City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Laevateinn

Mentor

  • Posts

    1142

  • Joined

  1. Laevateinn
    I knew this day would come, and already started transitioning builds from enzymes to cytos starting late last year.

    Luckily, for powers slotted with 2 HO's and 1 LotG 7.5 (Lv50), the difference in enhancement value is not very much at all. High end builds can expect to lose ~1% defense which you can make up by overslotting elsewhere.

    The only build of mine that really needed working over was (ironically) my SR, who had so many def powers she was way over the LotG cap and relied on 2x enzymes for slot efficiency.
  2. Laevateinn
    Thematic and would add some oomph to a set with mostly subtle effects.
  3. Laevateinn
    I don't agree with the incendiary ammo changes. The bleed damage would likely be lethal damtype - not an improvement. And Mag 1 fear would not actually do anything (you need Mag 2 to affect minions, Mag 3 to affect Lt, and Mag 4 for bosses).

    Damage is king because damage is a versatile, usually permanent, and fairly universal solution. If you want to get people out of that mindset, then you need to offer competitive alternatives that are equally powerful and versatile.

    Personally I'd make Cryo ammo proc a chance to hold on all attacks, and double the -Dmg on chem rounds to -20% dmg a shot. I'd also make swap ammo change 100% of the damtype into the selected element, up from 30% currently. That might actually get people swapping ammo to deal with elemental weaknesses or resistances.

    I would love for redraw to be gone - but given that BAB tried to eliminate it and couldn't, I'm resigned to it being some sort of fundamental limitation in the game engine. Instead, I think DP would do well with just an animation time tweak (in particular, reducing Exec shot's cast time, the second longest of any T3 blast in the game) and shortening the nuke's recharge to match that of Rain of Arrows. Archery gets a ToHit bonus (above and beyond the one that all weapon sets get), built-in endurance reduction, 80ft range on its T3 blast, and yet its nuke recharges shorter and is usable from range. That's an imbalance however one looks at it.
  4. Laevateinn
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Comicsluvr View Post
    4) He's FUN! Jeez people all I hear is 'how much damage can I pump out in 8 seconds on a Trial.' Doesn't anybody build for FUN any more?
    I think everyone builds for fun. The caricature of the numbers-obsessed minmaxer who nitpicks over every percentage point and has a miserable life doing so is just that, a caricature. Nobody actually behaves like that, except maybe through the lens of your cognitive bias.

    If people obsess over how much damage they can pump out in 8 seconds on a trial, obviously having high damage is fun for them. People will enjoy different things than you.
  5. Laevateinn
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TrueMetal View Post
    Doing mission from front to back in stead of skipping 80% of it =/= kill all.
    Close enough to not matter. Also, [citation needed] still. I only see "Defeat 100 Traitors" in the objective window. I don't see "Defeat 100 Traitors, starting from front to back and not veering off the course by more than a 60 degree angle or 200ft".
  6. Laevateinn
    I used to basically ignore level shifts when recruiting for trials until I understood the mentality of those who bring +0's to UG: even if the trial fails they still get a big chunk of iXP, astrals and threads at the expense of others' time while contributing little to nothing to the two key battles.

    I never bother optimizing team composition and I don't really care how effective your character is. But I do expect, at least, a show of good faith and the intention to contribute. Someone intentionally bringing a +0 to UG fails that requirement.
  7. Laevateinn
    I don't mind tauntless tanks any more than I mind buffless defenders, because I don't believe in outsourcing my defense/damage to China.
  8. Laevateinn
    Data chunk or datalink please
  9. Laevateinn
    I like it, and not for the reward either. It rewards speed, skill and situational awareness, which this game ought to do more of. These days I only do slowboat ITFs when I'm levelling up a new alt (not often), or want to show off one of my high damage characters.

    As for turning every mission into a defeat all being the "intended" way to play, [citation needed]
  10. Laevateinn

    Elec Blast

    POST-ACTION

    Try to look on the bright side: a lot of powersets that were pretty sucky have been buffed lately, and some actually got pretty good.
  11. Laevateinn
    I happen to part of a very insular, invite-only RP channel. Recently, someone invited a bunch of random people in and there was much anxiety by some members over inviting people who weren't "one of us" and might use chatspeak and so on. The unfriendliness and elitism were shocking. Contrast this with another channel dedicated to speed TFs that I'm also in, which was generally friendly and cooperative without drama. I left the RP channel soon after.

    It's cliquish attitudes like this that have always made me think twice about joining any sort of RP supergroup.
  12. Laevateinn
    Try this. Softcapped S/L/E, capped hitchance vs +3 enemies, permahasten, all key powers taken and properly slotted etc, i.e. standard controller build. It's cheap to boot (no PvPIO and 2 frankenslotted purples).

