Llewellyn Blackwell

A well made build can still be a very thematic role play build. For example my dark/bio scrapper is a praetorian, while a mutant, by birth he fled to the night ward to keep his unique gift from Cole's hands. There he developed some grasp on magic(swapped out mutie origin power for magic origin power, and took the patron pool of ghost widow as it represents delving into nether magic best as a side pool imo.) So while he is no great mage, he has just enough of a grasp on magic in his build I dont feel weird RPing with him as abit of a mix of david xavier of Legion mixxed with John Constantine,

That was one of those little gems of an RP local added with the revamp of Atlas. It makes one wonder what other great things the Devs had in store for us RPGers. There is another building identical to that in khalistis wharf. Also I think at least a few of the buildings with the chopper zone transits have a roof access door on them.

I merely cited scrappers because of the well known long running debate on who is stronger the brute or scrapper. in general for solo play, it will be the brute once they hit their rage stride and can keep it up. Unless both are being buffed to dmg cap, then the scrapper pulls ahead by a huge margin due to their crits. However being able to one shot bosses at level is for myself and no few other DPS centric players I know our bare standard for what a dps should be doing for single target dmg. But lets just take 2 of the same AT, Whose nuke is going to leave even bosses dead or near dead, the blaster with just a double damage build up? Or the one with that doesnt even need to click build up because he is running at the dmg cap all the time due to inps, and can deliver whole cycles of his dps chains without paying attention to the short buff timer on build up? For me the bit of prep work needed to always have plenty of inspirations at hand when I want them, outwieghs the hassle of micro managing buffs like build up often. I still keep it in my build obviously for when either I dont want to waste my insps or whatever, but in general its not the use every chance I get buff some others see it as, because for me it often is not adding more dmg since Im at cap. Again focus on the actual point, when your on a team with buffers, and have all those buffs making you feel godly, for those who use insp to maintain hard caps solo, they just feel like that almost all the time.

are you one shotting bosses? Because that is the dif between someone running at max dmg cap and someone who doesnt. The average at level scrapper does a good chunk on a non crit to a boss, but wont treat them as no dif then a minion. If your leveraging reds right, then you will have more constant dmg than a full rage barred brute and the oinly foes that will take more then 1 hit are EBs and that is if the scrapper doesnt crit. This is how a scrapper stays above a brute, they both have to be at dmg cap, so the scrapper crits can put them ahead. To do that solo demands upping ones inps using skills.

Its likely this simple dif in play style that creates a huge disparity in play for us. Im someone who is almost always running at least dmg cap via reds. I always keep a load of super duals in my email so I can re up even inside mishes if things feel abit too slow for my taste when it comes to killing, and also keep full loads in my ah storage so inbetween doors I can just /ah while flying to the next mish and grab what I need. For any who read this and then other posts by me that make me sound like I have larger then life characters, it really is because I am often just using inspirations to reach the hard caps. Think how you feel on a team when buffers have you running at caps, that is how players who know how to leverage insps feel even when solo.

Frankly I am bored and sick of this mish arc after 4 runs in 4 days. Especially when none of you are really putting in any work beyond a single run, that you seem to think proves your point when failing against increased dif while solo is a perfectly valid outcome, and even those arguing with me admit that at baseline it does not have this issue. Just like we dont balance content for the absolute maxed builds, we can not dumb it down due to a very rare level of fuck uppery that should not result in a victory. Since even some arguing to change it admit, that at baseline it is not an issue, as far as I see it, they even if they wont admit it, have conceded the only point needed to prove their position invalid. Backed up by their basically trolling and making demands on my play time and even how I play, wanting me to out right play badly to somehow meet some goal post shifting criteria. Here is what I can say, anyone can solo this content at baseline. any decent team, working together, should be able to handle the increase mob spawns, anyone upping the dif further then that, for any reason, has no right to bitch about anything in the mish, and asking for it to be dumb downed is ironic when there is all this talk of lack of challenge in the game in general. And if you dont play smart, rush, dont clear areas of potential adds, and or split the team in a crucial moment, your gonna have a very bad day.

why, my entire point has been its ok to have such a massive fuck up make it unwinnable. Not that in can be gotten out of easily. Ive proven that it takes a very specific set of circumstances to create this situation. You have to ignore ward, and wipe at the ambush for clarity without doing much damage to it to have such a cluster of mobs form up at the mansion including the player seeking ones that will lead the ward group to the spawn point. I would have to at this point do so with a single player against a very large spawn, well beyond the capabilites of most builds in the pre incarnate power range to handle rapidly as evena nuke can only kill so many targets at once. My point has been since the get go, that this event requires a massive mistake on the players part. One that deserves to basically be told mish over. but at least one poster in this thread said their group went through this very thing, managed to power through it, and felt satisfied in the end, not unduly punished by the game. But I can tell you of at least one power that would help even in that deep shit sitch that would help thin out the mobs eventually. rise of the phoenix. nuke self res even if cornered up there will eventually melt all the seeker mobs, spawn camping and give the team a chance to recover. And since its not a totally exclusive power its one that imo deserves at least one single bit of content to be king and shine in.

