Geveo

OK, I couldn't get this thread out of my head.

I thought I'd draw up a level 40 DM/SD build that was softcapped for all three positions, just for the heck of it. I'm no expert on DM, so if the power choices and slotting are less than ideal, well, you get what you pay for. I also haven't used Mids planner for years, so I kind of stumbled through that, but I *think* I've figured out how to link a build.

I'm sure others could do better, but I at least wanted to show that it was possible. If I was really going to play this toon, I'd do some juggling, only run one set of Zephyrs, and only bother to cap my Melee, leaving the other two somewhere in the low 40s until I had the slots to beef up Maneuvers and/or CJ enough to put them at or near the cap. But the challenge was to soft cap, and so I left it this way, un-optimal as it may be.

Mids shows this as:
45.3 Melee
47.8 Ranged
45.3 AOE
though I have the enhancements set as 50s (didn't mess with Mids defaults) so real values may come in a tiny bit lower. So sue me.

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Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Level 40 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Dark Melee
Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Leadership

Hero Profile:
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Level 1: Smite
(A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage
(3) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance
(3) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge
(7) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge
(9) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
(11) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal)

Level 1: Deflection
(A) Defense Buff IO
(23) Defense Buff IO
(25) Defense Buff IO

Level 2: Battle Agility
(A) Defense Buff IO
(23) Defense Buff IO
(31) Defense Buff IO

Level 4: Shadow Maul
(A) Obliteration - Damage
(5) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge
(5) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
(7) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage
(9) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge
(11) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge

Level 6: True Grit
(A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3%

Level 8: Siphon Life
(A) Kinetic Combat - Accuracy/Damage
(13) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance
(13) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Recharge
(15) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
(15) Healing IO
(17) Healing IO

Level 10: Active Defense
(A) Empty
(17) Empty

Level 12: Swift
(A) Empty

Level 14: Health
(A) Empty

Level 16: Combat Jumping
(A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range
(37) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range/Endurance
(40) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points)

Level 18: Dark Consumption
(A) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Damage
(19) Scirocco's Dervish - Damage/Endurance
(19) Scirocco's Dervish - Damage/Recharge
(21) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Recharge
(21) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
(25) Endurance Modification IO

Level 20: Stamina
(A) Empty

Level 22: Against All Odds
(A) Empty

Level 24: Phalanx Fighting
(A) Empty

Level 26: Soul Drain
(A) Multi Strike - Accuracy/Damage
(27) Multi Strike - Damage/Endurance
(27) Multi Strike - Damage/Recharge
(29) Multi Strike - Accuracy/Endurance
(29) Multi Strike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
(31) Multi Strike - Damage/Endurance/Recharge

Level 28: Super Jump
(A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range
(31) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range/Endurance
(34) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points)

Level 30: Maneuvers
(A) Defense Buff IO

Level 32: Midnight Grasp
(A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage
(33) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance
(33) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge
(33) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge
(34) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
(34) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal)

Level 35: Shield Charge
(A) Obliteration - Damage
(36) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge
(36) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge
(36) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
(37) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
(37) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage

Level 38: Tactics
(A) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Recharge/Endurance
(39) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance
(39) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge
(39) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff
(40) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up
(40) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Endurance

Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
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Level 1: Brawl
(A) Empty

Level 1: Sprint
(A) Empty

Level 2: Rest
(A) Empty

Level 1: Critical Hit

BS/SD has plenty of AOE for just about anything. I run the walls in Cimerora with mine, grabbing two groups at a time, letting them gather, Build Up, Shield Charge, Whirling Sword. That drops pretty much everybody.

By the time I clean up the stragglers and grab two more groups, Shield charge is ready to go again. It's like a 1 hero assembly line. She's much more efficient at it than any other toon I have.

Heh... I already assumed you were in 'the club' RagmanX, but Gratz all the same.

As Minotaur says, purples aren't for softcapping. I don't think any purple sets give defensive bonuses. And there are certainly guides out there.

Softcapping, or nearly softcapping, by the mid to late 30s is certainly possible. Basically, if you six-slot your attacks with sets that provide defensive bonuses, you're going to be in good shape. If you can work Weave into your build, it will help, or you can go the Maneuvers/Tactics route from Leadership. I prefer the latter, as I like to six slot Tactics with the Gaussian set, but everyone has their own preferences.

Here are some of the sets you want to look at:

Multi-Strike -- Cheap, and usually in pretty good supply. Gives 1.875% melee, and 1.875% AOE, but the other bonuses it gives are only so-so.

