-
Posts
1360 -
Joined
-
I personally consider that "cheating"... it's certainly possible but I don't really consider that true solo leveling any more. I'm 100% certain Arcanaville's times can be beaten using enough AE tricks, what I'm curious about is if they can be beaten with normal missions and "standard" AE missions (no allies or exploits, just normal enemy groups chosen to match the character).
-
I'm actually considering trying this, at least for a while. If I did so I'd probably do something like:
- Pre-purchase and craft three sets of IOs: a low-level mix of generics and frankenslotting for the teen levels, a frankenslotted set of level 25-ish IOs to slot around 22 or 23, and a full set build to be slotted in the 30s once I have a full attack chain and sufficient slots per power to actually get the good bonuses. I'd also start the character off with some inf to cover TOs and early DOs, market teleporters, and such.
- Run AE missions until I have a travel power and good survivability against general spawns, buying new TOs when I run out to level and swapping to my pre-crafted IOs at 12 or so.
- Switch to newspaper missions and story arcs to preserve my sanity once I can get around quickly and no longer need to fight hand-picked opponents to avoid downtime.
I'm not sure what AT would be best... perhaps a Katana / Regen Scrapper since they combine excellent survivability, early endurance management, and solid damage with some AoE capability. A Fire / Mental Blaster would probably be better but would also require more expensive IOs that I'm not sure I want to spring for just to test leveling speed.
(If anyone wants to loan me some low-level recovery uniques, LotGs, and ranged defense sets I'll be happy to try the Fire / Mental...)
-
Quote:Don't forget the costumes. I for one love having more robe choices since I have several characters who wear them. The martial arts pad style gloves are also cool.Ohh brother....Min/Maxers of the world unite!......sheesh....anyhow,the Ninja Run is well worth the 10 bucks to get it.Saves on buying into a travel power....and who cares if its "Only as fast as Super Speed unslotted,and half the height of Super Jump,provided you add such and such....."
Bottom line...you pay 10 bucks,you get a great travel power that you get at lvl 4 for every toon....and can save you upwards of 3 power pool slots to put towards a better build for your character in general.
As for Ninja Run, I find it faster than the Raptor Pack at low levels and with Hurdle or Swift + Sprint it makes a decent travel power. I don't think you'll get full Super Jump or Super Speed performance without adding slots to Hurdle or Sprint (and some run speed IOs if you want to equal Super Speed) but 50-60 MPH is plenty fast enough unless you're really impatient... especially since you have considerable vertical mobility. I probably won't use it as the sole travel power on many characters (I like the extreme jump height of Super Jump and the freedom of Fly too much) but if I'm low on slots or power picks (like my Dual Blades / SR Brute) I'd consider it. -
Interesting calculations, but I do have to disagree with one point: AoEs can actually be far more efficient DPE than single target attacks if you hit enough targets. In general, if you hit 3+ enemies with a cone or 4+ enemies with a targeted AoE you'll do more efficient damage than single target blasts.
In addition, some characters (in particular Blasters and Masterminds) can regain endurance faster than they can burn it without needing any extreme measures in slotting or power selection. My Archery / Energy Blaster cannot run out of endurance unless he gets sapped or hit with a recovery debuff... his most energy-intensive attack chain plus his toggles do not equal his recovery, and that's with no recovery uniques or procs and a sub-100 million build. A fully frankenslotted character or one using cheap to mid-price set IOs can easily have 50-60% or more endurance reduction in every power, so if you don't use a lot of toggles you can often get your recovery higher than your endurance use with just stamina and a few minor set bonuses (or even just Stamina). My Bots/Traps MM doesn't even have Stamina (or any recovery IOs) and he only ever needs blue pills in AV fights where he has to spam Web Grenade... in normal combat he uses less endurance per fight than he regains since the bots do 90% of the work (I tend to stand there with the Leadership toggles on immobilizing any bosses and tossing an occasional heal or Acid Mortar).
Of course, with the exception of Masterminds most ATs that can fight +2 bosses at lower levels are pretty toggle-heavy so your math still holds up well in practice... truly endurance neutral Brutes or Scrappers tend to require either a massive investment or a sub-optimal attack chain / toggle use. And Masterminds are quite slow to level until the 20s compared to Brutes and Scrappers so I'm not sure if their endurance advantage makes up for that.
