Sailboat
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Posts
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Joined
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And beaks. Please.
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I'd buy a dragon pack, but I'd be even happier if it included dinosaurs.
My inner six-year-old would never let me log off the game. -
Y'all are making me nostalgic for my time as a Captain of Light Infantry in the Society for Creative Anachronism.
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You can't really control it, but the absolute best moment a Tripminer can have is when one clump of mines blows a boss off his feet and he sails over and lands on another clump of mines. It happens occasionally when you set up several clusters.
Unfortunately it interferes with your DPS, as you spend some time afterward laughing your butt off instead of killing. -
There are some (admittedly pretty old) old guides to doing exactly that in the guides section:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=117797
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=114246 -
Trip Mines can also be thought of as a way to shift animation times backward in time or damage forward in time.
Regardless of how effective a given attack is, you can generally only do one attack at a time because you're doing the animation for the attack. People like quick animations in part because you can chain several attacks together quickly and get out a lot of damage before much damage is dealt to you. This is one reason PBAoE damage auras like Blazing Aura are so helpful -- they are doing damage automatically while you are at the same time applying other attacks yourself.
But Trip Mine lets you shift that animation time away from the moment of engagement/aggro. You go through the animation first, and repeatedly, if you plant multiple mines....without drawing aggro. Then when the aggro hits the fan, you use your strong regular attacks AND the Trip Mines also activate, stacking a whole bunch of AoE damage up in a very short time. Each mine has a chance to hit all the enemies (still limited by the target cap, of course) in its radius; a tight field of mines will apply lots of damage to lots of enemies.
This not only can kill enemies before they get off a second shot, it also minimizes enemy regeneration, because you're stacking up several attacks into the same instant of time; there's no time for the regen to heal any of it back.
With frankenslotting there's no reason you can't have good recharge -- my first amateur attempt, right after IOs came out, resulted in 98% damage, over 50% accuracy, and 95% recharge, if I recall. Add in Hasten and some global recharge and...well, it still takes time and patience to set up several mines, but it's not too hideous.
It goes that much faster if two or more of you have TM.
It's definitely a different style of play, but you can use small minefields (2-5 mines) to really rip through stuff. Caltrops are handy not just for slowing enemies down to give the mines time to sense them, but also for stacking up the enemies, especially at corners. The first ones to hit the caltrops are slowed and the others overtake them, like a wave front compressing. Placed in advance of the trip mines, this will often clump the enemies up before the mines go off, helping to avoid the "kill the first guy many times over, but now the mines are gone and here come the rest of them" problem. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Mental_Giant
Honestly? I'll say it's because the game has had a casual friendly focus for so long. In the beginning we didn't have PVP or phat lewtz, so people played the game because they wanted to play a fast-paced, fun, superhero game with their friends.While I recognize the points about heroic ethos and smaller population, I think these points are closer to the truth.Quote:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The game promotes diversity, liberty and, to a large extent, adventure in a way that other MMOs just do not. Other MMOs constrain you. They define you. They give you a character, give you a class, give you a task and severely punish you if you deviate and screw up. City of Heroes is different. It plops you down into the game and more or less ORDERS you to go wild. Go on, make a crazy costume! Come on, play recklessly. Die, if you have to. It's not so bad. Go out, have an adventure, let loose a little. We don't mind. You don't have to do what gaming tradition expects you to do. You can go wild and actually do what YOU always wanted to do.
That sort of game design really lends itself to a much more relaxed type of atmosphere. Less pressure and more freedom make people less likely to lash out against each other, less likely to segregate and band in small, exclusive groups and just generally more likely to have fun their way. When everyone takes part in diverse activities, there really isn't much ground to hate anyone else because, chances are, you have a lot in common anyway.
When the game doesn't piss you off, you have less reason to be grumpy, basically.
For example, booting non-contributing door-sitters is understandable, but I've been in a (different) game where a group that regarded itself as casual and fun-oriented maintained a logging program to make SURE its members were clicking enough times during raids, and kicked out people who weren't maintaining a certain performance standard. *Shudder* And these folks self-identified as non-competitive and friendly...and you know what? They WERE casual and easygoing in other game systems; I played other games with these same people.
The system here doesn't make playing into the kind of work where your "boss" monitors your keystrokes to decide whether to fire you. -
The day the customizable power system went live, we lost the ability to see the "rays" emanating from a character using Invincibility.
In a post here, BackAlleyBrawler indicated the visual effects fix was in a build in the pipeline.
I hate to nag. I know you guys have been super busy (pun intended!). It's just that I've been waiting to customize this power for almost three months, and it's hard to be patient.
I don't know anything about the builds coming down the pipeline, but this is longer than I expected an incremental build in the pipeline to take.
This is a small thing, maybe it just got forgotten?
Can we please get an update on the status of this missing effect? -
Horusaurus, I am digging that avatar!
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I'm more of an...
Or at least, this guy is:
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Quote:Okay, that's a very good point; I won't be willingly surrounding myself with huge hordes of bad guys until late in the build when I'm confident of my defensive strength.Originally Posted by Laevateinn
you cannot take on groups large enough to make the extra AoE really significant
I think exchanging WS and Build Up is a good idea, thanks!
Regarding Hardcore: yeah, so far I've made it almost to 24 without a bad outcome.
Go figure that a Scrapper would outlast my previous builds. Previously lost a Stone Tanker at 13, an Illusion Controller at 13, and a Force Field Defender at 20, iirc. It says a lot about the power of Parry coupled with the infamous "debuff by killing them."
