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It took me exactly 15 minutes without using Inspirations or Temp Powers of any form. That was on the Fire/Eng I made up for AV soloing who uses a completely ranged attack chain (see my article next week in the City Scoop). I was mainly doing it to figure out my effective DPS when fighting other AVs, since the Scrappers have a handy formula for that based on the time. It was surprisingly low, due in part to using Aid Self from time to time. I could go faster if I used melee attacks, Inspirations, or temp powers.
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Sorry for coming late to this, but I was just browsing through the Blaster forum...
I used to solo Posi using my Fire/Energy Blaster using a build made specifically for it, so I speak from experience. It took about 70 minutes, spawned for 2 with the second char sitting at Posi the entire time.
Purples are very nice if you have enough Inf. These days though, that can be REALLY expensive. I have 5 sets on my char. Munitions Mastery lets you slot both the Sleep and Hold sets. In your case, I HIGHLY recommend the full Confuse set in World of Confusion for the 5% Ranged Defense bonus.
Yes, take Hasten. I 6 slotted Hasten, Aim, and Build Up, and loaded them with level 50 Recharge IOs. Exemplaring to 15 takes that down to 99.5%, and ED lowers it to around 95%. Hasten has about 17 seconds downtime if you have 5 purple sets, while Build Up and Aim recharge in 27.5 seconds.
There's a LOT of travel in Posi. Oro portal, Mission TP, Base TP, and Went TP all help. But if you want to finish it fast rather than see all the scenery, take Super Speed. A Stealth IO added to that will let you stealth many missions. Overslot Super Speed so you can hit the run cap at level 15.
Yes, set bonuses work as long as the level of the Enhancement is low enough. I picked up the entire Teleport pool between levels 30 and 38, and loaded every power with 2 Blessing of the Zephyr (level 18 or below) for lots of Ranged Defense. (I had a fifth set in Super Speed.) I had low level Steadfast Protection: Res/Def and KB Protection IOs in Body Armor (taken at 47). It all worked.
If you have multiple purple sets, you won't need much Accuracy. Alternate Aim and Build Up if needed, those give nice ToHit buffs. Just keep your distance from the CoT Spectres and Spectral Lords. Frankenslot your non-purpled powers for max Damage, END, and Recharge. In fact 6 slot ALL of the powers you'll have by level 15, unless you need some slots for set bonuses at higher levels.
Add a Recharge to Rest. You'll need to use it from time to time. It's not worth it to take Health at 14, since that also means you need to take another Fitness power. I prefer lots of attacks and buffs.
You can't put the Universal Travel IOs in any Sprint power, and the regular travel IO sets have poor bonuses, so it's not worth slotting them. The only time you'll need Sprint is when escorting the hostages in "Defeat Rollister and cadre", so toss a Run Speed common IO in it and that's it.
The build cost me more than I earned in Merits by dual-boxing it, but it was interesting to do a few times. I'm using the Alt build on that char now for AV soloing. -
Post your predictions for the market for Issue 16 here.
I predict people will roll lots of new chars to play with Powerset Proliferation and Customization. People may also spend a significant amount of time retrofitting established characters for Power Customization, complete with costume tweaking. That will result in fewer people leveling up mid and high level chars, at least in the short term. It'll take a few months for the game to return to a more normal distribution.
Low level demand will spike. Lots of lowbies will still be using AE and earning tickets, so low level supply will only spike weakly from the Traditionalists who avoid the AE. There's money to be made selling to lowbies for a month or two. Common IO crafters will be busy.
Farmers will go gonzo with the new difficulty system, and supply of level 50 stuff will spike. More people will try fighting larger spawns, effectively increasing the number of farmers in the game and again increasing supply. Total Farm income will increase, and that will go to buying shinies since it's all disposable income. The price of most high level stuff will go down due to oversupply and a reduction in the number of new people hitting 50, but within a couple months prices will rebound higher than ever. Items trading in a shortage (purples) will not go down at all as there will be no oversupply, so they will continue to rise as disposable income rises. Hold on to your purples, the prices are just going up. -
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I don't have the time to farm the cash I'd need for the build and I'd go mad watching the AV's go down that slowly.
