Luminara

Apparently, the answer to the question of what we're going to do with Empyreans in the future is... hijack threads with pointless, off-topic arguments about farming. 🙄

Hercules and Zeus Titans, and the Council/5th Column large robots, to name a few, have hit boxes which can't be passed through after they're defeated. I've been trapped in rooms by their hit boxes, forced to wait for them to completely despawn, one time too many and I'm here to bitch about it. Bitch bitch, moan, natter, gripe and groan. Now fix them. Please. Or I'll complain more.

Some napkin math: Assault: 0.39 endurance/second One Schedule A EndRdx SO = 0.39/(1+0.33)=0.293 endurance/second Two Schedule A EndRdx SOs = 0.39/(1+0.66)=0.235 endurance/second One Schedule D EndRdx SO = 0.39/(1+0.60)=0.244 endurance/second One Schedule A EndRdx level 50 IO = 0.39/(1+0.425)=0.274 endurance/second Two Schedule A EndRdx level 50 IOs = 0.39/(1+0.8332)=0.213 endurance/second One Schedule D EndRdx level 50 IO = 0.39/(1+0.764)=0.221 endurance/second Bonus: two Schedule D EndRdx level 50 IOs = 0.39/(1+1.4896)=0.157 endurance/second Dragon's Tail (dominator): 15.18 endurance One Schedule A EndRdx SO = 15.18/(1+0.33)=11.414 endurance Two Schedule A EndRdx SO = 15.18/(1+0.66)=9.145 endurance One Schedule D EndRdx SO = 15.18/(1+0.60)=9.488 endurance One Schedule A EndRdx level 50 IO = 15.18/(1+0.425)=10.653 endurance Two Schedule A EndRdx level 50 IOs = 15.18/(1+0.8332)=8.281 endurance One Schedule D EndRdx level 50 IO = 15.18/(1+0.764)=8.605 endurance Bonus: two Schedule D EndRdx level 50 IOs = 15.18/(1+1.4896)=6.097 endurance In a 4-attrib IO which includes EndRdx, changing the EndRdx attrib to Schedule D increases it from 18.6% to 33.4%, roughly equivalent to a current Schedule A SO. 3-attrib IOs with EndRdx would increase from 21.2% to 38.2%. And in a 2-attrib IO, it would go from 26.5% to 47.8%. With single attribute SOs and IOs, one SO or IO on Schedule D is almost as effective as two Schedule A SOs or IOs. Two level 50 IOs on Schedule D would reduce any endurance cost to barely more than a third of the base cost, without going into red for ED. I think gaining the Endurance Reduction of two current SOs or IOs with a single enhancement is too much. The end result would be Endurance becoming an irrelevant stat, something no-one has to pay any attention to, at all, even if the player isn't actively pursuing Endurance Reduction. Endurance cost is part of the balance equation for every power, so the developers would almost certainly be adjusting powers to compensate. It would also free up a lot of slots for a lot of builds, imposing a significant jump in power creep across the board, leading to more revisions. And I think it would skew IO set balance (some sets, like Obliteration, are designed to trade Endurance Reduction for other attributes), requiring a significant balance pass to redress that. I don't see this happening. You might be able to make a case for Schedule C, but not D.

Noob. 😛

I didn't know Depends caused torpor. Huh.

👆

I e-mailed myself once. I sent a nastygram back so I'd stop bothering myself. Seems to have worked.

This much. *holds up fingers*

It's team-oriented content, so I haven't experienced any of it. If/when it comes to solo content, I won't bother with it. I did the "hard mode" thing in I5, when I played a Kin/Elec defender with pool melee attacks instead of blasts, and I6, when I soloed a TA/A to 50. I'm not doing it again.

I didn't. I pointed out the functional difference between powers which allow players to crit or position for optimal attack, with powers which improve their survivability. Had I been comparing "armor" to debuffs, I would've reiterated what I said several pages ago, when I did directly compare the limitations of offensive toggles with the lack of limitations on self-affecting toggles. I can do that now, if you've forgotten, or if you'd like to throw another wild presumption out for me to demolish with facts. And none of what you're saying now is relevant to the post to which I responded. You claimed that it's perfectly fine for offensive toggles to be nerfed because Hide/Stealth have a delayed reactivation. That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because critters see through Hide/Stealth when they're aggroed. It doesn't matter if you're out of combat long enough for Hide/Stealth to resume if you still have aggro because the critters which are aggroed on you don't drop aggro. Hide/Stealth aren't "armor", they're pre-combat positioning tools, combat avoidance tools, and Hide is a tool for bonus spike damage. It's not a data point of any pertinence to the topic, that topic being debuff/control toggles which aid the character in staying upright long enough to finish the fight. You simply jumped on the Hide/Stealth delay period as a talking point and made a completely fallacious claim that they were comparable. They aren't, in the same way Darkest Night isn't comparable to Incandescent Strike. Those powers may both have a 3.432s animation time, but they have different purposes and functions. It is a nerf. We previously had control over our offensive toggles, now we don't. We could decide to turn a toggle back on immediately, now we can't. We could choose to activate a different offensive toggle, one which we weren't using, now we can't. We could opt to leave the toggles off, now we have to stop and turn them off ourselves because they'll come back on even if we don't want them. We have reduced survivability and less flexibility, in exchange for... not having to press a key to turn a toggle back on. That's a nerf, and deliberately misrepresenting people as being short-sighted or unwilling to adapt when they point out that it's a nerf doesn't change the fact that it is a nerf.

