Stele

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New powersets are always welcome but i think other powers are needed not just the melee power sets.

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I hate to be rude, but that really irked me. We're talking about tankers and scrappers... the two sets with the fewest number of powersets since launch, and that didn't get any new sets for the first 10 issues (3.5 years) of the game?

Nothing wrong with them finally getting some love throughout all of 2008. Whatever your favorite non-melee AT is, it's already gotten more love than scrappers and especially tanks over the years. And I'm sure it'll get more sets proliferated next year. Let the melee-ers enjoy their year in the spotlight.

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The fact is, unless you are of the very limited imagination mindset that thinks perfect building is the same as good play , then PvP holds no allure for you. It is, in fact, an annoyance, if not an outright detriment, to your enjoyment of the game.


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Yep. And it always will be, to the vast majority of people who were here the first 4 issues of the game, when there was no PVP at all. And probably even the people that were here for issue 5 and the arena. Many people still blame PVP for the regen nerfs that happened in i4 and i5. Others probably blame PVP for ED and GDN, although that's a little much.

But the game wasn't designed with PVP. And it still feels to many players like the "tacked on" feature that it is. I seriously doubt the amount of new players brought in for just PVP action comes close to the amount of people that left the game in response to "balance" tweaks, made with PVP in mind.

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From the notes re: I13:

Pain Domination – Villains can now bend the power of pain to serve their own ends! Those playing a Corruptor or Mastermind have access to this new powerset. The antithesis of the Hero healing powerset “Empathy,” Pain Domination brings parity between Heroes and Villains with a distinctively evil flair.

I read that as I can *dish out* pain to my targets. Totally reverse empathy.

*rereads*... WAIT. Not a Dominator power? Phooey... oh well, she can be a Corr. No big, I suppose... she *is*, after all, a half sister to be...

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I read it as they dominate the pain... as in, instead of healing, they elminate the damage...

It's all terminology, which is what they said they were hung up on in previous proliferation dicussions. Empathy isn't villainous enough. But kicking the crap out of some pain, oh yeah! Nevermind if it functions 100% the same, and is just renamed and new effects... it sure sounds evil-er.

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It all sounds great -- I'm thinking both Shield/SS and MA/Shields as options for alts. Possibly even a Pain Domination villain.

But... conspicuously absent from this announcement is any mention of further powerset proliferation. Does that mean there simply won't be any this time? I hope that's not the case, since the talk leading up to the Issue 12 release definitely made it sound like proliferation would be an every-issue type of thing.

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Originally, PP was not scheduled for 13. Then, it was added as a Stretch Goal ("If you have extra time...") At this point, it isn't terribly likely, but who knows? Maybe there won't be any bugs in Beta!

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Alright... no /bug reports the first week or two of closed beta! Everyone save them for later so we can trick Castle into working on PP.

Kinda weird how Patron respec is mentioned in the bottom and bases aren't mentioned at all. Aside from Mission Creator, these were my favorite upcoming features. Yes, higher than shields. Maybe I'm just weird.

Of course we didn't know about "day job" yet.

And merit system sounds interesting... wonder if it will be patterned after Vanguard stuff?

I liked the comic. Mostly because it's true, at least blue side. Have to wade through crap after crap after crap to get to an arc or badge mission.

Still wishing for blue side to get a facelift to match the smooth contact progression of red.

Dang a lot of links to catch up on.

Have you guys seen the new trailers during the Olympics? There's a really great one where HRG is telling Claire about the villains.

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I'm just curious as to how my accuracy will be without combat training: offensive, in your mad recharge build.

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My friends and I have decided CT:O is just there for your run up to 24. It's a 10% acc boost... with two slots it's up to 18% or something, still not as much as a single SO. With all the Targeted AOE powers you have, you can slot two sets of Positron's Blast and get 18% global accuracy bonus... and I'm planning 5 sets of 5 on my crab.

As tight as Crab builds are, CT:O just doesn't fit at all.

TT:L is 10% tohit, but it's to the whole team, and it's got the +perception and the confuse/fear resist thrown in too. Even though it costs some end, it beats the heck out of CT:O.

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Anyway, nice guide, and good to see some sample builds. I am really enjoying Omega Manuever as a cool, fun power... but definitely disappointed with the damage, and the long setup. On a good veat team you won't have time for Omega, everything will be dead already.

I think I'm headed towards Mu Mastery, as the guide mentions it's the only patron immobilize that has -kb protection. I love frag grenade and it will be nice to not kb things from the team.

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So, we can finally have the VEAT helmets on our actual VEATs regardless of "Costume Slot?" ...Good idea and nice timing, but then again that should have been the case on all VEATs regardless of Veteran time clocked in. Those limited options prior to this were Unsexy, very Unsexy indeed and someone needs to tell Jay that. However now It's not going to mean so much when every AT can use them too.


