Roderick

Simple, point-by-point version:

Procs with a "Proc per Minute" rating are designed to fire an average number of times per minute equal to the PPM rating, assuming that you use the power as soon as it recharges every time, and that you hit the max number of targets each time. It is based of base recharge, so slotting recharge and getting global recharge buffs will increase your PPM.

For the following examples, I'll assume a PPM rate of 4.

-First, figure out how many times you can attack in one minute, by dividing 60 by the recharge of the power. A 10 second power has 6 attacks per minute. A 5 second power has 12, and so on. Then, take the PPM, and divide by the Attacks per Minute to get the proc chance. A 4 PPM proc in a 10s power has a 0.667 or 66.7% chance of firing. In a 5s power, it's a 0.333 or 33.3% chance. If the chance is 1.0 or greater, it will fire every time. For 4 PPM, that's any power with a 15s or longer recharge.

-In AoEs, figure out the base chance as above. If the chance is above 1.0 (100%), do NOT round down to 100% yet. Divide the chance by the max number of targets to get the chance to proc. For the 10s attack, if it were a 5-target AoE, its 66.7% chance would drop to 13.3% per target. The 15s power (which gave 100% chance as a single target) would only have a 20% chance per target as a 5-target power.

-To figure out the recharge needed for 100% firing, divide 60 by the PPM, and multiply by the max number of targets. For a 4 PPM proc in a single target attack, that's 15s. For a 5 target attack, that's 75s, or 1m15s.

-There is also a calculation that adjusts based on the size of the AoE, but we weren't given exact details. We know that certain small AoEs, can get a 100% proc rate, even though their recharge doesn't appear to be high enough based on the above calculations.

The bug that Necrotech is talking about is caused by the system automatically calculating the chances. If ANY PART of the attack is AoE, then the proc calculates the chance based off the largest number of targets. All tank attacks have Gauntlet, which is a 5-target AoE taunt. Because of that, all tank attacks are treated as having a minimum of 5 targets (more if the power typically hits greater numbers); no tanker power is calculater as Single Target. This is a huge disadvantage for Tankers, as it makes it harder to keep the proc in effect at all times.

You know what's sad? This thread will only accomplish one thing: It will tell the jerkwads that it's OK to rip people off because the GMs won't do anything about it. :/

If you're not an American, and you're talking about one of those gift card style prepaid credit cards, you may just not have enough on the card to cover the purchase.

To explain, I'm Canadian. If I go and buy a $50 prepaid credit card, and try to buy the $49.95 bundle of points, I can't, because after applying the exchange rate, that's a bit over $50 Canadian - the card won't cover it.

Another possibility is that you're using a type of card that isn't supported by the store. All Visa and Mastercard purchases should be fine, as should be most major American cards. But if you're using a type of card that's only distributed outside the US, there's a possibility that it won't be recognized.

And finally, there's the possibility that the card isn't activated. As a security feature, most cards require you to call a customer service line to activate the card before you can use it. Using it before activating it will cause it to be declined everywhere.

And of course, if you're talking about the City of Heroes and/or NC Soft prepaid game time cards, like others have said, those are good for VIP subscription time only. Onn the plus side, you get 400 points, and a Reward Token included in that, as well as access to a few things that Premiums don't have access to without an extra purchase (for as long as you remain VIP).

Generally, the Very Rare cards have the "good" enhancements (Quads and procs), and the Rare cards have the weaker ones (Doubles and Triples). There may be some exceptions, but when I've been paying attention while opening packs, that's the trend I've noticed.

The low-level brute farming was triple-nerfed.

1- Surviving the initial wave of ambushes was usually accomplished by eating a huge stack of purple and orange inspirations, and enough reds to damage cap yourself, all while at the vendor, and then jumping into the mission while super-buffed. Now, all inspirations are stripped from you when entering an AE mission - you can only have as many inspirations as you can carry.

2- Rezzing custom enemies no longer give XP after the first defeat. Giving custom foes a rez power literally doubles your work with no additional return.

3- Ambushes give reduced rewards. The first ambush in a mission gives regular rewards, the second gives 75% Inf, XP and Tickets, the third gives 75% of 75% or 56%, the fourth gives 75% of 75% of 75% or 48%, and so on.

As a result, if you really want to farn in AE, your best bet is to either take a /Fire brute into a generic fire farm, or whatever brute you prefer into a recreation of one of the classic farms (Council Earth, Freaks, Werewolves,etc). At the moment, I don't know of anything more efficient, and I expect that if anything better does turn up, it'll get labelled an exploit and eventually fixed.

I really can't get behind giving females more costume parts in a 2:1 ratio. I don't even think that thew sould get more costume parts. They should definitely get different parts.

If a hypothetical pack were to get 20 pieces, I'd say that the ideal distribution would be 10 gender-neutral pieces, like jackets, boots, gloves and weapons, 5 female specific pieces like dresses, corsets, and such, and 5 male only pieces. I understand that there are very few pieces that can be made for males that couldn't reasonably be used on females, but some artificial limitations would be reasonable.

For example, in the Arcane Booster, I would have divided things up as follows:

Neutral/Both:
Baron Jacket and Sleeves (all variants)
Baron Boots
High Collar Cape

Female:
Witch Hat, top, gloves, skirt, boots (all variants)
Bolero

Male:
Baron Hat
Renegade Hat
Skull Mask
Wizard Beard

Once Dink is done with the set, the only difference between my list and the official one is that females won't have the Baron Boots, IIRC.
There's no reason a woman couldn't wear the hats or mask that I assigned to males only, but you'll notice that even with a handful of arbitrarily assigned male-only pieces, females end up ahead.
Ultimately, I don't agree that females should get more pieces than males just because in reality it's socially acceptable for women to wear men's clothes, but not vice-versa. This game is all about giving the maximum amount of choices, and giving all the costume parts to one model and only half of them to the others is only going to accomplish two things: It will make some players always roll characters using the model with lots of choices, and it will make others resent not getting the choices they want (see the "Men get jackets, women get lingere" debates). Giving most stuff to both sides, and a handful of exclusives to each keeps both sides (mostly) happy, and minimizes disappointment in disparities.

I have a Scrapper's Strike proc, but I don't have room in my build for it right now, so I can't test how it works. I'm working on a new build, and I want to make sure it works like I expect.

1. It boosts the crit chance of all attacks, not just the attack it's slotted in, right?
2. I assume it functions as a set bonus, and I keep it as long as I don't exemplar too low for the set? (below 7 for the regular, any level for the purple)

The build I'm planning right now has all my attacks 6-slotted. I can't remove any of these slots, because they're all needed for set bonuses that I want to keep. I wasn't planning on slotting the full Scrapper's Strike set, and I currently have one power selection left, so I was considering picking one of the attacks I skipped at 49, and just using it as a mule for the SS proc. I just want to make sure that it will work as I'm expecting. If so, my build's ready to go. If not, I've got some re-planning to do.

Maybe the trick to getting people to pay for their IOs isn't to say "NO! You can't have your IOs! Go slot some SOs instead", but rather "Check this out! Remember how awesome you were with IOs? Hey, the IO license is super cheap too!" How? At the same tier that you get permanent Auction House access, grant an Invention License too. Not the permanent one that Tier 7 gives, but just a regular 30 day IO License, granted through the Reward System, as a one-shot Account item.

We know that a character can do something in-game and unlock a license that opens IOs on the full account; that's how the merit-based one worked when it was still around.

It may not get every "I WANT MAH IOs!!" player to pay for a license, but the free sample is a tried and proven method - it would get some paying.