Kadao Kestrel's optimism reminds me of why I wanted to be a hero
By
Balanced,
Posted on: 2012-04-03 16:58 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I'm a big fan of the epic happy endings in this game, too - though I don't even remember much about the Envoy of Shadow's arc because I hate the CoT and Oranbega maps so much...
Sam, you really should try the DA arcs, you'll love it, especially that last mission InfamousBrad mentioned... I did grin like a maniac.
Just one tip: when people offer to help you in these arcs accept it unless it goes very much against concept... Some missions not only look much cooler with the help, not accepting it can turn at least one into a slog... There are a few times that if you're speeding through the missions, dragging the helpers along will slow you down, but I still liked having them along most of the time (my Crab chose fight some of the helpers instead, when that was an option, just to be evil, and that was fun too).
And the goodie-good finale of Heather's Arc isn't all that tough to beat if you either have decent AoE or good ST damage (or if you have level shifts and make them count, which I usually don't, I just up the dif so my KD won't turn into KB). It's not even close to as failable as that dumb old 10 minute mission... It's failable enough that you will actually feel some acomplishment from doing it.
Besides, if you do fail all you loose is the badge and you can always try it again in Ouros. Even failing you still get the mission and arc end-rewards normally and even the souvenir won't mention the failure, so while failing is still bad, it's not AS bad as they could make it.
Quote:
Duh! I forgot I could turn bosses off! That's how often I do that... With bosses off it should be a breeze to anyone.|
Originally Posted by Zemblanity
a reasonably slotted character playing at base difficulty (with bosses turned off) will not have any problems with that mission
 |
My Elec/TW Tanker managed to do it when he only had his alpha and was +1 (and running the arc at +1) with ONE second to spare... Thank you TW AoE!
But my +3 (with a +3 mission) triform WS arrived there too cocky and without any fluffies and lacked the AoE to pull it off by just a little bit... Trying to go Nova in the middle of that wasn't a great idea either...
With my Crab I decided to be consistent and evil... And only later realized the decision stopped me from getting a badge. Oh well.
Playing CoH with Gestures
Quote:
It does end the mission, although you can oro it (which I know is not reassuring from a story telling perspective, but truth be told its not that different from reseting the mission if you think about it). It's also worth noting that oroing early DA arcs seems to change the outcome of subsequent ones you haven't finished. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Also, question: Does this fight end the mission, or can said mission be reset? That's important to know.
|
There's two people within the arcs that you have two chances to rescue in order to get a special scene in a later mission (it's not hard to rescue them you just have to find them in previous missions). Unfortunately if you're doing someone else's mission you don't get credit for those rescues, so I ended up oroing them and then continued the other arcs as normal with those people now showing up.
On the subject of difficulty, if you play "as intended" (Shifted incarnate playing on +0), you will likely curb stomp the challenge mentioned. If you like to maintain relative difficulty (Playing +4 with a +3 shifted incarnate) it will be very challenging to beat in time, but I honestly feel like having that potential for failure really adds to the sense of accomplishment after you've beaten it, but if you're playing a +0 support character you'll probably want to bring friends or set it to -1 and chew reds like mad.
Regardless of what difficulty you play on the DA arcs will make you feel like a big damn hero. The writing is alright, but what really sells it is the atmosphere in the final mission, there's really nothing else like it in CoH currently or in any MMO that I'm aware of, and the feeling that it was not your powers but your unshakeable refusal to give up that wins in the end makes it all the more "heroic" while still allowing room for interpretation and even villainy if you so choose.
Infatum on Virtueverse
Quote:
If you mean other players, that's unlikely to happen. I don't get many requests for people to come help run my missions |
Originally Posted by DrGamma
Just one tip: when people offer to help you in these arcs accept it unless it goes very much against concept... Some missions not only look much cooler with the help, not accepting it can turn at least one into a slog... There are a few times that if you're speeding through the missions, dragging the helpers along will slow you down, but I still liked having them along most of the time (my Crab chose fight some of the helpers instead, when that was an option, just to be evil, and that was fun too).
|
If you mean NPCs... Eh. I don't like companion NPCs, especially on my Stalkers. There's an AI quirk where if your "team" grabs aggro, your Stalker runs a high risk of grabbing aggro, too, even if said Stalker is invisible and idle away from the battle. It makes using Hide to get a drop on enemies annoying when you have spastic NPCs rushing in to "help." That, and I don't like uncontrollable pets if I can help it. Other people at least have basic human intelligence... Sometimes, but AI helpers are just terribad.Besides, I don't really mind a slog. Truth be told, I prefer it. A long, hard, slow mission gives me a much greater sense of accomplishment than a single, fast, hard challenge. Like I said - so long as not having NPC helpers doesn't make missions impossible and doesn't cause me to fail them, I'd rather leave them out of the picture.
