Amberyl

My opinion is that the XP change is going to have minimal impact on farmers, but a devastating impact on most story-oriented arcs, especially high-creativity arcs making lots of use of custom enemies.

The minion-LT-boss grouping thing is going to have minimal effects on farmers, since the ones who were regular-mission farming (Battle Maiden, etc.) were already having to deal with mixed spawns. Farmers will take a few minutes to change up their AE farm-mission enemies to whatever the optimal mix du jour is, and move right along.

Similarly, farmers tend not to use a lot of custom mobs in AE, because the standard ones work just fine. If there are highly customized powerset choices that are especially weak, I don't know what they are. (Certainly I've LOOKED, trying to come up with reasonable custom enemies that won't pwn level 10 teams in low-level arcs.)

People who are using the architect "as intended", on the other hand, tend to have a lot of customs. My arc "Brute Squad vs. Hero Scouts and the Soccer Mom", for instance, is 100% customs. Although all the powersets are standard-level, the comments I've gotten indicate that the arc is challenging but soloable by all ATs -- not constant-faceplant territory, but just enough that you're having to pay attention. (This is about my ideal: I want a player to have to stay alert and play reasonably intelligently, but not be helpless.) If I were to bump up the difficulty, I'm pretty certain that it would be too hard. Moreover, I believe that the current level of challenge is equivalent to fighting a high-level standard group, since I've got a wide mix of powersets, melee, ranged, control, healing, etc. in the mob group.

My prediction is that this is pretty much going to kill actual story-oriented play in MA, because there'll be no way of telling, when you look at a mission, what its XP value is going to be. MA standard enemies are ALREADY harder than normal enemies. I'm not sure what bit of insanity (beyond deliberately trying to level slowly) would drive a player to both super-size his challenge level AND get nerfed XP for it.

Farmers, on the other hand, will chug along just fine.

To the OP: That last 5% makes an enormous difference -- it drops the chance of a hit by HALF. You're not so much following Dasbert's build as you're getting partially there, it sounds like.

An even-level critter has a 50% chance to hit you. Minus your 40% defense, that's 10%.

A boss gets a 1.3x accuracy multiplier, and a +2 critter gets a 1.2x accuracy multiplier. So, altogether, the 52 boss has 1.56 multiplier.

So, 1.56x times 10% is a 15.6% chance to hit you. So, roughly one out of every 6 attacks will hit you. If you pull a dozen critters, you'll get hit twice every attack round.

Getting your defense to 45% means that the chance of a hit drops by half -- 50% minus 45%, times 1.56, which is 7.8%. Roughly one out of every 13 attacks will hit.

Dasbert's build is designed to farm 50s, by the way, not 52s. At the 45% cap, that's a 6.5% chance for something to hit you. Roughly one out of every 15 attacks will hit.

To Krya: You can't usefully have more than 45% defense; the accuracy mods are applied AFTER the defense/tohit mods, with a clamp of 5%.

HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) )

See http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics

By the way, my build is Dasbert-inspired, and while I can do 52 bosses, I much prefer 50s; it's much more efficient. Also, I find it highly useful to have Earth's Embrace plus some extra accuracy on top of what he uses. Reaching the HP cap helps survivability quite a bit.

I'd suggest getting Tactics before you take Assault; it will be appreciated from the moment you get it. You may actually want to forego Assault entirely, as its damage boost is fairly weak, and it can't be usefully enhanced.

I guess I'll start the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

As an empathy defender, you do not need the Medicine pool. You should not take the Medicine pool. I mean it. Don't take any Medicine powers. You will definitely want Stamina earlier on. Since you will not be taking the Medicine pool, you should be able to fit it into your build earlier.

You should pick up Fortitude as soon as it is available at level 12, and make sure someone gets it every time it recharges. It is a fantastic buff. Among other things, it buffs defense, making it less likely that someone will be hit, and therefore less likely that they'll actually need healing.

You do not really need both Heal Other and Absorb Pain, although this is somewhat a matter of taste.

There are multiple excellent guides to Empathy out there. You really, really want to read one of them, and then retry this build from scratch.

Not all maps are capped at 1500 tickets. Smaller maps can have lower caps.

I have 4 GB of RAM, but having CoH constantly eat more memory, regardless of whether more memory is available to it, is still undesirable.

I changed absolutely nothing. I really mean that. I know, yes, that people say, "oh but I forgot I did X". Nothing, from one day to another.

With this latest patch, City of Heroes is using massively more memory on my PC than it did before. Previously, it would typically use around 600-700 MB when playing. Now it's using around that at load, and by the time I log in a character, it's up above 900 MB. (No other changes to my PC.)

