Stormyweathers

I just came back too only to find my Fire/Fire tank has been utterly trashed. Yes, I'm sure it's perfectly wonderful, and I just fail to see the beauty in the plan, but I do, in fact, FAIL to see the beauty in this plan. So now I'm trying to figure out what to do or just cancel the account again. Not sure. Coming back to burn ... I mean damn.

So, now I have a worthless lvl 42 fire/fire tank. I could start over or I could try and finish my way to 50 and get a Peacebringer. What does everyone think? Is it worth it to stick it out for eight more levels before hanging it up? Is the Kheldian worth the effort in effectiveness, cool-factor, or anything else or would it be a total waste of time?

Should I just start over with something else?

These are straight questions. Don't tell me, "Well it depends on your playstyle ..." just skip it. Tell me your opinion. My playstyle was a fire/fire tank with burn that worked. I might or might not care about PvP, but I want to be able to group, and I want to be able to solo when I cannot find groups, and I want to continue to be able to do that all the way up in level, not just to 20 or 30.

I read the earlier posts. Spines/regen is not my thing. Any other suggestions?

Can you make something worthy out of the Kheldian? I mean I saw such things as Bright Nova in there and thought hmm ... no defense ... that will work great until about level 30, and then you will get aggro for one tenth of a second and have XP debt. Dwarf looked OK. Defenses that cannot be detoggled sounds like a good thing on paper.

And then I see things like Group Energy Flight and have to ask myself why it is that we just don't learn. Why is this POS any better now than it was in the flight pool?

Can you make a good hybrid from one of these things? Scrapper/Blaster type? Or is it doomed to failure for one reason or another?

Tell me your opinion. I've been gone for two years and just about concluded that I should have stayed away. Am I mistaken?

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Electrical Blast does have a power to stop En Recovery: it's called Short Circuit.

However, that power's recovery debuff flag doesn't seem to work on ArchVillians, from what my fellow players are saying. I haven't tried it in Issue 2, but I'll be doing so soon, so I guess I'll see it for myself.

I happen to think Electrical Blast and Electrical Manipulation are both rather effective if used correctly, but I'm just one hero. Try them for yourself.

Oh, and I use Thunder Strike and Havoc Punch quite a bit; at least once a battle. When the mobs can't strike back those two attacks are very effective.

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Yes I know, but I'm saying stop end reduction for a few seconds with EVERY attack...ball lightning, lightning bolt, etc, etc. As I said, I'm far from the end drain authority but it's just a thought.

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I see what you are saying, and I see the majesty of this plan (I really like it); however, the developers seem to almost never give a player a power without also giving it to the enemies. If they buff the elec blast attacks in this fashion for the players, I would be very concerned that they would do the same thing when used by villains against players. Can you imagine the problems that would cause? Freaks alone.

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Dude, we're not Electric blasters. We're Energy blaster that don't annoy Tankers by sending mobs flying

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Classical, and you're right; however, we would rather you be an Ice blaster that not only does not annoy us by scattering the enemies to the for winds but also holds them still ...

Hence the discussion on secondary effects...

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States, I hate to be rude, but if you seriously think that an electric blaster's drain can be helpful againest an AV, you obviously have never played one.


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Let's not put words in my mouth here...a SINGLE electric blaster DOES drain endurance from an AV. BUT definitely not enough to make an impact. All secondary effects against AV's are resisted...it takes several electric blasters to make an appreciable dent in an AV (just like it takes many heroes to bring one down).

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I, on the other hand, do not hate to be rude. My patience has run thin and my adherence to the standards of courtesy dwindles with it.

So, how many severals do you think there are in a group of eight? How many electric blasters are going to come along especially if you also have to bring along the three controllers it takes to make a dent?

I'll put a word in your mouth. Clueless.

Play your own game. Don't calculate it. Try it.

When they tell you endurance drain doesn't accomplish anything, go try it for yourself especially if you hear fifty people saying it. If it accomplishes something for you, tell them how you did it. That would be productive.