The functionality of Hide/Stealth is entirely different in this context. Hide allows crits. Stealth gives players the opportunity to optimize the conditions of an imminent combat situation in their favor. They're not improving the player's survivability, they're improving the player's combat effectiveness. Moreover, they're binary. Hiding or Stealthing isn't a "chance to" not be spotted (yes, some critters have higher Perception, many Stealth powers have a lower than melee range Stealth radius, but that doesn't change the fact that they're binary). They don't reduce the enemy hit roll unless there's a +Def value attached to the power (before you jump on that, check the +Def on Stealth IOs). They don't reduce enemy damage output. They don't perform a hit check, they don't give critters a XX% chance to see the character, they don't check versus a "chance to" to determine whether critters are affected. Toggle damage mitigation is not a combat effectiveness tool, it's a survivability tool, and it's not binary in that context. It doesn't guarantee an outcome when used. The enemy affected by a ToHit debuff toggle can still land an attack. The enemy with a Damage debuff toggle affecting it doesn't deal 0 damage. The enemy standing in the control PBAoE toggle radius isn't guaranteed to be mezzed. And toggle damage mitigation doesn't directly improve a player's combat effectiveness. There are no crits granted by Snow Storm. Time's Juncture doesn't give a player the ability to sneak into the center of a spawn for optimal positioning, or waltz to the last room in a mission with zero aggro. Lightning Field doesn't force the AI to break combat momentarily so the player can gain a sudden advantage mid-combat. Comparing functionally different things simply because they happen to be toggles is like comparing a moped to an M1 Abrams.

Martial Assault. It's fast, it has enough AoE to make me happy, I feel like I'm in Gotham when I'm playing. Damage is anemic without a lot of work (had to use Assault, Assault Radial Embodiment (for the 10% +Damage, i don't click it because i don't like large swings in efficiency), Musculature Radial Epiphany, 23% +Damage from IO set bonuses and Ascendency of the Dominator Rchg/Chance for 14.2% +Dam), but it feels well worth the time invested to get there. Staff Melee. I got two nice cones and an AoE (where it's at). It's not fast, but it doesn't feel slow. Even the T9 doesn't feel slow. Love the animations. Willpower. I'm lazy. This is a lazy person's damage mitigation solution. Match made in heaven. Dark Blast (defender). Did I mention, I'm lazy? Solid -ToHit debuffs applied while attacking, two birds, one stone. Can make an entire chain out of two cones and the snipe, perfect for wiping entire spawns off of the map without moving an inch. Trick Arrows. There isn't much you can't do with it. I try other sets and always end up coming back to TA. I don't play archetypes according to roles or expectations, so I can't put a finger on one and say it's my favorite. If a set piques my interest, I play it, and if the archetype doesn't inherently support the way I want to play that set, I find a way to make it work.

Eh. Green Arrow was a Batman knock-off for a long time. Arrow Cave. Arrowmobile. Arrowplane. Then the writers started taking the character more seriously, from the end of '69 onward. He lost everything, changing the character's outlook and bringing some seriousness to the books. Then the controversial Speedy issue ran, which put even more distance between the Batman-clone origins and the more modern take. Today's Green Arrow is far more interesting than the original version. He's differentiated from other superheroes not by the fact that he's "just a guy with a bow and arrows", but by his political and social perspective. Very. Batman rich, in keeping with the "Batman, WITH A BOW!" schtick. Right up to late '69, then he was a pauper. He regained a lot of wealth over the years, but remained humbled by what he experienced as a poor person.

DC has a Skulls gang in Gotham (never figured out how they avoided a lawsuit over that. or The Council (two in DC). or Nemesis (again, two in DC)). The Family = Intergang. Carnival of Shadows = Jokerz (Batman Beyond). Tsoo = League of Assassins. Mooks = Black Mask Malta = Checkmate/A.R.G.U.S. Warriors = Mutants (The Dark Knight Returns). That's all I can think of at the moment.

Only if you don't vendorize it.

$0.05! Cough it up!

