nihilii

Well, my fix for this was to go back to Tequila. 🙂 I guess this still works for Live servers. For the time being...

Tried to rename one file just to see if this would trick it into repairing/updating. It failed to. Fails again if I restore the file. I tried uninstalling then, to reinstall from scratch. Now it just says "install failed". Oof. I miss Tequila. 😅

Even if I close the program entirely, once I launch it again the Live option is still stuck in this "Running" dialog with no settings. On Beta I see I have 3 dots I can click and select "check for updates" or "verify", but here I'm out of luck.

I had no idea and now love that the old Barb Swipe animation went to alt Ripper. It's such a frantic look.

Ohhhhh. That took me for a spin.😅 Thank you!

After testing the camera changes, I'm left confused beyond my minor personal gripes. How do I turn the camera to see the front of my character? On Live, I press "Page Up", hold the right mouse button down, and I can spin endlessly. On Test, if I do the same, the angle will at best change a tiny bit. If I tab the Page Up key repeatedly, I can eventually spin the camera all the way to the front. This is hardly convenient. Regarding this previous patch note: "The default run forward binding now turns the character to face the camera direction. This mostly affects what happens when you press forward after using free look to change the camera angle." I am not seeing this behavior at all. Pressing forward after having changed the camera angle, the camera stays in the position I set. I'm actually HAPPY about this, because the above change was something I did not want, but figured I would mention this in case it's related... Tried to fiddle with the options but saw no obvious change.

I hate to be That Guy With The Weird Setup Who Complains When Bugs Are Fixed, but... ...I like making my character run from a side view after moving the camera. ...I love using LB+RB to activate autorun when I'm playing with just one hand on the mouse. I could foresee a helpful suggestion to bind autorun to a mouse button. But I am truly That Guy here: I like using mouses with the 3 base buttons and no more.

Perhaps you're looking at animation times without Arcanatime? Using Tanker values, I see: Cleave: 145.81 dmg, 2.508s animation = 58.13 DPA Chop: 86.64 dmg, 1.452s animation = 59.66 DPA ~2% difference.

It does roughly same base DPA as Chop, at range, can hit multiples, comes with 80% KD, can slot AoE procs (arma, fury). If you have lightning fast reflexes and manage ideal mob setups at all times, or mostly care about ST DPS, there can be a point to stick to super high recharge Swoop -> Gash -> Chop (or throw in a snipe or gloom in there) for slightly more DPS. I have seen such builds advocated. Personally I'm faaaar from perfect, so the many advantages of Cleave outside of pure DPA come into play. It's worth it as a ST attack which makes any extra target hit free damage. It lets me hit instantly rather than take half a second to step into melee range for the next autotabbed target. It fills up a pure Axe chain of Cleave -> Swoop -> Gash -> Chop that is loose on recharge requirements and will fit down to lvl 21 as exemplar. It also makes a perma AoE rotation out of Cleave -> Pendulum -> Axe Cyclone, if that's what I need instead. It gives me solid mitigation. All in all I value this optionality immensely. A pure ST attack would have to be at ET levels of DPA to overshine that. YMMV, but I think anyone who hasn't done so should try the power then decide.

Quick thoughts: - Deflection and True Grit can and should be slotted for resistances and maxHP too - both Deflection and Battle Agility are underslotted for defense. Those are your bigger shields, make sure you're hitting at least +50% defense enhancement there - Combat Jumping doesn't need extra slots beyond the base LotG, the defense is tiny - Phalanx Fighting is also arguably better off with just the base slot. You only get extra defense around teammates, and the buff isn't that big - the regeneration Physical Perfection provides is minimal. You can cannibalize slots here to feed Deflection and True Grit - I'm not seeing Health/Stamina in the build excerpt, so I'm going to assume you put the procs for Panacea and Power Transfer in there. If not, they're great procs! - I'd also suggest Power Transfer and Perf Shifter procs in Superior Conditioning, over Efficacy Adaptor. You can do both, but if you do just one, procs are likely better - Chop is strictly superior to Beheader. You have a lot of recharge so you're animation bound more than anything - the Hecatomb set can go in Swoop rather than Gash, for better proc rate - Cleave is your cornerstone power, I would say a better recipient for the Armaggeddon set than Pendulum. I'd swap the two - AAO should get an end reduction IO rather than a recharge IO

I'm happy with being able to earn Incarnate XP anywhere. Most of the time my characters skip the arc. My Naturals become Incarnate because they fight such powerful foes they go beyond their limits, my Techs discover radically new inventions, and so on.

