tidge
-
Posts
5931 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
21
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Store
Articles
Patch Notes
Posts posted by tidge
-
-
Writing only for myself: I find it pretty crazy what some characters can produce in terms of raw damage in a limited period of time if I push them well into the red and don't mind "burning green" (i.e. Health). Having a self-rez available on the order of every 90 seconds (because of Global recharge, and what-not) beyond things like Barrier, Rune of Protection, Inspirations, blah blah blah fishcakes is just one more piece of a puzzle to make playing certain characters more enjoyable.
My only regret is that if it is Rise of the Phoenix from an Epic pool, the self-rez comes pretty late for my tastes. Unrelenting can be had much earlier, but its power pool is much less satisfactory and is something of an acquired taste.
-
1
-
-
8 minutes ago, TheMultiVitamin said:
For reference, I did try doing this initially before making the suggestion of being able to unattune enhancements. I had about 150 inf. sitting around as a result of just getting attuned IO's as I leveled. About halfway through unslotting and selling my attuned and buying level 50 versions, I was down to about 4mil inf. and wouldn't have been able to continue going. Eventually decided to spend a few hours doing converter roulette to get my funds back up and just switch them back to attuned purely due to wanting to be able to play with my lower level friend and still be effective.
My fundamental point, which I think you are missing is this: There would be an equivalent cost for the mechanism you propose, because the powers that be don't give away anything for (essentially) free. I get the sense you think this new magical de-attuner would be extremely plentiful and essentially no-cost. I can't imagine that would be the case.
Some points for a new-ish player:
1) Respecs are abundant and cheap. A respec can be used to unslot ALL of your enhancements.
Writing only for myself: I always do a respec at 50 to do exactly this. I often respec before 50 for all sorts of reasons as I am leveling up.
2) Enhancement Diversification puts a practical limit on how much benefit a character will get (at any level) for reasonably complete sets.
I can't immediately think of a set that is available before level 50 and scales all the way up to 50 for which using most of the pieces in the set don't pretty much put you at the point of diminishing returns by level 50, for all the attributes boosted by that set. Many of the Very Rare (50-only) attacks skimp on Endurance reduction, but generally 3 or more non-proc pieces will be "pretty excellent" without being boosted... so a majority of players who think about this simply keep attuned versions in a majority of cases.
3) The Advantages for boosting most attributes for most sets above 50 are marginal, thanks to Enhancement Diversification.
MOAR is absolutely MOAR. However: as someone who will often boost all non-proc pieces of a very-rare set used in a long recharge attack, sometimes the extra ends up being practically insginificant... such as a potential 1 point more damage on an attack that is otherwise doing hundreds of points of damage.
You should be able to see this in MIDS, if you are using it.
I'm not going to tell a player what enhancements they must use, or what content they must play. I do feel that (A) if you are playing 50+ content, almost nobody (including the game engine) will be able to tell the different between a character using all Attuned and all Boosted enhancements, and (B) As a player, you will definitely feel a drop in performance for content below level 45 if instead of attuned pieces you have all 50+5 pieces, unless all those pieces are from Very Rare or PVP sets, because those will always scale down (as will pieces from sets that are always attuned, like those from Overwhelming Force, Winter, and ATO sets).
Finally: If a player never/rarely exemplars down, then that player will miss the opportunity to play in a lot of the weekly strike forces, which offer some great rewards specifically for level 50 characters.
-
4 hours ago, UltraAlt said:
So you couldn't complete this by simply running level 50 scanner missions in Peregrine Island then - is that correct?
There are minimally 2 villains in the Level 50 PI Safeguard mission. One is robbing the bank, the other is in a jail cell.
Blue siders can (now) get 1 villain from the first Who Will Die? arc from Theoden, which is much more convenient, although running it 25 times in a row might be tiresome... but it is a low level arc.
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, TheMultiVitamin said:
One of the common things I do is just playing with my friends while they go through the story and game, generally on a much lower level, as both me and my friends don't power level or farm, which means leveling to 50 can take us weeks to a month to achieve. Attuned enhancements make this a non-issue because, well, they're attuned. However for certain characters once I hit 50 I do want to switch them out to non-attuned IO's. Doing so however involves me unslotting and selling my attuned ones. The reason I don't just put my attuned ones into storage and buy new unattuned IO's is because I don't have much funds in the first place to do so, and I'd really rather not do converter roulette to get the funds for enhancements that, by my logic, I already own but are just attuned. Alongside that, selling my attuned ones to buy non-attuned ones generally isn't a 1-to-1 process so I'll lose tons of Inf. in the process and have to do converter roulette as a result anyway for stuff that I technically already own.
