Umbral

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Sonic Siphon (I'm assuming it's non stackable btw)...increase the -RES to 40-50% and add in some -REGEN (I'm thinking 100-250%).

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Considering it's supposed to be a siphon, rather than simply a basic removal, I always thought that Sonic Siphon should act more like Siphon Power. 30% -res to the target and have it grant an unenhanceable 5% +res to all target around you for 15 seconds. That way there's actually a decent reason to use it whenever your group isn't on an AV/EB.

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Possibly all of them.

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There's actually a badge somewhere in the game files for precisely this, but it isn't implemented. Likely because the requirements for it would need to change every time the devs add more content.

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There's distinct difference between completing all of the Ouroboros badges and completing all story arcs. The Ouroboros badges are based on completing each of the challenge settings, and all but timed and deaths have to be completed for each level range.

*/SR is actually an excellent performer though it doesn't see as much play from the average player simply because it takes a while to fully blossom and requires a lot of power selections to do so. It only gets better with IOs.

The only reason I can possibly imagine as to why there would be fewer */SR toons about would be that we've got */Shield, which, when kitted out with a decent IO build, is actually quite similar to */SR with the exception that it's got more hit points, more resistance, and more damage, though the expense is actually much more significant. That, and it's new.

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Chocolate was awsome. It was brought to us by the same folks that brought us Ong Bak 1 and 2. For even more delicious Muay Thai action check out Tony Jaa on youtube.

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I really do hope that some of the alternate Martial Arts moves are Muay Thai inspired attacks. I really want a simple, devastating knee strike.

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As opposed to purchasing them indirectly from cashing those Merits/Tickets in for goods that can be traded on the Market to get the Respec Recipes?

Okay, I'm interested. How many AE tickets would a Respec Recipe be worth?
Considering the market value of Salvage and the average recipe rewards vs. the market value of a Respec Recipe would be a possible guide.

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Considering it's current price and the price of purchasing a specific IO, I'd say it would probably be in the 150-200 merit range if it were ever added, though, this would also suggest that it would be added to the random gold recipe table.

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... so i want to play it all the way through, one mish at a time...

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hehehe

You're ambitious, I'll give you that. I've been playing for 3 years now, and I still stumble across plots I've never done, & locations I've never been (ok, blue-sied moreso than red )

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Lol, that's how I did it on my first character way back when I first started playing. Of course, there was much less content back then (only 45 story arcs including the TFs), though I made sure I got them all on my character (and this was back before you could exemp down and do TFs you missed!).

I'm actually rather please with the amount of content that they've added over the years though. It's consistently gotten better, generally to the point where, though I remember the old arcs, I'm fond of them because I remember how great I thought they were back then. Nowadays, they're very heavy on the grind, remarkably light on the actual story (at least until the very end), and incredibly boring to solo.

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I was avoiding talking about a fully buffed brute since that's a highly uncommon scenario.

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That's a debatable issue, though not really within the purview of this discussion.

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The Equilibrium point where tankers have 25% mitigation advantage and brutes only have 25% damage advantage is at 42% fury. Having a brute regularly above that 42% mark is very common though and tankers should get some kind of scale to not let their damage lag too far behind the more foes they fight.

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The point that you're missing is that you're consistently missing the fact that not only do Tankers have a 25% damage mitigation advantage from having a higher modifier for their defensive sets, they've also got 25% higher base hit points which gives them a further 25% survivability advantage beyond that suggested by their resistance and defense values. Thanks to their higher base hit points, Tankers actually have 56.25% higher survivability than an unbuffed Brute which means that a Brute would need to maintain that much more damage in order to maintain that level of balance.

If you assume basic slotting (95% +dam from enhancements), this means that a Tanker would have a 1.6575 damage scalar and that a Brute would need a 2.5898 damage scalar in order to generate equivalency. Starting from their .75 damage scalar, that means that a Brute would need to maintain 245% +dam in order to maintain equivalence. With 95% from slotting, that leaves 150% +dam that needs to be made up from Fury, which would be at the nominally sustainable 75% Fury. That's equivalent, assuming that survivability and damage are judged with equal weight.

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I was fighting a wp/ss tank in the arena... and I noticed everytime they would hit me with knockout blow that RttC would drop and I would have to retoggle it. Is this a bug? If not, is there someway to get around it?

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Knockout Blow has a mag 3 hold attached to it. Thanks to how new PvP works, all mez protection was removed and instead replaced with mez resistance (which reduces the duration). While you are mez, all toggles are suppressed and offensive toggles are turned off. Offensive toggles are defined that those than have a negative effect on enemies. Because RttC has the -tohit component, it is then defined as an offensive toggle and detoggled whenever you are stunned.

