Redlynne

If you're a "Crusty Old Fart" like me, you'll remember that the "original" NERF IT BY HALF *AND* HALF that happened with the AoE Holds of Controllers (over 15 Issues ago!) was to double the recharge time and cut the duration in half. Doing only one of these changes would have been "okay" but it was the Double Whamm-o Nerfbat of doing both together that seriously unbalanced the AoE Holds.

That's just about the only upside of this forum.

Everything corresponded up until this point. My CoH mac client doesn't have a data folder inside the coh folder ... nor is there a texture_library folder somewhere within it.

No, and here's why.

The Debuff in this case is "cast" using the Grant Power mechanic. This means that it IS NOT YOU who is casting the debuff on the affected $Target(s) ... it is the affected $Target(s) casting it ON THEMSELVES. This is important because the debuff falls under the heading of Does not stack from same caster as far as its effects.

This means that when you have every attack power of YOURS slotted with this debuff ... and every PC on your team has every attack power of THEIRS slotted with this debuff ... (impossible, I know, but work with me here, this is an example) ... then despite the fact that multiple powers on multiple players are Proccing this debuff all over the place, each $Target can only be affected by ONE DEBUFF at a time ... because each $Target is casting the debuff ON THEMSELF ... rather than it being each *power* on each *player* casting the debuff on the affected $Target(s) (which *would* permit stacking of the debuff).

Does that make sense? It's basically "throttled" by the artifice of the Grant Power mechanic such that the debuff cannot be stacked with itself (and thus prevents runaway cascade failure of Resistances via stacked debuffing).

Mercenaries and Ninjas disupute your assertion supported by no evidence given.

Needs more nerfing ... just for old time's sake.






What ...?

Try Icicles in Ice Armor/* for Tankers.

/em wonders how this will install on Mac Clients

Rebuilding to take into account ATOs (1st and 2nd series of them, of which the 2nd has yet to be released on Live) as well as the newly released Overwhelming Force Set is currently on my "To Do" list someday when I manage to find myself with several hours free and nothing else pending (ie. it might be a little while yet).

I recommend Agility Alpha for a Huntsman. I switched to using Agility not too long after it went Live.

I don't have any opinions on Hybrid yet. Haven't even started getting any of my 7 Level 50s into the Magisterium Trials on Virtue yet. That falls under the heading "I'll need to look at that when I get around to respeccing using Mids' someday."

Seize the HERETIC!

I'm thinking that what probably happened was that the Blind attacks landed, but because they do no damage, weren't "noticed" by the SR scrapper thanks to Practiced Brawler (possibly double stacked at the time?) providing enough Mag Protection to not get Held (which would have been the thing to notice). You know how Scrapperlock goes, Arcanaville ...

Let me tell you Flitbit, that build has been through a LOT of hours in Mids' and even more hours of Real Testing to make sure it was a pretty darn "sturdy" build able to withstand almost anything (except Endurance Drain). And yeah, the "ankle deep in spent brass" feeling you while playing it is pretty much like nothing else I've got in my list of characters.

Rocket boots just plain look good, if you're going for boots. I prefer the old style strappy sandals (not the new yucky Man Foot ones!) and either skirts or shorts on my Huntswoman (who was a very "leggy" former lingerie model(!) before she was "abducted" and recruited into the SoA program by a very sadly mistaken lab assistant of Dr. Aeon).

As for Combat Jumping vs Hover ... being able to "hang in the sky the way that bricks don't" is just far too valuable AT ALL LEVELS OF PLAY to really be a fair question. The additional END cost isn't that great (although it is something I definitely have to monitor with my build in uninterrupted combat!), but the freedom of positioning simply cannot be beat. And in the early levels, being able to go *UP* and stay there will be the best "resistance" you can buy against incoming damage bar none!

I haven't gotten around to respeccing for the ATOs yet, and was pretty much planning on waiting for the Summer Event to snag a pile of KB Limiter Procs before making any decisions. I suspect however that the KB Limiter Proc will probably wind up being most useful in Frag Grenade (go figure) which means that that ATOs will probably fit best in Venom Grenade, since I am *NOT* giving up my extra Range frankenslotting in Heavy Burst for ANYTHING!

This was my experience too, back around Issue 17-18 or so. Soldiers are good out of the box starting EARLY and they just basically stay "good" and only get "better" as time (and enhancement slots) go on. Soldiers just "age" really well, in my experience ... if you've got the right build plan for them!

Smacking things around in melee may be "fun" but it tends to do unpleasant things to how I can deploy my extended cone range Heavy Burst against everyone's favorite targets ... Hordes O' Hostiles. I routinely see my Heavy Burst hitting more targets than my Web/Frag/Venom Grenades do, simply because of the shape of the AoEs involved.

