Fulmens
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Posts
5168 -
Joined
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I'm thinking of taking my two-billion-inf Luck Charms down and distributing them to the poor.
Should I? -
Nother cuppa?
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Oh dear, lost my chance to talk about real-life rich people. Nobody in this game makes their money the old-fashioned way (marry or inherit.)
My last quarter-billion was acheived by the brilliant scam of getting to level 33 with about 240 merits, rolling twelve times, and selling the two LoTGs and one Numina (and a few other things) for market price. -
I've been here since nearly the beginning. My first 50, my "main" and source of my global, was Boltcutter (BS/Inv.) I put Bolt on the shelf in issue 5/6, and he sits on the porch and tells boring stories about when he was out heroing and we beat up two, three hundred guys at a time. +4 wasn't nothin'. I tell you kids... you're soft. Blah blah blah.
I've got about 50 or so guys, mostly heroes. Victory, Infinity and Pinnacle are full, with a few on other servers.
For tough stuff, I still bring out my Force Fielders (S-Orbital , FF/Elec, and Deterrence, FF/Rad) but there's not as much call for them as there used to be. Mostly I play "whoever's next"- these days that's Platypiel on Mondays (L29 Fire/Rad corr), and Last Call VLV Tues and Thursday (L36 sonic/dark, because everyone in Viva Las Vegas built a blaster at the same time and the ones who didn't are unanimously Defense based.) I also have a couple others- Orbital Bombardment, who's a 40-ish Dark/En tank, a rad/sonic defender, a Fire/Ice blaster named Bobbi Frost- getting worked up there.
My favorite build... hard to say. The ones that get played after 50 are few and far between. Two fire blasters, my "this is going to be hard, you say? Nu-uh!" Force Field defenders, and an Elec/Inv brute (who normally plays with a Kinetic corruptor... kaboom! kaboom! kaboom!) are the ones that get pulled out most.
What I'd RECOMMEND depends on how and with whom you play. Rad/Sonic defender, or sonic/rad corr, really is very good at almost everything. If you love the explosions and don't mind the rough learning curve, fireblasters. That Sonic/Dark really makes the rest of the team look AMAZING. Force Field defenders are the most benefit for least work of anything, anywhere. Elec/* brutes are slow starters but at 32 they become appalling and delightful. And so on.
The only one who knows what you'll like is you. -
One rad/sonic and a MA/SR scrapper can take every AV in faultline. (Yeah, we did that.) They're "relatively easy" AV's, as befits players with about half their big hitters.
For a serious 4-person team, there are about two issues.
One is "AVs" and the other is "Everything else."
AV's are hard to effectively debuff, which is the only real reason I split them out.
Right now I'm running one (1) Sonic/Dark defender and I'm pretty sure that two of 'em could cap RES and floor ToHit... except for the pesky debuff resistance.
How 'bout four Emp/Sonics? With the Fortitude and the Maneuvers, that's capped on Defense. Regen is at silly high levels. Come 32, you get perma-AB; come 38, you can nuke without losing endurance. Extra damage comes from 4 sets of sonics plus 4 Assaults plus 3 Forts each. That's something like +150% damage (getting you to Blaster-like numbers) before applying the tremendous Resist Debuff effects.
While taking the entire Leadership pool instead of Stamina sounds attractive, I'm not sure if Vengeance is worth it... -
Yeah, Dumple, but I offer an extortionate rate! Can you say the same?
(... OP is looking for 4-6 billion, I may still get my pound of flesh...) -
Lemme try it.
*shakes*
INFINITY!!!!
Yes! -
Lemme look around and see what I can find ... 1 billion gets you 800M and I'm very unlikely to do more than a billion.
EDIT: I got influence on Virtue. @Boltcutter in game- what's your global? and what's a good time for you? -
I get to 50 the same way I get to 32, mostly... playing with friends.
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I took a quick look at a couple of my "old standards" (Numina level 50 healing for instance) and they still seemed to have a 5-10 million inf profit margin. This was heroside.
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There is a complex set of mechanics behind "To Hit" and "Accuracy."
