Sovera

You know, I'm rather curious about this. It pretty much shows how we cannot, and should not, try to please everyone. I've had this interaction (once) in the past. We were on a Citadel, team split up, someone mentions the team split up, we pipe in that the team seems to be doing fine (no one was dying). Player was unhappy. We keep on playing. After two or so missions they mention they don't know why they are bothering since everyone is doing fine and can 'solo' the missions by themselves. I don't believe the person quit but they were unhappy. At this point, like with them as with you, I don't know what I am expected to do. The mission -can- be done more quickly with everyone splitting up. No one is dying so it's not hard (Citadel, Council, etc). So we need to go all together in a tight knit group for... what reason? To make someone happy about being in a team ball? I'm not being sarcastic. This is me asking. What is the expected behavior? You're saying if you go into a team and three players can tackle the content and are tackling the content alone instead of a team ball you just quit the team. What is the expected behavior? Even if fighting an easy enemy that is not dangerous it's not being done correctly if not performed in a team ball? Has it become a sin to purchase attuned IOs and actually work out a build instead of randomly slotting things? For some people this seems like a yes, and I return to my first paragraph.

I don't have connection problems. I have a 1gig connection and do not use Wi-Fi. It really is something that only happens when standing in place for a while. And chatting. At the top of my mind I don't remember crashes in my long idling bouts in PD. Someone like @Number Six can probably dissect the latest crash logs.

And instead of 246 you get 387 + double chance of procs going off, yeah. But if wanting to use something else than Fire Armor then Spinning Strike or Sweeping Cross is acceptable.

There are two things to consider here: - First is that comparing the game with mechanical decisions regarding gameplay to the comic book demi god that hears a gunshot from the moon and travels down to earth in time to stop the bullet is always going to end in tears. Compare rather to more normal power levels and it's not unheard of that top speeds can be breached via adrenaline and need but there is a reason why 'top speeds' are called top speeds and not 'unhurriedly moving along'. If a motor only goes up to 100 kph it's not because there is a big need to stop a bullet that it suddenly goes up to 500kph. But there might be a turbo function (dare i say afterburner?) that allows to momentarily redline this. - Second is that I'm hearing a lot about feels and not enough about testing. There were people who actually tested the travel powers and reported their findings: in a complete straight line with absolutely nothing in the way and over a long enough distance that 30 seconds was not enough to reach then Fly reached the door 20 seconds after SS. In places with detours (if I recall correctly they tested in Grandville or something?) and shorter distances Fly outpaced the others. So we need less spreadsheet navel gazing and more 'I went to X map, tested, and Fly is unacceptably slow according to these numbers'. Which, per testing done, is not the case. Most times we are in 30 second distance of a mission, more often there will be detours.

Perhaps not blind but rather your Mids being outdated. Be sure to have the latest one. Could you post a screenshot of what you're seeing? I see what you mean though, but if you reorder slots everything is accounted for though Mids spazzes out even in respec mode about too many slots spent at level 49.

Spinning does less than half the damage of CU. Looking at my current build Spinning does 240 damage with three combo points where CU does 740 with three damage procs (but I prefer slotting a FF proc with 89% chance to go off in order to accelerate cooldowns so 676). You can go around this by switching the order in which you use the skills. AoE just spam Spinning Strike. ST use Spinning -after- CU (ergo before starting to accrue combo points). The 2.5 gap gets filled regardless but now your three combos points are not used.

Awkward. Early Build-Up replacing early AoE is a bit of a wash... -with- Burn to replace that lack of AoE. BU + Burn kills half a pack so BU or Dragon Tail is kinda the same honestly. The single target definitely suffers. I won't wax more poetic on the animations which are extra sweet compared to MA but Shin Breaker -definitely- would have gone to level 26 to spread out the set's hard hitters. Dragon Tail and Spinning Strike are a bit of a wash as well. DT animations a sliver faster, ST hits a bit harder on three combo points. Combo points add a layer of awkwardness when we have our finisher ready to be used but not three combo points (easy to happen since things recharge fast but if we use extra clicks (heal, BU, FE, Consume, even Hasten). I find the combo points don't add enough damage to matter much and tend to just ignore them. If I have the combo points it's cool, if not the skill goes off anyway. Back when I tried it on a Stalker, I think it was, I noticed I would hit a -1 lieutenant with Crushing Upper and no combo points and leave it on a sliver of HP, then I would do the same but on three points and the mob would also be alive on a sliver of HP. After mathing it up looking at the combat log there -was- a damage increase but minimal. On the long term it remains a damage increase though, but I bring this up to say I feel it better not to be a slave of combo points. Better throw out more Spinning Strikes in an AoE situation or more Crushing Impacts than to delay them. Speaking of CU it has some very nice damage proc interactions to it does about 150 damage more (per mids, I need to reach 50 and test this with in-game numbers) than Crippling Axe kick. Without Burn there would be an awkward 2.5-ish second gap that could be filled with Spinning Strike to use up those combo points... but then CU is up and now it has no combo points to use because Spinning Strike's much lower damage consumed them.

