City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Scientist

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  1. Scientist
    While this option didn't exist when the thread was created, for anyone seeing it more recently I'd suggest using Alignment Merits to get a -knockback IO if you are really on a tight budget and hate the market. It makes a huge difference in enjoyability of a DA character. Next step up would be a Theft of Essence +End proc for Dark Regen, helps a lot with End burn.

    If you don't hate the market quite as much, consider using the AMs to make something that sells well, such as a Stealth or LotG proc, sell that, and use the Inf to buy the -knockback IO plus everything else listed.
  2. Scientist
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Generic_Past View Post
    The easy way a group of us on Pinnacle has done so far is to ignore all the side "jobs". Even when mael is out, telepaths, etc... Have a tank or 2 in the buildings with the entire group taunt the enemies away from the terminals and ST attack the Technician's asap. Rinse, repeat in the other buildings.

    You'll overcome the loss of Public Opinion by following that. It's repetitive yes but it's very doable in terms of completing TPN.
    I've seen this done as well, have the whole league inside for all the fights and you seem to build up public opinion faster then you lose it by letting the telepaths do their thing unmolested. The leader also had us just doing 3 terminals per building, but I'm not sure on the reasoning for that. As a warning, it is easy to lose a few people when crossing between buildings this way, as with the stacking debuffs Maelstrom can 1-shot folks pretty easily. Having Recall Friend and rez available is handy.

    That particular league, which was a regular one run by a sg on Justice, also has folks turn off their teleport prompt, and somebody with the Recall Team incarnate power (don't remember the name) goes in first and brings the whole league to the terminal room. That makes it easier to keep everyone in one position and unload on the guard spawns as they are pulled over from the terminals.
  3. Scientist
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lobster View Post
    The animation time on Suppression will keep you from putting out the kind of AOE that blasters can BUT of course you'll be able to survive much more than any blaster, so who cares, right?
    Actually, when debating Crab vs Corruptor with a friend, I worked out what you can do for AoE. Using Venom Grenade -> Arctic Breath -> Bile Spray -> Suppression, I had to go to a Fire Blaster to get more AoE in the ~10 second time frame it takes to use those. And the Crab, unlike the Fire Blaster, can just chain those four AoEs endlessly with perma-Hasten running (yes, I realize this is an expensive build, but having the free+20% recharge from Mental Training helps). Plus run double Assault, and boost all the OTHER AoE damage on the team by 35% thanks to the resistance debuffs.

    A Fire blaster will certainly mow down -1 or even con minions and maybe lieutenants faster, because of faster animations, but for anything much tougher you tend to need more than fireball/firebreath/Rain of Fire. And there are a fair number of blaster sets that don't have much "every spawn" AoE, such as Sonic and Ice.
  4. Scientist
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Peppercat View Post
    It's a misconception that pets can AoE the civilians outside during the telepaths phase, when actually the civs are damage immune unless they get turned, and even then pets won't aggro on them.
    Interesting, I thought that was one of the big challenges of the outside phase, that the telepaths were mixed in with easily killable civilians. I've only done that trial on a heavy AoE character so I was always assigned to the inside team. What turns them?
  5. Scientist
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Egos_Shadow View Post
    You should also be able to get Clubber, since you can get to Pocket D from Praetoria's Studio 55 even if you're below level 20.
    Which also lets you get Monitor Duty, since there is a sg portal in Pocket D. And a Vault, and a Hospital, so its very efficient.

    I don't know of anywhere you can get Fashion Designer or Marketeer, though I'm not a badge expert.
  6. Scientist
    Well, there is evidence of some things they regretted, since they had to nerf them. ED and the Global Defense Nerf being the most major, but individual powers can be pointed to as well; change of Regeneration - Instant Healing from a toggle to a click, two separate reductions of the -resist from Radiation - Enervating Field, and so on.

