Barata

I enjoy those early levels, even with the endurance restrictions, because that's what I expect in an MMORPG.... to have a character start out basically as an average person, and then gradually work up to be powerful. To manage endurance, I do a few things....

1) I concentrate on accuracy in attacks. Missing wastes more endurance than anything. Beginner's Luck is helpful, but I still slot up accuracy in powers first, followed by damage. I could slot for endurance, but having more damage also saves endurance too.

2) For toggles on tanks and scrappers, I slot for endurance first. The boost of resistance or defense is negligible for TOs, so endurance makes those sets much much more friendly.

3) Like others have said, use your attacks intelligently. Don't fire off an AoE fireball at a minion that only has a few points of health left. Plan your attacks with endurance usage in mind. I've been on my blaster where I've run low on endurance, so I just kept using Chillblain on a boss or lieutenant. It would root them, damage them, but was easy on endurance and I'd win even when my endurance was empty as I was able to fire it off with every tick on my endurance bar.

4) Pace yourself. It only takes one minute for your endurance to fully replenish if it's empty. Taking just a few seconds to look at the next spawn and size them up, rather than just jumping in and spamming attack buttons, gives you another tick or two of endurance.

5) Coordinate your endurance with your health. That is, your health is going to replenish much much more slowly than your endurance. By pacing yourself and saving Rest for when your health is low, you won't get stuck with low health and having to wait a few minutes for health to come back because you blew the Rest on endurance just a minute earlier.

6) When you get to the teens, start looking at DOs for endurance reduction in heavy powers. Also check out IO sets for frankenslotting. IOs for Acc/Dam may cost a lot, but there are cheaper ones that help too. For example, you have an attack that does defense debuff, look for an IO belonging to the Defense Debuff set that has Acc/End, or End/Rech or any other number of IOs that may apply to that set. I've found that using the IO sets as early as you could really makes a difference on your character.

If anyone has the time, I'd love to get some more reactions to my arc. Some background.... I came up with it as I was writing it. I had a picture in mind of a villain group reminiscent of the silver-age villains you'd find in the comics (the ones with campy names or themes, like the Royal Flush Gang who dress up as characters in playing cards).

ID: 30821
Title: A Clean Break
The Pool Gang were just a bunch of local homeboys frequenting the pool halls in Kings Row. When capes started proliferating, they found an excuse to put on tights and hassle the local gangs. But someone seems to be leading them into more dangerous waters, and you're asked by a friend to come down on them before they get in too deep.

Even though the story was spontaneous and, admittedly, a learning exercise while I was discovering the Architect, I spent time polishing dialog, costumes, mission objectives, and story. I worked on picking out powers for the villains so they'd be a moderate challenge for the average player. I also spent time adding small details to make it look more professional (proper wording for clues, navigation text, etc.). I'm rather pleased with how it all came out, and got good feedback from the few people who played it (two so far), so I wouldn't mind hearing from more people.

[ QUOTE ]
I am finishing up my arc. I have the story, missions, etc.

But my text is a bit flat. I just don't have the knack for the dialog. I'm trying to do horror and need my contact to speak like a voodoo priestess, some evil sorceror chants, and I want horror style shock and fear in my rescue victims.

Anyone good at dialog want to help punch up my text?

[/ QUOTE ]

Try this.... close your eyes, picture the character in your mind. What do they say? If they speak with an accent, then you can try adjusting the spelling a bit to convey the accent.

"wha do ya mean ya got no idea? Who you tink you be talkin' too boy?"

What they should do is have it like the online shopping places have it.... where you see how many people voted it five, how many voted it four, etc. If you see 10 five-star votes, and 2 one-star votes, you have an idea of what to expect.

I apologize for plugging my own story. When I was reading the original post, I read the first paragraph and jumped ahead without continuing (as others have done). I meant no harm by it. That said....

Out of Mind, part 1. Arc ID: 27287.
VERY VERY GOOD! I gave it five stars. It had great dialog, interesting villains, and a good story. The pacing was nice, and it fit right with the CoH world.

