Biowraith
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Posts
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I'm not sure if this is the current wisdom, but certainly back when I still paid attention the idea was that 1% of +def was very roughly equivalent to 2% of +res. Furthermore, once you already have a decent amount of (non-capped) defense, each point added is more significant than the last: 45% defense gets hit ~33% less often than 42.5% defense.
If it's just for damage mitigation, CJ's 2.5% defense to everything beats Wolf Spider Armour's 3% resistance to a small number of types.
But it doesn't have to be CJ, there's other possibilities, e.g. stacking in pool Assault for even more damage (though admittably getting kinda heavy on the toggle drain there), or a travel power for convenience, or Health for somewhere to put one of the rather nice healing set uniques, and so on. It's not that any of the alternative choices would be a huge boost, I just think they'd be a bigger small boost than Wolf Armour offers. -
Looks solid to me.
At first glance, only things I would change is take something else instead of Wolf Spider Armour (it's an argument from another thread so obviously there's other opinions on the subject, but I reckon the extra +mez is overkill in the vast majority of PvE) - Combat Jumping maybe? Slot the defense -KB IO in there (if you think you need it, I'm happy with just one), and move the slot and the Steadfast 3% Def to Crab Upgrade.
Also maybe swap one of those basic End Mods in Stamina for the Performance Shifter +End proc - although perhaps less reliable/consistent, over a long period of time it works out as mathematically superior.
There's probably other tweaks could be made, but you have all the key powers and can't go wrong with all that defense, so eh. -
Quote:Not sure about more than anyone else - I think Tankers can surpass those two with their basic mez protection powers, and some other sets get a little extra in specific areas. But certainly more than most when it comes to the most common mez types (KB notwithstanding).Originally Posted by Star_Seer
I think its overkill for mez protection, all you need is crab armour and fortification and you have more than anyone else.
Anyway, I very much agree that Wolf Spider Armour is overkill. With Crab Armour + Fortification my Crab Spider can withstand Romulus' rez-stun, and while in theory Wolf Armour would help protect when weaker sources get stacked, I'm not sure I've ever had enough stacked on me at one time to break Crab+Fort in PvE.
For the holes in the protection, Fear and Confuse rarely turn up on more than one or two enemies at a time, so even just the 4 points from Crab still tend to be enough. As for knockback, I've found that just having one -KB IO (in Crab) has been enough to protect me from knockback in all but a handful of situations on the way to, and running at 50. If it'd been a problem with just one I'd slot a second in Combat Jumping, but it's not been so I haven't.
It's also worth bearing in mind that most attacks against you as a Crab will likely be at range and you're going to (or should) have fairly high ranged defense (if not capped), so most of those mezzes just going to plain miss. The chances of there being enough mezz to overcome the protection from Crab+Fort in any given PvE encounter is slim (how often does the average scrapper get held or stunned? Crab+Fort'll get stunned less easily than that), so the chances of there being enough and it all managing to hit you is remote, at least in PvE.
Really, unless you're intending to do something very specific with set bonuses etc, the powerslot used on Wolf Spider Armour would most likely see more results elsewhere. -
Headbutt.
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Quote:Also Fortification for over 20% smash/lethal and close to 40% everything-else-except-psi resists. Takes the sting off any attacks that do get through the soft-capped defense. Later on there's the 3-6 pets too, for dps and soaking up aggro.Originally Posted by Black_Marrow
Crabs only have 1 thing over Forts, Serum.
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Both my Crab and Fort do very well at soloing, though the Crab didn't really take off until the late 30s in that respect. Bosses drop quickly to both, though against the stronger melee-heavy ones the Crab has to kite a fair bit (the Fort just holds or confuses them). But yeah, for the most part they both tear through solo content with relative ease.
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Pretty much all of my older characters have a bio written out. More recently I've gotten lazy and either not written the bio out or not even come up with anything beyond name and costume. I'd guesstimate that for recent characters about 40% have written bios, 30% have mentally stored bios, and 30% have nothing beyond a basic theme.