Still, if you had IOs pre-crafted in storage (so no lost time marketing for them) I'd think something like a Thugs/Traps MM or Fire/Regen Scrapper could beat your numbers. The key would be fully slotting IOs in the mid 20s to maximize survivability and damage, since endurance is pretty much a non-issue for those power sets. -
Quote:Try Archery. It's faster than most sets early on (2 and 6 seconds vs 4 and 8 for the two starting attacks) and has very good AoE capability later. It'n not going to match some of the other sets for single target damage once you get a high recharge build but it holds its own and being able to drop Rain of Arrows on every spawn more than makes up for that.Yep, thats probally why I have never been able to stick it out with a blaster. Fire is too fotm for my taste and at the low levels everything else feels the same with a different wrapper.
-
Yep, if you don't care about heavily slotting Gang War for accuracy and recharge you can drop both sets of +resist and +defense IOs in it without sacrificing any slots on your main pets. Or you can just toss in the Recharge Intensive auras and have plenty of enhancement for Gang War itself.
-
Quote:What about something like having a swirling ring-shaped particle effect that everyone sees, then adding a distortion effect inside the ring on systems that can handle it? Lower-end systems would see the wormhole as a swirling ring of energy with a clear center that the target appears out of, while high-end rigs would see the enemy appear out of a distortion field within the ring. Both would convey the idea that the target has been pulled through a vortex, the high quality effect would just look cooler...In this very particular case though, where you're trying to represent spatial/light distortion...I think you'd be hard pressed to find a way to make something representative of distortion, without using distortion, that would still look as good (or better) if actual distortion were layered on top of it. This conceptualization of a Black Hole is visually interesting, and might be achievable in a way that could work everyone's hardware...but it's very different from something like Einstein Rings created by gravitational lensing that could only be created with some sort of distortion effect.
-
So I take it you don't have the tech to apply a fancy shader effect if the person's hardware and graphics settings support it and a simpler alternate effect if they do not? Like a cool distortion field that gets replaced with a basic particle effect on lower settings?
-
To be fair, while that effect would indeed look really cool there's a perfectly good in-game explanation for not having it: enough gravity to actually distort light enough to notice it would probably crush everything and everyone in the area (or possibly the planet) into a microscopic dot. Even stars don't bend light that much (at least not over such a short distance)... you'd need something close to a miniature black hole. And as numerous truly horrible Sci-Fi Channel original movies point out, black hole + planet = bad day for the people on said planet.
-
Several suggestions for an Energy / Energy Blaster:
1) Be sure to use a lot of inspirations when fighting EBs. I like four small purples, two to four small reds, and a break free (unless the EB has no stuns or holds), and possibly oranges if the EB has a to-hit buff. I'd do something like: pop insps -> Build Up -> biggest hitting attacks (Power Burst, Bone Smasher, etc...) -> Aim -> repeat biggest attacks, with lesser attacks as fillers where needed. Ignore the minions... with four Lucks they're non-factors, just focus on the EB and pop more Lucks if yours start flashing before he goes down (happens a lot if they're resistant to your main damage type). If you get the chance feel free to use AoEs (they'll eventually take out the minions) but only if your heavy hitters are recharging... you want maximum DPS to kill the EB before your inspirations wear off.
2) Inventions are your friend. Frankenslotting cheap set IOs will make you a lot more powerful than using SOs, and using good sets makes you far stronger than frankenslotting. For Blasters in particular sets make a huge difference, since you can get decent (25-30% or so) ranged defense and enough recharge to use your big attacks more often. You can make a decent build with around 30% ranged defense and 40-50% global recharge for under 100 million and get some +HP, +accuracy, and +recovery too. 100 million is easily achievable in the 30s and certainly in the low 40s if you sell drops on the market, and can be gotten in the 20s if you do some marketeering. Be sure to get Mids Hero Designer if you don't have it.
(Sorry if you already know this... just being thorough.)
3) Soloing a Blaster is hard mode. It's certainly possible, but it takes more practice than many other ATs. Be sure you play on standard difficulty (+0 / x1, no bosses) until you learn the ropes... you can always up it a bit once that starts feeling too easy. Though if you stick with SOs it may not ever feel too easy, depending on your playstyle and what you are fighting. There are a lot of skills needed as a Blaster that you never develop as a Tanker or Scrapper or such... positioning, target selection, pulling, hit and run attacks, that sort of thing.
4) Be prepared to accept that you just don't like Blasters. Some ATs don't fit some people's tastes well at all... I for one hate low damage ATs like many Tankers and Defenders. You may feel the same way about low defense characters. If all else fails, get a Scrapper or Tanker to 50 and save up a couple hundred million inf and then transfer it to Ultimo to buy IOs with... that should be enough for lots of +defense, +recharge, and +HP which will make you extremely powerful.