Moreover, the amount of memory used goes up constantly, even if I sit somewhere by myself and do nothing. The climb is fastest when logged in, but merely sitting at the character selection screen will cause memory to climb slowly, 4K at a time; this can be sped up by simply moving the mouse pointer around, but not clicking anything.

An /unloadgfx will cause the memory usage to drop very slightly, but it will begin climbing immediately.

While CoH memory usage has always crept up in I15 as the game was running, this is a huge boost in the memory used, and continuous consumption. (To my recollection, the tendency to leak a lot of memory was new with I15; I periodically have to restart the I15 client to reduce memory consumption, whereas I could leave it running indefinitely previously without it trying to gobble a ton of RAM.)

Heraclea, why not take my suggestion in the guide of asking for ID for its slow-movement-speed effect? (It's a nice power stacked on a WP tanker as well, for its smashing resists.) It may provide enough slowness to help.

The recharge benefit of Speed Boost is huge. It's not a "buff"; it's a BUFF. 50% more recharge means 50% more big powers firing off -- more AoE damage, big buffs up more often (AM, RA, etc.), nukes up more often, AoE holds up more often, some people being able to get to perma-Hasten, powers like Dull Pain up more often (and potentially stackable), and for you, the WP/SS tank, more Footstomp and thus more mitigation. More recharge means a faster mission, more XP per minute, greater safety, all kinds of lovely things.

I'm not convinced that most people suck so much at movement control, that they are normally at much of a chance to aggro the next spawn through uncontrolled movement. Next spawn aggro is often the result of not watching where you're going, or more frequently, pets that have ventured off where they shouldn't go. (Arguably, if you're fighting spawns that are that close, you should have pulled anyway, rather than charged.)

I recognize that individuals sometimes cite movement control issues, and I recognize that there are real problems, which I generally attribute to poor keyboard sensitivity, poor configuration of options like turning speed, or personal physical challenges (dystonia, etc.). But I don't think such issues impact the majority of the players. (I'm not sure, for instance, how you get from "target player" to "end up accidentally next to player", since targeting and movement should be entirely separate.)

I wasn't dying every spawn -- just the occasional patch of apparently really bad luck. I also had some particular bad moments when my health was getting whittled down bit by bit (or in huge chunks if a stray boss shot came my way), I'd blown Hoarfrost and Hibernate, as well as the greens, oranges, and purples in my tray, and despite the abundance of teammates who could heal and buff, the only healing coming was usually a weak aura heal at the end of the spawn, and buffs were pretty rare. (Yeah, I was in PUG hell much of the time. So goes 2XP weekend.)

I do plan to use set IOs, but not until I reach 50; I don't have the spare Influence to do anything other than use SOs and the occasional cheap basic IO snagged from leaving up multi-day bids on Wentworth's, so I can save up enough to get properly IO'd at 50 (and even then I expect to resort to trading Inf from one of my other toons).

I have all the Ice Armor powers minus Permafrost (but the enemies I'm fighting aren't doing Cold or Fire, anyway), slotted out logically, plus Tough, Weave, and Combat Jumping so I'm about at as much defense and resistance as I can get without IO bonuses, and I have Chilling Embrace and Icicles running. I felt squishy pre-Fighting pool, but figured it would get better once I had Tough and Weave and gotten them slotted out; now that I have, I only feel moderately less squishy. It's a great aggro-holding tank, aside from the random squishiness.

I think what bothers me is that defense has really variable performance. Sometimes you don't get hit and it's all fine and dandy, and sometimes the RNG just has it out for you and you get owned. Since practically any toon can softcap S/L these days, it feels insufficient to be dependent upon defense alone, particularly when dying tends to lead to a team wipe. I like my performance to be at least partially independent of whether or not my team sucks or not, and with sucking being more common than not sucking these days, I'm thinking that perhaps ice is not going to be my style unless I'm playing exclusively with my SG.

I've got an ice/fire tanker sitting at level 38 at the moment, and he continues to be awfully squishy. This is an SO build, but even against pure smash/lethal, he's something of a wuss.

My armors are slotted with three defenses, I have Tough with three resists, I have Weave with three defenses, I have Hoarfrost slotted three recharge three heal so it's maximally effective, I have Combat Jumping. I also have Energy Absorption slotted up fully, and I recognize it also gives a defense boost.

Now, I recognize that at 50, with IOs, I'll be able to (rather expensively, unfortunately) softcap at least S/L defense. But at the moment, I'm sitting at about 35% defense and 23% resist, fully slotted, minus Energy Absorption's brief buff. (Versus a stone tank's Granite, which would grant 20% defense and 50% resist unslotted.)

