RagManX

Is this still the best inv/fire info out there? I'm finally getting back to my Inv/Fire that was abandoned pre-I6, and would like to build her as inteliigently as possible.

RagManX

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The problem with OK'ing submissions is partially an issue because of manpower. Depending on the number of submissions, you'd need people entirely devoted to reviewing, approving and ultimately putting that stuff into the game. That's not trivial, to be honest, when dealing with 100,000+ subscribers.

[/ QUOTE ]
This can't be anymore of a problem than creating the content yourself. In fact if anything it'd be much less manpower intensive. It's going to work because the game tools provided ensure that it must. The only thing you'd have to do it skim the text to make sure it doesn't contain improper language, and then play the mission once to see what you think of it. Once you pick one you like add it to test. If there's any problems the players will certainly find them.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, if they only had to judge a submission from one person who plays the game, and it was an exceptionally high quality submission, and that person managed to come up with a fairly balanced design and put it together in such a way that there were few or no problems with it, sure that would be less manpower intensive than creating it in-house for the Cryptic devs. On the other hand, if 10,000 players submitted stuff, and 9,000 of those submissions could be determined improper in the first 30 seconds of play, that would still leave 1,000 submissions requiring enough play time to see if they were good enough to warrant serious consideration for inclusion plus that 75+ hours wasted just testing 9,000 submissions that were immediately rejected. And I certainly hope no development studio would include user-created content after playing it once.

You know, I'm not seeing the simple process where Cryptic devs can just open the door, know by the weight of the bits in the submission which are good, and throw the user-created content into the game.

RagManX

I got back a lot of the salvage I had already sold last night. I did not lose any influence during the trouble period. I sold my salvage again, gaining another 17x,xxx influence. Too bad I didn't get the two higher value salvage I'd already sold - could have made another 300,000-400,000. Anyway, I then purchased low value items for far too much influence to pass my gain on to others, since I hadn't done anything to earn it and didn't care if someone else who hadn't done anything to earn it got it instead.

RagManX

[ QUOTE ]
Since when is consume part of the fire controllers arsenal? Fire control and fiery aura are very different sets.

For the OP. I prefer Smoke to RI. Smoke will stay on all the effected targets regardless of death. If the host for RI dies, then you have to activate it again. Generally the defense reduction isn't too much of a big deal if you are slotting with accuracy.

[/ QUOTE ]
True, but RI has 5 times the debuff effect of smoke. I love smoke, but if the choice is "Do I get smoke or do I get RI" the answer is RI in all cases except when you will be teaming with 7 other players who also have smoke.

RagManX

Um, SuckerPunch, could you stop improving your builder so much? Just makes me even more bummed out at work when I want to play around with builds and can't access it because work expects me to work and not surf to gaming sites. They even go so far as to block me from accessing cohplanner.com!

RagManX

I've copied all this into a text document for my own review later when I can't access the forum (dang work expecting me to work and blocking so many of the cool non-work sites). I'm adding one extra bit for myself to each set name as follows:

Befuddling Aura: (levels 10-30): Accuracy/Recharge, Endurance/Confuse, Accuracy/Endurance, Confuse/Range, Accuracy/Confuse/Recharge

Cacophony: (levels 10-30): Accuracy/Recharge, Endurance/Confuse, Accuracy/Endurance, Confuse/Range, Accuracy/Confuse/Recharge, Chance for Energy Damage

Malaise's Illusions: (levels 20-50): Accuracy/Recharge, Endurance/Confuse, Accuracy/Endurance, Confuse/Range, Accuracy/Confuse/Recharge, Chance for Psionic Damage

Perplex: (levels 20-50): Accuracy/Recharge, Endurance/Confuse, Accuracy/Endurance, Confuse/Range, Accuracy/Confuse/Recharge, Recharge/Confuse



It helps me figure out what I want first. When I get this completed, would it be beneficial to post it here so you can add it to your info, or am I the only one who cares about the available options for each enhancements?