Obliteration -- Much pricier than multi-strike, but also better all around. High recharge value makes it a good set for Shield Charge.

Scirocco's Dervish -- Another option for your AOEs. Gives it's AOE defense bonus with only 5 slots.

Gaussian's Fire Control -- Whether you put it in Build Up or Tactics or Focused Accuracy, the 2.5% bonus to all three positionals is huge, and the other bonuses it gives are very good. You want a set of these.

Mako's Bite -- Gets you Ranged Def, which is a little harder to find in sets than AOE or Melee.

Blessings of the Zephyr -- Slap a set of 3 of these in Combat Jumping, and another set in Super Jump and you're well on your way to capping Ranged and AOE.

Other sets, if you have the slots:

Performance Shifter -- in Stamina

Numina's -- In Health.

Edit: Forgot to mention Touch of Death. Useful if you need more Melee defense.

Another Edit: And of course, you want a Steadfast Protection Res/Def IO. Not too pricey anymore, and +3% def to all three positions. Shields has lots of convenient places to put it, too.

Lots of people might have more specific recommendations, or go about it in different ways, but these are some of the tools you have to work with.

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I don't care for the 'asking ppl for influence' at the market idea for this, but
sort of like the idea of a panhandler RPing, not that I'd do that.

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I'm mildly curious about the amount (if anything at all) a character with (hopefully)
an amusing approach, could make for seed influence, over the course of, say, 1 hour.


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Of course, given that this is a largely hypothetical thing and people can make up whatever rules they want, I think asking people for influence, or accepting gifts of any kind... well, that's just too easy. I don't really see how that's much different from taking a gift from one of your own characters on a second account, or taking items from your sg base and selling them. The idea is to do it without outside help. Getting outside help from a stranger isn't an exception to that rule... at least for me.

I started on this this afternoon. Rolled a new toon on a server I never played on. I rolled a Peacebringer, figuring that being able to fly couldn't hurt. Lots of runs back and forth from the market to the vendors, if nothing else, and safe travel in Steel Canyon if I want to make things.

I spent 1 hour on his first session. It went like this:
First 15 minutes or so I spent figuring out how to get starter influence. I skipped the tutorial (duh...) and set about trying to 'rescue' a pedestrian by getting Hellions to follow me to the police drones. This took a while, because the first ones I tried were Fallen Gunners, and they wouldn't chase me. Then I did lure a group of minions into the drones by the train station, but the rescued citizen didn't see fit to reward me. Eventually, I broke down and took a swing at a minion... and missed! But that was enough. The group followed me to the drones, got zapped, and the nice lady in the frumpy sweatshirt gave me 9 influence for my trouble.

I zipped over to WWs and started scanning for generic recipes with 0 bids showing. I would try a bid of 1 inf, and if it didn't win immediately, I deleted it and moved on. My first purchase was for a generic level 15 Hold IO, which I sold to a vendor for 587 inf, upping my cash holdings by roughly 6610%.

I kept this up for most of the rest of the hour. My best steals were some level 40 Def Buff IOs, that netted me something like 17K each. After the first few, I realized that I'd been aiming too low, and just started scanning the level 35 and 40 recipes. Everything above 40 had tons of bids, but there were quite a few 1 inf steals in the 35-40 range.

Just placing 1 inf bids and selling the recipes, I passed 100K inf at 47 minutes after toon creation. With a little forethought and luck, someone else could probably do it in 15 minutes or so.

After I had an initial stake, I bought salvage and actually crafted a recipe in SC, put it on the market at a high, but not too high price, and logged out.

Net result... I had about 150K after an hour, with maybe half that time spent between getting the initial 9 inf, and scanning for a good choice of what recipe to actually craft and sell. I didn't have that much inf on hand at logout, since much of it was invested in creating the IO to sell. But still, 0-150K in an hour. I'm sure if I tried it again, I could put together 300K easily, maybe more.

The hard part, really, is only having one recipe slot and one market slot and three salvage slots. Just can't do much maneuvering with that little space.

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I haven't seen anyone mention the 2 dmge enhans you get automatically and not to mention the 2 Insp. (lrge) drops you get in the outbreak tutorial.That's where I always start. Sell the enhans then make my way back an forth till I get enough infl to make putting the big ones up for sale more profitable. I think it would be easy enough to do just time consuming. But you will get a badge for selling and buying you can't help that.

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People haven't forgotten those insps and enhances from Outbreak, but you can't get through Outbreak without defeating anything, and that's the challenge.

