Jacke

@tidge, I put together an MRB file for your build above. Interesting build. Will eventually need a good Warshade Tri-Form build, but doing that is a ways off, with many more builds for other toons needing attention before that. Discovered 1 odd thing, L12 Dark Detonation had 2x Positron's Blast Change of Damage (Energy). Replaced the second one with a Ice Mistral’s Torment - Chance of Damage (Cold). Warshade.20240323.Tri-Form [i27p7] @tidge - Tri-Form Warshade.mbd

I have a KM/Ninjitsu Scrapper winding his way through Goldside. I think @Luminara covered the issues with Kinetic Melee quite well. One thing that could be done is having the use of an attack while Power Siphon is running giving its +Damage whether it hits or not. Similar changes have been done to other Melee Powersets like Dual Blades' Combos. I take it you've never played a certain game family....

Go to the HC forums main page. Scroll down until you see the HC Launcher section.

Normally I sometimes run at -1 Notoriety to get some missions/arcs done quickly and easily where I'm not that concerned about the XP but just getting it done. Things like the Mender Ramiel arc to unlock Incarnate powers, many Flashbacks to get Badges, etc. One thing to speed up XP gathering is to street sweep Green and Blue conning mobs in Zones. That can be a slightly faster XP rate, but as usual, YMMV.

Not sure about the DDR (and you can never have too much DDR), but the 3 SR Passives give the scaling Resists (against all but Psionic and Toxic) as the SR toon loses HP. Those scaling Resists are vital for an SR toon not falling to some big damage getting past Defense. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/powerset.html?pset=tanker_defense.super_reflexes&at=tanker In short, for a SR toon, you want to take at least 8 of the 9 SR powers, usually skipping the T9 Elude.

There's always Mathematics. Often very simple, but it's always there.

I think Burnout indeed has a place in discussion about power balancing, because it pushes any balance to the limit and makes that balance much harder. I almost wish I'd not mentioned Burnout in that post, as it overwhelmed (burned out) my questions at the top of the post. Care to give them a consideration, @Glacier Peak? 😺 Following is a repost (with a bit of editing): I think there are some simple questions with difficult answers. I'd also say ignore the history. What's Past is Prologue. How things are changed (or not changed) needs justification in the Present. Why is Freezing Rain on a given AT better than Sleet on the same AT? There are many similar issues, example some Protection powersets on Melee ATs having fewer armour toggles and lower End/s costs. There can be arguments about other parts of the Storm Summoning and Cold Domination powersets balancing out Freezing Rain being better than Sleet. Without going into details, I'd say Storm Summoning has powerful pets/pseudopets and more damage with the top-of-the-line -Res in one power. And Cold Domination is better at direct Team support and has its -Res separated into 3 powers (who also have other effects). Cold Domination also gets important powers like its stealth+def+res aura and -Res patch at later Levels, which is still painful when Exemplaring. I'd say Storm Summoning is definitely better for solo play and could even be better for Team play, especially considering Exemplaring for WSTs. So why does the better powerset get the better -Res patch? Why wasn't Sleet made exactly the same as Freezing Rain for each AT? Even if this required reducing or removing the -Res from Benumb and Heat Loss. -Res was moved around when Trick Arrow was changed (one of the best powerset rebalances ever). Why is Arctic Fog at a higher Tier than Steamy Mist? Why is Sleet at a higher Tier than Freezing Rain? We don't want all the differences between powersets all homogenized away. But maybe some equalization could help.

