at a time, I think in my case I just got bored of the AT and wanted to play AT's with some firepower.

Edit: Controllers were probably best described as the single most defensive and supportive Archtype with only a few exceptions(namely, fire and kin controllers were more offense based, with fire/kin being the most offensive controller).

[Arcana]

I will admit for pure support Controllers were pretty much unmatched at it.  I used to play controllers at a time, I think in my case I just got bored of the AT and wanted to play AT's with some firepower.

Edit: Controllers were probably best described as the single most defensive and supportive Archtype with only a few exceptions(namely, fire and kin controllers were more offense based, with fire/kin being the most offensive controller).

One of the things that was probably changing a bit at the time of the shutdown was the conventional dogma about Fire/Kin being the undisputed "offensive controller."  Starting from shortly after inventions came out in I9, but slowly gathering steam (and with me flip flopping a lot on the subject myself as I continued to think about it) it was becoming more the case that among Controller primaries and secondaries, it was hard to really be sure which of Fire/Illusion and which of Kin/Rad/Dark were the top of the offensive heap.  They were close enough for situational issues to significantly impact their relative strengths.  One of the last controller debates I had on the official forums was with another player who made a strong argument that Ill/Dark could outdamage both Ill/Rad and Fire/Kin in a variety of circumstances.

[Tubbius]

I will admit for pure support Controllers were pretty much unmatched at it.  I used to play controllers at a time, I think in my case I just got bored of the AT and wanted to play AT's with some firepower.

Edit: Controllers were probably best described as the single most defensive and supportive Archtype with only a few exceptions(namely, fire and kin controllers were more offense based, with fire/kin being the most offensive controller).

I want my Controllers back.  :(  I miss them dearly.

[LaughingAlex]

One of the things that was probably changing a bit at the time of the shutdown was the conventional dogma about Fire/Kin being the undisputed "offensive controller."  Starting from shortly after inventions came out in I9, but slowly gathering steam (and with me flip flopping a lot on the subject myself as I continued to think about it) it was becoming more the case that among Controller primaries and secondaries, it was hard to really be sure which of Fire/Illusion and which of Kin/Rad/Dark were the top of the offensive heap.  They were close enough for situational issues to significantly impact their relative strengths.  One of the last controller debates I had on the official forums was with another player who made a strong argument that Ill/Dark could outdamage both Ill/Rad and Fire/Kin in a variety of circumstances.

I could see people making the case for rad or dark.  I could even see a case for /time and /sonic, due to stacking -resistances.  /TA is also very offensive due to it's superior -resistance, with some powers directly able to dish it out to.  I mean your main defense is crowd control, so you don't have to worry as much about any survivability from your secondary.  Not alot can argue with -40% resistances cranking damage way up there and an oil slick firing off the moment hot-feat hits it.

I had a fire/sonic, one issue I had was it's endurance/second was extreme, it was very unwieldy in comparison.  Though once again, I could see THAT working not with fire/ but perhaps electrical/.  More endurance = more capacity to dish out damage.

Which is probably the major reason /kin was high up there, not just it's raw damage but it's endurance.

[ivanhedgehog]

I could see people making the case for rad or dark.  I could even see a case for /time and /sonic, due to stacking -resistances.  /TA is also very offensive due to it's superior -resistance, with some powers directly able to dish it out to.  I mean your main defense is crowd control, so you don't have to worry as much about any survivability from your secondary.  Not alot can argue with -40% resistances cranking damage way up there and an oil slick firing off the moment hot-feat hits it.

I had a fire/sonic, one issue I had was it's endurance/second was extreme, it was very unwieldy in comparison.  Though once again, I could see THAT working not with fire/ but perhaps electrical/.  More endurance = more capacity to dish out damage.

Which is probably the major reason /kin was high up there, not just it's raw damage but it's endurance.

my wife had a purpled out fire/kin controller. the ambushes in the second mission of the ITF melted in front of her.

[Solitaire]

You're wrong. Have you SEEN some of the dreck that's out there? It doesn't work half the time (or at all), it's finished late more than it's on time (and it's pretty much NEVER done early), but someone got paid for it.

Aggelakis why you have to go and use this word? Thinking about the Freakshow missions now and how much fun & xp they were  :roll:

[LaughingAlex]

I was also thinking about incarnate powers factoring into the equation, it gets more complex.  Firstly, Musculature and Ageless combo.

See Ageless was effectively infinite endurance, and course more endurance means you can keep the pressure and play far more aggressively.  The sheer increase in endurance means it's easy to go with musculature for even more damage.  You certainly don't need cardiac and you can afford to go with musculature core rather than radial with ageless.

This also negates /kins endurance advantage entirely by itself.  So now when we think about it, you'd be putting +160 to +170% extra damage(musculature, remember, is buffing damage already) vs -resistance from other sets.

Then of course we got reactive interface which, combined with musculature, hits especially hard every time it ticks and I do believe it ticks from the fire imps.  Course, fire/ would instantly out-match simply due to 3 imps = 3 chances per attack from them to proc reactive.  On a single enemy yourself and 3 imps means your already the second fastest person around to obtain a majority of reactive stacks(mastermind is first and would be undisputed, with 6 henchmen meaning instant max stack).

