Minotaur

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Awesome information for a tanker n00b (i.e. me).

Question: what are your thought on tanker set maturity curves? As a new tank I find myself frustrated in the early game. My PUGs yell for me to lead since I am the tank - but with 3 TOs in a single toggle defense I am about as durable as a piece of cheese.

How do the sets mature? Which can tank groups early, which need to hit x level before they can tank large spawns? Advice on what you can and cannot handle as you level?

Thanks again

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Without buffing, most tanker sets are pretty fragile pre SOs. Yes an ice or shield tank with force fields or fortitude might be godly pre 20, but by and large, on your own, tanking for large teams is not easy.

Sets vary but most mature by 26 if not by 22 (assuming you take stamina at 20).

My one piece of advice, if you go dark armor, take a secondary that can stack stuns with oppressive gloom. I have a dark/axe and realised too late that my friend's dark/energy was just so much better. If you can stand having no blue bar until you get some serious IOs slotted, DM/stone is fine.

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Actually 9 am Monday and Friday are regular maintenance, but this is a patch deployment so I think they choose when they want to bring them down for a patch.

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Patches recently have been an hour earlier.

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Thanks for trying it. It sounds like you completed it and didn't just steam roll through it? What difficulty did you use? Did you find the custom mobs different to fight than what you fight in the normal game? Did you find yourself having to use inspirations? That's what I want out of my missions. Running through it solo on my Scrapper, I was afraid the mobs were too easy and teams would just laugh their way through it. I've been surprised by the comments....and I like it.

(edit: I have not seen what the latest patch did to my mobs. I will be checking that out when I get time)

As for stars in-game, rate what you think it deserves, not what a badge calls for *shrug*

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I really wish people would get away from being negative on AI issues. The ally is NOT necessary, he's there for flavor, on purpose. If I had him as an escort, I would gladly take any negativity about it. But since I know that the AI is wonky (for allies, NPCs, mobs, etc), I chose to not go this route. As for the MM, that's how MMs are. I wanted an MM and he does as is expected (now if he rez'd and/or was using RTTC, then yet again the settings on him were changed and I will gladly fix that).

And no, I still hate public comments/reviews. I'd have preferred a PM to get more details as to what issues specifically you'd have liked to see.

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Unyielding difficulty.

I should elaborate on the non positional psi was irritating. The SR gets hit by the mind control fear as their AoE def doesn't work against it. There then follows 10 seconds where they can't hit me and I can't act so nothing happens, I get feared again so I get one attack, then another 10 seconds of inactivity.

I found the escort's extra damage important to doing enough damage to kill the MM EB. With a resist based tank, or other lower damage/defence toon, I strongly suspect I would be unable to kill the MM without him as there would be so many darkity dark debuff icons on me, I'd miss a lot and he could resummon all his pets as fast as I could kill them. Fine this is on a warehouse map so keeping the escort is easy.

What I was suggesting was that the last mission for mechanical reasons would be better on a non Oranbega map, although for story reasons should probably be there. That said you don't need the help for that EB, he's a lot easier to kill. I commented because it's a totally avoidable AI issue, just use a map without portals.

I basically steamrollered all but the EB fights except where I had to fight 2 groups at a time which reduced my hit chance from 95% to 25-30 and caused me problems. The MM took me several minutes as I could only make serious progress when most of his pets were dead, and he resummoned them soon after I killed them. I have aid self, would have used a lot more insps without it.

The second EB would have been no problem at all, except the demon seemed to cause massive lag.

So I read the furore early in the thread, and decided I'd take my soft capped (but not obscenely expensive) kat/SR on "What the Vudu?!?!".

The first EB is just tedious, he seems to use bodyguard, and is able to resummon his pets fast enough that he's just a huge bag of hits.

The second one was fine, except that I got hit with enormous lag as soon as he summoned in (multiple auras the problem ?). Also the Oranbega map meant that in the 50 excursions round the portals to get where I needed to go, I lost my ally and really couldn't be bothered to go and get him.

The minions/lts are fine, although all the non positional psi is irritating on a /SR, and again the choice of an Oranbega map was unfortunate in that there are several places where it's almost inevitable that you'll fight 2 groups at once, meaning the to-hit buffs stack up.