    Even if you have no trouble soloing, softcapped defense is still valuable since it will allow you to solo tougher spawns. In teams, you can absorb the alpha if there isn't a tank and take the initiative, and besides kin is such an absurdly efficient set it's a waste not to take tough/weave. I prefer S/L/E on kins since this way you get to melee with impunity and get the full benefit of your buffs.

    Alpha is Spiritual Core Paragon. If you exemp, you can use siphon speed to make up for the lost recharge (alternately, lose some rech from the build and make up for it with siphon speed, then put the extra slots elsewhere).


    Code: 
    | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1447;664;1328;HEX;|
|78DA6594DB6E12511486F786C1CAA9D002851E68116C414068A3C61B13132BADB5A|
|0D4D3AD21744A272140008DBDD2EAADF6606DBC301E1FC0C42B7D10355EF415B48D|
|3EC0B866D64F218164F866FEBDD6DEFF5A7BCF141E5D757D5EDCBC2CA477BE5A6AB|
|5EECFD76BED66BD5A559BB642A9A29585F11BA02BDA1DE90465169BA5875A7BA3F3|
|1CEA09B9F2606D2DB3ACD5D4B6566E0967B14EE10B55ADB2DE7698F7B71BAABAEA3|
|16FF36A69556DB6D6B5869BC38C28AD5699C835B472A667CE42A9ACD25FABAD3637|
|42646986AE2D29F0D36DE22D614E119677E07BA6F201FCC83CF18999EBCD5D963C5|
|6609EBC01DE64268BCCF418E76ED3A344AEFC6E1122AC08D70FE6E04FF017D30B1F|
|DE258BC9054AB49AD9BAB062BE1D7AB4613E1BEAF0A38E11E48FA08E10EA08A18E5|
|DC95B64E40E7C656DEC1BF8867D4FDCE5B527BEB03E7989A858C5351AB6C38B1D5E|
|9C349993E713CE03CAB32B224A9A9B35E94E715C1C1CA2318FD90CDDE209F07A931|
|779FE0EF7481E82C721F42B827E45D0AF08FA752AC75EB3F0739D727DF0E34BB2B6|
|445A005A208DFD261F41D6ACC122C14773AD80B798B13BCC57943F0A3FA38FD973E|
|C09B8C93CFD147C06A25E2BAD338EB5C783D2EC8F425A183D08A30733A8BDC37D92|
|A7E06FEA906B9C3962C6FF82FF98798A8DC25FF4396BE917E016F3EC36B803EE328|
|D233CCD7B2AA7D1C32CBCEFD32624D8A72DE1609F679CA00B74E3CC0F821EA69D6A|
|4C71AE48A1461F6919D664E602D79905FD34368B3ECD22FEB783DE1BCC2163ECE9B|
|0AB49798FE3868D4D8F2BE24F6F7C82E38FBA9A45BEE69A875F32FD7B38E7CAF1BB|
|6D15380B0E9C0507CE820B6721DC8DD593DD7BE35127E77DCA5C9F72AE4F39DFA7E|
|4FB94A272FC0D11D254EC5EE3CBC04E56E8C8CF7195FA7F7952D75F|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
  13. Laevateinn
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex View Post
    I am looking for which support sets can most consistently work with whatever they are given and still pull through.
    Any of the traditional powerhouse ones. Rad, Time, Dark, Cold, etc. Therm is versatile and has res shields instead of def ones, but is difficult to design a capable build for, and has the big weakness that its -Res is on too long a timer to make it an every-spawn power.

    I understand what you're trying to do because I build for it on all my characters. But I think you're making a mistake by considering only direct counters e.g. +Res vs. BAF towers, heals vs. Disintegration. I think it's more useful to consider how to accomplish the same result. BAF towers for example, res shields aren't needed because with clever maneuvering to ensure only 1 tower is shooting you at any point, it's very easy to pull the AVs.

    In the case of Keyes, the desired result is: AM dead, trial successful. You can do it with heals, or you can try to stack -Res and +Dmg and pull out lore pets. My experience with new Keyes at least is that they're equally successful. And while you're right that an emp etc. would be better off pulling healing duty, it hasn't been proven if they would be more effective than a Rad/Sonic stacking -80% res on him. I've failed Keyes before on my Emp. Targetted heals are dependent on plenty of external factors to be successful here (willingness of other players to let you heal them being the big one).

