_Laxx_

I still click every ability in my trays, including inspirations. I always have and probably always will. I even do so in WoW, where it's generally, shall we say, "looked down upon" to not use hotkeys/macros if you want to be "good".

I've just got really fast reflexes and reaction times. It's going to sound like I'm bragging here, but my speeds with a mouse frequently rival those who swear by hotkeys and macros. For an example, I have a 19-inch monitor and, in WoW, my mount button and my stealth button were on exact opposite ends of the UI (top right corner and bottom left corner). Before they changed the game so that you could use abilities while mounted (forcing an auto-dismount), I would click my mount button to dismount and immediately hit my stealth button to stealth. Frequently, I was too fast for the server and it would tell me that I was still mounted when I tried to hit stealth.

In Starcraft, I was able to keep up with most hotkeyers, but that really was a game that I was at a disadvantage being a primarily mouse-wielder. The only game where I stuck to the hotkey system religiously was Diablo 2, and that was out of necessity.

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So, I was doing a mission against Arachnos the other day, blasting away at a Tarantula Mistress. I finish her off, and she blew up. A little voice in the back of my head goes, "Wait, wasn't there at least part of a person in there somewhere? Eww..."

Shortly after, I ran into another Tarantula Mistress. Only, when I finished this one off, she didn't explode, she just collapsed.

Which got me wondering: What determines if a mechanical mob explodes when it's defeated? Is it random? Damage above and beyond what's required to defeat them? Something else?

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It's a totally random chance. Originally they all exploded. But some time later (I don't recall exactly when), they were changed to only explode 50% of the time.

It was a very welcome change because Warshades have powers which depends on defeated foes. Fighting Arachnos with lots of Drones and Tarantulas before the change was as bad as fighting CoT with mostly Spectrals spawning.

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As another poster stated, sometimes the exploded "body" is still there. I've used Stygian Circle after taking out a bunch of Council Hoverbots and hit every single one to get my endurance/health back. Those things always explode when defeated.

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probably have a look at the edits they have made on there builds, when other powersets have been nerfed like hell!

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Statesman was some sort of Invuln/SS tanker- and he took Invuln tankers down in strength by a factor of about THIRTY. Yes, they used to be 3000% as hard to kill as they are right now.

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They actually gave it some buffs recently.

Point is, they're not the kind of devs who buff the heck outta their favourite class. By the way, are there any actual examples of that happening in ANY MMO? I just can't imagine anyone would get away with that.

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comic strip

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I like that comic.

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The timer was not added because of PvP. It was added because the devs didn't want people to use it to ghost through missions completely untouchable. Since that would still be possible without a timer, don't expect it to go away.

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You can ghost through mission undetected with two layers of stealth (SS+IO, Hide, SS+Stealth, etc.), so I have a hard time believing that's the problem. At any rate I don't mind the 30-second forced detoggle but why keep the "nophase" period in? If you want to chain phase powers you need to have more than one and that's not usually something people will go out of the way for. I'd kill to be able to use Phase and Hibernate interchangeably on my PvP Therm because sometimes I'd rather use one over the other, and thanks to the nophase period, I can't use either during a certain period after I've already used one.

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While you can ghost most missions with just Invisibility, there are mobs that completely ignore all stealth such as the Rikti Drones.

I don't agree the ability to safely "ghost" a mission is a great reason anyway, but for a different reason. Any travel power will let you speed by mobs before they get their attack off, even fly. The only time you'll run into problems doing it this way is if you have to speed past a mob you've already been alerted to, or you get stuck on something. Heck, SS comes with stealth built into it, so I personally don't buy the "mission ghosting" reason.

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I think it does more like dark melee has lower than base accuracy and misses so much its broken.

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i've always liked that myth myself. That's what really surprises me: people still believe some of these myths even though they can now view the actual numbers for powers in game and even monitor character stats as they play.

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If I recall correctly, once upon a time this WAS true because Defenses of multiple types would stack. That is to say that because Dark Melee checked against Smashing, and Negative defense types if the foe had Defense to both, they would both get applied against the Dark Melee attack (This applied to other split-damage types, such as Energy Blast). This was way back during i1, or i2 though, I forget, the devs then fixed it so it would only take the highest ever.

For the most part, the only time this would become an issue was against Sky Raiders, and the CoT Bosses with Dispersion Bubble (as that was the dispersion bubbles, at the time, were the only shields that gave multiple types of defense at once that NPC's had access to).

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I started in Issue 2 and I don't recall this being the case ever. Not saying it never was, but I certainly don't remember it.

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Yellows / Aim make you miss with your next attack because it has to recalibrate the rng.

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Think this one comes from a misunderstanding of what the %s mean.. if you have only 23% chance to hit something and add what 7.5% by popping ACC you still only have 30% chance to hit or so. Yet I always hear people go.." That's ironic I popped an ACC and still missed!"

No it's not ironic it's - low chance to hit + small acc buff = still a crappy chance to hit.