Yeah, I read the manga. Definitely StJ for him and his successor. 'Our' super man is more of a brawler when ever a writer forgets he has had extensive martial training. StJ has been nice. It's easy to get an attack rotation going in the early levels And I can say it hits deceptively hard. Spinning Strike has enough radius for me and with three combos is okay in damage. I don't really trust Mids so I will be subjecting the character to comparison tests against MA once it's at 50.

EM definitely has the oomph and Invuln without something to boost damage can make good use of it. The AoE isn't all that bad if you can squeeze Power Crash since it recharges fast enough to allow PC, Whirling, PC. Even for a Tanker and on Invuln it's enough to down the minions and hurt the rest. Rad Melee has horrid animations and way too lenghty ones down the line. But it does have a beefy heal. The heal is not -that- random since you can force it with Fusion. Fusion, <whatever> (forces contamination because of Fusion), Radiation Siphon (eats contamination which triggers the heal), <whatever> (forces contamination again), Radiation Siphon (second heal). You can pretty much start every fight like that and have two heals to counter the alpha without relying on RNG. I'm currently leveling StJ (with Fire Armor, of course) and it's a bit clunky because of the spread. Rib Cracker is beautiful but doesn't hit particularly hard, and then nothing to alleviate this until level 35 and then 38. That's a lot of leveling to be spamming a T1 and T2. Burn carries it but with Invuln you won't have that. Should be fine if you're always teaming up. I've been re-thinking the build to include Sweeping Cross instead of Heavy Blow. It would lose the FF in Heavy Blow for leveling and exemplaring, but SC would give an early AoE and combo spender.

Just for the DDR I'd say Invuln. Well, DDR and the -large- influx of defense when surrounded by enemies which is when we want defense. Who cares if defense goes the soft caps when only 1-4 mobs are left? Once 1-4 mobs are left they simply don't swing fast enough to outpace natural regen. Invuln does it all. Rad is a tough egg easily cracked by defense debuffs since for some weird reason it is allowed for -defense debuffs- to melt -resistance- sets. But Rad can survive thanks to the heals and shields too. But since you've asked something like Invul/Rad Melee. Live off Recovery Serums until your slotting is in place while Rad Melee helps with some healing. I'm not sure if Rad Melee and farting cloud gases fits your idea (it's a pretty damn useful and powerful gas cloud that nearly makes the real reason to take Rad). I'd personally use Claws, but that's zero superman like. You don't necessarily -need- Super-Strength though. Just because it's written on the box it doesn't mean you need to go for it. Even Claws you can choose the smallest weapon model then try some trickery with gloves and try to hide them, though personally I love the vanguard energy weapon skin from claws that sprout from the forearms. But it's not very superman-ish.

Tunnel Witches is good for solo. A single run is enough to reach level 12. I would probably do it until level 22 and then just start on comic con. But think ahead and make a second account and level another farmer at the same time (both in the same team). Then in the future you can use it power level your alts.

Is there a chance the unique IO behavior can return to how it was? Before one of the last patches we could slot something unique like the ATOs or purple sets, then switch to the alternate slotting to hide them and slot the same in another power in order to compare things or what ever reason. Now changing to the alternate slotting is still counting the set as slotted in. I am not allowed to slot it, UNLESS I slot one that is not in use (for example the damage IO of purple sets we seldom pick) and then use the repeat slotting function in middle mouse button

I fear to say this behavior continues. I can get you the crash logs. It -seems- to still be related to chat as the crashes happen in PD after having done a max buffer chat emote, then start to type the follow up and the game crashes.

Recovering from a stint at trying Scrappers again I noticed how well the proc worked in Power Crash. I had this AoE rotation of Power Crash, Whirling Hands, Power Crash and it was -very- satisfying to open with PC, see the message, and then see Whirling Hands come down crashing like a house on the surrounding mobs.

