Bionic_Flea

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How about we substitute Story Arcs for Mayhem/Safeguards?

BOOM!

Problem solved. It is different content, that it repeatable, and treats everyone fairly equally -- soloers, badgers, PL'ers, content-mongers, etc.

Wow.

Amazing.

Thank you.

If anyone can get shivans and nukes, how can it be unbalanced?

Just saying . . .

Very nice guide, Samuel. Well written and informative.

Some constructive criticism: There are a few typos here and there. You may want to cut and paste it into a word processing program for a spell check and then back. I'm not trying to put you down or be a spelling Nazi. You are obviously intelligent and a good writer and I assume you would like to have a perfect product.

You did mention some badges and some of the contacts. I think it would be great if you could expand on that topic and include more information on the badges and unlockable contacts in the zone, including the Patrons. I think it might deserve a section of its own, or at least a link to another guide or website that covers the topic.

All in all, you did a fantastic job of describing the zone. Thanks!

Milk Weasel is my new best friend.

What you are describing isn't a bug, its a strategy/tactic/skill.

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I need to hear from EvilGeko on the changes to MoG or else my day will not be complete.

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That was a bug fix. Power still sucks... a lot. Happy to make your day!

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My day is now complete.

It will be even more complete once I get home and actually get to play!

I need to hear from EvilGeko on the changes to MoG or else my day will not be complete.

Any 8 characters with shivans, 3 nukes each, enough buffs/debuffs/inspirations to bottom out the AVs to-hit, at least 2 members with -regen.

Step one - single target buffs

Step two - summon pets, including shivans, group heals on auto

Step three - drop bio nukes and team buffs

Step four - minimum 4 lucks

Step five - attack! leading with chem nukes followed by damage nukes.

Step six - find the remaining two or three AVs, engage them

Step seven - Admire your new SHOEs.

But generally speaking, 2 brutes (at least one stone), 6 corrupters (at least one kin and one rad), 8th slot can be anyone.

Of those choices, I would choose villain groups. Little has given me more of a thrill than growing in level and discovering a new group and trying to figure out what they do and how they do it. Closely tied with that is why they do it, which is storyline and my second choice from the list.

Costumes are great and I love making my characters look unique. But honestly I only have 1 character that has all 5 costume slots filled with different costumes and he mainly uses his original. Most of my other characters go through their careers with just the original, or maybe one other costume.

But to me, the greatest thing about this game is options and diversity. As you can see from this thread, folks have all sorts of preferences and this game accomodates them all. When I get bored of the XP grind, I hunt around for badges, or go to PvP zones, or spend a few hours redesigning my base or a new character. There is always something different to do and I like to do it all.

If the point of this poll is to judge where to devote resources, my vote would be arena and base bugs. Nothing has been more frutrating to me than spending time setting up a base raid or arena match only to see it bug out, or have team mates kicked out.

Both the arena and bases have such great potential to be a bridge between PvE and PvP. If either or both could be used as a holodeck or danger room to gauge your build and skills against player defined NPCs, you can sign me up for the lifetime membership.

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With all the Hammy history lessons going around, I thought a review of Tic's classic guide was in order.

That and it was about to fall off into obscurity.

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For future reference, TT saved his guide here.

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So I should let it die, along with your linky?

I think not.

With all the Hammy history lessons going around, I thought a review of Tic's classic guide was in order.

That and it was about to fall off into obscurity.

This thread was about to die and I just couldn't let it. There's some great folks mentioned in here. How about adding a few more.

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Now what I would like to see would be having to get to a certain location to prevent a bomb from exploiding. Having to smash your way through walls or piles of stuff to make it there in time. Or Arachnos has developed this huge building sized Death Ray complex. The Ray is on a countdown to firing at Paragon City. There is no single vital spot. You have to start smashiing all of the equipment in the complex to disable it before the countdown reaches zero. That's the sort of thing I'm envisioning for safeguard missions. Smashing stuff with a purpose.

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We share that hope and vision for Safeguard missions. You must destroy stuff for the greater good, e.g. Nemesis has planted a nuclear device in neighborhood X, but we just can't pinpoint its location. Find it before it blows!


