Curveball

When Dominators were first introduced, they had mediocre control and mediocre damage until you hit Domination, then both control and damage went wild. So "permadom" was always the goal there, because you got the end bar refilled each time it came back up and you got great control and great damage.

Then they changed that mechanic, so that when Domination was NOT active your damage was buffed, and when Domination WAS active your control was buffed -- this meant you'd have to choose whether you were going for better damage or better control. Suddenly Domination was, while still useful, no longer absolutely necessary to have up all the time.

I stopped playing dominators for a while, and now when I visit the forums I see everything seems to have tilted pro-permadom again. Is that because they've changed the mechanic again? Or is it because someone did some math and discovered the damage buff with Domination off wasn't as useful as the control buff with Domination on?

EDIT/UPDATE: Looking at the Dominator Revamp post above it looks like the change increased damage for Dominators across the board, whether in Domination mode or not. If that's true then there's no trade-off to consider at all... which means I REALLY WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION when they did that.

Thanks for the advice. Kicking myself about Death Shroud!

I run Linux, and Mids never worked well through wine in earlier builds, but maybe it will now. I'll try tonight...

(Edit: Sorry for the huge dump of text. This was the best way I could think of to try to explain what I was trying to do.)

So, as the title suggests, I'm looking at a Staff/Dark Armor Brute. I don't currently have access to Mids, so I'm trying to juggle set bonuses in my head... and I'm in untested waters anyway, as I'll explain below, so I could use any and all suggestions.

So I figured since I was using staff, I should take full advantage of Guarded Spin. Guarded Spin provides an 11.25% bonus for Melee and Lethal, the bonus lasts for 10 seconds--more than enough time to open with GS and complete an attack chain.

If I'm going to use Guarded Spin I figure I'll want to build for positional defense instead of typed, because enhancement set bonuses tend to give bonuses for smashing and lethal together, and GS only buffs lethal. So either I get to 45% with lethal using GS, or there's no point in using GS at all. Going for melee, however, I can add 11.25% with GS and try to make up the rest with other melee set bonuses.

The challenge is that building up positional defenses looks significantly harder to do.

So I'm looking at what I start with: Dark Armor gives you Cloak of Darkness for 3.75% defense (unslotted). Taking Weave gives you another 3.75%, Combat Jumping 1.75%. That's pretty standard. Taking Maneuvers will give me another 2.275%, and I could also take Hover and stack CJ and Hover (i.e., run both at the same time) for another 1.75%.

That gives me a total of 11.525% defense (unslotted), or 13.275 if I decide to take Hover.

(I'm on the fence with Hover. I use that trick on my WP/SJ Tanker and it works fine, BUT Tankers give you a bigger bonus for those powers and I don't always want to be flying when I fight--it's an aesthetic thing).

When you slot defense it's schedule B bonuses, and with diminishing returns, assuming I'm figuring everything out correctly, you can't really go beyond a 60% increase. This boosts Cloak of Darkness and Weave to 6% each. So that gets adjusted to 12% total.

Putting a single Luck of the Gambler global recharge in Combat Jumping gives you a minimum 12.6% boost which would bring it up to 1.969%--almost 2%. If I get a level 50 LoTG the boost is around 20% I think? That brings it up to 2.1%. The global recharge is far more important to me than the defense boost, and I don't really want to add another slot to CJ at the moment, so let's just put this at 2% with the understand that it may be a little less at the end of the day depending on what I manage to get. So that brings it up to 14% total.

I'll be slotting Maneuvers to lower the end cost, because I really don't like that end cost. So... it stays put at 2.275%, bringing it up to 16.275 total.

If I decide to go with hover, which I don't want to do, that'd be another estimated 2% bonus. I'm going to go forward assuming I haven't taken hover, so just add 2% to everything for the "Curveball decides to go with Hover" scenario.

So currently: 16.275 melee, ranged, and aoe

Immediately we incorporate Guarded Spin. This of course assumes I *hit* with Guarded Spin. We're going to assume Guarded Spin hits every single time, because unrealistic expectations are part of what makes shorthand calculations possible.

