Bill Z Bubba

I got my ass kicked by a platoon mate for being an asshole and he bought me a case of beer for not ratting him out. I don't understand how that's relevant here. I don't want everyone to play or build as I do. They'd end up with some shitty builds and inefficient play-styles if they do as per what I see going down on these forums. I can absolutely agree that not everyone is seeking out the bleeding edge because I'm no longer in that group. If I was, I'd have multiple builds, procmonster builds, builds made specifically for exemplaring, etc, etc. I get it. I don't get making a ridiculously easy game that's losing population left and right easier as the goal of getting more players when we've tried that and it's failed.

Wrong again and you're not the first person today to accuse me of such. I want buffs as much as I want nerfs. Regen should be buffed. Broadsword and Battleaxe should be buffed. Devices should be buffed. Kheldians should be buffed. Again, quit with your lying, liar.

Of my 60+ characters, every single one of them would be able to increase DPS if they didn't have to choose existing prereqs for pool powers. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Quit your damn lying.

I ran a swipe-only/invul scrapper from 1 to 50 without AE. We can all play this game as we see fit. We can all refuse to follow common knowledge. Those asking for builds *could* make the builds themselves. They *could* read about builds and test them on their own and come up with their own plans and read and understand everything about this game's mechanics. There is NO system in place blocking knowledge and advancement in this game to anyone. To put it another way, there's nothing I can do in this game that you can't do and more. And I've seen the more countless times over and over because I *choose* to limit my builds in my way. So, no... I'm not swayed that there's some mass of players that actually need this change or even needed movement powers at level 4. That was a poorly thought out change and should be reverted. I'm with Rudra... standardize the pools, yes, all of them, and make T3-T4 powers available at 14.

I don't disagree that it would benefit the casual player more but I have to disagree that it'd be an overall benefit to the game and the player population on the whole. Mostly because I seriously doubt the majority of us playing this game now can be considered casuals as was defined in the olden days, the before the snap time. Edit: casual not causal

That isn't being utilized especially by the "more casual players." So why introduce more power creep, not just with this suggestion but with every balance question, when the majority aren't using said power creep for the heightened difficulty content? Edit: And if we're wondering, yes, the devs could datamine this to determine how often the new diff levels are being used when folks choose to run the Aeon SF and even how often it's run at all.

I get it. I honestly do get it. My 1st D&D campaign was at around 10 yrs old in the early 80s. I was GMing by 12. I played the Champions PnP. And Gamma World. And Vamp t Masq. Fun is important but I wasn't going to let my D&D players use Wish to bypass the entire campaign I spent months designing.

There's the rub. None of us can agree. It would be helpful to us all if this game's devs would decide where the balance point should be so that we can all assist them in getting there but even they can't decide where it is.

This is a good post. My only answer is that game design should take everything into account. It should nerf when nerfs are warranted, it should buff the same. It should rid itself of bad decisions in the past and make better decisions in the future. It should avoid the pitfalls that the history of game design has taught us and utilize that which we've learned along the way. It's a TALL damn order and I don't envy the folks that have taken it on.

Dodge it is. Got it. What's irrelevant to you is irrelevant to me.

What's really bizarre is I know this and still have only done it once. I never said I was smart.

When I'm going for the TFC badge, I usually run the TFs at +0/x1 and solo them after finalizing the lvl 50 build and exemplaring down. Almost always takes less time than dealing with teams. Manticore with 3 AVs to take down being a possible exception.

Pylon performance shows performance against AVs, EBs, Monsters and GMs. It's not like figuring out and building for one's pylon time is useless. Regardless, as much as you'd obviously like to dodge the facts, given the OP's request, if I can skip boxing/tough, I can choose a power to replace it that will improve my DPS. Do you have a valid counterpoint or will you continue dodging the facts?

Semi-fair. But backed by 280% recharge (110 global, 70 hasten, 100 rounded enhancement) you're down to 23, 23 and 71 seconds. And then tack on any other mitigation clicks you might take on. Vs, say, SR where I click PB once every 120 seconds when hasten recycles. Edit: I should really notate some things here. I obviously dig bio but when I'm playing it, (damn, forgot my fire/bio sent and he's one of my mains!!!) I click Ablative as soon as it's up, DNA Siphon every time I'm low on health (or end in the Sent's case) and if Parasitic Aura is up for a fresh spawn, it's my alpha absorb. The set is VERY clicky for me. Your mileage may vary.

Come to think on it over a smoke, were I able to drop Box/Kick, I'd also drop CJ and then take Maneuvers/Assault. End cost of those 2 is .07 less than CJ/FA for more defense and a more constant damage buff. Edit: And buff the entire team should I choose to team. Edit2: But no power creep here, folks!

Regardless, the question was can I drop boxing/tough and pick one other power to increase my DPS. The answer is yes.

Generally speaking while solo I run barrier. If teamed, I run ageless or rebirth unless I think the team will benefit more from me staying on barrier. Regardless, I'd have to be able to test the theory properly with or without ageless to see what happens. I suspect, based on the thousands of pylons I've killed in my life, that my current build without ageless would be able to sustain the added end cost of FA as long as I stay in single target mode as would be the case on a pylon run.

No clue. But I suspect a +100% damage buff for 5.25 sec at 1PPM checking every 10 seconds would have some tangible effect. I'm sure someone smarter than me has already figured out the average +DPS from it.

Sure. As I'm pool locked to Fighting, Leaping, Flight, Speed and Body Mastery, I drop boxing and take focused accuracy and stick the Guassian CFBU in it. Conserve Power and the Perf Shifter CF+end (edit: in Phys Perf) cover the end cost. Edit2: And if that doesn't cover the end cost, since we're talking pylon times, I swap ageless core for barrier core and cover the end cost AND get rid of that .17 pause between chains that I have now. DPS goes up.

Yea. I have an nrg/bio/soul scrapper, a dark/bio scrapper, a bio/claws tank, a claws/bio scrapper, a stone/bio brute, a mace/bio scrapper, a bio/rad tank, and a staff/bio scrapper. While it's just as clicky as regen, I'm just not stupid enough to call it a regen set. Since it's not a regen set. Edit: That would be like calling SR a resist based set because it has scaling resists. Or Inv a defense set because of Invincibility. Ya know, really stupid comments like that.

How exactly is a powerset with two absorption powers, damres, defense and a heal a regen powerset? It has... 2 powers that grant +regen?

Had it as my sig line for a while: CoH is the ONLY game where I've given a shit about the underlying math. I still don't know why that is but I do know it's part of the reason I still play it.

Not for speed runs of ITF. That's +0. Clear alls? Hell yea, +4 all the way.

I run followup, focus, slash, repeat with my claws/sr. It requires 313% total recharge in followup to work. My followup only has 99.88 slotted and 186.25 global for a total of 286.13 with another 10% coming from Time Lord's Boon for 296.13 and a pause of .17 seconds. Slash is slotted with 5 Hecatomb and the Achilles' Heel procs. Focus is slotted with 5 Apocalypse and the Glad Javelin toxic proc. Followup is slotted with a full set of Sup Crit Strikes. This build has a 2:45 average pylon time. What's yours? I'm not chasing procs as shown above but I am chasing defense and recharge. One LotG +rech in CJ works out well. I have this on zero characters. Odd, considering that SL covers the majority of incoming damage. Yup. Have it on all my SRs.

My apologies to everyone for using it. Bad analogy is bad.