What does that have to do with anything, missions are allowed to have unique challenges. That is part of this mishes design and fits thematically based on the story. I mean man your all over the place first its not fair to those running it the first time, now its not fair because it does something different then most mishes. What about the prisons in some maps, if your a low dps at those doors take so long to break through I have actually seen players rage quit from ending up in them. Should we take those out to or remove the cell doors or make the cell doors 1 hp?

as before +1x4, and its called light form. you know the clicky tank mode PB can perma that will cap your dmg res across the board. and As I said I didnt even need to whip it out instantly because I died for ward, not for clarity's ambush mob which wont trigger till you get near her. Since I revved, then went and wiped wards group I guess maybe I didnt do as you ask. I guess I could of bypassed ward after reviving and go trigger the ambush then draw it back up to ward, but seriously anyone who does that does not deserve a win unless they can power through that epic frack up.

which is a non point if ever I heard one. In games there is this thing called content mastery. It means content inherently gets easier the more you play it. The game tells you waht to do, and when to do it. If your not paying attention, or just rushing through yeah its gonna bite you, and thats as it should be imo.

So just for you I just ran it solo on a PB whose is built for teaming as such quite a few of his powers dont get to be used at all, and he is lacking any benefit from his inherent, something the other ATs dont. Just for you when it came time to get clarity I let ward and his friends beat on me, and after abit when light form wore off they actually managed to. so as I had outlined in previous posts, because I kept all the npc allies alive until this moment, and didnt do anything stupid like drag mobs over to me by turning on a taunt aura like rise to the challenge, I was even witha huge host of mobs over in front of the doors revive, stand up, click my tank mode clicky, and wade back into battle and after one build up nuke, all the trash was gone, and a few rapid attacks from my nearly spammable extreme damage melee attack as a follow up all the bosses were done. Because and here is a fun fact, the mobs that come to help ward, and his minions, are not part of the ambush mobs and their auto seek script, now the ones that come when you get near clarity do. So you would have to both fuck up and not clear ward, and fuck up down with clarity and leave those ambush mobs alive, for a wipe around that point to trigger this cascade event that makes failure almost impossible to avoid. IMO this is likely what must be happening to those having such an issue. They either fail to clear ward and the mobs around the rez point before engaging the final ambush with clarity, and not keeping the allied npcs alive to back them up, or are splitting up, and having both the ward group and ambush wave to contend with, because then yeah if even one person triggered that last ambush while the rest are engaged with ward, and then gets face planted, they are gonna home in on the rest of the team.

except all the ones in Faultline, yep you can easily lose Jimmy and Nette, as well as Doc D and Penny if you stealth or just move to fast. Same with the sisters on the lgtf and actually all the allies in the old rwz arcs, or the ones in actually a whole hell of a lot of content old and newer do not see through stealth and will not follow you if you get too far from them. IME very few allies follow you like a summoned pet. Hell even the ally you get in part 1 of pandoras box wont follow you if you dont run up to them when you step outside of the base map. First few times I ran it I didnt even think they actually came outside at all because I just stepped out flew up and never saw the npc ally to approach to get them to follow.

Sure, and you go run it at the lowest possible dif and tell us about it. Because remember my contention is that for a solo player on solo dif, its easy, and that if a full team wipe occurs for a max mob spawn mish, that the team has failed so bad they dont deserve to get a completion. Not that this failure cascade cant happen, that when it does, having to reset the mish should be the only option left after having failed even if the mish doesnt say you have. What I am saying is this situation is so rare, and basically requires a team to be in over their head so badly they should not even be there. My point is that if we dumb it down even a little bit, because there is no AV or GM, that if players can easily go out and re insp up and toggle up that the mish becomes just another that we can always brute force rather than have to accept a defeat and need to redo it with a new approach, even if that approach is to solo it at -1. Can you not honestly see that if they change this, this mission becomes a trivial thing with no real challenge and no way to fail it? We would need to add a timer countdown to force a certain level of dps clear speed, or make clarity very fragile and much longer walk to her objective to add some new real chance at failure to keep the actual challenge while giving you what you want. Or do you genuinely think there should be no chance at a real fail?

