Yomo Kimyata

Earlier this year, I was on a PUG ITF and one of the members of our group was wearing the Cim Surgeon costume for the entire ITF. It was brilliant.

My endless lag

I very recently resurrected a Battle Axe/Ice Armor/Leviathan scrapper and updated it for the relatively recent changes in Battle Axe and Ice Armor. I have both Icy Bastion (which seems to act a lot now like Hibernate before being deactivated) and Hibernate, and I use them both in solo +4/x8 general play. After at least a dozen missions, I have noticed some inconsistencies in Hibernate that I've never noticed before. This might be due to the fact I've never used it frequently before, but here goes. These are specifically about Hibernate and not Icy Bastion, although I suspect they might be interacting in an unintended manner. 1. Sometimes enemy damage breaks through after activation when I'm Untouchable. The way this happens is that damage comes in while the power is still activated. Not often, and yes, I'm sure that this is occurring after the 0.75 second activation time because the health regeneration and endurance recovery has already kicked in. Maybe I'm not sure what Untouchable Mag 1000 means, but this is in the middle of one or two x8 mobs. I'm fighting mostly Nemesis right now, so I'm thinking that maybe this is an effect of stacked Vengeance? 2. Sometimes Hibernate breaks, much like I've observed Geode breaking in the past. Again, not often, but maybe one every other mission. I believe Geode is designed to break if enough damage is taken, but Hibernate is not designed that way. The way this happens is that the power is activated and functioning and after a few seconds the power is deactivated and put into cooldown. If intended, I can only imagine that this has something to do with an Untouchable timer, since Icy Bastion and Hibernate each involve the Untouchable status. 3. Sometimes the Hibernate button greys out for a period of several seconds or much longer. This happens the most (every few minutes) and I'm suspecting that this has something to do with Icy Bastion being previously activated but it is not consistent. Sometimes it happens when I haven't used either power for at least several minutes. I've been suffering a lot of lag in my current circumstances so I think that might also be a factor

The rate at which new characters are created has decreased for various reasons, while the rate at which new IOs are created has increased for various reasons.

B-b-but they all have the same trading history?!?!? WITCHCRAFT!!!

I've been noodling around on my Ultimate Enhancement Guide for years now, but I keep getting bogged down. Partly due to the fact I want to avoid tables like the ones above. At this point in my existence, I may be more artificial than intelligent, but it is interesting to see what an AI or two came up with.

Looking at this thread, I pulled out an old lvl 50 scrapper that pre-dated both the upgrades to Ice Armor and Battle Axe named, imaginatively enough, Ice Axe. I'm in the process of running her through the paces in this newer gentler world, but here are some thoughts so far: I'm generally not a fan of non-positional typed defense, but frankly I don't worry too much about this to be honest. Since I'm running through all sorts of content, I won't make a specific "psi enemy" build and I'll just make up the difference with healing/regeneration and oh shit buttons. I've got three builds on this one: a Force of Will build, an Experimentation build, and I'm working on the Sorcery build now. Lots of oh shit buttons out there! I try to have both a ST chain and an AoE chain. For Axe, I usually find that Cleave, Chop, and Swoop are sufficient because I'll have a ranged attack from an epic pool, I'll have a Force Feedback proc in Cleave that helps, and there are other buttons to push for Ice Armor that keep me upright. If I were going for pylon times, I'd focus more on ST options. As a leveling build, yeah, it's tough at first and I'd consider taking another attack or two at lower levels that you respec out of later. Honestly, I pick up Kick pretty early and use it until about level 12 or so. My basic ST chain is Cleave, Chop, Swoop, +. My basic AoE chain (and AoE is glorious on this alt) is Cleave, Axe Whirlpool, Pendulum. As such, I go against the grain and put the Crit Strikes proc in Cleave. It has a good chance of activation for a small AoE, and since I spend 95% of my time fighting x8 hordes, it activates a ton. I'll put a FF +rech in Axe Black Hole and/or Pendulum as well, and I generally skip out of Hasten because that proc is going to be dinging like crazy. Normally for a non-defense based scrapper, I'll split the Scrapper's Strike 3-3 for the extra defense bonus, but I'll probably 5 or 6 slot the set in Swoop since I don't really need it.

The issue with status protection in this game is that there are haves and have nots. Melee classes get seemingly tons of status protection, and non-melee do not. It has always been that way -- I'm not saying that's right or correct, but it is intentionally done by design. In fact, I feel like if anything, the push is to make status protection more precarious for those classes with free status protection -- see what happens when you are fighting big mobs of Malta and your scrapper gets held for a few seconds because there was a short overlap of magnitude, or at the introduction of FREEM. I'm not a big fan of arbitrarily adding rules or tools that help one subset of players over another, and I'm also not a fan of adding rules or tools that don't apply to both players and mobs. So my unpopular view would be if new status protection tools need to be introduced, they should somehow be useful to ATs that don't currently need them (like how Rune of Protection provides resistance, so that melee classes could also get some benefit from it) and should also apply to mobs. Yes, that would ruin crowd control based ATs, but hey, at least you wouldn't get held anymore.

