Another_Fan

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Yomo_Kimyata View Post
    Hey, it's not like I make a living off of doing this or anything. I must have misinterpreted it.

    Oh wait, I DO do this for a living. Let me repeat the phrase that demonstrates the lack of flippers to stabilize: "In other words, the lack of buyers and the rapid selling of E-Mini futures contracts began to affect the underlying stocks and the broader stock indexes. "

    I don't come to [YOUR PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT] and tell you how wrong you are at [CLEVER INNUENDO THAT INSINUATES YOU DO SOMETHING DEGRADING AND INSIGNIFICANT].
    Quote:
    Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said an unnamed investor used a trading algorithm to sell orders for futures contracts called E-Minis, which traders use to bet on the future performance of stocks in the S&P 500 index.

    The selling was initially absorbed by "high frequency traders" and other buyers, the report said. But the algorithm responded to an rise in trading volume by increasing the number of E-mini sell orders it was feeding into the market.
    Seeing as you make a living at this, you should be familiar with

    Quote:
    Bear raid

    A bear raid is a type of stock market strategy, where a trader (or group of traders) attempts to force down the price of a stock to cover a short position. The name is derived from the common use of 'bear' or bearish in the language of Market sentiment to reflect the idea that investors expect downward price movement. A bear raid can can be done by spreading negative rumors about the target firm, which puts downward pressure on the share price. This may be a form of securities fraud. Alternatively, traders could take on large short positions themselves, with the large volume of selling ideally causing the price to fall, making the strategy self perpetuating.
    Quote:
    I don't come to [YOUR PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT] and tell you how wrong you are at [CLEVER INNUENDO THAT INSINUATES YOU DO SOMETHING DEGRADING AND INSIGNIFICANT].
    No but you just came on the boards and tried to tell people how appreciative they should be for your attempts to enrich yourself.
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Yomo_Kimyata View Post
    They just came out with the report of what caused the "Flash Crash" in the US markets in May. Abbreviated version: an initial trade in a shaky market spooked market traders, and eventually the specialists took out all their support bids except for ridiculously low ones. These "stub bids" got hit, which caused more panic.

    In other words, the market dropped like a rock BECAUSE flippers were not doing their job in stabilizing the markets.
    http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/01/mark...C_flash_crash/

    Interesting how you read it that way.

    I read it as someone with alot of money tried to rock the market and succeeded.

    Edit: And a note it looks like he found a way to short on down ticks as well
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison View Post
    Vanguard.

    Any mob where a build up AoE wipes the entire spawn of minions.
    There are 2 blaster primaries that can do that. There are other ATs that can do the same thing but then deal with whats left over with greater ease.

    Edit: Not counting nukes thats another whole discussion
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba View Post
    Example: Turn on hover.
    Screenshot of tunnel.

    Edit and just to be plain. AE once and all proved that any AT can have scenarios built that play to their strengths.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison View Post
    Except it's not clear by just about any measure. For your statement to be true, there has to be a drastic difference between the survival tools of a blaster and everyone else across the board. There are many situations where a blaster has much more survivability than the scrapper, and can defeat more foes with much less danger.
    Do you have any examples ?

    The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are certain enemy groups that like to fight at range, only do smash/lethal damage, and have no mezz, and only KB. There is also the infamous, no ranged attacks for enemies exploit in ae. I am not 100% sure of the first actually being better for the blaster Another might be the single target case where the blaster has a hold/stun or with single target bosses where the blaster has 2 holds/stuns.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison View Post
    First, non sequitur is two words.

    More importantly, however, my reply did have relevance to what I quoted. You state that blasters don't have the tools to stay within their envelope. I submit that they do; you just have to play intelligently to make use of them.

    No what I said was

    "Its also pretty clear by just about any measure there are other ATs that have a much better ability to deal out the damage needed to kill enemies while staying within their survival envelope."

    What repeatedly happens in these discussions, is somebody says that X is not quite up to snuff, and before you can say jack robinson, "not as well" becomes "not at all".
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison View Post
    Yeah, and it's a real shame that blasters don't have any way to proactively mitigate incoming damage, like stun or knockback.
    What a great nonsequitur. Its really a shame the cubs can't get their act together and win a world series.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim View Post

    Yes, only the first twenty. *sighs* You and that attitude are that "kicking the puppy" feeling I mentioned earlier. 1-50 should be a blast for any Blaster, not just for the first 20.

    And heck... my Dual Pistols Blaster has been even more fun in his 20s than he was in Praetoria: and I was having a lot of fun there. Oh yes, fun is unquantifiable and bad to mention. Okay, he defeats things with even more ease than he did before, thanks to more powers and slots.
    If you call being objective kicking the puppy ?

