Defenestrator

FYI: I really hated that movie.

Answers here

I'm actually working on a guide for the quickest and (least expensive) way to get the invention badges. Need to do more number crunching and spreadsheet analyses tonight. (Bad news, badge hunters: it won't be cheap.)

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Not even Oblivion held my interest for more then a week.

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You know what? I fell in the same boat with Oblivion. It's a beautiful game, but I think that it was just a little too open-ended turned me off. While MMOs are openended, there's a very logical progression with your options. I prefer that.

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A lot of folks seem to feel that theres a content gap in the late 30s in CoH.

I've never encountered it myself though.

But yeah, end game is where content focus needs to be for CoH. CoV could use some of the seperate paths to take that CoH already has. The Hollows-Faultline-Striga-Croatoa chain kind of thing.

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It depends on how you work it, but there is a potential for a gap to happen on both sides in the late 30s. Once I hit 40 though, I never seem to have any problems.

They seem to have a trial version of some sort, so I'll definitely check it out. Thanks for the tip!

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A few things to consider;

1- DON'T blur anything when you paste your screenshots together. The game doesn't blur anything ('anti-alias'), so adding a blur will make your paste job MORE apparent, not less.

2 - Take advantage of the screenshots' natural pixelation. If you're dedicaed enough, you should be able to select and delete the parts of the screenshot you don't want down to the pixel level without any negative effects on your character's outline.

3 - Pay attention to your camera height. Nothing screams 'bad photoshop job' like having a person's feet not match the street they're standing on.

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Doug...thanks for the advice, especially with #1 and #2. The #2 might be tough for me because, by nature, I'm fairly impatient. But I think I can handle it if I dedicate myself to getting this done right. I don't even care about the prize at this point (though winning would be nice) but a really good idea hit me and I'm pretty psyched to try to put this together.

#3 I'd actually already been considering this potential problem and think the real workaround is going to be using the game's coordinates system and any natural marks I can find on the streets/beaches/etc. to use as stage markers. If anybody ever saw the really bad (though, aren't they all?) Jean Claude van Damme film "Double Impact" (the one where he played twin brothers) you can see just how bad editing can ruin a movie. I mean, aside from a bad script and horrible acting. There were several scenes where the twin in the background actually looked bigger than the twin sitting in the forground, even though in other scenes they were the same size. Horrible effects work. Drove me nuts and it's something I plan on avoiding (even if it means multiple "reshoots").

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Photoshop would be perfect.

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If I'm not mistaken, Photoshop costs $600. While I agree that it would be perfect for what I need, it doesn't qualify as "cheap" as stipulated above. (And, no, I don't know anybody with Photoshop.)

Hi, all. I'm hoping this well help a few others besides myself. I've come up with some ideas for the comic book contest and one of these involves getting multiple characters of mine into the same screenshot. This requires some tricky cutting and pasting.

What I need to know is, is there a good cheap (or, even better, free) editor out there of some sort that will allow me to cut and paste elements with some accuracy. I know MS Paint can accomplish this, but I also know it's rather maligned and I'll probably need to add some blurring effects to make the paste-ins look natural.

Any sort of help or recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks!

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Time to see what happens when 3D meets comics...

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I think Doug should be banninated from the contest. His stuff is too good.

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LOL, thanks =)

If I'm asked to gracefully bow out, I will with no hard feelings. My professional background could easily disqualify me as a 'fan artist'... even though I love COH.

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Naturally I was joking, but it sounds like you need to use screenshots with minimal touchups. (At least that's how I interpreted it.) It gives people like me, who have trouble drawing stick figures, a shot.

I had a couple of great ideas come to me today, and I'm actually giddy about this. Just need to storyboard it and the time to get the screenshots together.

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Heh...not Buffy...Fire Fly...I am such a geek...

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But a geek with good taste.

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Time to see what happens when 3D meets comics...

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I think Doug should be banninated from the contest. His stuff is too good.

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Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.

Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.

Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.

Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).

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This has been discussed on the Victory Forum, but there are safeguards any player can take to make sure they don't get swindled by jerkweeds trying to make a quick buck.

1) Don't try to transfer too much at once.
2) Use an enhancement or item that is not found at a store (i.e. don't use anything divisible by 5). There are currently over 9000 posibilities to use.
3) Check the store to make sure the enhancement you're trying to swap is NOT offered as an auction currently. I assume there will be tools to do so.
4) List your enhancement and immediately swap characters.
5) Before buying your enhancement, make sure someone hasn't listed a similar enhancement. If there's another listing there, simply cancel your original offering and try again another time.

