f13.net

I quit CoH back before CoV was released, I think it was issue four that did it.  They'd fucked regen scrappers squarely in the ass, taking a decent defense power and dropping its effectiveness by a third.  Fights against heavy-hitting opponents were already dropping my scrapper to a sliver of health, making it apparent that nerfing regen further would turn fights from 'barely made it' to 'died like a dog'.   So rather than watch her drop over and over again and build up tons of debt, I split.

After I left, I saw that they nerfed the enhancements with diminishing returns, which would've fucked my scrapper even more, given that several of the regen powers only allowed one type of enhancement.

I'm not about to set foot back in the game, at least not in any way that involves my risking money on it, so I figured I'd ask around to see what people who're playing now have to say about it.  The villains, the super hero bases, PvP, all of that came after I left and I'm interested in finding out if any of it made real changes in how the game works, and if the gameplay changes have shifted around to make regen scrappers viable front-line fighters again.

Where to start...

Regen was never made unviable. Invul was the real whipping boy in I5 and I6. Regen has been rebalanced (again). It's healing powers are now spread over three powers: one passive (two if you have health), one toggle, and one clicky. You still have dull pain for a heal and regen boost. Reconstruction is it's old lovable self, with some toxic resist thrown in. The set is actually much more playable at low levels and still arguably the strongest scrapper secondary overall. Both my regen scrappers (kat and BS) play quite well and are capable of doing whatever you require scrappers to do (and no they don't soak up alpha strikes as well as DA or even invul in it's present sorry state--but they never did). 

ED effects everyone, but mob balance has changed quite a bit. You won't typically be fighting reds unless in a group. Even level mobs give the same xp (more or less) as +2 mobs back in I4. There are some passive powers that really were hurt by ED (invul passives), but mostly it does open up new opportunities for tailoring powers to playstyle, or, at worst, saves you a few slots. You won't have the resists or avoidance you had in I4, but you won't be fighting +3s on your own (usually) either. Team play feels pretty much like it did back in I4. Defender and corruptor buffs (or debuffs) boost tanks and brutes considerably (potentially enough to hit the old caps).

CoV is quite a bit different than CoH was. Villain roles are different. All villains have very significant offenses. The Rogue Isles are much more compact than Paragon City and there's not nearly so much travelling about between contacts and missions. Bases are useful, but won't change your basic day to day activities all that much. They make life easier, but don't fundamentally change anything. PvP is...well...in a group it can be fun, but it's MMRPG PvP, which is to say mediocre. Regen scrappers are one of the better PvP sets, so there's that if you're drawn to this sort of thing.

My 2 influence...
I quit at I5. Didn't much like COV at beta. I am now playing COV exclusively. If you liked scrappers you gotta try a brute. I mostly play corrupter (blaster/defender) and dominator (melee range attack/controller). The game feels more challenging (except mastermind). All classes can solo missions (some faster than others). There is a perfired server for grouping (freedom). PUGs are mostly good and fun. Mastermind are by far easier to play (pet class) but a bit boring. There are even more costume choices. There is the stalker class (stealth) with a huge alpha strike and little else. Radio missions (hero) and newspaper missions (villain) lead to mayhem missions which are like a 15 minute task force. There great fun at low level. There are more powers now ( arrow, plant, sonic,poisen, ninja). The game is more varied and depending on power choices and slotting choices the hero,s and villians are more varied. I have recently been subscribed to WOW, EQ2, EVE and COV is what I am playing. It is light hearted, challenging enough, accessable, soloable, easy to get a group during prime time (this is server dependent. Again freedom then virtue will hit medium load during prime time, i don't think I have seen any others be anything but low population). The hearding days of uber experience are gone, just get over it. The balance is 1 player-3 minions.

So, I quit when I realized that to get to the next level I would have to kill 3200 minions.  This was at level 28 and the amount of minions that had to die was increasing in an amazingly steep curve with each new level.

Until and unless that grind is diminished in a significant way I cannot seriously consider giving my money to them.  Advancement has to be an achievable goal.  They have decided that they would rather have few players for a long time rather than lot's of players briefly after content releases, it's a decision that has been derided again and again in this board.

Just let me have fun, damn it.

I never really milked Instant Healing that much anyway, so the regen nerf that had hundreds of players generating thousand page long threads on the CoH boards never touched me.  Regen is still the best offensive Scrapper set in the game, thanks to a natural endurance regeneration capacity no other set gets, and enhancement diversification has only differentiated Stamina and Quick Recovery moreso.  I can't speak much for personal experience as of late, though, as I've only taken regen scrappers as high as level 8 lately.  I once had one in its 20s, but that was loong ago.  Hm, come to think of it, you probably haven't tried Scrappers since they inmplemented critical hits which cause double damage on stuff you're hitting pretty frequently.

