Grey Pilgrim

They have to stop extending these events, pretty soon people are going to expect it to happen. Heh. Thanks for the heads up, Voo.

I'll probably be rolling with my Stalker tonight, about 7-9 PM Central (maybe later as well) if anyone wants to try doing this some redside.

Wait, what AOE proposal is this? I guess I haven't heard of it... but I know I don't want any AOE taken from my Archery, AR, Fire, or Energy Blasters... it's what makes them special.

Anyway, I know what you are saying about hard targets, Sam, but you can solo through most of the game as a Blaster. If I wasn't in the mood, I might dodge Maria Jenkins's Praetorian arc and the Madame of Mystery, but as you have shown, you can defeat EBs as a Blaster. I know my AR/En Blaster has cleared out the Dark Watcher's story arc in the RWZ solo, though Manticore was a bit of a nasty fight with all those Nemesis lieutenants around him buffing him up with Vengeance. Other EBs in game are about the same difficulty or weaker than the Manticore and Positron, and I know my AR/En has mostly soloed his way to 47, without dodging much in the way of fights.

If anything, two bosses is often harder than just an EB for my Blasters. Avoiding melee range with one target is easier than two, as well as the extra hit chances two targets get.

It might also depend on your playstyle. My first blaster at 50 was an Arch/Dev, and he did great as a hover blaster. He used Devices and his archery powers to keep foes out of range or sorry that they got close. He also used Stunning Shot and Taser to keep hovering out of range but also to keep a boss out of a fight.

My AR/En, as described earlier, is much more frenetic. With Combat Jumping + Hurdle + Movement bonuses, he leaps about like crazy, sometimes getting out of range, sometimes getting in close to pound the snot out of a hapless target.

Both approaches can be quite fun, and I enjoyed both immensely. Though some might prefer one over the other. At any rate, have fun!

The only thing I would recommend most is to get Burst, Slug, and Buckshot early on... Buckshot works as an ST attack in a pinch and keeps targets out of close range. I started off with M80, and its recharge is really long, which made my guy feel a little slow at first (you can almost get a ghetto ST chain out of Burst and Slug later on, but it's hard to get that recharge at early levels). Once I picked up Buckshot, I realized how fast, dynamic, and hard-hitting AR could be. Good stuff!

The thing is, TO and DO levels are hardwired into the system. If you get exemped to those ranges, your enhancement percentages take the hit as well. You can be better off depending on how you slotted with IOs, but you're still going to be below SO levels of enhancement.

Nor would such a change be as easy as dropping TOs and DOs. The devs would have to reconsider drop rates, influence rates, etc., as well as balancing out damage somehow so you couldn't drop mobs so easily (if you pay attention to defeats, mob HP stays balanced roughly around the possible damage enhancement for the level range). Or they would scale back the enhancement levels to match those level ranges, as they already do when you exemp down, making the whole change moot.

We have a scaling system that is designed to make you more powerful as you go. While I don't particularly like TOs, etc. the system does tend to work... I see a lot more merit to putting in an end recovery mechanic similar to beginner's accuracy, personally. After that, the first twenty levels would be gravy.

Justaris, you did just fine. He didn't seem to care much, and you showed a lot more caring than you needed to, probably. I would have quit after he went afk for five minutes, let alone waiting for the 10-20 minutes you did.

I've run into a fair amount of people that were confused about things and helped them out, and they responded positively. This guy was meh from the start. You do what you can and if they don't respond, there's nothing you can do. That's true of working with any people be it via this game, work, teaching, etc.

If I'm on a team that has to pause for a minute or so between missions (for whatever reason), I often type in "/em twiddles thumbs." On my Kheldians, I change to "/em twiddles appendages." I had one teammate jokingly tell me to put those away, as that wasn't proper to do in public.

I already liked Felicia Day from Dr. Horrible, but then I discovered The Guild, and I enjoy her even more. Their/her being okay with you using the song for your video and promoting it like that makes me like them/her even more.

If only more talent like that was around in Hollywood and the entertainment biz. I know there are other people like that, but they're generally not the big people on top.

