Draggynn

When I'm organizing TFs or Raids I usually send out an alert call to several channels at once so by the time you respond in that channel I may have already moved on, thus why I ask that you please send a tell. In addition, when I am recruiting in multiple channels in multiple tabs having everyone respond in one manner makes it easier to resolve conflicts about who came first. I don't need to play favorites, I can just go by the tell order.

Do you think that would actually be better? My thought with a base, was that the base would be less likely to be crashed by an influx of players than Ouroboros would be. Shard zones will probalby stay low population though and are likely safe.

I didn't say anywhere that it would hobble the build, but 5 seconds faster recharge would be noticable. Another 10% defense debuff would not. 2 Freezing Rains stacking would get you 60% defense debuff, more effective than 40% I think you'd agree

This build in general is going to run into end troubles. I think Death will find that he almost certainly wants to go with cardiac rather than spiritual, and then the ammount of end reduction necessary is going to depend on how much Death plans on exemping and his general play style. Endurance reduction in Freezing Rain isn't a bad choice, defense debuff though is mostly wasted.

I would not follow this advice and it suggests a lack of knowledge of how Freezing Rain works. The difference between a 40% and a 30% defense debuff will be negligible, and in situations where those percentage points make a difference, you have Tornado. Recharge should be paramount in Freezing Rain, and I think your current slotting is intelligent. If you want a full understanding of how Freezing Rain works (with current bugs) read my guide in the sig (note numbers provided are for defenders, yours are a little lower). Freezing Rain debuff can last from 15 to 45 seconds depending on how lucky you get with the bug, and absolutely stacks with itself.

Is your intention to have the gating badge earnable after earning this one, or is it a mutually exclusive deal? Because there already are several badges like that:
Patron Badges, 1-10 times the Victor, Trusting/Arriveste.

Or where you thinking more like badges that current badge hunters can't get like:
Avid Reader, Moral High Ground

Looks pretty solid. Although for a real "dream build" I would stick the gladiator's armor in Steamy mist and strip all of those slots out of tactics...but that may be more than you want to aim for

I would put more recharge in Freezing Rain, probably replace both Lady Grey's with recharge, or at least swap the three for the recharge/end. More defense debuff in FR isn't going to make a whole lot of difference.

You currently have no KB protection so I would put a Zephyr in Super Jump and consider another KB IO in Steamy Mist, but you'd need to decide what to drop.

You can also eek out some more recharge if you're interested. by slotting Decimations in scream and LS...which would be an additional 12.5% recharge and 5 endurance, but would cost you 6% damage, 36 hit points, and 24% regen, and less optimally slotted (although better exemping abilities). I would probably do it, but doesn't make a huge difference since you'll start to get diminishing returns from more recharge at that level.

You will almost certainly want cardiac alpha as well, because you don't have any endurance regen powers.

Thank you for getting clarification on that Turg. That was the response I had been expecting, but if they had come back and said people AFK in bases would have invalidated their test I would have relied on the 2500 other people to get me the badge.

Thank you for the offer of your base, but I think some SG mates and I will have it covered.

Alas, I wish there were more water. The current problem is that I have some more specific commissions in mind, but simply haven't had the time to get the references together for them. On the bright side though, I still have a couple outstanding commissions that are also just portraits that should be coming in during the next month. And then hopefully this summer I will make the time to get the larger commissions together.

Indeed, took me a moment to realize it was Dragg . I do love seeing different artists' interpretations though. With the exception of the model sheet from Wassy (which I was probably overly nit picky about...and thank you again Caem), I've given artists very little direction and just let them do their own thing, and been very pleased with the results.

And my above post is more polite, but I'm tired so I'm going to post this too. I dislike your sense of entitlement because you happen to be free those three hours. The badge might as well be called, "I didn't have an exam on Friday May 27th between 5 and 9".

I'm sorry Turg, but I don't see this as being counter productive at all. They want to try to get as many people on the server as they can. Having one more person online helps that goal. And if you aren't able to log in to get the badge because I happen to be logged into a base...you know what...CONGRATULATIONS!!!! That means that you and everyone else can get the badge all weekend.

I'll be honest, I don't think it's likely they're able to top the highest count ever of active players on a server, if they can, great! I don't mind being kicked from the base if I'm going to get the badge later in the weekend. And if they don't manage to hit the goal, at least I helped them get nearer to it.

I think you may have over reacted there Turg, this certainly wasn't a case of trying to ruin their stress test or keep you out. It was a case of trying to help everyone get the badge by hitting the 2500 goal, and help the devs by hitting the 3500 player goal they aren't confidant they can make.

Lightning Storm is stationary, so smart enemies will stay away from it, and try to get you away from it. You can use it a little defensively by staying under it and forcing enemies to come to you, but that pins you down quite a bit in a game that tends to be all about movement. If you're intending on using it for PvP you want it slotted for recharge since you will need to be constantly resummoning. Otherwise, I don't know that I'd slot it much differently than for PvE. You want each strike to do the most damage it can: and there are three damage procs LS can take:
Apocalypse: but you probably have a better place for this
Gladiator's Strike: but that's expensive
Explosize Strike: definitely


Then focus on damage and recharge. I wouldn't bother with either of the mez procs in pvp. With diminishing returns, just rely on Freezing Rain and Tornado to let LS hit. Depending on your build, you may want some endurance reduction too, because LS is expensive.

