f13.net

As you know to obtain certain badges certain villian types must be found and 'arrested".  In this case we had to find wolves and vampyr in Founders Fall and slaughter these guys.  Tedious?

Here's what we did:  1 scrapper (level 38), 2 controllers (levels 33, 37).

Both controllers flew through the city (Flight pool) and used stealth (Concealment pool) to avoid detection by snipers on the buildings.  When we saw a villian type of interest on the ground, we would call it out, and summon (Teleport pool) our scrapper and drop him from about 100 feet in the air straight down into the hot zone.

Scrapper opens a can of whoop ass - the controller leaves scouting for the next drop zone.  With both controllers scouting and summoning - we did this quest in no time.

/fanboi on

It was great combat variety - unlike any combat I had ever had in any MMORPG.  Not even a raid.  Flying overhead, identifying a target and then summoning your bud to drop from the sky and land on these guys was great fun.

It's just another thing that is cool about this game:  the depth and scope of strategic options is so great you can get truely unique combat mechanics.

/fanbio off

Two questions:

1: Did your controllers still get credit for the kills?  In the hunt badges, i thought you had to stay pretty close together (like, within sidekick range) for the kill to count for your team mates?

2: some hunt badges are WAY WAY easy if you have a friend with an outdoor mission that spawns the needed villian group.  Get a group of 8 people in the outdoor mission that spawns Warriors fighting Tsoo, and you get a boss in every spawn.  Did the warriors kill badge in two runs through an outdoor mission like that.

You're right but how close is not clear.  Certainly seems to be beyond sidekick range but I honestly don't know how far.  It also depends on class type I hear - if you have a scrapper just sitting there who is not in on the kill - he gets no credit - but if it is a healer / controller it seems this rule does not apply (still learning about this).

(not sure what the second question is but we had no outdoor mission to spawn the vampyr or war wolves in this case)

Actually, this is pretty close to what I do. Teleport to rootops around the square where the nazis hang out. Stomp any snipers rude enough to interrupt my routine. Watch for wolves (done with vampyrs, but same deal) and teleport right on top of them and take out the trash.

I've gotten a few surprises once I hit ground level (unseen vampyrs or lurking rikti drones), but it is sorta fun. I've gotten a few surprises on rooftops (rikti chief soldiers and mentalists evidently like the fresh air up high as well).

Most memorable moment was teleporting onto a previously unoccupied ledge to find a freshly spawned chief soldier. Knocked him off with headsplitter, watched him fall about 30 stories into a canal, then dived off after him to administer the coup de grace. Fun stuff.

Even to this day - when I use teleport to travel - especially to scale large bulidings (where you drop like hell between each successive teleport when you try to go vertical) it really give me a sense of vertigo.  hehe wuss that I am my fear of heights sometimes rears its head in CoH lol.

I get that same feeling. Tippy-toeing around rooftops to look at the streets sooooo far below. Definate queasy feelings when teleporting to the rooftops of skyscrapers in Crey's Folly, or the spires around the Hive in Eden.

Heh. I haven't had that feeling in any other game that I"ve played.

I did fall from a skyscraper in Founder's Falls once when  fumbled a TP keystroke. Almost 700 damage taken at street level. I'm just glad it wasn't into the middle of some behemoth overlord's little soiree.

Falling damage, like everything in COH seems to be % based.  I had my wife teleport me as my scrapper to the top of the tallest skyscraper in KR so I could jump off.  When I landed I took around 900 damage, leaving me barely alive.  A fall from nearly the same height should have killed my TP-power controller, but didn't. Both falls left them both with about the same % of health from a full life bar.


Hmm.. Scrapper Airstrikes.  I finished off the CoT badge the other day in an hour or so in Hollows on my own.  Your way sounds much more fun, though.  I'll have to remember it when we go after the Tsoo/Trolls later.

(And as a side note on titles, I wish I'd known the mission I completed the other day gave the 'Pwnz' title.  I've seen folks offering 300k influence to go on that mission. D'oh.)

It's pretty cool how much impact just a couple of pool powers have on a character. I got stamina and it almost felt like I had activated a cheat code, and it's only got one enh slot with a DO right now (couldn't find a 25 SO regen increase for some reason, got plenty of dough).