---
For the record, I have a grand total of TWO Incarnates, one has T2 Alpha, one has T1 alpha, and neither of them will likely be the one I attempt this with first. When I approach this mission, it'll be with a fairly basic level 50 with just an empty Alpha since I don't believe I'll be able to grab a Common by then. I definitely won't have any level shifts, that's for sure, but I'll also definitely be playing at -1 so I don't get level 51 critters in my missions. I get that Dark Astoria has no such thing as -1 enemies to a fresh 50, but I'm also told this ensures no-one ever spawns higher level than me, which is a functionality I've wanted to see for YEARS. If that means my companions spawn as level 49, meh. Let 'em die.
Quote:
|
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.
|
Quote:
Yes, I did mean NPCs. And no, going alone won't make the missions impossible IMO. Actually, it's kinda easy to just leave them behind or let them die even if you do take them. I just enjoy seeing all those big names following me around (and now and again it's even efficient), so sometimes I'll do the cat-herding needed to keep them from being left behind. On a positive note, you get to beat up a few would-be helpers if you tell them they can't come along, that's always a plus.
|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
If you mean NPCs... Eh. I don't like companion NPCs
[...] Besides, I don't really mind a slog. Truth be told, I prefer it. A long, hard, slow mission gives me a much greater sense of accomplishment than a single, fast, hard challenge. Like I said - so long as not having NPC helpers doesn't make missions impossible and doesn't cause me to fail them, I'd rather leave them out of the picture. |
Playing CoH with Gestures
Quote:
Personal observation from years of table-top RPGs:|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
This has less to do with storytelling, although it's still related, and more to do with the fact that I just hate lose conditions.
|
If you can't lose, "winning" loses much of it's potential emotional impact.
If there was no way to lose, you haven't truly "won" - you've sat down and had a story told to you. Which is fun, too, but activates a whole different part of the brain from the "playing a game" and "winning" parts.
Quote:
That is the most childish, fantastical, Mary Sueish tripe I've seen yet in this game. None of those three distinctions say anything good about the story or the writer.
|
Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
What choices you make in that dialog, and whether it works or not, determines whether you see neither of them, one of them, or both of them off and on the rest of the arc.
The Dark Astoria arcs follow a standard late-silver-age comic book trope: Person 1: "OMG, we're all doomed! I give up!" You: "That can't be right." Person 2: "We're all doomed, I'm just going to lie down and die!" You: "That can't be right." Person 3: "We're all doomed, I'm going to try to protect my family as long as possible before we all die!" You: "That can't be right." Person 4: "We're all doomed - join me and we'll die with honor!" You: "That can't be right." ... Person n+1: "We're all doomed, we're out of things to try! Oh, wait, except for this one thing that can't possibly work, so nobody's tried it. And if you try it and fail, we're even more doomed, because we won't have you." You: "Well, since we're doomed anyway, I'll try it. Hey, it works. Hey, everybody! The unstoppable doom has this tiny obscure but easily exploited crippling weakness!" People 1 through n+1: "Oh, heck yeah! We're following you!" You: "Let's get 'em!" Everybody Else: charges into battle behind you, and you all save the day I defy you not to grin like a maniac, at the end, when you find out how MANY people were counting on you, and how MANY people trust you, how MANY people are eager to follow you, personally, into battle, because you're the only one who didn't give up and you were right. |
Quote:
I've often said that there are two people who play City of Heroes - those who see it as a sport and those who see it as a toy. Those who see it as a sport care about the challenge, the thrill of the hunt, overcoming adversity and a sense of achievement. Those who see it as a toy care about self-expression, convenience and getting their own way.|
Originally Posted by ThatGuyThere
If there was no way to lose, you haven't truly "won" - you've sat down and had a story told to you. Which is fun, too, but activates a whole different part of the brain from the "playing a game" and "winning" parts.
|
I'm entirely and unambiguously one of the latter kind of people. In a very literal sense, I care absolutely nothing for "winning" anything. On a logical level, I realise that games are all fake and our achievements in them are just as fake. I don't, therefore, look for achievement in my games. To me, they're a way to experience what I want out of life but can't have, they're a way to experience stories, adventures and sometimes even puzzles that I would normally not be good enough to tackle.
