Smurphy

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Can someone give an example of using BG mode? I haven't used it yet myself, but it sounds like any pets in BG mode can't attack at the same time, so are you just sacrificing their damage so they can soak up yours?

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Here's a video of an all Mastermind Imperious Task Force. This video is from when you had to upgrade all the pets individually.

You will see in the video that I don't use any pet commands. I simply use bodyguard mode at all times. My strategy is to run at the enemies and get myself shot. Once I get shot my Thugs will defend me and fire against all my attackers and any other enemies in the area. My thugs will also attack any foe who attacks any of the thugs.

You can sort of see in the video how I get attacked and then my Thugs draw their weapons and fire.

What are your play styles like on each of the Brutes? Generally, for me the more I team the more fury I have. For example on my Super Strength Brutes I usually have very little Fury when I solo. I eliminate most of the enemies in one or two shots and the enemies rarely attack me. In a team scenario I am getting attacked lots and lots and thus have lots of Fury.

I decided to get some #s on my SINGLE ORIGIN'd Super Strength Fire Brute.

I was doing solo... with no other players on the map... 150,000 Infamy per minute according to Herostats. Converting that to the normal standard I use (which is two 50s on the map) you multiply by 1.25 (bonus for 2 players on team) 187,500 then divide by two (each of two players gets half) 93,750.

So my Single Origin'd SS/Fire got 93,750 Infamy per minute on my standard measure thinger.
TopDoc's purpled Fire/Psy Dominator gets 117,000 Infamy per minute on 6-man Liberate.
My SS/Fire in his alternate purpled build gets 115,000 Infamy per minute.

If you want to compare your Mastermind to these numbers simply fill any map to any number of players you choose. Then run hero stats. If there are two 50s on the map and only 1 is fighting the #s are a straight comparison. If you are soloing (like I was in my example) multiply by 1.25 then divide by 2.

Go find out if your Mastermind compares to a Brute. If you would like to verify my #s send me a tell or a PM @Smurphy - I would be glad to show you that I am not making these numbers up.

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It's rare that I don't get 4 power pools on a character and, when I get up high enough for the Epic powers, I usually get at least 3 of them.

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*Does the math*

That means you get at most half of your normal powers!
Wow. "To each his own," indeed.

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In general, with basic Single Origin slotting, most players would have to go out of their way to use all of their powers. Many players, instead of taking all of the primary/secondary, drop the powers they don't use and bolster their powers with Power Pools that don't need to be clicked. For example a character with many Primary/Secondary powers chosen may have 4 or 5 recharged powers all the time during combat. Other players try to have only 1 or 2 powers recharged all the time in combat and try to have these be their best powers.

Some people like the variability and mixing it up and others like "I want to throw Fire Ball and Blaze over and over."

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NCSoft employees don't need to be alerted to anything. If an AE or non-AE mission proves bloatrous in its returns, it will get pulled. If a player abuses (there's that word again) AE or certain missions, it will become common knowledge and that player will get a temp ban.


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I am sure that you are an astute and intelligent individual. Would you please be so kind as to point out if YOU personally feel that any of my plans are considered "abuse"? I'm sure that a rational and reasonable person such as yourself would have no problem with someone who is truly, honestly, and openly attempting not to cause any "abuse."

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This thread isn't about schooling folks in debate, it's about Smurphy's plans to better optimize his playing of this game through the means he's outlined in his posts in this thread.

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Then why the need to try and directly address the NcSoft employees?

What you describe doesn't require that being repeated twice in the same thread.

Please reconcile those things, then I'll believe you.

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Um where does he directly address the mods? All i see is a vague reference to them and if they would alert him to it being wrong.

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I'm sure a reasonable person would be able to easily understand that I am merely stating my plans with the understanding if my plans were deemed in violation of a rule that I would be notified. I'm sure a reasonable person would understand the desire to conform their behavior to acceptable practices. I'm sure no reasonable person would fault another for simply being open and honest about their plans of future action that are intended to be within stated rules of play.

In light of being open and honest about my methods of providing services to level pact customers I feel that I should further explain some of the techniques I use when playing various teams. I feel that players should know exactly how I operate when playing and that I am adaptable to many different styles. I am capable of playing multiple characters at the same time. This picture is intended to give you a better understanding of my method.

One team I play consists of a Fire/Kin Controller, 2 Fire/Sonics and 2 FIre/Force Field controllers. I place the FFers and the Sonics on follow on the Kinetics. I have the FFers/Sonics turn on all their toggles and autofire Fire Cages through the Kinetics. Then I play the Kinetics to the full potential and cease to give any more instructions to the other 4 characters.

