LordLundar

Doh! You beat me to it!

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It seems that great minds do run in the same tracks.

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Isn't that what causes train wrecks?

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Apparently, and I'm not seeing anything here to dissuade that theory.

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Was on a PUG with one of my MM's...

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Reminds me of another bad pug I was in on my MM. Damn brute declared himself the aggro sponge. Okay, no problem in that, if he could, oh, I don't know, HOLD AGGRO! No, he'd throw a couple of powers off then move onto another group, leaving us to mop up. I had to deal with two boss mobs at once (thank goodness for my bots) and everyone else was soloing one. He wipes because for some odd reason he thought we were right behind him instead of actually trying to stay alive. So he drops when he tries to get a third group and the second one catches up to him, then expects us to rez him after we finally handle the first group.

8 man team went to 1 in a half second. Pugs went on my do not go list for a couple months after that.

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I once did a Sewer team with three tanks, lead by a controller who thought just because he had the star, he should be the first one into the spawns.

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I did that in the LGTF I was in last night. Granted, I was nearly def capped and playing my scrapper (ie was pointed at the enemy and told "go nuts" muahahaha!) But I did it.

As for bad experiences, it had to be doing an anti-matter fight with a team on justice. It was me(kat/regen scrapper which I moved here), a tanker, 2 WS, 2 Def, a DB scrapper, and a blaster. Sounds fine right?

Would have if the players knew what they were doing. Buffs in place? None apart from my own, the other scrapper was out of range, one of the defenders was a TA/A def, blaster was an AR/Dev, one of the WS decided to go dwarf and off tank, The other def was so far off, any buffs/heals only benefited the ranged players. Now the builds wouldn't be the problem if everyone didn't decide that damage was the only thing to do. So, no buffs for the melee units, and no debuffs on anti-matter. 3 wipes and we never got him down below 80%, which was just pathetic for a competent team, but that team was anything but.

Out of the team of 8, the only ones I would go with again was the tanker (who, despite the dwarf WS apparently trying to pull AM off him, held aggro well) and the WS that was at the ranged attacks.

This is going to sound incredibly snarky, so bear with me.

Because not everyone thinks you have to hit 50 in the shortest amount of time possible.

Yeah, that's right. You see, this game, instead of saying that max level is when the game gets good and everything before it is filler, says the journey is the most important part of the game.

No no no, it's TEKNOMAN!

Or if you want to get technical, Tekkaman Blade

Thankfully, Bioware did something that SOE didn't do, which was holding it in the old republic era, shortly after the jedi wars of KotoR 1 and 2. This means that Jedi on both sides (the ones for the sith were called dark jedi) numbered in the hundreds per system and both sides were properly trained in fighting them, as opposed to the time of the empire that SWG was in, where there were maybe a handful total of jedi on both side. This means that sure you can be a jedi, but don't expect it to be the "uber-class" you would expect.

The biggest (a lot would say final) insult was when SOE completely revaped the game with no warning. However, the problems started with day one. With every successive patch and expansion, the game introduced new bugs while old ones like terrain gaps and texture glitches were not touched. The only bugs that were fixed were ones that were being used to commit exploits. It got so bad that there were groups of players looking into the glitches specifically to find a way to exploit them so they could be fixed.

The game got steadily worse as time went on. Then the fiasco of the changeover occurred and if it wasn't for the mass complaints (which makes anything here or even in WoW look like a whimper) and threats of lawsuits (which would qualify under the bait-and-switch laws), they would have kept the money from selling the expansion released a few days prior.

2 camps of people left that day. One camp was the "canon followers" who were mainly pissed off because the jedi became commonplace which was just wrong for the era. The other, much, much, much larger camp left because they felt cheated. All the hard work they put into their characters was gone, without any notice or feedback from the players.

To put it in perspective, a lot of people here are whining that the MA badges are being modified. Picture if you will I16 comes out without any player notice, enhancements get scrubbed, the power pools get simplified to strict classes, the invention system is the only way to get improvements and anyone could play as Statesman or Recluse. As well, all your characters get wiped completely and to compensate, you get one power boost that grants a .2% boost to one trait. No picture that happening 2 days after Going Rogue is released and you payed for it. That is the equivalent of what happened with the restructure of SWG.

Thankfully, Bioware has experience with the content and period and aren't exactly prone to doing stupid things with their games.

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I know that the original version robbed the character of almost all HP, turned off the character's regeneration based powers and left them with nothing but defense and resistance to keep them alive, and finally ended with the standard crash PLUS the fact that the character's HP is still bottomed out which seems to total up to the ultimate in inappropriately mismatched power to powerset flop

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You forgot to add in that it kills all regenerative capability while it was active.