I enjoy this game because it lets me leap tall buildings in a single bound, take a bullet in the teeth and keep grinning and punch a hole in the side of a tank. It's a power fantasy, and I don't need actual, tangible achievement in order to feel it. So long as it's fake, I can pretend it was difficult to do when it was mechanically easy.
As such, I don't need to be able to lose. Every time I lose, I'm simply reminded that, yes, I really do actually suck in real life. The illusion disappears, the fantasy ends and the game loses its magic. Games entertain me because they allow me to forget that I'm not good enough, because they let me win.
Quote:
|
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.
|
The 2-minute timer isn't particularly necessary for the drama of the situation to work, honestly. "Defeat 5 bosses at once" is still more challenging that defeating nothing at all, even with no time limit. So yeah, I kind of agree with you there.
The good news is that, IMX, it hasn't actually been difficult to do, especially if you have a few inspirations on hand.
Sam,
Given how you've described your playstyle and preferences, for your first run through of the DA incarnate arcs, I'd advise being sure to have Bosses turned off. That 2-minute timer "do the right thing" choice is a lot easier if you do. And there's several other places where it might be a factor as well.
There are a few Elite Bosses in the later arcs. Have Inspirations / temp powers ready if you might need them. But overall, if Bosses are turned off, it's not a hardcore challenge or anything. I soloed a Blaster though all the DA arcs with only Alpha unlocked, so I'd think a decently built Stalker should have no issues.
.
I'm a published amateur comic book author: www.ericjohnsoncomics.com
******MA Arcs****
Arc 5909: "Amazon-Avatars"
Arc 6143: "Escalation" (Nominee: Architect Awards, Nominee: Player Awards, and Dev's Choice!)
I kind of wanted to retain bosses, but I was given a tiny spoiler and forewarned what the mission in question is called, so I can always disable bosses for just that one mission in particular. It's a bit of a cheating solution, but I don't really mind cheating if it makes the game more fun
Also, Viking ran a test for me, and it seems like the number of those bosses changes with the enemy number setting. As I understand it, x2 spawns SIX bosses to x1's FIVE. If they're lieutenants, this shouldn't matter too much, but enemy numbers might be something else to look into lowering for that particular mission.
Ideally, I want to approach Dark Astoria, from the standpoint of a level 50 character fresh out of Ramiel's arc, at a difficulty setting of -1x2/+Boss/-AV. I realise this might make the content hard, especially for a DB/SR Stalker who won't be running terribly more than 36% defence, but it should be doable. I had some degree of success against the Soldiers of Rularuu, so I'm somewhat confident. Lowering the difficulty is always an option, but I'd rather only do it if absolutely necessary.
Quote:
|
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.
|
Quote:
I sorta did the "fresh out of Remiel's arc" thing with my blaster too. Although I did take a break partway through to do a WST, get a Notice of the Well, and get that T3 Alpha for a very useful level shift. With a Stalker, you probably need the shift less than a blaster. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Ideally, I want to approach Dark Astoria, from the standpoint of a level 50 character fresh out of Ramiel's arc, at a difficulty setting of -1x2/+Boss/-AV. I realise this might make the content hard, especially for a DB/SR Stalker who won't be running terribly more than 36% defence, but it should be doable. I had some degree of success against the Soldiers of Rularuu, so I'm somewhat confident. Lowering the difficulty is always an option, but I'd rather only do it if absolutely necessary.
|
I would advise getting that Alpha slotted quickly if you can. If you go Radial and get to T2 on either Agility or Nerve, you'll get some extra DEF enhancement which might have a big impact on how easily you can sruvive, since you are around 36%
And remember that in addition to doing the main DA storyline, the repeatable missions contact in DA can get you a 10 Threads rewards once a day. Those add up. A few SSAs for Threads don't hurt either. At some point, you'll want to use Threads for iXP, just to get Judgement or Interface unlocked (assuming you've got the components sitting around to craft something for them). The iXP comes a little slow when solo without Thread conversion.