Overall I like this arc, the Oranbega map is probably necessary for story purposes, but does cause some issues. I 5 starred it, but had an average 4 star rating rather than 4.5 been necessary for HoF, I'd have 4 starred it. I think it is good enough, but could do with a little fine tuning.

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The thing that really saddened me was the range of the new TF. Villains have been crying out for a TF either 30-35 where they have none or 40-45 where they now only have the ITF.

Could this not have been set up villain side, as a 40-50 that sets at 50 (heroes have Sara Moore with that range).

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Let the vill's have sara moore ha ha ha ha cough cough.

looking at the interviews, there will be a hero tf and a villain sf? where is the problem there? Did they specify a level somewhere I missed?

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TBF Sara Moore is the one shard TF I like, only 2 hunts IIRC. I've thought the shard should be co-op for a long time.

And yes, the new TF was specified as 45-50.

The thing that really saddened me was the range of the new TF. Villains have been crying out for a TF either 30-35 where they have none or 40-45 where they now only have the ITF.

Could this not have been set up villain side, as a 40-50 that sets at 50 (heroes have Sara Moore with that range).

The arguments are often because one man's exploit is another man's efficiency.

My view on conventional farming is fairly extreme and I don't expect many people to agree with me. I don't believe that it was intended for most of the team to be out of the mission while the farmer sets the badguys, and then he (and his SK if XP is wanted) takes all the XP/inf/drops. If the devs intended that, they'd have made number of players an option on the difficulty slider.

I consider that an exploit, most people consider it efficient farming. There are also a couple of ITF exploits that seem to have been around for ages that seem to still be active.

I like what the AE farming is doing to the market, but dread getting on high level PuGs with some of the muppets it's producing.

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I'm becoming more and more of a fan of Hover + Superspeed for complete invisibility, and SS + Rocket Pack for actual travel. None of my characters actually take Fly, as it seems something of a wasted power pick with rocket packs.

I don't mind the 2 minutes of stealth, and I'll click Hover on/off just to re-enable 2 more minutes of end-free stealth.

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Just a FYI, but you can get Invisibility without a second power by slotting a Celerity +Stealth in SS. So unless you need Hover for some other reason, you can skip the Flight pool entirely.

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Run or jump stealth IOs go in sprint, so never any need to take up a useful slot anywhere.

Feature Name or Description: Server synching bugged

Operating System (Vista, XP, OS X version):XP
User Client (Mac, PC, Linux):PC
Server:Victory
Zone:AP
Character name:Waelcyrge
Time:2120 ish UK (GMT+1)
Location:AE
Archetype:Scrapper
Level:50
Power:
Badge:
Mission:
Mission Contact:
Mission ID #:
Bug Description:
This has just happened to me and I've petitioned it, but not heard back yet.

Spent 7400 tickets on 2 gold rolls 35-39.

Got a LotG 7.5% and a sciroccos proc.

Told a friend by global tell and got his congratulation back.

Got the mapserver message 15 secs or so later.

Logged back in, recipes gone, merits back, tried again got vendor trash. Curiously no global chat startup messages, but subsequent global chat coming through.

It appears the various servers don't always synchronise correctly, now I come to mention it I've DCd before just after buying reward rolls, but that time I kept the recipes.
Link to Forum Discussions:

Another thing that can happen is that you get a configuration that hasn't been tested.

You have 3 types of lieut available, one of which has empathy. With your EB, 2 emps show up and the double forted EB hits you all the time through capped defence for almost all your hits.

Be careful about what buffs your lieutanants and minions have when they spawn with your "big nasties".

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I can't check since I'm at work, but as I recall the low-level Snakes in the group cap at 35 and then pick up again in the 40s with the Elder Snake mobs. But since there are Snakes at level 1 and snakes at level 52, the game set your mission levels based on the assumption that there are Snakes available at every level range in between.

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This is exactly the sort of thing I was expecting, the ramp up thing doesn't hold water, the snakes are 34-35 throughout the mission.

LordXenite, have you tried your snakes mish with a toon that would set them at 37-38 ?

