Olly

I've used the mail-in insps for soloing the MLTFs, and in general I think in the grand scale of "things that ruin other people's fun", it's really low on the totem pole. You have 20 inspiration slots on the tray. Say you use two at a time for 1-minute buffs. That's 10 minutes of buffs. Email will add another, say, 100 insps, or 50 minutes worth of buffs using the same assumption. Any team with more than 3 members, that is, "other people" will not need more than the inspiration tray to take down an AV: You're more likely to have the group quit on you rather than taking the time to plan out how to get your email filled with all the insps you and your teammates want There is already the "no insps" challenge setting if people really want it as part of their challenge Better buffs exist (ie temp pet powers, incarnate powers) when you have more than 3 people It will cost you a good amount of influence (say, 100 x 50,000 per large insp = 5 million inf) to use this "I Win" button for one boss My feel of it, is that it's exceedingly pointless to use the email exploit outside of a very small set of scenarios, of which I can't imagine any that would intentionally involve a team, which, again, is literally 'other people'. So if other people aren't there, I don't think you could ruin their fun. No doubt, it's an exploit, but there are worse in-game mechanics that are easier to enable if you want to change the game for people who are playing it with you.

To clarify my post and others -- I read this as people talking about exemping to lower levels *after* they hit 50 and get their IO's and slots. I don't think anyone has actually said "you can do it at level X prior to hitting 50". I might be wrong, and if so, would like to see the clarification.

Taking some of the points above and a few more: Were great for farming but now brutes are more efficient Had a ton of damage with multiple imps, now limited to 3 -- other AT's now better to solo with No one (really) needs stamina in teams any more -- other AT's now more team friendly No one (really) needs heals in teams any more -- debuffing AT's now more popular Doesn't really seem to get much of a buff from Incarnates or new IO sets as much as other AT's, making other AT's superior for content when Incarnate powers are available

From my experience, you need to be level 50 because you need all the slots to IO for +recharge. Perma-PA is actually a pretty tight build, so you may want to consider builds that are 2-4 seconds off and consider using Phantasm or Ageless incarnate as a patch. The easiest secondaries would be /kin or /rad or /time on account of their +recharge powers. Maybe elec also. I've heard good things about +time, but have never tried it. Mid's will be a must, and basically just slot until you get PA's recharge time to 58 seconds or less.

On +4/x8 without bugging out Romy on the last mish, I think you're pretty much hosed, Maybe if you have at AT that can significantly drop the AV regen rate. Afaik, ill/ice/ice controller which has beastly -regen, for example. Note that AT combo is the best for -regen, stats wise. I think Frosticus posted on the controller forums he did it no insps/temps/death, but I don't know if he bugged Romy out or not. I think Werner's also done it with his brute build as well, you'll have to search the brute forums for that one to see if he did it without temps or Romy bug. tldr: Without temps and bugging on +4/x8, seems unlikely. With bugging +4/x8, maybe with very specific ATs and builds. Speculating -regen being the most critical component.

Some good news: https://www.polygon.com/22739982/dune-2-release-date-announcement

Yeah I think there's also a possible situation wherein if the incoming DPS is too high, it triggers the running. Certain for adds, not sure for AV's. Debuffs can make it easier to trigger that event, I suppose. You tanked a MoSTF with a controller??? On Live?? Balls! Hot Feet, iirc yes for adds, but not sure for AV's.

