Head start weekend!

I was very excited to finally get some live CoV characters off the ground! While my friends pretty much focused on a single character for the weekend (and are all around 18-19 as a result), I opted for an alt or two. So my main is The Burning Bush (plant/fire dom), and currently only 14. I've also got a 10 dark/ice corrupter and a bot duo of a 12 em/earth brute & 12 merc/ff MM.

Even though I played through the newb levels many many times in Beta, I'm still having a blast. True, I'd be much happier if I could actually afford DOs at 12, but hey, eventually. There are apparently at least 3 different level 6-12 contacts in PO, and I still have yet to manage not to outlevel one - so the amount of content available to newbies is nice. The newspaper missions definitely add to that - especially with the timed saved by not having to run to contacts in the weird layout that is PO.

The near total lack of defense that comes with I6/Cov is amusing - MM ff bubbles only provide 9% base, and I suspect rock armor is only around 10% - needless to say, even with rock armor + bubbles, I get HAMMERED by +1 minions. It is rather amusing. Not that I am choosing to fight +1s - but doing two person missions at heroic turns up quite a number of them. The worst was a mission with TWO even con hellion bosses right next to each other. The complete lack of fire defense/res for a stone brute at level 11 meant a few deaths and trips to buy insps, it was painful and hopefully a bug - two players at heroic should NOT be expected to be able to deal with two bosses that can't be split.

PO is not the easiest place to get around, the different vertical tiers + mob spawns can make it very difficult until you learn you way. It seems much more dangerous than SC/KR/Skyway, but that could just be because it has been a long time since I ran around in those zones young and unprotected. CAD is pretty much a deathtrap pre-travel, so that mission The Radio gives out that sends you into CAD should be delayed as long as possible, unless you are sure you can make it there safely it is asking for debt.

Stalkers face very tough choices heading up to 16ish - if they want build up to be better able to one shot bosses they either have to neglect the second defense, the second attack, or delay travel till 16 - ouch! Definitely a tough choice, I think I'll be delaying build up on mine.

We got our villain group started up - Go Team Evil! The amount of prestige it costs just to get a functional hospital is amazing, but it looks like it should be affordable inside a week or two. Last I checked we had the medical room, one hospital machine, and the energy room, sans generator. We still have to buy the control room, control machine & generator machine - generator is 255kish, the others I don't know.

Now back to the hum drum week and only an hour or two to play per night, if I'm lucky.

brief ED testing

Respecced a few characters over on test recently:

39 fire/stone - I can still solo EVEN spawns with 1-2 bosses in Eden, so I suppose that still means I'm over where the Devs want me. However - I rely heavily on inspirations to do this.
*The damage on the tanker aoes was always low, but now it is low to the point where I'm tempted not to take it. Luckily on this tank there is nothing else worth taking, so I suppose I'll hold on to it.
*End usage seemed ok, especially considering I was running BA, FS, PS, acro, CJ, & tough. Consume every 90 seconds or so meant I only had to pop a few blues per fight.
*Overall, I've survived multiple burn nerfs (finally got rid of it - only 5 useful powers in fire primary now!), res cuts, tough/weave nerf & end cost increase, etc. So, it can't get that much worse right? :) He'll survive.

34 ma/da - Luckily this char was already build without hasten, and only had 4 slots in stamina, so no loss here and I swapped thunder kick for CAK. The damage boosts on CAK, CK & EC were night, too bad they came with a recharge increase. End usage here is pretty bad - 3 shields + CoF, CD & Acro mean I use lots of blues. I have end red in all my attacks too.

33 ice/ss - I really don't notice the defense hit much. Why? Because my defense was already horrible! I'm debating finally getting rid of icicles, the damage is just so bleh now without 5 slots + rage. However, it is still the only aoe I have, and for the amount of time it takes me to kill bosses now (still less time than my fire/stone though), I figure that it will knock off half a mininos hp or so. I do of course miss my hasten - luckily rage is just about perma with 3, and hibernate is up often enough to protect me during the rage drop.

Gladiator arena matches are amusing! Now what they really need to do is make every single enemy in the game available to use in the arena like so and you'll have a real pokemon thing going here. As it is right now it looks like only 29ish enemies are available out of how many? Must be at least 100. Each one of them is a unique and special snowflake and would be fun to muck with in the arena. Even more so if I could directly assume control over one of them and use their powers...mmmmmmm tasty.

