I give up... What about Inventions?
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2012-02-04 24:53 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I enjoy it. To each their own, which is why I specifically said that it was MY method for affording the IOs I want, but not the only path.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The City of Heroes market is the most egregious, soul-sucking example of pointless busywork in the entire game by far.
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My one piece of advice is that, once you figure out what you want from the market, place lowball bids and wait a week or two for them to fill. Also, wanting the very top level IOs (level 50 for most sets) and wanting to do it cheaply are two goals that do not go hand in hand. Everyone wants the top level IO, they always sell for more, and you can save a lot of money by buying less-than-level-50.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Also - and this is something I don't think anyone's brought up before - what if I'm playing a Vigilante or a Rogue? Aren't those barred from Alignment Merits altogether.
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There's a reason that two of my characters have over 700 and over 1000 regular merits, respectively -- and that's because they're rogues and cannot convert to alignment merits. And I generally hate buying anything with regular merits, these days. ^_^
It's a trade-off. Rogues/Vigilantes get access to the entire game, Heroes/Villains get access to their alignment lounge.
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
I should probably explain a couple of things, just so you know where I'm coming from when I talk about hating the Market.
I like stability, that's my number one primary goal when designing a build. I like to be able to do what I want to do, when I want to do it. With SOs, this is easy. They're cheap and I can get as many of any kind of SO as I want the instant I want it. All that's left to do is devise a build that uses them. Commons are more expensive, but similarly easy to acquire. There are almost always ready-made enhancements for sale, and when there aren't the recipes are for sale in the University and there's always enough common salvage to make them. It's just a question of having enough money, and considering 20 million is more or less adequate for, say, a set of level 40s, that's easy enough to achieve. Even if they end up being more expensive, they're still within my budget even if I overpay.
Uncommon and Rare recipes are very different, however. Not only are they naturally less common and more expensive on the Market, they aren't even always available. Almost any time I try to sell a set Recipe, there are between 0 and 2 for sale of it. These aren't sold in any store, either, so what this means is if they aren't available, I plain can't have them, and this is what upsets me the most.
This leads me to a secondary question: Suppose I wanted to make a build entirely out of some kind of Merits, say Reward Merits since I usually have a lot of those. How much would that build I was given cost in terms of Merit cost? Yes, I realise I wouldn't have to buy all of it with Merits and it's not a good way to do it, but just toss me a number so I have some kind of perspective. If it's, say, 300-600, that's doable. Not easy, but doable. If it's something like 10 000, then YIKES!
See, if I can take away the randomness of it all and the "scavenger hunt" component, then I'd feel a hell of a lot more comfortable with doing whatever it took to get these things. That's part of what drives my mentality. So long as I know what I'm working for, I can put in a lot of "work." But if I'm asked to work for a "chance" at something, then that's when I start losing motivation.
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Also, someone asked me for a global name. No surprises there - it's @Samuel Tow. The whole reason I registered a forum account back in 2004 was because we were told to do that so we could reserve a global name when those were first introduced. Those who had a forum account would be given the name they picked for it, and those who didn't would be given the name of the first character they logged in. It made sense to make a forum account, even though I didn't plan on posting much. Yeah, we've seen how well that plan worked 
*edit*
Incidentally, Assassin's Creed turns out to be one of the worst games I could have turned to as an escape from complexity and scavenger-hunting. That ******* game is packed with collectables, components and all manner of little things I have to keep track of. We'll see how long I last.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Unfortunately, the minimum any set recipe costs is 50 merits. So, with around 90 slots to fill, you're looking at at least a 4500 merit cost to make a full build.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
This leads me to a secondary question: Suppose I wanted to make a build entirely out of some kind of Merits, say Reward Merits since I usually have a lot of those. How much would that build I was given cost in terms of Merit cost? Yes, I realise I wouldn't have to buy all of it with Merits and it's not a good way to do it, but just toss me a number so I have some kind of perspective. If it's, say, 300-600, that's doable. Not easy, but doable. If it's something like 10 000, then YIKES!
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Main Hero: Mazey - level 50 + 1 fire/fire/fire blaster.
Main Villain: Chained Bot - level 50 + 1 Robot/FF Mastermind.
BattleEngine - "And the prize for the most level headed response ever goes to Mazey"
Sam,
What level is Jun up to now, by the way?
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
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You're usually better off converting to Alignment Merits.|
Originally Posted by Mazey
Unfortunately, the minimum any set recipe costs is 50 merits. So, with around 90 slots to fill, you're looking at at least a 4500 merit cost to make a full build.
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Then spending out AMs either directly for the recipes you want or burning a couple for valuable ones you can sell on the market and using the Inf to buy the stuff you want.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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My advice is this... Take your concept and apply it to the invention system. When you do that it becomes much easier to play around with. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Jun here is designed to be a no-holds-barred agile fighter who relies on her speed, her wits and her ability to punch really hard. She's smart, but not technically inclined, so no devices or weapons of any kind. No fancy powers like teleportation, magic or spirituality, no leadership capabilities as she's just 15. Those are most of the constraints that informed my build choices.
And, really, don't worry about me making the build at this point. I just want to understand what goes where and why it goes there. |
For example going by your description of Jun you can break down what set bonuses you should look for and fits your concept.
