Redlynne

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The Rikti forces are innumerable!

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I hope the Devs are datamining how many Rikti get defeated during the next couple of weeks. I'd love to know if the players of CoH defeat more Rikti than than the population of the US ...

Issue 10: The Slide Show Invasion !!!

Invasion event lag is so gameplay destroyingly horrific that until this issue is resolved I am, for all intents and purposes, unable to participate meaningfully in the invasion events.

One of the really formiddable sources of lag was (of all things) the Dropships themselves! I'd fly my scrapper into position to kick one ... wait 5 seconds for the animation to activate ... and then wait some more completely locked into the X/Y/Z position (toon not responding to keyboard inputs!) where I attacked while the dropship "stepped" away from me in stop motion rather than "cruising" away smoothly. This of course forced me to "chase it down" in order to wait through my next attack.

Even on the streets, well away from hordes of players, the NPC citizens and cars on the streets were rubberbanding wildly around in stop motion fashion. When approaching "dogpile on da wabbit" concentrations of heroes, it was just ridiculous.

Although, amazingly, I never once saw a LOST CONNECTION TO MAPSERVER message.



As far as the Admin Channel spam is concerned, I'm wondering if it would be possible to (almost completely) offload the admin spam onto ... of all things ... The City Map. Everyone's mini-map has two tabs for it ... Zone and City. Most people never look at the City Map, since it's basically just the tram map you see in the PTA stations ... but what if it could show you WHERE the invasion events were occurring? That way instead of needing to backtrack through chat records to find where an event was in progress, you could simply flick over to the City Map Tab on the mini-map and the invasion event(s) would be shown in a slowly glowing on/off red-ish color on the zone under attack.

Simple. Easy. Intuitive.
KISS.

For extra bonus points, you could add the same effect to the maps you see in the PTA tram stations.



And Sexy Jay ... we the players WORSHIP the fantastic costume (re)designing of the Rikti. Glorious eye candy there.

The new indoor tilesets for the rikti missions in the RWZ are also really cool, and I wish we had a lot of those components available to us for SG Bases! It was really weird wandering around a mission and NOT knowing instantly what every single module already looks like before entering it. Serious applause for War Witch and the Level Design Team.

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Yeah Cryptic is in San Jose, CA. NCSoft offices are in Austin, TX; Brighton, England; Tokyo, Japan; Shang-Hai, China; Bangkok, Thailand; Taipei, Taiwan; and Seoul, Korea. All of which are listed.

I'm assuming Orange County, CA; Santa Monica, CA; and Osaka, Japan also have NCSoft offices.

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Pretty much the most correct answer! (There's NC folks in San Jose, also).

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Considering that the skies here in Austin have been "Rikti Invasion Stormy" this week (and have been almost continuously since Issue 10 went to the Test Server), it's a little worrisome to glance out the windows here at work and think the War Walls around the various sectors of the capital city are flickering on and off as the invaders from the south come up I-35 from San Antonio to-

... wait ...

Wrong news story. Sorry.

Fighting with Fly is ... not recommended ... if you're planning on not falling out of the sky following 20 seconds of exerting yourself to output damage. The endurance drain of Fly is prohibitive to sustained combat operations in the sky, and the imprecise decelerations of Fly are ... not helpful ... for getting into (and staying in!) melee range of a $target. Some players "learn" to compensate for the "squooshiness" of Fly's accelerations and deccerlations by developing a feel for the movement, but it's not something which is inherently intuituive.

If you want to be an effective aerial Scrapper, who has some sky-side endurance for longer fights, I'd actually recommend using Hover+Swift slotted with Fly enhancements each, and if you're */SR adding Quickness and more Fly enhancements.

And I'm a third Ninja/TA MM who has been having a blast with the combo ... because I'm using Flash Arrow and TP Foe to do extremely "unfair" things to mobs in the early levels. Rather than "wading in" with my Ninjas into the thick of things, I bring "single victims" to my Ninjas (who quickly dispatch the interloper like the rapacious melee monsters they are). Remarkably safe, if not exactly the swiftest method in the game ... but then, I'm a patient player.

