PoliceWoman
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Quote:Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Actually its very meaningful and arguably the only meaningful number.
To understand this think of 2 boxers boxer A is twice as strong as boxer B but can only take half as many punches.
If boxer A fights boxer B you are going to have ties or the fight going to whoever gets the first punch.
Now lets say we make both hit 10% harder
They are still in parity. It takes both approximately .9 times as long to take out the other.
But now lets say, Boxer A hits twice as hard, but we will only give him 7.5% bonus and boxer B still gets his initial 10%
I'm afraid your logic is flawed.
First of all, I believe our discussion is blaster versus corruptor against PvE mobs, not a PvP situation. So a better analogy would be boxer A versus punching bag, compared to boxer B versus punching bag -- not boxer A versus boxer B and see who is left standing. No doubt you have many interesting points about blaster survivability, but they are irrelevant to the subject of whether Musculature is a good alpha boost for blasters or not. Against a punching bag (i.e., a PvE mob), the metric I'd suggest using is simply damage per second.
Second, Musculature Core Paragon is effectively a 22% over-the-cap bonus (i.e., 2/3rds of the 33%) to the base damage of all ATs. My argument is that since blasters have higher base damage, they effectively benefit more from this, because this translates numerically into a higher gain in DPS. I believe your argument is that blasters are getting a different percentage, your 7.5% figure. This is simply wrong. The bonus from Musculature Core Paragon is 22% of the base damage for all ATs, including blasters, defenders and corruptors. Blasters have higher base damage, so they get more DPS from Musculature. -
Quote:Your metric is "percentage increase over the damage a blaster is doing with Aim and Buildup active"? I'm sorry, but this isn't a meaningful measure. Not all blasters have Aim/Build Up, and even the ones that do have Aim/Build Up do not have them active all the time. Even setting that aside, arguing that you should measure the benefit of Musculature based on Aim/Build Up would be like arguing that Thermal Buffs aren't that helpful because they don't add much to scrappers with Moment of Glory active - it's not the general case, and it only confuses the issue.Originally Posted by Another_Fan
As far as percentage gain goes numerically blasters get the smallest percentage gain in damage from musculature. As far as total damage output goes a typical blaster (one with aim+buildup) gains less than 10% additional damage from musulature. A scrapper can easily gain 13% a controller or defender 15%
Let me try to explain more plainly why I think Musculature is better for blasters.
Musculature is a 33% bonus to damage, of which 2/3rds ignores the "soft cap" (at the tier 4 boost). Since most players will slot their attacks with enough damage to reach the soft cap, this makes Musculature effectively a 22% damage boost.
Since you mentioned earlier that you played an ice blaster, let us consider the tier 1 attack "Ice Bolt", which blasters, defenders and corruptors all can potentially take.
According to Red Tomax City of Data, at level 50, the base damage of blaster Ice Bolt is 12.51 smashing, 50.05 cold damage, for a total of 62.56 damage. So a 22% boost would be +13.76 damage every time you cast Ice Bolt, above whatever your normal damage is.
Corruptor Ice Bolt at level 50 has a base damage of 8.34 smashing, 33.37 cold damage, for a total of 41.71 damage. So a 22% boost would be +9.18 damage each time you cast Ice Bolt.
Defender Ice Bolt at level 50 has a base damage of 7.23 smashing, 28.92 cold damage, for a total of 36.15 damage. So a 22% boost would be +7.95 damage for each Ice Bolt.
So a blaster is getting +13.76 damage per ice bolt from Musculature, nearly double the +7.95 damage that the defender gets. It'll be the same for other attacks.
The blaster gets more damage per second from Musculature.
Additionally, the fact that blaster powers are mostly attacks actually is beneficial for synergy with Musculature. In other words, nearly every power a blaster activates is something that does damage, and therefore benefits from Musculature; however, every time a defender casts Healing Aura, or Deflection Shield, or Lingering Radiation, or any other non-damage-dealing power, they are essentially gaining no benefit from the Musculature boost.
The blaster's role as damage dealer synergizes better with Musculature.
That's why I think Musculature is good for blasters.
Have you actually played blasters or scrappers on the BAF trial? I have played both, and I find that range attacks and cone AoEs are much better at stopping runners than single target melee attacks, cone melee attacks or PBAOE attacks. Try it sometime.Quote:There isn't anything with an aoe attack that isn't good at dealing with running enemies that don't hit back. -
Quote:I also disagree with these statements.Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Actually the gap just widens the more resources you can throw into a character.
Blasters got bent over with the alpha slot, and as far as I can tell got the least benefit of the ATs maybe masterminds or khelds did worse but I doubt it.
With the higher difficulties in the trials blasters fall even further behind, unless you have built a blaster for positional defense you're defenseless as almost all the damage is either energy or psi. Building a scrapper for positional defense means using marginal sets sacrificing recharge and generally achieving a less damaging less survivable scrapper.
Regarding alpha slot, I personally am using the Musculature Core (+DMG) boost on my blaster. Due to the high damage scale that blasters are on, I would argue that blasters benefit the most from this alpha boost. I would never use Musculature boost on a defender, controller, or even a brute, who all have very low damage scale attacks.
Spiritual (+RCHG) boosts probably benefit blasters about as much as anyone else; using your powers more often is good for pretty much everybody. Healer/regen toons might benefit a little more due to the heal boost in this tree.
Cardiac (+ENDRDX) boosts help blasters some; cheaper END costs helps everyone. Admittedly it does not help the END crash from Nova-like powers. Toons with resist toggles benefit a little more due to the RES boost later in the tree; but this can include blasters as they get the option of resist toggles in the epic pool and fighting pool. If you're the type to take those.
Nerve (+DEF/+ACC) boosts are pretty crappy for everyone (I can't even justify taking this boost on an SR or a VEAT), so no difference here.
