Heraclea

I would like to see:

Greco-Roman pillars, with the various classical orders (Doric, Ionian, Corinthian). My current design uses a LOT of pillars, but I've had to make do with the Japanese named ones; the Arcane ones look like they belong in underground crypts, and that's what I am trying to avoid. But the Japanese ones look wooden.

Marble walls, floors, and ceilings.

Statues - smaller versions of the Arena statues, or the Founders Falls lions and angels, that sort of thing.

Fountains, too.

The ability to put lighting in hallways.

Also agree that we need windows - again, helps to avoid that subterranean feeling.

Domed ceilings (not coming in, going out)

I've started a small SG on Freedom, and assembled a base to fit the concept. The SG is Spartan Army, and the leader (Polemarch) is Xinnia.

Pillars figure strongly in the design:

Spartan Army 1

Here is the basic layout of the base, with oversight structure, hospital bay, and a single teleporter targeted at Talos. A good view of the pillars is included:

Layout

More prestige = more pillars. Pass it on!

Pillars

Another view, showing pillars

I would like pillars that are classical columns, with the scalloped cylinder sides, and the three orders (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian) available.

I suppose that the things that concern me are not so much that the mobs are doing this per se. A more sophisticated AI is a Good Thing.

My concerns are the possibility that fleeing mobs may reacquire aggro on new targets other than myself; and that the pathfinding may take them to places where they are hard to find - a serious nuisance in kill-all missions.

You also have many missions in which a hostage will not realize he has been freed until each enemy from that group is defeated. Fleeing minions should break the hold on the victims like dead ones do. If the fleeing minion wanders away behind a wall of crates or is found in the middle of another spawn, this could make those missions much more painful.

One question I have now is: how many taunt enhancements do I have to put in Taunt itself now to hold the attention of an AV that's likely to appear on a team I'm likely to be on (say, a +2 or +3 level AV)?

By my understanding, Taunt enhancements make taunt last longer. The duration of taunt is a factor of a number of things, including the level and boss status of the tauntee. AVs presumably shake off Taunt sooner than regular bosses.

I have never made a tauntless Tanker. I have also never put slots into Taunt for any tanker; I put one taunt duration enhancer in it and use my slots elsewhere. Never had a real problem with the recharge time on Taunt. I have put taunt enhancers in other places, mostly in aura powers, and Heraclea has a taunt enhancer in Foot Stomp. These enhancers apparently have no effect on AVs now.

So my question is, given this is the case, how many taunt or recharge enhancers does it take to keep a +3 AV taunted until Taunt recharges?

The tanker that would be really hurt by this is my stone tanker, of course: odds are if an AV is involved she will be in Granite and subject to a recharge penalty. This seems to explain why my fire tanker was doing better at tanking AVs than she was.

Did you know that the names of the Magic/Natural DO Relic enhancements are taken from actual historical or legendary figures?

Crowley referrs to Aleister Crowley, a magician who was involved in the Golden Dawn in turn of the century England, and led a rather scandalous life.

Nectanebo was one of several pharaohs of the last native Egyptian dynasty, probably Nectanebo II, before Egypt was conquered, first by the Persian Empire, and then by Alexander the Great, and then by the Romans.

Li Tieh Kuai is "Iron Crutch Li", one of the eight immortals of Taoism. He was apparently fond of out of body experiences, and one of his students found him apparently dead, and cremated his body. When he returned, he had to take over the body of a crippled beggar, while of course keeping his magical kung-fu powers; thus the Iron Crutch.

Good guide. It closely resembles my own build, with the differences that I took TP Foe instead of Hand Clap (very useful in PvE versus those Longbow Spec Ops) and have CJ and Super Jump, taking Air Sup instead of Tough Hide.

I may just get into Fly when I respec for I7, now that Tough Hide has been made more useful; and besides, it seems that so many of my characters take Super Jump as their travel power, it simplifies so much, but it is rather boring, and doesn't feed the weasel in Grandville. I will probably slot Tough Hide at the expense of Unstoppable.