What do I do to not suck? I still have twelve levels to go to 50.

Since I chose a /fire secondary, I'm lacking the mitigation that I'd get with, say, SS. I do have Hibernate, but turning into a little block of ice makes me feel like a wuss, and the regen rate is nailbiting. I am teaming with people who can heal and buff, but I tend to PUG a lot, which means that actually getting a heal or buff is unreliable at best. (Fortitude, say, can help a lot, since it fills up the defense gap to the softcap and beyond, but the other day I was on a team where between buffs and whatnot I was at 62% defense according to the combat attributes monitor, but still would sometimes take enough hits in a row from an alpha strike that I might as well have been one-shot.)

Standard tanking tactics, i.e., gather and cluster up, no herding.

Quite a few of these guides were purged when the old boards were purged, I believe. I know I've tried to access some of them in the recent past and got the "forum not found" message, which is typical of that purge. Many of the guides-to-guides in the various forums link to posts no longer extant.

So the other day I'm sitting around in Atlas, bored and wanting to kill some time, so when I hear some guy broadcasting a LFM for a 52 AE boss mission, I send him a tell saying sure, 50 fire/kin controller, toss me an invite.

The guy (a 50 tank) sends me a tell back saying, "We need heals only."

Once I'm over my "..." reaction, I send him another tell, repeating, fire/kin. He replies no, they just need a healer.

I almost offered to come along and trail the team spamming Transfusion on autofire, doing nothing else, but I decided I wasn't that bored.

DasBert's build will do 50s easily.

I've done a similar build with a bit more accuracy and a little less recharge, so it has somewhat broader usefulness (it has no accuracy issues with 52s, making it a viable build for team missions, although I have an alternative build that I use for TFs and the like). It's cheap; I managed to do mine for about 50 million with some patient auctioneering. It's not quite at the soft cap for defense (it's about 40% def), but the extra hit points from Earth's Embrace provide a useful buffer for additional survivability.

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Level 1: Char -- BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(A), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(40), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(40), BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(40)
Level 1: Transfusion -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(3), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(3), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Dct'dW-Rchg(23), Acc-I(31)
Level 2: Siphon Power -- Acc-I(A)
Level 4: Fire Cages -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg(A), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob(5), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(5), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng(15), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(15), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(31)
Level 6: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(7), RechRdx-I(7)
Level 8: Hot Feet -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(9), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(9), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(17), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(17), Oblit-%Dam(43)
Level 10: Siphon Speed -- Acc-I(A), RechRdx-I(11), RechRdx-I(11), RechRdx-I(31)
Level 12: Flashfire -- Stpfy-Acc/Rchg(A), Stpfy-EndRdx/Stun(13), Stpfy-Acc/EndRdx(13), Stpfy-Stun/Rng(25), Stpfy-Acc/Stun/Rchg(25), RechRdx-I(46)
Level 14: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 16: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 18: Cinders -- BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(A), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(19), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(19), BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(27), RechRdx-I(27)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(21), EndMod-I(21)
Level 22: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 24: Tough -- TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(A), ResDam-I(29), ResDam-I(29)
Level 26: Weave -- S'dpty-Def/EndRdx(A), S'dpty-Def(34), DefBuff-I(37), Ksmt-ToHit+(46), Krma-ResKB(46)
Level 28: Speed Boost -- Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(A)
Level 30: Increase Density -- Aegis-Psi/Status(A)
Level 32: Fire Imps -- C'Arms-Acc/Rchg(A), C'Arms-Acc/Dmg(33), C'Arms-Dmg/EndRdx(33), C'Arms-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), C'Arms-+Def(Pets)(34), Dmg-I(34)
Level 35: Transference -- Efficacy-EndMod(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(36), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(36), Efficacy-Acc/Rchg(36), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc(37), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx(37)
Level 38: Fulcrum Shift -- Acc-I(A), RechRdx-I(39), RechRdx-I(39), RechRdx-I(39)
Level 41: Fissure -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(42), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(42), Posi-Dmg/Rng(42), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(43), FrcFbk-Rechg%(43)
Level 44: Seismic Smash -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(45), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(45), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 47: Rock Armor -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(48), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(48), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(48), RedFtn-Def(50)
Level 49: Earth's Embrace -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50), RechRdx-I(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Containment
------------
[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]<ul type="square">[*]7.5% DamageBuff (Smashing Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative, Toxic, Psionic)[*]5% Defense[*]9.69% Defense(Smashing, Lethal)[*]5% Defense(Energy, Negative)[*]10% Defense(Melee)[*]2.5% Defense(Ranged)[*]3% Enhancement(Stun)[*]57.5% Enhancement(RechargeTime)[*]18% Enhancement(Accuracy)[*]3% Enhancement(Immobilize)[*]4% Enhancement(Heal)[*]61 HP (6%) HitPoints[*]Knockback, Knockup (Mag -4)[*]MezResist(Immobilize) 4.95%[*]MezResist(Stun, Terrorized) 2.2%[*]13% (0.22 End/sec) Recovery[*]14% (0.59 HP/sec) Regeneration[*]1.89% Resistance(Smashing, Lethal)[*]4.1% Resistance(Fire, Cold)[*]1.88% Resistance(Negative)[*]3% Resistance(Psionic)[/list]