Regarding the incarnate trials, I personally have not built my blaster for positional defense, instead preferring to maximize my HP and recharge. I certainly could respec to max my range defense, but have chosen to maximize recharge for, well, more damage. Nevertheless, my blaster generally survives incarnate trials just fine, due to a combination of aggro control and maneuver. Yes, even the powers gathering part of Lambda and the attrition damage of Keyes. I find cone attacks like Full Auto are especially good at mowing down mobs running in a straight line on BAF trials. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Shubbie
Missed the point, why would you want to take a blaster over a corruptor?
You wouldnt, ever..
[anecdotal]
Last night I was on a team about to start a Tin Mage TF and we decided we had too much support. I switched from my kin defender to my AR blaster, and a thermal corruptor switched to his stalker, to give us more damage. I know there will be people who scream "but you'd be crazy to give up kin and thermal!" but our team already had another kin, and an empath. Truthfully it would've been better if one of us switched to a tanker (our brute wasn't so hot at aggro control), but the damage definitely helped. We finished the TF in 22 min 10 sec.
[/anecdotal] -
Logic dictates it pretty much has to be Numina, for the same reason we kill Numina first on the RSF. If anyone else dies, Numina will just rez them.
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Quote:Haha, I actually thought this was a lowball estimate on my part. You'll note I described this $100/hr figure as "cost", not "salary", which is not exactly the same thing. Though for what it's worth, I would be surprised if they did the level of design review and QA testing that Arcanaville describes; small companies almost always cut corners on that sort of thing.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I'm sure Television's eyeballs bugged out of his head when he found out he should be making $100/hour in salary and benefits
But the basic point is the same. If it costs $30,000 (warning: still a made up number) to make a new powerset, at $10 per sale they need to make 3000 sales just to break even - more than that to make an actual profit (which is what they're in business to do). And with their a la carte method, it would be pretty easy for any given user to say, "No, I'm not interested in Time Manipulation, so no sale on that....I'll spend my $10 on Titan Weapons instead" -- but the developers are still obliged to invest the development effort on both sets, just so we can pick and choose between them.
So for my part, I think charging $10 is totally reasonable for a powerset; a bargain, even.
But it's worth noting that what people are willing to pay for something doesn't always line up with what it cost to make it. Paragon Studios is taking the gamble that
(# of sales) * (sale price) > (cost to develop)
for each of the features they develop. They basically need to set (sale price) to maximize the total number on the left, to make it worthwhile to invest the number on the right. To cut the sale price from $10 to $2.50, they would need to more than quadruple the number of sales to make it a good decision on their part -- i.e. sales would need to increase from 3000 to 12,000 to justify that. I don't know their marketing numbers, but I have a hard time seeing that happen. -
Quote:That's fair. I'm just trying to illustrate that it actually costs a ton of money to make this stuff for us. I don't think $10 is a crazy amount of money to ask.Originally Posted by Lucky666
so completely irrelevant then
If you think $10 is too much, don't pay it.
That's how "monetary value" is really determined. By what people are willing to pay. -
[Caveat: Completely made up numbers. But it's the Internet, so you're used to it.]
Let us suppose we have a computer programmer who costs $100/hr and an artist who costs $80/hr, and they decide to create a new powerset, let's call it Time Manipulation, which has 9 powers and can be used by Controllers, Corruptors, Defenders and Masterminds.
The programmer spends:
8 hours coming up with the basic outline of the set and the powers involved
8 hours adding the new powerset to the character creation UI and leveling-up UI for 4 ATs
8 hours adding the new powerset to the power customization UI in the tailor
8 hours balancing the powerset with other comparable powersets
4 hours playtesting
16 hours watching beta testers playtesting and/or data mining beta test results
8 hours reworking power #9 because it turns out that a tier 9 that genocides an entire species of mobs was exploitable.
---
60 programmer hours = $6000
The artist spends:
4 hours creating each animation, times 9 powers, times 3 body types = 108 hours
16 hours fixing the problem with using power #5 on a huge model who in a flying pose
16 hours fixing the problem with power #3's animation taking 1.25 seconds on a male model, but 1.72 seconds on a female model.
16 hours fixing the problem where power #7 causes fortunata butt capes to vanish mysteriously.
-----
156 artist hours = $12480
Additionally, the programmer and artist, who actually doing the work, are forced to carry the costs of the CEO, the marketing department, the receptionist, the service that actually manages electronic funds transfers, etc. Call it +100% overhead. (This might even be a little low.)
Total cost of the new powerset: ($6000 + $12480) * 2 = $36,960.
Cost to you: $10. -
Quote:Glad you got a chance to try out Fusionette IncarnateOriginally Posted by Aliana Blue
The Iron Architect brings the arc to a fitting conclussion only Fusionette can deliver, perfectly capturing the spirit of the theme element of the day. The well timed delivery of the seasoning of extra elements to keep the pace of the mission is simply superb.
=^..^= Thanks for the fun idea!
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Personally I also prefer smaller league sizes, for several reasons:
* Smaller leagues earn more IXP per player. I mainly run trials for IXP, not for obscure ultra rare incarnate salvage.
* Smaller leagues are faster to get started. I don't like waiting, and waiting for a BAF to fill to the full 24 drives me crazy. If I'm leader, I shoot for recruiting the minimum league size; I'll recruit above the minimum size if there are people (who haven't earned a 1-star rating from me) still looking to join a trial, but will queue to start as soon as I can.
* Individual players make more of a difference on small leagues. You can't AFK by the door for half the trial on an 8 player Lambda. Well, you can, but people will notice. On the downside, you need better players (on the average) to succeed with a small league. But I like playing with good players, so this isn't totally a bad thing.
* Less lag.
