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.