Zloth

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  1. Ah my old guide! I think I'll add a bit more before Issue 5 gets into production.....

    First the big changes:

    1. Grav Distortion Field doesn't last as long and takes longer to recharge.

    2. You now only get one singularity at a time. However, they no longer expire plus they can follow you up elevators.

    3. Endurance costs are down in many places. Plus you won't be using that summon singularity power mid-battle very often for even more endurance.

    4. You do double damage when an enemy is under some sort of mez power (stun, hold, immobilize, confuse (?), sleep). This is only when you do damage directly from your powers, not through something summoned like a pet or a lightning storm.

    4. Wormhole's stun power gets stronger as you level up.

    5. AoE powers have a limit to how many bad guys they can hit. Honestly, I didn't even notice this change. But then, I don't herd up multiple spawns worth of bad guys.

    Grav Powers

    Crush: A little bit better now because the mez means you can do double damage but still not enough to be worth getting, IMHO.

    Lift: Same as it ever was. The double-damage possibility makes damage enhancers sane even in the teens but I think it's still better as a quick crowd control power.

    Grav Distortion: Same as it ever was, except now the animation is a bit faster. Bet on using this staple even more in Issue 5.

    Propel: Finally, propel is actually kinda handy at times! Especially after you get crushing field and can keep everything under mez pretty much all the time.

    Crushing Field: Now extra handy because this is an AoE mez that recharges pretty fast. With haste, it isn't going to be difficult to keep most your enemies perma-mezzed with this power. The power will also be more important in I5, I believe, because you'll be more likely to need it to keep the bad guys in your freezing rain.

    Dimension Shift: Might be a little better in I5 because of the increased need for strong mez powers but I still don't plan to get it.

    GDF: WHACK! Oh well, no more hanging every spawn up in the air for the first 30+ seconds of battle. Now it will have to be every other spawn being held for the first 15 or 20 seconds of battles. The power is still VERY much worth getting. Recharge enhancers are more worthwhile now.

    Wormhole: Still a good power for any Grav controller and still extra handy for Grav/Storms. Lightning Storm doesn't move to your enemies so move your enemies to the lightning storm! Recharge time on this power might have been made longer though I haven't timed it. (It's always ready at the start of battle which is when I mostly use it these days.)

    Singularity: Loose the recharge enhancers and any endurance reduction you put in. Put in damage and hold duration.

    Storm

    Gale: Same as it ever was.

    O2 Boost: Same as it ever was.

    Snow Storm: Same as it ever was (though it no longer breaks your travel power while it's running). I found myself using it a lot more in I5 testing because the enemies are no longer "mostly held anyway."

    Steamy Mist: Doesn't defend as well as it used to but you'll still want it up all the time.

    Freezing Rain: Same as it ever was.

    Hurricane: Same as it ever was.

    Thunder Clap: Stun -> mez, mez -> double damage. All the more reason to use this power more in I5!

    Tornado: This counts as a pet so don't expect it to do double damage to mezzed enemies. However, it's yet another source of stunning.

    Lightning Storm: If this thing did double damage you would be a god among heroes - so it doesn't. The truckload of endurance has been reduced from a semi to a large pickup truck, though.

    Pools
    Hasten: Not quite as desperately needed thanks to Singularity pets not expiring. Get it anyway for the rest of the reasons listed.

    Stamina: YOU CAN LIVE WITHOUT THIS! You're going to really need some endurance reducers in the big ticket powers which means they can't have some other enhancements you might want there. However, no stamina means you can free up three power slots. If there are three other powers you want to snag or if you just want to put the stamina power off for awhile, by all means skip over it. Personally, I'm going to keep it and switch several of my endurance reduction enhancers to other things.

    Recall Ally: You won't need to pull your pet around nearly as much now that they figured out elevators. They still (I think) need help with portals but with I5 there's a real good chance your Singularity power will be recharged anyway. Just replace the lost pet with a new one. Get this for helping your friends now, not your pet.

    Leaping: No changes.

    Acrobatics: Very handy post-I4 because of all the enemy knockback powers. Getting knocked away from the people you are protecting with steamy mist or hurricane ain't a good thing. Plus you waste time standing up again.

