Carnifax

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I'm going to miss you Carni, but I know exactly where you're coming from. I've actually cancelled my sub too, although it has a bit longer to run, as you can see from my sig.

Strange you mention the last 15 levels, to me, the 40-50 content is some of the best going.

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Hey Miss,
Sorry to hear you're leaving too but yep, its just gotta be done when you find yourself logging on, faff about for a half hour at nothing and then log off again to play something else.

On the 40-50 content its still "more of the same" with a few new villain groups and lots more AVs though, by the time I got there I was just jaded by it all really, especially after the 30s. Most of the AV fights are fairly boring too in fairness, just a matter of sending the tank in, debuff and blast away until they fall over.

Really getting new shiney powers is what made me play so much and the slowdown in the 30s & 40s of that just removes a chunk of excitement from the game.

Anyway hopefully i9 will revitalise the game for us or our hiatus will and we'll be back all happy and raring to go in April or May.

Sad to hear this AM, always enjoyed chatting with you here.

If you promise to come back for Issue 9 I'll let you have the rest of my stuff (3 glowie decoys, 2 grumbling lightning clouds and a Phantasm in a pear tree).

Take care whatever happens and have fun in the Game That Shall Not Be Named

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Bye Bye Carni

I shall miss you're scary chars and company, I will actually be on this week so I hope to see you before you go

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Hiya Shielder. Should be on later alright, gonna try and scrape 50 before the sub expires.

Scary chars & company? Moi?

Don't forget it only affects minions as well, Lieuts & Bosses won't be stunned. So some of those "misses" could just be unaffected.

Personally I think its a useless power for the most part.

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(people keep saying they can attract unwanted aggro, although that has never happenned to me that I can recall)...

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Playing em with Storm helps a fair bit alright, Room Of Death + PAs + Tornado = Death By A Thousand Mobs

The Phantasms Decoy is indeed worse at it due to the fact the bugger appears right beside a target and tends to vanish shortly afterwards...

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Not sure about that. All controllers are generally fab in big groups due to the large amount of AoE powers they have at their disposal. /Rad comes off pretty well in number of AoE powers, but Ill/ is moderate. IIRC, Ill has spectral wounds, blind, confusion, superior invisibility all as single target powers, with spectral terror coming in as a near AoE power I guess. Earth for instance has only two single target powers, the rest all AoE. So its a fairly rich AoE set, but not the best.

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Illusionists are pretty easy to play though. PAs & Deceive make for very safe ways to open combat, any of Earths AoEs mezzes might miss and suddenly you're in trouble. With PAs the only issues are if the buggers drop mid-combat or attract extra aggro. And Deceive is a wonderful way to make a fight a lot easier with little risk.

So even though Earth has much more AoE it doesn't mean it has much better "aggro management" tools compared to Illusion, especially for opening combat (which is often the diciest bit of combat).

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Cheers for the Boos though

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Now I've said nice things about you, can I have your stuff?

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*Hands Standoff 3 raging Fire Munkies*
There you are

Now remember they'll die if you leave the area you're currently in and don't get them wet or feed them after midnight...

@Animal Mutha: Don't think I'll be going back to WoW, just didn't suit me much, but if I do I'll be looking you up to scam some phat lewt

I'd like to try a NWN persistant world too so I might give that a bash if I ever manage to finish the single-player campaign (currently stuck in a magic-absorbing wood with a pair of sarcastic mages. Whoops).

/em Arnie : I'll be back
in any case

Yep my announcement is slightly early since some of the Warriors are sorta missing (The Game That Shall Not Be Mentioned I think) so I wanted to do a heads-up.

Really I haven't teamed with enough people on the forums at all. Any time I try to I either forget or RL comes and makes it difficult to commit to more than an hour at a time.

Cheers for the Boos though

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you so know it wont last. I quit for good as well, that was 3 weeks ago. I just couldnt stay away

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Ah its not for good anyway, just until i9 appears in Aprilish. I'm not going to say "Its forever", I know what I'm like.

I've got my new Master to keep me busy until then (Valkerie Dwarven Warpriests with Grown Self on em FTW) and poor Cthulhu is STILL in his shrink-wrapped packaging (bet HPL never considered Great Cthulhu slumbered in shrink-wrap) and Dark Crusade needs to be played too. I'm letting myself down with this one game a year lark, my powergamer status will be revoked.

