joyispunkrolex

I played a Fortunata and a Crab Spider to 50 on live. The Fortunata is probably my favorite all-time character in terms of what I call fun in the game. Generally speaking, every VEAT has amped-up Leadership powers in their secondary AND gets bonus values from Leadership, Fitness and Fighting pools. Meaning that VEATs are incentivized to run the work-alike powers from their secondary plus Leadership powers on top of them. Someone who is "doing it right" is giving their team big bonuses to Defense and ToHit, plus some extra attack damage. VEATs are buffing force mutipliers, just by passively standing around being VEATs. The four different VEATs diverge at level 24 (they're actually forced to respec when they train), with Fortunatas becoming Controller/Corrupter-types with several big AoE controls and decent blasts. The Night Widows are sturdier and mostly work in melee. Crabs are very sturdy ranged tanks with some pets (note to people who run Sentinels: do this instead) and Bane Spiders are a more versatile version of a Stalker with some ranged attacks.

Most of the time, end game builds are probably looking for either set bonuses, where all the IOs are meant to work together and usually wind up with something like 85% Damage, 50% Acc, 40% Recharge, 40% End reduction. If they aren't doing that, they're probably Frankenslotting with the goal of maximizing Damage/Recharge/Acc/defensive/healing values of their powers. If I have six slots in an attack power and I'm at 90%+ damage in the first three slots, I just prioritize the other aspects of the power I want to enhance using the double or triple aspect IOs from set pieces.

FF is typed defense. Some players who cap will only be capped to positional defense (e.g. ranged). It's an amplification in that case, even if it might be a difference with only the most minor distinction. From running on teams of VEATs, I can also say that high-level defense debuffs get CRAZY. Longbow, Nemmies and Arachnos can actually cut in to 150% defense values enough for players to start taking real damage, so the higher their defense values are, the better. I remember being shocked the first time my all VEAT group, with 250% defense when we were all clustered together, got wiped by combination of the right Longbow bosses. Remember too that you're offering status protection to the back line. That's a fantastic value for a lot of late game enemy groups. You can also play area denial if that's important. The Ms. Liberty TF needs to keep mobs from healing the tower thingie and Force Bubble is probably the best tool for that particular job. You can also keep mobs well away while somebody rezzes or uses a medicine pool power or snipe. And FF is great if you want to spend most of your time doing something else. It pairs well with busy sets like Mind Control or Fire Blast.

In my experience, it's skippable. I forget I have it. Those were slots I was happier to have elsewhere and I've never bothered to run it as part of any normal attack chain. I might stick it in an alternate build but even then I suspect it will always be an afterthought.

Substitute Sky Splitter for the PBAOE. No clunky Serpent's Reach Animation. Problem solved.

If you're on a Staff, why are you only fighting one target? My chain is more or less PBAOE, Cone1, Cone2, medium ST attack. I break out Sky Splitter if a boss is giving me a hard time but in general it's all AoEs all the time.

I'm almost positive that's Windows 2000. The blue desktop wallpaper definitely matches its default desktop.

Something that should happen, whether or not a new Wiki is made, is switch Paragonwiki to a mobile-friendly framework. Something homecoming needs to do, too.

One thing I'll say about Staff is that I pretty much never use Serpent's Reach. The damage is decent but the Nemesis Staff gets more or less the same outcome. It's probably the most optional power in Staff Fighting. I tend to just forget I have it, so I respecc'd out of it a while ago.

I have a Staff/Bio at 50. I have all the Incarnate Slots unlocked but the only thing I have slotted is a base-tier Musculature Alpha. I don't have a Pines build, but roughly speaking, I have something like 60% Global Recharge buffs (4x LotGs + several 5% and 6.25% bonuses), both the +5% Res Uniques and, thanks to the Body Mastery Epic, enough End that I never run out. What I don't have is tons of survivability. I can handle anything at +1x8, but Longbow and Arachnos will slaughter me at +2. I used this toon to solo content to 50, but I'm somewhat capable of Farming the usual AE maps full of nothing but Fire damage mobs, so I think I'm at a point where I'd like to switch over to something better suited for that, if not the death machine that is Spines/Fire. I'm not seeing much in the way of /Bio end-game builds. For what it's worth I'm Staff (all powers), Bio (all powers) / Hasten / Combat Jump / Maneuvers / Body Mastery and Musculature Alpha with plans to get Diamagnetic (Hit Debuff) and Barrier Incarnate. I understand the normal preference for Brutes is to take Mu Mastery to get the Immobilize but I'm not sure if that's a Spines/Fire thing or if it would actually have value for me as well. I'll see if I can replicate the build in Pines but if I'm AE farming or running solo missions, I'd still appreciate feedback on what I do most easily to make my Brute better able to handle tougher groups.

I think that for maximum uselessness, you'd want that in an MM or Controller. A Scrapper or Blaster could probably be at least marginally respectable with Air Superiority and Weave.

