Maelwys

I agree that Nosferatu can be a bit difficult if you've not got high defence, or your accuracy is somewhat lacking. He hits hard (and does 2x damage "scrapper criticals"), inflicts -tohit and self-heals.

All heros EBs easy? Dominatrix is quite tricky... but only because of the phase/super speed/run thing. The three Carnie EBs, the Envoy of Shadow and Infernal are also quite tough. The rest are just Scrapper fodder.

I think the first really tough thing I soloed on a Scrapper was a King's Row Paladin, back in issue 6. Too much regen to do that these days, sadly. AVs are still doable though, depending on their level + resistances.

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there is no budget.... i can afford anything

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No Budget? You [u]sure[u]?

OK... try [u]this[u] then.

That's no recharge penalty within Granite, and the toon runs at over 20MPH whilst in Granite (with Rooted off - you usually don't need both Rooted AND Granite on when you're moving). Resistances in Granite are sick, Defence is over 42% to everything but Psi. You'll have a very, very hard time ever dying in PVE even if you go AFK in the middle of Lusca.

Out of Granite it's got Perma Earths Embrace (it's nearly perma in Granite while Hasten's up) regens 75 HP per second and has 50% Defence versus Psi, 36% Defence versus S/L/E/N and just shy of 40% S/L Resistance.

Mudpots, slotted Taunt, plus the one-two spammable knockdown combo of Fault and Tremor means you'll be an aggro magnet and virtually unkillable in PvE. Out of granite the Damage output is very respectable too, although the build does not quite have room for "Build Up" (Granite's damage debuff will trim about 50 Damage from a 350 Damage "Seismic Smash", and make it recharge in 7 seconds instead of a little under 6).

The downside is it's [u]VERY[u] expensive. And whilst damage output is respectable, it's not the best.

Any possibility this could be related to sticking up the Closed Beta boards?

Personally after a few runs I vendor all the level 50 Common IOs and non-rare salvage in Ouroboros, and sell the rest at Talos WW - starting with the priciest first, ending with the least expensive.

Priciest stuff usually goes up at [Average Sale History Price - 9%], cheaper stuff at 101/1001/10001 inf. I usually have several Pool A and B recipes up for 101 inf by the end of it, purely for "market plumping".

If selling your "cheap" recipes means someone else doesn't have to buy a Pool A with Merits then it's worth the extra hassle. The Merits they save might end up as an IO that YOU are looking for later.

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2,215,000,000? You realise that the influence cap is 2,000,000,000?


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There is no inf cap
The last badge is 2 billion though

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I'm pretty sure it's hard-capped at 2 billion (ie, one character can't hold more than that)
Unless they've raised it in the last six months and not told anyone.

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2,215,000,000? You realise that the influence cap is 2,000,000,000?

I've yet to have a character cost me over 1 billion influence to IO out, though there were a few ("full purple" builds with 5x LOTG procs) that have come very close. Blueside though, Redside market is a bit wacko.

Sticking up a bid for the recipes and farming the salvage while you wait tends to work out cheapest. At present going for level 50 missions (for extra recipes and the chance of a purple drop) using Ouroboros arcs (for merits and the end-of-mission bonuses - "chance for a recipe"/"chance for salvage" dayjob buffs) seems to be best.

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So the 4 purple damage sets for a scrapper would set you back roughly how much? Just looking to do it on my Claw/WP and currently have 1.2 bil in the back

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Last I looked, it was roughly 40-60 million per "damage" purple recipe, plus around 10 million to craft it (for rare salvage and crafting cost). The pure damage IO and Proc recipes seemed to be slightly cheaper than the recipes for the multi-aspect IOs (DAM cheaper than DAM/RECH).

It goes without saying that if you're after purples, farm your funds on level 50 foes, 'cause you might get lucky and snag a recipe that you're actually looking for (has happened to me at least twice). If nothing else, you'll save yourself several million worth of listing fees.

2,215,000,000? You realise that the influence cap is 2,000,000,000?

I've yet to have a character cost me over 1 billion influence to IO out, though there were a few ("full purple" builds with 5x LOTG procs) that have come very close. Blueside though, Redside market is a bit wacko.

