Tonality

I thought this forum section was supposed to be about helping people answer questions, not argue semantics.

Stone Armor is not what I would recommend for entry-level farming, and that appears to be what the OP is seeking. Further, when farming, survivability is only important to the degree that you can avoid faceplanting. The priority must remain AoE damage output. This is what Stone Armor tends to reduce without significant investment. Therefore, Stone Armor is the last set I would recommend the OP.

That's not to say it isn't worth playing of farming with. It's just that a SS/WP is going to work great with just SOs, unlike a turbostoner, which needs quite a bit of investment to sustain itself. Given the current market prices, I would place a good turbostoner build around 2 billion inf easy. (5 purple sets, 3 lotg 7.5s). I can't in good conscious recommend a /stone brute to the OP.

Furthermore, in AE a SS/Fire brute against fire bosses will outpace a SS/Stone in the same map. Even a SO build might do ok.

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Throughout the normal game you will NEVER find all-boss spawns like you can make in AE missions (i.e. it spawns a normal number of enemies, as if the spawn contained minions, LTs, and bosses, but replaces the missing minions and LTs with bosses, so that the spawn contains 10-20 bosses). In the normal game, if a spawn contains nothing but bosses (rare, but it can happen) it's usually only 3 or 4.

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I know of two all boss maps redside. I also know of an all-lt map, with the exception of 2 mission bosses. They exist in game. They may not be commonplace, but there's your precedent.

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Alot of peeps had the misconception of "nerf this" and "nerf that" to get the farmers out of AE. that was the wrong attack on the right problem. the absolutely best possible solution to "get the farmers out" is to distract them away with a new shiney, not to "nerf it all to an ineffective oblivion"

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Absolutely.

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AE doesnt drop purples (except for Dev choice)....and that's really what a lot of farmers are after. Or so that will be the reason I leave the AE buildings.

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Drop farming content is far, far more profitable than using AE.

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I predict a lot of Dennis Learyesque rants about "whatever happened to fire-colored fire?" And pull up your pants!

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Those rants will be balanced by those who are looking forward to finally getting electricity-colored electricity.

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*Electrocutes himself investigating the closest outlet with a screwdriver*

I'm sorry, electricity isn't wanting to show its true color right now.

I for one know that anyone who has ever seen this will be sorely disappointed:

Hello, I'm looking for padders/fillers/anchors. I am willing to pay 1 million inf for your time. PST if you are interested.

Yes, I pay my fillers.

I get to have my cake and eat it too!

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OMG THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS

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Unfortunately, the forum software could not contain the awesome and you had to reduce it to only a few THIS's.

I'll be helping the Black Market by exterminating eldersnakes set to 8. Insane risks for insane rewards.

Keep this momentum and I'll be looking to subscribe for more than my typical 6 month subscription come August! Maybe even get a third account...

Yeah, I'm wanting to throw money at the Devs now.

QR:

I can only hope this new difficulty feature applies to AE. I've already sworn off lowbies on my teams and have basically shunned AE because of the beggars. Last time I visted, I had a lowbie offer to pay me to level him. (I turned him down)

This is the most intelligent thing the developers have ever done to address the issue of farming - what's even funnier is this solution helps farmers, but also addresses concerns about the long-term consequences of people spoiled with being leveled.

It's genius.

Interesting idea, but it wouldn't work:

1) A lot of people have already dinged 50 via AE. I've met new players that have only experienced AE and now have at least 1 PL'd 50. This is the biggest reason why it wouldn't work.
2) The brand-new player isn't going to be able to get much of anything from AE on the first character. Given we have a new marketed game-box highlighting this feature, it would be quite a disappointment when that feature wasn't instantly working for the player.

Soloing AV's on a dark/dark defender?
Are these even con Arch-Villains?

Forgive me for being incredulous, but I've never heard of this before. Dark's damage always seemed, well, sub-par. Can it achieve the sustained 95 dps necessary (or slightly lower if you keep the AV in tar?)

