Dispari

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You assume I take any of this seriously.

She is free to host her costume contests however she feels. I'm just offering alternative ideas. She feels her personal bias is better than a pannel of judges, that's fine.

I'm not saying she's wrong. It's selfish. But it's a costume contest by its very nature its selfish.

I still would like to know why judges costumes tend to be less appealing than the people they are judging.

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I'm sorry that I selfishly spend 3 hours out of every week to give out 40m (sometimes of my own money) to people who I don't know, for no personal profit, on behalf of VGs and individuals who would like to be recognized, for no particular cause other than to see costume contests become more common redside.

Honestly I think if anyone needs a buff it's Stalkers. As far as the melees go, it just makes sense in my head that the more durable one is, the less damage they should do. So it should be like this:

Damage > Survival
Stalker
Scrapper
Brute
Tank

Instead, it's basically Scrappers/Brutes at the top (depending on situation and fury/FS/blah/Rage/whatever), with Tanks at the bottom for damage, and Stalkers just above. Stalkers are the lowest for survival, though, so they get the short end of the stick by being the weakest survival-wise but also being outclassed for damage by at least two other melees. Add to that the fact that they get few, if any AoEs in some sets.

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She's always conned yellow to me *shrug*

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I always remember her conning gray. I have the badge on a couple different characters.

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I believe Defenders should be at 1, Corruptors need to be the same as Blasters, since in the dark side they fit a simialr role.

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I don't think you understand what you're saying. First off Corruptors aren't anywhere close to being like blasters, nor should they be. Secondly, you're completely ignoring the scourge inherent and the damage buffs and -res debuffs in support sets.

An appropriate buff to defender damage would be to raise it from 0.65 to 0.70. Pushing the envelope would be raising corruptor from 0.75 to 0.80 and defender from 0.65 to 0.75. Raising defender damage to 1.0 and corruptor to 1.125 is utter madness.

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I think Corruptors and Defenders are close enough as-is that I'd hate to see a Defender damage buff without an accompanying Corruptor one. 0.7 and 0.8 would be somewhat more reasonable than having them only be 0.05 away from eachother.

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Well, that's the point of a contest. You set conditions such as the "most original" costume or "Fashionable" so that they are aware of the contest terms. Surprising people with "what you were actually looking for" is a bit sneaky, I can see why people get angry if there are no set conditions.

Do you specify before the contest that you are looking for "fun" costumes "original" or "joke" costumes? this is why I don't do costume contests, judges seldom tell you what they are looking for.

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See, the thing is, the point of the contest is to just give money to people with costumes that I like. I don't claim it to be anything other than that. I like to be more inclusive with contestants though. Sometimes nobody shows up with a joke costume. Sometimes someone does, but it doesn't really strike my fancy. Sometimes someone shows up with a costume idea I've never seen before.

When I host, 10 people win. That means if 30 people show up, 1/3 of them are going to win. If I announced that I'm only accepting joke costumes, what happens if only 4 people show up with a joke costume? And what do I do about the other 26 people who are going to complain that I'm biased toward joke costumes? When do they get their turn? When do I judge medieval costumes? When do I judge robot costumes? And when I judge robot costumes, someone will claim I'm biased toward full robots over cyborgs. What if someone has a joke robot costume? Can they enter twice? That's not fair, is it?

What happens when someone shows up with a really unique costume that's in a category I hadn't considered? Can they never win because they aren't in a category I announced? Is it fair to exclude people with really good costumes because they aren't part of that week's theme? I'd rather host something that everyone can enter every time.

The only time I ever mention something that I'm NOT looking for is full sets (if you're just wearing the full Valkyrie set, you aren't going to win), or overly skimpy outfits (if you aren't wearing clothes, how can you win a costume contest?)

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Since we can't read the judges mind it isn't so much a contest so much as an ego rub. there is no real condition pool to judge from other than the judges own personal bias.

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I hate to say it, but there's no possible way to have a contest based on opinions and NOT have personal bias. The only way I could eliminate bias would be to eliminate the contest part, by picking at random. No matter who picks, or how many people help pick, it's still bias based on if that person or those people like clown costumes, demon costumes, or crab costumes.

The way I do it now, people occasionally whine about the picks I make because they feel they should've won. If I did it your way, that would still happen. In fact, I've done some where almost everyone present has said that a certain person should win, and I happened to agree so I picked them. And someone still complained. It's impossible to please everyone, no matter how it's done. Even if we had 30 judges and took half an hour to do each round and narrow down picks, people would still claim bias and disagree with the choices made.