Speed/agility.. recharge, movement increases.
Wits: Tatics on your end. You don't just duke it out, they know when to retreat and recover. So for me that says Regeneration and recover.
Punches really hard: Damage, and damage procs, but with no magic/spiritually you would want to look at only Smashing and Lethal. Neg energy wouldn't make sense as a proc for example.
No hold bars fighting: that to me says Endurance and Health. The character can dish out a beating and take one.
So look though the sets and keep your concept in mind is my advice. Don't worry about soft capping, or six slotting with a single power.
Example build.. and I know it could be better but at least its a starting point (just tossed it together didn't play around all that much with it.. very rough initial build). Everything about the build was building towards speed, recharge, hitpoints, bonus damage.. while at the same time playing with the enhancer values to get most of them as high as I could for a first past without spending all day on it.
http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/downl...5DEBBFB02FF27F
Finally leave yourself open to change. Very rarely have my mid's build survived intact as a playable build because I find I hit points that I go its "good enough" and alter the character build on the fly while still keeping the concept in mind and the feel of how the character plays. To me how the characters feels while playing is more important then if I get that extra 2.5 damage, or 3.13 defense.
As for the cost.. no clue but I didn't use purple sets and I used some uncommonly used sets. I look at builds as long term projects rather then a must be done now but I don't like to build out a fully purple'd out build with PvP procs as that's typically outside of the price range. (unless its my main and then its a multibillion purple'd out number with insane recharge)
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I'm by no means an ebil marketeer or drowning in billions of inf but... I typically have anywhere from 500 mill to 1 billion inf on hand at any given time. I periodically spend to trick out a character and then rebuild my funds. What I do to make inf? I simply use my characters to get alignment merits... whether via direct alignment merit gains via tips/ssa's or by converting reward merits with some influence. Then i use the alignment merits to by high prices recipes, craft them and sell them. This typically gets me about 120 million inf for 2 merit items and about 70 million for 1 merit items. Figuring out what will sell and how fast is pretty easy. I never buy a bunch of the same thing to sell though. Usually its one of each high ticket item and let them sit till they sell... collect my inf and spend it on the things I want. That said... when I need a high priced item (every single toon of mine gets the miracle and numina uniques for health) I simply use the alignment merits so I dont have to spend out of pocket. The trick isn't always to make money... but to curb spending by acquiring things you'd normally pay for through other means. If you're going to spend inf for something buy a recipe not a crafted enhancement. You can use AE to generate tickets for salvage and spend a fraction of what it costs to buy one already crafted.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
1. What must one do to acquire the resources needed to make Inventions - recipes and salvage? Can this be done by just playing Story Arcs and regular missions like I always have, or do I need to run Architect missions or farm Alignment missions or such?
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
2. Is it possible to build specifically at level 50, using only level 50 Inventions, or do I have to have a menagerie of different numbers on my Enhancements screen?
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
3. What defines "cheap" vs. "expensive" sets? Market price? Ticket cost? Merit cost? Is there any way to tell which is which before I commit to it?
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
4. Does everyone have to build for Defence? Seemingly, whether your sets provide defence or not, and even whether you're melee or not, everyone suggests building for defence. What else should I build for as a general thing? Recharge? Endurance? What?
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Some AT/powersets shine with support in various ways. It's up to you to figure it out. Think of complimentary things. Recharge is great for ill/rad as I said for a WP character its not quite as valuable. A super reflexes character would find regen set bonuses quite the boon vs defense which would do little once they are softcapped. A regen character on the other hand finds defense AND recharge great if they can manage alot of both. I try to use set bonuses to either make up for things lacking (my invuln tank has as much resistance to psi dmg as everything else that isn't s/l and her defense to psi is about 30% as well) or to make key powers permanent (hasten, accel metab, light form, phantom army, etc).Quote:
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
5. Is it possible to develop a basic template that's at least generally applicable to a whole AT with whatever amount of tweaking, or does every character essentially require starting a build design from scratch?
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
6. How much work is it to put together a decent, "cheap" build at the level cap as opposed to, say, buying a full set of Common Inventions, assuming I have the build worked out beforehand?
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You can be frugal and still find set bonuses you want. The key however i think lies in my answer to your first question. Once inf becomes less of a limiting factor you'll find that most things will fall into the "affordable" category. About the only things that are long term investments for me are purples and ive never had the inf to buy a pvp unique IO. I typically plan out my builds to not use pvp IO's or purples if I can help it though the control set purples are much more affordable than say the damage dealing ones. Working out a build and then looking at the market prices for the recipes can give you an indicator of the investment needed. That said... alignment merits can make everything happy... both for expensive IO's you may want like LotG +global recharges and for making inf by selling ios you craft from recipes you purchase.
