f13.net

I'm ninth level now and I've pretty much moved to Perez Park full-time, with its large street corner gangs providing far more amusement than the muggers and car thieves of Atlas.  Yesterday I was in a group of 6 blasters and a tanker before the tanker left to find "someone with some healers, goddamnit."  Granted I think this had more to do with some of the blasters not understanding the mechanics of The Assist than anything else, but it left me wondering if this is typical of the game past the lowest levels.

Anyone else seen this (or any other) imbalance?

I'm an Emp/Rad Defender on Victory and I never have problems finding a group, the biggest problem I do have is lower level random pubies pleading with me to hang while they fight some tough mobs that are usually gray to me.

I see plenty of other emp defenders so I'd say it is just the starting levels, people that don't know what they want to play yet so they keep switching. There are a number of blasters but a lot of them prefer to solo around 20th lvl.

Im an emp /dark defender and I am loved by all for my healing abilities. Pretty much have been leveling with Aslan and Blue Bomb fairly exclusively as they are like 4-5 levels ahead of me and ost stuff is still purple to me but im catching them.

With 6 blasters im amazed he'd be drawing much aggro at all?  I would have guessed he would have left b/c he was bored watching all the blasters kill stuff while he might take down 1 mob a group.  But that depends on exactly how it was being played out.  However, Tankers do seem to be rather lacking thus far at lower levels.  Though supposedly at higher levels vs really scary bosses they become far more useful. Can't say that i've grouped with enough to speak of.

Xilren

Aslan and I have had this discussion before. Blasters actually have issues finding groups at higher levels because there are too many of them. Defenders and tankers are practically begged for. I saw someone offer 10k influence to a tanker if they'd just join their group.

Tanker to me looks boring. It takes the typical mmo idea of gimping melee all to hell and letting them take hits. I don't know who first came up with this bright idea but they need to be put through the brainwashing technique of a Clockwork Orange. Repeatedly.

It went like this:

1.  Tanker taunts mob.
2.  Blasters ignore tanker and fire shit in every direction.
3.  Mobs swarm past tanker and chase blasters all over the park.
4.  Blasters die.
5.  Tanker dies.

6. Tanker screams 'screw you n00bs' and runs away?

Concur.  And I normally *like* to play a tank class in the traditional, D&D, MMOPRG sense.  But compared to how cool (and useful) the fluff is for the CoH 'cleric' class (ie. Defender) I felt I had no choice other than to roll up an Empath/Energy Defender to put DAoC's Smite Clerics to shame.  Just for fun I was playing with my boy and we chose a Tanker and it just seemed as dull as the day is long compared to all the other CoH flavors.  Actually, the more I think about it; this is probably testament to just how much more fun the other archtypes are.  Obviously Tankers are still 'useful'... but CoH didn't really achieve anything in this area compared to the other class types, imo.

The damage you do as a tanker kinda depends on your melee selection. Many of the melee tank sets have alot of utility powers at the sacrifice for offensive punch. Some like mace and axe have little to no utility powers but do some SERIOUS damage. Combined with weapon power accuracy and tanks ability to take a whoopin it accounts for some of the highest level characters in beta being tanks.

Also if you focus on your defense powers tankes rarely die thus far less debt thus they level faster and easier than blasters.

The higher you get the more mob AI you see when you start to get things that teleport behind you or do other various things you will feel the lack of tankers in your group sharply.

kaid

Sad thing is, those blasters could have probably taken down anything in the park if they had just concentrated their fire and worked as, oh, I don't know, a fucking TEAM.  Sounds like it's not so much the plethora of blasters as a dearth of skills.

Its not knowing how to assist.  The whole "target the tank and fire" thing was Greek to them even after I told them numerous times.  It just feels wrong.

Agreed. this is basically why I ended up in the 'scrapper' class. More interesting theme and fluff. Of course, I do like the look of my tank 'Irritable Gnat'...

Definately a lack of skill.  At level 9 as a fire/fire blaster I was easily soloing the minion groups of levels 7-10.  The only thing I had to avoid was bosses.  Any number of minions was not a problem.  Although others messing up my clumping AOE techniques could have actually been a hindrance more than a help if they sucked.

See our group has this rule Aslan and BB bow shit up and I try to keep them healed. It works well IMHO.

In the last week of beta the entire game was played kneedeep in a swarm of redundant blasters begging for work.

I expected the issue to get worse in retail.

But strangely I haven't noticed any particular archetype being significantly more common than others lately. Perhaps I've just been lucky.

I expect this will change at higher levels once "teh community" have decided which classes are really the percieved uber ones.

The real issue in all-blaster (not energy) groups is cc though. You can do fine with very little healing if you have enough cc.

In other news, Hurricane rocks.

