Steel_Shaman

Thanks guys, I had pretty much settled on Fire/MM, as it seemed like the AoE part of it kicked in a little bit earlier than just straight up Fire/Fire.

I've had an idea for a new Blaster, and I'm torn between two different powerset combos: Fire/Fire or Fire/MM. I like both and either work for the character idea I've had. Any suggestions? Opinions?

I started a Kin/Dark this weekend......and all I have to say is wow!

Very active, fun playstyle.

Thanks guys, that was exactly what I needed to know.

So I'm leveling a new scrapper (claws/dark) and just got a very, very lucky drop on a scanner mission: a Karma KB protection IO.
I've been gone from the game for a long while and I'm not that familiar with IO's, so....my question is this: will that one IO provide enough protection from KB that I can now consider not taking Acrobatics, or would it behoove me to go ahead and take it anyway?

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My experience on DA is with a tanker, not a scrapper, but those really did the trick for me (ignoring the specific level at which to get powers).

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IMHO, the situation is pretty much the same for Dark Armor Tankers, Scrappers, and Brutes. I agree with your advice.

Thing to keep in mind, Dark Armor has no passive powers. This exaggerates the endurance concerns further. Frankly, you may aswell turn all your toggle off or slot them purely with endurance reduction until you can either get level 20 generic IOs or SOs.

For me, ANYTHING pre-level 22 sucks. Granted, I play mostly melee and disproportionately scrappers.

The survivability on my ranged characters pre level 22 is the same as they are post level 22....which is virtually non-existent.

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Actually, endurance hasn't been a major issue for me. I'm used to it after recently leveling a couple of brutes.

It was just that pretty little green bar, and how it likes to empty out rather frequently. Thanks again, I'll stick with the character.

<runs off to beat some Skulls up>

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I came to this forum to seek input rather than just outright delete the character and chalk it up to another bad experience. Then I found this thread saying how awesome not only dark armor, but claws/DA gets. So tell me, when does it stop sucking so horribly? I've played Doms with better survivability so far.

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You only got to level 9 and you're complaining about lacking survivability? It won't even get close to tolerable until 22 and SOs, just like for every Scrapper.

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I beg to differ, /dark is by far the worst set I've tried. My willpower, regen, and fire characters were never this bad. And if it actually takes SO's to make the character playable...sheesh.

Note that I'm not disputing it gets good later. I know it does from other scrappers I've played with. I'm just making the point that from my perspective, the set blows hard at the very low levels. I'm sure once I get the self heal it will get a LOT better, but until then.....yeah.

[/ QUOTE ]Your /regen was good pre-SOs? The only thing good about it for me pre-SOs was that I wasn't sucking wind. Hell, she hit the floor more often than my *blaster* did pre-SOs. It's quite simply that your defenses aren't fully developed, and you're rushing into melee because all your attacks are melee attacks.

And if you think /dark is bad pre-SOs, don't even *bother* with /SR or a Warshade.

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I think what did it for me is that /regen gets the self heal quite a few levels earlier than /dark, so that made the character *feel* tougher. I'm sure that mathematically he wasn't, but knowing I had the ability to heal myself without relying on inspirations helped.

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I started a claws/dark last night. The character is 9 at the moment, and is nothing but pure frustration. I have to constantly pop respites or I die. It's like the dark embrace toggle isn't even doing anything. And Death Shroud? Heh, don't get me started.

I came to this forum to seek input rather than just outright delete the character and chalk it up to another bad experience. Then I found this thread saying how awesome not only dark armor, but claws/DA gets. So tell me, when does it stop sucking so horribly? I've played Doms with better survivability than what this character has so far.

[/ QUOTE ]Welcome to pre-22 on every single scrapper, tank, brute, and stalker ever. Until you get to SOs, your defensive powers aren't running at full effectiveness.

Some tips to get you there:

<ul type="square">[*]Know that until you get to *at least* DOs, your defenses are still paperthin.[*]Set yourself up to have Stamina at 20, Dark Regeneration at 16, and Obsidian Shield at 10. Murky Cloud can be put off for a while unless you plan to do a Synapse TF, or like fighting clocks.[*]Use DR sparingly until you get it at least three-slotted with Acc/End/End SOs (or equivalent IO slotting)[/list]
My experience on DA is with a tanker, not a scrapper, but those really did the trick for me (ignoring the specific level at which to get powers).

