Bionic_Flea

I don't consider it gambling. To me, gambling requires a chance to win and a risk of losing. You place money on a bet or pay to spin a wheel. You may get nothing, break even, or get multiple times your bet back.

To me, the superpacks are more like the vending machines some restaurants and other places have with crappy toys, keychains and decals in a little plastic bubble. Everyone who pays a quarter gets a little plastic bubble. Of course, it may be a three-legged, pink, plastic horse and not that cool Spider-Man sticker you wanted.

I'm not a big fan of the super packs. I only bought 5 with a veteran token and I may buy another set with a point this month.

While I understand and appreciate most of the objections to them, it doesn't really bother me too much. So to all those that are willing to buy them . . . Thanks! Your money helps to fund other goodies.

But on the other hand, I'm not sure why they would discontinue selling the packs unless they stop selling. Won't people still want the original ATOs, costume pieces, and a chance at the wolf? I say sell them both.

Well, I think it is not merely subjective. A blaster can only deal damage if it is alive. Some sets help you stay alive better then others. Unless you can one shot kill everything, or have a team who can either kill them or keep them off you, you are going to take some damage.

While mitigation might be harder to quantify, it's not just subjective or speculation. Mitigation provides a tangible, quantifiable benefit -- the ability to continue dealing damage.

I have found that it is usually better not to use TopDoc as a gauge to measure anything but maximum efficiency.

Thanks for crunching the numbers.

My guesses:

1. Fire
2. Mind or Psy
3. War Mace
4. Super-Strength
5. Electric
6. Broadsword or Titan Weapon
7. Katana or Claws
8. Ice (duh)
9. Beast MM
10. Gravity

We completed the Magisterium trial last night on a team of 18, 2 of which were MMs. The leader asked everyone to dismiss ALL pets during the final battle with Tyrant. Although that does neuter MM (and controller) damage output greatly, until the bug is fixed it's better to have players getting the level shifts than pets.

Now that we now what the problem is, I completed 2 Magis back to back last night after a long string of failures the past week. I'm guessing that when the fix goes live most balanced PuG teams will be able to complete this by taking out the lights and avoiding the crackling air.

Regarding downward spiral:

On more than one occasion, when I have had the misfortune of dying, I have found myself dying again as soon as I get back to the battle for a couple of reasons:

1) Failure to retoggle everything. I think I've gotten a little spoiled logging in and having my characters all toggled up.
2) Lacking whatever buffs I had before I died.
3) Missing out on any level shifts that were gained while I was in the hospital
4) Being too far away to get the "air cackles" message and running face first into the flow lightning.

Anyone of those can be deadly and you can easily have several or all four happen at the same time. For me it's a natural reaction to want to get back into the fight as soon as possible. But I think I will now rush to the edge of the bowl, do a toggle check, look at the timer and hit pillars if up, and either use range attacks or wait for a flow lightning to go off before running in to punch Tyrant's ankles.

People are confusing lore with mechanics.

The lore says that people dying are empowering him.

The way that is handled mechanically is a barrier in the "hospital" or "limbo" that keeps you from attacking him AND his Favor of the Well power which increases his regen the lower his HP gets.

So the more people die, the less people hit him. The less people hit him, the more time his regen has to fill up his HP bar.

My suggestion on everything EXCEPT the MoM trial is, if you die, wait a few seconds for a rez and/or vengeance then if you can safely self-rez do so. Otherwise go to the hospital and get back ASAP.

Here's an interesting question: How big is the ground-zero bowl? If each pillar gives a +1 level shift centered on it's location in a spherical, 5,000 foot radius and the ground-zero bowl itself has a 5,000 foot radius or greater, then there will be an area in the center of the map where all the buffs will overlap but other areas which will have less. Imagine a Venn Diagram with 6 circles overlapping in the center.

Perhaps a key to this is to fight Tyrant in the center of ground zero?

Congratulations! Very impressive.

My guess is that pets are either not targeted or immune to the Flow Lightning, as my Vicky lore pet seems to last a pretty long time (provided that I do).

From Arbiter Hawk's Developer Diary on Massively:

If I can't control it, I don't want it. It's that simple.

If other people like it, good for them.

A lot of my characters have that extra tray taking up space because I have left over charges of a power after running a TF or trial.

If I could turn it on and off or control what went in it I would call it a great quality-of-life addition. As is . . . me no likey.

Sometime between now and 2.5 hours from now. I suggest you start patching now, if you already haven't, so that you can jump in as soon as they become available. It appears that they have finished their patch but still have the servers locked down for testing.

It really could be any minute now.

I demand to know which one of the boy's two heads are posting these builds because the other head promised he would no longer share his spectacular knowledge with the rest of the forum rabble.

Crazy old goat!

Since you have taken the dive into the land of VIP, you may want to consider leveling up by way of alignment missions and the Signature Story Arcs.

I would recommend reinforcing your alignment, so if you start as a hero, choose hero tips, or villain tips for villains. And complete your set of 10 alignments and one morality mission before starting the SSAs. Why? Well, the first time through the alignment missions you will get a few badges, 50 merits, and start a timer toward getting a nifty temp power in 7 days (as long as you keep that alignment).

While you get all that if you go vigilante or rogue as well, being "reinforced" as a hero or villain before doing the SSAs means that you get alignment merits for completing the arcs. The first time a character completes an SSA arc it gets a guaranteed a-merit. After that, you have a week-long timer between collecting another A-merit.

So, let's say you complete the alignment and all 7 SSAs in one week. That's 50 reward merits and 7 alignment merits along with all the other XP and drops you might find along the way. You could also convert those reward merits, with 20 million influence, into an additional a-merit for a total of 8.

Alignment merits can then be traded in for just about any IO recipe. One single merit can get you a single recipe from a list that includes most IOs. Two a-merits will get you any of the non-purple, non-PvP uniques and procs like LoTG, Numina, Perf. Shifter, etc. Twenty to thirty a-merits gets purples and PvP recipes.

The alignment missions themselves are better than old content. Consider them new and improved radio/newspaper missions. There are approximately 100 missions split up by side and level bands.

The SSAs are top shelf content. While some arcs are better written or have a tighter plot, there is nothing else that can match it for story, AND map selection, AND mechanics.

Since I know goats love shiny things, I thought you might enjoy new content that also has great rewards that can be further parlayed in the market.

Excellent! A persistent supply of kitties for me to bite!