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It takes about 4 minutes for my Ill/Rad to take down your average AV. Though granted, she has a VERY expensive build. -
If you only care about purples, the object is to defeat mobs as fast possible. That means using mostly AoE attacks on large spawns. You can get the large spawns by starting an Oro arc with a few friends who have retired chars. Those retired chars never need to log in, but every mission will spawn as if they were there. They act like perma-fillers.
I don't think level affects the drop rate, so you should be able to get equal numbers of purples from level 47 or 52 mobs. Level only affects your kill rate a little bit. Personally I'd rather farm level 50 mobs, just so all the Set IO Recipes are also 50. And if you use Oro, you'll get 50s at least. But there's no reason to go higher.
I had a lot of success using the final mission of the Liberate TV arc redside with my Fire/Psi Dom, farming Nemesis mobs. You'll need to find a mission that is best suited to you, and that depends on your AT and powersets. A Fiery Aura Tanker can farm Fire damage mobs safely. An Empathy Defender is better suited to support, but can do well in the final mission of the ITF just buffing Imperious and letting him kill stuff. So what AT and powersets do you have available for farming?
P.S. Based on my farming results, you earn about 1 purple per 1500 mobs assuming a normal mix of Minions and Lts. So if you get say 100 mobs per cycle farming the Walls of Cimerora, it'll take 15 cycles on average per purple. Track your kills with Hero Stats and let us know how you do. -
I'd still have about a dozen purpled chars. And I'd still have hundreds of IOs in base storage that are worth a lot. I'd probably sell the IOs I don't need, plus farm and Marketeer like mad to buy up the really good stuff while prices are still low.
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No article from TopDoc?
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The Character Copy tool has been gone for a while. I was planning on doing an AV soloing article with my DM/SR Scrapper, but it's one I leveled up in Hardcore mode (delete on defeat). As such, I want to do my soloing on the test server.
And I need to get my act together and try one of my other chars at AV soloing tonight if I want to make the deadline for next week. Hmm... Maybe my Tanker. -
I'm gonna try to organize a few people to do this tonight on Freedom, starting around 10 PM EDT, 7 PM PDT. Send a /tell @TopDoc if you're interested, or just show up in Pocket D at the right time. I've done all of the other Arena badges, but I'll hang out and organize or pass out advice on those as well if there's any interest. Hope to see a few people there.
If you're interested in this badge but you're not on Freedom, we can probably work something out. Make up a level 1 char and help me out on Freedom, and I'll make up a level 1 char and help you out on your server.
I'm not on either of the 2 big Freedom Badge channels because they're at max capacity. So I'll probably contact a known badger or two to advertise there when the time comes. -
You figure it out! Take into account the END cost of TK and attacks. Attack chain should be Dominate, Blaze, Dominate, Fire Blast. Replace Fire Blast with Incinerate if there's enough time, but there may not be. Balance that against Stamina, IOs, Domination, and Consume. Dominate needs to be frankenslotted with HOs for Acc, Dam, Hold, and Recharge. You'll lose damage if you put END Reduction in it. My gut feeling is that Mind/Fire doesn't have the damage output alone, even if they do have enough END. No Regen debuff, and no pets or Hot Feet. While a non-Psi Mind Dom can solo an even con AV without twinking, it takes quite a while. A +3 AV may just be too much. An HVAS or a Longbow Heavy might be enough to tip the scales, as they have Regen debuffs and can provide more damage.
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You didn't stack enough holds. Check my numbers on page 3 of this thread. You need to stack 11 Holds in about 34 seconds. That requires over 200% Global Recharge. You can get by with a little less if you get some IO set bonuses or overslot your hold to increase your duration. Telekinesis would also help, but you may need a couple Minions around for Drain Psyche to keep your blue bar up.
