Omega-202

My apologies, you are correct on the taoes and pbaoes being 10. I think it just feels more like 5 on Fire Sword Circle and Fire Cages because the areas are so small.

Can definitely run the pylon test without pets, but lets establish some ground rule comparisons here: that 400 DPS is using a proc'd out build (Dr buzzard is complaining that IOs shouldn't factor in because 'Crabberminds are too expensive') and also utilizes APPs (Dr buzzard refused to take PPPs). So again, seems like you guys are comparing the gimped version of something to a competently built version of something. And I will concede that in a single target, petless DPS sprint, a Crab may not be mathematically superior to a top tier Sentinel, so I may have overstated. It may be possible, so I'm willing to try, but single target DPS is probably the weakest part of a Crab. But compare every other metric. AoE, Crabs have a larger target cap, more AoE attacks and Venom Grenade. They don't need a nuke to wipe a full group because a full AoE attack chain drops everything in 2-3 cycles. Even Fire^3 Sentinels take multiple cycles to take out a full group when each attack only hits 5 targets. Durability, show me Sentinel builds that cruise at defense cap with 50-60% resist across the board on top, and a self heal/HP boost. Group support, Sentinels maybe have an APP power and their resist debuffs while VEATs are walking force multipliers. Venom Grenade replicates the Sentinel inherent in an AoE. Again, I'm just trying to advocate for Sentinels to get a boost because they are in a rough spot.

Cool, so we're comparing gimped versions of things to other things now to try and make a point. I'm not going to try and convince you that Crabs are objectively better than Sentinels at being "Sentinels", even at low effort IO levels because you don't seem to want to know. The fact is they mathematically and in practice are superior at literally everything a Sentinel does and then add pets on top of it. I have the experience to back it up. I'd love to see Sentinels brought up to par. But they are solidly far behind Crabs, even without pets.

There's a lot of issues with this statement. a) Honoree has high resists to all but negative energy and toxic. You won't be doing much less damage with lethal than with smashing, psi, energy, fire or cold. b) Good Crabs don't actually rely on a lot of lethal damage. You have Longfang and Frag Grenade and the Spiderling attacks. Suppression, Channelgun, Omega Maneuver, and Disruptor pet attacks are all Energy. Venom Grenade is Toxic and gives you a -20% resist to all and a bonus -40% to toxic. Your ATO global proc is toxic. None of the PPP options are lethal damage. So I'm not seeing where this "mostly lethal damage" is coming from. It's probably about 1/4 of your damage. If you had issues with Honoree, the issue is with you or your build, not Crabs or lethal damage.

I apologize if this has come up already, but what if Sentinels were rebuilt to reflect the AT that basically does what they do, but better already? I'm talking about VEATs. VEATs have 1.0 damage vs Sentinel's 0.95 and all 4 branches can hit higher HP and defensive numbers. Hell, my Crab out tanks most Brutes and some Tankers. So up Sentinel offense to 1.0, up their HP base and cap, up their defenses to the full Scrapper/Brute/Stalker 0.75. And then to reflect the Sentinel "theme" give Sentinels four inherent toggles that are essentially boosted versions of Assault, Tactics, Maneuvers and a +Res equivalent, each being mutually exclusive. Numbers can be futzed with during testing. Thematically, the Sentinel would be a "guard" that has different modes. Spotting enemies for the team, bolstering the defenses when under attack and leading the countercharge.

Scrapper damage scale is 1.125, not 1.0. Stalkers, Blaster secondaries and VEATs are at 1.0. So putting Sentinels at 1.0 while retaining some sort of secondary mechanic, like a reworked -res would still put them only about in line with VEATs in terms or ranged damage dealing. I don't disagree though that they'd wouldn't still be lackluster if they just got bumped up 0.5 in damage.

...which was started by quoting my comment which referred specifically to Golstat's post. Obviously you just want someone to argue with over literally nothing. Go have yourself a nice night and I hope what ever is bugging you gets better.

Solarverse was responding to my comment on Golstat's post responding to AWOL. If they meant to comment on AWOL, then they did not make that clear in any way.

Golstat did respond. What are YOU talking about exactly? Honestly, what is wrong with people on these forums recently? Nobody seems to be here to discuss and everyone seems like they're looking for an argument. Chill the hell out.

See their above response. They meant the exact opposite of what you just said.

I admit, maybe not the only interpretation but that's how I read it. The bolded part indicated that they didn't want to feel reliant on a specific AT composition. I take that as wanting to feel self-reliant and not needing to depend on having specific support structures to function as a team. Kind of like being Superman as a part of the Justice League where everyone is pretty self sufficient, as opposed to Hawkeye who is kind of niche.

Some people prefer the option to play a superhero game where they feel like Superman, not Hawkeye. Weird concept right?

Mine sort of is with his. He stated that pre-market wealth accumulation was a major factor that lead to later systemic inflation, while I am arguing that the pre-market wealth was a blip that washed out very quickly and had very minimal long term impact. I don't think that either of us can easily prove our case one way or the other, and he didn't seem to actually read what I said, so I'm not going to discuss it any further.