Iirc @Frosticus had some great ill/cold builds. I based one of mine on his posts. A brief comparison of my build vs. yours: I used Ice Mastery; frozen armor + ice storm. Hibernate is nice for solo, too. Iirc Frosticus used Earth for the KB on his offense build, and Psionic for defensive. Took Ice Shield but not Glacial. Debuff from Ice Storm I feel helps more than another shield. I also don't care about teams as much Superior invisibility instead of afterburner. For stealthing to end bosses, and as a mule for Luck of the Gambler Unfortunately I don't have a Mid's of my current build. Think I ran it through beta, was happy with the results, then dropped it and forgot to actually finish it. I'll post one I was tinkering with earlier this year. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1467;707;1414;HEX;| |78DA65944D4F13511486EF6DA760698142F9148102966229A503F8B13311D0A0909| |090E846AD133A858943A7768AD1A50BF78A31A83151178268E2C28592B030BA70E7| |1F30FE04F950DCB830F538EFA190CCA4CD33F7BDE7DC73EE7B6766EAD658F0EDB93| |BA7850C8D9A9A6DA747AD5CB16099A65EF04D6973C6ACA02B307C2A1AB107CD4846| |CF56D2B8673F682F3E39619A8BB661E5F684CE03316716B3D9E4A86566D263D6829| |1D38A142702D316A59D358DB9F962AD733FA96B19BD60CF1BF92A673C93D7F54C3D| |C2ACC2AC9EB6B2E94B8669D68FE78DD9E44CD1CAE9E929CD2EEA85DB2DD45594FEC| |FA4E0ABA48884470855119E01661254069929F07A7539C72B3E91165644D747E667| |C41CFD023EA7F5A553A3E4931ADDB42B2234EE75E69A2610D3B2204115E38E04E65| |F90EC451D9F57C35CC565F0D015E655B02ACDBC06FAC9761F723DBE6FD082DFC19A| |46D4ABA3984AF4E6A964AD260476348026EDD58F75849F6372A405580BB016A6B5A| |AB196A85E439D6ED26AA1C9DA7E82EA1721E64BD2EB786F75DB88AFDF61FE041B7E| |3177C1A6DF609EEA87B9EF30D7EF6A81B7BDCDA0DD2744239F6B239F517C03F903E| |F991F98EBE022E534F35935DFE5737C4AC398220697998F988F41F509B84279AD9C| |DBBA82F33BBCCA7C051E5963BE063BDE8037683F6DEC679BE38F226E522FEDD064F| |B2EE2D4BFC2D9DB2AD5E9E4E7AF93BD8BB07711F62EC2DEFDA0D46EF6B9FB24B49E| |21E6307384F77A1CEC3D0116A8AF28EF29BAC2FEBE83DFB1AF888955781D3DE6F13| |9E3F83AFAFF1314A28FFDEF7BA838DAB17BCCFBCC2530FE00DCA4A5FA51CFDB7F01| |7B4EF0F926F8794CF0F369536F49211D7F92EC991A01B72835C57EA686D873A5FCC| |ED28FAEFF4DEF29A5B86B36E552549732EC52465CCAA44B992645B2221DC51F2ABF| |E7A5CDAAF2F78267B7F71529CF4BE7690B5E840B5BAEE89D83D1CBFCCD5802FF01C| |524F25F| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Rommy won't run away on me if I'm ground-based on my scrapper, either. *BUT* he will go bat crazy if I activate hover on that same scrapper. And of course, if someone is laying doing sleet / rain of fire / other similar powers, then yes, they will run away unless taunted. It's been like that forever, people mostly sort it out. Don't think it's ever going to get fixed.

Jesus that game. I tried it maybe 20 years ago now. (It was old back then too) Think I got tired of dying. It was really amazing how I could get involved with ASCII-based graphics. Currently missing CoH time because of: Remnant from the Ashes Titan Quest Anniversary Edition (was free on Steam, now I'm spending time on it)

Just saw this movie. Awesome and definitely recommend watching it. It is more thoughtful than it looks while keeping everything humming / rock smashing along.

Sorry if necro. I've owned a mechanical keyboard for ~2 years now, never had to replace a switch. In general, the keyboard vendors advertise the expected lifetime of the switches. iirc Cherry MX are ~50-100 million key presses ("actuations"). Gaterons ~ 50 million, and Kailh ~50 million. Redragon keyboards use Kailhs, which are the cheapest of the three and consistently ranked below Cherry and Gaterons in keyboard reviews. The market for mechanical keyboards is ridiculous, in my opinion. Some keyboards cost upwards of $200 and I've even seen $500 ones. For my part, I spent ~ $100 on a Coolermaster TK Storm (Cherry brown) and it's perfectly ok. I installed o-rings to dampen the sound, but otherwise I'm happy with it. I'd love to buy a new keyboard to try out, but haven't been able to justify *why*. Looking at Gaterons at the moment. For the guy that posted on model M type keyboards, there's a vendor that makes it in this style: pckeyboard.com

Soloing the ITF on normal difficulty isn't too hard. +4/x8 is where it can get beastly. Either way, some hints: In general: buy P2W buffs and pets. envenomed daggers are a must-have unless you feel like super-hard mode. The power analyzer is also nice to monitor the AV's regen and make sure it stays floored. Make use of SG resistance buffs for the appropriate damage types. Make sure your positional or type-based defense is above 45% If you're ranged or using hover, Rommy and Requiem tend to randomly run away. So bring and spam an immob power to avoid chasing them all over the map, while they happily regen their health. Incarnates, depending on your preferences: Assault for dmg or Melee for resistances, Barrier or Ageless, and Degen or Diamagnetic depending on your build. I tend to go Longbow and Cryonic no matter what AT I'm using. Learning to pull 1 AV at a time is helpful You are more likely to survive if you know how to "bug out" Rommy and the nictus on the last mission. Your goal is to prevent the nictus from locking on to Rommy, so that they don't follow him around. To do that, you need to go to the edge of the cutscene without triggering it. Once triggered, you need to get to Rommy's spot before he does. Get there, wait a beat or two, grab Rommy aggro, and hope the nictus dont follow. Somewhere in my old posts there's an essay on soloing STF, which also has hints that can be generalised for any solo TF attempts. Good luck!

