Shift

Heya guys,

Whenever the game needs to load a portrait picture of someone, it grinds to a halt, when i manage to remove this need, its back to normal again. This is quite annoying when i want to do my own mission.

Also it very rarely stays like this after applying the 'hot fix', but loading up a portrait image (like clicking on contacts) and then removing it fixes the problem again.

Affected parts of the game:
Contacts (the list as well as individual contacts)
Personal info (own and other players)
I.D.
Costumes

Things i've done:
1. verify all files (even did a complete redownload)
2. updated graphics drivers to the newest.

Further more, my pc specs:
MB: Asus P5b deluxe
CPU: E6600 2.4Ghz
GFX: Asus 8800GTS 320MB
MEM: 2 x 1 GB Twinmos PC-6400
OS: Windows 7 Professional

Even though its not a monster pc, it couldnt be the problem, as the rest of the game runs smoothly. It almost looks like there's something wrong with the way 2D representations are rendered.


EDIT---
Also remembered that at ICON, the actualy picking of the costume lags, but the editing doesnt, which is consistent with the 2D rendering theory.

in no particular order

1. Midnight Grasp (Dark Melee) "Hey there, take a look at the underworld!"
2. Golden Dragonfly (Katana) "Go. Hunt. Split Skuls."
3. Irradiate (Radiaton Blast) "Its my own personal Mini-nuke"
4. Soul Transfer (Dark Armor) "Stunning AVs for fun"
5. Quick Recovery (Regeneration) "First character that _didn't_ get stamina at lvl 20"
6. Incandecent Strike (Luminous Blast) "its like Total Focus, only that much awesomer"
7. Shadow Maul (Dark Melee) "Take that.. and that... and that.. and that... oh and _that_ too."

Don't know if its been mentioned, but in the ID screen, the "known powers" sections has become way too small for high lvl villains with lots of extra powers. Maybe enlarge it, or make it scrolling?

50 DM/DA: Most fun i will ever have and still one of my favorite toons.
50 Kat/Regen: Nice allround build, great survivability.
1 DB/Inv: hoping to see if this will work as a combo

can i sign myself up in advance for when you do it in i11?

It's ok Cynic, we're just glad everything turned out ok

and nice job on the TF all

Sign me up then.

Shift 50 DM/DA
TTL 50 Kat/Regen

whichever you want me to bring

Shabriel L40 Peacebringer signing up.

Was great fun, thx for team everyone. Went real smooth

on second thought, ill bring my DM/DA scrapper, muchly more fun

Nah, both have a hero and a villain character. one with loads of inf on his hero, and needing inf on his villain, one with loads of inf on his villain and needing inf on his hero.

So:
BEFORE
Player A:
VillainA (25 million inf)
HeroA (0 inf)

Player B:
VillainB (0 inf)
HeroB (25 million inf)

SWITCH
VillainA gives VillainB 25 million inf
HeroB gives HeroA 25 million inf.

AFTER
Player A:
VillainA (0 inf)
HeroA (25 million inf)

Player B:
VillainB (25 million inf)
HeroB (0 inf)

Ill join in with TTL L50 Kat/Regen

on demand i could also bring Shift, L50 DM/DA

Ah well, maelwys and i clearly have a different opinion on this point and im not going to bother trying to convince him

[ QUOTE ]

I have personally played both Regen and Dark Scrappers to 50, and I know their strengths and weaknesses. I'm not stating that to appear arrogant, but to show that I am not basing my POV solely on meaningless figures.


[/ QUOTE ]

If you had taken a look at my signature i too have played them to 50 and are not basing my POV solely on meaningless figures.

In my experience Regen is the worst at surviving alpha strikes (again im NOT saying that it instantly dies at any alpha strike) CoF is NOT rubbish if you take the time to slot it right, OG also helps... a lot, it kicks in fairly quickly. Maybe it helps that i play my DA with CoF constantly on and thus get noticed less, but i dont know, as i dont know your build.


In conclusion, you and i both interpret the numbers differently and 'from experience' think certain factors weigh differently.

Offcourse, i'm not taking Sets into account as they can be rediculously expensive and its not reasonable to expect any 'avarage' player to be slottedup on SetIOs fully.

Hmm, they must have changed DP since the early days (never really looked closely at it) when the +max HP _wasnt_ enhanceable. (btw, using mid's builder as an authority for the sake of discussion is flawed, but ill give you this one)

IH still isnt up every fight its base recharge is 650 seconds, and with 3 rech IOs and hasten (even if it'd be perma) it still takes 241 seconds to recharge, 4 minutes. So you cant rely on it as you main tactics aswell. Besides it not being very good at burst damage (its awesome vs DoT) also makes it 'unsuitable' for taking alpha strikes

Dark does not rely on resistance alone to mitigate damage, Cloak of Fear and Opressive Gloom drastically reduce incoming damage (-tohit and disorient) I dont feel like doing the numbers, but im betting DA totally murders Regen in that section.

