Rigel_Kent
-
Posts
1086 -
Joined
-
Two tricks I've discovered, for making custom critters more palatable, whatever their %XP:
* Mix dev critters into the custom groups. Especially the real easy dev critters, if it suits the story. You know the ones I'm talking about. (Lesson learned from: Non-AE farms. Who says you don't ever learn anything from farming?) Not such a big deal if only 1 minion out of 3 gives a crappy 40% or 75% XP. Just don't make it so low that players ignore the customs and barrel onward to the next spawn of dev critters. (Lesson learned from: bad-XP AI summoned critters, underlings.)
* Make the custom critters, especially the minions, very similar to each other. (Lesson learned from: annoying AI multigroups: Rularuu, Arachnos, Council, PPD.) Instead of difficulty from needing 3 different strategies to fight 3 different minions every spawn, you can add a (similar) power to the (similar) minions instead, so the increased difficulty pays off as increased XP. Let the bosses show the most variety, as their numbers per spawn are limited. -
Archery - Aim - Range + Long Animation Times = DP
Ice Blast - Storm - Utility + Bad Damage Type = Psi
The reason there's a lack of guides for these two sets is because they're painfully underpowered. This turns off a lot of the game mechanics savvy players, the kind who'd be inclined to dig deep into the sets and write a guide.
Your workaround is to use a corresponding Archery (for DP) or Ice Blast (for Psi) guide, substituting analogous powers. Keep in mind that about half the power substitutes are about as good as the Archery or Ice analogs, about half are much weaker, and maybe one power is stronger. Also keep in mind that your secondary powers will start to shine in comparison, so don't neglect them. I've marked the power substitutes that are significantly weaker in my opinion with an asterisk, so double check the real numbers before taking them, and perhaps delay slotting them in favor of other powers, such as secondaries.
Snap Shot -> Pistols
Aimed Shot -> Dual Wield
Fistful of Arrows -> Empty Clips* (check range and animation time)
Blazing Arrow -> Executioner's Shot* (check range and animation time)
Aim -> Swap Ammo* (check % of lethal damage type that is changed to fire/cold/tox)
Explosive Arrow -> Bullet Rain
Ranged Shot -> Piercing Rounds (long recharge Exec Shot instead of an interruptible sniper, not much of a cone)
Stunning Shot -> Suppressive Fire
Rain of Arrows -> Hail of Bullets* (check PBAoE instead of range, and recharge time)
Ice Bolt -> Psionic Dart
Ice Blast -> Mental Blast
Frost Breath -> Psionic Tornado (larger, lower damage AoE instead of small, higher damage cone)
Aim -> Psychic Focus
Freeze Ray -> Scramble Thoughts* (check animation and recharge times)
Ice Storm -> (no equivalent)*
Bitter Ice Blast -> Telekinetic Blast
Bitter Freeze Ray -> Will Domination* (check <100% chance to cause status effect)
Blizzard -> Psychic Wail (PBAoE nuke instead of rain nuke)
(no equivalent) -> Psionic Lance* (check animation/interrupt time and weak side effect)
Most DP blasters turn on fire ammo for the slight extra DPS, and just ignore all the other ammo types. I can't say that's a particularly bad idea, since fire-resistant cold-vulnerable enemies only appear in far-off corners of the world. Also, there are no toxic vulnerable enemies, and lethal vulnerable enemies aren't fire resistant. Saves room on your hotbar at least. -
City of Data doesn't say [Non-resistable] for Achilles Heel proc. Hami raiders can probably confirm that.
-
Quote:<-- Controller board's that way.Originally Posted by Robert_B
Fire/Kin
You sure you don't have room in your build for both? Fire/Kins don't exactly need a lot of primary and pool powers to get by. And if you have to drop one, typically Fire/Kins do not have Siphon Power. -
As I see it, Healing Aura, Regeneration Aura, and Recovery Aura are for the empath's own benefit. Anyone else happens to be within 25', fine, but not that important. So "stay close to me for heals" and "gather for RA" puts too much focus on the small stuff.
-
Sorry for mentioning that I suck in the original post. It seems to have distracted from my point. Player skill has very little to do with how custom critters compare to dev critters, right? Sucking just means I get debt in +1 radios, and I get debt with +0 (and sometimes -1) 100% customs.
