Lobster

I'm looking at getting a new card (like, hopefully SOON). It looks like the ATI 5770 is a sweet spot price/performance wise. What I want to know is: is it worth the extra ~$50 for 5830 or $60/80 for a 768 or 1GB TGX460? How much of an improvement, just in CoX, will going to the various cards get me? I assume it will be noticeable.

My system:
XP
Intel Core 2 Dual Core 6400/2.13x2
2GB RAM
Nvidia GF 9600 GT

It's old, I know. But it generally runs CoX "fine" (ultra mode at defaults). That being said, I'd like to run with Ultra mode turned up quite a bit higher and still have it be playable.

Eventually I'll move to W7 & upgrade the rest of the system, but no money for that at the moment, and upgrading the card seems the simplest fix...?

[edit: Also I would prefer to run in a dual monitor setup - game on one, junk on the other (running the game in windowed mode if necessary) - do either NVIDIA or ATI do this better than the other currently?]

[edit2: I just noticed the GTX465 is about the same price as the 1GB GTX460... it's older but appears to benchmark better? Can someone clarify, as I'm obviously way out of the vid card loop.]

I'm still torn between elec/energy and elec/ice... I think I'll just try both and see what sticks. It does seem like energy encourages more of a range focus, which doesn't take full advantage of the elec aura... but hey you can always put things to sleep and shoot them in the face in melee range.

Have to admit, I like the "hellfire crown" idea, although it should probably be ice to keep with the theme. Just something simple, like the halo costume part colored iceish.

I do not want him any bigger, or with wings! That would be a pain.

by "he was shrunk" do you mean that at one point he was large, then became smaller? I'm a little confused here, as he is the same size he was in beta.

Also, no way is one pet going to have all the powers of the other pets, just not going to happen. Plus, they wouldn't be particularly reliable with that many powers...and who knows how poorly the ai would potentially deal with them.

OH.
I was thinking of actual procs from a defense or resist debuff set... duh.

I'm trying to figure out why Madam_Enigma decided to go all anti-dual box here, especially when it sounds like she doesn't have any experience dual boxing on CoH, let alone dual boxing mms? Bad experience on a team with one maybe?

I've been dual boxing here since launch. It's not hard. Dual boxing MMs are VERY *not* hard. Some combos are a lot of work (2 melees, the more active sets, etc.) and wouldn't even be worth my time. I usually go with the standard 1 active + 1 buff type.

Sure, some teams might be annoyed by your dual boxing - then don't team (or get better at boxing - I've been on teams where no one noticed).

Back to the subject... I'm currently running a DS/pois and DS/therm, just hit 30 last night. Currently I'm alternating running missions at +3/2 & +1/5, depending on whether I feel like chasing a bunch of minions or killing purple bosses.

Not the most optimal combination, but I haven't done a /therm yet and haven't done a /pois since Cov launch so that kind of forced the issue (in my wacky mind). It works really well. Just shield up on the therm (I usually only shield my primary, and occasionally hellfires & princes), turn on assault & tactics and put pbaoe heal on auto. I'll switch his pets from aggressive to defensive as needed to. I just respecced out of corruption and into the 1t heal, but I haven't bothered to use it yet, I wish I could sort out a build where I trade it for Thaw.

I micro target on the 1st as needed.

2 /pois mms would be the most difficult combo imho... 2 nin/pois to make it really annoying. I wouldn't play a /pois duo. Anything else is fair game.

For survivability + some offense /traps + /ff works quite well.
For raw power, that's /dark + /dark of course, or even /pois + /dark specifically for EB/AV killing.

If you have a set you really want to play, but can't think of what to run on the second account, I usually do an /ff buffbot with the leadership toggles - although /pain works as well (and is more fun to solo imho if you feel the need to actively play that character).

My next project is ds/pain + ds/pain, which suspect will work out quite nicely.

I suggest using the /maxinactivefps 5-10 option & running in windowed mode if you're dual boxing on one machine (as I do these days).

Yeah, the sleep is just a bonus - damage is the key here, if nothing else it may cost a few enemies a few seconds of attacking - which is NOT nothing.

Although, I suppose one could send the hellfire gargoyle elsewhere, while having the prince sleep a mob of minions, if they felt so inclined.

Note: I'm assuming it's the tanker version, as I'm still 2 levels off - but I'm pretty sure if it was the blaster version I would have heard about it on the test forums...

I think I saw another post clarifying, with tests, that this was all just a display bug.

I'll try and take a look at my #s tonight.

Dual boxing /pain & /therm (non optimal combination, just two sets I haven't played in a while - or at all on a mm in the case of /therm), hit 28 last night. I forced myself to stop at 26 on test so I wouldn't "ruin" it - but also didn't let myself dual box it so I would focus more on the primary itself... so my live play experience is fairly different.

I adjust my difficulty to something that makes me "work for it" as they say, without taking an inordinate amount of time. Ie if I screw up a spawn pretty much pastes me. I'm still finding that sweet spot post Demon Prince, but for paper missions, running +2/4 or +2/5... one of those seems to do it. Certain enemies are more difficult, of course. It is nice to have pets that (mostly) don't drop like creampuffs to a +3 flamethrower.

The mission of the new arc (Dean?) where you have to fight off 5 or 6 different enemy types on the way to taking over the cloning lab was the most difficult thing so far, and took me a long time and several deaths, but I wound up netting 8 bubbles from it so I call that a win.

I love the Demon Prince's fixed ai! I didn't play much on test after the AI fix, so this is a nice bonus. He *does* still get stuck every so often (ie only cycling one attack every 8s), BUT it seems to fix itself when the target dies and he moves to a new one, so no biggie there.

I also like how the hellfire using demons use your custom colors - that totally surprised me. Nice one devs!

Demons require less healing and micro (so far) than ninja, so this looks like it could be the /pois user I finally get past 40 on. Fingers crossed.

I may have to take them blueside after GR so I can try soloing (dual boxing) some TFs. While the redside TFS are well done, they tend to have something wacky at the end (the sky raider oil rig, the exploding crystal tunnels, etc.) that makes dual boxing mms just not fun (for me).

Maybe it's just me, but I really enjoyed the "grunt" feel of the first 24 levels *including* the semi-forced uniform. Caveat: I teamed mostly with other veats. When you're the only veat on a team it's BLEH. But get 2-3+ and the uniformity was... inspiring (?) for me I guess. Plus, the levels went insanely fast, so 24 wasn't an issue in the least.

This was more true of the soldier branch than the widow one, but not horribly so.

I've been surprised and pleased with the new auto-full-team-sk thing as well. I especially like how it eliminates all the whining and sk refusal/dropping shenanigans with people who were at the low end of the curve.