Umbral

Once again, have you every considered putting one together yourself? Even at the late hours of the night, I've always found that there is a very high amount of interest in RWZ raiding, though this may simply be due to the fact that I play on FreeDumb or possibly because I know how to ask randoms if they're interested without completely ignoring me. I still see RWZ raids happening all the time for no other reason than someone was bored. I've personally led at least 20 raids and probably taken part in at least 10 more, and I actually bow out rather often when asked. The big problem might just be a server issue (in which I don't think it should be blamed on the devs for designing a zone event around having a decent population).

How much more does it take than entry permission? A team with a level 50 character and a bit of time traipsing around beating up on Overseers in the various zones. Not particularly difficult and, honestly, probably a great deal easier than getting the VG pieces.

prestige: adjective; having or showing success, rank, wealth, etc.

The very fact that the pieces are unlockable makes them a prestige costume piece. They're a completely uninfluential mechanism that simply demonstrates that you have done some task that separates you from other people.

Maybe I'm just weird, but I actually like having stuff that you don't immediately get at level 1, no matter how many times I've earned it on various characters.

The reason for them to exist is simply to have something for people to earn. There are all kinds of things you can earn in this game, capes and auras among them, all of which are prestige content. Capes are (or, at least, weren't until the Magic pack came out) just as much unlocked content as the VG costume pieces and I've met very few people that have a problem with those.

Please show me where in my post I've insulted you or called you a name. The closest I've come is saying that you are "impotently whining", which is true: Impotent, lacking power (specifically to affect change), and whining, to snivel or complain in a peevish self pitying way (because, apparently, it's too hard to get these costume pieces that plenty of other people have had no problem getting).

I've fully read and comprehended what you've written. Don't act as if I'm incapable of understanding what you're talking about simply because I disagree with you, especially when you're apparently the one looking for insults in everything I say even remotely critical of you.

Considering that many people have already determined that they are indeed worth the effort (as evidenced by pretty much everyone I've ever done an RWZ raid with), I'm going to have to call bull-**** on you there. Assuming that locking out arbitrary fluff is somehow a great crime that needs to be addressed (especially since it's only a crime because you and the people you hang out with find it difficult to get them in the easy manner so you force yourselves to go through the difficult method), I'm going to have to ask you to realize that you're complaining about how hard a costume set you don't even like is to get.

Plenty of people have had no problems getting the set. They don't have a problem with the set up as it stands. Why should it be changed when it's been perfectly workable for absolutely everyone else?

Interestingly enough, the war correspondence of low ranking military officials is actually considered to be one of the single most reputable sources of historical information from that time period specifically because there was very little in the way of censorship. Of course, if you assume that war now is what it's always been like as you seem to be doing then sure it makes sense to doubt it. Feel free.

Interestingly enough, it's a well known fact that the Northern soldiers readily insulted their own generals. Either way, I don't really think this is the place for a full blown debate on the merits of the North and South and the reasons why which side did well during which points of the war (and if the Southern generals were such incredible strategic geniuses, why did they decide to play an offensive war in the beginning when it was rather easy to see that, if they didn't win nearly immediately, they would lose handily; they were very tactically intelligent, I'll give them that though).

"Commander" does not include generals and strategic command individuals. Commander is simply any officer on the battlefield relaying orders and, no matter how much you try to argue it, the upper command still went out and fought on occasions. How do you think Stonewall Jackson got his name (it wasn't for standing behind a stone wall while is soldiers fought)?

Besides, medieval kings (I can never recall any medieval queen leading an army) stopped leading because they were incompetent in military matters. Those few that were actually decent enough generals still lead on the battlefield and were known for leading charges onto the field (surrounded by a royal guard, of course).

Have you ever tried loading a flintlock musket sitting or laying down?

What do you know about field communications pre-radio? Nothing? You know how I can tell? Because the bright colors worn on the field were designed specifically to allow disparate military units to know who was on what side. Bright colors were designed specifically to allow you to easily know whether you're engaging in friendly fire or not.

Do you even know the effective range of a period smooth bore musket?

