UberGuy

Yes, its damage and recharge were buffed, and the heal was left as it was. It is now an excellent power.

It sound like, mechanically, they need to use a different mechanism on the pets other than de-leveling them. While the math isn't going to be able to work out exactly the same, it sounds like they either need to modify the critters' advancement tables or invent a self debuff power that simulates what they currently achieve using the pet level downgrades at various points in the MM's level progression. (MM pets have their own AT tables, so modifying them that way should technically be possible.)

Arachnos ATs combine high defense, toxic damage (for some branches), Psi damage (for Widows), a mix of ranged and melee capabilities, a mix of control and damage dealing, all while providing strong buffs to the team. While the features available in the ATs are available in other ATs, they are available in mixes that cannot be replicated by any other AT. You can build a VEAT that looks like a Stalker or Dominator, for example, but you cannot build a Stalker to buff teammates the way a VEAT can, a Dominator to have the defenses a Fortunata has, etc.

Take care and good luck, Ocho. Here's hoping your new opportunity is fruitful. After all, if it is, we're more likely to see you in game.

Moreover, they are supposed to be specifically engineered to not buff things that current enhancers may buff by accident, such as how defense debuff enhancers will buff defense buffs. I'm not clear on the implications for powers that currently allow this, like SR's passives. As BA, said, even if it would work on SR's passives, it won't work on things that don't actually explicitly allow defense slotting.

Oh, I agree completely. I was just making sure that the quote had really been in the original article, and I wasn't just misreading something sardonic as the original quote. Coming back to this thread after a while I see I was reading it right.

What's funny is I did didn't even catch the 10 and N zeroes bit. I read what he meant and not what he said.

Quit while we're ahead.

Basically, there's no precedent. Along the same thinking, why wouldn't crits with mezzing attacks stack more mez, or debuffing attacks debuff more, or self-buffing attacks buff more?

I don't think they'd make an exception for Siphon Life. The power is amazingly good right now. I am happy for them to leave it alone!

No, I see the part about 10^80 and 10^25. In the version I'm downloading there's no (longer?) a comparison of the two.

Oh, now that's funny.

Edit: Wait, I can't find that last bit in the article. Did they remove it?

Honestly, when the devs created the original Market forum, before it was merged with the Inventions one, sales and "looking for" posts were probably what the devs were primarily expecting to be posted in it. I'd bet they didn't expect long debates on how economic theory does or doesn't predict the game market, or flame wars about marketeering.

We used to get posts where people were listing rare pool C or purple stuff and wanted to advertise it. I never really thought there was much point to that, so they mildly bothered me, especially since at the time the more philosophical and/or flamewar stuff was more common. I felt like the actual sale/bid threads were getting in the way of what I wanted to read.

In contrast to that, the PvPO bid/sale threads are about stuff you can't actually sell for best price on the market, so you need a way to get the word out. They completely make sense to post in here. On top of that, I don't feel like we've really discussed anything new philosophy wise in here in a long time. There are still some good informational threads posted, and more than a few entertaining flame wars, but I don't have the same feeling that the bid/sale threads are cluttering interesting discussions that I once did.

I have three level 50 /Regen characters, and this is what I have chosen on all of them.

Eventually I will want the more rare versions of Spiritual Core, but for now Spiritual Radial makes more sense because the Uncommon Spiritual Core has no healing component.

Hm, if we're counting across all characters I have like... 350? That's six incarnated 50s, ranging from around 20-100 shards apiece, all with at least one uncommon crafted. Most of that is TFs, some of it is missions on high team size settings, and some of is Hami Raids. Hami Mitos also drop at a high rate; I probably trend towards four drops per raid, though I had an exceptionally nice one last week where I got eight. That's not including the four you can take as your reward, which I have not been doing.

I run a lot of TFs, so I almost never spend shards on common components. The only common component I craft outright is the one you get only from running the CoP.

Another thing to bear in mind about Nerve is that its defense enhancement aspect is going to be more useful to builds that get more of their +def from enhanceable powers. If you're something like Shields, Ninjitsu or especially SR, the vast majority of your +def is from slottable powers. That gives you a bigger lever for Nerve to pry on. Most of my characters are lucky if they can scrape up 10% defense from things that you can actually enhance. The rest comes from set bonuses. That means that Nerve is going to give me a couple of points of defense at the very most on characters who usually aren't that close to the softcap.

Now, I'm one of the first people to point out that a couple of percent +Defense in the 35%+ range can actually work out to a nice bit of added average mitigation. However, when these are characters who get things like big DPS boosts out of the +recharge of Spiritual, or suddenly can run attack chains forever without help, that's a big deal to me too.

I don't think anyone's saying Nerve is useless. It's useful on the right characters. I don't have anyone who's 50 and has high enough enhanceable defense for it to be right for me, and I sure as heck don't have anyone who is low on accuracy. So for me, my situational benefit leans away from Nerve. I think it does for a lot of builds. I wish its primary attribute was something besides accuracy, but that would throw the whole arrangement out of its current kilter, and I like the other three Alphas a lot.

With rare exception, I haven't found it useful for slotting something I already wanted to slot heavily, because if I've slotted it heavily, I've invested in set bonuses as well. There are a few edge cases, but in most of my builds, trying to use the Alpha to save a slot would deprive me of bonuses I really want. Instead, I've gotten far more mileage out of using it to provide things I couldn't as heavily as I wanted across most of my powers. That's meant, primarily, recharge and end reduction. In fact, on a couple of characters now I've created both the Spiritual and Cardiac uncommons, and I switch between them based on what I'm about to undertake.

I have one character who needs neither more recharge nor better end management at level 50, and he could benefit marginally from Nerve, but I'm actually much more likely to go for the Rare Core Musculature, because he's a Scrapper, and +30% ED-bypassing +damage enhancement is just sweet.

I remember that also. I only didn't mention it because I didn't feel like trying to dig up a quote.

I don't really disagree, but that really is neither here nor there with respect to what was done in PvP itself.

I posted in Castle's going away thread, and I thanked him strongly for what he did in PvE. I didn't mention PvP at all, going for that whole "if you can't say something good..." I don't live my life by that adage, but there are times and places for it, and I think a going away thread is one.

Actually, no, being at the soft cap is fixed irrespective of foe rank and level until you are facing +5s or higher. The soft cap is the point at which their chance to hit you is reduced to one tenth the value it would have absent any defense or toHit debuffs. It cannot be lowered to less than that. Accuracy bonuses, such as those for rank and/or being over-level, are multipliers on that value, and scale with the mitigation of defense.

That is to say, if a foe has 1.5x the chance to hit you of an even-level minion, it will have that 1.5x the chance to hit you at 0% defense and at 45% defense, and having more defense won't affect that it is 1.5x as likely to hit you as an even-level minion.

Are you by any chance using an Active Alpha Slot boost that would affect this? Nerve Radial or Core Boosts?

I had a long reply partially typed up, but this really isn't the right forum for this anyhow. Let me try to say concisely that I emphatically disagree that the new PvP rules are good as a whole. The old PvP had issues to be sure, but at its core I believe old PvP had features unique to CoH that the new system significantly took away from it. I consider the new rules the greater evil by a long shot.

I didn't PvP much under the old rules because PvP wasn't what I came to CoH to do. PvP is still not why I'm here, but now I wouldn't play the new PvP because I think it blows.