Call Me Awesome

If anyone's on the fence about TSW, it's on sale for 50% off this weekend; down to $25. I'm on it sporadically right now; work is interrupting things at the moment.

I tried out The Secret World and was pleasantly surprised by what I found there. Character customization is practically nil but it's surprisingly well designed and the community seems good there.

It's very gear dependent and there are no levels per se, but as you gain xp you get ability and skill points to spend on weapon skills and other abilities. There's also no AT's and you can literally change from an Empath to a Tank to a Blaster to a Scrapper simply by changing your gear and the powers you're using.

There's some warts of course, but graphically it's much better than CoH and it has very well written and voice acted story lines. There's PvP, but it's mostly like CoH and restricted to specific zones.

I used to herd up the entire Drek map main island, pull all the Freaks around a corner and let them all jump into the same physical space. Then, I'd hit them with Seismic Smash slotted with 6 Nuc HO's and kill 200+ with one single target attack.

Another time I slotted 6 KB SO's in Heavy Mallet and went to Atlas Park to find a level 1 Hellion. I teed up and tried to drive him from the courtyard to the Hollows Gate. Unfortunately he only flew about 2/3 of the way there.

I PL'ed CMA the last 3 levels to 50

All of those were pre-ED, pre-GDN and pre-aggro cap.

I used to raid Hami 3 times a week for years until the issue 9 changes. For old times sake I did my first Hami raid since issue 9 last week. I still have 3 storage bins full of HO's in my base.

My very first toon was a Blaster... I got him to 23 and got tired of constantly dying so I rolled up CMA. From the time I rolled CMA until the time I hit 40 I never faceplanted. Then I encountered Malta and got owned by the Sappers.

I've only been playing Secret World for a few days; much too little to really get a firm grasp of it. Still, it's interesting and there seems to be a TON of depth to it. Mechanically it's not a lot like COH, graphically it's much, much superior. It's DirectX instead of OpenGL so it's performance is better too.

Right now I'm still wandering around trying to figure things out and probably horribly gimping my character... how many of us on our first character did things like skipping key powers, multiple travel powers and the like out of ignorance? It looks like character progression is at least as complex as CoH with set IO's in the mix so it's a lot to grasp at once.

In my limited time on their forums I was pleasantly surprised at the atmosphere there, the community seems friendly, helpful and mature just like I expect here. It's nothing like the WoW or STTOR communities; the Secret World forums felt very much like CoH.

Yeah, there's some aspects of the game mechanics I don't much care for; it has the resurrect at a point and go back to your body, or fully resurrect at the point that WoW uses but there doesn't seem to be any death penalties and if there's gear degradation I haven't seen it yet. Combat is far more mobile; there's no rooting for attacks so run and gun works very well.

All in all after the 3 day trial I bought a key and I'll make a decision once the 30 days are up.

25 level 50's, 4 level 41-48, 15 level 30-40 and MANY more in the 1-30 range.

I have at least one 50 of all blueside AT's, for Redside I have a Corruptor, Brute and Widow at 50.

All of my 50's have at least Alpha incarnate unlocked; 6 have tier 3 through Destiny/Lore and 2 have tier 3 Hybrid, and those two also have tier 4 in all the lower slots.

Herding the old Drek map, stacking 200+ Freaks in one spot and wiping them all out with Seismic Smashl

Tanking Hamidon in the old issue 4-8 raids and our final weeks of raiding before issue 9 changed things working on our time. The raid where we beat the 25 minute mark from jello entry to Hami-O drop, and the immediate challenge to break the 20 minute barrier.

Tanking hundreds of DE in the Eden Trial in one of the most perfect herding maps ever created.

The first time I ever encountered Malta and the surprise as that Sapper dropped my toggles and stunned me. The frustration that the spawn couldn't kill me due to the strength of the passive resists yet kept me perma-stunned & held.

The great teams I was on and all the great people I met along the way.

This has been such a big part of my life for over 7 years that I'm not sure what I'm going to do next. Even though things are still up and running it feels empty; like there's nothing left to work towards. Life will go on and we'll all move to other things. Like I wrote in my RIP thread it feels like I'm at a wake, or at least standing at bedside of a beloved friend with a terminal disease.

Paragon news, 4:08PM EST.

Call Me Awesome, Invuln/Stone tanker had been protecting Paragon for over 7 years and 4,145 hours. Now he finally met a foe more powerful than all the Heroes in existence. Doctors at the Paragon Medical Center are helpless to combat the disease ravaging the hero and give him no more than 3 months to live.

