drbuzzard

I know this is a complicated response, but I'll try to keep it simple. That's 2 task forces named out of the whole game. I am not required to do those task forces and I don't do them because they are tedious. Other parts of the game are not tedious, so I enjoy it. I hope that was simple enough.

My order for incarnates is: Alpha to tier 3 stat Lore to tier 3 when opened, followed when you can by Destiny. Judgement and interface can sit, and maybe get to tier 1 or 2 if you have spare stuff lying around after Lore and Destiny. Hybrid I'll usually get to higher tier before judgement or interface. Here's my logic: Tier 3 alpha is a universal level shift so that is a huge deal. Also if you've picked carefully, it should have a notable effect on your performance all the time. Lore tier 3 is both a level shift and extremely valuable in the BAF trial, which is the most commonly run one on Excelsior at least. Catering to what will get you more incarnate salvage just seems prudent to me. Destiny tier 3 is another level shift, and can be important in some builds. Hybrid can be a pretty damned important tool, and the passives aren't really bad. Judgement is an OK nuke on a 2 minute timer- Meh (lots of targets and generally flashy, but every 2 minutes? Ok, not a bad thing, but no game changer) Interface: The DoT is nice, and a few of the other effects are OK, but often are traps (reactive, I'm looking at you).

I'm actually going support the OP here and say I also find the pets to be too flimsy for my liking. Of course I'm not a big fan of pet classes in general, but I did make a crabbermind build for my crab, and while the damage was most impressive while the little buggers were up, they died like mayflies. Sure it was great for soloing a pylon, since I'd stand back and blast and keep all the aggro so the pets could go to work, but on most other things (ITFs being a favorite), the spiders wouldn't last any time at all. Though given pylon times with the pets, having them be durable and faceroll easy to use would be too much. Personally I'm an oddball and play my crab as a very durable blaster type. Given that the crab attacks are massively suck in DPAS(damage per animation second), I use the gun ones which are far better. I add in the GW pool attacks also since they are good DPAS. I basically just keep back hovering, and blast everything to bits in complete comfort and at minimal risk. On teams this makes everyone happy since I run double assault and maneuvers (and SoA tactics). The stuff I would like to see are fairly small changes(no pet changes since the pet damage when up is what makes the AT verge on too powerful): A) Omega Manuever sucks and shouldn't suck. No other offensive tier 9 that I can think of is nearly as clearly skippable. If someone takes this power it is for reasons I cannot comprehend. The recharge is ridiculously long for the damage. Then it's like a coffee break before it bothers to go off, making it all the more pathetic. It is clearly useless on teams, and solo, maybe it would keep aggro off the pets, but the uptime is so bad, you must really meander through missions for it to be consequential. I've played on another server where they adjusted the recharge to reflect the damage formula (or so I assume) and it recharges in 90 seconds base for the current damage (which makes sense since it is sentinel nuke level damage at the same recharge and about the same damage scalar). Just fix the recharge and make it go pop faster, and someone might have a real reason to take it. B) Just about every other weapon set in the game has a no redraw option- give that to crabs. It's a big penalty for using PPP or pool powers in your attack chain, and I would just as soon it be gone.

I have played on some of the other COH servers of late just to try something different. The most jarring change is the lack of a functioning market which HC does have. The mix bucket of attuned IOs and the ability to use fairly cheap converters to make desirable products for the market is central to this. As it is on those other servers you might as well just sell all the dropped recipes at a vendor except for the very rare ones you might want. Drops become a hindrance, while they are not that here. Some of the dysfunction on other servers is low population, but if the HC structure was present, some form of market could function even with a fairly low population. The market is not a tool to exploit other players. It allows players to trade value. Using converters to play the market is a way in which players convert time and effort into providing things other players want. What's funny is that I actually do use merits to buy a lot of the things people are saying are not a value. Why do I do it? I have piles and piles of merits from hero packs and doing lots of TFs. It's simply less bother to use the merits.

Yes, I'd hate to miss out on all the tedious kill all missions in sequence like that. It would be horrible.

As Kismette said, they should be saved for rare and very rare incarnate salvage. The cost to craft those from threads (and influence) is astronomical.

Odd, when I tried it out, I only found a damage difference in slow sniping. I actually went to the trouble of pumping to hit as hard as possible on one blaster and it only had an effect on the slow snipes (the proc, tactics and targeting drone). I Tried turning off Tactics and taking out the proc, and the damage didn't change except for the slow snipes. Then I dropped tactics on a respec since slow snipes aren't enough of an excuse to carry it.

