Overclock

I've got a few alts in the real Galaxy City too. The neat thing is while there's no contacts there, you do still find zone mobs on the street.

While collecting Sentinel+, several of my alts stopped purse snatchings that had been underway for years apparently.

Back in 2004 when I joined, the Devs were very frequent posters on the forums. At the time, iirc, there wasn't a dev tracker yet so we had to search on their names to find their posts among the different threads.

Eventually that changed and the Dev Tracker became one of my common stopping points each morning as I got caught up on what was going on in the game. I think I've probably spent more time reading the forums in the last 8+ years than I have playing the game, and there were stretches when I'd play ever night for 4-5 hours or so.

Reading about the game wasn't usually quite as much fun as playing it, but it was nice to stay connected to CoH like that when I was at work or away from my gaming computer. To read what the devs were thinking, to plan for how to setup this new blaster or that new defender, or hear what new content and bug fixes were on the way.

Over time a big part of that enjoyment became reading what other players were thinking about the game. From the early Brawl Index measurements for powers, to Red's City of Data to this really eloquent poster who laid out exactly how Defense worked.

My first alt was a Super Reflexes scrapper, so the inner workings of Defense was more than a little interesting to me, especially since early on my poor MA/SR scrapper was failing to live up to my hopes for him in a spectacularly debt-errific fashion.

The years rolled on, and while I've played a lot of other MMOs, I've always followed the forums, especially that one particularly eloquent poster. To be fair of course there've been a LOT of other great posters too. Ones who explained the Market forum and made me Rich, Rich, Rich! One who showed how to go from 0 to Awesome in 30 days. Ones who've written guides and ones who've posted hilarious lists. It's been a rare day that there hasn't been something that caught my eye, made me think or just made me laugh.

With the game coming to end on Friday, I'm going to miss all of the Task Forces and Trials, all of the street hunts and mission doors, but I think what I'm going to miss the most is three clicks and a bit of typing each day:
<Search>
<Advanced Search>
Arcanaville
<Search Now>

In 8 years, I've never said "thanks" for all of your amazing posts. It never seemed appropriate before, you don't need fanboys, you posts stand on their own. The work you've done for the game and the players speaks for itself.

And yet that doesn't seem enough. So I offer my gratitude and these words to let you know that you've brought a lot enjoyment into my life and that you, as Arcanaville, will be missed.

Godspeed and good wishes for you always!

Oh. Hell. Yeah.

I don't want to go, but if I'm going to this is exactly the way I want to go out.

In the words of every debt ridden blaster I have ever played (usually bound to F10 in fact):

I REGRET NOTHING!

Seriously, I'm walking away from 8.5 years of playing this game still happy for the time I spent. None of it was wasted, and all of it was fun on some level. Sure I could have rolled more alts, made more friends or invested even more in the game, but as the end of this chapter approaches I'm just happy with the alts I got to play, the friends that I made and the time I invested.

The best guesses I've heard so far for the girls are:

R - Red Riding Hood
W - Snow White
B - Cinderella (Cinder = Black)
Y - Goldilocks (Gold = Yellow)

2013 cannot get here fast enough, though this probably means the chance of ever seeing more in the Dead Fantasy series from Monty is pretty slim I'm guessing.

This sounds fantastic. Where's the Kickstarter for it again?

STO has "The Foundry" which is fairly similar as I recall.

'Nette's always had a special place in my heart as a fellow member of the "I Regret Nothing, Leeroy Jenkins" School of Blastering.

What really sealed the deal for her though was a RWZ mission I ran years and years back with my Peacebringer. It was me, a Rad/Rad defender my friend was playing and Fusionette at the end against Hro'Dotz and a seemingly ENDLESS wave of Rikti ambushes with Elite Bosses in them.

To survive I had to stay in Dwarf form, so not a lot of DPS. Thanks to my friend's Rad we had a shot at the AV and EBs but it was really Fusionette's damage output that made it possible. She hung in there like a champ too.

Back in the Faultline arcs she'd crumble like a tin can but somehow in that mission, despite a SEA of Rikti all around us (most of them outside the Rad debuffs because Rikti's have guns and are quite happy to use them), somehow she stayed up the whole way through and bit by bit, 1% by painful 1% we chipped the AVs hitpoints down and claimed victory.