The original version had two crashes: the primary was when you use it. It removed all buffs in the regen pool (passive, toggle and click), Put your HP to single digits, and put a regen debuff that kills ANY chance of natural health restoration (so even having health from the fitness PP was not enough) To offset it, your defense and damage resist was near maxed out, with the exception of Psionic, so you could survive the incoming blows. (hopefully)

The second crash occurs when the power ended, and that was an endurance crash. Your regen ability and passives were restored, but with no endurance, the toggles and click powers were still off limits, leaving you extremely vulnerable, as the passives just couldn't recover your health or stamina fast enough for a front line fighter.

Suffice to say, with the old one, the time to use it was to ensure that there would be no enemies near you when the second crash occured, whether to defeat the enemy, or to escape them. (with a scrapper? HA!) Neither situation was really beneficial, so it was most often used to panic the defenders and controllers in the group and start mass heals on the scrapper. As such it got tweaked to the current form, where it serves a much better use.

Kain in the Legacy of Kain series. He reigned triumphant in Blood Omen, then proceeded to destroy the pillars that held the world in check. For centuries, the world then proceeded to destroy itself while he just sat there.

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Paladine is a god. I think it'll take more than police drones to take him out...

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Yeah, like actually getting him in the game in the first place.

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That would really suck for villains if they managed to piss him off.

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Go for a Twilight vampire. SS/INV brute. Sparkly!

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Let's not, say we didn't, and move on, 'kay? :P

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Wait...what?

Those other seven people stealing my kills are on my TEAM?!?

I thought they were just there to distract my enemies so I could kill them easier.

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Been there, done that. I do my damdest to try and pull mobs off the tank from damage alone.

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I am an unabashed Leeroy.

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No no, there is a difference. Leeroy was a nut job who was intent on screwing over his party. (granted the party were morons as well, but that's beside the point)

Scrappers are Chaos incarnate, and letting them loose is a GOOD thing, provided you aren't a target.

And it sounds like we need a reclarification on the 6-second rule.

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Here is a clasic
Party Crashing

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Woah! Is that the Kronos in Hamidon?

Great. One more thing to worry about when I spawn the Kronos on my scrapper.

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Right. I see plenty of Scrappers at level 50 who seem quite maniacal despite being sword, spines, or claws.

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Fixed for my amusement.

Ah, I love concept builds.

Let's see, your zombie dark MM isn't so far of a stretch as you think, depending on your mindset. Think a vampire lord as opposed to a solo vampire.

If you want the solo vampire route, a stalker would be the ideal. Dark melee/Dark Armor would be the ideal concept build, but you can also make a case for regen if you want, though the green aura would be off-putting.

Power pools: Lets see, for MM, Leadership (duh!) and flight would be essential for a concept build. You could also use stealth and teleport, but those aren't essential. (Vampire Lords don't do the hiding thing)

The stalker's PP would have to go with fitness as a standard and Teleport. Flight if you have room for it, not just for concept but also for navigation.

Patron Powers: Soul pool would be the quintessential to the vampire, considering that the patron is undead herself.

I can't really see any other ATs for it, though an argument could be made for a dominator with a fighting power pool, but it's a stretch. Brutes are too brutal, corruptors don't bring anything to the concept, and all of the hero ATs are designed around being noticed, which is not a vampires M.O.

Healers are vital in any group.

GAH! That one drives me nuts! One SF I was in we had enough Def and Dam resist where against pretty much any enemy in the arc our designated "healer" was bored out of their mind because no one was taking any damage.

Definately going to have to look at some of these, they promise to be fun.

Mine is ArcID # 197038 - All in a day's work.

Playout: 4 Missions, 3 rescues, 1 EB ally, 1 EB enemy and one AV villain. Can be soloed or group played.

Story: What goes on in a typical day for your regular hero? Find out as Pauline Parkers decides to tag along with a hero for a day and writes about her experiences.

Don't get mine confused with another one with a slightly different name. Mine is labelled as "Very Long" and is a Blue side exclusive. I think the other one is a farm mission.

And please, be honest. I put a fair bit of work into it and if I need to adjust things, let me know.

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Don't believe them! As soon as I logged on this morning I got five computer viruses!

Also two clockwork winders, a luck charm and three inanimate carbon rods.

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Hehe! I just had an image pop into my head of him yelling out "I got a computer virus!" when he gets the salvage and his mom freaking out.

