Arcanaville
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:An hour long personal story involving 57 minutes of waiting for a group of incarnates to arrive and three minutes of confusing them seems impractical.Originally Posted by Mad Grim
Fine then, we play as the Avatar of Hamidon and beat people up. -
Quote:I studied the effect of weave on regen compared to something like tough in my scrapper analysis. Specifically, what happens when you look at blow-by-blow analysis. What I found is that when it comes specifically to the issue of what can allow you to increase your difficulty, weave mitigates damage but also makes it burstier, which means it doesn't allow you to survive higher threat very well. What it does is allow you to survive with more margin for error at the same threat. Most people assume the two are identical, and they look the same when it comes to average calculations but they are actually not the same thing when it comes to actual combat.Originally Posted by Star_Seven
I remember reading...i think Arcanaville had something that weave isn't useful in the long run for regen. (long term survivability)
I always take it, but just throw a LOTG +rech and I'm done. I could easily be wrong, but thats what I remember reading.
To put it another way, what regen tends to suffer from are spikes in damage. Weave reduces the number of spikes but doesn't make them smaller in magnitude. That translates in reducing the number of times a spike will kill you, but you'll still die from those spikes just less often. Resistance reduces the magnitude of spikes, which means it can make all lethal spikes non-lethal at a particular difficulty level. Translation: defense can make you die less often at higher difficulty. Resistance can make you immortal at lower difficulty. -
Quote:Hey look, its a new red name!Originally Posted by Arbiter Warrant
So, Arcanaville - you don't remember that we put this in I 22?
[4. The solo incarnate path needs to be fixed by adding a hallucinogenic cut scene at the end of every story arc that causes the player to be put into a fugue state whereupon they forget having played it.] -
Quote:It'll restrict the proc rate to one proc per hour, except for blasters who will get the slightly stronger 125 PPM version.Originally Posted by Aurora_Girl
WHAT ABOUT THE PROC RATE NEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRFFFFFFFFF?!
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Quote:They already get that choice: at character creation.Originally Posted by Talionis
I would actually think maybe all Scrappers should be given the choice to become either Brutes or Stalkers because I think that would take care of all the options.
If any of the melee archetypes is fundamentally different from the others, its stalkers. Brutes, Scrappers, and Tankers have the largest overlap design-wise. If this was a beginning of time decision, there should have always been only one of those. But merging them today is impossible, because no matter how similar they are in an absolute sense, the playerbase has grown to focus on the differences between them, inflating the importance of those differences to the point where eliminating them would serve no good purpose.Quote:I agree with you that Scrappers and Brutes basically make the same toons. If the Scrapper doesn't make a good Brute then he probably ought to be a Stalker. The Scrapper criticals are very similar to Stalker criticals.
Tanks are the melee archetype that is clearly different. They are basically melee controllers. The other melee archetypes are different types of damage dealers. -
Quote:You don't have to go all the way to whole mission arcs to see that: many people extend that to individual forum post authorship. I can't count the number of times someone has posted words to the effect "I don't like power X because it does Y" and when I reply "power X does not do Y" they respond with something like "oh, so now you are going to tell me what I like?" I have to assume that's just people taking everything they post extremely personally, because I refuse to believe there are that many illiterate people that have figured out how to operate computers in the world.Originally Posted by PoliceWoman
Some authors are really sensitive to criticism of any sort, and will not accept any kind of criticism.
It seems lots of people have decided they have the right to express themselves, and everyone else has the responsibility to enjoy it.
But then again, I have to say when it comes to fiction, not all that many people are good at constructive criticism either. Its very difficult to comment on someone else's work in terms of how to make it better at what the author wanted to do as opposed to how to make it what you wished you wrote. The job of a critic is not to instruct the author on how to write the story that the critic is too lazy and unskilled to write themselves. -
Quote:Also, yours hit like little girls.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
Silly. All of my Tankers have been gathering dust, because, well...Incarnate system + Brutes.
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Quote:They are replacing them with debt protection procs.Originally Posted by Basilisk
Aw, man... You mean they're going to be taking away my debt reduction bonuses? That means I'm going to have to go through and re-do all of my debt protection builds!