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/atxdcb/what_free_software_is_so_good_you_cant_believe/

Short answer, the data says maybe. Holding all else equal: Benumb (120 sec): -500% Regeneration for 30s (all affected targets) Heat Exhaustion (120s): -500% Regeneration for 40s (all affected targets) EMP Arrow (300 sec): -500% Regeneration for 45s (all affected targets) The challenge is the recharge time of EMP arrow. With IO's and Incarnates, Benumb and HE can get down to 60 sec cast times, meaning you can keep the AV under this debuff for about 50%, with other -regen debuffs making it close to perma. So unless TA has some serious -res powers to make up that extra regen time, it wouldn't handle it as well.

Definitely not a ranged build. It has minimal defense, and built for tf damage + recharge. The idea is to hit bonfire w/ +recharge proc asap and between infernos. I stock up on purple insps and slot barrier + melee incarnates if it's a high level TF.

Fire/* is ahead in terms of damage. I main a fire/fire; and played an ice/fire (another viable build). I also tried beam/sonic which ended up being purely ranged. Low dps but effective debuffer. Fire/fire/fire spoils me and I can't get behind any other blaster combo. I play a lot of TF's on this toon, and it's effective from Posi all the way to STF and beyond. However, fire/fire lacks mitigation, and it took me quite some time (and influence) to figure out how not to die. If you're feeling hesitant, other fire/* combos will have more mitigation, but fire/fire once you've got it tuned to your playstyle should give you the most literal bang for your buck. Note: I've been meaning to build a fire/em which I consider *the* blapper king, but haven't gotten around to it. P.S. Have a little more love for the science projects. They're usually the ones that also work great when playing with others.

Did I miss something? This is a fire/em build, not ice/fire.

@Snarky -- take note of Sovera's comment. When people talk about 500-900 dps, they are talking about pylon damage dps. CoH doesn't have any good tools or mods that will effectively calculate DPS. So people do it "the old fashioned way" and hit the pylons in RWZ. And since this has turned into a blaster DPS thread, @Galaxy Brain has this tool: Blaster Primary Comparison: Standard Environment Testing - Blaster - Homecoming

From your numbers, you're looking to get ~ 500% increase in dps. Not a math guy either but here's how I could see it done: Stack debuffs. -res -regen and -def all in some way will effectively increase dps. Use Incarnate powers. Some powers offer up to +40% damage. Other powers will add additional debuffs. Increase recharge rate to up your Build Up power, which does +100% (?) damage increase for 10 seconds. Add IO's which add +% damage. On my blaster, IO's alone does +225% damage without me using any active powers Slot Assault Slot procs like Gaussians and Decimation Chance for Build Up (tho I can't recall if those uniquely increase acc only or both acc + damage) Use powers that don't require clicks; aka dots. Fire's Burn for example, can tick for 200 dps. Also, FYI as a blaster, procs are not as effective since your base damage bonus is higher than support AT's. Look at Bopper's posts on Procs and you should be able to follow his logic on this.

Came in here to say I've seen this again. This time just while standing around waiting for a TF to start. This was yesterday or day before.

This has disappeared since update this(?) week for me. Will re-post if I notice it comes back.

Doors? I wasn't paying attention as to why Manticore TF adds were discovering me, but maybe doors? Next time I run a Manti (god knows when), I will post here with some more info. I do know when I switched off auras, and switched from "Invisibility" to super speed + sprint (celerity stealth), I was once again "invisible".

I'd +1 the comments that say you should wait a while for your toons to mature to at least L40 before you permanently trash them. Keep in mind a lot of people will run task forces and such with level 50 and/or fully spec'd out characters and ofc your toon at true level and common IO's will look plain jane. Secondly, w.r.t. to Scourge, I play it as a "death blow" mechanic. Most blasters will pop their Tier 9 powers and won't one-shot mobs. Toss an aoe damage dealer and with scourge, the remaining adds should be toast. Lastly, I run a fire/cold corr atm, and apparently kins get all the love because of awesome sauce transfusion --- no one ever comments how I'm stacking three -res debuffs and a -def or sometimes 2x -def on mobs making everything melt that much faster. Such is the life of a support toon. +1 for time (+defense to your team) and thermal (good mix of debuffs, buffs, and heal) reco's; I have both on a defender and controller respectively. Cold is nice, but god the end drain and also lack of team heals + buffs might make your teammates sad. Little do they know you're brutally debuffing to their benefit...

Interrupts. A couple of other MMO games I play, this is a great mechanic to add challenge to the gameplay. Specifically, have an AV charge up a power, and you need to have a power that will interrupt it. Kind of like Dr. Aoen and the thorn tree; or Khan with the dimensional ray. But I'd like to see it as maybe a set of P2W or defender/tank powers that interrupts massive damage, holds/immobs, or debuffs from multiple enemy NPCs. And not just applied once in a fight, but the need to apply it multiple times. Missing the interrupt would actuallly need healz.. imagine that. I think I'd rather see smarter/faster enemies that challenge ppl to hop around far more than we currently have to. I recognise this playstyle may make other ppl feel excluded, so I wouldn't want to attach it to any unique rewards. Just strictly for increasing variety of challenge.