5) Post your build and we can make suggestions. You may have a lousy build, especially if it's your first character and he's been shelved for a long time. You should have a free respec if the character has been sitting around unplayed for a while and that can make a big difference. -
-
Depends on how you define "active". I usually focus on one or two characters at any given time (with the exception of occasional Hami raids on a 50) but I change which characters I'm focusing on often. I have three 50s, another half a dozen or so in the high 30s - low 40s, and around twenty in the mid levels. None of them are really retired, but some only get played a week or so at a time and then are shelved for a year or more. I also generally don't play 50s unless I'm trying to farm inf or am doing a Hami / Mothership raid so most of the time I have one or two characters being actively leveled up and one occasional raid character.
Though since Dragon Age has come out, my active CoX character count has been pretty much zero... -
Quote:Assuming the tank isn't well slotted, I'd say let the Stormie cut loose with Freezing Rain as the tank and scrapper jump in and then run in with Hurricane going. Hopefully no one will have to eat the full alpha since some will be shooting at the stormie, some at the scrapper or tank, and some will be falling on their butts. The tank's number one job will be to attract the attention of any mezzing CoT mages1. Who takes the alpha strike against mobs of mixed minions, Lts and bosses? Which character do you send in first and why?
Quote:2. How do you best mesh your damage powers with the rest of the team? -
Quote:I'd hit them all with Build Up plus an AoE if I have one (or two if possible), then drop the Yellow Ink Man. The Sorc will have teleported out, so I should be able to finish off the Green Ink Man and then nail the Sorc as he pops back in to try to heal. If I have a hold I'll hit the Sorc with that at the start, wipe out the minions, and then finish of the Sorc. Honestly, Tsoo are easy if you stay at range (assuming none of those Siphon Speed / Siphon Power users are there) so the order isn't too important. The sleep is a bit more dangerous than the stun but a Blaster can take two minions while slept or stunned so the main concern is staying away from the Sorc's PBAoE debuffs, which is pretty easy since they tend to port away for a few seconds at the start of the fight.Quiz question #1:
In the following group, who would you attack first?
a) Tsoo Sorcerer (healer, hurricane, foe hold)
b) Tsoo Green Ink Man (melee stun)
c) Tsoo Yellow Ink Man (ranged sleep)
I asked a number of SG mates this question, and I was fairly surprised at their answers. Assume you're a level 23 blaster, and the minions are orange con, which means you can probably take out one of the minions outright with 1 aim + build up blast but would take 2 shots to take out the Sorcerer. Who would you attack first and why?
Quote:Quiz question #2:
In the following group, who would you attack first and why?
a) Vahzilok Mortificator (ranged -slow, revive fallen cadavers, hard hitting melee attack)
b) Vahzilok Embalmed Cadaver (explodes, dumb AI)
c) Vahzilok Murk Eidolon (downgraded from a boss to a Lt, Midnight Grasp, Opressive Gloom)
Assume you're a level 11 blaster, and have build up but not aim. The Lts con yellow while the Embalmed cons white.
Ok, assuming I was fighting them I'd throw everything I had at the Murk. I hate Eidolons... the Mort's slows are annoying but to-hit debuffs at pre-DO levels are a killer. Once he's down I make sure I get close enough to the Embalmed to trigger his self destruct (if he hasn't already done so), then move away and let him eliminate himself while I take down the Mort. -
I'd be happy if they just made it where Hami raids allowed you to choose which Hami-O you got while STFs / LRSFs still gave random ones. That way people would have incentive to raid but could still (eventually) get the same rewards from TFs if they preferred (or were on a low population server with few raids).
-
Why restrict entries based on location? Since this is an entirely in-game contest with no real-world prizes it shouldn't be governed by any sort of sweepstakes / contest laws should it? It's like a costume contest, only the prize is a title instead of inf and it rates AE arcs instead of costumes...
-
Quote:I can see allowing Patron powers to be customized without breaking immersion... after all, the patrons are basically teaching you to use the power or giving you the device that produces it (like an Arachnos mace), but your character is the one actually using it. Would it really be that hard for a villain to tinker with his Arachnos mace to make it fire a blue beam, or to tweak her Soul Storm spell to be bright pink?That is only true for patron powers, not ancillary powers.
