[Glowies having their own sound slider in options]

Oh yeah.  I’ve also noticed over the years that not all glowies are equal in generating noise.

[Just for the heck of it: a Poi power set]

Too starchy for me

[Is it worth it to run this Difficulty Setting?]

You don't need a phd in mathematics to know that more is better -- a x is going to get you more bang for the buck than a +.  If xp is your goal, run x(as many as you can safely handle)

 

I'm sure there is a formula somewhere that will tell you if +2/x3 is better or worse than +1/x6, but more bodies = more xp = more drops.

 

 

[Improving Sleep]

6 hours ago, PoptartsNinja said:

I've been mulling over ways to improve sleep.

 

I'm not sure I read the part where you describe *why* sleep needs to be improved?

[Auction House (/AH) price refresh seems less effective.]

On 3/5/2024 at 10:57 AM, Number Six said:

 

It's a bit more than a display bug, and I suspect I may know what's going on, but it's proving to be difficult to reproduce in a lab environment or even on the beta server because it's something that can only happen when there's a lot of item histories getting recycled at once due to ongoing transactions.

 

I would love to hear as much as you are willing to tell about this.  I've had plenty of personal theories!

[Auction House (/AH) price refresh seems less effective.]

1 hour ago, Sszl said:

Definitely can tell a difference after the patch today.  Seeing tons (over 100 so far) of examples where I can now see that the price I placed on a sell order is way off what they are really selling at.  Thanks for the fix today.

 

I am still seeing some examples where it looks like my orders don't process at all though.  Here is an example (I have more if needed):

Sell order

 

This is an old order that I have been watching not process before the fix today. From what I can see post-fix there are still orders processing at higher prices on these but these never get executed.  I have previously taken them down, and put them back up at the same price and then they process.  I'm leaving a few orders up to monitor and in case the devs need any examples to check.

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

It is possible that there are plenty of Salvo A/D listed UNDER your price of 800k, and every one of those listed trades were legit, just a case of the buyer throwing in a "fair" bid rather than doing any price searching.  An easy way to check is to go to another character (or use this character after you take down the offer) and bid 799,999 and see if you own a new Salvo.

[Regen Brute]

On 3/4/2024 at 11:53 PM, Architect01 said:

I was thinking for primary either Katana or Martial Arts for the def boost.

 

Regen brutes can work very well indeed, if you like the playstyle.  To your point above, I've got both a staff/regen and a broadsword/regen at 50, and they are at least as well equipped to handle +4/x8 material as any of my other builds.

 

In general, I like to have an "oh shit" power on my melee characters, in case things go pear-shaped.  Frankly, by endgame it should *all* be pear-shaped.  But for regen, we don't call them "oh shit" powers; we just call them powers.  Moment of Glory and Instant Healing (and Dull Pain to a lesser extent) are inherent to the set.  I always want to add something else in there on top of that, like Shadow Meld on a scrapper, or Darkest Night on a brute, or Unleash Potential on anything, and that's even before incarnates.  Being able to swap between Moment of Glory and Instant Healing and Unleash Potential, with Darkest Night running on your anchor, should keep you pretty much unkillable if you are paying attention and watching timers.

 

EDIT:  Willpower is a great set until things go pear-shaped, but like I said, for me it's always pear-shaped so its inherent oh shit power in Strength of Will is rarely useful to me in terms of surviving.

 

[Regen Brute]

1 hour ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Ignorance is my greatest strength!

 

 

[Charity and credit: patronage and mutual assistance funds]

6 hours ago, temnix said:

As I embark on this game with yet another character who at level 5 can't cobble together enough Influence for even one single-origin Enhancement

 

Well, the minimum level of SOs used to be 25, so why not slot DOs if you must be enhanced at level 5?  

 

 

[5th Column vamps no longer count for badge?]

2 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Kill 1 @Snarky and the badge is yours for the taking!

 

"Arrest"

[Repel resistance?]