To oversimplify only a little, as my high school physics teacher used to say, you have (Base To Hit + To Hit Bonus - Defense) * (1.0 +Accuracy) .
Base To Hit starts at 75% and goes down against higher level enemies.
Against an even-con enemy, with no Defense, 33% Accuracy ("one standard SO") makes the formula 75% * 1.33, or just about 100%. You always miss 5% of the time, you always hit 5% of the time. (Like I said, I oversimplified...)
I think against a +3 enemy your Base To Hit is about 56%. Don't quote me on that, I could be wrong. The same 33% Accuracy would put you up to only a 74.5% final chance of hitting.
Adding a 10% To Hit bonus turns that 75% into an 85% in the first case, and the 56% into a 66% in the second case. -
Quote:...if you don't have any defense, or resistance, yes.
There is one in the pvp set Shield Wall but it's merely 3% resist to all-- which is the equivalent of 1.5% defense to all.
I'd be tempted by the 3% RES on a few characters (my Dark/En tank, for instance). Maybe I should see if PVP prices are still making headlines in the market channel.
Edit: oh yes. Yes they are. -
Every once in a while ya screw up and eat a big chunk of inf. At least I do.
Hopefully you have enough other schemes going that one big ouch won't wipe you out. -
Personally, it depends on whether I'm struggling or not.
My Dark/Energy tank (the black hole of endurance), I was IO'ing out at SEVENTEEN. I think I played the market to get a Miracle +Recovery after admitting that I couldn't just frankenslot my way to "enough End Reduction". It was a hard lesson and I still feel like I should have been able to work around it.
Normally I go SO's at 22, with maybe some Acc/Dam pairs (or Res/End or Def/End pairs) and frankenslot around 32. Around 43 I get bored and rich, and put in shiny things with nice set bonuses.
... I do get one Acc set bonus at level 32-ish, maybe two, because that gets me from "around 40% Acc" to "around 50%" which is enough for me. -
Buy for 36 million, craft, sell for 50? What _are_ the current prices for Impervium Armor: Resistances and LoTG: Defense?
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Uhh, you could try "Big Ideas", by @Amazing Amazon. Tell us if you find any problems.
Or you could try a sonic/dark defender. I've got one and it's an interesting challenge, since my SG has gotten way too used to having a force fielder or dark or something and have therefore decided to roll all blasters and play like they can't die. -
OK, I'm a little out of practice on this but I'll give it a shot.
For the smash/lethal, the "chance to be hit by even minion" is 50-Defense. I don't know the proper term of art any more, "base to-hit" maybe?
So 11.4% for S/L and 15.7% for Fire.
(This number can never go below 5%. )
This then gets multiplied by an "accuracy term" having to do with level and rank. +4s are something like ... hell, gotta check the Arcanaville guide.
Ah. +4's get a 1.4 multiplier. Minions get a 1.0, lieuts get a 1.15 and bosses get 1.3 . \
So a +4 smash/lethal minion would have (11.4% * 1.4) or ... umm, 16% ish. A +4 fire boss would have (15.7% * 1.4 * 1.3).
/em takes off shoes to count
27%-ish chance to hit you.
It is worth noting that a single small purple drops the base to-hit to the 5% floor, leaving you with roughly 7% and 9% respectively.
Enjoy! -
So when's the drawing?
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/em clap
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Donna: Three possibilities.
1) Lie to yourself. Pretend that you're buying a handgun in the Texas. You CAN get anything you want, but you have to wait 3 days. ("But I'm mad NOW!" -H. Simpson)
2) Figure out what you're going to want in advance- "By this weekend i'll be level 42, I will need the following things" and then put your bids up early. I know you have limited market slots. You can BUY IT NAO for the salvage, that won't hurt you too badly...
3) Make it a race between your ability to get the inf for BUY IT NAO and the market's ability to fill your reasonable order.
Nemesis Prime: Similar advice. I have started "I want to BUY IT NAO" threads on the market, for things that just weren't available, offering princely sums. I figured the price in merits, at something like 400,000 inf/merit, and offered that and someone I'd never seen before helped me out. Twice, actually. -
Quote:... yeah, because there is no difference between "any blasters on a team" and "all blasters on a team."
