Sarrate

Don't forget the "end game" content, too.

That said, they are giving away a lot of GR goodies early. Wonder if they had the manpower to get that stuff out now, and add more stuff to GR? Either that, or this was the plan all along? Bah, who knows. (Retorical question: those who know can't talk anyways, so...)

Not to mention any new enemies, allies, and special/temp powers that need to be balanced, any TFs with unique mechanics, etc. They don't only do player powers, you know.

I'm not going to begin to speculate what this next update will bring. I'm guessing it will be smaller than most will hope (mini-issue), but we shall see. I do hope to be proven wrong, though!


What does strike me as somewhat odd, however, is that Avatea, Nivine, and Ocho held Rikti invasions, but not on all servers. I don't know if that's because it wasn't a hit, they were too busy, it's planned to be propogated to all servers at a later date, or what. (Not as a complaint - but it probably would've happened while I'm still at work anyways, so I don't feel like I was left out.)

It all depends on who you run it with. A PUG may take anywhere from 1.5-2.5 hours (it could be longer, but that is a safe estimate). If you have a group of friends who run it constantly, have a good mix of ATs/powers, and speed it? You can drop that down to 40-50 minutes without using temps.

With temps (remember that it takes time to gather those), I know it's been done in ~33 mins. That was a while ago, so it's probably been done faster since then.

AAO is actually one of the stronger ones. For a brief period of time, it was 1.25s, just like RttC, but it seems that was supposed to be 1.25 * Melee_Taunt (forgot the actual attribute name), so now the duration is 16.875s - just as strong as Invincibility. (It's actually strongers since it carries a debuff with it.) On top of that, it confers a +dmg bonus, which helps threat generation as well.

It's one of the strongest taunt auras in the game, actually.

Your ability to hold aggro without Taunt greatly varies depending on what you're trying to accomplish. If all you're doing is exclusively blue side missions, you'll be fine for the most part (although taunt aura Scrappers may give you a problem). If you start doing coop missions with Brutes, you'll start having more problems. If you fight a lot of AVs, especially up level ones like those found in the STF, aura/gauntlet won't be enough.

If you want to be able to hold aggro regardless of the situation, you'll want/need Taunt. If you don't mind there will be corner cases where you can't perform (ie: STF), then you won't need it.

(It also has uses for the -range debuff, excellent set bonuses, and the ability to hold aggro on mobs outside of melee range without moving.)

I personally can't play a Tanker without it; I'm too much of an aggro w****.

I almost made that exact same point, but it's been a while since I leveled a Tank with a damage aura, so I forgot how effective it was in practice.

The bit about inspirations is pretty important, too. Maximizing insp/time greatly increases character effectiveness, especially at low levels. It's kind of like Fury, in a way. The faster you earn insps, the faster you can go through mobs (kill faster, less downtime) which helps speed up / maintain the influx of inspirations.

A damage auras' effect on combat is a bit more complicated than most people give them credit for.

It's pretty easy to prove attacks are balanced around doing a certain amount of damage for a certain amount of damage. For a single target attack, that's 1 damage scale (44.488 dmg as a Tank) per 5.2 endurance. Unless you have a set with a special discount (Energy Transfer, Incinerate, etc), you'll be paying the same endurance to kill mobs if you use several small attacks or a couple big ones (overkill notwithstanding). Obviously, this means the faster you deal damage, the faster you'll burn through endurance.

Damage auras actually match the DPE of a single target attack against single targets. (ie: Death Shroud against 1 target is just as efficient as Energy Punch.) So against multiple mobs, damage auras are far more efficient. So running a damage aura while fighting is dealing damage / killing faster, thus burning more endurance.

It leads to shorter fights, but more frequent rests ("it's draining my endurance fast!").

(Another wrinkle is that if left on, the auras burn endurance you'd normally be recovering outside combat.)

-----

One benefit of taking damage auras earlier is that you get to slot them up early, making them more useful as soon as you get Stamina. A 4-6 slotted aura can be used much more effectively at lvl20 than a 1 slotted aura can be at lvl22. Of course, that also means that you're taking and slotting a power you may not use much until lvl20, which could slow down leveling up to that point.

What I said was slightly inaccurate. People would find the path through the TF that gave the most merits for the least amount of time, and constantly run it that way. When the rewards for the TF got tweaked, they'd reevaluate the best merits/time path and run that one. I could see people running each branch of the TF once or twice, but if one path yielded better rewards than the others, that's the way it would most frequently be run.

