Dead Calm

Indeed. As were Luminary, Back Ally Brawler and, later on, Infernal.

Later on I switched to CoH and took down Malaise, Mother Mayhem, Diabolique, Infernal (the other one), Maurauder and Tyrant.

All in all, a really rather fun evening. Two excellent teams kicking a lot of botty.

Haha, I should be about from 7.30ish tonight for those who want to give Minx a kicking (degree of kickage to be determined on the way to the mission).

I can get the Minx mission on Dedicated Follower if you fancy it. I think I may need to clear another one first though.

I've also got the Luminary mission if anyone is up for it.

[ QUOTE ]
That said I think corruptor possibly is the hardest AT to choose powers for since, it can both work as blaster/buffers/healers and debuffers and there isnt room for them all.

[/ QUOTE ]

Never a truer word spoken. Defenders are hard enough to make choices about (I've got about 7 potential builds for my D3 that I want to get round to trying on test at some point, including a potentially brutal disorient monster), and with corruptors increased damage output, it is made very hard indeed.

[ QUOTE ]
Powernova is stalker fodder in Sirens and hover while tormenting brutes is dangerous when I am about, I derive a certain amount of pleasure from impaling flyers (-fly) and watching them fall into the arms of agitated brutes

[/ QUOTE ]

As one of the afformentioned agitated brutes it was much appreciated.

As everyone has said, toggle drops are the killers, though end drain works very well too.

Also, try and stalk a brute for a bit first to make sure they haven't been in a fight, so are furyless when it all kicks off, and then take them down fast.

Kinetics debuffs are nasty for a brute, as every single one of us who has tried building fury on the blue ink men (it's something everyone tries once) in Sirens will attest to.

All ATs are there to look after their team mates. You see a team mate in trouble, you taunt/hit/blast/mez/debuff/buff/heal to get them out of it. I firmly belive that everyone should have the team health window open at all times.

An empath having blasts in addition to your heals/buffs simply gives you another way of supporting the team.

Personally, I prefer teaming with balanced empaths when I play DC. Why? Because with either a buffer or a debuffer on the team, then every single persons primary activity will, once the team is buffed/enemy debuffed, be damage dealing. Sure, they are also there as insurance if something goes terribly wrong (eg, I get hit with a mez in between CMs, someone gets a lucky shot on the blaster or it is a banished panthion mission and I am officially dead weight on the team), but I want them to have fun in between applying buffs.

The Defender Dark Servant's Darkest Night is now AoE, and I'd suspect the Corruptor/MM version is the same. I'd highly recomend keeping him and slotting him with 3 Acc Debuffs and whatever else you fancy.

I've found tar patch useful in a couple of ways for PvP. Firstly, it is good at debuffing the resistance of something you have already held. Secondly, if you stand in the middle of it, it will give you a bit of extra time before melee types can attack you.

Given that Ice has holds anyway, you may not need petrifying gaze, but I'd highly recomend Fearsome Stare, as most things have no resistance to fear effects.

Have you got SOs in your powers yet, as you really shouldn't be having problems with endurance with 3 SOs in both SF and DN, particularly with stamina. Indeed, normally I'd say you could probably remove one of the end reduction slots from both powers.

Every time I see someone with Dark Miasma who has not taken Darkest Night, a single tear rolls down my cheek.

Then I shout "IT'S GOD MODE YOU FOOL! GOD MODE I SAY!" at the monitor.

Seriously, MaXimillion, drop something less important, such as your travel power or level 26 pet and get DN instead. For me. Please. When you combine it with the debuffs fluffy puts out and the ones in your other powers, you will be able to floor an AV's accuracy, with some to spare.

I can see where Jemma is coming from regarding play style, as I tried a Mind/FF Controller for a bit, and found rebubbling to be tedious in the extreme. I found Dark Miasma a far more fun set to play, as there is always something to do, be it debuffing, controlling, blasting or healing.

Incidently, I'd highly recomend spamming twilight grasp as often as you can during any AV fight, not for the healing, but because it is a very good debuff.

I agree with everyone else here. Both are excellent powers. Take them, and most importantly, give them some hot slot loving. Darkest night with three to hit debuff and one or two endred SOs is awsome. I'd also recomend puttting three recharges in tar patch, as you can stack them for some awsome res debuffing.

