Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine City of Heroes: Your Chance to be a Legionnaire - Part 2

Well, I got stuck with the update last night on one of my machines and didn't get the chance to try it out, LL.

I'm sure the devs had their reasons but if they don't explain them well enough, it just looks as if they want to enforce a style of play that many people don't want.

Jamie

Dang, Scott. I don't know how you were
able to run Gung so well last night.

I took Bluette into Crey's Folly just
now. The first time in, I found some
Crey that were green to me, and sniped
one. Unfortunately, right then I got
attacked by some DE swarm and was
killed by BLUE Bees! So I got back,
kill the DE, and turn my attention
back to the Crey. This time they're
white.

I pop two of the smaller damages and
hit a white level minion with snipe...
and he still has a thread of health
left! I kill him, but then the rest
of them are on me, and I have to run
because I just can't do enough damage
to them to survive and I don't have any
greens.

Bluette doesn't have the option for
buildup because she's got devices
secondary. I could take aim but I
don't know if that's going to do
enough good to bother with.

There's a lot of anger still going
on, and I'm hoping that if there's
not a rollback of ED-- not likely
given the track record of the Devs--
then maybe there will be a tweaking
that will make my higher level toons
fun again.

(As an aside, I've been reading the
ED thread today. Someone there said
that when he went to cancel his
account, the web page for doing so
was temporarily down. It's back up
now as I checked, but I do wonder
if there's going to be a hemoraging
of cancelled subscribers.)

I think that one of the problems
the Devs have now is that people
are dealing with nerf fatique. So
many people are sick of respeccing
their toons to be able to make
them playable again.

Well it wasn't as easy as it has been in the past to solo Gung and I would rather have test him against Crey of his level instead of 4 to 5 levels higher. But he did manage to not die (although he ran away more times than I could count).

EAP on the other hand appears to be gone. But he may have been with I5 since I haven't really played him. He is nowhere near as powerful as he once was. And remember he gained levels quicker than even Gung did but on his own. Maybe I'll recreate him as a Mastermind.

I did respec Mysa, Mon and Marvel Kid. Mon defintely does less damage, but his endurance is much better so he can last lots longer.

It was sad to see him struggling with a group of 6 even con CoTs (1 guide, 1 behemoth overlord, 2 earth thorns, and 2 of the new nerva spectral "somethings") but he did manage to put them all away without dying and still had a full endurance bar when it was over, even though he had both invince and unyielding running. Of course his health bar got into very dangerous territory a few times so it was close.

Marvel Kid is the same build but a lvl 26 instead of 36 so i expect that he will have the same issues. Haven't had Mysa out yet to test things out like her heals so I'm not sure how that's been affected. Didn't repec Condo yet, so I lost that free one but he had 3 total so i still may use one after I check him out.

I could still respec Edgar but I don't know that it would be worth it. I guess Dark Melee/Dark Armor is not like it once was. There hasn't even been a build guide for once since I3.

Vee,

I don't know how you had Mysa's heals
slotted, but I had six heals on Y's
aura and heal other. He lost about
35% of his healing power in the nerf.

Let me know how Mysa fared.

She wasn't six slotted with heals so it won't be as drastic a change. I added recharge reductions to all hear primaries and secondaries as well as end reductions, so she should be able to heal much more often. Be interesting to see how that trade off works out in the long run.

I got by without recharges or hasten until
about level 35 on Y. Once I had hasten fully
slotted, he did pretty well in terms of
healing recharges. I had RA six slotted with
recharges too, so the recharge on it wasn't
too bad either.

I'm not sure what the long run will be now.
I think COV is going to be a lot more fun in
the near future.

Oh yeah. I picked up the COH
novel. I'm still too ticked off
at Statesman to read it now.

Truthfully, a good part of my annoyance with "Enhancement Diversification" is that I'm just being willful. Before ED I liked trying out slotting aside from the ACC/5 DAM. I liked it, it was interesting and made me different from the other players. With ED, however, I'm not trying something new but following a path forced on by the devs. It makes following my own path much less fun because it's no longer my path.

Plus my END drain defender doesn't have a 6-slotted short circuit to look forward to, anymore. (From what I could read on the boards, you needed short circuit 6-slotted to get much fun out of slotting electical blast for end drain.) That really sucks.

I dunno, at the least there should have been some sort of reward/incentive for those of us already practicing Enhancement Diversity. Not the usual promised-reward-down-the-line (which usually changes from the time it's hinted at and when it actually happens, but an actual carrot for enhancement diversity. I mean, c'mon, give us enhancements to cover ALL the secondary effects.

Well, I solo'd Stratum quite a bit over the weekend and while it sucked not being able to one hit anything without build up or aim, it wasn't as bad as I thought.

He was always six slotted for damage (for the most part) but now it looks like I'm gonna have to start giving him one or two accuracy's.

