Firewasp

Apprentice
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  1. My time on CoX has been limited to only two and a half years, but I have played computer games since they were invented in the early 70’s, online games starting when they were invented in 1983. It was a game called, “P-51”. A dogfight simulator between two players over a modem or it could be played between two computers via a null modem adapter. This was a 4 pin serial cable with wires 2 and 3 swapped. Your opponent’s plane showed up as a white dot on a black screen. The bigger the dot became, the closer they were to your plane. This doesn’t seem like much for graphics, but it was pretty amazing 26 years ago. Our computer club held tournaments for six months. The tourneys ended when I figured out how to win the game in just 2 minutes, instead of 45 to an hour.

    You see that has been my hobby for the last 27 years. To figure put what a program will do beyond what it says it can do. In 1999 my brother gave me Asheron’s Call as a Christmas present. It was one of only 3 mmorpgs at the time. It had a level cap of 126 (4 billion xp) and an expansion came out for it a few years later that increased the cap to 275 (trillions of xp). So now when I play games like CoX and WoW and see a level cap of 50 and 80, I realized why so many players had many 50’s and 80’s. It was because this was a low level. It took me two years on Asherons Call to get my archer to level 165 (16 billion xp). Since every 10 levels your “power” is increased by 4 times, you can understand what the power of a 165 was like. Let alone a 275.

    Anyway back to the Defender. Last night I was in a mission with my level 17 scrapper. There were three others on the team. Two Defenders and one Controller. One of the Defenders cast a FF shield on me which is nice. The other Defender had no buffs for me being a dark Defender. As we were fighting, my health was going down pretty fast (we were fighting purples). I checked my defense stats to see what percentage my shield was. The Deflection shield was at only 15%. This was a level 20 Defender. This 15% is the unslotted base. So I look at his info. He trained only two of his PRIMARY powers??? Which were of course unslotted or not used at all. Most of the trained powers were the blasts. He should have rolled a Blaster that has these powers as a Primary. Which as you know are 20% more damaging then the Defender’s Secondary blasts.

    When my FF/Dark Defender reached 50 (never killing a thing to get there as he was pure player support as he should be), I respec’ed him to kill stuff. He was horrible! New players see the Defender and think, why should I play a Blaster. The Defender has all the blasts that a Blaster has, but I can heal myself. This is a huge mistake as those blasts they are thinking of are 20% less damaging. For the most part a Defender’s blasts are not designed to do damage. They are debuffing blasts. Lowering the defense, accuracy, regeneration, etc.

    Yes, you “can” play the Defender like a mini-Blaster, but why would you want to? Even if a Kinetics Defender casts Fulcrum Shift, Aim, Assault, Build up and even Power Build up, the Blaster will still do 20 to 25% more damage without FS.

    Now there is an exception to this as the title states above. If you have a team of Defenders with certain Primaries and Leadership, the stacked buffs will bring damage to an extremely high level. This team of Defenders could fight +6’s with ease and wipe them out in a fraction of the time that even Blasters or Scrappers could do. Plus the team wouldn’t get a scratch. Their defense would make a Tanker drool. I once tried to organize 7 others to try this, but they all thought it was a joke from the start and the team broke away before we even started. I have spent hundreds of hours studying this and building an epic team of Defenders.

    On World of Warcraft I came up with a similar approach. By grouping a mage, druid, priest, paladin and warlock, the buffs made us much more powerful. We started at Level 1 on a Monday evening after dinner. We played for 4 hours every evening Monday through Thursday, then 7 hours on Friday, all day on Saturday and half a day on Sunday. On that Sunday afternoon we were all level 60 (this was done before Burning Crusade). This experience was reported on the forums and 99% of the responders were so close minded, they said that it would never work and soloing was the fastest way to level.

    The Defender can be the most powerful class on CoH (Corruptors on CoV). But you must play as Defender as a Defender. Its right there in the name. A Defender’s job is to defend (not to fight). To buff, debuff, protect and to heal for the rest of the team. Playing a Defender as a Blaster is like using a screwdriver as a hammer or chisel. It “can” be done, but why would you want to?

    If there are any serious minded players out there that want to experience first hand just how much more powerful a Defender can be, just let me know and we’ll set up the team. But there are ground rules that must be followed. If the rules are ignored, it will surely fail and the team will break apart before level 10. That would be a waste of my time and yours. However if the rules are followed, you will witness a team with unprecedented power and speed like you have never seen before.

    By the way, when I was on Asheron’s Call. My level 15 walked into a dungeon with level 40 creatures in it. Players would run up and see me sitting on the floor with a level 40 creature standing behind me and I was perfectly safe. These players were extremely confused and the event was posted on the forums for years, trying to figure out how I did it. After two years I explained it all which really shocked everyone. Especially the developers.

    When I was level 80, the developers came out with a new creature that had such a high level of magic skill, that it would take over 50 players to kill it (half of the players died in the process). A few months later I showed my guild friends something very special. I cast some spells on that creature, then walked over to it. The creature tried in vain to kill me, but it was as helpless as a puppy. Told the others to approach me. They were hesitant at first, but finally walked over to it. Told one of them to hit the creature one time. One of them hit the creature with his axe and it died. The xp from this creature was over a million. The reason why was that the developers created it to have to be killed by 50 or more players and to spread the xp among all of them. I killed that creature for a couple months and made 165 very quickly. After that I was bored with the game and moved on. My character was so powerful that I resisted 97% of all magic and 99% of all melee damage. When I told others how I created my character I was told that it was just too extreme. That was my intention 

    At the end of 165 levels and two years, that character showed a report of only 16 deaths. Over half of them were caused by lag. We went into a dungeon one night. I was level 32. The others were level 60 to 90 (no such thing as being sidekicked – I was still only 32). We were overwhelmed with level 124 - creatures. When everyone ended up at the lifestone from being killed, they started to realize that I was not among them. They asked where I was. Told them that I was still in the dungeon toying with the NPC’s. This is because I studied the artificial intelligence of the creatures and discovered their weaknesses.

