Another_Fan

My Own experience with Ice has been its a safe soloer. The technique I use is

Ice Patch
Back Up
AOEs
Hold whatever survives.

Or in the case of a boss
Ice Patch
Back Up
Double hold boss.
AOEs
Keep boss held till dead

Teaming Its drop a blizzard as often as you can, Drop an ice storm when you like, Help the controller lock down the bosses.

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Back on topic. This change has actually caused ONLY those that farm the arena to get a PVP drop. I know because I got two of them this weekend and had I actually been playing I would NOT have received them.

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having stuff in the game that you just can't get casually seems to be part of the current developer philosophy.

LOL

Yes PvP still favors one archetype over another and that is a good thing. In your case though the moron you were fighting seems to have had less intelligence than the AI.

LOL attack the masterminds pets oh yeah.

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So while I agree with your latest refinement of the analogy, it's nothing like what was being claimed and which I responded to. The suggestion was essentially that Purples are the holy grail of enabling characters, and the difficulty of obtaining them makes people just give up on the whole thing. So either there's misplaced interest in purples (perhaps through ignorance of mechanics, which I could certainly forgive) or they really do want Purple-class builds, at which point I still contend they aren't casual at all.

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I can certainly find no fault with that. Purples while very nice for particular purposes tend to be overkill or even counterproductive in many builds. So stating that you need purples wouldn't be the mark of the casual or even the power gamer but the mark of a status seeking gamer who views purples as the big bling.

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Then they are not casual. I'm sorry, the moment you start craving the top end power in the game, you stop being casual and start being a power gamer. Any claim to the contrary is disingenuous at best.


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That really doesn't follow. Anyone who drives and covets a Ferari, is not a racer.

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That's a severe failure to invert the analogy. What we've got is someone in a Ford Escort who now is so covetous of the Ferari that they are disgusted with the Escort and no longer want to drive anywhere. They are no longer "casual" in their relationship with the car. It is no longer a means to an end, but an end unto itself.

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I don't know about that. When I was growing up I really loved to drive, it used to be a relaxing and pleasant experience. I could hop into a car and clear my head with a nice drive. Later on I was working in metropolitan areas where it just didn't make economic sense to own a car, and was even less sensible to try and drive one for pleasure. When I moved down to florida, I had thought to buy a cheap car just to get back into the swing of driving regularly. I rapidly found I hated driving a crappy car. I wound up buying (Low-high end)(High-mid end) vehicle. Does this make me a luxury car enthusiast ? Its not like I am oggling the DuPont Registry. I'd say no it just means I am a casual driver that really hates to inflict a painful ride on myself.

The same pretty much holds true for this game. Its not hard to figure out your character isn't up to snuff. Wanting your character to be respectable doesn't make you a power gamer anymore than wanting a neat lawn and well trimmed yard makes you a gardening nut.

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Then they are not casual. I'm sorry, the moment you start craving the top end power in the game, you stop being casual and start being a power gamer. Any claim to the contrary is disingenuous at best.


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That really doesn't follow. Anyone who drives and covets a Ferari, is not a racer. Anyone who covets, a larger boat is not likely to run an America's cup challenge.

Seeing as automotive analogies are so loved on the boards, in my neck of the woods the interstate was divided into regular lanes and limited access toll lanes. If the roads were like this game those lanes would be speed unlimited and let you run formula 1 racers in them.

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Well, at least it will get people out of the AE... I doubt the expanded difficulty settings will work in there.

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Even better - I hope if a character goes into an AE mission as an eight-man team it locks that character for a week, strips them of goods, and makes them level 1.

Setting yourself up as a "larger teams" is so obviously an abuse of AE that there would be no debate or not if they player was trying to abuse it or not.

Like it.

Cut to the quick!

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LOL oh yeah sure it is.

Exploits are things you know when you see them.

Ok what happens when you have loons that see imaginary things ?

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On another good note, I can see purples going down in price thanks to this change.

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Hopefully. But that depends on how they implement this. They could very well be planning on putting in some type of limit on drops.

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Do you have anything to suggest that is actually the case ?

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That's why I think specific builds would be the best solution. It seems like it would be the best way to get around this new timer.

[/ QUOTE ] Like a Scrapper with built in Rez?

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I count 4 scrapper secondaries with self-rez. They're all on a 300s (5 minute!) timer by default. This should make it spectacularly easy to time the rep timer. Sure it's still going to take 300s per chance rather than 30s, but for a 1bil inf PO, it might be worth it to some.

