Local_Man

Do you NEED Hasten? No. Is it worth a power pick and a slot or two? I say yes.

Hasten will help your most important powers on long recharges come back faster -- especially Seeds and Creepers. Hasten will also let your characters spam Roots faster, which is key to your damage. Hasten+AM gives you 100% Recharge. 3xAM gives you 3X30% = 90% Recharge. Hasten+3xAM will be 160%. Hasten adds a significan boost even with 3 AMs. Now if you were on a full team of */Rads, then 8x30% from 8 AMs would mean that Hasten would have a minimal benefit, but only as long as you were all together.

I actually have NOT updated the drivers . . . I tried to a couple of months ago, and it caused the system to crash. So I dumped the new driver and let Windows find a driver . . . it loaded the old one and didn't seem to have any problems since then (except CoH says I need to update my drivers).

My OS is Vista Home. I hate updating the OS on an old computer -- done it several times over the years and I have always had a problem. I just wait until I get a new machine to get a new OS.

Tried running it again tonight. First I opened up the case and used some compressed air to blow out dust, then tried running it. Booted up OK, but was slow loading virus updates. Finally finished booting and updating after about 10 min. I checked out a web site and was watching some video clips when the screen did the same trick . . . monitor goes to sleep, keyboard won't change status . . . but I could continue to hear the sound of the video clip for another minute after the screen went black. (The clip ended.) From when I turned on the CPU to when the screen went black, it took 25 min.

I haven't tried switching to the on-board graphics on the motherboard yet. It just takes so long to try each thing and then re-boot.

It did not seem to be hot . . . I keep this tower on top of a table and not on the floor, and it has a fair amount of air around it.

First, if you are fairly new to the game and this is your first controller, you may want to reconsider much of this build . . . just because the IOs are available in Mids does not mean that they are easy to get. You have included a lot of Rare purple sets and several ultra-rare PvP sets in this build. Do you have an idea how expensive those sets are? Most of the folks with those kinds of sets have been playing the game for a long time and/or spend a lot of time "farming" for huge amounts of influence to buy them at the market. I've been around since Dec. 2004 and I don't have a single build nearly as expensive as the one you posted.

But having said that, this build seems to do a decent job at slotting the most important powers.

But, assuming you are going forward with that build, a couple of points: I view Dominate, Mesmerize and Levitate as the single target attack chain for Mind control. I like to slot Dominate with a combo of Acc, Hold, Rech and Damage, while Mez and Lev get slotted with pure damage. Dom-Mez-Lev is the way I take down targets. Dom-Mez-Lev has a couple of good reasons to use it in that order. The goal is to set up Containment for Levitate. Hold is better than sleep, but if you miss with Dom, then Mez will still set up Containment for Lev (but if you did Mez-Dom, Dominate would wake up the foe). Also, if you are going after a boss, Dom won't hold most of the time, but Mez will with one shot. Then Lev throws the foe up in the air while you get a chance to stack Dom again to get the boss held.

The Chance for Hold in Levitate will have minimal benefits if you use the Dom-Mez-Lev chain since most foes will already be held.

For Dominate, 4 Baz Gaze are good. Then an Acc/Dam and pure Damage. At level 50, a good choice is an Acc/Dam Hami-O and a common Damage IO.

Mesmerize gets 5 Decimation if you are looking for Recharge. I wouldn't bother with the Call of the Sandman -- You could put Sleep in the last slot if you have a spare slot, but it already recharges faster than the sleep runs out.

If you are going to use the Fortunata Hypnosis in Mass Hypnosis, which is good if you can, then put a 5th slot in it for the 10% Recharge. The Fortunata set is the cheapest of the purple sets, so by doing that, you can skip the purple set in one of your other powers. The Damage ones are most expensive.

Thanks for the suggestion. Hmm. I haven't checked for dust build-up, and that may be an issue. This is the second 9800 GT card I have had in this computer. Fortunately, the first was covered by a warranty. That warranty/service contract may have expired by now.

The main reason I didn't think it was heat was that it would have the same issues even if the computer had been turned off for a while. It takes about 30-60 min for it repeat the same behaviour, though, so heat could certainly build up in that time.

I was hoping some of the genius folks on this board can give me a clue on what is going on with my computer. I have an older Gateway machine with an AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-core processer running Vista Home Premium. The graphics board is a Nvidia GeForce 9800GT. My keyboard is a Merc Stealth (it has lit-up keys and game controls).

It seems to run fine for a while, and then suddenly the monitor shows "Monitor going to sleep" and the screen goes blank (just as if I had turned off the power to the computer but left it going for the monitor). The monitor has a power light on showing that it is still getting power, but no signal -- the power button glows orange. Additionally, and this is the odd part, the keyboard stays lit, but when I press on the Num Lock or Caps Lock key, the light does not go on or off . . . it just stays at the same status as it was before (it has little red lights to show status).