If you want a toon that truly never earns any exp, without turning exp gain off, you have to skip the tutorial.

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I really want cheese melee/cheese armor and fish melee/fish armor

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This would be awesome. But if we got this, I would have to reroll my DM/SD scrapper "Shadow Cheese".

She got her attack powers from a possessed lump of cheddar. Her shield is a crystal serving tray.

I should start playing her again; the world is too serious.

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I had considered at one point rolling up a toon that would never fight, would just try to level all the way to 50 by dropping a mission every 3 days... but that's even sillier than trying to get a billion with no inf.

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49 500 or so even con minions to level 50
A mission bonus is what 10 minions (lets be generous and say 20)
at 20 thats a mere 2475 mission drops, or 20.3 years.

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Don't forget arc bonuses! That's gotta drop at LEAST 0.3 years off! :-D

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Yep, but you don't do it at even con... you have to immediately crank up to max difficulty. And max difficulty is going to go even higher with the new difficulty sliders (though how this will impact mission bonuses isn't known atm).

Also, don't forget double xp weekends! It all adds up.

Given infinite time, the insurmountable obstacle might just be getting to level 5. That first contact would run out of missions for you to drop.

On the original topic: That's an interesting point from Case_Anarchy. I have had civilians I didn't save run up to me and give me rewards before... so that could be a viable way to get starter inf. Once you've got that, it's just a matter of time and persistence.

No. Just you.

It'll have the chance to go off once every 10 seconds as long as Tactics is toggled on.

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Ahhh ....not a bad idea ...hmmmm. Is there any other way to get some starter INF? My goal is to have some INF without involving a transfer OR actual fighting (even with XP turned off)

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The only way I can think of that *might* work is if you can get a fedex or a patrol mission as your first task from your first contact. Then you could complete it with xp gain off, and get a little starter inf. The problem with that plan is I think all of the first missions are preset... I know Azuria has a fedex mission, but it's never the first one she gives you. Not sure if that's the case for all the other starting contacts.

Or, I suppose you could just drop the first mission you get. Then you'll get the completion inf reward with no fighting.

I had considered at one point rolling up a toon that would never fight, would just try to level all the way to 50 by dropping a mission every 3 days... but that's even sillier than trying to get a billion with no inf.

Unless you're gifted something, I think it would be impossible to do it with NO exp... Is there a way to get inf without any inf on hand, and without earning exp? I can't think of any. Even dealing in 1 inf salvage you have to have that 1 inf and five more for a listing fee.

Edit: It just occured to me that you could turn off your xp gain as soon as you created the toon, so I guess it would be possible after all.

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Is there a way to transfer a recipe from a Hero to a Villian? My wife and I recently started playing, and we each have an account. Is there a "special" location where we could trade the recipe between Blueside and Redside characters?

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Currently, there is no trading possible between Redside and Blueside.

This may change with the Going Rogue expansion, but nothing is confirmed about that at this point.

If you're seeing someone standing in front of you, but you can't find their name in the list when you do a search for teammates or /search, they are probably hidden. This is a way of removing yourself from various lists and search mechanisms in the game, if you're feeling anti-social, or you don't want to be disturbed while doing a respec or working on your base or whatever.

It's also a way to reduce the amount of email spam you get (long-term) as spammers will use the teammate search function to find names to annoy.

You can hide yourself by typing

/hide

A menu will pop up, letting you choose exactly which things you want to hide yourself from.

You can access the menu again and change your choices by typing '/hide' again.

A lot of missions send you into a sewer map... that's not the same thing as "running the sewers" in Atlas Park or wherever.

Missions that take place in the sewers are instanced, and will be scaled to an appropriate difficulty based on the size of your group, so if you go in Solo, the spawns should be manageable.

In any event, if you're level 13 and you'd like soloable missions, get out of the Hollows, go to Steel Canyon, and run a few missions from your police scanner. If you don't have a police scanner -- it should be at the top of your contact list -- go talk to your police contact and he'll give you one.

Once you've done three of those missions, you can do a safeguard mission for the detective (stop a bank robbery) and once you've done that, he'll give you access to other contacts.

For me, it was almost purely a concept thing. I had a BS/WP scrapper that I liked, but didn't love, and she'd stalled around level 16. When /SD came out, it fit her concept much better, so I re-rolled her as a BS/SD, and it was pure love from there to 50. AAO and Shield Charge are great powers, and they're not just for teams... I mostly solo... but I loved the toon before I ever leveled up to where I could use those powers. The toon was just pure fun for me from level 1.