Common sense will trump scofflaws.

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My Level 4 SO Enhancements will be PERFECT for this!

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If you have such things, then YES they will be. I deliberately eliminated low levels from my calculations above for DOs and SOs. Level 4 SOs have a very small possibility of existing, but they will be very rare. (The lowest SO I've seen is level 12.)

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Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.

Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.

Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.

Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).

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This has been discussed on the Victory Forum, but there are safeguards any player can take to make sure they don't get swindled by jerkweeds trying to make a quick buck.

1) Don't try to transfer too much at once.
2) Use an enhancement or item that is not found at a store (i.e. don't use anything divisible by 5). There are currently over 9000 posibilities to use.
3) Check the store to make sure the enhancement you're trying to swap is NOT offered as an auction currently. I assume there will be tools to do so.
4) List your enhancement and immediately swap characters.
5) Before buying your enhancement, make sure someone hasn't listed a similar enhancement. If there's another listing there, simply cancel your original offering and try again another time.

Common sense will trump scofflaws.

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i am split about it... on one hand it is nice... on the other hand the whole you HAVE to team with a villain feels abit drab... I'm on the fence here... Winter event was better... And next year it would be nice to see a new event.

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What he said.

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Rap is ruining our children! That's not music and they shouldn't try and teach them that it is. *frowny face*

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____ is ruining our children! That's <arbitrary negative and very subjective value judgement on the subject at hand>. *frowny face*

Please fill in the blank with one of the below:

1) Rap music
2) Rock and Roll Music
3) Movies
4) TV
5) Heavy Metal Music
6) Dungeons and Dragons
7) Video games
8) Sex ed in schools
9) Power Rangers

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You forgot:

10) Printed words
11) The Waltz
12) Comic books

Here's a couple of factoids about this subject:

Number of studies that have proved a causative effects between violent media and actual violence: 0

Number of laws that have restricted violent content from consumption that survived challenges in court: 0

Amount youth violence has decreased in the USA since the release of Grand Theft Auto III on PS2: 50%. (Note: I'm not saying that one caused the other, but it's curious that according to the so-called "experts" you'd expect the opposite to be true.)

All said though, I'm curious to see this movie. I put very little stock into the "the violent game made me do it" defensive reasoning as I believe that those with violent tendencies are more liable to seek out violent content instead of the violent content making someone into a mindless killing machine. And I don't think City of Heroes/Villains falls under these games. The ire of the Jack Thompsons of the world seems to be aimed at Grand Theft Auto, Postal and Bully.

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Great Gubbly Be-Grubbly! How many tokens do we need Lighthouse?? I mean, I am not upset or anything, but wow, some of us have a box that we keep under the bed filled with the tokens. There are a ton of vet bonus costume tokens, now another??

=@ @=

Well, I am certain there are a lot of people who can use it. Just, wow, they sure get given out alot, you know, is all.

=^ ^=

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Considering that on a few characters last night my scales settings were off on each costume, and numerous other things were altered, I'd say the costume tokens are warranted.

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Things not said in this dialogue were the mention of updating Faultline as Boomtown has been updated

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whuh? As Boomtown has been updated? Does this mean that it'll be Boomtown that gets the facelift in I8 and not Faultline?

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Sorry. I destroyed Paragon City's only 2 forklifts yesterday. I'm afraid the Boomtown restoration will have to wait.

(The stupid jerk grav controllers stole the rest of the forklifts.)

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I've said this before and I'll say it again...the key with the Dominators is the melee attacks. The bulk of the damage is there. My dominator, hitting an even level mob with no fire resistance in melee does 85 damage at level 22.

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My Fire/Ice dom is level 22, and at this point I'm hardly using my melee attacks even though I only have 2 blast powers. I find that the melee attacks just slow me down.

My technique soloing is to use TP Foe to pull a mob to me, then I spam Char, Ice Bolt, and Ice Blast until the mob is dead. By the time the first mob is dead, TP Foe is up again and I tp the next one. If I get 2 of the 3, or all three, aggroed, I have to use Char to hold the others and so can't use it as part of my attack chain on the mob I'm attacking. That's the only time I use Air Superiority or Ice Sword.

