Luminara

Click the + next to Quote (it says MultiQuote if you move the pointer over it (Leeloo Dallas MultiQuote (Mull Tee Quote!))), on each post you want to quote. Then click the little Quote button that pops up in the bottom-right corner.

No, that's passive-aggressive.

Don't accept characters you don't want on your team when you're leading? Don't stay on teams with characters that you find objectionable when you're not leading? Utilize the existing right to team with who you want, when you want, instead of asking for draconian measures which would prevent friends and families from playing together, deny players opportunities to meet new people and develop relationships, and create an oppressive atmosphere?

I'm comparing it to powers with animation times which were adjusted when they were ported to sentinels, or with comparable DPA (you'll note that i specifically said "comparable to Chilling Ray (54.29)", not "in the same tier as Chilling Ray"), to illustrate the design philosophy behind sentinel ranged attacks. Some of them were given faster animations, some were given slower animations, some were left as-is, the goal being a degree of parity between the sets, instead of Cryptic/Paragon's "fuck it, just make it do something, don't worry about the numbers" approach. It's a 54.29 DPA attack, it's directly comparable to other 54.29 DPA attacks (it's not coincidence that there are five primaries with attacks that deal exactly 54.29 DPA), regardless of tiering, and to attacks with adjusted animation times to put them close to 54.29 DPA, because the question I was answering was "why was it designed like this?". Does it suck to have a T4 attack with an arbitrarily imposed 0.66s dead space in it? Oh yeah. Watermelon through a garden hose. But it is what it was designed to be.

DPA for sentinel attacks comparable to Chilling Ray (54.29): Aimed Shot - 51.49 Charged Shot - 54.29 Gloom - 58.26 Suppressive Fire - 58.46 Lightning Bolt - 54.29 Power Blast - 54.29 Psionic Strike - 54.77 X-Ray Beam - 54.29 Dehydrate - 50.54 The design philosophy is evident when viewed outside of the vacuum of Blaster > Ice Blast versus Sentinel > Ice Blast. The HC team set criteria and adjusted powers to meet it. Some attacks were given faster animations when ported to sentinels, others were given slower animations or had their animations extended with additional dead time. They were balanced against a baseline encompassing sentinel attacks and a predetermined formula, not against blaster attacks. TO PREVENT STACKING.

Chilling Ray deals 100.3208 damage. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=sentinel_ranged.ice_blast.chilling_ray&at=sentinel I've checked as far back as version 2.6.1.25 and Mids' has never displayed less than 86.64 damage for Chilling Ray (sentinel damage was increased about 1.5 years ago, damage for attacks like Chilling Ray went up from 86.64 to 100.3208), so something is fucky. It deals less damage than the blaster version because sentinels aren't blasters, they're scrappers with a ranged primary; and it has a shorter recharge time (HC uses a formula to determine damage, base recharge time is one of the variables in that formula. the faster an attack's base recharge, the less base damage it deals). It uses Sleep instead of Hold because sentinels were designed to be less reliant on hard controls, none of their primaries have two hard controls which can stack (you can select a *PP with a compatible hard control if you want to stack). All of that said, I don't recommending using Chilling Ray. The autohit Sleep resets the streak breaker, which allows the damage part to miss (it has to make a hit roll, even though the Sleep makes it appear that the power is guaranteed to hit), and it can miss an indefinite number of times without a hit being forced, and cause miss streaks when used in conjunction with other powers. It breaks the streak breaker, in other words.

Okay, but every animation has to be Kanye West jumping in and saying, "Imma let ya finish, but..."

Oh. DISREGARD, PANIC RESPONSE.

When the HC team spends 5 years assing up the UI and doing nothing else, you can lambast them. I'll personally hand you the flamethrower and help you aim it.

