Ukase

So..I ask myself, why does the Snarky want to remain at range? Because he wants to is a good enough reason, but be advised - those rascally NPCs will attempt to close in from time to time. So what's a ranged blaster to do? Ice patch! or freeze ray to stop them from getting in your face. The t-9 is a target AoE with a fairly safe range and it knocks most of them down and keeps them from messing with you. The ice primary is super fast. Once you try it, if you get to bitter ice blast, you will probably not enjoy many other blasters - but I could be biased, having played my ice blaster for literally 1000s of hours.

So, noticed I still had 100 winters and 100 rogue packs on one of my characters. Given that Luna was open for business with the anniversary badges, I thought I'd unpack these and put them to good use for a future badger. I should have my head examined. Once/if the nemesis event happens, I'll have 4 characters with ALL the badges, and another 5 characters that are between 600 and 1215. I'm not feeling particularly enthused about badging now, but I get that way after I've finished one, and I recently did. I expect the mood will pass. So..1600 reward merits for a new level 1. There's only so many explores of a zone I'll feel like in a day, or even in the rest of the month. I have options. I could piss away 1 million inf for a reward merit. Yeah...1.6B for 1600 reward merits. Right. As former President Bush would say, "Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture". (I may be plagiarizing from a memory of a Saturday Night Live skit, I dunno) To me, seems easier to open these packs up. And since no man is an island, or even a peninsula, I figured I would share the results. I could have written down everything - but all I was counting was merits. Others have made the everything analysis before me. (and I've done so before, too, and posted those results already) So why post this here after all that? More data, I guess. Rogue Reward Merits Winter Reward Merits Packs 1-10 175 Packs 1-10 75.00 Packs 11-20 100 Packs 11-20 75.00 Packs 21-30 125 Packs 21-30 125.00 Packs 31-40 175 Packs 31-40 100.00 Packs 41-50 100 Packs 41-50 - Packs 51-60 50 Packs 51-60 150.00 Packs 61-70 175 Packs 61-70 175.00 Packs 71-80 75 Packs 71-80 200.00 Packs 81-90 50 Packs 81-90 25.00 Packs 91-100 75 Packs 91-100 125.00 Average 11 Reward Merits per pack 10.5 Merits per pack So, interesting, right? Conclusion - stick with hero/rogue packs for more consistency. Definitely stick with hero/Villain packs if you'd have to pay full price for winters.

The simple truth is that pugs are hit or miss. Ultimately, it comes down to how quickly you can explain things before the situation that needs explanation arises - AND - get confirmation that the explanation has been understood. I can chat explanations until I'm blue in the face (or red with anger!) but I have no control over getting the confirmation. Even in my own sg, there are newer (and older) players that are clearly not paying attention. Tabbed out moving a farmer. Away from the keyboard to tend to ...any number of things. Aging husband, messy toddler, a pet needing to go outside, a crying baby, an empty glass/bottle. These are the casual player that don't feel any responsibility towards any other players. They are unthinking at best. Selfish at worst. Totally oblivious to the frustration they cause because they're playing a game, and relaxing. They're clearly not immersed into role-play, they're plainly put, distracted. Or perhaps they're giving it their best effort, but the system they play on is the same one from when the game went live and they're still playing on Windows 95. (is that even possible? I've no idea) The best you can do is make a rating system so you know when not to include players on difficult missions/trials/tfs. Then you have to stick to it, which can be difficult. Sometimes your own sg will invite these idiots you've put on global ignore into the sg! And now you have to be careful about which events you want to attend, lest your sg become more like a pug experience. An SG really is just a PUG, though, but you have discord to mitigate most of the incompetence/ignorance. At least the one I'm in is a pug, because they'll take anyone. We've gotten some great people who are poor players, bad people who are great players and all combos in between. The same thing that can make you laugh can make you cry.