This morning he said to reporters "It's been a good run and we've fought the good fight. From the beginning I've always done my best, from the heights of the Great Age of Tankers to the depths of the Global Defense Nerf to the Renaissance of the Age of Invention. Hamidon has fallen before our might, the great Praetorian Invasion was turned back and Tyrant himself is no more."

"Let us always remember those challenges we have overcome, and those who are only with us now in spirit. It's the duty of the strong to place themselves between those who would destroy all and those who are less able to protect themselves. Let's always remember the credo of the Tanker... and once again proclaim to the forces of Evil 'You shall NOT pass!'"

"If this generation should be the last, if there should never again be those to put themselves in the path of evil always remember... there are some things worth doing, worth fighting for regardless of the eventual outcome."

"I am joined by those who have fought the good fight against those most powerful foes. These Heroes have left their mark on the world and have set a standard that few attain."

Call Me Frank, Shield/Fire Tanker
Blarney Stone, Stone/EM Tanker
Granite Flame, Stone/Fire Tanker
Dynamic Floe, Ice/Elec Tanker
Bill Collector, Arachnos Widow
Fires of Midnight, Fire/Dark Corruptor
Delta Farce, Fire/EM Blaster
Sagittarii, Archery/EM Blaster
Nameless Phantom, Ill/Rad Controller
Nameless Drifter, Fire/Rad Controller
QuickWit, Mind/Kin Controller
Algie's Bear, Plant/Storm Controller
After Midnight, Dark/Time Controller
Shock and Ow, Spine/Elec Scrapper
Gortak, Broadsword/Regen Scrapper
Sword of Damocleve, Broadsword/Shield Scrapper
Balzy, Street Justice/Invuln Scrapper
Offline, Spines/Regen Scrapper
Bogus Wave, Rad/Rad Defender
Ryzza, Kin/Rad Defender
Dusk till Dawn, Dark/Dark Defender
Fyrepower, Fire/Willpower Brute
Hickory Stick, Staff/Ninjitsu Stalker
ScaleBalancer, Peacebringer
Warrior Ethic, Warshade

"And those who still had their whole lives in front of them, in whom the promise of the future had yet to mature..."

Frigid Aeire, Water/Cold Corruptor
Thermo Dynamics, Fire/Elec Blaster
Dead Heat, Earth/Thermal Controller
Black Ops Strike, Dark/Elec Tanker
Nate DeShane, Fire/Fire Tanker
Hazmat Siren, Rad/Sonic Defender
QuickCharge, Kin/Elec Defender

"And all the countless others who came and went over the last 7 years; way too many of them to even remember, they were here, they made a difference and they always did their duty."

"All of us thank you for being a part of our struggle. It's not right that it should end so soon but we stood for something and we stood UNITED."

With those words Call Me Awesome ended his statement. Let us all think back in remembrance of just what the struggle, the victories and defeats experienced by all of the Heroes of Paragon and know that it was worth it.

Not day 1, but just about day 1 of issue 3 and active from that time on. I've tried a few other MMO's but nothing has the draw, the depth and most importantly the community of CoH. I'm still in shock and disbelief; yesterday everything was fine, development was continuing on issue 24 and everyone was eagerly awaiting all of the upcoming improvements. Then suddenly BAM; like a baseball bat in the gut.

This has been, for all practical purposes, the only game I've played in the last 7 years. Last time I counted it up I had over 100 characters and well over 20,000 hours in game. Devs, obviously you've done a lot of things right and it had to be a shock to have the rug yanked out from under you with no warning after all your hard work.

I have no idea where I'm going to find another game with anything like this community; I feel that some of my very best friends are people I've met through this game. It feels in some ways like a good friend is dying; life will go on but things won't be the same.

If I had to guess I'd say we're screwed. My sub runs until April so I'm loosing about half of it.

I'm also done with NCSoft games.

I'm still in disbelief; it's been only a few days since we were getting news on all the new developments coming and suddenly, completely out of the blue NCSoft yanks the rug out from under everyone.

I've tried a bunch of other MMO's and never found one I enjoyed playing. COH was my first and it spoiled me for anything else... every game I tried just didn't measure up.

So... what's next for everyone? I really hate loosing this community; has anyone thought of where to go from here?

Hmm, so far I've leveled 2 /Regen scrappers, one BS/Regen and one Spine/Regen. Both are kitted out with good IO builds; not 10 billion by any stretch but decent builds with good bonuses and both ended up with a fair amount of defense.

