Ukase

I wouldn't really know if I have a niche - as I have no idea what anyone else is doing. I do think that, presently, I must be the only person selling Shield Walls that are not the 5% resist(all) +TP protection. There's hardly any of them for sale, so I'm selling them at what I think are a fair price, given this ridiculous increase in price for uncommon salvage. I'm trying to keep the prices to 10M, but some crazy person keeps buying them for 12 or 14m. No idea why, but I'm not complaining.

I transferred a tank of mine to Everlasting for a hami raid...and a few days later tried to transfer it back - and someone took my name! My fault for not squatting on it - but the fact that this person hasn't responded to my in-game email to his/her global suggests that they are merely squatting on it to bug me. (I used /getglobalname to find their global) I am of the opinion that despite the naming policy, it's not really in effect. I think once a name is taken, that's a wrap. Unless someone got Pl'd (certainly possible) I don't think they'd get to 50 in a couple of days. I asked how much inf it would take, and they never even came back with a reply. But this - this is a clever idea.

I don't understand this desire for recipe storage. I park my characters in Ouroboros, usually at level 2, or 4. Sometimes even 1, until they get Chronologist so they get rare recipes dropped after mission completion. I tend to craft as soon as I log on. Takes all of 2 minutes, if that. What's so difficult about it? If you lack the salvage, don't craft. You will NEVER run out of room on your characters if you vendor the recipes you don't/won't use. You know the ones - Snare/slows, defense debuffs..those generic common invention recipes that vendor for more money than you can buy the crafted for on the AH. Maybe you loathe the converter game and have Perplexes you can't use...so vendor them. Why would you keep them? If you're inclined to keep everything - that's fine - craft it and keep it. If you were going to keep it - you were going to keep it for what? To look at? One of your alts was going to use it, but they can't use it until it's crafted. I've re-read this thread, and I'm still not understanding why one wouldn't craft/convert/sell what they get. Is it just having the choice that you want? I guess I can get that - and truth is, I don't have to understand it. I would just like to. Maybe the way you all do things is more fun than mine. <shrug> Is it a convenience thing? You just hate crafting, so you wait until you're full? I don't get it. Just make it something you do every day - like refill on inspirations before a tf.

It's a fair question, and deserves an answer, regardless of how little rationale it may have. I had a decent list of friends before CoV came out. When it did - all of them went to the red side. I did not. For one, it required I buy another game, which at the time, I didn't want to do, I knew it came with the month of paid sub, so it wasn't like it was more than I was going to be paying, but I just felt like it ruined CoH. There was this line in the sand drawn, and it wasn't like we could just chat with Null and switch if we wanted to. It was a simple, but time consuming process of gaining tips and what not. And - to be honest, I really can't remember if it was like that from the jump. It may have been the next issue that allowed for changing alignments. In any event, CoV, to me, was a big mistake. Why dilute the population, if the premise was to encourage teaming? So, for me, it's a bit passive aggressive. Now that it's easier to switch, I'll go over there every now and then, but I've learned Blue side, I know by heart where all the badges are that I need for the passive accolades. I go to redside for 2 reasons - to get invader, (because I don't want to be "forced" to do task forces with folks I may not want to team with, nor do I want to be herded into doing them solo if I'm not in the mood to do so. ), and to get the Patron Pool option for certain ATs. I have two accounts, and my alt has the Bloody Hands/Hero Slayer badge, so that character can get my primary account characters the Invader (Task Force Commander equivalent) in less than 15 minutes. I already have 10's of 1000s of reward merits and billions of inf. I may never do a tf again, except for a notice of the well, or to help those few who are on my global friends list. I have thought about starting a character over there - simply for the content. My main, Ukase has all the badges, so I know the content is comparatively better. Not so much zone hopping, shorter arcs, tfs. etc. But - red side is dreary and depressing. The spiders, snakes...it simply is gross. Who wants to see that? (rhetorical, but it sure ain't me) The few times I've thought about switching to help a familiar name out, I've done so. But I don't appreciate losing my Alignment power, and having to wait a week to get it back. Lastly - if you're red side, your Abyss is just the worst zone in existence. It's desolate, with useless crevices, insufficient number of DE Monsters for farming DE and if coming from Hero side, it's quite a trek. I will never, ever understand what the Devs were thinking, if they were, when they came up with the zone, and it's location. The Hive is vastly superior in scenery (yes, subjective), location (Base TP to Eden, 200 yds or so to The Hive gate vs. 1 mile swim to smuggler ship in IP or 600 yds to smuggler ship in PI) and certainly with the multiple walls of Giant DE for farming EoE to get Hamidon to spawn. So, I just say no. My best advice to HC team: Reduce Pocket D recharge time to 1 minute. There's no good reason for it to be 15 minutes. Alignment powers should be instant, not require a week before use. Eliminate all the spiders and snakes and anything else that looks like a bug or pest. Life's too short to be playing an exterminator. Clear the terrain so flight and/or SJ are not required for fast movement. Eliminate the whole red/blue side alignment system as a whole. Just make all zones part of the same big city. Access Mercy from Atlas, PI from Nerva, etc. Then nobody has to deal with this line drawn in the sand. It's the way it should have been from the beginning. It'll never happen because of the way the lore is laid out, but I don't really care about lore. That's just stuff I read when I get bored.