I can't see anything to tell if the mouse or anthing else is working. The only way to change this that I have found is to hard-boot the computer. It boots up pretty slowly (the kids have loaded a lot of junk on this computer over the years). Sometimes when I do that and let it start up on its own, I come back 30 min or an hour later to find that the computer again has a black screen. Other times, my daughter or I may be in the middle of a CoH session when the screen goes black.

It started this behavior two weeks ago, went on for a couple of days and then stopped. It worked fine for almost two weeks, but just started this up again this weekend. I ran Malwarebytes and have a subscription to Trend Micro Antivirus running on the machine.

The machine is old enough where it probably should be replaced soon, but I really don't want to spend that quite yet. And I don't want to spend the time setting up a new machine . . . it takes a lot of hours I don't want to spend right now.

At first I thought it might be the graphics board until I realized that the keyboard was being affected. I thought it might be a virus, but haven't found anything. Any ideas?

It would be fun . . . but I will likely have to play taxi driver for various kid activities.

The short version:

1. Slot Roots for Damage.
2. Slot Strangler for damage, but you can have some Hold in there, too. (4 Baz Gaze with the last two slots for a lot of damage and some Acc is good -- like an Acc/Dam and a common Damage in the last two slots.)
3. Get as much Global Recharge as you can, to be able to keep spamming Roots for more damage and have Seeds and Creepers up as much as possible.

I have a Love/Hate relationship with Knockback. It really depends on the character and the circumstances. I mostly play my Energy/Energy Blaster, my Grav/Storm and Ill/Storm controllers solo. I love the knockback of Martial Art's Crane Kick even though it means that I have to go chase down my target.

On the other hand, I was playing my Broadsword/Shield scrapper last night . . . on a team with 2 Stormies (both were using Tornado a lot) and a Bonfire-happy Fire/Rad. I was really frustrated with setting up to slice-n-dice a foe, pulling out my sword only to see the foe go flying back before I could get a hit in. Every time I move the smallest amount on that character, he has to pull out the blankety-blank sword again. And I barely ever got to gather up groups to saturate AAO and smack them with Shield Charge -- everything was constantly being spread all over the place.

From a looks standpoint, Knockback is fun and very super-hero-ey. From a strategic point of view, especially for any character who relies upon AoE controls, debuffs or damage, poorly played knockback can be a nightmare.

I've been in this game for over 6 years. Two of my kids play on occastion, an 11 year old boy and a 14 year old girl. I keep an eye on what they are doing . . . and we have the kind of relationship where they will tell me what is going on. (The daughter likes to spend most of her time making costumes and then standing around in Altas chatting rather than actually doing anything . . . )

Neither of them play on Freedom. I keep them to lower population servers, and will often team up with them myself. (We have two accounts.) We have been fortunate to not have run into any kind of jerk such as the one you described . . . a few mild incidents, but nothing close to what you described.

I find that the huge majority of the CoH population to be nice, considerate and tolerant, especially when they discovery the player is a kid. (A couple of times when my 11 year old has been on a team, I jumped on his character to advise the team that he was 10 or 11 so I would appreciate consideration of his age in use of language, etc, and the team has always complied.)

The Numina in Hibernate will only work when you activate Hibernate and for 120 seconds after you have used it. Hibernate should have a common Recharge. The Numina proc should be in Health. I would probably drop the Acc or the Damage Proc in Spectral Terror to put the Numina proc in Health.

The purple set for Pets is fairly cheap for purples -- since the pet set does not provide a Recharge bonus, it is one of the less expensive sets. You should be able to get those two for a pretty reasonable cost, especially if you make a bid and let it sit for a while. I checked the market and it looks like the price for the Dam/Rech is 35-60 mil, while the Chance for Build Up proc is 25-30 mil. (Earn just one Luck of the Gambler Recharge with 2 Hero Merits, and you can sell it for 120 mil or more.)

If you find making NPC's fight each other to be fun . . . use a lot of confuse powers. My Ill/Rad frequently confuses guys on the street when we're standing around, just for the heck of it. And confusing an AV so that he/she/it wipes out all the minions in the area is always fun. Sure, we may miss out on a little XP or Infl, but the fun is worth it.

Want to free up one more slot? put a Zephyr -Knockback in Fly (The Flightspeed does nothing -- default flight is at capped speed), and then you can take the Karma -Knockback out of Combat Jumping. That would give you a slot for a Numina Recovery/Regen proc in Health or a third slot in Stamina.

Another small improvement: In Blind, change one of the Damage to an Acc/Dam Hami-O. Better Accuracy with almost no loss in damage in the power that you use to set up Containment.

I can understand some disappointment that you may be losing your unique global name, but the overall benefits from this change are huge. You get lots more people able to go onto the servers you use, and you get access to all of the North American servers.

