Kelenar
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Posts
2093 -
Joined
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Quote:I have a Storm/Archery Defender and haven't had many problems with it. Since a lot of Storm is toggles or pseudopets, you can cast most of your powers at the start of the fight as setup and then blast to your heart's content.Originally Posted by Weables1
would an arch/storm have some serious redraw issues? -
Achievement: One-shotting my team's Dominator while my Brute was confused by a Succubus.
(Dis)Achievement: One-shotting my team's Dominator while my Brute was confused by a Succubus. -
One I haven't seen somebody mention yet: If you have powers like Tar Patch, Volcanic Gasses, Ice Storm, Caltrops... drop them in the hallway behind you while moving between crates. Really helps slow down the giant horde of Praetorians that end up chasing after the group if you don't kill them all.
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I like Sutter mechanically. The variety of threats and goals was fun, fighting giant robots on a battle fleet is awesome, and so are air strikes. I agree with Bill that a team of all level 20s would probably have some major trouble with it, but vast majority of TFs I've been on recently have been mostly people's exemplared 50s.
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Quote:Congratulations on figuring out more about soloing EBs in your first month than half of the vets I know who've had six years to figure it out.Originally Posted by Jaxson B
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). -
Quote:I like to not have endurance problems for the 49 levels I'm likely to actual play on any given character.Originally Posted by YoumuKonpaku
This is why God invented Cardiac and Ageless.
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I'm with you there. I rarely play anything that doesn't have an end-boosting power, since I hate having to stop every few spawns to rest. This goes double for Brutes.
The Performance Shifter, Miracle, and Numina's procs all help too, as does, as Bill said, slotting one endredux per attack. A lot of ATs can also get a power for that from their epic/patron pools. -
Quote:I know what people's story beef is with Kahn, but what's wrong with Barracuda?Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
crap like the Reichsman Taskforces
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My submission:
Liora Kate, level 50 Villain Earth/Fire Dominator, Virtue
(Fuuuuuuull bio is here: http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Liora_Kate -
Quote:Huh, I thought all the -KB on immobilize powers were tied to the immobilizes being successful. Maybe I'm thinking of holds or something.Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Actually the -kb is a separate effect that will be applied whether or not you stack enough magnitude to immobilize the enemy
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Fire Cages does negate knockback for 12s if the immobilize effects the target. However, I believe that enemies that don't get immobilized (bosses) will still have a chance to get knocked down, which will be worth some mitigation.
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Quote:If you have too many rares, you can break some down for threads to craft commons/uncommons. It's a bit of a bad conversion rate, but there's not much else to do with them once you have enough, unless you wanna buy a very rare.Originally Posted by flipside
Just to add more anecdotal evidence (backed by some drop logs I have), I primarily play an Ice/Storm/Ice controller when running the trials. With my setup, I rely heavily on pseudopets and actual pets for damage output: Freezing Rain, Lightning Storm, Tornado, Ice Storm and Jack Frost. I use all those back by Frostbite, which is extremely low damaging, to keep stuff in place. My result? I have mostly gotten rare drops during the trials. I am in a significant shortage of commons and uncommons for my crafting needs, but have a ton of rares which I can do nothing with. I have not gotten a VR once, however.
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Quote:This. Screw Atlas.Originally Posted by Ssyrie
Oh hell no. I've started every hero of mine for the last 6 years in Galaxy City because it's quieter. And I generally try to avoid Atlas Park whenever possible. Just too much useless chatter in there.
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This game only has two AT categories.
Doing damage to stuff and debuffing some stuff and probably some mezzes or buffing some stuff and maybe some heals.
and
Doing damage to stuff and buffing or debuffing or mezzing some stuff and probably some heals. -
Quote:And Hurricane! (Assuming non-damaging debuffs count, which I haven't heard evidence against.) As an added 'bonus', if you use it to scatter the enemies, it makes your teammates' AoEs less effective, so you get more time to generate precious hits on the next wave of enemies while your teammates mop up the current wave!Originally Posted by Jophiel
Well, you have Gale.
