Sanguinesun

At 23, you'd not be using it for fire farming anyway 😛 At the level stated, its not important to focus on killing power. Its more important to focus on leveling. Let your teammates focus more on the damage. You don't even have burn and other offensive set powers yet. So again just focus on leveling and keeping in mind what your post level 50 game play goals are to be and learning to play with your teammates in such respects accordingly as you level. Think on leveling as earning your belts in karate learning the most fundamental basics BUT then understanding that getting to blackbelt means you've internalized said utter basics and its from there the real learning starts to occur(ie in game post 50). So with all that said, and your saying that she's cash strapped, just use basic Invention Origin enhancements(not sets) and until 50. As for giving you a build to work with, that's tougher to do because we can give you basic build considerations for whilst you level but you're going to have times of challenges(end, certain damage type mobs you encounter, no knowing your team's holes/weaknesses etc etc). Just be judicious with your choices since as you know, you cant take everything and cant slot up fully everything. Make good choices with your power pool as well to help bolster your defenses/resistances(leadership/Fighting pools), leaping's combat jumping and jump for travel, Speed's hasten, and then 35 on consider what you want to do concerning epic/patron pool sets(if anything, you may choose otherwise depending again on your goals). And then once 50, start deciding on the post 50 build you want to have and then IO sets/ATO set choices you want to start investing in. But again, all in all, just focus on gen pop leveling.

Was whirlwind not mentioned because of it being melee and end heavy?

Except citing mercy's AE removal, given the extremely small number of people who stick around in Mercy, means your narrative spin doesn't hold much in the way of compelling evidence to support what you, nor the devs actually claim. People who farm over the last 3 years as well I'm sure have been contributors of donations for the "keeping the lights on" too. However, your adamant and seemingly authoritative claim that the demographic and influence of donators is different sounds like you are saying you have some sort of information that is different that isn't transparent to the general player base concerning donations and said influence. Please cite then your evidence in this regard. It would of course be quite damning but you've made the claim and best for you to back it up. Otherwise, all what you're really just doing is letting your elitism undergarments show.

In this thread: You were saying that Rad Armor was your top pick but now its not even mentioned. A week or so ago I also had asked if there'd been any significant shift in your considerations for your picks in that thread and really you'd indicated seemingly that there wasnt any major shifts in what you considered for ITF*4's So by not listing Rad Armor in your recommendations this time, is this meaning you've changed your mind on Rad Armor being top per the graph you made in the other thread? Just a bit confused.

Experimentation Pool: Toxic Dart: Information Window for the dart shows a base damage without any enhancements or slots added to be over 8000 damage with numerical errors accounting for it both in the Lethal and Toxic damage over time sections.

You made the claim. I was just simply asking you to cite it so that everyone has an accurate reference. That would of course help your reference when backed by an official citation. Readers otherwise may consider it just to be assumptive/speculative. But you were in a blanketed manner seeking to invalidate farming as a whole and hence why it was of merit to state. It wasn't a case of claiming you were saying otherwise. That's slightly a misdirection. I am referring to specifically your posts. You made this dichotomy of claims: 1. That farming is not an intended form of play of the game. (An invalidation of farming) 2. That devs do not support farming. (An invalidation of farming) 3. That (as I'll address below) farming is not "normal" game play. (An invalidation of farming) And then from all that effort over multiple posts now you still claim: 4. That you have no problem with people farming. (The seeming contradiction that forms the dichotomous stance you're taking). Its like someone saying, "I dont mean to be rude..." and then the next sentences out of their mouths are intentionally just that. Your stance of what should and should not be "normal" game play forms the basis of your contradiction. Farming and the participation/enjoyment in such activities since the inception of the game, along with a multitude of other forms of play that don't follow your straight line are what's actually truly more normative. The cognitively dissonant manner by which some players and devs (both past and present) view any farming pejoratively yet create, give incentives to participate in such both economically and socially, and then roar the terrible roars, gnash their terrible teeth, and show their terrible claws against in condemnation of such, are what really make for compelling evidence for being disingenuous.

