je_saist

... oh god.

now EVERYTHING is going to have a Targeted AOE component!

yep.

Hibernate has a base recharge of 2 minutes, which is 120 seconds.

Hibernate also grants the power: NoPhase
This effectively means that Hibernate is always going to take 2 minutes to be useful again... no matter what you do with your base recharge rate or what recharges you slot into Hibernate.

Depends on what you bonus's you want.

Personally if you had 6 slots to waste on Aid-Self I'd go with Doctored Wounds for the 5% recharge.

I think I would be able to find primary or secondary powers that could use those slots long before aid-self though.

yep. There's why this idea gets a big fat /UNSIGNED

Vigilante and Rogue are classified as TOURISTS. While they can partake in joining teams, they aren't supposed to be able to start missions. Task-forces seem to be the only exception to the tourist rules, likely an internal compromise to deal with the inevitable event of a Rogue or Vigilante partaking in a task force for the opposite alignment and getting the star during TF progression.

Given that there are no plans for the tourist classes to be able to start story mission content for the opposite alignment, there is absolutely no reason to make a tourist-faction version of Ouroborus.

while the BBC owns Dr. Who, Terry Nation created the Daleks. The BBC pays the estate of Terry Nation to use the likeness of the Daleks in Dr. Who.

While the BBC is relatively easy to get in contact with... the Estate of Terry Nation isn't.

So far Nelson (I believe responsible for Ninja Run), David (Nobel Savage), nor any of the other art / animation guys have said anything to indicate their opinion on this matter differs from that of C.Bruce.

reboot your computer, then restart the patch updater.

gut reaction: getting Issue 19 out the door and just doing the Pocket D / Lady Winter event chewed up the development resources on hand.

As evidenced by today's patch, the problems with winter-lord's zone were not discovered until after the event went live; that was supposed to be something in the code that wasn't changed or modified at all from last year... and it still broke.

Something else to keep in mind is that adding in the icy lakes is not as easy as simply removing the lake geometry and shoving in the ice-skating geometry. From what we know of the existing zone structure frozen lakes would require completely different city zones to be built and downloaded.

It is very likely that the additional badge placements, contact placements, door mission placements, and all of the other advancements made to each zone have never been applied to the existing versions of the zones with the frozen lakes. Loading up the frozen-lake versions would more than likely break task forces like Numina TF, Positron TF, Citadel TF, and Synapse TF. It would also break the ability of players to find location badges, and / or prevent plaque completions. The Frozen-lake versions would likely also still contain hooks into the Dance Party instead of Pocket D, never-minding those maps likely lack the auction house, or the appropriate hooks into the train-station.

Now, if you know when the developers have had time to make copy the zones and implement the icy geometry changes to the most recent versions of those zones... go ahead and tell us.

What it means is really simple.

• On Nerve Uncommon 1/3 of 20% defense buff ignores ED: ~6.67%
• On Nerve Rare 1/2 of 20% defense buff ignores ED: ~10%
• On Nerve Very Rare 2/3 of 20% defense buff ignores ED: ~ 13.3%

Cross reference that with Leadership buffs and ED: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Leadersh...pe_Differences :: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Enhancem...C_5.25.29_are:

Capped into ED, most defensive powers will only have something of a 56%~58% buff. This in turn means that the average player, depending on how they have their defenses slotted, will have an average of:

• 56%~58% + ~6.67% = ~62.67%~64.67%
• 56%~58% + ~10% = ~66%~68%
• 56%~58% + ~13.3% = ~69.3~71.3%

Not exactly accurate since I'm not really sure where the severe ED cut-off is, but good enough for quick calculations.

The buff effects on pool powers such as Weave and Maneuvers are pretty low to begin with. I think Tanks get the highest Weave rating with something like 5% defense. According to ParagonWiki Defenders and Arachnos get the highest Maneuvers rating with 3.5% defense.

• 5+58%= 7.9
• 5+70% = 8.5
• 3.5+58% = 5.53
• 3.5+70% = 5.95

As you can see, the numbers really haven't gone anywhere. So, how does it look against somebody with higher defenses? Say, energy armor on a brute?
kinetic shield

• 12.5% + 58% = 19.75
• 12.5% + 70% = 21.25

Power Shield

• 15% + 58% = 23.7
• 15% + 70% =25.5

With higher base defensive numbers the percentages start to add-up and showing percentage changes, which was what I said before:
One of the reasons why I suspect that the developers grafted defense against the accuracy was to limit the usefulness of Incarnate buff effects to archtypes chasing after soft-cap. The Nerve boosts are much more valuable to control types with defensive boosts, such as controllers with Cold Domination or Force Field, who gives defense but has other primary powers that leverage holds or accuracy based debuffs.