I think it also depends on the type of blaster you play. My charater on Virtue, Armed liberal, is a gun toter who uses his enhanced 'knockback' skills to dusrupt the onrushing hoardes, while hovering over the fray - and then using the 'snipe' skill to whittle down any bosses.

It seems to work pretty well in keeping the tanks and scrappers from 'drowning' in the rush.

*shrug*

Hmm. I've pretty much soloed almost the entire time, and I don't really shy away from any mob at all, though some larger groups take a bit more in the way of tactics (like drawing off the 2 shockers and lead shocker for a high altitude dogfight).

But even as a mainly solo character, I know how to properly use the assist abilities in this game (which are excellent). Then again, it's pretty damn easy to assist by eye, too imo since I don't think mobs stack up like they do in some other mmogs (ie: all stand in the same physical spot).

...almost all. ^^

Going scrapper here too, mainly because it's the most viable for solo play. Not that they aren't group friendly, but at least they don't have to be, and won't die in a few hits, like most blasters will find out (maybe Assault is pretty solo-friendly?). The only other character I've settled on (for the same reason) is an Illusion Controller. Stone Tanker looks pretty fun too.

One should stay somewhat in range of the healer for healing to take effect as well ;)  I think we just had a bad day imho we were looking to take on stuff we shouldnt have at those levels with just 2 of us. BTW at this level im much more effective :)

I know, I was just busting balls because that night was kind of a mess on my part. I was still in gung ho solo mode and just upped my damage intake because I had a healer in the team, without adjusting anything else. Totally my bad :)

I'm also far more effective (since I don't get hit by melee anymore, especially) nowadays. Did I just say nowadays? Anyway, we have to get back together, or more correctly, I need to hook up with you guys. I've eased off all this week as I've been playing pretty hardcore since prerelease (well, by my standards its been hardcore...). But a three day weekend on the way!

Gak i dont play on the weekends... thats wife time and she gets mighty fussy bout her 2 days. As for the part about getting hit in melee prepare to get your boxxers roxxored. Level 22 -25 badies hurt when they hit if ya werent aware heh.

In beta, I was once in an interesting group with 4 blasters, 2 defenders, 2 controllers.

We were in Perez Park, and we were able to fight entire groups of Hydras 6-8 levels higher than us (often literally double our level) with surprisingly few deaths.

Basically a couple Blasters with devices would throw some caltrops between us and the hydras, then they'd start to nuke a straggler who would come alone.  We'd throw a snowstorm on it to slow it yet further, and usually that hydra was dead before it even reached the team.   Hydras ranged attacks were vastly inferior to their melee and thus quickly healed.  

Sometimes entire groups of Hydras came at us, and things become a bit more risky.   However, we still managed to take them out with AoE and gusting the hydras back if they were overtaking the caltrops.

Good power leveling tactic here if we ever needed to confront higher level mobs whose melee is substantially more a threat than their ranged.

Shortly afterward I posted up a thread entitled, "Who needs Scrappers/Tankers anyway" which was blown off in the usual fanboish fashion with claims that things are different at higher levels.

For my money, if you want to play a melee character, go scrapper. Many of the tanks won't do as much damage as a scrapper, and if you go for damage avoidance, you have enough hit points to take on things and still see nice damage numbers pop up. Sure, they might die a bit more than tanks, but they are a more interesting meleer, IMO.

I hate the idea of the gigantic tank not being able to do as much damage as the blaster because his entire utility is making sure the blaster doesn't get hit. It's so against my playstyle.

As kaid has said a few times, axe and mace do good damage.  And scrappers eventually have to be really careful who they fight and what kind of groups.  Tanks just start out slow.

One thing that can lead to tanks seeming a bit slow early on is endurance. Tanks have a lot more auras and end usage than most scrappers do. As you level and start getting the better enhancers tanks turn into man eating monsters. They can if built for it do serious damage and beat the piss out of things at a time.

Real man eaters are fire/axe tankers. Fire tankers get an endurance drain power than can give them about 70% of their end back in one chunk. Sure axe may be slow but almost every power in the axe pool is an attack so they can rapid fire off big damage knock back knock down blows and keep up that kind of punishment over the long haul.

One of the highest fastest leveling natural characters in beta who did most of his leveling solo was madaxer which was a fire/axe tank.

Kaid

What lvl were the hydras? Sounds cool, but I also think Assault and/or Devices has something to do with it...Lots of cool shit there, especially against melee.

I have yet to accept a group invite due to my short play sessions, but soloing is still fun with my tank, especially if I find a rooftop fight, using the punch knockback to send someone over the edge of the roof is more fun than you can shake a stick at.

Just thought I'd put a mention out about my blaster:

He's a fire/devices blaster and quite literally a solo'ing machine.  I took myself from 9-14 solo in perez very very easily.

