The Drop challenge

[cranebump]

They’re effective. They’re just not so overpowered as to be able to pancake everything in 3 seconds. 

 

One thing about playing this way - I find myself snipe/pulling a lot more (and resting between battles).

[Ukase]

20 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Recipes are your lifeblood, so don’t forget to get the Ouroboros day job ASAP.

While it is true about the recipe drops from the ouro day job, consider this: 

You get a random IO recipe. Which I did. It was a hold...neuronic something or another. the proc is useful and can make you some inf. But for this character, quite useless. I only had one converter, lol. So, quite useless to me. I thought about keeping it until I had the salvage to craft it - but with a sale history that was lackluster, it was just not worth crafting for that character in this challenge. 

Also, consider that most of the good IOs - Preventative Medicine, Unbreakable Guard, Oblits, and the like - they're going to require a rare. 
And while I would agree that any enhancement is better than no enhancement, I think in this context (and only in this context), crafting those recipes would be a bad move. Better to have common IOs with no set bonuses that are at max level for that character then to have lower level set bonus IOs. At least, that's my current thinking. There may be a case where procs and the like are worth having at the lower levels. 

I suppose I could have allowed myself to "sell" the unattuned for X and allow myself to re-purchase at the same price, but it seemed to me to break the spirit of the challenge. 

[Ukase]

2 hours ago, cranebump said:

One thing about playing this way - I find myself snipe/pulling a lot more (and resting between battles).

I was stupified to see a defender can get a snipe at level 8! Moonbeam got six slotted ASAP, lol. It bugged me to go so slow, but I waited until the yellow circle went away before I'd fire again. 

[Snarky]

14 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I was stupified to see a defender can get a snipe at level 8! Moonbeam got six slotted ASAP, lol. It bugged me to go so slow, but I waited until the yellow circle went away before I'd fire again. 

I feel the same way about my new Stalker Redside project.  it irks me to wait for hide. But it is so much more effective.  As I go from 9-14 and slot a little better I think I will be able to take out a whole little knot of foes fast then just hide as I move to the next.  The AS is so powerful I do not even build up for it unless against an actual boss.  

 

The only thing really slowing me down is the kill alls and escorts.  Sigh.  

[iBot]

Slight thread hijack:

If you want easy mode for stalker pick up TP recall friend/foe.  I forget what it is called right now but anyway you can TP a foe to you it won't agro, wait for hide, and then AS.  The range is ridiculous too.  It is certainly not fast but there is almost no risk of agro ing anything else while doing it.  I use it a lot to separate the 1 minion from the boss so I can take out the minion, wait for recharges and then full alpha the boss.

 

Now back to the thread.

[Ukase]

I almost feel like I'm cheating as I revisit this challenge. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. So, my thoughts were to overcome the lack of end recovery. So, I'm thinking now of a rad/dark or sonic/dark defender. At 50, I'd much rather go sonic/dark, but the journey to get there...rad, with it's accelerate metabolism...kind of hard to pass that up knowing what I know now.
I think I'll make both, if I can come up with suitable names. 

 

I actually entertained a water/devices blaster...but mids convinced me the secondary was underwhelming. Would love to get the drone on a defender or corruptor, tho! 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Ukase

[Ukase]

Update - made a rad/dark defender, Lulu Palooza. (the aforementioned deleted Dark/Dark was called Lila Palooza - I already re-made that one with all the good IO trimmings, non-challenge route and another one called Lola Palooza)  Went through the tutorial for surprisingly, two "talisman of the initiate;Damage" enhancements. They each give a 30% boost in damage, which is a pleasant surprise. 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Ukase

[Shred Monkey]

Was reminded of this from a different thread.  Salvage drops come from a couple of pools, so while they're random, if you need a magic salvage you need to kill a magic type enemy or you'll never see it... tech comes form tech types.  

 

Since most people aren't restricting themselves to not use the AH, this doesn't matter, but in this case, it does.

[ZemX]

2 hours ago, iBot said:

Slight thread hijack:

If you want easy mode for stalker pick up TP recall friend/foe.  I forget what it is called right now but anyway you can TP a foe to you it won't agro, wait for hide, and then AS. 

 

It's Teleport Target now.  It works as both recall friend and teleport foe.  If this ever worked with the old TP Foe, it doesn't now.  Teleport Target notifies enemies.  It might do a decent job of not aggroing others in the group but it WILL aggro the teleported target and it counts as an attack so it will drop stealth and crit meter for 8s.

 

Given that, you are usually better off Assassinating the LT/Boss and then scrapping its minions who will be demoralized by the opening AS (100% chance -7.5% tohit debuff and 25% chance mag 5 terrorized for 8s).

 

[iBot]

5 minutes ago, ZemX said:

It's Teleport Target now.  It works as both recall friend and teleport foe.  If this ever worked with the old TP Foe, it doesn't now.  Teleport Target notifies enemies.  It might do a decent job of not aggroing others in the group but it WILL aggro the teleported target and it counts as an attack so it will drop stealth and crit meter for 8s.

