imported_Timeshadow

Generally speaking, most of the Warshade powers are based on those from Dark Armor and Dark Miasma. Peacebringers powers are taken from all over. You can find similar abilities in Energy Blast, Energy Melee, Traps, Storm Summoning, and Super Strength depending on which powers you're looking at.

I'd been looking to respec my TriFormShade for some time. After reading this post I started tinkering with Mids'. I managed to get 29.2% ranged defense without sacrificing much.

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I'd be nice if the pack only was toggled as ON if your using a build that has crab powers.

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Indeed it would. On the surface that seems like it'd be an easy thing to code in. The game can already register which build you're using so a simple search algorithim could seek out Crab powers.

But things that seem easy when you're playing the game suddenly become difficult when you start coding the game

Unfortunately that doesn't work either. The trigger to display the backpack is hard coded as a simple ON/OFF switch that's tied to the Crab powers. While it is a costume piece (Much like weapons), it isn't linked to the costume creator interface.

The fact that it displays as an option is some indication that it was supposed to be but the Devs probably created the current system to ensure the integrity of the Crab powers' animations. That way Crab Spiders couldn't remove the pack and have their energy blasts and grenades just appearing out of mid-air. It's an unfortunate effect from a less than elegant solution but it's what we've got.

Global Defense bonuses are just that, global. They'll apply in all forms regardless. Any Defense granted from human form toggles won't since those toggles are turned off once you activate Nova or Dwarf.

Speaking specifically of Shadow Cloak, I'm pretty sure the small amount of Defense it grants suppresses in combat like most other stealth powers.

Having said that, positional Defense builds have been done before so its possible. You probably won't be able to softcap without gimping yourself but you can get a respectable amount with IOs. If you're gonna do it, particularly on a Warshade, I'd focus primarily on ranged Defense with a secondary focus on AoE. Black Dwarf is tough enough to handle melee damage without the added bonuses. Especially once you factor in the buffs from Eclipse.

The Crab backpack is triggered by having Crab powers on either build. Only way to get rid of it is to respec out of any and all powers from the Crab pools.

No it doesn't. If I recall correctly it'll actually put the mace away.

Favorite: Night Widows. As a previous poster said, they can pose quite a challenge. Their mixture of high Psionic and Lethal damage combined with auto-hit Smoke Grenades is enough to pose a serious threat. It only takes one of 'em to turn what should be an easy fight into a round of "Crap! Night Widow! GAH!!! Can't see! Can't see!!!!"

Least Favorite: Carnie Dark Ring Mistresses. They've got exotic damage, can buff and heal themselves and debuff you into the floor with Mask of Vitiation. Everytime I see one I heave a sigh before engaging.

Love/Hate: Vanguard Sword, all of 'em. I play mostly damage dealing ATs so they're one of the hardest, if not the hardest, enemy groups in the game to deal with. If you're counting on passive forms of mitigation, particularly Defense, forget it. They've got debuffs out the wazoo and can quickly cut you to ribbons if you engage just one too many at a time.

Carb Spiders carry the nickname "Blastankerminds" because of their AoE damage, high Resistance and Defense values and their ability to have up to six pets out at once (Summon Spiderlings, Call Reinforcements and the pet from the Mace Mastery Patron Pool).

As long as you can stomach the legs you'll probably enjoy the branch. Check the guides section for further help.

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Is this a mis-print or does Absorption really work in Nova/Dwarf forms for a WS?

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Whoops, I goofed

I did indeed mean Dark Sustenance. My apologies for any confusion this caused. Of course if you people would just read the patch notes for yourselves we wouldn't have this problem

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Just as the Winterlord caused excessive level gains, so is AE. There should be a limit on XP/minute gained over a rolling average of the last 20-60 minutes. The values should be chosen so that the typical XP we expect are still obtained. But the 20/levels per hour we're seeing in AE should be stopped. Other rewards (influence, tickets) should be limited in the same fashion -- not a cap per mission, but a maximum rate.

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I hadn't thought of that Rodion. I wasn't around to witness the infamous Winter Lord babies but I've heard the stories.

Diminishing Returns is the most obvious and, arguably, simplest solution but its hardly elegant. Further alteration of the XP/minute rate would certainly help to reduce any potential exploitation of the Architect System. It would, in theory, have the same curbing effect and prevent players from reaping benefits that are dispropotional, albeit greatly reduced since the days of Meow farms, to running Dev created content.