Step 1.  2-slot Caltrops are very very slow, wait for a group to get all close together, and drop these babies in the middle of them.  There is risk involved in this because if there is a stunner in the group of baddies, you might be too close for comfort.

Step 2.  6-slot Rain of Fire is very very deadly.  Currently I have 4 damage and 2 recharge, endurance be damned.  I cast this in approximately the same place I drop the caltrops.  When the baddies are taking damage from the fire, they typically stop attacking and try to get away.  Which of course, they can't because of the caltrops.

Step 3.  If the mobs you are fighting are Green Lt, or Blue+ anything, you'll want to throw in a fireball here and start dropping single target fireblasts on the baddies who look tough.

Step 4.  If you have haste on, drop a second fireball, if not, look for another group to pester, shut off your persitant skills, regen end, and repeat.

It's worked wonders so far.  I do however have real problems with the ranged attacks as I have no defense skills whatsoever.  No hover, no combat jump.  I'm thinking about taking fitness as a second pool (first pool being teleport).  My only real complaint so far is that I don't have build-up and therefore don't get to see my Rain of Fire do it's real damage potential.



I don't know where that fits into the post.  My attempt at fitting in coming up.

Kaid:  I have a fire/ice tanker at about L8.  Just got consume and he's beginning to come into his own.  It's just very hard to go from my crazy up front damage blaster to my patient killer tanker.  I use the DoT damage aura, shield aura, self heal and consume.  And only frozen fists from the ice pool as I'm waiting for some aura skills.  Will be getting fitness pool to compensate endurance hopefully.

Well if you only have one attack then yes you will keeel slowly. Hehe at level 4 my baby axe tanker has 3 attacks so far so I can pretty much swing constnatly as endurance holds out.

Kaid

Maybe part of the problem is that the game draws a pretty sharp line between melee and ranged heroes.  I for one would give up some ranged ability to make my char less of a pansy in melee, but I don't have the option.  To go for melee is to be 100% melee.

In addition, theres the mob AI.  As fun as it is to watch baddies flee, its gotta be annoying when you have zero ranged ability.

Yup lack of range as a melee is annoying. Some melee sets are kind of hybrid though for damage/range. If you like melee but are annoyed by runners spines scrappers are nice. They get a number of ranged attacks one of their best ones impale has pretty darn decent range good damage and it can ROOT your target.

Many tank sets do get some ranged attack at higher level but most of those attacks are quite far down their lists.


Kaid

And other tanks/scrappers just take teleport foe to get by this.  No chasing needed.

re:fleeing mobs.

Superjump + follow works well :)

engaged in melee, hit 'f' to stick to mob.

if they run, toggle on superjump, tap jump and queue your attack:

BOING! SMACK!

ok maybe not the most efficient way but it's fun :)

Hehhe you must be the puma man!


Kaid

Well like I said, they just used the typical MMOG stereotype. It is probably my biggest frustration with these games. I'm playing a warrior in WoW in the vain hope that a dev at Blizzard has watched Lord of the Rings and says "Hey, Aragorn didn't stand there like a dumb post and take hits while Gandalf killed everything.".

Why Devs in these games are so blind to making melee fun is beyond me. Luckily Warriors in WoW are fun though still outclassed by mages by far. Rumor is when talents are put back in this will change.

I couldn't be payed to play a tanker. A scrapper yes. Tanker, no.

I think any game designer working on melee stuff should be forced to play Oni. I'm sure there are other great melee titles, but Oni's system was simply incredible, from the 4 way attack possibilities to combos to grapples (using an enemy's gun against his buddy), just a great system that I rarely hear getting any credit.

Tried this back in beta with my Scrapper.  It shortens the run time, but it doesn't eliminate it.   This is because the mob is off and running the moment it arrives when you're still part-way through the Teleport Foe animation.   You'll still have to do a bit of chasing to take it down.

Somebody round' here told me that Taunt gets runners to turn around and re-engage you.   Haven't tried it, but I seem to recall back in beta that a runner is a runner, regardless of what state you put it in -- thus a confused mob tends to keep running.   A taunted and running mob, even with a higher level of hate towards you, will probably just keep running unless they changed it since I last used Taunt to also cancel out the running state.

That's more or less D&D's fault, really.   They designed the game in such a way that a Warrior is a standard hacker that has a bit battery of hitpoints but their Wizards are capable of doing incredible things with their spells but are just frail little buggers without their spells to back them up.

For what it's worth, CoH and other newer MMORPGs are working to break this stereotype.   Tankers may not inflict as much damage as Scrappers, but with their AoE damage it's often not that bad, possibly tied with Defenders.   I'd have to say that Controllers take the cake for doing the least damage, but that's because they've some very powerful moves that influence combat in entirely different ways.

