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Trip Report Deux: If you're used to the "classic" Blood Moon style, this particular Blood Moon instance is a bit of a clusterfuck. Whole instances at a time are regularly unavailable because of Takofanes campers filling them up, making it impossible to answer many calls for assistance against Undead Hero bosses. The usual mantrains run on Nimbus and Goblin spawns are completely absent because almost everyone who usually does bossruns is busy beating on Tako and hoping for dodge purples or Dark Auras. (Did you know Nimbus has annoying ice powers? Usually she doesn't last long enough to gurgle.) The Dark Aura device is the Make.Money.Fast of this Blood Moon; it's still going well into three figures, with the Tako costume bits in the ~30G range. Basically, Tako hunting goes like this: * Listen in Zone chat until someone types out the current Takofanes spawn sequence. * Go to the next Tako instance in the chain that is accessible. In practical terms, figure it'll be one three or four instances down the line with a half-hour-plus wait. * Stand around Champs HQ when it's spawn time, and when Tako gets off his chair blast him with everything you have. Does the scoreboard at the end matter? Yes and no. No in that if you at least touch Takofanes, you'll get something for your trouble. This is a Halloween Treat Bag (the crappy kind) at a minimum, plus a chance at one of the five costume purples; Tako's Bracers, Mantle, Belt and Crown or the Dark Aura device. You pays your money, you takes your chances. Yes in that the higher you place, the more likely it is that you'll get a better reward. This includes C-Store Trick or Treat bags (the ones with a chance of a permanent Halloween Become device), +84/stat blue upgrades (visibly inferior to adventure-pack Very Hard/Elite blues, but hey, they have the word Takofanes on them), or purple upgrades (some of which are actually very nice, but if you're not in the top 10 on the scoreboard good luck ever seeing one, and if you're capable of minmaxing enough to get into the top 10 you don't need my advice).
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Oct 31, 2011 14:42
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Not even 10 is good enough. You need to be like Top 5 for a purple. Which I can very easily do. I got everything I need from Tako (All 4 pieces, Dark Aura, and 3 dodge purples) in a day. You do not need to min/max anything. You just need to be 40, and something good. TK Blades, Dragon's Claw, Dual Blades (Though AoE might get Tako's buddies on you which probably hurts) etc. That and don't die, obviously. The tanks are going to suck, so keep an eye on Tako's facing. He only ever AoEs forward, if you're behind you're safe.
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Oct 31, 2011 14:56
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Aphrodite posted:You do not need to min/max anything. You just need to be 40, and something good. TK Blades, Dragon's Claw, Dual Blades (Though AoE might get Tako's buddies on you which probably hurts) etc. Well, not min/maxing in the sense of perfect gear and perfect build per se, but in that if you're not level 40 and you're not in one of a handful of particular offensive setups, you have no chance, as a few dozen others will be doing exactly that. I tried out one of my best DPSers (a Rage of Majesty lightning build) and didn't even show up on the visible leaderboard. Having a decent graphics card also helps, in all likelihood; on my laptop, I could barely tell whether my DB'er was hitting him or not.
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Oct 31, 2011 15:47
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Alas, I couldn't get an action shot of lasers coming out of his mouth.
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Oct 31, 2011 19:28
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jjac posted:EDIT: I just realized out of all the winning players only one was female. Yeah, uh, I got some unfortunate news for you about that minotaur.
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Oct 31, 2011 19:38
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I have now updated this post to talk about spec-trees as well as choices in superstats! Hooray. Now the new item system won't completely confuse everyone. About superstats: You get three of them; one primary, and two secondaries. Your primary stat grants you access to a specialization tree at level 10, which includes a lot of special choices that work to make your hero even stronger and focused.  STR - The de-facto stat for melee fighters. Strength causes your melee attacks to hit much harder (since the 20% damage boost cap doesn't exist anymore), makes you fly backwards less when knocked, makes your melee knocks more powerful, and allows you to pick up and throw heavier objects to disable enemies' travel powers.Spec tree review: Offense: Excellent Defense: OK Energy: Great Versatility: Poor Mastery: OK Strength is an awesome choice for a primary superstat if you're seeking to create a melee fighter. Aside from its baseline stat bonuses, it allows you to hit much harder with its spec tree's access to Aggression, boosting the amount of offense you get from items, Overpower, which allows your strength-stat to let you land melee criticals, and Brutality, which boosts the severity of your crits. On the defense, Juggernaut can be coupled with a secondary stat of Constitution to enable you to get a defense bonus alongside your expanded health. Physical Peak makes it much easier to handle extended melee combat. Its one downside is that, if you're planning to use ranged attacks, Strength's bonuses and spec tree probably won't offer a lot of support. Still, built right, a Strength-focus character can land attacks which crit a decent amount of the time, hit harder than most other alternatives, take a good beating, and keep a good pace up while doing all that. Take Strength as a primary if...
