How about if we all run screaming into the melee, flailing about wildly and randomly and seeing what happens?
Ok… we’ll call that “Plan B” 
I’ve got a level 8 controller with some good holding powers I wouldn’t mind sidekicking up to someone. Been wanting to get her leveled up a bit anyway. I’ll come on as Mutha Nature tonight if you want to test that out.
Now for a technical question. The pre-boot notes mention that if you are having trouble with the program crashing, they’ve determined faulty video drivers could be the cause. They suggest upgrading to the latest. Well, mine has crashed a few times, so I figured, great. There was a driver on NVidia a month newer than what I was using so I installed it. Suddenly CoH was running at about 1/3 the speed it normally would. I rolled back my driver to the previous one, and it runs fine again. Anyone else experience that?
As for video drivers, I’m using Nvida 52.16, which are fairly old, but I believe that the drivers newer than that only helped optimize the FX series of cards. I have very few problems with CoH. Think it’s locked up on me once.
In othe video news, as some or all of you may know, CoH forces a refresh time of 60hz, which is an eye killer. I have noticed much less eye strain after correcting this via the method I read about on the CoH forums. I start display properties, then start CoH. Alt/Tab to display properties, and it shows the refresh set by the game to a miserable 60hz. I change this to 85, close display props… and go on my merry way.
Unfortunately, it has to be done with every launch of the game, and my nvidia control panel, though it lists a “refresh override”, won’t override CoH’s setting.
Thanks for posting that, Skillet38. That might explain the tired eyes I’ve been feeling for the last few weeks. I haven’t been doing more gaming, but I have been playing a different game.
Last night, I started up a female character, and was immediately hounded by drooling fan-boys. (Well, actually two) Has any one else had this problem?
I was grouped with some guy named Max Carnage last night who kept making lewd remarks to me. Despite the fact that (a) M. Marie is a nun and (b) I’m pretty sure Max knows I’m a guy.
What a jerk
Actually, I I did make one pretty stereotypical “thin girl with lots of skin” character, but no one drooled on me. I wonder how mant females are actually playing CoH? I know a fair amount in Everquest*, but I don’t get the impression that CoH is reeling the ladies in.
- Yeah, they could be guys, etc but when they’re part of a couple who plays or are talking about their husbands, teenage kids, etc I assume they’re actual females and not the old joke of a 45yr guy playing a sixteen year old flirt.
I get this a lot - and though I’m female, I don’t really appreciate Sparky running through my fight then turning around to stop in front of me (slightly off to one side) and do nothing to help the fight. I actually told one guy to feel free to help, and he replied “Just looking.”
Thanks. :rolleyes: Does anyone know where I can get a minimizer sports bra for my character?
Ryle, I like your strategy. Let’s give it a shot next time. Couple of notes on it at the end of this post.
Here’s what I do as Super-Collider, a rad/rad defender (some healing, lots of debuffs).
Anytime I have Accelerate Metabolism ready, I put that on the group. It gives everyone boosted recharge, boosted END recovery, boosted healing, boosted damage and resistance to mez/sleep/etc. I likes it. 
In combat, with a good group capable of dealing damage without my input (that’s most groups, realistically), I’m going to focus on two things: debuffing the baddies and keeping my teammates up.
First, the debuffing.
I want to get Enervating Field on a big bad guy. It drops his attack power and that of everyone near him, so they hit like mimes. It sticks, too, until he goes down. Then it recharges fast, so I can throw it on someone else.
I also want to get Radiation Infection on one of the big guys. That drops defense, so they turn into punching bags. Like EF, it stays on and recharges pretty quick.
(Side note on these: most effective tactic might be to throw them on a minion, if everyone would agree to leave the guy with the green rings around him alone. That way, we’d have continuous debuffs, rather than the downtime we get when bosses or Lts. go down. On the other hand, said minion might run away from the group, thus removing the debuff. Thoughts?)
Second, healing (and rezzing).
My heal is fairly good but not great (43 at level 13) in a radius around me. I try to stay near enough to the melee that I can run in and heal and then run out. I try to hang near the blasters (and defenders and controllers) because they often need healing more.
As **GMRyujin ** points out, us radius healers have a hard time healing you if you run too far away. Empathy healers have a ranged single-target heal, so they have less of a problem with this. Know your healers.