For now I just don't bother with getting 50's and stick to attuned because it's way too much of a pain to do the switch. But detuners or being able to use catalysts to un-attune enhancements would make the process much less painful and fund intensive.The question of (lack of) funds doesn't make that much sense to me if:
- A player already owns the attuned versions
- A player is already funding that character's unslotters
- A player is already funding that character's boosters
A respec can be used to pull out a LOT of the pieces (up to the limit of a character's Enhancement trays), but Boosting even a significant fraction of the enhancements isn't cheap. If all of the above are true, I don't consider that character to be "poor" either in terms of Inf or Merits.
Realistically, take a look at the following:
- The drop rate for Catalysts (1-per-day for level 50s)
- The drop rate for boosters (these don't drop AFAIK)
- The Market cost for boosters, catalysts, unslotters
- The Market cost for Recipes/Salvage and level 50 crafted recipes
- The merit vendor cost of boosters, catalysts, unslotters and recipes (which can be purchased at whatever level they exist at)
The ask for a new type of item "turn this attuned piece into a level 50 plz" is NOT somehow going to be rolled out as cheaper or easier to obtain than what already exists.
The ask for this new type of item is unnecessary, because:
- The marketplace is full of level 50 pieces of the exact type you want
- The marketplace is full of people willing to buy the attuned versions of those pieces from you
- The merit vendor allows you to buy recipes for whatever (craftable) piece you want
- The merit vendor also sells catalysts and boosters
- Catalysts and boosters are available to be purchased/sold in the marketplace
This request appears to me to strictly be one that asks for something new, that would very likely be complicated to implement (in code, in the market/vendor, in whatever content might drop it packs/days) for an extremely niche convenience. It absolutely would be a convenience, but so would automatic +5 booster pieces. We didn't get those, but we kinda got close with a minor change to the interface.
-
54 minutes ago, WuTang said:
Ok... So next question... I only have one Brute with SR, but I understand it's mechanics now and it is nigh unkillable. BUT with a Tanker would I be better off with a damage aura to take advantage of the increased targets and AOE damage? Am I wrong...but I think all the damage auras are on resist set, right? Which brings me to... Resist vs. Def
A little bit of Column A (Defense) and a little bit of Column B (Resistance) is usually the best choice. Without DDR, defenses will eventually fall (when fighting huge enemies). IMO the real advantage of Tankers when it comes to Resistances is that they have a HUGE pool of HP (which can be pretty straightforward to boost) so incorporating something like Scaling Damage Resistance can make a Tanker a LOT harder to defeat when the green bar is below 90%. This is probably what you are seeing on the SR Brute, as SR Tankers are the same. Absorb is a complicating factor for this sort of thinking, but generally it is a very positive feature for Tankers (again, because of the base Health).
"Immortal" Tanker builds got slightly more complicated when the damage typing was changed on Homecoming, but from my PoV it only really affected the "lololololol I got my muh S/L to 137%" builds. I exaggerate, I suppose.
The only Tanker Armor I wouldn't recommend as a first Tanker is Dark Armor. It is notorious for its toggles and Endurance cost, and it doesn't have any inherent knockback resistance/protection which can be problematic for its self-heal PBAoE. There is at least one toggle that is terrible (Cloak of Fear, primarily because of the base accuracy), and others that require some investment to make worthwhile (Oppressive Gloom, and to some extent also Death Shroud). This is not to say that a full-kit 50 can't make the entire suite of Dark Armor work, I've got a couple of different Dark Armor ATs. But it is a weirdly complicated set that will always have some sort of issue while leveling up. Plus you will never get to see your costume!
-
1
-
-
2 hours ago, OEM61 said:
The exploration badges within the safeguard zones.
Only way I knew how to get those would be to tag along with someone doing those safeguard missions.
