Erydanus

What you say makes a lot of sense. I've been really struggling with rebuilding my Fortunata. I remember I kept certain claw powers despite the redraw issue, but also had psi stuff that I remember unloading more often in a big team situation like a mayhem. I just couldn't remember what mix I had going but this gives me some helpful insight. I actually ended up doing a very traditional Night Widow build at 24 and opening up the second build slot and my wallet and doing a Fortunata on 2 and going 100% psi just because if nothing else I needed to get a feel for the powers again. I'm already missing having claws on that build though.

Howling Twilight is auto hit so don't worry about slotting for accuracy. (You shouldn't even be able to put an accuracy in it, subbacultchas!) Just stick 2 recharge in it, and if you like to use it for its stun (perhaps to stack magnitude with another stun) then maybe 1 stun IO because the stun duration's about 15 seconds out of the box. Don't even think about using a stun set in it, just use a couple beefy generic IOs. On my D/D I do use it to stack magnitude along with Heart of Darkness but for Plant I think it's fine as a backup quickie stun that can't affect bosses. Just think of it as something that stops minions from attacking long enough for you to cast your sleep or seeds of confusion while debuffing the regen of the targets. [Let me stress this: area effect auto-hit -500% regen] Dark Affinity is a good overall set and the only skippable power is Black Hole. Slotting is really straight forward for most powers. The only question is how many slots do you want to allocate to each power since it's in your secondary. For instance Twilight Grasp is a reasonable heal and it also has some -tohit and -regen AND -damage in it. Do you want to max it out as a healing power or do you just want to skimp and do 3 slots and have it for spamming for the -regen and -damage? Obviously 33%+ accuracy in any case, but the amount of recharge, end reduction, and heal is up to you. Or you could use a set, it's gonna be fine whether you slot it 1 acc, 1 end, 1 rech, 3 heal SOs or something else. Tar Patch - 2 recharge at 50, maybe 3 while leveling, done. Maybe a damage proc from the slow set if you've got a spare slot. Darkest night - 2 -tohit, 2 end reduction, or you could do a -tohit set Shadow Fall is a tricky one. It has good defense but it also has good resistance to dark/energy/psi. My honest rec here is to frankenslot this thing within an inch of its life to try to max the enhancement for both. It's a higher cost power 0.52 end/sec so I do usually slot for some end reduction but Soul Absorption makes this set "What are endurance concerns?" at some point. If you want to go plain at 50 I'd do 2 def, 2 resist, 2 end. But again my actual rec is to take a defense set and get the defense, defense/endurance, and defense/endurance/recharge pieces from it. Then get the same 3 pieces (but resist) from a resistance set. You'll end up with 52% Defense, 52% Resistance, 92% Endurance Reduction, and 42% Recharge time (all values rounded up; recharge of course only useful if you get detoggled from an end crash or death, both unlikely). This at least gets you a couple set bonuses. Fade, easy, shove as much defense and recharge as your budget allows in I'm still evaluating how Soul Absorption should be slotted (lots of recharge at least!) Dark Servant is another one that is really a matter of taste. It has several different powers, and it needs to be resummoned when it expires or if it dies sooner. Look here: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Darkness_Affinity#Dark_Servant

While leveling.... none.... and Dark blast abilities need 2 ACC in each as Dark does miss more than other powers (especially noticeable while leveling), my standard was 2 Acc, 2 or3 Dmg, 1 EndRed and/or 1 Rech. And that slotting is solely dependent upon your rotation, that there is no waiting. This 2 accuracy advice is just Yipp's opinion. It's not something based on facts like an actual lower than baseline tohit value for the miscellaneous blasts; dark pit, as an AoE mez, has the standard 60% accuracy instead of the 75% standard). Notably, Moonbeam is base 90% accuracy and Blackstar 105%. Everything else is the standard 75%. It's not my experience while leveling multiple dark defenders and corrupters that this set needs extra accuracy unless you have the difficulty cranked way up.