**edit** found my way around the architect screens, and it appears there's a 10 level gap in standard snakes in the high 30s and low 40s

Did a mission arc today that I'd done happily twice before with lvl 50 and 17 toons. This time the group was 38, and the first 2 missions went fine.

The 3rd mish had snakes and a custom group in. The custom group were fine, but the snakes were 34-35. Is there a level range missing for them ?

For reference, I merely play arcs and don't make them yet, so not sure what info is available inside architect on this.

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Don't tell the stormie he can't use Hurricane or steamy mist...and then whine when his single target heal is insufficient to keep your whiny butt off the floor because he can't use his best debuffs on the enemy.

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Unfortunately I have to ask the stormie to turn hurricane off as the graphics make me ill if I'm inside them and I'm not good at cleaning vomit off my KB. I usually arrange that they're aware of that and happy before we start, or I quit the team.

That said, the stormies that won't turn hurricane off when they're completely ruining what the tank is doing are a menace and tend to get kicked.

Citadel now 40 merits

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We would like to know if you stay out of sync for more than 10 seconds. The server should automatically try to /sync if you're out of sync for that long.

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Happens more on high level toons, my 50 PB is particularly bad, desyncs 70%+ of the time on zoning, and almost never fixes itself.

Sorry, complete and utter failure for me.

I haven't paid for a costume change in 2 years, and my main has 50 or so free tokens, plus all my toons have loads of vet tokens. Where is the free respec that should have been in the 57 month reward that would actually have been useful for me. I use respecs for moving IOs from toon to toon and as I level up.

I no longer take travel powers villain side (except SS if I want the stealth to stack with something else I have) as there are plenty of temps to get you all the way to 50. I also tend to find the precursor powers (hasten, CJ, recall, air sup) at least as much use as the travel powers themselves, so can't imagine ever skipping them.

*edit - the only use I can see would be if you're building a toon to run Posi or Cap TFs, as it makes the build less tight

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Objective Feedback:
IOs from the new sets in the TF Drop Pools are almost non-existant on the market.


Subjective analysis about that:
This indicates a serious lack of TF Drop Pool supply in general. Since merits are the only source of said recipes, it seems the system is not producing enough drops that make it to the Market.
This is probably true over all Pool C recipes, not just the new sets. The new sets are simply a lot easier to notice, and do not have the possibility that market activity may be using pre-existing Pool C's instead of new drops. I expect all Pool C recipes will be harder to find on the market now.


IMHO, TFs need to return to dropping random recipes. Merits should be applied on top of TF reward drops, so that people will over time get additional recipes, such as to offset bad luck on TF drops. (perhaps awarding fewer merits than currently, it doesn't have to directly merge the 2 amounts.) This will retain the pre-I13 supply of Pool Cs, and perhaps even increase the amount of supply of that pool on the market.

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Bingo, this says a lot of what I wanted to say. I've been looking for the low level accurate defence debuff set proc. It's not an uber IO, just a "chance of damage" but it's 200 merits or more. Less than 10 have been sold excluding level 30s, where 5 or more have sold, so don't know how many have dropped.

Suggestion - modify the merit awards to give say a random drop + 40 merits from posi, 7 merits from Katie, 2 drops +60 from Dr Q etc.

Mainly played 42 shield/mace tank, plus beta 50 fire/shield scrapper.

Objective feedback:

I found that you really needed all 9 shield powers. You want tough and weave but with SOs, the end demands are impossible. My tank is currently running 40% ish end reduction in all my toggles and ST attacks, 80% in my AoEs and can still run himself out of end with a numinas unique and some other set help (but no miracle yet) and I don't have tough or weave. Needing all 9 powers also means I don't have the power picks to take the fighting pool.

Subjective feedback:

Teamed my tank with a shield scrapper in the twenties. Seemed wrong he was much tougher than I was as I had grant cover, but wasn't available to him yet.

Turbo, a question for you on frostworks:

How do the caps scale by level ? and is it in a different way to your hits so do you have to buff more, the same, or less to hit the caps at lower levels ?

I was playing a lowbie cold def SKd to a lvl 16 or 17 PB.

