Zloth

I'm thinking the Arena is good enough now that they all are spending their off time 'testing' it.

They sure can. They are a bit on the mindless side, though, so they are quite happy to wander outside AoE buffs. (Though, being mindless, they take little damage from mental attacks. )

You might want to check out the Singularity Guide in the guides section.

Very nice!

You know, those rules would be a good thing to put into the Storm Palace zone all the time.

[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone else remember when certain groups of Lost in TV
wouldn't fight back?

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Sure - the ones that were fighting other groups, Sky Raiders I think. They would stand there cheering while you beat them down!

I remember the Fame concept, too, and wondering if I could play the game consistently enough to get a statue of my hero somewhere in Paragon City.


A grav controller back in March? If it was early March, that had to be Windy, my Grav/Storm, blowing and lifting a bunch of greys in King's Row.


Also, I can remember getting killed at LEAST once in every single room of every single normal mission map. I just wish there was a badge for getting locked, at one time or another, in every single CoT and 5th/Council prison cell.

I remember keeping that 'will videos be in CoH' topic alive in the old boards for something like two years!

I remember a dev posting how to make demos. (I think it started with "I hope I don't get in trouble for posting this but...." )

I remember having endless fun watching demos while less l33t beta testers sat in the character creation screen for days.

I remember Sabre Cat posting Dev digests - best player service to the community I've ever seen in this game!

I remember a beta session ending with my level 12 controller up on top of IP's Valor Bridge and having to get home without being sidekicked. (Made it, though not uninjured.)

I really remember the Rikti Invasion and having our hospital Z-rushed by Rikti.

I remember when we rallied and owned that Rikti commander. Over and over and over again. And the Rikti Commander did know debt.

I remember debt not scaling right and the people that were high level (read: 34) needing something like 10 hours of death-free play to hope to pay off the debt for one death.

I remember posting screenshots to the board and even demos!

I remember getting the beta invite on a Monday and spending something like 16 hours reading how to play the game. I hit the tutorial for the first time already knowing about how to + enhancements and make macros!

I remember starting the tutorial and not knowing how to make my character change facing so I could turn around.

Yep. The whole invisible thing just doesn't work in demos.

Another thing that doesn't seem to record are your animations when you do a Shadow Shard geyser jump - which is a pity cuz it's plenty fun to see your arms flying around!

I didn’t see any Grav/Storm guides out there so… here you are! I may not be level 50 but I’m level 49 and moving fast. This is being written before any real details of the Issue 4 (Arena) update are known.

My character is used almost exclusively in groups and mostly groups that are a bit above her level, at that. While she is very group oriented, she has become quite a solo powerhouse in the upper levels.

Grav Powers

Crush: Does anyone get this? It just doesn’t look very handy. Single target only, just immobilizes, doesn't do much damage. Bah, just wait for the AoE version.

Lift: Get it for damage when you are low level. Once you get in the teens, though, it becomes better as a make-shift hold. When you hit with this, the enemy flies up, falls down, and has to stand up again – all the while not shooting at anyone. By the time that happens, your real hold power should be ready. I wouldn’t six-slot this but the power is quite useful. Damage enhancers are good early on, but migrate to accuracy and knockback when you start getting DO’s.

Gravity Distortion: This is your main power until you hit 18. Even after 18 it's a vital power. Six slot it soon! You’ll want accuracy and hold time in there, and possibly a recharge as well. Don’t bother with damage or endurance reduction.

Propel: Copy your character to the Test server then get this power there. It’s fun to watch it a few times but the power is really pretty horrible. By the time it actually fires off, the target will probably be dead already. It uses a ton of endurance and does little damage. It can do knockback but, with your secondary, that’s not an issue for you anyway. If you really want a damage power, look to the power pools.

Crushing Field: This is a good power but you might want to put it off for a few levels. You can use it to keep the bad guys in your freezing rain. If other people in your group have AoE DOT powers (burn, fire rain, and so on) it gets even more useful. Damage is minimal so don’t slot for that. It recharges pretty fast and lasts long enough for me so I didn't slot for those. As an AoE it does burn some endurance so you might want to put an enhancer or two in there to take the edge off. Otherwise, crank that accuracy. The anti-fly aspect of this power has come in handy only on rare occasion, but could prove very helpful in PvP.

