[Auction House - Double Deposit]

In practical terms, it makes selling harder. There is a penalty if you post too high and feel like you need to repost.  BUYING IS EASY; SELLING IS HARD.

 

Now why is the fee split up into two components?  Because when you post an offer, you have almost no idea where it’s going to sell.  It could be at your posting price.  It could be 2bn.  Having two fees asks for an initial deposit and makes it so it sums up to 10% of the sale.

 

Why is it 10%?  Influence sink.  I wholeheartedly support this.

[Increase Purple Drop rates please]

No.  I will not support yet another initiative to make everything yet easier, even though that has been the clear trend through Live and Homecoming.  Gaining inf is trivially easy.  Buy your purple.  If you can't get a purple recipe that is exactly the one you want to drop, along with the salvage and the 600,000 crafting fee, then press your I win button and have it automatically slotted, I'm sorry.

 

I am all for making this a low-entry game that is extremely easy to excel at.  We all want to feel validated.  But you don't need purples to succeed so asking for the rate drop to be increased is ridiculous.

[Giant Monster v AV]

What distinguishes one from another?  What tools do you need to defeat a GM solo that are over those needed to defeat an AV?

[If Nemesis died...]

I ought to have sought him on Hot or Not in the year of two aught aught aught.  I thought he was in a fraught squat, eating a kumquat.

 

Sometimes I can be a real tw jerk.

[Is there a standard AV for benchmarking?]

I tend to use Nemesis as a benchmark.

[Mission teams - not a thing anymore?]

My experience has been that if you want a mission team, you have to build it yourself.  The team flag, in my opinion, is useless. 

 

Most people seem to speed level, but I've had a lot of success with advertising "Running Doc Delilah arc lvl 20" or "Steel Canyon missions lvl 12" on the Looking channel.  Lots of the time, people will switch toons to fit the advertisement.  

 

It works a lot better than passively setting a flag and waiting for the invites to roll in.  I just don't think there is the population to support that.

[If Nemesis died...]

Did he have a stroke from a Nemesis clot?  Then was he laid out on a Nemesis cot?

[Not selling....]

There is, of course, the old display bug to consider.  But that aside:

 

If you are trying to sell something, and it posts a trade higher than where you were offering, that simply means at the time someone bid that, someone else was offering it cheaper than where you were.  Probably working as intended.  You can either wait and hope, or you can bite the bullet and repost.

 

If you are trying to buy something, and it posts a trade lower than where you were bidding, something is wrong.  I have seen this happen a number of times, which may have been the display bug, but it leads me to believe that sometimes the bidding system doesn't work as intended.

 

[Collective noun for mob groups aka Murder of crows]

On 10/6/2019 at 1:49 PM, ChairKicker said:

An ohgoddamnit of Seers.
I'll probably keep being the only one to use this, though...

Or of sorcerers.

[A Comprehensive Guide to the Incarnate System]

Thanks for doing this.  Some of my stable started to hit 50 over the past few weeks.

 

What really would have been helpful for me would have been a specific description of each of the abilities available and some opinions on what kind of character they would work for.  You did a bit of this, and admittedly lots of it are for aesthetics (like judgement), but it would have helped me a lot on my alphas. True, all that info is on Paragonwiki, but you DID say it was comprehensive!  Maybe in a future update or a different guide.  

 

Thanks again!

[Staff/Rad]

On 10/5/2019 at 3:29 PM, Hyperstrike said:

This is, essentially, a respec build.
I generally avoid the first attack for Brutes.  Just my personal preference.

Resists and Defenses are slotted the way they are for set bonuses for Fire/Cold and Energy/Neg Resist.
Additionally, we have the Defense and Resistance boosting uniques.

Attacks are primarily slotted for sets that boost the Resists or that boost Melee Defense.

Since you have to have Boxing or Kick to get further into the Fighting pool, I prefer Kick.  You can at least slot a Force Feedback +Recharge proc in there.  It's one slot so it's just one of those, "meh, let's toss this in" things.
Same thing with Beta Decay.  It's a Debuff proc in there.

Health and Stamina are slotted the way they are for most efficient Endurance Recovery.
Hasten, 2 slotted for Recharge for some extra attack speed.
Assault, 2 slotted to bring down the Endurance usage.
Basically this build is trying to sensibly maximize Resists and minimize Endurance use.

