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Quote:Yes. Both make a huge difference as do any Achilles Heel -res procs you happen to slot.My question though about the engagements are whether the -regen in poison dart and the resistance debuff from shatter armor played a role at all in the defeats. I know the pylons have resistances and high regen so was curious how this factored in.
I've heard of SoAs taking on Pylons before. And about 10 mins is far from shabby. That's 192 dps. That puts you in the range of what top katana and claws scrappers can pull off, so grats! -
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I'm cogitating an idea of an all knockback super team. Essentially, gathering all the despised (?) energy blasters, Kheldians, storm defenders and force fielders, etc. together and trying hard to scatter anything and everything.
Ideally, this team would be able to stand up to any content in this game, but I'm curious about how knockback would affect AVs. It's trivial for a force fielder to slot force bolt so it has over 50 mag which would mean that it will override the purple triangles of doom and cause an AV to be knocked down/back in one shot.
What I don't know is whether or not knockback has a "duration" of sorts. There's a lot of powers like energy torrent which can be spec'ed to have over 10 magnitude of knockback. Theoretically, would such an application of multiple knockback powers have to occur simultaneously or is it more forgiving and will the magnitude of such powers stack if the powers stack within the duration of a second or two? Consider a full team of knockback specialists all having one or more powers all having a knockback magnitude of 10 or more all spamming their kb powers.
I realize that this is an oddball question, but if you happen to have any insight into this, I'd be much obliged. -
Day 12: Crowd Control
I hit level 33 earlier today and wasn't going to update until I got a couple of more powers and slots on the build. However, Crowd Control is just too good not to talk about. It's like that super popular, friendly guy you want everyone to know because he's become your best friend. I am completely impressed with what it can do. Huge cone, good damage and excellent mitigation. Best yet, Venom Grenade and Crowd Control already go together like peanut butter and jelly.
With 4 slots, it's slotted with around 65% accuracy, 96% damage and 18% end redx. A set of Obliteration is just begging to go into this power. Or maybe a set of Sciroccos with a Force Feedback proc. Lots of possibilities.
I'm starting up the missions available for my last contact, Operative Rutger. I really don't like Operative Rutger only because his missions tend to be full of AVs/EBs. It's not that I mind fighting them, it's just that Fara right now isn't properly slotted to deal with them at her current level. Because of that, she tends to go through AV/EB missions slowly and methodically using inspirations, temp powers and pets. I'm hoping that by the 40s, an elite boss will be a minor speed bump rather than the neighborhood detour it tends to be right now.
Finally, I'm very impressed with the Bane spec at this point. I have a similar level Widow and had a Fortunata that reached the high 30s and I can honestly say that at this point in time, the Bane feels more powerful. The Bane just does a satisfying amount of damage. Sure, it can't slug it out in long fights, but because of the ability to deliver tremendous amounts of burst damage, her fragility can be forgiven and worked around.
Having experience with a Widow, I tried to slot up the Bane's attacks with a lot of endurance reduction since it took me many levels and a lot of slots until I felt my Widow was endurance efficient. Banes don't seem to worry about endurance reduction/recovery as much since fights are far shorter. Either the opposition is dead or your Bane is in trouble. The balancing point seems to be their fragility, which hopefully I'll rectify in the coming levels. All in all, the character up to this point has been a pleasant surprise. -
Yes it was. The person who suggested the 100k price cap was banned. Threads in which he was a major participant in the General forum, here in the Market forum, and in the Virtue forum were deleted. He was a major instigator of drama and it culminated in a death threat. I knew I could engender a strong reaction out of people, but I've never been a target of a death threat before. It was quite the dramatic weekend.
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Quote:I think I'm leveling very slowly...at least for me. I've had characters in the 40s with close to 50 hours of play. That's without powerleveling. However, I'm part of a network and some SGs on Virtue chock full of power gamers who can blitz through content with incredible speed. On Justice, I'm solo and away from that advantage.I think the problem is your lack of alt-itis. I have 9 villains under 35 and all of them have more than 90% of their slots filled with IOs. I don't play any single one more than two hours a week and rarely more than once a month. If one gets a great IO they can't use (volley fire drops for a brute) then I craft it and use my base to transfer to my corrupter or dom. And between that and giving them a few weeks for bids to fill before I login next, I've never had any issues.
