Shred Monkey

Yeah... I always have my name as something monkey... or something something monkey. I also put my global name (Shred Monkey) in my character description. It is pretty cool to be recognized and to see others I recognize in game.

I get this. Seriously. I think this is the biggest issue with this game. Your post did a good job identifying this issue. You pointed out that it shows up mostly at the 40s, and also in the couple of TFs that people frequently exemplar back to. And this is coming from someone who is absolutely guilty of being the level 50 who exemplars down to blow up a Manticore TF (I've become more conscious of this in the last 6 months and I generally avoid doing this now). Alternately, now I've got 1 toon I turned off xp at level 40 with the intention of running level 20-40 content. And I have a 2nd toon where I turned of xp at level 20 and I've been running level 0-25ish content. This toon has been very fun, and gets a lot of play time lately. But I still run into the same thing you do. I join a Posi 1 on my level 20, and there's a high level there killing things so much faster then me, that I might as well not be there. This issue of "feeling like a leech" can also exist in the endgame, btw. Even if you're a fully maxed toon, if you're on a team of 8 fully maxed toons, running a speed TF, you can literally get left behind by being slow at getting through a door. Even AV fights you're usually only getting in 5-6 hits on each target. I generally avoid speed runs and join PUG kill most teams the most. I'd like to think that creating more post 50 content with real difficulty would help address this issue. I'm not sure. Dr Aeon doesn't get run very much (I think they made it too long... I know the time commitment stops me from joining as frequently as I would like). In theory if the 50s had more content with better rewards to run, they wouldn't exemplar down as much. I think it might be worthwhile to reconsider the exemplar rules to make an exemplar'd 30 a little closer to than a natural 30. Some of this may be unavoidable, because they have so many more slots at 50 than at 30. But I wonder if there isn't some adjustments needed. In the meantime, my suggestion would be to form your own teams and specify that you want toons level 45 and under (or whatever range you pick). I think if you specify SO's only, your pool will be too small. But by restricting the level range, you'll get more players who are fighting at their natural level.

I only clicked this thread because I saw Crasical's icon and wanted to check to see if I was seeing it right (I was). But since I'm here. Flaming Doom Monkey (Shield/MA tank) is going to easily be the last monkey standing... but I'm pretty sure the arena, the city, and a good portion of the county this showdown takes place in will be destroyed in the process.

Assassin's strike is the biggest hit in the game. This is true no matter what level you are or what powerset you chose. You're hitting for 25% of a Rikti boss's health? Sounds about right. The game gets harder at your level. IMHO, It actually gets easier at level 45+ because you get more enhancement slots and can really shore up your defenses and powers. Plus you have a better income to buy IO sets if you're not getting influence from other toons. But right now you're nearing that peak of the difficulty curve.

1. Great story! Here's my great story. 2. Great story! Defenders suck.

I spend most of my time running Task Forces. ITF, MLTF, LRSF, LGTF, Market Crash, and Tin Mage+Apex run all run pretty often.

Yeah.. sticking with my main EM/EA stalker. Not sure what I pull slots out, but I'm sure I'd work it out.

Energy Melee rework. It allowed me to make a toon, I always wanted and have it not be relatively weak compared to my other toons. And the whole last update with Dr Aeon and such to give us new difficulty standards. An honerable mention to the implementation of stances so I could stay in ninja run and/or beast run animations while using other movement powers.

Actually, I agree with this. But they're a temporary boost, lasting just 1 minute each with a maximum inventory of 20. So that's supposed to be balance out their power. Allowing them to be emailed to yourself effectively removes the balance factor completely. That is the bigger issue. Rebalancing them by adjusting their boost value or duration might be a second thing to consider. Also, just reiterating, I don't really care very strongly on this subject either way. After all these years, I'm content with leaving the broken things broken. But let's not pretend it's not broken.

Using a work around to get virtually unlimited access to something that is not intended to be an unlimited resource is literally meeting the definition of game breaking. Do I care? Not in the slightest. But IMHO, anyone who objects to GM's fixing an obvious exploit deserves to be disappointed.

