1gecko

Congratulations to all the winners! on the sad side - I blew a capacitor on (I think) my motherboard... at least that high pitched whining sure SOUNDED like a cap going. (yes, I *KNOW* most people can't hear pitches that high, but I have always been able to - and no 'dog' jokes; I already know I am not attractive! 😉 ) So I am out 😞 ... well, unless this all goes on FAR longer than we all want it to! Got to baby what is limping along on my rig and can't be running it continuously (or hot - it is already shutting down quite often by itself) while I somehow save up funds for upgrade/repair. See you all in Paragon City!

Fair points - though I still go with my stance on it having a huge set of hinderances. And no, I wasn't taking your critiques personally - after all, it is just my opinion, not some huge issue or whatever (plus, while a bit harsh, you were not rude or insulting), but thank you for being polite. I appreciate it. yes, the debuffs are nice - though if you look up in the power details, the actual AMOUNT of debuff is extremely small and most don't stack - from what I can see and my understanding; more of a 'nice to have' rather than a selling point. but experience, inf and many other rewards (except when soloing) is based on the *damage* you inflict, not the control you exert - and while the power damage descriptions give the set 2 Moderate damage powers and 2 Minor damage powers (like half the rest of the sets - the other half have more, some even High damage), the damage itself is lower in those ranges plus the powers that HAVE the damage are the ones you definitely must slot for effect, not damage. a) Both the power description AND the wiki (https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Darkness_Control) show it as a Disorient, not a Hold - and I admit I have not slotted it heavily since it had so little effect. I will have to try slotting it for hold, but I don't remember that being an option. I suspect you are confusing it with Shadow Field, which IS an AoE Hold and is awesome. b) it is also one of your 'damage' powers - one which does 1 pt of damage per every *other* time 'pulse' to minions and usually none to Lts and above. When you have a power that does damage LESS than your unslotted Brawl - it is not really a 'damage' power, but it counts as one of the sets damage powers. I know in soloing (where you can take the time to test and make notes, since going that slow in a group is... not really appreciated 😉 ), my dominator and my controller with Darkness Control have the LONGEST combats and more close calls than my other controllers/dominators. And yes, in many ways I like the current Possess power - except that: a) your confused/temp pet is debuffed, and unless attacking a lower power mob (LT/Boss attacking a Minion) cannot hit or do much damage. Still good to keep it from hitting you though 🙂 b) it is also fully affected by your other offensive powers, which further lowers it's combat abilities. c) for some reason (and very frustratingly), pets (and other players) seem to focus on the Possessed mob and kill it FIRST - negating the power's benefits. - which is why I was pulling for it changing the mob to a 'pet' rather than just being 'confused' - plus then the damage it does manage to inflict counts towards your overall damage. Of course, if you change it to a pet, you can't re-Possess it before it switches back and attacks you (probably with whatever buffs it has picked up from the party). A Toggle seemed to be the right compromise.