Good advice to try out the Brute if you liked the Scrapper.  They're basically a Scrapper that does more damage tha longer they fight, up to 400% I think.  Talk about a nonstop party.

My regen is fine, and after I rearranged my SOs after I5 I could barely notice the difference (other than having more get-out-jail-buttons post I5, and far more interactivity).

Your regen may have been nerfed in some other way ofc.

The game is still cool, still has the best combat I've come across in a MMOG.

But it's also still primarily a group game, and soloing gets tiresome at high levels, as most of the variety comes from playing with different other players on your team.


And all that said, if you didn't like what I5 did, don't come back, as nothing has changed, if you didn't like it then you won't like it now.

Regen works.

The grind is not that bad, just do missions.

Way more content now than before.

Still CoH, though, so if you were just tired of the game then don't bother.

As has been said, the core of CoH hasn't changed. If all you can think of is how good the old days were and how bad all the changes were, you probably shouldn't bother coming back.

I don't mean that rudely - I've just read enough "we were super back before I5!" posts that lament the days of god mode to be curt in my responses.

To get a better idea of what is on offer now, you could probably try out CoV - apparently it is available cheap in discount bins and you get a free month with it.

I played an AOE fire blaster during "City of Blasters" and AOE today will get you killed. Unless you throw a tar patch and are carefull. Its all still there it just takes more skill and use of your surroundings. It feels more satifining when you get it but of course you don't get it very often. Ice is a better chose now as slow and minus regen are allways usefull. Blasters are very different than pre I5, They are very fragile. Truly glass cannons. The COV counterparts are more playable. If you like beating stuff up brutes are recommended. Thats all they do but played wisely they do it well.

Though I'd be hard pressed to find the single change that made it so, Blasters really are glass cannons.  About the only way I can keep mine alive as early as level 16 is to keep him out of melee range as much as possible.  Easy enough against non-flying targets with hover, but not always a universal solution.  I'm pretty good in a team when I have somebody to taunt the bad guys off me, but I can't always rely on that being the state, especially when soloing.

CoH is tough on me because I've not the patience for a low damage archetype, want one that can solo, and also one that has pretty sophisticated play.  Scrappers are made to solo, but aren't terribly deep in execution.  Blasters are more interesting (in my opinion), but are not easy to solo.  Controllers are super interesting, but their containment-based high damage days end at about level 20 - I took an Illusion Controller to 32 and found the Phantasm did not alleviate my damage worries like I hoped it would.  Fire/Kinetics might be solution, but making foes choke on soot rubs me the wrong way for some reason.

Playing on City of Villains would get me closer to this idea, as they're all high damage, soloable archetypes.   Unfortunately, I've an irrational desire to unlock that Kheldian slot and level 50 Villains don't.

Thus, my only solution is ditch a few desires and accept a character, shortcomings and all.  Outside of finding absolute perfection, this is the only other way out of alt-a-holicism, really.

Wait, I was playing in I3 and blasters would die if you sneezed in their direction from half a mile away.  They somehow got MORE fragile afterwards?

ya, if the mob thinks of sneezing, your in debt. try a corrupter, when your nose tingles hug the mob and cast heal. OK I am execrating a bit. But really my corrupter's cast heal when its up, theres no need to look at the hit points, just cast it'

Medicine pool, grab Aid Other or Stimulant and then take Aid Self. It's basically an always-on respite and with one interrupt-reduce SO you can sometimes get it in even if you're ON FIRE (or similarly DoTed). You can basically get back up to full health between combats, which is all you should really have to worry about when going solo. Between that and any available aim/buildup to give yourself huge burst damage, you should be fine.

Either that, or my fire/elec is just a severely broken combination.

--GF

Hmm, good advice to try the Medicine pool with an Interrupt Reducer SO enhancement on it.  It wouldn't be that useful in a big group if I do something stupid like attract the attention of the opening alpha of the mobs - something I only recommend a Blaster do under the influence of two or three defense inspirations.  However, it would be useful when soloing.  Most of the time when my Blaster buys the farm soloing it's because he missed too often, and having a button I can push to give me enough hitpoints for a second chance would be a good solution to this.

You might have just saved me an unnecessary bit of re-rolling there, Glazius.  If not, if my alt-a-holicism prevails nonetheless, I do like this new robotic claws/regeneration scrapper I came up with.