People seem to have missed the impact of combat teleport on stone tanks. Granite even with rooted on isn't much of a hindrance anymore. You get combat teleport set up with the targeting macro, and you pop around like Nightcrawler on crack.

Combat teleport has to be (IMO of course) the most comic booky thing in the game. That is high praise of course.

I was really hoping this was the second coming of Unique Dragon.

It should also be noted that this only counts when actually sniping, not when fast sniping.

True that.

I suspect those were in the plans when the plug got yanked on live. It is odd that they went Posi to Yin rather than getting Synapse done as it is in order. I'd like to see this as well.

You should be warned, that many TFs are only run as partial speed runs because they are so long. Numina, Manti, Synapse, and Citadel are generally all run with shortcuts by everyone even if it's not a speed run. MLTF and LGTF are also run a bit fast because without shortcuts they could be very long.

Synapse-ugh Citadel - ugh Manti- meh Numina - meh DR Q- ARGHHH!!!

I've seen them mentioned already, but about the only things I'd suggestion are: A) Bigger stack sizes for selling or buying (though honestly this isn't a big deal) B) Fix the price display bug C) More price history- the short price history favors the bottom feeders at the expense of people unfamiliar with the market After spending a bit of time on other servers, one really comes to appreciate the adaptations taken by homecoming to make their market work in a small population environment (though the environment isn't nearly as small as those other servers). Other places basically don't have a functioning market at all.

I can give guesstimates, but they vary with teams, how much you kill, and if you do anything to speed it up. This is for minimal haste (as in not clear all unless you have to) I'd say the 2 Posis are 30-40 min or so. Synapse is 1 hour+ (could be 90 or 120 min if you're slow enough) Yin is 30-40 min. Citadel 1 hour or so Manticore 1 hour or so Katie Hannon 45 min or so Numina 1 hour or so (maybe 90 min, there's a fair bit of travel on purpose in that one) Dr Q 2.5-3 hours of hell Sarah Moore 2 hours maybe Justin Augustine 2ish hours Faathim the Kind 2ish again I suppose. ITF around an hour (much killing is mandatory, so not that different from a kill most, though if you just do what you have to 45 minutes is easy enough) LGTF 1 hour or so MLTF 40 -60 min Khan 30 minutes, maybe 40 if you are slow, but this one is really quick with basically no travel time Apex 30 minutes Tin Mage 30 minutes I'm not as familiar with the redside SFs.

OK, I'll offer up a couple opinions. Depending on the level of demand for it, adding in mechanics to increase difficulty for current content is the most work efficient path. You get lots of return from the given amount of effort since it would be reflected in all the content already present. However, this depends on how much people actually want this. If there's a lot of people asking, then it's the way to go. Personally I like new content, and the content I particularly like is task forces. There's been no new TFs since HC has come in, just a number of story arcs (not that I'm complaining about story arcs, the new ones in particular are quite good). I'd say perhaps a Carnies based TF might be a good idea. Maybe intervening in a civil war as the Carnival of Shadows deals with the incoming Carnival of Light. Heck, that might to a bit to solve the 'want harder stuff' problem since Carnies are generally seen as a fairly challenging group. Now some minor suggestions and points: I think adding a to hit buff (not accuracy) to units with increased perception would be a good idea. This would have a number of positive cascade effects. It would generally improve difficulty and make the near universal leveraging of defense since it is easy to do, not as quick a durability fix. Not every faction has units with increase perception, but on higher level groups, it might be a good idea to add them. This would require people to get a better understanding of aggro mechanics, and perhaps have those units capable of alerting other units in their spawn. That part would make the mindless tank and spank quite a bit trickier. It might also make AFK farming not so damned easy. perhaps this should be a difficulty increase option though (not that I'd mind killing afk farming). Oh, and I do favor the idea of increasing difficulty options (yes to spawn sizes, though purple patch means making +5 an option seem more like an exercise in tedium than anything else). Again, larger spawns past the aggro cap would demand something above and beyond tank and spank (and I like playing tanks).

Also Scorpion shield is available without prerequisites, so you can dip into that pool just for the single power instead of having a gateway power you might not even want from the EPPs (there's an ice armor which is roughly comparable for some ATs).