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Level 2: FLASH ARROW.
I count this one as one of the horribly broken powers.

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May I take this moment to point out the ... unusual ... interaction between Flash Arrow and TP Foe? Have a look over here.

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Thanks for helping out with this MA stalker guide Redlynne!

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We aim to please ...
(although in this case we are pleased to aim ...)

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Issue 10: Invasion, the tenth upcoming free expansion since the launch of City of Heroes® in -->April 2004<--

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Okay, either Issue 10 is officially over 3 YEARS late ...

... or ...

... somebody let Statesman "do the math" again ...

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Martial Arts - Cobra Strike ?have yet to try?

Endurance is becoming more of an issue and this could be a good level to work on your fitness as Cobra Strike is the only new option. That being said I Don’t hate Cobra Strike. I have not yet got to try this attack as a stalker yet, but I have with a low level scrapper which has this power. It has a good strong long lasting disorient but only does token amount of damage. In theory you might be able to get off a second “Assassin’s Blow” because it lasts so long… This is probably a power I will come back to at a higher level because it can be allot of fun and useful. For Now I recommend skipping this power in favor of the fitness chain.

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I have Cobra Strike on my MA/SR scrapper, and I have it 6-slotted for SOs. Cobra Strike is my Boss Killer Power.

As with so many powers, CS doesn't really "shine" until you've slotted it up. The main thing you have to realize though is that CS is not a DPS output type power, it's a Control power.

With Quickness in play (not an option for Regen, but still, take heed), my MA/SR scrapper can, with 1 accuracy SO, 3 disorient duration SOs and 2 recharge reduction SOs, reach a "Boss Killer" power level with Cobra Strike. What am I referring to with such slotting? The disorient enhancements increase the duration to 20 seconds, and Quickness plus the recharge enhancements reduces the recharge time down to 10 seconds.

This means that I can double stack Cobra Strike with high reliability on my $Target.

Basically I can open up on a Boss with Cobra Strike ... and 10 seconds later, Cobra Strike again. By the time the first CS wears off (at 20 seconds), CS has recharged already and I just hit them again. Basically I can chain-stunlock Bosses with Cobra Strike alone until they drop to their knees and faceplant at my feet. I can use Cobra Strike in this manner to "switch off" just about any foe indefinitely, short of purple triangles. Cobra Strike is quite reliable in this configuration and allows me to engage multiple Bosses with ease, including anti-SR types such as CoT Bosses who have auto-hit damage auras ... because I have Cobra Strike to "drunkify" one of those Bosses so I'm taking a LOT less damage (and am thus far more survivable than I would be otherwise).

I use Cobra Strike like this to make situations safe for my teammates and for myself that would otherwise be nailbiters. Do NOT overlook the power of being able to double stack the stun MAG of Cobra Strike ... especially since stunned opponents drop their toggles.

And bear in mind that my slotting above is only using SOs. Using (common!) level 50 IOs I'd probably be using 2acc/2stun/2recharge. I do however have Tactics to help out with the (minimal) Accuracy slotting.



Now consider that the stun on Cobra Strike synergizes with both Eagle's Claw and Thunder Kick ... and Thunder Kick recharges FAST. This means that it's entirely possible for you to "drunkify" a Boss (for the rest of their time on their feet) within seconds after starting a fight, simply by stacking either TK's disorient proc (10% chance) or EC's disorient proc (75% chance) after landing your opening alpha on a Boss, which should be Cobra Strike. Usually if you can stun your $Target Boss within seconds, they'll NEVER get a chance to even strike back before you've got Cobra Strike double stacked on them until they're defeated.

And that's not even including taking LTs or Minions out of the fight before it even begins. Yes Malta Sappers, I'm looking at YOU. Yes Snipers of Annoyance, I'm looking at YOU.