When I play my Thug/Storm Masterminds I designate one the "leader" and the others "followers". I summon all of my Thugs and upgrade them. I set my "followers" to follow the "leader". The followers all set the Enforcers and Bruiser to aggressive. The leader stays in full bodyguard. I sometimes have Electrifying Fences or Lightning Storm on autofire. I fire Freezing Rain on each and every character in waves. I divide my team into two parts. So if there are 5 players on the team I may fire 2 Freezing Rains on the first pack then fire 3 Freezing Rains from the other 3 MMs on the next pack. I manually have to click on each window and the location of Freezing Rain to execute the power on each character.

Another team I play is a duo of two Empathy/Sonic Defenders. I need to be sufficiently focused and well practiced to execute playing these two characters at the same time. I find it difficult to explain the exact speed and detail that I use. I may provide a video at a later date. I have two CoH clients in windowed mode side by side. I have one Defender follow the other. I have both autofiring either Scream or Screech. I nearly fully play both characters, using both their primary and secondary powers to the utmost ability of both characters. One character simply follows and targets through the other while executing all of the other powers. I reach the character's full potential by essentially doubling each time I execute a power and adding a "click" in between. Here is an example of the buttons I may be pressing:

Emp A: Shift-2; Control-1; Click Emp B
(Target Emp #2, Fortitude, switch to other character)

Emp B: Shift-1; Control-1; Click Emp A
(Target Emp #1, Fort, switch)

Emp A: Tab, 2, 3, click B
(Target an enemy, autofires fire, execute attack #2, queue attack #3, switch)

Emp B: 2, 3, Click A
Emp A: Shift-3; Control-1; Click B
(Fort a teammate)
Emp B: Shift-3; Control-1; Click A
Emp A; W-A-S-D; 4, 5, 2, Click B
(Position myself, Aim, Howl, Queue Screech, Switch)
Emp B; 4, 5, 2, Click A

I execute these powers very rapidly. Other than the following an observer would not be able to notice I am playing two characters simultaneously. In fact sometimes I execute different powers on each just to "show off." I haven't gotten down Fortituding different targets on each Defender. I always forget who I did last and end up rebuffing people who don't need it and get all confused and lost.

Sometimes I play my Fire/Kin Corruptor and my SS/Fire Brute at the same time. I sometimes play each of these characters completely independantly with no follow and no autofire. I will position the Kinetics near a corner. I have the Brute run and make lots of enemies angry and hide behind the corner. I Fulcrum Shift on the Kinetics when the enemies surround the Brute. I Foot Stomp on the Brute. I Fireball and Rain of Fire on the Corruptor.

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Instead of making another thread, I'll ask it here:

Does a team setup exist that can only fail? Perhaps not in every situation, but specifically in the harder end game content (STF, LRSF, for instance)? I was thinking of a team of nothing but empathy defenders, simply for low DPS, but they do have damage buffs so they might still have 'uber pwnage skilz'.

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All empathy teams are some of the strongest in the game. All empathy teams are vastly stronger than most of the mixed select STF teams in this thread.

All Empathy Defenders will have:
1) More defense than an Super Reflexes Scrapper in Elude
2) More Regeneration than a Regeration Scrapper in Instant Healing
3) Adrenaline Boost giving them each 2 Speed Boosts worth of recharge
4) Adrenaline Boost giving them 16 Speed Boosts worth of endurance... not including Recovery Aura
5) Throw in a pile of Assault and the Damage bonus from Fortitude puts everyone close to or at the damage cap
6) Add /Sonic attacks and each attack does successfully more damage

There is so much +Recovery on the team it can be a "Rolling Nuke" where Emps can fire their tier 9 attack without bottoming out in Endurance and recovering Endurance instantly,

Repeat Offenders
Green Machine
All Empathy Super Group - Freedom

I will also start a second team with the opposite approach.

I'm going to make a pile of level 1s and level pact them to people. Then I'm going to take my absolutely ridiculous SS/Fire Brute and my Fire/Kin Corruptor and go into all boss maps of enemies who do pure fire damage. I think I can get my level 1s to level 50 in under 10 hours despite being level pacted to logged out toons.

I'm also sure with this approach that NCSoft employees would be willing to kindly explain to me if this behavior is "not allowed." If this behavior is "not allowed" I am sure that these employees would be willing to kindly explain to me exactly which parts of my plan are "not allowed" so that I may adjust my behavior so that I may act in an "allowed" manner.

I plan on making another ludicrous team of insanely powerful villains again on Freedom. If there are enough people willing and I get a big pile of money I'm willing to level pact them all. This thread here had all the old info.

I want challenge. I want difficulty. I want to fight the hardest and most ridiculous mission possible. I want all the forces of City of Heroes allied against and then I want to take my army and steam roll them in ludicrous fashion. I don't want to exploit. I want to use intelligence, skill, talent, planning coordination and a love for all things that consist of outrageous fast paced explosive action.

