Pixie_Knight

Yeah, Blue Steel screwed up big time. However Clockwork King then went on to be directly responsible for at least one instance of kidnapping a family and using them to force a mechanic to work for him (the Captive of the Clockwork story arc), uncounted millions of dollars in property damage, attacking the police, attacking random citizens... Clockwork King is not a good person. And being brutally beaten nearly to death by Blue Steel doesn't excuse it. Then again, it's quite possible that Blue Steel thought the "villain" he was facing was more durable then the kid actually was. Put yourself in his shoes. You have this teenager who's causing wanton destruction with psychic powers. You don't know if the kid has control of them or not, but the kid is a clear danger to the public. You're also aware that even the rank and file members of the weakest street gangs (hellions and outcasts) are dangerous as hell, and can take quite the beating. Hell, anyone with powers or the right training becomes super humanly durable and you can't always tell until you're fighting them. Far more then your average person. So, what was he suppose to do with these pieces of knowledge? IMO, it's a bit similar to how people get up in arms when a cop fires upon a teen who was pointing what looked like a real gun at the officer. With how realistic some toy guns look, and how much like toys some real guns look... Is it any surprise that tragic mistakes like this get made? Blue Steel made a tragic decision based on the information he had on hand. But it wasn't necessarily the wrong decision. Was the kid still "attacking him" during the beating? Probably. Keep in mind that player character heroes, who are supposedly not killing, use firings, flamethrowers, swords, poisonous gas, and other brutal methods to take down criminals. Or do you think those level 5 skulls you one shotted with a fireball or filled with lead from your assault rifle at level 25 didn't need medical treatment?

True, I find -recharge to be a far more dangerous thing then knockback. If knocked backwards, I can get up and get back to attacking. If all my powers are on cooldown due to -recharge and will be for another 30 seconds at minimum? Yeah, that's bad.

In the past, I'd found Super Jump>Acrobatics on it's own to be more then sufficient knockback/down protection. If something has a high enough mag to get through it, it has high enough mag that scrappers and tankers are probably gonna get knocked around too. If you're a blaster with the Tactical Arrow secondary, your capstone is a toggle which helps against knockback too. And if my character is going to be flying anyway, well, Hover might not completely prevent it but you'll recover fast enough that knockback/down isn't as big of an issue.

Why wouldn't you? Because it's not needed. Claws is a buzzsaw to begin with. By being willing to use all your tools you can have fun, not get sick and tired of the exact same 3 button rotation, and still carve through your enemies at high speed. When fighting a single tough opponent, Shockwave and Spin are wasteful. Especially when you have such a robust single target attack chain that allows you to use the attacks in almost any order you please. Against groups you're either spending time jumping backwards that you could have used to take out an enemy or two, or you're scattering everything which makes Spin less then effective. Claws is already a fast recharging power set, it doesn't really need much +recharge.

Didn't the game that NCSoft shut down CoH to fund also bomb fairly hard at least in part due to people boycotting it over the CoH shutdown? Not to mention it not doing well in their target audience either?

People do realize that Shockwave is not the best choice when attacking a single foe like an AV, right? And unless you're investing somewhat heavily into both endurance redux and recharge redux the "attack chain" of spin>shockwave>focus has more holes then swiss cheese.

I don't know anything about Internet Archive other then the name. For all I know, it's just some random file sharing site.

You... feed your minions inspirations? Okay, yes I sometimes feed them any reds or yellows that drop. But by choice my masterminds stock mostly blues with a couple rows of purples. After all, if I feel the need to be using inspirations, that means I'm fighting an EB or AV. Or maybe a GM. Either way what is needed is my own butt to be protected (chugging a couple Lucks) and more endurance to fuel my supporting and/or resummoning (and equipping) my pets. I have hotkeys for targeting each specific pet, so I just need to keep an eye on their health. Which gives me time to prioritize targets, call henchmen back if they are chasing after a runner intent on meleeing said runner (and thus might aggro another group), and so forth.

O.o but if you're not also paying attention to what's going on, how will you prioritize their targets?

No, I use it for damage mitigation that also does damage. In large fights it gets used more often then in smaller fights. Enemy has to not only stand up but run back towards me? That's less incoming damage in a huge fight. And that's aside from the fact that you have to back out of melee to even use it effectively against a group. My normal attack rotation tends to be Shockwave>focus (targeting boss)>Follow Up>evic or Slash>Swipe or Evic (depending on which one I used previously)>Spin (assuming I'm surrounded by meleeing enemies)>Swipe or Strike>Swipe or Strike (whichever one I didn't just use)>Focus>Oh look, eviscerate is recharged now... You might have noticed I have a variable attack chain instead of one singular "must always use in this exact order because it's optimized for maximum theoretical DPS" attack chain. I vary what attacks I use based on the situation and what is currently recharged. If I'm not particularly worried about a group due to none of them hitting particularly hard (if they connect) I may well not even use Shockwave. Or I might still open up with it, then use single target attacks to finish everything off. Or I might lead off with Spin, then use whichever attack feels most useful at the moment. It varies. EDIT: Also, with that listed "aoe attack chain" I notice that it consists of mostly single target attacks.