Don't know now.  I used this extensively on my stalker that was built after they changed the pool powers.  I know when I use the trick on a non stalker there is an OK chance that the mob will agro or the group will agro.  But on the stalker it was guaranteed that I would pull just the minion and sometimes an LT without getting anything else to agro.  The mob would then stand where I ported it and wait for the "Hidden" flag to appear and get full critical AS hit in.  Maybe there was a bug in the original transition to Teleport Target from TP Foe but like I said I've not used it since that stalker and it was 100%.  Even street sweeping I could pull one mob from an entire group and nothing would move.

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

I almost feel like I'm cheating as I revisit this challenge. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. So, my thoughts were to overcome the lack of end recovery. So, I'm thinking now of a rad/dark or sonic/dark defender.

 

This was my first thought with the SO challenge too and that was WITH the ability to purchase endmods for Stamina.

 

But you're making me curious now to see how this would go.  I had started a Rad/Rad corruptor and defender (wasn't sure which I'd like better) as alt ideas for the SO challenge but I think now I'll be going with established characters and alt builds.   I'm more interested in how they play at the end than leveling them to get there.

 

Since this is more of a hardcore leveling challenge (especially the permadeath part), I might reroll the defender and try this just to see how far I get on drops.  Rad/Rad has several big advantages: Very good tohit debuff in Rad Infection and low recharge moderate heal in Rad Aura make this one very survivable.  AM as you mentioned, helps with recovery.  But rad blast helps with accuracy.  That might eventually be less important but if I survive that long I doubt it will matter much.  I am more interested in hitting what I aim at in low levels and lacking good accuracy enhancement is a real problem as you've already noted once, I think.

 

Another good idea is a Staff/Ninjitsu Scrapper.  Staff gets a endurance saving mode.  Ninjitsu gets an endurance clicky.  You also get minor stealth.  Add Super Speed and you can sneak by a lot of stuff on missions if you want.

 

Going to need a base just for this character I think, if for no other reason to save every last salvage drop for future use either with recipe drops or empowerment station buffs.

[ZemX]

34 minutes ago, iBot said:

Don't know now.  I used this extensively on my stalker that was built after they changed the pool powers. 

 

Just tried it and it 100% aggroes the teleported target.  It also has a chance to aggro others from the group you're pulling from but it's probably a low chance.

 

If I had to guess, they probably added TPFoe to Recall Friend and forgot to check the "notify enemies" flag since Recall Friend never needed it.  Then somewhere along the line they fixed it.

[Ukase]

I've seen an uptick in folks using the teleport pool, primarily for the fold space option. I've no idea how it would play out for me, unless I could relocate them away from me. Unless I'm melee, ordinarily, I don't want to be in melee on a ranged character, unless there's a good reason to be there - like burn, hot feet, etc. Otherwise...I'd just as soon keep them at bay. 

I used to use TP foe back in live on my ice blaster with great success. Makes for a nice pull when you port them right onto ice patch. 

[Ukase]

I thought this might be interesting for a couple of you. 
At level 7, this is what's slotted so far: 

I really wanted to upgrade those talisman damage enhancements, but the game wanted quite a bit to move those from level 1 to level 5, (when I was level 2) and I didn't have the inf. And, as you might imagine, the more enhancements you have slotted, the more it costs. 



I'll try to revisit with slotting updates every few levels without being too dull. 

[Dazl]

Sounds like “Dropped On The Head Challenge”…….j/k, you do you 😀

[ZemX]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

but the game wanted quite a bit to move those from level 1 to level 5

 

You're allowing use of the Upgrade button? Isn't that just a shortcut for buying enhancements and manually upgrading?  In which case, is it considered okay by your rules to buy individual enhancements from vendors solely for the purpose of upgrading ones you have already slotted (which you could only have originally slotted from drops)?  I realize this isn't a group challenge, but I always think it's more interesting with these things if people all adhere to more or less the same rules and then share their experiences with them.  And on the off chance enough people pile in, there might be the possibility of teaming, which would only be fair if we're all similarly gimped. 🤪

 

Talisman Enhancements, by the way, are a bit weird.  I discovered while doing the SO challenge that they can be upgraded by the Upgrade button even beyond the level you can normally obtain them from Yin's shop.  But they only appear to be discounted in price when you buy them from Yin.  I think the upgrade button considers them to be SOs and charges the same price it would for any SO upgrade which is why it was asking that much to upgrade the 1s you're given in the tutorial.

 

Thanks by the way for the picture.  I'd have thought you'd get more than 1 usable enhancement per level.  Unless some of those have been upgraded with drops.

 

FWIW, I have rerolled my rad/rad defender to give this a shot.  I haven't gotten anywhere yet, but after the tutorial my power selections are: Rad Infection, Nut Bolt, and X-Ray.  In the early levels, I think RI will prevent more damage for less endurance than I could repair with Rad Aura.  And its tohit debuff on a Defender is respectable even without the difficult to obtain tohit debuff enhancements.  I'll angle for acc in X-Ray as an opener and then multiple Nut Bolts to keep them debuffed and pile in damage.  I'm also giving some thought to pausing XP instead of outleveling enhancements.  More chance for drops/inf.  But we'll see how long my patience with that lasts. 

