f13.net

Ok Llava, Glazius, Jimbo and the others who have been playing a long time, I need your expertise here.  Since I left CoH last year, it seems that there's a ton of new stuff and I don't feel as competent to answer questions and make suggestions anymore.

First...what the heck are the gladiators that my lv 35 scrapper has suddenly earned?  Is this for PvP in the arena?  Is there something totally kickass that I'm missing?

Second, and more on the topic of the post title, which powersets aren't cheezy and FOTM these days?  I was messing with Kin/Archery for a defender, just to see how it'd play and I dig kinetics.  Thing is that we're trying to basically have a group that's versatile and can play if one or two folks can't make it.  I know that CoH isn't a holy trinity game, and I've already told them that dedicated healing is not necessary...but how should I advise these guys when we're making toons tomorrow night in Skype?

Are there any inherently borked or shitty powesets to avoid?

As somebody who was playing CoH up until about 2 months ago, my knowledge dump goes something like this:

Gladiators are for the arena, some kind of gladiator mode where you spawn NPCs.  I never tried it.

If you're going to solo on the hero side, you're either really patient or you're playing a Scrapper or Blaster (riskier).   This becomes increasingly obvious as you reach level 20, where certain behind the scenes damage tables assert themselves fully.  For any other class, you'll be fighting for several minutes just to finish an encounter: That's massive grouping incentive.

I'd avoid force fields just because sonic resonance is better.  I'd avoid sonic resonance just because I hate having to individually buff everybody every x minutes.  I hear Fire tanks are unhappy.  Aside from that, it's hard to find a borked power set.

In my opinion there are no such things as borked or bad power sets. the Worst you could do would be to intentionally slot powers poorly.

But really, if you have a small group, the actual make-up of the members doesn't matter. For instance, I did the Manticore TF over the weekend. I don't know if the difficulty changes depending on the rating you pick at the Hero Corps Analyzer people, but we did more than half of the thing with 4 scrappers (2x Claw/Regen, 1x broadsword/regen, and my DM/SR) and 2 defenders (emp/archery and emp/electric?), and only 1 defender for the last 3 missions or so. I dare say it would have been easier with a defender powerset that had less direct healing, but more group damage mitigation.

Cool, that's how I was selling the game to 'em (no borked sets, etc.), so that's a good thing.

It's hard to believe that I got the 21 month vet rewards, but I did, honest!

ETA -- Geldon, I don't know what you mean about scrappers...I soloed mine to lv 35 with Dark/Regen, but I haven't fooled with him since ED went in, so maybe that has changed things.

I had two friends create (WAY back in the day) a grav controller and they sucked.  Saw something recently which seemed to indicate that grav controllers continue to suck.  Just sayin.

Ah sorry, that sentence was pretty whacked.  To clarify:

Good at soloing:
----------------------
Scrappers

Can solo, but it's risky:
-------------------------------
Blasters

Can solo, but it's slow:
-------------------------------
Controllers, Tankers

Can sometimes solo, but it's painfully slow and sometimes undoable:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Defenders.

It's an interesting testament to what Cryptic learned about the game that they made all the Villain archetypes as being capable of medium or better damage.

I currently have a 15 Grav/Kinetics controller. The only problem I have is that some of the powers only root stuff in place, which doesn't help much if they have a potent ranged attack.

That sounds rather like earth...which also has tons of grabs but very few immobilizes.

Well, I think my Grav controller works fairly well now, especially with dimension shift - it's like an "oh shit" button I can press when there's just too many mobs around. Works better if the mobs are not particularly weak, so that the power misses some mobs, so you still have something to attack.

The current post-40 FoTM for powerleveling is a Fire/Kinetics controller but you don't have to worry about that for a while if your group is starting from scratch.

How big is your group going to be?

There are basically three things your group needs to be able to do plus one optional one:

* Absorb or neutralize the alpha strike

* Heal/mitigate/reduce damage

* Damage

* Stealth (optional)

A Tanker is the standard way to handle an alpha strike but there are other ways as well including AE holds and Phantom Army. The key here is that you need some "overlap" so that if your primary alpha strike "handler" is not around you can still function as a group. So setups include (pick two):

Tanker
Controller with good/fast refreshing AE holds or Illusion Controller (for Phantom Army)
Scrapper with good defense set + enough damage reduction/mitigation or healing
etc.

