Regeneration Proliferation?

[Without_Pause]

17 hours ago, Vhalidictes said:

 

I think I get it. You're one of those people that don't mind that the original "set and forget" set is now built around long-recharge click powers.

 

RE: Energy Aura. I just wasted a bunch of time in MIDS to make sure I'm not crazy, and MIDS matches my in-game experience. 

 

EA gets Energy Frain and Energize, so far, so good, even though it gets them super late. That said, 32% S/L +Defense isn't blowing up any skirts. At least it has decent Energy +Resist? Lots of late game stuff is Energy-based.

 

As long as you're not fighting Carnies it's... barely second tier? Then again, my experience with WP and SR might have skewed my ratings.

StJ/ea Stalker in game. Psi def is 18.16%. Toxic is 12.24%. Everything else is over 50%. S/L resist is 69.12%. But hey, take that WP against something which debuffs. I did it with my Brute at +1/x8 against BP and watched my health bar melt like butter and that's with IOs.

 

 

[Krazie Ivan]

On 12/4/2021 at 9:50 PM, Vhalidictes said:

EA is awful for Scrappers/Brutes

 

21 hours ago, Vhalidictes said:

RE: Energy Aura. I just wasted a bunch of time in MIDS to make sure I'm not crazy, and MIDS matches my in-game experience. 

 

EA gets Energy Frain and Energize, so far, so good, even though it gets them super late. That said, 32% S/L +Defense isn't blowing up any skirts. At least it has decent Energy +Resist? Lots of late game stuff is Energy-based.

 

As long as you're not fighting Carnies it's... barely second tier? Then again, my experience with WP and SR might have skewed my ratings.

wow, oof, & yikes.

properly built, EnA is the gift that keeps on giving... perfect circles pause in awe of it's roundness. imo, the most durable Scrap that can be built, yet doesn't need to give up +Rech or have End issues or carry greens or instantly buckle from various debuffs. EnA thrives in harmony with all our favorite pools & tools (see example). WP is one of the weakest Scrap sets, but incredibly easy to build & play ...which are also the two aspects that make Regen so widely disliked. SR is pretty great due to DDR, but FAR more durable as a Brute or Tank when built to take full advantage of it's 2nd best attribute; scaling Res.

on-topic, Regen needs reworked... water is wet... other fish have been fried, but maybe it'll get it's turn eventually.

[Vhalidictes]

10 hours ago, Koopak said:

Regen's set and forget was over powered, i think that's often forgotten, what happened is MoG and Instant Healing were directly nerfed, and while many would probably have preferred IH just to have its effects reduced, we got the click we do now. That combined with changes elsewhere in the system, namely enhancement diversification, to greatly bring the set back.

Now instead of reverting to changing these, what we got was Willpower, which, as is much stated is "regen but good". I don't agree with that assessment, mostly because regen's identity changed with the above nerfs. What were meant as balancing changes end up being more of a rework, and while I at first hated it iv come to love the basic click nature. I like the visceral feel of having to actively participate in my survival and, due to the strength of MoG and IH still being quite high, being able to look at big incoming damage and say "no"

 

 

Thanks for the link to the calculator, it's a great find. Re: OP, I don't want or need Regen to be OP, I want it to be all passives and toggles. No click, excepting possibly Dull Pain if that can't be reworked.

 

I agree with you that WP is great, but at its core it's a layered-defenses set, it doesn't depend on +Regen at all really. Apples and Oranges. As far as Alpha-strikes from big mob groups go, that was never and shouldn't ever be Regen's forte. Just eat some purples if you're expecting pain.

 

8 hours ago, Haijinx said:

 

Nope.

 

Regen got fixed a long time ago.  They started by changing the effects from Green to Yellow, then they named it Willpower. 

 

 

WP is awesome but it's not really Regen, and doesn't rely all that much on healing. While it *would* be really cool to see a +HP armor set, the game as it stands currently doesn't really support that as a core mitigation technique (AT HP limits aren't that high currently and I assume that's baked-in).

 

RE: EA analysis - I think there's some kind of disconnect here in how I look at things. I am pretty good with playing with powers and slots. I *have* to be, because I run about 10 characters per-server, and I have about ...let's go with an average of 10 million inf split between those 10 characters.

