Me and my corny titles. For whatever reason, I got the sudden urge to play a support class. I think it was meeting one too many defenders who speed boosted you once, and then left you to rot, especially WHILE enmired in quicksand from numerous earth thorn casters. Yes, I know sb wears off quickly. Yes, I understand that sb can get overlooked in the numerous icons across one's screen. Yes, I'm perfectly fine with waiting for you to get round to me, as long as you kinda remember I exist after oh...30 mins? I'm not really asking for much...
...just when the invul tank is just running like a stoner in slow motion in front of you, trapped in quicksand and trying to get out, when there are NO enemies left after having killed all of them while enmired, mind you, (would have been much easier to hold aggro un-mired), don't you think you could take a hint? Even if you react about 2 minutes after the fact? I just want to see that you...tried. And it's not as if your end bar has moved, thanks to the few, the proud, on-the-ball defs and the RA and AM buffs that -have- been laid down and maintained.
Which is also another pet peeve of mine. It's so hard to find good defs who take pride in maintaining their buffs, through wind, rain, shine, tank aggro or nothing. When I find an emp who can call for RA, run near (but not BY) the surrounded tank, wait for peeps to gather, and then trigger RA on -everyone-, it makes me weep, it does. Tears of joy, that is.
So often you have the 'healer' wannabes who think that RA is an afterthought, and can only be done in-between fights, forcing people to gathergathergather for 5 minutes before they can trigger it off. And evidently, they are not slotted for recharge at all, since it IS another 15 minutes or more before they remember or have RA up again. And to top it off, they don't heal so gud either.
So, suffering from lack of appropriately applied speed boost, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Granted, so far I've been pulling small teams, maybe due to the fact Infinity is a freaking empty newb server or something, but thing is, I know how to read SB icons and I check my team icon window as often as a rabid ferret on sugar twitches. The moment I don't see those booties, I slap it on.
I want to join a big 8 man team some day. Possibly, I can't maintain it on all of them, but I would give it a shot, staggering it like bubbles. Just turn Herostats on, give each a 30 second leeway time and see if it can be maintained.
Failing which, there -is- such a thing as selectivity. Tanks and blasters tend to really dry up on end real fast. Non-stamina people, another. Certain defenders, especially if the team is heavily leaning on 'em to survive. Stuff like that. And you could always watch and see who in your team really needs it. Situationally.
Like when you see someone held, you slap on ID. (Like I did in my casual pickups.)
Or possibly, just possibly, when you see the poor dumbass tank who waded into the center to tank every god-forsaken CoT in sight for the team, you give him speed boost so he doesn't have to sit there for 30 minutes waiting for the quicksand to wear off, while you sit there staring at him wondering what's taking him so damned long. (sighs)
Maybe my problem is, I'm too polite and too picky to join the ranks of the common peasants who will constantly scream and beg for sb sb plz! I try to trust that every damn AT knows how to do their job, and will have at least a moderate amount of observation skill. Sometimes, I'm proven wrong. *sniffles*
Oh well, but it's a refreshing change zipping around on Rapid Meltdown. You have to be so damn proactive on a deserted server when getting a team. I once resorted to /telling a lone scrapper lft but in a mission by himself if he wanted a kin/rad def to duo with. Very pleasant relationship. Guy was pro and /regen, so a kin makes him a god. Managed to get very far with that. And it was funny, after dunno how many missions we broke the team up to rest, and I was zipping around in a little speed-boosting frenzy in atlas park, he proceeded to tell me after 5 minutes that he missed speed boost already, as it had taken him forever to get from hollows to steel for more DOs. :P Taking over the world, one speed boost at a time. That should be my motto.
Then I bumped into the two herding fire tanks who were playing in Perez. That was hilarious. They were good chaps, didn't sweat it about xp, didn't sweat dying, were pushing it like mad, and never blamed the def, they were glad of any time I yanked them back from dying and didn't mind if they faceplanted from biting off too much. Also the second time when they were herding, I kinda got in the way from trying to rescue them and nearly got myself killed and messed the thing into chaos, but they didn't mind at all.
So I played the good def, buffing, transfusing when I could, irradiating when they had aggro, yadda and also provided taxi service via tp, siphon speeding to AP, tp, zone, speed and tp again and so on. And it was mooost satisfactory when the weaker tank (no temp protect and triyng to herd hellions, no combat jump, etc) who was accustommed to dying, went very very near to a sliver of RED hp and he said "Goodbye cruel world"...and my tranfusion landed in time, I irradiated to take some aggro off, and proceeded to transfuse him up to full health from near death. Muhaha.
The difference a defender makes. IF IF IF the damn def is on the ball. And not snoozing off in some corner thinking he can leech xp just cos he has an emp powerset and everyone liketh a 'healer' in their mission for simple morale boosting and placebo effect. Not me. I want to see the def DO something, even if it's blast. Preferably maintain a buff. Or actively DEBUFF. Or yes, even heal.
You know, you wouldn't believe the amount of 'rads I've seen, who don't take RI. Like...wtf? The shining debuff of rad and it's not taken? Sighs. Of course, they have the wimpy, end-sucking area heal instead.
Last Rapid Meltdown story. I trained a blaster to heel. I really did. Rofl. Had a timed mission, so I pulled a team from nowhere, a scrapper, a blaster, and a ff def who had more offensive blasts and no insulation shield (but at least she had deflection, so okay). Alas it was outcasts, so insulation would have come in really handy, but nevermind.
The first time we met outcasts, I urged the scrapper in, I was healing 'round the scrapper, and the two mad blasters (def included) started firing at everything, stealing aggro willy nilly, getting return fire and of course, proceeded to run around like mad chickens far away from the outcasts and then attempted to dash out the door and failed. :P
So I tp'ed 'em back to the hospital and had THE TALK. Everyone know how my heal works, right? Transfusion = melee heal. You need to stand near the enemy and stick close together, preferably near the scrapper...
I didn't belabor the point, figuring that they'll eventually figure it out or hit the debt cap. I used positive reinforcement, every time they clumped up together, even when they didn't need it, I shot off transfusion the moment it recharged so they'd have an idea what the green rings and glowy numbers were, and how large an area it'll hit.
The def caught on faster, and starting hanging near the scrapper. They were kinda not too sharp. And they had this most frustrating habit of:
a) not hanging near the enemy at all, just standing far far away but still suffering severe ranged fire damage, and eventually face planting
b) running near the enemy for like 2 seconds, instinct kicking in and running away screaming like a little girl again - result: I expend end to see my transfusion miss them cos they dashed away while speedboosted (remember I keep buffs on).
c) doing this while split up in three different directions, forcing me to do triage and distracting me from the main scrapper guy
or d) proceeding to kill very rapidly the last remaining outcast, the only time they are clumped up together usually, just with the 'appropriate' speed for me to land transfusion just to see the bastard die and my green swirlys appear but with no numbers. *sigh*
It ended up being me, the pathetic (albeit forcefielded) defender doing the pull with siphon speed/power or the first rad blast, because personally, I felt more equipped than the others to handle the tanking mindset. For one, after seeing them pull, I was the only one who knew how to get the fuck out of sight. For another, I decided to forcibly but silently demonstrate to them how I could transfuse heal myself back to perfect health just by sticking my ground in the face of the enemy. And I could run near the scrap as well.
But guess what, after like one hundred outcasts, nearing the end of the mission, the blaster who had faceplanted like 3-4 times, finally started getting it. And then started to hang near an outcast, and start shooting from like point blank. As usual fire blasters absorb the most aggro, but her hp never dropped to orange, let alone red, again. Thanks to now learning to be in transfusion range, and trusting the slow but regular pulse of transfusion.
