City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Katie V

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  1. Katie V

    Stone/SS IO advice

    POST-ACTION

    With the exception of purple sets and a few individual IOs, you can put as many copies of the set as you want into your build. The limits are:
    1) You can only put one of any purple IO into a build.
    2) You can only put one of any IO marked "unique" into a build.
    3) You can only get a give set bonus (say, 5% recharge speed) five times. Note that this goes by the name of the bonus, not the value, so you can get both five copies of the "Luck of the Gambler: recharge speed" bonus and five copies of the normal 7.5% recharge bonus.

    You can also put only part of a set in. For example, my stone tank has four pieces of the Eradication set and two pieces of the Multi-strike set in Combustion.
  2. Katie V

    Portal missions

    POST-ACTION

    Which contacts give out missions that use a Portal Corp. portal as the door? I've found the following so far:
    * Most missions from Maria Jenkins
    * Most missions from Tina Macintyre
    * Most missions from Unai Kemen
    * The store unlock mission from Ghost Falcon
    * The second part of the "Empower the Bands of Shu" mission from Harvey Maylor
    Are there any others?
  3. Katie V
    Not a chance. That's an integrated laptop graphics chip, with very low 3D performance. You might be able to run one or two Ultra Mode features at minimal quality, but only if you can tolerate low framerates.

    No laptop graphics card will be able to run Ultra Mode at max settings, but some of the top-end cards will be able to run Ultra Mode at medium quality.
  4. Katie V
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tongz View Post
    IMHO, the softcore-ers should look at the hardcore people and go, "That's pretty cool, it must have taken a lot of work." As it is now, however, I feel like a kid looking through a window at something I'll never have.

    I'm not saying time invested should not yield return to the hardcore players. My point is that ALL types of gamers, casual or hardcore, should be able to feel super-heroic while playing this game, without pouring half their life into it.
    It sounds like you're looking in the wrong places. I've got two scrappers at level 50: a katana/electric armor scrapper who uses nothing but SO enhancements, and a softcapped claws/super reflexes scrapper. Both builds are quite cheap, and both characters are quite capable of charging into a large crowd of enemies, and emerging a few minutes later surveying the heap of defeated villains at their feet. To me, that certainly feels superheroic.
  5. Katie V
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by je_saist View Post
    For those Cedega users out there, I'm able to duplicate a new issue on Catalyst 10.6 with the Maudite Public Beta Engine 2010052.

    That issue is City of Heroes hanging up with the message: Loading Message Stores...done.
    Try running with the "-renderthread 0" command-line option.
  6. Katie V
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Decorum View Post
    Well, keep in mind that at that level, hardly anyone's a "good" tank anyway.
    There are four reasons why the willpower tank would have been a better choice for tanking Posi:

    1) 50% more hitpoints
    2) Always-on mez protection
    3) An extra eight levels of powers
    4) Enhancements in those powers.
  7. Katie V
    You're missing one:

    Power Sink. You'll never run out of endurance in the middle of a fight again.
  8. Katie V
    I've tanked half of Posi 1 and all of Posi 2 on an unenhanced shield scrapper. Not by choice, mind you, but because the tauntless Willpower tank I was teamed with couldn't hold aggro against AAO.
  9. Katie V
    I know you can cage the towers on the STF.
  10. Katie V
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rylas View Post
    They are annoying, I'll grant you that. Anything that can't possibly drop anything and rewards nearly no XP should not count towards the aggro cap. There's nothing worse than a situation where you can't taunt people away from team mates because you have a zoo's worth of monkeys waiting in line to tag you.
    If they didn't count towards the aggro cap, the Zookeeper badge would simply be a matter of strolling around Monkey Island and then firing off an AoE.

    (and then getting one-shotted by the resulting cloud of Monkey Gas, but that's another matter)
  11. Katie V
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Argentae View Post
    The problem I've seen in handling alphas from large spawns with just seeds comes in when you've got large spawns that are spread out so you can't get more than a few in the Seeds Arc. If I was only looking at the standard 2-3 mob spawn it's NOT a problem at all, but what I'm working for is the ability to reliably handle large spawns like 6-8 hero equiv.
    For me, that was really only a problem between level 8 (when I got Seeds of Confusion) and 22 (when I got Vines). After 22, it's simply a matter of tossing Seeds one direction and Vines the other; at 26 you can have Carrion Creepers take the alpha, and at 32, you can summon a Fly Trap in the middle of things to clump everyone up. There's also the option of using Freezing Rain to break the alpha up: enemies on their backs can't shoot at you.

