DSorrow

For a really cheap and effective story arc soloer you should go with a Super Reflexes Tanker. It can get soft capped Defenses with no IO investment at all and with the smallest bit of investment you'll have a lot of freedom with your build. SR/Rad in particular should be very solid, because Rad gives you a small bit of sustain on top of good ST and AoE damage. A couple of IOs into Endurance management and you should be good to go. I have absolutely no doubts that a SR/Rad could also solo AVs, but for GMs you might want to roll something else.

Interesting. How does changing powersets interact with already slotted in enhancements and distributed slots?

I have no idea about the technical side of things (my bet is on it being really difficult), but besides that I don't see why it couldn't be implemented as another influence sink.

I might just be pedantic about the wording, but this is not at all what Hasten actually does. It gives you an additive seventy percent increase to your recharge rate, which is a completely different thing and far less powerful. As for the argument itself, I do agree that Hasten is extremely powerful in its current state and probably far too powerful for a pool power, but I don't think it would be a good call to nerf it for two reasons. One, it's available to all builds so it doesn't create a power gap between specific power sets within an AT or even a gap between two ATs. Two, it's only "needed" for ridiculous top of the line builds that comprise maybe 1% maximum of all characters. For anyone who wants the "classic perma Hasten", you can pretty easily get 70% global Rech from set bonuses and call it a day. The way I see it, nerfing Hasten would positively impact basically no one, unless you can somehow argue that making someone else's build perform worse is positive for you. It would neutrally impact the people who don't really use Hasten or just pick whatever is thematic for the character (I'd guess this is the majority of the player population), but it would negatively impact some of the most invested and vocal players. If we had a time machine, then changing Hasten back in I1 would be a great call, but at this point I think it would to do more harm than good. Right now, instead of looking at Hasten, I'd look at making some less used pool powers better. The reason people go for Speed/Fighting/Leadership/Travel a lot of the time isn't because all of those pools are extremely good like Hasten, but because pools like Concealment and Presence offer pretty much nothing besides being thematic for some character concepts. If we look at power pools in general, besides Hasten they mostly offer you weak attacks, some weak utility powers and weak defensive powers. Unlike the weak defensive powers, weak attacks and utility effects don't stack with your more powerful primary/secondary picks, they just replace them and overall make you weaker.

And how exactly would "roll a farmer and farm everything you need" be better in a scenario with account bound purples? You're still not playing your character, but what's worse is that you're not playing it for an undetermined amount of time because now you're at the mercy of RNG instead of being able to buy what you need at pretty deterministic prices. As for the suggestion itself, it's a /jranger for me. I don't think slowing things down with unnecessary RNG adds longevity, it just takes away player agency and adds frustration. Finally, I want to note that farming isn't the only efficient way to get geared up characters. I have 8 fully kitted out 50s and I haven't spent a minute in a farm on Homecoming. Having options such as marketeering and merits in addition to farming is great and I don't want to implement any suggestions that sabotage my preferred ways of gearing up.

I only ignore people with insufferable attitudes, and over the last year of HC this has resulted in just a handful of ignores. On the forums, I've ignored two people for consistently arguing in bad faith. It's just not worth it for me to try and have a constructive discussion with anyone who hasn't reasoned themselves into an opinion, but for whatever reason has decided to stick with that opinion no matter what. In-game, the couple of ignores I have are mostly trolls who spam racist or other kinds of completely unfunny inappropriate stuff in team chats or global channels. I wouldn't ignore anyone for being a bad player because the game is easy and that's stuff I can help with, but being a bad teammate and unwilling to take advice will mark you as a person I don't want to play with.

No idea how I missed commenting on this thing in my previous post, but I think this is huge. I absolutely love the fact that basically every second I spend doing something in CoX is worth the same no matter whether the total time commitment is 4x 30 minutes or 1x 2 hours as well as the complete lack of daily/weekly quests as the main source of progression. CoX enables me to play around my schedule and never feel bad because I missed a limited chance at progress when many other games are the polar opposite. In my opinion one of the best ways to burn players out on a game is to require them to log in when they don't actually feel like playing it.

I think there are several factors, but perhaps the most prominent is the fact that we're not only allowed, but encouraged to play several different characters. In other MMOs, unless you have a lot of spare time, you usually get stuck to one role and that can get boring after a while. What's also great that all of these alts can be played with high-end builds and in end game content with quite modest time investment. The second thing I really like is that all characters are unique. I'm not GenericTank#1543 going for the cookie cutter build and Armor Set of Tanking +5 like everyone else, but I'm making my own build, and a costume that's in no way restricted by my IO choices. Then there's the gameplay which may not be as engaging as some other games, but I still like it. The simple, laid back environment just feels good every now and then when I just want to relax and kill skuls. I don't really miss the days of restarting raid bosses because one person out of 10 did one mistake or taking ages to finish something because one person can't handle the mechanics. If I had to bet, I'd say this is one of the key things that make the community so great because anyone else's lack of experience has so little chance to ruin your fun. Of course, I'd like some more difficult content as well, but it's not really a high priority for me at this time because I can always launch Dark Souls.

