quixoteprog

So, they can sneak attack foes unawares, which I assume SOME people consider heroic. As for support sets with "ally only powers" I never understood how that was rationalized either. I can make someone else stronger, but not myself? It's kind of the same reasoning that make someone design a ranged fighter who has almost no defense against melee attacks numerous choices of melee powers. I suppose you could characterize such people as heroic in the same sense that Mother Theresa was heroic in her struggle to help other. Blasters then could be characterized as heroic in the way a psychotic killer is heroic if he is a soldier in war time and not some nut killing civilians.

I have lost the thread of the conversation? I seem to recall it being about how much sense melee powers make on an AT YOU YOURSELF say is a "Glass Cannon AoE specialist AT". How does that fit with a secondary loaded up with ST melee powers? Now you are saying the blaster only makes sense in a team? I was answering a challenge from someone who claimed that blasters COULD solo such a situation. That is was all "technique" and when I put him to the test he gave up. Now, if you want to test the concept of blasters being built only to be a team AT... I actually would not argue that. But that is the PROBLEM from my perspective. If you have an AT that is made to be kind of gimped solo but "really shines" when he gets on a team with other people to protect him that is kind of not a hero AT. Not to me. And AGAIN, it still does not explain why these AoE specialists are loaded up with ST melee attacks. But, yeah, I probably don't understand all the complexity because I'm the idiot. Please, illuminate me.

My challenge is not meant to reflect reality. It is only a controlled experiment to demonstrate the point that melee attacks are probably the LEAST usefull type of power you could give a blaster in his secondary. Sure they are useful in that they can be used. Just not as good as almost anything else. And the only reason I don't say pimp out both characters with the best stuff and incarnate powers then do the same is that both pimped out characters will likely walk through the same content since the game, at its heart, it pretty easy. You have to ramp up the difficulty pretty high to pose any kind of challenge to such characters. And the argument I am making is not that blaster have it so much harder than scrapper. I find runner much more annoying in a melee character too. Not that they are ever a real problem since I have never seen one alert any other mob, which by the way would probably be a cool update. As to some of the melee attacks boosting a blaster damage., while that is likely true, there are any number of other powers that could do that as well, like another better ranged attack. Or a control power. It is that melee powers operate on the premise that the ranged damage dealer has failed to keep the target at range.

You can't do it can you 8-] I understand. As to your excuse. The cool thing about this challenge is you DON'T have to compare scrappers and blaster. Pick another AT. I chose Scrappers because they were the ones that most closely resemble blasters in that they deal damage at a similar rate. As to not using inspirations you should READ MY POST. I said I only exclude them to make it simple. If you can use the same insp. on the blaster run as the scrapper (or whatever other AT you choose to use that is a damage dealer) then by all means feel free to include them. It was only to keep the math simple. We are trying to demonstrate how it is just my lack of knowing how2P. The whole purpose of the exercise I proposed was to find a way to demonstrate how each AT is equitable, not necessarily the same, because that is why you have different types. But they should all be able to handle the same level of difficulty, mezzes and holds and heavy hitting melee at about the same speed. With the right technique. That should be possible, right? As to being unreceptive. If you have another process for eliminating the other factors in different ATs to show how equitable they are I am ALLLL EARS. I have given you a chance to prove how worthwhile your "technique" is. How it triumphs. I am WIIIIIDE open. Show me how well the play technique works by eliminating the other factors. You cannot, so you deflect. It IS the internet, and so rather than put up you "agreed to disagree" which is to give up. I say again. Show me, if you can.

