Maelwys

Taunt works fine.

You can get their attention perfectly. You just can't herd them.

What Rodion said above is true, the clones can be knockbacked but can't move on their own. I haven't taken a Power analyser to them yet, but I suspect that they've got an Auto Power that inflicts an immobilise on them, the same way as Snipers do.

No. (At least, not at the moment).

Correct.

Tested yesterday and today each for 6 hours straight. Rewards are back but shards only drop in RV (and presumably the arena in matches @ level 50) , not Warburg or Sirens.

Nope, tested and is still broke. At least in the zones.

Sounds like a DNS issue.

Change your primary DNS server to a different address than your ISP's default (might need to take it off "obtain automatically") in either your router setup or your windows' network connection settings (usually under TCP/IP properties)

I find I have the same problem if I use my ISPs default DNS servers, so I alternate between Google's 8.8.8.8, or one of the Level3 ones (4.2.2.1 through to 4.2.2.6)

I'm currently using 4.2.2.3 as my primary DNS server, and getting connected to CoH (from the UK, using the EU client) first time. I was using the Google address as my primary last week and it tended to connect on the 2nd/3rd attempt.

There's a list of plenty more available if you google for "Free DNS servers"... I don't trust OpenDNS though as they freely admit to filtering their listings, and I try to steer clear of other 3rd party providers as they could be routing you to anywhere (scam/keylogger sites for "valid addresses", etc.) Level3 provide a good bit of the internet backbone and are pretty reputable, and if you already trust Google with your search habits your browsing habits aren't much of a leap further.

[Edit: I should probably add that after changing your DNS settings you'll likely have to reboot your router and/or perform an "ipconfig /flushdns" at the windows command prompt to get it to start using the new server properly!]

I'll take your word for it that that was what the RAM was rated for. The speed timings should be fine, though 1.65v seems a little low to me. Increasing the voltage slightly (even by 0.5-1.0v) or lowering the clock speed would be one of the first things I would check if it was myself experiencing crashes. (example- is that RAM rated at 1600Mhz? Back it down to 1333Mhz temporarilly and see if it makes any difference... it's an easy change to make in order to put less stress on the RAM and rule it out as a possible cause of instability)

Cheers for the HIjackThis log. As expected from a new install, it looks very clean. No odd Antivirus or Antimalware stuff, etc. running which could be causing issues.

A few services are running which caught my eye and might be worth disabling temporarilly to see if it makes any difference. Both are part of the standard Nvidia driver installation and in theory should be fine/helpful but in practice could be contributing to instability.

"O23 - Service: NVIDIA Stereoscopic 3D Driver Service (Stereo Service) - NVIDIA Corporation - C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\3D Vision\nvSCPAPISvr.exe"

That's part of the Nvidia package which is only useful if you use 3d glasses and a display that supports them. You can disable it safely. A quick google shows that there are buggy versions of this service about which have been linked to system instability as recently as last month.

"O23 - Service: NVIDIA Driver Helper Service (NVSvc) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\nvvsvc.exe (file missing)"

This is the TSR used by the Nvidia driver for controlling "advanced" settings (including, amongst other things, dual monitor setups and automatic overriding of OpenGL refresh rate). It should normally be useful to you to have this running, but since it ties in with OpenGL by design, disabling it temporarilly might conceivably make a difference to your crashes.

After that, I'm afraid I'm out of ideas...

I can see a Directx Diagnostic linked, but no Hijackthis log... I'm reasonably sure your sound/video drivers etc. are ok if you've done a complete driver wipe and reinstall, let alone a system wipe + OS reinstallation, but that doesn't tell us anything about your other (non-directx) system services or TSR programs. You could conceivably be running low-level monitoring tools or services in the background that are attempting to interact with your video card whilst CoH is running.

Also, I didn't mean the amount of RAM used, a single instance of CoH tends to peak out at less than a GB, at least before memory leaks... it's the high throughput of data transferred in and out of RAM that has triggered repeated "random" crashes for me on several freshly-configured PCs so far. (So much so that I now consider running two windowed instances of CoH for 2 hours straight without crashes a good benchmark for stress testing overclocked memory... I've had dedicated stress tools such as "memtest" not throw up any errors whilst playing CoH still produces crashes until I turn my RAM timings down...)