Today, I was on a Ms. Lib tf with my Rad/Street Justice tank. It did very well against Recluse, so I was going to use /buildsave and upload my build so folks who have no idea how to make a tank could use my build as a blue print, and others could offer tips on better ways to improve it. I got a strange error message, and mids would fill in the AT name, but none of the powers or enhancements. Invalid Import Data, Blame Sai! Error: Redirects.Inherents.Gauntlet_Proc Could the new inherent Gauntlet Proc released in today's patch have something to do with this? Not at all a big deal - but figured I'd ask the question.

You are correct - I tried both and they both started with P. I confused the two. My mistake, thanks for the correction.

I had never heard of this Cake server, but I went and checked it out - mainly because I saw a video of this primalist thing and I was curious. I don't know what I was expecting, but it's a different experience there. I won't say good/bad because candidly, I didn't really give them much time. The primalist seems interesting, but it's really just some epic/patron powers that you get at an earlier level - but the recharges seem a lot slower than they do when you get them at the normal levels of 35-50. But, again, I didn't really "test" anything. My main reason was I like the way things are on HC. There are still stalkers, Forts, Widows, PBs, WS's that I've yet to play to 50. So, I don't need any new ATs, nor do I need new powersets. As for Tequila - my Norton AV would lock Tequila up every time I ran it until I made an exception. Account set up on Cake was easy enough. They gave me two accounts, when I only asked for one. But, if I want to go from level 1 to level 15 - I have to ask them through discord. Seems like there would be a better, easier way, but what the heck do I know? I just know I like the way HC does things up to this point. I see no compelling reason to play on other servers.

I don't agree with a lot of the things he said/did regarding the game, but make no mistake - Jack is bright, and industrious - the man gets things done. They don't hand out those CEO titles to people unless they're generally the smartest people in the room - that also work harder than anyone around them. You may not like him, but you should still respect him.

You people really puzzle me. Playing other games?

I thought I would share this experience of mine. When the game shut down...I'm really not remembering what I did - whether I deleted the game, or maybe I got a new hard drive and didn't port it over. Then, on The Titan Network, Paragon Chat came about and I may have downloaded the game from there - and it went into my downloads - but there was never any file structure to it - just all the files dumped in a mess. I had Vidiot Maps from issue 23 already on. But when the new patch came out, I just couldn't get it to work, because despite my best efforts at creating folders - the game installation was just a mess. It was clear to me that if I were going to finally update the patch for vidiotmaps, I'd have to uninstall and reinstall the game. So I did. I share all that because from what I've read, I wasn't the only person whose files were in a mess. So - the good news is - it only took about an hour to download. I had been putting it off, because I was thinking it would take 12 hours or something. So, if you've got decent internet, and you've been putting it off - just reinstall the game from homecoming, following the instructions they give, and then you can more simply follow the instructions for adding the new patch.

True enough - but one thing about CoH market is you have no way of definitively knowing who is doing what. Some time back, someone took a screen shot of him listing lotg 7.5% at 6 inf or some ridiculously low price and still getting 6-7m for them. Other than screenshots, we just never know who to curse or bless. At this point, the only reason I'm marketing now is for the fun of it and to give it away - when it's my idea. Panhandlers are frowned upon and treated with disdain.

