Twoflower

As Gale's SGmate, I approve of this product and/or service. On my hat.

Huh. I guess mine's a bit unique.



Down center, my power trays and my own life bar -- I like to keep it centralized under my character because I play with mouselook on most of the time, and it keeps me focused. Otherwise I'd have to keep glancing up to the corner any time I wanted to see if I was dying horribly. I also keep a click-tray of common veteran and booster powers like mutation, fortune, pets, etc. off to the side.

Chat and team lifebars on the left, combat text to the right. Map in the upper right, but I have a power tray hidden behind it with various teleports (Pocket D, Oro, Base, Wentworths, etc.)

How about just letting people enter the LFG queue with "don't launch until league is full" enabled? That's the only reason we're scouring co-op zones right now. The tool would be fixed if we could just wait until the trial fills up before launching.

(Well, there are other bugs related to the queue, but assuming they were cleared up that's the usability / functionality issue that would continue to prevent LFG from being useful.)

I've got next week off. I shall devote an hour to craft the ultimate Fusionette arc.

Um, I think I'll skip on the several zillion villain groups my NPC self picked, though.

I've never hit the "10 thread" drop, so I guess I'm passing the participation limit each time. Good to know that once you hit that limit, everything else is random, rather than tilting you towards or away from a rare. Thanks for the clarification.

Downgrades and sidegrades sound good, especially if they're cheap or free -- something to do with all these extra Uncommons I've been getting.

As for Astrals and Emps, sorry, but until I know WHAT future rewards we get for our Astrals, I'm threading them. I need threads for components more than I need Astrals. If they're just going to get us new costume pieces or auras, pass. If it's a way to buy purple IOs, that's considerably more important, but they're easy enough to get and right now, this is a more demanding use for them. Perhaps if we could get a hint at what they're good for, there'd be more cause for hoarding? (Hoarding shards sure didn't help us.)

I LOVE the idea of Incarnate Story Arcs and Repeatable Missions. We need more Incarnate content that's soloable or capable of being run with a single team -- things SGs and friends can do, without needing to dogpile in on a 24 man league. "Solo up some shards and convert them to threads" is plausible only in the way walking on foot from Los Angeles to New York is plausible.

My L50 Mercs/Traps is pretty awesome. Not the best MM combination, but it holds its own, and it can harden a single point of defense extremely well and beat back anybody approaching it.

Some tips:

1. Spec ops. Acc IO, Acc IO, and three Dam/Mez HOs. Presto! Your unreliable controls are a bit more reliable now, and using one of the cheapest HOs out there to do it. You've even got a spare slot for the defense aura proc.

2. Something I've been considering -- taking Soulbound's recharge bonus (which makes pets charge faster) and spreading it around, giving each of the three pet types a little extra recharge. It's better than having one pet that spins up very quickly, in scenarios where you need to spam pets in general. Consider chasing down set recharge bonuses and Hasten as well.

3. Protect your pets. Take a secondary that gives them damage resistance or defense, and then boost that aspect with the pet set procs. If you slot right, you can have controlling spec ops, a medic with a little extra heal, and room left over to fit in BOTH aura procs.

Hope this helps a little.

It's in the hotel connected by skybridge? GREAT! That'll make this a lot easier for folks like me with disabilities to attend, compared to some random bar in the city. Thanks! I'm really looking forward to seeing you guys again. (I was at the PAX East panel asking nosy questions about MA.)


edit: Scratch that. Apparently I'm not likely going to PAX. My roommate booked a hotel in Alabama, not Boston, and the only ones left are by shuttlebus (which I can't physically take.) I hate my life right now.

Mercs/Traps, here. Fighting against L50 longbow and arachnos is dangerous business at x4 for me, primarily because even if I survive the initial encounter, it's a long slog towards grinding everybody down with the mercs consistent but slow DOT damage.

I'm going the Musculature Core path, towards that juicy 45% Damage boost. So far, all I have is the common, and it's not making a noticable difference. That may change when I get the uncommon and it moves from 104% damage to 112% damage (approx).

Way I see it, if you've properly IO'd the hell out of your build, you shouldn't need more recharge or more endurance reduction or accuracy. Instead, use the ED bypassing upper tiers to get more of the one thing you can't get any more of but always helps you... raw damage.

Hot dang. I already wrote an arc like this, it was one of my last published ones before I filled my slots.

Time to polish it up nice, improve the mechanics, spellcheck, screenshot it up, and send it in! So nice when a contest matches what I've got available...

See this thread in the techie forum.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=3181553

It's not affecting everyone, but for a lot of folks on Virtue, going to Talos results in a black hole; a client lockup followed by inability to log in the character stuck in Talos.

It's Labor Day so I don't expect much on this today, but hopefully we'll get a boot on Tuesday.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one here. I verified files, I even ran a CHKDSK overnight... no problems. But every one of my Talos parked characters on Virtue are dead in the water and cause a client lockup.

The AS is like a Hadoken, with a little additional waving before you charge up the blast. It reminds me of Sakura's hadoken, which you can charge up with a few taps of punch... she builds it up before letting out this near-melee power blast.

That's half the reason I love the set, honestly. No kancho of doom. (The other half of the reason I love it is the energy damage, the knockdowns, the stuns, the debuffs, etc...)

I played a kin stalker at 41 in beta.

CS doesn't crit out of hide. The BU-instacharge has to happen off a random crit. On the upside, that means in a melee focused team, you're going to see it happen more often.

You lose the KB cone (which is kinda junk) and Power Siphon. PS is a "rolling uphill" damage buff, like Fury... it relies on hitting stuff to get anywhere and you have to build up to one well timed final hit. Frankly, I prefer Build Up. I tried a KM scrapper and it was a pain to juggle that thing, compared to on-demand powerful bursts of damage.