I just downloaded the latest release to check, and BIG FUCKING SURPRISE, the database still hasn't been properly updated. Rooted and Sprint are mutually exclusive (3 years out of date). Paralyzing Jolt (Sentinel > Electricity Mastery) still has the wrong stats (someone plugged the wrong numbers in over 5 years ago, referencing a slotted in-game power instead of using base numbers). That is why I stopped downloading their "updates". Mids' is 5 years out of date. It's not being maintained, it's not being improved, it's stagnated. You've all been conned. There are no updates, just smoke and mirrors. Yes, and a resounding NO. Mids' is still the only viable character building tool available, but you do not have to suck it up and deal with it the way it is. I started adding powers and making database changes two years ago. It's not that difficult once you've done it a couple of times. You don't even need an instruction manual or video walkthrough or any of that shit, all you have to do is look at how things are set up in existing powers and work from that. The one rule you need to know and always remember is NEVER OVERWRITE THE STATIC INDEX. And even if you do, you can always just trash the whole thing, reinstall and start over. Fucking up a database edit won't set your house on fire (trust me, i still have a roof over my head after making many mistakes), so don't be afraid to try. Pick a relatively bug-free version of Mids', start digging into the database editor and let the official updates go pound sand. You'll have a much more effective tool, far fewer headaches and, if you go back to before they moved to Edge Webview, significantly less unnecessary resource usage. And, for perspective, if you only manage to figure out how to fix one wrong thing, you will have accomplished more than the Mids' team has in 5 years. Spread that on your sandwich and see how it tastes.

The UI has been revised several times, introducing bugs which are sometimes fixed, sometimes ignored and often break again on the next update if they are fixed. Elements are moved around with no respect for usability or visual appeal, like the buttons at the top which are all bunched up, wasting space and leaving huge swaths of empty space to either side, and the vast expanse of empty space introduced with the main window scroll function. Some font settings ignore bold/normal checkboxes (they used to work, then they didn't, then they did, and now they don't again) and tiny fonts which ignore size settings. The UI's usability decreases with each update. Can't toggle temp powers as a group any more, for instance, they have to be manually toggled on and they turn off every time you slot or remove an enhancement. Power stats change location on the info tab. It's now impossible to see at a glance what a power's Accuracy is, or how much Endurance it costs because the location of a stat isn't fixed. Trying to work with a Kheldian or SoA build is an exercise in frustration because the UI shits itself even harder, adding scroll bars or cutting off power lists. In old Mids', when you scrolled with the mouse wheel, it would scroll the power description, now scrolling does nothing useful and actively hinders usability. The databases haven't been updated since the SCoRE era. They've been manually edited, but not actually updated. There are hundreds of powers with erroneous stats that don't match the live databases. And that's especially egregious in light of the capability to pull directly from the .piggs and do automated updates like City of Data, because it means they're ignoring everything except new powers, so the less familiar someone is with the game, the worse his/her experience is going to be if he/she's using Mids'. This was a tool created to make the game experience better, and it's not capable of fulfilling that purpose for new players or users any more. There are ongoing issues with database editing, so bad that they tried to lock users out of editing the database. Editing the temp powers group errors out, for example, so you can't add missing temp powers, and if you remove temp powers with the expectation that it's a "not enough room" problem, it allows that then crashes when you try to add what you want, leaving you with even less options. Enhancement mutual exclusivity becomes more and more aggressive with each update, making it harder and harder to work with things like ATOs, and despite people actively trying to explain to them that they're making the program less usable by preventing users from slotting them differently in flipped powers, they keep doubling down on the exclusivity. The .Net and Edge Webview requirements are excluding Mac and Linux users, and even experienced Mac and Linux users are finding it more difficult to make the program work with each update. They added databases for other server groups so more people could use the program... then turned around and made the program less accessible to non-Windows people. And they're avoiding the forums, refusing to engage with us, so they're effectively working in an echo chamber. They're no longer developing the program for players, they're doing it for themselves and "graciously" allowing us to use it, with its multitude of bugs, problems and oversights.

Watch out for enhancement mutual exclusivity. They changed the program a couple of years ago and now when you slot something like a regular ATO in a power, then flip to the alternate slots and try to slot the same enhancement (or the Superior version, if it's that type of enhancement), it'll say no. This affects ATOs, Winters and Overwhelming Force, and it's a pain in the ass to work around. Middle-click can sidestep the restriction in older versions by simply leaving one slot empty, flipping to the alternate and slotting the other version of that enhancement, then middle-clicking the rest into the power (then flip back, select one of the slotted enhancements and select it again in the same slot and middle-click to place the missing enhancement in the empty slot), but last year they made mutual exclusivity even more aggressive, so that no longer works. You have to edit the enhancement database and set the mutual exclusivity group to None on every affected enhancement (several hundred) to fully resolve the issue in the newer versions. Which is why I stopped updating a long, long time ago and make my own database changes now.