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It's not ironic because that's not the definition of irony, but that's beside the point. I always seem to "miss more" after hitting Aim and Build Up, but that's just my human perceptions wanting to remember all those times I've used both, followed with a Nova, and missed half the spawn rather than the countless times I decimated everything.

I'd pick the character that I have the most fun with, or played most often, or the one I considered "my main".

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thanks for the speedy responses

i didn't think of putting HO's in Active Defense, thought it only took end reduction and recharge reduction IOs

thanks for the help

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Any power can take any HO enhancement as long as one of the aspects that the HO enhances is something that could be enhanced normally. For example, if the power can normally take End Reduction enhancements, then any HO that has an End Reduction component will go in the power. Using HOs to get around the "unenhanceable" portions of powers has been around for a long time.

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I would have sworn on a stack of Klondike Bars that I already posted this:

I was on a team where one player kept telling me to get closer. (I was a Blaster, on a good team. In that situation I don't DO "closer".) He finally explained that I'd hit more often if I got closer.

He was convinced that distance affected accuracy/to hit. No amount of "discussion" from the rest of the team would convince him otherwise, and he finally quit, saying we were all "lamas loosers". (still my favorite incoherent insult.)

Then I saw someone else describe virtually the same experience in the forums. I sure hope it was the same guy, and that there aren't TWO of him out there.

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This reminded me of someone I ran into a few weeks ago. We were fighting the Banished Pantheon, and one of the guys was having a hard time landing hits on the BP Masks. After awhile, he informed the group that we should attack the masks from the sides or back since apparently the mask itself was deflecting attacks from the front. It took awhile of me explaining how the game actually works for him to accept the possibility that he was wrong, though it didn't stop him from circling around to the back of the masks to fight them.

Another time I recall was during a level 35ish mission on my blaster. A couple of guys were complaining about one of the tanks on the team not running some of his armor powers (he wasn't the "lead tank" of the group to begin with, but that's beside the point here). These two guys we convinced that if this WP tank was running Mind Over Body and Heightened Senses, then the other blaster (not me -- one of the complainers) wouldn't die so much since the tank would hold aggro better.

This of course ignores the fact that neither of those armors contributes to aggro generation, and the blaster that kept dying insisted on pulling mobs with Fire Ball and never breaking LoS afterwards. Just for fun, I pulled up his badge info and, sure enough, he had tons of AE badges but exactly zero Vet badges (this was a few days after the AE was released and farming it was all the rage). It's like I was teaming with Winter Lord Babies, version 2.

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There is this mish, called playthegame....It's great.

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I hate to break it to you, but farming is "playthegame". As long as the farming being done isn't detrimental to the health of the game, I don't see a problem with it. Problem farms get fixed, non-problem farms are pretty much left alone.

Maybe you shouldn't spend so much of your time rallying against non-problems?

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Well, he was asking about purple drops, not BUYING purple drops. I think it's funny that someone has to always direct people to the market, like they've never seen it before. I'm sure he knows he can go buy them at WW. He didn't ask that.

OP, if you want to spend upwards of 100mil per recipe then feel free to go to WW and buy them. It's the only other way to get them than them dropping or someone giving them to you.

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His question was answered, so another poster offered an alternative that may or may not have been more appealing, but you're too often blinded by your hate of the market to see that.

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Maybe he'd rather use his powers that he has obtained and kill some mobs rather than play the market. Some people like the market, some don't. Funny how marketeers take it so personally that everyone don't want to do it too.

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The only one taking anything related to the market personal here is you. When someone asks for ways to generate influence or gain any kind of drop, using the market is a legitimate answer. You're just bent out of shape about anything referencing the market at any point, so you feel compelled to jump into the thread with your anti-market mentality. That sounds like you're taking it pretty personal.

For what it's worth, I don't play the market either, but I'm not deluded into thinking that it's some kind of second job or only the elite who stand around watching the trends all day are going to know what's going on.

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The regeneration figure of 350 hp/sec also isn't a set number. It greatly varies from GM to GM. While they all have the same regeneration rate, they don't all have the same amount of hitpoints (Kronos with his 73k hp would regenerate alot more health per tick than Paladin with his 11k hp)

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Pali is also going to be taking a lot less damage per second because he's lower level as well, but that's beside the point. The entire point was that you're pretty much going to need -regen in order to solo a GM because without it you're just not going to overcome their incredible regen.

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Or just have -resistance available to you consistently and in a sufficiently large amount. -Regen is far overrated when it comes to taking down AVs and GMs. My TA/A Defender single-handedly allowed a group to take down the Kronos Titan with just his two -Resistance debuffs, though I only needed to use one of them anyway.

-Regen helps, but -Resist can help even more. Having both is, of course, far better.

If all else fails, you can model your idea after the Vampyri in the Council group. They use Dark Melee powers, some Regeneration abilities, and have access to some Dark Blast powers. So I would pin them as DM/Regen/Dark Mastery Scrappers. Alternatively, the higher ranks also have access to some mind controlling abilities, so Mind Control isn't out of the question.

