Hanging out in Father Time’s Chalet Faerie

We’re off (weather, DIA, and Frontier Airlines allowing) to So. California for the holiday season, which, perforce, will be restricting our CoXplay (and blogging) a bit. Especially since we’re bringing Katherine’s notebook, which will run CoX in the say way that I could run an Iron Man Triathlon — very slowly and painfully and with a lot of patience and kind words.

So from all of us, Happy Holidays and New Year and everything, And from all of me …

  • Psi-clone: “Seasons Greetings, and may visions of sugar-plums dance in your heads.”
  • Torchielle: “Hope you have a nice fire to huddle up in front of on these cold wintery nights.”
  • Velvet Jones: “Hope y’all have someone to huddle up with in front of that there fire. Merry Christmas, and hope Santa brings you tons of loot.”
  • Ho Ho: “Yeah, like what she said. Oh, and don’t forget to cut down a nice Christmas tree for your place.”
  • Lynn Calodo: “Uh, yeah. Merry and all that. Whatever.”
  • Fazenda: “May the magic of the season, and all that shite.”
  • Mister Ravenous: “Eat well. Get plump.”
  • Honor the Flag: “May this joyous season bring you and all of yours great happiness.”
  • Mister Thorne: “He sees you when you’re sleeping, you know.”
  • Eliza Dee: “He better not be looking at me!”
  • Mr. Azure: “Look, honey! They celebrate Christmas here! Um … may the Christmas Bunny bring you many helpings of corned beef this year!”
  • Unchained Path: “This one hopes that the warmth of these times and the ties that bind you together bring you pleasant memories in the years ahead.”
  • Lady Zebra: “Winter festivals and socially binding exchanges of goods. What kind of backwater hell is this?”
  • Fr. Frank: “May the celebration of the birth of our Lord light the night and the days of your year to come.”
  • Mollie Magpie: “Christmas! Wheee!”
  • Rita the Cat: “I’ll be home for Christmas, you can count on meeeee ….”

Christmas cheer

With Jackie over, and in-between other tasks, we’ve been busy doing various Christmas goodies — gift exchanges at a minimum, and Father Time mishes as possible.

Last night, we ended up hooking up with varoius New York people and ran through the Father Time mish several times. Velvet, got her gloves and boots (to go with the hat — which one wistful player, not around last Christmas, asked about). (In the picture, Velvet and Merrie Mayhem demonstrate the joy of knockup/down/back.

Also ran things with Mister Ravenous, which was also greatly amusing.

My only critique of the event is that the temp powers (rez and rings) only last for a short period of Real Time, which makes it unlikely the alts I get them on will ever actually use them. Ah, well — made for a few nice bonus titles and a chance to play some folks (like Velvet and Mr. R) whom I don’t get out nearly often enough …

Stamina

The official Dev stance on Stamina — “No, it’s not necessary for anyone.”

Um … right.

Stamina is a problem power. The game is NOT balanced around a character having Stamina. It is also balanced around characters playing on Heroic. Chances are good that any character of any AT with mediocre or better slotting can solo and team successfully on Heroic without *needing* Stamina.

That doesn’t mean they don’t want Stamina. Endurance is, essentially, a fixed value. You have 100 End (for most characters) and each power uses some of that each time it is activated or cycled. If you add up all your toggles costs and can figure out the endurance cost of your ‘attack chain’ you can figure out exactly what your burn rate is.

Recovery offsets the ‘burn rate’ and, when combined with the size of the Endurance Pool and Burn Rate values, you can determine exactly how long you can stand and fight. Being able to Stand and fight longer is desirable — not only can you advance faster, but you can potentially take on tougher targets as well.

Stamina is the only Power available to all characters which increases the duration a character can battle (endurance-wise.) It’s easy to see why it is such a popular power. It is *not* required though, in the same way that a travel power is not required. The game is definitely easier with it than without, but you can play perfectly well from levels 1 to 50 with or without it. People have done so.

People have also gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel. That doesn’t make it pleasant, or even possible, for everyone to do so “perfectly well.”