I actually spent some time thinking on my reply to you as imo you tend to be one of the most civil posters who argues in good faith. IMO and truly I am not trying to make this sound like an attack, just a critique, but a stalker is more then their stealth. depending on power sets ofcourse stalkiers have access to forms of cc, as well as access to the same universal tools we all can add to our arsenal and should for when times get rough. In ways I play my stalker more like my doms, using a mixture of tools that keep the enemy off balance and unable to attack due to cc or trying to flee, and mow them down rapidly during such moments. And because a stalker can do things like that, as well as face tank decently, that I never have seen mishes with ambush waves, when at base line dif at all punishing for a solo stalker, and well for stealth classes solo is always the default as you otherwise need allies that also stealth to really be a great team. Anyone who has been in all stalker parties knows what I mean there. I honestly dont see it as unfair that stealth can be negated by a script. Otherwise it would give stealth a really huge advantage, one greater then it already allows when it comes to speed running for merits etc. Call it heavy handed GMing sure, but thats not some terrible thing, there is a time and place for it in an RPG. its basically the GM saying this is the kind of situation that is a must a true need, not a want or a mere whim. Is leading hostages out a pita? Yarp, are they among my least liked content? yarp. Do they feel like something super heroes would do? Yarp. If Batman has to escort out a hostage through hostile forces, he is going to stick close to them, and put himself between them and harms way, even if he is a stalker and not a HEAT like Superman.

Why should I at your request when your offerings to this discussion are often vague and shallow, and what details you have given Ive basically had to play 20Q to get out of you? I mean ive been pretty reasonable in admitting that plenty of factors can make this tougher on some. lack of flying, lack of ranged dps, lack of mass aoe nuking all certainly play a part in the OPs original issues imo. But and lets be clear here, you as well as I have been doing this at increased dif solo, just doing that alone means it is not some unfair thing for a full party of characters actually up to snuff for the content at baseline which is what actually needs to be the dif being tested for a discussion on balance and if dumbing down the mish is truly a need. Do you struggle on baseline? Does the OP? Do you struggle on baseline in a team ? Is the team a team you consider capable in general? These are the Qs no one is answering and why I dont see an issue. Because I know the answers to these for myself and those I run with often already. And the answer is nope, nothing in this game at x0+0 short of some AVs and GMs is really going to slow us down let alone stop us cold and force us to give up.

Peace bringer is one of my mains actually, human form, perma light form, very solid dps, and can even bring some support and healing to his allies. But he isnt a disgusting alien parasite in concept, just a man of mysterious origin possessed of inexplicable energies. I mean really a class with a nuke, and a perma tier 9 unstoppable like ability, and fly at level one, whats not to love?

Actually I am pondering if I run this again, to use my very team leader centric PB, and try to build a group using a variety of AT to see if any given AT seems to struggle in a full team against the large spawn sizes expected in the final mish. I just dont know if its worth it. Those who want it dumbed downed seem to think they can call it bad design when to me it seems pretty clear the intent is to have players want to keep the NPC help alive, until that moment in the story, and to not screw around at that moment. Call it heavy handed GMing, I certainly would, but its also the exact kind of thing I do as a Gm at table top PnP games. Use blatant ticking clocks, and the threat of everything ending up in a fail spiral because of one frack up that they should of been better about not letting happen. I still have yet to see anyone say this is too hard on baseline dif for a decent solo character, or even for a team that is all at the level for the content that are typically capable of pulling their own weight. If I go in on baseline, its an utter easy bore of a snoozefest, and if I have allies as capable as myself I can bet it will be the same against the increased spawn sizes.

That is not remotely unique to this content when it comes to a stalkers stealth being a liability or being outright negated. Every time you solo a hostage mish as a stalker you need to turn off stealth or listen to the npc constantly ask where you went. Stealth isnt suppose to be some end all unbeatable ability. hence why some mobs can see right through it, and why in content like this, it gets negated entirely. But Ive now done this in the last few days as a stalker, blaster, and scrapper. and while Ive had a few rough moments in each toons run, nothing that was impossible to recover from, and sometimes even becoming a boon. in the case of the blaster and the stalker I stayed up y the mansion door during the ambush portions. I kept the NPC allies alive, and so when Ward popped they took aggro while I got clarity to the pool. In the case of my scrapper I just stood down at the entrance to the hedge maze and tanked every thing head on. all these runs at +1 x4 on toons that I tend to run solo at around that dif setting for casual play. I am not saying there is no issue, but any issue must be measured as much against the regular successes as much as the atypical failures. If we make this mish easier in anyway for the average, it will turn it into a snoozefest for the more capable.

