Redlynne

Hence why I prefaced everything I said with ...
Owing to the fact that the Achilles' Heel proc is leveraged best on targets that live beyond 2-3 hits ... and/or by teams ... owing to the fact that the Achilles' Heel proc functions (effectively) as a DoT "fueled" by subsequent attacks. On anything you'll be taking out in 2-3 hits (ie. minions), the damage throughput gain on Achilles' Heel is ... not that great.

The situation changes when talking about targets you'll be needing to hit 4+ times to bring them down (LTs, Bosses, Elite Bosses and AV/Hero). On these tougher targets, you'll be debuffing them for the entire team for a sustained period of time ... simply because they're not One Shot Wonders. When you start getting into the 4+ attacks per target range, you start standing a decent chance of being able to "fuel" the damage throughput advantage of debuffing resistance rather than applying direct damage (which, depending on type, may be heavily resisted by the $target).

And Werner is quite right about Resist Debuffing being the "most useful" on Boss and up type $targets via single target attacks when playing solo. Under solo conditions, Resist Debuffing in cone/AoE attack powers is substantially "wasted" for all intents and purposes (not *entirely*, just substantially) due to the lack of a target rich environment.

In a target rich environment, particularly on Team-8, either when soloing or when actually teamed ... having a Resist Debuff in cone/AoE powers becomes useful again simply due to the quantities of hostiles and the sheer number of "dice" being thrown around for random rolls. This means far more opportunities to proc Resist Debuffing via multi-target hits, which can in turn create exploitable opportunities for a player who is actively controlling their target selection, rather than simply doing a target follow$$near and not actively paying attention to situational awareness (which given the pace of combat is not always easy to maintain in the face of Scrapperlock).

All of which means the question (rather neatly) folds back on itself, producing the inevitable ... "Depends on your playstyle" ... answer.

How Can We Help ...

At this point, ANYTHING that gets the Devs excited about bases needs to be lauded, nurtured and encouraged. After all ... I made a prediction a while back that if the Devs continued to say nothing about Bases by the time Issue 20 rolls around ... they never would. Needless to say, I'd be *very* happy to be proven wrong on this point.

Right now, the BIGGEST and most obvious and simplest thing the Devs could possibly do for us (and their database server!) is to give us "dirt simple" 6-sided objects (8 vertices, 6 sides) which use already existing textures (such as Small Bookcase, Tall Shelf, et al.) that come in the following sizes ...
2x2x2
4x2x2
2x4x2
2x2x4
2x4x4
4x4x2
4x2x4
4x4x4
... for use as flooring in 3D base design. With a simple 4x4x4 "block" to use as flooring, I could reduce the number of objects in my base by about 60% ... since I wouldn't need to use arrays of Small Bookcases to do the job (64 vs 256 "floor" objects per 32x32 base block to be floored). With something so dirt simple, bases would LOAD FASTER as well as RENDER FASTER improving performance server side, client side and immersion side.

How "hard" is it to create a block cube that only has an exterior skin on it?

Fixed it for you.
Your veteran player needs help with cause and effect.

City of Heroes v1.0.4462
Created: Monday, January 5, 2009 1:37 PM
Modified: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 6:04 PM

Interesting that the Created/Modified dates and times don't change when updating the base client to a higher version. Reinstalling/toploading the client worked like a charm. I have to agree that the 4462 version fixed a LOT of crud. I now get a proper game mouse cursor without needing to Alt-Tab to enforce *some* kind of non-typical (and practically invisible BLACK) cursor icon in the game along with hand icons (orange instead of blue). I've got enough frame rate now to kick my graphics settings up ever so slightly into *some* of the ultra mode goodies (like shadows) without dropping down below 15 FPS routinely (which is a PAIN when navigating while ninja jumping).

One peculiar habit which the client has picked up though is pausing for more than a second while loading the character screen after selecting server. No idea why it does that, or what could cause such a condition. It is however somewhat similar to the way the client just ... hangs ... any time I approach WW in Talos, close enough to cause a network panic lag as the server tries to transmit data on all those characters standing around in WW messing with the Auction House. Really wish there was some way Paragon Studios could code those "Load Dozens of Characters NAO!" moments so they involved a more graceful impact on client performance.

404 not Found.

Um ... Avatea? It's been a few days. How long would you like us to wait? Another week? Would you be able to explain the holdup (so as to counter any conspiracy theorizing in advance)?

Uh ... from earlier in this very thread ...
That's right ... I main tanked an ITF with no Defender/Controller backup or support. Tanking the ITF is a cakewalk ... if you've built for DEFense (smart) ... or pitiful (if you haven't). Stay near the softcap on Smash/Lethal and most of those Defense Debuffs will never land on you in the first place.

Main Tanking the Statesman Task Force ... with those four AVs and Lord Recluse at the end ... is just begging for Debt. That's because you have to take them on without being able to use crunchies as fuel for Energy Absorption. And they're AVs ... so they laugh at your Defenses and smush you in just a few hits because you've got no resistances worth even chuckling about.

Ice Tanks are great against hordes that can be herded. They're not so great against AVs or anything with "IWIN!" Kryptonite buttons (DE Quartz, Rularuu Eyeballs, etc.).

Ah, I was wondering if there was some sort of holdup. I hadn't heard back from theOcho via PM, so I wasn't sure if we'd been forgotten or what (lack of info tends to do that to speculations). Thanks for clearing that up Avatea.