BluePhoenix_NA

Ok. I have a story to tell on this BS of a movie dealing with the Columbine part.

First a little personal background. I was raised playing videogames way back in the Atari days and played Space Quest 1 when it was new. My parents taught me to shoot real guns when I was a kid. When I was in high school, my father gleefully told my family about playing Mortal Kombat in the arcade before the game hit the news (and he did see a fatality) and rented it for me when it came out for the SNES without me asking. I also play D&D. According to the nutjobs out there I should be a complete psychopath but the truth is I haven't been in as much as a simple school yard fight.

Now, I was watching the news when Columbine was happening and knew exactly what had happened and only one newstation confirmed it for me. The kids were bullied and wanted revenge. They had targets in mind during the attack... the people who had bullied them. I knew this because I was bullied in school too so the thought did cross my mind but the difference was I had good parents who spent time with me and taught me right from wrong.

The parents were the ones to blame for the events as they were not paying attention to their kids. They should have seen how their kids were acting and seen the arsonal they were building (it's not like it's too easy to hide that kind of weaponry). The same day Columbine happened, the media was being blamed. The first scapegoat I heard about was "The Matrix" then violent games. Of course, polititions can't blame the parents 'cause that would end the whole issue and wouldn't help them any.

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I've lowered the requirements for this from needing the "Nigh Indestructible" badge (100,000,000 damage taken) to "Unbreakable" (10,000,000 damage taken).

This is in a future patch (not on the Training Room yet). I don't know when it will be promoted to TR or to the live servers, but it is in the pipeline.

[/ QUOTE ]Woot! This means, once this goes live, the accolade is mine! I already have unbreakable on my stalker and just needed Nigh for the accolade.

Well we had a raid on Victory a little while ago and we failed badly. We had no idea when it was held. It was a huge waste of time. This is the first time in a long time that we've failed without it being because of griefers.

We only had a couple people try to pull monsters but I think it would have been a lot worse if I didn't suggest the raid being recorded.

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Here's a suggestion.

If you don't like Hamidon as he's currently implemented?

Don't raid him. Don't go there. Play a lower level alt. Watch a movie. Make out with your SO. Avoid the un-fun, making it clear that it IS un-fun and that you will do other things instead.

You've let the 'reward' from basically farming the giant monster turn you from a superhero into a grinder.

If the post-50 content is unpalatable, or unplayable, just ... don't play it!

And they will notice, and they will either add something new, or fix the Hamidon in some significantly dramatic way. But at this time, there's actually a counter-impetus to changing it to anything better - the whining and howling of the masses when their HO farm gets taken away.

[/ QUOTE ]Normally I'd agree, however we've seen how this turns out by looking at another un-fun part of the game that no one goes to, Faultline. It's still the same as it was in CoH beta and only might be changing in the next issue or two. So we'd have to wait another... 2 and a half years, at least, for them to make the Hamidon fun.

These hami changes is probably one of the stupidest changes I've ever seen happen to this game. I'm not looking forward to our next Victory raid on Saturday.

What I'm going to do, however, is ask someone to try and record the raid since I know lots of people are going to show up to grief. These changes are begging for it to happen.

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Gooooood news

I PMed _Castle_ about the ranged modifier issue for stalkers/burtes V.S. scrappers/tanks that Kerzak posted and he just responded. "You are correct! Thanks. Maybe we'll get the villain PPPs set up similarly." Thanks for Kerzak for bringing the issue to light and we all know _Castle_ is the man!

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Confirmed

Well I have a few problems finding out if Zapp actually is 2/3 of what it should be since I have no other "extreme" attack to compare it too. If anyone has one that does 106.95 base at lvl 40, I'll be ok with the answer.

And if this is the case, the text for the power should be changed to show this since it's not "extreme" damage.

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he basically said "working as intended"

ugh

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Specifically:

Melee AT's have a considerable lower Ranged Damage modifier than Melee Damage modifier. For Stalkers and Brutes, the Range modifier is 2/3 the melee modifier.

So, if a Melee attack rated at 'High' does 100 damage, a 'High damage Ranged attack could be expected to do 66 damage before slotting.