In defense of lower percentages, I see 100% rewards as an illusion, if players have to lower their difficulty from their usual setting. Either the custom critter formula is taking a chunk out of their reward, or the Fateweaver is. The lower percentage just saves them a trip to the Fateweaver every time they switch between custom critter arcs and dev critter arcs.
Also, Eva, you said custom critters' Shuriken/Focus/etc. isn't as bad as it used to be, but I don't see the change. Did I miss the patch note? Was this something that changed in Issue 14 beta? -
My doomy predictions:
The inf price of current goods (except respec recipes) will go down as new phat lewt is introduced. The new phat lewt will sell in the billions as bidders are forced to bid blindly. Those blind bids will tie up inf, lowering the price of all other goods.
The inf price of respec recipes will continue to go up as there's a wave of build experimentation, one free respec will be insufficient to meet needs, and the $9.99 paid respec price is far too high to compete with inf farmers/sellers. -
Quote:Samuel is 99% correct... only thing I would add is that the background height ruler at launch was not off. Somewhere along the line, the background height ruler got shrunk somehow. Started saying average height characters were well over 6' tall instead of closer to 6'ish. Maybe it went through the wash. Anyway, follow the rest of Samuel's advice and you'll be fine.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
AHeight scale in City of Heroes is something that has always been "off." One piece of advise I'm going to give everyone right off the bat - ignore the height ruler at character creation. It's drawn to its own fictitious scale that has nothing to do with anything at all. Instead, peruse the height SLIDER.
-
On the buff/debuff side, Radiation Emission (as Fury mentioned), Dark Miasma, Storm Summoning, and Kinetics do great with just DOs. (For Defenders, at least.) Even the SOs are gravy. The "bubble" sets Force Fields, Thermal Radiation, Cold Domination, and Sonic Resonance are fine with just SOs. Only the most recharge intensive buff/debuff sets, particularly Empathy, really rely on LotGs, Hasten, and expensive set recharge bonuses.
-
The Grandville map I checked was called "The Fab", it's actually the first mission of STF. I didn't check the other Grandville map out, so give it a try!
Also, I noticed that the number of patrols the system let me have was cut in half if I selected a "Defeat All Enemies" detail, which I did for the above post. So you might actually get double all those numbers if you don't have a "Defeat All". -
Giant Monster foot stomps are also mag 10 IIRC. So if you melee and you don't PVP, that's a good level to shoot for.
For PvE ranged, the vast majority of knocks are under 1 mag (i.e. knockdowns). Any knock protection at all will do nicely. -
Lightning Storm'll do it too, come to think of it. File this one under "things stormies are really good at."
-
Dark Miasma Defender or Corruptor will get you experience in many playstyles, many types of powers. Pets and drops, mezzes and heals, buffs and debuffs, blasts and stealthing, even -regen hose on AVs and GMs. You'll be survivable enough to get to 50 without frustration, then, you'll be able to apply the knowledge you've gained from Dark Miasma to any other character you can think of.
-
Another Gale trick I use (but forgot about):
If a spawn is "long" with enemies spread out close to me and far away -- this happens a lot in narrow hallways -- I like to position myself so that the front half of the spawn is in Gale range, but the back half of the spawn isn't. Gale (making sure I have lots of accuracy slotted) to make a nice neat pile in the back, dump Freezing Rain on the pile, profit.
If you have a hard time judging range, you can target an enemy halfway in the pack, queue Gale from well out of range, and then move closer until it fires.
True, you can also do this with Hurricane, but Gale does it faster.
-
Synergy: 1+1=3
Not synergy: 10+10=20
A lot of "synergy" combos I see in this thread are simply two really great sets in their own right combined to make a predictably strong combo.
Synergy is what saves two bad or so-so sets and makes them viable or even quite good. Electric blaster with /EM or /Elec secondary. Katana scrapper with SR secondary (if you're poor and can't afford sets). That sort of thing. -
Quote:Yes.Originally Posted by rsclark
For controllery attacks (tesla, electric fence, shocking bolt), does the end drain/end drain over time still take effect if the mag isn't high enough to affect the target? Basically, would those serve to keep a harder target low, even if they couldn't control it?
Electric Fence, for example, against a root resistant target like ghosts. You'll see ticks of orange numbers, and little nibbles will be taken out of the blue bar with each tick, even though there's no rings of electricity and no rooting unless you stack like crazy.