Sigh, I did not say /elec suck. Not because of how many melee attacks it has or for any other reason. I said the number of melee attacks don't make sense. Not as much as having some kind of defensive power or any number of other options. As I said, the game is easy. Blaster are marginally more difficult that some other, require more tacticks. But they are easy. You showed a video of you decked out with incarnate powers and IO set bonuses to get the defenses that give you the defenses that should be there in place of the melee attacks. If your REALLY want to demonstrate your l33t sk3\/\/z then try this. The video you posted does nothing to demonstrate the comparison of one AT vs another. It only show how easy the game is with a tweked out character. A scrapper could probably do the same thing faster. On test, make a 40ish level scrapper. set up with vanilla IOs. Run a mission against Carnies or Malta, set to the highest difficulty you can do without using a single inspiration to survive. +4/x8? Awesome Now, make a similarly equipped blaster. Run him through that same mission. Using your awesome knowledge and skill of the game to show the world how much better you are than everyone else. I won't even complain about you using "jousting" even though I believe that was technically an exploit that the devs on live tried to stop. If it is possible do it. That way you will demonstrate that this is just people who don't know how 2P complaining. That it is just a "learning curve" as you put it. Skill can overcome the design of the AT. Why no inspiration? Mainly to make the math easier. If you use some on the scrapper you should be limited to that same number and type on the blaster. We want to compare apples to apples after all and you contention is that it is just a "learning curve".

L2Read. The argument is not how difficult it is to be a blaster. It is easy. The whole game is easy. Especially when you are decked out with incarnate powers and set bonuses and a level shift fighting council or 5th column. No one needs to L2P. If you can push a button you know all you need to know. The conversation is about what makes sense. Melee powers on a blaster don't make sense.

Kill faster? Don't scrappers actually do MORE damage than blasters? They have to get in melee to do it, fine, but they do about the same damage but they have built in defenses. Sure blasters can get tough and weave but so can scrappers. And they stack with the defenses in their secondary. As for there being some, rare instances of blaster secondaries where they get access to control, fine. I am talking about the majority of secondaries that are loaded with melee attacks. Darkness, electric and energy manipulation all have four melee attacks. Ice only has three, fire has one. this would be like changing invulnerability and lightning reflexes so that half of the powers knocked things back out of melee range. Melee classes would be like WTF? Then, when they rightfully complained about it someone says, "well you should have taken another secondary". Or, better says, "You just need to be better at the game." Or, "those attacks would be REALLY useful in a situation where <rare and specific situation that a scrapper would rightly avoid it he were good at being a scrapper>" There ARE good blaster secondaries, sure, that's fine, but why have ANY that not only are bad, but don't make any sense?

I don't think the OPs argument is that blaster cannot be successful. It is certainly not what I was saying. Like I said, I have gotten one to 50 and he has T3s in everything but his Hybrid slot. And you point out that one or two of the options for secondaries are actually worthwhile is also quite true. And Incarnate powers make him stronger The problem is that this is the case with EVERY other class. But with all of them all of their secondaries are designed to work WITH their primary power set. As a blaster your primary attacks are all RANGED attacks. You would think that your secondary powers, ALL of them not just freaking Tactical Arrow, would be designed so that any power I pick would in at least some demonstrable way work WITH my primary powers. Melee attacks DONT DO THAT. They can be effective, sure. They can do enough damage to finish off a mob or knock it back or stun it. But that doesn't change the fact that they are worthless up until the mobs have bypassed my primary means of fighting. Attacking at range. Controllers mitigation, control, works at range, like their attacks do. Scrappers, Brutes and Tanks armor works just as well on ranged attacks as it does on melee attacks. And if you say, yeah, but those melee attacks you get do some REALLY good damage. And some of them stun and stuff. Sure. But I have RANGED attacks that do that too. And they are just as effective as melee attacks in melee range. Why not give me another thing to make THEM more effective. If something gets into melee range on me then I am kind of toast. Because you won't give me ANY armor at all. I need to take 2-3 powers in a pool to get that. And yes. Having an incarnate panic button power makes that less of a problem. But none of the other archetypes need to wait until level 50+2 to be able to stand toe to toe with a boss mob for more than one attack.

