Rigel_Kent

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You can't copyright the word gambit. You can copyright the character Gambit, but not the word itself.

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Close.

You can copyright a whole artistic work, such as Uncanny X-Men #NNN. Characters and other elements of that work are protected only in as much as they are parts of the whole. That becomes important in a fair use defense, where using a part is more likely to be permitted fair use than using the whole.

The more relevant issue with name filtering is trademarks.

Yeah, I meant it's an old issue Just more info about it.

Not a new issue, but I found a patch note relevant to the issue of defender elec blasts not draining any more than other ATs.

From the issue 4 (Arena) (May 4, 2005) patch notes:
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Defenders and Controllers will now drain more Endurance when using powers that drain Endurance. More specifically, Defenders will drain more Endurance when using Electricity Blast than a Blaster using the same power. Controllers will now drain more endurance with powers such as Transfusion, but Defenders will still drain more than Controllers. Defenders Secondary Effects (debuffs) should be better than a Blaster's or a Controller's.

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Currently, defender elec blasts drain more from PvP targets, but not from PvE targets.

Making it easier to farm won't create more farmers. It'll just move the farms.

That said, moving farms could be a bad thing, too. A huge farmer influx from Peregrine Island to Atlas Park (which appears to be one Architect location in the teaser screenshots) would be pretty scary.

I don't have a really strong position on badge credit in architect missions, but I'm wary of 1) any reason being added to not do architect missions, and 2) another ifandbut exception to rules that I'll have to type out in Help channel to people confused by lack of badge progress.

I dunno, it's kind of neat hearing other people's ideas on how they think Mission Architect will be used. The "SG initiation" sounds like a winner.

Oh yeah, Dark Servant slotting. That reminds me.

Dark Miasma

Dark Servant is a damage dealing pet, but does not accept damage enhancements or Pet Damage invention sets.

The Great Kentini has returned. Behold the crystal ball! All-seeing! All-knowing!

My Five Architect Predictions (Including Three That Will Get Me Flamed)

5) "Challenge" architect missions will be big. Look for long-lived threads in the future titled "Post your X AT's results on Y player's Z architect mission challenge!" Look for all my X ATs to fail miserably.

4) Architect will be slightly more popular than the Arena for playing, once the shiny wears off. Badgers will play, the curious will play, people wanting a "challenge" will play, and people wanting one or two specific rewards will play (until they get the rewards). (Sounds like Arena, eh?) But I don't see any incentive for the general population aside from these specific groups. The rewards just look too stingy. (Fair disclosure: I am not in closed beta. The architect mission rewards may in fact be generous. I have never been to the Moon. The Moon may in fact be green cheese.)

3) Architect will remain popular for a long time for creating missions. Player-created content is a perfect match for the City of Heroes playerbase. Many of whom were drawn here by the game's character generation. So even if nobody but friends and SGmates plays them, they'll still be great fun to make. (See also: one-man SG bases.)

2) The first "Hall of Fame" missions will be ones forumgoers use for challenges, ones people use to grind Architect badges/rewards, and ones commercial farmers use to get fast influence. More players, more thumbs. Once those needs are met, no more missions will be needed to fill those needs, so the second wave of Hall of Fame architect missions will be rocking good content.

1) "My origin, aren't I so awesome" architect missions will be the most annoying new content since "We're Vanguard, aren't we so awesome."

And if you don't like my predictions, well, just copy and paste them in my face if and when they turn out to be incorrect. I'm interested to see how much glue I end up with on my face after this.

That's what I understand the reason is, but I don't think engine limitations have any bearing on whether something's an issue or not. Corpse Transfusion is also a known engine limitation.

Team toggle buffs (Arctic Fog, Shadow Fall, Dispersion Bubble, Sonic Dispersion, and Steamy Mist) suppress on teammates when the teammate is mezzed, not when the user is mezzed.

The way it works under Issue 13 is unintuitive, but can we call it a balance issue?

The official times are badly out of date. These days, the raids fill up 15 to 30 minutes in advance. So you need to be on your correct alt and in the Hive by about 10:30pm server time (UTC+0) on Saturdays, and about 12:45am server time (UTC+0) on Wednesday nights (early Thursday morning UTC).

There are plenty of people who show up on time (but not 30 minutes ahead of time as they must to get in) to support a second raid, if they weren't forced to give up due to no second raid being scheduled. Unfortunately, nobody's working on fixing the situation by moving the scheduled raid earlier and a second one in yet. Come next week I might just start doing it myself.

The Soul Drain issue can be dropped from the list as fixed. It now gives 48% dmg and 12% tohit for the first target, 8% dmg and 2% tohit for each additional target, regardless of targets' levels.

The Oppressive Gloom and Dark Consumption issues stand.

I don't PvP myself, but just from theorycraft I can see that Adrenalin Boost gets trashed by diminishing returns. Any other single-target long-recharge uberbuffs that also run afoul of DR?

I reported those, but I'm stuck at school at the moment. I'll have to recheck them later.

