New efforts!

[Solitaire]

*pencils in nerfing Regen*

Passes the Bat  ;)

[Ironwolf]

Passes the Bat  ;)

No need to pass the bat - it is auto loading.

[Brigadine]

Nemesis is an Arcana plot.

Nothing is real and everything is permitted

[Hagis]

My wife initially refused to play CoH, as she was a burned out MMORPG veteran. Her biggest gripe, along with grinding, was having to run everywhere. My friends and I finally cajoled her into playing CoH. She was thrilled that her main character had wings, and as soon as she was able to grab Fly, she never looked back. I think the only time she voluntarily touched the ground was logging out.

My first toon also grabbed Flight. It was as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in joy, and they were never silenced.

[Sinistar]

edit

[Aggelakis]

I just thought of an odd question, must be my morbid curiosity but here goes:

We all know that MMORPG's are played by many people from all walks of life.
We also should remember the old phrase "there's one in every crowd", you know....the one that griefs players, acts lazy, door sits all the time, refuses instructions, harasses other players, makes use of exploits, etc etc.

So out of morbid curiosity, how many notches do you think you got to carve on your "ban gun"? Whether it was getting someone out for a couple of days, or told to play on a different server, or just plain banned for good?

We don't need this discussion and I'll delete responses here. Feel free to PM each other about it, but airing dirty laundry in a game over two years dead is unnecessary.

[Azrael]

Permadom Elec/elec and it is quite fun. Different dominators were almost as varied as different defender combos. Then, throw in player preference -- man, I miss this game.

Well, Pinball Dave, Perma-domination Elec/Elec was the most fun I ever had.  It wasn't the most damaging.  It wasn't the quickest to kill, *cough, 'arrest.'  However, I did 'hammer' quite a few AVs to achieve the patron arc.  Maybe they were elite bosses.  I had to take the level down to -1 to 'finish' off one EB on the Patron Arc.  The best arc I ever played outside of the Stephanie Striga missions (which were my favourites...I'd 'stress test' all my alts on the boat missions...)  I could sleep mobs.  Then drain them.  Then apply chain fences.  Pulse them with electric shock and have them knocked down.  Confuse them.  Power sink them.  Blap them.  Thunderstrike them AoE.  4-5 pets in the end with me pick off what was left or taking out the 'lead' mob. 

I never really cared about being super-mega-OP, I was much more about the RP... Then again if i can get my Elec/Elec dominator to be a permadom that'd be awesome.

Grue Girl.

Perma-dom.  Perma-hasten.  Rocking build.  Not cheap.  4.5 billion!  Flawed build because I just couldn't bring myself to lose any attacks to 'cap out' the defence.  Elec/Elec Domination.  It had the control of electric controllers.  The best blasts and blaps of electric blasters.  Just so many combinations and ways to play.  Sometimes I'd just discreetly confuse a mob...and watch him take out the rest of his mob.  It was hilarious to see them turn on one another.  Funniest thing in CoH.  The surprise reaction of another mob as 'one of his own' turned round and 'bopped' him.

Willpower, Dual Blades Scrapper (with Tough and Weave to help me take the 'alpha') was a very impressive and fun scrapper to play.  It used to 'mow' through Arachnos.  The combos?  Became 2nd nature with a 'bit' (heh) of practice.  Maybe it would have suited the 'brute' treatment in retrospect...   I didn't get it to L50 or manage to IO it.  The latter of which would have really helped the build.  The 'orange' circle builder/auto chain attacks were a fantastic extension of the CoH combat engine and I would have loved something like that to have been applied to Energy/Energy blast for example.  Out of all the 'different new ways' of adding to the base '9 power tree' system, it was my favourite.  You had pistols and staff with their own 'ideas' on how to extend CoH combat...but the extension to Dual Blades with in combat chains and combo attack 'buff' bonus attacks were great.  Natural and fluid.  It was a vicious set, was that Dual Blades.  Some really nice attacks, knock up and disembowelling and...and...well.  Before I get 'scrapper lock' describing it...I'll stop there.  That was an example of brute force.

Personally, I thought Dual Blades was a decent set.  I had a Dual Blades/Willpower scrapper that I thought worked very well.  Although I came to like Staff Fighting better as a weapon set, DB had a lot to like.  Sweeping Strike, for example, had really good DPA for an AoE, albeit a melee cone.  And it was a visually fun set to watch at least for me.

Quite so.  *nods.  Sweeping strike was great fun.  Was that the one with bodies flying everywhere?  I just remember being in piles of Arachnos and bodies flying with me hidden in the melee fracas. :)

As for Staff.  I think I got to around 24-ish.  It was 'ok.'  Likeable.  Thrashing someone with a stick.  Shame I didn't make it to L32...and the choice of 'buffs' was an interesting side dish.

