Forced Respecs (Respecifications)

[Andreah]

In lieu of respeccing, one can use an alt-build. 

[Snarky]

16 minutes ago, Andreah said:

Both Black Hole and Dimension Shift remain "Please kick me off the team" powers.

And the new iteration of Black Hole has semi random intangible effects.  Which, in my mind, is worse.  At least the damn thing did what it stated before.  The upcoming version does a draw in / or intangible.  And you and tour team get to guess which is which. I know that when you start trying to use the new improved Black Hole as a substitute for Fold Space the team will know exactly how to make their lives better.  And hopefully you can find another team…

[UltraAlt]

2 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

The tree of Homecoming must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of respecs.

 

Then I'm glad that others are providing blood sacrifices to the "Tree of Homecoming" through respecs, because I'm sure not doing them.

 

I've done less than 5 since I've been back, and I think it is closer to 3. It has been years since I've done one.

[UltraAlt]

25 minutes ago, Andreah said:

Both Black Hole and Dimension Shift remain "Please kick me off the team" powers.

 

Dimensional Shift isn't as bad as Black Hole.

 

Black Hole phase shifts enemies so only phased shifted characters can attack them.

 

Dimension shift phase shifts an area. Characters/enemies inside the field are phase shifted. Players can travel in and out of the field while it is active. So it doesn't slow down melee characters at all, they can run right up in there and fight. Meanwhile, ranged characters can jump into the field, set off an attack or two, jump out so they are no longer phase-shifted/can't be targeted by enemies inside the field, and then jump in again when they are ready to attack again.

 

But, yeah, I fully understand that there seem to be a good number in the player base that only know how to steamroll/"Hulk smash!".

[Scarlet Shocker]

I almost always respec at 50, because I've got an error-filled build, some powers are useful on the way to 50 but I get less utility from them after and also I just want to optimise for my budget.

[momentarygrace]

1. Don't love, they're so tedious I tend to avoid

2. Improvements - I too would love a mini version that would allow moving slots. I hate re-choosing powers and trying to remember what order I want them in.

3. At the moment I have 1 character I would like to rearrange slots on... should respec for that... dun wanna....

 

[Hedgefund2]

I do want to mention one of the main reasons for my disdain of respecs is "error correction".  It's happened more than a time or two that I'd go through to the "last mile" where I'm slotting enhancements only to find out I've screwed up and added a slot to the wrong place and I have to undo a potentially significant amount time spent to fix that T1 secondary power to have 6 slots instead of 5 (for example).  Even if the old means of choosing powers is kept, having some Mids-style way to edit slotting would be such an improvement.

 

Edit to add:

 

I'll leave the original post as is, but I was confusing mass leveling (like with a 2nd build) with respeccing.  A respec does allow the user to just drag an IO out of a slot and eliminate it, so at least it has that going for it, less of a pain than making a 2nd build from level 1.

Edited Tuesday at 06:29 PM by Hedgefund2

[Troo]

1 hour ago, Andreah said:

In lieu of respeccing, one can use an alt-build. 

 

Yes, absolutely. For 2x the enhancements. 

I have done this while leveling early on when I have committed IO sets.

 

1 hour ago, Andreah said:

Both Black Hole and Dimension Shift remain "Please kick me off the team" powers.

 

But what about 'new' Black Hole.

[Psyonico]

The only really tedious part of respeccing for me is re-slotting powers, because it entails (for sets)

1. look at the IO and figure out which piece it is
2. go to Mids and see where that piece goes
3. drag the IO to the power

And god help you if you have a power frankenslotted, since you can’t scroll the enhancement section you have to place IOs in alphabetical order rather than by power.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Andreah said:

In lieu of respeccing, one can use an alt-build. 

 

Ugh, alt-building is so much worse than respeccing, imo.

[OverkillEngine]

37 minutes ago, Troo said:

But what about 'new' Black Hole.

Trawl you off the team power, and if you are immune to trawl you get phase shifted off the team.

