ShangoKai

How many times during the 7 day window can one SG run the CoP assuming they can fit 5 IoPs in their base? i.e. Do the stackable IoPs count as one plot or two?

No matter how many times I heard "We'll never balance PVE around PVP" I always knew this would happen. Ever since the first time I stood among a pack of 12 werewolves with three blasters on my team and tore them apart without getting hit, as they stupidly kept trying to rush into our hurricane and getting repeled back, I knew this power would never fly in PVP. Why did I know that? Because even though there were ways for the skillful to counter hurricane, the average player still maintains a level of intelligence equal to an AI mob..

Oh I see, thanks

All MMs were told they would receive a slight buff with i7, aimed at PVP but useful in PVE also. Does anyone on test know what this buff is?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How do I do this??

[/ QUOTE ]

There are a ton of excellent guides out there about Pet Binds, and since I suck at making them I didn't really want to go there. If I'm remembering correctly, I placed another copy of the "Attack" button in my tray, then right-clicked on it and selected "Edit." From there, you'll see a window that spells out the actual macro that the Attack button uses. Alter the macro by replacing the text that reads "attack" with "goto."

Anyone who knows more about macro's can feel free to correct me or elaborate if I'm wrong. This is one of those changes that's easy for me to set up when I'm staring at the screen, but hard for me to pull from memory.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's great to have all this valuable info in one thread for the Necro, so I will post my goto bind strategy here. It should be noted that this isn't my only goto bind, but my most used on. I also use Khaiba's binds in addition for individual group control, but this strategy covers about 95% of fights.

An easy way to send only certain pets into combat is to put one letter in their name they share, that no other pet has.

For instance I always want to send my zombies and knights to melee while my ghost and lich hang at range. I would name my pets as follows (just examples to illustrate point, not real names):

Group 1.) Melee:

Bob - Zombie
Nob - Zombie
Cob - Zombie

Slab - Knight
Crab - Knight

Group 2.) Ranged:

Harry - Ghost
Sally - Lich

Now notice that all the zombies and knights included a b in their name, which neither the ghost nor lich has. In addition the ghost and lich both have a y in their name that none of the zombies/knights have.

Now you use two binds:

/bind t petcom_name b goto def (use whatever key you like for "t")
/bind g petcom_name y goto def (use whatever key you like for "g")

Note above: If you don't want the pets in defensive mode when they arrived (which will make them man up to whatever mobs attacked them), then you can put them on aggressive by substituting "agg" for "def" in the bind. This will make them attack whatever's in their range (and possible attack it before it attacks them) but is potentially dangerous when used in a team setting.

Using these two binds and fitting pet names, you can send some pets to melee when they all start at range, or send some pets to range when you all get jumped at melee.

Also, this isn't only useful for the 26+ necro with all his pets. In can be used with two zombies and a graveknight (level 12) for instance. You can make the knight go to melee and the two zombies hang at range (although one would usually try to rush melee anyway, you can pull him back with this command) Just follow the naming guidelines above to give each group a mutually exclusive letter and you're all set.

And just to include the simplified version for completeness, if you want a goto bind that moves all pets to melee, use:

/bind <key> petcom_all goto def (or agg)

[ QUOTE ]
My only experience with Poison was a Ninja/Poison MM I made in beta that I never got past level 2. I've read some good things about specific builds, but I think it's an easy powerset to completely flub up.

[/ QUOTE ]

I got my zombie/poison up to 20 before I ruined it and rolled a dark.. I could never go back. Of course people say it gets better at the higher levels.. but I couldn't make it with that set. Melee pets + alkaloid is a bad combo.

[ QUOTE ]
And you're not the only person to say the -Speed was removed, it's just that I could swear it's still there. I always pick Hurdle over Swift unless there's a specific reason for taking one or the other (a character with stealth, a Stone Tank or Brute, things like that) so if that -Speed has been removed, then Hurdle is the better option of course.

[/ QUOTE ]

I did some tests last night that were no means extensive, but basically timed myself running from point A to point B with it on, then off. Aside from human error margins there wasn't a difference (although I didn't run across a zone, just around in a mission)

I think it may be more of a "trick of the eye" situation, because I logged in my storm defender and he didn't "feel" sped up when canceling steamy mist, like my dark MM feels when I cancel shadowfall (I will definitely agree that it feels slower when first turning it on, and faster when off)

However I think that has something to do with the constantly moving/swirling disc-like nature of the dark effect. It's a trick on the eye that the "disc" feels like it's sliding slowly around (you don't see the tiles/floor traveling beneath you like you do with steamy mist) and when you turn the "disc" off, it feels like you speed up because your feet start passing things on the ground again that your mind's eye uses for reference to base speed upon.

Just a theory.

Hmm it was sometime after I used my storm defender last (steamy mist had -runspeed but it was removed also) and before I started CoV.. so I would say sometime during the year 2005

Maybe the people in this thread know.

[ QUOTE ]
I thought about taking Air Superiority for that very reason (and I've had plenty of characters with TP that never took Hover), but Hover is a quality of life thing for me. It keeps me from falling (especially when everyone who started playing on launch day hit 14 at the same time, so we were all in the same zone) and it gives me a little bit of movement without teleporting past something and back to it. This is especially useful when running one of the roughly 875 missions where you have to use Naylor's portal to get there. Nerva is a bit of a pain for a teleporter.

I will agree that Air Superiority is a great power and that there's nothing like letting falling damage do most of the work in PVP on my Stalker who has it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fair enough. Personally I take AS-> Fly, and then TP Foe with my MMs, but that's all preference.