Course, a quirk here, is reactive benefits from -resistance on an enemy, but not +damage buffs other than musculature.  This means that any /set that focuses on -resistance will have an advantage in that.  A significant one at that.  Would that be enough to push a non kin above a kin, I am not sure, but it's a distinct possibility.

This is of course not paying attention to the lore pets or judgement, since everyone gets those powers anyways.  As for hybrid, I am really not sure at that point, maybe focus it on damage to?  But I am not sure if anything in hybrid other than support helps, as I never got to experiment with that slot much on a mastermind(be nice if Assault or Control benefited the pets but I get a feeling neither does, I really don't know). 

[Azrael]

Controllers.

I had a lot of respect for the archetype.  Though I did find them somewhat 'wearing' to play.

I managed to get an ice/rad controller up to L32.  But I thought the Jack pet was mediocre compared to fire imps.  Until somebody pointed out what I really needed was a blastoller.  I.e ice/ice blaster.  Which was simply awesome.  Elegant.  Swift.  Sound holds.  Efficient.

I tried gravity/kin and got that to L12.  Hard going.

Domibators.  Once I discovered these it was like having an offensive blapping controller.  Add in domination...?  Compelling.  Elec/elec with elec patron and I was hooked.  Plenty of lockdown, sleep, confuse, end drain...  ...with decent melee to slap the mobs around.

Masterminds.  These also had a controllers feel.  Beast mastery with pain was a sound set/s.  Loved bee-ing a mob to slow crawl then sending In the hawk, lions, dire wolf.  Dire wolf was a flat out awesome pet.  One of the best in the game and put fluffy, Jack and electric imps in the shade.  Though golem rocked...hard as nails and very aggressive.

I managed to get a dark/dark defender up to L38.  Hard going on endurance.  It would be fine until you got messed then the house of cards would collapse...and then I'd think a scrapper would have put this fight to bed years ago...

Azrael.

[Arcana]

Course, a quirk here, is reactive benefits from -resistance on an enemy, but not +damage buffs other than musculature.

If memory serves, the reactive DoT was a granted power, which I think means its damage wouldn't be buffed by Musculature buffs (or at least shouldn't be).

Additionally, reactive procs had a stacking limit of four, so players with lots of fast attacks did not have an overwhelming advantage over other players (I don't remember if reactive flowed through pets, but even if it did Fire controllers did not possess a sizeable debuff advantage simply due to having more pets attacking due to the stacking cap).

On the general subject of incarnate powers and controllers, I uploaded this video and this video to demonstrate the power of Incarnate abilities back in the day.  The first is my Ill/Rad soloing a giant monster class Quarry.  The second is the same Ill/Rad using Ageless (partial core invocation) and one of the two tier 4 reactive procs (I forget which).  I shave a significant amount of time with Incarnate abilities.

Also, I really miss that controller.  She was a killer.  With time, I managed to solo almost everything with her.  I soloed three of the RV AVs before Incarnate powers.  I soloed every giant monster variant on Monster Island.  I even soloed the Jack and Eochai combo.  About the only thing she didn't eventually solo was Hamidon, and if the game lasted long enough I was pretty sure me and the goo were going to dance eventually.

[Goddangit]

  Risha was a mind/empath, and more squishy than pretty much anything else I played (but she was my first).  As much as I love/d her, I am not going to do a mind/empath again because she's so difficult to solo.  I was about to do another overhaul on her (#4 I believe) when NCSoft announced the closure.  I'm not sure how many of us played mind/empaths, so if someone disagrees, I will bow to you, but in my experience...just...not again.

My first was Goddangit, a SS/Invuln tank.  I thought it might be easiest for a first hero.  Somewhere along the way I got curious about other types and decided to build Hypnochick, a Mind/Empath controller.  She took a lot of patience to solo because she dealt low amounts of damage, but I could hold someone all day while I slowly whittled them down to size.  Someone once lamented the fact mind controllers have no pets.  I smiled and said, "I make my own."

Late one quiet night on Infinity a team of two were getting their butts handed to them in a Council base and they called me desperate for anyone to help.  When I arrived at the base one of them said, "Now if only we could find a healer."  I told them, "I can heal and rez too."  One of them replied, "I love you."  :)

She was a lot of fun to play and my first hero to reach level 50.

[Joshex]

If you were working at a construction company, say, and your were given insufficient time or resources to build a building the proper way, would you continue working properly until time and resources ran out, not knowing if that meant you would get more resources or get fired, or would you cut every corner you needed to until you were certain you'd finish the building on time.

In both the construction industry and in the software industry, there are individuals and companies that will cut whatever corners need to be cut to deliver something within unreasonable requirements.  The critical difference is that in most other industries, that isn't a source of pride.

There's a saying in engineering: code is written in blood.  What that means is that the rules and regulations we follow as engineers are often only written after a mistake kills people; then and only then do we decide that maybe we shouldn't do that anymore.  In that respect, the engineering disciplines are rather dumb, in that in a sense, they only advance through literal human sacrifice.