Notable scalings: Enrage, which boosts mostly melee damage based on your strength.  DEX - Dexterity can be considered the 'all around' stat, in all actuality. Dexterity's most noticeable effect is that it causes you to land criticals much more often, and also makes stealth moves a bit more effective.Spec tree review: Offense: Great Defense: Great Energy: Poor Versatility: Excellent Mastery: Excellent Dexterity's spec tree plays perfectly into Dexterity's playstyle most of the time. Gear Utilization makes you get more offense/defense stats from your items, which is always good. Dexterity can also translate offense directly into extra crit-chance using Combat Training, and can use Deadly Aim to make those criticals hit even harder. Dexterity can also serve as a great dodge-tank stat, as Quick Reflexes boost your dodge chance based directly on your DEX stat, while Evasion increases the damage reduction your dodges offer by the value of your secondary stats. Its biggest shortcoming is that its energy-return mechanic of Power Swell is highly situational, given that it is very hard to get critical chance above 45%, and ultimately doesn't pay off well for players who use lots of combos/maintains/taps. In any case, Dexterity is perhaps one of the most versatile spec trees overall. Take Dexterity as your primary if...
Notable scalings: Focus forms in the Martial Arts Tree will boost the damage offered by stacks, as well as the effectiveness of Rush from Dragon attacks. Boosts dodge-stat gain from Parry's Elusive Monk.  CON - Made purely for survivability, all constitution does as a superstat is boost your health value. If given a high enough score in this stat, though, you can have roughly twice as much health as other characters of your level. Even without a defensive passive, this gives your character a lot of buffer-space for not dying.Spec tree review: Offense: Poor Defense: Excellent Energy: Great Versatility: Great Mastery: OK The one thing to notice in Constitution's tree is that there are no direct boosts to your offense or offensive capabilities. This tree's all about resisting and surviving effects. That said, Armored will probably be your best friend in this tree, boosting the amount of defense you get from your items. Fuel My Fire is a really good choice for energy management if you don't take other on-hit energy mechanics such as Defiance or Force Shield. The rest of its specs are largely fitted to suit various other needs; I.E. taking Deflection is a great idea if you have a Dex secondary, while Resilient can be used to increase knock resistance if you don't have high Strength. Take Constitution as your primary stat if you want to make a super-solid tank, or just a character that can handle damage better than the rest. Take Constitution as your primary if...
Notable scalings: Increases healing gotten from Resurgence and Enrage's Endorphin Rush, and directly scales up resistance offered by Defiance. Scales up energy return from Spirit Reverberation.  INT - This largely-utility stat has some interesting effects. It increases the energy efficiency of all your powers, shortens your recharges, and allows you to see through certain stealth effects.Spec tree review: Offense: Great Defense: OK Energy: Great Versatility: OK Mastery: Poor Intelligence is weird. Its whole schtick is that it's tailored for creating a character who doesn't use their superstats, but all the stats on the board, as proved by its mastery, which boosts all your non-superstats by 20 points, and the specialization Enlightened, which bolsters the bonuses these non-superstats grant. Still, there are some nice perks to this tree, with Tactician allowing your superstats to boost up your offense rating. Tinkering increases your offense/defense yield from items, while Detect Vulnerability will give your attacks some defense-penetration, making you more valuable against bosses and armored enemies when those times come. Meanwhile, Expertise, the superstat variation of Enlightened, is actually pretty badass when you think about it, while Preparation, which increases your equilibrium based on your Endurance stat, is a really good way to render Recovery moot if you're an END superstatter. Finally, Revitalize can be used to make it so that you can use recharge abilities very rapidly if you time your energy builder hits correctly. Overall, though it's constructed mainly to build utility/control characters, it definitely has enough tools in it to make it useful for quite a bit more than that. Take Intelligence as your primary if...