And don't feel bad if you do need to drop down from x2 to x1 on some of the tougher arcs, or turn off bosses for one mission. The DA incarnate factions ARE a little tougher than their lower counterparts, with a few more tricks up their sleeves.
Good luck!
.
I'm a published amateur comic book author: www.ericjohnsoncomics.com
******MA Arcs****
Arc 5909: "Amazon-Avatars"
Arc 6143: "Escalation" (Nominee: Architect Awards, Nominee: Player Awards, and Dev's Choice!)
Id like to start off by saying its always nice to see fellow fans of cox lore comment on the old arcs that helped give us the world we all love( Hopefully). Cadao is actually one of my faves, an old friend really since he is among the magical community that my beloved blaster Bentley Berkeley feels so at home among.
To be fair though many newer bits of content have been great. I really reveled in the First Ward with my character Demetrios Vasilikos and was sucked in completely the first time I encountered the praetorian version of the monster that my characters DNA memory core is crafted from. *Spoilers) When I watched him fall and could only carry on and offer my own leadership to his followers it was a moment to rival any found in game.
On the topic of content with options you can actually fail, well those challenges are always options in themselves. If your not up to trying to save lives then dont try, dont think you can fight an army single handedly then bring friends. Not every Super Hero is capable of the same feats. Batman for all his skill,training, and wealth still cant do what Superman can. And thats ok, that is why we have super groups and teams. Batman knows his limits and knows how to treat other living beings with meta human powers like the TOOLs they are. When I am on my batman esque toon The Invisible Falcon I never hesitate to manipulate the team to get the task done in a heroicly timely fashion even if it increases thier risk.
If you go into DA with no incarnate power then dont really complain if you struggle. It is INCARNATE CONTENT and designed imo with players running characters actually worthy of the term in concept and design. Frankly my batman esque toon for example is ignoring the new DA zone. its just to magical for his preffered RP content. Meanwhile Bentley Berkeley my beloved blaster has enjoyed running the content usually around +4x6 and AVs on since usually you get NPC assistance for them making even solo less problematic then fighting the praetorian AVs solo was once so long ago.
When BB took on that army single handed facing scores of minnies and cyces oh it was glorious fun. When he challenged those harpy biatches and saved the lives of both his old students and friends in a fierce and short epic test of who was more powerful I felt properly satisfied well beyond what a 0 risk of fail design would of allowed. Failure means nothing negative in terms of gameplay and if your character cant then that is as much a part of thier story as anything else. In D&D you cant always control the scenerio, even the dice can turn against you. Dont be afraid of those dice, embrace the risk and revel in the reward of freedom to try and fail if that is fates will.
in honor of Sam's stalwart heroism, I spent last night's play session rescuing innocent citizens from a wide variety of mischance on the streets of King's Row.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
Quote:
How much is that going to matter past the ED cap for slotted defences, though? I realise Alpha boosts ignore ED for some percentage, but assuming I stop at I3 (T4s are intentionally designed to be time sinks), is that percentage really going to matter? For said Stalker, I was actually looking at more in the realms of recharge, because getting Assassin's Strike back up faster with just a single recharge reducer made a WORLD of difference in a way didn't think it would. I managed to down an even con Adamastor in 20-30 seconds. I'm assuming he's weak to Lethal damage, being a giant naked zombie, but even so - that's faster than ANY other character I've ever fought Adamastor with. And I managed to take down Marauder through is Unstoppable, which - again - I've never managed before. I've only ever been able to survive long enough for the power to drop.|
Originally Posted by Shagster
I would advise getting that Alpha slotted quickly if you can. If you go Radial and get to T2 on either Agility or Nerve, you'll get some extra DEF enhancement which might have a big impact on how easily you can sruvive, since you are around 36%.
|
---
As for Incarnate content being only for those "worthy," that runs into the same old problem of trying to judge player worth in a game, which is an inherently non-practical activity outside of an entertainment context. As I see the games I own in the same light as the toys I own (say, the various Lego sets I've paid significantly more for than I probably should have), I just don't agree with the need for me to prove I'm worthy of enjoying a product I'm already paying for. From the looks of things so far, however, I probably won't need to. Tougher though the Dark Astoria critters may be, they're not unbeatable, and there are always way to game the system on the few occasions where the odds are stacked against me. If I have to disable bosses and drop the difficulty down to -1x1, I will. If that's what it takes then that's what it takes, but in either case, I WILL do this my way.
