Ukase

I gotta tell you, this is something I sometimes forget to do with our Cosmic Council crawl teams. If it weren't for discord and folks making it known, there's no telling how long I'd be at the mission door by myself. I think the reason I forget is there's usually someone making a joke, and I tend to forget we're not just goofing off over discord. Outside of SG stuff, I don't think I've ever forgotten to set the mission. So, I blame the "Discord Distraction".

The older I get, the less patience I have. I'm running out of time, so it makes sense.

Thanks. I've done that before.

In a few weeks, Dr. Q is slated to be the weekly. And then the other 3 shard tfs will follow, one each week. The last time I did these I was hanging out with some Task Force Junkies on Excelsior. Most of those guys aren't playing anymore, or they're playing after I've logged out. In any event, I figured I'd ask if anyone has the /loc coordinates for these missions written down somewhere and if they could share them. (not the defeats at various "Point X-ray" or the various monuments - we can all see where they are with an open map.) As you all know - a lot of the time in the shard tfs is just spent going from pt A to pt B. I was thinking it would be great to have the /loc of the next mission to send someone with an ATT to while we complete the current mission. Instead of 60-75 minutes, we might make it closer to 50 or 55. I'm a bit surprised I haven't seen any of this info shared so far, but maybe it's just bad searching on my part.

I personally think Snarky could start a YT channel (as opposed to Twitch.TV - that platform pays next to nothing) and he could just stream his play time, and talk about his teammates while he plays. I think people would watch and listen. Not a lot of people. Probably 20 or so. But, in time, he could probably get 1K subs. I don't know all the ways to monetize YT, but I know it has something to do with the like, comment, subscribe and people watching the whole video. If he could just learn to tell a joke that was funny (He would tell you I lack that same skill) I think he'd be on to something. Not enough to pay rent, but probably enough to buy a burger every so often.

Not in Trials or TFs. In any event, we got Snarky's Trial/TFs knocked out pretty quickly.

Snarky, I'm sorry I didn't see this message. I have it unlocked on a number of different characters. As you know, if you have stealth & TT, the first part is super simple - although, sometimes you have to position yourself behind the obelisk so the npcs can't see you. The boss fight at the end - I use a summons and some inspirations, it's fairly trivial even if solo.

For me, while I knew the status protection for shield could be used reactively, I kept it on auto fire. I recognize why some folks prefer that to be a click, but man, it is super annoying to have to click it. The whole point of having status protection is so you don't have to worry about it. For me, it is the single biggest reason to not play a shield armor character, unless I can find a way to get my build going without hasten, so I can leave it on auto-fire. On auto-fire, I can still get it to stack, although it's hardly ever necessary, except maybe in an MSR or a UGT. (but with a 30 mag stun, even that doesn't really cover it) If I had my way - every toggle we have would be an auto power. I detest toggling on after getting defeated, or worse, when some gimmick in the game decides to put me in a disguise, and when I come out, I'm de-toggled completely. Like that completely unnecessary detective that gives the needless mission to get you to Heather Townsend. So grateful I can go directly to her for the story arc and skip that nonsense completely. I do see a potential for headaches - like when going for those Ouro challenge badges. It would be a nightmare for a dark armor character to do anything with the no enhancements challenge. This is the only reason why I'm willing to accept it would never happen. But, I can dream!

I do not wish to debate your philosophy - you're entitled to play however you wish! But, I was wondering if you were aware that when you sell for 1 inf - and on those occasions someone has anticipated such an offer and you complete the sale - you are charged 5 inf, so you really lose 4 inf on that. Now, we're all smart enough to know we're not going to lose sleep over 4 inf. Well, most won't. I was just wondering if you were aware the AH takes a minimum of 5 inf, even if you list at 1 inf.

