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Yoru-hime

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Everything posted by Yoru-hime

  1. If I remember right, PVP recipes can start dropping at level 10 in PvE content. I feel like they're rarer than standard rare drops, but more common than purples are at 50. I remember that I lucked into one while running Faultline that helped bankroll the character for a good while. The drop rate is low enough that a 5 minute timer in PvE wouldn't really be noticed if it did exist. Couldn't tell ya about PvP drop rates.
  2. The Lord Recluse in STF/MLTF is a Level 54 AV buffed to the gills by his towers. Soloing him there would be MUCH tougher than doing it anywhere else.
  3. I'm not sure I'd change anything. The rewards are nice, but not game-breaking. They give players who don't care for iTrials enough Emps to get what they need without mindlessly grinding DA arcs. Not as swiftly or easily, but it'll eventually get you there. You can play whatever content you want and still make progress. I definitely like the way that they're front-loaded rather than escalating. There's no massive carrot trying to encourage you to go further than you're naturally inclined to play a character. I don't think I'd add anything, either. If you've dinged Level 50 100 times and still want to keep going, just playing the character is clearly already plenty rewarding.
  4. The secondary effect basically tries to hold you hostage. "Build your character around me or I'm not doing squat for you." If you want to use the set, you're either building a sapper or paying a price in terms of damage and AoE potential for nothing. No other secondary effect does this. If I had an option between today's Electric Blast and a similar themed set that traded the secondary effect in for more damage and better AoE, I'd take the latter 100% of the time, even for those ATs that benefit the most from the -end.
  5. Nerf Wednesday. Tacos should be proliferated to Thursday while we're at it.
  6. I'd just pretty much reiterate most of the above. I have to have a very strong reason to bother with them. The powers force weapons and/or themes on my characters that I usually don't want, even worse than the Epics. As for story, if the unlocking arc involved STEALING power from an Arachnos Patron, that'd be one thing (and one that you could even somewhat justify as a heroic act for those who wanted to), but of course not. Your new master just gives it to you it for proving yourself to be a useful little goon.
  7. Piercing Rounds is the one that hits "This animation is absurd" level for me. I think it makes my character look like a showboating nitwit rather than a firearms master. It simply crosses the line from stylish to clownish, IMO. An animation where you go through the motion to load a special piercing round before opening fire might appeal more. Empty Clips is borderline for me. It isn't good, but it doesn't hit the "I'd rather avoid this power so I don't have to watch this" level that Piercing Rounds does. I'd probably use an animation that felt more controlled if it were available though. Executioner's Shot hits the right note for me. It's got that right amount of flair without turning the power into a sideshow routine.
  8. Seconded on DB/EA. She feels just about indestructible and slices through AVs with relative ease. Her AoE damage isn't great, but she was designed to destroy hard targets and does it well. When I'm not working on badges for her, I'm testing to see just how much of the content she can handle solo.
  9. Awakens work great if you are ready for their limitations. Awaken + Break Free + Blue + Green = Ready to go. I line them up in that order on my fifth column so I can just mash F5 and be ready to go again (or run like the wind). For some high level characters where I just don't need them very often, I'll disable them so they don't clog up the tray, but I'll stop and buy one or combine one if I end up using the one I keep in reserve.
  10. Yoru-hime

    Moonbeam

    My stalker is at the peak Trying a corruptor now. Why am I dying?
  11. Hmm... My favorite memory. There are a lot to choose from, but if I'm picking one: This was after Safeguard missions had just come out and the community was still trying to guess how they worked. I hopped on a Safeguard mission with Aya of the Snow, my little level 12 or so Ice Blaster. The team was, to put it kindly, unprepared. We wipe in the bank and start to devolve into confusion. Go back to the bank? Regroup at start? While the argument hit full swing, I see the little marker for the getaway destination on the map though, and race over there to see if maybe that's where we belong. The answer is both "yes" and "no". "Yes" because this is how we save the mission. "No" because I've got a good-sized crowd barreling toward me at speed, money in their hands and murder on their minds. I plant myself in front of the manhole, munch every inspiration in my tray and cut loose. I assume it's a lost cause, but may as well go down fighting. I have no idea how I managed to keep any of them from getting by, much less not getting creamed, but the spawn started to melt away. I kept hitting Inspirations, kept freezing enemies and just kept blasting. The Mission Complete notice silenced my quarreling teammates. I like to imagine them finding Aya sitting on a street corner, surrounded by unconscious Skulls and happily playing with her new Jump Pack, not sure what they've been fussing about. She had the situation under control the whole time.
  12. You know you love this thread. There's no need to be koi about it.
  13. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - attributed to Edmund Burke HC has done nothing unusual here. The list of companies and organizations making similar statements is simply massive. I can't get through an episode on Discovery Channel without seeing a BLM message. If you're turning your back on all of them, you're going to make yourself dizzy in a hurry. Messages like this can be uncomfortable reminders of real world problems to those of us with the luxury to turn away, but they're also necessary ones sometimes. All these messages coming from people and companies all over the world serve as an important counter to those who are trying to build echo chambers and sell extremist views to their followers. Each one individually means little, but as a whole they form a tapestry that serves to reflect just how far the extremist's view is from the "silent majority". Is there someplace we can contribute to buying the GMs a round of brews? I get the feeling that this is going to be a long day for them.
  14. So I've been going through the joy that is fighting fires in Steel Canyon with a non-Ice character. Finally, I got tired of the little punks relighting the fires I almost had out and summoned my BP Lore pets to do some damage. The pets did what Incarnate BP tend to do to low level Hellions, then promptly turned and extinguished the fire I'd been fighting with one shot of their cold/negative attacks. Oh... Well *I* just learned something new. I don't think finishing up this badge set is going to be nearly as bad as I thought.
  15. I put a run speed into Sprint and +Stealth into Prestige Surge. I feel like the FX for that one go well with the Stealth and help me figure out why that NPC I'm trying to rescue just isn't cooperating.
  16. I hated playing my Emp/Elec Defender. 20 levels of "nope" back on Live People seemed to appreciate the heals and recovery, but I felt like dead weight on a team and soloing was nails on a chalkboard.
  17. All this talk about fruit salad makes me want to go roll a Defender.
  18. Yoru-hime