Quote:
|
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.
|
CoH already offers plenty of relaxation - the Incarnate trials are just about the only content in the game where it's possible to actually fail - every other "failure" is just cosmetic.
The mission to save Sigil and Kadabra isn't really a rescue mission - it's just "defeat Talon boss and her guards" - that's what triggers the mission completion, and it can't be failed.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
"save"?
I rather enjoyed the option to just let them die.
As a side note:
The kind of missions and arcs you're describing become cheap overused tripe when they become predictable. If half the storylines in the game ended with the same happy ending, you'd get bored far more quickly than you would at the vast array of different endings.
I rather enjoyed seeing the "oh, he was fooled into working for longbow the whole time" and the "ahh, I didn't fulfill my part of the bargain so this guy still has to work for me and advance my goals" and the "that ******* stole my cloning facility and then he blew it up" and the "the radio just keeps playing and i walk away" and the "i just gave the world another mad scientist and he's happy" and the "hmm, sucks to be the sea witch today!"
All different endings. And I don't want them to copy paste anything from the past into new content. make new stuff! not old!
The second time I see a happy ending, it's overused. There should always be mixed feelings about what's happened.
you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you <3
Quote:
You don't know me well enough.
|
Originally Posted by Party_Kake
If half the storylines in the game ended with the same happy ending, you'd get bored far more quickly than you would at the vast array of different endings.
|
Quote:
|
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.
|
This post inspired me to go run some old arcs I'd never actually run (for the most part I've exclusively teamed and only in the last year got characters that were actually efficient at soloing) and man, they were fun.
I did: Corporate Culture, Wheel of Destruction, The Unity Plague, and I redeemed Alexander.
I really liked Corporate Culture best, it was fun seeing how Crey kept twisting everything I did and I still mostly came out on top.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
DA was -great- IMO because it does the one thing in this game I love almost more than anything else:
It recognizes that you're a badass, and frequently cements the idea home that yes, you are indeed a badass.
As an avid RPer, this sort of thing always has me grinning. It's also why I particularly disliked almost the entirety of WWD. The heroes are forced into situations that are either obvious traps or set-ups (Idiot Ball), or you're simply forced to watch as people fail (Failure Is The Only Option).
Again, I'm fine with villains winning or coming out ahead, but when the arcs beat the "Heroes Suck" nail over and over and over again I got rather depressed.
Quote:
A lot of the old arcs are good because they take the source material seriously. Most of the new arcs treat the old City of Heroes factions like extras, just critters to throw at the player because the story didn't specify a enemy to fight in the mission. You're fighting your double, but you need generic critters, so... Freakshow! Why not? You go to speak with Akharist and the Nemesis Army attacks. Because it might as well, right? You need to build a magical time-travel-blocking device, so you go raid a Crey warehouse. Eh, they'd have generic high-tech devices, so it works, sure.|
Originally Posted by MisterMagpie
This post inspired me to go run some old arcs I'd never actually run (for the most part I've exclusively teamed and only in the last year got characters that were actually efficient at soloing) and man, they were fun.
I did: Corporate Culture, Wheel of Destruction, The Unity Plague, and I redeemed Alexander. I really liked Corporate Culture best, it was fun seeing how Crey kept twisting everything I did and I still mostly came out on top. |
It's really only those old legacy arcs we have left that take most of those factions seriously. The redemption of Alexander "the Great" Pavlidis is actually a very good mini-arc in this regard. Goofy as the Warriors may be in concept, this gives them credence because it shows that they still value honour and integrity. Corporate Culture is great for depicting not just how cutthroat the Crey Corporation is, but also just how easily they can get away with murder and still keep a solid public image. Far more than their Tanks and their Agents is Crey's propaganda, and this has really been missing since they were reduced to an obviously evil criminal organisation that we can raid without warrant or even suspicion.