I'm sure some people would run it other ways (especially when it's still new and people want to the TF from every narration), but I bet people would get into ruts.

Hrmm, maybe it's me trying to be practical / not getting my hopes up for something that may be year(s) away. I look at it kind of like Powers Customization - we all wanted it (players and devs), but it just wasn't feasible to get done in any short period of time. (I forgot, how long did BABs say it was in development? At least a year?) Having said that, if you (general you) never ask, you may never get it.

Hmmm....

It's funny you say that, there's a thread in the Comic Culture forum about Champions Online releasing some info (which may have been premature) causing a massive nerdrage and a complete PR meltdown. The little tidbit said? "XXXXX is going to be our first paid expansion."

While I don't think any news about GR would cause that here, it does make it clear why companies guard information so closely. I'm dying for more information too, but I can kind of understand why they're being so careful about it.

Bah, little tidbits cause conjecture, too.

I'd love to see this too EB, but there is one problem with it: scalability.

Suppose you have a 5 mission TF with a choice on mission 1:

Instead of requiring 5 missions being created, it now requires 9. If you had two branches:

That's up to 15 missions for a 2 decision TF. Granted, those are worse case scenarios (the choices in the beginning, it changing all missions after it, etc), it demonstrates why it may not be attractive from a business standpoint.

Then again, the devs have given us things that were in the past labeled as "not possible at this time," so who knows. If they could pull something like that off, it would rock. (You know people would find the shortest path through the TF and just run it that way, though. :P)

I've got no issue with any of that, Samuel. The tone of the original post left me feeling that if I wanted more information:

* I didn't think the game was good enough. (I think it's a great game, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement - which GR promises to have.)
* We're gluttons for punishment, paying for a game we don't enjoy.
* We're whiners.

It may not have been the intention of the OP, but that's how it struck me; the arguement could have been phrased a lot better, imo.

Look, I understand the irritation of endless "moar GR info, plzkkty" posts. I also understand that it's not going to change just because a thread asked told people to STFU; all it does is add more fuel to the fire.

You know, while Going Rogue has been the subject of a lot of discussion recently, I think this post (especially the quoted) is pretty unnessary. People you're addressing aren't likely to stop at your request. While some people (so far) have agreed with you, the only direction this can really go is flames - especially phrased like this.

At any rate, I think you're incorrectly labeling people by calling them "foolish gluttons." I'm happy that you're wholely satisfied with the game at the moment, but you also have to respect that other players have different experiences than you. There can be a (nearly) innumerable number of areas where your experiences could vary:

* Server - Higher or lower population
* Friends - Some have more than others
* Playstyle - PUG? Group with friends? TFs? Missions? Street sweep? Alter? Single character? PvP? RP? AE?
* Goals - Badges? PvP? Power gaming (AV soloing, etc)?

Etc. Your "needs" may be more fufilled with CoX's current offerings than others. That's fine, but that doesn't invalidate someone else's different perspective. The features that have been announced (but not expanded on) for GR very well suit other's interests more.


Personally, I've seen a lot of what this game has to offer - not all, but a lot. I think it's a great game, I've been subscribed to it longer than any other MMO, even leaving my account active during periods where I didn't play it much because I knew I'd be back - it always just a matter of when. Having said that, I really wish I knew more about GR. I'm not a heavy alter (although I have more in this game than any other), but I only have a few characters that I play frequently. Having new challenges / routes of advancement is something I really crave.

That does not make me a fool for staying subscribed to the game while still desiring more information.


Having said that, that doesn't mean I think people should be allowed to be belligerent about wanting more information - just that the desire for more information in and of itself isn't bad.

Yeah, I hear ya. I honestly don't IO a lot of characters to the hilt. I'll make builds, but they rarely come into fruition. I either get distracted, end up not playing the character a lot, etc. My Tanker is the closest I've ever come to a finished build. (I'm missing the PvP +Def IO, but I'm not trying for it anymore. I'm waiting to see what GR brings. May force me to rebuild from scratch, anyways.)

For aggro purposes, here are some things that I've found really helps (you may be doing some/all of these already):

*) Get into the mobs first. You don't have to stick around while the group cleans up the stragglers of the current group. Jump into the next mob sooner. This gives you time to setup aggro - and holding aggro is easier than regaining it.

