Laevateinn

Virtue

I can tell because RMT squads can now be seen operating on Virtue (teams of Fire/ and /FF, /Sonic, /Kin controllers with random names, all with hotfeet on and who move each other around with recall friend).

You say you've checked the video card temperature, but how about the processor?

I ask because a few months ago I had the same problem with the exact same symptoms as you did. It turned out that the processor fan was obstructed, causing it to overheat, and the framerate drop was due to processor throttling kicking in to try and keep it cool.

(edit) You can check it with CoreTemp: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

How much capital do you get to start with? Look at 35-50 common and uncommon salvage - some of them can be lowballed for basically nothing and sold for anywhere from 10k to 200k.

As a matter of practicality, though, you're probably better off running a lowbie AE arc, collecting 500 tickets and buying 1 rare salvage that goes for 2m on the market to sell. You'll get some experience, too. (edit: note: this is dependent on you being able to buy salvage from a level range above your current level. I've not tried it personally yet.)

Great stuff!

Great work, thanks for the heads up.

There's a lot I appreciate about this game, but one of the most subtle is the invention system. There's no such thing as a cookie-cutter build in CoH because it doesn't exist; IOs provide a huge amount of space for customization without compromising performance. It's a bit telling that even builds for the same powersets with the same build goals and budget can be significantly different. Even better, in this game you can't just throw money at a build and make it get better; you need to know what you're doing, or you'll end up with bad value for money at best and an inferior build at worst. I'm not sure if the devs grasp what a success they've accomplished. This ought to be the Holy Grail of game design everywhere.

I agree with the OP that this game can sometimes, inadvertently, present a very unfriendly face to new players. Some time ago on Guardian, I received a blind invite from a player. On a whim, I accepted. He said he needed help, and it turned out that he had failed a timed mission, and didn't know that you have to talk to the contact to clear it. So I explained this, told him how to put me on friends, send tells, etc. He thanked me and added that most people on the server weren't helpful. In retrospect I can see how it must have seemed that way to him: Everyone on hide, decline all blind invites (accompanied by a rude comment), no global channels or friends, etc.

It's easy for people with 5 years of paid-up game time (not vets - a vet is an experienced and knowledgeable player), pampered by vet attacks, a billion vet respecs, all-SG and global channel teams to claim that everything is easy and if you don't get it you must be stupid or lazy. EVE Online, which is about five zillion times less newbie-friendly than this game, at least dumps your character in a newbie corp (SG) which can serve as a starting place to meet other people.

Must-have: Build Up and Ring of Fire.

Consider: Fire Sword, Fire Sword Circle, Consume.

Maaaaybe: Blazing Aura (tiny radius), Combustion (long animation, DoT), Hot Feet.

Avoid: Burn (tiny radius, scatter, longish animation, DoT, can't be used while flying)


Don't worry about taking little from /Fire. You can reasonably skip the entire secondary except BU and do quite well, doubly so with the primaries that are strong enough to stand on their own (Archery and Fire).

Ring of Fire does high damage, and is usable as a ranged blast. Fire Sword/Fire Sword Circle are strong high-damage blaps. Consume refills your end and lets you abuse Blizzard more. The slow from Hot Feet and Ice Storm will stack to help reduce scatter, and Hot Feet is a huge (20ft radius) damage aura. I only have experience with Ice Blast on a Corruptor, but if I were to make a Ice/Fire Blaster I'd probably play it blapper-style: go in with Hot Feet running, Ice Storm, FSC, blap and blast the remainder to death coupled with Blizzard + eat small blue + Consume everytime it's up. IO wise, I'd think of going for a high S/L defense build with Frozen Armor from the Ice APP.

I can testify that marketeering isn't as hands-off as people are making it out to be. I market on 8 characters red and blueside, and just logging all of them in and out twice a day takes well over an hour. This is after I've employed every trick in the book to streamline the process and shave off seconds. You need transaction slots, inventory slots, capital and niches to reduce risk. Using transaction slots to marketeer means you have less to sell your own loot and lowball for stuff. There is risk and unlike farming, you can actually lose money. Marketeering is not superior to farming as a source of income at least at the top end of the scale.

I have no idea what the point of this was, but "6 types of crappy hugs" was HILARIOUS!

You seem to have heavily slotted for +Regen. I've experimented with high levels of regen on another blaster (Fire/Fire) and got lackluster results; in my experience recharge (to kill things faster) and defense (to prevent getting hit) are much superior build goals on a Blaster. Archery Blasters thrive on recharge. You have the best AoE attack of any Blaster primary, Rain of Arrows, and you want to abuse it as often as possible. I strongly recommend getting a decent amount of global recharge within the constraints of your budget.

