Adeon Hawkwood

Renowned
  • Posts

    6270
  • Joined

  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dark One View Post
    Disagree, at least with the Witches. Those are, IMO, the worst of the lot. They are way too dry and I'm not really a fan of the characters involved, other than Nanny Ogg.
    My experience is that people either love the Witches books or hate them. They are a somewhat different style from the other series which some people don't enjoy.
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
    I's start with Wyrd Sisters and Guards! Guards! They are some of the betters ones of 'Early' Pratchett, i.e. the ones with the not quite settled writing style
    I'd agree with that. IMHO The Witches series and The City Watch series are the better ones in Discworld so starting with them makes sense.
  3. Ok, so am I misreading it or does Avatea's update say that you can run both Posi TFs to get double rewards? If so what about Rogues/Vigilantes who ran the Taikoss SF last night? Can they get a second reward from running one of the Posis and if so which one?
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim View Post
    Still, both pets run into the issue of needing to be summoned pretty often. A longer duration would make both powers a lot more fun to use, or at least not requiring being on the ground with them.
    Personally the duration never bothered me but then I don't use Hover.

    Quote:
    I'd take a longer animation for Gun Drone, but I'm not going to say it makes it all the way better, either.
    I think it's pretty close. I'd like to see an AI improvement for it as well but for a Blaster Secondary I think the damage is about right for it.

    I can see an argument for giving it the VS treatment where the duration and the recharge are equal but you can only have one out at a time although since it's so easy to perma it's not a major deal IMHO.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by streetlight View Post
    On the other hand, the Gun Drone is summoned and ready from the start for the next spawn. Cast time lost for that spawn will be 0 seconds and the added DPS is pure gravy. Of course, you can summon even earlier, like when you enter a map, and you might not even miss that first spawn (depending on how aggressive your group is and how long it takes you to travel/zone). If you're on an active team, it won't draw aggro, so it'll last the whole duration, too.
    I was referring to summoning the Gun Drone specifically to get the defiance buff as an erstz Build Up.

    As for the damage of the Gun Drone itself, you could, in most realistic combat situations deal more damage by firing AoEs for those 7 seconds than the Gun Drone will do in it's entire life (and that assumes it fires every time its attack has recharged). Gun Drone is a way to front load a bit of damage if you either have the downtime or need the extra damage to win but on a team it's almost useless.

    I'll also point out that it's the pet power with the longest activation time in the game (Demon Summoning comes second at 4s) yet it has the second shortest duration (I think).
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    iXP is really not the major bottleneck in the system. In fact, 38 astral merits is capable of unlocking all four powers, which takes only about 10-12 runs of *either* trial to get. In thread terms, that is about the number of threads necessary to buy about 8 common components.

    To put it another way, the player that gets *no* iXP at all can fall no further behind the player that gets *huge* amounts of iXP per run than about 8 total trial runs across all four slots. It cannot take you twice as long or three times as long: it can take *at most* eight more runs.
    I agree with this in theory, however there is one caveat to add. If you purchased all of your iXP for the post-Alpha slots with threads it would cost 375 million inf which is a not inconsiderable amount, especially if the player does not spend time on the markets.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Zemblanity View Post
    Or build-up. Uh, wait...
    Yes, Devices lacks Build Up. However, Gun Drone makes a very poor replacement due to the obscene cast time and the fact that the damage boost is quite a bit less than Build Up. I have, on occasion, used the Defiance bonus from Gun Drone as a pseudo build-up when solo but trying to do so on a team is impractical at best, by the time Gun Drone is summoned most of the spawn is dead. So for now I stick to reds when I need more damage.

    Now, this does suggest the interesting possibility of reducing the cast time on Gun Drone but leaving the Defiance Buff in place essentially turning it into a combination summon/weak Build Up power. I don't think that is necessary but it would be an interesting buff to Devices.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nelm View Post
    Now it is very difficult to find someone even doing the task force of the week so that I can get my final notice of the well.
    What server are you on? I know that on Virtue I've never had any problems forming a WST team.

    Also just as a general point, you can run the trials and use the thread based components to create Alpha slot abilities instead of the regular shard based components.
  9. Adeon Hawkwood

    When Playing CoH

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DJ_Shecky View Post
    What type of Music do you listen to. Bands, Genres etc, and which are your favorites?
    Musicals mostly although I do have a few collections of older folk music that I occasionally listen to.
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by freewaydoggy View Post
    Oh well, I hope they do SOMETHING!
    I think it's a solid bet that they will do something. I can't really imagine the devs putting then in the interface just to taunt us with no plans to ever open them up. As for when? Well that is a very good question.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Anti_Proton View Post
    Playing an Empath and playing a Blaster, I notice that damage seems to be the factor that participation is based on. I know there is a lot of talk that the system is "bugged", but is support coming up short in the rewards considered "working as intended"?
    As long as you get a component and not the 10 threads table you have "participated". Based on Arcana's datamining it appears to be primarily based on power activations with some weighting or caveats. Attacks always count, buffs/heals do seem to count but not as much.

