Ukase

Only the truly bored are likely to read this. In competitive rowing, there's this saying, "My fast is too slow, because my slow is too fast". Concisely put, if you train at too intense a level, you're not really building your cardio base. There's more to it than that, but that's the gist. In another post in these forums, this thought came to me when a player provided an example of a way of thinking I could also think, but don't employ. Ever try to solo something like Lady Grey TF on a character without a hold? Doomed to failure, right? How you gonna get those green mitos? Ultimates, toggle Hybrids, spawn lores and use team reds and focus attacks on one mito? Never tried it, but with just you and your lores, I don't think it's going to work without a hold. Then this player explains we can visit the START/p2w vendor in pocket d and revoke one temp and get another. So, this is something that I knew I could do with various stuff I've gotten from the start vendor. But it just never occurred to me. I mean, there are other ways to manage a hold into a build if soloing LGTF is your cup of tea. On retail, you would never make the mistake of saying I played too fast. I was quite happy using ice patch and tp foe around the corner onto the ice patch and dealing with them one at a time. Not now, no. I've been able to build my characters to the point where I just set in the middle and let the attacks fly with as much AoE as my characters have. Visit the start vendor? Sure, click this, this , that and those, leave, the screen closes itself when you get far enough away. This is what I mean when I say my slow is too fast. If I would just go a little slower, then, when I need to go fast, I might be able to actually go faster. It doesn't matter if Stribbling in the Noble Intentions arc lets you skip using M1dway in Striga to get to Port Oakes on the 2nd run if you click through too fast to take advantage of the offer. And that's knowing the option is there to take - and I still missed it. Twice on 2 different characters! I'm sure there's a few of you like this, - who are in such a yank to build a character and play it - only to realize later...it's not very fun. And it's not fun for any number of reasons - but sometimes the reason is you die too often. Or you run out of endurance too fast. Or both. Just maybe some of you can learn from my mistakes. Slow down! Use your noggin for a brief moment before zipping through stuff so quickly you screw up. Now, back to the kheldian guide section to take my own advice.

This is the kind of thinking that impresses me. While I knew I could revoke certain temps, I'm usually in too much of a yank, and frankly not paying any attention to the other things I can do while I'm there.

Well, they already are different. Ice blast - instead of freeze ray being a hold, it's a sleep. Fire blast - blaze has a KB in the Sentinel set. As if the set weren't already a bit marginal, they make it worse. (just my perspective - but all these minor changes make things worse for the character, not simply different) I haven't played to many Sentinels because I anticipated the power sets being fairly similar, just shorter range. It's more than that. So, they already are different. The AT now at least has viable inherents. But the primaries are just re-vamped blaster primaries, at least with those two sets, other than the nuke being up much more quickly, there's no compelling reason to play one of these over a blaster - at least, not for me. There is a small area where a player might really squeeze a good bit of fun out of a nuke that's up every battle. And with status protection, it's kind of hard not to see at least a few folks having great joy with that. Still, it's not for me.

This is interesting to me for a different reason. I've made more than a few SGs. With a few folks, we did a themed team thing, where we just made a goofy looking base (well, I didn't, one of the others did.) The name was silly. The characters were silly. It was just a lark. So, I'm curious - if I delete every item in an SG base, remove every character from the base, and then finally have the last character quit the sg, with no other members in it - does the name get freed up? If so, I'll free up the name "Consortium of Raiders without Pants" on Everlasting.

