Luminara

That's basically it. Can't access pet or pseudo-pet information on it, but the rest of it is there. The complete data package (all info for all powers, including pets) is still available as a download on City of Titans, somewhere (forum post), though, if anyone wants to use it to build a new site.

Everything can be viewed as binary, from a certain perspective. You either have enough health, or you don't. Or endurance. Or damage. Defense is definitely binary, you're either avoiding hits, or being hit. But I grasp your intent. It would be more interesting, from a gameplay perspective, if status effects were more like scaled debuffs. Slows scaling up to immobilizations, immobilizations scaling up to holds, as effects stacked, for instance. The problems, though... In players' hands, it would actually be detrimental to several ATs, as it would essentially change a primary form of immediate damage mitigation to delayed "if you live long enough" mitigation. Controllers, as an entire AT, would become mega-defenders, which would make debuffing defenders and corruptors all but obsolete. Dominators would have a significantly more difficult experience, as they're reliant on the immediacy of their controls. And which soft control debuffs would stack to create which controls, and what do you do with the ones you can't crowbar together? And if debuffs require two or applications to scale up to status effects, is there any purpose to NPCs using them at all? They won't provide any actual threat or require player response. A slow won't prevent a player from generating an enormous upper hand in a fight against NPCs. Neither will an immobilization. So the AI has to be reworked, and NPCs overhauled with more, and more dangerous, ranged attacks, because there has to be some kind of threat mechanic (and i don't mean aggro) to engage the players. I'll even posit that the debuffs applied would have to be reworked, to include other debuffs, just to give them weight. That stacking slow would have to have a massive -recharge attached, for example, or, again, it's simply not worth paying attention to. The inevitable result would be piles of -ToHit, -defense, -recharge, whatever it took to make the stacking debuffs threatening enough to keep players from ignoring them completely... and players would be up in arms over that in short order. The system we have, binary though it may be, is about as good as it can be made without being even more irritating, or less forgiving. It's not the most creative solution Cryptic could have implemented, but it works, in the sense that it poses a sufficient challenge to players to keep them engaged, but can be countered in enough ways to prevent it from being instantly overwhelming.

Unless some significant changes were made when the new servers were started, all "squishie" ATs already had a plethora of options related to being afflicted with status effects. All of the control and buff/debuff primaries and secondaries have status effects, buffs and debuffs, which can be used to pre-emptively prevent mez. Controllers, dominators and masterminds have pets which can soak up status effects, and some defender and blaster pets and pseudo-pets can, too. Blasters can continue firing their tier 1 and 2 blasts while mezzed. And that still doesn't include the buffs, debuffs or controls available in APPs, or IO set bonuses, or Incarnate stuff. Oh, and extreme range with snipes, as well as other high damage attacks which can defeat mezzers before aggro. And isn't there typically only one really threatening critter in each spawn? One sapper, one mezzer, etc. Target, destroy, clean up on Aisle 4.

The day ED went live, I wanted to know just how "bad" a character could possibly be, and defender melee attack values were the lowest possible, so I made a Kin/Elec defender and played without blasts. I used pool melee attacks instead. Leveled her to 50. Went to Hami raids. Engaged in a taunt fight with a tank and actually peeled an AV off of him and tanked it. Twice. Fought Adamastor solo and dropped him to 50% health (didn't die, just took so long to get that far, didn't want to finish, so i left). The people who insist that there are sets which are unplayable, or should be avoided because they're "underpowered", are speaking from one of two perspectives - either an obsession with having the absolute highest stats possible and utter disdain for anything else, in which case their opinions are biased and irrelevant; or the players themselves are so bad at this game that even with set bonuses and Incarnate abilities, they fall flat on their faces when they try to play anything but top performers, and blame the game for their lack of competence. Everything works well. Every set is completely viable. Playing something simply because you find it visually appealing isn't wrong, or masochistic. Enjoy it. That's exactly how the game was designed to work and you're "doin' it right".

Gazebro. And Gazebra. And a base named The Gazoobo, where wild gazebos are kept on public display.

They're outlaws, they have piles of parts and access to warehouses all over the city, and they'd kit themselves out with 5.2L V12s if they could. They're bootleggers, and that's moonshine. One of the hipster Freaks probably made the label.

At level 50, around 55 mph with one extra slot in Hurdle and a few set bonuses. With multiple set bonuses and another slot, 60-62 mph. If I recall correctly, Ninja Run and Beast Run are faster, but I don't have access to the stats. Swift/Sprint are significantly slower, even together, and with maximal slotting and set bonuses. Bunny hopping or using Ninja/Beast Run, those are your options.

Megamind's foe, Metroman, grew weary of being a hero, decided to pursue a life as a musician instead. Megamind took over, became the new defender of Metrocity... sorry, Metro City, after falling in love. Gru learned to care. He was initially quite dastardly, but developed a fondness for his orphan girls and discovered a softer side to himself. Generally, one doesn't find portrayals of villains who are evil for the sake of being evil, partially because there's a fear that fiction can inspire action, which leads to most writers exercising restraint; and partially because delving too deeply into that abyss has deleterious effects on the psyche. So most villains are depicted as campy, incompetent or sympathetic. The ones I mentioned are certainly campy and incompetent, but they're bad guys because they like being bad guys. Especially the Bond villains. Even in the Daniel Craig era films, the bad guys seem to take a particular delight in their villainy.