If you want to know how I personally do it, I glance across the contestants and pick out the ones I like. This is usually from 1-5, although it's generally around 2-3. Then I ask the other judge(s) for their picks to fill in to the full 5. Then I sort them and award prizes for 1-3rd with two runner-ups. Then we do the second round with the other gender.

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After all that enchanced damage being dished out for a long two minutes, ten seconds seems like a very minor if not negligable drawback to me.

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Fun fact: 120 seconds of Build Up has more rooted/no attacking penalty, due to animating the skill 12 times, than the 10 seconds of -9990% damage in Rage. It also costs more total endurance for 120 seconds of Build Up. Rage's only real penalty is that its costs are condensed.

So, even if Build Up could be made perma, it would STILL be arguably worse than Rage. This $#!% has bothered me since issue 1.

120 seconds of Rage:
<ul type="square">[*]30.2 endureance (5.2 up front, 25 after 120seconds)[*]10 seconds of -9990% enhanced damage, with ~1.4 seconds of rooted animation during initial cast.[*]10 seconds of -20% defense, which can be ignored even with just SOs.[/list]120 seconds of BU:
<ul type="square">[*]~14 seconds of rooted animation, 0 damage, 0 control, 0 temp powers activated for full damage with a generous 20% toHit buff from stacked *cough* Rage.[*]52 total endurance[/list]
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This is the other reason I don't like Build Up.

Plus I don't like Build Up because its the default Dev's couldn't think of anything original so we put it on most sets. Rage is only in one set.

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The other somewhat unique damage boost power is Follow Up/Blinding Feint. I'm hoping to see something similar make it into a ranged set (Dual Pistols? Cross fingers!)

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Just out of curiosity....

If fire control didn't have imps, and illusion didn't have phantom army, would we be having this discussion?

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Fire Imps are hardly the bread-winner of a Fire/Kin. They're helpful surely, but their randomness and single-target nature with only one attack means they aren't the biggest contributors, especially now that SB doesn't make them attack any faster.

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heh, I am the same, if it's just so absurdly stupid, I can't help but facepalm and look away.

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Looks like there's a lot more of us with this issue than we thought.

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I have it too. I also can't listen to prank calls and any other situation where it's really embarrassing.

I've read before that the part of our brain that assesses embarrassment in other people is the same part that feels it for ourselves. So if it's easy for you to feel awkward in social situations, if you see someone else making a fool of themselves, you feel just as bad as they do (or should).

Blaster: Dark Blast, Dark Manipulation, Psi Mastery
Controller: Electric Control*, Traps, Poison
Defenders: Thermal Radiation, Fire Blast, Cold Mastery
Scrappers: Energy Melee, Ninjitsu, Fire Mastery
Tanks: Energy Aura, Dark Mastery, Weapon Mastery

Brutes: New epics that are actually thematic to primaries/secondaries
Corruptor: New epics that are actually thematic to primaries/secondaries
Dominator: New epics that are actually thematic to primaries/secondaries
Mastermind: New epics that are actually thematic to primaries/secondaries
Stalker: New epics that are actually thematic to primaries/secondaries

* = Not really proliferation, but enough powers already exist that it wouldn't be too hard to piece together with maybe one or two new powers. For instance, Earth Assault coming up and the previous Mental Manipulation.

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So it's time to finally nerf controllers

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Finally? As I recall, Controllers have lived through a few nerfs.

Loss of multi-pets.
AoE mezzes doubled in recharged, halved in duration.
Epic damage reduced.

I'd rather see a Defender buff.

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Wouldn't say I dislike it, I'm rather preferential towards elegant minimilism. However, I doubt the costume would win first place in a costume contest; perhaps runner up.

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See, the problem there is that that's totally subjective. Maybe you think it's worth second place. Maybe someone else thinks it's the best costume ever. Someone else thinks it's terrible. There's absolutely no way ANYONE can make a costume that everyone would agree would make first place in a costume contest. Everyone looks for different things. I get compliments on that outfit, and I like it. That's enough for me. There's no way I can please everyone who attends by having a costume they all like, though.

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Call me nuts and a nitpicker because I am certainly both these things, but I've always felt if there's going to be a costume contest the judges should state in a frank and concise manner what they are looking for in the winning costume.