I haven't been doing too much of any of it - just crafting and converting what drops. But, with an afk farm character on a second account, that's a lot of drops. I asked myself -- maybe I should save myself some time and simply invest the time and see if I'd be better off selling the salvage, the recipes and the converters. But then, I do the math in my head, and the crafting, converting...it's just insanely more money. I never sell rare salvage from the 41-50 range. I keep it all - most in the reserve vault, and my farmers will withdraw as they need it. I never sell purples - unless it was a dedicated day of buying recipes for about 2/3 the crafted value and posting them. I made 250m in about 2 hours on a day..so did it the rest of the day. Craft for 10 minutes, go play a bit, repeat. What has gotten my attention is the supply of LotG 7.5% -- has increased. And so has the price. I'm almost 100% certain that one or two people are buying these up, and relisting them for 1.5-2M more. And another one or two people are doing their best to seed the market and list the price at about 7m. Clearly - people ARE willing to spend up to 10M on one of these, but there's just enough benevolent marketers that sell them cheaper where the price had stabilized for weeks at about 7m. But the past week has seen them go up to 9m or so. In the aftermath of all those candy canes from the Winter event - the blessing of the zephyr's recipes and IOs must be in large supply, as that price seems to have gone from 3-4m to 1-2m...but it fluctuated back up for a day before it went back down again. I have thousands of these useless candy canes, lol. What I'm keeping my eye on closely are ATO and Winter O prices. I don't want to sell the ones I have, because I know, sooner or later, an alt of mine will want to use them. But I also want to realize some profit from the 400 or so winter packs I bought. It's so tedious and slow opening them, I think I'll still have some NEXT Christmas!

Well, that makes it an easy choice. No acrobatics. Thanks.

Yeah, I have been doing the same...but if the hold resistance aka "2 mag hold" protection is useful, it may be worthwhile. I just don't know the mag of the hold the npcs use.

CoH isn't a game about destination, but a journey. As I've played, I've tried numerous ATs, numerous power-set combos, with many more to explore on my list. Recently, I'd discovered that I really like Rune of Protection - not for the resistance, but for the hold break/protection for my characters that don't get it - i.e. what some of you call "squishy". I don't call my blasters/defenders/corruptors "squishy", because I don't believe they are. I build them to be tough! I was monitoring the help channel when an MM was worried about kb, and I suggested a kb proc, which handles most of the kb problems easily and fairly cheaply, too. But, then someone suggested Acrobatics for the kb, as well as the hold resistance. Presumably, Acrobatics can protect against a mag 2 hold. While that's a useful bit of data, it doesn't tell me if that's enough to protect against a +2 CoT Mage at level 16, or any other npc. The problems with Acrobatics is it would require me to get SJ or or Jump Kick. I could deal with SJ, I suppose. Or use Jump Kick as a mule for a kin combat set, if push came to shove. But I don't really want SJ as a travel power. I much prefer SS. It would also use up .18/s endurance - another toggle to run. In contrast, Sorcery with Rune gives mystic flight, which while it isn't super fast, I don't have to worry about it running out like I do a p2w Jet Pack. And Spirit Ward or Arcane Bolt are nothing to brag about, either. Either route I go, I have to take powers I don't really like, nor will use often, if at all. So - I can easily just "try it", but I figured I'd simply ask for your thoughts on Acrobatics and if you found it worthwhile.

It wouldn't matter to me how "sexy" it is, if there were only 17 people online across all the shards to play it. I personally have never heard of "We have cake". I can only surmise that this is because they are smaller. I venture to rebirth when HC is down for extended maintenance, which isn't often. I can appreciate the "working for it" aspect of the old Live version, but the cupboards of the AH are bare, so even though I know how to build a base and piles of influence, it is painstakingly slow without folks to buy and sell. I am not in the majority, I am afraid. I don't see the need for any new powersets, or content. There is still much to be done for me before what's available gets dull or boring. So, I say, leave the "sexy" alone, and work on what we have for the long run. Then we can worry about the rest. There's little point in putting unpaid hours into development of something that may get stripped away with little warning.

So, I made a fire/time corruptor. Had the build made before I started, and was looking forward to seeing how the numbers would play out. http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1600&c=781&a=1562&f=HEX&dc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ut - with only Maneuvers, Combat Jump, and Dark Embrace running (the ones that impact resistance & defense) my in-game defense numbers do not reflect what mid says - not hardly close. In game, it shows: Ranged Defense: 25.68% Melee Defense: 27.56% Smashing Defense: 19.75% Mids shows: Ranged Defense: 49.6% Melee Defense: 49% Smashing Defense: 43.7% This is without Farsight being active. In game, with farsight doesn't get this high. I share this because a lot of you are much savvier than I am regarding mids. It may be that there's some setting I've not properly adjusted. If so, please advise. I posted this here ...because frankly, it is a corruptor build and I wasn't sure where else I might put it. Still, a fun toon. Far more enjoyable than the fire/sonic I recently finished. Will be my last corruptor for a time though. Four in a row is a bit much.

