Sir Myshkin

I'm around from time to time, but I'm not on nearly as much as I used to be. I've had to prioritize family and health this last year which has meant almost zero time for CoH.

Just found this thread and I find it so much fun. I know there's always a lot of ups and downs, back and forths about AI art and the like, but I find what these programs can do personally inspires me to look at my own work in new ways. A lot of what's here is folks sharing modified screenshots, but I thought I'd share something a bit unique, a blast from the past as it were from a very old "competition" on the art boards from the days of old. The prompt was to envision one (or more) of the City's namesake Heroes or Villains as their junior selves (aka: babies), and I was struck with the idea of Lord Recluse wandering around in a walker made of spider legs. Here's a small thumbnail for slight reference to the original sketch I did over a decade ago: And here's the re-imagined and enhanced update with AI, using my sketch as its base:

Hold up, lets clarify since you don't have that quite right. First, you're talking about a power that is focused on triggering off you as a caster base (PBAoE + Absorb), that proc is designed to initiate and spread off the caster, when you place a power like that into things that have something like a chain effect, the next potential trigger is no longer tied to you, but the following thing in the chain. This works great of continuation of debuff and damage effects, but not for self-promoting buffs as they're no longer tied to you. Throw a few damage procs in Chain Lightning and you'll actually get some pretty solid feedback. The rule of thumb when it comes to AoE/TAoE/Cones is actually pretty simple as there are two thresholds where you'll visibly notice a difference in return on proc effects. The common target cap on the aforementioned abilities is usually between 10-12, with some being up to 16. If you fire off the power and there are less than five enemies in the field of effect you'll see little return. In a field effect closer to 10+ however, you'll almost always see a trigger, if not multiples. A power with three damage procs hitting a spawn of ten targets is likely to see 2/3rds to 7/8ths of the enemies hit with at least one proc, or potentially a scenario of 4-5 the enemies getting hit with two, maybe a case of 2-3 in total, but one or all of that smaller batch will get hit with all three. Keep in mind this is all tied to whether or not the power itself actually even hits the appropriate number of enemies. Just because a spawn has ten targets doesn't mean it's a free pass if a few of them miss, your odds will drop accordingly. Given the above, the other half of the scenario is really going to come down to the consistency of application; basically how often you're using the power. Sometimes a rarely used power may not be worth the extra procs whereas a power getting fired off every 8-10 seconds is going to be far more worth the investment in total returns. Edit: I wanted to add, if you want the practical application of procs, and how to grasp their understanding, check out of a few of the links in my signature. If you want a crash-course "lets break stuff" approach to understanding, click on the "Mad King" link 😉

To provide you with an actual serious answer, that may have been disabled. The original archived Wiki does state the 10%, but if you look at the unofficial wiki, its been removed which leads me to believe that feature was--at some point--likely taken off. There's a chance it probably conflicted with the bonus XP granting abilities and how they impact Influence, I'm not sure, it's been four years since then.

Magic. Always Magic. Want to know why? I'll tell you why. Because the Magic Origin SO's are the only ones I can bloody read without needing a cryptographer to tell me which ones are which in an inventory slot since you can clearly see their colors without a ridiculous graphic overlay. I hated the idea of trying to sort through drops to find keeps versus trash, the Magic Origins were just so much easier to identify that I started rolling everything that origin just to make life easier. Yes, eventually Issue 9 came around and introduced Inventions and changed the fact I never looked at another SO again, but habits die hard in my life, so Magic they still get rolled!

Taxibots.

I may in fact be one of the only voices who have routinely stood up for Regen as being a perfectly capable set. I have seen what it can do both pre and post IO world, and the post IO world just allows it to do more solo by contrast. Regen is by and far the most advantageous set available in the nature of its uniqueness. Unlike other sets which build up a lot of their own shielding, regen builds up its HP and ability to restore it, leaving the shielding to outside sources (when excluding IO's from the picture) meaning it has the ability to gain the most impact from a diverse buff group compared to any other set. "Far too often people look at the sets in a vacuum of isolated play and forget that this is an MMO." Yes solo play is possible, and I have a dear friend who still to this day is die-hard on regen being their go-to for solo play, but it is the team dynamic where it truly has an opportunity to shine. When you add IO's into the mix Regen is an unstoppable force like no other. Would I turn down a beneficial buff to the set? No, but the core of my sentiments towards this set have always, always been that it is not a fault of the set, but a fault of the player's for being unable to meld with it. It is not a set for everyone. The reason I (partly in jest) posted that snippet shot of a Brute build is because what Regen can achieve is incredible, and I've done the same thing on a Scrapper as well. Back in 2019 I ran the challenge of taking a Scrapper through many of the current challenges in the game with rather broad success, and more recently I did it with a Brute focusing on a different tactic (Resistance building) and took it into the newer challenges like the modified ITF and Aeon and proved that it is capable of tanking those starred runs. Is it all incredibly easy mode? No, it does take a mind of consideration, of pre-planning, and of skilled judgement to pull off, but it can be done. My Regen Brute is by far one of my most powerful alts in my stable hands down, and it shares that house with a SS/Rad/Soul Brute and a Full-Def/Res Granite Tank. When that build starts its cycle of clicks (IH, Melee, Rune, Barrier) it is incredibly hard for most enemy groups in the game to shut it down faster than it can kill them. Has it died? Of course it has, but that was often my error, not Regen.