Regarding leadership issues, if I'm leader, I try to issue instructions for every phase of the trial, so that there's always something that people should be doing, even if I know that 90% of the members of the league are veterans of the trial. Some leaders have a different strategy than others, so it helps to be clear on what we're doing, and if someone is relatively new, it helps them out too. When I'm not leader, I try to follow the instructions given by the leader (if any), unless they are conspicuously foolish.
Just my 2 inf. -
Added: Tutorial Arc 3: Dark Harvest (#470181) H5-20, but should be H12-20
Help SERAPH rescue kidnapped warshades from the Council.
Source: MA search tool. -
Added: Dr. Dave and the Copper Legion (#60280) H40-54
While helping with Cimeroran archaeology, you learn of a metallic menace.
Source: Thank Goodness It's Mission Architect Thursday!
Also deleted the guest arcs that had been unpublished. -
Wed 7/6/2011
Sarcasm Lass (37 sonic/mm blaster) joined a 6 player clear most ITF. Our team was pretty weak and suffered a near-wipeout rescuing Sister Solaris at the end of mission 1 (only 1 scrapper survived), then an actual team wipe on mission 2 to one of the ambushes. The team leader disconnected at the end of mission 2 and apparently went to bed, which caused the other support toon on the team to also decide to go to bed. This left us with a team of 2 scrappers and 2 blasters; despite this, the team wanted to press on. So we started mission 3, had another team wipe on general #3, at which point the other blaster quit. We fought a little bit more but we were pretty doomed at that point (if not earlier), and ended up abandoning the TF. Sarcasm Lass did get to level 38 though.
Darla Doppler (50 kin/sonic defender) formed a 9 player Lambda trial, getting an uncommon reward and up to 14% Destiny exp; followed by a 15 player BAF, getting a very rare and up to 64% Judgement exp.
Thu 7/7
Kyrie Eleison (34 fire/fire brute) joined a 3 player team for some Rikti missions. The tanker was an old friend who had recently reactivated for a couple months; despite claiming he was rusty, he still seemed to be doing fine at tanking. This got Kyrie to level 35.
I started a newbie rad/dark defender in Praetoria, solo'd the Praetor White arc up to level 4, but kinda lost interest in her; she ended up getting deleted to make room for more altitis.
I rearranged my hero-side base a little to add another workshop room, where I put a vault and some more storage for salvage. This is mostly to stockpile excess salvage from my marketeering exploits.
April Fool (51 thug/TA MM) had been sitting at 99% Destiny exp for about 3 weeks; it seemed dumb to run another Lambda for that last 1%, so I spent 1 thread for incarnate exp, unlocking the Destiny slot, and crafted a Rebirth Invocation (the most basic healing Destiny). I figured AoE healing would be good for a mastermind since I would heal all my pets, too, but I dunno, maybe Barrier would've been good too.
Tour de Force (37 FF/nrg defender) joined a 4 player team for 4 hero tip missions, getting her to level 38.
Fri 7/8
Ice Kate (23 cold/ice defender) joined a Sutter TF. We had a pretty well balanced team, and it felt like my cold shields were helping; however, even with the AoE buffing change, I found that I needed to buff individuals quite a lot, due to the team getting spread out. We had a lot of debuff and the AVs dropped fast. I got a compliment on Ice Kate's name, and also to level 26 (getting a big exp bump due to the WST bonus).
Darla Doppler (50 kin/sonic defender) joined a 5 team RWZ raid which was very successful. The raid was in the bowl of the mothership before I realized I wasn't getting vanguard merits, because I had never unlocked Vanguard (doh!). I ran back to base and quickly did Welcome to Vanguard before returning to the raid. Even having missed most of the raid's Rikti kills, I still ended up with 282 Vanguard merits.
Schadenfreude (51 AR/pain corruptor) did an 18-player Keyes trial. We had a good mix of support and damage, and tried for both the bunker buster and avoids the green stuff badges, but missed both. I found that I couldn't keep disintegrated people alive, and people kept getting hit by the green blasts, even me. I got a common reward and up to 42% Judgement and 97% Interface exp. We went on to do a 14 player "quick" Lambda trial. "Quick" meant killing the minimum number of street mobs and skipping all the turrets and courtyard mobs; we also deliberately left 5 doors open to ensure we got the 30 reinforcements astral merit. I got a rare reward, Interface unlocked and 3% into Destiny. I got stuck with the league star somehow, and we went on to do a 13-player BAF, which went pretty well. I learned that my Enforced Morale wasn't enough to block sequestration. I got a common reward and up to 51% Judgement exp. Afterwards, I crafted and slotted a Reactive Total Radial Conversion (75% chance of fire dot). Finished the night on an clear most ITF at +2 difficulty. I got a compliment on Schadenfreude's character concept, which was nice. Finished in 43m 11s and picked up an Ancient Nictus Fragment and 6 incarnate shards.
Sat 7/9
Spacegirl (53 mind/rad controller) helped farm EoEs for the Hami raid, then I played Mystery Girl (52 emp/pistols defender) on the actual raid. I was assigned to the tank team that was taunting mitos; normally I've seen 2 defenders assigned to this, but this time I was the only one, which kept me running around a LOT. I think we were a little short-staffed; the leader very nearly canceled due to low turnout, though we got up to 34 players at the high water mark. Both Clarion and Superspeed were very helpful for this. I noticed that some tanks didn't eat EoEs, either because they were too macho to need them, or simply forgot; regardless, they ended up needing a lot of heals. Despite this, the raid went surprisingly well, though we took the cautious route and cleared all mitos of all blooms due to our overall low DPS. I got a Golgi HO.