I've read a lot of different viewpoints here. I think there are some simple questions with difficult answers. I'd also say ignore the history. What's Past is Prologue. How things are changed (or not changed) needs justification in the Present. Why is Freezing Rain on a given AT better than Sleet on the same AT? There are many similar issues, example some Protection powersets on Melee ATs having fewer armour toggles and lower End/s costs. There can be arguments about other parts of the Storm Summoning and Cold Domination powersets balancing out Freezing Rain being better than Sleet. Without going into details, I'd say Storm Summoning has powerful pets/pseudopets and more damage with the top-of-the-line -Res in one power. And Cold Domination is better at direct Team support and has its -Res separated into 3 powers (who also have other effects). Cold Domination also gets important powers like its stealth+def+res aura and -Res patch at later Levels, which is still painful when Exemplaring. I'd say Storm Summoning is definitely better for solo play and could even be better for Team play, especially considered Exemplaring for WSTs. So why does the better powerset get the better -Res patch? Why wasn't Sleet made exactly the same as Freezing Rain? Even if this required reducing or removing the -Res from Benumb and Heat Loss. -Res was moved around when Trick Arrow was changed (one of the best powersets rebalances ever). Why is Arctic Fog at a higher Tier than Steamy Mist? Why is Sleet at a higher Tier than Freezing Rain? We don't want all the differences between powersets all homogenized away. But maybe some equalization could help. And the big big question: Why isn't BURNOUT being considered for rebalancing? Sure, it's 3 powers deep in the Speed Pool. Rune of Protection is 3 powers deep in the Sorcery Pool, was in my opinion less of a balancing issue than Burnout, yet was rebalanced. I'm not a powers dev. But I've handled complex systems. Studied RPGs for decades. Tinkered with them. Learned to understand the numbers. I look at Burnout and think "WTF were they thinking?!?" Completely throws away the Recharge System. Makes other balancing so much harder. Because there's always the question "But what if the new/rebalanced power is in this sequence of powers? And then Burnout is used to do that twice?" And were all the critical doubled sequences thought of? Because powers immediately doubled are a lot harder to balance that in usual use. Burnout gets to break the game every 30 minutes. For the low low price of 48.75 Endurance and -25 MaxEnd for 60s. If it was up to me, I wouldn't replace Burnout. I'd make it live up to its name. My proposal would need testing and balancing itself, but would work with the Recharge system, not break it. "The Mad Minute" Burnout keeps fixed 1800s Recharge. 50 Endurance cost. For 60s -25 MaxEnd -0.5 End/s +200% Recharge Every 6s for 54s (Count goes from 0 to 9) Chance for Mag500 Confuse Self for 10.5s, replace: Count x 5% (increasing chance) +Res Heal on Self for 10.5s, replace: Count x 20% (increasing resistance to being healed) PBAoE Fire Damage 20ft radius, damages Self, Teammates, Mobs Damage to Mobs and Teammates BaseValue x Count (increasing damage to others) Damages Mobs (max 16) Damages Teammates (max 255) Damages Self for 10% of BaseHP After 60s -50 MaxEnd for 10.5s -50 End -1000% Recovery for 10.5s Mag500 Confuse Self for 10.5s, replace +200% Res Heal on Self for 10.5s, replace PBAoE Fire Damage 20ft radius, damages Self, Teammates, Mobs Damage to Mobs and Teammates BaseValue x 40 Damages Mobs (max 16) Damages Teammates (max 255) Damages Self for 40% of BaseHP If the toon is defeated during Burnout, including at the end, like Self-Destruct will leave no body to be rezzed. All burned away. Now that's a Burnout! 😺

All of them. 😺 Says the guy who's mained an Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster since late 2005 and loved every minute of it. For good combos, start with @Psyonico's selections: Traps/AR and Dark Miasma/AR, both Primaries are powerful and flexible. I'd also add Nature Affinity/AR and Sonic Resonance/AR, again two powerful flexible Primaries. Mind you, I think Trick Arrow/AR is kind of silly, juggling a Rifle and a Bow. To me the only powerset to pair with Trick Arrow is Archery. But Trick Arrow is very powerful. But the rest, all possible. Not all of them would be good. Ideally wants a powerset good at range.

