Mystic_Cross

You are correct, of course, it was the Prima guide, my mistake. I haven't looked at the thing in years (basically since I started playing), but it was the first thing I thought of when I heard "manual", and I happened to have it on the book shelf.

I'd say I spend a good 80-90% of my time in melee on my blasters, doms, corrs and trollers... about the only time I leave melee range is to 1) set up a cone attack, or 2) things are getting too hot and I need to back off a bit.

The latter of those 2 things will happen to most every AT, including tanks, and will happen whether you're solo or on a team.



No, sorry, that may be your personal opinion, but it isn't a fact. Your words were that blaster secondaries don't get ANY melee attacks after the 3rd or 4th power pick. That is completely false. first off, Damage auras ARE Melee attacks, more or less... just because YOU choose not to make use of them, doesn't make them less of an attack, and what's the reason you don't use them? mainly because they're melee-use and you can't use them at range. Damage auras are also PBAoE, PBAoE's ARE melee attacks... they are best used in the middle of a spawn for maximum effect, and in the middle of a spawn you are in melee range.

Shocking grasp is both an attack AND a mitigation power. It's a mag 3 hold that can stack with other holds from primaries and APPs, and it also has a 1 second activation, as Eva said. It also does approx. 100 pts of damage unslotted, and you know what? as far as the "stupid-long" (as you put it) DoT is concerned, the enemy receiving it won't be attacking you because they're held for a longer duration than that DoT lasts. So, Its equal in damage to a tier 2 blast from the primary, it holds your target, and it activates in less time than said primary tier 2 blast.... yea, sounds like garbage, NEXT!

Again, this is you stating your opinions on how certain powers should be used. I personally stay in melee range for long periods of time, if not all the time, on most of my blasters. I did so before IO's were introduced, and I've continued to do so since. It's quite obvious that you can't, and I'm not sure if you're trying to figure out how, or if you're just saying people who blap are playing wrong... but it really seems like the latter.

So, you use Nova from 80ft? 40ft? 30ft?... if so then no wonder why you're dead. Since this is a Primary power, I have to wonder why you're bringing it up, because you've seemed to discard any mention of using primaries at all unless it suits your side of the argument, but i'll play along with you...

Nova has a 25' radius (radius means all around you) so if you're not in melee range, you're not getting the full effect of the power, which is not only extreme damage, but mitigation as well since it causes huge KB and scatters any remaining mobs, giving you time to pop some blues and get back to finishing them off, if there are any to finish off. (oh wait, you don't use inspirations either, thats taboo, right?) ok, lets move on to the other powers you listed....

Lightning Clap, PBAoE with a 15' radius (again, radius means all around you ) even if you chose not to use this power in the middle of a mob, those that aren't hit by it, or are immune to KB/Stun are going to be 1-2 steps away from pummeling you... you're right about this one though, it doesn't do damage, but it IS mitigation, and it's still melee.

Combustion, again, PBAoE with a 15' radius (do i need to explain radius again? nah) does more damage than you're tier 1 blast, but to multiple enemies, with approx double the cast time, and is actually tagged in the power description as Melee (AoE)...

World of Confusion, PBAoE toggle, does small amounts of damage, confuses foes allowing you to stay in melee range, hence it's mitigation. This power has an 8' radius, without question, it's a melee power. (oh and PS, I'm not going from memory, I'm going by the actual game descriptions on these )

Time Bomb/Trip Mine, I'll give these to you... in case you didn't see, I left little notes saying as much in my last post. Calling these melee is incorrect.

Blazing Aura, yep, you're right... it's a Melee PBAoE toggle with an 8' radius, coincidentally the same radius as World of Confusion, which you said is NOT a melee power.... BA also deals damage, though it has no mitigation... The damage ticks from it help to quickly kill spawns while you're in melee range unleashing the tempest of AoEs from the fire primary and secondary, which is, coincidently, the reason they generate huge amounts of aggro.

Frozen Aura, a PBAoE with a 10' radius, deals no damage, provides support through mitigation, should be used in melee or it's not going to affect anything due to its limited radius. However, I can go with you on this that it's not a damage power... it is melee, but it's not an attack... even though it does coincide with my description of blaster secondaries being a mix of damage and support through mitigation, which you don't seem to agree with.

