Paladin_Musashi
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:See... To me, missions are missions. I've played through the game on 100 characters, at this point I click through the text and just go beat up bad guys.Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Amusement.
Fun arcs.
To me, the combat is the game. Making up new characters, both concept, background, cool costume, and powers, and then putting them into combat to see how they will do. That's the game. There's nothing else. Arcs are arcs, and to be fair to myself, the way the "story" is told in any MMO including this one is not terribly engaging or interactive. It's... blocks of text between bashing people over the head.
So "fun arcs" doesn't work for me.
All I care about is how challenging and fun to fight a group is. Anything with end draining mobs is automatically not fun to fight. Freaks are annoying to fight. Sure I guess they're challenging... But I'd rather fight something challenging in a different way. Like Redcaps. And I want to get rewards commensurate with the challenge I take on too. If I'm fighting Redcaps, I should be getting more exp and inf and better drops than people who are fighting say, the Warriors.
And if I'm fighting something as annoying as the Freaks, I should definitely be getting a bonus. Not that that would get me to fight them much, but at least there'd be a greater than zero chance of ever getting me to fight them again.
Well, except for the Sister Psyche TF. Damn the necessity of getting all the badges.
I don't play just or mainly for the numbers, in terms of making mad exp and inf. I play for the numbers in terms of min/maxing characters and seeing just how uber I can make them, and how heavy of a challenge I can make them equal to, yes.Quote:Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
If you play just, or mostly, for numbers... whatever does it for you. *shrug* I play for fun and amusement. If I were that heavily concentrated on the numbers, I'd be firing up Excel every night, not COH. (Yes, I'm aware some people try to min/max every ounce of the game, from build to XP and Damage per second. Not saying it's illegitimate... just not my thing.)
But above all I play to be a superhero beating up bad guys. That's the fun of the game for me. The context of the arc plots is something I just ignore at this point.
There are bad guys, therefore I will beat them up. I don't really need more of an excuse than that. -
I usually six slot rage. With Gaussians. The defense bonus is too nice to pass up on any toon that actually cares about defense. Plus they're relatively cheap and easy to get, and can be slotted earlyish in your career, which makes the bonus that much nicer.
On any toon with defense based protection, when I'm trying to soft cap them I always first thing look for a space I could stick the Steadfast Protection +3%, and the second thing I look for is somewhere I could stick Gaussians. -
Using the market is a pain in the butt. I don't mean the scarcity of certain things right now, or the inflated prices. I mean the market itself is a PAIN to use.
A few things that would help:
Instead of making me do a new search every time I want to change my bid amount on something, why not make it so that when I select something I'm bidding on in one of my auction slots, it has a space for changing the bid amount. This alone would save me tons of unneeded typing and clicking.
Instead of making me do 5 individual, manual searches for the components of a recipe, how about letting me click that recipe and have the components all show up in my Auction search window, all at once. This change would save me more time than I can begin to say, as well as much grumbling from teammates who have to wait for me to do the tedious tracking down of each component of the IOs I'm trying to craft between missions since I leveled up.
Another thing would be giving me some way to "pin" results to the search window, so that even if I do another search, that item stays in the results window while the new results come up. There are many times when I'm working back and forth between 5 or 6 items trying to get the best prices, and it would be nice if I could have that set of items where I could easily make bids on them without having to do searches in between (Though this becomes less necessary if you implement my first suggestion). -
Man, I'd love this. But they should go even farther, and allow you to create a simulated build with any enhancers you want, even the uber rares, purples, and PvP IOs.
The reason?
Because I'd never play the rest of the game ever again.
No seriously, if there was a "Danger Room" that did that, and let me play AE missions or something, I'd just play that, completely content, for the rest of my stay in CoH.
Seriously. -
Other things I've learned:
SS/SD is a late maturing build. The defenses it provides are lackluster at low level, even compared to other Brute sets. You find your toon collapsing in a gasping, panting heap after one spawn for a LONG time. Even slotting end redux in your attacks you are going to feel like you're playing an overweight asthmatic until you get Stamina (And even then it's pretty rough until you get SO enhancers).
