ClawsandEffect

"Damn" and "Hell" are allowed as they are technically not swear words.

Hellion bosses are called the Damned, so they can't logically filter the word.

I have used both hell and damn in my MA arcs with no problems. If you're trying to have custom critters dropping F-bombs of course it's not going to let you.

Try writing dialog in the MA using the words hell and damn, I would be willing to bet it will allow it.

Puce, gotta go puce.

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Since you read the information already, you know as much about it as anyone (who doesn't work at NCSoft) knows.

Decided to check Pinnacle out huh?

Definitely a good bunch o' peeps here. I can usually be found online between 11:00 AM and 7:00 PM Central time (I work a weird schedule)

You can get ahold of me the same way that Aett gave you earlier in the thread, my global is @Claws and Effect. I have a couple lowbie toons that I can run, or I can exemp one of my higher toons down. (I'll explain how to do that if it seems like a good idea)

So, lemme see here. If I assume that your reg date is close to the date you started playing you would have access to about the same number of respecs as me (my forum reg date is about 2 months after I started)

That would make:
3 vetspecs granted, soon to be 4 when you hit 45 months.
3 trial respecs you can earn.
A freespec granted for each issue since November of '05 (so that would be Issue 7, the first one I was here for the release of) for a total of 8.

That's 14 respecs, not counting any respec recipes that may have dropped or been bought. With a minimum of 6 for a brand new character that didn't get the freespec drops. 7 if you count THIS respec, which you seem to be doing.

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Also, many people (like me) don't have ample time to 'study' how game changes affect power choices, slotting, as well as how to optimally slot a power without playing the changed power for a while.

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With 14 respecs it shouldn't matter if it drops right away or in a week. Vetspecs and trial earned respecs are not consumed like freespecs are.

A far as any freespecs you may have had before the new issue drops, you can read the Test server patch notes, even if you don't log on to Test yourself. It should give you enough of an idea of whether you want to try out a power that is being changed or not.

If you DO want to try it out, spec into it a day or two before the issue goes live. They give you advance warning so you can use your freespec without losing it. If you do that you won't lose your freespec when the new issue goes live and you can test out a power change, because you already specced into it.

There's a big difference between "studying" a power change and doing a little advance research. I read all the patch notes on Test so I can get advance warning if something is changing for a powerset I use. Ignorance of what is changing and not changing is a poor excuse in this case because the information is so readily available if you choose to read it. It doesn't even require you to study anything, I can tell just by reading the description in the patch notes if it's something I want to check out or not.

I'm not really against the idea of freespecs dropping a week after the issue goes live, because it doesn't really affect me that much, I just don't understand the reasoning you're giving.

Edit to clarify:

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Yup, it is a significant request, because it would save me influence/infamy, time, and effort. That's why it is a Suggestion.

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Emphasis mine. I'm not trying to tear your idea down, I'm just trying to prompt you to give a better reason why it should be implemented. I can pretty much guarantee that "Because it would be convenient to this guy on the forums" is not a good enough reason for the devs to do this.

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The point I was trying to make though, is that if you DO want to play a natural-origin human character, none of the current control sets really fit. Every other archetype (kheldians and doms not included) has power choices that can be played as a straight-up vanilla human. No weird race, no superpowers. A watchmen style hero if you will. Controllers and dominators simply don't. And they should.

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I can explain anything I need to explain as far as origin is concerned. I have a Fire/TA controller who is a stage magician with a doctorate in chemistry. He uses equipment concealed in his clothing to make it appear that he is using magic. He has no powers, he just happens to be a genius with chemicals.

Power by power breakdown of Fire Control for natural origin.

Ring of Fire: You have a device concealed in your sleeve that sprays a flammable gel on the ground around your foe. A liquid that is sprayed out immediately after causes a chemical reaction that ignites it.

Char: You throw a small object filled with a gas or powder that ignites upon exposure to air, it breaks when it hits your enemy, incapacitating them.

Fire Cages: Same as Ring of Fire, on a larger scale.

Smoke: You have a device that creates a smoke cloud out of a viscous substance that does not dissipate immediately. It is activated by impact with a solid object, causing the smoke to form.

Hot Feet: This one is tough to explain. I can't think of anything right now.

Flashfire: You spray a highly combustible gas into the air and ignite it with a spark. Since it ignites so violently the shock of air being displaced and the effect of all the oxygen in the vicinity being consumed combine to stun and disorient anyone caught in the blast.

Cinders: Same idea as Char, but since the effect is more spread out it doesn't have the same physical effect, hence it doesn't deal damage. You just release the powder instead of using an object filled with it.

