MrQuizzles

It's easy to get kids excited in a different powerset. Once they've chosen, however, it won't be as easy to get them to avoid a power called Hurricane.

I think he meant for Corruptors. It's probably Rad Blast.

I'm happy with my 15 down for $44 a month from Cox. Verizon has a history of reliability and quality of service issues in my area.

I prefer the more active playstyle of a WS. They also come with a grab bag of utility powers to make things even more interesting. My two Warshades, the tri-form especially, are simply the two most engaging characters to play that I have.

Dark Miasma has Rad Emissions beat hands-down on defense against AVs. All those tohit debuffs do end up being significant even after AV debuff resistance is added in (especially when added to Shadowfall's defense buff), but mostly it's Dark Miasma's damage buffs that make the difference.

Between Twilight Grasp from both you and your Fluffy, Darkest Night from both you and your Fluffy, and Tar Patch to multiply it all by 1.3, Dark Miasma can gut an AV's damage rather well.


For Defenders, Rad Emissions has Dark Miasma beat rather neatly for offensive help. For Corruptors, it's a bit more fuzzy. Tar Patch uses the -30% Defender value while Enervating Field is at -22%. The difference in regen debuffs doesn't do a whole lot unless you're fighting a GM, so it's up to accelerated metabolism to close the gap (we won't count fallout as it's not a power you use all the time; it would definitely win it for Rad, though).

The 20% damage buff isn't going to do it, but the recovery and recharge buffs probably tip the favor over to Rad emissions.

I'm going to have to agree with people who said Gravity Control, Sonic Resonance, and Electric Blast.


Gravity misses out soft-control and utility powers in order to get Propel and Dimension Shift. Sure, Propel has knockback, but it's no Ice Slick or Quicksand. Soft controls have been very powerful ever since Issue 5, when hard controls got a big nerf. They're generally more available, they have useful effects (usually a debuff attached, as well) that last a long time, and they're almost always AoE. They constitute a lot of the, hands down, most effective powers in the game. Their importance cannot be overstated.

I think Gravity would benefit a lot from a soft control power, and I don't think many people would miss Dimension Shift.


Sonic Resonance is a lot like Force Fields (actually more like Cold). It's not as defensive as Force Fields (about as defensive as Cold, though), but it supposedly makes up for that with some offensive-boosting capabilities. It really doesn't completely make up for it, though.

Force Fields can give 40-45% defense, which is about equivalent to 80-90% resistance, which is higher than the resistance cap for squishies, which Sonic Resonance doesn't get to. To top that off, FF gets some actually good, available (Liquefy's cooldown is too long) KB powers that further help to mitigate damage. Many other sets also have soft controls to mitigate damage with. Sonic rather sorely lacks a good one (having to rely on a teammate being good with Sonic Repulsion kinda kills it).

Now let's take a look at Cold. It offers about the same defense as Sonic Resonance from its shields, but it's rich in the soft control and debuffs that Sonic lacks. Sleet's KB is an excellent defensive tool, and really helps deal with the aggro that Snowstorm brings upon you. The -recharge and slow from both sleet and snowstorm provide further mitigation. Sonic's got nothing that can compete with Heat Loss.

Really, Sonic's problem is that the offensive offerings don't make up for the weakened defensive offerings. The numbers on its shields might seem good, but that's really all it's got. It doesn't have a good soft control/debuff power to supplement that. It's not a bad set, but it's unpopular for more reasons than the graphics.



Electric Blast's problems lie solely in its secondary effect. The problem is that, most of the time, it does exactly nothing.

Returning a bit of endurance to the user is kinda useful, but it's neither reliable nor very effective. It's not enough to free the user from endurance worries to the point where they don't have to implement another solution (such as Stamina). So really, the endurance situation of Electric Blast is no different from that of any other blast set, and it, in fact, does pretty much nothing.

Draining endurance is a whole other can of worms. It's completely useless unless you have enough of it to utterly drain the foe you want to disable, and then you have to constantly apply a -recovery effect to them or else they'll just use endurance as they get it and, essentially, attack as normal.

So unless you specifically tailor your character for draining (and very few set combinations can do it well), you're going to get nothing out of it. You'll get as much secondary effect as Fire Blast, but you won't get Fire Blast's wonderful damage to go with it.

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A few comments: field (or observational) studies don't usually require consent, but when a researcher actively takes part, it's no longer a field study. It's an experiment.

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Which is why it's presented to an Ethics Board...maybe that wasn't the best quote (but it was easily available and allowed for me to still be lazy!)

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Ahhh I see then at that point they do not need IRB approval. My point is for what he did IRB approval and Informed consent would have be necessary.

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No, they still need IRB approval. The IRB and the IRB alone has the authority to determine what sorts of measures need to be taken. Only the IRB can determine if research is exempt or not.

If dull people are dullards and drunk people are drunkards, then rich people are Richards -me

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I think it would be ironic if everyone was made out of iron.

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That'd be ferric, silly

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I agree. I guess some people just don't see it.

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I was far too busy quoting Futurama. And really, it isn't ironic. It's just coincidental.

That's not ironic, it's just coincidental.

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I vote for Rad/Dark simply cause on blueside I have a Dark/Rad that is my new project and it'd be interesting to compare the difference, with somebody. But yea both builds are very good.

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I've got a lvl 50 Dark/Rad Defender and lvl 50 Rad/Dark corr. The corr is just better. Imagine if your Dark/Rad defender was about as safe but did lots more damage. That's a Rad/Dark corr.

I would highly recommend one.

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I agree.

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(4) Informed consent will be sought from each prospective subject or the subject's legally authorized representative, in accordance with, and to the extent required by §46.116.