Notable scalings: Energy Return from Molecular Self-Assembly and Overdrive; length of zombie summon from March of the Dead. Scales up damage gained from Concentration and bonuses from Manipulator. Affects Int+ and Ego+ bonuses from Quarry.  EGO - Ego has evolved from a highly dependent stat to a very solid stand-alone one. Ego is basically ranged Strength; it boosts your ranged damage and knock power, and increases your resistance to holds slightly. If you're not hurting for energy, this is the way to go if you're looking for Ranged DPS.Spec tree review: Offense: Excellent Defense: OK Energy: Great Versatility: OK Mastery: OK And when it comes to its spec tree, Ego delivers. On the offense-side, Aggression gives you a big offense-boost from items, while Force of Will gives you a bit of extra resiliency with your secondary superstats. The upper half of the spec tree includes a LOT of utilities great for making your character devastating when it comes to crits, with Follow Through, Sixth Sense, and Exploit Opening all great utilities. On the Energy Front, Insight will help a lot for keeping your attacks rolling, while mental endurance is a decent choice if you chose Recovery as a secondary superstat (for whatever reason). Because its mechanics largely aren't tied directly to melee attacks, it comes out an eke above Strength's tree in its versatility, but they overall come out functionally identical, and when you really think about it, Ego just isn't a good stat for a melee fighter. Still, for your ranged damage purposes, this is the tree and superstat to turn to. Take Ego as your primary if...
Notable scalings: Scales up damage gained from Concentration and Mental Discipline. Energy Return from Killer Instinct, Hunter's Instinct, and Ego Reverberation. Also scales up Ego Blade attacks much like Strength would for most other melee strikes.  PRE - Presence, at face value, is the healer stat. That said, it increases the strength of your heals and shields, as well as boosting the length of your holds. It also increases your "Crowd Control Resistance" which I have bumfuck idea of what that does. In any case, its boost to healing power essentially makes this stat all the worthwhile.Spec tree review: Offense: Excellent Defense: Great Energy: Poor Versatility: Great Mastery: Great Presence comes out on top with its spec-tree. Though mainly geared towards making strong healers and controllers, its versatility ultimately shines through, with Grandeur offering extra offense directly from your Presence, and Force of Will offering defense on your other superstats. Moment of Glory offers the extremely awesome bonus of extra critical-chance from your secondary superstats. Finally, Repurpose offers you extra defense in the form of slightly stronger heals from your offense score. That's four specializations that can work for pretty much any character type. Even then, the other specializations are good things to try and check out if you're seeking to make a support character. It's slight weakness is that it doesn't have a specialization which helps it out in energy (again, meant to play into the healer role and its heavily boosted energy reserves.) A weird thing to note; unlike most of the other trees, none of its offense/defense boosts depend on your equipment; purely your superstats. Theoretically, this is to allow it to tie into heavy usage of Sentinel jewels, which bolster healing power and crowd control over offense and defense, but all it ends up doing is making the spec tree a little more flexible overall. Take Presence as your primary if...
Notable scalings: Increases healing/damage boost from Compassion, and bonuses from Manipulator.  REC - Recovery is a superstat designed to make energy management easier. It does this by boosting your baseline resting point of your energy, or your equilibrium, as well as making your energy builder return more energy and your energy reserves a tiny amount larger. Thanks to its blase spec tree, it still is one of the worst choices for a superstat.Spec tree review: Offense: OK Defense: OK Energy: Great Versatility: OK Mastery: OK The big problem about Recovery is that there isn't anything which sets it a head above the rest. Sure, it's got Gear Utilization, which offers some good boosts to Offense/Defense yield from items, and Staying Power, which increases the max. energy boost from Rec, is sensible, but everything else in the tree is largely trash. It really is the jack-of-all-trades tree, which means it just doesn't do anything good. Sure, it gets the ability to regenerate from Rapid Recovery, and can use Well-Rounded to boost max health, but compared to what dedicated powers and some good equipment can do, that pretty much means nothing. Figure out what you want your character to really focus on, and pick the appropriate superstat instead of defaulting to Recovery. Take Recovery as your primary if...
Notable scalings: All energy returns to some degree scale with Recovery. Supernatural Power scales purely with it. Increases healing/damage boost from Compassion.  END - Recovery's big brother, Endurance will boost the size of your energy reserves. As I explained before, this also means that individual energy-builder hits are going to restore more energy to you, thanks to the percentage of a higher number being a larger value than the same percentage of a smaller number. I only honestly recommend choosing this as a primary superstat if you're CRAZY about energy.Spec tree review: Offense: Great Defense: OK Energy: Excellent Versatility: OK Mastery: Excellent This is because Endurance's tree is almost entirely gimmicks that are going to make you use your energy extremely well. The standards of basic versatility, such as Gear Utilization, are there to help you get extra boosts from your equipment, but its Power Overwhelming that allow Endurance to put up a good fight when it comes to offensive output. Readiness is a good way, once again, to render the REC stat completely moot, while Kickback can definitely give you some extra aid in helping you avoid relying on your energy builder for too much time. To top it all off, its mastery, which grants you extra energy based on various conditions in role, is ridiculous and probably is way too much energy return for any character. It's certainly's got a lot of stuff that helps you keep endurance-heavy builds running, but it just doesn't pack the same punch as stats like Ego or Presence, due to lack of crit bonuses. Still, a solid choice for a secondary superstat if you need a small boost of energy. Take Endurance as your primary if...