 

I use the XP buff. I level on radio missions, I sell non-white salvage and recipe drops for money *because that's my only income*. I guess if you play just one 50 and sit in the AE all day that's your prerogative, but it's hilariously out-of-budget for me to *build and slot what drops for me*, let alone madness like slotting entire recipe sets in powers, or god forbid, frankenslotting.

 

I use solely L25 White IOs for all my powers on all my toons because 1) they don't expire, and 2) they're cheap. If I feel like it's mandatory to save on power slots (which is an issue for some builds), I two-slot an aspect of a power with L50 White IOs for that sweet 82% buff and put the third slot in other powers.

 

Like, I get that people are super rich, and I'm not that salty about it really, I play the game fine, I just basically don't use the IO system at all. And I plan builds around that. Thus look at my analysis of how shit Energy Aura is compared to top-tier sets (Ex: WP) for yourself - the number are stark and inarguable (I welcome you to fix my build, BTW - go nuts). Hell, I'll even unrealistically use only L50 IOs to optimize slotting a little:

 

This Hero build was built using Mids Reborn 3.0.6.0
https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Sample EM-EA: Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Energy Melee
Secondary Power Set: Energy Aura
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Barrage -- Acc-I(A), Dmg-I(43), Dmg-I(45), Dmg-I(45), Dsrnt-I(46)
Level 1: Kinetic Shield -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(3), DefBuff-I(5), DefBuff-I(46)
Level 2: Energy Punch -- Acc-I(A), Dmg-I(19), Dmg-I(21), Dmg-I(23), Dsrnt-I(23)
Level 4: Bone Smasher -- Acc-I(A), Dmg-I(5), Dmg-I(7), Dmg-I(17), Dsrnt-I(19)
Level 6: Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(7)
Level 8: Power Crash -- Acc-I(A), Dmg-I(9), Dmg-I(9), Dmg-I(11), RechRdx-I(15), Dsrnt-I(15)
Level 10: Dampening Field -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(11)
Level 12: Power Shield -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(13), DefBuff-I(13), DefBuff-I(48)
Level 14: Entropic Aura -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 16: Energy Protection -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(17)
Level 18: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 20: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(21)
Level 22: Boxing -- Acc-I(A)
Level 24: Tough -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(25), ResDam-I(25), ResDam-I(27), ResDam-I(46)
Level 26: Total Focus -- Acc-I(A), Dmg-I(27), Dmg-I(34), Dmg-I(34), RechRdx-I(37), Dsrnt-I(40)
Level 28: Weave -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(29), DefBuff-I(29), DefBuff-I(31), DefBuff-I(43)
Level 30: Energy Cloak -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(31), DefBuff-I(31), DefBuff-I(48)
Level 32: Energy Transfer -- Acc-I(A), Dmg-I(33), Dmg-I(33), Dmg-I(33), RechRdx-I(34), Dsrnt-I(43)
Level 35: Energize -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(36), RechRdx-I(36), Heal-I(36), Heal-I(37), Heal-I(37)
Level 38: Energy Drain -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(39), RechRdx-I(39), DefBuff-I(39), DefBuff-I(40), DefBuff-I(40)
Level 41: Focused Accuracy -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(42), ToHit-I(42), ToHit-I(42)
Level 44: Physical Perfection -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(45)
Level 47: Maneuvers -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(48)
Level 49: Tactics -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(50), ToHit-I(50), ToHit-I(50)
Level 1: Brawl -- Acc-I(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit 
Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- IntRdx-I(A)
Level 1: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 1: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 1: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 1: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(3)
Level 1: Energy Focus 
Level 18: Double Jump 
------------

 

 

 

You get 37% or so S/L +Defense, which is decent enough, but not going to bother a +2 Boss all that much, and pretty good Fire/Cold +Defense (but no +Resist), which is nice but not earthshaking. OFC keep in mind all this is at L50, leveling up in the 20's is not nearly as smooth as the L50 numbers make it look. This is a Tier-2 set. Tank numbers would be a big improvement, but Tanks can't currently use it.

 

EDIT: Crazy Ivan, sorry I missed you reply when I posted. I don't have the slightest idea how you're getting those numbers, since all the power slots are blacked out for me. That said, I think that EA is probably good for a lot of people because it get Energize and Energy Drain, and has new/fixed Status protection resists.

