Arcanaville

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What probably happened was that the Nemesis Lts, upon defeat, cast vengance on the others (and it stacks) so it made them much harder to defeat.

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Technically, vengeance is cast a couple seconds after defeat, so it can't protect anyone in a group from any of the waves of a nova-blast. My scrapper can actually defeat one nemesis LT, and turn and attack another one and (one-shot) defeat him before the vengeance buff strikes him.

However, nova 6 LTs and only 5 go down? Well, now you have a problem.

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[rant]...after 50 lvls of illusion controlling i cant think of many times when i felt an AOE fear power would be useful. i picked up ST only after trying it on test and seeing it hold foes with cowering.

it appears that no matter how many 'fixes' we go through, Spectral Terror was intended to be a fear power which causes foes to run away. run away and cower or run away and loose aggre or run away and attack doesnt matter to me. i dont like "run away" powers.

i have yet to see any effective strategy by a high level illusion controller that involved getting the foes to run away. can someone here give me a scenarion where they want this??

pre-attack strategies may be:

"ok 1st the controller will send in the PA and debuff"

"ok 1st the controller will buff us with group inviso"

"ok 1st the controller will go in and get the mob to scatter??"(huh)

i have never seen this power be useful (after 1/18) and i would never suggest a illusion controller take or use it. in short it sux IMHO and should be removed completely(not 'fixed') in favor of another AOE hold

its just a shame that i hafta waste ANOTHER respec just to get rid of this useless nonsense of a power that i should never have taken to begin with...[/rant]

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Well, at least the next respec will be easier, what with you spamming spectral terror on the reactor.

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Enhanced fear effects are all well and good... but I think you guys need to kick it up a notch. I wanna' see puddles. Villains wetting themselves. Crying twin waterfalls and confessing their deepest, most embarassing secrets.

Hellion Dave: I- I dream about makin' out with Bobby every night!

Hellion Bobby: Shut up, Dave! *stains his pants*

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And when they run, they should run like scared little schoolgirls, just like the civilians do. And when they stop, 50% of them should, instead of cowering, scream and point at the ST like freddy kruger just showed up.

I don't even care if spectral terror works. Just make it cause freak tanks to run while waving their hands in the air for three seconds, and I'll be happy.

Oh, and can the spectral terror look like Martha Stewart? Just wondering.

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It was only our third event (if memory serves)...so we're still learning.

Rikti invasion was nice...Halloween worked well...and the Winter Lords had some good stuff.

We noted our errors and will rectify them next time.

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Next time, I suggest an event that benefits the lower levels without power leveling them. Something that the higher levels would find an interesting novelty, perhaps because in involved elements of the game they hadn't seen in a long time. Maybe add an element of search and exploration instead of camping spawn points.

Say, a search and destroy mission involving one of the lower mobs groups would be nice...

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Why not just be glad that you get to help a bunch of people test out new powers they think are cool? Debt's not that big a deal.

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In a perfect world, id agree that yes I can help people with new cool powers.

Except most noobs are over-confident and think they know better.

Example: WLed N0ob runs into a mob and tps us all in- after aggroing 10 groups along the way. We tell him not to do that. this is followed by lots of cursing and a quit.

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He quit? Wow. That's a marked improvement over the teens and the twenties before the winter lords, when they would stick around and attempt to drive my controller insane.


Besides, I can just imagine this conversation:

Player 1: Hello. I say dear boy, that was not a tactically sound maneuver.

Player 2: That teleport was highly unexpected. Perhaps some aggro control would be in the best interests of the rest of the team, what say?

Player 3: Quite! Let us endeavor to mitigate significant damage and character expiration in the future, shall we?

TeleportNut: &^&*& *(*(&& and *&(&( with *(&*(@#^ $& (*# #(*& #*( by *(#&*&@*&*$( #((*#& #)(&&(() #*&(#& #*(&#( and *(#&& #(*&#(*& #&()#& yours. /quit

Yep, I see this all the time.

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From the testing I've done, it seems that:

1. /ghide is persistent across sessions. When I log out and log back in, I'm still hidden. That's just fine with me.

2. /ghide applies to ALL characters. If I log out and log in to a different character, that character is hidden as well. This is NOT fine with me.

