Biowraith

While this ongoing scenario irks me, I fully expected it for a major launch like CoH:Freedom - it's a few days of extended downtime now vs the whole thing crashing and burning and being down for much longer periods of time when it launches. So I'm trying to keep perspective that it's still just a few days out of a year, I have other games to play, tv shows to watch (no, I don't have a social life ), and that this level of downtime has been a pretty rare occurrence in the game's history.

That said, I do think we're starting to cross into levels of peak downtime where some kind of compensatory gesture would be advisable to maintain player morale/goodwill, especially as the current scenario is layering on top of existing dissatisfactions with the way things have worked out since the EU servers joined with the US ones.

I'll confirm the quote from Castle that the IO system isn't giving the same problem as the HO system. I tested IOs in the tier 2 demons a while back and it's all just a visual bug for them - you actually get the enhancement types and values that you'd expect, despite what the various numbers screens might be showing you. Their resistance isn't actually buffed and their damage isn't actually limited (other than the usual ~95% ED cap).

Soul Extraction is a good place to put the unique recharge intensive (+def, +res) IOs. Use the other 4 slots for accuracy and damage, and recharge if you like - 4 more recharge intensive sets works, for the set bonuses.

For Lich I personally slot for damage, but I'm pairing it with Dark Miasma so I'm already approaching overkill on -tohit from that (both from myself, Dark Servant, and stacking it on Shadowfall + 10% def from uniques). I'd consider slotting for -tohit on a less defensive secondary though. Also the Cloud Senses damage proc works nicely on Lich since almost all of his powers can trigger it.

Although neither are exactly heavy hitter damage pets, they still output some damage and personally I like to maximise that if I've got survivability covered elsewhere (and even if I don't have it covered elsewhere, I am really reluctant to give up any damage ).

Too lazy to check if it's been mentioned, but on the redside version has anyone stuck around after the final mission completes (i.e. don't exit the mission)?

I started browsing the forums without exiting and there was an amusing development.
(edit: Spoiler)

I always preferred the RWZ because it has a crafting table, vendor, & tailor to use while between trials.

It always kinda amused me that of the servers I'm on, the only one that *didn't* use Pocket D as standard was Virtue.

Been mostly playing redside found it to be somewhat dead (though admittedly I'm generally online a few hours before primetime starts - UK evenings). It's not as bad as some servers (my home server is Victory, and Exalted's redside is about 5 times the population size), but it lags behind the big 2 by a fair bit (about half of Virtue/Freedom's size) - based on a few non-scientific /search population checks at the weekend.

We tried to form a Kal yesterday evening, and after about half an hour of advertising on 4 of the new global channels, along with individual enquiries, we managed to scrape together 5 people. In the same period of time I think I saw 4 task forces advertised and start over on blueside (2 synapse, manticore, and I think an ITF).

In short I've not had much trouble finding/forming small teams, but larger teams (after the 1-10 range) and strike forces have proven problematic so far.

I've also found there to be a *lot* of newbies (or players returning after a 5+ year absence), and I think a lot of them are unaware the global channels even exist.

I'm playing a Beam/Traps, and also a Pistols/Poison (which I ran in beta level bumped for a little while), so while my experience isn't pairing the two, I have run both.

I took both tier 1 & 2 beam attacks, if only while I get a feel for the set, and so far (level 28) I don't regret it - I've not got any set bonuses going, and only a little frankenslotted +rech (~20-30%), but that still leaves the occasional small gap in my attack chain. Also it can be useful for general endurance efficiency to have the weaker cheaper attack (and it doesn't feel that weak to me, with disintegrate), especially to finish something off with scourge. But I'm sure a case could be made - and quite possibly a more convincing one - for skipping the tier 1.

Neurotoxic Breath is, although not *amazing*, still worth taking. It's that bit more aoe mitigation for you and your team, and you'll probably want stuff clumped to get the splash on Weaken & Envenom anyway.

I tried Poison Trap in the beta and it was still very very meh. The -endurance did basically nothing (kept some even con minions in the gas for its full duration and they still had endurance left at the end). The damage DoT is very weak (maybe 10% off the minion's health by the end). The hold didn't seem to trigger very often (group of 4 minions, I only saw one hold go off - subsequent tests didn't fare much better). Still miles behind the Traps version. I'm definitely skipping this one - making use of the lower unlock for APP/PPPs instead.

Alkaloid got a bit of a buff with i21 (at least on Corruptors) - it's now sitting with a higher base heal than O2, but not quite as high as Soothe/Cauterize. Looking at in-game numbers, I'm getting it as being about 88% of the heal that Soothe provides (O2 gives 67%). I'd say it's worth at least a basic 3 heal enhancements - sometimes being able to heal a badly hurt teammate is just the most valuable thing you can do right now, so if you have to take it either way, may as well enhance it.

Don't know about Envenom/Weaken stacking, sorry. I saw talk that the single target full strength debuff stacked with the half strength splash debuff, so you could stack it that way as long as you had 2 targets, but I dunno about it stacking with itself on one target.

And on the power selection, personally I put off Hasten and Aim til a bit later on, as I prefer to have more toys to play with than buffs to those toys (esp. Hasten with its long recharge at that level), but that's probably just personal preference.

It's like that time they solved an Ancient maths proof using an mmorpg!

And since nobody else has gone there yet:

Did you take any powers from your primary and secondary powersets besides those forced upon you? Did you use the ones the game forced you to take? Did you pick an AT with high hp and/or damage modifier? Did you team with others who were not Men? If you answered 'Yes' to any of these then I'm afraid you can't call yourself a Man, regardless of what you do with your ex's characters.

Do whatever you want with it, basically. It's a computer game account, and a computer game account that apparently at least one party no longer cares about. It's not a particular significant choice, whatever you decide - it's not like you're deciding custody of the children or anything. It tells us pretty much nothing about the type of person you are, and it doesn't sound like it'll really impact anyone's life except perhaps your own. So just do whatever you feel most comfortable doing.

I've made a Ninja/Time, and tbh I don't really care that the +rech doesn't help the pets. Partly cos I don't solo often, and partly cos while it's certainly a significant part of the set, it's not the only part. I still get to provide plenty of mitigation and healing and such with the rest of the set's powers.

And lets face it, if you're rolling Ninjas you're not really aiming for the most uber MM ever.

That said, Ninja/Sonic would still be pretty terrible