Wow. Do I type a lot, or what?! I just deleted like 2 pages of stuff explaining the very real differences between not only active farming and afk-farming, but the differences between various afk-farmers. There used to be a dude who would recruit for a "sitter" who would have to fly overhead and lead the "active" farmer around while the farmer would go afk. The farmer would just follow the "sitter". Kind of funny/ironic. One player did them one better, removing the need for a flying "sitter", and rigged up a stone tank npc to rescue. This was before the change to stone tanks, and the npc was super slow. AFK-farmer goes in, and with burn on auto, targets the npc hostage and tabs out. While the afk-er is away, burn ends up "rescuing" this hostage, which then begins their very slow walk to the entrance of the map. And, as you can imagine, all the patrols and stationary mobs get aggro'd as both npc and afk-er make their way to the front. The hitch is when the geography of the map gets in the way, and somehow the npc just goes through walls. Sometimes, you come back, your farmer is dead because burn didn't fire because the geography had you in the air somehow. And sometimes, you're just stuck behind a rock or a trash can, while the npc has made it's way out. You never know how it's going to be. There's a fair amount of variance. My point is this: if we find ourselves getting pissy about what other people are doing, it's probably because we lack the time, or the skill, or the gumption to do it ourselves. There might be one or two folks who want to claim some ambiguous, non-existent, moral high ground, but if it doesn't break the rules, then it's all fair. There's nothing "wrong" with it. If farming or afk farming were so bad, they could lock that down instantly. But it's common knowledge there was farming before AE. There will always be people who find a efficient way to do things faster than a team of 8. (when you take into account the time it takes to recruit)

I'll bring my new warshade!

Why don't you lead the SF and dictate terms?

You can crack the same jokes at msr that you can do in a farm. Just need to attack between comments, really. But suit yourself. I don't have a hell to send anyone to, so I'm not judging.

Are you referring to the Combat Dummy?

I got Naughty Zoot. Candidly, I never tried to get the name before. Not sure if I stole it from a dormant account or not. (I did mention this elsewhere, so it's kind of a double post, sorry)

The challenge I hate to love and love to hate is what I call "The Drop Challenge". And candidly, it's kind of brutal, particularly over level 15, when certain powers require more endurance. For whatever reason, end mod enhancements and recipes drop at a rate of 1:75, if memory serves. Not as rare as a purple recipe, but they sure seem quite rare. The challenge is as stated: you can only slot or use what drops. Say you get a level 10 Kismet Def/End recipe. Not only do you have to wait for the right salvage to drop to craft it, if you want to make a 6% ToHit Kismet, the converters will also have to drop. For those unaware, leveling organically 1-50, a player can expect about 20-30 converters to drop. And, because you're gimped - absolutely no teaming, unless it's with others who are in the same challenge. It would be very unsavory for any teammate for you to be playing in such a fashion, missing frequently, and when you are hitting the target, pretty much only doing base damage, plus a little bit if your enhancement is still good. The merit vendor is off-limits. The AH or other stores are also off-limits to purchases, but you may sell items. (not like you need any inf until 50, when you can say you completed the challenge) If you really want to make it tough - if you get defeated, you get deleted. Instantly. A heads up: endurance is the biggest issue. Even if you get lucky and get an end mod DO, or a lower level common end mod recipe, these are rarely enough to sustain you. I would recommend a character that can mitigate the endurance issues, like radiation powerset with Accelerate metabolism. If melee is your thing, the bio armor is pretty good with the efficiency adaptation. Initially when I did this, I used the AE for tickets to acquire the specific salvage for the recipes I got. But then, I figured that was really making things too simple, so I leave that up to you. Maybe allow it your first time, and disallow it if it seemed too easy.

