Umbral

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I posted this build in the "Is Regen good anymore post", but figured it might be better placed in it's own thread.

Igot this toon up to level 50 over the winter and have touched it since. I had a brief...er extended bout of altitis (ice/energy blaster if you wondered..read as blapper).

I respecced yesterday into the build that is posted below. I'd like to get some of the pro's advice on where to go from here (Werner, Umbral, etc.) I played it for a bit last night with some success. Groups of elite bosses in MA. I couldnt solo Infernal last night though

Thanks in advance all!

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It looks like you were trying to get the build that've I've been working towards and filled it with common IOs and SOs. That should work fine. Honestly, the first things you're going to want to work towards are the cheap sets (not that there are many in the build I posted). It's definitely not going to perform well until you spend the money/merits.

"Skeets, didn't we used to guard a superhero museum?"

"Yes, sir"

"Didn't I used to wear a full suit?"

"Yes, sir"

"Didn't I used to be a guy?"

"Yes, sir"

"I should really stop mucking around with time travel..."

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If you put it with the right primary and load it up with IO's its ok otherwise it just doesnt bring enough to the table.

In my humble opinion it only works with spines and even then it takes a large IO investment before it becomes truly powerful. Claws and the swords can work with dark but they would be stronger with almost any other secondary which is a telling point.

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Now, I'm only talking about seriously expensive builds here. And I don't have a build I'm satisfied with, but I can tell you what I believe that Katana/Dark and Broad Sword/Dark are capable of. I believe they are capable of soft capping defense, plus having all those nice resists, plus having one of the best heals in the game on a quick recharge, plus being solid builds that give up almost nothing to get there. I think they would have better survivability than most top tier scrappers under most circumstances.

Again, I'm not fully-satisfied with anything I've seen or made yet, but I think there's a build out there waiting to be discovered that will put most everything else to shame.

Or I could be wrong. But even if I'm wrong, the builds I've seen are at least competitive.

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I'd agree with most of those assessments Werner with one qualification: it's gonna be hell on your blue bar. You're either going to get a build that has nice, sustainable blue bar, or you're going to get one that blows every other set's survivability out of the water. There isn't really much middle ground on the mega-builds.

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I disagree.

It's no ones business what powers I choose. It's bad enough I have to listen to build-nazis from the same faction tell me with their oh so superior attitudes how I should respec my character because it doesn't fit their pre-concieved notion of the uber-build. Those people get quickly introduced to my ignore list, which is disruptive on a team when they can't ask me for assistance.

The only thing you need to make a good team is teamwork. People that rely on the perfect team composition are usually poor players that need to compensate for their own inability to play effectively.

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I agree with the argument that you don't need to be able to figure out a player's powersets to build a good team (it helps though, especially if you're pugging), but that's not all it shows. Personally, I find it more useful to be able to figure out which powers a player has taken. There are a number of powers that I simply assume that a character will have such as both of the shields on sonic, thermal, ff, and cold characters. There have been times when the player in question hadn't picked those for that character (and completely boggled my mind). Being able to find out simply by looking at their info rather than outright asking them (which most of the time, they don't know I'm directly referencing them and their power choices if I do) is much easier and less obtrusive.

The only reason I'm against anything like this is that it would mean that players can also look at the power sets and powers of characters of the opposing faction when in PvP. PvP is of minor enough interest to me that I almost never do it, but I also realize that it would open up a whole horrible can of worms concerning build sniping (especially since it shows any IO set bonuses you've got).

As it stands, I've got no problem with where it is. Leaving it be is just fine by me.

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I'd actually be in favor of a feature that allowed me to block everyone from seeing my powers and badges.

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It's called "not teaming with anyone".

That would be totally borked, especially since you're getting all of that at no end cost. Considering how high those defenses are, you could easily get softcapped to all positions along with all of the other incredible mitigation powers.

Honestly, if it were put in game, I would expect it to get some of the bad auto powers in game right now, like Resilience and APP Body Armor, rather than all of the incredibly good ones you put in there, especially since you're borrowing 3 of the most powerful auto powers available in the game from the VEATs.

Throw in the ability to slot all of those as it stands and you'd get an absurd level of survivability at almost no cost (capped +hp, 28.8 +def, 25.6% res to s/l, 38.4% res to all else). IO sets just make it even more insane.

