Sanguinesun

What is your criteria for defining "hard"? Knowing those variables may change some answers. If you're set on defender, then my take would be empathy/archery given archery being one of the weaker range sets for defenders and empahty giving nothing much in the way of supplementing that. Outside of that, as others mentioned, a petless mmo paired with empathy choosing either beast, or demon. My take would be demon worst with beast next in relation to range limitations/damage output over time. No matter your choices, you'll also need to challenge yourself regarding pool power choices as well as you could make that easier with more attacks so you'll need to do self imposed restrictions there too of course.

I recognize that you have disdain and gatekeeping for how others enjoy playing city of heroes when it doesn't match you. Would you be willing to characterize then that your "Help", when made so conditionally as you put it, really isn't help but instead its just an agenda laden ego-flex?

The problem with that is that there is no Issue 1 framework from which to build such a server since the iteration that our current servers are built upon was one of the last issues from live. The HC devs would have to essentially reverse engineer..... extensively.... an issue build that would mimic but not quite exactly be an issue 1 build. My assumption is that the amount of extensive work that would be involved would not equate to players that would stick with it once they realize how barren and exploitive it would be(mind you, I'd love to see 6 slot damage burn for giggles but then I'd not be inclined to stick around). Let's remember that a significant amount of the game we play now both in terms of content, utility and options would be non existent on issue 1 and the novelty of it would wear off in weeks, I believe.

Since there are more people on Excelsior than any other server, and that tends to draw people who then end up making farmers, tending to keep them on the same server for at the very least alt farming in addition or recipe/influence farming, can you provide any statistical information that supports the claim that Indom is The farming server?

There seems to also be an issue causing builds when you change things to globally cause the damage to jump up... each time you change. I sure would love for example to be doing a 1200dam cleave with just 5 slots io'd but yeah... that's not a thing.

Sometimes clicking multiple times to see the prices results in different, well, results.

Just to be to try to understand more clearly, Is this an actual event on Excelsior or on Everlasting? Also I don't see where this is explained as being a pvp, pvpve, or pve. Never mind. You posted more on this in your thread on the Everlasting server's thread on it that you're having this like a sort of squid games theme:

Rad/Axe Ionic Flea Solid resistances, 2 utility/damage pbaoe in rad as well.

Frost/Tactical Arrow later with Fire mastery.

Good then that it was added though I'd missed that later in the thread. Also consider running the -resistance procs, either from the damage set or from the defense debuff sets as well or running both in it for testing considerations.

Late to reply but your fire/axe build hitting walls in the attack change due to recharge are because your choices in powers/slots in the attack chain not having more ff procs to get to the 400% cap is one reason. Not having ff in pedulum, cyclone nor cleave is mainly what you should consider changing. Also I wouldn't go with fly/evasive/hover personally either nor Engergy mastery for epic pool either. Basically, its a woefully underperforming testing parameter. You also then in your stone/axe build didnt use the same IO slotting as your axe slotting for fire/ and have even less +recharge than the fire/ (stone 158% or so to 232% with fire). Both builds are thus really unable to be assessed well for comparison to come to a determination that one is adequately better than the other.

The base damage of the ability wasnt changed, only change was to its triggering procs from every 5s before to now every 10s. Its essentially a 50% proc chance reduction to the power but its base damage over time(its a pseudo pet so that's why you dont see those numbers readily in mids), -def, contamination etc abilities have not changed. While its damage(through procs) has been diminished with the changes, anecdotally, it still seems proc'd is still more damage overall vs no proc(you're just getting it once every 2 IR spawns vs every IR spawn). However, depending on your game play goals, you also may just need to test whether the additional damage equates to more effectivity with your build or whether putting in an IO set(s) would give your build overall more effectivity(for example more global damage, more defense, more recharge etc. When the feedback threads were going I tried to outline differences with IR's characteristics and that of quills due to someone's discussion of it and pointed out too that unlike quills, IR cant take ATO's too. Booper said he was going to look into allowing them since they felt changes for the power merited that consideration but he said nothing further regarding it and I'm not sure(havent checked as of writing this) as to whether it can accept ATO's on live now(Im pretty sure it still cant.). All in all, you just need to decide, based on your build/goals, what should be the most effective considerations.

Or, one can simply say its conjecture until such time as there is substantiated and citable sources to corroborate your statements...

