Llewellyn Blackwell

Typical BS thread title to stir up drama while offering little of substance beyond I guess a vague inference that P2W somehow represents cheating actively in game. Yeah no big news at all, folks been grabbing max them as long as they have been grabbing xp boosters. Makes the initial climb much faster and hassle free. However I am gonna agree about Rune of Pro from sorcery. It was a nice bit of luck for ol berk to have it factor in. However its not like a blaster should ever really fear CC. Make sure your first 3 attacks are also your best attacks( Mine are my actual AV solo kill attack rotation) which due to defiance can be used no matter what cc effect your under. If your blaster especially is having issue at low level to CC, you likely didnt do what the vets do now days, we slot 5 slots in our best lowbie attack, slam in all 5 prestige enhancments, grab the accuracy buff from the sewer run, and bam easy rush up to at least the 20s. People who think these buffs are even worth it in end game, have legit bad builds that need such buffs to even function. See all the fire farmers who live on them, who the moment they end up in actual content, and dont have them running they eat dirt from a council minion.

I have tried to add it to the same ritual most of us have now with a fresh alt when we go grab things like mish tp etc. I also personally disable res inspirations. I never keep the things in stock anyways, usually merging 3 into 1 if I actually have such a need which is pretty damn rare these days. Along with that team and dual insps, and best of all dual team insp imo are the ones worth stock piling away in base insp storage for real need situations. Which often are lower level exemp runs or leveling toon tf runs etc ime. I was on a syanpse the other day and kept using dual heal/end ones on the team during bigger fights and someone eventually said something like we dont have any buffers why am I not running out of end? I mentioned what I was doing and a few others made similar comments to you about never thinking about them, and saying they needed to make getting them a habit. I think one thing you and I seem to for sure see eye to eye on is that having the means to help our allies is a positive asset in members of our community, rather then just the me me me moar poWAH! attitude that ime often goes hand in hand with the kind that mock and ignore allies when they struggle rather then try to lift them up. Hell there is a reason many of my scrappers and brutes use the barrier with the rez aspect even on toons that dont need the barrier much themselves. because its just so damn handy at helping teams of lowbies and the like stay going on things like ITF runs.

ATT has a cool down far too long to be of reliable use on TFs for a ghost operative. Its also far better under many conditions to recall a downed ally to a safer locale to rez them depending on team and dif setting. Back in the day most people with a rez power took recall and stealth powers pretty sop. As one who leads TFs often, I can tell you a guy with invis and recall will be the MVP in my eyes every time even if all they otherwise do is afk when running any TF that has enough stealth mish objectives to make having one reduce time in a given mish meaningfully. Or last night when I lead an Ice mistral, one guy had lost his travel powers, and was having a hell of a time with just fly and ninja run( I know I know but I guess they were like always ss/sj or something)) So my ability to recall them every time they got lost in the crazy orenbegan maze of ruins was having the guy be most thankful. What you are really saying is you just favor selfish builds, and dont see why team-centric players might value builds that benefit others directly more then themselves.

Unless the RP concept really conflicts with it for some reason I take recall on all my toons with natural stealth powers to make ghosting through TF mishes when possible always an option. Ill be honest I tend to look at stalkers especially who cant fit in recall early as truly selfish solo centric builds that I really dont value even a fraction as much as one with recall on my TF teams.

In no one wanting to sound critical, just want to point out that Im pretty sure your experienced enough to know the multiplier that is team buffs vs personal ones. A full team all using team insp is not unlike a team full of defenders.

Yeah a lot like on a Hess TF, if you get a team that wants all the team to load in for each radar station it adds soo much time to the run, it is literally the only thing that will get me to quit a hess run if I do join one another is running, is seeing resistance to 4 people spreading out to get them done in a minute or so.

