Stealth_Bomber

I'm a surgeon. There's no way I can play CoX at work. The mouse gets all messed up.

The BASE value, of course. Thanks for clarifying.

How does Power Boost affect Defense? The description says it adds around 75% to your Defense for 15 seconds, but my Ranged defense only goes up a few points when I click PB. Is there a guide somewhere that explains how the Defense numbers are calculated?

Thanks in advance.

Is this the three level 53 Rikti Boss challenge? Or are we trying to take down Pylons like the scrappers?

Some thoughts:

- Nova is really not much use to a ranged Eng/Eng build. If you can move slots to Weave 6 slotting with Red Fortune increases your ranged defense.
-Aid Other/Self is a personal choice, but Eng/Eng is pretty binary: you are either pouring on the damage, or out of combat. Consider Maneuvers and slotting Health with the +Regen IOs. You don't have to spend a lot of Inf either, like another poster said, a few Hero Merits for the recipes and run a few AE missions to get tickets to buy the rare salvage and you are set.
- Repulsion Bomb is one of the highest damage APP AoE attacks available to Blasters. I would try to keep it if you stay with the Force APP.
- I try to slot two high-level Recharge IOs in Boost Range and set it to Auto.

Spawn. He goes through so much to get back to Wanda, and when you find out what he did, it's a shocking, powerful event.

Batman, of course. The Long Halloween is great. I'm glad that the recent movies have made him even more popular.

Deadpool. Especially the story lines where you think he's just his usual random self, but you learn that he had a crazy plan in motion. He makes stories more interesting, for sure.

Elric of Melnibone, I think he counts because he did have some comics, but of course the real stories are Moorcocks incredible books.

Same for Harry Dresden. He's been in comics too, but Butcher's books are fantastic.

I like heroes with a darker side. Superman, Captain America, etc never had enough depth IMHO.

Does Theft of Essence: Chance for +Endurance work in Transfusion? I think I have seen that some +End IOs are (or used to be) bugged and give your enemy target End instead of you. Does anyone have experience with this?

Thanks in advance.

So several times over the past few days I have encountered a bug, where I zone in with my pets to a map, and the pets will not move. They respond verbally to commands, but they sit at the entrance to a zone or map and don't move. I can't dismiss them unless I go to the original zone or exit the map.

This bug has made participating with fast-moving teams and/or SFs almost impossible.

I'm assuming that this is a known bug, but is there a way around it? Did I miss a thread on this?

Thanks in advance.

Welcome back! You get to learn about Tips, a new type of Merit, new maps, and all kinds of cool stuff!

I'd vote for a Boomtown rebuild like Faultline. The zone already exists. We know the story, just flesh it out, add contacts, and some new mutant-type bad guys that have crawled out of the wreckage. Maybe "the next phase" the Lost keep talking about.

And a really cool thing would be to have the time it is released be related to how many people log off there for a Day Job of "Boomtown Rebuilding". Say the Devs could release it (random time picked here) any time from April 16 to May 1st. The more people log out in Boomtown, the closer to April 16 it is.

I mean, sheesh, its been the same since the doors opened to let us in the zone.

Since 2004,
... haven't done a Shadow Shard TF (never even been invited)
... haven't successfully completed a Villain Respec trial
... haven't ever done a Hamidon raid
... haven't got the Task Force Commander or Archmage badges on any character
... haven't got a Hero or Villain with all the bank save/rob badges
... haven't ever had a purple recipe drop despite multiple 50s

And I'm OCD about my insps too, based on the days when Blasters were so fragile and debt wasn't capped: 1 column green, 2 columns purple, next whatever the character never has any of, like blues, the last column is Awaken/BF/Blue/Green (in that order) so I can just hit F5 repeatedly and be back in the fight.

My first 50 was Carbon Flame, Fire/Eng Blaster. Took about 4 months after the Global Defense Nerf. In those days the Hollows as well as Boomtown were filled with large packs of minion/Lt mixes, and there was no cap of targets. Aim, Build Up, Fire Breath, Fireball, finish whatever was left with Fire Blast. Refill insps if needed, next group. It was faster to street sweep like that than team. The hardest levels for him were 35+ before the Devs smoothed out the XP curve. No Defiance. No debt cap.

I have several 50s now: Blasters, Stalker, Bane, Dom. Never got a Defender above 45 or a Tank over 20. My current project is a Corruptor at 32 after about 2 weeks.

Now though, I'd say it takes about a month or so of no farming, just teaming to hit 50. Depends on the toon, of course, but if you get on teams that do TFs or even Radios efficiently you can zoom up levels. Freedom is filled with good players that don't waste time.

QuickOffice is an app that reads/writes MS office files. I use it on my iPad.

