nihilii

Doubly so if you slap a Gaussian chance for BU in there. Then you get Power Siphon *and* Build Up rolled in one power. THEN you reach level 32, and you start getting instant recharges all the time thanks to Concentrated Strike. It's definitely worth pilfering inf from another alt to buy the attuned version as soon as you create the character, makes your leveling experience smooth as butter.

I think the 58% / 75% (for Purple procs) is just old tooltip text that wasn't updated. If you hover over your power damage on the bottom left, you can see proc rates that adjust above 75% (if the recharge is long enough), and correctly cap at 90%. But, like you say, it's working off the original new PPM formula where global recharge and recharge buffs affected proc rate, so it will always underestimate proc damage. On top of that, Pine's can't account for temporary +damage buffs, Opportunity, other -res and so on.

Remember how there used to be an outdoor Steel Canyon Family map people farmed to heck a while back? XP nerf aside, the Family never got over that. They bid their time, trained long and hard behind the scenes, and after years and years, you've got the result in front of your eyes: Beam Rifle, Titan Weapons, Time Manipulation. High-level Family is no joke.

Ingame, you can rightclick on specific Lore pets (even if you haven't crafted them), click on "detailed info" then expand each individual power, and get detailed stats. It's time-consuming, but should be 100% accurate. From doing the above casually, I believe the best buffing pets are: a) Knives of Vengeance - Guardianship: ST, +400% regen +250% recovery +30% damage for 1 minute 15 seconds, recharge 4 minute 20 seconds (the support pet lasts 5 minutes, so it'll cast the buff twice during its duration) - Rallying Cry: 40 feet PBAoE, +20% tohit +30% damage 8 mag protection and 100% slow resist for 30 seconds. Recharges in 1 minute 30 seconds. b) Phantoms - Adrenalin Boost: ST, +400% regen +250% recovery +50% recharge and 40% slow resist for 1 minute 15 seconds, recharges in 4 minute 20 seconds. - Heal Other: ST, 115.03 heal. Recharges in 6 seconds. c) Talons of Vengeance - Soothing Song: 60 feet PBAoE, -25% healing (means all further heals on you are stronger) +5% def to all and +10% res to all for 20 seconds, 45 seconds recharge. - Regenerating Song: ST, 49.30 heal + 4 ticks of 11.74 heal over 6 seconds, +20% recharge and +20% recovery for 6 seconds. 8 seconds recharge.

The whole IO system, vs the unique FF powerset. Brings to mind analogies of tables with one broken leg and what to do about it, doesn't it? I like the idea of giving DDR to FF, although in practicality if you bubble an already softcapped toon, you're giving him a solid margin of error against defense debuffs. There's been suggestions to give FF +absorb, too, which would be fairly thematic, useful and unique. This might sound out of left field, but echoing Bentley's point on already existing harder content... I think we could see much greater returns on liberal applications of XP bonuses on a per mob basis. The mechanic already exists ingame, although it's been scarcely used since the very beginning. Paragon Protectors give about +40% XP compared to normal mobs, likely to account for their strong powers. What if this was expanded to the whole game? The risk/reward ratio is completely out of whack in CoH, and some Homecoming changes push the needle further in that direction. You've got tasks of widely different difficulty giving equivalent rewards. Lambda Sector vs the Mother Mayhem trial. Battle Maiden warriors vs Rularuu. "Play your way" is not a bad philosophy (actually, it's a pretty good one). But it doesn't mean we have to forgo risk/reward entirely. Speed has been the only criteria for risk/reward balance, generally in the context of Task Forces <=> Merit Rewards. This is the part of the system that arguably works great! Log in game and you will see people running a variety of TFs. So, expanding that balancing effort to exp/inf and incarnates could have good results as well, who knows.

The Power Boost -> Power up change is indeed odd, but it's pretty nice to see doms keeping their longer recharge higher damage snipes. Thanks for hearing us out 🙂

StJ/Bio scrapper, round 2 - now with T4 Musc, T4 Degen, T4 Hybrid (doublehit), T3 Ageless (recovery) I also "broke" the 5 piece Hecatomb set to stick the Unbreakable Constraint damage proc. It feels terribly wrong, but the ~15 DPS or so it adds also feels terribly right. Although, I'm getting a gap before CU if Ageless isn't up - in spite of the arcanatime numbers saying I should be gapless. Odd. Hybrid On 1:36 = 527 DPS 1:27 = 568 DPS 1:15 = 639 DPS 1:28 = 563 DPS 1:32 = 544 DPS 1:21 = 601 DPS Hybrid Off 1:36 = 527 DPS 1:41 = 507 DPS 1:44 = 496 DPS Those pylons broke down so fast people started to ask for MSR invites on the broadcast channel. Well, apparently it was just a coincidence someone decided to form a raid, so I had egg on my face. But for a moment, just a moment, I could delude myself into thinking I was a one man raid. As always, it would need many more runs to get accurate numbers, but I'm more than happy to take the lowend as a baseline. 500 DPS on a melee character with fast(ish?) animations, using a low maintenance attack chain. That's unbelievably great for me.

