Robotech_Master

Post deleted by Robotech_Master

You've probably thought of this already, but I would also suggest recording demos (and collecting them from any audience members who want to record them as well) to host on your website for people who are unable to attend.

I'd also suggest getting there early, to the people who want to attend...zones can only fit a finite number of people.

Statesman: how is it that Defenders "aren't needed" at higher levels? Emp Defenders maybe, but a Defender is a vital part of any archvillain-hunting team. I've never run into any trouble finding groups with my Dark/Dark...

/chanmotd <channelname> <message> -- anything with more than one word in it should have quotation marks around it.

Just type /chanmotd with no arguments for help.

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After the changes to burn (where it causes mobs to run away again), are there any changes to this guide?

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The only major change I would recommend would be to slot Blazing Aura for taunt instead of damage. I have mine at 2 Acc, 4 Taunt, and it seems to counteract the worst of the I4 Terrorize change's effects. Most of your damage is going to come from Burn anyway.

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Before this thread gets too long with much deserved praise for Cuppa, I have a question. It is suggested that the best place for the devs to see our concerns is in an official thread. What is our proper course of action if there is no official thread on the issue.

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Start a thread, or find a pre-existing thread with a lot of good comments in it, and ask Cuppa to sticky it.

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I have two things to say:

1. That's what you get for reading the forums when you should be working:P

and

2. From the looks of things, the invasion won't get started until you get home from work anyways... Six hours of downtime and still no servers up.

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I have a third thing to say: this thread was from when update 3 went live. There is no invasion. Someone apparently just thought it would be funny to resurrect it.

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Speed: Haste is the reason we dip into this pool at all. Haste adds 2 SO recharge reducers to every power while up. With 5 GREEN SOs in haste its up all the time.
Haste: 5% def

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Mephe, where do you get this? I'm using your Defensive build; I just hit 35, and I have 5 green SOs in Hasten as your build specifies. There's still a 10-15 second gap between end of Hasten effect and end of recharge. I'm going to have to find a slot I can spare from something else to make it perma.

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2. Disciplines haven't been around all that long; we've changed the way they work and their duration in response to player feedback - in PvE AND PvP. The "Break Free" changes started before the Arena was even implemented (internally, at least).

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Could you please, PLEASE elaborate on this? I don't know of anyone who was saying "Two minutes is too long for me to be safe from being mezzed while I'm trying to solo...could you please make it just 30 seconds? kthanks."

Just a note...I've levelled up to 27.9 so far, and one thing I've found is that Stephanie Peebles's Wedding Ring is an invaluable addition to a Fire Tanker's arsenal. Use it during those times when you've bit off more than you can chew and you're taking heavy damage, and it will substitute quite nicely for the additional protection of Tough and the additional slots on Plasma Shield that you haven't been able to put in yet, all through the early to mid 20s.

In my variation on the Defensive build outlined in the guide, in addition to taking Plasma Shield instead of Taunt at 16, I went ahead and took Burn at 18, Health at 20, Stamina at 22, Taunt at 24, and Acrobatics at 26. My reasoning was that I could live with being knocked down a few times--my main attack is Burn anyway--but I couldn't live with running out of End and having my toggles drop.

So far, this Tanker is working out really well; I did the Sister Psyche and Respec TFs today. Psyche was fun; I did it with my Fire/Fire, a Stone Tanker, a Blaster, a Scrapper, and an Emp Defender. Oft-times the rest of the team would go one way and I would go another because at level 26 I was quite capable of surviving and taking out entire Unyielding-class groups of Freaks all by myself.

In a comment on an LJ post in the City of Heroes forum, someone complained that the Lysosome Exposure Enhancement was useless and unwanted, because nobody except a Dark/Dark Def could really use it. Inspired, I went to the powers FAQ at Warcry and ran down the list to see which powers could benefit. I've probably missed a few, but here's my survey of people who can use a Lysosome, which is apparently widely regarded as one of the "most useless" Hami-Os in the game.