For your single-target attacks some good slotting choices are: 6 Thunderstrikes (accuracy, recovery and ranged defense), 4 Devastations/2 Thunderstrikes (HP, regen and recovery bonus), and 5 Decimations (HP and recharge bonus). You also want to make sure you are at, or close to, the ED cap on damage (+95% damage) for all your attacks; personally I would try not to go below +90%. Fewer well slotted attacks beats more badly slotted attacks.

Fistful of Arrows and Explosive Arrow are overslotted for damage. You can slot level 35 Positron's Blasts instead which will put you exactly at the ED cap for damage and offer some exemplar capability; alternately you can drop either the Dam/End or Acc/Dam and replace it for the proc, which will add more damage on average. For Fistful of Arrows, in the 6th slot I would add a Range IO which extends the length of the cone so you can hit more baddies with it.

I wouldn't bother spending an extra 2 slots on Hover just to get a measly 1.5% HP bonus. You can put just a Karma -KB in the default slot, adding a Fly common IO if you actively use it in combat. If you can afford it I recommend putting a Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge speed in here as well.

You don't need the AoE defense from Scirocco's Dervish in Fire Sword Circle. I would 6-slot it with 5 Obliterations (all but the proc) and 1 Endurance reduction common IO for the 5% recharge bonus.

Blazing Aura has a very tiny radius (8ft) and it's quite hard to catch enemies in it. Unless you're taking it just for looks, I'd drop it for Hot Feet which has a much bigger radius (20ft) and also slows enemies. Note that you cannot activate Hot Feet in the air, however you can activate it on the ground, then fly and it will work as normal. I'd slot it Multistrike Dam/End, Multistrike Acc/Dam/End, Scirocco's Dervish Acc/Dam, Scirocco's Dervish Acc/Dam/End to get more damage enhancement in it.

I'd add a 5th slot of Stupefy to stunning arrow for the 6.25% recharge bonus.

Rain of Arrows is your best attack and you should try to get high recharge enhancement in it. I would slot it 5 Positron's Blast (all but the proc) and 1 level 50 Recharge common IO, or 5 Ragnaroks (all but the proc). You can expect to pay about 200m per enhancement for the Ragnaroks; they should not be lightly used for frankenslotting.

Burn is terribly underslotted for an attack and it's not that great of an attack in the first place. It causes scatter, has a tiny radius and is a PBAoE so you have to get right up to enemies to use it. You also can't use it while flying. I'd drop it for Consume or, if you want immobilization protection, Combat Jumping (which is another great place to stick a Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge).

Assault is overslotted for endurance reduction. I personally wouldn't bother taking Assault on a Blaster since the bonus isn't very significant.

Bonfire needs no slotting; 1 recharge will do.

Reactive Armor in Fire Shield is useless since you do not have other significant sources of defense to stack with it. I'd go with Steadfast protection for the HP bonus, or Impervium Armor for the recovery bonus.

Rise of the Phoenix needs no slotting. The damage looks impressive on paper, however it is dealt in 3 waves, and each wave causes knockback; therefore you'll have a hard time getting the maximum damage out of it. I would slot it just 1 Recharge.

Scrapper defenses will take time to mature, and CoT are a 10-50 enemy group. You'll be dealing with being mezzed, debuffed and hit hard a lot.

That said, I can't really think of anything ideal myself. Maybe an Ill/Rad or Ill/any debuff set controller? Invincible pets + confuse + stealth gets you past a lot of nasty stuff.

I have no idea where people like the OP get the idea that concept and performance are somehow at odds with each other. Such people are at a loss to explain why every single one of my characters strictly adheres to concept yet has extremely high-performance and well-designed builds. I'm proof that there's zero difference between so-called "concept" builds and "min-max" builds. There is only incompetence at 1) creativity or 2) build design which causes you to be unable to fufill both goals at once.

I've even got better concepts out of indulging the minmaxer in me. For a long time I wanted to play a Rad/Sonic defender, but the lack of a solid concept and name held me back. I made up some stuff about a post-apocalyptic punk rocker with radioactive powers, but it felt very weak to me. Then I realized that I could portray a Rad/Sonic defender as a hero with time and space manipulation powers. AM = speed up time, LR = slow down time, EMP = time stop. Her sonic attacks were reality-warping energy blasts that weakened the molecular structure of matter and rendering it vulnerable to further attack. By warping the structure of local space-time she could cause enemy attacks to miss. If something went wrong, she could jump back several instants in time to correct the mistake, causing wounds to "heal" and defeated allies to rise again and fight. I took SS and teleport for concept, which also let me slot many blessings of the zephyr for ranged defense. The resulting character is probably one of the most fun and powerful I've ever played.