27.525 melee, 16.275 ranged and AOE

But wait! We can six-slot Guarded Spin! 5 Scirocco's Dervish adds +3.13% to AOE, so:

27.525 melee, 16.275 ranged, 19.405 aoe

But wait! I said six-slot, because Guarded Spin can also take defense enhancements, and I think probably the best thing to do would be to put in one level 50 Defense IO for a 25.5% boost to melee. That brings Guarded Spin's bonus up to a mighty 14.06%, which gives us:

30.335 melee, 16.275 ranged, 19.405 aoe

Ranged needs help right now. Fortunately Staff has three single-target attacks (mercurial Strike, Precise Strike, and Sky Splitter) that would benefit from six-slotted Mako's Bite, which would net an 11.25% increase in Ranged overall, so:

30.335 melee, 27.525 ranged, 19.405 aoe

Five-slotting Eye of the Storm with Scirocco's Dervish would add another 3.13% to AOE:

30.335 melee, 27.525 ranged, 23.535 aoe

5-slotting Taunt with Mocking Beratement would add 1.25% to melee and 1.565% to AOE:

31.585 melee, 27.525 ranged, 25.1 aoe

Serpents Reach is ranged, and I'm not really familiar with the ranged sets but it seems like there's not a lot going for ranged that adds to defense. The best I found was to six-slot Thunderstrike to add 3.75% to AOE:

31.585 melee, 27.525 ranged, 28.85 aoe

Do I take Innocuous Strikes or not? Hard to say. It's not something I'd see using as part of my melee chain much. But it's another AOE (cone) and I could six-slot it with eradication to get another 1.565% for ranged, and 3.13% aoe:

31.585 melee, 29.09 ranged, 31.98 aoe

At this point I'm a little worried, because this is a lot of six-slotting I'm doing in my attacks and I'm wondering how much my defenses will suffer for it. But nevermind that for now!

Speaking of defenses, I'm going to have to save an armor slot for the knockback protection in Steadfast, I might as well save another for the 3% universal defense bonus:

34.585 melee, 32.09 ranged, 34.98 aoe

And I might as well assume I'm somehow going to either luck into or manage to afford the extra 3% global provided by the Gladiator's Armor global

37.585 melee, 35.09 ranged, 37.98 aoe

Now on to armor. If I put at least four slots of Reactive Armor into Dark Embrace, Death Shroud, Murky Cloud, and Tough I get 1.25% bonuses to melee and ranged:

38.502 melee, 36.34 ranged, 37.98 aoe

One of those armors will now be six-slotted because of the extra Steadfast protection slots (might as well combine them and get the 1.5% endurance recovery bonus). One will be five-slotted because of the Gladiator's Armor defense IO. And now we add an extra slot to one of the others to five-slot Reactive to get a 1.25% bonus to AOE.

38.502 melee, 36.34 ranged, 39.23 aoe

So... I don't think I can go much higher than that. If I remember correctly, you get 67 extra slots to spend by level 50, and I've used 62 so far (including 3-slotting Cloak of Darkness and Weave for defense). This doesn't incorporate doing anything but building for positional defense, so I haven't increased stamina, or health, or done ANYTHING with Dark Regeneration which I would argue is a lot more important in this set than defense anyway.

If Guarded Spin increased both smashing and lethal then I'd try to build to typed defense instead of positional, but since it only does lethal I'm not convinced it's a good idea. It's certainly easier to get to the low 30s in S/L defense thanks to Kinetic Combat (and larger Reactive bonuses) but having 14% more defense in lethal than smashing seems kind of awkward, so from that perspective it seems positional is a better choice to build toward.

But at this point all the math is making my head hurt. Thoughts? Comments? Better math? All are welcome...

Oh hi Dechs! Thanks for your reply.

Claws is kind of a special case though. I didn't want to talk about it because the first rule of Claws Brute is "don't talk about Claws Brute."