Hence using Cardiac Core for the Alpha.
To help keep the enemy's To-Hit floored, Diamagnetic
 

SuperJump is saved for last and it's a mule for a Slow Resistance unique.

I’ve got two staff brutes (/fire at 50 and /Regen at 40).  I haven’t taken them for a spin (see what I did there?) recently, but I’ve found that hasten doesn’t really feel like it helps that much on a staffer attack chain.  Am I misremembering, or is the hasten mainly for the secondary/pool powers?

["Am I cool yet?" Club]

10 hours ago, Extor Prime said:

I guess I phrased the OP badly.

 

It's not about showing off to others (I barely talk to people in game and spend most time on my own) but rather about an irrational urge to crank up the challenge setting just for my own sake.

 

Which isn't something I normally do in games other than CoH.

Sure, I’ll validate you!

 

Some people like to play chess against grandmasters, and some want to play checkers against toddlers.  Sometimes both in the same day!  I lean towards seeking challenges myself.  At a certain point, there are no more real “rewards” from playing other than the enjoyment of the game itself.

[Staff/Bio?]

I too would love to see a pro build for this.  I’ve built mine organically, so probably am not using bio armor to anywhere near its greatest potential.  That said, in mid-30s, I’m mostly soloing TFs, and the offensive output is impressive.  I’ve never had an easier time with soloing AVs.  Admittedly, they aren’t particularly difficult ones, but I’ve been impressed with the build so far.

[New Players - Enhancements (DOs & SOs - use em)]

If inf is no object, and there's no reason should ever lack it, I'd go with IOs starting at level 12.  They aren't great, but they are better than nothing and they don't expire like TOs and DOs.  I generally craft/buy generic IOs starting at level 12 and then work in attuned IO sets when I hit certain level milestones like 17.

 

TOs and DOs are vendor fodder.  I suggest selling them and using the proceeds towards your IOs.

[Question about storing wealth]

1 hour ago, Sakai said:

With that in mind this is what I would do. 

 

Purchase your self whatever purples/ATOs you see yourself needing in the next three months. I know it is hard to guess what you will need but just envision the characters types you like to play and go from there. 

 

If, in a few months, you decide you dont need all of those Hetacombs because you are addicted to Trollers now sell them off and purchase anew. 

 

Buy mid week though. Prices are typically 75% of weekend prices. 

 

All of the little stuff buy as you go. 

 

 

As MunkiLord says, you may be better off buying whatever purples/ATOs/Winter Os are cheapest and holding them in storage until you figure out what you want.  Any random purple plus 1mm worth of conversion rolls will probably not get you the exact purple you want, but it almost certainly will get you something that you can sell for a good price.

[Some Market Observations]

2 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

This bug is one of my favorites. I don't always work Miracles, but when I do they'll immediately sell like they are now, or I'll get some of the major overbids. Since that particular character I'm using is short on market slots, this is extremely helpful for me either way.

Then I am doing it wrong.  I’m usually geared up to make first sales and first buys, hundreds at a time.  If you are getting even one of the overbids, I’m doing something wrong or there is an error in the queue.

[Some Market Observations]

33 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

Miracle +Recovery has shown some odd behavior the last few days, and I'm not talking about the display bug. Unless everyone is suddenly bidding the exact same amount, someone is buying them up as fast as they can.

Case in point.  When the display bug kicks in I buy and sell hundreds of them a day.  One in 5-10 people pay 10mm+ due to the display bug.  That one trick has sent many of my toons to college, graduate school, and Congress.

 

Interesting note.  Demand for what I consider to be a staple is pretty stable at 100-200 a day. 

[Game seems way to easy.]

So today I hopped on my dark/dark defender who I haven’t played in a while.  Low to mid 30s, not optimally slotted or IOed.  I ran two solo missions and they were more difficult than usual.  I chalked that up to WTF.  I’m not above eating dirt, but I’m not fond of it.

 

Then i realized my settings were at +4/x8.

 

Im not a godly player by any means, but I get the OPs point even more so.  When you can solo missions 4/8 on a defender in your 30s, albeit a good build, maybe we should consider more challenges.  When you add level shifted incarnates and purple sets I can’t imagine how much easier it could be.  I still don’t get how people think that going to 50, getting incarnate and fully setted, can go back via Ouroboros and meet any sort of challenge.  I love fighting Atta, but I’m never going to go back and fight him when buffed.  Let my Lore pets fight him.

