RagManX

Forgot about this guide, but hit it while looking for something totally unrelated in the guides section. I'm very impressed that this is still kept up-to-date. Excellent work.

RagManX

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Removing costumes would help the A pool problem allot.

There are enough costumes for sale in the market to last CoH lifespan.

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You mean removing costumes to their own pool? Like they did a few months ago? Yeah - not going to help the market any more than it already did when they implemented this idea a while back.

RagManX

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*sigh* Way to screw villains YET AGAIN.

*HIGHLY disappointed with the "epic" archetype*

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Jezus. Can we have your stuff now?

Be excited about something for once. This is really nice. Very, very good changes and improvements, new zones, .... but no, *you* wanted something else.

make your own damn game. Then you'll be happy.

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No, you may not have my stuff because I'm not leaving, as I'm not forced to play this pathetic excuse for a villain "epic". I'll still happily play my Stalkers and enjoy it.

But, see.. yet again we're forced into being Recluse's lackey. This is one of the major complaints many villain players have about this game. I can understand wanting to do something generic as it's incredibly easy to do, but compared to Kheldians, this is a poor, poor archetype.

I'm excited about the other stuff, I guess. Just, talk about a let-down.

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You haven't even seen it yet, how can you say it's a "poor, poor archetype"??

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I'm sure you already know, but in case you don't:

That's what people on the intarw3b forumz do!

RagManX

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We also have information about the Midnight Squad on the plaques for the Historian badge. The question is, will we be learning something about the yet unidentified super-powered mercenaries that raided the Midnight Squad's research center, killing 47, and causing the creation of the UN Special Council on Super Human Acivities, back in '99? I always suspected that it was connected to Hero Corp, but it will be interesting to see if any details emerge.

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Hmmmmmm.

Nemesis?

Plot?

That sounds right!

RagManX

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I can't really decide which addition is the greatest. I'm leaning towards more numbers, but it's hard to overlook how awesome inspiration conversion will be. I always seem to need more reds and purples, and this will let me force what I get, rather than eating insp I don't really need right away in hopes of getting what I want/need as my next insp drop.

RagManX

Just learned that Posi worked on Thief. I'm sure everyone else knew that, but I don't normally read developer bios. Seeing as Thief is simply one of the finest games ever conceived, and all who worked on it are abnormally sexy and of far greater than average intellect, I can now see why Co* has only improved and in massive amounts since Posi took over.

RagManX

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Too much awesome in one place, really. Ever since Positron took over, things have been on a massive uphill slope to awesome-sauce.

Really all that is missing for me to be completely in luv with this issue is giving my fire/ controllers /regen secondary!

RagManX

I like it. Just been looking at pulling my fire/axe tanker out and working on a few more levels for him.

Also - the devs need to give an electric guitar for the axe weapon customization option.

RagManX

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Awesome. Wife has already agreed to work at her office (college prof) and arrange a 3-4 hour babysitting session for the kids. I'll get at least one daytime play period Sat or Sun, plus 1 or 2 nights play out of this one. Last double XP I only played about 75 minutes.

Now to decide between the 39 DDD or 42 Spines/DA for my first focus that week-end.

RagManX

I level up on sewer teams and the Hollows from 1 to 10. When I hit 10, I go to my starting contact, get a new contact, and visit them. I do missions for them until they introduce me to another contact. I then switch to doing the new contact's missions until they introduce me to yet another contact. I continue this way until I get the magic contact who will eventually give me the rescue fortune teller mission. I have never failed to get the fortune teller mission this way.

Blackavaar's method is certainly easier to explain and get new folks to do, but if you understand how the contact system works, there's no reason you have to get your contacts in the 5-10 range (I only do when I want to get the Negotiator badge).

My fire/rad only had his origin contacts available until he hit level 26. I didn't do any of my own missions on him until then, and managed to get all 5 origin contacts before I hit 28. You can always get the 5 origin contacts at any tier, if you just work through one at a time until they introduce you to someone new.

RagManX

Curse you, Phos!!!

