Lord Mayhem

If you have the time at some stage you might like to have a crack at a poster for my arc:

Arc Name: A Mythos of Mystical Mysteries
Arc ID: 84285
Author name: @Lord Mayhem

I'll put the other details in white text so I don't spoil the arc for when you play it, which you'll probably want to do to see which Death Cultists you want to draw and get an idea of the atmosphere/story first-hand:

Main features: a Death Cult affiliated with the Banished Pantheon is searching for an incarnate/deity to sacrifice, in order to power a ritual to bring the BP gods back to our plane - on their target list are Ermeeth (Circle of Thorns god), Hequat (Mu goddess), Stheno (Snake incarnate) and a few others (Statesman and Lord Recluse would have made it in as potential victims, if I had more space - as it is they just get a mention).

Poster idea: The background/setting is the graveyard in Dark Astoria - probably at night for extra atmosphere, with swirls of mist and the silhouette of a gnarled tree against the moon. The middle-ground should be a number of Death Cultists (anywhere from a few up to a horde, whatever you wish) staring coldly at the viewer. The foreground could be a Death Cult Executioner, holding his unholy axe at the ready in both hands, stood between two graves. Slumped against the gravestone on the left is a dead Circle of Thorns mage and slumped against the gravestone on the right is a dead Mu Mystic.

That should suggest the flavour/content/theme of the arc without giving too much of the story away.

No rush and no probs if you don't fancy doing this poster or want to use your own idea. Thanks.

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Vald, if you're already playing on this build ingame can ya tell me what it's like? Looking at it in mids it's already a godly beast of a combatant.

It must play like a dream right? I hope one day i can have one like it x)

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Well I haven't actually logged into CoH/V since Friday because I've been rather ill. Plus most of my time online is spent duoing with my friend, but when I had some solo time last week and tried out the widow it was certainly the most godly beast out of any of the characters I've played to L50 - which is all archetypes redside (though obviously not all powersets).

When you totally mow through the RWZ challenge it gives you a nice sense of satisfaction, especially when your favourite character (Bane, in my case) fails at it every time (admittedly my Bane isn't softcapped to melee and has no Aid Self - he chews through L54 Rikti Assault Suit EBs no problem, though). Just chewing through a L54 boss quickly and easily is impressive in itself, but to go through 3-4 at once with their attendant minions/lieuts is just silly and very fun.

Normal missions are simply no challenge for the Widow, which might get dull after a while, although they're not much challenge for my Bane either and solo/teamed I still enjoy playing that, as much and maybe more than the Widow. I am a sucker for huge orange numbers, though, and the Bane delivers those in spades - the Widow just gets lots of smaller orange numbers very quickly.

Then again the Widow's godliness has persuaded me to purple my Bane up to godly levels as well. I was almost back up to 2billion inf redside the last time I checked my marketing character (and may be there if all current stock has sold - ditto on blueside, but I haven't decided if my Arch/En or my Warshade will get the purple treatment there - probably both).

I don't pay extortionate "buy it now" prices so it would take me a while to get the IOs for the Bane together anyway - on the bright side I won't need many IOs (just purples and some LotGs) as he already has most of the non-purple IOs his optimised build will need. Though I've been staring at that build in Mids nearly every day for the past 3 months trying to work out what to drop to fit in Aid Self I won't start buying/slotting until I'm fully satisfied with his build in Mids.

However, the Bane has zero end issues now, so it may be that a purpled Bane might be the better option for the Pylon Challenge: 1 IO'd Bane + 1 purpled Widow certainly seem to kill a pylon slightly faster than 2 purpled Widows, though the -res debuffs definitely skew things by amping up the dps of the partner Widow so much.

But rest assured, the Widow decimates everything in front of her except Pylons, though I have yet to try her against an AV. At some stage I want to play through Viridian's arc with her, though - on Relentless I suspect the Council invite mission in particular would be a rather interesting solo experience for any build with pretensions to godhood - outside of the LRSF it's not often you get to face 6 AVs one after the other.

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I used arcanatime in my calcs although i´m not sure if its the same on eu anymore since latency can pretty crappy here.

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Ahh ok - I think any calcs using that will be way off for my connection anyway - I live on one of the Channel Islands, connected to the UK by a copper cable laid probably over a century ago, and as if to make matters worse I'm more than 4km from the telephone exchange (max dist for a good connection for ADSL, apparently). Also my ISP likes to throttle down our speed in the hope we won't notice and only put it back up when we complain - plus they're just generally rubbish, and while they don't have a monopoly anymore they do own/maintain all of the infrastructure, so there's little point switching to the more expensive alternatives.

For me the gap seems very minor, but it may prove enough for me to reconsider the build and fit Swipe in. I'm sure the obscene amount of global recharge will still prove handy. The problem will be deciding what to drop - it would need to be something that gave me 5 slots as well, which probably means either Eviscerate, Spin or Dart Burst and I kinda like having all 3. I'd probably drop Eviscerate tbh as Spin is PBAE and can hit more targets, and Dart Burst is needed for Ragnarok and my ranged chain, plus I just like it.

I may also move Hecatomb to Slash, as mentioned earlier, and stick a common EndRdx in the last slot and see what effect it has on the end usage of the full attack chain.

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Though yeah, on extended fights it all adds up.

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thats my main concern when i make my personal builds.

