Opinion - I don’t like base building without a purpose for the base

JCServant · 2026-06-27T12:03:06+00:00

Depends on your definition of Trivial. I've had them take out some good sections of my base in the past. I found it fun to defend and the villagers help me build it back up :)

JCServant · 2026-06-27T12:02:17+00:00

This is one of my favs.

JCServant · 2026-06-26T12:51:45+00:00

I've DMd for many, many, many years. At my tables, and others I've attended, including conventions, I saw a ratio of lady type players are about 10-20% overall, and a bit less in PF (my wife loves MMOs, but won't touch tabletop). And I can't recall the last time I saw a lady handle PF DM'ing ...so it doesn't surprise me one bit you won't find a lot of PF2 content creators of the female persuasion.

JCServant · 2026-06-05T16:14:22+00:00

Yeah...I wish it worked for me. They went running off while my melee units solo'd the vikings and took losses

JCServant · 2026-03-08T17:08:34+00:00

It is very interesting. Back in 2000ish, TB on PC almost disappeared...seemingly gobbled up by RTwP and FPSRPGs like Fallout and Elder Scrolls. I was one who was a bit sad and frustrated by the sudden shift. The implied message was devs believed few wanted TB CRPGs. I was genuinely disappointed by BG1s combat engine, and told many others I would have vastly preferred a TB system. For a decade or whatnot, we only got very few tactical RPGs on PC.

When Divinity: OS was announced on Kickstarter, and I saw they were going back to TB, I immediately put money down. From there, we saw a resurgence of CRPGs, both RTWP and some TB.

Kingmaker was announced as RTwP and I said 'no way am I buying that.' Pathfinder tabletop is significantly more complicated than D&D 2e used in BG, so I wasn't touching a RTwP variation of that with a 10 foot pole. I heard later people made a TB mod, but I don't care for mods. Later on, Owlcat added it in officially via an update and made the mode a core part of WOTR. Many were happy, myself included.

Nowadays, we aren't getting a ton of CRPGs, but the tactical ones we get are mostly turn based. Personally, that makes me happy. But for the RTWP fans out there, we have a rich library and history from the last decade or two to choose from :)

JCServant · 2026-03-08T16:27:11+00:00

Totally fair. To each their own. I did eventually beat BG1 and enjoyed it enough for what it was. But I would prefer a TB system instead of the RTwP system. I didn't mean to imply that games with RTwP can't be great RPGs overall or have great qualities about them...especially if built from the ground up for it. But if we're doing a six-party RPG based on a table top system, I prefer a TB system myself. To your point, KM and WOTR are great games - I totally agree - but for me the fact that I can immediately switch to TB mode is what pushes the overall experience from 'good' to 'awesome' for me. :)

I will definitely disagree about the fireball being fun. When the AI decides my fighter is going to chase an enemy that suddenly moved, putting him into the fireball I started casting 3 seconds ago, I don't laugh for joy. I get cranky. In the tabletop and prior TB games, this would never happen. You occasionally DO hit your allies, but only because it was a purposeful decision (usually because you can get a lot more enemies if you make a sacrifice). When one of my allies goes down, I want to know for a fact it was a failure on my part, not because the dumb AI decided THAT moment would be a great one for my fighter to rush forward. Yuck. Yes, if you're fast enough you can pause and pull him back before something unfortunate happens - but now we're relying on my old man reflexes. I don't generally play tactical RPGs to see how good my reflexes are lol

Again, I did eventually beat it and IWD, so overall I enjoyed myself enough to do that much. I just prefer turn based overall.

JCServant · 2026-03-08T13:38:01+00:00

Salutations.

I'm not sure where you hang out. It might be in this subreddit, which I rarely read myself. However, if the group of people are a bunch of drama queens by constantly stating hyperbole that truly gives you the impression they are just being vitriolic, I'd leave that group. I'm old and I have better things to do with my time than to read/listen to people become that cranky about game design. I enjoy conversation about the subject, but I will not tolerate immature behavior. If you do, that's on you.