Really?

I have enough of a challenge at times on a billion inf dark/shield that is absolutely sick in the damage department.

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Which would you rather use? Have on a team (Co-Op or otherwise)? Reasons?

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There are too many variables to answer this question:

1)Softcapped DM/SD Brute vs DM/SD Scrapper?
--The scrapper has better damage potential and similar survivability. Either one can solo an AV.
2) High Recharge Superstrength/Fire Brute vs Spines/Fire Brute?
--The SS/Fire brute will wind up with better AoE damage potential AND better fire resistance.
3) Dark/Stone Brute vs BS/Regen?
--How in the world is this even a comparison? Do I want a whirlwind of damage or an unstoppable paperweight?

For survivability, there are certain sets that allow brutes to shine and even match the survivability of tanks (Stone) and there are certain AoE powersets (elec/shield, SS/shield) that scrappers do not have access to that make them sickening.

As to which I would play, it again depends on the team dynamic. If I can maintain fury (on some teams this is impossible), then a brute can be a joy to play. But, if I am on a team that stops often to rest or has an overwhelming amount of mez so I don't get hit enough to maintain my fury, I'm not going to want to play my brute who is now doing sub-tanker damage. Wait, my SG is calling me. Gotta go.

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Just for the record my stone armor brute is 7 seconds away from perma hasten... While in granite form.. Runs faster than damn near everyone while in granite. (of course ss is faster) ... I have a simple macro that combines everything into reds and that plus my double rage, in almost always at damage cap... Not to mention the near perma hasten again... So I can damage as good as the rest of them... I'm done with the argument... Apparently none of you have an IO'd out SA. Go do some research in mids. Ciao.

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Might I see your build? So far I have yet to come up with a build in Mids for SA that I liked. I'm intrigued.

On a mARC I unpublished I did this.

The first mission was to investigate why rikti were on a cargo ship. Your only purpose was to access the comm station to figure out what in the world was going on. Once you entered the ship, you came across strange devices. I had created a custom group with only rikti bosses (mentalists and heavies). I ran it on a PUG. A brute ran off and promptly spawned an ambush on top of him. It was beautiful.

Back when stacking objects worked, I had a mission where your job was to assassinate a particular person in the back room. Upon doing so, you had a HUGE ambush drop on top of you forcing you to bolt for your escape - a mystic portal in the front. (oh and the map was empty before you did the assassination so you had to fight your way back)

Another one had you going down into a dusty cave to clear it of the rikti infestation. Intelligence implied you had one assault leader to take out. Intelligence was dead wrong, and as soon as you took out the leader you found that the rikti were much better reinforced than you thought - several heavies spawned randomly on the way back, as well as a few more ambushes. The coolest thing was only seeing the rikti rifles in the dust of the cave off in the distance. It's a shame the map was so big because it got annoying after a while. But boy, was that cool.

Hold on, I'll get back to you. I'm still trying to kill that EB with havoc punch and chain induction..

With intelligent slotting you can get both damage and end drain to the ED cap and still have decent stats for acc/rech/end redux.

I'm not interested.

I think color is the most important thing you can do to convey your idea. Find very sterile colors, but try to avoid the typical 'emo' look.

For example, the rich purple or red/black combo found on some villain themes would not convey this message. Try to go with some of the colors that are more sterile in nature:

-Gray: The lack of true color.
-Beige: Nothing says sterile than the default color of choice.

Physique:
When I think emotionless cold-blooded killer, I think of the creepy guy from con air that sang you are my sunshine with that girl. As such, you probably want someone more lanky.

Costume planning:

-Don't do the trenchcoat ala dark watcher.
-Long Pants with a blended pattern. Sterile.
-Monstrous bare hands. They won't be too noticeable but will enhance the vicious implications of your cold-blooded killer.
-Buttoned Shirt.
-Avoid busy details at all costs. You want him to stand out against the decorated villains.

