Kind of Upset with CoH

[Morfiend]

Yeah, Hard to believe huh? But I have noticed a few things as I got my characters higher levels.

First is that character power vs monster power. Whe I was a strapping young hero, I had no problems running in to a group of even con villians and woop some ass. As you go up in levels it seems monsters really go up in power while my help is getting weeker in a ratio. With my blaster I can no longer take down groups of even cons. No way. Also, I have trouble with midem to large sized groups of Green/greys. This sucks. Part of what drew me to this game was the ability to solo, and kick ass, but as I level more and more I FORCED to group, just to kill stuff, and its getting back to the same old same old MMOG style, pull, mez/root, kill one at a time. I dont like it. I dont like it at all.

On top of this disturbing fact, is the Hasten nerf. Both my characters used hasten a LOT. I have a regen/hasten scrapper, and also a Assault blaster. Both of these classes have been hit fairly hard with the nerf. Combine that with how much harder it is to kill stuff, and how much more downtime there is at mid levels. The game is really not fun for me right now.

Maybe I need to reroll to some thing else, Im not sure. Some advise would be helpfull. It just seems that after lvl 10 or so, the fun starts going out of the game, and the grind comes on full swing.

Advice anyone?

[WayAbvPar]

I am still having a blast. No characters with Hasten, so that doesn't bother me. As far as soloing goes, I think it gets tougher as a melee character as you level. As a blaster, I can solo almost at will- I can die if I screw up, not if I am paying attention. Hover + Sniper Shot = near immunity. It is slower than wading in and beating ass, but it is safer.

[Morfiend]

Hover + Sniper Shot = near immunity.

Hummm. thats odd, thats how I always get killed. I have sniper with 2 DO damage, and I still do less than half life to a yellow leutenant. and after my first shot, I get constantly interupted if I try and do sniper again.

[Riggswolfe]

I never used Hasten either so the "nerf" is no big deal to me. I also don't have snipe as I'm an AOE blaster variant. Still I don't find the game all that difficult even in the early 20s.

[schild]

It seems that all the people who enjoyed the game up til now and are now int he camp bitching about CoH seem to be people who used Hasten. I hated hasten and I'm beginning to think those threads and threads full of complaints over at the CoH boards are munchkins (I assume many of you remember that term).

[Riggswolfe]

Yes, though I'd never heard the term applied to MMORPGs. In these games they're called power gamers. Heh.

[Morfiend]

Im not so much complaining about Hasten, I agree, when a skill is a must have for every one, then it is over powered. A few builds did make their characters around Hasten, and those people have a ligitimate gripe.

I am more upset by the shift in power I see once in to the teens. What was a fast paced fun combat seems to be turning more in to the generic group baised Pull/Mez/Kill rut. There is a reason for this, as it works, but for the solo player, its really not so fun.

Basiclly it feel like my characters are actually getting weeker compaired to mobs of their same lavel. Its not a fun feeling.

If a low level character can take out a group of 3 equil level mobs with no downtime. A lvl 15 should be able to take out a group of 3 equil level mobs with no downtime. Pure and simple. Thats my gripe.

[schild]

My martial arts scrapper can take out 5 even level Tsoo and 1 level above sorceror with no downtime. He's level 16.

EDIT: That's with 2 defense buffs (combat jumping, agility [or something like that])

[Aslan]

Hover + Sniper Shot = near immunity. It is slower than wading in and beating ass, but it is safer.

Here's what I noticed last night, there is no more near immunity.  I was in Talos sniping warriors and their range has been increased to that of my sniper blast.  No longer was I able to get out of range and snipe.  It's pretty frustrating.  I tried it several times and they never had a problem shooting me from sniper range.  Meh.

[Xilren's Twin]

What level are you Morph?

I just hit 15 last night and am still moving along fine against even, yellow and orange stuff as a defender.  My main problem is im still an endurance hog even with some DO reducers in my main attacks and hurricane.  Typically, I can take out 2-3 even minions and yellow lt without taking a scratch but am out of end by the end of the fight; sometimes before, but so long as the yellows/orange is dead by then i can just wait it out with my mother nature defenses and plink away as i gain end back.  I dont think I can die to whites with hurricane up so long as they are close to me.  I havent even gotten sniper shot yet but can't wait til i have it.

I had debated taking Hasten but to be honest that would only make my endurance problems worse, not better.

Xilren

[Sky]

I'm going to have to start playing my 'main' a little, heh. I didn't have Hasten, actually none of the patch notes were directed my way (whew).