    I suspect another major regret is how the math works for defense and resistance. If they had set up the formula properly, as Arcanaville has discussed, then 5% defense would always mean you take 5% less damage, rather than as now, where if you add 5% when you were already at 40% you take 50% less damage. That would remove much of the problem with stacking buffs/debuffs, and balancing content so that both soft capped and SO enhanced characters can play alongside each other. Balancing that must be really tough when one character is taking 10x the damage of another one standing right next to them with the same power picks. It might have even removed the need for the Global Defense Nerf those many years back.

    On the topic of AE, it might have been safer if they had launched it with something like 10% of normal XP rewards, then it would have gotten an initial rep of "used by storytellers" rather than "used by powerlevelers". That would have bought some time to let them make tweaks to it and raise rewards slowly until they found points where somebody came up with an exploit worthwhile at, say, 40% of normal rewards, then fix that. Meanwhile they could have used things from it to generate canon content by moving "best of" arcs over to the real game, with full rewards. Too late now, though.
  7. Scientist
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by all_hell View Post
    I am playing a kin/son def with only a few IO set bonuses.
    I highly suspect that it would do well with only SOs.
    I second the kin/sonic, or kin/anything defender, many of the kin powers don't take set IOs anyway or if they do don't benefit much from them (e.g. Speed Boost). Another strong possibility is rad/ defender, while its nice to IO up for perma Accelerate Metabolism they still bring 80% of their capability to the team just on SOs. Corruptors would probably do well too, though weaker buff/debuffs might be felt more on SOs.

    And defenders/corruptors are popular enough for teams that you would probably not find many people turning up their noses at them for not being IOed out.
  8. Scientist

    Toxic Damage

    POST-ACTION

    Neat guide. It might be helpful, if you can find it, to mention what the positional tags are to the various NPC toxic attacks you listed so people will know if they have a chance of avoiding them.

    A Crab can get some pretty good AoE toxic damage by firing Venom Grenade -> Arctic Breath -> Bile Spray, by the last one the targets are at -55% resistance to its damage. Very melty. . .
  9. Scientist
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Two_Dollar_Bill View Post
    Obviously there are things Crabs cannot do well (like healing teammates), but I'd say their only real kryptonite is defense debuffs.
    Well, and Tohit Buffs, like the Quartz emanators. Same advice applies, get them before they get you, but purples don't provide as much protection since tohit buffs from those are really high.

    It can be some help to take either a Patron AoE Immobilize or Hover to make sure you stay at range, since a Soldiers best defense is Ranged and most critters do hit somewhat lighter at range then in melee.
  10. Scientist
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by shaggy5 View Post
    Sorry--I actually don't know how this connect to the question. I never asked, "Should I have good toons? or "What Trials are good" or whatever. I just wanted to know about ranged attacks on tanks.
    I think Mauk2 was mentioning Apex/Tin Mage in the context that there are other trials besides MoM where having *only* melee attacks reduces what you can contribute damage-wise.

    I am a little surprised that the trial leader was hung up on whether your tank had ranged damage, though, as others have commented tanker ranged damage is not very likely to make or break taking down a 54+2 AV. When I'm leading a team or league, I'm hiring a tanker to soak alphas, keep as much damage and mezz off the squishies as possible so they can do their job, and if I get a great one, set a good team speed based on team makeup and what we are facing.

    Ranged damage can be helpful in holding aggro, in combination with Taunt, since Taunt magnifies any damage you are doing. If you can find any epic pool with a ranged attack you like, its a handy thing to have (also lets you pick off runners, pull when necessary, etc.). I also like Darkest Night, from the Ghost Widow Patron Power Pool, as it not only continually aggros the spawn or AV but also reduces their damage output. Of course, you have to go redside for that. I consider that the ideal pool and power for a tank who really wants to survive and protect a team. I would take a competent tank with no ranged attacks over an incompetent one with every fire attack in the pool any day, though.
  11. Scientist
    I have it on a beam/time corruptor, and I like it a lot, but the redraw really bothered a friend. I tend to spend a lot of time evaluating the battlefield to decide who I will be targeting with what, so I use redraw and animation time for that. I also took it for the same reason I'd take Sonic, for hard targets, which (fortunately?) are in profusion in the end game. With EBs (on many teams) and AVs (on most teams) there is plenty of time for the Disintegration mechanic to work well.