Actually depending on the tankers melee set they can do much more damage on average than defenders do. Defenders hit for less but have longer range and some extra cc effects.

The only powers defenders have that puts up much bigger numbers than tanks can do is the sniper skills but for every one big sniper attack the tanker will probably get 2 or 3 attacks off for the same damage.

With my level 34 storm psychic with all but the last two attack powers in psychic my old groups axe tank and earth tank consistantly outdamaged me. The only time I would show up as having done more damage is if I got lucky and landed a psi lance to start the mob off.


Kaid

It depends why they are running.  Sometimes they won't turn around again, but as an experiment, try the following:

Find a purse snatcher duo.  You know the one with the purse ALWAYS runs, right? well, smack the other, and when the purse snatcher runs, taunt him.   I've tried this over and over again, and he always stops and comes back to fight me.

However, I've had mobs with very little health left that will NOT come back if taunted.  Basically, if they are running because they are low on health, I don't believe taunt works.  If they are running because of some other AI reason, they will often react to taunt and come back.

I bought taunt at 6 with my ice/mace tanker because of this thread, and did actually have a nearly-dead guy turn around after starting to run off, when I taunted him.

Admittedly, he wasn't the last guy in the group, so he may have thought his buddies could help him.  They didn't.

As a side note, I'm enjoying my tanker.  He has survival down to an art form that the other archetypes really don't understand.  A few bad miss strings doesn't mean he dies like it does with my scrapper..  and fighting yellows/oranges is quite doable, in small groups.  (Killed 2 yellow minions and 2 orange Lts that were with them, with help from a few inspirations.  one was accuracy, also 1 each of health and end, but I killed them all, at level 5 or so.)

I really don't see a huge drop in damage numbers from playing a scrapper.  May partially be due to the melee set I chose, not sure.  I only have 2 attack powers besides brawl, but they hit Hard, unlike the more frequent, milder hits I'm used to with a scrapper.

Nahrl is a big blonde bearded guy with a hatred for Nazis...  His natural origin ensures he sees lots of them, tho.

--
Alkiera

Can taunt be used to pull a single mob from range?

Yes and no.  From my experience, some mobs are just "linked".  Meaning you attack one and the other one is coming no matter what the hell you do.   I have used taunt though to reduce a group of 3 to come in a 1 and 2 instead of all at once.  Maybe if you throw enough range increasers on it, you might have more luck with getting singles.

I'm not really concerned about always pulling 1 from 3 or whatever. I just wondered if it was useable as a pull tool, maybe to shift the location of the fight enough that I don't have to worry about runners or knockback adding aggro I don't need. I'll still probably hold off on getting challenge for a while.

My tactic is to taunt and then run around a corner to avoid the ranged attacks then unleash hell when they get in view.

Works pretty well for indoor missions.

Effective, if somewhat less heroic.

Yeah, my Blaster's tatic is to open up with a Fireball, then use Fire Breath and then run into the middle of the group and fight them down the rest of the way with my fists.  That way my character can die in every episode of his comic and come back in the next one to finish the job.  

I always like the comics where the character dies and you're left thinking "ohhhh no, is this the end of batman?!!  Did robin manage to save him from that firey blast in the nick of time like he did the last 14 weeks in a row?  I guess I'll have to buy next months issue and find out!"

I use that line of sight tactic all the time during indoor missions.

It's how I stay alive.

Line of Sight in this game is also why I'm so exciting about PvP

Since I didn't play in beta, I'm currently trying out all the classes.  And at the low levels I'm at, it's mostly solo.

So far, what I've noticed:

1.  Everything is limited by endurance.  HP pool goes up, END does not.  A lot of people I see around me in the game don't understand this.  You can get a feel for how many mobs will drain you, and thus are not doable.

2.  Controllers (my favorite).  It's unbelievable how much a long-duration stun power can improve your solo ability.  Stun, then brawl.  Slow but sure.  I'm soloing at level 11, I soloed all of the kill boss missions so far, and grouping with AoE blasters is very nice.  

3.  Blasters, there are actually different kinds.  Some are ranged AoE, some are single-target + control (they can knock-back or disable individual mobs that get into melee range).  A lot of people take every single damn power that comes at them, and it's not the way to do it.   And not enough blasters use the level 1 secondary immobilize power they get (ring of xxx, web grenade).  And a lot of them get excited by all the blasting and forget to stop for END, or take it slowly.

4.  Tankers.  Very end-dependent.  Very slow to start.  So what I've done is, since I didn't really need to tank for a group at low level, I kinda ignored my defense and took all the attacks possible.  Works nicely, but once my end is out, I have to turn off all attacks and stand there taking a bit of damage as my end regens enough for 2-3 attacks to finish off the mob.  