RagManX

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I like this guide. Its simplicity is fabulous. I did want to mention, my level 46 mastermind received a recipe for a level 49 quickfoot set: endurance. I don't know if it's a bug.

[/ QUOTE ]
No that's right. You get recipes up to the level that you can use.

[/ QUOTE ]
Today my level 38 was playing sidekicked up to a level 43 teammate and I kept getting level 45 recipe drops. Should I have put in a /bug report on that? I just made the inventions and gave them away later during the play session.

RagManX

On the demorecords I've done (and I'll admit to only having done 4 or 5), clickables don't show up on screen, and I've got no UI visible. Is there any way to have demos playback with the UI active and to get clickables to show up? Made for some annoying playback on one of the "<Verb-meaning-click-on> a whole buncha <target-objects>" missions I ran in which I'd periodically just stand in one place for a long time. Since I made the demo, I knew what I was doing, but not seeing the altar/desk/coconut tree/elmo doll during demo playback just makes the whole demo look extra-moronic.

I've resorted to FRAPS for demos like I use in my fire controller write-up (w00t for dual-core and decent GPUs), but I would like to play around some with demo files, too.

RagManX

So the PDF link no longer works, nor does the COHed download. Does anyone still have these available? I've finally decided to play around with capturing and working with demos.

Thanks,

RagManX

Was looking for EM/Rgn info (first stalker I've enjoyed enough to go past 6). Nothing exactly matching in the list, so I figured I'd check out the partial matches and put the info together as I read to figure out how I want to build. The above link to Harbinger's takes me to The Dark Melee/Ninjitsu PvE Stalker instead. Anyone got the real Harbinger link?

Thanks,

RagManX

Mmmmmmmm. Numbers.

Most of my characters have given up hasten, just because I typically solo and prefer even performance. I recognize that I could perform better on average with hasten, and would still have worst case performance equal to my typical performance now with regards to power availability, but I like the evenness I have now and still enjoy playing as I am built. All that said (and quite poorly, I recognize), I'm seriously reconsidering hasten after reading this. Thanks, Arcana. Well written as always, and certainly something to get me thinking about hasten again. Now, is it worth dropping recall friend on my DDD to get hasten? Hmmmm.

RagManX

Good read.

I can't say when the exact smoke grenade fix came through, but I registered for the forum the day I got the game, and I know the information about the fix came after I got here. I remember posting in a thread about the fix very shortly after I started playing. I can't remember exactly when the smoke grenade fix went live, but it was after I started, so therefore after my registration date.

RagManX

Finally did it. The Tahoma font is a little too light for my tastes. I'll try the comic fonts tonight and see if I like them. When I have the chat window arrowed over so it gets a darker background, I prefer reading Tahoma, but I can barely read some of it when I have the pointer elsewhere on screen. I tried changing the opacity, but it didn't leave the un-focused chat-box dark, so it didn't help.

Still, this is an awesome tip, and I'm going to play around with fonts until I find one that really works well for me.

RagManX

Tried this with a fire/kin and 3 */rgn scrappers. Even spamming everything I had, the scrappers and my imps went down quickly. He's a tough one because he hits hard. We made a dent in him, and had him away from the portal so nothing spawned there, but a string of two missed transfusions and a missed transference was all he needed to wipe out the melee folks. Sometimes, even with 2 green Acc SOs and tactics, you just get a bad string of numbers.

[ QUOTE ]
I know you can solo an AV if you are a scrapper with mish set to heroic. (granted then they are EB's)

[/ QUOTE ]
Well then, you aren't really soloing an AV if he is an EB, are you?

RagManX

Awesome. I'll do this when I get home from work.

RagManX

[ QUOTE ]
I made an observation. I put it out for those who either want to laugh at it, or for those who can help with numbers on it.

[/ QUOTE ]
But this forum is for guides. An observation like what you made isn't a guide.

[ QUOTE ]
Sad thing is, is that some people are pretty ballsy on the Forums, where the fact is, is that people would show a little more respect in RL. Thats what nerves me the most.

