OVWyx_EU

I know one of these was done quite recently, but our SG is running this respec on Thursday evening, we have a couple of spots free, if anyone needs/wants this (at least one of whom would need to be level 49 or 50, we do not have SK room currently) then please shout and come along and join us. We run a TS server which anyone joining us is more than welcome to use if you want to.

Wyx.

Yup, good to team with both of you, I hope you enjoyed the TF.

If you do decide to look up a SG then you're both more than welcome to join us, drop me a PM or say hi on our forums.

Wyx/Buffem And Run

Both energy and electricity secondary (in fact almost all the secondary powers) are mele range.

Before ED with 6 slotted hover you could get in and out of mele range depending on what was most appropriate at the time very quickly and easily. 3 slotted hover doesn't really do this. Personally I'm using hover (3 flight speed) and teleport (2 end reducers to allow combat use) on my blapper and I'm finding it very useful. I tend to open most fights at range, whether I'm soloing or teaming, but then I can quickly get in to mele (and quickly get back out again if I have to). Adding a third dimension on to your movement really can increase survivability quite a bit once you learn how to make the most of it. Even if you take mele attacks you probably wont spend all your time in mele, sometimes keeping range is very useful and hover is a good way to do it. I keep hover on all the time because it reduces knockback (instead of being knocked back, you just spin round in the air which makes it relatively harmless).

However the leaping pool also has some big advantages too. It gives you immobilisation protection in the form of combat jumping, a good travel power, and knockback plus limited hold protection from acrobatics (this protects from one hold only, you will still get held, but less so).

One thing to bear in mind is that the hover/fly or hover/TP route takes a fair amount of slotting to be effective, and it has to be SOs. In addition if you were to take either fly or TP as a travel power they're very endurance heavy, running either of those before you get stamina can be annoying. For a lower level character you might want to just take the leaping pool. You can always respec later on if you don't like it, or when you have the slots spare to make one of the other travel powers work.

My twopenneth for what it's worth

Electricity and Energy are both good secondaries. Both have three good attacks and endurance recovery/saving powers, electricity has the advantage of also having a very good mele range hold, but energy has a guaranteed stun (total focus) and two powers which also boost your primary. Overall, I would say energy is probably a better match although both would work.

I personally like Hover and TP or Fly for travel, but I've used the leaping pool in the past, you can make it work just fine.

Hope that helps.

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Its good to have a good selection with a blaster

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I have to agree with that. No one set stands out to me as way better than the others, it's just a case of picking the one that best compensates for the weaknesses of the set/build you've already got. Even though I probably only take 2 or 3 powers from the epic pool on each blaster at any one time, if I pick the right ones the difference in play speed and survivability is massive.

I also use hibernate as an endurance regeneration power, very handy on my end hog of a ice/ice build. Probably not what it was designed for, but hey, it works

Hey, have sent you a PM regarding Synapse.

Wyx.

I respecced RoTP in on my fire blaster after I hit level 50 when the concealment pool was made considerably less useful and I got rid of a couple of powers from it, honestly I wouldn't take it if there was anything else in my secondary that I thought could be of use to me but there just isn't. Next time we get a free respec I think I'll get rid of it and take Air Superiority instead - I could do with something like that now that Char will only perma-hold even level bosses, after 12 minutes chasing a +2 Tac Ops Teleporting Git Boss around a malta mission last week I'm thinking the knockdown could come in handy

Can't argue that RoTP looks good though. It really is pretty.

Fire shield is "alright". 19% base resistance to smashing and lethal, 14% to fire, can’t remember the number to cold off the top of my head.

Electricity shield is probably better. 19% base resistance to smashing and lethal, 14% to energy. Energy is a much more common damage type at high level. It also has a quicker activation. A slight downside is the sparkling on this is fairly subtle, so you sometimes don't notice if you haven't turned it on

Temp invul is also ~ 20% smashing and lethal if I remember correctly (been a couple of months since I had that on anything off the test server) but then you do get FoN available in the same pool. Temp invul again is a quick animation.

Frozen armour is questionably about as much use as a chocolate fireguard, I’m not even convinced it’s that good. I don't have the exact number on defence on that unfortunately, but I've not found it even slightly effective for a while.

Body Armour I believe is ~ 10% to smashing/lethal. Not fantasic but it’s always on – including when held – which has something going for it.

I don’t think you can judge the effectiveness of the epic pools based soley on the armours though. I’ve used all of them at some point and all have pros and cons for different build types. When picking an epic pool I look for the one that complements my characters the best, I’m currently running fire/fire/flame, elec/elec/elec and ice/ice/cold (I didn’t take the armour though, with the level of control she has I don’t need it), that’s not concept choice though, it’s based on what I think fits best with the 3 characters out of what’s available. None of the armours make you that tough in my opinion, certainly not tough enough to radically alter playstyle. Personally I tend to just put them on, keep them on, and occasionally I’ll sit back and go “phew, if I hadn’t have had fire shield on there, I’d have been a gonner”.