Next time, grab a Temporary Power: Power Analyzer Mk III and see how much Hold you're stacking. -
Hurdle only gives half the speed of Super Jump, but that's still very respectable.
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As to Summon Widow, it doesn't really fit into my play style. I tend to move fast on my Widow, and pets aren't very good at keeping up. But on a high Recharge build, the patron pets are usually a very good idea. They're fairly strong, and massive recharge can make them perma. Plus the new Expedient Reinforcement set is sexy.
The temp Fly jetpacks are a bit on the slow side. I'd still take a real travel power, like SS or SJ.
As to CJ, I'd say take it if you need it for the IO sets you can slot in it. Personally I like the control it gives in combat, especially on melee chars. Super Speed with well slotted Hurdle and CJ really lets you get around both in and out of combat. And you can slot CJ with an LotG and a full set of Blessings. But if you don't need it for sets or movement, then feel free to skip it. -
I pay BUY IT NAO prices for anything under a hundred thousand Inf because it isn't worth my time to bid creep.
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OK, read through it ALL...
I think the Slow minimum is 5%. Your average character or mob runs at 21 feet/second, but a well slotted Slow will take them down to 1 foot/second. I haven't tested this recently, but the Temporary Power: Power Analyzer Mk III should give you a definite answer.
Slow doesn't use Magnitude for determining effect. It just has a simple percentage slowed along with a duration.
My Ill/Rad was also loaded up with HOs back in the day. And I'm still pulling them out one freespec at a time, while updating her build as new IOs come out.
One thing to take into account when going for Perma-PA is that the three decoys are summoned with a one second delay between each. You can probably aim for a 62 second recharge and still be fairly safe.
On Blind and other attack that have an Accuracy bonus, I usually only slot a single Accuracy SO. Radiation Infection can make hard targets easy to hit.
You didn't mention that the 20% chance for +1 Mag on Blind means it's enough to hold a Boss, just like other Controller holds.
A proc adds on average about 14 points of damage. An SO in Blind adds about 10 points of damage all the time, and 10 more with Containment. Given that Blind is one of the few powers an Illusion Controller has to regularly establish Containment (before Choking Cloud), and even with Choking Cloud you may want to target unheld mobs, you won't necessarily get a lot of Containment damage out of it. Playstyle and teammates will significantly affect this. But it's certainly reasonable to slot procs rather than damage. The purple proc adds on average 35 damage, and is always worth slotting if you can get it.
For Blind, Flash, and EM Pulse, consider the Gladiator's Net (PvP) IO set. You get a 7.5% Recharge Reduction set IO bonus for slotting 5, plus some other decent set bonuses. Of course they're probably very expensive.
In Spectral Wounds the "0 Runspeed for 10s" is an adjustment to runspeed, and being 0 it has no effect. It does NOT set enemy runspeed to 0. I think it may be there just so the game has some sort of internal handle to associate with the visual effects of the power, which last until the heal back.
For Confuse powers I never recommend slotting Confuse Duration. Confuse powers usually have a silly long duration, and anything you confuse should be dead before it wears off. You can even stack it on bosses easily without any Recharge or Confuse Duration slotting. The only reason to increase the Confuse Duration is if you want the set bonuses from something like Malaise's Illusion or Coercive Persuasion.
Superior Invisibility is a MAJOR END hog. Stealth IOs are fairly cheap, and I always take Hasten and Super Speed anyways on Recharge oriented builds. But as you said, it can be good for slotting LotGs.
The Threat mechanism from PA is in addition to their Taunts. Every PA attack has a 27 second Mag 4 Taunt, which is about twice as long as Tanker taunts. So once they start attacking, mobs are always going to attack them back. But I think their Threat means mobs are more likely to attack them even before they attack. So if a Controller and 3 PA walk into a bar, all or most of the mobs in the bar are going to attack the PA.
