f13.net

It's been confirmed on the boards that the new powersets will be Dual Blades and Willpower (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=general&Number=9026289&page=0&fpart=1). They will be available to the Scrapper, Tanker, Brute and Stalker ATs.

Dual Blades: as described. Lethal damage orientation with some new tricks, apparently.

Willpower: a combo defensive and resist defence set that is likely to be very light on in the graphic effects department.

No real ETA on these powersets - might be I11, might be I12. They are towards the end of their internal testing, apparently.

Meanwhile, I resume my vigil for a Dual Pistols powerset.

Disappointing.  I was hoping for something a little more different than what already exists.  Willpower sounds like a clone of Invulnerability, while Dual Swords.. well, just another weapon set. 

Hell I'd be happy if they'd just copy some more of the villain/hero sets back and forth.  I'd love to see a Radiation blaster, or an Electric Armor tank..

Stalkers need love.  Other than EM, the rest of the primaries are pathetic.  Also, scrappers need a more interesting secondary choice. 

It's been stated by Positron that Dual Blades came first in their offensive powerset suggestions poll, while Willpower came second in the defensive set. Shields were the most preferred defensive set, but they require a lot more animation work (not only for active animations, but also for passive animations, like blocking attacks automatically) and will come later.

Also: for I11, a Flashback system (i.e. set your character's level to any point and do the content for that range) has been hinted as being a strong possibility. Either that or something else to do with an ouroborous.

I like how a lot of the players are complaining saying "What comics, if any, do the devs read?"

As if these two things had never been seen in comics.

Uh.

Well, Deadpool, Shatterstar, Deathstroke to name a few people who like to dual wield swords off the top of my head.

And for Willpower- Frank Miller's Batman and the Punisher come to mind immediately.

That thread has developed into complaints that there are no Tankers in comics, that Tankers are underpowered and Fly is too slow. All driven by one poster. Plus Statesman has posted, which immediate invites certain sections of the playerbase to take a swipe at him.

Legitimate complaints include Dual Blades being another lethal damage set and that Willpower sounds a bit nebulous. We'll know after more info on these sets come out.

The only real complaint that I have with the new primary is that scrappers need something other than crushing or lethal damage.  I play a DM/SR scrapper just to get around that.  I almost wish the psychic damage power set had won, but I'm sure the animations would have been less interesting. 

If they really want to make their subscriptions grow they should make them dual laser swords. But Cryptic, for whatever reason, isn't interested in growing their player base.

Edit: typo

I would love to play an EM/* scrapper. Especially if they mixed it up a little, so that instead of just taking the same 9 powers that are in the brute/tanker set and giving them to scrappers, maybe take some of those powers, replace some of the others with new ones, and borrow animations from other sets to put in the new ones.

I'm not going so far as to design this new set. But I think an EM attack with the sands-of-mu animation would kick ass.

EM is my daily reminder that stalkers are broken.  I have a blades stalker and an EM stalker and the difference is obvious.  EM is the only viable powerset for stalkers since the other sets are woefully underpowered.  My EM/Energy Armor brute is sick as well.  I imagine that an EM stalker would be a nightmare... in a fun way.

Well, I only played my EM stalker into the 30s, so I'm not necessarily an expert. But I will expound nonetheless.

The only reason my stalker was bearable to play was because I took Air Superiority on the way to taking Fly as my travel power. Thus, I had AM as a third attack power (that could be used in normal combat). I hated the whole (solo PVE) playstyle of using AS on one target, and then having to take down the 2nd of the group with the other low level attacks, and then getting to use placate-AS on the last one. Bothersome. This is all pre level 26 of course, when the tier 8 attack became available.

And PvP was a nightmare as well. I could bitch for pages about how hard I found it to play a melee class in CoX pvp, but throw in the fact than any hero who was serious about pvp would load themselves down with +perception, and the Stalker's main advantage (surprise) is gone. If they can see you, you're a squishie. I was being seen and targeted by heroes from hundreds of yards away.

I think stalkers as a class should just be scrapped (no pun intended) and done over. I don't know what they'd put in their place, but they've shown themselves to be capable of coming up with new classes, see the Kheldians and Masterminds for examples.

I think it's proof that noone has yet figured out how to balance initiative (i.e. stealth) well in a game.  This is particularly true in PvP.  I agree that they should just scrap stalkers, but they're so popular that it's really not possible. 

It's kinda wierd, I'm glad new things are coming out, but at the same time I wonder why it has to be addressed like it is...

Dual Swords--sounds awesome, but then it will be lethal damage, which higher up mobs and players have gobs of resistance to it.

Willpower--finally a set for tankers with psionic resistance...well maybe.  This goes back to the stone armor being change, origianlly granite armor was to have def and resistance to all, and then Positron came out and changed it (I'm not sure, but I think they wanted to have something that tankers couldn't ignore--this was back before ED). 

What is nice is that all 4 sets (tankers/scrappers & brutes/stalkers) will have them available, but how will it be implemented.  It has been said that there is so much lethal and smashing damage def and resistance that it sucks to play those sets.  Heck my son and I's favorite build right now is a scrapper with spines/regen, which is still pretty versitale.  I have heard from the stalkers that taking spines/regen makes you more or less a weak scrapper, because your 1st strike isn't as good and your toe to toe is better, but not great enough to really be scrapperish in nature.

My kid wondered why they weren't doing shields (he wants a more scrapper style, one you can throw, bash, spin, and protect) and made the comment that he likes playing CoX better because we get groups, on WoW we don't (since were low levels--ain't no groups there).

Shields aren't going in yet because it'll need well over 100 new animations, compared to around 23 new animations for Dual Swords and 0 new animations for Willpower per Back Alley Brawler, who seems to be the lead animator over at Cryptic.

As Nevermore said, Shields have been recognised as popular and will be worked on in a later issue.

Along with Dual Pistols for non-MMs, dammit.

I've been sucked into the PvP on freedom...arrrrgh...

Now I'm leveling characters made just for it on the hero's side.  Ill/TA or Ill/kin controller & a ice/dev blaster, since I want to keep on leveling my main, and there is no way I would take a TA/Arch Defender in there.  Basically building them to level to 30 and park them in Siren's Call (tons of people in there on freedom).

Funny thing, I see lots of stalkers, brutes, and masterminds, not a lot of corruptors or dominators on the villians side.  But see all but peacebringers on the hero's side (very diffrent builds too).  Wish more could be done to help make team pvp more fun.

Screenshots of Dual Blades (http://news.curse.com/details/3213/)
Willpower (http://www.badge-hunter.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=3645)

So how long before one of the testers makes Kratos and Nariko? My money's on 30 minutes.