Hot Feet, just for kix, PBAoE with a 20' radius... by far the largest area of effect, also pretty much the only mitigation power in use by Fire Manipulation. It does more damage than Blazing Aura per tick, has a slow effect AND an afraid effect... making your enemies run very slowly away from you (while not attacking for the most part)... is still best used in the middle of a mob where it affects all of them with it's larger than normal radius. Add burn to this to solidify the "afraid" effect and add to your damage, while your enemies slowly try to run and you pummel them with AoEs at close range.


Well then, thats just a difference in playstyle isn't it? Your obvious preference is to stay out of melee range, and you apparently feel that others are stupid for going into melee range on blasters, at the very least, that's how it's coming off to me. Either that, or you're trying to say that blasters are stupid for using their secondaries while staying in melee on the basis that you can't figure out how to use them that way... Surely you can use powers like Ice Patch in the way you describe, but it's not the only way to use it, yet you imply that it is.

Well, let's see... there's Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Thunder Strike, Shocking Grasp, Power Thrust, Energy Punch, Bone Smasher, Stun, Total Focus, Fire Sword, Combustion, Fire Sword circle, Burn, Hot Feet, Frozen Fists, Ice Sword, Freezing Touch, Frozen Aura, Mind Probe, Telekinetic Thrust, Drain Psyche, Psychic Shockwave.... Chain any of them together, even with ranged powers from your primary, and you're pretty much required to stay in melee to complete your chain, or waste time by dodging in and out.

Along with the powers you mentioned, that's nearly all secondary powers, or at the very least 60-70% of them... and not that each individual power requires you to stay in melee range, but the majority of them actually allow you to, while dealing higher mod melee damage (specifically on the punch attacks) without running in and out, wasting time.

Oh, and FYI... it IS possible to use Fireball and your other primary powers while you're standing in the middle of a mob, while also gaining the extra damage (and/or mitigation) from your secondary powers like Blazing Aura and Hot Feet, not to mention the other PBAoE attacks. your posts imply that blasters are incapable of using ranged powers in melee, or that blappers don't use their primaries at all, which is fairly ridiculous.

Again, here you are making a scenario that suits your argument, and of course it has validity in the scenario you're presenting, but it loses it's validity the moment you actually start spending the majority of your time in melee range... you're taking the main aspect of actually staying in melee and downgrading it to spending 10% of your time in melee... by that point, of course it's not going to make sense using your damage auras and the like, even while "jousting"... However, staying in near-constant to constant melee range and actually using the tools provided to minimize your damage taken increases the use and DPE/S of those powers to perfectly acceptable levels... and in the meantime, you would be doing more damage and on a larger scale, albeit with a chance of considerably more risk.

An average tier 2 blast does around 100 damage every 6-8 seconds, not including cast time... which would bring it to more around 8-10 seconds... Blazing Aura and Hot Feet together, deal 25 damage every 2 seconds with no cast time if they're already active (which you can activate out-of-combat)... so in the same 8-10 seconds, BA+HF deals 200-250 damage... and those are unslotted numbers. even with no damage slotting, only end... you're getting an extra 200 or so damage with no activation time WHILE you're attacking with your other powers. To me thats worth it, even vs a single target... and endurance isn't so much of a concern with proper slotting and Consume.

I didn't say it, the game manual did... if you have issue with what those writers say the secondary is intended for, or their source of information, which was most likely the developers, then by all means, take it up with them. and yes, FM has support in the form of it's slow and afraid effects in Hot Feet and Burn... enemies rarely attack when they're running away slowly... it also has superior AoE damage to take out large mobs rather quickly... much more so than any of the other secondaries do.

Soul Drain is actually a very nice damage AoE, and it has the bonus effect of -tohit and boosting your own damage and tohit. It's also not even a blaster power, and beanbag isn't a secondary power, so why you're bringing them up as enforcement to your argument is beyond me... and by the way, I never said they were designed to only deal damage, but they obviously, and for the most part, deal damage in good amounts as well as providing controls and mitigation.

So it's 3 is it? perhaps by your standards, since you don't bother with the toggles, and you only step in 10% of the time at most. The damage toggles, or at the very least, Hot Feet, can be one of the most powerful tools in a /fire blasters survival, so no wonder you can't hang in melee. Other powers you disregard as stupid are also the same type of powers, like Shocking Grasp, which is extremely helpful AND adds to your damage considerably, with little investment time.