I'm sure the Devs had to make a choice to resolve those name conflicts that arise. Frankly, I think the solution they came to was a reasonable one. And because your global will show that you are in Europe, players will be understand that you are in different time zones than the North American servers.

I have a couple of other quick suggestions:

Move the purple Confuse set to Deceive, and replace the pure confuse with the Contagious Confusion proc. It turns Deceive into a kind of Mass Confusion where it can hit two or more additional foes 1/3 of the time.

World of Confusion stinks. Replace it with Psi Blast and put 5 Decimations in there. Same Recharge as the Malaise set and a much more useful power. You can then have an attack chain of Blind-SW-Blast-SW. Another nice thing about this is that you could easily skip Air Sup once you have that Blast. You could replace Air Sup with Group Invis as another spot for a LotG Recharge in the default slot and save one slot from one of your other powers. That would give you a net gain of two slots.

In place of the Damage and Recharge in Phantom Army, use the Dam/Rech and Chance for Build Up from Soulbound Alleagence. You get capped Damage and Recharge, a frequent Build up for all your pets and a nice Regen bonus.

Fly is now at Flightspeed cap with no enhancement whatsoever. All you need in Fly is a single EndRdx. Or you could put a Stealth there, so that with Steamy Mist, you have full invis. And you gain one more slot.

I don't have access to Mid's right now, but I counted only 4 sets with 6.25% Recharge. Add one more slot into Spectral Wounds for Decimation for a 5th. Or another Posi Blast in Psi Tornado.

Those additional 3 slots could be used in a lot of places -- one option might be to add them to Spectral Terror and slot an Unspeakable Terror set for 5% Recharge.

If you have high enough global recharge, you may be able to drop the third Recharge out of Hasten.

I think this build needs some focus. What are you trying to accomplish? What is your playstyle? If you are going for Defense, then focus on Defense. If you are going for Recharge, then focus on that.

In general, a Kinetics secondary means that you can get a lot of recharge from Siphon Speed if you stack it. You have a good heal power . . . if it hits. You have tons of endurance from Transference . . . if it hits.

Gravity is a set with good single target damage and weakish AoE control. I rely upon Singularity to be my tank while I clobber individual foes. Where the sets come together is to really buff that single target damage.

Your build skips both of the single target damage powers, Lift and Propel. Propel hits HARD with Containment, but takes a long time to do it -- so it is better solo and against tougher targets. Lift is kind of weakish damage, but it is faster and provides knockdown, so it is better on teams. I prefer Propel, because throwing stuff is cool, but at least one of them should be included. (I also mostly solo my Grav controller.)

I view Crush as a damage power that happens to Immobilize. If you are really going for ranged Defense, then slot it with a Thunderstrike set. It is cheap and provides a lot of Ranged Defense.

Transfusion: They made those Accurate Healing sets for a reason . . . powers like Transfusion need Accuracy. You want it to HIT, but it will still miss just when you need it the most. That +End proc? . . . not needed if you have Transference. I like the Nictus set.

Grav. Dist.: My single target attack chain is GD-Crush-Propel. That makes it likely that I will have Containment before Propel hits. Slotting Lockdown is good if you are going for Ranged Defense. You could even put another Thunderstrike set here, too, which might be better if you solo. Otherwise, I prefer to get some damage and Hold in this power. If you want Recharge, then 4 Baz Gaze and then some acc/Dam and Damage.

Siphon Power: Acc in Default slot, then a Recharge if you can. It helps stacking.

Crushing Field: Enfeebled Operation has Melee and S/L defense. Are you focusing on those, too? If not, putting the Grav Anchor purple set would be better here, especially the Chance for Hold proc. Or some damage procs after getting enough Accuracy and EndRdx.

Siphon Speed: You want to be able to stack this, and you want it to HIT. 1-2 Acc, 2-3 Recharge.

Propel or Lift: They can also be slotted with Thunderstrike if you are going for Ranged Defense. Or Decimation or Entropic Chaos if you are going for Recharge.



Maneuvers: 6 slots is a lot to devote to this power unless you are clearly going for a lot of Defense, as Red Fortune gets that added Ranged Defense.

I dislike IR . . . I would much rather have Super Jump or some other travel power that I don't have to re-cast over and over again. IR always seems to run out at just the wrong time.

Invisibility: Super Speed with a Celerity Stealth IO will give you invisibility in a single power, plus a travel power (so you can skip IR or SJ). Vertical issues aren't a problem since you can have a Raptor Pack which flies at Flight Speed cap. I see very few good reasons to take the Invisibility pool.

It appears that the damage from Electric Control is Energy damage, so it should be able to light Oil Slick: any energy or Fire damage should light it. Electric Fence, Tesla Cage, Chain Fences, Jolting Chain and the Gremlins should be able to light Oil Slick.