Thank you for demonstrating to us that you've seen the movie "The Patriot". Now, joining us back in the real world, you'll realize that the contributions of the citizen militias, of which were the only organized groups of snipers thanks to their equipment (long rifles rather than smooth bore muskets) rather than any specific method of training. The use of snipers to take out officers was mainly discouraged because it simply ensured the mutual destruction of each side's officers (when you start killing their officers, they start killing yours).

Actually, the use of terrain was used in quite the same way in the Orient as it was used in the Occident (if you're going to use one set of terms, use them globally so as not to present one in a more outmoded manner). Because it significantly inhibited the ability of a general to determine troop success, it was used to hide troop movements. Actual battles (not just skirmishes) rarely, if ever, took place in forests or other non-standard terrains anywhere in the world because forests and other closed spaces are notoriously bad for doing such (at least until modern warfare overcame those natural disadvantages with infinitely better communication and visibility improvements). The use of terrain for strategic positioning however is well documented for an extremely long period of time all over the world.

Actually, what won us the war wasn't any great capability or tactical capability on our own side: it was the fact that Britain was embroiled in what amounted to a more important war closer to home so that they couldn't afford to outright quell the rebellion. Of course, the fact that the French helped us out (to a very significant degree) even at their own peril (seeing as they were fighting a war at home themselves as well) helped out too. Assuming that the minor use of a largely ineffective military tactic helped to turn the tide is simply ludicrous (though incredibly romantic).

The Crusades were no more motivated by religion than by economics and politics. Crusaders went down to Jerusalem to kill Muslims and Jews because it was seen a glorious method by which to prove your own virtue. Just read some of the correspondence and memoirs of crusaders. You'd be amazed at how little it actually took to get them down there. Sure, there was a final religious excuse that gave them a definable reason to head down there, but they were gunning for a fight anyway.

The Shinto-Buddhist beliefs of the Japanese were actually more well founded within the context of intense national pride than in any belief structure (though it's about as hard to separate the religious/nationalistic nature of Imperialist China as it is to separate the same nature of nearly all American war efforts). The Vikings were motivated into war by economics. Their belief structure sprang up around the enslave and plunder based economy they developed (as most belief structures have a strange habit of developing around pre-existing societal predispositions).

Manifest Destiny was a method of excusing the aggressive expansion of colonial and pioneer Americans. The expansion was spurred on before the idea of Manifest Destiny was thought up. The concept simply allowed everyone to assuage their consciences at stealing the land from the indigenous populations and leaving their own long term homes.

Except that, if you ever actually studied Medieval warfare, you'd realize that the rationale is completely different. The primary rationale behind Medieval warfare was expansion of one's personal territory for economic or political means or simply because of an outright family feud. The primary rationale behind the current war with the Taliban is based upon the extremist religious views of a minor sect that gained ground thanks to pitiful economic conditions and the promise of a better life in the hearafter (that and preying on weaker minorities in order to assert control).

I think you're assuming that all Medieval warfare was done under the auspice of the Crusades (which it wasn't, the Crusades were actually a rather minor movement on the whole) and that the Crusades were religiously motivated in the first place (which they weren't, the Pope was a known political entity on par with the various King's of the realm within Medieval society and his motives were no more religious than those of any other major political ruler).

You may want to actually brush up on your military history so that you stop getting so much stuff wrong. Acting as if the information in the Art of War was completely unique to Asian military tactics just because it was written by a man from China is completely contradictory to the truth. Much of it is actually quite obvious, and, interestingly enough, it was translated and taught to Occidental military leaders prior even to the American Revolution. Assuming as if every military incursion in the history of the world is religiously motivated is completely ignoring the fact that not everyone is a religious extremist, much less a member of sect.

Considering how much additional space you're getting out of that 7 extra feet and how little animation time actually has to do with the effectiveness of AoE attacks, I'm going to stick with Tremor being quite the nice power.

Considering we're arguing the traits of the power rather than the AT that the power exists in, I'm still going to argue that Frozen Aura nearly as good as Footstomp. All of the powers listed would be subject to AT mods, just like every other power under the auspices of cross-AT comparison, so simply saying "Brutes don't get it, thusly it sucks" isn't a valid argument. I'm not going to say that Frozen Aura is better than Footstomp, but the difference isn't particularly vast, especially when you know how to manipulate enemy location so that the additional 5' of radius doesn't matter nearly as much.