Jem - Ill/Rad Controller Lv 50+3 Nic - Mind/Psi Dominator Lv 50+3 Lady Liberation - Invuln/SS Tanker Lv 50+1 Invicitx - Demon/Pain Mastermind Lv 50+1 Celeste - Emp/Arch Defender Lv 50+1 Nightsilver - DB/WP Scrapper Lv 34 Dusk Howl - StJ/Regen Brute Lv 32 Kyriani - Time/Energy Defender Lv 41Psifire - FF/Psi Defender Lv 50
Star Lighter - LB/LA Peacebringer Lv 30
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Technically, Uncommon and Rare recipes are always available at Merit Vendors. Very Rare recipes and PvP recipes are always available at Alignment Merit Vendors in addition to Uncommon and Rare recipes.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Uncommon and Rare recipes are very different, however. Not only are they naturally less common and more expensive on the Market, they aren't even always available. Almost any time I try to sell a set Recipe, there are between 0 and 2 for sale of it. These aren't sold in any store, either, so what this means is if they aren't available, I plain can't have them, and this is what upsets me the most.
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You just can't buy them for inf straight up...without using the Market.
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| This leads me to a secondary question: Suppose I wanted to make a build entirely out of some kind of Merits, say Reward Merits since I usually have a lot of those. How much would that build I was given cost in terms of Merit cost? Yes, I realise I wouldn't have to buy all of it with Merits and it's not a good way to do it, but just toss me a number so I have some kind of perspective. If it's, say, 300-600, that's doable. Not easy, but doable. If it's something like 10 000, then YIKES! |
300-600 merits will get you at most twelve recipes (lowest is 50) from a Merit Vendor, depending on what you buy. Not enough for an entire build, and the cheapest recipes may not be the ones you want. I mean, unless you're only buying one IO set.
Alternatively, converting 300 Reward Merits can give you 6 Alignment Merits over the course of six days, for a total of 120M inf. It is certainly possible to get that much influence without being a market mastermind, because I am not a market mastermind by any means. No Uncommon or Rare recipe from an Alignment Merit vendor costs more than 2 Alignment Merits, so if you had the 300 Merits and inf on hand, you might get 3 to 6 specific recipes.
However, what does all of this mean in context? Consider the most expensive part of your build, those Touch of Death recipes. The set of 6 costs 850 Reward Merits from a Merit Vendor. Alternatively, it costs 8 Alignment Merits, which would require 400 Reward Merits and 160M inf for a straight conversion if you weren't getting the A-Merits from other sources like Morality missions or Signature Story Arc rewards. Now imagine having to get these resources twice more to get the three complete sets of Touch of Death.
I agree; the costs above look terrible, considering that U.P. says the set of 6 costs about 10M right now on the Market by comparison. That's about right on average. Direct Alignment Merit purchases are best used when the costs of conversion are less than buying the same recipe on the Market.
However, this implies that you can purchase a recipe with Alignment Merits and sell it for more on the Market than it cost you to get those Alignment Merits, if you had to convert Reward Merits and inf. If you got the Alignment Merits some other way, all you're looking at are Market comission costs and crafting expenses if you choose to go that route. Everything else will be profit.
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| Almost any time I try to sell a set Recipe, there are between 0 and 2 for sale of it. |
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| So long as I know what I'm working for, I can put in a lot of "work." But if I'm asked to work for a "chance" at something, then that's when I start losing motivation. |
What I'm trying to say is, if the first sentence in that quote above is is true, and if you believe me that the second sentence is nothing to worry about as long as your inf keeps going up, then doing stuff on the market is going to be worth the time you spend on it. You just have to be willing to put the time into it.
I'd bet that if you started working on getting Alignment Merits and rolling for stuff, or even just picking up recipes that sell for bunches on the Market if you want consistent results, you could get that 150M inf people are estimating you'd need to buy recipes on the market and finish your build within the space of one week or less. I mean, compare that to how long you've actually been playing the character.
61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
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How about IOing out completely with level 40s instead, then? Everything will match, and there's really nothing to choose between 40s and 50s in terms of performance. I start slotting all my characters with IOs in the low/mid 30s, because then I can actually use the IO build as I'm levelling up, I can buy the IOs in a nice, leisurely way as I go along, and I never need to replace the IOs once they're in there.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
And if you really are serious about this, then I might just do that
I expressly DO NOT WANT Purple and PvP Inventions just as a matter of principle, but if you want to help out, then that'd be great. I do like that build UnicyclePeon suggested... It's a bit off with the 40s in there, but I'm willing to give it a shot. |
Just let me know what you want when you have the final build fixed, and I'll send you the IOs. It might take me a little more time to get everything together if you want to go the level 40s route, as supply is lower (and I'm kind of stingy, so I hate paying more than I have to :-) But it'll be fun getting everything together.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
One more thing to add: When I ask how I can tell what's cheap and what's expensive, I meant is there some way to tell the rarity of recipes and their costs to obtain with Merits of some sort? Like, Salvage is divided into very neat, tidy categories - common, uncommon, rare. Common's 250 to sell, uncommon's 1000, rare is 5000. I know Common Inventions are... Well, common, but what about Set Recipes? How do those break down?
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The Paragonwiki has the merit costss for Reward Merits and Alignment Merits.
The Incarnate Merit vendors in Ouro also sell recipes, although I'm sure that you'll have much better things to do with your Emp and Astral Merits than buy recipes.
Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.
Sam, first off I wish to apologize for blowing up at you like I did in Pinnbadges several days ago. I was dealing with a crisis IRL but no matter, I should not have done that, and my apologies.
