Shuckins

Is there a way to transfer influence from a character on one server to a character on another? I have a tank on Freedom which has quite a bit of influence that I need for a character on Virtue so that I can make an expensive recipe purchase.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Thanks for the responses guys. I may go the regeneration route. I've taken two tanks to level 50 in the past. The first was an Invulnerable/Super-Strength build, the second was a Willpower/Super-Strength build. The Willpower build had far less trouble with the Clockwork King and Ring Mistresses than did the Invulnerable build....yet I like the resists inherent in Invulnerability, and the debuffs and holds in Dark Melee. Hence the desire to level up a new build with SOME psionic defense/resistance.

I'll save up my influence and start picking up IO sets after level 30.

I recently got two pieces of Impervium Salvage, one of which I sold for a considerable sum. I'm currently leveling an Invulnerable/Dark Melee tank (Legendary Alien).

As many of you know, the only REAL hole in Invulnerability's resists/defense is psionics. I'm not really interested in building a "high-dollar" build. The only thing I'm really interested in doing with this build is plugging the psionics hole, at least in part, and without having to invest TONS of influence, if that is possible.

So...that is the question. Can this be done? I've got about 5 million influence so far (The build is at level 18.) Shoring up psionics defense/resistance I don't see as a necessity until I hit level 40....so I've got time to build up some excess influence if I need it. What sets do I need to purchase and what salvage will I need, and what is the earliest level that I can pick up worthwhile sets?

Thanks for the help.

I've been spending some time red-side this last week, after perusing the Brute forums. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about Fury. Read some of the stats about how a full fury bar really pumped up the damage of their attacks.

So, I built a couple or three brutes with various primary and secondary power sets. The first was a dual blades/willpower build called Banished Caine, which was essentially a mirror image of a tank I have on Freedom with the same power sets. I went for offense first, with the first three attacks available for dual blades.

By level 10 the differences between the brute and the tank, in terms of damage, were not just significant, they were stark. True, the tank had more inherent surviveability, but when it came to sheer fun and the ability to pile bodies up quickly, there was no contest: the brute won, hands down. With a full fury bar I could take down even level cons with a single attack. Try doing that with the dual blades set on a tanker build, without IO enhancements, buildup, and all the other gimmicks available. It can't be done.

So, in retrospect, I'll modify my previous wish for tanks to be a wish for the inclusion of Fury in all tank builds....or at least a modified version of it.

Well, I don't know what is going on...exactly. I have some suspicions or notions of my own about the nerfs....but they're based on personal opinions or biases of my own...so there may not be much substance to them.

Right after MA became active I could log on to any server, take a toon to the AE building and find the game room absolutely stuffed with players. There might be as many as half-a-dozen teams actively playing arcs. There was a level of excitement that I hadn't seen in the game in a long time.

Of course....there were exploits....and no one expected those to last. We were certain that the nerf bat would be brought out eventually. What we didn't expect was that the CoH community was about to split into two diametrically opposed bodies of opinion about the merits of the MA system as a whole: the "purists" who believe that a new player can't properly develop their skills unless they are playing the original developer's mission arcs; and the dedicated AE players themselves.

A nasty undercurrent of contention arose between the two groups. The "purists" felt that AE play made it difficult to organize teams for developer's content missions. They felt exploits were ruining the game and its players.

Unfortunately, they had the developer's ears. Some AE players went along with the tide of opinion to keep the peace within the community, and to help to smooth out the contentious issues in the AE content.

But the more the "purists" got in the way of change, the more they wanted. Perhaps that's unfair...but it sort of captures the spirit of the thing. They've gone over every aspect of the AE system with a microscope...looking for all manner of sins....and the developers are still listening. Where the needed changes could have been accomplished with a feather-duster, the developers used a sledge-hammer.

Now the excitement that swirled around the original AE system is long gone. What little life there is left is being methodically stripped away. The AE system in all but two of the servers are now ghost towns.

Damn shame.

Turned 56 last October. I'm an ex-school teacher. Some of my former students are convinced I spend my summers in a coffin.

The Fifties were idyllic...
The Sixties were demented...
In the words of John Lennon, "The Seventies were a DRAG you know..."

Gaming in those days was done on boards, barefoot, and uphill both ways...

...and the "eff" word was considered base...not cool...

There are situations in-game where regeneration can be overwhelmed. I'd get rid of Aid Other and Aid Self, which would be of limited utility anyway, and make room for Tough and Weave. These two pool powers would help give your build time to get the most out of its regeneration bonuses.

