Doctor_Geist

The staff at Pocket D suffered through the first 7 contestants in yet another awful "Paragon Idol"-themed contest. But eight? Eight was enough.

If I am a winner, I permit NC Interactive, Inc. and NCsoft Europe Limited to use my name, likeness, photograph, hometown, and any comments that I may make about myself or this contest that I provide for advertising and promotional activities. I also certify that I am at least 13 years of age and am eligible to participate in this contest.

Fun event. It appears to be working well, and is entertaining. The new UI-changing bits are interesting, and effective, as well as setting up possibilities for future "neat things."

Some issues: badges seem to be awarded a little inconsistently. The banner badges appear to award zone-wide if anyone on the team gets credit, however there have been cases where I've been attacking one seemingly from full-health to 0 and not gotten credit. Some of this might have been from Ghost Falcon ending the banner-portion prematurely, but it's hard to tell.

Badge art-- this is a simple request, and hopefully easily fixed: can the background on the banner badges reflect the color associated with the banner? The map icons and UI-popup are all nicely color-coded, but the badges (which use the same art as the UI-popup) don't have the same background colors. This makes it much harder to connect "which badge do I still need" with "which banner do I need."

Is the timer long enough for low-pop servers after the initial rush? 10-12 minutes or so seems way to short to react to the event message, form a team, take out enough mobs for the banners to become vulnerable, and take out all four. It went easily enough on test with all the players being told where to go, but I can see this getting frustrating on live, especially since it normally takes more than one "sweep" to get all the badges for the accolade.

Not too fond of the re-used mobs, I understand why, and most of them fit well, but CHANGE THE BIOS or something. Also, what the heck do Shivans and Hydra have to do with Halloween? (Yes, I eventually got the "Blob" idea, but that's a stretch.) And the Aspect being a random "normal" GM was disappointing, I hope it's a placeholder.

Rewards: nice ones, but the 1-hour autopowers don't have the same appeal to me as the long-lasting charged temps that I tuck away in my "utility belt" for a rainy day. I'd much rather have a toggle (perhaps weaker, or with a shorter duration) that I could save away and use when needed, rather than just frittering it away while I'm afk. And a medium insp for the 5th prize? Not even a large one, huh? Well, at least it's something once you've killed the aspect 4 times, even if it may not be worth clearing an inventory spot for.

All in all, fun event, good job. Oh, and thanks for the ToT changes, although the difficulty of spawned mobs seems a little inconsistent.

Okay, finished mine after much research, writing, and testing, and early feedback seems good, so advertising time!

Mission name: Soul Searching
Arc ID: 151247
Morality: Heroic (although Villains would have plenty of reason to help here)
Length: Long (4 missions)
Description: Doctor Geist (hey, that's me!) has contacted you to help him investigate a disturbance in the spirit realm (aka the City of Ghosts).

This is a very story-heavy arc, and I built it to try to progress naturally from information in the "canon" storylines. My arc is a stand-alone story, but the more content you're familiar with, the more you'll recognize. (For starters, the main storyline is based off arcs from Creed, Lunata, Brass, Zukhara, Black Scorpion, and many others, with a bit of homage to a well-known movie added in for flavor.)

Lots of optional clues, dialogue, and story to explore. One AV, with an unlikely ally provided (again, ally assistance is optional). Fight mostly ghosts, arachnos, and... arachnos ghosts?

What you were drinking when this was created?: lots and lots of Diet Dr. Pepper, mostly (hey, it took a while to write, and no way was I keeping all the details straight when drunk )


Feedback is greatly appreciated!

Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Fighting Spirit
Global Contact: @Doctor Geist
Level of Classification: 50 MA/Inv Scrapper
Origin: Natural
Super Rank & Super Group: Founder/Leader (and sole proprietor) of Shadow Corps

Now, if I knew what all this was about...

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However, we need your help. For all of Ouroboros’ resources and my own unparalleled intellect, we are not prepared to weather the coming storm.

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You know, this Silos really has a thing about the weather, doesn't he?

Sign me under "would want to move _away_ if your home server were designated the PvP home."

I don't have anything really against PvP in general, and dabble in it myself on a very casual basis, but I have zero interest in seeing my "home" overrun by the "hardcore PvP" crowd (and truthfully, it's the wanna-be-hardcore-PvPers that are the issue, a lot of the true PvPers want good competition, not the gankfest and uber-smack-talk that I fear would go with a designated server).

Perhaps a new server, with players allowed one free transfer to the server for the first weeks after it opens. If nothing else, it would put everyone on equal footing as far as bases, etc., and it would avoid the "not in my backyard" backlash from herding PvPers onto a pre-existing server.

Well, as you can see by the sig, my Dark/Stone Brute has turned out to be one of my favorite characters so far. I see the combo as the most surviveable powerset combo CoV has to offer, and is an excellent AV/Hero-killer. My build centers around making the most out of Granite Armor, and working around its downsides.

Now, while the OP has some good points regarding the powers for a pre-Granite build, things change quite a bit once you can become an Unbeatable Killing Machine at 38. I personally run Granite almost 24/7, and have set up my powers and slots around this fact to squeeze the most I can out of it. Once you get Granite, it's my opinion/playstyle that you _should_ play the pseudo-tanker, and love it. Remember this one important fact: Fury (your biggest way to increase your overall damage output) increases every time you attack, whether it hits or not, and every single time you are attacked, whether you are hit or not. One way to get the most out of Stone Armor (post-Granite) is to be an aggro magnet, and build Fury like crazy. You can easily withstand the onslaught of as many mobs as possible. Most of your teammates can't say the same. And who else on your team actually gets stronger the more they get shot at?

So, my thoughts on the tools that will help you the most in a post-Granite Dark/Stone build:

<ul type="square">[*]Mud Pots. Mud Pots. Mud Pots. Yeah, I know. Little tiny damage numbers, great big endurance cost. I was used to it getting me in trouble with too much aggro pre-Granite, and thought about dropping it. Then I got Granite, and started looking at HeroStats, and was amazed. Slotted only for endurance, Mud Pots was showing up consistently as my 2nd-best overall damage power. Seeing that, I added one ACC and 2 DAM slots, and now it always lists as my #1. So it's your best form of offense, and it serves as a great Fury-builder, keeping nearby mobs aggroed on you. I know there's some debate about the usefulness of damage auras, but for Stone Armor, take yours. Take it, slot it, love it.[*]Taunt. For some brutes, Taunt is infinitely skippable. But not for this one. As mentioned before, you thrive on ticking mobs off. Think of it not just as a Taunt, but as a kind of mini-Build Up that recharges in 10-15 seconds, that costs 0 endurance. Also, it's one of the few ranged tools you have in your arsenal, which is something to think about when your mobility is limited by Rooted/Granite.[*]Dark Consumption. Post-Granite, you only really dread three things: Slows (talk about insult to injury ), psi damage, and endurance loss. No endurance = no Granite = dead Brute. But DC is a huge help for that. You can quickly refresh yourself after yet another %$#! Sapper / Spec Op / Mu draining, which is all you seem to get in the 40s, or just as importantly, you can keep up that sustained, Hastened, Full-Fury Beatdown on that AV/Hero without even having to munch on your Blues. For the latter case, I even slot 2 EndMods into DC. It's a little overkill, but 2 nearby enemies will give you a full bar of end, and even if it's just you and the AV/Hero mano-a-mano, 2 EndMods will give you about 2/3 of a bar of precious endurance.[*]Siphon Life. 1/6 or so of your health bar back every 15ish seconds, what's not to love? Again, versus minions it's not of much use, but this is one of those powers that lets you crank up the difficulty and face down those AVs without fear. And speaking of fear...[*]Touch of Fear. Very specific uses for this. Quickly lockdown that psi-wielding/endurance draining minion that gives you fits (great when combined with Teleport Foe for no-worry Sapper extermination). Pile it on EBs/AVs/Heroes for that ToHit Debuff (and if you're lucky, a great screenshot of them cowering before you )[*]Swift. Seems obvious to me, but the OP glossed over its usefulness. 3-slotted Swift greatly counteracts the pain of dealing with Rooted and, later, Granite. Without Swift (or merely 1-slotted), Rooted makes you wonder if you _really_ need that mez protection after all. 3-slotted, you can bear it.[/list]
Just my experience with my nearly-50 Brute. Again, playstyles vary, and this is coming from the completely different point of view (post-Granite) of the OP, but I'd been thinking about doing a guide of sorts to this build, and thought I'd at least interject some opinions since someone else was doing one. I'll post my own build later if I get time.

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Just did one in a group of 4 players, two brutes a dominator and my corrupter, all 40. We got the rob brickstown bank.
All went well until..... Malise showed up. He was same level as us, 40, and unkillable.
We beat on him for maybe 5 or 6 minutes, his health barely moved and when it did move he'd hit one of the brutes with transfusion. &gt;.&lt;
Needless to say, we all went to jail. Then we came out and trashed some more stuff but ultimately ended up failing it since we couldn't take down the hero.

All in all it was fun, but an unkillable hero takes a lot of the fun out of it.