I had never considered a DM/SR before. Now I feel a strong urge to build one when I get home from work tonight. This sounds like such an awesome combo. My favorite 20 alts will bemoan the fact that I'm playing them even less if the DM/SR takes hold of my like it looks like it will.

Curse you!!!

RagManX

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There seems to be an unusually low amount of d000000m!!!! in this thread, but I am impressed by how hard the nay-sayers are working to say what's wrong with I11.

I, for one, welcome out weapon customizing overlords.

RagManX

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this probably sound like a stupid question, but what is the exact date i11 is coming out?

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No one knows. Not even the Developers. Actually, don't bother asking. The Developers -NEVER- say when.

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Sure they do - Soon (tm)

RagManX

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ice melee is stupidly overpowered with that ice patch. not a thing should be changed. that's basically control for clearing mobs as is.

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Ahhh, nice troll. I love ice patch, but calling it stupidly overpowered is so inaccurate that this cannot be a serious post.

EDIT: Partially fixed my continuing saga of stupid in this thread.

RagManX

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I have to agree with Castle here. I just leveled a Ice/Mace Tank to 50. By forum logic this should have been near impossible as both sets are considered the worst of their groups.

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It's been a long time since ice/ was considered the worst. It's actually a damn good set since defense was fixed.

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But the fact is I had little trouble even solo doing missions on Invincible. Sure I skipped the tier 9 power in Ice but there are a lot of sets with marginal tier 9 powers like MoG on a Stalker (having a high resistance doesn't help when it only leaves you 3 HPs).

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It's not that /mace is viewed as an unholy union of unusable and unplayable, but rather that it underperforms the other secondaries (except /ice). Anything in the game can solo to 50, if you are willing to put in the time. The relevant question here is how long did it take you do get there, and how would that compare to getting there as a /fire, /stone, or /SS?

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In PvP this may not be the strongest build but it is still very playable. There are others that have it a lot rougher. Icicles alone make the set very nice (and I think offset Mace's lower damage).

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I have about 2 hours total PvP experience, and as my recent posting has shown - I should spend even less time talking about things I haven't experienced than things I have experienced.

RagManX

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Seismic Smash is single target. If you take Hasten and slot it like a hold (which is crazy, as it does Total Focus damage), you could maybe, maybe keep two targets perma held, so long as they are evencon.

While I'm not arguing that Ice is a better control set than Stone (because it isn't), your argument's kinda based on facts that are, not to put to fine a point on it, not factual.

Edit: It occurs to me that I know where you're getting the five targets from. City of Data, yes? That's just the punchvoke effect. If you check other tank ST attacks you'll see they have the same thing.

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Yup. Way screwed up on this. Thanks for the info. Realized after I made 3 stupid posts...

RagManX

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Then your Freezing Touch is not slotted as well as your Seismic Smash, because Freezing Touch lasts longer (I'd say around 20% longer) and recharges 20% faster.

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try again. I know, I added the slotting after you replied.

FT has a 1 sec cast, Seismic has a 1.5 sec... not a big difference, especially when you look at how much damage the two do.

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I know, I'm not comparing the two themselves, I'm simply saying: add that 1.5 seconds (*3 since it's three uses) to the recharge, and you suddenly aren't able to perma-hold three bosses.

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EDIT: I misunderstood this power. NVM...

RagManX

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I think the point is the fact that Ice Patch can do that at all times. While granted, it's only five targets, that's five targets that can essentially be permanently removed from the fight.

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I constantly get hit by targets that are flopping on ice patch. It only affects 5 targets, and is only an 8% chance to knockdown every 0.2 seconds. It is a good power, and I don't want to make it sound like I think it sucks, but it is nowhere close to permanently removing 5 targets. And if I pop out a burn patch along with the ice patch, I very often see 2-4 of my ice patch victims escape the patch, turn, attack me from range, and maybe then come back to the patch to fight.

