Dark Current

Keep dreaming. Devs hate villains. Even after 7 years.

LCMS x2 so far in 10 min

Oh, I might be an hour late... 10 eastern / 7 pacific... so start without me.

Who's going to be on tonight? Manticore is the WST, so I was thinking we could that. It's 30+ for those of you interested.

To the OP's defense: If salvage is seeded, why are recipes not? The only thing salvage is used for is to craft.

So we finished last night as intended, and I have to say it went really really smooth. Romi went down in probably 5 - 7 min. I don't think any of us died in that fight. We brought Imperious with us just in case. He aggrod like a champ as usual, which made the fight more dangerous than if we had just left him behind. He basically flew through the mobs in the middle of the platform and drew Romi before we'd finished the Cyclops and Minotaur. So we ended up fighting 2 EBs, and the AV family + a bunch of adds simultaneously. What really made the difference I think was 4x Creepers. It was just a swarm of tentacles around the AVs. Helped spread the aggro around while I just pounded on Romi with elec-powered fists over and over. One of the others is /traps I think and that made a big difference. Plus, the -RES bubble from sonic helped melt things. I again admit I didn't think it was possible with just 4 dudes running lvl 39 and lower toons, 3 of them controllers and 1 a dom, to take down Imperious and his Nicti friends, but we pulled it off and it really wasn't that hard. Another place where we shined that I know wipes alot of teams is the initial rescue of the Oracle on the platform. You know when all the dwarfs and novas storm up the stairs from behind? Well it was like there wasn't even an ambush. I was fighting the Cims and figured I'd start seeing teammates redline. I turned around a minute later after taking out the minotaur and the team had the ambush pretty much silenced. It felt like we'd turned down the difficulty or something, but nope, we just handled the waves like it wasn't a big deal. It was really nice work by the team. I applaud their skill and look forward to more challenges next week.

Team 2 - aka 30s team (I was lowest at 33) First, we headed to IP and ran Penelope Yin's TF. We were joined by a PuG corruptor I think and had to make fun of them because they were neither plant, no nature themed. I chuckled a lot as he always ran ahead to eat the alpha with tar patch / DN rather than letting us just toss Seeds or Creepers. He red-lined a bunch, but over all we rolled through the missions. I had to ask at the last mission if we were set to Bubble Blowing Baby Mode because I swear it was like you were beating down greens and grays. Then, we did the Summer Blockbuster. I played the Hacker. We picked up a couple of the badges (only missed the one with the dogs iirc) and Overwhelming Force IOs. I'll probably try converting mine into the -kb because, wow, does Thunderstrike do knockback. Will need to tweak my permadom build plan if I do. After that we did a brief AE farm to get me the rest of the way to level 35 because a couple of the boys were itching to run the ITF. We popped into Nightward to get the badge so we could all access Cim, and headed there last. Now I'll admit I was skeptical when (I think it was Raisin) was all for starting the ITF with just the 4 of us and our highest level being 38 (?). I thought that was complete madness as there was no way we'd get through half of the TF without team wiping. But I figured at least it'll be good xp. We pretty much rolled through the first couple missions with only a death or two (although the pets kept getting wiped by the exploding crystals). When we started the 3rd mission and had to battle through Cim valley to the robot and fight the first 2 AVs, I think your team was rapping up and you messaged how we were doing. We said good or something like that, but then I messaged the team that that was going to end with this mission. There was no way, IMO, that we were going to win this with just 4 and minimal buffs. Well shut my mouth! We made it through the valley, soundly defeating the generals and 100s of Cims (a couple more deaths) and got to the computer. I was thinking 'here we go, soon as the last couple waves of bots activate, we're dead'. But no! While it was a bit slow damaging the computer, which worked to our advantage, every time a wave of bots activated, it was soundly confused by seeds and kb'd by creepers. We took them all down without much trouble at all. That moment made me a true believer. I've been on plenty of ITFs and seen team wipes there plenty of times, but the stacked controls and pseudo pets cleared the way handily. And mind you, there were just 4 of us! But before being able to bask in the glory, somebody pulled not one, but both AVs and their entourage down to the computer. I was thinking 'are they crazy... we're pretty much tapped of insps and could use a quick rest'. Down the AVs came and I engaged Rom in melee fisticuffs as the resident tank-inator. I had to eat the rest of my candy, but managed to hold him off long enough for the team to put him down first and Requiem a few moments later. At that time it was pretty late, so we decided to pause the TF and continue it TONIGHT. 9:00 PM is our finale... retaking Cim. I'm really curious to see how we do against the nictus-fueled Romi. I have to say I will be shocked if we finish this with our current team, but I'm a lot more confident now than yesterday.

And you've played all their new stuff to base your conclusion on, correct?

East Coast or West Coast? If you're on the left side then I think the group broke up by then.

Excelsior server at 9 PM (eastern). There were 7-8 of us in Striga. We ran until 11:30 PM. What is your character name?

What Creeper colors did people pick? I remember someone mentioning purple to mess with Haze, but that was all I caught. I was too busy button mashing Council all night. Oh, and don't know if someone has a bunch of damage procs in their Roots or if it was the cumulative hits, but the groups I was fighting seemed to melt a few seconds after diving in and it seemed to coincide with the Roots sound effect. I'm at a stage (31) where I'll be adding more AoE to my attacks so we should be able to shred things even more soon. One note is that I think I'm planning to grab Mu patron. But I'll have to go redside to get that done. Any plans for patron arc unlock as a team or should I make arrangements outside of SG?

Ding ding ding! You win the prize... The answer to the riddle of Gravity Control: Gravity control isn't strong, boy. The player is stronger. (Wormholes an unreachable enemy to their doom). That is strength, boy. That is power. The strength and power of the player. What is Gravity Control compared to the player that wields it? OP: Look at the strength within your tactics. The desire in your heart. CoH gave this to you. But here you are, doubting yourself. Such a waste. Contemplate this at the character creation screen.