Chainwise, I like BU - AS - CS - Burst. If I recall it all fits in there and it gives enemies a few seconds to close in to Burst range. Mop up the rest with your attacks -- the -damage is okay, but the real gem is the soft controls. Whoever you're focused on is going to be too dizzy and too knockdowned to really do much of anything to you. The soft controls alone (along with energy/smashing damage) make this a pretty decent set for mitigation-needing stalkers.

Personally I'm going to try to skip the T1 attack. The ranged attack is actually pretty good damage and hits quick. (All the attacks hit quicker than it looks -- the set only FEELS slow because it has beefy animations. When you run the numbers it hangs in there decently.)

Secondarywise, yeah, the def sets are always good, but if you're looking for something different try Willpower or Regen. Both work well with the -damage debuffs. I'm going Willpower, myself.

Elec/Nin here. I don't stalk so much as I explode. I run x6/-1 and can generally slaughter groups of enemies without a LOT of issues, only needing to pop the heal or inspirations now and then. The key is aoe, aoe, aoe, aoe.

That said, once I found out that the character plays better splattering huge groups with AOE... I kinda lost interest. Before then I was running x2 and playing it tactically, doing assassin's shocks from out of hide and strategically eliminating targets. THAT was fun for me. Being a walking explosion isn't really "stalking" in any way, shape or form. I'll probably roll a different stalker for that, likely a Kinetic, with GR.

PROTIP: Here's a good way to outfit your MMs with the expensive / hard to nab pet IO recipes.

After the market merge was announced I immediately bought up a slew of pet IOs blueside, where they're going for maybe 500-5000 inf a piece, even the acc/dams. Crafted, binned in my SG's bins, waiting for August 17. The salvage (commons and uncommons) was far more expensive than the recipes themselves. In my case, all the recipes I'd need for all three tiers of pets, crafted up and finished? Less than 500k.

When GR launches, globalmail them to your masterminds. Done!

This may not last long, as others clue in to it being possible, so if you've got a planned MM you're rolling with GR, figure out your build now and marketeer it up. Patience is rewarded.

The recharge-intensive pet sets are still pricey and/or unavailable, though.

GLORIOUS.

What I'm curious about is if the last-five bidding history on items will be wiped at the same time all items revert to Storage state, to truly set the record to zero and give us a fresh start. Otherwise, how would the bid histories merge together from red and blue? If only the highest prices are shown, the insane-o blueside prices will take priority 90% of the time.

Good news, folks! Our pets will be back under our control soon. From today's test server patch notes:

Two notes:

1. Some players have reported that the last map of the arc might have the same lag problem maps like the last map of Ice Mistral have had ever since Issue 17. I'd prefer not to change it for narrative reasons, so I'll wait for the devs to fix their game.

2. Similarly, since it's all about having allies backing you up, under the current farming fix, your XP may not be very impressive. Dr. Aeon has said a fix is coming with Going Rogue. All helper ally NPCs are optional and instructions are highlighted in yellow on how to ditch them / avoid summoning them.

One villain alone cannot change the world. A villain with an unstoppable army of heavily armed jackbooted minions, now we're talking! With the help of Minions Local 412, recruit and train your own doom army, and destroy your enemies, driving them before you, and hearing the lamentations of their henchmen!



Arc #: 410418
Title: The Do-It-Yourself Doom Army Project
Level Range: 25-54 (varies)
Enemies: Standards and Customs
Difficulty: Medium
Morality: Villainous
# of Missions: 5

From the author of "The Do-It-Yourself Laser Moonbase Project" and the 2009 MA Award Winning "An Internship in the Fine Art of Revenge" comes another fine romp where YOU control your villanous destiny, and you reap the rewards. Your contact works for you rather than the other way around, and at the end of the day, your shadow cast across the isles will grow darker and more midnight than something that is very dark and more than slightly midnight!

The arc is complete and playtested, but currently seeking feedback to help further tweak and tune it. Your feedback is appreciated!

ALSO NEW FROM THIS AUTHOR:

They say the Golden Giza has stood for decades without a single robbery on the books. It's time to change that. With the help of Minions Local 412, assemble your team of offbeat crooks, launch your clever schemes within schemes, and make off with Johnny Sonata's prized treasure!



Arc #: 404549
Title: The Do-It-Yourself Casino Heist Project
Level Range: 20-54 (varies)
Enemies: Standards and Customs
Difficulty: Medium
Morality: Villainous
# of Missions: 5

AND DON'T FORGET: THE DIY LASER MOONBASE! Now fixed for Issue 17.

This bug crippled my DevChoice Laser Moonbase arc for a couple weeks, there.

Now, understandably, bugs not only take a long time to fix but also a long time to work their way into a public build. This is doubly difficult with Going Rogue out there requiring a split codebase. So I can see why it's gonna take awhile.

Rather than wait, I just edited the arc to use a clicky instead of a defendy and requested it re-DC'd. I suggest others do similar, if feasible within your story structures, until the bug is out of your hair. Beats confusing users and getting 1-star ratings left and right.

Anything we can do to bring this to developer attention is good. It's a critical bug not just for MMs, but for the whole game in general as evidenced by drones and gunners and other enemy types that are dangerous at range and squishy in melee deciding they adore melee. I could easily see it becoming the next farming style, if someone can find a combination in AE of enemies that yield full XP and aren't much of a threat up close.

...although mostly I just want my L50 mercs MM to not be utterly useless so I can do Incarnate stuff with her.