Got the Valentine Tip "From Mysterious Napkin Writer", "To Belladona Vetrano from Mysterious Napkin Writer...": Deliver to Belladona Vetrano. Misdeliver to Praetor Sinclair. Can't deliver to Belladona Ventrano. Guidance given to Underground Neutropolis where Belladona Ventrano is in the Resistance Hub. If not a Praetorian of Resistance Alignment, can't enter the Hub to deliver the Valentine. Couldn't figure another way to deliver it. As a Night Ward contact, Belladona Vetrano is by phone only. Tried to deliver it to the Primal version, Ghost Widow in Grandville, who said "Don't you know that you should not disturb the dead? Leave."

I think those /linkinfo panels have some display bugs in certain contexts. One I know of is the "Show Detailed Info Here" in the Enhancement Management screen: it shows "<Recharge Value> (<Recharge Value without enhancement>)" but both values show are the same; really need to report that. I recreated your visual, which appears to be another "Show Detailed Info Here" in the Enhancement Management screen. That definitely has a display bug. Here's two ways to get a better view of that power with the 2 other ways to bring up a /linkinfo window. Enter this command: "/linkinfo Brawl" That shows the info on Brawl without enhancement (but it will have any buffs from having certain Fighting Pool powers). And sometimes gets the wrong variant power.... "5th Column Brawl" ?!? Seems to be the right values.... In the 3-column Powers display, scroll the right-hand column down to the Inherent section, right-click on Brawl, and select Info. Well damn, that one has display bugs too, maybe even worse. Just goes to show, "Them thar's bugs in them thar hills!" Gotta get to reporting these....

Oh, so it's a competition.... First to get all 6 Debt Badges wins!!! 😺 Finally, a use for bad PUG experiences. Nothing like having the Team recruit the mobs to voice their opinion. 😸

Ah, that's not the way -Res works. First, there's the Purple Patch. Even irresistible debuffs are changed by the Purple Patch (as @Captain Powerhouse once mentioned). For -Res, look at the Combat Modifier table and it's the strength of debuffs that changes, depending on the relative Levels between the toon and the target. For the common case of +4 non-Incarnate-content missions with Incarnated toons with a T3 or T4 Alpha boost, it's +3. So the value of the -Res will be reduced by a factor of 0.65. That means the Achilles Heel special will have its base 20% -Res reduced to 13% -Res in that case. And it's resistible -Res. Then you don't need to know the Resistances of the target. Because of way resistible -Res is resisted by Resistance to Damage: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Resistance_(Mechanics)#Resistance_to_Resistance_Debuffs that 13% -Res (or whatever the -Res value is after Purple Patch) in all cases becomes 13% extra Damage outside of Damage Enhancement.

Blaster's AoE attacks are taunts. What do you think happens just before the Blaster's moto: Face-down and proud! I think having goals is admirable. I also think it's important to enjoy the journey, even focus on the journey, while heading towards those goals. Both are important. My experience is the opposite; I often hear these requests for help. This is also a game that can easily present obstacles. If players don't know how to reset a mission via swapping to another mission, or logging out, or for Task Forces the longer log out needed for reset, then it's very easy to have issues here. With the new auto-exemplar feature for old missions, it may become more common. And at least for general game missions, someone can get help by adding others to the Team. Not possible on Ouro arcs or Task Forces without restarting. Which is often the solution too. Excellent points! As @Troo noted, also so @tidge. 😺 The Blaster's moto: Face-down and proud! It's not just for Blasters, everyone can do it! Once you get the basics and intermediates of the game down pat, pushing the envelop in a smart way is how to test builds, test tactics, test your playing. And have fun! If it's not a no-defeat case like a no-defeat Master's run or other no-defeat, getting sent to the floor by the mobs is just your opportunity to say in Team chat: "Oops." 😺 At risk of being accused of treating the humour like pushing the marshmallow through the screen (gets through but something is lost in the process).... All the talk about "Wet" is from a feature that was added, then later dropped during Page 7's Open Beta. To boost the effects of some powers, a "Wet" status was added by using other powers. I imagine it was dropped due to just adding too much complexity and another fiddly thing to remember. Barely recall it. Except for all the "Wet" jokes. (Which goes back to at least "The Rocky Horror Show" and one of it's songs. 😺) You should have responded "A gentleman never tells. And should never acknowledge such impertinent questions. Good day, sir!"