Not only is prestige an issue we used to have to unlock things like the supercomputer and the teleport beacons. It was a hassle! I was in a big meta-group that formed new supergroups to stock with themed characters on a dime and it was a serious pain in the ass to have our bases limited in anyway. In fact we got smart and started using coalitions to enable having a 'real' base that we mostly used and then our 'theme' base we used for RP and for gathering for weekly static teaming. But we still ran into problems at times from groups being small or underplayed and not having enough resources. Who wants to die, go back to the supergroup base, and discover it doesn't have a beacon for Nerva because no one's unlocked it yet? And it doesn't have a tree of wonders because that's an unlock as well so no buying a few inspirations for returning to battle. It's better the way it is now. In my opinion. But I totally acknowledge OPs view point. There are people who agree firmly. Some of them are the people running other rogue servers. I personally like 99.9999% of what the Homecoming team has implemented. There are "strict i23" servers though - and I'm not snottily telling you to take a hike if you don't like it here! I'm just saying - this is a valid viewpoint and there are servers configured around it.

This is what you're not getting. My stalker is Psi-Melee. I have the choice of Mass Levitate for an AoE from hide, or my next big hitter is Greater Psi Blade which has it's own special mechanic based on insight that I have to keep in mind. If I use GPB for a bonus hide crit I could be wasting the chance to use Insight Strike or I might get Insight Strike but lock myself out of Insight DoTs on all the rest of my power. That's why *I* don't want *on my build* the ATO in Assassin's Strike because I need the option to pick between AS, ML, or GPB depending on how the focus and insight stacks have built up. Ergo the ATO proc is going to go in like, Psi Blade or Telekinetic Strike instead.

I don't think this stance would be unpopular. I am sure there is someone who took Black Hole and really liked it but I've never met that person but maybe heard a rumor of their existence, once. Petrifying Gaze used to be a really good power. It got nerfed to hell. It's still functional as a basic hold to lock down 1 person but if they're a boss? Give it up and just damage them. Unless you and Fluffy stack your holds it's probably not happening. Fearsome stare and Darkest Night stacked are a better way to mitigate a boss.

How did that go for you guys? I was actually interested as well but am not home from work yet at the time you specified.

Hi all, I'm on Tina McIntyre's anti matter arc and I'm on the mission where you fight Marauder. After that comes a filler mission, then the last one where you have Antimatter and Neuron. I usually solo at the relaxed pace of +0 but for this I'll probably toss out an offer on LFG when I get ready to do it. If anyone is stuck on getting Antimatter for Portal Jockey, if you let me know I'll try to catch you for it. This would probably be about 7pm Eastern tonight.

That's NOT how it worked on live. The incoming and outgoing damage scaled properly to them from low level players even if they did have an internal level of 30. That's the same giant monster code you see on things like the Kraken in Perez Park. If invasions spawned only level 30 mobs and crushed level 5 players routinely there'd have been absolute hell raised about it when they launched and it did not. It would also mean things like the Deadly Apocalypse for Halloween couldn't have been done by newbies in Atlas Park. I went to lunch and am back with a couple additional thoughts: 1. mob scaling is not broken. On a low level character in King's Row, not teamed, I was able to fight event mobs without any problems. The issue is anemic spawns. Additionally Venture commented that invasions make zones tough to street sweep during them; that's still happening. The full invasion protocol including regular spawns getting sparse is happening. It's just that the event is a waste of time due to excluding 1-24 players from the invasion mechanic even in zones populated by characters primarily that level. 2. Responding to SwitchFade: You seem to wholly misunderstand the point of this comment. Events are not skipping low level zones. They are happening, and they are usually duds. The sky turns red, low level players gather and no zombies show up, everyone gets bored and leaves; if a few high level players are around a few zombies spawn. Venture's comment about the mobs being above your level and you needing to sidekick is completely wrong. These events spawn mobs that level scale to you even if they have an internal level that is higher. These events scale to your level, they always have, they are not "superboy mobs attacking superdog players". 3. Additionally SwitchFade your comment: "Further, zone wide events are supposed to be daunting, and lowbies should either be teaming with a more experienced mentor, or running for cover. This fits thematically with life, and source material." To this I say: NO. Don't tell me how to play the game. This is your idea and not mine. If I'm level 8, in King's Row, and a zombie invasion happens, I should be able to stand there and fight some zombies if I want to, solo if I want to. Additional information: events like Zombie Apocalypse use the same type of mechanics as Rikto Invasions: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Rikti_Invasion_Mechanics Scaling against mobs works similarly to giant monsters though I vaguely recall it's slightly tweaked for mass invasion mobs, still, similar: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Giant_Monster