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So we're in agreement. There is really nothing wrong with Stalkers. With Going Rogue, I doubt their team spot will be in any more danger than it is now vs Brutes.

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Agreed. I believe that Stalkers are pretty much the villain versions of Scrappers. However, one of the big reasons that there are so few Stalkers is because, overall, Stalkers are rather easily overshadowed by Brutes, which are capable of equivalent or near equivalent ST damage, better AoE damage, better team utility, and vastly superior survivability. All without a need to tactically approach each fight (and don't try to dispute it; Brute "tactics" are run in, beat face, move on to next group; Stalkers have to actually choose specific targets and prioritize in a much more significant manner).

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"Make players WANT to go back into the Shadow Shard? Done!"


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There is nothing you can show me that will make me want to ever go back to the Shadow Shard. Nothing.

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Not even actual content? That would make me go back there. When they put in merit rewards, I started going back there whenever I could actually get a team for the TF because, while I loved the TFs (except Q-field), the reward was disproportionately bad.

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You miss the point. Tankers hit for significantly less compared to brute than they gain in damage mitigation over brutes.

Tankers have a 25% damage mitigation gain over brutes but with brute's fury only at 50%, a brute has a 29% damage advantage. At 90% fury it's going to be 44.5% damage advantage.

As I said the damage vs damage mitigation doesn't quite balance out here and setting up a Tanker damage buff scale that increases the more they are hit would balance this. Ideally at 50% and 90% of each bar, tankers would maintain their 25% mitigation and brutes would maintain their 25% damage bonus.

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Of course, if you're going off of base numbers rather than buffed numbers, the Tanker is actually going to start off with an innate survivability adavantage simply because Tankers start off with 25% more hit points which, when increased by their 25% greater innate mitigation, actually maintains the survivability to damage advantage when ignoring outside buffs.

Now, when you actually bring in outside buffs, Tankers lose out rather quickly because, thanks to their caps, Brutes are capable of getting huge quantities of damage and easily closing the gap where survivability is concerned because they have such a huge +dam cap (750%) and the same survivability caps as Tankers. Normally, Tankers don't get much benefit from survivability buffs mainly because they've already got such substantial survivability buffs on their own and there isn't much point to increasing their damage because their +dam cap is only 300% and it's pretty normal for a third of that to be already in the hands of the Tanker thanks to simple slotting.

Brutes are not imbalanced when it comes to basic solo functionality (except where compared to Scrappers wherein they maintain virtually identical damage while maintaining a significant survivability advantage thanks to the insurmountable issue of higher base hit points). Brutes only become noticeably imbalanced when their caps are actually considered because they're capable of overshadowing or equalling both Scrappers and Tankers in every single way at the same time.

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I am hoping for some serious Gun Fu ala Equilibrium.

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Here's an idea... for the secondary effect, have many of the attacks give a small, short-duration defense buff. The faster you shoot, the harder to hit you are...

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As if that wouldn't be completely overpowered in the hands of an AT that is supposed to specialize in straight damage? Why no give them access to Parry/DA as well?

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So you're pretty much just agreeing with what I said?

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I'm agreeing with qualifications, like I do most of the time. Of course, that doesn't stop most people from reading the "agree" rather than the "qualifications" portion.

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Also, point against Scrappers: I find they overkill-crit about as often as they don't so it's like half those crits aren't even on the radar. Stalkers on the other hand, often frontload a controlled crit to balance out those occasional overkill-crits. I won't even bring up the double assassin strike...

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Honestly, I'd have to agree that the random chance crits for Scrappers are a bit of overkill, but not nearly so much as they are for Stalkers. Scrappers have a greater crit chance against harder targets, making the actual hp quantities smaller so that the chances for an overkill crit are actually significantly smaller. Stalkers simply have a crit rate that is roughly flat and only varies based on their teammates rather than their target so that they'll have the same higher crit rate against weaker foes, just as likely to get a crit on a minion (which are the primary generators of overkill crits simply because they have so little hp). Of course, this is mitigated substantially by a Stalker's ability to control crit capability to some degree thanks to Placate and attacking from stealth.

I guess the problem also arises insofar as Scrappers having larger crits (on an equal +dam basis) than Stalkers do simply by virtue of having a higher damage modifier which means that they have a larger range of hit points that generate "overkill crits" so, while a Stalker is more likely to have crits, those crits act upon a larger range of fully effective hp values.

Either way, I've never really seen a problem between the two of them. Stalkers get more ST damage, control, and control over damage variability, but lose AoE damage and survivability. None of those values are particularly large compared to what it is opposed by, so it's balanced quite well, especially considering the near direct comparison of powersets.