That being said, if you want to take the build that is under proposal, I'd be happy to hand over or email you some of the stuff I have stashed. I have the relevant recipes at level 30 (I also build for positional defense and have the bad habit of bidding extras and stashing the excess when I bid on the market). I can understand if you would have issues with all your set IOs being level 30 and the generics level 50 though, and if you prefer max-level stuff I can put bids in to help you get them without you messing with the market.
There's a reason I go for 30s rather than 50s in my builds, but that's a matter of personal preference in exemplaring flexibility.
Sister Jeanne 50 Katana/SR Scrapper
Ami Mizuno 44 Emp/Psi Defender
Rei 04 41 Grav/Kinetics controller
Coronal Flare 28 Peacebringer juvenile delinquent
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I suggested similar, but do you think he'd listen to me? Nooooo |
Originally Posted by Montaugh
My advice is this... Take your concept and apply it to the invention system. When you do that it becomes much easier to play around with.
For example going by your description of Jun you can break down what set bonuses you should look for and fits your concept. Speed/agility.. recharge, movement increases. Wits: Tatics on your end. You don't just duke it out, they know when to retreat and recover. So for me that says Regeneration and recover. Punches really hard: Damage, and damage procs, but with no magic/spiritually you would want to look at only Smashing and Lethal. Neg energy wouldn't make sense as a proc for example. No hold bars fighting: that to me says Endurance and Health. The character can dish out a beating and take one. So look though the sets and keep your concept in mind is my advice. Don't worry about soft capping, or six slotting with a single power. |
I mean, wow is it great motivation to build a special character yourself whose function can be realized with IOs? Like, my main has to be really good with his Katana...a master, if you will. He needs *every* katana power otherwise how can he say he knows everything about katanas (means they have to all be 6 slotted too). And with his mastery of swords, he can cut practically anything...but not with the sword, exactly (he uses a wooden sword...because they're better
). So his attacks are slotted in a way to get good effect from 4 slots and stick a proc in the last 2 slots. The neg energy procs weren't hard to get, and the achille's heel proc wasn't much trouble for half his powers...but that gladiator proc was a killer...but I was motivated to complete his build to fulfill his concept and I learn a lot along the way.My Fire/Shield Brute I talked about was the most fun character to fulfill to date. Only the fire sword attacks and fire breath. He needed max stats on those four attacks otherwise he wouldn't be effective and the other fire attacks didn't fit his concept. Fire breath needed as much range as possible and when he got to PPPs, the breath attacks from the Mako pool had to be efficient and up often. Collecting, slotting and pulling together powers until I had this awesome dragon guy at 50 felt great. He's not the best of the best, but he's a beast none the less and I haven't even got him any incarnate stuff yet. I'm sure there's an Alpha slot power to boost his range on Breath of Fire even more as well as make his sword attacks faster and more efficient.
I can't say enough how painful my Fire/Storm corruptor was leveling, always bottoming out on endurance at the drop of a hat, but it was still fun. She needed to be constantly raining power on people's heads which meant Rain of Fire and Freezing Rain had to be faster and cheaper (and procced out somewhat). Thunderstorm had to be stackable and still not bottom out her endurance running her toggles. The aim was mainly recharge bonuses so her powers were up faster and bit the bullet on endurance, mostly. I relied on the alpha slot and inspirations to help with endurance as I wanted potency, not efficiency. She required many many tricks and lots of endurance to pull off these tricks. +rech and +Max END were her bonuses of choice(and accolades).
I honestly don't see what's hard about the system. If you can see an angle for a build, but are unsure what you can do to accomplish it, then yes ask for advice. But you really have to know what you want from your character before you go trying to build them.
Practically all my characters use generic IOs except for the handful with special builds (or the ones I tested the waters with regarding IOs and the market early on).
The system is there to give characters flexibility and power but you don't need to take full advantage of everything to get the character you want. Nothing is grueling, unfair or tedious about it.
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Example build.. and I know it could be better but at least its a starting point (just tossed it together didn't play around all that much with it.. very rough initial build). Everything about the build was building towards speed, recharge, hitpoints, bonus damage.. while at the same time playing with the enhancer values to get most of them as high as I could for a first past without spending all day on it. http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/downl...5DEBBFB02FF27F Finally leave yourself open to change. Very rarely have my mid's build survived intact as a playable build because I find I hit points that I go its "good enough" and alter the character build on the fly while still keeping the concept in mind and the feel of how the character plays. To me how the characters feels while playing is more important then if I get that extra 2.5 damage, or 3.13 defense. |
I haven't played him in forever though. Planning to try him and a few of my other Stalkers out come the newest issue.
Note: I don't even play the game that often. I've actually been playing a lot lately (like 3 days a week these past few weeks) but even only logging in twice every few weeks for a few odd hours, I could still build the characters I have with only moderate effort. Sometimes amassing lots of AE tickets on a character was done to buy salvage when there wasn't any on market...or did random rolls with merits and what not for extra cash, but I've only tried to 'play the market' once and it wasn't fun. I don't play the market to make any of my characters.