CoV stress test weekend

I probably spent more time than I should have on the CoV beta this weekend, thanks to it being open both days. Luckily, I have a wonderful wife and she is still talking to me :).

The (short) results:

Brutes: This is where most of the old tank players, and many scrappers as well, will wind up. Brutes are just a ton of fun start to finish. The whole idea of "hulking out" - doing more damage the more you hit and get hit, just plays out very well. They do get the auto-hit aoe taunt that tanks have (but no multi-target punchvoke - they only auto taunt the single target they are attacking), but I'm not sure how many will take it... Playing a brute will get you killed more than you think, but you'll have a blast dying.

Corruptors: A very wide variety of builds are possible with the corruptors, and it is going to make for a complete grab bag of what you get when you invite one to your team (assuming you do random teams...). Do you get a gung go blaster with no buffs - or a buff oriented offender type? Somewhere in between? Fun stuff, lots of tough build decisions. /cold and /thermal both look to be great sets.

Dominators: Of all 5 archs, doms were the ones that I noticed my end bar the most on. Too early to say if it is a real problem or not - but doms definitely "feel" like their powers are a bit on the end heavy side. I was able to find ways to play with the other 4 archs where I had no downtime at all in a full group, yet on my dom (ice/thorn) I was very frequently ooe. Getting arctic air probably didn't help that :P. Overall though, going to be very interesting having a pet on a damage dealer, and having raw damage with control. Nevermind that with containment some controllers can do very impressive damage...

Masterminds: I've decided that I'm done testing masterminds, I have a good idea of how they will play (for me), and don't see the devs making any major changes anytime soon. My main suggestion/want was to get a "real" archetype power with a noticeable effect, as opposed to supremacy, which is very much in the background in the same way as punchvoke is for a tank - you just don't notice it (although the tank's is very noticeable in a group). It seems that all our pet dmg/acc was balanced entirely with supremacy in mind, so it doesn't feel like any kind of bonus at all, but just rather what we should have in the first place.
I think a lot of people will be dissapointed with the power level/kill speed of masterminds in general - don't get your hopes up too high - think defender (not offender!) killing speed with the survivability of a defense focused scrapper. I know that sounds weird, but that is about how I felt. The pets do very little damage, but it adds up over time and is done in a way that allows you a great deal of safety. However - if your pets and resummons die, you are pretty much toast.
Bottom Line - play a mastermind if you are happy having a low degree of direct involvement in a fight, but really adore the concept of micromanaging pets. I was really excited about them to start, and I will still have 1 of each primary, but my excitement has cooled a little after seeing the mid 20s game.

Stalkers: They feel to me like the blasters of CoV - the glass cannons if you will. Why? Because they specialize in a melee range snipe that can sometimes one shot (or one-two) a boss. Some sets have had aoes removed (claws - spin) and others have none at all (energy - no whirling hands), so for the most part stalkers are single target based. I really do wonder why they left spines in though, it doesn't fit very well - I'm guessing they just didn't have anything else ready. Definitely play your stalker through to 8 or 10 before you give up on them - they really don't blossom until you see build up + assassin strike in action. Plus, having full stealth with no movemen penalty at level 1 is incredibly handy.

Enjoying the sunset

There are certain characters of mine that just won't last (in the sense of holding of being fun for me to play at all) past ED. In the same way all but 2 of my controllers were rendered uninteresting and unfun to me by the pet & control nerfs of I5, ED is going to neuter most of the rest. Luckily, I was somewhat prescient and the last few alts I have made have been no-hasten, 3-4 slotted stamina types.

These I believe will survive:
*34 ma/da: thankfully CoF is my main defense and it won't be losing much more of its power at 3acc/3end slotting
*28 ar/ice: she was never very powerful, but I hadn't yet slotted more than 4 damage in any attacks, so she won't lose much on that end - she might even gain from the end reduction. That being said, she is a pretty slow killer and not much fun to play at the current pace she moves, solo at least.
*32 spines/dark: only 1 slot in my defense thus far, he was built to play with my bubble bot! So he'll lose some damage off ripper and the two auras, but that will be survivable. Although it does make me a little sad inside since the only reason I made him was to watch him stand around with the double auras eating up blues. Heh. At least I fell in love with ripper along the way so I'll be able to get some enjoyment out of that.
*24 sonic/elec blaster: Another pretty slow mover, he relies heavily on the sonic cone sleep. None of his attacks have more than 3 damage in them, and stamina only has 2-3, so he alone will make it through unscathed. Again, not an incredibly fun character but at least he won't change so much.
*42 Earth/kin: Losing hasten is going to hurt pretty bad, but I think he'll be survivable because of siphon speed. Right now he mainly survives off of aoe immob + FS + fireball containment damage anyway, the pet being rendered somewhat superflous (sp?). So I'll feel the hasten hit VERY strongly (ohhh useful aoe control how I miss thee - although it is true earth was hit less than fire/grav/etc.), but I think he'll still be playable as a dominator.