He had 375 hits (can't remember which form, guessing nova). Then he used the dull pain clone and I used frostworks and he had 720 (I think also in nova form), so buffing a PB at levels lower than 50 seems to work.

Also buffing a stone armor user should not be a complete no-no as due to the recharge penalty in granite, earth's embrace is not normally perma for them, so if you frostwork them, they can keep EE mainly as a click heal, and there are no gaps in the max HP periods.

Any plan to restore the ability to drop stuff off in a coalition SG's storage. I understand the exploit that caused this change to be made, but was told by PM that this would be looked at later.

Life has been extremely awkward for me since this changed, and is very nearly gamebreaking. Example:

On Victory I run a large SG which is broken up into 3 SGs as it has too many members for 1. I have to maintain toons in all 3 to pay rent etc.

I also have a SG with a few close friends where I store my IOs and stuff for all my toons on the server.

As I often play at times when other SG members are not on, this has left me waiting days to get stuff to the toon that needs it.

Having to resign from SGs because the game has made it too awkward to be in more than one SG per server is surely not the way to go.

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Before I answer your questions, I'd like to give you some information about the Merit Reward system. As most of you understand average (median) completion time is the primary metric we chose to use to determine the how many merits a task would grant.

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Part of the issue here is that the casual side of the playerbase who doesn't do the eden trial in 10 minutes get majorly shafted by this methodology.

Using the median means that effectively you are probably ignoring the time taken by 90%+ of the players that do some of these trials/TFs because the other 10% or less run them 50-100 times as often.

Some sort of middle ground is needed here. I like the eden trial, it used to take me an hour and a half or so (I'd usually be playing with people who wanted XP and fun, not just a quick TF drop), similar to lots of other TFs. Post I13, why bother, it's not so much fun that it's worth spending that time for 2 merits instead of 25. Previously it was the same random recipe.

A couple of things that I find irritating with the server status page:

The update time seems to have been removed, given that the page stops updating from time to time, it would be good to see if this is the case.

I would echo the concerns about the size of the thing previously expressed, there is no excuse for it not fitting on one screen even for the smallest monitor.

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I don't understand why you're making it even easier to travel to a mission. At least considering giving it a very long recharge timer.

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Um... you enjoy spending a lot of time traveling to missions?


*waits impatiently for the PC version of the power*

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It doesn't take very long to travel to missions. Killing all zone travel makes too many zones vacant which is not good.

Encountering other players is important and brings more socializing to the game.

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Having my main PC in for repair and having to play CoH on my old one (with a whole 512 Mb RAM), I would kill for the mission teleporter. Getting across zones is taking me longer than doing the missions in some cases.

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Recieving about 2-3 tells a minute for the eintire duration of your play time on your defender to the effect of,

"R U heelor?"

You shouldn't need one if you're worth 2 gobs of spit and a jar of cold p*ss.

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Heh, this makes me laugh. Note I run a defender, with Doctor in the name, who has absolutely no heals.

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I seem to remember running across a TA/A def called something like T3h ub3r h34lz0r.

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Also, in the middle of the next mission, DO NOT say "Hey guys I gotta go check something on Xbox Live. Knock this out without me" then park yourself in a safe corner somewhere doing nothing but soaking up experience.

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That's about the time I switch to Local chat and say "Show of hands...who wants to train a bunch of mobs on (Idiot's name)?"

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Not sure I'd have bothered asking ...

My list:

Don't sit in Talos by the PI ferry at level thirtysomething (usually seen just after a 2xXP weekend) asking "what does board train mean on my mission" because you've only ever seen the inside of one mission in PI.

Don't build a FF/nrg defender with no shields, a full set of repels and then complain in broadcast when you get booted off teams after causing a couple of teamwipes.

Don't sit in Atlas spamming broadcast with obscenities on a trial account, it won't last long and it's not clever.

While I disapprove of inviting a team that are all 2 or 3 levels higher than you so you get a PL, if you do do that, don't insist on doing your own missions (unless you point out at invite time you need help with an EB/AV or something).

Don't criticize the empath/rad/thermal for not spamming his AoE heal when the party isn't taking any damage.