Why don't I like this? Well, I have a character that when I play them, I don't want my other Friends from knowing I'm online. Call it my 'escape' character. I always want to be hidden from GC whenever I play this character. ALWAYS. Right now this is easy, because we can turn the Global Chat system on and off entirely, but that won't be the case when the system is no longer in beta.

With /ghide working the way it does now, I will have to remember to toggle myself to and from hidden every time I switch character. I can see this becoming a severe irritation, especially when I forget. What I would prefer is for /ghide to be a per-character setting, like the normal /hide command. Is there any chance this might change before the full launch?

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I've been thinking about this myself. I would like to suggest that at the login screen, there is a radio button option to allow us to login in the hidden state. Either put it at the login prompt if that is the easiest thing to do, or better yet, put it on the character selection screen so we can decide when we decide what character we are going to login as. That radio button can also show us what the current ghide/gunhide state currently is, if we forgot what we set it to when we logged out.

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Do Nemesis have any resistance to Energy? Yes there was an LT or 2 in there (took the bosses out earlier). But the rest of the mob constisted of Fuselier, Carabineir, Chasseur and Lancer. All conned white or yellow, the LT(s) were orange. There were 24 of them in their nice neat formations (counted them before hand just to see). I was positioned right in the middle of them in a deadend passageway using stealth and superspeed. I took the red and yellow just before I ran in, hit the build up and aim once positioned, and as started taking fire popped the Nova. I didn't expect to take the LTs down so was prepared for that. But the 6 others that were still standing were a bit much. I had a similar experience the last time I tired it on some CoT so I was paying pretty close attention on this one. That is also why I took the big red and yellow pills hoping to improve my odds.

So being 33, the 36s are +3 no question there. The 35+s were both two 35s combined together (bought them to make sure). So I should have been well up on the damage CAP. Now the only thing I can't say with 100% certainty that I had them all in radius. Fortunately, I was teamed with my SG and had a fortitude on me before I went in there. They were able to clean up no problem. But this is a risky tactic to try on your own.

So was this just bad luck?

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I've noticed runs of bad luck with nova. I was in a mission the other night and after five nova firings, I had missed a bunch. BU+Aim+nova (4dmg+2rech slotted). These were groups of +2. Every group but one I missed 1 or 2 of 6, which is lousy acc. The very next mission, nova accuracy suddenly improved to either hitting everyone, or occasionally missing 1 (this was +2 and +3). Weird.

Something I don't get - you say you triggered nova *after* they started firing on you. With superspeed and stealth that can only happen if there were snipers in the group. And snipers are LTs; at +3 they wouldn't have been automatically killed by a nova.

The big red pill didn't help you at all; nova slotted with 4dmg and then buffed with BU+Aim is at the damage cap. The yellow probably didn't help either; you should have been near the 95% to hit ceiling.

The odds say if you fired nova on 24 targets, you should have missed 1 or 2 on average. That plus the couple of LTs might account for 4 of the ones left standing. Another thing to factor in is that I'm having trouble visualizing a pattern of 24 nemesis in a mission that would all be in the radius of nova. Maybe they were just out of range.

Chance is chance. I've fired nova on 12 targets and missed 5. I've fired nova on 60+ targets and actually hit all but 2.

I will say, I'm not the only person that thinks there is a rollover error in acc, though. I was testing accuracy the other day in a mission with +2 and +3 mobs. I had an attack chain of seven consecutive attacks miss, four after BU and 3 more after Aim, and long miss-runs happened several times during this mission. Then it went away in the following two missions. That sounds like either a roll-over computation error, or a random number generator error. Accuracy bugs are, of course, a big joke now, but even I'm beginning to get the feeling something is intermittently wrong.

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-At somepoint you owe it to yourself to 6-slot nova w/ KB and take it into PP. Take a friend. With waypoints you can measure the distance of minion-tossing.
-The same is also fun with Power Thrust and Power Push.


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Try to do this soon, while Everett Lake is still frozen over. Oh, and let me add a stunt I invented the night of the ice-over when I was bored - Evil Knievel nova. Superspeed run towards a group of hydra, and then leap over them (having hurdle helps). While in the air, trigger nova when you think you are directly overhead. The ice means you wont "root" when you land on the other side - you'll keep on moving. three seconds later, nova will go off where ever you are, but it will HIT where ever you WERE. Turn 180 as you slide away, and watch your nova detonate over the hydra's heads from 200 feet away.