The issue with epic archetypes is the powers come from the same fictional source, function in the same ways, and presumably should look the same. This is somewhat true of patron powers as well, where the powers are boons granted by a particular patron and aren't really a power of the player character. We haven't made any firm decisions to do or not do customization for Epic Archetypes or patron powers. Ancillary powers is perfectly reasonable, but we wouldn't be able to do those without doing patron powers at the same time...even though we hate villains. -
Brutes also have more HP than Scrappers, so they can take the damage better. Does Oppressive Gloom tick for the same amount on a Brute as a Scrapper?
-
Since you have to take Scorch or Fire Sword anyway I'd suggest slotting up Fire Sword (better DPA than Scorch) so you can add that in while Hasten is recharging. Incinerate -> Cremate -> GFS is definitely the top chain but even with purples and LotGs it'll be tough to hit 140% global recharge and still softcap so I'm assuming Hasten and at least some downtime.
If I ever get around to leveling up my Fire/Shield I'll probably just stick to FS -> Incinerate -> Cremate -> GFS and skip Hasten... it frees up a pool and you only lose about 10 DPS fully enhanced with saturated AaO. You'll still be pushing near 220 max DPS without procs and that's darn good.
Granted, 230 DPS is better, but is it a billion inf better? You decide... -
I just frankenslotted my new Spines/DA Scrapper... started around level 30 and am now 34 and fully IOed. It was a little more expensive than your Katana/WP, but a lot of that was due to the types of IOs needed. The AoE sets and resist sets are harder to frankenslot dirt cheap and I wanted a -KB IO as well as a 6% accuracy... I had quite a few 100-200k recipes and the Steadfast -KB and Kismet 6% accuracy were both several million. Still, I was able to do it over the course of a few days using only the inf that character had earned, so the fact that I spent 20 million instead of 8 doesn't really bother me. The ability to actually play a Spines/Dark and not run out of endurance every 30 seconds is worth it.
-
Quote:This. It's hard to justify buying much of anything outright with merits except LotGs and Miracle / Numina's uniques. They sell for so much you can generally buy whatever you wanted off the market and have inf left over. The exception is things that just don't show up on the market, especially if you want a specific level IO for exemping... if something shows one sale a month I'm not waiting on it.A Lv30 Eradication quad costs 200 Merits or 50m.
A Lv50 Luck of the Gambler +7.5 is 200 Merits as well, but sells for 100m (recipe). So you could buy one of that instead, sell it, and buy two Eradication rares off the market.
You save 200 Merits, and avoid all the risk associated with random rolls. -
Wow, that build is insane Umbral.
Very, very nice if you have a spare 10 billion lying around. I could never hope to afford some of those IOs (you have what, three PvP IOs that go for two billion each?) but I may rip off... er, adapt
... that for a more sane budget if I ever do my DB/WP Scrapper or Brute.
-
Quote:This. I was talking about how most Fire Controller attacks hit everyone while Scrappers tend to cut down part of the group at a time. It tends to reduce the number of live enemies in range of you at any given moment.I don't think he means they kill groups at different speeds, he means that the enemies in front (and therefore in your cones) will usually die very quickly when you start fighting, so only the mobs behind you will be alive long enough to be hit by the procs. On a Fire/Kin you do targeted AoE damage, so most of the minions will stay alive and die at once, so the procs are going off on all 15 mobs during the whole fight. On a Scrapper they will only be going off on the 8-9 that you didn't kill right up front.
-
You see that a lot with Blazing Arrow. It has a long animation, and if the target dies before the arrow fires it stays hovering in midair in front of you.
-
Quote:Hmmm... you're right, I screwed up on the Blinding Feint buff. With around 152 DPS and the ability to slot an Achilles' proc I'm not sure why DB isn't more popular... that's higher DPS than any other Scrapper primary but Fire for moderate recharge builds (unless there's an odd attack chain I've not found, most primaries seem to run in the 130-140 DPS range without procs or extreme recharge) and probably pretty close to even the high recharge chains. In fact, it's slightly better than the mythical Headsplitter -> Headsplitter chain. Maybe it's because DB can't be used with Shield and has lower mitigation than some other sets?It's a bit higher than that, around the 150-160 DPS range before procs.
As for endurance problems, with Stamina, QR, and Physical Perfection plus decent endurance reduction slotting I'm not sure you'd even need the recovery uniques. That's assuming you only run the WP toggles, CJ, Tough, and Weave... if you add Focused Accuracy you'll probably want the uniques and maybe Conserve Power but I can't see any need for FA with Blinding Feint and a 6% to-hit IO unless you like playing with +4s.