You seem to disregard many of the key mitigational powers that blaster secondaries have to offer, and then you complain that you can't survive in melee, and actually have the gall to say that blasters as a whole, unless they're IO'd out to the max, can't do it either... your outlook is severely ignorant and narrow minded, and I'm sorry if that offends you, but you're extremely unwilling to listen to reason, or even acknowledge that other players are running melee blasters, with great success, and on SOs, while spending most, if not all, their time in melee.

Yea, I'll agree that Burn, by itself, sucks pretty bad as a damage power since the enemies all run out of melee when you drop it. Then again, Used in conjuncion with Hot Feet slotted with a few Slow SOs, it can do some pretty nasty damage while the mobs *try* to run away before they die... Its even better if you're on a team with a controller who can lock mobs down so they can't run, and it frees you from immobilize effects too... that's pretty handy.

Blaster secondaries ARE a mix of support, control and damage... as proof, the mitigation powers they use are the exact same powers, more or less, as Controllers and Defenders get in their primaries, with some additional attacks added in... one of the main mitigation tools for fire/kin trollers is Hot Feet, Fire/Kins have been stated repeatedly as one of the best, if not THE best toons for farming... which consists of constantly and quickly dispatching large mobs with little to no danger... Hot Feet is a key power in that role.

another power that's common between */fire blasters and fire/* controllers, is Ring of fire... and these are the only two mitigational powers */fire blasters get, the rest are mainly damage... Like Blazing Aura, Consume and Burn, Which Fire Aura scrappers have access to... and there are the obvious Combustion, Fire Sword Circle and Fire Sword... which are also pure attacks, two of which Fire Melee scrappers get in their primaries, and the other is in Dominators "Fiery Assault" set. ironically, Scrapper Primaries and Dominator secondaries pleasure is damage, So what's with them being in blaster secondaries? Damage, of course...

even more so, what is Burn doing in Fire Aura, the tanker primary and scrapper/brute secondaries? in a protection set? really? that must be because it's both a mitigation power and a damage power, in pretty much the only protective set that uses offense as a primary form of defense (which is mostly what blasters do too )... I can't believe that doesn't drop a hint for you... go figure.


You forgot the damage aura for Electric, Lightning Field, which is also a Damage power in Electric Armor... the only difference being, the blaster version does only slightly less damage than the scrappers, but more than tanker/brutes, and has more than double the radius of any of them.

Psychic Manipulation is a bit of an odd duck in the pond of blaster secondaries, however, every single power in it offers mitigation through -recharge, and then it has the buff/debuff power Drain Psyche, along with a PBAoE stun, PBAoE Confuse and a ST Fear power. Psychic scream, as you said... is an attack power (i.e. additional damage) and can be found in both the Defender "attack" secondary and the dominator "attack" secondary, which for one, further solidifies my point of blaster secondaries being both support and damage, thanks...

The other Psychic Manipulation powers are also gathered mainly from the Dominators "Psionic Assault" secondary, which includes Subdual (called "Subdue" on Dominators, but nonetheless the same power) Mind Probe, Telekinetic Thrust, Drain Psyche and Psychic Shockwave, on top of Psychic Scream.... so that leaves Concentration (a.k.a. Build Up), World of Confusion and Scare as the only 3 powers not found in an attack set... of which Concentration (or build up if you prefer) is common in blaster secondaries, World of Confusion is unique to this specific secondary, and Scare is basically a single target version of Terrify for Mind Controllers, or possibly Fearsome Stare from Defenders Dark Miasma. again, a large mix of damage along with control and mitigational "support" powers.

if you really want, I can go through all the blaster secondaries like this, because they all come out pretty much the same... with a modicum of powers from Defender and Controller sets coupled with other damage and/or survival powers from the other blast and melee sets.

A bit of over exaggeration there? I highly doubt you could blast a mob of 10 into dust, solo, from range, in 3 seconds... at the very least, not without severly IOing... which you're apparently against and don't do.... and even then it would be a stretch, unless you're Nuking after BU+AIM... which would still be difficult considering Nukes have cast times of 2-3 seconds alone.