Rylas....got ya. Didn't think about the mods locking the thread. Won't happen again.

Wow. Where to begin?

Guess I'll start with this: It's a fallacy that a tank cannot kill quickly. There are a number of primaries and secondaries that offer the tools for constructing a durable farming build.

There are two basic approaches to be followed in achieving this goal. First, a build that offers sufficient endurance to ensure an almost unbroken series of attacks, regardless of the primary being employed. Fire, Dark, and a couple of other primaries have endurance draining powers that make such an approach possible. My personal favorite primary for such a build, however, is Willpower, which offers both Quick Recovery and Stamina. Couple Willpower with a secondary such as Fire or Super Strength, add Hasten, put Foot Stomp on auto-fire, and then jump into a large mob. Coupled with Willpower's regeneration rate, you have a first rate killing machine. My claws-scrapper fanatic son and I teamed up once for a level 50 arachnos mission, and the speed with which that build could kill left him bug-eyed.

The second approach is to select a primary with a strong damage aura and couple it with a high damage secondary with strong AoE attacks, such as Fire or Electricity. While I find the Fire Primary to have a gimpy feel in terms of survivability, that is more a matter of personal preference than anything else. Fire has a strong self heal and endurance recovery powers. With Hasten, and prior to the arrival of Shields, no tank build killed like a Fire/Fire build.

However, since the GDN of issue 3 there has been quite a bit of complaining about the slow killing ability of the tank alts. This complaining was continuous, at least by some, and at times vociferous. The advent of the Shields primary is, in my opinion, an unspoken admission by the developers that the tanker primaries were a bit gimped in the damage department. Shields has a power available at level 6 (Having a brain fart; can't remember the name of the damn thing.) which, when fully slotted with SO enhancements, pumps up the damage of the secondary's attacks by 80% when surrounded by 10 foes. Couple that with Shield Charge, and you have scrapper level damage output, depending on the secondary being utilised.

In return for all this, you get a measure of survivability when standing in the center of the intense furnace of a mob's hatred that no other alt can match.

I don't think I can list just one. How about three....in order of preference?

Rage for all tanker primaries.

Two handed weapon set: polearm/long-axe/great sword

Broadsword

Well, I have a number of points to make about Tankers and their role on a team.

First, not all taunt auras are the same. Of all the tanker primaries available in the game the one best able to hold aggro WITHOUT taking Taunt itself is the Ice primary. If memory serves, it has two taunt auras. If a mob steps into range of an Ice tank's auras it is HELD....period. The difference between Ice's ability to hold aggro compared to, say, a Willpower tank is stark.

Other primaries with strong taunt auras are Invulnerability and Stone. Properly slotted, mobs seldom escape once held by either of these two tanker builds. Fire holds aggro fairly well, unless Burn is employed. Willpower's aura will hold a mob for only two seconds, unless a Taunt enhancement is used in Rise to the Challenge. Even then, a Willpower MUST use Taunt to help control a mob during a team battle. Why the devs gave Willpower tanks such a weak aura, when a tank's main responsibility is controlling aggro to keep his team safe, is a mystery.

Secondly, Taunt works exceptionally well in gaining and holding aggro. For tanks below level 20, it often works TOO well. Depending on the team, and the level of the mission, and the enemy, low level tanks often cannot survive the aggro and the resultant alpha strike when employing Taunt. Try tanking +3 enemies, especially CoT, on a team with only ONE healer. Iffy at best. And highly frustrating. Newby tanks, who have yet to learn the tricks of the trade, often give up on their builds in frustration. It doesn't help them when smark-aleck team mates make snide remarks about their lack of talent.

Thirdly, it's kind of hard to hold aggro when mobs are constantly being blown out of range of a tank's taunt aura. Having a squishy blaster run screaming in circles bellowing for help after one of their cone attacks has blown mobs out of my aura always brings a smile to my face.

In conclusion, all archtypes have their strengths and weaknesses, which teammates should make themselves familiar with, and not play in a way themselves that makes it difficult for their fellow teammates play as effectively as they should.

Cheers!

Thanks to TBoxer for his gift of a Steadfast Protection knockback IO. It's working perfectly.

The build is now at level 16, and I just picked up Health. Rep still at +0 and equivalent to 3 allies. Chewing through mobs quite nicely. I can take one mob with a couple of lieutenants or three in it, hit Healing Flames when my health bar drops by about a third, finish the mob off and hit Healing Flames again, jump into the middle of another mob, hit a lieutenant in the teeth a couple of times to draw aggro and then hit Consume. The action rolls along pretty fast. Consume may not be Quick Recovery, but it helps a low-level fire tank tremendously.