As I said, I am not good with asking people for stuff, so I was thinking I would have to just hang out and wait for someone to offer up slots in the safeguard missions in all of the appropriate zones.
The other ones (Bomb Squad, Interceptor, etc.) I thought that I could pick up after enough repetition in any safeguard, but the exploration badges I would have to be in the specific safeguards, so bye-bye 50, hello re-roll.
I had a hard time seeing myself just sitting in AP waiting until someone offered up a safeguard, and then moving to KR and repeating, and SC and repeating, and...
But you have provided some potentially educational links, so I will read up on those later on (about to hit the rack).
Thank you for the links.The exploration badges for both Hero and Villain Safeguard/Mayhem ALL ZONES are all part of what you can get at level 50 by using the contacts @Rudra mentioned.
Thankfully, a somewhat recent patch established that for certain defeats it is easier to get appropriate credit: previously it was only certain enemies in Safeguard/Mayhem, and some oddball missions like on the Khan TF and the Brickstown "Who Will Die?" that counted.
For level 50s, i believe that the highest level safeguard/mayhem offers content for all of the possible Mayhem/Safeguard badges: Blue has A jailbreak, arson, shop, weapons deal, Red has its versions, plus PPD Civilians, a vault door (natch), etc. A level 50 could repeat those missions to unlock the needed contacts, but it was a bit of a PITA before that (somewhat recent) change.
-
1
-
-
I don't have a "boosted build", except in one case where I explicitly wanted a little bit MOAR on a Tanker... and that is a second build for only 50+ content (although it would work the same down to 45 I suppose).
I do have characters that use attuned pieces while leveling up, and at level 50 I pull them out and use level 50s that get boosted... which is what I *think* @TheMultiVitamin is saying he does, possibly to a far greater extent than I do. I sometimes swap in level 50s of PVP pieces that won't get boosted... but only if I have extras of them around, because the attuned pieces become available for future characters, This is a minor, wasteful, thing I do with certain recipes. I could of course play converter roulette with them, and sometimes I do, to get things like Shield Wall Defense pieces or Gladiator's Armor Resistance pieces to become 50+5.
What I was describing in my earlier post are the times when there are some pieces I slot as attuned to use when leveling up, because I don't want to think about them. When I eventually hit 50, those pieces will become boosted level 50+5 pieces.
An example is a power like Surveillance. It has a base Accuracy of 1.0 and a base recharge time of 45 seconds. In my calculus, I want that power to recharge faster (because it is a -20% Resistance Debuff)and I want some Accuracy. The only pieces that offer me both Accuracy and Recharge (in combination) are in the Analyze Weakness (the "goes to 50" Accurate Defense Debuff) set so I typically invest two slots of Accuracy/Recharge and Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge to do better than what I'd get from just an Accuracy IO and a Recharge IO. Those two slots get me pretty much what I want from a single-target debuff, and the set bonus of +10% Regeneration is not something I'll miss below level 45... so the attuned pieces I use while leveling may as well become Level 50+5 pieces.
Another place where I've sometimes applied this sort of thinking is when using 3 pieces of Luck of the Gambler, because the regeneration and health bonuses are kinda meh below 45. YMMV. I'll keep the global recharge piece attuned, but if the power the set is in has an otherwise significant Defense portion and needs a little Endurance reduction, I'll boost the Defense and Defense/Endurance pieces to 50+5. If I really didn't care about the set bonus at all I'd probably slot Hami-O (if I needed Endurance savings) or 2x Defense IOs (if I didn't) <- I've done all four combinations (all attuned same set, mixed attuned/50+5 same set, mixed LotG + Hami-O, mixed LotG + IOs) on different powers for different characters.
-
1
-
-
35 minutes ago, Rudra said:
Please don't speak in absolutes. Every character I have that has a self-rez in their power set also has the self-rez. And I'm not the only person that does so.
Just to echo the words of Senator Rudra, I also tend to take the self-rez powers. There are times when I want to live on the edge of the knife, and other times when I want to live on the tip of the knife.
-
1
-
2
-
-
1 hour ago, Rudra said:
I'm curious now. Are there players that slot boosted IOs that ever exemplar? Everyone I know of that uses boosted IOs rather than attuned IOs never exemplar.
1 hour ago, Psyonico said:I don't slot them everywhere, but at certain times I use Boosted instead of attuned and I exemplar all the time.
