roleki

Anything is possible, given enough resources. However, it is implausible that there are enough resources to address THIS issue; I only threw it out there on the off chance that whatever represents a "Decoy Phantasm" in code is already receiving property data from the 'host' Phantasm, meaning there's at least a framework to pass the -KB along.

I brought my Ill/Dark controller to an MSR last night, and as it is courteous to address KB in an MSR, I temporarily slotted a KB:KD in my Phantasm. I noticed that mobs I was targeting through my Phantasm were blowing all over the place, only to see it was my Decoy Phantasm doing it. Would it be egregiously difficult to make the Decoy Phantasm's KB% a variable that matches the enhanced value of the Phantasm that spawned it? Figuring that way, it doesn't pass other weird things to the pet, only the KB.

A whole slew of CoX Heroclix came with the Collector's Edition DVD of CoV; at one time I was buying clearanced copies of the DVD and selling the Heroclix inside on eBay for a tidy profit. It was funny because I could never sell the Statesman figures, and wound up shipping them as bonuses on other auctions.

If you were on Victory, then, probably 🙂

I used to Wormhole mobs into the interior of buildings all the time on Live. I've done it on HC just to see if it still worked, and it does 🙂

It's fine that you draw a line in the sand, but, that line only means something to you. Stop trying to make it mean something to other people.

Which is actually a Nemesis plot.

