Siolfir

a) Welcome to the forums.

b) Your idea is a good one - so good, in fact, that it's been suggested many many times before in the Suggestions and Ideas area.

c) If you use starter bits, it's not all that hard to afford a small base with one teleporter, and the decorative items are fairly cheap. It does take a bit of regular play on that character, though - you probably won't have enough prestige if you're the only one in the SG until your mid-20s.

d) If you're willing to fudge things a bit, you can (ab)use the bonus prestige granted for the first 15 people in your SG to get your base started, then have them quit the SG after you get everything placed. The 20k per person will get you enough to make the starter base with one teleporter mentioned above, then your play will need to bring the SG up to positive prestige before you need to pay rent.

Skip as much as you can and only complete objectives for missions; also if you keep the team sizes small(ish) Task Forces have a good return on time investment using the same concept.

It may not be the most fun way to play for everybody, but it's reasonably profitable. If you haven't run an arc before, I'd still recommend taking the time to read the mission text and poke around so you can see it at least once, though.

[ QUOTE ]
I got the death blow on Recluse with the last bullet revolver temp power, I'd been holding onto the last charge of the power for about a year to do it and it paid off


I'd say that's my fave finisher.

A super villain who's endowed with the power of a titan, being taken out by a bullet... there was just something magical about that.

[/ QUOTE ]
In a completely unrelated note, I hated the end of Lord of Illusions.

Okay, I guess it wasn't so unrelated.

G'morning.

*goes back to sleep just to taunt VexXxa*

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Defenders have nothing to complain about until Corruptors are addressed. They have a ranged damage primary and are the lowest damage AT redside.


edit for disclaimer: I don't think Corruptors or Defenders really have problems, but the excuse provided - a ranged damage secondary - is pathetically weak and if that's the justification given then Defenders certainly shouldn't be the first looked at.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually there's nothing wrong with Corruptors and Defenders should be addressed first. If you don't believe me I put this suggestion to you.

Swap inherents and see who's hosed. I'd drop Vigilence for Scourge in less than half a heart beat with out even blinking.

[/ QUOTE ]
Read the entire post you quote. Particularly the italicized part.

And you'll never manage to convince me that Defenders should get a damage increase before Corruptors.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Defenders have nothing to complain about until Corruptors are addressed. They have a ranged damage primary and are the lowest damage AT redside.

[/ QUOTE ]

They're also the Defender equivalents for redside. Keep in mind that Castle has told the players repeatedly that whether a power set is primary or secondary has no bearing on its power. All that the primary/secondary disparity serves to do is alter acquisition level.

Something else to keep in mind about Corruptors is that, thanks to Scourge, their higher damage cap, and use of Blaster primaries, they're actually capable of better damage than Dominators (which are being brought up to rough equivalence with the I15 Dominator buffs).

[/ QUOTE ]
You can eliminate every single thing in your list except for Scourge - which is often overkill. The higher cap is meaningless at the damage modifier they have.

1.05 (melee modifier) * 4 (Dominator cap) = 4.20
0.95 (ranged modifier) * 4 (Dominator cap) = 3.80
0.75 (ranged and melee modifier) * 5 (Corruptor cap) = 3.75

Even if it had to verify the files and repair a couple of them it shouldn't be taking as long as 40 minutes. My first inclination based on that sort of timeframe is a hard drive issue.

If it's not already enabled in bios, turn on the S.M.A.R.T. drive feature; if it's about to fail it will catch most of the symptoms and report it during the boot sequence.

Warshade: Unchain Essence - technically used after the finishing move, but still... "I'm not only going to kill you, I'm going to blow up your body to kill your friends!"

Others...

Ice Blast: Bitter Freeze Ray - especially for runners. That huge chunk of ice just looks like it should kill something.

I'll echo Vengeful Slice also - it's a lousy power for a DPS chain, but it's pretty (and as you can tell by the fact I listed BFR, "pretty" trumps "DPS" on several of my builds).

Power Thrust, Crane Kick, Telekinetic Blast/Thrust, and, of course, the veteran Nemesis Staff are all fun just for the ragdoll.

