_23X_

Originally Posted by Fulmens

(There's also been a bloody battle on Exalted for #1-3 as well as Slax dumping 128 billion inf into prestige on Victory. Hey, every half-trillion counts. )

Originally Posted by Kotchie

These badges appear (at least to me) to harken back to the "no deaths" master runs. While I do not forsee a big problem with some AT's, I can see the writing on the wall for the howls of protest about the badges, being as some of them are dependent on no deaths among 24 people, which can be quite a feat.

Bring on the badges!!!!

Originally Posted by Lobster

I tested the 3 arcs in question just now on my (average) farmer.

Setup: 4x8, 2 person team

arc #460877 fire(other):

235,362 -> 239,600 = 4328k / 5.5 = 768k inf/min
6046 -> 7530 = 1484 /5.5 = 269 tix/min
330s

Originally Posted by Local_Man

The +2 Mag proc and the Devastation Chance for Hold proc both show up as a Tesla Cage. The Gravitational Anchor (Purple Immob set) Chance for Hold show up like your Gravity Distortion hold, where the foe floats.

I generally don't recommend those procs in standard Holds. It appears that they are doing a lot more than they really are because the T-Cage shows up even if the foe would have been held anyway. You would do better slotting GD with Damage.

Here's why: The single target holds, if they hit, will hold a Minion or Lieutenant in one shot. They have a 20% chance to "overpower" and hold a boss in one shot. So, even though that proc may look like it is helping, it isn't. It only provides any benefit at all on the 80% of bosses not held. And there's only a 20% chance to hit one of those 80%, which really means you have about a 16% chance ON BOSSES for the proc to help, and 0% chance on minions and lieutanants. That ends up being around 2-4% of the total foes. Compare that to slotting for Damage, where the damage will be applied to 100% of the foes hit.

Pretty much the same analysis on AoE holds, but you don't get the option to slot for Damage. That slot will probably do you more good somewhere else.

Originally Posted by Local_Man

Deacon made some good points, but the build still needs more work in my opinion.

I would move around a lot of those slots. The best powers in the cold set are the strong debuffs: Benumb, Sleet and Heat Loss. You haven't slotted any of them the way I would. The most skippable power is Frostwork. Benumb needs Accuracy and Recharge. Sleet needs Recharge -- it does very little damage, so enhancing the damage is mostly wasted; any extra slots should get the Achilles Heal proc first, and then maybe some damage procs. (The damage procs will do more overall damage than slotting the power for damage). Heat Loss gets the Efficacy Adapter set.


Snow Storm is a great power in the right situation. The -Recharge is an underrated effect -- on the ITF, slow is the best mez power. Slot it with 2 EndRdx and that's it.

Mind Control has a great single target attack chain from early in the build: Dominate-Mezmerize-Levitate. Levitate not only is part of the attack chain -- it is another form of Mez (knock-up) and your best source of damage, AND Smashing rather than Psi damage. In the late game, you run into a LOT of Robots and other Psi-Resistant foes. That smashing damage is important to be able to take down those foes, as Robots are weak to Smashing damage.

Terrify is a key power in Mind Control -- it is one of the few click-controls you have that can be made perma, and it is your only AoE damage power. Terrify deserves 5-6 slots.

And let me give you my standard run-down on the Lockdown proc: Dominate will hold Minions and Lieutenants on its own, with a 20% chance for "overpower" to add an extra 1 Mag that will hold a boss. The Lockdown proc, is therefore only providing a potential benefit to 80% of the Boss foes you hit with Dominate. That is a pretty smallish number. And it only works on 20% of them, or a total of 16% of the bosses. The number of Bosses you run into can vary with your settings and types of missions, but in general the number of bosses is a fairly small percentage of the total foes you attack. If you assume that Bosses are 20% of the total foes (which is high most of the time), that proc is really only having an effect 3.2% of the time. So, that proc is probably only doing anything whatsoever maybe 2-4% of the time. It looks like it is doing more than it really is, because you see the nice Tesla Cage animation on lots of foes who would have been held anyway. The bottom line is that it provides very little benefit for most powers. It is great in Choking Cloud and Volcanic Gasses due to the unique ways those powers work. But it is mostly wasted in standard hold powers. Now, if you slot for Damage . . . the foes hit by your hold will be affected 100% of the time. 100% vs. 2-4% . . . your choice.

Originally Posted by Deacon_NA

Just curious, what's the scenario where "arctic fog isn't the best power to use"? The only one I can think of is escorting a hostage, in which case you won't use the Stealth IO either.

Personally I'd never skip Terrify and the easy choice to switch out would be Snow Storm.

No Accuracy in Benumb is chancey. The sort of targets you want this to hit happen to be the ones that are hardest to hit.

I don't have Mids at the moment, and in general, I don't use pvp ios, so i don't know what Glad Net does, bonus-wise. For me, Dominate always gets 4 Bas Gaze + acc/dmg HO + dmg/mez HO since it's something I spam, I figure I might as well make it damaging.

Heat Loss slotting, to be honest, makes me sad a little. If you do want just the one slot, go with a Recharge. The chance for endurance, on a power that grants limitless endurance, might as well be the chance for stun. That's a power I want available asap and I'd slot that out over say, Infrigidate.

Because you have a lot of - kb slotted, I suggest the Winter's Gift io in Recall Friend over BotZ -kb. Slow and -rch resistances are very nice when stacked with Arctic Fog's own. Very nice.

Conserve Power is something I think would sit unused in your tray, in case you have something you'd rather take.

Like I said, I don't have Mids available at the moment so I can't see the big picture, but that's from a quick glance over lunch at the desk.

Originally Posted by Turgenev

Well, durr. Lemme rephrase. How many times a day did you run it for the Kahn and/or STF to get it? Which one were you focusing on more? What was your ETA on your runs? DId you pug it, or did you keep to a private team with this as a goal?

Originally Posted by Turgenev

Grats on that. What'd it take for you to do it?

Originally Posted by Lothic

Well just as an FYI Beef_Cake announced on his in-game channel tonight that he finished the new 50 count TF badge. It only took him 11 days. I've suspected for several years that he either plays this game roughly 23 hours a day or he has friends/family play his account for him half the time. If that's what it takes to make him happy then more power to him I guess.

But as far as the debate goes on whether badges like these are set too high or not people such as Beef_Cake are this game's version of those people back in school who get a 100% on a test when everyone else in the class gets a 70% or below. He simply blows the curve for everyone else. All joking aside the Devs do look at people like Beefy and say to themselves "well he got Badge X in this period of time so it must be fine". So if you ever find yourself wondering why certain badges either remain relatively difficult to get or take many years to finally get reduced you now know who to thank for that.

P.S. Just to remind everyone I still have no problem with the 50 count TF badge being set at 50. I'll get it eventually. I was just making the point that some people don't react to "challenges" in this game the same way that others do.