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I usually build for def or rchg, but try to make sure a build is end-balanced for normal play (during which the most extended fight will be 3-4mins on an AV while teamed). I did think the amount of endrdx and +recov in this build would be sufficient - and it certainly is for normal play - but it might be that a Widow will need 80-90+% endrdx in every attack to be able to do the pylon challenge or particularly long AV fights solo.

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I just like being able to heal through DoT´s. Something that saved my Fire/SR a lot.

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Even with 2 IntRdx in his Aid Self my en/elec brute struggled to heal through fire/toxic DoTs or Gloom. It might be my connection though - I can usually heal through a couple of mobs attacking me, even with no intrdx, by timing it so the interruptible portion occurs between their attacks, but DoTs are obviously faster than that.

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Especially since i´m being so lazy to get the accolades, i like badging but explorations are so boring.

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I don't mind the explores - they're easy to get - it's the ones you have to mindlessly grind for that annoy me. I'm not a badger though so it's all just stuff I'm doing towards an end goal, using time when I could have been doing something I enjoy more

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Hum, agree, villains need some luvin', but not sure I'd want it wasted on the lower levels. I autocomplete my way through 1-5 pretty much nowadays, some go the mission architect route.

Level 5-20 could do with some more variety in missions, but you get out of P.O. so fast anyway it's a waste to build a completely new zone for it.

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Not everyone wants to autocomplete their way through, or play MA 1-5 though

There are 17 contacts in CoV between levels 1 and 20 across Mercy/Oakes/Cap, but because of enforced choices (Kalinda/Mongoose or Burke/Creed, can only do The Radio at 10-15 if you did Bocor at 5-10, etc) you actually have less variety/options than it sounds.

Now imagine a L1-20 zone, with about 10-12 contacts, each with an arc of 3-4 missions (and maybe a few one-offs), but let all of them scale throughout the level range of the zone so that you could do their missions at any point between L1 and L20. Now have a taskmaster NPC that can hand out quick simple tasks (shop heist, outdoor hunts, etc) and after doing 3 tasks you can do a mayhem/safeguard to open up a choice from the full list of those arc contacts. And when you finish a contact their referral would also let you pick from the full list of contacts you hadn't done yet. So you could pick your own path through the contacts.

That would give lots more variety for all low levels, lots of choice as to which contacts/arcs you do on different characters, and would force the devs into scaling many of the lowbie factions from L1 all the way to L20 (which would help out MA writers creating lowbie arcs too).

After all, we know the Devs can scale a zone for 15 levels (RWZ, Nerva, etc), and that there are arcs in the game that scale a very wide level range (the Midnight Club access arc on blueside scales from L10-50 iirc), so there are precedents.

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A lvl 35 store in Nerva would be nice since it's a ->35 zone and I prefer the Nerva arcs. St Martial is just plain dull imho. While the mid level could use some variety, I'd still rather see the devs concentrate on end-game stuff. I wanna play my 50s. Why did I waste all that time, energy and inf on purpl'in' up if I don't get to do some fun with'em?

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I find Nerva's L25-30 contacts/arcs very dull, but I like most of the L30-40 ones. I like St Martial... except for Hardcase - a condescending hero who keeps sending you up against the most tactically/visually dull faction in the game - I'll pass. Otherwise I mostly agree with you, having IO'd up all of my 50s (and just purpled-up my widow)

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I have seen a Dr Doom and a Hulk over the weekend, adding to the million or so (ok, maybe a slight exageration) Captain Americas since I13.

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Back in I5 I used to see tons of Hulk, Superman and Wolverine clones. Then CoV came out and the only clones I saw regularly were Poison Ivy "homages" (all Plant/Thorns doms, naturally). But since I came back to the game in I11 I hadn't seen a single clone character - well, not comic clones - there's the guys with Street Fighter 2 characters who are often at Cap BM.

Then two weeks ago, in the space of a few days, I saw 3 Doctor Dooms, all at Cap au Diable BM. All had different names (global and local) and different SGs, though the costumes looked identical (and were actually very accurate). Two were elec/elec brutes (movie version then) and the other was bot/traps (comics version, I suppose). It just seems rather an odd time for a fad to break out, as the cyborg pack has been out a while. It made me wonder if they were part of a themed Doombot group (with maybe the bot/traps as the "real" Doom).

I wonder if they'd heard of the Marvel lawsuit - maybe the GM explained it to them when he generic'd them back to the stone age

As a lore-junkie myself I'd love to see a lore forum and an official post to gather questions for Manticore on these boards.

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Anyone else feel this is a way of saying oops we goofed again, nice way of solving the naming issue though.

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Yes, but I applaud their creativity in patching the lore so well.

Writers make continuity errors all the time - some "worlds" just become too unwieldy for 1-2 people to keep track of entirely, especially when others have had a hand in creating that lore and you're also treating other sources of media (like the novels, in CoH's case) as canon too - but it is nice to see Manticore making such an effort to fix this long-standing continuity "glitch" in-canon.

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Perhaps more middle level maps. I mean, at first you can choose to go Atlas or Galaxy. Then you can choose to go Hollows or do more Kings Row. But then comes middle level maps. It would be nice to have alternative maps to for example Striga.