*) Rotate who you Taunt. It's easy to just Taunt your current target, but it's much better to spread it around. I use Taunt very frequently, just to make sure I have everything glued to me. (For groups, I'd say that Taunt, Combustion, and FSC are my three highest priority powers.)

*) If the group is spread out, jump into one side while Taunting the far side. Most times, the -range will coax them closers, allowing your AoEs to hit them. Much easier to hold aggro when they're bunched up rather than spread out.

I can't say for sure what the root cause of your problems are without seeing it first hand, but those steps work for me. If Salt Crystals does the trick for you, great! If you find something that works for you, then theres no reason you have to adopt my (or anyone else's) playstyle.

Gotcha.

I used to be much better about not jumping to conclusions. I need to work on that.

Note: Depending on how much threat a Brute/Scrapper has generated, it may take several applications of Taunt (while dealing damage) to retake aggro from them. If mobs don't immediately turn around after one Taunt, don't stop trying; you have to be persistent.

I don't think this has been mentioned yet, but the reason for this is you need to have twice as much threat as the current aggro holder to steal it. So the longer you go without holding aggro, the harder it is to reclaim it. On the flip side, the longer you hold aggro, the easier it is to keep it.

Gotcha - those are definitely expensive IOs, so I can understand taking the cheaper alternatives to get the bulid done, even if it's not the absolute best; better to have it done than never completed, afterall.

I thought that might be the case, I know Heraclea swears by it. I haven't tried it myself, but I've been able to keep aggro fine without it so I never saw the need. If it works for you though, go for it.

Hmm, that thread does seem familiar - I just never wrote it down, so I forgot all about it. This time, I inputted them into the alternate slotting in my MIDs file, so I won't forget.

I did some unorthodox slotting on my build to max out enhancement value (such as slotting a purple in one of the last two remaining slots in the st attacks with a purple), but that's a pretty expensive thing to do. (I made my build back when things were a lot cheaper - ex: I never paid more than 5m for any of my KCs. :P) I'll see if I can't find other tweaks you could make afte work

Smash, and especially Lethal attacks frequently have def debuffs attached to them. Swords, guns, Bane Spider maces, etc, all reduce your defense. This isn't too much of a problem for those two damage types - as you say, SoW will help a lot. (Note: SoW is up 120s out of 300s, or 40% uptime, unenhanceable.) The problem comes from enemy groups that deal mixed damage. Defense is your main form of mitigation to f/c/e/ne, so when the defense crashes, you'll be hurting quite a bit. The higher your s/l def, the less likely those types of debuffs will get through, and the less purples you'll need to eat to overcome it.

You don't have to build for it, mind you. My first build (before the typed def set bonus changes) wasn't built that way, and I was still able to tank pretty much anything - I just had to pay closer attention is all. Just some food for thought.

If you're serious about being the "main tank" as WP, you have to take Taunt. RttC's taunt duration isn't long enough to reliably keep aggro - especially when fighting up level enemies. (I'd go so far as say that for every set, for other reasons.) If you've played other types of Tankers, then it will be very obvious by the 20s.

Additionally, you shouldn't be dying frequently enough to make taking the self rez that useful. I wish I could have squeezed the power into my build for thematic purposes, but death is so infrequent that it's not worth it, imo. I'd definitely go with Taunt, prefereably sometime in the 20s.

I consider Stamina by 20 to be a waste of powers at that level for WP. You're burning a precious 3 powers out of 12 (a quarter of those available) for duplicate powers you already have in the set. If you already took FH and QR (which you should), that's almost half your powers just in passives (exactly half if you count HPT). At low level, you want to pick powers that give the best bang for their buck, and I don't think pushing Health/Stamina that early is wise. I'd aim for the mid to late 20s. (Personally, I didn't pickup Fitness till the 40s.)

In the long run, stacking +regen is one of the weakest ways to make WP more survivable - stacking res/def/maxhp all yield better results.

Don't forget that Fire Melee is one of (if not the) most end efficient melee sets because of all the free dots - not to mention the two AoEs which can be levereged. (The only catch is it's very tempting to blow AoEs on single targets at low levels when you only have two single target attacks. Vet Reward powers help to mitigate this a bit if you have them.)

If you're trying to decide whether your Tanker should pickup Taunt or not, I'd strongly recommend it if you want to be able to Tank reliably anymore. Before you (general you) all skewer me with pitchforks for that taboo, let me explain.