DA and Torrent both are of equal value to _all_ secondairies, well, at least torrent is. Dark Avalance is of a little less value to defense sets, but still, Dark Armor and regen take even benefits off of it.

So yes, Regen has the addition of more HP, but Dark really outperforms it with shear other damage mitigation, as does invuln which has the +HP AND more RES/DEF and SR who isnt far above regen, but still outperforms it i think.

[ QUOTE ]
1) Target boss
2) Wait for the tank to move - swift usually means I'm faster than they are unless they are tpers.
3) Press 'F'
4) Activate cobra strike, wait for it to hit
5) Activate focus chi and rest of attack chain.
6) Get scrapperlock, mash buttons till everything is 'arrested'.

[/ QUOTE ]

QTF and for restarting the thread for its purpose.

Any scrapper should always try to achieve scrapperlock! its the best think after sliced bread!

numbers look nice n all, but from what i know, DP only has a 40% HP boost. you can enhance the portion it heals, but not the +max HP portion. Which is why most tend to use it in combat, not before.

Also, not everyone has all the accolade bonusses, my dark scrapper has, but havent had the time/energy to do em on my regen.

using parry/divine avalanche and energy torrent to show that /regen is good at taking alpha strike is ofcourse nonsense.

all the other methods require you to pop one of your mayor heals and time it just right. Which is really devastating for your survivability as a /regen in the rest of the fight (as contrairy to what most people think, your regen mostly comes from frequent use of DP and Recon. IH to a lesser extent.)

Also, as i said, IH is not of much use in taking alpha strikes, as most of the damage hits you withing 1 or 2 ticks of the power, making it effectively quite useless for the situation.

The only valid option to survive an alpha strike better is to use DP before combat, which ruins the 3 heal SOs you put in it for the extra heal.

A litte comparison.
A regen scrapper with DP on has 40% extra HP (not 60%) has effectively 29.5% RES to all but has to trade that for a heal that instantly heals you with 60% HP and gives you 'then' the 40% HP boost.

30% RES isnt that much if you consider that most secondairies do better than that. Invuln gets there, but also has defense which when taking the alpha is good, as you have more foes around you i.e. more defense. SR does better aswell (especially considering secondairy effects) and DA does 30% RES alone, and on top of that has lots of other damage mitigation powers. DA and Invuln have a better heal waiting than a /regen after popping DP, and invuln and SR have a better god-mode power waiting. (face it, MoG is [censored] in most situations, even tho i took it )

So id still rank them
dark/invuln
sr
regen

P.S.
My katana/regen doesnt have DA. its quite a nifty power but for real use you want it perma (otherwise it isnt worth investing the slots) and that means using it often, which, on top of that i HATE the animation, totally ruins my dps. which for me is a better way of surviving.

anyway, we're drifting offtopic here


P.S.
a way to calculate how much extra 'RES' the +%HP is:
+10%HP = 9.1%RES
+40%HP = 29.5%RES
+50%HP = 33%RES
+100%HP = 50%RES
+200%HP = 66%RES
+300%HP = 75%RES (scrapper cap)

although the hp cap keeps you from reaching anything more than +60%HPish

The formula is using decimal to describe you hp. 100% HP is 1. so 40% extra HP is 1.4 if you take this number to the power of -1, you get what you would have left. you have to subtract this number from 1.

So the fomula (1-(X^(-1)))*100%
where X = the decimal number, e.g. for 40% extra 1.4, for 100% extra 2

-------------

[edit]
I'm not outright dismissing Regen, im just saying that counting it on par with DA as one of the best alpha strike takers just isnt correct. Sure, regen can take some alpha strikes, but when push comes to shove, SR/DA/INV all survive better and longer (and thus outperform) Regen.

Also, AVs arent the hardest alpha strikes, they hit slow and most of the time not for all your hp. The hardest alpha strikes are those of big groups of +4 levels with severs lts and more than 1 or 2 bosses


[edit2]

Regen does have an advantage against rare types of damage or hardly resistsed types (toxic,energy,untyped) but those dont come into play very often, most of the times the incoming damage will be largely, if not entirely smash/lethal, where regen thus is at a disatvantage

taking an alpha with DP/IH requires you to survive the initial alpha. especially on larger teams with higher rep settings, the initial strike is more than the 1300or so HP you get (at lvl 50), Dark invuln and SR all have some way of _not_ taking the full load of damage. regen does not (except for a tiny bit in resilience, which is a [censored] power anyway).

Using DP up front might help a bit, but that cancels out half of your mayor healing power (DP and Recon) which will haunt you later in the fight.

Instant Healing wont cut it as an Alpha taker, as its a fast heal rate, but if the initial alpha doesnt kill you, IH isnt likely to regenerate you up to enough HP for the follow up attacks.


So in short, the 'kill' is almost instant, which is too short of a time to use either DP/Recon or IH.


