Ukase

I know Snarky's already laughing because of how I pronounce Scourge, but that's beside the point. There was a time when there was some debate about playing a corruptor vs. defender. In a nutshell, the conclusion varies with how the character is played, how it's built and whether you're teamed or not. But wait - the title says "Scourge...", right? Why? Because here's the question: How does one make the most of scourge, anyway? I present this direct from the HC Wiki: I ask this out of some ignorance, as when playing, I tend to be obtuse. As an example, fighting Infernal, just killed his portal, but there is still Infernal and a few Demons that got through. So, I use Fireball, and then Rain of Fire. I see scourge numbers...but since some of fireball's effects occur a little bit after the initial burst, it's tough to tell what's doing the Scourge (maybe both?) without looking at the combat log. While the question doesn't really prevent the demise of Infernal in this case, it kind of begs the question, was there a way to do it better? It certainly seems like the targeted AoEs get more out of Scourge than single target attacks. But that's just my perception. What's the reality? Is it only the npc's base health that makes this determination to scourge or not?

Yeah, they had changed things with the instanced version at first to be 35+, and then they opened it up to level 1s. And you're not sk'd in the instanced versions, your level is set to 50. So the XP isn't quite as good, I don't think, as it would be in the open zone version. I could go on - and did, but deleted it all - so you're welcome, lol.

I thought that was the reason behind the XP boost, wasn't it? To take load off of Excelsior and put it on the other servers? I did the same thing initially. This is what I found: Because nobody would help with GMs when I found them, I had to either do without them, or wait until once a day, instead of multiple times a day. Sorry, but that's just not smart play if you're after the loot. Now, I have plenty of loot, and I don't need any more. But without reward merits, prismatics and such, I don't really have a reason to play anything more than once. Sorry, I don't. Now, that's just me, but playing on Indom while I did was an opportunity cost of about 300-400 reward merits a day. Indom has some smart, good people. Helpful people. But they can't make up for the lack of opportunity to pursue merits and team play. Unfortunately, I don't see a solution aside from folks on Indom moving to another shard - which I know many will despise that, and probably quit. And I wouldn't blame them. Another potential fix would be for new accounts to only see Indom, Torch or Reunion as an option. Just hide Excelsior and Everlasting from new players. That's not a great fix, or even a good one, sadly. And I'm not sure we are getting enough good players for that to even work. Another option might be for the rewards on Indom and Torch to be a percentage greater than on Excelsior and Everlasting. How much? No idea. Another possible solution is for the HC GMs to encourage SGs to branch out to Indom for certain nights. Imagine about 5-10 of the larger SGs from other shards recruiting for various things throughout the day, but only needing 2-4 players to fill their group. Plenty of players are already "nice" enough to do something like that, they just need a reason, and they need it to be easy. A transfer is easy, but I'm not sure an SG would want to transfer over and lose their SG affiliation - and their base. If a solution to that dilemma were possible (other than these SGs making another base) then I could see it happening. I think if incarnate reward tables for various trials were buffed to give a 40%-50% chance of rare/very rare - that alone might see more folks doing the higher level stuff more often. I can brainstorm until the cows come home. Some folks will hate the ideas, and some ideas would be impractical. The best solution is probably to do nothing.

Odd title for this post. Faster would be an MSR. And, probably ToT, since the EBs give 50% more xp than a standard EB, but only if the league isn't porting away from GMs every 2 minutes. Or, a team of 8 doing level 50 stuff would certainly be faster than yet another Frostfire. I can't remember the global, but there used to be a chap called Saint Nick...man, that dude knew where all the huge XP was hiding. I remember having dinged level 49, and he took us to the itsy bitsy badge arc. At +4, Lord Recluse as an AV gave me 4-5 bars of XP just by himself.

Possible? Sure. At least the nice bonuses part. But preventing transfers...well, that might be possible. No idea. I'm curious what you mean by "farming issue". What farming issue?

Thanks for sharing the pictures! Interesting names...Tobler One? Like Toblerone..the chocolate bar maybe?

Character? I had about 486 of them, but I've whittled it down to about 435 over the past months... No worries here.

Because I hate to put toggles back on. It seems to take forever. So annoying. Cowardice doesn't enter into it. Laziness does! Damn toggles. If I thought I could get done with objectives without them as fast as I do now, I wouldn't even take those powers, lol. But experience has taught me I need them.

Thanks for the tip.

Comes in handy on the morty kal SF. Might save someone a full 30 seconds, as opposed to clicking the glowies to take down the forcefields. So, it's not totally useless. I just wish SS were faster. Seems like it could be faster. On Brainstorm it IS noticeably faster for whatever reason.

Just conjecture, but it's probably a familiarity thing. I'm closing in on 60 faster than I'd like. Before HC opened the doors, there are two things I'd never heard of before. Reddit and Discord. If they were using Discord before, stands to reason they might just see Discord as a practical tool that solves a couple of problems. Fast notifications (that can be disabled) and who knows what else. I barely can get my mike and headphones to work on it. Not an expert in all the facets of it.