Then when I decided to respec I grabbed Stealth to try it out and it's staying, incredibly useful power and totally changes how I play my flying blaster, so few adds these days (well, I also spent a little time actually playing around with aggro radii and facings, etc and their effect on pulls).

But that bit about dropping a scrapper in on the action, damn if that doesn't sound like a wolvy/colossus fastball special variant ;) And THAT is tres cool imo.

Sorry Sky,

Unless you get a lucky drop the only SO End Regen start at 30 on the quest vendors.  When you hit 27th, find someone thirty who will buy them for you.  Makes a world of difference if you think Stam feels like cheating now.

Good stuff.  People in this game still don't see how useful the Concealment power pool is.  You know what my controller does?  He body pulls.

Example.  Tank / scrapper is in unyielding stance killing villians around him.  I turn on Phase Shift and go run to other villian groups - they pound on me (but cannot hurt me with PS on) and I just walk back to the Tank / scrapper with the train of villians following me.

Phase shift is also good for cluster fucks.  If you find yourself grouping with unknowns - good skill to have - since it's activation is a get out of jail free card when it looks like the party is going to wipe or if the healer is out of endurance.

5th column drones can see though invisibility so sometimes Phase Shift is necessary for scouting.  Folks are alerted to you - but cannot harm you while you map.

jpark,

Am thinking about getting PS for my blaster, but have heard some mixed things at the later levels.  Namely that AOE damage hits you in PS.  Do you know if that is crap or true?

That was my suspicion. I've been going through my contacts trying to find a science vendor, gotta do a bunch of missions before you know for sure, though the prose in their description gives a pretty good clue (as does the mob type they send you against), in which case I didn't get a science contact for my level, which kinda sucks as a science hero...

If your on Virtue, I would be happy to help.  All my toons are on there.

Never happened to me and man I have stood in the middle of absolute mayham unscathed (including respec TFs).

Two things will kill you in PS (in my experience):

1.  Rest.  Never hit the rest button while in PS - if you do - the protection drops.

2.  Interdimensional beings.  They introduced a new mob awhile back from another dimension - it was spawning in cities for about a week - have not see it since.  It can penetrate PS.

The power does take a few seconds to activate - other than that - I highly recommend it.  My controller and scrapper have both used it.  It is costly - I have 2 endurance reductions SOs on it - but that allows me to have the power on, fly and heal myself all at the same time.

Woops, sorry. Forgot to mention I'm on Victory (where BC is).

Just a few clarifications on Phaze shift (my blaster loves it):

Will agree with Jpark, NEVER ever rest with phaze shift up.  Used to be that you COULD rest while phazed (interestingly enough, things COULD hit you through the phaze while resting). Now, resting causes Phaze to drop.

Phaze uses a lot of end.  If you get it before you get stamina, expect it to suck end like crazy (phaze+fly = really rapid end drain)

Interdimentional beings: I would assume these were the Rularru critters that were coming in from portals to the Shadow Shard during the event for the release of Update Two.  If they WERE hitting you through phaze, chances are it was a bug.  Phaze has so far allowed me to run around most of the Rularru critters in Firebase Zulu missions without harm.

The biggest problem with Phaze as a last ditch "save my ass from that thing that is killing me cause I just ran out of respites" power is that it has about a 2.5 to 3 second windup animation where you pray to god something doesent kill you as you wait for the effect to kick in.  When you start it up you cease ALL movement, and stand there during the animation (remember the Tsoo Ancestor Spirits, and how you could kill them if you got a high damage attack off when you saw them start the animation for their Phaze?).   Phaze against anything that stuns/mezzes is also a pain in the ass, as chances are, it will stun you while you are trying like mad to trigger the power off.

That being said, if i had one more pool set to choose from, I would SOOO have Phaze shift and Teleport other.  The ability to run ANYWHERE on a map with total lack of fear and then summon your entire team to your location makes ghosting some missions a brease.

Another thing to note with Phaze, is that while it is up, you are TOTALLY unaffected by EVERYTHING in the game, harmfull and helpfull powers both.  While Phazed, allies can not heal, buff, or teleport you.

SurfD - yup activation time is a problem - but the only real trade-off in using this ability.