Also, You're doing it wrong... first off, none of the powers you listed are mitigation... Blazing Aura is damage... Hot Feet on the other hand, has a larger radius than both the powers you stated, AND provides mitigation in the form of slows and "afraid"... you're not setting yourself up to be safe, or even using the mitigation available to you... you're just running in and trying to spam your AoEs which will obviously, as you've found, and as I said in my last post, get you killed quickly.

Second, You're activating too far away if you're worried about the range on Blazing Aura... which isn't even your main mitigation power. So to answer you're question.... Blazing Aura isn't going to do jack if you're activating Combustion and FSC at range... and since the radius on FSC is about 5ft shorter than Combustion... yet only 2ft larger than BA... chances are that by activating at range, rather than in the middle of the mob, you're probably not even hitting anything with FSC to begin with... and if you are, you're not hitting much, making it an even bigger waste of end consumption and damage potential than your toggle for Hot Feet would have been, if you even had it.

Its severely funny that you underplay the facts, while greatly exaggerating your own ideals... please try again, preferably with more fact and less personal opinion, thanks



Well of course they're not adding mitigation for you, You've completely disregarded all of the mitigational powers, like Hot Feet, Shocking Grasp, Chilling Embrace... and probably most, if not all the rest, too.


No, my argument is that *most* blasters can survive perfectly fine in melee, on SOs... their secondaries can be far more useful than you perpetuate them to be, and blaster secondaries are (for the most part) a good mix of Damage, Control, and Support through mitigation and control. They obviously aren't as capable as "specialist" defenders or controllers, but they are far more capable than you're making them out to be.

You're the only one who said anything about ONLY using SECONDARY attacks, I never said as much, and never would. I rely heavily on both my primary and secondary powers as a blaster, and both can be used for damage AND mitigation, depending on the set, of course.

You want an example of mitigation, fine... I'll use my Elec/Elec blaster, as he was specced with SOs, before I rebuilt him...

Bring up Voltaic Sentinel, Drop into a mob with Lightning Field active, Short Circuit/Power Sink... mobs are now end-less and can't attack, LF keeps them that way, while damaging at the same time... all the while, VS is hitting targets too... now I BU+AIM+Ball Lightning+Thunder Strike.... everything's dead, onto the next mob. In the off chance there's still someone standing, like a boss... well, ok... Shocking Grasp+Tesla Cage has them held, they're still taking damage from Lightning Field, and the DoT of Shocking Grasp, not to mention VS, if that doesn't have him dead... I smack him down with Charged Brawl, or Havoc Punch, or both depending on how much HP he has... he's dead... on to the next mob.

As far as Mentalists and other mezzers go, there are such things as break-frees, and at the very least, you can still attack with your T1/T2 primary and T1 secondary powers... not to mention, mezzers are ALL ranged, so no matter where you are, they can get you... it doesn't matter if you're in melee or at range, so your point regarding them is moot. blasters aren't tanks or scrappers... they don't have mez protection, but they certainly have the tools to handle Mezzers and other trouble enemies... like with Shocking Grasp+Tesla Cage... Freeze Ray/Freezing Touch, and plenty of other powers that produce KB/KD/Stuns/Sleeps/End Drain or what have you.

I use inspirations when I need them, regardless of the alt... and at one point or another, they all need them. You keep wanting to bring Invention builds into this for some reason and you keep pretending that's what I'm talking about... sorry, I'm talking about SO'd characters... you want to keep feeding the invention build fire, go right on ahead... you're just showing your ignorance on the matter.



It varies from set to set, but for the most part, I tend to try and stay away from Malta for the Gunslingers, Tac Ops and large robots... and Carnies if there are Master Illusionists, those are just a PITA... Nemesis I really don't find all that bad, and Rikti/Lost are pretty much Pushovers, Psychic Clockwork can be a small pain but are overall pretty easily doable, as well as Arachnos, Council/5th Column, and Cimerorans.

I can't say I've solo'd the Praetorian missions on my blaster, they were "double-boxed" with my Emp and my blaster because I wanted to do them as AV's and I'm fairly sure my E3 couldn't solo them as AV's without a bit more support... but yea, I did the Siege mission, and the rest, set to +1/x3 w/ bosses and AV's, of them all, pretty much the only really tough one was Tyrant... however, at this point I also had most of the IO's I wanted in place... by no means is my blaster softcapped, but he has about 20-25% melee defense, and the Electric APP shield for some resistance, along with Surge of Power... so this particular endeavor isn't going to meet your particular scrutiny of blaster survival on SOs. I mostly went with recharge and damage bonuses in my IOing, with a bit of melee defense for some added protection.

on a side note, since this will probably be my last post on this matter...

