City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Defense? Yes!

Another_Fan

By Another_Fan,
Posted on: 2010-05-06 19:06 in Blasters

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by srmalloy View Post
What amuses me most about the people who post builds for comment are the ones who post level-50 builds with four sets of purple IOs slotted. Which is all well and good for an end-game build, but for 99% of the character's career they either a) won't be high enough level to slot purple sets, or b) won't have the influence to buy and craft them -- yes, this is a blue-sky gosh-wow build, but what are you going to do while getting there? If your only focus is on what you're going to be at the very end, the trip to get there is going to be depressing.
You only play characters less than a week ?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona View Post
I'm pretty sure this isn't exactly a bug - when you fly, your forward-backward-up-down are angled with the camera, so if you have the camera angled down for a better view of what's on the ground (pretty much necessary for hoverblasting) pressing forward will take you down at the angle of your camera.

Of course, not being a bug doesn't make it less annoying. I tend to only hoverblast in short bursts when I feel I need the extra safety for pretty much this reason.

On the other hand, this feature enables my favorite bug. Start hovering, point your camera straight up or down, trigger an emote that puts you in a stable position or looped animation (tea and protest are my favorite, or one of the sitting emotes), and hold the descend button. Enjoy flying around feetfirst while drinking tea. The results for pushups are particularly disquieting when it's coming right at you. You can also adjust the angle so that you're sliding forwards or backwards while at an angle to the ground, but remaining mostly upright.
No...It's a bug. It won't LET me adjust my camera for level flight. Every time I try to do so it reorients the camera at a slight downward angle automatically. It seems to be an exceptionally rare bug, I've only heard of a couple other people it's happened to.

I petitioned and /bugged the problem several times, so either no one ever looked into it, or they couldn't find the cause of it.

I have several other flying characters, including a sonic/devices hoverblaster, so I know it isn't user error here. None of them have any issues, just this one particular character. Even adjusting the camera with the right mouse button doesn't work, as soon as I let go of it it swivels downward again.

I'm absolutely positive it's a bug, so I just speced out of Flight to avoid the problem.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
No...It's a bug. It won't LET me adjust my camera for level flight. Every time I try to do so it reorients the camera at a slight downward angle automatically. It seems to be an exceptionally rare bug, I've only heard of a couple other people it's happened to.

I petitioned and /bugged the problem several times, so either no one ever looked into it, or they couldn't find the cause of it.

I have several other flying characters, including a sonic/devices hoverblaster, so I know it isn't user error here. None of them have any issues, just this one particular character. Even adjusting the camera with the right mouse button doesn't work, as soon as I let go of it it swivels downward again.

I'm absolutely positive it's a bug, so I just speced out of Flight to avoid the problem.
Have you thought of just using the jump key to move yourself upwards while flying forwards so you aren't grinding into the ground? I prefer to have a downward angle when I'm flying so I can look down on enemies and see the ones toward the back of the mob. By using the Jump key, I can zigzag and keep relatively level to where above the ground I want to be.

As for BU/Aim, using them before fighting a boss *will* speed up the fight. You'll do a lot more damage in your alpha strike, leaving less HP to take care of when they wear off. Often time you can wipe the floor with a boss within the 10s of the buffs duration. Of course, this pretty much requires you to be aware of the boss before it attacks you, so you can get the jump on him. If you just rush into mobs without seeing what's in there (poor strategy for most blasters, but your defense could make it work, as long as luck holds out) then BU/Aim will just leave you open to attacks while you activate them, which could result in death before you get to take advantage of them. It's a matter of playstyle. Do what works for you, and don't let others tell you how you should play.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by srmalloy View Post
What amuses me most about the people who post builds for comment are the ones who post level-50 builds with four sets of purple IOs slotted. Which is all well and good for an end-game build, but for 99% of the character's career they either a) won't be high enough level to slot purple sets, or b) won't have the influence to buy and craft them -- yes, this is a blue-sky gosh-wow build, but what are you going to do while getting there? If your only focus is on what you're going to be at the very end, the trip to get there is going to be depressing.
Since this thread is about defense, let me chime in here and say that most def-capped builds aren't built around purples, and if those builds *at 50* have several purp sets, you can simply switch them out and still have a very effective build. If you're so limited in your understanding of advice received that you can only copy a posted build completely... well, you're one of the reasons I rarely post builds any more. Most reasonable ppl can use them as templates and make any adjustments, like removing purples, building for pre-50, etc.