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Go.

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Hunt.

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Only in Kenya.

Does Mr.Kenya give tours?

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how about just the TEXT FEED of the battle?

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Because there's just too much data from the Matrix, we have to watch the battles with little screens that show everyone as moving green characters.

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I meant the text feed from ONE competitor the viewer can choose to see. It would replace the viewer's text with the competitors text.

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I gotta learn to put more smileys on my posts.

I think portals are the way to go for the big-screen effect. They ought to be just as easy to implement as mobile cameras. You put them in a special viewing room that people can enter, and when they do, the portal is viewable, but the spectators are not viewable by each other to eliminate lag in the viewing rooms. If necessary, instance a small viewing lounge sized room for each viewer. Seems simpler than floating cameras, actually. Instanced viewing rooms have the advantage of allowing for private viewing parties to control lag as well - you could invite people into your own "mission" to view the arena, just like the instanced mission parties I used to hear about. Within the instanced viewing room, broadcast chatter and other effects are localized.

I was going to suggest allowing the 50s to buy box seats for like 10 million inf, but I can imagine the uproar if heaven forbid we give the 50s anything. Still, being able to sit in our high perches while betting on the events - what do you suppose the exchange rate is between influence and quatloos?

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They've got capes animated, trench coats wouldn't be much harder.

But ensuring people aren't wearing half their trench in their pants is another issue entirely.

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Trenchcoats probably have a similar problem as long flowing skirts, a problem that capes do not have. Think MA.

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...perhaps a sit pose that I can use without flashing the room...

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Hehe... try /em yoga it's not much but it is somthing.

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Actually /em kneel is marginally better, but both are still making me sit down like a guy would, and are still making me flash the room.

Devs, if you are by any chance reading this ... when girls sit down there is no risk of anything getting wedged in, so in general we tend to sit down with our legs closed. Especially so if we're wearing a skirt shorter than knee length... I am sure this is an extremely minor change that could be made to the one or two sit poses.
Pretty please? *making extra big, cute girly anime style eyes*


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I dunno about better sitting positions, lots of us have been begging for that for a long time. But, in keeping with "anime-inspired" additions in U4, I vote for /em making-extra-big-cute-girly-anime-style-eyes. Not that my scrapper would ever stoop to doing that. Heavens no.

She already has a ton of influence already. Now, my peacebringer...

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I've said several times in this post that there is a section of the current community that would benefit from an all anime costume update. I'm just saying that that style translates more largely to the asian market and would make CoH, overall, more acceptable in them.

Yes there are people currently playing that will heavily enjoy the anime style. I have not, at any point, denied that. All I'm saying is that theres also people that currently play that have no interest in it and it leaves them with nothing gained.

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Is there anything the devs could add for which this is *not* true? Is there any *set* of things the devs could add for which this would not be true? I'm not likely to jump at the chance to outfit my characters with "anime-inspired" costume options, but you never know. Heck, think about the huge amount of dev time that went into capes. That was a ton of effort that did not in any way benefit the players that did not want a cape.

Heck, if the "anime-inspired" costume options have even two sets of female shoes that aren't butt-ugly, leather options that aren't "Leather Goddess of Phobos" leather, and maybe some additional top accessories that aren't somewhat S&M or packing ammo, they'll have quadrupled the number of options right there. Maybe an anime/asian influence will add something that looks more like a martial arts gi, also, and even western-taste players might appreciate that. Personally, I'm hoping that they improve the tops-with-skin "aka tops-painted-on" section, to include things real people might actually wear without significant amounts of adhesive tape.

Now, I'll tell you what will really disappoint me. They say they are adding a sonic weapon power set and a staff powerset. I'll lay 10 to 1 odds I wont see a bowel disruptor, or The Chair Leg of Truth in either one. Sad.

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how about just the TEXT FEED of the battle?

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Because there's just too much data from the Matrix, we have to watch the battles with little screens that show everyone as moving green characters.

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Hello again all.

I am following up again to my complaint that missions have become impossible at level 23 given the fact that the groups of mobs are yellow and orange cons and too much for a group consisting of a blaster, a controller (with phantom army), and a defender.

