Blue_Centurion
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Posts
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Joined
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I respect you Airhammer, and many of the posters on the boards. I honestly appreciate being able to get feedback from you all and post my opinions. However, I cannot stop myself from just grabbing this snippet to illustrate my Don Quixote attack on the "It Ain't Ranged" Windmill. Hope you do not mind.
Quote:Because nothing says "Ranged" like that sentence.Originally Posted by Airhammer
I have no defense built into him at all and I havent had much issue running into a +2 mob of 6-8 and ...
You seriously make a good point though. Even as I abused as I have by stripping it down to STs and Ball/Nuke Elec is a decent set. The animations are cool, and I mostly enjoy it. What I do not like about it is that it is a Blapper set. Not Elec's fault. Not Blasters Archtypes fault.
I have seen many arguments and points being made about what they will not allow a Blaster to do (holds, mez prot, more damage, and on and on) and good reasons why they should not, and arguments why they should. What I have not seen is anyone explain what design/business decision would not allow them to be "Ranged" when they specifically say on their own character design screen they are "Ranged". They give new players a choice of a "Ranged" character, with all sorts of important, set balancing powers that are melee range and PBAoEs and wonder why they keep dying and falling behind Brutes at leveling. Gee, i wonder. Lets see, could it have anything to do with the fact that you told the Player they were getting a Ranged character and when they chose their powers they were mostly better suited to Blapping? Hmmm. I wonder..... -
Quote:By make "use" I assume you mean take the PBaoE drain in the primary and Melee attacks to stack drain in the secondaries? If so, you are quite correct sir I do not want to make "use" of the tactic.Originally Posted by FourSpeed
Now, if you don't want to make *use* of the drain as a tactic, then, you may
be at a disadvantage. On the other hand, I'm not so sure my Fire/Nrg blaster
would have fared as well - the soft control was extemely significant.
I am building a Ranged character. I chose the Blaster as a Ranged character based on the verbage in the character design screen. I chose the Ranged option for combat, and saw this: "The Blaster is an offensive juggernaut. This hero can deal a ton of damage from a distance..."
Now, hitting someone who is a couple feet from you is technically "Ranged" I suppose. But only insomuch as you have not plastered yourself up against them like a octopus opening a mason jar. But when I play other video games, or tabletop roleplaying games, or talk to anyone with an IQ that allows for cognizant communication it is not considered "Ranged." The bare minimum for me to consider myself at range (your experience may vary) is the uncomfortably close 20-30ft. I would be okay with a solid 60-80 ft. Due to the attacks available to me I find myself operating in 30-50 quite often, and am not overly happy with that. my preference would be 100-150. No, i am not kidding. Snipe should be at least a football field, and that is seriously not worthy of being called a Sniper attack. Give a military Sniper a weapon that is effective at 150 ft and tell him it's his new Sniper Rifle. I dare you. One of the serious things they should look at in Blasters is redefining all Sniper attacks to a "Heavy attack'. Using Bitter Ice Blast as the model, only changing range on all of them to 100. Or just leave them all at 150 for a decent ranged attack (oh, the horror, you let them have a ranged attack *faints). And get rid of the four thousand second rooting animation that makes the power a complete waste of a pick besides being used as a mule. Seriously, who uses these things? They design the entire Archtype as a Blapper, call it "ranged" and throw in a rooted animation long range attack? Was there a plan in there somewhere, besides "make it sorta not good at everything no matter how you build it" -
What bothers me is I am perceiving an unfairness to the designs of the ATOs. I may be incorrect, based on my not understanding the mechanics. Dominators get a global stackable damage buff. Brutes get a Fury generator that translates into a Global stacking damage buff. Blasters get a proc, that is better than normal procs in ST, and worse than normal Procs in AoEs? WTF? Blasters are advertised as Ranged Damage funtime. Yet the Devs make constant decisions giving other Archtypes bonuses to damage in a half dozen ways to equal Blaster damage (while still keeping defenses, armor, mez protection, mezz ability, holds, buffs, etc) and pointedly give Blasters as little as they can without actively depriving Blasters of an ATO at all. I am unsure what the overall game design strategy is with Blasters (or if there is one), but the more I explore Blasting the more I see examples of these atrocious imbalances working against this Archetype.