But however you care to draw comparisons, who'd ever consider doing an All-Blaster ITF or LGTF? Yet they're readily achievable with an all melee team or an all defender or dom or VEAT teams and that, I'd venture to say, is the acid test of a blaster's worth.
Sadly as the game stands, a blaster is one of the last ATs you'd want on your team of heavy hitters and that is a crying shame.
Wait, what? -
Quote:... And they pay for it with mediocre damage output.Originally Posted by MrQuizzles
It's annoying is what it is. It's what the devs thought was "challenging" for a long time, and that's pretty much why tankers and scrappers find everything so easy: Things that were supposed to be "challenging" don't affect them one bit. -
I love the e e cummings style of your posts. Normally that kind of thing annoys me greatly, but you do it well and it does not interfere with readability for me.
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did
I'm going to talk about game mechanics a little bit here. Because that's the question behind the question.
First : survivability. This is a game where getting near the cap in Resistance or Defense (or the equivalent in ToHit debuffs) gets you a LOT more than being sort of in the middle. If you have 45% Defense, the last 5% of Defense gets you as far as the first 40% (in almost all situations.) More Details.
Second: the purple patch. Anything +1 to your level gets 10% more damage and you do 90% damage to it, as well as you having a reduced base chance to hit and it having an increased chance to hit. +2 is 80% damage. Seems reasonable, but +3 is 64%, +4 is 48% and +5 is 30% (!!!). The "increased chance for enemies to hit" is usually only relevant if you're trying very tough targets- AV's will often be capable of 2-shotting squishies.
Third: additive and multiplicative effects. If you debuff something's damage resistance, that effectively multiplies ALL damage done to it by ANYONE. If you add damage to someone, you will get less. Most people, for most of the game, have 195% "base" damage due to their enhancements. So +100% damage brings you from about 200 to about 300- not the "double damage" you might expect. A 100% resistance debuff will bring you from 200 to 400, and will work for EVERYONE ELSE ON YOUR TEAM ATTACKING THAT TARGET.
Fourth: some caps.
Softcap for Defense= 45%. Sometimes more is useful, but not very often.
Caps for Resistance= 75% (most guys), 85% (Kheldians), 90% (Tanks and Brutes).
Caps for Damage = 400% (most people), 500% (Scrappers, Blasters, Stalkers, possible others) and 850% (Brutes). Only in certain circumstances do you get close to the cap, and in the 5 years since City of Villains started, I've only been on a damage-capped Brute twice. It was great.
ED softcaps: 95% for most things, 57% for a few (defense, etc.)
Let me give an example:
A Rad/Sonic debuffs enemy To Hit by hanging Radiation Infection (a toggle) on a +2 enemy boss. Out of the box, that's a 31.25% To Hit debuff, as well as some semi-irrelevant to hit buffs for the good guys. With 57% enhancement (limited by ED) that's a 49% To Hit debuff- meaning the boss would be at the "To Hit" floor . However, against a +2 enemy (due to the purple patch) that is only a 39% To Hit debuff. Instead of 5% of the Base To Hit being unresisted (so around 7.5% of actual attacks landing) 11% is (so around 16.5% of actual attacks landing.)
If the team is small and the fight goes on a little while, the Rad throws down Enervating Field on the same boss. 25% Damage Debuff, times .8, means the boss is doing 80% damage to you; 30% Resistance Debuff, times .8, means everyone is doing 22.5% more damage to him. (numbers found [url=http://coh.redtomax.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Defender_Buff.Radiation_Emission.Ener vating__Field]here.[/url)
So, you may say, that's pretty good. 5 outta 6 of their attacks miss, your team is doing almost a quarter more damage, he's doing almost a quarter less damage, and the same for anyone in a radius of this boss. What else you got?
Sonic Blasts. Defenders get about -20% (or -16% against our +2 friend) Res Debuff for each one that lands, and with a good attack chain you can have about three of those stacked. So that's another 48% of TOTAL damage .
