Demon Keeper

Well guys, I ship out tomorrow morning. Well, I guess "Later this morning" is more precise. I guess it's time to say "So long" to north Georgia and "Herro" to central Georgia...Maybe someone there plays CoX...<shrug>

I'll catch you crazy cats on the flipside.

Here is "Business Time."

In terms of the game, I guess I am "old school" too. But I don't think that Tankers are necessary...They're great to have, no doubt...But usually not necessary. Now, team with mah Mastermind! My zombies will herd for us, I swearsies.

Dedicated to the Fighting Donkeys of '09! That was a weird recording of the song, too...The one that I have is much better, in my opinion. Also, at 3:15 last night, I realized that "Business Time" by the same group would have been much more appropriate.

Well. Kind of. But not really. More of a: "City of Heroes, I need some space, 'kay? You're smothering me."

What I'm trying to say is, I will soon be beginning my first semester of college--I move into my dorm this Saturday. I've signed up for 18 hours of classes and intend to retain some semblance of a social life; that all amounts to a severe cut into my playtime. I should be able to play a bit on weekends, and Friday evenings that I don't have other engagements planned on. And all of this is happening at the worst time (When i16 is on the verge of Open Beta and going Live...i.e. When I'll be able to play something I actually want to play, not my Mastermind that apparently has leprosy...but that is neither here nor there).

So, you all get to look forward to a couple things:
1) Less of me trying, and failing, usually, to be witty on BMT of Champion.
2) Less "Anyone wanna team with my (insert low level)ish Mastermind??? Please? I have apple strudel!"

Hope no one is too bummed out by this. Although I know that Cobalt is gonna be at least a little blue.




...c wut i did thur?

-Demon Keeper/DK/Kong

Not bad, Backfire. But everyone knows that the only toons that will be made are Dark/Dark Defenders for their epic AV soloing goodness.


...Is that recent enough to allude to still?

I remember asking Castle (via PM) whether or not new Ancillary sets were being considered shortly after the first round of proliferation; he told me (I'm paraphrasing) that I shouldn't hold my breath. Glad to see it finally happened, though! Also, I wish we could've gotten more information on Traps. Specifically: Whether Defenders will get a new set of "pets" for the Traps set or they will be using the Corruptor pets.

Another pet peeve: When characters with a powerset that has a buff that can only be applied to two or three players at a time uses the power on those that benefit least from it. (For example: Forging a Gravity/Empathy Controller on a team with three Blasters).

Along the same vein as that: Players that will only maintain one copy of a powerful buff on one character at a time. For example: Fortitude, Forge. I know that these powers can be kept on two players (almost) permanently *out of the box,* why can't they manage to keep more than one player buffed by their mid-40s?

It also annoys me when players don't enhance particular powers in the most obvious ways. For example, three slotting Ice Shield with defense.

I guess all of those boil down to: My pet-peeve: People that don't use the powers they have as well as they could.

People that omit a single letter from a word to "shorten" it.

I think it was the third day I had the game (August '04ish) and I was venturing near the warehouses in Atlas Park and jumped down into a spawn of Clockwork that were level six. Being level two, I promptly died--not even seeing the Clockwork. I asked in broadcast: "Where the hell did that lightning come from?"
"Where are you?" someone asked.
"I'm dead and it looks like I'm laying on a pile of trash."
"Oh. Might have been Clockwork."
I had no idea what he was talking about, but didn't want to admit any further ignorance.

It was a couple days afterwards that I saw some Clockwork and said: "Ooooh, that's what that guy meant by Clockwork."

I got my Controller from 10-50 and that was about it. (Still) Terrible server latency + Mapserver issues = No fun. I read about 150 pages in "Atlas Shrugged," went to a birthday party, cleaned my computer area, and generally lazed about for the weekend. I had originally planned to go make some moniez on the market, but couldn't find it in me to even try to access Wentsworth.

Just thirty more minutes...(ish)

So far I don't like the new board much. But they may grow on me as I settle in. They just feel a bit alien right now, for me.