    According to the devs personal participation does not affect the quality of the rewards beyond getting a component at all.
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by doyler_ View Post
    Fire/traps or even bots could be interesting since in theory they can do plenty of damage, plenty of survivability, and in practice I haven't played a ton of traps anyway. Am I going to regret one if I choose the other?
    Hard to say. A Traps Corruptor and a Traps MMs do play significantly differently. The MM is quite a bit tougher but your damage comes from your pets so you have less control over it. The Corruptor has a lot more control over the damage but isn't as tough.

    I'd say it depends on how you prefer to play, the power difference between the two matters less than the playstyle differences.

    Quote:
    yea just rolled a soldier and was thinking bane, but not sure. Hated my fort until 29 then stopped
    I would say go Crab instead of Bane. Bane's are nice but Crabs get better AoE and have more pets to serve as distractions.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Test_Rat View Post
    Its quite lovely in combo with the (can't remmeber the set name) ranged damage 20% Chance for +2 hold in acid mortar.
    Unfortunately that isn't an option for Masterminds. For some bizarre reason (probably a copy and paste error) the Mastermind version of Acid Mortar takes Targeted AoE sets instead of Ranged Damage sets.
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by baron_inferno View Post
    I really don't quite understand it. The MM is the 9th character I've taken through the trials (pre and post fix), a list that includes various 4 Brutes, 2 Doms, 1 Stalker and 1 Corr. She is having the toughest time of them all when it comes to getting rare or very rare end rewards.
    Unfortunately unless the devs tell us differently there probably isn't much you can do beyond saying "random number generator is random" and running more trials. As long as you are getting a component and not threads you are hitting the participation metric. Beyond that personal participation is not supposed to matter.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by shaggy5 View Post
    Is it wrong that I get frustrated at nearly always getting uncommons? I actually get commons as often as rares (more or less), which makes then cheaper to make, but the drop itself makes it rare.
    I used to be that way as well, of course now that you can downgrade uncommons to commons it's not a big deal.
  15. According to the devs personal participation score does not impact the reward beyond the threads or component choice.

    There is an implication that the leagues "success score" does impact the reward but the devs have not stated it directly.

    Now it is of course entirely possible that the devs are lying. However it's more likely that the random number generator is in fact, random. For example as a comparison on my MM out of ~20 trials I got 1 very rare and 2 rare with most of the rest being uncommons.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Scientist View Post
    I have to disagree with this bit of advice; Soulbound Allegiance is one of the few purple sets that don't provide a global recharge bonus, and the recharge intensive pet sets are actually pretty good. Expedient Reinforcement is one of only 2 sets I know of (along with Stupefy) that provides a 6.25% recharge PLUS a defense bonus over 3% in the same set, in this case Ranged defense, which is what you want. And I'll often slot 4 of Call to Arms for another 6.25% global recharge, then add just the Damage/Recharge from Soulbound to top off both nicely in the other pet (typically Call Reinforcements, with its longer recharge it needs capped recharge more). Soulbound is one of the cheaper purple sets, probably because it doesn't have that global recharge with it.
    Which is why you'll notice I recommended Frankenslotting it rather than slotting the entire set. Similarly if you want ED capped recharge in the pet powers the pet recharge sets suck. Putting four pieces in and then adding a SA piece for more recharge = Frankenslotting.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Scientist View Post
    First, am I correct that the little "lock" icon on the top only works to lock the team you are on, not the whole set of league teams?
    Correct

    Quote:
    Second, am I correct that as league leader I can't actually change who is team captain on a team (other than my own team, obviously)?
    I believe so. You can sort of do it by making a new team and transferring everyone over but I haven't found any way to promote a particular member. Note that the team captains can promote a member of their team to replace them if they want.

    Quote:
    Finally, at one point I DCed, came back and was made league leader again. Another person had DCed as well, and was now on a third solo team. I couldn't find any way in the interface to put them back onto the other team, which had openings. When I was setting the trial up, I was able to right click on someone and assign them to a team, but this time I didn't get that option. Nor could I drag them to a team. Was that a bug, or is it normal not to be able to do that inside the trial? Is there some way to get someone back on a team?
    No you normally can still do it in the trials. One bug I have noticed is that occasionally when someone DC's and is added to a new team when they return the team they are on will be locked and they have to unlock it before you can reassign them. However since they are on a solo the only way for them to unlock it is to use the slash command which I can't remember.
  18. Thank you all very much for the advice. I'll have to test it out and see how it goes.

    Thanks again.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Infini View Post
    Reducing the cast time would also reduce its defiance buff - both in strength and duration. I'm not trying to say Gun Drone doesn't need a little love, just pointing out a possible consequence of it being changed. Personally, I would love it to be not interrupt-able at the very least. Such as waste of endurance if you get interrupted.
    I would happily trade the defiance boost for a faster cast time. If I want more damage I can use reds.
  20. Bots/Traps Tankermind is a good choice. In fact, Anything with Traps is a good choice .

