carroto

There may be an issue with this step. I only know of one source for game numbers data and right now it appears to have been abandoned. See here. I was planning to work on some tooling that required those data but that's on hold until/unless I decide to dig in to the code for that tool and the binary formats of the files it's reading and get it working for me. I haven't been following things much but this may be why CoD hasn't been updated recently also.

This is the best starting place for a Blaster IMO. Make a classic Hover-Blaster. Take Hover, stay out of range of enemies' melee attacks, get ranged defense when you can. Even if you get mezzed the meleers still can't reach you, which reduces the damage you take. Just hover there above them and hammer them with your T1 and T2 attacks until the mez wears off. Learn to recognize the mezzers and target them first. If you start the fight with a Build Up + Snipe and unload damage, in my experience by the time the mez hits the mezzer is already significantly damaged and you can finish them off with your T1 and T2s while mezzed. Then once it wears off you're good to go on the rest of them.

Talos - New Corinth

Not just Nerva, the (redacted)-end of Nerva. Even starting from the north black helicopter it's a bit of a hike. Oh well, red world problems I guess. Still doesn't compare to IP.

Yeah it wasn't that close to shutdown. Back then PVP recipe drops were incredibly rare and the +def and +res uniques were going for inf cap and above. If I really needed one for a build I had to grind out 30 alignment missions (not tip missions) to get 30 alignment merits I could use to directly buy the recipe. Took a long time. There was a timer on tips or alignment missions, I don't remember, but you could only do them so fast. So anyway yeah tips were out long enough for me to get those uniques put into a number of my builds, so it wasn't that close to shutdown.

Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly but I think the main issue the devs had with it back in the day was aesthetic. I kind of hoped the HC devs would see it differently and enable the combo, but no such luck. I too was terribly disappointed when I went to make mine and discovered that I couldn't. Maybe there's a more technical reason.

Probably at least in part because a lot of people haven't figured out that a level 50 dual aspect IO if boosted to +5 has the same enhancement values as a level 50 HO. Unless you're combining HOs to past level 50 for that little bit extra, there's no advantage to the HO unless the power it's in can actually benefit from the other aspects it may enhance. If people were more aware of this I suspect that the price of a level 50 dual-aspect IO + 5 enhancement boosters would be a sort of soft cap on the price of equivalent HOs.

Unless I'm remembering incorrectly, you cannot auto-complete on a flashback.

My primary question here is from a technical standpoint what powers do GMs have? I am on a flashback and cannot complete it. I filed a petition and was told by a GM that nothing can be done. I don't get that. Doing the arc from Fire Wire in Mercy. The last mission of the arc sends me to talk to Lt. Harris. Just click him and the arc is done. However he's not there. Presumably this is because I already completed Lt. Haris' arc and killed him at the end of it, so the contact disappeared. So the mission from Fire Wire cannot be completed because Harris is not there to be clicked. So am I to understand that GMs don't have the power to auto-complete a mission during a flashback? I'm pretty sure I've had GMs complete missions for me back before shutdown. I don't get it and would like to understand.

Has anyone run this against the latest game files? I'm getting this: Reading ./bin/clientmessages-en.bin ... Message store contains 80574 entries. Reading ./bin/attrib_names.bin ... Reading ./bin/classes.bin ... Unable to parse classes table. Expected 464 bytes in struct, but read 460 bytes. and I'm trying to figure out if I'm doing something wrong or if maybe the file formats have changed.

You might need to complete Dean's arc before you can do Leonard's, since Dean introduces you to Leonard.

In my opinion the Storm set was semi-broken way back in...I don't remember what issue...8 or 9 I'd guess, when Hurricane was changed due to PvP issues. Up to that point it could be used to reliably corral mobs. The repel pulsed many times per second, so it was basically constant. Mobs couldn't run through it and get pushed out the other side like they can now. So you could put them in a corner and keep them there while your lightning and tornado worked them over. Now they run to the far side of the map, often until you lose your target on them. There are two sets that have this problem: Storm and Traps. Fear to the point that it renders some of the best powers very situational. On teams if you have a tank taunting you can use them. Solo often not. Now that I've tried pairing Traps with Illusion, which has summonable mobs that taunt and thereby counter the fear effect well enough, I don't know that I would play Storm or Traps paired with any other set.