My next blaster will probably take force at least for a while, I'd like to have a good play about with FoN, I've only used it very briefly on my elec blaster.

Assuming my computer is functioning again by 7:30 which it should be, then I’ll be there with a blaster. The Ice or the Fire one, haven’t decided which yet.

Wyx.

The bind works, but if you go from hover to fly straight after you’ve attacked your speed drops to base hover speed until the speed supression wears off.

Some sets are affected a lot more than others. Ice seems to come out better than most, fast animations, quick firing attacks, and control powers which will take more varied slotting anyway. Ice doesn't miss hasten as much as a lot of sets, and always did benefit from having end reducers in if you have ice or devices secondary, so while it's not as good as it was, it still works pretty damn well. Fire took a much bigger hit comparatively.

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Will I also need some kind of interrupt enhancement as well?

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Yup. Base recharge is 20 seconds so I found 2 recharge is fine - just incase it misses the first time. An interrupt duration is a must have if you want to use it while being fired at. On the character I have it on I've gone for 3 accuracy, 2 recharge and 1 interrupt duration, makes it quite reliable. If you're looking at it for PvP, maybe think about taking air superiority as well - it's handy for PvE as well as PvP - quick animation and reasonable recharge on there so helps with the fury, one hit knockdown on most bosses, and the combination of that and TP Foe completely screws up anyone in PvP relying soley on fly to get around.

3 slotted hover just doesn't cut it for me on the mobility stakes. I had 6 slotted hover on most of my blasters, I absolutely loved it, it felt heroic to be zooming about the sky like that. I tend to team with kinetics a lot in PvE so I've held on to hover as it's OK with speed boost, and I can work round it on builds that are mostly ranged when I'm soloing, but for the one that likes to get in to mele a lot (and back out again on occasion) I've added TP as well as hover. She moves around very nicely again now, I can hold from range than TP straight in to mele and blap away - it's also a nice extra to have in PvP incase anyone -flys me and there's plenty of powers that do that. I don't do a huge amount of PvP, but I don't want to be a sitting duck when I do - from some admittedly limited testing it seems to be working quite nicely.

It makes it cost less endurance to activate. Blizzard has an activation cost of ~ 20. I can't remember the exact number offhand, but that's fairly close. Endurance reducers make absolutely no difference to the total drain and minus recovery.

I don't find blizzard especially impressive post enhancement diversification. It's low enough damage with only 3 slots that mobs can easily run out of it before they die. It's damage is unaffected by any buffs, which includes aim and build up, so 3 damage SOs worth is what you're getting - not that tremendous really.

If you are going to use it then I'd suggest combining it with a slow. Either Ice Storm (slotted with 3 slows, you could also add 3 damage to that) from the Ice primary, or if you've got ice secondary then Shiver (slotted 2 accuracy - it really needs them - and 2 slows). Dropping one of those and then blizzard will generally mean that your mobs will stay in for long enough to take a reasonable amount of damage. You could even slot blizzard with 3 slows as well as 3 damage which makes a fairly lethal combination.

If you use it without some sort of slow you're likely to kill little except yourself and probably annoy any tanker you play with quite a bit

Overall I don't personally rate it as worth the endurance penalties. I very much went for the single target/control angle on my ice/ice and spending that many slots on it didn't fit with what I was after - Ice has a lot of other good powers and I wanted those more. It can still be used effectively though.

Hehe, LLOD, there's a name I haven't seen for a while. We used to play PS with you guys from time to time although I don't know how many are still kicking around from then. We've been playing CoH on the US servers until quite recently, just moved over the the EU. I hadn't even realised you were playing it.

Is Avingord still kicking about at all? Please say hi from me if so.

Wyx - Octavian Vanguard

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I'm just glad that Build Up + Aim + Thunderous Blast can still kill same level minions when it only has 3 damage SOs - guess I can take out lieuts with some help from the tankers and scrappers.

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Or by using Aim/Build Up/Ball Lightening/TB. Actually if you add Static Discharge in between ball lightening and TB to that you can take +3s, and getting all three out before the time runs out on aim and build up is no problem. I didn't take the epic AOE personally but I had it on the test server and it was tempting to try and make room for it - I probably would have done if I didn't have another blaster set up for AOE damage already.

Regarding issue 6 and enhancement diversification, my main issue has never been that it made the game harder - not saying it doesn't make it harder, it does, but I don't mind that particularly. My issue with it is the massively varying effect it's had on different characters, and it's not always the best characters that have been hit the hardest. My fire blaster definitely feels a much bigger difference in playability than my ice or elec ones because she was stacking out on damage on everything. She's still playable don't get me wrong, she's still devastating if I'm teamed with a kinetic and willing to spend a lot of time in mele - a risky proposition with something with that little control - but she's definitely taken the biggest hit.