BTW, I would suggest leveling the scrapper like normal and then setting up a second build with no enhancements and no auto-powers so he's nice and squishy.

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If you are going for squishy, take any blaster you have that doesn't have a second build. Fill in its second build with whatever you want just take the fire APP and take rise of the phoenix.

The blaster will be squishier than the scrapper no matter what and you can actually lay out an interesting second build for the blaster.

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You'd be better off slotting a damage proc instead of the Deci proc on almost all accounts, just like you're better off slotting the Gaussian proc in Aim/BU instead of a toggle. It might fire off more often during a 10-minute match if placed into a toggle, but for all you know every one of those procs will happen while you're enemy's phased, or Hibernated, or running, or as you're just respawning - whereas if you placed it in Aim or Build Up, you'd get the full benefit of the proc at the exact moment you intended to do a damage burst (I don't know about anyone else, but I won't waste Aim or BU unless I know I can get in some shots before it wears off).

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I am kind of funny I try not to start firing at someone just to let them know I am there.

Ice/Mental or Ice/Ice

Ice/Mental is looking very good to me right now the synergy between frostbreath and psychic scream is incredible.

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How about a fire/kin?

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It can work. Melee works better in my experience for wall farming though.

Romans hurt!

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AR/Ment , Arch/Ment ftw

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In other words, "we're going to nerf slows because people couldn't be bothered to team with a Kin, or get better at avoiding the slows in the first place."

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LOL wasnt that the entirety of I13 for PVP.

Nerf everything that involved skill in PVP

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while i agree that nuking constantly isnt quite worth it on a team, i use it enough that i would always take it.


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Rain of Arrows
Full Auto
Blizzard

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I posted this on the Technical pages a few minutes ago...

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Ok, the Server Status page says the Servers ar UP.

Still unable to log-in. Says the log-in server may be down....don't know, it's a secret apparently.

So they take the servers down on Non-Normal Maintanence days to fix AE farming abuses....so how does PLing/Farming not affect me again...oh right I can't play.


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I don't care if people PL, I don't care if the Farm...it's thier $15/month...

But it has been affecting the rest of the communtity due to forced patches...

Sigh.

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I love the way you assume the only reason for this patch is to nerf an exploit. Its not as if there are endlessly exploding rikti drones and an invasion weekend coming up, or a villainside taskforce that isnt working right, or PvP drops that werent.

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The gaus proc can goes in tohit powers, the deci in ranged attacks. I would say those are far from the same specs. Damage procs > bu procs, all day, everyday.

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Ok lets look at that. Its not the point I was making which is that puting a chance of proc in a power that is used with a low frequency isn't efficient. It is an interesting question though.

There is one ranged damage proc: Appocalypse chance of negative energy. It has a 33% chance of firing and does 107 pts of damage. This would be as opposed to decimation chance of buildup having a 5% chance to fire and adding 100% damage and 30 pts plus to hit for 5.25 seconds.

Now lets compare to chance of.

Power cast dam
Psi Dart 1s 96
Ment blast 1.67s 180
tk Blast 1s 129
Will dom 1.1s 151.

Thats 4.77 s for the whole shebang if you put in server lag its 5.57 seconds posibly over the 5.25 seconds of buildup. so lets chop one out psi darts to bring it in at 3.77 seconds. Chance of buildup in that chain gives you an additional 460 points of damage with a 1/20 chance of happening or an expected 23 points of damage. If you get the psi darts its 28.

So a purple damage proc is > than a build up proc.

In your build though you have two non purple damage procs. Which only have a 20% chance of firing and doing 70 points of damage. This corresponds to 14 points of damage which is much less the 23 points from buildup.

So

Purple Damage Proc> Buildup Proc > Damage proc.

Now underlying this is the idea you are hitting at a high rate and don't have any -to hit affecting you. If you do that might well push the build up proc over the purple damage proc.


Edited: Changed damage proc to purple damage proc in the last line.

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What does it matter if it procs more on tactics when you can't USE it? And whats all this talk about ARENA matches? Did the OP say ANYTHING about arena? Chances are, this psy blaster will play alot more ZONES than arena anyways, which makes the slot in tactics even LESS useful because of all the travel time you spend in zones not attacking!