I don't think the Blaster was ever made more vulnerable than it started.  Although the minions have been made a little more accurate and the lts/bosses a little less.  The Blaster's main reason they're hardly ever played, in my opinion, has to do with their "defiance" archetype special ability.  They're vulnerable enough without encouragement to try to get them under 25% of their health.  Personally, I only use defiance by accident.

Another reason I'm thinking of sticking with the Blaster is because of a certain level 47 advanced power pool power: Force of Nature.  Sure, I'll only get to abuse it for 3 levels, but a Blaster with a Moment of Glory-like effect sounds frigging hardcore.

Gazing covetously at a particular power makes me feel the grind too much when I play a character.  I've deleted many a low-level toon when I realized I was playing just for a particular power to make that character feel complete.  But I keep on making them, nonetheless.  The character creator is just too much fun by itself to be play otherwise.

True in all counts.  Staring far ahead is a surefire way to make yourself miserable in the present.  Although I'm an alt-a-holic by nature, City of Heroes certainly offers a lot of incentive to roll up another with a free run at the costume creator and a batch of new powers.  Sticking with a character long enough seems to get me a cape, aura, a bunch of powers I don't use very often, and a longer grind.

Well, Aid Self "fills the hole" in the Blaster archetype, being the only one without some way to get a self heal out of any primary/secondary powers.

Dominators on the CoV side are basically in a similar pickle, being the "opposite of blasters" mostly. (Blaster: ranged attack primary, control/melee attack secondary. Dominators: control primary, ranged/melee attack secondary.)

--GF

I don't think they did - they got a small HP boost and there are a large number of players who swear by the blapper (melee Blaster) build(s).

You can't stand around if you are a Blapper though. A ranged Blaster can stand still in PvE.

I've recently re-started and I'm having fun with a claws/regen scrapper.  Playing casually, doing solo missions.  Want to get kheldians unlocked, otherwise I would have played a brute.  But eh, by the time I get to 50, I'll probably be sick of scrapper type characters, so for the villains side I wanna try a rad/rad corruptor? and maybe a mastermind.  I had fun with a rad/rad defender last time, and it should be more fun with the primaries and secondaries reversed.  We'll see.

The scrapper is pretty nice (last time I was playing defenders/controllers, yuck).  I don't die often, and there are plenty of missions to get me levelled up without the need to grind anything, so far (L22).

CoX is playable casually, something which EVE isn't, unfortunately (I can train skills, but will never have the time to grind for ISKs).

It might not be a bad idea to alternate.  Get bored with the Scrapper?  Switch over to your Villain a bit.  Bored with the Villain?  Go back to the Scrapper.  The reason why this works better than having two heroes is because City of Villains is neigh completely seperate from City of Heroes, so one doesn't get all those mental cross signals that make alting such a drag.

I can't believe people enjoy melee blasters. I feel my blaster was very gimped due to having a mostly melee secondary (energy).

Try playing a Grav/Energy Dominator, then talk about gimp.

Blaster melee attacks do a shitton of damage.  So much that it's worth the risk in most scenarios.

My Blaster is Sonic/Energy, he uses the sonic to drop a Cone Sleep on the group he's about to fight, jumps in and take out two with melee attacks, then jumps back and starts with ranged.  It's a damn effective way to solo.

If you want a more complicated Blaster, I'd suggest Sonic primary.

You thought */energy felt gimped? I see.

It is not my intent to sound like a condescending twatwaffle here, but the more I read about the misadventures of your blaster the more it becomes clear that you didn't have a very "blaster" mindset. This is not intended to imply any personal failing; it's just that, from how I've played them, the CoX archetypes each lend themselves to a different style of play, and it sounds like that while you wanted to do blastery things the blaster itself was not a good fit for your preferred play style.

--GF

Woah, didn't catch that.

Yeah, /energy is generally considered head and shoulders above the other blaster secondaries.

I guess I don't understand blaster. Aim, buildup, boom. Things come in melee range you die. Glass cannon. Wizard.

It's why I went devices.  Having the target drone allowed me to put all +damage into the attacks.  4+ big damage attacks > 1 super damage attack + 3 mediocre attacks.

I don't know if it still works out that way but I was quite able to nail orange/red Bosses before they could get to me leaving just a minion or two to mop up.  Invis + smoke grenade meant the minions only had a small % chance to hit you, stacking -acc debuffs for the win.

Sky's pretty much got it down.  I'd say the only complicating factors are 1) don't draw more aggro than you can handle and 2) try to get those firing cones and AOE arranged in such a way that you're hitting what you want to hit.  If it were just aim, buildup, boom I'd say that Scrapper would strike me as a more interesting hero, but I have to say that fighting naked does spice things up a bit.  Brisk!