    I soloed praetoria on a blaster, and I would argue objectively there wasn't anything that could do that content better. My total death rate was single digit. A good portion of that was I had an idea what was needed in praetoria and the availability of insps at the hospitals.

    I also soloed praetoria on a defender. If I were to say that was not nearly as enjoyable would that make me biased against defenders ?
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post

    The key to blaster survival is killing them before they kill you, and not much is better suited to that than a blaster.
    That is everyone's key to survival. Its also pretty clear by just about any measure there are other ATs that have a much better ability to deal out the damage needed to kill enemies while staying within their survival envelope.
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MacOberon View Post
    After a bit of forum-*******, just looking a little bit at everything, writing up suggestions, and generally being a benign nuisance, I've been collecting a bit more pieces of information. I think the one thing I really overlooked on blasters is the whole aim-buildup thing, which seems to be unique to blasters. That should certainly make a difference. Who knows? Maybe it's perfectly balanced after all.

    Anyway, Imma go make a blaster, and see if I can make things go boom. Looks like fun, and I guess that's really the main point.

    mac
    The first 20 levels are a blast
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by SinisterDirge View Post
    It is argued that the presence of the flipper makes it actually worth it to sell some items on the market. As opposed to just vendoring, or deleteing the items because you will get less for them at the market than is worth listing.

    If you cant follow that, it means that if people are not putting things on the market, there is no way for a buyer and seller to be matched up.

    There are god only knows how many temporal analyzers, kinetic weapons, listed well below vendor at any given time. People find it worthwhile to list these things. Items where there is a need to consume them at a rate closer to the rate of production seem to sell above vendor pricing
  12. Another_Fan

    Why A Blaster?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
    Ok, so lets break down the -res, and +dam available to defenders, corruptors, and blasters, and see (without adding in outside buffs) how they all stack together.
    I appreciate the effort you put in the above, but it only highlights the problems with the at. At this point we are talking about extremely aertificial teams for the blaster to be a competitive choice. We still haven't considered the benefits that other ATs bring to the picture Aggro control (brutes/tanks), (comparable/damage and aggro management brutes/scrappers), (comparable damage + control doms/controllers (containment)) etc
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by SinisterDirge View Post
    Makes it a terrible yardstick to measure the size of your ***** against then doesn't it?

    If you are using a yardstick, you really don't have any worries
  14. Another_Fan

    Why A Blaster?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
    Even when not at the damage cap, blasters have higher modifiers to their 'aim' and they get 'build up' as well in most cases, which you really can't factor out. They allows them to buff their own damage much higher then a corruptor or defender would be able to do without using targeted buffs. (FS comes to mind, on a ice/ or fire/ corruptor, but that requires you to hit your target, and be in melee range of those affected be it, where a blaster can hit BU and aim, and wouldn't need any other enemies to attain that damage)

    The Damage cap example allows for you to ignore defiance as a mini-fury, and ignore any other damage buffs the blaster may be able to put on themselves. Scourge requires the enemy to have 50% or less hitpoints left for it to kick in, where defiance allows a blaster to build up their self damage from just attacking. Add in the increased single target damage, and blasters can pull ahead of their corruptor counterparts, without factoring in the actual damaging powers blasters secondary allows them to have.

    As promised before I hit the links, anyone up for a "Why sandtraps" thread ? No, city of sand wedges ?

    If they aren't operating at the cap you have just the damage modifier. If you go by the damage scale alone you need to use .55 in thinkso's table.

    Whats more in that we are only considering debuff in there at .3 Any set with -res can do .3 if there is room for amplifying output it goes up easiliy hitting .4 or .5, (Radiation -30% res, +25% damage, +25% recharge by example)

    The other thing is when we started talking about them being at the damage cap, we implicitly included a kin which reduces the maximum team size for those calculations to 7. It also takes out any benefit of range if the people doing the killing are going to soak up the fulcrum shift.

    I said way back someplace in this thread, I knew exactly when it was a good call to add a blaster, and its not on the tail end of large teams of buff/debuffers. The point where its most viable is when you have a small number of buffing defenders and best if they are defense buffers.

    Its even kind of marginal there. Even with the nerfs to /shield and the buffs to /fire (Is burn still torching blasters that use it ? )
  15. Another_Fan

    Why A Blaster?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
    Again, the problem with that statement doesn't take into consideration that fact that some debuffs on a mastermind have shorter ranges, and some even require melee in order to execute.

    /dark has a PBAoE heal, which is pretty darn useless to use unless its affecting your pets, which may be in melee range. Darkest Night can pull aggro onto the mastermind, so even at range, they will be taking hits. Shadow fall is PBAoE, and again is only useful to the mastermind if its benefiting his pets.
    I consider twilight grasp to be a ranged debuff and maybe a personal heal.