Can you cite where devs have explicitly said they do not support farming? I'm not saying what you're claiming (on this point) isn't factual. I'm just wanting to have a citable reference for that. And while you're focusing on influence regarding farming and "too lucrative", remember too, not everyone farms for influence of course but it is important to point out market costs to outfit a player are at a point where most io set builds of merit are going to cost a lot and while people then say "play the market" they forget that that's just money shifted(with a small currency sink mind you) and not money generated. Those then who are involved in farming for influence specifically are doing so treating a symptom due to being unable to treat the cause. But again, this has been going on ever since side kicking and long before AE existed. Even if AE were removed, it would not remove the capabilities of farming nor the different types of farming. Influence is just one of multiple farming reasons. It would just shift it to different means. You make claims that you do not have an issue with farming, yet you focus on the "intended" point over and over in seeking to invalidate farming. You also say devs also do not support players farming in the game seemingly to further position farming poorly. So, it is seemingly a lot of effort with your statements in a direction to invalidate and pejoratively frame farming and the folks who enjoy doing so for someone who conversely says they don't care if others farm. It is a rather interesting dichotomy.

Here's my take on your questions and musings Ukase: When one has been groomed by games(including this one when it was live) to be a time sink so that keeps people paying for subs/buying MT's/etc etc, and then folks are presented with such a game outside of that context as CoH is now, its hard to of course balance such time sinks with rewards in its inherent bf skinner model's necessity of diminishing returns on rewards. But since the game is no longer following an intended business model, yet wanting to have players (and the dev-players) enjoy it, said HC Devs implemented/are implementing changes and additions so that they feel they can retain players and give folks new things to do. They seemingly wanted to give incentives but not make it (yet) worthless. Aether is the new shiny. As time goes on and everyone who really wanted the rewards that can be had from getting aether(aether is a middle man reward afterall), then as it accumulates with little need after that, the values will drop...... Unless other game content is introduced to feed the value of aether currency later. It is essentially feature creep, something that played CoH even before it was sunsetted(and many other games too mind you). People always want more and its a never ending cycle. This is really rather easy to see how it goes with World of Warcraft actually and how they every so often compress levels, "revamp" classes, added tokens( which pretty much are like aether here) and introduce new things to keep people subbed. So we have to then keep in mind that the HC devs folks are pretty much entrenched in that never ending cycle now too. You seem to focus on concerns with aether. I think that's not where concerns really should lie. My concerns more lie with devs/players having been groomed from this and other games to start to want/consider game play features from other games that, while it satisfies one segment of that want exclusivity/elitism enjoyment to laud over others(which was intentionally groomed by devs of other games again for their business to make money from pixel crack), in other words, I hope that CoH is not transitioning into a pedestaling of the equivalency of mythic raiding.

White Plume Mountain was the first module I ever played. First module I ever owned was I2: Tomb of the Lizard King. That said, just like DnD, there is no such thing as "intended" every group I've played with over the last 4 decades in DnD played differently. All were valid because it was what the groups enjoyed. Also even within the system, there was variation like the Dragonlance modules(where groups I played with never used the preset characters from the back.... and then some did). If the groups had prescriptively been forced to play "as intended" by your seeming definition then, most of those groups would've stopped. And many of the groups even just use only some of the materials, never used modules, or switched to using GURPS when they started realizing the actual "intent" by DnD was to sell books and roleplaying supplemental materials vs much else. It is/was a business after all. Farming is a valid form of playing CoH. It has existed well before even AE existed. Remember, sidekicking and exemplaring were implemented by the original devs. They -intended- people to repeatedly play content. What is at issue is that you and segments of the player base(and HC dev team too mind you) simply dislike it either in some or all forms. It galls such people that others can enjoy something they way they want to because its different from the way they believe it should be done/played. In DnD terms, a friend of mine coined a term for players that insist on how the game "should" played many years ago: a college player. Such essentially spends 75% of their play session against the DM or other players about rules and citing them from books while the rest of the group just sits there with nothing to do. Or most of the group is that way and they enjoy themselves while they can't even leave the first tavern for a play sessions of 2+ hours because of discussions about how folks "should" get drunk. And then one or two in the group realize that's not the group for them and dont join the next session. How they want to play is valid for them, how others want to play is also valid. The schism comes when one group starts to dictate for another "their vision" when its not enjoyable for them. Essentially, if you don't care if others farm, you've no need to make a post attempting to invalidate such game play.