Fluffy's DN used to be a single target affair. At some point in the past (no one realy knows when, not least due to the proliferation of splodgy black effects on people's feet whenever Dark Miasma is being used) it was changed. Blackest Night's (Best guide there is about D3s, worth a read if you are using any Dark Miasma or Dark Blast character) most recent guide missed this change, although if you find it on the US forums, it is mentioned later in the discusion.

I honestly wouldn't bother with putting any To Hit debuffs in Tar Patch, not because it wouldn't be effective, but because you'll have so much debuff anyway that the extra won't be neccessary.

One thing I would highly recomend for any character with Dark Miasma is recall friend. Why? Because of Fluffy. Darkest night is thought of by many as the best debuff in the game. They are wrong. It is the second best debuff in the game. Fluffy is the best debuff. In addition to his other powers (Pet Gaze, TT, Twilight Grasp, his very own Darkest Night), he has the little noticed power Chill of the Night. CotN is a FBAoE (Fluffy Based Area of Effect) which does an occasional tick of damage, and (and this is the good part) a Darkest Night level To Hit Debuff. Being able to tp him next to an AV effectivly gives you the a triple stacked Darkest Night level To Hit Debuff, which will floor the accuracy of pretty much anything.

Edited to add: Assuming you can put To Hit Debuffs in Tar Patch.

[ QUOTE ]
Joined a nice SG "The House of Counted Shadows" and all seem a good bunch of people.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hullo!

I've slotted all my attacks Acc, Recharge, End reduction in that order, and am only starting to put in damage slots now.

With stamina (3SOs) and running Temp inv, Unyielding, invuln, and CJ and an attack chain of brawl, jab, punch and haymaker, with KB thrown in for special occasions (1 end red SO each, apart from brawl), I'm having almost no end problems except against electricity heavy spawns of freaks, or when the crash from Rage hits me at a bad time.

Ah, I always like to cast my mind back to a team I was on a couple of months ago in, yes, the Hollows. I was flying about as DC, doing a bit of drive by healing, recall friending and dispensing pearls of wisdom (Did you change your reputation earlier? Ah, that explains everything, it's not just cosmetic), when I got a tell asking me if I could lend a hand.

Being a generally nice sort, I said yes, and ended up, in a shocking and unexpected turn of events, doing Frostfire on a four man team. All of them were new, so I did what I usually do in such situations, debuffing and blasting away, while letting them figure out the best way of handling stuff, only chipping with advice when everything was going pear shaped.

Anyway, the leader of this team was an energy blaster and a tool. Not just a bit of a tool, but the tool I have subsiquently used as a comparison for all other tools.

Taking on one spawn at a time was a foreign concept to him. He wouldn't have an end rest when he need it, let alone anyone else. One of the other guys bailed half way through, and I stayed in for the sake of the remaining normal person.

Anyhow, we get to frosties room. By this point, I'm in giving advice mode, as I feel bad for the amount of debt they must be getting. I say, "take the mobs by the door first". Normal bloke opens the doors. I stick Darkest Night on the boss in the group by the door. Tool blasts frosty. Everything goes to pot.

I'm blasting. I'm healing. I'm desperatly trying to get all the mobs clumped into that lovely, lovely debuff I'm putting out that will turn us into untouchable gods. Normal bloke goes down in a hail of fire. I finally get all the mobs together. By this point, tool is well in the red. I now, unfortuantly, have bugger all end left. If I hit TG, DN will drop and we will all die. In the mean time, I've got frosty down to but a smidgin of health.

Does the tool notice that he is not getting hit any more? Does he take a shot at frosty to finish him off? No. He runs around (neither towards me or away from the mobs, just in circles) shouting "HEAL HEAL HEAL OMG HEAL". I think to myself, "If I heal, we will both die in 10 seconds. If I do not, the tool will survive". Normal bloke is out of the picture due to deadness, so it is a no guilt situation.

I do as he says. I heal. I hear the WUURRRRMMM sound of impending death. Tools health goes up. And then straight back down. Dead. While they smack him, I get enough end back to smack Frosty with a dark blast, which (being SO'd to the hilt) finishes him off, just as the other 10ish mobs including two bosses do me in.

Tool then says "OMG U R RUBBISH HEALER!!!1 Y U NOT HEAL BETER???"

One of that team got a nice bunch of influence after that mission. Guess which.

I'm certainly toying with it. 3 recharge SOs would make a huge difference to fury levels.

As a brute, I pretty much have to engage a few mobs* before taking on some heroes, and (as far as I know) domination goes down rather more slowly than fury.