Spectral Terror includes a 15% ToHit debuff, both in the aura and the single target attack, and they stack. That is a MAJOR debuff, especially when you add Radiation Infection. The fear effect of the single target Fear used by Spectral Terror should stack with its aura to fear bosses.
Spectral Terror's aura tics every 5 seconds, and lasts for a base 7.45 seconds. If you slot it up a bit, it will keep mobs afraid even if it misses a tic. If you only fight +2 mobs or less, you don't need to slot it for Fear otherwise. But against higher level mobs, you will want to slot it to keep them afraid for at least 5 seconds per tic.
Radiant Aura is exactly the same as Empathy's Healing Aura or Thermal's Warmth, same radius, recharge, animation time, END cost, everything. It's just that Rad lacks the additional single target heal to play a "real" healer.
For Radiant Aura, you can slot it with 5 of the Panacea set (the new PvP IOs) for a 7.5% Recharge Reduction bonus. But again, PvP IO sets are expensive.
I wouldn't bother slotting Defense debuffs specifically in RI. It's already a large debuff, enough that you can hit most mobs 95% of the time even without slotting any Accuracy Enhancements. Mobs with really high Defense buffs often have Defense debuff resistance. And you can probably find a better use for those slots.
Accelerate Metabolism also includes about a 52% END and Recovery Resistance buff. Cast it before fighting Carnies and they won't be draining nearly as much END. (You don't need to worry about Sappers because you always Deceive them.) I like to slot AM with END Mod when I can, but I don't know if that affects the resistance buff.
I tend to slot Mutation with END Reduction. At 26 END, it's expensive.
AVs at level 50 resist Regeneration debuffs by 85%. That means the 500% Regen debuff in Lingering Radiation is reduced to 75%. That's still a massive debuff, and it means the AV will Regenerate at a quarter of his normal rate. That is why LR makes such a big difference.
If you take the Speed pool for your movement power, you don't need to be quite so worried about conserving your Safeguard temp travel powers. You can just head to Firebase Zulu when you hit level 40 and buy a new Raptor Pack for 10k Influence.
In your sample build, I'd skip Superior Invisibility at low levels unless you really wanted to take Recall Friend and use both for stealthing missions. It's an END hog, and you don't have access to good Enhancements to reduce it. I'd put it after Stamina (if I took it at all).
I like Leadership on Ill/Rads. Thanks to the extra Recovery of AM, you usually have the END to run some. The ToHit debuffs in RI and Spectral Terror drop mobs to the ToHit floor, unless you're fighting +3 or higher mobs. But against +3 or higher mobs, Maneuvers will make a difference. Tactics is usually a waste due to the high Defense debuff in RI. But Assault means more damage all around. Vengeance works well if you also take Fallout and Mutation. Plus you can slot LotGs in Maneuvers and Vengeance. And a Perma-PA build is also a Perma-Veng build. But as you say, it's a tight build, and you have to pick and choose what to take.
Spectral Terror is a good opener if you can do it from behind cover. Mobs won't be able to shoot you before cowering in fear. It's also good in a high Defense team, say one running with a Force Fielder.
Personally, I love Deceive.
Deceive should work on AVs, but only while the purple triangles are down. Purple triangles usually give Mag 50 protection against Confuse for 50 out of 75 seconds. When the triangles are down, the AV should have significantly less Confusion protection. I'm guessing it should take 2 Deceives to confuse an AV when the triangles are down. But I've never tried it, so I don't know. -
The first build is so 2008. Even the second build is out of date. I've got a respec planned for tonight that includes PvP IOs and a few other minor tweaks. But this build has reached the points where it would take billions of Infamy under current market prices, so it no longer qualifies as "high end". It's reached ludicrous.
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Next year's our 5th year, so I'm thinking I'm going to shoot for 50 billion.