 

Since all armors perform the same once you're soft-capped +Defense, which you can do with any and every set except Invuln/Psi damage, I get why people like it. Outside of /SR I'm not soft capping anything with White IOs or SOs, so it's kind of academic.

 

Side note: If Energize and Energy Drain are the big draws because you can IO-out most any Armor set, I'd think that the big winner for most people would be Elec Armor, because it has all that and near-complete END drain resistance.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Vhalidictes
Fixed word choices, didn't want to double post

[Koopak]

Not to cash shame or whatever the hell that would be, but if you are using lvl 25 IOs that are thus just shy of lvl 50 SOs, that explains alot. Some sets are designed with small weaknesses that sets can easily cover, or advantages that are magnified by the same. The strength of sets shift a bit. For instance the two +3% defense enhancements are enough alone to push EA into bonkers status since the difference bewteen 37% defense and 43% is a matter of taking about  ~1/2 the damage.

I'll concede that Willpower is layered, but a passive, pure healing set isn't viable in CoX's mechanics without the ability to raise the Max HP beyond the AT cap, at least for Scrapper. This is actually where my point about taking Alphas comes in. See the Effective Health of Regeneration is so low, that not only can it be Alphad out, which is an easy thing to compensate for with other tools, but it also struggles agaisnt hard hitting enmies like AVs. This is because their damage is scaled to threaten Brutes and Tankers who can have as much as 90% resistance, while a Regen Scrapper will struggle to do much better than 40% for a given type, and only hit caps by forfeiting other damage types. This means that a Regen Scrapper takes 4 times as much damage, and because Regen also lacks defense, the probability of taking the 4x hit is, with say a 20% defense, vs a Tanker 45% 6 times as likely.

Compared to say a well built EA like above a Lethal attack of 2500 damage (taken from a couple AVs) will have

EA with 45% defense and 50% Resistance: 5% chance to do 1250 damage
Regen with 20% defense and 40% Resistance: 30% chance to do 1500 damage

Now project that out to two hits?
EA: 0.25% chance to take 2500 damage
Regen: 9% chance to take 3000 damage

As we can see, two big hits is all it takes, and an AV will do that about one in ten attempts. This is not factoring in other attacks, mobs, or anything else.

Now you could buff your passive regen without clicking to handle this in theory without raising the max hp cap. However in doing so you come across the issue with balancing regen around, well, regen. If you can heal 1500 damage before the AVs next big attack? You wont die, ever. If you cant, you will be killed in two shots easily. There is perhaps a narrow margin in which you can get the right mix, but that margin is much tighter than other powersets.

This is why it is an issue, one i think thats best solved, assuming its possible, but an overheal mechanic in which a regen scrapper who is full health have their healing instead contribute to an absorb bubble of perhaps 25% of their max hp, or barrign that allow them to exceed the AT hp cap and rescale all +regen% to provide the same HP/s with the new max hp. Goal being not to remove their weakness to alpha strikes, but to lesson it some.

As for you wanting Regeneration to be purely a set and forget set? I don't think we will find common ground there. The way the set works now is enjoyable to me, and unique compared to other sets, most of which can be toggled on and walked away from. My only complaint about the clicky nature of Regen is you have to work so hard to use it optimally just to perform slightly above average most of the time, and at a dps loss when other sets like EA and SR get +recharge, or Bio, Stone, and Fire having damage procs. Regen gives up dps time to pop survivals and gets no compensation to its lost damage for it.

[Obsinious]

1 hour ago, Vhalidictes said:

RE: EA analysis - I think there's some kind of disconnect here in how I look at things. I am pretty good with playing with powers and slots. I *have* to be, because I run about 10 characters per-server, and I have about ...let's go with an average of 10 million inf split between those 10 characters.

 

I use the XP buff. I level on radio missions, I sell non-white salvage and recipe drops for money *because that's my only income*. I guess if you play just one 50 and sit in the AE all day that's your prerogative, but it's hilariously out-of-budget for me to *build and slot what drops for me*, let alone madness like slotting entire recipe sets in powers, or god forbid, frankenslotting.

 

I use solely L25 White IOs for all my powers on all my toons because 1) they don't expire, and 2) they're cheap. If I feel like it's mandatory to save on power slots (which is an issue for some builds), I two-slot an aspect of a power with L50 White IOs for that sweet 82% buff and put the third slot in other powers.