Defenders have nothing to complain about until Corruptors are addressed. They have a ranged damage primary and are the lowest damage AT redside.


edit for disclaimer: I don't think Corruptors or Defenders really have problems, but the excuse provided - a ranged damage secondary - is pathetically weak and if that's the justification given then Defenders certainly shouldn't be the first looked at.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
With the AoE def in Hide, do you need Evasion on a stalker?

[/ QUOTE ]
If you plan on sticking around for the rest of the fight, yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

By this, Siolfir means that the AoE defense bonus in Hide completely suppresses.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, not completely - you still get 1.875% when the rest of it's suppressed.

But yes, having almost no defense to AoE will get really annoying really fast if you're trying to stick around the rest of the team and do anything that has an interrupt (Assassin's Strike anyone?).

[ QUOTE ]
With the AoE def in Hide, do you need Evasion on a stalker?

[/ QUOTE ]
If you plan on sticking around for the rest of the fight, yes.

Head to the i15 Feedback section and poke around in the Dominator Changes feedback thread. You'll likely have to simply skip the first several pages as most of those are purely speculation when people looked at the numbers but weren't able to get onto test, but there have been several comparison runs that people have posted about lately.

That should give you a better idea of what to expect.

Yeah, I ended up putting in Crushing Impacts for it on my ElM/Nin Stalker and put the Touch of Death sets in Assassin's Shock and Havoc Punch instead. It made it a little more annoying to get the extra melee defense, but with ElM you have plenty of places for Obliteration for the same defense bonus.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm kinda curious as to what character in this game you can create who is like that...

I mean -sure-. You can -choose- to only take one power from a non-buffing set as, say, a Defender. But you've still got attacks available to you.

So this character from comics with virtually no attacks at all is irrelevant.

-Rachel-

[/ QUOTE ]
A MM who takes none of their attacks; they don't have "personal" power since their pets are doing all the damage.

I think the OP was referring to Controllers (the "pure team support" AT, if you read all the hyperbole in the Defender forums), but the controls don't exactly work that way.

It's still a build decision as opposed to a game-enforced limitation, though.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You build your hero villian as you want and can choose to not get your self buffs, but no AT or powersets bar any hero or villian from self buffing powers.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'd imagine the OP is talking about certain powersets such as /Thermal where you can buff and shield your teammates but are unable to do the same to yourself.

This makes certain sets extremely unattractive to soloers. I have a Fire/Therm corruptor, and of the first 5* powers in his secondary exactly ONE of them, the tier 1, is usable if I'm not in a team due to the "Cannot Target Self" rule.

*I can't speak for the latter 4 powers, as I've yet to level up that far.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thermal gets to use Warmth, Heat Exhaustion, and Melt Armor while solo.

The rest of the set consists of a single-target ranged heal (Cauterize), single-target +tohit +dam buff (Forge), single-target mez protection (Thaw), two single-target shields (Fire and Plasma), and a teammate rez (Power of the Phoenix).

Regarding the number of powers you can use while solo, it's tied with Empathy for the worst set at 3. Empathy gets Healing, Recovery, and Regeneration Aura.

On-topic, I really can't think of anyone that can shield others and not themselves, but a lot of things would have to be changed for balance reasons to allow it.

[ QUOTE ]
if rage couldnt stack, then yo ucouldnt avoid the -20% defense penalty. this would seriously hamper any /sr or /sd brutes, and any ice or sd tankers who took super strength.

[/ QUOTE ]
So, if they didn't allow Rage to stack the bug which allows you to bypass the penalty which is supposed to be associated with the power would be fixed, you're saying?

Edit: and it really wouldn't fix the issue - nor would it be a problem for the defense sets, since if it's not stacked you can still trigger it during the crash and bypass the penalty. The reason it exists is actually because the penalty is already flagged to not stack, but it's also on a delay - the new Rage replaces the current (active) penalty with the new (delayed) one, and thus bypasses it. Reversing the flags would cause the penalty to always work and not allow the buffs to stack.


And this isn't just coming up every issue, it's every patch it seems lately.

Prepaid time doesn't count until you've actually put the time in.

[ QUOTE ]
2. IO Proc's - I still don't see what the did to IO Proc's to make slotting for them less useful. Did they reduce the amount of Proc's allowed in a power, or the frequency the game checks to fire them off?