And then you have the other defensive and offensive tools- the slows, stuns, sleeps, direct damage and endurance buffs. It's pretty good. And, yeah, you can team with seven others of them.
... but people have already mentioned a powerset or two that's probably better. -
Quote:Either you are just complaining to exercise your lungs, or you are willing to go slightly out of your way to get purples (plural.)Originally Posted by BloodFairy
the prices on these are too high. WAY too high. 200-300-350-450+ mil? Get real whoever is pricing these.
I have like 14 50s, none of them are fully set up with anything. I've only seen one purple recipe drop and I've been playing since the beginning, and a couple of the other sets. I don't have time to farm and give up my hobbies like sleeping and eating to play all the time, and never will. Where's the "balance" for this , huh?
I'm going to assume that you actually want purples, and you're willing to put twenty hours of your life into getting a few sets. Considering how much you play, twenty hours isn't much. So you're mostly going to have to buy them in that time frame (in twenty hours,as you know, you will maybe see ONE purple drop.) So you're going to have to make money in the market. Here's how to start.
Look at a set you DO have slotted that you like. I'm going to say Positron's Blast and then I'm going to look up the numbers. Now look at the raw cost of the recipes FOR THE TOP LEVEL, and the cost for the ingredients. Some of them won't make you any profit, but some of them may. When you do this, don't use positron's blast because I'm shining a spotlight on it RIGHT NOW. If you need ideas: Red Fortune, Aegis, Luck of the Gambler (NOT the global recharge), Numina's (NOT the unique), Impervium Armor at level 40, and so forth. Pick a set, one set.
The first time you do this it will probably take you a half hour.
Setting level range to 50-50, "all" ...
Positron's Blast Acc/Dam, 5 million for the recipe, one Prophecy (1 million), half a million for crafting, it's going to cost you between 6.5 and, say, 7 million to craft this. Wents takes 10% so if you sell for less than 7.77 million you're losing money.
Posi, Acc/Dam crafted, selling for 5 million. Obviously, no money in that.
Acc/dam/end, prices are all over the place for both the recipe and the crafted. There's money in there, but not guaranteed money.
Posi Dam/End, 1.6 million for the recipe, 9-10 million for the crafted. Looks pretty good. You could pay 2 million for the recipe, sell for 8 million and still make around 4-5 million no matter WHAT kinda crazy prices you pay for salvage. And if you put it up for 8.1 million, you will still get paid 9 or 10. Lil' secret for you there.
So you put up bids for two Dam/End at 2 or 2.1 million, you put up bids for two Chronal Skips at 1.2 million ("last five" are 2million, but you can generally get rare salvage for just about a million unless I16 produces some long-lasting effect) and bids up for the uncommon and common salvage, doesn't matter what you pay.
Then the magic part: Logging off or going to do something else.
When you next log on, you should have most if not all of your ingredients. I recommend starting about three different projects in case they don't all work.
Craft them, list BELOW market price (so if it's selling for 10 million, list for 7.1 or 8.1) and go find another niche. Ten of the same thing is a great way to clog the market, clog your market slots and get frustrated. Repeating yourself too much is a good way to let Darwin have a shot at your non-evolving financial schemes.
So that's eventually 8 million profit. If they don't sell over the next couple days, leave them over the weekend. If they don't sell over the weekend (let's say someone blabs your secret niche all over the market forum) CONSIDER repricing them, breaking even, and selling something else.
Note that you are paying MORE than market rates for the recipes, and selling for LESS Than market rates on the crafted. You should be moving stuff rapidly.
Once you've done this on about ten things, made fifty million or so, you should be comfortable enough to go on to other things. Bigger things.
For instance, you can often with patience buy a purple for- I've only done this a couple times, it stresses my nerves- 180 million and sell it for 260 million to someone with less patience than you. I don't know what current purple prices are, exactly, but if you do that, you lose 26 million to market fees, 600K to crafting costs, 2.4 million or so to salvage and clear somewhere around 49 million profit.
If you don't want to go out of your way to get purples, you will lose out to the people who want them more than you do. -
This is a neat trick for the early days of making inf on a given character.
I remember when 100 million was an unbelievably large amount of inf...