Bonfire: Combustible chemical poured on the ground and lit with a spark. That simple.

Fire Imps: Another one I can't explain.

But...that's 7 out of 9 powers plausibly explained with a natural origin. The animations don't match up because, like I mentioned above, he is a stage magician who is very practiced at sleight of hand. He uses his knowledge of chemistry to produce effects that could be confused with magic because his enemies can't see the source of the powers.

And Trick Arrow couldn't get much more natural.

Why?

Free Respecs don't expire unless you were still sitting on one from earlier. It's not like there's a deadline to use it before it goes away. They also tend to give a week's notice before they drop them, giving you time to use the one you already have so you don't lose it.

Based on the way you worded it I really don't understand what the problem here is. The respec will still be there in a week. The only way I can see it being an issue is if a level 50 tries out a changed power and doesn't like it, but that is probably a rare situation, as most level 50s already have a pretty good idea what works and what doesn't by that point.

That would be cool. It seems kind of odd to see technology-based wings flapping, you would think they would have some other way of achieving flight.

ShoRyu has it right in my book. Natural just means you have the abilities that come naturally to your race or species.

Too many people think that only includes humans. I can think of any number of comic book characters that would fall into the "natural" origin, simply because any member of their race would have the same abilities in the same conditions. I cite Superman II as an example, the 3 Kryptonians that ended up on Earth all had powers similar to Superman himself, that would make him natural origin.

Starfire from the Teen Titans is natural origin, as is Raven (she's a demonic half-breed, anyone with the same genetic mixture would have the same abilities)

On the Marvel side, the members of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard mostly fall into the natural origin. They are comprised of many different species from many different worlds, and a lot of their powers come naturally to them.

I'm not bashing your idea, so don't take it the wrong way. A gadget-type powerset for controllers would be cool, I was just correcting the misapprehension that "Natural" can only mean "Human". In a lot of cases it does mean they are human, but in a lot of other cases it means they are something else entirely.

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A piece of advice: Avoid the AE teams at first. There's nothing actually wrong with them, but when you first start playing you will find that you level so fast you skip past a lot of cool stuff and don't really learn how to play that well.

I have nothing against AE, but it saddens me that so many new players jump right into it and end up with a level capped character before they even explore the game. It leads to people asking questions that they would have learned the answers to just playing normally.

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Ok, I'll take some time to wander and learn before rushing into teams so - you would say do my own thing for a few days pr a week?

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Teaming is good. It's actually one of the best ways to learn stuff about the game while you're playing.

All I meant about the AE thing is that a large percentage of people using AE aren't using it to play cool player-created missions. They are using it to level as fast as they possibly can with no travel time, usually playing the same mission over and over.

Another reason I had for saying it is an equally large percentage of people using AE don't know anything about the game outside of the AE building in Atlas Park. So, if you want to learn stuff about the game AE teams are not the best place to be. I have seen a number of people with level 50 characters that don't know simple things...like how to get to a different zone.

I'm not ragging on AE. It's an awesome feature that has a lot of cool stuff in it. It's just not the best place for a new player to start, as evidenced by the number of people that ask questions they should already know the answer to from just playing the game.

Solo if you want, or try to find a team that is running low level content. When you hit level 5 you might want to go to Kings Row and get your police scanner from the detective there. Run 3 of those missions and you will get a mission to stop a bank robbery. Succeed in the mission and you get a temporary travel power, which makes the low level stuff much more bearable.

After that you can go to the Hollows if you want, or run missions from whatever contact you get introduced to.

Most players are happy to answer questions you may have if you ask politely. There's jackholes out there who will give you crap for not knowing, but you find them anywhere, just ignore them. Thankfully there aren't really that many of them.

Oh yeah, the most important part of my post: As long as you're having fun, you're doing fine. Once again, welcome to the game and I hope to see you around!

A piece of advice: Avoid the AE teams at first. There's nothing actually wrong with them, but when you first start playing you will find that you level so fast you skip past a lot of cool stuff and don't really learn how to play that well.

I have nothing against AE, but it saddens me that so many new players jump right into it and end up with a level capped character before they even explore the game. It leads to people asking questions that they would have learned the answers to just playing normally.

Howdy and welcome to the City!

It's not as complicated as it seems at first. Once you start figuring stuff out it starts making more sense.

If you play on Pinnacle at all you'll probably meet me eventually. My global name is the same as my forum handle, but with spaces

Endurance usage is gonna kill you. You don't have nearly enough End Reduction in your toggles (none in Weave at all)

I'd consider opening the Flight pool with Air Superiority instead of Hover.

