Ukase

I'll ask this here - and it's about as stupid a question as I can think of. I work remotely, I do have time, I think to do some testing. How would one go about intelligently testing and providing meaningful feedback? Is it just a matter of playing the game as I normally would, but on the test server? Or is there more to it than that?

So..when I see 600% in combat attributes, that's not reflecting the base as well? Oops!

On the original post it says that Brute damage cap is 700%. I think this is an error. Pretty sure it was 675%. It is now capped at 600%, not 700%. Someone else probably said something already, but I only read the notes, not the comments to follow. Sorry!

Wow...you must enjoy making builds! I like 'em! I find I can take a little of this one, a little of that one, and generally come up with something better than I would just on my own. Rather than respec now - I'm going to wait until 50. I intend to share the build here. Thanks again.

It's an interesting build...but no combat jump or super speed? Those two together are what make playing the characters fun, zipping through collecting explorations as you level up. I'm not a ninja run/jet pack kind of guy. I'll deal with jet pack on tanks/brutes/scrappers, but that's in conjunction with super speed and combat jump. I do appreciate seeing what you did though - you've just about got rune perma'd - close enough, anyway. That gives me a crazy idea of using fire shield (or another resist based epic armor) in conjunction with the almost perma rune...could likely get the resist cap. Will have to look at it and see. I am curious about not using Radiation Infection. Do you just not find it effective? I'm in no rush. Plenty of alts until I figure this out. But seriously - thanks to both of you!

http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1487&c=708&a=1416&f=HEX&dc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bove is what I am thinking is a true contradiction. The character's name is Pundit, a Fire/Rad corruptor. Oddly, I don't feel even remotely like a pundit on this build. When I play, there are certain things that I like to do with all of my characters. I tend to build them for soft-cap defense, and depending on the power sets, a certain value of recharge. Like, when I make an ill/rad controller, the build must have perma-pa, otherwise, what's the point, right? With a dom, perma dom. With this character, AM seems to be a good choice to make perma. Easily enough done. And, it can get perma -AM with really high defense. The problem is, the steps to take to get that high defense either lead the character to having woeful endurance issues, or leave it in a state where it wouldn't be that much fun for me to play. There's a lot I "get" about the fire primary. There's a lot I don't "get" about the radiation secondary. Fallout seems like Vengeance that dishes out some damage. So...a teammate gets clobbered, and I'm supposed to go in there and use Fallout...kind of like a lifeguard going in to save the drowning person surrounded by sharks. Seems like a pretty lousy way to get a buff, but maybe I'm too sensitive to getting clobbered. Not like it will hurt me in real life. EM Pulse - how often do I find myself clobbering robots? Hardly ever. Seems like a great power that would be better if it worked as well on everything. Choking Cloud - It has it's uses. I like it, but it sure is an end hog, though I'm still early in slotting it. I don't have to have Scorpion Shield, yet of all the options, it protects the most. It also doesn't require me to take a power I won't use in my attack chain. That's really the biggest thing that bugs me about Fight pool and Sorcery pool. Arcane Bolt? If it were actually a melee attack, I could justify tossing a kin combat set in there, but it's not! The other power, other than mystic flight is Spirit Ward, which seems to need at least 3 slots to even show it's doing anything. On all my characters, I enjoy Combat Jumping. Primarily, I can keep it and Super Speed on at the same time. If I were to use Ninja Run, it toggles SS off. Fly is just too slow. Even with Afterburner, for some crazy reason, they make it so you're only affecting self when it's on. This makes no sense to me. Might be great in the shard, and good set mule, but that's a power pool I would get - but only if it were faster. I like the Sorcery pool for my "squishies" ONLY because of Rune of Protection. I seem to get stunned/slept/held to death more with this character than any other I've played yet. This could be due to me not having Rune yet, whereas on others, I always have. Just seems a shame to have to sacrifice leadership for it. But - this is what I want: Speed pool for hasten, super speed Leaping for Combat Jump Sorcery for Rune of protection (may as well get mystic flight out of the 2 powers needed before I can get Rune) Fighting or leadership - and I'd get both if the game would let me, but it won't. And, if I did, that would be way too many toggles when you think about Choking Cloud, Radiation Infection and Enervating Field into the mix. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to get it! So the above build is what I have now. (Not what I have in game, lol. In game character is only 39 now. Just finished the patron arc and will respec once I figure out which direction to go. Something to keep in mind - I intend to play more like a blaster than a support character. I'm half tempted to leave Radiant Aura with the token one slot. Not like it's very useful in teams, or even solo. Takes too long, the heal is too small, just hardly worth the endurance it uses, compared to popping a green. If you've got suggestions, would love to hear them. I am not expecting anyone to make a build for me, but if you can suggest a different approach, or have additional insights, happy to read about it.