Some people simply don't find it fun to play blasters and other squishie types within melee range of mobs, and that's perfectly fine. If you're more comfortable playing at range, then do so. But applying a standard to how everyone should be playing their AT of choice is just wrong, even if they're not playing how you (and that's a general "you" not specifically you, sam), or even the developers, intended the AT to be played... that is, unless it's using some kind of exploit, which would be completely understandable when you say "hey, you're not supposed to do that!"

According to the "old" manual (mine covers Issues 1-6, which is far outdated), Blaster Secondary powersets are classified as Support. It also goes on to say, and I quote:

"Blasters have a superior set of crowd control capabilities in their secondary powerset. and, even alone, a blaster can be more than a match for several mobs at once - with the right strategy, of course"

It also says under the AT's Cons:

"Since you're primarily endowed with heavy-duty ranged attacks, melee combat is decidedly not your forte. While some blaster secondary power sets do feature melee options, you're better off, in almost every case, to only get one or two melee attacks and concentrate your power choices and slotting on ranged attacks (after all, you are not a scrapper or tanker)."

and...

"Blasters are made of tissue paper (relatively speaking), so if you're drawing too much aggro, retreat to the cover of the nearest tanker or scrapper within range and/or fly or superleap for the highest skyscraper for cover."


This is sound advice for someone new to the game, or even new to blasters, but as experience and playstyle preferences develop, some people are going to find that the melee options in blaster secondaries have a far superior damage potential than most, if not all, of the ranged attacks... so, even while the risk can be greater, the fun factor can be too.

I personally have the most fun while playing in melee range, surrounded by large mobs and surviving through it. I've tried my hand at melee AT's in consideration of this, and while I enjoy them somewhat, I can never get quite the same level of satisfaction with them. I prefer blasters, dominators and corruptors, and to a slightly lesser extent, controllers.

Regardless of what the manual says, (most) Blasters who only stay at range, IMO, are not living to their full potential... just because it's a blaster doesn't mean it's supposed to be at range all the time. Conversly, just because I prefer to be in melee most of the time, doesn't mean that I feel everyone else should be too... however I do feel that some are missing out on their full capabilities by never entering melee, some of the best tools from blaster secondaries are melee-range powers.

This statement is Completely fictitious, every blaster secondary has more melee powers than anything else, with the only exception being Devices. See below for a comprehensive listing of melee powers in blaster secondaries, as you can see for yourself, all blaster secondaries sport, at minimum, five melee powers out of 9, except Devices, which has one melee and three questionables. Granted that they aren't all primarily damage powers (i.e. attacks), but they are all Melee powers (again, foregoing the exception of devices).

Electricity Manipulation

Charged Brawl - Melee ST damage
Lightning Field - Melee PBAoE damage toggle
Havoc Punch - Melee ST damage
Lightning Clap - Melee stun/kb PBAoE
Thunder Strike - Melee damage/stun/kb PBAoE
Power Sink - Melee end-drain/end-recovery PBAoE
Shocking Grasp - Melee ST damage/hold

Fire Manipulation

Fire Sword - Melee ST damage
Combustion - Melee damage PBAoE
Fire Sword Circle - Melee damage PBAoE
Blazing Aura - Melee PBAoE damage toggle
Consume - Melee damage/end-recovery PBAoE
Burn - Melee damage PBAoE
Hot Feet - Melee PBAoE damage/slow/afraid toggle

Ice Manipulation

Frozen Fists - Melee ST damage
Ice Sword - Melee ST damage
Chilling Embrace - Melee PBAoE slow/damage-debuff toggle
Ice Patch - Melee PBAoE knockdown/slow
Freezing Touch - Melee ST damage/hold
Frozen Aura - Melee PBAoE sleep

Mental Manipulation

Mind Probe - Melee ST damage
Telekinetic Thrust - Melee damage/knockback
Drain Psyche - Melee PBAoE +regen/recovery foe -regen/recovery
World of Confusion - Melee PBAoE confuse toggle
Psychic Shockwave - Melee PBAoE damage/ foe stun/-recharge