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For the L20-30 level range the parallel city zones are Talos Island and Indy Port, Terra Volta is the hazard zone, and Striga was an additional zone added for story reasons - when you consider that Faultline (15-25) and Croatoa (25-35) also overlap this level range I think the mid-levels are the best served for both quality and quantity of content in CoH (mainly due to Faultline/Striga/Croatoa, admittedly). CoV only has Sharkhead covering that entire level range (20-30), with Nerva overlapping it (25-40, though most 25-30 missions seem to be against dull Longbow anyway).

CoV is more in need of mid-level zones than CoH, though personally I'd rather see more low-level zones (newbie experience gets dull as we go through it so many times trying new characters we may not keep) and more high level zones (more stuff to do once level-capped) on both sides.

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Theres a lot of room in map. Just look at east side of Steel or west side of Indyport. Theres plenty of room

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Siren's Call is east of Steel - if you hover your mouse over the in-game map there the nametag shows up.

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And another idea. When I saw Bricks at first time. It was wow moment. Thats the prison where we put all bad guys. But it was pretty uncool. What you say this idea? If you just go in to the prison, there may be some rebellion and you can actually see same baddies what you have defeated earlier. The great escape could be event. Point is, you can go into the prison when you want and actually see baddies there in cells and feel superior. Until...

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Having a prison riot as an event in Brickstown would be fun. I'd like to see more "events" in all outdoor zones (like Steel's fires, Skyway's raves, the Ghost Ship, etc.) - they add atmosphere to a zone. The Hollows and Faultline could have earthquakes that briefly shake your screen and cause Minions of Igneous to spawn out of the deeper parts of the zone and move towards areas where players are gathered. The same thing could be done in Sharkhead with Slag Golems.

Sorry for posting late - I don't check the archetype forums much - but I have some anecdotal insights from my own experiences that you might find useful

My friend has a Stone/Shield brute at L38 - so far he's had far more problems with end than any of our other brutes (he has a DB/SR, En/DA & SS/El at L50, plus a L44 Axe/WP, and you can see my four L50 brutes in my sig plus I have a L34 Mace/SR), despite slotting for decent endrdx with set IOs. He's getting closer to fixing the end issues at L38, but still gobbles down blue insps and I think he converts most other insps into blues as I don't see him using many other types. Plus I give him all of my blue insps too (he duos with my earth/fire dom which has had zero end issues).

He has returned the favour for my Mace/SR brute, which has been my most end-heavy brute by far (duoing with his Fire/Pain corr). It's not as bad for end usage as his Stone/Shield, and is starting to get sorted out now (and if not then his Painbringer buff at L38 should cure any end issues I still have), but I still convert insps into blues sometimes and still run low on end on maps with tightly-packed spawns. In the teens/twenties levels I was often buying blue insps or getting large blues from our base storage. I think the end issues in my case are more down to Mace/ than /SR, as my friend's DB/SR had few such issues.

Axe/ and Mace/ are so alike I'm guessing Axe/ may have similar issues with /SR and possibly with /Shield too considering the total toggle costs (perhaps not so much if you skip Grant Cover). In the case of Axe/ I wouldn't know if it has bad end issues at higher level from personal experience, as my Axe/ brute had /WP as secondary. I sometimes wish my Mace/SR was Mace/WP too, as he'd have less end issues and be more survivable at low/mid levels too. I do think Stone/ is as much to blame (if not moreso) for my friend's terrible end issues as /Shield, though - with brutes I think it's usually more the fault of the primary than the secondary.

It's sad because the end issues do bias us against wanting to play the brutes we have those end issues with, but in both cases they're locked into level-pacted duos with characters the other person loves playing.

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Nothing - just that if I hear or see the word trousers, I think of some elderly British guy

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And when I hear pants I think of an American lass running around in skimpy underwear

Not entirely unpleasant, but not the image I want to conjure for most of my characters.

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What chain are you planning to use valdamar?

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Slash -> FU -> Lunge -> Strike


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Slash according to mids recharges in 4,43, to run it seemless it would have to recharge in 3,43.

Seemless it would also have the eps of 4,85(ouch)
which would result in a 2,02 drain with the build in the op.
Remember that hasten is -15 end every 120 seconds as well.

a one second pause would lower it to 3,92 eps

EDIT: OOPS ss was checked corrected post

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I don't think you can go entirely off Mids, City of Data or even the in-game "real" numbers - latency has a huge effect on things. Arcanaville did a post about it on US forums, but I can't seem to find it atm (I hate the US forum search). My connection is not that brilliant and when I play the build there is only a very slight pause before Slash is back up - I just need to correct that, but not if it's going to destroy the end-usage even further for my build.

Using Mids the full attack chain takes 1.33s + 0.83s + 0.83s + 1.17s = 4.16seconds - I'm not sure what it adds up to in "Arcanatime" though - tbh I'm trying not to get that technical as I only care how the build feels and plays on my PC/connection - and in that situation I'm only seeing a very slight delay until Slash recharges. Honestly I'm more interested in how the build feels practically than how it looks theoretically atm (and it feels great all the time apart from when trying to solo a pylon).

And yeah hasten's "crash" is certainly part of the end issue - I was hoping the +end proc in Stamina would offset that Hasten crash over time, but it doesn't seem to work as well as I'd hoped.

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also if you have cj just for the for the kismet why not get combat training offensive?


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Easy - I don't have CJ just for the Kismet.

CJ is just a convenient place to put the Kismet because nothing else I could put there does as much for the build. I mainly took CJ because I hate not having CJ+Hurdle for in-combat movement - it is essential to my playstyle. CJ also makes superspeed a lot less annoying for me to use (I tend to prefer SJ, though SS+CJ is generally faster and more useful indoors).