Tommy Wiseau is #2, so it has to be most to least.

The power not accepting Range enhancements would definitely be a bug (oversight, actually). That should definitely be fixed.

https://m.imdb.com/list/ls071395299/ Got you covered.

I always build for the end first. Select all powers, dump slots without regard to appropriate level placement, see what it is I'm going to end up with. I slot the most important powers first, then mules, then see what I have left and distribute those with the intention of squeezing every erg of potential out of them. I slot purples and ATOs to see where I'm going to hit caps or run into slotting problems (like too many PBAoEs and not enough sets to go around) and make adjustments (such as slotting a base ATO set into a power instead of the Superior set, so i can acquire the 7.5% or 8.75% global +Rchg, allowing me to use another purple set in a different power), then start on the other powers. I always have at least 3-4 builds prepared. Once I've fully designed a build, I save it and start tweaking. When I reach a new milestone, I save it again and continue tweaking. For a couple of characters, I have 24-30 builds with various changes. Maybe I drop a couple of powers and pick up Cross Punch and Kick (to top off Cross Punch's bonuses). Maybe I change the travel power. Maybe everything is the same, but I've redone all of the enhancements to achieve a different goal. Often, I'm just experimenting with moving one or two slots to different powers and using different IO sets. I stick to a general build pattern most of the time, but I also actively try to break that pattern frequently so I can see what else I can do, and that's frequently given me good results. Then, when I'm satisfied with a build and believe it's going to achieve all of my goals, I flip the slots and start placing level-appropriate enhancements to emulate a leveling build. This allows me to know exactly when I'm going to put a slot in this power, or slot an enhancement in that power. So if I take a power at level 16, the first enhancement in it is level 16. If I add a slot at level 23, I set the enhancement to 23. That way I don't have to redesign the build and place slots at level-appropriate intervals. As I level up, I refine the slotted enhancements to match the character's level, and I can tell what level a character is just by looking. Since Mids' doesn't scale stats by level (you're level 50 in Mids', even if you haven't clicked anything), I ignore most of the info and reference the enhancement values (those do scale by level in Mids'). I make liberal use of the middle-click function in Mids' when I'm matching a build to what I'm playing. If I'm slotting 5/6 Crushing Impact and skipping the first IO, I slot the second IO, go to the last slot and middle-click, middle-click all of the other slots to finish the set, then go back to the last slot and change it to the last IO. Once you're accustomed to using the middle-click function, it's a very fast and efficient way to slot sets while skipping specific pieces by doing it this way. Fill the first slot, go to the end and fill that, middle-click rapidly from left to right, then change the last IO. Boom boom boom done. I also use that function to rapidly match my Mids' build to my leveling character, in the same way. Change an IO level, bunch of middle-clicks, null perspiration, chummer. Unique IOs like Numina's or a Stealth IO, I set to the minimum level. That's my visual indicator that they're Uniques. When I slot a Reactive Defenses: Scaling +Res IO, it's level 20, even in a finished build, and because it's level 20 and all of the other IOs are a higher level, I know it's the Scaling +Res IO without even hovering over it. So, to directly answer the question, I use it for both and in both ways. The fully tweaked level 50 build is important to me because that's the motivation to reach the end. The leveling build is important to me because it gives me the information I need while I'm leveling and helps me identify ways to improve the build.

Not responding != not reading. They can't do their work and respond to dozens or hundreds of posts simultaneously. You can have long, meaningful conversations, or new content/bug fixes/updates to old content. You can't have both, so pick one and live with it.

5s phase,15s activation period. Not random at all.

I see you sparkling, @Snarky.

Shoot the horse, use its skin to make a container and carry the water to a horse that will drink. And, hey, steak. Win - win.

So... this isn't about sacrificing newbies to the old gods (and occasionally making sandwiches with the leftovers)? I'm cool?

It isn't.

No. Pool and temp travel powers don't stack. Pool won't stack with pool, temp won't stack with temp, pool won't stack with temp. Hover, Combat Jumping, all Sprints, Hurdle and Swift stack with pool and temp travel powers. Powers in primaries/secondaries which buff movement (examples: Quickness, Kuji-in Rin, Inertial Reduction) stack with pool and temp travel powers. +Movement bonuses from IO sets stack with pool and temp travel powers.