I am disappoint. -
Quote:It can be difficult to prove, but in my experience the law does make a distinction between someone independently arriving at a similar (but not identical) idea through a completely original process, and someone starting from an identical idea and then mutating it to be similar but not identical.Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Okay, this thread has been very constructive. I'm feeling safe. Let me lay it on the table, then you can pull the floor away and I'll see it was all a villainous trap!
Anyways, as I mentioned, I do some art. Most all of my art centers around my "issues" with mortality. So, I do a lot of undead, vampire, zombie, brain in jar stuff in the cities. Also, undead robots, Liches, you know, all the ways of "cheating" death.
Well, yesterday on the boards I saw someone post a picture of Skeletor. Now, I am old, but I was just a touch too old for the Masters of the Universe stuff. I have always looked down on it as "low rent." However, that picture of Skeletor had me just about rolling. It is cheese-zey. Did I mention I love cheese?
So, I looked around and figured Dark/Invul Scrapper, and made up a costume, and ran a couple DFBs. THen I got to thinking how much I liked the concept, deleted the character, and re-skinned a stalled 48 Dark/Invul Brute stalled for 2 years, bopped it back and forth across servers for a free rename, and there ya go. 50'd it on an ITF last night.
Now the characters name is Skulz (had the name saved on a level 10 Blaster for the last year. Couldn't get Skuls, but ya know. Important note, the name is a tribute to CoH history, and also connected to my death art.) and the power sets are ones I love, the costume is cheesy. You cannot get a "perfect" match on the costume, because you cannot get shinguards without boots. Also, as I have learned, Skeletor has had a few incarnations himself, muddying the waters. I was going to make him a Robotic/Lich, then found that Skeletor did a stint with Cybernetic Enhancements (He was getting old, and ...nvm) Anyways, thats where I am with him now. Any read on what side of the line I am on? ((Oh, his backstory is he was a Paladin that hunted undead and was cursed by a VERY powerful Necromancer to be an undead forever.)) But the costume is really derivative, did I mention I love skulls and cheese? (For instance, that last sentence has me wanting to paint a memento mori with skull, cheese, candle)
In other words, the process can be as important as the end result, because the issue isn't just duplication its copying itself.
So if I were to make a character, and I decided I wanted it to be evil, and I was going to give him a skull for a head because that looked evil, I could end up with literally the identical character you did, but its possible yours could be judged to be an infringing copy and mine not**, because you actually admitted to starting with the Skeletor image and working backwards, whereas I didn't.
** theoretically, if only one of us actually constructed the character. If both of us did there would be more complex precedent issues to consider if both were judged separately at different times -
Quote:Brutes in general do not just ignore the threat of a +4 MI. Strong Willpower Brutes would probably do well, and high-defense built Dark brutes, but I'm quite certain +4 MIs can rip apart more than 90% of all brutes that exist.Originally Posted by Diellan_
Something my Brute doesn't bat an eye at, even at +4. This makes my Blasters sad and jealous. And me more than a little annoyed.
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Quote:Depends on what you mean by viable. That combo will be much stronger in I24 for a number of reasons: sustain in particular. But there will also be optional ways to improve the build, via better power pool options and through inventions, and those options should be getting better in I24 also according to the I24 Overview.Originally Posted by Mr_Grumpums
With I-24 coming out soonish and the fancy new -KB proc making Bonfire into viable control, I was wondering what the forums think about the solo viability of a Fire/Fire/Flame Blaster.
Whether the combo is viable depends on playstyle more than anything else, and what your expectations are for what threat level you expect to face. -
Quote:I can scream ten times louder than him.Originally Posted by Siolfir
Wouldn't it be 100 times?
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Quote:Originally Posted by OneFrigidWitch
Does this mean aville is 1000 times cooler than the movie 300? Because that was a pretty cool movie.
x1000 -
Quote:Its three illusionist pets actually. But taking on an MI is non-trivial for most archetypes. If you're not careful, its enough mez to break scrapper protection.Originally Posted by Another_Fan
IIRC master illusionists spawn pets which considerably increase their numbers, so you wind up with a master illusionist, 2 illusionists and a dark servant out of them.
Either way 60% chance of getting a 30 second mezz out of a spawn is more than enough to ruin a blaster's day.