Sticking up a bid for the recipes and farming the salvage while you wait tends to work out cheapest. At present going for level 50 missions (for extra recipes and the chance of a purple drop) using Ouroboros arcs (for merits and the end-of-mission bonuses - "chance for a recipe"/"chance for salvage" dayjob buffs) seems to be best.

"Herding" taken to be "gathering any nearby foes around you for better application of AoEs" is fine.
"Herding" taken to be "gathering half the map whilst the rest of your team falls asleep" is not.

The worst kind of herding tanks also have no concept of the aggro cap, and try to corner-herd entire room(s) of more than 20-30 foes at a time. The best kind simply AoE one group, taunt another and gather them together (standing between them usually if they're "prefer melee", corner pulling as a last resort or if they're "prefer ranged") for AoE application. Less than 16 foes each time, and less than ten seconds worth of running about.

Stomp, Taunt, AoEs, Dead.
Next mob please.

Certain situations such as the laboratory map's "room of death" where mobs are on overhangs above you tend to truly seperate the good tanks from the bad tanks. That's one time I would justify corner pulling, using the map geometry to herd two groups at a time (mobs immediately above you FIRST, ALWAYS).

... I've also tanked for 8-man teams on both Scrappers and Blasters! Survivability and aggro control tend to come down to player skill and a given toon's build more often than what AT you happen to be on.

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RotP (Rez) epic on blasters? Its like giving them a nuke when they die Never actually seen it, but those numbers look tasty.

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I was on a TF a few weeks ago with a fire blaster who told us not to worry if he faceplanted because 'death is part of my attack chain'.

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lmao love it. Now THAT is a PROPER blaster.

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If this was on Defiant, that was quite possibly my Fire/Ice/Fire... I tend to warn folk before starting a TF that ROTP is slotted for damage/recharge and is effectively part of my attack chain...

ROTP does nearly as much damage as Inferno when it hits (region of 650 damage over 3 hits compared to Inferno's 600 immediate damage + DOT of 300 ish damage), and their recharge time can be made roughly equal (120 seconds ish). So every two minutes you can pop Inferno on one group, run to next group, faceplant, ROTP. And best is that your Blue bar is refilled and the recovery debuff from Inferno is gone!

(And on subsequent groups, Shiver + Rain of Fire + FireBall + Fire Breath... "Next please!" )

I suspect it'd be even better on a Tanker, since the damage numbers are identical and when (if) you die you'd tend to be in melee range of more mobs... the only bad thing about it is it inflicts Knockback. I remember SG mates giving off about "cutting out all that knockback" on Preatorian missions with my Blaster, when his only attack with knockback was ROTP!

[Apologies in advance for the smilies overdose, it's Saturday! Yay!]

Accuracy matters nothing when fighting AVs unless they have a defense-based armor toggle or godmode.
If you can hit +2 Minions with 95% Accuracy, you can hit +2 AVs with 95% Accuracy.

Here's a short list of what you need to reach that 95% Accuracy:

+0s = 1.267
+1s = 1.397
+2s = 1.557
+3s = 1.727
+4s = 1.979
+5s = 2.317

If you're already level 50, then you're usually fighting level 50 AVs (unless you're on something like the STF) in which case a mere 127% accuracy would do (about one-and-a-half SOs on normal attacks).

[Oh, and I had a go at [u]the build[u] too... ]

UseLESSness!

It should really be renamed "Not bothered"

1. "Not accepting invites"
2. "Not Bothered one way or the other" (Default)
3. "Looking for team" (for mission/TF/badge/etc...)

I don't think anyone could argue over those tags (though we'd still squabble over the comments themselves...)

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It's not a facebook status. It's not twitter. It's a search comment. In that context, it's very much related to what you wish to do if asked.

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Sure, or to describe your current actions.

Although the accuracy of said comments are questionable at the best of times...

How many people do you see with "Badge Hunting" in their search comment, for example? I see a great many people that leave "Badge Hunting" up and yet they're in the middle of a Task Force that's entirely unrelated to said badge. Just as I see a great many people that have "lft" in their search comment yet don't accept invites.

IMO a search comment should convey information clearly. You honestly can't get much clearer than "I do not want to team" or "Do not invite me"... but even then it could be argued that these are somewhat superfluous, as the game houses seperate mechanisms to prevent people from communicating with you, inviting you, or even seeing that you are online.