Now that's thinking with Participation!Quote:Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Done.
Build 1: Standard Bots/Traps, built to survive WW4 and destroy small continents like Asia.
Build 2: Petless/Trapless man build that primarily uses whirlwind, patron powers, and pulse rifle blasts to affect as many enemies as possible.
I like to think that before the rewards system gets fixed, there will be trials consisting entirely of people randomly spamming ineffective AoEs on everything in sight with no rhyme or reason. If somebody tries to put one together on Test, let me know and I'll bring a character. However, I require that you let me make a macro that spams 'HURRRRRRRRRRR' and 'DURRRRRRRRRRR' a few times a minute.
(If it wasn't obvious, this is criticism of the system, not the players trying to coax it into giving them good rewards. The sky is blue, birds fly, and players attempt to maximize rewards.) -
Quote:I've seen regular posters on here put up standing offers to donate cash to people with no questions asked. The more successful marketeers in this game have played with a lot of ways to dispose of their excess cash, and philanthropy is among the ones that have happened.Originally Posted by SoilentGreen
How dare you insult the "rich" people in this game by asking them to do something that might be useful with their influence? Then they wouldn't have something to gloat about like "see how much inf I burned"???
Edit: That said, I can't see this as a great charity issue, since complaining that you can't afford a T4 incarnate slot is like complaining that you couldn't afford the package for your Porsche that gives it a spoiler. The distribution mechanics are mysterious and seem unfair and skewed, but they're not really must-have items. -
Quote:What if my character is a precise ninja assassin Stalker who prizes taking people out without collateral damage? What if my character's an unthinking killing machine who doesn't care that the enemies called him out, but is just attacking the nearest target? Really, in order to make the text never clash with character concept, it would have to be so vague as to be pointless. Anything less generic than some variation of "There are armed individuals inside of this structure, some number of which you will fight soon" is going to conflict with somebody's character concept. The real debate is over just where that line should be drawn.Originally Posted by Ironik
I did this in a similar thread some months ago and got mocked for my trouble by trolls who are fine with low-grade writing.
One that I changed was something like, "You crack your knuckles and slick back your hair. Time to be the bad guy." No I don't and no I'm not. I'm a robot without knuckles or hair. Plus, I'm not a villain, I'm a rogue who is forced into doing this. So I changed it to, "They asked for a fight and it's time to deliver. This is going to be hard on the scenery." It captures the same irreverent tenor without hijacking your own personal motivation or describing your character -
Quote:My experience kinda fits with yours. On my Dominator, I usually make it a goal on teams to reach fresh spawns slightly before or simultaneous with the Brutes/Tanks/Scrappers so that I can mitigate the alpha strike with Stalagmites. This led to me getting a bunch of early AoEs off on fresh mobs before the Blasters, and I got a bunch of Rares in my early runs. And then, as people started learning about the participation thing and racing to the next spawns, it seemed like my rewards sorta started creeping down the scale... I've still never seen a Very Rare, and at this point, I'm not sure what else I could do to get one. I stun and set fire to everything in sight. Maybe I've just gotten unlucky, but if so, it's a damn long stretch of bad luck.Originally Posted by Aliana Blue
Sure enough I was. And someone else too, essentially two of us were "racing" each other for the very rare. I thought I was doing great, getting to the grenade boxes early, tanked the EB and Marauder pretty much the whole time (as an aside: why do so many people tank by just taunting and standing there, letting the mobs face the team so that half of them get wiped out when the big cone attacks come out instead of positioning themselves to have the big bad face AWAY from the group? /rant). At the end got a rare, and the person I was racing happily announced he had gotten a very rare.
Not complaining, fair game and good job says I. But I can't help but think if it wouldn't have been better for my badass DM/Inv to cover the squishies instead and let the more tanky characters tank from the "team" point of view. I don't think I was playing badly per se, I do think I did a fine job with the EB/AV tanking and getting the caches fast, but a less "race to participation" approach would probably have saved more than a few faceplants.