So, I'm not clear at all on how my post could be construed as making any kind of joke about you, or anyone else. I was just trying to suggest you make a suggestion to your friends to visit the forums. There was nothing sinister or mocking about it, at least, that was never my intent. I did stretch an analogy suggesting folks who don't visit the forums are missing out on things - like information. But you shouldn't take that as any kind of disrespect towards you, or anyone else. It's just a fact. They miss out on information. Not just from the HC team, but from players who have been on beta and know things about game mechanics that most of us can't be bothered to learn. I pick up new tips and tricks for slotting various builds that I would NEVER get in game.

That's awful. If I got a debuff like that, I would just stand in my base until it expired. I'm all for some kind of challenging monster, but the mechanics in play need to be where the player has to learn from the mistake made. Not just hide in a base until time elapses. And I don't think brand new characters need a new challenging monster. Let it happen in PI. Or Grandville.

Here's a snippet from Discord: Hope that helps.

So, we all know about the upcoming name release, which impacts characters that are not level 50. I have had a number of characters on the back burner, and frankly, while I'll be kicking myself in the future if some dramatic change occurs with how certain ATs and powersets will play, it seems like it would just be easier to come up with some new name if that should occur. I have no idea if anyone would even want these, but just in case: Comic Ozzy is now available. For those who've not had coffee, it's a bit of a play on the word Kamikaze. The character is was a blaster, of course. Optical Aleutian - hard to let this one go, but I think it would be better served for someone who can make more sense out of it than I can. The back story was an Alaskan Optometrist (ill/ice dominator), but while I never gave the character a real chance (only level 26 at time of deletion), I just don't foresee ever giving it a chance, at least not in the next couple of years. So, maybe someone else might like to use the name. I frankly couldn't believe it was available. Maybe I spelled Aleutian wrong, but pretty sure I got it right (google agrees). I will try to update this list as more names that aren't part of my naming conventions become available. (who's gonna want Ukase Burns anyway?) Grin and Beer it - a very ironic name for a character that often led me more into a pit of despair than a grin. I just do not play scrappers well. No matter where I place those ATOs, the crits don't occur as often as I think they should. Not a fan of gimmicks, and the critical hit is too unreliable for me. If you like 'em, great! Here's a silly name for you to use.

I did not know this, so thanks for the heads up!

This has got to be one of the most helpful posts I've ever read. Since I first heard of Netgraph, I have never understood what any of it specifically meant, other than green was probably good.

When did we vote? I was never told about this vote.

Look, I kind of get it. Folks are busy, and when they're not, they'd rather play than read about playing. But candidly, the information in the forums can certainly help make the best use of limited time. I suggest you encourage your friends to visit the forums and skim through things like the patch notes, and the various guides on making influence if they're not flush with inf. Playing the game and not reading the forums is kind of like getting in your car and taking a road trip with no destination. You might enjoy yourself, but you might also miss the turn into the forest because you couldn't see it with all the trees in your way. Like now, pending maintenance is a great time to visit the forums and read stuff.

<doh!> This never even occurred to me. Excellent point!

I'm stretching my brain to think of where this could be at. What UGT really needs is a big sign on the ENTRANCE door that we just came through, as newer players are often clicking on it and exiting the trial.

You know, other than on my first character...I don't think I've ever visited costume vendor in Croatoa. but 50 of each Halloween salvage? I don't even want to think how many doors that would take. So glad we can buy that stuff. (and sell it) Appreciate the info. Back to the drawing board, I guess.

See, if this is what happened, this would be for the best, would it not? If the zone is filling sooner and sooner, it would seem the players would like to start earlier than later. No? Or is it just greed and impatience? I dunno. I appreciate the time writing out your answers, though!

I made no secret about milking the ToT event for prismatics. And in another post, someone was lamenting about the lack of folks doing ToT as a league in KW. I mentioned that in order to change behaviors, something must address the motivation for players. I've never been good at costumes. So, going through the labyrinth to get the motes and turn them in for a costume (free!) has been something I've been doing lately. So, I thought, the price for prismatics has dropped. Which means that the motivation for some folks to do advanced mode tfs has somewhat decreased. At least for some of them, I imagine. So, I thought also - why not promote ToT and the hard mode stuff by adding a free costume toggle with the defeat of 50, or 100 EBs of the same type? Couldn't we see Snarky as an Ancient Vampire? Now, with regards to "promoting" ToT...it doesn't really need promoting, but towards the end, it seems to me that there are a lot fewer 50's participating, leaving the lowbies a bit put out because the fun has stopped for them. If there were a free costume toggle for clobbering 50 or 100 of them, I suspect there would be some costume lovers pursuing these and remain doing ToT for longer. Maybe the number is too low? Not sure. I just throw it out there arbitrarily. But so far as I know, those costumes are not available at benovolabs.

I felt I should be transparent. I took a new level 32 ice/MA corruptor to ToT in Croatoa, solo. And the EBs were not a cake walk like they were with my 50s. A lot more difficult. Not impossible, but a challenge. One of them did defeat me - the crone, because I didn't have any yellows and I was debuffed like crazy. But, once I returned to battle, took care of it without too much trouble - which just tells you if you have the proper inspirations, they are not that bad. Yes, it can be a little tougher when you're not 50 and decked out. But shouldn't they pose a challenge? That is why they give prismatics after you beat 10 of them. EBs are a bit streaky for me anecdotally. 10 doors without, than 3 doors in a row with. I wouldn't want to pursue the EB badges without a team/league. It would seem like it was taking too long to suit me.