Cobra Strike is not a Damage power, it's a CONTROL power, and should be used accordingly.

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Why not simply change the AI so it ignores Phantom Army? Because we don't want it to ignore Phantom Army. Using Phantom Army as a diversion is a perfectly sound tactic. We just didn't want PA to be any better than other pets/minions for that purpose.

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Correct me if I'm wrong here ... but if Hamidon/Mitos/et al. target a pet and unload on it, doesn't that pet get toasted almost instantly? How long is a pet "supposed to" be able to tank a Mito/Hamidon before getting blown away?

If the answer is one (or two) hit(s) before the pet is sent off to join the everlasting choir invisibile (cash donations in the dearly departed pet's memory can be sent to Cryptic Studios, all major credit cards honored) it makes me wonder if Hamidon's AI shouldn't be configured in such a way as to take only a single shot at a "pet class" target (of any type) and then move onto a different target within range. That way a Phantom Army could act (and I quote) ... "as a distraction" ... but not as a means to be a stand-in tank made of unbelievium which holds aggro.

Basically the end result behavior would be that if a pet (any type) draws aggro from Hamidon (et al.) then only a single potshot (or two) is directed at that pet, after which Hamidon "moves on" in the aggro rotation. Essentially then, in the context of phase shifted heroes/pets, Hamidon would attempt to "tag" the shifted target but after the first/second UNAFFECTED! would "wise up" and start shooting something else.

Just a thought.
It would certainly fulfill the (highly abbreviated) description of behavior that the devs (in this case BAB) seem to be seeking.

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I hate when standard mobs "cheat" the rules with player powers, but I'm perfectly fine with a raid mob like Hamidon doing it. I really don't see your point, other than you seem to be taking advantage of your account reactivation to drop in and be negative wherever you can.

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My point was that Hamidon side-steps (ie. "cheats") on a great many "rules" of the game in order to present a challenge. Rather than debuffing resistances, Hamidon does untyped and/or toxic damage. Hamidon "ignores" defenses. Hamidon can smack you around through Phase Shift ... and so on. Rather than using the existing mechanics which everyone else is beholden to, Hamidon is "allowed" to simply bypass them.

If a player were able to do the same thing, we'd call that "cheating" ... plain and simple.

Reminds me of a situation in Civilization 2, where rather than making the AI controlled players "pay for" World Wonders (in an honest fashion) by investing resources to build them, the AI just randomly "awarded" the Wonders at zero cost to one of the AI players every-so-often if they weren't already built. Basically ... the game "cheated" ... rather than playing by the same rules that you have to.

Hamidon does much the same thing in order to provide a challenge. He doesn't play by the same "rules" that the players do, or even any other AVs do. Loopholes and exceptions have had to be made for Hamidon, in such profusion, that Hamidon barely even plays by the same rules that anyone else does.

You say you're fine with that.
I'm wondering if it was possible to achieve the same results without needing to "cheat" the rules of the game the way Hamidon currently does ... and if so (granted not necessarily a possibility), why wasn't Hamidon implemented THAT way instead.

And for what it's worth ... I agree with the OP. Hamidon is yet another example of why the Concealment Pool just isn't what it used to be ...

Hamidon only exists as a "challenge" by cheating almost every aspect of the game.

Next question ...

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* Shadow Shard Maps show the location of each Jump Pad. A dotted line connects the Jump Pad with its end point.

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Not Functional in the 15 July 2005 Test release.

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* A teleporter on Firebase Zulu takes players to any of the other three zones in the Shadow Shard (works both ways).

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Poorly implemented to the point of crying disappointment.

Mole Points!
Mole Point Gates function like Trams ... except that you have to visit them "the hard way" first in order to enable them.

May I recommend:

Mole Point Echo in the Bastion of Denial at -1060.6 770.2 -5900.1 as a "most useful" location for a Mole Point in The Chantry.