[/ QUOTE ]Well then there really is a problem then since my "high" damage range attack, Focus, does about 81 damage without enchancements and my "extreme" damage range attack, Zapp, is doing around 70 without enchancements. Both are ranged attacks on a melee AT but the high damage is doing more then the extreme.

Well the IoPs don't do that much. I think they're like +1% each.

Arachnoid minion

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how does your snipe do 300? i thought the plaque said Zapp would do about 85 dmg at lvl 40 on a stalker (unenhanced)

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Not even. I took my damage enhancement out to see how it'd do and now it's doing a base of about 67 with 5 IoPs

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I just did my own test with Zapp. Here's what I came up with.

Target: Bane Spider Commando
Buffs:5 IoPs for damage only

Zap: Description:Extreme
Enhancement:+30%
Dealt:100
w/o enhancemet:apx 77

Focus: Description:High
Enhancement:+72.9%
Dealt:140
w/o enhancement:apx 81

Thus Zapp is underpowered unless the Banes have energy resist. On top of all that, the activation time for the Mu version of Zapp is about 1.5x to 2x as long as the blaster version. This needs to be fixed since all the info given about the power in game is incorrect and misleading.

Of course, since I only use it on things that can see through stealth and for pulling, I got it for the range. *shrug*

Edit: I'm going to bug it in game in the morning.

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Yeah thats what stalkers need more one shot powers...

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Look, I personally don't care if they up the power or just fix the text and I'm not asking for another AS. I'm just stating that the power pool isn't epic (like described when selecting the power when you lvl up) and the damage descriptions are wrong. If I see a power that says extreme damage, I expect to get a power that does extreme damage.

Besides I pvp with my blaster not my stalker. So just get over your stalker hate.

I just did my own test with Zapp. Here's what I came up with.

Target: Bane Spider Commando
Buffs:5 IoPs for damage only

Zap: Description:Extreme
Enhancement:+30%
Dealt:100
w/o enhancemet:apx 77

Focus: Description:High
Enhancement:+72.9%
Dealt:140
w/o enhancement:apx 81

Thus Zapp is underpowered unless the Banes have energy resist. On top of all that, the activation time for the Mu version of Zapp is about 1.5x to 2x as long as the blaster version. This needs to be fixed since all the info given about the power in game is incorrect and misleading.

Of course, since I only use it on things that can see through stealth and for pulling, I got it for the range. *shrug*

Edit: I'm going to bug it in game in the morning.

I was laughing out loud when I first read the descriptions of the PPPs because of how everything is going to work out for me.

My stalker is a natural claws/regen. His claws are equipment and he trained his body to heal faster. So when I unlocked his aura, I couldn't find anything that matched. Then I thought about the story behind the CoV aura mission (it's magic) and gave him an electric aura for his arms to represent the new power gained. The funny part is I made the aura red to match his non-VG colors. So now his aura will match the red elec powers perfectly and since he's being given the powers, it'll work.

Of course, this makes his origin weird since he's natural but his aura and patron powers will be magic.

Now here's what I'm wondering. This is going in the same time as thugs so how will this effect a bruiser's fury? Will the attack on the MM while the bruiser is acting as bodyguard build it or not?

Honestly I think it won't but it would be good to know for sure.

Well I might as well chime in with a little something. Everyone has done very well covering everything so I'll throw in a suggestion. Personally, my only problem is with defiance. My suggestion to help was mentioned over in the suggestions section (imagine that ) though I forget who beat me to it (by two months) and that is to make it a click power like domination.

Have the meter build up as we take damage but not lose it if we're healed then when it's full or near full we can hit it if we think the time is right. This way we wouldn't draw extra aggro from the extra damage if we don't want it (low health+extra aggro=dead blaster) and could get that cool animation for when it activates and when it wears off.

Of course the numbers would have to be played with so it's not overpowered but I think it would make a lot of blasters happy since most of us ignore it with how it is now.

I want to thank those few people who have posted data like States wanted however I think all the fighting has drowned it out. I barely noticed the data since I just started skimming through everything since most of the posts were useless.