If you're using just basic IOs it's possible that EA isn't that good, I'd have no idea.  No one else evaluates the game based on basic IOs.  Now if that's how you enjoy playing the game that's fine, but you should realize when you're making generalized statements (about EA being awful) that the rest of the community doesn't make this same choice.  Which it is, a choice I mean.  There's vast amounts of information on this forum about making billions of influence with very minimal effort.

 

1 hour ago, Vhalidictes said:

Side note: If Energize and Energy Drain are the big draws because you can IO-out most any Armor set, I'd think that the big winner for most people would be Elec Armor, because it has all that and near-complete END drain resistance.

Radiation is better Elec and generally more highly regarded.  It's basically the resist version of EA.  It's a very good armor, especially on brutes and tankers with a 90% resist cap.  Being a defense set, EA is usually seen as better on scrappers and stalkers.

[Erratic1]

47 minutes ago, Vhalidictes said:

RE: EA analysis - I think there's some kind of disconnect here in how I look at things. I am pretty good with playing with powers and slots. I *have* to be, because I run about 10 characters per-server, and I have about ...let's go with an average of 10 million inf split between those 10 characters.

 

I use the XP buff. I level on radio missions, I sell non-white salvage and recipe drops for money *because that's my only income*. I guess if you play just one 50 and sit in the AE all day that's your prerogative, but it's hilariously out-of-budget for me to *build and slot what drops for me*, let alone madness like slotting entire recipe sets in powers, or god forbid, frankenslotting.

 

I use solely L25 White IOs for all my powers on all my toons because 1) they don't expire, and 2) they're cheap. If I feel like it's mandatory to save on power slots (which is an issue for some builds), I two-slot an aspect of a power with L50 White IOs for that sweet 82% buff and put the third slot in other powers.

 

Like, I get that people are super rich, and I'm not that salty about it really, I play the game fine, I just basically don't use the IO system at all. And I plan builds around that. Thus look at my analysis of how shit Energy Aura is compared to top-tier sets (Ex: WP) for yourself - the number are stark and inarguable (I welcome you to fix my build, BTW - go nuts). Hell, I'll even unrealistically use only L50 IOs to optimize slotting a little:

 

 

Homecoming has made access to the IO system open to all in a way which was not there during live. I will not go into the structural changes but the prices for purchasing them without doing any sort of market manipulation or farming is kept much lower than was the case.

 

At a minimum, once your characters hit level 50 and you've got little to spend influence on other than Incarnate upgrades IOs are increasingly accessible.  And that if you are particularly lazy and buy SOs during the leveling process.

 

My routine is to forgoe any enhancements until level 22. Buy Accuracy SOs for powers which need to hit at level 22 and 3 Endurance SOs for Stamina. At level 28 start slotting white IOs (I used make level 30s but 25s give almost the same bang for the influence buck and cost much less), replacing the earlier Accuracy and Endurance SOs and slotting Damage IOs for the first time. Aim for damage powers having 2 IOs in them by level 30. Bring damaging powers up to 3 IOs by level 35. Defense/Resistance IOs get slotted based on what the previous multiple of 10 level passed--one in each power in the 20s, two in each power in the 30s, 3 in each power in the 40s.

 

Since you buy once and do not upgrade you save a nice chunk of influence which can go to buying non-generic IOs.

 

And a trick to make life really nice is to save up your purchases on your first few characters until you can slot several non-generic IOs at once. Then use a respec, because that will return all your generic IOs to your inventory. Slot your non-generic IOs along with any generics you need to continue to use and save the rest for future characters. That means on future character you spend even less to get their slots filled.

 

As for purchasing non-generic IOs, always buy Attuned (well unless you have a good reason to buy non-Attuned) because while they sell separately on the Auction House, the IOs come from the same pool. All you are doing is specifying which flavor you want when you purchase.

 

As for wealth, there are several levels and you do not have to be Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk to kite out a character. My signature Brute was created January 15th OF THIS YEAR. While is not the first character I fully IO'd out I did not use the previous one to generate any of his influence. I did not engage in market manipulations. I did not convert reward merits to things which sell well on the market and sell them for influence. All I did was play the character and bid low on the AH with a willingness to wait. His total cost was probably just under 150 million influence. I would guess I have probably generated 500 million influence on him.