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The reason Stalkers have less HP is to balance the fact they have passive stealth, less aggro grabbing abilities and higher critical hit potential. Seriously, they have 2x the crit chance of scrapper with the potential to ramp it up to over 6x the crit chance on teams plus 1-2 controlled crits as well. 50% crit chance on AoEs already cements the fact that Stalkers trade HP for crits. It's a fine trade IMO.

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Honestly, both of those situations are assuming worst case for Scrappers. In best average case, Scrappers are going to be managing 10% crit rate, if only because minions die so fast and a number of the more commonly used Scrapper attacks have superior crit rates. This is actually tied with the absolute worst Stalker case, though, keep in mind that Stalkers have a lower damage modifier than Scrappers. Assuming best cases for both, Stalkers have nearly three times the crit rate as Scrappers (10% compared with 31%) with the ability to guarantee a few of their crits as well (though the actual DPS loss thanks to having to resume stealth or activate Placate often makes this an even trade) which, incorporating base damage scalars, actually makes Stalkers substantially better at dealing damage simply because they've got a better functional multiplier. Of course, if you look at the hit point disparity, it's actually rather well balanced considering.

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As long as it's not "solo 30 AV's" or some sort of goal that would be impossible without IO's, I support this.

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I don't see why it shouldn't be something as difficult as this, considering it wouldn't actually requires IOs. You can easily accomplish many of the same things (and more) with an SO build as an IO build if you use inspirations and temp powers, which would probably be allowed.

Personally, I think good requirements for it would be the Ouroboros badges. Possibly all of them.

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What about married couples?

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I'm not entirely up-to-date on marriage law (nor was I ever particularly, my only real exposure was the overview on parental custody law I read when I was 12 for the area I lived in), but I believe that married couples are still viewed as distinct from each other where this kind of stuff is concerned.

Once again, it's not like the GMs are going to ban you just because you loaned your account out to someone you trusted, even in the unlikely event that they could actually prove it. It's more like "we told you not to do this and it's not our fault that you let someone that was going to do something stupid onto the account we let you use". The only things that are likely to get you banned are actual visible infractions that are easy to record and significant enough that not punishing you would actually be detrimental to their own business (re: you broke the 6.d Member Conduct Rules involving interaction without other people or got into the game code).

In a word, yes.

The license specifically states:

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You may not (a) sublicense, rent, lease, loan or otherwise transfer the Software or the Service

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Since the "Service" is, by definition, "massively multiplayer subscription-based comic book hero and villain role-playing game(s) service and fee-based additional features including..." your friend is loaning you his account (for whatever purposes) and thereby breaking the terms of service. He is actually at fault.

Of course, I doubt the GMs will actually do anything about it unless they feel that you've actually done something that merits it. In general, I've seen that a large portion of the User Agreements for various MMOs include an exceeding large portion of specific situations that are quite easy to break within the terms of service, but it's not all that easy for them to actually tell if you're doing so. Most of the time, this is simply the lawyers simply saying, even though you don't actually own this account (which you don't and they're all rather explicit about this; you use the account to access the service that you are functionally renting), if you let someone else access it or do anything to it, it's your fault. They're pretty much excluding themselves from responsibility for keeping the account secure while simultaneously saying that you have no rights to the account beyond what they're willing to give you at any time.

You'd be amazed at everything that the User Agreement (and that most User Agreements and EULAs) actually say. Most people never bother to read them (even when they have to do the scroll-to-the-bottom thing) and are amazed to learn how few rights they actually have concerning the account that they presume to own when they actually come to a GM with a grievance. The 10 points of member conduct are actually quite interesting if you read them (especially the 4th, it's like they just went through a thesaurus looking for words synonymous with "jack-[censored]").

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How much of Katana/BS's -Def gets resisted at those levels?

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I'm honestly not sure. I'm in a possibly bad habit of ignoring any debuffs that I have since AVs resist them so much. It kind of looks like a +7 would resist 92% of my defense debuffs, but I'm not sure if I'm looking at the right table.

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You are. That's the appropriate table. And that's 92% resistance to pretty much everything that can be resisted, including damage.

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Using Hide along with glowing powers like flame or electricity really isn't a problem if you handle it like David Eddings did in the Belgariad and related stories. Characters capable of "invisibility" weren't really making themselves transparent as much as they were exuding a sense of familiarity or insignificance. People would see them but simply ignore them.

I believe that The Shadow achieved "invisibility" in much the same way via hypnotism.