These are all the powers I could find that can benefit from two out of the three factors enhanced by a Lysosome Exposure (To-Hit Debuff/Defense Debuff/Accuracy):
<ul type="square">[*]Assault Rifle Blasters (Burst)[*]/Device Blasters (Smoke Grenade)[*]Earth Controllers (Stone Prison, Stone Cages)[*]Dark Miasma Defenders (Twilight Grasp, Fearsome Stare, Petrifying Gaze, Dark Servant)[*]/Dark Blast Defenders (most Blast attacks debuff Accuracy)[*]Radiation Emission Defenders (Radiation Infection—though, granted, the Debuff/End Reduc Hami-O is a better choice for this)[*]/Radiation Blast Defenders (most Blast attacks debuff Defense)[*]Storm Summoning Defenders (possibly; I'm not sure if Tornado takes Acc or not)[*]Broadsword Scrappers (Hack, Slash, Whirling Sword, Disembowel, Head Splitter)[*]Claws Scrappers (Slash)[*]Dark Melee Scrappers (most attacks debuff Accuracy)[*]Katana Scrappers (the same attacks as Broadsword, by whatever names they're called now; the guide I'm looking at isn't updated with the new names)[/list]

Note that when Update 4 comes in, the Shadow Shard is going to get a whole lot less frustrating for the jumpies and the speedies. The reason for this being that you can buy temporary flight packs in the Arena that will work anywhere--which means a missed geyser jump need no longer be a one-way ticket back to entrance-of-zonesville. They only allow 2 minutes of use for the flight and 5 minutes of use for the hover versions, but you only need a few seconds to salvage a badly-aimed geyser.

Incidentally, Col. Flynn's missions (he's the contact Dr. Huxley will give you after you do a few fruit missions for her) are one of the best ways to grind out the last few levels. All Nemesis/Thorns doors or hunts. I like to run his missions simultaneously with the 40-44 Nemesis contact's, as I can usually accomplish two missions at once that way (Nemesis contact tells me to hunt 50 Nemesis, and Flynn hands me a Nemesis mission or another 50 Nemesis hunt). Convenient, plus it gets Flynn to give me his number pretty quickly so I can easily grab his missions for XP grinding down the road.

I've just gotten my Fire/Fire Tanker to 19, based on the Defensive build given in this guide, mostly soloing. Burn is just amazing, I've never seen anything like it. Never really paid attention to it when I was teamed with Fire Tankers before. But damn, is it ever good.

Anyway, I think I've found what may be a bit of a serious flaw in the build. Plasma Shield, despite advice earlier in the guide to "take it at 12", was not taken until 20. I took it at 16, in place of Taunt (though I won't be slotting it, save with an End Reduction to lower the drain, 'til after I get done slotting Burn). My reasoning for this is that the 15-19 plot arcs are just lousy with mobs that mez (Clockworks' Teslas, Tsoo's Yellow Ink Men, etc.) or fire energy attacks (Clockworks, Lost, etc.). I could never have gotten through those missions without it. And while I did skip over most of the story content, I had to run missions for my contact-of-origin to get run, jump, and Taunt DOs...

The taunt effect on Blazing Aura, particularly with the benefit of a Taunt DO, is good enough that I really don't feel like I'm missing out by skipping Taunt. I may end up waiting 'til after Stamina or Tough to pick it up.

By the way, Mephe...why Swift, not Hurdle? I'd heard that Hurdle stacks with Superjump, I'd have thought it would be a good choice.

I've been trying out Mephe's "defensive-oriented" build as my first Fire Tanker. I'll probably be making some changes to it as I go (swapping Plasma Shield and Taunt, for instance) but so far it's working pretty well. Even Boxing at 10 seems to be a good choice; having that extra melee attack is helpful when facing off against bosses; focus on the boss with Scorch and Boxing while you let the flames take care of the minions and things are much safer.

I did notice that the advice Mephe gives in the FAQ section and the path he takes with his build are two different things. In the FAQ he says to 6-slot Taunt and take Plasma Shield at 12...but in his builds, Taunt only gets 1 slot and Plasma Shield doesn't get taken 'til 20 or 22. (I plan to take it at 16 because it's annoying facing clocks in Boomtown without it.)

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1. Missions are now completely exempt from all of these rules. None of them apply to missions, including Outdoor Missions (i.e. "Board Train" missions). Mission haven't changed at all in regards to XP division and eligibility.

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Are you positive that the 1 minute death rule doesn't apply in missions too? Has someone tested this out? That would seem to open things up for the Vengeance Corpse Drag inside missions again...

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Just what I was thinking. It's really the insanely loud group that gets riled up by seeing a low-level toon standing in a train station that "effects the game". We all have to suffer because of attempts to solve the "problem" that is a made-up problem.

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To be fair, I don't know that I'd call the insane amount of lag that you hit when you approach the Talos train station or the Peregrine ferry a "made-up problem." I don't often get that much lag outside of a Hamidon Raid.