Patch notes from the test server board.
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# All versions of Entangling Arrow should now accept Slow enhancement sets.

# Dark Miasma/Howling Twilight: When used on another player, this power\ss prompt will advise the player that they will be revived with full health and endurance instead of partial health and endurance.

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Not worth a full happy dance but I hopped a bit.

I guess this is a thread I can get away with posting to without reading. Pretty sure models & skins for all of these items exist, so this post gives BAB a break.

* Lockers
* Mannequins
* Cars
* Hazard signs
* Chain link fence
* "Windows"
* Cold cases (hero mutation store wall detail?)
* Magician posters (hero magic store wall detail?)
* Rikti dummies / shooting targets
* Big horizontal pipes (Terra Volta)
* Sci-fi metal detector (police departments)
* Magic wells (common magic mission glowie)

With a certain well hyped, high-on-disk-space low-on-content $40 expansion to a certain other MMO coming out so recently, I'm glad to see at least one publication got it right anyway.

Congrats to City of Heroes, and congrats to Massively for getting it right.

My Favorite Improvements of 2008
1) Powerset Proliferation (May 2008) = more customization in a game that was built on it
2) Interface extensions (May, December 2008) = multiple power trays, contact sorting, badge sorting, click-on-name chat context menus, etc.
3) Real Numbers (February 2008) = a gift to minmaxers that doesn't impede casual play

Scrapper/tanker/stalker/brute ranged attacks are set to use their melee damage modifier. I'm not sure their ranged damage modifiers are used for any power at all.

Which makes the whole ranged damage > melee damage justification for blasters and defenders a bit less plausible. Whatever.

That said, I'm surprised there aren't any Issue 13 Issues hitting this thread yet. Not even PvP? Diminishing Returns?

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Interesting comment by Mat Miller: Willpower proved to be a very powerful defensive set, possibly the second most powerful right after Stone.

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Said by interviewer, not by Positron.

[ QUOTE ][*]Added note about Combat Text for Howling Twilight.

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Was this from my report? I don't know what the combat spam says for Howling Twilight, but I do know the little "Do you want to be rezzed?" window says something like "partial hit points and endurance." That's what I meant to report, the rez confirmation yes/no text.

For those who've teamed with Diego de Silva on Virtue, well, you know he's not your typical pirate. For those who haven't, these two pictures should pretty well sum it up.

...that sinking feeling when you realize you brought a sword to a storm fight...

Got insurance?

Trick Arrow

Balance Issues

Poison Gas Arrow was changed from a pet emanation to a click, but its mez remained non-stacking. This causes targets to wake up when Poison Gas Arrow's mez is reapplied.

Dark Miasma

Bugs

Howling Twilight's resurrection confirmation text says it restores only partial health and endurance.

Trick Arrows

Balance Issues

Entangling Arrow debuffs run and fly speed, but does not accept Slow Movement enhancements or enhancement sets.

Kinetics brings more utility. Damage buffs are good, recharge buffs/slow resistance is good, stun and knockback protection is good. If you've got Blind well slotted, even better -- holds help take down greens.

That said, occasionally more scrappers are desired, so if the Hive reaches about 30 total heroes visible but fewer than about 5 scrappers, you can switch to claws to fill the gap. Eviscerate, spin, and shockwave are not tagged AoE or ranged, so all of your primaries except focus and confront bypass yellow mito defenses. Focus is not tagged melee or AoE, so will work on the blues. Achilles Heel resistance debuff proc on slash is very helpful. As for SR, I have a feeling you can do without some, maybe all, of the toggles, but Practiced Brawler will be vital.

From the guide linked above:
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Spillover Spikers
Floating Support

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This is my area of expertise. I bring "oddball" sets and unfortunately have to self-categorize and sometimes assist from off-team. Yellows are perma-rooted (always take critical damage from Containment), have high ranged and aoe type defense but no other defense (so attacks such as Mind Control and Fulcrum Shift hit fine), are vulnerable to autohits (a well aimed Disruption Arrow will debuff them), and are vulnerable to streakbreaking (a well aimed Freezing Rain will debuff them eventually), so if you've got any of these things, that's another way to contribute.

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1. How effective are debuff powers on mitos/hami? If you stacked enough Rad or Dark defenders, could you get their ToHit down to 5%?

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I know at least some of the attacks are autohit. I suspect -tohit isn't any real help, but it's worth testing and trying. Resistance debuffs have been proven to work on all the monsters, all the mitos, and the nucleus -- if they hit. No other debuffs are currently called for in the strategy, but some good testing with good results can change that completely.

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2. Can mitos/hami be hit with detention field or black hole?

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I doubt it, but again, absolutely worth trying. One way Hamidon "cheats" is by bypassing Untouchable status -- in other words, Hamidon can "kill" Phantom Army. But that doesn't mean Hamidon necessarily bypasses OnlyAffectingSelf status if you get enough people stacking phases on it.

It's good you're thinking outside the box! Hamidon breaks the rules in unusual and extremely counter-intuitive ways, so it takes serious sideways thinking to come up with new techniques.