Megamind. Gru. Gallaxhar. Nearly every Bond film villian (as well as satirical takes on the franchise). Some people... or, um, squid... just want to be evil.

Wait... procs go in slots? ... >.> <.< *spits out procs*

Isn't there already a doppelganger system in place? I'm certain I encountered that years ago, both solo and on a team. That system would be comparatively easy to adapt to a nemesis system. Comparatively. I can also speculate with a high of confidence that the long-term goal of that existing doppelganger system was giving players their own arch-enemies. It was a frequent request on the original forums, and the original development team was always keen to deliver features which the majority of players wanted. So, presuming that living in a magical forest hasn't clouded my memory, the real speed bump here is implementation. With the existing doppelganger system copied, modified and set in place to create a unique arch-enemy for each character, how the system is implemented becomes the crucial factor. Does the nemesis have its own story arc and/or task/strike force(s), or does it merely appear in random missions, replacing standard bosses? Would it appear once per level? Three times per level? Once every five levels? How does the doppelganger spawn, meaning, does it respect the player's difficulty setting, or is it always a boss (or EB, or lieutenant, or AV, or...)? Would the defeat of the arch-enemy be a requirement for progression, or would it be something they could skip? Should this "Surprise, it's your nemesis!" foe appear when players are teamed, or exclusive to solo play? If it spawns when a player is teamed, do all teammates potentially spawn arch-enemies? If it spawns as EB or higher when teamed, does that create a sense of resentment and unwelcomeness for players who opted into the system because it poses the threat of wipes or drastic slowdowns? If it's exclusive to solo missions, and both challenging and as awesome as it could be, how does one prevent players from eschewing all team-oriented content in favor of nemesis content? I suspect that it was questions like these which continually pushed a nemesis feature to the back burner, despite existing code which made it possible. I also suspect that a fully-fledged nemesis system would shift the story focus away from the major NPCs and various zones, more toward a single-player style, which would be less enjoyable and applicable in the existing MMO environment. Simply putting a nemesis system in, that should be possible with the doppelganger code. Creating a 1-50 arc is definitely possible. Beyond that, you're looking at redesigning the core content of the game. And you want to be very, very cautious when you dip your toe in that water.

Nemesis would still be applicable. It would be lowercase in use, which would be sufficient to differentiate it from Lord Nemesis. That said, Nemesis was the goddess of righteous wrath and retribution (Roman, if i recall), so it's never really been appropriate in modern usage. Even her image, that of a blindfolded, sword-wielding maiden, isn't used in the proper context (it's supposed to symbolize justice now). Just a bit of historical trivia.

Fly with every bonus and max slots is still subject to the speed cap of 58.6 mph. Hurdle can exceed that with the addition of one slot and comparable bonuses. The only way to fly faster is to spend two more power selections in Flight, to unlock and acquire Afterburner. One slot, or three powers. As with everything else in this game, it's your choice, but being an opinionated, prejudicial ass to those who don't make the same choice isn't appropriate. Even less so when you're ignorant or misinformed.

Hurdle with three SOs is nearly the same speed as the Fly cap. Hurdle with two level 50 IOs and few very inexpensive and easily obtainable +Jump Speed/Movement bonuses is faster.

Then leaving threads like this one active would positively contribute to the overall health of the forum. Public humiliation can be a versatile social tool, when used properly. Of course, so can gene-spliced carnivorous wasps carrying viral payloads... but public humiliation is cheaper.

Statistically, it is irrelevant on minions, due to the functionality of attack chains coupled with the way it triggers based on target hit point percentage. If Scourge triggers, it's most likely to occur on the final attack of a chain which would have done the job without Scourge. It's not useless or pointless, but it's also not generally applicable for that category of foes.

Preventing people from experiencing a clue-by-4 to the face doesn't do them any favors.

