BrandX

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction

It has nothing to do with power level and everything to do with the storyline shifting to be all about him. Our characters are being turned from individuals doing whatever it is they do for whatever reason they have for doing it into soldiers in a war against evil Statesman. He is so important right now that we don't matter unless we're fighting him. All our new powers come from fighting him. The source of all our new powers, and (by retcon via Origin of Power) all of our original powers, is now linked to him.

Statesman is taking over the freaking multiverse, through a sudden, ham-handed power-up that basically comes down to "he's uber powerful because we said so." They're changing the rules of the game world to suit him. That's why he's a Mary Sue.

Originally Posted by Gemini_2099

I am going to have to disagree with you a little bit. Incarnate content is very time consuming, and intensive for every issue unlike power proliferation which provides far more amount of fun than a trial that will become obsolete down the line, regardless how hard they try to link the old incarnate trials with the new ones, because that is the inevitable fate of "end game content". Power proliferation is still in use, and enjoyed by everyone, new and old.

When they chose to open Pandora's box that was end game content, as a result, they signed a contract that they can't repay in full, due to the nature of this beast. I honestly don't think this game would have been as successful as it has been if it had an end game from day 1.

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction

Either it was a rhetorical question or he really is working on it. It's a pretty long list. And as much as many people hate the term, Mary Sue is near the top of it.

At least, it's near the top of mine.

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction

But they absorbed the 5th, so some of them are. We can't really tell which ones, so we'd better beat them all up, just to make sure.

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

One of Sexy Jay's crazed visions hinted at longer hemlines

Originally Posted by Scythus

The 5th Column are Nazis, the Council are Italian Fascists with an alliance with alien fascists.

Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake

very true, till i read the backgrounder and ran the missions of the one hmong community related contact, i was sure they were supposed to be japanese, owing to the elements you mentioned. maybe making them really representitive of hmong culture would be interesting, i doubt many Americans or western Europeans really are that familiar, as i said, im not and i try to be kind of informed about the region. that or finally moving Yakuza, or triads into paragon/rogue. also, I reiterate, Indian cultural stories would be RIFE with good stuff for incarnate and regular content, if it could be handled sensitively. also, costume stuff..do eeet.

oh, and almost forgot, a really good idea that i beleive fredvard mentioned was to expand the culture of the kheldians. it would be a mythos they would have free reign with and wouldn't have to worry about offending anyone. and yes, khelds are kind of a nick of h.p. lovecraft's "shadow out of time" as disembodied space travelers that take their host bodies forms but recall elements of past hosts, though they tend to be better about consent

Originally Posted by John_Printemps

Hasten, yes. Non-Stop? No. Fireball just isn't going to get down far enough in recharge to pull a chain tight enough to include it. Throw > Burst > Throw is actually within reason, though, and I was looking at Throw > Burst > Throw > FB with the intention that there'd be three seconds of moving to the next mob in order to repeat the chain. (Recalling off the top of my head, but FB with around a 12 second recharge). Honestly, when you have to leverage Throw Spines to get the most in the cone, you usually kill a second or two each time anyway so the AoE Chain would never have to be 100% tight.



If you strip away CoF and OG from the DA, then they're in no different a position than the ELA, pushed down to just their resists to survive. In this situation, DA has the superior heal. ELA may have Power Sink, but that's /maybe/ once every three spawns (assuming five seconds a spawn, and a 15 second recharge). In fact, to touch on the point: The long recharge on Power Sink is one of the larger reasons it's not as secure a defense as OG or CoF in 99% of scenarios. With a 60/s base recharge, it's not going to shrink any further than roughly around 15 seconds, That'll average out to about 1/3rd the mobs you hit are getting sapped, the other 2/3rds are beating on you senselessly. It works great for filling the end-bar, though.

I do want to add that Cim's are a bit of a bad choice to try and compare the builds against. The -Def in their attacks are really going to hurt any toon that doesn't have debuff resists, so once one of those attacks gets through, you're really relying on the rest of your defensive options; and if I had to choose an ELA or a DA against a squad of Cims? It'd be DA, entirely for Dark Regen being up every 10-15 seconds. Not to sound like I'm pimping DA out, though. That's just a personal choice. If I were playing ELA, I'd definitely be sticking Power Surge in there somewhere, and that's a pretty awesome response to a bad situation. Although, Soul Transfer could be looked at the same way, I guess. May take a dirt nap to get it, but Soul Transfer can stun pretty much anything (AV Included), and give you plenty of time to clean up.