I also boost level 50 enhancement pieces (that aren't Very Rare, PVP or IOs)... it is pretty much for:
- Franken-slotting, such that there was not going to be an enhancement set bonus anyway
- Sets that will only have a few pieces, don't have a viable Hami-O or D-Sync alternative, and I don't really care about any enhancement set bonus below level 45.
There aren't many in the second category, but the same ones keep appearing in certain builds.
-
I find the detuner suggestion to be slightly more than niche, and possibly troublesome (but not too much) because of PVPs... we can effectively 'detune' and leverage the auction house to turn an attuned piece into a level 50 non-attuned piece, because of bucketing. There is the vig of course. If a character was somehow totally short on cash for the vig (and unslotters I suppose) I'm not sure how they'd be able to afford this new salvage piece and boosters.
-
The blue side Tip missions which I remember pretty much always being in specific zones:
The level 20-29 Desdemona mission is in Talos Island (9 times out of 10).
The level 40-50 Mister Phipps mission is in Independence Port (9 times out of ten) at the same helicopter.
The Ghost Widow Vigilante Morality mission (40-50) is often in Peregrine Island, at the same ship.
I want to say that there is another mission in the 20-29 range (blue side) which doesn't seem to have a set zone, but often will be in a different zone from wherever I take it.
-
2 hours ago, biostem said:
I was specifically referring to the critique that taunt may not be available to a tanker at the minimum level for Posi 1.
I excluded reference to Posi 1 when I wrote this (my first mention of low level TFs).
13 hours ago, tidge said:For me: Taunt is expected, and I expect it to be taken before level 20. In a classic blue-side experience, I strongly dislike being on PUG and it isn't being used by Tankers on the Posi 2 or Synapse TFs. I will grant that some tankers may not quite have the suite of powers to handle all the damage than can come from some of those TFs (Toxic, especially), but I think it is pretty bad to see a "But my auras grab aggro fine when I solo" Tanker run past a bunch of critters that will turn on the rest of the teammates PDQ.
-
2 minutes ago, biostem said:
Sure. Set it to -1 if the team is struggling. Change tactics. Trying to play something like Posi 1 the same way you'd play 50+ content isn't the answer...
I believe you mean well, but this sort of advice offers very little in a thread questioning whether or not to take (or not take) Taunt on a Tanker. This advice is applicable for solo play (any AT) or on teams without Tankers.
-
1 minute ago, biostem said:
Guess that low level team will have to stick to single groups and/or maybe even pull then...
There *are* ambushes, and of course things happen.
-
27 minutes ago, biostem said:
I mean, both tankers and brutes have a taunt effect baked into their regular attacks, and, perhaps, a team with such low-level characters present shouldn't be trying to take on an entire room full of multiple spawns, at once...
Punchvoke is a thing, but at low levels, those attacks aren't going to be super effective (fewer slots, less likely to have set bonuses, smaller enhancement values).
EDIT: If we are talking about characters that are exemplared down and also have a bunch of set bonuses... that is not the point I was raising when I first mentioned Posi 2 and Synapse. Even being exemplared down such that a character has more rows of inspirations makes more of a difference than any one player on a low level TF.
-
6 hours ago, Erratic1 said:
Posi 1 can be joined at level 8, before Taunt is available. Posi 2 can be joined at level 11, which given Taunt comes at level 10, means it might not yet have been taken in lieu of key offense and defense powers.
If a character is exemplared, and the TF is run by a higher level player, there is more opportunity to have picked Taunt for those TFs.
If a character is running a true-level Tanker at the minimum for Posi 1 or 2, that character is unlikely to have the slots or enhancements to handle the aggro of a room without Taunt.
-
2 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:
WTF are they running to?
Fore example: On Positron, there are several maps which include multiple spawns off-to-the-side (minions and Lts) of entrances with larger spawns are up ahead further in the room. I routinely see players jump to that first, more obvious spawn while ignoring those closer to the entrance. This sort of map construction isn't uncommon, but it is on every Posi 2.
I'm far less of a stickler for having Taunt on Posi 1, just because of the level requirement... but there are maps and encounters in that TF that demand players pay attention.