Blond Justice (51 sword/shield scrapper) joined a 16 player Lambda; this was slow to form, but went OK once we started. Got an uncommon reward and up to 77% destiny. The same league did another Lambda run, but a lot of people switched and others joined in, leading some confusion sorting out who was on our league and who wasn't. I switched to Darla Doppler (50 kin/sonic defender), we ended up with 15 players (we had more than enough to fill the league and were turning people away, then one person suddenly bailed just before we started), but had lots of debuff and Marauder went down fast. Got a common and up to 22% Destiny. Went on to do a BAF trial; the leader recruited up to 24 players, which took a really long time. But the BAF went well, no prisoners escaped and I got a common reward and up to 70% Judgement exp. I ended up crafting a Reactive Interface (25% chance of res debuff).
Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) joined a 8 player Mortimer Kal SF. I had done this once before, but it was awhile ago and I had forgotten how cool the missions were. We had a strong team and despite killing most everything, finished in 35m 29s. I got a notice, 44 merits, the Promethean badge and the Flames of Prometheus temp power. I did some testing and confirmed that Flames of Prometheus did absolutely nothing for me at level 50. I think I can turn it in for another notice or something, but haven't bothered yet.
Sun 7/10
Schadenfreude (51 AR/pain corr) joined a 5 player Mortimer Kal SF. This one we did for speed, finishing in a speedy 19m 23s. We had a little trouble with Positron in the final fight, but one player uncorked a Shivan and it didn't take long after that. Got 44 merits and a notice.
Mon 7/11
I hit the unclaimed ticket cap in AE and claimed 1000 tickets.
Mystery Girl (52 emp/pistols defender) joined a 12 player Keyes trial. We coordinated for the Bunker Buster badge by splitting into 3 teams with only one person attacking each door of a bunker until it was very low life, before breaking them all down. Then we tried maneuvering around Antimatter to avoid Obliteration, but this didn't seem to really work. We had two leaders who were shouting conflicting directions, which didn't help. I felt like I was taking a lot of Antimatter damage, probably due to standing in the wrong place and getting caught in his AoE. It also felt like people liked to run away from me when at low life; I know they weren't really running from me, but instead were hiding from damage, but it was still aggravating. Completed the trial and got a common reward, up to 7% Lore exp and the Bunker Buster badge.
Blond Justice (51 sword/shield scrapper) joined a 14 player lambda, got an uncommon (forgot how much exp). I inherited the star and started a 12 player BAF. I ended up kicking and replacing someone who left RWZ to sell while I was trying to start the trial. This was perhaps a little cold, but I hate waiting. (And you can sell to vendors in RWZ, besides.) The resulting BAF was a bit messy with a lot of prisoners leaking out the northeast corner (this area seems to often be lightly defended, maybe due to being farther away). We also had a bad pull of Siege, with several pullers dying. But managed to finish, getting a rare and up to 51% Lore exp.
Tue 7/12
Darla Doppler (50 kin/sonic defender) joined a 24 player BAF; it was very slow to form and start. Prisoner phase was rather leaky, and at one point I found myself alone chasing 3 commandos across the map. Still managed to finish, got a rare and up to 76% Judgement exp. Followed that with a 16 player Lambda and got a common and up to 29% Destiny.
Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) joined a 7 player 3rd villain respec (the new WST). One player crashed repeatedly trying to enter missions, which looked frustrating. We ended up clearing a path through the tunnels to the tree, then wiping out all the CoT and stuff before getting vines. Finished in 32m 21s and got a notice, 30 merits and the Thorn Usurper badge.
Kyrie Eleison (35 fire/fire brute) solo'd the Midnighter arc for Cimerora access.
Wed 7/13
Kyrie Eleison joined a clear-most ITF. We had a tanker and another brute, so I didn't have to tank, but I felt a little squishy anyhow as the Cimerorans would beat me up any time I got over-aggressive. Finished in 48m 59s and got to level 36.
Thu 7/14
Police Woman hit the inf cap due to marketeering and I mailed myself another 900M infl. Then I joined a Keyes trial that was attempting to go for badges. We had a very weird team mix, with 3 tanks, 3 brutes, 2 scrappers, 1 blaster, 1 rad and a filler player who didn't really play. I offered to switch to a defender but was turned down; the leader really wanted me to get the badges, which was nice. Due to the lack of support, though, the constant damage wore us down and everyone died a LOT. We damaged Antimatter down to 10% life for the badge, which caused the pulse to start hitting really hard, enough to drop a squishy to 1HP. We carefully tried to Coordinate door busting, but missed that badge, not sure why. We also tried avoiding the green spots, but someone got caught a green spot during a time stop, which messed that up. So we missed those badges, but did get the Antiantimatter badge; I also got an uncommon reward.
Police Woman went on to do another 3d red respec (for the Assistant badge credit) on a 6 player team, finishing in 11m 24s.
San Min (51 MA/will scrapper) solo'd an AE arc called An Uncivil War: Preclude, where you're trying to stop a villain who gets ahold of nuclear devices from Warburg. This arc got off to a good start with some decent drama, but the final mission felt too tedious to me and left some loose ends. I ended up giving it 4 stars.
Fri 7/15
Mega (52 SS/will brute) solo'd an AE arc called Gladiators of Venus, where you're captured by aliens and have to fight in the gladiator pits. This had a great story and some terrific supporting characters, but was badly marred by one of the recurring villains who was described as an alien monster, but always spawned as a grey-con 5th Column robot. I really liked this story, but could not get over this stupid robot that kept spawning. I ended up giving the arc 4 stars.
Darla Doppler (50 kin/sonic defender) joined a 21 player BAF, getting an uncommon and to 82% Judgement. Went on to join the RWZ raid, which went very well; I got 707 vanguard merits and bought the storage sack. I also upgraded her Interface to a Reactive Partial Radial Conversion (25% chance of res debuff, 50% chance of fire dot).
I joined a Keyes trial team that didn't get enough people to start; after that broke up, Police Woman joined another 3rd villain respec, with a 5 player team, finishing in 10m 27s. This got her the Backup (10 assists) badge.