You are going to find, I might add, that the DAMAGE from the electricity blasters matters. The END drain does not. Give them an endurance drain like you gave to the Maltas to hit players with, where it sucks you completely dry on one hit and keeps you there. THAT would matter.

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I am level 47 and to get the badges I want for these rewards I have two choices: find a portal mission that contains these enemies and farm it over and over or run around the lower level areas causing havoc.

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Choice 3: Exemplar to an appropriate level Hero and help them get XP (and work off your debt) while you both get the badge. I know... it's just crazy enough to work.

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All right. I'll see your sarcasm and raise you a full measure of blunt and to the point.

Why would I exemplar to accomplish this task? I can kill the lowbie enemies at an enormous rate, getting nothing for it but a badge. Or, I can level down, kill them at a tiny fraction of that rate, take a very serious risk of getting a full measure of high level XP debt ...

... and still get nothing for it but a badge.

Uh ... yeah! Sign me up for a double handful of that! Woohoo! Can't WAIT to do it!

There are an awful, awful lot of good posts on this thread.

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Oh - and one other thing. The vast, vast majority of players at any given time are on missions. XP or not - it's the most popular part of the game.

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Which means the vast, vast majority of players at any given time are getting crappy XP which detracts from their enjoyment of the game. They would like it better if the part of the game they enjoyed also rewarded them well enough to make everyone happy.

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My friends and I do dozens of missions together, without even noticing the specific amounts of exp we are earning for the different mobs. Why? Because we are playing together as heros and having fun. Your rant was quite good until this last comment which shows your true colors as a powerleveling junky, who's lust for exp overshadows anything else. I truly pity you.

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By all means, pity away.

It's wonderful that you are making plenty of xp and are happy with it. So why do you resent those who want more? Would it hurt you to be rewarded more XP for taking on exceptionally tough challenges? Would you just hate the game if it patted you on the back for going for the gold? Is the fact that my fire tank is not in your groups ruining your gaming experience?

But, while you are running dozens of missions, stop off in Eden and tell me what you think of it. Oh, wait, that won't happen. You can tell because the zone is always empty ... Most of the time I hunt there alone.

Now, take your group that does dozens of missions together and go to Founder's falls. Split your group into separate parties of no more than two or three. Kill everything you can find and check your XP with a stopwatch. It will be tedious and boring, but look at the numbers. Wouldn't it be nice if missions rewarded you this well for playing into the environment in the fashion that makes all of you the most happy?

Would you and your mission happy friends like to see the scenery change once in a while? See new enemies? New stories? New content? New arch villains? New zones? New powers? New enhancements? Ah, but there's a problem. Unless you power game or play fifty hours a week, it's going to take a long long time. All those things require levels. But then again, I'm sure all of your friends are far more blessed in patience than I am.

I understand that you disagree, but can you see the point I am making? Can you see that benefit can be leveled to those who gain the most enjoyment from character progression without doing you any harm? Can you see that it is not necessary for the nerf stick to be swung continuously for you to enjoy the game? By your own words, you are having great fun as it is. What need is there for nerfs? Why not go the opposite direction and make the challenges more attractive by making them more rewarding?

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Put your group of eight together. It doesn't really matter what you put in the group with one exception. I'll get to the exception.
I will outrun them and not by a little. At level 38 we clocked it. I earned XP at a rate of 190,000 per hour solo. Go to whatever zone you like. Good luck. How about Crey's Follies? Is that hazard enough? Freaks. Carnival area by the Rikti crash site.
Then I will assemble a group of 4 and we will outrun them again.
Then I will assemble a group of 2 and we will outrun the four.


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You're absolutely correct. The problem is, once again, that the high level players (38) can battle against foes that are much, much higher level than they are. A small group of said heroes can find a spawn appropriate for them...whereas what's tough enough for a full group of 8 level 38's? It's much, much tougher for that large group to find something that's a challenge - and can give them great XP - than it is for the the small group.

That issue is next up - right after the Expansion goes live.

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I said Crey's Follies. I am level 39. The highest level MOB in the zone is also 39. I'm talking whites and blues. Whether or not I can kill lvl +3 is really only so much of an issue. We are talking group math only.

