GavinRuneblade

One thing that helps, if you suspect you're on a mission where this will be the case, you can add a thumbtack to your map to show the exit. There's a few missions with big outdoor maps where that is handy.

Here is a link to the Wiki page that describes it, but it is long and involved so I'll summarize for you. Do read the full description for specifics though.

There are essentially three steps (really 4, but I'm simplifying). First very small bonuses are tossed out and you get to keep them. Second, remaining bonuses are reduced by a percentage. Third, Enhancement Diversification is applied to what remains.

So lets say you are level 50, and you have 3 level 53 damage SOs, they give you a bonus of 38.33% each for a total of 114.99%, but ED kicks in and you really only have, I think 99% or 101% or something like that. If you drop down to level 20 for the Synapse taskforce each SO gets reduced TO .553 effectiveness or 21.19%, all three total up to 63.57%.

If you had three level 50 IOs, they would be reduced as well, and the total would be 68.85%.

The level 20 IO normally gives 25.60%. It will also be reduced and only give 14.16% instead.

So, what about "very small bonuses being exempt"? Well, that really does mean, "very small". 20% or lower are safe down to level 21. Level 11-20 the % has to be 10% or less. Benefits of 5% or lower are never reduced, but I'm not sure there are any.

For Synapse, you're screwed because he is level 20, and the cutoff is 21. Otherwise you could use a Mako Quad and keep 19.8% in all four categories. The example given on the wiki is here:

But hitting level 20 instead of 21, those numbers get beat down hard. Synapse and Posi are very hard to make characters with good bonuses unless you level lock at the appropriate level for the Task Force. All the rest are decently easy, but those two are just a bit too low.

Do note that it does make a difference if you are talking about a Defense Buff or a Damage Buff. Because you might have noticed your Luck of the Gambler Def/Endurance gives 15.9% bonus to defense, but 26.5% to endurance. So dropping to level 21 the defense portion is still 15.9%, but the endurance is cut to 15.55%.

The magic number for these lower bonuses and synapse is level 26 for triples where the IO gives 10.0% and is safe all the way to level 11. For duals you want level 20 or lower to be safe.

Also, for Purples and PvP recipes, only the set bonus is immune to exemplaring. What I described here still hits both of them FULLY.

I hope that helps and wasn't just more confusing. =)

You can almost always find a few stragglers under overhangs, near the tallest buildings etc. I've never seen any zone actually get cleared out. Especially if you only need two more. When it sucks is needing 10+ because there's never that many stragglers that don't de-spawn unless it's brickstown and you get a big clump underground.

#1 I see you are using Do/SOs. Have you partly out-leveled them? An SO gives 38% when it is +3 but at -2 it is only giving 22%. That is an enormous hit to your defenses and attacks.

I recommend that you buy cheap set IOs. You can get crappy sets for less inf than SOs with higher bonus and they won't expire on you in the middle of a mission. At the very least, put in Accuracy IOs. Those are the ones that kill you when you level and they expire =)

#2 Take either swipe or strike not both. Get Spin, it is one of your best attacks. You will drop groups much faster, and single-targest at the same speed. This uses less endurance, AND you take fewer hits = you feel tougher.

#3 Pull two slots out of swift and one out of stamina, put one end mod reduction in your top 3 attacks instead. Put an end red in sprint and use that instead of the extra slots in swift (turn it off during combat as needed).

#4 slot some Def/End (Karma, Serendipity, etc) IOs instead of the pure Def you have now. anything level 18+should do, but 20+ is ideal. You should have only a small drop in total Def if you do kismet def/end, serendipity def/end, serendipity def. But the drop in end usage will be very helpful and it should cost you less than buying new green SOs at level 22.

#5 do all this and you can skip stamina for a few levels and get either combat jumping or maneuvers for that power pick instead to give you a bunch of across-the-board defense.

I'm also wondering if it is better to take the melee and ranged toggles rather than melee and AoE, then add combat jumping, and maneuvers and put off the aoe until later. There are lots more single-target attacks than cones. Might help some. But then again a lot of melee attacks are pbaoe, so I'm not sure.

I think the crouched pose is a little silly, but the flips are totally awesome.

The developers do not look at the powers alone and neither should you. Brutes don't get hide at all. Stalkers don't get energy cloak at all. Look at the set on the whole, as done for you by both Umbral and Muon:

emphasis mine.

And from Umbral:
Last, Claws summed it up pretty well:
The Brute is far tougher. Your taking those two powers totally out of context is misjudging the entire powerset. Look at the whole thing, look at the HPs of the respective ATs and you will see that there is no problem with the balance between brute /ea and stalker /ea.

Now, your real issue, and it is legitimate and everyone agrees, is that BOTH brute /ea and stalker /ea need a buff. After that buff the stalker /ea will probably still have a bit higher defense in the two powers BECAUSE OF THE WAY THEY FIT INTO THE SET AS A WHOLE. Re-read Muon's post two more times if you still don't get it.

Not if you put in res slow, -kb, endurance, stealth, etc. And, if he was using sets he might have used lower-level travel sets for exemplaring, which means 3 isn't necessarily at the ED cap.

I'm 100% with you that it sounds like wasted slots anyway.

Basics:
Anything that is "___O" is _____ Origin Enhancement. Training Origin, Dual-Origin, Single-Origin, Titan Origin, Hami-Origin, and Invention Origin. There are a few others, but those get you covered.

99% of the game is balanced around SOs. They are linked to the origin you picked during character creation. So a technology-based character can't equip a mutant or a magic SO for example. DOs are the same but instead of "single origin" they are "dual" and so work for Technology AND science, or Magic AND Natural. But DOs have half the bonus of an SO.