So in other words there's just your saying so and no actual substantiated, citable statements from them?

I've still yet to see any devs say they're nerfing procs. All I keep seeing is players saying that. Any specific official source you can cite?

Make one on the test server and io it out properly and see. I think you'll be rushing then to rebuild it.

And all axer team would be a horrible thing to see. The meme image I get is 1 bowl of kitty food with 8 cats competing to pull it to them based on where they're standing and thus pulling it out of reach of the others to greater/lesser degrees 😛

I encourage you to read threads related to procs. Commonly, farmers load more procs into burn which due to the changes has limited more their chances to fire off, however, they still do and still maintain effectivity for the power to still be, even for your combinations of secondary/primary powers, your best single chain activation damage power(if you take MU patron though ball/fences may be higher on activation potentially). Also many builds put the -res proc in it too so that it gains some ultility. Its still a difference of a (as an semi arbitrary example)200 dam activation vs a 400 dam activation. Some farmer's frustrations with the change to burn were not just in its effectivity for damage against multiple targets but as a single target filler(due to its endurance cost low and the ability to activate procs/patches multiple times. Similar could be considered with Frozen aura adding procs(though not necessarily) though burn still does more damage of course. Your biggest challenge as I see it is getting good recharge with that set combo to fire off stuff more often if you want theory craft better damage. You could switch for example(as Im assuming) from using the best aoe patron(mu) to another patron set with abilities you can use to set off FF procs for more recharge(Mace mastery would give you 2 ff's for example and depending on the build from there a 300-350%+ recharge), but I doubt it would equate to your combo having much more of a significant increase to damage in 1 to 2 minutes of an attack chain vs say a 150% but with mu aoes. A well proc'd ff activation attack chain with the 2 in mace mastery at a 350% recharge(with your other powers in IO slotted), could get you a burn at just under 6 sec recharge and your frozen aura recharging at 4s as examples. Would your current build(in theory) then benefit from that recharge(again on perfect procing situations) OR would it equate to a dps loss for you from your current build if you subtracted your current patron/epic choice considerations of damage in a 1 minute's worth of time in an attack chain(s)?

Actually you asked for a budget build initially and responses were in accordance to that. If you want to budget for top end builds, save for 800m to 1 billion expecting the worst and hoping for the best. We cant give you exact numbers because, especially during a holiday event season like now, the prices are much more volatile because people are farming in tot's and minting new 50's needing sets. If you already have fire farming with rad brutes like you're saying and you're earning 200-300mil a day, BUT not throwing onto the market things you dont need whilst farming, that'd be a bit silly given how some recipes can see for 10+ mil each(for things you dont need mind you. You're already earning more than not a small number of players do. Compounding your influence more beyond your current earnings is more about min/maxing your influence per hour ratio based on build, map, map transition/downtime etc from there and at some point, it also comes down to being your skill/choices in how you do it vs anything else from there. Keep in mind too this is different/diminished when you're also throwing others helping or you carrying alts to level too.

Your wants in this regard do not match the reality of the current farming situation. Expectations for an effective under 200 mil build in the current clime mean you're going to be very limited in effectivity both in terms of damage and survivability, requiring you to essentially farm on the lower difficulties (and even then maybe with issues still). Prepare yourself accordingly to then not be disappointed and see that just as a stepping stone. And this is before going into the extent to the diminishing effectivity currently for different sets like rad/fire(but not limited to) that I'll speak to below in response to Sovera. While fire/rad's damage output took a hit(and any brute/fire or fire/tank too mind you), it still can effectively farm on strong builds and is not as diminished as some people are saying, especially if a good farm map is found or made to accommodate such builds(ie ones that arent using the -def sword attacks). OP's main issue though is going to be a low budget build in that regard which means he's going to be low difficulty farming first until he spends even more to get a higher budget build. Nothing wrong with that as long as he understands the steps/pace of it. But I'm also not trying to diminish the trend with regards to the eroding of effectivity of rad melee or fire aura or ae farming in general. Its happening but its just being a slow erosion. But back to speaking to the OP: more importantly, as a farmer, you need to be ready to and expect changes to come about that are going to further diminish ae farming. Multiple recent updates have been doing this, while you even are lower dif farming once you got a basic build going, get yourself second and third accounts with toons you can put in with you while you farm of various power sets and or AT's for trying to proactively have options if rad/fire gets even more diminished in effectivity. And remember: farm more and more often. Invite, teach, and encourage others to farm with you. The more effort you make and help motivate others to do the same, it makes an impact.