I used to make plans for 50-builds and leveling builds until I realized I can easily make a leveling build in my mind while looking at my proposed 50-build. Not always, but often enough where I eliminated most of my saved leveling builds to avoid clutter. You should try it some time.

An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee

 

Posted

I'll add that I refuse to use purples in my builds for the main reason that they are too damn expensive for me.

I can kit out an entire character for what ONE purple set will cost me.

The only purples I hav on ANY of my characters is a sleep set in my Rad/Sonic's Siren's Song, and I bought that back when the sleep set was (relatively speaking) dirt cheap.

Every build I put together is budget-minded, I can put together stupidly expensive purple builds as well as anyone else. But why should I do that when I only have one or two characters that would really benefit from it?

As far as the flight bug goes: I decided to just stick with Leaping, as it's less annoying and fits the character better anyway. It would have been even MORE annoying if the concept absolutely demanded that he be a flyer, but it doesn't so it works for me.

I'm just trying to find a build that will breathe some life back into a mostly retired character here. He's been 50 and shelved (aside from the occasional PvP) for more than a year now.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

 

Posted

The whole flying bug issue happened to one of my toons,too. But, as it seems it's not an bug; it;s just that the default camera (the one that is preselected when logging in with the character) has slight angle towards the ground, so small that it's practically impossible to correct by hand. I solved the problem by binding this to the ctrl key: /bind ctrl "camreset$$camdist [xx]" and it worked for me. Basically, it's the /camreset slash command, which resets the camera to the normal, parallel to ground, angle and close-to-character distance and the /camdist [xx] command, which sets the camera at a distance (I just want to be able to see the whole toon), where [xx] is a double-digit number, usually 18-22, according to the toon's height. I just hit ctrl every time I log in with the toon. Hope it works for you!

Alternatevely, you could try options/controls/mouse. The is an option there which name I cannot remeber, but has the following choices: Free look, always centered, centered when moving. Select either always centered or centered when moving. I prefer the latter.

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
Oh, right, because NO ONE uses a set for typed defense, do they? I'm not using the exact same sets everyone and their grandma uses so they're the wrong ones?

I guess that's what I get for trying to do something different.
Claws, I have a Dark/SR who never dies no matter what I do...hmmm...have not taken her to the Cim Wall yet, but she eats Romans for breakfast.

She is built with sets that I have never seen in any Dark/SR build posted here.

And I am about to use oddball sets in my Spine/Elec..actually right now she is Frankenslotted in a way I have never seen posted in the scrapper forum. I have a friend who is not happy with his Spines/Elec, which is the same level as mine, and I am having no problems.

And when scrappers got the fire epic, I went on test, did not have a respec, but I did have a second build. I actually played a mission with a completely unslotted level 50 Fire/Fire scrap and not only did I kill things, I did not die !

So, I say keep on with what you are doing. There is more than one way to skin a cat..err catgirl?

And who knows....the people who post these expensive builds just might be trying to sell stacks of what they have posted in these must do builds...they know newbies, folks in a hurry, and people with more influence than sense, will see the posted builds and say ok that is what I will do....they then scurry to WW, buy the stuff and thus play right into the posters hands.

Grin..so, you never know, behind a posted build there just may be an Ebil Marketeer. When you post a fresh build, that new build draws attention away from what the Ebil one is selling ....and that is bad.

And must be stopped

And I am joking..at least I think I am..Shields secondary and your multi-billion influence builds I am looking right at you

Lisa-Logging into the game.

So don't wait for heroes, do it yourself
You've got the power
winners are losers
who got up and gave it just one more try

***Dennis DeYoung

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Twilight_Snow View Post
I'm not criticizing your build in particular. It's just a general observation that people (including my suggested build above) have to sacrifice quite a lot in order to acquire the desired bonus. Actually, we are just trying to help by posting builds and making suggestions here, and not meant to be offensive.
YESSSSSSSSS.........Twilight Snow, I salute you.

I could get close to soft cap defense via bonuses on a pure resistance toon, I have tried...but I lose more of the basic three, acc, end, rechg, than I really like....and there are some powers whose secondary effects I like to beef up a bit.

I thought it was just me.

Lisa.

So don't wait for heroes, do it yourself
You've got the power
winners are losers
who got up and gave it just one more try

***Dennis DeYoung