Jaxson B

Is that really the case? Certainly doesn't seem to be working as intended, based on the MM outcry.

Hi folks,

As a MM main, I was quite annoyed to hear a coalie say in chat that players using pets in trials were negatively effected in drops at the end of runs. While I understand that rare and very rare drops are supposed to be just that, I've done around 100 runs myself and gotten mostly commons with a few uncommons, and always got angry when people say things like "lol another rare".

Is there an actual 'main' thread for discussion on this? I want to find out what's known on it so far, and what a mastermind can do to 'soft-fix' this, as I'm a new player with great marketing savvy, so I don't much like the prospect of running a huge number of trials for enough threads/commons/uncommons to craft 5 very rare components and put myself out 4 billion inf. =S

So does anyone have a link to the primary thread on this topic?

Thanks for your help!

Jax

Hey folks,

How awesome are inspirations? I mean, really - they're so good. Obvious, I know, but as a 1-month player who first levelled a Robo/FF MM to 50 (read: very, very rarely need to use any, even on your pets), it was astonishing for me to learn on my SS/FA farming brute how damn good inspirations are.

Well, of course I knew that when farming I'd need to use them, so I was prepared for that part. What I wasn't prepared for was how influential they'd be when fighting EBs. Like many */FA farmers before me, I had to do one of the patron arcs to unlock Mu mastery. This meant dealing with multiple EBs. For some reason I hadn't realised before this point how good a full case of inspirations could be for dealing with an EB, so my first few attempts (at Silver Mantis in Scirocco's arc) ended with me in the hospital after inflicting minimal damage.

And then, the brainwave hit - what if I invested (the very low amount of 1k inf) in a full case of small inspirations? Could they do the trick? After all, I'd already seen how as little as 3 purples could significantly reduce damage in a +4 fire farm. So I filled up my briefcase and went back to take on the Mantis.

It was just amazing. Don't get me wrong folks - I'm not claiming to be the first to have used inspirations to clear difficult objectives. To do so would be just plain stupid. But have you ever had one of those ideas that you felt could be really good, then you put it into practice, and you were validated? It's a great feeling. You know you're onto something good. This was one of those moments. Following on from this, 6 other EBs fell shortly afterwards (2 more in that arc, and then the 4 in the incarnate arc).

Let's think about this for a moment - for those 7 EBs, I bought a full case of inspirations for each (to be technically accurate, for the 2 EBs in the Honoree mission, I did use two - but I used the first batch in a suicide run, killing all the portals and the Rikti, before succumbing to the EBs. I then used the second case to kill both EBs in quick succession). That cost me 7k inf in total. For 7k inf, I was able to clear 6 missions, which would have rewarded me somewhere in the vicinity of ~300-400k xp+inf, as well as, more importantly, access to the epic power pools and the alpha incarnate slot. That right there is profit.

I don't know why I felt so compelled to make this "gush @ inspiration" topic. It was just such a significant thing to learn for me. It feels like such an important lesson to learn as I continue to play the game - and I know that in the tutorials they pretty much say "yeah, these will help you fight" - but they don't say "yeah, in some cases these can prove the difference between not being able to complete a mission and being able to complete it easily". And to think that if I ever get really desperate, I can more or less take double the amount of inspirations by hitting the Black Market (or spending some time in AE on one of my 50's fighting bosses) and taking a full case of large insps instead... it's an amazing prospect.

Well anyway, that's all from me for now. Happy gaming everyone!

Jax

Hi folks,

So my fire-farm brute is one run away from 50. Yippee! Yeah, I could be doing it now, but I'm a bit pedantic in that I can only do a couple of runs then need to take a break. In any case, while I won't be getting very rare sets and making him a billion dollar farmer, I plan on making him pretty competent, and I feel that one of the biggest boosts that he'll get is via the incarnate system.