But I did love my Katana/Willpower scrapper.  Elegance.  If you were quick enough, you could stack defence from a katana attack to 50% and have mobs swarming around you while you cut them to ribbons.  Very, very nice attack set, Katana.  I'm surprised it took me so long to roll one.  Another scrapper that was 'stuck' on late 30s.  I had about 8-10-ish alts on 38-44.

((I just ran out of time to get them 'all there.'  WS.  PB.  3 scrappers.  2 blasters.  Mastermind.  Brute.  Defender...and a stalker!))

Nerfing Regen.  According to my old Duo Partner...it used to be very impressive.  But following the nerfff(!), much less so.  I found regen' a bit 'soft' with alpha hits or big bursts of damage.  Instant healing was a good power, though.  As was Quick Recovery to add to Stamina.  (Didn't Q Recovery have an even higher 'stat' than standard Stamina?)  Ironic.  Even with two 'stamina' bars, it didn't stop my Claws scrapper from losing stamina like a flood.  EVEN with end reds in all key powers and double ended here and there.  I guess it was ripe for an 'IO' build.  It's the one character I took Focused Accuracy on which was very effective 'to hit' power :) .  (I had a good few end reds in that as well...end hog...)  Speaking of Nerfing Regen...

Downix.  Taking 'notes' are we? ;)  Judging by your 'coy' appearance, I'll take it 'negotiations' are delicately poised as 'ongoing?'  Though an update by the 3rd anniversary of Coh's closure would be nicely timed..?  Coh 'Legacy' is the only game I want to play.  I don't play anything else.

Codewalker. 

Possibly

Yes...issue 24.  *looks thoughtfully.

Arcana. 

In fact, its even more likely that rather than a copy of I24 showing up one day, a magical patch to I23 that happens to contain all of the I24 content might appear one day.  That would be far more untraceable, and would therefore protect whoever happened to have that content.

:))

Ah, yes, where were we?  *coughs.  'Flying...'

Flying.  Yes.  Flying sold CoH to me.  My old Duo-buddy proudly showing off his 'mage' flying through Steel Canyon aloft the skyscrapers...  I asked him, why haven't you told me about this game sooner?  (He'd been in on the beta...)  And I recall the game as being 'in development' when I first heard about it with a launch in 'a year's' time.  The next I knew, it had launched and he'd been playing it for 3 months.    He let me have a go and I rolled an En/FF defender and ran around Atlas aggravating Helion mobs by accident (I had no idea what I was doing...) then I had a Helion punch me through a chain link fence with me asking, 'How did my Power Bolt miss from point blank range?'

Raven  ...yes.  Who hasn't flown, jumped onto a roof top, ran off the edge and hit fly again?  Good feeling, eh?

To the new developers.  (*waves at the 'coy' Downix...)  Any chance discreet 'Haxies' that allow Energize, Auto-Snipe buffs on blasters from Issue 24 beta? :) 

Black Sly. 

I have my AV-soloing builds for every AT, every powerset that I plan on running. Something like 30 characters, not counting the 100 or so builds that didn't make the top-30 list.

Care to share any? :)

Yeah, I get itchy mouse palms while the waiting goes on.

Yes.  I suspect you're not the only one...

Reiraku.

They nerfed the acc on Dark Melee again!  ;D

I remember being told about that.  So much so, it was worth double acc'ing the scrapper so you could apply to -hit Debuff.  I recall my Duo-partner going Double Dual Origin Accs around the time of Steel Canyon to 'get the hit' (he hated missing...).  So he went Dark melee.  I went claws regen when we teamed together.

Random note.  One of the more impressive character builds I saw in CoH was a 'human only' WS with a build that cost billions.  Very impressive.  Looked like a Spartan...

Fifth Horseman.  As to everything being a 'Nemesis plot?'  A shadow of darkness surrounds us.

Azrael.

PS. 

I've played literally dozens of MMOs since.  Flying in City of Heroes is still the coolest thing ever.  In 99% of all MMOs out there, just *getting* anywhere is a challenge, and not a particularly interesting or entertaining one.  In City of Heroes, getting there started with being able to fly there, superspeed there, or teleport at practically warp speed to get there.  And eventually, it got better.  The one thing City of Heroes did better than anyone, bar none, was that the City of Heroes development team actually thought about quality of life.

Amen.

[KennonGL]

Indeed. in SAO once the fight got underway, Kirito easily gained fury and power, and that was before he became a dual wielder.

As far as Kirito goes, I never got the Brute impression from him. 

He didn't get continuously stronger as the fight went on, he just got better, stronger, faster as the need to do so increased.

