Pixie_Knight

Three letters that mean aboslutely nothing if someone doesn't know the context or what it's suppose to be abreviating. I might have known years ago, but that was what... 15 years ago?

In the words of a certain comedian... "Here's your sign." I remember joining the Task Force where you face the Clockwork King while on a Trick Arrow defender. Team consisted of a Katana/Invuln scrapper, a Invuln/Fire tanker, me, an Empathy defender, and a controller. Can't remember the controller's spec anymore beyond them having empathy as a secondary. Actually, not sure if they actually used their primary at all. The team would have been pretty damn good against anything else. But well, Clockwork King does do psi damage, which entirely ignores Invulnerability's defense and resistance. Two 'healers' weren't able to keep up with the damage, and I wasn't able to mitigate enough damage either. So of course I got blamed for the party wipe due to my not being a "healer". Couldn't possibly have been the fact the AV was able to bypass the defenses of both the tanker and scrapper. Nor could it possibly be that two party members weren't even trying to pull their weight, but instead were just using direct heals and the rez. No, it must have been the defender who used every single tool at their disposal to try keeping the team alive. Yeah, I'm still salty about how often I got blamed for team wipes on the strength of not being a "healer", as well as all the times a useless "healer" got credit for keeping the team alive when my dark/rad or rad/rad defender was preventing most of the incoming damage via debuffing enemies into the floor.

Heck, just general gameplay would be amazing IMO if you could do full immersion VR. Even if you had to use a gamepad or keyboard/mouse and had canned animations, still would be so damn cool. Gamepad would probably be better though. And it'd be a bitch and a half to code, probably. Might even require completely recreating everything from the ground up to incorporate such. But hey, that would have the benefit of meaning there was no source code or assets from the original game used for the new version of CoH.

Some games, as I understand it, can be more enjoyable to a subset of people when they are drunk. But those are often games like Mario Party, where reflexes and coordination aren't king, and lacking those can add to the amusement factor.

So, while finally getting things set up so that I can ditch having a physical computer monitor... a thought occurred to me. wouldn't it be amazing if CoH could be played in virtual reality? No, not just streaming your flat screen game onto a projected screen in VR, but full "you are there" VR. And yes, I realize this would likely be a huge pain in the rear to code. But still... wouldn't it be amazing?

My low blood pressure dips tend to occur when I stand up too fast. It's within the healthy range, but just barely high enough to be within that range. And I'm very much a light weight. I admit that. Then again, I don't want to develop a high tolerance to alcohol either.

Of course I drink while playing. I keep a 20 ounce glass of water by the computer at all times. ... Oh, wait, you mean drink alcoholic beverages, don't you? In that case, let me explain something. I don't like the taste of the common beers. I don't like the taste of tequila, vodka, brandy, or whisky either. They are too damn bitter. Even more damning, I don't like the way I feel when I drink the stuff. I'm frequently unsteady on my feet enough due to low blood pressure. As such, even a single can of beer spread out over a couple hours makes me unstable and makes it difficult to do much of anything that involves having to stand up. I don't like that feeling. Pale ales that are kept chilled have a tolerable taste, to me. And if I make sure to only drink a bottle on occasion, and even then only while eating a meal, the side effects of being unsteady are mitigated to a large degree. I've also found that I do like sake on occasion. I drink the traditional amount of a single saucer, only once a day, and rarely buy the stuff to begin with. It's extremely bitter, but the traditional amount is past the tongue quickly enough to not be a problem. And with such a small amount, it just leaves a warm muzzy glow for a while instead of destroying my balance and making me feel mentally off balance. Once again though, I only drink it when eating a meal. Still, I rarely even consider buying anything alcoholic. As my dad puts it... I'll decide to drink a single Blue Moon, once in a blue moon.