Insulation will never increase a Force Field Defender's mitigation. But neither will a Kinetic's Increase Density, an Empathy's Fortitude or any other ally buff...Because they're ally buffs. An Empathy can't buff its damage with Fortitude, but Assault provides more than half of Fortitude's damage buff to both the Empathy and the rest of the team.

A Defender will probably never solo as quickly or easily as a Scrapper, but they can all solo.

Note: I'm not against buffing Defenders. I just don't think it is necessary.

Yet they can still solo on Invincible.

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I think it is a little harder on a defender because you don't have a defense-based shield in the epics.

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It is a little harder. I made a Corruptor build that was soft-capped to Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Ranged and AoE. Scorpion Shield helps a *lot* for that.

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Wait for I16 and run all your missions on lowest difficulty, set for 8.

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Actually, if you have a friend/second account with a upper-40s character (47 is optimal), have them get a popular farming mission (e.g. The demon farm) while at 47 and don't complete it. When I16 hits, run that, set on the second difficulty (more mobs) set for six or eight--six, I think, prevents bosses from spawning, but eight gives you more mobs. That should maximize your opportunity for purple drops.

Note that the 47/48s in the mission would give substantially less influence; running 50/51s might give enough of an increase in that department to make up for the slowness. I'd have to do some math to check...Gonna go do that now, actually.

Edit: So, I did a very rudimentary test using Jaegers and Possessed Scientists. According to my the numbers I gathered in-game, you have a 33% damage bonus against -3s, but lose ~72.04% influence (from 876 to 245 from a minion). Against -2s, you have a 22% damage bonus and lose ~52.83% influence.

Assuming an equal spread of 47s and 48s, this means you will be killing approximately 27.5% faster, but gaining ~62.435% less raw influence. If the drop rate is 1 in 2000 for purples (might not be, but it is what I'm using) and you can kill 2000 +0s in an hour (I'm not sure how likely this is for a good farming build, but I assume it is very unlikely; I'm using one hour for simplicity's sake), you will average one purple an hour. Killing 47/48s will mean you will, theoretically, kill 2000 minions in about 43.5 minutes. The difference is influence gained would be about one million. Also keep in mind that level 50 recipes are usually worth much more than their 47/48 counterparts.

All-in-all, I think I just wasted my time. I'll probably just stick with 50s for the sake of simplicity and the ability to my lowbies some levels every now and then. If you are *only* looking for purple drops, 47/48s are better, though.

Freedom has the most people, but it is far from what I would call "the best." I play on Champion and, sometimes, Pinnacle and enjoy both. They have, comparatively, low populations have a higher ratio of good players. PinnBadges and BMT of Champion (private, you'll have to ask for an invite) are good global channels that are quite active and frequently run Task/Strike Forces.

Note: Champion's villainside is notoriously inactive.

Oh, I want Dual Pistols soooo bad. Hm. Maybe I'll make a Dual Pistols/Traps Corruptor. Hopefully the shiny of the Dual Pistols will be enough to get to 10/16 for Acid Mortar/FFG (I'm very impatient when it comes to cool/good powers unlocking, and Traps is kind of "Meh" [In my opinion] until you get those two). I don't think I can wait for Going Rogue to make my Traps Defender. :O

