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The Demacian

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  1. The Demacian
    Can my Rogue MM receive the respec token from Terra Volta? Do I redeem it in Paragon City or the Rogue Isles?
  2. The Demacian
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Yomo_Kimyata View Post
    I love my grav/storm, but I expect to love my plant/storm even more in about 30 levels. Storm has so many good powers (although some disagree) and if you are willing to invest a fair amount of inf, produces a very powerful character.
    I actually didn't end up taking Freezing Rain until 20 because I'd been so underwhelmed by everything in /storm prior to that. Gale is a lot of fun, yeah, but /storm up til now hadn't been the game-changer that /kin is on my other Controller. What are a couple of your favorite powers in Storm?
  3. The Demacian
    I have to say that Freezing Rain is a heavy dose of pure joy and I'm glad I stuck with this. Everyone on the ice patch is immobilized and falling down, everyone else is held or being thrown around, and I'm just grinning ear to ear.

    Nyx made Grav/FF sound rather tempting, and I may still try it later, but having Freezing Rain in every fight, thanks to (sigh) Hasten, even though it makes my hands entirely the wrong color, is more fun than any other single power I have.
  4. The Demacian
    It's difficult to look at any of my characters and not see very compelling reasons to take Hasten. For one character, it tightens up the attack chain for a gap-free DPS frenzy; for the others, it cuts several minutes out of their ridiculous 5-10 minute recharge powers.

    Are there good builds for which Hasten is an unnecessary, take-it-or-leave-it sort of thing? My plant/kin controller seems like he might be nearly there. Even without Hasten, he has more powers than he can possibly spam in the course of combat, and frequently has to make snap decisions about which of several powers to use. Nevertheless, Plant has gorgeous long-recharge powers that I like to use, say, in every other fight, as opposed to once or twice at best in any given mish.

    So while I'm not looking for bad builds, in pursuit of a change of pace, I am looking for powersets that get little meaningful benefit from Hasten. Or is this a pipe dream?
  5. The Demacian
    Global name: @The Demacian
    Server they mainly play on: Victory
    Level of PvP experience: I checked out Siren's Call to see what it was like - I've beaten it a couple times for the temp powers but it's a ghost town.
    Access to Ventrilo and/or mic: Yep!
    Ability to meet at 9pm est on Fridays: No problem at all from 4/1 and beyond. This coming Friday is a maybe.
  6. The Demacian
    One thing that you might already be doing, that I'd like to suggest, is a "punishment" for herding. For example, if you herd Group X together the minions will quickly pile up 10 stacks of Siphon Power for all their buddies, and the bosses will be keeping the minions alive a few seconds longer (and themselves quite a bit longer than that) with Twilight Grasp.
  7. The Demacian
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex View Post
    I'd like it if something like this got started. It not something you can do in any other MMO.

    My only concern is about AVs. They are pretty easy to make so irritating that the mission stops being challenging and just becomes boring. IMO a common sense rule needs to apply to them. I think it's ok for them to be hard, but IMO the only challenge should not be "lets see you out DPS THIS."
    This and the timer restriction seems like it'd be pretty easily handled like so: "If all 8 players are dead or running out of range, the map has won. If all the creatures are dead the players have won. Nothing else is a win condition." Honor system, of course, but people who want a challenge and cheaters usually don't overlap.
  8. The Demacian
    I'm planning for my Terra Volta respec at 24 - I want to make good use of this respec with a cheap (ish) frankenslot build that I can ride all the way to 50 and then leave it pretty much as-is or respec again for Cardiac or Spirit at that time.