Same is true for almost all "side effects" of mez attacks, whether graphics are displayed or not. -
The recovery debuffs are more important than the endurance drain imo. Short Circuit and Tesla Cage are the only blasts that apply guaranteed recovery debuffs on a hit.
-
The Pistols power (i.e. the first tier blast) does not have any of those.
-
Dual Pistols
Balance Issues
- The secondary effect of Pistols (defense debuff) is removed when changing to fire, cold, or toxic ammo, but no replacement secondary effect is added. This results in Pistols having no secondary effect when using fire, cold, or toxic ammo.
-
Quote:Due to enhancement softcaps (what some refer to as "ED"), just remember that over 70% you start getting a little less improvement for EndMod enhancements, and after 95%, you get almost no improvement at all.Originally Posted by Tara_Fury
Now I'm starting to think about the mathy part behind the build, and wondering what my optimal slotting should be for maximum drainage. Right now, I have Short Circuit five-slotted, all with EndMods.
You are correct that EndMod is very nice to have in Short Circuit. Additionally, Short Circuit applies a nasty recovery debuff for 10 seconds. You can't enhance the duration of that debuff, but you can do the next best thing by slotting for recharge speed. My slotting for this power would include a mix of accuracy, recharge speed, endurance modification, and endurance cost reduction.
Word of warning: don't slot the Performance Shifter: Chance for +Endurance proc into any electric attack. That proc grants endurance to a target, so is meant for self-targeting and ally-targeting powers such as Stamina and Speed Boost.
You have a second build to choose from, so if you ever want to solo, you can take advantage of that to slot for damage without affecting your sapper build.Quote:I am totally not worried about doing damage, as that's not really my role in teams, and I don't solo.
Also, keep in mind that defenders' role in teams can include direct damage. Half our powers are direct damage powers! But if you choose not to take direct damage as a role, that's fine. You're still contributing to XP rate through Tar Patch.
(You might say that defender damage scalars are low, but I'd counter that defender PvE end drain scalars aren't so hot either.)
Plus, if you do a second solo/damage build, you can swap builds on certain teams where you really do need to do damage. It happens sometimes... stuck on a PuG with two "pure healers", two non-shield tankers, two forcefields controllers, and a dwarf form Kheldian. Unless you're truly averse to dealing direct damage, these would be ideal times to bust out the second build and put out some orange numbers. -
If an enemy leaves Freezing Rain's area of effect before the rain expires, the debuffs will last 45 seconds from the last tick to hit the enemy, as expected. If any enemy is inside Freezing Rain's area of effect when the rain expires, the debuffs may last 45 seconds, or may cancel immediately. I can't figure out exactly what causes this, but my intuition says it's related to the Oil Slick lighting bug. This is still happening as of the last live patch.
-
I'm a fan of normal ammo on low level pugs. You'll be putting out some nasty defense debuffs that'll fix even the newbiest team's accuracy problems.
-
I see no problems or serious omissions with the guide, so I'll just blather a bit about Snow Storm, and if you read anything that sparks an idea, great, if not, great.
==========
I have started slotting Slows in Snow Storm lately due to the poofing Freezing Rain debuffs bug.
As for anchor selection, the usual anchor selection strategies apply. Try farthest LT, farthest boss, farthest any, see what works. But there's also an extra anchor selection strategy: anchor the flyer. The -fly being the main reason you'll want to keep Snow Storm around even after the poofing Freezing Rain debuffs bug is fixed.
I open with Snow Storm only on sewer type newbie runs when Freezing Rain is not available. And even then, jousting to get yourself out of line of sight is extremely important, since Snow Storm will send an immediate, unmitigated alpha strike your way. -
Quote:I'm not sure when this got changed, but when I checked a couple weeks ago, it was working the same as other set bonuses.Originally Posted by Draggynn
Aegis Psionic/Mez Resist IO which is slotted in a resistance power will provide you with up to 25% mez resist or a 20% reduction in duration. Unfortunatley the way the power works, each time the power with the IO is used your resistance increases 5% permanently (until you zone) up to a 25% max.
-
Well, I'm not sure how much me sucking has to do with it. It's not like I die to +0 radio mishes, but I very much die to most +0 custom critters. So it's a comparative observation I'm making -- AE versus radios. If custom critters are above about 40%, I have to fly all the way from the hospital to a field analyst, set myself down to -1, quit the arc, start over, and hope it's enough.
Though, I'll be honest, if I don't think it's worth the hassle, I'll sometimes just quit the arc and move on to the next.