Dimension Shift: I got this in beta but skipped it in production. It can be a good power to use. You’ll need to train the people you often group with on how it works, though. Also, unlike most AoE’s, with this one you’ll probably want to miss a lot of the enemies. Instead of aiming for the center of a group, pick on the right or left edge. Shift them out then have your group attack the baddies on the opposite side.

Gravity Distortion Field (GDF): This is the defining power for Grav Controllers, IMHO. It’s got good range, holds a lot of bad guys, has no accuracy penalty, makes it easy for everyone to see who is held without obstructing vision... the thing is just plain great! Six slot it ASAP and make it the priority for SO’s when you get in the 20’s. It burns a pretty good hunk of endurance but I piled on the accuracy SO’s for this one. Hold duration is a good one here, too, but not as important for a Grav/Storm as some other builds. You might toss a recharge enhancer in here, too.

Wormhole: If you plan on doing the solo thing much, you’re going to want this before level 38. Honestly, I’ve used this power a ton from the time I got it onward. Use it to send enemies away (especially immobile ones and most especially those pesky D.E. fungi), use it to pull enemies to you, and use it to feed that Lightning Storm! Sending enemies straight up in the air can be fun but it doesn't do much damage. When using it for pulling, you’ll need at least one range SO and preferably two. Accuracy is nice, of course, and endurance reduction is a good idea. This most definitely does not need six slotting but you might want to give it one or two extra slots.

Singularity: Before Singularity, you can not solo in any kind of reasonable time. It will take you 30 seconds to take down a minion ten levels below you! After Singularity, you can take on red minions without much trouble. Even outside of solo they are extremely handy critters. They can act as tanks, they can hold bad guys all over the place, and they can do some real damage. Crank them up with some recharge and some damage enhancements. Six slot for sure. Watch your endurance, though, because they suck about half of it away.


Storm

Gale: Pretty handy in your earliest levels just for doing damage and keeping the bad guys away. After level 10, though, it becomes a solo-only power and you better not be going solo. Mostly fun for laughs at the higher levels. Could be a very handy power in PvP, depending on how knockback is put in for players. Slots? Nah.

O2 Boost: This is a mighty fine heal, never mind what other folks are saying. True, it doesn’t do as many points of healing as some other power sets but it is a lot easier to use. Just pick who you want to heal and heal them. No worries about whether you (or an enemy) are standing near the person. No worries about that enemy dying before you get the power off. No worries about missing. Plus you get some stun/sleep protection thrown in to boot! (And rumor has it that it will have some sort of endurance-sapping protection in issue 4, too!)

At the low levels, O2 Boost was terribly important for me. After I had done the hold on whatever looked more dangerous, I mostly did O2 Boosts on people, tossing out more holds as they became available. Not only is this group friendly, it generates very little agro so you might find yourself the last one standing in quite a few battles. (A good thing, given that you can’t heal yourself with it.) Six slot this one. Put in some recharge, some endurance reduction (it’s definitely and end hog), and fill the rest up with heal enhancements. Once you hit level 18 you’ll find yourself doing it less often, but it still comes in very handy.

Snow Storm: The best power I hardly ever use. Not only does it slow the target down, the thing increases the recharge time for a lot of foes standing near target! If you need help understanding how nice that is, there are some storm shamans out there ready to give you some lessons. I didn’t use it early on, though, because it brought too much agro my way. Later, I didn’t use it because the enemies were mostly held anyway – so why waste endurance slowing them down? It has come in very handy in the end game, though, for slowing down AV’s and monsters. This can be an endurance hog.

Steamy Mist: This is your bubble! It’s main use is against all those fire and energy attacks of the Circle of Thorns, Clockwork, and Freakshow. It adds some all-around defense, too, but it’s the energy/fire/cold attacks that really will have troubles working on you and your group. It’s stealth is also handy for those grab-the-glowy missions and helping you use your travel power in high level zones safely. It’s a toggle so you will likely need an endurance reduction or two in there.

