MissKyo

Things I'd like to be able to buy at the in-game Paragon Market:

-New base items. I don't care if they're functional. The couches, wall pictures, etc. we see in some of the Praetorian offices would be nice.

-Recolorability for APPs/Epics

-The Steampunk sausage curls hairstyle for women without the hat (and vice versa), and the Organic Armor face, with all its awesome detailing, without the Organic Armor scaliness on it and with normal eyes (for shapeshifting characters)

-"Male" costume pieces for women. And, to be fair, "female" costume pieces for men. I'm looking at you, Renegade Hat and Baron Coat!

-New chest emblems that can (hopefully) be also used for SG emblems.

I know some of these probably can't/won't be done, but I'm throwing them out there anyhow. I'm sure you all have things you'd like to see, too, and it never hurts to toss the idea into the ring!

I'm seriously considering making a Layladoll Facebook group for all of us Layladoll enthusiasts. :3

Q for both:

When you're designing a character, do you usually start with their personality, appearance, background, or something else? Is it different for every character?

Aw, haha. Sorry he missed out-hopefully he can get in on the event on July 5th!

Well, my Dad just called me a little while ago, and he said they doctors have run more tests. They initially thought that the staph infection was in her blood, which would have made it really hard to treat. They know now that it's in her liver, which is comparatively much easier to treat. It's an incredible relief, and I kind of wish the doctors hadn't told my family that it was that bad without making more tests first. Thanks for all the kind thoughts and wishes.

I already got one doll (technically two if you count the little felt Snap Play that came with the Blackrazur I ordered!) and I'm already looking forward to another one. :3 Or maybe another two. Heck, another dozen wouldn't be amiss!

My grandmother had a kidney transplant probably six or seven years ago, and this past year her body began rejecting her transplant. My aunt intended to donate a kidney to her, but Grandma got sick and was hospitalized for a few weeks while they tried to get an infection under control.

Two weeks after she got back into the hospital, she was rushed to the ICU for another infection, which took them a month to get under control. She was supposed to go into rehab after that to get her strength back, but she fell and hit her head, postponing it a little longer.

My dad just called and told me that she's been rushed back to the hospital today with a UTI and a staph infection in her blood. They'll have to treat them aggressively, and I've been pretty much told that if that doesn't work I'm to be ready to hop on a plane at any moment because it'll be my last chance to see her.

Please keep Grandma in your thoughts and prayers-she needs them right now so badly, and I don't have many places to turn.

And we were rolling right on through that ITF, too...by the time the servers come back up I might not have time to get back on and finish it, I have to make dinner and then I have D&D tonight. Sorry guys.

How did I miss this? Happy belated birthday, Archiviste!

I got my doll today!

HE IS SO FRICKING CUTE.

He has a place of honor on my desk, right next to my keyboard, where I can give him cuddles whenever I want.

Now to proceed in my ebil plan of ending up with one of each of the main characters of the Teamsters...muahahahaha...

had a decent run tonight, a few monsters wouldn't spawn and we almost didn't find Caleb in time, but it went pretty well. Thanks for coming out, all!

I know for a fact I'll be swapping toons for Redside and then swapping back for Grey...so don't worry, there'll be plantey of time for grabbing new toons, and we'll make announcements in Protector Vigilance when we switch sides.

It's that time of the month again. No, the time when we go kill Giant Monsters for badges, not...never mind.

We'll be starting tomorrow night at 6 pm EST under Galaxy Girl's skirt. From there, the plan is as follows:

-Run through KR and kill any Paladins that are up (2 merits each, no badge) so that the Unusual Clockwork Activity event will spawn. If/when this event spawns, we'll go straight to it after whichever GM we're on, then resume the list from there.

-Hit Perez Park and kill the Kraken

-Hit Croatoa and get both Jack and Eochai at their separate spawn points

-Go to Boomtown and take out Babbage

-Go to Crey's Folly and find Jurassik

-Head for IP and take down Lusca, after broadcasting across globals to let people who want the Devilfish badge know so we can get extra hands

-Take 5 and swap to villains while everyone heads for Sharkhead Isle via the submarine

-Meet up and reform teams in Sharkhead, then seek and destroy the Ghost of Scrapyard

-Head for Cap au Diable and hunt gremlins to spawn Deathsurge. NOTE: This can take a while, so be prepared to be patient!