Oh and Combat Training: Offensive is pretty worthless for this build (and in general): +10% Acc, even enhanced up to +19.9% (worth slightly more than an Acc DO in every attack) with 3 L50 Acc IOs, is nowhere near as useful as +6% ToHit from the Kismet - especially on a build that already has +7.8% ToHit from Mind Link all the time, plus 10% ToHit from every stacked FU (up to 3 times), +75% global Acc from set bonuses and 40-60% Acc slotted in every attack.

This build isn't short of Acc - it has more than enough (most hit-rolls are hitting the 95% clamp as it is) - I'm sure more ToHit would be nice for Eluding-AV situations (e.g. Mako, Mynx, etc.), but I can always fall back on using a yellow to help get FU stacking if I hit any ultra-rare situations like that. So far I haven't had any trouble hitting through Behemoth invinc, Deathmage's chill of the night, Nemesis Vengeance +def, etc. in normal gameplay so I think the Acc/ToHit balance is ok as is.

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Myself would skip the ToD procs and put makos acc/end/rech in all attacks and either a end/rech(gaussians or adjusted targeting), crughing impact dmg/end or dmg/end/rech in follow up

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The Acc/End/Rech is something I'll consider if I can't correct the end issues - it's something I've done on other characters instead of putting procs in the 6th slot after the 5 CIs. I went with procs here because it is a dps build and procs add a lot of damage over time (and negative energy is resisted a lot less than lethal/toxic too, so it's a significant addition) - plus night widow attacks are so fast that the build will proc a lot in extended fights (which it was designed for).

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I would also take a slot of hasten put a end redux in indom will and

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Then Hasten would no longer be perma - the existing 5.1 sec overlap, would become a 0.3sec overlap with two slots, which wouldn't be an overlap at all due to Hasten's 0.73 casting time. The existing 4.37sec overlap (5.1 sec, less cast time) lets me pick where in my attack chain I let Hasten refresh (as I have it on auto and usually queue attacks), and also gives you some insurance against being slowed or suffering latency and losing Hasten for too long.

And Indomitable Will doesn't cost much end - I've simulated the 0.06 end/sec saving (that I could get by adding a slot of endrdx to IW) by switching off CJ - believe me, it isn't noticeable. I ran a pylon fight without Mask Presence (saving 0.14 end/sec) and even that wasn't really noticeable. Most of the end-drain on this build (like most builds) comes from the click power attacks, not the toggles. Though yeah, on extended fights it all adds up.

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remove the eradication proc from spin(assault covers the lack of damage slotting

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Not sure what you mean by Assault covering the lack of damage slotting - more damage is always good (I wish I could run pool Assault as well!). A proc in Spin will more than pay for itself in normal fights, because with a 20% chance of proccing it should hit at least 2 of the 10 targets you can hit with Spin. Sure, it's a slot I could move if it was critically needed elsewhere, but I've yet to think of anywhere it could do more good.

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and put an interrupt redux in aid self.

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Imho it doesn't need it. Not on a defence-based build. I have no trouble firing it off with careful planning and tbh I only took it for use during the RWZ/Pylon/AV challenges - in normal gameplay it's not really needed at all.

The times Aid Self is difficult to use on a def-based build are the times no amount of intrdx would help (on Quicksand/Caltrops, near CoT crystals, etc) - and it pays to keep a column of Respites in your tray for situations like that. Sure, my En/Elec brute uses intrdx in his Aid Self (2 of them), but he's resist-based - the builds with decent defence (my Night Widow, Stalker and Blaster) tend to be fine without it. Plus if you're being overwhelmed there's always the option of jumping behind/around terrain to buy time to use it.

Thanks for the comments though - some of them did get me thinking about the build from different perspectives. Ultimately I don't think there are any perfect builds because players are always going to differ over what they want and what is more important to them - tbh I think that is one of the main strengths of this game, that no two characters are the same and everyone can fully customise their builds. Compared to most other mainstream MMOs (where everyone looks the same and has pretty much the same powers/skills as someone of the same race/class) that's very refreshing.

I really hope these changes do re-focus MA content towards what it should always have been about - telling stories - not farming for shinies.

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I also want to assure you that we will not be going back and removing badges introduced previous to I14. Some of those badges are truly an accomplishment to get, and we will not take away from those that have accomplished such a task nor will we remove the ability for future players to aspire to those same heights.

--------------------
Positron
Lead Designer, City of Heroes


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Re: Issue 15 Mission Architect Badge Changes

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I guess that means Unbreakable and Illusionist won't be getting changed? It's pretty ridiculous that farming is encouraged/necessary to getting those badges, for the Accolade powers they are needed for, when the equivalent accolade is so much easier to get on the opposite side.

Sure, some badges should be difficult to get - like MoLRSF and MoSTF - and maybe there is a place for some of the epic count badges that take ages to get, providing they exist purely for the sake of getting the badge itself, just for those totally obsessive badgers who want them purely because they take so long to get, for the kudos and bragging rights - but using such badges to gate access to powers that lots of players will want, in a game as casual as this one, is just wrong imho.

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It might not mean a lot to some people but...

THE OFFICE BELT IS BACK!



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I'm glad it's back - it's one of the few belts that looks natural/good with suits and trousers.

