Sanguinesun

So let's think on this then in a different way to perhaps help folks start to look at how to (at least for the active farmers since this wont really help afk farmers perhaps). Damage output from power activations for a given set of time and endurance costs for output. If we work from the premise of a typical farm's 20 mob cluster as a goal to down., then the above ratio of damage output per activation - in x time - endurance cost for that output. And when I say typical farm's 20 mobs I mean the current highest exp/influence ones, not alternative farms made by some. That ratio is the key. What are the numbers that are for the higher end builds of Rad/fire now? What are the numbers that are for the same higher end builds on the test server? Once knowing those differences: What are the numbers for current non Rad/ builds commonly used: Claws/Fire Spines/Fire What then are potential numbers for other alternative builds that could also become potential contenders as well with the above ratio of statistics? --- As for Pheonix Rising, data numbers on it on test I've not looked/see details of on the forums and that would be important to see how it would be a potential factor for adding to a chain for /fire or not. Currently on live though at 300s recharge, it'd take a 400% recharge build to just get it to 60s and thus not necessarily be a viable addition to damage dealing. Also since the power's damage output according to the patch notes increases as the player's health goes down AND cant be activated unless the player is at 75% health or lower, then it means its more situational in use and potentially not worth the effort to add(Especially if the recharge is still 300s). Again, I've not tested it so I don't know.

Or like back in July when they intended to remove things more from AE, really make your voice and criticisms heard against it to hopefully neuter those intentions.

Except the plans to double the recharge time for burn and pretty much nerf procs for it and more, mean that fire farming with it will be less effective/slower damage total output. Famers will still tend to use ball lightning and fences due to their aoe as well.... Only -good- news is that they're changing Fire melee abilities to be pure fire only with no lethal so farms' mobs will be all fire resist and not split between lethal fire. So farmers can return to focusing on fire resistance, fire defense and positional defenses and with the change to cremate adding a knock down but fire getting one power with kb protection means an important hole's going to be filled there too. My take with your consideration for claw though is that it wont out perform still though rad/ due to its irradiated ground, the power set's contaminated proc and the sets general -def either. even with the 10 second nerf. So if anything, Spines now may have come out even better. All in all this is 100% categorically an intentional change to discourage farming as a whole still though. People have been saying their intentions for procs were coming.

Here's my take on your questions: There isn't such a thing. 1. Content in the game, 1-50 and post 50 even, is not a constant in terms of how it can/should be handled by an AT/powerset/build. There is no "One size fits all" AT or power set choices/builds to provide consistency in the way you're asking. This contributes heavily to why answers vary between player to player. 2. "Solo" also doesn't account for efficiency of time either. As an extreme example, a poorly made character can take hours to finish a mission that a well-made one can do in a matter of minutes. So, they "consistently solo" but at a snail's pace and perhaps consistent debt too 😛. That's a factor that some people don't consider when they see the plethora of threads by people posting videos downing XYZ challenging content. They just see something seeming to be advertised as powerful and think "the best" without taking a look at it with a more skeptical eye. Devil's in the details essentially... when the details are also provided too, mind you as sometimes, they're not made readily available/apparent. 3. As pointed out already too, even with AT's and builds that players claim to be the best or optimal, it doesn't factor the player's capabilities or more aptly imo, judgement in handling content. But I also think its important to qualify that as to say that its not as major a factor as some players like to make it out to be but it can be a factor none-the-less. Some players prefer to use that as a tactic of misdirection from showing their hand so to speak when it comes to builds they use. 4. "Solo" also needs to be qualified by what exactly is desired to solo. Again not all content is the same and tactics, tools, and strategies change depending on that per points already mentioned. So all in all, my suggestion is to look at things dynamically vs consistently. Doing so then can help open up more flexibility and adaptation to your game play/leveling goals. Plan your choices for content to be tackled solo to better optimize your AT/build choices. Factor your use(or not) of IO sets in that leveling process and whether changes will have to be made at multiple times (again or not) during that 1-50 progression. Accept that there will be segments(level ranges) that there will be more challenge to your goals than others. And lastly, post 50, be flexible and adapt to end game goals you may (or may not) have for the toon. Doing all this then becomes a recipe, over time, that better matches your wants instead of chasing a phantom "best".

This thread with a more active farmer brute build may be something to look at: Looking at your build comparing to Angel's active one, you're at about one fourth the damage output theirs does (roughly speaking).

This may not be an ideal thing to say for you but your wants may not exactly match the reality of fire farming, especially post Page 4's update. You're going to need to either spend some time investing in the IO's for the more ideal build you need per effective builds post page 4 that folks have put out..... or you're going to going to have to just make other considerations. I also have to say that likely the "cheap builds" you're speaking of for spines/fire are for pre-Page 4 considerations as well. Yes, its a bit of a catch 22 but its also not hard to run lots of TF's to get merits for IO's/recipes and then to join other farms when they call for hitters to help get your some farming under your belt to boot. Its not insurmountable but just takes perhaps a little bit of time. A guy for example the other week on Excelsior had a rad/fire build set up and accolades, and 3 of his incarnates to tier 4 in less than a week. Granted he was playing all day due to being on vacation he said but it should perhaps help you see its doable. You just have to farm slower and incrementally higher as you get better kitted out.

Just my take on things. 1. Unless an group of players is doing something against the policies of HC, the likelihood of any action being taken against them is unlikely. 2. Classy RP groups in this game or else where do not blanketedly turn down others because of previous membership in some other group. Classy ones also do not tend to put on exclusionary airs either. 3. However, classy rper's also do not resort to making a forum thread which is just one sliver of a step away from a naming and shaming thread, especially if there is true grievances to be had per point 1 I made. To me, this is just 2 wrongs dont make a right. Find other rp groups in game or make your own where you can exemplify the Role Playing Classiness that you wish to be involved in and thrive. And for the record, I must begrudgingly agree with Krimson. (darn it) Good luck to you.

Seems a bit confusing your seemingly trying to diminish the claims that /cold corruptors are extremely powerful for 4 star ITFs when you just made a thread in the defender forums recently showing off your team having beaten it.... With 4 /cold corruptors in the group:

Perhaps this suggestion doesnt have applicability for your condition and I know everyone is first suggesting power sets etc, but would perhaps a Razer orbweaver/tarterus peripheral help your needs? I knew someone years ago who played wow who had some issues who found that razer peripheral more accommodating to their needs. Just thought I would mention it at least.

Check the brute /fire farming builds for proc examples. 4-5 slots with dam procs and at least 1 -res debuff slotted is typical.

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.