Good blaster! Heel! That's a good girl... Good blaster!
The End. :)
Just you watch, the more dumbass blasters I see, the more I'll be inclined to play Vesuvius again just to be one less moron.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Thursday, August 25, 2005
DE Memories
Two bars away from level 35, and I have a new favorite pasttime. I'm fond of herding DE. But you see, the trick is...not just any DE.
I went to Eden for the first time yesterday, and tried to yank groups and it was pretty much a pathetic disaster. (In the sense that I dragged like 5 sentries together and the combined cairns brought my combustion damage to -1 to -4 hp a tick or so. Or the many many bosses in these hazard zone spawns which take soooo long for a solo tank to kill.) So alas, though I was looking at Eden as a nice source of DE, I may have to look for a new place, like Founder's Falls.
The real story started in Crey's Folly. I was just putzing around exploring the place, I remembered there used to be a whole bunch of mushroom DE in the water that sprung up on me once. I flew around like a madman and never found anything. Then, night happened to fall in-game, and pop pop pop pop FOR THE HAMIDON, DIE DIE, and so on. Shrooms sprouted!
And practically all of them were +2 to +3 Minions, with the odd Fungoid Lt. now and then.
Oh yea, herding frenzy. And I have a feeling that plant DE is suseptible to fire or something. Because I cut them down easily, and each one of them gave me 645xp. My eyes nearly popped out as fast as the shrooms.
I spent some happy happy times in-between pickup team missions herding shrooms. And cos I didn't have to share the xp with anyone, muhaha, you could see the bar increase. I tried to turn on Herostats to track the xp rate, and the instant you killed the minions, the darn thing shot up to like 20,000xp/min. Of course, it then proceeded to tick down from there, as you can't keep this kind of thing up, you have to go around and pick up the spawns again. But the damn thing lagged me too much, so I could never quite track on average, how much I was getting.
Alas, between this and pickup teams going around, the shrooms went from red, to orange, to yellow and then to white or so.
And it is limiting, in that you can only do this during the night time. During daytime it all dries up, and you get bored and have to fly off somewhere else to do missions. Or rather, I hate killing any other hazard group spawn with heaps of high hp bosses in 'em.
So, where else would there be DE? Aha. Eden. And I went there. With aforementioned results.
I mean...it was doable, it was just kinda slow, and very tedious when it got to the bosses. And some of these bosses can hit really hard so you end up chewing inspiration candy anyhow.
So no Eden for me (oh, it was ironic, when I /whoall'ed the place, there were three tankers in there and no one else)...
New herding zone until I5 hits, Founder's Falls. Spawn sizes are much smaller, tendency is lot more minion and lt. than bosses, and I can pull bunches of them at once until the clump looks big enough for me to use my AoEs. *beams*
I went to Eden for the first time yesterday, and tried to yank groups and it was pretty much a pathetic disaster. (In the sense that I dragged like 5 sentries together and the combined cairns brought my combustion damage to -1 to -4 hp a tick or so. Or the many many bosses in these hazard zone spawns which take soooo long for a solo tank to kill.) So alas, though I was looking at Eden as a nice source of DE, I may have to look for a new place, like Founder's Falls.
The real story started in Crey's Folly. I was just putzing around exploring the place, I remembered there used to be a whole bunch of mushroom DE in the water that sprung up on me once. I flew around like a madman and never found anything. Then, night happened to fall in-game, and pop pop pop pop FOR THE HAMIDON, DIE DIE, and so on. Shrooms sprouted!
And practically all of them were +2 to +3 Minions, with the odd Fungoid Lt. now and then.
Oh yea, herding frenzy. And I have a feeling that plant DE is suseptible to fire or something. Because I cut them down easily, and each one of them gave me 645xp. My eyes nearly popped out as fast as the shrooms.
I spent some happy happy times in-between pickup team missions herding shrooms. And cos I didn't have to share the xp with anyone, muhaha, you could see the bar increase. I tried to turn on Herostats to track the xp rate, and the instant you killed the minions, the darn thing shot up to like 20,000xp/min. Of course, it then proceeded to tick down from there, as you can't keep this kind of thing up, you have to go around and pick up the spawns again. But the damn thing lagged me too much, so I could never quite track on average, how much I was getting.
Alas, between this and pickup teams going around, the shrooms went from red, to orange, to yellow and then to white or so.
And it is limiting, in that you can only do this during the night time. During daytime it all dries up, and you get bored and have to fly off somewhere else to do missions. Or rather, I hate killing any other hazard group spawn with heaps of high hp bosses in 'em.
So, where else would there be DE? Aha. Eden. And I went there. With aforementioned results.
I mean...it was doable, it was just kinda slow, and very tedious when it got to the bosses. And some of these bosses can hit really hard so you end up chewing inspiration candy anyhow.
So no Eden for me (oh, it was ironic, when I /whoall'ed the place, there were three tankers in there and no one else)...
New herding zone until I5 hits, Founder's Falls. Spawn sizes are much smaller, tendency is lot more minion and lt. than bosses, and I can pull bunches of them at once until the clump looks big enough for me to use my AoEs. *beams*
Saturday, August 20, 2005
A Stoner Without Root
...and other strange tales.
Ok, just a quick note, cos I couldn't keep it in any longer. WTF OMG BBQ! I have seen the ultimate in mind-boggle.
So I was just minding my own business, sweeping my ancient story arc mish of blues, when I get an invite...to a Dreck mission, but to KILL Dreck. (Mind-boggle no. 1)
Ok, fine. But this level 50, invited a level 32 tank over to PI and Dreck, then proceeded to get 2 other tanks, ice and invul, all level 50. And didn't fill the team, the mission was already set, so I'm not sure what he was doing or why. (Mind-boggle no. 2)
But anyway, the ice tank was ok, if a little slow, I got sk'ed, and we trooped off to massacre Dreck. Then off to the asylum to hit Malaise, I think, and Mother Mayhem. (Sheesh, psionic avs are baaaad for invuls. I got two-shotted two or three times by M. Mayhem when the ice tank didn't hold strong aggy. Oh well, weaknesses are weaknesses, and there was a rezzer, so all good.) And amusingly, each av was worth mission completion xp, ie. about 5000 or so, which was kinda delicious.
Then the tanks got tired, and quit, and left pathetic old me to try and tank a freaking Oranbega mission. And me with no resist elements, facing heaps of stinking behemoths. Fine fine. So I tried to tank, and I think level 50s are kinda asleep, not on the ball at all. Cos they are so freaking used to a tank's hp not moving, that they don't move to rescue moi fast at all. But anyhow, I survived with mucho inspiration usage.
Then we met Diabolique. God, her AI is a pain without sufficient controllers to hold her down. Tried to tank her, and my aggy holding wasn't good, because she has this silly AoE bomb that the squishies kept insisting on running into, and she phase-shifted every now and then, and then ran around like a speed-boosted idiot when her hp got low.
So they wanted scrappers, or tanks, or damage-dealers or whatever, so there was this mass discussion while I was still trying to hold Diab's attention...and guess who they picked up.
A stone tank. Level 50.
I was like, great, maybe now we'll have more aggy hold.
Then I noticed the stoner NEVER put a single-armor on (he was in green tights) and just kept trying to hit Diabolique. Then he bounced away from her when she shot her bomb off. And I was like, WTF? Then I checked his powers. HE HAD NO ROOT. Oooh, omgzorsbbq.