I can MAYBE see the deci proc being useful if you have a DEFINITE attack chain maybe? on my old sonic blaster I almost ALWAYS used the attack chain: Shriek, Scream, Shriek, Shout. Perhaps if it was in Shriek it'd be useful? Just depends if you want to spend the cash on a PVP IO proc or a purple proc!

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Look at the chart above that shows you your chances of having it proc while you are fighting. As to needing a definite attack chain for decimation to be useful all you need is a power that is most used and can take the proc.

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To get the max number of procs I can agree with. The max number of actual usable procs I still disagree with you. And I stand by the deci proc being utter garbage and a complete waste of a slot.

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It has the exact same specs as the gaussian proc.

Really no matter to me one way or the other.

If it doesn't though it will penalize the players just coming into invited to the game. That isn't because of the level advancement but the lack of double inf that would go with it.

Traditionally you get tremendous price spikes around DBL XP weekends. A new player who gets sucked into AE, will be behind the earnings curve. In order to keep up they will need to use the market effectively a skill they probably won't have.

Usually go SS+Stealth Proc. This gives you effective invisibility, and costs no slots or power picks if you plan on taking hasten. You have to take a travel power might as well take one that does double duty.

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A proc going off when you aren't attacking <<<<<<<<<<< a proc going off when you are attacking. The math will back that up as well as play experience. keep thinking you are right, it won't make it true. Getting more procs going off doesn't really help you if it happens when you aren't attacking, its a pretty simple concept to get. Not sure why you are having problems understanding it.


I can't even begin to figure out how to explain to you that a damage proc is better than that deci proc. Good luck getting it to proc 10 times in a ten minute match.

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Here is the math for you once again

Recharge of Powers in your buid and chances to fire based on length of engagement

Code:[/color]

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Power     : Recharge and effective use : # chances to fire : 

                                         10s engagement    : 20s   : 30s   : 40s             

AIM       : 33s                        : 1                 : 1     : 1     : 2

Psi Dart  :  1.67s used twice/10s      : 2                 : 4     : 6     : 8

subdual   :  1.67s used once/10s       : 1                 : 2     : 3     : 4

Tactics   : 10s                        : 1                 : 2     : 3     : 4

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The numbers speak for themselves. If you are going to use a slot for a buildup proc aim is not the place to put it.

It depends

It all depends on the spawn you are facing

Psychic wail fully enhanced with aim and build up does 1100 pts of damage.

Minion = 400 HP
LT = 800 HP
Boss =2500 hp.

If you have a spawn of LTs or lower your nuke is going to clear it. Got bosses or better, you got problems to deal with.

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Damage proc > chance for bu proc in blast. Keep thiking you have the right plan with the gaus proc in a toggle. Just dont' try to pass it off to people as a good plan for pvp. Better burst is better burst, and while it may not activate as often in aim/bu it will at least be a lot less likely to be wasted. And really do some test and tell me you are getting that much use out of it in a10 minute match. You will find your rock solid observations are a bit off.

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First you argue math over personal observation. When the math doesn't support your position you are back to personal observation.

I'll stick with the math.

If you want the benefit of a proc you need to give it chances to fire.

# chances in a blast > # chances in build up
Aywhere from 3 to 10 times as much

# chances in in a toggle = 3*(# chances in build up)
And the togle is over the same time period you can activate buildup.

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lol @ personal observations trumping real numbers and math.

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Oh yes indeed.

Which is why putting gausians chance in either aim or build up is wrong headed

You will have it fire on average once every 20 uses of the power. This as opposed to once ever 200 seconds in tactics. If \you are in the arena and spend more than 1/3 of your time actively engaged in combat tactics wins. That is the math the build up will go off more often and contribute more to your damage on the target.

Now while I am not very fond of the proc game if you wanted to play it you aren't doing it well.

Instead of slotting chance of in aim slot decimation chance of in psi darts and or one of the other single target powers.


I don't know what you are using for your attack chain but going off the recharge times for your main powers at range over 11 seconds you can have 2 psi darts, 2 mental blasts, 2 tk blasts, and one will dom. slotting chance of build up gives you 2 chances per 11 seconds to have a build up instead of one per 30.

As to the damage and accuracy on tk thrust. The numbers are calculated with tactics on and the globals, Which gives you +16% to hit (10 from tactics 6 from kismet) 15% from global acc bonuses, and 50% from the enhancements you lose a bit of that from dr.

120 million for a set looks dirt cheap to me.