The Beta Account Center is temporarily unavailable
×
-
Posts
2063 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
24
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Store
Articles
Patch Notes
Everything posted by Maelwys
-
Issue 28: Page 1 Farming Microguide (Maps + Builds)
Maelwys replied to America's Angel's topic in Guides
They do. However they have the same recipe drop rate as bosses but die slower. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Recipe#Pool_A_(Enemy_Defeat) -
If it's not in the RosettaStone post or this followup you might have to go PIGG diving or try the generic city mod tool. CoDv2 has the PFX and FX files listed as: "source_file": "MENU/POWERS/ANIMFX/PLAYERPOWERS/BLASTER_SUPPORT_EARTH_MANIPULATION_BERYL_CRYSTALS.PFX", "activation_fx": "CUSTOMIZEABLEPOWERS/STONEFX/MINERALARMOR.FX", MINERALARMOR.FX seems to direct to the following OGGS: SOUND\OGG\POWERS\STONE4 SOUND\OGG\POWERS\MINERAL_LOOP SOUND\OGG\POWERS\GLOW6_LOOP
-
This one?
-
Planning a build is almost always an exercise in compromising (A, B, or C... pick any two!). There's no one-size fits-all approach. But there are some rules of thumb. Like "Aim for capped (95%) Accuracy versus whatever you're fighting". And "ED (Enhancement Diversification) cap your damage". And "Don't post in any thread about knockback". Technically CoDv2 ( https://cod.uberguy.net./ ) has virtually all of the raw data; but it can be hard to understand even if you're familiar with the powers and effects concerned. So if you want to really get into the ins-and-outs of particular powers and proc interactions then it's probably best to pick a particular subject and ask. There's a lot of tribal knowledge and many of us old hands have convoluted knowledge about various subjects. I'm going to drop some links to previous posts here:
-
Issue 28: Page 1 Farming Microguide (Maps + Builds)
Maelwys replied to America's Angel's topic in Guides
Recharge is the most important base empowerment buff for "Passive" (AFK) farmers as it helps get your one big PBAoE attack up a bit sooner. You don't strictly speaking need it though (and personally I tend to not bother if I'm just chilling with a movie) You can also get the Offensive booster (and others) from the START vendors; but it's rather pricey at Lv50 so IMO isn't worth it if you're farming for inf. No. From one single Active (behind the wheel) farming toon; running solo at +4x8 with Bosses enabled. Whenever I'm active farming, bringing any teammates to sit/buff is a drain on my inf-per-hour, frankly... because I'm already at the damage cap (from insp-spamming) and cycling AoE attacks constantly. So about the only thing that'd be beneficial to me is AoE -res debuffs; and lots of those cause scatter (even if it's just by causing any mobs that I might have around me which are over the aggro cap to start pummeling the debuffer!). To be fair... I've tried bringing a Sonic and Dark Miasma Defender along and they do speed things up... but not so much that they'd offset using that account to just run an AFK farmer in a separate map instead. And Cold Dom/Stormies cause far too much bedlam IME. I have a few different maps I cycle through: the Asteroid maps by far require the least brainpower; but you end up wasting a little more time in loading screens. The "secret ingredient" really boils down to always keeping at least 10 foes around you (the more bosses the better dropwise) and keeping yourself at the damage cap and having an unbroken chain of of powerful AoE attacks (Force Feedback procs help here). Additional damage output buffs like damage procs, -res procs (especially Achilles Heel and Fury of the Gladiator) and selecting the correct Incarnate abilities will all contribute to your killspeed. Survivability is much less of a concern for Active Farmers than for Passive Farmers, but the more survivable you are the less time you'll need to spend clicking on heals or active survivability buffs (or using purple/green/etc insps instead of combining them into reds). My Passive farming toons defeat foes roughly half as fast as my Active farming toons... hence ~80m/hr per Passive farmer; and ~160m/hr per Active farmer. However those figures are averaged over multiple runs, and include selling off the pricier salvage (rares, prismatics) and recipes (rares, purples etc) on the AH. Often I'll craft some recipes into enhancements to make them worthwhile listing... but "selling and crafting stuff" factors into playtime and often it can be more cost effective to just NPC the lower-cost junk than juggle additional sell orders on the AH or craft stuff that's worth sub-500k inf. Playing Enhancement Converter Roulette can definitely be worth it though. And the real thing to remember is to have fun. Active Farming can be incredibly intense... and if you're trying to optimise inf/hr by running 1x Active and 2x Passive farmers per shard it's like doing air traffic control. But running three separate Passive farmers on different maps is almost as good, and you can do that whilst watching Netflix. -
Also worth remembering Archvillain Debuff Resistance https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Archvillain_Resistance
-
The raw stat boost benefit from running Maneuvers, Assault and Tactics is tiny on (non VEAT) melee ATs. You can gain an additional location for a LotG +7.5% Global Rech in Maneuvers, but you don't need the power toggled on to benefit from it. FWIW on most of my toons I'll aim for a recovery surplus of at least 2 endurance per second. Occasionally I'll drop below that if the toon is running Ageless and/or has an inherent endurance restoration power.