I'm running Tough with an endurance reduction enhancement, one damage resistance enhancement, and the Steadfast Knockback protection enhancement. My attacks consist of the first attack available (What the heck IS its name?), Shadow Maul, and Sands of Mu. Have to jump around a bit to get the full benefit of those last two, but that's part of the fun. Have no trouble tagging at least three to five enemies if they're grouped just right.

This build kills quickly.

Thanks Minotaur....I think I'll try your suggestion. I haven't sold much of my salvage, so maybe I'll get lucky.

Regards,
Shuckins

Thanks for the offer. I am, indeed, on Freedom. The toon is named Darck Fyre. I'm usually on after 4:00 p.m. during the weekdays, and at irregular hours on the weekend. Look me up if you don't mind.

Thanks again,

Regards, Shuckins

Thanks for the reply TBoxer.

The problem I have with the Steadfast Protection Knockback IO is that I have been unable to use Wentworth's for several months now. My computer is the knuckle-dragging neanderthal of pc's. Everytime I try to access the Wentworth's salesman it locks up...and I have to reboot. I've tried deleting all my cookies....manipulating my graphics and frame rate and other settings and nothing seems to help. About one try in ten I can actually make a connection. After all that I just decided it wasn't worth the headache....so my builds operate without IO enhancements.

Regards, Shuckins

I've been a fan of Dark Melee for some time now, for a number of reasons. While the damage isn't eye-popping dark energy is largely unresisted and this set has the capability of hitting multiple targets at once. Thus it is energy efficient. It also has a small self-heal in Siphon Life which, when fully slotted is of some usefulness to tanker builds whose primary power sets lack a self-heal....such as WP.

However, Dark Melee lacks a strong AoE attack, which means that it pairs best, at least to my mind, with a tanker primary that has a damage aura of some type.

This brings me to the Fire primary, which I've played around with some in the past, and have enjoyed, but have never taken beyond level 20. Why, you ask? Because of it's lack of any real protection against knockback. Sure, I know, I could compensate or it by picking up the leaping pool and getting Acrobatics....but to do so I'd have to take at least one and possibly two powers that I might not want in the build. That's three power picks I'm required to take in order to get ONE type of status protection. I've always found that to be rediculous, especially since every other tanker primary set has it as a selection within the primary powers themselves.

Well, the developers aren't going to change that just to keep ME happy....so I've decided to bite the bullet and just do it.

To get to the point, I was playing around with a Fire/Dual blades build the other night, and enjoying the dynamics of that combination. However, the damage of DB at the lower levels was lackluster at best. So I got to thinking about the possible benefits of combining the Fire Primary with Dark Melee: Fiery Aura for its damage aura, the -accuracy effects of Dark Melee, the energy efficiency of the attacks, the availability of Consume for energy recovery and a small AoE attack, the availability of Siphon Life for an extra heal, Soul Transfer at higher levels....etc.

So I started a new build. It's almost at level 12 now, and is proving to be better than the sum of its parts. Consume helps to keep me rolling, which is especially useful when I'm soloing, Fiery Aura softens up the minions while I'm tackling lieutenants and bosses, and Healing Flames keeps me from having my head handed to me by large groups. My rep is currently set at +0 enemies and +3 allies. The defenses are still a bit soft at this level, and I may go ahead and bite the bullet and pick up Tough at level 14 to run when it is needed.

Anyway, I really like the dynamic synergy of this pairing. Has anyone else tried the Fire/Dark Melee combo and have any suggestions to make?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Thanks for the help guys. I really like this combo, and may end up Frankenslotting some of the powers. I intend to pick up combat jumping, Phalanx Fighting by level 16 (I intend the build for team play) Tough and Weave. A lot of toggles, but I'll only run all of them if the situation demands it. The only real challenge, since I will have so many toggles, is getting some IO sets to help with endurance use and recharge.

Thanks again, Shuckins

I recently created a Shield/Dark Melee Tank, primarily because Shields offers a boost to Dark Melee's damage, which is already well-nigh unresisted by most enemies within the game.

As most of the long-time players of tanks know, Dark Melee's attacks are sort of meh in damage numbers. However, while largely unresisted, Darke Melee's damage is also efficient when factoring in the amount of endurance the set's attacks use.

Anyway, I've reached level 12 with the build, and can detect some added benefit to damage even when surrounded by as few as three or four enemies. So far, then, it seems that the build is promising in that regard.

