Fulmens

I had a pretty good group last night.

Which was weird, because it was a Hollows group and it was doing classic "newb tricks" like leading with the fireball and aggroing the second spawn.

But I was a Force Fielder and when I started applying bubbles, people showed up.

And I realized that, basically, as long as everyone's in the fight, nobody's dying too much and everyone's having fun. . .that's good enough.

Front_Loaded: Scrapper Brawl went from 1.0 [tested by me and posted here] to 1.125 [not tested by me] of Blaster Brawl.

Ohms: We've had this discussion. At least three times. For the new guys in the audience, my quick bullet points:[*]"500% of base" happened approximately 1% of the time for Scrappers. [*] We are now 3x as tough, not 18x+ as tough, as Blasters.[*] Burst damage is better than sustainable damage in 80%+ of fights [median length of a fight with a Blaster in it is 7-12 seconds.][*] Scrapper ranged attacks are slow, infrequent, and rare.

I think that just about covers my side of the argument.

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with so many experts floating around the internets, how the heck does it hold together under so much inflating ego?

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It was , quite literally, designed to cope with nuclear war.

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No no. Teach them with tough love. Teams that are scattered all over hell and creation don't GET reshielded. If you make a decision to run off on your own away from the main group, guess what? You're on your own.


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Oh, f'gawd's sake, they were level FIFTEEN and shiny-new. They had enough trouble figuring out where they were, what they were doing, and why they had Spontaneous Cases of Death [tm] all over the place, without me torturing them for a lesson they weren't ready for.

Here's something for the experienced people: When you're with a severe newb, start with the basics. Show them ONE tactic, explain it, and use it. Don't go for some sort of NFL "And then you fade back and I grab the aggro, the Blaster comes straight up the middle and BU/Aim/Fb/Fb, six points" maneuver when they don't even know what their attacks do yet.

We were all level ten for the first time, once.

So many QoL changes. . . I'd forgotten some of them. I don't miss "screw up a power choice, live with it forever". I don't miss trading influence 9,999 at a time. I don't miss "all missions are Heroic missions, and the mission bonus is pathetic." I don't miss "Teleport with velocity".

. . .In a "much less lifechanging" category, Damage Resistance insps were suggested repeatedly on the boards before being implemented.

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I want to be the best and most useful group member i can be and don't care about damage.

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Sounds to me like you might want a Controller . Defenders have Blasts for a reason.

The different Defender sets do very different things, and play in very different ways. One thing none of them are is "Healers" in the sense that other games have. Even Empathy, the closest to a "Healer", gets very powerful buffs in the second half of the game. Any Defender that advertises "Can rez" is planning to lose.

* Kinetics make the team into an offensive juggernaut. More damage, more endurance, more speed, more power. Especially good with: melee.
* Empaths have heals, anti-mezzing, and some of the most powerful buffs in the game. (Regen Aura = 0 to full health in, what, 24 seconds?!?)
* Force Fields: One of the most limited sets. You JUST keep people from getting hit. You can't do anything to save them in the middle of the fight either. . . but you generally won't need to. I play Force Fields because it's "fire and forget."
* Dark: Does nearly everything. Offense, defense, control, healing, etc. etc. Mostly works by weakening enemies.
* Rad: Also does nearly everything, but differently. Weakens enemies and strengthens friends more or less evenly.
* Sonic: Damage resistance plus utility powers.
* Storm: Very powerful, but probably not for beginners.
* Trick Arrow: I'm not very experienced with this set.

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It is pretty obvious to anyone who has played this type of game that the "team based PVP" talk is just a cover-up from a refusal to take the time to balance things.


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Which would you rather have: balance or diversity?

Because you may have to choose.

I miss some of my diversity, while realizing that PvP is the only lab where the playerbase will report overpowered, unbalanced PC tricks. ("Phase shifted controllers? Why didn't I think of that?")

Am I cynical for thinking that, if the clientside tables were used for anything, they'd have been used to cheat by now?

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45% - Floor minion accuracy. +4 minions have a 7% accuracy. Oh noes

52.5% - Floor luts

60% - Floor bosses

70% - Floor AVs (prolly can't hit this without defender help)


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I'm not following your math there, GenericVillain.

I like to think I'm never wrong and the error must be on your part.

Wow, way to bring a thread back from the grave.

3/1/06 minus 7/29/05 = 7 months dead.

This guide dates from before ED . . .before I5 going live. . .it's old info.

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Plus, every other AT would react badly I'm sure if Blasters got even an ounce of mez protection.

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What, even the Khelds?

I wish I could disagree.

Postulate #1: The secondaries are the only powers up for change.
Postulate #2: A small amount of ranged defense somewhere in the secondary is a Good Thing.
Postulate #3: If I can add some "chrome" damage resistance, that is also a Good Thing. Outcast Scorchers have some fire resistance, for instance.
Postulate #4: Keep the changes small.

DEVICES- leave as is, probably. If it needs something, add some [not much-Air Superiority-level?] damage to Taser or some [20%?] damage to Targeting Drone. TD should be higher than Assault, lower than Follow Up [because Follow Up has many constraints.]

