Bodai

You know, the thing that AMAZES me is how well this game engine holds up after 15+ years, even against many current-day AAA games, short of maybe some VR or ray-traced stuff that can be pretty amazing. It still can and does look beautiful. I run it on an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (11GB RAM), this is still about an $800 video card. I am running it at UHD with all the details and extras turned up as much as I want. Although you don't have to because at that resolution things like AA and AF don't really make much of a difference, especially not beyond low levels. So, it is true that quite an old computer with a modest discrete graphics card will play the game fine. But pretty much the better your machine, the better it will look (up to a point). As others have said, just get something that you might use to play other stuff today and it will be able to do this also. I think even my machine is only about 90% to the point where you could literally turn everything up all the way and still get 60+ fps, but I think it would be hard to tell the difference side-by-side anyways. You *CAN* run into trouble if you don't configure things right on a non-high-end machine, especially on big events with hundreds of people or even some league raids. Always start with a refresh rate of 60 fps or more, and turn the settings up slowly until the framerate is affected, or it looks good to you, whichever comes first. I think there are plenty of tweaking guides. But, I am certainly an outlier, most people's standards are quite low. Look at WoW, played by something north of 10M players and the graphics look like bad VHS copy of the flinstones. -Bodai

Ok, I won't belabor the point. Let's agree to disagree. I work for the government in IT, and I work with PCI & PII compliance, and all kinds of legal issues all the time and databases that run into PB's in size. Maybe there is a good reason that would make this hard or untenable, I have just not heard it yet. Maybe it would be easy for me from my perspective but hard for others? I dunno....

Thought I would follow up on this. I finished this build and I am 90% done with incarnates on it. Basically, this build is amazing, having 60% positional's and 55% S/L resist is really great. This build can even FARM, I can solo some of the AE farm's up to +3/x8 (not +4, at the very least it is too slow). So I am really happy with it, thanks for the suggestions. I can post the final build if anyone wants, I had to respec twice to get it right. Now I am thinking rather than re-building the rest of my original AT's, I want to build something new. Specifically something that can solo an A/V or GM, I have heard people say that is possible, but I have never had a toon that could, nor even seen anyone do it. I have a post going about that in the general forum.

Great, so they probably could explain what the reason is for that, right?

Maybe after whatever is going to happen happens, they can explain that. I would be really curious. If you aimed for 10 you could hit 7, but never if you only aimed for 5.

To the theory that it was shuttered because it was not making "enough money", the standard practice for a publicly traded company would be to spin it off / sell it (possibly like paragon vs NC Soft?, I dunno). And I don't think we heard anything from shareholders or such either way. So it is all just speculation. I think the fact that it is a Korean company is probably important, but not sure how. But from my experiences with Japan and China, it is a bad idea to do business with radically different cultures without an abundance of caution, I could write a series of books on that and it probably still would not make sense. As far as the trademarks, still not enough info, but they are a big enough company that maybe they are just trying to hold on to a portfolio like Disney and other movie studios do. Sony made a bunch of crappy Spider Man movies just to hold onto the license. -Bodai

That's all fine, I am not saying it is likely, but the chance is not zero either.

Right there with you. And I am not putting hate on them, I would have a beer with them. But I won't ever play one of their games again either, if I did then I would be the fool. -Bodai

You won't find me getting worked up either way. The bottom line if NC Soft betrayed people's trust and for no good reason other than "because we can". People put allot of time into MMO's, so if I played another one of their games, I could not trust that they would not just do that again. Where do you get your information about the account information? I see ppl keep saying that it is not usable for some ambiguous legal reasons. You could write a script in 10 minutes that would strip any "sensitive personal information" away. I am an engineer, when people say that they can't do something it always leaves me skeptical (and I usually find it is won't not can't). Also, if the COX property had changed hands back in the day rather than shutting down, obviously the new owners would have just continued with the same player base, accounts and all. I am not trying to start a fight either. It sounds like "Hollywood accounting" or some dumb shit like that, so whatever. -Bodai