I was just wondering if people had opinions on the optimal choices for each slot? For the record, it's the typical SS/FA/Mu farm build, and will eventually be perma-hasten. I'll also probably only get to T2 or T3 for most slots (definitely T3 alpha for the level shift); T4 probably won't provide a big enough increase for the time and money investment. Not to mention I do have a main I'm working on T4 on. But I digress! =P

Alpha: Spiritual, going for the 45% rech/33% disorient option in tier 3. Seems like a no-brainer - makes perma-hasten significantly easier.
Lore: not really sure on this one. Seems like a combat pet wouldn't survive very long (based on my experiences joining in on farms on my way to 50 on my main). The Clockwork Mender could prove useful due to its heal (I think? can't look in game at the moment by normal Clockwork Menders have a heal), and being untargetable if I get it up to T3. Doesn't seem like an overly important slot for fire farming.
Judgement: everyone seems very fond of Ion, so my first inclination is towards that. But, would Pyronic be a good choice when combined with Fiery Embrace, or is the extra fire damage not as significant as the extra targets that Ion would hit?
Interface: without remembering what each one does, Reactive seems like a dead set winner, for the fire dot. Combined with AoEs it should greatly increase damage.
Destiny: while Barrier could be great for survivability, greatly extending the shelf life of my inspirations, I feel like Clarion (recharge/recovery) could be awesome for dps. While I'm only in SOs atm, my cooldowns aren't up often enough that I can pump out all four of my AoE spells at a whim without running out of endurance and waiting for either a blue to drop or Consume to come off cooldown. Feels like Clarion would let me AoE more and have better endurance recovery (the recovery it provides, plus quicker Consume). But without having tested it, I can't be sure, and I'd hate to get to either T2/T3 and find out that it's not really that effective.

So, to sum up, my current thoughts are leaning towards:
Alpha - Spiritual, Lore - Clockwork, Judgment - Ion/Pyronic - main I need help with, Interface - Reactive, Destiny - Clarion.

I'd greatly, greatly appreciate it if anyone can provide their thoughts on these choices.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Jax

Thumbs up from a relatively new player. I had no idea what to expect going into Lambda, except that knowing that BAF was easy as pie so Lambda was bound to be harder, and people saying similar stuff in various chats.

Having this guide helped me have a little foresight as to what I was getting into, and I was actually able to contribute to the run. =)

Hi folks,

Jax the slowly-becoming-a-non-newb here. =P Today I've got a few questions about the Interface powers in the incarnate system - primarily the Reactive powers.

1. Do these powers affect pet abilities? Given how the Alpha slot works I'm inclined to think they do (and as a MM if they don't then none of the interface powers are going to do anything for me anyway =P), but confirmation from someone would be nice. =)

2. For the debuffs that are applied, do these stack? Kind of unsure about this one; depending on the size and duration of the debuffs stacking may or may not be important.

3. Do most AVs heavily resist these debuffs? Depending on whether they stack or not and how long they last some of them could dramatically change how fights unfold.

4. As for the specific powers themselves (unfortunately the in game info doesn't give a lot of details):
Paralytic: is it possible to debuff someone's (ie. an AV) damage down to 0%? I know chance to hit has a margin of 5%-95%, but was unsure if someone could actually get down to 0%, power mechanics not withstanding.
Reactive: the big one, as I'm likely to get it if the way the ability works (questions 1 and 2) are in my favour. Can the Fire debuff stack? Also, damage resistance can get in the -% can't it? While I couldn't find anything here ( http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Resistance_(Mechanics) ), the way rest works certainly made it seem likely (-1000% resistance).

5. This is a more opinion based question, but is Reactive as good as it sounds? If my understanding that you can get -% resistance is correct, then it basically reads "has a chance on each attack to increase your league's overall damage". That's generally a very good ability. =)

Thanks in advance for any help!

Jax

Hi folks,

I've been levelling my SS/FA brute pretty heavily over the past day or so as I'm sick of being stretched for cash on my main, so wanted to get this farmer up and running. One of my guildies advised me that I should be able to start doing the fire farms to level when I got plasma shield, which I did at level 14 if I'm not mistaken. Trying to fire farm though (on +0/0) in Crey's Cyborg farm didn't go too well, so I put it off until level 22 (when I swap over to lv 25 IOs, or psuedo-SO's as I like to call them).

In any case, while I'm aware that most of the technique for doing the farm is going to come down to practice, I did have a few simple questions which I think some of the more experienced fire farmers should be able to answer:

1. While hitting the fire resistance cap is easy enough, what % should I be looking for in the way of defense once I get to +4/8? And what sort of defense should I be looking for against the particular enemies that are to be found in the Crey fire farm? S? L? I'm aware that a lot of players use purps to cover for the non-capped defense; I'm just trying to get an idea as to what most players have before they use insps (on that note, how many purps would you use at once?).