To silence the Umbral Beast barking I had to put in seven files...Dog_Bark_01 - Dog_Bark_07. Same location as the howl file. It seems that the game randomly chooses from among the seven so all are required to silence it completely. You can just leave in one or two if you want an occasional bark but not the incessant noise.

The right Controller would probably be safe, but perhaps a bit slow until the build matures. For anything without mez protection I'd choose based on how to deal with mez. Dark Blast is decent, but in my experience I'm not able to stack enough -tohit to reliably avoid getting mezzed, and then once I am my debuffs wear off and I can get chain mezzed. I prefer slows here, because even if I get mezzed, usually once it wears off I'll have a chance to act before the enemy's mez recharges. I've played quite a bit of Sonic Resonance because it's one of the few sets available to squishies that offers mez protection. Pair it with Dark Blast for a heal and you can be built pretty tough. If you build for defense to stack with the -tohit, that on top of your resistances can make for a well-rounded character. The big problem there is that you best -res power requires an ally anchor, so it's not the best for soloing. I've also paired Sonic with Earth on a Controller. That way I had Stoney as my anchor, with me always. No heal though, so I built for defense and regen and hoped for the best.

It really depends on the powersets on the specific character. There are quite a few I don't tend to play on squishies because they don't provide adequate means to deal with mezzes and tough bosses. I've played Sonic Resonance quite a bit because it offers mez protection. On my Blasters I tend to go Hover for the protection it offers. Mez-lock can be a real problem sometimes. Getting mezzed over and over with little if any break to act in between. Slows are a big help there. If I have those my general approach is to open with the Nem Staff, then stack as many slows as I can. If the boss gets up and mezzes me, at least I'll have some time after it wears off before it can apply another (usually). KB can be a big help too. Like I said, I usually choose either a primary or secondary that has some form of control I can use to deal with difficult bosses, the only exception being if I'm building something primarily for teams. For Controllers I tend to either open with Nem Staff, or apply a hold while ducking behind something in the environment, only popping back out to double-stack the hold. It's usually some kinds of tricks like that on squishies. Throwing down caltrops, or a rain power to scatter and keep mobs from closing to melee. Slow the mobs. Confuses are the best. Kite and joust (Combat Jumping is the best here). Then there are the Mary Sues that can't be controlled in any way. Annoying and boring, just pop a bunch of purples and reds (don't forget the reds), hold your nose, and get it done. On top of that I tend to get certain key IOs if I can. The two +3% def IOs aren't that hard to get, and along with Combat Jumping and Stealth (or similar) means you'll have roughly 10% defense to all. Add a single small purple and it's not a lot of protection but it's enough to cause the occasional miss. Add that to the other tactics and I've found that it's enough to handle a lot of battles without feeling like I'm cheating. I still take damage and have to do things right to win, but it gives me a little extra edge when I need it, and only needing one small purple means my inspiration tray goes a long way. Edit: Oh yeah I forgot to mention, I almost always focus on strong hitpoint recovery in some form as well. Blasters have their sustains, so they're pretty well covered there. Many Controller and Corruptor Secondaries have a heal of some sort. As I said I like Sonic Resonance but it has no heal. I've solved that in various ways. Pairing it with Dark Blast (which has a heal), putting a bunch of +heal procs in the single-target blasts, building for as much +regen as possible, along with some form of hard/soft control to limit incoming damage. Things like that. If you don't have strong control (and often even if you do), you need good health recovery. As I said at the start, I consider all of these things when picking my power sets. If I can't meet the requirements for survivability, it won't get built.

I think the KB in Energy Blast would be quite appropriate if you want to go for a slapstick vibe.

This. Except for the global.

