Sailboat

[ QUOTE ]
I went with /SR and I'm constantly end starved. As Captain_Croatia said MA's attacks are a bit more end intensive, but couple that with SR's early toggles and I'm constantly looking at an empty end bar. I'm not even sure if Stamina alone will completely offset this, but here's hoping.

Still, it's kind of funny waiting for some end to regen so you can finish off a mob, and just stand there toe-to-toe dodging and deflecting all of his attacks xD

[/ QUOTE ]

Eventually as your build matures (35-45) you can buy multi-aspect set IOs and "frankenslot" your attacks to get the best percentage enhancement values out of them. It's possible to hit the ED cap for damage and recharge while getting good-to-excellent acc and end reduction. And, depending on your attack chain, you may not need to hit the ED cap on recharge, even though I find it...attractive. My own MA/SR runs about 82% end reduction in each single-target attack and that really, really, REALLY helps.

I had to get set bonuses for soft-capping elsewhere, of course -- you can't six-slot melee sets for defense bonuses and still get the very best enhancement values frankenslotting can give you.

Just saying there's light at the end of the "no end" tunnel...as it were.

And if you're on a tight budget, patience helps -- let your bids sit a bit, don't just bid up and up until you win.

[ QUOTE ]
Just a note on Fire Armour

[/ QUOTE ]

Fire Armour is every bit as good as Fire Armor; it just herds on the left side of the hallway.

Just for the record, there are buffs other than Speed buffs. Defense and resistance shields can make non-Granite tanks every bit as tough, and they'll be naturally roughly as fast as a speed-boosted Granite.

Shouldn't this "general question to all players" be in the "Player Questions" section?

The answer, by the way, is that many of the nerfs have improved or even outright saved the game. We are much better off than in Issue 1, for example.

And I frankly don't get what devoted farmers are upset about. They can still crank out rewards faster than casual players, which is the driving force to farm, isn't it? Just to get more faster? You can still do that, just not at light speed.

To me, this is the most distressing bug currently in the game.

[ QUOTE ]
General feeling I'm getting is that people are still scared. o.o! A third of my people won't go near the sewers with their new characters like we used to, for fear it would be considered an exploit! x_X They don't wanta do more then one MA mission arc in a day due to possibly being flagged. I had an officer think his characters were locked, and just about QUIT before I had him double check, it turned out to be a glitch o.@ Overall the feeling is dread, despite alot of my people not having done anything wrong. Now as far as a fear device this worked fine, but it may be lingering too long. :P

[/ QUOTE ]

So are people really scared to level? I've never met anyone with that attitude in-game, and I've seen no evidence of it, even though it's been talked about a lot on the forums. Is this something that depends on what circles one travels in?

Not counting purple / ultra rare sets, just normal invention sets, there are three Targeted AoE sets (for ranged AoEs, not PBAoEs). There are FIVE snipe sets, for crying out loud. There are TEN melee damage and ten ranged damage sets -- which is appropriate, since those have to be the most common power groupings (offensively speaking, anyway). There are 5 PBAoE sets now, because they recently added Eradication and Obliteration -- which has been very helpful in frankenslotting as well as giving us new set bonuses.

But there are a lot of ranged AoEs in the game -- players like them -- and yet only 3 IO sets, not counting the purple.

Next time the Devs are inclined to throw us some new IO sets, I nominate this category for a couple. I think it's time.

Please!

I can see why you never thought you'd say this.

Ok, what the heck is the chicken tug emote?

[ QUOTE ]
The whole discussion is fairly meaningless imo; the likelyhood of being on a TF with absolutely no support (no Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors, VEATs, or team buffing power like Leadership/Grant Cover) is practically nil.

[/ QUOTE ]

What about incompetent support?

Knock yourself out -- assuming you can mange to hit yourself after you've got all this melee defense.

[ QUOTE ]
I built that character to level fast. (It was, like, issue 4 or 5 and my first 50 took me 563 hours. That is not a typo, that's how long it used to take people to get to 50. Fast people could do it in, like, 300.

[/ QUOTE ]

Aha! The other thread is locked, but I got some flak for posting this, so I am just noting for the record that at least one person agrees with my claim. Carry on.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yes, yes we can. Regardless of what past abuses may have occurred, retroactive punishment for a previously 'legal' action is frowned upon universally, be it in real life or simply a game.

[/ QUOTE ]

For some definitions of "legal" action. It was always clear that getting a level 50 in 6 hours cannot possibly have been the intent of developers with the track record of COH developers.

[/ QUOTE ]

If punishment were meted out based on assumption of "intent" rather than actual law, you would have a case here. As it stands, there were no rules against this previously nor were there any mechanisms in place to prevent it. Therefore, I put forth that it was 'legal'. In addition, farming has existed for years without punishment. so to suddenly point out a specific type of farming which will receive retroactive punishment seems extremely unfair.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is exactly the sort of thinking that the term "rules lawyer" was coined to describe.

It's not really grinding when you're playing missions with people. It's just not. The Devs don't intend running your contact's mission arc in Talos to be punitive.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
But it doesn't "allow for quick leveling." Quick leveling is getting to 50 in 250 hours.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have a hard time believing people take 250 hours to get to 50 (I've certainly never heard of it except on forums). Saying 250 hours is quick leveling...?! Now that is just insane.