I imagine that playing the same character and leveling fast like you do, the villain market might not work well enough.
I'm also being strictly independent with infamy generation. As you can imagine, I can transfer in a few billion in infamy and buy up everything. But what would be the point, and where would the fun be? I'm attempting to approach this project with none of the advantages of a veteran player who has rich alts, a support network, etc. Obviously, it's not quite the same because I have thousands of hours of in-game experience that no new player would have, but I don't want people to think that a new player couldn't do what I'm doing. I haven't even activated my vet reward bonuses so if I want to respec, I'll have to either buy a respec recipe or do the trial. Same with temp powers and even costume tokens. -
Quote:Actually, I had hoped to start them earlier. I have infamy to spend but nothing to buy. I already have two full sets of Touch of Death ready to slot at when Fara hits 37 However, the bulk of the pieces are level 40. Sub level 40 pieces are as rare as hen's teeth, and I've been covering mulitple ranges in an attempt to gather them. I've been unhappy with the lack of robustness with the villain market.Now that you're in your 30's, I suggest you start working on IO +DEF bonuses.
Good to hear about Crowd Control. I'm looking forward to having it slotted up. -
Day 10-11: Building Power
I haven't updated in a while largely because I didn't have much to report. Fara successfully leveled out of her 20s and is now level 32. Currently, Fara has been on patrol for 49 hours, has 304,087,392 infamy, 150 reward merits and has a mixture of set IOs to frankenslot her powers. She has no meaningful set bonuses other than the Steadfast Res/Def IO and a couple of very small hitpoint bonuses.
49 hours to level 32 isn't fast by any means, but because of the odd hours I've been playing, I've only teamed for 1 level. Further, I've been religiously trying to finish story arcs, get every badge for each mayhem mission and avoid AE entirely.
Right now, power-wise, Fara is really only marginally better than a SO build at this point. Slightly better defense (due to the Steadfast), better end management due to frankenslotting, better accuracy due to frankenslotting but nothing else that you couldn't get with a straight SO build. Banes are clearly a build that matures late. I honestly don't see significant improvement in Fara's survivability until the late 30s when she can properly slot up Tough and begin to start using some of the better global set bonuses.
Still, she isn't shabby and with some inspiration use she was able to down Baracuda, The Shaper, and Calistyx as +1 Elite Bosses. She also had a run in with Back Alley Brawler, but unfortunately, a scaled Freedom Phalanx member is still too much. I had to Shivan him to clear the mission.
The fight with BAB pretty much sums up Fara's current power to a tee. She has great offensive capability, particularly burst with her first three attacks. It was impressive much of BAB's life she took off with her first salvo of attacks. However, she couldn't sustain and when the second set of purples wore off and BAB's invulnerability uber power kicked in, BAB was able to quickly two shot Fara into the dust.
I really dislike how fragile Banes are at this point. I'm hoping that Tough and more hitpoints later on will ameliorate the situation. I'm not looking for brute level toughness but something that can do better than being two shotted by a +1 Elite Boss.
The other capability I've been working towards is giving Fara some AoE capabilities. Venom Grenade is great and has worked out better than I thought it would. While Surveillance will be missed, the ability to debuff an entire group and deal damage at the same time is very nice. At level 32, Fara trained up Crowd Control and I'm hoping that this power will give her the added dimension to be able to deal damage to groups. I don't have any expectation that Crowd Control will have a big radius, but just being able to damage adjacent targets is something that would be welcome.
Finally as Fara hit her 30s, it called for a new costume design. I went with the ninja look this time, silver with black accents.
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Quote:I think that it will be tough to get the full 700M from it. I see prices in the last five for 450M - and that's the crafted price. I've seen PvP IOs drop in price recently.I've got one of these on my Bane currently and the way I've got it slotted makes it utterly useless. The prices for the crafted IO on WW are bouncing all over the place like a hamster on caffeine, so I'm wondering whether I'd be able to get the 700mill that the recipe cost me, back through a sale if I respec it out.
Anyone know what these things reliably go for? -
Quote:An update is coming pretty soon. I just wanted to wait a bit until I got to a significant level of achievement.Just a bit of (unsolicited) feedback, but this journal is very entertaining and informative. I love how you're using screenshots and personal insights, and I just wanted to encourage you to please continue. or as Pappy Spellbinder would say, "This is good stuff."