I have felt this pain. I typically find myself one of the last couple that are alive..while all these..these...PUGs are dead...and staying dead, just laying there, as if this defeat has impacted the player in real life. To be fair, I've also seen some use an awaken and quickly plant again. This is why I spend a ton of effort into making my characters independent, not needing buffs or debuffs. None of my guys are going to win dps character of the year, except a fire blaster with a specific build designed with specific teammates in mind. But they are sturdy. This is what I would tell you: A PUG is the exact same thing as an SG. The difference is usually discord, and perhaps, some familiarity with the rest of the team and the way the parts of the whole function individually - like knowing their powersets and perhaps a certain power you'd expect them to have but they don't, or vice-versa. The problem with discussing options in chat are a few. Most folks don't read. At worst, they never read it. At best, they see and respond quickly..but there are levels of in-game literacy in between. They haven't seen it yet to read it. They might be typing their own comment in. Several may be typing something in. The end result is usually a jumbled conversation that solved nothing. Eventually, you reach a point where you find a metric that has nothing to do with the actual ability of the player to gage this group's chance of success. Me? I look at badge counts if I don't recognize the global. On a master tf run, I look at their badges. If they have the 4 passive accolades, then I know that at a minimum, they've suffered through some tedium to benefit their characters. They are invested in them. If they don't have these, then while they may be fantastic players, they're not invested. They're casual. It's not important to them. This is my perception, mind you. Only they can verify it with words. But talk is cheap. If you're level 50 and have less than 200 badges and you have the 4 passive accolades...you didn't get them by accident. If you're level 30 and have one or two of the passive accolades, you're my kind of player. If you're level 50 and have over 500, you're my kind of player. If you're level 50, have one or two accolades and only 57 badges...you've pl'd that character. You're working towards making the investment in the character to be my kind of player. My only concern is if you have enough time/experience on that character to be better than simply competent. (Depends on the task, of course) I also look at their character bio, if they have one. If they don't have one - no penalty. If they do have one, and I deem it to be trite, stupid, or rife with bad spelling and grammar, they get a penalty in my mind. If they have one and it's either amusing, or interesting, a bonus point. Then I'll look at the costume. If they have a tail...just kidding. Anyone who knows me knows my heroes and villains are the worst dressed in the city. The times I've spent in the tailor seldom amount to anything productive, so I use the same 4-5 costumes. None of which would ever place in a contest with more than 4 contestants. Is my system fool proof? Absolutely not. But, it works for me.

This is an archived site; as such, there are times when I have to hit refresh to get it to load. But, it has all the macros for combining inspirations. https://web.archive.org/web/20120904041854/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=125603

I can only speak for myself. I'm in an ouro arc or tf, so I can't team at that time OR I have the badge for that event, so there's no compelling reason to participate. With Nemesis, there's almost always a reason every time if you're inclined to pursue Freedom Phalanx Reserve Accolade. The thing is - this badge is easier/faster to get on redside, visit Null, and it converts along with you back to blue. I get that for some, randomly meeting in the midst of some spawning hordes is reward enough, but when you can't even target the mobs when they spawn - but the MMs pets and lore pets can, they are generally dead before I can target through them. "Target through a pet" is just fine in most cases, but when you want to do a positional cone, it's far more optimal to pick the target myself rather than let some stupid pet do my targeting for me. Personally - I like where the Rikti invasion is triggered by completing a lady gray TF. And, I've heard that the zombie invasion is triggered by completing Katie Hannon TF. I had read somewhere that there was something in the works about making the Nemesis event spawn from completing the SSA out of Steel Canyon, but that doesn't seem to be case at present. So, I do think some incentives beyond a badge would be nice once a character has completed it once and gotten the badges that go with it.

I thought we were talking liquid assets...hmm..if we want to calculate the worth of emps, hero, rewards, ATOs, Winter-Os, Purples, minor stuff in character email....I think my brain is bleeding. I could very well be a trillionaire. Well...maybe not. Never know how much you're gonna get for a rare salvage these days. Fast money says at least 400k. Patient money says 500k. 10's of thousands of those brain storm ideas across my 3 accounts. The 50 something of each winter-O...the 1000 or so very rare IOs. the 30 something of each ATO... I figure you can't really tabulate that stuff until you sell it. And when you sell it, you can never really know how much it will cost you to replace it, so I don't often sell those, unless they were bought/acquired on the cheap specifically to resell. The value of the in-game character email is more in how much inf it saves you, rather than the worth of the trinkets within. Ultimately, we're all rich because we get to play for free.