Amplify (which I'm assuming you're referring to since Dark/Sonic doesn't get access to Aim, just a renamed copy) provides a 10 second 50% +dam buff on a 90 second base recharge with a 1.32 sec animation. Presuming you slot it up for 95% +rech, you'd be getting that buff on a 47.5 second cycle (10/((90/1.95)+1.32)) for a total 21% uptime. 21% uptime would mean you're getting a 10.5% average +dam buff for what amounts to .109 end/sec. Assuming you apply just a single end redux SO to Assault, you'd be getting 18.75% +dam at all time for .29 end/sec. If you give it 3 slots, it would instead cost 2 end/sec.

Honestly, what I'd recommend would be for you to look at your endurance consumption and need for alpha strike capability. If you're endurance is more than enough and you don't find yourself requiring some big damage quite fast, I'd go with Assault over Amplify. If the answer to those questions is no, then I would go with Amplify over Assault.

Actually, Victorian and Napoleonic era was in the era when it was actually quite common to know how to read. This is industrial era. There is correspondence that we have from all ranks of the military in both the Civil War and Napoleonic Wars of low ranking enlisted soldiers telling their loved ones how incredible it was to be fighting under such a wonderful general and how glorious it is even in the face of such gruesome atrocities, etc, etc.

Interestingly enough, many of the reasons that "stupid fighting" took place over the course of history was because those warrior societies set up specific rules of action so that innocents wouldn't get injured and that it would cause a minimum of insult to others (such as fighting "unfairly" or in a matter that would generate a slaughter of one side or the other's troops).

If you actually study the history of the major warrior societies (pretty much everywhere during the Medieval Age along with a number of the North American plains tribes), you'll find an amazing concordance between them of mutual respect for one's enemies and fair treatment on the battlefield along with a great deal of "stupid fighting" being the dictated method of battlefield action.

Do you even know the reason that large military units were used in pretty much all conditions up until the 20th century? It wasn't because of the bravura of their commanders (all but those that were at the top of the organizational structure actually walked or rode out there with their men onto the battlefield). It was because their guns weren't accurate and took a long time to reload. You couldn't ensure that anything would get hit without either getting right up in their face or firing in large volleys, which necessitates walking out in a large line and firing in those large volleys. Because it took so long to load, you generally had to move in with bayonets.

As to the question of religious indoctrination, you'd be amazed at how little warfare has had to do with religion in the past, especially when you're talking about the large formation warfare you're referring to being used. The primary reasons for war were economic, political, or simply expansionist. Telling your soldiers that it is good to die only applies when you're fighting a war against an obviously superior force that will most likely kill everyone anyway.

You're confusing modern warfare and historical warfare without ever putting into consideration the mentality of the time. War hasn't always been the same as it has been now. It's only the same in the most basic of ways.

Actually, most of those accounts are letters from those that joined and are in the middle of combat. Of course, this was also considered to be much more civilized warfare in which everyone was supposed to be fighting by the same set of rules wherein officers and enlisted were treated quite well and given a fare deal of respect, even by the other side. Like I said, it was a strange age.

Okay. Done. Now what?

Depends on the time and war. In Napoleon's days, many soldiers risked their lives specifically because it was glorious and let you tell great stories later (not to mention the sexy scars). In the middle ages, knights would do pretty much the same thing. Of course, all of that changed pretty much after the Napoleonic era when militaries realized how easy it was to kill people on the other side indiscriminately from very far away in a decidedly inglorious manner.

How is it a bad idea? It's a piece of prestige eye candy. Acting as if you're being prevented by something the game is doing so that you can't get the merits to buy the cosmetic improvements you want which is then preventing you from playing a game is simply stupid.

It's especially stupid since absolutely everyone can get in on the RWZ raids thanks to the devs removing the level restrictions on zones.

And I can probably reference just as many things that the players have railed against and insisted were detrimental to the game that have been kept specifically because they were better for the game.