Energy Manipulation

Power Thrust - Melee ST damage/knockback
Energy Punch - Melee ST damage/stun
Bone Smasher - Melee ST damage/stun
Stun - Melee ST damage/stun
Total Focus - Melee ST damage/stun

Devices

Caltrops - see note 2 below - Melee/Close-Range Damage TAoE
Taser - Melee damage/stun
Trip Mine - Melee PBAoE damage - (see note)
Time Bomb - Melee PBAoE damage - (see note)

NOTE- Devices Trip Mine and Time Bomb, while not technically Melee "use" powers, actually need an enemy in melee range of them in order to work after being placed. It also seems "toe-bombing" has become a fairly wide-use practice with devices, especially on teams, hence them being put into the Melee powers category.

NOTE 2- Caltrops has a much shorter range (25ft) than any TAoE I've seen in the game, but calling it a melee power is still quite a bit of a stretch... however, from the majority of times I've seen it used, it's been within melee range.

Hate to burst your bubble there, but that question has been answered. Blaster secondaries are intended as Support. Go dig out that manual and take a look

My personal opinion on the matter is that the manual is only half right. The majority of Blaster secondaries are built for Melee/PBAoE damage and soft controls (support) to help keep you, the blaster, and your teammates alive. None of the secondaries do just one thing... they're a mix of damage, soft controls and survivability tools, and are meant to compliment your choice of primary. (well, except Fire, which is pretty much a one trick pony)

The majority of blaster secondaries can deal gobs of damage to foes in melee range, and for a majority of the powers, their primary purpose is to deal damage, while providing mitigational "support" tools to help you survive.

So, my personal answer your question is, Blaster Secondaries are supposed to compliment your primary powerset and provide a number of tools for damage mitigation and overall survival, most blaster secondaries are also adept at dealing massive amounts of damage while in Melee range of enemies. Damage and Mitigation ability can vary depending on which specific secondary is in question... Some may deal more damage, like Fire Manipulation, whose primary mitigation is the ability to dispatch multiple weaker enemies quickly, while others are geared more toward control and survival, a-la Ice Manipulation... with plenty of tools to control when and how often your enemies can attack you.

or the tl;dr version, blaster secondaries allow you do deal additional damage while adding mitigational support for you and your teammates survival.

1. Blasters need a damage aura to deal more damage, dealing damage being their primary (and for the most part, singular) focus.

2. Anyone with a brain isn't going to jump into a mob and just stand there while they kill you... that's just dumb. I will however jump into a mob and proceed to pummel them in short order.

3. Yes, depending on your powersets and personal ability it would be perfectly survivable. If you need to use some inspirations, so be it...

My Elec/Elec doesn't have any problems most times, He spent the majority of his career in melee range while levelling, I've since respecced him as a blapper and Added some IO's to his repertoire, but he still did fine in melee on SO's... Same goes for the DP/Fire Blaster I played on test during beta. My Grav/Kin Troller, Earth/Psi Dom and Energy/Kin Corr also spent the majority of their careers in melee, as does my DP/Dark Corr I'm currently levelling, along with several other toons.

Obviously if you're in a situation where you're getting pummeled, you should back off and use ranged attacks or run until you get it back together. I don't spend every waking second in melee on all my alts, my Elec blaster can handle it for the most part, but others tend to dodge in and out of melee, setting up cones or what have you.

If you're going to be in melee on a squishie, you need to know which attacks draw the most aggro and when to use them, how much your alt can handle and what it can't, and know what enemy groups are bad for you so you can take extra care around them... Trial and error, and gradually pushing up the difficulty settings can usually give you a good idea of your limitations.

if you just jump in melee, damage toggles active, and start spamming AoE's like they're going out of style, or you don't wait for the aggro to be split with your team (i.e. go in first for the alpha), you're usually going to faceplant quickly.

VS actually used to have a shorter duration a while back. Before it was changed it was rather annoying. Now it has a 1 min. duration and gives you a 20% damage buff upon summoning thanks to "new" defiance, which is also the reason, I'd gather, why sparky can't be permanent or even on a longer timer... it would basically nullify the defiance buff from him.

Extending the duration of VS to four minutes would actually be to the detriment of the power, and electric blast as a set, IMO. Starting off a fight by summoning VS + BU + AIM nets you a near 200% damage buff for your first few attacks, and with decent recharge you can get that damage spike approx. every 30 seconds or so, which is a big help on a set that most people consider "sub-par" as a blast set.