He had rock (never used) and granite (occassionally used, but rarely in conjunction with mudpots or any attempt at aggy-holding, just tried to HIT her with it on, -damage, doh) and PHASE SHIFT. Which he put on very very often, leaving me with the same old job of keeping Diab's attention. I had to put taunt on auto. (Mind-boggle to the Nth degree)
Ohhhh, I am sooooo embarassed at this excuse of a stoner. Had to write it here, otherwise I would implode.
Ok, just a quick note, cos I couldn't keep it in any longer. WTF OMG BBQ! I have seen the ultimate in mind-boggle.
So I was just minding my own business, sweeping my ancient story arc mish of blues, when I get an invite...to a Dreck mission, but to KILL Dreck. (Mind-boggle no. 1)
Ok, fine. But this level 50, invited a level 32 tank over to PI and Dreck, then proceeded to get 2 other tanks, ice and invul, all level 50. And didn't fill the team, the mission was already set, so I'm not sure what he was doing or why. (Mind-boggle no. 2)
But anyway, the ice tank was ok, if a little slow, I got sk'ed, and we trooped off to massacre Dreck. Then off to the asylum to hit Malaise, I think, and Mother Mayhem. (Sheesh, psionic avs are baaaad for invuls. I got two-shotted two or three times by M. Mayhem when the ice tank didn't hold strong aggy. Oh well, weaknesses are weaknesses, and there was a rezzer, so all good.) And amusingly, each av was worth mission completion xp, ie. about 5000 or so, which was kinda delicious.
Then the tanks got tired, and quit, and left pathetic old me to try and tank a freaking Oranbega mission. And me with no resist elements, facing heaps of stinking behemoths. Fine fine. So I tried to tank, and I think level 50s are kinda asleep, not on the ball at all. Cos they are so freaking used to a tank's hp not moving, that they don't move to rescue moi fast at all. But anyhow, I survived with mucho inspiration usage.
Then we met Diabolique. God, her AI is a pain without sufficient controllers to hold her down. Tried to tank her, and my aggy holding wasn't good, because she has this silly AoE bomb that the squishies kept insisting on running into, and she phase-shifted every now and then, and then ran around like a speed-boosted idiot when her hp got low.
So they wanted scrappers, or tanks, or damage-dealers or whatever, so there was this mass discussion while I was still trying to hold Diab's attention...and guess who they picked up.
A stone tank. Level 50.
I was like, great, maybe now we'll have more aggy hold.
Then I noticed the stoner NEVER put a single-armor on (he was in green tights) and just kept trying to hit Diabolique. Then he bounced away from her when she shot her bomb off. And I was like, WTF? Then I checked his powers. HE HAD NO ROOT. Oooh, omgzorsbbq.
He had rock (never used) and granite (occassionally used, but rarely in conjunction with mudpots or any attempt at aggy-holding, just tried to HIT her with it on, -damage, doh) and PHASE SHIFT. Which he put on very very often, leaving me with the same old job of keeping Diab's attention. I had to put taunt on auto. (Mind-boggle to the Nth degree)
Ohhhh, I am sooooo embarassed at this excuse of a stoner. Had to write it here, otherwise I would implode.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Invictus Post Mortem
I wanted to write something clever based on the latin meanings of post mortem, but can't think of anything. So I just put Inv's name at the front to make it sound nice. Thing is, Invictus can't really die. In I4. Pretty much.
There -was- the one moment where I met another funny invul tank, about 10 levels lower than all of us, at 24 (but evidently armed with SOs), and he was trying out how long he could tank/survive unsk'ed.
He had been previously sk'ed and tanking great, he tended to like to run down and herd up groups, but since he didn't insist on everyone sitting and waiting for him to gather oh so slowly and run back (unlike my evil twin), we got along fine, since I group-tanked the mobs that the rest of the team were killing, and he herded stuff up for us to come over to.
So anyway, he was wondering how long he could survive our last group - an immense grouping of crey and freaks, bosses and all. And I was saying, sk'ed, possibly forever. Unsk'ed, maybe 1-2 mins. (After all, having leveled an I4 invul, I know how god mode-y they are.)
So Mr Suicidally Egoistic With A Sense of Humor decided he would drop his sk and charge to try it out. Unfortunately, the rest of the team did -not- catch or understand the exchange. So instead of him just dying promptly (30-60 secs was my count) - as he obviously didn't mind doing - the rest of the team felt compelled to rush up and save him from himself. So his hp started shooting up with heals, and he held on like a fire tank in too deep but sustained by a madly healing empath.
And then I felt compelled to come up and try to take some of the aggro. Especially since he had a really loose grip on +10 mobs, and they started wrecking havoc on the trigger-happy aggro-plainly-not-understanding blasters who had started shooting. Unfortunately for ME, I was watching HIS hp bar, and I completely forgot about the fact that invinc plus taunt would completely rip all of the combined aggro from a lvl 24 tank and smack it right on an unprepared lvl 31. Ie. ME.
I dropped faster than a hot potato. Didn't have time to laugh until after the fact. Then shortly after, like 10 secs after, he dropped, and then there was pretty much Total Party Wipe except for the emp def hightailing it out of there.
Of course after I came back from the hosp, I just ate a luck or two, went in and took aggro and tanked the whole thing, once I was prepared and watching my hp bar for the big dip so I could trigger off dull pain. Easy peasy.
Anyhow, Invictus is now level 32. He's got Unstoppable. Frankly, I'm not sure how and where to use the durn thing. I tried it once, waiting for the crash, and it was an interesting crash indeed. I also happened to be flying at the time, so I pretty much plummeted and also sent my pathetic amount of hp left to 1. Only thing I'm thankful for is that I landed in between groups in Bricks with no snipers about. And rest was recharged, so it took a min to go back to normal, no harm done.
Looks like it's going to be one of those situational heroic powers.
Oddly enough, once I hit 32, I seem to have very little need/reason to go on. If only Croatoa was a 30-40 zone. Anyhow, I'll just play slow. Possibly this is the feedback from trying to level too fast, a hint that I need to slow down from now.
On the non-CoH side, things have been taking off. Got more dvds watched, more minis prepped and painted, terrain is in the works, and I got a whole bunch of books that need reading and rereading. Aiming to get enough sleep every night. Should follow my instincts and allow stuff to balance once again.
There -was- the one moment where I met another funny invul tank, about 10 levels lower than all of us, at 24 (but evidently armed with SOs), and he was trying out how long he could tank/survive unsk'ed.
He had been previously sk'ed and tanking great, he tended to like to run down and herd up groups, but since he didn't insist on everyone sitting and waiting for him to gather oh so slowly and run back (unlike my evil twin), we got along fine, since I group-tanked the mobs that the rest of the team were killing, and he herded stuff up for us to come over to.
So anyway, he was wondering how long he could survive our last group - an immense grouping of crey and freaks, bosses and all. And I was saying, sk'ed, possibly forever. Unsk'ed, maybe 1-2 mins. (After all, having leveled an I4 invul, I know how god mode-y they are.)
So Mr Suicidally Egoistic With A Sense of Humor decided he would drop his sk and charge to try it out. Unfortunately, the rest of the team did -not- catch or understand the exchange. So instead of him just dying promptly (30-60 secs was my count) - as he obviously didn't mind doing - the rest of the team felt compelled to rush up and save him from himself. So his hp started shooting up with heals, and he held on like a fire tank in too deep but sustained by a madly healing empath.
