f13.net

I am pretty much a newb at COH and was trying to find out how Combat Jumping works - does it slow your attacks when it is toggled on or just up your defense without impact attacks?

Obviously I am researching before getting the power. :)

I have read that it increases your jumping ability when not in combat  also.  Is this true?

Thanks for your help!

Backblast
Lvl 9 Mutant Tanker on Victory

Penalty to accuracy and a boost to defense.

So would you rank this as high or low for upper level group Tanks?  I can see where it would come in handy for trying to sponge damage but not for dishing it out.  I have no experience here yet, but from other games (EQ) it seems Blasters might do more damage so keeping the tank alive might make this valuable.

Thoughts?

I wasn't aware that CJ reduced accuracy.  It increases your jump height, gives you more control over your jumps, increases your defense, and sucks down End.  

CoH Warcry has no mention of a -Acc effect.



CJ is nice because of the +Def effect (like hover) that still gives you a good ground movement speed (unlike...hover).  Jumping is also fun-fun.

CJ does not have a -Acc that I have ever experienced. Hurdle+CJ is actually faster than Sprint if you bounce along.

When active, CJ gives a modest defense bonus and almost doubles your jump height when you jump - in combat or not. The END drain is minimal.

It doesn't have a -Acc

It does give +Def

It does give the jumping bonus whether in combat or not, and increases your maneuverability in the air significantly.

It is the the most useful of pre-level 14 travel powers imo (not counting recall friend, which only helps other people ;) )

It also gives +Res(immobilization)

It certainly sucks on the end, but not so much as you'll notice unless you run a lot of toggle powers.

And it has the most irritating particle effect of any travel power in the game.

Combat Jumping works pretty good on The Nanites, who possesses endurance regeneration, so I can pretty much leave it on all the time even during combat.  (Although in a protracted fight I can lose enough endurance for it to bottom out, causing the combat jumping (and anything else I have activated) to deactivate.)

Like Hover and Stealth, Combat Jumping has a definate use in combat in that it buffs your defence, making you harder to hit, with minimal negative effect.   Remember, everything stacks in City of Heroes - the Nanites picked up Stealth so I can stack the def bonuses of Combat Jumping and Stealth going at the same time.   (Just one warning, I'm pretty sure that activating Hover will deactivate Combat Jumping.)

The best thing about Combat Jumping, for me, is that "air control" thing they talk about.    Being able to reverse direction in mid-air is the only way you can scale some buildings.    Although many skyscrapers have no convenient ledges to exploit at an altitude low enough for me ot reach, others allow me to pretty much jump from window sill to window sill all the way to ludicris heights.

Just be thankful they took out the godawful sound effect.

Correct me on this guys but since this question is being asked by a prospective tank:

Recommend avoiding toggle powers that confer defensive value.

These things get toggled off the moment your character is stunned.  Which means your defense then disappears - since many tankers / scrappers take a number of toggle related defense powers.  When this happens - then you really get your ass kicked.

You can re-toggle the power - using more endurance.

So far the best tank I have seen is the invulnerability.  Most of the defensive abilities are permanent - no toggling.  If they get stunned - they don't lose their buffs.

stun ---> toggled defenses dropped ---->  ass kicked ---> reactivate toggled defenses by spending more endurance.

My recommendation - is to avoid as a tank taking toggle related defense powers based on what I have seen tankers do in my groups (I am healer - not a tanker).  At level 21 I see stunning occuring more often in the game than at the lower levels.  I see comments that stuns get worse at the higher levels.

My 2 cents.

Only problem I see with that argument is that Tanks and Scrappers get a shot at various stun-resistance powers.   I know that my Scrapper, the Nanites, is neigh invulnerable to any attempts to use any kind of mob control-like powers on him so long as my Integration ability is active.

But you do have a good point about what happens when your endurance hits rock-bottom.   Everything togglable goes poof.    Also, toggleable powers in general will eat a portion of your endurance while active.   So unless you're planning on grabbing Fitness::Stamina in the long run, it's ideal to prioritize "always on" powers over "toggle" powers, as the always on ones leave your endurance alone.

-  Combat Jumping does NOT lower your accuracy.
-  It is fairly handy until you get a real travel power.
-  Combat jumping does not use much end.
-  Combat Jumping and Super Jump cannot be activated at the same time (one or the other), so once you get Super Jump it is not that handy for travel (Superjump is a FAR superior travel power).

As far as usefulness goes in the upper levels Combat Jumping is not that great.  Mainly for 4 reasons:
1)  You will be too lazy to use it.
The speed, convenience, and manuverablity of Super Jump will suck you in making you never want to turn it off.  The ability to jump anywhere at any time is addictive and will make you leave SJ on constantly.  Since swapping toggles all the time is a pain, you will eventually stop using CJ

2) Weave is better (higher def bonus), and a lot of tanks go this route.  You can have both on at the same time (CJ and Weave stack) but see point number 3.

3) The way things are now, the combination of defensive toggle skills leaves Tankers able to withstand any damage.  For my Fire Tanker, various combinations of Flame Shield, Plasma Shield and Tough (the pool skill) render him 100% immune to most forms of damage.  It does not matter if my character gets hit since he is going to take 0 damage, thus rendering damage avoidance (like combat jumping) useless.  Yes this is stupid and needs to be fixed.