Well, as we recently found out (from someone smart enough to point it out in the patch notes) as of i25 invasions only actually spawn for level 25+ players. So if that's not changed by the time Halloween rolls around, low level players will only be able to participate and get rewards if sufficient higher level players group with them. This is at least true for Zombie Apocalypse, I'm not clear if it will extend to the Deadly Apocalypse event as well. I've posted a suggestion in that forum to revert this seemingly arbitrary change. Some chime-ins might be good. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,5218.0.html

I hadn't heard that at all either. I think there were some pride events on Everlasting too.

What might be good though is editing posts on the bug forum when someone on the team has looked at them and verified it's a bug. Plenty of things on there are player misunderstandings or even suggestions (which could probably stand being punted over to the right forum) but sticking a [VERIFIED] tag of some kind whether it be text in the topic or a post icon would be good. There's so much churn over there an absolutely verifiable bug I posted a couple days ago is already 3 pages buried. Did it get seen? I would be surprised if it had.

Actually I filed a bug report on Cybertech long as well as workaround instructions for editing the missing colors in a costume file and loading them back onto your character to correct the error. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,4955.0.html You should probably add the additional pieces with this problem to that thread.

This is a really fantastic idea. I had a 50 Cold Dom corrupter so I'm very familiar with Frostwork being just a bit of protective icing on my teammates. An absorb shield would be greatly helpful. And really, let's read the power description shall we? It literally says that it is ABSORBPTION shield; the mechanic of a hit point boost is being used to emulate that effect. (Note also that the toxic resistance buff is unenhanceable and fixed so that's a completely separate minibuff that doesn't need to be touched.) It does not need to have anything but the absorb mechanic swoop in because giving someone a 400 hp absorb shield that lasts 2 minutes or until ablated from damage is doing exactly what the power was trying to do before the correct system mechanic was available. This isn't a violation of cottage rule. This is a slam dunk. This is exactly what this power was supposed to do all along.

Just a random thought if your pets seem to not see the foes right there try the /sync command and also see if any buffs you are emanating are showing on their bars. I don't know if sync will affect pets, but it sounds like the pets were not perceiving the foes that you were engaged with and one possible reason for this is if the server thought the pets were at Point A and you were at Point B. I've always been suspicious about this game's data location structure being a bit off or easily fooled since I had a weird glitch happen playing on the original servers. A friend of mine was playing a tank and I was on a controller and we were on that outdoor map which is a burning forest and it was filled with Malta. We were far away from any mobs and I suddenly got shot with missiles from multiple Hercules Class Titans approx 300 yards away. They were literally aggroing me and shooting from the far side of the map. They didn't come running but they kept shooting missiles at me. Why? Because apparently the server thought I was over THERE. Suspiciously, the /sync command was added a few weeks after that after several people reported weird bugs ranging from "I can't interact with this object" to "I can't attack the foe right in front of me" to stuff like mine. I think some lag basically corrupted the positioning data. Anyway it's a theory, give it a try!

I think you're going WAY off on a tangent talking about machine memory Goblinite. The machine is waiting for the info, it's not doing anything else. Fresh power-on of the machine with absolutely nothing else launched isn't having any effect on this. We know these delays started after a certain point in time when the HC team were messing with queuing. I saw it go from not happening with 0 characters on the test server to immediately happening after I rolled 1 character and restarted the client. I think the issue is something in the server architecture or in how it's communicating with the Win 7 machines differently than Win 10 machines. I think the server patch notes specifically said this was being looked at? Yes, from the Justin Stress test announcement: (emphasis mine) The delay suddenly seemed much reduced 2 days ago. Last night I was tired and didn't think to time how long it took to get to character select but I don't feel like I was waiting so long that I might as well get up and go to the bathroom or get a beverage. It wasn't horribly painful to swap between my crafting and active character, I'm guessing it was about a half minute again. Honestly I'd like it to be more like 10-15 seconds wait tops but this is a marked improvement. I just do find it terribly weird that the server would play nicer with Win 10 than Win 7.