At this point we're running in circles, but let me reiterate I wholeheartedly disagree with your take. This is why specifics matter. You can get away soloing most lvl 50 AVs and even lvl 54 AVs with the right build, the right strategy and autopilot muscle memory. But it's extremely unlikely to me you would get away soloing the STF with autopilot muscle memory, no matter how right your build and how right your strategy. There's simply a level of execution required to deal with the pseudo randomness that arises from all the things you face at once, in the context of a solo STF. This is a closed deterministic system, so hypothetically, you could faceroll your way through any PvE content if you have the sufficient stats on paper. In theory. And with enough tries, you would succeed. But raise the stakes enough, and this "enough tries" becomes impossibly large to the point it's not realistic to rely on muscle memory + luck alone. You're simply going to have to think on your feet and react to the different ways the fight can play out (really, even an enemy attack hitting at a different time and in a different pattern can result in drastically different outcomes in solo attempts). It's like how you could say there's a combination of finger presses that could make you an overnight millionaire trading on the stock market. Yeah, OK... But is that realistic? There's a combination of words that could get you any romantic partner you might desire. But is this likely to happen? (But once we deal with people, we get into deterministic vs free will questions which are a little too emotionally charged, so probably not the best analogies for an argument. 😉 ) Take chess then. The system is closed and deterministic. The strategies are known. Is playing chess well merely a result of "time consuming repetitive tasks to learn muscle memory"? If so, isn't it strange some people have widely different skill levels despite a similar investment of time? In chess or in CoH, for that matter. I think it's too easy to look at the low-hanging fruit of repetition to dismiss challenge. By nature, any activity that is challenging enough will have an overall high degree of repetition, else it wouldn't be a challenge. i.e., if I'm shooting three-pointers to train, it doesn't mean the NBA Three-Point Contest is not a challenge. At some point we can argue semantics until the end of times as to what constitutes a challenge. You've got muscle memory, preplanning and handicaps pegged as "not a challenge". You could very well add "execution is not a challenge either". Why not. But words lose their meaning when personal definitions are used in public debate. Two accepted public definitions of Challenge: - a task or situation that tests someone's abilities - an attempt to win a contest or championship in a sport Either works for me. Muscle memory, preplanning, handicaps and execution all fit in there. YMMV.

I don't think there is any build in this game that could solo the STF by standing still and running through their attack chain. Even the cheesiest builds for the task at hand would require significantly more positioning and strategy. This is a game filled with force multipliers. The power gulf between a 8 man zerg and a single character is... vast. You could play dumb and grab shivans, warburg nukes, every temp power in the sun, load yourself with Ultimates and amplifiers; and I'm willing to bet Recluse would hand you your ass if you sat there and spammed 1 2 3 1 2 4 during the tower phase.

The negativity seems confined to that one announcement thread, to be honest (or I'm particularly blind; everywhere else, it feels like business as usual). In any controversial situation, it's a given people who have concerns will voice them out and might seem overrepresented. I think bleeding that debate on here will only serve to make those people feel even more victimized - and entrenched in their opinions. If the negativity affects YOU, best to not look at the announcement topic anymore. I know I haven't. It's not like any news will come out buried in the pages of replies, nor will any decisions be made there. Log ingame and have fun, or stalk PK and +like all his posts.

So, Illy, are you going to solo a STF? Sophistry threads can be fun, but only if there is an actual attempt to handwave answers away. You're not even addressing the suggestions, just running away from them... Examples of answers to help you out: "the STF doesn't have an explicit fail state" "i consider running a TF with less than the maximum team members nerfing myself" Either example is easily countered. - explicit fail states are not needed to make a task impossible and therefore a failure (as one has to quit the task force, ergo fail) - a team of other players is not an extension of yourself therefore cannot be considered nerfing yourself; and TFs can be started with one person. So you'll have to come up with something better. There's your forum challenge, if you're still shying away from ingame challenges. 😉

Very interesting! Thanks for explaining the finer details. :)

Is the 35 feet radius Pine shows for Obscure Sustenance accurate? Sounds fantastic if true.