Freezing Rain: Fun and handy!! It makes your enemies easier to hit (very handy against those spirit masks), it gives about a 30% increase in damage, it makes the enemies run slower, and enemies will often fall down. Enemies will scatter (or at least try to scatter) when the rain falls on them, so you can use this when enemies get past the melee people and start beating on squishy heroes. If you don’t want them to scatter, use your crushing field or put them in a hold.

Hurricane: Situational, but sometimes handy – particularly before Singularities and their repel effect come into play. When battles start to go bad and a lot of bad guys start in on you, this works great for keeping them out of melee range. You can use it to block doors, too. If there’s a corner handy and you can back them in to it (either with hurricane or good old wormhole), this power can leave enemies eternally falling down and standing up! It does burn some endurance but a couple of enhancements will take care of that. Beyond that, I didn’t slot it.

Thunder Clap: This is how you take care of gravity’s infamous “control gap.” Once the GDF wears off, you jump in and fire one of these off followed by a crushing field to keep the bad guys from wandering off. Doesn’t work so well on lieutenants, never mind bosses, so hopefully most of those will be gone by the time the GDF falls. You’ll probably want to lean toward accuracy on this one.

Tornado: I just got this at 49 so I’m still playing with it. Honestly, it mostly seems a plaything right now. Damage is about as much as Grav Distortion per tick. I suppose if you were to keep the enemy held and the tornado concentrated on it, it would do reasonable damage. It recharges fast enough that some slotting would not only make this perma but you could probably manage to get a couple of tornadoes out there all the time. Still, the knockback on this is so large and unpredictable that it should only be used for fun when in groups. (But, as playthings go, this is a pretty good one. Herd a bunch of low level bad guys around you then toss it out!) PvP use of this power might be quite interesting.

Lightning Storm: Now you can start doing some serious damage! This thing plus freezing rain plus two or three singularities can really dish it out. It will not follow you around but, with wormhole, you’re pretty good at moving things to it. It also has a pretty big knockback to make those corner fights more enjoyable. With haste and no recharge enhancers, I’m able to put up a new cloud as soon as the old one vanishes. It does burn a truckload of endurance and the knockback can be a problem in groups. I like to jump in the air just as I cast it, too, in order to keep it from blocking my camera.

The Lightning Storm’s targeting seems a little strange. It seems to go after things that are close to you. If you get too far away, it won’t shoot anything even if there are enemies right under the cloud. This means you can’t put your cloud up far away from a spawn then just shoot enemies into it with wormhole. You have to be there for it to work.


Pools

Speed/Hasten: I hate to be so cliché, but you’re going to need this one. At early levels you need it to get your O2 boosts out and speed up the single-target hold. You’ll need it for Grav Distortion Field very badly. You’ll need it for the Singularity, too, and freezing rain could certainly use it. Get it, slot it, and make it your auto-fire power.

Fitness/Stamina: Not needed as badly as most. You certainly do not need to sacrifice powers to get it at 20th. Just keep an eye on your endurance and don’t use toggle powers when you don’t need them. You will want this power once you get up to the big drain powers like Singularity and Lightning Storm, though.

Teleport/Recall Friend: I hang around the Shadow Shard a lot so I got this at 41. It’s pretty good for bringing your pets up elevators, too, though hopefully pets will be learning how to use elevators themselves soon.

Leaping Travel: I went for this mostly because it’s just so much fun. It also seems to work real well with O2 Boost when battles get separated. Just click the person you want to heal, click O2 Boost, jump by them, and you’ll heal them when you land regardless of how far away you land. Steamy Mist’s stealth is a big help in safely leaping through high level zones.

Leaping/Acrobatics: Seems kinda so-so so far. I got it in the 40's thinking it might be handy in PvP battles.


Epic Pool

I got the Hibernate in the Ice set. I had other plans for my character so I really couldn’t get enough of the Energy epic powers to get the power boost. Anyway, Hibernate has been a life saver almost every night I’ve played. It’s a way to heal yourself – something O2 Boost just can’t do! It’s superb when you suddenly get a ton of agro, too (most often because one of your pets got a ton of agro and then died/expired). Given that your Singularities, Lightning Storm, and maybe Tornado will be doing most of your damage anyway, why not go under ice and protect yourself?