I quote from the game manual, page 7:

"A Blaster can solo successfully, if he remains aware of his situation at all times,......."

Given this statement in writing in the game manual then our group which has a blaster should be able to do missions.

It has been my experience, however, that none of the classes can solo effectively even the blaster, which makes the statement in the book false advertising.

And to the person who wanted to know, yes the controller is an empathy secondary power controller and the defender can also heal.

Heidi Ho (level 26 thanks to the winterlords controller) and others
Infinity Server

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I'm sorry, but did you say its been your experience that none of the classes can effectively solo?

Uhm, I haven't found a class yet that couldn't solo. Some fast, some slow, and its a debatable point whether the relative solo rates are appropriate, but you haven't found any class that can solo?

In point of fact I soloed an energy blaster - completely soloed - from 1-25, and the only thing I did not have to experience the first time around was the increased bosses - but neither have you yet at level 23. I've also soloed missions with a controller, a scrapper, a tank, a defender, and both kheldians. Oddly, or perhaps appropriately, its the kheldians that have the toughest time soloing on average.

And also, you are saying that because the book says a blaster can solo, any team with a blaster ought to be ok? I'm not sure I understand this conclusion either.

But I will tell you that in my experience, a team like what you are describing is not a trivial team to make work. First, everyone has to be a team player - that team does not have a lot of margin for error. The first time anyone cowboys anything or gets too close when AoE attacks are in play or too far away for AoE heals to help cover or if people miss the buff cycles - it might be lights out.

Second, the critical link is the controller. You are light on damage, and full of squishies, which means that team does not have quick-kill capability, but the villains do . And that means if the controller is not an experienced controller, if he or she can't lock a majority of the foes down, quickly, and keep them locked, you are going to get creamed. And I can tell you, that aint easy with an Ill/emp. My Ill/rad only has two lock downs - blind and flash, and the PA to draw aggro. You have to really use everything you have at your disposal to keep everyone alive. And you need patience. If you enter a room with two closely separated groups, you need to pull. If the PA is recharging, sit and wait.

BTW, another thing about Illusion. If at 23 you have the PA slotted for recharge, so you can have them out more often, you know they wont kill anything, right? You'll have them more often, but you'll have them for a minute, they'll aggro everything, the PA will dance around for a while, and then 60 seconds latter, the PA vanishes, the mobs go "oh look, a controller" and then every single one of them fires at the controller, who dies. I've seen this happen. I've tested the slotting myself and seen it happen to me, also. The low damage-fast recharge PA is only viable if you team with a lot of damage dealers that will do all the killing for you, and all the PA is used for is aggro control.

I guess I'm saying, it can work, but there are a lot of things that can go wrong. It isn't only tactics you have to learn, it is also - even if you ignore the forums and just use your own experience - how to best enhance your powers so they are most effective in the situations you find yourself in.

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That's one of the things I really don't understand about this whole mess. They gave us the difficulty slider AND buffed the bosses. Huh? Oh no, don't tell me (like I'm gonna touch it...) the slider only increases the quantity and not the quality of the mobs???



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This only works for solo players. The mission difficulty slider does nothing to fix the problem of mobs being far too weak to challenge teams. (Short of cheats like massive use of status effects, end drains and un-resistible damage)

Currently when you take a team into a mission set at impossible you can get mobs that will be 5 or more levels above anyone who isn’t at or above the level of the mission holder. Certainly this makes the mission harder but it effectively does so by reducing the size of the team since anyone who is below the level of the mission holder is pretty much just along for the ride and except for a few types of defenders can’t contribute much.


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Set to invincible, the villains will be +2 and +3 to the mission leader. Someone -1 to the leader will see +3s and +4. Someone -2 to the leader will se +4s and +5s. Someone lower than that can be SKed.


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The basic issue is this. 1-4 players can take on just about any group of mobs up to 4 levels above their own. These become absolutely trivial with more people then that if you have good players. Raise the level even one more and that group of mobs is now *easier* to solo then it is to attack as a team. In either the solo or team situation the rewards are not worth the time and effort involved.