I don't chase runners.  They don't seem to aggro other mobs like in Everquest.  Let them go, go hit another group in the area; the runners will come back to their spot after a bit, and you can get them then.  When I jump into the middle of a big group, I almost count on a few to run so I don't have to deal with as many at a time.  If you kill the boss, some usually scatter.

5.  Defenders.  Haven't tried them yet, but it looks like this:  the whole set of primary powers doesn't help me one bit to level up solo, and that's usually the case till about 8-10.  So I'll prolly load up on the attack secondaries and ignore my primary pool for a while.  We'll see how it works.

6.  Haven't seriously tried scrappers.

As for rarity, there are lots of blasters, lots of scrappers, average controllers, a few tankers, and almost no defenders, yeah.  Probably has to do with how fun or how easy to start out it is.  Pickup groups are still your average nightmare that I'd rather not get involved with at low levels.

[edit: Oh, now you've gone and put me in a Geldonyetich Spamming Mood (tm).   I did play beta, and apparently I felt obligated to tell you my own experience on the ways of the archetypes.]

Controllers require *scads* of patience to advance solo because of their lousy damage output.   Like ajax34i says, everything's soloable -- especially if you have Confuse which lets the mobs (and bosses!) kill eachother (for no experience to you) -- but the rate in which you take them down really encourages you group and group hard with a Controller.   The upside of the Controller is they are all about having options in combat - sort of the covex opposite of the Scrapper.

The Tanker is kinda boring, in my opinion, since at least at the start they have very few actual attacks and are very passive/defensive in their role.  However, the thing about Tankers is they're *extremely* good at taking damage.   A Tanker can take easily three times the punishment the next runner up, the Scrapper, can.    It's like comparing Superman to Wolverine.  Sure Wolverine can regenerate and hold his own in a fight, but Superman's going to be the one still standing when a 20 ton train engine is thrown at him.   This isn't in the powers, it's in the actual damage tables of the game.

Blasters rule - they have some reasonably good mob control for defense and the best offense in the game.  I'd have a Blaster, but a RL friend of mine is playing one.   Given a choice, I'd take Energy Blast because it's fun to play bowling for thugs.   Takes a bit of finesse to survive as a Blaster, but you've the tools to do it.   One of the main reasons Blasters are so popular is all you have to do is grab Hover and for the majority of the mobs you face you'll be able to stay out of the melee range which is the Blaster's only downside.

The last two that ajax34i hasn't tried yet are probably some of the more powerful soloers around.

Defenders, you may think, are restricted to group support roles.   Not so.  That primary power pool of theirs is loosely centered on the "buff/debuff" catagory and has a lot of monster control in there to keep them from overwhelming you.   What's more, you can *heal yourself* with half the primary power sets, which is a real staple to the effective soloer.   All you would be lacking is damage, and guess what the Defender's secondary power pool is all about?   I'd have to say that my favorite Defender would be a Kinetics/Psychic Blast defender.    Kinetics is good for everything from self-healing to snaring to travel powers to buffing your damage.   Psychic Blast, on the other hand, does massive damage and has mob control as a secondary effect.   Optionally, you can gear your Defender to be far more group supportive and reliant.  Very flexible archetype in the difference between one and another, Defenders.

Scrappers are pretty straightforward - even moreso than Tankers.   Primary powers hurt things.  Secondary powers keep you alive.   I am very satisfied with how powerful my Scrapper is because they are focused on the raw offensive and defensive needs of combat.   I am somewhat unsatsified with my Scrapper on the grounds that they are very unflexible: fighting is all they do - get over it.    If a fight looks bad, your only options in combat as a Scrapper is to either use inspirations (which is more options than EQ would give a Warrior, at least) or run (which as a Scrapper is a valuable tactic).   You might be able to introduce a little flexibility with Dark Melee/Dark Armor (which has a little flexibility in there) and power pool powers, but  for the most part as a Scrapper your only focuses are to do damage and manage the damage you're taking.   Excellent soloers, at least - I can't dive into a group of nine white con minions (or three yellow cons) and survive as a Controller, but I can with a Scrapper, and take them down extremely quickly.   Damage is second only to Blasters - some claim it can even exceeds theirs, but I suspect this is only in certain situations.

The really complicated thing about all this is that due to the power pool selections and actual selections from that pool, your milage may vary.  Even two Scrappers with the very same power sets can perform quite differently depending on which powers they chose.  (I've found out the hard way that taking Swipe, Spin and skipping Strike and Slash is a great way to gimp a Claw Scrapper.)  A unique part of City of Heroes is accepting that Balance Isn't.  Due to the extreme flexibility of the advancement system, not all superheroes are created equal.  There's no shame in that, as they are united in that they all have a common goal of saving Paragon City from the villians that assail it.

