Gravitos_EU

There is 49 double digit merit rewards for Heroes ( counting the triple one ), and a grand total of 11 for Villains.

If you do all the 11 double digit Villain tasks, you will be one point short of a LotG 7.5 with 199 Merits. I'm not even going to try adding up the Hero numbers. It's... daunting.

---

Since it's obvious that we're going to be punished for sticking with underdeveloped Villain content, it's time to take a good hard look at what's being offered here and ask if it's worth it. With such obvious bias, it's a time for reflection indeed.

---

They can change whatever is lagging the frakk out of the ISF. Because it's a challenge to summon the patience to go through that kind of slideshow. Otherwise it's fine.

You would want at least half of the team at 50 though. With everyone at various levels, the outcome is in the blue.

---

[ QUOTE ]
Exactly - the devs are trying to give CoV that Eden/Hive/Boomtown/Shadow Shards experience we have on CoH - before they added the Abyss, all your zones had a point and a purpose - the Abbyss fixed that, and helped bring CoV closer to CoH

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha. Well Boomtown used to be an active place. When Hazard Zones meant something. A change of direction maybe. It kinda went into neglect as time passed on. But I see your point. ;-)

---

[ QUOTE ]
Well, as far as I can recall, CoV was the last one to get a totally new zone (The Abyss), and Villains were also given the RWZ, which was like a new zone for them

[/ QUOTE ]

The Abyss is an empty zone void of any life or activity. Because apart from Hami raids, there is absolutely nada to do there. No contacts, no missions.

We actually got Monster Island too. Which sole purpose is a place to harvest inspirations for the Hami raids. So more emptiness right there.

---

Need more Villain SF's. Need more Villain Zones. Need more Villain contacts. It's starting to look like neglect any time now. Because it's very easy to start comparing sides, when they have been established.

---

There is an obvious gap in the content Villain side... This gap would be the 30-35 range, where no SF can be found.

We're kinda going through all the SF's as time marches on, and well... One more would be nice for the sake of variation.

---

Getting a small bonus to the return infamy when selling junk at Quartermasters and the like, now THAT would have been something.

This venerable reward is nice and all. But hardly looking forward to it. Spending very little time at the tailor. But free stuff is nice as mentioned. Thanks in advance. ;-)

---

Consider that you can drop a few insps on a pet for the same effect more or less, and then consider what else you can take in it's place. Since you obviously can manage to get 3-4 insps back in 1000 seconds.

You can possibly use it as a placeholder for a -KB IO or something. Or a + 3 def unique. ( Steadfast Protection ) If you for some weird reason got nothing useful to take. Which is rather doubtful.

Rubbish power for ranged pets.

52.5% damage resists for all but Psi for 60 secs.
1.67 End/sec Recovery Bonus for 60 secs. ( 100%)
Mez resists. 60 secs.
7.5% damage buff 60 secs.
7.5% to-hit bonus for 60 secs.
MINUS 16.7 End/sec recovery to target for 20 secs AFTER 60 secs. (1000%)
MINUS 100 endurance to target AFTER 60 secs.

---

Do it over, and use a chem nuke on States if he gets cranky. Unless he's bugged, there is no way he can take 8 shivans and a chem nuke. ( We have encountered bugs with unstoppable type powers before, repeating the task might give a different outcome. )

Always been opposed to this Strike force, because you need to heavily orchestrate team composition, and/or use external aids like Shivan/nukes, if the composition fails to match up. It kinda kills the spirit of gathering a team and do stuff, when you end up with spreadsheet style planning. It also greatly helps reinforce the notion of "uber builds", and "useless builds", which create enough friction already. But to each his own.

---

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Medic: Those with the Force Field Generator would like heals, those without would like stimms. More of both would be nice. He he.

[/ QUOTE ]
I have aid other and stimulance both heavy with int-IO's. Along with my veteran and few tricks, i replace the freaking medic myself (you need to sacrifice slots if you want to make medic heal more specialy since he get interupted a bit too often, unlike bots wich can be full slotted for support -def/heal/debuff-same partly for the tier2 thugs and afaik the others have no supportive pets).

[/ QUOTE ]

Used to have the space for 1-2 support SO's for the medic exclusively, but with the advent of IO's, there is absolutely no room. If the tier one soldiers had done damage that was not resisted so heavily in the first place, then it would be possible to drop a proc in favor of upgrading the medic. As it is, soldiers now got 3 SHOE's in them, in order to free up other slots for procs, and a bit of debuff/recharge.