Several characters over the past week: -- 1) Beast/Storm Mastermind Inspired by Maxzero's thread (But then I went Beast because I love doggos, and I did my own thing with the build, and, uh, it's a good reminder I'm not so great at MMs.) T3 Cardiac, T1 Degen, T1 Hybrid, T1 Barrier 2:52 = 350 DPS 2:50 = 353 DPS I had too many attacks, my pets died all the time, I even came close to death because I had too little defense and no resistance. Respecced into Mu for strong S/L/E res, softcapped ranged, lost TONS of recharge in the process but the results were a little better. T3 Cardiac, T2 Degen, T1 Hybrid, T1 Barrier 2:32 = 380 DPS 2:32 = 380 DPS (same time both runs) -- 2) KM/Bio Scrapper With new procs and proc changes, this seemed like a cool opportunity to include Focused Burst in an attack chain and remain competitive. A ranged option is nice to have, and it's also a way to skip Quick Strike and its annoying 0.70 mag KB which turns into knockBACK against level 50 enemies once you're levelshifted. This scrapper runs CS -> SB -> BB -> FB -> SB, with the Critical Strikes proc in CS. The effect lasts just long enough to get it on SB, BB and FB. Other procs: Heca in CS, Apoc + Javelin in FB, Mako in SB. T3 Musc, T3 Degen, T3 Hybrid 2:41 = 366 DPS 2:14 = 413 DPS 2:34 = 376 DPS 2:46 = 358 DPS 2:38 = 370 DPS 2:44 = 361 DPS More than satisfying already. /bio really does a lot to bring any primary to great levels. -- 3) StJ/Bio Scrapper Going /soul for Shadow Meld always makes you wish you could fit Moonbeam in an attack chain. Its 24s recharge doesn't play well with the "standard" 20s recharge most scrappers get on their T9. Street Justice says to hell with that and gives you a 25s recharge T9 - which is really better in so many ways, higher proc chance and all. So the idea of an attack chain naturally followed, Crushing Uppercut -> Moonbeam -> Shin Breaker -> Rib Cracker -> Heavy Blow -> Shin Breaker. PLed a new scrapper. Slotted her. Crafted a T3 alpha. FORGOT to slot the T3 alpha. Threw her at a Pylon. Gobbled end insps like crazy on my overly optimistic build without accolades. Somehow managed a time of 2:29, or 385 DPS. Wait, that's WITHOUT an alpha?! It also dawned on me during the fight Moonbeam doesn't crit, so the Critical Strikes proc is partly wasted. Running an attack chain of CU -> SB -> RC -> Moonbeam -> SB -> RC would require less recharge, get more benefit out of Critical Strikes, keep more -res up, and remove the weakest attack of the chain. Plus, it makes for a simple 5 3 4 2 3 4 flow my fingers can remember. One respec later, and proc-wise we're looking at Heca + Critical Strikes in CU, Apoc in Moonbeam, Touch of Death + Touch of Lady Grey + Achilles Heel in SB, Mako + Touch of Death in Rib Cracker (all of that while maintaining 36% def to all but psi. Yum!). Musc T3, Degen T3... and recovery serum! 1:59 = 450 DPS 1:41 = 507 DPS 1:48 = 482 DPS 2:04 = 437 DPS 2:01 = 444 DPS 2:03 = 439 DPS Original Destiny plan was Barrier, but then again, do you even need Barrier on /bio with Shadow Meld? This character is not struggling defensively. It just feels *silly* to shoot for endurance when /bio has so much recovery, but going for the right side at T4 level might be a sufficient option, filling up the end bar once every 2 minutes and providing great debuff resistance. Musc T3, Degen T3, Ageless T3 (recovery side), Hybrid T2 (doublehit) 1:42 = 503 DPS 1:39 = 515 DPS 1:40 = 511 DPS I think I'm in love. With end taken care of, I ought to replace the final end reduc slot in Moonbeam with the Sting of Manticore toxic damage, too. This should come out to a straight +10 DPS or so given high proc chance + -res.

