DrMike2000

Trying to log in just now, and I get a error message box when I click on Virtue in the server list.

"The selected server is currently unavailable. Please try agian later or try a different
server."

All other servers display the character list as normal. I've never seen this message before. Anyone else getting it?

That's good to know! Thanks for the tip, Katie

I'm not sure if you're serious, but I'll pretend

I think you're shortchanging Steamy Mist here.
Using just SO's I'd slot it a couple of end redux, and four Resistance or Defence as is your choice.
The mitigation from the Def and Resistance are about equal overall, with the Resistance being bigger mitigation of some attacks, the Defence is against all attacks.

I'd take the two KBs out of Gale at some point, you're not really making it more effective there. Thats a couple of slots for Steamy Mist, maybe take the others from Nova? It only needs one Acc, and the KB enhancer is there just for laughs, right?

I'd also give Freezing Rain emphasis on recharge rather than Defence debuff. What are you planning to fight at level 9 that requires extra Defence debuff above the base amount?

Purple Triangles are down for 25 seconds at a time.

If all three of you take Grant Invisibility you can sneak in close enough to see when the triangles flip. You could pretty easily hold an AV with one concerted volley of holds when the triangles are down, question is, can you then stack Mag 50 before the triangles switch on?

One flaw with this tactic is the waiting, you may not be able to pop dominate if you;'re standing watching an Av's triangles for up to 50 seconds.

Yep, these are both known bugs with mastermind pets.

Some office maps cause them to run away when you enter an elevator. Dismissing and resummoning them will fix this problem.

Zoning to the main Rogue Isles maps (as opposed to missions) will often cause pets to become 'detached' from you. You can manually force a pet to become yours again by upgrading them with either upgrade power.

Neither of these workarounds are perfect, since they both cost time and endurance, but they help.

Yeah, I agree that the devs are doing a great job.

The newer powersets like Dual Blades and Dual Pistols are also introducing new gameplay tricks, like combos or ammo-swapping. Both of these would require some additional code, but in my opinion are well worth the effort. They're nothing game-changing, but enough to make each set feel fresh when you play it, and not just some different animations and damage type tacked on to the same framework.

This is a really good time to be playing CoX.

Back when I started playing, I couldn't afford DOs and SOs on my first character.
I had to think really hard about visiting the tailor once I unlocked my seconds costume at level 20. I started obsesively selling drops to the right shop to raise a bit more money.

I felt incredibly poor.

The effects were noticeable in game, many of my powers were doing half the damage they should (for want of 3 damage SOs) and missing more than they should for want of accuracy. I'd be putting out less than 50% of the damage I should, which is real bad news for a Blaster.

When IOs came out, I couldn't afford Crushing Impacts. I slotted Focussed Smites and the like instead, and maybe lost 5 or 10% efficiency in doing so? I felt a bit poor, but nowhere near as bad as it used to be.

So I'd define not being able to slot SO's as the breadline. You feel that for every minute of gameplay.

Blaster nukes can start and finish a fight in one go, with the higher base damage and Aim and Build Up. Defenders cant, even with a -Res boost to your damage like Tar Patch. You're probably best using it to end a fight rather than to start one.

I'm not a big fan of nukes on my Defenders, especially if, like you say, you have to drop an important toggle like Darkest Night to use them. Even on my Kinetics Defender (no toggles and nice big damage boost) I never used it that much.

When I have taken them they're situational. If I've aggroed two groups and the fights going badly, and a lot of the enemy are at helf health, I'll maybe nuke.

I still find Fly much more convenient than any alternative.

If I'm mission leader, I can recruit and chat to the team on the way to a mission. I cant do that very well with Superjump or Ninja Run (even with a macro to set run and jump to auto) and I definitely cant with superspeed or teleport.

If I'm not team leader I can chat with coalition people on the way to a mission when I'm flying.

Having said that, my latest batch of characters all just use Day Job Market Teleporters and Raptor Packs to get around.

Diary of an Escape Artist Part 3: Teaming

I managed to get a team of four together and do a variety of paper missions, including Freakshow with their AoE stuns. We were far from optimal - our only support character was a Poison MM (who wasnt using Antidote on me), but we ran four or five papers back to back without incident. I got stunned or slept a couple of times, but it wore off pretty quickly.

I had one very embarassing solo event: Independence Port bank. I got to fight Sky Dragon, a Martial Artist hero. We stood toe to toe trading kicks like the martial arts masters we were. He then kicked me in the head and stunned me, and took me down in two subsequent moves, with only 5% of his own health bar left.

I snuck out of the prison and got revenge easily enough, but it was one of those moments that make you want to smash your keyboard in frustration.