Mole Point Tango in the Path of Rage at -7346.8 1777.6 3438.1 in The Chantry ... or ... in The Lock Of Malice at -4464.1 -20.0 9005.8 in The Storm Palace. Of the two, I prefer the Path of Rage location.

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* Dr. Scott Wachhorst, a prominent xenobiologist and Portal Corp. leader, willingly purchases Enhancements from players in Firebase Zulu.
* A renegade Brute, Kallarn, purchases Enhancements with the hope that he might gain enough power to overthrow Ruladak. It can be found in the Cascades.
* Slarrah, a Wisp who has been converted by Faathim the Kind relieves players of excess Enhancements in the Chantry.
* Nameless Mystic. An interdimensional mystic feeds off the energy kicked off by the dreaded Lanaru. He happily accepts Enhancements. Found lurking near the Storm Palace.

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Regrettably, these are pretty much unnecessary. With "quick access" (relatively speaking) to FBZ via Mole Points, you'll only need a single NPC Store (a Quartermaster?) back at FBZ to handle Enhancement Sales transactions within the Shard.

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Many existing missions have been updated with hostage escorts, friendly heroes who fight by your side, villain wave attacks and more.

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Okay ... am I the only one who wishes that the Shadow Shard missions had been chock-a-block full of Missions like these from Day 1? And as far as Hostage Escorts goes ... is there any reason why the Shard can't have Outdoor Escort Missions? Rendezvous with Native Resistance Fighters "here" and escort them to coordinates "here" to complete the Mission. Talk about a fun way to learn to explore the Zone(s)! It's "street hunting" Shard Style ... but with an objective ... beyond simply blue handing the phone boxes, because you'll need to protect those people you're escorting from the outdoor spawns along the way.

And as for Friendly Heroes ... why are the Military People so frakkin' useless everywhere you go? Why aren't there Croatoa-style combats going on between Our People and the Rularuu, the Rularuu and the Reflections, the Reflections and the Nemesis Army and Circle of Thorns and Crey? Don't just stand around out there waiting for some Hero to come along and liven things up for you! Fight it out! For Real! Mobs damaging each other! Oh no, those soldiers are about to be overrun! I must save them from a Fate Worse Than Death!

As for actually GETTING to the Shard ... it might help if there were some actual form of Signage somewhere ... ANYWHERE ... around Portal Corp Plaza indicating that the Shard not only exists, but can be accessed through THIS building (you know the one). Every other Zone in the game clues you in to where you need to go in order to go somewhere else. Even the Portal to the Rikti Crash Site from Portal Corp gets a couple nice big signs saying "THIS WAY!" for people. The Shard? You have to open your Map and Zoom way in and LOOK to see that the Shard is even there. Inside the (correct) Portal Corp Building ... aside from the (now visible) sandbags and supplies ... there is absolutely NOTHING telling you which way to go after you take the elevators. You don't come out of the elevators and see a sign with an arrow on it saying "SHADOW SHARD Firebase Zulu --->" anywhere. If you don't TELL people it's there, odds are extremely good that unless they already know (or are just absurdly observant) that new first-timers will never even know that the Shadow Shard even exists (much as a large proportion of the CoH population STILL doesn't know that it exists at all ... and it's been here for 3 issues already!).

Another thing which the Shard could use, and which Striga and now Croatoa demonstrate can be done, would be to implement flying patrols in the Shard. Could be mainly Wisps and/or Observers or Storm Elementals ... but there needs to be SOMETHING flying around in the Vast Empty Reaches even if they're just going from A to B. The best option of course would be to code the Patrol Routes such that they are NOT the same as the Geyser Routes ... that way, Flyers who take shortcuts have the possibility of having a hostile encounter out where there's no land to stand on (thus requiring the use of Hover/Flight during any combat there) and where they weren't expecting one (thus keeping players "wary" at all times, even when travelling through the Big Vast Empty).

