Ukase

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.

Recently, I happened across Eochai in Crey's Folly. No big deal, just part of the ol' Hallowe'en event. After broadcasting for a few minutes, I decided to just solo it and soon after pocketed my 6 reward merits and continued about my merry way. And then I thought, "Hey - no monstrous aethers!". That's not a big surprise, nor really a big deal. But, it's not lost on me that when there's a choice between Kraken in Perez, or an event Eochai (as opposed to the Croatoa Zone version) people will zip after Kraken every time, presumably because of the MAs. At least, when recruiting, that's my anecdotal experience. While helping a ToT league tackle Jack, there were no shortages of other non-named GMs. Sadly, the only thing these big bags of HP and Foot Stomps give are an EoE. A Stropharia 70679 HP is the same as the Event version of Eochai, 70679. I get that it's an event; so there should be some extra goodies. But what about the non-event, unnamed Monsters, of the Devouring Earth variety? In the Abyss and the Hive, I certainly grasp why they don't give merits. But the ones on Monster Island? The ones on the little islands way out in PI? Shouldn't they also give some goodies besides the EoE?

You're not wrong. I love having Soldiers on my teams. It's just hard to stick next to them the whole time. (sometimes)

I'm not familiar with this player; but I feel like the new CoC update must be having players like this in mind.

So, players get teleported in certain instances: Magisterium Trial, Chimera will teleport random (I think) players to his location. In the Advanced Mode Lady Grey, there are occasions where a player is "teleswapped", where you're teleported to them. Not sure why it's called tele-swap - maybe they send one of their goons in the player's place. Things are far too chaotic for me to discern if that's the case. The teleport protection from the pvp IOs, if you read the fine print, they just offer a 20% chance of protection from teleport, not a guarantee of protection from it.

I mentioned why it's a peeve - because of how hard I work to ensure I'm pulling my weight to the best of my ability. I feel like I bought a thesaurus with nothing but blank pages. I don't have any words to describe how unsavory I think running around without enhancements is. There is just no excuse good enough. I should add, that I do get it to a small degree: you're on a lowbie, doing ToT, and the levels are coming fast. And with the buffs to recharge, and other attributes, you probably don't miss the enhancements. It's just not anything I could feel comfortable doing. Occasionally, I do a drop challenge, where I can't use any enhancements, except for what drops. It helps me get excited over the smallest things, like an end mod invention recipe. (which are more rare than very rares, anecdotally) But - when I do those challenges, I don't team with anyone, because I just couldn't allow myself to burden someone else with my twisted idea of amusement. It is not my intent to shame anyone for playing in a fashion that's cool with them - so you continue to do things the way you do them. Don't worry about me. I rarely join the leagues anyway.

Seriously - why? Why would you do this? If you're on a team, doesn't matter if you're level 5 or 50. You should be courteous enough to have at least SOs slotted. You've played long enough to know better, and you can certainly afford it by now. Sorry - this is a major peeve of mine. I go out of my way to get what I think are the best enhancements I can because I'm only a slightly better than mediocre player. I need all the help I can get. And you're running around with nothing? That makes no sense in my world.