In order to succeed at my goal I want to do the most ludicrously high risk high reward mission I am allowed to do. I plan on being near the top of whatever charts, graphs, data, or whatever that shows them "who's getting the most experience per hour." I plan on being near the top while fighting the most difficult enemies the Developers have created for me to fight.

So my plan is to once again reroll my Thug/Storm army. Perhaps I'll mix in some other toons but the main backbone will be Thug/Storm Mastrmind. I'll be making 5 or 6 toons myself. Then I plan on inviting other players of similar level as my Mastermind's to the team. I plan on rolling with 8 players on the team at all times. First we will be doing Developer Choice arcs. We will do this until I hit level 16 and have Freezing Rain. Once I have Freezing Rain we will move to a custom series of mission in Mission Architect with the theme of "The world's most dangerous enemies allied against us."

We will face an arc full of the most difficult Bosses the developers have created. Examples of such enemies: Fame Nemesis, Gunslinger bosses, Master Illusionists, Vanguard Sorcerers, Tarantula Queens, Ring Mistresses, Rikti Mentalists etc. Each mission will have its own theme and its own singular boss. Thus, the first map might have me fighting Hordes of Fake Nemesis. Then the second map might have me face piles of Ring Mistresses. I plan on taking a world tour of "City of Heroes toughest bosses". I am open to suggestions of other insanely difficult bosses. Then I will bring in my army and absolutely maul the enemies in a fashion many would not believe possible. Our risk will be insanely high and the reward we receive for defeating said foes will incredibly high as well. We will fly through the levels at incredible speed due to the difficulty of the enemies we fight.

I am sure that the NCSoft employees would kindly notify me if such plans are for some reason deemed "not allowed". I am also sure that NCSoft employees would be able to kindly explain to me exactly what part of my plan needs to be corrected. I WILL be fighting the most difficult City of Heroes has to offer me. I will be crushing those enemies in ruthless fashion and I will be receiving an incredible reward for doing so. It's just a matter of determing how high I'm allowed to turn up the difficulty.

If you are interested in possibly level pacting to my toons, or rolling specific archetypes/builds/characters to join me in my quest please let me know. I will begin determining appropriate pricing for level pacting to these toons once I feel ready to defeat the most difficult City of Heroes has to offer.

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None of these are a Spines/Dark or Spines/Fire scrapper. There just isn't a brute set that has that kind of constant AoE dps.

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I think you have that back words. Neither Spines/Dark nor Spines/Fire can put out the same AoE DPS as SS/Fire.

If you can get your SS/Fire to survive ginormous hordes of enemies that is the build you want. It takes practice and some cunning use of inspirations to get you through fighting hordes of difficult enemies. Once you figure it out no melee toon compares to the damage potential of an SS/Fire Brute. Add in a teammate with Fulcrum Shift and things get truly crazy.

I'm not sure I understand who, what or why the "this is a bid" was posted.

I'm not sure if I'd be doing bidding and/or just setting a price and selling. Freedom/Villainside would be super-easy for me because I have lots of toons with lots of purple IOs already there. You would be free to pay from any server/side. I'd charge 10% more for non-Freedom/Virtue money because I have to move it across servers. However, I consider Infamy/Influence to almost be worth 1 to 1 currently. Maybe 1.2 Influence to 1 Infamy at worst.

I like to blow stuff up. I'm going to blow stuff up anyway. Why not get paid while blowing stuff up? I'm not sure how soon I'd start. Mostly wanted to see how much interest exists.

Check out these numbers.

Look specifically the "resale" column and how fast it scales up. Perhaps the "resale" column needs adjustment. That would put a significant hit in Inf generation and mostly take Inf out of 50s pockets... the players who get Inf rained on them from the sky.

Here is video of what my friends and I do for fun.

This video is an Imperious Task Force on Invincible/Relentless with enemies buffed and players debuffed. There are 4 Radiation, 1 Dark, 1 Pain, 1 Cold and 1 Kinetics Corruptor on the team. People are trying to die to get more Fallout because Fallout and death are fun.

Take some of your dream teams and try to do the mission like we do

I uploaded a 750MB nice quality video to Veoh and it came out ok. I was going to try and block the text box but I don't think that is necessary. Can't really see what is being said I'll send it to google video now.

Here is video of Mission 3 in its entirety at regular speed. The video is about 11 minutes long.

I pulled the generals in the interest of lag. I pulled the one with a single target attack and not my usual fireball because Freedom was already starting to slowdown. Moderator 8 is the bottom player on the team list through most of the video. You can watch him eat dirt. One player was AFK through a majority of the mission.

Time to update my Endurance Dysfunction guide to make it for all archetypes

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Here is the reasoning behind the choices as I have seen them played.