But the thing is you have yet to make a good case for why it should be moved. You say you did it at increased dif, and had trouble. Ok fair enough so did I and we seem to have very opposing views to the good and bad of it. My blaster on the same dif had zero issue clearing the waves, and when it came time to grab clarity just walked off the edge to go get her. Easy peasy for me. This seems to be the critical moment some are struggling with like yourself. So I ask, did you have issue before or after it was time to get clarity, and if after,was it because you didnt leave the area around ward quickly enough to avoid the added spawns the event triggers? Frankly atm the only way Id support the change you want, is if when it came time to get clarity, she was a very very fragile NPC, that the team had to react quickly and protect her against tons of aoe and the like that would just about one shot her, forcing the team to be extremely effective in mob clearing during that phase to justify making the revive point safer, and make claritys death an auto fail obviously. Because I see this mish as honest legit challenge, and like the added twist of needing to keep the npcs alive, and mobs cleared so when Ward and event spawns dont overwhelm easily. Let me ask, do you think on base dif you would of been challenged at all? because for one character that really is all that matters. and have yet to hear from any group of at level doing it and suffering at all, just the OP who by their own statement 2 of the players were underlevel by a fair bit and side kicked up. So 4 players on +1 with half of them be at -2 to the mobs base, plus being weaker power/slot wise then a character should be for the content for discussions of balance. Also they lacked good front line. Would you for example think had you say a good bit of cc support, and a blaster for nuking, had any trouble with an x4+1 setting in this mish honestly? Because understand I am not contesting that a sub par group in over their head can encounter a no win scenerio they cant easily brute force their way through. Im saying that such is a good thing, to help act as a build check for players to consider possible respec ideas and other needs if they want to push past the inherent limits of a given at/power set combo. So far we have one group of 4 who were sub par for the baseline trying to do above baseline. and a few players like you and I who have gone in at the OPs dif while short manning and had varied results. For me the results are not saying the mish is unfair or excessive in any way, it just has a scripted event, that combined with players not prepping the area or being up to the dif setting they are playing on can create a very very hard to fight their way out of situation, not even truly impossible, just time consuming enough to act as a real negative consequence that can make reset a viable option. Because I am here trying to discuss this, Ive taken my game time to explore the issue now a few times. So far very few yourself included, are taking the time to really break down the events in the bad runs youve experienced or given even the basic sketch of tactics used. Hell you didnt even mention if you kept the NPCs alive until the ward/clarity event kicks in. These are relevant, those npc are clearly there to act as aid in the final fight if not just ignored and treated like cannon fodder they will be right there to help protect you if you need to revive. And since you were WP I have to ask, when that event occurs, did you keep your taunt aura on while trying to go get clarity? Or did it even occur to you it was one of those times rise to the challenge might be more harm then good by painting a giant glowing shoot me sign on you.

It very much does. If you for example like my first run, didnt pay attention, and stayed up there after he went god mode, and didnt focus on the objective of getting clarity, then yeah you kinda had that death coming. Also, what was the dif setting you ran at? That is also a pretty big detail that is very relevant. I need to hear from a group on a good team of 8, that against that with 8 people, they couldnt maintain their defenses,, they got overwhelmed there through no fault of their own, and could not recover before I am even going to begin to consider the dumbing down of this a valid ask. So far none of you have made one valid point, or outlined one reasonable. Because so far Ive not read any thing from those wanting change, that seems valid, and my own play throughs have shown no glaring issue to me that needs to be fixed to make it easier then the game is already.

Actually it was one of the things often talked about back on live, and one the Devs did seem to be considering. Batman and Superman are both security level 50 in coh, no doubt about that, Ones security level while it represents what kind of threats we can face, does not directly imply a specific level of super power. Nor is superman a good choice to use as none of us in game can ever be his level of invuln or dps. However lets look at say any actual mortal character from comicdom. Every single one of them can be if caught off guard at least mildly annoyed by even a street thug. And keep in mind we dont have those kind of thugs in Paragon. The Skulls, Hellions, Trolls, outcasts, just to name the lowest tier street gangs in Paragon, boast magical control of the elements, demonic entities, have members that can fly, etc etc. It actually would be the needed first step in then being able to look at different factions, assign them as a faction a challenge rating and award xp more accurately based on the threat of the faction. Thus people who hunt harder mob types would see greater rewards then those who farm easy factions.