    Epic Pool
    See that double-damage-when-mezzed bit? See all those blaster powers that do nice damage at range? Yep, you can start putting the hurt on some bad guys now! Note the Ice Storm power probably counts as a pet so it isn't going to get the double damage thing. A crushing field, a freezing rain, and a fire ball can sure do some damage now, though!

    Hibernate: a late change made the tank version of Hibernate give back endurance but I don't think the controller or blaster versions got it. No idea if it was by design or not. If not, you may soon be able to drop endurance reduction enhancers from the power.

    Strategy
    Pre-18: life is a bit easier. With your double damage options it no longer takes an eon to solo a mission. Now it just takes half an eon.

    18-32: The tactic in the original guide still works but you can't use it as often and there's no longer a question about whether the GDF will drop before the battle is done. Some folks seem to think that this makes you so weak that there's no point in a team inviting you along any more. That's true, if you're dumb enough to rely on just that tactic.

    However, you are not a one-trick poney. Sure, a hold is the second best mez out there (confuse is the best, though it can cost a little xp to use) but stuns are great, too, and you've got a lot of them. Combine a stun with an immobilize and you've got yourself a hold!

    You've also got more endurance available to you in Issue 5 because several powers have had their endurance requirements lowered a bit. Snowstorm was always overshadowed by GDF (why slow them when you can stop them completely?) but now the power can get more use. Ditto for Hurricane and Thunder Clap. Wormhole might actually be used for stuns now as well as moving enemies. Before I5, I would normally follow the Wormhole up with a GDF so the stun really didn't matter much.

    32+: Singularity is still a handy handy thing. You can't totally dominate by having three of them follow you around any more but you will still find you're a lot more viable running solo once you get one. Lightning storm really helps out.

    The Singularities aren't going to fill up the "control gap" at all, though. Your one pet will help hold a few but just a few. YOU need to close the gap with your Thunder Clap and Wormhole. Snowstorm won't stop them but it will sure slow them down a bunch. Freezing Rain, Lift, and sometimes Hurricane will make them waste time standing up over and over again. Dimension Shift, as long as your allies understand what the hades is going on, takes enemies completely out of the battle for awhile, too.

    Don't panic, use all your powers (you can do that now that endurance costs have been lowered), and you'll do just fine. In fact, you'll probably have more fun because you'll need to be paying attention and reacting through more of the battle. No more GDF, Freezing Rain, Lightning Storm, /em Newspaper tactics!
  2. No way I've ever seen to do that. No biggy anyway - they are probably only a few meg in size. Out of just half a gig of memory you are talking about less than 1% - it's just not worth worrying about.
  3. Yep, it looks to be good info, though I haven't delved too deeply into it yet. It doesn't seem to amount to anything when you play back the demo but my demo edit program might be able to do something nifty in the object history. We'll see.
  4. Yep, it looks to be good info, though I haven't delved too deeply into it yet. It doesn't seem to amount to anything when you play back the demo but my demo edit program might be able to do something nifty in the object history. We'll see.
  5. Plus I don't think they include major update notes, just the patch notes.

    Wow, thanks Balshor! That should help muchly!
  6. A complete list of all patch notes ever would be nice but I'm not sure who would read them. Maybe folks could use control-F a lot to find what they want? I need to finish what I have now first, though.

    What I would really like to see is each individual power's history. Have a picture of the power being used (or just the icon if it has no graphic or animation) then a list of all changes to the power since launch. The problem is, that would be a heck of a lot of work. I want to see this but I don't want to see this bad enough to actually do it.

    Smoke nerf before I1.... yeah, I think that's right. Hammidon is kinda borderline for a trial but I should note it.
  7. Yep, they did add that light! The flag just stuck out all the time, though, until Issue 2 and the capes. Something else that needs to be added!
  8. I guess those HP will be so they can track a bar over the enemy's head. You can see the HP go down as you fight, which might make tracking damage for powers a LOT easier. I wonder if the endurance values will be next?

    Here's a fun one....

    0 174 MOV TOSSGNOME
    0 174 FX OneShot 104 GENERIC/FX_GOBLIN_FLY.FX 0

    and

    FX Maintained 107 GENERIC/FX_GOBLIN_SMOTHER.FX 0
  9. Overall very positive. I have to wonder if the 'escort hostages' missions will get rather bad once the 'new' wears off, though. I got one to rescue/escort 4 hostages from red hats with my Claw/SR scrapper and got myself killed even on heroic trying to escort all of them at once. The ambushes were starting to stack once I got three hostages free. Having to escort each one individually back to the entrance was getting dull fast.