(no, I'm not going to call them "pants" - that would be utterly pants! )

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See I'm fairly easily bought, if they threw in some proliferation I'd be sold for a while at least. New arcs in existing zones would make me happy too

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I must be easily bought as well then, because that would keep me paying my subscription too.

I just want more of what we already have, specifically more arc/TF story content (at all levels), more powersets (new and proliferated) and more costume options. Sure, I'd like new zones too, but plenty of existing zones need more mission content to flesh them out story-wise.

I've seen too many MMOs ruined by system revamps and new features, so it worries me that the Devs here seem to be addicted to turning the game upside down every few issues - every welcome new feature comes with unwanted consequences to the core gameplay experience. If the Devs keep gambling like this then sooner or later a major new system addition will do to PvE what they've allegedly done to PvP already - mortally wound it - the difference being that this game lives or dies by its PvE.

I wish the Devs would just consolidate for a few issues and build on what they have - a very fun PvE MMO with a lot of replay value (and good subscriber retention because of that).

Welcome back!

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What chain are you planning to use valdamar?

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Slash -> FU -> Lunge -> Strike

Slash is the opener (for the crit from stealth in the first round of combat), then Follow-up for the buff, then Lunge because it is next highest in damage, then Strike because it is the only melee single target attack left that isn't in cooldown, then back to Slash, rinse & repeat.

However there is a very brief gap (like a quarter-second) before Slash comes back up again and, while I didn't think I'd notice it with my connection, it did start to bug me a little (note:- the extra 20% rchg from the Base Empowerment Station pretty much cures the gap, as it is very slight).

As a result I'm considering a respec to swap the Hecatomb set from FU into Slash (then the CI set from Slash will go into FU). This should close the perceived gap, at cost of a slight drop in dps (as Slash's base damage is higher than FUs and the 5 Hecatombs give 89.92% dmg enhancement compared to the 5 CIs giving 97.49% dmg enhancement).

Though I must admit I'm not sure whether to use the numbers from Mids or City of Data for animation times, as I know from reading some of BaB's and Arcanaville's posts on the US forum that there are other factors (such as your connection) which skew the numbers a little - so it is hard to know whether the perceived gap would be cured by that respec without actually trying it (which I may have to do on Test Server at some stage).

I also suspect that respec might have terrible consequences on the endurance situation. My original reasoning for putting Hecatomb (all but Dam) in FU was partly because it only gives 33% endrdx, whereas 5 CIs (all but Acc/Dam) give 68.9% endrdx - with Slash costing a lot more end than FU it makes the chain more end-efficient if Hecatomb is in a lower end-cost attack. In addition to that the difference in damage enhancement between Hecatomb and CI (as slotted above) made it more sensible to put Hecatomb in FU - the lowest damage attack in the chain - rather than Strike.

Whether I do that respec is going to be a difficult decision, but it is one that can wait until I have the +end accolades and can see what effect they have on both the current build and on the respecced build (when I try it on Test).

Btw I exemped down to L40 on Sunday (to get a badge for an accolade) and of course that dropped the build down to 110% global recharge (4 purple sets + hasten). By necessity I had to include Poison Dart in my attack chain to eliminate gaps, but it worked well enough and the build still felt powerful, and Mind Link was still perma (though Hasten wasn't, of course). If you exemp down a lot (I hardly ever do) I would probably suggest taking Swipe in addition to the other attacks I've taken.

Though in normal gameplay this build will never be without an attack you can use - besides the normal chain you'll also be using Dart Burst, Spin & Eviscerate against multiple enemies, and Dart Burst and Poison Dart together is pretty much a ranged attack chain (you can use PDart, then DBurst, then PDart again with zero gaps and that does enough damage to kill a minion).

I hit L50 with my Night Widow late on Saturday. I slotted all of the IOs, exactly as per the build posted in the OP, and immediately went to RWZ with my friend. He was playing his Widow as well (which is also purpled up with a few LotGs) and we duo'd a pylon in well under 10mins (nearer 5mins probably but I didn't time it). Admittedly it did seem to take slightly longer than when his Widow and my Bane duo pylons, but I put that down to the -res debuffs on the Bane making a big difference.

After my friend logged I attempted the RWZ challenge (L54 spawn, 3 Rikti bosses, no temps/insps nor accolade powers nor godmodes, no pulling/splitting/disengaging) and the build absolutely aced it and never seemed in danger of dying. After doing the RWZ challenge I went looking for another L54 spawn with 3 bosses to try it again, just to make sure I hadn't fluked it (though arguably with defence-based builds luck does play a large part). What I actually found was a spawn with 4 L54 Rikti bosses (3 Chief Soldiers, 1 Chief Mesmerist) and a couple of lieuts/minions - I totally annihilated that spawn as well without dying - and I went on to try various other L53 and L54 spawns with no issues at all.

The Rikti assault suit EBs died very fast as well - I tried several at L52-54 - admittedly they're not much of a challenge as my Bane can solo them without insps - but still, it showed me how fast an EB can fall to this build. In normal missions too the build far exceeds my expectations - very smooth, fast at killing, and very survivable. The only time I suffered a cascade defence failure and almost died was against PPD peacebringers in the Peregrine mayhem, but admittedly I had herded up a few spawns of them at the time (so my friend's Crab could knock them down quickly), and I still didn't die (I ducked out of sight until my def recovered). I suspect Cimeroran Traitors (who also have lots of -def) might be dangerous in large numbers, but I haven't faced them yet.

