Kyriani

I decided to go with the reactive radial on my ill/rad. The reason being is... with perma PA and phantasm and my own attacks even at 25% chance to apply the -res I'm reasonably able to keep the debuff stacked anyways... but the -res isn't very high even when stacked x4 so that % gain on my attacks (and my pets) isn't necessarily going to be very high whereas the dot damage isn't based on my damage output at all so I believe I get more dps out of the dot being up on everything with more regularity.

I went the opposite way on my mind/psi dom cause the -res would have a higher impact on his dps imo than the dot would and since he has no pets to help stack the debuff I wanted the highest chance possible to keep it up on my own.

I use my base all the time still =\

My teleporter network is used frequently especially when I know the arrival point is more convenient than where the tram will drop me off.

When I want to craft IOs I go to my base not a university. My base is always within quick reach.

I'm a packrat and store tons of inspirations, salvage and enhancements!

I also do most of my flashbacks from the pillar in my base.

If I die in a mission (and using a wakey isnt adviseable) I usually res in my base so I can restock on insps if needed

All in all I like having my own cozy little place that is tailored to my tastes and offers amenities for me. I just don't understand what people are talking about when they say bases have no use anymore... I use mine plenty =\

I believe it works like this:

generic io recipes end up around the level you are exemplared to.

set io recipes end up at the maximum level they can be at based on your lvl and the level of the recipe

so for example if you are lvl 50 but exemplared to 25 for a task force and you get a Kinetic Combat recipe (max lvl 35) you'll receive a lvl 35 recipe. If you got a LotG recipe it would be 50 and if you got a generic recharge io recipe it would be 25.

I am think that is how it works but I could be mistaken.

I guess the idea is that the "good stuff" is the max lvl it can be in relation to your lvl and the recipe min/max and the generic stuff is level appropriate to where you are exemplared so as not to give you big influence gains (from selling) for doing lower level content.

If I am mistaken i am sure someone will come along and correct me soon enough!

See I don't think the pvp recipes are inferior... just different. But when I am making a build I immediately rule them out just cause of the sheer rarity and cost.

I'd LIKE to use some of them but it simply isn't worth it to try and acquire them due to the way they are produced and the cost they garner because of that.

For example the pvp defense set has some great set bonuses for pve:

Regen, HP, resistances to energy/negative/psi/toxic, +dmg

there's nothing wrong with that set at all bonus wise and thats completely ignoring how awesome the unique is.

The other sets also have some great bonuses... The pvp heal set has a 7.5% recharge bonus in pve at 5 pieces. Thats a pretty nice bonus if you ask me and the unique is great Health/Fast Healing/High Pain Tolerance fodder. The melee set has a nice smashing/lethal resist bonus which is quite rare among set bonuses and it has it in a decent amount to boot. The ranged set has -3 KB protection which while not unique to pvp ios is nice to have another method of getting -KB without using uniques like BotZ. All in all while the pvp sets may not benefit everyone the same I can't really call them inferior. Some of them are downright desirable... just not worth the time or cost to get them currently.

I know pvp is largely forgotten by the devs and believe I don't really care either way about pvp but it just seems like a flaw in the system for these things to be so rare... rarer than the purple "very rare" recipes in fact. Doesn't that seem wrong to the devs? While I don't expect them to devote whole issues to pvp could it hurt to tweak the rate and methods of acquisition of these recipes? I mean it might actually PROMOTE pvp if people felt like they could "gear up" for it specifically without spending a fortune or farming a second account.

The powers I tend to auto are those whose effects are (or can be made) permanent such as:

Hasten
Domination
Mind Link
Clarion (incarnate status protection buff t3 is perma)
Accelerate Metabolism

I'd kill to be able to set more than 1 thing on auto just cause I have an ill/rad (haste, accel AND clarion) and a dom (hasten, domination AND mind link).

While I don't intend to pick on any else's method of play I will will say i find it personally annoying, lazy and overall inefficient to leave healing aura on autofire. Hearing the activation over and over again... even when not fighting anything can be aggravating after awhile. Same for the visual effect. You're also wasting endurance spamming a power that is often doing NOTHING cause people are either out of range and/or you/your party aren't suffering any damage.