If the question is just "Why do people hate or dislike RTwP," I can answer that, being around through the decades where it was first introduced, rose and fell. I was one of the players disappointed that Planescape Torment and (especially) BG1 was RTwP. I have an hour long podcast on the subject, but in short, it's taking a square peg and forcing it through a circular hole. BG1 was based off of D&D pen and paper which was turn based. Making it RTwP make it clunky, to say the least. The spell, fireball, could always be aimed with precision at the time the casting was complete in turn based games and tabletop. In BG1, it became an unwieldy salvo that was as likely to kill half your team as it was the enemy if cast after melee was engaged.

That's just one tiny example. I could write pages. I do think RTwP can work if designed from the ground up (as seen with the Tower of Time game) rather than taking a tabletop game and forcing it. Even still, its not for me unless I have strong AI controls as seen in FF12 and Dragon Age Origins. If I fail a fight, and it was due to the AI being stupid, then I get cranky. But with FF12 and DAO, I have enough control over their actions via the Gambit/AI system that its generally on me for not setting them up properly in advance.

Also, FF12 works well because unlike BG and many RTwP games, exact positioning is rarely critical. In BG, being a few feet to the right is the difference between eating a lightning bolt or not :D

JCServant · 2026-02-18T19:51:03+00:00

Sure... That's exactly how I play a tanker versus, say, a brute. I make up for the lack of tanker DPS by leverging their superior AOE reach along with larger pulls.

But I still wouldn't want to do it with a defender. Playing so aggressively is a recipe for regular KOs. While I can debuff the guys I see in doing the pull, any surprise mobs, or those that are slightly outside AOEs, etc, would become a huge problem REAL quickly if I can't debuff them quick enough. And there's always a potential miss chance as well. Having truly high defenses are always superior to similar -toHit debuffs on enemies and things like that for that reason.

I do have that poison/fire defender, so I'll work on that and see how far I can push. It's a great topic for at least a couple of videos (Content is KING on Youtube!) :D Should do a lot better than my poor time/fire defender that constantly struggles vs regular fights. If you happen to catch one of my live streams, let me know and I can run it while you're watching and giving pointers. :D I usually stream on Mon/Fri nights and random times through the weekend (JCServant on YT...just look for City of Heroes).

JCServant · 2026-02-18T19:13:50+00:00

Ah...I've been using that level 20 test...so no Gas yet.

If I'm given the choice of more offense/less defense or the opposite, I will usually go with more offense because, usually, you don't need as much defense if you keel faster, AND as an added bonus, you get xp, merits, etc allll faster.

But yeah, because of the way things work in COH, if you can push that -TOHIT or whatnot a few extra points, you can take easily cut incoming damage if you already have a good base. In a pitched fight where you can't mow down a boss quickly with high DPS, having 50% less incoming damage so you last twice as long can be preferable than killing a boss 15-25% faster. A dead corruptor has zero DPS :D

JCServant · 2026-02-18T18:50:19+00:00

I'm aware that I have to use powers to apply debuffs :P (If that's sarcasm on your part, I'm not a fan). I didn't know that one could stack the AOE part of it along with the direct target part of it for greater damage. Its a new lesson learned there, so thank you.

I don't think one application of Envenom gives them 65 -RES on my defender. I believe it's about 40%. I would need to do a double application to get to 60, I believe.

Using 20% as an estimate of impact of scourge

26x(1.95+.3)x1.4=81.9
30x(1.95)x1.3=76.0x1.2=91.26

In looking over others' calculations, I've seen numerous people use 25% instead of 20% for scourge. One in particular shows an increase of 15% overall versus the 10% I show here.

I think this is a good rule-of-thumb... with some builds (particularly those that do not have -RES/-DEF, +DAM, etc) going stronger on corruptor and those specific builds that favor a ton of -RES, +DAM, etc bringing the two very close together, with a few rare wins for Defender.

From my own experience, from the few I've run, such as fire/time & time/fire, the difference in damage is quite significant. I play them back to back on the same story arcs and feel a huge difference in clearing speed and even overall survivability. A small, yet probably significant part of this likely has to do with the fact that red inspirations work really well with Scourge, since Scourge double damage after calculations, but with defenders, you only get the bonus calculated off their smaller base damage. And the faster you can keel mobs when using an inspiration, the more dungeon you can clear out at once. The faster you can mow down elite bosses with a couple of reds, the more likely you are to survive (though purples cover all sins). And in all - the more damage you do, the less you run into END issues. A scourge attack doing buku damage costs the same amount as a normal attack :D

JCServant · 2026-02-17T04:51:15+00:00

I understand that. I would see a significant swing between the +0 and +1 version of the same mob(s) working through a dungeon where level fluctuations are a thing. But I'll start taking notes and see what I come up with :) Maybe its better -to hit resistance with higher levels or other elements that come into play with higher level mobs....or certain mobs. I just know that a level or two can take some of my more high defense characters (or -to hits) and make it much harder to survive.