Last night, I grouped with 3 other blasters, two tanks and a defender and we still dealt a ton of damage. The only reason anyone died was because our tanks and the defender mysteriously all dc'd at the same time. Once they came back we were fine, tho'.

Still not very happy about it though overall. I don't like designers that enforce a certain style of play. Reminds me too much of my Warhammer 40K days.

Jamie

Wow, with the release of CoV nobody's posting here anymore!

Is anyone still playing just regular CoH?

I tried Shadow Lad a few nights ago to see how Enhancement Diversification affected him. It wasn't as bad as a lot of other people have seen, but it took noticeably longer to work my way through the mission I was doing, and then I was unable to complete it because without perma hasten, I couldn't keep up with the boss' damage to me and his own healing.

Playing CoV is fun because I'm not high enough level to really bother six-slotting anything, so it's like ED doesn't exist yet. Plus, if I can't play Seymour Krelborn on stage, at least I can play him in the game.

My highest COH character after Blue is a
dedicated empathy healer by the name of
Fascination Y. He's just a hair short of
43. I played him once or twice after ED,
but his healing is pathetic now I don't
have the heart. He just can't keep a team
alive the way he used to, and his attacks
were never all that strong BEFORE ED, and
it certainly hasn't helped them. My energy
blaster Blue Battlette could barely manage
to kill ONE white baddie in about 3 shots,
including snipe ...

All in all, I just don't see myself playing
much COH unless they do something to fix
ED.

Speaking of which, either I can't find it
or they have deleted the entire thread on
ED ... seeing as how it was well over 600
pages and there were very few positive
responses that's probably why.

ED's kept me out of CoH, too. I'd probably be okay with my Kheldians, who I never got that high but I'm still annoyed with the whole deal.

Quote

Playing CoV is fun because I'm not high enough level to really bother six-slotting anything, so it's like ED doesn't exist yet. Plus, if I can't play Seymour Krelborn on stage, at least I can play him in the game.

I think it helps that we don't have expectations to the powersets' abilities, even in copied-over powersets which are supposed to run differnlty in different ATs. In CoV ED is how things always were.

Well, maybe they'll get the ED sorted out by the time I restart my account. I hope!

I played Stratum quite a bit over the weekend (an eng/eng blaster like Blue) and the only time I really noticed a big difference was when I hunted on the streets. Missions were still easy to get through but I cannot one shot anything anymore without Build Up and Aim.

However, I spent about three hours in Bloody Bay yesterday and he flippin' ruled. I built an eight man team and we kept raiding the villains base. At one point we fought for about 35 minutes straight before the villains pushed us back. It was a ton of fun, a lot more than I expected it would be. What I can't get over is that I can one or two shot a player character but I cannot do so to a computer controlled minion.

Jamie

ED has definitely had an impact and will take some getting use to but I think that smart use of the respec can fix things up on most chars.

Mon is a little weaker but his end usage is MUCH lower since I respced him and added an end reduction So in each power. I did away with Hasten completely on him since the only really long recharge power he has is Nova and I don't really need to use that all that often. So now instead of 4-5 damage/1 accuracy on each of his attacks and 4-5 damage resistances of defense buffs on each of his defenses he'll have 2-3 damage, 1 accuracy, 1 recharge and 1 end reduction on each of his attacks, and 3 damage resists or defense and 2-3 end reductions on each of his defenses. In place of Hasten I picked up Conserve Power for those rare times when his endurance starts to get low. He seems to be doing just fine this way though it does take a bit longer to take down minions, lieuts, and bosses in comparison to before.

I kept Hasten for Mysa (3 slotted with recharge reductions which means it's fully active for all but 30 secs of downtime) I took the 9 spare slots from Hasten, Health & Stamina (like Mon, Health & Stamina are down to 3 slots in each)and divided them up among her heals (1 more heal in each) and Recovery Aura, Regen Aura & Accelerate Metabolism, adding an extra recharge in each as well as either Health or Stamina. The extra recharge in each makes her heals reusable almost immediately (particularly while Hasten is running) and helps bring the down time on the others a bit shorter also. I also rearranged the slots on her attacks so each would have a recharge in it as well.

Condo I haven't respeced at all yet. So far he seems to be doing okay as is though I'm not done testing him yet.

All in all, I think ED is manageable with a little creativity in slotting.

Having said that, I hope this is the last time we have to rebuild our chars. I'm really sick and tired of doing this every time a new issue comes out. That's what has really bothered me about ED. It'snot the effect it has on my ability to play my chars it the simple fact that in order to do so I have to waste a great deal of time recontstructing them form the ground up. Stop it already!

Hey Doc, you know you get a free month if you add CoV right? And the cost for the subscription doesn't change if you add CoV either!