Notable scalings: The most energy returns gets help from this stat, including: Ionic reverberation, Overdrive, and Flame reverberation. Role Trees  AvengerOffense: Excellent Defense: None Support: None Mastery: Poor Versatility: OK The avenger tree is the ranged DPS tree. However, its specs also enable it to be generalized to AoE DPS, as the only things specifically 'ranged' in the Avenger spec-tree is its usage of blasts (which are useless anyway.) Its abilities are the most helpful to those who use wide-area maintained attacks, thanks to Round 'Em Up and Relentless Assault pretty much being the most worthwhile specializations in the tree (Especially Relentless Assault; your offense skyrockets when you use maintains). Avenger tree supports a little bit of extra crit dps in the form of its 'Ruthless' crit-severity bonus, and Anguish offering some bonus damage when you land criticals. Overall, a lot of Avenger's specializations are pretty situational or otherwise flat out useless (Can't Touch This comes to mind), and the tree overall lacks any bonuses that help out the core stats of your build. If you've got a solid basis in your statting, though, Avenger's perks allow you to hit very hard.  BrawlerOffense: Excellent Defense: None Support: None Mastery: OK Versatility: Poor Brawler tree is the melee companion to Avenger. Most of its higher-level specializations are combo/melee specific, meaning it's not nearly as versatile as Avenger is. Brawler shares a lot of its shortcomings with Avenger, with the same utter lack of generalized boosts and strangely specific bonuses. Still, Brawler can do pretty good on the offense, especially in a team. Glory of Battle will give you a major offense boost if you land enough AoE attacks, while Flanking and Finishing blow are both convenient for helping a team take down a big boss, specifically if a good tank is around. In general, though, brawler is probably my least favorite role-tree. At least its mastery, which causes your lunges to boost your next attack, is pretty neat sounding.  ProtectorOffense: None Defense: Excellent Support: OK Mastery: OK Versatility: OK Protector is crafted specifically for tanking, and it does a pretty good job of helping a good number of builds become more survivable. For one, Fortified Gear increases your defense-yield from items quite substantially (which can be utilized by another spec tree I'll describe later), while Defensive Expertise is good for keeping your active defenses up and ready at more times. If you're planning to be a dedicated tank, I strongly suggest taking a peek at Bulwark; its advantage works in a funny way, in that it causes you to generate threat if you run in the Hybrid role. Considering you get an extra boost to your healing power while running in Hybrid, as well as doing more damage and having more consistent energy, a Hybrid running with Bulwark is generally going to be a much more versatile tank than somebody just running in Tank role. In general, the tree is good if you're looking to just get some extra defense boosts or perks, but probably isn't a great choice if you're looking for a little more punch; Protector, sadly, doesn't do much for your critical capabilities.  SentinelOffense: Poor Defense: None Support: Excellent Mastery: Poor Versatility: OK Sentinel is the pure-healer/controller tree. Because I'm mostly building soloists/balanced fighters, this is one of my less-liked trees, but it is an awesome tool for making support characters. For one thing, most of the support-geared spec trees have auras, which grant you and your allies special bonuses. Sentinel Aura, the aura of this tree, is still probably one of the best ones, as it can be used to keep your allies alive fairly reliably, and also causes your compassion to stack if you're using it, making your aura and other heals even stronger. The other spotlight specializations of this tree would be Caregiver and Genesis; Caregiver is good for support healers, making your heals on allies stronger, while Genesis reduces the energy cost of your support powers. Most of the other specializations in the tree are fitted mostly for critical-based healers or mezzers, which really doesn't gel well with iniquity (a powerful heal that doesn't crit.) Tough to use, but has some great boons.  CommanderOffense: Great Defense: OK Support: Excellent Mastery: Excellent Versatility: None Commander is the odd-one out; unlike all the other trees, which tend to have hybridized counterparts, Commander stands on its own as the only pet-based tree. That said, it is amazing for its purpose. Depending on what you want to do with your pets, virtually every specialization in this tree has some use. Practically everything in this set directly bolster's your pets abilities, making them absolutely devastating in the right situations. However, if your build doesn't use more than one or two pets, focusing your strength on the Commander tree is probably a waste of time, because the more pets you have, the more apparent the bonuses of this tree will be.  GuardianOffense: Excellent Defense: Excellent Support: None Mastery: Poor Versatility: Great Guardian has a bit of a history. Though it's the name for the Tank/Ranged damage spec-tree, Guardian was earlier the name for the Hybrid role. That said, its spirit of versatility seems to have survived perfectly through the transition, because the Guardian tree is amazing for any character running solo. The general strategy for this tree is to take three ranks of Fortified Gear to get your defense up, then take The Best Defense on the second tier to basically turn your defense score into pure offense. Bam; suddenly, you're doing sizable DPS with a tank-based tree. If that wasn't enough, Guardian also comes with some severity-boosting specializations, AND also has access to Find the Mark, which has a chance to increase your ranged critical chance against enemies you hit. Overall, you'll come here for the amazing offense/defense boosts, and stay for the decent critical-hit boosts, and on-hit bonuses scattered through the rest of the tree.  