Dr_Spectre

I'm working on an nrg/wp brute- my probably quixotic goal is for him to be as good a tanker as he can be. I'm not a huge number cruncher, I was just hoping here to get some general suggestions- A friend passed me a build a while back which uses lotsa IO bonuses with +health & +regen; and on top of that I'm looking forward to getting whichever Alpha slot has the heal bonus (Spirit I think).

I mentioned that to a different friend who told me I was all wrong- not to bother with eking out every bit of regen/health, and instead go for absolute max defense through IO sets (I already have weave/tough); then the set's natural regen and resists could take care of whatever damage got past my defense. Then another friend chimed in they were both wrong and I should try to exploit every set bonus to max out my resists.

Sheesh. Since WP mitigates damage four ways (resist, -tohit, defense & regeneration) I know every part of it is critical but. . .what's the general consensus on making a brute /wp into a halfway decent tank?

I thought I had read that the very rare enhancement requires as ingredients, "any 2 rares".

But, when I look in game at the requirements it says I need Musculature Partial Core Revamp and Musculature Partial Radial Revamp.

The rare I created to use was Musculature Total Radial Revamp. So is "any" two rares wrong and to make a very rare I have to start pretty much all over and make two different rares from the one I'm actually using?

I started flipping salvage with one character about a month ago, then it became two, now all my blueside characters are in the act. I've got two or three niches which have so far been very reliable, and I recently got greedy and moved up into higher priced/more fluctuating salvage. Starting about this past Thursday though, and continuing through the weekend all my niches have slowed way down, especially my high-end stuff. There was one salvage piece which for about two weeks I could get at about 1 mill and sell for 1.1m, but no one's biting at 1.1 anymore. (Probably small change for members of the Club here, but it's been a reliable earner so far)

But, I've only been doing this a month - is this just a normal slowdown? Across the board or just coincidentally my niches?

(Apologies if this has been covered, I skimmed recent threads but didn't see anything)

Has anyone had any luck playing a movie at the same time as CoH on a second monitor?

It works fine, except when I click on something in CoH (bringing it to the front, so to speak) the video on the other monitor stops. I suspect it's because the video player 'thinks' that because another application is now active (even though on a separate screen) that it should shut up.

So far I've tried winamp, windows media classic, vlc, and itunes and they all do it. I think it might work if I played CoH in windowed mode, but I hate the title bar.

Thanks for any suggestions.

That did the trick! Thank you very, very much!

Hiya,
I'm getting a black screen when I get past CohUpdater, I don't even get the splash/loading screen. I think CoH is running because I can type and hear the sound effects. I've tried safe mode, same result.

I installed a new video card yesterday, and in honor of it cranked up the graphics settings to high on everything - but CoH worked for several hours last night, and quite a while this morning. I can't think of anything I did, system or settings-wise, between when it was working and now.

I even have tried 'restoring' to a time I knew that CoH worked (but after I installed the card). Any suggestions?

* * * *
---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.1.1.7---

DxDiag gathered at July 12, 2009 22:40 (-05:00)
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.090302-1506)
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Central Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 940 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory: 4094MB
.Net Memory Report: 2274MB out of 4094MB available
Page File: 6711MB (1709MB currently in use)
C Drive: (Hitachi HDS721616PLA380 ATA Device) 51099MB out of 142297MB (35%) free
D Drive: (Hitachi HDS721616PLA380 ATA Device) 6586MB out of 10239MB (64%) free
S Drive: (WDC WD10EACS-00ZJB0 ATA Device) 185045MB out of 953866MB (19%) free
E Drive: (HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDR8163B ATA Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 10
DirectX Diag version: 6.00.6001.18000 (64-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 9800 GT
Video Memory: 2289 MB
Driver Version: 8.15.0011.8618
Driver Date: 6/10/2009 6:03:00 AM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (VIA High Definition Audio)
Driver File: viahduaa.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.1560
Driver Date: 12/18/2008 10:43:18 PM