IMO and personal experience, the best place to use things like temp powers is on those low level TFs when you have a lot of at levels with you that are not always up to snuff. For example stun grenades are able to make a big impact at ccing mobs at such a low level. The various temp pet powers are also nice for things like changing the tide against the shadow clones at the end of posi one. a war wolf and shivan from each player used there as Ive had happen a few times when running with more experienced players makes that army of doubles into mince meat. Then there was that time we did an all MM posi 1..... do not suggest that lol.

Keep in mind I am not saying follow the charging bull, but rather the pouncing fox in the hen house, who is quickly dispatching each and every living thing in a brutal, wild, yet precise frenzy of blood and death.

I tend to have to explain this to newer players of support/buff toons fairly often so Ill try and tackle it. While this game isnt super fast paced, players do tend to like to keep the flow going, so stopping to gather for buffs isnt really popular unless doing high enough dif the team really has to move slow and stay tight. Instead you need to learn to pick out the pack leader. Every team ends up having one, the toon that moves through mobs like they are ticking off boxes on a list. Who is getting it done like a soldier on a mission. That is the one you follow, and focus your buffs on. Not the weak links desperate for heals, not the tank by default just because. More often then not it will be a blaster built to wipe rooms like living death, and with abit of support will cut the time in content in half. In DDO we have a saying as clerics there, You heal the one who heals themselves without a word the same as they kill, and ignore the one wailing away as they charge in to the fray, and ignore them as they flee to see another day. Find the point man, and make that tip of the spear as sharp as you can!

I rather tend to prefer text on CoH as an RPer, Also i tend to feel CoH is much too slow passed of a game to want to use voice. What do I mean by this? Well over on Warframe voice chat is built right into the game. And that game is very fast paced combat. The time it takes to type Y or N for yes or No is enough time to be overwhelmed and wiped there if playing high end content on anything but an OP build. Hell the speed people move there could make the time it takes to type have you left so far behind you never see them again till the mish is over. Here even things like MSR do not have any aspect that is so time sensitive. Its more likely people chatting at me in voice would actually serve as a distraction in coh as in combat I am only tabbing and cycling and do not want anyone in my ear telling me what I should be doing. As for tactics? This game in general is best without specific tactical plans. Its when people get all micromanaging of others play time that I get so bored Id rather log off. On top of that, I tend to play while listening to audiobooks or old time radio drama's on youtube. Im the kind of mind that needs numerous sources of entertainment at the same time to really be entertained. So I am usually watching or listening to something, as well as having news articles open on my tablet to read, all while also actively playing the game. There is literally not one word anyone could ever speak to me over voice that would be of more import than my personal amusement while gaming.

Cold blooded man, I usually splurge and use a load of large team dual insp to help the poor berks around me.

theya re not struggling at lower levels they are stone walling at mid levels, and they are doing that to themselves. Unless you are really trying to say that someone who has leveled 30 characters or so into the mid levels. So yes I do have much higher expectations for such a player then a fresh out of the tutorial player and what they should be able to get done. Getting to 50 on one toon would be way way way easier then leveling that many alts to mid level unless they did all that via dfb and door sitting fire farms. Likewise while I do love me some reward merits, the early story arcs are for actual new players a pita and speed bumps rather then fun. I dont send any new player anywhere near the hallows and Leonard as an example because he wrecks the unwary. Nope these days I mainly help new players via fast leveling in PI radio teams, and verbally explain things in game. I teach about merits during TF runs. If players want to learn the story, they can as that is def the best thing to do with solo time. And you do understand that your personal examples of a wealthy lvl 1 IE marketeer mule, and a toon you keep frozen at a specific level are such extreme outliers as to not even be worth mentioning in any normal conversation right?

Alright Op, just for you I will be on everlasting a fair bit today, look up Llewellyn Blackwell, and I will happily run with you through TFs and story arcs, teach you how to turn the merits into wealth, and try and pass on tips and tactics, and even throw in some lore and RP if your into that sort of thing.

