City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

[SvZurich]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Okay, allow me to explain how it affects me on my main character, Dr. Kara Lokison.

 

In I4, Kara lived up to her Supergirl concept. 90% capped resists to smashing, lethal, elemental, and energy attacks. 44% resists to Toxic. 0% to Psy. I could take on all the aggro (save for what blasters pulled off of me) and keep my team alive. I could also solo my missions easily and fight +6s for stress relief as each fight took 30 minutes with my missing and reduced damage. It was overpowered in the eyes of some, perfect in my eyes, and fun.

 

In I5, I had to do a major build overhaul. Now I have up to 86% resists to smashing and lethal, 31% to energy/elemental/toxic, and still 0% to psy. Taunt's effectiveness is greatly reduced, but I can still hold much of the aggro with my punchvoke/gauntet. I need a lot of help to survive when tanking, but I can do it. Hell, people still tell me I am one of the best tanks they have teamed with, and that feels great. Keep in mind, I mostly solo and take the few times I do tank VERY SERIOUSLY. I am still labeled an Invulnerable tanker.

 

With this, I have to rearrange many of my slots, as I had 6 slotted some resistances, defenses, and attacks (using Rage for ACC). I now come up with roughly 65% resistance to Smashing and Lethal (cap is still 90%, just can't reach it without Unstoppable), and now less than 27% resistance to Toxic/Elemental/Energy. For my attacks I added in more endurance reduction AND ACC. I also slotted up my passive resistances to get that <27%. I took the slots from Health, Stamina, Hasten, Conserve Power, Unyielding, and Temporary Invincibility. I even considered dropping Hasten altogether and replacing with either Tough Hide (which I oppose as it is Def instead of Res and only 5%) or Hover. I still prefer to keep hasten to speed up Unstoppable , Conserve Power, and Dull Pain's recharge.

 

I am still coming up with weaker resists to Smashing and Lethal than Fire tankers, now have lost much of my offense, and the health regen I relied upon to recover the damage that I can no longer resist. I will now take on much more damage when trying to live up to the defined role of a tanker while losing the very things I relied upon to survive in I5 (regen and hitting harder).

 

This is my rough build for Kara now. She is not Invulnerable in anything EXCEPT name alone. Indeed, at this point the Devs should just do away with tankers and combine them with scrappers. If my very ability to take damage for the team is to be greatly reduced, then I can't tank.

 

Exported from version 1.5B of CoH Planner

http://joechott.com/coh

 

Archetype: Tanker

Primary Powers - Ranged : Invulnerability

Secondary Powers - Support : Super Strength

 

01 : Jab dam(01)

01 : Temp Invulnerability endred(01) damres(3) damres(3) damres(5)

02 : Dull Pain recred(02) recred(7) recred(13) hel(11) hel(5) hel(7)

04 : Taunt recred(04)

06 : Air Superiority dam(06)

08 : Unyielding endred(08) damres(9) damres(9) damres(11)

10 : Hurdle jmp(10)

12 : Haymaker acc(12) endred(13) endred(15) dam(15) dam(17) dam(17)

14 : Fly endred(14) fltspd(33) fltspd(33) fltspd(33)

16 : Health hel(16) hel(42) hel(43)

18 : Invincibility defbuf(18) defbuf(19) defbuf(19) thtbuf(34) thtbuf(34) tntdur(34)

20 : Stamina endrec(20) endrec(21) endrec(21)

22 : Knockout Blow endred(22) endred(29) acc(27) dam(25) dam(23) dam(23)

24 : Hasten recred(24) recred(25) recred(27)

26 : Hand Clap endred(26) disdur(29) disdur(31) disdur(31)

28 : Rage recred(28) thtbuf(31) thtbuf(36) recred(43) recred(43) endred(45)

30 : Teleport Foe endred(30) rng(36) rng(46)

32 : Unstoppable damres(32) recred(36) recred(37) recred(37) endrec(37) endrec(39)

35 : Resist Energies damres(35) damres(45) damres(46)