I find both of them to be considerably squishier than my Spine/Electric and my BS/Shield scrappers. No, they aren't unplayably gimped or anything but they are less durable and require a lot more attention to the HP bar than my other scrappers.

So far I've leveled 5 Scrappers to 50, and durability wise I'd rank them:
1. Street Justice/Invuln
2. Broadsword/Shield
3. Spines/Electric
4. Broadsword/Regen
5. Spines/Regen

I do think /Regen could use a bit of buff; it's not BAD but it is a lower performing set than some of the others. On the other hand if you invest a ton of inf and get close to the def soft cap things change considerably. It's a bit hard to do though without gimping other areas since you're starting from zero.

I'm hardly an expert on Stalkers since I'm leveling my first one now but that Staff/Nin plays very much like a Scrapper. I've been soft capped to all positions since the late 20's and I find it highly durable at everything I've run across so far.

Currently at 48 I've run all of the blueside TF's except the STF and haven't found anything it can't handle. Overall the durability is roughly comparable to my BS/Shield Scrapper and the burst damage is considerably better, as you'd expect from a Stalker.

I guess I've been fortunate so far in that I don't remember ever being on a league with someone who had Incan. I do agree that the minor benefit of the power doesn't overshadow the large drawbacks in probably 99.5% of the situations I've ever been in. As far as "best buff"... I have to shake my head there. Healing in general past the early levels tends to be far less useful than other buffs at keeping a team upright. The situations where it's useful are generally a patch up of damage that got through the other buffs. Of course I don't PvP at all so maybe it's different enough that healz are king.

I have been on teams where some idiot had Team TP (the tier 4 teleport power) and insisted on spamming it constantly; that was usually solved with the kick button if they didn't knock it off.

Used appropriately an assemble the team power is great, however almost all beneficial uses I can conceive of are out of combat. In combat team tp is highly disruptive and dangerous. Even with a power that obeys the prompt having that pop up in the center of the screen is disruptive and in some cases can be downright deadly.

Given the choice of Rebirth Radial for a massive heal + regen, Barrier for massive +res & def or Clarion for mez protection why look elsewhere?

Check to make sure the Dust Bunnies haven't been nesting in your fans; I've had that cause similar video glitches before.

Agreed, they're more of a "gap filler" than a primary focus nowadays but they're great for some purposes.

For example, Invincibility benefits from defense, tohit and endurance reduction. 3 Cytoskeleton HO's maxes all of those and lets you use the extra slots you may have there elsewhere. In my opinion that's the best enhancement slotting you can get in that power.

Another example... some sets have really lousy accuracy. Slot 4 of the set for the bonus you're after and toss a Nucleolus HO in the 5th slot.

They aren't the be-all, end-all anymore but they still have their place. I frequently use a Nucleolus and 2 Centrioles for things like Fire Ball in the APP because I can't devote the extra slots to make slotting a Posi Blast worthwhile.

Anywhere in your build you'd like to squeeze a bit more enhancement but don't have the slots available for the IO sets you'd like is a place where a HO can shine.

One solution for a ranged character is to stay high enough that the patches will be well above the rest of the team. I find that staying ~40' + in the air keeps the patches from becoming a problem, it keeps some of the patches away from the melee teammates and as an added bonus it keeps your squishie butt away from those friggin' swords.

Just keep watch for the blue under your feet and move before the patch appears. If the rest of your fliers are doing the same and paying attention the patches become mostly a non-issue. Keep your camera zoomed out as well so you'll see if any patches have formed around you as well.

Also, I stay in Fly instead of using Hover; it lets you move out of the way faster.

Still, Apex isn't my favorite TF by a long shot.

Have they fixed SR's taunt aura yet? Last I looked it was even worse than WP's on a tank... yet the Brute version has a normal, full strength aura. Admittedly I haven't played my SR tanker in several months.

I have a mid-20's SR/MA tanker myself; it's highly durable and just short of the soft cap. Once the build matures though I'm not sure if there's a lot of synergy there; one of the advantages of /MA is the defense buff in Storm Kick and the set's so easy to soft cap you won't get the benefit.

In answer to the OP's question, on SR you really want everything but Elude and, possibly, Quickness. Quickness does give you some really nice +recharge and +speed though which is hard to pass up. Elude however is nearly pointless.

For attacks you want enough to have a seamless attack chain, and you want to get the heavy hitter attacks in there. How many you need is an open question; most of my tankers end up with 4-6 attacks and Taunt. Any build is an exercise in trade offs, does this power give more benefit than that one; would this power pool be better than that... and all those questions depend on the powersets and your individual playstyle.