You say "many people". I say "vocal minority". Just because some people ***** about it doesn't mean that it's a large problem. I've never met someone in game that actually cares about the fact that it takes a 4-5 mothership raids in order to get all of the costume pieces. I've actually met substantially more people that ***** that there aren't enough things to spend their enormous piles of VG merits on.

Because it's a prestige costume. It's the same reason why you can't get the epaulets until you finish the TFC, the Nemesis rifle until you get the Unveiler badge, and why unlocked costume pieces exist at all.

Considering how little effort is required when you're actually willing to put forth some modicum of effort to raid, I'm going to have to say you're just impotently whining. It's disturbingly easy to get the VG costume pieces except when you're unwilling to raid (and I say unwilling, not incapable, purposefully because there is nothing the game is doing to prevent you from raiding). It's still possible to get them without raiding. It just takes a lot longer.

And, you know, that 14 second recharge time so that it can be used ~25% more often than any of the other powers mentioned.

Frozen Aura (as a lone power) is actually quite good. It's functionally identical to Super Strength except for the fact that it has a smaller radius (which is still larger than the minimum size) and uses the best player damage type in the game (Cold). There is a reason it is lauded as the Frozen Footstomp. It's pretty much just as good.

I think you mean "lay men's terms" rather than "lamence terms" ("lay men" referring to a person that is not a member of a specific profession, such as the clergy, law, or medicine, all of which are known for using advanced thought concepts and terminology).

And yes, if you've got a lot of regeneration or other damage recovery (this means self heals), don't bother with straight regen powers or regen set bonuses.

The question is then how do we clarify the entire situation the arrive at a 1:1 comparison rather than a comparisons of unequal sums.

Except that you're having to deal with the problem that activated powers are supposed to be stronger than toggles are supposed to be stronger than passive powers. Not to mention that you completely ignore the fact that the endurance cost increases as the recharge benefit from Hasten increases without any manner in which to reduce the impact of it.

Those are true 1:1 comparisons. Both powers being compared are passive and provide all of the same types of buffs (with the exception of when you try to compare WP FH to Health rather than Regen FH). There isn't any need to comparatively quantify the other benefits that exist within the powers.

Actually, at best, Quickness' value is substantially more. Under the effects of -rech, Quickness is substantially more useful than Hasten. The ability to ignore 40% of incoming -rech debuffs and not have the benefit of the power itself reduced by the presence of that debuff make it substantially better. The permanence of the power and the ability to make the character as a whole more able to resist changing conditions is something you cannot ignore as you are almost always guilty of.

Debuff resistance is not, nor should it ever be, an ignored value under the confines of a balance debate, especially when it's one of the fundamental useful attributes of a power.

So the evidence that Quickness isn't strong enough is based upon data demonstrating that PB costs too much (which is debateable when you consider that it costs a good deal less than every other mez toggle out there with the same number of slots devoted to it) and that PB isn't able to be made permanent out of the box with a single slot? If you're going to complain that PB is too weak and use it as evidence that Quickness needs to be made stronger, you'd probably have a better time simply arguing that PB needs to be made better with the benefit of the existing Quickness attributes.

Besides, you're operating under the assumption that PB should only require a single slot. If you look at all of the other mez toggles, they generally require at least 1 slot devoted to them in order to achieve manageable endurance unless the set they are within specifically has additional endurance assistance.

It does. It has a substantial amount of -rech resist and it's a passive power. Those are in and of themselves alternate mechanical advantages over Hasten that you're ignoring.

I would love to see what analysis you've got and whether any of them actually do anything to address the comparative advantages of passives over activated powers (animation time use, absolute permanence, stable personal benefit) and debuff resistance (attribute stability). If you're going to ignore those benefits, you're doing nothing to actually address fully half of the benefits that Quickness offers.

Considering they still haven't gotten around to releasing a Mids' for Mac (though I believe they're actually working on a cross-OS release rather than a single Mac version), I doubt it would be that easy to simply create a version for the iPhone (which would be pretty much the same thing as making a Mac version) even if it were pared down (which Mids' already is to a significant extent).