I think it's mostly that you come to good conclusions and support them logically (at least from where I stand!), so there's little to add. i.e. I agree completely with your take on slotting -res in Dreadful Wail. Meaty -20% boosting ST chain + eventual Lore pets and those other pets we call teammates, beats a damage proc anyday. Enjoyed reading through the topic and I also love those embedded video snippets. 😀

There's some good stuff hiding in the new i24 arcs. Mr G in particular becomes quite a treat (threat? you decide) on +4/x8. "Good Television", second mission of his second arc, has you facing the peacebringer PPD in the standard Brickstown mayhem mission map. A good workout to start with... Then as you exit the bank, you meet the New Praetorians as a group, each of them a lvl 54 AV: - an unpowered Marauder who lacks Unstoppable, but still has a weaker Nova Fist and a blend of Street Justice and Superstrength moves. - Grant Creston, imperial commander who ends up the tank of the group with 30% res to every damage type - Aurora Pena, basically Mother Mayhem without the evil. Evil or not, she's got all those weird psi powers to melt your mind. - Riptide, everyone's favorite spines/elec scrapper. - Pendragon, a Titan Weapons AV (good thing he doesn't slot his attacks as efficiently as the player version...) - Alex Parson, a Beam Rifle / ...Clockwork? mastermind. He's no joke, as he summons a boss-level clockwork regularly *and* heals it to full. Better yet, they've got some decent group aggro, or so it seems to me as I could hardly get a single pull without the rest of the band showing up a minute later. And none of them fly, so you can't just abuse jetpacks the way you might in the STF or LRSF. 😅 It's still possible to split them using the rooftops, so you fight just 2 or even 1 of them. Good thing this takes place in Bricks rather than IP. Plus, the rooftops let you knockback Alex's clockworks all the way to the ground, so they're stuck climbing back rather than resummoned next to you... Mr G also has you fight the Awakened, a full psi faction with all sorts of weird powers and up to 3 bosses per group on x8 thanks to many named bosses objectives. This all culminates in a fight with Penelope Yin AND her above cronies. Bring insps, or tell me how you managed to pull it off otherwise. 😉 Although on the topic of what to do when you run out of insps, I've had a personal breakthrough in the form of Vorpal Judgement. There's little mention of it, but the T4 version on the right side gives you +30% def to all for 10 seconds. It's like Shadow Meld on a longer recharge, and you also deal damage as you use it so it's not too detrimental to your DPS. Makes for a nice breather in a pinch. You do have to hit something with it for the defense bonus to apply, so it's not foolproof in that way. (Besides that, it's also fun to use if you're like me and move your camera around with right-click all the time. Its cone is targeted based on whatever you're looking at. So you can spin your camera with a flick of your wrist in the rough direction of what you want to hit, click the power and off it goes.) I also got Apex under 20 minutes, finally! Potentially useful tip if you're dualboxing with an alt: Apex mobs get very confused when you leave your other character at the entrance of the map, that is to say in an inaccessible part. It seems as if the mobs spawn aggroed to a random team member, and when that team member is not in the fight zone, they stand there confused while you hit them. Sometimes they aggro on you, after a while. Sometimes they will let you beat them to their death arrest. This is true for War Walkers, warrior ambushes in mission 2, even Battle Maiden herself when she comes back. Which can make for a nice way to smooth out the learning curve, if you're shooting for solo.

Trolling aside, the question has merit. In my opinion here's where you can find challenge in CoH: Solo: - +4/x8 missions against all factions (facing peacebringer PPD is a whole different ballpark than a fire farm) - TFs, up to and including STF/RSF/LGTF for the strongest builds Duo: - itrials (requires extra dummy accounts due to DUMB minimum player mechanics) Team: - speedrunning content - PvP The game is meant to be stupid easy for full teams and doubly so if you pick the path of least resistance, so as a trend the obvious answer is to play on smaller teams and to venture beyond the best reward:time content.

Some other events don't seem quite linear compared to level progression. In Faultline (lvl 15-25) we help Penelope as a teenager, and we know it takes years for her to mature into the Freedom Phalanx member we see at lvl 50. But Admiral Sutter TF (lvl 20-40) makes us deal with the Praetorian invasion, which happens after Penelope reaches adulthood - and the Lady Grey TF (lvl 35-50, but originally 45-50) still gives us Penelope as a teenager with growing powers. More complicated still, the deaths of Statesman and Sister Psyche happen when you're lvl 50 but Penelope replaces Sister Psyche in IP for a lvl 20-25 TF as a fresh new Freedom Phalanx member (so, years after the Fautline event, but possibly overlapping with the Faultline arcs), and obviously neither States nor Psyche can be seen anywhere in the game world available from lvl 1 to 50.