In all honesty, I have spent about 1.5 hours a night participating in MSRs the last two months, and in all that time I have only seen what I was shooting at once. Maybe twice. That said, I have adopted a few tactics, strategies, and "oh hey!" ideas that I think have helped me consistently hit 1300-1500 Vanguard Merits per Indom zone run from my usual spot in the bowl; my most recent runs have put me in the 2100 range per raid and that seems to be repeatable. And keep in mind, I may be a real idiot so any one of the paragraphs below could just as easily be worthless. 1) Before you do anything! Go to Menu -> Options -> Controls -> Mouse -> Camera Shake and disable that. I have gained 400% more rewards just off that tip alone. 2) YMMV, but if you don't have a fly power, get one from P2W before you zone. Not only does it keep you out of melee range when travelling between pylons, it also enrolls you in the "I Can Help Kill The Dropship" club, and that is a club you want to be in. 3) The lull during the recruiting phase is a good time to hit the /ah for some large inspirations of the Restoration, Escape, and Phenomenal Luck variety. Kind of a "better to have and not need..." thing. 4) If you have powers that do knockback and you're not a Pusher, be a dear and slot the Sudden Acceleration KB:KD enhancement in that power or strike that power from your tray for the duration of the raid. While KB is a perfectly cromulent soft control everywhere else, in the Bowl it is Merit Poison and literally makes everyone around you less effective. 5) Open your Combat Attributes and set it up to monitor your Hold Protection. When you're in the Bowl, Hold Protection seems to be a better indicator of when you're about to die than Defense or even Health. If it's less than a ridiculous number, you've either migrated away from the safe spot or, you're the EA and you forgot to re-apply Faraday Cage like a jerk. 6) Pylon Time is pretty straightforward, but try and avoid touching the Shield while travelling between pylons because it will TP you away from the group and potentially cost you some merits as you travel back, and, also potentially, leave you as the only target of a Drop Ship. Suboptimal! 7) Bomb Time is a little more hectic. If teams 1-6 go to a specific grate 1-6, I haven't noticed. I generally pull up short at the lip of the saucer and click through my teammates until I identify one that is clearly heading to a grate, then follow them in. If you have a patch or another persistent pseudopet, drop that at the foot of the grate when it is nearly dead, to take some heat off the Bomb Clicker Person when the Rikti arrive. When the Bomb Clicker Person enters the cavity, that's your cue to stop using powers with long animation times! When the Bomb Clicker person exits the cavity (or you get a yellow Bomb Planted message) get out of there, you idiot. You don't want to be caught mid-animation when that thing goes off. Ocho) When your Bomb Planted! message comes up (or the announcement in chat is made), go straight to the Bowl. Do things! Deploy Lores! Deploy debuffs! Attack! 9) When you're in the bowl, ABC as in Always Be Clicking. You and your team get partial credit for a kill (and therefore a Vanguard Merit) whenever anything you or a teammate has damaged eventually dies. It's important to keep in mind, ANY amount of damage your team does puts each of you in line for a Vanguard Merit when that target eventually dies, so the more things your team damages, the more chances you all have to win. 10) In the context of an Eda-like MSR, my Ice/TA runs circles around my TW/Bio in terms of accumulating merits, because my Ice/TA has lots of AoEs that I can drop anywhere in the bowl without taking a single step off the badge marker. That said, SOMEBODY has to actually kill EBs and Bosses, so as the teams get shuffled around during the recruiting phase, keep an eye on your team makeup to see whether your focus should be annoying lots of things, wiping out individual targets, or supporting the characters that are doing all that on your behalf. The leads do a great job of balancing the teams so you can usually get away with one focus or another or a mix of all three, but if you're in the bowl and notice a Magus or Priest is in your crosshairs long enough to be hit with the same attack twice, you might want to go punch that one harder. 11) Set up a/multiple targeting macros; Eda's Guide has an all-in-one targeting macro which targets the next available priority target, in the context of a raid. That approach is probably superior to mine, which I have separate macros for Magus, Priest and Rikti. I do that because sometimes a macro will lock onto a target I can neither see or attack which means they aren't in the bowl, and I can click over to the next macro until I find something I *can* shoot. 12) If you can, bring a real live Pet, deploy it, and target through it. If there is a target in range, a Pet will *always have a target whether its been drawn or not. If you don't have a Pet of your own, try sorting out who DOES have a pet, and target through that hapless beast. (*not always always, but usually always) Bear in mind, if you're targeting through pets and chat starts filling with people imploring participants to stop Holding/Immobilizing stuff on the ramps, that's probably your sloppy handiwork, and you'll need to stop looking at chat change targeting tactics. 13) Failing that, find someone in the bowl who is consistently taking damage, and target through them, because they are obviously doing something to piss someone off somewhere. Added bonus, if you're a support-type, you'll already be aimed at the person who would be dead if it weren't for your eerily prescient greenwork. 14) If you STILL can't find a target, look above the miasma for grey damage numbers ticking from somebody else's AoE, and drop YOUR AoE on THAT AoE before everything in the AoE is DoA and you're SOL. The grey numbers you want to look out for are like lots of "1's" or "4's" or just a couple in the low 200s or whatever. Reason being, with everything happening around you, it's easy to mistake someone's Absorb for damage and waste an AoE on a bunch of innocent people who were just hit by an Insulating Circuit. Although really, in the Bowl, there is no wasted AoE. Kinda. 15) Keep an eye on chat for announcements about where pullers are heading next. They reference it by compass heading, so when someone yells Incoming South or whatever and you're facing Northeast, turn around and drop an AoE at the foot of the South Ramp. 16) If you see orange numbers in one direction, turn another direction where orange numbers AREN'T and do what you have to do to make orange numbers appear there. If there's a corner you haven't attacked in a while, throw something in that corner. 17) Get Judgment Ion, and hold off deploying it until a wave teleports into your midst; if you time it right, the effect is beautiful and results in many orange messages and sometimes a dialog box offering to take you exotic places like the hospital or your base. 18) Speaking of death, if you're a support type with some means to stave off the death of others, keep an eye on your teammates' health and do something about it. While it is funny to watch that blaster die, rez, die again, ask for a rez, then die again, you won't be laughing when you pull into the Merit Vendor with only 400 merits because you did nothing to keep your team upright. The more damage your team puts out, the more rewards you get, so it's in everyone's interest to keep on keeping on. 19) If you're a Controller-type or have access to one or more ranged holds, AND you have the Control Hybrid (because why wouldn't you?) remember to stop spamming your Hybrid power when the countdown timer hits 2:10 or so. You'll want to save that for the afterparty, when you go kill the Drop Ship and discover its dank secret.

