FourSpeed

I like Fly on my Stalkers, but most folks just think I'm weird...

As others said - top end speed is unchanged. Also, if I understand it right,
(can't recall where I read it tho), there is also a bug, so currently, it caps
easier than intended.

That saves slots currently, but who knows if that will change.


As for *why* I like fly on a Stalker:

1> Patrolling - it's much easier to spot targets, and since you're invisible
(you *are* stealth capped, right?) there's no detriment at this point.

2> If you're flight capped - you can still follow most targets even if they
are faster. First, you have no obstacles, unlike speeders and jumpers.
Next, from the air, you can quickly predict where they're headed in most
cases and short-cut the route. Finally, you're only about ~15-25 mph
slower (about sprint's worth) and most PvP areas are small enough that
you can typically keep the guy targeted most (if not all) of the way.

Downsides:

1> It costs more end (though arguably that may be break-even for those
running both SS & SJ)... In any case, it definitely needs at least a slot or two.

2> With the irritating Stealth IO changes, you now have to AS while in
Fly, which is a royal pita. You'll lose capped stealth the instant you shut
Fly off, and since perception is on at all times, your odds of consistently
getting an AS off drop drastically out of fly (assuming that's where your
IO is)....
This one is almost enough to respec out of Fly entirely - haven't done so
yet, but it's a serious drawback imho.

3> -Fly... This isn't anywhere near as big a deal imho. First, you have to
be seen... Next, if you've picked your tgt well, while he's webnading you,
you're killing him... I'll take that trade every time. Finally, if you're getting
webnaded by your tgt's teammate, A> I question your target selection
logic and B> It's probably time for Invisibility (which doesn't surpress)
and Phase, and bid a fond farewell to your would-be murderers...

Conventional Wisdom (such as it is) still leans heavily towards SS/SJ. YMMV.


Regards,
4

Ahhh Rularuu... Nasty beasties.

My E3 Blaster used to farm them in the Shadow Shard back in the day.

For him, Range/Snipes, Holds and End Drain were the tactics that worked
best - Eyeballs get first priority. Wisps and Eyeballs seemed to be pretty
sensitive to electricity. Brutes and Natterlings would just get chain held,
drained and killed.

My Stalkers typically Placate the Eyeball and then stealth by the rest with
the exception of my Elec/WP Stalker who, like my E3 Blaster, is very
capable against Rularuu. Lightning Rod is a beautiful power due to it's tp
in and Blammo mechanic followed up with Thunder Strike.

My SS/WP Brute has less trouble with them than with LB Nullifiers, so he
doesn't do anything special - his High resists and High Regen seem to be
good enough to handle them like any other mob who needs a good SMASHing.

I'm not sure my Widow ever dealt with them much (other than the one or
two pseudo-Shard missions that villains could get). For the most part, she
just steered clear of them in those missions. Again, I think Eyeballs are
the real issue because she can just stealth past the others.

I'd probably try to pull the Eyeball with a long distance power like Nemmie
Staff. In the tip you're talking about (the LB base), you can use corridors
and doorways to good effect to make it easier.

You can also use the "tether effect" - If you don't cause damage, you'd
only take a shot or two (once the eye sees you), but they won't chase
far if you keep on truckin.

Regards,
4


PS> I'm gonna have to run that Tip on my widow and see how it goes.

PPS> @Fulmens: That was a pretty crazy event when the Ruu were
swarmin the streets of Paragon - I have a vague recollection of a lot of
hospital trips

Ahhhh... Shades of the 2B Luck Charm all over again.

It's moments like this that remind me why I like this forum section so much.

Well Played!


4

1. Buying and destroying all of the Nevermelting Ice listed for less than 50,000 inf every night before bed.
   
2. Buying LotGs for 50-60 million, flipping them for 100 million.
3. Buying Positron's Blast dam/end recipes for 100k, selling the crafted enhancements for 10 million.
4. Finding a bunch of crafted Armageddons and Gravitic Anchors stored in a long disused base, selling them for enough to get a broke character to the inf cap.
5. Placing a bunch of lowball bids on a recipe I'm flipping to soak up all the cheap incoming supply and encourage players to pay my premium.
6. Buying assorted Large inspirations for 10k and combining them to make Large Defense inspirations which I sell for 500k.
7. Overpaying for junk salvage because I'm too impatient for bid creeping.

Hmmm... ok... In order of Descending Ebil, I have to rank these:

6, 1, 5, 2... That's right... 3,4,7 have minimal detectable Ebil Quotient at all...

Rationale:

6 - this sends a delightful, ebil chill to my heart. First, you're removing
supply in one niche (at a bargain price too), to 1/3 of that supply in a
different niche -- at a 5000% Markup ... Now that, is a thing of Ebil beauty.

1 - While many see this as the hands down winner, I disagree: While you
*are* depleting supply for a niche, which earns significant Ebil Points, you're
doing so at a premium AND a net loss. If the downtrodden ever cotton on
to this fact, they'd sell their NMI's on market and make 200X value over
the flat 250 vendor fee... Clearly, this could be a net benefit to the
casuals wanting cash for a purpled out warshade.