For characters that I gave bios I usually had the basic idea and shape of the bio in my head at creation, then I refine that into an actual written piece sometime during the first 20 levels (generally typing bits out into a text editor during loading screens or while waiting on a team getting organised).
Style varies from probably-quite-boring-and-wordy serious bios, to more light hearted tongue in cheek stuff, to a few that are just a couple of sentences or words (Pinchy's bio: PINCH! PINCHPINCHPINCH! PINCHY PINCHY PINCHPINCHPINCH!). -
50 Heroes:
Biowraith (Dark/Dark/Dark Defender) - this was my very first character. Created during the last couple weeks of beta, recreated at launch, then rerolled a couple times (around level 25 each time) to re-tune as respecs weren't out yet. Being my first character he probably took the longest to get to 50, both in hours played and subscription time elapsed. Starting out when Dark Miasma was actually a bit of a gimp powerset (and enduring kicks from teams for not being empath, which thankfully hasn't happened to me in years now), finally hitting 50 shortly before Tar Patch got its -res. Concept was a scientist whose experiments with negative energy caused an accident that gave him his powers but left him barely human, with a very basic "costume" that basically makes him a black silhouette (which personally I think looks quite effective when running all the Dark powers, though not so much without them).
Mr Smith (Ill/Kin/Psi Controller) - my second character. Basically a mage, though not so much of the robes and pointy hat kind. Was going to be a Kin Defender originally, with another alt being a Ill/Storm, but then I decided to make the alt a Storm/Elec defender and still wanted to have an Illusion char, so Smith became the Ill/Kin. He's probably my most powerful character overall, being able to both supercharge a team and also solo most situations with little risk to himself.
Lizardo (Rad/Earth/Stone Controller) - relatively recent character, created after battling Operative Lizardo in a paper mission immediately followed by Operative Ricardo; I'm easily amused, often by stupid things, so the idea of Ricardo Lizardo amused me... especially after googling Lizardo and finding some guy called Ricardo Ricardo Lizardo out there. A mutant abandoned by his parents and raised by a pack of lizards, who's now fighting crime for some reason. I enjoy his sheer volume of enemy-neutering powers.
Shadowripper (Spines/Dark/Dark Scrapper) - made to be an aoe machine with as many procced aoes as I can get. Visual aim was to be this ball of darkness with spines flying out of it. A bit cookie cutter/fotm (at the time anyway), and I'm not that satisfied with his name. Doesn't help that I get bored quickly by farming. So he doesn't get played much anymore.
Xanthaiti (Ice/Storm/Ice Controller) - decided I wanted a /Storm controller after all, and went with Ice for easy theme. He does pretty well, but I want to IO him out a bunch to take care of endurance issues and improve his ranged defense so Hurricane-herding is even safer for him. Theme is that he's an avatar of a god of an icy realm here to exact vengeance against the Circle of Thorns after one of their number tried to tap into said god's power. Kinda weak reasoning as to why he's running around fighting crime in general is that the gratitude and adoration of civilians towards heroes works similarly to worship, thus empowering the avatar (who is otherwise comparitively weak outside his home realm).
50 Villains:
Roxxor (SS/Inv/Mu Brute) - The Freaklympics inspired me to make a Freakshow character, which ended up being Roxxor - my first villain. Story has him as ex-Freakshow after a spell in the Zig left him feeling that the Freakshow's shennanigans were holding him back. Essentially retains their brutality but not their quirky sense of fun. Enjoyed smacking stuff around with SS, though felt he was a little squishier than I wanted, but that's changed since IOs have let me buff him up a bunch.
Lord Skull (Dark/Kin/Shark Corruptor) - tongue-in-cheek character (well, quite a lot of mine are) made in response to all the darkity-darks that were created when CoV launched. Basic idea was to take all the skull options available in the costume creator and slap them on one character. Turned out to be quite fun to play too, and ended up being my first 50 villain after Roxxor stalled around 45. Adding ranged defense via IOs has made him more fun to solo, too.