I used to do it that way - and then on a weekly TF being Synapse, I thought - why am I killing myself at level 16 on a Synapse, when I can just wait until it's a weekly - if what I'm after is the merits? If I want the tfc - as mentioned, the Invader accolade can be done at level 1 (although traveling through for the badges would take more time than if I wait until level 4 when I get Super Speed, but better still to wait until 12 for a Celerity to be tossed in the slot.) I do think for MOST people, the way you're doing is probably the better way. Most folks need those merits. I'll never spend all the merits I have now. Must be sitting on over 10k worth, not including hero merits and what's in my email from the winter packs. If I have to do any task force, I plan to be at least +5 over the max level (unless it's a 45+ tf) so I can take full advantage of the extra slots (and 2-3 powers). Doing posi at level 8 is just insane in my mind. Much better to wait until 20 for posi 1 & 2, 25 for synapse, etc.

Just in case I'm wrong - don't think so - but can we confirm that you get Heart of Darkness if Villain/Rogue OR Heart of Light if Hero/Vigilante? And if you switch alignment, the badge simply changes title along with the change?

Up to 1515 until May, I guess. Unless I learn I missed one...

The only 2 things I would change about that guide is to not disable common recipes, despite the workbench. That's free money. Task forces are great, but do them at least 5 levels over the cap for that task force. You might as well have all the slots and powers you can get to make the ordeal less painful. Well.. painful is too strong, but I'd rather be level 25 and capped at 20 for Synapse, then be level 15, for example. I would further suggest you only do task forces if they're fun, or the weekly for double merits. Or, you just want the merits. Doing the task forces for task force commander is just wasting time. You can get the Invader, red side equivalent in about 25 minutes, maybe less if you hustle.

Heh, well, that's why having several alts can work in your favor. Play one each day. 10 alts, then have a full 10 bars of patrol xp for each one.

Yes. When you have the Chronologist Day Job from Ouroboros, you get a random rare recipe drop after completing each mission. It's just anecdotal, but I swear my characters get PvPios, about one a day, when I do this with my characters. When I don't - I'm lucky to get a Perplex. (an uncommon recipe that's worth less crafted than as a recipe sometimes. ) So, not only do you get 7 bars of patrol xp, you also get a lot of progress towards that day job badge. By the time i'm level 10, I typically have it.

Ladies, Gentlemen...I have one word for you. Resources. Okay, I misspoke. I have MANY words. When you want folks to be transparent (above and beyond what these fine dev folks already are!?), you're asking someone to take the time to explain things that are essentially none of your business. Seriously! We're all on the outside, looking in. I completely understand that you want to know more - maybe you don't want to invest time in a system that may shut down if you'd had all the information available. But - what we have is a game that people are voluntarily making available for FREE. Just enjoy it, Donate if you can. We don't need to know anything, other than how to log in and play. That's it! You, me - that fool who is level 50 and can't find a merit vendor - none of us need to know anything other than how to log in and play. I would much prefer these folks on the HC dev team focus on things as they think best. If it turns out it's not best, so be it! I got to play, and I'm grateful. Instead of taking time here - let's all go to the test server and look and see if we can find things that they need to know about.

I'm sure I'm in the minority with this perspective, but let me say this. I do like the PvP IOs. Namely, the Glad Armor 3% def(all), the Shield Wall 5% res (all) and the Panacea +hitPoints/recovery IO. I'm even okay with their being PvP IO sets with different rules applying for the different zones, PvP vs PvE. And, I don't honestly mind PvP. It's kind of exciting - if I'm in the mood for it. But - I do not like my character suddenly having different combat attributes upon entering the zone when I don't have any full PvP IO sets contributing to those same attributes. If I am at resist cap in PvE, I should be at resist cap in PvP. There will never be "balance" in pvp, because the ATs are different. They take different IO sets, get different bonuses and well, they're different! I think more people would pvp if the same rules applied to pvp as they do in pve. If a Sentinel is OP in PvP - so what? Every AT is going to shine somewhere, somehow, in some circumstances. That doesn't mean you have to change the rules. If it becomes City of Spines/Fire brutes, does that really hurt anything, if that's what people are happy with? In concept, certainly not ideal, but ultimately, we can look at why people like these flavor of the month powersets/ATs and find ways to address those wants/needs without changing the rules. I realize we have the option to make different builds for PvP if we like. It's not an issue of influence for me, it's an issue of not wanting to take the time to learn all the nuances of how differently things work in PvP. If the rules were the same, I would think more people would do more pvp because they would be better at it. People don't like what they're not good at. They won't become good at it when you gate it with odd rules...and why did travel suppression have to follow us from PvP into PvE? I hate travel suppression, but I digress. Okay, rant over.