Greyhame

Looks good so far, thank you for not obliterating my AT forums.

Go to FBZ Sierra/Xray for Fakes. Very easy to get the badge solo.

On a side note - this issue seems to be recurring for me every time the game servers are down. I can't log into the forums until the game servers are back up.

traditional main reason: perma-PA. (which these days is achievable w/out kin, so not that motivating).

So two men are standing in a room: one about 22, the other 50 years old. A woman walks in and says to the young man, "Boxers or briefs?" "Briefs" he replies. She turns to the older man and asks the same question. After a moment spent considering he says, "Depends."

I know a number of experienced melee players who have said on the forums that they dropped AS. EvilGeko is the one that I remember off the top of my head. I'd say it depends what you're playing. I wouldn't drop it from my Spines/Nin because I want the ST damage for soloing. On the DM/Nin that I'm leveling now... it's certainly a possibility once I'm up to 50.

Edit: I agree that given the fast-paced way the gameplay has evolved AS is clunky at best and worse than useless at worst.

@CoH Management - This is just absurd. I'm not ragequitting and I'm glad the servers are back up ahead of schedule, but: the past two months have seen a ridiculous amount of downtime both planned and unplanned. I'm in a similar business, so I understand that these things happen... and that they don't have to be repeated recurring issues if you get your **** together. Kindly do.

Let's talk about strategy for the final boss, Avatar.


Problem 1: Will of the Earth (WotE) - whoever is targeted by this attack has a big yellow disc around them. When it goes off after a few seconds, it heals the Avatar for every player in range. Basically, if targeted, you have to run off to the corner by yourself. Not hard, but it means no one can be indispensable. There must be redundancy - if particular buffs/heals/abilities are required then several people must have them.


Problem 2: Confuse - this affects everyone on the map randomly, even out of line-of-sight. It happens a lot, to multiple players at once - without extra mez protection, you may be mezzed as much as 50% of the time. Essentially T3 Clarion is required; since deaths and WotE will happen we need lots of players to have it for redundancy. And to stay buffed, players will have to remain grouped up (possibly several groups).


Problem 3: Cripple - cone attack, end drain and -recovery are the biggest problems here. If this is weak enough to be overcome by SB/Heat Loss/Transference then maybe it could be ignored with enough buffing. I rather doubt it, in which case we cannot afford to have everyone hit. That means we need an 'Aggro Group' of several tanks (who all have T3 Clarion); they would take aggro one or two at a time and keep the Avatar facing into a corner or against a wall. After one tank is debuffed another would jump in to take aggro, continually swapping out as needed. Everyone else will stay behind the Avatar.


Problem 4: Infection - pbaoe stacking debuff to resistance and defense. I've only done the trial with ranged characters so far - I don't have personal experience with it, but based on the description, we can't afford to have most of the League in melee. We'll need the Aggro group, a Melee group behind the Avatar and a Ranged group further back behind the Avatar. If so, melee is pretty well screwed because all the heals/buffs will be in the ranged group. Maybe with enough defense buffing this debuff can be ignored? Need more input here - I'm not sure how the exact mechanics will work out.


Problem 5: Corruption - Avatar drains Desdemona's life. The effect worsens when her allies are close to her. I have no experience seeing this in action so more information on the exact mechanics would help. She can be healed, so keeping her with the Ranged group and letting her soak up aoe heals may be sufficient. If not, things are likely to get complex.


Problem 6: Damage: there's several attacks here, some dealt to random targets, some in pbaoe, some random ranged aoe and some that hits everyone in the chamber regardless of range. Simply put: stay grouped, have aoe heals. Of course we'll need multiple people with aoe healing since WotE could remove any one of them at any time. The Aggro group will likely need dedicated ranged healing. Desdemona does have a short range aoe buff to help with Seedling damage, but how we use it will depend on our solution to Corruption above.



That's all I have so far. Looks like we need lots of people to farm T3 Clarion and leagues will need good tanking/healing with ranged damage preferred. Hopefully someone can come up with ways to simplify this for PuG leagues; I really hate encounters that are so choosy that leaders get anal about who they invite. I have several unpleasant LRSF memories.

Was on Virtue, second to last mission of Numina, mapserved. Can't log back into the game.

Edit: Nevermind, back in now. Apparently half my team d/c as well at the same time, so not just me.

@OP:
Melee in general takes a while to mature. All those great defensive powers have to have enough slots and (at least) SOs before they begin to shine. And yes, Invul is awesome.

I've had the same problem on this account for days. I was able to log in once last night (no apparent reason). Today unable to log in. Tried the work-around suggested above and it didn't work immediately; I didn't know to give it 15 min. Obviously I'm able to get in now, so hopefully it is fixed.

I'm sorry to hear you're having problems with it. I've created and leveled 3 different pacts since head start began. I've deliberately broken 2 around level 20, and the third hasn't gotten that high yet; I don't seem to have the patience for half xp, but they all seemed to be working correctly.

You can give them some time on the petition, but headstart is limited and I'm sure they are swamped. Deleting and recreating the bugged character might be faster (although you would never get those 16 levels back).

Why not solve the KB problem with an IO? I've always admired the way the Theft of Essence proc neatly solved the painfully high END costs of Dark Regen without actually changing the power or breaking anything else. Add a new IO set to the game, maybe travel (10-50) so anyone can stick it in Sprint. Have one of the enhancements in the set be a Global that reduces KB to KD in all powers the character uses.

Of course, now it occurs to most that F2P players won't have IOs... damnit. Maybe Null the Gull is the better way to do this.

You don't see a lot of Bubblers because Cold does the most important part just as well (practically speaking) and has awesome debuffs too. You don't see many Defender primary Bubblers because secondary bubbles are just as effective (practically speaking) and there's no need for the slight edge in +def numbers that being a defender will get you.

Really depends on what you're looking for. I've done spines/nin to 50 and was rather unimpressed - trying to play an aoe set on an AT designed around ST damage is not something I prefer. The above poster is correct that you can do interesting things with ELM though.

I started a dm/nin a couple weeks ago (up to 30 now), and I'm finding DM a much better fit for the AT's mechanics than spines was. Oh, and shadow maul is not bad - it's the only attack DM gets that hits more than one target - damn handy even on a ST focused character.

Edit: I took both shadow punch and smite for leveling, as well as shadow maul. I didn't have any problems pre-siphon life.