Yes, I realize that. I would consider that slightly positive to neutral. I would not leave, this last couple months I have been playing here have been a nice trip down memory lane (for the second time, since I was also on the "other" server). If they got licensed then we could at least stop stressing over it. Although if this gets killed, then I am finally done with it actually. I don't know how many ppl were on the "other" server, but certainly there are more ppl here on HC now. Actually it feels like more than was on live.... You really think they are reading these forums? And even if they did would derive any feeling about it either way? "yeah, we were going to do a deal, until that rat-bastard Bodai started mouthing off....." (But if I am wrong I will build a toon with trick-arrow as punishment..... :-| ) Basically, I am prepared to win or lose. However, the ONE thing that could happen that would be cool would be to get all of our old account data back. Which I would expect is at least distantly possible if a licensing deal were made. -Bodai

Even if NCsoft re-released or licensed the game, I am not sure it would be enough to change my boycott-their-products forever stance. Because the fact remains that they pulled the rug out from under us with almost no warning, for no good reason, and with no alternative. The damage is done. I think the ship has sailed on the C&D take-down stuff, they know full well it would just go underground (again)... especially now that it is fully in the wild. So, if they just do that and there is no licensing or anything, then I double-down on boycott. It's not like someone is making money off of it. I will never understand why one would not license something, I guess there are people who hate people sending them money. But sure, hopefully it is something positive. -Bodai

Oh, by the way.... I was thinking of building a blaster or something that does Psionic damage since in theory not many things are protected from that. But, most of the posts I have seen about this have been negative.

Hello, So I just finished "re-building" my main which is an MA/SR. I love playing this character, and the animations. And my new updated build is really awesome with 60% positional defense and 55% S/L resists. I was going to start re-building some of my other alts, but then I thought maybe I should try something different. There are newer powersets I have not tried, as well as powersets available to ATs that were not previously. For context, here are what some of my ALTs were that I remember: - SS/Invul tanker, this was my previous main, I hear SS/invul was greatly improved since I tried it (I made a brute version as well) - stone tank, ILL/RAD controller, RAD/RAD defender, Sonic/RAD defender, Fire/Kin controller - loved all of these - Energy/energy blaster - great fun but no-one will team with me 😞, Ice/ice blaster - very solid with some good lock-down - dual-pistols and staff fighting - didn't finish these, wasn't really impressed, couldn't get into it - I have tried a few Stalker builds, but these seem like one-trick ponies to me, otherwise just a variation on scrappers more or less What prompted me to post here is that I saw this on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Cityofheroes/comments/eiwi50/personal_achievement_for_me_solo_master_of_the/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share I have never had a character powerful enough that they could solo and AV or GM, I don't know how many can, probably not many. Also, Titan Weapons looks like an interesting set to try, looks like lots of AoE's and crowd control Not so sure about Bio-armor though - even if it is good I am not sure I like the concept. So, I could try Titan weapons.... but then I could do it as a scrapper, tank, brute. In general, is the DPS higher for a scrapper or a brute? And then of course what secondary to pair it with? In any case, I would appreciate some suggestions / recommendations of what you would suggest trying and why. Thanks -Bodai

Nope! MA/SR stalkers get everything except Dragon's Tail!!! That's good, because that's a deal breaker for me, take stalker off the list. If they skipped CAK instead that would have been sweet.

OK, so you are saying that stalkers skip that power anyways? (i'll take a look) If you play a stalker, I guess maybe you are trading some durability for a bunch more single-target damage? I am still trying to think about how MA/SR works on scrapper vs. brute vs. stalker vs. tank......

OK, maybe I will test it out before my final respec.

This is fair, I like CK too, it's like a mule kick. I actually like the whole set except CAK (not even the alternate animation). And I actually think I had more than enough attacks. Is that KD to KB global, or just the power it's slotted into? According to the stats, FA still does do ToHit. What is Vigor?

I agree with this reasoning of the combo, I wasn't trying to replace it, I just want more AoE's. Actually, I am starting to think of what my next AT should be, because I love AoE's, and what AT has allot of that. I **REALLY** loved my energy/energy blaster, but then no-one will team with me :-( There are of course controllers, thus far I have only played with ill/rad.

Yeah, this is a good point. Even my old build was plenty good in Incarnates. So, I am both excited by this and perplexed. Do I just go with it anyway? Or do I dial back the defense a bit in favor of something else. But about the only thing left I think is more damage / dps.