But speaking as someone who uses hisiPad every day at home and at work, it really is not a true replacement for a notebook. Just my opinion of course, but I'd say you will spend too much time trying to make it into a notebook, time that's better spent studying. The iPad is a GREAT device for reading, but not so much for doing more than a little data input or manipulation.

If you are a Mac person (and what sane person isn't lol) take a look at the Macbooks (13" screen) or the snazzy Mac Air (11" or 13" screens). Get the right configuration and you can play CoH when you take a break!

Great, thanks!

How do uniques like Gravitational Anchor: Chance for Hold work in two builds? Can you slot one per build or are they limited to one per character?

Any chance you could update SuckerPunch's online planner to be I19+ compatible? It runs OK on my iPad.

But yes, an iPhone-based, or even better an iPad-based, planner would be amazingly great! Please make it Mids-data compatible if possible.

And if you are taking requests, a Mac-native Mids would be VERY helpful to those of us non-Windows types.

Also, thank you for doing this.

I hear that Luminara has built an SG base entirely out of sharp, pointy sticks. On a good day this base can out-damage most of my blasters.

Exact same thing happened to me on Monday, except that I called CS instead of emailing. The phone queue tells you exactly where you are in line, and the CS person was very helpful. Someone was trying to hack my account.

And yes, the fact that someone was trying to access my account is very troubling.

But the message that you have been "blocked" is pretty upsetting. They should pick a different word or phrase like "closed" or "suspended for security reasons".

I like /Dev in general. I have a couple of 50s with this secondary.

1. TD adds damage to Assault Rifle's snipe. It doesn't add damage to any other snipes.

2. I think it's worth including in your guide that /Dev is the only Blaster secondary where it is possible to take out a spawn using only the Secondary powers, while at the same time you take no damage.

3. I agree that Cloaking Device + a Stealth IO is a game-changing combo when you get it.

4. I used to hate Time Bomb, but the damage and the fact that you don't have to stand in a spawn, plus no End crash redeem it.

5. Fury Flechette wrote a guide on how to be an "anti-Stalker" in PVP, you might want to reference pertinent stuff from her guide.

6. TD vs. Tactics: isn't TD's ToHit buff higher?

7. When the game first came out, there was a mistake in Smoke Grenade's code that made it a 100% ToHit debuff. You read that right: 100%. The first Blaster to 40 (the level cap in those days) was an AR/Dev. A guide called "Level 40 in 4 weeks" -a speed level unheard of in those days- was written for /Dev. The very first "nerf" in the game was a "correction" of the "decimal place error" to 10% debuff. Later it was decreased to its current value as part of the Global Defense Nerf.

8. Trip Mines are much more useful than "toe bombing"; IMHO that's for beginners and the impatient. Toe bombing will not take out an entire spawn with a single mine anyway. Blasters are very good at knowing how enemies respond to initial attacks, because their life depends on that knowledge. You know some enemies want to run over to you, while others like Nemesis or Longbow, want to attack you from range. So, put TMs where you know they will go. I forget the max you can have out without Hasten but I usually lay out at least 3 in a pattern I think enemes will follow after my first volley.

9. /Dev is about planning, patience and exploiting game geometry. Those narrow sewer doors, corners, and anyplace else that makes it hard for enemies to reach you are great. If you have seen the movie "300" or at least know the story, you know how to use /Dev to your benefit.

10. You will get arguments that /Traps is "better" than /Dev. Address your thoughts on that argument up front in your guide. IMHO, /Traps is the "on your knees" Secondary. Every character I've made with /Traps has spent too much time kneeling during the actual fight. With /Dev you set a few TMs and Caltrops and then shift to your Primary.

I really got the impression that after Statesman left, the code in the game was poorly maintained. I think there were even posts from BAB that they had to "figure out" some of the code. So, the first thing I would have done was make the game code well-documented and understandable.

Next, the code should have been easily extensible. Even in 2004 it was clear that MMOs were a viable game form and would be around. Unlike console games, though, with MMOs you have to be able to update your game without issuing a completely new game every so often (e.g. Halo series).

I think it would have been interesting if they had been able to design a system so that you could pick some powers from across your class, such as a Scrapper being able to pick a Dark Melee power and a Martial Arts power. Would be tough to prevent the character from being overpowered, but interesting nonetheless.

Completely redesign Blaster Secondaries, with a coherent plan to benefit the AT this time, instead of the "Hey let's stick them with the Tanker stuff! It'll be great!" approach.

Redesign powers that don't fit in the AT, like Confront for Scrappers or the Intangibility powers, until they work. Here's a hint: if your player base is writing guides and everyone says "Skip this power" or "This power is situational at best" or "If you pick this power I will kick you from the team, come to your house and hurt you", maybe you need to rethink that power.

Dump the Cottage Rule. It's too confining. Find a way to change powers without nerfing them.

And this game has lost touch with its casual base. In retrospect I would have a group of designers that are the Casual Player advocates.