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If I understand what you are saying, and I'm not 100% sure I do, I think you are oversimplifying things a lot. Personally, I've only seen the level spread be a real issue in respec, and at lower levels (a 4 level spread is not a big deal in a group of 30+s, but it can be in a group of teens). Separate from that, the "challenge factor" does seem dependent on the mix of ATs and the style of play - yes, in good teams successful completion of the mission is generally a foregone conclusion, but that doesn't make them fun or exciting - accidents, mistakes, surprises all happen (more so in random teams than in more familiar teams). Rollercoasters have a foregone conclusion also.


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Without more challenging mobs that fall below the +5 level limit there is almost zero real team content in this game. This has to be a major concern for the devs because what give an MMO longevity and long term profitability is that people keep playing it because of the friends they have made in team situations. The presence of these friends keeps them playing the game long after the game is outdated.

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While I don't agree with the "zero team content" premise, I do agree that more complex villains, situations, team situations, etc can only be good for the game.

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I think you are missing my point.........I do NOT want to team up, expecially for 2.5 million xp'w worth. I can hardly stand my own company for long, let alone someone else. And with all the people recently power leveled thanx to our wonderful winter lord event...I saw a lvl 50 who was bragging about lvling her whole group to lvl 32 in half a day...no thankyou.
Striga I can't do, too high a lvl...........as for the difficulty slider, I am not quite sure what that has to do with my current situation. If I was lvl 10 or 20, even 30, I'd have no problem with this, but at this lvl, its ridiculous. I guess the answer is there is no answer, and since I seem to be the only person who plays COH that thinks its totally screwed,obviously it won't be changed. Had I known this before I bought the game, I never would have bought it.

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I should point out that while xp to level goes up, so does the xp for even level foes. From 40-50, there is absolutely no difference in the number of villains you need to defeat or missions you need to do to level. In fact, that starts at level 39, so if you are 38 now, the same effort it takes to get to 39, will be the same to get to 40, to 41, to 42, etc. Assuming that the foes you encounter are similar in difficulty to you relative to what you have been facing up to now.

When people talk about X million xp to level, I remind them its ten bars, just like its always been

If you thought 30 would have been fine, the relative number of villains to defeat to get from 39-40 is about twice the number from 29-30. More, but not massively more.

Couple things:

1. Ability to see info of any character in SG whether online or not or in range. Seems reasonable that the character would "register" their info with the SG when they join, and it would be fun to read member backgrounds, etc.

2. Alliances and Alliance chat - everybody wants this one, and I know it can be simulated with channels, but at least add the mechanics to make the channel more SG-friendly (i.e. allow higher ranking members to add/delete ppl from the channel, allow auto-add on SG-join, etc).

3. Instead of one-click email to SG members, an SG bulletin board makes sense to me. Just implement it as a shared inbox for email that anyone can read, and no one (or maybe only high ranks) can delete from. Then you just have to send email to my_sg_inbox, not to literally everyone in the SG.

4. SG vault - another one everyone wants. Allow players to deposit inf and enh that others can take.

5. Change membership limit from 75 characters to 75 players (or more). That way alts can join an SG without blowing the limit away. But keep the ability for alts to join alternate SGs if they so choose.

6. SG sections of terminals. Give stats for SGs separate from people - SG with most defeats, SG with most heals, etc. Maybe also add somewhere where SGs can allow noteworthy accomplishments to be optionally announced. Like, if an SG member leads a successful shard TF, they can add it to their publicly viewable SG accomplishment board, and anyone can view it at the terminals. "SG Persistent_Beavers completed Task Force Insomnia in the shard at 3:06am February 2, 2005" or something like that.

7. SG-level raid content - everyone would like this one too, and I know raid level content is coming, so maybe this one is premature until it arrives.

8. SG info tab - I think it would be nice if SG leaders could make info for the SG like players can make background info for characters, and when you join, an SG tab appears in your info that other ppl can click on to see what your SG is about. Cosmetic, but simple.

9. SG costumes - the color scheme idea is nice, and I don't want to eliminate it, but having the ability for the SG leaders to make a costume (male/female/huge) that worked like an extra costume slot for SG members would be nice. I know a tricky thing is changing the costume features while 75 players are using them in game, but you could make it so that the player would have to go back to SG headquarters to get the new one when changes are made, or the change happens automatically at logout/login.

