Soul_Fane

The RNG seems to get worse with every update, but maybe that's just me. My KM is 28 now, with frankenslotted acc, and a kismet. She has 95% chance to hit almost all the time in combat attributes, and rarely hits 4 out of 4 mobs with burst, and that's on normal critters like freaks.

power sink and lightning field, both slotted with 2 or 3 end mods, depending on enhancement space in those powers. That will go a long way to reducing the incoming damage that your group takes, since the enemies will be sucking wind and will only be using their low cost wimpy attacks.

Pretty much the entire /electric secondary is worth taking now, because energize rocks. Some people will say that power surge, the tier 9, isn't worth taking because it doesn't increase your survivability as much as some other teir 9's. I am in partial agreement to this, as a scrapper that has just resistance and no defense to round it out, can still be widdled down reasonably quickly, given their res cap is 75%. But I won't state my opinion on this until I've tried the power out myself (my elec/elec is almost there).

Hurdle + ninja run is faster than max flight speed (about 60mph at lvl 39), and swift+quickness+sprint+ninja run is only 0.5 mph slower than jumping, according to ingame numbers.

Definitely viable. Pretty much all of my scrappers will go travel powerless from now on.

17.3 is almost as good as nothing, considering the size of defense debuffs that most mobs wield. Usually 7.5% per hit on most sharp weapons and guns, 10 - 20% on the specialized attacks like radiation and stone.

Oh yeah, definitely don't get any more LotG's than you need, especially with a secondary like willpower. If you do decide to put that in heightened senses, putting some of the other LotG enhancers in there wouldn't be a bad idea for its set bonuses, which are also additional regen and +HP. Your milage may vary though, enhancers like those can be a tad on the expensive side.

Looks like it will rock 95% of the PvE content for sure.

Some other food for thought, Getting a kismet +accuracy enhancer in a defense power that you can afford will give you +6% tohit. I notice you have 41% global acc already, so you probably won't need it, but it's just something to think about when you start fighting +6's like werner does, as it definitely looks like you could, if that strikes your fancy. *wink*

I would definitely say that willpower, when combined with DA for melee defense, or kinetic combats for smashing and lethal defense, is one of the most solid secondaries for scrappers, despite some of it's other short comings, like lack of defense debuff resistance.

*sigh*

Didn't see that one coming...

I'll admit I didn't know about the mystery letter guy flat out giving them the pillar, as all the ouroboros lore is rather muddled. Guess I should have dug deeper for the research.

Loralie should not have been in the last mission. My guess is that she got unflagged as "doesn't show up in normal spawns"... *sigh*

As for it being incomplete, I personally felt that I had told a complete story, that is part of a bigger whole. In the same way that the Harry Potter books are each a story in themselves, but also part of a bigger over arching story. You don't learn everything about "He who must not be named", you learn enough, and I had hoped I had achieved that, but maybe not.

I guess while I was working so hard to avoid the dreaded JABOSTH, I mired my plot in obfuscation.

Thanks for the review.

Wait for I-16. Then you can change some of the MA kicks into punches if you want.

The problem, is that they'd have to make a new pseudo pet for scrapper shield charge to make it crit. Currently, scraps, tanks, and brutes all use the same pet, and thus shield charge does the same damage for all 3 ATs. Brutes really make out like bandits here, given that fury is the only inherent that effects shield charge.

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I do have to wonder if one of the aoes is being pulled.

FieryMelee lost one before it was ported to brutes.

We'll see.

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I thought the reasoning for combustion getting pulled was that FM was lacking low tier faster animating ST attacks that brutes usually use to generate fury. Claws has plenty of those.

I believe, like Venture, that each story/arc should be able to stand on its own, and has a clear beginning, middle, and end, regardless if it is part of a longer series. The devs have made the maximum number of missions for an arc 5, and I believe they intended for stories to be told in that length.

In a series like Harry Potter, each book has its own self contained plot, as well as its piece of the bigger puzzle.

About the lack of explanations. Many Architects that write multi-part series (I myself was guilty of this, and believe I have corrected it), often give no explanation in the first arc, hoping to get the player to *Gasp!* at the big reveal in the later arcs. This does not work in practice, as you lose your audience at the end of the first arc, if they haven't dropped it before then in disgust. I don't know how many times I've suggested this, but reveal bits and pieces, drop clues. Give the player a good amount to go on, but get them wanting more. Harry Potter is again, a perfect example of this.

I find it hard to give constructive feedback, because the arc feels very unfinished. Why Norse mythology? And why Cyborgs? Why are the Rikti creating these, instead of doing whatever it is they're doing? These are the questions your father should be asking himself when he's formulating his arc.

I really hope Positron comes here to look at who's rated highly, rather than at the rating system in game. The 5 star cartels and Hall of Fame griefers have made the in game ratings pretty much useless.

I find most of the reviews here are very accurate, and those highly rated in this forum are often better than a lot of the crap that became dev choice in the short burst after I-14 shipped.

Oi... where to start...

The intro doesn't give much information, getting right down to business, with no greeting to the player. It introduces a new Mender from Ouroboros, who uses Lazarus' model. Just using Lazarus would be fine. It's almost always better to using an existing character in the lore than one that's just made up out of thin air, especially when they don't contribute the plot, AT ALL.

So, the rikti are going back in time, WAY back in time to stunt the growth of humanity, so that the first actual invasion succeeds. This sounds like an interesting premise. Mission one starts off in an outdoor forest with first of all, no rikti, and a ton of custom mobs, with thrown together, overly colorful costumes, that are supposedly Norse themed cyborgs designed by the rikti. *blinks* I'm sorry, what? None of the mobs throughout this arc have custom descriptions, save one, and that one is a one liner.