2. As a SS/FA brute (who'll eventually get Mu, and probably Void judgement), is there much of a problem with endurance, or does consume fully socketed with End Mod cover it? I'm just wondering if I should be including a few End Red IOs with my lv 22 enhancement shake up. I know I've been having endurance problems here and there with my current farm (my typical boss-only farm for lower level chars); I'm just wondering if it carries over to the fire farm.

3. If I'm not looking to get anything beyond really cheap set enhancements and 50 IOs once I reach 50, about how quickly should I be looking to complete a run assuming nothing goes wrong?

I might have more questions to come, but that should do for now - the defense one is the real big one though. Thanks for any help!

Jax

Thanks heaps for the reply - after I posted this I started looking hard for some good threads and came across Fury Flech's, which even if I don't do fully (ie. don't bother playing the market heavily) it gives me a better idea about what I should be rolling for with AE tickets.

In regards to your Hero Merit rolls - which rank and level did you choose? 30-40 bronze?

Hi folks,

Jax the newb here. I just posted a very similar question in player help, but I thought I'd ask this question specifically to MM's, as that's the toon I'm playing (and want to focus on heavily), and have at 50. For the record, it's a Robo/FF/Mace MM, fully outkitted with 50 IO's and starting to get set IOs. I also have Alpha damage T1 and Judgment cold T2, so he's pretty good at mowing down groups and completing missions.

But yes - what would you suggest is the best way for a player to make as much money per hour as possible on a 50 MM? Best being a combination of the amount of money per hour as well as how easy it is to accomplish.

For the record, I'm more than willing to change one of my specs to a 'farm' spec if something like Teleport or Stealth is required for superior farming.

Thanks in advance for any help - I really appreciate it!

Jax

Hi folks,

Jax the newb here, with perhaps my most important question to date - with lots of IOs to buy before I've got my 'complete' build, and a fair amount of money to funnel into the Incarnate system (once I get to tier 3+, of course), what is a good way for a 'general' level 50 to make money? Of course, I know this differs from AT to AT and powerset to powerset, but if you were to give advice to a generic level 50, what would you say?

While I appreciate answers which are along the lines of "do X tf/st/trial with a group", my primary focus with this post is solo options for someone looking to make inf, as I don't want my profit margin to be dependant on other people also looking to do the stuff I need to do.

My first thought is AE. I used to do pretty well with this while levelling, with my 3 CoT boss in a casino setup, thereby making for quick, easy tickets. Is this the best option right now? Are there better 'farms' already set up for a generic player (ie. non X/FA brute)? Beyond that, if this is the best choice, gold roll recipes are the best option, correct? While I'm aware that rare salvage is more stable as you can actually choose the good sellers, one rare recipe is going to more than make up for that, right? Keep in mind I'm a newb so I may be way off the mark. =P

Another thought I had was farming merits - are there any arcs I can do via Ouro (ie. repeatable) that offer fantastic merits/hour (potentially with some cheesy method like rushing through and killing important targets, or stealthing - I have no qualms about changing one of my builds to include stealth if it makes cash generation significantly easier)? It seems like with the right arc this could be the money maker; after all, being able to choose the rare recipe means that we'd be able to squeeze maximum inf out of each merit. This would also help out with my villain merit conversion; I've been doing this as much as possible and in a few days I'll be tapped for reward merits. =S I did read someone saying they could get about 10 merits every ~15 minutes via a RWZ arc in Ouro, by stealthing missions - is this a profitable way to go?

I read in a post by that same player that he'd solo the Mender Silos arc (first 4 missions) with his dom, and get about 1.2m every 10 minutes without even considering drops. Is this something that only a dom could do, or is it another viable way to go for level 50 players?

Or should I just try and power level my own SS/FA brute to 50 and start AE farming with him? I kind of don't want to as I want to invest as much time as possible into my main - but I don't mind if it will ultimately make my main that much stronger.

I'll stop with the suggestions - but please, please help if you can. This is an area I don't want to end up getting stuck with (constantly not having enough inf to do 'smaller' things in the game like villain merit conversion or creating incarnate components).

