Halon

I have enough junk I should be able to force a Hybrid T4 into existence. What, if anything, is currently best Hybrid for MMs. By this I mean what affects pets, not that will be fixed someday, which will never come, but what actually affects them today?

I never did take a Patron power because I was so offended MMs were the only archetype to not get a patron pet.

P2P doesn't bother me; I'll happily pay $15 a month for a decent MMO. I just don't see any out there.

I don't wanna help Champions, which is part of the Axis of Evil which shut down CoH, but turn off character outlines (a Champions-specific cartoony thing), and any haze effects, often called bloom, or fog-with-distance. That's the first eye irritant to go every game I start up.

3D card people added it in hardware, so for some godawful reason all game makers feel they have to use it.

It looks like this is scheduled for midnight, evening of 30th rather than 29th, i.e. as it ticks to Dec. 1, PST, g'bye.

My only concern is the servers will be more overloaded than even opening week, with every person who ever had an account logging in to see the end of the world.

Hence server crashes, or multi-hour queues that day to log in will rear their ugly heads. What a ****** if I can't get in.


ETA: My censored word was a euphamism for one who urinates, beginning with 'p', and was not as nasty as the asterisks suggest.

I'm a big altoholic, and filled one server including all purchasable slots (up until the recent issue which expanded it again) and about half the total slots on all other servers.

In lieu of any really new MMO that I like, I've been cycling between COH, Champions, Eve, D&D, and WoW, though I haven't touched WoW since 2008.

All these other games, though, have been dead to me for at least 2 years now and I have no desire to go back to any even temporarily. Tera is so-so but doesn't feel like it will make it to this inner circle of games. So I really don't know what I'm gonna do.

The Waitress, Mastermind on Freedom and the only character in any MMO I've ever tricked out at top level, and I've been playing since pre-EverQuest Ultima Online.

That's why this shutdown is particularly grating on me.

I have a Champions Online freeform character that started as a technologist (the closest to a pure pet class they have.)

I went max pets, and on a free respec, got rid of a power and squeezed out one more pet. You have about 2x the pets of a MM, not counting Thugs' Gang War.

Some follow, some are magic circle-related, you cast a 15 foot wide circle on the ground, and as long as you stay in the circle, the pets remain. So they cannot follow you around. You can take an upgrade that allows that, but you only get 5 upgrade points per power, and you may rather use that to advance them to tier 3 toughness.

You also get these 2 little robot bots that follow you around and convert into massive gatling guns. This is pretty cool, but the power has been nerfed almost into oblivion. Other cool powers are teddy bears that attack and (being technologist) you also get a satellite destruction beam that looks awesome, but, like the gatling gun turrets, has been nerfed way down.

Technologists have had almost as much power ripped out of them through nerfs as EverQuest necromancers had.

Downside: Champions Online is part of the NCSoft axis that didn't renew the City of Heroes license, so I don't want another damned dime going into their pocket.


Diablo II, the necromancer was a ton of fun, especially doing it "zookeeper" style, i.e. maxxing out the number and power of your pets, as opposed to other necro trees. Only downside was the big end-of-act bosses, your pets always incinerated easily. Most pets required a dead corpse of a previously-beaten monster to re-cast, keep in mind. So 99% of the game was an endless joy, the other you had to pew-pew the bosses yourself as a poor man's blaster. Kind of like if you had to solo an AV here without your pets using the junky primary powers you never take and Blackwand and Nemesis' Staff.

Well the arc's starting off wonderfully. The very first mission has you going after Nemesis himself, who's protecting a guy you need to kidnap, or rescue, or something.

Nemesis is a runner -- so I cleared out everything he runs to, which amounts to everything in that room.

But /traps needs the guy to stay put so the debuffers, which don't move, can have multiple hits and time to do their work. So I need to green-circle web grenade to keep him from moving, which sucks down my end when I'm also dropping all my other traps and rezzing and rebuffing the occasional dead thug.

So I use a full inspiration set of blues. Still not enough, I get him down to about half when the Lore run away, and then I'm in a holding pattern barely making headway against his regen.

So it looks like I'll need an HVAS and a full load of at least T2 blues. Will try with just the T2s (T1s from the store weren't enough.) My big amp Incarnate is end. reduction rather than +damage or something else. AV slaying is a long-term process and it's served me well so far.

Going for Viridian -- I see I have him unlocked already, but untouched and pristine!