Resummoning VS also helps in keeping a constant, good defiance buff FWIW. As battles drag on, like in AV fights, using VS+BU+AIM stacks with whatever defiance buffs you've accumulated through attacking, and each time you use it, you get an even higher spike damage buff.

Consequently, I respecced VS out of my build some time ago in order to get more protection for my blappery playstyle with him. At some point I'm going to find a way to put it back in though, maybe I'll just make use of his 2nd build for it

I agree with you that the logic I used is slightly flawed... I was using an extreme case to point out that hating/placing blame on an object in itself is flawed, or in layman's terms... you can dislike or hate the behavior, but the object itself didn't really do anything.

Like you pointed out in your example, controlling the object is one way to reduce that behavior, or at the very least, reduce the chances of acting out that behavior. Dealing with the cause is usually the best way to correct the problem, anything else is just patchwork.

No one said it was the entire playerbase, I was just stating that I'm sure it isn't everyone.... meaning that I'm sure you can find others to join you on a regular basis for things that cause you aggravation like getting this badge. I wasn't attempting to put words in your mouth, perhaps I should've been more clear in what I wrote, sorry.

That may be true, but overall it regards human nature and the fact that people hate to fail and everyone wants to be the best... this isn't something exclusive to the "Master of" badges, anything competitive is going to get this type of behavior. Regarding this game, things like "if you don't have IOs you're not joining my team", or "you don't have these specific powers, you're not good enough" and "this is your fault because you don't have x", "we need archetype x, archetype y needs to go *kick*" can be fairly common things to hear, or so I've read on the boards... I've never had this happen to myself, but I'm sure it does.

The best you can hope to do is identify who or what is putting a crimp in your fun and try your best to work around it and make your experience better. By all means, rally for changes to how the badge is awarded or the requirements for it. If you feel someone is doing things that are damaging the game, then try twice as hard to do more than them to help make the game better. Most of all, Don't let a few bad attitudes ruin your experience. I'm sorry you've had bad experiences with this part of the game, but if you've experienced the worst it can only get better right?

very true, but it's not the contest, loot and "master of" badges fault, it's the persons fault... it doesn't make sense to "hate the badge" or "the contest" or what have you, when the person is the one being a ****, not the item in question.

blaming an object for the actions of a person is nonsensical. for example, charging a gun with murder and letting the one who pulled the trigger go free. objects may give people avenues to behave a certain way, but it's still the choice of the person, not the object, that defines which avenue is traveled.

Hello, and welcome to the best MMO on the market

I'm sure you'll find that the community here (for the most part) is the most welcoming, friendly and helpful one around. This was my first MMO and I've been here for about 3 years. I've tried WoW and some others during that time, but this one just keeps me coming back, it's a great game and I hope you find it as fun and enjoyable as the rest of us have! If you ever wanna team or need help with anything there are plenty of us ready and willing to offer what assistance we can.

I'm on eastern time, but I'd be on during PST evening time, I'm sure. I also have alts on every server, so shoot me a PM if you'd like to hook up some time.

30 days of game time as Arctic Man said, and you also get a disc updated with every issue up to GR, which can save a lot of download time during a reinstall.

To those (EDIT RE: certain posts on page 30) whining about feeling slighted, you're entitled to your opinions, however you should realize that even veterans who have been with the game forever will get bored and leave. MMO's need a constant influx of new players to stay on top of the game and keep going. I know for a fact that if I was looking for a new game and saw a GR box on the shelf, I'd probably buy it to check it out.... then I'd get home and read that it's only an expansion and I need to purchase another box before I can even play... I'd bring it right back and return it, no question.

Heck, when the game first came out and I bought the CoH box, I brought it back and returned it because it required a credit card to even check out the costume creator.... some years later I decided to actually give it a try, this time already knowing that, and I've been playing now for about 3 years or so. I have 2 accounts for myself and my wife and son both have their own account... I also have all the boosters and the GR expansions on all except one of those accounts. If I were to add that all up, I'm quite sure it equals more than what you've spent, but does that really matter? In other words, since I spent more cash on this game, does that mean my opinion matters more than yours? because thats what it sounds like you're saying, correct me if I'm wrong, please.

