Shadow_Fire

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Will I15 be our first patch that doesn't actually break something about bases?

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Is that even legal?

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I'll make it legal! Though it would really buck tradition.

Speaking of I15, I discovered a Villain happened to have been auto-promoted enough to pay rent on a fallow VG. To my surprise, it still had two Anger Monuments functioning. I guess they didn't run the purge on test.

Once upon a time not everything on a character would inherit the same visibility as the character, you could wind up invisible with a stunningly obvious jet pack. What about reversing that, and providing a means to set the crab pack invisible while leaving the rest of the character alone? A free to run toggle would work for both costume changes and dual builds, while making it part of, say Bane Armor Upgrade, would make it work for dual builds, but eliminate any oddball issues that might crop up. Heck, there are temp costume powers in game that make the pack disappear, might be able to get away with one that only changes the back slot.

Not that I think even that would be simple, but it may be a direction the Devs haven't looked it for all I know.

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The only times its safe to use Short Circuit in big teams are when the enemy are already locked down by a Tank or Controller.

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Bah! We don't need no stinking Tankers! A good Kin/Elec build only needs to survive 10 seconds or so before a fight is basically won with the second application of SC. Sure, its harder before you get your APP armor at 44, but it is still quite doable. There are certainly foes that you want to use the right insperations (or ally buffs) against, but even tankers can run into that (though far more rarely).

Back in I5 I used to solo in the RCS, it was a blast. I was pulling off a weaker version of the RWZ Scrapper challenge (+2s) at 41. When ED removed the "I Win Button" aspect from SC, I could still do it using Break Frees. Ironically it made it easier, as it trivialized the major threat of Mez, which killed the fun for me. When teams would stall due to a Tanker or "Healer" going AFK, I would regularly kick start it by going off and soloing 8 man spawns. Nothing clues people in that Tankers and "Healers" are unnessicary like XP rolling in.

I started a new Kin/Elec on my current server a few months back, figuring the options from Inventions would breathe new life into the concept for me. What do you know, I'm back to my old tricks again. Soloing where Tanks dread to tread, and ripping up the RWZ once more. Two more levels till 50, then I might feel confident enough in my understanding of the build under the current rules to try my hand at an update to Quason's excellent and ancient guide.




Anywho, Electric Blast's problem is that individually each power is balanced (possible exception in Voltaic Sentinel), yet taken as a whole the set lacks. That is what makes any fix to it such a pain. I suppose a bit more direct draining in a single target power or two might help it live up to its soft control concept.

Another way to remember which is which: Steel is to the South, Croatoa is in the Center, and Founder Falls Fails to give a good memnonic aid.

Nice mock-ups though.

The problem with endurance drain on a Kin/Elec is you only get two powers with reliable and useful recovery debuffs: Short circuit and Tesla Cage. You won't be very good at Endurance draining until you can get SC's recharge to under 10 seconds. Thankfully all you need for that is some recharge SOs and Siphon Speed. When you get SOs, 1 Accuracy, 3 Recharge, 2 End Mod will have SC doing the job. It still takes about 10 seconds to full drain a group, so you will want other defenses in place to keep you going while waiting on SC to recharge.

Until then, put Damage in SC and just kill things faster with it. Focus your attacks on a single target with the intent of draining its endurance as it ticks up another batch before it can use that endurance itself.

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a volcano splitting the island into 4 is silly. It would have been far bigger than Krakatoa. Assuming a natural volcano - which don't occur on the east coast.

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Your presuming that the explosion did the job. Its perfectly possible that collapse of a caldera or magma chamber did the job, or one heck of a landslide caused by the eruption. Besides, there is heavy implication that magic was involved in some way.

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that Sharkshead is between Bloody Bay and the rest of the former Grandville, and the other geographical inconsistencies.

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Anyone know the difference in threat lvl you generate from using the two Immob's and any other ST and AoE attacks?

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Stone Cages is a 16 target max available at level 2. Taunt is a 5 Target max, available at 10 (Tankers) and 12 (Brutes). It takes time to agro 16 targets effectively for most people, as the majority of powers outside of nukes hit 10 targets at maximum, AoE immobilizes being one of the rare exceptions. What your probably seeing is the targets of Cages that haven't been hit by the Brute (or whatever), attacking you instead. The 30 foot sphere on the immobilize compared to the vastly smaller area on most other attacks isn't helping either, as Footstomp only has a 15 foot radius (one of the largest areas available to melee types no less). Plenty of room for things to be missed by the Brutes, yet hit by the Dom's Immobilize with capacity to hit far more, and widespread, foes.