Don't forget level 50 (w/o Incarnates or other clicks active) 😁

99% of the time, yes, the remaining 1% was exclusively for concept to not have a travel power. The bigger problem I have is not taking the same thing on every toon, but trying to keep some theme in play that makes sense to the character. I found over time Super Speed was a common grab for me because it makes navigation and movement inside missions faster since I can just reveal the map and watch my icon on the 2D versus trying to pay attention to the environment itself when moving to find objectives. This transitioned into getting Speed of Sound when it became available because it includes that short-burst teleport. I use Jaunt constantly in combat now to zip around and close-in on targets, jump floors without having to actually look for ramps, or just generally evade enemy groups by popping past them.

As someone who actively sold PC's and is still in IT, I'm going to have to somewhat disagree with all the comments about CoH and Integrated graphics. At the time of the game's closure the "top of the line" necessities were AMD FX 280's and nVidia upper 900's or anything 10 series that was coming out, those cards barely had 2-3GBs of dedicated RAM and even in their heyday CoH would have drop points of FPS in the 20's during events like Mothership Raids. Any laptop that is purchased off the shelf that has integrated graphics from 2020 onward (and certain processors from 2018 up) can run CoH in Ultra Mode because the onboard graphics at this point in tech time line are comparable in graphics support, so on a budget it could be done to get one of those with at least a Ryzen 5 (3k+) or i5 (10k+) will function fine (AMD will be better as they have superior integrated graphics performance on their chips). The only issue with getting a device using integrated performance is they are not designed for heat dissipation in the same way that a true gaming laptop would be. They lack fans and support to offset heat and create proper cooling which can (likely will) result in the laptop having a much shorter lifespan comparatively. When approaching this from a desktop scenario, it is still a similar issue of heat/airflow, but also a lack in power; most desktop units that are using integrated graphics often have a PSU that's minimum spec'd to 180w or less, and a full exhaust processor burning 45-60W in those builds can be taxing because they prefer to idle in the 90's, not up into their "peak" ratings. If you decide to go for a laptop, and given the average person is looking at budge and bang-for-buck, I'd point to something like this: You can almost always find some variant of MSI and or the ASUS (gaming line) laptop with certain baseline parts on sale for somewhere in the $650-750 range. If you go with one that only has 8GB of RAM make sure (like this one) it has a second slot and can be upgraded, some units the RAM is soldered in and can't be upgraded, but RAM is relatively cheap by comparison for another 8-16GBs and can make CoH run like a cool breeze on one of these. If you're looking at a desktop a similar price threshold can be met: Now this is just one example, but I don't know that I'd personally run an Intel Processor with an AMD GPU as better performance comes out of AMD+AMD, or stick to Intel+nVidia, or if you want AMD+nVidia since they've gotten over most of their awkward interactions of the past. If you're willing to put up into the $1,000-$1,200 range, this will assuredly get into the 7's and minimum 3060's which is a more viable "long term" choice for the next 4-5 years: I would recommend staying away from Lenovo, Alienware, and HP for both desktops and laptops. Lenovo "gaming" anything tends to have very poor life expectancy. Alienware is always overpriced for its contents, and often far bulkier/wasted components for the build (as in physical construction). HP makes a lot of stuff in-house and while it may say "Hey, I've got this great SSD or GPU" they're almost always sub-par parts, and they are notorious for undercutting the wattage of their PSU's be a significant margin to cut costs; I've seen far too many builds that have a 650-700W peak get sold with a 550-600W max supply, meaning the unit will burn out incredibly fast. All three of these brands also tend to stick a lot of bloatware on their devices, and anything Dell has software you can't remove because it's baked into the BIOS of the motherboard, not cool.

At the time there existed a bug in Mids that didn't have the correct slotting options, that's why it's never been there. Equip is the Steadfast 3% and a 50 Res IO, Tactical is LotG 7.5% and LotG Def IO. Not all of the uniques and procs get accounted for in the totals compared to what you'll net experience in-game. This setup is always higher than it appears; you also don't have to worry with Heat Loss available too, that'll be an easy bar-fill on each cycle. Spot on. Personally I tend not to waste the Inf for a smidgen of grace in most cases, but two level 50 ToHit/End IO's boosted to +5 are going to be pretty close to the same as just a pair of base 50 Cyto's, the only benefit of going the Cyto route is to +3, and that's just excessive Inf sinking to chase .5%

Oh man, I miss the era when everyone making anime AMVs was a thing. I'm going to be stuck in that rabbit hole for hours now.

Now now, nobody said you couldn't do a Vampire Ken character Snarky. You'll just have to accept he... *shudders* probably glitters in the sunlight.

Liquid or net worth here? I'm more of a property investment banker than a raw-funds inflation-sucks kind of banker. Either way, just like a traditional broker I stole my money 😉

The random round that ends in a roundabout amidst cliff walls in the far southeast of Founder's Falls for no apparent reason whatsoever. There's no shops along the path, no statue, just a road, and a roundabout.