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DR is not any kind of improvement its a stupid devs cruch to heavy handedly dictate to players what to play.

Thank goodness the devs are not stupid enough to implement this stupid suggestion that has been suggested many many times and poo pooed over the past two months for various reasons.

This is just ANOTHER nerf AE thread in disguise.

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I appreciate your opinion Darth but that's not what this thread is meant for. I'll see you back in the Kheldian forums.

Hey everyone. As we're all aware, the Mission Architect is a revolutionary feature and has had a very large impact on CoX. Some will say it's leveled the playing field in terms of access to high end enhancements and sizeable funds. Others will talk about how it's allowed them to bring all their heroic and villainous ideas to life. Still others will tell you that it's ruined the game and spawned a bunch of power leveled n00bs who haven't the slightest grasp of what they're doing.

This thread isn't meant to be yet another place for those opinions to be voiced. Rather, I wanted to open a discussion as to how the Mission Architect can be altered and improved since it's obviously not going away. I've kicked around one idea in particular with members of my VG, particularly regarding how to strike a balance between the rewards earned by playing Dev created content versus MA content. We came up with the following:

<ul type="square">[*] Implement Diminishing Returns on tickets and XP earned from running arcs within a certain time frame. Similar to the system implemented to keep players from farming reward merits when they were first introduced. This would decrease the "AE Camping" and allow the Devs to relax a bit in terms of monitoring for potential exploits.[/list]

I run my TriForm Kheldians for all sorts of TFs and just for fun. I love shapeshifters

Red side I'll log into my Widow to run with my VG. That's pretty much the only reason I'll pick her up these days. I'll see what happens when my Bane hits the level cap.

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As for SoA going 'rogue'... Well I got some storyline for one of mine. My wolf spider was a latent psychic cop from paragon who was infultrating a criminal gang (similar to Flux). Her undercover work took her to the rogue islands, where she ended up getting 'recruited' by Arachnos. At first she figured it'd be a great way to feed info to the athorities on Arachnos plots, but well.. As anyone who's done late game villain arcs knows, all Spiders and Widows are brainwashed and have their psychic abilities turned towards Arachnos goals. For Arachnid Huntress, this means her latent psychic abilities were turned towards maintaining her brainwashing and that of her fellow spiders.

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I was just perusing the thread when I came across this and realized you had some errors in your story. Excuse my nitpicking but I'm very particular when it comes to cannon.

Thing is, not all Arachnos Soldiers and Widows are brainwashed. Only Bane Spiders have their psychic abilities turned inward to create a slavish mental network. Fortunatas have their sight expanded so they can see through time.

Wolves, Crabs and Blood Widows are ordinary humans who make use of high technology and exceptional training. Night Widows are capable of performing some psionic feats but their focus is on martial skills.

That was, indeed, the general consensus.

The biggest part of the issue was getting enough DPS to beat the AVs regen. Staying alive wasn't so much a problem; people have put together softcapped Ranged defense builds before and Peacebringers in particular are well suited to the task thanks to their self-contained heals.

Overall, anyone interested in attempting it should probably emulate a Blaster playstyle. Shift into Nova Form and blast away; only drop form to heal or, in the case of Warshades, self-buff.

Forgive me if this sounds snarky, it's not intended to. What you've described is unfortunate but the mission from Arbiter Rein (The one you have to do before you choose a patron) requires you to read all the plaques that describe, in detail, the Patron Pool powers. Apparently you missed the Archetype differentials.

That aside, the Coralax has some advantages over the Guardian. Most notable is the Psionic damage it adds. While it isn't much, it's something. Don't feel too bad, though. The Patron pets are usually skipped simply because they're not that great.

As stated, lag and stacked mezzes are the most likely culprits.

The bug you're describing usually only happens when you try to drop forms while a form specific power is still animating. If it persists, submit a report.

Combat Training: Defensive and Tactical Training: Manuevers shouldn't be among your last four power choices. Their stacking Defense buffs greatly enhance your survivability. Consensus is that they should be taken as soon as they become of available.

As for the other powers, Combat Training: Offensive isn't really worth it. Tactical Training: Leadership is a much better choice because it provides +toHit as opposed to +Accuracy and applies to both you and any team mates. I'm a huge fan of pets so I'd definately recommend Call Reinforcements and Summon Spiderlings. They add a considerable amount of damage and can hold aggro for you while you lay down some AoE goodness.