But other /SD toons I've started haven't managed to keep my interest. I've rolled both a FM/SD and a DM/SD, and neither of them is past level 20. It has nothing to do with how 'good' they are, they're all scrappers, of course they're good. But for some reason, the only one that really clicked for me was the BS/SD.

It may not have anything to do with /SD... sometimes, a character just clicks. I dunno. Ymmv.

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I resemble that remark!

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Does this phrase rub anybody else wrong like it does me? Nothing against the poster who wrote it, but I really just find it an odd phrase.

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That's an old, well-worn jeu de mots (a deliberate play on words)... in the same category as "Take my wife... please."

/SR is still a great set. Still lots of /SR scrappers out there.

/SR was my set of choice, hands down, until /SD came out. These days, my choice between those two depends on character concept, rather than viability. They're both great sets.

/SR isn't the new shiny.

/SR is a late bloomer, and some people don't like to wait for the awesome... but it *is* awesome, once it gets settled in.

You know... it'd take some serious timing and teamwork, not to mention insanity, but those could still be bought.

I'm wondering how the game would list the uncollected sales... "Sold 10 for 20000000000"? Can it display that many zeros, or would it have to use an exponent?

Fabulously stylish, Fulmens. That's a hell of a listing.

My BS/SD is great for running the walls in Cimerora. She's well IO'd, but far from optimized. Not a single purple on her.

The process:
1. Aggro a group by killing the surgeon.
2. Run to second group; kill the surgeon there.
3. Wait a few seconds for both groups to gather around for autographs.
4. Build Up --> Shield Charge.
5. Clean up the Lts and the few stragglers SC missed.

rinse and repeat.

Shield Charge and AAO just make for an amazing AOE experience. Because of the taunt aura, nobody runs away, and they all form a nice tidy group for the nuke. And on my build at least, BU and SC have almost identical recharges, so they always go in tandem. It's embarrasingly easy.

Hmm.... 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9...and 10. Yep. That's a 10 digit number all right.

Gratz, and welcome to Ebil.

There are only two things that can stop it from selling... (well, maybe 3)

1. You get impatient and pull it off the market to free up the slot. (the most plausible scenario)

2. Inf Inflation stops. (not bloody likely)

3. The CoH subscriber base falls off to the point that they shut down the servers. In short: Game over. (the DOOM scenario)

Otherwise it will sell.

Actually, those same conditions would apply to anything listed at any price. :P

What makes an acceptable margin all depends on your turnover rate. If you only want to check the market once a week, you'll want to play for a wider profit margin. If you're going to check your market goodies daily (which is what I generally do), smaller margins with higher turnover rates will earn you inf just as fast.

I don't 'flip' items, I make my inf through manufacturing. Most of the time I'm just crafting generic IOs, because I can do that without paying attention to what I'm doing. But to make serious inf, I pick a rare, in demand recipe I can buy and craft (also buying the necessary salvage) and sell for a reasonable profit. My profit margins are anywhere from 3-10 M. I try to work with 3-4 different recipes at a time, so short-term fluctuations might dry up the demand for one IO, but I'm always moving *something* through.

Usually, I have plenty of time during that level 5-10 period for two of the three. I always take Bocor first, then Billie.

Especially at this level, Story Arc bonuses will really give you a huge exp boost when you complete them. Billie has two arcs, Bocor and Angelo one each (iirc).

Bocor also introduces you to "The Radio", a contact for level 10-15, which is kind of fun, so I take him first.

The temp powers Bocor and Billie give you are very limited, but can be quite handy, especially solo, if you save them for those tough fights where you could really use just that little bit extra. They aren't anything to rely on, but they can be useful.

Selling generic IOs is a nice way to make a gradual, steady income. I do it on whatever toons I happen to be playing, because it doesn't take much time or thought. Serious marketing takes a lot more effort, with consequently larger rewards.

Working the market can be, of course, a game in itself. But I find that most of the time, I can make all the inf I need selling the generics without too much of a fuss. Largely because I'm just tricking out a toon's sets as they level up, not trying to do a big revamp purchase all at once. And I'm also not often bothering with purples.

But on the other hand, if you feel like doing it, there's no reason not to become ebil rich, just for the hell of it.

On the one hand, I can see eliminating exp from the Architect. It would certainly end the powerleveling and make it almost entirely a playground for level 50s. It would still be useful as a creative tool for players, and it would undoubtably still be used to farm salvage and recipes and whatnot.

On the other hand, how do you put the genie back in the bottle? The universe might well explode if exp were removed from Architect missions.

On the other hand, the more I think about it... I'm not against it.