So...enthusiasm, hmm... Only played sporadically. Stopped playing just after NEW content and game mechanics were introduced. I don't see any enthusiasm. It seems to me you didn't like the game much the first time around. So - that may be harsh, so forgive me - I'll apologize and say I'm assuming things. Here's what you may not know: You don't need to slot anything in your alpha slot, or any other incarnate slot. You don't need to use the best IOs available. You can use level 50 training origin enhancements if you really want to. You don't have to use enhancements at all. When you start a task force, there's an option to debuff the players, or buff the npcs. Or both. You can opt to keep things easy - but mark your time and try to improve the next go around. So many ways to keep things interesting - assuming you enjoy the game in the first place. And I could certainly be wrong, but that isn't the case here. You didn't play every day. You played sporadically - and stopped playing when the game gives you new content and new figurative carrots to work towards. Granted, the way the incarnate reward system was set up wasn't polished. Shards, threads, astrals, emps.. too many currencies and none of them dropped at a particularly rewarding rate. But, when you're charging folks by the month, the reward system makes more sense. So, please understand, I don't mean to be demeaning or condescending, but what you want out of the game - that isn't what the game is. There is a server where things may be more your speed, outside of the homecoming servers. Another private server. I think they're running an issue 0 game - at least, I've heard there's one, but no idea what it's called. Certainly the Rebirth server has a slower reward system, so at least getting to 50 and getting all tricked out will take a lot longer than it does here. Perhaps that would be more suitable for you. If you do like the community here, you might just go for the more challenging runs and not use your incarnate powers. Forgo the use of non-AT powers. See how that plays for you. But to use the resources of an entire server when the options are already on these servers for you to essentially do the same things...isn't that a bit foolish?

I am positive that both Yomo, myself and many, many others have well over 200 Billion, possibly more. I stopped counting at 286 Billion.

What a crazy question! If you have to ask, you don't have enough! The truth is, maybe, in this game you can have enough. That number is different for everyone. Someone that doesn't bother with IO slotting and just uses SOs may find 100M to be quite enough. Ultimately, I think 100 Billion is the lower threshold for wealth in this game. If you don't have that much, you're really not even trying, are you?

@AboveTheChemist Is there a method to adding the new Anniversary badge, "Legendary" that any schmuck can do? Seems unfair to drop the burden on someone else.

Just my .02 but neither consume, nor RotP are worth taking. There's no reason for your tank to need endurance if you slot well, assuming you pursue the accolade powers which boost stamina/recovery. And of course, you'll want to make use of the many procs that give a little extra endurance. But that's just the way I do things. Consume is a nice little AoE, and honestly, just one acc/recharge is quite enough should you feel you need it. I never take it, simply because endurance has never been an issue. When you slot with IO sets, they often have end reduction in them, making more stamina unnecessary. Of course, a lot depends on if you're teaming or solo. Solo, you might miss some of the nice team buffs. But even so, with proper forethought, stamina isn't an issue. RotP - at the risk of sounding condescending, if you have this power, you need to rethink what you're doing. Why would you be defeated? Live and learn. If you find yourself defeated, there's a reason why it happened. Learn from it and make tweaks in the build to ensure it doesn't happen again. Sometimes, tho, it can't be helped. You're in the deep end and haven't mastered how to swim yet. And that's fine - but taking a power expecting to fall in battle? That just sounds like you've lost before you've started. But that's just me. Some folks like the AoE stun/kb etc, after it fires off. The way I see it, if it killed you once, as a blaster you might get a nuke off and come out of it. But as a brute/tank? What killed you before is just gonna kill you again, most likely. A self rez for a power pick, when you can get return to battle from p2w? Nah. Skip it.