[/ QUOTE ]
Ahhhh, the famous "in real life you wouldn't act this way" argument. I am actually much nicer in forums than I am in real life, because in a forum, no one can tell if I'm serious or kidding, even if I use emoticons. In real life, I don't like people and try to behave in a manner that gets them away from me without getting them to want to hit or shoot me. If you'll add in a nazi reference somewhere there, you'll really be able to nail the hyperbole meter high.

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry for posting my guide on your precious forum pal. But to be honest, I thought I made some good points. And alot of the things I said were indeed fact. It was only the numbers that i did not provide.

[/ QUOTE ]
When you say a lot of the things you said were fact, where you talking about the fact that Ax and Mu have the same accuracy, which you called a much lower accuracy for the Ax? Or were you talking about the vet reward Mu having apparently the same accuracy as your three Acc slotted shadow maul, which is untrue since the vet reward is an unenhanceable 75%? Or was it when you said the Ax was best used against ghosts, when it is in fact also useful against Vahz (lethal vulnerable) and Banished Pantheon (some of which are dark resistant or undead in which case the Ax gets a bonus dmg according to the devs)? You said more false than true things in that original post, and still defend it as mostly true.

The reason you are getting so much flak is there is almost nothing true in your original post, and you seem unwilling to back down. While the Sands of Mu makes for a very nice vet reward (and I will admit that most of my characters chose that over the Ax), you come across like you are saying it is the only vet reward worth taking, yet there are real game-play reasons to take the Ax instead.

Not that I expect to get through to you, but there it is.

RagManX

According to the devs, the accuracy is the same on both. Also according to the devs, the ax does bonus damage against undead, not just ghosts. As for why it makes sense to take it, I'll tell you some characters of mine who took the axe and some who didn't.

My DM/DA scrapper took it, because I don't need another shadow maul, and the ax is handy for negative resisting enemies. One of my ax tankers took the ax because she likes having another ax attack. One of my ax tankers didn't take the ax because the last thing he needs is more lethal damage. My D/D defender didn't take the ax because more darkness is what he wanted in his darkened darkity darkness dork life. My Spines/DA scrapper didn't take the ax because he wanted a small cone AoE more than a single target lethal attack. I have a brute who took the ax because sand of mu causes loss of fury while animating, and I don't think the ax takes as long to animate and therefore shouldn't cause as much fury loss.

Most of my characters went with sands of Mu because I know how to use it well and am willing to accept the downsides of the power. But there are conceptual and play reasons for either vet power.

RagManX

Thread necro. Just made an ice/traps. This guide will help me considerably in building him. Thanks for the effort.

RagManX

[ QUOTE ]
Small question, I just hit 40 and was able to set my second title. I screwed up though, is there any way to change it before 45 or was that my last shot?

[/ QUOTE ]
That was your one shot. You'll have to wait until 45.

RagManX

[ QUOTE ]
At level 10, the Safeguard missions start taking place in Kings Row, so what you experienced was normal (unless the mission you accepted specifically said you'd be protecting the Atlas Park bank).

Safeguards will generally deposit you in the same zone you took them in.

[/ QUOTE ]
Really? I never had a safeguard drop me in the same zone in which I took it. Not a single time. But I've only run about 8-10 safeguards - from characters leveled 7 up to 46, just not many of them. Maybe I've just had a bad streak with the PRNG.

RagManX

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The webpage says the Gamester will put presents in the zones on the 18th, but the email I received says the 21st.

Is the Gamester just trying to keep us on our toes?

[/ QUOTE ]

We decided to move the "phase 2" of the event up to the 18th so that people would have more opportunities to open presents. Because well, we all love the presents!

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless it is socks and underwear.

[/ QUOTE ]
Once my wife gets off the phone, we're going to go buy me some socks. If phase 2 hit early enough and included socks, I would have an extra 2 hours to play this week-end.

