Parabola

But the point is that if you don't need to three slot stamina (perf shifter +end, perf shifter endmod, endmod) then you don't need to three slot health (panacea, miracle, numina). If you really need the end though and you are looking to spend three slots on health and stamina slot a pure endmod in stamina rather than adding a third slot to health for the numina proc. Also technically if you are only running stamina with the base slot you can save a bit of inf and slot an endmod rather that the shifter proc, it works out much the same (and better if you 50+5 it).

I see this slotting quite a bit too but I'm pretty sure the numina proc doesn't give the return that moving that slot to stamina would give with a plain end mod in it. 50+5 it and it's way ahead. Of course the numina also gives regen so if that's a thing in a build then it's a consideration but I think most people are chasing recovery primarily.

I finally took a deep breath and did this on my badger over the weekend. I just went through my alts and emailed hero merits to myself from anyone who could make one. I was surprised just how many merits were sitting around on characters I haven't played in ages. I had enough before I'd reached halfway down page 2 of my roster. It still hurt a bit spending it all but it had to be done.

I tend to build my ranged blasters focusing just on ranged def and my blappers with s/l and ranged. This works out because the melee attacks allow you to slot s/l defence much more easily. The problem with relying on res of any description on a blaster is mez and debuffs. Without defence to avoid attacks (particularly ranged def as a lot of mez is attached to ranged attacks) you will eat an awful lot of status effects which will end up getting you killed even if you can brush off the initial damage. It is pretty easy and cheap to build for ranged def. Thunderstrike in your single target ranged attacks, artillery in your taoes and makos bite in melee attacks (if not chasing s/l as well). The ato sets do provide a healthy chunk too alongside other juicy bonuses but they aren't required to build for ranged def. In general I find ranged blasters among the cheapest builds I make, winters and purples are not go to sets when all you want is ranged def. Having said all of which you don't have to chase defence at all. If you are going to team all the time and are careful with aggro then it's not so vital. The other route is heavy control and that can work too. I'm thinking of trying to put together a water/cold/fire blapper that is likely to not have much defence but will rely on debuffs and control to stay alive. It might well not work but it looks like fun!

I got inspired to have a play and see what I would do with this. I've switched to hover blasting (hover at capped flyspeed) and made a couple of small adjustments. It perma's hasten without ff+rech or upshot boosts and is kinder on the end bar.

Actually fair enough on ice arrow. I was comparing this to the ice/tac/cold I am currently running, there ice arrow makes a handy upgrade from bitter freeze ray. You already have 4 main single target attacks plus the immob so you don't need it. Tac arrow really is a great set. As you say the free recharge is always welcome. I've been a bit reluctant to take esd arrow though because I can feel the nerf hammer of damocles hanging over it! Something I've been a bit on the fence about is the value in slotting a heal set into any blaster sustain rather than some end mod. You get such huge numbers from it. If you were prepared to lose the set bonuses from preventative medicine you could slot it with 2 end mods, 2 heals if you wanted and then would likely be able to strip stamina down to its base slot. That would free up slots to do something like put ragnaroks in glue arrow. Just a thought.

Should we at least merge discussions about dark affinity and dark miasma together? I'm guessing miasma is coming given the current trend but they are more or less the same set. We could kill two 'they are basically very good sets' birds with one stone. As a side note I'm going to be very annoyed if this dark theme ends before we discuss the only dark set I'd really like make a couple of changes to: dark blast with its wonderful array of mismatched cones. Anyway, back on topic. Dark affinity (and miasma); basically very good. Black hole is an auto skip as troo says which is a shame. I also have a small gripe about the cast time of darkest night (and all other toggle debuffs in the game for that matter). In today's fast paced team game these become quite unwieldy to use. Also the change that leaves it running on dead anchors is fine until you engage the next spawn and find you forgot to detoggle it from the last one. Maybe a small reduction in the cooldown?

Flash arrow is unresistable according to the in game info. I like it because you can cast it prior to engagement so it seems free in terms of activation. In your build I might be tempted to drop it for ice arrow though, with procs that becomes seriously heavy hitting and rotating two holds in your attack chain is great. I have a defender proc monster version of trick arrow/dark who I love but is basically just an end hungry blaster. I also have this blaster combo rolled up but sitting at lv1 waiting for me to get around to it. So many alts, so little time!

That one on the city map in the freaklympics drives me insane every single time. It hasn't once gone well.

Surprised you haven't had more response to this so here goes. Freeze ray is a great attack that happens to hold and should be slotted and used as such. Bitter freeze ray is a terrible attack (low dpa) and is often dropped. You have three endmods in stamina and none in frigid protection. Frigid protection gives twice the recovery that stamina does so slot that first. I would try to get more enhancement into ice storm and definitely into blizzard. Blizzard is a fantastic nuke with good secondary effects and a technically higher mob cap than any other nuke (due to being a rain it can kill mobs and then start effecting others). Frost breath is the more skippable of the aoes if something has to give. If you do take frost breath I like to get range enhancement into it. 5 posi's including the dam/range and a pure range io is my default cone slotting. Try to add the guassian's proc to build up, it makes a big difference. I would lose the regen tissue proc to free up a slot. Actually if you get a couple of endmods into frigid protection you might find you don't need the extra health and stamina slots at all. Leave the panacea in health and a single endmod in stamina and you should be good.

It might be nice on defeat all missions to have all the enemies show on the map from the start. That would solve the problem of wandering groups or runners. You could then be sure each floor was cleared before moving onto the next.

Don't bother with this. Just position yourself halfway between the melee guys and the squishies on the next spawn you engage and fire them off. You'll hit everyone most of the time. If people miss out for a cycle they miss out, it's not the end of the world.

