Desmodos

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Do not sell this IO short, it is HANDS DOWN the best single IO investment a Dark Armor anything can make. If you can only afford one IO in your entire build, it should be this one. It really is THAT good.

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These days, half the time I fire off Dark Regeneration isn't for the heal, it's to gain back end. No it's not a sure thing, but that's part of the fun. If my end is low, I look to see if I have skittles; got one--good fire off DR. Bad roll, oh well pop the skittle. Good roll, excellent, save the skittle for later.

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My experience of playing Willpower straight out of the box was different, granted, I haven't combined it with Kat for the melee def bonus from DA, but it lacks the heal for when you get in trouble, and you will get in trouble.

It picks up later though so . . . .

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My experience was the total opposite. Leveling was simple, easy, and without issues. In the 45+ range my DB/WP (my first WP 50) hit a brickwall. I simply couldn't do the same things I could on other scrappers...until I grabbed all the accolades WHOA! what a difference. Add IO sets for +HP and she became an absolute beast.

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I think it'd be interesting to actually drop this at the devs' feet in this thread. I really would be curious as to all of the canon effects of Superadine and all of the canonical differences between the pure and cut strains.

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Yeah, I intend to eventually. There are several aspects of Superadine that I was unware of (or completely forgot) that have come up from this thread. I would prefer to bang out all those facts, then ask any questions that linger in that thread.

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# Nausea
# Irritability and short tempers
# Hostility
# Homicidal impulses
# Rapid loss of mental clarity
# Amnesia
# Kidney failure
# Diarrhea
# Muscle aching and weakness
# Tingling or cramping in the legs
# Inability to walk
# Problems sleeping
# Constipation
# Impaired muscle formation
# Erectile dysfunction
# Temperature regulation problems
# Nerve damage
# Mental confusion
# Liver damage and abnormalities
# Neuropathy
# Death


They don't call me Doctor Discomfort for nothin'!

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Care to elaborate. There is no basis for some of these symptoms. I agree some of these are highly probable.

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From the words of Angel Lopez in the City of Villain's tutorial after you give him some Superadine that he requests from a troll, "This stuff is fantastic! Just be careful how often you use it or you'll end up green like Mr. Verde over there, he's a troll and they love to overdose on that stuff and cause havoc. That's not really my cup of tea."

This implies that if you use it carefully/wisely you won't ever become a Troll. That the negative effects associated with Trolls is from a direct overdose of Superadine. This makes it quite different than modern drugs where overdose can almost certainly mean death. I believe that Superadine isn't outlawed because it always does horrible things to the body but because it gives increased aggression/super powers. This makes it very hard on the police of paragon city and the heroes in general. It's outlawed because it's just plain dangerous.

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Hey, thanks. I forgot all about that exchange.

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I am confused at why people dislike Emmert so much. I've been playing since CoH started and I never saw anything negative about him.

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Jack Emmert made a statement that most players equate to a bold faced lie. While I do not believe that was intent, but his subsequent explainations lacked the tact required to convice people of the contrary. The statment surrounded what was probably the single greatest improvement to the game, but the manner in which it was presented left a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouths. Issue 5 brought GDN which basically lowered the indestructablity of every character. GDN also introduced aggro caps, there by bringing an end to map herding. These were necessary changes and they came with Jack's promise of "no more sweeping power nerfs". Just as players were accepting that GDN needed to happen, we got the Issue 6 closed beta leak regarding ED. Viewed as an additional nerf, ED was infact an improvement of the game. The fact that ED was part of closed beta and the Devs had no intentions of telling the player base until pre-launch beta really angered a lot of people. Coming of the heels of Jack Emmert's promise, it smacked of deception. His explaination of "I don't see ED as a power nerf," seemed dishonest and not the least apologetic. More importantly, Jack Emmert left City of Heroes very shortly after. Had Jack Emmert remaind active with CoH for a few more issues, his legacy would likely have ended on a much more positive note.

Honestly, the ire Jack Emmert gets is somewhat unfair. He created City of Heroes. All the foundations he laid for the game are still here. While I can honesty say I enjoy the game considerably more since Matt Miller took over, this is still Jack Emmeret's creation. Anyone who likes playing City of Heroes should give Jack Emmeret his props.

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This list seems rather light on negative effects. I work in health care so perhaps I'm asking to much, I would have expected to see worst. Are there additional clues in game that might suggest more?

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Well, "becoming a troll" is more than one side effect: hair loss, skin discoloration, horn-like growths, and drastically reduced intelligence.

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Sorry, I tried to clarify in subsequent posts what I mean by negative. While agree in the 'real world' turning into a troll would be a negative side effect, it's somewhat a debateable point in a "comic book" environment. City of Heroes has a massive array of mutiple skin colors and horned characters, for the average joe wanting to be more 'super', growing horns and turning green is some what subjective.