It's funny how the OP choses to whine about people who don't strictly adhere to concept. It's even funnier how the OP gets all high and mighty after selling out his concept and rerolling as Fire/Regen. I'd love to hear what the rationale for that is. Most comic-book superheroes don't have much of a theme, and their powers wax and wane to the whims of plot and changing writers. Superman is probably the worst offender. Super speed, super strength, super toughness, flight, super jumping, X-ray vision... I see no theme but powergaming. Ironically, due to legions of copycat characters over the decades Inv/SS is now considered a "high-concept" build for no reason other than that the biggest munchkin of all time used it.

Nukes actually have 105 base ToHit, 150% of the 75 base ToHit most attacks have. Aim + Nuke, both unslotted, is still 95% chance to hit against +4 enemies. Slotting accuracy is a waste of slots.

Okay, maybe not orders of magnitude. That sort of stuff is reserved for superteams abusing stacking buff/debuffs. As long as it's a significant boost to performance, includes rewards that aren't casually attainable, and creates some sort of long-term advancement goal, I'll be happy.

Adding defense IOs to Phalanx Fighting only increases the defense bonus it grants when you are near allies. It does not boost the static defense bonus from the power that is always on.

Not long ago I did an AE farm for a few rounds. It was still pretty lucrative in terms of both XP and tickets (I was able to ticket cap myself pretty easily). I don't know how this compares to pre-nerf farm productivity, but I'm beginning to wonder if all the hullaboo over the nerf was just a tad exaggerated.

From least to most expensive:

Frankenslot to get ED-capped accuracy, damage and recharge.

5 Scirocco's Dervish - all but the proc - and a Recharge common IO. Use this if you need AoE defense.

5 Obliterations - all but the proc. Add the proc if you need the melee defense.

5 Armageddons, all but the Dam: Superior.

There isn't even that much information to speculate on. I'm just going to post my wishful thinking.

Ideally, it'd be a major new game mechanic a la the Invention System - something that improves performance by orders of magnitude, provides complexity and long-term (months, years) goals for characters, and offers rare, powerful and costly rewards not attainable by casual players.

I think the new system should not offer an alternative to the IO system for improving characters. Players should not be given the option of going "Oh, I can't afford a -KB IO. Maybe I'll do X content and get a -KB bonus instead!" That just diminishes the value of IOs without adding anything really new or desirable. Rather, the new content should be complementary with and improve upon what you can already achieve with IOs. The majority of top-end IO builds focus on recharge and/or defense. I'd like to see the expansion offer feasible ways to build for, say, massive amounts of +Dmg and +Reistance. How about building for high mez resistance? What about massive amounts of +HP?

Anything that's as simple and easy as doing a thinly-disguised paper mission and getting a bonus would be a huge disappointment. If i9, a free issue, can completely change the face of the powergaming metagame I expect more from a paid expansion than glorified base empowerment buffs.

Regardless of what new systems the expansion offers I would like to see improvements to existing systems. New IO mechanics, new ultra-rare recipes and an extension of the invention system's capabilities would be great. We got some of these with the i13 sets and later on with PvPIOs. I've been waiting for a TAoE set with decent bonuses that's not Position's Blast for a long time now.

I don't expect any nerfs to IO sets as a result of the new bonuses. I expect that the way they will "challenge" heavily-IOed characters will be to implement more critters that vastly exceed or break the norms of the game. Things like Reichsman and GW with Mag 100 mezzes, Hamidon which hits through phase and ignores all defense and resistance, Winter Lord with hitpoints in the hundreds of thousands, Recluse with his 4 towers of cheat codes. Even, as a less extreme example, the final ITF mission where the Nictus Essences are immune to mezzes and have autohit attacks. IOs are a neat bonus in such encounters but they don't decide success or failure, unlike AV/GM soloing where the quality of your build can make or break the attempt, and characters without IOs can still contribute meaningfully as well.

I think you can see a trend in recent content pointing towards all this (Reichsman, Winter event). Castle has mentioned that some future enemies might have diminishing returns applied on stacking debuffs. I expect him to use this mechanism to produce more enemies that can't be quickly chewed through. I also expect to see more "scripted" encounters such as in the last mission of Barracuda's strikeforce and more Winter Event-style mini-raids.

As far as I know, the Universal Slots thing was only ever mentioned in that marketing survey NCsoft did. While a lot of features from that survey have indeed materialized, it's still not a guarantee that we're going to get everything in there.

Direct merit purchases are the worst buys in the entire game because influence has much more purchasing power. Let me demonstrate.

You want some Kinetic Combats, which will cost 1575 merits or 480 million.

Right now I see that level 50 LotG 7.5 sells for around 120 million:



...and costs 200 merits each.

You could earn 800 merits, buy 4 LotG 7.5s and sell them on the market, making you 480 million, and buy your Kinetic Combats with that. (Note that you earn more by crafting the recipes before selling them, or buying the Lv25 version - this is just a convenient example.)

You save 775 merits - the merit store charges you nearly twice as much as the market does.