However, what really needs to be done here is a cost-benefit analysis.

Benefit: Get rid of the insane train station lag. A lot of the people who are giving this version of the plan a thumbs-up would be the folks who, like me, get really frustrated when they need to take the train in Talos; not only is Talos a hub between most of the zones in the map but it's prime PLing turf for characters in their 20s PL'ing lower folks. The two factors in combination can often make trying to catch the train tantamount to swimming through mollasses. It's easy to see how some people--who absolutely hate that lag, aren't terribly fond of PL'ing in general, and don't tend to be on teams that often hunt split up could be in favor of this proposal.

Cost: Disenfranchising a lot of legitimate team players. Then there are those people who aren't bothered by lag or powerlevelling and/or for whom hunting zones split up is an important tool in their tactics-bag. These people don't feel that legitimate players should be penalized for playing in their preferred manner--and there do seem to be a lot of them.

So, is curbing PL lag worth the cost of ticking off a lot of subscribers? That's the question Statesman has to ask himself.

I just sent a PM to Statesman about this issue; he responded:

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Yeah - I was wrong - I didn't describe the entire way the buffs worked.

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Given that for every Hami-O element we've been able to test, it's worked out to approximately 1.5* the value of an equivalent SO -- 30% if the SO was a 20%, like Range or Dmg Resistance; 50% if the SO was a 33.3% like Accuracy or Recharge Rate -- I would say that this is likely to be their overall value across the board.

You would appear to be correct. I was told that the base recharge time of Regeneration Aura was 480 seconds, but when I checked in Hero Planner it was indeed 500. That puts my 337 second result close enough to the theoretical 333 1/3 second count of 500 divided by 1.5 as to make little difference.

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Now, something else, Statesman, do you realize that simply lifting the restriction from instanced missions, just leaves the whole issue open? People will still bring alts inside a mission (outdoor or not) and park them on a safe spot while the rest give him free xp. This was what you set off to fix on the first place.

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Technically, what he set out to fix in the first place was not so much powerlevelling in general (though he implied that it was) as it was powerlevelling where people stand around the tram station, Portal yard, Ghost Falcon, etc. and cause big lag as their teammates hunt to level them up. I have to admit, this fix should do that. It would almost be satisfactory if it didn't break things for people doing street sweeps too.

I still say a better fix would be to enforce the XP elimination not on folks who are too far away, but rather on folks who were more than 5 minutes idle. The only problem is this doesn't do anything to stop people from putting staplers on their keyboard and going away.

I just don't think there is a good solution to this. (And no, zone-restricting non-hazard zones is not a good solution.)

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If the buff is 20% on the SO (defense, etc..) the Hami buff is 30%. If the buff is 33% on the SO (rechg, dmg, etc...) the Hami buff is 50%

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Except I just went and tested a Hasten Hami-O on Test and it was 42.5%, not 50%. Guess again.

OK, I've read through the thread now.

This isn't quite as bad as the first proposal. If it goes live, I'll grit my teeth but I'll learn to live with it.

I just want to reiterate, though: one minute is not long enough.

Given your stated incentive to prevent people from using being dead to powerlevel safely, it doesn't make sense to cut it off after just one minute. You could let it be for five or ten minutes and the dead people wouldn't even come close to working off the debt they got from dying, let alone powerlevelling. C'mon, make it five minutes.

And I still think it's unfair that teams who hunt split up should be penalized like this.

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Now, let me clarify the situation with Badges and Defeat tasks. As long as you or any of your teammates are within 200 ft. of the defeated mob, EVERYONE on the team gets credit. This is not a change in Issue 4; this is the way that it currently works.

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Ummmm...I thought the way it currently worked, for badge tallies, is that you get badge credit for kills anywhere in the zone?

I just want to Test and tested, unhastened, a single Hami-O Membrane Exposure Enhancement in Recovery Aura, which has a base recharge time of 480 seconds, unHastened. UnHastened, the recharge with a single recharge Hami-O was approximately 337 seconds, which works out to an approximately 42.4% improvement--a far cry from the 30% Statesman said.

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I guess this means that those increase attack rates are just 30% and not 50% then?

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I have Fortitude 6-slotted with Membrane Hami-Os. According to Herostats, my recharge time is 14 seconds, with perma-hasten. I haven't tested it without.

What's the base recharge of Fort? And how much does Hasten speed things up by? I haven't tested it without Hasten on yet; perhaps I should.