Ukase

I confess, I am one of the 37 subscribers to @Projector's channel ProjectorCoH on YouTube. This player, whom I barely know, has often bent over backwards (figuratively) to share with me certain insights about the Hard Mode content. He doesn't know it yet, but eventually I'm gonna have him carry my slightly better than mediocre Fire blaster, water/sonic corruptor, Fire/rad corruptor and maybe even my shield/mace tank, and my mace/invuln brute. Oh, and my Grav/Earth Dom, my fire/ice tank, and maybe even a couple more characters, if I ever get them to the 1620 or so badges, where that's all I need are the last two from advanced lady gray. Now, hopefully, 700k of you will find his channel, click on it - let the video play to the end, subscribe, make a comment and give a thumbs up - make him rich, and I'll tell him he owes me for all the love. Go ahead, I'll wait. In all seriousness, if you want a primer on hard mode stuff, the dude has some compelling content.

@lemming You've been so helpful to those that enjoy the labyrinth, as well as in other areas, it is likely you're onto something. I suspect you're one of those folks who, although may not do the whispering in the alleys, out of sight, but might be in position to hear those whispers. I think I read about a year or 18 months ago, that there was a server that was going to be merged with HC, Victory, I think. And that may have something to do with the naming policy update. Now, I'm not in the loop to understand HOW that could impact this, but anything is possible where coding is involved. The power of zeros and ones to ruin things is filled with potential. I used to think this way. But, having seen folks that literally just come out of AE, run a 90 minute 4 passive accolade run, and then an MoTF/SF train...I kind of had to change my view, and be open to the idea I was in error. And I have only recently realized this. I have to be willing to appear inconsistent and change my mind when evidence tells me I'm incorrect in my assumptions. There's probably something to this, however. I'm just not sure how relevant or significant of a factor it is. The longer HC runs, the more players will have run the lower level content. And, well, the more likely they might get tired of doing it and just skip past it, either through farming, ToT or whatever. Some will stop farming at the teens, some at 30, some at 50. And some of these players are, sucks to be me, but better at playing their character than I am at playing mine. Not all of them, of course. I'm sure I play better than some of them, lol. It kind of makes me sad to think that people are so openly rude as to denigrate people who's character info doesn't align with their own specific ideals, whether it be creation date, costume, bio or badge count. I completely get thinking that way, but to actually tell someone something negative based on something as benign as character creation date...that's harsh. You must have heard something I didn't, or I forgot about. Whenever I hear someone said something unsavory, I tend to be more surprised about it than anything else. Even when it's me being unsavory!

I think it would be mixed results, depending on the corruptor secondary. I absolutely love the fire/natty and ice/cold combos for corruptors. The damage boost from overgrowth, in conjunction with the debuffs make the damage seem better. Anecdotally, I can tell you the mistake I made with my fire/dark and ice/dark corruptors is I didn't plan for enough end reduction and/or end recovery. Incarnates made a solution, but no build should rely on incarnates, because when you exemp, you're a bit gimped. I hate using short term solutions like inspirations or temp powers for long term problems. I need to at worst respec mine, or at best, use some unslotters in some clever fashion. I think you'll be fine with your dark style whichever way you choose. There is one thing about fire that I like more than ice, and that's the sound fx and the snipe. Ice doesn't have one which has always been a big downer for me. And there's something pretty awesome about the sound of fire. The ice "whistle" is okay, but the fire sound is more than cool to me. Water, to me, has to be cleverly planned out, ensuring a smooth attack chain. Ice and fire seem to have that no matter what I do, but I have to be more deliberate with water. I usually plan for more recharge in water builds to make the proc attacks available more often, as well as the rest of them. Candidly, if it weren't for the procs, and the bouncy nature of the attacks, not sure I'd even play water. But that's just me.

I guess that's where I'm different from folks. I might think something like that, but I would never say it. I just happened to notice it because I dusted off over 50 characters for the halloween event that didn't have the EB defeat badges. I remain proud to display that most of my characters are 4 years old or so. I even have some that are in their teens that are that old. I keep waiting for a change to regen on one of them, lol. I still think this was poorly implemented, no matter how sarcastic hedgefund gets. People should be proud of their character creation date no matter when it was. If people don't like it, tell 'em to kick rocks while they rub it in their chest. As they say on the block, "Release those nuts".