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Thank you for the tips. That's pretty much the power selection strategy I had in mind anyway, so I'm glad to know I'm at least doing something right with the character.

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I came to this forum to seek input rather than just outright delete the character and chalk it up to another bad experience. Then I found this thread saying how awesome not only dark armor, but claws/DA gets. So tell me, when does it stop sucking so horribly? I've played Doms with better survivability so far.

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You only got to level 9 and you're complaining about lacking survivability? It won't even get close to tolerable until 22 and SOs, just like for every Scrapper.

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I beg to differ, /dark is by far the worst set I've tried. My willpower, regen, and fire characters were never this bad. And if it actually takes SO's to make the character playable...sheesh.

Note that I'm not disputing it gets good later. I know it does from other scrappers I've played with. I'm just making the point that from my perspective, the set blows hard at the very low levels. I'm sure once I get the self heal it will get a LOT better, but until then.....yeah.

I started a claws/dark last night. The character is 9 at the moment, and is nothing but pure frustration. I have to constantly pop respites or I die. It's like the dark embrace toggle isn't even doing anything. And Death Shroud? Heh, don't get me started.

I came to this forum to seek input rather than just outright delete the character and chalk it up to another bad experience. Then I found this thread saying how awesome not only dark armor, but claws/DA gets. So tell me, when does it stop sucking so horribly? I've played Doms with better survivability than what this character has so far.

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I suffer from a unique problem. There are several blue side zones I dearly love, but I can't stand the hero AT's. To me, their villain counterparts are just more fun. And I also love MM's, which there is no real equivalent to blue side.

Needless to say, I'm really looking forward to Going Rogue. I'm hoping against hope we'll be able to side switch at a fairly early level, so I can finally have my favorite characters doing my favorite zones.

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I agree here, and that's one of the reasons I don't like seeing new players powerlevel. If they are just trying to get to Max level as soon as possible and don't get into the arcs or stories then they will likely be dissapionted once they get to 50 or feel that they are done and move on to another game.


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The fix for that is more endgame content

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It only needs a fix if it is broken. I for one am perfectly fine with the idea that 50 is a new beginning for another character. I'm an altaholic though and love making new characters. When a character is max level for me thier story is over. It has reached it's conclusion and there isn't much development left for it.

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Yes and for everyone that isnt an altaholic gets to 50 in however long it took and leaves ? More enjoyable endgame content is needed

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I would be fine with the developers adding end game content as long as that content did not become the entire focus of the game. As someone that got thoroughly burned out on WoW's "raid 'till your eyes bleed" model I'm a bit skittish of the idea.

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A friend of mine came back from a hiatus and got his wife into the game lately. While chatting at work the other day, she made the comment that they "don't do door missions."
Puzzled I asked what she meant. She said they just run AE missions. I believe she's got a 35 Tanker now.

The sad part is I bet she doesn't even know how to navigate the game world AT ALL. I bet if she had to get from Atlas Park to Founder's Falls it would positively blow her mind. So even though they are not PL'ing per se (her leveling has been too slow to call it PL'ing, but faster than what a regular newbie would see) she is missing out entirely on the ACTUAL GAME. He's doing her a disservice IMHO.

So place me on the "anti-PLing" side of the fence. If my friend would just play the regular game with his wife, they could still level fast and she would learn more about the game as they went.

Several of a dominator's most damaging attacks are melee. Our ranged attacks aren't nearly as good. So she will need to be moving in and out of melee as the situation calls for it. I suppose a Dom could use just the ranged attacks, but such a Dom wouldn't be nearly as effective as they could be, in my opinion.

If she doesn't like moving around much, then a Dom may not be the best AT for her. Not sure about everyone else, but I'm constantly moving about during battle on my Doms.

A corruptor that features a powerset lacking knockback would probably be a good choice for her to run with your brute.

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Can i use tp friend on minions that are stuck rathere then havint to resumon it?

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Yep. Works like a charm.

Since Issue 8 went live, I've been having the following odd graphical problem:

Sometimes after zoning (either to a city zone or a mission map), the frame rate will drop to 5-10 fps, the game refuses to render capes, and all text becomes garbled. The /reloadgfx command does not fix this. So far I have found only two things that will make the problem go away.