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The "blending in" explanation for stealth has always made more sense to me than the traditional "I'm hiding" explanation for Stalkers mainly because Stalkers are never hiding behind anything. A Stalker can be be unseen even if s/he's standing in an empty white expanse, no matter their origin. Sure, you could always use the traditional "invisible" excuse, but it doesn't really stand up to reason that someone could just walk up next to you and see you as clear as day (if they had high enough perception). Of course, it's a game, so you're supposed to suspend disbelief a bit as the turning invisible is simply an explanation/visual effect for a game mechanic.

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I probably did take integration at 16, was just recreating my current character and couldn't remember exactly when I took which power. The one I posted is where he currently stands, at level 39.
I noticed that you omit Spine Burst from your proposed build and include both Super Speed and Super Leap. Is having 2 travel powers worth the loss of one of the AOE attacks?

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Could have sworn I put that one in there. My bad on that. Spines isn't really my preferred set to be dealing with and the fact that it loves every power in the set except for Barb Swipe and Confront makes it especially tight.

Your best bet would then be to replace Weave with Spine Burst (though I would of course reorder the powers to get it earlier) and slot it with 6 piece Obliteration, and then replace Super Speed with Weave slotted with LotG (+rech, def, def/end). That will give you a bit more melee defense and Spine Burst to go with it.

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So it looks like only the energy damage is AE - the smashing damage is only to the primary targets. The blaster/dominator attacks probably behave the same way the difference being that they do more smashing than energy - and a quick check of RedTomax shows that a L50 blaster thunderstrike does 142 smashing and only 23 energy, which explains why the AE is so small. The stalker version shows the same split as the brute - 55 smashing/53 energy.

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Yeah, that looks like it meshes with the version that I saw. I was looking at the Elec Melee version mainly because it's the much more likely variant Scrappers are to receive than the Blaster version.

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I managed to take down Stringus Theorius... but there was a heavy price.

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Good lord, man! As an AV??? I have enough trouble with him as an EB on Heroic.

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Is there even a point to taking on Stringus Theorius? Sure, he's reasonably challenging, but we're not sure if he actually exists in game. No one has actually seen him, though I know more than a few that have actually defeated him.

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Brutes getting Claws and Stalkers Getting Broadsword.

uhhh Where's the logic behind this? The Broadsword is big and clunky, definitely NOT something a STEALTH-ORIENTED character would be swinging around (Cliche anime characters notwithstanding)Beyond that, Stalkers allready have a sword option and Brutes do not (Not counting the Dual Blades set that is shared by Stalkers and Brutes). To me, Broadsword seems more like a better choice to give to the Brute AT. Now let's be honest about things. I know a lot of people have been asking for Claws on a Brute, but the same things that make Broadsword strange for a Stalker make it perfect for a Brute.

So if we don't give the Broadsword to Scrappers, what can we give to it? I'm thinking Ice Melee(and Armor). That set needs some travel time and I think it would work well for a Stalker. IMHO it make a LOT more sense than the Broadsword.

Just my two cents here. No flames please.

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If this is your main point to starting the thread, I suggest you look here, especially since it seems like you're trying to foment discussion more than you're trying to make a specific suggestion. Within, you'll find a number of reasons as to why Broadsword actually makes sense to be used by a stealth oriented character and other points that reasonably explain why Broadsword was given to Stalkers rather than to Brutes.

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I just used it on two even level(42) Council soldiers. Here is what the combat log said:


Your Thunder Strike deals 32.47 points of energy Damage to Darkwolf.
Your Thunder Strike deals 263.97 points of smashing Damage to Equinox Parasite.
You knocked Equinox Parasite from their feet with your Thunder Strike attack!
Your Thunder Strike deals 43.3 points of energy Damage to Equinox Parasite.

Equinox Parasite was my target and Darkwolf was next to him. I realize this is really testing, just a single example. But I think this is what you are looking for.

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Considering that Darkwolves have 25% resistance v. Energy and Equinox Parasites have 0% resistance v. Energy, this suggests that the primary and secondary targets take the same amount of energy damage from the attack and the primary target is the only one that takes the smashing damage.

How was your attack slotted and how much +dam were you being affected by (if you can recall)? Those numbers don't really match up with what City of Data is saying it should deal (re: almost equal amounts of energy and smashing damage).

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Secondly, FreedUmbral should be considered the pantsless server for no other reason than because I'm here, and I'm pantsless. I'm religiously pantsless. Also, because the server is named after me and I'm pantsless, it should be even more obvious.

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What ever happened to the Freedurgenev naming variant? I mean, since we're all ego stroking here, might as well bring up the biggest one out there, right?

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Freedurgenev was voted down in favor of having FRosedom every other Tuesday. Considering that I haven't seen Rose around much, I'd be willing to switch to having Freedurgenev on those Tuesdays, but we'd need to have a majority vote in order for it to pass.