It's not all roses though - now the drawback... the build is not completely end-balanced. After doing the RWZ challenge a few times I inevitably tried the Pylon challenge. I could get a Pylon down to 75% pretty easily and swiftly (a few minutes), but then I'd have to worry about endurance. I could drop Slash from the attack chain and use Poison Dart instead, and that allowed me to regain end for a while (slowly), but it reduced dps so much that the pylon would take ages to defeat. The problem with extending the fight time against a pylon is that the second problem becomes more likely to happen...

When a Pylon does hit you through your defence (a 5% chance I think, due to the clamp, though it might be 7.5% like AVs - I need to check as I didn't think to at the time) your health drops to almost zero - in fact I think the one-shot code was saving me. I could immediately heal back 400-ish of my 1200-ish HP with Aid Self (4.33sec anim time). By the time I could use Aid Self again (5.26sec recharge time on my build) it would restore me to full health, because my regen healed the remaining lost health in the meantime. However during that time between the first and second Aid Self the Pylon would get another attack on me.

This means that if the Pylon gets "lucky" and hits through your defences twice in a row you get killed. On all 4 of my attempts this happened - twice at around 75% health left on the pylon and twice at around 50%. Maybe I was just unlucky and I could fluke it all the way through a pylon without it hitting me twice in a row, but after 4 failed attempts I got a bit bored of it and went back to killing L54 Rikti for purple drops What was quite amusing was that on one attempt I got the pylon nearest the Vanguard base to 50% and actually got back from the hospital before it had regenned past 75% - so maybe I could do it without insps, but with a few deaths, hehe.

Of course both issues could be cured by using blue and green inspirations, but I believe the Pylon Challenge expressly forbids their use so I didn't bother to try with them as it would have felt like cheating the challenge.

I have been working on getting the 2 +end accolades - getting both will increase end recovery from 3.47 end/sec to 3.82 end/sec - I had factored that into my original build and it should help a lot. If it doesn't then it could be that the only way to get an end-balanced widow will be by dropping Slash for Swipe, but I'd rather not do that as it would affect dps in normal conditions and I think the build is pretty awesome as it is now - plus I like having a big-hitter like Slash.

With regards to the health issues, the +HP accolades may help (I have Invader already), but I think with Pylons it will always be the case that if they get two "lucky" hits in a row this build will be defeated without using a green insp on top of Aid Self. I can only assume that the /SR scrappers that have done the pylon challenge did so by using insps, or just kept attempting it until they didn't get hit by the pylon twice in a row.

I haven't tried any AVs yet. I want to get the accolades first to fully optimise the build.

I am disappointed this build can't do the Pylon challenge (yet), but then that's hardly intended gameplay and this is a pretty amazing build in all other respects. It's easily worth the inf spent so far - it just feels awesome to play a character where all the powers recharge so quickly. The only time I've experienced that before was on my perma-dom and he isn't anywhere near as awesome as this widow.

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Quick question, why did you put a chance for build up in the follow up move? Will it stack with follow up if the chance % is successful?

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Yes, when it goes off it stacks with however much Follow-up I have already stacked (usually triple-stacked if last 3 applications hit). I did notice my dps spiking a few times, but whether the BU proc gives more overall dps boost than a normal damage proc I don't know - that's something for a mathematician to work out. For now I'm fairly content to leave the BU proc in, because it's very noticeable when it fires, moreso than damage procs (though they do activate more often and directly contribute damage instead of boosting dps).

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This build is amazing, thanks for making it availible vald to uncreative naablets like me in need of uber builds.

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No probs

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Once again i'd like to thank you if i could base my widow build off of this. It's very ambitious, and very powerful, and creative with the sets and bonuses, and i like that.

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Sure, go for it. You may want to tweak it for your playstyle, but I don't mind if you copy it whole. I borrow lots of ideas from other people's posted builds, but honestly I always tailor my builds exactly to what I want (or what I'm willing to spend - not such an issue these days - though it has been in the past). You just need to have a clear idea of what you want from a build and then craft it towards that end.

As I've said, the central tenet of the above build was getting enough +rchg that I could skip taking Swipe but still have a gap-less single target attack chain. Once that was achieved I still had some room for tweaking the build to my concept and power needs.

I still don't know exactly how the build will pan out in practical terms, though - though I should in the next day or two - my Widow is currently level 48.5 and I expect she will hit L50 sometime tomorrow... errr today... is that really the time? I need to go to bed

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Ahh sweet, that really is pimped, my current build, doesn't have aidself, and doesn't rely on mindlink to get soft cap, but in doing this i think i've gimped myself.

i didn't pick eviserate or dart burst because of longer recharge/animation. But again it leaves me with less powerful attacks, i'll load the build onto mids when i get home an really check it out, overall this looks very nice, nice ammount of +recharge.

BUT no smoke grenade? say whaaat :P

i'll comment back soon, an post my build, see what you think.