Yeah, I'll third that observation.

Heroside, I set up a generic IO crafting scheme, plugged away at it and could then plan out what I needed for my group of ten characters in the modest mid-level range - level 30 Thunderstrikes and Crushing Impacts, Positron's Blasts, Blessing of the Zephyr pairs for some of them, and so on.
Rarer stuff like Zephyr KBs were accessible using merits from doing story arcs with some longer term planning.

This has totally failed to work on villains. The money's rolling in from generic IO crafting, but the recipes just aren't there. Getting hold of Crushing Impacts red-side was like getting hold of Posi's blue-side. Getting hold of Posi's redside? Forget it!

Some of the salvage costs could be quite offputting to a player who doesn't know the ropes.

Villain-side, Alchemical Silver and Sci Theories are often showing listings of 100,000+, even though you can get them cheaper. But I cna easily see someone looking at those prices for the first time and going "sod it, I'll just use SO's"

I think the redside Luck Charm and Boresight prices are better, but heroside Luck Charms were often pretty pricey, is that still the case?

If anyone new hears the advice to slot for accuracy, and put IOs off until you can slot the level 30 ones (both of which I've heard on PuGs recently) then this could be enough top turn them off IOs, thinking that they cost 3 or 4 times what they actually do to make.

Yeah, I felt it wasn't a complete rout given all the variables.

Diary of an Escape Artist: Part 2

So last night, I tried to form a team, but with it being Monday night in Australia, probably the lowest population point in the week, I ended up doing a quick story arc with salty old dog Captain Petrovich.

My heart sank when I realised this was the arc with Sea Witch, a Storm Summoning Elite Boss. Thats a personal Hurricane, Tornado and Lightning Storm that can knock me around through my ersatz KB protection, and Thunderclap to stun me.

Level 24, I now have Dodge, and I'm still fighting at +1.

I cleared the deck of Legacy Chain first, to make sure I could sail back through the air freely without aggro-ing anything else. I had crafted a Break Free, and decided to load up on Tier 2 Damage insps at Wentworths before going in, hoping to alpha her as badly as possible and just slug through the rest.

This took down to only half her health straight away. She stunned me, I popped the break free, got a couple of hits in before getting knocked away, and ran for it. She followed me, I realised that Placating her wasn't going to work as well as I hoped because her pets would break hide for me. So I ran big-time when that didn't work, and watched my big damage bonus from the insps blink out.

She went back to her spawn point, and I crept back in for the next Assassin Strike, and took her down to 1/4 this time. We scrapped some more, she stunned me, I ran again, and eventually finished her off the third time, with another Build Up-Assassin Strike and some desperate scrapping.

So I managed to get through that with no deaths, despite getting stunned twice and knocked around a lot. Proper KB protection would have made it much easier, but the biggest issues I faced weren't really mez related - it was my inability to Placate her when AS had recharged that slowed me down more. My hit and run tactics would have been necessary anyway, standing toe to toe with her with other characters usually results in her Lightning Storm draining my End bar on other characters.

So, medium level solo-ing against some of the nastier missions in this range seems quite doable. I really have to get on a team next to see how that goes.

Just for those of us too lazy to try it out on test...

So Chem rounds do -Dam, Incendiary do extra DoT, and Cold do -Recharge and -Spd?
On all attacks while the toggle is running?
Got any numbers?

I can't get the idea of making a Trick Arrow/Dual Pistols character out of my head now. Its been a while since I played a Defender, I've been too busy Stalking amongst other things.

That's a great idea.

Stick the Stupefy Chance for KB into Thunder Kick, and you'll feel pretty beefy as you routinely send them flying

I have had one superstrong Martial Artist - a robot with "inchforce" mini railgun weights in her wrists and ankles that allow her to superjump and apply huge impulses over short distances. I slotted a few Kinetic Combat chance for knockdowns as well, and used Jump Kick, so combat was a constant parade of enemies getting knocked around.

I think it lasts 45 seconds, with each pulse laying down a debuff that lasts 20 seconds according to this link on Red Tomax, and I believe I've had this confirmed on the boards too.

http://www.redtomax.com/data/powers/...as.Noxious_Gas

"Lifetime: 45" suggests that the henchman keeps spewing it out for 45 seconds, and the duration of the debuff is how long it lingers on each enemy since the last pulse. So at best it lasts about a minute, like when you cast it on a pet standing next to an AV.

Is that right?

Recharge times can be very important.
Your guide makes no mention of the 300 second recharge on Noxious Gas, for example, which has a huge impact on how you use that power.