Ok that was underwhelming. Mot is just an EB as well. DA arcs done. I even declined help from the other heroes on the final mission. Ya, stay here, I've got it.

Well, off to some of the other ideas in here!

[NPC] Tub Ci: Eat hot death!
[NPC] Dream Doctor: He is absorbing more souls to power himself!
[NPC] Tub Ci: Urgh... what have I... done...
Tub Ci has defeated Power Oscillator Pet
[NPC] Tub Ci: You... willl NOT STOP ME!
[NPC] Tub Ci: Urgh... what have I... done...
Tub Ci has defeated Posse
[NPC] Tub Ci: You all left us to save Astoria ourselves! And NOW you decide to come and help?! Leave us BE!
[NPC] Tub Ci: Urgh... what have I... done...
Tub Ci has defeated Posse
[NPC] Tub Ci: Urgh... what have I... done...
Tub Ci has defeated Posse
[NPC] Tub Ci: Urgh... what have I... done...
Tub Ci has defeated Posse
[NPC] Tub Ci: Urgh... what have I... done...
Tub Ci has defeated Posse
[NPC] Tub Ci: Urgh... what have I... done...
Tub Ci has defeated Posse
[NPC] Tub Ci: Urgh... what have I... done...
Tub Ci has defeated Posse
[NPC] Tub Ci: Urgh... what have I... done...
Tub Ci has defeated Posse
[NPC] Tub Ci: Urgh... what have I... done...
Tub Ci has defeated Posse
[NPC] Tub Ci: I will not be stopped! Not by YOU, not by MOT! NOT BY ANYONE!
[NPC] Tub Ci: Urgh... what have I... done...
Tub Ci has defeated Acid Mortar
You have defeated Tub Ci
You gain 380,031 infamy.
Real Trolls - Real Huge Stinking Trolls gains 3,010 prestige.
You received Paralyzation of Joule.
You received Exploit Weakness: Dam/End (Recipe).
You defeated Tub Ci and recovered the God-Killer Sword!
You gain 34,625 infamy.
Real Trolls - Real Huge Stinking Trolls gains 344 prestige.


Based on XP, Tub Ci is about 1/4 of the other AVs so far. And he was about 6x Romulus Augustus, who clocked in as an EB at about 56k.


Roleplaying: Ya, throwing the Posse under the bus to give Tub Ci psychicic dampers as he felt guilty over each one was part of the plan. Ya, that's the ticket!

Well I'm down to the final DA mission arc. The Cimorean one was...underwhelming. Romulus Augustus was an EB WTF. Yes, I double-checked I was still set to +4/+8 AV. In fact, his group at the end was the second easiest, after only the initial groups. The "Monster" groups and whatever those siren-loaded 3 groups just before his were a lot rougher.

If anyone has a suggestion for AE missions, I'm up for that. A few years ago I tried to custom-design the toughest possible foes, loading it up with punchtastic stuff and setting everything to extreme. I can run the "usual suspects" leveling ones at +4/+8 solo.

Diabolique has defeated Posse
Diabolique has defeated Acid Mortar
Diabolique has defeated Posse
Diabolique has defeated Power Oscillator Pet
Diabolique has defeated Posse
Diabolique has defeated Posse
Diabolique has defeated Posse
Diabolique has defeated Posse
Diabolique has defeated Posse
Diabolique has defeated Posse
[NPC] Diabolique: Unlike - ooof! W-what?!
Diabolique has defeated Acid Mortar
Diabolique has defeated Posse
Diabolique has defeated Posse
Diabolique has defeated Force Field Generator
[NPC] Diabolique: No, wait...! It isn't supposed to go like this!
Diabolique has defeated Acid Mortar
You have defeated Diabolique
You gain 1,385,342 infamy.
Real Trolls - Real Huge Stinking Trolls gains 6,270 prestige.
You received Resurgence.
You defeated Diabolique!
[NPC] Diabolique: No... I've come too far... to have it end here!
[Looking For Group] [Player Name Hidden, But He Frequently Says "He's dead, Jim!"]: 50 healer lft
[NPC] Diabolique: I was supposed to do it all... it's not right... it's not FAIR!
[NPC] Praetor Duncan: It's very unbecoming of you to throw a temper tantrum, Tammy.
[NPC] Diabolique: Mmrph... I won't give you the satisfaction... of me begging... Duncan. I know... my time is finished.
[NPC] Diabolique: You and... Waitress... can't last for long... I can't... I can't wait...
[NPC] Diabolique: There will come a day... Duncan... Waitress... when your faces will be covered in pure agony...
[NPC] Diabolique: I can't wait... for that day to come...
[NPC] Ajax: Waitress! It seems I've arrived here too late to help.
[Caption] Well, that wraps it up for me. I'll be reporting back to Emperor Cole. I'm sure you can handle the rest of this, mm?




