Whataguy

I understand your frustration, but don't let it get you down. Play to your strengths.

1. If you kb the target, he's yours. Finish him off.

2. Don't use your AoEs unless the knockback will be controlled in some way or your attack is going to defeat most of your targets, making the knockback irrelevant.

3. Use Aim and Build Up every single time they recharge. Again, nobody cares about knocked back targets that are defeated.

4. Hover-blast and shoot down.

5. Target strays and runaways (i.e., targets the tanker and scrapper are ignoring).

6. Like it or not, knockback is the mitigation of Energy Blast (like the -end of electric and -recharge/slow of ice). Knockback is like a mini-hold when you think about it, taking a foe out of action for precious seconds. It only becomes an issue when your teammates believe (rightly or wrongly) that KB's mitigation is more trouble than it's worth.

7. There are some teams out there that embrace chaos. These people likely have lots of controllers and storm defenders and really don't care where you knock stuff around. It's the tanker-centric teams that get bent out of shape with KB.

I am leveling up a Fire/Stone at the moment. He's 32 as of now. I have most of his powers (except the shields, health, and stamina) frankenslotted with uncommon IOs to get the most mileage out of my slots and limited funds (non-twink here). I find that I can solo at +1/x4 while using inspirations here and there and my tanking is generally fine.

I am getting quite a lot of mitigation from the knockup of Fault and the Stone Hammers. I think this needs to be underscored in the guide. Whereas a Fire/Fire tanker has no mitigation (other than damage), a Fire/Stone has significantly less incoming melee damage to deal with.

I use Burn liberally and have it four-slotted (frankenslot) for damage, recharge, and a little endurance. I find Burn works best when activated before Fault. With good herding and /stone's knockup/disorient tools, you can reduce minions to 50% health with one Burn patch.

At the moment, I have skipped Temperature Protection, Fiery Embrace, and Rise of the Phoenix. I suppose the slow resistance of Temp Protection might be worth a look but it's hard to justify a power selection on it. On the /stone side I'm going to pass on Hurl Stone but take everything else. I have Stamina and Acrobatics and their prerequisites.

The current thinking is:

35: Tremor
38: Seismic Smash
41: Stone immobilize power
44: Quicksand
47: Stone disorient power
49: ?

I have a couple of questions for the OP or anyone else.

1. Since the OP, quicksand has been added to the Stone Mastery Epic pool. This seems custom-made for a Burn tanker. And the single-target immobilize (with a -fly component) is a reasonable choice for a prereq, especially since I'm skipping Hurl Stone anyway. And the AoE Disorient sounds like a great Burn helper too.

2. I understand the power of Hasten, but am concerned with the endurance burn and the end-of-hasten endurance cost ... and I already have most of my powers slotted for 40%+ end reduction via frankenslotting. What's the answer? Time it better with Consume?

3. I have a real problem with taking the Fighting Pool. I hate the idea of wasting a power pick on Boxing or Kick, and frankly the toggles are not that great, AND I already have endurance issues. Please convince me that this is really worth it when I'm getting plenty of mitigation already from Healing Flames and all my knockup attacks, not to mention the hold I'll get from Seismic Smash.

4. What (besides Rise of the Phoenix) would you take as the level 49 power in this set?

Day 1 report:

We have about seven players with about 14 toons, five of which have died (two of them mine!). Our highest at the moment is level 10. It's amazing what you learn when death is permanent. Most deaths are caused by stupidty. Fer instance:

* Running +1 missions at low level
* Forgetting to turn toggles on, resulting in tanker death
* Using Howling Twilight as an offensive power, then not having it available to rez, and as a result dying while waiting for recharge
* Traveling through the Gulch of the Hollows at low level
* Developing the false sense of security that comes from having two defenders and a controller -- then someone goes afk or DC's and the dynamic totally changes

What an edumacation. I'm having to unlearn big parts of my game.

by the way, my global handle is @Arcbolt. Feel free to PM me or send me a global tell.

All of you are absolutely correct --

* accidental death is possible. It's a dangerous place, whether we are speaking of running into a high-level ambush in a low level zone, a lowbie getting nailed by a sniper in founder's falls, the Winter Lord appearing and ruining your day, etc. That's part of the challenge. And yes, it's entirely possible that a bad pull wipes the party and a good part of the SG.