    Here's what I'm working with:
    1. In combat, he's a gargoyle with frickin laser beams! That means Hover and X-Ray Beam are non-negotiable. If you don't understand the pure joy that is flying above a pack of Hellions and staring them to death as they feebly hop around, you and I come from different planets. Hover doesn't necessarily mean Fly has to be my travel power.
    2. On which note, I rather enjoy the way that Super Speed interacts with Shadow Fall for great stealth aaaand a really psychedelic light show. I'm not married to SS, but if there's room in the build for two travel pools, I like Super Speed and Hasten is rarely a bad thing.
    3. There are two main groups of players I team with. One of them is almost all Blasters and Scrappers, the other is almost all Defenders. For team A, I need to protect their squishy hides as much as possible - Howling Twilight currently gets a lot of action and Electron Haze is actually appreciated because team A needs all the protection they can get. For team B, I need to be able to contribute meaningfully to the damage and I'm rather looking forward to Aim. These two groups are a large part of my choice of APP - Power Build Up gives me the option to pump out fat heals and mezzes for Team A, and later in the day pump out steaming hot DPS for Team B. Of other pools, I liked Soul about as much as Power but it'd be more work to acquire than I'm interested in.
    4. I don't like Darkest Night. I recognize that it's a good power, so I will end up taking it, but first I'm grabbing all the things I like first.
    5. I assume that IF I alpha slot this character, I'll be able to drop Conserve Power easily, but until then, I'm showing some really steep endurance usage (not the least of which is two powers with a crash). I'd like to drop it if possible, as Leadership stuff is always good and Air Superiority has saved my bacon a couple times on the "not srs bizness" build I've played with.
    6. This is a Terra Volta respec! I'm not terribly concerned about the order of my 1-22 powers, but nothing's stopping you from yelling at me if they're exceptionally stupid for some reason. Unlikely to exemplar much, and even then I can always pull out the aforementioned silly build.
    7. X-Ray is my bread and butter nuke. If used at all, Neutrino is just to help the next hit land or keep me low on the aggro list.
    8. Trying to keep it somewhat cheap. No purples, and going light on the oranges. I'm not so cheap as to use basic IOs/SOs as my target build - I recognize that Performance Shifter will help a lot with my high endurance costs, and can be gotten with a few merits or patient marketeering, but I'm not going to assume LotGs unless I end up wanting to go Alpha, Incarnate etc.
    9. This is my first attempt at a frankenslot build so no laughing unless you tell me why you're laughing! I only like wallowing in shame and sorrow when I'm also learning something useful. I may have more set bonuses than I need but I don't think I pushed ED too far anywhere.
    10. I grabbed everything I wanted on all of my powers, and left a few enhancement slots available to put wherever experts recommend.
    Anyway, here's the build.

    [sblock]Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.92
    http://www.cohplanner.com/

    Click this DataLink to open the build!

    Level 50 Magic Defender
    Primary Power Set: Dark Miasma
    Secondary Power Set: Radiation Blast
    Power Pool: Speed
    Power Pool: Flight
    Power Pool: Leadership
    Ancillary Pool: Power Mastery

    Hero Profile:
    Level 1: Twilight Grasp
    Level 1: Neutrino Bolt
    Level 2: Tar Patch
    Level 4: Irradiate
    Level 6: Howling Twilight
    Level 8: Shadow Fall
    Level 10: Hasten
    Level 12: Fearsome Stare -- (A)(15)(29)(34)(34)
    Level 14: Super Speed -- (A)
    Level 16: Electron Haze -- (A)(17)(31)(36)
    Level 18: Petrifying Gaze -- (A)(19)(33)
    Level 20: Aim -- (A)(21)(21)
    Level 22: Hover -- (A)
    Level 24: X-Ray Beam
    Level 26: Maneuvers
    Level 28: Cosmic Burst
    Level 30: Darkest Night
    Level 32: Dark Servant
    Level 35: Tactics
    Level 38: Atomic Blast
    Level 41: Power Build Up
    Level 44: Force of Nature
    Level 47: Total Focus
    Level 49: Conserve Power
    [/sblock]
    Code: 
    | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
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|-------------------------------------------------------------------|


    I might need more personal defense for the amount of AoE I'm able to put out. If it's just one boss and a handful of minions/LTs trying to kill me, though, I can keep the boss stunned, and do a wide number of interesting and impolite things to the rest of em. Multiple bosses, I'd have to hope FoN was available I guess or pop whatever pills are in my tray.

    I tried to determine what my uptime is for having either Conserve Power or Force of Nature up (if I were to rotate them). I was figuring out what my actual Hasten uptime was, and then multiplying things to get the other two powers' uptime, and then I accidentally hit MC instead of MR and said screw it. With Rest for between-fight end recovery and FoN/CP for mid-fight endurance issues, I feel like I should be fine.
  9. The Demacian
    wrong forum
  10. The Demacian
    Are you looking for hard stuff with a lot of detail work, or relatively uniform, clean/efficient designs?
  11. The Demacian
    OP, I think that would be an awesome superteam. It leaves a fair amount of room for individual variation, too. (Cows With Guns, while an awesome idea, meant that everyone looks like a cow and NO ONE is a tank. )

    Energy, FF, DP covers many ATs. Doesn't AR have some knockback too?