The MI "constellation" is an incredible three illusionist LT pets plus a dark servant plus a phantasm plus the phatasm decoy plus the Master Illusionist herself. That's huge tohit debuff, regen debuff, terrorize, damage debuff, four non-positional psionic holds, one indestructible decoy and four attackers that can shoot while phased. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Neuronia
Just adding my congratulations to Arc2 D2's title ascension.
Hope to read more in a powers thread near you!
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Quote:The effective strength of the regen-based sustain powers is a little stronger than Regeneration without mez protection, Dull Pain, or Reconstruction. The Absorb-based sustain powers if you could achieve 100% efficiency with them (not an easy task) would be about twice as powerful: Regen without Dull Pain or mez protection.Originally Posted by Botzo
Perhaps we might see a new rise of the blappers that outdoes scrappers. With all the survival buffs supposedly coming into blaster secondaries I might just have to give it a go. Although as a scrapper fan I would more likely break down over the fact that a blaster that wasn't mental could match or outperform a scrapper for survival AND damage.
Scrappers don't have anything to worry about except that Blasters might be spending more time shooting at things Scrappers used to kill and less time running back from the hospital.
It *will* be possible for a very strong blaster build to challenge moderate scrapper invention builds. But that should have always been true. -
Quote:Not exactly. First of all even con Illusionists don't have a perma hold. To keep you held for a significant amount of time requires two illusionists to stagger their mezzes and also land all of them.Originally Posted by Another_Fan
That would be every other mezz chain and with 2 illusionists it would be 3/4 of the time.
The hold is *barely* perma at +1, and Illusionists still don't always spam it fast enough. Two illusionists with synchronized Blind have only about a 60% chance of holding a blaster for three consecutive hold cycles (thirty seconds) assuming you don't do anything to disrupt their attack chain (like shoot at them) and their AI fires perfectly. At even con, the odds drop substantially because without overlap the mez isn't continuous: realistically it would only happen about 6% of the time. -
Quote:Personally, I would say outside of hyperbole, running beyond my build's limits is synonymous with saying I'm currently dead.Originally Posted by Another_Fan
It's funny because I would say I run at the limit, or maybe a little beyond my build's limits.
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Quote:Technically, posting everything I know about this could be considered discussing an exploit, but I'll just say that the unrooting bugs in the game all seem to trace to one root cause. Animations are set to be interruptible or not interruptible. The rooted ones can't be interrupted by other attack animations, which is why we can't cast another power while we are playing a rooted animation. But *sometimes* we can do something that interrupts the rooted animation itself - basically causes something else to play instead of the normal animation of the attack. Since its the animation itself that roots us, somehow interfering with that animation can prevent it from playing, and as a result prevent you from being rooted.Originally Posted by Sentry4
I've bolded that specific part.
I wanted to ask, how is it mechanically possible to skip the rooting time of some powers? I know strafing with certain directions can skip the rooting time, and I also reguarly skip weapon redraw by untargeting/Queueing an attack to retarget to skip animation.
If you've got a Weapon/Regen character, use MoG without a target, then click an attack twice to skip the long rooting time of MoG. The first time hitting it, you'll target an enemy, the next you'll queue the attack and draw your weapon during the MoG animation (instead of after).
You can't use any powers during it, but it allows movement (and drawing your weapon).
So long as the power is also under its cast time, you won't be able to activate any other powers because there is a separate lockout for that. But you will be able to move, because cast time alone doesn't block movement controls. Only rooted animations do that. -
Quote:Why didn't you say so in the first place instead of saying irrelevant and incorrect things earlier, especially if you seem to have a problem with using more text than necessary?Originally Posted by Kangstor
If you didn't realise I don't have any problem with how T9's currently working therefore I don't see any need for their change at all. Not the hybrid one not the dimensional shift one not the dev version 5.xx one not the player wants this version 2.9x one not any version of any change I want on them. Am I clear or do you want a 50 pages of essay for that.