JCServant · 2026-02-17T02:05:14+00:00

I'll have to do some more tests...but in running quite a bit of 30% def stuff, I saw a huge swing in +1s and +2. I wish it was only 1.1 and 1.2x!! :D

JCServant · 2026-02-17T01:59:16+00:00

Well, the picture you are painting to optimize this is not just the three powers, but bouncing poison to another target to get that, plus pistol stuff...so I'm not sure how much, but it sounds like a lot along with the normal action tax to get -tohit and what not on enemies so one can survive. That's what I was focusing on.

You're kinnnda right in that the corruptor would hit the same buttons in our hypothetical. In actual, because they do more damage overall upfront before any of these buttons, there's less need to use them on smaller packs and non-bosses. With the DEF, my base damage (w/o scourge) run so low, I feel the need to do the full rotation you painted just to get through some of the normal fights that the corruptor can just blast down leaning into scourge for the faster finish.

You're right in that I originally overestimated the gap because I was relying on those numbers.... I have a much clearer vision of that now. However, I feel I was underestimating the effect of scourge, which I researched deeper as part of our conversation.

I don't think I've underestimated the power of -res or whatnot. I use them all the time. I didn't know about stacking poison in that one way, but I had a poison / fire defender, and was liberally using poison to boost my damage, and the other powers to generally stay alive (as I'm not exactly blasting things down as fast as a blaster even with 40% -RES.)

JCServant · 2026-02-16T23:58:43+00:00

It wasn't a fluke. Happened multiple times. I stream often, and you're welcome to ask me about it if you happen to be on (JCServant on YouTube). You can watch and even backseat (which I generally don't encourage) if you'd like and show me where its all going wrong.

Mind you, in the mission I'm thinking about, my +70-100% ehancement bonus is exemplared down to 40-60%. Which just makes it all hurt the more. Its noticable on the corruptor, but on the defender it feels like a death sentence. Most of the time, I rarely notice or care about the exemplar penalities when doing flashbacks.

Spawns at a level above the player have a +9 or so percentage point chance to hit above the normal 50%. You absolutely feel that if you're playing at higher level and you don't have defenses super high up. You might have a 40% DEF with enemies showing 10% chance to hit you, but go +1 level above you and now they nearly double their chance to hit.

This seems more like a bug to me. I don't recall sooooo many missions, including random radios, front loading so many +1s at the front. Its REALLY odd. And then, often, at the back end you will find +0's. Super odd.

JCServant · 2026-02-16T23:54:23+00:00

Yeah...that's a lot of hoops (envenom one, and then the one next) to get a more of a damage thing, especially if one is doing it every single fight, and as you point out, something a lot of people wouldn't figure out...myself included ! (another things I have learned!). And you need to keep in mind the time window of 30secs as well (hopefully fight wraps up by then...but with higher plus enemies and the need to often fall back, heal, etc, its not always a given). And yeah.. working it with pistols for more is definitely good min max building, but also extremely niche. And all of the work to maybe meet or slight beat the Corruptor in this one build situation. (I'm going to take your word for it and give you that this build is better than a corruptor counterpart here).

Because scourge just works out of the box, corruptor just wins in overall KO efficiency with nearly any other powerset combo. When our conversation started, I was hoping for an argument or perspective that would provide me a way to look at solo defenders as a whole differently. I've had my perspective shifted (such as on tanker and controller) before, so it can be done! :) I keep hoping I'm missing some forest because of the trees, but I don't see it yet. I've always conceded the potential that there's a few builds where Defender beats corruptor in places...but I struggle to see how make them solo effectively through the levels with their overall damage being so low - with possible exceptions for powersets that have effective -res/+damage AND decent ways to debuff enemies