Now for those I suspet are going to be rendered up into soap:
*The rest of my controllers: Seriously. Unless they pretty much completely undo the aoe control nerf, what is the *#$$ing point? I have no idea what game they are playing in their internal testing, but a power I can only use every few minutes that lasts 10-15 seconds or so..wow, gee how is that fun? Even mog/unst/etc lasts for several minutes so you get some mileage out of them... I'll probably try respeccing my ice-rad back to a pure arctic air/choking cloud build, and that would be functional if I had a permanent tank partner. Ahh, ifs.
*My regens. Wow. 3 slotted integration and 3 slotted fast healing (might as well throw 3 slotted health in there!) for teh winz0rz eh? Of course I'll 6 reconstruction, and probably 4 tough and weave, maybe that will bring me up to par. I doubt it though, I've run some respec tests already and was pretty depressed at the result. Nevermind the fact that we get no more perma-dp - which really does piss me off. Those powers were designed to be perma-able with 6 slots from the beginning, and I'm fine with that. But, like I said, I abhor situational clicks self-buffs. I really hate the i5 IH, and I'm going to like it even less when I don't have hasten to make it useful once in a while. Yay for teh a$$rapeage!
*My poor ice/ss tank: Wow, I'm going to be running with a whopping 22% def vs everything but psi! That's freaking awesome. That is LESS than (or very close to) the base defense used to be pre-i5. I can't even begin to say how insulting that is. So, yeah, that is pissing me off. And then the hasten nerf is going to fry my 3 attack SS chain and perma-rage (evidently it only has about 5 sec downtime with 3 recharges though, so this sounds doable). Then again, with all the free slots from my defenses I guess I can take another attack or two! *vomit*

There are more but I'll delay the rest of my whining.

Now on to some positive: CoV is starting off with these nerfs in place, so you won't notice it so much! Plus, it doesn't have a tank class (just 2 different scrappers) or a real defender (just a blaster with weakish debuffs), so there won't be so many defense oriented types to complain! But seriously, CoV is shaping up to be lots of fun, even if only because of all the new content and powersets. None of them have the same constant heroic/powerful feeling that I felt playing my characters for the first year or so of CoH. Almost all have moments of heroicness/villainy - getting a good rage run on a brute (even though the damage boost was just lowered) or seeing a bunch of scourges go off on a corrupter, anytime you use domination, when you get a nice crit on a stalker than almost one-shots a boss, and when you see your new pets for the first time on an MM. However the feeling of "I am actually more powerful than a horde of enemy minions" is much less prevalent - maybe that is for the best?

I don't know, I for one loved the fast paced play of CoH, that was one of the many things that set it aside (and above!) the rest of the MMO crowd for me. A newbie (friend,wife,etc.) could hop on and actually make some progress at any point in their characters career. Yes, min/maxers could do much more than this - but is that really wrong? Learning the ins and outs of a power set and using it to the best of your ability? Not to mention the system was relatively easy to understand. The new enhancement system just crys out irrational (why can you slot something that won't noticeably affect a power????).

Uhh, ok ending on a positive note - CoV: good all around, can't freaking wait.

CoV NDA lifted!

Ok, so the CoV NDA was just lifted today, so that means I can actually start my new blog out with something positive! And here I thought I had at least another week or two to just bitch about how little fun CoH is these days compared to the *yawn* "Good old days." Well, I'm tired right now, but I'll just say that CoV will be worth picking up, and will keep me hooked on the Co[X] for another 6 months or so at least.

Here is a nice shot of my necro minions doing what any good minion should - my taxes! Wait, I thought villains weren't supposed to do taxes? Well, mine does, but only because zombies file taxes so insanely poorly it wastes the IRS massive amounts of time trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Eventually they find they have wasted days on it only to realize that a) I'm a villain and b) I'm dead so c) I really wasn't going to pay anyway.

