So since the first page is just lamenting the game being canceled, and that might have happened before some people even joined the forums I figured I'd at least write up a little something about the basic game classes on the off-chance anybody is curious about this old thing.
A little something before we start: City of Heroes balances its difficulty around large numbers of enemies. Most enemies spawn as 3 minions per hero confronting them, and they trade up 2 minions to a lieutenant, 3 lieutenants to a boss. The exact composition differs based on enemy group - some are balanced, some are heavier on bosses and so on - but a usual fight will be against an entire group at once, and sometimes two or three.
Blasters specialize in dealing large amounts of area and single-target damage. They have little in the way of defenses and when soloed mostly hope to rip through an enemy before they get mowed down in return. Their secondaries are a mix of controls to keep enemies at range and powerful but expensive melee-range attacks to deal with them when they can't. Usually between the primary and secondary blasters have access to two powers that give them a short-term boost of damage, which allows for big spikes if used together or fairly consistent powerful openers between groups. Their specialty is Defiance, which gives them a rolling short-term damage boost with every attack they can fire off and lets them use their most basic attacks no matter what kind of crowd control they're under.
Controllers specialize in crowd control. Most have some kind of area immobilize and single-target lockdown that they can keep up forever, in addition to area lockdowns that refresh more slowly. Their controls usually work on minions and lieutenants but need to be stacked to work on bosses, though most also have a random critical chance that will make them work on bosses first go. Most can't do much damage on their own, but get access to a damaging pet at the highest levels. Their secondary is support powers, the same ones defenders get but at reduced strength, and their specialty is Containment, which does double damage to anything that's been slept, immobilized, stunned, or held. This mostly just brings their damage powers up to parity with the other archetypes.
Defenders prioritize support. This is more than just restoring HP - even support sets that specialize in it will have a few other powers at the higher levels. But most of their support primaries may have a token healing power but specialize in some kind of buffing or debuffing - boosting ally defense and damage resistance, making enemies hit less or take more damage. Their secondaries are the blaster ranged sets - they deal less damage with them but the associated debuffs are more powerful. Their specialty is Vigilance - on smaller teams they get a damage boost, and all their powers cost less to execute the more damaged the team is, on average.
Scrappers do damage in melee. Their primaries are a variety of weapons and powers that tilt between single-target and area focuses but have something in both of them. Their secondaries are armor sets, improving defense or damage resist or both, often with some kind of self-healing capability. Their specialty is critical strikes - double damage 10% of the time, or 5% against minions. Blasters will usually mow down all the little guys and scrappers will focus on the higher echelons until they're gone.
Tankers also do damage in melee, but less of it. Their focus swaps from scrappers - more armor, less damage. Instead of criticals they get Gauntlet, which puts a taunt effect on their area attacks and adds an area taunt to their single-target attacks. Taunts apply a ridiculous multiplier to the tanker's damage on the enemy hate list, so that a tanker just has to pinball around the spawn for a little bit and they'll all aim at the tanker for the duration.
Brutes are "villain tankers". The villain archetypes have better soloability but don't synergize as much in teams. Their power lists function like scrappers but they still do tanker damage. They only taunt the things they hit directly so they're not as controlling as tankers are, but they're a little less durable so maybe that's for the best? Their special is Fury, which -MADDER HULK GET STRONGER HULK- increases their damage as they land attacks and get swung at, but bleeds away over time.
Corruptorsare "villain defenders". Corruptors have a blast primary and support secondary, so their supports aren't quite as powerful, and their specialty is Scourge - an increasing chance of dealing double damage as a target drops further below half health.
Dominators are "villain controllers". They share a control set with hero controllers, minus the chance for a critical effect, but their secondary is a mix of melee and ranged damage powers instead of support. Their specialty is Domination - attacks will fill a bar that, when full, can be cashed in for a full energy refill, some control resistance, and an automatic bonus magnitude on all their control powers.
Masterminds don't have a hero analogue. They have a support secondary, but their primary is focused around summoning and improving a set of pets, which they have much better control over than any other class's summons. It also has a few ranged powers that don't do much. Their specialty is Supremacy - which mostly means their pets aren't as good outside of a command radius, but also in that command radius the mastermind splits any damage they take with any pets on defensive follow - this is called "bodyguard".
Stalkers also don't have a hero analogue. Maybe scrappers? Their powers are distributed the same and they focus on melee damage but they have even spikier damage spikes thanks to a combination of powers. Their armor replaces the first power with Hide, which gives them some area of effect dodge and drops when they make attacks or take damage, refreshing after some time out of combat. Any attack in Hide does double damage - except for a replacement power from their melee set that ties into Assassinate - it has a windup when used in Hide and deals tremendous damage if it connects, fearing and ruining the aim of anybody watching. Out of hide, Stalkers can use their other melee powers to build focus and with three stacks their assassinate power will do double damage.
I may just get my Ninja/Time MM to 50 in the next week or so - my first 50 since these servers came up. Even with xp boosts the alts have kept everyone in the 20-30 range mostly as I can't stop making new peoples. I just made a Water/Poison Cor who is all black and yellow with yellow colored powers. His name is Stang. "For Hive and Queen!"