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Even soft-capped an AV will still have 7.5% chance to hit you (an EB 6.5%, and everything else 5%) so the -ToHit from the Smoke Grenade doesn't really do much once you're soft-capped (unless you're fighting higher than +5s...), even though it is unresistable. And I can get the -perception effect from the Day Job smoke grenade, if I needed it - I don't see this build needing to worry about getting single pulls

Eviscerate and Dart Burst are there for the same reason Spin is - to wipe out minions/lieuts in spawns quickly - and because I love the animations of both. Plus Dart Burst lets me use another purple set (with a knockdown IO in it, for alpha-strike mitigation), doesn't cause claw redraw, gives me a ranged attack chain with Poison Dart that doesn't cost much end (for flying targets, when you're webbed down or can't be bothered to fly/jump up to them), and frankly it just looks and sounds very cool.

Not having Aid Self is really going to be limiting if you want to try the RWZ or Pylon challenges. It is what makes my Bane incapable of them (that and the fact he's only soft-capped to Ranged). Even with defence soft-capped you ARE going to get hit eventually, and against AVs and L54 Chief Soldiers you will be hit for most of your health, so one more hit soon afterwards, from anything, will kill you stone dead. You need a source of healing other than insps, as the RWZ and Pylon challenges expressly forbid insps and you don't always have green insps either. I'm still trying to fit Aid Self into my Bane (I'm currently planning an expensive build for him as I'm almost back up to 2 billion inf total on redside, after having bought all the enhs needed for this widow), but I don't like what I'd have to sacrifice from his current build to get it.

Your build looks good though - tbh I find builds a very personal thing - you have to find what works for your playstyle. Some of my picks did come down to my playstyle or concept choices (i.e. I did not want any psi attacks). Also my Bane, like my Corrs/Doms, spends a large part of the time debuffing (or placating) - for my Widow I just wanted continuous dps with no prep time - hence no Smoke Grenade nor Placate (Bane will always be better for initial burst dps in a single hit, so my Bane has placate - he's my "stalker" VEAT, so I built my widow more like a "scrapper" VEAT as the speed of widow attacks seemed to suit that better).

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The title states: "Night Widow optimised for tough single targets"

If this build has costed you around 2.3-2.5 billion like you say, then from this and the title, should I confirm that this is an AV soloing build?

If not, could you explain what you're referring to by "tough single targets"? :P

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The main aim of the build is high single target dps and survivability, though without losing flexibility for taking down spawns quickly (hence taking Spin/Evisc/DBurst), so yes I'm hoping this build will be able to solo AVs as I know GMs will be impossible without major -regen (too many times I've been the player on a full 8-player GM-killing team that had to give up using the character I wanted to use, to go get my /Dark or /Rad instead for some -regen debuffing, and then the GM went down very fast).

Honestly I don't play my L50s that much, so this build is just a luxury item for when I need to fill some solo time and fancy taking on tough challenges - and as a main endgame TF/SF/Raid character for me (though I suspect I'll still play my Fire/Rad and Bane/Crab from time to time on TFs/SFs, as I do now). I'm as curious about what this build will be capable of as you are - that's the main idea - pushing the envelope. Doing the RWZ and Pylon challenges are certainly first on the list (and in the RWZ challenge the only real challenge is surviving long enough to kill those 3 L54 bosses), AVs will follow, and I'd quite like to trying soloing a L54 Rikti Magus EB on the MS Raid without running to the cover of a healing blanket when I get hit (like my Bane needs to do it). Tough MA arcs are also on the challenge list - some custom critters I've run into in MA have minced some of my 50s that have had zero problems with EBs outside of MA.

All of the IOs I use on my characters I craft myself, as it is usually much cheaper than buying pre-made ones.

When common recipes drop for me I tend to vendor 99% of them, unless they're worth a lot more to sell on the BM/WW than at vendor (as I don't really want market slots tied up with selling commons). The 1% exception is usually just EndMod recipes, as I know they are in demand and I can sell them on the market for much more than vendor price, so I do list those either as recipe or IO (depends if I can be bothered to make them). It beats me why people consistently pay more on the market for EndMod recipes than they could buy them for from invention tables, but they do so I'm happy to take advantage of that.

When set recipes drop for me I ask myself the following questions:

1) Do I need the IO on this character? If so I'll craft it and slot it.

2) Will I need this IO on another character, now or in future, and do I have space to store it? If yes then I'll craft it and stick it in my base storage. Usually this only applies to procs/uniques/specials that drop rarely, and also for L50 IOs I tend to use a lot in final builds.

3) Is it an unpopular/underused set where supply far outstrips demand (e.g. most control/debuff sets), that I know there will be a surplus on the market, with not much traffic, so that it would take weeks/months to sell for very little inf? If so I'll vendor the recipe without even checking the BM/WW.

4) Is it a popular set where the pre-made IO sells regularly on the BM/WW (at least a few every week, preferably more) and for significantly more than the recipe sells for, taking current salvage prices into account? If so I'll make up the IO and list it (usually for far less than equilibrium price to ensure it sells fast, but still at a profit).

5) Is it a popular set where the pre-made IO doesn't sell so quickly, but the recipe sells at least once per week and for at least 100k inf? I so I'll list the recipe at a price somewhere between 10k (the most a vendor would pay for any orange recipe) and the equilibrium price - whatever I think will sell it fastest.

6) If after checking the BM/WW I would have answered questions 4) and 5) with a "No" then I just vendor the recipe.

I empty all of my characters' inventories at the end of every play session with them - sticking to these rules helps me do that quickly for recipes.

My perspective is probably skewed by my main activity though - buying popular/desirable recipes from the market that I don't currently need, purely to make them up and sell them on at a profit. This is my main inf generation method currently and the profits so dwarf what I can make on my alts while levelling normally that I tend to just do whatever is easiest with my drops.

