Biowraith

The reason Bots win for AoE damage is the Assault Bot's burn missiles. When one of those hits it creates a burn patch for every enemy in the area of effect, so if the enemies are tightly packed the burn patches they spawn all overlap and stack; one burn patch does okish damage, but get a spawns' worth stacking and they melt down the enemy faster than any other MMO pet's attacks.

Bots have other AoEs, obviously, but it's the burn missiles that put them *way* ahead of the other sets (well except maybe Thugs - Arsonist's burn patch works similarly, though it's a lower level pet so slightly less damaging, and he dies constantly)

Same here. Always hated the MMOs that decided to do it differently just for the sake of it, and really dislike that that's now apparently become the default for new MMOs.

I especially hate when they have A & D change function depending whether you're mouselooking at the time - strafe if you have right button held down, but turn if you don't (or is it the other way around?). Pick one and stick to it!

I think one of the reasons is that the trials, by their design, require a minimum number people of running them (and to continue running them after new issue fever) in order for them to work. So I suspect there's an element of trying to ensure that even people that'd prefer an alternate route are kept running the trials, just to keep the numbers up so that the whole thing doesn't collapse.

That is to say, if there's another viable route then some people will opt for that instead of (rather than as well as) the trials, and even the ones doing both are now splitting time between the two, which means fewer people running the trials at any given time, which means lower chance of getting the requisite number of people at one time, which makes it more likely that someone shows up, can't find enough people, so goes and does the alternate route instead (and this happens often enough that they just default to the alternate path in future), which means fewer people running the trials at any given blah blah vicious circle and now trials are a rare occurrance, making it hard to grind to the levels the incarnate system demands.

You kinda see it already on some of the quieter servers, especially outside of prime time - people showing up in Pocket D or RWZ and finding two other people there, and so none of them get their trial. Of course, if that ends up happening anyway, that's a definite argument for 'reasonable' alternatives that are less reliant on volume of players.

Personally I'm not sure it was terribly wise to have a high player volume requirement on an endgame system that is designed to be run so repeatedly to get anywhere; not on a MMO that has our modest sized playerbase spread across quite a few servers - even just getting 8 people for a particular task can be challenging (depending on time, server, and task). But here we are.

Was there ever an explanation as to why that reasoning was only applied to Shield Defense and not highly visible sets like Electric Armour or Energy Aura?

Don't forget Black Hole, as another aoe control that should really be removed too.

The earlier "avoid like the plague" is definitely overstating it, but I do want to dissuade you from any notion the the CC is a reason to opt Mercenaries (assuming by CC you mean Crowd Control). Their CC is basically useless - long recharge, and the AI is not at all intelligent about using it - it'll just as happily throw both its mezzes against a single half dead minion as it will a full spawn (and once it does it'll be a while before it can try again).

That said, although the set definitely has issues, Mercs still does fine - it's a bit subpar, but not an outright 'avoid' set.


But Demons or Necro seem to be the ones that fit what you're after the most, with the range/melee mix. Either one works nicely - I'd just pick the one you like the theme of most, demons or undead?

Bear in mind that there's a number of things that will take a big chunk out of that -66%; AV resistances, purple patch, incarnate trial mobs' (and a few regular mobs') +tohit, -def attacks. Also, you can't guarantee that every enemy attacking you has been caught by every one of your stacked debuffs. Soft capping def may not be strictly necessary, but even with all of Dark's -tohit the benefits from doing so are non-trivial.

Although on the other hand, you'll stack more than -66% if you can keep Dark Servant alive

As I say, somewhat.

I'm not keen on locking cosmetic stuff like auras and costume pieces in general, but if you *are* going to lock e.g. auras behind the incarnate system, it should be suitably incarnate-like auras.

Or from the other direction, which is closer to my personal stance on this subject: if you're going to add "normal" auras to the game, auras that are equivalent in scope and magnitude to the current level 30 (or booster pack level 1) auras, then they should be placed behind the same lock (or at least an equivalent one), not placed behind a much higher thematically unrelated lock just because that lock is the new big thing.

So chest emblems and mundane emotes should just be added to the game for all without unlock, as they always were before now. Auras that display no more an increase in power than the existing auras - like the oft-cited Slime aura - should be added to the same pool as the existing ones, unlocked at level 30.