Yeah, it's the one in my sig. It's listed as long, but there's no defeat alls, so it's just three medium-sized missions. I'd appreciate some advice. I think the minions are OK. The lieutenants aren't quite what I was hoping for, but not too far off, so I don't have concerns over them.

Like I mentioned, the first boss runs if he can't get to you, but I don't mind that too much. The 2nd boss I just don't think is quite right. And there's an ally on the third, which I flagged to be an EB (spawning as a Boss on Heroic), so he's not too much of a concern. I just want the bosses to be challenging, but not brutal. If you can take a look, that'd be totally great!!!

Thanks for the advice. I think I'll leave him for a bit then unless I get some feedback from people. The minions have proven they could be a handful because I gave some the Fire Blast set, which means they have defiance and can attack when held. What a surprise! I like it though. It means a controller's holds are still very useful, but doesn't fully remove all danger from the encounter. And the other minions can be dangerous if you're not cautious. Overall, I like the difficulty of the MA characters. Well, as long as they're not ramped up too much where they become impossible.

I wrote a 3-mission arc. Each mission has a final boss. The first is ice/ice tanker and seems soloable enough. He does run if he can't get to you, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. He's supposed to be a bit of a coward anyway.

The 2nd boss is giving me a hard time. He was Dark/Dark Armor, but was too difficult. My earth controller couldn't hold him or damage him enough and died twice while fighting him. So I changed him to Dark/Shield. Even though he's flagged as a boss, he spawned as a lieutenant and was easily held by my controller.

Is it normal to for a boss to spawn as a lieutenant on Heroic difficulty? What's the opinion of keeping it like that so that people who don't want too much of a challenge can still engage him? I like the dark set as a primary, I'm still unsure of the secondary, so I could use some advice. I'd like something that's a moderate challenge on heroic, but scales up with difficulty and team size. Any suggestions on power combos or settings?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
After introduction of IO, some of the characteristics of device can be acquired through IO, for example targeting drone and cloaking device. Blasters don't need to go to device for such features. One can argue that IO bonus can add on top of device abilities. But I think it's true to a certain extent that device lost some of its attractiveness now.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe among the farmers who can afford to spend the huge amounts of Inf needed for such sets. For us regular Blasters, /Devices is great and, if we were able to duplicate some of the abilities (though never all) of the abilities via IO sets, it wouldn't be until very late in the character's life, anyways.

[/ QUOTE ]

Also, Targeting Drone gives you To-Hit Debuff resistance, which I don't think you can get from IOs. And yes, you can get stealth from IOs easily enough, but with Cloaking Device, you can get virtual invisibility, letting you boombox amidst mobs if you want. Some people will say "you don't need CD because Superspeed and an IO gives you that", but that's assuming you take Superspeed. My AR/Dev has Superjump. Adding the stealth IO to Combat Jumping lets it stack with Cloaking Device and give him invisibility.

My one arc, which I've been trying to spruce up, is a non-farm arc, soloable, and of medium length with a real story. It uses custom villains, and I spent most of the time working on dialog so that it feels like a real story. It's arc #30821, A Clean Break. I'm dying for other people to try it and give some feedback so I can make it better.

[ QUOTE ]
My issue with the ratings is that the 4 and 5 star mishs are alot of farms. I went into a 5 star mish yesterday: outdoor map, like 20 glowies and 20 destructable objects, and all the troops had a melee attack and a web grenade. That's 5 stars?


[/ QUOTE ]
Then give it 1 star. I would.

I'm serious. Three stars should be considered "average". To go higher or lower means it's above average or below average. A mission might be the most wonderful farm there is, but that doesn't mean it's a particularly good mission. A story arc/mission needs to be entertaining, not just generous with rewards and tickets. If I go into a mission that's rated highly and see that the author just slapped in one or two villains, repeated them throughout the map, and the whole mission is nothing more than something for a fire/kin to run through to get tickets, it'll be rated appropriately: low scores for originality, coherency, interest, challenge, and effort.

Heck, I didn't even give my own arc a five-star rating! I was happy with it, felt it was good, but not great, so rated it accordingly. I'll be darned if I'm going to give other people five stars when theirs is one or two at best.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Honestly folks...this is an MMO. How high a standard do we want here? Most people aren't going to be putting weeks tweaking their arcs. If the story is good, the mobs acceptable in challenge and the whole is engaging it should be noted by both players and Devs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why should an average mission the author didn't spend a tremendous amount of time on be rewarded with 5 stars?