10. SG registration library - I would like to be able to to go Galaxy City and see a directory of all SGs. If this is too much in-game, why not add it to the web site.

OK, thats more than a couple things

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And this might mean that the higher-level toon who just ran past you is in fact not powerlevelling his worthless buddies or hunting "your" Winter Lords; he may in fact be doing a mission in your zone for completely legitimate reasons. I've had 10th level characters with missions in Atlas Park and Galaxy City, and I've had a 15th with so many missions in King's Row that it made my head explode. Some folks on Triumph may remember the "jesus god could I get some missions that aren't in King's FREAKING Row" broadcasts the day I finally lost it.

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I just finished a Devouring Earth mish in KR at level 30 and then the next was in PP

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I had indigo (in FF) send me to the middle of boomtown. Twice in a row. I'm not sure, but that might be about as bad as you can get outside the shard. But of course, nothing beats getting that mission on the far side of the hollows pre-14.

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Guys it seems I may have been wrong about the BU+Aim+ET+EB combo taking out white minions. It has been brought to my attention that someone has tested this on numerous enemies and found they are all left with a sliver of health. Can you all do some testing as well and tell me what you find?

If this is true I will have to revise the guide. Thanks in advance.

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I did testing of this at lvl50 against possessed scientists and nemesis minions about a week ago for another thread. BU+torrent+EB leaves them with a little bit of health left (on the order of 45 or so). This is with torrent and EB 5+1slotted with ++ enhancements. Aim doesn't have much to do under that slotting condition, and with BU+Aim+torrent+EB minions have something like 17 health left. Shame. BUT, BU+Aim+Torrent+EB is so close to taking out minions, its possible that it might at some level. Someone should test this at various other levels, or alternatively if someone knows of a table of minion health out there, we might be able to calculate this.

Also, anything with a vulnerability to smash or energy might go down with the combo. Freakshow in particular, or some of the DE, I think, have vulnerabilities to energy and smashing respectively.

Might as well wait on the snipe-testing also, SnipeFu, before making guide changes.

The next expansion will be City of Powerlevelers. Two new classes will be introduced that will increase the level cap to 100, but there will only be one zone.

When you go to your first contact, his mission will be:

"Greetings, hero: wait here"

Then he will zip off somewhere and you will start to get a steady stream of xp.

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7. Will powers have two modes when PvP is introduced (A PvP more and a PvE mode) or will the powers work the same in both situations?

As a goal, we’re avoiding this as much as possible. In other words, powers will work exactly the same in both PvP and PvE. We’re sticking to this principle because to do otherwise would be counter-intuitive to the player (“Why does my power do this against a mob but something else to a player?&#8221. However, we recognize that sometimes power changes are inevitable for the sake of balance. I just don’t want that to be our first resort.


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The first time my powers are nerfed to satisfy PvP, I am done with this game. I dealt with this in SWG and I will NOT tolerate it under any circumstances ever again.

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Well, at least one of us isnt going to be happy then.

With regard to how powers are going to work in PvP, in my opinion damage vs defense/resist/health is way too high; to put it another way, my scrapper has always been in a position to kill a target with her defenses and health quite rapidly up to the point she got elude. So rapidly that I wonder if it isnt a bad thing to have players destroying each other in seconds in PvP - it seems unsatisfying. I think it makes a lot more sense if damage output is reduced against players, so that player vs player combat takes longer, lets powers and tactics mature during combat, and plain old is more fun.

Put it another way - given how my en/en is currently constructed, any one on one fight with anything short of a tank or very heavily defended scrapper is a quick draw - if I shoot first, you die, if I don't I die. I have little defenses and a limited number of disciplines to avoid hold stacking from controllers. But I'm packing the heavy artillary, PBoosted knockback, BU and Aim, my shot is very likely to hit whatever I shoot at, and if my target is incapacitated for even one second (i.e. knockdown), I have superspeed and total focus, a high mag disorient and heavy damage attack as well. It isnt even obvious to me that something like perma-elude is unhittable - Paragon Protectors have elude, and I used to hit them fine with BU and/or Aim. PPs were still extremely dangerous for a solo blaster to take on, but I did hit them.