They already make those.....

Hiya Resident!

Welcome to the Limey Servers.
There's a few of us left over here yet...

The zones of Paragon will probably seem a good bit emptier than you're used to (particularly if you're hailing from Freedom) but be sure to join the "Defiant Events" global channel and you'll virtually always find someone online to point you in the right direction.

- Mael

Not a bother! I hate junking up posts by posting a full export...

The second build linked to at the end of the post gets the Recharge you were aiming at but uses the Proc. You can actually get slightly higher recharge than that by swapping the power choices around a bit and taking the AoE hold for another 7.5% Rech in 4 slots.

And as has already been pointed out, come i19 you'll have another 3 power picks - plenty of opportunities to slot more LOTGs.

I can confirm that there is a 10 minute cooldown.

The closest drops I've ever got after they tied PVP IO drops in with rep-valid kills several issues ago were just under 12 minutes apart.

I can also confirm that you can get PVP IOs to drop at the rep cap (technically due to the rep decay, within the 5 minute window you lose and are therefore able to re-earn "0.1 rep"). I have at least one character that is constantly at the rep cap, and he is still able to earn PVP IOs just fine...

Though that said, I have noticed a bit of a tail off in the drop rate in recent months (which admittedly is quite possibly due to limited sample size). I'm currently seeing an average of approximately one IO every 120-130 rep-valid kills, when it used to be closer to 100. At one point (before drops required rep-valid kills) I was averaging one in less than 80 kills.

I keep at least a billion in raw inf on all but one of my Level 50s, and tend to use that other character as my "earning/selling" marketeer, so he can have anything up to several billion worth of stuff on him. For placing bids, this means I can generally just use whatever character actually wants the stuff.

I also have a personal (as-in "it's only my alts that are in the SG") base enhancement storage bin which currently has around 20-30 billion worth of the rarer crafted IOs in it.

I'm a farmer rather than a flipper though, so I tend to only have sales up rather than bids up most of the time (unless I've just got a character to level 50 and am looking to kit them out...) and even then the bigger sales tend to be fairly occasional unless I'm actively trying to raise inf for something - my last big purchase involved gathering together about 12 billion worth of PVP IOs for a new Tank build, the cash raising and bids for that lasted about two weeks.

Since i18 I've slowed down on cash farming even more, as when I sit down for a play session these days and there's no TFs on the go, I currently tend to either level an alt or duo Alignment missions and Ouroboros Arcs (at level 50) for Hero Merit Conversion.

Serves as a warning to other kit too.

Drag an old PC into the middle of the server room floor, kick the side panel in and bounce the case off the wall a few times until the CPU Heatsink or the Power Supply Unit falls out. Then point at the tattered remains and yell "Bluescreen at ME will you!?!?".

I guarantee you won't see a single corrupt document or dropped packet for weeks!!

You're quite welcome, my Floating Fat Friend!

I've been suffering through a Cisco Bootcamp course this week.
I fully endorse the kicking of routing equipment!!

Wireshark says: 64.25.36.61

Yuck.

I am NOT going through all that "@Maelwys_EU" business again! >.<

Yup, I'm able to log in OK (to Defiant at least, on both my accounts).

My ping's still high though.
Currently bouncing between 210 and 250, average is about 235.

The extra delay is noticable, but I can live with it if it means less server huppics.

If you just can't get onto CoX, the chief suspect would probably be a routing issue... Has your 'puter been restarted since the move? Tried resetting the WAN connection already?

Aha.

I THOUGHT my powers were taking a bit longer to activate than usual...

After checking in game and my /netgraph has suddenly gone from its usual steady green 140ms to a steady green 240ms...

Drat.

Wonder if I can find a route with less hops...

The problem with the Taunt is not that it doesn't manage to suffice for most foes in PVE, but that it can't hit foes at some of the most important times. With Footstomp and Taunt on a PB Dwarf you can fill in as a tank for a Typical team... unless you encounter, for example, an AV with a defence based Tier 9, or a Paragon Protector with MoG. In the old days you could pop the Geas accolade to counter this, but the ToHit value of that accolade was slashed several issues ago, so these days I make sure to carry a column of big yellow insps on my PB specifically for those occasions.