So let me again explain test results: +0 / 1 / No Solo Bosses Level 2 SS/RadA Brute tested with 119.8 Health. Your Boss does this (with the s/l shield shield (unenhanced) on): Practice Robot hits you with their Throwing Knives for 22.6 points of Lethal damage. Practice Robot hits you with their Throwing Knives for 1.7 points of Lethal damage over time. Practice Robot hits you with their Throwing Knives for 1.7 points of Lethal damage over time. Practice Robot hits you with their Throwing Knives for 1.7 points of Lethal damage over time. Practice Robot hits you with their Throwing Knives for 1.7 points of Lethal damage over time. Practice Robot hits you with their Throwing Knives for 1.7 points of Lethal damage over time. 31.1 Total damage from 1 hit. Without s/l shield: Practice Robot hits you with their Throwing Knives for 29.16 points of Lethal damage. Practice Robot hits you with their Throwing Knives for 2.2 points of Lethal damage over time. Practice Robot hits you with their Throwing Knives for 2.2 points of Lethal damage over time. Practice Robot hits you with their Throwing Knives for 2.2 points of Lethal damage over time. Practice Robot hits you with their Throwing Knives for 2.2 points of Lethal damage over time. Practice Robot hits you with their Throwing Knives for 2.2 points of Lethal damage over time. 40.16 ----------- Their AoE Savage Leap (with s/l resist shield on): Practice Robot hits you with their Savage Leap AoE for 7.82 points of Lethal damage. Depending on the context of the attack, it does: Practice Robot hits you with their Savage Leap AoE for 0.62 points of Lethal damage over time. (Between 1-5 times that DoT will land) So the total is between 8.44-10.92 damage. Without the s/l resist shield on: Practice Robot hits you with their Savage Leap AoE for 10.1 points of Lethal damage. And again depending on the context of the attack, it does: Practice Robot hits you with their Savage Leap AoE for 0.8 points of Lethal damage over time. (Again between 1-5 times that DoT will go off). So the total for that is between 10.9-14.1 -------------------------------------------------- Both attacks go off pretty quickly/frequently (not surprising given the short recharge times on them). So as I stated in the original post, the knives essentially do about One Third of a player's health in one hit. And given the fast recharge times of it and the savage leap, pretty much a player goes down in a few hits. AT's with no defense/resist will obviously go down the fastest. This is essentially not a good choice of powers for a lowbie leveling mission consideration. Its also why Humble Farmer switched out his lowbie leveling maps from knives as well(previously he used them before Page 4). ----------------------------------------------------- As for exp: approximately at level 2 with the settings mentioned above, they give just around 2 bubs of exp. Given the number of mobs, the difficulty both in damage they do and health they have to take down for the time spent, its just currently not optimal. I hope this feed back helps.

Sorry I think maybe my questions were a bit ambiguous. My question regarding RadA/DM was more wondering about DM's -tohit , fear etc contributions and their merit vs any heal/regen considerations. It was mentioned I believe that tier 4 mobs are stronger against and diminishes the kb with SS(thus diminishing a soft control). I havent seen mentioning then whether that's as well going on with -tohit or fear. Even if so I wonder if the -tohit/fear helps in stacking from any controllers/defenders using similar. As for the more general question for updates to thinking since you and your group of folks have been playing it more for the last few weeks was whether you've seen in shift in your chart rankings or changed up prim/sec tank considerations with other choices. That's why I asked as well upon the DM per your speaking strongly of it in the first part of your post but then making no mention of it with RadA/ at the end.