First off, thank you for your post helping to give further insight into the state of the dev team, reps etc's collective mindset since you're seeming to speak for all of them. As well thank you for validating that there are issues between devs and players that exist that players have been expressing in various forms for a long time now. With that said then, it becomes hard to claim near/close to professional standards and then make statements that show blanket dismissal of criticisms/feedback that very well may have valid points being given just simply due to someone saying "x is bad and killing the game" at the same time as said valid criticisms/feedback. Plenty of volunteer groups can maintain professionalism btw. Being volunteer doesn't validate a diminishment of professional conduct unless the group chooses to not maintain such professionalism. So, the fact that you state your team chooses to make that distinction is a shame. Arguably that's helped groom the state of things now that have prompted your post to a certain extent: a growing distrust and animosity between players and devs due to the disjunction between both and with decisions made. Again, you've essentially admitted to as much with your post that, -Yes- there is a wall. Everyone has known this on both sides of the fence for a long while now. But understand that construction started with your team's decisions and has been growing and thickening in a vicious circle of reaction from both sides. I'd say your whole post reflects that and relations between both sides will continue to grow worse as long as this mindset continues. A dev in a different game once said (and I'm paraphrasing), that they well understood that people passionate about a game are the ones who speak up about it, be it angrily or otherwise. To listen to one group's criticism yet to dismiss another because one group's are presented positively and the other's are negative means you're extinguishing some of that passion for the game. It then contradicts your goals for helping to "refine, improve, iterate" the game when you narrow down and filter only what you're willing to read and listen to. So when your calling upon then specifically and only for players to break that vicious circle in part with this point on criticism/feedback by holding hostage transparency and community interaction punitively, that's just reinforcing the wall and strengthening the vicious cycle of conflict. That's how epistemic bubble development starts to become a thing with a team. And so, given your post, it seems compelling (and as evidenced over the years as it grows) that this situation -will- worsen. That's a shame. Regarding too how you say devs respond to criticisms/feedback at the end of your post is also not quite that either... as Neiska additionally and anecdotally pointed out from their experiences. Looking back over the threads in the beta forum section regarding feedback given (and Im not going to discuss the whole philotic to saying _NOPE_ and quitting either), can people find evidence there where folks attempted to give what you consider positively framed criticisms/feedback that wasn't addressed, explained, discussed or are the citable examples where responses (or more aptly lack of them) to the contrary? Next, regarding your statement of "I'll insist you realize we don't ever make ANY changes with an intended goal to make the game WORSE". That's a loaded if not partially disingenuous statement. 3 years of forums discussions where the definition of "WORSE" depends on which side of the fence (and multiple fences too both on your dev team and with players) that perspective is coming from would seemingly throw that into question. So I think you can't make that claim with such confidence(well you are but I'm saying you shouldn't), because changes the team enacts, knowing full well it -does- intentionally diminishes play that other players have enjoyed/experienced for years, -is- from those players' perspectives worse. What you're actually claiming is that its not worse for -your- team's "vision" for the game and the way -the team- intends for it to be played. Arguably the protracted and entrenched, inch by inch war with and intent to diminish the effectivity of AE farming to the point of discouraging it would be a pretty good example. Notice that if I'd said it was being slowly removed, it would be easily misdirected away by saying "we're not removing it".... All that also loops back into(if not exemplifies) what I was saying concerning epistemic bubble development too. All in all, unfortunately like Neiska, I think the chance of mindset changes of the team and what's to meaningfully improve are unlikely except in a worsening divisional direction. That wall is just going to continue to grow. Again, that's a shame.

Your admitting to intentionally derailing threads in an inane way is duly noted.

Most common tactic I see on these forums to mess with discussions or intentionally derail them is the pic spam...

Feigned apathy is never a good look after Labor Day....

For your last consideration with axe, what are the justifications/thinking for your choice in that rotation? Opening with your most flexible with range and highest damage dealing aoe base potential power would seem more apt instead of being at the end of the rotation(along with it having a -res in it to help the damage potential of the rest of the rotation. I'd also have different considerations for that opening rotation salvo(I'm assuming this is your opening one and not what you'd consider a sustained rotation).