And while Seismic Smash does come much later, once a tanker has it, the power actually can be slotted to permanently remove 5 enemies. With just 2 SOs, it can be brought to 12 second recharge. Go with IOs to make it even better. Unslotted for hold it's 9.5 seconds against even level. It even has an accuracy bonus, so you probably don't need 2 Accs in it.

RagManX

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Many /Ice tankers do not feel that they have enough control in their secondary to balance out the lack of damage the set offers. When compared with sets like Stone Melee, SM gets a similar level of control, with higher endurance costs and much higher damage. Ice melee has been relegated to the control 'efficient' set, not necessarily the control set. When you look at the sets for control, you see that a large portion of Ice/'s control comes from Frozen Aura, a power that many feel is unusable because of the nature of the effect.

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That surprises me. I thought the core control would be Ice Patch.

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It is the core control of the secondary, but it caps at 5 enemies and does nothing but slow and tick an 8% chance to knockdown every 0.2 seconds. Although the controls come later for /SM, with that set you get a knockdown with a 10 enemy cap and a hella-damage (at least compared to anything /ice) PBAoE hold with a 5 enemy cap and each on short enough timers to keep almost everything knocked or held for the entire fight (barring endurance issues, which is the one thing I think /Ice has going for it since you only need ice patch and burn for 95% of fights).

I've not gotten in on /ice talks in a long time, but the set needs a tune-up.

RagManX

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I don't have a complaint about my Fire/Ice Tank atm - he's lvl 25 now.
On the other hand, I've got Frozen Fists and Ice Patch from /Ice and have no great need for any more, which is obviously a problem. I should want much more of a secondary power set.
I'll probably get the hold to be able to stack with an Epic Hold, but that's it.

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You have the complete required powers from the secondary for maximum effectiveness. Adding in Frozen Touch is nice, but not necessary. You'll get more use from Air Superiority than anything else in your secondary at this point. I do love my fire/ice, but man is it a one-trick pony.

That's why requests for a fire/ice tank guide always get the same answer (barely paraphrased here):

Find a way to level 20. Get Burn at 18 and Ice patch at 20. Slot 3 rchg/3dmg in burn and 1-3 rchg in ice patch.

That's the set. Learn that and you've mastered fire/ice.

RagManX

How have I missed this thread all these many months? I love having lots of windows open, and scaling makes it possible. But I've wanted to scale different windows to different sizes and didn't know how. Thanks, Zombie_Man - you've made Raggie happy.

RagManX

I got a mention, so now I feel compelled to get back to my own guide - it's been almost a month without an update...

Anyway, I've still got a good chunk of this to read, but I *love* what I've read so far. My own fire/storm is still pretty low level, but I have started playing him again (really so I can try to farm for good salvage and recipes, but also because it's a hella fun combo). Outstanding work all around.

Not sure if anyone else pointed this out yet, but according to City of Data, the chance to crit is 20% on controller holds. As I have more time to finish reading, I'll see if there are any other comments I want to make. This is one of the best guides I've seen for controllers. Well done.

RagManX

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You're coming to Florida? I'll leave a bowl of peppermints out for ya. =^_^=

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Aye, off to a conference there, DisneyWorld's not the worst place to be sent on business I have to admit

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I have a brother working at Disney. If your trip doesn't include Disney access but you have time and desire to go, contact me via private message and I can get you contact information so you can get in touch with him and get a daily all-parks pass.

Been using the powersets information more lately. Thanks for all the work.

RagManX

In the past, when I have tried printing these spreadsheets they have come out borked big time. Is anyone else having problems, or should I assume I've got something wrong with my printer? I've not had anything else fail to print correctly in routine use of my system, but the spreadsheets hosted on Google have printed like 3 columns per page, and dropped many columns so they don't show up on any of the pages.

RagManX

I'll be able to play some, but it misses by a week either way occurring on a week-end when I could play 80-90% of the week-end. Bummer for me. Still should be enough playtime for me to get a couple of my high 30s really close to 50 or take many of my high 20s and low 30s to high 30s. Decisions, decisions.

Happy happy time!

RagManX