dave_p

Looking at the Control Core Hybrid for my Fire/Rad, Plant/Cold and maybe Ice/Storm for max AoE damage love. Mids at least seems to indicate the T4 C-Core will outdamage Assault (Core or Radial), plus it's psi damage so a nice mix. The +1 mag % seems to be gravy. Anyone else play w/the Hybrid Control slotting?

Or is everyone just going Assault?

I took Melee T1 on a Fire tank and can't tell much of a difference (T1, I know), but don't wanna burn a rare/VR to climb to T3/4 if it's gonna be a waste. Anyone w/positive experiences w/Hybrid Melee?

Nothing official, but since release, I think there's only been 2 or 3 issues w/no freespec. It was almost an unwritten rule that we'd get one w/each issue, to the point that I went around and burned any freespecs I had cached because I didn't want to "waste" one, just like I've done for the last half-dozen (at least) issues. But now that they're for sale, I don't expect any more freebies. Guess I'll burn a vet respec to slot in my ATOs and spec in those improved self-rezzes for my Regen & WP toons.

Saw this news last night past midnight. Pulled 3 Membranes and sold them overnight for about 170M each just to test the weather. Got in from work, saw prices had fallen and pulled 6 more (3 SD toons total) and sold them off for about 110M each. Prolly will fall even more going forward..

I only use Enzymes for Rad's RI as intended, and Centrioles for my Son defender, but they never went for crap anyway so I'll just respec him at my leisure before i22 hits. Mostly, this just sucks for my Shields guys who were used to having capped DDR, but I always assumed they'd fix this exploit sooner or later.

Fastest solo run is 6:16 on my Fire blaster. Scrappers & blasters take around 6:30-7:00 on average. My tanks, controllers & defenders take about 8:30-9:00 just from comparative lack of damage (at lvl 25, effectively, anyway) for the boss/EB fights.

Duo w/my friend, I've done 5:40 runs. I'm sure we can break 5:30 easily. Not sure if sub 5:00 is doable--the cut scene alone is like 45 sec--but no doubt someone will manage it soon enough.

So yeah, 11-13 min for a LotG if you want one, at least for the 1st week, and I got some 32 alts to run it on. On my 50s at least, I'm taking the threads since I don't really want for IOs.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=265045

I wonder if the beefed up EA will make a WM/EA, high-tech mace wielding toon worthwhile? I'm sorta out of scrapper secondaries to roll anyway.

Axe is a cool addition too, but I like Mace a bit more for the better cones. Sorta disappointed at the lack of Ice Melee & SS (not that I expect scrappers to ever get SS).

Happy to see scrappers finally get War Mace, but still no Ice Melee or SS.

D/D blasters should be interesting.

Overall, good stuff. Always happy to see proliferation.

A better guide... wait, does that credit the OP of being a guide at all? Okay, a guide, period, might mention something about how to position the AV *while moving* with 2 rings on you so as to put the AV where you want him/her, while not endangering your teammates w/sequestration. Not just for the Separated badge either, but when you want the 2 AVs packed in tight as well. Then again, such basics really don't warrant a "guide", do they?

Let me try Son & Cold, since those are my 2 Incarnate defenders that I'm running through the two trials atm. Both are similar in that they both shield, though in different ways, and they both debuff.

Interface: More -res is always attractive, as is the proc damage. In fact, I see very few places where Reactive isn't the pick of choice. With Cold, I can see value to Grav's -recharge & speed to stack, but you likely have enough from just your primary. Diamagnetic's -to hit offers nice synergy with your shields, but Cold hardly needs more -regen. I'm still leaning Reactive with both.

Judgment: Really, no reason to go other than Pyro or Ion right now. Ion's -end/-recovery goes well with Cold's debuffs as well. Am thinking Pyro for Son and Ion for Cold atm.

Destiny: Ah, well, here's the really tricky pick for defenders. Do we fill our holes, or strengthen what we're already good at? Barrier might seem a bit excessive, esp for Cold shielders, but maybe not for Incarnate content w/their higher to hits? Sonic shields always seemed a bit weak compared to FF & Cold, so maybe Barrier ftw after all? The ally rez gives both shielders a missing component to their arsenal as well.

Ageless seems half wasted for Cold. HL is a far better recovery tool than Ageless. The +rech is very nice, of course for Cold--faster HL, Benumb, Sleet, etc. Son can use a +end/recovery tool too, but the +rech is largely wasted (faster Liquefy is nice tho).

Clarion fills a nice hole for Cold shields, but it's only useful to fill the Sleep gap for Sonic's bubble. Since you can Clarity your teammates, Clarion is the least useful for a Son defender, IMO.

Rebirth is the Destiny pick of choice for melee toons w/their high HP counts. Plus neither Cold nor Son have heals. If you're looking to benefit your team the most, and not just looking at Destiny as a self buff, Rebirth Radial Epiphany gives your teammates huge layered mitigation with regen, your own shields and their HPs, which if they're melee toons, should already be pretty hefty. Oh and a massive heal too. I'm heavily leaning this way for both my shield toons.

Lore: I'm looking for damage support for soloing mostly here. I'm reading that the Warwork Vikies are where it's at. Properly shielded, they should be wrecking machines.