First off, I really love the power - sure it is just another single target confuse, but it seems a bit more useful AND the color change plus glowing eyes is extremely neat. However (there's ALWAYS a however!), as a player of a *number* of controllers/dominators, there are 2 things that I think justify a change: 1) As weird as it my sound, the Dark powerset seems to be actually the weakest (or definitely one of the weakest) of the various controller/dominator sets - it has the most restricted control ability in terms of numbers and area of the AoEs (though Ten. Tentacles is pretty good) AND it does the least damage (which is odder still as you would think Dark would be right behind Fire as a damage dealing set). Once you get your dark-wolf pet, it gets a bit better - but by that time the other sets also are doing a LOT more damage. It is also the hardest when it comes to choosing where to slot your AT IO's as putting them in your few damage dealers reduces your already low damage and most of the others receive minimal benefit OR are not something you use very much. 2) Possess (as a concept) should be 'more' to be in line with all stories / lore / folklore / fiction / movies - as it is the power is just another Confuse affect (albeit with cool graphics). Also increasing its power would be really improving the 'core concept' of the powerset: Sure the rest is nice, but isn't the thing that EVERYONE would fear about a Dark Controller / Dominator is being invaded by that otherworldly dark spirit that turns you into just a passenger in your own body (and you against your friends)? Anyway - before I lose the TLDR crowd (probably already have, since there are more that 2 short sentences), I have a couple of suggestions that I think would greatly increase the fun and playability of the powerset and bring it more in line with the others in terms of power: 1) Change 'Possess' power to a Toggle - making the victim your pet until de-Toggled (and probably giving it an 'Enrage' buff after toggle drops while making it immune to the power for a short time). This would make the power a lot more fun, make your Possessed victim not be killed by the group/pets (like always seems to happen), and would increase your damage capabilities by having a pet sooner (and another pet at later levels). While some might think this would make it TOO powerful, consider that as it is, the power refreshes fast enough it is relatively easy to keep 3 mobs possessed at a time - making it a Toggle might make one a semi-permanent pet (until you zone/lose toggle to a hold/stun), but it also means you ONLY have 1. 2) Change 'Heart of Darkness' - as it is, only occasionally does it have much effect even well slotted (which kinda makes it not worth running up there among the enemy to use). Add a 'contageous' Confuse effect to it so that those foes not disoriented are Confused and attack other enemies - that may 'catch' their confusion for the duration. Since foes that solely defeat each other yield no exp, this wouldn't make this overwhelming or too powerful - plus it would just seem to 'fit' better in the concept of a Dark controller/dominator.

so it is not just me that the WUs are suddenly taking a huge amount of time? (for CPU) ... I had just figured my rig had taken another hit - it's pretty glitchy now. 😞

no new goodies 😞 ?? or costume items? (sigh) or (best yet) - MMs being able to *choose* models/textures for their pets?!?!?! (I think this has been a standing plea since CoV first came out)

Wish you well and hope it gets better! I can definitely empathize - I have been suffering from the effects of a car accident for about 6 years now (neck - lotta bashed up stuff and disks destroyed now... plus pinched nerves and some problems with the spinal cord itself... yay drunk drivers!), so I know how it feels to just *NOT* have a 'good' place/position; everything is just varying degrees of discomfort. Take care of it and don't push yourself - pinched/damaged nerves aren't like muscles; you can't John Wayne through it without messing things up worse.

Facebook uses an *amazing* amount of background resources - frightening actually, when you consider how much it SHOULD only be using for what it does... one of the reasons I quit a couple years back. I kept finding more and more background processes it was spawning and running (not to mention HD access on the drives that *don't* have the memory cache or temp files!)... and either their software (you can't really call it just a 'site' anymore) really, REALLY sucks on resource management OR they intended a lot of those processes to keep running even after you left/closed it. This is probably what is bumping into the Folding software as they fight for resources. and from what I have seen of the folding software (I never shut it down anymore - if my computer is running, it is running); it is *incredibly* efficient at adjusting on the fly the amount of usage it takes while letting the foreground app run largely unhindered. Which makes me think this is more of Facebook's issue than the Folding software. Now what you can DO about it? No clue - not even sure what the current version(s) are doing now.

Congratulations all!

Well, it's next month now 🙂 you can always throw them back in the pot for the May drawing! so many have put in a huge jump in numbers I am interested to see what the monthly for May was!

A lot of new folks really pouring on the clock-cycles! (or whatever term you wish to use) Admittedly, my system is not at 100%, but I was still climbing nicely - and now I am falling like a rock even with not having turned off folding in since I got it back up.. what? 2 weeks ago now? Maybe we can hit that overall Top 100 (and break Top 50 on a Monthly this month or next)!! That would rock.

Breaking the top 100 on the overall would be *amazing* - and we *might* break top 50 for the month unless our rate of gain slows! heh - *we* put the 'Super' in City of Heroes! or something like that (not sure how to phrase it; being 'positive' is not part of my normal skillset!)

you ever notice how, when you're tired... and especially if you just glance at something - you will read it COMPLETELY different? I glanced at the web control earlier and wondered, "Why would I set it to fold 'only when I die'??" ... guess I should go get some sleep! 😃

Congratulations to the winners! (would that be "Last Month's" or "for last month's folding"?) just passed 21M points 🙂 .. and see where we have broken into the top 75 for the month (early though it is)!

heh, I am still giggling that we are AHEAD of Intel, Google, and UC Berkley!!! As a small user group, we are kicking all sorts of ***! 😃 think about that a moment... We rock - and not another gaming based team anywhere near.

