baron_inferno

It depends on how many slots you can afford to put into this power. If it is just going to be 1 or 2 slotted, go with CJ. Slap LOTG 7.5% Recharge + Defense into it and you're golden. If you can afford 4 or more, go with Maneuvers because you need the extra slots to maximize the +Def benefits as well as lowering the endurance cost.

Well, even if everyone in the league knows how to use temp powers, some of them can still be uncooperative about it. As unfathomable as it may sound, some people are just douchebags and they want the trials to fail. I have two examples of this.

On one of the first Lambda trial I ever led, I invited two blasters who apparently were friends. We did the standard clearing of the outside streets, courtyard, and just as we are starting to clear the turrets, they started complaining about how taking out turrets was a waste of time. They went on and on for a couple more turrets and me being still somewhat inexperienced at Lambda, finally got fed up and told the league to stop just to shut them up. We left about half a dozen turrets up and moved on to the sabotage phase. The sabotage went pretty well and we got all the temps so naturally, we started destroying the doors/portals. That's when people started to getting killed left and right by the turrets that were still up. These two douchebags then LOL'ed and quit the league, probably taking some temps with them. We still managed to finish the trial though it was far more ugly than it should have been. I thought about petitioning the two of them but I decided against it since I had no proof.

The second incident came just a few nights ago. Again I was leading a Lambda and as we are clearing the streets, this necro MM kept team TPing everyone all over the place. Fearing that we have a griefer on our hands, I warned him to stop so if he didn't, I would be justified in booting him. Surprisingly, he stopped so we continued on. The courtyard, turrets and sabotage went off without a hitch. During the cut scene, I saw a liche and zombie standing slightly behind Marauder but I didn't think much of it. After the cut scene ended, we exited to the courtyard only to be met with the trial failed message. After a couple seconds of "wtf?" between us, we finally figured out that Marauder probably exited through the main gate. My first instinct was that the necro MM's pets had somehow caused it so I booted him. That was all I could do since that I had no proof it was intentional. After I zoned into Pocket D however, this same MM started boasting in broadcast about how Marauder ran away because it was afraid to face him. After a couple of minutes, he then sent me a tell saying that he could report me for harrassment since I booted him. I've finally had enough and reported him.

It just goes to show that Lambda is far more vulnerable than BAF when it comes to griefers and I am becoming convinced that sometimes, people withhold their temp powers simply because they can.

I've taken part in raids is most MMOs I've played before so I do like raids for the most part. While I don't particularly enjoy large scale (50-100+ EQ style) raids due to its chaotic *human wave* nature and mind numbing tactics (all healers chain heal main tank, everyone else bash away), I do enjoy smaller raids (DDO style) where coordination and tactics is actually possible or required. In fact, the raids I led/participated in DDO involves more strategic execution than anything I've experienced thus far and these new CoX raids/trials actually remind me a bit of that.

As long as CoX raids do not grow into 5 or 6 team monstrosities (an impossibility right now given performance/lag issues) and continue to involve strategic elements/objectives, I'm all for it.

The devs had to come up with a new icurrency (threads) because people were hoarding shards by the hundreds. If they had kept shards as the de factor icurrency, it is conceivable that some people would be running around with all of their Tier 4s slotted during the first day of i20 release.

It's the standard game of one-upsmanship. Some players think they can anticipate the devs moves and try to get ahead of the game. The devs, sensing this, would then throw a curveball into their plans. Expect to see more versions of icurrencies with the future release of incarnate slots. Or, the devs might just switch back to shards if they find out that the hoarders have indeed exhausted their supply of shards by converting them into threads.

Simple numbers really. Striking at AP would take out a huge amount of low levels begging for PL. Inflicting the most amount of damage/casaulty in the shortest amount of time is the most efficient method of carrying out search & destroy missions.

Instead of an addition based system (do this amount of <insert criteria> to get base reward, do an additional amount of <insert criteria> to get base reward plus one), I would've done the following. Make it a combination system.

The first part of the system would be designed to weed out the leechers/idiots by downgrading end rewards for unhelpful behavior. Minimal performance qualifier if you will. For example.