 

By the way, in addition to the link Flea posted about drop rates, this is useful too.  It gives a list of enemies that drop different origin enhancements:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cityofheroes/comments/bvgivp/what_enemies_drop_what_do_so_enhancements_guide/

Looks like my villainous tech defender should do pretty well in the Rogue Isles early on.

Edited to add: This link might be out of date.  Some enemy drops have probably been changed or updated since this information was posted. Sorry!

Edited July 14, 2021 by ZemX

[Ukase]

2 minutes ago, ZemX said:

You're allowing use of the Upgrade button?

So far, I haven't used it, because, well, expense. But then, I haven't sold anything other than enhancements that don't align with my origin. In my mind, I was thinking once I own the enhancement, I'm not buying it. I'm not going to the store or using the AH - but you raise a fair point, so I won't be using it. 

I'm at level 9 now, and if I slot any newer enhancements, I'll post a picture, but so far, the drops have been for other origins. Clockwork are supposed to drop tech or tech/science or natural/tech, but I kept getting natural/tech DOs, which this character can't use. I did get a raptor pack from the Atlas safeguard, though. 

When I get high enough, I'll actually run the SSA 1 for an accuracy SO, lol. And I will run it twice to see if it will let me get the SO twice. Can't believe I'd ever take an SO over 20 merits, lol. 

[Ukase]

On 7/12/2021 at 6:54 AM, Hew said:

I dont know when catalysts fall (just at 50?). if they drop at below 50 (i don't think they do), you can catalyze all your drops to have reasonable values as you grow.

Catalysts for reasons which escape my logic only drop when you're level 50. So, they're out until then. 

[Ukase]

On 7/13/2021 at 11:54 AM, Yomo Kimyata said:

Recipes are your lifeblood, so don’t forget to get the Ouroboros day job ASAP.

Actually -- this got me looking at all the other day job powers - and logging off in the store grants an enhancement upon mission completion - so that's where my character is at the moment. 

[ZemX]

11 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I'm at level 9 now, and if I slot any newer enhancements, I'll post a picture, but so far, the drops have been for other origins. Clockwork are supposed to drop tech or tech/science or natural/tech, but I kept getting natural/tech DOs, which this character can't use. I did get a raptor pack from the Atlas safeguard, though. 

 

In which case the link I posted isn't accurate because it suggests primal clockworks only drop science and science/mutation.  It's probably badly out of date.  

 

I wonder if what it has to say about Praetoria is true though because it suggests all zone enemies drop the player's origin enhancements.  They're not the only enemies that do, but if it's true it might be interesting to see how much easier it is to keep up with enhancements over there vs. blue or red. Hmmm.,,,

 

Just now, Ukase said:

Actually -- this got me looking at all the other day job powers - and logging off in the store grants an enhancement upon mission completion

 

Neat!  This gets more interesting all the time.  Course I say that now.  We'll see how long I last. 

[Ukase]

I thought about gold side, but in the near future I have a gold team activity and wanted the content to be fairly fresh. But, it's definitely food for thought. 

[Ukase]

I can't use the Heal/absorb - wrong origin, but I can use that recipe! My first one, at level 9.  Crazy that I'm more excited about this than a purple, lol. 

[Riverdusk]

On 7/11/2021 at 5:14 PM, Ukase said:

This time, I think I'll choose a different origin. I usually go magic to get the spelunker  badge mission outside of ouro. This time, I think given the huge number of science and mutation DOs I was picking up in the earlier levels, that's the way to go. 

 

 

 

Any origin can get the spelunker badge mission the "normal" way.  You can talk to whatever origin contact you want in city hall and start on their path, no matter what your starting origin. Just go up and talk to Azura in City Hall at level 1 and follow her introductions and boom, you are on the magic origin contacts path that leads to spelunker.   I typically talk to all 5 in City Hall on every new hero character I start to get them all started.   You can then later talk to any of them to get introduced to the next contact of their origin.

 

Alternatively you can also do usually 1 mission from the various 10-14 contacts and they'll offer to introduce you to someone else, repeat until you get the "magic" origin contact.  Or just keep doing bank missions and get introduced eventually that way as well.

[Ukase]

Interesting. My experience has been that only Trevor Seaborn and Hugo Redding and Hayley Philips gave that mission outside of Ouro. But, then again, I've been relying on Paragon Wiki which is likely outdated. 

[Riverdusk]

8 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Interesting. My experience has been that only Trevor Seaborn and Hugo Redding and Hayley Philips gave that mission outside of Ouro. But, then again, I've been relying on Paragon Wiki which is likely outdated. 

 

That is true, and Azura (or one of her followup contacts) will introduce you to one of those three when you hit the right level.  Or a detective will when you "save" a bank, or another 10-14 contact will once you get "friendly" enough with them.

 

Edit: Sorry, Azuria is correct spelling.  

Edited July 14, 2021 by Riverdusk