Thanks in advance for any help; I really do appreciate it!

Jax

Yeah, I went with +damage because the final of the +acc, while providing 3 boosts I would use in at least one power each, didn't seem all that appealing. The +acc will only help while doing trials (where the incarnate shifts should help offset the pain anyway), the def buff seems a bit moot between FFs and league wide buffs, and I can live without the hold duration on Web Coccoon. =P

As for musculature, a big damage boost in the end to my pets is very welcome, and while the other two benefits are largely moot, it's virtually the same as the case with the acc one. =)

Hi folks,

Jax the newb here, having been playing heavily since getting my beloved Robo/FF MM to 50 (first toon), and I finally got enough threads to purchase an alpha slot ability. I can't remember where I saw it, but I remember seeing that the alpha slot incarnate ability worked pretty much just like a global enhancement - it would effect all powers that could slot that enhancement and wouldn't affect those that couldn't, and that's pretty much exactly how it works. It might've been on a wiki, during the Mender Ramiel arc, or on a forum, but I'm sure I saw that somewhere.

In any case, I'm just confirming that that holds true - that is, if I choose the damage buff (which I have), then it means that my pets get the damage boost (affected by the diminishing returns listed on the ability, of course). Is this the case, or does it work in some other fashion?

Thanks for any help! =)

Jax

Oh yeah, I knew it'd be expensive, but this is my main, and I really can't see that changing, so I want to try and make it as good as possible. Having an ultimate goal will let me solidify my build when I respec, and will help me when choosing enhancements to upgrade into.

The plan is to socket the exact build with 50 IOs, then get the enhancements necessary to stop wasted slots (like with Health), then whatever from there will give the biggest input until the build is complete.

As for money, while I'm still learning the tricks, I'm not the worst farmer in the world. I'm currently sitting on around 750m thanks to a Ragnarok drop the other day, and I'm casually working on a SS/FA brute so that I'll eventually be able to super-AE farm.

Oh, they just went back down again - maybe it wasn't just me. =) They were up for about 10-15 minutes though, so I'm not crazy! =)

Hi folks,

Just suffering from a very, very annoying problem at the moment. I'm trying to start the Ouroborous flashback mission chain (the introductory chain), and whenever I go to zone into the crystal to go back in time and steal the computer data, I get disconnected from the mapserver. I have no idea what the problem is, or how to fix it - but I really want to get this sorted so I can start using the flashback system and getting a lot of badges. For the record, I did zone out of Ouro and back in, then retried it, and I also dropped the mission and picked it back up. No luck.

Any ideas?

Jax

Oh wait, so I can now do lower level arcs via Flashback and still have the potential to get Incarnate Shards? This is very, very, very awesome for a badge-wh... hunter like myself. =P

Hi folks,

Now that I've hit 50 I've started putting a lot of thought into where I eventually want my Robo/FF MM to be. I'm fine with non-set enhancing, straight up IO's are pretty easy to deal with. However, what is tricky for me as a new player is set-IO enhancing in order to make my toon as strong as possible.

This is the build I have come up with - it's pretty much the same as what I'm using now, except that some slotting is vastly different (for example, 6 slotting health for the 4 proc IOs - right now I just have the two for two health IOs). If there are any problems or glaring wholes, or I'm missing the point with something, can someone please let me know?

Personally I feel a couple set bonuses weren't something I had to really go for (for example, Unbreakable Constraint in Web Cocoon and Shield Wall in Maneuvers), but I ended up getting the stats boosted I wanted to with those sets so it didn't hurt either. Is this the right idea with a lot of set bonuses, like +x% res toxic/psionic that you won't use often? That you're getting the stat boosts you want to, so you may as well go for the extra benefit anyway?

Hi guys,

So I just hit 50 yesterday and have been enjoying the level 50 content. Did a couple of BAFs today and absolutely loved it. =)

In any case, my first question today is about Incarnate Shards. On the ParagonWiki page I noticed that one of the highest drop rates from them is from players in PvP. That page also states that it will only drop from lv 50 mobs - as such, does this mean that Recluse's Victory is the only PvP area where getting Incarnate Shards is possible? Do they drop in Arena?