Why?

So why a Co[x] blog? Because I realized that a lot of the things I want to talk about are CoX related, and I have no one near me in the real world who gives a pinched shit about it. So, I figured that out in the infinite bleakness of cyberself that such people exist, and might even be interested in whatever I have to rant about.

My CoH background: I started in the pre-order beta, and only made a few characters to level 12 or so (grav/storm and dark/dark I think...), and I only got to see a little bit of the Rikti Invasion. But it was still fun! I was a student back then, so I had an inordinate amount of time to play (because I did my work so efficiently and all ;) ), and I was/am a full time confirmed altaholic. I hopped back and forth between characters for months, unable to decided what to make my primary. My oldest character still remaining is Edge of Reason, a BS/Regen I started first week and played up to 19 or so.

At some point in there I figured out that controllers were CoH's pet class, so I instantly rolled up a few. More background: I am a pet WHORE. Every mmorpg I have played I gravitate towards the pet classes and stay there. 53 Necro in EQ, 42ish bonedancer in DaoC, and an alt of every other pet possibility at lesser levels. In fact, the only reason I played DaoC was for the possibility of a multi-pet class (bonedancer) - one which completely did NOT live up to the expectations I had for it.

My first controller was King Lobster, fire/storm. He made it up to about 16 or so until, when grouping with a friend (ill/emp), I saw PA in action and realized that ills got their pets 14 levels earlier than fire. So, an ill/rad [Man from Room X] was born. I played this character pretty solid up through 35, constantly TFing (I think I did Bastion 4 times in one day at some point) for the cash to buy encs. Man I do not miss those days of not being able to afford full enhancements! Although CoV is due to bring those joys back soon... :) Anyway, around 35 I realized I had enough spare cash to start funding some alts, so I moved back over to King Lobster and played him with a group of friends (Adeptus Astartus SG, now all but defunct, but 2 or 3 of us are still around) pretty solid to 50. I *think* I hit 50 on November 14th (No, I'm not a total tool - I remember the exact date because it was my birthday!).

I should mention that I had/have a second account, which was originally for my wife. She got bored around lvl 10-14ish though, so I took over the account and started filling up those slots since I had already used up all 8 on pinnacle. I had also figured out the powerleveling/9 level thing at some point, so I was looking forward to using the second account to help new alts along (because I'm impatient and spastic and usually too bored to play chars below 22 ;) ). So you can tell I have zero problems with powerleveling - as long as you do it yourself and keep fucking quiet about it. Beggars of any form will always be trash, and PL beggars are the worst. I especially have zero problem with PLing if you've already put in the time to get one 50 and play through every ounce available content (I even started documenting all the missions...yes I know I'm scary) at the time. No, I STILL haven't done a single shadow shard tf, I was never that motivated - especially with my 50, once a char hits 50 they are pretty done for me. Sure, I did 20 or 30 hami raids, but that was mostly to farm hami's for my 47 ;).

The highest char on that second account is Devil's Luck, a 47 fire/ff I pretty much pure PL'd to 32, and then solo'd and used to pl other chars from there. I've also got (in order of creation): a 35 ice/rad, a 42 earth/kin and a 33 grav/storm. There was a fire/kin that got deleted around 27 too. So, when I say I'm pretty confident about my knowledge of controllers (barring mind/! I readily admit that I have little desire to play a mind and only know about them only from extensive teaming with them). I've also got a 39+ fire/stone tank, a 38 dark/dark (gotta collect all the pets! ;) ), 34 ma/da, 34 human form warshade, 38 ice/nrg blaster, 27 ar/ice blaster, 22 earth/axe tank, 31 bubble/rad def, 33 elec/dev blaster, 24 sonic/elec blaster and a 32 spines/dark scrapper I'm moderately working on now.

Now that I'm out of school and working full time (and married!), I have much less play time, so my characters aren't exactly rocketing up the charts like they used to but, for the foreseeable future, this is still my game of choice. Especially when CoV hits. I won't break the NDA, but I will say that I think people will be relatively pleased. If there was a second charge for CoV, I would cancel my CoH accounts and just move to CoV.

That's the basics of my background, a bit wordy for a first blog, but we'll see where it goes from here. I'll be primarily ranting about the City of ... world, but I'm sure some other stuff will be creeping in from time to time.