The folks that run Indom's nightly zone MSRs do a great job of guiding a disorganized mob towards kicking Rikti butt, and they manage to steer clear of the kind of pitfalls you might usually expect from an all-levels-welcome approach. Sure, it may not be the most efficient way to roll up xp/inf/merits, but *I* don't notice because I'm actually having... fun? They have done instanced MSRs on special occasions (Natural Night, for example) but RWZ is usually dead from 9:45PM through 7:45PM so there's not much reason to take it to Pocket D.

Updated or not, that's exactly what I was looking for! Thanks!

How's about an Electrical Affinity / Energy Blast Defender?

I farm to level and kit my alts. I don't find it any more tedious or enjoyable than the usual spate of radio missions or PuG arcs, but there's the added bonus of not having to pay strict attention to what's going on in-game so I can do other stuff simultaneously. And when it's over, I get fresh 50s with builds that I am interested in using during MSRs and stuff.

Am I just imagining things, or did previous incarnations of this thread link to a massive table where the powers of each set were ranked by percentage of eligible builds that included them? Wherever it was, that was very helpful in navigating oddball builds.

Glad to get it out there, though I am sure tighter/better builds will start popping up soon enough. Still, for my first shot at either Dark or EA, I was glad where it wound up. As for the questions... I find the Stone attacks necessary to the extent that I just REALLY like Stone; for one, you get a solid AoE soft control (Fissure) as pick one, and your second pick nets you a sledgehammer that is capable of consistently dropping 1000+ damage per swing. I could definitely drive around without those two, but I put them in so many builds, it feels 'wrong' on those where i went with PB or whatever. As for procs in the ST hold, it depends on the build; if I have a crazy global recharge, I'll frankenslot the ST hold with procs and avoid slotting it for recharge or taking an Alpha that enhances recharge. This one, I opted for the purple to shore up accuracy and +Rech, then dotted procs throguhout the build elsewhere. Again, the build probably is not as tight as it should be, but I'm VL21 and haven't seen anything OBVIOUSLY broken yet. Scorpion Shield is nice, but aside from getting one-shotted by a Drop Ship or an AV, there's not much I'm going to run into in PvE that I don't have an answer for somewhere in my tray.

It's kind of hard to skip though, being the power you have to take when you roll a /Storm. With a KB>KD, it's a decent FF+Rech mule what hits fairly regularly.

If I have a controller that has access to an AoE sleep, I'll usually take that before the AoE Hold. and sometimes in lieu of it entirely. Reason being, if I am soloing, I want a mez I can reapply to stack magnitude/duration during cooldown, and if I am on a team, AoE Holds typically collect dust right next to an AoE Sleep anyway, so, very little difference between the two in that scenario. Of course, if you can fit both in your build, that works too.