* the rules are on the honor system. There is no "enforcement." This is all about trust. If you join, and play with a group of other players who are primarily interested in survival and challenge, then the rules are not an issue.

* the rules are designed to provide challenge and are based on another permadeath group for another MMO. The idea is to "de-loot" the system and make the SG members self-sufficient and interdependent. And frankly, rez/self-rez powers are not that hard to come by. I imagine that a typical group would ideally have 2+ rezzers to prevent team wipes. Suddenly, powers like phase shift seem pretty darned useful ... get me outta here so I can save my fallen teammates!

* Awakens are simply too common especially since they can be crafted on the fly with other inspirations. Allowing them would be more than just an asterisk on "permadeath" and would defeat the purpose, IMO. Again, if this idea repels you, I understand. This SG is not everyone's cuppa tea which leads me to ...

* This SG will not appeal to 95%+ of CoH players and I have no expectation that it will ever have more than 10-15 regulars. I know the idea of investing time into a character and then losing it does not appeal to many of you. But I think it is both a challenge and truer to the genre ...

Let me paint a few pictures for you:

* The SG members enter the sewers as lowbies -- stuck in a sewer with no way out but to but to defeat hordes of dangerous vahzilok and lost. No easy "death train" out. One way in, one way out. Makes you think twice about going in at level 2, doesn't it?

* The SG has a mission to defeat Frostfire in the Hollows. The team is level 9. They have to traverse a dangerous hazard zone just to get to FF's hideout. Getting there is a part of the challenge.

* The SG is on the Synapse TF and Babbage spawns outside their mission door ... fight or flight?

The point here is that all gameplay will change significantly when members get over the idea that death is cheap. And I imagine that for some, the idea of going back to regular PvE gameplay will seem like 'easy' mode.

Looking for a challenge in your gameplay? Consider joining "Blade of Justice," a new SG on Virtue with a twist: permanent* death!

Background

BoJ is a collection of outsiders and vigilantes with a heroic bent. However, they operate outside of the law and are not formally registered with Paragon City's law enforcement structure. This has several important ramifications:

* they have no access to the teleportation system, hence -- no trips to the hospital
* they cannot undertake missions from the police scanner or any Longbow operative.
* with few exceptions, they cannot trade at Wentworth's.

Mission Statement

BoJ exists to provide a challenge to longtime CoH players who are looking for a challenge in their PvE gameplay and who wish to get back to the basics of the game -- teamwork and storyline. To that end, rules have been created to create a framework encouraging mutual dependence and interconnectivity.

Rules

* All character ATs and backgrounds are allowed. Each player should have a reasonable backstory explaining why his character is operating as a vigilante. Upon the release of "Going Rogue," the SG will likely allow villain AT members.
* Members can only team with other SG members.
* Members cannot solo after level 1 and must join the SG by level 2. More experienced characters cannot become members. They must start, survive, and grow within the SG.
* Members defeated in combat must be deleted (i.e., "permadeath") unless they can be resurrected by the use of a self-rez power (e.g. Rise of the Phoenix) or by another teammate using a rez-other power (e.g., Resurrect, Resuscitate, Howling Twilight, etc.). Awaken inspirations cannot be used and must be deleted when acquired. Members may not use the hospital and no base medical bay will be built. Temporary self-rez powers from events or other rewards may never be used.
* Members may not use any booster pack powers, veteran rewards powers, or vet reward respecs of any kind. Only powers (including story arc temporary powers) and respecs earned in regular gameplay may be used. Tailor tokens and costume-related veteran rewards may be used.
* Members can buy salvage and costume recipes at Wentworth's. No other transactions of any kind are allowed at Wentworth's.
* Members can buy or sell any item at a store or university, including enhancements, inspirations, and generic IO recipes. Members may get a free IO from the University tutorial.
* Because the SG has no access to outside IOs and Recipes (other than drops and those earned with reward merits), Members are encouraged to craft all IO recipes in their possession and place all unusable IOs in base storage for use by other members.
* Members must run in SG mode through level 25. After level 25, it is at the player's option. Members with an excess of cash are encouraged to convert the excess into SG prestige.
* Members may never participate in police radio/scanner missions, bank safeguard missions, or enter any PvP zone as these areas are all controlled by police and/or Longbow operatives. Furthermore, for story continuity purposes, AE missions and Ouroboros (both the zone itself and missions obtained there) may not be entered by Members.
* Members are encouraged to run contact missions, story arcs, and task forces. Due to the inability to acquire recipes from Wentworth's, reward merits will be critical in acquiring key IO recipes.
* Because the SG is barred from using Paragon City's teleportation system, the base may only be entered at Steel Canyon, the location of BoJ's secret headquarters. Note that members may have personal teleportation powers for travel and transporting teammates and enemies, but this does not give them access to the "grid."
* Upon the death of the Leader, Leadership shall pass to the next highest level surviving member. In the event of a tie, the member with the most prestige shall appointed Leader as the final act of the deceased Leader prior to deletion.
* SG members may freely trade any commodity amongst themselves. SG members may not trade with any non-members whatsoever, including non-member alts controlled by the same player.
* SG members may participate in costume contests and other non-SG social functions but never accept any influence or commodity of any kind as reward or gift. Similarly, members must reject (if given the option) the application of a buff power upon themselves by a non-member.
* Each player may have multiple alts in the SG, at his or her option.
* While survival is the main goal, members are encouraged to "push the envelope" in terms of mission difficulty, either by adjusting the number & level of enemies or by (e.g.) disallowing the use of inspirations during Task Forces.
* I will be working on setting up a Ventrilo channel and its use will be encouraged.
* Members should be mature, familiar with the game, and able to get along with others. Roleplaying (either verbal or typed) is welcome but not required.