4) Stamina drain.  Unless you plan on taking Stamina (from the Fitness line) endurance will be a major problem.  I can run up to 6 toggle powers (not counting Sprint, Super Jump, and auto-fire Healing Flames), but it takes 5 slotted Stamina (with SOs) to barely make it managabe.  I can still go out of endurance in seconds if I go too offensive.

Basically, if you plan on using the Fighting pool (for Tough and Weave) then leave out Combat Jumping since Weave is better and at this time Tough makes it irrelavent.  However if you are not planning to take these powers or do not plan to reach the end game, stick with CJ as it will likely be useful.

And to make a few other points while I am here . . .

Invuln tanker's defenses are toggle based like everyone else, at least the best ones are (Temp Invuln, Invinc, Unstoppable).  The other innate abilities are usefull, but not supurb.

Stun, Mez, Sleep are the tankers worst enemy since they knock off all toggle powers.  It is not fun to go from multiple mobs hitting for almost no damage, to being beat down for several hundred damage a second.   It hurts and causes me to soil my costume.  To prevent drycleaning bills I recommend taking skills that prevent such problems.  Acrobatics helps with Hold and Knockback, some self heals (like Healing Flames) grant temporary resistance to Stun.

Good luck and look up Fiendish on Triumph if you need a hand.  Although I am taking a bit of a break this week.



Edited to fix a bit of the "doh!"

Ok its been a while since I played so neener :P I was thinking about the superjump not combat jump.

I think you're thinking of flight, not superjump :) Flight has an acc penalty, superjump doesn't.

Superspeed also has a accuracy debuff.  But not superjump nor combat jump.

I guessed right that I needed to do some research.  I was able to Sidekick with a Lvl 30 friend last night and I got to see firsthand the joy of the massive stuns I will run into.  I will definitely keep the toggle discussions in mind and continue to focus on my anti-stun/effect powers.

My main goal is to be a damage sponge, which is the opposite of my EQ life, which was a Bard, which meant no sponging, just mopping.  Thus my lack of tanker knowledge is limited (not that the two share many similarities other than basics).

I did experiment with Taunt last night and found that it sure rocks at pulling solos from Mobs.  Very nice.

Thanks again!

I disagree with this, I toggle between Hover and Flight constantly during battles, and I have them on a relatively inconvinient alt-1 and alt-2 binding. But it works fine for me.

I guess Superjump needs a -acc 'nerf' to bring it in line with the rest of the 14th level travel powahs...

Actually, they removed the +DEF and -ACC from Super Speed.   Does Super Jump have +DEF now?

No bonuses at all for super jump.  I have a super strength/invuln tanker, and my biggest problem has always been endurance.  In normal fights I have combat jumping and invulnerability slowly draining my endurance.  If I'm fighting someone who can stun/knock me down I also turn on acrobatics.  That's 3 powers draining my endurance, and my attacks do really weak amounts of damage, meaning I have to constantly be swinging and draining even more endurance.

The upside is that I'm nigh unkillable to stuff my level, but I get envious beyond all reason when I see some fire tanker rocking the house while I take 4 times as long to take down the same enemy.

Yes, it seems that the general idea of the fire classes (tank, blater, controller) is to be able to do as much damage as humanly possible in a large area.

Take the Burn Tanker for example.  At level 26, they could concevably have
Primary: Blazing Aura (PBAoE DoT), Burn (Target AoE DoT), Firey Embrace (Massive Damage increase to Fire Powers)
Secondary:  Combustion (PBAoE DoT), Buildup.

Throw in Consume from primary line, and the Health/End Regen pair from stamina and you have a tank who can drop into a HUGE mob of people 2 levels higher then he is, and litterally char them to a crisp in seconds (all the while almost never running out of stamina).  Trust me, i have watched it happen in Independance port (saw a level 29 Tanker bouncing about dropping into large swarms of 31/32 critters and watched from a distance as their hitpoints dropped so fast my jaw hit the floor)

My next character is definately going to be a fire tank :P  Need something to balance out the blaster.

SurfD - I'll throw this out for thought before you commit too far on your tank fire build (but your super strength/invuln strikes me as one of the best tanker builds)

Area effect attacks by any class will diminish in value at the higher end of the game.

Speculation - dunno if that is true.  I am concerned more villians will have ranged attack options.  Think of the clocks - you can provoke them - and they all attack you - but they are not necessarily in range for a melee AoE attack given their reliance on ranged assault.

Right now AoE attacks - embodied in the fire builds you refer to - make a lot of sense.  Just not sure that will continue to hold at the higher end of the game with more expansions.

Yeah. Once the jump physics patch goes live my 'lightning' (fire/energy) tanker with Super Jump and Super Speed will be going all Jet Set Radio on Paragon City.

But for missions I definitely switch over to Combat Jumping. The endurance drain is actually kinda miniscule. And with Consume slotted with many many recharges, the endurance bar has ceased to be a problem.

--GF

So Flight is the only -acc travel power? Wow that sucks and is unbalanced, eh?

Not really considering it's full free 3D movement with none of the real inherent dangers or restrictions of super speed and super jump.

While combat jump requires 1 end to keep it active, it does not in fact drain end while active. You can test this by toggling off any other buffs that do drain, like sprint, and hover your mouse over the end bar. End drain seems to tic 2 or 3 times per every end recover cycle and you will see no drops in end with only combat jump enabled. switch it off and do the same with sprint and you can see the end lower 2 times between end recharge tics.