On first rotation no, but as soon as you cycle it you're good to go. You could open with SR right away if you want the resists ASAP (that is, SR PS AS SS).

Sounds like this would have been the answer here too. This is why I love Super Packs. When you can't coordinate with your teammates, you can still spam team inspirations and give them the necessary buffs.

I don't like MB because the abysmal 65% chance to proc Focus means you lose a lot of AS crits as a result. AS -> SR (95%) -> PS (80%) -> MB (65%) implies 0.95 * 0.80 * 0.65 = 0.494 = 49.4% chance to have 3 stacks of Focus. Half of the time, you will fail to crit. Meanwhile AS -> SS (100%) -> SR (95%) -> PS (80%) gives you 76% chance for 3 stacks. 3 out of 4 is a significant step up from 1 out of 2, in reliability. SS gives you a meaty crit, great resistances, strong soft control. Its lengthy animation is a great spot for procs. Now I know even critless AS does great DPA. So I can believe a AS SR PS MB chain would be optimal for DPS in static situations against tough targets. But there's a lot more flexibility to AS SS SR PS in general. The resistances are especially nice with the right combination. If +10% pushes you from 60% to 70%, the upside is asymmetric. I have a Staff/Invul I played about 2 years ago, was very happy with the combo. Could take on +4/x8 Rularuu with relatively tame insp use, and I'm confident this is thanks to the +res and knockups/downs. In all fairness Invul is probably the secondary where Sky Splitter shines best, between the passive nature of Invul (gives room for slow animations) and the native resistances. I also was a Placateless noob at the time, so make of that what you will. I guess I'm a MB hater above all. It's just too weak of an attack. Low Focus chance. Fast recharge + fast animation makes for terrible proc rate. Ability to slot an Achilles' Heel doesn't make up for it, for reasons - I could page Sovera to rant about this one. Really, all tier1 Stalker attacks with a 3s or 4s recharge are kind of ass...

My money is on before the end of February!

99%. I play this game called Mids Hero Designer, then I use this side program called City of Heroes to make sure my builds perform as expected.

I admit I skipped Placate for so many years I spoke without knowing there was such a bug. But, I'm leveling a Stalker with Placate right now and it gets cancelled all the time by normal interactions soloing +1/x8 missions. Yes, I've noticed sometimes I keep the Hidden status through damage - when there's only 1 or 2 enemies hitting me, maybe. But 99% of the time I lose the effect. In fact between the time I started writing this post and the time I reached this sentence, I went ahead and attacked a group of malta, AS, retreated behind a corner, used Placate on the lone Operation Engineer minion in range, and his attack cancelled my Hidden status instantly. Awkward! Now I see, testing further and paying attention, that if I'm not taking any damage at all for a second or so as I use Placate, then further damage doesn't seem to cancel it. I guess this is a timing issue, if the attack is initiated before the Placate happens or something like that? Either way, in practice this means I lose the Hidden status quite often, because realistically I'm almost always taking damage while using Placate. In Ston's video I perceive it as significantly better, he activates Placate at 00:25 then takes damage at 00:26, visually this *feels* like the Hidden status would break on Live, and here it doesn't. I'll take the placebo either way if I'm wrong. Turns out Stalkers are fun!

They did a good number of tweaks to TS in the beta:

I put the BU recharge set (in full) in Lunge. I will just have to remember to use it once per zoning, I believe this is enough to trigger the effect for your other attacks. Spine Burst is another 2 Winter Set + 4 procs. I agree Impale is important on a Stalker. It is the only "high" damage native single target attack we have for a meaty crit, even if the damage is not THAT high. On the bright side, range makes it that much more likely for the crit to hit rather than fail.

I don't have a build for either unfortunately!