You don't mention the contact, but there are a few mission which I have never been able to auto-complete, despite having not auto-completed any in the character's life, let alone in the past 3 days. One example is Tina MacIntyre's first mission where you have to tackle the psychic clockwork king. It may very well be that nobody can complete the last mission of any story arc - I've never tried to, so I don't know. Which contact? There are only 2 that come to mind as being very unpopular, and that would be Skipper Legrange's "Stop the Ritual" (don't let 30 fir bolg escape) and Buck Salinger's "Stop takeover of Salamanca" where you prevent the red caps from destroying the henges in the cemetery. The thing is - as I understand it - folks are able to auto-complete those two, because they have said so in these forums. So, I'm super unclear why you can't auto-complete it. Who's the contact and story arc? Maybe I can do the arc myself and see if I can auto-complete it and get this issue to repeat itself.

I'm sorry, I know this was well-intentioned. But the builds I see on the forums are more often than not are just not worth looking at. Travel powers are often over-looked until level 49, if chosen at all. I load these up in mids, and see they use 2x as much endurance as they generate, some of them. Not all builds are created equal, that's for sure. There are a handful of names I would trust with a solid build, like Nemu. I very often make my own builds. They're never perfect. And I'm not saying any of us need the perfect build, but many of the builds I see just lack end recovery and suggest things like the recovery serum until you get to 50 for Cardiac and Ageless incarnate powers. To me - that is the talk of madness without method. Granted - that's just my opinion, worthless as it is. By all means LOOK at any build with powersets and AT that have your interest. Sometimes, they're fantastic! They're not always hot garbage. Every so often, someone has made music with their build. And often times (for me, at least), a build might look great from the numbers but be kind of clumsy to play. Thankfully, we have 1000 slots.

This is a plan I've made and have yet to create it. I make no claims that this is as good as it can get, but it looks okay. I'm a bit concerned about the lack of defenses in certain types of damage, but I'm almost always having purple inspirations on my characters. I don't seem to ever run out. I don't know that I'd take it to any kind of tough content for badges, like a Master of, but for gobbling up reward merits and such, it may work out. Because Drain Psyche being what it is, I did attempt to grab the max HP for a blaster - which as you folks are likely aware means you can't pursue other things, like positional defenses. At least, not with most sets. The recharge is kind of low, which is why I've got hasten. I almost went the other way - and chased recharge, regardless of Drain Psyche. And that probably is the smarter approach if teamed more often than not. But that's generally not the case for me. UkaseisMental- Blaster (Fire Blast).mbd

I did that once...but getting through the door didn't really aid me in any way. Initially the pursuit of motes was the goal, with the prismatics being a nice bonus once you beat the Mino. But with a league, the mino is just like a big pinata, really. At least from my perspective as a blaster. I'm sure melee folks will have a different thought. I just join the league, look for fogs and gladiators and grab the prismatics when it's over.

Most of you don't need me to tell you this. It's been in the back of your minds since last year. Part of my reasoning for posting this is to give you folks a chance to correct me if I've mis-remembered how things were last year. While doing ToT, there's an opportunity to earn these 5 badges. Now, I thought the number of EBs required was higher; this snippet was copied from the Badger site. But, my memory is clear that when these badges was earned, and if you were over...level 30, I think, you got 10 prismatics. (2 for each badge) And if you earned it as a lowbie (shame on you if you did, leeching off the big boys instead of bringing your 50 - but I get it if they already have these badges) you didn't get the prismatics until you dinged 30. From a marketing perspective, there's some real opportunity here. First - there's an opportunity to place some lowball bids if you're inclined to make mini-modes for some or all of your characters. But I am curious as to how the price is going to be for these items moving forward. 10 per alt - when you can earn them in 30 minutes on a ToT league, that's a nice amount if the league continues to ToT through the day/night. You alt, get right back into things, and earn the loot. I would think only a speedy lab run would be close in this kind of "farming" for prismatics. Right now, they're selling "now" for 2M or so. How much are they going to sell for when folks are using ToT as a PL, and they need inf for their alts? Cheap? 1m? Will the price creep back up after halloween is over? I haven't been looking, but I tend to notice the mini-mode costumes. I see the occasional character has gone for a 10 prismatic costume toggle, but not real often. Time will tell - but I just a bunch of these because I didn't want to get stuck with them being over-farmed and being worth less, as opposed to more. I just wish I'd sold them last year when they were worth about 3M instead of about 2M. And I intend to use the event to recoup my inventory of prismatics, cuz I never know when the mood for a mini-mode costume will hit me.