The SG Leader (for now!) is Greymace, a Shield/Mace Tanker level 10. I soloed him to level 10 and he has not been defeated yet. He will not be played further until new players are added to the SG.

I look forward to hearing from you and welcome your comments. I am generally on in the evenings (Central Standard Time) and weekends.

IMO, you have overslotted Accuracy in your offensive powers. Rad has a very nice -def effect. I would go with one (not two Accuracies).

In fact, on my Rad/device blaster, I use no Accuracies at all, but I am perpetually running Targeting Drone with its + to hit buff. That and the rad -def is all I need to hit.

I would take all of the primary powers. With three single targets, three AoEs, Aim, a nuke, and a snipe, you are very versatile and able to team or solo.

Secondary-wise, I would definitely take all of the buffs (build up, conserve power, boost range). The other powers are a matter of taste and playstyle. Boost range is really great to get the most out of Electron Haze and Cosmic Burst, which have 40' ranges. Conserve Power is great when paired with Hasten.

I know you have a super-tight build, but wanted to throw out some love for Lightning Field.

LF has incredible damage potential. It also supports all of your PBAoE/blapping stuff going on. The catch: you need to either be solo/small teaming it OR be on a large team with a lockdown controller or aggro magnet tanker. It also helps with sapping, keeping bad guys' blue bars dry.

Seriously: run HeroStats and you'll see the incredible damage output over time that LF does when fighting large groups.

Lastly, I am a big fan of taking and slotting Hover for an always-on combat power. It's fast enough to keep up with the group and gives you protection from melee when you need it, not to mention ghetto knockback resistance.

Just my $.02. I do like your power selections overall.

This task force is best done with three (four max) players, one of whom can "ghost" the non-defeat all missions. Ghosting involves having Invisibility or its equivalent (usually Super Speed + a Stealth IO or Concealment), plus recall friend to bring the rest of the team. Ghosting allows you to go straight to the Boss room, glowie, captive, etc. and bypass a lot of unnecessary fights. While you don't get xp for bypassed foes, this TF takes a long time if you try to fight everything, and besides, you stop getting xp after you hit level 16 anyway.

I suggest the team be comprised of:
1. tank or scrapper
2. defender
3. blaster or scrapper
4. (optional) any squishie

Having a tank is helpful to absorb the nasty vahzilok barf alpha strike. If you can get away with a scrapper, this works too, with the added bonus of greater DPS. Scrappers and blasters need to be all about damage delivery to get through the defeat all maps.

The best "ghost" is typically the defender, as the tanker, scrapper, and blaster have probably used all of their power choices on attacks and defenses at this level. A good Positron TF ghost build will have recall friend, stealth, and either hasten + superspeed or invisibility. The defender also needs to have all of his key defensive powers taken and slotted. This also means the defender will not have much in the way of offense.

Roughly 5-6 of the Positron missions are ghostable, saving huge amounts of time. Having a smaller team also helps in the sense that there are fewer bad guys even on defeat all missions.