This method allows me to go through a mission constantly attacking, so that I build domination fast, and yet I take almost no damage. An added benefit is that I also don't run dry on end, even though Stamina just has 1 DO in it now. (Each blast power has 1 DO end red). I can either pop Domination pretty much every time it's up, and during it's duration I can mow through a couple groups without pulling, or I can save Domination for the last room. Right now I'm still on Villainous, but think I could go to Vicious easily.

So, I don't think that melee is the only way to play. It's certainly one option, but I have found that Ice Sword just slows me down because of its end usage. Also, the animations of Ice Sword and Air Sup, while they seem pretty fast, are actually slow enough to slow down my attack chain when I use them as part of the regular chain. My chain of Char, Ice Bolt, Ice Blast has a couple of short gaps, but not enough to fit one of the melee powers in, and those gaps should go away once I get Stamina slotted out and then swap out the end red in my blasts for an SO recharge.

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I will agree that melee attacks arent the only way to go. However, if you (not 515A, but in general) think the damage is subpar, it is a good idea to consider if your build is taking enough attacks, if the attacks are being slotted at the right time, or if the attacks you are choosing are the correct ones.

I found on my dark/psi defender I had chosen too many primary powers too early, which made it extremely tough to solo him until I switched and got a few more attacks. Further, as I had slotted primary powers heavily, it made it even harder to solo than it should have been with the powers available to me.

I think damage secondaries have to be taken and slotted around 50/50 with the primary, and in some cases, as you level you may end up with more secondary powers than primary powers.

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I guess the difference is I've been running a plant/fire dom, so doing ANYTHING single target just really isn't in the cards for me. Seeds of Confusion causes everything to bunch together. Once that happens I can let loose with Breath of Fire and then close for the melee attacks.

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The problem is if you lock down a group of MOBs, you are going to do damage to them at almost ZERO risk.

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You mean sort of like a Sonic Blaster using Siren's Song to put an entire group to sleep, then using his superior damage to kill them one at a time? Sort of exactly like that?

I don't remember Sonic Blasters ever being called "too good," yet they do exactly what you're describing: they lock down a group then pick it apart. They have a single target stun that can even be used to ensure the one enemy they're fighting at any given time can't fight back; the only reason they might not USE it on each enemy is that each enemy dies SO fast that it's a waste of time.

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Sonic blasters are good, and I'm not going to debate that. Compared to the rest of the AT, they lack some of the tools other blasters receive. Oh, and that AOE sleep isn't too effective on bosses.

My dominator can hold a boss (easily) and take negligible damage throughout the fight.

My sonic blaster can NOT do that.

My dominator can deal with Elite Bosses with Domination up much more easily than a sonic blaster can. My 22 Dominator DESTROYED Sea Witch without flinching. My blasters have to use hit and run tactics against EBs.

So your point seems to be "some characters are good at some things but not as good at other things." We already knew that, though.

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What Dominators need is an always on damage increase. Having an entire secondary devoted to damage, but which in fact does insignificant damage, is a waste. If we pay for this by losing our damage bonus in Domination, thats fine by me.

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QFT

If one could do Domination-level damage consistantly and just not have it increase when Domination was popped, it would be a glorious change indeed.

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The problem is if you lock down a group of MOBs, you are going to do damage to them at almost ZERO risk. If you did Domination-style damage all the time, Dominators would be too good.

While I think the complaints about Dominators being too dependent on Domination are valid, I'm beginning to believe this is the same as complaining that broccoli tastes like broccoli. Dominators were designed to be a jekyll and hyde type of AT (thanks to Positron for the analogy). People are either going to love it or hate it.

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Actually, by the numbers, Dominators outdamage Controllers until the controllers can pick up the epic pools. Fire Mastery + Containment = sick damage.

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And even if I were to agree with you, is this a good thing? In my experience Controller > Dominator at pretty much every level - but definitely at 41+.

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I would dare say that you're not slotting your Dominator properly then. Early on (pre-level 10) the Controller wins in the damage. They're scary effective at that point where the Dominator will flounder on damage. Once you get around level 10, though, the Controller's damage doesn't scale very well whereas the Dominator's does. Many controllers can boost their damage a bit (dependent upon their secondary -- kinetics and radiation are great for this) but it still won't outshine the Dominator. At 32 they get the same pets, so that's a wash.