After fiddling around in Mids' for an hour or two, I still can't decide what secondary I will be giving my future Traps Defender. I've been working on trying to soft-cap mine to Ranged/AoE and I've actually made it work with Radiation Blast (Electric Blast came close with 45% to Ranged, ~40% to AoE). Here is /that/ build:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Level 50 Magic Defender
Primary Power Set: Traps
Secondary Power Set: Radiation Blast
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Power Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Caltrops -- Dmg(A)
Level 1: Neutrino Bolt -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(37), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(37), Dev'n-Hold%(39), Decim-Build%(39), Achilles-ResDeb%(39)
Level 2: X-Ray Beam -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(3), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(23), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(36), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37)
Level 4: Irradiate -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(5), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(5), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(17), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(17)
Level 6: Acid Mortar -- ShldBrk-Acc/Rchg(A), ShldBrk-DefDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(7), ShldBrk-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(7), ShldBrk-%Dam(11), RechRdx-I(11)
Level 8: Force Field Generator -- DefBuff-I(A), LkGmblr-Def(9), LkGmblr-Rchg+(9)
Level 10: Hurdle -- Jump(A)
Level 12: Poison Trap -- Lock-Acc/Hold(A), Lock-Acc/Rchg(13), Lock-Rchg/Hold(13), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(23), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(46), Lock-%Hold(46)
Level 14: Hasten -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(15), RechRdx(15)
Level 16: Health -- Heal(A)
Level 18: Seeker Drones -- Acc(A), RechRdx(19), RechRdx(19)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(21), EndMod(21)
Level 22: Super Speed -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(43), Zephyr-ResKB(43)
Level 24: Aim -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(25), RechRdx-I(25)
Level 26: Trip Mine -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(27), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(27), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(29), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(29)
Level 28: Cosmic Burst -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(34), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(34), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(36), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36)
Level 30: Maneuvers -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(31), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(31), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(31), RedFtn-Def(33), RedFtn-EndRdx(33)
Level 32: Assault -- EndRdx(A), EndRdx(33)
Level 35: Neutron Bomb -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(40), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(40), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(40), Posi-Dam%(42), EndRdx-I(43)
Level 38: Vengeance -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 41: Power Build Up -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(42), RechRdx(42)
Level 44: Temp Invulnerability -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Aegis-ResDam/Rchg(45), Aegis-EndRdx/Rchg(45), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(45), Aegis-ResDam(46)
Level 47: Total Focus -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(48), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(48), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(48), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(50)
Level 49: Combat Jumping -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(50), Zephyr-ResKB(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance
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[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]<ul type="square">[*]5% DamageBuff(Smashing)[*]5% DamageBuff(Lethal)[*]5% DamageBuff(Fire)[*]5% DamageBuff(Cold)[*]5% DamageBuff(Energy)[*]5% DamageBuff(Negative)[*]5% DamageBuff(Toxic)[*]5% DamageBuff(Psionic)[*]13.4% Defense(Fire)[*]13.4% Defense(Cold)[*]16.3% Defense(Energy)[*]16.3% Defense(Negative)[*]21.3% Defense(Ranged)[*]22.2% Defense(AoE)[*]48% Enhancement(Accuracy)[*]31.3% Enhancement(RechargeTime)[*]2.5% Enhancement(Held)[*]8% FlySpeed[*]11.4 HP (1.13%) HitPoints[*]8% JumpHeight[*]8% JumpSpeed[*]Knockback (Mag -8)[*]Knockup (Mag -8)[*]MezResist(Confused) 2.5%[*]MezResist(Held) 4.7%[*]MezResist(Immobilize) 6.9%[*]MezResist(Sleep) 2.5%[*]MezResist(Stun) 2.5%[*]MezResist(Terrorized) 2.5%[*]11% (0.18 End/sec) Recovery[*]30% (1.27 HP/sec) Regeneration[*]2.84% Resistance(Fire)[*]2.84% Resistance(Cold)[*]6.25% Resistance(Negative)[*]13% RunSpeed[*]2.5% XPDebtProtection[/list]


&lt;Topic&gt;

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My ( wholly unsubstantiated ) hope is that they'll decide to make Triage Beacon mobile, for Defenders and everyone else.

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Or find some way of reducing its recharge time and endurance cost so you can redeploy it as you go.

Regeneration Aura: +500% regen for 90s, 500s recharge, 26 end cost
Triage Beacon: +150% regen for 90s, 200s recharge, 13 end cost

Based on a rough comparison to Regeneration Aura, a reduction in Triage Beacon's base recharge to 150s and base end cost to 7.8, for all ATs, should be fine. No need to change the buff, duration, or pet limit to compensate. 30% of the effect, 30% of the recharge and end cost, fair right?

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Fair, except Regeneration Aura is a persistent buff. After using it, your team has the buff for 90 seconds. An immobile Triage Beacon means that the team gets the weaker buff for...I dunno, 30-45 seconds tops? Definitely less on a decent team. The only time I see immobile Triage Beacon providing full benefit is on a slow team farming lol54 bosses. *shrug*