I noticed the other day that Shield Defense has quite a bit, but that's all I know of off hand.  It would be a very useful thing to have nowadays.

[20 Hamidon Goos...]

4 hours ago, Ukase said:

If I'm being transparent

 

 

19 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

This is just like "Dehydrated water: just add water"!

 

I already have two Water/Poison corruptors, but I'm DYING to make Instant Jellyfish now.

 

 

[Like 2 Bars From 50]

5 hours ago, Duckbutler said:

Just when you think you have a good handle on the game's mechanics, you learn something new

When I hit 50:

 

I add purple sets to my build.  If they are procs, I add them as attuned (because I prefer the look and it distinguishes them from the rest of the set).  Otherwise I slot them as lvl 50 and boost them to +5.

 

I remove all PvP IOs that are not procs (which I have already added as attuned), and replace them with level 50 and boost them to +5.  Now my purples and PvPs are massively boosted and will give bonuses when I exemp lower.

 

I use a catalyst on every ATO and Winter O I have slotted, which changes them to Superior.

[20 Hamidon Goos...]

9 hours ago, Ukase said:

I have no idea what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. 20 Hamidon Goos? 

 

Ooh, now I'm gonna buy up all the Hamidon Goos on the market!  

[Auction House (/AH) price refresh seems less effective.]

3 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

The AH won't process buy and sell orders for the same item on the same character.

 

It will, but only if all the bids on that character are below all the offers on that character -- in that case they are all just legitimate bids and offers in the queue.

 

It's when you have a bid that is equal to or higher than an offer on the same character that the queue gets circumvented and things go screwy.  Think of it this way:  if I could instantly sell inanimate carbon rods to myself at a loss, I'd get all the sales badges instantly!  But the devs hate badgers!  Darn!

 

In practice, it's easy to play around with bids and offers on an item in order to try to get more information about the other bids and offers in the queue, but accidentally leave in bids that are higher than your offers.  Or at least it has been easy for me to make those accidents...

 

[Psy melee, ATO spot?]

51 minutes ago, tidge said:

Generally I don't think they lend themselves to 'franken-slotting'

For defense based builds, probably not.  But for most of my builds splitting the Scrappers Strike 3-3 helps my overall survival.  I don’t often slot the entire Critical Strikes either:  usually just the proc or the proc +2 pieces for accuracy.

 

For pai melee, you ideally want crit strikes available for both Mass Levitate and for Greater Psi Blade, so I like to look for secondaries like Shiwld or Bio or Rad.  But given a choice, I’ll slot it in Mass Levitate and slot Greater Psi with Two purple damage procs (often 5- of Hecatomb).

[Someone explain Fault (stone melee to me)]

Huh!  I never looked it up in City of Data (all hail Uberguy) before.  I love it on scrappers and that's the only place I've used it to date.

 

Looks like the damage power is a 55 degree cone with 20 foot range (max 5 targets).  This is the power that accepts scrapper ATOs and ranged AoE, so this is where Critical Strikes proc and Annihilation -res procs activate.  Generally, I see Cric Strikes proc almost all the time.

 

The control power has a 20% accuracy penalty, and is a targeted AoE with 20 foot range and 15 foot radius.  That's a lot more square footage than the damage power, and it affects up to ten targets.  +0.67 knockback to everyone, and a mag 2 stun with a 50% chance for mag 3 stun.  This is the power that accepts knockback and stun IOs, so this is where FF +recharge and Amazeballs chance for -to hit procs activate.  Generally, I see FF proc almost all the time.

 

It may not be helping my dps, but on scrappers I'm mostly concerned with survival first, and this power is stellar for all kinds of mitigation.  If you can layer on another source of stun (I've never made a Stone/Dark Armor scrapper, yet...) you're golden.

 

EDIT:  just made Absolutely Stunning on Excelsior, a beauty queen contestant who would do anything to win.  