 

"Easy to do if you play him all the time," I can hear someone saying. But I don't. I play other games and take breaks from City of Heroes (heresy I know) with Outriders having 80% of my focus for three months and Diablo 2 Reforged getting 50% for another 3 months. Add too that I am a confirmed altaholic. I may have created 25 other characters since then with all but one making it to their 30s (takes little time I know but I do not use AE farming for levelling, I play the game) resulting in one other fully IO'd character (Tanker), 2 others having made it to 50, and another 9 being characters I fully plan to take to 50 and IO out. Since June I mostly bring the character on when I'm frustrated with life, do not have a lot of time to work on levelling one of my projects, and just want to feel powerful while beating things down. So his play has been fairly minimal. He's only at Veteran Level 57 and only has his third level Alpha ability.

 

All of this to say that IO'ing out a character is not a horribly difficult thing to do at this point.

[Erratic1]

Just now, Obsinious said:

If you're using just basic IOs it's possible that EA isn't that good, I'd have no idea. 

 

If you're just using basic IOs Shield is not that good.

 

And we know Shield is plenty good.

[Haijinx]

5 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

If you're just using basic IOs Shield is not that good.

 

And we know Shield is plenty good.

 

Not sure any non tanker set is good on just SOs

 

 

 

 

[Erratic1]

19 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

 

Not sure any non tanker set is good on just SOs

 

DM/Inv is plenty potent on just SOs. But yeah.

[Vhalidictes]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Homecoming has made access to the IO system open to all in a way which was not there during live. I will not go into the structural changes but the prices for purchasing them without doing any sort of market manipulation or farming is kept much lower than was the case.

 

At a minimum, once your characters hit level 50 and you've got little to spend influence on other than Incarnate upgrades IOs are increasingly accessible.  And that if you are particularly lazy and buy SOs during the leveling process.

 

As for wealth, there are several levels and you do not have to be Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk to kite out a character. My signature Brute was created January 15th OF THIS YEAR. While is not the first character I fully IO'd out I did not use the previous one to generate any of his influence. I did not engage in market manipulations. I did not convert reward merits to things which sell well on the market and sell them for influence. All I did was play the character and bid low on the AH with a willingness to wait. His total cost was probably just under 150 million influence. I would guess I have probably generated 500 million influence on him.

 

"Easy to do if you play him all the time," I can hear someone saying. But I don't. I play other games and take breaks from City of Heroes (heresy I know) with Outriders having 80% of my focus for three months and Diablo 2 Reforged getting 50% for another 3 months. Add too that I am a confirmed altaholic. I may have created 25 other characters since then with all but one making it to their 30s (takes little time I know but I do not use AE farming for levelling, I play the game) resulting in one other fully IO'd character (Tanker), 2 others having made it to 50, and another 9 being characters I fully plan to take to 50 and IO out. Since June I mostly bring the character on when I'm frustrated with life, do not have a lot of time to work on levelling one of my projects, and just want to feel powerful while beating things down. So his play has been fairly minimal. He's only at Veteran Level 57 and only has his third level Alpha ability.

 

All of this to say that IO'ing out a character is not a horribly difficult thing to do at this point.

 

I don't... I mean, I'm glad for the advice, and there are a few ideas to increase efficiency and I'm thankful you pointed them out, but your assertion about your Signature Brute are kind of agreeing with me.

 

I'm a build-creator. I test things, and generally treat CoH as a sim, not a game. At one year per toon (part-time, I'm aware) I don't have the free time to even get my Mains kitted out, let alone all the concept characters. January 15th is less than a month away, now.

 

I'm mystified by "spending influence on Incarnate upgrades". My current Main, which accidentally happened when I realized how awesome Elec/Elec can be, doesn't have all their Incarnate stuff done yet, and I'm not sure what you mean, but it might be useful.

 

I'm sitting on a few hundred Merits per (seriously played) character, maybe 600 total, they were earmarked for AT-IOs, but I could auction some Enhancement Converters to get maybe 40 million inf.

 

The core problem, of course, is that I can probably kill myself and IO out a character or two, but I actually have about 50 serious characters, and another 20 or so "just for fun's", and that's a few orders of magnitude worse proposition.

 

The Live forums were the same song and dance "sets aren't that hard". They were then, and they are now. I'll give poking around the forums for miracle cures another shot though, it's been over a year and I might have missed some posts.