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Agreed. Good idea, especially for VEATs. Personally still disappointed they took away the copy slot option.

Nem staff + blackwand sounds cool. Surely this is better than the boxing costume everyone whined about?

Also agree that yeah maybe a choice between the two Croatoa temps might be a good future one. Although at this point, the people with all awards are almost going to have too many attacks on their newly rolled toons.

Nice checklist. Good update would just be mentioning the fact that accolades now work whenever you exem, so there isn't as much pressure to get accolades immediately. And with Ouro, you can go back and pick up specific badge missions, like Spelunker.

I actually find it easier to go back at 25 or 30 and grab that single mission. Since contacts sometimes don't give you the mission you are looking for you might waste a lot of time running from zone to zone doing other tasks instead of the one you need. And there are much faster ways to level from 10-15 than hopping from zone to zone without a travel power.

I am loving my 44 Arch/Eng blaster. I did respec into Hasten at 40 or 41, as I wasn't getting enough BU+AIM+ROA for my tastes. Also dropped Acro after I picked up one Karma KB for use in Combat Jumping.

Anyway, mostly been running ITFs. And the ROA plus a Fistful and/or Explosive wipes out everything except the bosses that it leaves at half-health or so. Every other spawn, I just annihilate them.

Went with Force Mastery pool. I have a bit of recharge and think Force of Nature might end up being a lot of fun.

As to the PFF discussion that is coming about some of the defenders... I've actually used it on my blaster. I can run around and herd up a couple of groups when solo with PFF on. BU+AIM, drop pff, fire roa... and they die before I do. It's a bit nutty but kinda fun.

And yay, Talsorian bow! That thing is frickin sweet.

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lol, I was on that ITF with you. Yeah, 3 hours was a pain, but it wasn't the most optimum ITF team either. Lots of damage, 1 tank and 1 support character (me).

I suggested the cheesy blast the Nictus from range strategy because everything else up to that point failed. On hindsight, we probably should've just charged up and rushed Rom. We had plenty of damage, so it probably would've worked.

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We probably should have.

That's actually what I have done the last two runs I have been on, the past two days. One team had a VEAT and a FF MM. The other had 3 VEATs. So everyone's defense was between 40-60% for the two runs. The whole run was much easier, and we were even able to shrug off the Nictus ambush on the first mission without having to sneak around back or anything. And we did the all rush in and kill Romulus straight up thing. Healing essence didn't hit us enough to matter.

I think at this point I might start actively recruiting two spots for VEAT and/or FF def/troll/mm. It just makes the whole thing so much simpler. Don't need two tanks/brutes to try and separate Rom from the healer and all of that stuff. Actually the last run our only "tank" was a Warshade. We had a lot of fun joking about trying not to attack him throughout the TF.

Yay PayPal.

I'm confused why you guys are asking for time cards? Why not ask for PayPal to be accepted for paying for account time just like a credit card? That way you can occasionally buy 3 or 6 months at a time and save a couple bucks. Time cards will ALWAYS be the most expensive way to pay for a month of access.

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The Talsorian bow isn't available at all. No idea when it will be added, or why it was left out. This is the one I was really looking forward to, so I'm more than a little disappointed.

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Available as of Tues, and taken on all my TA and/or Archery toons. Woohoo.

Gave the tower thing a try this afternoon. I don't wanna badmouth anyone in particular, but let's just say some of our team wasn't as sharp as they could have been.

Never could get Rom on the corner right with the essences on the other side. I saw some of the team cheaty video to figure out where the best spot looks to be. But it just didn't seem to work with our group. Hopefully can try another time with sg members and really give it a solid go.

Also, we ended up doing the "blast two essences that aren't the healer from 80 ft" thing. First time I have done that. Surprisingly easy, but very time consuming. Another 3+ hour ITF, and that is really sad. But at least I haven't lost one on live yet. That's two at 3+ hours though and that's not much fun.

Interesting to hear of this tower strategy. Going to try that next time.

What I and my sg have been doing lately, even on PUGs, is separating the healing essence and Romulus, then taking out Rom 4 times. We have a tank, brute, scrap, kheldian dwarf, whichever is available, attack or taunt the healing essence from under the left ledge. Then the other tank, brute, scrap, kheld taunts/attacks Rom immediately. 6 or 7 of us (depending of the off tank needs healing/support) then pound Rom 3 times. He seems to rez off the aoe essence, then the spawning essence, then the healing essence, in that order. Consistently the last 3 runs he has done that order anyway. And then we all 8 get to pound on him the last time.