Dominator. What a woeful waste of time. It's been so long since I logged on to it, I've forgotten the secondary. The primary was mind, or psy. Whichever one has confuse. I made more than a few mistakes with it that were my fault. I did a couple of DFBs, spelunker...setting it up like I do all my characters, for the Atlas medallion. I tend to keep playing a character from 1-50, t-4 it, then start another. At level 47, it deals almost no damage. The only thing this character does well is confuse. There are no meaningful AoE attacks. There is literally no reason to think that this character will ever get over 47, unless I put it in a fire farm, or an MSR. (At least I'd get some merits that way) So, I figured I'd read on the forums, maybe get some insight as to why it was so painful to solo. Turns out, that dominators can get perma-dom more easily when teamed. I never knew that before. I get to level 47, and learn I'd been doing it the hard way! It made me think immediately of Jack Emmert, whose philosophy about CoH was to encourage teaming as "people will have more fun" - when often times, it's the opposite effect. I really wish I were in the mood to team more often, because things are more productive and can be more efficient when teaming. But, I often have real life distractions and can't always contribute my fair share, and other times, I want to only do mission objectives, which often is frowned upon by all except kitted out level 50s. (I love that story arc completion bonus!) You don't get those when teaming, unless it's your arc. Which means I have to wait for other people to be interested. But I've already digressed. This is another reason why I still haven't bothered with the Kheldians. That, and they have nowhere near enough slots for all the powers they get. You need to do a respec every 10 levels or so because some powers just aren't worth keeping as you level up. Cool to watch them in action when played by a competent player, but at this point, I'm not there yet. Because of this teaming issue, it remains at 47 until I finally decide to revisit it. Got perma-dom at level 38, too. It's just not fun to play because holds simply don't deal enough damage. If I were a criminal and came across a dominator trying to stop me, I'd laugh. They might be able to hug me, but they can't hurt me. They're weak. Pitiful. Or maybe that's just my lack of creativity trying to play it like a controller and it needs another approach. I dunno. But until it can compete with a defender on damage, or a controller, I see no reason to ever play it again. Just awful. I should at least try a different primary...but nah.

I know this is by design - what I can't fathom is why it was designed this way. When you zone into his first mission - there's what looks like 3 or 4 translucent pages of paper. It makes seeing things a little more difficult, and I really would like it if they weren't there. The easy thing would be for me to not do these missions, but ya know - a guy gets tired of Heather Townsend.

I've led them before and will be happy to lead them again if things are full in hive 1 and I can't get in. Or maybe if even if I can.

Thanks. I am afraid I'm a bit of an over-achiever. I've already t-4'd that character and it sits in Ouroboros while I'm playing an ice/atomic blaster. With this new one, I went for max hp and recharge - and honestly - defense is better. At least for me. I'd rather have 1700 hitpoints and soft-cap, then 1847.3 and 27% defense. Maybe it's all in my head. Who knows. Just seems like my ice/ice and fire/fire are simply ...more survivable and better than these other combos. I've never used Force of Will or Force Mastery, for that matter. Most of my blasters go with Ice Epic for hoarfrost or Scorpion Shield for s/l/e defense. There's just nothing in it Force Mastery that reads like it's worth taking compared to the t-8's and t-9's in the secondary in those later levels. That's probably just me, tho.

I saw someone recruiting for a Lady Gray TF. In the lfg, it says you get a Vanguard DNA Metamatrix or 37 merits. Crazy fool that I am, having just reached 50 on an alt, I thought I'd join for the Shard component. And on the reward table is a choice of a Hero 1 Dna Sample, or the merits. I chose the merits over a component only worth 4 shards, as opposed to one worth 12, which is what the Vanguard DNA Metamatrix is worth. I know it would be low on your priorities, but I think it would be an easy fix for the tool tip to be corrected. With accurate information, we can all make better decisions.

