The Grim Heaper

Well, that's more for discussing the changes to the rules that are going on (outlined here). If an existing unchanged rule has you flummoxed, here's as good a place as any to ask.

Pfft... never fails.. I like a television series, it gets canceled. Web comic, gets put on hiatus. Building, city tears it down. Flavour, the company changes the formula (Screw you Hamburger Helper, that's twice now, give me back the old lasagna and beef noodle!).

Heck, I'm surprised David Weber hasn't dropped dead recently (although I haven't quite finished all of the Honor Harrington books yet, so... *knocks on wood*)

So, considering, I should have seen this coming when my rep started skyrocketing... not that it's any great loss, mind you.

Wellll.... If you require a more detailed explanation of some rules, that should be ok, and we should be able to help you.

If your question is more about questioning the logic behind the rules; should be fine - although as this is the forum for players answering other player's questions, so we probably couldn't offer more than educated guesses in some cases.

However, if you are asking about rule 583, which reads, "do not ask questions about rule 583"... well... fairly self explanatory.

Psst; ThinkGeek has many bacon-related products you could bri--- er... Convince the devs with.

As a general rule, if you think about a name like this, and then turn to the forums to ask if it would be generic'd... it probably could be.

It might not be generic'd today, tomorrow, next week, or even after a year or two. But eventually someone would decide that it's a little risky, petition it, and the responding GM might err on the side of caution and hit you with the generic bat.

Personally, I'd go with White Hot Flash's advice, and try to figure out a more unique name and work the bodyguard thing into his Bio. One option in a situation like this is to use an anagram generator (linky). Entering "ets bodyguard" yielded at least two results that I liked;

• "Sturdy Bodega" - Especially if the character's built like a brick house, or in this case, grocery store.
• "Grays Doubted" - Works well, as Grays are a popular sort of alien. You know the ones; fragile looking bodies, large head with large black eyes...

And sometimes you can find a copy sitting in the bargain bin of some stores (Zellers and Odd Lots spring to mind).

Heck, I recently found a CoV (not collectors) box at my local gamestop for 9 bucks. I bought it and started my alt account with it.

Ok, well, I stand probably corrected.

Regeneration would then, it seems, only decrease the interval between tics. More tics in a second would increase the amount of HP gained in a single second.

And more max hp would then increase the amount of HP gained in any given tick. Which, again, translates to more HP gained each second.

Beyond a certain point, I'm not sure one would really notice the interval between ticks becoming that much shorter anyway. Unless you suddenly came into a rather large amount of extra regen (like, say, from Regeneration Aura). So as long as the HP/sec value that the combat attributes shows goes up, I'm happy.

The first slot is limited to the Arachnos armour, and the limited varients there-of (usually one of two options, and a default/custom colouring for each)

going through your ongoing VEAT mission arcs, you get to unlock your first extra costume slot earlier than lvl 20 (or by turning in halloween salvage, whichever you do first). THAT slot, and all others after it, are more fully customizable (monstrous legs, robotic arms, etc, etc), with the exception that if you have any Crab spider powers; the spider-leg backpack is a mandatory back option.

EDIT: although I wish some of those costume pieces from slot 1 were options for the other slots. I <3 those crab spider glove blades.

The intervals are fixed AFAIK. Although you can also increase your regeneration rate (hp/tick) by increasing your max HP.

I don't really see many ways in which the creator could be improved (heck, moving tails to lower body, allowing a tail+belt made many of my dreams come true already).

So other than some tidying up (there is very little difference between "Head>Standard" and "Head>Masks with hair" would be nice to just consolidate the two (read: losing none of the unique options from either)), and giving a little love to things like; medieval helms, full helms, armoured upper/lower body, and monsterous heads/feet...

While I would love to be able to customize faces a little more, I think anything too beyond what we have right now might require a rather massive amount of work for too little payoff.. although might be a nice "spare time" project or stretch goal...

Could make for an interesting mechanic in a new set.. although I'm not sure what kind of attack would reduce max hp on a target (likely temporarily)... I'm thinking either radiation or toxic, but we have those, and their secondary effects are something else entirely. :/

/signed - What Psychoti said. It is really good advice, because if you can beat the bosses down fast enough, having them around could be more efficient for you.

Although I think keeping bosses around is generally a better idea for a primarily single target attack chain, where you're really only killing 1 at a time for the most part anyway, and you can use the simple formula of
BossDefeatTime <= (BossReward/LtReward)*LtDefeatTime

But if you're heavy in the AoE it's a little more complicated; if every non-boss in a spawn is dead and you're still beating on the boss - that's time you could be using to AoE the non-bosses in the next spawn...


So, yes bosses CAN be more efficient, but are they for you? Dunno, as we have no hard data on your build/playstyle to tell. But if you use an external tracking program like Psychoti suggests, you can get hard data on your inf/time on both boss, and no-boss runs.

Buffs, generally speaking, are any powers which increase your (you, a team mate, multiple team mates) effectiveness in any way. +health, +regen, +end, +recovery, +damage, +accuracy, +to-hit, +defense, +resist, +movement, +recharge, etc, etc....

Debuffs are any powers that weaken one or more foes, reducing their effectiveness (see previous list, replace '+'s with '-'s)

Often, the values of these are modified based on archtype; A forcefield defender can buff allies' defence higher than a forcefield controller can. Additionally, many attack powersets have small debuffs in addition to their damage. it is often very small, and the effect is not obvious, but it can add up over the course of a fight.

In game and on the forums, you may often hear people saying that Buffs/debuffs are superior to heals. This is because a single forcefield defender can pretty much softcap an entire team's defence (they won't get hit often enough to reguire constant heals). Hitting the boss/EB/AV/GM with enough powers from a radiation set can floor it's regen and make it easier to hit. Kinetics can do INSANE things with an entire team's damage potential, to the point where you kill things fast enough that they don't have a chance to harm you.
Even Empathy, the seemingly healing-centric powerset, has a few buffs (recovery/regeneration aura) that can raise a team's regeneration high enough that few things pose a threat. The list goes on...

As for what this all means to your blaster? On a team, you want whatever buffs they have to offer. They can turn your glass cannon into a tank-cannon (or perhapps just a bigger glass one in in the case of kinetics). On your own? you may not have that many buffs to offer yourself, depending on your powersets (take aim & buildup if you can, great ways to buff your own damage by a considerable margin).

EDIT: It should be noted that enemies can buff themselves, and debuff you. Just in case my opening was not entirely clear on that.

(and, as I figured, answered long before I finished typing...)

Have everyone load up on inspirations, about 4 small purple to cap yourselves, and the rest red. buff up, Munch 'em all at once, and lay into him. Alternatively, try to get medium or large inspirations, as then it would take fewer to cap yourselves, and you may only need to consume half your tray, munching the second half as the first ones run out.

You may also want to consider taking a detour to bloody bay to try and get everyone a shivan. None of this is by any means necessary, but they are all things to try.