Currently I have another FF Defender who's 19 and only this weekend very narrowly survived being beaten on by red and purple Lost bosses in a PUG cape mission. -
Quote:OK, gaming story time.Originally Posted by Westley
I find racial supremecist groups HILARIOUS.
I ran a tabletop pen & paper Champions game for many years. Many of you are familiar with how (non-online) Champions works; for those who aren't familiar with the game, the relevant rule I should explain is that knockback is generally a more important part of Champions combat, and it actually does damage.
So my players (superheroes) are at some speech on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, and they hear the revving of motorcycle engines. Over the hill and into the amphitheater come members of a certain pointy-headed racist hate group, dressed in white sheets, on motorcycles, wielding baseball bats.
Some of the players are sort of flabbergasted at this dementedly corny vision -- but not the team's tank. Never mind what powers he had; you can get an idea of his fighting style from his name alone: Impact.
So, for a moment, everyone is staring at these approaching pinheads riding down the sidewalk, single-file, and Impact has one, and only one, question:
"Wait a minute -- they're in a line?"
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Q: Why did the Hellion cross the road?
A: Force Bolt. That's also the reason he crossed the entire zone. -
Quote:Right...to be very specific, that means Tanker Shield Charge does NOT do anything like the damage Scrapper Shield Charge does. But it still does plenty.Originally Posted by Laevateinn
Minor correction. All versions of shield charge used to use the Brute version, then awhile ago they were changed to properly reflect each AT's melee modifiers. Tanker Shield Charge ended up getting a slight boost in the process.
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Once again I taunt Tanker Tuesday from Guardian! Guardian is positively infested with Tanks! C'mon over here and fight!
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In case it helps, here's a BS/SD build I am working on for a character with somewhat unusual requirements (he cannot afford any defeats). Despite my intention to play defensively, my current plan doesn't stray too far from conventional builds -- the build will need killing power just as much as defense to stay alive.
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Yes, even with fireball, since you can add fireball to any other, better, AoE Scrapper.
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I have a "hardcore" Scrapper I am looking into respeccing for increased survivability.
"Hardcore" (term derived from Diablo II) means the character is treated as if he/she has only one life, and defeat is final. Whether the character is outright deleted on defeat or simply leaves his SG and is no longer considered Hardcore is up to the player.
Needless to say this is tricky on any character, and maybe moreso on a Scrapper.
Currently he is 23, barely kitted out with some 25 IOs and frankenslotted in 3 attacks...living through the power of Parry.
I am thinking of this build:
+----------------------------------------------------------------
+ Built with SuckerPunch's Online Planner v5.0
+ http://planner.cohtitan.com/planner
+----------------------------------------------------------------
Archetype: Scrapper
Primary: Broad Sword
Secondary: Shield Defense
+----------------------------------------------------------------
01: Deflection
01: Hack
02: Battle Agility
04: Slice
06: True Grit
08: Parry
10: Active Defense
12: Boxing
14: Swift
16: Against All Odds
18: Health
20: Stamina
22: Phalanx Fighting
24: Whirling Sword
26: Disembowel
28: Tough
30: Weave
32: Head Splitter
35: Shield Charge
38: Build Up
I would use Ninja Run, a jetpack, and the jump jet for travel.
My concerns are giving up Combat Jumping, which he's had so far, and its cheap defense, and taking Build Up so freaking late. I could skip attacks for more defenses, but it's important to do damage too.
He may wind up soloing a lot, generally vs same-level content, at least until he gets very solid defenses. So I do need the AoE attacks to chew through groups before they chew through me.
He'll probably keep Parry long-term. I may never have the influence to soft-cap him, since the rules for his SG preclude playing the market or twinking from other characters. In fact, only a lucky rare salvage drop that sold for over a million enabled me to carefully shop him the frankenslotted IOs.
Any advice would be welcome. -
Quote:So your argument is that unique avatars are good for the forums?Originally Posted by Premonitions
And that's why the little arrow sends you back to the original post, with my lovely Kamina avatar.
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Quote:Not in the quote boxes, they ain't.Originally Posted by Premonitions
Plus, you know. avatars
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Quote:Be that as it may, the fact that you aren't confused as to which one of us held which opinion is because our names are unique.Originally Posted by Ironblade
You might as well stop right there.
Sailboat's OPINION is that the uniqueness of a name has inherent value.
Your OPINION is that it does not.
For either of you to try to 'correct' the other is just stupid. -
The problem
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to getting around on the
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s there. Geez. -
Quote:What the heck is this? Is this some kind of underhanded sleight at the Devs? You think they want to take instructions from people who talk about them this way?Originally Posted by Dr_Incredible
maybe those sitting around in the studios should
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Quote:You mean the best way to get the best possible, rarest sets? Because you can get plenty of good sets without ever seeing a purple.Originally Posted by Northman
So the best way to build up my IO sets now is......?
TF's to get merits?
AE missions?
If you want the rarest, best stuff that exists, you'll have to pay big money for it. See the market forum for ideas on how to raise cash. -
Quote:True, but less of an issue with such a high-level power. Foot Stomp isn't available below 38, so you could slot sets up to level 41 that grant your global +acc bonuses and you would never run into a situation where Foot Stomp was available but the acc bonuses were not.Originally Posted by Ironblade
HOWEVER, if you ever expect to exemp and lose that accuracy bonus, you need to re-think this plan.