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That is wild. If I hadnt seen the video I would not have believed it. But, I guess I'm crueler than you, cause I would have settled into a good spot and relaxedly sniped him out of existence, just to see the effect. (or maybe you're crueler for letting him hang there for the rest of eternity)
anyways, thx for the tips on Energy, I may spend a week playtesting the Energy/Energy head to head with the Electric/Energy and see how it feels. -
I love Energy/Energy Blasting. I have a parked 50 with a great name (GM Approved "Zerg" - inspiration being the physics unit Erg, and not kidding). Sigh, lets get real, teams hate KB. And I have not gotten good enough to control it. I mean, the Ball is a explosion of KB, how do you even control that? But I LOVE the animations, the powers, the whole thing. Although, as usual, I take no melee attacks beyond the 1st required. If only we could talk to Null and turn off KB I would seriously not complain (I Promise) about no secondary effect.
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Quote:This is very bad. Take a look at Electrical Blast, my current project. No ST attack is 12s or 15s base. Bitter Ice Blast, one of the very few Blaster sets with a 12 second recharge, could take the purpled set and get a guarantee proc. Fire/Ice? Ich. But min/max it works. But it does seem the Blaster Procs are horrid in the AoEs. I take this as another sign the Devs hate Blasters. Or, from my limited understanding, they are not allowed to give Blasters more damage. They are also not allowed to give Blasters anything besides Damage. Whereas you can buff any other archtype to Blaster level of damage, and they also get mezzes, holds, defenses, res armors, mez protection, and ATOs that give huge damage buffs (Doms) or fury buffs (Brutes). But Blasters? Rules say they get nothing.Originally Posted by UberGuy
So in a single-target attack, the chance to proc is basically the listed PPM * (Base Power Recharge in sec) / (60 sec). The max chance is of course 100%. So a 15s recharge power with a 4 PPM proc works out to (4 * 15 / 60) = 100%. An 8 second power works out to (4 * 8 / 60) = 40% chance.
Edit: The reason you have seen both 12s and 15s for 100% chance of activation is that the superior (purple) versions have a PPM of 5. (5 * 12 / 60 = 100%)
As mentioned, we know that AoEs proc less often, but don't know exactly how much less often. We were told that both the power's target cap and its max radius mattered for reducing the proc rate.
Right now the AoE nature of "gauntlet" in Tanker attacks seems to be trigger this reduction, and testing by other players suggest that single-target Tanker attacks that should get 100% chances are getting 20% chances. Because single-target Tanker attacks can hit up to 5 targets with their taunt (including the main attack target), this suggests a straight division by the target cap. (20% = 100%/5) If this is correct, it means your best average proc rate is one target per AoE activation, and that assumes your recharge-based proc rate is 100% (15s or longer base recharge) and you always saturate your AoE's target cap.
This might give reasonable performance for things like the Defender or Brute ATO procs, which give buffs to the user. In such cases, one buff on average per power activation isn't too bad (though remember that such a rate still requires you to hit the target cap regularly). However, for damage procs, the more targets your attack can hit the more inferior such procs look compared to standard IO damage procs, which have a flat chance to damage every target you hit. Because of this, right now I would recommend against slotting the Blaster ATO proc in an AoE unless you both want the six-slot bonus and want to slot an AoE with the good enhancement the rest of the set gives. -
Quote:Mea Culpa. I had not run the Blaster much, since I leveled him fast. Created late Saturday March 3, and 50'd him Saturday March 10. Would have been faster, but I alted when i22 dropped for a few nights. So, except for the TFs I did (one short of TF Commander) I have not much experience on him. And the hectic nature of PUG TFs did not help with the subleties of End Drain.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That's technically not possible unless you don't fight bosses at all. Many bosses will, before they can kill you, actually drain their own end low enough to begin to impede their own ability to use their attacks at maximum speed. By definition, any endurance drain at all will speed that process up and generate significant damage mitigation. However, it seems most people only consider endurance drain to be of any benefit if it stops the critter from attacking at all, and it usually won't do that.
To get to the point, I did the Alpha unlock Ouro Arc. So, I almost called for help with Trapdoor. I mean, Blaster, right? My very Pimped Elec/Elec Scrapper struggled with this guy. I have the Blaster about 2/3 as I/O'd and, well, he's a Blaster. So, i stealthed to Trapdoor. (I'm squishy not crazy-I use invisibility and phase shift as major tactical weapons) I line up, build up, and let loose. Of course I did not Take him down in the Alpha Strike. But by the time he was half dead he had NO end. No End equals no bifurcations. He was cake, easiest I have ever killed the guy. I just hovered out at about 50 and blasted him into submission.
So, as usual Arcanaville, you are correct. I am sorry, and I should really pause even longer before replying on the boards before I post incorrect info.