*Do not do this with Tsoo in Sirens. Full fury and not being able to move due to being kinetict to oblivion is annoying.

A quick point.

It'd probably be better if you did it at 11am, when everyone else will be doing it.

[ QUOTE ]
The saddest thing is, that I wouldn't be surprised if it actually happened...

[/ QUOTE ]

Six slot it while you can!

As I've mentioned in the other thread, I'm totally in agrement with you on this. The problem was that although Xiro and yourself were trying to be tolerant and genrerally nice to him, enough people were having a go at him to put his back against the wall and make him fight.

And you know what, if it had happend to me, I think I'd have done much the same thing.

I am totaly in agreement with TG on this. Laying into someone only seperates them from the community which is good for no one. Give the guy a chance. If someone sent him a tell as to why a cape is a bad idea rather than all ganging up on him, I'm guessing he'd be a hell of a lot more likely to listen.

It does seem there is a problem with Hami raids and new people not knowing what to do, and equaly importantly, why they should do it. I'd suggest for the next one that a few of us who've been to a few form duos and then make the rest of the team new guys so we can explain what is happening as we go along.

From what everyone has said, it seems that no one was intentionally griefing at any point last night (hell, we've all hit a bind at the wrong time), so my "tankers taunting in the hold group" comment from earlier is withdrawn and I apologise to those concerned.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Ice blast/regen Brute

[/ QUOTE ]

no.. just any /regen brute

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. PvE, it would be anything/regen Brute. Get seven like minded friends and a significant amount of coffee. Smash for 50 hours straight whith not a single break for anything bar loading times. Bosh. Sorted.

The people who were in the hold group and taunting were pretty bloody close to griefing in my book.

The problem is that many (most?) people don't read the boards at all, so have no idea that there is even a plan. Even if they have read it, you don't get a feel for who should be doing what until you've been on a raid, so new participants are likely to be a tad confused. When they are in a team/SG with experienced people it is easy to explain to them how everything works, and what they should be doing. If you explain to people exactly what happens when Hami gets to 50% health unheld, they tend to not be as enthusiastic about running headlong into him. A few of our team last night were new, and the rest of us were fine explaining how things work to them. One of my SG mates was new to it, so (him being an ill/ controller) I pointed him towards the PA team and they looked after him.

If someone is being a total plonker and arseing about on request, then it should be the team leaders who ask them to kindly sling their hook to a different channel (idealy in a tell, as it denies them the attention they so crave), rather than all and sundry.

Once you accept that a couple of people will show up with capes and auras, and a couple of people will attack hami during the holding phase, and a couple of people will turn up with a bit of an attitude, and that none of these things will cause the raid to fail (especially on a smaller one like last nights), it becomes a lot less stressful.

We can do it again, and we will once we've switched to I6 slotting (I did it after the raid last night, and those extra slots in PG certainly make a difference to my hold output) and got a few people back from CoV.

And even if we don't, I get to do uber-multi-rezing with howling twilight, so hey, it's win-win.

As far as I could see, there was no GM pulling going on by anyone. Spacemonkehh was standing next to me during much of the whole holding phase, and, while he may have been attacking (not sure on this, as I don't know which of his powers are holds) was not doing any griefing. There was a certain amount of plonkering going on from certain people, and it would have been far better dealing with it by ignoring the individual concerned, as it is blatently obvious that he does it to get a rise out of everyone, that to egg him on by shouting at him.

We did not fail because of people agroing GMs.
We did not fail becuase of people attacking hami during the holding phase.
Supprisingly, we did not even fail because of lag.
We failed because in a post-ED world, there were not enough of us with holds.

Possibly when more people have respeced/slotted for ED and others have returned from CoV we will stand a better chance.

Thanks to all the organisers. Despite the lack of winning, I had a right laugh.

Ok, following extensive testing (stealthing a malta/DE mission and jumping on an even conning Death Mages head while shouting "You wear a hat like a girl! A girl I say!") I can happily say that the SS+Shadowfall combo still works. Panic over.

Someone posted that it had been changed elsewhere.

I'll be testing before the Hami raid tonight. If you here a sound not unlike "Ooo, look at that big rock monstARGH!!! HELP!!! HE'S STANDING ON MY FACE!!!" then it is likely that it no longer works.

I tend not to use Pet Gaze fairly sparsely anyway, so I'm not that botherd about a little reduced accuracy.

Having just discovered that Shadowfall and Super Speed no longer stack, I may do a bit of fiddling about with this anyway.