The News Thread

[UnSub]

Thanks, I didn't notice that when I quit out of CoV and it pre-updated.

Glad I could help.

[Sky]

                              

                     

                              
 

[geldonyetich]

Are you making a confession?

[Sky]

MAGIC HAPPY LOVE TIME FOR ALL FRIENDS TO HAPPY

[Furiously]

Go buy WOW Butters.

[Glazius]

Issue 8 is live.

Forums promptly start wondering what's taking issue 9 so long.

Click on the train gates while they're open and they still work.

You get a book icon by a contact's name if you have a storyarc in progress - red for mini-arcs, yellow for full arcs. You can have any number of mini-arcs but only two full ones.

Cryptic attempts to provoke intellectual property lawsuits from everyone who's ever made a cop show and/or movie.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

--GF

[Sky]

Cool. I'll also report anything noteworthy. Or not.

Level 28! Amazing and dizzying new heights of avatard power!

That said I kinda ran out of things to take and dipped into the speed/health/stamina pool. I never really need those, though. Maybe leadership, but the gains are kinda tiny, aren't they? *shrug* MM's rock.

[geldonyetich]

Live?  Hrmph, and here I was hearing that today would just be a big maintenence day.  Those developers do love to surprise their players, don't they? 

Yes, I've been resubbed to this game lately.

[Lantyssa]

That said I kinda ran out of things to take and dipped into the speed/health/stamina pool. I never really need those, though. Maybe leadership, but the gains are kinda tiny, aren't they? *shrug* MM's rock.

I think Assault and maybe eventually Tactics are worth it for the Mastermind.  Mine certainly has the endurance for it, and it helps all the minions.

[Sky]

I have to struggle to run out of endurance on my merc/traps MM. I'm loaded with all three merc attack powers, though. I'd probably drop at least the AoE, if not the burst, but keep the slug if I respec ever. But if I only use slug (as usual), I'm never under half end. Even having to call in new mercs, drop traps, etc doesn't dent it too badly and nothing is slotted for end reduction. Overall, it's a nice change from my CoH blaster who was always running out of end. and getting slaughtered in solo play.

[Lantyssa]

I have none of the Mastermind attack powers.  My bots do a lot more damage than me so it is not worth the power slots.  I can easily out-heal the damage of any encounter where having the attacks would make a difference.

[rk47]

Keep the slug, the knockback is decent as well as dmg is worth around your three lowest merc attack combined in one round. (If you slot it for dmg)
I didn't really see what the fuss is about when a mastermind helps to add dps a bit. Just don't pick up other attacks like grenade & burst, they're too low dmg to be worth it and AoE is just gonna get aggro on your butt.

[Sky]

Burst was helpful at low levels, but the grenade is just a bit too draining on endurance to be worth a little cheap crowd control. Slug is a great attack for pulling, for runners, for a decent dps boost (it's about half the damage of my commando's current big attack, with just one damage SO). I was going to remove some slots from the soldiers, but I might keep all six and slot for accuracy (I like the 3 SO heal slots for the medic). I'm on the fence with the specops guys, might just leave them 2 damage SOs and slot up some traps for now. I have my triage beacon 6 slotted, 3 recharge and 3 heals, but I rarely use it thanks to the medic.

I can easily out-heal the damage of any encounter where having the attacks would make a difference.

I don't understand what you mean.

[rk47]

I think he meant instead of doing dmg, he bought more time for his minions to sustain more dmg by shooting 'heals' instead of 'damage'
but his logic doesn't mean he can kill faster. He just equates it to having heals to cover up for extended fights when an attack power would've shortened it.

[Trippy]

She.

[Sky]

Right. Ok, I'll rephrase. I understand that you mean you can heal rather than cause damage for better effect in tougher fights. What build are you with robots that you can heal them? Being merc/traps, I have triage beacon, but I rarely use it and it doesn't have a huge heal boost, it just augments the medic.

As an aside: giving the medic the shortest range gun is really annoying, since he tends to draw aggro by being the closest to the mob clusters and I have to keep a seperate macro to keep heeling him back out of aggro range. Stupid design idea imo.

[geldonyetich]

Personally, I thought that the Force Field Generator, 3 slotted with additional defense buff, was a lot more useful than the Triage Beacon.   But the Triage Beacon is a lot more subtle.  I also favored the tactic of putting all my henchmen into bodyguard mode and opening up with the AOE attack, which resulted in the damage getting nicely distributed between me and all my henchies.  But then, I had a PBAOE heal which probably healed a lot faster than Triage Beacon, so I could get away with that.

[Sky]

Are you guys being intentionally vague? An AoE heal from /what/? :P

My force field generator is 2 slotted for defense, but it's pretty meh. I keep it up 'just because', mostly. Don't notice it doing much.

[Stormwaltz]

Are you guys being intentionally vague? An AoE heal from /what/? :P

Triage Beacon?

EDIT: Meh, never come in on a conversation in progress...

[Glazius]

Are you guys being intentionally vague? An AoE heal from /what/? :P

Twilight Grasp.

To-hit attack that debuffs accuracy, damage, and regen and launches a PBAoE heal around yourself.