Um...here's what I did. I finished in 4:04. Yes, use team teleport to skip the cave/tunnels. Use your sg buff station to invis you - even if you do have a celerity in super speed like I did. This way, when you click, you will still have 25 feet stealth radius. You should also set your diff to 0/1 so you're not wasting time killing more than you need to. There are a number of obelisks to click, each down a path with some mobs you can ignore. You might need to kill some, depending on your defense stats. If they're low, take a luck before you click. Usually, they miss, even if they do see you. But with the sg invis buff, it's not an issue unless you straight out attack them and lose stealth. When you've clicked all the obelisks, you can hop over the mobs guarding the npc and just kill the two minions guarding him, ignoring the rest. I did that little trial 35 times for that partner badge, never once had to engage in a fight with anything other than two minions guarding the npc, except once, when my sg buff expired after an hour.

Copied two of my favorites to the server. Neither are able make incarnate materials for free. Tried logging off, re-validating, and back on, still no joy.

My main was and remains an ice/ice blaster. Well,..my badge toon was and is an ice/ice blaster. I don't really have a main anymore, because almost all of my characters do well. Some certainly are more impressive (to me) than others. A spines/fire brute named Fritter that can afk-farm at +4/8, but can also do ANY other content. Soft-capped defense, and just a smidge shy of capped s/l resist, but gets there if the hp gets too low because of the Reactive Defenses proc. Blister is my fire/rad Sentinel, and my first 50 on Homecoming. She was and is fun to play, but if not teamed, the damage just isn't that impressive. Resist capped at 75%, soft capped for melee defense, but I can get my blasters to soft cap defense with about 30-40% resist and they dish out so much more damage. I don't know Sentinels, but it is beyond me why their damage isn't on par with a scrappers. Same armors, so why not? It just doesn't make sense to me. Because they're ranged? So what?

The invention system has a tutorial! Of course some might forget some of it, or all of it. It has been a number of years! That's an entirely different scenario. It took me more than a minute to learn it back in live, and it took me a few minutes to re-learn it when the game came back.

I'm with you there! If I choose to give, whether it's time, inf, or whatever, it needs to be my idea, not someone else's.

Sorry to offend. Reasons why a good player might not know where PI is: 1. Only played redside and switched over at 50. 2. Really just loved ITF and kept doing them repeatedly. 3. Loved MSRs and did those and other mission contacts in RWZ. Maybe did an ITF, too. 4. Loved doing Numina, various shard TFs and just never got around to PI. 5. Always used mission tp, so never realized there were ferries that went to PI, Talos, IP and Striga. While all of these are plausible, they just aren't terribly likely. And candidly, if you are a new player, it stands to reason that you have much to learn and probably aren't that good of a player yet. There's a learning curve for everyone. I still learn things that make me a better player, every day! I do confess that my attitude towards such a player stems from a time when folks would HAVE to go to PI just to get level 45 and 50 enhancements. That's where Ghost Falcon was and is. You'd have to do a quick mission for him to show you his SOs available. So, before IOs came on the scene, anyone who was level 50 that didn't know where PI was had to have been powerleveled or running around without ANY enhancements for at least 7 levels. (aside from various drops - but no converters back then.)

The argument (philosophically) about the harms of PL'ing folks to 50 is not new. Who doesn't at least figuratively raise their eyebrows when a level 50 gets an invite to PI for a mission and they ask how to get there? There is a cost to having someone else - that's not your alt account - in a fire farm mission. It really is that simple. You get less inf, period. When I bring my alts in on my farms, almost routinely - the lowby is the one that gets the purples! Since it's my alt, I don't mind, but if it were some random person I was being nice to...I don't think I'd like to be THAT nice. The game mechanics suggest that just because that person was in there and got lucky doesn't mean that I would have gotten that drop if they weren't in there. I understand that. But, it wouldn't make me feel any better. But, that's just me - and that's a whole 'nuther can of beans, so to speak. For me, I have no beef with someone charging for a PL. My beef is with the people foolish/impatient enough to pay it.

Yeah, I moved a character to indom for A DAY for some pvp. When I t'fer'd my character back - someone took my name!

