Glad it’s finally here, although we had heard it would be sometime this week, and today makes sense. I’ll go DL it now and start my sonic screamer character!
And is that workable? I have one controller sitting at 21 and wouldn’t mind getting some playtime with him (Ice/Storm), but I fear the changes. How does that double damage aspect affect your play (I’m stuck at work for quite a while, trying to live vicariously ;)?
About bloody time it was released. Now, let’s see if my controllers are
as much fun, less fun, or more fun :)
Just a tiny 44MB patch for me to download - their pre-patching system
is excellent. The loading times are not like the Training Room, thank
goodness, and my Dark Armour scrapper sucks less (endurance).
I’ve played my controllers a bit on the test server. They’re illusion and
earth controllers. The base recharge time on the AE hold/mez is doubled,
so prepare for some waiting. It really has turned into a button for
emergencies only now. I’m torn between loading up on +Acc or +Rech.
Do I want it as an escape button, with high chance to hit, or a nice-to-have
power that comes back twice in a fight with Hasten? Different controllers
have slightly different ways of controlling.
All main powers do double damage after the target has already been hit
by one of your control powers. One exception is illusion’s Spectral Wounds: It seems that the illusory part of the damage doesn’t get the
boost, but the real one does. It’s not too bad, though. It recharges rather
quickly.
Earth controllers have a lot of single-target options, some of which have
real damn short recharge times. Soloing became a bit more fast-paced
from what I saw.
It’s true that group holds have been nerfed; recharge is insanely long. Total Domination and Mass Hypnosis can be used approximately once every 5 minutes with my build. However, Terrify appears to recharge normally, perhaps because I have three recharge SOs on it.
Double damage for physical attacks is now stupefyingly powerful. My mental controller has three attacks that seem to qualify: Leviate, Jump Kick and Mental Blast (an epic power). Controllers, I advise you to respec , select Jump Kick, and put three damage SOs into it.
Standard single target holds, such as Mesmerize and Dominate ALSO appear to make additional physical attacks do double damage on a successful hold.
I went to PI and found a squad of 4 level 42 Rikti minions. Even with an open portal which brought in another infantry unit, I took out all of them in a couple of minutes. I didn’t even need to use Recovery Aura.
So… soloing appears to be much more viable for my character. But, believe it or not, I have mixed feelings about how powerful my character has become.
Watch - Cryptic will nerf Terrify and Mental Blast as a result. :D
I’ve been playing my lvl 43 DM/Regen and I have to say I’m not seeing that big of a decrease in power. I ran a mission at heroic for even cons and I’ve been fiddling around PI with orange cons for a bit, and I’m fairly confident I can put my missions back up on unyielding where they used to be. What I noticed though was that I never used Instant Healing, ever, now that it’s a clickie. Part of it is because I haven’t slotted it with recharges, hell I never six-slotted it in the first place, because slots are tight and I was happy with it. I’ve gotta switch out some SO’s and see how I feel about it, but I can’t say I like the change. IH isn’t reliable anymore, I don’t know when it will run out, or when I won’t have the time to wait for it to recharge.
On a more positive note, I made an Archery/Trick Arrow defender named Arrowtech, and I’m enjoying it. No self buffs, no team buffs, just damage and debuffs. Feels like a blaster/controller hybrid, but I’m only level 6 so far so my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt.
If the controller forums are any guide, Mass Hyp can be made to recharge in about the same time as terrify with 2 SOs + Hasten. Terrify’s recharge time was also increased, but it was very short to begin with…
Double damage for physical attacks is now stupefyingly powerful. My mental controller has three attacks that seem to qualify: Leviate, Jump Kick and Mental Blast (an epic power). Controllers, I advise you to respec , select Jump Kick, and put three damage SOs into it.
Apparently all attacks a controller takes (apart from placeables like ice storm and pets) should qualify for the double damage. So Mesmerize and Dominate even could do a lot of damage if slotted for it. Also, Terrify can also do double. So say hit with Mass Hyp, then Terrify. Mass Hyp establishes containment, and Terrify get double damage against everything.
My lvl 27 Mind/Emp controller’s terrify was doing about 30 in I4, and that was unslotted for damage. Say 3 damage SOs will double that to 60, and containment moves that to 120…
Excellent! I’ll be on Virtue tonight with either Eye of Amun-Ra or my new controller Mathmagus if anyone else is going to be tooling around… I’ve been away from Paragon City for far too long (thanks to WoW). :)
Players with male avatars who try to change their costume at the icon tailor may be charged extra influence beyond their changes. This issue should only happen once, and we will be giving a free costume token to all players on Sept 1 to compensate for this bug.
"
This is cool, as I’ll be starting a new character, so I can do some costume tweaks even while he is poor.
Mike, you are correct. After further observation, any attack that deals damage will result in double damage, if the target is held by any holding power. I didn’t notice it before because I would throw down Dominate, hit a foe with another power while it was retaliating, and only see the double damage on the other power. So if I hold a foe, then wait for the hold animation, I can take it down even faster with my powers.
One big plus: half debt received during missions. w00t!
I also got to try a fire mission for the first time. It’s a little chaotic, and kind of combines the firefighting mechanics of GTA:SA with the mob hunting mentality of a typical CoH event. But if you fight enough fires, you will receive a badge.
Archery appears ruined to me by the brawl animation. Either I’m nuts or it’s a fancylad style kick. More of a leg twitch. I swear compared to the rest of the game I have no idea wtf their animators are doing, the jump anims are just retarded except for hulk style characters, etc… not so bad as the ass wiggle in vampire bloodlines, but not super heroey… boo.
I guess I’ll try sonic for 5 seconds, decide it blows and unsub again.
There are fire missions? Man I have to get this going…[/quote]
Not exactly missions. If you’re running around Steel Canyon you might see smoke off in the distance. Get there in time to help, and talk to the fire chief (he’s whistling for help) to pick up an extinguisher pack, or just whip out whatever cold damage you can bring.
Blast the fires to put them out, and watch for Hellions milling around the base of the building, lobbing molotovs up to ‘heal’ the fires. Put out fires and take out Hellions for three levels of fire chief badge.
Also in Skyway City, Trolls are cracking open kegs of Superadine, dancing it up outside warehouses and ducking in for a shot that turns them into gargantuan, pulsating super-trolls, who rampage through the streets. There’s one badge for taking them down before they hulk out, and one badge for clearing the streets afterward.
You know you can play the whole game without using brawl right?[/quote]
Technically sure, but how super heroey is it to never get off a good pop to the jaw of evil? I did find out that its only if you have the bow out, so I guess if I really want to punch I can put away the bow.
As a blaster who does melee, the extra damage when dying is nice.
Well last night I logged on as my Invuln. Tanker (The Other Stagehand) after a long time away, and despite all the cries of “they nerfed tanks!” it wasn’t bad at all.
Yes I was taking more damage, but the healers could keep up with it. I did have to use my fail-safe self heal a little more often, but all of it was perfectly reasonable.
It’s still a good time playing a tank. All you squishy blasters and whatnot have fun with your new powers, I like getting hit in the head with boulders.