Tankers used to be able to hold aggro decently without Taunt, not up to my standards, but well enough. While Tankers really haven't changed, the game has. More and more characters are getting access to passive taunt effects (WP, Shield, Brutes in coop/GR). The way taunt mechanics work out, when two characters with equal taunt durations collide, the one who deals the most damage will always win (debuffs could cause the scale to tip). Since Tanker damage is below the others, they will lose aggro; this isn't just for AV fights, but normal minions/lieutenants/bosses as well. The only way Tankers can win is by raw taunt duration - basically getting a bigger multiplier than Brutes/Scrappers.

The other wrinkle is there are several encounters in the game where Gauntlet / Auras won't do the trick - namely the STF, possibly LRSF (GR). The uncertainty of Gauntlet, the lowered effectiveness of taunts (all taunt durations are effected by the Purple Patch, not just Gauntlet), it all adds up to lost aggro.

So, in order to fufil their role on teams with several taunt capable characters, it's Taunt or bust, imo. I'm saying this as someone who has stolen aggro from Tankers on my Invuln Scrapper, and been able hold aggro on multi-Brute teams as a WP/Fire.


* Note 1: I'm NOT saying be a Taunt-Bot; that's counter productive. You need the larger threat multiplier and solid dps.

* Note 2: The fact that Brute/Scrapper taunt durations on auras / Gauntlet-Lite [edit: are identical in duration to Tankers] and Taunt/Confront is the only difference is a pet peeve of mine. Tankers are designed to take a beating, but it's getting harder and harder for them to do so - especially for people who don't read-up on game mechanics.

Ahh, sorry, I meant no offense saying how attacks were typed. Some people honestly don't know, so I'd rather be sure. Besides, you never know who may be reading / learning from a thread.

I can't check right now from work (I saw a thread in the general section last week saying that CoD had been may have been compromised (link 1, link 2), so I don't dare go there from work at the moment), but some attacks I'd check are Fire Breath (Fire Manipulation), Inferno, Ice Storm, Blizzard, Frostbite, Frost Breath, Frost (probably melee), Ice Sword Circle (probably melee), and Frozen Aura (probably melee). Some other unique powers may also be included in that list such as Eochai (his Footstomp is pure fire damage, not sure on the position) and Winter Lord / Lord Winter (their Footstomps are pure cold damage too, iirc, still unsure on positional flagging).

I'm not arguing that facing against these attacks in PvE is rare, mind you.

Just because an attack deals s/l damage doesn't guarantee that it will be typed as such. (Non-positional psi demonstrates this.) In this case, Fireball is only flagged as Fire / AoE, despite having a smashing component.

--edit--

I do wonder how much of our current build advice will change for GR. If not because of damage types used against players, but also the abilities that mobs have / the new method of advancement for lvl50 characters.

It's kind of why I'm hesitating to create new builds right now. I just feel that at any moment they could release information that makes them obsolete. I'd rather not spend a lot of inf/merits on a new project to have them invalidated in a short period of time.

There is one main thing that scares me about new AI - instead of being challenging, it's annoying (or both). Simple example: Suppose there are a group of enemies that prefer range attacks and will run out of melee range. If you had to fight that group a lot, it would get old really fast. (Kind of like the Croatoa witches, come to think of it.)

That's not to say there isn't room for imrpovement, though. There are some quirks to the current AI that makes no sense to me. Certain powers seem to require the AI to not be under attack for a couple seconds in order to use. For example, Black Scorpion won't use Rage, Lord Recluse won't summon Banes with a debuff anchored on him, AE Regens won't use MoG, IH, DP, etc.

I'd probably end up doing the same thing. Try the AI in a few specfic cases and see how that goes. If it turns out to be fun rather than annoying, maybe start incorporating it into more (new) content.

It will really depend on the flavor / design of the challenge. If you have enemies that are obnoxious to fight (like the Vanguard), then I may be a bit annoyed. If they're well designed (I really liked the new Winter event), then I can see myself enjoying them. I want the content to be about something more than big numbers (dmg/debuffs/etc) and more unique.

Another thing to keep in mind is that they're planning a system to allow our lvl50s to become more powerful, too. So harder content with stronger characters may be a wash.

I'm really curious about that system. As in, I don't really want to make any big investments only to go back to the drawing board when taking the new system into account.

I think it was more along the lines of:

"You just had over 100 (200?) effects go off at once. This is a bit excessive, just so you know."

I specifically remember the "This is excessive, just so you know" part being in there. I saw that error once, but that's because I had a demo of someone demonstrating it. I played it again much later, but the popup was gone.