Fulmens
-
Posts
5168 -
Joined
-
Quote:... Can we start collecting licensing fees from people like that, now? Because our economy could use the boost.Originally Posted by Rajani Isa
Are you sure you are not American? that last line sounds very (unfortunetly) American-ish.
I hate LOTS of things I've never tried! USA! USA! USA! -
Quote:I agree with this. And it does make balance hard: how do you rate VS against Blaze? How much better is a ranged nuke, and does that make up for a 3-second-animating PBAOE instead of a cone? (Three seconds, seriously... grr.)
On the face of it, Elec/ is a quirky set, designed to be quirky, designed to feel quirky.
It isn't that Elec gives you something you can't get elsewhere; it gives you three or four things you can't get elsewhere. It's not rain on your wedding day; it's rain of FROGS on your wedding day.
OK, maybe other people don't want to see a rain of frogs as much as I do, but that just makes the metaphor stronger. I think. I'll shut up now. -
I'd like to beat my personal dead horse, "Build are not cheap."
Frankenslotting is not actually cheaper than SO's, but it is certainly in the same neighborhood. And while you can make a Tank a lot more "Something" for a lot of money (faster, stronger, tougher, whatever you want) you can make a tank pretty "something" with cheap sets.
For instance, slotting Knockout Blow... you might want a build with 170% permanent recharge [permahasten] and KO blow up every 10 seconds. You might even be able to do that before level 50 and for under ten billion inf, I don't know the state of the high-end game.
But for a couple million, you can slot this with five level 34's:
Focused Smite Acc/Dam/Rech, Dam/Rech
Smashing Haymaker Dam/End/Rech, Acc/Dam, Dam/Rech
That's 95% damage, 41% acc, 82% rech and 23% end reduction in five slots - just about 7 SO's worth of bonus and you can keep that from level 31 on. Up every 15 seconds. If you can afford a Crushing Impact Dam/End/Rech instead of a Dam/Rech, haven't priced those lately, you're at 77%-ish recharge and 40% end reduction. -
If only someone had ever brought this to their attention on the forums!
-
Quote:Here's how I think of it:
How much defense/resistance should I be aiming for? What's a decent recharge rate?
45% Defense: Ten times 'totally squishy' level . At this level you are in fact quite tough.
40% Defense: Five times 'totally squishy' level. You can probably run up on some pretty burly guys; I used to figure a level 35 Scrapper was about six times as tough as a level 35 Blaster, back in about Issue 8 where there were no IO's. Mez is a real problem, though, as you don't have the "can't mez what you can't hit" protection[sic] that 45% gives you.
32.5%: About three times 'totally squishy' level, but you can get to the 45% cap with one small purple. You should probably act as if you are totally squishy and be pleasantly surprised when you are slightly tougher than that.
25%: Twice 'totally squishy' level. You can cap defense with two small or one large purple inspirations, which are available for a high price, with planning, from Wentworth's. Under 25%: This amount of defense is invisible to Fulmens. Other people may feel differently.
Regen Rates: Each 100% Regen is equivalent to one small green insp every minute. You get 100% for being alive, about 75% for slotting Health with three SO's, and if you pour on the +Regen and spend half a billion, MAYBE you get another 150% from IO's.
Resistance: 50% = half damage, 75% = 1/4 damage, you can't go over 75% and I don't notice anything under 50%. You very likely only have significant access to resistance to about three types, from level 47 on.
Don't overlook +HP; mostly they come from accolades and Blasters cap at something odd like +30%, but if you have more than one type of protection, they multiply together. (40% Defense is five times as tough; 40% Def with 120% HP is six times as tough. You have six times as long for your extra Regen to work.)
I tend to accent the big explosions, which (to repeat myself) are a 100% debuff when done right. -
My wife and I built a midlevel arc (Big Ideas, by @Amazing Amazon, if you care) to try and do something about the "No #$%ing content V-side!" problem. Unfortunately, the AE is clogged to the point that people don't even look there.
-
I didn't know if there were people somehow still on 8 slots per server.
-
I burnt a billion inf on market fees, took an action series of screenshots and they didn't throw me out.
So if you list ten Luck Charms for 2 billion each, you've got a lifetime membership too. -
Ever since I listed something for 26 million and got 40 million? Me.
-
I don't know if VS actually uses "pet aggro rules" (attack things that are non-aggroed and not mezzed, far as I can tell) but it seems like its attacks are WORSE than average. Having said that, I agree that it is a good hitter for the hard targets.
Whomever saidQuote:I find this only true if you neglect your secondary attacks. I am willing to get into melee range to do that kind of damage, so I don't have your problem.To me the main difference is the attack chain which pretty much requires you to wait. -
First: I love Fire/Elec. I play mine in and out of melee- range for the fireball/firebreath combo, run in and throw a Havoc Punch/Charged Brawl combo, run back out and toss Blaze on the way... it's not a safe lifestyle but, as has been said so often on this forum, death is a 100% debuff.