My only real problem with it is that it sometimes leaves me sitting there watching my entire team get wasted. For a support archtype, that’s just harsh to watch! Luckily, it can be turned off pretty fast so you can save the day with a quick GDF. Even with Stamina, Hibernate needs an endurance reduction SO to work well for me. A recharge might be nice, too, if you find yourself using it often. I really don’t think it needs more slots than that, though.


Strategy

Pre-18: Hold the boss. Toss Freezing Rain up if you have it, followed by a crushing field (presumably the tank will have agro by this time, so that’s safe). Then just start O2’ing anyone with so much as a scratch. You’ll get very little agro this way. You won’t be nearly as effective as an empath but you’ll carry your weight. Barely.

18-32: Follow the melees in to keep them in Steamy Mist range, particularly against energy/fire/cold enemies. Try to wait a few seconds to let the bad guys clump around the melee people, then drop the GDF on them. Follow with freezing rain. (If blasters are going in for a nuke, try to get the rain started a split second before they blow up.) If a boss escapes the GDF, lock him down with the single target Grav Distort. If the battle lasts long enough that the GDF drops, leap in and Thunder Clap them, followed by crushing field. Freezing rain comes back up fairly quickly so be sure to use it again in the long battles. If the enemies have annoying pets or particularly slow bosses, wormhole them away. This goes triple for D.E. fungi, which will cancel all your mez effects! Cornering tactics start to come into play at these levels, too.

32+: While your character may be reasonably safe going solo before this point, your sanity will suffer. Even a small spawn of green minions and lts will take agonizingly long for you to gum to death. Your Singularity has some teeth – particularly once you get two out there. Lightning Storm adds even more and Tornado doesn't hurt, either. Obviously you won’t be matching the damage output of blaster or scrapper but, with all the holds going on, your enemies’ damage output is going to be near nothing.

When battles look pretty easy, I’ll start by jumping just behind the spawn and clicking the GDF power while I’m in the air. The Singularities will get in range without coaxing that way. Then do the lightning storm and the freezing rain. If any are still alive when the GDF wears off, hit them with a single-target hold or the old lightning clap/crushing field bit. If the spawns are close together, have patience and don’t use the lightning storm or it will take a shot at another spawn and draw a lot of agro right to you. If the battle finishes quickly, use wormhole to bring something from the next spawn under your lightning storm.

When battles are harder, get the singularities between you and the spawn then wormhole the boss out – preferably into a corner or at least up against a wall. Hold then use lightning storm and freezing rain on the boss. If the rest of the spawn comes, the singularities will keep them at bay for a good while. Finish the boss then start using wormhole to feed your lightning storm. Make sure you keep an eye on your singularities and, if it looks like they are going to go down, run away and try something easier.

Corner Fighting: You are death incarnate in a corner. Lightning Storm strokes come fast enough that a single cornered enemy will have a hard time getting any shots off between the knockbacks. Hurricane can put enemies in eternal knockback in a corner. Dropping a singularity just in front of an enemy in a corner will keep leave it bouncing up and down between holds. Using all three is just downright mean. Do it.

AV’s are, of course, pretty much immune to this tactic but even large bosses are going to be in a whole world of hurt here. What’s more, none of these powers require your attention once you start them up. Get the enemy trapped and you can turn your back on them and take care of the rest of the spawn! (Or use the ;newspaper emote, if you’re in that kind of a mood. )

Wow, been awhile since I've looked here. A few notes....

The Carnival mission mentioned above has been fixed. This seems to be a bug that pops up on various mission maps from time to time, though, so be warned.

Something that didn't get mentioned - when a pet dies, all agro turns on YOU. If you are in a difficult mission and get suprised by a patrol, a good tactic is to drop a singularity in the middle of them. The sing will take all agro while you finish off the battle you are in, then you can deal with the patrol. However, if that patrol takes out your singularity first, the entire patrol is going to turn on you and only you. It will be like you started off with a crushing field.

Pets do not eat grapes - if your singularity gets within one of the Crystal Titan's AoE attacks in the Eden Trial, it dies immediately. Honestly, against that monster I think you are better off leaving the pets behind.

Claw scrappers seem to kill my singularities more than anything else. Paragon Protectors can kill them on occasion. Bobcat wiped both of my singularities out in about 5 seconds even though she had a snowstorm on her.