-
Issue 28: Page 1 Farming Microguide (Maps + Builds)
Maelwys replied to America's Angel's topic in Guides
There shouldn't be any attacks that debuff defense on a farming map that has "Updated for Page 5" in the name/description. Meteor maps are best for passive farming, but lots of maps work for active - "Boomtown Tunnel", outdoor Skyscraper/Carnie/Dreck, whatever. Don't do a cave map though, they're horrible. Really you just need lots of big spawns and a sufficiently open space to pull 2-3 of them together. "Most efficient" for inf/hour is usually max difficulty; unless you are weak at both survivability and AoE damage output... however the main thing is to enable Bosses when solo and set your team size to 8. Mob level just affects your raw influence gain from killing them; not the likelihood of getting salvage/recipe drops from them. As a ballpark, whenever I'm going flat out I tend to average about 80m/hr (including drops) per passive farmer and about 160m/hr (including drops) per active farmer. (although to be fair; I hardly ever go flat out these days!) 😛 -
WW2 Armies, looking for some historical input...
Maelwys replied to Ultimo's topic in General Discussion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill 😉 ⚔️ (also https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/mad-jack-churchill-a-rare-breed-of-warrior/ - which details his antics both before and after he became a Commando) Just the Bagpipes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Millin Bagpipes were officially considered to be weapons of war until 1996 (and kinda sorta still are, at least during wartime!) -
-
There's a variant three posts up in the thread linked above (here!) The current version I'm using on live right now has a smidge more regeneration and recovery Brute - Rad Melee - Stone Armor (AFK Farmer).mbd ...but the damage output is still roughly 40% higher (see here) than AA's 2023 Elec/Rad Tanker build. It's a Fire farmer though. If you're after a melee S/L farmer; then you'd probably be better off looking at Active Farming builds than Passive/AFK. There're some decent options here and here and here.
-
Tanker AoE damage has plummeted recently (due to the new "overcap" mechanics vs >10 foes; and the lower proc rate from moving their AoE radius increase from a global buff to a baked-in value) to the point where Brutes are generally superior even versus >10 foes unless you're getting external damage buffs (such as popping damage insps like candy). As a result they're still OK for active farming; but not for passive (AKA "AFK") farming. They can survive just fine, but their killspeed isn't great... which makes Tankers a safe option for AFK farming, but not a particularly efficient one. FWIW... an average haul on my AFK-farming RadM/Stone Brute (which is the combo that is AFAIK by far the smoothest ride at present) is on average about 80m/hr including drops (I'll typically AH anything worth >100k; and just NPC-vendor the rest). And since it's possible to have have three such toons going per non-busy server shard; multiply that by three (or by two plus an active farmer if you can be bothered... as a good Active Farming toon will defeat things about twice as fast as an AFK toon!) However the aforementioned Brute outputs considerably more damage than AA's Elec/Rad Tanker when AFK farming - so even without popping any insps (enter map, hit Hybrid + Destiny + Lore + Judgement, then wait) they'll clear the bulk of an Asteroid map in ~5-6mins. So I'll generally use a map that kicks you out after 5mins, not after 10.