And then I felt compelled to come up and try to take some of the aggro. Especially since he had a really loose grip on +10 mobs, and they started wrecking havoc on the trigger-happy aggro-plainly-not-understanding blasters who had started shooting. Unfortunately for ME, I was watching HIS hp bar, and I completely forgot about the fact that invinc plus taunt would completely rip all of the combined aggro from a lvl 24 tank and smack it right on an unprepared lvl 31. Ie. ME.
I dropped faster than a hot potato. Didn't have time to laugh until after the fact. Then shortly after, like 10 secs after, he dropped, and then there was pretty much Total Party Wipe except for the emp def hightailing it out of there.
Of course after I came back from the hosp, I just ate a luck or two, went in and took aggro and tanked the whole thing, once I was prepared and watching my hp bar for the big dip so I could trigger off dull pain. Easy peasy.
Anyhow, Invictus is now level 32. He's got Unstoppable. Frankly, I'm not sure how and where to use the durn thing. I tried it once, waiting for the crash, and it was an interesting crash indeed. I also happened to be flying at the time, so I pretty much plummeted and also sent my pathetic amount of hp left to 1. Only thing I'm thankful for is that I landed in between groups in Bricks with no snipers about. And rest was recharged, so it took a min to go back to normal, no harm done.
Looks like it's going to be one of those situational heroic powers.
Oddly enough, once I hit 32, I seem to have very little need/reason to go on. If only Croatoa was a 30-40 zone. Anyhow, I'll just play slow. Possibly this is the feedback from trying to level too fast, a hint that I need to slow down from now.
On the non-CoH side, things have been taking off. Got more dvds watched, more minis prepped and painted, terrain is in the works, and I got a whole bunch of books that need reading and rereading. Aiming to get enough sleep every night. Should follow my instincts and allow stuff to balance once again.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Freak Farm
So today I accepted a random pickup blind invite, and ended up on an unannounced farming mission. It was the freaks in warehouse, lvl 31-ish, 10 firebombs mission, and the first inkling that I had it was a farming mission was when all the chars sat politely and waited for me to gather up a spawn or two.
Then the leader warned the new incoming scrapper not to defuse any bombs. And I was thinking, hrm, yes, I think this is it, the 'unspoken' thing.
So for the heck of it, since I was the only tank and the one being the shepherd, I decided to play at herding for a bit and see just how profitable it really was. They were considerably more well-behaved at it than my evil twin's group. I didn't have to tell them to wait anywhere or stop or go, I just herded as per normal, they kept out of my way, and when it was nicely clumped, I just hit F7, and they came over, laid down a whole lot of (actually useless) damage mitigation controlers, and let the two poor blasters shoot away painstakingly at tank swipers.
Unfortunately, I could only sit through oh, two resets at most. Or one. I think one. So two times going through the mission. We're talking like possibly a hundred fifty tanks, do you know how long it takes to kill 'em? For like 200-400 xp a piece, and 170ish on the other freaks. I watched my xp bar most carefully. It went up by at most, one bar, per mission round.
I'd have to do this TEN TIMES to gain a level? *faints*
Farmers have my respect. For being able to sit through sheer boredom. I was the herder, you know, the only one actually using their brains to play with the mobs and gather them up, and I WAS BORED after the second round. :P
I solo'ed a train mission of devouring earth/freaks, and that got me 3/4 bar and was infinitely more amusing as there were no insanely high hp bosses. Just a lot of dying minions. (And I was actually scared of taking DE missions for fear of the swarms incapacitating me, but I suddenly realized that solo = no bosses, and very few lts., which meant very few swarms and emantors = one very happy tank playing alone.)
And even normal missions is about 1/4 to 3/8 of a bar.
I can see why fire tanks decide to go solo by themselves. (especially fire/fire tanks.)
Of course, this could have been a newbie attempt at farming. They had no clue what to do with a shadow cyst. We didn't have a high damage kheldian anymore, and were basically relying on two normal blasters to kill stuff. Even the dumb spines scrapper just killed stuff at the edges, dunno where his spine burst was.
It might have been more profitable, and thus more interesting had it taken a faster time. But hrm, I'm not one for repetition without story. At least doing various missions allows you to actually pretend to be a superhero and immerse a bit in character.
Then the leader warned the new incoming scrapper not to defuse any bombs. And I was thinking, hrm, yes, I think this is it, the 'unspoken' thing.
So for the heck of it, since I was the only tank and the one being the shepherd, I decided to play at herding for a bit and see just how profitable it really was. They were considerably more well-behaved at it than my evil twin's group. I didn't have to tell them to wait anywhere or stop or go, I just herded as per normal, they kept out of my way, and when it was nicely clumped, I just hit F7, and they came over, laid down a whole lot of (actually useless) damage mitigation controlers, and let the two poor blasters shoot away painstakingly at tank swipers.
Unfortunately, I could only sit through oh, two resets at most. Or one. I think one. So two times going through the mission. We're talking like possibly a hundred fifty tanks, do you know how long it takes to kill 'em? For like 200-400 xp a piece, and 170ish on the other freaks. I watched my xp bar most carefully. It went up by at most, one bar, per mission round.
I'd have to do this TEN TIMES to gain a level? *faints*
Farmers have my respect. For being able to sit through sheer boredom. I was the herder, you know, the only one actually using their brains to play with the mobs and gather them up, and I WAS BORED after the second round. :P
I solo'ed a train mission of devouring earth/freaks, and that got me 3/4 bar and was infinitely more amusing as there were no insanely high hp bosses. Just a lot of dying minions. (And I was actually scared of taking DE missions for fear of the swarms incapacitating me, but I suddenly realized that solo = no bosses, and very few lts., which meant very few swarms and emantors = one very happy tank playing alone.)
And even normal missions is about 1/4 to 3/8 of a bar.
I can see why fire tanks decide to go solo by themselves. (especially fire/fire tanks.)
Of course, this could have been a newbie attempt at farming. They had no clue what to do with a shadow cyst. We didn't have a high damage kheldian anymore, and were basically relying on two normal blasters to kill stuff. Even the dumb spines scrapper just killed stuff at the edges, dunno where his spine burst was.
It might have been more profitable, and thus more interesting had it taken a faster time. But hrm, I'm not one for repetition without story. At least doing various missions allows you to actually pretend to be a superhero and immerse a bit in character.
First Glimmerings: Invul on Test
Finally did as I was intending and copied over Invictus on Test. Didn't tweak him at all, just let him be as per normal slotting. It was a PAIN to try and get enough people to help test, and my maximum team size was 4.
First was a energy blaster called Ray of Sunshine who was testing out his blaster changes. My mission was set to unyielding, and the mobs popped at whites/yellows, in slightly larger number than solo. I let him shoot crazily while I tried to hold aggy and survive. I am glad to announce that my aggro holding capacity in small groups is still well and alive. My taunt/aura/punchvoke/look out for loose mobs style is holding up -relatively- well still.
In a pair, I could hold aggro quite well, as it wasn't so chaotic, either they were shooting at me, or at him, so it was easy to tell. His hp didn't drop beyond green. He got slightly scratched off full hp now and then, but not even dipped to 3/4 hp.
Then came the scrapper and warshade, again I asked 'em to just go hog wild and shoot like crazy. (They were amused. Never had a tank ask them to do that before.) The first encounter was...not so good. All but one of us (not me) dipped to 3/4 hp, but still green. So they still absorbed some aggro, wasn't complete aggy hold, but no one died, so...
