Adeon Hawkwood

You're reading the words and missing the meaning. I will rephrase:

My question there is if 200 tickets = 1 merit is so horrible why is AE farming not considered the absolute best farming method now?

Better?

You're making a lot of assumptions about how the AoE buffs would work. Suppose they made them AoE but left the range, endurance cost and recharge time the same as they currently are? That would eliminate your ease of use objections and frankly I don't think it would affect balance at all.

The current PBAoE buffs (i.e. Accelerate Metabolism, the Empathy Auras etc.) are the way they are since they are (supposedly) balanced around having a limited uptime (or requiring lots of recharge for 100% uptime). The "always on" buffs on the other hand are supposedly balanced just fine as they are now with short recharges, long ranges and low-ish endurance costs (the balancing factor being that they take up two power slots). I fail to see how making them easier to use would destroy their balance (except Speed Boost, but I think that should be nerfed anyway).

When the devs made the MM upgrade powers AoE they did increase the endurance costs and I think it made sense for MMs but wouldn't necessarily make sense if other buffs were made PBAoE. In the case of MMs the increased endurance adds a tactical element to deciding when to re-summoning and/or requipping henchmen who die in combat. With player buffs I feel the element is unnecessary. Int he case of henchmen the equipment accounts for a large part of their combat capabilities so the difference between requipping immediately versus waiting until after combat is critical. For players the decision is less important, a single buff power accounts for a smaller percentage of their total team contribution so with a high endurance cost the decision would almost always be to wait until after combat.

I was advocating making them actual PBAoEs that affect the caster. One of the things that has always bugged me about the buff/debuff sets is the huge variation in the number of powers that the character can benefit from themselves, this would definitely help in that area.

Furry is a term that can cover several different interests. In the context it refers to people who like artwork (not automatically pornographic) depicting anthropomorphic animals. And I suggest we leave it there lest the thread get locked .

Why? I fail to see how having powerful buffs (shields, speed boost and the mez protection powers) that have to be individually cast on every teammate every 4 minutes contributes to enjoyable game play. I acknowledge that there are reasons a person would not want a particular buff (hence my comment about some means of canceling or suppressing them) but I fail to see how making them easier to use would make the game worse. I'll also point out I'm only talking about buffs that can be maintained on the entire team constantly, powers like Fortitude or Forge should not be changed.

Balance-wise it comes out a wash. If the powers are considered balanced now then I fail to see how making them easier to use would unbalance them. If the only reason they are balanced now is that they are inconvenient to use then they aren't really balanced, they are simply inconvenient. Changing these powers to PBAoE would make them much easier to use.

It would also accomplish a second goal of evening out the solo ability of the different Buff/Debuff sets (especially for Defenders and Corruptors). One of the issues of Buff/Debuff sets is that the number and usefulness of the solo abilities varies significantly when soloing. Force Field, Thermal Radiation, Sonic Resonance and Cold Domination (to a lesser degree) are generally considered amongst the weakest soloing sets and this change would help them a lot by increasing their survivability a lot. Obviously it doesn't help Empathy and if Speed Boost was changed it would need to have no/reduced effect on the caster (as with Grant Cover).

My question there is if 200 tickets = 1 merit is so horrible why aren't people doing mass AE farming now? Lets say you can get 200 tickets in 3 minutes. That means that you can get a Gold roll in 1 hour right now. Now add in a ticket to conversion ratio of 200:1. It still takes 1 hour of ticket farming to get a gold roll whether you do it with tickets or merits. The only change is that now you can potentially spend tickets to buy specific recipes instead of doing random rolls. I don't think that this is necessary (especially with the introduction of A-Merits) but I fail to see how this would suddenly make AE farming more attractive than it is now when random rolls are generally considered superior to direct buys and it changes neither the time per random roll or the ratio of random rolls to direct buys.

*sigh* I'll miss number 8.

Yeah, the impact of that on the market would be fascinating .

The general consensus I've seen from people in the market forum is that Gold rolls are already to expensive. Most people who farm tickets spend them on silver or bronze rolls instead (and my own experience supports this strategy). Similarly with merits it's generally considered that random rolls are, over time, more profitable than direct buys. By setting the price in the 200-300 range it means that the conversion is only beneficial to people who are planning direct buys (since with rolls you could spend fewer tickets directly) or using them to buy A-Merits (which are time limited anyway).