Loss of intelligence would be a negative effect, but that effect is debatable. The Family Superadine does not cause this diminshed intelligence and actually suggests increasing it. It seems more likely the cutting agent (as Umbral suggested) would be the more likely culprit. We don't have enough information in that regard.

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I watched a particular medical examiner show where it was said that a large heart with tick, dense walls would actually find it harder to beat and be more susceptible to actually quivering and not pumping blood, causing it to stop. I'm not sure of the exact medical reasons and cases that can lead up to this, but I've seen that exactly reported as cause of death a lot.

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Muscles built up naturally will also increase vasculature to those muscles (incease branches of the blood vessels). Muclses built up by unsafe practices (pharmacuticals, some ripping techniques) or disease will not. Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathies (HCM) are conditions in which hear muscle will thicken pathologically and not in response to increased exercise. Such muscles are not any stronger and do not have increased vasculature which dramatically increases their chances for arrythmias (the quivering). Basically the mass of the muscle has increased but the blood flow has not, starving off muscle and nervous tissue.

The association between anabolic sterois abuse and left ventricular hypertrophy or HCM is hottly debated in the medical field, but that's enough RL medical science. Troll Superadine has regenerative benefits, so even if mucle mass was created with out increased vasculature, the user would suffer no ill effects to their muscles. Would those effects translate to the heart muscles?

I'm starting to think Supa Troll would all eventually die due to brain aneurysms or aortic aneursyms. I don't care how much you regenerate, the amount of hypertension needed to maintain this type of growth would eventually cause a major blood vessel to burst. Considering the interdimensional perception the 1% attain, brain aneursyms seems the more likely. Basically, they all die of a stroke.

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So playing around on Mid's tonight, I got about 10% for lethal, 20% for energy/neg. energy and 33% for fire/cold for defense. Is that sounding like the numbers I should expect? These numbers are much lower than I would take for an SR scrapper.

Thank you for any help.

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Keep in mind defense is SR's primary form of mitigation, you expect to get big defense numbers more easily with SR.

Will Power's survival comes from regeneration first. Adding defense buys you time for that regneration to do it's work. You can soft cap FCNE with Will Power, but it will take a bit more work.

Getting over 30% defense should be your bare minumum objective, anything less and I'd try again.

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Think about it, though - Trolls are going through muscle and bone on a daily basis, relying on the regeneration provided by Superadine to keep them going. Take their superadine away from them, wait for the effects to start wearing off and they'll start turning their muscles into hamburger meat and their bones into gravel with no means to heal them magically. Trolls are fuelled by Superadine, and stopping its consumption will rid them of... Well, the thing that keeps them together.

Grated, I'm really illiterate when it comes to this, but I don't think we can really hold huge hulking green monsters to human medical science too much, and I'm pretty confident we can feel free to make a few things up as we go.

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That's an entirely different scenario then you first described, not really related to body building. Pushing your body beyond physical limitations and relying on a drug to replenish your musle and bone tissue would convievably cause the scenario you've described. Which is along the lines of what I was looking for in terms of "negative" effects.

Really should address him as Evil Gecko or EG. The name is not a coincdence

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Well, I'm no expert on the matter, but I do know that not every muscle in the body benefits from being bigger and denser. The heart, for instance, actually degrades as it enlarges. I would imagine Trolls would be at a much elevated risk of heart disease thanks to that.

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Sorry Sam. I work in health care, specifically in the field of cardiology. Heart muscles DO NOT degrade due to enlargement. An enlarged heart can (and will most likely) result in muscle degredation, but an enlarged heart does not necessarily include enlargement of the heart muscles. Enlarged hearts are usually the results of volume over loads or ischemic cardiomyopathies and usually feature thinned heart muscles.

Hypertrophy is an enlargement of muscle. The reason for the Hypertrophy is what is relevant to health. Hypertension (systemic high blood pressure) will cause cardiac muscle hypertrophy but it does not damage the heart muscle. This is healthy response by the heart muscle to hypertension, treat the hypertension and the heart muscle never suffers any damage.

The healthiest of hearts seen in top athelete's (see Athletic Heart Syndrome) actually features enlarged hearts with hypertrophied muscles.

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Also, as most bodybuilders will probably stand to evidence, big, thick muscles aren't actually always good

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This has no basis in medical science or exercise physiology. Body Building is in fact very good for you barring some underlying condition. Body building does not equal abuse of anabolic steroids. Abusing steriods has a host of consequences that result regardless of whether you ever set foot in a weight room.

Artificially enlarging your muscles with out the actual exercise will cause considerable damage, including muscle degradation. Any substances that prevents you noticing muscle strain due to over exertion would also have muscle degradation and probably torn ligaments and tendons.