Hey folks,
Sad to say that as from the 14th of January I'll be leaving CoH until at least i9 surfaces, assuming its got more interest for me than i8. Quite simply I just don't enjoy logging on any more really, the game doesn't do it for me.

The last 15 or so levels (35+) are dull as ditchwater with no real challenge and the lack of variety in the game just kills the later levels. I love the early levels, up until about 30ish, after that its a snorefest (which is probably why I've 9 chars between 5 and 30 and 2 over that).

I've got a Babyfax on the way in 6 months so there's lots to be doing and there's loads of other games clambering for my attention in the 4 months or so I've got left of normal gaming time. I considered leaving the sub running for the Forums but decided a clean break is probably better for me (and my career ).

Cheers to everyone I've teamed with, had inane chatter with and argued with on the forums. Its been the one game thats held my attention longer than any other and these forums are a pretty nice place to be.

Special cheers to :
Dark Path, Calam, Shielder, Wytch, Fen Tiger, DGB, Xensor Hellion and all the Forgotten Warriors for the teams, chat and general putting up with my rich veins of faceplanting. I'll be on during the week so hopefully I'll catch you guys.

Hopefully i9 will have more interest for me than i8 and the devs might stop focusing on gimmicky events every few months and start dealing with the boredom of the later levels.

Cheers all,
Carni.

As far as I thought the Angle of the cone remains the same, just the lenght of it changes.

So the end edge width does increase, they act like Similiar Triangles, at least as far as I thought.

Could be wrong of course. Its not exactly well documented!

Grav / Trick Arrow is a very rare build (I've only ever seen one other and he was PLed guy who didn't take any Trick Arrow moves because they didn't do damage!). Pre-pet (I haven't got Mr Sing or Oil Slick yet) its pretty challenging, especially solo. Lots of running away to fan a group of annoyed enemies out so you can pick them off one by one, a nice tactical build.

Trying to solo Earth/TA would be even more challenging...

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Regarding jump kick or AS for dmg, I'm playing a controller. If I want to do damage, I can log on my blaster, my brute, my corruptor or my stalker. Or wait for the fire epic.

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But if the toon is mostly for duoing with a Control heavy Ice/Ice Tank you might need to be throwing out a bit of damage to compensate for the Ice Melees low damage.

Plus with Stacked Siphon Powers and Containment you'll actually be doing decent single-target damage. Its a matter of balance and if you're teaming with a control heavy meleer it may be worthwhile. It's easy, especially with Earth, to have them mezzed to high heavens but not be able to actually take mobs out very quickly, the grind will become all the more painful.

You'll be able to gauge yourself how the duo is performing as you level up anyway so you can adjust the build to include attacks if you find the damage output too low.

Do you need Stone Cages? The Stun from Stalagmites will cause Containment Damage for you. Sure they'll wander about a bit but as a Kinetics you don't really need them in a tightly bunched debuff herd. Plus it'll also interfere with your duo-mates Ice Patch.

I'd probably take Stone Prison and/or Air Superiority for single target damage. Especially on a Kin where you'll be in close combat anyway so Air Sup would be handy. Sure Stone Prison will stop knockdown but you can replace Hover with Air Sup without much disruption of the build.

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EU, not UK

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Odd, I could have sworn Defiant was a UK server, located within EU.

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Nope, its actually hosted in Germany or France somewhere.

NCSoft EU offices are in the UK alright and they made the website URLs start with UK instead of EU (typical, something to do with crumbled empires and former glories or something )

*Legs it*

UK Server? Boo et hiss! EU Server dangnammit!!

Welcome to Deviant. We're a lovely bunch of folk, honest we are!

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the sad thing is, they are optomised! XD

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I've just re-optimised them as PNG using The Gimp which is free to download too.

You can grab copies at http://s32.photobucket.com/albums/d3/jonfon/logos/, feel free to do what you like with them, I just resaved them using The Gimp and that did all the hard work in making them smaller filesizes.

Nice work Hidden.

You may need to optimise the final images for filesize though, the 180x180 images are over half a meg each.

It'd help your Bandwidth issues a lot too. Using The Gimp graphics package I was able to resave the Catz one as a 65Kb PNG with only a tiny (non-noticable) drop in quality.

As Death Dude says Glue arrow is a targetted placeable, if that makes any sense. Its not like Lingering Radiation, which is a standard AOE. Its fired at someones feet and a placable appears centered at that target.