We went on. And the next two encounters, either I got better/luckier at managing the chaos, or they watched their shots more carefully, but I got all/most aggro, and their bars didn't dip. Again slight scratches, but no biggy.
I was curious after this, so I asked them to just go ahead and see how necessary I was, if I didn't do anything. My luck I picked a quantum encounter. :P Or rather the poor kheldian's luck.
They still killed a whole bunch of stuff, but the damage brought the /sr scrapper to very dangerous limits, we're talking orange dropping to red, and everyone was dropping into yellow/orange hp levels. I have a feeling they still could have killed everything if not for the quantum, just taking substantial more damage.
Of course, Mr Quantum Council Vortex whatever was there to deal a not-so-nice faceplant to the kheldian. After which, the blaster also dropped. He did comment he felt defiant, so maybe that's a nice change along the blaster side, make for more heroic episodes, like the last stand of the marines in Natural Selection, gunning down Onos aliens as they drop.
This was as much affront as my tanker side could stand, so I ran over to help the scrapper take the quantum. From a previous experiment with my pvp ravenhill on test, I think he could have taken it by himself. Though scraps are somewhat more fragile now, their damage more than compensates, I still felt like a killer on raven, if less like a tank. (Sidelong comment is that I really need to figure out a way to work in touch of fear. It's still damn good on test, and I don't have it on live.)
Kheldian after rezzing decided he wanted to test his human shield somethingy, and we let him, and the blaster/scrapper just cleaned up without a quantum. Again their hp went to about 3/4 hp or so.
Notice I haven't been actually saying anything about survivability just yet. That's cos I'm fighting to keep from biting down a terrified, panick-stricken scream. :) I ate respites, I had to. I can see why the next functional invul build might potentially have heavy reliance on 6 slot health and dull pain (ie. pretend to be a regen stone and a regen scrap).
I'm of mixed minds about this. It does take away from some of the uniqueness of the invul tank. But I must say that after playing on test, I do feel the overall greater BALANCE. As evil as that word is. That is, the ideal of balance anyhow. If you play the game the way it is 'supposed' to be played, the way States wants it played (which offends many people, but conveniently happens to be the way many pickups are played, and the way I generally like it.)
I can still tank a 4 man mission, with no def/troller mitigation at all. Granted, I needed judicious use of the respites that happened to be sitting in my tray. But that is a balance in a way, right? Why the heck do inspirations drop if you don't use 'em? On Live, I delete respites and eat them randomly cos I sure as heck don't need 'em, and find they keep filling up my tray when I need blues. It sure is a change to watch my hp bar, and realize I have risk vs reward again. Exciting again.
And it is good they upped the 'rest' recharge, because I'm going to be using it heavily in between battles. (Alas for mmorpg likeness where one has to keep 'resting' constantly. This I'm not so happy about. It is doable, functional, but not very nice to keep waiting for it. Hate wait time. Hate time sinks.)
"Logically," an 8 man mission without one def or controller would not be possible. Well, for sure, I won't be attempting to tank one without greater team balance. :P Or unless the kheldians and scrappers know how to be secondary tanks, and don't expect complete aggro hold by tank, more like 60% holding only.
I actually like this personally. It means that we'll get to formulate more interesting tactics, the def/trollers have something to do, and everyone, the squishies, the tank, is going to have to get used to seeing dropping hp bars. Right now, the common viewpoint is that the tank is pure shit if anyone's hp bar moves, let alone if anyone dies. In I5, the perspective change had better be, if no one faceplants, it's damn good. Risk vs reward again.
Unfortunately, knowing the general stupidity of people, (I like individuals, it's people I can't stand), I have a very big feeling a major, most vocal part of the population will not be able to adapt. And we're going to see many people screaming for more healers, that the tank is lousy, and generally not being used/will never learn to watch their own aggro.
And that the less stupid ones will now try to exploit the new system as they have done the old. Which is the oft suggested army of sonics defs supplying resistances out the wazoo, with a buncha other defs. Which I think will indeed break the intended system of a few defs in the group helping with damage mitigation. Only time will tell, I guess.
One defence (pun not really intended) against this argument is that no one will bother to make and level just defs alone. Possibly. For example, defending is not exactly within my main mindset, it's something I do as a sideline, I like melee classes more. But one often tend to forget the great majority of gamers who will do ANYTHING (participate in time sinks, money sinks) to 'achieve' or 'win' the game. If herding wolves/hydra/dreck is profitable, they'll do it. If making a sonic 'fender army is profitable than playing the game the normal way, oh, be sure, they will do it.
Of course, the question is, will that break the game for the other people who play the game the normal way?
Good one. I don't know. One side says, live and let live. They'll PL, herd, do what they want. Just leave me the fuck alone and do whatever you want, hit 50, get bored cos Hami sucks now, and quit the game. The other side of me says, I know they are NOT going to leave me alone, are they?
Ah well, you'll never get rid of that kind of swarm in a game. Can't do anything about it, no matter how you nerf or buff the game.
I have observed that they have cut down spawn sizes dramatically. Flying around in Brickstown, I see much less of the crazy 8 mob minion groups, and more 3 mob groupings. That is good, I guess, to fit the general weakening of the superheroes. Again, just offensive for people used to seeing greater numbers and feeling strong and/or like gods on their chars. Personally, I'm still okay even on Mr Supposedly Gimped Invul to kill whites, yellows and even one or two oranges (including one boss though it took the help of sands of mu). I do like that the color codings have meaning again, and that red and purple means here's a nice coffin for you. (I just need to compare the current xp gain on I5 whites with I4 red/purples.)
I do worry about those not /fire though. I have plenty of AoEs, will their single target stuff + aura + gimped taunt be sufficient to hold aggro? Dunno.
Anyhow, the hysteria about invul and taunt seems to be pretty much that, hysteria. Aggro-holding change, I approve of, just it may be tricky for some less mobile tanks with heavy taunt reliance and only single target attacks (guess who I'm thinking of) to maintain hold. But I think a greater understanding of how aggro works will be much better for real tanks who will gain respect for doing their job well, rather than just punching easy-mode taunt. (As long as we're not overrun or overlooked by the even greater increased popularity of def/trollers.)
My only issue is...*twitch* I know you've upped the resist of invuls already by 50%. Thank god, cos I can see why people freaked out initially. I can survive, but I would prefer not to have to keep resorting to chomping greens like candy (I'm going to change my face and skin color soon if so, superadine is gud fer you!), and/or end up tweaking my slotting so that I have to keep regenning hp. It's not quite in the expected image of an invul tank.
I would really prefer slightly greater upping, like about 65%. 75% is probably not desirable for you, but I am still feeling paper-thin. Perhaps like cardboard, rather than the supposed wet tissue paper of the previous change, but still quite squishy.
Doable, but not preferable is how I would conclude the current survivability of invuls. Everything else seems ok.
First was a energy blaster called Ray of Sunshine who was testing out his blaster changes. My mission was set to unyielding, and the mobs popped at whites/yellows, in slightly larger number than solo. I let him shoot crazily while I tried to hold aggy and survive. I am glad to announce that my aggro holding capacity in small groups is still well and alive. My taunt/aura/punchvoke/look out for loose mobs style is holding up -relatively- well still.
In a pair, I could hold aggro quite well, as it wasn't so chaotic, either they were shooting at me, or at him, so it was easy to tell. His hp didn't drop beyond green. He got slightly scratched off full hp now and then, but not even dipped to 3/4 hp.