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Please include the hero name and server name in your post.

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Ms Givings
Virtue Server

Photo Portfolio: 1 2 3

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Petrifying Gaze has a much shorter duration and longer recharge than the Defender version. If you want to get any Hold on a Boss you will have to slot very heavily. IMHO it is probably worth 2 or 3, I will be going for an Acc and two Hold durations.

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Petrifying Gaze
Animation: ~2 seconds
Recharge: 30 seconds
Duration: 15 seconds

1 -Recharge SO (no Hasten): -7.5 seconds of Recharge
2 -Recharge SO (no Hasten): -12 seconds of Recharge
Hasten (only): -12.35 second of Recharge
+Hold SO: +5 seconds of Hold Duration

Recommended Slotting (without Hasten):
2 +Accuracy SO (because missing SUCKETH!)
1 -Recharge SO
3 +Hold SO

Recommended Slotting (with Hasten):
2 +Accuracy SO (because missing SUCKETH!)
3 +Hold SO

You'll want the "extra" Duration versus Orange/Red/Purple Mobs to offset the Duration Penalty applied when fighting higher level Mobs.

Welcome to Perma-Gaze.

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<ul type="square">[*]Telekinesis, Dominate (Low/moderate risk)
As others noted, TK as an always-hit area hold onto which Dominate (and TD) will stack, can be very effective if you can keep the endurance flowing. In fact, if your recharge rate and endurance are iron-clad, you can be applying so much hold with decent duration that you're a long way toward the improbable feat of chain-holding AVs.[/list]
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I've managed to get Ms Givings up to 28.6 now and have been using Telekinesis for quite some time. There are some pretty significant DOs and DON'Ts for use of Telekinesis.

One of the DON'T/DO items is just Open with TK on a dynamically moving group of Mobs. Under most circumstances, a lot of the mobile Mobs will "drop out" of the TK Cluster simply by virtue of their being able to move around as they're being swept up by TK. This means that mobile Mobs can (in effect) "resist" the Foe Repel aspect of TK simply by moving towards you ... and thus away from the vector of Repulsion from you ... just long enough to "get away" from the TK Cluster, which has continued to pulse Repel away from you.

The SAFEST thing to do is to open with Mass Hypnosis (optionally followed by Total Domination) ... THEN hit the Telekinesis. The reason for this is that the Sleeping Mobs will not be able to Move under their own power (thereby "resisting" the Repel of TK) before the HOLD aspect of TK gets applied to them, which will of course prevent them from Moving as they get swept up by the TK Cluster. Granted, when the Mobs get "swept up" by TK that'll break the Sleep of Mass Hypnosis ... but by the time that happens, it'll be "too late" for them to do anything about that.

Do NOT expect a TK-ed anchor floating by a Mob running towards you to "gather up" the Mob charging towards you. If it happens ... Yay! Most of the time however, the charging Mob will Repel maybe once ... but will do so Out Of Sync with the anchor group, which will be Repelled out of range of maintaining TK contact with the charging Mob before the Repel pulse affects the charger ... with the result that the Mobile Mob "drops out" of the TK Cluster and resumes bearing down on you.

"Pushing" with TK to establish a Cluster Pile into a group of Mobile Mobs is thus remarkably INEFFECTIVE. I have found this out on multiple occasions. "Pushing" with TK to establish a Cluster Pile into a group of Immobile Mobs is EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE ... with the caveat that you need to shove them back into terrain that isn't "lumpy bumpy" that allows some of them to "slough off" the TK Cluster and thus become "unglued" from the rest and "drop out" of being affected by TK.