Also, because the power is not autohit, even in regular play versus regular mobs it will have a 5% failure rate - you're correct that it's an AoE power, but if you're taunting a group of five foes, you'll see it miss one of them roughly every four times. It simply can't reliably lock down aggro without an autohit effect.

Dwarfs have more than enough holes in their Tanking ability already without having to worry about not being able to pull a dangerous foe off their teammates whenever the brown stuff hits the fan.

I don't mind if we call making it autohit a minor buff, but it's certainly top of my wishlist.

I'm no stranger to farming PVP IOs...

Technically it's only three sets of Glad Strike, in Shadow Punch, Smite and Midnight Grasp (3x 5 IOs, I'm skipping the Dam/Rech in favour of a common Level 50 Damage IO in SP/MG and a Hectatomb Proc in Smite). Plus the Shield Wall +3% Resist Unique in Combat Jumping. Plus Tough (slotted normally) and a total of 131% Resistance Enhancement in Charged Armor (3x Titanium Coatings, plus 3x Level 50 Common Resistance IOs). All together this makes a grand total of 90.29% S/L Resistance. The real trick was optimising the rest of the build for Global Recharge and Damage Output!!

There's also three Fury of the Gladiator IOs in Lightning Field, aside from the Proc they're largely there for a bit of insurance in case "Grounded" hasn't quite kicked in. Oh, and a Panacea Rech/Heal in Energise.

I have them all crafted already, bar one last Glad Strike Acc/Dam/End/Rech which I've currently got a bid up for. I've been planning this toon for a while!

Thanks Dechs.

My main two other tanks are a INV/SS and a Fire/EM, the INV doesn't have any ranged means of grabbing aggro other than Taunt, but Footstomp's large PBAoE radius is generally good enough. The Fire has Energy Torrent and Burn to fall back on.

I am definitely worried about the Damage Aura's 8 foot radius being my "main aoe". Combustion would be brilliant and eliminate my worries if DM had access to it.

Soul Drain definitely does have a Taunt, thankfully, and it's a 10-foot radius. But it's not a perma-able taunt effect the same way Dark Obliteration's would be.

I looked up the stats for 'Power Sink'. It's a 10-foot radius, which is slightly better than the taunt Aura, but Nofuture shows it as having no Taunt effect and the In-Game real numbers display seems to show this too... rather odd though since the Ice Armor equivalent 'Energy Absorption' definitely inflicts Taunt, and all each power does to a foe is drain its Endurance.

"Darkest Night" could actually solve all my problems, at least at EndGame, if it has a Taunt effect (again, NoFuture says it doesn't on Brutes... I can only hope this is different on a Tanker...) At a 25 feet radius, 70 foot range, ~7 second recharge/cast time in the build that would make all my aggro control worries go away...

Cheers for the replies so far folks. It's keeping me thinking!!

[Edit] Brute Power Sink has Taunt, Tanker one doesn't. This seems wrong so I'm going to /bug it... Am still unsure about Darkest Night: as it's a debuff I think it probably SHOULD have a Taunt effect, I'm just not sure if it actually currently DOES have one...

Yeah, for standard Teaming Dark Obliteration is the better pick.

Which is why I'm in a quandry...

The extra DPS from the pet would mainly be for soloing or for taking on Hard Targets such as AVs. The proposed toon is intended as an extremely survivable Single Target attack specialist, and AV soloing is certainly doable given the specs. As a Tanker I should have no problem forcing a single target to face away from the pet, so that cone attacks are aimed solely at me. In such situations the Widow should only have to worry about AoE attacks (and it's fairly uncommon to have AoE damage spam from AVs... GMs are another story, but I doubt I'll be attempting to solo those!)

Blood Widows have a tiny bit of Defence (~5%?) and no resistance to speak of. But they DO get mez protection, and I suspect they're a solid source of extra ST DPS (only on paper though - so I'm grateful for any in-game DPS numbers). They seem to be nearly purpose-built for "one-on-one" encounters... especially when someone else is soaking up the damage, but there's a chance of some light AoE or Mez flying about.

But is taking a Pet over an AoE attack going to gimp the Tanker's team performance to the point where it can't reliably hold aggro versus larger spawns...? That's my worry...