I'm by no means a historian, but I thought the whole reason of adding the extra servers was because with all those players, the zones were having a lot of lag, and in some cases, causing crashes of not only players, but the servers themselves. But - you bring up the social aspect. I thought I was teaming less because I was soloing more, not that I was soloing more because I was teaming less. I completely agree with you on the overall disappointment in having to wait to form a team or a league. I just don't think merging servers is necessary. At least, not at this time.

The truth is, if you give Corruptors a buff, then what? Then, nobody has a reason to make a defender. So they give defenders a buff. and so on. The truth is it all depends on how you play and slot them. I am very biased in favor of blasters, so I won't say anything about them.

Thanks to both of you. I did figure out that Drain Psyche has its benefits. The problem was finding large enough mobs. I am one to chase the merits from story arcs, so I was zipping through them at +1/1, so there were never many mobs to get much use out of it. But, on an MSR and a Market Crash, I saw I could max recovery without even slotting any end mod in it. So, the preventative medicine will stay. I think I'm going to forgo the leadership pool as I will most likely only be teaming for iTrials, and there are plenty of buffs in those. Clarion might be the choice for a lot of blasters, but I if my defense is softcapped, I much prefer Ageless. Not that I have to limit myself to one.

Below is the unfinished build of Zorba, a fire/mental blaster. Level 47 at present. Normally, I build a character, get the IOs, before I even create it. But, because I wasn't very familiar with the mental manipulation secondary, I've learned some things that lead me to believe I've picked some dog powers. Like confusion. It's a true turd for my style of play. Mental probe was useful up to about level 20, but haven't used it since. Subdual must be taken, but stopped using it at level 20 as well. Maybe earlier. It annoys me to no end to take fight and have boxing remain useles. The leadership pool has more utility, but there's no resistance layer of protection with it, and all those toggles...a blaster has to have endurance to dish out the punishment. Influence is no object. If some of you have some suggestions as to better ways to improve this build, I'd welcome the feedback. Sometimes, you get in the habit of doing things a certain way, and you lose out on different perspectives and ideas. The one thing is - I love Super Speed & Combat Jump. But it pains me to take Combat Jump and lose out on another power pool. If I had my way, I'd take Leaping, Fight, Leadership, Speed & Sorcery. But, the only reason to take Sorcery is to get Rune of Protection. It's an excellent power for preventing perma-hold/stun situations that would otherwise lead to defeat if you don't have a break free. But, we can only choose 4 pools. If I put an extra slot in hurdle, would it be about the same as having CJ when it comes to hopping up to the second floor? Guess I could toggle Ninja run... http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1412&c=658&a=1316&f=HEX&dc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

I do the same thing...except, sometimes when I grow weary of playing a character, I'll just burn the emps. I have a second account, so sometimes, I'll just let a "finished" character sit in just to get vet levels to get the emps. Most characters get t-4'd by vet level 9. Some sooner, some later, depending on the RNG. That leaves me with several vet levels to get 20 emps, and 15, etc. It adds up.

Leading iTrials is something I used to do weekly back in live. I don't know when it happened, or why, but it seems I've lost some of the patience I used to have for forming these things. With the Dark Astoria arcs, I don't get all the threads like I would in iTrials, but I can finish Heather Townsend's arc in less time that it would take to recruit and fill a UGT. (about 10 minutes) I logged in a new-ish 50, needing some commons, and some incarnate xp, and Lambda is one of the first iTrials, geared for newish 50's. I'm quite aware that some do "SLams", a speed lambda - ignore turrets, ignore street spawns, just clobber the required amount of npcs, kill the EB, get the temp powers, smack down the AV. Simple enough. Certainly not all - but this morning, a leader recruited for a lambda, not a SLam - yet upon entry, a SLam is what it was. And here is where I feel like I've failed the server: The leader had no idea it was a "SLam", nor did he have any experience ever clearing the streets or the turrets. This was all he knew. Maybe he/she was one of the new players that never played in live, I really don't know. So, I want to apologize for getting too impatient in my older age. I thought I would get more patient as I got older, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I am hoping that realizing how I've failed, I'll focus on being more patient and leading more trials with clear, concise instructions that aren't done by frantic typing in all capital letters. Macros are a great tool. All leaders that type less than 30 correct words per minute should use them, or if they absolutely must, use discord or some other voice service.