Actually, that’s not quite true. If you rest between every encounter and horde blue Inspirations and slot the bejebus out of your powers with EndRed and avoid AVs (on Heroic), yes, you can probably get by okay without Stamina, regardless of your AT and powerset. It just won’t be easy, or pleasant, or effective, and folks are unlikely to invite you back onto teams. So, yes, in that “same way” it’s like travel powers — not required, but damned inconvenient to be without them or a substitute.

Frankly, the Endurance thing needs to be reexamined, if the Devs want to really assert that folks don’t need to have Stamina in their build. Ninety-five percent of the toons I know spend their 12-20 levels mostly getting their travel powers and Stamina. Arguing that neither is “necessary” seems goofy.

The Secrets of Positron’s Task Force — Revealed!

After a long thread on the boards titled, “Why does Positron’s TF suck SO badly?”, Positron writes:

Yes, you have entirely -me- to blame for that Task Force.

Here’s some (not so) interesting background tidbits:

* Task Forces were originally supposed to be “supergroup missions” where then entire SG could partake at once. We couldn’t get the tech working in time, so we came up with the idea of a “mini-raid”, where a couple people could spend an entire day doing missions together for cool rewards. This is why Task Forces allow you to go offline and return and still be in the TF. It allows players to say “let’s meet up every night from 8 to 10pm and work on the TF”, without having to start over.

* Positron’s TF was the very first TF ever made. It was supposed to be the precursor to the (cut) Faultline Trial.

* Positron’s TF was originally written as TWO Task Forces, but we didn’t have the tech to have a single contact give out Task Force A and B, and only give out B if everyone completed A, so it was merged into a Single Ginormous Task Force.

* Positron’s TF never got full benefit from cool stuff like custom mission maps, because it was done so early in development.

* I am still trying to get a rewrite of Positron’s TF onto the schedule… but I want to know how you guys would feel about an “easier” or “shorter” TF? It would obviously give out the same badge as previous (or the badge hunters would have my head), but would that cheapen the badge for those that had it already?

“… Three times is enemy action.”

Bumming around with Lynn last evening, got invited into a small PUG for the Father Time mish. Got in too late to get any mission credit/goody. So we started it over. Went in, got cocky, got sent to the medbays in Pocket D. Re-entered Pocket D, clicked on the mission door.

CRASH.

Reverify files (ho-hum). Load up Lynn again …

CRASH.

Hmmm. That’s not good.

Let’s try another toon for the evening.

 

Ended up running a while as Lady Zebra, duoing with someone I’d been in a PUG earlier in the day. That went pretty well, until we found out how difficult hunting ten igneous in Grendel’s Gulch could be. Did get her up about half a level (so … close … to … 14 …) but a lot of debt, too.

Then I pulled on Honor and got hooked up with a team in Faultline that was one of those that renews your faith in PUGs — blasting through the opposition, minimal stupidity, maximal XP, to go a full level to 17.5.

Most amusing thing was the “Stop the Steel Canyon Bank Robbery” safeguard mish, waypointed deep in Faultline. We went down there … to discover that the waypoint was actually outside the War Walls. “Hey! I can see my bank from up here!”

Overall good evening, and perfect timing, as Margie and Jackie were just getting back from their madcap night out …

 

Lynn signed in jjust fine this morning.

Going to the Maul

I love Shadow Maul in the dark set. I know there are some folks who hate it — largely because of that prolonged “whiff whiff whiff whiff” when it misses — but I love it, and hitting that perfect cone and seeing multiple numbers bubble up is the next best thing to — well, things that you can only effectively do outside of the game.

There’s been a lot of talk about SM of late, largely because of its unbuffable cousin, Sands of Mu, becoming a Veteran Reward (I’m kind of surprised that they didn’t rename SoM). And here’s an interesting note from Castle on the power.

Numbers-wise, Shadowmaul is really a single target attack. In fact, it actually does MORE damage then the formula stipulates for a single target for a variety of reasons. The fact it is a cone and can hit 2, 3 or even 5 opponents is strictly a bonus.

That said my highest level scrapper is DM/Regen, whom I have played since about 3 weeks after launch. I rarely ‘try’ to get multiple critters in the cone — the extra damage is probably worth it over time, but it detracts from my fun to focus on it.