ENERGY- leave as is. This is my mental benchmark.

ELECTRIC- not very familiar. Replace Lightning Field with a one-shot version- same animation, same name, PbAoE End drain with minor damage? It's a power worth fixing. It would stack nicely with Short Circuit [although probably not 100% End drain in combination]. Or make Lightning Field have 7.5% ranged Defense and 15% Energy and End Drain resistance.

Fire- the Fire Imp idea is an appealing one. Replace Blazing Aura with something like Smoke Grenade [is this what the Controller "Smoke" power does?] Or give it 7.5% ranged Defense and 15% Fire resistance.

Ice Manip- I can't think of anything to change in this. Chilling Aura already has, apparently, a Damage Debuff effect. It's got a lot of control in it at the end [I have not personally tried this control.]

While I feel most of the "general tanking" guides are obsolete- there are few with "I5" or "I6" listed- I'm not sure that this guide is an adequate replacement. This guide seems to be full of good general and specific advice for a starting tank, and as it is aimed at the pre-SO levels,it is still generally accurate.

I believe the core is considered to be "on your team" and therefore detention field won't work on it. Honestly, with the big +little bubbles on it, I've never seen it get significantly damaged.

It's a great tank, actually, when bubbled.

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Be forewarned: this stuff has been debated to death.


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I may sig this.

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The two most common tohit buffs are build up and Aim, and both are high order tohit buff (Build Up is a 60% tohit buff, and Aim is a 100% tohit buff).

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This is the ONE thing I was really curious about how you got numbers for, and the ONE thing that you didn't mention. . .

I . . .uh. . .provoked a Dark Armor scrapper into trying to tank a whole bunch of Hydra once.

/em hangs head in shame

Six words:
Punk Rock Heavy Metal Villain Kareoke!

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If you haven't done a single one of your missions since your character was created, and you're level 40.


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. .. you might be a force field defender.

My personal suggestion:

When people are scattered all over hell's half-acre, e.g. in the Atta mission, and you are teleporting them back so you can renew their force fields [plus, they're scattered. . . ], PORT THE SIDEKICK FIRST.

Oops.

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that's MY aggro! Mine Mine Mine!

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MY AGGRO!

. . .sorry, reflex.

Every team should have one [1] person whose job it is to pick fights. Not two, not eight, one.

The leader should designate this person.

You might think the #1 criterion for "designated fight starter" is the ability to survive the return fire. That's actually #2.

#1 is, pick the person who's going to start fights anyway. You can either go through a couple of fights-they'll be easy to spot- or ask for volunteers.

You may say, "But what if they're playing a Blaster?" Then so be it. They have free will. It's not your debt. You will do better with everyone following the crazy blaster than you will with everyone following the Granite tank. . .EXCEPT the crazy blaster.

Sorry, I may not have been clear.

Leetspeak is, indeed, extremely old. that just makes it worse, though. . . it's not even a NEW stupid. It's like a bad cover version of "My Generation."

l33tspeak is older than you realize. . .


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B1FF

Jargon File has listed him [and leet/l33t] since, what, 1980-something?

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Just because my information says "looking for any team", my icon still says "not looking for team". I'm not going to change my information box every time I switch between the two. If I'm looking for a group, I'll put myself into "looking for any group" status.


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Of course, some people assume that "looking for team" comment means looking for team. We call those people "literate" and throw rocks at them.

1. Badges are almost entirely chrome- you can put it under your name to show that you did [thing X]. There are a few badges, called "accolades", that give you small small bonuses - generally you get them for getting a bunch of other badges. Some also tell you a little bit about the game world in the flavor text. Some people wear their "1 million damage taken" badges proudly. Some people like to show the perfect badge- a Storm Defender with "Meteorologist", for instance. Some people get the collecting bug and chase them down. I'm not much of a badge person.

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2. Changing your "reputation" actually changes the difficulty of your missions. I can never remember the names of the villain levels, except for Villainous (which I will call level 1).

Levels 1,3, and 5 spawn badguys your level [or -1], level +1/0, and level +2/+1.
Levels 2 and 4 spawn the same level as 1 and 3, but more of them.

Level 1 will, as a special feature, not spawn a Boss in solo play- it will spawn named Lieutenants. This is because some characters can't beat a Boss solo, and nobody should be forced to team to finish their missions.

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3. To get to another island: Open your map [on the navbar in the top middle, or press "M"] when you're outside. There will be various little circles for landmarks. One will say "Port Oakes Ferry" or very similar. You run in the back of the ferry and it takes you to Port Oakes- new map, new contacts, tougher area.

4. If you outlevel a contact, nothing very bad happens. They just pass you on to the next contact. If you finish a story arc [a bunch of related missions from the same contact] you get a special XP bonus. And the story arcs are kinda fun.

Note: If you feel you missed some "tutorial info" you can go back and make another character and go through Breakout and see Kalinda, and get more explanation of things. It may be a little repetitive, but you are allowed 8 or 12 characters per server- you are not locked into one character.