Taking Rom 4 times definitely is the way to go. On test I was on two teams that separated the essences and had no problems. But live experience has been completely different.

Anyway the run I was on last night, we had a warshade and peacebringer for our two melee "tanks." I was a little worried, but after 45 min of trying to gather a team I was just ready to try the darn thing. Our first pull the pb off-tank died, and when our corr tried to cast veng, they went down to the other essence. We got Rom down under 30% or so before finally falling. Then it took us 3 more attempts to get the right essence and proper separation. So at 3:12 this was the longest ITF I have done. But it was actually really rewarding when we got it right, and Rom fell with no problem.

FYI last night's team was 4 50s, 4 sks: 3 blasters, 2 corrs, ws, pb, and crab. RoA + RoA + Omega was a ton of fun on the large spawns for majority of TF, even the boss-heavy ones.

Also, that ambush on the first mission is brutal. That was NOT happening on open beta or live previously. Or it was very delayed. Now it's like as soon as you enter the top circle the ambush comes. Usually in the middle of fighting that first spawn with an EB. Caused team wipes the last 3 ITFs I have run. From now on I will be leading team around to the side or back and try to avoid that ambush completely. On a team of 8 on heroic that ambush consisted of 8 nictus bosses, I think it was. Pretty ridiculous.

Anyway, I am still enjoying this TF. And still believe it is on par difficulty-wise with the LGTF. Heck if you haven't done the Hami raid mission before on LGTF or some of the team hasn't, you can have a lot of difficulty with that, just like the ITF's final fight. Experience counts for a lot, or at least an experienced leader.

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the sooner /sync gets pushed live the better.

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Yes, bring on the /sync.

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...I'll lose those two slots, even though I did was was required to get them...

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And that is ... ?

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Have an active account when I12 was launched.

Doesn't really make any sense. Do they force us to use free costume tokens before they expire? No, because I don't want to change my costume at this time, but I can always use a token later. If I don't want to roll a 13th character on a server at this time, why should I be forced to apply that slot?

Heck after getting one server full I tried out another one and actually am liking it better. (Names withheld to protect the innocent. ) I might not want to use my free slots until I fill up that server now. But that could be another few months or year down the road depending on what other powersets are proliferated or when shields come out. Then again my sg might talk me back into another slot on my home server.

I'd prefer to use it when I'm ready though and not be forced to at some date for no reason.

I liked the comic. Always funny to see cave missions on a building door or vice versa.

Wow I like the alphabet stuff. Very neat.

And now with the extra slots, you have much more room to make new stuff.

I only have around 50 myself and doubt I have the alphabet covered. I tend to use Greek mythology names as much as I can. I keep meaning to chronicle them all on a web site or some such but haven't got around to it yet. I guess I know where to post them if I do...

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You might want to check with Nivienne about this. It's supposedly a known bug.

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Oh, definitely Known. We looked at it when it was first reported. However, the problem didn't happen in our test cases. That's why I asked for specific cases where it was happening to look at. (BTW, I have enough PMs on it! Thanks to everyone!)

I tracked down the specific geometry involved last night and sent the info over to Jay. Hopefully, he and the software guys can figure out what's going on in time for the next build.

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But it's fixed on the current build on test. Two characters (hero and villain) that I had leather skirts on, when I log in to test, the bug is there. But when I go to icon/facemaker, the new skirt selection interface ends up with the correct skirt, even making the same choice.

It's all about the badges. If accolades were shared across alts or something, they wouldn't repeat this event. But they just made new powersets for every AT and the VEATs. Now everyone with one of those new characters wants a crack at the invasion badges. It's really a matter of fairness to veteran players. I was around for the first Halloween in 2004 and for the invasion last year. But some of my alts weren't in existence then. But they want the badges too. And new players get lucky they get to experience the content as well.

It might cheapen the event a little bit to repeat it. But then again, we repeat task/strike forces all the time. How many times can you stop Statesman or Lord Recluse? Sometimes there's a little suspension of belief because this really is just a game. A very fun game.

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* When Zones within the cities are under attack, a world-wide alert will be issued by Vanguard. This alert will show up in your Chat window on the System channel, warning you in which zone attack is imminent.


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Did this not get moved to the new hero/villain event channels with i12? Now that we have such channels that's precisely the kind of thing that should be in there.

Nice pics of the capes finally. I saw patterns and thought of body stuff, but never thought that meant capes, until I actually got in the costume creator and played around during beta. Not sure about everyone else since wings and trenchcoats and so on replace capes... but I for one think the 4 new capes might be the best piece of i12 art (since roman sets were *in* the game months ago, just not *in* it ).

Wow what a read. Thanks!