Think about Dark Mastery for Tenebrous Tentacles for an AoE immobilize to use with Burn. You can slot the Gaussian's set in Focus Chi if you do that.

Otherwise looks okay.

Uh, for starters. Pull those Obliterations out of Blazing Aura and Quills. For powers that are going to be on ALL THE TIME you really want a set with more end reduction. Obliteration only gives 18% to end reduction at level 50. That set and Eradication were designed with blaster nukes in mind, where end reduction is irrelevant. I'd go with Scirroco's Dervish 5 slots (-the proc) and a Damage/EndRed from another set.

If you're going to take RotP, take it earlier and slot for damage, or drop it altogether. It's auto-hit in PvE so you can slap 3 damage IOs and a recharge in it and call it good.

The Numina's unique is better put into a passive power like Health. I like Doctored Wounds for non-targeting heals on a budget.

If you're planning on actually running Focused Accuracy it needs end reduction, it's a helluva end hog.

If you build exactly like that you will do solid damage and have passable survivability......for the 60 seconds your endurance will last for in a fight.

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Survivability-wise my Sonic/Devices blows my other blasters out of the water.

Siren's Song a mob, wake one up with Screech, beat it down with ST attacks, wake one up with Taser, beat it down with ST attacks. I can go through a mob like that before SS wears off (they sleep for almost a minute and a half the way I have it slotted) and they never get a shot off, and if they do my ranged defense is close to softcapped, so they probably won't hit me.

I also have a Stealth IO in Hover and Cloaking Device so they don't see me before I put them to sleep.

Only downside to it is my AoE sucks.

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Just wanted to point out that the real key to what you describe is the AoE sleep of Siren's Song. You could just as easily be Sonic/anything and take Super Speed with a Celerity +Stealth IO for invisibility. I'm not saying your combo is bad, but some folks don't care for Devices so I wanted to point out there are other options.

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Yup, well aware of Siren's Song being the keystone of it. You'd be surprised how many powers from /Devices I DON'T have. I have no Caltrops, no Smoke Grenade, no Trip Mine, and no Time Bomb.

It was the problem of Faceplant vs. Glacier Speed Soloing that I was having. I solved it by dropping the majority of the /Devices powers and becoming a hover blaster. When I made the decision the character was already level 43, so deleting wasn't an option (I have a rule about not deleting anything above 35) and I didn't want to level another Sonic blaster. So, I worked with what I had and came up with a build I'm happy with.

For the record, it all ties in perfectly with his backstory too. He's a mutant, but the only power his mutation gave him was the sonic part, the rest is all gizmos and doodads. I even went with Munitions Mastery to flesh that out more.

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Ooh you forgot, "bake in a horse-shaped springform pan".

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But then it would have to be tenderized repeatedly with a blunt object before baking, thus slowing the cooking process

How about just some office buildings that are actually laid out in a way that makes sense? I swear the guy who designed those floors went to the M.C. Escher School of Architecture

A restaurant would be cool, I think the reskinned casino idea would be a good start on that.

I have a general level of support for this idea overall.

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Even with this, there are still a lot of folks that are running like lemmings to 'the only server that's not dead' and swelling there numbers further. The original post, and all suggestions in that vein, are at best a step and a half from just saying 'merge the servers and move them all to Freedom!' And I think we all know how well those suggestions go over.

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I'll just nip this one in the bud before our illustrious OP or other well-meaning individual chimes in with how great an idea a server merge would be.

A server merge would be the death blow of this game, plain and simple. Here's the recipe:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Take 1 part customers that are angry because they lost character and/or SG names and quit, add 1 part players quitting because their computer can't handle the increased amount of information being thrown at it from a now jam-packed server, add 1 part 2xp lockouts with no other options available, and a large helping of outside perception of a server merge signaling a struggling game.

Bake for several months, remove the now smoldering corpse of a once viable game and serve.

It's also useful if you have IOs on one character that you either want to sell for cash flow, or move to another character. Respecing is the ONLY way to get those IOs back once you have slotted them.

I burn through respecs like mad on all my characters. It's not indecision or even poor choices. It's more to do with the fact that no amount of numbers in the world will tell you how a particular power feels in combat.

My Sonic/Devices blaster went from squishy as hell and a few more deaths from deletion, to almost unkillable and one of my favorite characters to play. This was over a series of multiple respecs as I narrowed down what worked for me and what didn't.

Just because a group of people swear that a certain power is the best thing in the world doesn't mean it works in your playstyle.

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I've been anticipating making my Crab Spider since my main hit 45.

I already have the backstory, I already know the color scheme.

It just so happens the name I came up with is not taken in any version or variation of the name.

