Ukase

I'm too obtuse to grasp this. For me - the extra one means they're going to accidentally spend a billion and 1 inf if they mash an extra zero in there. Or a billion and 10.

I would play a lot less, that's for sure. But I've met some very interesting and well, "fun" people while playing. Snarky comes to mind. I mention him mainly because of the fun people, he's probably known more on the forums than the others. Unfortunately, a fair number of the other amusing people have gone on to other games. One player actually got a divorce and remarried and no longer plays any games anymore. Happy for them, sad for the rest of us. But, as some folks leave, other folks arrive. Just have to give them a chance to be silly. (or not, as the case may be) The thing about teaming is simply - if you have a good team, it's slightly easier to have fun. But, I define a good team as two or more players who can not only play somewhat better than mediocre and can crack a joke or two while they play. Unless it's a master run where defeats aren't allowed. Then, cracking jokes is okay, only if you don't screw up the badge.

"Common listing breakpoints". So, I can understand if you're looking for, say, an LotG, bidding 5.1M instead of 5M if you're in a rush. But I do not understand going even the 1 inf above 10M for something that is seeded at that price - unless you're just unaware it is seeded at that price. Unless it's somehow just a typo. But that seems highly unlikely to me. But I only say that based on how I do things. No idea how others enter numbers into text fields.

I saw a few things at first glance, and typed out some stuff, and then I just downloaded it and started tinkering with it. Giving feedback on a build is easy. Giving it and still letting the build be close to what it was before can be problematic. I have no idea about your play style or anything, other than your build suggests you like to hover blast. I've no idea how you capitalize on Drain psyche from a hovering position, but more power to you if you have that figured out. I'm more of a SS & CJ type - I zip in, press drain psyche and then inferno. But - that's me. Based on some of the set bonuses I see - like the 3 stack of LotG, it looks like you value HP a bit. Which is good. I try to get as much as I can on most of my characters, without sacrificing the real goal - which is the balance between survivability and dps. One players balance point is going to differ from another's, based on solo vs. team, and the composition of that team, and the knowledge, skills and abilities of that player. So, in trying to keep in spirit of the build you already have - without gutting it and making it the way I would play it - I have this, and a second look has me changing even more things. There's a lot left on the table here. A build is like playing a game of chess. If you look to control the center 4 squares, that still leaves 60 other squares that need attention. The pursuit of S/L, and HP was apparent. I tried to keep that, but I also know there's a fair bit of Energy/Negative Energy, too. And for a blaster, your recharge is fairly low. Even if I give you all the passive accolades, I still see you gasping for endurance if you don't get Drain Psyche off. So, this is by no means a finished product, But, it does give you some other things to look at, and maybe a different perspective. If it were my character, there's a fair number of powers I wouldn't take. So, here's a 3rd look. See the difference your patron/epic armor can make? To me, it seems more balanced. But - I have no idea if you really love bonfire, or wanted to keep fire armor for thematic purposes. Stompy Blaster Fire-Mental-Fire build.mbd 2ndlookStompy Blaster Fire-Mental-Fire build.mbd take3Stompy Blaster Fire-Mental-Fire build.mbd

I have to second this; at least in most cases. I tend to also avoid power pool toggles until after level 20, too.

Don't get me started. Oops. Too late. When I bought this game, sometime around Christmas, 2003, I think. It was mid-issue 3, that much I know. Certainly before Issue 4. I was clueless. I didn't know what MMO meant. I knew what the acronym stood for, but I just thought it meant a lot of people played it - not that we all shared an instance and would be playing together. After having played this game countless hours, I now understand what Jack Emmert meant when he stated there was no real reason to play if you weren't going to team up. When you have teammates, you have more options. But - as mentioned previously above by someone else, that's not always an option. Some teammates don't communicate. Some teammates communicate too much. Some teammates, like me, will try to find an opportunity to punish the rest of the team with putrid jokes, if they can even be called that. Snarky hates them. He's still mad at a couple of SG members for laughing at one of them. Armed with positive feedback, I told more putrid jokes. Now I won't stop. Poor Snarky. He doesn't like the jokes, but as an undead, he doesn't have the right to say they stink, at least. When I'm in a situation like the OP describes, I first load my inspiration tray - with large or super inspirations. Mainly lucks and robusts. A break-free if I don't have status protection. A few greens. And as many damages as I can hold. If Mr. G attacks me as I enter, before I have a chance to get set up. I'll hosp it back to my base and visit the base buff station and grab some invis, too. Maybe I can upgrade my stealth. I'll take every buff I have salvage to get. If I still can't get him - I will log off, and restart the mission and this time, not betray him and see if that goes any better.

There isn't - but there probably should be.