* * *
On the other hand, while the developers won't modify existing in-game content, the latest round of blowbacks has already started has already started with the Incarnate TF's. With a stock +4 level advantage the enemies in the Incarnate TF's are already pushing the accuracy modifiers: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Attack_M...cs#Data_Tables

Blowback has also started in the Incarnate tree. The Incarnate Alpha slot system boosts powers directly, rather than base-stats, so only power-sets with native defenses benefit from the Alpha Slot. Pool powers such as Maneuvers and Weave will show much less benefit on an Alpha-Boost than powers in the primary or secondary power slots.

Blowback has already been in the game for a significant while with the Rularuu and Devouring Earth, both of which have utility powers that let them ignore defenses. We know for a fact that both the Rularuu and the Devouring Earth will figure into upcoming stories; Devouring Earth being a major enemy for Praetoria; Rularuu Invasion being a fear of Gaussian and possibly linked to one of the Storms.

For now this seems to be the path the developers are content with. Leaving the existing content of the game intact and un-modified, but using the upper-levels of play to make power changes that lesson the importance of defense as a mitigation utility.

interesting. I just pulled out an ice rad, dropped him into the lava, and he only got off one bifurcation before he was dropped.

Not really that big a deal here.

Can I get a root-beer and a hot-dog?

As it stands right now, any tank that soloed an AV/Hero class opponent without temporary powers would have Castle, Synapse, AND Sunstorm all agreeing to implement a nerf on the very next patch.

One of the factors you have to consider is that very few scrapper / brute builds can generate to required DPS to over-come an AV/Hero class's regeneration rate. A tank, by default, even using the same exact slotting as a scrapper, is going to be down on damage by 30%.

Now, if you are dead set on trying this, go over to the scrapper forum and read through the pylon results build: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=130754

Ask the person who managed to drop a pylon in 4 minutes with a Fire / Shield scrapper what their build was. That's probably going to be your best bet to try and do it on a tank.

I think... Nelson was it? The guy who did the Ninja Run animation? I think he and David (Noble Savage) run art / animations. I think they have the same viewpoint as C.Bruce: not worth the time, and it'd still look stupid.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Dark_Armor#Death_Shroud

Not really. Unlike other stealths, Cloak of Darkness doesn't turn off when taking damage.




This one major problem, yes.

You've got no idea...

For starters, Dark Armor is a purely resistance set. Unless you spend a significant amount of change on IO's, this means every single attack will be hitting you.

You only have scrapper level resists.

Oh, and Dark Armor's resists are low to begin with. All said and done, if you cap all of your resistances into ED, you'll only be pushing ~53% resistance to smashing / lethal damage, ~47.5% to negative engery, ~35.7 to fire and cold, ~23.8% to energy and toxic, and ~60% to Psionic.

On top of that, you have a lower base health as a brute, and even if you work away at the hp caps, you'll still struggle to break into the ~1900 / ~2000 hp mark even with accolades.

Then there's your upper armors that you don't have yet. Cloak of fear, for example, yanks down .52 end per second unslotted. That's more than running both Dark Embrace and Murky Cloud, or the same as another Death Shroud.

Oppressive Gloom doesn't use much endurance, that isn't it's problem. The health drain isn't an issue either. There is a problem though, and it is a problem that is shared with Cloak of Fear.

Let me demonstrate by turning OG on in the middle of that freakshow mob.



Notice... anything peculiar about the Freakshow I have targeted. Say, maybe where he is in relation to me?

Oh yeah, he's way outside melee range. He's way outside taunt range. When that stun wears off and I've got a team-mate around, and I'm pushing a perception debuff on myself and my team-mate is not, what exactly do you think is going to happen?

If you thought... he's going to wake up and fire on my team-mate... you win the gold star.

The fear cloak is actually worse, and is just as likely to send enemies screaming off down the map in terror as it is to force them to stand still.

Then there's the problem with both auras that they pretty much only work on minions and some lewies... So unless you've got an attack with a stun or fear component, you probably aren't going to be able to mez out that boss or ebby that's ripping away at your spinal cord like a terrier chewing on a bone.


So, to recap.

• You've got smashing / lethal resists that are pretty much on par with those all other archtypes could get in their Epic Pools.
• You use up endurance like it was a chew toy just on aura's, neverminding the 17end Dark Regeneration will chow through if you've got it capped into ED on end reduction
• You've got not-so-great attack mitigation that gets you out of a fight with minions, but will leave your team-mates hosed when those minions de-mez, and won't do anything against harder targets.

Does that answer the question on why you don't see more dark armors floating around?


Now, while all of these factors make Dark Armor a complete and total waste as a tanking set... it is actually a very good set for Non-Tanky Behavior.

• That stealth will buy you a little bit more time to get into mobs and set-up to attack.
• That stun or that fear aura will keep the minions off your back.
• That healing will give you a chance to recover back to full health, and on a brute, you'll be pushing high levels of fury at that point. Land a couple of massive attacks, and if the enemy isn't dead, back off.