Ever since then I've been nothing but a fan of hers.

Thank you, for Dark Astoria which just rocked all the way through, and for all of the other stories in the game too. I hope we can find out where you (all) wind up next, it'd be great to follow along and support you folks there too!

Thanks! You and all the rest of the devs made something unique and awesome in CoH. All we've got now is a few months of fun left and then looking forward to wherever you all wind up next!

Buh?? Seriously?

Hmm, so was the Blaster I talked to just on crack then or (more amusingly) have they been redesigned from an AT to simply Pets that the rest of the team let's tag along?

I managed to unlock Hybrid this weekend and crafted up a "Support Core Embodiment" for it.

Checking the in-game detail info for [Power:Support Core Embodiment] showed that it is supposed to give +12% strength to all types of damage. When I activate it however and check in Combat Attributes, it's only giving a 6% bonus.

I've checked this in both Ouroboros and Talos, so there's no PVP zone weirdness going on.

I had an SGmate who also had it crafted on their Blaster check it and they were getting 12% the first time they checked and then 6% and then 12%.

Anyone else seeing weird behavior like that? There's a bug somewhere but I'm not sure if it's in the detail info for Defenders or in the actual effect for the power itself.

Nanoha is less "Magical Girl" and more "Mobile Suit Gundam" in a little girl package (or possible even "Gurren Lagann in a little girl package").

What would you plan to stack it with to get "full invisiblity" (i.e. so that bosses couldn't see you)? A friend with a stealth aura like Steamy Mist maybe?

For this build I traded out some of the powers, specifically:

Dropped Fighting for Leadership
The thinking here is that Leadership benefits a team more while still helping if you chose to solo.
Maneuvers stacks nicely with Fortitude and Tactics helps all around.
Vengeance is slotted up enough with Maneuvers added you can bring the whole team (except the dead guy) to the soft cap for defense. This can pretty easily swing the whole course of battle by itself.

Dropped Life Drain for Dark Pit
Healing Aura can cover patching you up in general and it's relatively rare that I've seen the heal from Life Drain save the day for my Emp/Dark (when I had it). Dark Pit has a different use though.
It's a Mag 2 Stun, which means it will only affect minions. It's up fairly often though so the use for it is to soften the alpha strike a bit and remove annoying minions like Sappers from the equation.

Dropped Conserve Power for Force of Nature
If you need survivability here's your go to power. Capped resistance and, unless Mids is lying, you should be able to retain your Recovery if you have Recovery Aura running when the crash comes (you'll still lose all your End but you won't be cut off from gaining it back completely).
Also, while you're a Force of Nature, you'll have improved End Recovery as well (part of FoN) so you can use it when your End is having issues and Recovery Aura is recharging.

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If I can find some time later I'll try to throw together a "cheap IO" build. It's possible it'll be even cheaper than the level 50 commons build since a lot of the cheap recipes sell for almost nothing.

Oops! (I always forget Stamina when I'm in a rush)

Here's a modified build with Stamina slotted up (I stole the slots from Weave in this case):

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I've got 2 other variations in mind that I'll try to throw together real quick too.

The build posted seemed to have a bit of odd slotting in it. The heals, attacks and even some of the buffs were underslotted to allow for extra slots in powers that don't provide much additional benefit - for example the extra slot in Stealth.

For the build below, I kept the powers the same and in the same order as the build you posted and stuck with level 50 common IOs only.