Rule number 7659:  Don't play a knockback blaster unless you know what you're doing.  While playing a melee class, I hate nothing more than knockback blasters making me chase a target around.

I like Sonic because it has a nice mixture of knockback and non-knockback attacks.  Thus, the only times I'm knocking down things the meleers are engaging is when they're down to a sliver of health and need a few seconds to recover.  Works marvelously when they haven't already given up all hope.

This isn't the case anymore. Targeting Drone now adds to ToHit, which makes it weaker than before. Smoke Grenade is no longer auto-hit and has been nerfed in the -ACC stakes (because it was too uber once, but the pendulum has swung too far back the other way).

/Devices is still fun, if you can forget the way it used to be. There are some promised buffs coming though.

Sort of.  If things come in melee range, you still have the opportunity to completely dominate them with damage before you go down.  If you get swarmed, yeah you've got trouble.  But some lieutenant closes in, knock his block off with a Bonesmaher and Energy Punch.  If he's still alive, knock him back with power thrust.

Nebu: well, yeah. Geldon: drawing aggro is kind of a given when you're a soloer.

Rrava: the punches were useful to knock stuff back out of melee range, but I don't remember the damage being uber. I was a ranged blaster who was always airborne. I generally only punched flying mobs, and even those I would avoid when possible. But I haven't played Cosmic since way before CoV was out, so who knows.

Uh, targeting drone has always added +tohit, and because of the way accuracy works +tohit is actually better than +accuracy. Smoke Grenade is auto-hit in PvE, same as Smoke and Flash Arrow. It's a 5% debuff, instead of the 50% it used to be. But that's not the real lure of Smoke Grenade, rather it's the 50% damage mitigation you get from not having the next group over plow into you.

--GF

True, and this is one of the main limiting factors a Blaster has.  You can only solo a medium to small group of mobs, unless you devastate the majority of them in your initial volley (possible with the lvl 32 power + buildup) or use a lot of inspirations.  A Scrapper, on the other hand, can handle even larger groups once they get their vital defense powers slotted.

My take on blaster melee powers was that they're supposed to be used in conjunction with movement, i.e. don't stand still.  If you have knockback or a way to disable your enemy's attacks, use that; knock them back, then follow up with a major damage attack, then move out of range before they're back standing, or use another knockback attack.  It's a lot about combos, rather than standing there and dishing, like scrappers/tankers do.

I might be wrong.

Scrappers can't really stand and dish either, at least not indefinitely.  I found fighting as a scrapper to involve lots of juggling of enemies: knock down minion A, knock back minion B, pound on the lieutenant while they're out of the way, hopefully he's dead before they get back to you, then mop them up.  Scrappers can't take the heat for very long before they're in trouble, which is why I was particularly upset at the scrapper defense nerfs with I4.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I say 'dead'?  I meant 'arrested'.  Yes, arrested.  Because that's what my spine scrapper was doing whenever he flung a spear of bone into some poor guy's chest amid a spray of toxic green goo.  He was arresting that man, clearly.  Just like my gun blaster was doing when unloading a rifle into peoples' heads.

If it's the medical recall system that's beaming those "arrested" thugs away, I suppose they could be resuscitated in much the same way as the heroes, who take just as much punishment and more before going down.  I just wish Cryptic put some kind of FX to establish that they were being beamed away, instead of just having them fade into oblivion.

You can kill them if you want.

Cryptic specifically use the term 'defeated' so that since you are, you know, 'role-playing', you can decide if you are killing or arresting to fit your own backstory.

As regards Scrappers, again, in most normal game situations on the hardest game difficulty I just have to keep half an eye on my health and press DP, Restoration, or IH if it gets too low, plus hasten if I find I'm using two of them in quick succession and want them back up quickly. I find I have to try really hard to die. Of course, you may have a different scrapper, and as above, if you found them unfun before, they won't have changed.

Blaster melee attacks are some of the most damaging attacks in the game.  Power Thrust, which is more of a soft control power, doesn't do much damage but does knockback.  But in melee, a Blaster can hit-for-hit outdamage a Scrapper easily.  The problem is that melee is risky.  A built-up Bonesmasher will one-shot an even minion and nearly one-shot a +1 minion.

Same story in regards to my Dark Armor Scrapper.  To an extent, it's a difference of how you slot out your secondary powers and which ones you take.  Also, always kill the bosses first unless it's relatively cost-free to take down a minion along the way.
The key point in Archetype choice and City of Heroes itself ;)