    But if you like fast twitch sets, or lots of AoE ownage, or hate redraw, steer clear. Fortunately there are other sets for that.
  12. Scientist

    Alignment Merits

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mistress Rue View Post
    Not entirely accurate - it has been proven that the qualifier for receiving A-merits from the SSA is the presence of either the morality power or countdown to morality power on the character. So, simply running the morality mission to turn Hero/Villain would be sufficient - running again to confirm would not be necessary
    I didn't find this to be true on a character who had gone hero->vigilante->villian->rogue->hero. She had the Hero morality power, but upon running the SSA didn't get the alignment merit option. She had to run the 10 tips and alignment mission to "reaffirm" her hero status before she got the alignment merit option. She had done this round trip long before SSAs existed, I don't know if that affects things, since I've also heard you have to reaffirm hero status AFTER the SSAs came out in order to get AM awards.

    In fact I was wondering if there were some way to tell which characters needed to reaffirm their alignment that way, I have several who made that round trip and thus have the Hero morality power, but I'm not sure if they ever ran another set of tips/alignment mission to reaffirm alignment as I sometimes join friends on random characters to help with that. Anyone have any ideas?
  13. Scientist
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei View Post
    People use multiple accounts to get the PvP rewards.....Brilliant...
    People have been doing that for awhile, its the only reason things like the 3% Def PvP proc became buyable at all. It never occurred to me to use AoEs and 11 accounts, however (not that I have enough need or computer power to do something like this, I just bought the few I have slotted on the market). Before Freedom it would have cost ~$160/month, depending on subscription length, to do this, which I suspect is beyond what even the most enthusiastic CoHer would have been willing to spend.

    My bet is that (1) TopDoc uses multiple computers, and (2) turns the graphics down WAY below what most folks would find acceptable playing. You don't really care about particle counts or shadow rendering for something like this.
  14. Scientist
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sooner View Post
    Right click on the tab and say "Move to top" then r-click on it again and select "move to bottom."
    Tried that on the Chat tab, and after moving it back to the bottom had to drag it back across to the left side, but that fixed it. Thanks much Sooner!
  15. Scientist
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jack_Slade View Post
    Thanks very much for that link! I was unaware they were going to be offline for half the day, that kind of sucks. The patch notes don't go anywhere, they link to the nov 15 publish. Ah well, losing my internet tomorrow because I'm transferring. Wanted to get a look at titan weapons, but looks like that will have to wait until FEB.
    They usually don't announce very far in advance when they are making a major publish, which takes much longer to get going.

    You could potentially try installing and downloading a Beta version of the game, which would let you see TW on the Beta server where its been getting tested. There are some tips on how to do it without a complete reinstall, which takes hours, by copying your existing game files into another folder.

    http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...45#post2844945
  16. Scientist
    If you play enough to get another Destiny power up to T3 or T4, consider also building a Rebirth, one of the heal/regen with large area ones. You may be on a trial with enough Clarions along (or Tactics, etc.) that you can swap it in, and I find the Rebirth just generally handy on all the trials if a bunch of the league has taken damage. It can often prevent a wipe of a large enough chunk of the league to trigger cascade failure of the rest and a complete regroup.
  17. Scientist
    OK, tried rescaling the window larger both to see if it would fix it and to make sure I could "grab" the edge if that was possible. Making it larger did not fix it, and the only part of the edge grabbable on the lower pane was the lower and outer edges. Dragging the lower edge down just made the top pane larger, and dragging it sideways made it larger and smaller horizontally. I never got a grab indicator to let me drag the pane separator up.