For Mercs, tier one soldiers do a significant part of the total damage, so putting in anything not aiding this cause, will very quickly have a visible impact.

I manage to play with the triage as the only "healing" aid, but this require me to summon pets fairly often, and maintain a very strict regime within the ranks. :-p

But the secondary set will heavily dictate the options, so this will be a case of that, and of play style.

---

There has never been a patch addressing the LRM Rocket range, and/or snipes AFAIK. So they are basically WAI. Personal testing show no change here either.

Medic: Those with the Force Field Generator would like heals, those without would like stimms. More of both would be nice. He he.

---

[ QUOTE ]
.

PS. Merry Christmas. Buff mercs and assault rifle!

[/ QUOTE ]

Arrmen, and a happy new year to go with that.

---

Dots is the flavor of the set. I like my dots. When you add them up, you get fair numbers, apart from the lack of uh... armor penetration. A small -res component, added with the final upgrade or something would help at upper levels. The -def is great for early levels. Hitting a lot of the time makes up for much resistance. Spike damage would be nice, but that's not what this set is about, so for the sake of concept, I would like to keep the dots as per today, just with a bit more sting. Concept might not always be reasonable, but it's the thing with the bullet shower and whatnot... ;-)

Yeah, you still see the LRM Rocket and snipes go off at range, not in close combat. While the Rocket should be able to go off, snipes seems to be long ranged material in their nature. If they only could crit from a working stealth or something.

Heals, the delivery method is a problem for the kind of pace you do SF's and missions later on. If the medic stops up and stimulate/heal, he's suddenly way behind you. If he could both stimulate and heal at the same time, at least there would be a chance you got a little heal from time to time. He don't have time to do both...

Redraw: Yep, that's going strong...

Other damage types. Spec Ops territory? Special bullets? Hollow bullets filled with acid, for small toxic damage addition? Adding a component to something that already exists is best, don't need more broken stuff.

Recharge times, yes they are rather incredible. Double the damage on the LRM, OR cut the recharge in half, otherwise tell me why it's there. lol. Serum: Make it AoE, now you can justify the recharge. Call it Morale Boost. Not gonna happen, but it's not worth taking today. Because you can drop some insps on that pet, get the same result and take something useful instead. And don't get me started on the grenades again.

Gun turret: Hell yeah. They can be mobile now. What's the delay. :-p

---

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
But since you insist, a gimped Mercenary MM can easily be replaced with a Corruptor

[/ QUOTE ]As can any other MM. What's your point?

[/ QUOTE ]

The point is that without vast effort, Mercenaries do a pretty poor job compared to other similar primaries. And without help or some real effort improving them, they might as well be scratched since they don't have a purpose of their own in this game. Single target damage that don't work on an AV without a dedicated debuffer pulling your weight? Control that misfire most of the time, and when it works, it's on minions that dies within the next few seconds with or without your help?

We are talking about an next-to obsolete primary here. Only used by people that likes the concept, but it's not very fun to see Toasters or Street Thugs do a better job than professional soldiers. What about leveling the field somewhat? I guess that would be unthinkable because ALL MASTERMINDS ARE GODS, right? Thus parity within the AT is out of the question, since we can't mess with the established pantheon.

Yeah, I play Mercenaries because they are more fun. I played a Mercenary since they released the AT. Still play him today. Every day. Played him through times without Thugs, IO's or purples. Up to 40, then they raised the cap. So I could be 50. I know my Mercenaries. I am a dedicated veteran Mercenary player. Thus I visit topics about Mercenaries. Now what level are yours? lol?


---

[ QUOTE ]
You *just* need Achilles' Heel, Lady Grey proc, and Assault to do damage with mercs. And you better have a debuff in your secondary to go with that, or else you're just taking up a valuable team slot.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
You weren't comparing MM primaries to each other in the part I was replying to, you were saying Mercs in general are useless on a team, which just shows you're talking out of your backside or from serious inexperience.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not exactly what i said, since you would be hard pressed to find a Mercenary player without any of those procs, no assault, and with no debuff in the secondary. That leaves us with what. Forcefields? lol? You may also insert other MM's to take up that slot, we're assuming MM's are the only AT worth talking about here. But since you insist, a gimped Mercenary MM can easily be replaced with a Corruptor, especially at higher levels. This I also pull from my Gluteus Maximus of course. He he...

So you got a Mercenary MM doing consistent damage, eh? What level would that be, and what secondary set? Let's see some discussion about Mercenaries here. ;-)

---

[ QUOTE ]
When you imply that not all MMs are horribly powerful (some more than others, sure) then you're either talking out of your backside or need a healthy dose of l2p.