And as usual, I have something else to add. End drain is a very unreliable and (mostly) useless secondary effect. In that 95% of the time ( I want to type 99% but would have to prove that) has absolutely no effect on the combat. And has been pointed out, this is due to how I play the set. I play the set as a "Ranged Blaster", not how the set was designed, as a PBAoE Blapper using Elec/Elec. It has a good ranged Ball attack, and a Ranged Nuke, and no redraw/weapon. The Nuke crashes, but I am Elec/Nrg, so with a blue inspiration and Conserve Power I am blasting again in seconds - at Range. At 50 I can double Nuke and be blasting again in seconds to finish off whatever survived that onslaught. So, yes, self penalized for not playing a Blapper Elec/Elec. Now at 50+3 and the Alpha is Tier 4 Spiritual (to get that short bitter attack chain up fast lol) and the End Drain is all but useless. Then again, most secondary effects besides -res, -tohit, and fire are useless. But sets with those are even harder to build for ranged than Electric. It is a problem of how small a corner do you want to paint yourself into with Ranged Blasters building. Which i am actually cool with, EXCEPT the Devs call it "Ranged" so that verbage will never cease to irritate me. If i am building it sideways (Ranged when you advertise Melee), thats my problem. But if I am building it "Ranged" DO NOT penalize me for it when you say it is "Ranged."
They say Ranged, I play it Ranged, and you can expect me to loudly and repeatedly complain that they designed it so I am penalized for attempting to play a Ranged Blaster. -
I hung out with a graphic designer this weekend. I "forced" her to do a quick critique of the load screen. She did not see anything wrong with it, even when I pointed out my issues. I did nab her on her 1st cup of coffee, but she is a pro. I would say my critique is overly harsh based on this. HOWEVER (all caps for emphasis) as was pointed out, some people just see things differently. My reality is definitely not where MrHassenpheffer's is, but I do see things differently than most folks. To me, the lack of anything where the genitalia should be (bulge, bump, cup, shadow, ridge, anything) gives the appearance of a statue that has been emasculated. Maybe a church got a copy of the advance art and removed any hint of gender? I know they are now working into the global net now.... Maybe it's a Nemesis plot?
I also agree there is something off about the face/head. I did not like it when I first looked at it. But my critique focused on other....things... I cannot get a very good image loaded where I am at, but when I look at the piece it almost seems that the head region suffers the exact opposite problem of the crotch. It is too realistic. If you have a guy tilt his head in that awkward angle, put a face obscuring mask on, shoot from below, and have shadows, he will not look good. Not without doing something to force a change in that situation. This is why people trying to make militaristic figures look terrifying in art depict them from this authoritarian pose with humanity obscuring helmets/shields blocking off areas. So, good art, if it was supposed to read that way? If not, bad art. -
Quote:If you're stealthing missions peeps don't gotta be there, specifically if its a touch a glowie. It is understandable people want to cut these 2 hour TFs down anywhere they can. Most of these are done for badges and merits.Originally Posted by mousedroid
However, I have had one or two teams stealth and complete multiple missions while I was still traveling. To me, that's a crappy move.
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Can I get someone that knows the facts in here to look a this? My problem is in understanding the ATO and the time gate thing.
I understand that the ATO proc will fire everytime in a power that has a base recharge of (is it 12 or 15 seconds, I have seen both posted). This is the base, so even if brought down to 4-7 seconds it will still proc everytime? unless its an AoE in which case it is still good, but no guarantee of anything?
I am looking at slotting it in Bitter Ice Blast which is exactly 12 seconds base, so if the verbage is "over 12 seconds" base, or if it is "15 second base" I have to rethink the concept a bit. Anyways, does anyone know specifically the rule? -
Its very possible Aracanaville, because I have done it. Keep in mind I mostly game on steamrolling ITFs, and I only like playing fire support for big teams. My main strategy is to use find effective ways to use build up and ball attack, with plinking on ST to fill in time. The combats are almost as confusing as I trials. trying to find good targets center mass mobs is most of the work I do. I just did a manti last night, so was exemplared, fought bosses, did not notice drain helping me at all. Maybe it was, but things died pretty fast, thankfully. I do not recall seeing anyones blue bars debuffed enough to be significant, and i watch all targets that I am ST on. Old Brute habit.
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I am a redsider at heart. I love selfish characters. So much so I refused to run Corruptors because why would a villain blaster heal/buff teammates lol? But now I am 99% blueside virtue. You know what, the 'heroes' don't seem to notice I am a selfish villain. It is soooo weird. So, i must turn down the offer for now. But good luck to you.