"Lone Wolfing"...ultimately, how I feel about it would depend on my mood at the time. Sometimes, I'm perfectly fine with whatever happens in a mission. And sometimes, I want to reach through and smack people. To me, when I'm on someone else's pug, and I see most of us follow the team lead, and I see a brute or scrapper or whatever go their own way, I ask myself...what is it they seek to accomplish? Now, this is an important question. Generally, when the team is all together except that one person who went East instead of West with the rest of us, it's a kill all or kill most. Otherwise, myself and everyone else would just be zipping to the back of the map to kill the boss and move on to the next mission. Teams tend to have synergy. The player by themselves, they're probably having their own fun, and thinking that they are capable. Or, they could be wondering why everyone went the other way instead of following them. Hard to say when folks don't communicate. But, when you have buffs, debuffs, aggro management and dps all in the same area, the killing goes faster. It just does. That's how the synergy of mobs being debuffed, and players being buffed works out. The player by themselves - they might think they're saving time - and if it's a speedy effort, then it might be saving time. Hard to say, really. But if it's a kill most, kill through - they're likely not. They can type whatever they want, but they're not saving time. If they were with the team, the mobs would fall that much faster. Now, I suppose there is such a thing as "overkill", where the case might be made to have the team break off. Really tough to say, because who is standing there with a spreadsheet and a stop watch and analyzing the hitpoints for each npc, the damage dealt and calculating the amount of overkill? Not me. And not you, either. If you say you are, good luck convincing me, because I won't call you a liar, but I will think it. You might guess there's overkill, and you might be right. Ultimately, the answer just isn't that important. The goal for me is typically the reward merits and/or the badge. I don't care about XP. I don't care about INF. At least, not usually. I'm the one who, as a level 12 in patron mission, will stealth to Dr. Q and get the stupid mission over with; even my lowbies could not give two spits about XP. It will come. No need to sweat it. So, lonewolfing to me is good or bad, situationally. On a speedy run, go for it. On a kill most/kill through, I think you're just showboating, OR and this can be true often in kill most/kill through teams, you're a super good player, and your team is overly cautious with that stupid trinity tendency where the tank wants to be buffed before heading into each mob. But, as a slightly better than mediocre player, I'm going to recognize this and probably help you out. I have no patience for a tank that wants buffs before heading into battle - unless it's like an advanced mode TF or something.

So, there's a badge awarded when you complete Dr. Kane's HoH in costume. I think the answer is no, but figured I'd ask anyway: Do costume toggles like the ones purchased from Benovolabs Vendor, or the one awarded from 1000 gladiator kills count as a costume for the purpose of getting the badge?

No. The silliest thing I might say would be "So, it would appear Adamastor has been waiting to be summoned. Let's give you sleepy people 7 minutes to get to Echo:DA". And then the jerk summons in 5 minutes when convenient for them without regard to my being the first one there - and the one that told them Adam could be summoned (although, to be transparent, that's my assumption - for all I know, they have a timer/alarm that goes off to alert them. ) Nothing against Okie, but I'm not at all into RP.

So, I completely get that my perspective is probably unique and not shared by others. I'm used to it, lol. Fold Space is a game changer for AoE. That's why folks use it or misuse it. Almost nobody I've encountered has deliberately used it just before my drain psyche was about to execute, leaving me with no sustain. But, in this very thread, we see how easy it is to communicate - but anecdotally, I've never seen ANYONE ever communicate they were going to Fold Space. They just do it. Now, I'm smart enough to know what they're trying to do, and for me, it's more of an annoyance than something I'll get pissy and quit over. It's kind of like Incandescence when I'll have forgotten to enable the tp prompt. The problem with fold space is really ridiculous when you have more than one player with it, and they're just playing tennis with a group of mobs, and I feel like I'm the net. They're at X, now they're at Y. I see this happen a fair amount in the Grim Vale, which is generally just a large pug. I count myself as one of those players who's just not smart enough to use it properly. I've tried it in the msrs, and nothing ever happens. Nothing. It's like I didn't do anything. So, I just don't choose the power anymore. I'm not going to piss away 300M on some acc/threat/recharge enhancement, even though I could buy all of them if I wanted to. It's not worth it to me. I can use the F key and follow the mob if I need to. There is one case where I think Fold Space is particularly useful - and that's the labyrinth. Whether it's positioning yourself so you only pull the malevolent fog away from a hostile group, or in the Orange Font of Malevolence, or whatever the Achylus room is called. During parts of it - it's a good idea to be "anchored", and not all powers will reach to the other side of the room. So in that context, Fold Space is pretty handy. I don't know how many slots or the toHit and accuracy numbers need to be for these folks to make it work, but for me if it's not going to port a level 54 Rikti Magus, I'm pretty sure it's not going to port a level 54+8 Rikti Magus either. So, for me, it's a useless power that doesn't do anything except occasionally annoy me when someone else uses it. I think maybe the really annoying part is they make it work, and I can't. I have the power on maybe 5 characters. A few of those characters will get deleted, the other two will get a respec to get rid of the power and take something that works reliably. But as far as others using it, particularly in ToT - it's annoying -especially when the zone is crowded enough to where the npc is no longer targeted. I would prefer they didn't use it. But I don't see a solution that's as elegant as null the gull.

