Hart

Thanks for the response

Unfortunately, I expect that getting the crafter accolade would take several hours at least. It's a comparatively large up-front investment of time, since I'm planning on spending maybe 2-3 hours each month playing.

Unless there's a reasonable way to buy all the salvage in one trip, drag it to the university and buy/craft/delete all the necessary common IOs, this seems like a huge resource drain for no real reward.

I'd go for Irradiate. With enough +recharge, you can have it up more often than the once/10s chance to fire you get on a toggle.

Sure, I've got dozens. Take them with a grain of salt; like anything else, they're a slice of another person's perspective.

First, don't put your name in the VG title. Would you want someone else's name displayed next to your character's name? Neither would anyone else. Go for something that the type of player you're planning to recruit can identify with.

For example, my VG is 'Or Die Trying' because it was intended to be a PVP VG (way before lolpvp) and the plan was to repeatedly challenge the most difficult opponents we could find until we had a 50/50 win/loss ratio. We didn't want to win all our matches, because that would mean the opponents weren't worth the time it took to play against them; we wanted to win, or die trying, as long as the match was good.

Second, come up with a better reason for forming a VG. People can 'have fun playing and chatting' without a VG. What makes your VG different? During the CoV launch ODT was #2 for several months because we differentiated ourselves from the xpats by focusing on PVP. We ran missions in PVP zones, conducted PVP raids, and built our base from day 1 based on needing to defend items of power. When I rebooted the VG, I successfully recruited people by advertising it as a VG for people who want to complete ludicrously difficult tasks, like Relentless MoLRSF.

Think about what your VG is going to add to the player's experience in the game and advertise that. Stay focused on one or two activities or ideas that you can talk intelligently about if asked. This helps keep recruiting messages short, and makes people ask you questions about the areas you don't cover in recruiting messages. That's an opening for you to have a conversation about their goals and how you can help them achieve them.

Furthermore, requirements 1 and 3 are contradictory. SG mode requirements cause drama. Don't expect people to farm prestige for you; expect people to play with you and watch your dedication to farming prestige, and then maybe decide to help out. Some of the best players in all the guilds I've lead didn't contribute directly using in-game money, but indirectly by playing really well and drawing other people to them.

If you're just now getting started, take all comers and kick the ones who cause problems.

The best advice I can give is don't start a VG too soon. Go join someone else's large and established VG until you understand the ins and outs of how things work in CoX better and how to manage a group of people. The Xpats and repeat offenders are massive, so if you can learn how they do things and emulate it you've got a chance to eventually end up with a massive guild as well.

PuGs are where people learn to play with others. PuGs are how new players meet established players. PuGs are how good SGs recruit new members.

In short, when too many insular groups strangle the PuG community by refusing to participate in PuGs or writing them off as what noobs do until they find a good SG, the game starts to die.

This.

Also, grab Achilles' Hell: Chance for -Resistance for Earthquake. It's niiiiiice.

"You live under a bridge and eat sheep."

~An inky mass of fetid hide

Nah, Bible Black has that covered. Of course, you escape by becoming one, so YMMV.

Dude, you're giving me way too much credit for your frame of reference :P Good flick, though.

IMHO? Both. I cap out all but 2 of my market slots with 5m+ IOs. I then use extra tickets that would push me past the 10k cap to pump expensive salvage into the market. Sitting on 8 Def/Res recs doesn't do me as much good as sitting on 20m until the recs sell.

I'd make a catgirl just for you.

That's a totally different situation. Yes, holding things together for a toggle debuff is a great use of stone cages. The same goes for burn patches or other similar mechanics.

However, for a Stone/Therm, they don't provide any benefit beyond holding stuff still and they make the aforementioned stuff angry.

Granted, but if 'I get agro from stone cages and die' is a problem, hiding after casting isn't what the OP is doing.

My highest Earth/ is a Dom, so YMMV - buy I've got Earthquake recharging within 30 seconds. I would venture to say that if you're taking each pack down in under 30 seconds, your problems are trivial. Wait a few seconds to defuse the alpha or steamroll 'em without control.

I beg to differ. Earth has several effective AOE controls that aren't the immob. Between Earthquake, Quicksand, Volcanic Gasses and Stalagmites, an Earth controller can play quite well without relying upon the immobilize. Some combinations, such as Earth/Earth dominators or Earth/Storm controllers, are actually better off not using the immobilize because the knockdown from their secondary is negated by the immobilize from their primary and often of greater benefit.

I wouldn't advise skipping the power, because it's a very useful tool that can frequently help a lot. I would advise a lot of discretion in using it. I think one of the best ways to develop that discretion is to deliberately play without it unless exceptional circumstances warrant using it.

Cavaet emptor.

Earth Control doesn't need the Immobilize to function. The damage is negligible, so you're really only using it to set up containment. A great way to avoid agro? Stop pushing that button.

In a team Quicksand + Earthquake is usually enough control to keep the main pack you've focused on busy. Hang on to Stalagmites + Stone Cages in case you need to lock down a second pack. Drop Volcanic Gasses under them and the Stalagmites should give it time to hold most of the pack before the stun wears off.

Bear in mind that VG works differently from Cinders/Glacier/etc. You drop the gas patch, and it holds 5 targets every couple seconds, so it can take a while to ramp up to holding a pack of baddies. However, it can also hold bosses by itself and apply holds to foes who walk into the gas patch after it's been cast, so it gives up the reliability of an instantaneous AOE hold for flexibility and duration.

Isn't that what we're doing in this thread? I mean, not the mechanics, but conceptually anyway. Clearly there's a segment of the populace that will do this if allowed, but maybe that extra effort is going to be allowed. Heck, WoW has a neutral AH for RP reasons, and they're causing the expectations that most MMOs are trying to live up to.