It seems to me that every other archetype has damage mitigation as their secondary ( or primary if you are a defender ) that works WITH their primary. For Scrappers, tanks, Brutes etc. You get some kind of armor. For controllers you get buff and debufff that help you do more damage with your attacks, heal yourself or hold stuff. Similar with defenders and their primary In the case of blasters half of your secondary is often melee attacks? Which is in direct CONTRAST to your primary damage mitigation method; which is doing damage at range. SOME of your secondaries will boost your primary attacks, sure. SOME will hold your enemies or allow you to heal in a limited way. But whoever thought that a glass cannon need to be carrying around a pair of brass knuckles in his pocket in case someone comes at him with a hammer is a moron. I have run a Brute, controller and a blaster to 50 and I cannot think of another archetype that has LESS survivability than a blaster. And it is primarily because most of the secondaries are half useless. There is absolutely no time when a melee attack would be more useful to me than, well, almost anything else they could replace it with. Probably better than a heal power. But that is it. It kind of forces you into playing the lame comic book characters. Cyclops is the only guy from comics who's only power was a ranged attack. Even Dagger from Cloak and Dagger had something with her "light power" that would stun people.

My use of the term "differential" may have led to a misunderstanding. I agree that an integral could be used if the proc were a continuous quantity, but that is obviously not the case. As you point out the problem is just a summation of a series. My point was that because the problem is recursive i.e. that the change caused by the proc. feeds back into the effect of powers like Hasten (and Accelerated Metabolism, etc.) you can't count Hasten as a "Permanent Recharge Buff". (I would prefer the term "constant" instead of permanent, but that is just my math OCD kicking in 8-) Either way, since these are variable quantities I think the formula you are using will be slightly different. Not being critical here. I think the equation is very helpful even as is and will be a good tool to calculate recharge bonuses in most cases and will even come close for procs. Just wanted to point out this twist in the problem that it looks to me like you might have missed. If I am wrong, then feel free to set me straight. Lord knows somebody should.

It does not help that much like CoH CoV does not have money. The rationale for doing this in CoH is that "heroes" would not be driven by a need for money. But Villains CERTAINLY would. Several of the contacts that sent me on missions actually talked about me getting "paid" but I never did. It just does not feel like you are someone who is out for himself if you are just doing this to impress someone else.

I'm not sure if this is accurate. I am only vaguely aware of the Force Feedback proc so forgive my ignorance. I am assuming that the FF proc is a global recharge bonus, since you apply it to Hasten. But if that is the case then would not this be a differential function? Not a simple sum? Meaning that with each FF proc you will be bringing Hasten closer to perma, resulting in the percentage of time for which it is in effect being longer thus reducing the need for the FF bonus to make it perma. Does that make sense? So, Hasten lasts for 2 minutes and if I have its recharge down to 3 minutes it will be in effect for 67% of the time. Meaning it gives the equivalent of 47% (.7 X .67 )bonus that is perma. If I reduce it's recharge by 10 seconds to 2:50 that means (.7 X .71) it is now the equivalent of a 49% perma bonus. Each subsequent proc will increase the effect of any other non permanent bonus, obviously, like Accelerated Metabolism. Am I missing something? I'll admit I did not read through all of your responses.

I would TOTALLY do this except for my serious case of progradickobenaphobia, which is the fear of douche-bags gaining joy from coding skills. It is why I can never masturbate to any sort of digital imagery. Only HARD copies.

I agree that there are plenty of places that could use some improvement. And this is probably not the most urgent. That is why my suggestion is a simple patch. As to the standard code rant, I've been a developer for 20 years and this does not seem to be much harder than anything they have already done. Switching out whatever widget they use to do the Incarnate stuff with a simplified one. I haven't seen THIS code, but I've seen many different code bases over the years, front end and back, and some of them were really bad. Now, obviously my suggestion would be a patch. And would be one on what is likely very patchy code already. But that would only be a problem if they planned on extending the current incarnate system in the future, instead of, as I dearly, DEARLY hope, scrapping the old system in favor of a more streamlined approach. THAT sort of development WOULD be a major upgrade. Since I don't see a real deployment of an Incarnate overhaul coming any time soon even if they go legit I was trying to think of as quick and easy a solution to the most convoluted version of crafting that I have encountered.