Patch notes from test server (posted here and in the CoV thread):

Now Testing in the Training Room - 11/15/05

COMBINED NOTES


Powers:

* Changed the Long Help Description on the Shivan Shard to reflect that it can only be used while you are near the ground. (Shivans don't fly!)

* Police Bots and Arbiter Drones will no longer apply XPDebt if they defeat a player.

* Police Bots and Arbiter Drones will now grant ally players a perception buff to help see stealthed targets.

* Fixed Dark Miasma/Howling Twilight so it won't resurrect enemies in PvP. (Known Issue: enemies will still be prompted to ask if they want to be resurrected. The power will not work on them, however.)

* Fixed Fearsome Stare: afterenemies went into cower animation, they would continue to attack normally.

* Mynx, Luminary, Aurora Borealis, Infernal, Silver Mantis, and Barracuda have been upgraded from Elite Bosses to Arch Villains/Heroes. This change will affect any missions that these signature heroes/villains may appear in.

* Smoke now has slightly different functionality. In PvE, the power is unchanged and automatically hits foes. In PvP, however, the power requires a To Hit check. .

* Added Accuracy Enhancements to Smoke and Smoke Grenade powers for the Archetypes which have those powers.

* Added Resistance powers to Control, Energy and Medical Destructable Objects for Bases.

* Circle of Thorns Spectres and Spectral Lords Smite and Midnight Grasp powers were doing the incorrect damage type. These power both have a Psionic component now.

* Powers that increase your Max HP, like Dull Pain, Earths Embrace, and Kuji-In Sha will now be affected by Heal Enhancements. That is, Heal Enhancements will improve how much the target's MAX HP is increased.

* There was an inconsistency in the debuff duration for the following powers: Devices/Smoke Grenade, Fire Control/Smoke, Trick Arrow/Flash Arrow. The ToHit and Perception Debuffs are now set so they last 60 seconds in PvE and 20 seconds in PvP

* Increased the effectiveness of Warburg reward temp powers.

* Modified Invulnerabiity/Invincibility and Ice Armor/Energy Absorption. for both powers: Max number of affected targets have been reduced to 10; The first target you affect grants you more defense than before; Additional defense gained for each affected target after the first is at a reduced rate. This change will ensure the powers grant a reasnonable defense bonus when facing few foes, while making it more challenging to get a massive defense bonus.

* Modified Invulnerabiity/Invincibility so it goes off every second instead of every helf seccond. This was for performance reasons. This does not change the effectiveness off the power, but it will cause the Endurace Cost to occur every second instead of every half second.

* Force Field/Personal Force Field now protects the caster from enemy Teleportation.

* Kinetics/Increase Density now protects the target from enemy Teleportation.

* IR Goggles brought more in line with other Sirens Call Temp powers.

City Zones:

* Added new Warzone Liaison NPCs near the entrances to all PvP zones. Added new Mission Contacts to all PvP zones.
* Modified NPC dialog in PvP zones to make it clear whether a zone is Hero vs Villain or Freefire.
* Warburg: Players can no longer get inside the geometry ofone of the buildings and shoot at players outside.

Tasks:

* You can no longer target enemies during cutscenes.

Arena:

* Pet Arena: Pets will no longer remain ina match after their owner leaves.

* Fixed bug that prevented the Arena from working on some servers.

Tailor:

* Fixed bug that made some older characters be charged for costume changes when no changes were made.


CITY OF HEROES

Powers

* Nictus Dark Dwarf now has power FX that match the Nictus.

* Added Endurance Reduction Enhancements to Blaster Charged Bolt. Other versions already had this.

City Zones

* Croatoa is nolonger restricted to characters level 25 and higher. The zone itself is unchanged, and remains quite dangerous to lower level characters who are not sidekicked.

* Founders Falls: the Trainer Infernal's name does not appear as InfernalLeader any more.


CITY OF VILLAINS

Powers

* Changed Long Desciption for Succubus Hellish Bolts power
* Removed reference to Knockback in Brute/Fiery Melee/Cremate short help. The power is unchanged.
* Reduced Self-Damage on Stalker/Energy Melee/Energy Transfer when used outside of Hide. It now does only 2/3 of previous.
* Fixed Mastermind/Robotics Drones and Protector bots Laser and Heavy Laser Blasts not doing damage in PvP.
* Reduced Knockback distance of MasterMind/Necromancy Lich Torrent power. The was to prevent your lich from uncontrolably sending enemies into other spawns.
* Mastermind pets will no longer automatically target and move towards an enemy that resurrects in PvP.
* Improved the effectiveness of Triage Beacon and Spirit Tree.
* Improved the effectiveness of Cold Domination/Frostwork.


* Energy Aura/Entropy Sheild now protects the caster from enemy Teleportation and Repel.

* Boosted Smashing and Lethal defense for Stalker Energy Aura/Kinetic Shield.