No, it doesn't take me 2 hours to buy socks, but there is a 40 minute round trip plus 2 minutes to get out of the car, get to the socks, get back to the register and pay, plus the 78 minutes my wife needs to get just a couple of things and spend another $280.

RagManX

[ QUOTE ]
1. Deceive- At first this power is fun, but when you get higher, you realize that this power is getting useless. It only affects one person, the people it kills takes out experience that you should get, and it's really long to wait for the deceived guy to kill anyone of his teammates making this power a waste.

[/ QUOTE ]
Surprised no one has pointed out that this is wrong if you use deceive as another control power rather than a "I'll let this guy beat up on his teammates" power that you seem to think it is. Just make the power part of your attack chain in a spawn, and switch targets after you deceived one. There are numerous posts in the controller forum where people break down just how much better soloing is with deceive vs. without. I have tested many, many, many times running missions with and without using deceive, and I consistently get 25-40% *MORE* XP per minute when I play using deceive than when I don't use it.

While you do get less XP for an enemy damaged by a deceived foe, since you can take out enemies much more quickly using this power, over time, you earn XP at a greater rate. XP earned per foe defeated is irrelevant - XP over time is all that matters. By using deceive, you can finish missions faster, so you get your mission bonus XP sooner. You can finish more missions in a play session, so you get more mission completion bonus XP, which yields higher XP/min rates.

I get that not everyone likes deceive. If people chose to skip the power because they have tried it, learned to use it effectively, and then decided they don't like it, that's fine. But please don't tell people to skip it because you lose XP. The power, when used properly, increases experience earned over time so greatly that you can cut many, many, many hours off your hero's lifetime trek to 50.

RagManX

Bah!!! Back in my day, all we had were zeros and ones. We had to string them together and decode them on the fly to even play the game. Some days, the servers would run out of ones, and we'd have to figure out code only using zeros.

And we liked it!

In fact, we were happy for the zeros we had - we didn't complain about running out of ones. Not like the kids these days and their fancy pictures.

We got stuck in the ice after the Winter Lords, and we liked it. We thanked the devs for making the ice that trapped us in the lakes. The lakes made out of zeros and whatever ones were available after the servers had Atlas built. Dang giant spherical hero, that Atlas. Always getting carried around on the backs of other heros. Never understood why he sometimes just rolled around like that. You'd think there was a hamster inside the big globe that is Atlas. But no - hamsters take too many ones. So you have that non-hamster giant sphere Atlas being held up by some generic hero with all those muscles. Takes a lot of ones to draw that, it does. And that never left enough for our precious lakes.

But we liked it. Liked our zero filled lakes from which we could look up at the giant sphere Atlas, taking up all our ones.

And the other reason all the ones ran out some days was the servers had to hold a reserve of ones to taunt us with its "J00 r d3d. T3h freak tank pwnzr3d j00!! 1-Shot FTW!!!1!eleventy!!1vWbug!!" And every time the server said we got 1-shotted, it pulled from its reserve. But we were thankful to even get hit. Not like all you kids these days. Sometimes, we'd even try to rez after the 1-shotting, and we'd die again before all our toggles were turned back on. And we got extra debt for that. The server would actual invent the binary 2 just to double our debt. But we were happy. Happy for the debt. And we liked it.

RagManX

One thing I suggest differently for folks playing with rad debuffs is to put Radiation Infection and Enervating Field on different targets. If you put them both on one target, when that target goes down you have no protection. If you put them on different targets, when one anchor goes down, you are still getting some kind of protection from your other toggle. And unless you solo, you will constantly run in to problems with people killing your anchors ("Ooooooh, why does that enemy have a green ring around his feet? I must need to kill him first!").

Great guide. Makes me want to get back to playing my rad/rad.

RagManX

Yes, please, word on the box set price? I like to touch the box, so I will be buying a boxed Good vs. Evil set for both my accounts. How much will two boxes hurt me (which dictates how much my wife hurts me if she finds out how much I spend on this game).

RagManX