Good times.

Step 1: establish reputation Step 2: outsource based on that reputation Step 3: … Step 4: Profit!

Haunting. I am going to haunt the crap out of all of you.

I would like to note that sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between Alts With Unusual Purposes (A.W.U.P.) and Alts With Usual Purposes (A.W.U.P.).

This is what is interesting about that market, and I think that there are two main sides to this: 1. Prices of recipes have been rising. Gosh, has someone found a real use for Gladiator's Javelin? No, people are buying the recipes en masse, crafting, and converting them to more saleable IOs. They always have, and they always will. But there seems to have been some market PvP(lol) amongst those buyers so prices have been rising. Listen, it will always be more cost efficient for a player to craft their own PvP recipes and either sell and convert, but there has always been a convenience fee, and it's still generally cheaper to buy a recipe on the market and craft it than to buy it crafted. But that margin has been dropping. 2. I've also noticed that there is a good Samaritan or twelve who periodically lists lots* of useful PvPs at 8mm or so. When that supply dries up, then prices go higher until the next dump. Now, to me this is a clear sign that the "right" price for these is something higher than 8mm. Now where is their supply coming from? Maybe storage, maybe conversion, but it's consistent. Is this a white knight marketer? Well, I don't doubt they think they are, but that would require a lot more listing on their part. Rather than listing 30 Panacea procs at 8mm, try listing 500 at 9mm and that would probably work really well over all.

For me, it's about keeping my side of the street tidy. I've got a lot of alts. A lot of them. All of them got started for a purpose, but sometimes that purpose lost its way. So as much as I hate deleting a character, I do it to keep my character lists a little more tidy. Please note that this is coming from an inveterate hoarder, so it's not easy, but at the end of the day I'm not spending any time regretting deleting Blonde Furry and their stash of 1,000 inanimate carbon rods.

Yup. I think this is classic microeconomics -- lots less demand and lots more supply. Let's look at something like Steadfast Protection +def. Every character should find a spot to put this, in my opinion. Not only is it easy to make one of these for yourself for under a mm, it is also easy to make several hundreds or thousands of them for under a mm. First off, it feels like there are a lot fewer new characters being made, and those that are being made seem to be made by people who already have everything set aside. Secondly, I've seen a bunch of liquidation, and I've been doing a lot of it myself. Generally, if I want to sell, say, Miracle +recovery, I'll do it in a block of 30 to 50 and come back at some point in the future. Nowadays, I'm seeing people create large quantities, like hundreds, and unless I want to wait out for all those to clear the market, I'll need to undercut for my block of 30 to 50. I look at four meta markets nowadays, and they all suck. Winter Os used to be fun and lucrative, but why in the world are you going to pay 25mm for an Avalanche A/D when you can buy a winter pack and get one or more WOs that you can reroll into what you need for cheaper. I'm guessing that those sophisticated enough to use WOs are also at this time sophisticated enough to either buy packs or use merits. ATOs are also a disaster, but I think that's more due to the fact that some people finally posting large quantities of their holdings at fixed prices. Being able to arbitrage across AT types used to be very fun and profitable, and now is pretty much like a supermarket where you buy what you want off the shelves for 8mm. PvPs are also seeing this, and I suspect that there are a number of people (and I think you are one of them) are also liquidating their vast holdings at 8mm or so. Every now and again, you get demand to spike up so that people use up the supply and you get some price increases, but generally you can get any PvP IO you want at 8mm or less. And then there is the uncommon/rare IO market. I made most of my inf from creating factories for various parts of the market, but others have as well and they are dumping. It's a buyer's paradise and that probably won't ever change.

Here's how I roll (specifically at slotting at 50): First of all, attuned is prettier than non-attuned, so if it makes no difference, I roll with attuned. Part of your thought process is whether or not you want to exemp down, i.e., play at content with lower level caps, and WHETHER OR NOT IT MAKES A MEANINGFUL DIFFERENCE. When you exemp down, you can lose set bonuses with fixed level IOs. (Please note you do not lose enhancement levels. If you exemp down and you have a level 50 damage IO boosted to +5, you are still going to get your damage enhanced.) You want to go with attuned sets if you want to retain those set bonuses at lower levels, or you want boosted if you want every little bit of enhancement at level 50. But you want to consider whether or not you want or need all those set bonuses on, say, a synapse TF where they really won't matter since the content is so easy especially on a team, and you want to consider if you really want or need an extra percentage or two of enhancement at level 50. For non-purple, non-pvp, I will generally go with attuned versions, because they are prettier. Now, purple and pvp IOs are different. You get to keep set bonuses all the way down whether or not they are attuned. Purples only exist at 50, so when I buy them I buy them at level 50 and boost them to +5, UNLESS they are procs which I buy attuned because I prefer the looks. PvPs are slottable at level 7, and I'll always buy them and slot them in attuned form. But when I hit 50, I treat them as purples. So if I have an attuned glad armor +res, I'll pull in out at end game and replace it with a level 50 +5.