Patty updated the mobs for her gotter version. Its not the same as the original.

Its more to do with the fact that DFB and DIB are group centric, fast exp. The AE missions discussed primarily in the thread focus on: -solo -for any AT -with exp per time spent on the mission that is better than that of typical door mission soloing. Thus a recipe of things. Prior to the changes and for the last 3 years, there were various sets of missions that met those conditions that usually had merit to around the 15-21 level range and started to become diminishing returns from there to the point that doing other content had more merit. The Dev choice recommendation you made though essentially is not of the same caliber and even at +0 are not equally paced for all AT/power sets.

Closest in update to that(ie a large map with easy spot for sitters) thus far that I've seen is 45721 by Patty. Its exp is just a sliver under the above talked about ones but survivability and length are there.

At +0 for time spent vs difficulty solo, its exp is not better but worse than 3955 post Update. Higher settings for some AT's would make it take longer or be not possible and the exp earned would not be worth it for the longer time spent. One of the points is to have players be able to level any AT solo on the previous missions that folks used to use the the "Bads" series, especially when playing at a time/server that has little to no people to engage with or just simply because you just want to not group. That's unfortunately become punitive overall now.

I tested your mission for a few levels between 2-5. As an example: at +0, the red conning EB's are throwing pretty frequently a knife that after the DoT is done, takes about one third of a tankers health(with the s/l res toggle on and regen on too mind you). They throw that knife a lot (3 times on average a minute or more if unlucky). They're also very high health and take a tanker with 1 punch and their VIP powers a minute+ to wittle down.... for about 3 and a half bubbles of exp at level 3. It also didnt seem to have a helper like various lowbie levelers farms do. At level 2 with +4lvl setting, it was a 2 shot death with 7 bubs of exp after a few attempts. Its a mission very much not for most AT's nor lower levels. By contrast, 3955 while the exp is only about 2 bubs at level 3(and unfortunately scales down as you level up) on max settings, most any AT can survive with no deaths(sadly a very far cry from its pre-Page 4 days). So overall it probably needs some adjustments.

Couple of weeks now have gone by since the update. Any changes to your considerations? Also, you spoke well at the top of this regarding DM and SS, but I was curious as to why at the bottom, you didn't mention anything concerning a RadA/DM consideration?

Confounding chant I believe is what they're referring to.

I do think the evidence is compelling that the hard modes as their currently instituted are not unlike the grooming that wow did with the exclusionary/elitist mentality with raiding and more aptly, mythic raiding. Unfortunately, there's little way from that being dissuaded since the challenge in itself breeds min/maxing and exclusion too. I understand that there's a segment of players that flourish within that sort of challenge... and that sort of thinking(and not), though. Hopefully that will satisfy them for a long while and that attention is focused and turned upon many other aspects of the game for a few years at least. But if a trend exists, gravitating towards erosion of playstyles and enjoyment for a relevant number of people, then that is where a concern, and an eventually widening schism of the player base may be headed. Remember, until there was complaint, their intentions(ie mindset) was to discourage that playstyle and enjoyment by others. I would argue it still exists but only mitigated by the criticisms in July. Never the less, some of their intentions -did- become implemented, intentionally, to discourage that player base. Take that to mean then, that they'll continue to look for ways to, bit by bit, chip away at that. Don't then consider that they actually listened in the sense that folks should be wholly satisfied. Take it to mean that, they're easing others into their inevitable goals/results. Again, there is a segment of the team/playerbase that do not consider nor want that playstyle to be valid.

