Lex Talion

I just was tempted to open a thread called The Tank Derps. Started the ITF challenge with a Fire/Ice tank and was kinda irritated that I got in serious trouble (eventually dying) at the first Shadow Cyst already. Turned out that I forgot to catalyze 2 Winter-Os and therefore ran with only 70% slow resistance. :em facepalm:

I'd like to point out that this reaction is directed at the devs, whoever that may be in this case, not at @Jimmy. Cast time reduction is a reasonable change, considering Bone Smasher being useless in comparison before. -Regen and -Special have absolutely no business in melee or armor sets whatsoever. I thought Bio and Radiation Armor made that very clear already. And now you want to create the opportunity to combine EM with the aforementioned power sets? There already is a power in the set, called Total Focus, that screams ME! ME! ME! as an additional AoE candidate loud, clearly and desperately. It even has a fitting animation, but instead of using it out of nowhere a new power appears, taking away the synergy between Stun and other powers (yes, some players used that) and shoehorning every EM player into the New & Improved (not) Total Focus instead. A quick animation for Stun would have worked wonders to neutralize nasty debuffers in high levels. Cast time reduction was overdue, but now everybody better pick that power OR ELSE. What EM used to be, and what I personally want it to be, is the single target Hammer of the Gods. If I use that power as a Stalker or Scrapper, I want it to Crit. Period. I do NOT want it to reenergize my smartphone, bind my shoe laces or buy me dinner. The practice of denying the light melee classes their due crit damage with high tier attacks was and is ridiculous, unjustified and literally prevents player from playing the sets. Give Total Focus the same treatment as Electrical Melee's Thunder Strike, full Crit ability on the main target and let it prepare enemies (with a fancy Energy Focus ring, if need be) for Whirling Hands. Done. Under no circumstances shoehorn players into picking and using a specific attack just because you liked your own ideas so much. I always considered the HP cost a quirky idea that some Dev didn't want to let go and nobody else really cared, because they just wanted to justify the name. It adds nothing to the flavor of the set. What DID add to the flavor of the set was its single target focus and the crisp sounds and look. Again, all I care about is that the power hits like Judgement Day and crits on Scrappers and Stalkers they way it should. Considering PPM mechanics, particularly with regard to ATO procs (EM doesn't lend itself for dmg proccing well), I would prefer Energy Transfer and Total Focus at a base recharge of 16-18 seconds for better, more diverse, attack chain options. Not every set has to have a PBAoE and a cone. Not every set needs combos, and not every set needs to feel the same. Synergies are nice, but practically forcing players into build styles and attack chains is bad practice. Also: generally NO -Regen -Special and whatnot for armor classes. From a balance point of view releasing /Bio and /Rad Armors in their current form was not less a mistake than releasing Titan Weapons. The ONLY exception I could see at all is using those effects to update Fiery Melee without significantly increasing its base damage. I'm not thrilled.

In general Tankers have mag 12.98 mez protection, while other ATs except EAT Dwarves have mag 10.38* or less. There are a couple of things in range of Romulus Nictus that can stun though, like Cyclopes, Warwolves and 5th Column 'Fists'. To my best knowledge none of the other Nictus Essences nor the spawned Unbound Nictuses are able to stun with regular attacks. I don't remember which ATs were stunned, and frankly don't feel like sifting through the whole thread to find out.

Fast-tracked to M4 with a res based toon today to double-check: Romulus Nictus' Sunless Mire buff hits multiple hostile targets and stacks the buff accordingly. (+5% To Hit, +12.5% Dmg per target hit) The Nictus Essence's Sunless Mire uses the same numbers, has a much shorter duration, stacks with itself (for a second or two) but is an area buff to friendly targets. So, if you intend to prepare for that fight by summoning Lore pets, you might want to reconsider, because what you probably do is feeding Rommie's Sunless Mire. Some screenshots with numbers: 1. normal buff situation against a single target 2. proof that Nictus Essence's buff stacks (for a second or two) 3. proof that Romulus Nictus' buff hits multiple targets