The bar for a Hall of Fame should be higher than "the author spelled all the words correctly, and the enemies weren't terrible".

To me a pretty good story is a three star story- I don't grade on a curve because I'm worried about hurting someone's feelings.

With regards to Green Dwarf's story, the plot synopsis reminds me strongly of a low level mission in WoW where dwarven brewers send you around the zone collecting this and that for their special stout, and an enemy you can't defeat without ranged attacks is terrible design, period.

[/ QUOTE ]

This! Exactly!

I don't like giving a 1 or 2 to people, but when I enter a story, see it's filled with the same repetitious custom mob, has no text (in one story, the player literally just hit random keys to get the field filled in), and was obviously slapped together in 15 minutes, it's going to get a very low rating from me. It may be the most wonderful farming mission ever created, but it doesn't make it a good mission. It could be an incredible story, .but if it's unplayable by the average character because it's geared for the author's purpled-out Warshade, it'll get a lower score from me.

But if you take the time to write a coherent plausible story that plays smoothly, is of an appropriate challenge for whatever difficulty level you're playing at, and has good entertainment value, then I'll rate it higher than 3 stars.

[ QUOTE ]
If the internet has taught me anything, it's that anonymity is more likely to cause some people to act like jerks than the other way around.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. I was playing last night and was in the consignment house in Talos. My main system had a hardware crash, so I'm forced to use my laptop, which takes FOREVER to zone. I dreaded going to my SG to make IOs because it would take me five minutes just to zone. So I casually ask in the cosignment house "would it be possible for someone who is able to cast an enhancement workstation?"

The reply from one guy was "I can, but I won't."



That served no purpose other than to just be a jerk. I'm always polite and respectful, regardless of anonymity, so I'm surprised when I see people who decide "I'm gonna be a jerk because I could." The whole concept is foreign to me.

I any case, some people do use their anonymity to be jerks. Thankfully, some people still act as respectful and polite as they do when face-to-face.

Venture, can you look at mine?
ID: 30821
Title: The Pool Gang
Author: @Crimson Racer

The Pool Gang were just a bunch of locals from Kings Row who hung out in pool halls. Being slight of stature, they found that people noticed them more when they were in a group. As capes started proliferating, they now had an excuse to put on tights and kick the butts of the local street gangs. But they started to go beyond just picking on the gangs, causing the arc's contact to leave the group. He asks you to see if you can knock some sense into them. He figures when they see someone from the big league coming down on them, they'll hang up their tights and come back to their normal Saturday night pool sessions. If you agree to help out, you can hopefully find out who's exploiting them.

It's listed as long, but it's only three missions and none are a Defeat All, so you can stealth to the few objectives there are (though some mobs seem to have better-than-usual perception). A custom boss exists for each level, the end boss is an EB if you're set for a middle difficulty level. The end mission has the contact joining you as an ally, so it shouldn't be too difficult. I think the overall difficulty is about moderate.

The Pool Gang is a custom group. I wanted to do something with a silver-age feel to it, like the old campy villains in the DC universe way back when. Like the Royal Flush Gang dress up like playing card characters, these guys, coming from a pool hall, look like billiard balls.

In any case, I had a great time coming up with something that I don't think is exceptional, but I think is better than just the average mission. The problem is that there's so many stories out there that it's not getting played. I'd love some feedback. I have plans on going in and adding a few details here and there like custom dialog at different points.... things to add a little more flavor and bring it to life more.

[ QUOTE ]

Re: Gilla Fullmens

You are both wrong. Having buildup in the secondary vastly increases the kill rate for a blaster against spawns. AIM+BU+AOES = No Minions badly hurt lts and upset bosses.

As to using MIDS you can't. It won't let you compare attack chains and it won't let you compare peak damage (AiM+BU+Defiance)

Buildup alone significantly boosts the blasters damage output. Having a good secondary does mor as you can fill in your attack chain.


