drbuzzard

Yes, it is clear that you discarded any argument which might have been carefully constructed. PBAOE Nukes are on a long base timer, and even with perma hasten pop around once every 30+ seconds. Now maybe I'm playing wrong (I'm not), but I'm not standing around waiting to pop off my nukes, and to be quite honest they are hardly the focus of the sets. They are best used at optimal times, since the recharge is long and in many cases the DPAS isn't all that hot if you're down to one target (some are standouts, but not most). The rest of the PBAOE nuke primary powers (except rad) are all ranged. Yes, for most secondaries you are expected to blap, but you were making an argument that primaries drive blapping which is specious. How about I quote you and take it apart directly? <quote>Blaster sets are sold as "Ranged" Horsecrap. The entire Archetype was built from the ground up as Blapper and there are some pure ranged sets. Not in secondaries. But Primary you have Electric which is almost all ranged and Ice. I just got tired of the 100x variation on Ice Machine concept. I mean, I love Ice...but running an ice machine is only so entertaining. Also the damage is meh. </quote> 'some pure ranged sets' - about 40% of the primaries only some? The rest of the sets minus one have 1 PBAOE. That looks pretty ranged in focus since it is the, well, primary. Then you go on to complain about ice which is actually excellent damage, and ignore the other 4 pure ranged primaries. Yeah, no point in expecting a carefully constructed argument.

The funny thing about it was that when I first used it, I thought it was actually fast since the animations 'look' fast to me. Then I check the animations times and meh. It's good against things which do unstoppable. Otherwise, meh.

Cold is fairly uncommon, but BP Ravagers can be trouble, and CoT ice demons are bad as well. The fact that ice damage is usually from a 1/2 lethal source is probably the saving grace.

My pedantic nature won't let this stand. Honestly, electric has the best resistance coverage in the game. The only thing you can't cap resistance for with that set pretty easily is toxic, which is pretty uncommon. On a tanker you start with 35% base for lethal, smashing, fire, psionic, and cold. You also have 30% for negative energy, and 82.5% for energy. With slotting it's very easy to get quite high resistances even on just SOs, and with sets, capping all those to 90 is not a challenge. You are left with the toxic hole though, and outside of the tier 9, it's just there. Compare this to dark: lethal, smashing, fire, and cold are all at 30% base. Negative energy is at 40% base and psionic is at 50% base. Energy and toxic are at 20% base. Thus you really have both energy and toxic holes. Radiation: you have lethal, smashing 30%, fire and negative energy 35%, energy 45%, toxic 50%, psionic 15%, and cold at 7.5%. These are strong numbers, but you basically have 2 holes in cold (especially) and psionic. Both dark and radiation armor have holes, and start with lower base resistance numbers for most things. Dark has a rather (IMO) glaring energy hole, and radiation has a cold damage hole (and psionic), both of these energy types are a lot more common than toxic (especially energy). Now this is not to say that electric is superior, as it surely is not. The heal is on way too long a timer, and it is far lower in actual survivability than the other two. Personally I think it could use a reduction in the timer on the heal to at least get it into the ballpark, because right now it is one of the weaker armor sets in actual play .

This is a truly odd paragraph. Electric has just as much ranged as the rest (1 PBAOE). Yes, most of the sets have a PBAOE nuke, but that's really not a defining power which makes them mixed or melee. Yes, you can pull the recharge down pretty low, but you're starting with a fairly high number, and are not cycling the attack in terribly often. But let's look at primaries which are pure range: Archery Assault Rifle Ice Beam Rifle Water Blast Then we have primaries with a single PBAOE Electric Fire Energy Dark Psionic Dual Pistols And then the single primary with more than 1 PBAOE Radiation Now to say that the primaries demand blapping is rather specious. 40% are pure ranged. Most of the rest have a single PBAOE, and in most cases it's the nuke on a long timer. For electric you can skip it since endurance drain is an iffy prospect. Yes, you can argue that radiation blast is a blapper set, but it's hardly the king of the hill, and something you don't see a lot of for fairly good reason. Heck, there's devices which can be played as a purely ranged secondary without missing much of anything. Heck, as I see it only some of the secondaries have good enough attacks to really justify blapping in any case. I play blasters as purely ranged, and I really don't suffer for it. Oh yeah, and calling ice damage meh? Huh, it's the best single target primary, and blizzard is damned good.