When faced with decisions like this, I often make both. To me, it's not so much how they play at level 50+, but how much fun are they getting to 50+? A lot will depend on your playstyle. A lot of the brute's claim to fame is the fury bar. But, if you often stealth missions just in pursuit of story arc completion bonuses, then your fury bar rarely sees much action. Generally, by the time it builds up, the fight is over. But - the brute has higher Max HP, higher damage cap, a taunt aura. A scrapper just has the random critical. And candidly, in my experience, even though I love seeing double damage, it's just not enough for the trade off to suit me. But it does suit my playstyle more. So, I make both. And then I try to get a feel for which one is more fun. Then I'll delete the other one after I take out the enhancements. So far, the brute has won 10-4 over the scrapper. The dual blade, Katana, broadsword and fire ...to me are better on the scrapper. But opinions will vary.

I just checked in to see of any mention of this happening has leaked out. I am going to wait until this next Tuesday before I get really antsy about it. Thus far, I've got 3 characters that only need the Nem event to get them all the badges. One already has it. I will try pretty hard this time around to get the badge on my more enjoyable characters. I think doing it one badger at a time is no longer the way to go. It'll drive me insane, perhaps, if I'm not already. But it'll beat waiting for them. I'm trying to talk myself into burning 1600 merits on some prospective new badge toons -- which may be older characters I've shelved to try new sets.

I carry a lot of extras. I love the ranged echo version of Positron. Some serious debuff/damage with that temp. I'll use them against AVs primarily, or certain ouro challenge missions. (No enhancements, etc - just not the no temp one. ) But yeah, each of my characters, unless they're a challenge character that has to make their own fortune, they all start with 120 charges of envenomed dagger. But, interestingly, certain origins get a nice beginning power, Apprentice Charm that deals -res. -3.25% for 8 seconds. I will use it when I can fit it into the attack chain.

One big personal obstacle for me playing on gold side is no access to the passive accolade powers. So, if they're going to address gold side patrons, maybe they can address this as well.

Well, if you want to run a Master of TF...you can't use envenomed daggers, so there's that. The math makes it clear, Envenomed Daggers are useful but so is lingering radiation. Use both.

I'm afraid your graphic does little to explain the question "What?". But then again, the question "what?" is very broad in context. I'll try to fill in some blanks for the folks who are more like me and need clear words. An Alpha, when properly crafted and slotted, acts very much like an extra enhancement. Some portions of it may ignore the rules of diminishing returns. So, when you use Agility, which at t-4 will impact End Mod (if the power will accept an End Mod enhancement) Defense (if the power will accept a defense enhancement) and Recharge (if the power will accept a recharge enhancement) Given the proc spreadsheet - which I think MacSkull and/or Bopper came up with, there's a formula on the second page that makes it pretty clear - the more recharge you have in a power, the lousier the proc's odds of firing are. I think a discussion of procs is probably beyond the scope of this thread, so I won't elaborate further. A little google search should help anyone interested to find Bopper's thread and spreadsheet which gives the formulas for determining which procs are worthwhile in which powers.

On average, less than one. I rarely respec, except on a Villain or Hero Epic AT. With Mids, there's no reason to ever respec. You can plan out your build in advance, craft or place lowball bids in advance and have the entire build in a bin just for that character. (exception being Epic ATs - they are so short of slots, a respec is needed, imo.) Any steps I can take to avoid replacing the powers in my tray, I will take. I absolutely loathe a respec. An exception is with my afk farmers, I will respec them at vet level 48, and recycle the IOs. I still don't like doing this, but it's gotten fairly routine to this point.