And as I've mentioned before, my standard operating procedure is Web then Venom then Frag then Heavy Burst ... and if anything is still standing, use my Burst and Single Shot attacks until I can do another series of AoE attacks. It has a certain ... lawnmower-like ... appeal to me.

Linky to the last time this got brought up (for historical reference).

And Arbiter Fabulous made the LOUDEST sigh of relief!

Ice/Ice Tankers "need" to be played very aggressively in order to "get the most" out of them. They're almost "Brute-ish" in their need to keep grabbing (and draining!) everything they encounter so as to stay at peak performance. Ice/Ice Tankers work best in "flypaper" fashion ... where everything sticks to them (until they die).

I'll just let this After Action report of an ITF Tanker Tuesday run last year explain ...
Shirayukihime is *MY* Ice/Ice/Arctic Tanker on Virtue. She inhales aggro like a wind tunnel.

If you're wondering about "frankenslotting" where you're using Set IOs and not picking them out for the Set Bonuses ... by all means, slot level 50s for that too. The simple fact of the matter is that when you Exemplar, you're going to be Exemplaring ... and slotting low for "singles" isn't going to get you any advantages (except in a few rare edge cases like Luck of the Gambler's global recharge "proc"). Best thing to do for Common IOs (and other "unlinked" single enhancements that aren't producing Set Bonuses for you) is to slot them as level 50 and "not worry" about what kinds of values they reduce to when you Exemplar.

If you ARE dealing with "linked" IOs that offer Set Bonuses though, you want to make sure that you're slotting all the parts and pieces of that Set (with the exception of any Procs in it) all at the same Level (in my builds, either 27, 31 or 37 (the last for Snipe Sets) typically) so as to have their Set Bonuses be "active" at Levels 24 (Flashback Arcs and -1 level below a TF/SF breakpoint), 28 (Moonfire TF and just -1 level below another Flashback Arcs grouping and -2 levels below TF/SF breakpoint), and 34 (Flashback Arcs and Katie Hannon TF/SF breakpoint). I assign Proc IOs the lowest possible Level on the Enhancement so that if I ever have to "move" them by respec to another character, they're "available" for slotting as early as possible in that other character's lifetime.

That's a judgement call you'll have to make for yourself. I've personally NEVER found a good reason for "staging" Set Bonuses to be only partially active at THIS level, but then fully active at THAT level later on. I just prefer the simplicity of having the entire Set either "on or off" depending on what Level I am Exemplar at.

I ran a spreadsheet analysis a while back to determine how many times per minute you would need to Force Feedback to Proc it's +100% Recharge so as to "match" the global set bonus buff of Kinetic Crash (+7.5% @ 6 slots) on a full time basis. The answer came back that you'd need Force Feedback to Proc once every 66-67 seconds in order to match the rate of return you get from a +7.5% global recharge set bonus.

Personally, I find that Force Feedback is either going to be useful in Single Target powers that you're going to be using A LOT as part of your regular attack chain (so as to "throw lots of dice" to give them plenty of opportunities to Proc) ... or ... put the Force Feedback Proc into a Target AoE or Cone power where you give the Proc plenty of targets per use of the power to Proc on (again, "throw lots of dice" to get a Proc). In the context of a Soldier/Huntsman build, that tends to be Frag Grenade ... and in actual use can result in being able to chain together the Web+Venom+Frag+Heavy Burst Soldier powers *MUCH* faster than would otherwise be possible, yielding a "spike" of AoE Damage that produces very important battlefield/tactical gains on a situational basis. It also means that if you chain Proc your Force Feedback, because you're using almost nothing *but* AoE attacks, your Endurance Burn ramps up dramatically ... so you do wind up "paying for it" eventually.

You don't want to be putting Force Feedback into Pseudopet powers, because the only chance for the Proc to affect YOU is when you cast them (which makes the Return on Investment very low). Once the Psuedopet is "out" and casting, any Procs from Force Feedback affect the Psuedopet and not YOU ... and all "pets" (including Pseudopets) are Unaffected By Recharge ... meaning the effect is "wasted" on them.

It's a bit late for me to mention this (been off playing Diablo III since the 15th and haven't visited the forums), but ... Arbiter Hawk volunteered to me (meaning, he brought it up in our conversation, and I hadn't asked him a question that prompted this exact response) that coming in Issue 23 there would be a Proc that would convert KnockBACK into KnockDOWN when I was at the Player Summit. Not wanting to "steal his thunder" for making an announcement public, I told him later (by PM) that I wouldn't mention anything about this part of our conversation until The Powers What Is BLACK PEBBLE cleared the info for release. Since that has now been done, I can publicly confirm that not only is this going to be happening, but at the time of the Player Summit, Arbiter Hawk had already completed work on the Enhancements and checked them into a forthcoming build ... meaning that as of the Player Summit in April, "the cake was already baked" for this.