Harry Dread (Necro/Dark/Soul Mastermind) - give me an option to make a necromancer in a game, and I will. Name is a shameless rip-off. Quite powerful and I enjoy playing him, probably the most of my various MMs.
Fortunata Atropos (Fortunata/Soul) - built primarily for ranged damage and buffs, though still some control in there too. Would have preferred to have been called simply "Atropos" for a more iconic name, but obviously that was already taken. Maybe my most powerful villain, though there's a lot of competition for that title.
Operative Clem (Bane/Scorp) - the name derives from an example character in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay rulebook (whatever edition it was at when I still played years ago) called Clem Shirestock. The name just struck me as such an unimposing name for a potential fantasy hero that I've been mildly amused to use it for characters in games since then - though usually just the Clem part. Themed as a slightly goofier version of Arbiter Sands.
Leafmaster (Plant/Thorn/Shark Dominator) - in-joke name from a brief spell on an rp-server in WoW which turned into a fairly fun character due to Plant Control's general effectiveness and entertainment value.
Mechasusan (Bots/FF/Scorp MM) - a robotics genius who decided the standard 9-5 job wasn't for her so built a suit of power armour and took her small legion of robots out for a more "fun" career in crime. One of my most durable characters, but also quite boring to play.
Pinchy (Crab/Shark) - my first VEAT and probably the character I have the most fun playing. Modelled to max height, bulk sliders high (though not quite max), with the huge model as a base, he's a hulking juggernaut of destruction. When I first hit 24 and specced into Crab I was cackling with glee the rest of the day as he unleashed volley after volley of AoE while shrugging off attacks that'd kill my squishier AoE machines. Glee which has not faded since getting him to 50.
And that's the lot. -
Dimension Shift.
And I strongly agree with Dispari's assessment of Devices, particularly with regards Time Bomb and Gun Drone. I'd also quite like to see Targeting Drone bestow a +critchance rather than a straight +dam, just for flavour. -
We clearly have very different approaches/experiences from a combat awareness perspective, but as I say I wasn't really trying to make a point, just express how alien that sounded to me.[edit: that was to Sam - forgot it's not adding the reply name in by default]
Quote:I'd pick the one that matched the Name-AT-Level combo of the team leader. My experiences in that other game (not to mention in this game with the punctuation workarounds) tell me I'm not actually going to bump into multiples of the same name terribly often, so the chances of multiples with the same name, level *and* AT are remote. Although personally I'd probably have just taken the couple seconds to check the global anyway, it's just it'd rarely turn out to actually be necessary in that particular scenario.Except, how can Cat Girl send you a tell when there are five people called "I M Awesome" on right now? Do you give her your global before she logs out? Does he? And, OK, you remembered the name of your team when you were switching. He's "Team Leader Dude." You run a search for "Team" and get Team Leader Dude@SkullSkull223, Team Leader Dude@I M Weasel, Team Leader Dude@Team Leader Dude and Team Player@JoJo. Who do you send the tell to? -
Quote:Not really trying to argue a point here, and it's utterly tangental to the thread, but is that really how people run? Is chat used that heavily in making combat decisions? This seems really alien to me; the first I'd know of Awesome Man's death would be the rapidly declining health next to his name (and AT icon), I'd notice that way before anything he said in chat. Similarly I'd pretty much never flee just because someone, anyone, chatted "Run!" - that's a judgement I'd make myself based on the state of the team, which enemies are present, how we've done so far, etc etc. To be honest, I usually don't see what people have been saying until the battle is over.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
That assumes we only ever team with friends and that's it. That isn't the case, not even for a recluse like me. Sometimes you're on a team with perfect strangers and you need to tell THEM apart. Is the Awesome Man that just died Awesome Man, the incredibly competent tanker, meaning you should run for your life, or Awesome Man, the incredibly lame Blaster, meaning nobody cares? Or when Awesome Man says "Run!" was it the Tanker who knows you're getting overwhelmed, or the Blaster who rushed ahead, ran into too many enemies and panicked?