Nope. No color changes on the capes as of yet.

Unfortunately, no. It's even been removed from the Known Issues list so it's safe to say it's gone to the bottom of the barrel in terms of improvements.

No doubt that there's a disparity between number of powers available vs. number of slots available.

However, the reason Kheldians don't have Ancillary Pools is because they've got more powers in their standard pools than other ATs. Like I said, it's a bit nonsenseical because most Kheldians (TriFormers in particular) don't have the slots to really enhance their last few power picks but you asked for the reason we don't get APPs so there ya go.

As a suggestion, try picking up the Medicine Pool. The only powers that really need any slots are Aid Other and Aid Self. Stimulant lets you hand out mezz protection and Resuscitate will make you even more valuable on teams. This is particularly true for Warshades since they can fall back, use Shadow Recall and then rez fallen team mates.

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Honestly, there really is no legitimate reason not to power level to 50 these days. Thanks to the Flashback system, the only content you could possibly outlevel are the Mayhem / Safeguard missions.

That's generally what I do. Do the level 1 through 5 missions for Kalinda or Burke so you don't have to travel back to Mercy Island for the cape and aura missions. At level 6, head on over to Port Oakes. Do newspaper missions, and unlock the first Mayhem mission. Head on over to Cap au Diable, and powerlevel to level 13. Stop, do more newspaper missions, and unlock the second Mayhem mission. Powerlevel again to level 18. Do more newspaper missions, and unlock the third Mayhem mission. Rinse, and repeat until level 41. After unlocking the eighth Mayhem mission, go ahead and powerlevel straight to level 50.

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That's one way to do it. However, it sounds like you're doing a form of educated PLing. That's your choice and doing it properly requires knowledge of the game (Which, judging by the tone of your post, you have).

But for every PLer like you there are those who have no idea what they're missing. All they know is "Get to level cap NAO!!11!" Those are the kind of players that whiz through the content and fail to learn how to play the game well. They're a drag on teams and, logically, most people want to avoid encouraging them whenever possible.

I've got 5 out of my 6 toons at level 50 including one of each EAT and I enjoy them thoroughly (Hoping to get my Arachnos Soldier to 50 before the next Double XP Weekend). All of them reached the level cap by running Dev created content in the standard manner. Were there a few farms involved? Sure; who hasn't farmed a map or two? But their primary mode of XP gain has been "as intended" and I consider myself a better player for it.

On Topic: If you wanna go the Mission Architect Route I'd suggest rolling a toon that's popular for farming. Consider a Fire/Kin Corruptor or a SS/Inv Brute. Then head over to Cap Au Diable and start broadcasting. It's absolutely not the method I would use or recommend but I'm pragmatic enough to recognize that it's effective.

If you decide you'd like to try to get a feel for the Isles then large teams are the way to go. Consider rolling up a new MM. Perhaps a more active combo like Thugs/Dark or Ninja/Storm. That'll allow you to be a boon to teams and run solo at very high difficulties. Just be prepared to handle a more active style of command and control.

While exemping down to run with a level 32 team and using Dark Extraction:

"Whoa! Where the hell did that thing come from?!"

Three slotting Dwarf Form (White and Black) with Resistance is the standard way to go. Have you slotted up White Dwarf Sublimation yet? It provides big dividends as a self-heal. Also, using White Dwarf Flare as often as its available will serve as a great form of mitigation.

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HEAT's are much more difficult to leverage to that full potential and are a different type of teamer. Soliders offer team buffs that are in a different class no doubt.

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DING! 10 points for you! The Khelds vs. SoAs debate has been going on for a long time and it almost never reaches a consensus.

VEATs provide a lot of passive aid to the team with their Leadership toggles and people tend to notice that more readily (The extra icons on screen help ). That effect is, of course, multiplied as more VEATs come together. Combine that with the fact that one of their primary focuses is dealing damage and you've got an AT that's gonna garner the limelight.

HEATs, on the other hand, make their contribution to teams by being able to fill several rolls at a moment's notice. Somebody over aggroed, the tank's down and the heavies are making a beeline for the squishies you say? Not a problem. Time to Dwarf up! The team needs more damage to take down an AV? Excuse me while I shift to Nova. Thing is, there's no "I just stuck my finger in the dam and saved all our butts" icon. It's less about powers and more about play.

EATs, all EATs, are powerful and contribute a great deal to teams that have them (Provided the players are good).