[Aurora_Girl]

12 minutes ago, Vhalidictes said:

The Live forums were the same song and dance "sets aren't that hard". They were then, and they are now. I'll give poking around the forums for miracle cures another shot though, it's been over a year and I might have missed some posts.

 

No, sets are not that hard. You're actively hamstringing yourself by not using any IOs other than generic, and then complaining that you can't walk. Shit's not rocket science, yo.

Do WSTs/TFs/Story Arcs, get merits, buy boosters/converters with merits, sell on AH, buy Uniques/procs and slot them, repeat. 

[InvaderStych]

19 minutes ago, Vhalidictes said:

I'm sitting on a few hundred Merits per (seriously played) character, maybe 600 total, they were earmarked for AT-IOs, but I could auction some Enhancement Converters to get maybe 40 million inf.

 

You could, but I wouldn't recommend going Converters. Really the only reason to touch converters is if you are flipping enhancements for profit, or to sell the ones that drop on the /ah to those folks who do.

 

If Unslotters are selling for >200K, you can do those, but that is a risky play and requires a high reserve price that might leave your goods on market for a while.

 

Boosters are generally the most stable influence return on merits.

 

Whatever route you choose, your return should average +/-20mil per 100 merits spent.  So that 600 should get you +/- 120mil, not 40.

 

I will also spend an inordinate amount of time on very few toons.  I have probable 5 toons at 50, 2 of which see any regular play and those are fully kitted out. 1 of them is fully boosted with +5 sets to boot.  The other three are riding set builds in various states. No farming, effortless marketeering, lots of teaming/soloing content for merits and paying attention the current WST.

 

The barriers are so immensely lower than during live; there's no reason not to go ham, especially if you enjoy tweaking and experimenting with builds.  Even just adding unique pieces, globals, or procs to your SO builds will be a big bump.  That's how I level toons, SOs and select pieces.

Edited December 7, 2021 by InvaderStych

[arcane]

On 12/4/2021 at 5:11 AM, nihilii said:

If you skip Recon, IH and MoG, you’re just bad.

Fixed.

[Obsinious]

5 minutes ago, Aurora_Girl said:

Do WSTs/TFs/Story Arcs, get merits, buy boosters/converters with merits, sell on AH, buy Uniques/procs and slot them, repeat. 

Or play the convert and resell lotto.  Or equip a cheap fire farmer and AFK farm on another account while you play. Or just buy stuff cheap and immediately relist it higher and wait.  Patience alone will make you money.

[Koopak]

I personally use the fact we are allowed to run multiple accounts to just plot a fire farmer built for afk farming in a mission, thats solved most of my influ problems by itself let alone the other methods iv used. granted im not kitting out 50 characters but i can kit one out once every week or two.

 

And that's at my no holds barred builds which average 500mil a pop with some creeping toward a billion plus if i spring for boosters to really push it. The builds i give my financially conscious SG mates average 300-350mil. So I feel like yer real issue is that you apparently wanna kit out 50 characters, which... honest question, how? Not trying to be rude, im just genuinely impressed and confused.

If you are a 'build designer' and this is why you have so many character you need to check the beta server where you can design to your hearts content with no cost on your time other than making and testing the build. Then if you got one you really love, make it on the live server and kit it out.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Koopak

[Erratic1]

6 minutes ago, Vhalidictes said:

 

I don't... I mean, I'm glad for the advice, and there are a few ideas to increase efficiency and I'm thankful you pointed them out, but your assertion about your Signature Brute are kind of agreeing with me.

 

I'm a build-creator. I test things, and generally treat CoH as a sim, not a game. At one year per toon (part-time, I'm aware) I don't have the free time to even get my Mains kitted out, let alone all the concept characters. January 15th is less than a month away, now.

 

Did I not mention I have made 30 or so characters this year alone and still found time to play other games, get five characters to 50, 24 characters to 30+, and still fully IO out two characters?

 

January 15th btw is more than a month away. Not much more than a month but still more. Not sure why that is relevant. The character I referred to was made January 15, 2021. As I noted, he was fully IO'd in a few months, again with all the other things occupying my time.

 

If you play only one toon per year, getting fully IO'd, even with part-time play, should be fully doable. (Well, depends on what you mean by part-time...playing 30 mins per week might make it a bit of a stretch.)