If it becomes common knowledge that we have to "participate" (which I'm sure it will, as those of us who do trials relentlessly are more likely to be the, shall we say less-than-casual crowd), and we don't know much more than "click fast to participate", the inevitable result is that, in a world where minting your own Very Rare costs 400M and a slew of components, we will naturally try to game this metric as much as we can to avoid having to spend the whole (400M + Components) x4 xN (where N=Number of level 50 alts), to the detriment of more positive but less "contributy" group dynamics.
And really, this is the problem with having a participation-based system but not telling people what counts as participation. I don't know what I can do to increase my odds of getting that Very Rare. Do I need to start hanging onto my Pacification Grenades in Lambda and using them myself? Would trying to hold Siege and Nightstar help, or am I better off with pure damage? What about the Lambdas when a bunch of Elec/Shield Scrappers with Superspeed have blown up every street mob before I can get to it--should I just abandon all hope for a good reward? Maybe I've qualified for it every time but had horrible luck in the random roll? My progress is stalled at T3 and I have no idea what I can do to progress other than the brute force approach of running the trial more. -
Quote:As I recall from other articles I saw on it, the combination of Borders' bankruptcy and Japan's recent hardships were where they laid most of the blame. Which isn't to say other factors didn't contribute, but I've rarely seen a company hesitate to blame piracy for stuff if they legitimately can.Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Scanlations kill off another English manga publisher.
Edit: Oh, hey, those are in that article. I need to read better. -
I like Earth/Fire Dominator. Earth gives you enough controls to solo x8 after you have high recharge, with enough controls left over to handle ambushes and stacked spawns when need be. That same recharge gives /Fire really nice ST DPS; I clocked my own around 315 when I only had Alpha slotted, and between the control and the damage, I was able to solo some level 51 AVs with no inspirations or temporary powers. AoE damage isn't amazing by default, since you rely on a cone and a slow DoT PBAoE, but it still doesn't lag much behind my own Fire/Shield Scrapper. I also find the Dominator more all-around survivable than the softcapped Scrapper when I'm on my toes.
Going /Fire would help with the AoE damage, but I love /Mace. With my current setup, I have everything I need: PFF for when things get hairy, 25-30% defense to most attacks most of the time, stacked stealth when I'm flying, a pet that can hold its own versus x8 spawns for a few seconds to buy me some time if everything goes wrong, and effectively unlimited endurance. Unlike a high-end Scrapper, I die in a few seconds if I'm not paying attention... but I'm also nearly invincible if I'm on top of things. I count this as a plus. Scrappers put me to sleep.
My current build, sans Incarnate stuff:
(Edit: The last build I put up was slightly wrong. It was from a build I'd started using to tinker with scaling back some recharge to get defense instead.)
Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.90
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Level 50 Magic Dominator
Primary Power Set: Earth Control
Secondary Power Set: Fiery Assault
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Concealment
Ancillary Pool: Mace Mastery
Villain Profile:
Level 1: Fossilize -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(3), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(3), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(5), Hold-I(5)
Level 1: Flares -- Entrpc-Acc/Dmg(A), Entrpc-Dmg/EndRdx(7), Entrpc-Dmg/Rchg(9), Entrpc-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(9), Entrpc-Heal%(11)
Level 2: Incinerate -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(11), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(13), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(13), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15)
Level 4: Fire Breath -- Ragnrk-Dmg/Rchg(A), Ragnrk-Knock%(7), Ragnrk-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15), Ragnrk-Acc/Rchg(17), Ragnrk-Dmg/EndRdx(17)
Level 6: Quicksand -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 8: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(21), RechRdx-I(21)
Level 10: Fire Blast -- Entrpc-Acc/Dmg(A), Entrpc-Dmg/EndRdx(23), Entrpc-Dmg/Rchg(23), Entrpc-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(25), Entrpc-Heal%(25)
Level 12: Stalagmites -- Amaze-Stun/Rchg(A), Posi-Dam%(19), Amaze-Acc/Stun/Rchg(27), Amaze-Acc/Rchg(27), Amaze-EndRdx/Stun(29), Amaze-ToHitDeb%(29)
Level 14: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), DefBuff-I(19), DefBuff-I(31)