After that I switched back to Darla and led a 6 player speed Kahn TF (19m 51s), then an 8 player STF. Our fire tanker got END drained by Lord Recluse repeatedly, leading to some stray deaths, but we ended up beating him, finishing in 33m 31s. Finished by leading an 8 player Lambda trial; we observed that with only 8 players there was no incarnate exp bug (it was almost certainly related to having multiple teams). Got a common reward and up to 52% Destiny.
Sat 7/16
Police Woman solo'd an Ouroboros flashback of the Clockwork Captive arc at +1 difficulty; this took 53m 36s and awarded 13 merits.
I re-started Tehuantl (a catgirl based on Meso-American jaguar mythology) as a blood widow; I was torn on what AT to make her, but a claws-using VEAT narrowly beat a claws brute mostly because I like the VEAT teamwork abilities. Solo'd the starting VEAT mission and Kalinda's arc to get to level 4, then solo'd SaveJenna Claure, a 1 mission AE arc where you rescue a kidnapped person. There was really not much story to this arc; I gave it 2 stars and some hopefully constructive feedback.
Sakura (30 plant/storm controller) finished a very grey Stephanie Peebles arc; I got 15 merits but did not get the Wedding Band temp power.
Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) joined a 13 player Keyes badge attempt. In the final fight we were trying to avoid the green spots, but this cut our DPS a lot, and lots of people got disintegrated and died (which heals the AV). We ended up running out of time, failing the trial. We did a second Keyes attempt with 13 players, where we managed to get Bunker Buster but missed the green stuff badge; I got a common reward. A third Keyes attempt with 12 players finally netted us the Avoids the Green Stuff badge; I also got a rare reward. My general strategy on the green stuff was to stay away from other players (since green stuff is centered on a player), watching for the Obliteration message, and being ready to move, while laying down range damage. Pretty basic stuff, but it took some practice to get it down.
Mega (52 SS/will brute) helped duo Mender Ramiel's arc to help a corruptor friend unlock his Alpha slot.
San Min (51 MA/will scrapper) did a 7 player ITF in 23m 34s, getting an Ancient nictus fragment.
Darla Doppler (50 kin/sonic defender) formed and led an 8 player Lambda. I felt bad for an inexperienced blaster who had joined us, who died repeatedly; I tried to assign her to stay with a thermal, but this didn't work well as they got separated too easily. Finished successfully though and got an uncommon and to 85% Destiny exp. Afterwards, I recruited a few more and started a 12 player BAF trial. We had a lot of new players who weren't that familiar with the trial, but made it to the 2 AV stage where we wiped out to Siege/Nightstar combined. People running back from the hospital got mauled by the waves of adds that were piling up, and eventually both AVs ran back to their spawn point. I called for people to pull the AVs back to the tennis courts, but this proved futile as the large number of adds kept murdering the pullers. We finally assaulted Siege at his spawn point to try and clear some adds, then I tried to get people to pull the AVs back to the tennis courts to fight them both, but only Nightstar made it there. We ended up running out of time. In hindsight, it felt like we went into a downward spiral from the first wipeout; we probably needed more debuff and/or more AoE to keep the number of adds down. We failed the trial, but Darla still got to 94% Judgement exp.
Sun 7/17
Police Woman joined a 4-player team that was repeatedly doing the 3rd villain respec for Assistant badge credit; we did one run in 14m 15s, then another run in 15m 44s.
Tehuantl (4 widow) solo'd City of Ho Ho Ho, an AE arc that was basically just a team-up with the author's avatar. I gave it 3 stars. This got Tehuantl to level 5.
Tour de Force (38 FF/nrg defender) joined a RWZ raid. Playing a FF defender felt pretty nice on this; with my bubbles becoming AoE buffs, I could now soft cap everyone. Tour got to level 39, got 484 vanguard merits and a tasty Numina's Convalescence (+regen/+rec) recipe drop.
Darla Doppler (50 kin/sonic defender) did a speed ITF in 22m 32s, taking an ancient nictus fragment as reward.
Dusted off Teal Serpent (50 archery/traps corruptor) for a speedy RSF. Coincidentally, we had 3 traps characters on the team, so we all had capped defense from the FF Generators and pretty solid debuff. I helped set the various bombs in the towers on the first mission, which was a little scary. Finished in 26m 5s and took an Essence of Incarnate.
Mon 7/18
Millie Volt (51 elec/elec brute) joined an 8 pl Lambda. We were light on debuff (only a kin and a stormy who had trouble staying alive), and ended up running out of paci grenades while fighting Marauder; ended up having to smash about 3 more weapon crates in the courtyard, but we won. I got a rare reward and unlocked the Destiny slot. I converted 15 astrals to make a Barrier Core Invocation, before realizing that wsan't what I wanted at all. Ended up converting another 10 astrals and 5 empyreans to make a Barrier Partial Invocation (DEF/RES/Ally rez/incarnate shift); I figure I'll save the other Barrier for later, if and when I can upgrade to the T4 Barrier. Elec armor can be a little squishy, so I chose Barrier for use as a panic button.
A traps corr friend asked to team, so I helped him with 3 rogue tips. I got to use the Barrier rez. We also did his rogue morality mission, where his traps helped a lot against the waves of ambushes.
Tue 7/19
I hit the unclaimed ticket cap and claimed another 1000 tickets.
San Min (51 MA/will scrapper) did a speed ITF in 25m 17s, getting a notice and an ancient nictus fragment. At the end of the mission we somehow killed Romulus and his last Nictus at the same time, causing the mission to complete, but then Romulus suddenly rez'd. So Romulus was alive after the mission was over, which was quite weird. We killed him again, just because.
Kyrie Eleison (36 fire/fire brute) joined a clear most ITF. We only had a kin for support, and I was pretty squishy whenever I got ahead of the 50 brute who was really tanking. Finished in 43m 4s and got to level 39.