I'd move Aim and Build Up earlier on the list. If this means you have to take Stamina at 22 or 24... I'd be willing to make that sacrifice. I've actually done so in the past.
Aim _or_ Build Up plus Fireball/Firebreath basically eliminates all the minions in a +1 spawn. Nothing is worse for a Blaster than a large spawn of guys with one hit point left, all mad at YOU. Aim/BU fixes that problem. If you're not using those powers you're not getting the full Blaster experience. (AR and Dev players: I've had this argument before, and I stand by my statement.)
I'd also find a way to put Inferno into your build. Sometimes you have more than ten guys that you need to drop all at the same time. Sometimes you have twenty. I was thinking of respeccing out of Inferno once, and then I had one of those days where you open a door in a Crey lab and three spawns of guys in power armor look back at you.
... I kept Inferno. -
Welcome to the game. I'm going to give you the Defender speech.
Unlike most MMO's, "pure healing" is not the best way to protect your team. The standard example I use is a Force Field defender. Most people find it really boring to play, but it can make your Blasters (for instance) ten times harder to kill. That is roughly the equivalent of healing them for ten times their entire HP bar, every fight.
At that point your team is basically limited by how fast they can output damage.
Now different Defenders do different things- Kinetics gives the team a lot more speed and endurance and damage, but not very much extra survivability. And the playstyle is totally different from Force Fields. But Rad is also totally different from both of those, and Empathy is different, and Storm doesn't play like anything else in the game.
If in doubt, it's hard to go wrong with a Rad/Sonic. -
What's a nightmare depends on what you like doing. Farming isn't my thing. These days it doesn't bother anyone else so it doesn't bother me. On the other hand I have the "selling 7000+ items" badges on a couple of characters that aren't badgers. I don't know how you convert tickets into money: if you have a lot of free market slots you could do both, but if you are selling a lot of relatively low-inf items you are probably keeping all your market slots full.
The idea on flipping is that you're going for, making up the numbers, Level 50 Thunderstrike Acc/Dam and Acc/Dam/Rech recipes. You have 10 bids up at 1 million and 10 for sale at 3 million. People who are selling in a hurry sell to you for a million; people who are buying in a hurry buy from you at 3 million. If the niche works perfectly (you fill all your orders and sell all your recipes) once per day, you make 40 million a day, using 4 slots, for about 5 minutes a day of work.
I've rarely done any successful flipping. I'm a buy/craft/sell guy -working in the low end of the market, like Minotaur- and I've made a few billion that way, but learning it is a lot of work. -
You don't need to play Empaths. I put in my hours, got a couple up to the 30's, then stopped.
... having said that, CM is very slow for a reactive power, kind of annoying for an active one, and often not needed. I play like I don't have CM on me, and many experienced players do as well. It's good to have for emergencies, like Master illusionists and Malta everything.
But volunteering to CM the entire party, all the time, and then complaining about it just makes me say "Play something else. You've got at least seven other slots per server, use them." -
I wanna do the Coralax shuffle, too!
-
I like DA. But it's an end hog.
You have about as much END cost from your pure protection toggles as other sets. I am not going to talk about Cloak of Fear because I don't take it, and I don't think you need it, so it's an irrelevant end hog. And Op. Gloom is a bargain.
That leaves you with both a damage aura and a giant effect/giant cost heal. The damage aura hurts your END because it's like having an AOE attack on auto... except that you can use other attacks at the same time for double the END cost. The heal, while worth it, is indeed an enormous END cost. 3-slotted for END reduction it still costs more endurance than any attack Scrapper get except Fire Sword Circle. I think that's a bargain for 90% (depending on how you do playing chicken with your health bar) of your HP but it's not something to hit casually.
I'll admit that I generally run Tough and Weave, but seriously? Dark is an end hog. -
Quote:Thunderstrike _is_ very nice. Red Fortune is awfully nice, too: +Recharge and +Ranged Defense.
Thunderstrike is the greatest set on earth, IMHO.
WARNING: you can only have five "2.5% energy" Ranged Defense and both Thunderstrike and Red F give you that bonus.
I basically decided to go with Ranged and some AOE (this was early in the Invention System, before Eradication or Blessing of the Zephyr or purples or whatever) for my build; I've been told that I'm NOT the only person to 5-slot Ruin for the AOE defense, but I'm not sure I believe it.
I tried a "high HP/regen" build on a FF defender once, and it didn't do much to keep me alive. High ranged/AOE defense works very, very much better.
As far as powers to love and hate: I've got a miniguide to FF. Philotic Knight (going by Westley, last I paid attention) has a classic guide that I disagree with on many points.
I don't like Force Bubble OR Repulsion Field, but I think even people who love knockback/repel generally recommend picking one or the other. Repulsion Bomb is nice- it's decent damage for Defender AOE, and one of the few direct damage powers a Defender Primary gives you. I have found, personally, very few times when Detention Field was the right answer for anything. Might be just my playstyle. Force Bolt is handy for selecting your aggro precisely, and the three bubbles are absolutely crucial.