Of course, that economy developed because at level 50 you keep getting more and more inf and had nothing to spend it on until the Inventions system was added. People would hold costume contests regularly and give away billions of Inf just because they had nothing better to do with it. And would replace everything they gave away within a TF or two.

Do I trust the person who uploaded that file? No, I don't. Especially when I've seen that exact same file on sketchy bit torrent sites and rom sites I know for a fact regularly dish up a side order of "try to heavily infect your computer". Yes, I use to use a bit torrent client. Mostly I did so for fan subbed anime which at the time wasn't released here in the USA with the replacing of software I did buy, but couldn't find the install disk for.

I did specifically mention the "non-sketchy" ones. Sites that are still hosting NES and SNES roms (or roms in general) tend to be the ones I wouldn't trust to have downloads that don't include a virus.

I've never found Claws to be an "aoe blender" set. Decent aoe, yes. But Shockwave is more useful as a damage mitigation tool usually, even if it gets slotted for damage. Between it's fast (compared to other sets) recharge and fairly high endurance cost it's not a staple of the attack chain, usually. Spin is a good attack, and great when facing a bunch of melee focused mobs. But the majority of attacks I find myself making are single target ones. And yes, eviscerate is more of a single target attack then a cone. It *can* hit multiple enemies, but usually wont.

When did I mention Sony? NES stands for Nintendo Entertainment System, and SNES stands for Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The first two home consoles released by Nintendo.

Actually, yeah NCSoft deciding to shut down private servers would mean the "end of the world" for CoH. Because they would be in the right, and they could take legal action against all those private servers. The code being "in the wild" doesn't mean CoH is untouchable. I'm really hoping Homecoming manages to get the rights from NCSoft, or at least get made official by the company. But I'm under no illusions that the game isn't at risk until that happens. People thought emulation of NES and SNES games was safe because the roms were "in the wild". But Nintendo managed to shut down every non-sketchy rom sharing site I'm aware of. Keep that in mind when you start thinking the code being "in the wild" means CoH is safe.

Congratulations, you just won the Internet.

Assuming you got to 50 with no Inf due to PLing with double xp, go to the nearest Wentworths or just type /ah. Once you've done that sell any orange and yellow salvage you can't use, post it for cheap and you'll sell quickly. And since the market is blind, meaning the lowest sale price goes to the highest bidder, you should make bank. Go through your recipes. Are there any set recipes you don't care about? Sell those too. With the funds you just gained you have a few options. The first one is that you can buy the mats needed and make some generic IO enhancements to flesh out your build for now. You can do a full set of level 25 generic IO fairly cheap after all. Alternatively you can go to the enhancement vendor for your origin in Paragrine Island and buy a set of level 50 SO. Either way, you're good to go with no additional grinding needed. You have all the power you need for any of the regular TFs, a Hami raid, or most of the other endgame content. You wont be ready for the harder incarnate trials, yet. But it'll come in time. So, now what? Unlock your Incarnate status so you can start working on that. Start running missions/task forces/raids to get your incarnate salvage/threads. And while you're doing that you'll naturally be getting plenty of in-game currency to start crafting/buying set IO. Remember that buying the recipes is often cheaper then buying the already crafted enhancement.

Even if you somehow got to level 50 with no enhancements or inf, run a single mission on +0 x1 difficulty, ideally something involving an easy to fight villain group such as carnies or devouring earth. That should get you enough seed money to get started, as well as some drops you can use or sell for still more seed money. And hey, you're level 50. Enhancements aren't going to expire anymore, so feel free to buy SO enhancements to tide you over till you get better.

But in MMOs the whole idea behind powerleveling is that the game doesn't "start" until you hit the level cap and are doing the endgame content. So these people PL to the cap, run the endgame content obsessively, then whine about how the game has no content. Which ignores the fact that they skipped months worth of content. I just really don't get the mindset of people who whine about a game not having any content when they intentionally skipped past 99% of the game's content to reach what they consider the "real" game.