Personally, I'm partial to Division: Line because I still feel it tells the story of the Rikti situation better than the entirety of the Rikti War Zone. Back in the day, the Rikti never spoke. Ever. They had no NPC chatter, they never left spoken clues. We didn't even know if they could. Hell, an entry pop-up on a Freaks vs. Rikti mission explains how the Freakshow are constantly spitting taunts and insults while the Rikti fight in complete silence. They're presented as the perfect dogmatic monster alien race who will fight us to the death and want nothing short of our complete annihilation, they can't be reasoned with and they will kill us whenever they get the chance.
Then Division: Line turns this on its head, because all of a sudden the Rikti are fighting among themselves. Huh? But I thought they shared a hive mind of sorts. I thought they were completely unanimous in wanting us all dead, why would they fight each other? Then it turns out they have factions, they have a culture, they have actual morals, ethics and they're really just trying to survive, seeing us as exactly the same kind of dogmatic aliens who want them all dead as we see them. All of a sudden, they no longer feel so alien after all.
If there's one thing Rick Dakan's old writing did well, it was to subvert itself. It would present most of its concepts as simple, one-sided affairs that you always felt you knew everything about, only for it to turn out there was a lot more circumstance surrounding the whole thing and nothing is as clear-cut, at least until we figure things out for ourselves. It wasn't so much shock reveals as just surprising depth. I'm partial to it because I like the style of storytelling that focuses less on the events we're immediately involved with and more on the grand tapestry they weave together. It's how I've taken to telling my own stories, in turn.
And though some of the old stories may have had dark elements to them - poor Edgar Torvald - they still had solid, satisfying conclusions. Even running through the old story arcs now, they're a lot more positive than most of the new content. Each down is counter-balanced by an up, and they leave me happier when they're done than I was when they started.
Quote:
|
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.
|
Quote:
The mission with Torvald was actually a really memorable moment for me in CoH. I remember I ran the mish invisible to just get past it, I hate fighting the Thorns, then I hit the objective and just got mad. I broke stealth and did a full clear of the level on every Thorn in the place even though I had the complete already. I was disappointed when I finished them all and I didn't have any more of them to stab in the face. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
And though some of the old stories may have had dark elements to them - poor Edgar Torvald - they still had solid, satisfying conclusions. |
Bit like that moment for Rorschach where he finds the little girls remains.
Loved the fact that they made it so that I couldn't win in that one, to be honest.
Quote:
If you are liking recharge, then I'd say that Agility Partial Core Revamp is your ideal Alpha.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
How much is that going to matter past the ED cap for slotted defences, though? I realise Alpha boosts ignore ED for some percentage, but assuming I stop at I3 (T4s are intentionally designed to be time sinks), is that percentage really going to matter? For said Stalker, I was actually looking at more in the realms of recharge, because getting Assassin's Strike back up faster with just a single recharge reducer made a WORLD of difference in a way didn't think it would.
|
+33% End Mod, +33% Recharge, +20% Defense.
As a Tier 3, half of the enhancement ignores ED (you are right about T4 being "time sink" stuff. Although, I like to think of them as "stretch goals".
)with 10% of the DEF enhance ignoring ED, it's going to at least give you a few points of DEF in all the positionals on a SR.
oh, and that Level shift is going to rock with your playstyle against level 50 stuff. When mobs are -1 effective combat level to you, they lose accuracy, I believe, and maybe even some to-hit, which makes non-soft-capped DEF builds all the more effective.
.
I'm a published amateur comic book author: www.ericjohnsoncomics.com
******MA Arcs****
Arc 5909: "Amazon-Avatars"
Arc 6143: "Escalation" (Nominee: Architect Awards, Nominee: Player Awards, and Dev's Choice!)
Disclosure: The defender is fully incarnated (for now, of course) and heavily tweaked. A non-incarnate level 50 Emp/Dark defender with basic slotting would presumably have a much harder time with the boss version of the fight. If I were doing that, I'd bring temp pets and pack the heaviest load of inspirations I could, including an Ultimate from the repeatable missions if possible.
The Way of the Corruptor (Arc ID 49834): Hey villains! Do something for yourself for a change--like twisting the elements to your will. All that's standing in your way are a few secret societies...and Champions of the four elements.