WardenOffense: Excellent Defense: Excellent Support: None Mastery: Poor Versatility: OK Warden is the Melee/Tank spec tree. It's largely a mirror of Guardian, and retains a lot of what makes it great, including the Fortified Gear/Best Defense combo. It's a little less generalizable, though, as it lacks any skills that bolster its critical chances, instead exchanging them for small damage-boosts against debuffed targets. Still, it's got good tools for increasing damage output in retaliation to damage, and, when paired with Guardian, becomes one of the only ways to make a DPSer powerful enough to not rely on criticals to deal good damage. Basically a must-have for any melee fighter.  VindicatorOffense: Excellent Defense: Great Support: None Mastery: OK? Versatility: Great Vindicator (which amusingly is just a synonym for “Avenger”) is the general DPS tree. That said, it's much better than either Brawler or Avenger, thanks to its very simple approach to things; criticals. Vindicator's crit-severity buff, Merciless, is the highest of any of the role-trees in the game, capping out at 15% compared to the 10% buff gotten from Ruthless. To add to that, Vindicator tree is pretty much the only role-tree with any actual access to flat crit-chance buffs, in the form of Focused Strikes and Mass Destruction, which boost single-target and AoE critical-chances, respecitvely. Vindicator is a step above its constitutents in defense as well. It has access to Aggressive Stance, which scales up your defense based on your offense score slightly (which can turn into an amusing, diminishing-return fest of stat gains when combined with The Best Defense), Modified Gear, which boosts the offense-yield you get from items, and Rush of Battle, which causes you to slowly regain health whenever you kill enemies. Use DEX or toss some lucky gems on your items, and Vindicator's bonuses will easily shine through.  OverseerOffense: Good Defense: None Support: Good Mastery: OK Versatility: Poor Overseer is the ranged damage/support mix. Its aura, which only boosts ranged damage output, is pretty bad compared to the more general auras of the other support trees, but that aside, it is one of the better rounded trees. Its specs, namely Enhanced Gear, give a pretty good punch, and Conservation is actually a keen way to help your single-target damage game keep up the pace. If you're looking to make a DPS character who can give a small boost to their allies through manual healing and other auras, Overseer is a pretty good option. If you're looking for pure DPS or self-reliance, though, Overseer probably won't fit your bill.  ArbiterOffense: Good Defense: Poor Support: Good Mastery: Poor Versatility: Poor Arbiter is largely a mirror of Overseer for melee fighters. That said, it has a few techniques that it can use to heal itself through combat, some decent offense boosts, and a similarly strangely-specific aura. Basically, aside from a more bizarre specialization mastery based on combos (ugh), it's functionally identical to Overseer.  SentryOffense: None Defense: Good Support: Good Mastery: OK Versatility: Good Sentry is the Tank/Support tree. Its aura, accordingly, increases the defense of everyone around you like a miniature version of Aura of Radiant Protection; certainly a step-above the damage-class-specific boosts of Arbiter and Overseer auras. Meanwhile, Sentry also gets access to Fortified Gear, identical to that inside the Guardian, Warden, and Protector trees, and also gets plenty of utilities for getting energy and health back through heals and taking hits. Great idea if you're making a team tank that also happens to do some healing/control, but if you're mostly flying solo or making a dedicated, aggro-grabbing attack tank, you'll want one of the other tank trees. My general advice for Role Trees include:
Items Let's get the simple thing out of the way: Items are a bitch to find now. Not so much just finding items, mind you, but finding good items that fit your character. Mostly everything you get is either random drops, mission rewards (which sometimes lack decent slotting options) or randomized box rewards. Probably the best place to get fitting items is to search the Auction House for various item classes and browse until you find something that suits your fancy. Now for mods; mods are special items you can insert into slots to enhance your primary equipment in various ways. Mods have various ranks (1-10) determining how much of a boost they offer. Mods come generally in two super-categories, which can further be broken down into sub-categories based on what kind of bonus they offer and how they can be used. There's two different varieties of mods: Enhancements and Armoring
Gems and Cores Gems are used as early as level 15 on your primary items, and usually can be used on any item type. They are tied lightly to a crafting school, as you will only be able to get certain gems from certain crafting nodes. If you have enough Resources, though, it shouldn't be too hard to get any gem class you're looking for, and your crafting skill doesn't play a major role in making fusion of any specific gem type easier. Gems themselves are the main upgrade item for your equipment. There are five different classes of these gems in the game currently:
Cores Cores are basically downgraded gems. They can only be fitted onto one item type (offense/defense/utility) and otherwise work identically as any of the above gems. You usually don't find these in nodes. Instead, they're usually included in pre-slotted mission rewards. Bluhman fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Dec 20, 2012 |
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Oct 31, 2011 21:47
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So what's a good alternative to Super Reflexes on a character focusing on the new martial arts powers and stuff. I've got so many drat SR built characters I'd like to use something else but I can't really think of a good one. Regeneration was my second go to but it has been nerfed so hard it's painful to see it now.
