Chompie

Wooo, I love this stuff!


Tankers - 3 (Levels 50, 24, 20) (Deleted: 15, 12, 4x below-10's)
Blasters - 3 (Levels 48, 41, 20) (Deleted: 24, 14)
Dominators - 2 (Levels 27, 24) (Deleted: 26)
Stalkers - 2 (Levels 21, 20) (Deleted: 18, 2x below-10's)
Scrappers - 1 (Level 27) (Deleted: 24, 22, 2x below-10's)
Peacebringers - 1 (Level 27)
Brutes - 1 (Level 30, Soon To Be Deleted) (Deleted: 16)
Defenders - 1 (Level 14) (Deleted: 31, 20, 18, 3x below-10's)
Corruptors - 1 (Level 7) (Deleted: 22, 12, 1x below-10)
Controllers - 0 (Deleted: 27, 18, 2x below-10)
Masterminds - 0 (Deleted: 2x below-10)
Warshades - 0 (Haven't tried)
Soldiers/Widows - 0 (Haven't Unlocked)


The deleted characters is an estimate, but it's a pretty close estimate. I remember most of them pretty easy. So apparently, I like to play blasters, I like to make tanks and then delete them because I don't love them as much as my L50 tank.. and yeah. My idea of "Team Support" is "Make everything hit me" or "Stop hitting my friends and fall over dead!"

Oh, origins!
Magic - 6
Mutation - 3
Tech - 3
SCIENCE! - 1 (the level fifty)
Natural - 1

Having gone totally crazy with my Ice/Fire Tanker about this very issue, I can tell ya how it works.

Wet Ice (it keeps me from tripping during an earthquake!): -60% Slow Effect

Permafrost: -20% Slow Effect

Energy Absorption: -20% Slow Effect if you hit more than zero targets.


-% Slow effect combines additively, not multiplicatively.
Wet Ice + Permafrost gives 80% slow protection with this system (Effect*(1-(.60 + .20))/100)
while multiplicative combination would give 68% slow protection (Effect*(1-.60)*(1-.20))


I trot along caltrops with the greatest of ease... but Siphon Speed is unresistable. >_<

I'm a Mind Dominator, and I approve this message.

Said like a man who loves his Self Destruction. *salutes*

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Wait, wait, wait... you're telling me we don't enter an endless recursion of time at the end of August and a future does exist?

Fine, fine. Here's my complaint. Everybody is using black and red on both sides of the game now.

[/ QUOTE ] Personally, I'm sick of all the hot pink. i16 has RUINED the game for me, and I'm taking my dollars to elsewhere. I'm also breaking all the windows on my way out and stealing everyone's staplers. However, I'm keeping my account active so I can [censored] and moan on the forums for months and months about how horrible the game has become.

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I'm not sure of the Devs' rationale for this as it SEEMS to discourage teaming, which is contrary to anything they've ever done before.

[/ QUOTE ]It only discourages teaming for those people playing for the rewards (ie: farming).

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Not only that, but it also only discourages teaming for retardedly-strong characters. I.E., definitely not the first thirty levels or so. Totally fine by me, because for most of the game a single character can't survive mondo-big spawns. At endgame, who cares?

I'm actually totally for this awesome option. Hopefully the new difficulty interface will make it easier for players to tell which difficulty setting they're on. I'm sick of explaining the whole Diff 2 is +1 spawnsize and weighted towards +1 level, diff 3 is +1-2 level but default spawn size blah blah blah oh and I forget what "relentless" means. What number was Vicious again?
"Set diff to unyielding" is just plain more obfuscating than "Set diff to +1 lv +1 spawn"

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I will, however, make some new characters based on specially colored powers. ... I'm also thinking about an ice/something tank with faintly greenish ice armor based on Antarctic icebergs, which are often tinted green due to microorganisms in the ice.

[/ QUOTE ] Duuuuuude! What about a character that is controlled entirely by microorganisms! And like he is a missing person from a while ago and the microorganisms took control of his body to infiltrate society or something! And duuuuuude!

Hee, awesome.

I'm not gonna do much with color changes to start. Arblis' Ice Armor is going to be whiter (ice is white! And white will look way better on her!)..
Destined to Die is getting a slightly darker, much fuchsiaer Regen while keeping her Dark Melee default..
I'm sure I'll think of more to do with it once it's released. Reflavoring Dark Miasma as Snowy Doom would be pretty hilarious. With that you could get Ice AND Dark in one powerset even!