    A Crab Spider might also work well for you. Between Venom Grenade and the Tactical Training powers you provide excellent force multiplication and the other crab powers give you decent solo damage and survivability.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
    Here's how I see it and how I think the community has been reacting from my admittedly narrow viewpoint.

    People have been doing the new incarnate trials until they reach their incarnate goal then they stop. Depending on how kind the RNG has been to them they may do more or they may be ready to puke at the thought of another trial.

    Now the astrals are not tradeable so whatever the gee-gaw is it better be really nice if you are going to get people in to doing these things again.
    I can't disagree with this and in many ways it makes me sad. Personally I've achieved my goals (T3s in all four slots on 3 different characters) and I'm still enjoying the trials. However I also took the view that I'm in the Incarnate system for the long haul anyway so I might as well take my time and stop to smell the roses along the way.

    That being said, I like the trials. I'd run them even if they didn't give incarnate progression simply because they are fun.

    Quote:
    you wind up with people who are late to things standing around trying to get people to run the obsoleted stuff from a diminishing pool of interested people.
    Yes, this is a concern but at the same time you're assuming that the incarnate system prices are completely static. At the moment a "gearing-up" method is not needed, there is only one tier of trials and plenty of people are still running them so it's east enough for a new character to get the powers.

    Now when the devs release the next tier of slots this will likely change. At that point I'm hoping that the devs will introduce a "gearing up" method to allow new character to get ready for the next tier of trials faster and on smaller teams than is currently required. The simple fact in any progression system is that you will, over time, have players drop out of it (due to burn out, real life issues or some other reason), providing a system to introduce new blood without relying on other players to farm for them is a sensible practice. I would not be to surprised if the devs eventually release "shard-component" recipes for the newer slots.
  22. I have a DP/Storm Corruptor who has just hit level 41 and have finally come to accept the truth... I really suck at playing Storm. I do ok on teams and can solo ok at +0x1 but as soon as I try anything more difficult I end up faceplanting.

    For some reason Storm as a set never really clicked with me. I have all of the Storm powers and I know what they do but I just can't seem to figure out how to actually use them. Freezing Rain and Lightning Cloud are fine for boosting damage but I seem to have a very hard time staying alive unless I drop the difficulty low enough that I can pretty much solo using just my primary.

    So my question for the Storm Summoning aficionados out there is how do you do it? What tactics do you recommend using when soloing on a Stormy to stay alive and keep yourself safe?
  23. Well, let's start with the basics. You are getting 3 more powers but have basically no slots for them unless you steal from other powers (since you will presumably slot up the inherent fitness to the same levels).

    A simple solution is therefore to take three powers that require no slotting and possibly rearrange powers into a more exemplar friendly build. There are four powers I can see that would fit that category:
    Vengeance (always nice to have and you can stick a 5th LotG 7.5% in it)
    Recall Friend (another nice one for teaming and you can stick a kb protection IO in it)
    Tactics (even slotted with just an endurance reduction IO this is nice to have on t`he Incarnate Trials to help you hit the +3s)
    Summon Disruptor (you've got enough global recharge to have it up a reasonable amount even unslotted and it makes a nice distraction while soloing, stick a Nucleolus Exposure HO in it so it gets some Damage and Accuracy)

    So the simple version is select 3 of those, rearrange powers to suit your tastes and maybe see if you can steal a slot or two from somewhere for Tactics and/or Summon Disruptor if you take one of those.

    Other alternatives, such as taking Fighting, would comprise a more significant rebuild.
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion View Post
    Can you actually use offense as a defense? I have only been blasting a while, but it seems you might be able to.
    Well as the old saying goes the best defense is a good offense so yes, you can use offense as a defense.

    The problem is it's not a form of defense that scales particularly well. Unless you kill an enemy in one shot (which is only possible with minions and hard to do on a full group) they will get at least one shot off. That means that by relying on offense you limit how high you can crank the difficulty before that one shot is enough to kill you.

    Additionally the tools for increasing damage do not scale as well as the tools for increasing passive mitigation. For example defense and damage set bonuses are both reasonably available in similar quantities. Now having 25% worth of Ranged Defense bonus would reduce the number of ranged attacks that hit you be 50% effectively doubling how long it will take an enemy to kill you. Conversely having 25% worth of damage bonuses decreases the time you take to kill an enemy by about 11%.

    So, yes, offense is a form of defense, but it's less useful to build for that other forms of defense.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison View Post
    Get the reactive chance for damage interface. It procs for each malla falla tick that caltrops produces.
    Yep, it got set that way for all pseudo pets int he last patch. Since it changes every patch/rain power into a mini-nuke I suspect the devs will be changing that in the future.

    Still, I'll enjoy it while it lasts.