You seem to understand the healing vs damage mitigation vs damage reduction stuff so I won't go into that here other than to say that in a tight knit group Transfusion from the Kinetics power set is a really nice heal if nobody wants Empathy. It doesn't work as well in a PUG because people scatter around and knockback is the norm but in group where people understand how to set themselves up to get the most benefit from it it's really nice. Also Transfusion is -Regen which is very handy against AVs if you are short on the damage side of things.

Which leads me to the damage part. You really only need enough to be able to take down AVs but if you have too many low damage power sets you may have trouble with them depending on the mission difficulty and other factors.

I would also recommend you have somebody that can either group stealth in some form or have somebody with a good individual steath + Recall Friend. This will make many boring and/or difficult/time consuming missions/TFs a lot easier to do.

Thanks Trippy!

We have five people right now, but sometimes only four.  More often than not we run with three or four...our fifth person seems to be cursed with horrid intarweb access issues.  My theory has always been that we want to maximize our lack of suck, while avoiding "required" classes, etc.  Last time I played, I soloed a scrapper to 35 before the grind started to hurt too badly, so I am not really a builder of teams or anything of that nature.  Since I've played scrappers, controllers and blasters before, I figured I'd try a defender -- tanks just don't appeal to me.

The rest of your post makes good sense, and after seeing Hal's new post, I think I may be forced to make a group that involves radiation somewhere in there...if only to exploit our frequently dead teammate.

Rad defenders are great - their debuffs are often the key in making an AV / GM fight a lot shorter. Some people go the whole hog and make rad / rad defs.

Dark Miasma is another good support power. It's got some good area debuffs, a heal, an AoE rez that can revive your entire team if it comes to that, a pet at the end...

About the only Def powerset I've heard bad things about is Forcefield. From memory, it deflects attacks but doesn't provide any healing or any other sort of resistance, meaning if you get hit you've got less ability to respond.

You should check out the player guide section on the official forum.

Yeah, I keep forgetting that the CoH forums aren't as bad as other official forums.  I do get a bit scared away by the spreadsheeters though.  I have decided that no matter what I take as a defender primary, I'm taking archery as the secondary...it seems nifty.

Oh, and gladiators - you pick your team of gladiators and can use them to fight other gladiators in the Arena / Pocket D. It's kinda like Pokemon, but with more supervillains.

As a diversion, it's quite fun, but nowhere near balanced.

Yeah the CoX forums are pretty nice to read, but man they get the spreadsheets going like a bunch of accountants at tax time.  Archery/Kin is a good combo, that is what I have (haven't leveled him much yet), especially since the archery attacks seem so endurance draining (I'm sure the other attacks are just as bad, but archery and AR were pretty bad for me).

I've still got you on my global friends, so give me a holler if I'm on and I'll come bash stuff with ya.  Have a tank, scrapper, and defender so far on Freedom.

I dunno, I remember the one time I went through a TF with a FF defender in the group, we were pretty uber. Don't underestimate the ability to not get hit. I found that force fields worked Very well with my scrapper's Super Reflexes. Remember, not getting hit is a form of damage mitigation too.

Hell, my scrapper already doesn't get hit very often at all. With someone putting FFs on him, the number of times he's hit I could almost count on my digits. Plus, force fields look cool as hell.

Force Fields are very good.  Sonic is overrated.  It's good, don't get me wrong, but there are two reasons I'd rather have force fields:
1) Secondary debuffs- Mostly these aren't too powerful, but if you're going up against 20 minions with sonic attacks, all those debuffs stack and suddenly your resists aren't all that great.  If only 3 of those attacks actually hit, you're in much better shape.
2) Unresistable damage. Almost no one takes it into account, mostly because it's way more common in PvP than PvE, but it does exist in both forms.  Scrapper bosses, for instance, can get criticals and I'm pretty sure those slice right through resists.

Could someone explain to me why Regen is still so popular, even at lower levels before you have IH and MoG? I mean, yeah, high, passive HP/End regen is nice, but aren't you VERY vulnerable to spikes in damage?

As I go through the game, I see Very few people with SR, and only a couple more with Dark Armor. I have no idea why - DA seems neat, and SR works perfectly well for me, either solo or in group missions.