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Oct 31, 2011 23:59
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You mean Lightning Reflexes? There's Way of the Warrior, but that's also a dodge passive. Invulnerable or Defiance are good if you want to go defense. For offense there's not really anything else.
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Nov 1, 2011 00:12
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Wouldn't Unstoppable from Might also work? They both effect physical melee damage. That said, I don't really know the viability of it or how it would be any better than choosing Way of the Warrior.
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Nov 1, 2011 01:03
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Aphrodite posted:You mean Lightning Reflexes? Hmm Defiance might be interesting or maybe unstoppable. Dodge gets boring after how good they made it.
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Nov 1, 2011 02:36
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Defiance has energy built in, so that's always good.
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Nov 1, 2011 03:35
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I'm pretty sure Defiant Monk is still a top-tier (such as exists) tank build. Defiance, Parry with Elusive Monk, whatever toggle and circle give the best defensive overlap - you wind up hitting the base of the diminishing returns slope in basically every category of defense, with all the half-measures multiplying together to make you essentially unkillable. Plus, you run enough STR and CON to have perma-free Enrage, assuming you skirt around taking a Focus toggle. (Did they remove the rule that makes Focus cancel Enrage? I can't find anything about it on the wiki.) Martial Arts also works nicely with Quarry. It boosts all physical damage, so it goes poorly with the new dimensional-damage stuff, but it allows you to easily pull in whatever Munitions/Archery/Whatever attacks that suit you. The stats are a little awkward - super-INT is basically required and super-EGO would be a good idea, leaving you with a sideline either in STR or DEX. On the upside, none of your attacks will cost anything, ever! I also want to point out that Regeneration is still perfectly workable, as long as it's not your only tool - I layer it with Ebon Void, which is just retard-strong on its own.
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Nov 1, 2011 05:05
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LordSaturn posted:I'm pretty sure Defiant Monk is still a top-tier (such as exists) tank build. Defiance, Parry with Elusive Monk, whatever toggle and circle give the best defensive overlap - you wind up hitting the base of the diminishing returns slope in basically every category of defense, with all the half-measures multiplying together to make you essentially unkillable. Plus, you run enough STR and CON to have perma-free Enrage, assuming you skirt around taking a Focus toggle. (Did they remove the rule that makes Focus cancel Enrage? I can't find anything about it on the wiki.) Defiant Monk is less effective now than just stacking big piles of Con and whatever other superstat you want, taking virtually any block, and just cycling Evasive Maneuvers and Dragon Kick on top of Invuln or Defiance. The buffs from the advantage on DK and EM last a lot longer than Parry's dodge bonus, and it leaves your block open for a stronger overall block (Energy shield) or an additional end recovery unlock (Force shield). I did this with invuln, form of the tiger, and force shield+sheath and it is basically unkillable. I went with Int as my other superstat, but geared for some dex and str for my form energy returns and melee damage. Quarry is my favourite offensive passive. R3 for functionality, R2+advantage for a quirky regen effect from clearing trash mobs. You can stack dodge on it using either method described above for bonus excellence. Oh, and if you go with Ebon Void as a block with Regen you absolutely want to take its advantage. Once your block builds up almost nothing can kill you, outside of disabling your block. doomfunk fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Nov 1, 2011 |
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Nov 1, 2011 20:06
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New Until Field Report thing is up. There's a lot of stuff, but the most notable is that Comic Series 2 is in testing now, and so are the Wind powerset and Alerts. Next powerset review is apparently Infernal. We're getting cat emotes for some stupid reason. New Superspeed run animation (Not Naruto) is in development. Hideout crafting and training rooms being worked on. On the schedule (Meaning they're like 3 stages of development out) are an Earth powerset, new open missions, new zone events (They sound like Rift's major invasions), the 90s costume set, a wizard costume set, Swinging improvements and skins, and the ability to change power FX hues (Jetpack, Edom pieces etc.) Even further out from that are auras and Nemesis updates. Even more further out is the new zone mentioned before, another new zone, supergroup bases, 2 level cap upgrades (One for each zone. This stuff is way in the future) and an actual endgame. There's more in the actual post, I only put the good stuff.