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But purples have been starting to drop for me regular...(do not jinx me) gotten one last night on a ITF in the first 50 content I ran in almost a week, a Ragnarok. So, more 50 content please lol. I just cannot spend the time doing this, even though I see the validity of what the OP is asking for. Same reason I will not play on test. I already have cash problems from alting too much, i try not to compound the issues too much.
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Can I get someone that knows the facts in here to look a this? I am again looking at Ice Blast, thinking Ice/Energy/Cold as my next possible ranged experiment. My problem is in understanding the ATO and the time gate thing.
I understand that the ATO proc will fire everytime in a power that has a base recharge of (is it 12 or 15 seconds, I have seen both posted). This is the base, so even if brought down to 4-7 seconds it will still proc everytime? unless its an AoE in which case it is still good, but no guarantee of anything? For my Electrical Blast I have it in the Ball attack, of course. But for the Ice the best place appears to be in the "Bitter Ice Blast" making this an icy/hot Boss Killa build, with a crashless nuke and other AoE goodness keeping mobs chilling at about 30-50, close, but I'm getting better at this lol.
The problem is the Bitter Ice Blast is exactly 12 seconds base, so if the verbage is "over 12 seconds" base, or if it is "15 second base" I have to rethink the concept a bit. Anyways, can I get a ruling or a flag on this play? -
I will reiterate, my Elec Blaster is now 49, and I have seen NO example of my end draining anybody that has helped me in any combat.
Do you know the one thing I do like about End Drain? No knockback. It is the only Ranged combat (Ranged Ball attack, Ranged Nuke) that does not have redraw or Knockback. In fact, very few of the ball attacks are ranged, and almost none of the nukes are ranged. In fact the only other is Ice that has a ranged nuke without redraw, but it gets no ball attack.
And you know what I love in a Nuke that crashes my hover, end, and toggles? Being right in amidst over a dozen mobs I just irritated. Genius I tell you. That is what is called "Ranged Combat" in CoH. Pure Genius. Ranged, I don't think that means what you think it means.
So yes, for me Electrical has effectively no secondary effect. But in trying to make Blasters that are actually Ranged you take whatever ugly sticks of wood you can get and build from there. -
Quote:RESUBSCRIBE. Brother. let me tell you why. I have multiple SGs strewn across 4 servers, many huge affairs. All just me. Quite a few were at one time active with people. But 3 are only me, ever. My latest is just me and my wife, and she plays an average of 3 hours a month. I started it in December, and it has all porters Blueside, without my buying any prestige.Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
lLook, I'll be honest; sometimes I think that there's one and only one change to the game that would make me instantly re-subscribe my VIP status. If they only allowed us to make Supergroups out of our own characters I would be happy. Because it would allow me to build a home, and tell stories with a stable of characters of my own, even if only in my own head.
Get yourself a free account, spend a couple dollars to make it premium enough for SG invite. This is very very cheap. Now, you have 2 accounts that are linked to your SG. Log in one to invite characters from the other. The free account becomes the inviter to all your VIP characters. Even call the character The Butler lol.
If you are supercheap just ask people to join your SG for 5 minutes to invite your alt. I did this for 3 years.
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Quote:Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
I'd say neither. Typically the free respecs went out on three occasions:
1) Anniversary
2) Winter Event
3) Massive change to an archetype or the entire game.
This is a fairly major change to gravity, but only gravity. It doesn't meet the threshold for a free respec.
So the entire way Stalkers run does not count as a massive change?
Here is the massive change that does count, the massive amount of $Change$ they are gonna get in microtransactions selling Respecs.
yeah, I feel jipped. I hoard my vet respecs, and delete characters (50s) that I start to use them on. -
Quote:This makes me laugh. I am an artist, and a guy, and straight. I hang with an eclectic crowd. I have gay friends. Male/Female/Trans. I have painted male genitalia when we have live models. What, I am supposed to do the Statesman thing to some model who was kind enough to sit for the class? No way. Plus, if you don't attempt to paint, you learn nothing.Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
Really. Men live in terror that someone will accuse them of liking it, because if that happens, they lose all of their heterosexual male privilege. If someone catches me looking at a crotch, they'll feel entitled to treat me the way they treat gay men, and all women, so I don't dare risk that.
After all, just by existing, this splash screen is already treating them the way the comic book genre treats women. (See also: Shortpacked.com, "False Equivalence".)
You know as well as I do that this is what's going on.
What makes me laugh about this is the implication that if you notice male genitalia you should live in fear of being dominated by alpha males. I believe that is the, er thrust?, of that statement?
