EmperorSteele

Ok, it wasn't so much "I wanna be invisible!" but i saw how much i could stack up choosing powers/IOs i was already going to use and was wondering how much more i needed to get past anything and everything.

Guess either way it isn't gonna happen. Cool beans, makes my power choices easier =)

We also had a few kins spamming transfusion, which helps.

The important thing is to get a wave of debuffs on the aspect JUST BEFORE his shield comes up. Best way to do this is to debuff him constantly, of course, but anyone with a decent sense of timing should have their debuffs ready at that time to prevent the AV from regening too much health or doing too much damage.

Well here's what happened:

Rewards.

When IOs were introduced, you got a chance for "one of the good ones" to be dropped at the end of a TF. Almost immediately, people started looking for the shortest TFs to play and how to do them the most efficiently. Eden and Kattie Hannon became immensely popular for this reason, they could both easily be done in under 20 minutes.

So then the devs turned around and introduced Merits. They took away the chance for a reward drop and instead assigned a point value to every tf and storyline in the game, based on inherent difficulty and average completion time. Katie and Eden were no longer worth a reward roll, so people stopped doing them, instead focusing only LONGER TFs with higher rewards and finding out the best way to complete them in the shortest amounts of time.

Shadow Shard Tfs are still considered not worth it due to length. Khan and the New Posi are too short to give decent rewards. The ITF, which stymied people at first, can now be blazed through for a random roll with just a little left over. A good team can do the same thing to the LGTF and STF and get a good time/merit ratio.

And so now that's what people are used to. They want a reward for the time invested in doing a task, and they want their reward as quick as possible.

Ok, so I have this cold/sonic defender at level 28 or so. So far he as Arctic Fog, Super Speed, and a stealth proc in sprint. Right now this is enough to get me past level 50 bosses without them noticing, But I'm still concerned about Snipers and Ritki drones being able to spot me. Is it true that they completely see through stealth no matter what, or is there a level of stealth that can be attained that they will not see you through?

Just wondering before i dedicate the stealth pool to my build whether or not it'd be worth it.

Gonna steal BTs thunder....

WE DID IT!

Got Raludek the Mad (Big Red). Took less than a half hour all together. I think we spent more time forming teams XD

But anyway, GO US!

Oh.

Well then. *ahem*

BT: one sugestion/request...

If we DO get Mister Stormie (Lanaru the Mad is it?), can we still try to drop his shields once to get a Power Analyzer read-out? I think the info might prove useful in future runs.

You know me, BT. I'm always down for t3h Awesome!

Wooo, open PvP!

=P

It really depends on what sets you're playing.

An Emp/Elec is still going to have a hard time, because your primary doesn't do much to help you at all, and elec still only has 2 normal ST attacks.

Kin/Sonic, on the other hand, was already a damage-dealing monster in the first place.

Anything in between will see some improvement, but unless you know exactly how many hits it took for you to drop a boss before and see that it takes a few less hits now, you probably won't notice a huge difference.

Hmmm...

This build could use some work. Some suggestions, in no particular order:

Terrify: slot with DAMAGE IOs. Posi's Blast is good. It'll give you the same bonuses and make the power MUCH more useful.

Your attack slotting is inconsistent. Two powers have Devastation while another has Entropic Chaos? I'd say 5-slot Lev, Dom, and Mes with Entropic Chaos (for the recharge bonus) and give each of them the Hold proc from Devastation. True, E.C. gives lousy Acc enhancement numbers, but you're also sitting on a 33% Acc bonus from other sets (personally i use 4/6 Thunderstrikes and then put BOTH hold procs in Dominate)

Mass Hyp: remove the Placate proc and reassign the slot elsewhere. An 8 second proc in a power that mezes foes for 45 seconds isn't much good. You don't need the 5% Toxic resistance that badly.

TK: you can lose one of the End redux slots. It's not doing you any good, especially since TK is SUCH a situational power.

Confuse/Mass confuse: I would switch which power gets which set. For once, Contagious Confusion in an AoE confuse isn't likely to do much good (TBH it can do more harm than good... if the proc activates and misses, you'll agro the spawn, which is Very Bad! They may have fixed this since IOs came out but I haven't touched the proc since). But the main thing is that if you put the Purple set in your single-target confuse, you'll keep its bonuses all the way down to level one if you ever find yourself exemplaring down that low. But if you ever exemp low enough to not have access to mass confusion (Hi, Posi, Synapse, newspaper runs, Ouro, etc...) then you'll loose all those yummy set bonuses.

Mental Blast: I've used this power on my Mind/Kin and... I'm not sold on it, TBH. The activation time is too slow for my tastes, especially since you already have a full attack chain of Mes, Lev, Dom. This is very very very much an OPINION, but I'd suggest dropping it in favor of Hasten, 3-slotting it for recharge and using the other slots elsewhere.

Disruption field: You are aware that this is a TOGGLE, right? And hat it costs over 1/end per second to use? I'd find one of the slots i asked you to drop elsewhere, put it in here and give it an end redux.