I've never had a build that can solo an AV/Giant Monster. That said, I do understand it's possible with a perfectly attuned IO/Incarnate build. Hell, a third of my characters can't solo an elite boss. That said, I'd imagine it would really depend on the AV and what your power sets are for if you can solo it. An invuln tanker, brute, sentinel, or scrapper would really struggle against Clockwork King and the Carnie AV due to the psi hole in their protections. Heck, any mission with a lot of psi damage is a huge pain for a tanker with a psi hole. Which is most of them.

Here's an old one from a friend of mine. First, the setup. I had an IRL friend who would play CoH on Triumph server. It was my account at the time, since my friend didn't have a computer of their own. Let alone their own copy of CoH at the time. Well, my friend had started teaming up with someone in the hollows, and they /friended each other, teaming up whenever both were online. When this happened they were level 10 or so, having just finished the Hollows storyline (except the trial) and were in Kings Row doing missions. They came across a group of level 50 Malta, complete with some deployed turrets. Presumably some level 50 got killed by an ambush by the group. My friend and his team mate took cover behind a fence, thus avoiding aggro. Friend: "Malta, who are they?" Scrapper Teammate: "Donno, think we can take them?" Friend: "Maybe?" Scrapper Teammate: "Right, on the count of three we jump over the fence and attack. One." Friend: "Two." Scrapper Teammate: "Three, GO!" My friend jumps over the fence and dies instantly to the turret, his team mate on the other hand runs in the opposite direction, avoiding aggro via ducking around a corner. Me: "Well, that was a classic hit-and-run strategy."

I have a Surface Go. I didn't want a Microsoft Surface Go, but my laptop had died. My laptop which I needed for running my character at Pathfinder Society sessions. My laptop which I used to access the internet and play certain games (like MMOs) when out of town and visiting my dad. Yeah, that laptop had died. And I needed a new one. But I didn't have the $1500-$6000 needed to get an actual laptop that would meet my needs. I wouldn't have the money for that for 2 or 3 months. But hey, a surface go was only $400 and ran on Windows 10. I had the money for that, and it would meet the most basic of my needs due to running Hero Lab and D20 Pro. I fully understand the concept of throwing money at a sub-par solution because you "need" it right away. EDIT: Note that I could have, and probably should have gone to the store and bought more ink for my printer. That way I could just print off my character sheet and use paper & pencil to run my character. You know, like I had for the last 30 years. But nooo, running my character in Hero Lab was too damn convenient so I needed to replace my laptop right away.

Kineticist is a very good class overall. Starts a bit weak, but as you said... really effective vs swarms since even the single target attacks do full damage. Depending on your build a kineticist can be ranged dps, melee dps, battlefield control, healer (main healer initially, backup healer after a while), and so forth. You eventually can have 3 different elements for different damage types and to-hit types (normal AC or Touch AC). Want to cast Haste? A kineticist can do that, either for 1 round duration or full duration (at the cost of 1 burn). The only real drawback is that they suffer if you multi-class due to losing damage dice and other important benefits.

I do take the attacks as well, sometimes. Not always though. As I recall, the official CoH/CoV guide suggested the "best" way to build a mastermind is to take the personal attacks, load up on pool powers for additional attacks, and ignore your secondary for the most part. Do this until you can do the first respec trial, get your respec, and use it to swap out all your offensive abilities/pool powers for your pets and secondary. But don't take the pet upgrade abilities until at least level 35. Then again, the advice for blasters was doubling down on Statesman's Stupid Blaster Tricks blog post when the original blaster inherent was added. And it actually suggested scrappers should ignore their secondary in favor of grabbing the Presence pool right away.

Got eight party wipes in the main storyline. Damn river ghost isn't letting my kineticist rest, so I have maxed out Burn. And since my kineticist is also the main party healer until I can recruit a cleric that can cast Cure spells... That's a bit of a problem. Tried racing to Thorn Ford to clear that event... only I keep getting random encounters, ambushed camps, and the like. Which means even the bard is out of healing magic, and I'm low on potions. So... I instead was doing the Beneath the Stolen Lands campaign. And... just got a party wipe after finally recruiting a cleric. And promptly forgetting to have said cleric rest and prepare spells. Also, the cleric only had the starting light shield and studded leather armor. I... think I screwed up. I should have hired multiple party members instead of buying equipment at the start.