Where you get them:
TO/DO/SO: drop from defeated enemies, bought at stores in game, on the market (Wentworths, Black Market, Imperial Tradehouse)

Titan-O, Hami-O, etc: From very special content (Sewer Trial at level 40, Hamidon Raids, Lord Recluse and Statesman Task Forces) or bought on the market (Wentworths, Black Market, Imperial Tradehouse)

IOs: Recipes drop from defeated enemies, you can buy them with merits and AE Tickets, and you can also buy them on the market (Wentworths, Black Market, Imperial Tradehouse). You need to take the recipe and salvage to a crafting station (Typically inside a university) and make the enhancement which you then slot.

Crafted IOs: can be bought on the market (Wentworths, Black Market, Imperial Tradehouse)

In general most people use SOs because they drop from defeated enemies starting in the level 20s. Crafted IOs can be extremely expensive or reasonably priced. I recommend that you begin by doing the tutorial at level 10 in the university. Read everything, it gives you a good idea of how it all works.

If you want a redname response, then send them a Private Message. General Poses are not often responded to.

Costumes can cause more lag than most people realize. Get a few dozen people together to spam costume change emotes as fast as the timer will allow and you'll learn real quick just exactly why we have a timer in the first place. =)

I thought kill zones were implemented near the markets? Drones aren't the only thing protecting Wents.

Also keep in mind the Devs are inventing new powers and sets in an on going fashion. Just because something doesn't exist today doesn't mean it never will.

1.5/day as I see it. half a morality mission and buy one so 30 takes 20 days. Not much better than 25 you estimated, but a touch better.

I thought any schmoe could still convert regular merits to A-Merits without doing morality arcs?

You're misunderstanding. the team leader has the contact and the mission, you join the team and use mission teleport to get to them.

Example 1:
Hero Bob (has the star) and Hero Fred are in Cimerora and on a team and wish to invite Hero Jack to join them. Jack is in Peregrine Island and doesn't feel like running to the midnighter's guild. Bob invites Jack to the team (all heros so no issue here) and gets a mission from Marcus Valerius. Jack uses mission teleport to appear in Cimerora at the door to the mission. Bob abandons the mission from Marcus Valerius, recruits 5 villains and they start an imperius task force together.

Example 2: (Worked a few months back, I honestly don't know if it still does)
Hero Bob (has the star) and Villain Fred are in Cimerora and on a team and wish to invite Hero Jack to join them. Jack is in Peregrine Island and doesn't feel like running to the midnighter's guild. Jack instead runs to the Rikti War Zone which is a cooperative zone. Bob invites Jack to the team and gets a mission from Marcus Valerius. Jack uses mission teleport to appear in Cimerora at the door to the mission. Bob abandons the mission from Marcus Valerius, recruits a mishmash of 5 more heroes and villains and they start an Imperius task force together.

but I still haven't had a chance to test if a lowbie can get in via mission teleport using these techiques.

A couple of big differences: In CoH healing is hte absolute weakest way to stay alive or help the team. #1 Buffs (forcefields, sonic, thermal, cold, etc), #2 having a good tank on the team, #3 Debufs (Radiation, Radiation, Radiation, Radiation, Traps, and Radiation) #4 Your own defenses including IO sets, #5 having a tank on the team, #6 having a bad tank on the team, #7 heals.

The scary thing is that I'm only exaggerating a little bit.

Second, You don't need a tank in your group. Some of the most impressive stuff anyone does is with pure defender teams. A good tank is awesome. But they are not needed, unlike WoW where they are mandatory.

Third, don't rush to level. The devs actually gave us the option to turn off experience because of players requesting it. Think about this. Once you hit 50, you will run out of content. There is no "end game" content, there is stuff you do on the way to 50 and stuff you do from 45-50. Nothing that is "only level 50". They say the Incarnate system will have some only level 50 content, but not yet.

The rarest and most expensive gear is not the best. for 99.999999999% of characters, purple and PvP sets will not really be a good investment. Purples have only one really important bonus: recharge. Some of them have incredibly cool special powers (ragnarok knockdown is one example). but mostly the rarest gear is for people who have very specific builds and are trying to do something silly like not only solo an Arch Villain, but also do it with no temporary powers and no inspirations.



that is only true while solo. On a team, a decent force field defender can get you from zero to nearly softcapped all by himself/herself. A good team has so much AoE, that enemies die before doing significant damage. Between the two, your own defenses are nearly meaningless.

Even while solo the #1 piece of advice I can give you is ignore the softcap unless you are obsessed with the whole "no temps no insps" concept. For normal people, and for fun Getting to 35%-ish and popping a purple leaves you with way more room in your build for fun, saves you hundreds of millions (if not billions) of inf, and is 98% as effective for 98% of the game.

First of all, softcapping is a waste of time for a farmer. When you farm you get a bajillion inspirations. If you have 33.5% defense instead of 44.5% (the softcap) you only need 1 small purple to be at the softcap. While farming you can expect 1 small or medium purple every 15 seconds or so and they last much longer than that. Hell, I can't actually use them fast enough while farming. Aim for 35% and get more recharge instead.

Also, on the resist sets, people tend to aim for Smashing and Lethal defense rather than positional. This is because s/l covers between 70 and 80% of the attacks int eh game and positional defenses are really hard to get to 35%+ from zero. The sacrifices you have to make are very painful.

On your build in specific, I hate to say it, but not a good choice. BroadSword is not gimpy, but it is very far behind katana in performance, and if not the lowest total damage for scrappers, very nearly so. It is also slow enough to be quite frustrating. Last, since it is all lethal damage there are virtually no end-game enemies against whom it is effective as Lethal is the #1 most resisted damage type in the game. I strongly urge you to consider another set. Electric, spines, and fire are all outstanding farming choices.

So, what happens if you go to pocket D, join a team and use the mission teleport?