GavinRuneblade

I've been on many failed trials.

If it's lamda, most often a few people crash on entering, then a few more get frustrated during the split phase. then during the final battle the remainders notice that we don't have enough acids to close all the doors because of the quitters. Soon after we don't have enough damage to take out marauder with the 4 of us left standing watching the clock tick down.

failed BAFs are almost always a result of idiots getting too crazy with nightstar on the final phase and not syncing the kills, but I was on one two weeks ago were we didn't manage to down siege the first time before the timer ran out due to no one on adds until they had gotten buffed beyond the ability to kill (at 10 minutes into the fight the original group of his backup were still shooting as us and had such high defense that 8 people unloading judgements only dropped 1 of them).

Keyes fails all over the place, mostly when there's no one taunting antimatter or when the leader can't keep morons with pets from attacking him.

I've never had one fail because they had stalkers. =)

Then you've never played that big fantasy game with 11 million subscribers. Firbolg reputation grinding took well over 240 hours just to get the ability to craft a few items. And that was just one faction out of literally dozens. Incarnate trials are nothing by comparison. Or that british free flash fantasy MMO with a name about runes. It has no levels, all skills are grinding out the same action over and over and over. check out what's required to get the ability to burn the highest level of wood. Or to mine the top ore. Then notice there are only 4 spawns for the top ore on each server, and they replenish once per 6 hours (unless it's been changed since I last played) and you need about 30 of them to make anything significant. And prayer is even worse. Try getting a couple million experience at a rate of 100 exp per action or less.

iTrials are barely grindy at all compared to any other MMO I have ever played going back to MUDs in the '90s. And unlike any other MMO I am aware of, you have the option (I agree it is a terrible option that should be avoided but it still exists) to get all of your slots unlocked and all powers crafted using shards gathered from doing any action you want in any area and at any level of game play. Again, bad choice, but it does exist.

the thing is, all of that same end-game still exists in COH. You can choose to keep playing it or not. The main reason not to, is if you feel the need to compete with other people in an ePeen contest. I'm not saying that's your reason, just saying it is the most common I see. Everyone is afraid they'll be too weak if they don't. That's one of the reasons I love having Memphis Bill around to inject a voice of reason and perspective on the powerscale in COH.

I agree with you 100% on the perspective of companies about grind vs fun and do wish they would do more that is fun and bears repeating vs grinding. Posi clearly understands the difference per a blog post of his about gated content. But seems that grindy is easier.

I understand that a few people were able to solo AVs back in the days of SOs. Are you aware that Elite Bosses are supposed to be more powerful than a single player can handle and require grouping to defeat?

Have you seen the damage that fully Tier-4'd incarnates can put out?

Have you seen how many people not only solo AVs, but solo the most difficult AVs and GMs and even solo entire task forces. Hell, some have solo'd the Lord Recluse Taskforce, including taking down over 8 AVs at once in that final battle. And anyone who solos the ITF is defeating not just Romulus but 4 AV-class nictus plus all the ambushes. I've seen 2-man Rikti Mothership raids including spawning and killing Ukon Grai.

We already have teams of 4 people completing the Apex and Tin Mage taskforces, and teams of 2 completing the Lamda trial.

Have you been on a Cathedral of Pain post i20? I've seen a single group of 6 pull it off. According to them it's easier because fewer people to screw up the timing.

Is that not epic enough for you?

Are you unable to project forward into time?

With a few more incarnate slots people will be soloing the content that currently takes teams. Sure it takes 14 poorly or average built i20 characters to beat Siege and Nightstar. It'll only take 1 or 2 poorly built i23 characters and it already only takes 2 well built ones.

Power is a progression. The leading edge is always were things are hardest. But even so, the best of the best are definitely getting more and more powerful and doing things that are more and more impressive. a team of two taking down marauder in the Lamda or a single villain taking out the whole freedom phalanx in the Lord Recluse Strike Force is a significant jump in power from previous issues.

I do agree that the league function can make things appear weaker. And I do agree that a bit more focus on solo play would let us feel more powerful more often. Those are things that I really do hope the devs take into consideration.

I do love that fight also. And while your rant was a tangent, it is an important one because it really hits the perceived value of some of the most important new content. Without which new players and returning players both would have less reason to pay using either method.

I have two stalkers and play them on teams and feel useful. One has more master of badges than my bs/regen scrapper who is my actual badging character so at least on virtue people don't discriminate that badly. I have no trouble finding teams.

With my dark/dark I can scrap it out and kill things plenty fast. I am very often getting in the killing blow. No, I don't wipe whole spawns in two shots like some blasters and brutes/scrappers, but I still contribute. And I'm perfectly capable of running off on the side and completing minor objectives without the team.

My spines/nin I'd be hapier with if he actually dealt more damage. He has the attack volume, but the damage is pure crap. Still, on a recent lady grey I cleared whole spawns on my own before the team caught up to me. I had to get WAAAY ahead to give myself the time to whittle them down, but I was able to do it.

and I've brought both to mothership raids (the dark/dark has 2000 vanguard merits right now and the badge for 10 bombs and 5 kills of Ukon Grai), hami raids, LRSF, all of the incarnate content (Apex, tin mage, all three trials, etc). I've had a few people comment asking if I had a scrapper or brute for more damage, but only once or twice and they never said I had to swap just asked, I said "no", we all had fun.