My advice... build your character to have enough recharge to make hasten perma and set hasten as your autofire. Thats what I did on my empath. It ensures my recharge rates are consistent and I always know when my Recovery and Regeneration Auras will be available. It also ensures consistent recharge on your other useful buffs like Fortitude and Adrenalin Boost not to mention any CC powers you might have (I am planning on taking dominate and mass hypnosis on my empath so she can supplement my dps with some crowd control when the buffs are out and heals arent needed. Hasten makes those CC's more readily available consistently.)

What I don't understand is this... Why make the pvp recipes such a hassle to get? Wouldn't it encourage people to pvp more if they felt they could go in with the proper tools?

The carrot on the stick for pvp shouldn't be the IO recipes IMO. There's should be a currency earned from pvping that you can use to buy recipes with much like reward merits. The more people you kill the more of this currency you have to spend.

PvP IO recipes IMO should come from not just killing players in pvp but from mobs in pvp enabled zones (to encourage people to actually GO to those zones and spend time in them). Perhaps even have whatever missions are available in the pvp zones have a chance of dropping a pvp recipe at the end of the mission just like other mission ending recipe drops.

I am honestly surprised the devs have ignored pvp IO's for so long. It's such a huge chasm of price difference between everything else including purple recipes and the pvp uniques. The thing is most people only care about the pvp uniques and mainly for PVE!

It just seems to me like there is something wrong with the whole way pvp IO's are handled and it does nothing to encourage actual PVP. if they were to make the changes I suggested you'd see more people actually hanging out in the pvp zones and less people dual boxing to farm themselves in an arena.

ok for whatever reason my combat chat box doesnt show stuff from phantom army except their to hit rolls... i have the box set to show pet damage inflicted and all that jazz but NOTHING my PA does shows up there except to hit rolls.

Here's what I've noticed:

I AM seeing the visual effect of the debuff on the enemies my PA hits.

I am NOT seeing damage number ticks in combat chat or via floating combat numbers.

I am NOT seeing ANY damage data in my combat chat for PA

I AM seeing an increase in damage (tested using a temp power bow) when the -res debuff applied by my pets is present on a target

I often see this combat message "your attack strength has increased temporarily" which I believe is the buff from the pet build up proc though obviously no such buff appears on me but I guess thats just the way it shows up.

I hope these observations are helpful to anyone trying to figure this out. :P

maybe I am misremembering but i coulda swore i saw my PA applying the reactive proc on mobs... at least the visual was popping up... i will have to test again to be sure...

I've been waiting for it and pool power customization for ages now =\

Once upon a time it was possible to perma things like Unstoppable, Light Form, etc. Then the recharge time was increased to make that impossible. Now... just from toying with mids... if you got 225% global recharge and slotted unstoppable with all lvl 50 Recharge IOs AND used the very rare spiritual recharge alpha... it puts unstoppable's recharge time at 210 seconds roughly... leaving about 30 seconds of down time... how much more global recharge would it take to push it to 180? I'm just curious at what point it would be perma-able again via buffs like secondary mutation, empowerment station buffs, speedboost, adrenalin rush, Ageless Incarnate buff (which I believe averages out over its duration to about 22% recharge and is basically perma at the very rare level)

If any of you people who are good with numbers have some insight I'd love to hear it!

I've posted this before but for bases to see any real attention in the future they need to be a part of a new issue in some way. I touched on this in a post I made awhile back (for the curious http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251896).

Basically if you're going to try to get to the devs to work on bases then you need to show them how bases can be a feature in some way of a new issue or have an issue completely revolving around them. At its core there needs to be a broad use and selling point to making a new base building tech. This tech needs to be able to dynamically create maps in game. For a reference consider the old Neverwinter Nights toolset which had various tilesets with static features part of the tileset and placeable objects you could detail the created area with further. One feature the nwn tilesets didnt have that a coh one might benefit from is the ability to swap textures (consider the tech lab map thats retextured to be a longbow base for that one tip mission. same old tech map but looks vastly different by a simple texture swap). Ditching the current "buy a room" model and replacing it with a "this specifc tile is this type and texture" model is the way to go IMO.

Selling points to point out to the devs include:

* New tech gives devs a more streamlined tool to create mission areas and tailor them more to taste instead of using warehouse # 3 for the billionth time. They could simply paint down some prefabbed tiles, possibly even combine tiles for different area types to create some transitioning (much like the maps that go from office to sewers to caves) and dress them up with placeables to create much more varied and interesting maps of all types. This new tech could allow the developers to design more unique mission maps than the standard stock ones we've been using for years without having to spend labor/resources on modeling an entirely new map for a mission in house. If an algorithm could be developed to randomize key elements of a map using the new tech while still keeping the pathing and mob placement viable this could revolutionize all current and future missions making their maps more interesting and dynamic.