[/ QUOTE ]

Used to be that people too 300, 400, 500 hours to hit 50 and post about it on the forums. Things have speeded up since then, I know. But no, I'm not talking about chatting under Atlas, neither am I talking about power-leveling. I'm talking about social play.

[ QUOTE ]
Something has been bothering me since this morning’s patch and subsequent post by Positron.

The patching of a feature (or exploit, depending on whom you question) that allows for quick leveling

[/ QUOTE ]

But it doesn't "allow for quick leveling." Quick leveling is getting to 50 in 250 hours. AE farming completely breaks leveling up as an idea....replaces it with "I have another 50 in an afternoon." It's so far from any reasonable definition of "quick" leveling that it's like calling World War II a disagreement.

Since you started the thread with that spin, it's pretty clear what your take on it is.

The Devs are gonna do what they feel is best, regardless of what we say here. If anyone is actually listening, of course replacing the game with story-free instant 50s is bad for the game; that's self-evident.

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, yes we can. Regardless of what past abuses may have occurred, retroactive punishment for a previously 'legal' action is frowned upon universally, be it in real life or simply a game.

[/ QUOTE ]

For some definitions of "legal" action. It was always clear that getting a level 50 in 6 hours cannot possibly have been the intent of developers with the track record of COH developers.

[ QUOTE ]
Nope, it's a stealth nerf.

go see what positron has to say about the MA. It will certainly be enlightening... threats to ban players, destroy their toons, force them to speak to CS just because someone didn't like their arc... gotta love it.

I think they need to replace Matt Miller. He's beginning to sound more and more like Jack Emmert. Childish.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well what did you expect? People not only took advantage of Mission Architect, clearly a labor of love that the devs had the highest hopes for, but openly reveled in farming and exploiting -- who hasn't seen the "you can't stop farming, you'll never stop farming" taunts? -- and started defending the practice aggressively in the forums and in other ways. The organized one-starring of the arcs of players who had complained about farming was particularly jarring.

I'm not surprised it's caused the Devs to react emotionally. It might be too much, it might be too little -- my point is not that it's deserved, but that it shouldn't surprise anyone.

Heh, I was looking at the arts and thinking..."no, it's not incorrect..." Glad it got figured out before I had to go do a bunch of research myself. :P

Yes, the arrow should rest right across the knuckles of the hand holding the bow. One way to become aware of this is to have the fletching cut your knuckle as the arrow flies -- there's a reason for archery gloves. (painful memories) Speaking of painful...uh...memories, I dig that chest guard Billz found:

http://www.sport.ed.ac.uk/facilities...s/archery1.jpg

Very hip.

One reason to rest the arrow on the knuckle side of the bow is Archer's Paradox:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archers_paradox

Another is so you can tilt the bow like Legolas while surveying your targets -- without having the arrow fall off (that's a major embarrassment in Elfwood).

I don't know if this is at all relevant to MA, but Frostfire uses controller pets below level 32, so it is possible somewhere in the game.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I like a challenge -- but one I can do something about. In general, it seems like mission makers (aside from the easy farm builders) have concentrated on killing off players. As it now stands, a heavy and sustained nerf to MA critter powers would be welcome in my book.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, lets screw over everyone who could make powerful, balanced mobs and the people who enjoyed fighting them because some people were making obnoxious mobs and others were being crybabies about MA critters not being as braindead easy as the generic CoH enemies. Yeah, that will solve all problems and make everyone happy.

Or we could leave the options in and add more settings in between and another below Standard so that we can exercise finer control. But no, that'd be too logical so let's just punish everyone instead.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not an issue of "braindead easy" -- quite a few of these missions can only be attempted by very cautious corner-pulling. I suppose if that's you're only idea of good tactics, you're right.

I thought the MA wasn't about making powerful mobs but about making good stories.

The wiki shows Adjusted Targeting as "+ Positive/Negative Energy Res" with three slots in the short-form table, but in the description of the set bonus it shows "Three enhancements increases Energy and Negative Energy Defense by 1.26%."

Does it enhance resistance or defense?

In general, I find most of what I fight in MA so far on live to be waaaaaaaaaaay overpowered. Minions that resist mezz are every bit as bad as making them immune to damage -- if your AT relies on mezzing.

An EB with an ambush of sixteen +3 bosses for sidekicks, all wielding critting, defense-debuffing Broadswords, Jack Forst pets, and Ice Armor's stacking slows? Against 4 heroes? Another boss who consistently hits for 2620 damage? Minion sappers with electrical powers and holds -- and gigantic aggro range? What's the skill in having the entire party's toggles shut off at once, being held, and watching the floor...are we supposed to be learning how to combine inspirations to make Awakens? tricked-out characters with hundreds of millions in top-end IO sets go down like a sack of potatoes just for rounding a corner and blundering into view.

I like a challenge -- but one I can do something about. In general, it seems like mission makers (aside from the easy farm builders) have concentrated on killing off players. As it now stands, a heavy and sustained nerf to MA critter powers would be welcome in my book.

[ QUOTE ]
The farming merit mission got nerfed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait a minute -- are you talking about the change in merit rewards to the Kheldian mission that used to give 29 merits?

I wouldn't consider that "newly nerfed" -- that's been changed for a good while.