This is my Dark/EA, Voltswagen. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Actually, I haven't run into another Dark/EA yet but that's not for lack of trying; this one has been pretty much all I have played since it hit 50. I think every kid should have a Dark/EA in their character selection screen. I run a LOT of controllers, and find that Dark/EA is super consistent, full-speed ahead no matter what the content is or whether I am solo, on a team, or on a league. The great thing is, it's not like there's a dead spot in the climb to 50, either. You get pets sprinkled in early, midway, and late; meaning you get the benefits of your own buffs within 10 minutes of stepping into Atlas, and it just builds from there. You get Energizing Circuit (+End) right when endurance becomes an issue, and Faraday Cage right when it means something to have Mez protection. The latter half of /EA is just icing, but it's pretty good icing. They basically took the better parts of /Kin and /FF, made them less of a PITA to deploy, then threw in a better Forge for good measure. Now, it's not all perfect. Dark/EA is not an AV killer, but you have all the tools to survive an encounter with one. It doesn't do anything to buff +Def, but thanks to all the -ToHit from Dark you ARE affecting the incoming math and mitigating plenty of damage. What damage does get through has to melt off Absorb shields that you can chunk out like a bodily function, and if someone is leaking health you can throw a heal at them. Since your heals/absorbs are ranged auto-hits on a quick timer, you can effectively support a team whether they are running in a pack or practicing social distancing. Since you have Mez protection from the Cage, you can get a more fun Destiny slot, like Ageless. All in all, can't say enough good about Dark/EA. Now, as for this build, this is what it looks like after a second respec; my level-up build was just generic IOs and a few set IOs that I found along the way, then the 'mid-range' build was pretty much slotted the same, but with yellows and oranges where purples show up here. To be honest, the mid-range build was fine as it was, but I really liked the Dark/EA workflow and threw some purples into it. I get a lot of proc hits out of the various Cloud Senses instances, and Living Shadows and Seismic Smash are proc'd to the gills; Smash always delivers, while Living Shadows is a bit streaky. I can probably do without the Kismet +Acc in CJ, and my Health/Stamina setup is like 3 or 4 levels of redundant thanks to Ageless and Energizing Circuit, so I could *probably* move 3-5 slots elsewhere, but... just haven't felt the need to do so. Anyway, here's the build: Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.7 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Click this DataLink to open the build! Voltswagen: Level 50 Technology Controller Primary Power Set: Darkness Control Secondary Power Set: zn_Electrical Affinity Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Fighting Ancillary Pool: Stone Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Dark Grasp -- UnbCns-Hold(A), UnbCns-Hold/Rchg(5), UnbCns-Acc/Hold/Rchg(11), UnbCns-Acc/Rchg(13), UnbCns-EndRdx/Hold(15) Level 1: Shock -- PrfShf-EndMod/Acc(A), PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg(7) Level 2: Living Shadows -- SprWiloft-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear(A), SprWiloft-Rchg/Dmg%(5), Bmbdmt-+FireDmg(11), JvlVll-Dam%(13), PstBls-Dam%(17), CldSns-%Dam(21) Level 4: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A) Level 6: Galvanic Sentinel -- PreOptmz-EndMod/Acc/End(A), PreOptmz-EndMod/Rech(7) Level 8: Fearsome Stare -- CldSns-Acc/ToHitDeb(A), CldSns-ToHitDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(17), CldSns-%Dam(19), CldSns-Acc/Rchg(40) Level 10: Rejuvenating Circuit -- Prv-Heal(A), Prv-Heal/EndRdx(19), Prv-EndRdx/Rchg(31), Prv-Heal/Rchg(37), Prv-Heal/Rchg/EndRdx(37) Level 12: Energizing Circuit -- PreOptmz-EndMod/End(A), PreOptmz-EndMod/End/Rech(36) Level 14: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), Ksm-ToHit+(15) Level 16: Faraday Cage -- UnbGrd-ResDam(A), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(23), UnbGrd-Rchg/ResDam(23), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(25) Level 18: Heart of Darkness -- AbsAmz-Stun(A), AbsAmz-Stun/Rchg(31), AbsAmz-Acc/Stun/Rchg(34), AbsAmz-Acc/Rchg(34), AbsAmz-EndRdx/Stun(36) Level 20: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(21) Level 22: Haunt -- SlbAll-Dmg/Rchg(A), SlbAll-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(25), SlbAll-Acc/Rchg(27), SlbAll-Dmg(27), GlmoftheA-Dam%(29), CldSns-%Dam(36) Level 24: Empowering Circuit -- GssSynFr--ToHit(A), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(39) Level 26: Boxing -- Acc-I(A) Level 28: Tough -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), GldArm-3defTpProc(29) Level 30: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(31) Level 32: Umbra Beast -- ExpRnf-Acc/Rchg(A), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg(33), ExpRnf-Dmg/EndRdx(33), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), ExpRnf-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(34), CldSns-%Dam(37) Level 35: Fissure -- Rgn-Dmg(A), Rgn-Dmg/Rchg(39), Rgn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Rgn-Acc/Rchg(40), Rgn-Dmg/EndRdx(43), SuddAcc--KB/+KD(46) Level 38: Amp Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(39) Level 41: Seismic Smash -- Hct-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(A), Hct-Dam%(42), TchofDth-Dam%(42), Mk'Bit-Dam%(42), GhsWdwEmb-Dam%(43), NrnSht-Dam%(43) Level 44: Insulating Circuit -- Prv-Heal(A), Prv-Heal/EndRdx(45), Prv-EndRdx/Rchg(45), Prv-Heal/Rchg(45), Prv-Heal/Rchg/EndRdx(46), Prv-Absorb%(46) Level 47: Possess -- CrcPrs-Conf(A), CrcPrs-Conf/Rchg(48), CrcPrs-Acc/Conf/Rchg(48), CrcPrs-Acc/Rchg(48), CrcPrs-Conf/EndRdx(50), CrcPrs-Conf%(50) Level 49: Shadow Field -- GhsWdwEmb-Acc/Rchg(A), GhsWdwEmb-Acc/Hold/Rchg(50) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Containment Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A) Level 2: Health -- Mrc-Rcvry+(A), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(3), Pnc-Heal/+End(9) Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-EndMod(A), PrfShf-End%(3), SynSck-EndMod/+RunSpeed(9) Level 50: Intuition Total Radial Revamp Level 50: Ageless Partial Radial Invocation Level 50: Ion Core Final Judgement Level 50: Degenerative Core Flawless Interface Level 50: Warworks Radial Superior Ally Level 50: Support Core Embodiment ------------