S/L and Melee 45% is possible for the ELA, but very tight, and (in my opinion) ended up sacrificing a bit much to do it. 32.5% Positionals would be safer, and easier (for either actually, but more so in this case). Not having Cloak of Darkness really kills ELA's options.

Originally Posted by Desmodos

You lost me BrandX. Was that build supposed to prove Auroxis point?

Originally Posted by John_Printemps

Alright, Auroxis, lets seriously step back a second here and look at what's being discussed.

You believe a Spintric is superior to a Spindle. Okay, I'm fine with that, anyone would be, it's your personal opinion. But that's all it is, an opinion. I speak from experiences and a vast knowledge of the IO's that Scrapper's have at their disposal. Des speaks from a solid experience with */DA. We're trying to speak to you directly on the claim that you see a Spintric as being superior, and Des has only asked for proof, and you've not come back with any.

So this gives me the impression that you do not, in fact, have a working build, let alone a working model, for a Spintric, let alone one that can outperform a Spindle on any level. So I've gone ahead and worked on the finer details for you.

First off, "Perma-Hasten" is easily achieved by any toon with the Spiritual Alpha once you have Hasten and about 60-70% Global recharge with only two slots in Hasten, that's achievable by /everyone/ now. Endurance Sustainability, we're talking about running roughly eleven toggles, two of which on their own are going to burn .6-.8 even when slotted, so that already puts any combo into a crunch. You say you want 20% in Global +Dam? Sure, I can actually do 26% with Assault. You want us to run Musculature? No, I'm going to drop the hammer on that one, you shouldn't be running Musculature when there's so much benefit out of Spiritual or Cardiac. Flat out, no. So, with that said, I went with Cardiac, because it's part of my endurance sustainability. It also gives me a net 5% across the board for resists, so win-win. I could do Spiritual, but I don't feel the need to beat a dead horse when I can already run Throw Spines > Spine Burst > Fire Ball, and hop to the next mob with ease.

There's also something you're fundementally missing from your demands list. Defense. If you're going to take Weave, Tough, and Cloak of Darkness, well, you might as well really build for defense. So with that, you're probably going to grab Combat Jumping and Maneuvers. Lo'n'behold, 45% S/L and Melee, so now I've upped the ante.

As for single target chains... I am again going to have to disagree with you on this. Spindles, Spires, and Spintrics are AoE Wrecking machines, not Single Target DPS Machines, let alone the fact that any ST chain you could imagine (Which, btw, I believe is Ripper > Dark Blast > Throw Spines > Dark Blast, which completely overshadows your desire for Fireball) isn't going to be all that great in the first place when your shortest running attack from the primary does horrible damage, and the highest hitting ones, take forever to animate. So we're not doing something sustainable for damage in the first place, so I wont even bother trying to build around the idea.

With that having all been said:

The funny part is, it's actually harder for a Spintric to achieve this kind of a build. They may have a better endurance balance, but I'm not afraid to use a necessary blue from time to time either. These guys aren't out to win the Pylon-Run of the Year award, after all. I did switch things around to try and grasp at straws for an */Elec version, but S/L cam shy by .1% and I had to sacrifice a little Recharge and a more solid attack to get there. Dark Armor will always be at the head of the table. I may be a bit biased to say that, but the mitigation it has in the secondary, often times proffers up more solutions to the final build. This does not, however, change my opinion on each of a Spindle/Spintric/Spire being capable of greatness. Each of the three can get to the same goal line, you'll find that it's easier with one versus the others.

Originally Posted by Firebeam

When on a team and someone dies, I turn Vengence on.
Then I will thank them for dying.
So itll be like
- Ultra-Mega-man dies
- I turn vengence on
- I say "Vengence on. Thanks Ultra-Mega-Man!"

rude or funny?