Cupcake, everything I said was factual. You began with a faulty premise. You created and conducted a test based on that premise, a test which was designed to ignore every variable which didn't fit your predetermined conclusion, and which betrays your utter and abysmal lack of attention to basic game mechanics. You made every possible mistake in your approach to testing and proved only that you understand absolutely nothing. Furthermore, others have already spoon-fed you all of the necessary information, which you (unsurprisingly) either ignore or simply cannot comprehend. Everything you need to understand why your corruptor simply cannot be a "better" blaster has been practically nailed to your eyeballs. But since you asked so nicely, I'll add my numerical breakdown to the already extensive pile. There are several variables assigned to attacks. The archetype assigns a variable. Whether the attack is melee or ranged is a variable. The target's resistance is a variable. We're going to concentrate on a few specific variables, though. Your corruptor has a 0.75 multiplier for both melee and ranged damage. This means every attack, regardless of position, deals 75% of the base value of that attack. A blaster has a 1.00 multiplier for melee attacks and 1.125 multiplier for ranged attacks. Thus, a blaster will deal 100% of a melee attack's base value, and 112.5% of a ranged attack's base value. Ignoring all other factors, a blaster's default ranged damage output is 150% that of a corruptor's. 0.75 * 1.5 = 0.1125. There are exceptions, things like pseudo-pets and attacks which have been specifically redesigned for specific ATs, but none of particular relevance, and I am trying to keep this simple. Both archetypes have a 500% damage cap. The unslotted, unbuffed attack is counted as 100%, meaning both are capped at +400%. +damage includes all sources. Inspirations, enhancements, Assault, Build Up, Aim, Fulcrum Shift, it's all the same as far as the engine is concerned. You can never buff your corruptor to a higher damage cap than the blaster can achieve, because the game has limitations which prevent that. Another variable is the value of damage buffs themselves. Corruptors use 0.085 for melee damage buffs and 0.100 for ranged damage buffs. Blasters, however, use a 0.125 modifier for both. What does that mean? It means the strength of your damage buffs is always less than the strength of a blaster's damage buffs. In other words, not only does the blaster deal more damage unbuffed, it also buffs damage better than your corruptor. But you have Scourge, right? Double damage crits! Obviously, that has to make corruptors "better"! Nope. Scourge doesn't kick in until the target's hit points drop below 50%, and it's not guaranteed, it's a 2.5% chance for very 1% of a target's hit points below 50%. For normal day-to-day combat, plowing your way through minions and lieutenants, Scourge contributes practically nothing. Scourge triggering on minions is irrelevant, because unless you're deliberately holding back, or hopelessly inept, the attack which Scourged was extremely likely to have defeated the minion eithout Scourge. On lieutenants, it has slightly more value, but concurrently, by the time you could reasonably begin triggering Scourge, the blaster will have already defeated the same target and moved on. Until and unless you're facing targets with extremely large hit point totals, Scourge accounts for very little of your actual combat damage. Even for ordinary bosses, blasters, presuming they survive the alpha and retaliatory strikes, tend to deal more damage in a shorter period of time than corruptors, because corruptors spend time buffing and/or debuffing and dealing less damage until Scourge activates, whereas blasters pop Build Up and/or Aim and get down to the matter at hand. It isn't until you're fighting Elite Bosses and above that a Scourge-friendly environment exists. And I have bad news for you, Kitten. Even on EBs, GMs and AVs, you're not making blasters weep with envy. Yes, when it triggers, you're (finally) dealing more damage than the blaster... but for the first half of the fight, you're not, and you're not even getting reliable Scourges for most of the second half of the fight, not until the target's hit points drop low enough (remember that scaling 2.5% chance? this is where it becomes relevant). There is a formula you can use to figure out exactly how much damage Scourge contributes, but the simplest way to state it is to say you're seeing about a 30% improvement in damage output over time, and even then, it's based on the presumption that you'll forego buffing and/or debuffing and focus exclusively on attacking, and presuming you're actually fighting EBs and above, of course. Which would correspondingly presume you're teamed frequently, or soloing with the difficulty scale maxed. Of course, if you're teaming and refusing to buff or debuff because you're BETAR TAHN BALSTARS, well, you're going to be soloing a lot, and if you're not buffing or debuffing solo, you're not going to be soloing at +4/+8. Either way you look at it, you're losing damage output and falling farther behind the blaster. And, as much as you want to believe that Scourge, coupled with your magnificent grasp of the game's mechanics, capped damage and flawless play, will make your corruptor the blaster-beater, it won't. That's simply not how math works. Note that I don't mean that's not how math works in this game, or for this particular example, or in a specific case. I mean that's not how math ever works, at any time, anywhere. Sorry, Princess, but in a clash between your ego and the fundamental concepts of the universe, you lose. Next time, do the damn math.

Your test was poorly conceived and nightmarishly flawed, took significantly longer than simply doing the math, began from an erroneous premise which you desperately wish were true and conducted your test to justify your conviction (not the appropriate scientific methodology), and arrived at an erroneous conclusion. In other words, you're wrong. Do the math before you consider making another post.

... Despite not being able to play, I was in a reasonably good place, emotionally, because I know I'll eventually get there. But this... this makes me want to curl up in a corner of my cabin and weep. I'm going to miss out on this. 😞

If the surgeon's name is Vahzilok... run.

Quark: "Read me the first word of every rule." Rom: "'If' 'never' 'keep' 'profit' 'a' 'good' 'smile' 'honesty'"... Quark: "Aha! If never keep profit... a good smile. Honesty!" Rom: "What does it mean, brother?" Quark: "It means... absolutely nothing."

Origin powers offer a small degree of additional flexibility. Example: Oil Slick Arrow can only be ignited by fire or energy damage. Creating a tech or magic */TA or TA/* character means one can select any primary or secondary available without sacrificing the ability to ignite OSA, or relying on procs or limited-use temp powers. So no, they are not pointless, or outdated. As with everything in this game, nothing is truly worthless, merely less valuable to some and more valuable to others.

What?

Several hundred million tons of water would cover a few miles quite easily, quickly and as destructively as a high yield nuclear warhead (or ten). Even with the War Walls in place, Galaxy City would likely be scoured off the face of the planet if the dam were ruptured.