So, my friend is leaving the game for a while, due to all the hullabaloo surrounding AE. He's fed up with it, and I sure don't blame him.

Anyway, I'm gonna throw one last little task force before his account expires, as sort of a "goodbye, hope to see you around here again soon!" dealie.

Ernesto Hess Task Force-- Wednesday night, starting somewhere from 9:00 to 10:30PM Pacific Time.
I'm bringing my DM/Regen Scrapper, who I'm using to try and unlock the TF at this very moment (Gah, hope I have time to finish unlocking it before it actually should be happening.)

Kind of an oops forgetting to make this post till now, but anyway- if you want in, send me a global tell (@MooCow), and be around tomorrow night. ^^

And I believe there's a $sirmaam for your formal NPC needs.

I have a hard time digesting eggs, especially scrambled (for some reason). It makes me kind of sad.

But it's okay cause I'm not a good enough cook to make eggs actually delicious. I can make, you know, scrambled eggs that are the best freaking plain scrambled eggs ever, but add in a second ingredient and faaaaaail. >_<

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I have to call you out on saying dark melee is gimmicky. I'm not really sure where that opinion comes from. It has one of the most well-rounded and diverse collections of powers in any melee set out there.

The first 2 powers make a great buzzsaw attack chain with very respectable DPS.

The damage type is rarely resisted.

Siphon life is not only a great attack, but it heals you when you use it.

Dark Consumption let's you get end. back faster.

Soul drain is a ridiculously good replacement for build-up.

Midnight Grasp is better than ever.

Sure, everyone who plays dark melee should take siphon life, but you can say that about half the set. That's hardly a gimmick.

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Derp derp. Please excuse my retardation. Did I say Dark Melee is part of the gimmick dance? What I *meant* was that it's not. I musta been thinking of Stalker DM or something (Stalker Melee: Say hello to my little toolbox. Oh you've met him already?), cause it's a blast. In fact, I was playing with it about an hour ago and going WHEEEEEE! *shakes head*

Sometimes I do that stupidness thing. DM is really quite different overall from other melee sets. I'd say between Siphon Life, Dark Consumption and Soul Drain, that's enough difference for it to be seriously a different set. And damned fun, too.

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Don't they read?

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Okay I agree that this is a super-sad thing and wish it would end, but I normally don't feel like posting in anything regarding AE.

But this quote makes me feel I should bring up alternative learning styles.

Some people learn by looking through and experiencing whatever is given to them- so they go through and understand the tutorials, and often learn a lot about the overall game in the process. However, the AE contact popup points that type of learner straight to the AE, which can easily drown out the rest of the game, since it's your very first contact popup window.

Some people learn a game by extensively researching it before ever playing. They'll know all about the game and are not what this discussion is about.

Some people learn through interaction with other humans. With Atlas Park being the big AE hotspot, these people can VERY easily miss out on the entire rest of the game; and may never know it exists.


There are other basic learning styles, sure, but just look at that! It'd be nice if new players didn't have like a 65% chance of being shunted to AE without ever learning about the game ever.
I learned this game via people before AE and that worked great. if I were startin today? Probably wouldn't work out as well.

It's a vestige of an old glitch where people joining the Hami raid while sidekicked up from 46 or something would get level 52 HO's instead of 50's.

I don't know anything else about it. Rest Of The Forum, take it away!

Blah blah blah semantics blah arguments blah pigheadedness blah blah boring blah blah whatever blah poop jokes blah blah boogers blah blah blah blah doesnt look like a word anymore blah blah blah trolling blah blah machismo blah blah veiled insults blah highandmightiness blah BLAH.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that not only are there sets that are underperforming via general falling-behindness, but that *every* set that has a couple "must-have" powers among piles of things nobody cares about is underperforming. Oh yes I went there. I know, I have crazy ideas and different ideals of entertaining game design, and it is scary. But that's just how things are.

Let's call it Gimmickperforming

So, by that long sentence above, Force Fields is underperforming. GOTTA have Deflection, Insulation, and Detention, but one could care less about the rest of the set. I am aware of the occasional successful build without those three powers, but those are an exception made by the super-skilled player peoples. Just cause someone soloed Onyxia doesn't mean hunters need nerfs, it just means he's [censored]ing insane. Old old analogy and for the wrong MMO, but you get the idea, right?
Anyway, back to actually what I was going to say instead of just defending myself over and over.