True, without any rewards matching it there would be a lot of difficulty to find teams to run missions with those difficulty settings. On a REGULAR basis. Finding such a team to do it once or twice should be possible. I mean, heck, @Linea runs their uber hard, no-special-rewards-attached-to-it architect missions on a daily basis multiple times. But back to the OP, small teams is what you want. Advertise as such. Heck, play over Everlasting and I'll be there with you.

I solo and duo stuff where I can because full teams just steam roll. But, I'm one of the 'four' mentioned above. So even if you did come and join me you'd feel the same. You'd 'help' by throwing buffs but have a Tanker who shrugs off damage and nearly two shots packs when BU is up. The solution is lifting the difficulty. Form a team and mention you'll be running it at +2 (if during leveling). That said I don't know what to tell you. Since when was CoH actually hard? Before IOs we'd run around in +4x8 teams melting the map. Nothing much has changed.

The effort at making pool powers useless makes so people do not pick them because they are useless. Manpower, code hours, etc, all gone to waste. I can imagine the statistics and devs sipping coffee as they look over them: Dev1: 'Hmm, 20% of the players were using RoP. It dropped to 5%.' Dev2: 'Our job is done.'

This is something I cooked up but never really played. There are sacrifices made (nearly no -recharge protection) in order to push defense and above all energy resistance. I don't necessarily agree with my own choices 😄 Such as having more AoE in the form of Fences and Lightning Ball instead of Focused Accuracy for the -toHit debuff protection and Physical Perfection. But you get the gist of the idea with the 40% defense to melee, ranged, and AoE, as well as capped resistances to everything except toxic and fire/cold with two stacks of the ATO (14%) plus Barrier's 5% resistance and defense (making 45% to defense). You can pick things apart for your own build and see what ideas you wish to keep.

Some people can bear Eviscerate and use it. I don't remember seeing it did not get the boost but as I don't use nor intended to using I may have skimmed the patch notes. Spin does get the extra radius and Shockwave was excluded, yeah. Not even close about Spin and Burn, sorry. But Spin does recharge a fair bit faster. IF you can squeeze in Shockwave you can make everything faster thanks to the FF proc. Because of Burn and because Shockwave is kinda expensive in endurance I found I didn't mind filling the gaps with ST attacks instead. Minions and alieuts are going to melt from Burn and Spin anyway, and then we have the bosses needing to be killed. So I focus on them while spamming Spin and Burn. They will still die before the boss since both AoEs are pretty damn strong.

Don't get me started. Duoed Yin with the same person I did it on the Scrapper and we shaved 20 minutes off it 😄 Okay, what? Focus comes up at 28, how is this a late bloomer. Just substitute it for Swipe if exemplaring lower than 23. It also only has Shockwave at 38 (33 if exemplared) but Spin is the meat and potatoes of the set where Shockwave does... okay damage, but is more of a nice turbo booster and CC spam. I can honestly say I never considered Claws as a late bloomer. Lets look at Katana whose only skills worth using come at 35 and 38 for a Tanker. What is someone even meant to use lower than 30? DA and a T2? I'm currently leveling StJ and it shaky as well. Rib Cracker comes early at 20 and is all well and good (gorgeous animation too) but then we tickle mobs with the T1 and T2 until 35 and 38. No, hard disagree on Claws.

I'm not shy to say we can do most of everything in the game with Fire Armor. On the caveat we accept that incarnates exist and Barrier is a panic button that saves a life. In a world without Barrier I would be much more hard pressed to sing the praises of FA but still inspirations would be there if need be. My own point of view is that if we kill things they don't hurt us back. I have done more durable but that killed more slowly and I died as much on them as on the FA because things lived longer. Dark Armor/Claws, for example, is pretty durable. Dark Regen can be brought down under 10 seconds. Combined with Claws KD in Shockwave you can get a breather for Dark Regen to come back up. But if I had to pick I would say Radiation Armor/Claws. It has more bells, more whistles, more debuff protection. That said I'm definitely on Fire Armor's side. You can cap most of your resistances and soft cap S/L defenses, and Burn does -things- to my libido. As low as Positron you can be melting packs with Burn and Spin.

I had a sudden harkening back to the days of 'moderate damage' and 'superior damage' and no numbers until the playerbase united and got those numbers by themselves.