I doubt the set you listed could ever really pass muster. It's just too good in too many ways.

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I'm not sure where i post this but this seems like a good place since it's an idea i got on how to help the devs. I know the pling is a problem with ae. You want people to experience the game right. Well put a restriction on the door like rwz making it so you have to be lvl 50 or a high lvl to enter. That way the only farms that will be made are the ones just to get influence. The prices on enhancements, ios, bonus ios, and other stuff are high. So i believe people might work toward 50 so they can make influence or if they want to make there own arc. This will make it so no lvl 1s can pl there self to 50 in 1 or 2 days. I hope this helps. I know there will be alot of flaming against this post but i know alot will agree with me that it might work.

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I'm not gonna flame you even though this definitely isn't going to be received well by the general forum populace (I really couldn't care less whether it happens, I play AE mishes for the content), but, please, if you're going to voice an opinion like this, look for the threads that are already discussing this.

This was on the same page and covers the exact same topic.

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We've already got that in the last mission of the Ernesto Hess TF. When you take out Archon Burkholder, you get a countdown that, if you're still inside when it hits 0, blasts you for damage on par with the exploding burning buildings.

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Right, so... continuing on with the "Has Demon Summoning and Dual Pistols been confirmed for an issue, or is that still just speculation based on an off-the-cuff comment Posi made at the Anniversary Event?" line...

'cuz right now I'm having to go with, "Not in the Feature List, not coming for I15."

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That's what I had always assumed. I don't recall Positron ever saying that either of those sets are coming in I15. If they were, I'd expect there to be a bit more noise about them on the test server.

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ya the tech side of it was always a concern in my head while i was making it. But one work around i was thinking of is when ever you log off a character a small text file is saved on your computer. In the file it would keep track of what your settings where when you logged on last and just display them on the menu for you. It wouldn't be perfect but that way you wouldn't have to worry about overloading the system because it would just be looking at a file on your hard drive.

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That might work but it would require that you log in and out of that character, which isn't too far out of the question honestly. That's actually a nice work around, though it could be easy to screw around with if it's just a locally saved file (re: you could prank a friend by tweaking their inf to be 0 when they really have 2 billion, or whatever).

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IDK how the friends list works but i wouldn't think it would be hard to just have it load the one time. Would work for global friends i guess but might run into a problem with local.

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Global friends would probably be the easiest to implement. It would probably just require altering when and how your account logs in to the global chat server. Doing it with the normal friends list would be a bit funky because, afaik, that list is stored directly on the character.

Looks fine from a */Regen standpoint. You will want MoG from level 38. It's awesome.

I don't really have much experience dealing with MA, but it looks like you got the right powers. Storm Kick is incredible DPA, but that's about as much as I know about messing with MA. I would recommend that you think about removing the end redux from your attacks. You've got loads of +recovery in the build so it shouldn't be an issue. Switch them out for a recharge SO and you should be happy.

I actually sent them pms from the forums asking for their costumes and other info so that I could put them into a custom arc of mine. Of course, that arc completely ignores the 4th wall and roundly traipses over it giggling all the while.

The problem with putting Mod 08, as awesome as he is, into the game is that his name is rather odd for a hero. Without a weird backstory, it would break immersion for some people.

I'm reasonably sure that a large amount of this is possible (just load the info from the character) but not particularly feasible thanks to the additional load time. Depending on how some of the systems are implemented, it may not even be possible for some of those features to operate without being fully logged in (re: friends tab, tickets, merits, etc.).

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Things Id love to see:

Space
New powersets - new ones not the sameones linked over from villains to heroes and visa versa

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Issue 15:
Demon summoning (Mastermind)
Dual pistols.

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Has anyone seen anything saying this is coming in I15? Everything I've seen concerning it just says "Soon".

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It was emaild and its on the issues page

http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/gam..._overview.html

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The update page says nothing about Dual Pistols or Demon Summoning (though I think Demon Binding sounds kewler).

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Things Id love to see:

Space
New powersets - new ones not the sameones linked over from villains to heroes and visa versa

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Issue 15:
Demon summoning (Mastermind)
Dual pistols.

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Has anyone seen anything saying this is coming in I15? Everything I've seen concerning it just says "Soon".

I could see it working well if the Reputations and factions in question can only be built up. Have them start at the floor and build up to awesome.