ITS HONEY I PROMISE! - That was going to be my catch phrase but went with For Hive and Queen instead.
I did see a similar power combo though but the costume was just a naked dude with white crotch wrap and yellow slime aura on his lower half. His name was Pee Boy I believe. This is the best game guys - the best.
It's a shame, some of the original PA COH crew haven't been on the forums in years. @Accualt , @Ghostalker etc.
:so_raven:
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
PA server is the unofficial Homecoming RP server - Everlasting
I accidentally missed the 30 day window last month and got booted from Overlord, so I am not sure who the owner of the PA SG is right now. @kay@glal might know more
There is a City of Heroes chat on the unofficial PA discord that was super handy to round up people or shoot the shit over the summer. Invite is here: https://discord.gg/aPz8zhp
Also I've been on hiatus since September for personal stuff, but I'm looking to get back in sooner or later
Hmm, looks like whomever plays Disastro is the current overlord of the PA group.
I've not really played in a couple of months, lots of new games came out, holidays, plus I needed a bit of a break from playing the game non-stop for a solid chunk of time. Kay's been more active, because he can literally never tire of this game.
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KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
Yeah, if whomever plays Disastro logs in to drop the Overlord status on Jenny Chaos or Lady Ampere, or Aeshteroth, that'd be great.
Have not played in a couple of month since I switched over to Linux Mint. Seems I need to get into how to setup wine or whatever works with CoX.
Somehow funny after all this years it's the only remaining MMORPG that I found interesting long-term.
I've been pumping out alts with few real breaks other than the past two weeks. I think I am at around 40. I believe I have one of every AT powerset and have started on trying new combos here and there.
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KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
No but I do have a staff/fire something. Can't log in now to see what AT it was. Tall thin robot with mirrored sphere head called Training Prototype. He's a superhero sparring bot who gained sentience.
btw I logged in yesterday but I had already been demoted to like, whatever the sub-leader rank is. So I dunno if yall got a GM to do that or something or if you just had the wrong guy
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
edited January 2020
I just logged in to check, and it looks like it fell to one of my alts.
After a certain amount of No Login, it tosses the big star to the longest standing member that logged in most recently, I think?
Oh hey, speaking of stalkers with weird backstories.
(Psi/Rad stalker. Originally thought I'd go, like, "Ghost of Chernobyl", but then I thought "no, too soon". His battle cry is "No, YOU don't make sense!")
TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
Katana/Super Reflexes scrapper here.
Like they say in Fist of the North Star; "You are already dead."
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
Posted this in [chat] as well but I figure you'd all get a kick out of this story from last night.
So during CoH last night I got roped into a group of, well not newbies but people who just weren't very well coordinated. In CoH you can kind of get away with that but if you get a curveball thrown at you (like some story arc missions will do) it can immediately collapse the group from a quantum state where we're all alive and dead at the same time to a single observed state where everyone is dead.
Except me. I'm playing a Katana/Super Reflexes scrapper. I see everyone go down around me pretty much all at once with a few hold outs, who die soon after. But not before I hand one of them my beer and tell them "just hurry back from the hospital" and wade the fuck into the giant group of enemies with an arch-villain in their midst.
By the time they got back I had killed most of the minions and had the AV down to about half health. After the mission I had to field like 45 minutes of questions from these guys/gals about just how the fuck I did that.
Super Reflexes baby, also known as the No-Get-Hitsu style of martial arts.
Heh, I've done similar on my Staff/Elec armor brute. Not no-get-hitsu, but Resist-fu, where I can soak so much damage, and have regen high enough, that it LOOKS like I'm not getting hit at all. 90% in almost everything. Especially against Psionics, where most people have no defense/resit, so I can just wade in not caring, and look super impressive.
Only weakness is Negative, which is at 65% so I actually have to keep an eye on my health, and Toxic which is my weakness. Meaning that when we hit the Sewer of TinPex I'm popping all my cooldowns jsut to make it through alive.
Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
It's honestly not as impressive at it sounds. There was more than one instance of me having to bounce away to get 30 seconds or so of rest before jumping back in and slicing. There was also a lot of "follow the leader" run abouts only the leader would occasionally turn around and slice a guy into a mincemeat before running away again.
Once I whittled down the minions there was a lot less of that though.
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
It can be groan worthy to go from alive to dead in the blink of an eye, but it does make those times when you play smart and crafty oh so much sweeter
Of course, the majority of my City gameplay is
1) Find Mobs
2) Shout Battle Cry
3) Attack Mobs
4) IF Victorious! GOTO 1
IF Dead, definitely dead GOTO 5
5) /chat ...huh, that was unexpected
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
Do as Jenny says, not as Jenny does.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Oh! I had an idea for a character with abilities similar to Marvel's Karnak - ESP that allows him to see weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and destructive exploits. The character wears very dark goggles because he experiences visual sensory overload due to his ESP
Anyway, I know lethal and rad damage both have -def, so they are mechanically thematic, but I am not sure that's the way I want to go
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
The Force of Will pool has a debuff power that drops defence, I think.