True Devices doesn't do this but it works differently when applied to a spawn. time bomb + whatever = massive spike damage. Time bomb + well placed trip mines = really massive damage.

As to teams devices blasters have their role. They are blaster ghosts. They can stealth to an objective and have the battlefield prepped as a killing ground or they can simply solo ahead.

[/ QUOTE ]
Aim+BU+AoE does do incredible damage for spawns. But AR/Dev does have its own version. Full Auto does incredible damage. The only other blaster nuke that compares to it is Rain of Arrows. Slug+Flamethrower+Full Auto has FA benefiting from the Defiance boost of the previous two, and it does massive damage with a recharge rate similar to Aim and Buildup. It's not like AR/Dev doesn't have it's own capability to do extreme burst damage.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
i'm pondering trying out an assault rifle/devices blaster,

[/ QUOTE ]

don't do it.

AR is an OK primary, but everything on earth resists smashing/lethal damage. Flamethrower and Beanbag are great, M90 grenade & ignite are crummy, everything else is 'eh'.

And devices is hands down the worst secondary.
It used to be pretty good, but the game has changed and /devices hasn't.

power by power:

Web Grenade
the usual 'throwaway' power, no better or worse than any other secondary.

Caltrops
a great power, useful solo or in groups.

Taser
beanbag without range- skippable for any ar/dev

Targeting Drone
the changed to toggles and addition of set IOs make this better than it used to be. Still sort of redundant- beyond the early levels, hitting people isn't really a problem.

Smoke Grenade
the definition of 'skippable power'.
If you really like stealth save up for an IO and save the power choice.

Cloaking Device
see 'Smoke Grenade'

Trip Mine
useless on teams- nobody is going to sit around while you spend ten minutes setting up your mine field.
Useful solo if you don't mind the set-up time, but still situational.
And 'situational' is just a polite way of saying 'skippable'.

Time Bomb
Absolute junk.
All the down sides of trip mines, but it never hits anything.
You'll hate yourself for taking this power.

Auto Turret
Used to be a complete waste of a power. But they made it mobile, which would improve it about 10000%.
Haven't played with it so I don't know how 'good' it is, but it sounds decent.

Of course the biggest flaw with Devices is one of omission- no build up. For an AT who's whole rational is dealing damage this is unforgivable.
Pre ED the ability to six-slot for damage and let your drone take care of accuracy made up for it, but not any more.

[/ QUOTE ]
Webnade + Ignite = Awesomeness
Taser + Beanbug = Boss-level Stun
TD = no more blinds

AR/Dev is not without its weaknesses, but it also has its charms. And /devices does give you things that no other secondary gives. If it's as bad as people say it is, there wouldn't be that many people who enjoy playing it. But people do enjoy it because it lets them engage in a playstyle that's truly different than the other blaster powersets.

I'd like to see TD give a damage boost too. The reasoning could be that with TD, you're able to more accurately place your attacks for maximum damage. A 20% damage boost should be good. While it sounds a bit high, it's really only a 20% boost on base damage, bringing it up to about a 10% boost overall if you slot your attacks in the typical fashion of hitting the ED caps for roughly another 95% damage.

I guess it could be scaled back a little since it does give a significant boost to accuracy, which could let you scale back on accuracy a bit and substitute recharge, increasing your damage output. Also, the perception boost is something that can't be ignored. It doesn't happen often, but when you do come up against foes like Arachnos with their blinding grenades, you can often be crippled during a battle since you can't see your opponents. Yes, you could pop a yellow, but when you're in those missions where those mobs appear, they appear with great regularity, often making you need to pop a yellow very few minutes.

Like I mentioned, one thing about devices is that it does have powers that aren't replicated in the other secondaries. TD is one, the stealth suit is another. Smoke Grenade is slightly unique in that it gives a To-Hit debuff, though not large. If slotted, it could make a noticeable difference if you have defense bonuses from IO sets and the bit of defense from the stealth suit.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
<qr>

Devices = no build up.

That is an enormous loss in sustained damage for a blaster. In the old days, before ED, devices made up for this by allowing blasters to 6 slot for damage with targeting drone. Because that is no longer a viable strategy, you sacrifice build up and get very little in return. Yes, devices has some neat powers like cloak and the mines, but overall I'd say it's lacking.