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I don't hide but there are times when I just prefer to solo. Generally just toggling on Do Not Accept Team Invites is enough to prevent the blind invite. I'd consider accepting a team invite if politely worded, and if I have time.
I've been pleasantly surprised lately that I've been recognized by my forum handle which is also my global name. I've had a lot of players whom I've met on PUGs who tell me they read my posts though they don't actively post on the forums. I'm assuming they like my posts since none of these admissions of recognition has led to me being kicked off of a team yet. -
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Quote:This is pretty feelings on the topic too. This belief that there is some sort of secret build is pretty funny. If you're experienced with Mid's, you can pretty much lock down the most optimal combination. Often times I think build variations come down to personal preferences versus what's truly optimal.I can respect not wanting to share one's build. However, the concept of "I'm not telling anyone so no one will figure it out" is quite ludicrous and amusing. There are no "secret builds". There may be billions of possible build combinations mathematically but there are very few options realistically once the general direction of the build is understood. "Secret Builds" simply don't exist.
*Unless one intentionally makes sub-optimal choices to throw people off the trail to their "secret build". That right there is a cunning plan.
I've personally posted dozens of builds and have had many players use them. I know of probably a couple of dozen players out there that are using some variant of one of shield scrapper builds or fire/kin builds.
The only thing that bothers me is when someone claims they came up with a build on their own when it is clearly designed by someone else. I'm flattered when someone uses one of my builds; I'm a little upset when someone claims that one of the builds I posted is something they came up with all on their own.
I don't even necessarily want an author credit, but something along the lines of "I found this build, and I like it. I'd like to adjust it to my preferences..." Instead I see a lot of "I made this build and I want it to pwn +4/x8 settings." Usually, the latter is from players who don't have any understanding of the builds that are posted and are just going to power level it so they can farm for uber lootz. -
Quote:1. Defensive set bonuses are common, resistance ones are not.BUT I am not sure how I would go about making a convincing argument that it is. My gut tells me that compared to its sister, Force Field, the glaring sleep hole isnt right. FF's defense, and easily stackable (maneuvers, hover/cj, stealth?) defense sans Io's avoids most damage and sleep effects, while the resist based set and lower comparative values (1 def=2 res) means Sonic gets pummeled hard most times.
What I'm asking, is what should I be asking? I want that sleep hole gone, but should it even be in FF? Are these sets just so awesome that sleep and psi holes were necessary or are they just holdovers from days of Jack? Any help would be appreciated.
PS, Ro is unwelcome in this thread.
2. Sonic resonance does more than add buff shields. It has mez protection that is equivalent to clear mind but has a faster animation. It also has two ways of debuffing opposition resistance.
The only thing I'd want as a buff to sonic resonance is a lower recharge for liquefy so it can be used as a reliable alpha strike power. Sonic resonance defenders are highly underrated. -
Quote:Okay, I agree with that. The sticker shock factor, even if the relative earning power to spending of a player remains roughly the same, is an issue. Especially considering that a player may be used to the amounts needed to buy SOs and then looks to upgrade.It is easy to make money but a new player walking into the Market and seeing a high price will be surprised, if not discouraged, by that price.
There may be a dissonance here, that a player sees 100,000,000 as a price and goes: "Wow, 100,000,000 irl will get me so much stuff but that's the price of one item?" whereas that much can be obtained fairly quickly at level 50.
It's a stick situation, to be sure. If the supply of the good stuff increases, prices will likely go down but the achiever/seeker types might get bored and those that like to buy sell such items will find other niches. Players naturally want to get the best stuff. If they find that stuff out of their reach, they may gravitate toward easier games or games where you can get your stuff in a more straightforward manner, rather than random rolls/Merit accumulation.
There certainly is too much inf floating around, but the Devs haven't seen this as an issue, Castle's post and Synapse's big post about the economy sometime back aside...it is interesting that in War Witch's post about the merging, she mentioned other sources acting...here it is:
"The other is not quite such common knowledge. Out of nowhere, Wentworths has gained access to new suppliers, but all suspicions and investigations have been stymied by the immaculate paperwork of their new partners. Likewise, the Black Market has suddenly seen a rise in activity, though no one has looked too closely at the why so long as the goods are solid. For now, it remains a mystery."