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That's OK. Chat is as chat does, and I have great respect for people who are willing to apologise even if they're not entirely at fault, so think nothing of it. I rub people the wrong way a lot of the time, just because I'm so... Picky with how I do things.|
Originally Posted by Sister_Jeanne
Sam, first off I wish to apologize for blowing up at you like I did in Pinnbadges several days ago. I was dealing with a crisis IRL but no matter, I should not have done that, and my apologies.
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Originally Posted by Sister_Jeanne
That being said, if you want to take the build that is under proposal, I'd be happy to hand over or email you some of the stuff I have stashed. I have the relevant recipes at level 30 (I also build for positional defense and have the bad habit of bidding extras and stashing the excess when I bid on the market). I can understand if you would have issues with all your set IOs being level 30 and the generics level 50 though, and if you prefer max-level stuff I can put bids in to help you get them without you messing with the market.
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Originally, I wanted to do this myself as my primary goal was to see how difficult it would be to repeat, but I suppose it's worth testing out a complete build just so I know what I'm missing. Who knows, maybe that'll motivate me to put in the work? I don't know, I'd like to find a way that's more easily repeatable, but it's definitely worth trying a really good build for the sake of direct playing experience.---
There's a lot of stuff to reply to so I won't be doing bit quotes this time, but there were a few things I wanted to address besides:
First of all, I think I've put my finger on part of the problem of what's causing me resent the game right now. If we're talking about JUST slotting and enhancing my powers while picking set bonuses as they come - i.e. "frankenslotting" - then I could be convinced to do that without too much hassle. The chaos it produces is a major turn-off, as Claws already mentioned, but I'm starting to realise that the enhancement percentages might just be good enough to trump that. Moreover, when "frankenslotting," if a set contains one very expensive enhancement, I can just skip that and make for a much cheaper, though probably much less potent build.
But we're not talking about frankenslotting in this case. There's simply no way I can "enhance" enough defence out of SR even just break even against Dark Astoria Incarnate content, which means I'm looking for bonuses outside of slotting, which pretty much means set bonuses. And from everything I've read so far, though these are widely available, they also seem to be some of the most expensive.
This feeds into something else - sets with different-rarity enhancements. This is one of my greatest sources of ire. It's a lot like running through all of the Hollows and realising that the last part of the story arc I just can't do alone since it's a Trial. In the same way, I might like a set in general, but be unable to procure a specific enhancement from it because it's "special." Call me crazy, but I'd rather have sets split into uncommon, rare, very rare and so forth rather than having what feels like every set spanning the gamut of rarities and strengths.
When I spoke about Set Inventions not breaking down into Tiers very well ties into this. If I could pick "smaller" sets and work with those, accepting that "bigger" sets are just too rich for my blood, I'd do that. Hell, that's why I chose to use Commons. But "Sets" don't seem to have tiers, aside from the very elitest ones. We don't have uncommon sets and rare sets and very rare sets. Every set I've looked at so far has had components from across the board, and THAT is a problem.
It occurs to me that SR might not have been the smartest thing to try and work with Inventions on first exactly BECAUSE it's set bonuses I need to make it work, which makes things a lot more complex than they need to be. It may be smarter to start with something simpler, something that already works and, above all, I'm going to be playing soon, and work on that WHILE I'm beating up stuff for Incarnate goodness. That, by the way, is Crash, by SS/Inv/Energy Brute who's already level 50, has a solid build and is sporting a fairly uninspiring Spiritual Alpha Boost even as we speak. Altering her build might be simpler by a fair margin since I could swallow my pride and just pick better slotting for her, then see what I can achieve that slotting by.
I gotta' tell ya - if I can use all level 50 enhancements, thus ensuring I'm getting the best percentage values, that'll do wonders for my enthusiasm, and Crash doesn't actually NEED set bonuses to work. She's awesome enough as it is - one of my most awesome, actually. Yeah, she's not as good as some of the AV-soloing builds out there, but I never found her lacking. Yeah, that might be the better choice. I already feel better about it.
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P.S. I got a couple of PMs on the subject that I haven't had the opportunity to reply to, as it's 3 AM right now. I am not ignoring you, folks. I will write back as soon as I am able
*edit*
Off the cuffs question before I go to bed: Set bonuses aside, how expensive are level 50 Crushing Impact sets and how much are they worth using?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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People like them because they're relatively cheap and give a decent recharge bonus. I've got a few sets on my Mind/Psi Dom.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Off the cuffs question before I go to bed: Set bonuses aside, how expensive are level 50 Crushing Impact sets and how much are they worth using?
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61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
You can get an entire set of level 50 crushing impacts and the salvage to craft it for less than a million influence easily. To get an idea of how good they are, consider the resulting values you get: 99% damage, and 70% each of accuracy, recharge and end reduction. That blows SO slotting out of the water, and that's ignoring that you also get 5% global recharge and 7% global accuracy.