PUGs generally always finish in under 25 minutes. Sometimes quite a bit faster. And they form pretty quickly as well. Solo's not the way to go. But more important than that... only some of those HamiOs are expensive. You don't get an expensive one every time you do a run. I've never done the math, but I usually take the merits.

I've always wanted a throwing set: shirkens, granades (or exploding shirkens), etc. Attacks should include debuffs and light control powers. Green Goblin would be my basic model... flying skateboard/scooter included. But add a staff strapped to my back, that I pull out when I jump off the scooter and enter full acrobat/melee mode. This game doesn't really meet the model/engine requirements, but the concept in my head would play like a dominator but with better tools to mimic the mobility of the flying scooter.

Imagine, it's 2022, and there's a genuinely free game without ads.

Just to clarify to the TLDW people... PG had no complaints about game changes. He mentioned the no streaming thing of course. He was a streamer after all. But the rest was just personal drama and burnout.

For some reason, in the 90s I developed a habit of using the numpad for movement and my left hand for powers... and I never stopped doing that. I never got into 1st person shooters, and I went many years playing on a laptop without a mouse, so it's worked for me all these years. I bring this up because with this setup, my left hand manages only attacks and powers, and my thumb jumps. It can basically just sit in 1 spot tapping out my attack chain (for example: 432431 432431 432431 ... ) while my right hand does all the moving, targeting, and following. I don't know if that helps you, but it helps me.

The most important thing is to not die. As I understand it, if you die, Tyrant's (regen or resists?) increases. This is how attempts fail. Too many deaths so that the DPS is no longer able overcome the regen. Thus, not dying is more important than doing damage. The thing that most people die from is the "crackles." When the warning comes, back away, stop attacking and keep moving until you see where the crackles of lighting are are, and you can see you're not in one. Don't rejoin the fight until they're gone. As you become better at identifying the crackles, you might be able to position strategically to sneak in some shots, but really it's best not to risk death. One additional point. Pop the ultimates first, so that when you cast lores, etc, buffs, they're cast as level 54 and not level 53.

Melee attacks... the winter one has +5 in 5 slots... Kinetic Combat has 3.75 in 4 slots. I sometimes slot brawl as a pure set mule if I don't have enough melee attacks.

Yeah.. scorpion shield was going to be my answer (from mace epic). I was surprised that I had to scroll down this far to find it. Generally my blasters go for 45 ranged defense and 45 Smash/Lethal... and I usually end up with 45 energy because scorpion shield and ranged IOs add to that. I've considered using the Ice shield instead of mace shield, but I don't like the graphic, and energy is actually pretty common. If you really want ultimate survivability in a blaster, hover out of melee with the above mentioned defenses. It's not really a great option for Dual Pistols, but for survivability, it's ridiculous. A few years ago I used this setup to solo LRSF and MsLTF and many other stupid things on a beam/devices blaster.

In a few rare cases, I use an alt build to make a build specific for exemplaring down below the point where I no longer have a full attack chain with my main build.

Bah. We're not really that toxic. We'd probably get sidetracked by spinning off into a pun fight with swearing.

I've usually spent so much time tweaking in mids that I have it memorized, and then I still have it open in a window next to me, and I still mess up a lot and backtrack... and then I see something I want to change in the order I take the powers, and backtrack again. And then after I'm done respec'ing I change my mind and respec again.

I've never doubted the way the system assigns tohit %s. I've often doubted the randomness of the game's RNG.

I don't know... Ingrid sounds like she'd be a lot of fun... and I do love hueg SWOLE. Are you sure I can't click the link?

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but whenever I come across a game with perfectly balanced powers. I hate it. I spend all my time min-maxing and never find anything that puts me ahead of the curve.

That's the thing with this game though, right? I mean... it was gone for 7 years... And I had already left a year or so before it disappeared. But, in those 8-9 years I was away, trying other games, other hobbies, I never found what I was looking for. Ultimately, I realized the thing I was looking for was another CoH. And, I never found it. That is, until I did find exactly what I was looking for, right here.