Yeah, learned a hard lesson today, always info the defender, never attack a mob expecting that the defender can heal.  Had an empathy/dark defender join the group, he was focused on blasting, and only had the AoE heal from the empathy pool.  Now, I thought, if you wanna be a blaster, be a blaster, don't get the gimped version that a defender gets, but to each his own.

The defender I created for myself is primarily healer (so empathy), and dark blast secondary gives some crowd control as well as decent damage.  Unfortunately there are so many powers I want asap that I can't take hover till 14 or so.

Yep, never assume a Defender is neccessarily a healer.   Only Empathy is really good at healing.  Weather, Radiation Emission, and Kinetics have healing-capable powers, but first is somewhat weak and the later two are somewhat awkward to employ.    The remaining two power sets (Dark Miasma and Force Fields) do not heal *at all*.

Dark can heal : they get a foe -acc  -dam, ally aoe heal. It's similar in arrangement to the kinetics foe -end, ally aoe heal.

But you are right to say that only empathy heroes are really 'healers'. And I seem to find more controllers take empathy than defenders atm.

I play a primarily healer defender (Captain Obvious) And have a hell of a time finding a group that  doesn't run around corners when they get damage
I've started to not chase the people who panic and run, maybe it'll train people to stand and take it.

And maybe I'll just have to keep finding new groups.

Eh, people will do weird things.

Was in a group the other day and one guy says "Ok how about that group of 10 reds over there?"  The group was like:  "No, let's find something else.  How about those yellows to the right."

So I'm watching the guy stand there, looking at the reds.  And he inches closer a bit, then starts powering up something.  I type "I guess he really wants the reds."  And by the time I typed "reds" he was dead, no one else had moved an inch to follow in his folly.

So we're like "Doh, he died too close, and no one can summon.  Ok group let's pull the reds away and empath will rez."  Said, and done, nicely, rez in, guy healed, guy moves out of range just as the mobs come back.

Then he turns around and attacks them again.  Alone.  Again.

We would have tried to rez him again, but he went to the hospital on his own initiative.

Hello and welcome to Expansion of the genre playerbase theatre.

If you've a full group, go take on the reds.   In a good and powerful group of roughly equivilent level it's doable to take a group of 10 reds with purple bosses in CoH.

Sure - if your group knows what it's doing.  I don't seem to have the same good luck with pickup groups in CoH as others have reported - the ones I end up in are a little dim, or very inexperienced, or both.

If I'm playing my tanker and I'm in a group with a healer, I'll never run. I expect the healer to keep me healed just like he should expect me to keep the biggest, baddest, ugliest enemy focused on me and not shooted weird crap at him.

Finally got to level 12 and can start getting DO enhancements. Holy crap, they make a big difference. I need to start slotting some more endurance reduction ones in so I'm not constantly running out of end.

Those will be the first DO's my tanker picks up...  endurance drain on his War Mace attacks is pretty crazy.  I've played both a blaster and a scrapper, and never recall having the endurance problems he has when solo.  Only when grouping.

My tanker uses Ice for defense, tho I'm kinda dubious on some of the powerset.  My Frozen Armor seems to do exactly Jack when fighting opponents my level or higher...  stuff lower than me, it's great, I'm nigh-unhittable, but stuff over me has no problem, I just lose endurance faster from having it up.  Seems kinda lame. (socketted with 1 end red. and 2 def buff enhs) Get way more milage from my PBAE chilling slow/snare aura, which would stack with Frozen armor if it was useful.

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Alkiera

DOs at lvl 12?  How, where... do they 'drop' like regulars or must they be bought or both?

Buy them, the smallest DOs (15) go green at level 12 so you can start using them at that point.

DO's make a huge difference. I just slotted a damage DO into my crane kick at level 13. Against blues, I added at least 10 points of damage to that kick. I can only imagine the boosts I've gotten from accuracy DO's.

As for healing, we learned something doing the task force missions this weekend. If you don't have a healer in the group, don't expect to wade into the large groups of whatever and survive unscathed, especially if there are bosses in the group of mobs. We tried that with 2 blasters and 2 scarppers with 1 mutation controller... didn't work. We died a few times before we figured out how to whittle them down with hit and run attacks.

Large emphasis on RUN. I think I will need to replace my F6 key before the next TF run =)

Where does one acquire DO enhancements? I get the feeling that there is a store for each background, but I must have missed out on the info somewhere along the line ( I have a nasty tendency to click through the screens too quickly just to get to the assbeating...I STILL have no idea what the Dr. and Lt. near the deactivated bots say- it looks like some sort of rundown on cons).

I know of two DO shops. One is "Image Inc." in Steel Canyon/Gimry Ridge. It's near the Perez Park entrance. If you see a contact named Hugo Redding, the store is the next block over. You can see the Image, Inc. sign. That store is for natural and magic I think (or natural and tech). It also sells level 15-20 training enhancements as well and will buy any enhancements just like a trainer.