So pre-20/22, you're squishy, you run out of end constantly, and you don't really get to feel the great "smash!" that some sets get out of the box.
After SOs you can keep going all day, but you're still squishy, and AAO draws aggro very, very well, so you tend to end up squashed quite often (Unless you turn it off which just... defeats the purpose of going /Shield in the first place).
Then you get Foot Stomp. And you realize that at your last level up you apparently took a level in badass. Though this becomes more apparent after you get it slotted with acc and recharge. The extra mitigation that FS provides is the break point where this set goes from "suck" to "Hey, this is pretty good!". AAO, Rage, and FS get you to the point where other Brutes (And Corrs, for that matter) envy your damage output.
Of course... You still get squished fairly often. But at least you're feeling like you get some compensation now.
Then you get shield charge, and you can now lead a fight with FS, Shield Charge, and FS again (With hasten at least, and if you pause between each power long enough for the enemies to start getting back up again) which gives you about 5 seconds at the beginning of a fight where the whole spawn is knocked down and you're not taking damage. Well, ok, obviously you don't knock them all down every time, but you get most of them, and it serves to stagger the alpha very well, making you finally viable as a primary tank.
After that it's all about adding pools or set bonuses to boost your defense. I'm at 46 right now, and my defenses are up to 36-38% from the sets I've picked up along the way (Oblit, Mako, ToD, Gaussians, and a steadfast +3%). I have aid self. I can easily spawn a 52 boss farm for two and solo it.
One more level and I can get the three purple sets I'm planning on, and get that nice recharge boost. I already have the FF chance for +recharge proc in Foot Stomp.
Then 3 more levels and I can spend myself dry buying Enzyme Exposures (I'd get them at 47, except that I realized that if I used level 53 HOs, I can get all 3 positions soft capped without changing my build), and farm up some more moneys for that Gladiator's Armor global.
Things are going well, and my Brute not only feels like a Brute now, but a damn good one at that. -
Honestly, I can't imagine why I'd ever fight freaks again. At the same levels, while leveling up a character, I could be fighting Warriors, who are utter and complete cake compared to the Freaks, and without the Freaks exp bonus... Well I'll be fighting Warriors.
Granted, I don't fight either group for long, because Croatoa mobs are actually challenging (Compared to the 90% of the game enemies that are just way too easy, period), and give good exp to compensate for the fact that they're actually hard enough to kill you now and then. -
Quote:It doesn't. Heavy handed attempts to stop farming affect the regular game play. If the devs would just accept that it's going to happen and there's nothing they can do about it, we could all get on with playing the game...Originally Posted by Xyzyx
Nothing to see here...just another example of how farming never effects regular game play.
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Awesome. I'm tired of leaving a blank spot and having to remember a character has 3% higher defenses than listed.
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All I want to know is: Does this mean we're going to get Phalanx with a proper scaling range in the database, and the PvP IOs as well?
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The problem is, you build a game that way, but there's no way people are going to group up to fight even minions. They're going to go after bigger game, and end up having to single pull.
Trying to fight that is silly... It's best to just build the game with that in mind. -
I think the hate for Jack is a bit overblown.
There were issues with his vision... He seemed to have the idea that the game should be similar to EverQuest and DAoC and all the other MMOs out there, in that fighting even level mobs should be something that could only be done one at a time, and teams should be single pulling for fear of their lives...
And that... Just doesn't work in a Superhero game. That doesn't make you feel super in the slightest.
But... He stuck to his guns, and you should respect him for that. I mean, I'm glad he "lost", in the end, and the game is what it is now and not what he wanted to make it. But at the end of the day, it is their game, and we're just playing in it. Devs shouldn't just give the players what they want. They should make the game they want to make and let the players decide if it's something they like or not. Nothing great is ever created by committee, there's always a single vision behind greatness.