Something you have to remember is that the Dark Armor set is pretty much what give rise to the Stalker Archtype. The set is really best for hit and run tactics. It is not designed to sit in a fight and draw aggro.

If you want a tanky brute, you'll need to pick a different armor set.

yeah... can you imagine if another game we both played had a DPS meter? Can you imagine how hard it would have been to find gal or brick drivers? Can you imagine the difficulty in getting anybody to class as an adv. engy or adv. hack? Everybody would be going Uni-Max and diving for gunning spots.

No thanks.

... hmm

have any bubblies tried the knockback bubble yet? That... might have interesting results.

TL'DR version: Random Number Generator is Random. Why rely on random when non-random results are better?

Long Version:

I would say less fun for me now because of this clear the map. Thing is a lot of Task Forces have defeat all components such as Positron TF (old), Synapse, Citadel, and the Shard TF's. I know lots of players who won't run any of these task forces because they:

• take too long
• have too many defeat-alls.

Now with I19, I see many of these players, who wouldn't run any TF with a defeat all mission just a couple of weeks ago, screaming and ranting when somebody doesn't want to hang around and clear the map. I've watched players quit out of or grief task forces if everybody on the team wasn't interested in farming farming farming.

I've encountered players that will not run Dr. Khan, Cuda, STF, Cathedral of Pain, LRSF, or Hamidon, and will ONLY run LGTF and ITF. Not they don't want to run the other Task Forces or Events, they will not run the other task forces.

I honestly can't, or rather, do not want to understand or try to explain this behavior. I wish I could I say I was sorry for saying this, but I'm not. If a task force with defeat all components boring and not worth your time before I19, and a small chance of an incarnate shard was all it took to make it worth your time, you are probably playing the wrong game.

Now, I've stated my point of view on the obsession with the framframfram task force mantra on the forums before. Assuming Defeats per Second are constant, players will receive greater rewards by simply doing events normally, because of the end event reward. The basis for this can be expressed in simple maths.

Last month Leandro did some maths in the Open Beta forum and came to the conclusion that the drop rate per mob on Incarnate Shards was averaging around 1 in ~300 defeats. So for 4 shards a player will need to average above ~1200 defeats (300*4) across a mix of minions, lewys, and bosses.

• Again, 4 shards is ~1200 mixed mob defeats.
• An average x8 mob consists of about 10 or so enemies.
• ~1200 defeats divided by 10 enemies is 120 mobs.
• Players will need to defeat, on numerical average, 120 x8 mobs, to gain 4 shards.
• Completing any of the major events awards the equivelent of 4 shards.

Again, assuming* Defeat per second are equivelent for a team, players will actually gain the equivelent of 120 mobs defeated just for completing an event.

This means that a team that does two or three task forces with the same defeat rate as a team just farming out LGTF... will get more rewards in the same amount of time.

Players doing more events will also have an increased chance for shard drop-rate in the same amount of physical time as they will face more archvillains and elite bosses that have higher shard drop chances.


*footnote: there is the gaping mathematical hole that a team that can rock out the ITF in 30 minutes or less might not fare so well in another task force, so basic calculations are pretty hard to determine.

For some basic maths here, let's assume a 10 second mob clear time, which is the time it takes to engage a mob and defeat all of the opponents. The 10s is a number derived from my own spines / fire's activation times:

• Build Up: .73s
• Spine Burst: 3.00s
• Ripper: 2.17s
• Throw Spines: 1.63s
• Impale 2.43s
• ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• 9.96s

This means that 120 mobs at 10 seconds each would take 1,200 seconds.
1,200 seconds is 20 minutes.
So if the defeat per mob was down to 10 seconds, completing a task force would be the equivelent an additional 20 minute time period.
If the defeat per mob was down to 15 seconds, a task force reward would be worth 30 extra minutes.
If the defeat per mob was down to 20 seconds, a task force reward would be worth 40 extra minutes.

Now, I'm not going to claim that I have any significant data into the average mob-defeat numbers, but I think the point I'm trying to make is already made. Unless a team is pushing a screamingly high average mob defeat time, the rewards for the Task Force are going to be far and away dramatically less than a team running TF's in a normal manner.

Even then, if a team is able to drive extremely low times on mob defeats, they'll still be down on rewards compared to a team that just ran the content normally.

I think Castle just done shot the idea of an If out of the sky.

My opinion is that the developers are content to simply allow the community to support this type of data-mining with HeroStats.

I kinda feel like Zoey watching Mal leave somebody behind...

On one hand, I agree. More space for the Bio should be allocated.

On the other hand, I don't agree that it should be allocated for or because of MIDS. Honestly, if you want to share you MIDS output in the bio section, create an account with something like Google, Zoho, or ThinkFree, and simply post a link to the document you want to share.

It'll look better when somebody's browsing your Biography, and leave you plenty of room to actually have a biography.