Schadenfreude (51 AR/pain corr) joined a 13 player Lambda, getting an uncommon and to 12% Destiny.
Wed 7/20
April Fool (51 thug/TA MM) joined a 23 player BAF. Despite a pretty bad team mix (6 tankers, 4 MMs, and some other stuff) we succeeded with no prisoners escaping, getting April a rare reward and up to 55% Lore exp. Incarnate exp was noticably better due to a patch that fixed the bug with how it was being shared on leagues.
Schadenfreude joined a 14 player Keyes trial that was going for badges. It was an open league and we picked up a 15th person on entering the zone, but the league pretty ruthlessly kicked him, fearing that he would screw up the badges. (I actually voted against kicking him, but was clearly outvoted.) We got the Bunker Buster badge, but people were very bad at avoiding the green spots, so we missed getting that. This was the first league I've been on that had two "healers" (me and an empath); we tried keeping people from being disintegrated but with only limited success. The hardest part for me is figuring out who is actually being disintegrated in time to heal them. Finished successfully and I got an uncommon at up to 66% Judgement and 22% Destiny (a net gain of 15% and 10%, respectively). -
A few more to help out:
Hunter of Beasts Part 1: It starts with a riot... (#110465) H5-14
A riot in Kings Row leads into an investigation of a deadly serial killer.
Kiss Hello Goodbye (#156389) H1-54 but should be around H25-54
A beautiful dame. A missing child. The dark underbelly of Paragon City. Film noir.
Behind The Smiling Spark of Madness (#255144) H20-54
Investigating strange pop music related deaths leads you to battle a nihilistic cult. -
Quote:Early on, I came to the conclusion that it is not ethical to 5-star a friend's arc (whether having played it or not) just because they're a friend. This has gotten me yelled at in-game more than once.Originally Posted by Lost Ninja
Is it Ethical to uprate your friend's arcs without playing them simply because they are made by a friend?
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Quote:OK, sounds like you agree the damage cap thing isn't valid in the solo case.Originally Posted by Another_Fan
It would be completely disingenuous to do so in the solo case
...
In the team case its not really unreasonable to be able to dig up a kin for a team and it only takes one to cap damage for the scrapper or one good one for the brute.
Regarding the team case, I see where you're coming from, but if you start considering outside buffs you open a pretty big can of worms. For example if we assume a kin is teamed with the scrapper to always keep him damage capped, couldn't we equally well assume that an empath is teamed with a blaster that keeps Fortitude, CM and AB on the blaster at all times, and throws him an occasional heal? (I don't think this is too outlandish - this is how I buff when I play my empath.) These buffs can make the blaster easily as survivable (or more) as the scrapper, completely negates the END crash from her nova, and lets the blaster use her best AoEs more frequently and for more damage.
Of course, steering the argument in this direction really just muddies the waters because suddenly we're arguing whether kin buffs or emp buffs are better, which is pretty far afield from the original blaster vs. other AT comparison. I think it would be cleaner just to consider each AT on its own.
Though, thinking about it, a case could be made that blasters benefit the most from team buffs; since they have the highest damage multiplier and effectively no defense, resist or healing, they stand to gain the most from +DMG, +RCHG, +DEF, +RES and +REGEN buffs. -
Quote:Isn't it a little disingenuous to consider the scrapper inherent but disregard the blaster inherent, which also buffs damage (and, in fact, in a more predictable fashion than crits)? I see that you specifically call out "at the damage cap" but this is not something a scrapper can inherently reach. If you want to argue that scrappers are especially good on teams with fulcrum shift, then yes, this is certainly true. But cannot be generalized to "scrappers are always better".Originally Posted by Another_Fan
But wait a minute don't scrappers have an inherent ? Why yes they do, its called critical hit. It lets them land double damage effectively giving them a higher damage level for an equivalent level of damage buff.
It's worth noting that most blasters also have noticably more AoE attacks than most scrappers. If a blaster is hitting 2 targets with the same attack that a scrapper is hitting 1 target, then the blaster is landing double damage effectively giving them a higher damage level for an equivalent level of damage buff. Even more, if the blaster manages to hit 3 targets.
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My thoughts:
* Really liked the first few missions. Good use of extra details in each mission. Liked the way the bombs had a "countdown" that felt like they added drama.
* Last mission kinda lost me; felt rather tedious slogging through the army looking for the right guy. Quite possibly some of this feeling was because I could never find the main boss on my first try (despite exploring the whole map several times), and had to reset the mission in order to find him. I like the map choice on the final mission (very apropos to the situation) but the map IS really huge; it could use more details on it to make it more interesting. It did have some set piece battles and some fake bosses that I saw, but with the size of the map being larger than the previous missions, I felt like it needed more.
* Along these lines, I feel like the big bad guy needed more of an evil plan in the last mission. The way the plot is written, as of mission 4 I've stopped the bomb threat, and consequently I feel much less motivation to go after the bad guy in mission 5. The story text does try to sell you on "He's really dangerous because he tried to use the bomb before, you gotta get him!" but I don't fully buy it. If the big bad guy is in the middle of his next plot which is even worse than the bomb plot, then I would be much more convinced that he must be stopped.
Some loose ends: [SPOILERS AHOY]
* The story has me deliberately choosing not to kill Kovacs despite the contact encouraging me to do so. Why, then, do I turn Kovacs over to the contact at the end? It seems like that would be very bad for his health.
* The clues make a Big Deal of how the nuclear material is missing from each of the bombs I discover. But the story never says what happened to it. (Unless I missed a clue along those lines somewhere.) It seems like it would be pretty important to recover that (perhaps in the final mission?). As it stands, I half-wonder if the villainous contact somehow stole it while I wasn't looking.
I liked the writing style and the arc overall. Hope some of this feedback helps. Best of luck! -
Nice going! Glad to see some spotlight on Mission Architect. I'll totally have to buy a copy of this magazine.