Putting aside the petless MM, there are some primary/secondary combos that work at odds to each other, like sets that have different weapon redraw animations . I had a couple toons where I was forever rushing back and forth between melee and long range because my attacks were all narrow cones. There are also group combinations that totally suck together, like Ice Control and anything that has an Immobilize, or Ice Armor and not having an Empathy on hand, or Storm and any amount of melee.

Learn to make binds. Team select, Target nearest, turn on Sprint AND SS or Ninja run, bodyguard mode on MMs. Homecoming also added some bind options that weren't in the original game, like the ability to target a location-based power on a selected friend or foe. This can make placing a Tar Patch or Rain of Arrows way, WAY easier. By the way, you can run Sprint, combat jumping and SS or SJ. Yes, it does help unless you're at the speed cap somehow. You can also edit the chat tabs, which I think is something people have forgotten. If you never want to see the Help channel, get rid of it.

If you look at the Info on some Freakshow, you'll find out that the weird green goo that makes Freakshow all Freakshowy is controlled by an Excelsior Pump.I don't know if anybody remembers this or has looked at the info on random low-ranking Freakshow ever, but it's worth noting. Maybe we're the "Illicit Substances, Body Modification and TV/VCR Combo Unit-Stealing" server?

Jets and Sharks, my Thugs/Storm/Leviathan MM Blue Man, a Mace/Inv tank I AM BROOT

I don't see Titan Weapons very often and I've been thinking of trying the set, probably on a Scrapper. I know Shield doesn't work with it but are there any sets that actually synergize with it? /SR because of Quickness? Willpower because no clicky powers? Is it just a poorly regarded set?

Dark/Dark Controllers are pretty insane. I didn't realize that the hold and Fear in Dark Manipulation are replaced with other buff powers instead. There's just a lot of synergies in all of it and it's really one of my favorite controllers.

Hi I'm Captain Potato. We met on Tuesday! And I think I did the noticing. We should do more grouping soon.

MeAndThisArmy (Mercs/Rad) Captain Potato (Spines/Fire) Abbess Void (Dark/Cold controller) Merry Widow (Fortunata) Phillip Fathom (Dark/Water and no that's not an original character but I'm still proud of it) Bubblegasm (Bots/FF) Honestly most of the funny stuff I have is found in the Bio text block. Almost no one fills those out, which is a real shame.

A lot of SGs from back in the day are re-formed on the new servers. Two of the three SGs I was in on Liberty exist now on Excelsior. We're all busy with our alts and getting our 50s up and running again but if you feel even halfway tempted to add a Global Friend, as if they're in an SG already and if not, start a new one of your own. Or hit up @Arclight. (with the dot on the end) cause he knows what he's doing, SGwise.

I love the Paragon Protectors. They're widely varied and challenging without being too much. Longbow Wardens are very similar. I have a lot of respect for mobs that represent a serious threat to almost any player. However, my favorite foes are Freak Tanks. They look so look big and menacing and I find their speech hilarious.

My Staff/Bio brute is built for high recharge, with a lot of +regen and +health thrown in. Most of what I did in practice is the very obvious, like muling sets for LotGs, but the end result is still squishier than I'd like for an AoE-focus Brute. When I get around to doing a respec, I'm definitely going to prioritize Defense bonuses a lot more because just getting Bio's click powers to come up a few seconds sooner doesn't do as much in practice as I thought it would.

Does anyone else really miss being able to start in Galaxy City? I played CoH starting in its beta testing, where we all started in AP regardless, but every single one of my toons on live went to Back Alley Brawler instead of Ms. Liberty on live. I liked the less populated starting zone. I always found it easier to navigate, having more ramps and easy places to jump over things. I know I can go back via Orobouros, but it definitely contributes to my nearly always starting hero characters in Praetoria these days that I can't get the starting zone I liked on blue side.

I think you get 3 waves of X Longbow as you head to the bank. They don't all show up at once and if you can't take them down quickly, they will overwhelm. There's also a crap ton of variability in Longbow Boss-class mobs that often makes them more dangerous than EBs from other factions, so any group big enough or set high enough to add bosses to the mix is going to have issues unless they're buffed up and ready to deal with it. Longbow has a spoiler for every weakness and you WILL run in to yours eventually. They're no joke! Like everybody else said, don't just beeline to the bank. Take the spawns one at a time unless you know you're able to handle it.

For the most part, I actually like Praetoria best. I love the graphics, the starting zones, the well-written arcs and the challenging mobs. Praetoria might as well be called "I plan to solo for 20+ levels" given the very limited population there. I like lowbie red side better than lowbie blue as well, but I understand wanting to be a hero and why relatively few people start out red side. Perhaps one way to fix that might be to add an explicitly heroic set of contacts and arcs on Red Side. Has anyone figured out how to add contacts or make new arcs yet?