This would certainly go hand in glove with ideas like wanting to turn pvp zones into co op zones and develop content in them, and doing away with pvp zones and instead let players flag themselves as pvp enabled and able to be attacked by those of the opposed alignments. I think its all natural to want. Remove the artificial barriers, expand our world into one bigger more open and expansive one by making all the zones for everyone all the time. I saw a couple in zone chat yesterday being blown away by the existence of bloody bay when some started talking about it. They had never heard of the zone, since content does not really direct you out there. And they found the entire zone a really cool place just to fly around and explore, and wondered why it didnt have more story arcs tied to it. Well surprise, its because as a pvp zone, enough players back in the day said dont bother putting pve content out there, because it will only annoy the pve players to feel forced to go to pvp zones for content. The Shivans are a part of coh lore, and the zone they are most connected to, virtually no one new knows about, and old players avoid aside from grabbing a shard now and then. It being a pvp zones makes it be a reason to avoid for most. PvP was a failed concept as it was done in this game. It failed to capture the nature of hero vs hero and hero vs villain from the genre it is born from, and it only created reasons to avoid some content rather then expanded the content. I still think pvp should be open world server specific with ones alignment determining the reward/penalty for PKing. So like a hero who beats down another hero would end up with a major penalty to their influence, while beating a vil would be a big surge, based on lvls and all that. Obviously would need some kind of serious penalty for killing lowbies for laughs.

Well as is always mentioned in any advice thread about earning funds, its all about max level. The earning ratio in the game is abysmal at low levels, unless you using reward merits as a way to earn funds, at lower levels yeah it can be hard even to keep just at level SOs on a build, something folks who didnt play way way way back in the long long ago may have forgotten. Here are some tips, level 15 common IOs are pretty cheap to make, and never go red. They offer a modest but decent base % that a poor new player can get real use from, as poor man perma IOs while gaining the funds for a richer build. And no I can assure you making inf is easier then ever, you just need to learn how. So first bit of advice, focus on 1 toon, get them to cap, and use them to fund your alt habit. We all do that around here for the most part. The 2nd bit, would be to stop arguing with us, and listen to us. If you want help, if you want to make friends, and get along. Then stamping your feet and sticking your fingers in your ears while telling us we dont know better when we all clearly do is not going to make you any allies around here.

Ok maybe you truly are really new around here, but let me explain something to you, none of the ATs you list above are defenseless. A troller uses control effects to lock down groups, well made and played ones solo at a very high dif setting just fine. Blasters, are walking death. Almost every blaster 2ndary has a very good amount of sustain in it now days, My own main blaster is often tanking things that kill tanks and brutes on my teams with him. PB... You think PB are squishy? PB as in perma light form walking nuke factory of doom? You do know PB have the same dmg res cap as tanks, can achieve that on all dmg types cept psi with a single click power that can easily be made perma, and still do nuker levels of dmg right? Not to mention just being on a team will grant them extra dmg or dmg res depending on the team make up. And scrappers,stalkers, brutes have plenty solid defense without costing them in dmg. In fact in coh its generally better to focus ones set bonuses and pool power choices on expanding one out of the box so to speak. Not doing the hyper focus on one thing kinda thing. The best tanks in CoH are those who go the incredible hulk route. Just taunt alone does not have enough taunt power to taunt things off a real dps build. And a real tank will wipe things before they can wipe his team. You do understand that just hitting things taunts with a tank in coh right? like that is their inherent ability. In fact punchvoking is way way way more effective then the active taunt powers by a huge margin, especially if your actually hitting hard.

If you think that is the source of the power gap, then you are really not paying attention. Hell that aspect of the power gap was seen as so trivial they didnt even bother limiting a characters powers at all on champions online. The gap that gives the advantage when exemping especially from higher levels is set bonuses, temp powers, and larger inspiration trays, and the funds to keep super large dual team insps flowing like water. A couple powers is nice and all but not that big deal. This is also why proc monster builds tend to double well as exemp builds. As while %s from enhancements do reduce down with exemping, procs keep doing their thing reliably. And obviously lvl 50s with purple sets, whose bonuses stay good all the way down low, and have some of the strongest procs, make level 50s who exemp have a real edge if their build took exemping into account. Which imo is a good thing as it rewards those who plan and prepare. Its having that extra power that lets me happily pug TFs taking whatever I get without a 2nd thought because I know I can solo the AV at the end no matter what.