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everyone near the caster gets the mob buffs too (though in fairness, I think that one was true at one point, many many moons ago),

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Yes it was, back in the Dawn Times, FS gave a 25% buff per target hit radiating from the caster, as well as the 25% from each target. By I14 at the latest (and probably I3, I never got to the old version), The caster generated the single 50% buff we have now.

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8) Induce Mitosis and hope to GOD that the cells grow smaller as they begin to sub-divide.

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Crey tried that already. It didn't work out so well...

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5) Remind Jack In Irons that there's always room for Jell-O.

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You should ask BAB how GMs fair against Hamidon sometime.

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1) Whipped cream and spoons. Lots of whipped cream and lots & LOTS of spoons.

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Sadly, with the zone cap its nearly impossibly to find enough people to wield the spoons. Hamidon however does taste wonderful with whipped cream!

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I wish I could say the AoE Immobilize can out aggro a team of meleers myth was false... but say that to my Earth dom. Ouch... even waiting for teams of SoAs and brutes before me to fight for a few moments before casting the AoE is instapain.


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It is false. The problem is AoE Immobilizes are often the earliest available AoE attack in the game, meaning your the only one to have damaged a foe, and thus get the agro. The simple way to avoid it, is to wait until you see someone else use an AoE before using it, and don't take the useless thing until well after it unlocks. Controllers have a minor excuse in wanting to use if for Containment, Dominators gain nothing but pain by taking it the moment it is available.

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When you include the time it takes to get the satellite missiles and the EB level pets, you're really not saving a lot of time, if any at all.

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With the way raids have been going for me, spending time getting people nukes and shivans would probably be easier. Its the huge number of EoE that such a raid would need that keeps me from really considering doing it. Far, far too few people show up for any PI monster ranching to gather a significant store.


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Sandolphan, thanks for the link.

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I presume that the no-run raids simply have the Antibodies tanked the moment they spawn? About time someone was doing that, I wanted to try and do that on our test raids. Never did get around to it. Run Faster, indeed.

Goramit, those are good times. Victory is still doing 5 hour raids on the rare occasions I actually get enough people together to run one. I think we've had all of 4 successful raids since I9, and only 5 more failed attempts. (Not counting the two recently called due to pitiful turnout.)

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I saw Hickman on the list!!!





Oh wait, wrong Hickman

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I DID, however, turn up on the Top Twenty Desi Arnaz Impersonators of the Great Lakes Region...

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That list is bogus, Ditka didn't even appear on it!

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Short Circuit is the only power in Electric Blast you should even think about slotting with Endmod. And even then I'd still say damage it a bigger priority.

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Agreed, only SC should ever be slotted for Endurance Modification. For PvP with its low value, and Fulcrum Shift's lesser usefulness, damage should be a higher priority. Besides, the recovery debuff is bound to be more annoying. For PvE however, a Kin/Elec would be remiss to skip putting enough endmod in to reach 50% end drain.

Four years later I'm still honked off over Geko's comment when responding to Electric Blast's general weakness that (paraphrasing) "but endurance drain will be great in PvP!" Then I4 hits a short time later and we discover its a quarter the value it is in PvE and even harder to accomplish anything with it. Electric Blast still needs a good once over from Castle.

We officially suck at Hamidon raids. Who says they aren't worth the time for the merits?

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Which means that the whole raid can be over FAST

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Holy friggin hell! That is bloody impressive! Though I'm not surprised to see Sandolphan running the show. Next time Victory whines about raid times, I'm linking that video. I knew under an hour times would come soon enough, but under 10 minutes? Dayum!

While an interesting idea I don't see it working out that well.

<ul type="square">[*]Getting 11 of anything to a Hami raid would be a chore, and would eat up over a 5th of your raid force.[*]You'd still need Taunters to keep Hamidon and his blasters busy during the big move.[*]You would need EoE and healing to keep the bubblers alive while pushing the Antibodies, and End buffs for pushing the Electrolytes.[*]You would need to push them all out of line of sight, those things have stupidly long range.[*]The Abyss has very few spots you could push these. You might run out and have to cluster them together increasing the odds someone dies and busts the push.[*]It won't be a speedy process.[*]Even if I'm wrong and it works spectacularly, the single power tactic is exactly the sort of thing that the Devs were trying to avoid with the revamp. It would be bound to be fixed as soon as reasonable.[/list]That said, I wouldn't mind helping out on Test experimenting with the idea. It would be worth it just for the laughs, even though I don't have a FF.

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I'm sorry, but you are in fact wrong.

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Again, I'm more than happy for people to disagree with me. It's statements like this that make me not feel like discussing it. Thanks for reminding me why to avoid the forums.