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Nov 1, 2011 22:00
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Nothing about the melee weapon set still?
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Nov 1, 2011 23:33
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No, but it only mentions 2 costume sets period when obviously there's going to be many more.
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Nov 1, 2011 23:59
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Wind, Earth, and Infernal all sound like real cool power sets that could be pretty sweet. What new weapon set could they do? Like staffs or something?
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Nov 2, 2011 02:29
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Infernal isn't new. It's the ranged Supernatural set. It already received a review so it probably won't be anything major. And yes, staves would be cool.
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Nov 2, 2011 02:30
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delfin posted:Well, not min/maxing in the sense of perfect gear and perfect build per se, but in that if you're not level 40 and you're not in one of a handful of particular offensive setups, you have no chance, as a few dozen others will be doing exactly that. I tried out one of my best DPSers (a Rage of Majesty lightning build) and didn't even show up on the visible leaderboard. Really? I've been placing on the leaderboard with a 25 to mid-30s Tempest archetype. The highest I've made it was #5. I've also figured out exactly what to do to pull Tacoface's aggro. (Figuring that out was morbid curiosity, I guess) Edit: Double XP weekend convinced me to level that guy up again. It was the almost like the fun of being low level all over again. Tevruden fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Nov 2, 2011 |
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Nov 2, 2011 03:48
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Aphrodite posted:Infernal isn't new. It's the ranged Supernatural set. It already received a review so it probably won't be anything major. I'd imagine it'll be a few more filler attacks, like a T1 blast (like the one the Treys have). Although, knowing Ame and Akinos, something cool is in the works.
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Nov 2, 2011 04:37
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The Halloween Blood Moon that Never Ends is still going, as of this morning. Today should be its last day.Aphrodite posted:Not even 10 is good enough. You need to be like Top 5 for a (Tako purple upgrade). Not that I'm complaining, as I got to help provide contrary evidence this morning. I know MechaniKai got a dodge purple last night in the upper teens, and I snagged a Dex dodge purple this morning in the upper teens. I'm not sure that any of my guys besides the ego-blader would've stood a chance of top 20'ing, though. I am hopeful that the next 'normal' Blood Moon will incorporate a bit of Tako's drop style for this event -- save the A-list purples for next Halloween, but give people in the Also Participated category a shot at better rewards than a Medium Power Borrowed Life Incantation. In a typical Blood Moon, there's little incentive for anyone other than a heavy hitter to get anywhere near Tako.
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Nov 2, 2011 14:32
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I guess the event needs a patch to end, or something.
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Nov 2, 2011 14:35
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Sorry I haven't kept up the OP or posted in a few days, just now got my goddamn power back since... uh, about an hour after the last costume contest. loving unseasonable noreaster. Basically completely missed the halloween stuff 
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Nov 2, 2011 21:47
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Calender's up, get to work Asimo. No freebies this time.
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Nov 3, 2011 02:56
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November 2011 3rd - 10th Free Archetype Rotation: The Inventor 10th - 17th Free Archetype Rotation: The Tempest 16th - 19th Pulp Costume Set (C-Store) 16th - 19th CS2: "Whiteout" Issue 1 17th - 24th Free Archetype Rotation: Devastator 23rd - 26th New Archetype: Infernal 23rd - 26th CS2: "Whiteout" Issue 2 23rd - 26th Team Duels; Infernal Framework Review  Looks like the next comic series launches next month, along with the Pulp set (finally). An Infernal review too. Not the worst off set, but it's definitely a bit messy right now, even if both Supernaturals could stand for a glanceover.
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Nov 3, 2011 03:37
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The Halloween Blood Moon that Never Ends is STILL going on. (Got in a bonus Tako fight this morning.) The patch at ~10AM EST will probably take it down, though. So, if you're not headed right to work this morning...