I’m a ‘recovering power gamer’ — I’m the guy who, in Champions would try to get a multipower with mutually exclusive attacks in them (a ‘Killing Attack’ which the target has to have resistant defenses to defend against and a ‘No Normal Defense’ attack which only worked on targets with no Resistant Defense, as an easy example). So, believe me when I say I understand the temptation to focus on maximizing performance. I understand that stepping back and seeing something as a bonus can sometimes be hard. This power,
however, is possibly the best example in City Of Heroes/Villain of a power which you have to fight that temptation with.

Margie is a lot better than me in setting up that perfect cone (probably all that Amorpha practice, but she’s just better at maneuvering than I am). I’ve learned to seek small opportunities for it, but not to make it a be-all/end-all of my attack chain. If nothing else, someone like me can really frell up his DoT by taking multiple seconds to try and set up the cone, vs. just going in and beating the snot out of stuff.

There are also a couple of comments in the thread from others on how to get mobs to line up more effectively. For what it’s worth. 🙂

Winter is i-cummin in!

The Winter Event has started.

More official details here. I mentioned some (the automatic bennies) a couple of days ago, but here’s the rest:

 

Sounds of holiday cheer not only lighten the hearts of heroes and deepen Recluse’s frown – they also seem to lure old foes back from distant defeats to the present time …

And time is what it’s all about! Also beginning on the 14th (through January 2nd), a new contact will be found in Pocket D – Old Father Time. The keeper of the new year has a crisis on his hands, one that can prevent time from moving forward, and thus bringing an end to the universe. Heroes and Villains can band together to tackle this task, a task that sees an old foe Snaptooth make a vengeful return.

Snaptooth is back for the renewal of the year, and with a cunning plot to grind time to a halt. Snaptooth has kidnapped Baby New Year in order to keep Old Father Time from passing on the chronological mantle. If he keeps Baby New Year locked away forever, guarded by the Red Caps and allies among the Tuatha, winter will never give way to spring, and the universe as we know it may come to an end.

Old Father Time can be found through a doorway in Pocket D that leads to a ski chalet built on a piece of the Shadow Shard. If you help him out, he’ll give out a choice of one of several fabulous holiday presents.

On top of everything else, the Gamester is loading the streets and rooftops with gifts once more. His presents might hold an Inspiration or Temporary Power, or they might reveal less favorable items like a Lump of Coal (though some find this a good thing), a Snowbeast, or maybe even the Winter Lord!

The Gamester’s presents will be found throughout the Cities from December 18th until January 2nd.

Let the holiday fun begin!

Knights Night

Managed to make it to our first Knights Night in a while. Not a wildly attended affair, but quite enjoyable — Mal as Horehound, BD as Cate Winters, Kessa (while maintaining a connection) as Id-Energy — and guest starring Margie and me as the Azures … who aren’t Storm Knights, though they fit right in nicely. A bit of egg nog and holiday cheer, and we were good to go.

It was actually a very “balanced” AT set — tank, scrapper, blaster, controller, (occasional) defender. We ran the first story arc in Faultline — which is just gorgeous, both in terrain and in missions — and had a great time, except for one room where we were (a) a man down, and (b) a bit cocky about drawing aggro from everywhere.

Playing the Azures was a kick, as usual (no pun intended). We may have to pull them out more often. Margie was rediscovering the joy of Deceive/Confuse (which Mal and I could have reminded her of any time), and I’ve been doing a lot with MA scrappers of late, and it was interesting to see how Mr. A’s build resembled/differed from ones I’ve been looking at (Jump Kick is a key part of his attack chain, which just seems odd). We both dinged 17 (only slots, alas), and are ready for more.

At any rate, a great time. We won’t likely be able to make it to the other two penciled in on the board (an announcement in the SG message might help pull more attendance from others), but we’ll definitely be watching for next month’s installments.

Winter Wonderland

The Winter Event is here! (Or it will be shortly.) Yay!

All the cool bennies aside, Margie’s been lurking around Father Time’s chalet on Test, and it’s gorgeous to behold (and fun to play in).