I've found my thread gain to be about 4:1, Astrals vs plain drops. Put it another way, on a typical BAF success, I get 4 A-merits and 4 thread drops. Those 4 A-merits become 16 threads, which now means I have enough for a common component. By breaking apart A-merits, pretty much as soon as I open a slot (J, E, D, L, doesn't really matter), I have enough components to craft a T3. Only one exception so far, and that's cuz of horrible luck and zero rare drops for that toon. I couldn't do this w/o breaking apart pretty much all my Astrals.

Plus, you can get Astrals by the bucketful. Emps, at 1, maybe 2 a day, I'm hoarding for now.

Big hint for tanks and sequestration: When you get the 2 rings, you likely have aggro, if your teammate tanks (brutes) know how to off tank, they'll pick up that aggro quickly enough, but just to make sure, when you jump away, jump towards and over the other AV (so if you've been taunting NS, jump over Siege). Then get out of range of your teammates, but make sure your AV moves (if at all) towards the other AV. This way, they stay together.

I've seen far too many tanks w/the 2nd ring jumping away in the wrong direction separating the 2 AVs after the league has worked hard to get them close together. Keep them together, make sure aggro if off of you, then run off to punch some adds while your rings wear off.

BTW, there's no MoBAF run, just like there are no Mo runs for Lambda, Apex or Tin. They're all cumulative, so when you collect all the badges, say over 10 runs, you get the Mo badge. In fact, it's impossible to get MoLambda in less than 3 runs right now, afaik. Oh, and deaths don't matter either--you can die as many times as you want, just collect all the badges.

Last night, for the first time ever, I managed to be sequestered on my Fire tank after moving out of melee range after my 2nd ring. Granted, I don't play my tanks a ton yet on these trials (always rotating in all my incarnates for their daily E-merits, and only have 2 incarnate tanks atm), but usually, when I have the 2nd ring, I go fight the ambush spawns and that's that. Of course, this assumes there are other tanks/brutes who will pick up the AV aggro when I jump out of the way (and there almost always is).

Mostly though, it's just a non-issue for me. Jump away when the 2nd ring hits, go punch some 9CUs, come back when the rings fade. Even if you're the only tank/brute in a league of 24, the other 23 guys can hold their own for a few seconds, esp w/all the Destiny buffs flying around. The only thing to be careful of if separating the 2 AVs if they try to follow you when you jump away.

On the flip side, if another tank has aggro and jumps away after the 2nd ring, grab that aggro back so the AVs stay put (this goes w/the off tanking remarks above)! Gotta have good situational awareness when you tank, and not just in this trial.

So I posted something similar here, but just to recap:

Fire/Ice blaster, pumps out tons of damage, a bit of "control" via Ice Patch & whatnot, but mostly dealing damage. 2 VR, 1 or 2 rares and 1 or 2 uncommon or comon in 6 runs.

Fire/Rad controller, prior to getting his T3 (esp T3 Judgment), dealing decent damage, but not as much as a Fire blaster, lots of buffing, controlling & light healing. About 30-40 total runs, 0 VRs, 7-8 rares (enough for all 3 T3s and I have 3-4 left for my next run up to the T4s), lots & lots of uncommons, very few commons. Last few runs, w/all 4 T3 slots unlocked, at (+3) and doing considerably more damage, I've been getting almost all rare drops. At least the last 2 in a row have dropped rares. Going for T4 Judgment first to see if that'll get me more VR drops (based on this speculation anyway).

My DB/WP scrapper did get a very rare drop too, but I only ran a couple of BAFs w/him (can't remember the other drop).

My tanks don't do nearly as much damage as the above toons. Fire tank gets uncommons. My Stone/Ice gets mostly commons. My other controllers who don't do nearly as much damage as my Fire/Rad also get uncommons or commons. My Ill/Kin in particular who buffs & heals like crazy and mostly does pet damage gets more commons than uncommons. Same for my defenders.

The only time I've heard someone getting the 10 thread table was when that guy DC'ed during the run, so didn't "contribute" much. This happened to him 2x in a row. I've never seen that table myself.

I'm keeping better track of drops per toon and the damage they dish out, but right now, the trend is pretty clear, at least by my experience. I know ppl have observed the opposite too (see linked thread above), so I don't know what's up, but at least for me, it's linked to damage.

I've been sorta keeping an eye on this the last few days. My completely unscientific observation is that my toons that do more damage get higher random tables. Also, the only ppl I know of that got the 10 thread table were those who DC'ed and came back, so maybe "contributed" less.

My Fire blaster? Got a VR, few rares. I think my scrapper got a VR too. Those are the only 2 VR drops I've gotten in over 50 runs.

My Fire/Rad, prior to getting all his T3s? Uncommons mostly. W/all his T3s and spamming damage as much as possible? Almost always a rare now.

My tanks? Mostly uncommons, some commons. Damn few rares. Same for my other controllers & defenders, all w/o their Judgment slots open yet.

I dunno, I see a trend, and it's disturbing. Will try to observe more.

Edit: Just ran my Fire blaster again trying to max out his damage output. Very rare drop.