One gimmick shouldn't have to carry a set that is mostly meh, though. Take Gravity for example- it doesn't have anything special going for it, but if it were to gain a power with the beefiness of Ice Slick or Earthquake (or even Quicksand or Shiver! Whatever! ), it would probably not be underperforming anymore by the standard definition.. And yet it also wouldn't be gimmickpower-performing either! Take that how you will.


So, what else would I say is gimmickperforming? I'm glad you asked!

Already mentioned ForceFields...

Kinetics gets my vote. Speed Boost and Fulcrum Shift are strong enough and frequent enough to fart around as their own two-power set, and they overshadow the hell out of the rest of Kinetics. I mean, kinetics is all good in my opinion, but... Yeah, I don't know where I stand on it. I am sick of being asked for Speed Boost.

Gimmickperforming is sort of par for the course with most Melee sets. I hear people [censored] me out for saying Super Strength has terrible AoE. The reasoning is always "footstomp is the best power evar1191" which makes me sad because that's the only freaking reason. But really, melee sets are all the freaking same thing except for like one or two shining glorious powers- Crowd Control, Parry, Divine Avalanche, Siphon Life, Rage, Footstomp, ET and Total Focus.. Apart from their little powers of epic beefiness, most melee sets go "Hit, Hit Harder, Hit More Harderer, Also Hit, Mez..." Dual Blades and Electrical Melee (and I guess Spines is weird enough) are at least *slightly* different overall, which is good and they're solid sets. But then we look at a Melee set without an I-rock-button to its name- Martial Arts, and we go "oh [censored] this is what most of the other melee sets would look like without their key powers, how [censored] is that!
Yeah, for melee, the one big gimmick is generally what sets the sets apart on the set. Set that in your mind or you'll feel the fury of Set as soon as the setting sun goes down.

Plant Control doesn't really count, cause while Seeds of Confusion is friggin sweet, the rest of the powers in the set are still pretty good and the set is just fine without. I <3 Carrion Creepers. (carrion creepers are not for everyone. Ask your doctor if carrion creepers are right for you.)
Yeah, most Control sets seem to escape the Gimmickosity crap. Good.

Psionic Assault suffered from extreme Gimmickperformance. Remember, it was "the best" assault set you could pick, ONLY because of one power. I'm so happy that got changed- I want a powerset, not a "forefeit lots of powers just to get one totally unbalanced stupid thing"

Stone Armor gets an honorable mention here, because it is very very weird. Granite is a shameless gimmick. With it toggled on, you are simply not allowed to use like HALF of the rest of the set. Without Granite, stone armor is... possibly underperforming.
You have an impressive display of defenses- Respectably high Defense to all but Cold/Hot, and Resistance to those two.. not to mention a healthy heap of Regeneration that meshes well with your Dull Pain clone.. but the price is far too steep.
Without stamina, turning on all of your toggles will make you lose endurance each second! If you slot 33% endredux in your toggles, you *barely* regain endurance. And turning on your toggles make you laughably immobile.
On the other hand, all of the toggles have a four-second recharge and almost all your armors have a quick cast time, which seems to encourage the toggle-management playstyle, flicking each one on and off as needed. Still, the drawbacks are a bit too agonizing to play without that silly Granite gimmick. I'm wordy, aren't I?


And with that, I conclude yet another post. Don't get mad, get thoughtful!
Can you tell that I really hate it when one power is that much stronger than the rest of the set? At least in some cases (Kinetics) the rest of the set is okay without it. Except not. [censored], I'm making myself sound indecisive again.

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I think this thread should be considered a great tribute to the devs and their continuous work in striving for balance. If these sets are considered the "worst" or "most underperforming" or "least potential" that's pretty damn good. These sets can all tear it up

Like others have already analogized we're differentiating between 9.2s and 9.7s and not 2s and 3s to 9s. "Bad" isn't really "bad" in this game

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This is exactly how I'm feeling about this.

Also, note to certain other posters- look, you don't need to have thinly-veiled insults to make a good point! Wow!
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Some more notes to add aboot my last post:
Conserve Power- I'm sure it's good, but... Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who slots a few Endurance Reduction enhancements and they're more than enough endurance management when you add Power Sink to em. Plus, EndRedux enhancements don't have a ten-minute cooldown. Anyway, enough bashing of that one. It'd be good in any other powerset.

Super Reflexes- I'll admit, my highest SR character is a Brute, not a Scrapper. And also only level 30. But I have this weird belief that a set should be playable for its full career, and when I combine that with "protection should protect in more than one way" I get kind of miffed.