38 : Foot Stomp endred(38) endred(39) acc(39) dam(40) dam(40) dam(40)

41 : Conserve Power recred(41) recred(42) recred(42)

44 : Resist Elements damres(44) damres(45) damres(46)

47 : Laser Beam Eyes defdbf(47) acc(48) dam(48) dam(48) dam(50)

49 : Resist Physical Damage damres(49) damres(50) damres(50)

 

-------------------------------------------

 

01 : Brawl enhancement(01)

01 : Sprint enhancement(01)

02 : Rest enhancement(02)

 

I say less than on the resist numbers as there is a slight SO % loss on the third slot. Learning I have to respec less than a month AFTER Statesman said no more major changes leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. /spits

 

As good as this build might look to someone who does not tank, remember that tanks are supposed to take hits for others and hold aggro. I do not have holds, pets, multiple ranged attacks, more than one AOE (PBAOE at that, capped at 10 foes instead of 16), or anything else. Now keep in mind that even the so called squishies can get damage resistance in their epics.

 

The Devs really should just combine the Tankers and Scrappers, as they have done in CoV.

[MrWolf]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Yeah, I hate to think what this means for my dark/elec/elec defender, my kat/regen scrapper, my fire/axe tank...

 

... basically, slotting more than 3 SOs in any power of any given type is virtually worthless.

 

My trollers make it out okay, oddly enough.

 

Fire Shield, Plasma Shield, Hasten, Stamina, Dull Pain, nukes, Darkest Night,

Radiation Infection (well, that's not AS hard hit since you can go 3 def debuff and 3 tohit debuff)... Fast Healing, Integration, Dark Embrace, Obsidian Shield, Murky Cloud, Temp Invulnerability, Force of Nature, Rain of Fire, the list goes on.

 

And sorry, but scrappers and blasters very much benefited from slotting all damage or acc/5 dam. Faster killing = less damage coming in.

 

 

 

And seriously, don't expect any caveats about any powers. The numbers are telling, and they are BAD. I probably shouldn't say what they are yet.

 

Don't count on any caveats.

 

And I had finally gotten happy about my spine/dark's end use in long fights, too.

 

Too bad I've seen reports of how it is ... and it's not looking good for dark armor (again).

 

Why am I not surprised....

[SvZurich]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Especially sad since Dark Armor just replaced tanker Invulnerability in overall resistance.

 

I want the power levels raised, not lowered every few months!

 

Invuln tankers also benefitted from slotting attacks. Kara had 6 Damage in Haymaker, and 1 End Red and 5 Damage in KO Blow and Foot Stomp. I was even considering switching those to 6 Damage once I finished 6 slotting Conserve Power.

 

As I said to my friends on Thursday, with the hits Kara has taken to her primary, I refuse to make an Invuln Brute in CoV.

 

My change in I5 was to slot for damage and health to take less damage and heal the extra damage taken. On my prelim reaction build, well, I'll be slightly more accurate in case I am hit with ACC Debuffs.

 

:help: :help:

[garou]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Maybe I should have put the caveat that, for some reason, my blasters and scrappers never seemed to benefit much from having more than 2 SOs of any given type slotted in a power. Now, 2 Dmg, 2 Acc, Recharge and END did fairly well, but 6 DMG always struck me as having too many eggs in one basket (and, sure enough, I missed a lot - which drew aggro and lots of pain).

 

YMMV.

 

Maybe the devs want more casual players?

[James Gillen]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Maybe the devs want more casual players?

 

Maybe. When I started out with a Tank I put a slot on Accuracy, a slot in Damage, then a Slot in Disorient (for Jab) and then another slot for Endurance Reduction, etc. That was because I thought the only way you could accumulate was by combining enhancements in one slot; I didn't KNOW you could devote two or more to the same thing. Then I found out from the veterans that I was doing it "wrong."

 

Apparently that's the way the developers want it done though...