(re: the final, unquoted paragraph: I'd get Cat Boy to ask Cat Girl to send a tell and use the right click->invite method, while for char swap I'd use the same method I use now: make a mental note of the team leader's name (only *really* remembering the first few letters and the general shape of the name) and level/AT, then after swapping use /search to find them and send a tell letting them know I've swapped chars and am ready for invite; both have somewhat become habit due to all the badly spelled names, excessive symbols, I-vs-L substituting, unreliable narrators, etc) -
Quote:Absolutely, it's hugely subjective. And when it comes to a superhero name, good and creative are not necessarily coincident (it seems that if you're wanting to market a comic, they may even be at odds). The examples given in this thread of names you could get right now if you'd just be creative have done little to dissuade me from this notion.Originally Posted by Nurvus
I think the perceived availability of names is related to what a person considers to be a good name.
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Quote:That's pretty much my experience. I've had a lot of characters have to resort to 2nd, 3rd, or indeed 10th choices for their names because the one I wanted was already taken, but in 5.5 years I have only *once* run into someone using one of my original-choice-was-already-taken names in-game. Similar rarity when it comes to running into people who have used a hyphen, full stop, or similar measure to get a name I have the original of. As such, I don't really mind the idea that another player might be able to use a name I got to first - if I'm really being creative it's unlikely many people will think of the same name, and my experience is that it's also extremely unlikely we'll ever appear in the same room/team/search list together.Originally Posted by Doughboy
I can tell you this, of all the names I'd like to have, I have never seen another player in-game with any of them.
I agree the CO method looks kinda ugly, though you can turn the visual of it off in chat and it's pretty much invisible in terms of team list and names floating above character names - after a month in that game I barely notice the @global anymore, but I love the freedom of going with my first choice when naming a character. For me it's a minor evil I'd put up with so I can drop the (to me) clumsy looking adjective from the front of that short and snappy name I'd wanted to use.
I also find many of the more "creative" names don't look or sound as good to me as the "unimaginative" versions: they're not as snappy, don't roll off the tongue as well, or just visually look clumsier. This goes for both the ones I think up (*especially* when I resort to a thesaurus), and many of the examples other people bring out on threads like these. But I suppose "good" is at least somewhat subjective in a name, so that's probably just my personal taste.
Anyhow, judging by this thread (yeah yeah, forums aren't a true representation etc), as with so much in life, I appear to be in the minority on this one. So I guess I'll just leave it at that, and be glad I'm finally getting side switching instead
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1) The once-per-10-seconds applies to toggled powers (both pbaoe auras like Quills or Cloak of Fear, and 'anchor' debuffs like Darkest Night or Snow Storm), and also to "patch" style powers with a duration (rain of fire, tar patch, ignite, etc). So yeah, it'd apply to the powers you mention.
e.g. I believe Ice Storm lasts 15 seconds, and so gets two proc chances: one when you first fire the power, then again 10 seconds into its duration.
2) The chance to proc is checked and applied separately for each target caught in the aoe. So if you caught 6 enemies in the aoe, anywhere from 0 to 6 of them could get hit with the proc.
Generally, the powers you mention get decent mileage out of having a proc or two in them -
I have an undead gunslinger called "Billy the Corpse" planned as a Corruptor. I'd like to hold out until/if the possibility of DP/Poison appears, but I may well cave and just make him DP/Dark instead.
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Quote:The devs put them in there to make the reactor harder for teams that click them.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Was it ever determined WHY those glowies exist? Did the devs put them in there specifically to make us all ask, "Why are these glowies here?"
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Yeah, short version is Scrapper does more damage, Tanker takes more damage (also Tanker has better aggro control).
Scrapper:
Significantly higher base damage with each attack.
Chance for a critical hit with each attack.
Gets the Fiery Melee powers at an earlier level.
Tanker:
Built in taunt effect with each attack.
More hitpoints (which also means self-heals like Healing Flames will heal for more, being a % of max hitpoints).