As in all things ever, YMMV.

[/ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't call it an "enormous" loss. Buildup was only good for 10 seconds out of, if you slotted it very well, 30 or 40 seconds. It boosted overall damage while it was active by what, 50%? In reality, if you used it every time it was up, your overall damage output would be increased by 10 to 15 percent. It's not a make-or-break power choice.

[/ QUOTE ]

Build up gives +100% damage for 10s every 90s.

If you take those numbers in a pre-ED build with permahasten, and 6-slot Build Up, you can get +100% damage for 10s about every 25s. +40% damage.

In a post-ED IO build, you need +125% recharge to get it up every 40s, which isn't hard if you're slotting for a few recharge bonuses. In that case, it's overall a 25% damage buff.

And if you're using it well, you're using your high-impact attacks when it goes off and using low-impact attacks while it recharges, so the numbers are probably slightly better than that anyways.

Even without hasten, and only using 2 slots, it's pretty close to 50s recharge. Which would be a 20% damage buff.

Build Up's better than you think it is.

[/ QUOTE ]
The catch though is that it's a 100% damage buff off of base damage. Since most people will have their damage already increased by close to 100% through slotting, the overall increase in damage is 50%, not 100%.

Example: An attack does 100 points of damage. Increase it by 100% through slotting, and the damage is now 200 points. Increase it by another 100% off of base, and you're adding another 100 points of damage, bringing it to 300 points. The increase from 200 to 300 is a 50% percent increase. If you can maintain that 1/4 of the time, that's a 12.5% increase in damage.

Significant, but not enormous.

[/ QUOTE ]

We appear to be quibbling over the semantics of "enormous."

At the end of the day, you get a hefty increase to burst damage, and if managed properly, as has been pointed out above, this increase is applied to your heavy hitters. No one puts BU on auto, after all.

A statistically significant (and frequent) increase to burst damage with no 'down time' involved over the course to your entire session adds up to something I am not willing to sacrifice for my blasters.

Again, to each his own.

[/ QUOTE ]
And that's perfectly fine and very understandable. Build Up gives you a good damage boost. It all comes down to personal desire, which can be said about anything in the game. I was just pointing out a problem in the math which was incorrect. If you're posting numbers for min/maxing, the difference between 50% and 100% is ... enormous.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
<qr>

Devices = no build up.

That is an enormous loss in sustained damage for a blaster. In the old days, before ED, devices made up for this by allowing blasters to 6 slot for damage with targeting drone. Because that is no longer a viable strategy, you sacrifice build up and get very little in return. Yes, devices has some neat powers like cloak and the mines, but overall I'd say it's lacking.

As in all things ever, YMMV.

[/ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't call it an "enormous" loss. Buildup was only good for 10 seconds out of, if you slotted it very well, 30 or 40 seconds. It boosted overall damage while it was active by what, 50%? In reality, if you used it every time it was up, your overall damage output would be increased by 10 to 15 percent. It's not a make-or-break power choice.

[/ QUOTE ]

Build up gives +100% damage for 10s every 90s.

If you take those numbers in a pre-ED build with permahasten, and 6-slot Build Up, you can get +100% damage for 10s about every 25s. +40% damage.

In a post-ED IO build, you need +125% recharge to get it up every 40s, which isn't hard if you're slotting for a few recharge bonuses. In that case, it's overall a 25% damage buff.

And if you're using it well, you're using your high-impact attacks when it goes off and using low-impact attacks while it recharges, so the numbers are probably slightly better than that anyways.

Even without hasten, and only using 2 slots, it's pretty close to 50s recharge. Which would be a 20% damage buff.

Build Up's better than you think it is.

[/ QUOTE ]
The catch though is that it's a 100% damage buff off of base damage. Since most people will have their damage already increased by close to 100% through slotting, the overall increase in damage is 50%, not 100%.

Example: An attack does 100 points of damage. Increase it by 100% through slotting, and the damage is now 200 points. Use Build-Up to increase it by another 100% off of base, and you're adding another 100 points of damage, bringing it to 300 points. Build-Up's increase from 200 to 300 is a 50% percent increase in overall damage output, not 100%. If you can maintain that 1/4 of the time, that's a 12.5% increase in damage.