 

6 minutes ago, Vhalidictes said:

 

I'm mystified by "spending influence on Incarnate upgrades". My current Main, which accidentally happened when I realized how awesome Elec/Elec can be, doesn't have all their Incarnate stuff done yet, and I'm not sure what you mean, but it might be useful.

 

 Various components used in upgrades can be bought with influence. 

 

6 minutes ago, Vhalidictes said:

 

I'm sitting on a few hundred Merits per (seriously played) character, maybe 600 total, they were earmarked for AT-IOs, but I could auction some Enhancement Converters to get maybe 40 million inf.

 

The core problem, of course, is that I can probably kill myself and IO out a character or two, but I actually have about 50 serious characters, and another 20 or so "just for fun's", and that's a few orders of magnitude worse proposition.

 

You kind of have to prioritize or learn to work the market. Of course with a fully IO'd character generating influence is just a matter of playing sufficiently.

 

6 minutes ago, Vhalidictes said:

The Live forums were the same song and dance "sets aren't that hard". They were then, and they are now. I'll give poking around the forums for miracle cures another shot though, it's been over a year and I might have missed some posts.

 

I got a lucky drop back on live of a purple recipe (not IO, just the recipe) which I sold back on live for 32 million. For that you could buy two of the actual IOs made from the recipe on Homecoming.

[Erratic1]

4 minutes ago, Obsinious said:

Or play the convert and resell lotto.  Or equip a cheap fire farmer and AFK farm on another account while you play. Or just buy stuff cheap and immediately relist it higher and wait.  Patience alone will make you money.

 

So very much this.

[Without_Pause]

Uncommons can be had for cheap. I'm at the point where I don't slot commons unless they really are the only real option. I actually frankenslot the attuned ones which can be had at level 7 and 12 and slot them until I want to switch over. I put those in storage for the next character. What I do on the market can be done for under 2 mil as a starting point. I just repeat the process and add more of it until I am doing a stack of 10. I can log in the morning and be done in lets say 5 minutes. I pimped out 5 builds so far and my main just sits at the AH instead of using my farmer, who I use to level other characters and honestly have run once in two months due to having an item which increases drops. And yes, get a character to 50 and play them. Common level 50 recipes are overly good for their sale value. 10 mill on a 50 is like 2-3 nights of casual gaming.

 

WP is a solid set, but once IOs and Incarnates are factored in, WP can have issues when pushed based on the situation. 

[Obsinious]

Here's a thread where Yomo made over 800 Million in 24 hours with zero startup cash on a brand new character.  I hope this accentuates how easy it is to make enough influence to equip characters.

 

 

[Hyperstrike]

On 12/4/2021 at 7:44 AM, Gobbledegook said:

It's about time Tankers got it and EA.

Both would have to be extremely neutered compared to the Brute/Scrapper versions.
Combined with Tanker HP stats and general higher levels of other mitigation, it could mean crossing the Immortality line on SOs.

[PeregrineFalcon]

34 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

Both would have to be extremely neutered compared to the Brute/Scrapper versions.
Combined with Tanker HP stats and general higher levels of other mitigation, it could mean crossing the Immortality line on SOs.

I don't know about Regen, but I don't see any reason that EA has to be nerfed before it can be ported to Tankers.

 

First, if the set isn't overpowered to begin with then simply changing the values to bring them in line with Tanker values should be fine. If they'd be overpowered on a Tanker with Tanker values then they're overpowered on a Scrapper with Scrapper values and the Scrapper version should be nerfed too.

 

Secondly, so what if EA has higher numbers than other sets. Is there anything that EA on a Tanker could do that SR, or Shield with some IOs can't do? So what if the defense numbers are higher. They can only miss you. It's not like a higher number will cause the enemies to "miss you harder than ever before." A miss is a miss.

 

EA is the best Scrapper armor that doesn't have a damage buff. If that's ok on a Scrapper then it should be ok on a Tanker.

.

Edited December 7, 2021 by PeregrineFalcon
I have to remember to actually finish my sentences. :)

[DarknessEternal]

6 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

First, if the set isn't overpowered to begin with then simply changing the values to bring them in line with Tanker values should be fine. If they'd be overpowered on a Tanker with Tanker values then they're overpowered on a Scrapper with Scrapper values and the Scrapper version should be nerfed too.

 

 

The only reason EA isn't getting nerfed across all ATs is Bio's existence.