I have been playing regen scrappers. Its easy to slot. Only 2 powers to take young gets you 2 heals. Ya, its braindead but easy to understand. Works well with kat or broad sword because they get an attack that buffs defence.

Except for Dark Regen and Soul Transfer DA is all toogles which means you have no defenses if they get dropped not to mention the Stamina drain trying to keep them up all the time.

Since you're grouping regularly, I'd suggest rad defender from my pool of hero experience. If you've got all that group-friendly stuff covered, a blaster is a great damage addition, I really enjoyed my energy/energy blaster in groups, though soloing was risky.

Energy blasters are messy.

Super Reflexes has the same publicity problem as Force Fields.  When you're getting hit, +DEF seems absolutely useless. 

I've liked Regen scrappers just because that's three less powers I had to get to double my endurance regeneration.  They're the most offensive of Scrappers in this regard.  Of course, the other Scrappers don't need to constantly be on their toes to heal themselves.  At least, not quite as much.

Yes, energy blasting is messy.  Knockback will not make friends of neither melee heroes nor AOE ones.  Still, I've got to appreciate the power of throwing back my foes with big gouts of energy.

Dark Defenders are :heart:, although they play like a hybrid defender and controller.  Their biggest problem is that people will not notice how effective they are until not a part of the team.

Just as energy blasters should know not to blast mobs across a room, people should know that when they have an energy blaster in the group, they shouldn't engage enemies in the middle of a room...I was pretty much a prick about that in the old days. I'd try to blast 'em into a corner, don't bitch if you didn't plan for it.

My big issue with DA was that I couldn't see my hero with a bunch of effects going.  Yeah, I know, it's silly, but kind of not too.

Not silly at all - CoH is ALL about the "Look".

This is so true, I finally hit on a look/powerset that I love. A scrapper and I don't like melee in this game as I have real targeting issues. But I love playing her. Ya, you gotta be styling in COX.

DA is much better now in showing your character, except for Cloak of Darkness.  Why they would give a power an effect like this in a game like this is beyond me.  It completely removes your character model and replaces it with a particle effect of hazy darkness.  FEH.

Otherwise, the armors are good at staying "behind" the character and not obscuring you.  Much better than they used to be.

DA is a lot of fun to play.  Combined with Dark Melee and slotted cleverly, it's arguably longer lasting than regen.  Once tried to take down a Dark/Dark Scrapper one on one.  With his two self heals and Dark Consumption, there was no emptying out either of this guy's bars.  It's a fun, tricky set to play.  Can be a real monster if built cleverly, both in PvE and PvP.

I learned the hard way that if you want a Scrapper that's really easy to screw up, make yourself a Spines/Dark Armor Scrapper.  Many of the powers are essential, but they suck enough endurance that you'll want Stamina.  If you don't pick just the right powers, you end up with major gaps in your offense or defense trying to satisfy that Stamina requirement.

Still, there's something to be said about a Scrapper with effective AOE.  Spines/DA might be the hardest to get right, but they're potentially the most powerful because of this.

Postscript:

I just remember the other thing that made Spines/Dark Armor so hard to get the right powers, you need Acrobatics for knockback protection.  So that's 6 power pool powers you'll want ASAP, or else you're getting buffeted around or running out of stamina.

No doubt...I made an archery/devices blaster just in case my group had a balance that needed direct damage....I put him in all of the samurai armor I could find minus the helmet.....he was a science origin...so I named him Dr. Engrish.  I am sure that if I play this toon  he'll get renamed.  Just ask Sky about being renamed for witty names.

In the meantime, I believe that Dr. Engrish may make an appearance on Victory this weekend.

In all seriousness, I'll play whatever class your group needs, I've played plenty of Scrappers and Blasters, and I was playing a Grav/Kin Controller up until recently. I've always wanted to try Tankers and Defenders, but like Controllers, they can be a bit boring solo.

I've still got a couple of toons on Victory from the last time we played there, plus I still have the SG Justice X if you want it back, not sure why you didn't pop back up when you resubscribed.

Dark Armor looks way better, you can see your costume threw all three armors and your speed power, the only time it is replaces is when you go stealth with cloak of darkness (which kinda is nice and bad...your stealthing but you also need that for defense) like Llave pointed out.

