Ehyuko_

Common salvage is easy to get out of the AE with tickets [~8 for a common roll], the 'uncommon' salvage from AE is approximately 10x the ticket price of a common and more than the bronze recipies [~80ish].

With all the flipping and market manipulation kicking into high gear in prep for 2x xp weekend, and in fact over the past few months, it's better to get salvage from the AE via tickets than to buy it off the market if you want something specific in a reasonable period of time.

Any form of additional regen or defense will improve your survival, but the difference will be very slight compared to your normal performance. The heal in dwarf form and the +hp power in human form combined with your resists are the greater part of your surviability. Note that the defence increase being slight is because only defense bonuses from IO sets will be available and will require sacificing other potential bonuses.

Increasing the recharge rate of your heal seems to be most effective, but only from personal experience. I also have a */stone brute and do not regularly run rooted, a +regen power of ~200 points of regen. When I face large groups, strong targets or defence debuffs, I'll turn it on and it will make a noticable difference, but this is also with ~35 defense and ~80 res all but psi and only makes a SLIGHT difference. The dwarf form heal will recharge in 20-30 seconds depending on your build and IOs and will yield ~ 800 points of healing, Something spiking damage at a rate greater than 800 points in 10 seconds after your resists will not be stopped by some minor +regen, although it will help. At this point I'd suggest using insps and spamming dwarf stomp for the knockdown, or switching out of dwarf form when possible to use the human form heal and +hp power.

Dwarfs CAN tank, even AVs to an extent, but they are not similar enough to be tank replacements - without team buffs.

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Speaking of Res cap on Dwarfs; I've heard it mentioned several times throughout multiple guides, but after looking at the numbers in Mids it only shows something like 53%. Do the numbers Mids shows, ontop of the potential from Cosmic Balance, all add together for the Res cap? How exactly does that work? Is there anywhere I could find numbers for Cosmic Balance, besides teaming with one of each AT and checking my attributes window?

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The resistance cap is a set limit and depends on AT, for PB's it's 85% res, comparably tanks are 90%. The latest version of Mids still does not allow cosmic balance and dwarf to be active together, unless you modify it yourself.

As of i13, cosmic balance adds bonuses while in all forms. For each blaster/scrapper/brute/stalker [iirc] on your team, you get ~10 res all per player of that type within 80'. With dwarf slotted for resistance near the 55% mark [~3 SOs], you have ~59 points of resistance to all but toxic/psi. These add together for your final resistance value and is limited to a maximum of 85 points.

You can check the power info for cosmic balance for the exact numbers of the bonuses for each AT.

Reform essence is a dull pain [+ max HP] clone that carries over into both forms, with proper slotting it can be up near constantly and with IOs, perma. It makes a huge difference.

White dwarfs play like SS/fire tanks, the dwarf heal is a large part of the mitigation, the knockdown helps a lot also. If you use IO sets, building for +rech and HP is a solid direction to go in this regard.

Generally you should only need dwarf form outside of an extra heal when facing a void/quant or when tanking for larger groups. This weekend I did a number of missions on large teams, most with AVs. Due to the tanks not having taunt, I ended up as primary tanker, and generally outlasted them due to capped [85] resists on larger teams. Granted, a dwarf isn't as reliable as a tank, but can certainly substitute in for mediocre ones.

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I Placate an enemy, but other enemies can still attack me. If they thump me, my Assassin's Strike gets interrupted. So, what's the strategy here?

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The first attack you use after placate gets a crit just as if you are hidden, if you use placate on one mob, you can instantly attack another and get a crit AND the mob you used placate on will not attack you for a short period of time unless you attack it first. You have to use your own judgement on what attacks you can get off in the situation you're in, a defense based char against normal mobs has a good chance of getting off an AS, a resistance/regen based char will have to settle for a faster animating attack to get the crit off.

Common stalker solo tactics are to AS a mob, placate it's partner or the thrid in the trio and crit on the first mob again to finish it off or the second one to do a large amount of damage, when the first one or two are down, you should have enough time for hide to pop up again before the 3rd mob agros on you from placate ending.

It's also good against single hard targets when you need to recover or retreat. If you constantly scrap instead of using hide for crits beyond the first, it's just useful for an additional crit.

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Basically, DA is a good all around set for general PvE but tough mobs and/or AV type encounters can prove hazardous.

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The above quote is an excellent description. Keep in mind, people lauding DA for dark regen often neglect to say how often you have to use it and how much endurance it costs.