Another thing I noticed, is that you list swift as counteracting the slowness of shadowfall. Shadowfall's slowness was removed a little while back, so swift is not offering a whole lot to your build. Hurdle is a great substitute and actually let's you go from "cone fear" range to "aoe heal range" much faster than sprint in battle. I had swift for the longest time, but I specced it out and didn't notice a big difference. Adding hurdle on the other hand improved my combat mobility a lot and added QoL to moving around the city and in missions without low celings.

Cool guide and great read I enjoyed it a lot

That's a solid guide. Nice title

One thing I would propose for consideration. Swap hover out for Air Superiority. Your build is very close to my own, with this one main exception. Hover is very counterproductive to the zombie/dark MM because the dark heal is very low range and thus requires you to be very close. Hovering above the battle is not doing you a whole lot of good when you must fall back down every few moments to heal, so your main use for it is to hover inbetween TPs. (which is only a luxury IMO, and I have raised a TPer to the 40s without hover to prove it)

That aside, Air Superiority is another one of those "so good it's almost broken" powers. With AS you can defeat mobs you would not easily be able to defeat without. With AS, purple freak tanks are safe to stand in melee with. With AS and TP foe, longbow flamethrowers (arguably one of our most dangerous natural predators) are a total nonissue. Leaving 3 slotted AS on auto, means that your MM will automatically permanently lock down any mob in melee range with him that you target, which synergizes perfectly with the heavily melee-oriented powersets. AS enhances the god-like PVE capabilities of the Zombie/Dark even further than your proposed build would allow.

Cool guide and diagrams I agree, it could be very useful to help someone understand LOS and how it relates to corners and elevations.

[ QUOTE ]
resist buffs resist resist debuff and defense buffs resist defense debuffs

[/ QUOTE ]

Whoa! Say that five times fast

[ QUOTE ]
Run in a window and don't worry about ALT-TAB

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't have any problems if I don't worry about alt-tabbing. What would be the point in running in windowed mode otherwise?

Well I am definitely not reliant on alt-tabbing so much that it isn't worth the trade-off in performance increase. Overall it's not a large issue, and not one that I would undo the changes for. I have used it to follow things from the web in the past, but really the only time I've even done it lately was when setting up my ingame settings from your guide :P

Anyway I'll check with the res/refresh tonight and make sure that it's set to the same numbers.

Thanks!

Hi Bill,

Last night when I got home I upgraded to the cat 6.3 drivers and made the suggested changes. My performance improvement was amazing! and the quality was still at a very satisfactory level.. however there is only one problem.

I can no longer alt-tab out of the game. Previously I could alt tab and have a firefox window up on one side of the screen, with the game in the background running actively on the other side (to check guides/posts and still watch for badguys)

However now I am locked into the game once in, alt tabbing causes some graphical analomies, such as many grainey squares changing into strange colors, but I can never get my firefox window to display in front of CoV.

Any ideas?

Awesome Bill! What a unique and cool guide. We have the same card and I have simply not been very satisfied with the performance of CoV out of this hardware. I am going to go through all of your settings as soon as I get to the home pc. Thanks!!

[ QUOTE ]
Poison could probably use a boost when taken from a purly numerical standpoint.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is no doubt in my mind that this is true.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
suppression is to prevent you from running after the attack. jousting, in this limited form, is still okay because even after the attack you land and can't speed away yet, giving your opponent time to counterattack.

suppression was simply put in to give player a chance to return fire. it still works in this case, not an exploit.

and you know what, claws gets the short end of the stick on so much other stuff that even if this was an exploit, so what?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not calling for a nerf, nor do I not think that claws should have some tactical advantages in PvP. I'm just pointing out the inherent inconsistency in application brought about by a Red Name posting that this is a legitimate tactic:

1. There is a policy in place that jousting is an exploit. Hence, suppression was introduced to make sure a player jousting cannot speed away without enduring the risk of counterattack. Fine by me (although I don't agree on the policy).

2. The OP stated "Focus fires off and they are dead, rightfully thinning the herd. Your momentum carries you flying by.
By the time you land suppression is over."

Note what he's saying, suppression is not affecting the player because of his momentum. Therefore, no risk of counterattack.

3. A Developer posted this is a legitimate attack and not an exploit.

4. Suppression is not applied consistently. If your momentum in superjump carries you beyond counterattack you are safe. In the same instance, if I divebomb using fly, suppression kicks in immediately (regardless of momentum). Therefore, I should be like superjump in that after my attack my momentum carries me beyond a counterattack. But it doesn't, once I attack with fly, my momentum completely disappears. Same thing with superspeed.

Therefore, why is this not considered an exploit? If it's not, then my stalker and PvP designed scrapper is going for superjump so I can play in Bloody Bay. I just want it to be clear now that this is not a missed application of suppression. Apparently, based on the post, this is working as intended. That's all I'm asking.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you are using a ranged attack, it is obviously not considered jousting, which is using a melee attack that lands after you are far outside of their melee range, by combining it with a travel power.

Awesome guide Thanks for the effort!

Move to Virtue!

It's very scenic there this time of year!

[ QUOTE ]
Well I saw "toons" start cropping up early after the release of AC2 and was the most common term I saw when referring to characters... up to the day I left for CoH. No idea if it actually originated there though.


[/ QUOTE ]

The first place I saw it was a few years ago in a game called the Realm where the characters were actually cartoon-like. Also not sure where it truely originated but if I had to guess it would be the Realm.

WTG Z Thanks man, should help a lot of folks.

Cast- er.... Spyder rocks!

Thanks man

Very cool thread