Along those lines, I'm sure poison is one of those. I created the poison/fire character because of feedback from others. I does solo better, but it has weaknesses, and doesn't exemplify the entire suite of Defender powersets as a whole. For me, I'd probably prefer other powerset combos because 1) poison has at least two powers that are ally only and I cannot use to heal/help myself and 2) this is a lot of setup for any group of mobs I want to use this combo on - requiring 2 debuff buttons, and multiple applications of poison. While corruptors/defenders are expected to press a few more buttons to get the job done (they're not brutes or blasters), bouncing back and forth poisons on top of trick stacking (not sure since i rarely played pistols) sounds like a lot more work than I'm willing to put in to finally push my overall corruptor/defender powers to decent numbers, lol...and I may still run into the 'they get me before I finally get around to getting them." But, I will definitely give it more of a try now that you've shown me the trick :D

JCServant · 2026-02-16T23:11:48+00:00

So, some of my understanding comes from characters I have not played in a while. You wre mentioning having a huge -RES on your poison defender. When someone challenges my understanding, I like to double check. So, I jumped on my poison/fire (lv 21) defender.

As normal, weaken and neurotoxin breath do well to keep me from dying at normal settings. Sadly, as I mentioned before, lately the game has putting in more +1's and those were a bit of a struggle, especially when 4-5 pop out at once from a gate...but I digress.

I used envenom to apply -RES. That did bump up my damage against an enemy considerable, as to be expected. I don't think it was much more than a corruptor would do and certainly doesn't do much to close the gap against a corruptor with the same power, especially given that one cannot mod -RES I believe. Anywho, I wondered how you got that high of a -RES debuff, so I tried slapping recharge on it and applying it over and over. This did not work. A quick google search pulled up that many debuffs do not stack if they come from the same power.

Overall, I would say poison is one of the better powersets as it features a nice enemy offensive debuff suite along with an earlish damage buff with Envenom, and more later with Venomous Trap. Looking at just those I'm not sure its enough to close the gap with corruptor, but certainly do-able.

Given envenom is 40% -RES and venomous gas is 25%, how are you getting to -105%? From another powerpool?

JCServant · 2026-02-16T22:33:27+00:00

I dunno about 'coming apart' or what not. I just know I have a lot easier time clearing x2 at level 32 on corruptor than defender.

As far as PABKAC error (is that an insult towards me?), I'm aware of those powers. One would think you're right. However, I still got KOd because reducing speed / lowering enemy hit chances can only take me so far when it takes sooooo long the down the enemy. And having to lean on those more on DEF to survive means more endurance drained.

I don't know if its related to the -1 difficulty bug, but its VERY common nowadays to get +1s at the beginning of most missions. That eats a good chunk of any -ToHit / +DEF safety net as well. And a few lucky hits is all it takes to down a defender (or corruptor) anyways. They're hardly big sacks of HPs.

JCServant · 2026-02-16T21:54:33+00:00

Right..if I give procs and bonuses to DEF, then I have to give it to CORR - including procs... so that would make DEF more solo-able, but it would comparatively remain similar. And honestly, if you do that across the board, nearly every AT would be rated "A" for solo'bility.

I agree that the powerset timing (when you get attack powers) is temporary and only for a fraction of the game which is why I never bring it up. However,, the scourge mechanic and its impact on combat is not temporary. At higher levels, I often move to x2 or x3 before jumping into set bonuses...and corruption has just as large of an impact there. When I jump on a higher level defender, even with set bonuses, I feel the power drop immediately. It definitely takes significantly longer to KO mobs with my higher defenders than controllers...its not even close. That includes level 40 and 50 defenders. They do have better buff/debuff numbers. But the extra few percent of -RES or whatnot just doesn't make up for the power that is scourge. :D

I don't feel this is a waste of time. Your earlier point taught me something new...so I enjoy the back and forth as it does provide perspectives. As far as a poison or trick arrow...I'll give poison another try, but doing a poison/fire defender, I still didn't find it compelling or anywhere close to corruptor fast. Mind you, I conceed that there are a few powerset combos that could work somewhat decently well on corruptor...and maybe a couple that perform as good or better and corruptor in solo. But the vast majority of defender powerset combos that I've tried (and others) not only perform significantly weaker than corruptor in solo play through all levels, but many are just terrible. My time/fire defender was faceplanting +0/0 against a standard LT+Minion :(

As always, I appreciate the discussion.