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 minute ago, DarknessEternal said:

The only reason EA isn't getting nerfed across all ATs is Bio's existence.

And that's exactly my point. Looking at EA and saying it has to be nerfed while the elephant in the room, Bio, strolls quietly by without anyone saying a word about it, is kinda ridiculous.

 

Frankly, I think the devs should just port Regen and EA to Tankers and SS to Scrappers. And then, if they're overpowered, normalize them according to the AT modifiers and allowed performance equally across ALL archetypes.

[Haijinx]

If you want to just use SOs/Generic IOs and still mainly solo, then play a Tanker.

 

If you want to just use SOs/Generic IOs and just team, you can play whatever, but something with range will probably be more fun.  Since you'll need to make sure you stay with the Leadership bubbles of effect, and Defender's LOS and so on. 

 

However I don't see where money is the main limiter.  I solo'd every Arc at +0/x1 from 1-50 and just bought converters and sold them with my merits, and made over 500 million INF.  Which is plenty for a mid-range build. 

 

The Irony is that EA with fighting is a great set for even a low end IO build.  Since if you get the two +3% defense, and add in 4 Kinetic combat sets, you should be past softcap all the time for S/L.  Of course INV and WP would be pretty decent with the same.  

 

Trying to make Regen good with no IO sets? AND skipping some of the powers?  3 slot the self rez power for recharge I guess.  

[Sovera]

7 hours ago, Vhalidictes said:

 of disconnect here in how I look at things. I am pretty good with playing with powers and slots. I *have* to be, because I run about 10 characters per-server, and I have about ...let's go with an average of 10 million inf split between those 10 characters.

 

You get 37% or so S/L +Defense, which is decent enough, but not going to bother a +2 Boss all that much, and pretty good Fire/Cold +Defense (but no +Resist), which is nice but not earthshaking. OFC keep in mind all this is at L50, leveling up in the 20's is not nearly as smooth as the L50 numbers make it look. This is a Tier-2 set. Tank numbers would be a big improvement, but Tanks can't currently use it.

 

 

I feel my own disconnect when you say you're good at builds and the game but have ten million spread on ten characters, and don't slot the cheap stuff because too expensive. You need to make up your mind.

 

While others have chipped in already I'll say to look at my signature. It's not the best way, it's not the fastest way, but I just play the game and make money.

 

- Don't do radio missions. They are hilariously obsolete. Run flashbacks from Ouroboros. You get the same XP but at the end of the arc you get merits. Or do like I do and do taskforces. They can be soloed at your leisure, or they can be done with a team to blitz though. Each one for 30-50 minutes nets a ton of XP and an average of 20+ million in converters. Radio missions only give drops and XP, same thing that arcs or taskforces, but no merits.

 

- Just in case you decide not to check the signature I'll quickly say that on average a converter will sell for 75k. One merit is three converters. So math it out if you would rather sell 300 converters or buy an ATM recipe (as a rule, no, never, there is near always a deficit of 2-4 million in buying a recipe for 100 merits). This is the most brain dead way of making money. People who care about the market would make a lot more money by -using- the converters instead of selling them raw.

 

- Spend money and buy IOs. As per the guide I'll repeat: nothing is wasted, nothing is soulbound. Buy the expensive stuff because you can transfer it to another character or even sell it back again. Things like the 3% defense uniques may be expensive but they bump defenses significantly when trying to reach the cap. When I stop playing a character and start another I will use /respec and transfer the IOs (I feel no need to have characters fully slotted out if I'm not playing them). This is how I slowly made money since I stopped spending to kit out every single alt that I make. When we have 200-600 million in IOs on a character and a respec recipe costs 1-2 million it seems obvious to me that I would rather spend ten minutes respeccing a character and recover those 200-600 million worth of IOs.

 

- Seriously, buy IOs. Some things like the full Obliteration set costs about two million a piece and will bump recharge, S/L resists, S/L defenses, accuracy and other minor stuff.

 

 

My own advice to solo the whole game on a budget: Fire Armor/Ice melee. Straight out of the box it chews through everything with near impunity. It is linked in the signature.

 

Quote

EDIT: Crazy Ivan, sorry I missed you reply when I posted. I don't have the slightest idea how you're getting those numbers, since all the power slots are blacked out for me.

 

Ivan is one of those who believes in keeping their builds 'secret' so none can copy their amazeballs slotting.

 

🙂