Sappers can drain all the endurance out of a singularity. However, single target lift, crush, and GD don't need much endurance anyway so it isn't too much of a bother for them.

I've updated the Demo Edit program to handle criticle hits in FloatDmg commands. I also added a couple of new buttons. The first lists all objects in your demo and lets you quickly find their creation point in your demo. The second shows everything that happened to a given object in your demo and lets you find where that command happened in your demo.

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But between demo editing, html for my SG pages, Real Life, and a certian addictive online game, by the time I got anything done we'd be at Issue 53!

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I hear that! I've really wanted to add a way to work with the camera into my edit program. I got something in there so you can make the camera stop for awhile but actually moving the camera smoothly from one position/orientation to another? Uhhhh.... I think I'll go finish that story arc instead.

You can have spaces in strings if you put quotes around it. So

NEW All Star

would not work, you would have to use

NEW "All Star"

If you put quotes around something that doesn't need it, no harm is done other than making the demo slightly larger. (Haven't confirmed this in awhile, though.)

Another little geyser jumping note....

On the Cascade side of the molepoint there is only one geyser for getting off the island. It has been the hardest geyser jump I've seen in the entire Shadow Shard! Not only is it verticle, it doesn't seem to give you enough power and you end up on the side of a steep rock.

However, if you fall, you really do not loose much time! The Cascades zone is a very verticle and the molepoint is at the bottom of the zone. While the drop point looks a lot further away on the map, it is also a lot higher. I think it's just three geyser jumps to get to the falls vs two more jumps if you had made the first jump.

Criticals! Dang it, I forgot about those so my demo edit program is ignoring them. Thanks for the reminder, All_Star!

Ooops, actually I was 48th level. I've added a few screenshots toward the bottom of my photo album page showing Rudak the Strong.

Let me put a good word in for Ruladak, too. I just finished the second TF and it was great! Far better than the first TF of the Shadow Shard. Here's some tips on it, in order of spoilishness.....

1. Most of the missions are in the Cascades so Recall Friend is almost a must. A flier with it is ideal. We had a couple of people in our group with RF and another with Group Fly, which worked out really well.

2. Before you start the TF, try to get everyone in the group access to molepoint charlie. It saves a ton of time.

3. TF contacts still aren't selling inspires. It's a long way back so stock up on those awakens! Having somebody in the group with Rez is also a big help.

4. Difficulty tends to ramp up in this one as you find more Rularuu in the missions. If you're still having problems after the third or fourth mission, consider breaking up because it's only going to get worse. (The first TF of the Shadow Shard actually got easier after the first few missions!)

5. If you have to use geysers to get to the last mission, you should know that its location is tricky. It looks like you can get there via the Air Shoals. However, if you go that way, you'll find yourself about half a mile below the mission. You have to go via the One Way Path which starts clear up on the island that has the gate to the Chantry. It's a long trip!

6. We had level 50s in our group and we made sure the team lead was always Heroic difficulty. We saw mostly 51 and 52 level nasties (plus some bugged ones that were much lower). The last mission was full of 53s - including the AV at the end.

(now I'm starting to get really spoilish....)

7. The final mission is pitch dark. Well, OK, not quite as dark as those hallways that take you to the CoT portal room, but dark enough that you can only see maybe 10ft in front of you. If it wasn't for wisps glowing in the dark.... <shudder> Plan on less-than-optimal AoE placement and tanks not seeing enemies to lay a taunt on them.

8. Get the idea that this mission is hard? More than a little nervous? Well, if you get in trouble you can always dash out the door to safety, right? Wrong! The door is locked behind you. You can always log out to get out the door but that takes 30 seconds. Are those Rularuu following you? 29 28 Hmm, hard to tell, you can only see about ten feet. 27 26 Boy that counter sure is slow. 25 24 You know those natterlings don't have anything that glows in the dark at all. 23 22....

(I didn't actually confirm that the door is locked myself but I believe it.)

9. Ruladak the Strong is pretty nasty, especially with all those Rularuu around him. He's got a nuke that he used on us when he was at about 1/3rd hit points. That nuke had one heck of a radius (maybe 40ft) and did about 700pts to one of our 50th level tanks. My 47th level squishy controller took more like 2500pts. So melees, keep those HP up and ranged folks try to stay at the edge of your range.