As for those cool bennies, any toon who logs in between 12/14 and 1/2 will get:

  1. A badge (Cold Front)
  2. Fuzzy Earmuffs
  3. The Holiday Spirit temp power (24 hours of debt protection once it’s invoked).
  4. The Holiday Cheer temp power (give it to one other player and they’ll get a random gift).

Character Quiz

A character quiz, via BD:

  1. Pick one of my characters, any one.
  2. I will tell you the origin of his/her/it’s name.
  3. I will tell you five random facts surrounding his/her/its creation.
  4. I will give you one random fact of his/her/its backstory.
  5. I will give you one random fact of his/her/its forestory.
  6. You may ask me up to ten questions about the character (but if a question is too spoiler-y I’ll respond with gibberish or a dirty limerick or something)
  7. If you place this in your journal/blog, I will return the favor.

An interesting idea. Any takers?

Lowbies on Parade

Had a fair amount of solo time on this weekend, so played with some of my low-level solo characters (I did make one attempt to bring on Lynn, but nobody was around and I just wasn’t feeling in the mood for her solo).

Actually, most of these I don’t really care to run solo — I like getting onto PUGs (for better and for worse) with them. Indeed, of them, only LZ is really solo-friendly.

Honor the Flag – Managed, by hook or by crook, to solo a pip-and-a-half to get her to level in Skyway, including a brief stint assisting some folks in pounding on Babbage. She still runs into Endurance problems, and will until, of course, 20. Sigh. Got invited to and accepted membership on an SG — “The Good Guys,” I think it is. Did some SKing into the New Faultline (I think the real estate interests really need to encourage them to rename that neighborhood — maybe back
to its original pre-invasion name), and earned an SG promotion due to presige gathered. Had fun playing a tank.

Lady Zebra – Trying so hard to get her to 14 and travel powers (SS planned). Ended up invited onto a Frostfire team, which was a hoot — lots of fun, two near-TPKs, and, at one point, the original mission owner, who discoed, came back on with another team and into the same mission instance. Yikes. As usual, the final battle was anticlimactic. Other fun running around Steel, and burned a costume token at Icon to give her actual hooves (which, alas, I can’t stripe).
Most fun solo character, at the moment. Also invited onto a team, “The Freedom Phalanx: Black Ops Division” (I noted to the SG leader it was odd that a black ops group would be advertising via Broadcast). Built customized tell files for her, too.

Fr. Frank – And sometimes an Empathy Defender is a “Healer.” Played in a couple of Hollows PUGs which did not turn out well, though I was able to use my jet pack to bypass Grendal Gulch. In one case, the team leader was a lunatic blaster who liked to charge first into melee range to let fly (hint: don’t torque off the healer in the group too often); in the other, we ended up forging across the Hollows only to have our team leader — and damage-dealer — drop off
for “SG needs,” leaving us pretty much without anything to do. Still having fun, though Built customized tell files for him.

Molly Magpie – Still at only 6. Joined up with a higher level Controller quartet in the Hollows and learned (a) imps are nasty, (b) kill me twice, shame on me, (c) Personal Force Field is very helpful sometimes. I do like her power set (Grav/FF controller), and she’s fun to play and watch.

Now I shall taunt you a zeroeth time!

Tanker and Brute auto-taunts aren’t working — both auras and Gauntlet. Swell. Maybe we’ll hold off on playing Torchy/Hildy awhile until it’s fixed.

Or maybe it’s only working on minions, Which is still not all that good.

As a silver lining, they spotted that “Gauntlet from pool powers like Boxing or Air Superiority have, apparently, never worked.” Eek. That’s going to be fixed with the other problem.

Freespecs out the wazoo

The freespec on Virtue got messed up, so another one should be distributed as of this morning.

The devs also failed to let people know sufficiently (apparently — I assume there were complaints) about the I8.1 freespec that was just given out. Since freespecs don’t stack, some folks felt like they’d “lost” something (“I could have made change X on Monday and been able to do something else today”), so … yet another freespec will be coming out next week.

So now’s the time to try out that freespec you just got to see if that power you think will be the cat’s pajamas is really what you want to saddle yourself with.

Patch + Respec

New patch (what I called “8.1” the other day) is up on Live. Comments (mostly additional or different ones from when it went to Test).