    I'd say each member needs 2 knockback powers (early in their career, not APP) to qualify and then whatever floats your boat.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nyx View Post
    While I love knockback Solo...I can see why (I play a scrapptroller) it can annoy.

    Do I love it! YES! Do I think it's mitigation! YES! because it is frankly, even if others complain.

    My Main is a tank/scrapper/stalker friendly Grav/FF. Min knockback etc, however I will not hestitate to use wormhole to pull mobs off of our defender or squishies and I never get complaints.

    I love it, and I hate it. Stunns break mobs nearly as much but they dont take people out of melee range, however a knockback should not be appologized for, as I have seen it (Especially my Rad/NRG Blaster) save my life more than almost any form of mitigation.
    Oh man. I like the sound of that.

    I'm running a grav/storm and it feels kinda like work sometimes. O2 boost is an extremely busy power that I have to stay on top of or essentially forget about. Gale is only good as an emergency button, and it is easy to scatter with, hard to herd with.

    Now FF would just be rebubbling every 3 minutes and I tend to play on a 4 person team so it wouldn't be THAT much rebubbling. It'd mitigate the damage that isn't mitigated by Hold/Knockback. And rather than the allies-only nature of O2 boost, I'd get some personal defense to help with aggro when I AoE.

    I am definitely thinking about rebuilding Rebuilt Lucille. /FF even happens to better suit her former-telekineticist-rebuilt-as-cyborg-after nearly-being-cut-in-half shtick.
  12. The Demacian
    This discussion reminds me somewhat of the research I did into Dwarf Fortress unit pathing algorithms to EFFICIENTLY find the shortest distance between two points. It is amazing what happens when you have a simple algorithm, then hand it to 200 sprites who are trying to run it all at the same time while updating their paths in real-time to account for their friends getting in their way. Distance between two points, easy as pie, which changed efficiency into the goal.

    I'm not sure how relevant it is but I can dig up wikipedia and forum discussion links from that topic if you'd like.
  13. The Demacian
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by pmgunnerxx View Post
    I swear I am still laughing at this... mostly because everytime i read it I hear Samual L Jackson asking the question.
    I always feel like it should be "an" MFing Shade - between general gaming use, Cho'gath, and Warshades, the term gets used enough that I hear it in my head as Emm Effing, not as the words it's short for. Indeed, Emm Effing has its own definition: "MFing - adjective - to be so unstoppable that friends chortle and cry out, 'Look at 'im go!' while looting the spoils left behind, and enemies stand rooted to the spot, weeping profusely, only to giggle nervously one last time before being mowed down."
  14. The Demacian
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Starflier View Post
    "I'll catch you on the flip side as they used to say." She was the first to drop comms. The rest of the members of Blue Shield soon followed suit, saying their goodbyes.
    That was fun to read. Skimming this thread, it looks like you guys have a somewhat slow, lazily-revolving door but by and large stay active and regular after all this time? I'm itching to get some RP in; I don't think any happens on my home server whatsoever.
  15. The Demacian
    I think it was a temporary issue at 4shared - DL timed out at browser, and Jdownloader was saying disconnected by host. On the 12th retry while I was playing, Jd was able to download it for me, so everything's peachy.
  16. The Demacian
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven View Post
    Yes, they are. There is a functional link in Shadow_State's sig! What you are looking for would likely be the Standard version of the Enhancement Icon Standardization Pack.
    Said link exists, and I do indeed reach a page, but downloading it does not currently work whether through my browser or JDownloader. I've downloaded from 4shared before without trouble.
  17. The Demacian
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Fulmens View Post
    ... As you can tell, different people do things differently. Just like I said.

    It'll get faster as you get used to it. The invention system is kind of a large expository lump to get through.
    Yeah, folks posted quite a few ways to go about it. Leaves me room to see what fits. I just need to stop hoarding, one way or another, as well as not let myself get excited about a good deal on a recipe or enhancement that'll rope me into an hour spent trying to collect the other parts of the set.