Also, this seems to be a perma-rage build; no accuracy slots in any of the attacks. If for some reason you have to exemp to below 22 you will be hurting. I turn off perma-rage on large teams, because there are so many things to swing at, and so many mobs with endurance drains, and detoggling in those situations means instant death. Not sure how Rage stacks with the buff from Fury, but it seems to me that they are redundant one with another rather than stacking, so I use Rage as a Fury substitute when facing smaller groups.

I explored there briefly this evening. Was having trouble with my toggles, both in the zone, and after I left. As soon as I turned them on, they became permanent. They could not be turned off voluntarily, only by running out of endurance. After retoggling, they still were out of control. Tried this on both my defense toggles and travel powers. Ran both Flight and Super Speed constantly while I was in the zone. Made it impossible to use Foot Stomp.

The Worshipful Company of Blackguards, established November 3, 2005.

Purpose of the group: Running missions, task forces, and sharing resources.

If interested, contact:

Beata Beatrix
Corrupt Celtic
KillerChaos
Amir Al-Muminin
Molesto the Clown
Mrs. Weed
Villain 47

I still miss the Demon Overloards.

FWIW, "Gardvord" is Swedish for "farmer's gnome."

The Gardvord's smaller cousin, the tomte, comes out every year at Christmas; he's a little elf man with a red or grey hoodie on with a tall conical stocking cap. The Gardvord is the tomte's bigger cousin; he worked the fields in the farms originally, and guarded them against the trolls, who were in fact more malevolent. The Gardvord was essentially benign, but often had to be appeased with gifts of food, and would become destructive if not bought off.

One thing that I always do on each of my characters is to fill the numpad with what I would call "character binds." These are binds that are shouted out in the middle of fights or in conversations, especially when fighting out of doors. These character binds can be combined with emotes, and can also be made to fire a power. They serve a number of purposes; I started them when creating tankers that use taunts. I use them now on every character.

I always set my character binds to display in local (/bind numpad# l text). This keeps them out of tells, team chat, broadcast; and makes them display as black and white word balloons like in the comics. With all the numpad spaces, you can create a fairly large repertoire of mottoes for your characters to say.

I devote the numpad4 space as the "prayer" space; this is what the character says when resting.

Some examples of mine:

Heraclea (inv/ss tanker):
"Surrender immediately, $target, or gentle persuasion will be applied."
"O Iunones, adeste in adiutorium nostrum, ut hostem supereamus!" (Prayer)
"Men are squishy where it counts and have no stamina, and you're no different, $target."

Daisy May (stone/axe tanker):
"You keep your hands offa my critters, $target!"
"Come on into my mud holler, $target!"
"Granny says that I shouldn't kiss a boy unless we're engaged or kinfolk, and you ain't neither, $target!"

Grandma Gnosis (illusion/empathy controller)
"Time to inflate Grandma's life sized rubber dolls!" (Used when summoning decoys)
"This is the only way Grandma can get a man." (Used when summoning Phantasm)
"Look at the spooky! Look at the spooky" (Spectral Terror)
"Grandma's going to make you a good boy, $target." (Deceive)
"Time for a dose of Grandma's spring tonic." (RA)

The Jade Emperor (sonic/rad defender)
"Because I wield the mandate of Heave, you will fall, $target."
"The secret of long life begins with stopping what you are doing now, $target."
"The Way that can be named is not the true Way, but it surely is not that, $target."
"Li Tieh Kuai collected earrings. I collect the ears of villains, $target."

Mrs. Weed (plant/thorn dominator):
"I have a green thumb and I know exactly where to stick it, $target."
"Put this in your pipe and smoke it, $target!"
"You are mulch, $target."