 

Powers

  • Fire Imps: Summoned Fire Imps level will now be 1 below that of their caster. For instance, if you are level 39 and cast Fire Imps, each Fire Imp will be level 38. [Lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth on this one. Shrug.]
  • Stalker and Scrapper versions of Impale have had their range reduced to 40 feet. This change is being made to bring the power more in line with Blast power sets’ short range, high damage attacks. [Will make using it as a pull power a bit more annoying.]
  • Tanker and Brute Fiery Aura: Healing Flames: Recharge reduced to 40 seconds, healing scale increased to 2.5. [Yay for Hildy!]
  • Reduced the duration of the rooted portion of the Burn animation and normalized the duration for Male, Female, and Huge models (the Female and Huge models were ~1.25 seconds longer before you could move or attack than the Male).
  • Burn graphical effects were changed slightly.
  • Radiation Blast Aim was boosting the damage of Negative Energy powers twice, while not giving any benefit to Toxic damage attacks at all, due to a duplicated entry. Both issues are now fixed.
  • Added secondary effects to Enervating Field and Radiation Infection to help identify the anchor.
  • Minor tweaks to Radiation Control power graphical effects for performance related issues.
  • Jump Kick will now only play a knockback/up animation when the target is actually affected by knockback/up.
  • Nemesis Staff (Veteran Reward and Temp Power) will now have the correct delay for the sound and visual FX when it is drawn and fired.
  • Broadsword, Claws and Katana powers which debuff Defense have had a visual effect added to the debuff. [That will help. Noticed that wasn’t working with Rita.]
  • Temporary Powers with Flight will no longer permanently suppress Flight Speed if you have a toggle debuff on a target.
  • Tweaked all versions of Photon Seekers so they should be more responsive.
  • Corrected an issue that made extra enhancement slots in Sprint and Rest disappear after a respec.

Tasks

  • Restored bonus awards to PvP missions. However, the bonus reward can only be given to a player once every 30 minutes. Otherwise, the player will receive a standard mission reward.

Bases

  • Slightly reduced footprint for arcane teleporter base items: teleporters can now be placed side by side to maximum capacity of each teleporter room.
  • Corrected an issue with the Arcane Force Field. It should now grant Defense to those within its area of effect.

PvP

  • All members of a team now share the timer for how long after defeating an enemy before they can gain reputation for defeating that same enemy again.

Chat

  • Fixed bug that disconnected players from global chat when entering a new map, until an enemy was defeated on that map. [Yay!]

Veteran Rewards

  • Added text to the Long help descriptions of the Veteran Reward powers explaining that damage enhancing powers will not apply to them. [Boo!]
  • Changed Short Help text for Veteran Reward Powers so they better match the Long Help descriptions.
  • Turned off floater text for base details when claimed.
  • Claiming Prestige Sprints should now remove the option to claim them. If you already have these sprints claimed, you may claim it one last time to get rid of it off your Veteran badge list.
  • The Ghosts in Croatoa are now properly affected by the Ghost Slaying Axe Veteran Reward Power and are affected by the bonus damage versus undead.
  • Modified the Veteran Reward powers Nemesis Staff and Blackwand. The temp powers gained through missions are unchanged.
    • The Nemesis staff no longer has a Disorient function; however it will deal bonus damage in the hands of any character of the Technology, Science or Natural origins.
    • Blackwand’s bonus damage is now usable by Magic, Mutant and Natural origin characters. Additionally, Blackwand has had a minor To Hit debuff added.

Game

  • Emotes for /eat food and /eat donut should work a bit more consistently.
  • Sit emotes should work more consistently. They should always reposition you at ground height and be interruptible by flight.
  • Wings will now animate while falling. For example: running off of something and falling or turning flight off while in air and falling.
  • Wings will now animate while jumping.
  • Enhancements once again con based on combat level rather than security level.

Badges

  • Fixed typo in Bad Luck badge.