So a couple of weeks ago I decided to activate the second (first?) alternate build of my En/En blaster, which left him at level 1. I went offline to mess around with the alternate build in Mids, and came back this morning to start the build. I got to about level 20 when I realized I needed to rearrange a selection, so I stopped clicking Train to a new level of power and used a /respec. It let me slot and do things up through level 20, and I dragged my enhancements back into the inventory tray and clicked finish. I got a "Respec Failed" message and thought not much of it, but then I noticed all my enhancements that I put in inventory were gone. This did NOT affect my "main" build, which is great because I've got about 750M in that dude. But, on the character as a whole, I lost a crappy HO, a couple of SOs, and an EndMod 50+5. I'm not looking for restoration or anything, just putting this out as a warning that you shouldn't use a /respec during the level-up of a secondary build, because you'll apparently lose stuff.

I'm a big fan of my Dark/EA controller, but my experience with EA so far has me thinking its best synergy might be with Fire, on account of your HotFeet wanting you in melee right there with your Imps anyway, might as well get the benefits of them nearby. I find this a bit surprising, too, because so far I have an EA 50 in Controller, Def, and MM variants, and by far the most effective of the bunch is the Controller, in terms of ability to deal with whatever is in front of you in a timely manner. I can confirm, MM pets do NOT get any benefit from Amp Up, at least, nothing represented in the CA window. I cannot speak to whether they are getting the +Secondary Effects benefits.

Sigh. And when this does nothing to curb inflation, they'll nerf AE even more, then stand around with big comical question marks over their heads when inflation actually increases as farming gradually drops off. You want to fix your market? Floor converters at 750K. Make it unprofitable to transmute yellow trash into orange gold.

I've got 840-odd levels of Controllers just in HC. I know what an AoE hold does, and, if I wanted Mind to have a once-every-90-second path to containment I would have specified a Hold. But a Hold is not what is needed here.

Well, your nitpicking is warranted, I'm not giving you much other than saying they should be separated, and that's mostly because MY own ideas for fixing MC are a little ridiculous. I would amp Terrify into a mini-nuke, and turn TK into an un-Force Bubble, where anything caught in the AoE is immobilized and immune to KB, and quickly drawn to the center of the AoE. I'm talking about making TK a power that would give Mind an avenue to Containment (while not being a lockdown power) and would finally be an AoE immob that teams don't mind you leading with. Obviously, an AoE that brings foes into melee range would not be fair on say, a Mind/Energy Dom.

I think /Poison is one of the most underrated controller secondaries; so much -Res, -ToHit, -Def, -Dam, and even a decent amount of -Regen, -End, and -Rech. If people thought more about what it does, they'd have paired it with Fire right out the gate. I don't even have half the inf invested in mine as the OP does, and it still melts through everything.

Because MC for Controllers is what they broke, and the fix shouldn't be handcuffed to "but what would that be like on a Dominator?"

I remember the days when people would roll a Mind/ just to get access to TK, so it is sad to see how useless it has become. It would be nice to see TK made a signature power again, but to do it right they would probably have to divorce Controller MC from Dom MC.