I had to resist the urge to dock Ebil Points for this. Where are the crushed
and dejected masses in this scenario? Fortunately, for the sake of Ebil,
there are some decent recipes using NMI (Adj Tgt, to name one) so the
supply reduction still keeps this in 2nd place.

5 - Very nice - cornering the market on a niche... I don't know what item
is involved (Alchemical Silver > Kinetic Weapon for instance) or to what
degree you've managed to achieve it, so that lessens the score a bit, but
tying it in with another recipe being Flipped boosts this to 3rd place

2 - Flipping is Ebil... The downtrodden masses tell us this often, and while
they're clueless about that, perception matters when we discuss Ebil. I
originally had this in 3rd place, but it slipped to honorable mention when I
realized that 5 and 2 are both flipping, but 5 also has the market cornering
as an additional Ebil twist.


3 - this is just Standard Business Practice... Ebil? What Ebil?

4 - A nice windfall, no doubt, but we don't know original purchase prices,
and, since they seem "free" at this point, we can't tell if these were
dumped a bargain, quick-sell prices (again, clearly beneficial to the
masses). For all I know, some of these recipes were ones Little Johnny
needed for his warshade...

7 - This has potential for some Ebil, I suppose, as a supply depletion
effort, and an "in your face, I'm rich and don't care about price" psychological
taunt, but again, raining free money on the masses, strikes me as a bit altruistic...


All in all, pretty good work, but surely, there is more Ebil to be perpetrated.


Cheers,
4

When I think of a "Brute", I don't think of magical fire, or roiling clouds of
dark, underworld fumes, or a Mudslide Mountain come to life.

No sir.

I think of a mountain-like, biggest, baddest 400+ pound 6'8" NFL lineman
or a WWE wrestler, or humongous Russian Heavyweight Olympic Weightlifter,
hopped up on as many roids as he can eat, pounding you with a huge ham
fist into a thin gooey paste, all the while, laughing maniacially...

Something like Refrigerator Perry huge / Lawrence Taylor mean / James
Bond's - "Jaws" imposing, all rolled into one guy.

Yeah - I think of an SS/WP Brute... Now *that*, to me, is pure SMASH.


Cheers,
4

For my SS/WP (which finally dinged 50 last night - woohoo!), the short
answer was ... it depends.

The biggest factor is the mobs he was facing.

For things like Council, Family, Rikti, Freaks and other (primarily) Smashing
and Lethal factions, it was 0/8.

For LB, it was 0/2 above L40 (Instant debuff of regen to zero is Very
Bad). The new Nullifier's grenades turned out to be pure Kryptonite for his build.

For Carnies and Malta, it was 0/2 - 0/4 depending on how adventurous I
was feeling. The pitas there are, of course, Sappers and Illusionists. Carny
end-drain in dying groups (FootStomp IS a beautiful power) was a bit of a
concern in larger groups.

For the couple easy (L48) "farming" missions I selected for purple hunting
in his golden years, I plan to run at +2/8 barring any issues.


Regards,
4

Ninja Blade is indeed a good choice with /Nin...

I have a few of those (across a few different servers) and they're very effective.

Pretty much any Primary is good with /Nin, or at very least, worth trying
if it appeals to you.


Regards,
4

Interesting question.

As Fulmens alluded to, some levels are better than others, and I'd look those
over before jumping into a crafting niche.

Secondly, like SwellGuy, I'm reluctant to leap into a niche with zero history.
You assume all the risk up front without any guage for reward... Iffy biz.

That said, there's clearly a crafting truism you can work with:

You can't make money crafting unless you can sell above your costs.

Obvious, I know, but true.

So, before starting up a crafting assembly line, I'd start with just a couple shinies
in the prospective niche. I'd list them for 50% over my crafting cost
(assuming averages for salvage).

Basically it's worth a couple transaction slots to see if your price is met,
and get a sense of turnaround timeframe. I'd probably do that a few
times. In that way, you're minimising risk, establishing a history, and
gauging demand.

If those results were favorable, you've got yourself a new niche - if not,
you didn't cost yourself too much to determine it isn't viable.


Regards,
4


PS> I'd do it that way at any level, not just 30 or lower,
but that's how I roll...

First, I would debate whether the economy is currently problematic at all.

* Ultra Rare stuff is ... ultra rare, and expensive -- WAI

* Good Stuff - is fairly expensive, and available via several methods
(drops, inf/mkt, R-Merits, A-Merits). Apart from a few specific problem
areas (level of merit rolls, mid-level supply), this is also working well.

* Basic Stuff - has unlimited availablity and flat or even fixed (0 inflation) prices.
SO's cost the same as they did in I1, Common IO's have fixed prices from
the crafting tables, and salvage is easily available with drops, AE tix, or
the Mkt for reasonable pricing.