For Heroes, you could easily have Hero Corps, Freedom Phalanx, Vindicators, and I'm sure there could be a few others. Easiest way to have them in game would be to simply nab factions that you don't see actively involved in game and "say" they have a presence.

For Villains, Aeon Corp, the various Arachnos Patrons, and all of the other sub groups within Arachnos. Arachnos is such a large organization that you could easily have to curry favor with all of them.

As for rewards, I see it as a logical extension of the invention and badge systems. Each faction rewards a badge upon getting to the upper echelons. The non-badge reward would be the ability to buy/learn better enhancements, recipes, and possibly unlockable content (restricted TFs and story arcs anyone?).

We already have some "factions" in game anyway. Vanguard acts almost exactly like a faction in other games, except, rather than increasing your reputation by running arcs and doing content, you get the merits. The only thing needed to make it more "faction-like" would be to create tiers of rewards that you have to unlock through various means.

Honestly, if the devs want to have a Rularuu raid, it's more than likely that they would simply make a completely new model for him, one built specifically for the raid.

Personally, I'd hate this mechanic. It just seems... painful. Having a role for players that is essentially "taunt and die" isn't really going to make it popular. I also don't think incorporating the aspects would work out well. The aspects are servants that he has spread out through the Shadow Shard. Some actively work for him while others work against him. I don't think it would be appropriate for all of the aspects to assist.

As to the size issue, the reason he's too big to fight is because his targeting box would be too small. It's like with the Jade Spider. Incredibly large enemies require flight or jumping up and down, neither of which is spectacularly fun when the fight is going all over the place.

My idea from the other thread.

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I've suggested a Rularuu raid like this for a long time. My basic idea was to have the 2 arms, the head, and the torso. The arms act independently of each other hurling death and destruction (and spawning mobs) all over the place. The head protects the torso somehow (most likely by healing, though the idea struck me to have it create a repulsion bubble around him of such high mag that no PC can penetrate it) and his "real" hit points are the torso (which lets out short range PbAoE blasts of energy or somesuch).

Ranged attackers focus on taking out the head. Tanks get aggro from the arms and spawned mobs and, together with the melee damage dealers, defeat the hoards of Soldiers of Rularuu and Storm Elementals that are spawned. Whenever the head is taken down, the repulsion field drops allowing everyone to rush the torso and beat on it for as long as possible. After a certain period of time (2 minutes maybe), the head "respawns" (re: he is no longer so stunned as to be incapable of sustaining the shield) and begins attacking again. It would probably take between 3 to 4 "cycles" to outright defeat him.

The nice thing about this design is that it gives everyone a role to fill without completely pigeonholing what they do. Ranged attackers can be anyone who has attacks that can reach 30' (or however large the bubble is made to be). Tanks can be anyone who can get aggro at range and stay alive amidst the onslaught. Melee damage is just that. There would be enough "normal" enemies to allow AoE based characters to have a significant role but single target based characters would also have their time to shine whenever the bubble goes down. The hope I have would be that a raid designed like this one would be just as much fun as the RWZ raid (definitely better design than the Hamidon raid).

Of course, for this to be released, I would suggest giving villains access to the Shadow Shard. Giving them their own zones or making the current SS zones cohabitative (re: no PvP and no cooperation) I don't really care. I just want another fun raid.

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(PS, you also mention the 5 original TFs as those you think would need changing and then list 6)

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I thought i edited that before submitting... but it's 6.

As for street hunts, I really think they SHOULD go, you can mimic them in outdoor maps if you have to, though.

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I actually like the Numina TF hunt mishes. I think they're great, especially when you consider the story of it, though I think it could be improved by her telling you in the mission description the order of the zone kills rather than having to hit up Paragonwiki.

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Note the only TFs i suggest updating this way are the old classic ones, I consider Striga's TF to be a solid TF that although not as cool as the recent ones, was well design.

The original 5 TFs, though, were horribly built because they were meant to be just huge long story arcs with the same tech the old story arcs had.

The only event (that i really can recall off the top of my head) in these 6 TFs that could not be literally replicated would be Babbage, but even that can be done with an outdoor map.

As for the length, you can be more flexible for the purpose of this, allowing users to make longer arcs if needed only for this, or submit multiple arcs as one submission. Besides, one of the things that trully has to change with some of those TFs is precisely length.