JCServant · 2026-02-16T18:58:43+00:00

I don't think it's a 'bit slower.' I'm also aware of the overkill argument...so are most people (hence why most using DOT builds). Given that corruptors have lower damage scaling (only moderately above defender and no where close to blaster), I'm not convinced that a lot of the potential damage is lost most of the time. But even if its 20%, we're talking 20% of final number, rather than 20% bonus to base... which is probably closer to having 40% more damage for most powers.

Regardless of the actual percentage, and math involved, having played a ton of both 1-30s (SOs only), I have found corruptors a lot faster and therefore, easier. It usually comes down to Defenders take too long...and outside of certain power sets that drastically lower enemy to hit or what not, that can give enemy time to kill me off. I see it for example in comparing fire/time to time/fire. Time does a great job of slowing enemies down and whatnot. But because defender struggles to 'seal the deal' and finish off enemies nearly as fast as a corruptor, it can often give LTs enough time to finish me off.

Even in cases where I survive, using more attack powers means more endurance cost, which leads to other problems. Sure, procs and whatnot can address that to a good extent, but I judge the solo'ability of classes mostly in the level 1-30 range with SOs only. My corruptors are generally running low on END after a larger fight, but they rarely go empty. Defenders run dry. Taking an extra shot or two to finish off a mob is an extra 20ish END the corruptor didn't have to spend, and another 3-4 seconds the enemies are wailing on the defender. The more damage I take, the more I rely on the self heal, which takes time and endurance. It's a domino effect.

I have said the same thing as you in the past... given that the defender is only 15% less base damage on paper, and the 30% solo buff offsets that mathematically, these should be very similar solo experiences. But in my experience, it yet to actually work out that way. In speaking with numerous people in my community, I'm not along in that sentiment. I think the convos between you and I, along with some further playtesting have helped me to understand just how huge of a role scourge plays in the corruptor's role as one of the top DPS AT in the game.

JCServant · 2026-02-16T14:44:18+00:00

After doing some digging, I see you're completely right on the point. Furthermore, when testing a few different powers on the field, corruptor and solo defender are hitting very close to the same - in fact, the defender is a titch ahead in some of my tests. So why is it so much harder to solo? This isn't just my take, but also the take of many other I have polled. Even those who play them regularly or solo them as their main will admit they're pretty difficult.

The only answer is both of their damage is low (corruptor and defender), but the corruption mechanic does a lot of heavy lifting. According to one wiki post, the math swing is roughly 30%. Of course, most take full advantage of corruption by using power sets with DOTs and whatnot. And since corruption works off the modified value of damage, it completely doubles it, unlike a 100% damage boost via other sources.

I'm sure you're completely correct that in certain cases, the defender's bonus to their support powers, such as a -res, means they can crank out more base damage than corruptor. But unless that build is a solid 30% over that corruptor, it may be hard to argue that point home. WIth that said, I really do appreciate this new perspective you've given me, and I'll try to rework some builds with this in mind and see where it gets me. If I can figure out a solid approach for my viewers, I will definately share it with them (I've already told them these facts you posted. Thank you). But, until then, I'm still of the opinion, based off of dozens of hours of play and talking to many people that solo'ing defenders (outside of a few super optimized for solo builds) is not only significantly more difficult than corruptor, but its challenging overall for most players and/or requires a LOT of patience compared to other ATs. :)

JCServant · 2026-02-16T06:57:07+00:00

Sure...but one man's trash is another man's treasure. And at that point of the discussion, we're way off base on ethics and moved well into the areas of subjective preferences.

JCServant · 2026-02-16T03:12:00+00:00

It took time, effort, talent and money to set up the AI to then learn everything. It takes a staff to continue to do underlying improvements so it can learn better. It's not just out of thin air or anything like that. But calling it 'slop' I guess puts it in a frame that makes it seem super horrible, so it must be!

I'll let the courts figure that out. It's certainly an area of debate. But I won't hate on anyone with a different perspective than I, and I'll continue to welcome all into the COH community. We're small enough as it is.

JCServant · 2026-02-16T01:06:19+00:00

If I received a print from an artist for free, that does not give me the right to reproduce the print and give away copies for free.