And, woo hoo! Diabolique gives 362 more XP than Black Scorpion! No HVAS again. I also get the feeling no matter how long the fight dragged out, Ajax just...wouldn't...get...there...in time.

By the way, Numina was long dead and didn't help in the final fight. When finishing a preliminary group, if another one was within eight billion feet, she'd scoot off and attack. After the third or fourth nonstop "triple in a row", I had to flee backwards and never saw her again.

Dang, Efficiency Expert Pither is done with me. Is he available in Oraboros?

In the Dark Astoria arc:

You have defeated Black Scorpion
You gain 1,384,980 infamy.
Real Trolls - Real Huge Stinking Trolls gains 6,270 prestige.
You received Righteous Rage.

Didn't even need the HVAS.


Ya, if I wanted to make it difficult, I'd roll a blaster, not slot anything, and only use brawl.

Nah, I wanna exercise all powers fully. If not now, when? What was the point?

No more fear of nerfs and being too powerful. Bring it!

Been running around soloing AVs in +4/+8 missions. I'm not above bringing out the HVAS if necessary. I'm a villain and have been working for the better part of a decade for power...POWER...POWER!


So, I punk Rikti pylons like there's no tomorrow. What are some good (redside-accessible) missions I can throw myself against?

Ok I was able to abandon it by making a different mission active.

I was certain I had done that yesterday but evidence suggests otherwise.

How do I abandon the "Complete all Dark Astoria arcs" mission?

It's abandon button is grayed out and I cannot enter my other two missions while it is active.

I don't want to do it, I don't care about it, I wanna freakin' get rid of it so I can do my other missions.

I would probably go with a tricked-out, AV-oriented tank. God knows what's going to happen, but it will probably involve unreasonably large blasts that would, for example, slaughter all an MM's pets in one blow.

Kinda like my necros in Diablo II always had a pain in the *** against act bosses.

It will last until November. They wouldn't announce that without buy-in from NCSoft or whatever licensing issues may be.

1. True, high-speed travel. And cheap! (Free!) And low level! (14!)


And fast, did I mention fast?

No level 40 and saving eight billion dollars to buy a horse that doesn't even go 2x your run speed (and that's run speed without a sprint ability).


And The Old Republic reskinned World of Warcraft so carefully, they basically gave you a $48,000 0.2 horsepower scooter that could, literally, go 1.9x as fast as you run.

The midlevel one at 40-ish was 2.0x. The "high end" one was...wait for it...2.1x.


That's vs. what we would call non-sprint run speed.




2. And the 3D travel -- other games struggle so mightily limiting where you can go because you'll get stuck. Games where you just run around seem so constraining now.



3. Scrapper -- showed you could have a high DPS melee class who wasn't a complete wimp and could do true, high DPS, at least single-target.


Again, compare to The Old Republic, where the non-lightning slinger Jedi who actually used their lightsabers were basically shoehorned into a tank role. Even the "dps" trees of same were a shameful embarrassment compared to the scrapper.

I can...maybe...see them closing it down if they had another superhero MMO on the way. I don't see that being the case

Thugs/traps is my main's main's main. When something new comes out, she's the first one to tear it up.

Don't worry about the bruiser KB stuff.

Not quite sure if this matches the OP's definition, but my Thugs/Traps MM has no primary attack powers.

In fights, aside from very rare fights when soloing and I'm pulling with Blackwand, I never, ever do a personal attack.

In my mind, the minions *are* me, attacking automatically while I manage them as a group.

One could argue I could up my damage output "productivity" by beginning pew pews when I'm not throwing down traps or otherwise tending to the minions, but quite frankly why should I take a primary attack when it's mediocre at best and it's better spent on another power in support of the minions-qua-my-freakin'-fist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



/traps has a number of things (poison trap, caltrops, acid mortar) that directly damage monsters, but they're not really pew-pew and are more on the debuff side as to why they're valuable.