Check out Wrath of the Marsupial, a solo/team 4-mission arc designed specifically for lowbies.

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It is not oppressive, anti-democratic, or elitist to suggest that opinions have relative value. The tricky part is the assignment of criteria to determine that value. If Yahoo Answers can come up with a formula to allow certain users to have greater or more influential input, it makes sense to me that something analogous could be developed for the MA system.

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Actually, it completely and totally is and I would rather look for a source like, say, the government of every country where people have the right to vote than a really terrible internet website for my guidance.

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You're conflating universal suffrage with the quality or value of opinions. In democratic nations, citizens have the right to vote, but they don't have the right to have their opinions on fashion, economics, sports, or wombats taken at equal weight.

Are you really saying that two opinions are always equally valid?

Do you find the plethora of 5-star ratings on farm/badger missions to be a meaningful use of the raters' opinions for the entire system? Or perhaps you might agree with me that for non-farmers, those ratings are qualitatively worthless?

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I've concluded that ratings work when there are lots. Just ignore everything with less than 25 responses and you'll be fine.

We need the system where they are hidden before a threshold to return, along with showing us what we rated in addition to the average.

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The opinion of the village idiot should not be given the same weight as that of Aristotle.

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I wonder what Aristotle would think of that. I'm certain Plato would disagree with you, he uses dialogue with the less refined to teach.

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I like the method you suggest where the ratings are invisible until a threshold is met.

Oh, and I believe you are referring to Socrates, not Plato (who was, essentially, Socrates' biographer). I'm not sure that Socrates stated many opinions per se -- his method of reasoning, rather than his opinions, are his legacy. I'm sure Socrates didn't regard himself as anything special, if my recollection of Plato is correct.

Regarding the opinions of the village idiot and Aristotle: the issue is not the village idiot's freedom of speech. The issue is whether there is a qualitative difference between opinions. On the subject of the theory of special relativity, one would likely value Albert Einstein's opinion higher than that of, say, Bobcat Goldthwait.

It is not oppressive, anti-democratic, or elitist to suggest that opinions have relative value. The tricky part is the assignment of criteria to determine that value. If Yahoo Answers can come up with a formula to allow certain users to have greater or more influential input, it makes sense to me that something analogous could be developed for the MA system.

off topic: I understand your ire, KD, but CoH is still way better than WoW. If you want to get frustrated at your fellow players, go there for a week or so and you'll be begging for some CoH civility.

I agree with all of the prior posters. Custom minions are not appropriate for pre-DO levels, and depending on the mix of mez and debuffs, maybe not until SO levels.

Lowbie missions should be with standard PvE enemies (exception: bosses) until we can make Hellion-ish custom minions.

@ OP: what you are describing is not griefing, it's just subjectivity in action. Griefing is personal. Reasonable minds can disagree.

If someone has taken the time to design a mission and I have taken the time to play it, then a conversation about the merits of the arc is worthwhile and necessary. Otherwise, the designer has made a "silent scream" into the cyberverse with no feedback.

I always leave feedback, and I try to be objective but truthful. If a guy can't spell or put a sentence together, I say so. If the story makes no sense, I say so. If the bad guys are too hard, I say so. Same goes for things I liked: map selection, dialogue, use of the costume designer, descriptive text, gameplay elements, etc.

I would rather have bad feedback than no feedback. No feedback tells you nothing.

As far as getting into arguments goes, I think pride of authorship will often result in hurt feelings. That's the price of publishing, baby, and if you can't take the heat stay away from 3K Kelvin.

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I disagree with you on an inherent level.

Although I must question, how exactly are you treating each other with respect when you deny them their opinions?

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I was referring to respectful forum posting. I reserve the right to disrespect purveyors of ridiculous ratings on undeserving missions.

Everyone can have their opinions. Their opinions just shouldn't be given equal weight.

However, I recognize that a "Rating Qualifier" system could be gamed too. Perhaps I am being unrealistic.

I am primarily interested in being able to search for well-designed story arcs that are, you know, GOOD. As in having a story, cohesive structure, being playable, and with a minimum of spelling and grammatical errors. At the moment, I am unable to easily find such MA missions, due to the ridiculousness of the rating system and sheer quantity of garbage that is published.