And finally: door location, can remain the same once the TF was adopted as a replacement. IF (again, i don't propose changing that one at all) the Striga TF was replaced, you would keep the trip to the Volcano just as it is now. I can't think of any such memorable situation in the first 6 TFs

BTW I am talking about: Positron, Synapse, Sister Psyche, Citadel, Manticore and Numina.

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As was brought up earlier, you also can't replicate the street hunting portions of the TFs, which isn't particularly integral to every TF, but it's essential to the flavor of the Numina TF.

(PS, you also mention the 5 original TFs as those you think would need changing and then list 6)

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the Paladin ambush in the Synapse TF,

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It's Babbage not the Paladin who ambushes the group during the Synapse TF.

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Nerf the Perma-BU set. It's stupid.

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Personally, I have to agree with this. Any set that is balanced around having a version of Build Up that is permanent but balanced around a 10 second crash every 2 minutes needs to be fixed. Rage is simply nuts. It's the biggest problem in the set.

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The solution is to nerf SS as it rightly deserves, then it will be ok to port over to Scrappers.

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That. I'm looking at making a new meleer and trying to come up with a justification not to go SS.

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I agree wholeheartedly. But then again, I think it would be a better to simply balance all of the Tanker primaries so that they would scale more accurately to the scalar. When a Tanker primary gets modified by the Scrapper scalar and completely obliterates any existing set that should set off some alarms immediately, especially since that's kind of the point of scalars.

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<QR>

Everyone seems to be concentrating on the recovery percentage, and IMO that is looking at it the wrong way. Concentrate on the net end/sec you gain so you can also take into account max end set bonuses.

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Good thing everyone is ignoring my post.

I have to agree that the Rikti do look different, but I disagree that they should restrict the skeleton choice. Afaik, the Rikti do not have a unique skeleton. They use a generic skeleton (I believe it's male but I'm just waiting for Arcanaville to come barreling in and say that she's timed all of their animations and it links up with the minor disparities that the female body type has) with additional special costume pieces to account for the tail stub and shoulder blade wing things (though I don't think they all have those, I think it might just be the armor).

Arachnos soldiers are all either exclusively male or female but they didn't stop body type choice from the preventing nontraditional VEAT characters. I think it would be interesting to see a huge body type Rikti (especially as a soldier), especially since I highly doubt the Rikti we'd be playing would be the "normal" ones. As to the funky body parts that are part in parcel with being Rikti, the only "real" requirements would be the assignment of a specific head or face. Everything else would follow closely enough.

As to the origins, they should all be Science imo. Rikti Magi which are supposed to be very rare and the exclusive providence of the Traditionalists (because the Restructuralists don't believe in turning humans). Every other Rikti in the game is purely Science origin. Giving all of the player versions different origins doesn't really make much sense to me.

For powers, I feel that you could do some very interesting things using a branching system like the VEATs do. Have 2 different ATs. Rikti Infantry that diverts into Chief Soldier and Chief Gunman. Rikti Guardian that diverts into Rikti Commander and Rikti Mentalist. the Infantry path focuses on damage whereas the Guardian focuses more on control and support.

A single IO set isn't going to negate slotted Stamina (.83 end/sec), but a combination thereof is more than capable of it. The Miracle +recovery (.25 end/sec) and Numina +regen/+recov (.17 end/sec) IOs go a decent way towards overcoming it. Depending on your AT and power set selection, it gets a bit more complicated, but it isn't too hard to pull together the remaining .41 end/sec. Pretty much anyone can slot at least 3 of the 2.5% +end powers (Miracle, Impervium Armor, Positron's Blast, Stupefy, Malaise's Illusions all 2 piece set bonus). 2 slots in 3 powers generates an additional 7.5% +recov (.12 end/sec). Additional functional +recovery can be gained reasonably easily by getting the +endurance set bonuses. Eradication, GotA, Undermined, Mocking Berate, Damp Spirits, Theft of Essence all grant an additional 1.8 endurance reasonably low in their set bonuses, which multiplies your recovery by an additional 1.8% for each you gain.

The big affect of set IOs that is going to make getting rid of Stamina is the amount of end redux that the sets give to attacks and other powers that players normally eschew end redux for damage or recharge. In general, most attack sets have at least 30% end redux in them, which, when you consider that, in general, most uninterrupted attack strings cost in the region of 3-4 end/sec to maintain, the end redux is providing more end/sec than Stamina does.