Romulus Nictus (M4) has additional attacks incl. Sunless Mire. It's easy to spot, but if it connects you should get out of range until it wears off. One of the Nictus Essences, the one that is autohitting, buffs Rommie too, iirc. With 'enemies buffed' setting a L54 Romulus (M3) hits for over 2100 pts with Hack and I don't know exactly how much bonus dmg Romulus Nictus' (M4) version of Sunless Mire provides but with the challenge settings every point is one point too many :P. His attacks are also split up between lethal and negative damage, in case that matters for your armor set, and 2 damage types circumvent the one-shot protection, iirc. 4800 pts sounds like full, or almost full crit damage though, and since you mentioned that it happened right after killing a Nictus you probably got stunned by the Nictus' Death Throw. The stun magnitude can overcome most mez protections that aren't stacked. Even if the stun only lasts for a few seconds, due to high stun resistance, it still suprresses the effect of your armor toggles during that time. Your combat log could probably tell you more. As a rule of thumb, unless you're really sure about the numbers, I'd say: if Sunless Mire connects or if Romulus or a Nictus Essence dies get out of range and stay out of range til the Mire wore off or the Death Throw stun is over and you checked your toggles.

After 5 or 6 attempts with my MA/SR scrapper (the last one ended by Romulus (M3) with a Hack/Push Back combo that leaves literally no time to react and dishes out about 4400dmg before resistance) I needed some motivation and took a stroll with my SR/Fire tank instead. A world of difference. Not using a high-damage set his solo-DPS is just barely enough to kill Romulus Nictus, but it takes forever. Therefore I relied on NPCs to beef up DPS, so clearing the battlefields was mandatory. Unfortunately that made me finish with but an insignificant time, but at least it was safe and comfortable. MoITF 54/8, no Insps, no Amplifiers, Enemies buffed

Reunion. I did all of the above except for the salt and now it's day again. Tested several zones and life is bright.

I patched, re-validated (I always do after patches) was idling in AP and FOunders and it was darkitydark and stayed darkitydark. Gonna reboot, re-validate, shake my PC, throw salt over my left shoulder and will try again later. Thanks

Where is my daylight. You promised daylight. Halloween is ONE day, not one MONTH. If I want eternal darkness I watch news.

Maybe the people you know could post a few screenshots of their successful runs. Preferrably incl. sufficient screenshots for every mission to leave no doubts. Also I'm sure everyone would appreciate a few pointers how to pull this challenge off faster without cheating (which there are numerous ways to do).

All global bonuses carry over, as well as any temporary effects from click powers or procs, provided that the proc's effect is not cancelled by the power it is slotted in being detoggled. So a FF: +Recharge effect from a human attack or a Numina: +Regen/+Recovery effect from a click healing power will carry over, but the stealth bonus from a +Stealth IO in Sprint won't.

All damage numbers of that build are assuming the 'stealth strike' bonus as long as you look at them with Shinobi-Iri active. Untoggle Shinobi-Iri and you have more realistic numbers. (Follow Up could be stacked though)

It is tied to the area AND the Minotaur's health. You can walk where you want and slaughter every member of Sister Solaris' captors - as long as you don't bring the Minotaur under 75% health nothing bad happens. Well, nothing bad except for half a metric ton of dog breath on legs vomitting onto you. It's also noteworthy that there's not one Kheldian ambush, but three, triggered by the Minotaur's health going under 75%, 50% and 25% just like the ambushes at Romulus Nike.

The point wasn't soloing it with an Emp/Beam, but with an Emp with a fully support-oriented build.

I've been able to prevent ITF Minotaurs and Cyclopses from going Unstoppable with only Elec Melee and Elec Blast as a means of draining/debuffing. The problem is that just a single miss or use of a power that animates longer than 2secs botches it all. I don't expect to drain AVs just as a sideeffect from using elec attacks, but regular enemies should be possible, considering that it's meant to be a defensive effect that elec pays for with lower ST damage. Slotting for EndMod should increase the -Recovery duration, imo.