Ruladak the Strong glowing in that deep, dark cave is about the coolest looking AV I've ever seen!

The term "not" comes to mind.

Seriously, I don't see the reason for all that structure at all. No slashes. Why? Must use abbreviations??

Taking structure from other games is a bad plan. This game isn't like the other games. I think you're better off with no plan at all. In a month or so we'll figure out what works best for us.

You'll probably want to make a logout macro that does /ghide then logs you out. Otherwise you are liable to show up on global with your anonymous character for a second or two before you appear.

Hiding a particular character does sound like a good idea.

Listing all the references would take QUITE awhile!

For instance, I think there are quite a few Stargate references in the Shadow Shard (though I never watched the show so they go right by me). The first TF in the Shard had a boss named Vezeni (sp?) and then one named Humperdink, of Princess Bride fame. Jillions of shop names, too.

Hmmm, the more I think about this, the less I'm liking it.

Why would I ever let an observer live, unless I know who that observer is? And, unless this observer has been agreed upon before the match, it seems likely that my opponent will want to get rid of any camera that I approve.

I think you're right, SpongeCake, I'm starting to believe these observers will be known right from the start.

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Thats why we made these Observer cameras targetable and easily destroyable. This is a very cool feature that adds another dimension to gameplay.

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And defeating 1000 of them gives me the Black Eye badge! W00t!! <g>

I'm thinking the demo output routine is trying to spit out the slider values and they just aren't there. If that's true, we are looking at six more sliders. (Or maybe replacing the athletic/muscular slider with seven sliders?)

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Not sure if this can be done but I would like to see each costume be able to have its own SG color layout. So that Costume #1 could have it SG Color layout different from #2 and so on. I have some outfits the layout only works for that costume an no other.

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I like this better than the extra costume slot option.

I can see a couple of ways of doing the extra costume slot. One would be to have the SG Leader dictate the costume. This would be bad because some types of characters really need to make alterations for role playing reasons or just to make it look sane. The other would be to leave it open, but then it's likely to be treated as just another costume slot.

Rather than try and make a special character slot with special restrictions, I think it would be better just to let us define how our SG colors work with each existing slot.

Ditto on the problem of the SG symbol looking awful on women with low-cut costumes. All symbols actually look bad with that and the SG forces the character to have one. The symbol should be moved further down or maybe removed completely with those costume options.

Yeah, staying alive would be nice so you can get different camera angles. Just as long as you don't start worrying about the trivial things, like living and keeping others alive. <g>

Putting correct costumes in would be a handy thing!

Well, it looks like this isn't going to be fixed by Cryptic anytime soon so I fixed up the Demo Edit program to handle it. Kinda. I'm afraid there's just no getting that last number back (the thin/athletic slider). If you've got another demo with the character you want, load that up and save the character, then replace the Issue 3's character with the saved version. (Or just copy the COSTUME command line by hand, which is what I do.)

The closest I've had to that was the end-of-beta event in Founder's Falls. We had a ton of people in the hospital parking lot, giving it to whichever dev that was dressed up in a Rikti suit. The only problem I had was a 'over 100 effects on a target' message, and that was just a warning.

I do know the first thing the demo does is record where every object is, where every hero is, every hero's costume, where every NPC is, and the status effects on all heroes and NPCs. It doesn't pick up everything in the zone but it takes in a pretty large chunk around you. Then it has to play catch up and record everything that went on while it was gathering all that info. In normal situations, even outside with lots of people hanging around, that's not a problem. If you're outdoors with a lot of people and a LOT of bad guys all being very active, I could see how the startup process for the demo could get overloaded. Especially since that process isn't alone - you also have the game still playing at the time!

To record a Hammy raid, I think the best thing to do would be to jump right into Mr. Blobbo right at the start. You'll die fast but that's OK, you've got more important things to think about anyway. Like camera work! Get the demo started BEFORE the hero horde comes rushing in and start getting your dramatic shots.

This will be one big BIG demo, though! Might even be a good idea to de-frag your hard drive before going in to this.