I never understood the appeal of AE farming to begin with. When the system was added I made a few story arcs myself. I ran a bunch of arcs too with a few characters. But the writing just wasn't as good as the actual missions in the game. A nice alternative to newspaper/police band missions or repeatable warburg missions when trying to get from 35 to 40, sure. New badges too, which I felt compelled to go after. But I quickly saw the system being used by the general population as a replacement for PL farming outdoor warwolf filled defeat all missions. And I've never understood the appeal of powerleveling past all of a game's content. Especially since those same people tend to then whine about how the game has "no content".

My Arachnos Soldier has the backstory of being an undercover cop from Kings Row who had been infiltrating the Skulls and happened to be a latent psychic. Cue a series of events, and Arachnos forcibly conscripted and brainwashed said undercover cop. Thus Arachnid Huntress's story arc is getting fed up with being the punching bag for every 2 bit "destined one", leaps the chance to fake being one and get some revenge, and eventually breaking the conditioning Arachnos put her through and becoming a hero... after forcibly changing her foretold Destiny and stomping future Recluse into the ground.

And then there's the fact that you may not even want to put IO sets in every power. You flat out can't six slot everything. Nor can you five slot everything. This is because you just plain don't get enough slots to do so. That's especially true for kelds since they get an extra 8 or 9 powers that need to be slotted up if they take Nova and Dwarf forms. Which means your looking at sets which have 3 or 4 enhancements. And you realize that if you use those sets, you're giving up some of your power's potential in exchange for the set bonuses. Most 4 enhancement damage sets don't hit the soft cap for damage, for example. Not unless they are very high level that is. And even then, you may find that said power did more damage with a generic IO acc enhancement and 3 generic IO damage enhancements. This is even more true for 3 enhancement sets. Especially if one of the enhancements in the set is a proc. So maybe you decide to frankenslot? Okay, sure that's an option. And it's potentially a very good one. But frankenslotting a power doesn't generally give many (if any) set bonuses. Then there are your goals for IOs. Are you trying to shore up weaknesses, or enhance strengths? It'll be far easier for a /SR scrapper to soft cap their positional defenses using set bonuses then it would be for a blaster to get worth while amounts of defense or resistance from set bonuses. An ice armor tanker is going to want different set bonuses then said super reflexes scrapper too when trying to softcap defenses. That said, while it can be complicated none of this is so complex that you can't figure things out for yourself just by opening up the AH and looking over what various sets offer. There's many different ways to acquire these enhancements too. I prefer organically finding the recipes, then sharing them among my characters. Incarnate stuff is even less complicated. Look at the powers, compare them, and decide which ones you think will benefit your build more (or are more thematic). Once you've decided on that, check what you'll need to craft that Incarnate ability. This may or may not require farming, depending on how your acquiring your mats. But it's also FAR easier then it was originally.

But seriously, my plant/trick arrow controller who's not even level 20 has one full set Slow enhancements crafted, attuned, and ready to be slotted into Glue Arrow when open slots become available. As well as having the full set for one of the hold sets planned (in recipe form) with a couple of them crafted already. I'm still making generic IOs for the build since I spent so much inf on a full set of Neurotic Shutdown recipes. But this still goes to show that funding an IO build doesn't require a fire farmer.

Out of nine powers, Claws has 8 attacks. Of them 3 are a cone or aoe. This seems pretty average. Shockwave (level 32) is a ranged cone with a wide reach. Eviscerate: Melee cone that is extremely narrow. More often then not it'll only hit one enemy, might as well be single target Spin: pbaoe and rather nice attack. A little endurance intensive though, and not really spammable with just Eviscerate and Shockwave. The other 5 attacks are all single target, and recharge fast enough that you can have a pretty solid attack chain with just Swipe, Strike, and Flurry Instead of Buildup there is an attack with damage on par with Swipe that also applies a damage/to-hit buff if it hits. Focus is single target, and combined with the T1-T3 attacks is a very solid attack chain. Oh, and a single target taunt which most people ignore the existence of. Claws is a single target focused set with a few AoE include, as is normal. Ironically, far as I can tell the biggest reason Spines is considered an aoe set is because it has a damage aura. When looking at the number of aoe powers, Spines doesn't really have more when compared to other scrappers. They all tend to have a melee cone, pbaoe, and then maybe one more aoe or cone some sort. Then again blaster primaries get labeled as "single target" or "aoe" even though they tend to have the same ratio of single target vs aoe/Cone attacks. They tend to have one cone, one targeted aoe, and either one pbaoe or targeted aoe. The biggest difference is in recharge timers, thus what attacks become your bread and butter ones. With claws the single target attacks are a major part of your attack rotation. With spines you're expecting the minions and Lt's to be dead after a build up+Spine Burst. Or even just spine burst and standing there for a second or two.