Shield Defense- I quite like it on Tankers. It's not the best, but it's pretty good. I don't understand the comparisons to SR, because it is a Defense set in the same way that Willpower is a Regen set. Sure, that's the primary mitigator, but it's not the *only* one.
But on Brutes and Scrappers, Shield Defense's other mitigators are really kind of sad, yeah.


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Like others have already analogized we're differentiating between 9.2s and 9.7s and not 2s and 3s to 9s. "Bad" isn't really "bad" in this game

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My opinions on this subject are subject to change on a whim.

Blaster Psionic Blast is very meh, if only because everyone and their mother has a horde of psi-resistant robots in their enemy group. Also because it really doesn't have anything spectacular about it. Good -recharge, and that's all you get.

Blaster/Defender Electric Blast suuuuucks. It's supposed to suck Endurance, but it really doesn't. It just sucks. Its damage brings a tear of sadness to my eye, and really the only power that lives up to the endurance-draining part is Short Circuit.

Martial Arts does damage that is nothing to write home about, and almost exclusively to single targets. The ONLY power in it that affects more than one foe is the Scrapper tier 8. And I must reiterate, its damage is just unremarkable.

Super Reflexes because not all of us are BillZBubba. I personally can't stand the set, because it is nothing. but. defense. The autopowers' "resistance at low health" crap doesn't even count as mitigation. No. I like my protective powersets to have more than one way to keep me alive.

Electric Armor is killin me here. I love the set, I really do, but... only five of its nine powers actually protect you. Let me reiterate. Electric Armor. With 4/9 of its powers not protecting you from harm. I think that's its problem. Conserve Power is pointless; with Power Sink around and nigh-immunity to hostile EndMod effects, you should NOT need another endurance management skill. NO. One down. Replace it with like.. a synaptic recharge power- heals you by refreshing your mind's zappity pulses or whatever.
Lightning Field can stay- many armor sets have a damage aura, and this is the coolest-looking one there is.
Lightning Reflexes is nice to have, but.. maybe we could get even a little bit of +defense in there? After all, we have lightning reflexes here. Let's use them to dodge.
Power Sink rocks. It doesn't need a change, though it would be sweet if using it also temporarily charged up your armor too. Something like 20ish seconds of increased resistance based on the number of targets you power sunk. Similar to Energy Absorption from Ice Armor.
I really wish I was in control of changing Electric Armor.


Fiery Assault gets an honorable mention. It is.. a conundrum. Flares, one of my favorite powers, got the living [censored] nerfed out of it compared to everything else in dominator assault sets. Sooooo weeeeak. But then you have Fire Blast and Blaze, both ridiculously good, Fire Breath, which is good but not great, Combustion which is a disappointment no matter how many times I look at its numbers... Incinerate is decent.. overall it seems to be underperforming for a *fire* set. You know, FIRE. The damage type that sacrifices secondary effects for more damage.

I just picked up Assault and Tactics on my level 25ish Dark/Regen scrapper. Their bonuses are certainly small, but just enough that I miss them when I have em toggled off.

Also, as a Scrapper I don't feel very useful to the team. Leadership helps me feel better.

Also, I play lotsa Tanker and Dominator thingies. This scrapper is running less than 1 end/second of toggles, that's NOTHING! And who needs that stupid Stamina thing, anyway? :P

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One of my major purposes in posting is to hopefully make at least one person out there smirk. And I also use the shotgun method. If I post enough inanity often enough, eventually by the law of probability, SOMEONE will be smiling SOMEWHERE.

That, and I laugh at myself, a LOT. So as long as it at least makes ME smile, I'm happy.

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And actually, this mentality really shows through well in your posts.

(Wow. I am grammar eater, eater of grammatically senseful sentences.)

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Having damage in Terrify always struck me as odd. It's especially odd when my Mind dom terrifies a bunch of crates in a Mayhem mission and they explode.

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He's just that damn scary.

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Damn straight! Just yesterday I scared some cars into blowing up. Can't get much more badass than that.


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I suggest calling up the Info for the power itself to see what effects are applied. I've seen discrepancies before between the pop-up description and the power info screens.

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Actually, I did. Look on the veeery right of that picture, that's the edge of the detailed power window. Cropped cause I like small pictures. Yeah, it deals damage (which I love), and fears (+domination fear component), but hasn't got a trace of a ToHit Debuff line.

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Thanks very much for the info & explanation.

Interesting, so its possible to heal more than you harmed... yikes.