I made the point during the beta that the set lacks enough melee damage powers to be a proper blapping set, but has 2 AOE powers well suited to that. The set came across as confused as to purpose to me. Of course by the time the set was in open beta they probably didn't want to revamp the whole thing. I suppose some people might enjoy it, I just know I won't bother playing it.

I'm 100% behind this. I've made suggestions somewhat relevant to this before (believe I suggested doing away with the limitation of the 10 for 10 shard to thread swap per day). Shards are a relic of the original incarnate design where every tier of slots would have a different form of salvage just so things would drag out as long as possible. This isn't the case here at all with veteran levels, so this relic of that era might as well just go away. Oh, and as an aside, I simply don't understand people complaining about judgment being too powerful. I have to wonder if any of them have actually teamed with a blaster before. A blaster who likes to nuke can have theirs up ever 40 or so seconds doing appreciably more damage than Judgement. Heck, my archery blaster drops rain of arrows which does about the same as judgement every 17 seconds. Heck, Sentinel nukes are pretty close to Judgement in damage and I have those up on all my sentinels in the low 20 second range. Judgement is 90 seconds of recharge which cannot be reduced. The only big advantage to Judgement is target count. As for other suggestions, interface is really odd and may need some rebalancing. A number of the secondary effects are practically negligible, and degenerative stands out head and shoulders above the rest. Personally I'd like it if the others got a boost instead of swatting degenerative. Hybrid- the Support option is exceedingly weak. It is really out of whack with what the rest of them do for you. I think I did craft it on one of my alts, but I know better now. Even on a defender you can just do better with melee for example. I know the dev team is cautious about too much stacking buffs/debuffs, but this is incarnate, and effectively this power amounts to being a trap which wastes threads and salvage.

Be nice if there was a way to use energy without giving up a slot for KB>KD, however it is what it is. If you're just soloing, you can do without that, but on teams scattering targets when you aren't a particularly big damage dealer will be frowned upon. I will say that IMO the only bad secondary is ice. It's just the red haired stepchild of secondaries where by and large the rest are pretty damned solid. Bio is damage king, but will take some work to get defenses up there, and also will be be served by using the autoclick on ablative carapace (or some other way to keep it up all the time). Way bio is, you might just as well stay in offensive mode since it's all about the damage (25% damage enhancement and some bonus toxic damage which is a variable % depending on the attack). Fire has one damage boosting toggle which gives 10% enhancement and then possible fire DoT. Electric, radiation, SR, and energy aura all give recharge boosts. I consider that a form of offensive boost myself, if not explicit. Ninja allows a damage boost from hide, but only then.

Oh it's certainly workable, it's just very unpleasant. With combat teleport, the things which made it too unpleasant to bear for me to play, have be mitigated. Yes, the design certainly is a bit of a mess, but many of the suggestions I've seen would make the set unrecognizable.

Oh, and before everyone jumps on the 'stone armor needs love' bandwagon, I'd like to get some runtime in with the currently godly granite using combat teleport. I've tried it on test, and let me tell you, it really changes the ballgame.

I'll put in a vote for assault rifle like the rest. It's set which hinders itself, lacks anything really good, and the special power tier 9 is simply awful. Heck, they had the mercy to cut the animation time of rain of arrows which was already better, but Full Auto still leaves your behind hanging in the breeze. Not really sure if an emergency buff is sufficient though. Perhaps make the cones about the same dimensions, make M30 knockdown, expand ignite (and I'd still skip it), cut animation of a bunch of things (M30, Flamethrower, FA). That would be comparatively quick and make the set bearable. I got an AR/Dev to 50 back on live way back when. I wouldn't touch that set again with a 10' cattle prod as is. Sonic blast needs some mercy. It has too many 'attacks' which don't do squat damage, and the attacks it does have suffers from way long animations which ruin DPAS. Heck the only good attack in the set is sentinel screech, and the rest of the poor ATs don't even get that. On paper it looks AOE heavy, till you notice that 2 of 3 cones don't do any damned damage. Quick fix: Add damage to all the cones (perhaps just dump the damned sleep), and cut the animations till you have some decent DPAS powers in the set. I think there's simply too much concern about resistance debuff to be quite honest. When one considers it as a damage boosting effect, you must remember it suffers from the purple patch debuff in addition to the damage debuff, so unless you're fighting even con critters, it's far less potent than a straight damage boost.