EDIT: Sorry, I overlooked this bit.
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hick muscles aren't actually always good, and if a Troll were to stop taking Superadine, I'm sure he'd turn into a flabby mess in no time flat.

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This is a large misconception surrounding body builders. It is biologically impossible for muscle to turn into fat. Regardless of how the muscle mass was created, discontinuing weight lifting (or what ever insane drugs you are taking) will not cause the muscles to turn into fat.

Maintaining muscles requires more energy so the body responds by increasing your metabolism, prompting you to eat more. Irresponsible/unhealthy body building practices actually practice high calorie intakes at key times to maximize growth. If the body builder has to discontinue their routine, their metabolism will slow down. IF and I mean BIG IF, the body builder adjusted their diet to their now slowed metabolism they would never gain fat. Most of us are creatures of habit and would most likely continue to eat the same amounts of food, basically over eating thereby creating your flab.

Knockdown, unless the mobs are lower level or have very poor KB protection. Decent damage too, great power.

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Call me wacky, but I like teams where all members get to have fun.

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Then stop using Torrent on my spawns.


Disclaimer: I'm being facetious.

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You're gonna love my newest alt

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MSTFs are a poor example to bring into this discussion.

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I'm inclined to disagree with this point.

I agree that MoSTF is not representative of the majority of the PVE game, but like most MMO end game raids its a place to show how skilled you are as a player, how well you built your toon, and how well you can work together on a team.

Some of the people posting in this thread may have the skill, a good build, and the ability to shift into team friendly mode. However, most of the scrappers I've played with in game lack one or more of these characteristics and end up being a liability to a team.

Let me offer another perspective. Everyone plays because they get enjoyment out of it. The most enjoyable teams I've been on were ones in which everyone was having fun contributing. Things often start to become less fun when rolls start to overlap. On a standard mission map, the scrapper AT can often render the contributions of other players moot.

If I have 1 very happy scrapper running amok and 7 moderately unhappy players who aren't feeling useful, the scrapper is getting the boot--even if I'm the scrapper. The reason is that the enjoyment of the majority of players should not have to be sacrificed for the enjoyment of the one scrapper.

While I get the appeal of soloing AVs, 8 person spawns on invincible, ITFs, or whatever; if the other players are just there to facilitate your fun at the expense of theirs, then you wouldn't be someone I'd be looking to play with.

There is a solution though--compromise. If you hold back the scrapperlock from time to time, and let others enjoy their time in the spotlight you might meet some new friends and develop a better understanding of the game.

If you aren't interested in those benefits then carry on!

*edited for spelling*

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Did you actually write this with a straight face? Are you seriously suggesting the only compromise for teaming with scrappers is for scrappers NOT to play to their full potential so everyone else can have fun?

What happened to "but like most MMO end game raids its a place to show how skilled you are as a player, how well you built your toon, and how well you can work together on a team."?

Here's an idea for you. How about you use strategies that allow every member of the team, regardless of their AT, to play to their full potential?

Call me wacky, but I like teams where all 8 members get to have fun.

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That's actually a very interesting consideration, though it would make me wonder as to why the less than boss-tier Family members don't seem to exhibit intelligence greater than normal. If it did increase intelligence and the Troll's stupidity is simply an issue of being too intelligent to actually reason (which would explain why they're capable of impressive acts of demolition even though they lack any training; they do everything based off of highly analytical instincts), then anyone else who took Superadine would show signs of heightened intelligence before they actually "went Troll".

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Trolls and Family are the only groups we know to use Superadine. Unless I misunderstood, only family Bosses and some LTs use Superadine; only the ones we see using Super Strength and Gravity.

From Troll description.
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These low ranking gang members are already showing signs of changing, but they still sometimes rely on conventional weapons.

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This kind of pokes holes in my theory. I still subscribe to the idea Trolls were formerly stupid people, which one could interpret as it wouldn't take much 'Dyne to fry their brains but that's a stretch.

The cutting agent seems the more likely difference.

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now I have questions about the defense. When I run the numbers in Mids, I don't get real high defense totals. I should note that I already have a lv 49 Broadsword/Super Reflexes scrapper and on that character I have 45 to 50 defense values. I am at work currently, so I don't have the numbers in front of me, but when I was working on what I want on this guy last night, I was getting defense values of 5 to 20. Is it possible to get the soft-capped defense limit of 45 on a Willpower scrapper? If not, what kind of defense numbers should I be shooting for? This layered defense/mitigation in Willpower is fascinating to me, but it is much more complex than most of the other scrapper secondaries.


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Super Reflexes uses Positional Defense (melee/ranged/AoE) so you won't generally stack defense on Will Power in the same fashion as you did with Super Reflexes.

Will Powers has Typed Defense to Fire, Cold, Energy and Negative Energy (often abbreviated to FCNE). It also has smaller amounts of Smash and Lethal defense. When looking at Mid's, be sure an focus on the typed defenses, not the positional. Since Hightened senses provides a big chunk of typed defense (FCNE), it best to stack on those values, a head start if you will.