So yeah, I think designers should stick to their guns and not give in to player whining. And he did that. If he'd had his way with the game I wouldn't be playing it (And I actually left it for a very long time while he was at the helm), but I'd still respect him for not caving, even if I happened to disagree with his idea of what's fun.
On the plus side, if what I've played of the CO beta is anything to judge by (And mind you, I haven't played it in a while now, so it might have changed) then he's come to his senses about letting players be powerful. But, who's to say. -
Well, trying to level up to build this guy (I can't stand to level a toon up without a game plan... I'm kind of OCD that way, so this toon has been sitting at level 2 for a LOONG time) I've noticed something: Definitely don't use Rage before SOs, because if you can't get it overlapping the defense crash will get you killed with a Shield Defense toon.
It really didn't matter on my SS/WP, but it matters on this guy
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59ish. So that you're always double stacked. 55 would be preferable, just to give you a little time to fire it before one ends...
But yeah, at 59, you activate, 59 seconds you activate another one, going into double rage, then 59 seconds later you activate a third, two seconds after which the first one fades, leaving you with two still.
This is very achievable, with certain builds, but generally also very expensive. -
I have an SS/SD brute for which I've been trying to come up with a build to work toward. I kept coming up with builds that were either too low defense-wise, or gave up hasten, or aid self, both of which I'd like to keep because SS/SD has such awesome damage that well, lacking Hasten seems a shame, and it's defense based with no self-heal, so a little aid self can be very handy when soloing.
After much work tweaking and tinkering... I managed this build. Please keep in mind that there's a slot left empty for the Gladiator's Armor +3% defense global, so add 3% to the defenses in the totals on this guy. This soft caps melee and AoE defense, with Ranged defense just 0.5% shy of the cap. At the same time, I managed to come up with perma-hasten (With the aid of the FF proc in Foot Stomp), and almost perma-double rage when considering the FF proc. And kept Aid Self as well. It's expensive, and it uses a couple of attacks purely as IO mules (Boxing, Hurl, I'm looking at you!), but I'm pretty proud of the numbers I managed to squeeze out of it, considering I didn't bring Combat Jumping to the party
Anyway, tell me what you think:
Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Level 50 Natural Brute
Primary Power Set: Super Strength
Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Medicine
Villain Profile:
Level 1: Punch -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(13), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(13), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(15), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15), Mako-Dam%(50)
Level 1: Deflection -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(3), HO:Enzym(3), HO:Enzym(5), LkGmblr-Rchg+(7)
Level 2: Haymaker -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(39), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(40), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40)
Level 4: True Grit -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(7), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(9), Empty(36)
Level 6: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(11), RechRdx-I(11)
Level 8: Knockout Blow -- Hectmb-Dmg(A), Hectmb-Dam%(9), Hectmb-Dmg/Rchg(17), Hectmb-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(17), Hectmb-Acc/Rchg(27)
Level 10: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 12: Active Defense -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 14: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A)
Level 16: Against All Odds -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 18: Rage -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(19), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(19), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(21), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(21), GSFC-Build%(23)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(33), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(34), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg(34), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(34), P'Shift-End%(36)
Level 22: Battle Agility -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(23), HO:Enzym(25), HO:Enzym(25), LkGmblr-Rchg+(50)
Level 24: Phalanx Fighting -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 26: Boxing -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dam%(27), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(33), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(45), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(45)
Level 28: Tough -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Aegis-ResDam/Rchg(29), Aegis-EndRdx/Rchg(29), Aegis-ResDam(33)
Level 30: Weave -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(31), HO:Enzym(31), HO:Enzym(31), LkGmblr-Rchg+(45)
Level 32: Foot Stomp -- Armgdn-Dmg(A), Armgdn-Dmg/Rchg(37), Armgdn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37), Armgdn-Dmg/EndRdx(37), Armgdn-Dam%(39), FrcFbk-Rechg%(39)
Level 35: Shield Charge -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(42), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(42), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43), Oblit-%Dam(43)
Level 38: Super Speed -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-ResKB(40), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(43)
Level 41: Aid Other -- Heal-I(A)
Level 44: Aid Self -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(46), RechRdx-I(46), IntRdx-I(46)
Level 47: Hurl -- Apoc-Dmg(A), Apoc-Dmg/Rchg(48), Apoc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), Apoc-Acc/Rchg(48), Apoc-Dam%(50)
Level 49: Grant Cover -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
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Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Fury -
Quote:Now if only the release of CO would convince them to give us all travel powers at character creation, so that I could stop paying $5 a month extra for my jetpack (Sorry, I'm never going back to slogging along the ground for 14 levels, or even 8 or 9 to get my mayhem/safeguard jetpack. Never again).Originally Posted by tarrantm
Heh, I see the upcoming CO release is having an effect already..