If you like, I'm happy to buy all your purple & PvP recipes and your rare salvage en masse for 100inf! And no fees! Win/win!

Oh my. Ugh..I'm so stupid. Thanks for correcting me. This is one of those things I knew, but just wasn't thinking properly.

I think the same can be said for a lot of things in game. Some players simply do not struggle with this game, in any fashion, nor at any level. At least, that's the way it APPEARS to me. While I am only a 3rd tier speeder, I was fortunate enough to be in an SG just about a week or so after the doors opened, on Torchbearer. I am proud to say I was on the league with the first league to get Really Hard Way since HC opened. Now, take that with a grain of salt, because I'm only assuming that because at that time - Torchbearer was the only server. At least, that's how my brain remembers it. I know it was before Excelsior was created. I simply took it for granted that the SG leader/League leader was telling the truth. He was always super nice to me, but like me, he didn't quite use a filter with a GM (I think that's why, not real sure and don't really want to know, none of my business and all that) and got himself indefinitely banned. As far as I know, he plays on Rebirth, and dabbles a bit on his own homemade server. (which gives 3 extra slots!) So, I say all that to share this: Now - to be super clear - I wasn't on ANY of these teams. But let me shed some light. (most of these times are from 2019-2020, before a lot of the macro base tp changes, when you could zip out of a mission to base quickly) Each one of these TF/SF/Trials has certain nuances that smart folks can grasp and take advantage of. They literally would do a respec before some or most of these TFs to utilize as many tricks as they know how to go as fast as they could. And that's the rub. They made it look super easy, but each of those guys would craft the build in mids, share it on their discord and tweak, adjust, suggest, revamp, modify - all kinds of changes to eke out what they could for each specific character. When you add that level of preparation to TF/SF/Trial knowledge & experience (when to use Ouro to exit, when to slap down an SG portal, for example) and the honed eye/hand skill of what I would refer to as very skilled gamers, it's not a surprise they made things look easy. This was the one team I was on. It was more corruptors than anything else. I was on my ice/ice blaster. I'm sure I was carried. Sorry, I am a bit proud of these guys, even if they are pretty crude on the discord. But I think the point I make is pretty clear - difficult things might look easy, but spending hours on a build, constantly tweaking and revising it - that's not easy at all. It's why folks are always sharing builds, because it's so easy to miss stuff. (at least, it's not easy for me) Behind every player who makes things look easy is probably a lot of time spent struggling, learning. This is why I am almost always against changes to the game. The new player has SO much to digest and absorb already. Adding new loot, new ways of doing things - without changing the in-game documentation - it just leads to a lot of head scratching and frustration for that new player. The game is supposed to be fun, and getting frustrated due to obsolete or incomplete information ain't fun. And that's not really HC's fault. Paragon had a LOT of incomplete information. To this day, I'm unclear how I made my account for retail and never realized there were forums. I think I played for 6 issues before someone suggested I visit them and learned they existed. Probably because I had the unlimited play code in the box and never had to register on the forums? I dunno. Either way, just felt I'd add that sometimes difficult things look easy, but they're not.

A new feature? Apologies, @lemming When I looked at your post, I didn't see the link for whatever reason. Given what I don't see on the wiki about donations, I might need to invest in new memory.

I suspect this is a display glitch. I'll elaborate. I could most certainly be wrong, but if I use the market on Character 1, and finish my business, log off, and then log in Character 2, when I open the AH - I see the exact same things I saw for character 1. But only for about 5-20 seconds. If after a fair 20 seconds all your icons were just as they were before you respec'd, I would open the enhancement management screen and see if the server actually registered your final "Finished/Done" click at the end. If you don't click that - it's like the respec never happened. I suspect it's one of those 2 scenarios: 1. Display delay or 2. Respec never finalized.