*looks over his shoulder nervously*

So... uh... anyway, moving on.

Ah, wanted to update because previous post was a little unclear -- the end thing for my Staff/WP Brute was an issue only in the teens. Once you hit 20 you get Quick Recovery and endurance stops being an issue. But from levels 8-20 using Form of the Soul allowed my brute to run Mind over Body, Indomitable Will, Sprint, and (then at 16) Rise to the Challenge pretty much without any end issues whatsoever... and in other builds getting to 20 has always involved end crashes (because I'd get sucked into SMASH! and would stop paying attention to the end bar).

Once I hit 20--and especially once I hit 22, and could SO or IO Stamina and and QR--Form of the Soul became unnecessary for End recovery.

Just wanted to clear that up, since I can imagine a few of you scratching your heads and wondering "what is this guy doing that's making a WP Brute have end issues?"

... I've played Staff before and it's fun. I've played Dark Armor before and it's cool, but I find end management frustrating.

I hadn't really thought of combining them until I read a post somewhere about a Brute who did and relied on the Staff Mastery Form of the Soul toggle to keep the DA toggles in check. It was a comment made in passing, but it interested me a great deal... I just didn't follow up on it then (about a month and a half ago, if I remember correctly).

So I thought I'd follow up here. Has anyone had any experience with this? Exactly how big an end discount does Form of the Soul give at each level of perfection? I've never been able to figure that out. I've have noticed that my WP brute with staff had absolutely no problem managing five toggles and keeping a consistent attack chain going almost nonstop as soon as he was able to activate Form of the Soul... but Dark Armor is a liiiiiiiiiiiitle more end hungry, especially that glorious, glorious heal.

Anyway, I figure I'll try it out, but I was wondering if any Staff/DA brutes were willing to talk a little more specifically about how effective Form of the Soul is at DA end mitigation.

Anyone?

The heroes were crowded in a makeshift "green room"--a small tent erected on the Atlas Park City Hall landing. It was made of dark material, to prevent the competition from taking pictures, and it was very stuffy. Steel Bayonet was sweating profusely.

"This is idiotic," he complained.

"Try to make a good impression," Peter said.

Steel Bayonet was a hero. He had a card and everything. He wasn't, to put too fine a point on it, particularly comfortable with the title. Peter Renaut, a smaller, thinner man in a disheveled brown suit, was his ELITE liason. Many of the other heroes had similar smaller men, in similar disheveled suits of various colors, also talking to them in a similarly urgent manner.

The tent was very crowded.

"Pete, this isn't what I signed on for," Steel Bayonet said.

Peter sighed. "I know, Mike. But look, the station is interested in the 'new heroes' who helped evacuate Galaxy City, and the city really needs some good publicity to help keep the blood pressure down. This is part of the job, OK?"

Sweat trickled down the back of Mike's neck. "Well when are we going on? Seriously. I'm going to pass out from the heat in here, and--wait a minute." He turned, almost knocking down a shorter man dressed in full plate armor, and faced a younger guy in blue and white spandex uniform with a snowflake pattern stamped on the arms and legs. "Hey... er... Ice Guy..."

"Antarcticos," the man replied.

"OK, Antarctic--wait, really?"

The man sighed. "Really."

"Because, uh, that kind of sounds more like a villain name."

"I know!" Antarcticos rolled his eyes and indicated a short fat man in a dark green shabby suit. "That's what I told GIFT when they gave it to me. I said 'every time I say this name I feel like I should throw back my head and laugh maniacally!' But they gave it to me anyway. They said--"

"The name is fine," the short fat man in the dark green shabby suit said, somewhat defensively.

"That's exactly what they say," Antarcticos said. "Every time."

The short fat man in the dark green shabby suit glowered.

"Well, look," Steel Bayonet said, "seeing as how we're all packed like sardines in this stupid tent--" he raised his voice higher, hoping someone outside would overhear him-- "I thought maybe you might, you know..." he wiggled his fingers.

Antarcticos sighed. "The boss won't let me." He jerked his head toward the short fat guy in the dark green shabby suit.