    Of course, I'm not exactly a believer in orderly fights. At 50, the basic tactic my plant/storm controller uses is to find the spot on the battlefield with the lowest density of chaos and throw the next available power there.
  12. Katie V
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DrMike2000 View Post
    Unai Kemen's arc "To Save a Thousand Worlds" is full of big outdoorsy maps of a variety of enemies and awards 43 merits. You may want to take a look at that.
    When I ran it, it had the defeat-all from Hell. Fight psychic clockwork (flying enemies) on an outdoor map with a strong vertical component (a tall industrial building with catwalks). Further, the enemies have similar colors to the background (you have trouble finding them at a distance unless you're able to tab-target them) and there are patrols wandering around. At +3/x2, I cleared most of the map in half an hour, and then spent another two hours finding the dozen or so stray clockwork that I'd knocked off catwalks or that had run away because they had gotten tired of not hitting me.
  13. Katie V

    New Powers

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Galioth View Post
    I watched the latest video for Going Rouge, and I believe it was Ghost Falcon that said you guys lisson to your players. While I was woundering about some new powers How about adding in spears or shield melee. Does anyone else have ideas for new powers.
    They haven't said that we'll get a "spear melee" set. What they have said is that if they add it, it will be a general "polearm melee" set, where you can customize your weapon to things like spears or quarterstaves.
  14. Katie V

    Time bomb

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
    Don't even try to use it on a team, you'll just be wasting your time.
    I've seen it used successfully on the ITF. While one person went off to pull one of the generals, the trapper was laying a minefield on the beach, finishing it off with a time bomb just as the swarm of enemies reached the far side of the river. It didn't one-shot the group, but it certainly put a dent in them.
  15. Katie V
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by that 1 guy View Post
    I know that the whole scrapper and tanker part is most likely correct, but I am unsure about defenders, corrupters, masterminds, and blasters. If you know what the correct equivalents are, please post a reply.
    Each redside archetype is a rough combination of two blueside archetypes:

    Blaster + Defender = Corruptor
    Blapper + Controller = Dominator
    Tank + Scrapper = Brute
    Blaster + Scrapper = Stalker
    Controller + Defender = Mastermind (sort of)
  16. Katie V

    Rubberbanding

    POST-ACTION

    Which server? Virtue and Freedom have been having problems recently.
  17. Katie V

    Or is it just me?

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Decorum View Post
    OK, I understand it now (well enough, anyway). Now, is there any indication that this is done here? Yeah, "random enough" is usually good enough to not be noticed without a bunch of datamining. I mean, we are talking about "not perfectly random" right? I'm assuming that means some tiny fraction of non-randomness exists, but is likely very insignificant. I'm assuming some kind of thing like "on a d100 roll, there is a .0001% chance of non-randomness" or something (boy, that's an awful explanation with numbers pulled out of my butt and likely doesn't work along those lines technically, but I hope what I'm saying is understandable).

    Perfectly willing to be corrected, provided you can actually understand my garble.
    It's more a matter of "what does 'random' mean?" Any competently-designed random number generator will look random to statistical analysis.

    However, a non-seeded software random number generator is completely predictable given enough information, so you might be able to say "The first two rolls from this d100 were a 57 followed by a 16, therefore it will roll a 99 next". With a seeded software random number generator or with a hardware random number generator, you can't do that.
  18. Katie V
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RabidBrian View Post
    build or it didnt happen. Even on a tank you have to make up 10% resists for f/c/en/ne. Now I can see someone getting the fire or negative resistance on a granite/ tank, but I simply cant see how they could get the energy and cold all fit in, nevermind all four of them. There simply isnt enough set bonus's for resistance out there to achieve it.
    Purples and PvP sets. Most purple sets give 2.5% to both fire and cold if you slot three pieces, and Shield Wall gives you 1.9% to energy and negative in PvE for each power you slot four pieces into. The Shield Wall unique doesn't hurt, either.

    I threw this together as a proof of concept. It's totally useless for anything but hitting the resistance and defense caps, but it does have 90% to all but psi and toxic, and it hits 90% to toxic with Earth's Embrace active.