The incarnate store should, if it has anything, be perks like unlocking the level 30 auras at level 1, the IO recipes, and suitably incarnate-like cosmetics that are a definite and obvious step up in power from the stuff unlocked earlier in the game, e.g. an incarnate-fiery-aura that steps up from the level 30 aura merely wreathing your character in flames to turning them into a true walking inferno. Or make bubbles level 30, then some kind of, uh, super-bubbles for the incarnate version. That sort of thing, where you really could argue that you don't get to display that level of power until you're walking the incarnate path (and while I know it'd be less popular, I'd say those unlocks should be like the ascension armour, level 50 only).


Alas, I fear Lemur Lad is correct that the devs don't view it as these are incarnate auras and incarnate emotes, they just view it as new assets and so they're dropping them into the new system. What frustrates is that in the past they've usually not gone that route - rewards were generally linked in either power or theme to the content they were put behind. I can't help but think a similar mindset to the pvp zones is at work here - they're worried that not enough people will want to run that sort of content to keep it sustainable (you do need a higher mass of population to keep the trials ticking along than most content) so they're throwing in unrelated rewards to try and entice people that don't actually want to run the trials: pvp rewards not enough to get you pvping? Then come for the badges! Incarnate powers not enough to get you into the trials? Then come for the faint emote! Possibly datamining shows me to be wrong, but I'm fairly sure it didn't work well for the pvp zones, and it definitely created some bad feeling from the non-pvping badgers etc; I think it's having a similar effect here.

Honestly, I was fine with the trials' rewards being just the incarnate slots and powers to go in them. I never really felt that there needed to be more to grind them for. So if you took every new shiny in the E-merit and A-merit stores and put them back down to the places where their previous equivalents were unlocked, I'd have no complaints at all about the lack of incarnate rewards.

My ideal would be a mix of the two extremes: the perks like unlocking auras early, or the particularly flashy incarnate-like cosmetics stay in the incarnate stores, while the regular stuff that's just different flavour of all the other non-incarnate stuff went down to join their equivalents. I'd not be clamouring for more things to buy with incarnate merits.

Possibly I'm in the minority in this, of course.

No, the argument is that slime/bubbles/whatever aren't any more incarnatey, any more of a sign of increased power, than the various auras we can get earlier in the game without touching incarnate content. The suggestion that they are is what I considered to be silly.

Also that it's not really a display of increasing incarnate power since it doesn't have to be the incarnate character that uses them (unless we're going to argue that the Well gave Cole the ability to endow his minions with some incarnate power, and it gave us the ability to endow our 'minions' (alts) with some slime, but that's going back to the realms of silly ;p)



Somewhat - at least I'd personally be more accepting of it - I don't have any major gripe about the glowie version of the incarnate armour being locked behind the trials for example, or the ultimate power emote. But it'd need to be *noticeably* flashier than all the non-incarnate stuff (not just flashier than slime or whatever) for any "but you're getting more powerful!" argument to really fly with me.

I'm not generally keen on gating cosmetic stuff, but I'm *really* not keen on it being arbitrary cosmetic stuff that has no link to whatever it's gated behind, and is only there as a kind of bribe to get us to run the content.

They're separate and distinct attacks/effects.


Personally I think the disintegrate target should have a green column of light shining down on them, following them as they move, and it "pulses" each time it applies a damage tick. Both because it'd look cooler than the current green fuzzy glow, and because it'd make it less of a crapshoot as to whether the healers can find the disintegrate target in time amid the sea of characters you may never have seen before that league and their associated gfx spam.

The highlight-the-name-in-the-league-window suggestion works too, especially with some people not able to run with settings high enough to get much of the significant effects showing at all (both would be fab).

The idea that dripping slime and trailing bubbles displays a bigger/further increase in power than being on fire or emitting a dazzling glow just seems silly (in a depressing way) to me.

Even more silly when you consider that the character that is obtaining the 'power' may not even be the one that displays it.


Actual power (clarification: judgement, lore, et al) being unlocked through advancing in the incarnate trials is consistent and reasonable. The fancypants glowie incarnate armour isn't particularly unreasonable either. But cosmetic rewards that are no more 'incarnate' than all the existing non-incarnate cosmetic rewards is silly at best, and a clumsy kludge to try and get people that don't want to run the trials to run the trials at worst.

(for the record I hate the costume pieces locked behind a kill-grind badge too, but they at least make a modicum of sense, at least as far as loot in an mmo ever makes sense)

What are you talking about? That's the devs looking out for people that can't/won't take part in TFs!

(for reference, I enjoy doing TFs and have not been looking for a non-TF option)