You seem to have misunderstood me utterly and completely. I never said farming didn't go up. I said that the "slosh" and accumulated pre-market wealth wasn' to blame for the increase in it. The fact that there was now a market caused the increase, but the accumulayed wealth didn't have any real effect in the long run. Please actually read whats typed instead of getting snippy. Are you just looking for an argument?

We're discussing drop throttling in this thread, which has nothing to do with running TF completions. When "farming" is being discussed in this thread, its obvious from context that its referring to mob drops. Nobody is going to dispute that farming your way doesn't increase supply, but you have to read the conversation in context.

I'm not sure I buy that it drove the popularity of farming up. Farming is farming. It'll happen in any MMO, even here on HC where everything is super plentiful. I don't think the "slosh" did anything to increae or decrease the rate of farming. Also, ok, the "slosh" happened over the first 1-6 months. And then prices continued to rise for years after all of that old inf had already been washed from the economy. The prices would have gotten to the same point eventually either way. I feel like we can all have an economics discussion forever on this, and I'm not arguing that the pre-market accumulation didn't have an effect when the market opened, but I don't think that the prices would have been any different 2-3 years after the opening of the market if all inf was instead set to zero on day 1. Numina's would still have been 100 mil at the close of live.

Don't know who you're writing that in response to, but there is a kernel of truth to that for certain drops. There are a lot of high demand items in the economy that farming does not produce, or does so at a disproportionately smaller rate than the rate that it injects influence into the economy. Quick example: running TFs or Oro arcs can net a purple's worth of merits in about 30-40 mins. Farming for 30-40 does not, on average, get you a purple, as shown in one of the older purple drop rate research threads. Therefore, farming is injecting vast amounts of currency into the system at a disproportionate rate to the drop supply of purples it is producing. Even worse for things like Hami-Os, some of which are in low supply / high demand and climbing in price. No amount of farming is going to drop a Hami. Sure, farming is why ATOs are relatively plentiful and standard uncommon and rare IOs are 0.5-5 mil instead of the 100 mil from live but you can't pretend that it doesn't also drive up the price on certain items.

I think you're all talking in circles. Inflation is a trend, an increase in price and decrease in per unit purchasing power. By definition, it can't happen "all at once". It has to be over time. So day 1 of IOs and the 2 bil per character is irrelevant to the argument. The issue was that despite all of the accrued wealth, prices for high value IOs only ever went up for years. That meant that supply of inf increased disproportionately to the rate of drops for high value IOs, especially ones that only dropped from certain activities (TF end random rolls, mission end, PVP). That imbalance was directly attributable to farming.

Ok, you're trolling now with the lack of self awareness. The reason for the inflation was the farming. THATS why they tried to curb the farming: to curb the inflation. Farming screws with the economy of MMOs, because they aren't designed around it and it means non-farmers get pressed out of the market. Again, I don't care if they remove the drop lock out, but you don't seem to understand anything about why it exists or how it could have a purpose. It makes taking your suggestion seriously very difficult.

lol, "normal" As if that is not exactly what the system was designed to prevent. For the record, I'm not against removing it, but please take a step back and evaluate the lack of self awareness in you comment.

See snipe change patch notes above.

Suppression has a much larger cone arc than Heavy Burst. That's about it. But you can definitely use both if you want. Single shot and Burst have faster animations than Channelgun and Longfang. The only benefit to Channelgun over Single shot is that it is energy damage instead of lethal damage, which is more commonly resisted. Otherwise, the longer backpack animations do give you an extra few percent of proc chance for any slotted procs, but its not so much that you could consider it an advantage, just more of a mitigating factor. I run the backpack attacks for thematic reasons and because I have Longfang slotted with triple procs. I rarely use Channelgun. You will still be fine with either gun or backpack.

Like others have said, the tools are there to play "the old way", you just need to go make your own teams with like minded players. The issue isn't the new ATs, the issue is power creep. You want roles to matter? Run Synapse or Moonfire or Tarkoss or some Oro arcs at +4 without IOs. Make a thread on the boards looking for others that want to do the same. In my experience though, a lot of people like the new meta. People want to feel like a superhero and to them, that often means feeling like Superman or Ironman and not Daredevil. The rushing from group to group experience feels more superhero-y, where its not about you being in danger, but more about "how fast can I thwart the villains before they do more harm to the city?". For me, I want a standard mission to feel like the Avengers Age of Ultron opening scene. Yes, Hawkeye got hurt, but the rest of the Avengers were basically operating as walking gods, mowing through Hydra as fast as possible. To me, that's what standard lvl 50 content should feel like, with tougher threatening fights being the finale of an arc or TF. I think some of the standard lvl 50 standby's do that well (ITF at +4, Apex, Lady Grey, MLTF, LRTF).

Yes, its called "mystic flight". It's a totally different power, so you need to use the right name.

Beast Run/Ninja Run + Jump Pack from the P2W, with Sprint and Mental Training (and a smattering of IO bonus run/jump speeds) will get you plenty far. My Crab doesn't have any travel powers, but Beast+Sprint+MT+IO bonuses means I usually outrun straight fliers without Afterburner, and keep pace with SJers. I've even run him through all of the Shadow Shard TFs and hes always been fine. You can always buy temporary jetpacks from the P2W if the Jump Pack isn't cutting it for you. They're pretty cheap in the grand scheme and you can keep up to 8 hours of charge.