I'm echoing some of what Sunsette already said, but invul is up there if you want to be absurdly tough against anything that isn't Psi. Good S/L resistance, defenses are decent, reach 120+ max end with some end drain resistance, some slow resistance, some defense debuff resistance. It has a little bit of everything. If you go Vigor alpha + Rebirth destiny, you can stack very high levels of regen on your 2400 hit points, with a 1100 heal to boot. Your resistance to non-S/L stuff isn't capped either so invul stacks very well with Melee Hybrid, the regen + resistance one. "Flying fortress" is a nice way to put it.

It's more of a thought experiment than a suggestion. I'm confident our devs have far more sense than to actually listen to me. 😁

Not to belittle anyone who feels differently. But as someone who believes the modern early game is perfectly fine... I wonder how things would play out if developers ran a sneak experiment. Removing TOs and DOs, replacing them with SOs as soon as level 1. But only in appearance. You'd see a +33% boost on your enhancement bar, and on your power totals once slotted; while behind the scenes it'd give you only the bonus of a TO/DO appropriate for your level. Would people start thinking the early game is fine thanks to a perception trick? For that matter, how many of the people who believe the early game is a slog feel that way because they have years of accumulated experience before origin powers, temp powers, veteran powers, increased lowbie tohit, praetorian enhancements, amplifiers, increased XP curves, and so on. 🤔

This sounds like a better and better idea everytime it's mentioned. Buffing Tanker T9s first could help test the waters before potential proliferation, and increase interest in the AT.

XP or inf, bosses are worth it. A boss is worth 3 lieuts. In your standard patrolling farm group with 4 bosses, you're getting more XP and inf from the bosses than from all the lieuts + minions combined. Unless it takes you twice longer to complete runs with bosses on, always go bosses. (Even if it took you twice longer to complete runs, it might still be better with bosses on. You've got a fixed amount of time during which you don't earn XP, going in and out of the mission, picking the next one, buying insps if you roll that way. So a 5 minute map in which you earn 5M inf beats a 3 minute map in which you earn 3M inf.)

But... but that would require walking. I'm not sure I'm ready for that level of commitment. The Pay2Win vendor sells the Mission Transporter for 1M influence, which is a *much* safer way to get back to your mission without the risk of straining your unused leg muscles. 🙂

The optimal attack chain is probably going to involve your secondary. This is true even if you want to stay ranged. (Well, unless you're /devices, as /devices lack ST moves... which should change if the Test server patch ever hits Live. 🙂 ) Strictly with primary, you could run Sniper Rifle - Slug - Burst, with about +300% recharge in Sniper Rifle; and throwing out a procced out Ignite whenever up on targets that won't scatter to the four winds. If that level of recharge is too high for your other build goals, throw another Burst in there (Sniper Rifle - Burst - Slug - Burst). Build stub: | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;888;414;828;HEX;| |78DA8D92CD4EC24010C7B77411A92010E207A69A48A207250494C4A351FCB84842F| |40148436B69D2D086D6444F46A32FE107C617F0ECD507F0393CF9F10675D819D4B0| |17276DFF3BBF99CE4C77DB38DD493DED5F6C32255D778D20686DC333B47AF186613| |B6D36B004DC3AE1D6A1D1B52DB3BC1504C6891BB60E9D63D79A19068F4E7CDFEB85| |E57DC3B4AD30605AD3F3DCF2916F59664A2C0F2CC377BA765A387B8EDD09C1CB0C4| |3A6D50B3A8E9FDBF59D76B9EEB966AB21EA9ECDC2044B74A34571760F52E56CAC8F| |3AFE483AA63236CF99F61A13BEF6029AE7ECFCF75DB8C0D832AC15AAA654303B562| |2A56A9CBAF0928ADDAE315E844D51C5CB91A2AE624E96741A62718CB1F894229892| |C07D1CB084E89E0337492449592BE04DD0441337D831D527BD439DBC257D40CD567| |12215EAA5A96B5A74E040324432D4E112BC1C75CD89AC2B58E789E4292BFAB112F0| |024D54A861A7B935D20D54BD8893E8CFF8FD0B6FEA48957F98CE478F67910FCF278| |A56A46845225589AC4BA42691038934F9CF6FC114419259386C24D1BB0651E56FF4| |53221F12F992C83772CEE86E| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|