Whether this refers to the Devs seeding the Market, the Going Rogue system players selling their wares, no one knows... -
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever, besides complete lack of effort, that a casual player cannot get every item they can possibly desire. And I'm completely serious about that.
As many of you know, I conducted an experiment (linked in my sig) to show what a player can make casually playing for a couple hours a day. The experiment was conducted precisely to silence these sorts of statements that everything is too expensive, market is out of control, players *have to* use RMT to afford stuff, blah, blah.
I honestly don't know what else I can do to spell out how ridiculously easy it is to make what you want in this game. -
Quote:You do realize that by hitting the influence cap, you've lost your amateur status right?I'm a amateur marketeer. I have hit the influence cap only 2 times.
No more eligibility to enter the influence generation Olympics now that you've turned pro.
Anyways, I never wait more than 2 weeks on *anything*. Most of the time, I wait a week tops. However, I'm predisposed to a quick turnaround / high volume strategy. I get full inventory turnover several times on a weekend and expect one full turnover per each weekday. -
Day 9: Upping Up the Difficulty
It's amazing how much difference a couple of levels and a few more slots can make on a character. While Fara the Bane felt weak at level 24, by level 28 she was far more formidable. Another slot in each attack upping both its accuracy and smoothing out its recharge made a significant difference. Every attack is frankenslotted with a mixture of set IOs concentrating on accuracy, damage and some recharge and end reduction (depending on what's needed).
Even though her defenses have remained largely the same (22% melee/AoE and 34% range), Fara can output enough damage in her first three attacks to take a +1 boss down to around 25%. It's enough offense that I felt comfortable moving her difficulty to +1 level / x1 players / with bosses. Enabling bosses by itself ups the mission complete bonuses enough that finishing a mission seems to make quite a dent on the xp bar.
Fara's offense seems formidable but she's still a one-dimensional character. She still plays like a stalker with weaker defenses. She has no AoE capability and she's irritatingly squishy. In a fight where there's been some critical misses or where she's been debuffed makes her over reliant on inspirations. Enough so that I don't feel like I can go into a significant boss fight without having a number of greens.
I plan to change that of course. The next few power picks are designed to flesh out her abilities. Level 28 will see the return of Venom Grenade, level 30 will start the fighting pool, level 32 will be reserved for Crowd Control and level 35 and 38 will be Tough and Weave respectively.
My hope is that Venom Grenade + Crowd Control will give her more AoE ability while the fighting pool will give her more resiliency and up her defenses.
Why did I opt for Venom Grenade over Surveillance? They're both 20% -res powers but Surveillance is single target while Venom Grenade affects multiple targets. As fas I know, Surveillance doesn't aggro the target (and hence break stealth) and provides a significant defense debuff. Vendom Grenade definitely does cause aggro, but also does a significant amount of damage. Then there's a redraw factor, switching from mace to gun back to mace which may drive some players crazy (doesn't bother me).
Basically it came down to wanting some more damage and being able to debuff multiple targets instead of just one. My hunch is that I'll open from stealth with build up and shatter, hit the remaining targets with Venom Grenade and then clobber them with Crowd Control. This is theoretical at this point, but if it doesn't work, I can always respec.
I'm hoping to turn this character into something more than a stalker lite, and I see the next few levels as being crucial for that. -
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However, on many characters I have the Do Not Accept Team Invites turned on. -
Quote:Threads like that is the whole reason why I did the 0 to millions experiment referenced in my sig. Some people just have to see it with their own eyes.I think this one is my favorite of all time. It wasn't actually suggesting a price cap but close enough:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=188675 -
You can also slot Mind Link with ToHit IOs. In particular, the straight Recharge set piece from Adjusted Targeting works very well in there.
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Day 8: Finally a Bane
When I last left Fara, she was halfway to level 24. Fara undertook the story arc from Darren Wade. She blitzed through the arc as her AoE attack chain of Wide Area Grenade, Venom Grenade, Frag Grenade and Heavy Burst was largely complete.