 

I will take her to Vanguard at lvl 35.  Some Debuff magic will slap some sense into me.

[Some Market Observations]

3 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

I take notes mainly for two reasons.

 

1. Frankly, the last 5 listings info is better than nothing, but not much better. I could probably write a separate page-long rant about how much I dislike it, but in a nutshell even when it is working correctly, it can provide misleading information, especially to those without market experience. It's also subject to several bugs, and I've spent a decent amount of time documenting and posting about those bugs. My notetaking is a way to try to get a bigger picture of prices that the last 5 listings window just doesn't allow.

You may be right that selling for 1 million isn't worth the time, but I tend to be conservative with my converters so it seemed a reasonable start point. My next project is actually to repeat my previous data gathering attempt, but using a higher floor of profitablity (probably 2 million), just to see how the numbers compare. Overall though, given my spending habits, using 1 million as the starting point has more than allowed me the budget to outfit my characters exactly how I want them. I won't begin to claim it's optimal, though, and it likely won't be optimal for someone with more expensive tastes or with more than a handful of alts to outfit.

 

Last 5 is a dirty, dirty liar.  But I wouldn’t change a thing about it.  When people say “X” is going for “Y” inf, it generally just means that’s where the last trade posted.  It has some predictive value as to where the next trade will be, but not enough that anyone should say, wow the market has shifted.  Believe me when I say that a major shift in a market is usually due to a single person screwing around.

 

i generally price my items to sell by “next log in” so that varies from toon to toon.  But I also generally avoid IOS priced <1-2mm.  If there is a lot of flow in them, I’m happy to trade Crushing Impacts, you can easily double your money.  But you really can’t sell hundreds or thousands of them in a day, I don’t think.

[Best Builds for Solo]

29 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

What are currently the best builds to solo hard content?  I would like to build one character to solo TFs, AVs, and GMs.  I expect to sink a ton of inf into this build, so would like to get the highest performance build to do content I have not been able to do previously.

Well, since TFs major stumbling block are the AVs and GMs, I’d say that your major stumbling block would be -regen.  The easy path is make the most damage heavy melee character you enjoy, then buy a few hundred envenomed daggers.

[Wheres the Battle Axe love?]

Because battle axe and war mace are so similar (they even both have a shovel for a weapon), you need to make a decision as to which one you want.  If you are going thematic, that’s all you need.  Choose whatever looks good.  But if you want to eke out a smidgen of performance, war mace is slightly better.  Smashing is better than lethal for the most part.  And very rarely, the knock up on battle axe turns into knock back.  It’s mostly when you are fighting lower level mobs, but sometimes at even or higher level.  I’ve never seen knock back on war mace at even level.

[Game seems way to easy.]

Maybe you should set your missions on +4/x8 earlier?

 

[Realistically, what's the actual workload to take down the war walls and connect the zones?]

It's something I never thought about before. 

 

Why do you want the walls to come down?  What personally do you have to gain from that?  Is it RP or play related?

 

If it's significant and many/most players want it and it's easily and cheaply accomplished, then I have no objection.

[BA/SD]

I went back to mine and got into the mid/high 30s.  

 

The endurance drain is the big problem.  Even with the Performance Shifter proc, Miracle proc, and Numina's proc, I was taking a knee after every other fight.  At level 35 I took Energy Mastery/Superior Conditioning and stuck a performance shifter proc in there.  It was not a game changer, but helped a lot.  It's sexy and fun to take Shield Charge at 35, but this seems a smarter move to me.  I'll take Shield Charge at 38 and Physical Perfection at 41.

 

I think BA/SD will be great at 50 with a good build and IOs.  I think that getting there without set bonuses or IO procs must be just awful.  I'm at 36 and over the soft cap on melee defense and over 30% on ranged and AoE.  Nothing hits me until I get in one of those DE situations where the spawn drops 3 Cairns and 1 Quartz.  Then I drop in seconds.

[NO RESPEC ... how feasible?]

Frankly, I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t do it this way.  The cost of buying attuned sets is relatively small, certainly when compared to various ways of earning influence.  Also, you get so much more bang for your buck and playing time.  I’d much rather spend 25mm on two sets of Kinetic Combat for my level 17 than spend it on one purple for my 50, who is arguably already overpowered as it is.

 

I have a handful of 50s and haven’t respecced any yet, since I’m lazy and I don’t feel that the time and effort to do so would markedly improve performance or my playing experience.