 

JG

[MrWolf]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Well, sure, 6 damage doesn't work as a blaster unless you have Targeting Drone to give you accuracy... or Tactics... although blasters's bonuses to Tactics aren't as good as defenders.

 

1 acc 5 damage has been standard slotting pretty much since the first month of play, and probably in the beta before that - don't know, I wasn't in the beta.

 

I for one am just getting tired of revising my toons every 3 months.

 

I expect even more nerfs to come, though, after this. I'm just getting very cynical.

 

It's like the fun game I stumbled into in issue 1, 2, 3, 4... well, those were just our "tuning" the game they REALLY wanted us to be playing.

 

Too bad for me that I like the game as it is now.

 

Ah well, the one constant of an MMO is change. And if it's not fun for me after CoV hits, well, I'll have $15 more change in my pocket... actually $30 since we have an account both for me and for my wife.

 

 

Actually - I'm glad my ar/dev blaster is 50. Sheesh. They REALLY want fights to take forever, since robots have 50% res to smashing and lethal already... and with the new numbers, the best I'll do as ar/dev is 200% damage. Feh.

[Blue]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Good thing I already got Teen Anthem to 50, because all of her defenses are 4-5 slotted with the same thing and the same with her END recovery power. I honestly think the character would be in fights for very, very short periods of time with this change.

 

I have two characters who, even when fighting opponents of their own level, constantly miss! So on the lower level one as I build it I've been putting in two accuracy slots with an eye toward a 3rd. Well, that plan's off the table now. On the bright side, with 2 slots I'm definitely hitting better, even if I still miss a lot.

[zornwil]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

As a third party looking in, I think they can't face up to the fact that balance is illusory

[Fedifensor]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

For me, I think this is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

 

Here's a Champions comparison. I may not like some of the rules in 5E, but at least they've stayed the same for the most part from 5E to 5ER. How would you feel if you had to rebuild your Champions characters every 3 months because of rule changes?

[James Gillen]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

For me, I think this is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

 

Here's a Champions comparison. I may not like some of the rules in 5E, but at least they've stayed the same for the most part from 5E to 5ER. How would you feel if you had to rebuild your Champions characters every 3 months because of rule changes?

 

Well, for one thing, Steve and DOJ have the negative example of New Millenium to instruct them.

 

JG

[rayoman]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Well, for one thing, Steve and DOJ have the negative example of New Millenium to instruct them.

 

JG

 

Negative to some.

[James Gillen]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Oh, and tonight, Spooky Kid, my newest character joined the RPG.net Supergroup for Halloween characters on Triumph, and won an Atlas Park contest for Ugliest Costume.

[StGrimblefig]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

How would you feel if you had to rebuild your Champions characters every 3 months because of rule changes?

You mean your characters are so dependent upon the specific mechanics of the game that every one of these changes completely breaks your character concept?

 

To each his own, I guess. As for me, I have three characters that I have been playing since launch (and a couple more that have been added since), and I have never used any respec (either free or earned). Sure, how I play the characters has changed a little, but then I have to do that as I increase in level and take on new villain groups anyway. It is true that I am not a "hardcore" player -- my highest character is only level 33 -- but I am enjoying the game. I will adapt to these new changes and move on. However, I will not do anything until I see for myself how much this change actually affects how my characters play.

 

Just my two cents, among the dollars of "the sky is falling."

[Phil]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

I've found that the changes have actually increased my enjoyment. New tweaks equals new challenges equals better value for my gaming experience.

 

No disrespect intended, but in gaming I do from time to time like to try out new house rules, usually to fix a perceived inbalance in the game or to better enforce genre feel. if I had a player who wanted to rewrite his character each time to maximise his advantage from the new rules, or to recreate the very issue that led me to instigate the fix, that player wouldn't last very long in my game. YMMV.

[Tim]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Had just cleared my debt when I died. at level 22 - 2250 debt. OUCH!

 

As to the proposed change, Only my healer might be affected. Right now he has 3 DOs in his heals, so just under the max.