Do I dare reply? Of course I do! I see different sides to this. For me, and it's a damn good thing I'm not in charge, cuz I'd be the only one here most likely, if I saw a brute with 7 MMs in tow, I would get my account ban hammer out. If I saw them with just 2 in tow, I'd check the population levels and be poised to use the ol' ban hammer. Forget warnings. Thankfully, for me and all of you, I'm never going to be in charge. In all seriousness, there are many ways to solve different problems/obstacles/goals in game. I'm sure I've shared that most of my characters make their own billion. It's not like it's hard. It can be damned tedious, and the market and those other marketers can make things challenging, particularly the insane people who just dump stuff for cheap, undercutting my prices. But, inf can be earned in game so many different ways. It doesn't have to be by tedious crafting/converting. It can be done just by selling the surplus of what the game provides. 100 hero merits is fairly standard, I think, for most characters to earn as they go from 1-50. If it's not that, it's probably close to it. That might not net a full billion, but it would be close. As Snarky posted himself not too long ago - farming, marketing...all of that is unnecessary to have a full, rich, enjoyable gaming experience. But - some folks just like farming. They like feeling invincible, going afk to get the beverage of their choice and still be dishing out damage, and then continuing their savagery. I have no beef with these folks. Sometimes, I'm one of them. Not often these day, but there was a time when I had a farm running on two accounts while playing a third. That got tedious quickly, burning through 3000 converters a day, roughly. Made a ton of inf, though! If I'm reading Troo's original post properly, the big beef seems to be against those advising new players to make a farm to solve their in-game struggles/opportunities/goals. The problem is those folks who give this poorly thought out advice aren't on these forums. Anyone who has a decent farmer understands that ATOs are not cheap for a new player. Heck, nothing is cheap for the new player. I strongly suspect that if CoH came out today as a new release, the idea of folks reaching level 35 and only having enough influence to put SOs in 1/3 of their slots...well, that would lead to a lot of players logging off and finding something else to do. I could be wrong, of course. Fortunately, we're in an environment where guides make it quite easy to earn enough influence to get what you need - if the player can be directed towards those guides. I suspect most players dislike the idea of tabbing out and reading for 10 minutes to figure certain things out. This is why I'd love for more information that we get from external sites like City of Data and HC Wiki to be in game. Even if it's just a click on a contact that brings up that same site within a pane while I'm in game, that would be better in my opinion. It would be a marvelous thing for a new player to not have to rely on the kind, thoughtful, concise advice from another player, but to merely click on a contact and make their own decisions. As for getting levels quickly, to me, AE farms are out of date. I wouldn't use them for levels. They give 1/2 the xp of content outside of AE. And they are boring unless you're the farmer. Maybe even for the farmer, depending on the farmer. Mind you, I will use them on alts that are afk, while I play on my primary account. But those occasions are now very seldom. Right now, an MSR will outpace an AE farm, if you can stomach the waiting for it to fill. And for a limited time longer, the ToT if you have a decent league will outpace AE if you're not hopping back and forth to get GM kills for the merits. (based solely on my anecdotal experience, nothing scientific) It should be said that most msrs will have a rough time if there are too many lower level characters. As for what is "too many", that's probably more than 2 per team under level 20. But, I'm pulling that out of thin air. No idea what the number is, but know it when it happens, lol. There are more than a few players out there that recruit for level 50 stuff that any level is welcome to join. That XP would be better than an AE farm. The only hitch is getting those invites, and making your way to that zone. Not so easy for newer players learning their way around. For now, AE farms are just an easy solution. Sadly, or not, those players that take that path...I have a feeling they will stop playing as they don't really have anything invested in their character. I hope I'm wrong about that. I hope they get a chance to play something fun outside of the farm and learn different things. If not, then they'll probably be gone in a couple of weeks anyway.

I am left to wonder if the name Naughty Zoot was always available, or if I got it from some long-dead dormant account. I wouldn't have thought of it, if the MSR chat wasn't filled with Monty Python references. It's not a great thing to go afk during an MSR, but I had to tab out and make it quickly, lest someone else get it.

Good stuff. It's hard to tell when one is scourging and one is not, so I appreciate the insights!

It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. I asked the librarian for a book on paranoia. She said it was right behind me! But seriously, I never asked the librarian about such a book. That said, I would rather not get names taken from me. But, at the same time, I've had plenty of time to level the names I want to 50. We can get to 50 in a matter of hours, properly motivated. What is the big deal? Even if such motivations (and the strategies that go with them) aren't one's cup of tea, it's still easily done, and if the name means that much, you do it. And then you can re-roll as a level 1 with a different name, get beyond level 6 or so, and rename both the PL'd version to something else and your level 6 to your desired name. And just keep playing it until you hit 50 organically. So many work arounds if it came to that. I keep asking myself how things would play out if I were in charge. lol, I'd probably be the only one here. But if I were in charge, any account dormant for over a year and a day would be deleted. You haven't played in that long, you likely never will. But don't panic folks! I am not in charge and never will be.

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.