With a merged market - the economy is basically good.

So, what would I change?

Merits - prices are too high (not in themselves per se), but in comparison
to A-Merits and Mkt pricing ... They should be slightly better balanced imho.
Also, you should be able to select the specific level you want the recipe
at - this has been a no-brainer since minute one... I'm amazed this mechanism
hasn't been "fixed" yet. At least they did it better with A-Merits, so there's
some evidence to suggest they may revisit regular merits.

Task Forces: Reinstate the random drop -- nothing, imho, tanked mid-
level supply more than this single factor. Yes, other changes contributed,
but this was the biggie. Most goods are produced by high level players,
and when they were running exemplared TF's, they were producing
significant amounts of mid-range surplus. That was extremely beneficial to
the mid-range player base, and it completely dried up when they took away
tf rolls. I think that was a big mistake from a "Market Health" standpoint.
Additionally, it fostered a mindset in the playerbase that there was no
point in even bothering with IO's and sets until L50 - again, a Bad Thing
in my opinion.

Drop Pools: I have mixed feelings on Pools. The original idea was probably
to incent running certain types of content, but with merits, it no longer
matters. I'd seriously consider simplifying the entire idea, and set simple
drop values based on perceived value of the shinies and let everything
have a chance to drop with mobs (ie. Pool A). Were I a dev for this game,
I'd certainly want to research it a bit more, but I'd think about it for sure.

With gleemail, I'd see no need or reason to change the inf cap at all. I
might rethink supply/drop rates to mitigate overcap pricing, but for ultra
rares, I'm not sure I'd have an issue with "exhorbitant" prices.

For non Purple/PvP, I might consider putting some select sets in the
stores, at reasonable caps, similar to common IO recipes which are
essentially price-capped (for all but the seriously impatient or galactically
stupid) through the crafting tables. Again, that would be a distant thought.

By and large though, the only real economic issues I see are mid-level
market supply, and some inflation on sets (esp High-end, Ultra rares
mostly). I'm not all that concerned by the latter of those.


Regards,
4

The answer I use on my toons is Global Accuracy ftw.

Sands of Mu is arguably OP on a toon < L10, helpful through the L20's and
pretty marginal, or even useless after that.

But, I find that by the higher levels, my toons typically have a Kisment 6%,
a few Damage Sets with 7 to 9% Acc Bonuses, Adj Targeting and other
sets that give Global Acc.

At that point, Sands of Mu is at (or near) the 95% ToH cap for most stuff
I fight. Its damage is pretty meager by then, but of course, by that point,
I also have other (better slotted) attacks.

That said, I will still use it occasionally as a filler attack even at L50, but
it's long since removed from the normal combat chain.

So, it's free, use it early, add Global Acc, and leave it as filler later... nbd.


Regards,
4

1 Billion or 2 Billion? Once you get the first one, the second one is easy.

I think the "Club" entrance req of 1 Billion is good - if you can get there,
you've gained the skills to get to 2, or 5, or 20 given sufficient time and
effort.

After all, the typical #6 posts we usually see are complaining about the
prices of 100K salvage more often than not... I've not seen (m)any
complaining "I have 1.1B, but I can't buy a 1.4B Panacea recipe - you ebil
marketeer flippers are ruining my game"

Also, for the record, I lol'd at heff's hatemail, regardless of who sent it.

Pure Funny


Cheers,
4

Don't underestimate the value of +regen, especially on /WP where it is
very easy to get.

I'd still build for +HP, Res/Def first, but personally (on /WP) I'd look at regen
at that point before focusing too much on recharge...

Unless you're trying for ultra performance (AV's, Pylons etc.) decent
recharge is pretty easy with Hasten, some Global Recharge (in sets)
and a LotG or two.

A distinct limiter to Axe DPS is it's reliance on Build Up (a 10 sec power),
unlike Rage (which only has a 10 sec downtime).


As always though, opinions and mileage vary - build what is fun for you.


Regards,
4

Count me in the "Still Hate It" category as well...

So far, I've been lucky to not get burned badly by the @^#$@%# thing,
but it always looms on the horizon.

4

As Dersk mentioned, the market matches the Highest Bidder to the Lowest Seller.
As long as that match produces a bid higher than the selling price, a transaction
occurs, so in your example, the 3K bid gets the goodies.

In cases where there are "ties" for the buyer, there's a pseudo-random
process for deciding who gets the buy - for instance, if there had been 3
players all bidding 3K, which one gets it?

In that case there is a random (but consistent) order to award the sale.

I'd presume the same is true from the listing standpoint (ie. 3 guys listing for 1 inf)
but the basic rule of thumb is Highest Bid matches against Lowest List with
a pseudo-random process to decide ties.


Regards,
4

Definitely, as was suggested very early in the thread, a blend or layering of the
three qualities, is better.

The point I've tried to make, is that while Def is most common, "best" is
probably not the appropriate word - Any of the 3 can be effective, and all of
them work well together.


Regards,
4