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If I did that, everyone would try to change their outfits to match what I seem to want. People already try to sense patterns and come up with theories on what would let them win. Besides that, I don't really know what I want specifically. I just see stuff and award what catches my eye.

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Aftwards explain WHY the winner won to avoid some skepticism about the contest being rigged; also and most importantly, have more than one judge so it curbs personal bias.

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I do both of these things. I announce aloud what I liked about each winner. I always also have at least one assistant. Sometimes two other judges helping.

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As for the judges costumes being boring and uninspiring, I'm sticking by that observation because for the most part, I have yet to be proven wrong.

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You can't prove an opinion wrong. =)

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p.s. The crab costume was certainly fun and original, he certainly won most original costume. However most original and most Fashionable are two seperate categories.

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Sometimes I award fun, sometimes I award original, and sometimes I award fashionable. I pick what I like. Sometimes that's a joke costume. Sometimes it's something really original and crazy that I haven't seen before. Sometimes it's just something cool.

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I only have one character that has this slotted, and it is my MA/SR scrapper in his Focus Chi power, which has the full 6 piece Gaussians set, for the Defensive Set bonuses.
Since Focus Chi is itself a BU power, any benefit I receive from the proc would be right at the first one or 2 attacks after the proc fires. I never really notice it being a wow experience any more than an unexpected critical would.

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Although I like this Idea, wouldn't be better to have it auto fire, so you get more chances for it to go off? Every 10sec compared to around 15-24sec for Focus Chi recharge?

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I can see two good reasons to use it in a BU-ish power.

1) The player has no other powers that it can be slotted into. In my case, I have it slotted into TT:L for my widow. I have another set in BU. They might not have any other ToHit powers.

2) Gives more control over when it goes off. Maybe it triggers less often, but at least you know when it's going to trigger. Instead of being totally random and maybe happening every 10 seconds, but usually 99% of that time being at an inconvenient time, you know that if it DOES go off, it's right when you hit BU.

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Is it some sort of prerequisite that the people with the plainest and or unassuming costumes be the judges of a costume contest?

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Are you saying you don't like my Widow's outfit? =p

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Either way, how I built the character would not change the fact that the Defender has less than half of the health, damage and defense of the Scrapper.

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If the only possible thing you could do in this game was solo, you would be right. But you're still comparing a character who is designed to solo to one who is designed to team, comparing them in a solo situation, and using that as evidence that Defenders are bad.

Doing damage and surviving damage are not the only two roles in this game. If they were, the only ATs would be Blasters and Tanks. And maybe Scrappers since they do some of both. The other role that you're COMPLETELY ignoring is the role of buffer/debuffer. Scrappers don't do this hardly at all (some do on lower levels, like with Dark's -ACC or Shield's +DEF). This is something Scrappers CAN'T DO and can't compete with Defenders on. Maybe they have higher damage and self-defense, but when was the last time you saw a Scrapper healing the Tank, shielding the Controller, or damage-buffing the Blaster?

Being able to do damage and being unkillable of your own accord are not the only two attributes that matter on a character. Defenders have bonuses that Scrappers can never achieve and bring things to a table that in many situations are more important than having a high base damage or having defense. After all, a good Defender or two can turn BLASTERS into characters who are hard to kill, or buff that Scrapper that you're so fond of so he does max damage.

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That is, they do less damage, and they have less ability to survive damage. Since the game amounts to defeating foes with damage before they defeat you, this is the final measure of playability. You have to be able to do damage or survive damage (or both). Many Defenders can't do this adequately.

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You're twisting the truth here. The fact is that it boils down to killing enemies before they kill you. Defenders, however, offer buffs and debuffs that can make teams do more damage than Scrappers, and be more durable than Scrappers. Why then would they be less useful than a Scrapper? A Defender can turn a Blaster into a tank, and buff a Tank to be a high damage dealer. What about that makes them weaker than a Scrapper?

Again, you're viewing things in a selfish light. A Scrapper excels at soloing in the way that a Defender excels at teaming. There are exceptions to both, but in general, that's how it goes. If you completely ignore the teaming situation, then you are right. But you can't do that and still get the whole picture. What a Defender offers a team, a Scrapper can never do.

You're ignoring part of the picture, and only showing parts where Scrappers excel. You're COMPLETELY ignoring the fact that Defenders can buff themselves and other players, and using the fact that Scrappers have higher stats as proof that Defenders are weaker in every possible way. It's simply not true.