My second question is also about Incarnate Shards. With enough playtime, are these simple enough or still very difficult to get a hold of, outside of dedicated sources for them such as the ATF and TMTF? I'm keen to get my Alpha slot as strong as possible ASAP, and while I'm well aware that it isn't supposed to be easy it'd help if I knew how much time I should be dedicating to getting ATF/TMTF/Hamidon groups going. Also, do they drop in AE missions? I'm guessing not, but if they did that'd be sweet. =P

My final question is about fighting mobs at 50 in general. Given that there are no recipes over lv 50, is there any point at fighting at positive combat levels, instead of even combat level? While I'm aware that you get more inf per kill for higher levels, and can get 51 or higher SOs, they don't seem like significant reasons compared to the ease and speed that even level gives you. But of course, I'm relatively new, so I might be missing something.

Thanks in advance for any help! =)

Jax

Hi folks,

Jax the newb here, and I've just gotten my first char to 50 (my beloved Robo/FF MM), yay! But now that I've got him to 50 and will start looking at pimping out his build, I have a few questions - primarily about set inventions, and one or two about the incarnate system.

Basically, some of the set enhancements are obviously straight forward - for example, an acc/dam/rech enhancement in an ability like lightning bolt would increase its accuracy, damage and reduce its recharge time all from the one enhancement. My questions are primarily about set bonuses, and a few of the quirkier enhancements. To make things simple (for myself), I'll be looking through the possible enhancement sets I can use, and the powers I might use them in to draw examples.

To being with, Sovereign Right: Resistance Bonus (pets) - another thread I made had someone comment that this actually creates an aura around my character and affects all my pets. Is this true?

Force Feedback: Chance for +Recharge (knockback) - does this affect just that ability, or is it a global effect?

Shield Wall: +Res (tp), +3% res (all) - how does this one work? Is it just a global effect that always applies to me? If I put it on something like Deflection Shield, does it only apply to my target? If I put it in something like Maneuvers does it only apply to me/affected targets while Maneuvers is active?

A similar question to this, but Luck of the Gambler: Recharge Speed - is this another global effect (I can't imagine it's just recharge reduction, as most of these IOs are either "Recharge" or "Recharge Reduction"), or does it apply/proc in a similar vein to the Shield Wall IO? Also, does it just affect the slotted power, or all powers - so if for arguments sake it is a constant effect merely by having it slotted, does it affect say my Force Bolt too, or just the slotted power's recharge speed?

Panancea: +Hit Points/Endurance - does this affect me, or if I'm using a heal on another target (such as Aid Other), does it affect them instead? If I put it into something like Health does it have a chance to trigger whenever I regenerate health or something (I always thought it didn't work in 'always on' powers, but I was recently told they do).

Performance Shifter: Chance for +End - similar to above, this does work in Stamina, correct? How exactly does it work?

Now this is a big one that will probably help out a lot of my understanding - a proc enhancement on a toggle ability. Guassian's Synchronised Fire Control: Chance for Build Up - in a toggle ability (in this case Tactics), the only chance it has to trigger is when it's toggled on, correct? It doesn't have a chance to trigger every x seconds does it?

Now onto the set bonuses:

To begin with, do any set bonuses transfer to my pets? I'm guessing not for the majority of sets, but I'm not so sure on pet sets. My hunch is no though.

Set bonuses which are like Enhancement(Range), Enhancement(Recharge) or Enhancement(Accuracy) - these are global effects which affect all of my abilities, correct? They don't just boost the slotted power do they?

Do set bonuses apply only while a power is active? It certainly seems to not be the case (I mean, how would an attacking power ever have its bonuses in effect), but of course I'm new to this thing. Still, if I could grab some confirmation that a set bonus on a toggle power will still be active, that'd be great - I'd hate to fork out a lot of inf for a rare/very rare set for a toggle power like Dispersion Bubble and find out I don't get the bonuses. =P

I think that's about it for the set bonuses. Finally, incarnates, but this one's pretty simply: are there any guides to the system (as it currently stands)? As a new to 50 character it's one of the first things I want to get involved in so I can get as powerful as possible, but right now I only have a rough idea - basically do the Mender Ramiel arc then do Task/Strike forces or something. =S

Anyway, thanks in advance for any help! I really, really appreciate it!