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Not.. not quite. The "heal", since it is actually a negative value of Psionic Damage, is also reduced by psi resist. It's flagged as unbuffable by Enhancements and Buffs, but can still be resisted, thus reducing the amount of healing the enemy gets from it.

Though... Oh I guess you can. If you had enough -damage on you to cut your damage output to about 40% of normal, you'd heal just as much as you dealt.

But what are the chances of that? Next to nothing. I'm going to go get hit by the Mutation crash and Darkest night at the same time.

Let me start by saying "Blargey snarf carbuncle"
Blargey snarf carbuncle.

Anyway, on to the point:
I got Terrify on my lovely Mind/Fire Dominator, and it rocks. It is fricking sweet and I love it. While deciding how I'm gonna slot it, I noticed that it takes To-Hit debuff sets. And Accurate to-hit debuff. See Figure A.

Now wait, let's look closer at this power. It doesn't debuff To-Hit, does it? I am pretty sure it doesn't. Right?
It would be really fricking sweet if it did, so I could have some debuff against mez-resistant foes (Like how Ice Control has Shiver and slowing and Fire Control has.. Hot feet and bonfire? And Earth Control debuffs defense like woah).
Did it used to? Is it sorta just a copypaste error from the fear in Dark Miasma from long ago? (that does tohit debuff, right?)

Anyway, that's all. Nothing super important.

In b4 "ur surch fu sux"

You know what I'm waiting for? For my [censored]ing startchat binds ((EDIT: Startchat? Beginchat? I forget which it is/was)) to start working again. They broke around i14 (maybe a little earlier), and haven't been right since. Everyone else seems to have forgotten about the issue, but they haven't left me, despite leaving bajillions of others.

I make a chat bind so I can hit "Shift+L yo yo teaming time for me-dizzle" and have my message go out to the LFG channel. But now I have to hit "Shift+L left right right end" just to get to the point where I'm allowed to type. I don't want to feel like I'm [censored]ing cheating at a Konami game here. I just want to speak in borken gangsta slang to mah LFG homies, capice?


To add insult to injury, I hovered over my friend's shoulder as I told him the exact bind that I use, so that he can join the channel. And his works just fine, [censored]ing A.

On my honor, I am not a cruel, nasty person...

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I read B_I's post in the voice of a valley girl to make it easier.

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But god damn, I laughed SO HARD at that one.

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Anyway, the whole point of I was coming over here to say is was that congrats, PK! More people need to make references to all of the really awesome abridged series dealies out there! And you linked to pretty much the BEST moment in that one.

PK is a pretty cool guy, you know?

I fricking love the shadow shard. I say this as someone who goes there with a Super-Jumping Ice Tanker and tries REALLY hard to never use her jetpacks ever.

Damn near everything mentioned about it are things that make me happy. The eyeballs are awesome-looking and are really a challenge to fight - But they have enough non-eyeballs in their groups usually to make the fight fair, not just a mass of sniping autohitting debuffing death drones. Anyway, Soldiers of Rularuu are HARD to fight, and I love it. I love the excitement from leaping island to island via gravity geysers, and the tensity from falling actually being bad.

However, I should probably go into details on the things I don't find pleasing about it. I ramble about how much I love the place often enough.

- It's a bad place to bring a team.
Soaring through the air and navigating tricky islands is a lot of fun, but it is pure torture when a team is waiting for you. Almost all of my Shard trips have been solo, and I'm glad for that.
Having the time to fool around, enjoy the view, or screw up and fall forever is really necessary to your enjoyment.

- That Damn Bloodfalls Place. (Cascade Archipelago)
The middle of Shard Zone 2 is terrible to navigate. Mostly because your map is two dimensional, and the zone contains lots of huuuge islands far far above one another, along with islands that are juuuust far away enough from those that getting across is a huge brutal painful detour without flight. The outer edges of the zone are fine, but the center is just not okay. Beautiful, but not functional. Distinguishing one layer from another is tooth-grinding. Each layer should be smaller and closer vertically, I think. OR, each layer should be laterally displaced a bit so they're not literally on top of each other.

- What, no story arcs?
Yeah, this is pretty tragic. I do three quarters of my story arcs solo, and the zones right now are MUCH friendlier for the lonely. It seriously needs some story arcs. I also would not be against letting villains in the zone (Something to look forward to when I finally get a villain to the forties, eh?), but I don't want to fight them.


So yes. The shadow shard needs some modifications, but I fricking love it. ^^

Also: the entrance point in Peregrine Island is called Firebase Zulu. Till I went there I had no idea that and the Shadow Shard were the same thing.