Programming as a discipline is, by that standard, brain dead.  Programming failures have caused deaths just like any other technical discipline.  But unlike basically all of them the software development industry as a profession has never adopted a single professional rule ever regardless of blood spilled.  Software development as an industry has no actual rules explicit to it at all, the odd methodological standard notwithstanding.

Sometimes, when I say this, someone will say that software is too complicated to be regulated by the same kinds of rules that regulate all other forms of engineering.  My stock reply to them is: only the way you do it.

Rules to fix it;
1: KO all deadlines and accept any research or work done that validly fills the time slots worked and is geared towards progress.

2: after writing your work, always test it repeatedly and excessively, really take a day just button and mouse mashing in your active program in all the spots you're not sure about. Error? do something about it, note what the error was and why it was set as is in a comment, then test again!

3: only release works after all testing phases finally conclude in no errors or undesired actions.

[Azrael]

I found, in my observations of other players, that the Illusion set kicked the proverbial.  Invisibility.  3 pets ('Mad Alice', Phantom Army and Phantasm.)  Phantom Army would go in and tank the hell out of the mob.  I never managed to get one anywhere.  I rolled a couple and never got beyond the 'early' levels...  I should have P/L'd one up to Phantom Army level.  I always wondered how cool it must have been to press the 'button' on that power.

As for incarnate.  I loathed the departure from the traditional interface.  Not the idea of 'incarnate' powers per se.  I would have preferred just a natural extension of the 1st, 2nd, Epic interface.  And simple 'Hami' style Incarnate designed slots to fit...via solo able content instead of Legion infested 'Legion of Superheroes' style 'what is going on?' style quests.  Seemed all very random and dependent on a ton of other heroes to 'get you there.'  And the interface.  Loot obsessed grindfest and very unintuitive.

That aside.

I two alts that I was 'grinding' to Incarnate state tier 4 (plus '2' level thingie...)  *(I could not get my head around that.  Just extend the level cap to L60.

Shield/SS Brute.  @Laughing Alex.  Should I have chosen different to 'Cardiac?'  I did like Ion.

Elec/Elec/Elec Domi.  I'm not sure what I went for.  I ended up having the 'storm cloud' pets and 'barrier.' 

I did have an Invul/Energy Melee tank.  I really liked that.  Very high res' and as near as dammit to the defence cap with 1 mob?  Got me there and higher if mob around me.  I wonder if the game hadn't closed down I could have picked Reactive?  Ageless? 

Anybody with any thoughts on my former 3 alts?

Azrael.

[Joshex]

I found, in my observations of other players, that the Illusion set kicked the proverbial.  Invisibility.  3 pets ('Mad Alice', Phantom Army and Phantasm.)  Phantom Army would go in and tank the hell out of the mob.  I never managed to get one anywhere.  I rolled a couple and never got beyond the 'early' levels...  I should have P/L'd one up to Phantom Army level.  I always wondered how cool it must have been to press the 'button' on that power.

As for incarnate.  I loathed the departure from the traditional interface.  Not the idea of 'incarnate' powers per se.  I would have preferred just a natural extension of the 1st, 2nd, Epic interface.  And simple 'Hami' style Incarnate designed slots to fit...via solo able content instead of Legion infested 'Legion of Superheroes' style 'what is going on?' style quests.  Seemed all very random and dependent on a ton of other heroes to 'get you there.'  And the interface.  Loot obsessed grindfest and very unintuitive.

That aside.

I two alts that I was 'grinding' to Incarnate state tier 4 (plus '2' level thingie...)  *(I could not get my head around that.  Just extend the level cap to L60.

Shield/SS Brute.  @Laughing Alex.  Should I have chosen different to 'Cardiac?'  I did like Ion.

Elec/Elec/Elec Domi.  I'm not sure what I went for.  I ended up having the 'storm cloud' pets and 'barrier.' 

I did have an Invul/Energy Melee tank.  I really liked that.  Very high res' and as near as dammit to the defence cap with 1 mob?  Got me there and higher if mob around me.  I wonder if the game hadn't closed down I could have picked Reactive?  Ageless? 

Anybody with any thoughts on my former 3 alts?

Azrael.

I had an electric electric electric dom, he was never.. exactly what I wanted.. I was hoping to make him a durable character like I had seen some controllers do. no. I tried to make him a damage toon. moderate results. in the end I decided to go with the whole -end and make him a sapper, he can tank without fail at -1 x8 but it takes a while.

Shield was always a good 'active fighting' def set, super strength was good on single target damage but lacked much AoE, cone and chain, however [Rage] was just pure awesome, much better than [build-up]. naturally when you add in Shield's superior TP AoE +knockdown that must have been a very decent build!

My first tank was invul energy, energy melee has higher damage than super strength but lacks rage, it's a ery slow single target build, fine for tanking some AVs especially with proper slotting, but a real grinder when it comes to PL/farming.

that's what I think.