There are a few AoE powers in scrapper secondaries that can slot them. The beauty of Dark Regeneration is when you are fighting three or more enemies since the proc only needs to trigger once, and it will check versus up to 10 enemies in a 20 foot radius.

They buffed the living hell out of it, honestly. Functionally Cloak of Fear becomes a real option rather than something you had to work around accuracy and endurance wise. Little bit of help on the KB protection side, but you still need to bring some of your own. With high knowledge builds, absolute top tier. Dark Armor is just a little behind Rad Armor in my eyes in terms of making everything work all the time. Sure, you'll need to build for set defense and it really helps to add some other mitigation, but OG and CoF are right there for you. I rarely play pure defense sets since you've got all your eggs in one basket. It's a pretty good basket, but I vastly prefer actively managing my defenses and resistance based works like a dream. Pick your poison. It all works. People hate on staff but it's one of my faves. Focus on your survival; the damage will take care of itself. The critical strikes ATO proc in the right spot can and will add a ton of damage. I'd consider it in Dark Regeneration which will activate all the time!

Let me start by asking you to elaborate on this. What are the mechanics you dislike? Primaries are generally going to be about some ST attacks, some AoE attacks, maybe a ranged attack, and then some "other" stuff. Secondaries tend to focus on resistance or healing or defense, and can be active (requiring button pushing) or passive. What do you think would work for you in this context?

One thing I have realized over time (and I say this not to be insulting, well at least I'm not trying to be so) is that the /AH works the same way whether or not you are casual and new or a long time veteran, and it works the same way whether you understand how it works or if you don't understand how it works. When I see someone complain about how something isn't working in the /AH as they'd like and how others are using it to their disadvantage, it's like hearing someone in RL complaining about how gravity isn't working as they'd like and how others are using it to their disadvantage. It works how it works. You don't have to like it, you don't have to understand it, but there are others who *do* understand it, and you have to understand that.

It doesn't happen often but I'm gonna disagree with you on a few things. Why the heck not? But certainly don't buy them when you need them. Buy them *before* you need them. Maybe that's hoarding and maybe that's "putting them in the bank" and maybe a little bit of both. What I do is think ahead. It I'm going to have a level 50 character with Fold Space and I'll want to slot a few DSO Thr/A/R eventually, I'll start accumulating them long before I can slot them. I'm just never going to pay full retail by lifting whatever offer is in the /AH. But I will put in bids that I think will be highest outstanding bids, and let the unwashed masses sell them to me after they finish their strike force and throw it in the /AH at 5 inf. Of course, I would slot enhancements in Fold Space (although I don't have many characters that use it consistently) before 47. I would slot an Accuracy and a Recharge SO and keep them at +3 until about 37, then I would put in level 40 generic IOs. When I could slot a level 50 DSO, I'd do that if I had one by then; if not; 50+5 IOs. Then upgrade to lvl 53s as you pick up more DSOs (hopefully it will only be 8, but you'll get the odd failure...). The threat DSOs are one of the few things I would even *consider* unslotting rather than just buy or take them out of storage and transfer them. Maybe. Everything else is easier (if not cheaper) to just buy it and upgrade it again. I find it easier, for example, to buy a purple IO and boost it to +5 rather than go to my +5 purple storage base on another character, find it in storage, email it to myself, log to the other character, and pull it from email. What a drag! And drop!!! And this is a little pathological, but I'd probably also rather buy ten unslotters from the /AH (again, ahead of time since I ain't paying no fifty cents for no Coke) than click on Character Items ten times. So slow to click, then wait a few seconds to keep it from hanging up, and repeat. Total snooze-fest. I'm not sure how many of these I currently have in storage, to be honest, probably more than 100, but I tend to use them on things like Misdirection or Smoke Flash, which I have on many more characters!

I don't share @SomeGuy's distaste for staff; in fact I think it's a great set. Guarded Spin adds a ton to your survivability, but doesn't help much if you decide to go with super reflexes. I've got a brute Staff/Regeneration from long before the remix of the regen set, and I haven't rebuilt it since, but it was extremely survivable and fun even with Regen 1.0.

This is the part that frankly bothers me the most. It's a combination of lack of knowledge, "othering" those who are playing things differently (and often WITH knowledge), and unjustified self-righteousness. That said, I don't know these people from a hole in the wall, so I'm guilty of "othering" them with, hopefully, justified self-righteousness.

It's worth noting the odds of this. Now, we all* know that the odds of getting a Miracle proc from a non-proc Miracle are 1 in 5 at a cost of 3 converters, so it is logical to assume that the odds of getting three in a row is 1 in 125. However, I'm working off the very good assumption that Ukase is not grouping these in sets of three, so given that the first is a proc the odds that the next two are also procs is a mere 1 in 25.

And I'm the reason you cannot get one for $1mm. No one can so long as anyone has a bid higher than 1mm. I find it a little annoying that people still think that because they are listing something at a low price, that somehow magically that gets matched with a low price bidder.