    Quote:
    /traps has various short range attacks that work best within melee range, Seeker drones being about the only actual range debuff available.
    /Traps also has Force field drone so the mez protection is getting kind of ridiculous here.

    It also lays down its traps as pets. Acid mortar aggros to itself, FF generator can be attacked etc.


    Quote:
    /pain has World of Pain, a PBAoE buff, which while you can cast before combat, is best used during combat. Anguishing Cry is a PBAoE debuff, which you'll definitely need to be in melee range to pull off, and may also pull aggro on top of you.
    Don't play pain so I can't comment on how likely.

    Quote:


    /storm has Steamy mist, which would only benefit the pets if they are within range of it.
    Or it makes even less likely the MM pulls aggro


    Quote:
    /thermal is a PBAoE heal, which doesn't do the pets much good if they are out of range of it, and melt armor can definitely pull aggro onto the mastermind due to the AoE nature of it.

    /trick arrow is again, pretty much all range, and it has enough tools at its disposal to avoid closing in on the enemy entirely.

    So, out of all the secondary, there's about 3 where you can avoid closing into melee more often then not, but for the other sets, having to be in combat allows you to better use all your powers available to you.
    Edit:
    I won't comment on pain, or demons can't stand the look of either set and MMs are just so damn powerful to begin with there is no real need to shoot for peak performance.

    Anyway given that all the primary sets have greater or lesser degrees of range I think you mean near the pets rather then melee..

    Concerning Pain as I said I don't play it but it seems like a buff set that most of the time you can buff your pets and let them wreak havoc.

    Traps has acid mortar a ranged stationary pet that damages and debuffs, poison trap which can be placed and left for pulls, Trip mine, and MUAHAHA detonator.

    Storm is mostly ranged debuffs, controls, and knockback with a ranged heal.



    Quote:
    Even when not at the damage cap, blasters have higher modifiers to their 'aim' and they get 'build up' as well in most cases, which you really can't factor out. They allows them to buff their own damage much higher then a corruptor or defender would be able to do without using targeted buffs. (FS comes to mind, on a ice/ or fire/ corruptor, but that requires you to hit your target, and be in melee range of those affected be it, where a blaster can hit BU and aim, and wouldn't need any other enemies to attain that damage)

    The Damage cap example allows for you to ignore defiance as a mini-fury, and ignore any other damage buffs the blaster may be able to put on themselves. Scourge requires the enemy to have 50% or less hitpoints left for it to kick in, where defiance allows a blaster to build up their self damage from just attacking. Add in the increased single target damage, and blasters can pull ahead of their corruptor counterparts, without factoring in the actual damaging powers blasters secondary allows them to have.
    You are missing it here will go into more later.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aura_Familia View Post
    Never said I didn't appreciate their accomplishment. It just isn't surprising. In fact I'd go as far as saying an All blaster run shouldn't be that difficult if folks are playing there blasters the way they are supposed to be in supposedly difficult situations.

    Apparently we have fundamentally different experiences when it comes to blasters and Mo runs.

    The tree spec in MANY of the runs I've been on has usually been the portion that usually goes smoothly. And I'm talking about runs where "if you die, you fail" is on.

    Your comments baffle me even more.
    In any masters run there is going to be a certain amount of luck needed. I'd be equally impressed with an all scrapper masters run they would need luck but would need it in different places.

    Ghost widow would likely be very annoying for them. She is what usually breaks melee heavy teams.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison View Post
    I've run plenty of successful and not so successful MoSTFs, and in my experience, the tree room is the spot where people die most.

    But it's never my team's blasters.

    It's always the scrapper. Always.

    And from my perspective, I have seen just about everything die in the tree room.

    What can you say except that there are three different experiences of the game represented.
  18. Another_Fan

    Why A Blaster?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
    I didn't say you had to be right next to a mezzer, just that you can't stay completely out of harms way. Pets have a higher threat modifier then the mastermind, so they can keep most mobs focused on them, but assuming, as Another_Fan has, that masterminds can completely avoid combat, while still delivering massive debuffs/buffs is just not possible.
    Code:
    | Pets
    |           enemy
    |                              * Mastermind
    |
    
    | pets
    |            enemy
    |
    | *mastermind 
    
    
    Or in glorious ascii cinema
    
    |
    | M  P               E
    |
    |
    
    |
    |
    | M          P    E
    |
    |
    
    |
    |
    |       M         P  E
    |    ^ Mastermind is making an executive decision
     to investigate his workforce's progress and see if his workers comp 
    premium is going up.
    


  19. Another_Fan

    Why A Blaster?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
    I think you meant this thread Which has very specific rules which require 3 melee ATs at the very least. Thus itÂ’s not a very good example. Now, stating this
    What would make a good example ? If it didn't require melee ats I doubt it would have helped the situation.