Amir Al-Muminin (ninja/poison mastermind)
"It is an honour to die for the True Faith, $target!"
"The paradise of ninety-nine virgin slaves is not for you, $target!"
"Good to see you wearing your veil, $target. God is most pleased."

Beata Beatrix (ss/inv brute):
"Pain makes me feel alive, $target!"
"You hit like a girl, $target."
"Give me something I can feel, $target!"

Heals and buffs should generate more aggro than they do.

The first reaction of most teams who confront a group of Tsoo is, "Find the sorcerer first! Kill the sorcerers!" The sorcerers will heal and buff the bad guys and debuff the team. They therefore must die first. Same way with Sky Raider Engineers. Same way with Devouring Earth, at least when emanators used to drop regularly.

The AI should operate somewhat similarly.

I do much the same thing. I find the powers I think will help my actual game play, and then think of some in-character explanation for them.

Daisy May, my stone tanker, is a country girl got her mutant powers of oneness with the earth from wallowing in the mud with the pigs. She needs Teleport to get around when Rooted or in Granite. Eh? Methane exposure --- that's the ticket.

IME, an illusion controller makes a fine meatshield once the team adjusts to the different strategy involved. Thank goodness an illusion controller is my third main.

It isn't even all that much different than tanking. You use the Decoys to grab the aggro and absorb the alpha; they can get soft aggro for a minute, and attacks do them no harm at all. You use the Spectral Terror to defend the squishies, including yourself. The Decoys do some damage, and so does your Phantasm; by the minute or so that the Decoys run out, you get another Terror, and with ED semi-randomized slotting for recharge the Decoys will be back soon enough.

My character also makes heavy use of Deceive, which is valuable if a mob breaks free and goes after one of the squishies. So there's even a Provoke substitute of sorts, and Deceive is much more fun.

My Illusion controller is /Empathy, which gets her self-heals and team buffs. /Radiation is another popular pick.

The one common thing about any tanker I play, I suppose, is that I try to identify chief threats, bring them into melee, and keep them busy.

How this works in practice depends on what kind of tanker I am playing and what I am up against. My Stone tanker plays very differently against lower level mobs than against oranges and reds. Lower levels, she goes in with just Rooted on and scranks and taunts. Higher levels are a job for Granite and Mudpots. For Invuln, a lot depends on the kinds of damage they do; it's a matter of degrees of caution here.

Another part of the job is to identify and monopolize the attention of problem mobs: sappers, snipers, squidkillers, bosses. Sappers have to be called out; my level 35+ tankers now have TP Foe to use on them. Range attackers have to be herded classically to bring them into melee range. Squidkillers need to be the targets of repeated taunting. Bosses simply need to be engaged.

I can still do limited herding of several spawns as the need and opportunity arise. Someone has tripmines, sure I herd. Someone has a blaster nuke, ditto. Without this, I don't bother. I don't herd for glory; I herd because it works as a tactic given the teammates I have. I don't mean to live forever while herding, but if things go right with these tactics, I shouldn't need to.

My stone, invuln, and fire tankers have around 110 levels shared now. I can do these things with any of these sets, at most levels; been too skeered to try Ice. I'm still sceptical of any tanker AT's ability to fulfil this role before the mid-teens at the earliest; not all of the pieces are in place by then.

I still haven't a clue what I'm supposed to do in PvP. The few times I've tried it, I end up getting toggle-dropped, chain-held, and TPed into mobs or drones. Still haven't figured out a way to force enemy players into melee long enough to accomplish anything. Then again, I don't see catering to the PK mentality as improving the atmosphere, either.

The Worshipful Company of Blackguards quietly seeks world domination, and our first target is the Rogue Isles of Victory. Qualified applicants of any level should send a chat or email to Beata Beatrix or KillerChaos in-game, and ask for us to look you up.