And yes, it will make lower levels a lot more enjoyable.. -
Quote:Urgh. I was doing calcs wrong... I was placing the level bonus accmod in the tohit mod location instead. Which would make defense beyond the soft cap much more useful. And both values are clamped... Hmm... That still leaves situations in which the enemy has ToHit boosting powers or defense debuffs to worry about...Originally Posted by Max_zero
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=185167
You might want to read about defense and how levels are incorporated into it.
As for range AoE is most definitely not the most dangerous. Many 'AoE' attacks are actually flagged as ranged and much of the most dangerous stuff (Ring Mistress, Sapper) are also ranged tagged. You can check for yourself at the Paragon wiki what kind of attacks enemies use. -
It's pretty easy to fix Phalanx in mids... Just go into the database editor and change the minimum scaling number to zero.
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The soft cap is only meaningful if you're fighting even con enemies. Anything above your level will be hitting you more than 5% of the time if you're only soft capped.
AVs your level get a 50% boost, so if you want to tank AVs you basically want every scrap of defense you can get, well above 45%. The same goes for +4 or +5 bosses that everyone wants to farm nowadays.
The OP said his primary concern is PvE survivability, so I pushed his melee defense to as high a level as possible. I also disagree that AoE defense is the least important, because in my experience when tanking a big bad, you will be taking damage from melee primarily, but he will probably drop AoE attacks on you as well. Whereas ranged attacks will be the least common thing for you to worry about, and also the thing that generally does the least damage. -
Well... I was tempted to suggest you drop Hasten and Grant Cover in order to fit Aid Self in...
I've got a Lv 41 Shield/War Mace tanker, and I don't really feel the need for Hasten on him. And since your build isn't really going for perma-hasten anyway...
But I can see where it's nice to have Shield Charge up just that much more often.
If you're married to Hasten, you could drop Jawbreaker instead. I mean, with Hasten you have a pretty tight attack chain anyway, and you'd only drop a few percent in melee defense to do it, and Aid Self would help make up for that quite a bit.
Wait... That wouldn't help because you're at 4 pools. Damn that limit. Yeah, you'd have to drop Hasten. -
Well... I messed with it a little. Mine has slightly lower ranged defense, I think, but much higher melee. I kept your power picks the same, but you'll have Hasten recharging more often. I also took out the defense buff SO in Phalanx and replaced it with a LotG +recharge, because that seems more efficient to me, but you can always change that back if you feel the defense added by teammates will be significant.