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The key words in the OP were "set up," there is no real set up in what your describing, nor is it preemptive healing. It certainly is preemptive power activation, but if none of your targets are injured between the time you reach for the button and the healing is applied, it does nothing. It is at the mercy of dumb luck to succeed rather than any inherent ability for the power to preempt anything.

Its a tactic I often use myself, a habit I picked up soloing on my Kin/Elec. I hit Transfusion right before hitting Short Circuit in the hopes of dealing with any incoming damage that occurs during my reaction time so that SC's 3 second animation time is less of an issue for anyone. Too often someone has needed a heal just after I pressed the key, usually myself, so a tiny waste of endurance is something I'm willing to risk to forestall any potential issues. Thankfully it actually helps now and again, but it isn't reliable like a buff would be at preempting anything.

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Yeah, I wonder why they stopped doing the Times. Seemed interesting enough to me the scoop aside.

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The writer moved on to another job, if I recall correctly. There may have been another reason why it didn't continue with someone else though.

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I wish the one about Karma: Knockback Protection in Dispersion Bubble were true. I would never have remade my Bots/Bubbles Mastermind as Bots/Traps. Do putting any of those global effects into PBAoE buffs make them affect everyone in the buff area?

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I don't think so. Global IO's, buff procs, and heal procs affect the caster (there might be some bugged exceptions here); damage procs and debuff procs affect foes.

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Well, Performance Shifter Chance for Endurance in Speed Boost will give the target of the power the benefits of the proc should it fire rather than the user. So you could slot it in Recovery Aura to give everyone a minor chance for a minor endurance refill each time you used it. I can't think of any others that might work that way, but they would all be proc effects rather than the constant bonuses. So, close, but not quite.

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&lt;3 DM

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QFT.
With over 180 levels in DM, I was kind of an addict before the changes. After? Well, I'll get around to my goal of 50s in all the other ATs some year. There is always another DM idea to distract me.

I like GC, I've actually found myself wanting for it when SK'd below 41 when I took it. With just a single extra slot I give 18% extra defense to all those that bother to get in melee near me. A nice added bonus just for basking in the Awesome that is the Scrapper.
I only try to use CG to aid those who should be in melee with me, others just get it when I leap in to save the day and their behind.

However, I think putting Defense Debuff Resistance in CG was the wrong carrot for the power. Miladys_Knight is right, minor scale protection in the power for the Scrapper is a far better incentive to take Grant Cover. At about 3% Defense, it would certainly make the power more attractive. If Castle thinks that Shields would be too powerful with that Defense boost, well the set has Resistance it can spare.

What, Stalkers can't worry about how they look? It takes effort to look good while dealing death.

Mary Kay-
Replace Kiss of Death with:
Assassin's Kiss: With the proper lipstick you can lay anyone low by planting a big fat one on their lips. Interruptable. Smashing and Toxic Damage, does extra Toxic damage when hidden.

Avon Armor-
Replace You Smudged my Makeup with:
Too Pretty to be Trouble: You apply a cunning layer of makeup that hides your criminal intent from your foes. Either that, or you look so outlandish you must be Someone Else's Problem. Toggle, costs no endurance. Grants the Hide state.

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It's just a problem of anchor points, I've heard.

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Specifically, players don't have the required attachment point to hook a jetpack onto. And yes, we do have the crab packs. However, ever looked at one of those on a female character? It's not actually attached to their back at all, rather it hovers a good half a foot out from it. Similarly, it'll become embedded in the back of a huge character. (Least I think it does, I know the various temp travel packs do but I don't think I've ever looked closely at a huge spider sans uniform) Also, they don't scale very well.

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Would it be so hard to add a box to the hidden side of the jetpack? On Male and Huge models it would hide inside the character out of sight, while on females it would cover the fact that the pack is floating behind the character. Basically take advantage of the usual clipping issues for once.

Alternately, would making 3 jetpacks instead of one be that big of an issue when all you'd really need to do is modify the back end of it and make sure the animations line up with the jets?

I know its certainly more complex than I think it is, but sometimes experts miss the simple solutions as they've been trained to look for the 'right' way to do things.

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Victory, which typically hovers between the "average" and "ghost town" servers in population, has a scheduled Hami raid every second week, on the weeks between the Night Shift's bi-monthly Rikti Raids.

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Technically, the every other week raids still haven't taken off. The last two flat out fizzled, with only 18 showing up at most. Someone else is trying one on the 12th, I think, hopefully someone better at getting people to show than I am will help drive up interest again. That and the extra 12 merits on test.

So, getting raids going isn't the easiest thing in the world. A badge for the job would at least spike temporary interest and may expose new people to the existence of the raid. Though I'd guess that the extra merits and something to deal with the issues of the 50 person zone cap would help more in the long run.