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My thoughts? (Personally?) I'd like to see the mission computer able to initiate a sort of "Base Safeguard" mission.

I'm not 100% sure *how*; but it'd be interesting to be able to have mobs attack your base - and thus base defenses would be useful; even for PVE only groups. (I may like PVE - but I surely don't expect everyone too; and sadly; thats the only thing bases are going to be good for beyond a couple basic functions).

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This is a great idea squirrel! NPC base raids would be fantastic!

Does anyone ever read this thing anymore?

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NOTE: You can only earn the The Lord Recluse Strike Force reward once every *24 hours* This is by design to help prevent farming.

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Per account or per character?

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Character.

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Happy birthday Positron! And please consider my plea regarding the 24 hour time limt.

Hey Solo:

Despite what the poster above said, you will always have a net loss regardless of slotting. Mu lightning, according to the prima guide, has a 30% chance of restoring 1/2 the end that it costs(4.28/8.58). Adding slots will increase the amount of end regained and the amount of end sapped from your enemy, but it does not increase the 30% chance.

That said, it will be an extremely endurance efficient power. But I still wouldn't put it on auto because you may accidently draw aggro from a distant group before you or your team is ready. Except maybe for an AV battle or PvP duels.

I can confirm that when I get webnaded by NPCs, I cannot jump at all and am slowed to a crawl. Haven't been hit by a player yet, though.

I only have two words to add:

Katamari Damacy!

They can use the graphic of a light form peacebringer inside shining shield but change the blue tint to red.

In fact, a light form peacebringer with shining shield on has pretty darn high resistance to most everything BUT knockback. According to Sherk's hero builder, 3++ resistance slots on light form and shining shield gives 117% resistance to smash/lethal, 81.9% to everything else but psi and toxic.

I understand that NPCs don't have to have those values, but just wanted to throw that into the discussion.

Here you have an existing set of powers and graphics that give the look and feel (with a slight color tweek) of a BRB.

So how about that _Castle_?

Spent a few hours in RV as an INV/SS tank and I enjoyed myself. I finally felt like a tank again. I could be killed, but not easily and certainly not by a lone stalker.

Regarding the "Heavies:" Once you know where the platform is, it's easy enough to swing by and see if its available. A click on the control panel and it becomes your minion, just like mastermind pets and arena gladiators. The noise it makes coming off the platform is either the same sound as an assassin strike or dang close to it. Everytime I activated one, I jumped in my seat at that sound. Heavies are best for defending or taking pillboxes. It is so slow that it really can't keep up with the pace of Co* PvP. By the time it gets around to attacking your target, the target is out of range or dead. But it's very good to take down turrets for you and then help hold the fort. I controlled a turret and a heavy and was able to kill a few villains that came too close. I was also able to use hurl from the control box, so I expect that other range powers *cough*webgrenades*cough* will as well. I did feel that I was able to hog my heavy though. If I died, so did he. But even with the wait to heal up, he was still waiting for me on the platform. I would suggest more and more heavies become available to assist instead of the GM level signature characters.

Regarding the Signature Characters: I only saw one, Ghost Widow, and that was enough for me. With unstoppable, temp. invulnerability, tough, unyielding, and dull pain running, she had me in the red in what seemed like two seconds. I have tanked AVs and GMs for years now and never been hit that hard (except for psi which ignores all my shields).

[On a side note - I had a terrible time on live with Madam of Mystery Carny AV. We had 6 heroes on her and couldn't dent her HP at all. We invited a level 50 MA scrapper (AV was 47) who sk another scrapper to 49 and it still took several minutes of all of us spamming every power we had at her. This was on live - and I left out the multiple team wipes and miscellaneous deaths before we cornered her and had two emps alternating heals and auras. I can't imagine what she will be like with a buff!]

I had fun for the most part, but I think some improvements could be made. I would like to see more minions and lts to pick off for inspiration drops. Having to fight bosses was difficult, lead to an ocassional death (and debt), and protracted battles leaves me a sitting duck. I would also like to see more heavies, as mentioned above, and a decrease in the power of signature characters. Most of all, I would like to see missions and temp powers from completing patrols like we get in the other zones. I would suggest quantum flight from the peacebringer set, as I think that seems like a logical step up from the other zone temp powers.