So, there's still some information to unravel here. First - it's worth pointing out that when you compare the same four pieces of Touch of Death with the same 4 pieces of Kinetic Combat...damn language skills. (or lack of) - what I mean is this: vs 160.7 Damage 166.1 Damage Now, it's less than 6 pts worth of damage difference, as ToD stops at level 40, and Kin Combat stops at level 35. For the casual player, not too big of a deal. But for the dps hungry trying to squeeze out every advantage they can, the choice to go with these depends on whether the power chosen is actually going to be used, or is a mule, a power chosen with no intention of being used, just there for whatever set bonus the IOs can provide. Now, the ToD offers us something the Kin Combat doesn't - a useful damage proc. It's also a 6 piece set, where kin combat is only 5. And kin combat offers a proc that I don't think anyone is going to worry too much about, a knockdown bonus. Fine mitigation, but no dps. This is why most of my armored characters use the sets that cap at 50, not 40 or 30. There may be diminishing returns, but those are still returns. What you may not be thinking of is converting these into IOs that sell for more. Luck of the Gambler, Kismet, Achilles Heel, various damage IOs..all of these have an impact on the price of the IOs that can be converted into one of these higher priced IOs. Red Fortune recipes selling for 1.4M because someone is crafting them, and converting them into LotG 7.5%, I imagine. Selling them for 5M, it would seem. The crafting and salvage costs are minimal, so not considering the opportunity cost of converters, they're making 2.5M or so per sale. Hopefully, they're smart enough to pay a little more in crafting costs at level 41, rather than 25. Otherwise the converter costs will run higher given the other sets also available below level 40.

I honestly wasn't even noticing they were swarms...didn't even look at what got killed. Guess that clears that up.

So, I've never taken 50% xp before, but for whatever reason, I did. So, I just happened to look over. Maybe I misread something - but it seems like I should be getting 50% inf - right? Not a super big deal, I have more inf than I can spend, but this is a character working from zero. Just figured I'd report the bug/issue here.

I was just wondering that myself. It's so crazy. Pugs can be super fantastic, or super putrid. You just never know.

Yeah, when it happened to me...the first thought in my head...well, the second. The first was "hurry up!", but the second was to check the bid count which was at 0. And I know this couldn't be true, because I had placed my bid. Then, it iterated one, and then the sale went through. My thinking was that, a newer player, or someone not well-versed in the AH were impatient (like me) and had extra funds (like me), they might be inclined to overspend when they don't need to. They just need a little patience. One thing every somewhat serious player of the AH will agree with - Patience is key when winning the AH game. The longer you can wait, the cheaper you can buy stuff, and the more profit you can make if you're going to re-sell. And that extra inf income comes from the players that are not patient.

Thanks. I shouldn't complain, as I'm sometimes every bit as convoluted with my posts as CoD is with the data.

Thanks - but all that did was show a very long list of powers that Fiery Embrace would have some affect on. ("Powers bearing tag "FieryEmbrace") Doesn't answer the question of what's going on for those 20s. Ultimately, it likely doesn't matter. I'm still going to take and use the power. Just trying to stretch my brain and get smarter.

I'm on a fire/MA tank. And I've a choice; I can take Fiery Embrace, or I can take Focus Chi. In the grand scheme of things, I'll be taking both. But it makes sense for me to look at what both do. I know both boost damage. I went to CoD to see how much, if any, FE boosts toHit. Doesn't seem to do so. Fine. But what does this mean: Something is going to happen (or not happen) for 20 seconds. But what?

I merely state the server I was on when I used the AH and experienced the issue; this way people aren't inclined to think it's because the server is so densely populated. I have known the AH is cross-server since day one. Thank you for making it clear I need to be more clear when I write.

In this particular section of the forum, do I need to spell out what's wrong with this picture? I hope not. I don't know the who, or which server, but between all of us who monitor this particular section, we should be able to let folks know these are still seeded at 10M. I have noticed, more than once, on Indomitable, that a bid for 10M will sit for about 10-15 seconds before it goes through. I can only assume the hamsters that feed the wheel that drives the AH are malnourished.

I remembered the base buff station that the patch notes mentioned; finally found it in another room. The buff station stacks with celerity and super speed for 90 feet. Now, I can't say with certainty, but anecdotally, my perception was the more level shifts I had, the better the stealth worked. As ridiculous as it sounds in my head, because it's the test server, I might respec for phase shift.

This is also my experience. The first night I was on test, probably the 2nd night after the post hit the forums telling us about the beta patch, I had 10 level shifts. He did hit me - no idea with what, but it was only for -600. And he missed a fair bit - now, I was using one of the draught insps. and I had used barrier, so there's that. And I didn't stick around too long after. Another time he one-shotted me, at least, it seemed like it. So...when is the beefy powerset coming out?

I'm such a bum sometimes. I did finally take FA on a character that had zero end issues to recognize it's no longer .52/s! So, I have done the respec, and it's crazy how I seem to miss the same amount with FA as without. It's just perception bias, I'm sure. I just hate missing so much. I set up this optimal attack chain only for the first one to whiff. Madness, I say. This game will drive me to drink more.