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Nov 3, 2011 13:13
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Alright, for the CC we're doing Benjamin Black's idea. Saturday the 12th, 8pm server (Which should be 11 est/8 pst, but the clock is currently messed up in-game and I don't know when it will be fixed so it might be an hour later than that.) quote:Well, I have an idea for a category that's kind of funny - I'm not sure how many people would already have a costume like this though, but I know I've seen at least a few costumes that'd fit: I figure we can do a Top 3, at 150, 100 and 50g prizes.
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Nov 4, 2011 02:06
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Aphrodite posted:Alright, for the CC we're doing Benjamin Black's idea. I hope you're ready to see 10+ Rainbow Dashes!!
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Nov 4, 2011 06:01
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Decided to try this game in a fit of boredom. I don't know specifically what I was expecting, but it sure as hell wasn't an Anchorman reference.  I'll probably join up with you goons as soon as I'm not terrible.
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Nov 5, 2011 23:41
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Nastyman posted:Decided to try this game in a fit of boredom. I don't know specifically what I was expecting, but it sure as hell wasn't an Anchorman reference. No need to wait, most of the goons we already have are terrible. Also I've posted this before, but it was a while ago. If you are a Silver member, you can get free stuff by going here: http://www.alienwarearena.com/giveaway/champions-online-ffa-game-bundle It's North America only, but if you are outside just post and I will get one for you.
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Nov 5, 2011 23:46
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Thanks for the heads up, grabbed a code. I wonder if there are any other promos around like this, maybe we could eventually end up with most of the archetypes for free this way.
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Nov 6, 2011 04:24
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Was this a Halloween thing or just a hilarious bug?
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Nov 7, 2011 01:05
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Nechronic posted:Was this a Halloween thing or just a hilarious bug?
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Nov 7, 2011 04:18
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ColHannibal posted:gadget power set feature. Hahah, Cosmics aren't immune to the 1% teddy bear chance on that ray? I don't know how long it lasts (or if it even applies a debuff) but that seems like a weird oversight.
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Nov 7, 2011 04:28
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sentrygun posted:Hahah, Cosmics aren't immune to the 1% teddy bear chance on that ray? I don't know how long it lasts (or if it even applies a debuff) but that seems like a weird oversight. Hardly an oversight: The debuff, though it prevents the target from attacking for roughly 10 seconds or so, also severely boosts their damage resistance, so you don't really get very good free-hits in.
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Nov 7, 2011 09:24
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Greetings, friends. I would like to present, for your viewing pleasure, Captain No Pants. Captain No Pants washed up on the shore one day with no memory of who he was or where he was from. It was total amnesia. Sure, he could do math and speak English, but he had no idea where or how he learned such skills. He wandered around for a few hours until he realized that he was wearing a dress military uniform. Unfortunately, it had no identifying marks. No name, no rank, no branch, no insignia, no identification. Not even pants. He had to do something to keep himself occupied so, figuring that the uniform meant he was with the good guys, he started using his considerable muscle and toughness to fight for good, all the while asking whoever would listen to him for any details about his missing pants. No doubt these pants have at least some clue as to his past, even if it is no more than a location as to where they were found. Though he is constantly tormented by questions as to just who he is and what his past holds, the forces of evil do not sleep and he combats them however and whenever he can. Undeterred in his own endeavors and unwilling to leave any stone unturned, he is often seen wading into combat with bad men of all flavors shouting to all who will listen "Have you seen my pants?" It's such a ridiculous concept I just had to make it. I was kind of toying with the idea of basing a web comic on Captain No Pants but found that comics were just way too time consuming.
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Nov 7, 2011 11:23
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Bluhman posted:Hardly an oversight: The debuff, though it prevents the target from attacking for roughly 10 seconds or so, also severely boosts their damage resistance, so you don't really get very good free-hits in. Ah, was not aware of the damage resist boost. So wait, the rare 1% chance that you do land the teddy bear beam it just makes it almost pointless to try hitting an enemy for the duration? So Experimental Beam is entirely useless. 
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Nov 7, 2011 17:46
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sentrygun posted:Ah, was not aware of the damage resist boost. I dunno about useless, sounds like a good way to grief cosmic fights.
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Nov 7, 2011 18:15
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sentrygun posted:So wait, the rare 1% chance that you do land the teddy bear beam it just makes it almost pointless to try hitting an enemy for the duration? So Experimental Beam is entirely useless. The teddy-bear transform probably enables you to get roughly 1-big nukes-worth of damage in over the course of the entire transformation. I wouldn't say it's useless, but it's certainly more novel than practical.
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Nov 7, 2011 22:04
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sentrygun posted:Ah, was not aware of the damage resist boost. It turns things into teddy bears.
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Nov 7, 2011 23:37
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