    Off to go attempt to get rid of it all! Thanks, everyone.
  18. The Demacian
    I've been having a great time playing CoH, but as my characters level up it becomes increasingly apparent that I'm skimping on the busywork. I'm looking for tips on how to streamline and expedite said busywork. I'll try to head off confusion by explaining what I mean.

    Gameplay
    This is what most of us are here to experience. Radios, tips, arcs, TFs, and trials. This is where we get to use the powersets that we chose, meet & play with people, and test our skills against the game engine.

    For most folks, this is the primary component of their gaming "fun", although some people seem to prefer powerleveling and speedrunning to shortcut the gameplay and get to the next level of powers and slots to worry about.

    Research and Learning
    You want to experiment with /energy. I want to cause the biggest, noisiest, brightest explosions possible. To achieve our goals, we read the CoH wiki, fiddle around in Mids, and use the forums.

    For some, this counts as homework, but for some (including me) this, too, is "fun". It's learning new things, experimentation, and chasing theoretical perfection.

    Busywork
    This is the part of the game that makes me wander off and go play Flash games for awhile to relax and unwind. I'm bad at it, I don't like it, and I'm not even sure I'm doing it right.

    When I leveled up high enough to get the Disembowel attack, for example, my initial enthusiasm to go try it out was quickly curbed when I realized that I now had red enhancements that needed replacing, a full-to-bursting Enhancement/Salvage/Recipe inventory, and some stuff at Wentworth's to try to pick up in spite of my full inventory. 2 or 3 hours later, I logged off having done my best to take care of all my business but too tired to actually go play.
    • Salvage and, to a lesser extent, recipes are constantly piling up as I defeat enemies. I've learned to sell off any recipe that starts with "Invention:", and try to craft any actual set pieces for my characters or for Wentworth's. This mostly keeps me on top of the recipe situation, but salvage is a cruel taskmaster. I can try to sell it on the market, but salvage is an extremely volatile market - some stuff is going for less than even vendor value, other stuff is hyperinflated, and it's anyone's guess as to whether there are currently any buyers or what they think of the current prices. I can vendor it off, but then I'm potentially wasting a ton of money and screwing over my characters who might need it for a recipe during a season of overpricing. There isn't nearly enough room in the market, the Vault, and my pockets to store it all, though. What typically ends up happening is "all of the above" - I screw around on wentworth's trying to sell off what's currently valuable, get frustrated at how long that takes, vendor off a bunch and then leave my inventory half-full with components that I think I might need.
    • Enhancements offer up somewhat of a dilemma, where you can either use the less-powerful, frequently-expiring DO's and SO's, or spend hours bidding on recipes, bidding on salvage, seeing if you have the components in one of your characters' Vaults, crafting, running out of inf, deciding whether to frankenslot or get a set bonus, etc etc. You are less powerful and constantly needing to visit your local Magic Store with option A, but option B frontloads the hell out of your time and inf investment for the promise of uncertain, possibly underwhelming benefit at an unspecified point later that day or week.

    What do people typically do with all their Salvage? Is there a way to expedite the process of deciding which set to build and then acquiring all the necessary recipes and components? Halp?
  19. The Demacian

    Goatrules

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SwellGuy View Post
    Hey as an often BUYITNAO I thank you guys for making sure I can.
    I played the market heavily for a few days when I was starting out just so that basic SOs or IOs wouldn't be an issue. 20 mil isn't too bad to work with if you know that you can easily make more when it runs out, and is a big improvement on 30 thou of initial capital.

    I can see where the BUYITNAO people are coming from because, even though I know I could make money faster by marketeering, I have been having a lot more fun playing and I don't mind that my cash is dwindling.

    Even small-fry tactics, like bid creeping on salvage, can spiral into several wasted minutes if I let it. Throw up a high bid and play, or throw up a low bid and play (even if underslotted), I say. Time spent guesstimating sellers' intentions is time I could run around and play, even if a spot or two is unslotted.
  20. The Demacian
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SupaFreak View Post
    More chaos Mayhem style!
    Even better, as the Mayhems are harder. Thanks!
  21. The Demacian
    My Widow is some seriously good fun, but the "great defenses" mentioned in the AT description is certainly not there yet. I could get there if I was regularly teaming with folks who also have free Leadership, and as a bonus we'd all be sexy looking to boot!

    Are there any low level VEAT superteams that meet regularly, or high level ones that wouldn't mind a (currently) level 9 tagging along?