[/ QUOTE ]
With regards to Poison Trap in particular, what used to happen was that the "Self-Destruct" on the trap was listed as an AoE with a 16' radius, but no maxtargets (it was changed to 1). This power is what summons the clouds, and each cloud starts out with an autohit hold the caps at 16 targets (which is when the procs check for their trigger).

Since it was summoning one cloud for every mob within 16' with no maximum number generated, that was a lot of procs checking all at once, a lot of stacked clouds for greatly increased magnitude on holds, and the subsequent checks (which only have a 2% chance for mag 3 hold) were happening in multiples as well despite only being checked once per second instead of once every 0.2 seconds.

Most people assumed something was going to be done about the procs; but since they found out what was causing the extra holds that they didn't like they should revert the frequency of the checks to the original design IMO.

As for slotting hold procs in Poison Trap - since the proc will check once at the beginning, and once every 10 seconds after that until the cloud goes away, it's still "okay", but you're not going to see them firing nearly as much as previously when there were multiple clouds all making checks.

My only /Traps character is a Thugs MM; I just respec'd the procs for use on other characters (I have plenty of characters that have holds) and she's on an all-SO build that still does pretty much anything on Relentless in PvE.

[ QUOTE ]
4. Traps and Teaming - How well does a /Traps team? I keep hearing about how /Traps solo well but honestly, I don't play MMO's to solo and would hope to be able t contribute to my team outside of my Primary and Pool Powers.

5. Attack Chain - What does an attack chain or priority power execution list look like with a /Traps? I get that you can lay down a /Traps field of doom and then pull spawns into it but how does a /Traps play if you following the usual teaming play style of going spawn to spawn?

[/ QUOTE ]
You can team reasonably well, but you'll be end up alternating powers between spawns. Also, if the team is steamrolling, your biggest contribution is likely to be the Force Field Generator - yes, Acid Mortars are nice; yes, Seeker Drones are great for taking an alpha; and yes, a Poison Trap will buy a few seconds if needed. But you'll be alternating powers between spawns pretty much - if you spend the time setting down more than one trap you're likely going to end up only laying traps while everyone else kills everything. Also, Trip Mine is highly situational on a team - by the time it's down, nothing's there to hit with it most of the time. It's still nice if you know you're going to be pulling large targets across an area, though.

You mean we're supposed to pay attention to the post dates of more than the person one post above you?

[ QUOTE ]
The complaints directed towards the buff (yes, it is a buff. No, if you think it's a nerf, you're wrong. Period) have been so half-baked and ill-informed/thought out that it's been comical.

[/ QUOTE ]
As one of the people who has a few complaints about things, I disagree.

I'm wondering why the damage (by scalar) was lowered, but recharge and endurance increased on Flares, Combustion, and Ice Sword Circle. How is less damage worth a longer recharge and more endurance?

I'm also disappointed that the Electricity Assault melee attacks were lowered in damage scale - the "blaster" setup on them was part of the reason I chose the set.

And there have been several people who don't like the feel of the sets that had the recharge increased on their tier 1, asking for them to either be reverted or to try to find a medium ground.

Just because you don't agree with someone's arguement doesn't mean that it's "half-baked", "ill-informed", or "not thought out".

Well, everyone that showed up definately had a blast(er)!

[ QUOTE ]
Know how everyone brings AoE to the table because "nothing else matters"? Well, you're there to ensure their delusions continue. While the minions are dropping, you're there to make the boss drops beforehand... or at the same time if you're slacking.

[/ QUOTE ]
Revised the statement... also, some Stalker builds can contribute decent AoE as well.

Do you have a proc slotted in it?

There's a known bug where it will use the proc's chance to fire for the chain shocks instead of simply jumping. Other than that, the only issues I can see with it are that the endurance cost and recharge are too high for a single-target attack and it's not a true AoE...

[ QUOTE ]
Why do the Carnival girls die holding their heads?

[/ QUOTE ]
Because if they were holding other parts of their anatomy the lewd comments would wreck the Teen rating.

[ QUOTE ]
"Bottle" ones?

[/ QUOTE ]
Probably the Illusionists.

<QR>

A level 21 GM has roughly the same number of hit points as a level 50 AV; if you can kill an AV at level 50 you should be able to take out the GMs at that level or less (which is basically Deathsurge redside, barring the Halloween GMs spawning in Mercy or Port Oakes).