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He never identified himself as a researcher.
He never said he was performing research.
He never sought informed consent.
Therefore, his research cannot be 'objective' and his results are inherently flawed.
Unless, he DID state he was a researcher to NCSoft.
Unless, he DID get informed consent from NCSoft.
If NCSoft gave consent to this 'research', since they own all the 'content' of the game, then he's on solid ground.
However, if NCSoft DID give informed consent to this 'research' and never told the playerbase, that's very much a justification for not renewing my yearly subscription next time it expires.

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Requiring forms of consent is a restriction that can be waived by a university's IRB. In this case, it is very likely that the requirement would be waived.

Here, URI has a nice and informative IRB page: http://www.uri.edu/research/tro/NewS...IRB/index.html

There's just plain nobody in RV on Infinity.

C-C-C-COMBO BREA

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If anything Twixt says is remotely true, it shows how sad the PvP arena is - people only willing to fight eachother under previously agreed upon terms - a gentleman's shake - apprently over react when they can't win.

Thats IF what twixt said is true.

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It's not quite like that, it's just that Twixt's actions are generally viewed as dishonorable. You see, a more useful and interesting study would have been about these unwritten rules that players create and how they differ from game to game and culture to culture.

Here in the US and Europe, playing "honorably" is a big deal. We generally discourage the use of bugged or overpowered methods in favor of a more balanced playing field. We frown upon farming and exploiting. We like a good fight to be had by all, and we want to be able to respect the person we lost to.

In games with a microtransaction system allowing you to purchase gear, this takes on further meaning. We generally feel that the best items should be earned by playing the game (IE- purchasable only with the in-game currency) rather than bought with real money. We feel that those who pay real money should not have an advantage over those who don't.

Put simply: Chivalry is not dead, it's merely in online games.


Contrast this with other parts of the world. Asia's (China and Korea specifically, I don't know how Japan does it) view on the items discussed in the last paragraph differ wildly from ours. They generally have no qualms about giving the best stuff to those who paid the most real money. They also seem to have no objection to getting ahead in any way possible, being it through exploit, farm, or other methods we generally frown upon.

If you explore different parts of the world, you will find that each has its own unwritten rules. That's not to say there's a 100% conformity with them in their respective regions, but there is definitely a general consensus.

In games that span multiple regions, you can definitely see the differing systems of values clash with each other. It's very interesting.

The short answer is that you're really not supposed to. It's not something the devs will ever officially support.

The longer answer is that the devs don't like it because it breaks character progression. Not being able to afford everything is an intended part of game. Being able to slot yourself with the best enhancements at each level makes you sort of disproportionately powerful at the lower levels.

There are, however, ways to get around this using the market. I'm not sure on the details, so I couldn't really elaborate.

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Quantity<Quality

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Quantity is a quality all of its own.

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An amazing PvPer based on what assessment?

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twixt's original thread at the time received well over 300 pages ...

this one has gotten up too around 12 and twixt has been gone for at least a year .

that basically speaks for it self.

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Funny, I only see three pages.

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Sixty Trillion

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Googleplex I WINZDAINTERWEBZ
u all fail

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Graham's Number

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An amazing PvPer based on what assessment?

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twixt's original thread at the time received well over 300 pages ...

this one has gotten up too around 12 and twixt has been gone for at least a year .

that basically speaks for it self.

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Funny, I only see three pages.

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Sixty Trillion

HYPOTHESIS: If exposed to appropriate amounts of thermal energy, paper will combust.

EXPERIMENT: Expose paper to a significant source of thermal energy. For this experiment, an open flame on a burner will be used.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS: The paper combusted upon exposure to the open flame. I did not measure the temperature of either the open flame or the paper at any point throughout the test.

CONCLUSION: My original hypothesis was correct. In simple terms, it can be said that paper burns if you set fire to it.


Where's my PhD for this important work?

Sir, you need to level your Warshade a bit. You don't even have the pets, of which you can have multiple out, and they do about as much damage as you do. Warshades really start to shine around level 40, and there's little that can keep up with them after that.

Don't worry, Dark/Dark is anything but rare.

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25 radius DN, 25 radius Tar Patch, 70 range cone fear, pet that debuffs and heals. Not to veer this topic off track, but ,,,"pretty undesirable set"???? DARK?? Uhm... yeah, ok....

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When the team is soft capped for -ToHit/+Def and plenty well off on -dmg/+res prior to adding the dark, then yeah Dark is really undesirable than say Rad or Cold or TA.

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So if the team already has a Dark Defender or two, then you don't need more. This I can agree with. Variety always helps, and Dark Miasma is good friends with Kinetics and Empathy.

Kheldians really don't need large amounts of dev attention again. The improvements they made not too long ago were great. Playing a human form Warshade from 1-50 is now not only viable, it's actually fun. The only complaints I have are the awkwardness with form-changing and animations and the useless status protection we get from controllers. Other than that, I think they're great. I know PBs have their own set of problems, but I can't really speak for them since I've not played one extensively.

The thing I really like about them, though, is how very different they are from anything else. Warshades are especially engaging to play since they make use of some unique mechanics and thrive in interesting situations. I just love the diverse toolbox they get.


My widow, while powerful, isn't as fun or interesting to play. The crits from stealth help make things a bit more interesting, as does the mix of ranged and melee, but he's just not as interesting as either of my shades (one tri-form, started in I3, the other human-only, started in I13).

The relative power of SoAs vs Khelds is debatable. Warshades are incredible PvE characters at the endgame. While the SoAs do have team buffs, I'm not sure they can quite compete with the raw killage a Warshade can lay down. It'd also be a lie to say that a shade doesn't give back to the team because they do get a few pretty great control powers to help out (low quantity is made up for with high quality). They basically end up as tankmage controllers with hugely-damaging pets (as far as pets go, anyways).