Not my experience playing Ice Armor against the pure toxic spewing AV in the Halloween haunted mansion event. Yes I remember. NEVER FORGET! Also Arachnoids.

One of the biggest advantages the patron pools have over epics (for me) is that they typically require one fewer prerequisite to get to the power(s) I really want. In a tight build that can change everything. Epics might not even be on the table for those builds. I'd rather see parity there, or just more epics that are structured in the same way as the patron pools.

Why not the finished product? It would be appreciated regardless. Thanks for the tip. I hadn't looked at the code to this point and just presumed that what I was seeing was the full product. Are you doing much translation/interpretation of the output of that program, or is that left to the front-end code? As I said I'd prefer to avoid reinventing the wheel. Regardless, it looks like even in the worst case I can probably get what I need without a tremendous amount of digging around in .bin files. So I guess there's nothing stopping me from moving forward. RIP my free time. I'll have to do a little soul-searching to be sure I want to continue. Thanks for the reply.

I understand that you have concerns about releasing your code, but how about the raw data? I've only done a small project with RubyRed's data and even that required a significant amount of extra processing to put it into a useful form. It would be great if we didn't all have to reinvent that wheel. I've been toying with the idea of creating a web-based character builder. It's either that or quit the game, since I'm on Linux and Mids' doesn't run there anymore. However I'm aware of how foolish an undertaking it probably is. Many before me have tried, and apparently all of them so far have abandoned their efforts. Regardless, I'm considering it. The first thing I'd need before writing any code for the builder is data. RubyRed's is a great start, and might give me what I need for the powers stuff, but there's nothing for enhancements. So I'm faced with doing probably more or less the same thing you did, start with that work and build it out to get what I need. You haven't talked about how much work it was or how long it took you, but I'm guessing it was a lot. Having to do that before even starting on the main project, which itself will probably be a significant undertaking, is a bit daunting. I'd bet that the lack of availability of the necessary game data is holding back a lot of potential projects others would like to undertake as well. What do you think? Even if it's not practical to release the code or data, some pointers to shortcut the process of getting to it would be a help. A basic character builder could probably be made with far less than the full set of data required to drive your site.

If each geyser lasts 15 seconds and can cast Thermal Vents every 6 seconds, then each one should be able to cast it 3 times before it expires, no? Geyser 1 Geyser 2 Geyser 3 0 secs 10 secs 20 secs 6 secs 16 secs 26 secs 12 secs 22 secs 32 secs So it would be: 0 sec 6 sec 10 sec 12 sec 16 sec 20 sec 22 sec 26 sec 30 sec ...etc.

For upper body choose "Tight" as the first option, then under "Chest" choose "Metallic" or "Metallic 2". Same for lower body. "Tight", then for "Pants" choose "Metallic" or "Metallic 2". You can do the same for gloves and boots. For face there is also "Metallic" and "Metallic 2" options, as well as "Skull Metal", plus "Robotic" and clockwork options. Also consider applying the "Blend" pattern (chosen directly under "Metallic"). If you choose slightly different colors for your primary and secondary color it may give you a pleasing effect.

I'm inspired to ask because I had this experience recently with Psi Melee. Tried it a while back on a Brute and didn't much care for it. It wasn't exactly bad, but did nothing for me. Finally gave it another go on a Stalker and absolutely love it. On the Brute I almost never used the confuse (despite normally loving any power with that effect) aside from special cases like maybe sappers. On the Stalker it's so much fun to be able to confuse a minion to help me take out the boss next to him. Also when fighting Rikti it's easy to be constantly running around with three or more Accelerate Metabolisms on me. I can't remember when I've ever had such a different experience with the same power set on different ATs. I know it's not exactly the same because Stalkers get a few changes, but I've done that plenty of times before with other power sets and none of them felt so different. Have you ever experienced this as well?

Set up on a new Manjaro install and it works fine. Just used wine and winetricks from the package manager. Didn't mess about with Lutris; just created a wineprefix, ran the installer, and it worked fine.