    Waves are great fun. I hope the Rularuu can do that on the Kora Fruit missions!
  10. A flight pack would be exactly the wrong way to go. Just make the geysers better. Perhaps add some 'easy' geysers to the current system that are a different color. They will get you where you want to go but not as fast as the harder-to-use geysers. Also, make the slot on the geyser rocks thinner and a different color - some folks just run at those geysers from any old angle then wonder why they got shot off into space.

    Teleporters - good idea, bad execution. You got this whole molepoint story started now you're undermining it with these portals right out in the open. Take the teleporters away, dig out some mole points, and add some missions so we can earn mole point access. I know it isn't easy (probably have to wait for I6) but, if you don't, you mess up the story out there.

    Speaking of story - as somebody else posted earlier, now that we don't get to save the stories from the Shadow Shard TF's it's going to be real hard to trace the story. We really NEED badges that have long stories behind them out there with no story arcs to save!

    I'm going to be very interested in seeing those maps with geyser lines all over them. Especially the Cascades, which is a very verticle zone.

    TURN OFF travel powers in the Storm Palace zone. Or at least put some bad guys out in mid-air so the fliers don't fall asleep heading for the Palace itself.
  11. That might be a dialog box for something else. Are you playing in Windowed mode? If not, try that.
  12. Ham's! That's right - I remembered those just as I was falling asleep last night. Of course, I forgot them again today. Lots of good info in here, I'll see what I can get added soon. (Suddenly there are a lot of TF's to do. )

    (Suppression is in there! Next to last entry.)
  13. I've written up a little history of major updates to City of Heroes and crammed it full of screenshots. This should be fun for us old coots who want to remember the distant past (2004 ) and handy for folks who have been on long breaks from the game.

    I'll update this as new updates come out on the live servers. Enjoy!
  14. Reading over these notes to check them over.....

    Ruladak's PBAoE nuke is a lot more than 40ft. I think it might even be 80.

    TF's no longer give a Souvinere. They should give a badge come issue 5. I would really recomend taking screenshots of that poem you put together in the 3rd and 4th TF.

    More geyser tips.....

    You can keep your travel powers on. In fact, Superjump helps steer a lot. The secret to keeping them on is timing - you have to let go of your W key BEFORE you get to the geyser! When you let up on the key you keep going forward for a split second - make sure that split second is when you hit the geyser.

    There are some problem geysers in the Cascades. The one near the molepoint, which I noted above, is by far the worst but you can easily skip it without loosing time. The ones that go up the Crimson Falls can not be avoided.

    Here's the best route for me: When you first jump into the Crimson Falls zone, you'll be near the bottom of some huge blood-red waterfalls. When you land, turn around - there should be a geyser almost directly behind you. (There's another more toward your left but I've never had good luck going that path.) If you do this geyser the normal way you'll just end up in a pool near where you launched. SJ's, turn on your superjump and, when your altitude is about even with the next level and start running forward. SS's, don't hit the geyser running but do start running as soon as you start going up. Instead of aiming for the main island, aim for a rock that his hovering just beyond the top of the waterfall. Once you land on that rock you can easily jump to the mainland.

    Then comes the Most Evil Geyser (I call her Meg ). This is a pretty verticle jump and the top of the arc isn't much higher than the island. That means there's a very small window where you land on the island on the way down but do not hit your head on the island on your way up. The landing zone is kinda steep, too, so you'll have to claw your way up when you land. Missing will probably mean going back to the start of the zone, though you can sometimes run backwards and land back near the geyser if you see you messed up fast enough. Whats where you are going (look UP dude!!) and don't be in a hurry because you likely will miss a few times.

    There are only two geyser I know harder than Meg. The hardest is near the molepoint, the other is the one you would have had to take if you had used the geyser more toward your left down at the bottom of the falls.