I've said this before and I'll say it again...the key with the Dominators is the melee attacks. The bulk of the damage is there. My dominator, hitting an even level mob with no fire resistance in melee does 85 damage at level 22. The attack recharges quickly and uses little END. With Domination it does about 120. You can not name any single controller attack, even with Containment, that does that much damage at that level.

The biggest mistakes I see with people playing Dominators...

1) They rely too much on their controls and don't slot (or even take) their attacks. At that point you're just a weak controller.

2) They ignore their melee attacks and try to play the class as a Defender with holds. (This was a mistake I was making.)

Now I will agree that I think Controllers begin to shine at 32 with pets (the same pets Doms get) and then again at 41+ when the epics unlock. My Dominator has not hit the late game yet so I can't really do a comparison. I do know that I get 2 high damage attacks in the 30s -- Blazing Bolt at 35 and Blaze at 38. I'll take those over Fireblast (which I already have) and Fireball (great AOE but not the greatest of damage). Especially considering I have Breath of Fire already slotted up.

At 22 I have Stamina, and a travel power.

For controls I have the single target hold, the AOE hold, an AOE Sleep (best used for soloing) and an AOE Confuse (the bread and butter). On top of that I have Flares (unslotted), Fire Blast, Breath of Fire and the fire melee attack (I forget the name). It's an outstanding attack chain when combined with Air Superiority.

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... Dominators give up a bit of control for some good direct damage attacks that Controllers would give their left mouse button for...

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I don't think so. I play both ... and IMO controller containment = superior damage. Add the higher MAG control and it seems to me controllers greatly outshine dominators - particularly in PvP.

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Actually, by the numbers, Dominators outdamage Controllers until the controllers can pick up the epic pools. Fire Mastery + Containment = sick damage.

Until then, though, the controller does less damage.

Now, one thing I've learned about Dominators is you NEED to take your melee attacks in order to do significant damage. If you're having trouble on this front, this is the way to go.

I'm not saying Dominators are perfect, but you definitely can't play them like a Controller and you can't play them like a Defender. That was one of the biggest hurdles I had to get over.

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So where are the devs on this.

States in beta said he would be keeping a close eye on Dom's after all the Dom's are too weak calls.

Then they said in I7 they were still looking and here we are a month later and nothing said.

So where are the devs in all this, it seems like they really dont care much. Its like dom's dont have enough players to be worth spending time on.

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States plays a plant/psi Dom (I think), I don't know what level he is yet. Around the end of April, I started a Fire/Energy Dominator on Justice. I'm level 37 now.

Fun? You bet, and I've played all the AT's in both games at pretty much every level. Dominators are definitely my cup of tea.

States and I -still- keep a close eye on Dominators. Datamining supports SOME of the claims made on these boards, but refutes others. Personal experience with the AT also lends credibility to some of the complaints, while showing others are simply blown out of porportion.

I read a bunch of the posts in this thread, not all of them though (yet). A lot of users hit the nail on the head when stating that you can't think of Dominator as "CoV's Controller". We went through a lot of effort to make sure that the ATs played and felt different between the two games. Dominators give up a bit of control for some good direct damage attacks that Controllers would give their left mouse button for.

Then of course there is the Domination ability, which is the real Jekyl and Hyde of the AT. A mild-manner Dominator with a full Domination bar can, at his or her discretion, become an unstoppable machine of destruction and control. While it never lasts "long enough" (even I am disappointed at hearing the sound effect of it wearing off), I've had missions where I have gotten Domination off four times from mission-entry to having Mission Complete appear on the screen. Good times indeed.

We've got a nice tweak to the Domination ability coming down the pipe (it will crank up your Mez resistance while it is active), and are currently data-mining PvP to see what effect our last set of tweaks to the AT have had.

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I just respecced my 22 Plant / Fire dominator into a leaner, meaner build, and I really love it now. (I was not liking it so much before the respec.) I've found I'm much more efficient even with a "gimp" power like an AOE sleep (which I've found very useful solo but not-so-much in groups). With Domination I can destroy an Elite Boss (I punked out Sea Witch and only used END inspirations and 1 break free to get through her little cloud of doom).

Adding a mez resist to a Dominator with Domination running would be a HUGE help and might be the tweak that's needed.

(For those who are curious, I dumped all of my immoblize powers and squeezed Stamina into the build. I might re-add the single target immobilize later, but we'll see. So far I've been using Seeds of Confusion as my bread and butter.)