Oh, did anyone see that we (the HC team) are up to rank 83 out of over 250,000 for the month of April?!?!?

Well... a) I seem to be generating periodic errors on my graphics card - which causes it to sometimes reject/be rejected for WUs. b) WUs assigned to my graphics card are taking about twice as long as they did before (~3hrs instead of ~1.5hrs) c) I am still getting some periodic 'color bleed' / shift when doing other things (gaming, watching a movie) d) My motherboard/cpu continues to hang and generate errors on (re)boots, updates, etc. - all related to processes rather than a specific device or device group (HDs or USB or whatever) - it has been doing that for quite some time - it is just doing it more often since the 'Purple Haze' incident several days ago. Took 6 *hours* to get it to boot all the way up the other day - different errors and never able to pin down any one cause. 😟 ... but I suppose some problems are to be expected - it is a bit over 8 years old (2 on the graphics card I think).

well, got my rig up enough I started folding again! (yay!) and it hasn't died yet (bigger YAY!) ... but having 'issues'. Oh well, we'll see I am just glad to see the community doing so well in all of this! congrats again everyone!

Well... at least that provides a stabilized, cool environment 🙂 ... there is a LOT to be said for living below ground - most of it positive actually (well, as long as you are also above the local water table!!)

NICE!! Top 100 is pretty amazing finally got my rig back 'functional' again - not up to anything serious, but at least able to play CoH and run a few simple apps. Still having some color fluctuations occasionally and some frame-stutter in the game, so not sure she is up to folding...

whelp... my folding days may be over for the near future - came in this morning and turned on my monitor to find my GPU generating errors (in the folding software - and hence not getting work units anymore) and my screen with a *decidedly* PURPLE shift... as in 'Prince is looking down admiring' class purple. I did pretty good (HC_Karmic_Rage - got to #24 in the Homecoming ranking and in the 28k range out of 2.6million total), but looks like I am out unless it somehow magically heals itself.

ahh.. of course the one I like the least (a far as a title for one of my [too many] characters) is winning!! 😭 Don't get me wrong - Resurgent makes sense as far as the anniversary goes (though I must go with 'Sweet' as it can only be used for '16' with any real connection), but as a Title?!?! Who is really going to call themselves that? Plus - any other activities for the anniversary would be easy to fit into a 'Sweet Sixteen' party theme... not that I don't fear the HORDE of pink costumes!

ahh man - that stinks, S-S !! I feel your pain - my rig is limping along and can't afford to fix/upgrade. wish I still had my home network setup - then I would give you a run for your money! lol! That or could figure out a way to get this old Sun Sparkserver setup and going - no gpu to speak of but that RISC processor would probably kick pretty well

I love that we continue to climb in the rankings! You all are awesome! ... and some humor to make things a bit better (hopefully won't get me in trouble, too out of it to remember the rules on posting):

Congrats all! whew... the DO set the bar pretty high, don't they! O.o A friend of mine sent me something you all may appreciate: (attributed to Mat Krahn) We all have Schrodinger's Virus Now... ... because we cannot get tested; we cannot know if we have COVID-19 or not. but... we must act as if we have the virus so that we don't spread it to others. yet, we must also act as if we don't have it and stay separated because if we DON'T have it, we aren't immune. Thus we act as both we have and do NOT have it while not being able to know either one! Thus... Schrodinger's Virus! (if you don't understand this, you cannot comment on science issues anymore!)

but think of the mystery and suspense you are missing out on because they don't! 😉 just kidding of course - had it happen myself. Nothing like missing a deadline because your computer smoked itself! seriously though - Get the CUPID HWMonitor program. Free, low overhead and accurate. And with all the data it displays, helps you see a number of issues at a glance instead of having to do that long diagnostic search!