Glue & Disruption will stack with 3 recharge SOs and haste running, with just 3 recharge they'll be perma, recharged just as they wear off, haste gives them about a 6 or 7 second overlap.

Acid debuffs won't stack, but the [censored] damage will.

Acid + one Disruption gives the same DmgResist debuff as Freezing Rain (40% for Defenders, 30ish for controllers) I think.

Poison won't stack, it might be of use if it did.

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Um feel i must point out my storm/nrg suggestion was almost entirely sarcastic...just so i take no responsibilty at a later date Sure it could be made to work but i cant really think of a set with less synergy with storm, but then some people like using kb as damage mit, it's just never worked for me.

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To be honest I think energy's knockback provides better synergy then elecs end drain, yet that is one of the most popular secondaries for storm.

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You get used to NRG Knockback. I play an Illusion/Storm/Primal Forces controller, you learn to deal with the knockbacks of the idiot pet and epic attacks. I tend to end up on the other side of the group with Hurricane one counter-knockbacking the mobs into my teammates. especially in ourdoor missions (TP is great for this)

Anything that does -DmgResist also increases how powerful your -damage powers are in the game.

Given that Poison does 20% normally and Disruption & Acid do 15% apiece that means about 27% with both on the target too I believe.

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I have Poison Gas arrow as I wanted to test it. I've satisfied myself that its a waste of time so I'm dropping it as soon as I can. The 60% chance of a 7 second sleep just isn't worth it, even solo.


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What about the -damage though? As i may be duoing with a resistance set tank, surely that would help out?

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Personally I hate the power, the -20% damage alone just isn't worth a power cost for me. I'll be better off dropping it for the medicine pool I think and just healing any damage back

I've a Grav/TA Controller I tend to solo a fair bit with (but no Ice experience so take all this with a pinch of salt). Currently at level 29.

Ice Arrow is my "I'll keep you until later" hold, taking one mob out of the equation while you focus on the other (due to its slow animation time its not as good a in-combat hold really). I have it 4 slotted, 1 accuracy, 3 hold. Its super as a one-two for insta-holding bosses.

Acid Arrow should always go on the other target for the -resist & the -def (so you can hit them with your hold and do a bit of extra damage). Currently this is 1 accuracy, 1 recharge (to make it perma : it won't stack with itself debuff-wise) and 1 -defense. Wouldn't mind throwing another -def in there though.

Disruption Arrow is great, got it at 28 & slotted with 3 recharge SOs and planning at 30 to get Haste to get it self-stacking.

I left out Flash Arrow since the -accuracy is pathetic (5%) and I don't need the -perception (Grav is all ranged so I don't need to run in to drop anything). You may need it with Ice alright (I have Smoke on my Fire controller for getting into position before striking). Slotwise its a cheap power too, no extra slots needed.

I have Poison Gas arrow as I wanted to test it. I've satisfied myself that its a waste of time so I'm dropping it as soon as I can. The 60% chance of a 7 second sleep just isn't worth it, even solo.

The only thing I've used Entangling for is at the very start of the game as a Containment set-up move. Plus Hellion pistols have rubbish range so I spent the first 10 levels using it to kite them.

Edit : Magic or Tech will make the Oil Slick go WHOOSH

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Illusion would win if the players have equal skill. The untyped hold hit thru pff as if it wasn't there

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Untyped? Blind is Psi hold isn't it? NoFuture reference

Given how useful Break Frees are in PvP and the extra mez protection other FF powers have I wouldn't count on just Blind winning it.

I've always wanted to pit Carni against my Necro / Dark MM. Nearly got the chance of fighting one in the 3vP event but they pulled out.

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I haven't taken hasten with my TA, i can see it being useful though. I've got assault and tactics running and my end only goes below half way if i'm solo and firing alot of arrows. Have to be careful of Emp too.

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All of TAs Dmg Resist debuffs are fairly weak alone. For example Disruption Arrow is only half as good at -DmgResist as Freezing Rain. But you have Acid Arrow too of course (which provides the other half of the -DmgResist to match FR). The strengths of TA are the low End & Recharge times. Disruption will be perma with 3 recharge SOs and will overlap with itself with Hasten thrown into the mix too.

My Dark / Sonics defender is still proving to be a blast. If only I could spare a few more Enhancement slots for Damage I'd be sorted,