--GF

[geldonyetich]

Yeah, having /Dark secondary renders a Mastermind one heck of a tank thanks to Twilight Grasp and the ranged AOE debuffs.

I'm not sure what the base defense of the force field generator is, but if you've ever noticed a big difference in your survival from popping a single defense inspirations then you've a good idea what difference it can make.  It's probably somewhere between a 12.5%-33% base enhancable to about double of that with 3 SOs.

[Sky]

Ah, it sounded like you meant you had an AoE heal with a /traps MM.

Dark is a cool secondary, just doesn't work with Croaker (who is a soldier-type). I rolled up an undead guy with undead/dark, but those zombies are sooo sloooow moving. I'll probably roll another MM because they are cool soloers and there is a decent variety with different subsets. I have a few alts (of course, it's CoX!), undead/dark, robots/traps, ninja/arrow and a thug/traps I just rolled on another server (modelled after the Freaks).

[Lantyssa]

Everything has pretty much been said for me by this point, but to put it in my own words here you go.  I am Robots/Dark as Glazius said.  Sorry for any confusion.

I can shorten the fights by taking attacks, or I can keep my robots alive indefinately by healing.  My DPS is lower of course, although my survivability greatly increases.  The enemies die either way and saving ten seconds is really not a big deal to me.  I do not know if Traps has as effective mitigation powers as Dark, however I find focusing only on minion powers and secondaries works well, plus it is fun because I have so many tricks besides "Lantyssa smash!".

[Sky]

I don't focus on attack powers. I took them at a low level, hoping they'd issue a respec at some point so I could alter them later. They got me through the early levels where it was a significant portion of my total dps. My current build (from memory, might be a bit off) is:

Soldiers - 3 heal (180 heal at lvl 28), 3 dam (changing to 3acc or moving these slots)
SpecOps - 3 dam, 2 acc, 1 immobilize
Commando - 3 dam (still opening slots on him)
Caltrops - 1 recharge, 1 slow
Triage Beacon - 3 recharge, 3 heal
Acid Mortar - 2 recharge, 2 debuff
Poison Trap - 2 recharge, 2 hold
Force Field Gen - 2 defense

Burst, Slug, Grenade, Equip Merc, Web Grenade all single slotted. Power pools: Hover, Fly, Swift all single slotted.

So yeah, I'm mostly slotted into my troops and secondaries. Acid mortar is real nice when facing higher level mobs, because of the level difference of the lower level mercs. Poison trap I'm iffy on, I wish the hold were longer and the other secondaries seem weak. I'm not sure what you mean by mitigation, but traps has some decent crowd control, debuff and dots and really makes a huge difference in battles.

[Llava]

If you're doing any PvP, Poison Trap is very nice.

Or it is on my Ninja/Poison MM, but the available powers differ so YMMV.

[Sky]

Yeah, it's different for Traps.

[Glazius]

So, this year's holiday event is on Test.

In addition to the two free powers (debt protection and a one-time gift for somebody which does HAPPY HOLIDAYS damage), there's a promised return of last year's present hunt (later), a happy fun ski chalet floating in the void by Pocket D with real working snow (sadly no powerups for /em backflip shooting off a high ridge), and a mission to save next year, because the Red Caps will steal anything that's not nailed down.

The mission map is a thing of beauty, a snowed-over Croatoa with icy rivers and ponds, where you hunt snowbeasts for a key to open the door to an ice cave. You get your pick from four rewards, fur-trimmed gloves and boots and the temp powers "Golden Rings" (lasts 12 days, guess how many show up in the hold animation) and "Renewal of Light" (a blue Rise of the Phoenix, lasts 8 days). Each has its own badge. Collect them all! (still no word on what if anything you get from collecting them all)

--GF

[Trippy]

Is there anything you can get (costume pieces, temp powers, etc.) on the regular servers?

[Glazius]

Is there anything you can get (costume pieces, temp powers, etc.) on the regular servers?

So, this year's holiday event is on Test.

So, uh, no? Aside from the metric ton of stuff they introduced with I8 already, that is.

--GF

[Trippy]

Is there anything you can get (costume pieces, temp powers, etc.) on the regular servers?

So, this year's holiday event is on Test.

So, uh, no? Aside from the metric ton of stuff they introduced with I8 already, that is.

--GF

Yes I know the event you described was on Test. I was wondering if there was other special stuff going on on the regular servers. They did in the past so that's why I asked.

[Glazius]

Is there anything you can get (costume pieces, temp powers, etc.) on the regular servers?

So, this year's holiday event is on Test.

So, uh, no? Aside from the metric ton of stuff they introduced with I8 already, that is.

--GF

Yes I know the event you described was on Test. I was wondering if there was other special stuff going on on the regular servers. They did in the past so that's why I asked.

No, there's nothing special going on on the regular servers, though Granny Beldam and Annah are back if you have costume bits you wanted to turn in.

--GF

[Typhon]

are trenchcoats in the game?

[hal]

are trenchcoats in the game?

yes

[UnSub]

are trenchcoats in the game?

yes

It is now City of Wings and Trenchcoats.

[Glazius]

are trenchcoats in the game?

yes

It is now City of Wings and Trenchcoats.

And bunnygirls.

Don't forget the bunnygirls.

--GF