    A hint for superjumpers headed to the Chantry ship: A geyser from an island in the Bastion of Pain will shoot you to a small island. That small island will shoot you to another small island. There will be another island to your right (west) and to your left will be another small island and the Chantry. The island on your right is actually close enough that you can superjump to it and save about five jumps. (At least it was close enough for me in my upper 40's and just one jump SO in my power.)
  15. OK, I just copied to test and re-specced my level 50 controller to have superspeed. The only time I've had superspeed is with my Kinetic defender. He's in the low 20's and has the kinetic jump power to back up the superspeed. With this rather weak background in superspeed it took me about 50 minutes to get from Zulu base all the way to the rim of the Storm Palace. The climb up the Cascade's red falls gave me a lot of trouble (just as they did when I first tried them with Superjump) but I think, with some actual practice, I could shave a good 20 minutes off that overall time.

    The biggest problem for me wasn't being ground-bound. The biggest problem was that long, BRIGHT streek behind me! That thing is seriously blinding when you're jumping but all my squishy controller has for stealth is steamy mist so she needed it on. Arg.

    Superspeed is definitely touchier than superjump. If you hit the geyser with the 'w' key down and superspeed on then you'll go a good bit further forward than intended. Also, you can't steer as well with superspeed. For instance, there's a geyser in the Storm Palace that shoots you straight up. With superjump I can easily use that and steer to get to the next island. With SS, I'm not even sure I could steer enough to fall between the islands! (There's another geyser you can use, which is actually faster but not as fun.)

    Oh, there's some kind of odd bug around the rim of the storm palace itself. I got stuck a bunch of times when I tried to hug the inner wall. Even in the middle I got stuck a bit.
  16. Lots of really great info but.....

    [ QUOTE ]
    Super Jump isn’t enough to let you get around the Shadow Shard, but it’s usually enough to let you get around the zones in Paragon City without a problem.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Superjump is incredibly fun in the Shadow Shard! Sure, it takes a few minutes (maybe half an hour) to get a feel for the jumps, but once you're over that hump it's great! Yes, you can get around just fine and you'll have FAR more fun than some flier that just points their nose at the mission and runs off to get a drink.
  17. [ QUOTE ]
    Planescape Torment was one of the best RPG computer games ever. Great storyline and interesting, fun characters (loved that floating skull guy).

    [/ QUOTE ]
    One of??? BEST PC RPG EEEVAH!! Heck, if it had Minsk in it I wouldn't even have to think for a second.
  18. Ah my old guide! I think I'll add a bit more before Issue 5 gets on Test.....

    As far as holds go, Gravity Distortion is really one of the best, IMHO. Bosses often resist holds (see a guide about Magnitude for why) but grav distortion also hits them with a nice slow. Also, the graphic animation for this hold is to hold them up in the air with their arms out. Ice and Stone lock enemies up in such a way that make it hard for melees to see what they are hitting.

    Propel got a big boost to damage in Issue 4, it's no longer a horrible joke. It's still slow and expensive so don't expect to be putting blasters out of work but at least now it does a bit of damage. Like Lift, it's knockback also acts as a minor control effect (though Lift is far far better at it).

    Crushing Field is downright wicked in the deeper parts of the Shadow Shard where enemies aren't always over land. Is that spawn a little bigger than you would like to deal with? No problem. Crushing field on one of the edges of the spawn will drop half of them into Oblivion - never to be seen again.

    Wormhole had the biggest change in I4. It's now an AoE attack and does a good bit more to stun enemies. Some things aren't so easily done now, like pulling individual DE pets out of a fight. Some new things are possible now, though. Now, instead of picking out individual enemies, you can pull half a spawn to your group.

    One new trick with wormhole takes some practice - tightening spawns. Mobs in a spawn often mill around and the group ends up spread out so far that there's no way for AoE attacks to get them all. With wormhole you can grab the left half of the spawn and drop them into the right half making life much easier on the AoE attackers (and your own AoE attacks)! The reason it takes practice is the wormhole knockback. If the enemies are already locked down or if there's a wall behind them, no biggy, but out in the open it's rather like bowling. You can do it with some practice but you will need to practice - and not on enemies twenty levels below you.

    This tactic can also be used in small groups if you want to combine a couple of spawns.


    Knockback is in for PvP (and PvE for that matter) so life is REALLY good for the storm power set!

    O2 Boost got an additional bit of love - it now also protects pretty well against endurance drain. You don't see many attacks like that until high levels (namely the Dark Carnival and Malta sappers).

    Also, snow storm can take down fliers, though I would rather use crushing field for that wth my grav/storm.