The ice/ice has always been good fun, quite controllery, fairly safe, and the lowest damage of my blasters. She still is, she's not quite as good as before but she's feeling very little different to play. It takes me a bit longer to get where I'm going with her, but I still get there in the same relative safety and she's got a lot of other advantages. The slows, holds and sleeps haven't been hit that hard really, she just takes longer to kill things.

Electricity is a difficult one, I always get the feeling the devs hate endurance drain and wish they'd never introduced it. It's an all or nothing power and they really really don't seem to like that a lot at all. My electricity blaster I've stacked out with holds and mele powers, and I still have the end drain. Mostly I use it to take out higher level bosses. Stack tesla cage and shocking bolt at range, charge in and hit them with short circuit, power sink. Shocking grasp to keep them held, then short circuit again and they're drained. On a +3 or +4 boss I will then keep them drained with attacks and topping up with short circuit and power sink when applicable. It takes me longer to drop a purple boss, but I can still do it. +2 bosses can be drained with just 3 slotted (end. drain) short circuit/3 slotted (end. drain) power sink, anything higher than that requires more than one use of short circuit.

The main time I miss my end drain is in big teams. I do play in mele range in teams pretty much constantly and I've always been in the habbit of draining the stuff immediately arround me incase it takes an interest in me, now I'm only doing that if the bad guys are particularly nasty - psionic stuff I'll drain because it normally keeps the tanker happy - and only if I think I can drain it before it's killed, which often isn't the case in a damage stacked team.

Lost where I was going with that one a bit there. Ah yes, overall I still feel my elec/elec is one of my better characters despite the real hit to end drain. However elec with devices, fire or ice has lost endurance drain in any form that would be useful in my opinion. You need elec or energy secondary to make it work at all.

Oh, and my biggest complaint from ED. 6 slotted hover. I absolutely loved it, had it on all my level 50s. I really, really miss it. There was something very heroic about flying about the sky obliterating all the villains. I'm still using 3 slotted hover but it feels like I'm wading through knee deep mud, I might have to have a rethink and go for the leaping pool.

Edited to add: Thunder strike and rag doll physics *snigger*.

Yeah, and when Wyx decides to set everything in the room on fire, she's just arrested them. Honest. I mean no-one's ever actually proved anything dodgy is going on, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I wasn't planning on getting taunt on my brute. I wanted a brute for the damage potential not to tank with, and there are many other powers I want more. I had a tank once before and didn't really enjoy playing it much, it's not my thing, and I don't think she'll be tough enough anyway. I'm thinking of getting TP foe for those moments where I really want to get something's attention.

Well, personally, I'm secure in the knowledge that when I go in warburg in a team all kills are due to superior skill and cunning, plus possibly good looks and charm. When I go in there on my own and get killed, it's quite clearly by lame gankers. Did I miss anything?

Seriously though, the warnings on the door couldn't be clearer, if you're going to get upset if someone attacks you, it's not the place to be. Some people will attack anything that moves simply because they can, because it'll increase their ratings, because they had a bad day, because they're bored, because they can't take on the larger more organised PvP teams, because they thought they were about to be attacked, or just because they assumed everyone in there would be looking to fight, the reasons are endless I'm sure. I have done very little PvP but can see little challenge or entertainment in attacking someone who's not going to fight back, so it must be truly pointless if you really know what you're doing, but completely within the rules of the game and I can't see how it constitutes griefing in any way shape or form. Nor does outnumbering people.

Whenever I've been in warburg I've gone in looking for a fight. I’ve been in solo a few times and had a few fun fights, I went in yesterday evening with a couple of guys from our SG, I've done little PvP and they've done none previously but it was a laugh, I expected we’d lose quite badly given inexperience and a less than desirable team mix and was fairly pleasantly surprised. We stayed in for an hour or so, which was about what we’d planned, I think I’d probably have got bored fighting other heroes for longer than that. Still in general it was quite good fun, I was surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did, I never imagined that I'd want to PvP in a "clicky" type game, but it wasn't too bad at all. I'll look forwards to fighting villains now and then when there's some in there, it feels wierd fighting heroes, I think bashing villains will be more fun

The trash talking I could live without, however. Fortunately it is nowhere near as bad as what I saw when I went in there on the US servers a couple of times prior to transferring, but it's still a slightly dissapointing reflection on the human race that people can be so childish and rude behind the anonymity of the internet, let alone think that they're being clever when they're doing it. Anyone going down that route will go straight on my ignore list and stay there, I can't be bothered to listen to it, but I certainly wouldn't let it bother me.