    The only arrow I saw was the one in the upper right corner to drop the upper pane back down and just have a chat line, with no tabs. Tried that, tried expanding the single Chat pane which remained, but no luck. Clicking the arrow again brought the upper pane back up but I was just back where I started. Similarly, reshrinking the chat window to 1.0 didn't fix it, nor did trying reloading via /wdwload after doing all of this.
  18. Scientist
    Here is one I'm considering using on my kin/sonic who just hit 50, designed for end game use so high (~38%) ranged and energy defense. I'm not entirely satisfied with it, no soft capping of defense, but I'm not sure how to get there short of going redside for Scorpion Shield and trying for smash/lethal defense capping.

    I'm open to suggestions on it.

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  19. Scientist
    Hi all, I'd seen something like this happen before a few times but logging had fixed it. The lower window section of my Chat window is shrunk to one line vertically, meaning I can't really see what I'm typing there, let alone if anyone is replying. I can drag the bottom boundary down with the mouse, and it just expands the top window section. Zoning, logging, restarting the game doesn't fix it for this particular character, nobody else has the problem. This character has had it for well over a week now. Running Windows XP, using a NVidia graphics card, if that matters.

    I tried using /wdwsave on another character without this problem, then /wdwload on this character, no help. I tried closing the chat window and reopening it, no help.

    Anyone have any ideas?
  20. Scientist
    Do be aware that if you go /energy for a blast set, you will want to learn to use knockback well. Its very easy for /energy to go spraying mobs and whole spawns away from debuff patches, tanks, AoEs, etc. and actually slow the speed of a team. So expect to have to do some running around to line foes up to avoid this, its not so much a "blast everything I see" set on a team. It does have some very nice blast special effects, though.
  21. Scientist
    I have taken the snipe on rad/rad defenders for 2 reasons;

    1. Great set bonuses in Sting of the Manticore, IF you can spare the slots for what isn't a great addition to an attack chain,

    2. Pulling AVs in certain TFs (Patrons in STF, Honoree in LGTF, etc.), in which case you can just leave it at its token slot. Not as frequently needed now with Incarnate powers, mind you.

    OK, admittedly, the animation/sound effect is kinda cool, 2.5 reasons. . .
  22. Scientist
    One possibility is if you want to be able to tank for "most of the game" without running Granite. Not running Granite actually provides a pretty potent "effective" recharge boost, as well as allowing for fighting things like Carnies and Arachnos who have a wide variety of damage type including psi. Then you keep Granite for the small fraction of content that *really* needs it.
  23. Scientist
    I like the build below, it sacrifices capping the positionals other than Range in favor of More AoE Damage, since I see the role of my Crab on a team basically being melting spawns. Hence double Assault and Aim over the Fighting pool, for example, and the Musculature Alpha (not shown). Its quite rare I die, even with an aggressive playstyle in trials, unless I get careless, so I consider that "enough" defense. Call Reinforcements is not quite perma, 9 seconds off with Hasten running, but in practice I've almost never found I *need* to resummon pets the second they recharge, I'm often busy blasting something right then anyway. Obviously for solo play you could do things like drop Recall Friend for Combat Jumping.

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  24. Scientist
    I don't believe +recharge helps the Probots themselves, pets are now immune to that (I think the devs said it interfered with their AI), so unless you are needing to resummon them a lot you might be able to skip the Membranes.

    Have you considered Enzymes? Two of them caps the defense bubbles, thanks to being Schedule A, and handles End Reduction as well. That would let you keep the 3 Soulbound Allegiance for the set bonuses, and still have a spare slot to drop in one of the pet uniques for either more defense or resistance for the pets. I'd suggest resistance, since you already seem to have a lot of defense going.
  25. Scientist
    After some searching, I found this thread, that makes it sound like a problem which may not be easily solved.

    http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=3926918

    Anyone have any ideas?