Then again, it offcourse depends on enemies, levels and numbers, but if i had to rank the Scrapper secondairies for alpha strike taking, regen would claim last place (even under SR yes). i dont have extensive experience with SR and Invuln, but from what i have seen, they both outperform regen in the alpha strike part.

from the little knowledge i have:
1. Dark, good resists and an awesome self heal
1. Invuln, decent resists and defense, especially in a group, also DP is a nice heal
(no typo, i'm guessing they are both even)
3. SR, no heal, but Defense gives mitigation
4. Regen, alpha strike is most likely fatal in team missions at higher lvls

Pretty much what all of the above said.

On my scrappers i usually charge in with the tank, just before, or just after, depending on what we are fighting (faction/lvl/mob size). I just hack away at the bosses, trying to keep them away from the squishies. after that its cleanup time.

offcourse, in scrapperlock, all of the above advice is useless


P.S.

Maelwys
[ QUOTE ]

/Regens and /Darks are also fantastic at taking alpha strikes because they can go from near-zero health to full quickly and regularly.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, dark can take an alpha strike fairly good (except if its pure energy) and dark regen gets you back up and running in no-time. But regen lacks any Resistance or Defense at all. On my regen scrapper i almost never take the alpha, as he is likely to faceplant due to nature of an alpha strike: sheer burst damage, one of the few weak points in the /Regen set.

i repeat that i cant do it this weekend, but if you want to do it later, heres my current build.

Shift:
| Copy & Paste this data chunk into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MHDz;2862;661;884;|
>-K=EDN/VC`0Q^](?`=N/53;^I67>MHM7=%N=U7!JG<W<2$J<9`35D6R\MD[3F**RKB%:Q44X.>Q_9^
')UDH4\]E*[\JTY2U?D??\.G$/JM\H^MMO3[856[D;J?,=#*7YL?L46V5LOW/6U/5QG[4&V64;NU]V6
K5-':U4ZJPGY7<E7IM[[?E>M/:N[HXS!YETRISF$Z('2YJ(]O=YGG'.A9WHB.=R`"?(6:[>;5V*/L+$
BCZH(ME\1,HYY[&_=9DO$>H#0G,[):JF<L*J!">IE=02NRJ5;+X#K&8?3%UJ_(6XNY,' ^[`B*6D-V4@
/CJ&B8"_2*@H@LAY%"B[D.'A`CQHX'!G@9AR?"H>L!!.0]AGBO??W:=]M7,FQ)OX2"6@SFF$9?+-($8
<Q20X9B3(AVU=G'G`[0REC*&.A+`(X3']0ZUB^4<*@,7(8<%8BC,LM\?SZL+`7`:6>^W$1D&lt ;E?`P6=4
EB<#WMJU++5\WL?:U?Y%8UN=*Y`D?72K]=YB_F\!HF<\'Z)2+F9G8+);=NZZ,W@N%PU)/`+7:U=Q:90
+(YN9(S[Y<K<>>9"]!C73A![+A;AF+.0GB0SR@L+3#Y,((F@E^)Q][!^TY+[(,TE?S=3J6PWC7E+4
GR),4A2(T/5\5)58BC\!8.2,<:2$+V:!LDZ]TUG?W+`'3S::<*<XQ<1RY`QRY&SQ['*&B!74-V'7X>+
`4XOC7<J=HC\U"H$P6/6Y7I3M7'V#@8C^>R#SLEPVD\!CDR>CE7#%1<=3=*: 2A#P/!L1=@O?[!IH^C.
)<!/FX;-R?`R3C`BDQD5S.,&>R$![%I!"UU`::E$A/7A,H5L>G[Q$LD"1OX]+#0UO1DX5B>^/_WIQ\_
E\RG?P""S34#P``
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

With now 1 cyto in FA (want to buy them, but they arent available.)

Im sorry, i cant make saturday or sunday, as im out the whole (long) weekend.

Maybe some other time tho.

sure thing, just pick a date.

I can now bring either a 50 Kat/Regen or a 50 DM/DA

Original Hero:
Shift
Most Notable Alias(es):
TTL/(Fill in lots of things here) Shift
Supergroup(s):
The Guardian Council, The Contingency, Paragon Defenders, The Iron Monkeys
Account Created:
11 Jan 2005
Veteran Rewards Time:
2 Years, 0 Months, one or 2 small breaks and 1 8-month break
What Are You Doing Now?:
Computer Sciences in uni, and playing on and off a bit
What would make you return to CoH?:
Not much really, except loads of high end content, but we dont see that happening anytime soon.

if you are referring to Willpower NOT becoming a tanker primairy you are wrong.

Willpower and Dual Blades will go to ALL 4 melee ATs (Brutes, Scrappers, Stalkers, Tankers) Stalkers will get modified versions.

So yes, Willpower IS going to be a tanker primairy (amongst others)

I picked both, but revive only as the spare L49 power.

I even 6-slotted MoG (Yeh, go figure)

If you just know when to use it, you'll get great benefits from it. Its true that you cant just flat out dumb push the button whenever things get bad, but if you know when you can, its a great power.

And grats to you too teamed with icenii in the 40s quite a lot too