 

[Like 2 Bars From 50]

Just to be clear, because of the ease of switching between hero and villain (you visit Null the Gull, who is a seagull sitting atop a truck just on the red side of Pocket D), you can easily switch from hero to villain at level 35, fo to arbiter rein in grandville (standing just outside the big arachnos building), run a patron arc (which gives you a free respec), then go back to Null the Gull and go hero again.  Now you are blue but you have access to patron pools still.

 

also, at 35 is when I go to RWZ and join vanguard.  It’s not much, but from then on you will get chances for Vanguard merits on defeating Rikti, even if they are not during vanguard missions.

[To respec or not...]

I respec early and often, and maybe that repetition has made the process more enjoyable.  I'll make a build, play three missions, then respec again, play three more, then respec again.  I even wrote a guide!

[Ele Secondary gets no Love]

I like it on my scrappers, but I see the point of people preferring radiation or preferring to play it on a brute.

 

It shouldn't be that difficult to get many/most of your resistances to the 75% cap by the time you hit 50, but you are going to be way over 75% on energy, which just feels a little wasteful!  (Yes, it does help with your damage resistance debuff, but that should mostly be on the fringes.)  As a set, you are set on resistance and endurance recovery, but I'd like a little more help on the healing side, and on the defense side.  I find that in 50+ content at 4/8, my electric armors tend to get overwhelmed more than some of my others.

[I can't believe I got that name!]

4 minutes ago, Player2 said:

Try colors:

• Blue Lust
• Gray Greed
• Green Envy
• Orange Gluttony
• Pink Pride
• Red Wrath
• Silver Sloth

I went with Obsidian Wrath, Obsidian Greed, etc

[I can't believe I got that name!]

On 1/30/2024 at 8:16 PM, Player2 said:

And a Rad/Rad stalker named Envy

a few years ago I made a villain group based on the seven deadly sins.  Each server surprisingly had at least two of the basic names available, but none had all seven.

[What's your favorite scrapper, and why?]

On 3/3/2024 at 6:08 PM, Shadowstorm06 said:

This begs the question Yomo: which is your favorite? Or top 3? Haha

 

I'd say from my chart, it's hard to go wrong with Bio, Radiation, or Ice as an armor.  After that, it's mainly up to what do you like looking at attack-wise.

 

Staff/Bio; Ice/Radiation; Battle Axe/Ice are solid top 3s, but I'll throw in Dark Melee/Regen and Broadsword/Invulnerability as outliers that I have a special spot in my heart for.

[Aggressively reduce price of basic enhancements]

9 minutes ago, Mr. Apocalypse said:

The best fix IMO,  would be to just remove origin requirements from DOs and just make them usable by all. That way the odds of having useful DO's increases

I like this.  It’s basically bringing back training origin enhancements without having people scream about how useless they are.

 

if you are learning to play, learn.  It’s not the devs responsibility to give you free access to powerful enhancements all the time.  Remember that SOs at level 2 are not your god given right.

[Auction House (/AH) price refresh seems less effective.]

1 hour ago, Sunsette said:

When server population is low, new changes seem to make the AH more responsive. When server populations are medium to high, it is much worse. I think it is a scaling issue. 

There is probably something to this.  I look at the example of hero/winter packs, which were in very short supply on Live but were prevalent in very large numbers here on HC.  The solution was, I believe, to put a governor on it to space out transactions and relieve pressure on the system.

 

on the one hand, the overall /AH has far fewer individual users than live, and population at any given point in time is lower than live, so you would expect the system could handle the stress since it handled it on live.

 

on the other hand, each of my characters has 150 to 200 market slots, versus about 20-30 on live, so was that decision by the HC devs short sighted?  If you “claim all” on the /AH it hangs it you have more than about 25 items.  Also, I think I recall that the /AH had its own server on Live, which I do not believe is the case on HC.  That may explain so many ghost last 5s, but I’m not an IT person.  I’m just a boxer dog swimming in a pool.