    Moonbeam

    I never use battlecries, so steal away 🙂
  19. Yoru-hime

    Moonbeam

    This feels so perfect Let the Brutes do the smashing My kills are poems
  20. I agree. I'm not sure I see the need for a motivation structure to be some sort of lockout. I don't even know that we'd need to apply it to characters themselves as much as the story arcs so the player can have an idea how to guide their villain's career. An example: Suppose my character aspires to rule the world. She usually focuses on Dominance operations to increase her power base, but now and then she feels the need to pad the slush fund, so she throws in a few Mercenary contracts here and there. Or perhaps she's decided that the heroes are getting a little too close to her center of power and goes on some Chaos rampages to create a distraction and draw her foes into a fight on her terms. Create a variety and inform the players in broad terms what their options are, then let them decide where they want the narrative to go next. My next villain could be all about the cold hard cash and choose a very different path. Not that every plan goes off without a hitch, of course. Surprises and betrayals are part of the lifestyle, but the ability to, by and large, choose your own path is critical. That illusion of control is key. A Villain with no feeling of control over their own actions is almost by definition a Henchman. Hence the gripes about City of Lackeys. This feels like something that could be feasible if implemented in phases, rather than requiring some massive large-scale rework. Just add a few arcs here and there to flesh out the various motivations. The old arcs can stay as they are, much like the classic Issue 0 blueside content is still there if that's what you want. Maybe some of them get tagged Mercenary or Chaos as appropriate, but there wouldn't be a reason to banish them to Ouroboros or anything. Everything could be additive and done piecemeal as resources are available. I like this idea. Much like motivation, players naturally also want to define for ourselves just how dastardly our villains, rogues and vigilantes are. Some won't think twice about unleashing mass destruction the moment something gets in their way. Others have their own internal honor code that makes perfect sense to them, even if the rest of the world never understands.
  21. That's why I loved Brother Hammond's arc. Even if it's a small-time scheme, I'M the villain. Everyone else is MY patsy and pawn. I'm the one walking away a winner, leaving everyone else holding the Idiot Ball. The souvenir for that arc makes me smile every time I see it. In the end, unless you're living in AE and writing your own story arcs, yes, agency is always going to be an illusion, but it's one that I feel makes the story of a villain much more satisfying than 49 levels of being someone else's goon.
  22. It's not that the writing is that bad, but writing for villains is that much harder than writing for heroes and the OG devs just weren't prepared for that. There are two key problems as I see it. First is lack of agency. No one tells Doctor Doom what to do, but almost every original mission redside has you serving as the muscle for someone else's endeavor. The contact-based mission distribution system naturally encouraged this, but the original CoV devs bought in whole-heartedly. The original devs seemed to have a singular vision of "villain" in their minds and I'd guess it was someone along the lines of the Sandman; a mean, greedy, stupid bully who just happens to have super-powers. The game quite regularly typecasts you as a crude thug and/or borderline maniac. Second, we are naturally much more picky about what we allow our villains to do before declaring it "out of character". That's not an issue with the players, but a difference in the way villains are defined. Think about it. Create a generic hero scenario. Bad guys robbing a bank. Now think of a hero that would notice but choose NOT to intervene. It's not easy without some adding some substantial plot twists to the scenario. That's what heroes are in our minds. Now reverse that and think of villains that wouldn't naturally rob a bank. Lex Luthor is already a financial titan. Magneto is focused on his mutant crusade, not gathering wealth. Darkseid could care less about the currency our puny civilization uses. Monstrous villains may not even comprehend the abstract concept of money. Again, you can do some plot twisting to put one of those character there and make it happen, but creating the list of uninterested villains is a lot easier. It takes a lot more mental gymnastics to get all the various story arcs to make sense for the villain you've imagined, not because of the writing, but because of the way that we think of villains. Heroes are reactive, their identity is tied to how they choose to respond to a situation. The devs are fairly safe in creating the situation, as long as they don't go too far putting words in the character's mouth. Villains are proactive, their identity is deeply tied to their motivation and what they choose to do to pursue it. Any part of the situation that the devs write can earn the "not MY character" condemnation by saying that their character would never choose to create or participate in such a scheme. Magneto going around committing Joker-esque random acts of chaos and destruction simply stops feeling much like Magneto after a while. I don't think it's impossible to write good redside arcs, but writing a redside arc that appeals regardless of character the way you can blueside just doesn't feel realistic. Our imaginations as players are just too broad.
  23. The one I was on earlier this week was code-named Brilliance.
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