Liquefy: I have no problem with this, but if all you're looking to do is get the best possible bonuses, I'd take a second look at ALL the options available. This is one of those powers that's so versatile that putting an IO set in it kind of robs you of it's full effectiveness, Still, -tohit is a good way to go and will help protect your allies... as is though, maybe lose one of the Dark watcher IOs and add another Posi's blast to get a yummy Recovery bonus (if you can fit it, you might be "rule of five" capped on the 2.5% recovery bonus...)

Health: Find a couple slots and plop a Numi Health and a Miracle health to get those sets' first bonuses. As it stands, just adding numi's health alone will raise your regen from 239% to 268 (since you haven't actually slotted health itself for any meaningful enhancement value) And since going for regen seems to be a theme in this build, i'd think this is an idea you should consider!

Well, that's about it. There's a few other things that seem unorthodox but it all adds up nicely. Have fun!

The Zombie thread won't stay down! *Shoots it with a shotgun... is dismayed a the thread continues to lumber forward* Run for your lives!

Seriously, though... hey BaBs, anything to report on this end of things?

So i've been doing a few Lord Recluse Strike Forces recently, trying to get the "Master of..." badge, but I've been experiencing an issue.

The first mission runs HORRIBLE. Like my frame rate drops BELOW one frame per second, then jumps to 80, then crashes back down into the single digits. All while I'm HOLDING STILL.

No one else had the problem, so I'm assuming it's something on my end. Here's a CoHhelper readout:

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---

DxDiag gathered at August 29, 2010 08:38 (-04:00)
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.100427-1636)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: GA-770TA-UD3
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 630 Processor, MMX, 3DNow (4 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 3326MB
.Net Memory Report: 2559MB out of 3326MB available
Page File: 4545MB (664MB currently in use)
C Drive: (WDC WD6401AALS-00J7B0) 375306MB out of 610469MB (61%) free
Windows directory location: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DirectX Diag version: 5.03.2600.5512 (32-bit version)

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

Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: ATI Technologies Inc. / ATI Radeon Graphics Processor (0x68BE)
Video Memory: 1024.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.7111
Driver Date: 8/3/2010 9:46:04 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Realtek HD Audio output
Driver File: RtkHDAud.sys
Driver Version: 5.10.0000.5964
Driver Date: 10/21/2009 10:28:42 AM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: GA-770TA-UD3
Motherboard Version: x.x
BIOS Manufacturer: Award Software International, Inc.
BIOS Name: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: GBT - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20091119000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1280x1024
3D Resolution: 1280x1024 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 85Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: No


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


Anti-aliasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: 2x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: Medium quality
Bloom: 1.000 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: No
Shader Detail: High


World Texture Level: Very High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 2.000
Entity Detail Level: 1.000
Shadows Enabled: Yes
Shadow Mode: Unknown (5)
Shadow Map Shader: High quality
Environmental Reflections: Disabled
Advanced Occlusion Settings: No
Ambient Occlusion: Off
Occlusion Strength: Off
Blur: Bilateral
Ambient Resolution: Performance


Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: Yes
FX Sound Volume: 0.500
Music Sound Volume: 0.000

Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.500
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 418574 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1850.201007290124.21T2
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
.\texture_library\MAPS\city has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Midnight_Squad has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Safeguard has 9 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\sewers has 44 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\static has 32 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Outdoor_Missions has 9 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Static has 16 files


**

So, right. I was having issues with AA before, but turning off AO solved that. But like I said, now the first mission runs horrible. I went into my ATi control panel and oddly, it reported high temperatures but no usage at some points? And according to Windows Task manager, CoH was using almost a gig and a half of memory (a lot more than usual). And it reported that only half of my total processor power was being utilized... which is funny because I thought games tried to suck up as much as they can?

Any ideas?

[EDIT} that's funny, i installed the 10.8 drivers just the other day, but it says 6.14 up there? I use driver cleaner between updates... could I have missed something that's causing a conflict?

When making a build, you need goals. For a tank, there are a lot of obtainable goals to choose from, though the more you go after, the more mutually exclusive they become. In no particular order, here's a few ideas:

+Damage. Let's face it, Tanker damage isn't that great, though the new "bruising" effect from your T1 helps.

+Recharge: Get long-recharge powers like Dull Pain and your attacks up faster. I would recommend this, especially for an Inv/EM

+Acc: From a purely tanking perspective, if you can't hit an enemy, you can't use gauntlet. However, Inv has a VERY strong agro aura, and taunt is pretty-much auto-hit.

+HP: The more damage you can take, the better. Also...

+Regen: the faster your lost health comes back, the better. Note that this bonus works in PERCENTAGES, so a +30% regen bonus will do more good on a tanker with 2500 hp than a tanker with 2000 hp (unless i've misunderstood something)

+Recovery: Inv doesn't have as many toggles as some other tanker sets, but EM attacks are fairly heavy on end use. Especially if you get +Recharge bonuses and additional toggles (like tough/weave), you want as much recovery as possible.

+Defense: Comes in both positional and typed flavors. Building to your strengths, you can easily soft-cap your S/L or melee defense with one foe in range of Invincibility.