Right, so I would never expect a pool power to beat a primary. Focus Chi also works on these as well. But even then, Spring Attack takes 10x longer to come up, that alone kills the DPS. But, it does give me another power that has knockdown (and a proc as well for it), increasing the amount of time foes are just getting back up. So, you could say it doesn't make that much of a difference. I don't really like CAK animation, I already have enough attacks, and it does immob instead of disorient. So really I am saying this is possibly an interesting variation.

So, this is a good build, I would make a few observations: - I don't think you have proved the end consumption issue. Just turn off focused accuracy on my build, and I am at 1.09 end/sec without affecting any defense or resist numbers. Because I agree it is an unnecessary power, I would not use conserve power either, but there are a few cases where FA can help. - Importantly, I am also producing 0.44 end/sec more, so effectively I am at 0.65 (1.11 with FA), is that low enough to be considered low end use? You do have more endrdx, but I am not sure how to calculate that. - Put that aside, and the numbers for the two builds are really similar, not big enough to make a difference. Even on end use, with FA on and accounting for the production, it's 1.14 vs. 1.11, negligible. And it would not be hard to shore up AOE defense, heck, you are tossing out 2.5% just with the proc you put in CK (which I actually think is a neat idea BTW, more on that later) - I do a little better on s/l resist, we are close on regen, you have slightly more HP. I didn't slot for HP at all, because I figure this build mainly doesn't get hit, and then has a good amount of resist after that. - Obviously I have a fair bit more ToHit and Acc if FA is on, if I build this as-is, it will be interesting to see if that is useful at all. I suppose if the two chars fought each other I would hit you more? - Your DPS should be higher, because you have over twice as much haste - hard to say, some powers have allot of recharge on their own. - Then we come to technique. You slotted for knockdown in CK (at the expense of AoE def) so you consider it important. Here is my attach sequence: Focus Chi, Energy torrent, spring attack, dragons tail, and then I pick the toughest foe and start stacking disorient, by the time that is done I can hit DT again, and after that spring attack is up again. So in theory: - The first three attacks all have knockback/knockdown, so many foes can't attack at all - I am mezzing the tough one's (I like being a boss killer) - I have ongoing crowd control with more knockback/knockdown - Even if the mobs are higher level, if I have FA up I am still hitting most of the time - Spring attack has Avalanche chance for knockdown proc - EC has chance for hold, and ET has chance for immob (which would stack) Basically, I am exploiting the KB/KD/mez allot, and less reliant on raw DPS or even single target damage. What do you think? It's quite interesting to compare these. -Bodai

I have no idea, good question. Does that make or break it as a good power?

In my build it is doing 202 Dragon's Tail does 188.3 Energy Torrent 145.7 Now, the animation could be better, and it has a long recharge of just under a minute on my build. I use it as an opener, followed by DT, and then into the other attacks. I guess allot depends on how you slot it. Yeah by itself it won't do much.

Well, bring it on. Show me your incarnate softcap build, and point out why it is good, I am here to learn as well. You are saying the same can be done with much better end consumption (what do you consider good end consumption?) Will that build have over 50% s/l res as well? Redlynne above made the point that you don't need to do an MA/SR build with so much recharge, and not with hasten. I didn't disagree, and I think this is a pretty good example of what you could do instead. So I consider this build a big step forward over what I had, and as I mentioned, I actually played that for years and it was great. I don't know, maybe you would need something even stronger for PvP or something...

That's true, I had it up to over 63% while I was playing with it, what is your point? Why would you need more than 59% for an incarnate build? The fact that I did it, and had room left for all the "trash powers" I think is pretty good. The trash powers do have use: - I worked CJ and Stealth into the build with the defense they add, and it is nice to be able to stealth missions - I think spring attack is doing good damage and comes up once per minute, it's nice to have another AoE - I don't like going without a travel power, to each their own, I don't think doing it with temps is as nice - Focused accuracy I agree is situational, but nice for high-defense opponents, AVs/GMs, I think it is better to have than conserve power And these could be swapped out as needed. But what is your actual goal? Show me what your build would be, and why you would do it, I might agree with you.