You can have poof gone. I'll fight you for poofgone. Put 'em up! 😠 🤜🤛

Anything sold to a vendor disappears forever. Poof gone. Everything which can be sold to a vendor is created on the fly by the game engine. There aren't piles of SOs, recipes, salvage, whatever, sitting in a secret warehouse, shipping out to characters every time they receive a drop or make a purchase from a vendor, it doesn't exist at all, as anything more than a number in a table, until the very instant when it's created. Poof exist. Whether it's economically better or worse would require an analysis of all relevant factors. Total items created per unit of time, number of items vendorized in that unit of time, total inf* generated by vendorizing those items within that unit of time, number of created items listed at the market per unit of time, total inf* exchanged for created items sold per unit of time, amount of inf* poofgoned by market fees per unit of time... you get the gist. What you do with your stuff now is likely of no great consequence, as there are a couple thousand players all doing their own things with their own stuff, and that tends to create a balancing effect. Vendorize away, someone else is almost always packing the market with the same things you're vendorizing, keeping prices low, tipping the scales back to center. Mmm... vendorize... I like it! I'm going to need a nickel every time someone uses that, m'kay? Oh, poofgone as a verb is mine, too. Anyone who uses it without my permission will be poofgoned.

My Dark/Martial and Grav/Fire dominators are both at 150% global +Recharge without Hasten or the Increase Attack Speed empowerment buff, Domination on auto. The Dark/Martial also has Link Minds bound to mouse4... and I frequently forget to activate it, which is why I don't take Hasten on dominators (or any character with even a single long recharge click buff that i'd set to auto). I log in to play, not to watch timers.

Ah, I understand now. An early production photo showing the head design before it was altered is all the proof you need. You're comfortable disregarding everything established as canon in the continuity of the films because you have a picture of the helmet without the opaque dome added when they decided to change the design. Cool beans, I'll stop throwing down real science and citing actual film content. 👍

That isn't a skull, it's head comprised of soft gooey bits inside an external structure. Like a beetle. Hard bits on the outside. Skulls are internal structures. The human-Xenomorph hybrid in Alien Resurrection had a skull. Hard bits on the inside. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoskeleton <- Exo. External. Outside. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endoskeleton <- Endo. Internal. Inside. Yes, it could be argued that life on some other planet could have developed both an exoskeletal and endoskeletal structure, but that argument would fall flat on its face because it would present a number of unsolvable problems. First, it's a horribly wasteful expenditure of resources, and evolutionary progress is always represented by the most energy-efficient result. This is true regardless of planet, conditions, anything. Energy efficiency is key to evolution, and to all biological life known or speculated. Anything which is inefficient at using energy is out-competed by more energy-efficient organisms. That's a given, because the ability to use energy, be it from radiation (sunlight), simple digestion of less advanced life (cows eating grass), or predators eating prey (om nom nom), is what permits life to continue. Poor energy usage results in death. An entire species which develops with poor energy usage dies out, while more efficient species thrive. Anything which did evolve in this manner would become extinct within a few generations. Second, the added weight and physical limitations of a dual skeletal system is absolutely unsuitable for any predatory creature, in any environment. Such a predator would be out-competed by faster and more nimble species. It would be deprived of resources by more efficient hunters. This adaptation would be more suitable for prey animals, as they tend to respond to predatory tactics by becoming harder to kill in some manner, but the same limitations which make it unsuitable for predators would impose the same problems for prey animals (and, again, not energy-efficient from an evolutionary perspective. simply evolving to move more quickly, change environments (swim or fly) or improve one skeletal structure or the other would result in a superior organism). Such a species would be incapable of evading predators and move too slowly to compete for resources with other prey species. Third, even as an engineered form of life, as is shown in Prometheus, the engineering is still dependent evolutionary and biological limitations laid out in points one and two. A Xenomorph with an endoskeleton and exoskeleton would not be capable of moving as lithely and quickly as depicted, they'd be heavy, slow, and cumbersome, and its growth stages would require so much energy that it would starve before it achieved maturity. And a predatory species, even bio-engineered, would have no need for multiple skeletal structures. There are no benefit to be gained by adding a second skeleton, only detriments. And fourth, as I already noted, they're very specifically and clearly depicted as having exoskeletons in Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection. In all of these films, their heads are shown to be comprised of a shell of chitinous or similar substance, not a bony skull inside a leathery layer. At best, Xenomorphs could be argued as having a cartilaginous internal structure, thus a cartilaginous "skull", similar to sharks, but even that would be an enormous stretch of believability when taking evolution, biology and the actual purpose of such a structure into question when the organism already has an exoskeleton. All it would do is add weight, increase energy requirements and make it less efficient as a predator/weapon. It's not a skull. Period.

They never should've been made. I don't say that from the perspective of someone critical of the films (i've never watched any of them), but because Xenomorphs were established as exoskeletal creatures in Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection. Exoskeletal. Skulls are endoskeletal structures. Xenomorphs don't have skulls. They don't have any bones. The skull on display in the Predator ship in Predator 2 couldn't have come from them. So the entire AvP franchise exists because the writers were morons, the directors were idiots and the producers were even dumber. Makes me want to punch everyone involved with the franchise.