"Considerably greater" as in "losing 20% unenhanced +regen"? The fact of the matter is that you would be losing a pittance of regeneration. At a base, the difference between the two is right around 2.24 hp/sec (~4.032 hp/sec at HP cap) when you're already pulling in more than 100 hp/sec. If you really think that getting another 4 hp/sec when you're regenerating more than 25 times as much as a baseline is all that impressive, feel free, but I'm going to be over here facepalming and bringing out the math to demonstrate that every source of +regen in the game that */Regen can get a hold of outside of its own powers is completely redundant because you're already regenerating enough.

Here's a quick rule of thumb for the point at which it becomes redundant to take more regeneration: 500% +regen. If you're trying to decide whether it's worth it to get another +regen set bonus or grab Health when you don't need to, just look at how much regen you've already got. If you're over 500%, don't bother. The comparative advantage isn't going to be enough to outweigh what you could get elsewhere.

First off, that's leveling. This is IOs. It's pretty much assumed that you're going to have some amount of end redux slotted into your attacks and, at the very least, the 2 +end accolades (which are insanely easy to get). Those attributes will stay with you no matter what level you exemp down to. With just tangential amounts of end redux, QR, and 110 endurance, I can assure you that you're going to be fine on endurance. The only times you should actually need it are when you're running a boatload of expensive toggles, which, considering the rather tight nature of a BS/Regen build in the early game, isn't likely to happen when you're below level 39.

It's quite simple really: it's on a long recharge. For powers with a long recharge, DPA isn't a viable metric of comparison because you're not going to be saturating your attack string with it. DPA is only a valid metric of comparison when you're talking about a situation in which you are operating at saturated animation time use (i.e. you have no little to no gaps in your attack chain) with powers that will recharge on a constant reliable scale in the short term.

Because Shield Charge takes so long to recharge (4.5 times longer than Seismic Smash), you wouldn't be able to use it for real gains within any attack string even if you were operating at the recharge cap (18 sec recharge, 19.716 second cycle) since it would take up such a small portion of the attack string that it wouldn't be functionally noticeable (at cap, it would be only 8.7% of the total attack string, assuming the rest of the attack string fit perfectly within Shield Charge's animation time).

For long recharge powers, it doesn't really matter how long they take to animate because their animation time is doing almost nothing to their cycle time (which is a very important number to gauge weight and use within an attack string) compared to their base recharge. With what are considered normal attack powers, the animation time is actually having a substantial noticeable effect upon the cycle time of the power and thusly animation time is an important attribute for them to consider. It's for this very reason that, although many of the best AoE powers in the game have what would normally be considered inordinately long animation times (Footstomp, Spine Burst, Tremor, Frozen Aura), they're still considered to be the very best AoE attacks in the game. The fact that they take a long time to animate pales in comparison to the fact that they deliver a large amount of damage to a large number of targets and the percent of animation time used is rather paltry when compared to ST attacks of a similar animation time.

Physical Perfection can actually serve as an excellent replacement for Stamina, allowing you to take Hasten by freeing up a power pool choice, if you slot it appropriately. With a Perf Shifter proc, Numina's +regen/+recoc, Miracle +recov, and 2 level 50 End Mod IOs, you'll be granting yourself more endurance than you would with Stamina: ((12.5 + 10 + 15) * 1.8332) = 68.745% +recov from PP; (25 * 1.9908) = 49.77% +recov from 3 slotted Stamina. Of course, you won't have Physical Perfection when you exemp down below 39, but, come on, you're */Regen: QR and MoG (which actually nets you a minimum of 22.45 endurance per application) should be more than enough for anything you need prior to that level. It's not like */Regen has many expensive toggles it runs before the mids 30s.

Power Surge accepts hold and resistance IO sets. When Power Surge fades, it generates an EM Pulse centered on you right as you crash. This causes -regen, -end, energy damage to electronic targets, and a rather substantial hold (mag 3 w/ 50% chance for 1 mag, 22.35 sec duration). Because of this hold, it's possible to slot Power Surge with hold sets. Nifty, huh?