    In the event of existing groups not available, anyone who has a VEAT within oh, I dunno, 10 levels of me, feel free to post and maybe we can start a discussion for a weekly meeting superteam. Note: I'd rather not start or join a V/SG dedicated to the cause as I'm already happy with my current VG.
  22. The Demacian

    Monster Hunter

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr_Right View Post
    Is there any idea how much GMs and Monsters resist -to hit? I know it's bound to differ, but if I'm packing -50%, how much of that might I expect to actually help? I'm curious because if it helps enough, it might be worth it to start looking into ranged defense.
    Is there a way to look that sort of thing up? I feel like knockup gets ignored a bit more often than knockback, and trolls seem more resistant to things in general, but I don't know if this and other feelings are mere gut/false correlation, or actual numbers affecting actual gameplay. The kinds of resist/protection that mobs are packing (beyond the known 1/2/3 for minions/lts/bosses) is very important to controllers, I would think, so that we don't fling useless attacks in the wrong directions.
  23. The Demacian
    Let us know how that secret meeting at 9 pm on the hill works out! Some sets are really fun stacked, others have a way of... "rooster-blocking" themselves. I bet you guys are gonna stack to the moon for lulzy good times.

    Also, 45 is pretty close to 50. What if you made the push to get them both to 50 and rocking budget enhancements before making the commitment to pimping one of them out hard?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Local_Man View Post
    Frankly, there are very few Controllers that don't match those criteria if you play them well. But I understand your reference to Fire/Kin . . . it is a very busy build thanks to the Kinetics. I just got my Plant/Kin up to 50 on a TF recently . . . and I was downright tired at the end of the TF, just trying to keep up with the constant buffing and controlling. Throwing out SB to the team when they are running all over the place . . . keeping up with the Tank out front so that I can hit Fulcrum Shift before the team kills all the bad guys, and then fitting in Transfusion and Transference and Siphon Speed and Siphon Power before everything is dead . . . while throwing out Seeds and Roots and Creepers . . . <pant, pant>
    Oh man. I agree with this one. My plant/kin is only in his teens and I only bother with the single target Immob on small teams. I've put Siphon Power on autofire, and that gets me into trouble sometimes (such as when I try to start a fight out with Confusion, and SP follows right after and draws some aggro), but if I don't do that I just won't keep it up (and stacked) like I should. I would call Kin effective, but not "fun" unless you're a total Type A personality.
    Quote:
    Plant/Storm and Grav/Storm are great combos, too (working on them).

    To me, the most important thing is to come up with a name/Concept that I find to be fun or amusing.
    Grav/Storm is indeed superfun. Rebuilt Lucille may be half-human, but she's ALL woman and will throw peeps against the wall (repeatedly) if they disrespect!
  24. The Demacian
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Canadian_Medbot View Post
    Was I the only one who found a bowl of CC, while delicious, would turn the roof of my mouth into hamburger?
    I always wondered what that smooth, sticky coating up there was. I figure the Captain just really, really, really enjoys his time spent in my mouth.
  25. The Demacian
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Werner View Post
    Parry is a key power from a very low level and needs six slots. Any attack you actually use routinely should have six slots, really. And if you don't use it routinely, I don't suggest keeping it.
    I'd gotten the impression when I took it on my first build that Slash was subpar. Then my first or second Mids build confirmed that for me, and I switched to build 2 which is fairly decent. It wasn't until today that I realized, in Mids, that Parry is almost the same damage as Slash (with a shorter cooldown and great defense debuff).

    I actually already have it on autofire, but for some reason I had it filed in my head as a purely utility/defense power. I'll definitely put more slots into it post-haste, and then make most of the bigger changes mentioned by folks after I do a respec trial. Everything appears to make sense to me in general, but for a couple of questions:

    Werner specifically advises against slotting Heal for Instant Healing. It seems like turning a very large number into a proportionally bigger number would result in a lovely time spent regenerating faster than anyone could keep up with, even if they have you mezzed.

    No love for Tactics? It gives me access to mez resists that I don't already have from elsewhere. I for one hate being mezzed, but that is more of a sentiment than a hard-math-backup for why I went with Man/Tac instead of Man/Jump.

    More generally though, I think applying this advice to my next build will yield fewer urges to change the build than I currently go through. Which is good, because you can't respec forever. Thanks everyone!