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So now that pikabko has become Voidaccount, I'm pretty sure that his derailment of other threads and stuff will result in

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Wait what was I suppo-

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And I don't understand people who are fine with fluff taking as much or more effort to earn than things that have a tangible effect on gameplay.

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Better solution: Give it better up time.

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Agreed. 5 Minutes up, 1 hour down?

Bah. I'd rather it be like the AE accolade. Make it worth working to get.

edit: This is so I can spawn and dismiss it for the boom!

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Only problem is you're thinking of them for strictly PvE use. They're "PvP' IOs for a reason. As such, you should factor in PvP-only set bonuses into the equation.

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Reread my post. I did - the stuff after the "/" were the PvP bonuses.

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Well, then that's the wrong attitude. PvP takes a long time to learn and gain experience before getting "good." It requires patience and frustration sometimes. Perhap, PvP is simply not for you if you can't invest the time/energy.

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Perhaps then PvP should be more casual friendly. You are correct, though. The current pvp system leaves me with no real desire to PvP once I began learning about it. In any case, what is one less player in pvp anyway?

I don't mind working for something if it is worth it. However, these PvP IOs are not worth 100 million a piece to me. I'll be cashing in on mine when I find the right moment.

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IMO, this suggestion would probably be the best compromise. More "stuff" will drop so the PvP-wannabe PvErs can satisfy their "gotta have shiney" cravings, while the higher quality "purple" PvP IOs will be reserved for the dedicated PvPers.

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I'm glad you agree. I'm concerned about the wannabe label. If you would like PvP to be a bit more popular, I'd drop it. Entrance-level player is far nicer and implies they might become a serious pvper someday.

As someone who would indeed like to explore PvP, the cost of these isn't helping.

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I just listed the PvP-only set bonuses of 2 of the sets, but as you can see, these are "purple" level bonuses with regards to their effect on PvP play: decrease recharge, increase range, reduce mez (big one!), defense increase, increase health/endurance, slow resist (another big one!), etc. etc.

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If they were purple level bonuses, they would have +15% accuracy, +10% Recharge. PvP IOs are good, but they aren't purples. If I were building a PvP toon I would use purples AND PvP IOs. Purples being the priority for certain powers, especially given DR. They may have behaviors similar to purples, but they aren't purples. The sooner they start being treated as non-purples, the better for the PvP community.

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I am beggining to think that most of you flamming this post are the abusive farmers,and want to justify the abuse,so that you can continue to abuse the game and system...Bravo..

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Oww, my feelings. I'm taking my ball home now.

The only thing I abuse are hordes of enemies. Are you defending their rights to not be smashed? If so, I'm afraid we're going to have problems.

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Post Deleted by Moderator_08

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Flamming

I will now proceed to beat you silly with drumsticks. It's a minor point, but arguments work better when you use the proper words.

1) I have worked for every one of my 50's. Once they hit 50, I worked to earn the inf and drops to outfit each one. Most of my 50's have nearly 1,000 hours logged in (I need a life)
2) I'm not going to flame you. I'll flame your idea. There's a big difference between you and what seems to come out of your brain.
3) As a farmer, I agree that AE is a problem that needs a solution. Yours however, is moronic.
4) Some of the people that replied to you are indeed farmers. Not all of them are.

Now to beat your idea mercilessly with drumsticks:

We have recently released a new boxed version of AE called Architect. As such, the absolutely worst thing they could do for business at this point is remove AE entirely. Your extreme solution ruins the reputation of the developers who then are viewed as failing to deliver to the players. Furthermore, there would be potential litigation after said players have purchased the box set as they then fail to deliver what was promised on the box. Simply removing xp from AE would at least save them from that problem.

Unfortunately, as percussion is not my primary instrument, I've run out of the flams that I know how to do. When I learn some more, I'll resume my work.