Oh, and an update on my critique of the Statesman wallpaper work yesterday. Further compounding the "problem" is the utility belt. This stops the eye from traveling up to the star. If your eye drops below the belt, it never goes back up. I saw one concept art where the dark was saturated at the waist, the shadows almost as dark as the black belt. This might have worked. Unfortunately, that got lost somewhere, and turning up the light on Statesmans midsection destroyed the compositional balance. When planning a painting you have to look at the way the human eye goes thru the piece. light, shadow, lines, human tendencies, they all come into play. Not sure if the original piece would have worked now that I see it like this, but the change to lighting the midsection just destroyed the work.
PS, can I get sapphic Neko's background. I'll be happy everytime I boot up CoH. Except of course for my wife smacking me in the back of the head everytime she walks by. -
Congratulations to you both, I hope you have a wonderful life together. PS, wonderful art in your posts.
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I have to agree with you TonyV. Thats what I expect from other players, and thats what I expect from myself. My only excuse is confusion. I have traditionally been a redside player, and over the last 5 months or so I've probably done 5-10 Synapses. They all were quicker than these (or maybe I just wasn't watching the clock), and I specifically remember finishing one in about 1hour 33min, because we grumbled about missing the 1:30 mark. I will budget for 3 hours for future Synapse and not join if I do not have that time.
Seems to be my week for slow task forces. Last night did a Katie Hannon, in 1hour 10min. sigh. -
Okay. I'm going to try to treat this topic as seriously as possible. I am an actual artist, not a great one, but I do have some training. Much about this image pulls your eye to Statesman's groin. That seems to be inadvertent artistically.
If you look at the art almost all the lines go to Statesman's Star chest, the intended focal point of the piece. So the image can read as the star exploding in rays. This is enhanced by the lines of the cape. Unfortunately the saturation of the light is changed slightly in the screen (at least on my comp) and the man's crotch is better lit than it should be. Two very powerful lines (the legs) could be read to emphasize the Star, but unfortunately also emphasize the crotch. Which is no longer shadowy, nor is the star as bright (exploding!) as I have seen in some concept art for the image. So, competing point of interest. Since the groin is not in shadow, Statesman's "problem" becomes apparent. He has no bulge. None. We are talking Ken crotch here. Once seen, it cannot be unseen. And in the way of the human mind, anytime something is "wrong" it grabs your attention. So, the star loses in the focal point battle. Statesman's well illuminated and physiologically improbable missing genitalia win.
So, look forward to that jarring image glaring at you until i23. -
Well, I was a bit curt, as usual for me. But my point is there is going to be a huge market shift over the next month. The smart marketeers are already heavily invested in their strategies for this "New World Order" And there is no going back. All data pre-converter is almost useless in a post-converter world. Unless you want to take the time to average tons of data, and the more you try to average it based on certain assumptions the more you muddy the data.
You will do better starting with data about 2 weeks post converter (when the markets have stabilized) and then track key indices (the CityofX 100?) -
I am certainly glad to help you understand the position that I was stating.
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Why does that account name look like a spammer?
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Quote:Uh, I think we have found the basis of why we are having a two page "discussion" Stone Daemon. I never CLAIMed to value well written/executed content over rewards. Specifically not in this thread. I do prefer well written and executed content. I have soloed Redside many times (all content, every contact, every side mission) and am currently on a stalled @34th Blueside project. So, yes, i preffer well written content. But especially with the Incarnate Trials I EXPECT it to be well written, well coded (the TPN is specifically coded horrid), and with a fair reward for time invested.Originally Posted by Stone Daemon
Let's talk about factual statements, shall we? Your excuse that UG is worth it's time spent vs reward is arguable, but valid as an opinion. I disagree, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that you CLAIM you value well written/executed content over rewards.
With the DFB, there is no illusion that we are all running it many many times because it is the best written content in the game. It is just a very efficient way to get from 1-12 for some, and 1-22 for others. It was my hope, and the point of my initial post, that the Drowing In Blood trial would be at least a similar reward earned to time expended proposition. With grand hopes of being well written. But in truth it could be a 15+ BAF and i would run it endlessly to get from 15-22 or 15-30 if the rewards were similar to DFB, and I have heard they are not. Personally, I am as ignorant about this Trial as when I posted originally. I have been struggling to complete a Synapse, which I finally managed last night. Tonight I have hopes of 50ing my new Blaster (slim, but hopes) and this weekend I am out of town. So, I will be as ignorant about DIB Monday as I am today.But I was upfront about not knowing for sure the situation with the new Trial, and I do not believe you should attack me based on that. I posted here to get other peoples opinions on it since I was specifically not planning on running it this week.