[Second side note: Is anyone else getting the feeling that this game is becoming City of Pets or City of Minions? Every issue brings more and more pet-type stuff. I prefer powers and gadgets to pets. I don't recall that many heroes and villains from the comics having pets].

Sorry, I tried reading through, but this thread got much too large. Has there been any word on whether missions are going to be added? I went on both the hero side and villain side and did not see any mission contacts or quests other than the info on turrets and heavies.

I recall Positron said several months ago that the new PvP zone would contain mission content like the other zones.

Did anyone else find contacts? Has there been any more recent word? My level 50 would like the opportunity to get a nifty phase/stealth temp power like the other zones give out.

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This seems off. As you mention, minions have a bth of 50%, and in this case there should have been a slight acc bonus for him being +1.

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There is no such thing as defense to toxic damage. (That is why the FF shields get res vs. toxic, not defense as they have to other damage types). If there was no other component to the attack (e.g. smash/lethal/energy), the scorpion shield should not have come into play at all.

I'll see if I can find you tonight and help test this if possible.

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As to the first part, I may have had an unlucky streak. It's hard to say with a low sample size of 20. I also had to run away, heal, and come back, so maybe I miscounted. I've made worse mistakes than that before.

As to the second part (toxic damage), I also thought this was strange as the text description of the power indicates resistance to toxic and not defense. At first I thought I was evading smash/lethal attacks and that whenever he shot off his toxic attack it hit me. And that would make sense that with only the shield on I would get hit by toxic attacks. Or it could be a bug. Or it could be a text error. Or I could be crazy. At any rate, it deserves further testing, and I appreciate your offer to assist. I didn't make it to test last night, but I will be there tonight around 9pm eastern.

PS. I believe the luck line of inspirations provide defense to everything.

I did a little testing on scorpion's shield last night. It was a small sample, so it's not definative. I was a level 41 sonic/rad corrupter.

My enemy was a Bane Mace Aracnos, minion, level 42. With no toggles running, he hit me 15 of 20 times, or 75% accuracy

With only the shield running with a single end reduction enhancement, I was hit 6 of 20 times, or 30% accuracy. This would indicate that the base defense is 20% as minions have a base tohit of 50%

With shield and radiation infection with a level 40 tohit debuff and 2 end reducers, I was hit 1 of 20 times, or 5% accuracy.

All of the hits were for toxic damage. I'm not sure what kinds of attacks or how many different attacks these bane mace guys have, but it was toxic damage each time.

I also think I may have solved the riddle of the end use of the shields being listed as "1" on the plaque. While running nothing but the shield, I clicked on my endurance bar and it said 99/100. I clicked it again and it said 100/100. I did that several times. The bar never clicked below 99. Could it be that since the bar only works in whole numbers and not fractions that the devs reported what the graphical interface would show? Meaning that they reported the shield used "1" because it is rounded up on the bar as one. That's my theory and I'm sticking with it until I hear a better one.

I will run more shield tests and let you know my results. If anyone is willing to help me test in the arena against different damage types, I would really appreciate it. I am on between 8:00 pm and midnight Eastern, but I switch between live and test. Send me a PM or look for me online in test as Atomic Flea1.

Finally made it to 41 on a sonic/rad corrupter and picked up Black Scorpion's shield. No hard numbers yet, but I did try it out on some NPCs.

Got "deflected" floating over my head a few times, but not everytime an attack missed or everytime I performed the dodging animation.

Combining the shield with radiation infection seemed to floor even and +1 level NPC accuracy.

I also tried to use it in PvP in Recluse's Victory. They're going to need to rename that place as I doubt Recluse will be victorious -- the heroes outnumbered the villains 26 to 2 and I was one of the two. I couldn't get 50 feet past the entrance without a dozen "heroes" pouncing on me with delight.

I'll play with it some more and give hard numbers later this week.