Originally Posted by Legree

I've been on teams that have been so crushingly efficient that I've found myself secretly wishing that something would go wrong, because mission after mission where noone's health bar goes orange, let alone red, can be boring after a while.

It's unpredictable though. I've been on teams that only really gelled and started working and communicating as a team after a near, or actual, brush with team wipes. On the other hand I've been on teams that completely fell apart after a single team wipe.

Even defeat can be epic, if everyone approaches it in the right way. I still fondly recall an 8 man mayhem mission that turned into a rerun of the final scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid because the team leader had his difficulty set way too high. The mission was a total disaster and a debt farm, but the brief moments when we were holding our own against what seemed like every cop and Longbow agent in Paragon City... that was epic in a way that no efficiently run Task Force could be.

Originally Posted by Forefinger_

I feel like a loser when playing my 50s that aren't level shifted when there are those with the (+1) on the team.

I was feeling the pressure to get all my 50s level shifted and I wasn't enjoying things, so I just focused on getting one to the top, so to speak with the paragon alpha enhancemnt, and just play the others when I feel like it. I have noticed that there aren't that many people doing regular missions anymore, at any level, so it is frustrating to have lower level characters that I don't play because I'm almost certain that I won't be able to team with anyone with them.

Originally Posted by DMystic

I discovered a brand new rule in team recruiting.

Apparently there is a NO StalkerS (we're allowed to have one) rule that I was unaware of.


So there I was in RWZ looking for an Apex team. Someone was recruiting so I send them a tell and get "Sorry we already have a Stalker on the team." Needless to say I was quite boggled about it. and responded "Since when is having more damage on the team a bad thing unless your lacking in other areas?"

Naturally I never heard back from them. Unfortunatley I actually forgot to make a player note for them. Went ahead and helped a Mastermind with the Honoree mission from Ramiel and made a new friend though.

So remember everyone NO StalkerS (we're allowed to have one)

Originally Posted by Wanted_NA

I agree there. Especially the bolded part. However, personally if I have people on the team where 5 or 10 minutes might mean they won't be able to finish with us unless we finish super fast I usually tell them we probably won't make it...even if we do end up nailing it in the alloted time. Personally, when I'm doing a "speed" TF I don't aim for record times. A speed TF (To me) means skipping what we don't need and going directly for our goals..doesn't have to be done in shortest possible time. However..depending on how the team make ends up, I may aim for that if I see a great potential in the team. Funnily enough, some of my best TF times just happened with no specific team planning.

Whenever I'm recruiting for a TF my broadcasts are usually something like "Room for # on X TF, pst for invite. [buff/debuff/damage] would be nice."

I hardly ever turn people down because of their AT. Except possibly on LGTF when we have no melee/ranged/holds and need it for the Hami mission.



Just enough to not be frustrating IMO. For example, an STF with no meatshield (Tank/Brute/Scrapper/Phantom army/Something with a Taunt and a Jetpack and can take at least one shot from LR's Energy attack) can be done, but Recluse will most probably be a gigantic pain in the rear. Or a Kahn TF with no -resist/Regen debuffs. Sure it's possible, but Reichsman will take a loooooong time to kill. Other than that, I have "preferences", but usually not married to something specific.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Feeling the Peer Pressure? You bet. The Satanic Hamster made a concerted effort to get my to play my high-level characters and join him on Incarnate TFs and my friends have been scheduling high-level TFs as events for some time. Even the random channels I'm a member of, which would occasionally send out calls for things like Bastion TFs, Manticore TFs and so on now only ever send out calls for the current WTF. I mean, why wouldn't they? It's a TF that grants double rewards. Why would you do anything else?

Am I succumbing the pressure? No, not in the slightest. One of the talents I take pride in is flipping the birdie to the rest of the world and doing my thing anyway, so I've been making and playing new characters, and doing so consistently and entirely alone. Strangely, I don't get fewer tell-invitations to teams than I used to in the low levels, only now I get far more people asking to join my team (when I'm solo) than I get people asking me to join theirs. Odd.

Really, though, I couldn't succumb to the peer pressure even if I wanted to, since it expects me to play nothing but TFs and Trials, both of which bore me to tears.