This is interesting. Looking between SR and Shield Tankers, I have to say the evidence is a bit more compelling for Shield as a choice. They both seem to be able to reach similar positional defenses but Shield seems to be better off in the resistances as well and without needing to drop take sorcery to get there. There's an 801 Shield/Rad tanker build that does well by all accounts but perhaps a dark melee one can do just as well, thus giving more -tohit vs -defense to the fray (though losing the damage toggle). The shield/rad 801 build I've seen though takes the darkness patron's foe -tohit toggle to compensate though.

Both dark and Plant's confuse powers have Mag 3 and secondary Mag 1's in them. Difference in those is that Dark's mag secondary Mag 1 chance has slighter longer duration but its negligible. But the biggest difference between the two is that before bonuses, recharge of Possess is only 8s vs 60 on plants, that means more chances to apply to then confuse readily an AV(stacking as Voltak's putting it). Also Posses has a 90% base accuracy vs that of seed's 75% So it's going to apply faster and more easily. Alternatively Mind Control's Single target confuse and its recharge of the ST version is equal to that of possess. There is no difference. However the aoe confuse it has (not cone btw) has a much longer recharge (240s), longer range, but same mag/duration of the plant iteration. But it has only a 60% base accuracy. But Voltak I believe, per his response as well, is more generally speaking to Dark's overall power set's abilities vs just the confuse power comparison alone. Plant, other than a smidgeon of -slow, has very little else in debuff offerings, while dark has a lot of -tohit which is arguably one of the more underrated debuffs in my opinion. The fear cone alone provides 15% -tohit along with that fear. Most of the other powers add 7.5% -tohit and then there's the haunts and umbrals too(dunno their %s though). All can stack of course. In challenging content, reducing the chance they hit you is pretty much a defense(all) boost in my opinion. Also while plant has immobilize and holds, Dark as mentioned has the same and fears with their stackable -tohits. And then there's the creative slotting that can be done due to dark's powers' multiple different IO sets that can be slotted for better combinations of bonuses to suit needs in Dark vs plant. 6 of 9 of Dark's power choices can choose between 6 different IO set categories. Only 1 power from Plant can get 6 IO set category choices. Dont get me wrong I like plant, but Dark just brings more to the table that is arguably more suited for more challenging content, unfortunately. And also that's not to say there are other control sets that could potentially do better than Dark either mind you either.

By goals I meant post hitting 50 with the character. Not everyone begins or worries about slotting set IO's whilst they're leveling to 50 unless they already know the plans they have for it once its 50. For example, if you were to be playing the hardmode content post 50, players would focus on power choices and bonuses from IO sets to help them survive/do well on a team embarking on such content. For their min/maxing(and you can look in different threads on these forums about that), you can see sometimes that even power choices are only done so that specific enhancement sets/combinations of sets can give the most optimal bonuses. For now, my impression is that you're not really going to involve yourself with the more challenging post 50 game play stuff so min/maxing isn't a concern for you. Slotting and power choices per your line of thinking thus seem fine. As for Reverberant, since the pet only mimics what you cast within a short time after you cast it, probably just going with one of the pet sets that gives you the more advantageous bonuses or similar would be fine. Again my impression is you're looking towards a more relaxed game play consideration. Correct but there are other powers that take same/similar sets, it's tedious but it can for those truly wanting to min/max to work out what the new power set combos could manage to have. However, the OP seemingly isn't going that route. Primarily as well my asking was to more see whether they were aware of the planner or not as well.

What are your goals for the character? That can have a bearing on your power choices and slotting. Are you using the mids planner to help you?

Putting together a team for the toughest of the toughest hard mode content, what is your dream team of AT's and their power sets and why?

When going to customizing the Thorny Assault powers, the main power set choices have the correct names: Original Color Tintable Spines Metal Spikes Crystal Spines Slate Spines However, if then going to view each individual power in the set for the same options: Original Color Tintable Spines (Long alpha/numeric string)PowerTheme (Long alpha/numeric string)PowerTheme (Long alpha/numeric string)PowerTheme