Schismatrix

A Liefeld Special? Be careful, using those causes grotesque anatomical distortions.

Pretty much.

i actually laughed out loud at both of the above posts. It is worth noting that it was for opposite amounts of insight. GG tends to come across as sheltered, provincial and very, very earnest.

i try to borrow other people's eyeballs for some of the really dubious seeming stuff. i'm not sure if it's odder that i usually don't get thanked for borrowing their eyeballs, or that some actually do thank me.

Anyway, the clamps Insano is holding are perfectly ordinary spring-loaded clamps with rubber covers on the jaws and handles available at most hardware stores and primarily used for clamping things in place for carpentry work like gluing and screwing wood, but are quite useful for clamping all sorts of things to other things with light to moderate pressure. We have some at my shop where we primarily work with metal doing art fabrication and restoration. Actually, most of our clamps are much heavier and more expensive, and can apply hundreds or even thousands of pounds of pressure.

Brilliant!

i thought it was that Hickman starts at a 25% chance to show up in a thread when [Summon Hickman] is used and each repetition doubles that chance.

Of course healing is far more reactive than preventative, but i read it that you were referring to acquiring a teammate who can heal in advance of actually needing it.

i still regularly see Empathy users who are built as healers, some in very silly ways. Was on a Manticore TF team Friday with an Empath who taken the Medicine pool in addition to his primary's heals and basically skipped all attacks. During the TF he was good about tossing out the Fort and AB and most of the time gave up quickly when the team would keep on fighting as he called "gather for RA's" and just position to boost as many teammates as possible. Overall he was pretty competent about buffing and i don't think he used the Medicine pool.

My best guess is that his SG insisted on the build or he used a build someone else made. If he'd taken Assault and Tactics instead of Aid Other and Aid Self the team would've gone even faster, but at least he played well.

Would it be more accurate to characterize this thread as going in circles or as a downward spiral?

You forgot to mention that you can prepurchase Going Rogue now.

6 hours played in the past year. And yet, somehow, you know exactly how many additional missions, custom maps and new map layouts were added in that time, and based on your complaints it was none at all.

If only new story arcs, Task and Strike Forces had been added in the previous 12 months. Then i'm sure there would have been something new for you. Well at least there will be in GR.

Personally i don't care that much if they continue to reuse most of the tilesets as long as they add some new sections to the tilesets and make more maps from each tileset.

Let's find out.
No, wait, i sort of like him, he's silly. Let's not.

From this announcement: "The prepurchase option for City of Heroes® Going Rogue has arrived!
...there are also special advantages to prepurchasing! When you prepurchase Going Rogue you'll get early access to both the Dual Pistols and the Demon Summoning power sets. Dual Pistols will be available immediately upon prepurchase, and Demon Summoning will come shortly thereafter with the launch of Issue 17.
...
So go take a look at the new and improved Going Rogue website and prepurchase your copy of Going Rogue today!"

i17 is currently in closed beta and is supposed to be out some time this month.

The market changes not even being directly related to total activity on all servers was also part of the objection. This has been rather thoroughly discussed before, but the short form is that fluctuations in population do not directly influence the markets' supply or pricing, and the effects they do have can be counter-intuitive.

Suggestion: Make new alts or transfer to the server of your choice and then make a new SG there. If the SG members are fairly active it won't be long at all until you have a very nice base again.

If for some strange reason you want to be really petty and childish like an SG leader (that shall remain nameless) was a year or so back you could kick everyone out of the SG and delete the base before you go. (Since such narcissistic behavior was the norm more than the exception for that person i was never a member of that SG, but i felt a bit sorry for some of the people who'd bought into his BS prior to it happening.)

That's basically the majority of the thread summed up in one sentence.
PEBKAC might be the (less than tactful) way to sum it up in one acronym.

There have been dozens of suggestions on this thread as to what to do when on a Scrapper or Tanker, solo or teamed, and most of them did not involve being at range. Since you've raised several scenarios where melee is disadvantaged i can't get much more specific in responding to your generalization because each situation merits its own approach. Thus why the most common theme in the responses to your string of complaints has been to say that one should employ critical thought and flexibility of tactics. (Some specific methods have also been given, but it almost seems like they were pooh-poohed away as not being your single preferred method of playing, and thus inconceivable flights of fancy.)

As previously stated by many in this thread we've all taken on this horrible, broken, evil, unbeatable, melee-penalizing content with our melee types and succeeded. In fact many enjoy it because it requires more team coordination than the typical melee approach of zerging everything, and more caution when solo.

i don't understand why that's so hard to understand.

Damnit, i missed that.

Agreed with the quoted bit here. Also, i've had people look up info for propane chainsaws in a hardware store's vendor list. Or at least attempt to do so.