Research away! If you want to spend time on figuring out these things, have at it. Some new knowledge could come from it. As for levelling not supporting the cost of adding SOs.... That one is also old. In the recent era, I've done a bit of testing and determined that using the "Upgrade" button on the Enhancement display is slightly more expensive than buying the SOs and slotting them or using to upgrade (with a chance of failure at times). But much more convenient. Which is the theme of options for slotting during levelling: a spectrum of options from inexpensive and time-consuming to expensive and convenient. I remember reading advice long ago on how to get through the TO and DO levels. That nearly the only TO worth slotting was Accuracy (especially before Beginner's Luck was added in Issue 12), rarely some of the others. And most TOs should be sold for Influence to save for later. (And Jack Emmert though players would stick with TOs into the L30s, which is why some stores sold them well into those levels. Another example of how the original devs largely didn't understand numbers in RPGs period.) Then it got more expensive once DOs were available, even though slotting got better. Once SOs were available at L22, keeping that slotting up got very expensive, especially into the L30s and L40s. I think that was part of the driver behind the changes to levelling done a long while ago across the late L30s and the L40s, to ease that burden and make that slog a bit easier. But as in the past, as it is now. To level toons and pay for the enhancements, it helps to have a L50 or another source of Influence. Currently the devs say it's intended for players to convert and sell some of the loot they gain while levelling, like Reward Merits, to support their toons' levelling. Once Invention was added to the game, it was one of the benefits of going with Common IOs: enhancements that didn't expire. Also added in some other benefits, higher values at later Levels and of course, the massive complex improvement of IO sets. Some players followed a minimal IO plan, example slotting some IOs at L22, then more at L32, then waited until L47 to slot L50 Common IOs and then IO sets. Other slotted some sets as they levelled. But crafting those IOs takes time, or costs buying them at the AH. Again, another trade off of convenience and cost versus time. Now we have come full circle. SOs are available from L2 up. But for levelling a toon, needs extra Influence to pay for those SOs. As was always the case.

I prefer the term "pre-Shutdown", others call it "Retail". Because we have Live Shards now, 5 of them. I don't think there were recent changes just before Shutdown, but from my recollection, going back further, there were many tweaks to the Levelling XP, especially in the L40's, to smooth out progress. From what I've heard, that's not likely at all. I have heard that 2XP and lesser XP boosts were available. There may have been some adjustments for some mobs, much as what was always happening pre-Shutdown and likely continues. Grinding is the past of City and is still very much present. And out-levelling contacts, I remember that from 2006. This is not something new. Out-levelling contacts has been a problem with City since long ago, only recently made easier to control with turning off XP. Way back many years before Shutdown, I found @RedTomax's site, with lots of information on City, the contacts, the arcs, and the powers, including the original City of Data. Best way to see it now is by this copy via the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20140625145706/http://tomax.cohtitan.com/ @RedTomax, writing on how he gathered all that information, said he had to resort to massive accumulation of debt to avoid out-levelling contacts. Besides the common feelings of nostalgia and connection to the past, there can also be strong feelings of new, different, sometimes in an unsettling way. This can happen for all sorts of reasons. That the game is changing, evolving, improving, that's always going on. Yet wander through most zones and they've barely changed. Then compare Atlas Park to Echo: Atlas Park and the sense of WTF looms. There will always be these competing senses of good similarity to the past and good and not-so-good sense of change (as are our judgements of those changes as they happen). If there's a change in the XP rates and levelling, that's going to need good data from the past as well as recently to be certain about. Is it worth it, really? Or is it better to just enjoy the game.