 

But why B**** because you are getting an extra 15% instead of 30%? You are still getting extra. It's not like they are saying after you hit a certain point we will start having the bonus go negative (ie: instead of 30% you get a -10%)

[lemming]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

This latest change isn't going to break any of my characters, though many will need additional tweaking. I haven't gone thru most of my characters to rework them from the I5 changes.

 

It's not just that part of the game I find annoying. Constantly being told I'm playing the game wrong is starting to wear.

 

I don't find the fact that it now take 40 minutes to do a mission rather than 20 minutes a fun challenge. I just find it tedious.

 

I've been running Vetali for the last month or so at sub-par levels. No influence to equip with enhancements anyway. She does better in groups, but my schedule lately has been such that hunting down a group takes 1/2 the time I have to play. I'd rather just solo. She's got about eight more levels and then it's forced grouping for sure. (If I want to play the content)

[SvZurich]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

I complain because my ability to do my job as a tanker suffers with each and every blow my resistances take. What good is aggro gathering if I can't survive it? Going from 90% resists to 31-38% to Energy and Elements on my tanker was hard. Seeing the 84% I now have on Smashing and Lethal fall to 66% is brutal.

 

I also complain because I took to slotting up health and my attacks to survive the first hit to my resistance and defense, and now have to cut back on those too. I honestly see no point to tankers existing as my ability to survive aggro is cut hard yet again.

[lemming]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Had just cleared my debt when I died. at level 22 - 2250 debt. OUCH!

 

As to the proposed change, Only my healer might be affected. Right now he has 3 DOs in his heals, so just under the max.

 

But why B**** because you are getting an extra 15% instead of 30%? You are still getting extra. It's not like they are saying after you hit a certain point we will start having the bonus go negative (ie: instead of 30% you get a -10%)

Because you used to get to a larger number and if you got used to that, it can be a bit of a shock. And we already took a big hit last issue, so having additional cuts happen is a bit annoying.

 

Personally, I like the idea of diminishing returns so that people do use different enhancements. I'm just annoyed that we keep getting down graded every issue.

[Fedifensor]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

You mean your characters are so dependent upon the specific mechanics of the game that every one of these changes completely breaks your character concept?

Concept? No. Effectiveness? Yes.

 

The Regeneration changes in Issues 3 and 4 required a respec (which is why they handed out free respecs for people when these Issues went live). I stopped playing my Regen character after Issue 4 went live, and played my Fire/Fire tanker - which required a respec after the global defense changes of Issue 5. I then turned to my Electric/Devices blaster (who has 6 slotted damage in all his attack powers because of Targeting Drone). He'll now need a respec because the last three SO's in each power are now the equivalent of a single dual-origin enhancement.

 

And that's just my main characters. I have all eight character slots on my chosen server filled with alts. Every single one has a major power with 5 or 6 SO's of a single type, which means I need to respec all of them. Just the fact that I'm forced to respec again in order to pull my weight in a team situation is enough to make me leave.

 

Furthermore, there is no real difference between tankers and scrappers with Enhancement Diversification. When neither archetype can get above a 50% resistance rate to damage, the difference in the amount of damage each takes is minimal. Both are going to require defenders or controllers for anything beyond a solo situation on Heroic difficulty. It's even worse for blasters - when you increase the amount of time it takes to defeat a single even-con minion by 25% to 50%, they get defeated a lot more. I chose City of Heroes in part because I was tired of the standard MMORPG archetypes such as clerics and warriors. Which means I may be quitting MMORPG's entirely.

[garou]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Furthermore' date=' there is no real difference between tankers and scrappers with Enhancement Diversification. When neither archetype can get above a 50% resistance rate to damage, the difference in the amount of damage each takes is minimal. Both are going to [i']require[/i] defenders or controllers for anything beyond a solo situation on Heroic difficulty. It's even worse for blasters - when you increase the amount of time it takes to defeat a single even-con minion by 25% to 50%, they get defeated a lot more. I chose City of Heroes in part because I was tired of the standard MMORPG archetypes such as clerics and warriors. Which means I may be quitting MMORPG's entirely.