<ul type="square">[*]Confuse, Telekinesis (also known as The Poor MC's Teleport Foe)
Best used on a single "leftover" Mob you'd like to inflict on other Foes elsewhere.[/list]
I used this to "push/drag" a Minion (in this case, a Warrior Bruiser) from elsewhere on a mission map into proximity with an Elite Boss (Achillies) so as to be able to Solo the mission and get the Wedding Band Temp Power from Stephanie Peebles. The other Warrior types had too little Accuracy, cycled their attacks too slowly, and simply didn't do enough Damage to dent the Elite Boss faster than he could Heal. So I "imported" a Bruiser (who cycles faster, attacks more reliably and does "enough" damage to whittle down the Elite Boss) into close enough proximity to engage. Required hair-trigger timing in use of TK ... not to mention a good deal of Goldilocks Touch so as to get Close But Not Too Close ... so as to get my Confused Minion to attack without "waking" the Elite Boss to my presence. 10 minutes of Auto-Attack Confusing later ... Mission Complete ... Solo. I got no XP for the Elite Boss ... but then I didn't need XP from the Elite Boss who could slay me just by glancing in my direction.

Maintain Confuse and you can TK Mobs around all over ... so long as you're CAREFUL NOT to push them into a corner you can't get them out of. TK can be used for extremely short bursts of Repel Foe ... which is sometimes the difference between a Mob standing there Confused (doing nothing) and attacking their (former) comrades. Sometimes all it takes is a single pulse of Repel Foe to put a Confused Mob into Aggro Range of any other Mobs.



Finally, a word about the Foe Repel of Telekinesis.

Foes are Repelled From You The Mind Controller ... not from each other. We're talking multibody vectors here. It LOOKS like they Repel from each other because of the difference in vector angles from the Mind Controller to them ... not because they're "pushing off each other" as they float around. The only vectors that TK-ed Foes exert on each other is Spatial Denial ... also known as "stacking" ... in that (usually) two Mobs cannot occupy the exact same location simultaneously. Other than that fact, and the "can't move through obstacles" vectors applied to them, Mobs that are Held and Repelled by TK are only Repelled away from the Mind Controller. This is why corners are so important. If you've had high school physics, this makes a lot more sense ... because you can actually SEE the Vector Math happening right in front of your very eyes.



And Last But Not Least ...
Levitate doesn't "mix" all that well with Telekinesis. The "juggle toss" of Levitate has an annoying habit of throwing TK-ed Mobs over obstructions ... beyond which they continue to be Repelled away until they drop out of TK Cluster Range and become Unheld (not to mention Annoyed). The knockup of Levitate is yet another factor to "juggle" when trying to select appropriate terrain to TK into, and there are surprisingly large variety of situations where you simply DON'T want to use Levitate while holding with TK. Mesmerize may do less Damage per Hit, and it may be Psionic instead of Smashing Damage ... but the lack of Knockup on Mesmerize makes it far more Friendly to synergize with TK than Levitate. On TK-ed Mobs you'd be using Mesmerize and Levitate for Damage Output rather than Control anyway, so the loss of Sleep from Mesmerize (TK breaks Sleeps btw) is hardly important (although the lack of knockup is extremely important). Slotting Mesmerize for Damage and Dominate for Hold looks like a very attractive synergy with Telekinesis.

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Suppliments and General Knowledge to keep in Mind with TK

1. End Reduction enhancements. TK has a base cost of 3 endurance per second. End reduction enhancers can signifigantly reduce this cost, here is how much it will cost with end reducers:

Single Origin Enhancers:
1. 2.25 per second
2. 1.80 per second
3. 1.50 per second
4. 1.29 per second
5. 1.13 per second
6. 1.00 per second

Dual Origin Enhancers
1. 2.57 per second
2. 2.25 per second
3. 1.99 per second
4. 1.80 per second
5. 1.63 per second
6. 1.50 per second

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This information is Inaccurate as of Issue 3 and 4 on Live Servers.

The correct Base Endurance Cost for Telekinesis is now -4.33 END per second (260 END per minute) ... not -3.0 END per second as reported at the time that this guide was written.

This means that Telekinesis has the second highest Endurance Cost of any Toggle in the entire game.