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Quote:The technology predates Hybrid. Would it make you feel better if the OP suggested the tier 9s worked like Dimension Shift instead?Originally Posted by Kangstor
And you yourself should be aware that if devs start using that hybrid toggle for something else they will not stop at there like how they didn't stop using other new techs until people get sick out of them. If you can guarantee that after T9's they won't start replacing othe defensive set toggles just because "It was design implication that toggles shouldn't be always on." excuse than sure I would support this idea but I learned to be more caferul about what I wish especially after hybrids fiasco where people only asked for a decreased endurance cost but get a ******** power instead. Watchout what you wish you may get something totally ******** up.
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Quote:If I remember correctly, Hail of Bullets has a cast time of zero, so it begins recharging immediately upon activation. Its not an exception to the rule in that sense. However, it has a rooted animation like all attacks, so even though its cast time is zero you can't activate another attack until its animation completes, which is about 4 seconds long (I don't remember the value off the top of my head). It is an exception to the general rule that most attacks have cast times roughly equal to the duration of the rooted part of their animations.Originally Posted by Rajani Isa
IIRC, the ONE exception to this rule is the T9 in Dual Pistols - but that's because to get the Animation-time-defense-bonus to work right, the power's duration starts right away.
("Rooted" for those not familiar has a technical meaning to the City of Heroes game engine: it means that while this animation is playing the game client will not allow the player to activate any other powers or use movement controls, and the game engine will not allow the game client to attempt to activate any other powers.) -
Quote:As far as we know, recharge begins when cast time expires. The only open question appears to be whether a power can actually be used the *instant* its calculated to recharge or if there is a tiny delay** between when a power is fully recharged and when the combat engine will allow it to be triggered (or when the client will allow it to be activated).Originally Posted by Ebon_Wrath
I'm putting together some theorycrafting on attack chains, but I realized I wasn't sure when the cooldown starts on abilities. Is it at the beginning of the animation or the end?
For example, if an ability has a 3 second cast time and a 10 second cooldown, are there 10 seconds or 7 seconds between the two animations?
So to be very specific, in your example above there will be 13 seconds between the *start* of the first animation and the *start* of the second one.
Your actual question is a little more complex. Animations can last shorter or longer than the cast time, although they are normally approximately the same length. If you are measuring the animation duration itself somehow (say, by recording the sequence and playing the animation back frame by frame) the time will be about 10 seconds between the end of the first animation and the start of the second one, but probably slightly more than that. The reason isn't technically the aforementioned Arcanatime, but just because cast times are normally set to be slightly higher than animation durations. Arcanatime causes the rooted time to be slightly longer than the animation duration, which means there tends to be an impossible to eliminate pause between attacks that is due to the game's combat clock only ticking eight times per second, and the game engine trying to align visual activity to the 30/sec animation clock.
If you are theorycrafting attacks, the things you probably need to know the most is that Arcanatime dictates how long an attack "takes" and therefore how fast a sequence of attacks can execute; attacks generally start recharging when their cast time expires (NOT arcanatime); and if you construct an attack chain that has a power recharging the *instant* it needs to be used that will often be too close to actually use, real chains generally require about 0.125 to 0.2 seconds of leeway to make sure an attack recharges "just in time" to be used.
** Oddly, the "tiny delay" that shows up in measurements tends to show up with multi-attack chains and disappear in single attack tests, which is odd but may suggest a difference between activation and queuing powers -
Quote:If you actually read either the suggestion or the post you quoted, the OPs suggestion only allows players to choose when the power crashes, it does not mandate making tier 9 powers immune to recharge.Originally Posted by Kangstor
I prefer my 3 minute up at the end crash but only stay down for about 2 minute T9's thanks.
Its been suggested in the past, long before the mechanics existed to allow for it. There is no possible way this option could hurt anyone, since ignoring it completely would simply mean the tier 9 powers worked exactly precisely the way they work now, with absolutely no change. But for the players who want to use the feature, it would provide an additional option for crashing early, and recharging sooner. -
Quote:Malta have those ridiculous 30 second stun grenades. Most critter groups cannot hard-mez quite so continuously. Even multiple illusionists find it difficult to keep a blaster perma-held for 30 seconds due to their near-50/50 accuracy on Blind.Originally Posted by Tater Todd
Or KOA or Carnies or COT or Arachnos or Freaks ect. I guess she was talking about the norm?
I personally avoid most enemy groups on my blasters.