Assuming that search comments are updated regularly and functioning as intended (stop laughing, you at the back!), then they should be something that you WANT people to see when they look for potential teammates.

Do these thought sound anyway plausible (given a somewhat polite and intelligent recruiter)?
1. That person is soloing. Perhaps they might like a team for a change? I'll ask them nicely."
2. That person is "soloing". They must not want an invite... but if they don't want an invite, why aren't they flagged up as 'not accepting invites'?"
3. That person is "soloing". They must not like teams... but why aren't they hidden if they don't want recruiters to see them?"

I just can't see that happening with something like "Not interested in teaming".

It's not like it'd take much more effort to type, and it would remove any ambiguity. And there obviously IS some degree of ambiguity, since I'm not the only person in this thread to argue in favour of clearer search comments.

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It doesn't take a giant logical leap to think along the lines of "Alone" == "Lonely".

[/ QUOTE ]Only if you're emo.

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Darn those emo Spaniards...

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Why, exactly, would anyone set their search status to 'soloing' if they wanted to team? How does telling everyone who's searching for team members that you're soloing say "hey, I want to join your team"?

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Solo = "Without the presence or aid of another."
Synonyms include: "Alone"

"Alone" in Spanish even equates to "Solo" ...

It doesn't take a giant logical leap to think along the lines of "Alone" == "Lonely".

(All quite aside from the usual rehashed argument of "Soloing merely states what you're doing, not what you might wish to do if asked"! Note that in no way am I endorsing blind invites here, but one /tell is fair game IMO)

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Search Comments:
"Not interested in teaming" describes your current (or past) actions, not your potential response to offers of other activities.
"soloing" would be far more accurate, if that is indeed what you mean.

Search Status:
"Not accepting invites", again, describes your current status. Not your desires or potential responses.
"Not looking for a team" would be far more accurate, if you do not wish any teams to look for YOU.

I swapped them around so you can see the words you use mean the same thing. You are being pedantic

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"Not interested in teaming" describes your intentions, and practically guarantees that your response to a team invite will be "No". It makes it painfully clear to the reader that they need not bother inviting you.

"Soloing" describes your current status. It implies nothing about your potential response to a team invite, and can even be taken to mean "I'm lonely" by someone who is not a native English speaker.

The two phrases are not analogous.


Your second "swap" doesn't even make sense.

Read the second sentence: "Not looking for team" merely decribes a lack of affirmative action on your part (if you are logged in and Browsing through Wentworths then you are also "Not looking for a team", but this in no way implies that you will say "no" if someone invites you to one).


Are you sure you actually grok the meanings of the above terms?

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You have had people saying that they leave it in "not looking for team because......surprise surprise.....they are not looking for a team, yet you are saying that it does not mean that.

You have had people saying that they write "soloing" because......hey guess what.......they want to solo. Yet again, you are saying that they dont mean what they mean.

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I have yet to ignore anyone on these forums. And there are at least three who have really, really deserved it over the years. You, my friend, are swiftly heading towards my breaking that fine tradition. Taking issue with everyone who disagrees with you and not even bothering to read their responses properly does not make for a good debate. This will be my last response to you unless you raise a valid point for discussion.

Concerning the above points you raised, I already answered them.

FFM is entirely correct.
We are going in circles.
Any faster and we'd be in danger of developing motion sickness.

To recap, for those keeping track, it is all about accuracy:

Search Comments:
"Soloing" describes your current (or past) actions, not your potential response to offers of other activities.
"Not interested in teaming" would be far more accurate, if that is indeed what you mean.

Search Status:
"Not looking for a team", again, describes your current status. Not your desires or potential responses.
"Not accepting invites" would be far more accurate, if you do not wish any teams to look for YOU.

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I am not being deliberately antagonistic

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Then you are doing an extremely good job of being unintentionally antagonistic, either by ignorance or by English not being your first language. Because from what I can tell, the below quotations all refer to me, personally, and are rather insulting:

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and still get people like you sending tell after tell

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because you dont believe they meant

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you guys are justifying being annoying

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you cannot accept that you are

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you are annoying

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I just cannot believe that you cannot grasp simple mechanics of gameplay and english.

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I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this topic TBH, as we're just going around in circles.

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"Agreed!"

(now... if you all don't mind, I've some soloing to do... [/hide] )

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Soloing means soloing. Full Stop.