Then came the scrapper and warshade, again I asked 'em to just go hog wild and shoot like crazy. (They were amused. Never had a tank ask them to do that before.) The first encounter was...not so good. All but one of us (not me) dipped to 3/4 hp, but still green. So they still absorbed some aggro, wasn't complete aggy hold, but no one died, so...
We went on. And the next two encounters, either I got better/luckier at managing the chaos, or they watched their shots more carefully, but I got all/most aggro, and their bars didn't dip. Again slight scratches, but no biggy.
I was curious after this, so I asked them to just go ahead and see how necessary I was, if I didn't do anything. My luck I picked a quantum encounter. :P Or rather the poor kheldian's luck.
They still killed a whole bunch of stuff, but the damage brought the /sr scrapper to very dangerous limits, we're talking orange dropping to red, and everyone was dropping into yellow/orange hp levels. I have a feeling they still could have killed everything if not for the quantum, just taking substantial more damage.
Of course, Mr Quantum Council Vortex whatever was there to deal a not-so-nice faceplant to the kheldian. After which, the blaster also dropped. He did comment he felt defiant, so maybe that's a nice change along the blaster side, make for more heroic episodes, like the last stand of the marines in Natural Selection, gunning down Onos aliens as they drop.
This was as much affront as my tanker side could stand, so I ran over to help the scrapper take the quantum. From a previous experiment with my pvp ravenhill on test, I think he could have taken it by himself. Though scraps are somewhat more fragile now, their damage more than compensates, I still felt like a killer on raven, if less like a tank. (Sidelong comment is that I really need to figure out a way to work in touch of fear. It's still damn good on test, and I don't have it on live.)
Kheldian after rezzing decided he wanted to test his human shield somethingy, and we let him, and the blaster/scrapper just cleaned up without a quantum. Again their hp went to about 3/4 hp or so.
Notice I haven't been actually saying anything about survivability just yet. That's cos I'm fighting to keep from biting down a terrified, panick-stricken scream. :) I ate respites, I had to. I can see why the next functional invul build might potentially have heavy reliance on 6 slot health and dull pain (ie. pretend to be a regen stone and a regen scrap).
I'm of mixed minds about this. It does take away from some of the uniqueness of the invul tank. But I must say that after playing on test, I do feel the overall greater BALANCE. As evil as that word is. That is, the ideal of balance anyhow. If you play the game the way it is 'supposed' to be played, the way States wants it played (which offends many people, but conveniently happens to be the way many pickups are played, and the way I generally like it.)
I can still tank a 4 man mission, with no def/troller mitigation at all. Granted, I needed judicious use of the respites that happened to be sitting in my tray. But that is a balance in a way, right? Why the heck do inspirations drop if you don't use 'em? On Live, I delete respites and eat them randomly cos I sure as heck don't need 'em, and find they keep filling up my tray when I need blues. It sure is a change to watch my hp bar, and realize I have risk vs reward again. Exciting again.
And it is good they upped the 'rest' recharge, because I'm going to be using it heavily in between battles. (Alas for mmorpg likeness where one has to keep 'resting' constantly. This I'm not so happy about. It is doable, functional, but not very nice to keep waiting for it. Hate wait time. Hate time sinks.)
"Logically," an 8 man mission without one def or controller would not be possible. Well, for sure, I won't be attempting to tank one without greater team balance. :P Or unless the kheldians and scrappers know how to be secondary tanks, and don't expect complete aggro hold by tank, more like 60% holding only.
I actually like this personally. It means that we'll get to formulate more interesting tactics, the def/trollers have something to do, and everyone, the squishies, the tank, is going to have to get used to seeing dropping hp bars. Right now, the common viewpoint is that the tank is pure shit if anyone's hp bar moves, let alone if anyone dies. In I5, the perspective change had better be, if no one faceplants, it's damn good. Risk vs reward again.
Unfortunately, knowing the general stupidity of people, (I like individuals, it's people I can't stand), I have a very big feeling a major, most vocal part of the population will not be able to adapt. And we're going to see many people screaming for more healers, that the tank is lousy, and generally not being used/will never learn to watch their own aggro.
And that the less stupid ones will now try to exploit the new system as they have done the old. Which is the oft suggested army of sonics defs supplying resistances out the wazoo, with a buncha other defs. Which I think will indeed break the intended system of a few defs in the group helping with damage mitigation. Only time will tell, I guess.
One defence (pun not really intended) against this argument is that no one will bother to make and level just defs alone. Possibly. For example, defending is not exactly within my main mindset, it's something I do as a sideline, I like melee classes more. But one often tend to forget the great majority of gamers who will do ANYTHING (participate in time sinks, money sinks) to 'achieve' or 'win' the game. If herding wolves/hydra/dreck is profitable, they'll do it. If making a sonic 'fender army is profitable than playing the game the normal way, oh, be sure, they will do it.
Of course, the question is, will that break the game for the other people who play the game the normal way?
Good one. I don't know. One side says, live and let live. They'll PL, herd, do what they want. Just leave me the fuck alone and do whatever you want, hit 50, get bored cos Hami sucks now, and quit the game. The other side of me says, I know they are NOT going to leave me alone, are they?
Ah well, you'll never get rid of that kind of swarm in a game. Can't do anything about it, no matter how you nerf or buff the game.
I have observed that they have cut down spawn sizes dramatically. Flying around in Brickstown, I see much less of the crazy 8 mob minion groups, and more 3 mob groupings. That is good, I guess, to fit the general weakening of the superheroes. Again, just offensive for people used to seeing greater numbers and feeling strong and/or like gods on their chars. Personally, I'm still okay even on Mr Supposedly Gimped Invul to kill whites, yellows and even one or two oranges (including one boss though it took the help of sands of mu). I do like that the color codings have meaning again, and that red and purple means here's a nice coffin for you. (I just need to compare the current xp gain on I5 whites with I4 red/purples.)
I do worry about those not /fire though. I have plenty of AoEs, will their single target stuff + aura + gimped taunt be sufficient to hold aggro? Dunno.
Anyhow, the hysteria about invul and taunt seems to be pretty much that, hysteria. Aggro-holding change, I approve of, just it may be tricky for some less mobile tanks with heavy taunt reliance and only single target attacks (guess who I'm thinking of) to maintain hold. But I think a greater understanding of how aggro works will be much better for real tanks who will gain respect for doing their job well, rather than just punching easy-mode taunt. (As long as we're not overrun or overlooked by the even greater increased popularity of def/trollers.)
My only issue is...*twitch* I know you've upped the resist of invuls already by 50%. Thank god, cos I can see why people freaked out initially. I can survive, but I would prefer not to have to keep resorting to chomping greens like candy (I'm going to change my face and skin color soon if so, superadine is gud fer you!), and/or end up tweaking my slotting so that I have to keep regenning hp. It's not quite in the expected image of an invul tank.
I would really prefer slightly greater upping, like about 65%. 75% is probably not desirable for you, but I am still feeling paper-thin. Perhaps like cardboard, rather than the supposed wet tissue paper of the previous change, but still quite squishy.
Doable, but not preferable is how I would conclude the current survivability of invuls. Everything else seems ok.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Game Playing Styles
Well, in the time between then and now, I've had opportunity to team with my evil twin again, despite all my efforts to avoid doing so. (Now I know why the heck we have a hide command. I've never found it so useful before to avoid a SG who is nice, but damn persistent in trying to team with you into an 8 man team.)