What are we planning to hit Thu... missions, DFB? Haven't done much in the new KR so far. Also, did we outlevel Striga with the plant control squad? I went in there today to get the first contact, but they're no longer showing for me. I'm lvl 27 and I think the zone cap is lower. If so, someone lower level is going to have to snag the missions for us. Otherwise, we'll need to move on to Croatoa or Talos or the Wards

I rolled a Nature / Sonic Defender called Skreaming Tree for the Thu group. Avian protector of the forests ready to take down any who would dare defile Mother Nature. Lvl 2 atm. Not sure if I should try to get more levels or not prior to tonight. Or is the plan to start low and work our way up?

GRAVITY CONTROL!!! Bend space to your will! Tear holes in the fabric of reality! Crush your enemies! See them Wormholed before you! Hear the lamentations of your teammates after your Dimension Shift!

Maybe we should post an ad in Excelsior server forum pointing them to this super team? Could drum up some more interested folks who might not visit this forum. Maybe dominator forum also if we want to open it up to more domis. My DPS is good, but mainly ST. Won't be until I get into late 30s that I'll be able to add AoE to the mix.

We forgot to get pix again!!!

Oh, I got the melee build going. The big thing for me is eating an alpha. So to prevent having to really worry about it, I was thinking to have someone stealthy be the primary Seeds tosser. Soon as that lands, I run in and start pounding (I have 4 melee attacks now) with the -RES aura.

Question... is there an empowerment station in the base? I can make a nice +20% rch boost with one if it's there.

Would certainly help my dominator. going for a permadom build, but SB makes that easier to achieve in 'pseudo' status. However, a bigger benefit would be the melee heal because I'm not sure my dom serving as alpha tank is a sustainable situation as we level up. I have no problem doing it, but unless there's some dedicated buff / heal in melee range, it's going to be rough (I think we have poison heal and storm heal only for melee at this time). The sonic shields are nice, but still need to eat an alpha before we lock down. If we don't get some bigger buffs / heals for melee I think a better strategy is to designate an alpha Seeds thrower to go in under stealth and confuse the majority of targets. Then, I can go in with the -RES disruption bubble at melee and starting pounding with elec punches. I'm going to have SS + stealth when I respec, so I can serve that role easily enough. And if I have permadom or pseudo permadom with kin SB, I can one-shot confuse the whole pack as an alpha strike. Anyway, just some tactical discussion needs to be had so we're not all just hurling seeds on top of each other and the alpha tanky dom doesn't faceplant instantly. Won't be a huge issue as we get more controls like Creepers, but til then... Oh, and I have crap for AoE damage right now, so if you all can stack damage-slotted roots while I'm up i melee to whittle the enemies down that would be awesome. Elec is pretty light on AoE til 30s. Even then, it's a cone and a small area PB AoE. I'm going fight pool as well, and will have Cross Punch which is a nice short cone. But that's it til I can get some Mu patron set.

AA is an end hog. The AoE immobilize used to prevent Ice Slick's knockdown... I think that has been changed on homecoming though. Flashfreeze aggros before the sleep takes hold because it does a tick of damage first. So you take an insta-alpha for using it. Then it suffers the typical problem of mobs waking up with damage so if on a team that's a guarantee. The set conflicts with itself positionally: AA and Glacier are melee controls... Shiver and Aoe immob are ranged. There's only so much -rch / -spd you can stack, so stacking your controls doesn't really do much when compared to stacking most other controls. Jack has a glass jaw. I think the easiest ways to bring the set to match the other control sets are: Make the AoE sleep mimic electric's sleep. Any mob that enters the patch of Flash Freeze will be damaged, slowed, and slept. Repeatedly. This would give Ice another (or first?) strong AoE control early in the set (Ice Slick is pretty good... until you try it on fliers or fast runners. Make Shiver do -dmg or -resist along with -spd / -rch. Something to make it worth the pick. Heck, I'd even take a cone repel effect on it similar to Gale, sans kb / kd. Allow Ice Slick to accept IOs and put in some ticks of AoE damage from the falling down. Now you can put slow sets and AoE dmg sets. These are relatively 'minor' changes for which I think the code is already there / could be modified (I can't say this for sure as I've not seen the code personally).

Is the team running with XP Boosters?

I think the simplest 'fix' for the set to boost its dmg and drain effects would be to add the 'jump' chance from Electric Control's jolting chain to all the ST attacks.

Ran with some PuGs to get some xp. I'm caught up in levels and parked in The Hollows.

Not trying to pick a fight, but I don't really understand the rationale behind this question. If you're playing a defender, it's because you want to defend, which requires actively monitoring your team and enemy. If you want to be 'lazy' with your primary, that implies you don't want to worry about actively monitoring those two things. In which case, it would seem to me, you don't want to play a defender. Why not just play something else? If you like to shoot from range, then go with blaster, sentinel, or possibly dominator. Those classes can 'lazily' blast away from range and not worry about anything but DPS. But if you want to protect your team, then you're going to need to be active with your primary. Even FF requires awareness of who is shielded or not. Where to position yourself relative to your teammates to protect them with your big bubble. Whether you should cage a dangerous foe or not. Whether your force bolt will save a teammate's life or just annoy them because the target was knocked over the edge and you have to go down in get them. Whether you should activate PFF to save yourself or continue blasting to save your allies. Whether you should activate force / repulsion bubble to knock the whole mob away / down or not. A lazy defender, FFer included, is going to get someone killed who shouldn't have if you were actively doing your 'job'. Now maybe the question is 'which primary requires the least focus on teammates / allies because I love to blast away, but still want to save the day'?