Keep in mind that invis or stealth can be active while PS is on.  This is useful.  You walk though 5th column map (drones detect invis) with PS on but decide you need to summon upon arriving at your destination.  You activate stealth with PS on - and find a corner somewhere as you lose the aggro.  Drop PS while stealth provides basic evasion from detection - and summon your mate.

ALSO - for timed missions where you have get bodies/clues, you can just do the whole mission while invisible, which includes clicking on items for clues (different if you have to rescue hostages held by folks you must kill).  Timed missions of this nature can be done in minutes and are a frequent timed mission type.

I still use SS + Stealth for my invisibility.

Fast? Check.  Invisible?  Check.  Defense bonus?  Check.

And at 24 I got SJ, so I can also make a complete mockery of any distance.

EDIT:  I realize that PS is not the same as invis.  But the point is that SS + Stealth will allow you to zip around missions, avoid snipers, and generally be an ass.

That does sound good.  Never worked with super speed.  Any comments on the whirlwind for that pool?

Hmm, not quite as safe as Phaze shift.
I say this, mainly because you are not 100% undetectable, even if you think you are. You ARE pretty much invisible at a decent range, but things WILL see through it if you have to pass by them in really tight spaces. (I could be wrong tho).  
The easy way to check, is to turn on SS and Stealth, and run up to a Rikti Drone.  Chances are, the drone (and everything else in its combat group), is going to turn on you and open fire (you learn this the hard way when you decide to go running around the Abandoned Sewer and have to run through nasty rikti packs)

I have heard Whirlwind is nice simply for the ability to totally own bosses with it from mele range through "pulsing".  Run up to boss, turn Whirl on, wait for knockdown to occur, turn it off, whack boss a few times, pulse Whirl back on and off just as boss is getting back up.  Repeat till dead.  Need to slot it with accuracy/recharge, but other then that, it is almost exploit worthy.

It is exploit worthy; that's why it no longer works on bosses (at least those of reasonable level). I don't recall the revised mechanics of it, but it's mostly minions-only, or of very limited utility on bosses and LTs.

I'd have to find the thread(s) on it again, but it's simply a situational tool now, not a cure-all for boss woes.

Well..

Did the Frostfire mission last night, which is one of the Hollow missions near the end of the line and was it interesting.  The boss man could summon both imps and jack frosts, but what made the mission a challenge is the whole zone was cris-crossed with ice.  The ice ment you movement never stopped when on it.  You would go sliding, the bad guys would go sliding.. was damn damn fun.  If you get a shot at seeing it, it is worth a little debt, but damn did it take a while.  Got five bubbles worth of xp and only one death at 12th.

Up to level 24, I have stood right next to purple-con bosses, autofollowing them at 0 range while picking out inspirations and toggles.  Bad guys run into me during the course of their pathing, and actually have to alter their course around me or completely turn around.  They never attack.  

I suppose its easy enough for higher-level mobs to have stealth detection ability that would knock me down to something they could respond to.  I have yet to see it.

Been there.  Lots of fun.  I enjoyed the ice half-pipe formed by two opposing stairways coated with ice.

One of the goodies coming out in December (possibly available at a slight fee to existing subscribers, they haven't hammered it out yet) is going to be a prestige sprint power called "Powerslide", which I'm guessing is going to be all grind animation, all the time.

Couple that with super speed and/or super jump and you have City of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

--GF

Going from place to place should not be this much fun.

If I'm following this properly, SurfD was talking about using Stealth, but you seem to be describing Invisibility. I've been using both for a while, got them at the earliest possbile levels. When I use Stealth, I get noticed when I'm closer than maybe 25 feet, depending on how it's enhanced. With Invis I can stand right on their heads and not get noticed.

OK, not entirely true -- I accidentally took the ferry out to the level 50 island from Talos and got nailed by things that saw me while I was invisible, and quite some distance (50+ yards!) away. Of course I was in the high teens at the time and they were level 50.

One of the benefits not mentioned about stealth:

Single target pulls.

To the extent anyone uses it in CoH.  My scrapper has engaged and killed single targets in stealth without alerting nearby, in line of sight guards.  I tested this because after I killed the guy - I remained where I was - and dropped stealth - instant aggro.