New customers like everything in 1 package, and ESPECIALLY nowadays, people are looking for a deal... if a company can't offer those two things, then they aren't getting my business, and I'm sure they won't get a lot of business from others either. Paragon has made leaps and bounds in areas where other companies truly do gouge you.

Look at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2... I bought it, it's a great game... has nowhere ... nowhere near the content of CoX and was $60 and now after about 3 months of the game being out, there's a "stimulus" expansion pack.... I'll tell you, the only "stimulus" is going in the developers pockets at $15 a pop for like 5 new maps and thats it. 3 of which are from Modern Warfare 1... so basically $15 for 2 new maps and 3 more i could access for free by changing a disc.... that my friend is gouging and slighting the customer IMO, what Paragon is doing isn't there by far.

Then again, perhaps you'd feel less slighted if they made new customers buy however many new boxes just to get going, who then wouldn't buy said multiple boxes and the vets will continually leave and soon (tm) the game servers will shut down. Then you can have the comfort of knowing all that money you spent on the game you loved playing went down the tubes because you can't even play it anymore, but at least those darn noobs didn't get a better deal than you... that would've been a tragedy, wouldn't it?

lighten up

You seem to be confused about what exactly an "Open Beta" is, so I'll attempt to explain...

As Rotten said, I17 has been in Closed Beta for quite a while now... since around double xp weekend actually, so about 6 weeks give or take. Closed Beta is the time where most of the bugs are worked on by the developers and a portion of the games' community. Closed Beta requires that you receive an invite from the developers in order to participate and have access to the test servers. Those who aren't a part of Closed Beta aren't granted access to the test server at all while Closed Beta is in session.

Today is the first day of Open Beta. Open Beta is the point where a majority of the bugs have been worked out and it's nearly ready for release on the "live" servers. Everyone in the community has access to the test server during Open Beta and an invitation to participate is not required.

A somewhat short explanation, but hopefully that clears up the difference between Closed Beta and Open Beta for you.

You know, I looked around when I read that and couldn't find one so who knows... maybe there's some obscure page on their site that has one, but that portion of the quote wasn't the pertinent part at the time

I for one am looking forward to that ton of goodness! Bring on the goodness!

I guess you never took a hint from names like "Embalmed Cadaver" or anything... no, they couldn't possibly be undead

I'm curious to see how the ghouls spawn and are aggro'd "It's only when the shadows are deep and the tunnels are quiet that you should worry" makes me think they crawl up out of the ground and attack when you hit certain 'trigger points' or something and "killing one of them just makes the others angrier" makes me think once you start killing them it makes more of them spawn... something like the Zombie Apocalypse mechanic but with dedicated, always on area(s) and to a lesser scale possibly. It would be interesting if they had something like Vengeance too, but perhaps a heartier +Dmg or some other buff in place of the +Def... I don't think the +Def from vengeance would really fit with a ghoul theme.

Frankly, this sounds like a driver issue to me. Did you update your drivers at some point prior to this problem showing up? You're probably getting the reboot due to the default setting in windows to auto-restart on a crash. Since you've had the computer for about two years, I assume you're running Windows XP, or possibly Vista... you'll want to go into the control panel and open System>Advanced Properties tab and find where it says "system startup and recovery", click the settings button and uncheck the box next to where it says System Failure>Automatically Restart ... the next time it happens you will most likely get a blue screen with an error code and listing of the drivers/files that caused the crash, but the computer won't automatically restart. From there you should be able to determine what drivers are causing the problem and update/roll back as needed.

Couple other quick things, as said above sometimes this kind of error/restart can be caused by operating temperatures, blown motherboard capacitors or lack of power... aside from what I said above, you'll probably also want to look over the system and ensure all the system, processor, video card and power supply fans are working properly, and look over the motherboard capacitors to make sure they aren't popped (leaking, cracked, puffed up). if everything seems ok then there's probably not a chance you're overheating since it's not a new system and you've been running for a while without problems. Your video card temps look to be inline with a normal system, temps on those GTX's have been known to reach 100c under 100% loads during stress tests, but normal operating should be around 70-80c so you should be fine. the system sensors aren't always that accurate, but they're usually not that far off to cause concern. at times the motherboard capacitors can be blown and not always show noticeable signs, but if you don't see anything out of the ordinary it will probably be safe to assume that there's nothing wrong with them.