Strongmen have mag 100 repel protection.

I didn't refer to threads, only shards. If shards happen to drop in incarnate content now, that's a HC change. Quote from hcwiki "Note that Shards do not drop from enemies defeated in the streets of or story content of Dark Astoria." (Note that missions from non-incarnate contacts that send you to DA are just normal missions.) I'll be happy to learn that it was changed, if anybody can point me to patch notes or has a screenie showing a shard drop.

Difficulty doesn't directly affect drop chances. The answer to your example would be 'No'. However, enemies with higher rank have higher drop chances, so increasing numbers and allowing bosses and AVs indirectly affects drop chances. A noteworthy (and irritating, to say the least) drop restriction is that shards do not drop from incarnate content or in incarnate areas in general. So you won't have any shards dropping from random enemies in DA or from any missions given by incarnate level contacts. The Alpha Strike TFs (Apex & Tin Mage) do not count as incarnate content, nor do any SFs/TFs that reward incarnate components of the shard category (ITF, Khan, Barracude, etc).

I can't emphasize enough how much of a relief that is.

You are a cryptic cat.

Nails it. I'd vote for use of the complete range of Titan Weapon customizations too.

Saying hello after the cutscene, as described by jojo. TP is convenient, but not necessary.

Concept: Cybernetically Enhanced Boot-to-the-Head Build: Self-sufficient Crit Machine Most relaxed Solo MoITF since I joined HC servers. M1 ~ 11min (no ambush. the toon has soloed it with relative ease a couple times already) M2 ~ 9min (bumrush) M3 ~ 65min (conventional General order, all ambushes cleared; AV area cleared; Phalanx waves ignored) M4 ~ 55min (cleared everything near Rommie except the walls. Separated Rommie and called 0800-CLAPHAPPY to speed things up. Unremarkable fight next to The Door. No Temp Powers means no Temp Powers, regardless of the game's current exceptions. Not going to cheat myself. Q: Who am I talking to on the screenshots? A: To potential future viewers of the videos I took (most) screenshots from. Q: Why do you have NPCs helping with AVs. Can't your toon solo them? A: With an average ST DPS of 310 (source: anonymous pylon telephone survey) the toon can and the toon did. With Destiny being practically redundant I may as well use it to fast-forward the AV fights. Loadout: Alpha: T4 Musculature Radial Destiny: T4 Rebirth Radial Lore: T4 Seers Radial (not used) Hybrid: T4 Melee Core Interface: T4 Reactive Radial Judgement: T4 Void Radial Destiny (Rebirth) used a total of 9 times. (8 times to heal allies) Judgement (Void) used a total of 9 times. (2 times in M3 at Phalanx Console to draw aggro. 7 times in M4 to clear ambushes and towers) Lore pets weren't used. Obligatory Final Screen: M1 - Waiting, because it ain't over till the psycho lady sings. M2 - Shadow Cyst Crystals are such drama queens. M2 - Almost done, but I think my cover is blown. M2 - Yep, blown. M3 - Hit 'em where it hurts. M3 - Romulus Choo-Choo M3 - Colors of War I M3 - Colors of War II M3 - Colors of War III M4 - Showdown at The Door M4 - Where did Imperious go? M4 - There, there, it's ok. Even big emperor boys can be scared! M4 - Clean-up

1. To my best knowledge the power progression is hardcoded. I trust the HC team to be able to make changes to that, but that would be considerable work, touching other systems too, for not much gain, considering how long a toon spends time in low levels. 2. The last part of your statement (which I marked bold in the quote) is wrong as soon as IOs are considered. An additional free power pick & slot where I can mule a global, 3-slot Thunderstrike or maybe Eradication may not seem like much to you, but it's gold in the hands of an avid min-maxer.

While incarnate components can't be traded, Empyrean merits at least can be sent in bulk like Reward merits. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Transcendent_Merit_Salvage