Every hero in the tent immediately turned to face the short fat guy in the dark green shabby suit and glowered. The man gulped self-consciously.

"It's a liability issue," the man stammered.

"Oh yeah?" Steel Bayonet frowned. "What kind of liability are we talking here? Are you afraid his ice powers are going to accidentally conjure up a blizzard that buries us alive or something? Maybe we'll get trapped in this tent--you know, the one parked right outside City Hall--and we'll have to resort to cannibalism to survive."

The short fat guy in the dark green shabby suit flushed scarlet, but he also crossed his arms and planted his feet. Steel Bayonet felt Pete tug at his arm and saw him shaking his head.

"Please don't make trouble," Pete said.

Steel Bayonet sighed.

The tent brightened momentarily as the tent flap was pushed aside. The heroes and their handlers sighed collectively as a quick breeze blew in from the outside. A man in a headset peered in and looked at the assembled group.

"Steel... uh... hmmm." The man looked at his clipboard and frowned. "The sword guy," he said finally.

"That's me!" Steel Bayonet said. He started working his way to the front of the tent.

"Mike, just... be polite, OK? Remember why you're doing this." Pete sounded worried.

"I'm doing this because you told me to," Steel Bayonet said cheerfully.

"No!" A tinge of panic edged Pete's voice. "No, you're doing it for the city! For the city!"

"Because you told me to," Steel Bayonet repeated, and stepped outside.

* * *

Cheryl Morris was an attractive, aggressive woman in her late 20s. She was considered one of the rising stars on WHRO (the "Hero Network") for her gutsy and occasionally dangerous on-the-scene reports of hero and villain activity. She'd recently managed to get on location footage of the madness in Galaxy City, and the city had tried very hard to suppress as much of that footage as possible. From the city's perspective, they had every reason to try--Galaxy City was a frightening mess, and they didn't want people rioting form sheer terror. From Cheryl's perspective, the city was trying to suppress information, and whatever their motives might be, hiding the truth always led to greater problems down the road.

The city had arranged these interviews in an attempt to mollify her. She found their attempt to trade a hard-hitting journalistic piece about heroism and destruction in Galaxy City with a fluff piece about largely unknown heroes more than a little offensive. The fact that her boss made it absolutely clear that she was going to do the piece and shut up about it infuriated her even more.

So far she'd managed not to take out on the poor heroes they'd corralled into this farce. She was a professional, after all, and she'd seen a lot of this group in action, helping with the evacuation, standing against the Shivans, even facing off against an Arachnos agent or two. They weren't responsible for the city shutting down her story, and she wasn't going to take it out on them.

... but then Steel Bayonet called her "Lois."

He was average height for a Paragon City hero--which meant, statistically, he was well over six feet in height. It was an odd statistical anomaly that the mean average height of a male Paragon hero was from six foot five and a half inches. Steel Bayonet looked a little shorter than that -- maybe six four. He wore some kind of high-tech body armor that a number of the new melee heroes were sporting, a dark-colored chain mesh made of a new alloy that DATA was field testing on a number of ELITE, GIFT and SERAPH recruits. Over that was a blue-and-black chest plate and black arm and leg guards with extra armor over the joints. Strapped to his back were two swords. He wore blue mirrored sunglasses, and she saw old, heavy scars traveling down the left side of his face.

He wasn't condescending. He just sat down on the stool they'd set up for the interviewee, flashed her a grin, and said "hiya Lois." In most other situations she might actually have found it amusing, but today it was precisely the wrong thing to say at exactly the wrong time.

She betrayed no emotion, waited for the cameras to start rolling, and politely started asking her questions.

"You're name is Steel Bayonet?"

"My name is Michael Brennan," he said. "Steel Bayonet is my... hm."

"Stage name?" She asked helpfully.

He stopped, tilted his head sideways for a moment, then laughed. "Yeah, that works. It's my stage name."

"But you don't actually use bayonets, do you?"