In fact, I have recently started combing the "unrated" missions and playing those, with some measure of success. I encourage anyone interested in raising the integrity level of the rating process to play and rate missions like crazy, and to be objective.

I also reiterate that published missions need to be flagged by the designer as Farm/Badge, silly/spoof, "serious," and experimental, so we as players can sift through them.

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Wait a sec, you're saying some people aren't good enough to judge your mish, and yet YOU don't give 5 stars? Lrn2jdg noob.

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You must have this board confused with the WoW boards, dOOd. Here, we treat each other with respect.

I'm saying that yes, some people should not be allowed to rate missions -- mine or anyone else's. The opinion of the village idiot should not be given the same weight as that of Aristotle. I am not saying that I am Aristotle, only that there needs to be a method to qualify people to rate missions. On Yahoo Answers, for instance, they have a simple "level" system that allows folks to do more stuff the more qualified they are. This is not rocket science.

I have only given 4 stars because I haven't played a mission yet that I thought was deserving of 5. A 5, in this system, is the pinnacle. There is no 6, so 5 had better be reserved for the deserving. When I play a deserving mission, it will get 5 stars.

Having played dozens of MA missions, I can confidently state the following:

1. The rating system is a joke. I have played multiple 5-star missions that were nothing close to a real mission, with copious spelling and grammar errors, missing or inadequate text, ridiculous custom enemies, and missions designed specifically for ticket and/or badge farming. I found relatively few actual missions written by people with a grasp of the English language who were trying to actually, you know, write a friggin' story arc. Finding those diamonds among the MA cesspool was a small reward.

I suggest that the MA have some sort of flag where the designer can flag the mission as a "badger," a test, a joke/spoof, or an attempt at at actual real story arc. That way we players can filter through the stuff we're not interested in.

I further suggest that mission raters have to somehow "earn" their ability to rate missions. We need some way to qualify raters.

Lastly: a five-star mission should be unusual. I have not give a "5" to any MA mission I've played. I get the feeling that as long as the mission is functional, there are players out there giving 5 stars for EVERYTHING, which destroys the whole meaning of the system.

2. Custom Enemies are WAY too difficult for lowbies to handle relative to standard PvE gameplay. It is not uncommon in MA missions to face multiple enemy debuffs and foes with high-tier powers (i.e. "hard" and "extreme" settings). Even giving a bad guy the Assault Rifle/Devices powers at "normal" yields a minion that is about equivalent to a mid-20s bad guy. In general, Lowbies cannot handle multiple debuffs and/or multiple status effects. Consider that in normal PvE play, there are very few debuffs and status effects, and bad guys that do serious damage (damned and bone daddies, for instance) are boss-level opponents.

I suggest that anyone using custom enemies put in the description a suggested starting level range that is realistic.

3. Because of #2, I think we need more powersets on the lower end of damage output. We can't make Hellions or Skulls, for instance, because we don't have the wimpy pistol or club attacks. Not all of us want to make enemy groups with hero-equivalent powers.

@OP:

I've recently started leveling up a sonic/rad defender and am loving it. Even at low level, Irradiate's mammoth defense debuff combined with Disruption's -resistance on the tanker = lots of arrested bad guys. I haven't pushed the envelope on this real hard, but IMO with a little bit of healing from another toon, my guess is that this powerset would allow running group Invincible missions pretty much from level 4 on.

I also agree that endurance reduction is critical. Even at level 15 I have Disruption slotted with 3 Endredux DOs, and 2 in the big bubble.

Like the guide, particularly the various sonic/ and /sonic combo discussion.

@ OP:

I enjoyed the revised article. I have started a new FF/Rad Defender and have a few observations, however.

Presently (level 11 only) I have PFF, Deflection Shield, and Insulation Shield. On the rad side I have the tier 1 blast, Irradiate, and Electron Haze (the cone AoE). I have also taken Maneuvers.

My theory here is, after bubbling, what is the best use of my powers for the team? At my present level, the /rad AoE defense debuffs (along with some damage) seem to be a bigger team contributor than a kb here and there (force bolt) and detention field.

I'm not saying there's no room for Force Bolt or DF in my build, I just don't have them yet and haven't missed them so far.

Lastly: If I go for a stamina-less build, is IO set slotting (say 4-5 slots in the the bubbles and main attacks) sufficient to keep endurance from crashing while running the leadership toggles?