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Why is it no matter what the question is, someone answers with a "market is the key" answer? Maybe not everyone wants to play that aspect of the game. I have hundreds of millions and all i do is sell on the market the drops that i get. I'm not or not going to be a "marketeer" and alot of others feel the same way.

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"No matter what the question is"? Please. The guy was asking about the best way to obtain purples. He was only thinking of farming, but the unsurpassed method is to make the most inf per unit of time invested is the market. I guarantee that he could farm to his heart's content for purples but a marketeer could make enough inf during that time to buy way more purples than will drop in the farms.

You don't have to like that answer and you don't have to play the market. But the OP asked a question and I was trying to help him think outside the box.

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Don't mind eryq2 or whatever. Even after countless times of us pointing out to him that "playing the market" takes practically no time or any real investment to see turn-around, he's convinced that it's some kind of second job.

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Theres a Malta mish that uses dialogue from Impossible Mission (the C64 one...I think Its Malta at least)

I also always liked 'Those who live by the sword, get shot by those with guns' or somethign along those lines, usually heard in Steel Canyon

--yena

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"Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't." Frequently said to the Tsoo by some random Outcast minion.

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Also, "hacker" is not the same thing as a virus author. There are myriad reasons for authoring virus payloads. Only a few of them have anything to do with the hacker subculture.

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That's why I put the word "malicious" before it. I know hacker doesn't only refer to illegal actions.

And note: Your virus that affects Mac only affects the newer "more compatible with Windows" versions of the Mac OS. Gee, I wonder why?

And saying "NO ONE" uses them and "Obscurity instead of security" are still blanket overstatements. Lots of people use Macs. Just because we're not the majority doesn't mean we don't friggin exist.

As I said, I use both PCs and Macs and I know the good points and bad points of both. Stop preaching at me. Thank you.



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Then don't insinuate that because you're on a Mac that you're magically safe from viruses.

Thank you.

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Because *somebody* has to post it...

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060513

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This is why I hate CAD:

/B^U Words words words words stupid joke words words words joke explained for the idiots words words words not funny stuff here words words words /B^U

Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

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Stealth or Invisibility makes a tanker unable to get or hold aggro.

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This one drives me nutters.

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Meh. I don't like being Invisible on my WP tank mostly because I want the mobs to be able to see me as I'm diving in to get some initial "Hey, there's a big guy jumping at us!" aggro. Being invisible makes it harder to do that, but it doesn't really inhibit gathering aggro as a tanker and keeping it.

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Play on a Mac, problem solved.

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Does not compute.

Macs are not magically immune to viruses. The only reason a Mac isn't hit as often with a virus as a Windows system is because Windows is far more common and widespread, which means the virus will hit as many people as possible. I've had to put up with people who own a Mac when they get all pissy when their system shuts down because of a virus while they had no virus protection software. It's not a pretty sight, though it is humorous when they say "I had a Mac!" for a reason why they didn't protect themselves.

As to this thread topic: having CoH on your computer doesn't open you up to a virus. Playing CoH does not open you up to a virus. Running the updater to get patches does not open you up to a virus. Whoever told you it did is technologically ignorant.

Personally, I think all those citizens are now Nemesis Automatons. It's so creepy stepping outside a mission to talk to a few civs that happened to have gathered outside your door and they all say "Nice day, isn't it?"

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Welcome back

1 point, i disagree that cold dom > storm summoning

Those two sets are quite different, its apples and oranges

Just my 2 cents

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Nothing to really add to the thread topic at hand, but I do agree with CoF here. Cold Domination and Storm Summoning are two very different sets that happen to share a couple of powers. Arctic Fog and Sleet are pretty much Steamy Mist and Freezing Rain, but that's where the similarity ends. Each set does something different for the group and I don't think either one could be claimed as being better than the other in all cases.

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Well, given his post count and activation, he/she may NOT know all different advantages of each type of "blaster".

Example, Energy produces KB. Ice has more holds, Fire has great damage. So forth and so on.

Let's try to be a little more helpful. It's hard to ask specific questions if you don't know what to ask.

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I was helpful. It really doesn't matter which Blaster you go with because they're all awesome and they all deal good damage. "Best" is a subjective term, and "best" can shift around between any number of builds based on opinion and circumstance. ie: Single vs AoE, Hard vs Soft Control, Combination of those, Utility, etc...

Given the amount of information the OP ...gave, I gave the best answer I could.

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There are water based powers in the game, its called Ice.

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Can you show me how my frozen chunks of CO2 are actually frozen chunks of H2O, because I'd *love* to hear this story.

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Okay I didnt realise that the medicine heal was interruptable, which is quite dumb for a heal.

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It wasn't intended as an "in combat" pool to begin with. You can still fire off the heal very easy when under fire, especially if you slot interrupt reduction; however, you'll be "locked" out of doing anything else for about 4 seconds since that's the animation time of the heals (you can still move, you just can't use other powers until that 4 seconds are up).