Crushing impact is fine to buy at 50 but in some cases the price curve for a set peaks at its minimum level, drops far lower in the high 30s and low 40s, and spikes upward again at 50. If you can live with seeing numbers other than 50 on your enhancement screen, the practical difference between 50s and 35+ enhancements tends to be on the order of 1% of each enhancement value they cover. To put it another way, the difference between slotting level 40 and level 50 versions of the same set is minuscule compared to the difference between slotting the level 40 set versus slotting common IOs or SOs.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
It occurs to me that SR might not have been the smartest thing to try and work with Inventions on first exactly BECAUSE it's set bonuses I need to make it work, which makes things a lot more complex than they need to be. It may be smarter to start with something simpler, something that already works and, above all, I'm going to be playing soon, and work on that WHILE I'm beating up stuff for Incarnate goodness. That, by the way, is Crash, by SS/Inv/Energy Brute who's already level 50, has a solid build and is sporting a fairly uninspiring Spiritual Alpha Boost even as we speak. Altering her build might be simpler by a fair margin since I could swallow my pride and just pick better slotting for her, then see what I can achieve that slotting by.
I gotta' tell ya - if I can use all level 50 enhancements, thus ensuring I'm getting the best percentage values, that'll do wonders for my enthusiasm, and Crash doesn't actually NEED set bonuses to work. She's awesome enough as it is - one of my most awesome, actually. Yeah, she's not as good as some of the AV-soloing builds out there, but I never found her lacking. Yeah, that might be the better choice. I already feel better about it. |
If it's fun...but I'd personally suggest IOing something that is only semi-stellar. If a build already works really well, you'll have to start pushing for limits to notice a big difference.
Do you have a particular build strategy for this SS brute, like better ST dmg or quicker cycling Footstomp? Or outlier special tactics like maximized ranged attacks from /Energy APP?
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I'll help out with this project too. |
Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
I started playing with Mids and came up with a build very similar to Unicycle Peon, but I think his is slightly better. And his explanations were all spot on. So other than to endorse his posts, I have nothing to add, except this: I am also willing to contribute IOs/Recipes/Cash to the project.
I'll need Sam's global name to mail them. |
I have a bunch of the pieces he'll need sitting on characters which I have no immediate use for, that I'd be willing to contribute.
I already have his global. It's the same as his forum handle.
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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. |
[QUOTE=Samuel_Tow;4103968]
1. What must one do to acquire the resources needed to make Inventions - recipes and salvage? Can this be done by just playing Story Arcs and regular missions like I always have, or do I need to run Architect missions or farm Alignment missions or such?
Salvage drops often during normal gameplay. You can buy random salvage with Reward Merits or AE rolls or you can use the Auction House.
2. Is it possible to build specifically at level 50, using only level 50 Inventions, or do I have to have a menagerie of different numbers on my Enhancements screen?
You can get all your IOs at 50, they are plentiful at that level but you may want to get some IOs at their earliest level, such as your level 20 Miracle proc.
3. What defines "cheap" vs. "expensive" sets? Market price? Ticket cost? Merit cost? Is there any way to tell which is which before I commit to it?
Rarity. Uncommon (Yellow) recipes usually max at 5,000,000 for frequently used with some procs much higher.
4. Does everyone have to build for Defence? Seemingly, whether your sets provide defence or not, and even whether you're melee or not, everyone suggests building for defence. What else should I build for as a general thing? Recharge? Endurance? What?
Depends on need. I build my Dominators for +Recharge so Domination is up multiple times. Some of my characters need a little damage "oomph" so that is nice. Extra hit points are always fun...
5. Is it possible to develop a basic template that's at least generally applicable to a whole AT with whatever amount of tweaking, or does every character essentially require starting a build design from scratch?
You can template to a degree. Your Controller wil probably slot Hold/Sleep/Immobilize enhancing sets and so on...
6. How much work is it to put together a decent, "cheap" build at the level cap as opposed to, say, buying a full set of Common Inventions, assuming I have the build worked out beforehand?
You can get a decent build from 25 million to 200 million...remember that if the goal is "SO-level" performance you can Frankenslot (mix and match) sets until your accuracy, damage and so on are close to cap. A lot of the more popular IOs can be had for two Alignment Merits. You can get a lot of mileage out of some uncommon sets like Crushing Impact, Doctored Wounds and so on...
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes
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Originally Posted by Warkupo
You're probably getting ahead of yourself. Your first task for making an IO build is to actually make an IO build. Go to mids, make something you think looks decent, and then bring it here so we can tell you that you're wrong and help you along to something that will smite the faces of thine enemies.
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------->"Sic Semper Tyrannis"<-------
What I tend to do to get money (far away from the most efficient way, by the way) is use alignment merits to get LOTG 7.5% recharge, and then sell them. It usually (depending on how you got your A-merits) gets you around 50-100 million inf in profit. Since I don't bother with purples that often, and can use A-merits to get the expensive rares I need, it's entirely sufficient for my needs.
I don't bother with buying or reselling or anything like that, just posting the recipe, collecting the inf, and then buying what I need.
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
OK, there are a couple more tangents I want to go on, and then an actual official update and narrowing of the scope. Stay tuned!
I just got through my PMs (don't I feel important? ) and there are a couple of concepts that came up which I want to share here in the larger thread, so tangents first:
It's been suggested to me to pool my resources between characters several times now, and while I'm not principally against that, there are some limitations to what I can do. What I CAN do in sharing is transfer INF around. That should be fairly painless, and is not a bad idea. I can also use one character's various Merits to grab items for another character, as I have done before for the Steadfast Protection: Knockback Protection bit. That's not a problem, either.
