Live_Wyre

I thought I saw it in patch notes, and I thought "Now I can just hypno people and fulcrum shift and decimate them". Best thing to do is find one of your corruptors and /respec up to the pools. Villains automatically get hero pools on a respec but heroes still have to do the patron arcs to get the pools.

UPDATE-->I just confirmed it. They do get it. The other powers are whatever, but that one would be decent on the right build.

I usually make the characters that I would like to see on the other side of the table. I have various kinetics on heroes and villains, tanks that tank, scrappers that can jump in first and live, and even awesome looking concept characters. I hate seeing cookie cutter builds with cookie cutter names. Throw some color in, a cool back story and voila! unique character. I always wish I would see fulcrum shift when I am on my blaster or fire tank, but I seldom do. I also like to see stormies and other such "not the best builds". My grav/storm controller absolutely stopped caring what the team looked like after hibernate. With all the chaos, no one will notice me getting all my health and endurance back. I also like to see bubblers and competent empaths. Bubbles are like a green light for destruction. It's a kitchen pass from your wife. It's that liquid courage from jack and coke... And as for empaths, I just want one that does not insist on giving fortitude to the stone tank. Some others may "need it" but on a stone it means we shouldn't be fighting purples, and that the rest of us are out of luck barring one person. I mean, it's great that the one person who had the best chance at living anyway gets the buff, but as they are there proving how strong they are with granite and fortitude, the rest of us are returning from the hospital.

So, I got the cards in the mail today and installed. Did a few tests with some tree leaves and such. I saw minimal improvement in the amount of particles in Heroes and Villains outside. I saw maybe a 5-10 framerate improvement, but at 60-70 something, who's counting. After a little running around with my Gravity controller(best for gathering leaves and such), I decided to do a safeguard. Inside the mish was not much of anything going on, as heroes don't destroy much in those, so I went villain. I did a mayhem on my gravity dom this time. From what I gather, Physx just puts more stuff inside something, so when it blows up, you get more boom. In vans, it put boxes in the vans, and in cars it put more "car parts". In little boxes, it put random fluff. It didn't cause any particles to persist that would not have persisted with max particles on anyway.

Overall, for 20 bucks, if you want that little extra, it's a good deal. However, had I paid $200+ for one of these cards to play heroes, I would have been EXTREMELY disappointed to almost the point of having a personal vendetta against the creator for even thinking it was worth $200.

The images below are the opposite corners of the same parking lot. In both pictures the debris is from two vans only. The top is with max physics with Aegia Physx disabled and the bottom is with the card enabled. Sorry about the image quality, photobucket was jacking up. In the top picture the van has door pieces and such, but in the bottom picture, there are actually more things that came out of it. There were a couple boxes, some computer screens, and even a file cabinet or two. So with the card enabled, actual extra items are coded into the game, not just extra random pieces.

I know they don't do much for the game overall, but now they are reasonable. I just picked up 2 with expedited shipping from amazon for $58. just putting the word out, since NVidia Physx does even less for the game overall. Don't know about drivers and such, but for 50 bucks, I'll try.

Sony-Good for as long as you just need that... When I gutted my VAIO, I had to upgrade the case and power supply just to add a video card and cpu fan. The motherboard was put in with some crazy reverse screwed in method so it was not just a one for one swap. It rocked when I needed that computer but sony doesn't seem to want you swapping stuff. Also once I gutted it, the TV card was not recognized by Vista and the computer components were not "recognized" by Sony's drivers as a VAIO computer, so the package would not install.

Toshiba-I had a laptop with a dedicated graphics card and a cheapo Celeron. It still worked nicely with the game. The only downside was when my brother corrupted it and got the blue screen. I reinstalled Vista and it can't find the dedicated graphics, so the game says it doesn't support it and won't run the game.

For building a computer, I stick with EVGA now because of their cross-shipment returns. When you register, you have options on how you want your component shipped if anything should stop working. Then they ship the new component to you before you ship the old one. This let's you return stuff, receive your part, and then send the defective part, so your system is not crippled.

Those are the only real opinions I have on specific things.

Sony-Good for as long as you just need that... When I gutted my VAIO, I had to upgrade the case and power supply just to add a video card and cpu fan. The motherboard was put in with some crazy reverse screwed in method so it was not just a one for one swap. It rocked when I needed that computer but sony doesn't seem to want you swapping stuff. Also once I gutted it, the TV card was not recognized by Vista and the computer components were not "recognized" by Sony's drivers as a VAIO computer, so the package would not install.

Toshiba-I had a laptop with a dedicated graphics card and a cheapo Celeron. It still worked nicely with the game. The only downside was when my brother corrupted it and got the blue screen. I reinstalled Vista and it can't find the dedicated graphics, so the game says it doesn't support it and won't run the game.

For building a computer, I stick with EVGA now because of their cross-shipment returns. When you register, you have options on how you want your component shipped if anything should stop working. Then they ship the new component to you before you ship the old one. This let's you return stuff, receive your part, and then send the defective part, so your system is not crippled.

Those are the only real opinions I have on specific things.

On my grav/storm controller, I took the ice epic, just for hibernate. With all the action of storm going on, I have time to pop it after a series of dropping powers and have my endurance fully restored. It's good for the heal too, but with all that storm has, I am rarely actually dying, unless I am messing up horribly. Also, if hasten is up all the time, that means it's crashing all the time. My friend runs hasten on a lot of builds and (coincidentally) the only time I hear him complain about endurance is on a build with hasten. The crash is bearable, but all the time, it starts to add up.

Slot up the heal and nothing you should face solo should be able to leave you with that little health. Use Suppression fire when you get it and it takes one thing out of the fight. I stuck with incendiary on my DP/Kin, and when times where hard I went with ice to slow the incoming damage down. On bosses, ice and siphon speed stack nicely.

Teaming is not a cop out. You will be fairly weak compared to other sets until you get your SOs. Use the single target attacks, as they are better solo. I initially built for a team, even though I was soloing and it sucked. Pistols looks great but is pretty weak. That's why I specifically chose kin to go with it. Now my guy has made it to fulcrum and hail kills nearly everything and I run at 200-400% damage all the time. It was definitely worth the wait. It's a blaster level nuke every minute--less with recharge bonuses.

I would(did) go kinetics. I built for recharge in IOs. Hail is up nearly at the start of every group, but at the least, during every group. With fulcrum shift, it kills pretty much everything. My build was not made for being awesome alone, so I have not tried farming. I am pretty sure it could be a farm build if I live through the alpha(no defense). Other than that, I like the combo very much.

You can also add more trays to open spots of the screen by hitting the little plus sign atop the tray. I use it for toggles and seldom-used powers(pocket-d, base teleport, ouroboros and toggles). That frees up your mounted 3 trays for powers that you use all the time. Once I am toggled I don't really need to have it in my line of sight, so that tray is just in the corner of the screen.

I just found out about the scaling per power thing. Now I try to get as close to 100% as I can without including stupid stuff that would instakill someone. I set my level range as 46-52, so that weak characters can at least have the hitpoints to balance out what is left of the rediculous strength of some custom critters. I have some serious work to rework my Arc, but this new system should make it so that my electric robot guys can't drain you AND slaughter you. And as to aiming low... If made right under the new guidance, you can still aim high and have an Arc that is very much able to be completed by anyone.

I slot almost everythig for endurance reduction and that seems to get me by. That 2 damage instead of three really doesn't come into play when I am pumping out steady damage with no endurance down time. This is especially true with the pets, as they add to your overall damage.