No idea if anyone would do it for farms, but I hope it would at least close the gap in other types of gameplay, because I feel like the part of the gamer population who play purely for the challenge is actually very small. I'm quite sure the more average player would do a lot more arcs with Carnies, Nemesis, Rularuu, etc. if the rewards were matched to their challenge As a consequence, I'd end up doing that stuff more often as well because I prefer teaming to soloing most of the time.

I used to main a Kat/Inv Scrapper back in the day. If I were to remake him, I guess I'd go for something like this: | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1505;712;1424;HEX;| |78DA6594DB4E13511486F71C6A6D69E9890AC8A127A127A854BD51401410238784A| |4C63B8343BB69479BB669ABB1973E809AA0896F40E28DEFE0ADC7D7F00068E2B5A9| |ABB37E4A4D9B4CBEBDD75EFF9AB5FE99E9D6D355D7BBDBCF968432B852361A8D9D5| |CBE6ED46AB2EEBC2BF3A54AB55C2DB644E767A72B7872B8B325CB5266368CA65131| |C2DDE8AADC939586CCDCA93C795CAEC8BAB16B96CD664BB8B6ABD57266531A35B35| |2745B9B35B3586AD2CE69ED7235290B9E93AC82AC374A66CD77AB66E633CBD5426B| |67CB683465BD35423DA4E87A6E17F8B56DE2812E445617BAC13CB30BE699670BA06| |4CE77B48AA515E29226C4842E5ED811A27ACAA16AC59C47E031D3F541B3F4AE4FCC| |C18FCC05D26A5C4FD3266911D7C574088C30E351E64BCAB5F17D145B9A907588E45| |BD5AAB3486776AE63B37FE3DAE7BE33477E803F99E143F00879A475B056710415AB| |6E6A88A9D0D900661BD813567EB2C8BC58024DF02133FB88A991D68DD9DC93FFCF9| |2C46CA918F320298407B91EE47AE18317B97E68F7A9AE0F3DF9E0B71F7E0FC1EFA1| |AF98ED3373F60B53276D003E0536381659D7AC59236BBC8FFF15568D94E50569FF7| |03C4ADA207C0AC2FF30789DCE86F15E0C7716A47F45B151F4391AE7E7743E012699| |9329300DBE2706747193B4634AA7605B1D431FE37826E35EDEDFA09C09783601CF6| |6E05516DE65E1D96BCA0DA197D055BE57E41AF3C23CB8002E32A79778EE65D246F9| |3E6A14BDC4D04BCCC7FB1CA54E717D31054F0EDC4224E049E20DD7F451AD343C4CA| |3D68C976BF9E92C83FC4C84DFA1618ACDA1EEDC18F733AE77BF5F55AC1046E87B5A| |66C6569921BDFB9DB653A7F99D6D9B2AF545B27D91CB7D912B7D91CDBEC8B6DEFD2| |F108A157178E90BE748FBC849A7985099E5097F9DC654651D4FF11EDEBC084F7CDC| |AB4BB0EEF7694C53F6D95D152EAB61CED1B92767C76DEEE07ECFDAE859EFF6AC370| |324C6FA1F3C62E2D6| |-------------------------------------------------------------------| The empty slot in Stamina is for the chance for heal proc in one of the new EndMod sets. Gambler's Cut does slightly better DPA than Sting of the Wasp, plus it allows you to use GD and SD more often with the chain of GD > GC > SD > GC while Hasten is up. When Hasten is down you fill with a Flashing Steel at the end. I didn't check it, but there is a chance that with the new PPM rules SotW with the Critical Strikes could be better. Conserve Power has an uptime of almost 50% and you get an extra ~0.8 end/sec on average from Panacea and the two PS procs so Endurance should be fine. Soft capped against S/L/E/NE with one target in Invincibility. I didn't bother with F/C because they are relatively rare damage types and often come with an S/L component attached, but in case you need to, you only need one small purple insp to soft cap. If you like, you can swap the Achilles proc in SD for a Force Feedback for some more recharge at the cost of some -Res against tougher targets.

