Valedor

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Did someone forget to flip the switch ? I still cant log in with my inactive accounts and its 11:32edt.

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Ditto.

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Accolade:
Accolade Name: Demonic (Villain)
Power Included: Demonic Aura: Self, +Res(All but Psionics), +DEF(All but Psonics), -SPD, -Recharge, -ACC
Other badges Associated to earn this badge, if known: Overlord
Icon: Green Shield
Effects: Blue Gaseous Body Aura, Lasts 2 minutes,
Description: The spirit of a demon resides within you. Bringing to the surface of your mind can make you highly resistant to all types of damage for a short time. You mustn't let the demon inside you out for too long, however, or it just may cost you your mortal soul.

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I got the Overlord badge, but I didn't receive the Accolade. I then went and killed 250 Hellfrosts. I received Coldhearted, the gladiator, and the Demonic Accolade.

Coldhearted and Demonic

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Honestly, Castle, with Archery it seems to me that the two biggest problem with the set are too much lethal damage and a lackluster secondary effect. Buffing the acc bonus some and adding in different damage types - like some toxic damage for poison arrowheads or something - would go a long way toward rehabilitating archers.

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and while you're at it, doing the same for Assault rifle would be great too.

Is that your current title that I see above your avatar?

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I have it on good authority that Satanic_Hamster is in fact and Angelic Gerbil.

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He's actually Positron.

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Actually, I'm Positron. He's Brawler, and you're Manticore.

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Manticore??? Why are you insulting me? What did I ever do to you!?!?!

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Would you rather be one of them Circle of Thorns Mages?

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Agony Mage please.

It seems fitting.

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I now pronounce you....AGONY MAGE! *poof*

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Yay! Quote pyramids!

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Bug reports capture a certain amount of information -- map, location, etc. It never hurts, however, to say "I was on X, doing such and such when this happened."

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Provided you can fit enough relevant information into the bug report...

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Doesn't china have like a Billion people? whats 3 million of a billion?

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There's nothing like someone saying you're one in a million ... until you realize that means there's 1000 people just like you in China. And another 1000 in India.

Will your name just be turning yellow or will you be under a completely different account name?

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As for the supposed "emphasis" on PvP - I think you'll see that it's just ONE part of City of Villains. It has PvE content levels 1 to 50.

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... 1 to 50? At launch?

Yay! Answers! Much giddiness abounds!

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or the cursed line could just mean that being immortal is a curse unto itself cause as an immortal you will always out live everyone you know and love.

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Unless they're immortal, too. And by this line of thinking, if somehow Statesman became the incarnation of Zeus, what's to stop some heroine from becoming the incarnation of Hera? Not that any heroine would want that particular role...

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My only gripe is that Stateman (much less Recluse) doesn't seem all that.. Zeusy.



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maybe the american who marched off to ww1 decided to use the power to his theme rather than playing on the greek theme. I've always liked a hero who doesn't go full tilt into the theme life has hashed out for them.

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Besides which, Statesmen hasn't exactly been open about his past. If he showed up all "Zeusy", I think people would figure it out fairly easily. So, if in fact, he is some literal incarnation of Zeus (which I doubt; possessing someone's powers or abilities is entirely different from being their incarnation), he would be obliged to disguise the fact if he didn't want his past to quickly become public knowledge.

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blasters don't have to reposition themselves?

you're smoking the good [censored].

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He's not arguing that as an absolute. Rather, he's saying that Blasters don't have to meticulously position himself because of a small range (PBAoE compared to the larger AoE of a Blaster target AoE attack, 5ft cone range compared to 40ft cone range)

He is also saying Blasters don't have to move around as much to acquire, and fire on, new targets.

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You, sir, are wrong. So a scrapper has to switch targets, hit Follow, and suddenly he's in range. Big deal. I weep for you.

You refer to AoE attacks. Have you actually used cone AoEs? In a perfect world, all the mobs would stay in one nice clump where they can all be easily mowed down by Full Auto. But it isn't like that. Past the initial attack (and sometimes even on the initial attack) a blaster has to constantly reposition (hopefully they have SS!). Otherwise, they risk wasting endurance, drawing too much aggro while they're immobilized, hitting mobs in the group behind the group they're targeting, etc.

An AoE blaster has to constantly worry about range, angle, timing, etc. to make sure that they only hit what they mean to hit and that they do hit all that they want to -- all while trying to avoid mobs that can easily mez them and kill them.

Scrappers have no harder of a time positioning and repositioning than Blasters do.