The same can apply for ranged attacks.

I can't always predict how to do this - trick - and of course in the combat pace of CoH - one does not do single target pulls too often.  BUt if you do - stealth helps.

Absolutely. I'd pretty much forgotten about that, since I'm stealthed all the time while hunting. But as a scrapper who solos literally all the time (I've TF'ed with Bat Country three or four times, but that's it) it's a very useful aspect of the skill set.

I Invis to travel or rest, stealth the rest of the time. I don't move really really fast like everybody else out there (am I the only one left without super speed?) but I can run straight lines without avoiding anything, which helps. It's nice to be able to pop Invis anywhere and be able to answer the phone, take a break, heal up when Rest hasn't recycled yet, etc.

Stealth and Superspeed both have roughly the same effect on visibility, but when you stack them they are pretty much the same as invisibility.

To make up some numbers for an example:

Normal aggro range : 50yds
Sniper/drone aggro range : 150yds

Stealth : -25yds
Superspeed : -25yds
Invis : -50yds

What Tar said.  I'm not talking about Stealth or Invisibility, I'm talking about stacking the stealth components of Stealth and Superspeed at the same time.  It has the exact same effect as Invis, except that

(1) you are hideously fast, instead of slowed.
(2) you can attack
(3) you get a defense bonus
(4) it always works (I hear some bosses can see through Invis)

It makes Invisiblity look stupid.  I can spend two powers  - stealth (or grant invisibility) and invisibility - to move slowly, be almost invisible, and not attack.  Or I can spend three (Stealth, Hasten, Superspeed) and get all the abilities listed above PLUS Hasten.

Snipers see through stealth + superspeed.  I started encountering them when I hit brickstown and founders (and very occassionally in missions, starting at 30).  I'm not sure if they see through invis, as I've never had a character with it, and only rarely get buffed with it in groups.  Snipers have never really been a problem for me though, they'll get one shot on me before I'm out of range, and that isn't enough to kill my characters.

Dumb question - does SS still confer its benefit against detection if you are standing still?

Bosses cannot see through invis (none that I have encountered).  But some other stuff can - namely - the drones from the 5th column.  Snipers in Founders Falls see through stealth - not sure about invis though.  To deal with this whole issue I fly with Phase Shift on.

Yes.

Nope. I'm a flyer without it. I'm also in the minority (from my ingame experience) that I slotted fly with end reducers so I can use it in combat (not while attacking, but for maneuvering with a hover toggle for attacking, natch) rather than flight speed. Also slotted my hover with defense instead of flight speed.

Another ability I have been experimenting with:

TP Foe

Good for pulling - which means even it fails you get the villian's attention.  You can use it against higher level villians - but you need to slot it a bit for accuracy.

TP foe can work in several ways.  

1.  You telelport the bad guy to you but alert his buddies.
2.  You teleport him to you without alerting his buddies.

#1 is still useful, since you can use the extra rounds before the rest reach you to kill him.  It helps reduce the zerg factor if we are talking about killing one bad guy from a pack of 4 (but if we're talking 10 - not much point).

I have been able to use it on boss mobs (liutenents) higher level than me to separate them from the pack to kill them.

It can also be used for fleeing bad guys - sometimes when you TP them back the are motionless for a bit - so you can pound on them.

And at lower levels there is the favorite - TP friend to the top of a building - and then drop him.  For low levels that is  a lot of damage.

Lastly, standing on one roof top - and using TP foe on a bad guy on another roof top - gives you a lot of combat time.  His friends have to go down to street level and then climb the next building before reaching you.

Agreed.  I think slotting stealth for Defense and adding that to Hover (slotted for Defense) is a good strategy for blasters and support class.

Latest experiment:  Hover can be used with the tank/scrapper invulnerability ability Unyielding Stance.

My bud tested this (Grind).  The order is important - think hover has to be activated before Unyielding stance activation.  This of course gives you the defensive bonus of hover to combine with the damage mitigation of unyielding stance.

Just to clarify what I was talking about as far as the whole Stealth/SuperSpeed/CloakingDevice/Invis issue.

Stacking Stealth/CloakingDevice and Super Speed DOES, for all intents and purposes make you pretty much totally invizible.