If you're really healing-oriented (and I hope you mean buffing-oriented, because that becomes your major role at higher levels), and taking Empathy, I'd suggest picking a secondary with side-effects that are good right out of the box, without needing slots early on in your build. /sonic is excellent because of the -res, and there's a nice big cone (Howl) that you can pick up at level 4 for that effect.

Radiation is really not a healing primary, and if you're playing it to heal, you're going to find that it's a frustrating set. Its aura heal is pretty anemic, even when slotted.

This ought to be moved out of the guides forum...

[ QUOTE ]
For example, we ran a Posi TF yesterday. About 30 min into the TF, 3rd mission, one of the members said "how long will this take?" I replied, we're on #4 of 16, so maybe 90min or so depending on the group. He replies, thats too long, i'm outta here....BAM drops group...30 seconds later, the healer says yeah this is really boring, not like the real game....

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately, Posi is a horrible, horrible, grotesquely dull grindfest that takes forever. I'd be more concerned if people were taking that attitude towards, say, the Ernesto Hess TF, with its cool robot factory and giant robot fight and whatnot. I don't know if people actually run Posi to have fun, and I wonder how many would ever do it if it didn't have a badge and merits associated with it.

This guide, slightly updated, and likely to be expanded over time, is now over on Paragon Wiki.

Future readers, please go there to read this.

Today I ran into a bubbler who wouldn't bubble. Got himself kicked from the team, but he had to flat-out refuse to bubble after being asked repeatedly, before he got his leeching butt booted.

I've noticed an interesting trend of rads taking EF as soon as they can, now, rather than waiting until the 20s when they've got Stamina (common in many builds due to how much of a drain EF is). And then waiting to take RI. Presumably this is because big mob AoE hoedowns value EF much more than they value RI.

(QR)

The cold truth is that it's not so much the ease of farming the AE that's resulting in giant fountains of XP for the world in general. It's the fact that the fairly random team make-up of 8-man AE means that many higher-level characters are willing to extend charity to lower-level characters and to players who just plain incompetent or stupid.

Smart players with well-built toons have, in the past, generally primarily run with SGmates and other players they know will be good, and they haven't had any patience for dragging around lower-level toons that weren't in their SG or circle of friends. Now in AE, two or three of those good players can pretty much hold a group of 8 together without a problem.

By the way, forcing mixed spawns won't really slow down the speed any. Minions die from the initial team alpha, and the LTs very well might too. Pure boss spawns actually pose a bit of danger.

Players are routinely achieving feats now that used to be thought impossible, even pre-ED. Since you cannot nerf player competence, something else would be necessary.

I suspect a certain amount of clever sneakiness on the part of the devs in adding the new mission spawning stuff: If a much smaller core of competent players is able to spawn a mission set for 8 (or even more extreme heights of difficulty), they have no incentive to allow others to tag along and contribute minimally. Sure, those players will still be garnering big batches of rewards, but they were doing that anyway before AE came along.

Everyone else that's left will be wondering why it used to be easy to do 8-man 54 boss farms. The usual AE babies without a modicum of sense or diligence will be faceplanting regularly, and things will go back to normal.

[ QUOTE ]
Grabbed a level 6 rad defender out of broadcast as I started up a 53's farming team to level my shield tanker. He was the first player I picked. "Do you have EF?" "Yes" "Ok. Bear with me while I build a team." &lt;3 that people are looking for healers and leaving me the good stuff.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ended up on a team tonight whose leader was deliberately looking for as much damage buffing as possible -- Fulcrum Shift + EF + Tar Patch + /sonic defender AoEs. Much lovely melting of mobs.

My new guide to kinetics team play (as opposed to kinetics builds): Guide to Playing Kinetics on Large Teams