-
1 minute ago, srmalloy said:
There are a fair number of alignment tip missions that will send you to other zones; Atlas Park and Independence Port are the two I've gotten repeatedly.
Blue side also has the level 20-30 mission which is almost always in Talos... but these are the exceptions. See the post by @Rudra mentioning higher-level red-side. I often out-level the red-side 20-30 (there is just too much fun content red-side in this range to do many alignment missions!) but I do recall being sent from Sharkhead to either both Port Oakes and/or Cap Au Diable via a TIP mission (that wasn't the unlock for Mortimer Kal).
-
I've created multiple characters with same AT/primary/secondary but very rarely, and only because the later character has a concept that IMO fits best with the "repeat" choice of AT/primary/secondary. Obviously having more than four VEATs an HEATs more-or-less force this circumstance upon players.
Specific to melee characters, my thinking is that whatever the new concept is, I can probably roll it as any of Scrapper/Stalker/Tanker. I tend to avoid Brutes, I'm just not crazy about the Fury mechanic... although I have a Savage Scrapper that I am considering re-rolling as a Brute because it already "feels" very much like a Brute. Because each of the melee classes can be made to provide both offense and to be able to survive, for me it comes down to specific power picks and progression in the primary/secondary.
-
1 minute ago, Glacier Peak said:
My Tanker had to make some significant power and slot investments to make Fold Space happen. I love the power too, but I ended up respecing out of it after realizing I already had the tools in the toolbox so to speak. Fold Space is still an amazing power!
Oh yeah, Fold Space can be a fun power. I particularly like that it feels like a pretty good "capstone" power for a power pool set. At some point in Homecoming, I got the point where I was taking Combat Teleport on the way to Fold Space, and that Combat Teleport was more than enough of an "extra trick" to get and keep control of most rooms and to rescue teammates in trouble.
I tend to be slightly anti-evangelical about Fold Space, probably because of the necessary power (and slot) investment it requires for a "trick" that Tankers can pretty much do anyway using just Tanker tools. Sure there can be a circumstance where immobilized or knocked back mobiles may not be standing toe-to-toe with a Tanker, but IMO that's mostly an old-school sort of thinking about herding mobiles for long recharge AoE attacks. MMV of course. The necessary investment in pool choices to get Fold Space has the side effect of limiting what else a player can pick from other power pools and/or Epic sets which also require pre-requisite choices. My guess is that many Tankers with Fold Space also choose to invest in Hasten, which can allow for some optimization of attack chains but that approach to builds feels quite restrictive to me. Those would be two pool picks, and four powers... and the possibility that the travel power (of there is one!) is either Teleport or Super Speed... which for me are my last and second-to-last choices of travel powers... I do use them (rarely), but I disfavor them.
-
1
-
-
21 minutes ago, WuTang said:
@tidge I've never taken it on any build, except for the build I made for my son's Brute. I have to admit the ranged aggro magnet looks pretty handy since he can pull without having to change position, and he can also "drag" mobs with him as he passes for an even bigger murder ball.
There is also the -Range effect that Taunt has on mobs, which can be an extra help for teammates. There are some enemies where the Tanker wants aggro but doesn't want to be in melee range; for example Clamor, who puts an AoE debuff on a player that can make nearby teammates (such as other melee types) extremely vulnerable.
This is my experience (with teammates of varying levels of skill, powers, and enhancement choices): My Tankers are always switching targets (for Taunt and 'punchvoke') and are often very mobile (to get to those stray enemies that may be bothering teammates). The Tanker AoE volume makes it pretty easy to keep attention at the aggro cap with almost all enemy spawns by simply moving a relatively small amount,.. and this takes a lot fewer power choices than Fold Space does! Taunt can make it so that the Tanker barely has to move, if the fight is going to take some time. It also works on enemies that may have been immobilized by an AoE Control.
The Tanker Taunt is also a low endurance auto-hit, so it is never "wasted", and by investing just a few slots in it (I often go 6x Mocking Beratement) the duration and recharge times will be such that the Tanker could be at the aggro cap without ever throwing a punch or laying down a patch, or trying to aura-grab, or whatever.