    One day more trials will be released and then you may get new situations that need direct counters you don't have. I think rather than focusing on having the correct support for every situation, it's probably more practical to focus on designing characters that are versatile and well-rounded in general because such characters will never be very disadvantaged.

    Quote:
    Agreed that this type of character is useful, but it doesn't really support.
    Only if you consider support in the classic sense of buff/debuff/control. Most UG leagues will wipe without a skilled melee to handle the war walker and the Avatar.
  14. Laevateinn
    Some time after trials were launched, I started carrying trays of all large/super insps with a row of small purples to stay softcapped. I rarely use them at all, so I'm missing out on a lot of +dmg, but they've helped in some tricky situations. I've basically traded peak performance for reliable performance.

    My definition of "sucky league" has now been updated to "any league where I have to use the whole tray".
  15. Laevateinn
    Quote:
    - have a non-aggro confusion power that stacks quickly
    - be able to heal disentegrating targets during Keyes
    - have hefty -Regen for big bosses
    - be a strong counter to the UG bosses' Confusion
    - have resistance shields for the team
    - be able to off-tank in an emergency
    - be able to self heal quickly (note: I've found this to be very helpful in general)
    - be able to self rezz if killed
    - do suprisingly decent DPS to bosses once Controllers get automatic Containment bonuses in issue 22
    - be able to resurrect players during MOM (unfortunately not very often)
    - electively have the ability to make the group invisible (not very useful elsewhere, potentially very useful in lambda and tpn depending on the type of teammates you get)
    A lot of this list isn't necessary, since there's more than one way to skin a goat. e.g. on Keyes it's often more practical to try and DPS through disintegration heals than to attempt to save players, since it only heals AM for 20% now. Thus, -Res and damage are more effective than heals. Confuse isn't important, at least not more than any other control. No one vicky gets past properly designed, multilayered defence in depth consisting of debuffs, controls, def/res, heals, high DPS and a working brain. Any classic top-tier buffdebuff build (rad/sonic, fire/dark etc.) with properly chosen ipowers will handle everything that this list is trying to handle.

    MoM and UG need you to be able to pull AVs to specific places even when other players are attacking them. Since only melee characters can do this reliably, it pays to have a good melee character to go with your buffdebuff as well. Shield is convenient since it's immune to the Avatar's perma-confuse, but there are other good options as well.
  16. Laevateinn
    Posiblast has crippled recharge. You tend to need to 6-slot it to get the rech back up to acceptable levels.

    Rag is OK but you can only have one set, and that goes in the APP aoe.
  17. Laevateinn
    I have 10 characters across all servers that I take seriously. All of them have fully fleshed out backstories and concepts, costumes I spent dozens of hours designing, top-tier powerset combos, >10bn inf all-T4 incarnate builds, and what I consider good names. Quality over quantity. But I don't have mains or self-insert characters, either. All my characters ought to be just as worthy of my time.
  18. Laevateinn
    This was my final ill/emp build. Perma-PA and fortitude perma on 7 characters, roughly half of which is powerboosted. The build had a few nagging issues I was never able to solve (such as not being able to cap hitchance vs. +3 enemies on Flash, since I had no room for tactics. Eventually the character got rerolled as Ill/time, which is a more powerful secondary than emp and fits her concept better - don't you love it when minmaxing and concept go hand in hand?