IO sets. 5 piece Unbreakable Constraint, 6 piece Lockdown, and 5-6 piece Gladiator's Net are all excellent excellent sets to put into Power Surge if you've got the spare slots. Each of those sets will actually give you ~90% +rech (the only important enhancement value, honestly) and give you some very nice set bonuses.

Of course, I wouldn't even recommend taking Power Surge on a Scrapper. Taking it just puts you at the resistance cap and that's not going to do much, honestly. The comparative improvement is actually rather poor (~2.3 fold increase to survivability) when you consider the crash and what other crashing tier 9s grant. Unless you plan on set muling it, I wouldn't bother taking it. Chances are you're not going to want to use it in the first place.

Because the RWZ raid is so cycle intensive? I lead plenty of RWZ raids with a crappy 6 year old computer with barely enough RAM to manage its way through loading WW without crashing. If you turn your graphics settings down and turn off peripherals, it's completely possible to take part in an RWZ raid.

Or you could always just start one yourself. It's an incredibly easy raid to lead and oftentimes, if you're unwilling or incompetent, someone else more experienced will step in and take the reins (or offer encouragement from behind). It's not difficult. I've started all kinds of RWZ raids simply by walking into the zone, giving a broadcast and shout out in a couple high pop global channels, and sending tells to unteamed people the stating "Mothership raid forming; come to RWZ for invite" via the search function (however bad the search function may actually be). Some of them might not respond, but there are almost always enough to get the 2-3 full teams necessary to get the raid running. When you start taking down pylons, ask a few of your teammates to continue broadcasting and sending tells to people, trying to make sure not to bug anyone too much.

I've met a number of people that lament the lack of RWZ raids while completely forgetting that they are perfectly capable of starting one themselves. If you want to raid, but can't find one, form one.

Apparently Miyabi doesn't realize that powers don't begin recharging until they finish animating. Of course, if anyone cared to even look at the actual numbers that I put up, which explicitly state that several times.

Gah! I keep forgetting how easy it is to completely overcome fundamental problems with the game engine with simple insistence that it will happen eventually.

The removal of redraw is actually something that has been requested for a long time, so you can't just claim it "wasn't in epic demand". The removal of redraw in combat and the ability to recolor powers has been around for almost the entire duration of the game. In fact, redraw has been altered at least twice over the lifetime of the game to account for this very fact. Power colorization and customization follow the same suit: people have been asking for it for a long time and it spent a long time in development.

Assuming that just because you want a power pool that allows you to alter the size of a character upon demand (which is the problem, that character was made by overcoming the size limitations for a costume slot rather than having the size be a variable attribute) and then simultaneously assuming that it will eventually happen even though it's a niche powerset, would require Castle to do all kinds of power tweaking on the first two, and be completely impossible for the second two (because you can't simply change the level, con, and reward of a target based on an arbitrary assignment from a power, even if it would be even close to balanced), completely ignoring the fact that it would require a great deal of resource expenditure for a rather small payoff.

It's not going to happen because the benefit of adding it to the game is too small to account for the costs of implementing it. I'm reasonably sure that it would be possible for BABs and pohsyb to go through all of the code to make it so that height had a variable scalar attached to it, but it's not going to happen unless a lot of stuff changes simply because it would require an amount of coding on par with power colorization, possibly more (i.e. changing fundamental engine attributes to be changed to account for specific new variables).

Only if you refuse to or are incapable of doing an RWZ raid. You can easily gain all of the merits you need in 4-5 RWZ raids which are by no means difficult. All in all, if you do so in the manner the devs intended (RWZ raids), then you'll be able to get all of the merits you need in a 3-5 hours. If you attempt to get all of the VG costume pieces in the manner the devs didn't intend to be the primary method of gathering VG merits (running mishes, etc), you're going to feel as if it's impossible or simply not worth it. The problem you're encountering is that you're operating under the assumption that the method the devs intended to be a completely secondary method of acquiring VG merits to be the primary method by which to balance costs.

The costs are balanced around the designed primary method and reflect as such. They're perfectly fine where they are. It's not the devs' fault that you're either incapable or unwilling to start or join an RWZ raid.