1 person taking on whites versus a team taking on whites. In a hazard zone as you are suggesting. And I'm telling you that even if you put my "too easy" lvl 39 BOTH in your group and let it solo. I will earn less in a group.

You are absolutely correct on one point though. It is impossible for a full group of lvl 8 characters to find a challenge tough enough to be worth putting eight together.

And why is that?

Because you artificially made it impossible to hit anything bigger than lvl +4. That is why we call it the Great Group Nerf. You could remove the purple patch, or you can nerf all of your players to level as slowly as everyone else. Your call. I bet you will find that leveling is so slow that folks will lose enjoyment of the game, but you have the data on that. Not me.

My point is that, as it stands, grouping is bad XP. The natural assumption is that 2 heroes can kill twice as fast as one. But this is a false assumption. They cannot. Four certainly cannot kill four times as fast as one. The groups of enemies, even in hazard zones, are not large enough. There is travel time, hunting time, time to get eight group members on the same page, recovery time, waiting for the dead guy to get back time, etc. Moreover, if you hit a big group, it only takes a tiny mistake to find yourself in endless debt, and then the XP gain rate is half of what was already low.

Your math is the same as every other mmorpg in existence. Split mob xp by group size and add a small percentage. The small percentage is never enough. In all systems a decent soloer will outlevel them unless they are using an exploit (like everquest wizard AOE parties or DaOC pbAOE mages, or one of a dozen others) or, and this is the part I really hate, players are nerfed so hard that soloing is not viable. I'm hoping you won't do that here.

Note, even at my outrageous rate of 190,000 xp per hour, it still takes 7 hours of gameplay to get a level ... That's enough. That's hard enough. That is tedious enough. Don't nerf your players, make group xp better. Give better rewards for taking on greater challenges. Offering the same XP for the same mob in Brickstown versus Crey's follies is not going to work. Crey's is too much risk and not enough reward. That's why those zones are empty. You think you are rewarding the players with the Cahones to take on the hazard zones, but you are not.

The thought process that I am seeing is that a solo character should be able to take on a small group of white enemies. It should require a large group to take on a wad of level +3. If you enforce this vision by wielding the nerf stick and buffing enemies, you are going to find it is a mistake. This road has been traveled before. What you are going to accomplish is pissing off the soloers and overcrowding the easy zones because you will not make it any more worthwhile to take on the challenges than it is now. People hate XP debt. If you enforce the vision with the nerf stick, you will take away any advantage that players have for skillful play. If you nerf every good tactic and build that works well until it doesn't work well anymore, it will all dull.

There is no magic to the color purple. It is just a color. It is not evil to kill something that is purple.

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If 1 hero takes out 12 minions, by your own math, that is 480 xp just for him. To get the same 480 xp each, your group of 8 has to kill 55 minions in the same time period. Your groups cannot kill 55 as fast as a decent soloer can kill 12.

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Actually, they can. IF the group goes to the zones with the spawns of the appropriate size...

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Solar Shadow
Guardian Server

No. They cannot. Show me.

Put your group of eight together. It doesn't really matter what you put in the group with one exception. I'll get to the exception.

I will outrun them and not by a little. At level 38 we clocked it. I earned XP at a rate of 190,000 per hour solo. Go to whatever zone you like. Good luck. How about Crey's Follies? Is that hazard enough? Freaks. Carnival area by the Rikti crash site.

Then I will assemble a group of 4 and we will outrun them again.

Then I will assemble a group of 2 and we will outrun the four.

And solo, I will still outrun all of them even if I am also a member of the bigger groups. I group with some frequency. I have never, never, had a teammate join me and do anything but slow me down. When I group, I always, ALWAYS, read my lips, ALWAYS hunt in a hazard zone. Occasionally, I will run a mission to help someone, but I get virtually zero XP for it.

What is the exception? A group of excellent soloers all in one group, but we do not stay together. We split up and take out one group of enemies per person. That will outrun the soloer if all of the members are power build soloers.

I might add, that while I am a fire/fire tank, my build is not ideal. It's strictly mediocre.

But here is the final irony. Make sure you put someone in your group of 8 with my identical build. It won't help you. You will still be outrun. You will be beaten with your own math.

