Lazarillo

I've never had any significant redraw issues with my Spines/Ninjutsu, however it is, nonetheless, something you will see on occasion if you go that route. If you want to be completely redraw free, your only option, really, is going to be /SR.

Energize is a new power for Electric Armor only. It's replacing Conserve Power for all ATs. For Stalkers and Brutes, it will remain at the same tier, but its placement is being switched with Lightning Reflexes for Tanks and Scrappers.

Does that help?

I have a Spines/Ninjutsu into the 40s, and while I can't say that it seems to be a combo with any particularly special points, I am quite enamored with it, even to the point that, despite being a serious altoholic, no other Stalker options I've tried have felt nearly as fun. Take that as you will, I suppose.

Judging by what usually happens during long-weekend Mondays, I suspect we will be getting an special extra-long maintenance session that lasts until around mid-afternoon.

I'd always been under the impression that Freaks gave more XP because they're all able to hit Dull Pain. Since they (hypothetically) require 25% more work to bring down to 0 HP, they're likewise worth 25% more. In practice, of course, there are ways to keep them from firing off their heal, of course, but it's slightly frustrating to see something that's HARDER to kill, be worth LESS than average. I can understand the need to curb them, but I'm not sure it needs to be done in such a significant fashion.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to look over my arc, airhead! I made a couple changes based on your comments, though they were pretty minor (thanks for catching those typos, too! I thought I'd looked pretty carefully, but I'm only one man).

The problem in mission 2 was that the book case wasn't supposed to appear until AFTER the boss was beaten. It's SUPPOSED to spawn right near him, but I've found about 50/50 odds for that actually happening. I realized too that that was confusing due to the meaningless bookcases that I'd tossed in for verisimilitude, and, for the sake of functionality, have removed them, to hopefully make it a bit clearer.

The portal in mission 4 still eludes me somewhat. I wanted to use a destructible object, but there are few options available, and that cauldron was actually the closest thing I could find. You mentioned using a Storm Elemental or similar boss, but would that work in a low level arc? And if so, is it possible to keep an enemy from fighting back while you destroy it?

I posted a topic about this, but to just bring it to your attention, I have a lowbie-villain arc (for levels 10-15 or so) and I'd certainly love to hear what you have to say about it. It's arc #307732, Uninvited. It's four missions long, but most are designed to be relatively quick if such is the intent.

Hey all, just finished working out all the kinks out my first real story-based arc, and I'm curious as to what people think of it. If you have time, check it out and let me know what you think!

Uninvited
Arc ID: 307732
Keywords: Complex mechanics, Canon-related, Magic
Morality: Villainous
Primary enemies: Legacy Chain, Wyvern, Minions of Igneous
# of missions: 4

I've designed this arc for lowbie villains (intended for levels 10-15). There are a couple of points that might be a bit challenging, but I was able to solo it on a Dark/Pain Corruptor, so I don't think it should be too hard, given the level range.

Fire Control/Earth Assault sounds absolutely socks-rocking. I look forward to trying it out. I'm generally intrigued by the idea of walking into the middle of a mob and having them failing miserably to run away, melting all along the way. Who needs Endurance for attacks in that scenario anyway? Do Tremor or Fissure (or both!?) do knock down? Because that would make things even wilder.

I'll admit that I'm a tad, just a TAD, mind you, disappointed in Stone Spears. I hope they change its animation, or that of Fissure, so we don't get two of the same foot stomping animations (three if you take Earth Control for thematic synergy). A little variety while I'm beating the daylights outta people would be nice.

You don't have Impale 'til level 28, or Ripper 'til level 41? These are two of your best attacks, and you're really shooting yourself in the foot by putting them off. Both should be taken pretty much as soon as they open up. I'd also look at re-prioritizing your slotting. You've got a lot of slots in your defensive toggles that would be much better served in your attacks; There's not much in taking Air Superiority if you're not going to slot and use it, for example.

On my Spines/Ninjutsu, I had two builds. One for pre-Ripper and one for 26+. For my pre-26 build, I chose Barb Swipe over Spine Burst, the latter I found to be too slow and endurance heavy to be particularly useful, although this was before Stalkers got buffed, so it may be a bit more effective now. Also, going without it also allows you to go without needing Stamina immediately, freeing up some of those early power slots that, as a Stalker will be really tight.

I'd like to see Dual Pistols maybe get the target based multi-ignite power that you see with Longbow Flamethrowers and the Assault Bot. It'd be a little trickier to use than some AoEs, and would probably have to be put in place of a nuke, but could bring something a little bit new, different, and fun to strategize with.

Likewise, not working, though it was for me right after the patch hit, now it's not. I don't even get an error message from the game proper. The "loading" window pops up, and suddenly Vista notifies me "City of Heroes has stopped working". Very kind of it, in that regard. Tried Zombie Man's fix, no change in the problem.

[ QUOTE ]
2) Going Rogue is not i16. Issues (i numbers) are free expansions; Going Rogue is a commercial expansion like CoV. If the rumoured powersets (dual pistols and "demon summoning", whatever that is) are "real" and part of GR, they may not appear in the rest of the game (w/o the expansion, of course) until much later.

[/ QUOTE ]

To be fair, the two aren't mutually exclusive. CoV was a separate paid game, yes. It was ALSO, effectively, i6. Following that precedent, I suspect we'll see Going Rogue coincide with one Issue release or another. It's entirely possible that that will be i16 where we see the integration of Going Rogue to the rest of the game. Of course, we also have no idea of timeline; it's also possible it will be i17 or i18. However, I think it's pretty safe to say that there will be an Issue release at the same time.

[ QUOTE ]
EDIT :: I forgot to ask this, but should the Merit System be taken as an omen foretelling a time in the future when the game will be balanced according to IO's instead of SO's?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hopefully not, since the Merit system in its current state kinda clobbers the market for 'em.

[ QUOTE ]
Seriously though, we have the Ouroborus system in place to go back and play content we missed. How is this an issue?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because Oroborous doesn't offer all potential missed content for play? Because the wonky set up of the system does not loan itself well to ease of play like normally accessed content does?