When I first started on HC, I followed the policy of waiting till I hit 22 and then slotting up with lvl 25 IOs. They are about the same value as even level SOs (32% for example in damage) and never expire, so will not cost you more in the future. Sticking to lvl 25, 30, 35 IOs will keep costs down, and allow you to save money. Using SOs ends up being a money pit as you have to update them with levels. To make some quick money as you go along, convert merits into enhancement converters and craft any uncommon IO recipes which drop. Then use 2 converters to change them into rares, and keep converting the rares till you hit something valuable (resistance, defense, are tops, some healings are good, some end mod are good).

From what I understand, the aggro cap is a setting of enemy AI, and hence universal. Thus I don't think it can be adjusted at the local scale.

Once upon a time 'Man Builds' were a fad. Nobody would claim that they were a good suggestion in terms of effectiveness. When people are asking for advice, it's reasonable to assume they want advice so as to be more effective. Telling someone that they can skip anything they like and do anything they like is true, but it is also about as helpful as pointing out that water is wet.

It can be demonstrated objectively and quantitatively that the powers you skipped in the time power set would have enabled you to do things more effectively. Time is a great set, and honestly there's very few powers (likely zero) which can be skipped and make your build better. Your subjective preference is fine as it is your character, but when I'm giving advice I prefer to give suggestions based on hard data.

This is certainly true. However the rest of us are running with the assumption that he actually wants to be effective or something.

1: This depends on what the primary does. It depends on if it is damage, control, debuff, or defenses (I'm leaving out MMs, but I don't play them- but the pet should be the obvious choice). This also depends on if you're talking what you pick initially when you make the character, or what ends up present in a final build. Those are often different in my case. For attacks, I'll pick a fast recharge when I'm starting, but final build will have the better DPAS (unless it is really close, then it is the one which allows a smoother attack chain). I don't play control much, but I'd like opt for a hold or another harder mez over an immobilize, though in the final build immobilizes can be handy and I end up with them. Debuff sets are a mixed bag, but I'll want something which either makes it harder for the enemy to hurt you and your team or easier for your team to hurt it. Debuffing is rather complicated so an easy answer doesn't really work. Defenses- there's a decent chance you'll want all of the lower stuff, though I'd go with what fits the theme and stacks. IE -If you've got a defense primary set, grab more defenses. 2: Umm, not sure what you mean. You're stuck with the T1. I'll take the T2 if it is good. Often I'll end up with a unslotted T1 if it's lousy enough. For example, while War Mace is a great set, the T1 attack is crap, so I end up with it present (have no choice), but with no slots in it and it is not in my power tray. Same for defenders, where sometimes the T1 is crap. I'd say this is less of a concern in defenders because they aren't exactly major damage dealers, and you're probably better off chasing damage through procs. 3: T9s are a mixed bag. Defensive T9s I usually skip. I'm like Luminara, I prefer consistent performance rather than having 'OH SHIT!' buttons available. Offensive T9s are almost always good (can't think of a bad one offhand). Most debuff/support T9s are good (most, not all- Traps- I'm looking at you). Control T9s are usually the pets, and they are key to damage. 4: If a power doesn't add towards my goals I skip it. Goals vary by character of course. A power can contribute directly or if it can offer a place to put a useful IO set or proc bonus.

Good to see you're keeping up. That doesn't mean we need to keep tedious ones. Also, if you were not aware, they keep the tedious versions in Ouro whey they update TFs.

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.