My Q is why did you die at the ward part? Did you keep fighting up there, or as soon as your told to get clarity move to do so? Or did you genuinely get overwhelmed by ward before he went untouchable? And why do you feel it should be an easy recover, rather than the one that demands you made sure the area was kept clear, and the NPCs alive to offer you back up. If you were solo, what was your dif setting at? If more then x1, why do you feel the mish should be made easier, when you already had a pretty easy time by your own account at the dif setting you were at? As one who has played a claws WP and Soloed more then a few AVs with one, and consider WP game breakingly OP, I find it odd you would struggle against base line dif in the mish, which is the only dif anyone has any right to QQ about not being able to handle. The second I hear + anything about the run, I put that as the first and foremost reason for the groups struggles. And until the OP comes back here and says yep had the same exact ish happen at -1 with a decent team, I will see it as a player problem, and the possibility of a wipe that can not be recovered from, as a perfectly acceptable aspect of the mish, and yes tell anyone struggling to adapt, and either reduce dif, alter team composition, or just plain ol get gud! Because you are not entitled to completion.

What exactly sounds like a bug? The mish is to defend the mansion, they even give you several powerful npc allies, that as long as you work alongside will easily last till the Ward part that seems to be the focus of the discussion. We revive off to one side of the mansion, an area that if you have done your part wont have any mobs in range of, and have several NPCs near by helping to protect. We are also just beside the door to the mansion that serves as the mish entrance/exit. The only moment things can get real hairy, is if when the script makes Ward untouchable( which is very much intended and not a bug) you need to go get clarity. So far for myself I did struggle there on my first run on a stalker solo, only because I was so rusty I initially wasnt paying attention to the scenerio and was just in hack and slash mode. Even then I didnt get overwhelmed and killed, I simply dropped off the ledge, leaving ward and the bulk of his friends behind, ran over to clarity, and used a mixture of abilities to keep mobs off of us while leading her to the pond. For my blaster, The one time I did die, was at the end up against the group of EBs, and this proved to actually play to my favor, because the named EB that matters to finish the mish, flew off and was hiding on a roof top all alone, making the finish easy. There seems to be one golden moment, that if the players ignore the mish goal, and try to keep beating on Ward, or trying to clear the endless waves that will keep coming to try and prevent you from leading clarity to the pond, that can lead to this issue in the topic. IMO its good to have at least a few bits of content, were there is very little margin for failure, and demand players focus on the content goal, rather then just blast everything to ash. A bug would be clarity not following, or her reaching the pond not triggering the next stage. And again please understand that the case in topic is a group going above their ability. 2 of the 4 were side kicked up, none were front liners. They had dif further upped by +1, and then suffered a wipe during what for me has been the easiest part of the mish when Ive run it 2 times now the last couple days. Had they been on -1 or had a decent team I doubt this post would ever have happened. Hell guys this is technically praetorian content, some of the last added to the game, tuned to deal with the higher performance of players and builds. Understand to all the ones saying this is so hard. I as a single blaster, on a dif setting meant to mirror the OPs of x4+1 soloed the mish in question just by standing up top and hanging with the midnighter npcs while clearing waves, kept them all alive till the ward moment, and easily, casually stepped off the ledge, walked over to clarity, and lead her to the pond. Yes my toon is fine tuned, yes I know how to use him and adapt him to a wide range of things during play. He basically acted as tank and nuker and kept the mansion safe easily. So if 4 people are struggling with this encounter, before any QQ on the forums they really should of re run at base dif or even -1 rather than act like completion at +1 was something they are entitled to.

But the why they are having this issue in the first place is also very important. What facts Ive been given are that the OPs team consisted of no real front line ATs, and half the team was being side kicked up to the level of the content, so a team that is not even at the actual power level for the content. That then at one very specific phase of the content, they suffered a wipe, that they could not recover from. Because this wipe happened with mobs being all over the area people respawn in, it can make it very difficult to recover. I personally dont see an issue with this. Its an added bit of challenge and one that encourages not screwing up during the critical story moment when the players need to lead clarity to the pool. I mean are we at the point that people are saying mish success must always be a certainty? Because I just ran this content 2 times on very different characters, at the party size and dif increase of the OP, solo, and did not suffer some systemic failure I could not recover from. Im not saying there isnt an extreme circumstance in which a failure spiral occurs from which only restarting the mish is an option. I am saying I am ok with that possibility being in game, do not see it as some bug nor design flaw, and consider removing it to be dumbing down the game in a very bad way, and for a very bad reason.