1) Zoning again. Most of the time this fixes the issue. Sometimes it does not, however.
2) Exiting and restarting the game. This fixes the problem 100% of the time.

I have not been able to identify the cause of this issue, as it appears to be totally random. I have noticed, though, that it seems to happen more often when I am on teams.

Also, I have noticed severe performance drops when grouping with fire controllers using fire cages. Every time a fire controller uses this power, my frame rate drops down to slide show levels, and will not go back up until the power ends.

Edited to add: I never had any performance issues prior to I8 unless I was in extremely large battles against GM's. Since I8 I've had to lower all settings to the minimum and still have issues.

Ok, here's a new one for me:
Sewer maps lag me out so badly the game is totally unplayable. Frame rates drop below 10, and the game engine lags so badly I can barely get it to respond well enough to allow me to log out.

I've noticed more-than-normal lag when approaching groups of players outdoors. Example:

Last night, I was in Talos and was flying back to the tram. As I approached the tram, my hard drive light came on and the game began to "stutter" (my frame rate dropped significantly).

Prior to I8, this only happened when I approached a group of at least 20 or more players. In the above-mentioned example, only 5 other people were at the tram.

I have had other experiences with this in King's Row. Encountering just one other player causes the entire game to "pause" for a moment to load that player's model.

I did not have these kinds of issues prior to I8. Before this week, only very large groups of players would cause what I am describing.

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Im fed up with I8 and the slow issues as well. This one is especially bad, I mean the issue is soo small and its taking 6 months to push it out. Maybe its time to take a break for 8 months and hope they get their act together and get an issue out. But really this is getting bad, someone in my SG whos rarely ever upset about delays and such is even mad about I8. Its just taking too long for too little.

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I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with calling Issue 8 a "small" issue. Let's take a look at some of the tasks the developers had to overcome to make it:

Vet Rewards
1) Database linkups on PlayNC tied to ingame reward schemes based on account payment history. Not to mention changes to the functionality of the PlayNC site itself to display the results.
2) The technology/coding to actually make many of the rewards work. Wings, trenchcoats, and pets, for example.
3) Game UI changes to process Vet rewards.
4) Tons of new artwork. Costume pieces probably don't get churned out overnight. Things like art design take time, especially to get the various costume pieces to work correctly on not just *one* character model, but on the almost infinite variety of body types it's possible for players to make in this game.
5) And of course, just choosing what the Vet rewards were probably took a great deal of time. Ideas got proposed, hashed out, shelved, etc. I'm sure the rewards we got are very different from the original working list they had, as that's just how things like that go.

Police Band Missions/Safeguard Missions
1) Coding. Massive amounts of coding. I don't claim to know the exact method they use for generating those random missions, but I'm willing to bet it involved either a) Making lots and lots of lists for a random generator to pull from or b) Making lots and lots of missions in a list. Neither one had to be very fast.
2) Zone changes. Adding the PPD precincts and the contacts in them probably took quite a bit, as that involved art design, character modeling, and once again, lots of coding.
3) The coding of the Safeguards themselves. Think about it: yes the Safeguard mission is similar to a Mayhem, but it is just different enough that designing it was probably a royal pain.

Faultline/Overbrook
1) What can I say here but: this is a complete redesign of a zone. That couldn't possibly have been easy or fast.

Pocket D Arena Kiosks
1) A small change from our point of view, sure. But it still took time to set up, debug and test.

And bear in mind while doing all the above, the Devs still had to release things like the Halloween Event, and do their normal work of just keeping the game operating.

I guess my point in all the above is that Issue 8 has a lot more in it than people are giving it credit for. Also, several of the changes it makes to the game are very complex, and most likely not simple at all to do. While I am just as disappointed as anyone else with how long it's taken to release, I can still understand why there could have been delays, with all the new tech that had to be worked out.

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This was fixed with the latest patch. The droning fades away after 10 seconds.

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That will be wonderful when it goes live. The noise does get annoying after a while.

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This event was a response to Operation Destiny. Statesman does not take kindly to Lord Recluse breaking so many villains out of the Ziggurat. The Freedom Phalanx and Longbow were pushed back but i am sure even more heroes will soon take up the battle against the villains of the Rogue Isles.

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Good. I can always use more zombies.