    Hurricane is just incredible in PvP against melee players. (So much so that I wouldn't be surprised if it got nerfed a bit.) A melee will be lucky to get a single shot on you!! Hurricane does do knockback which melees almost always resist but it also has a repel effect which, as near as I can tell, can never be resisted. Just be sure to watch out for ranged attacks. Even some melees have them - particularly if they are high enough to get "epic" power pools.

    Lightning Storm in PvP is also pretty sweet because it has a high chance to turn off a toggle power the target is using. Like, say, their hold/knockback protection. The hold resisting powers melees use actually just negates the effect of the hold - your hold power is actually still there so when your lightning storm turns off the protection they are instantly held! (Some heroes don't use toggles for this, though. Super-Reflex scrappers come to mind as an example.)

    Also, lightning storm can take accuracy enhancers now. Those bolts do miss sometimes and that's real noticable against enemies with high defense values.

    A note on Suppression: new rules turn off your travel powers for about 4 seconds after you activate a power that affects an enemy. This really isn't a big deal to Grav/Storms. The gravity powers all have long ainmations anyway so, by the time you can move at all, most of the supression time is already taken up anyway. Also, damage done by other entities doesn't turn off your travel powers so your pets, freezing rain, and lightning storm aren't going to cause problems. Snowstorm is the only power to watch. As a toggle-power debuff it will turn off your travel power and KEEP it off until you drop the snowstorm! If you've got snowstorm knocking out your travel power plus steamy mist slowing your run speed down, you'll be moving just as slow as they will!
  19. [ QUOTE ]
    Positron....*sigh* why do you torment us like that?

    [/ QUOTE ]
    It's part of the devs' contracts. It was that or charge us $15.05 per month.

    The return of the {drool} witches! They had {drool} such {drool} unique strategy I always {slobber} looked forward to meeting them!! umm... defeating them that is. {blush}
  20. Many thanks Scuzzbopper!
  21. Zloth

    Call for Models

    Hmmm, one hero has up to four costumes at once and each of those has normal and supergroup colors. I presume you want just one costume?

    Submitted Entry....

    Windy - Justice Server
    (No, she will not fall out of that. She's a grav controller.)


    Some other costumes, just in case.....
    Showing off the new I4 vests
    For wetter missions
    Modest Outfit

    P.S. To anyone reading these, ImageShack will shrink images to fit your browser. Click on the image after it loads to put it back to original size.
  22. I just stumbled into something interesting in demo playback! There's actually a command console you can bring up for putting in commands!! It's....well it is mostly non-functional but there's one real handy thing about it - you can turn demodump on and off right in the middle of the demo.

    To bring down the console just click the ` key (should be the same as the ~ key). To turn on the screenshots do a demodump 1. To turn them back off, demodump 0. Demodumptga works, too. Be sure to get rid of the console (` key again) because the demodump does record it and you probably don't want that in there.

    Disable2D also works for turning the text on and off mid-way through the demo.

    You can do Console 1 and get a little dos-like console that shows any printf debug notifications. I have yet to see any show up.

    You can also do cmdlist and see a whole ton of commands, none of which work at all.

    Using the Demofps command stops the demo cold.

    So, all in all, a nifty way to start your screen recording well after the start of your demo. If there's anything else nice it can do, though, I haven't bumped into it yet.
  23. I've uploaded a new demo launcer (version 3.5) - see the link in my signature for specifics. I also fixed a bug in the demo editor for those of you using that program. (A link to the editor is at the bottom of the launcher's page.)
  24. Answers to the previous two posts are all in the previous posts in this topic. An alternate download site isn't too far back. The way it was made is pretty early in the topic.
  25. [ QUOTE ]
    BUT....I'm extremely concerned about the perception that Defenders "aren't needed" and thus "can't find a team" at high levels.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    In high level Drek herding parties, maybe. In normal missions against difficult opponents, they are a great help. Not needed (no single AT is ever needed) but always very handy.

    Storms do seem to have issues with all the knockback. They have issues keeping the bad guys in the freezing rain, too. However, in a controller's hands, Storm is a superb set. You might want to balance this on the defender side while leaving the controller side alone.

    Controllers are NOT as good as defenders at defending. Not only is there the matter of strength of powers, there's a different mindset. Just as defenders normally start with their buffs/debufs then worry about maybe blasting some things, controllers first worry about getting all the bad guys mez'ed then worry about maybe buffing/debuffing some folks.