Unlike a few characters I had, Fara had little difficulty dispatching both Kababra Kill and Sigil, the first hero class (actually, they're about as hard as tough bosses) NPCs she encountered. Knowing the grand finale of the arc, I bought Fara an Ethereal Shift temp power and phased out of the Midnight Club as soon she clicked the last glowie of the mission. At the end of the arc, Fara had hit terror level 24 and was about a third of the way to level 25.
Training to level 24 calls for a mandatory respec. Having grown fond of the Huntsman/Soldier build so far, I took advantage of the second build and leveled it up as a Huntsman. On the primary build, Fara moved into becoming a Bane. To celebrate the completion of her soldier training, I outfitted Fara with some new duds. Here's a picture of Fara standing next to her newest acquaintance, Dean MacArthur.
So far, I felt that the default mission difficulty was adequate since the Huntsman spec, while safe, wasn't an offensive power house. I hoped that moving to the Bane specialization would amp up Fara's offense, and hence allow me to raise the difficulty beyond default levels.
To test out her new powers, Fara started up the Dean MacArthur arc. The Bane build played much like a stalker. With stealth capabilities and Build Up, a Bane can deliver a tremendous amount of burst damage, able to two shot orange conning Lts. Generally, in a spawn of three, Fara would utterly decimate one, kill the other in two hits and then wait for her attacks to charge to dispatch the third. It felt a bit clunky but workable.
Below is Fara's level 24 build:
Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.704
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Bane Theoretical: Level 25 Natural Arachnos Soldier
Primary Power Set: Bane Spider Soldier
Secondary Power Set: Bane Spider Training
Power Pool: Fitness
Villain Profile:
Level 1: Bash -- B'ngBlow-Acc/Dmg(A), S'ngH'mkr-Acc/Dmg(3), Dmg-I(5), S'ngH'mkr-Dmg/Rchg(23)
Level 1: Wolf Spider Armor -- S'fstPrt-ResKB(A)
Level 2: Combat Training: Defensive -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(3), DefBuff-I(5)
Level 4: Bane Spider Armor Upgrade -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/EndRdx(A), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(7), ResDam-I(9)
Level 6: Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(7), RechRdx-I(9)
Level 8: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 10: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- S'dpty-Def/EndRdx(A), DefBuff-I(11), DefBuff-I(11)
Level 12: Poisonous Ray -- Mael'Fry-Acc/Dmg(A), Volly-Acc/Dmg(13), Dmg-I(13), Volly-Dmg/EndRdx(17)
Level 14: Pulverize -- S'ngH'mkr-Acc/Dmg(A), B'ngBlow-Acc/Dmg(15), Dmg-I(15), B'ngBlow-Dmg/EndRdx(17)
Level 16: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 18: Shatter -- B'Snap-Acc/Dmg(A), B'ngBlow-Acc/Dmg(19), Dmg-I(19), B'ngBlow-Dmg/EndRdx(21), S'ngH'mkr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(23)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(21)
Level 22: Mental Training -- Run-I(A)
Level 24: Cloaking Device -- S'dpty-Def/EndRdx(A)
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Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Conditioning
Level 6: Ninja Run
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The Dean MacArthur mission went smoothly until she came across her very first clone. I'm not sure how well your character do against clones, but a clone that can stealth, hit build up and essentially deliver huge burst damage is not fun to fight against.Fara suffered her very first character defeat against her own clone.
This was sort of encouraging in a way, since if an NPC with those powers was that formidable, a character with those same powers should be powerful (right?)
Anyway, after using the Resuscitate temp power and returning the same amount whop*ss that the clone just delivered, Fara was able to complete both Dean MacArthur's arc and Leonard's arc. Strangely, the fight with Protean was highly anticlimatic. Jousting and prodigious use of Build Up and Placate made the fight quick and painless, especially since Protean telegraphs his signature uber power. Finishing that arc, Fara reached terror level 26. -
Quote:Yeah, I realize that now. It may be the only Soldier power that I carry over to my Bane build.Not only is it a good attack by itself, but Venom Grenade debuffs toxic resistance twice as much as it does other resistances, so it boosts its own damage considerably. I ended up frankenslotting VG for good damage and recharge in my Crab Spider's build.
Quote:You may already be aware of this, but all SoAs get a free mandatory respec as soon as they hit level 24 and unlock power branching, so you haven't missed your chance to slot VG entirely.