-Go to Nerva Archipelago and spawn Caleb

-If the Arachnos Flier spawns at any time while we're villain side, drop what we're doing and go take it down, since the other events are way easier to spawn!

-Go through Pocket D to Praetoria, Take 5 while everyone swaps toons or whatever.

-Syndicate Takedown in Imperial City

-Protest in Nova Praetoria

-The Great Escape in Neutropolis

NOTE: For the 3 Praetorian events, PLEASE listen to instructions and make sure we're all defeating the same type of enemies! It does not matter which side you fight for when it comes to getting the rewards! The ONLY difference is in The Great Escape, where fighting for one side or the other changes which emote you can get-either the Tantrum emote, or the Ghoulflex emote! We'll be doing it from the Loyalist side next month, the Resistance side the month after that, etc.

I will be on Zantedeschia, but you can also send me a tell @DJKyo for an invite. I'll announce in Protector Vigilance when we are forming up.

Hope to see you there!

Now that I've seen the pics of my yarn doll, I'm super excited and I can't wait to bring him home! >.<

Layla, is it possible for you to make a tiny yarn doll? I want to get one of my fae characters done (Blackrazur's wife, Snap Play), and I'd kind of like it to be more-or-less to scale with him.

EDIT: OMG I just noticed the tiny Snap doll that your Layla doll is snuggling with in the picture! Now it's even CUTER!

When it comes to the Incarnate Trials, it IS a grind if you want to get the top tier stuff, no matter what you do. It's a grind.

And I'm sorry, but this game is starting to turn into work, it seems to me. Five tip missions and two Incarnate Trials per day, plus the alignment mission every other day, plus the WST once a week...just for one toon, just to keep up with the current "stuff" in City of Heroes. I've given up on tip missions and A-merits almost entirely, and I'm about to go the same way with Incarnate Trials.

EDIT: Yes, I know the title says "Incatnate". I have typo-itis. Sorry. "Incarnate". Fixed! :-) ~Moderator 13

So I've been working on Incarnating my Electric/Storm controller, whom I love dearly. She's got two of each third tier (except Lore, which I'm quite frankly ignoring completely) and I have been running trial after trial praying for a Very Rare table to drop with no luck (despite one of my scrappers getting it twice in the two trials I've done with her).

So I decided to look up how much it would, ultimately, cost me to make the Very Rares so I can finally get my Tier Fours slotted in Interface, Destiny, and Judgement. Mind, the ONLY salvage I still need for these three slots is a Forbidden Technique, a Thaumic Resonator, and a Living Relic. Everything else, I've either gotten off of the reward tables or managed to create using Threads.

To craft 3 Very Rare salvage pieces, you need four Rares for each one. To craft a Rare, you need four Uncommons.

So, for the first step (Uncommons to Rares) I'd need:

1,200,000,000 influence (that's 100,000,000 x 12)
12 Cytolic Infusions
12 Dimensional Pockets
12 Gluon Compounds
12 Worn Spellbooks

Then, for the second step (Rares to Very Rares) I'd need:

Another 1,200,000,000 influence (that's 400,000,000 x3)
3 Ancient Texts (crafted in the last step)
3 Exotic Isotopes (crafted in the last step)
3 Semi-Conscious Energys (crafted in the last step)
3 Superconductive Membranes (crafted in the last step)

So, either I need to run a grand total of 90 Incarnate Trials to get 90 Empyrean Merits to craft the Very Rares, or I need to shell out 2,400,000,000 influence and (again) spend a lot of time running Incarnate Trials. I hate to say it, but those trials get boring after a while. When you run them over and over and over again every day, eventually, you never want to see another War Walker ever again.

So what can we do to alleviate the irritation of people like me, who really don't want to spend all of their ingame time running trials in the hopes of getting a Rare or Very Rare drop and having one less piece of salvage to pay for crafting?