Supposedly everything was rebalanced and the endurance usage was decreased...I'm still running out at lower levels a lot in the pre-stamina phase.  About the only one I don't is my MasterMind, but that is because he is Robotics/Dark Misma, and I only shoot my pulse rifle once in a while and mainly heal (twilight grasp is awesome 6 slotted), debuff (love tar patch), and tell my robots what to attack.  I haven't gotten Darkest Night and Shadow Fall, but those are awesome...just that they are endurance hogs, and leadership is so much fun to run too.  So eventually I'll have to pick up fitness, but it is a bit less stressful than the other AT's I've noticed.

Tanks are fun, I rolled up a Invul/Axe and with all the powers I got from being 30 months+ veteran, I had an option of either sands of mu (which is the same as dark melee's shadow maul) or ghost slaying axe (bonus against undead, and does about the same damage as beheader) both have a real long recharge and can't be enhanced, but the attacks scale with you so you can use them all your levels. You also get a inherent ranged attack (natural has some cool throwing knives) which helps if you have some runners.  So at level 1 I had my initial attack (gash), brawl, ghost slaying axe, and throwing knives (my ranged attack).  It just seems a little bit better on starting up now.  Makes getting the outbreak badge a lot easier in group too.

Definitely do the Safeguard missions as soon as you guys can!  They rock, are fun, pretty easy to complete on standard level, and you get a cool temp power at the end (mine was a jet pack that last for 2 hours of use! there are a bunch of diffrent rewards).  They are way easier on the hero's side than on the villians side.  The villians mayhem mission is freaking nuts lately.  I was talking to Signe about that, and we both agreed it seems like a lesson in debt in those missions lately.  Not sure why, but they allways seem to spawn way higher and hit way freaking harder than the level they are listed at.

Wow, there's a ton of new stuff!  It's rather impressive really.

Also, bases are apparently hecka expensive.  I take it they're supposed to be one of those "work towards it with your SG" goals because buying prestige with influence is a pointless endeavor.

Yeah, pretty much.

If you all stick together from the beginning, though, you should have a modestly functional base almost right off the bat, and a decent one when you hit 20 to 25.

--GF

Someone, I thought CmdrSlack, asked if you can turn off the blurry background and make it crisp looking again... I kept meaning to check to see what it was called and finally did.  Sorry.  I have a terrible memory.  Anyway...  disable... umm... wait a sec... Depth of Field Effects!  HA!  I didn't fall asleep trying to remember!  (http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/domo-kun.gif)

It's nice that they give you the prestige for members up to 15.  That combined with trying to level my 30s scrapper into the 40s during this double xp weekend has given us a base with the startup power and control station, a basic tech crafting table, a power room that I stupidly built before I figured out that there was a startup object, a med room with a rezzer and some various items of decor that I've been adding when I get tired of fighting stuff.

My ultimate goal is to see if I can't keep our base within the free plot and still have the junk we'll want, which is basically crafting and teleporting and medical.

ETA -- Base design is almost more fun than the game....but I've always been a sucker for stuff like this.

The simple little game that COX has allways been is branching out. Not so much but the little that is done seems to be done well. You kinda of get fond of this Dev team. They may not do much at a time. But they give you precious little to complain about.

I'm really looking forward to the Invention system mixing up combat a bit.  I hope the secondary effects they include are significant enough to matter.

I think Cryptic has shown a lot of poise and precision in what they have done with CoH, from launch.

Like the capes? People bitched forever about the lack of capes. Cryptic insisted on taking their time to do them right. And what was the result? The capes are fucking ownage.

CoV seemed like a pretty good expansion/alternate game when I demoed it. I can't speak on Super Bases personally, but I am told they are quite slick.

The worst, and practically only complaint about the game is....the grind. Oh, the storied grind.

This XP Weekend deal? If they just made it permanate, I'd never quit. Even if I wasn't playing at the time, I would just let the subbed time build up. I want me some fucking sexy wings!

Oddly enough, while in a group with my high 30s scrapper, I noticed one silly thing about capes.  I was playing permacorpse in a particularly tough mission for a rad defender with a fallout fixation.  When you're laying there, dead, the capes still move a bit.  We chalked it up to drafty tech-themed bases.

There's a sort of auto-breeze effect with capes.  If you just stand totally still, they still blow in the wind a bit.

The capes have built-in micro fans to make sure you always look heroic.  (Or a minor gust enchantment if you're Magic in origin.)