Not looking for a team means not looking for a team. Full Stop.

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I believe that is precisely what I said above.

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Stop trying to justify your own laziness by misinterpreting the simple.

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You are now getting needlessly antagonistic, so I think I will decline to comment on that and just leave you with this: What if my search comment said "Jumping up and down" (with or without the 'Full Stop.')

What does that mean?

+ It means that at the time of writing the comment, I was jumping up and down.

+ It doesn't mean I'm still jumping up and down. I could have written it last month.
+ It doesn't mean I wouldn't be up for, say, being invited to play football instead.
+ It doesn't mean that if my phone went off I wouldn't stop what I was doing and answer it.

If I had my phone turned off (not accepting tells) or was jumping up and down where noone could see me (hidden) or had a big red "DO NOT DISTURB" sign (not accepting invites) then it might be different.

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But this post just shows my point.

YOU are making assumptions about everybody else in the game.

YOU think they are being lazy and have not changed their notes and status.

Surely it is just as likely that THEY have correct notes ans status and YOU are wrong and still justifying the fact that you are probably being annoying.

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No, I'm not.

Read the post again: I'm interpreting exactly what a comment says.

1. "Soloing" means "soloing". Not "Will not accept invites".
2. "Not looking for team" means "Not looking for team", not "Will not join a team if asked".

Assumptions and inferrence tend to break down in a text based setup, particularly with a multicultural group of players. You can't accurately convey humour, irony or annoyance in a search comment. So try accuracy.


However,

+ Not looking for team (Grey) is the default.
+ Visible (unhidden) is the default

This is a MMORPG, therefore teaming and communication HAS to be the 'norm' under the default setup otherwise the game simply won't work. So Teaming and tells should be perfectly acceptable unless a person "opts out".

1. If people are bothered by teaming so much that it annoys them, they can go "not accepting invites".
2. If people are bothered by tells so much that it annoys them, they can hide.

If people are not bothered by teaming or tells, but merely have a preference for soling, by all means include this in their serch comment. However, this is not Opting-Out, this is merely providing additional information that may or may not be viewed by others (depending on how clued in they are about the comment system, or how generic or out of date your comment looks).

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The game flags players as grey BY DEFAULT.

Nobody bothers to change it unless they're desperately looking for help with something. Grey might technically be labelled "Not Looking for team" in-game, but in practice it corresponds more to "I am not hidden and am not so annoyed by other people that I have changed my status to 'Not accepting Invites' - I am therefore a good candidate for recruitment".


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Hence why so many people use their search comments. If they're flagged as "Not looking", and their search comments say something like "Soloing", then it should be pretty clear that they're not interested. Assuming ANYthing else is just making yourself more comfortable with sending blind tells or invites, and has nothing to do with thinking that person might just have forgotten to change it.

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Seems I find myself in disagreement with you for once then FFM...

Personally I update my search comment very occasionally, usually leaving it saying something along the lines of what type of powersets my AT has and "Please send /tell before inviting", but if I'm looking for something in particular then it might have details about that.

Now I "get" that some people will change it regularly, perhaps even every time they log in.

The problem is (as has been brought up before) that a great many people (the vast majority in fact, from what I've seen in the past few years) tend to park that comment and only update it when they're particularly after something. It could be a badge, or a TF, you get the idea. In general they leave a default comment up, or forget to change it from whatever they left it at last.

So if a search comment says "soloing" and the name is grey (default) I'll assume that sending a tell is fine. Why? Because both those are very, very common things to be left up by default.

Even if a person HAS changed their comment to "Soloing" recently, it simply describes what that person is doing, it does not state what they do NOT want to do. If a comment says "Not interested in teaming" that's different... the only tell I'd see as being anyway 'justified' to that person would be something along the lines of "Apologies, I know your comment says you're not interested in teaming, but would you possibly have a few minutes to help me finish a mission I'm having real trouble with? Please?"

In terms of "Search status" flags, I generally take it as :

Red (Not interested. Don't tell, or even THINK about a blind invite)
Grey (Doesn't care. Send a tell but don't blind invite)
Other (Actively Looking - Sending a tell first is polite, but blind invites are generally acceptable unless their comment says otherwise)

Tells are a means of communication between players.
This is a MMORPG, a multiplayer game built around teaming.
Communication between players is one of the foundations of the game.