+Resist: Harder to come by, you can still gain respectable resists to Psi or Toxic damage if you build for it. There are two schools of thought: either don't bother, as these damage types are rare, or do so and become as well-rounded as possible. It's up to you. With the advent of dual builds, you can have different builds for different scenarios. Going up against council? get your soft-caped build out. Going against Ritki or Carnies or Mother Mayhem's Seers? Switch to your psi-resist build. You don't have to go only one way.

Once you've decided what you want to do, come back for more advice =) Everyone will tell you "you have to go soft-cap!" but i think it's a bit over-rated. Tanks did fine without the soft caps before IOs (especially Invulns), and they can still do fine now.

A badge for 1250 badges called "Voyager"?

Well, at least it doesn't involve getting hurled 70,000 light years away >_>

Okay, here's my CoHHelper readout:

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---

DxDiag gathered at August 27, 2010 16:36 (-04:00)
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.100427-1636)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: GA-770TA-UD3
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 630 Processor, MMX, 3DNow (4 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 3326MB
.Net Memory Report: 2539MB out of 3326MB available
Page File: 4520MB (689MB currently in use)
C Drive: (WDC WD6401AALS-00J7B0) 375600MB out of 610469MB (61%) free
Windows directory location: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DirectX Diag version: 5.03.2600.5512 (32-bit version)

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

Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: ATI Technologies Inc. / ATI Radeon Graphics Processor (0x68BE)
Video Memory: 1024.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.7111
Driver Date: 8/3/2010 9:46:04 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Realtek HD Audio output
Driver File: RtkHDAud.sys
Driver Version: 5.10.0000.5964
Driver Date: 10/21/2009 10:28:42 AM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: GA-770TA-UD3
Motherboard Version: x.x
BIOS Manufacturer: Award Software International, Inc.
BIOS Name: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: GBT - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20091119000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1280x1024
3D Resolution: 1280x1024 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 85Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: No


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


Anti-aliasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: 2x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: High quality
Bloom: 1.000 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: No
Shader Detail: Medium?


World Texture Level: Very High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 1.000
Entity Detail Level: 1.000
Shadows Enabled: Yes
Shadow Mode: Unknown (4)
Shadow Map Shader: Medium quality
Environmental Reflections: High quality
Advanced Occlusion Settings: Yes
Ambient Occlusion: High performance
Occlusion Strength: Slight
Blur: Fast
Ambient Resolution: High performance


Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: Yes
FX Sound Volume: 0.500
Music Sound Volume: 0.000

Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.500
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 418574 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1850.201007290124.20T2
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
.\texture_library\MAPS\city has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Midnight_Squad has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Safeguard has 9 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\sewers has 44 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\static has 32 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Outdoor_Missions has 9 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Static has 16 files


...and everything looks fine. But when i turn on AA, stuff like this happens:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...5-18-16-05.jpg

Any ideas on how i can fix this?

My Mind/Kin would also love this badge!

Exx: might wanna make the start time later than 10. The you-know-what might take longer to get going and we start that at 9

I'd be afraid of someone tinting water powers yellow.

>_>

[EDIT] ok, fsaa is NOT working well for me at ALL! XD Spoke too soon i guess...

If i'm in-game and turn it on, it looks good... but the moment i move, i see a persistent "ghost" image of the background. When i turn AA off this goes away.

If i leave AA on and restart the game, 2 bad things happen. First, my characters are almost ALL blackened out. Some costume items like capes, auras, insignias, and "short sleeved shirt arms" show up, but everything else is pitch black.

Second, when i get into a zone, the ENTIRE screen is white-washed (it's actually more like a pale blue that changes as the day/night sycle goes on). Only a few things actually appear: the sky, graffiti, capes, auras... But everything else is washed out.

Gonna keep fiddling with things, but for me, right now? Not working!

So ATI released new drivers today, and i noticed this little item in the update notes:

"FSAA" is a selectable option in City of Heroes / City of Heroes Going Rogue™

It was always selectable, but perhaps now it actually works correctly? I have yet to see, but if anyone else already has these drivers, let us know how they work, otherwise i'll make a reply in an hour or two or whenever i get the darn drivers working right =)

[edit] oops, Coming Storm beat me to the punch. I feel like a dork >_<

Mind/Kin IS quite good. Plenty of solo buffs, team buffs and enemy debuffs. If you want an in-depth look at this power combo, I have a guide:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=122388

I'll concede that Mind/Kin isn't -perfect-, but then again everything has a downside =)

Should vigilantes/rouges be allowed into a hero or villain base to use its facilities? YES.

Should Heroes and Villains be allowed to PERMANENTLY SHARE a supergroup and base? I'll lean towards no, unless the dev team decides to do away with ALL faction-based restrictions, which of course would make the entire system they just spent a year and a half making a bit redundant. All i want is consistency =)

I'm on my vigilante, and i noticed that one of the Cap Au Diable exploration badges comes up with HERO badge art, and for some reason I cannot get the accolade. I'll see if this clears up when i go full villain, but has anyone else experienced this?