Anybody out there have any experience with this type of build, especially at levels 12-30? Would dipping into the leadership pool for Assault be worthwhile....or just a waste of endurance?

Thanks beforehand for any advice you can give me.

The developer's entire approach to solving the "farming problem" was entirely wrong and overblown. Ignoring the fact that much of the criticism of farming came to resemble elitist snobbery by the traditionalist crowd (Cain't have them sod-busters messin' up the open range!) what is inescapable about MA was the excitement exhibited by the large numbers of players regularly using the system.

The xp nerfs have been disastrous....like swatting a fly with a sledge-hammer. I've been to AE on a number of servers since I16 went live and without exception each of the sites has been dead...kaput...prostrate...LIFELESS.

This was unnecessary. The simplest solution was what should have been done from the beginning: give normal xp for each critter created, based on arch-type and power sets, and require that each arc created have minions, lieutenants, and bosses. Allow creators to pack some extra bosses onto each map (within limits of course) to add some extra xp and a little spice and excitement and ...VOILA....you have a viable and exciting system again.

Kill the knockback, and replace it with a Mag 2 stun.

Aubrey Scorch: on Protector: Willpower/Fire Melee. She has a taunt enhancement in RTTC, one in each attack power, and Taunt as well. No problem holding agro and she deals out tons of damage. Aubrey has Tough, and is soon to get Weave as well. Don't know if she will pick up Strength of Will...but it is an underrated power in my opinion. Just wish it could be slotted for recharge.

Johnny, that criticism of Assault is certainly true IF you are talking about it's buff of single-target attacks. However, when used in conjunction with Hasten and a solid aoe attack one begins to see a noticeable, if not great, increase in damage per attack activation and in dps. Certainly, it may not justify the endurance drain, but if one is only interested in squeezing the maximum amounts of damage out of one's attacks, then this is one way to do it.

An aoe such as Foot Stomp which hits ten foes for 100 damage each at the higher levels yields a damage per activation of 1000. With Assault it would yield 1100 damage per activation. Hasten greatly increases the recharge times of all attacks for two minutes. I don't remember the actual recharge time reduction, but for the sake of argument, let's assume it's 50%. Over two minutes an aoe that would normally fire off 4 times will fire off six times with Hasten. So, that attack would yield 4000 damage against 10 targets without the benefits of Hasten or Assault, and 6400 with Hasten and Assault. Assault yielding 400 of that totaly may not seem like an efficient use of endurance for many, but if one is only interested in maximizing damage and endurance is unimportant then it is an option.

There are a number of ways to tweak the damage of your tank by dipping into the pool powers, but you generally pay a price in endurance usage. By choosing Willpower this penalty can be offset with the selections of Quick Recovery at level 12 and Stamina at level 20.

Having done that, take Assault from the Leadership Pool and Hasten from the Speed Pool. Hasten will grant you a substantial reduction in the recycle times of your attacks, yielding a greater damage per second. This combo works well with Super Strength and Fire Melee. Both of these attack sets have some nice aoe attacks which Hasten buffs up nicely in terms of damage.

Shield Defense probably yields the greatest dps, due to Against All Odds and Shield Charge, of any tanker attack set, with the exception of Fire/Fire.

Some tanker builds, as you will see, give up little to scrappers in terms of damage.

Thanks Ironik and Hercules. I played around with the idea of using a Croatoa map, but the whole look is more mystical than historical.

Hmmm....may take a second look at it though.

I began a story arc yesterday in which Rikti operatives, mesmerists and guards, were sent back into time to disrupt Earth's historical time-line. Their goals are to delay the development of modern civilization and technology, and the rise of genetically altered humanity, or super-humans.

The first mission involves the mesmerist mind-controlling the ancient Gauls and launching a massive invasion of Cimerora. The goal of the heroes is to defeat the mesmerist and all the Gauls. The Gauls are, of course, a custom group composed mainly of shield scrappers with broadswords.

The problem I have is with the MAPS available. I wanted an outdoor map of Cimerora, or at the very least, a mixed forest and field map which could serve as the staging area for the invasion. Evidently, there are no Cimerora maps, nor are their many outdoor maps that do not have the modern city wall with its electronic force fields visible.

I used a map of a Cimerora cave for the first mission which serves well, but I don't want the entire story arc to be confined to caves. Any suggestions?

By the way, the story arc is entitled "Otherworld: Gallic Might" and the arc ID number is 140693 and is a level 35-54 mission for those who might be interested in killing something other than Rikti comm officers.