The thing Ive been saying Khelds of both types could use, that would not imo be true power creep, would be to simply give them access to epic/patron pools. Those alone would open up all sorts of new build variations and added RP flavor when it comes to the patron pools. Though if we wanted to get really fancy imo the PB forms should be tossed out and redesigned from the ground up. Maybe make one be all about CC, and one all about support, since the human form covers the blast tank thing just fine. Like if the PB nova was instead using high mag stun/hold blasts rather then dps blasts, and the dwarf projected super versions of the leadership buffs as a very simple example.

Claw is one of those sets, like dark that is best in its original format on something like a xcrapper. Stalkers are super fun, and super deadly have a few at 50 myself. However offense sets that often have the best reputation in general tend to be the worsts on stalker because they are usually the best because they use something other then generic build up for their sets dmg buff. Follow up when it is basically used as an every other attack in a rotation, can let one maintain a constant dmg buff that surpasses the spike dps of classic build up quite well. Stalker can make anything pretty deadly, but yeah in general stalkers are best with sets that had build up as a core, and its just kind of the price of power porting. Not every melee set can be given to the stalkers with just a simple swap to build up and have it really feel as fun as it was. IMO try something really classic like a claw/regen scrapper or brute, and focus on extreme global recharge to leverage follow up and all the regen clickies. You may be surprised to find one of the original iconic combos on a set often lamented as terribly gimped( regen) can hold its own with the best META when well played.

While its beena while now since enough of my midnighters were on at once to see a full gathering. When we have been in force, now few have said we look like we belong on the set of Twilight as most of us are rather gothic in appearance, and know few of us have glowing auras lol. Also been called the rat pack, as again most of us wear casual evening wear while on the job. But easily the most common sight like you mention are red/white/blue themed SG. Hell even the unaffiliated often gather together at places like city halls roof around the flag.

Shh bud, I was trying to respect the rules about bringing up religion by making that very good point from the above without specifying. Such is the fine art of forum fu, tis more like forum fencing then forum flamberge flailing.

Well cant say for HC, but back on live during a double xp weekend I took a brute from start to 38 exclusively street hunting around R.I. after the double xp ended took me about another week doing such to reach cap. Was an energy/energy brute if I recall right.

Ya know I seem to recall an old quote, goes on about having the strength to endure things they cant change, and the wisdom to know that they cant change them. Try not to worry about something you have no power over, no place voicing an opinion of, and ultimately need to worry about only one person, yourself. Stop ever for any reason under any circumstance thinking about or worrying about me or my characters. That just feels all sorts of cyber stalker perv.

Nope there isa cryo blast, an electric blast that does extra dmg to clocks( used to always go run syn while I had that one it was nasty on the king) a ring with a short duration that does a dark debuff, as well as a scroll 1 time use from same mish. those are just off the top of me head.

One could counter that by pointing out sets like electric melee and other offense sets with some form of sustain in their attacks get a chance to really shine in their ways by being paired with sets that lack sustain. After all its not uncommon to see people entirely ignore the end recovery advantage of electric attacks entirely because the meta tends to revolve around the sets with strong self sustain. Im not saying we dont need to rethink many of the sets though, the fact is atm many blaster 2ndary are giving better sustain then some defense sets do. Because unless we are going to talk mass blaster nerfing to turn them back into tissue cannons, we need to look at what they have as a baseline for sustain for dps classes and lift the others who take higher risk by being in melee range up, not at the peak by any means, but make it easier for them to reach that peak. For example with SR, would it really of all the defense sets really be broken if it was given back perma elude and its crash was made more like the crash of the PBs tier 9? IMO that and a passive scaling regen effect that would be further enhanced by taking each of their powers would better fit the concept of the super speed defense set.