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Some notes:
- I stuck with End Reduction in Heals and Attacks, though I don't necessarily think the'ye needed. Personally I'd opt for a Rech Reduc in place of most of them and work to manage End in other ways.
- Some of the powers are SCREAMING out for at least frankenslotting with cheap Set IOs. Life Drain for example wants to have so many things enhanced that it's unavoidably underpowered on commons.
- You'd had Fortitude only 2 slotted with Rech. The +Def that Fortitude grants is pretty significant at ~23% (fully slotted). Well worth slotting for. Ideally you could also work some +To Hit enhancements in there but that's the domain of Hami-O's really.
- You'd had Recovery Aura slotted for +End Mod, but in general I've found that's not needed. You can't buff it enough to overcome a Nuke crash and it's unbuffed state is sufficient for almost everyone you'll ever meet. It's the downtime on the power where you'll find yourself needing end.
- You'd had Adrenaline Boost 2 slotted for End Mod and 1 slotted for Heal. I reversed that because with 1x End Mod you're overpowering the -Recovery from a Nuke. The second heal adds ~200% extra Regen to the target.
- Boxing, Tough and Weave aren't buying you much extra survivability. I'd be very tempted to drop them in favor of Leadership which can help a team out quite a bit (especially Vengeance).
- Conserve Power. Gah, I hate this power with the burning rage of a thousand suns. The recharge on it is ridiculous. Still if you're going to have it, you might as well have it up as often as possible. If you're really feeling the crunch for End though, consider switching to Elec Mastery and grabbing Power Sink. It's enormously better at keeping your End up.
- Overall, if you're willing to venture into set IOs, you can probably improve the build quite a lot with some of "junk" heal and ranged damage IOs, especially in terms of frankenslotting Life Drain. On a more expensive level, a Stealth IO would let you rop the Stealth power and Hami-O's in Fortitude could save you 3 slots there for use elsewhere.

Fireskimmer’s story starts back in the misty dawn of pre-history (read: CoH pre-launch Beta). When I first saw a Super Speedster going by, I thought “interesting effect but what speedster runs on fire”? From there was born a Fire/Fire Blaster with the dream of being a Super Speedster someday.

Fireskimmer’s backstory had her arriving in Paragon City for her first day on the job as a non-powered police officer on the day when the Rikti invaded. In the chaos of the invasion she found a fallen hero (the previous Fireskimmer) who transferred the powers and knowledge of the long line of Fireskimmers to the young police officer.

As a fledgling hero, the new Fireskimmer could do little but deal with the peripheral damage of the invasion while the Freedom Phalanx and other big heroes took the fight to the Rikti.

Flash forward a few months, Fireskimmer had hooked up with two other heroes and was struggling through the low teens and early 20s. It was rough going. Death and the debt cap were a constant companion. Flares was a painfully slow power that was about as damaging as a paper cut. Fireball existed to mildly annoy the bad guys and give her all their aggro.

The (nearly) final blow came when altitis hit and the regular group she was playing with switched to other characters and other servers...but something wouldn’t let go.

“C’mon”, she said, “Enough wimpy defender work, let’s put a burning hurt on someone” and “Debt? Seriously? Like that matters? Just. Burn. Them. Down. The XPs will flow.”

And so I did. With other groups or solo, Fireskimmer pressed on. Blaze and SOs helped a lot. Inferno became intoxicating, especially with a good Kin on the team. Through the months and years that followed I kept coming back to her until by the summer of 2007 she was at level 49.

Playing her was like riding a whirlwind at that point. Fire Sword, Blaze, Fire Ball, Fire Circle Sword and best of all Rise of the Phoenix. She tore through the mobs in a furious blur of yellow, orange and red, knowing that they could knock her down, but never keep her down.

And then the Rikti came back.

It was too good an opportunity to pass up. So close to 50. Her first foes. The ones she’d been too weak to fight years before.

In Atlas, back where it all began, shoulder to shoulder with dozens of other heroes and what seemed like hundred or thousands of Rikti, she fought and burned her way to level cap covered in glory and awesomeness (and probably fried Rikti giblets).

Tired and exhilarated when the fighting for the day was over, Fireskimmer did one last thing before turning in for the night - she “inspired” a new fire wielder, who went on to become my first and most powerful controller - a Fire/Rad named Fire Dancer...but her’s is another story.

If you take your Defender villain side for the Villain epic pools you can pick up a S/L +Def shield from....Mako? Black Scorpion? One of them anyways.

With that you can soft-cap S/L pretty easily and get some decent values for the positions (30's-ish) from Weave, Manuevers and set bonuses.

Like others have said, part of the joy of CoH has always been the interaction with the developers and for a long time now you've been one of it not *the* best developer for community interaction.

It's a damn shame to see you go, but "all good things..."

Hope your new job has some scary crazy new challenges - those are always the most rewarding to tackle!