But I do a bit of hover sniping bosses when nobody's around, so the increased range is troubling in a way. Hover sniping is incredibly lame and boring, but if mobs have their ranges increased it has deep repercussions across the entire game that I don't think are worth nerfing snipe (indeed, a better solution is decreasing snipe range). Just means more time you will be in range of enemies when you can't fire back (unless you have a snipe shot, which will probably be interrupted). I just don't see affecting the entire game in a negative way to nerf one power type.

Note, unlike Hasten users, I don't see much problem nerfing out snipe, even though that probably means my high level soloing is dust as a blaster. My 'main' is 16th level and is still playing pretty much like he has all along, with the main difference being the whole 'stay out of melee' thing, which I was surprised didn't kick in earlier, honestly, since blasters are roughly analagous to wizards, who are traditionally fragile to offset their damage output.

[Aslan]

Generally, I liked using hover snipe for bosses, or higher level characters.  Move out of range, give them a build-up+aim+zapp shot, then drop down closer to slam a built-up lighting bolt on him, then fly out of range to snipe again.  That usually finishes them.  It's slow, and not really that useful for powerlevelling, but it was nice to be able to solo hunting missions...

[DarkDryad]

I have also only noticed the range increase on levels 2x up as the lower level critters still have the same range  from what I saw. I havent run in to too much of a trouble yet  but we shall see tonight.. right As? Im hoping it may have been an isolated thing but fear it isnt.

[WayAbvPar]

Hover + Sniper Shot = near immunity. It is slower than wading in and beating ass, but it is safer.

Here's what I noticed last night, there is no more near immunity.  I was in Talos sniping warriors and their range has been increased to that of my sniper blast.  No longer was I able to get out of range and snipe.  It's pretty frustrating.  I tried it several times and they never had a problem shooting me from sniper range.  Meh.

Did they increase range on the mobs in the patch? My biggest concern was that the boss's underlings could shoot me still- I can usually get off buildup-sniper, drop to Power thrust (or whatever the big hitting ranged Energy attack is called), then hover higher for another Sniper attack (timed after the mob shoots me). If it is only the boss that can hit me, I can live with it, but if ALL of the mobs can reach me in sniper range, that is teh sux.

[Aslan]

As near as I could tell in the few times I did it, all the ranged mobs can reach you at sniper range.  My zapp is an interruptable power, and I could hardly get it off last night because I kept getting pegged.  And I was at maximum sniper range...I also checked the patch notes, but didn't see anything specifically related to mob range increase.  I will probably test it out again tonight, but it certainly seems everything with a gun can hit you at long range now...

[Morfiend]

I am lvl 12 with my Blaster. But I think I am goign to shelve him for a while. Its just to frustrating to play right now.

My girlfriend bought the game last night, So I think I will build up a scrapper to go along with her tank.

Any way. Do any of you have any advice n a Scrapper?

I have a Katana Regen scrapper, but he is not very fun. I have a low level Spines Regen but he misses so much, its driving me nuts.

I was thinking of going dark/dark srapper, any one know how this will work out?

[CmdrSlack]

Dark melee doesn't seem to be an endurance hog YET.  Granted, my lowbie scrapper is about lv 5.

I have regen for his secondary pool, and I'm going to hang onto it, regardless of what they've done to hasten.  

I've heard that spines is an incredibly versatile powerset, and perhaps that there's even a limited ranged attack with em.

I just don't like how they look.  I mean they're cool, but I like the dark melee "flurry of asswhupping....but evil" power.  I forget what it's called, but you can get it at lv 2.  And should, if you're not a total tard.

EDIT -- Forgot to add that I have heard dark armor sucks endurance all day long.  Since my build for a dark melee scrapper was to not run out of end. hella fast, I've chosen regen for that reason.

[schild]

Darth errrrrrrrrrrm, Dark Maul I believe. Dark Melee is probably my favorite melee powerset followed closely by the dark blast secondary for defenders.

[DarkDryad]

Dark melee doesn't seem to be an endurance hog YET.  Granted, my lowbie scrapper is about lv 5.

I have regen for his secondary pool, and I'm going to hang onto it, regardless of what they've done to hasten.  

I've heard that spines is an incredibly versatile powerset, and perhaps that there's even a limited ranged attack with em.

I just don't like how they look.  I mean they're cool, but I like the dark melee "flurry of asswhupping....but evil" power.  I forget what it's called, but you can get it at lv 2.  And should, if you're not a total tard.

EDIT -- Forgot to add that I have heard dark armor sucks endurance all day long.  Since my build for a dark melee scrapper was to not run out of end. hella fast, I've chosen regen for that reason.