Oh, and Dr. Mike's idea on the "Chance to Hold" Devastation procs? Will totally change the way your Defender plays. I had them in Neutrino Bolt and X-Ray Vision and I occasionally held bosses. By accident. If you want to throw a lot of holds around, it's good fun. -
Everyone's pretty much right here. The one time I did a combined build (dark/traps corr) I assumed a +3 enemy, so I counted my debuffs at 64%. I also didn't worry too much about misses, because I only missed a few people, with the rest being pretty much floored to hit. If you're fighting something so deadly you need the entire spawn floored-to-hit, you're way over your head and there's going to be a lucky doubletap someday ANYWAY.
-
Obviously the solution is to list another 700 common salvage! Choke, flippers, choke!
ETA: The way I did this sort of thing, the time I did it, was to put one level range in the vault and keep the other two on my person, and when I filled up my own storage I went and put it into Wents (or the BM), but not for sale. If it's oversupplied, toss it out. I think I ended up with about 15 "stacks" going- when they got to or near 10, I listed them for sale. It's not a perfect way to handle salvage, because you don't have enough different slots to store everything, but it seemed to cut my trips from the base to Wents significantly. -
I'm going to try to edit most of the snark out:
1) It used to have a 30 second duration.
2) As mentioned, many people don't need it, and some missions you don't need it much at all.
3) Someone mentioned "reactive CM" for Freakshow. Sleeps (which most Freaks and Clockwork use) can be broken with a heal.
4) If you want to never stress about your teammates getting mezzed, consider Force Fields. Dispersion Bubble gives mez protection [except sleep, I'll admit] and is a toggle. You should still put the little bubbles on your teammates, or I'll cut you out of the will, but that's once per four minutes, rather than once per 90 seconds, and the benefits are dramatic. -
Quote:I think the issue is that for every new power there's something like 80 animations. (Male, Huge, Female ) times (flying, standing, getting up) at least- there's probably a couple of other dimensions I'm missing. Back Alley Brawler went through it once on the forums, sometime in the last three years.
or more of a focus on unlockable customization (how about a crossbow?)
And a powerset has nine powers. Even if one is "taunt" and one is "build up" it's still a lot of work. And there's always freakish issues like people trying to use Dual Blades with the pirate hook hand or whatever.
I don't think they mind putting the work in, but they want to get more out of it than "6% of the population can/will use it"- think Dual Blades or Shields, where they gave it out on both sides to everyone. -
Quote:First: EVERYTHING villainside sucks until you get to about level 20. I've deleted or abandoned about six brutes in the teens, three or four corruptors as well.
fm/da, sm/invun, electric/energy aura, claws/wp, dm/sr
Second: A lot of Brute sets are slow starters. I can only personally comment on Elec and Fire primaries on brutes- Elec felt weak and annoying until level 33, after which I loved, loved, loved it. Fire is a good primary- and invuln and willpower as secondaries. Willpower is a very very good brute secondary. Invuln is slow-starting, again, and (redside) there's a lot of enemies that rip you apart.
Theorycrafting, Dark Armor is good for anything BUT a brute (brutes are end-starved at all times and Dark Armor is the world's worst end hog), and Super Reflexes is going to suck before SO's.
So you've got a lot of slow starters in that batch, AND you've got the villain "slow starter" feel in general. AND you've got the lowbie Brute problem in general: by the time you've cooked up a decent batch of Fury you're practically out of endurance.
What can you do to get to the levels where you are a glorious monster of death?
1) Slot End Red in your attacks. One EndRed before any Damage.
2) IO out early and often- level 20 IO's are significantly better than DO's, you can slot two acc/dam IO's to get even better results, you may even be able to pick up a little bit of Recovery or some cheap extra EndRed.
3) Willpower secondary. I told a friend "Axe/Will" once, when she was bored and looking for an alt, and the next day she was like "I love it! I've been playing her for six hours!" I can't guarantee it will work for YOU but it's a nice combo. -
By the way, sorry I've been inactive on MLC lately. I just started grad school. And I'm weak and stupid.
-
Normally living in New Jersey is just another suburban experience, but occasionally you overhear things like this:
"F*** you."
"No, F*** YOU!"
... which leads me to my next point of debate:
No, F*** you.
I believe that covers all your arguments.
Now I'm going back to nominating Neutron Bomb for Biggest Anticlimax Of The Game. I know at least two other people who said "THIS was so good I had to wait 34 levels for it?" -
So you're thinking they have, like,
LoTG: 7.5%
LoTG: 7.5%
LoTG: 7.5%
LoTG: 7.5%
LoTG: 7.5%
in the table? Seems odd to me... I suspect they picked integer weights because that keeps them from going crazy with overly fine tuning. "Yeah, we want a few more of these" means a 4, "We want a WHOLE LOT of these" is a 5, "nobody in the world wants that" means a 1. As opposed to making it "50" vs "52" vs "49."