Agreed. Well, i didn't giggle, but i did smile when i read it. The problem with trying to pull off practical jokes on the internet is that any reasonably aware person doesn't take anything on the internet at face value; even on days that aren't April First.

Well, i can't stand here chattering all day, i've got to take the penguin for a walk.

But how else can i explain all the inconveniences that most people deal with every day that are obviously plots against me alone? Ultraviolet radiation was obviously added to the spectrum of sunlight solely for the purpose of giving me a burn if i spend the entire day standing in it. The same thing occurs with the thermal energy in bonfires. It's a (possibly Nemesis) plot!

Look, i don't dislike you, or think you're stupid per se, or anything like that, but yes, the biggest problem is that in this thread you do come across as being inflexible and hidebound. All this content you keep describing as unplayable by melee types i've at worst found slightly more challenging on meleers compared to the rest of the game's challenges that my meleers barely notice. Vanguard Sword are tough on melee, but no more so than 95%+ of the rest of the game's content is on other AT's compared to melee types.

The first time 5+ years ago that i encountered Malta on my DM/regen Scrapper it resulted in a very quick faceplant. i was stunned to have encountered an enemy that was actually a threat in anything less than overwhelming numbers, an enemy that could actually defeat me if i charged blindly into battle. That lasted all of a few minutes. It just took a few minutes thought, actually scanning the group before charging in and making judicious use of my control powers and/or which enemy to take down quickly. i did not start whinging on the boards about how Malta were too hard and unfair, instead i was overjoyed to find an enemy group that offered a challenge.

Of course now Malta, and Carnies, and Vanguard Sword, are all little more than a slightly greater challenge for any of my alts. Occasionally frustrating to a character whose powerset particularly weak against a given enemy group, but even then i find ways to compensate.

It doesn't seem like rocket surgery to me, but perhaps brain science is a factor.


Edit: To be fair, i must concede that i am not necessarily totally sane. When running paper/scanner missions i always prefer to take missions with Thorns, Carnies and Arachnos over the other groups. Malta not as much only because the goodies they drop aren't as nice.

If you want a few heroes in your SG to help buildup prestige send a tell to [@Nyx Nought Nothing] and i'll try to log in an alt for you to invite. Not only will it get the SG 20k prestige just for adding a member (up to 15), all my alts are always in SG mode. (The inf hit past 30 for staying in SG mode is trivial compared to what is made simply by selling unneeded drops.)

No, it's a sign of standing by your principles, of upholding the one correct way of acting as handed down by the gods, err, Devs. Deviating from that single true way simply to succeed at something is a betrayal of what is right and proper. It doesn't matter if you can't actually present anything that confirms the true way to others, you know what was intended in your heart, guts and just about every part of the body that doesn't involve the mind. Or at least that's what i've read now and again.

So you can take your "flexibility" *horrkk* and your "adaptation" *ptui* and be a heretic all you want. Those who know their single role and method of fulfilling it will keep the faith and carry on failing.

(Personally i'm with you, but don't tell the true believers that.)

Well, this past October BAB posted: And about a week later: So no current plans for an underwater zone. Probably. If BAB starts gibbering all bets are off.

No, just that from what i can see here you seem to feel that non-melee AT's are somehow less active and slighted in recipe drops. i think it's a perception and playstyle issue more than a hallucination. My support characters support from the front lines and use their offense as much as their defense.

My FF/Rad doesn't just sit back handing out bubbles and scratching her butt. She teleports into the middle of the fray, fires Irradiate, hovers up a few feet and then launches Repulsion Bomb, Electron Haze and Neutron Bomb on the enemies below. Then i tend to start using single target attacks on enemies who need them most. Of course that's when i'm not using Force Bubble to shove all the enemies into nice little clump in a corner. Most of my other support alts are a bit more active than that since they tend to be debuffers.



Edit: Incidentally, even in multi-team settings like mothership or Hamidon raids non-melee characters actually tend to have an advantage in getting drops unless they're shrinking violet, cower in the corner types. Non-melee-centric AT's tend to have access to many more AoE attacks. My Crab of Doom VEAT has a full attack chain of nothing but AoE's. My PB with dmg/range HO's in the nova AoE's can blast most of a room in one volley. (Not that i always want the latter to happen.)

All good ideas.

KW STRYKER, as a frequent player on Champion i can tell you that there are several good and active SG's that i personally have characters in. If you're set on forming your own SG i'd say you should create it ASAP so that you can start banking prestige for your base.

Definitely say hi in the Champion server forums as well. There are several good global channels used for organizing server events and finding teams on Champion. The one i use most is BMT of Champion, but it's only one of several active channels.

i took them out a while back. Oh, you mean in game?

For being named after someone who only lasted nine days her tea is pretty decent.