Pride cometh before a fall, and I let my ego get ahead of me once long enough to try and round up two groups of Banished Pantheon with like 10 totems. After all, if the other stinking tank can do one, oh so slowly, why the heck can't I do two? Bored waiting anyhow. Whoops. I passed it off as an auto-run error (poor auto-run errors and wife aggro, how much of it is actually true, I wonder...) and then felt obliged to stay for the whole damn herding mission and then another, as a secondary tank guarding the poor squishies from spillover from the invulnerable shepherd.
Well, once you put ego aside, I got two revelations from it. One, the function of secondary tank will possibly become very useful in I5. It is actually very handy to put one tank in front (let's say a stone who can resist nearly every freaking thing still) and a second tank in the middle, the squishies behind.
Stuff WILL leak from the primary tank in an 8-man mission (I have been trying all freaking week on my own teams to hold complete aggy, no go, I get about 90%, always one or two mobs who will fly off or stay behind to shoot stuff) unless you are a fan of the 'round 'em up for 5 minutes' cowboy method. And I am personally pleased to say that given the devs' efforts in I5, the lack of resist/defence should make spontaneous herding extremely difficult and the tank real vulnerable.
Hence the secondary tank who can use his taunts to also protect squishies. It's a thought anyhow. Notice I say spontaneous herding, because I am sure the pro-herder PL'ers will create their army of tank + sonic/ff/whatever defenders to do the same thing, it'll just take more time for Mr. I-AM-THE-MAN Tank to accrue the same size herd and keep it aggro'ed long enough for a blaster to blow it to bits. If anything, the waiting periods will just become LONGER. (*shudder*)
Which brings me to point number 2. Ok, once my evil twin wasn't lagged to death, he was actually a fairly good tank, charitably speaking. In fact, if you liked his kind of playstyle, you could say he was a fantastic tank, because he was willing to sheepdog run the whole fragging thing while we sat around and waited to kill stuff. Of course, no one died.
(If you team with me, sad to say, I've had plenty of blaster deaths due to trigger happy nutcases who shoot the wrong mob, or accidental quantum hits to the kheldians. Strangely enough, it's always the same people who are dying, while some others of the same AT don't. Why is that? Hmm? - Could it be because they don't realize positioning themselves in front of the tank is asking for the next group to shoot the frag out of them? Or that shooting up the guy not looking at the tank because his taunt recharges is a bad idea? Or standing next to a tank with AoEs exploding around him every second is a really cruddy idea?)
Our controller just decided to go afk. I was tempted to do the same. Except I didn't quite want to be accused of leeching. I was, however, bored to death.
And after that, I learned to love the hide command.
Because after all, I wrote the book (figuratively speaking, ok, really just -a- guidebook) to learning to live and let live on various tanker styles. And its main message is simple - every tanker is different, let him do what he likes, stay if you like his style, leave if you don't. And natural selection will take care of the rest by seeing who still wants to team with him.
So ironically, I am HIDING from my evil tanker twin because I hate his playstyle. Yes, I know it is hopelessly safe. The same afk controller was later telling me that he didn't get any debt out of it. (Same guy who keeps standing next to me in my missions trying to run hotfeet and cinder-hold stuff, so of course he eats AoE and dies constantly. And he has a level 50 tanker.) Didn't know what to tell him. He's quite an amusing chap, reminds me of Nemser, he can't shut up on any topic and will always have some interesting gossip. :) Because of that sentimental fondness, I tolerate the fellow possibly more than I should, even though his own ego is the size of several football fields and he will micromanage from time to time.
I suppose in the end, we will see who still wants to team with me, through my chaos. :P
Because I like going from group to group in an 8-man mission. I herd up my own solo missions so often it's boring. Currently, I have three AoEs as a fire secondary. I can actually kill my herd all by myself, slowly but doable. I have even stacked up on corners when I get lucky so that my bugged single-attacks can also whack them all. But I really really feel that the game becomes pointless if you leave the tank playing his own personal game of "herd 'em up" (he's okay, he's still doing something) and then sit there waiting to blow shit up. You may as well try and find some kind of bot that will push two buttons when the tank says "Ready!" and run Progress Quest to see your numbers increase. Why gain levels and powers if ya don't use 'em?
(How interesting. The below paragraph was written earlier, and I find that I wrote the exact same thing in the above paragraph without even realizing it. I'm leaving it here for comparision. Because I really feel strongly about this point.)
And I think it's damn boring for people to sit and wait for the tank so they can press a few buttons. What are all your powers for if not to be put to use? I let controllers become valuable because I'm BOUND to have stuff spilling over - that's what you look out for and hold, defenders are kept busy mitigating damage, the blasters get to blow stuff all over the place, the scrapper gets to let loose and so on.
You know, something occurs to me now. Maybe squishies like tanks herding because they don't get to see it often, unless they have a pet tank. So someone doing it is like a novelty. Meanwhile the tank is bored because he does it all the time. Maybe.
But if there's one thing very often seen in Freedom server's population, it's an obsession over xp. I'm convinced Freedom is the home of the larger, more vocal grouping of Achiever/Explorer-type exploit-hungry powerleveler-types. During the time of the Winter Lords, I never saw as much howling for WL PL'ing on any other server 'cept Freedom, and Atlas Park in Freedom was a shock the first time I went in, because the channels are filled with leetspeak and obssession over levels. They want XP, debt is anathema, they'll sit through boring to see their little numbers go up. And these are the people I don't want to play with. I'll have to sift through a lot of them, but that's how it'll have to be.
Thankfully, my little middle of the week break (I like leave) has allowed me to do some afternoon leveling at a time when all the sensible US folks are in bed. Which means I got to group with some random LFT chaps rather than SG guys over and over. I realize I really dig the random unpredictability. It's fun. Stuff splashes around all over, you get to be a superhero team wading in to kick some major ass. Not shepherd and sheepdog. Heck, even sheep are more unpredictable than mob AI, I'm sure. Risk versus reward. Why play a game if it's not going to be exciting and fun?
Anyhow, I think I am starting to repeat myself many times over by now. End of the day - I'm having fun. If people have fun with me, then they can look for me to group with them again. If not, they can leave and hug the tanks who will herd for them. I can and will solo. Enough room in this game for all types of playing styles.
Despite Statesman's desperate efforts to make sure we all play his way. :)
It's a good thing that I generally agree with his sentiments and find it fun to use my auras and punchvoke, not just taunt, to pull back mobs. In theory, I should still be safe. In theory. Hem, today I really should copyover to Test to see just how many even con mobs floor the invul. I'm level 30 now, so it seems like a nice round number. And am also armed with a respec. :P
Pride cometh before a fall, and I let my ego get ahead of me once long enough to try and round up two groups of Banished Pantheon with like 10 totems. After all, if the other stinking tank can do one, oh so slowly, why the heck can't I do two? Bored waiting anyhow. Whoops. I passed it off as an auto-run error (poor auto-run errors and wife aggro, how much of it is actually true, I wonder...) and then felt obliged to stay for the whole damn herding mission and then another, as a secondary tank guarding the poor squishies from spillover from the invulnerable shepherd.
Well, once you put ego aside, I got two revelations from it. One, the function of secondary tank will possibly become very useful in I5. It is actually very handy to put one tank in front (let's say a stone who can resist nearly every freaking thing still) and a second tank in the middle, the squishies behind.
Stuff WILL leak from the primary tank in an 8-man mission (I have been trying all freaking week on my own teams to hold complete aggy, no go, I get about 90%, always one or two mobs who will fly off or stay behind to shoot stuff) unless you are a fan of the 'round 'em up for 5 minutes' cowboy method. And I am personally pleased to say that given the devs' efforts in I5, the lack of resist/defence should make spontaneous herding extremely difficult and the tank real vulnerable.