Throughout the entire arc, there are terse clues that lead you to the next mission, with no explanation as to how these cyborgs are going to stunt humanity's growth, and the dialogue is sparse, and lacks punctuation. There are far too many bosses and elite bosses that have no reason for being there, other than to just be an objective that makes it difficult to solo (note, it's not especially difficult for a solo built character).

The only glimpse of rikti we get in this arc is in the last mission, in a few patrols with no dialogue. There are more ambushes in this arc than there are lines of dialogue.

So in the end, you scrap a ton of norse cyborgs, and shutdown a rikti central computer, and get a shaggy dog ending, as the "data" they've been collecting (no further explanation) has been transferred to some other place.

This arc has no theme, does not stand on its own, and lacks descriptions and explanations all over the place.

I reserve 1 star ratings for arcs that are unfinished, that should not be published yet, and still need lots of work before they resemble the type of content that the Mission Architect was designed for.

This arc, is a 1 star.

I certainly hope the Bosses being equal to 6 minions is WaI(4 minions 1 Lt on a standard CL2/4 spawn = 7 minions and now = 1 minion and 1 boss) I like having bosses in my unyielding missions.

Yes, you're right. I missed that on the first pass.

Reason why, most people that write about their own characters know their whole backstory, and forget that the audience doesn't, and often don't give enough information to hook the audience. Never forget that. The audience doesn't know everything you know. You need to share it with them, even if it's just piece by piece.

Also, origin stories tend to glorify the character who's origin they're telling, and leave the player's character as a mere bystander. Most players like to feel their own character (the one they're playing your arc with) is important, and want to be in a major role.

The player character should always be on equal footing, or a more important part of the story, and your character should be in a more supporting role, even if it's their origin. In a game about heroes, everyone wants to be the hero, and your job, as the writer, is the make sure they get to be the hero in your story.

Cheers

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Seems a much better suggestion to me than to scrap my original characters and plots...

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I don't think anyone told you to scrap your original characters and plots. I think what they said was, and I'm paraphrashing, write more of a plot.

Right now, it's just about some book. No motivation other than assuming the player came to help instead of being asked. No small reveal hooks, that give you some information but leave you itching for a little more, and no character development for any of the characters in the story.

Defense debuffs work on plenty of mobs that have no defense (read: 0%). Stands to reason it would work just as well on players.

Phalanx Fighting gives 2.25% defense to all per ally in range and is enhancible. It also gives 3.75% unenhancible defense to all, all the time.

Is 3.75% defense worth it to you? It better be. It makes a great mule for things like LotG 7.5s and +tohit kismets.

I won't go into an in depth review, but I wanted to say that this was an outstanding arc. I rated it 5 stars, and I want to share some of the things in it that made it a very enjoyable experience.

Kobushi definitely pulls it off better than Hardcase. I honestly felt for this guy all the way to the end. And to top it off, he doesn't pull a cliche and join longbow, which is half what I was expecting him to do.

Dietrich. You really made her feel like she's grown since the events in the vanguard arcs. You added another dimension to her character that I found completely believable. I found myself annoyed that npc allies don't keep up very well, because I wanted her along, I wanted her to be there with me. It felt cool. Unfortunately, I like to play at breakneck speed, so she did get left behind a few times.

Lastly, the arc made me feel awesome. Sun and Moon is a DB/WP scrapper that is a force to be reckoned with, and all too often, an arc says, "We'll hold off the main force, and you get in there and grab the data! The security's light, so you should be able to handle it," when I would just rather they forgo their own casualties, and let me handle it all. I felt important, respected as a super(even though she's a natural), and Dietrich's line in the last mission was just pure gold.


While Arachnos, Longbow, Knives and malta aren't even close to my favorite enemy groups (curse you web grenade!), I had a lot of fun with this arc, and really got pulled into it.

5 stars, two thumbs up.

Because when you get rated 4 stars, and JABOSTH was the only big complaint, that says to me that Venture thinks it's a well written arc, just doesn't have a theme.

That's pretty good press, if you ask me.

Hmm, how many level 50 scrappers have I deleted... 2 I think. Neither of them had names I felt really attached to, both of them had the 4 main accolades.

I currently have 5 level 50 scrappers, 1 is stripped of most of her enhancements, and only still exists because she's my common IO crafter, and another one only still exists until I come up with another cool concept for the name Bonespray.

Would I delete a scrapper? If I liked the name, wanted to use it for another concept, and didn't play the other one anymore? Hell yeah I would.

Currently, my only lvl 50 villain, is my fortunata, because my one and only previous lvl 50 villain has been rerolled so many times, and I think Maiden Mayhem has finally found the perfect combo of SS/SD... maybe. She's only level 4.

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Actually the other, yet to be published arc, has little to do with her, it's more about what the unseen character Cobalt Stinger is up to during this entire event and why she was helping them, much to Anna's chagrin.

I'll have to see what I can do in this one. Hard to fit much more in when at 99% of the filespace.

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I totally get what you're talking about. the 100k limit is tough to deal with at times.

And yeah, I'd love to see more about Cobalt Stinger in your next arc. My story has a sort of similar secondary villain that will hopefully get more screen time and devotion in my next story, whenever I get around to it.

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Yes, I know that the plot needs work. Unfortunately I'm at a bit of writers block and people only tell me "needs work" but never give any actual suggestions as to what could improve it.

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What would really make this an excellent story for me, is if I got to know Obscura better, really got to know her motivations. When I say I want to know her backstory, I want to know her story, not just the Nagan in general. Why does she want to be a Robin Hood?

You also said yourself that you dislike stories that are part of a series that don't stand on their own, so making a villain arc to parallel your current arc shouldn't be required to understand Obscura's motives, it should enhance an already solid plot.