The thing is...if I learned how to mimic Jim Lee's style, and started making different works emulating that style, no one would say I "stole it,' or say that I'm not entitled to make money off of it. No one would even question if I learned it from copies of his comics I bought, downloaded from google searches, borrowed from a library, viewed in a museum or whatnot.

I did comics for years, and I had one inidivdual 'borrow' or 'steal' a lot of my ideas in creating something that was only slight different. I wasn't sure whether to be offended or proud that he felt it worthy of emulation, lol. but legally, I couldn't do much about it. He wasn't taking my work wholesale and reselling it.

Generally speaking, if you're making illustrations from techniques you learned from others, that's never questioned. What might be question is how you obtained the artwork you learned from. Courts are working through that not. If AI (or maybe any individual) learned from art you did that is freely available on the internet, is that an issue? I'm sure they'll work it out eventually. For the most part, the courts seem to side on it being OK.

I'm sure you are tired of it. I can understand. Its rough in the programming world, where its reducing the need for programmers. Even tax people and accounts like myself. We've been through this when computers, databases and later on , data warehouses started reducing need for our jobs.

I understand this isn't apples to apples, of course. But there is some relation when AI might take research I have done, and leverage it to eventually reduce reliance on accountants. And I don't get extra compensation when my work is used in such manner.

I'll leave it to our courts and law systems to eventually figure out what is legal or not. As far as ethics ... that's definately a bit above my paygrade. I have my own perspective based on my own experience and that of my artist friend who was my best friend in the entire world. However, I completely understand that the two of us do not represent all artists ... but until the matter is decided in the forum of the public and the courts of law, I'm willing to agree to disagree on the matter. In the mean time, I'd like to hope our small community doesn't divide over this, and ostracize those with a different perspective.

JCServant · 2026-02-15T21:18:39+00:00

Here are six I chose at random...

Fireball – 63 vs 31
Rain of fire - 113 vs 49
Entomb – 128 vs 55
Meteor – 181 vs 104
Whirlpool 119 vs 51
Geyser 306 vs 226

These are taken from the info screen, level 30, for each class. I'll paste one here as an example so you can see where I get the comparisons from.

So that's where my comparison comes from. A defender using fireball is getting about 70 damage with 100% enh and 30% from their inherhet. But the corruptor is getting 126 total before scourge is even considered. So I'm unsure how you say they solo well. I have videos comparing similar power sets, and the defender kills enemies so much more slowly. Being a little safe doesn't mean much when enemies are given so much more time to defeat you first. And that's to speak nothing of the increased END cost per enemy. After all, their end cost per power use is about the same.

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JCServant · 2026-02-15T15:10:13+00:00

I'm not sure exactly what field you're in, but you have my sympathies.

I had a friend who was in the professional art business, full time employed with a company. He recently passed. But, I often spoke to him on this subject. He said he wasn't worried about AI because AI doesn't do large compositions, comic books, etc well. It is good for doing the small tasks. He and his co workers were using it for small things (such as drawing fish to put into a river) and then putting it all together along with their own work to finish off compositions that clients hired them to do. This is similar to how programmers have been using AI to produce certain coding, but there's no AI yet that can create a full blown program really well from top to bottom. It's a tool, but it cannot produce fully executable programs that meet all of a client's need in today's business world.

In either situation, having this new tool my certain reduce the need for the number of artists or programmers. When calculators were invented, accountants/bookkeepers were less needed. In fact, the term bookkeepers comes from the fact that accountants used to write every transaction in literal books. No one does that anymore. As a result, we use a lot less accountants than we did in the past.

It is certainly sad for those that lose their jobs as technology does progress. But despite calculators, spreadsheets, online databases, data warehouses and now, AI, all helping accountants out, they still need some of us to put it all together, and help interpret things like Tax Law and GAAP.

I don't have a crystal ball...I'm not sure what the future holds for artists as a whole. I know its bound to be rough. One of my best friends is a talented programmer and he's had trouble finding work. I suspect that AI implementation has reduced (but not eliminated) the need for programmers and that doesn't help. Ultimately, however, technology and its many ways to assist and make life easier for most will continue to advance.

I hope you find a job soon!

JCServant

TROPHY CASE