The magic/mutation store is somewhere in Steel Canyon. It's called Subgene or something like that. I think it's in the Copper District. Great big green sign.

There seem to be franchises of stores, each chain speicalizing in one enhancement type, across the game with enhancement levels depending on the zone.

The chain I use is Orion, which sells science based enhancements.  That I know of, they have one outlet in Skyway between Perez and Atlas, and one in Steel Canyon on the border between the main Square and the Ridge subzone to the NE.

If you look at the map that came with the game, they marked all stores with small red, but unlabeled squares.

I understand there is also a store somewhere you have to mission to unlock?

There are a handful of stores with neat unique missions. If there was one game where the strategy guide was worth having, it's this one.

Stores can give missions?  Argh, enlighten us.

They aren't stores per se. They are single merchants who need you to prove their worth. It seems as though they are very special, very hard missions. When the first person hits level 35 I'll tell you. Until then, meh.

Yeah, well, expect a call around December, then, bitch.  *sigh*

CoH Warcry (http://coh.warcry.com) has a nice listing of the enhancement stores. They even provide a map to show you where they are in the zones.

I'll chime in with a few comments on tankers, and their nemesis "lack of endurance."

SOs do make a big difference in attack and defense. Accuracy should be your first priority, damage second, then getting your assorted defensive measures of choice up to speed. With two DO ACC's in each of my present main attacks, I've noticed my hit percentage is way up on orange/reds, and even fairly respectable on purples, though hasten helps a lot with those around 4-5 levels purple. Same with damage; the +10 pts right off the bat on whites seems about right.

Then there's the matter of endurance. If you're a tank, plan on running out after the first few rounds of battle until you're lvl20 or so and can choose (and enhance) Stamina. I initially played an ice/axe tanker and she was pretty much done after three combos of gash/chop/beheader. After that it was a struggle to keep chill up, much less wet ice. This largely why I switched to a fire/axe tanker with consume. Consume is an END drain, and can (usually) keep me running pretty well through multiple fights.

I tried slotting endurance reduction enhancements, but quite frankly haven't noticed much difference. Even a relatively high END attack like chop only seems to benefit to the tune of about 10% reduction at best. That's 10% of 12.3 (I think) END. It adds up, but isn't a huge return. Better to slot damage and kill faster. Less swings means less END usage. An added benefit is dead mobs don't hit back, so less damage taken!

Anyway, that's the view from here. This game is a blast and I was largely turned onto it by this site. Thanks much everyone!

My tanker is Ice/War Mace, and my attacks also seem to have all the efficiency of a large SUV.  I need to work on him a bit to get access to DO enhancements, and see if that helps him some.  Frozen Armor doesn't seem to affect much at all, but I love Chilling Embrace too much to reroll with a different defense set.

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Alkiera

Well I guess I must be in the minority but I enjoy my Invuln/SS tanker. I put my DO's into damage resistance (I'm basically going full on damage shield) and I can literally wait for my end to regen DURING a fight since I am hit for so little and have so many Hp's. Of course this is soloing. As for grouping, I've had entire fights where I hit nothing. Just taunting. Tip: Once you unload a provoke, turn your back to the mobs so you can single taunt anyone making a beeline for a defender/blaster. Once you chain provoke, there is no need to keep an eye on the mobs that are now behind you, they will only come after you. As basically a form of crowd control now, it's keeping me busy enough watching all the other players now in front of me to see if any of them are being attacked. I'm very much looking forward to 30+ when Tankers become a virtual necessity from what I have heard.

Is taunt considered a must-have for tankers?  I'm enjoying running into groups and beating them senseless, I have no desire to play my guy up to level 20 or so and discover my only role in the game is that of a rodeo clown.

People look to tankers for taunt, yes.  The other point of view would be:  fuck them.

EDIT to add:  My scrapper can get Taunt, but I'm not going near it.  Of course, scrappers are very solo by nature and on top of that I hate people.

Done and done.

Ooo...sounds like my old eq necro and 'twitching'. Play the game as a badass lord of the undead until the endgame when you are a mana cleric support character. A hearty 'screw that' was heard from ol' Sky.

I don't like taunt. I may have to take provoke for the good <sigh> of my supergroup. Personally, I think a good beating is the best taunt, but we all know of some situations where some initial aggro/crowd-control is probably necessary.

My tanker is made to get in the face of a boss or lieutenant and unload the hurt. The minions/yardtrash should be able to be locked down by the controllers and/or defenders. This stuff anyone should be able to handle. Boss mobs are another matter, and I'll handle that. This may change later, but for now I like this paradigm. If there's a few lt's near the boss, then that's what pendulum is for.

A pox on taunts.