One eyebrow shot up over the top of his sunglasses. "No," he said. His voice sounded a little more guarded now.

"A bayonet, from what I understand, is something like a knife that is fixed to the end of a rifle. But you don't use knives or rifles."

"That's right," Steel Bayonet said. "I use swords."

"So why do you call yourself Steel Bayonet?"

Cheryl could see her editor frantically waving his hands, trying to get her attention. She ignored him. She also noticed a small, thin man in a rumpled brown suit frantically waving his hands, trying to get Steel Bayonet's attention. Steel Bayonet ignored him. She saw his jaw set, and the corner of his mouth turn up into a slight smile.

"I call myself 'Steel Bayonet' because that's the name they gave me."

Cheryl blinked. "You didn't choose your own name?"

"No, most of us don't get to do that any more."

She felt herself leaning in, fascinated. "Why not?"

"They don't tell us," Steel Bayonet said. "All they say is legal reasons. But I figured it out on my own. It's a copyright thing."

She saw the small, thin man in the rumpled brown suit put his face in his hands. "Copyright?"

Steel Bayonet shrugged. "It's pretty simple. Paragon gets a disproportionate number of heroes in the US. It's sort of a trouble zone, right? But all these heroes... well obviously there are names we're not going to take. The famous ones, the ones trademarked by the comic book companies... because one, we don't want to disrespect the heroes who made those names big, and two, we don't want to get sued from here to Christmas and back, then twice for Kwanzaa."

She saw the small, thin man in the rumpled brown suit look up sharply, glare at Steel Bayonet, then sink his head back into his hands.

"Go on," she urged.

"Well, that still leaves a lot of names," Steel Bayonet said. "But mostly we're not that creative. I mean, I'm not trying to say we're stupid, it's just that when we decide to get into this, nine times out of ten it's not because we thought of a name first. It's kind of an afterthought. A lot of times the first time we have to think of it is after our first fight, when someone runs up to us and says 'thank you so much! Who are you?' And then we're stuck reaching for something."

"I see," she said.

"It's awkward," Steel Bayonet said.

"I bet it is," she agreed.

"I mean, inevitably you'll have at least two, and usually ten to fifteen, guys running around with exactly the same name. And then when they find out about it there's a huge legal mess to work everything out. So if we're actually recruited by one of the departments--I was recruited by ELITE, for example--they take care of the name up front. They all have this database of unregistered names and they find one that fits. But they don't always... fit... perfectly. So in my case, apparently it came down to 'Steel Bayonet' or 'The Living Rapier.'"

Cheryl almost smiled. "'The Living Rapier?'"

Steel Bayonet grinned. "Yeah. I have no idea why someone didn't snatch that one right up."

"So 'Steel Bayonet' was the closest name available to a guy who fights evil with two swords."

Steel Bayonet shrugged. "That's what they tell me."

"Does that bother you? The swords, I mean."

Steel Bayonet frowned. "Why would that bother me?"

"Well," Cheryl said, "they're swords. You're a hero--your job is, essentially, to serve and protect--but your primary weapons are, let's be perfectly honest, lethal weapons. It's hard to subdue someone with a sword."

Steel Bayonet studied her for a moment. Her editor was now gesturing urgently to the camera crew, trying to get them to stop shooting. She smiled slightly to herself. They were far too well trained for that.

"You familiar with a hero named 'Positron'?" Steel Bayonet asked.

Cheryl narrowed her eyes. "Of course I'm familiar with--"

"Yeah," he interrupted, "he uses this thing called 'antimatter' to make all the pretty colors that come out of his suit when he's attacking bad guys. Now I'm no scientist, but from what I understand antimatter doesn't have a 'just knock them out for a while' setting."

"But Positron is a rather unusual case," she countered. "After all, he--"

"And Synapse," Steel Bayonet said. "He does this thing with electricity. I mean, tasers aside, electricity is pretty solidly lethal in mass quantities, and he's pretty good about the mass quantities."