I think the difficulty of the game is fine as it is. The problem right now isn't so much that there's no content that requires a high-end team, it's that a lot of the actually hard content suffers from a couple of issues: everything "hard" is often just enemy groups that spam you with so excessive debuffs that they essentially nullify all defensive abilities which leads to nuking being by far the most viable strategy there's very little point in playing against the more difficult enemy groups because fighting Council gives you the same rewards, I think a lot more people would be willing to partake in harder content if the rewards matched the effort/difficulty much of the hard content is hidden away in zones that are pretty remote (Shadow Shard), pain in the ass to navigate (Shadow Shard again) or don't have any sort of natural progression to them (Shadow Shard........) If something had to be changed, I'd tune the rewards for existing harder enemy groups like the Vanguard and add extra difficulty options for incarnate characters (difficulty up to +6, all enemies get a rank bump, etc) with appropriate extra rewards. Given more time, I'd look at more creative ways to make enemy groups difficult. Perhaps there could be summoners so that the aggro cap for one tank is typically exceeded in an encounter which would necessitate an offtank, controls and/or debuffs in addition to nukes. Maybe priority targets like the surgeons in Cimerora to require target prioritization. What about enemies resistant to taunt but not controls or vice versa, or enemies that have to be mezzed in order to be rendered defenseless like in the Hami fight? I think the final step would be adding proper story arcs to places like Shadow Shard and maybe introducing something completely new, but I'm pretty sure this would be a pretty large undertaking and not within the realm of possible, at least in the short term.

I play very little red side mostly because it's very difficult to play the kind of villain I could identify with to any degree. Doing bad things just for the sake of being evil? Not my thing. Doing someone else's bad things just to be paid? Meh. Ideally my villain would be somewhere in the gray area doing both good and bad things depending on what benefits the master plan, but the way CoX is set up doesn't really enable that sort of villainy. Just to compare the two sides, even if my goal is to save Paragon from literal evil gods, it doesn't feel out of character to mop up some lesser threats every now and then, but as a villain bent on world domination running errands for a thug seems pretty strange. In summary I guess it comes down to my perception that given a generic "ultimate goal" sort of thing for both a hero and a villain, fighting any sort of villainy tends to contribute to the hero's goal but doing any sort of villainy doesn't necessarily work out that way for the villain.

Most likely I still wouldn't use them. I just dislike low uptime powers that drastically change the way your character behaves, and the crash associated with most T9s doesn't help at all.

Haven't really run into this issue on HC yet because I know a bunch of sets I'm not very interested in playing, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened at some point. Generally I'd say I dislike powerset combinations that don't have a lot of synergy (let's say, primary with ranged cones and secondary with PBAoEs), active combinations that conflict with each other (anything with longer animations + Regen, for example), damage dealers with very little AoE (Dark Melee) and anything that's just relatively weak at what it's supposed to do (Elec Blast). For whatever reason, Dominators are the only AT I've never managed to get to 50, but I'm not really sure why. I'm pretty determined to get at least one 50 of each AT on HC, but I'll have to do some more research on Domis to figure out what kind of combo would work best for me.

I very much agree with this. Before PPM procs and +Res set bonuses the only two things worth building for were Defense and global +Rech. Personally I like the fact that we can now choose between ridiculous defense and offense or a balance between the two rather than just having the first one as an option.

True, maybe a bit too simplified to put it like that but I feel like there's very little point in elaborating when better writers have produced really good guides on the subject. While I can empathize that the homework for getting IOs isn't necessarily fun, even just playing the game gets you there very quickly compared to pretty much any other MMO. My estimation is that just playing pretty much any activities that give you reward merits should get you a top of the line build in less than 100 hours of gameplay. Definitely agree with this. My view is that slotting doesn't really matter in the large scheme of things: in normal team gameplay just slotting the relevant attributes is enough and any appropriate IO set is already above-par. So, unless stated differently, I assume anyone asking the question is most likely trying to optimize a build.

Is the hostility really necessary? I did read your post, and honestly I just could not relate to the problem you had. From my perspective people here are generally very helpful and do answer well formulated questions all the time, if you ask nicely. It's your decision to choose what kind of a build you want to play with and ask questions about just like it's your decision to choose what kind of attitude you want to display when asking said questions.

Whenever you're browsing the AT forums it's always a good idea to remember that: This is an old game, many of the people playing now spent a lot of time researching builds, game mechanics and efficient ways of generating influence back in the day Even if we assume that the actual distribution of players is similar to any other MMO out there and not biased towards the hardcore, the people posting on the forums are by no means representative of the average player. While my experience is different from yours in that many players are willing to help with a build no matter the constraints (e.g. cost) if asked, it's also not uncommon that they rather opt to give advice on how to achieve said build. Acquiring influence and IOs is so ridiculously easy that it's often more convenient to offer generic information about that topic rather than re-do a specific build for a lower cost level, plus the former guidance has more long lasting benefits for the recipient. Finally, I have to say that unless you're planning to do silly challenges that actually require a top-end build, it doesn't really matter what kind of a build you put together if you have sensibly slotted IO sets in it (i.e. damage sets in primarily damage powers, applicable debuff sets in primarily debuff powers, etc.). Experiment with the sets to discover what powers you like, research some of the posted builds to find out common themes in slotting and power choices and make your own build. If you need feedback or advice, you're several times more likely to get some if you put in some effort yourself by posting a build and asking specific questions about it rather than looking for someone to do all the work for you by re-doing an endgame build for a lower budget.