I just knocked this up. How does it look? In reality I'd push things back to be able to take Call Ravens earlier. I also probably won't get away with this slotting in Call Ravens because of end use but it certainly looks nice like this! I'm not familiar at all with building MM's - how does the slotting in the pets look? I've tried to fit in procs and uniques while still giving reasonable enhancement - in particular accuracy to the lower level pets. Is it enough?

That's disappointing to hear. I can throw fairly unlimited funds at the project so I might be able to work around the problem?

Yeah I could see beasts/cold working thematically. Some sort of druid. Thanks.

Well I don't know about you but I primarily build for defence not resistance on my squishies. With defence you have the added value of helping to avoid mez and debuff attached to attacks as well as being able to hit the softcap rather than an AT hardcap. On top of which with set bonuses laid out the way they are it is far easier to build for significant defence than resistance. Of course any suitably difficult content is going to kill you either way but I see an imbalance between defence and resistance even so. Another thought I had which isn't going to be very popular is what if set bonuses were reworked to be affected by AT modifiers? So a tanker would get more out of a defence bonus but a blaster would get more out of a +damage bonus. Again not saying it should be so but just throwing it out there as a what if.

It's not a multiplayer online game? And it is in development, that is exactly what the homecoming team are doing. Granted they are working with limited resources but they have made their ambition to run the game 'as if live' clear. This is important because in a multiplayer game everything we do impacts in some way other people. The most important part of this for me is teaming. I feel that teaming should be encouraged at all levels, not necessary, but encouraged. If certain dynamics are causing powersets or even entire AT's in some cases to not feel they are contributing at the highest level then those dynamics should be discussed. As I said before it is ultimately up to the devs to decide what they want to and are able to change. Perfect balance is of course impossible in as complex a system as this. But that doesn't mean adjustments shouldn't be tried, or even discussed. Now, changing the to hit equation to allow different AT's to softcap at different defence values would indeed be a huge change and likely utterly impractical. That doesn't change the fact that the blanket 45% looks a little odd to me given AT's have different resistance caps.

I feel you missed the part where I said that there are indeed differences between how a game and business software should be handled. But also a couple of points: You are advocating that we shut down discussion of ideas because you don't like them. That is dodgy ground and isn't healthy for the game or it's community. Also this game is an MMO. Continuous development and change are part of the operating model. This is going to involve balance changes over time as understanding of previous changes and their impact on the wider system are better understood. Some of those changes are not going to be to your liking but that is what we sign up for playing this kind of game. As for this game being a creative tool rather than a system, well it is of course both. If it was purely a creative tool it would just be the costume creator. But there is this game system that provides a context for our creations to interact with. That system is very complicated but built around the ability to progress and be challenged and enjoy working with each other to overcome those challenges. You will note I didn't actually say anything specific about nerfing defences. I just alluded to balance problems that I beleive exist at the high end of the game. I've discussed these at length elsewhere and was deliberately being vague because I have recently been involved in one of these discussions and was feeling a bit burnt out. However, I will just say for the record that, purely from a system point of view, and not calling for nerfs or the removal of anyone else's fun, it does seem odd that the defence softcap is the same for all AT's.

I've never rolled a cold domination anything and figured it was about time I did. I've always seen it as a set that takes too long to get to the good stuff and have been put off by that. But as an mm I would have something else to focus on while waiting for the juicy debuffs so that might work for me. What would be a good primary set to pair with /cold? I'd like to be team friendly and would be slightly reluctant to go demons or bots as those are sets I've used before. Any advice on what to focus on would be good too, I don't have much experience with mm's at all. Thanks.

This is very well put. I come at these discussions from the point of view of what I think is right for the system rather than what people want every time. That's what I do in my day job, I look after a system and do sometimes have to make changes that annoy users but it's for the benefit of the system and they have to happen, people adjust. I am firmly of the opinion that there are balance problems at the high end of the game. From the system point of view my instinct is that these should be adressed. However this is a game not an ERP system and so the decision making has indeed to be slightly different. It is for the devs to decide what if anything is to be done but it is perfectly right that we continue the discussion.

Can't help you on the actual numbers for this but anecdotally I've just respecced out of greater fire sword on my fire/shield. It may be the better attack to use but it feels slow to me and it affects the flow of the attack chain. Also not fond of the animation which is ponderous and any attack that telegraphed would never hit anything but fresh air in real life. I'm much happier using the regular fire sword instead.

The city feels a much more real place to me when I travel through it rather than teleporting from place to place. My favourite zones are all low level ones and I'm pretty sure that's got something to do with spending time running around in them. Kings row is indeed the best row! I actually had a similar experience living in London. Using the tube is a bit like teleporting from one place to another. You get there but you don't get a feel for how the city actually connects together. It's only when you explore above ground for a bit that all the seperate locations join together into a whole. You also discover just how close together certain stations on different lines are.

Yeah I don't have a problem with the vet levels either. Having to jump through specific hoops isn't generally fun and this way you are encouraged to participate in a wide range of content. I don't want it to be harder to become incarnated, I just have certain reservations about what being incarnate looks and plays like. Still don't understand the fuss about losing the level shift in regular play vs having to add a +5 difficulty to achieve much the same thing but I'm clearly swimming against the tide on that one!

But surely it would only matter if people found themselves in a position where they were no longer able to turn the difficulty down far enough to be able to play? Otherwise they are just peeved that their number is one smaller than it was. So if there are people out there that currently can only just manage playing regular content at -1x1 while they are level shifted and so would be unable to cope with the level shift removed then they would genuinely affected. I would love to see that build though :).

Yeah it would be nice. No idea of course how much dev time it would take. I would argue about what the difference between +4 without the level shift and +5 with it is though. I wouldn't call it a nerf to remove the level shift either - we choose what level to fight against. This isn't removing power from the player it's just adjusting the numbers available for us to choose.