Keep in mind Positonal and Typed defense do not stack. Defense values over 45% are rarely applicable so it not recommend to place any effort into exceeding 45% (comment specific to PvE, I have no idea how beneficial it wold be in PvP).

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Actually, because the Troll mutation has been canonically stated as being due to an overdose, I'm reasonably sure that the Family is capable of having their higher ups using the drugs simply by being stingy. It also begs the question of what the Family cuts the impure 'dyne with. Is it a traditional mind-altering street drug, which could possibly explain the affects of the Troll mutation on cognition and psyche, or is it something even cheaper (like milk powder, baking powder, etc. with cocaine).


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While the cutting agent seems like a really good avenue to explore, something esle occurred to me. Consigliere not only use Superadine, but it seems to have granted them powers typically associated with strong minds, usually Gravity Control (can't recall any others). Combined with the interdimensional perception in the 1%, you can almost interpret that to mean Superadine actually grants intelligence. The so called 'stupidity of trolls' could be an overdose of brain power; literally frying the brain.

Ok, at this point it seems like we need to toss out 'brain damage' from the list of negative effects of Superadine. Consigliere's use Superadine and are considered top advisors in their organizations.

It seems all the 'troll' effects of Superadine are limited to the 'unrefined' version? If that's the case, what are the effects of the 'refined' version? Is there an actual difference between the two or is it more an issue of moderation?

The ST nature of Martial Arts is the main reason I don't like the set. I find Dragon's Tail does not add sufficent AoE to the set.

Oddly, I never felt DM was AoE light, but that largely because I took the time to learn Shadow Maul. SM is DM's only real AoE, but it comes up often enough to use rather frequently. Hitting 3 or more targets with SM is one of my favorite sound effects in this game.

It also depends on what you pair DM with. Soul Drain + Death Shroud is serious AoE damage, though not burst. Soul Drain + Fiery Embrac + Blazing Aura is better still. When measured over time, only Throw Spines can out damage BA and DS.

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Couple question for all you Leroys out there:

Have any of you successfully completed a Master of Statesman's Task Force?

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Yes, on multiple scrappers.

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If you have, did you have to adjust your playstyle to get it? (let the tank go in first on Recluse and Aeon, wait for buffers to finish buffing and such)

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The final mission of STF is the only scenario where I personally feel I want a tanker on the team. It is also the only mission where I wait for the tanker before running in. Granted, the folks I run with herd up GW, Mako, Scorpio, and Scirocco to take down all 4 at once. We then wait for the tanker occupy Reclue's attention before taking down the towers.

Who attacks Doctor Aeon is more about who took the debuff power from the CoT mission, running in before it's applied is pointless.

My group tends to run these in under an hour. On the Dr. Aeon mission they're expecting the scrappers to run ahead "Security Chief?" hopping for the sake of speed. We call it teamwork

MSTFs are a poor example to bring into this discussion. It's not exactly an example of what players typically encounter in game.

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Information about pure and uncut strains of superadine can be found in Top Secret: the Family.

"Melchionni also claimed that Sebastian ordered his chemists to create two very different strains of Superadine. There was the “pure” line, closest to the original serum, which was kept strictly for made-men of The Family. As his men earned each promotion they would be rewarded with stronger doses, increasing their super-powered abilities. His bosses are nearly as powerful as Sebastian himself.

And there was the “cut” strain, which was also much more addictive. This street version of the drug was seeded throughout several street gangs. Those who overdosed became the first of the Trolls, and some say Sebastian turned one of his childhood friends into the first Troll. This rumor is uncorroborated, however. It is clear that The Family deals to other groups like the Skulls, although how much influence The Family has over these street gangs is unclear."

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NICE! Thanks for the link.

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Said by Jose Brogan while on a mission from Antonio Nash:

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I heard there were some Skulls sniffing around Atlas Park, but I thought it was just a rumor. You might want to see what you can dig up in this supposedly empty warehouse.

Dyne is pretty new on the streets, so nobody knows much about it. It gives users a rush of euphoria and strength, but it leaves their whole body aching afterwords. Some muscle spasms and skin diseases have even been linked to Dyne use. It looks like the Skulls are looking for a new market in which to peddle their poison.

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(emphasis mine)

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Thank you, that's more along the lines of what I was looking for.

Very nice. Liking the eyes.

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I think that's pretty much all settled, then. Thanks a million once again, Desmodos. You really straightened this build out for me. Today I stared at it sad and depressed, looking at how many slots I was short and how many things needed more stuff, and I'm thinking about it now happy and content that it's all going to work out. Couldn't have done it without you!

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You are very welcome.



/e scratches off "Monthly Good Deed" from 'To Do' List