"Are you comparing youself to--"

"No, I'm not comparing myself to Positron or Synapse," Steel Bayonet said. "They have actual powers. I'm a guy with swords. I'm really amazingly good with swords, mind you, but I don't grow them out of my hands or anything like that. I'm more like Manticore. You know, the guy who shoots incredibly sharp things at very high speeds toward people he has disagreements with?"

"I think we can agree they're a special case," she said.

"No we can't," Steel Bayonet insisted. "Most of the heroes out there have powers that are deadly. You have a few who specialize in non-lethal attacks, but mostly? Heroes who shoot fire, heroes who shoot some kind of weird, creepy bolts of darkness, heroes who have claws, for crying out loud! Not to mention the ones who can pick up cars! Have you ever been hit by someone strong enough to pick up a car? I can't pick up a car. Heck, I feel outclassed most of the time. Occasionally the guys from DATA keep trying to get me to replace my swords with these weird glowing energy things they developed for Vanguard."

"Why don't you?" Cheryl asked.

"Well," Steel Bayonet said, "that would make my handle completely idiotic." He grinned, looked over to the small, thin man in the rumpled brown suit, and grinned wider. "I have to go now," he said. "I think I might be in trouble. Thanks for taking the time. This was unexpectedly fun."

With that he walked off to city hall. The man in the brown suit straightened, sighed heavily, and hurried on after him.

Cheryl decided she liked him after all.

I'm very confused by this post so obviously I'm missing a fundamental piece of this mechanic.

I thought that in order to get super-snipe you had to have more than 22% to hit for that power.

Snipe already comes with an inherent accuracy bonus. And a single SO accuracy invention gives you +32% to hit. Isn't that all you need?

"Curveball" is a very specific character concept that CoH has never really been able to reproduce, power-wise. He's an old Champions (pen and paper champions) character who was completely luck-based. The closest I've ever been able to get reproducing that has been Radiation and DP -- "Radiation" for its debuffs (I'm "hexing" the enemy) and DP for its anime craziness ("talk about your lucky shots!")

But one of the interesting things I stumbled upon ("luckily," heh) is that Rad works really great with DP because its primary debuffs don't provoke redraw in DP... and that appears to be a very unusual thing for most powersets.

There is still *some* redraw. The heal forces redraw, for example, which is kind of a shame because it's useful. But I've tried DP on some other defender sets (Storm and FF specifically) and I see redraw with almost every power.

So I was curious... are there any other defender primary sets that don't have DP redraw issues?

It's not the animations. I mean yes, the animations are admittedly cool. When my brute's in a fight all the spinning and thwacking is nuts to see on the screen, man. I dig it. But that's not what makes the set so cool.

And it's not the forms. They're useful, and they're fun, and trying to figure out when to switch between them is a neat addition, but that's not what makes Staff Mastery so cool.

It's the sound. The thunky-clunking kinda wood sound the staffs make when you beat the tar out of someone in a fight. I can't really explain it, but that sound is ADDICTIVE. I hear it once and I immediately start mashing buttons to try to get that sound again... and again... and again... and again...

... I'm addicted to the sound. That's what makes it cool.

... or EVIL and INSIDIOUS. One of the two.

If it's the pet damage cap, do you really need Rage to max out the damage, though? (You might, my math is terrible.)

Is that six LotG global recharges I see? You can only get the same set bonus five times, right? I'd drop one of those.

EDIT: Nevermind, one is a Def/End.

@Rylas, Johnny Butane started a thread on the tanker board. What did you think he was going to talk about?

... so the defense cap is neat, and when you actually manage to hit it, after all your careful planning, etc., there's definitely a feeling of satisfaction. Also, the 42% defense is nice to have.

All that said, I'm now curious if it's possible to have an effective, contributing character without it.

Once upon a time back when defense was effectively useless against bosses, elite bosses, and AVs, this was pretty easy. You basically tried to max out your primary defense -- regen for regen sets (well, for regen) and resists for armor sets. These days though it seems your primary defense set is actually your secondary defense set, and your primary defense set is essentially trying to reach the defense cap for at least S/L.