Here are a few ideas.

1.) Make the influence crafting costs a little lower. It shouldn't cost as much to make the Rare materials for the Very Rares as it costs to make the Very Rares themselves. That's a grand total of 2,400,000,000 influence-and if you're crafting for all four slots, the price jumps up to 3,200,000,000 influence. How many players really see that much inf pass through their hands and are willing to spend it all on one character? Obviously, I am, but I'm having to funnel all the influence my other characters make onto that character to do it.

2.) Make Astral Merits useful! So you're getting around 6-8 Astral merits per Trial run. You can break them down into Threads...and that's all. What if you could upgrade, say, 20 Astral merits into an Empyrean merit? That's at least 3 Trials worth of Astral merits, for one Empyrean merit. That would definitely make things go a little faster when it comes to working on the Very Rares!

3.) Increase the drop rate for Rares and Very Rares. I know it'll never happen, but I figured I'd add it to the bottom of the list anyhow. It's the long-shot idea.

Anyone else having a frustratingly difficult time getting all of your Tier Fours slotted on a character? Would you ever consider just crafting them all instead of waiting for them to drop? And do these costs seem ridiculously high and time-consuming to anyone else?

Honestly, at this point, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. I don't see your build as being that much better than mine, and you don't like the way I built my scrapper. Fine. There's no point in this thread continuing, since you're not going to budge and neither am I.

However, the offer's still open. Come on over to Protector any time.

I hadn't even thought about the Devastation: Chance for Hold procs!

And yeah, I have Hover/Fly as well as the Primal Forces Mastery epic power pool. I love Power Boost. For just a few seconds...I'm a Dominator.

I'm not sure I even considered the Leadership pool for her, but now that I see it I think it could definitely work...it goes with her overall vibe of helping the team kick butt, rather than kicking any herself, really well! And it does make sense to use Dimensional Shift as a panic button, though I'm still not entirely sure I'll take it permanently.

Thanks a bunch, I'll try this and let you know how it works out!

Bearing in mind that someone, somewhere, is going to read this post and tell me I'm a complete idiot for doing this in the first place:

I have a Gravity/Kinetics controller who I roleplay. I am particularly building her to do as little damage as possible.

Yes, you read that right: I don't want her to do much damage AT ALL.

She's a pacifist (and I don't run missions or anything else on her very often, if ever, and I never, ever solo) and her basic mode of fighting (when I do, rarely, run missions on her) is to lock something down as hard as she can and let the rest of the team beat the crap out of it. She doesn't have Lift or Propel because a.) I can't see her slamming anyone into the floor, and b.) I can only envision her throwing fluffy pillows and stuffed animals and other squishy, cuddly things...

I also don't have Dimensional Shift because I'm not actually sure how to use it or in what situation it'd be useful.

Here's my dilemma: I want to work out a build for her following the absolute lockdown, no extra damage limit, and I want to do it as inexpensively as possible. I had a build on her using purples, but it really seems like a waste to spend a ton of money on a build for a toon I don't play very often. I don't want to slot her with SOs or common IOs, because, well, I don't do that on any of my other toons and I would feel bad if I did it to her. I'm soft like that.

So, if anyone wants to work up something like this for fun, and to see if it can be done at all, please, be my guest. I'm really interested to see what you guys can come up with, 'cause I've just about given up on it.

Okay, Claws, I'm looking at your build vs. mine, and (moving past the positional vs. typed defense; if my typed defense is STILL higher than my positional defense, I don't know why you're making such a big hairy deal over it) here's what I see:

-It's way more expensive. Kinetic Combats? Hami-Os? LotGs? If I could afford that, I wouldn't be building cheaply. As it is, I can't afford that, because I have about four other builds I'm juggling as I level toons into IO set ranges.

-Yes, you have higher typed defenses than I do, but not by very much-only 3% in most cases, everything but S/L. Yes, S/L is the most prevalent damage type in the game, but I spend most of my time on that toon beating on psychic characters, preferably Arachnos and Rikti.