Also, I left a slot empty on tough in case you want to bankrupt yourself to buy the Gladiator's Armor +3% to all defense PvP IO
Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Level 50 Natural Brute
Primary Power Set: War Mace
Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Villain Profile:
Level 1: Pulverize -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(11), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(19)
Level 1: Deflection -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(5), HO:Enzym(13), HO:Enzym(15), ResDam-I(40), ResDam-I(48)
Level 2: Jawbreaker -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(7), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(17)
Level 4: True Grit -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-Heal(5), RctvArm-ResDam(19), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(43), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(46), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(46)
Level 6: Battle Agility -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(7), HO:Enzym(13), HO:Enzym(17)
Level 8: Clobber -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(9), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(9), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(15), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40), T'Death-Dam%(40)
Level 10: Active Defense -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(11)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(25), HO:Enzym(39)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 16: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 18: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(21), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(21), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(43), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg(43), P'Shift-End%(46)
Level 22: Build Up -- GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(23), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(23), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(25), GSFC-Build%(39), GSFC-ToHit(39)
Level 24: Phalanx Fighting -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 26: Shatter -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(27), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(27), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Oblit-%Dam(50)
Level 28: Whirling Mace -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(29), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(29), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Oblit-%Dam(34)
Level 30: Against All Odds -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 32: Crowd Control -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(33), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Oblit-%Dam(37)
Level 35: Shield Charge -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(36), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(36), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(36), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Oblit-%Dam(37)
Level 38: Boxing -- Acc-I(A)
Level 41: Tough -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Aegis-ResDam/Rchg(42), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(42), Aegis-ResDam(42), Aegis-Psi/Status(48), Empty(48)
Level 44: Weave -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(45), HO:Enzym(45), HO:Enzym(45)
Level 47: Grant Cover -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 49: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50), RechRdx-I(50)
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Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Fury -
That's not actually how it works. Attacks have two components (Or more, if they have multiple damage types) but it's only rolled against the highest of the applicable defenses you have.
So if an attack is ranged/fire, it will be checked against whichever of your defenses is higher, ranged, or fire. It is NOT checked against both. Ever. -
I don't play my Brute like a Scrapper. I play my Scrappers like Brutes. And my Tankers.
It's so hard to get used to not diving directly into the next spawn as the current spawn is almost dead... -
Quote:Yeah, I stopped bothering to read here. There is no such thing as a Brute secondary that can hit the defense caps without bonuses. Not even SR. Not even Stone.
No kidding? Everyone says NRG can be soft capped easily. Unless easily means with generic IOs or SO's it still doesn't change the fundamental problem with the powerset.
If you didn't know that, there's obviously no point reading your posts
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Quote:Sorry, but no. It's not the same at all. There's a complete and total difference between saying "If you are <Fill in the blank>, you should go somewhere else." and "If you hate <Fill in the blank>, you should go somewhere else."Originally Posted by mousedroid
Blame the homosexuals? C'mon now, BayBlast.
Sure, we don't have the chat transcripts, so we don't know how the conversation went, but if the first quote you cited is true, and he was actually told that he should move to another server if he didn't accept homosexuality, that is absolutely no different than someone on Guardian saying, "If you're homosexual, you should go play on Victory."
Discriminating against what someone is is completely unacceptable. Refusing to accept intolerance is not.
The OPs post totally sounds to me like his friend made some idiot remark like "That's so gay!" and ended up getting told. And deservedly so. -
I really like Air Sup. I mean, I could probably drop it and take SS instead of Fly as a travel, but I really like Air Sup for juggling really problematic mobs. It has a higher chance to knockdown than any of the actual SS attacks, so against a Boss or even Elite Boss that's smacking me a bit harder than I'm comfortable with, I can use it to keep him off his feet. Also good for knocking flyers down to where the whole team can deal with them.
I did remove Electric Fences from the build though... I realized I was probably never going to use it, considering I didn't have slots to devote to it anyway, and I don't want to use a root that blocks my knockdown anyway. Rather than Hover, I placed Resurgence, because I like having a self-rez on hand. It's not essential, but it's handy sometimes.
If it turns out that I end up not using Air Superiority (Or at least, not really needing it) in this build, I can probably remove Air Sup, Fly, and Resurgence, switch my travel power to SS, and take Aid Self.
But that's all pretty much squeezing tiny bits of performance out. The main idea of the build is definitely there I think