    Code: 
    | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1547;719;1438;HEX;|
|78DA6593DB4E13511486F7B453B02D482BE743E981434B69A76D40144CD4C8C99A9|
|2D49878A76480814E32B4CD4C21F6D257D0443CC40818F5CE1731FA02FA0A0AE8B5|
|A98B597F6963276DBEBDFFB5FEBDD73EAD3D59EAF8BCFAF496907C8B866A59EB8BA|
|562C52C198666BAD6D41D7D53D0E7CDA95BD5D092BEAF17B576EA8F3592EAF94AD6|
|30F62CBD54AC0BFD4D3977F6B6B795E5DDB25A2954FDD9624133B56245A937BCF91|
|2F9570C7DA750F1D8ED07654DDBEAB29B394DDDD24CABA097FD763F5BDCD72D7D43|
|37F44A7568B9AC6F2A7953DF558DF59592B9A959EB6BAA55D1CCEA005519A7FFA12|
|4F0D55CE280109585E325F88A29BF06DF30DBB20E2132B29869786531E2B4B5B600|
|F3D22818647A42CC77E491309F94E4713C0AB32305A69997336082BDB36474623E2|
|7E6EBC17C3D98AF0FF3F561BE23F2B8D8E370CD1164A748AA3C6EF231D34D47D66E|
|175593DA7BA931208B813161C7E6A8EB66BF704FB3F69E342F6B9217F9C930C7BC3|
|45627629DDF69FC088DF583E896C5354AEDC2585D71CEFF409A1F6BF29F703D43A7|
|E06FE6C81FF036F33A79BAD9E3EC5EE0358DFE4FD415A17A7AB1B65ED41F02FD14E|
|BE798DCDF2371CC077633C31827FC97D202B2F848DD41AC61709EE79A276D186B1E|
|C6D861F09862019C776089EB1F5B0657C055E6F85D7088BD9FC81BC43A83D893F13|
|3E624F666127BB340B911EC630477631277238ABB11C5DD88E26EDC20CF046A9B80|
|670A9E2978A6E089C39309716D5FA81B436DB143D6E247E03133F196F99572A7799|
|F1DD33779CF1231C97E4B8971E6558282FA15D492422D29D4920AD66B607E23A471|
|1669ECF7887CF126E947DFF9A1D5955ABC259A6E51322DCA4C8B32DBA2E45A94BC7|
|CF1D285642B6EDFC5FBADFDF4505442146FEDA4A139A430AFD1F750B2EF9DEFDEF9|
|A597C5AF665F8C7DA70DCD291DF07DB8F20C7CCECCBC60DEA78793E1DC5ADE63576|
|BB71F35B5D5A6F64653FB1F0553EFC3|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
  19. Laevateinn
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    Actually, I thought turning the Blaster into a Range/Defense AT, with low hit points (think stalker), but make it so their AOE attacks are high damage, while they're ST are weaker then the other melee ATs.

    Make it so the melee's are more ST boss killers, while Blasters are more the lawnmower.

    Now obviously there would be some sets to switch this about like melee already has. And sadly way to far into the game for this, but maybe in CoH2!

    This isn't to say give them terrible ST damage either. Just that would be the seperation between melee and blast. Boss killers and lawnmowers! Blasters would still do decent ST damage, just wouldn't be high as melee.

    But like I said, to far into it for that sort of change.
    I don't see the point of worsening the disparity between blaster and melee DPS just to give them survivability equal to melee characters. I'd much rather revamp blaster secondaries so that they actually perform the function of support rather than being a bunch of melee attacks on a lower damage scale than your ranged ones. More ways to deal with mezzes beyond Defiance, more soft control, a single-target -res debuff for spiking hard targets and more self-buffs along the lines of what energy and MM get, and that would actually make blasters comparable in power to other ranged squishies. It will also never happen.
  20. Laevateinn
    My characters, regardless of AT, powersets and build, are all identical. They all have the same role, which is to fight and win whatever the circumstances.
  21. Laevateinn
    I can't imagine what sort of person would consider that "selfish".

    Also, when I asked for help filling for my solo defender STF attempt (failed at Aeon), people were universally supportive.
  22. Laevateinn
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rabid_M View Post
    I have a question for everyone, because I'm curious as to what the response would be:

    If they made SMALLER (4-8 players) Incarnate Trials, much like the Halloween trial, would people run them more than the larger trials?

    Would they run them enough to make them worth making?

    Would you run them even if you're taking out "smaller" targets than the large trials take on? (A raid on a warehouse full of New and Improved Enriche, for example, with a non-Praetor AV at the end.)

    Why/why not?
    Yes, provided that smaller trials are just as difficult as current trials are (the definition of difficulty being failure rate), and maintain a lot of the beneficial changes that trials in general have introduced, such as rewarding generalist builds, an emphasis on situational awareness and reaction time, the 64 base tohit of enemies and timed objectives.

    Small trials have lots of advantages - less time to launch, less lag and most of all it's much easier to stand out in a small team. In a group of 8, one heavily minmaxed, expertly played build can carry the entire group (trials are large enough that you tend to need a core of 'elite troops' to do the same job, and that makes things trickier). But let's not have what are just plain old TFs with bigger rewards.
  23. Laevateinn
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hopeling View Post
    I believe Power Boost can be slotted with Membranes/Cytoskeletons/Enzymes to make it provide a larger defense boost. That should allow you softcap quite easily.
    Thanks, I didn't know this.
  24. Laevateinn
    Fiery embrace is better. It's roughly +40%-45% base damage that is affected by damage buffs. To give you an idea of how much this is, it would be roughly equivalent to giving all your attacks the same base damage as scrappers. As for tohit and accuracy, there are plenty other places to get those.
  25. Laevateinn
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DSorrow View Post
    It is not actually that tricky to get S/L/Ranged soft cap on a perma PA Illu/Cold.[/list]
    This is impressive, but after reading this, I have to ask - with or without Weave? Because I couldn't find any way to do it without the 7% from Weave.