What IS a problem is when we start talking about sharing drops and saving my rares and so forth. See, sharing INF and Merits requires no forward planning at all. Everything can be bought for one or the other, it's only a question of how much it'll cost. When we talk about sharing drop components, however, we run into the problem of needing to be aware what all of my characters need at any given time, and the way I play - one character for a long time, then never again for a year - that's not possible.
Well, it's not possible to remember off-hand. I could make notes, but I refuse to. When Inventions first came out and I started trying to work with Commons, I took notes of what recipes and salvage a character needed, intending to keep those, sell the others and craft as it came. That was probably the worst idea I've ever had, and it damn near soured me on the whole game. It wasn't until my mother (yes, really) suggested to me that I just sell everything, take the money, and then buy what I needed when I needed it that I became truly comfortable with Common Inventions. Instead of managing complex lists and constantly checking and updating them and being bogged down in bureaucracy, I could just kill stuff, sell stuff for whatever it sold for and boil my involvement with the system down to an "on demand" basis.
Maybe if the game had some way to track which character needs what recipes and salvage and keep those updated automatically and then allowed me to send salvage to characters' inventories directly... Then, maybe I'd consider it, but right now, I'm going to have to look for ways to work with Inventions in such a way that I only ever care about the character I'm building for at the moment. Having to worry about my whole roster - and that's a big roster - is not a workable solution. That's why I like "money" - because it's a single currency that I can translate everything into and I can then translate back into everything I need, and I don't have to worry about which character has how much of which type of resource.
Entirely separate from that is the subject of supply. A lot of people have suggested to me that I use my Merits to obtain sought-after recipes, then sell those and use the money to buy the ones I actually want. That's a fair suggestion, but it entirely skips the issue of supply. I could have all the money in the world, but that won't make a difference if the thing I want to buy isn't for sale. And I've looked at some of those Set Inventions - many of them have 0 recipes listed almost perpetually. I could bid a million or a billion, but I'm still not going to buy what isn't there to begin with.
Why this is is probably a complex question, but I personally blame the fine-grained nature of Sets. Common enhancements only ever show up in 5-level increments, so people from a whole 10-level range are only really producing two or three types of the same recipe. Not so with Sets. These exist at every level in their level range, meaning that there are so many different-level ones available that no single one will ever have much supply, or indeed much demand. This makes listing them difficult as non-ultra-expensive ones almost never sell, and it makes bidding on them even harder since I don't know where in the level range supply will show up, and I can't bid on level range brackets, not that I would.
What this means is I suspect I'll be making wide use of Merits one way or the other, just to get the recipes I need if they aren't for sale. Since I'll want to be using mostly non-famous ones, I don't expect there to be too much supply.
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With the tangent out of the way, I think we should shelf my SJ/SR Scrapper for the moment. That's a LOT to take in at the same time all at once. What kneecaps my effort is the direction of building in this case, which is Set-to-Enhancement. Let me explain:
When I first brought up SR, it was because I felt forced to indulge in Sets as I was unable to find enough defence within SR. This mandated that I pick my set bonuses first and then backtrack to see which enhancements offered those. This is the biggest, most annoying roadblock to the whole process for me, as it forces me to pick enhancements I may not want to use for the sake of benefits their sets bring. Call me pedantic (please, it's my only real sense of identity), but to me, that's a lot like being forced to use a sword that's horribly ugly just because it has good stats.
So I've decided to do the complete opposite and start from a semi-frankenslotting basis. First of all, I want to swap characters. Let's put Jun on a bus for the moment and bring in Crash, my level 50 SS/Inv/Energy/Spiritual Brute who has a build that I've tested in Dark Astoria and know that it works. Crash is solid, and I want to see if we can make her better. That's a much more comfortable prospect than taking a character I feel is weak and trying to bail out a sinking ship.
Since Crash doesn't seem to expressly NEED Set bonuses, I want to start off with improving her slotting by applying Set Inventions in place of her Common Inventions slotting. For the time being, I'll be looking at finding the cheapest, easiest-to-acquire Sets for her powers that exceed Common slotting and I'll worry about Set bonuses after the fact. Claws was right - it's time I stopped being so anal about the chaos of it and just give it a shot and see what happens.
My "research" appears to suggest that the highest percentage for damage I can get is the level 50 Crushing Impact. Everything else is out of reach. Mako's Bite is rare, Hecatomb is purple and Gladiator's Strike is PvP-only, so not a lot of damage. I'm aware that Crushing Impact is probably not the ideal set bonus-wise, but again - I'm looking at pure slotting. I'll worry about bonuses when I'm done.
Most of Crash's powers are 5-slotted, not 6, so I suspect I might have to exclude one of Crushing Impact's six enhancements quite a few times. That'll be either the least directly useful or the one that's the most expensive, whichever that is. I'll also have to figure out what to do with the passives, the toggles, Dull Pain and the others. Crash has a few "spare" slots that I stuck to stuff that don't really need them so I can alter the build around if that's necessary, but I'm hoping it won't be. I also hope to be working on Crash's Set Inventions build at the same time as I'm working in her Incarnate progress, per chance I22 comes out some time this week or next week, but we'll see. I have a few more things left to do with her before she runs out of content entirely, and Inventions are a goal worth pursuing. She's also by far my richest character, her Inf just barely topping a billion.