Diary of an Escape Artist Part 1

I'm only human. Bullets don't bounce off my chest, they go straight through. A lucky blow to the head with a nightstick will make me see stars. If one of those cocky supers binds me in vines or encases me in ice, I can break out using a little disposable laser torch or lockpick, but I dont just phase straight through. Keeping up in the Rogue Isles could be a challenge...

So, I'm a level 23 MA/SR with around 27% vs Melee and Ranged. The gaming gods approve of this experiment, they gave me a Karma anti-KB IO, which now sits in Combat Jumping, so I'm protected against low level KB and immobilisation. But NO Practiced Brawler.
(I also got he Kismet +Acc, now in Hide! They really do like me!)

Ive been taking down Freakshow and handled Spinerette earlier this weekend, and things are going well enough. I'm, rarely getting mezzed because I AS my targets wisely.

Today's experiment was soloing the Darrin Wade story arc, on +1/x0. This arc features a couple of special Bosses who could be trouble, so I'll dial it down one from old Invincible mode by one notch today.
Sigil is a Energy/Energy Blaster who likes a bit of Power Thrust, and also packs Petrifying Gaze, a ST ranged hold.
Kadabra Kill is a Gravity/Empathy Controller with some Psi blasts, and very nasty. I'm pretty sure his Singularity will throw me around, and if he holds me and starts healing, all my hard work on the alpha strike gets undone (as Spinerette proved).

So, my first encounter with them wasn't too bad.
Kadabra Kill and Sigil both appear with one lone minion. Both of them fell pretty quickly to a Build Up/Assassin's Strike followed by a few boots to the head, leaving me to Placate or Cobra Strike the minion and clean up.
Sigil managed to hold me as she died, I stood there in the hands up frozen pose while her minion attacked me for a few seconds, then I unfroze and finished the fight quickly.

Anathema along the way are down before they see me, so no big deal there.

The next time I met them was much worse.
They both appear as hostile Prisoners, so have a Lost Boss and Minion guarding them. The bosses have numerous mezzes, so its a really hard decision who to take down first.
Kadabra Kill appeare at +1 to my level, and I managed to get his boss before he took away the final half of my health out of nowhere. Coming back from the hospital my heart sank when I realised his Singularity was still out. My first attempted AS got interrupted by its repel field scoring a lucky hit, the second one got him and I defeated him, using up my placate to just score a critical Storm Kick to him. Not the best use of it, but he went down.

Sigil appeared as +2, along with her boss. I popped a premeptive luck, fearing that this could go South quickly. It did - they creamed me after the boss Dominated me, and I wasn't quick enough to make a Break Free out of three blues. I really should have prepared, so i think i learend something today, or rather remembered something from my Blasters. Always carry break frees. I came back from Hospital, AS'd the half-health boss to oblivion, Placated her and ran. I came back and finished the fight in my favour, even though she knocked me around a fair bit. I carefully stayed on her good side, so she couldn't knock me into the other spawns in the cave.

So in conclusion, the plusses and minuses so far are:
+ only the really tricky mission gave me trouble, with multiple mezzing bosses.
- but i was playing on +1 instead of +2
+ but then again, my Defence isn't fully capped even with a single Luck. I now have Dodge, and aim to slot two Touch of Death's soon enough.
- I died twice
+ one of the deaths was avoidable. Always carry Break Frees.

Next up, I'll try teaming, and see how I go, and report back here. Should be a laugh a minute with my pitiable AoE Defence!

Nicely laid out guide, Guy.

One question on Noxious Gas - does it debuff all enemies once only, or does the infected henchman continually pulse the debuff field?

e.g. I cast it on my Oni. A Longbow warden then walks up to the oni 10 seconds later. Is the Warden debuffed?

I'd like alternate sword/no sword animations for fire (and I guess Ice) melee.

eg
Cremate could have a sword animation.
Fire Sword Circle could have a sword free animation.

The current fists and swords mixed set falls between two concepts far too often.

And I second the idea of a raygun set for energy blast.

I kind of like it because it offers the player a choice.

With Ranged Damage sets, for example, Ive almost always ended up choosing Thunderstrike. Nice set bonuses, nice frankenslotting values for the actual power, nice cost and availablity, its a no brainer. Unless I'm really chasing recharge, or going for something odd like Devastations Psi Defence, there's no competition.

With PBAoE's these days, I can choose to chase set bonuses, or get a cheap frankenslotting solution, or a combination of the two, but not all at once. I have to make a decision about what I want on a per-character per-power basis.

Just like there's no absolute min-max best powerset, there's no absoilute min-max best slotting for these powers now.

No. It only affects the player using the power.