DA is an ok set for soloing, it can handle small team size [2-3 players] spawns without too much trouble, beyond that or against hard hitting single targets, it's much more difficult to manage.

With careful planning in combat and a supporting primary [such as DM] or heavy investment into IO sets, DA can be quite good - but requires this investment to compete against other common armour types for general effectiveness.

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in the arena, i force them into elude early on, spend 3 minutes running, come back and destroy them for the next 3 minutes.

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Or you spend 3 minutes running, then the scrapper spends a bit over a minute running... repeat. Sounds like a lot of fun.

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I don't qualify for any of these... how can you get into the game industry if they're always looking for game industry experience????

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Bluntly: Lie [creatively].

Lots of people are looking to get a job done fast [or avoid it entirely] rather than putting actual thought into it, the larger the corporation, the more there are. One of my favorite interviews was when the interviewing team brought up my lack of 5 years experience, specifically in Autocad 2000, as part of the 'requirements for the position' - at the time it was August of 2001.

Have you played D&D where someone had a music player of some kind around? Congratulations, you've just been part of a team on a low budget MMO. Suggested a rule as being stupid? Consultant or Dev, take your pick [why not both!].

Granted, this isn't always the case, but more people should be scared of the things around them when they realise how common this is.

The hero heavy has an ranged aoe hold/puke field similar to the old version of traps' poison gas trap, it also has a snipe that does multiple packets of damage for about 1600 damage, bypassing the one shot code. Then it has some ranged attacks, debuffs and summons seeker drones.

The villian heavy has a pbaoe nuke [on a several minute timer] and stong melee attacks. It also has a moderate ranged ST and aoe on long timers.

It wasn't hard to see which was better back when RV was released. It's been what, 7 issues and how many years?

It's a bit rough playing a dom with AE content, I'd imagine the same thing goes for controllers.

As well as the already listed blaster defiance being ported over to mobs, scrapper/tanker/brute type mobs also have improved mez resistance - it requires 2-3 domination mode holds stacked to hold one of these type of mobs at minion or LT level, I gave up on trying to hold these types as bosses [not enough duration in my dom's hold I suppose, even in domination] and just immob them, still takes 2 immobs to break their protection.

Strangely enough blaster primaries combined with armour secondaries do not get the additional mez protection. Having not created any AE content, I suppose the AT type is determined by the primary powerset chosen?

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Now I hear you guys... you all seem to dislike the Story Arc aspect of this system. I've had some discussions with the team yesterday about what we could do instead, and still keep the flavor of the four pool system, because having the extra three pools allows us to not only reward risk/reward, but time/reward as well. Takes longer to do a Task Force? Here's a nice bonus you can't get anywhere else. Finish the Respec trial, but already have all your Respecs? Here's a nice reward that carries with it some good inherent value.


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WHY STORY ARC EXCLUSIVES ARE BROKEN:

Because they are the ONLY thing you can't repeat. The only. Think about everything else on the list posted by Dr. Brainstorm:

TF - Any character 12+ can do Positron's TF (if a hero, obviously) ANY TIME THEY WANT.
Trials - Any one 24+ can do a respec trial ANY TIME THEY WANT.
Killing mobs of all levels - With exemplar you can do this ANY TIME YOU WANT.

You might need a team, that's OK. But story arcs can only be done once. Fix that or no recipes be available only from story arcs.

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Problem:

I'm against story arc exclusive rewards because I have many 50's who did not go through and repeat all available story arcs. Even if a datamining operation was done, there is no way these characters could ever attain something I may or may not want for him/her.

Background:

I currently run my chars through story arcs as I like, plus badge missions, mainly for the accolades. In general, I do not bother completing the accolade as they are generally a large time sink, however all my chars have the option of getting any accolade in the future. Being unable to do the same for enhancer sets is rather annoying even to consider, as these rewards can make or break a character's maximum effectiveness [especially when compared to other players that will have these bonuses] and why I believe that there should be no exclusive rewards tied to unrepeatable content.

Possible solution:

A simple solution would be to make the story arc reward pool shared with the same pools for that level, you would have trial/arc, task-strike/arc, enemies, arcs. In this way specific arc rewards can be guaranteed but are also available as a random award from other sources.

Story is what kept me in the game for a long time, but many alts to 50 meant I've run the story arcs several times.

PvP is what keeps me playing between new arcs.