So, if I'm understanding you, tactics is a set mule not intended to be turned on, so the reticule +percept actually has a purpose 'cause it works while you have the power turned off? Hmm. Interesting build choice. Things like that are why I copy builds rather than make them.

Weird. Do you get damage taken or damage dealt credit towards badges for this? I just ask out of curiosity.

Really, if you like the powers at all you'll find that all dominators are fun. I think the devs just did a great job on the AT overall. Domination itself being a clicky is a bit odd, but other than that doms are pretty much pure fun.

As for plant, we don't all think plant is best. But it really is easy to learn on, and you can make it very powerful very cheap. So it is great for new players.

I have a hard time telling any new dom to start with Ice. It's not friendly. Great set, very good set. But not friendly to learners as it doesn't have the strong easy-to-use anti-alpha powers.

I exemp down enough to where I am faced with the choice of "brawl twice in a row or AS once" and as a result, sometimes I AS when not hidden.

*hides in shame*

Seriously though, sometimes it's all that's up and so I use it. It's not ideal, but it gets the job done and by the time it's over I have my full set of tools ready to go again.

I agree with this.

I've been getting both diamagnetic and reactive for most of mine. I use reactive solo and diamagnetic for teaming because pretty much everyone and their sister has reactive so at least I'm contributing something.

But I get the tier-3 reactive before I start building diamagnetic at all.

Why did you bring support pets to a BAF? The second is 100% worthless. Swap out for something that attacks and use the support on a mission where they matter.

I don't think it knows it can't attack. I suspect it uses the same AI code as all other critters and thus it is waiting to unphase and attack not knowing that neither of those will ever happen.

And people with very low set bonuses only, like several of mine where every set bonus says 'tiny" or "small" because they only use the junky sets at low level.

A lot of the people at 50 with multiple chracters on SOs are often quite good players who understand their characters pretty well. At least that's what Ive found.

Also very true.

For me, it's not about the pacing it's the lack of reflexes. For instance I'm nearly incapable of playing in nova form indoors as it moves too fast and I get stuck on a corner or piece of furniture or something. If it moved at hover speed, maybe. And for the others, I know the concept and I've read all the guides, and I am still pretty useless. I always end up in the wrong form for the situation. By the time I've swapped, I need to be in something else.

I've got a PB where I'm trying to learn the forms, but it's slow going. REALLY wish form shifting was a lot faster.

Most are every 10 seconds.

It has lieutenant-level hit points so is a bit squishy depending on your difficulty settings. It has decent defenses and in a group with buffs flying around I've seen them survive quite well. I've also had one charge a group of 4 +1 level Malta (lieut gunslinger, three minions, no sapper) and it killed two minions before the gunslinger and summoned turret dropped it while I was fighting a completely unrelated spawn.

I think the Leviathan pets are the best performing, but the widow is not useless unless you run very high difficulty solo, or against enemies with huge amounts of AoE.

also, fantastic set bonuses for the recharge intensive pet sets. =)

Edit: I will say that if you solo on high difficulty it will probably die within seconds on your first spawn. Don't think that was clear enough in my post originally.

This is not necessarily the wrong spot for it, any discussion of archetypes is cool. There are lots of discussions on what are good duo's trio's etc. Seems fair enough place for this one.

also: very awesome that you all play together. I have a lot of real-world friends in one of my supergroups and it is very cool. I keep trying to talk more of my friends into playing. My two brothers and I used to all play that other really popular fantasy game (TM). But then I got sick of how negative the plot lines are, one brother got too busy with his restaurants and the other just stopped playing. I miss having family in game.

I'll second the notion that I'd like to see screenshots of your group/family. =)

I've never seen anything definitive and I keep forgetting to test it myself. What about changing builds?

I know that recharges all non-incarnate powers including the mission teleport. Does it let you swap your incarnate options even if you were attacked recently and does it recharge them?

Those are hazard zones and they were scripted to be linear in this fashion. Task Forces and arc vs arc stories are not linear with each other across levels in the same way.

Sutter is not the only example of this.

Another example is found in the Rikti War itself. Redside you can fight Ajax at level 20. But until you do the Lady Grey taskforce at 45 in your personal timeline the way you (and only you) define it, Omega Team was a complete wipe all of them even Hero 1 are dead. Only in the Lady Grey taskforce do you personally meet survivors of the Omega Team when the Rikti manage to re-open the door to their homeworld. Clearly the Devs do not consider the level 20 arc to be "before" the level 45 arc.

Technically, ALL praetorian content is introduced per story arc with the Portal Corps missions in the 45s. In those arcs Praetoria is found for the first time, Antimatter is still a Praetor, and Statesman hasn't yet been captured. Sutter and Apex and all Incarnate stories obviously happen AFTER Statesman is captured, then freed by someone at level 50, then Cole goes ******* crazy and draws power from the well and invades.

The stories are not linear by level. they are linear by story content. Some stories get introduced in a certain level range, yes, but not all. Some overlap.

Not really, I just showed the Rikti War has this same narrative flow as well. As do other parts of the Praetorian story. fighting Protean both hero and villain side for instance, happens in the 20s but is part of the praetorian war that doesn't "start" until level 45.

At least three exceptions. possibly more.

Edit, just thought of another: The "new" cape mission hero side. The time capsule is opened and it is set post lady grey task force. Compared to the old cape mission where it hadn't been opened. The plot of the attacks changes as well. So at least four exceptions.

I don't see anything unpredictable about it. Seems like people will always go with the more fun option.