Tailor

  • Big Afro added to male and huge
  • Assassin & Angelic patterns added to male & huge
  • Samurai belts are now available for huge
  • Skull face option now scales properly with huge
  • Huge now has the option for putting chest details over trenchcoats
  • Female now has the option of No Sleeves with trenchcoats.
  • Fixed issue with many chest details clipping through huge characters.
  • Martial Arts belts should be available when wearing a Jacket
  • Epsilon, Zeta and Eta no longer repeat in the chest detail listing.

CITY OF HEROES

Powers

Blaster Improvements:

These changes are all aimed towards addressing sets based on feedback from players. These changes also affect Defender and Corruptor versions of these powers where applicable.

  • Blaster Fire Manipulation: Ring of Fire: Increased overall damage. Damage ticks are now faster, as well. Recharge was increased to 6 seconds.
  • Blaster Fire Manipulation: Fire Sword: Bonus damage increased.
  • Blaster Fire Manipulation: Combustion: Bonus damage increased.
  • Blaster Fire Manipulation: Fire Sword Circle: Bonus damage increased.
  • Blaster Fire Blast Powerset: Bonus damage increased by 50% for all appropriate powers. [Yay!]
  • Blaster Fire Blast: Blaze: Increased Range to 40′ [Yay!]
  • Assault Rifle Ignite: Increased Range to 40′
  • Energy Blast Power Burst: Increased Range to 40′
  • Radiation Attack Cosmic Burst: Increased Range to 40′
  • Sonic Attack Shout: Increased Range to 40′
  • Blaster Devices Taser: Increased Range to 20′
  • Blaster Archery Fistful of Arrows: corrected an issue which could prevent the power from damaging foes.
  • Blaster Archery Blazing Arrow: corrected an issue that could limit the DoT portion of the power from doing more than one tick of damage.
  • Blaster Assault Rifle Flamethrower: Range increased slightly and recharge time changed so it now matches the range and recharge of the Corruptor version of this power.
  • Blaster Electrical Blast Aim should now display the proper look, and match the other powers in the power set.

Gauntlet and Aura Inherent Taunt Changes:

  • All of these powers may now affect Archvillains and Giant Monsters once again. However, they must pass a ‘To Hit’ check at -20% for the taunt to effect these targets, even for powers such as Invincibility which are normally ‘Always Hit’ [Yay!]
  • Invincibility was looking at the wrong table for it’s inherent taunt ability. It now looks at the correct table, which will bring its taunt functionality more in line with other Taunt Auras. Additionally, the Magnitude of the Taunt was increased so that it matches the other Taunt Aura powers. [Yay!]

Controller Containment bonus is now identical when used on critters or players. When a damaging power is used on a character under the effects of a detrimental status effect, the damage caused will be twice the base damage. (Exception: Spectral wounds damage bonus remains lower, due to the nature of the power.)

Controller Ancilliary Powers:

The damage of these powers was made artificially high originally, to make them desirable. In general, the damage was set to be roughly equivalanet to that of a Blaster. When Containment was added later, this was not taken into account. As such, these powers all do roughly twice the desired damage under Containment conditions. This series of changes is aimed at bringing these powers closer to balance. [Hard to be too upset by this, except I thought their power levels were pretty sucky as-was.]

  • Earth Mastery Hurl Boulder: Base damage reduced from scale 3 to scale 1.64
  • Fire Mastery: Fire Blast: Base damage reduced from scale 2 to scale 1.1
  • Fire Mastery: Fire Ball: Base damage reduced from scale 1.6 to scale 1.05
  • Ice Mastery: Ice Blast: Smashing damage reduced from scale 0.8 to scale 0.2, Cold damage reduced from scale 1.2 to 0.8
  • Ice Mastery: Ice Storm: Removed unresistible PvP damage and added Containment.