    Quote:

    May be true, assuming someone else is able to throw the buff/debuffs to keep the /ice defender or ice/corruptor at said damage cap. And that Ice/ corruptor or /ice defender will only out perform a blaster that refuses to use their secondary or APP to supplement their damage. And again, once the AoEs have hit, the blaster pulls much further ahead on single target damage. Scourge is a very nice inherent, but on a team; it's not nearly as useful due to the sheer amount of AoE damage all hitting at once.
    I didn't want to bring this up but we have been using everything at the damage cap because it favored your side of the argument. If the best case you can make using the most favorable conditions possible is not very good then the situation becomes more pronounced as the conditions get worse.

    In this case the blaster is gaining an additional 25% relative to the buff/debuff from being at the cap.



    Quote:
    Stating that range is a negative due to the 5% chance to be hit, and ranged attacks following a blaster is under rating your down survivability scenario.
    What was said is that being able to focus the aggro on a team mate that can deal with it is a plus.

    If you are going to have the blaster move into PBAOE position to use them you are undercutting your argument about the blaster being superior because their attacks are ranged.
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aura_Familia View Post
    That is certainly not true. But you believing that is not surprising and shows why you think an all blaster Master of Anything run is a big deal. It isn't.

    EDIT: It also shows how you assume how all blasters play. I would say that if they are attempting a MASTER OF RUN, that they know how to play their blasters pretty well to the point that no, they won't fall over and die at the slightest mistake or enemy looking at them wrongly.

    That you continue to think that people don't know how to play blasters so that they DON'T die EVER says something.

    EDIT2: Just want to add for someone who seems to know alot about the APPs/PPPs I'm surprised that you're surprised that an all blaster Moster of Anything run would be difficult or shouldn't have already happened ages ago.
    I have been on several masters runs for various things including the STF, where my blaster has been the only thing not to die. Thats why I consider it impressive, I am really aware of what it takes to get through it on a blaster.

    I find using PFF to tank LR really lucky. I forget what his +to hit from towers is but I have seen tanks buffed to the point where they have 80% defense to everything and their own self heal taken down by him.

    The thorn tree is another area where you can do everything right but still get unlucky. The same goes for hunting for the key.

    I am sorry you don't appreciate their accomplishment.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison View Post
    Not that I'm aware of. It does have defense debuffs, however. Even if it did, the level 54 AVs have a 2.1 accuracy modifier, doubling their chances to hit you. Against a softcapped character, that's still only a 10% chance.

    I'm sure the blasters could find places to fire at vines from cover of rocks if they really were that worried about it.
    Prayer to the RNG then.


    Quote:
    This, I believe, is evidence of the flaw in your view on blasters. Blasters shouldn't be the ones reacting to things trying to kill them. They need to be proactive about their mitigation. This does, however, require forethought.
    I believe this is evidence that you have read my views through biased eyes. Its not surprising given the number of posters on these boards that can go from an offer of congratulations to being shocked and think they are the same thing.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aura_Familia View Post
    Actually I wasn't aware, but kind of expected that a All Blaster MoSTF . . . well really an All Blaster Master of Anything . . . would have been a no brainer to have been done by now.

    why this would shock anyone is beyond me, and anyone who would say they are shocked by it or didn't expect it shows that they really don't get how the general playerbase (ie, non-min maxing forum readers) ACTUALLY sees blasters. Hint: They don't see them as falling over if someone looks at the wrongly, or faceplanting if they get mezzed.

    If you said "There have been all baster MoSTFs done" in b-cast, in-game, folks would probably be like "and?"

    EDIT: In the age of IOs it's even less surprising.
    Seing as there are several things in the TF that can take out a blaster before they can even react its impressive.

    Sorry you don't think its praiseworthy or an accomplishment.
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison View Post
    I was not personally involved, but I had a lengthy conversation with the "tank" of the team, and NRG/NRG/Force blaster who runs tough/weave in his standard build.

    He said most of it was trivial until AV fights, which actually required intelligent play. His team was mostly IO'd to the gills, and they stacked a few instances of maneuvers. The four patrons were handled by single pulls, and Recluse was tanked pretty much through PFF for the ten seconds or so it took to knock down the towers.

    That's just one example, of course, and the only one I can speak for.
    I would have thought the treespec would have been the big problem. The thorn tree has enhanced accuracy and damage over time attacks.
  24. Another_Fan

    Why A Blaster?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dragonkat View Post
    Long post that was meant to bother people
    That post belongs in the "Why A Moderator" thread.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison View Post
    Are you aware that there have been multiple successful all blaster MoSTFs?
    No can't say I was, hats off to them.

    Edit: is there any information about the tactics used ?