-
Your MM gets the benefit of "set bonus" special enhancements, not your pets. Currently the only way to shoehorn a special enhancement's effects onto a pet is if it's coded as a proc and the pet summon power or one of the upgrade abilities can inherit enhancements of the same type (like placing a Panacea proc into the T2 Necro upgrade, or a Kismet into the Ninja one) https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Set_Enhancements_with_Special_Effects
-
IIRC the "don't aggro" flag can be overwritten by outside rider effects like procs. So a simpler solution might be to grant the participants of the content in question a dummy 100% proc effect which only applies to their confuse powers (it could be coded as a confuse set enhancement) and which inflicts a negligible offensive effect that causes the target(s) to notice the caster.
-
I always take the Rectified Reticle +Perception IO in any build which doesn't have perception buffs; because otherwise certain PVE enemies like CoT Ghosts and Tsoo Ancestors can go "full invisible" and become very annoying (especially on 'defeat all' missions). Sentinels have 550ft Perception instead of 500ft; which is half a Rectified Reticle. It's almost (but not quite) useless.
-
It shows. I already pointed the reasons out in the very post you're quoting. And frankly, the day that Scrappers get Epic/Patron pool Nukes is the day that the final nail gets hammered into Brutes' coffin. Seriously, if you hate Sentinels that much... then just don't play them. Personally I believe that (Clarion Destiny and Dispersion Bubbles notwithstanding) there is a sufficient "gap in the market" for a Ranged Damage AT with inherent Mez Protection and a Nuke every ~20-25s to carve out a decent niche.
-
I don't think that's true... IIRC Siren's Song applies the Sleep "after 0.25s" precisely to avoid procs waking them up... So by all means proc it up and potentially stick an Annihilation -Res in it too. Also since you're going for -Res; I'd very much recommend picking up Corrosive Vial from the Experimentation pool and using it for an Achilles Heel proc. And ideally Electricity Mastery for Thunderstrike (damage procs plus a Fury of the Gladiator -Res proc!)
-
Given that Kinetics will comfortably cap a team's damage even on a Mastermind... I'd go Corruptor every day of the week. The difference therefore comes down to Sonic Blast, which deals more damage on a Corruptor but inflicts more -res on a Defender. (and to be perfectly honest; I'd probably just swap to BR or DP + then stack damage procs and Achilles Heel -Res... Sonic Blast is better than before but it's still not great)
-
My two current favourite Sentinels (the ones I keep coming back to) are BeamRifle/Ninjitsu and Seismic/EnergyAura. The Beam Rifle toon technically deals less damage over time (before Aim, Vulnerability and Incarnate Clickies it's ~256 DPS and the Seismic is ~307) but its Nuke is far more team-friendly and since Refractor Beam is (despite the short description!) a real AoE rather than a Chain it procs pretty decently; so I honestly don't mind the lack of a Snipe on Sentinel BR. Whilst Ninjitsu is objectively worse than Energy Aura at practically everything except for one big burst per mob... Shinobi-Iri + Aim (with Gaussian) + Overcharge is just 🧑🍳💋
-
This bit's pertinent. IIRC the Opportunity bar gains 50% (one usage of Vulnerability) in 30s. So two Sentinels cycling Vulnerability back-to-back can keep it up on ONE foe indefinitely. It's a decent debuff... -15% Resistance that isn't affected by target level (e.g. Purple Patch) but since it's low uptime and non-AoE it's not very useful outside of AV/GM fights. Compared to other ATs with "Ranged Blast" powersets; Sentinels also suffer a bit whenever they're fighting very large numbers of targets. They're inherently (ha!) a bit underwhelming in the regular "let's steamroll through hordes of mooks as fast as possible" meta despite their fast-recharging Nukes (a big FOOM on a ~20-25s timer is nice in theory, but gets let down by the fact that it only hits 10 targets). So I do think that they need a little bit of a boost in terms of non-nuke DPS. Not a huge amount though... just enough that Sentinels would occasionally be more mechanically effective than a different "DPS" AT for something other than a +5 AV/GM fight. It might be a pipe dream, but eventually I'd like a hypothetical intelligent team leader to (i) consider Scrappers/Stalkers/Sentinels to be largely interchangeable in terms of contribution (albeit weighted towards slightly different things!) and (ii) consider it to be worthwhile using some combination of those ATs to fill at least 2-3 slots on a regular squad.