To me that sounds more like a Broadsword/Willpower Scrapper, with a special "off-hand" broadsword (perma) temp power
and a big tray full of inspirations.

[umber]

Nerfing Regen.  According to my old Duo Partner...it used to be very impressive.  But following the nerfff(!), much less so.  I found regen' a bit 'soft' with alpha hits or big bursts of damage.

I never could figure out what most folks wanted or expected out of Regen.  Of all the things the set did very well, as a reactive healing set its only real weakness was going to be burst damage but it sure seemed that many Regenners wanted that singular weakness removed as well.  Other armor sets, no matter how much resistance or defense to damage, would eventually drop from attrition while Regen (if it survived the Alpha) would survive *indefinitely*.  Invuln scrapper needing to wait for Dull Pain's recharge to use as a ghetto heal?  The regen scrapper is back at full health before the end of the fight, sprinting for the next group.  Fiery Aura scrapper exhausted after a battle and needing to take a knee?  The regen scrapper's end bar barely moved and is already wailing away at the next spawn. 

(not sure of why Azrael had end issues with a claws/regen although I do recall my early claws/SR being surprisingly end-demanding.  was Claws' end costs particularly bad in CoH's infancy?)

Its not that post-nerf Regen was bad, its that pre-nerf Regen was exceedingly overperforming.  Play to the set's strengths, even post-nerf but pre-IO, and it was a hoot to play. 

[Groundbreaker]

I played Claws/Regen from issue 3 to close. I never needed to slot end reduction on any of my powers, the only time I ever worried about endurance was when I faced enemies that could drain my end (Sappers, Carnies, etc) And even then I only had to be as careful as the rest of the team. There were plenty of things that Regen struggled against but I was never expecting the powerset to be 100% effective. The only change in Regen I ever disliked was the downpower of MOG, but even that wasn't because of the reduction in effectiveness, I understood that, it was the fact that we could heal with it on. That took away some of the "coolness" it was a lot more fun killing everything in the red and being untouchable than it was being in the green and mostly untouchable.

[Ankhammon]

My only unhappiness from regen was that it was kinda clicky. This interfered with my DB combos from time to time.

That guy was fun.

[Azrael]

I never could figure out what most folks wanted or expected out of Regen.  Of all the things the set did very well, as a reactive healing set its only real weakness was going to be burst damage but it sure seemed that many Regenners wanted that singular weakness removed as well.  Other armor sets, no matter how much resistance or defense to damage, would eventually drop from attrition while Regen (if it survived the Alpha) would survive *indefinitely*.  Invuln scrapper needing to wait for Dull Pain's recharge to use as a ghetto heal?  The regen scrapper is back at full health before the end of the fight, sprinting for the next group.  Fiery Aura scrapper exhausted after a battle and needing to take a knee?  The regen scrapper's end bar barely moved and is already wailing away at the next spawn. 

(not sure of why Azrael had end issues with a claws/regen although I do recall my early claws/SR being surprisingly end-demanding.  was Claws' end costs particularly bad in CoH's infancy?)

Its not that post-nerf Regen was bad, its that pre-nerf Regen was exceedingly overperforming.  Play to the set's strengths, even post-nerf but pre-IO, and it was a hoot to play.

I can imagine a Claws/SR would have some end issues with the toggles running...  Toggles needed pampering with end reds.  2.  Sometimes 3. 

As for why my Claws/Regen had 'end issues' with QR/Stamina at 5 points+ per tik end return...  I don't know.  Even with End reds in the more 'end hungry' claw attacks the blue bar would go down in an intense fight.  I guess it always depends on how you define end issues.  I could never go 'all out' against higher colour mobs.  Or rather, over a protracted fight the bar would definitely go down.  I've had the 'burn out' sound a fair few times.  I kept looking at the build quizzically as to how a double ended stamina alt could run out of end.  But I guess even two stamina bars don't stop the end bar from going down if you spam powers in long fights vs high mobs.

Against even cons, yellows...?  Not so much.  Fights didn't last long. ;)

Sure.  I could pace myself.  But like people say, claws/regen was about being on the edge and pushing to the next mob while others were out of breath.  I liked that feeling from Claws/Regen.  All out was the way I'd like to play it.  But I'd 'burn out' doing that.  Even though I didn't think(!) claws seemed so pricy on end costs...

As for reactive healing set.  I guess that's how you could define it.  I found going up against a heavy mob of 'kettle bell' Nemesis crabs tricky.  They'd hammer the health bar.  I found it 'very' soft against an orange + mob of Nemesis.

I have had some success with 'paced' non stamina end red builds.  A notable one being an Ice/Ice Blaster.  ...and a Mace/Electric tank.