* Boosted Energy defense for Stalker Energy Aura/Kinetic Shield.

* Boosted Energy damage resistance for Stalker Energy Aura/Energy Protection.

* Corrected an issue with Brute/Energy Aura/Energy Cloak: It was not giving any Defense to Fire Attacks.

* Several Brute Attack powers did not have their Inherent Taunt ability disabled in PvP. This gave them a substatial advantage in group PvP encounters. These powers should no longer apply Taunt to PvP targets.

Powers effected by this change:
Dark Melee
Shadow Punch
Smite
Shadow Maul
Siphon Life
Dark Consumption
Soul Drain
Midnight Grasp

Fiery Melee
Scorch
Fire Sword
Cremate
Incinerate
Breath of Fire
Fire Sword Circle
Greater Fire Sword

Super Strength
Jab
Punch
Haymaker
Knockout Blow
Hurl
Foot Stomp


City Zones

* St. Martial: Fixed multiple geometry holes

* Nerva: Fixed several graphical errors with boats in this zone.


Tasks

* Fixed errors on many Longbow and Arachnos mission maps.
* Fixed several text errors in missions given by Arbiter Leery
* Changed Broker missions: In a Heist, all characters in a group that have a full Broker contact bar will get credit for completing a Heist, and be able to get a new Contact from the Broker.

Yay! No more TP Foe into Drones for debt!

Jamie

Too late for Mon

Yeah, Stratum either.

But still, it means it will make the PVP zones more fun, IMO.

Jamie

This was just posted on the CoH boards. Sounds like we need to assemble a Task Force of Heroes from the CoH multiverse this weekened to try this out. I'll start a SG on the test server and get the base up and running if enough people are interested. You can transfer over any hero you wish from any server so we can put together an awesome group of 24 for this. Who's in?

Post your name here along with your heroes name once you get him/her copied over. If we have room, we can invite some of our non LW friends to join us. So, as I said above...who's in?

**********************

Greetings Heroes and Villains,

We have opened the “Cathedral of Pain” for testing on the Training Room. Many of you have asked when this would be available, so here’s your chance to try it out! We hope you will transfer your characters over and give this a go (for details about how to transfer your characters to the Training Room, please click here).

Not only will you be helping us uncover potential problems, but it is also an excellent opportunity for supergroups to practice this very challenging trial. The “Cathedral of Pain” is neither for the inexperienced nor the faint of heart, and once it hits the live servers, it will only be available at limited times.

Here are the details:

The “Cathedral of Pain” trial will be available on the Training Room starting Thursday, November 17th. Our hope is to leave it up through Thanksgiving weekend (although availability is subject to change depending upon performance and technical issues). We want to give you time not only to acquire Items of Power, but also to stage base raids against each other in order to defend/steal the items. Good times!

What exactly is the “Cathedral of Pain”?

Rularuu has obtained a number of powerful relics from the infinite worlds into which he peers. These relics rest at the center of his great palace in the Shadow Shard, the Cathedral of Pain.

Every so often, Rularuu’s legions invade Earth and scour it for these relics, or Items of Power. While this is a dangerous time for earth, it also grants heroes and villains an opportunity to travel to the Shadow Shard and take Rularuu’s items for themselves. With these relics, Rularuu will eventually be able to pierce the veil and transfer his full consciousness into our reality, and ravage it utterly. Great heroes must stop this process. Super villains will want to gain the items for their own personal goals.

Note: Items of Power bestow benefits to your entire supergroup for as long as you are able to keep them in your possession.

What will you need in order to attempt the “Cathedral of Pain” trial?

In order to take on this enormous challenge, you will need to belong to a supergroup. The supergroup must also have a base with the following items:

* 8 rooms
* 6 dimensional anchors
* Mission Computer or Oracle
* Raid Teleporter
* A base/mount for the Item of Power

Supergroup affiliations don’t carry over to Training Room when we transfer our characters. How do you expect us to afford such a swanky base?

You will be granted 36 million prestige automatically when you create your supergroup. Additionally, you will have access to all the recipes, but you will still need to get salvage to build the mission computer.

Once we’ve built our base, how do we get to the Cathedral of Pain?

You will be alerted to the trial via the mission computer in your base. After you’ve accepted the mission, you will be teleported, via the Raid Teleporter, to a nearby staging area to carry out the raid.

How many people can participate?

The trial accommodates up to 24 players. This allows a supergroup to easily form three teams of 8. (In other words, you’re going to want to bring a lot of people.)

Anything else we should know?

The “Cathedral of Pain” acts as a Task Force and temporarily “grays out” any other missions, trials, and Task Forces. All players are sidekicked/lackeyed to 50. Players who are defeated in any part of the trial are transported back to their base hospital.

Good luck and don’t forget to leave feedback in the Training Room forum!