Significant, but not enormous.

Some people will still find that 12.5% to be the deciding factor, but others may be willing to sacrifice it for other tools in the set. Targeting drone and cloaking device are two pretty unique powers for blasters as no other secondary comes to mind with something comparable. I know that every time I wind up in a map with Arachnos agents and their blinding grenades, I wish I had the targeting drone.

[ QUOTE ]
So yeah, I have to ask, what are the chances that most people will only want to do MA from now on? I ask because I tried it, and from all it promised I was severely underwhelmed. Should this game essentially become CoMA, I think I may have to go elsewhere.

I mean, I tried using the MA, and had to stop after having my dreams of making my dream of making several groups dashed by clunky and severely restricted creature creation tools. Here I was wanting to make my own little army of ninjas, only to find that I couldn't give them the powers /I/ wanted to, but rather the powers that the devs think I would want them to based on some silly "difficulty" setting.

It would have made for such a streamlined and easy to use creator if they would have let us pick our powers individually. It'd be similar to how it is now, only you'd have "power slots". What I mean is that if you make a standard Lieutenant, you'd have three power slots on primary and secondary (if both are standard) that you can fill with any three from ANY set. These sets would include all the current ones plus the few that are missing, such as poison from the mm secondary, the nontransform/kheldian only skills from the hero eat and all the primary powers from the VEATS.

/rant(suggestions)modeoff

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree. The architects in all the other games are incredibly more advanced than this one.

[ QUOTE ]
<qr>

Devices = no build up.

That is an enormous loss in sustained damage for a blaster. In the old days, before ED, devices made up for this by allowing blasters to 6 slot for damage with targeting drone. Because that is no longer a viable strategy, you sacrifice build up and get very little in return. Yes, devices has some neat powers like cloak and the mines, but overall I'd say it's lacking.

As in all things ever, YMMV.

[/ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't call it an "enormous" loss. Buildup was only good for 10 seconds out of, if you slotted it very well, 30 or 40 seconds. It boosted overall damage while it was active by what, 50%? In reality, if you used it every time it was up, your overall damage output would be increased by 10 to 15 percent. It's not a make-or-break power choice.

Other or different buffs/effects could be tied to inspirations, like the recovery or regeneration debuff resistances. I was using those as just an example of how to add some flavor to those little pills we all take.

Getting into another discussion about the merits of Stamina and whether it's a "required" power or not, a small idea popped into my head, so I'll present it here for debate.

What if inspirations did just a little bit more than they do now. What if they did something like this:

Tier 1 Green: same heal, provides a 20% regen bonus for 60 seconds.
Tier 2 Green: same heal, provides a 25% regen bonus for 60 seconds.
Teir 3 Green: same heal, provides a 30% regen bonus for 60 seconds.
(none of the above bonuses stack with each other, and the highest bonus overrides smaller ones).

Tier 1 Blue: same recovery, adds 10% recovery bonus for 60 secs.
Tier 2 Blue: same recovery, adds 15% recovery bonus for 60 secs.
Tier 3 Blue: same recovery, adds 20% recovery bonus for 60 secs.
(Like the greens, the bonuses don't stack amongst themselves, and the higher Tier is the one that takes effect).

The bonuses could be scaled down a bit if people thought they'd be too powerful. The purpose is just to make them more interesting and useful. After taking one after a battle to restore hitpoints or endurance, you'd have a boost to your own regen/recovery rate for a short while that would help out with the next fight.

Thoughts?

It is valid point that bases with an inspiration vending machine could abuse it. I hadn't considered that and withdraw my suggestion.

Steeple, not everyone has one of those in their bases. Having to heal 5 million damage is a major chore. My supergroup is only up to 85% of that now. We just have few healers in our group.

How about the ability to take three like inspirations and combine them into one that's a tier higher? When we're inundated with bunches of level 1's, we can combine them to make a few level 2's, etc. This will let us plan and work towards having Tier 3 inspirations for tough battles that we know are coming ahead in an arc/task force.