I can't think of a better case scenario as a first foray into Inventions. If that works - and I hope it does - that'll at least get my leg in the door and give me some vital experience.
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I apologise if it feels like I'm wasting your time and changing my mind constantly. I really am serious this time around, I just don't really know what I'm doing, so I'm tabbing through options and possibilities as the thread develops. Jun... Isn't a great candidate for a first time experience, and she's not even one of my "signature characters." Crash seems to be the significantly better option.
I'd post the build in question, but I'm posting from work and all my Mids' saves are at home. Suffice it to say it's nothing spectacular. Attacks are A/E/D/D/D, toggles are E/R/R/R, passives are R/R/R and so forth. Pretty basic slotting.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Keeping track of common and uncommon enhancements are, pretty much a waste. I never do. Even rares aren't THAT expensive compared to the recipes you're going to want, so if you don't want to shuttle salvage around, just sell it and send the influence.| Maybe if the game had some way to track which character needs what recipes and salvage and keep those updated automatically and then allowed me to send salvage to characters' inventories directly... Then, maybe I'd consider it, but right now, I'm going to have to look for ways to work with Inventions in such a way that I only ever care about the character I'm building for at the moment. Having to worry about my whole roster - and that's a big roster - is not a workable solution. That's why I like "money" - because it's a single currency that I can translate everything into and I can then translate back into everything I need, and I don't have to worry about which character has how much of which type of resource. |
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| Entirely separate from that is the subject of supply. A lot of people have suggested to me that I use my Merits to obtain sought-after recipes, then sell those and use the money to buy the ones I actually want. That's a fair suggestion, but it entirely skips the issue of supply. I could have all the money in the world, but that won't make a difference if the thing I want to buy isn't for sale. And I've looked at some of those Set Inventions - many of them have 0 recipes listed almost perpetually. I could bid a million or a billion, but I'm still not going to buy what isn't there to begin with. |
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
We'll see how that goes. When I'm done faffing about, I think I'll try my hand at something very, very simple - log in Crash and try to six-slot Knockout Blow with level 50 Crushing Impact. This shouldn't be much of a problem since the power is already 6-slotted with Commons in an A/E/D/D/D/R pattern. From everything I've seen, Crushing Impact should exceed the current slotting AND give set bonuses on the side.
If I can manage that without ripping my hair out, we'll see about replicating that on Foot Stomp. I'd have to see if Foot Stomp doesn't take different sets, though. It all depends. I'd like to try and shoot for one Crushing Impact set completely by myself just to get a feel for the involvement, then I'd open to the donations that SO many people have offered
With luck, I won't even have to respec Crash or use a second build, but if I do, I can populate that with Commons as a placeholder. They're not that expansive, even at 50.
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Also, for everyone who thought it was just me asking for advise and giving up - not this time! I'm going to go through with this and see what's on the other side.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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As Arilou mentions, it's important to realize that "supply" is best thought of as a rate, not a fixed number. So many of a given recipe come in per day, for example. When people demand something as fast as (or faster) than it it comes in to the market for sale, then there will often be zero for sale at any given time. That doesn't mean none are coming in, but rather that they're being bought quickly.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I could bid a million or a billion, but I'm still not going to buy what isn't there to begin with.
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Now, such items are likely to be more expensive than something that has a backlog of supply for sale. There's probably more than one person trying to buy these desirable items, and that will lead to bidding contests between prospective buyers. The person with the highest bid gets the first sale.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Sam,
I still think the SR set is easier to work with fir a first build because it mainly does one thing (defense). Survivable incarnate invulnerability-based characters will require much more complex builds, because they still should try to softcap, but also rely on resists and assume use of powers that your quirks may prevent.
However, I think a ss/invuln brute is a fine character, and prob performs on incarnate stuff better on a 'normal' build than SR. Therefore, I wish you the best on your brute. Invuln isnt my go-to set, however, so I will mostly just observe and maybe throw in the occasional comment.
What server(s) do you typically play on? I saw a reference to pinnbadges earlier. I play exclusively on pinnacle (with exalted for transfer overflow) so I was just wondering if I had ever seen you on pinnacle without realizing it.
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
Sure, Erad gives lower overall enhancement than Dervish, but the set bonuses are nearly double for both AoE and Ranged.
Additionally, for Focused Accuracy, while 2 EndReds are nice, wouldn't two Cytoskeleton Hami-Os be almost as good for EndRedux while providing more +ToHit?
As for the Cytoskeletons, they cost 300 MILLION each. I see a synthetic one for 213 million. His total budget is probably under 200 million TOTAL.
Also, tweaking every little slot for every little benefit is exactly what Sam wants to avoid.
He wants cheap. He wants simple. He has certain character concept things he requires. And builds that look wild/weird/all over the place either in MIDS or on his character screen drive him nuts.
My build was an attempt to accommodate all of his needs into a very simple, mostly affordable (for him) build.
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan