MTS
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I think someone mentioned the Justice United and JFA2010 channels earlier. I mainly play on Triumph, but have a few characters on Justice and have never had trouble finding a team using those channels (last time I did a midrange TF on Justice I was shocked at how fast it filled). If you want to avoid the somewhat... diverse... population on Freedom I think you'll be just fine using the global channels.
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Quote:Yeah, that's why I went back and added the caveat.Originally Posted by alyssa_jones
Oddly enough, I found myself gaining xp faster from the dungeon crawls than from quests due to the zero travel time involved thanks to the LFD.
Since they added LFD, chain-running dungeons can definitely be a good way to level, but it depends on what roles are in demand and if you end up in a half hour queue or not. Tanks almost always get in instantly. I found at lower levels, healers tended to have to wait, but the 60-70 range was healer starved and I got instant queues there.
Debt is almost a complete joke now. If you get any, it's usually gone before you finish the mission, and often simply clearing the next big group will get rid of it. Even if you die a lot and rack some up, your patrol XP (same thing as rested XP, except you don't have to log off anywhere in particular to get it) counteracts it, so the debt goes away while you're logged off.Quote:I've already encountered that ugly xp debt, but I really don't see it being a problem. -
Quote:Cytoskeletons and Ribosomes are also the most efficient way to max out toggle defense or resistance shields. They get you a full 33% endrdx, 20% def (or resist) per HO. Frankenslotting level 50 dual aspect IOs only gets you 26.5% / 15.9% per IO.Originally Posted by Local_Man
There are actually quite a few uses for Hami-Os, even in today's IO Set game. The amounts of enhancement for Hami-Os is more than multi-aspect Set IOs. Hami-Os can often be used to "fill the gap" that sets can't quite fill. The Acc/Dam ones are great to cap Damage and substantially improve Accuracy in some Blast sets.
They're freaking expensive, but they are technically the best way if you're tight for slots and not after a particular set bonus. -
Quote:Not to mention the +DMG, so not only will they bypass your defense, but they'll 2 shot pretty much anything with enough stacks.Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
Yep, kill off a bunch of Nemesis LT's and watch the fun as the vengeance stacks up to "vaporize" on all surviving nearby mobs. Massive +defense and +tohit on them makes it much harder to kill the remainder and MUCH easier for them to take you apart.
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Quote:It's actually applied twice.Originally Posted by Golden_Avariel
Good to know. I always assumed all numbers were calculated and then the minimum was applied.
The exact formula is here. It's a little mathy, but your defense goes in the DefMods part of the equation.
HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods DefMods ) )
The bonuses that critters get for being a higher level than you, or for being a Lt/Boss/EB/AV/GM are accuracy modifiers, so they apply to the AccMods part. -
If you're coming from WoW, there's one other habit that you'll probably need to break yourself of. In wow, the most efficient way to level for most classes (except maybe tank specs) is generally considered soloing, just because of the way the game is set up. It's partly due to the ratio of quest competion XP verses mob kill XP, the way that the XP gets split when you're in a group, and the difficulty of forming and keeping a viable group make-up since the options are so limited.
In CoH, the fastest way to level is to team (and most fun way, IMO, though your opinion may differ). It scales with team size, so big teams level even faster. This is because missions spawn more enemies when you're on a big team, so even though the XP is split, your team can mow them down in ridiculous numbers. Also, the force multiplying effect of support sets (defenders, controllers, corruptors, masterminds) means if you have a couple of those, you'll be cutting through even higher level foes like a knife through hot butter.
Like everyone has been saying, all ATs contribute in some way to a team. So you don't have to wait around for a certain one, if a few people on your team have to leave, you can just grab whoever and chances are you'll be just fine. Tankers can grab aggro and help group up enemies to AoE down. Brutes and scrappers can do quite a bit of damage, and are nice and survivable as well. Blasters are excellent at killing things very fast. And stalkers ... um ... bring cookies? :P
Not to mention the whole super-sidekicking feature, so the people you team with don't even have to be the same level. As long as they're not level 2 or something, they should be able to contribute to the team.
Finally, unlike wow, don't worry about dying. The penalty is extremely minimal. There are so many different ways to rez without having to run back it's laughable, even in the middle of a fight. Even if you do have to go to the hospital, you're alive when you get there so it's easy to get back to the mission fairly quickly. -
Quote:I like to use the road out of town in southern Imperial City. Works consistently for me with just sprint.Originally Posted by srmalloy
If you start at the city region marker (cyan dot on the map) in the NE part of the Neutropolis yellow area (I forget the region name offhand), and head due N from there, you'll reach a point at the edge of the map where you can get the badge before taking a significant amount of damage.
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Best of luck to you Castle. Things won't be the same around here without you. I always liked how you tried to be open about game mechanics and design goals, and not keep things locked up behind the "devs only" curtain. At least as much as your bosses would let you get away with it.
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Quote:I've done it on a couple controllers and it was incredibly simple. Just held him (didn't see any purple triangles, though it's possible I got lucky with timing) and he stopped spawning clones. I ignored the one clone he did spawn and had no problem doing enough damage, just alternating my hold and APP single target blast to beat him. I didn't even realize until later that the clones increased his regen -- I was wondering why it wasn't really attacking me.Originally Posted by Dispari
The only things lower than that in damage are Controller, Defender, and petless MM. And I'm pretty sure those have the tools to handle him as well.
Kill his clones and use inspirations. If you still can't handle it, take a friend.
I haven't tried a defender yet, but with the debuffing potential of most of the sets I think all but the most pathological builds should be able to do it, maybe with some inspirations. -
Quote:I have to agree with this. It doesn't make sense story-wise for him to be able to be separated from his bifurcations. Either he should be able to spawn them anywhere and they should follow him around, or he should refuse to leave the area where he can spawn them.Originally Posted by pimpinator
I like games with smart AI where a villain wont follow you out of his "safety zone" where he will get owned. I rate this change A for, stop whining.
I'm all for creative tactics, but Trapdoor isn't supposed to be a complete idiot.
As for if the mission is too difficult -- meh. Incarnates are supposed to be the gateway to challenging endgame content, it should at least be a little bit reflective of that. If it's too tough for your solo FF/Elec defender slotted for end mod and with all 4 travel powers, that's what teams are for. You'll need one to run the Incarnate TFs anyway.
I've found the Honoree mission way tougher than Trapdoor anyway on my support-ish toons, due to how many rikti ambush you when set to x8, and the fact that he hits squishies like a freight train. It was still doable with him lowered down to an EB and judicious use of inspirations. -
Actually the biggest thing I'm worried about with level shifts is in regards to non-IO enhancements. I.e. after 4 incarnate levels, if my combat level gets shifted up to 54, will my HOs break?
Surely not or else SO-only incarnates would be up a creek without a paddle. -
Quote:Gah, you're right. Can't believe I forgot to write that one. The worst part is, on the defender team I mentioned, I played a sonic.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Also, you left out Sonic Resonance. It has the same ability in Sonic Dispersion, which is more or less identical to Dispersion bubble, only it gives resistance instead of defense.
You could probably include Sonic in that category as well, since Liquefy's minion hold / knockdown / debuff patch makes for a reasonably effective alpha strike nullifier. Not to mention the cage if you're really desperate.Quote:Traps is a bit of an odd one, since it has several ways to prevent them as well as having protection. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Emberly
Most of my characters don't have or want purples because they don't offer the bonuses I want. That said, set IO'd sans Incarnate slot trumps non-set IO'd with Incarnate slot for me.It really depends on what you're building for.Quote:Originally Posted by Camper
You don't want recharge? That's unusual.
The only character that I have significantly "purpled out" (5x 5-piece sets) is my Earth / Storm controller, and the extra recharge made a significant difference. I picked that character because I thought it would benefit the most from the recharge bonuses. It went from adequate for most purposes, to able to solo +4 x8 content (albeit a little slowly compared to softcapped scrappers).
My Energy / Ice blaster on the other hand, is built for survivability and utility. I chose this because I knew Energy Blast would never be top damage, so my goal was ranged defense softcap and focusing on slows / holds. Purples don't help at all with that goal, I don't think there's a single set that gives defense bonuses. Despite my focus in this build, I still find that I do decent damage, and the extra survivability makes the character very fun to play. I remember tanking Scirocco for about 30 scary but thrilling seconds on a MoSTF, after a bad pull when the tank got held by an unexpected GW. We succeeded.
Many characters I find benefit most from frankenslotting to max out more attributes per slot, well-placed procs, and some of the set bonuses on the cheaper and lesser used sets. There are a lot of sets that give accuracy bonuses, for instance, letting you use your slots for other things. The alpha slot can be quite useful here too, especially for attributes that aren't near the ED cap. Which one used is highly build-dependent, but there are a lot of possibilities.
On my Earth/Storm, I ended up going for the endurance reduction alpha boost. Even with all the fancy IOs providing extra recovery, with all that recharge I can still burn him dry if I'm not careful. Purple sets don't have a lot of end reduction in them, and don't leave many free slots to get it, so I find it quite helpful there. -
Quote:Controller as well.Originally Posted by TheWeaver
Not necessarily. It is in at least the Blaster APP.
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Quote:Except if you have a lot of bonuses, the attribute monitor ranges from annoying to maddening to use.Originally Posted by Rajani Isa
That's what the power attribute monitor is for.
I know why it does it, because the bonuses are implemented as short buffs that overlap for a split second so there's no gap, but it's still frustrating to try to look at details for an attribute at the bottom of one of the categories just to have it bounce around all over the page.
If they can't make the power monitor compensate for it, a stable sort order and the ability to lock the scroll location to whichever attribute you're looking at details on would be helpful.
It also seems to be rather inconsistent as to whether it stacks multiple instances of the same bonus together, or displays them separately. That might be related to the loss of buff source information when zoning, but I'm not sure. -
Quote:No, I only use them on an occasional as-needed basis (except for my fire/kin pair, but that's just a keybind to mash in between spawns).Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
You seem to be under the impression that those powers need to be cast on the entire team. They don't. Except in high-level missions with a lot of Mez powers, the Tankers and Scrappers probably don't need CM, but the Blasters, Defenders, and Controllers might if you have a bad Tanker on the team who causes aggro spill-over. If the tanker is the focus of all of the attacks, then few people on the team should need CM at all.
I was referring to earlier in the thread when someone compared those powers to a melee AT's toggle-based mez protection, and was trying to make the point that they're not the same thing at all. I should have quoted the exact post to make it more clear. Now that I look back I see that it was all the way back on page 1.
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Quote:The odd thing is that some support ATs do have mez protection. Force Field for instance gets mag 8-ish Hold, Stun, and Immob protection in their big bubble. They're still vulnerable to sleep. Also knockback, but several melee sets have that hole as well and it's easily plugged by IOs. Traps gets the same power, but from a pet (so it doesn't suppress if you do get mezzed, but can be killed early by an enemy).Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Support ATs have been given multiple tools to deal with mez, between preventing it, removing it, and avoiding it. But that isn't good enough. In order for you to feel it is balanced, support ATs need to have passive protection from it.
I look at it this way: Melee ATs, for the most part, cannot mez their opponents reliably, and definitely not at range. Thus they cannot be mezzed. Support ATs, for the most part, CAN mez their opponents reliably, and at range. Thus they can be mezzed in return.
Powers like Clear Mind Increase Density can't really be viewed as an equivalent, because they (1) can't be used on yourself, and (2) the duration is so short it's not really practical to keep it up on an entire team 100% of the time. ID is particularly bad. Because of its long cast time, it takes nearly 16 seconds to buff 7 people, and that's assuming they're all in range and you queue it perfectly. The buff only lasts for 60 seconds, so by the time you finish buffing everyone, you don't have very long to do other things before you have to start buffing again. CM is a little better but it still falls off rather easily. Thaw is somewhere in the middle, it has a longer cast time than ID at 2.4 seconds, but the 90 second duration of CM, and Clarity is a bit better. -
Quote:Sure they do.Originally Posted by Savos
Shrug, support has no way to cluster enemies to maximize AoE potential.
Grav trollers have wormhole which is quite good at this.
Sacrificing pets can do it too. Or not sacrificing them, Singularity and Animate Stone can both take a decent amount of damage. Animate Stone especially is good for tanking AVs or GMs because his attacks have a taunt component.
On x8 spawns are big enough that they're often clustered well enough within the range of AoEs anyway, there's no need to try to herd them. It would just be a waste of time that could be better spent cutting a path to the next group. With enough buffs, stragglers can just be ignored and they'll follow and get finished off by incidental damage.
Or you can just rush in like a scrapper would. I recently led an all-defender static team to 50, doing lots of task forces and AVs/GMs along the way. On that one I'd usually just run in, because I had so many stacked defense and resist buffs that the alphas just couldn't hit me. That team absolutely melted AVs like they weren't even there, and the only TF we couldn't complete was Lady Grey because we lacked enough holds for the green mitos and couldn't outdamage their healing (that and Hami cheats and ignores most buffs/debuffs). -
My controller just permaheld him and ignored the one clone he managed to spawn. Haven't tried it on a defender yet.
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Quote:Not to mention some of the incarnate powers (not available yet) do increase your combat level above 50. So they're sort of raising the cap, but not with levels that you actually train new powers / slots.Originally Posted by Garber
My assumption is the (+) stands for Incarnates. The rationale being that Incarnates will be quite a bit superior to standard lvl 50s.
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The bag of cereal that was pictured in the linked article looks suspiciously familiar...
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Quote:First mission of Neuron's arc in NeutropolisOriginally Posted by CaptainMoodswing
...what is this referencing? O.O
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Quote:Bit of a threadjack, but that was the funnest mission ever.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I gotta' tell you, even when exceeding the timer spawns a +23 EB in the mission who proceeds to one-shot me, I STILL prefer that to just getting booted out of the instance.
No one on the group I was playing with had done that mission before and knew what to expect. We figured probably an AV, maybe even a +4 AV, but decided to hang out after clearing the map and see if we could take him.
Imagine our surprise when he showed up over 20 levels higher than us and proceeded to wipe the floor with our steamroller team. It took quite a while for all the laughter on vent to die down. The "Flee for your lives!" yellow text popup was the icing on the cake.
It's moments like that that make this game worth playing.
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Very nice video D_R, excellent as always! I especially liked the music, and the way you captured the Praetorian locations and characters.
My one extremely minor nitpick is that you spelled the name of issue 18 differently than the devs. You used the British spelling (grey) in your video, while they have been using the American spelling (gray) on the official material.
Your profile says you're from Seattle, but maybe you've been hanging out with Lady Grey a lot.
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Quote:Tell me about it. On an all-defender team I run with, I've taken to putting sonic disruption on the dark servant, because it's the most likely to be in melee range of an enemy...Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
So I'm fighting an AV, I summon my Dark Servant....who immediately makes a beeline for the AV, fires off an attack, and promptly drops dead from a PbAoE. Freaking GUN DRONE does it. It has ONE ATTACK, and it's ranged, don't tell me the AI is too stupid to stand in one place and shoot things (which is exactly what it did, before everything in the game decided it was a Scrapper).