Jax

Hi folks,

Jax the newb here, requesting help on my Robo/FF planned build for 50 now that I'm only 1.3 lvs away. =D First character, yay! But I digress. If I had my time over I would've gone this build from the start (I think), but as it stands I'm planning on making it my second build, then starting to fit it with as many IOs as I can, using my primary build to keep playing for the time being (fully outfitted with 25 IOs - pseudo-SOs as I like to call them). Once it's fully slotted with at least 50 IOs, I'll make it my primary. But I digress...

Essentially, this is the build I have planned out for the time being, and I was just wondering if I could get any feedback on what is good and isn't, including what levels I'm getting stuff at (for when I'm doing Ouro and stuff). I'm a very new player, and while I've been trying to get better and think I'm doing ok, I'm well aware that a lot of stuff could've missed the mark completely!

Finally, I might be playing my MM wrong, but I'm putting huge emphasis on the pets, using them as almost my entire dps, with my actual toon mainly controlling enemies and buffing the bots. If I am missing the mark, someone please help me out!

In any case... (as forewarning, my big problems are with my powers at 22 (Hasten), 44 (Mace Beam Volley), and 49 (no idea, but Vengeance atm), so feel free to skip to those ones ^^)

1 - Battle Drones
1 - Force Bolt
2 - Deflection Shield
4 - Insulation Shield
6 - Equip Robot
8 - Aid Other
10 - Detention Field
12 - Protector Bots
14 - Aid Self
16 - Personal Force Field
18 - Repair
20 - Dispersion Bubble
22 - Hasten (this one may seem a bit off, but I'm quite happy with the increased bot recharge speed, while I don't see a huge benefit to taking flight/tp/sj on this char - super speed works quite well)
24 - Super Speed
26 - Assault Bot
28 - Assault
30 - Tactics
32 - Upgrade Robot
35 - Maneuvers
38 - Force Bubble
41 - Web Envelope (wasn't 100% sure before I took this, but having used it a bit, I looooove it for dealing with flying enemies (pretty much one of the only things in my build that can), and fleeing enemies (force bolt works but I obv need to get them between me and the bots to push them in the right direction ^^))
44 - Mace Beam Volley (now this one I'm definitely not sure on. Haven't found it very useful on my current build. In theory it could be good, but I took it for the knockback which doesn't seem to happen nearly enough. What would be a better choice out of Scorpion Shield/Power Boost? I'm leaning towards Power Boost for FF buffs, but the short duration combined with long cooldown is a bit displeasing. Thoughts?)
47 - Web Cocoon (haven't had the chance to use it in my current build yet as I'm getting it at 49, but seeing how much I loved the envelope and love detention field, I'm thinking it'll definitely earn it's spot)
49 - Ok, this one I need a lot of help with. It's essentially an empty spot right now. I have a few options - the plasma rifle attacks of Robotics, but I don't rate them very highly. There are repulsion field and bomb left in FFs, but Repulsion Field seems pretty useless in PvE compared to Force Bubble, and Repulsion Bomb doesn't do nearly enough from what I've found. I can take Stimulant and Resuscitate from Medicine - Stimulant seems way too situational when my bots resist most statuses, and Resuscitate will ideally not get used often enough to be worth a slot. In speed I have Flurry and Whirlwind - both seemingly worthless. For Leadership I could pick up Vengeance, which I've seen first hand is a fantastic ability. It seems pretty situational though, so I'm not 100% sure, but at the moment it's my choice. I can pick up one of the Mace powers I don't end up getting (doesn't seem worthwhile, the 2 I'm mainly in there for are the web grenades), or I can pick up a starter power from the other trees - Fighting (doesn't seem worthwhile), Flight (the defense buff from hover doesn't seem big enough to give up a power slot, and while Air Superiority is a great power I'd rather just use the Web Grenades than get in melee range with my actual toon), Concealment (without having stealth myself giving my bots invisibility doesn't seem nearly useful enough), Leaping (like hover, the defense from combat jumping doesn't seem useful enough), Presence (no), and Teleportation (recall friend could be useful if my bots are playing up and get stuck, or teleport foe could be another way to stop fleeing/flying foes).

Thanks in advance for any help; I really, really appreciate it!