And good job on the video, DR! My wife and I enjoyed its spin on the original video (my wife is a big fan of the original).

The last year has been mostly focused on systems for the game (creating AE, allowing us to customize more), so my biggest three come from the type of things that haven't been focused on so much:

1. New content (as in story arcs and task forces, but especially more of the former. I love the Midnighter arcs and enjoy story arcs, and want to see more additions for both sides).

2. More variety for missions. This includes new tilesets and layouts, as well as maybe more objectives/differences between missions.

3. More powersets (and to a similar extent, more slots somehow for GR... I'm out of room on my home server and have no wish to move).

I'll always want more of these, but I'm especially feeling the lack of all three after the past year, though we did get some powersets, I know. If anything, the newer story arcs and Architect truly revealed the need for greater variety to missions: both in looks and possible objectives.

I got a little tired of it when I started a ton of alts at the same time and ran through the content too many times at once. But it can be pretty fun... I still get thrills out of entering Atlas Park for the first time and hearing that music. Good stuff. The game also plays differently then (with pros and cons to that, of course), which is a nice change of pace from later levels.

I'm still a little annoyed that they added even more xp gain to the first 20 levels. They can be fun, and now you really rush past them. And the issues people could have with that level range could have been solved a lot more interestingly.

One thing I always like to consider with blasters is actually control, as I want to be able to solo with them well (you can generally be a great teammate for damage with any combo, or so I have found). Given that, AR/En worked great for me. The KB from AR helps in most encounters, but for bosses, I can use Beanbag and Stun to take a boss out of the fight. The hard hitting ST attacks in Energy Melee are a nice compliment to all the aoe in the Assault Rifle set as well.

And that's without getting into Power Boost and Boost Range, which can be nice for a lot of the powers in both sets.

Back after a long visit to family. Thanks for all the info, I'll have to take it into account. I may have to respec this guy once or twice for a few of these powers if I don't find them useful, I guess. Ugh, and I'm not sure if I want Aid Self or Shiver first... pros and cons to both.

I think the problem with this build (if you can cal it that) is that there are a lot of "useful but not necessarily needed" powers. I'll have to see what I find myself preferring the most.

Can I have some influence? If you're willing to pay for enhancement sets and not read the description, I'm sure you wouldn't miss it.

Oh, another good chance to hold proc is in the Lockdown set. It's expensive, but occasionally you'll hold a boss with just one hold power if you have it. I think it only lasts 8 seconds, but that's still quite nice when it happens.

I'll probably be on Saturday and Monday if anyone feels like running with this. My Stalker is in the low 40s and could always use the xp, merits, and candy canes.

I'll be able to do Saturday nights with my Isos Defender... he's not 45 yet, though, so he's out for the LGTF. 8:30 Central is a little late for me anyway, I guess. I have a Tanker and Blaster that would love to run the LGTF if you get desperate, though.

Here's to a new year and new bugs from Viv's crazy laptop.

I'm back after a long drive. Happy new year, all!

Well, they never even released press stuff to recap a lot of the Herocon stuff, which which was a big mistake. If you don't read the forums, you have zero to look forward to, since their official site hasn't been updated in ages.

Even then, they only talked about the updated graphics and a little about side switching, which is nice, but not much. That's all we've heard since the end of October. Maybe they have some great PR campaign set to start up here in the next month or so, but I don't know. Little tidbits here and there would be nice and serve to wet our appetites as well.

I still think that an issue of some sort is needed before GR, otherwise it is a long wait, as Fista and MG note. I'm fine hanging out for now (since I play some other games and am plenty busy in real life), but it would be a smart idea to give people a bit more to look forward to before a promise of "something big" next summer.

I've played with you guys a bit... mostly on my Agent Janus (Assault Rifle/EM Blaster) and Bladed Justice (WP/DB Tanker). I think you were mostly on a mouse theme at the time, heh. Those getups were pretty good too.

I'm still here. I'm planning on being on tonight, but then I will be gone until after New Year's. So I'll see if you're on tonight, Peterbilt.