    Code:
    | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1415;731;1462;HEX;|
|78DA9594C952134118C77B920993C91E43200408242C21900C443D001E284B40281|
|623509E546A849644E3849A09557AF3013C79F1A472D4D217B07C14773DB93D43FC|
|9686D2A35395FFAF97AFBFA5976CDC5F8C08F1704168914B4DDBF376776CE7AE748|
|D4DBB7DE4DACDE09A5D6CD565B3650821B23CB7BB286F4BC793D676BBE5C8DD8BEE|
|BD969B51531BB229A5B5DC90EE036E27579DBA74A5D3B64E1AA15AABD5B4B60FA5D|
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|9E708C990501F98D70005E1BB4AD0B7085DDB84D80EE19DA99C8B8E5F5BF6A307FD|
|3221B702288AE21AF552E0D6CF7601FF2F9F1083A2EB3721F89D109AF5A15D628E9|
|09F277C00EF015EA505A6040E051905D872836784C1439FC0D8E442FDE6152A26B4|
|46886D128A0B1A6614807561B6F3852BB434F20F926010553545B9A604D734BA422|
|8AD12BAA1A6B8CA2EDEA0844B77081F2195A4DAF3E46B0A7EE625E315A1FB052197|
|A7809FC13CA502A60A9464778E303C44C8E7090624965699A7B9C21EAEB06783100|
|4835E65D0FB9852C93C610C53A42F10A94F9D6E1F9796E5D206F8B8725CDA489CFC|
|7D05F37E65DE1FA2A18118219F268C440925364F1978921C7EF019C51D794EA81E1|
|3BE81BF21CE2F3054A68C86730CEE8D73AFC8BD0AF77A4378D3388B02DF9651BE3B|
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|154F8EEEB6037A56ED0141758E6AACB3A1D40D9241CC31E59CA9FC5754E739DD35C|
|E73485CD40DE336A3B66C6791F8A8C09C2807EFAD678E3AA62FDEF2193AC6AFAE91|
|3131A392EE9A74FBA6326C894DA0435FEFFDF9BC8C96A730BFF0476506A20DA356C|
|5D47B981DD9BD8B2B1750B650FBB9DB79193C4E3B398DE1CCA3CCA059434A4291EA|
|1A5110609A34450A2283194384A0225859245798AD2F903125CEFF1|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
  19. Katie V

    Or is it just me?

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Decorum View Post
    Maybe I don't understand "seeded", but that sounds to me like deliberately making it non-random (making it trend to one thing or another). True randomness is very hard to achieve. But, non-randomness in random number generators is a small statistical anomaly that is almost impossible to detect through usage.
    A pure software system cannot generate random numbers. It can generate numbers that look and act random, but given enough information (such as the starting state of the generator), you can always predict what the next number will be.

    One solution to this is seeding: take some random information (such as the time the program was started) and use it to modify the state of the random number generator. This is often used as a compromise between a pure hardware random number generator (the numbers are truely random, but can't be generated very fast) and a pure software generator (fast, but it's possible to predict the numbers).
  20. Katie V
    My only active villain isn't evil. He simply wants to rule the world, and has decided that supervillainy is the easiest (if not the most successful) way to do so.

    On the other hand, I've got a hero who most people would consider "evil" (D&D alignment: chaotic neutral). She's one of the race commonly known as the "Fair Folk", and is only in Paragon because she felt that wrecking havoc among the malcontents would be a good way to pass a century or two -- and besides, some of those Warriors make nicely decorative servants in her palace.
  21. Katie V
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RabidBrian View Post
    Softcapped D and max resistances are still not possible because resistance IO set bonus's are near nonexistant. Granite, ElA, and Invuln should be closest to it.
    Near-nonexistant is not the same as non-existant. Granite's base 78% resistance is close enough that Stone Skin, Earth's Embrace, and set bonuses can get you capped resistance to everything but psionic. Add Weave and a few set bonuses and you can get softcapped defense to all types but psionic as well.
  22. Katie V

    Or is it just me?

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina View Post
    Keep in mind that computer random numbers are usually seeded, which makes some likely to have a sense of inertia, depending upon the seed source and the implementation.
    This is utter nonsense. The only way random numbers will have a "sense of inertia" is if someone designed them to.
  23. Katie V

    Or is it just me?

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by zoltaire View Post
    but the reason i thought it might just be something wrong with my account, i know sounds ridiculous, is because in those 5-6 runs i usually get like 1-2 non recipie io's, 1 recipie IO, normally something like crap of the hunter, and then 3-4 pieces of common salvage
    This sounds about right for running at x1. If you're spawning larger groups, I recommend running DropStats to see if it's just perception, or if the drop rates really are too low.
  24. Katie V
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Derangedpolygot View Post
    No, no, no. The Ultimate question is "What is nine times six?"
    Wrong. It's "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"
  25. Katie V
    My storm defender is paired with /Energy. There's no such thing as too much knockback.