Addendum: Set Comparison of Strike of the Gladiator and Crushing Impact:

Crushing Impact, 5 slotted to best efficiency:
Acc: +68.90%
Dam: 97.49%
End Redux: -42.40%
Rech: -68.90%

Set Bonuses:
*Resist Immob 2.2%
*1.13% HP
*7.0% Acc
*5% Recharge

Strike of the Gladiator:
Acc: 92.8%
Dam: 92.8%
End: 61%
Rech: 87.5%
+ Smashing Proc to achieve acc/rech

Set Bonuses:
2) 2.5% Rec / 2.25 Max End
3) 1.13% Health / -5% Mez Resist (Multi)
4) 2.5% Damage / 3.13% S/L Def or 1.565% Melee Def
5) 1.89 S/L Res / 10% Chance for repel protection
6) 7% Acc / 7.5% Rech



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I can make a few observations:
-Crushing Impact does not have it's attributes balanced as well as Strike, i.e. The devs have learned how to better make sets.
-The quad in gladiator's strike makes the biggest difference.
-The bonus in strike is entirely dependent upon the 6th IO slot, which some builds may not wish to devote.
-Strike is SK friendly.
-The Paired S/L resistance means the devs acknowledge resistance sets should be paired. IO bonuses need revamped.

I can see why PvP IOs are so great. They balanced the modifiers better (grumble). But they are far from purple stats (which also have balancing problems of their own)

Hecatomb, 5 slotted, with negative proc:
Acc: +59.62%
Dam: +89.92%
End Redux: -33.13%
Rech: 89.92%

I see a few points:
-Why don't purples have more triples/quads, specifically the single aspect IO? This is the only reason why the modifiers remain similar (that and you're only using 4 IOs vs. 5 IOs to achieve these numbers)
-The set bonuses in the purples are great. I may only be able to slot one Hecatomb, but you better believe I will.
-I can shore up the Acc/End with an IO, or throw another proc in.
-Purples are in a class of their own. If they got the PvP treatment for balancing modifiers (implying purple quads/triples) you would exceed the ED cap on everything.

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Compare the set bonuses AND the attribute modifiers. Purples not only enhance a power better, but also have even nicer set bonuses.

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The gap isn't that far apart. PvP IOs , along with purples, are the only sets that keep their set bonuses when exmplaring, even when the skills they're slotted in are disabled.

Also, since most of the PvP IOs are NOT unique, that means multiple sets from the same category can be used on a toon, unlike purples. For example, lets say you have 3 skills that take melee sets on your toon. Whereas you can only slot one Hecatomb set, you can slot 3 Gladiator's Strike sets.

In addition, they're not restricted to level 50 only, thus being able to drop at all levels of PvPing.

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A PvP IO dual aspect IO at 50 has these numbers: (set is Fury of the Gladiator)

Dam->26.5
Rech->26.5

A Purple dual aspect has these numbers:
Dam->33.3%
Rech->33.3%

Set Bonuses for 6 for PvE/PvP:
PvP IO:
2) 1.89% Fire+Cold Res / 10% Slow Res
3) 3 Pts KB Prot / 7.5% Chance Repel Prot
4) 2.5% Damage / 3.13% Fire+Cold or 1.565% AoE (depending on which type is higher on the character)
5) 1.58% Toxic and Psionic Resistance / 2.25% Hitpoints
6) 7.0% Accuracy / 7.5% Recharge

Purple:
2) 4% End Rec
3) 2.52% Fire Res
4) 15% Accuracy
5) 10% Rech
6) 5% Res Tox

For the attributes they modify, purple IOs are more effective at doing so. The set bonuses of accuracy and recharge (usually highly desirable in high DPS builds) are double what a PvP IO set can do. Side by side, these IOs should not be equal.

Now, factoring in the PvP-only set bonuses, they end up becoming the "purples" of PvPing, which is a major use of the "PvP" sets. In fact, the PvP-only set bonuses make alot of these sets even more useful than their purple counterparts in PvP.

