Adeon Hawkwood

Agreed. I ran Mender Ramiel's arc on all 8 of my level 50s but I'm only actually playing 3 of them.

See I'm the opposite. When I think of Superheroes I imagine them fighting powerful Supervillains not mowing down hordes of mooks.

True, but part of the reason that people are spreading misinformation is that they have no real information. People see apparent trends and assume that those are how it works.

Huh, the wiki says they are Intangibility Duration enhancements.
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Gravit...imension_Shift
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Hamido...isome_Exposure

Actually Intangibility enhancements will increase the duration of the mez, not the magnitude.

Since Dimension Shift is only mag 3 I don't think it will phase shift bosses unless two characters stack it although I'll admit I've never tested it.

What Forbin said. Also given the fact that the BAF currently lags horribly on full teams there needs to be a way to run non-full teams.

Except that the queue will just add any extra people as a new team. Locking teams does not prevent the queue from adding more people.

Short answer: he's deliberately trying to make it more complicated than it needs to be in order to hold his attention.

Steelclaw is one of those people who gets bored with "simple" systems such as CoH and so overlays his own more complex system to keep it interesting.

Correct. It's also worth looking at what the partial set can offer. A lot of sets only need 4 or 5 IOs to get the "good" bonuses so it's worth considering what the set will look like with that slotted and what you might want in the remaining slots.

For example Positron's Blast is a popular choice for Targeted AoEs. Recommend leaving out the Da,age/Range enhancement because:
1. Having all 6 only gives a toxic resistance bonus
2. The set is heavily overslotted for damage
3. Range is of limited use in Targeted AoEs (although it is handy in cones) and the single half aspect doesn't do much on it's own unless you use the 6th slot for a regular range enhancement or take the Cardiac Alpha.

No. Common IOs are used in place of SOs since they have slightly better values (at level 30+) and unlike SOs do not expire. A lot of people use generic IOs as a leveling build since they require less effort than SOs (don't need to keep replacing them) or Frankenslotting (which requires buying lots of different salvage).

They aren't used as much in high end builds but even there most builds will have a couple of powers with common IOs. Two level 50 commons gives about 85% enhancement pre-ED which can be a useful way of saving slots on a power that needs some enhancement but isn't critical.

For example on my Bots/Traps MM I have two level 50 Recharge IOs in Repair since I want maximum recharge but don't have a spare slot to ED cap it.

Not quite. Frankenslotting gives you the most return on a per-slot basis and allows you to customize a power's slotting to get exactly what you want. A Frankenslotted build will have more enhancement (as in total enhancement, spread over however many aspects you desire) in each power than a SO'd build or a Set IO build but lacks the set bonuses. Even in Set IO builds Frankenslotting one or two powers is common practice to avoid Rule of Five violations or maximize a critical power.

For example my AR/Dev Blaster used to have LRM form Munitions Mastery. I had it frankenslotted for Damage, Recharge and accuracy because the only useful set for it was Positron's Blast and I already had 5 Large Recharge Bonuses.

It's a tradeoff. Most good IO builds aim to pick up bonuses without sacrificing much in the way of enhancement values. While it is sometimes beneficial to underslot a power in order to pick up a useful bonus doing it to much can result in a build which performs poorly.

An example of this was a build I saw on these forums (A Dark/Inv Brute) IIRC where the owner was so focused on getting recharge bonuses that he was slotting his attack powers with mez/debuff sets at the expense of damage.

A good Set IO build is about more than just tossing sets into powers and hoping for the best.

True, but we're assuming that they will keep the Villain SF as Ice Mistral and pair it with Numina again (as it was the first time) rather than changing both WSTs.

Also as a general note the WSTs have been trending to lower levels recently (April and May between them have one week that had a level 50 WST). I suspect that the devs are doing that deliberately. Since most level 50s are running the trials the WST is currently being run largely by lower level characters so making it more accessible level-wise means it gets run more.

Agreed. I don't have any Steampunk characters but I do have several characters who could probably use some of the bits from the pack.

That wouldn't surprise me, although I hope they do it before that week rather than changing it halfway through. Of course, since that's during the Preatorian Invasion (which presumably involves zone events) Numina won't exactly be a popular choice either.

The Crab Spider backpack is more your powers influencing your costume rather than your costume influencing your powers though.

Well in the case of M30 versus Full Auto, the fact is if you look at the Blast powers in general Cones get a HUGE discount on End costs (and shorter recharge) relative to targeted AoEs for the same damage. Maybe the devs should look at reducing the end cost of targeted AoEs (or increasing the end cost of cones), I really don't know. Changing the end cost of just M30 though would be a mistake, plenty of other blast sets have identical (or nearly identical) powers so it really amounts to changing the formula used to balance those powers.

Flamethrower is more interesting case since no other set has a directly comparable power. It has higher damage than any cone except Full Auto and has a 45 degree arc. Compared, however, to Fire Breath the end cost does seem excessive. Personally I think the problem is that the endurance equation overestimates the value of the wider arc. Yes it's nice but target caps make it less useful. Personally I'd say keep the end cost the same and increase the target cap to compensate (same goes for Full Auto although it should probably have a slightly higher end cost). I know 10 is the standard cap for cones, but AR is supposed to be the cone heavy set, it should be allowed to break some rules.

No it doesn't. Empty Clips is basically a clone of Buckshot (with a much longer animation) and Bullet Rain is almost identical to M30 Grenade (slightly higher damage but also has slightly higher recharge to balance it) both have the same target caps as their AR equivalents. HoB does have a higher target cap than FA but it also has twice the recharge and requires you to be in melee range instead of working at full range. HoB does get a damage boost but since the tics only hit 60% of the time it's only about 14% so overall I would consider FA to be superior to HoB.

And of course AR has a fourth AoE in Flamethrower (which is a heavier AoE than Buckshot, M30 Grenade and their DP equivalents).

It always made sense to me (at least for PvE).

The perception debuff is really all or nothing, due to aggro mechanics if one enemy in a spawn sees you they will generally all attack. For it to do any good you need to hit the entire spawn. Since hitting caps at 95% making it auto-hit makes the grenades a lot more useful for sneaking.

The To Hit debuff is not all or nothing, if you miss a particular enemy it doesn't decrease the value of the debuff on the enemies that it did hit do making it require a hit roll is reasonable.

Not really, the in game market is a lot simpler than the real one.

The value of Build Up to a Blaster varies a lot depending on your opinion. Personally I don't have it and don't particularly mind since I tend to chomp red inspirations a lot anyway. Other people will tell you it's essential.

Devices is an ok set, and it matures early which is nice however I would rate Ice as a better set for keeping a non-blapper safe. Yes, it has some melee attacks but those are a minor part of the set. Later powers (primarily Ice Patch and Shiver) give you similar abilities to keep out at range while Frozen Aura gives you the ability to stop foes long enough to disengage if necessary.

I've played both sets and I find AR much more enjoyable to play than DP. The debuffs from DP aren't really that great (especially on a Blaster) and the shorter animations in AR give it a much smoother feel. DP is flashy but after a while the long animations really get annoying (and the weapon draw animation in particular is frustrating).



Obviously Traps and Devices are very different sets however I will say that Traps is a Gadget set done right. It's not really fair to do a direct comparison anymore than it would be to compare other manipulation sets to support sets but in general usability aspects Traps is a LOT better than devices.

You do lose some damage switching from Blaster to Corruptor but you'll make some of that up from having a resistance debuff and better survivability.

I think the growing up the tree comment refers to unlocking the remaining 5 slots.

The perception debuff is auto-hit in PvE but not PvP. The to hit debuff can miss in both PvE and PvP.