-
It was first posted in 2020. But @Underfyre last updated the spreadsheet in July 2025. "Welcome to the Sentinel DPS Spreadsheet v3.0.1, Issue 28, Page 2" IIRC the rack/stack builds are particularly well done and things like sneaky undocumented damage buffs in BR disintegrate are factored in. (Even if my own Sentinel attack chains diverge a fair bit from them!)
-
Chance for build up proc in a buildup power?
Maelwys replied to cohRock's topic in General Discussion
It's probably easiest to just use MacSkull's PPM Calculator Spreadsheet (make a copy) plus City of Data v2 for the base numbers to plug into it. -
Depends on the Powerset. With Elec Blast, Sentinels are definitely better off due to Tesla Cage dealing noteworthy damage. With Ice Blast, notsomuch (as Chilling Ray is a very poor substitute for Freeze Ray). For AoE damage, IIRC averaged out Sentinels will occasionally win due to their faster Nuke recharge... but again that's heavily powerset and build dependent. Archery's Nuke is miles better on the Blaster; and other sets can pull ahead by leveraging non-Nuke AoEs (like Fireball) and/or secondary powerset PBAoEs. And Blasters can consistently hit 6 more targets (as there are very few Sentinel AoEs that have a target cap > 10) Honestly though the real clincher is the Secondary powersets - Sentinels don't get the extra oomph from Blapps or Build Up; and little tricks like nuking from hidden (Ninjitsu) or Procbombing Ground Zero (Rad Armor) unfortunately don't close the gap. All that said, I'm personally pretty fond of Elec Blast, Beam Rifle and Seismic Blast on Sentinels. They are particularly well suited to staying at range constantly (or closing to melee maybe once every 10 seconds to trigger Shocking Field...)
-
Sentinels can dish out very decent levels of damage output, if you build them sensibly. Whilst they will not approach min-maxed Blaster levels of damage output (nor IMO should they) they can comfortably compete with most Brutes; and even with some low-to-mid-tier Scrapper Primaries (I've got a SeismicBlast/EnergyAura Sentinel that has almost exactly the same level of ST damage output as my Katana/Regen Scrapper, including averaged Crits but not Vulnerability). They do not however get access to Taunt auras, which reduces their effectiveness when enemies are unclumped. Their draw is not being a lower-damage more-survivable Blaster, but being a Scrapper with a Ranged Damage powerset. This distinction is important, because Sentinels get very few melee attacks; and if you try to play them as a melee toon then you'll be very disappointed... so instead, play them as a Scrapper with longer range and a fast-recharging Nuke. Make the most out of their inherent Mez Protection, Absorb/Heals and DDR. And don't sleep on Vulnerability. Also, World of Confusion is pants. Even ED-capped for Confuse aspect you're barely getting 50% uptime on its pathetic Mag2 CC, so without the Contagious Confusion Proc (and a decent AoE with a Cupid's in it, or Arctic Air) IMO it's a total waste of endurance.
-
Chance for build up proc in a buildup power?
Maelwys replied to cohRock's topic in General Discussion
In a regular "build up" or "aim" power, a Gaussian Proc will have a capped (90%) chance to activate as long as you aren't slotting a lot of local recharge aspect (~71% local recharge or more). This effectively results in your Build Up power granting double it's regular ToHit and Damage buff for several seconds. It's an extremely useful spike damage boost that can be used right before a string of powerful attacks (and/or a Nuke). Although my Blasters typically slot it into Aim to give them a better average damage boost over time.