I also have an in-combat rez (Mutation) which brings a single target back into the fray with full health/endurance and a damage boost. I believe the boost lasts 1 minute, followed by 15 (?) seconds of radiation sickness (stun), and then some time of lowered damage. It has a long recharge time, so I prefer to not use it out of combat.
If you go down, and I haven’t just used it, stay down. Don’t go to the hospital, wait for the rez. Zombie Man also has an in-combat rez (Howling Twilight, I believe), which can raise multiple heroes.
Even if you’re being trampled by the bad guys, fear not. I have TP Friend and can get you out. *
You’ll notice that I’m not blasting much if at all. I need to save END for the debuffs and the healing. Plus, not blasting means I don’t draw aggro, so I can often get near the melee without getting targeted, heal, and get out.
*While I’m on the subject of TP Friend… we need to establish etiquette for it. I need to know if I have permission to save your bacon when you get to about 10% health. If I have to ask and you have to answer, you’re already dead if you really needed the save.
Out of combat, I spend a lot of time playing taxi. I don’t mind it, but again, we need to determine ground rules. If I ask you if you need a TP and you don’t say “yes” then I may enter the mission, in which case you’re out of luck. I’ve spent too much time standing outside the mission entrance saying “who needs a ride” while the rest of the team waits. It’s not necessarily more convenient for me to run back to the entrance to tp you to it than it is for you to run to the entrance and me to tp you to the group once inside. Hazard Zones are an obvious exception.
Notes on Ryle’s strategy:
In between these, insert “defenders/controllers debuff or hold or mez”
Also, we should stick together as a group. We got in trouble (although not the everybody dead kind of trouble) a couple of times last night when we initiated a two-front war. I think we need to pick a leader/scout and follow that person. Ryle wants to do it, so I nominate him.
About TP friend, if someone is at 10% health teleport them, you will rarely be in a bad spot, tough titty, if they get to 10% they need help wether or not they’re gonna admit it, and in the rare circumstance that they don’t, it’s not that inconvenient.
About leading, well, I normally lead all the groups anyways, since I’m the fastest to get going after a fight, so yeah I might as well scout / lead for everybody. BTW, when I stop and stare in a direction, it usually means that group is gonna be next to attack.
Also, bout the heals, sometimes I can just run away and stay alive at low health using my long range shots, that way I dont take up as much healing, it’s a lot safer for me if I have VERY low health to be at a safe distance and sniping, then to be close up.
Some notes:
Protect the healers: Not completely. The Defender archetype has the same amount of hit points as the Scrapper! (i.e., Medium level, only the Tanker has High hit points.) It’s your Blasters and Controllers you need to protect since both have Low level of hp. Also, since Defenders usually have healing powers, they tend to keep themselves alive with Healing whenever their health gets low. I designed my Defender (Zombie Man) for soloing, thus, he has lots of ranged and melee attacks, with most of my enhancements going to the attacks. That’s why I’ll sometimes wade into melee combat.
Limited area heals: Not only are some group heals limited by area, they are also limited as being in-combat only (my healing power derives from draining the villians – not only does it heal us, it debuffs them). And so, yes, it is frustrating running up to a low health character and inititating the heal and having them run out of range. Tonight I created a key bind that emotes a whistle as it heals. This gives characters about three seconds to run into range, or, at least, not to run out of range. ( /bind h “em whistle$$powexec_name Twilight Grasp” [this binds to the ‘h’ key the whistle and heal; put the name of your healing in place of ‘Twilight Grasp’ – right click your heal button and choose ‘info’ for the name of your healing power]. ) Teammates said that it helped.
Ryle and the caltrops: Hiding behind the corner while the caltrops is laid is not a good idea for a group (though a good idea for a soloist). Tankers and scrappers will have nothing to do if the villians never get past the caltrops. Controllers can’t lay down any voodoo. Blasters and Defenders can’t get in their snipe shots. What happened this past night worked. You laid down the caltrops (and now, Zombie Man has the same type of power), controllers froze the villians in it. The ranged attackers started sniping. And the tankers and scrapper engaged the villians that got past the caltrops.
Tankers in groups: Because tankers and scrappers need to run up to a villian to engage in combat, they tend to have a policy of continually moving the battle line forward. Let me explain: Let’s say you have a long hall packed with villians and we engage the front ones. Well, the nearby villians also engaged. Some are melee villians and they run up (and die). Some are ranged villians which don’t run up, and so, the tankers and scrappers run up to them. This moves the battle line further down the hall, which gets the attention of the next group of villians and so on and so on. This can be overwhelming and lead to such problems like death. At some point, tankers and scrappers need to scan the health of the team in the team window, and if there’s a lot of low health or no endurance, they should back off and even hide around the corner and let only those villians aware of their presence chase us to their death. Once rested and healed, then we can return to mopping up the hall.