Dark armor is an end hog untill you socket it up some. I had the beta DD using it as a claws/dark scrapper and my end rarely got below half after socketing

[stray]

Dark Melee is my favorite too. Fast and fun. Seems it's more accurate than others too, except Claws (that's probably all in my head tho). My secondary is Reflexes, but I might change to Invuln and say to hell with defense. Defense seems like a waste of time for this character.

[Murgos]

I've never exploited hover snipe and I have always been able to solo up to a single orange boss.  In fact at level 19 I just recently soloed a red con level 20 boss with an orange minion, hit and run works.  I also have almost no problem soloing groups of up to 6 white con minions or one yellow lt and 3 minions.  Greens?  Psah, all day long.

I have Hover well buffed with +def and at least 4 DO +damage in each of my three main attacks with -recharge in my fastest attacks.  You know that crappy little damage attack in the first slot on blasters?  Well, used properly its ridiculously effective, I can launch it twice in the same amount of time as my next closest attack and it's damage is quite reasonable.  Two shots of it and one of the next higher attack will drop a white con.  One sniper shot and one medium shot and two of the fast ones will drop a yellow lt, those can all be accomplished in less than 10 seconds leaving me free to take my time with the whites, who because of the +def can barely hit me (except gunners, they seem to have better aim so they are generally priority after any lt/boss).

The knockback of energy primary helps a GREAT deal in battling oranges and highers, there is exactly enough time to launch a sniper attack while they are standing up and preparing to fire.  So I cycle my attacks until the opportunity presents itself and then mash the sniper key, generally thats all she wrote.

My biggest problem currently is lack of END, I have many times been left moping up the white minions having to rely on only my weakest attacks because im about out and as I would rather not have to spread -end around ALL my powers (thus making them less effective in thier primary roll, damage) I am seriously considering taking the fitness line to get the end regen.

So I guess my advice to blasters is that damage powers should be treated as such, anything you have socketed in there thats not doing damage (ether more of it or faster) you should seriously consider replacing and as a blaster the majority of your enhancement slots should be devoted to your damage powers, it's what you do.  The next concern should be survival so any +def you can do, do it also, look into any power that reduces opponent accuracy.  After you have tweaked those two aspects then start worrying about tertiary goals like travel or what-have-you.

I'm not sayign my method is optimal but I have no problem soloing even fron't loaded missions.  And no, I don't have build-up either.

Think about this, If I have an attack that does 40 damage then one DO only makes it 48 damage but 5 DO's doubles the damage to 80.  Thats one less shot you need to take and a whole recycle time your saving whch makes +DAMAGE far more effective a use of a slot than almost anything else.  It's better than end reduction, you only need half as many shots greatly saving endurance, it's better than + recycle time I don't know how many enhancers you would need to make a power 50% faster but I'm sure it's lots.  The only arguement that can reallistically made is +acc, afterall missing one or two shots can be the difference between life and death, but with +25% acc inspirations dropping like candy I can think of better ways to use my enhancement slots.

[Sky]

Don't talk about how to effectively stack for damage if you don't have build up! :) That's maybe the most useful thing when a tough lt/boss is in your sights.

I've mentioned I'm running two builds of the same template, energy/energy blaster. Playing the first with a bias toward damage slotting, the other guy is trying different paths of enhancement.

So far each is as effective as the other, but play slightly differently. Heck, using assist properly, I usually find that my damage biased character is overdamaging a lot of mobs, meaning the mob is going down so fast that high damage isn't as important as fast, low damage and accurate shots.

Once I get a few more slots on the initial energy ranged attack I'm also going to slot it for knockback, because I make as much use of snipe in combat as possible (snipe socketed for end and recharge reduction).

Things may change later on (and that's the nice thing, you can always resocket in a different configuration), but <20 they are both quite effective, I wouldn't say either is 'right' or 'wrong'.

[Murgos]

Don't talk about how to effectively stack for damage if you don't have build up! :) That's maybe the most useful thing when a tough lt/boss is in your sights.

I had build-up on my level 16 en/en blaster in beta.  I've posted a couple of times now about my decision to go with devices rather than en manip.  Basically my thinking is not missing >> momentary higher damage.  Considering I hit purples 90% of the time making much more effective in groups slightly above me I think it was a good trade off.  Also, not missing has the effect of reproduceable effects, theres no wild variations in my effectiveness.  With my beta char if I was taking on a group with a high orange/red boss or multiple lt's with minion back-up if I missed a shot early on I had nothing to do but run for it and try again in a minute.  This character with the target-drone pours on heavy continuous fire (being able to use slots for +dam vice +acc) and makes most encounters a smoother more predictable fight.

I guess the general point is, Morphiend is crazy, blasters are in no way underpowered.  With even only semi-intelligent power selection and enhancing they are every-bit as effective solo and in groups at level 20 as at level 6.