I think one of the biggest quality of life fixes would be to throw out the Incarnate interface and build a new one. Or, better yet, instead of showing me all of these salvage like items that are required to build a power, just show me the number of threads and merits it takes to build it. And have it be cumulative. so that if I want to build a T3 power all I need to do is click on it and if I have the 700 threads and 50 merits, or whatever it takes to make it, it will show blue and I can just one click and make it. I have several 50+ tunes, some of which have T3 and could maybe make a T4, but it is just such a tedious, pain in the a$$ to flip back and forth to make each little component to make each level, I have not bothered to do it. Now, I can understand if you want to make it a CHALLENGE. I am up for that. If you wanted to, for example, require completion of a special mission with a bunch of elite bosses to get this component or that one, or require that I solve some riddle or something. Well, it would depend on how entertaining the missions and puzzles were, but I would be TOTALLY down with that. But the components drop randomly off of any mob and you can make any of them you want with threads and merits. All the complexity just seems like a Rube Goldberg system (many of you will need to look that up, but trust me it is worth it, and absolutely appropriate.)

I think the Tsoo logic is that the Sorcerer is a healer. He bugs out until one of his ally mobs is sufficiently hurt to merit him teleporting back in and healing him. If you run up and hit someone with an alpha strike attack that takes them below half the Sorcerer will often immediately heal him, THEN teleport away. It is quite annoying, for me. So much so that I will target them even over the kinetics guys who slow and weaken me. Which, consequently, goes a long way to explaining the behavior.

I don't think you need LoS for doing Wormhole. Maybe for putting things inside a store, but for regular use I pull stuff around a corner all the time. It is like teleport foe. You don't need LoS to affect a mob.

I'm trying to decide if a lazy Nazi is actually better or worse than a regular one...

While trying to T-o-t in Steel Canyon I found that several doors on the building adjacent to the Natural Merchant store led into the store. So that if I went to a door on the tan building just east of the spinning Image Inc. sign on the Natural store and clicked on any door on the building, instead of getting a tot response, I would instead enter the building and find myself in the Natural store. When I exited I would exit from the stores real door and not the one I entered.

It is cool to have the flexibility of the forms. I am currently running pretty much the opposite of what you describe by slotting everything BUT the human form. I usually only use human form to stealth up to a spawn and find any Quants, then shift to do fighting. I will usually open up with Dark Nova form to kill the Quant(s). If there is a boss, or something particularly tough, or if I am getting hammered because it is cramped and I can't maneuver, I will shift to Dwarf form to finish things. There are a couple of guides out there titled something like "MF Warshade" and "You're a GD Peacebringer" or some such that are really handy if only for the binds they give you for shifting forms and automatically changing power trays to make it easier.

Not sure why it isn't working for you. I am not sure what level the story arcs start for First Ward but I thought it was 20ish. If you want to do the low level stuff then, yeah, as was said above, you would need to just make up a dude there. I ran through it with a blaster and was not all that impressed with it. There is a pretty low player count and the story arcs from 1-20 seem to be all revolve around reb. vs. loyalist. Which I was not all that into. The first ward stuff is pretty cool. I liked it well enough. But I could do with a bit less of the "droogy" talk where whoever wrote it seems to have been pretty impressed with the made up language of Clockwork Orange. Because BOY, do they lay it on pretty thick; and it got annoying for me after a bit. Night Ward is much better. More atmosphere and a decent story without leaning SO, SOOOO heavily on the slang talk to set the mood.

That really depends on how far away you are from the crate. And there is always the possibility you ran into the infamous alien in "crate form".

I got access to the First Ward story arcs the first time by doing Contacts -> Find Contact and teleporting to the Carnival of Light contact, in Talos Island I think. She will teleport you to First Ward. Open up a portal or something. IIRC you can also use the same method to eventually just teleport to one in either First Ward and/or Night Ward contacts.

At least one mission I was on has doors marked as stairs near the elevators that can be used to travel between floors.

Yeah, whatever you do people As long as you have your towel.