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No, there are no NPCs in the game that wear Enforcer type armor (with the exception of some MA custom enemies). The Enforcer set was introduced shortly after the Vanguard set, which does look similar for some parts but totally different for others.



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^This.

It was brought in as a standby for the Vanguard set. Personally, I like the Enforcer set better.

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Had to change the name of a character whose last name was 'Whitman' (common spelling, as in Walt Whitman) because the word 'hitman' in "profane."
Apparently there's a DC character that uses that as a name.

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I could just see another of the big publishers deciding to get into the super hero MMO market and concoct an evil plan to preemptively kill the competition without resorting to litlgation... Hmmm... This is starting to sound like an AE arc. Anyway:

Encourage employees to get trial accounts.

Monitor the heavily populated zones and take notes on really good sounding names and creative costumes.

Report back to the corporation's big archvillain their findings.

Publish a one shot or miniseries a few months later that make use of all these names and looks.

Wait for comics fans who play CoX but are not employees of said evil corporation to loyally report all these sudden trademark violations.

Mass genericings ensue

Mass exodus from the game ensues

Fade to black.

Evil corporation unveils their new shiny super hero MMO.

Corporation's top archvillain instructs his cronies and shareholders to laugh with him. AH-Hah-hah-hah-hah...

Okay. The above scenario is unlikely.

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You should make it into a MA arc. That would be gold!

usually in that case, the unmodifiable one is called "<insert name>legacy"

So far as I ca recall. I haven't been on since shortly after I13 was released.

Yeah, I went with the KotoR era because it better encompasses the variety. There were jedi and sith in the tens of thousands at that time, as opposed to about a hundred jedi and a handful of sith on the pre/during clone wars period.

For a Sith Lord, you could also make a strong case for a mind/electric dominator, with a soul patron and could also integrate the flight power pool. (could also do flight with the MM version as well)

You have to remember how they carried themselves. A lightsaber doesn't make a jedi or a sith. (It's the other way around ) Sith Lords very rarely went into physical combat and did so as a last resort. Think in terms of Darth Sidious. He only used his saber twice by movie reference and probably not much more than that through his life. Marauders could use pretty much any weapon they got their hands on to great effect, but they preferred the saber. Assassins were the most reliant on the saber because of it's ease of use and concealment.

Well, to start off with, yes, it's corny.

(all subsequent info comes from the KoToR 2 manual)

There's 3 basic types of master Sith.

Sith Lord: Very heavy reliance on the force. Rarely gets his own hands dirty.

Sith Marauder: Your general shock troops, general combat specialist, can use a variety of weapons well, but not any particular master in any of them, uses the Force to augment their skill.

Sith Assassin: Master of stealth, and the one hit kill. Uses te force to get him/her to the target, kills with the lightsaber, then uses the Force to get out. Force dependency depends on the difficulty of the target.

That said, my personal recommendations would be (keeping in mind this is a concept build, not optimization):

Sith Lord: MM, skills are up to you, though I would go with bots myself (assassin droids) and secondary as Dark miasma. Patron I'd go with Mu Mastery. Power pools would be Leadership and speed/leaping for travel.

Sith Marauder: Brute easily. Remember, these are out on the front lines. Primary I'd say DB (call your basic set Vibro swords until you can get the talsorians for lightsabers. Secondary I'd say invul, WP, or energy aura. Patron I'd go with soul mastery. Power pools I'd go with speed/leaping and fitness.

Sith Assassin: Stalker, nothing else fits. Primary would be Ninja Blade or DB, though a case can be made for claws. Secondary can be any, though best concept build would favor ninjitsu or SR. Patron would be Soul pool as well. speed leaping and fitness are for the power pool.

Great publication as always, though I have a nitpick with Hostile V's article.

His portion of probability manipulation is a little off to say the least. The examples he is giving is more attributed to Chaos manipulation, where any action, through a series of random events, indirectly causes another event to occur in a random location.

Probability manipulation requires a direct link between the events. Casually kicking a can and a nemesis bot blowing up are non-related, while kicking a can at a nemesis bot in a precise way to jam it and cause it to blow up is a direct link and makes PM viable.

Sitting down and money from the sky is just silly as well as being part of chaos theory. Sticking your arm out at just the right time to clothesline a thief causing the money to drop in front of you is PM territory.

As for the recluse example, I've got nothing. Spraying the water at him in such a way as to cause him to choke to death maybe?

Basically, probability manipulation is about taking the one in a million chance and making it happen on command, but the one in a million chance has to be a direct link between the two items being affected. The examples hostile gave are chaos manipulation and would be strictly in the hands of omnipotent beings. (ie devs)