[/ QUOTE ]

Comparing MM primaries is perfectly normal in an MM forum, perhaps you one day will be able to actually join a discussion, instead of telling people how much they suck, based on your own optimal choices. Nice Thugs MM you got there in your signature.

---

[ QUOTE ]
Terrible, horrible, uneducated exaggeration. Please stop spreading lies before new players who don't know any better accidentally read them.

[/ QUOTE ]

New players drop Mercenaries without even trying to take them to their full potential, when they find out they suck compared to other (ranged) sets. These procs keeps them more in line with expectations. The Lady Grey proc effect can be measured in a program like Herostats, and we are talking about a minimum of 1/3 damage increase here. Often better.

The fact remains that for a set that supposedly brings control, the stock recharges are horrible, and the control don't make an EB or AV go down much faster, that's where you have to rely on your resisted damage. So use these procs, and they will go down faster.

Mercenaries can and will be outperformed by other ranged MM's at higher levels. The question is just how far behind you want to be.

A Lady Grey Proc, Achilles Heel, and Assault, brings you up to a close third place, instead of a distant third place (ranged). Problems with the incredibly small cones on attacks like Full Auto, combined with the longish animation time still lingers. Mercenaries focus fire moderately hard targets well, but in teams the character with more AoE's just take out stuff so much faster. So even if the damage after much work is comparable, the damage is contained by gimped cones.

With maximum luck, the Commando has finished his LRM rocket launch, which might severely hurt one minion once or twice in an entire mission, and gets his flamethrower out.

---

Not getting the lady Grey proc effect nerfed is the best we can hope for here. They have just finished up the Poison Trap, and I must say they did a fine job making it as boring and moderately useful as possible.

You *just* need Achilles' Heel, Lady Grey proc, and Assault to do damage with mercs. And you better have a debuff in your secondary to go with that, or else you're just taking up a valuable team slot. He he...

---

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
...taking care of the same old farmers is where it is at. ;-)

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha

NC will never get rid of farming when people pay for multiple accounts just to do it

[/ QUOTE ]

I know, they are milking old customers instead of getting new ones now. Who farms the farmer. Can't say the game is more enjoyable without new blood, but you're free to continue to push the limits. Sadly.

---

Leveling up your own characters is so yesterday. Now you can get your farm toons per request. And it's perfectly acceptable and can be put up as advertisement any place.

Much better than real world advertisement of the game, taking care of the same old farmers is where it is at. ;-)

---

Is the hardware around here in any shape or form capable of dealing with a merge? A RWZ raid with four+ teams is like a slideshow with severe power activation lag, on Defiant.

---

Why don't you hire them to do your house cleaning as well, since you can put up any kind of trash here now.

---

[ QUOTE ]
FYI, Lighthouse's latest on this:

On Friday August 1st, we were able to run a script to grant anyone who had multiple Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control: Chance for Build Up slotted in a free respec.

[/ QUOTE ]

Source

[/ QUOTE ]

Dangit! Tore out mine, since I wanted to choose which one was deleted the 31. last month. Haha. I thought they went the punitive path there, and never checked forums again. Serves me right for being cynical. Could have used a respec too. Well busy with alts at any rate. Freespecs tend to appear with updates at least. :-p

---

Theft in real life can be reported, and the thief be arrested.

It's a nice parallel to say you gave the thief the key, but hey if a person in real life steals from his workplace, he will face charges. The base looks more like a workplace, than a small house to me. To use the uncalled-for parallel.

Since there is no charges here, and nobody is willing to take action, tighter control it must be. Or scrap the whole system. Because it's based on trust now. And trust is not cutting it.

The current base security, assume people behave. And that's not going to happen. The access options are far too generous, in fact not dealing with these issues in more than the most rudimentary way. If people steal in real life, where there are consequences of some note, then this must be the gift shop of the ages. Free loot, no real punishment.

But hey, let's continue to blame the people who trusted someone. Because that was their only option, bar rendering the base useless for storage purposes, for all but the very few.

This is not the first time, and unless something is done, not the last. Security based on trust, that's a nice idea. For solo bases. And in alternate dimensions where humans behave. In this game, it's working for us with 2 people in the SG. Too bad for the rest, huh?

Individual storage bins with a generic access point like the salvage vault is the way to go, in addition to a common storage pool, as before. Where you gosh darn don't put anything nice, or else.


---