No question that recovery serum boosts recovery amazingly well. But the recharge on it isn't fast enough to keep you in endurance. At least, it's not enough for me in the cases when I find I need it - generally when fighting freaks, clocks, carnies or sappers. I typically just use it as a clear hint that my build sucks and to use some unslotters to pull out range or recharge enhancements and slap in end reductions. Or just do a respec. Recovery serums are a short term solution to a long term problem. No build that's worth anything should ever rely on them. I say that not to criticize, or nitpick - just to share the benefit of my anecdotal experience. Like a lot of players, I'll encounter a challenge or some difficulty. I'll come to the forums, and I'll heed some of the well-intentioned advice, only to discover good intentions do not necessarily carry over to good advice. (I'm as guilty of this as anyone) If a character has end problems, look at the build. Look at the detailed tab info of each attack and toggle and investigate how much endurance is being used. Hopefully, it's a small matter of leaving the travel power on during combat. It's the same thing with damage taken. Look at your build. Where's the defense stats at? Where are the resist stats at? In some cases, it's worth trading off some recharge for more defense. (in some cases it might not be - nobody should make that call except you, whoever you are) And yes, it's the same kind of thing with anything else in your character's performance that you're not pleased with. In some cases, our expectations are too high and we just park the brute and make a tank. (or vice-versa)

I have a fair number of names that I like on level 50 characters. If, after name release, you try for a name and can't get it - I recommend you try /getglobalname Name And let Name be the name you wanted to get and couldn't. If by chance it's one of mine, odds are I would let you have it if I haven't played the character in a while. I'm only really attached to about 20-25 of the hundreds of names I have on level 50 characters. Most wouldn't be of interest, as they're some sort of Ukase XXXX or Gordian XXXX or Apache XXXX. But I do have some names I rather like that have no naming convention applied. Like Humdinger, Doozy, and Flabbergasted. I'm keeping those. But, if asked nicely, I may be willing to release some names, as they're on 50's I haven't gotten around to doing a respec, and then deleting.

Welcome to our city. As someone who's played this game a long time, I have a lot of advice. Most of it is aligned with what everyone else would advice. But the one thing I would tell you that perhaps not everyone would is - take your time. Don't be in a rush to get to the "end game". This game has a TON of small details in both game mechanics and lore that you'll miss if you rush through things.

No doubt you're referring to targeted aoe, or "ranged AoE". Still not sure why they changed the labeling on that. In any event, if you are going to literally click on the power, and place the reticle with your mouse, yeah, it can seem kind of slow. To get around that, I've always used a macro. (well, since I figured out what a macro was, about 4 years ago) /macro IS "powexecname Ice Storm$$powexec_location target Ice Storm" I place the Ice Storm power on tray 2, above tray 1. In tray 1, that's where the macro goes, right below the ice storm icon - mainly so I can see when it's recharged. It fires automatically, as long as I have an npc targeted - every bit as fast as a PBAoE or single target attack.

You've gotten a lot of one-size fits all type suggestions. I'll be slightly more specific. Ranged, but not a blaster: Corruptor or defender. DPS - if solo, go defender. If teamed, go corruptor. Now, the problem with dps and corruptors is the debuffs/buffs (secondary) tend to make one primary a little stronger or weaker than another secondary. The ice/cold is fantastic because: 1. Fast activation/animation times 2. Typically fast base recharge times 3. The targeted AoE's are great for scourge, and ice/cold has access to blizzard, sleet, and ice storm. 4. Heat Loss and Sleet are very solid debuffs, as is Benumb. Now, is ice/cold the highest dps? No idea, and neither does anyone else! Why? Because how I build mine might out-dps however you built your fire/natty. Or, it could be your skills outdps my ice/cold. But, ice/cold is arguably one of the more popular combos for corruptors for a reason. Secondarily, you can do a lot worse than fire/natty. The natty secondary has some nice damage boosting, and nice debuffs as well. And well, fire...again, arguably one of the higher(est) dps primaries for corruptors. Best? No idea for the same reasons nobody can say ice/cold is best. But both are up there. From a sheer survivability aspect, natty>cold, because the cold corruptor cannot put the shields on themselves. The natty's buffs are pretty much as good for you as your team. For my money, I'm going ice/cold, than fire/natty. And wouldn't you know it, since I have 1000 slots, I've made both. Both are great, and each is better for certain things than the other.