Privacy? It's when a character was created, not the player's address or favorite color. Hardly something to be kept private. It should be public by default, and if folks want to be all secretive and private, let them toggle it hidden. It's fine to have a choice. But the implementation is the opposite of the better way. But that's just my opinion. Now I have to toggle it on every character I play. I have to be inconvenienced because some folks want to keep this minute detail private? That makes zero sense to me. I do not understand why this would be something to keep private. Again, if that's what you want to do fine. But it seems to me the implementation should be the other way around. Won't be the first time this game did something that made zero sense to me. Won't be the last. I've got to add this, because, why not? Someone had to be irritated/irked/annoyed at having the day their character was created on display for this change to have been made. And they presumably made some sort of cohesive argument for it to be changed. I am stretching my brain trying to determine why they don't want it displayed, and all I can think of are the judgements that someone might have, when looking at team comp for something like a master of TF run. A leader looking at a players info and seeing they just were created yesterday, they don't feel so good about the character, thinking they're a noob or something because they were literally born yesterday. In some cases, that's a vet player who just pl'd. Fairly meaningless. I do not get it.

Just a pro-tip regarding Tunnel Rat and mission 1. Use mark & recall, she ports right with you to the door.

What gives with this? I always thought the day the character was created was a bit like a birthdays. Why do I have to click to have this display, instead of the other way around? Is there an option I missed I was supposed to check?

Congratulations! You have confirmed this is a problem. Now, the only solution is for players to stop worrying about their own fun, and to join whatever is being recruited for in that moment. Right?

When I was suffering through the Ouro badges on my characters, I tended to aim for DPS, aggro management and buffs. The ATs used are irrelevant. All I aimed for was one from those 3 categories. If we were allowed to play 4 accounts on the same shard, I would have added debuffs.

I would guess they use email or a phone to reach a specific contact they have.

Well, upon reading Voltor's guide, I think this is working as intended. So, you'd have to run the arc 2x. Arrest him both times. That would fill the vigilante points to 10. Each run gives you 20 merits. Then run the morality for 40 merits. Each run, if you take 5 extra seconds and look to skip M1dway (the trip to Striga - which I neglected to skip 2x cuz I was clicking through to quickly) takes about 10-15 minutes. A time saver for me was using Mark & Recall on the first mission. It only saved me 20 seconds or so, but I told myself it saved me some aggravated maneuvering. There's a smaller door you have to get through, and sometimes, there's too many npcs to get through it quickly. Still, 15 minutes x 2, plus the morality, that's not bad. 80 merits in 40 minutes. Not nearly as good as a hami or a tinpex, but if you're solo, you can break up these activities and afk and such. Not too bad.

So, on my third run with this. Thus far, I've killed Marcus, Returned Marcus, now Arrested Marcus. And I want to say this happened the previous runs, but I didn't notice it until now. I check my alignment progress and see this: I just had done the 25 vigilante missions prior to this loop hero badge effort, and my progress was at 5 vigilante points. Now it's full. And, according to my SG computer, I can "buy" the morality mission and I can only presume when I complete it, I'll get paid my 40 merits. Is this WAI ? If so, this little arc, taking 10-15 minutes to run (faster once you run the 2nd time) is a lot more profitable than just 20 merits.

I appreciate the list. On one character, I was catching it up on the badges since page 7; and I was doing Ashling Corlett...whatever her name is. And I got the opportunity to earn 2 vigilante alignment points. I foolishly thought they'd count. They don't. Just an FYI for folks who might have thought the same thing. Gotta run two more.

The key for me in this question is "relatively stress free". Now, I'm been on a meteor farm with a blaster at +4/8. Killing speeds were nice. But it was NOT relatively stress free. First, because I've never been on any blaster that could get resists much higher than 60%, and still have any kind of defense, I felt I had to start with some inspirations. Having to use the insp combination macros, while keeping my eyes on my health and my defense and resist stats...well, it just wasn't worth the effort. I can just park the brute in the middle and play the characters I wanted to play on my other account while that was happening. So, for me - the answer is no. Someone smarter and more creative than me, with a different appreciation for paying keen attention may come along with a better answer. I would suggest making the un-preferred fire tank or brute, putting burn on auto, then tabbing out to the ranged character you prefer to play. Then tab back in, sell the drops and repeat.

Sadly (or not) they can only done through ouro by kheldians. Unless there's some specific alignment, like you have to be a hero, as opposed to a vigilante. But nothing else works like that, so I'm thinking it's not the case.

This is an interesting thought. There may be some pitfalls that I can't think of, but it's super interesting wondering how a given player would design their own specific enhancement.

In case anyone was curious about this gladiator pet, here's what it looks like: I was taking an alt through there to get the motes, so I don't have to be a burden on the speedy lab runs, and can just focus on fogs and ran right into him. Didn't really get to make much use of him, as it was just an exploring/badge run.

just an observation, it takes about 7-10 minutes to get those 5 EB defeat badges. Given the frequency of people leaving, then rejoining, it's my guess motivated folks with free time are going to earn these on every character that can. It's been a week, I think. I've gotten over 800 Prismatics - just from the event. That doesn't even include the labyrinth of fog and the named GM kills. But, I would also conclude that people are either using them as intended, or like me, hoarding them for either future use or future sales. I would have thought the price was going to plummet, but that has not been the case.