Cold/Cold Brute. Of course Swift is inherent now but I slotted it only as noted, it was unslotted otherwise.

Well two things swapped. Fearsome Stare went into Darkness Control as-is. The legacy nerfed to hell Petrifying Gaze was straight up deleted because Darkness Control got a single target hold with standard controller #s including damage. So we got Fade and Soul Absorption. I won't lie - I would love this version on a Defender. Well, it would be rough not having Fearsome Stare but if I could say toss Black Hole for Soul Absorption and Petrifying Gaze for Fade, I'd do it in a second.

Nothing on the test server notes about movement speed adjustments... are there any accolades that boost movement? They dump a bunch of accolades on every character. The test character I made did not have incarnate powers and I only slotted fly, afterburner, and swift as noted.

I went on the test server to get the actual numbers. Slotting a flight Level 50 IO only made a difference in one case, as noted below. At level 50 using level 50 IOs: Afterburner - 1 IO, Flightspeed cap 79.02 Flight 1 IO: capped. Afterburner - 2 IOs, Flightspeed cap 84.88. Flight 1 IO: 83.12, NOT capped [with a Flight IO in Swift, this would be 84.34 so BARELY not capped.] Flight 2 IO: capped at 84.88 Afterburner - 3 IOs, Flightspeed cap 87.14 Flight 2IOs: capped at 87.14 So my conclusion is if you 3 slot Afterburner and 2 slot Fly you are capped at 87.14 If you are tight on slots and 2 slot Afterburner, 1 slot Fly, and stick a flight IO in Swift, you're at 83.12. If you want to go 4.02 mph faster it'll cost you 2 more slots.

I don't think we have beacons to the Shadow Shard. If you set those up to beacons like Point Aleph, Beth, Gimel ... those are not Shadow Shard zones those are locations of custom beacons you can use in your base.

After some confused discussion a bunch of us finally realized there's a patch note for i25 that states that events like Rikti Invasions and Zombie invasions will not spawn mobs for characters below level 25. Like, WHAT? Why would you cut off people's lower level characters from content like that when they're in their own level-appropriate zones? This now explains why groups I got into to do zombie events in places like King's Row and Cap Au Diable were complete duds. (At other times we got SOME spawns - because higher level people joined). Even one time a big group gathered in Independence Port and we were disappointed at our spawns and now it's clear why - that party was composed of 20-30 players but it was only spawning based on the 25-30 players. This seems like maybe something that was done on the private server because people just didn't want to deal with them but on live they should run normally. They're not so frequent they're disruptive and if people are low level and want to take 15 minutes out of their day and fight zombies they should be able to. Especially since there's a lot of people who focus on the low level content and keep rolling a lot of alts, those people can't have a rewarding and fun zombie attack experience. (Of course if you don't want to deal with these events if you just keep moving and go to your mission door you're mostly fine.)

In the past when we made macros the labeling text was what we got on the ugly gray macro. But that is actually the tooltip text. Now you can actually write out something meaningful that will pop up on hover if you forget what it is. Like "Lightning Rod Macro" or "Lightning Rod on Target". Secondly I for now am not going to use the power's actual icon. I'm going to try to find a similar icon in another set so that I can see it's the macro version - for now at least I have a couple GTAOEs that while I do usually want them on my target, I might want to manually place them while in a chaotic fight. So, original power icons are going on my bonus toolbar.

What I'd like to see is our Epic damage un-nerfed. When containment was added, the damage in the powers from our Epics wasn't cut in half, so containment doubled it. Around i18 or so I think it was the devs arbitrarily decided it was now too much and cut all epic pool attack damage in HALF. So if you feel a 50 controller is doing lower damage than you thought you remembered, that might be part of it.

The other thing is that controller /Dark Affinity is a slightly different powerset than Dark Miasma. It's got much of the same but has Fade and Soul Absorption replace Fearsome Stare and Petrifying Gaze which are in the primary (well something MUCH BETTER than Petrifying Gaze is). Fade is a click defense buff which stacks nicely on top of shadow fall, and Soul Absorption which is like the love child of Dark Consumption and Dark Regeneration: it drained life from all nearby foes living AND DEAD and grants you and party members near you a +regen +recovery buff. It's basically CRACK.