StratoNexus

He he. I normally prefer Tolkienesque stuff myself, but for some reason this series had me captured early. He has gotten a little long and wandered into too much stuff that is irrelevant (or is unnecessarily repeating relevant themes), but that seems to be the style of our times with fantasy novels. I do like that he is trying to bring it to a close, it shows that he knows he wandered a bit more than needed (or than he intended).

Interesting, I can see know why our opinions differ since I guess I never truly farmed BAF. Back when I20 first released, I ran a lot of trials for about 3 weeks. At first, we had a lot of variance as we tried out different things. We also spent a lot of runs doing various things to get the various BAF badges.

Now when I run trials, I'll join a team and run a Lambda then BAF (or a BAF then Lambda). Normally after 1 or 2 trials I head out to do something else. If I feel like more trials I might stay, but I will switch characters to change my experience. I oftentimes still get to play in runs where we will do the more fun methods of Keep 'Em Separated and/or shoot for Strong and Pretty (I lead trials, so I can make that call myself and I'll occasionally suggest it to leagues I am on even when not leading, it doesn't always work, but sometimes it will).

If you are engaging in the BAF repeatedly with the same character and using the same strategy with mostly the same other leaguemates, then I agree with your assessment. I would not do that to myself. No reward is worth that mind-numbing monotony, IMO. However, that mind-numbing monotony is not the fault of the game designers.

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

Cool. Inherent fitness really opened up some nice possibilities. Grab a miracle for Health, you already have the one IO, two will be OK!

I do not think comparing running 3 BAFs in a row is like playing the exact same hand, its more like playing the exact same game, but shuffling the deck (assuming people actually come and go, if you do it with the exact same teams, then maybe, but outside of Master Lambda/Keyes runs, I rarely see that).

Of course, most leagues I see anymore rotate, doing BAF then Lam (and hopefully one day Keyes gets put in more often, it does seem to finally be trickling in more and more).

If you are not the type to enjoy that, don't do it. I don't. I run five or six trials a week (although oftentimes two or three of those are on the same day(s)). I play Yahtzee, Chess, and Connect Four that much, they are much less dynamic than even BAF.

But if people gather around and play cards for 3 or 4 hours its called fun. If they play a sport for 3 hours its called fun. Some people like to play games repeatedly for hours and have been doing it for thousands of years.

Alright everyone, lets farm Pinochle!

It is to me!

Here are my feelings about pets and defenders and corruptors.

At least I was not crazy when I said what I said 2 years ago.

One thing I find modestly sad is that many defenders may actually choose to buff their Lore pets instead of teammates. If you are using your AB to buff Vicki's damage instead of blaster A, that kind of makes me sad.

Once on a large team/league, my scrapper's Lore pets are likely gonna be buffed to the gills too, so while it is true it is the defender/controller/corruptor/MM doing the buffing, the scrapper and his pet is still bringing tons of damage. I am not really seeing the Lore pets as evening the playing field even after 50, although I do agree they are a nice power and very useful.

In Mids or on a character you play? Do you have enough end to attack anything?

I don't even know what the above means. My Rage generally recharges in about 80 seconds. For a long time I just clicked it sometime after I noticed it was recharged, kind of like I would handle Foot Stomp or KoB. If I failed to click it for 10 or 20 seconds, so be it, I lost some efficiency on my slight double rage time. I do now have files bound to my move keys which keeps Rage and Hasten going pretty much automatically, although I have to watch during some AV fights if I stop moving

Jab is very weak, but it does not really have a counterpart since no other power has a 2 second recharge. Punch is on the low end of the 4 second recharge powers. Haymaker is average. KoB is not good, it is stellar, but of course it pays for that with an incredibly long recharge. Without Rage, the set is indeed on the low end.

I think you are a bit too concerned about this exact timing thing. Even if you choose to not perma Rage, at 2 minutes of up time, and a 10 second crash and then 20 more seconds before you click it again, SS is still a fabulous set and Rage is still way better than Build Up. Perhaps you are focused on perma Double Rage? That does sound like a pain to manage, because in order to keep it going I imagine you have to be right on top of it, since you will likely be very tight on the recharge.

I am guessing you are one of those people who do not actually use Build Up. You kind of hit it once or twice a mission and are content with your damage output without Build Up. Its nice that BU can recharge in 22.5 seconds, but if you can't handle clicking Rage every 80-100 seconds, what makes Build Up easier to manage if you have to click it every 24?

Interesting. I could almost see Invuln, but that is likely just my bias towards the set. Elec and SR are not even in the same league as Regen, just on SOs, IME.

^^^^^^^^^^

While I will personally enjoy the taunt aura, I too am surprised that stealth brute gets a taunt aura. One thing to realize is that this does not change anything while fighting. A taunt aura should not alter how the stealth works to avoid aggroing the next spawn or even a nearby enemy in the current spawn who did not aggro. Anything the taunt aura will aggro would have aggroed before just from being so close.