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What server do you play on? And what sort of events do you have? -
Wow, that's a long guide. It'll take me a while to go through it all. But my first 50 was an Ill/Rad, and I've used her to solo GMs and other things, so I'll definitely have stuff to say.
BTW, my favorite EPP on Trollers is Psi Mastery. A Perma-PA Troller can get perma-Indomitable Will, which is roughly Scrapper level status protection. That's VERY nice to have. -
Most of my marketeering involves selling what I get from farming, but farming and marketeering have the same end goal in mind. Earning huge amounts of Inf. I did the farming for the Leader badge (earning 2 billion Inf). But I do both now in order to load up my chars with the best IOs out there. I've got about a dozen chars loaded with purples, LotGs, etc. And they're very fun to play.
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Nope, they act like purples. You get them no matter what level you exemp to. It is somewhat pointless to farm lower level ones, because the higher give higher Enhancement bonuses while providing the same set bonuses. The only benefit to lower level ones is you can slot them earlier, but PvP IOs are more of a "final build" type of thing.
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I bought all I could last night, up to 400M. I'll actually use a few. But I'm wondering what to list the rest at.
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It is possible to get the Pentad Victor badge on a villain.
1) Log in your villain.
2) Go to the Arena.
3) Start a Hero Pentad.
4) Get two heroes of the same AT to join, just so you get someone else on the other team.
5) Start the event, wait for the timer, and have the solo Hero on the second team exit.
6) Villain get the badge!
I suspect a Kheldian may be able to do the same thing, or you can do what Sadyre suggested.
P.S. If this is an exploit, specifically using a bug to earn a bugged badge, then this post will probably disappear. If it's still here tomorrow, then I guess this is a perfectly valid way to earn the badge. So you might want to wait till then if you're trying to avoid using exploits. -
Double Secret Probation Closed Beta.
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With this though I wouldn't expect any measure of thanks no matter how it was made known. Fixing it likely involved much extra work, and when is the last time anyone thanked you for dumping a problem in their lap?
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People who take pride in their work like knowing when something is wrong, so they can fix it. Ditto for people with a financial incentive. -
If you check out the most recent edition of the City Scoop, you'll see my article on soloing AVs with a Dom. I include the numbers for stacking holds and such, and it appears to be reasonable for a Mind or Fire Control Dom to hold an AV through the purple triangles. Doms without one of those primaries will have a significantly harder time due to the longer animation time in their single target hold. They'll need around +200% global Recharge Reduction.
My Fire/Psi Dom could defeat an average AV in 3.5 minutes in Issue 14. I don't expect that to change significantly in Issue 15, but I haven't tested it. -
Most everything is still valid. Fire and Mind Control Permadoms should still be able to perma-hold AVs fairly easily with the right slotting and enough global Recharge Reduction. Doms with different primaries will still need silly high levels of global Recharge Reduction to stack enough holds, due to the longer animation time. Drain Psyche hasn't changed for PvE, so it'll still drop AV Regen to 0. The loss of the damage bonus in Domination is about the same as the base damage increase, so that's a wash. Anyone who could solo an AV before Issue 15 should be able to do to afterwards, unless they took a hit in single target damage. But there are a couple cases of that.
Psychic Shock Wave is no longer a good power to use in a single target attack chain. I haven't taken a close look at a replacement as I'm busy testing my next soloer. But Drain Psyche would almost let you solo an AV using Brawl and lots of time, so Psi Assault should still be fine.
I hear Electricity Assault took a bit of a hit. It doesn't have a Regen debuff, so it really needs high DPSA to take down an AV. A Fire/Elec may be able to manage thanks to Hot Feet and Imps, but a Mind/Elec doesn't get those. Remember Dominate (Mind Control's single target hold) needs to be slotted for Hold, and it needs to be a major part of the attack chain. An Electricity Assault Dom in Issue 14 who could rely on Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch for high DPSA may not have enough damage in Issue 15. I never played around with the numbers for other sets though, so I can't really say.