-Resistances are lower on your build than mine, though not by much, only by about 2%. Does the slightly higher defense make up for the slightly lower resistances? I'd say they about even out, really.

-Yes, you have more regen than me. Way more than you should ever need. What on earth are you fighting that's hitting you often enough to need almost 100 HP back per second? I'd like to know, because I'd like to try it on my build and see how I stack up. Oh wait, that's because you have your RttC saying you have 10 people on you at once, and mine says I only have one. So really, it's not much different.

-Your build has more enduse than mine and more recovery. I actually don't have a problem with my endurance at all on my build. I don't see any reason to put slots into Stamina, since it's really hard to give a WP toon much of an endurance problem without some serious recharge (or doing what I did once-giving it so many toggles it can drain its end bar standing still).

-I don't understand why you put Physical Perfection on that build. See my last two points as regards regen and recovery.

-Okay, you have more recharge. That could account for a need for more recovery, but not that much more. Claws is a pretty fast set anyhow.

-You have more ToHit. Fantastic. But you took Focused Accuracy to get it-which is another toggle you don't really need. I've had it on this toon's past builds, and I found it to be largely useless unless fighting someone with Elude. Even then I still had to pop some yellows. Elude is badass like that. Also, you slotted Recitifed Reticle: Increased Perception in it, which only gives you another 100 ft. of perception over my build. You don't need 1142 feet of perception, especially if you don't PvP. I don't PvP often enough, or seriously enough, to care. EDIT: Also affected by the Gaussian's proc, see Damage two points down.

-You has less Accuracy than I do. The way I understand this to work, ToHit is the opposite of Defense in that it raises your toon's ability to hit things by a fixed amount, and Accuracy changes how often an attack hits by adding a percentage of itself, so 50% ToHit > 50% Accuracy. Okay, I can see slotting for ToHit over slotting for Accuracy, but I don't really miss that much anyhow the way I have attacks slotted, so how much do the bonuses listed as "ToHit" and "Accuracy" really matter?

-Your Damage mod is way higher than mine-102.5% as opposed to 34%. However, I'm not sure I see where you're getting them from in the build. EDIT: Actually, a friend just pointed out to me that you're getting that from the Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control: Chance for ToHit. I don't have that bonus toggled on on my build, because I can't count on it firing every single time.

-Powers and enhancement-wise, I've already said that I don't see the use in putting extra slots in Stamina, or in taking the Body Mastery pool (I've had it before, and it's blah) and slotting it. Setting those aside, I don't see the point in slotting the Achilles Heel: Chance for Res Debuff in Slash. It only has a 20% chance to hit, and it really seems like a waste of a perfectly good slot to me. Also, most of the Claws powers have been slotted for way more damage than they can actually deal, thanks to ED. It's just more wasted slots to keep putting in more Damage enhancements those powers can't use. I didn't take Strength of Will because I never, ever use it. I hate the scrapper Tier 9s with a vengeance, and even when I did have it originally, I only used it after using my self-rez in a mob to give me time to get my toggles on. I didn't take the Leadership pool for the bonuses-I took it as a concept power for this toon. Yes, I pick my powers based on how I roleplay a toon sometimes-it may not be the "best" way, but it's a way that helps me enjoy the toon more when I don't have to explain mysterious spare powers floating around. It's also why this toon is only Alpha slotted-which I notice your build doesn't have, by the way. I have the Cardiac Core Paragon slotted-no wonder you need so much more recovery, I didn't even notice it til now.

Okay, there you go. I looked honestly at your build versus mine, past how utterly offensive I found your initial post, and I still don't really see how it's "better" than mine. It may work better for you, and that's wonderful! It may work better for "most" people, and that's fine too. I would say, however, that on any given day, if you'd like to venture over to Protector and team with me, my build's effectiveness and efficiency would surprise you.

After being a Rikti monkey for five minutes, and unable to activate any powers for about ten minutes after that, I hopped from PI to Atlas to Steel to see if the lag was anywhere better anywhere else...nope.

I came back right at the end of things just in time to see Emperor Cole in PI, and I'm kinda glad I didn't stay for the whole frustratingly laggy experience.