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People around lvl 16 have reported poor end drain resistance vs. Mu. Which leads me to believe that Static Shield's end drain protection also varies with level. The 80% mitigation was determined in Siren's Call.

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Mu attacks also have a -recovery [endurance] component as well as an end drain, players running a lot of toggles, such as dark armour or elec armour players will notice it a lot more, as the end drain resist works but does not protect from -recovery.

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What Neocron Would Be Like if Cryptic Developed It: Your level 35 characters will fight their way out into the wastelands, and in ruined laboratories under the ruins of a nuked-out civilization they'd be fighting ... rats. Not giant rats, not sentient rats, not rat colonies, not mutated rats, not cyborg rats, but the same old rats you fought in the level 1 sewers. But these are special level 40 rats that have a few new powers and who do enough damage to hurt your level 35 characters.

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I'm sure you meant to say bats, from the 1/1's in the newbie sewer to the 90/90 poison spamming swarms in the crystal caves.

Or maybe like the mutants? From the whatever ranked those low level nailgun totting zombie wannabies are to the ceres war veterans with those Judgement Day rocket launchers.

Whatever you meant, it's nice to see someone that's heard of the game, Neocron is great, but I couldn't stand how long it takes for the devs of that game [Or is it dev now? Poor company lost coders and staff like crazy *sniffs*] to release patches for horribly broken mechanics. Still, I'd be back there in a heartbeat if *synchronising* wasn't the most common word in the game... and the population of the english servers went back to 400+ simultaneous players. ^^;;

Anywho recycling mobs isn't something terribly new in games, I'm quite impressed by how the devs of CoX keep pumping out creative, interesting zones and new mob types to populate them.

I can confirm that you lose health when using ET after placate, both directly after and with some waiting. I hadn't noticed it until now as I never use ET out of hide.

Edit: After placate you don't (or at least I dont) get 'Hidden' on my bar, I get an icon of placate in my list of self buffs. When hit or after attacking, the icon goes away. I believe the 'Hidden' only shows up if you're in normal hide mode... placate lasts just shorter then the time lenght for the anti-taunt effect to wear off - just short of the time to attack and rehide.

I haven't experienced that using ET after placate or after placate then buildup costs health. Using ET from hide or after a placate (before you take or deal damage) should not cost you health.

Many people think you should AS the target you placate in a multi mob fight, I perfer to AS a different one.

In general, my combat flows from:

- Initial AS (one dead minion)
- Buildup (before the 1st AS if hitting with AS is in any doubt)
- Energy transfer (2nd dead minion, energy punch/bonesmasher may be required depending on resistances)
- Total focus (mostly dead 3rd mob, disoriented)

If there's more then the 3rd mob left standing (2 down, 1 disoriented), then I continue as:

- Placate mob #4
- AS mob #5
- Defeat mob #3 (likely coming out of disorient shortly after this)
- Defeat mob #4 if attacks have recharged and health is decent, otherwise retreat.

Placte seems to have 2 features, a detected hide status (mobs can agro on you but you can crit) and a remove from agro list (anti-taunt). While the hide can be knocked off by taking or doing damage, the anti-taunt remains in effect for about 12 seconds or until you hit that mob, at which point the mob will react as if you had just come into the area.

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He was designed to be as close to a Player Hero as we could make him.

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I have issue with all the elite bosses/AVs/Heros designed this way - they dont have any of the disadvantages of heroes/villians and they ignore every ingame mechanic the players abilities have.

For instance, take a FF controller/defender... how does their health compare to an elite boss? How about damage output? How about power recharge speeds? Endurance use? Power selections?

In what way does this elite-boss compare to a player hero outside toggle dropping?

I'm sorry but there are NO elite-bosses, arch hero/villians designed this way that remotely compare to a hero or villian player, all of them are brutally overpowered because they ignore all player game mechanics.

I'd LOVE to see all elites/AVs/Heroes designed using player available ATs, powers and with the same effects players have, such as toggle dropping. I don't think we ever will though - they're far too easy to defeat.

Edit: Here's another prime example: The Sea Witch. A very well designed Hero, who totally ignores power recharge timers. Watch her turn hurricane on and off MORE THEN ONCE A SECOND for minutes at a time... be amazed at her constant spamming of lightning storm... marvel at her health - more then 5 times your own!

Personally I think Heros/AVs and elite bosses should have a signature power, rather then being able to ignore player and even mob rules for power use.