The time aspect is not a convincing argument to me. Let's say you farm up the 48,000 tickets necessary to direct buy a LotG 7.5% (using 200 tickets = 1 merit). With that amount you could already buy 88.9 pieces of rare salvage, 685.7 bronze rolls (level 30-34 or 35-39) or 13.7 gold rolls (level 30-34). Even taking the rare salvage option (a reliable but low profit item) and selling them for 1.6million each (in the middle of their standard 1-2million price range) you would get 140.8 million which is about what you'd get for the LotG 7.5%. If you converted the 48,000 tickets to merits and did direct rolls there you'd only get 12 rolls so that's clearly a loss as well.

Even at 200 tickets = 1 merit I don't see the conversion as being a better option than spending the tickets directly. The A-Merit conversion is a little trickier. It enables people to do that solo more easily. I don't think it would be game breaking though since those are time-locked most people who farm merits or tickets are going to have more than they can convert to A-Merits anyway.

Personally I agree with Bill that it isn't really needed however if it was implemented I think 200 merits would work fine as a price (alhough I'd probably set it to 250 to make spending the tickets on bronzes more appealing).

I realize that this is hyperbole but think about what that actually means. The earning power from being able to convert 250-300 tickets to merits is not out of line with the current options for directly buying items with tickets as I think my analysis above indicates. Yet despite that the AE is not the most popular method of farming. I really don't see how adding merits to the purchase option for tickets would make AE farming the most popular option unless the price was significantly lower than 200.

That is way to harsh to be useful, at 5000 tickets for 1 merit you're much better off spending the tickets on random rolls. If you do Rare Recipe Rolls that gives you 20 merits = 4000 tickets. So 1 merit = 200 tickets. Now Reward Merits are slightly more valuable than tickets since you can do direct buys and convert them to A-Merits so I'd say set the price at 250-300 tickets.

Tha'ts one thing I'd really like to see. I'd also love a weapon based Dominator Assault set where you wield a Sword and Pistol (Swashbuckling Assault?). I think that would open up some very cool options, especially combined with a "Grenade Control" set. The downside of course is that unlike most of the other Assault sets it wouldn't be able to reuse animations since the sets that it would be based on (Dual Pistols, Dual Blades and Broadsword) are animated using two identical weapons or only one weapon which wouldn't work.

Very much this. LotG 7.5%s seem to fluctuate between 100million and 150million. Lets say you get a conservative 120million after costs (market fees, salvage and crafting costs if you craft it). A purple recipe costs 20 A-Merits which equates to 10 LotGs. 10 LotGs would sell for 1.2 billion which even with the current prices is enough to buy 2 or 3 purples from a popular set. I'm less familiar with PvPIO prices but even there I think for everything except the +3% defense one you're probably better off using LotGs.

I don't. They desire them because they don't realize that they don't need them . Or to put it another way there are plenty of teams out there that want a "healer" so if you play one you can get teams. Now whether they are good teams...

Yes and no. Personally my attitude is the same, I pretty much ignore anyone who advertises as a "Healer". However I do see people forming teams and specifically looking for a "Healer" so while I disagree with Klaw's assessment as to the utility of a "Healer" he does have a point about them being desired.

Yeah I noticed that. I'm not to surprised that that sort of clumping occurred but the effect was stronger than I would have expected. In the case of Traps though I think it's primarily caused by the relative newness of the set, give it a few years and the numbers will pick up.

Easiest way to find out is to check the wiki:
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Demon_Summoning

The Ember Demon and Steamy Mist boost resistance, plus Steamy Mist boosts defense a very small amount. As such Maneuvers isn't essential but it is useful. If you do take it I'd recommend trying to fit the Defense pet Aura IO in somewhere (or better yet fit in both of them once you get Tornado or Hell on Earth). If you can fit in both defense aura IOs and Maneuvers any pets within 40ft will have an extra 16.4% defense (a little more with slotting) which reduces the damage they take by about a third.

Assault is always worth taking if you can fit it in (more damage never hurts). Tactics is also a solid choice for a Mastermind. The lower tier pets are affected very strongly by the purple patch, and if you're fighting at +2 or above you really want tactics to help them hit. +0 or +1 they are ok with supremacy and 2 accuracy SOs, +2 you need 2 SOs and Tactics or 3 SOs without it, +3 or +4 you really need 3 SOs and Tactics (defense debuffs help a bit but they get heavily resisted by the purple patch as well).

No thanks. The truly ebil know that in Market PvP if you fight your opponent directly then you have already lost.

The problem there is that EPPs have to be open to every powerset available whereas powers like this would basically be for one set. The important thing to remember though is that the Swap Ammo power doesn't actually do anything. Adding Swap Ammo power for anything would require the devs to modify every power in the existing set to make it work.