So if you are out of the 45 foot range that LS needs to hit on its own then it seems there are basically 3 conditions that need to be met:
1) the enemy needs to be within 100 feet of LS
2) you need to be near the enemy (hard to pin down an exact number, but it seems melee range, so 7-15 feet)
3) the enemy needs to not only aggro on you, but actually connect with an attack.

If the enemy attacks but always misses, no lightning. If the enemy connects and hits, but you aren't near him, no lightning. If you are standing near him and attack, but he doesn't attack back, no lightning. If you are near him and he attacks and hits, but you are more than 100 feet away, no lightning.

So my prediction would be, no, it wouldn't work. The enemies literally have to be attacking you. However, in testing, I also determined that I don't fully understand all the intricacies of LS, and all of my tests were performed on a single target, so it's possible I'm wrong.

Nope. From my testing it can't perceive further than 100 feet regardless of what you do. No help from tactics, no help from yellow inspirations. Of course, as said before, if you actually want Lightnign Storm to attack at 100 feet, you need to be near that target and have said target attack you. So calling that 100 feet "perception" might be a little misleading.

It's probably better just to think of it as Lightning Storm's maximum range. I called it perception as it seems the most likely explanation for the discrepencies between LS's reported enhanced Lightning range and the actual behavior of the power, but otherwise it has no relation to the way we normally think about perception in the game.

This depends a lot on playstyle whether it will be worthwhile or not. I have two builds that I run. I have a "team" build that I run when I know that I won't be in danger that focuses primarily on recharge and does not take the fighting pool, or build for defense at all. 3 Lightning Storms, 2 tornados, and constant Freezing Rain is certainly nice.

Then I have a survivability build that I use when i solo (x8+3) or am on a team where I know I won't have much support that is soft capped to ranged and has 75% resistance to smash/lethal/energy. However, you may not want to invest in two builds, as that can get expensive, so consider your playstyle and which would be more useful to you.

That said, a storm defender certainly doesn't need defense to be survivable. I was very resistant to buidling for defense for a long time, and using a non defense build I could handle x5 +2 easily (granted, I've had a lot of practice).

Note though that in a power like Hot Feet, the proc currently has a chance to fire on every damage tic, not 10 seconds like procs from enhancements and this is almost certainly not WaI and likely to get fixed soon.

Well I spent quite a while this weekend testing Lightning Storm my guide which is coming **soon**. The behavior of LS is a little confusing, but range enhancements will not allow LS to strike farther (It appears to have limited perception.) Range will however, allow LS to strike things near it when you are farther away. If you are out of Lightning Storm's range it won't attack anything. (It's rather convoluted and I will go into in depth in the guide, but don't have time to type it out here). In general this means slotting range in LS is useless.

LS will shoot things that are within 45 feet of it, or within about 10 feet of you, and have attacked you. So if you want LS to attack things that are just a little further away (provided that they are within 100 feet) you just need to approach them.

The hold proc is excellent in LS because it has a 15% chance to fire. I highly recommend this. You aren't going to get enough endurance drain to make end drain worthwhile unless you have another source of end drain to stack with it. Damage procs can also be effective provided that a damage IO wouldn't cause a (.2*72) 14.4 increase in damage which is a 14/40 = 35% increase. Otherwise just pick your favorite ranged damage set and focus on damage, recharge, and depending on your build, endurance.

Actually it looks like this is wrong, the chance to tic according to Dispari's testing appears to be related to the chance to fire of the proc. So if you have the 50% chance to fire, then each tic has 50% chance to fire, rather than all being 80% tics. (This suggests that it gets MUCH more powerful at higher levels). Now I just need to finish reading through the thread and make sure there weren't any new revelations that contradict this.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...1&postcount=41

I'm not certain what the damage numbers are on reactive(but I just tested them, so see the next paragraph), but I can tell you that the -resistance debuff is 2.5% for 8 seconds and that it can stack 4 times for 10% -resistance. (And with fire imps attacking, hitting that 10% value should be relatively easy).

And after a little testing, it looks like it's two tics of 15 damage from reactive against even con enemies. so that's 30 damage. This means that in order for the -res to be better than the -damage, you (meaning you and your team) must deal 1200 damage in 8 seconds. So...if you deal 1200 damage in 8 seconds go core, otherwise, go radial. This also means that against enemies with less than 1200 hit points, the damage is always better.

However, things improve with level. The damage is subjected to the purple patch, but the resistance isn't. So if you are level 51 fighting level 54 enemies, the damage is only 9.75 per tic, but the -resistance is still 2.5% so you only need to deal 780 damage in 8 seconds for the -res to be better.

Well, you should absolutely take hasten. Yes the glowie hands may not work for you, but since Storm has so many long recharge powers, I think it is essential. Beyond that it depends a lot on your play style. The leadership pool can be nice, especially on teams, but Storm is already an expensive set, so the leadership pool will increase your endurance usage still further. (That said my storm defender runs 2-3 leadership toggles depending on the build). Because Defenders have such a high buff modifier (the same as tanks) we get the most mileage out of the fighting pool as well. So if you are considering building for defense, tough and weave make a lot of sense (but otherwise those are expensive toggles to run too).

**Points to Sig** I abhor Gale, and would never consider a build without O2 boost, but opinions on this vary widely. More information than you ever wanted about O2 boost and Gale is probably in my sig.