    See you in game!
  2. Do you sleep in the apartment? See that's what I don't get. I see these huge bases with miles of deco and besides using the telepads, inventions table and possibly salvage, those other 20 rooms are worthless.

    It used to be the biggest reason for leaving a sg when they put the above necessities way in the back. Like the grocery store putting the milk, eggs and bread at the back of the store so that maybe you will buy stuff you don't need along the way.

    My base has the largest workroom off to one side of the entrance, and the med and telepad room off the other side. There are some wall prints I won from vet rewards at the entrance, but the rest is of no use and just lags the base.

    Thanks for the help and advice on the rest. I don't have the prestige to get the other power and control yet. This is a private base (player housing). The only reason for the telepads is for new alts to use until they get their ourborous portal which made most telepads obsolete.
  3. Okay, I filed a petition (just like I did yesterday -- did the bug report today). All I did was to copy my first post above and pasted it in the petition.

    Well it worked. About 30 minutes ago my base power was turned back on. Yes I was absent from the game since June 2009.

    Bought a basic work table and made a basic teleport. I had the Luck Charm I needed. They have been selling for 75k. Built just one telepad because between the med reclaimator, the basic work table and the telepad, I am at my limit on the combo power unit.

    Now, how do I get more power and control to run more telepads? That combo unit makes 75 control, but the control items I see only go up to 50 and for a lot more prestige. Can I just use another combo unit? Don't know why you can use just one in the oversite room, It is a big waste of space.
  4. Okay, I went to current room and both telepads were listed. I sell both of them and then delete the room. Then sell the combo power unit and delete the oversite room (starting fresh).

    I create a new oversite room and buy another combo unit. There are no devices in the base that require power. I exit edit mode and walk over to ID the combo unit. It have NO POWER. The same little unpowered icons I see before.

    Went again to Galaxy City to check upkeep. It was still paid off.

    So here I sit in a plain base with the smallest footprint with no power. The bill is paid, my subsription is up to date. What do I have to do to get my power turned on?
  5. I figured this out years ago. You don't need a mansion with tables and junk that no one will ever see or use. Rooms that go miles away, that no one will look at beyond the designer.

    I started my own little SG and base. It has salvage storage, invention table, enhancement tables, a med lab and a few telepads. Just the things that a player needs a base for.

    Its like having player housing. You get only 30 or so slots on your character for salvage. Another 30+ in the vault. Then maybe you store some at the auction. When you have your own base you can have unlimited salvage storage!

    When I make a new alt I get someone to let me invit ethem into the sg, then log in my alt. that guy invites them. Then that guy quits the sg and I can pass nice enhancements to my alt. You gotta get one of these!
  6. I posted yesterday that I had no power in my base. Even though there is the combo power and control unit there and it produces more energy and control than my 2 basic telepads need -- there is still no power. Just a zig-zag red bolt over the energy/control bars flashing away. Info says that the telepads are not powered.

    I try moving the telepads around a little and accidentally move the floor all the way to the ceiling one section. So I try to lower it again, and it won't let me. I try moving the telepad to another section and it jumps over to far and guess where it goes? Into the section that I raised to high. Now I cannot get the telepad back out. It is stuck in a wall like npcs do sometimes. Also my telepad room is inacessible. I can see it from the top, but can't walk in anymore.

    If I sell the telepads to delete the room, I have to find the salvage to make them again. Unfortunally even in SG mode my characters do not loot base salvage. What is up with this game??

    I put in for a bug fix and here it is 24 hours later, no support! Do I hear Champions Online calling me? Nah, they probably have more bugs than this game.
  7. Well I filed a ticket. They did respond to ask what the problem was and I told them. It has been several hours now and still no power. I tried selling the power unit and buying a new one 3 times - still no juice. You would figure they would turn the lights back on when I came back into the game.

    What do you mean upgrade the base?

    If its anything like the upgrade on buffing your pets on a mastermind (equipping one pet and they all get it?) I was wondering why the blue bar disappeared when I equipped one pet. I thought it was a nerf and it would take me 10 minutes to buff all the pets
  8. Yes, the base has been dormant for 2 years. I love CoX, but when you move to the country you do have to make sacrifices. Luckily modern technology has finally moved into the area looking for new revenues (me).

    Thanks for your help.
  9. I have a very small base. It consists of:

    Oversight Center -- Combo Power and Control Unit (125 Energy and 75 Control)

    Teleport Chamber -- Two Basic Telepads (each draws 50 energy and 25 control)

    Workshop -- Salvage Rack, Enhancement Table and Invention Worktable (no requirements)

    You can see that my Energy and Control meets my demands, but nothing works. When you click on either the power unit or telepads, it shows a small red bar with no bar underneath and a red bolt flashing. They say they are underpowered.

    I have tried adding a basic generator and circuit breaker, but nothing changes.

    I have also gone to Galaxy City to check my base status and the upkeep is up to date.

    What am I doing wrong?