It is true there is some concern about running through missions past enemies now, since it is preferable not to turn off your status protection when doing so.

Nope. I can't. I have tried. I turned my difficulty down to 0 x1 no bosses and ran 1.5 tip missions. Then I had to log out because it is not CoH when I do that, it is some bizarro world "press space to win" game. It was so mind-numbingly painful for me I couldn't muster the will to log in for days afterwards.

This is just like the crafting badges for Field Crafter. I CAN'T do it. I want to do it. I have tried to do it, but after 15 to 20 minutes I can no longer function in the game. Why would I do that to myself on purpose? I occasionally try again, because my tastes could change, but so far no Field Crafter and no ability to run tips at "collect your prize" difficulty.

I do not begrudge anyone who can do it. I am at 23 H-merits. It has been awhile since I have worked at it, so I will likely soon be able to run some tips again and get some more progress. One day I will have my vanity IO, it is just gonna take awhile.

Just because you believe there is a disparity and feel that tankers are somehow being treated inequitably, doesn't mean there is and they are.

Now we both said useless things!

Do you really think those sets are stronger than Regen on SOs? And if you do, are you playing those sets on Brutes and then comparing the survivability to Regen scrappers? I love Invuln, my favorite set, but I have no pretenses that it's better than Regen before I get all IOd up.

I am also concerned about this change because Energize will come so late in the build. I already dislike that ED came so late. I do agree that I have to wait to see and play the changes before judging, but at first blush I do not like losing a tool I have grown fond of using.

On my Claws/Elec scrapper, I am seriously underwhelmed with Energize, so that is also coloring my PoV. Energize may be much more useful on my defense capped (and likely incarnate defense capped with the new ED bonus) brute though, so I am trying not to judge before real play testing. This is one of those things where I am feeling really bad about this change, but trying not to let it color my attitude (but still admitting the truth of my concerns).

Bobcat is mean if you kill Neuron first. I find I generally have more leeway with the sword bombs on my tankers than on my scrappers or brute.

Funny thing is, this mechanic can be looked at both ways. Each Pulse deals more damage to some tankers than other ATs even have. So while the base Pulse deals 803 to my one blaster it deals nearly 1700 to my one tanker. Tankers take more damage! However, this mechanic could actually solve the issue you have with Bobcat. Bobcat can smack against the one shot code for all ATs, leaving everyone at one hit point, tankers included. This mechanic will leave tankers with more health than other ATs, which comes in handy.

I feel pretty good about my tankers. I find that they are often more durable than my scrappers or brutes, even my Fiery tanker does well relative to my scrappers and brute (when teamed). It is true that my scrappers and brute are usually just fine, but I would say the tanker survivability advantage is useful and noticeable. I have been happy with the added damage tankers got from IOs, bruising, and Incarnate abilities. It certainly doesn't make tankers as damaging as the scrappers and brutes, but good enough to easily manhandle most content (just like scrappers and brutes are not as survivable as tankers, but good enough to manhandle most content).

I play sets with Build Up all the time, I only have one SS character. If the devs told me I could choose between Rage and Build Up, I'd take Rage every time, it is perma Build Up with a minor inconvenience (once you get it perma, before that the defense debuff is troubling).

You can't seem to really find why you dislike Rage. First it was animation time and constant debuff. But Build Up has more animation time and a much worse "debuff". Now you mention it is because you have to manage clicking it occasionally, but if you actually use Build Up, you have to click Build Up and manage it much more than Rage, for much less effect.

Rage is much easier to manage than Build Up and is vastly more potent. The one reason I find Rage slightly harder to deal with than Build Up, you have not even mentioned (the endurance drop). You mentioned you won't even try it until it is changed because you think it looks obnoxious to deal with. Since you seem not to have actual experience using the power, I am trying to show you that it is not obnoxious to deal with, especially compared to Build Up.

Based on SOs only and no primary, Regen is top tier. Especially vs. Malta, Carnies, and Arachnos, Regen will surpass most other sets, if everyone is just on SOs.

People seem to be able to remember what Regen plays like on just SOs, but forget how Invuln and Elec and SR play just on SOs.

I am not sure if it was the avatar or if it is just my correct tendency to use the masculine pronoun when sex is unknown. I do sometimes use the more incorrect "they", but I try not to.

3030 mertis?

We haven't really been told that by the devs. Changes to the blaster AT in I11 and the Vigilance change for defenders pretty much cemented that the devs very much design the game with the expectation that most teams will have Aggro controllers / DPS / Support. Designing some encounters that make a specific type of support very handy is not wrong, especially since both defense and resistance are still hugely useful in a Keyes trial. Healing is a perfectly legitimate skill that should sometimes be seen as highly desirable.

I haven't had any issues seeing it on myself, but I am still having trouble seeing it on allies, which makes this a bit frustrating when I am on a character who could really help someone who is being disintegrated. I hope they find a better way to notify us who the disintegrate target is.