Since there's not a great base FAQ that I can find (the one I found on the official forums is good for basic stuff), maybe one of y'all can answer this....I accidentally wasted prestige building a power room before it was needed.  I expect that I'll need it sooner or later so no biggie, I guess.  Could I demolish it and get the dough back or does that only work for selling items from the base?

Also, can I simply sell back a worktable, get the arcane version, use it, then sell it and put back the original table?

The only way you can lose prestige is paying rent. If you delete the room you'll get the money back. You will lose the salvage that went into personal items, and anything that was in a container when you deleted it.

Keep in mind that the beginner power/control generator will give you enough to run one basic worktable and two med rings or teleporters. Most people tend to opt for the teleporters. You can combine it with the formal power/control setups and it's actually rather efficient provided you have the plot space. You can't get all the zones up and running on a single plot but you can get quite a few of them. If you only have one teleporter make it go to Steel Canyon and Kings Row, that way you have access to the green line (Steel drops you near it) and both the yellow line and Pocket D in KR.

--GF

Well, sweet! I could totally use the spare 50k that I spent on the power room I don't currently need.

So since I have this thread going, I'll just ask this here....

I finally hit lv 40 on my first hero ever.  The trainer told me I had access to the epic pools, but I see no way to choose said epic pool.  Am I missing something here?  I'm going to do some looking 'round on the official forums and all that, but I'm rather confused as to how to go about getting this choice of epic pools.

EDIT -- NM, apparently it's lv 41...so that's rather weak that the damn trainer told me at lv 40.  Good thing it's still double xp weekend, I guess....now to catass one more level. 

Now my stupid mission is to figure out how the hell to find Rikti in the damn sewers.  That's the last time I take a security chief mission.  There's still no way to drop missions, right?

Well, the epic pools become "available" at 40, but 40 isn't a "new power" level.  You don't pick a new power until 41.

So yeah, little confusing that they mention it at 40.

You can drop one mission every week.

Go back to (or call) the contact. Then select "drop the current mission from the contact".

Just make sure to talk to the security chief _first_. Otherwise you drop the leg of the mission that involves going to talk the security chief, rather than the leg of the mission that involves dying horribly while chipping down a number one or two at a time and having to run all the way back through multiple zones.

--GF

It was actually really painless...I went into the Skyway sewers, went into the abandoned sewers from there, plowed thru a bunch of hydras that were a level or two lower than me, found a bunch of wimpy rikti, took them out, then ran back out.

Once I realized that I needed to go an extra sewer level down (abandoned) it wasn't too bad.  The mission directions could add that in and make it a bit easier, IMO.

Goddamned scrappers ;)

So I finally crafted and placed a teleporter.  I assume that when it tells me I need to explore possible locations to find beacon materials that I basically need to get all of the exploration badges for the desired destination zones?

Yep - anyone in your SG can do it (maybe in SG mode?) to get the badge and give your SG the beacon.

Yes they have to be in SG mode when they get the badge.

Not entirely true!

You can actually just revisit the exploration locations in SG mode, if you already have the badges.

However, it's easier when you don't have the badge because then you know when the game has credited you for finding one of them.

--GF

Ugh, looks like I'll have to actually use a spoiler site to figure out where my lv 40 has and hasn't been and then redo those places for SC and KR.

One last, stupid question that I can't seem to find an answer for on the official forums.  If I move a room, do the contents go with it or do I need to remove and replace the contents before and after moving?

For instance, I want to move my teleporter room, but would like to not wait 'till I have an extra 150k prestige banked up to build a second room, move the junk inside the first room, then delete the first room.

EDIT -- Never mind.  I tried moving a less crucial room.  Apparently you can't move rooms with contents.  I guess this means I'm waiting a few hours till I invite one of my friend's alts to the SG and have the prestige to build a tiny throwaway room.

Have you got the map patch (http://www.vidiotmaps.com/downloads.php) from vidiotmaps.com? It makes it a lot easier to get at least in the general area of the exploration badges by looking at the map.

Those exploration badges are a bit ridiculous. I don't see how you could get enough for teleporters without spoilers, and I hate when a game does that.

You can move a room with contents.

However, the check for "stuff that blocks doorways" is a little overzealous when you're moving, so you might have to get rid of decorations near the walls before it'll take.

--GF