*shrugs* I've never listed inspirations on the AH. Not back on Live, and not now. I disabled the inspiration types I don't use on a given character, and if I get large inspirations it's of a type I find useful. So it will end up getting used at some point.

Regarding the published guides (think it was Brady)... Not only did those give horrible build advise such as "don't take your pets on a mastermind until your in the mid 20's, as I recall, but the useful information it did contain was invalidated within a month due to a patch to fix balance (and bugs).

Too durable to be fun as a ranged character (IMO), but not active enough to be engaging in melee.

I know stalkers and scrappers have the same caps, but I remember seeing slightly lower base values for Stalkers when they added the ability to see the real numbers. Haven't checked in years though. I do remember regen being less effective for stalkers due to them having less health though.

And what we do have is.... kind of boring to play. I'd imagine if we got our wish, it'd still have ended up being boring.

But at the time, that's what we imagined. The power of a blaster, the defenses of a tanker (or scrapper at least),

After working out, I decided to put off continuing my playthroughs of WOlverine's Revenge and Silent Hill 1 til this afternoon. Instead, I'm booting up Pathfinder: King Maker.

Maybe. To be honest, I do need to work out (I play Beat Saber for that). I also do need to play more Silent Hill 1 and Wolverine's Revenge (the PS2 game). Not because I want to play them and like the games, although I do like and want to play the games. But because I'm currently recording Let's Plays of those games for my youtube channel. Got to make money to pay the bills, after all. After all, videos wont record and edit themselves. Tis a small channel, but it makes me enough to get by. And getting paid to play video games I would have played anyway is rather nice. Granted, certain parts of Wolverine's Revenge are really frustrating. Like the turret boss fight against Omega Red (I think, it's been a while) where you keep having to switch focus from the tower's weak points to instead shoot down missiles, helicopters, and ground troops. Of course, the final battle is a HUGE pain in the rear due to your regen being nearly non-existent by that point in the game, and you're fighting Magneto.

It's likely people using the prestige travel power in addition to sprint and/or whatever travel power they opted for. Unless they are a teleporter. Thanks to the prestige powers, I stopped even considering a travel power on most characters unless it's thematic.

I was going to sign into CoH for a bit (okay, probably most of the day). Instead, it looks like I'll be working out then spending some time in VR. Er, I need to work out today anyway. But I wanted to play CoH this morning.

You know, I find it kind of amusing. Back on live servers we use to always theory craft how badass a blaster with a defensive secondary instead of more offense (usually) would be. All the ranged and aoe power of a blaster, but the damage mitigation of a tanker or scrapper? We thought it would be overpowered, and thus why the CoH devs never considered implimenting it. You know, despite how much many wanted this exact thing. And now that we have just that... it's underwhelming at best, and boring at worst. Yeah, great, blaster with mez protection and resistance/regen/defense... And you're left thinking to yourself "I should have just made a blaster" or "I should have just made a scrapper". Mez protection is great, except a skilled blaster already knows what enemies to take out first. So mez protection isn't that big of a deal. Sure, you get a defensive set... but I think the values are on par with stalkers. But without all the little tricks stalkers have to make that weaker defense/resistance/regen and lower health work out. Sure, you're incredibly sturdy once your build gets going. But since you can just stand there and keep blasting, it lacks the engagement a scrapper, brute, stalker, or tanker have. You're not having to chase down enemies, reposition to make best use out of melee cone attacks, or anything like that. You just stand there (or hover there) as an artillery turret. It's boring.

It can be dang useful for squishies. Then again, remember that a group of Tsoo green ink men can easily overwhelm even a scrapper or tanker's mez protection 🙂