It's been over 100 posts and 24 hours since States posted without another word from him. I think our chance to get something done is over.

Now I agree that defiance is crap and only slightly useful if you try to exploit it, however, States wants to here about the bug in the OP. We should stick to info on that rather than venting about defiance else we may be waiting many more months before another red name shows up here again.

Edit: Wow. Quite a few posts between mine and the last one I saw. My point is just letting him know that we think it's crap isn't going to do us any good since we've been saying it since pre-I5. He wants data.

Well, I have found one power that would make Defiance great (assuming it wasn't bugged) and, of course, blasters do NOT have access to it... Moment of Glory. I finally got to play with it on my stalker and as I was using it I realized that if my blaster had it... OMG that would be powerful! But seeing as blasters will never have a defense like that (and it would be a little over the top), we're stuck with a power that does nothing but clutter up my status bars. *shrug*

Defiance (or desperation as it was first called) has always had serious problems. Even if it worked properly it doesn't do blasters a bit of good since we can't live at that health level without purples. So bugged or not, it just doesn't work.

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Also - after much pushing and shoving - we were told that there will NOT be data mining for TF badges. So if you did a TF before I5 - when I5 goes live you will not get a badge for it auto-magically.

I know - it stinks - I'm sorry about that.

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It does stink that I have to do Sara's TF again but then again it wasn't that bad.

Since I hit lvl 50, a little after I5 hit the test server and I first heard that this may be coming, I have avoided doing these TFs since there was a chance of not getting the badges and I've been doing other things. In fact, I didn't have too much interested in them before 50 since I was working on story arcs and other badges. I guess it won't be hard for me to find groups for these TFs when I5 goes live.

Mother always told me you shouldn't count on anything unless you're 100% sure it's going to happen. Wise words from the mama bird.

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As a former army brat whos father served in Saudi back in 92-93? Or anyone for that matter, I gotta salute your brother and all the armed forces who are currently serving in Afgahn, Iraq, etc.

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My dad was in Saudi then too.

Good luck to your brother Jack!

And as for the 'snarky' comments, keep them coming. They make me laugh.

I like the idea for defiance but it just doesn't seem to work when we're at higher lvls.

I took my lvl 41 fire/fire/fire blaster and tried using it (in shadow shard and nemisis missions on heroic), found I could barely get to the +40% by holding back my panic, and ended up dieing because the enemies were still on me and pounding away even at range. This proved to me that going out of my way to use it will get me killed.

I then tried playing normally in a Malta story arc and I saw +40% once in five missions and only got to use one fireblast before my six slotted health kicked in and got rid of the +40%.

I then tried it with an archery/devices blaster. When trying to use it, I could get to +80% pretty easily but I couldn't bring myself to get hurt further because of my 'blaster instinct'. Then I played normally and could use +40% frequently and got to 160% once which actually saved me.

My results of all this is that, like others have said, defiance doesn't help the late game problems blasters have. If there was no bar, I wouldn't know it existed when I play my lvl 41. It does boost low lvl blasters but we rock at low lvl anyway.

Now I would like to see it kick in a lot earlier, around 60%-70%, and an acc boost would help make sure it could save us but I won't even be sure of that unless I got to test it.

So overall, defiance is a good idea but it needs a lot of tweaking for the higher lvl blasters to see any effect. As it is right now, it doesn't change how I play at all.

I love all the new mission changes though I do have a couple issues.

1. In about half the NPC Ally missions I've had, the ally was in the very last room and rescuing them completed the mission. Not much point getting an ally if I'm already done.

2. In the enemy wave mission I was in in Croatoa, I was using my lvl 41 fire/fire/fire blaster to help out two players who kept failing it. With me and a lvl 50 tank helping, we barely managed to complete the mission (21 of the 30 Fir Bogs managed to get past us). My point is, this missioned seemed way too hard for who it was intended for.

3. I had no problem with the escort stuff except I kept having to stop and let them catch up to make sure they were still following me... and I was moving as slow as possible.

I noticed a couple days ago that you can already see where Croatoa is on the map on the live servers. It even has the green line tram running to it.

Now if only I wasn't at work so I could actualy look at the preview...