Okay, more seriously. People are people. If you want better than what's the standard issue, then what's needed is: Better common schooling ('cause schooling is often effectively weak for a broad selection of reasons that often vary). Standard training designed for true competency (it works for all good Armed Forces around the world). Here at Muppet Labs Homecoming City of Heroes, we don't get either. So it's people are people, a lot of On-the-Job-Training (OJT), and strap in, 'cause it's going to be a bumpy ride! 😺 What's Past is Prologue. Some of my history that connects with the topic. Started playing City of Heroes in 2005. Been with Repeat Offenders since 2006. RO is good to great at learning the game, making the builds, and running Team content. I've learned a lot with them and become better at playing, making builds, even leading Teams. Since 2019 Apr 24th, RO repeated that here on Homecoming, mostly on the Everlasting Shard. Where also dwells and operates Everlasting TFs, with several players leading all sorts of content every day. They're fantastic at running large, complex, and hard content, guiding all sorts of players through them. My main Badging toon now has all Masters-of Badges on all content thanks to them. Thanks to this, I even understand my Nemesis now. Not the Prussian Prince of Automatons. The Keyes iTrial. Other large and complex content I eventually sort-of understood after a few runs. The Keyes iTrial confused the heck out of me despite being dragged through it several times. Then I went with Everlasting TFs on the Keyes. And the League Leader explained EVERYTHING before each part of the iTrial. Going through the iTrial, it all made sense to me now. I could even do critical roles successfully. OOOOOOOMMMMMMMMHHHHHHHHHH Enlightenment dawns. As in every human task, Leadership and Training is key. Failures are usually failures in Leadership, if only failure of Leadership to ensure proper Training. This is true but weakly applicable to City of Heroes. Playing City is very much supposed to be a social, informal, and relaxing gaming experience. This includes its Leadership and Training. What do I see in City play? The sames things as in Real Life but in the nature of City of Heroes: People are people. Everyone learns the most about City as OJT, soaking it all up during play. Takes a while, very variable. This includes how to lead Teams and Leagues in City content, also mostly OJT and very variable. This is very much social Leadership, more informal, less systematic. As is any Training. Some players take extra time to learn some things better. Also read and post on the Forums. Sometimes that pays off. A lot of City off-line conversation talks about making better builds and some better tactics, especially for harder content. The absolute "best" builds are not necessary. "Best" pursues some goals at the cost of weakening others, which can hurt them. "Best" is tricky and often a moving target due to City game changes. Builds good enough in critical ways makes play more enjoyable and reduces frustrations. Good harder-content Team and League pre-TF and in-TF chat talks about what to expect and vital tactics. The best Leaders of that harder content get most of those chats from a crafted Info Popmenu. The best Info Popmenus get improved from experience. That knowledge and better tactics delivered to the players is required for better experiences of the harder content. Some of the hardest content requires very careful knowledge, teaming, and tactics. Eventually needs coordinated balancing of Incarnate Destiny powers across the Team during most of the content. Going to play that content on a toon, extra Destiny powers to T3 and eventually T4 should be a long-term consideration. There's good players who sometimes figure they can push the envelop, split the Team, etc. Sometimes they judge it right. Sometimes they don't. The better players judge this correctly more often, especially when to slow down, team up, and be careful. A lot of the times on PUG Teams, I see a lot of low Endurance bars. Having a build with enough net recovery and adjusting play to aid recovery are basic core skills vital to good City play. Always have charges of Recovery Serum because most content allows temp powers. Have those issues solved in the build and tactics before playing the content not allowing temp powers. I wonder what other weaknesses the players and their toons' builds have. I've heard more bad PUG stories from my guild mates than I've personally experienced. All sorts of bad PUG stories. Including poor PUG Teams going for harder Notoriety than they can possibly handle. People are people. Accept that things will sometimes go wrong (it happens on the best of teams too). Perhaps gently make some helpful comments. Be prepared for them to be ignored. There's reasons why there was a focus on improving the New Player Experience in Page 7's changes. This is a game with multiple steep learning curves.