The players of an MMO are absolutely the worst people for planning a game's future - we all want different things, we're biased towards our own self-interest, we have no overview as to how our ideas could affect the rest of the community or the long term future of the game (which we may not even be around for - players are fickle), and we have little knowledge of how many man-hours it would take to implement certain things or whether they're workable with the existing code.

Sure the Devs should listen to our suggestions, to a point, either for inspiration or so players don't feel ignored - but we have to trust the Devs' vision of where this game is heading. I'd rather the Devs have a definitive plan of where they're heading, than not - MMOs without planning and vision are MMOs without a future.

I trust the Devs' vision at the moment - if that changes I'll unsubscribe - ultimately that should be the main effect players have on the course of an MMO. Predictive suggestions are fun though - but only to see if you're right if/when the feature you anticipate is finally implemented.

My favourite 5 are:

Banished Pantheon - woefully underused, great backstory, Totems are just cool
Freakshow - very funny, well designed, CoV arcs give them added depth and pathos
Rikti - well designed, alien invaders are a superhero staple, nice backstory twist
Council/5thColumn - great backstory, good mob variety, love the scheming between Requiem/Arakhn/Center
Nemesis - I love steampunk & Nemesis is a proper villain (a ubiquitous manipulator): Viridian's last mission sums him up so well.

My least favourite would be Longbow, because they're overused (in CoV, which I mainly play) and have a dull and dubious backstory - they also need more variety in minions and especially lieutenants (oh how I hate Nullifiers, yet get bored of seeing them in every spawn). I hate Wailers too - they all look the same and fight the same way... then there's that sound...

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I think it's a shame that the BP only get a few boring one-offs and a very dull story arc (Wheel of Destruction). I'm trying to think of a decent story to write for them in the MA atm.

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I agree 100% - I'd love to see the BP get more content devoted to them. Their backstory is really interesting, especially where it overlaps with CoT and Mu history (which inspired my first MA arc).

I love the lore of the game. The main resource is of course the game itself - playing it, reading the quest text and all clues in context, is the best way to learn the lore. If you want a shortcut then Paragon Wiki is pretty good - I use that to refresh my memory of certain clues/dialogue from the game.

And yeah read the novels and the comics - we can't be sure whether they're canon (and if the game contradicts them in any way, now or in future, the game version would be canon) but they fill in a lot of gaps and on the whole don't contradict in-game lore.

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My main problem is what i want to roll. Was thinking of a dom but not sure on what powersets other than nrg castle will fiddle with and if there are some recharge changes.

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I like doms, even though they don't ever feel as "strong" as my other characters to me personally (that will probably change with the I15 dom buffs).

My Mind/Psi dom (L50) was easily the "weakest" character I have ever played for the first 38 levels (then obviously things improved) - solo was usually safe but very slow, though in duos/teams I didn't feel like I was pulling my own weight. By comparison my Earth/Fire dom (L38 currently) has felt very strong (for a dom) - great area control plus great area and single target damage (thanks mostly to Fiery Embrace) makes a dom that is good for everything.

I expect great things from Plant/Elec too (my next dom - a primary with good area control plus a secondary with a damage buff should make it on par with my Earth/Fire), though I wouldn't play /Energy or Grav/ on a dom unless Castle's I15 changes go a lot further than so far announced.

But yeah might be worth waiting to see what buffs and nerfs Castle makes in I15 before starting a dom.

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Thanks very much Val, looks very interesting. I did craft some purples once to sell back for profit, but it was very risky, and the profit margins weren't too reliable. I would make a lot with one craft, but give a few days, and crafting the same recipe would lose you millions.

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Yeah that's always the danger.

Best to treat marketeering like gambling, early on. Initially only use inf you can spare that you don't mind losing. 50-100m is enough to get started properly, but if you begin with arbitrage and build up to create-and-sell schemes (like I've detailed) then you can even start on a low level character with very little inf - my friend does that for starting cash on his lowbies, but I find having so few market slots proves restrictive (I prefer just dumping 5m on my lowbies from one of my L50s to get them started - it's quicker).

I almost got burned a few times early on - you just have to learn when a niche is going bad and take down your listed stock then either store it (until the niche recovers, if you have base storage space free), or re-list at a lower price just to get rid of that stock before it goes into a loss-making situation for you. Sure, you lose the initial listing fee (5% of listing price) but if you can still shift the IO at the re-listed price for an overall profit before the niche collapses it's well worth it.

I've done this a lot when I see a niche turning - some IOs I've even re-listed 2-3 times and still made a profit before the niche went negative. Ideally though you don't want to make a knee-jerk decision to re-list based just off one or two prices spiking downwards - you need to see a trend of the niche cascading down and holding at a lower level before you panic and pull your stock. If IOs start to consistently sell below your list price the most likely answer is that another marketeer has undercut you and is moving their stock at that new level. You can either wait until they run out of stock or undercut them in return - depends how busy the niche is. High traffic niches can happily support several marketeers, but may also trend downwards a lot faster if those marketeers get overly competitive.

When a market slot is tied up for several days with an IO that isn't selling you're losing inf compared to what you could be earning with that slot.

There are no hard and fast rules - you just need to go on gut feeling, learn from experience and do what feels right to you. You can only judge what works from your own performance.