In a word, "poorly."

I only have it slotted because of the defense bonus that the set offers. Otherwise it's infrequent enough and short enough that I can never rely on it to go off when I want it to. If it does actually go off in combat, I don't even notice it.

I only like it ironically.

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I compared the stats of a Defender and a Scrapper

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The first and most obvious flaw I see with that is Scrappers are self-contained units, meant to be solo-friendly and not need outside assistance. They have high damage and high defense, but generally bring nothing to a team to help the other players.

Defenders have low damage and low PERSONAL defense (with exceptions), but bring a lot to the table and help other people on the team. A Scrapper's defense is personal, while a Defender's is outward-reaching. Maybe a Defender can't Heal Other themselves, but that doesn't mean they don't offer any defense.

This thread, however, is comparing two team-oriented units, not one solo unit to a team unit.

Natural: Backpacks, sheaths, and other back options.

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Wow, I hate Grandville. It's so vertical that it basically requires some sort of flight power.

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If only there was someone in Grandville that sold a flying travel power for pocket change...

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There is. But for one it's kind of lame to invalidate other travel powers (although 99% of my characters go Fly or SJ), and that doesn't work with all the Ouroboros restrictions.

I've never really liked PvP, because of the people. If they win, they insult you. If they lose, they insult you. Whatever you're doing is always lame, cheap, cheating, or something wrong. If you lose, you're the worst player ever and should be made fun of. If you win, you obviously did something to hack the game.

This observation has stuck with me and proved true ever since my first PvP experience in another game, where my character who could learn Heal as low as level 2 (of 100) was considered a cheater. When I'd ask the opponents not to use their defensive powers or wear armor, of course that was an outrageous request and I was stupid for asking.

So yes, how dare that Mastermind hide behind his robots! What a cheater! =p

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Grandville: Just awesome in every way - jaw dropping visuals, great music, non-stop spider smashing action as you explore and some very cool story arcs. Then there's the Fab. I love to take Nightshade up there to see how far I can push her performance. I'm really looking forward to taking a brute in there

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Wow, I hate Grandville. It's so vertical that it basically requires some sort of flight power. I've even had trouble getting around it at times with SJ. I made the mistake once of trying to do an arc there in Ouroboros with no travel powers restriction, and it took me 10 minutes to figure out how to get up to where the mission was.

Besides being annoyingly vertical, it's positively overrun by enemies who throw web grenades at you, so at any given time while you're traveling to the next mission that's 700 yards in the air, you'll get grounded by a grenade and possibly land right in a nest of Bane Spiders.

Why are you asking me?

Oh, disparity. Nevermind!

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ok.. so now thats it out and pple have it. What does everyone think about it????

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I had basically 0 characters who could utilize any of the tools with the new pack. I had one character who I slightly tweaked height with, but nothing much else. None of the costume parts go with my current costumes and I have no characters who needed to be able to change height/gender. I did make a chibi version of one of my characters, but only because I could.

However, like the Cyborg pack, even though I have no immediate uses for it, I may be able to use things in the future. For instance, I now know I can make a character who changes height/size for future reference. Also, some of the masks may go good with future outfits.

Boomtown, Striga, Dark Astoria. No reason to go to any of those zones, ever. Hollows sort of has a reason now even though I still skip it. Faultline is better.

Cim only makes it because of the ITF. If it didn't have that, nobody would go there ever.

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Also, if you look at defender blast sets, the one thing they all have in common is they have a secondary debuff effect of some kind. To-hit debuff, knockback, slow, -res, -def, -recharge. Assault Rifle has a -def component.

Fire has no such secondary effect.

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Um.

AR only has -DEF in one power. In fact, it has more knockback effects than anything else.

Burst: -DEF
Slug: Knockback
Buckshot: Knockback
M30 Grenade: Knockback
Beanbag: Stun
Sniper Rifle: Knockback
Flamethrower: DoT
Ignite: DoT
Full Auto: None

Fire does have a secondary effect. DoT damage. It may not be as useful as the other ones, or modified by the Defender numbers, but for people who just want more damage, they could go Fire.

Look at Archery. Its bonuses are accuracy and endurance reduction. Those things aren't different because of Defender modifiers. But Defenders still have it. It has no more of a debuff secondary effect than Fire does.