Worst TFs are definitely the ones that feel like I'm repeating the same mission over and over (e.g. Synapse) and those that are padded with pretty pointless busywork or travel time often resulting in an unnecessarily long duration (Shadow Shard TFs, Numina). I wouldn't mind a two-hour action-filled TF, but spending a big part of those two hours just zipping from point A to point B or nuking gray mobs for no XP isn't rewarding. Same with the TFs like Synapse, I don't run farms or papers because they are completely uninspiring to me as content so I don't want to run a TF that's essentially just a string of bland missions. Some TFs are great, though. For example: ITF: there's something distinct about each mission, the two final maps are great and the length is really good STF/LRSF: a good bunch of AV fights, some unique missions, basically no busywork and good length Apex/Tin Mage: maybe slightly too short, but I like the unique missions and mechanics Posi1/2: really good length and difficulty considering the level of the TFs, distinct missions that create a constant feeling of progress I guess ideally I'd like a TF to take around 45 mins, consist of missions different enough that you're clearly in a different part of the TF every time you start a new mission and never employ hunts or kill-all type missions unless it's critical for the plot.

I don't think income inequality is an issue at all in CoX for the following reasons: You don't actually need almost any inf. Get your SOs (or generic IOs) and you're set for anything the game has to offer outside of silly solo challenges like solo TFs. One of the most effective inf generating mechanisms in the game is available for level 1 characters and don't require and doesn't require any skill. That means anyone can successfully leverage it. I'm of course talking about being an ebil marketeer, which works extremely simply: memorize a handful of IO sets that typically sell for a moderate to large amount of money, buy extremely cheap sets and convert them until you have the good sets. I've been doing this since I started on HC and currently have 8 50s with optimized IO builds. My first character had 100M by level 30 and hundreds of millions of inf when I hit 50. Even a mix of the less than optimal routes can get you a top of the line build in a reasonable amount of time (less than 100h), allowing you to skip farming (like I do) or marketeering if you find either of them unenjoyable while still getting your game-breaking god characters. That said, I don't think it's fair to expect to get to Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth quickly if you decide to avoid using some of the tools available.

I'm going to go with a slightly hesitant no on this. Completely removing aggro caps would encourage herding whole maps together which I think is a pretty boring strategy. Yes, sure, we wouldn't have to do it, but in any team of 8 there's going to be someone who expects it as a norm and then you have salt going one way or the other. I could probably be on board with increasing the aggro cap moderately (let's say, up to 20-25), but currently aggro cap overflow is one of the few things that can turn a situation dangerous for end game teams. Unless we get enemies that summon 100% taunt resistant pets or something that actually requires strats other than tank jumps in -> nuke, I think increasing aggro caps wouldn't be a net benefit.

Going to have to say no to ED rollback simply because I believe it will actually just widen the gap between SO and IO set users. Why? Well, most IO sets come with far more than the ED cap's worth of the main effect it's enhancing (Damage, Defense, etc), so in many cases you'll get both your set bonuses and far better enhancement value than you'd get with SOs.

I've always thought of it as minimizing the relevant costs (e.g. slots used) associated with maximizing the wanted outputs (e.g. damage, survivability) so that you get the most bang for your buck. In RPGs there's usually a limited pool of resources to allocate (stat points, slots, etc.) so most of the time you'll have to do what Troo described: choose the aspects you want to maximize at the cost of something else.

My leveling up generally goes like this: Meticulously plan a final build for a powerset combination that seems interesting Spend an embarrasing amount of time coming up with a name and costume I like Skip tutorial, get 2x XP immediately, run a DFB Generally I get to ~40 by running TF Commander, Moonfire and any other level appropriate TFs in addition 40-50 is usually Macintyre + Jenkins with a team Get relevant badges for the passive accolades when convenient I don't use enhancements before 22 at which point I start getting set IOs that are "safe" to get. By this I mean stuff like LotG +Rech, uniques such as Panacea/Miracle, ATO sets, etc. that are 99% likely to either remain in the final build even if I change it or useful for pretty much any alt I'll roll later. Sometimes I'll spice things up and do nostalgic stuff like Frostfire, Faultline or Croatoa arcs, but I have to admit I much prefer playing in the 40+ range when my character starts feeling complete so I often level up quite efficiently.

No idea how many hours I had back in the day, but probably a huge number. On Homecoming most of my characters hit 50 with 20-25 hours played and I think my most played character is somewhere around 150 hours. This time around I don't farm or hunt badges besides those needed for some accolades which explains much of the difference.