Sound Device Description: Speakers (USB Audio CODEC )
Driver File: USBAUDIO.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.6001.18000
Driver Date: 1/20/2008 9:47:04 PM

Sound Device Description: Digital Output Device (HDMI TX0) (VIA High Definition Audio)
Driver File: viahduaa.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.1560
Driver Date: 12/18/2008 10:43:18 PM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: ASRock
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: A780GXH/128M
Motherboard Version:
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Name: Default System BIOS
BIOS Version: 041709 - 20090417
BIOS Release: 20090417000000.000000+000

Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1680x1050
3D Resolution: 1680x1050 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes

Physics Quality: Very High
Maximum Particles: 50000
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No

Anti-aliasing: 2x
Anisotropic Filtering: 4x
Texture LOD Bias: Crisp
Water Effects: High Quality
Bloom: 1.000 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: Yes
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: High

World Texture Level: Very High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 2.000
Entity Detail Level: 2.000
Shadows Enabled: Yes
Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of Extra Player FX Enabled: No
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: Yes
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 0.554
Music Sound Volume: 0.000

Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.600
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 173259 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 19.20090619.5T2
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found

Nope, paths are identical (at least they say the are). Irfanview insists that c:\Program Files (x86)\City of Heroes\Screenshots\Uploads\ (created when I was saving from iview) exists; every other program, including Windows Explorer says there are no subdirs of \screenshots. I have a suspicion it's some voodoo to do with 32 bit programs in a 64 bit os, and I shouldn't be mucking about making a new subdir anywhere inside Program Fiels - but the new files iview insists are there (and can open, even after a reboot) have to be somewhere else. . .but Windows doesn't see 'em.

Yup, looked all through the /users, profiles, etc, both manually & searching.

This one has me scratching my head. Any help or ideas what's going on?

I took some screenshots. I browsed over to them in Windows Explorer, double clicked on one and it opened in my preferred lightweight image viewer, Irfanview. I looked through a few pics and decided on one I wanted to upload. Being lazy I hit Save As, created a new subdirectory of Screenshots titled 'upload', and named the pic 'rchsmantf.jpg' Good so far?

I then went over to Photobucket and tried to upload the picture. My new directory wasn't there.

Long story short - Irfanview can create new files and subdirectories in c:\Program Files (x86)\City...\screenshots. I can look at them, delete them, whatever - but if I use Windows Explorer or any other program, those new directories are effectively invisible (yes I have 'show hidden directories' on). I can't get to them even by manually typing the address. If I delete files using Irfanview they are gone for other programs as well.

Also, if I go into Dos (run as administrator) and cd to that directory, the directories aren't there either.

FWIW, it's Vista 64 Home Premium. .

Aside from the discussion, I'm so glad this one got HoF.

It was the first mission I played on Test, so it was my first impression of the entire MA system. I enjoyed it and was surprised at the quality; was almost thinking that Sturgeon's Law didn't apply to the MA (I was wrong, but it's nice to have that first impression).

* Since i8 - did the Manticore TF. All of us (8) crashed multiple times; only common thread (for me at least) was it always happened in a city zone, not a mission.

* In Pocket D, the xmas Chalet, I can almost guarantee a crash by going to one of the blue vent 'ski lifts'. Crash symptoms: total screen freeze and sound looping.

System specs: 1.7ghz cpu, 256mgb graphic card, 1 gig ram.

Great guide - I wish all of 'em were written as entertainingly

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I am glad I was able to enjoy Troughton through Davidson, but I'll hire a well-placed sniper to take out the first [censored] who preaches the "fine acting ability" of Colin Baker.

That fudge head drove me away from Doctor Who.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'll chip for the cost of the bullets....

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree; but, I'm just passing this along- I heard a while back that he actually is a very good actor if you see him in his other stuff, or the Dr. radio shows he's done. Supposedly the powers-that-be during his reign were %^%^% who didn't understand how to do Dr. Who.

Sorry to see you go Gil, always enjoyed your articles.