* New base builder tech could be included into AE allowing for player made maps on their AE missions.

* New tip missions could be made that create randomly generated maps

* New tech could allow for environments we currently don't have like outer space,underwater, deserts or even alien worlds.

The idea to convince the devs shouldn't be to try for an issue devoted to base building. But base building can be overhauled if a new issue justifies the time and expense. The goal imo should be to show the devs how new tech that happens to benefit base building could be the main feature of a whole issue of content that pretty much everyone can engage in at some level.

Features that could go hand in hand with this tech and be featured as part of an issue include:

* Personal bases. These bases would be small and unique to each individual hero/villain and obtained after doing a mission at level 10 for the city official in atlas park's city hall or Kalinda much like capes at 20 and auras at 30. Such personal bases could have a feature to transit into the owner's SG base where applicable. Personal bases could use simple influence to build with and could possibly be another type of inf sink to get inf out of the system. If using inf isn't desirable the personal base could instead use a new currency called personal prestige for building. Since a personal base is of limited scope and likely easy to cap out, personal prestige would only be purchased with influence from the sg registrar much like you purchase sg prestige. The idea of personal bases opens the tech up to EVERY player's use so they can all get a taste of it.

* The mission computer could have a wider variety of missions to offer that use the tech to create unique maps. These missions could also be accessed by those not in a supergroup via the community information terminals around the city so everyone has access to the content.

* There could be new types of tip missions that only drop when you are in a supergroup and if your sg plot is of an appropriate size and you have the feature enabled. These tip missions would use your SG basemap and have a level appropriate villain group invade the base. This type of mission wouldn't have any affect on your actual base as the mission map is merely a replica. There could also be new tip missions that draw on other sg bases for their maps allowing for a variety of tip mission locations and allowing sg bases be showcased to all players. There could possibly be a badge for completing a certain number of base invasion tip missions and mission computer missions.

* Task force badges could unlock certain new decorative base objects and themes related to the TF such as certain cimeroran themed objects/textures for completing the ITF. These features could be unlocked for both personal and SG bases so everyone can enjoy them.

aren't those quotes like 2 or 3 years old now? I mean like... even if its done a little at a time... thats quite a bit of time... they really couldnt get that squared away by now?

The longer it waits the more likely it ends up on that back burner where bases currently simmer -_-

I really wish they'd focus on this... I mean I know incarnate stuff is the new shiny... but if they always have "something new to focus on" we'll never get any of this far overdue stuff done.

Not being able to customize the pool and APP powers can really detract from the cohesiveness of a character's look.

Hell if they showed me what to do I'd do all the coding myself free of charge :P

I really wish they'd add customizing pool and APP powers... if they can do it for the incarnate powers without adding them at character creation then I just don't get why they can't add it for the others as well... tie it to a badge that you get at lvl 10 to show you have it unlocked so you don't have to worry about it at creation...

For bases to see any real attention in the future they need to be a part of a new issue in some way. I touched on this in a post I made awhile back (for the curious http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251896).

Basically bases on their own will not be enough to warrant the attention they need. But if there was a whole issue worth of content that relied on a system related to the base builder that could entice new subscribers or reactivation of old subscribers, THEN you could expect to see effort devoted to overhauling the base building system. Consider a new issue called "The World and Beyond!" an issue which features new environments/locations we don't have currently like outer space, other planets, etc.

For bases to get overhauled it will likely require a new type of tech to be made for the game... think of say the old Neverwinter Nights toolset. The CoH dev team needs a simplified tool like that to build new areas quickly and easily. This tool could in turn be adapted for base construction and possibly incorporated into AE for creating custom mission maps. Such a tool could lead to new environments for CoH like outer space, underwater or other unique/exotic environments as mentioned previously.

We won't ever see an issue devoted to base building. But base building can be overhauled if a new issue justifies the time and expense. The only way it can do that however is in a scenario like I mentioned above. If you read the topic I linked above you can see examples of how this tech could be used to improve the game over all and be issue worthy material.

you cannot change sides until you reach level 20 and you cannot start as an epic archetype in praetoria. So at best you'll have to lvl your SoA to 20 and then you can swap to hero side.