If someone is bothered about being sent tells, there are two options:
(i) There's /hide. This solves everything except for spam invites from that completely daft annoying global friend. (Everyone has one... )
(ii) "Not accepting Invites". This is effectively "I don't want to team with you. Leave me alone", and should be treated as such except in dire emergencies or if you're good friends with the person in question.

All IMO, naturally... And it probably should be mentioned that my 'default position' these days is to play the game in "/hide" (with only search listings turned off) unless I'm leveling and don't mind PUG invites...

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I can't understand why the simple icon system in search is so hard for some people to follow.
Grey: Not looking for team
White: Looking for any
Green/yellow etc: Looking for something specific
Red: "FFS stop spamming me with blind invites"

If that player is flagged as Grey or Red, you should not even presume to expect a reply.

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The game flags players as grey BY DEFAULT.

Nobody bothers to change it unless they're desperately looking for help with something. Grey might technically be labelled "Not Looking for team" in-game, but in practice it corresponds more to "I am not hidden and am not so annoyed by other people that I have changed my status to 'Not accepting Invites' - I am therefore a good candidate for recruitment".

Lack of response to a well-written /tell bugs me as well. Even if it's just a "No". Or a "Soloing, Sorry.". I don't mind if you're in the middle of fighting something or AFK, after 5-10 minutes it gets a bit ridiculous.

I won't ever send more than one tell to a person at a time though, regardless of how annoyed I am with a lack of response. No response within 5 minutes = "not interested" for all intents and purposes anyway.

Only pet-related binds I use on a controller are one to summon a pet (usually the "/" or "*" keys - on my Ill/Empathy, Summon PA is "/" and Speccy is *) and one to select it for buffing purposes (Phantasm is numpad9). I usually use the below setup for tagging teammates, so numpad9 works quite well.

bind numpad1 team_select 1
bind numpad2 team_select 2
bind numpad3 team_select 3
bind numpad4 team_select 4
bind numpad5 team_select 5
bind numpad6 team_select 6
bind numpad7 team_select 7
bind numpad8 team_select 8
bind numpad9 pet_select_name Phantasm

Note that with a bit of practice you can also usually summon PA and Phantasm behind walls, floors or roofs if you have to. I use the "summon PA inside a wall" trick to kill off stuck mobs on "Kill All" missions.

I've got a Sonic/Elec Blapper that has Brawl 4-slotted...

Personally I find that melee powers in a Blaster's secondary pool are incredibly useful. Mainly because they are so damaging, but also because nearly all of them inflict some kind of mez. "Total Focus" and "Thunder Strike" are the only ones that take a long time to animate, and thus tend to work best when "jousting".

These days with IOs there are means of getting a Blapper high S/L or Melee defence too, which comes with the added benefit of helping you avoid mez. Softcapping S/L is even possible if you take the Ice Epic.

The biggest problem for Blappers tends to be premature death from pulling TOO much aggro. Concentrating on single-targets when you're Blapping helps, using AoE slows/Knockdown Patches/Sleeps pre-emptively is better.

(Before anyone starts: Brawl is a set mule! I'll happilly trade 3 slots on a Blapper for a total of 35% S/L Defence, 21% E/N Defence, 28% Melee Defence, 20% Ranged Defence and 30% Resistance to S/L/E plus Aid Self! )

Took Rez at 49 on my Illusion/Empathy just for cross-faction TFs.
Heros can't give wakies (or other insps) to villains.

Also, the only time I ever run out of wakies is on mixed TFs in the RWZ (or occasionally Cimerora) as those zones don't have insp vendors and you can't switch zones without dropping from the mixed TF team.

WANT MORE INSP VENDORS!!

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I have Mind/Emp and Plant/Emp, both concept based. I hate /emp with Controllers as it encourages idiocy:

"Rather than let the Mind Controller Mass Confuse the Group of Malta + Hostage holders, the PB wanted fort+cm so he could enter the room in nova form and move needlessly into all of their perception range and tank them all with my heals for back up."

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And this is PRECISELY why you should take Vengence.
Certain people are more benefit to the team dead.

(although, really, in that situation it should be pretty simple to just Fort and CM the silly PB, then confuse the mob ANYWAY... you can easily juggle 3-4 Perma Forts/CMs on a team without it impacting your controls)