It ONLY does this, however, against things that do NOT have the capability to see right through it.  While you may be perfectly fine in the early game (pre 30), there are a large number of things between 30-50 that CAN and WILL spot you through damn near all forms of concielment.

Off the top of my head: Rikti Drones, 5th Column Valkyries, Knives of Artemis, Rularuu Watchers (big floating Eye things) and pretty much all Sniper class minions (Crey/Nemesis) can and will see right through Stealth/CD/SS at various ranges.

The only thing I am not sure on, is how far away you have to be before they do spot you.  It has to do with the way the inviz code works. As someone mentioned, the various forms of concielment simply add a negative to an enemys sight radius.  Snipers have something like 150 yards of sight radius.  Drones 50.  Everything else usually 20 or 25.  Some things may have a hard coded minimum, IE, regardless of how much stealth you stack on yourself, they might still ALWAYS have a 5 yard sght radius.

The reason this is dangerous, is because if said Sniper or Drone happens to be in a group of 4 or 5 other things when it sees you, the rest of its group ALSO becomes aware of your presence.

Trust me when I say this. I have had PLENTY of experience watching rikti packs hand Stealth/SSers their asses in the Abandoned sewers, or watching some fool devices blaster try to CD/SS through a large spawn of Nemesis in a mission without checking for snipers first.

As to the hover comment, I found a great use for it on mele characters:  Damage avoidance on Monster Class mobs!

Every monster (and many Archvillains) I have ever run into likes to do a foot stomp attack, doing pretty heafty damage to anything in mele range. The neat thing is, 90% of all those monsters (the only execption I have found being the Portal mission Adamastor) cant hit you with it if you are hovering a few feet off the ground!  The shockwave still interupts my snipe attack, but I take no damage at all.

Also, hover >> caltrops.

Something you'll appreciate greatly when fighting the Knives.

imo, superspeed remains the best option for the majority of people at lvl 14 when you have very few power picks, but still want hasten.

But it becomes worth a serious look once you are able to respec, and can afford CJ or Hover (or even TP).

Good point about some of the aoe attacks, I never think about that stuff, since I'm in the air about 95% of the time I'm in CoH. I really like the flying aspects of the game, so well done. I really get the feel of being a flying comic book hero.

Now if only I had Iceman's ice bridge....(from xmen legends)...

Hover is great for avoiding AoE - my question has been whether it is true at the higher levels AoE's continue to be ground based attacks rather than just explosions which would affect you hovering or not.

Also - the hover avoidance of attacks has a gradation perhaps?  I literally had two healers, one with hover one without.  One was interrupted constantly by AoE the other hovered.  Sometimes he was not interrupted but often he spun 360 in the air upon an AoE attack.  Not sure if this graphical depiction of this "spin" constituted an interrupt or not (this was Dark Astoria).

Maybe this spin I see is similar to SurfDs observation there is interruption without damage.

yep, whenever you do a "spin" while hovering, it means that whatever hit you would have knocked you down. Instead you do a little barrel roll, and keep going.  Which is AWESOME, because instead of 2-3 seconds downtime while you get back on your feet, you have .2 seconds downtime, and are immediately shooting again.

Also, like I said, the hover seems to only prevent you from taking damage from Ground based AoE attacks (footstomps and the like).  I am not sure if this is a bug with the Monster Class things and their footstomp, but you avoid the damage, and are simply interupted by the rushing air or something.  An actual Nuke, like Nightstars Nova will hit you if you are within its radius of effect, hovering or not.  (Interestingly enough, this also means that one of the most annoying CoT minions, Earth Casters, are TOTALLY fucked if you hover 6 feet of the ground, since they have NO non ground based ranged attacks :P  Once I figured that out, I could litterally take HUGE groups of the bastards simply by hovering high enough off the grount they could still mele me.  They had the chance, but never seemed to want to close to mele range :P )

In my experience so far, the ONLY critter that could actually hit me and do PHYSICAL damage, not simply an interuption, was Portal version of Adamastor (and I have been hovering within Power Burst range of Hatched Krakens, Jurassic, Crystal Titan, Red Kronos, and a bunch of AVs with foot stomps)