Jax

P.S. As an additional question, I am curious about two pet enhancements: chance to build up, and resist bonus. Which bots would you put these in? Resist bonus seems like it'd be best in battle drones as they're the flimsiest and probably need the most help, but chance to build up seems like it could be great in both battle drones (3x bots for plenty of attacks and plenty of chances to proc), or in the assault bot (much more damaging attacks, making the individual build up procs more deadly). Any thoughts?

Hi folks,

Jax the newb is back for another question! Almost 50, so I'm guessing I should figure out some of this stuff by now. =P

Some people in my coalition chat were recently talking about doing the 'weekly' task force. Now, I have a general understanding about what strike and task forces are, but this weekly bit has me confused.

1. They said this week's task force was the "Renault" task force (red side). How did they find this out, and on what day does it change?
2. Are other task forces locked except for this one, or does it do something special by being the weekly one? Just trying to figure out why it's called as such.

I have a feeling I had a third question, but for the life of me I can't remember it, so I'll reply if I think of it. Thanks in advance for any help! =)

Jax

Thanks for all the input guys. =)

I've been working with Mids, but without a solid grasp on this acc thing even that was proving difficult. I think I've got a better grasp now, but just so even when I'm at cap and starting to 'power up' I have the right idea:

Even at lv 50 and doing end game content, will the equivalent of 2 SOs of acc be enough for those encounters? Equivalent of 2 50 IOs? Just trying to get a rough guage of how much I should be socketing for. =)

Hi folks,

Jax the newbie here with a few more questions as he tries to cross the bridge from greenhorn to competent. In any case, my Robo/FF MM should hit 40 just after the server comes back up, so I'm looking forward to my final trek to 50. =)

Anyway, to make a long story short, I come from a WoW background where when gearing for top level content, a dps character would try to reach 'hit cap' before focusing on damage, as regardless of how much damage an ability could do, it was meaningless if it didn't hit. Basically, it was seen like this: if you were at a 50% chance to hit a raid boss, and your attack did 100 damage, and you got the chance to increase it to a 75% chance to hit (50% increase) or do 150 damage per hit, you'd take the hit increase as although the damage increase is the same between both (over a large number of samples), the reliability of hit is much more desired as it makes your damage more consistent and less luck based. You wouldn't get some fights where you do insane damage and some where you do very little at all. Besides this, once you were hit capped against raid bosses you could focus entirely on damage without worrying about being under the hit cap.

So with that in mind, I've been socketing accuracy as my primary enchancement with most enhancements that take it, and that I care about.

Question one: is this a good idea? Is accuracy the first enhancement I should be going for in abilities such as Detention Field, Battle Drones and Force Bolt?

Beyond this, I've been socketing my enhancements for 3 accuracy SO's (technically lv 25 IO's, which I like to call pseudo-SO's as they're practically the same) where applicable, as I'm trying to get as much 'hit' as possible.

Question two: is this also a good idea? I'm aware that for pretty much any mob that is 2 levels or less higher that 2 SO's should suffice (potential buffs/debuffs aside), but the way I've been thinking is that if I encounter a very tough enemy, or want to fight something even tougher than a +2 (perhaps help with a giant moster or take part in a lv 50 task force), that having the 3 is more ideal. Keep in mind that I'll probably be using the lv 25 IO's for quite a while as I don't want to invest in really good enhancements until I'm comfortable with my understanding of the game.

Beyond this, the final, general question;

Question three: what are some good general rules of thumb with choosing enhancements to socket in any given power? There's a lot of choice and it feels overwhelming at times. For example, I've generally been going 3 acc and 3 dam for a lot of my damage type powers, in order to get them as much hit as possible (before ED starts to take a significant toll), and then get them doing as much damage as possible. Is this the best idea for a damage type power, for example, Lightning Bolt? It seems that way, and my logic is making me think it is, but I am a new player - even a new player I could see how something like 2 acc 3 dam 1 rech red would be better for anything that isn't the toughest mobs, but is it a better overall scheme? Gah, it's so confusing at times!

Anyway, I think I'll stop there before it starts becoming too much of an essay. Thankyou very, very much to anyone who's willing to try and help, I really do appreciate it as I try to become better at the game! =)

Jax