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Let's just hope we didn't settle on the same scientific name for a particular species of spider on the same server now shall we?

My wife and I collect tarantulas. We have almost unlimited names for spider-themed characters

Edit: Tried to send you a PM with the name I'm using and the server so we don't both try for it, but you're not accepting them.

Another AE has killed the game thread?

Really? ANOTHER one?

*sigh* Yup, seems to be the case.

I logged in on Monday and had been on for maybe 10 minutes before I got an invite to the new TF (which is pretty fun btw)

After that my wife and I duoed a couple of our alts for a while.

In the last two days I have run World Wide Red and A Hero's Hero. (Crimson and Maria Jenkins's arcs respectively)

I goofed around in Steel Canyon on a lowbie for a little while, and declined probably 9 or 10 TF invites (all for different TFs mind you) because I didn't feel like running them right then.

I also ran a couple story based AE arcs, one was really cool and fun, the other was completely lame.

Personally, I LAUGH at the people who think that AE farms are the best thing to do in CoH. Sure, you level fast, but it's boring as hell and at the end of it you have a toon that you only have the vaguest idea how to play.

I speak from experience here. I PLed a few characters during the Rikti Comm Officer farce, and I realized after I did it that I now had a level 30 character that I barely knew how to play! And I'm an experienced player. I can only imagine the frustration of someone who just started playing and found themselves in that situation.

In short, AE has not ruined anything except the experience of the people who never do anything else. You know, the people that seem to think they need to get to level 50 as fast as possible and roll a EAT because "they have to be an "I WIN" button, right?"

I have seen so many Kheldians that have no clue what they're doing it saddens me. But the upside to that is: It has ZERO effect on my play experience. I am part of a global channel on my home server so I have no problem finding a team if I want one. And if I can't find a team it's fine, because I enjoy soloing too.

The only way AE can possibly ruin anything for you is if you let it.

Eh, I agree and disagree with you on this one Tripp.

It would be nice if it were possible to get them without PvPing.

But..

The Shivans and Nukes are part of the reward specifically for entering the PvP zones. Removing that risk would damage the risk/reward ratio, likely resulting in the temp powers themselves getting nerfed. Less risk = less reward.

That said, I used to like PvP. It prevented a challenge in not knowing what my opponent was going to do, whereas in PvE I can predict with 99.99% accuracy what a mob will do when I use a particular power on it.

The attitude and behavior in PvP zones is what turned me off of it. I'll still go in there to get temp powers, but I have very little interest in fighting anyone anymore. It seems that someone's pixels being able to beat up my pixels makes them better than me somehow. Who'd have figured?

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Robotic Arms...we have 3 versions

upper half of right arm is robotic
upper half of both arms are robotic
whole right arms is robotic

Add lefty versions and it would also be nice if you could have full robotic arms in jackets/trenchcoats.

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Yes, this would be nice.

Wow, a suggestion I like, that is reasonably well thought out and not ridiculous. Don't see too many of those.

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Memphis_Bill, I really enjoy your posts, and find them helpful. But this is just the "play another server" argument, all dolled up to look prettier than it really is.

My wife and I don't get to play together as much as either of us would like. So when we DO play, we play together. So let's say for the sake of argument, that she successfully logs in, but I'm locked out.

How is that fun for either of us?

There are thousands of friends and family members out there in the same boat. There MUST be a better answer than "Play another server."

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You mean all of your friends can't create characters on another server with you?

And the complaint about "Low population servers" I still find to be ridiculous. Everyone and their grandma plays on Freedom because the other servers are "dead". It never occurs to anyone that if they spread out a little more the other servers wouldn't be so low, population-wise.

The people who insist that Freedom is the only server worth playing on created the problem for themselves.

As someone mentioned above, they ALREADY upgraded Freedom at least once, probably Virtue as well. The crashes are usually client-side and have very little to do with server load. If there is more going on than your system can handle, you will crash and the server will still be just fine.

So, if you have repeated crashing problems it most likely isn't the server to blame. If they did increase the capacity of the server, even more people would crash because it is putting more strain on THEIR system. So, if you're lagging and crashing on a high population server you basically have 2 options: switch to a lower population server, or upgrade your computer so it can handle the extra strain placed on it.

I guarantee when you are lagging and crashing, the game server is just fine. It's your system giving you problems.

Leadership toggles stay on, but they suppress for everyone but yourself. So while they are still on, no one on your team is getting any benefit from them.

Aett's right.

I had invisibility on my fire blaster and tried exactly what you're describing.

End result: They could still see and target me, and I couldn't attack them back because Invisibility has "Only Affecting Self" on it.