Edited Tuesday at 05:59 PM by OverkillEngine

[BlackSpectre]

6 hours ago, OverkillEngine said:

 

Would be nice. I generally resort to screenshotting my enhancements window and showing it on a temp file in my second monitor so I can see power order and slotting of my old build while I respec.

 

I take pics of the Enhancement screen before I RESPEC too. I use my phone, though. More often than not, most of my enhancement slotting remains the same for more than half of my powers.  Ideally, a redesign of the RESPEC process would make taking pics beforehand unnecessary, but that would require completely scrapping the current RESPEC process and building something new. 

 

One smaller improvement would be to allow enhancements to be moved around from slot to slot and power to power without requiring the enhancement to be placed back into the enhancement tray/bin first. 

 

Also, coding in some way to deal with enhancements that don't fit into the enhancement trays would be awesome. There is more than one way to do this, including creating a temporary overflow enhancement tray(s), increasing the number of enhancement trays/tabs, or emailing the extra enhancements to the player's global name, etc.  

 

 

6 hours ago, OverkillEngine said:

 This is why I often do a respec while sitting in my SG base entrance or at the Tram.

I've read that doing RESPECs inside your SG base or inside an instanced mission can make the RESPEC fail. Friends have had this issue occur (and not just inside SG bases), but like you I've never had a problem doing a RESPEC in my SG base. 

 

 

[Heliphyn34u]

I don't enjoy doing respecs, but I do them when I need to.  For toons that I level up to 50, I might respec them twice, maybe three times, depending on how the powers feel at different levels and whether or not I've borked the slotting.

 

One improvement that would be great to have would be the ability to move slots around after placing them, like using Shift-Click in Mids.  Not sure that's actually possible, but it would be so much nicer to not have to hit the Back button and undo all the other slotting just to fix a misclick.

 

There are probably some toons I'll want to respec after the new changes drop.  I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.  It'd be nice if everyone was granted a freespec per character just to ease things along.

 

18 minutes ago, BlackSpectre said:

I take pics of the Enhancement screen before I RESPEC too. 

 

I've read that doing RESPECs inside your SG base or inside an instanced mission can make the RESPEC fail. Friends have had this issue occur (and not just inside SG bases), but like you I've never had a problem doing a RESPEC in my SG base. 

 

 

I take a screenie and just paste it temporarily in Paint.  I've never had an issue doing a respec in my base, which is how I usually do them -- I don't want to lose my progress via afk logout if I have to step away.

 

[Psyonico]

50 minutes ago, BlackSpectre said:

I've read that doing RESPECs inside your SG base or inside an instanced mission can make the RESPEC fail.

I’ve read this too, not sure if it’s accurate or not, but just in case, I always go to Echo:Atlas Park to respec then just hop back to pyro to have my trays readjust 

[lemming]

1 hour ago, BlackSpectre said:

I've read that doing RESPECs inside your SG base or inside an instanced mission can make the RESPEC fail.

iirc, the respec fails happen in very detailed bases.   I go minimalist with my bases, so never had an issue

[Scarlet Shocker]

Four Street Specs...

 

you know what's cumming.

 

Oh of course you do. It's one of the most famous skits ever.

 

Don't believe me?

 

Oh alright then...

 

 

[MTeague]

I greatly appreciate that the ability to respec exists.

Back in 2004, not every game had them. Some games were just "too bad, that was the choice you made, live with it or create a new character."

 

I would be happy if the Full Respec just also had a VIEW ONLY detail of what powers you HAD taken at which levels, for your pre-respec build, and (again, view only) how many slots had been in the pre-respec build.  We can screenshot before respec, of  course.  But while screenshots can tell you what order you took powers in for your primary and secondary, it's not the same thing as knowing precisely what level you took every power at, and what level you allocated every slot at. Even with a screenshot, you have to guesstimate some of that. Having a View Only for prior build during respec would help avoid easy mistakes. 