So when I moved them to 'build 2' stamina builds the compromise was always that the blue bar would wobble up and down.

I guess how people define end issues.  I couldn't go 'all out' on my En/En Blaster without Conserve.  I could go 'all out' on my Claws/Regen IF the fights were reasonable short with 'reasonable' mob.  I had to pace my SS/Shield Brute until I got the alpha Cardiac...and even then I'd have to watch the Rage/Hasten end drop upon occasion.

Maybe I wasn't paying attention to enemies who could de-buff end recovery?

Azrael.

[brothermutant]

It COULD be that Claws/Regen had so little downtime with the fast healing that the player didn't wait like most to rush the next group. I would assume that some (many?) didn't take health/stamina on those early builds too (I always did, never liked waiting for my blue bar). But Claws at the end of CoH was a very cheap set for melee and just a dash of range too. Its why I chose it to work with my Dark Armor set, a renowned power piggy of a defense set even with Dark Consumption (Dark Klaw was pretty badash).

I actually started to like Dark Armor after that, and once they GAVE us health/stamina, I got the whole set. I loved the fear aura on my Brute (or was he a scrapper?). Random cowering simpletons all around you made you feel tough IMHO. Plus, like Elec and WP, it had some decent Psi res in it. Although, for some reason, I used to make these weird tanker builds using IO sets to get Psi Def and Res to as High as I could (did so for a friend on his Invuln tank per his request and he just beat the crap outta those lil psi robots/tsoo everywhere he went. Got more than a few kudos from his pug groups for being able to tank those Psi types effectively.)

[Azrael]

It COULD be that Claws/Regen had so little downtime with the fast healing that the player didn't wait like most to rush the next group.

It could be that.  My old Duo partner used to make the point that you can 'pause' between mobs.  Pace attacks.  Use a '1-2' punch of minor cost primary and secondary attacks WITH a more pricey attack...and wait 'mere moment' for the stamina bar to 'up tik' against.  He was more logical in his choice of attack chain than I was.

Azrael.

[FloatingFatMan]

As far as Kirito goes, I never got the Brute impression from him. 

He didn't get continuously stronger as the fight went on, he just got better, stronger, faster as the need to do so increased.

To me that sounds more like a Broadsword/Willpower Scrapper, with a special "off-hand" broadsword (perma) temp power
and a big tray full of inspirations.

Nah, definitely a brute. One with incipient scrapperlock. :p

[Vee]

I can imagine a Claws/SR would have some end issues with the toggles running...  Toggles needed pampering with end reds.  2.  Sometimes 3. 
Azrael.

/summon arcana

[HEATSTROKE]

Why do people always seem to think that toggles are the issue when attacks drain far more end than toggles do ??

[Sinistar]

Nah, definitely a brute. One with incipient scrapperlock. :p

Indeed.  When he went dual blade against that giant AV/boss that definitely felt more like a brute with a rising fury bar as he started to tear into it.

[Arcana]

/summon arcana

Three actual endred SOs in SR toggles would be a little excessive, pre-I9 I ran with two.  But I did run for a while with three, in a no-stamina build I made around I8? I think, as a proof of concept, so it wasn't crazy to do, at least after ED when more than three defense in the toggles was relatively meaningless.

[Arcana]

Why do people always seem to think that toggles are the issue when attacks drain far more end than toggles do ??

Well, they are both issues, but attacks almost always drain more.  Most melee defense sets have a base toggle drain somewhere around 1eps.  A full attack chain generally burns more than 5.

Endurance was one of those things players' intuitions tended to get wrong a lot.  For example, take Dark Armor.  Conventional wisdom said Dark Regeneration cost way too much endurance, and it was very inefficient.  It *could* be, but actually it wasn't necessarily so.  For a little more than three times the cost of reconstruction Dark Regen offered slightly more healing than reconstruction per target hit.  So you could make Dark Regen comparable in cost to Reconstruction if you simply made sure it tended to hit at least three targets and you could use the heal.  Counter-intuitively, then, the best way to get the most out of Dark Regen was not to use it near the end of fights, which is when Recon was used - which seems logical, your health bar drops during fights, and you use Recon to replenish it - but at the *beginning* of fights.  How?  You don't use it at the end of a fight, moving to the next spawn at low health and using Dark Regen on the full spawn.  You're basically back to full health before the real fight starts, and you got a huge amount of health relative to the endurance you burned.  So long as you could manage your health bar down to about a quarter health (not hard given DA's resistances) without dropping dead, you could actually make DA cost maybe only a little more than Invuln with the right slotting.

There were lots of ways to manage endurance burn, but since a lot of players bought into the conventional wisdom that City of Heroes was not a "tactical" game and it was just button mashing, they often burned up all their endurance mashing buttons.