So... what would happen in today's game if you didn't?

I was thinking of making a /regen brute and focusing on bumping up his recharge rate to ridiculously high levels, to see how that plays in the high end game. Has anyone tried this? I haven't seen any posts about it but I may not know where to look.

Anyway, just wondering what your thoughts were on this.

So back when they did the Big Tanker Nerf that coincided with the Big Enhancement Nerf (all in the name of FUN!) playing a tanker was a miserable, miserable experience. Especially if you were Inv.

But these days I think they're pretty good. It used to be I would FALL ASLEEP trying to bring down a lieutenant because it would take so freaking long to do, but that's not the case any more. Bruising was an awesome addition to the Tanker set, because it makes them single-target debuffers not just solo, but for the entire party. I mean we still don't do Brute or Scrapper damage, but that's OK by me. That's why there are Brutes and Scrappers.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest, without any prior data to back me up, that SJ will be a surprisingly powerful attack set for Tankers. I think Bruising is going to synergize with the SJ finishers really, really well.

I know a lot of people don't like the AOE in SJ -- there were complaints during beta too -- but I don't think AOE in SJ is bad. It's not the best AOE set in the game, but it has other advantages to offset that. It works different mechanically but I have no doubt someone will find a way to use those mechanics to their advantage and eventually someone will post DEVS PLZ NERF SJ AOE in the forums because of it.

SJ has a lot of advantages -- besides looking flat-out awesome, it's a fast-recharging set that's easy to chain and the special attacks are much easier to set up than DB. It also has some disadvantages -- it's a s/l set, the AOE mechanics are different and unproven, and because it's so fast your end bar will drop quickly. Overall I think it balances out so far, but we'll find out for real in a month or two.

Ok, dumb question time...

I have an account from the original beta (3rd wave) sitting in my master account that is inactive. At the time I was rather confused and thought I wouldn't be able to activate it for the main game, so I went and created a new one. It's been setting there inactive ever since.

Is that going to be activated? Because it doesn't need to be. It's pretty much useless. All my stuff is in this one.

Would it be deleted? That might be problematic for other reasons.

Actually, yes. I have the NCSoft launcher sort-of working. I plan to post a procedure for it soon, right now my notes are a bit scattered.

Beef Cake, you recommend soft capped defense to all damage -- how would you go about softcapping defense to psi? /psi is the big hole in the set so you'd pretty much have to do it with set bonuses alone, and getting to 45% just from set bonuses seems pretty futile to me.

After looking into this a little more I think it's a general Wine problem, because a number of other games are also not working. I used to be able to run Mids' for one thing. I also can no longer run Civ IV, which is one of the games I've always, always been able to play under wine. So there's definitely something else going on that has nothing to do with NCSoft.

That launcher.exe isn't the old launcher. I'm pretty sure it's just a redirect to the ncsoft one because it backed up the original.

I know, I know, it's not formally supported and we few Linux users are pretty much on our own. However... for the last four days I actually had the NCSoft client mostly working!

Running Kubuntu Natty, with Wine 1.3.19...

I created a menu item with the following entry in the command field:

wine '/home/wrightc/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/City of Heroes/cohupdater.exe' /LaunchGameCityOfHeroes -renderthread 0

It would open a big grey box, then opened a dialog that said it was checking for updates to the NCSoft Launcher, then opened saying it was checking the CoH game for updates, then it went to the boot screen. Basically /LaunchGameCityOfHeroes bypasses the whole "can't find the path" message and goes straight to loading CoH. (Don't know if it will crash when the launcher actually needs to be updated).

I was able to use this for four glorious days... and now it just doesn't work. Why? Dunno. I click the same icon, I get the little "loading" bubble next to the mouse, and it spinso ff into infinity. When I try to load via terminal prompt, this is the message I get:

So usually the rule of thumb for a WP tanker is that if you want to improve your regen, what you should actually do is increase your HP because regen is a % of HP. Is the regen bonus actually large enough to flip that? That's interesting.