The first thing I would do is a respec. I used mids to open the build, and you've forgotten, or never know about the diminishing returns. If I assume you don't have unlimited funds, the first thing I'd do during the respec is take the 6 slots in stamina and reduce it to 3 if you continue to use common IOs. I might keep 4 slots if you use Set IOs - which would be Perf Shifter +end, Perf Shifter End Mod, Power Transfer End Mod and Power Transfer: Chance for Heal. Maneuvers is another area where you have 3.5 enhancements that are doing next to nothing for you because of Diminishing Returns. I would take away one of those slots and put it in Lingering Radiation. An end reduction in that power would serve you well. I'd also slap another end reduction in Dark Embrace. (and if you were to use sets, I'd just go with a 4 pc of Unbreakable Guard, or perhaps 3 Ribosome Hami-Os. Fairly cheap, and it would be like keeping the same 3 resists you have, and adding 3 more end reductions. (that's probably more than needed for this power though.) Let's look at Radiation Infection: it costs you .52/s of endurance. That is a humongous cost and your build doesn't have a single thing in it to reduce that cost. Take one of the defense debuffs out, one of the tohit debuffs out, and add 2 end reductions. Alternatively, the D-Sync Marginalizations would be perfect for you here. Place only two of them and call it a day, and have 4 slots to put somewhere else. The strange thing about this build is it still has 5 more slots that can be placed. So, I don't have a lot of confidence that the build I'm looking at is the actual build. Just at a glance, the biggest problem is not slotting with diminishing returns in mind. The second issue is not slotting any end reducers in your biggest endurance hog powers. Making this assumption, I would have to know your budget. This build looks as if you're not loaded with influence. See, if it were me, I would use invention sets to 1) automatically deal with diminishing returns without thinking about it and 2) pursue those sets that specifically deal with increasing your endurance recovery and endurance points, and reducing your endurance costs. I would also automatically pursue the 4 passive accolades, even though only two of them add a small amount to the endurance points. Portal Jockey and Atlas Medallion both add 5%. But, since you probably don't have the resources I do, I would certainly be trying to get those accolades, and also trying to plot a build that didn't use more than 3 of the same type of enhancement in the same power.

I know this is a stupid question. I certainly feel stupid asking it. But how would one use this? We have the pop-menu - which is incredibly useful. Not updated as yet for the new "accolades" Mark&Recall and Sheer Willpower, but since the reqs allow for retroactive acquisition, I've already got them on the characters that count. Is this where the smart folks come and use this master list to update their own badge tracking apps?

Aeon....I dunno. It's really a nice "story", but even if you zip past the ripples, it SEEMS long, to me. Just when I think it should be over, there's yet another mission to do. If it weren't for Cosmic Council walking some of us through it when it came out, I wouldn't have much of a clue as to what's going on, as far as the whole brickernauts doing the explode-y thing, and where to go during the final mission. Still, it's profitable, even if you just take the merits (which I normally do). An acc/threat/rec would be nice, but it's one out of ....a dozen? 2 dozen? possibilities. Odds of getting it are low, quite low. The more you run it, the less confusing it gets, like anything else in game, or in life.

It hasn't ever loaded up when I've used it. I even clicked on Contributions, but that's something different.

Many TFs be like that. And yes, Snarky. You have failed this city with your stupid new job. Now we have to wait until you have free time AND get sucky team experiences and the inclination to write about them.

So, I have nothing against this line of thinking. If those responsible for the upkeep of this site are also unopposed, I would encourage them to make visible some sort of donation link via paypal or some other secure funds transfer service. Someone asked me if I would promote the link, but I looked and didn't see the option to do so. I was genuinely surprised and super pleased to see the page 8 labyrinth tips and /locs were listed for most everything. That was the motivation behind my post. Once again, the wiki makes my life a little easier! It seemed only proper to give them thanks - but there's no way to do so that I'm aware of on the site itself.