Rad Blast and Melee are very -def oriented, as you mentioned. Alternately a controller or mastermind with a heavy -def debuff. Rad, Cold and Storm spring to mind, there.
Savage Melee's cone has a big -def in it, as do the sword powersets. I'll dig more after work.
Added new customisation options for Phantom Army
Mirror (copy of current character costume)
Phantom Mirror (copy of current character costume with Phantom Army VFX)
Posts
A quick overview, for those that don't remember everything:
https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Winter_Event
A little something before we start: City of Heroes balances its difficulty around large numbers of enemies. Most enemies spawn as 3 minions per hero confronting them, and they trade up 2 minions to a lieutenant, 3 lieutenants to a boss. The exact composition differs based on enemy group - some are balanced, some are heavier on bosses and so on - but a usual fight will be against an entire group at once, and sometimes two or three.
Oh
Oh my god
@ARCH YOU INSECTILE BASTARD WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME
Steam: MightyPotatoKing
FOR THE ROYALTY!
ITS HONEY I PROMISE! - That was going to be my catch phrase but went with For Hive and Queen instead.
I did see a similar power combo though but the costume was just a naked dude with white crotch wrap and yellow slime aura on his lower half. His name was Pee Boy I believe. This is the best game guys - the best.
Surprise!
Don't worry about being a newb, somebody just made a corgi in a mech suit named Project YAM-PER and they'll be with you shortly.
Fak u
(We're on homecoming's Virtue server, mostly)
Why'd I have to go and say that?
Royalty, bitches.
It's a shame, some of the original PA COH crew haven't been on the forums in years. @Accualt , @Ghostalker etc.
I accidentally missed the 30 day window last month and got booted from Overlord, so I am not sure who the owner of the PA SG is right now. @kay @glal might know more
There is a City of Heroes chat on the unofficial PA discord that was super handy to round up people or shoot the shit over the summer. Invite is here: https://discord.gg/aPz8zhp
Also I've been on hiatus since September for personal stuff, but I'm looking to get back in sooner or later
I've not really played in a couple of months, lots of new games came out, holidays, plus I needed a bit of a break from playing the game non-stop for a solid chunk of time. Kay's been more active, because he can literally never tire of this game.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Somehow funny after all this years it's the only remaining MMORPG that I found interesting long-term.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
No but I do have a staff/fire something. Can't log in now to see what AT it was. Tall thin robot with mirrored sphere head called Training Prototype. He's a superhero sparring bot who gained sentience.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
NC Soft files Trademark application for City of Heroes
Could mean doom, or not doom I guess.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
After a certain amount of No Login, it tosses the big star to the longest standing member that logged in most recently, I think?
I HAVE THE POWWWWERRRRRR!
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
(Psi/Rad stalker. Originally thought I'd go, like, "Ghost of Chernobyl", but then I thought "no, too soon". His battle cry is "No, YOU don't make sense!")
Like they say in Fist of the North Star; "You are already dead."
So during CoH last night I got roped into a group of, well not newbies but people who just weren't very well coordinated. In CoH you can kind of get away with that but if you get a curveball thrown at you (like some story arc missions will do) it can immediately collapse the group from a quantum state where we're all alive and dead at the same time to a single observed state where everyone is dead.
Except me. I'm playing a Katana/Super Reflexes scrapper. I see everyone go down around me pretty much all at once with a few hold outs, who die soon after. But not before I hand one of them my beer and tell them "just hurry back from the hospital" and wade the fuck into the giant group of enemies with an arch-villain in their midst.
By the time they got back I had killed most of the minions and had the AV down to about half health. After the mission I had to field like 45 minutes of questions from these guys/gals about just how the fuck I did that.
Super Reflexes baby, also known as the No-Get-Hitsu style of martial arts.
Only weakness is Negative, which is at 65% so I actually have to keep an eye on my health, and Toxic which is my weakness. Meaning that when we hit the Sewer of TinPex I'm popping all my cooldowns jsut to make it through alive.
Once I whittled down the minions there was a lot less of that though.
Of course, the majority of my City gameplay is
1) Find Mobs
2) Shout Battle Cry
3) Attack Mobs
4) IF Victorious! GOTO 1
IF Dead, definitely dead GOTO 5
5) /chat ...huh, that was unexpected
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Anyway, I know lethal and rad damage both have -def, so they are mechanically thematic, but I am not sure that's the way I want to go
Any powerset/archetype ideas?
Rad Blast and Melee are very -def oriented, as you mentioned. Alternately a controller or mastermind with a heavy -def debuff. Rad, Cold and Storm spring to mind, there.
Savage Melee's cone has a big -def in it, as do the sword powersets. I'll dig more after work.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Generally speaking aren't most lethal damage sets paired with -Def as their debuff?
I think that Scrappers should probably get a look at next. It's just such a boring AT.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Yoooooooo