1. If you stay defeated for more than one minute without going to the hospital, you get 10 threads as the end reward.
2. If you sit in the hospital for more than one minute without exiting into the main trial map, you get 10 threads as the end reward.
3. After you are in the trial map, if you go more than one minute (for BAF) or two minutes (for Lambda) without actively affecting a mob (doing damage, debuffing, holding, etc) or assisting an ally (healing, buffing, etc), you get 10 threads as the end reward.

Now these were just some examples. The duration of inactivity or even the criterias themselves are of course up for debate. In anycase, if you don't commit any of these bad behaviors, you would be qualified to participate in the second portion of the system which is a roll. The probability table would look something like this.

10% chance for very rares.
20% chance for rares.
30% chance of uncommons.
40% chance for commons.

Personally, I would much prefer a system such as this as opposed to one that uses highly subjective and mysterious criterias to measure the contribution of a particular AT. How would one design a participation system that has to account for so many variables such as overall team competency, trial strategy, lag or game crashes (quite common since i20) anyways? Frankly, given how the current system has already screwed over MMs and some other ATs to a lesser extent, I honestly do not trust the devs enough to rely on their definition of "participation". Oh sure they can tweak the existing criterias but chances are that will only lead to some other ATs getting the shaft.

The fear duration on CoF is kind of weak against anything higher than a minion so the saving grace is the -tohit component it also has. So my question is are you planning to go incarnate with your tank? If the answer is yes, skip CoF. Instead, take up Diamagnetic 100% chance for -tohit when you go incarnate. Death Shroud would serve dual purpose then, not to mention a bit of relief for your endurance bar. Lastly, if you have a lot of other AoE attacks, you can stack enough -tohit on entire mobs to make fear just about a moot point when it comes to mitigation.

I tend to think of it this way. This is just a continuation of the existing salvage system for IOs.

Threads = infamy.
Incarnate Components = Invention Salvages.
Incarnate Tiers = IOs.

CoX has been using this system for years and I could imagine that the devs are just sticking to what they already know. It might be even easier to just use a variation of an existing system as opposed to creating a brand new one.

This system brings up a different problem though which is having to change the base currency (inf/shards/threads) with each new issue that involves new alternate advancement content. People tend to hoard stuff in MMOs and during the lull between i19 and i20, people were hoarding shards like there's no tomorrow in anticipation for the new Incarnate slots. I recall there were people claiming to have 400-500 shards. The devs don't want players to be able to acquire Tier 4 incarnate powers on the very first day after release so they have to one-up the hoarders by changing the currency. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised we'll get another new incarnate currency with the next issue. It's either that or the devs will try to one-up us again and switch back to shards as the base currency for the next 4 incarnate slots. Either way, it's only going to get more complicated.

More things to add.

Last night I was playing my ELM/ELA brute doing about 10 runs of BAF. I decided to do some experimentation. The first 5 runs, I was going all out trying to do as much damage and draw as much aggro as I can without dying. Using my AoE attacks on every spawn, roaming around picking off the runners, pulling the AVs, getting warned by the AVs 4-5 times each trial. Basically I was all over the map. I got 3 very rares and 2 rares as the end reward. Then for runs 6 and 7, I decided to back off quite a bit. Primarily just sticking to one or two doors, holding back against the AVs to avoid getting warned, etc. Both times I got uncommons. The last 3 runs my effort was somewhere between aggressive and passive. 2 more uncommons and a rare. 10 runs and not a single common which is consistent with what I've been experiencing so far with all of my characters.

I also had a Tanker friend in the same league as me for 6 of those BAF runs and I told her to do the experiment with me as well. The first 2-3 runs she was putting in maximum effort as I designated her for ambush duty while still coming to assist with AVs from time to time. She ended up with very rare or rares each time. During the runs where I was backing off, she was backing off as well and ended up with uncommons and a rare. Again, no commons.

I know these experiments are not very scientific because there are far too many unkown variables present which *could* contribute to the participation calculation. Still, I thought the results were interesting.

Yeah, it kind of sucks that the developers decided to apply this arbitrary decision to only Spiritual while all other other Alphas affect Judgement. Would have been nice to have known this little tidbit of information before I decided to go with Spiritual Alpha on a large portion of my characters. This is not to mention spending a ton of inf respecing their builds around it. So much for helping us make *informed* decisions.

There are a couple of threads in the suggestions and ideas sub-forum regarding this topic. You may want to head there and add your experiences to them instead.