-
1
-
-
9 hours ago, Dev Unitas said:
Typically broad-touch level scaling in games does the opposite of what it sets out to achieve, because most players follow the crowd, and the crowd follows the lead, and the lead will usually seek out optimal play. It also robs the implicit sense of progression that comes from moving from one space to the next. If we were to implement this, I would predict 80-90% of radio groups would take place in one zone- whichever they determine is the most optimal for radio missions in that setup. Suddenly, the devs have a motivation to try and bring all radio missions in all zones on par with eachother - a colossal effort that also increases homogeneity as a result.
The above was part of the response that I found particularly insightful. It echoes the old Matt Miller statement about (some) players always seeking the easiest path to the most rewards for the least effort.
Personally: When I am looking for a quick mission to fight a lot of enemies (x8) with a level 50 I almost always choose a morality mission over a radio/newspaper mission. A lot of the reasoning for my choice is that the eventual alignment missions are something I find rewarding (for merits, as well as for the content), but I also like being able to run )most of them) them in zones I choose. There are definitely zones that are smaller/easier to navigate in than others!
9 hours ago, biostem said:What if a contact in each zone could basically exemplar/malefactor you to the max level of that zone, thereby allowing you to run said radio/newspaper missions as normal? Unless you turn off XP, you are going to outlevel lower level zones before you do all the content, there, forgot the aforementioned radio/newspaper missions...
Aside from the Safeguard/Mayhem options, my experience has been that the Newspaper/Radio missions all pretty much the exact same content for all levels but with different enemy groups (and sometimes dialogue strings), one of:
- Defeat Boss and Guards
- Click Glowie (and defeat Boss spawn)
- Escort NPC
- "heist" / "investigate heist"
-
28 minutes ago, WuTang said:
To taunt or not to taunt...
Expected of a Tanker or fine without?
For me: Taunt is expected, and I expect it to be taken before level 20. In a classic blue-side experience, I strongly dislike being on PUG and it isn't being used by Tankers on the Posi 2 or Synapse TFs. I will grant that some tankers may not quite have the suite of powers to handle all the damage than can come from some of those TFs (Toxic, especially), but I think it is pretty bad to see a "But my auras grab aggro fine when I solo" Tanker run past a bunch of critters that will turn on the rest of the teammates PDQ.
Personally, I don't care if it is single-slotted, slotted with only a %Psi, of more completely filled... but to never hear a Taunt tossed in x8 content is embarrassing. It's just about as bad as playing with Sentinels and never seeing the Vulnerability target.
I can completely understand why some players wouldn't take Taunt: It does nothing directly for a Tanker's offense or defense, and it isn't passive (aside from possible enhancement set bonuses). Taunt is however, the premier method of aggro control, which is a core game mechanic. A solo Tanker might literally never notice a need for it.
I'll finish with this: The efforts I see some builds go through to include Fold Space on a Tanker build yet put Taunt on the "shrug, maybe" list of powers is to me a very confusing choice.
-
1
-
-
4 hours ago, Octogoat said:
Bane is a lot more interesting than a stalker imo I need to play a huntsman.
I made one of my three builds a Huntsman (years ago) and enjoyed it... except I was stuck with the crab legs on my costume. I recently decided to make a no-crab Huntsman. I decided to try something slightly different: I intended to use ONLY the gun attacks, and use melee attacks from the Fighting pool. I have NOT stuck with this plan (while leveling up).
First: I was not going to skip Placate... and I wasn't going to leverage the Presence pool... and Placate uses a mace. Once I was locked into having to show a mace, I figured "why bother with the Fighting pool?" when the Bane has a pretty good melee single-target and melee cone attack that synergizes with Placate. I can also add those into the build a lot more naturally (and more easily) than with the Fighting pool. I just wish I had a low-tech (a la Baseball Bat) option to use for the Mace!
I may eventually decide to use the second build to make a (weaker) version of the same character but strictly leveraging power pools for the Mace stuff. The build would be somewhat clunky, but I've gone to similar lengths for other "concept" characters.
-
1
-
A Couple QoL Suggestions
in Suggestions & Feedback
Posted
Are you sure they weren't talking about Incarnate powers? In many cases the extra effects of boosting sets of 3 or more Enhancements is extremely marginal. At two-or-fewer enhancements it is barely a set, and a pair of Hami-O might do the trick even better.
Besides, by the time a character is level 50, it can have up to 20 inspirations on hand at any given time.