There's a saying somewhere, "Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent". Well, nobody ever accused me of being wise, so here I go: The truth is the answer. And the truth is how good/bad a corruptor is depends on some variables. Some are fixed variables - like the base damage of a given attack. Some are not fixed variables, but well...forgive the term, varying variables - like player build and skill. Your ability to play a given character is not the same as mine, nor is mine the same as yours. So - that's one difference in outcome. (when to use the debuff, when to re-fire the debuffs, etc) The build you have would be different than mine. That's another difference in outcome. The corruptor scourge mechanic is really one of the more interesting gimmicks in game, if you ask me. For one, it doesn't require a player to do anything special, other than just survive long enough to get the npc to less than 50% hp. The rest, the game does for you. During this event, I have solo'd GMs with a fire/atomic blaster, and a fire/natty corruptor and an ice/cold corruptor. For the most part, these are mostly popular choices. Most would probably like fire/fire over fire/atomic, but I like the sustain on atomic better due to decreased duration of mez attacks. And, at least in my experience - while the blaster might dish out a higher damage number in mids - a lot has to do with what is being attacked. How resisted is that fire/ranged damage? Does the damage do anything to negate the regen of an npc that has over 70k hitpoints? No? How fast does that npc regen? Then, we consider the various corruptors with the tools at their disposal: -regen (you don't have to hit them as much, because their health doesn't regen as much) -def (you hit them more easily, that is, you hit more because you don't miss as much) -HP (you don't have to do as much damage because their hitpoints have been reduced) -recharge (they don't hit you as often, more survivability for you) -tohit (they don't hit you as often, more survivability for you -res (each attack you do does more damage) The -res is why so many players try to squeeze in -res procs in their attacks that can benefit from them. (where the proc will reliably fire) When the corruptor can reduce the npc resistance, the extra dps from a blaster doesn't mean so much, because the blaster doesn't have it, unless they have a proc or an epic power that can do this, like melt armor. But that power's debuff lasts less than a minute, but the recharge takes much longer. (pending on external recharge buffs, of course) Whereas the corruptor's ability to debuff multiple targets can really shine. Some players are skilled enough with their builds and their manual dexterity and creativity (skill!!!!!) to outdo a blasters damage, consistently. Not by much. But most leaders, when encountering difficult content will prefer a well-played corruptor over a well-played blaster far more often than not. As for the rest of us non-highly skilled players, that's the beauty of a PUG. You never know what you're going to get. We wouldn't have the weekly adventures of Snarky without this beauty of PUGs. I would encourage you rethink your position. There are some serious flaws in your logic.

I wasn't referring to the comparison of Croatoa Eochai and Jack vs Event Eochai and Jack; I was comparing the zone DE GMs to the Event GMs. They have the same hitpoints and while they differ in their attacks, my characters haven't experienced any difference in combat difficulty between the two.

For me, the map is perfectly good. I appreciate your efforts!

It's not farming I'm after. I merely pose the question when I realized that the effort to tackle a named GM is the same effort to tackle an un-named GM. It just seems to me the rewards should be the same for both, because it's essentially the same risk. I get how some folks find the idea of repetitive cooperative tasks for rewards is a bit icky, as it doesn't align with how they would like to play. Some folks would rather talk about pokeman in Pocket D for several hours and others would prefer to find just the right costume piece. Me - I want to stack loot and hoard it. There's a lot of options in this game, I'm just posing the question. Take note that it's not in the suggestions section, as I'm not sure how I even feel about it. But I know myself well enough to know that I'm greedy. So, yeah, I want monstrous aethers as well as merits if the effort and risks are the same. Why wouldn't I? and, more interestingly - why don't you, if you're inclined to tackle Eochai in Croatoa, why wouldn't you want the same rewards for Eochai outside of Croatoa? I grasp that in the event, enough GMs spawn (and re-spawn fairly quickly) to make up for the lack of MAs. But my mind is still a bit hung up on the fact that the unnamed GMs don't give any rewards to speak of, despite carrying the same risks. And yeah, I grasp that the risk isn't really there unless you seek it out, as they're far removed from most players usual traffic patterns. Still, I thought the question was worth asking.

Goddess took a collection of us through the labyrinth once again, and then onto the murder room. Things were fine, until they weren't. I killed a gladiator, tabbed - and then saw Kronos. And Caleb. A lot of large GMs. Pretty much a league wipe at that point. Not sure if anyone made a report, so I figured I'd put it out there. I don't think this is by design...but then again, it's Halloween. I'd have preferred a Twix bar.

I hear players complain about this in instanced raids. I don't have the problem myself, but the league describes it like they're in the mapserver event.

Much appreciated - thought you'd like to know that I now see a message about siphoning off some of the power of the labyrinth. Now, it's possible that message splashed on the screen as it does now, but I'm certainly noticing it now, whereas before, I didn't.