Exactly the problem with a complex system like the AH. I think that actually can't quite be done that way, as that's like running two middlewares talking to a backend SQL database (the front-end of the AH can only be part of the problem in its comms with the middlewares) which needs both middlewares to be carefully monitored and the SQL database to take commands from both and talk back without things going wrong. Would need a lot of stuff to work together. Things could go wrong without knowing why or was it the old or the new middleware going wrong. Or go right but not really give a confident feeling that the final system is good and an improvement. What I think needs to be done is below. This is the full process to do changing the AH code as safely as possible. Problem is such an exercise takes months minimum and all this testing could stretch this out longer than Page 7's development of 9 months. And that's not including the time it would take to specify and implement proper AH code. Though if and when we see new AH code in release, I think it will have gone through at least a skeleton of this process. 😺 Do not touch the existing AH code at all. Needs a Tiger Team of HC's good volunteer devs covering the needed skills to shepherd this from proper start to proper conclusion. SPECIFY THE HECK out of what the Auction House is supposed to do for its functions and processes to complete correctly. CAREFUL IMPLEMENT THAT SPECIFICATION in completely new AH code. MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH in the rest of the City code base: Complete the current considered foundation changes. Like moving more of the code to use the very good RNG code. Completed, bug checked in release, and hotfixed as necessary. The rest of City should be a truly solid foundation for a major change like the AH code. TEST THAT IMPLEMENTATION from scratch starting with an empty AH database. Likely a Closed Alpha test with a copy of the current Closed Beta with new AH code and an empty AH database. TEST THAT IMPLEMENTATION AGAIN but on an existing AH database that was run under the OLD AH CODE. Likely an Open Beta test with the new AH code and a copy of the current Live Shards Cluster AH database. FINAL CONFIRMATION PRODUCTION RELEASE and TESTING of the new AH code on the Closed Beta Shard and its existing AH database. Closed Beta has a smaller player population and AH database, so simpler bug-fixing and compensation by manual admin actions. ROLL OUT new AH code on Live Shard Cluster for production release. DUCK AND COVER Find bugs, fix bugs, compensate, etc. Hopeful just a few, even better if none. Hopeful all the Tiger Team devs survived the process. Month off!

It sure ain't the PUG experience we want! 😺

I am not a dev. At times in the past, I have seen really really bad code. Once or twice, I made sense of it. I was lucky to get away with but scars. I have heard tales of the Auction House. Unnamed Dev: "So it seems we (apparently inadvertently?) fixed one bug while causing another. This game, man." Our only hope is these same, brave Devs venturing out into the Shite Storm of Bad Code to see what is possible and attempt what they can. Not all of them return. Some return, but...changed by the experience. I hear some of them are looking forward to a calming river excursion. Up the Congo River. Or was it the Mekong?

There are a lot of sliders all over the UI where we: Don't know what the value is that is being set (like the body sliders in the Character creation screens, example the height of the toon, etc.). Can't easily fine-adjust those sliders (the amount of time I've spent on Options window's tabs' sliders getting them to be a particular value, say 50, not 49, not 51). Know it's UI work and it's a bit of a challenge retrofitting changes to that. But improving these would be a massive QoL improvement.

.... Oh, myyy. 😺

Oh yes indeed, it's annoying. And alas, I think RTD isn't as good now as he was 20 years ago. Will have to see what he's done with the new series when it comes out, but after those specials being a mixed bag, my expectations are rather muted. So, your Avatars are sort-of like the up-to 10 pointers that make up the Attributes Monitor Window. What they point at often gets changed in a major release. Much hilarity ensues. 😺

EDIT: I'd forgotten the details of others' support of City of Data 2, as @UberGuy details in the next post. What @UberGuy does do himself is continually refine that City of Data 2 website to serve up that data in a way we can use to better understand the fiddly bits of the various powers. There's a lot of feedback and suggestions from a number of devs and many other users of CoD2, but @UberGuy is the one who puts them into the website. Didn't do it all alone, but it's still an amazing achievement. 😺 Without @UberGuy, we wouldn't have this vital tool.

I thought all that "mavity" stuff was just idiotic. "Gravity" defined as the attraction of matter to other matter had been in place well before Newton.