    – Primal Forces: Power Blast: Smashing damage reduced from scale 0.8 to scale 0.2, Energy damage reduced from scale 1.2 to 0.8
  • Psionic Mastery: Psionic Blast: Base damage reduced from 2 to 1.
  • Psionic Mastery: Psionic Tornado: Base damage reduced from 0.35 to 0.175. [Sucktasticker!]
  • Defender Electrical Blast Charged Bolt has had the amount of endurance drained in PvP increased. There was a decimal shift error which had this aspect of the power underperforming.
  • Defender Lightning Bolt has had the -recovery portion of the power reduced. It is now consistent with the rest of the powers within the powerset.
  • Slightly increased the PvE Endurance Drain for Defender Electrical Blast Short Circuit to bring it in line with other versions of this power. It now drains 35% endurance if unresisted, compared to 33% previously.
  • Slightly increased the PvE Endurance Drain for Defender Electrical Blast Thunderous Blast to bring it in line with other versions of this power. It now drains 55% endurance if unresisted, compared to 50% previously.
  • Defender Lingering Radiation powers -Regen was operating at 1/5th the scale of the equivalent Corruptor or Controller version. The base scale now matches across all three Archetypes.
  • Revamped the Effects for Trick Arrow/Glue Arrow. Should cause fewer frame rate errors, appear more visible, and accurately reflect the radius of the glue patch.

Powers – PvP specific:

  • Blaster Energy Blast Power Push now has a portion of it’s damage unresisted in PvP. Additionally, the Knockback portion of the power now follows standard suppression rules in PvP.

Emotes

  • Most of the emotes that were not working properly for Kheldian Dwarf form were either modified, replaced, or disabled. Most of these changes were made to resolve issues with the Dwarf sinking into the groundplane or registration issues (i.e., shoving a hot dog into their noggin). The effect emotes include:

    – Sit (and all of the new sitting poses)

    – Ledgesit

    – Lotus/Yoga

    – Kneel

    – Eat Donut/Eat Food/Drink

    – Read Newspaper/Listen to Police Band

    – Grief

    – Batsmash

Tasks

  • Fixed bug that sometimes assigned players to a mission location with no door in Atlas Park.
  • Defeated Vahzilok in Faultline once again are counted properly for the Numina Task Force.

Critters

  • Removed Undead status from the Infected villain group. They are diseased…not zombies!

City Zones

  • Croatoa: Fixed Red Cap spawns in the zone and in missions so that Red Caps below level 35 appear again.

CITY OF VILLAINS

Powers

  • Brutes attack powers will now generate Fury faster against high ranking enemies (including players in PvP)
  • Traps: Poison Gas Trap should play the vomit animation on targets occasionally
  • Corruptor Bitter Freeze Ray’s Scourge attributes were set up incorrectly. As a result, it did not handle Scourge in PvE properly, resulting in lower damage output. This is now fixed.
  • Corruptor Dreadful Wail’s Scourge was missing the Delay variable which made the Scourge damage appear before the animations were complete. This is now fixed.
  • Changed the Long Help description on Lightning Rod so it no longer states you must target the ground for this power to work
  • Mastermind Thug Henchmen: Some improvements made to the change in costumes when fully upgraded.

Badges

  • Villains were not supposed to be able to earn the “Villain Disruptor” badge. Villains who earned this badge will have it revoked, and they will be unable to earn it any more.

 

And this patch is bringing a freespec with it. Yay! Though some folks are reporting problems …

Fired up

Logged in Torchy and Hildy for the first evening in a while. After a few weeks of mostly in-your-face gameplay (Rita, obviously, as a scrapper, but Unchained Path as a controller also tends to be right in the thick of things), being the blaster who stands back,waits for the tank to gather folks, then burns them to cinders felt kind of … odd.

On the other hand, seeing all those orange numbers float up was pretty grand.

That was following a quick run with Lady Zebra and a couple of PUGs in the Hollows. The only reason I can give for my survival without any debt was that everyone else was doing a far better job of drawing aggro than I was — which, as LZ’s a scrapper, tells you something about their, um, tactical playstyle.

Wheeeeee!

Went ahead and respecced Unchained Path last night — dropped Leadership from her later powers and rejigged her to have Hasten and Super Speed.

Oh my God. Wheeeeee!

Got a bit of a feel for it with Siphon Speed previously, but, damn, SS is fun. Hell, even when we had to the north end of Boomtown it was a blast. All I can think of, when I’m zipping down the streets, was the Flash TV music.

Too much fun. I’ve always enjoyed using Fly at ground level, but this is at least as good.

Of course, when it came to Perez Park, I let Idzuna TP me over. I’m not stupid.

Much happier now.