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However since a blaster cannot stay at range indefinately due to the rooting nature of his attacks you cannot assume that blasters will not be in the same position that scrappers are.

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Huh? Rooting makes you fight in melee? That's the exact opposite of what rooting does. You root the guy and then back away, ta-da you're at range and he can't get closer.

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You misunderstood him. The blaster doesn't root the enemy -- he roots himself. When a blaster uses any of his attacks, he becomes immobilized during the entire attack animation. He can't move while attacking -- which means the mobs get to close to melee distance.

So he has a choice: run or fight. If he tries to do both, the mobs will catch up to him. Even with superspeed, most areas are not large enough or are too densely packed with enemies to make running and fighting a viable strategy.

It gets even worse at later levels when the range of enemy attacks is greater than that of the blaster. The blaster actually has to run back into the enemies range in order to attack. So the enemy gets a ranged attack and while the blaster is rooted for his attack, the enemy runs up to melee and voila. The blaster is now in melee battle and the enemy has received a bonus ranged attack against him.

Tranth, you might want to reconsider the formatting for your responses. A lot of people won't read what you've written just because it's not formatted the same way as other posts. Your 'creative' formatting will confuse them and make your post not worth reading.

Just a thought.

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I would ask that blasters remember that while one of us doesn't create envy in scrappers, two or three of us can. Having three blasters in a group is like having three fire tanks or spines scrappers. There's not a lot lft for anyone to do.

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I had the rare opportunity to team with another AoE blaster the other day. Between my LRM+Full Auto combo and his Full Auto, all but a couple of the red/purple mobs lived less than 6 seconds after the attacks began. The team was, for the most part, able to distract the surviving mobs. AoE Blasters en masse? Sweetness.

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Statesman said that soloing should be a choice.. Blasters dont have that choice later on in the game, not without taking MASSIVE debt. reason: Blasters cant stand up to an attack... and they cant deal the dmg another archtype can do. Without dmg or defenses a blaster just comes along for the ride so to speak.

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Obviously we have different builds and/or play styles. I'm a lvl 48 ar/dev/mun blaster and I've been soloing most of my non-AV missions since sometime in the 30s, usually on Rugged. While I do have massive debt, it's all from the times I've died on teams, since I rarely die solo. And I rarely die on good teams -- ie, if I have a dedicated healer, good aggro-controlling tank, good mezzing controller, etc. -- unless I'm being foolish.

I'm not saying that tanks, scrappers, etc. aren't overpowered compared to blasters, just that I'm not as weak as you say I am.

You get some things right, but you're way off on others.

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You say the base line is 3 white mobs. I have yet to see a blaster at 30+ take 3 white mobs and not be wondering if they are going to fall and get debt (hence the nickname debt magnets).... Lets also look at the slider. Blasters for the most part have to keep their slider at soft shelled taco.. Tankers and scrappers however, keep theirs at Titanium gonna take on Galactus and the gods of Mount Olympus.

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If you can't take on 3 white mobs at ANY level, with ANY archetype, you need to have someone teach you how to play. True, at the lower levels, I might have to rest between battles if I wanted to survive the next one. You need to realize that having 20 attack powers is fairly useless. Stick with 2 good ones for damage slotting and 2 for status slotting. Pour the rest of your slots into support powers. A very poor build or poor strategy is the only reason why you would consistantly get seriously injured by 3 white mobs.

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I have seen 46th level controllers, tanks, scrappers, and defenders, take on entire groups of mobs and walk away as if nothing happened... i have seen each of these archtypes set their mission sliders to the highest point available and not blink an eye. I have seen blasters fall to mobs 3 levels lower than them in single combat because a blaster has not the dmg accuracy or defenses to do much against the onslaught. You will be hard pressed to find a blaster that does not have a hard time after 30th level doing anything on their own.

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While I agree that other ATs seem to have a much easier time solo, Blasters aren't in quite the picture you paint them. My blaster has been soloing on Rugged for some time now (since sometime in the 30s). Before that he was able to do so just fine except during the Time of Extremely Hard Bosses at the End of Every Mission. Pre-HOs, I was able to Full Auto to death most white mob groups and some yellow mob groups. With HOs, I can do the same to most yellow groups and some orange groups. I'm even fine 1v1 vs most reds and purples. It's only when I'm up against multiple red/purple lieuts, bosses, or minions w/a mez attack that I have problems.