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My main character is a blaster, but I enjoy the corruptor playstyle, so I actually do have some sympathy for the OP's position. For what it's worth, here are a few things I did with my AR/dev blaster to get some buffs and debuffs with my damage:
* Slotted Achilles Heel: Chance for Resistance Debuff (in Burst), a -20% resistance debuff.
* Took Surveillance from Munitions Mastery, a -14% resistance debuff.
* Crafted Reactive Radial Flawless Interface for Interface slot. Truthfully I took this for the fire DOT (more damage!) but it does have a 25% chance of a -2.5% resistance debuff which can stack 4 times. Total -10% resist debuff.
So my blaster can debuff -44% resistance; granted that some of it is procs, but they fire quite a lot, because, well, I shoot stuff a lot. Note that a rad corruptor or rad controller's Enervating Field is only -22.5% resistance. Using Surveillance to snoop an AV's real numbers, I often see that I am debuffing an AV's resistance more than "real" debuff toons ... and I am doing blaster level damage.
Granted also that my debuffs are single target, while the rad's Enervating Field is AoE. But if we're in an AoE situation, my Full Auto is much more effective at eliminating the crowds of minions and lieutenants than any non-damaging debuff power.
I also took the tier 4 Musculature for my Alpha slot, for increased damage. Corruptors/controllers can take this too, but it's generally a bad choice for them; as a blaster I benefit from this much more than any corruptor or controller can, because of my higher damage multiplier.
I know it seems tempting for a blaster to take a defensive Destiny, but I took a tier 3 Ageless. This gives me something like an AoE Speed Boost which affects myself, further boosting my damage. I know a rad corruptor can take this too, but in my opinion any sensible rad would take Clarion instead (to prevent their toggles from getting knocked off by mez) which blasters don't need to do because Defiance gives us a kind of mez protection. Even if a corruptor or controller took Ageless, I benefit more from it as a blaster because I do more damage with each attack. As an AR blaster the END refill is just sorta gravy, but it would be pretty huge for an ice blaster - it would completely negate the END crash from Blizzard. Plus, it Speed Boosts your whole team; yay, force multipliers.
I also took the whole leadership pool (Assault, Maneuvers, Tactics and Vengeance); this is perhaps excessive on a blaster, but hey, it makes me a force multiplier, too! It also negates a lot of my squishyness, because as long as I make sure I'm not the first person to die, I (and the rest of the team) get to benefit from Vengeance. I have medicine pool for self-heals and rezzing fallen teammates.
Anyway, this style of play may not be for everyone. But as I see it, I have decent debuffs, a little buffs and heals, and do blaster-level damage; I definitely feel like I'm pulling my weight on a team.
Hope that helps. -
[opinion]
When team leader, I'll almost always invite someone I know to be a good player over someone I don't know or someone I know to be a bad player, even if the good player is playing a numerically awful toon and the bad player is playing an optimized FOTM toon.
All other things being equal (e.g. if I don't know either player), if I'm team leader, I will invite a blaster over:
* Any kheldian
* Any stalker
* Any dominator (DPS > control, and average blaster DPS > average dom DPS)
* A tanker (if I already have a tanker or brute)
* A support toon (if my team already has a lot of support, but not much DPS)
* A melee DPS toon (on events where range DPS is better, e.g. STF and Apex)
When I'm team leader, I will pass over a blaster to get the first tanker/brute on a team, support toons if my team is low on support, or scrappers/brutes on events where melee DPS is better (e.g. ITF). But there are plenty of situations where I'll prefer a blaster. (And, truthfully, plenty of situations where I'll say "anything will do" and will take whatever someone wants to play.)
Your mileage may vary.
[/opinion] -
The convention that I am used to seeing (which is not official at all, just what I'm used to) is something like this:
Bold and/or larger type for the title of a mission.
Yellow text for Significant Keywords and Phrases in a mission briefing, send-off message or mission debriefing. A player with low attention span could possibly skip over your carefully crafted writing and only read the colored text and still get the idea that they need to kill BadGuyBoss and find the MacGuffin.
Yellow or red text for AV warnings in a mission briefing or send-off message.
Light blue text in the Nav Tool for optional objectives.
You theoretically have 16 million possible colors you can use for your text, but exercise caution in using lots and lots of color in your text. I've seen some mission briefings use multiple colors very effectively, but I've seen others that are nearly unreadable due to clashing colors. Personally I'd avoid using lots of colors unless there's a good story reason for doing so. -
This may be a silly question, but have you checked whether NPC dialog is enabled in the chat window that you're looking at?
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Quote:Matt announced this Hami raid in this thread, here on the Liberty forum. He's led a Hami raid before, so I assume it is legit.Originally Posted by Ukaserex
Thanks. I am a bit uncertain about it, as LFA (which Matt is a mod on) doesn't mention it at all, and LB says that Matt is leading it. (@its me matt).
Still, it'll be worth showing up just in case. Thanks again. -
Wed 6/29/2011
Mayday (51 fortunata) joined an 8 player Sister Psyche TF. Our only support was a cold (with no shields), a TA, and my VEAT buffs; our only heal was my Aid Other. Despite this, we still did really well, finishing in 1h 23m.
Rain Dancer (51 storm/archery defender) did a speed ITF in 18m 32s.
Thu 6/30
Ice Kate (19 cold/ice defender) solo'd an AE arc called Strike! where I was basically sabotaging a pro-Scrapyarder labor movement. The motivation for this was weak (it was a villainous arc but I wasn't really "getting anything" out of doing this) and the situations weren't very believable, but the dialog was pretty fun. I gave it 3 stars. After that I joined an 8 player Synapse TF; we had a debuff heavy team that handled everything pretty well. We beat Babbage easily, then had to wait awhile for a disconnected player to get back before finishing the TF. Took 2 hours exactly and got Ice Kate to level 23.