I got a SS/Inv Brute up to level 10 in beta. My impression is ---

Manage endurance consumption is key. I picked feeble passives over superior toggles in Inv because they didn't eat any; and since even the best resists are not that good anymore, I wouldn't take any toggles until after Stamina. Concentrate on your primary. Make sure your travel powers stay off regardless of how fast your teammates move.

Recharge is key. Endredux and recharge are almost as important as damage in attacks.

Your ideal is steady state fighting: there should always be another enemy in reach, you shouldn't take more than two or three on at a time. Pace yourself or do body pulls that aggro only part of the crowd.

If you mind your endurance, keep up your recharge, and keep punching at a steady state, your damage will take care of itself.

How do you tell what salvage you have?

There was a TV show in the USA a couple years ago about a fellow who got tomorrow's newspaper delivered today, and went around trying to change the future by preventing catastrophes.

I'd have paid more attention to the sports page myself.

Very good guide.

What do I use to silence Portal Corp portals?

And the backpedalling begins. . . .

I am openminded enough that I will try the system, at least briefly, before leaving the game. However, if the bottom line is that my characters seem diminished, less able to stand up to the damage that they used to, or end up having to wait around between fights for endurance to recharge like they did back when they were level 8, I am gone. I have already cancelled my preorder for CoV.

I am not sure it is really understood how deeply demoralizing all of this is. It kills my desire to keep playing the game even now. One of the things that keeps us going on those characters that still interest us is the desire to improve them. To get that next power. To move beyond their limitations. Getting a travel power is one such goal.

Getting beyond the limitations of endurance and recharge is another. We soldier on to level 20 and forego more fun powers in favour of the fitness pool so we can do more fun things with our character instead of waiting around or becoming unable to act in the middle of the battle. We soldier on to level 41 for the epic Energy pool because Conserve Power finally makes our characters fully playable. Of course we are going to six slot these powers; they only take one or two kinds.

This looming disaster tells us in effect that our heroes will be gasping and wheezing and running out of gas regardless of what powers they took and what they chose to forego to take them. This is on top of their already damaged resistance and defenses. It frankly kills my wish to continue playing them. I already scrapped my original characters and began levelling up new ones to replace them adjusting to i5, just so they wouldn't seem as damaged to me when the changes hit. I don't have the patience with this game to start all over again.

I don't know if you realize how deeply demoralizing this is. I will wait and see if the difference is made up other ways, but I suspect this amendment has to be only a start.

You may also want to severely cut back the hit points of all mobs, and especially archvillains and giant monsters. Archvillain and monster fights can last from three minutes to half an hour at times; we've fought Diabolique and Jurassik for even longer under i3-i4. A 13 1/3 (decimalism is the Devil's work!) reduction in endurance costs is not going to be enough to enable a team to take them down before running out of gas.

As a habitual player of tankers, I am glad to have this assurance. Tankers have to rely on the game's AI to pull enemies into melee range and keep them there; even if our defenses and our taunts were reliable in PvP, we still wouldn't have much of a role to play there. PvP is hard for melee characters generally, and hardest for melee characters who rely on broad coverage damage resistance to outlast enemies in a battle of attrition.

I don't like PvP anyways, because I think it will coarsen the tone of the game, so I don't mind. But if it turned out that there were epic ATs and other significant new content that could only be unlocked by PvPing to capture and defend loot, I would be gravely disappointed.

[ QUOTE ]
The two numbers represent the Resistance at levels 1 and 50, respectively:

. . .
Granite Armor: 13/68


[/ QUOTE ]

One question: Granite opens up at level 32 currently. Does this mean that the new resistance starts around 3/5ths of the way towards 68%, or does it mean that at level 32, Granite has 13% resistance that scales up to 68% at level 50?

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry that I've been out of touch for the past week. I spent most of the time with my family back East. My brother is set to deploy in Iraq in just a few days so I wanted to make sure that I saw him off right!

[/ QUOTE ]

These things obviously take precedence over any job, and even over games. May God bring him home safely, and may he have all the invulnerability he needs.