Something that tones the action down a little might make more sense. So here's my question for Statesman: do you see PvP combat looking like PvE combat, and if so, what is your model for what PvP combat should look like. For example, do you see it as minion on minion combat, where someone is very likely dead inside of twenty seconds, or do you see it more like a theoretical AV vs AV combat, where damage vs health is lower, and fights could last twenty minutes or more (AVs don't hit massively harder than we do, but have tons more health and regen).

One interesting way to effect the AV vs AV feel without directly nerfing any offensive powers is to simply place the dampening fields used in jails inside the arenas. It even makes sense story-wise that arenas would do that for the safety of participants and to ensure the combat remains "non-lethal."

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So Basically 6 slotting Aim and Build up would be overkill.. Optimally 4 recharge SO's seems to be the best balance from what I see.

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definate overkill. 4 should be the max as with that and perma-hasten you can cycle through pretty much non stop between aim and build up.

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Debatable. If you can use long activation attacks like snipe during combat, and time snipe to start at the end of BU or Aim's window, then you will get reasonable coverage, with some downtime. Cycling regular attacks, you'll fire BU, then fire Aim, then have downtime before BU comes back up with 4-slots of rech and perma-hasten, even if all the rech is ++ maxed. 6-slots just about keeps you fully covered.

Of more critical importance is that constantly keeping BU and Aim cycling will burn through your end very fast - even CS will have problems keeping up if you can keep a really fast cycle going and if you are firing AoE's like torrent and EB. Without CS and/or recovery aura, you will have to pace yourself. With CS and RA, 6-slotted rech in both BU and Aim will up your damage substantially against things like AVs, provided you don't steal aggro away and get smeared.

Of course, this is pre-EPPs, when maxing out damage was my forte. I would consider stealing those slots to put into TI; I'm still experimenting with epic powers, or whatever they are calling them this week.

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MSKnight--just wanted to thank you for your very detailed look at my build! I haven't responded yet because you gave me so much to think about. I've already made a few changes.What do you think of adding one range enh to Power Burst? Would it then be as long ranged as Power Bolt or Power Blast? That might be a nice addition to my ranged attacks, too, along with PP.

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You're welcome Jury.

Power Burst has a base range of 20' whereas bolt/blast have 80'. Each SO will increase range by 20%, so that'll only be 24' for Burst. I tried it and it wasn't enough of a difference to me. Stacking SS and stealth I can get close enough to a grp so that I can buff up, snipe (longest animation), then combo w/ some string of bolt/blast/burst. W/ good control over your travel power you can quickly move farther out to use bolt/blast then come in for burst. BTW P Push has a range of 70' I think, maybe 80' but no further.

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Kinda the opposite of what MsKnight is saying, in one of those rare moments that lag works for us rather than against us, if you have superspeed you can stay at range for bolt and blast, then click power burst, and then superspeed through the mob cluster. Power burst will begin to activate as soon as you are in range, but by the time the game "senses" that you are in range, you are on the far side of the group, and way out of melee harms way. In essense, burst will fire from outside its range, as long as you can SS into range for a second. I unslotted range out of burst once I got superspeed.

This also works well, with some practice, for things like total focus. Even the villians seem to take a moment to switch from ranged to melee attacks, if they are in the middle of a ranged attack animation and you pull this superspeed trick on them, they will not be able to melee you, but total focus will activate and hit them while you are dozens of yards away. SS skimming a villian so you graze melee range does take some practice. But the nice thing is that if TF misses, there is no melee counterattack, and if you try this on something like a mesmerist, and you actually get slept, at least you wont be sleeping in the middle of the mobs and in sword range.

People say all energy blasters are the same, and those people are not energy blasters I've been in teams with four, count 'um, four energy/energy blasters, and I could tell us all apart by play styles even if you replaced our avatars in-game with identical character appearances. The SS zip-around-like-a-maniac thing, firing in different directions and thwacking things with TF, that would be me.

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It's tentatively scheduled for sometime between tomorrow and the heat death of the Universe. Plan accordingly.

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Extreme exaggeration. It is almost certainly scheduled for testing on the test server some time between now and four billion years from now, when the sun will expand into a red giant, vaporize the oceans, and strip the atmosphere from the earth.

Go live is scheduled for the following tuesday.