[OverkillEngine]

6 hours ago, lemming said:

iirc, the respec fails happen in very detailed bases.   I go minimalist with my bases, so never had an issue

This. My SG base is just an entrance room, a storage/crafting room, and a portal room. Only items placed are functional. Never had an issue.

[Digirium]

I play a different L50 every few days and may not play the same one again within a few months to a year or more.

 

The revisited L50 gets a respec-refresh to bring the build up to date.

 

When power sets are affected by a patch aren't those characters given a free respec to make changes?

 

 

[Ukase]

I have a water/fire blaster that took Rune of Protection before they changed the recharge timer on it. I still haven't respec'd it. When I think about it, I log it in and help with Adamastor. And I've apparently thought about 6 times, as it has 96 reward merits. 

It's my opinion that the rule should be nothing about cottages, but more about measuring twice and cutting once. If, indeed, Rune of Protection was universally thought to be "OP", then why release it? Why let it arrive into our greedy paws? Because, clearly, they didn't think so when they did release it. Then, things changed. The people in charge changed. And then the change occurs and now a number of us are faced with this choice of "respec" or play something that just might have a few inert slots. Or worse. 

Rather than respec the fire/water blaster, I've already made another one. I just haven't gotten around to deleting this one yet. Invariably, if I'm going to deal with more enhancements than I have room in my trays, I might as well just respec twice and delete the character. Unless it has all the passive accolades already, then I might just relegate it to the back page. It's been slow, but I've cleaned up a couple of pages worth of characters I hadn't played in over a year. 

Again - my firm belief is to not release powers that are OP and subject to change. Just don't do it. And all the rationalization that people are using it in ways the devs didn't consider doesn't hold water with me. Every page/patch, instead of leaving things in Brainstorm for months, they push it because people are so eager to suck up new content, invariably mistakes get through. Well...if you'd waited, we wouldn't be in this position. Now, it's fair to say that they could leave some stuff on brainstorm and it might never get discovered because there's just not that many people testing. Totally fair. But, I never claimed to be completely logical or sane. 

Respecs are just not fun. One of my biggest problems is I'll be doing a respec and get a tell, but can't see the tell. If they could find a way around that...that would be cool. Being able to move a single slot would often times allow me to forgo doing a respec. That would be cool, too. But, in the meantime, getting to 50 is super easy, and it is fun, so why not just re-roll? That's the way I see it. 

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

I have a water/fire blaster that took Rune of Protection before they changed the recharge timer on it. I still haven't respec'd it. When I think about it, I log it in and help with Adamastor. And I've apparently thought about 6 times, as it has 96 reward merits. 

It's my opinion that the rule should be nothing about cottages, but more about measuring twice and cutting once. If, indeed, Rune of Protection was universally thought to be "OP", then why release it? Why let it arrive into our greedy paws? Because, clearly, they didn't think so when they did release it. Then, things changed. The people in charge changed. And then the change occurs and now a number of us are faced with this choice of "respec" or play something that just might have a few inert slots. Or worse. 

Rather than respec the fire/water blaster, I've already made another one. I just haven't gotten around to deleting this one yet. Invariably, if I'm going to deal with more enhancements than I have room in my trays, I might as well just respec twice and delete the character. Unless it has all the passive accolades already, then I might just relegate it to the back page. It's been slow, but I've cleaned up a couple of pages worth of characters I hadn't played in over a year. 

Again - my firm belief is to not release powers that are OP and subject to change. Just don't do it. And all the rationalization that people are using it in ways the devs didn't consider doesn't hold water with me. Every page/patch, instead of leaving things in Brainstorm for months, they push it because people are so eager to suck up new content, invariably mistakes get through. Well...if you'd waited, we wouldn't be in this position. Now, it's fair to say that they could leave some stuff on brainstorm and it might never get discovered because there's just not that many people testing. Totally fair. But, I never claimed to be completely logical or sane. 