I may have to dust off my tankers and scrappers once that goes live, just to see how true that is. People said I5 was the death of 'trollers, and mine became even more lethal. My current MO on a timed mission is blow off half the time, then travel there, finish it up, and complain because I still had 20 minutes left. And while I am not at the toughest level, I am only one below it, and I need to bump it up to actualy get even a slight challenge. I may not have it quite so easy with the fighting ATs, but I bet I can still solo effectively with them, even under ED.

[SvZurich]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Fedifensor, I agree that there is no real difference now between Tanker and Scrapper. Go ahead and give me crits and merge the ATs. If I am going to constantly lose my ability to tank, please give me damage to compensate. Kara has to gravitate to mostly Scranker in I5, might as well move her all the way to Scrapper now.

[Blue]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

So off the top of my head, I've got this scrapper...

 

5 attacks, most of which are 2 Accuracy, 2 Damage, 1 Recharge rate or 1 END reduction. Some may dhave 3 Damage. These powers I probably won't tweak at all.

 

The resistances however... Some are 5 slotted with damage resistance. Now many of these only have 1 type of enhancement you can slot. So if there's no noticable benefit to slotting those beyond 2, what do I do on a respec with the other 3 slots on those 5 powers? I could put them into the attacks instead, but those are already near the capacity I need.

 

I honestly don't think the game was broken. Once they took away the ability of one fire tanker to call every living thing from the battlefield and stand around burning them while sidekicks and others stood around gathering xp, I think they did their job. They need to stop screwing with something that works and just add more content!

[SvZurich]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Blue, 3 SOs now is almost equal to 3 SOs before. 3 gives you a very slight loss. Basically, if 3 SOs offered 99%, now they offer 95%. It's the 4th SO of the same type that get hit hard, and the 5th and 6th harder.

 

Whereas 6 of the same type once offered a bonus of 200% (rounding 99% up and using Damage SOs for my example), 6 damage SOs now offers 110%. 3 damage SOs offer 95%. I don't consider the slight loss on the third SO as bad, but refuse to give a 4th or more of the same type.

 

Your attacks are fine. I have to rework my 6 damage slotted Haymaker, and 5 damage 1 End Red Foot Stomp and KO Blow (I use perma Rage for ACC, and still can by slotting Rage with 3 recharges 2 To-Hit and 1 End Red).

 

It's losing my primary's resists that will kill me. I had 6 Res in Unyielding and Temporary Invulnerability. I had 6 Def in Invincibility.

 

Now my Invulnerable tanker considers being called Invulnerable to be just a sick joke.

[Manchine]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

You mean your characters are so dependent upon the specific mechanics of the game that every one of these changes completely breaks your character concept?

 

To each his own, I guess. As for me, I have three characters that I have been playing since launch (and a couple more that have been added since), and I have never used any respec (either free or earned). Sure, how I play the characters has changed a little, but then I have to do that as I increase in level and take on new villain groups anyway. It is true that I am not a "hardcore" player -- my highest character is only level 33 -- but I am enjoying the game. I will adapt to these new changes and move on. However, I will not do anything until I see for myself how much this change actually affects how my characters play.

 

Just my two cents, among the dollars of "the sky is falling."

 

Personally I have used every free respec (at level 24 I didnt have stamina for the first respec).

 

These changes effect my Main like crazy. My dispersion field is gonna suck now. I still don't see anything completely wrong with it.

 

I know I am just CRAZY aren't I. :D :ugly: :doi:

[Blue]

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

Your attacks are fine.

Now that I know. I'm not worried about the attacks at all. As I said, I don't feel the need to rework those. However, the defenses are 5 slotted and the redundancy there seems to suit no purpose other than to use up slots I could put elsewhere. But I don't see anywhere else where they are useful.

 

Maybe I'll just knock down the END cost or boost the recharge on a bunch of things.

 

Or maybe I'll do nothing at all and just focus on the CoV characters.