Darla Doppler (50 kin/sonic defender) joined a BAF trial. This league was very slow to form but the leader insisted on filling every spot. Went fairly routinely, got an uncommon reward and to 56% Judgement exp. I converted 18 astrals to make a Cardiac Radial (END/RES) boost; astrals seem plentiful enough that I didn't mind squandering some to make my Alpha boost.
Schadenfreude (51 AR/pain corr) joined a Keyes trial. This also took a really long time to form, and the leader again insisted on filling to 24, but at the last minute someone quit so we started with 23. The leader also picked the wrong trial and mistakenly started a BAF. After sitting through the recruiting phase and the cut scene, the general sentiment was to just finish the BAF. We had no escapees, but messed up the timing on the AVs, who respawned once; we killed them again to finish the trial. I got a rare and to 25% Judgement. After that we actually did the Keyes trial. I hopped around a lot trying to heal everyone on the league; I couldn't really keep everyone alive, but I feel like the healing helped a lot against the constant pulse damage, as well as Antimatter's damage to the tanker. We succeeded, I got a rare and to 31% Judgement and 78% Interface.
Spacegirl (53 mind/rad controller) joined a team that was forming for Apex, but couldn't get enough people, so settled for an ITF. The leader set it for Master of ITF but we weren't too serious, and after someone died in mission 2, we just kept going. Finished in 26m 55s; I took the Ancient Nictus Fragment.
[I was AFK over the weekend for a holiday trip.]
Mon 7/4
San Min (51 MA/will scrapper) joined a speed LGTF. We had one person who was AFK when we started the TF and we finished the first mission before he got back. As a flying scrapper and the only melee damage (aside from a tank) I managed to solo all the yellow mitos in mission 4, then all the generators in mission 5. Finished in 22m 2s, I took the Hero 1 DNA and got 3 incarnate shards. (Going to try and count shards gained on TFs when I remember to, as another metric.)
Spacegirl (53 mind/rad controller) did a speed Kahn TF in 18m 26s. I took the Dimensional Keystone and got 2 shards. I broke down 5 empyrean merits and 4 uncommons to upgrade my tier 3 pet to a Warworks Core Superior Ally (Vicky and ACU with bonus damage). Empyrean merits are arguably more valuable than astrals, but none of the stuff on the Ouro vendors is really a must-have for me, so it seemed worth it to break some down into threads to make a better pet.
Rain Dancer (51 storm/archery defender) did an Eden trial on a 7-player team; we were very support heavy with no damage toons. During the initial hunting period, I got to rescue another defender who got in over his head fighting DE, which was fun. We gathered about 3 ambrosia each, smashed through the various walls, rescued the NPC heroes and battled the Crystal Titan. I feel like Hurricane was helpful for keeping the DE ambushes off of us at the various walls; we had no scrappers or brutes so hopefully the knockback wasn't too harmful. Finished in 35m 51s and got a Notice, 14 merits and 1 shard. This gave me enough shards to finish my Spiritual Core Paragon boost (45% RCHG/STUN/HEAL and level shift).
Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) hit the inf cap at the market, I mailed myself another 900M. Spent some time exploring Boomtown, picking up the I19 explore badges there and getting 5 merits for the Boom... Goes the Town badge. I also hit the ticket cap at AE sometime over the weekend and claimed 1000 tickets.
Kyrie Eleison (34 fire/fire brute) started Heart of Talos: A Warriors Task Force, an AE arc which seemed to be about a Warriors plot to extract magical artifacts from ancient Cimerora, but I ran into some Cyclops EBs that I couldn't beat while solo. I ended up quitting the arc without rating it; I figure Cyclops are probably fine for a TF level arc, and I do have other toons that could solo them, so I didn't think it would be fair to downrate it. Instead I went to Brickstown to solo my level 30 costume mission.
Tue 7/5
Kyrie Eleison joined a 5 player team doing hero tip missions in Talos. I got a costume compliment from another player, who really liked how my aura looked with my costume. I was the only melee toon on this team so I was the "tank"; as a low level fire aura toon on a level 50ish mission, I was a little squishy, and I managed to get beat up by Longbow once (due to their massive -RES debuffs) but mostly did OK otherwise, with a lot of help from the emp and kin toons. Finished 5 tip missions before the team broke up, then I solo'd a hero morality mission, gaining 50 merits.
Schadenfreude (51 AR/pain corr) joined a Keyes trial. Recruiting this took awhile; I suspect the complexity and/or risk/reward for Keyes scares people off. Started with 13 players; I spent a lot of time jumping around healing like crazy. I saved some people from pulse damage and disintegrates, but missed others. The leader tried to get us to coordinate the bunker kills for a badge, but we never did get the timing down. I got stuck in a green circle when Antimatter did his Time Stop ability, which got me killed; I learned, however, that his Time Stop seems to be linked to his life total hitting 75%, 50% or 25%, so can potentially be predicted. Succeeded at the trial and got a rare reward, and to 37% Judgement and 84% Interface (approx 6% to each). I got both the Ironwoman (take 1M damage) and Medical Specialist (heal 3M damage) badges while on this trial.
After that, we did a 12 player Lambda. The leader had us clear only the minimum necessary to unlock the doors, then we skipped clearing the courtyard or turrets and went straight inside to beat the guard and gather temp powers. This saved us some time, but made for a messy fight at the end, since the courtyard was still fully populated. I was assigned to a subteam that was supposed to kill reinforcements for the extra astral merit, but it was hard to tell the reinforcements from the courtyard spawns, and we closed all the doors which stopped any more from spawning, so we ended up only killing 25 before Marauder was defeated. I got a common reward and to 92% Interface. There's reports circulating that incarnate exp has sharply decreased since I20.5, and based on my experience I think it's true; not quite sure if it's a bug or "working as intended".