The PvP IO does have the advantage in that it is not unique. However, the best PvP build would utilize purples first, and then add in PvP IOs. It should also be noted that in a power such as PBAOE, few sets have more than one of these powers to slot. Perhaps my example could have been better since AoEs aren't usually the best power to use in PvP 1v1. In any case, in my planning, I would purple first, then PvP. As such, purple IOs are better, excluding the very attractive uniques, which should be expensive.

Right now, PvP and Purples are beginning to look similar in price. If the inf I had to spend could only buy one purple or one pvp set (excluding the PvP uniques), which would you buy?

Isn't that a problem?

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PvP IOs are now more rare redside than Purples.

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Well, you can't really compare the absolute values directly, as much more ppl PvE than PvP. The drops would have to be normalized to the amount of each activity. Thus, as a percentage, purples and PvP IOs probably aren't that different. It's just the sheer difference in the amount of players doing PvE, as opposed to PvP.

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Bolded for emphasis. I don't think they were normalized to begin with.

In comparing, I can compare what exists on the market. Despite the farming, I failed to see a signficant influx of PvP IOs on the market - on either side. In fact, those that I know that consistently farmed it do not have more than enough to outfit themselves. The drop-rate would have been ok with farming IOs. I fail to see why this type of farming was a significant problem.

Overall, I would like to see PvP IOs being much more common. If that means coming out with entirely new more-common sets that drop frequently while these remain the 'purples', so be it. But the entire point of PvP should be that casual people can step into a PvP zone with their character and fight well. This is not the case, for a myriad of reasons (cough lolz new pvp cough). PvP IOs just serve to widen the gap.


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All this has accomplished is widen the gap between the serious PvPer and the casual player.

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Couldn't you say the same thing about purples and serious PvErs vs. casual players?

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But this was my entire point: PvP IOs would better serve the players if they weren't treated as purples! Those that PvE will find certain uniques quite useful, but as a whole, most sets don't provide the best bonuses (recharge, for example) to PvE (excluding Gladiator's Net)

The reason I don't advocate Purples for All is that they are labeled as Ultra-Rare recipes. If the developers want Ultra-Rare PvP recipes, they should provide stats similar to Purples, both in terms of the degree of attribute modification AND set bonuses. The numbers they modify are closer to set IOs. As such, they are better served to follow that market pricing, with the uniques from the sets following the uniques from these sets, the numi/miracles, and LOTG 7.5's (yes, not unique).

Something does need to be done about these. The message continually being sent out with PvP is that the elite rule in PvP. Literally everything done thus far has widened the gap, not closed the gap between the rich and the poor player. This makes absolutely no sense IF the developers want to attract new people PvP.

Now if they want the elite few to continue to dominate PvP, then I congratulate them on reinforcing this. I have started being interested in PvP, and PvP IOs began to increase my interest in PvP. Without sidetracking this further, I realized very quickly that for one to shine in PvP takes a lot more time and investment than I am currently willing to spend. If I could outfit my characters with PvP IOs cheaply, I would be more likely to reconsider a second PvP build.

Regardless of my opinions of AE, NC-Soft just released a box version highlighting architect. How do you think someone new to the game will feel if they find out they have to unlock a 50 to get it?

I like being self-sufficient in my abilities to travel, although an advertisement placed somewhere in CoH for Hoveround, the super-powered mobility service for the walking impaired would be great.

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I can play CoH on a $750 toshiba satellite built 4 years ago. I dual boxed on it once. CoH can still work on older machines.

You're asking someone to compare apples to oranges.

Energy Melee has good single target damage and horrible AoE damage. Electric Melee has abysmal* single target damage and good AoE damage.

In fact, I have a third recommendation for you: Dark Melee. DM has great synergy with electric armor as one of your main attacks is also a small heal - Siphon Life (don't slot it for healing, slot it for damage). You have very good single target damage.

If you are bent on one of those two, you will be happier with Energy Melee, since you seem to do more solo work. You will learn to make use of the abundant stuns available to mitigate the damage.

*And I was being nice in giving it that much.