This is a good question - but the rub is, the answer is likely different with each npc faction boss you face. Consider fighting Anti-Matter as an AV. The answer is different if you're facing Reichsman as an AV. And I can't say with certainty, as I've not used a power analyzer on most npcs, as I wouldn't remember the results even if I did. I can state that it stands to reason if my defense can be debuffed to less than zero (-xx.xx) then so can any mob we face. With an AV or EB, of course, more debuffs would be required, but it would depend on the strength/number of debuffs and their resistance to the same. Maybe one of these days, they'll let the power analyzer be used in iTrials so we can take a nice peak at how certain debuffs impact certain NPC bosses.

We should just do away with travel suppression in the first place, except in pvp zones. This game, not having been made for pvp in the first place, has had entirely too many things changed for the benefit of a teeny-tiny portion of those who enjoy and seek out pvp. But I digress. Call it stealth.

This is a good thing, Snarky. Quad boxing is against HC rules! I think maybe the poster in question was not clearly stating that they run 3 accounts at the same time, not 4. The truth is, there are so many flavors of farmers, most any opinion is clearly subjective and not absolute. Your own dark brute with a second build could likely be made into a farmer. Would it be as good as my afk spines/fire/fire brute? Probably not. But would it be good enough? Probably. The thing about a lot of us spines/fire farmers, we made them before some farmer/nerd type did some math and determined that a rad/fire was slightly better, numbers wise. How they reached this conclusion, I've no idea, but my contention is that if I want to make a rad/fire brute, and I did, there's a 50/50 chance that my spines/fire is better than my rad/fire. Why? Because of slotting. For whatever reason, TO ME - and only to me, as far as this statement goes - my ability to make a good build for spines/fire is better than my ability to make one for rad/fire. They are both quite good at sitting in a +4/8 when I'm not there and clearing an asteroid map. But the spines/fire clears faster, just standing in one place with burn on auto. It ultimately comes down to differences in slotting, really. So one player's ice/fire blaster might just be the best farming thing there is in terms of map clearing speed. But in terms of ease of play, the spines/fire would be my choice, whereas, the rad/fire would be the choice for other people. Use the SG build app and you'll find several farm builds to choose from. If you need help with the winter sets and such, you know where to find me. I have plenty to share.

There are a few "rules of thumb" I follow when converting. Bear in mind, we don't always play with our thumbs. When it's an uncommon of one of these sets: Sniper Ranged AoE Melee AoE The odds of converting into a rare that's worth selling are less than my personal level of risk. So, I simply convert out of set. I'd rather have a perplex and convert into a malaise and go from there. Every now and then, maybe 1 out of 20 times, I get right into a winner with no further conversions necessary. It can be tempting to try to convert the uncommon melee AoE into an oblit, but only if the oblits are in short supply. I never convert sniper sets. They're all trash and only rarely would they sell for over 2m, which is candidly, too low to take up a slot in my ah.

The way I do this is: The character that wants the influence sends an email to the global name, in my case @ukase. To: @ukase Memo: Cheap! Where the word Influence is - leave this blank. Your rich alt will fill this out. Body of message: Feed me! **************** Then, you log onto the rich alt, check your email, and hit Reply. Immediately, the TO: and the body are satisfying the email requirements. Simply type in how much the alt should get, hit Send. In 98% of cases, as soon as you log off the rich alt and log into the poor alt, the email is there waiting. Historically, there has been an afternoon when emails took a few hours to arrive.

Fortunately for me, the nightly Hami Raids are in my "prime time", so I can catch them whenever I choose. But despite the sometimes amusing banter, the encounter is now trivial, and quite dull. Still, profitable and it only takes 10-12 take downs of Hami to get the buds if I save my nuke for when they spawn. Just need to do partial damage on them to get credit. Some use Lady Grey...but Hami raids are quicker and ultimately my preferred way to go. For an SG type plan, I would go Lady Grey. Money Badge 6 - this is a bit tedious, but just playing organically would eventually get you there. I have found using the experienced temp will speed things up, because you earn more inf when you have patrol xp. For me, the more tedious are the Safeguard and Mayhem missions. These are solo by nature, except for the defeat badges. 1K civilians...even with a team, quite tedious. Sadly, there are a number of these tedious ones...