Respecs are just not fun. One of my biggest problems is I'll be doing a respec and get a tell, but can't see the tell. If they could find a way around that...that would be cool. Being able to move a single slot would often times allow me to forgo doing a respec. That would be cool, too. But, in the meantime, getting to 50 is super easy, and it is fun, so why not just re-roll? That's the way I see it. 

and, inevitably, i am of a different opinion.  measure once, cut twice.  or... something like that.

 

let's take the Tank modifications.  and these still sting, (the years old ones) as it is one of the reasons i stopped running Brutes.  That and Cosmic Council's really hard way.  A really hard way to learn Dark Dark Brutes do not belong in much incarnate content lol.  Yet, I am glad HC staff did it, and i wish them the best for the second cut.  

 

The HC staff has limited time, finite amounts of energy to create, modify, and publish.  As a player base we need to accept this.  because reality is just right there.  

 

Take the new modification to Black Hole.  I do not agree with the changes.  I think they are missing an opportunity to make the power relevant, and useful.  I do not understand all of it.  I wonder if the Devs do?  Because, while i am crazy, i am not dumb.  I have studied Calculus through muti-var, play chess at a respectable club level, and am studying German.  which seems harder than calculus.  well, until you get to vector analysis.  yet the changes they are making, due to the complexities of the game/code/pre existing scenarios, have a lot of possibilities.  then there is how we, a player base, will then use, abuse, ignore the new shiny.  i tried to draw out at least one person in discussion on what they were talking about ( had no real examples) and was told that was arguing.  so, ...  i left the topic,  but do the Devs know what they are creating?  i think not.  not until it experiences the cold hard surfaces of live CoH ROFLSTOMP teams and sneaky solo GM killers.  

 

publish it.  maybe i will like Black Hole better on the second cut in a year or three.  maybe not.  

[srmalloy]

On 6/10/2025 at 9:16 AM, Snarky said:

And the new iteration of Black Hole has semi random intangible effects.  Which, in my mind, is worse.  At least the damn thing did what it stated before.  The upcoming version does a draw in / or intangible.  And you and tour team get to guess which is which.

When you choose a power, you should be able to expect consistent effects from it. You may miss your target(s), you may not get enough magnitude to affect them, but when you use the power, you know what it's going to do. Having a power that randomly gives you either of two significantly disparate effects seems to me to break the structural design concept for powers. Either trawl the targets, make them intangible, or both, but not randomly one or the other so you can't use it reliably for either effect between one set of targets and the next.

[BZRKR]

43 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

When you choose a power, you should be able to expect consistent effects from it. You may miss your target(s), you may not get enough magnitude to affect them, but when you use the power, you know what it's going to do. Having a power that randomly gives you either of two significantly disparate effects seems to me to break the structural design concept for powers. Either trawl the targets, make them intangible, or both, but not randomly one or the other so you can't use it reliably for either effect between one set of targets and the next.

It's not random. If a target is immune to the trawl, then it gets the phase applied.

The cruddy part comes in finding out what mobs are immune to the repel and then finding out what targets will resist the phase.

Once the community knows the mobs that will end up phased, then good and bad uses for the new Black Hole will be found.

 

In my opinion, the smallish size of the black hole, and the duration of the trawl effect make it tricky to use and not very impactful. I'll just continue to not take the power.

[MTeague]

12 hours ago, Digirium said:

When power sets are affected by a patch aren't those characters given a free respec to make changes?

If a powerset got a major revamp, that traditionally happened. 

But I don't believe there's ever been a firm promise there.

 

That said, considering how much is changing in the upcoming stuff currently on beta testing... for those powersets, I consider freespecs much more likely than not. Given that there's also some non-trivial AT level changes, they just decide everyone gets a freespec.  Just... remember that's at their discretion.

[Captain Fabulous]

It's mostly a pain in the ass simply because of how complex our builds can be. On "regular" builds it's not that big of a deal honestly. The process is largely unchanged since issue 0, long before sets. Any addition or rework that would make it easier for complicated builds would of course be welcome. Being able to import a Mids build would be EPIC. Even a button that moved all the extra enhancements into your trays would be great. There's a lot of room for improvements.