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Hmm, I think I was one of the brutes in said mission. But I agree, I've had lots of fun in missions of varying difficulties and team sizes, but Malaise was the only "unkillable" hero I've come across so far. It was just simply impossible to dent his health bar. Added to that were all the infrequently-resisted attacks like psi-damage, fear, and confuse. Just a frustrating fight, not really fun at all. Plus, it's kind of embarassing when you decide to see if you can change things by popping a bunch of reds on top of your full fury bar... and get confused and watch your Shadow Maul just obliterate your fellow teammate. Not to mention, my health bar had been barely dropping most of the fight, and suddenly I get hit by a 1000+ Spectral Wound and KO'd. Where did _that_ come from?

So yes, mayhem missions-- lots of fun, total blast, love them. Unkillable AV-level Heroes, with the new changes, in a timed mission-- no fun, and definitely took the joy out of the mission. If things were just toned down a bit, or individual heroes looked at for combinations of powers that lead to long drawn-out fights, I think we would all appreciate it.

From the "Now testing" notes:

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• Demonslayer badge is now given for both CoH and CoV versions of Baphomet.

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No, it's not. Ran the Villain mission solo, defeated Baphomet, no badge. It's worth noting that the Heralds (and then the big demon himself) started spawning after stopping only 4 or so of the 9 rituals.

Love the bandwagon...
Love the fury more!

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What exactly do you need for Gangbuster? Marcone bosses? Mook bosses? Minions?

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It's the bosses and it's like 200 of them, it takes forever. I was in Port Oakes for 4 hours hunting them and finally got it.

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Marcone bosses, about 100 of them. Personally, I got confused on this and hunted regular Family bosses forever, and got the Untouchable badge, whoops. Found out it was specifically Family bosses with Marcone in the name (Marcone Capos in PO and Marcone Consigliere in StM), went hunting in Oakes for quite some time and came out with Gangbuster. Counted 72 Marcone Capos defeated during the hunt, I assume I had another twenty-something from previous hunting.

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Ballista is a Toggle Dropping *******!

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Yeah, he is. He was designed to be as close to a Player Hero as we could make him. How do you guys like the Toggle Drop on him? Is it too nasty or does it add a nice challenge?

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It is utterly ridiculous. I was coming to the forums to check for posts about this overpowered uber-boss when I caught this post. He is not even close to a "real" player, since no player can have that combination of powers, toggle-dropping, and hit points.

One attack should not drop every single toggle I have, whether in PvP or PvE. (Had four dropped simultaneously at one point.) If a PvE opponent has a status-affecting attack, he should not _also_ be able to drop my protection against that attack. And if he can do both these things, he should not be able to 2-shot someone with a Brute's hps.

The first time I encountered this monstrosity, it was when a poor Stalker a level or two approached me, begging for help, since this way-overpowered "elite boss" appears in a _timed_ mission. Died once as soon as I saw him, since I didn't realize his abilities were off-the-scale compared to most Elite Bosses that I'd encountered. Got the "Gurney unvailable" bug and reset to try something different. Popped every Defense Insp I had, and with the level difference it was enough to get him down to 1/3 or so with little problem, but he eventually got a lucky combo and dropped me. I suprised the hell out of the Stalked by just popping back up where I stood with full hps to finish the job.

Then I got him in my own arc. This is the only time I've hit the debt cap in this game. I got fed up because there was little I could do tactically, and just kept bouncing up every time I died (Gurney bug again) until I finally wore him down. Didn't enjoy that at all, but it was over with.

Then I met him again in my current arc. Yep, you get to see him again later down the road, folks. So here I am almost at the debt cap again. I've tried combinations of Break Frees and Defensive Insps, various ways of getting to him with a high Fury to start, and although I'm the stubborn type, I'm probably going to have to resort to pulling some teammates into the empty mission or something similar.

Difficult, I don't mind. Being defeated, eh, it happens. But having more trouble with this one mob than I've had with any Arch-Villain/Hero?

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Abomination is still being discussed cause nobody knows if this is a Vazhilok Abomination or a Pantheon Husk


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After seeing this, went and tested mine, it certainly appears to be a Vahz abomination and not a Pantheon minion, as the badge text would indicate ("The Banished Pantheon fears you"). However, if it's tied to a badge, like most of the gladiators seem to be, the only Vahz-related badge I seem to have on this character would be the Plague Stopper badge, and I can verify on another character that this does _not_ award the Abomination.

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longbow nullifer you get after winning your first gladiator match. i also saw someone with a longbow boss of somekind. psi based attacks. she brutalized all my attacks. not sure how you get here or her name, but there is one out there

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That's the Longbow Warden (very handy, btw). You get them at the same time as the Disruptor badge, awarded when you complete one of the missions from the Agents in the new PvP zones (Hero or Villain).

Just guessing-- the Abomination may be coupled with either the Mystical Savior or (maybe) the Spirit Warrior badge, my character with both has Abominations unlocked, my others do not. This character does not have any sort of "defeat" badge related to the Pantheon either.