As for a blaster falling to mobs 3 levels lower, this could conceivably happen, but only in unusual circumstances, the details of which your short description does not provide. It would be rare, but possible.

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Thought I'd post a further explanation about the Blaster damage explanation in "Ask Statesman."

That was - and is - the reason why Blaster damage is capped lower than Scrappers. I did forget to add that the ranged attacks of mobs deal less damage (typically) than melee attacks - and the Blaster is generally the target of raned attacks.

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You have some faulty logic there. You assume that melee attacks having more damage is the same as more risk to the hero. This is not true.

I'm an AR/Dev/Munitions blaster, but I think this applies pretty broadly. I know I face more risk than any scrapper out there. My job is to buckshot, flamethrow, full auto, and LRM nonstop and to put as many mobs into the AoE as possible. If I'm not using an AoE -- and doing so to maximum effect -- I'm not doing my job. The few AoEs that scrappers have are fairly short ranged. They can't cover the same area that my AoE's can and they don't do as much damage (and if I'm wrong, they shouldn't be able to!). Other than that, they only aggro w/dmg one mob at a time.

What does this mean? Depending on the battle, I regularly draw aggro from two to eight times (or more!) foes than the scrapper does. The bigger the team, the more mobs crammed into a tiny space, the more mobs I can aggro. So while a scrapper is facing more damage per melee attack (let make up numbers: 150 dmg from each of 3 enemies), I'm facing just as much or more damage when you combine all of the lower damage range attacks (50 dmg from each of 9 enemies).

Except this is before defenses. Scrappers can avoid, resist, or regenerate a lot of that damage. Me? I take it all -- and with fewer hp.

What about aggro control? Okay, the rest of the team tries to draw the aggro away from me. Except, since everything's attacking me at range, no one's quite sure which mobs are still attacking me (sometimes *I* can't even pinpoint the location of the gunslinger that's keeps on hitting me for 25%+ of my hp per hit!). Even if they identify one of my attackers, for the most part, they can only attack one -- not all 10+. And I've watched people try to steal mob aggro from me -- they can't do it easily, which means the mobs have time to attack me at least once or twice more before they're distracted by my teammate.

The scrapper? His smaller range means that most of his "aggro" isn't from him attacking -- he's just the closest thing the mobs can see that they want to whack on. Even if he does damage them, he can only focus on a few enemies at a time. The rest can be easily pulled off of him by team members (usually by the blaster firing into the mass of mobs!), especially because it's easy to tell who's attacking him.

Recap? Scrappers face more risk per attack, but less risk overall due to fewer attackers, high defense, and the ability of the team to identify combatants and draw aggro. The Blaster faces more risk.

Now, I don't believe that upping blaster damage, lowering scrapper damage, or upping blaster defense is necessarily the answer. I'm perfectly okay with being able to Full Auto to death (or very near to death) entire groups of minions that con orange (IIRC, this is with 3 HO dmg/acc enh + 2dmg SOs + 1 recharge). It's the counter attack while I'm immobilized by my attack and waiting for the DoT to finish them off that hurts me. While this can be somewhat mitigated by strategy (kiting, etc.), there are many situations where that doesn't work (mezzes, cramped quarters, etc.)

With blaster attacks that do superior/extreme damage, it'd be nice if...

...if the mobs reacted appropriately for their group suddenly losing a huge chunk of hp. Different things for different blaster powers/powersets.

[*]Running for cover.[*]Running away from the source of massive damage for a bit, regrouping, then coming after the blaster.[*]Running around like all the crazy civilians do when they see a villain on the streets or are inside an office indoor mission.[*]Strong magnitude and/or long duration knockdowns and/or short non-duration-improvable scale-with-level-magnitude disorients.[/list]...if a blaster's aggro was reduced by 5% for each teammate that he has (or if 5% of his aggro went to each of his teammates). I'm not the only blaster that RARELY dies when soloing. Since my early 20s, I've solo'd or had one sk for the majority of the time. Yet 99% of my face plants are on teams. As the team size grows, the number of mobs I aggro becomes unbalanced compared to my ability to deal with it. 7 teammates? Only 65% normal aggro, please.

The above don't even need to happen every time a blaster uses a Superior/Extreme damage power. Maybe they only occur if the mobs have low aggro toward the blaster (relative to the rest of the blaster's team -- ie, if they're focusing attacks on the tank, they'll be caught by surprise by the blaster's big attack) or are unaware of the blaster.

Again, even if this was only for my initial strike (or amplified on initial strikes!), it would help immensely.