It takes literally 2 minutes by the clock to put a base together and then it lasts for months until the next wipe, but I made one for me and others can use it if they want: /enterbasefrompasscode TEST-7

This is the build I intend to use. Because of Spinning Strike's awkward 'targeted AoE' instead of 'melee AoE' I had to change things around and skimp here and there. I'm not sure how you managed to level without an AoE 😛

I just want to say that I wanted a break and tried several Scrappers these past days. Caveat: none were leveled to 50. - EM/Shield. Went into it wanting Shield's DDR. Didn't have significant amounts of it in the low levels. - DM/EA. DDR scales with slotting, so only 31%-ish by Posi 1. Defense was being stripped. Got bored by Citadel but more because of DM than EA. - EM/Bio. Balls to the wall damage search. But so so very squishy (early levels, not enough slotting to go around). - Kat/Rad. I know this combo is very good. Katana gets 45% defense to Slash/Melee out of the box and Rad has lots of goodies including Radiation Therapy. But the damage was terrible. Leveling with just a T1 and DA was frustrating. By Yin I had Soaring Dragon and it helped but I was already bored. The ability to chain cone, PbAoE, cone, was of little help with so low damage. I know the damage takes off once I could do DA, Soaring, Golden, but couldn't stomach the idea of exemplaring and returning to this. - EM/Rad. Best of both worlds. Not as squishy as Bio. Not as low damage as Katana. Was actually pretty decent. Nice fat crits and TF hitting hard with two damage procs and chaining cone, PbAoE, cone, was nice to clear packs. But, in the end I duoed Yin and.. it was... so slow... One hour and ten minutes. I usually solo it on my Fire Armors on the 50 minute mark since Freaks are annoying with the ressurects and heals. That was my last Scrapper. None appealed, all were squishy, damage was good but not great. Nice burst, but the Yin showed it was not sustained. This would change later with more slots and etc, but just, no. So I returned to Tankers and made one of the last combos I had not yet done: Fire/StJ. StJ has a reputation for terribad AoE, but oh hey, izzat you Burn? Also the Tanker inherent increases Spinning Strike's radius by 50% which helps fixing the AoE problem StJ has on other ATs. Oh god.. It's so good to be back. StJ does not get their PbAoE so I'm just using Burn for AoE. But it does have Build-Up and Build-Up makes up for that loss. It's so good to be back. Melting a pack of enemies is orgasmic after these past days. StJ also has very good animations (I could live off Rib Cracker alone) and an easy early rotation. I'm always pressing buttons which is very nice. In the early levels Rib Cracker, Initial Strike, Heavy Blow, Initial Strike keeps me busy instead of waiting for things to recharge. I don't need to, but I've taken Heavy Blow because of the FF proc I can slot into it. My next ST with an FF proc comes only at 38 so for leveling and exemplaring purposes I am going to keep it. Once at 38 the rotation will fit in beautifully with Burn helping with Crushing Uppercut's awkward recharge. By then things will be Rib Cracker (1.6 animation), Shin Breaker (1.6 animation) Rib Cracker (1.6). Crushing Uppercut recharges in 7.7. So 1.6 + 1.6 + 1.6 = 4.8. There is a hole. But, we have Burn. So 4.8 + 2.3 = 7.1 and that leaves half a second-ish. Burn recharges in 7.7 and the same applies. 4.8 + 2.4 from Crushing Uppercut makes 7.2. That means I will be able to: Build-up (get three combo points), hit Burn (BU + Gaussian), Crushing Uppercut a boss (Bu + Gaussian + 3 combo points) and then start on the above rotation. Substitute Crushing for Spinning Strike in AoE scenarios. The hole in the rotation has always been a problem for me. I've done tricks like using Spinning Strike to fill it but they were not just not optimal but forcing piano play. CoH is not a piano play sort of game to be honest. Overall StJ is behaving well but I have only just begun leveling it. Despite the lack of slots things are dying faster than I expected. Perhaps the sure -10% res from Rib Cracker is helping there. I expect the same sort of Burn pushing behavior MA does thanks to the FF proc in Spinning Strike. It does not get the defense boost though. According to Mids Crushing Uppercut's facility with procs (two purple damage procs which even with near ED recharge are still at 89% to go off. Even the non purple ones) is what lets StJ push ahead of MA, but not by much by Mids' numbers. Using the ubiquitous pylon testing lets StJ push ahead thanks to the baked in -10% res but I will rather test the set against an AV and report my findings. For now I'll keep on leveling it and say more in the future.