Higher resistance values from the Fiery Aura powers (and any pool powers, like Tough).
Higher resistance cap.
Higher defense values and cap (Fiery Aura doesn't give defense though).
Gets the Fiery Aura powers at an earlier level.
I think that's everything. Possibly one of them gets better values from Build Up and Fiery Embrace, but I'm not sure. -
Quote:Sometimes I just set my flag then idle around reading forums etc with broadcast visible underneath in case someone advertises lfm at my level, but that's a super unreliable way of doing things.Originally Posted by ifotym
For those of you looking for a PUG, and don't want to lead or form it yourself - what do you do to get on a team?
If you are adamant about not leading/forming the team yourself, you can basically:
1. Set your flag (almost useless these days).
2. Monitor broadcast (maybe slightly less useless).
3. Make use of server and global friends if they're available (depends how many you have, I suppose)
4. Check search and send out tells to people already on teams to see if they're willing to let you join (the most effective option imo, though some people get really touchy about this, so up to you if you want to risk that).
5. Monitor global channels (I find this very useful for finding TFs, but not a huge amount better than broadcast for regular teaming).
6. In conjunction with 5. - have lots of alts on different servers, so you can switch to whichever one fits any activity you see on globals.
And, if you're not into plvl/farming, and unwilling to form teams, that's about your lot. -
It does knockup : similar to knockdown, but takes them slightly longer to actually hit the ground.
I *think* knockup also has the advantage of not turning into knockback when used on enemies weak against knockdown/back powers (e.g. clockwork tend to get knocked back where other enemies are knocked down), but don't quote me on that part. -
Axe/WP Brute 5 -> 13
Kat/SR Scrapper 42 -> 44
Mercs/Storm MM 24 -> 26
Grav/Elec Dom 24 -> 30
Hoped for more (got a couple redside villains on Victory that don't see much levelling due to low populations at the times I play), but had fun so can't complain too loudly. -
Quote:That's pretty much my view. Lower recharge on the Spec Ops mezzes (too long of a wait for another go when the pet AI inevitably decides to use it on a single half dead minion at the end of the fight), lower recharge on LRM (same), wider cones.Originally Posted by Atheism
Reduce the Commando's LRM Missle down to 50 seconds and his Full Auto to 45, reduce the recharge time on the Tear Gas, and widen all of the cones to 20 feet and I'd be a happy camper.
I'd not object to other buffs, but I'd just view them as gravy - and I'd want those ones above to take priority. -
It's not unheard of, and can be quite effective. Cloaked Lunge as a burst opener, stacking Followup with Aim, etc. I suppose the only question is what you're giving up to take the melee attacks - there's a certain point where you may as well just go Night Widow instead.
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Quote:On the NCSoft support pages there's a page (answer id 4891, at least at http://uk.support.ncsoft.com) which links to a traceroutey type diagnostic tool that has the various NCSoft game servers programmed into it so you can send the resulting text file to their support and/or your isp.Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
... do we have instructions there for how to run a traceroute from an individual's computer to the NCsoft servers, so that (should the info prove a significant loss of rate) the individual can pass it along to either their ISP or the tech support guys at NCsoft?
ftp://ftp.coh.com/support_tool/ in case that answer id is specific to the UK pages. -
The LotG one? Fairly sure that just acts like a set bonus, not a proc - won't matter what power it's in, when it's used, etc.
edit: in fact, I don't believe you can slot them in pets. -
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I'd like to note that I just cleared this SF, and we didn't see Reich use his Phasing power once. Every time I could, I used the MM power from about...20 feet away I'd suppose? We weren't exactly dealing quick damage either, and it still kept him from using his invincibility. I think it's exactly what the game says, it PREVENTS him from using it, not stopping it when it is already in effect.
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Pretty sure when this thread was posted it wasn't doing either - not breaking, preventing, or anything else. But it's since been fixed (or was last time I ran it) and now, yeah, it prevents him from activating his unbreakable (but doesn't cancel it if you wait until after he activates it).