Here is your opportunity. Schedule a time with me. I'm sure you can look up my contact information on my account. We'll run it for an hour. If I'm wrong, I'll post it here and shut up. If you lose, then you will now know, and that will be sufficient for me.

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The most base level of balance is that 3 minions=1 hero.

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Do you actually play your game from time to time? I keep hearing you say that you do, but if your toons are good for 3 minions, than I can only guess you are playing a controller.

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So here's a matchup of level 20 heroes and level 20 minions.

1 hero - 3 minions. Hero receives 120 xp.

4 heroes - 12 minions. Each hero receives 192 xp.

8 heroes - 24 minions. Each hero receives 210 xp.

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I'm sure you are correct. I'm equally sure you completely missed the point. If 1 hero takes out 12 minions, by your own math, that is 480 xp just for him. To get the same 480 xp each, your group of 8 has to kill 55 minions in the same time period. Your groups cannot kill 55 as fast as a decent soloer can kill 12. That is why the XP in large groups stinks. It's merely bad in medium sized groups but actively terrible in groups of 8. This data extrapolates to become even worse, much worse, if you add in the ability to hit higher level opponents, lieutenants, and bosses.

A decent soloer, and I mean decent, not a power build, can kill 12 minions in less than a minute. Take your group of eight and see if they can even travel between enough groups within a minute to hit their 55, much less combat them. Moreover, if they have to travel to a mission location before they hit them, it gets much worse.

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Zones are different than missions because they are broken down into 3 categories: city, hazard & trial. City zones spawn mobs designed for 1 to 3 heroes, hazard zones spawn things for 3 to 5 heroes, and trail zones spawns mobs designed for 5 to 8 heroes.

So, in street sweeping, we've noticed that large groups (say 5 or more) going around city zones - and then complaining that group XP isn't good. When, quite frankly, these groups are street sweeping in areas that don't have anything to challenge a group that size. Risk = reward. And because there's less risk, they don't get as much XP. But if the same group were to go into a Hazard Zone, they'd find larger spawns, and reap the benefit of the group XP bonus.

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If the same group were to go into a hazard zone, they would find an endless supply of XP debt. This is some very simple math right here. If you give half your XP to pay debt, it isn't good XP. Have you somehow failed to notice that Eden and places like it are empty? Have you stopped to ask why? Ask yourself that question. Why? Why is it empty when the XP is so much better for large groups?

Or, better yet ... try ... it ... yourself. If you cannot figure it out at that point, then there is no remaining reason to talk to you. Do a /whoall in there to get your first hint.

I hear these things over and over and over and over both on the boards and in the game:

"Soloing is boring, so I only solo to get rid of my XP debt from grouping."

"Yeah, I'm fire/fire tank so I solo all the time. My SG members join me sometimes when they need to get out of maximum XP debt."

My main, incidentally, is also a fire/fire tank. I have helped your grouping archetypes clear millions in XP debt.

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Note - missions scale to the team size. There is sometimes a delay in when the mob sizes scale up to a new size team....

Ah - and as for the argument that mission XP "sucks." Yes, you do reap less XP/minute if you simply travel from your contact immediately to your mission door (which tends to be player behavior). However, if you fight some spawns on the way - and finish the mission with the new XP rewards - I think you'll find that missions are much, much more competitive XP wise.

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How can you be this uninformed? I'm astounded. But I'll humor you. Small words.

You DELIBERATELY increased the rate of missions being handed out cross zone. If I am level 40, hitting the level <10 mobs in kings row, steel canyon, perez park, skyway city, do not give me any XP.

Just as importantly, if I am in a big group, we do not travel together. We meet at mission sites. Different travel powers. Different starting points. Selling and buying. There are a thousand reasons for this.

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Oh - and one other thing. The vast, vast majority of players at any given time are on missions. XP or not - it's the most popular part of the game.

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Which means the vast, vast majority of players at any given time are getting crappy XP which detracts from their enjoyment of the game. They would like it better if the part of the game they enjoyed also rewarded them well enough to make everyone happy.