Level 16: Embrace of Fire -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(31)
Level 18: Earthquake -- DarkWD-ToHitDeb(A), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/Rchg(31), DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(33), DarkWD-Rchg/EndRdx(33)
Level 20: Combustion -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(33), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(34), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Oblit-%Dam(40)
Level 22: Fly -- Frbd-Fly(A), Frbd-Stlth(34)
Level 24: Hover -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 26: Volcanic Gasses -- UbrkCons-Hold/Rchg(A), UbrkCons-Acc/Hold/Rchg(36), UbrkCons-Acc/Rchg(36), UbrkCons-EndRdx/Hold(36), UbrkCons-Dam%(37), Lock-%Hold(37)
Level 28: Consume -- Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(37), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(39), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(39)
Level 30: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 32: Animate Stone -- ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg(A), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg(40), ExRmnt-Dmg/EndRdx(40), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), HO:Perox(42)
Level 35: Stone Prison -- GravAnch-Immob/Rchg(A), GravAnch-Acc/Immob/Rchg(46), GravAnch-Acc/Rchg(46), GravAnch-Immob/EndRdx(46), GravAnch-Hold%(50)
Level 38: Blaze -- Apoc-Dmg/Rchg(A), Apoc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), Apoc-Acc/Rchg(43), Apoc-Dmg/EndRdx(43), Apoc-Dam%(43), Dev'n-Hold%(45)
Level 41: Scorpion Shield -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(45), LkGmblr-Rchg+(45)
Level 44: Personal Force Field -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 47: Summon Tarantula -- ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg(A), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg(48), ExRmnt-Dmg/EndRdx(48), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48)
Level 49: Stealth -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
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Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Domination
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(50), EndMod-I(50)
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Me, I'd want an X-com style turn-based squad tactics game set in the CoH universe. Group PvP in it would be fun as hell.
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I actually like the linear maps. Very little annoys me as much as when I'm playing a brute and have to spend a minute walking through branching corridors and loops just to find the next spawn point (the classic caves, particularly, are horrible about this), or I have to backtrack an entire floor to get to more enemies.
Edit: Which isn't to say that I don't think maps should split at all, but generally, I think they should be designed in a way where you're unlikely to go for three minutes without seeing enemies. If I wanted to run through a nearly-empty office building, I can do that at work. -
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Quote:I'm confused why everybody says this. I get a handful of thread drops per run (lowest was 2, not sure what the highest was). Breaking down the 4 Astral merits gets me another 16. I need 140 threads to craft all the Commons I need to get up to a single T3 Destiny. Am I missing some huge fountain of threads everybody but me knows about, or what?Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
both trials excrete threads and AMerits so fast
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Quote:I've been trying to figure out what they would be going by, because, like you said, they'd all favor certain things.Originally Posted by Biowraith
That's what I'm thinking too, and while it's not as bad as purely on participation I still don't like it - participation systems *always* end up favouring certain actions/characters/builds more than others (and often completely ignore some), and they rarely reflect true participation or contribution.
Raw damage dealt would obviously be a terrible metric. Number of enemies hit would strongly favor AoE sets. Number of targets interacted with (enemies hit + players healed/buffed) would still mostly favor AoE sets. Number of power activations seems like a better metric, but it would let you do something stupid like continuously cast a quick-recharge buff on one guy and get a very rare, and it would discourage buff sets with defensive toggles unless there was specific code in place for them. Number of unique power activations would be too gameable, since you could just use every power once and get a very rare. Number of enemies who targeted you would favor tanks.
It could also be something stranger, like having a minimum activity threshold to qualify for a reward (as I've seen a few people suggest)... and then if you qualify, the quality of your drop is random but weighted by the performance of the league as a whole.