1. Stone/ SS Tank
Great aggro control and the ability to handle multiple groups at once with little problem.

2. Willpower/ Dual Blades Tank
Good aggro control and the ability to handle AV's very easily. (Thanks to Falca for this build)

3. Empathy/ Archery Defender
Empathy for the awesome heals and buffs, Archery for the AoE's and inherent accuracy bonus.

4. Fire/ Kinetic Controller
Kinetic, as stated before, it's an I Win button. Fire for being the best control + Damage option.

5. Archery/ Mental Blaster
Arc/ Mind = AoE Beast + inherent accuracy bonus and recharge reduction.

6. Spines/ Fire Scrapper
Melee AoE Beast, What the Arc/ Mind does for range, the Spines/ Fire does for melee.

7. Fire/ Energy Blaster
The classic blapper build. Good at filling holes in other parts of the group and providing great damage.

8. Radiation/ Radiation Defender
Rad/ rad is another I Win button. with all of the buffs and debuffs it's the cap stone to the team.

As I said I have run with this team several times and we just walk through any thing. Statesman's TF was a cake walk.
I haven't had a lot of experience making a red side team.

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I think you need to experience one of the other countless teams suggested in this thread. There's difference between completing a Task Force easily and completing a Task Force on Invicible/Relentless Enemies Buffed, Players debuffed and the team not even knowing those are all set until the end -- yes, that has happened many times

The team you have is good. It's simply not outright astounding nor close to the potential teams can reach in City of Heroes. There isn't really a need for Tanks nor heals when buffs/debuffs can easily put every player on the team miles beyond the capabilities of any Tank.

I'm in the gathering information step. I make a toon. You make a toon. We level pact. I blow stuff up. You do whatever you feel is best.

Right now I'm just curious where most people would want these. Server/side wise.

So I was thinking now was a good time to sell some more level pacts. Anyone interested in a particular server/side?

The Mire/PBAoE Nictus... the one that makes purple circles on the ground... cheats and autohits you through defense. Defense won't save you against the Mire Nictus. It is usually the first one to sacrifice itself to save Rom.

Eat oranges, try not to stand inside it's circle, have someone try and move it away, joust, kill Rom first, or pray are your options.

Kill 1 Skull. Recoup your money.

I like this type of thing. I like blowing **** up. Especially you.

Someone should tell someone that this method for profiteering from the market is arbitrage. Profiting between the difference in price in two markets (vendor and consignment house) is arbitrage.

Arbitrage.

I am ashamed that so many people think the possibility that:
1) A person, solely through their own ignorance and stupidity,
2) who could harm only one self,
3) who might complain in a blatantly and obviously stupid manner

is a good reason not to give an OPTION.

It's an option. It harms no one but the incredibly and ridiculously stupid. The only arguments against this are "people might whine" and "I don't care about this option."

Damn... Personally, I don't care about this feature. It doesn't do anything for me personally. But shooting it down for that reason or "some idiot might be an idiot" is simply lunacy.

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Then there are others that think market manipulation is bs. Doesn't feel real heroic to sell something for 100x the actual cost just because you can.

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too bad the buyer sets the price.


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What? Are you certain? I mean I know I listed it for 12,345 and I got 350,000 (less fees) but certainly I forced the buyers to pay that amount according to the perverted view of the market haters.

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Nethergoat was half right.

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Then there are others that think market manipulation is bs. Doesn't feel real heroic to sell something for 100x the actual cost just because you can. As a long tooth I feel sorry for the newbies without disposable. There is nothing worse then leveling and not slotting cause you dread the time it will take away from actually running missions to slot up. I for one applaud your effort and ability to find satisfaction ripping of others to turn a quick buck.

I sure hope rogue addresses this and condemns heroes and rewards villains for such actions. Look what greed has done to our country.

Quietly filling your coffer not because I'm stupid but because I'd much rather spend the night helping my team and others play the game not exploting them...crafting in middle of mission while rest earn you experience sweet idea=kick.

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I am sorry that you don't understand how the world works.

*EDIT* I should give an explanation at least.

If prices did not rise in any of these situations on the CoH markets there would be a "shortage". A "shortage" is any price below "Equilibrium Price". A "shortage" is any price below where Supply and Demand meet. A "shortage" is any price where more items are willing and able to be bought than willing and able to be sold. A "shortage" is a price where you are willing to pay the going rate but are sometimes unable to obtain the item.

A shortage causes significant frustration to casual, common, regular, normal, non-super nerdy economically educated people because they CANNOT buy the item at standard prices. Items are sold out. In a shortage prices are supposed to rise.

In other words everyone would NOT be able to have Luck of the Gamblers if they were all priced at 100,000 Influence. They would sell out.