So...I plan to run this 2x. Once through ouro, and another with a character within the level range, just in case the difficulty is something troublesome for an SO only build. But the first mission, the objectives are confusing me. Leave no witnesses. Defeat the boss. Why not just call it a kill all? I killed the boss and the minion next to him. Then I cleared the room. Not like these guys saw anything. The mission didn't complete. All the glowies were clicked, still the mission isn't complete. If I have to kill all - it should say that. Leave no witnesses implies it - but with the defeat the boss and the leave no witnesses, it suggests to me just clear the room with the boss in it. Second mission: The "Hero Corp Clone" wasn't really a clone. At least, not as far as I could tell. It was simply a Paragon Protector with different colors. Not really looking at all like hero corp to me. 3rd mission: Go defeat 20 trolls. Absolutely not. I'll do this once if there's a badge for it, but I do not enjoy open zone hunting. If I wanted to open zone hunt, I can do that without interacting with a contact. Thumbs down! 4th mission - go see the contact in person. Just another episode of busy work. There's absolutely no reason to make the player use their lrtp or base teleport or travel power to go zone hopping for this. If the story can only make sense with this, change the story. It's just annoying. 5th mission - Go visit Neal in AE. What? So, no mission tp. No Team TP. I have to travel for a chat. This is the kind of stuff I don't like. Needless chats the contact could do without us hero types getting involved. I used the QA tester power to auto-complete 3rd, 4th and 5th missions. Mission 6 - The map looks awesome with the different skin! I'm not at all sure why we have to go from terminal to terminal when it could all be done on the first terminal. Other than that, this mission is pleasant. Mission 7 - Interesting. Desert Freeze has a fantastic costume. Because it was apparent I needed to rescue her, I assumed the other heroes would be in a similar situation. The codenamed PPs were apparently the heroes to recover. Because of this - you may want to reword the objectives. Defeat the mind-twisted heroes that are now dressed like paragon protectors. Stop with the hero corp clone theme - just call them paragon protector clones. It doesn't fit the story, but the costumes fit better. Finale: The creativity and subtle humor are great. Gloryhound looks awesome! The names and costumes are clever. Well done. The ending...no blood bath. No option to defeat anyone. Honestly, quite a let down. What about that warning to restock on inspirations? Pointless. Overall, some good creativity. But other than that - this arc is a stinker. Needless zone hopping about. You could trim a couple of those missions and the story would be the same. But, that's just my opinion.

Well done getting surveillance off! I love the name of the power "beefy". When you're the only one in the labyrinth, it won't take long for the minotaur to find you - particularly if you stop to get a gladiator to talk with you - or fight you, or spend more than a few seconds standing still. I think if it hits as is, the best chance I'll have to explore what I want to explore and get the badges I'll want, it'll have to be on peak times when there are a lot more players in there. I do not envision much chance of success on a low-pop server. As it is, on Excelsior, without a competent group of players, beating the minotaur will be something two teams or more will probably have to do. But I don't know that for sure. His level at 54+6, just out of the gate..that's almost Really Hard Way Tyrant level. It'll take some cooperation, for sure. And it'll be a little easier because there won't be any crackles to avoid, but there won't be as much room to joust about either. I think these are potentially the types of "challenge" that some of the vocal minority want. I'm not sure why, but I don't need to know why. Other than the badges, I can't see myself engaging. Now, the maze itself, the ??? rooms, and omg - The server room. @lemming helped me find the server room. And in it, if I hadn't had the stun badges already, I probably would have earned one. That mapserver hits hard. But it stuns even more. The best thing about that is I got my costume turned green again. I wish I could make my own costume that kind of green. It never looks that way when I do so in the costume creator. But clearly, there's a lot of creativity in this effort. I just hope it's not a ghost town after the first week.

I agree with your suggestion here. I didn't have any real specifics on duration, but I did make this suggestion in the focused feedback thread. There were only 7 or so folks in the labyrinth when I was briefly on last night. Given my previous experiences solo, there's just not a lot for me to get out of it unless I resort to using the beta tester "I win" buttons. And I don't want to do that on the minotaur because that removes it from the zone for an hour, and another player might want that interaction. So, I definitely agree, the 5 minutes isn't the right duration for lower populated times. I don't know what the proper duration would be. But it isn't 5 minutes. At least, I don't think so.

Ugh...such an unsavory thing to suggest, but I'll suggest it anyway. Menu-options-windows: Look for the chat section: The reason I suggest it is so you can have a record of everything said. It might be easier to share with a GM than trying to type it all out by memory.

If the labyrinth appears this way to you, I don't think you've given it a fair look. So far, it has been different for me each time. Because the success or failure of other players can add level shifts to you and everyone else in zone, you can find yourself looking at a herd of level 54+1's and they con grey. But you missed the level 54+10 in the middle who kills you with one attack, seemingly. Maybe it was some DoT and I was just too slow to react. Either way - this might be "farmable" by a team of competent players. But, it's certainly not risk free, and the rewards are fairly low. Three reward merits for beating up a pinata that doesn't attack. But what's not in the fine print is while you're attacking this pinata, a level 54+11 minotaur wants to gore you. You can't just ignore a minotaur and tackle the pinata. The hp on this thing, I haven't checked, but you'll want your lore pets to help with dps. There's a lot more to this zone than your post suggests you're aware of. I'm not saying competent players won't use this as an option to increase the rate of influence or xp if they can - but there's absolutely nothing wrong with earning it. And you would earn it here doing something different than what we've been doing. Different in terms of content. Same in button mashing. But there's no real way around that.