Claws is excellent for exemplaring. By lvl 24 (= 19 exemplared) you've got your monster PBAoE (Spin), your ranged attack (Focus), and an array of 3 more ST attacks with fast recharge to choose from. Bio is crazy good because Bio is crazy good, and this is true in exemplar as well. By lvl 6 (= 1 exemplared) you have full mez protection, S/L resistance, F/C/E/N defense, +maxHP, +regen, +recovery, and last but not least Adaptation - the boosts of Offensive Adaptation in particular are that much more potent at low level, relatively speaking. Another option I like is SR, in exemplar you can get to softcapped defenses by the teens if not sooner which makes a mockery of almost all low level content defensively.

I literally rerolled a spines/stone/soul this morning and I'm having a blast, going through the low levels on double XP (Indomitable). I see a lot of potential in this combo. You're right, the animations are lengthy but I think we can turn that into a strength, sort of. For starters I am Hasten-less (for now, every power is so good there is no room until lvl 32) and I'm running a near seamless attack chain with no local or global recharge whatsoever, that's neat. The AoEs are nice, slows and Impale help take care of runners. AS fills in for the traditional lack of damage of Spines. Like Frosticus says, Placate messes with AI brains pretty good. I love Placating my own target then have it (sometimes) do nothing for 2-3 seconds despite me attacking. Higher level plans: AS -> Impale -> Ripper -> Throw Spines as an attack chain, seeing as we need literally no recharge I plan for 4 damage procs in each attack and 2 Superior Winter sets to round up ACC/DAM and snatch slow resistance. Throw Spines does slightly lower ST damage than Lunge, but including TS in the ST chain lets me proc it for more AoE damage, and any AoE damage is "free", and TS has a bit of range. Range means no brain required, no brain required makes a happy nihilii. I want to ignore Moonbeam completely despite the great DPA, so I can just cycle my 3 (non-AS) spines attacks and get max AS proc chance. Again, no brain. Still grabbing Shadow Meld to shore up Stone defenses as needed. Endurance? We've got room for an extra perf shifter in Crystal Armor, and then the Geode+Brimstone design more or less encourages you to "hibernate" every once in a while (unlike the actual Hibernate). I figure this ought to do the trick and should let me grab Barrier, which coupled with Shadow Meld and overall Stone goodness AND placate should really make for a sturdy character. So many panic buttons here, with 2K1 hp on demand. Right now I'm on SOs with the essential IO uniques and at lvl 30ish this powers through +1/x8 missions in such an enjoyable way. Can see this growing to a well-rounded character, will never break AV soloing records or whatnot but should be sturdy, versatile and comfortable. - I mean, I'm ranting about my new love but maybe you have done Spines extensively and you know you don't want it. Either way /stone is pretty much the best Stalker secondary as is, isn't it? It's so well-rounded, covers just about everything in the sun and the natural Geode synergy, putting you back in hidden mode for a crit, cherry on cake. Obvious answer could be to come back to your EM/stone and finish this one. EM is hard to top and Placate buffs will make any Placate -> TF -> 2x Energy Focus strategies even more reliable than they were before.

Funnily enough I tend to skip epic melee attacks these days yet I mostly play in melee range with my Sentinels. Beyond obvious stuff like PBAoEs, there are natural advantages to keeping enemies close and gathered, it helps maximize your AoE efficiency and lets you juggle your foes with precision if you want to dart in and out. I prefer to treat ranged attacks as optionality to shoot runners or back off when taking too much heat, rather than a commandment to stay away at all times. Range is convenience which translates into performance. Range lets me deal 100% of my DPS almost all the time (as opposed to a melee character, where I will waste many deciseconds through *any* fight retargeting).

Wow, yeah, this is wild. Coupled with the new 35s base cd, a +20% base tohit for 10s is essentially perma-Rage if you will it so. On an AT with passive ~+16% (slotted) through their native Leadership. I had absolutely no awareness of this tohitbuff. Was this added recently? I see City of Data lists it, but even Mids 3.6 has no mention of it, and a quick search for "Placate" through patch notes all the way back to 2022 give me nothing. edit: oh, looking at it more closely I gather this is +20% tohit until you attack / get attacked, so for one hit. Still pretty good on top of BU and Leadership.

This is generally not the case in CoH. Such powers tend to check only once every 10 seconds.