Teleport: If I’m about to die, you have permisson to tp me out. If someone’s unconscious, you can tp them to you and then tp me to you to rez them.
Zombie Man’s Rez: It’s in-battle only. If someone dies, keep a minion alive as the sacrifice to raise your friends.
Let me just say it’s a blast playing with you all. CoH is a great game and you guys make it damned addictive.
Peace.
That’s exactly what I started doing last night with my Snowstorm (slows and slighly damages) and it did seem to work better/last longer. Since everyone attacks the most powerful foes first to get them out of the way, it wasn’t making any sense to target the Snowstorm on him. Instead, I picked a minion a little farther back, hit him with the snow, then rooted him in place. Don’t know if it was on purpose, but the team generally left him alone until toward the last of the fight.
I should easily hit level 10 with Mutha Nature tonight (would have done it last night if not for the Mapserver going bonkers around 11:30 cst) and will have my choice of Quicksand (slows, damages ala coltrops or Zombie Man’s black rings) or Steamy Mist (radiates from me, adds a little stealth and defense to allies around) or another pool power. Since Mutha is made to be a team player, I ask the team…any recommendations?
Max, the Steamy Mist is not bad, Air Goddess has it and it is a constant protection power. But it is an edurance drain since it is a toggle power. Adding in the various heals going on and it is easy to run out in a long battle. I had to watch it last night with just a tanker and a blaster going.
Lok
I think we can agree on one thing: None of us want to be caught in Max’s “Steamy Mist.” 
DeVena, I apologise on behalf my gender 
I personally do stop and look at people from time to time, but that’s just because I’ll see a cool costume and want to admire it a moment. What a bunch of dipsticks.
Ironically, I get a bit miffed when I’m fighting some baddies and someone does pitch in. I’ll be easily handling four or five blues when all of a sudden half of them burst into flame and drop dead and some numbnuts goes running off, either proud of himself for “saving” me or else proud of himself for swiping some easy xp. I’m not sure which. Fortunately, crime in Paragon city is easy to come by so it only really matters when I’m doing a “kill X guys” mission.
Max, what’s the range on Steaming Mist, anyway? I haven’t played much with anything AE aside from my old Blaster’s fireballs back on the Champion server.
Speaking of, I need to decide on M. Marie’s next power. I really kinda want another offensive power to slap guys around with, but I’ll feel guilty neglecting my Defensive, especially since I want to buy up for Super Leap at 14 so I don’t get as many powers as I could be. Right now she’s at 2 offensive and 2 defensive. Well, actually 3 defensive because of combat leaping. Cool! I just convinced myself to go for another offensive Do you need both Combat Leaping and the kick power from Jumping to get Super Leap or just one of them?
Finally, thanks again for everyone’s advice. I felt much more capable last night in the group than I have in previous sessions. I keep starting alts, but I like M. Marie and enjoy getting beat upon by bad guys and being able to take it.
Just Combat Jump worked for Stilleto.
Do not get the offensive power in the Leaping pool, I can’t remember the name, I think it’s like… offensive jump or something. but you will regret it later, you can get Super Jump with just Combat Jumping.
Excellent. So I’ll give M. Marie an offensive this time around, a defensive at 12 and be 3:4 for off:def powers when I get Super Jump.
Glad I don’t need combat kicking or whatever it’s called. It sounded exceptionally lame.
I thought that CoH didn’t have a ‘tech tree.’ In other words, I’m pretty sure you never have to previously have one power in order to select one at a later time.
USAvenger is now halfway through 6. Did some patrolling with DeVena and her hubby who was using a character named Asheron’s Call. Still haven’t been ablke to cantact any of you guys, but still want to join the SG. I probably won’t be back on until late Sunday (9 or 10 central) but if anyone wants to group with a bad-ass little scrapper with Captain America complex, add me to your friends list, and shoot me a tell when you see me!
By the way guys, I’ll probably disappear shortly. We’re moving on Tuesday and the broadband probably won’t be on for a couple days after that, so it may be a week or so before I make it back on. Though I may be foolish enough to try it on dialup…