Going back to the earlier topic of this thread...

As an 18 level Empathy / Psychic Defender completely focused on healing I noticed blasters to be not only prevalent on the first day of release, but predatory vis a vis kill stealing in newbie zones more recently.

Blasters have a quick ramp-up.  But in tougher instanced - confined - missions - their advantage may be somewhat diminished.  They have to avoid close range AoE from villians which is hard to do indoors.  

As the game reveals tougher indoor missions (Task force?) and a higher end to the game - we may see Tanks increase in value at the expense of Blasters.

Re: Taunts

If they ever implement special mission-based respecs, I'll be first in line to ditch taunt and pick up the two taunts from the power pool.  I'm running into too many fights now where I rely on my AE DoT to get aggro because of the sheer number of enemies, and with a fire blaster around that usually doesn't last very long.  I'm waiting until 28 before I decide for sure, however, as my AE DD in addition to my DoT, once both are socketed all to hell, might be enough.

I don't know whether they increase in value at the expense of blasters- however, they DO vastly increase a blaster's life expectancy. A normal fight generally starts with the blaster in the group firing off a sniper shot or similar long range attack, then a couple of follow ups. Then all hell breaks loose, and EVERYTHING targets the blaster. Without a tank taunting off the big mobs, fragile little blasters get turned into grease stains in a big ass hurry.

Similarly- when there is a big group of baddies all beating on the tank, a blaster can pick them off from range one by one- some one shot kills, some just to draw aggro (and then finish off). It is a good combo.

As a healer type defender I will take the second scenario any time.  Blasters that do not know how to manage aggro suck up all my endurance is short time, leaving me unable to support the tank and endangering the group.  When I can assist the tank, healing him and hitting his targets, with the occasional heal on a blaster or scrapper, things work so much more smoothly with a net larger xp gain over time.

So my suggestion, blasters and scrappers:  assist your tanks!

I admit it.  I play a blaster.  :)

I've found that I mostly solo, even though I have a bunch of friends who play.  Though I'm only 13th level, I'm actually starting to be concerned that I don't know how to function in a group dynamic.  I wonder if other blasters who have reached higher levels will have the same problem.

Well, I don't think level 23 is anywhere near the high levels, but I tell you this, blasters learn FAST about group dynamics, else they become a nice pasty stain on the pavement.  Aim+build-up+AoE = Blaster Pate...

It takes a bit of learning, but nothing too bad. As Aslan points out- you learn to adapt or die. A lot.

Over the weekend I played a bit with our Morlocks group, and our tank didn't have his taunt skill. He levelled and decided to grab it and it made a huge difference. When I play with those guys, I usually play my fire/fire blaster, who's AoE stuff I don't have much of a handle on (my 'main' is energy/energy, so no real AoE).

Before the tank took taunt, I was mostly working to stay out of harm's way, because I aggro the shit out of everything with AoE's. After he took it, our group became much more effective, because stuff wasn't gunning for me much at all. We also had a Scrapper grouped, and post-taunt, neither I nor the scrapper got beat to hell too badly, unlike pre-taunt adventuring. So in our 'unbalanced' group field test, taunt was seen as a big success, I can only imagine it gets more important as time goes on.

Also, I know the assist mode quite well, but at lower levels (we are 8-11ish), assist is almost useless as most mobs are down so fast, my time is better spent on other things, softening up the next mob or rooting something.

I vaccilate between 'assist mode' and my preferred 'watch over the entire combat and do something useful' mode. In fact, I've rolled a defender because of the way I've been playing the fire blaster, I might even go so far as to go full on controller....though I do love my blastola.

Sky...

My prime is a fire/fire and to be honest, taunt and the aoe version are only somewhat effective when the levels climb.  I can pull aggro against our main taunt tank every time if I go for a kill load to wipe the minions.  Right now the main help is to have a draw line that our crowd control can keep them bottled in and I run for cover till the aggro gets back under control.  Strange as it sounds, I think I am doing more damage than the group combined.

When everything is working smooth (both player and mission layout) we can wade through groups of mobs.  Hell, we took a room of 27 last night... bloody 5th collumn.

Kill load? Draw lines? Engrish preese :)

Hehehe...

Sky,

Kill load is using both Build Up and Aim to increase my damage, then I will use Fire Breath and Fireball.

Draw lines are either a convienent doorway or any other avenue in which we can squeeze the in comming bad guys into a tight area and use either rain of sleet or caltrops to slow the advance.  Main tanks engage at this point and then I will usually step in and use the above.  I will knock the cluster of mobs down to about 50% of life on low purple, 60-70% of reds, 80-90% on oranges and usually kill yellows and whites.

Tsoo fubar this method and some others mobs have adapted tactics against it so far, but for the most part we slaughter them.

Fun fun!