Hence the secondary tank who can use his taunts to also protect squishies. It's a thought anyhow. Notice I say spontaneous herding, because I am sure the pro-herder PL'ers will create their army of tank + sonic/ff/whatever defenders to do the same thing, it'll just take more time for Mr. I-AM-THE-MAN Tank to accrue the same size herd and keep it aggro'ed long enough for a blaster to blow it to bits. If anything, the waiting periods will just become LONGER. (*shudder*)
Which brings me to point number 2. Ok, once my evil twin wasn't lagged to death, he was actually a fairly good tank, charitably speaking. In fact, if you liked his kind of playstyle, you could say he was a fantastic tank, because he was willing to sheepdog run the whole fragging thing while we sat around and waited to kill stuff. Of course, no one died.
(If you team with me, sad to say, I've had plenty of blaster deaths due to trigger happy nutcases who shoot the wrong mob, or accidental quantum hits to the kheldians. Strangely enough, it's always the same people who are dying, while some others of the same AT don't. Why is that? Hmm? - Could it be because they don't realize positioning themselves in front of the tank is asking for the next group to shoot the frag out of them? Or that shooting up the guy not looking at the tank because his taunt recharges is a bad idea? Or standing next to a tank with AoEs exploding around him every second is a really cruddy idea?)
Our controller just decided to go afk. I was tempted to do the same. Except I didn't quite want to be accused of leeching. I was, however, bored to death.
And after that, I learned to love the hide command.
Because after all, I wrote the book (figuratively speaking, ok, really just -a- guidebook) to learning to live and let live on various tanker styles. And its main message is simple - every tanker is different, let him do what he likes, stay if you like his style, leave if you don't. And natural selection will take care of the rest by seeing who still wants to team with him.
So ironically, I am HIDING from my evil tanker twin because I hate his playstyle. Yes, I know it is hopelessly safe. The same afk controller was later telling me that he didn't get any debt out of it. (Same guy who keeps standing next to me in my missions trying to run hotfeet and cinder-hold stuff, so of course he eats AoE and dies constantly. And he has a level 50 tanker.) Didn't know what to tell him. He's quite an amusing chap, reminds me of Nemser, he can't shut up on any topic and will always have some interesting gossip. :) Because of that sentimental fondness, I tolerate the fellow possibly more than I should, even though his own ego is the size of several football fields and he will micromanage from time to time.
I suppose in the end, we will see who still wants to team with me, through my chaos. :P
Because I like going from group to group in an 8-man mission. I herd up my own solo missions so often it's boring. Currently, I have three AoEs as a fire secondary. I can actually kill my herd all by myself, slowly but doable. I have even stacked up on corners when I get lucky so that my bugged single-attacks can also whack them all. But I really really feel that the game becomes pointless if you leave the tank playing his own personal game of "herd 'em up" (he's okay, he's still doing something) and then sit there waiting to blow shit up. You may as well try and find some kind of bot that will push two buttons when the tank says "Ready!" and run Progress Quest to see your numbers increase. Why gain levels and powers if ya don't use 'em?
(How interesting. The below paragraph was written earlier, and I find that I wrote the exact same thing in the above paragraph without even realizing it. I'm leaving it here for comparision. Because I really feel strongly about this point.)
And I think it's damn boring for people to sit and wait for the tank so they can press a few buttons. What are all your powers for if not to be put to use? I let controllers become valuable because I'm BOUND to have stuff spilling over - that's what you look out for and hold, defenders are kept busy mitigating damage, the blasters get to blow stuff all over the place, the scrapper gets to let loose and so on.
You know, something occurs to me now. Maybe squishies like tanks herding because they don't get to see it often, unless they have a pet tank. So someone doing it is like a novelty. Meanwhile the tank is bored because he does it all the time. Maybe.
But if there's one thing very often seen in Freedom server's population, it's an obsession over xp. I'm convinced Freedom is the home of the larger, more vocal grouping of Achiever/Explorer-type exploit-hungry powerleveler-types. During the time of the Winter Lords, I never saw as much howling for WL PL'ing on any other server 'cept Freedom, and Atlas Park in Freedom was a shock the first time I went in, because the channels are filled with leetspeak and obssession over levels. They want XP, debt is anathema, they'll sit through boring to see their little numbers go up. And these are the people I don't want to play with. I'll have to sift through a lot of them, but that's how it'll have to be.
Thankfully, my little middle of the week break (I like leave) has allowed me to do some afternoon leveling at a time when all the sensible US folks are in bed. Which means I got to group with some random LFT chaps rather than SG guys over and over. I realize I really dig the random unpredictability. It's fun. Stuff splashes around all over, you get to be a superhero team wading in to kick some major ass. Not shepherd and sheepdog. Heck, even sheep are more unpredictable than mob AI, I'm sure. Risk versus reward. Why play a game if it's not going to be exciting and fun?
Anyhow, I think I am starting to repeat myself many times over by now. End of the day - I'm having fun. If people have fun with me, then they can look for me to group with them again. If not, they can leave and hug the tanks who will herd for them. I can and will solo. Enough room in this game for all types of playing styles.
Despite Statesman's desperate efforts to make sure we all play his way. :)
It's a good thing that I generally agree with his sentiments and find it fun to use my auras and punchvoke, not just taunt, to pull back mobs. In theory, I should still be safe. In theory. Hem, today I really should copyover to Test to see just how many even con mobs floor the invul. I'm level 30 now, so it seems like a nice round number. And am also armed with a respec. :P
Monday, August 08, 2005
Legendary Respec
Whooo. A nice cap to the night. After nearly gnawing my own leg off and chewing through my tongue while waiting for the slowest, safest herding tank of all, I quit to go do my own solo missions, and heard a PB call for a 25-27 respec. And it just so happens I was right smack dab at 26, nearing 27.
Great, I send a tell expressing interest, zip to clear my timed mission, and join them. We started with 7. The PB, a scrapper, a def (rad), a controller (ice/emp), a exemp from 50 fire blaster, and two tanks - me and a fire. Looks totally balanced. It was lovely too. Everyone knew what they were doing, we massacred the 25 sky raiders, zipped over to Perez, invis'ed through to the boss and mutilated the spawn also...
Alas, midway through the reactor, the blaster started having connection problems. Dropping off every now and then. Then the fire tanker started whacking the proximity bomb by the door (while invis'ed) with 2 groups of sky raiders about. Sure enough, it blew him to 1/4 hp, me to 1/2 hp, and murdered the def and 'troller. Who happened to be our rezzers. And sky raiders standing right on top of them. Oops. Blaster absent, having lagged and d/c'ed.
So it was up to both tanks, and a not very high damage PB (he didn't like nova form for some reason, maybe allergic to dying) to try and fight two spawns of skiffs and jump bots. Very bad. Used up very many greens and purples and we weren't doing enough damage. So we settled for desperately drawing them away from the fight. Only, it was suggested by the fire tank, and I agreed, but the PB in dwarf form didn't get the message. So both tanks retreated and the crazy white dwarf was still there aggro'ing stuff. Then the fire ran to help, while I was trying to taunt/pull from out of sight, and then the PB died, then the fire's hp plunged, and I ran to help, and by this time was drying up from greens...And ended up dying behind the lockers, having drawn attention away, while the two squishies rezz'ed and stumbled away. Oh well, heroic death. And the fire managed to rest up and take up aggro from there, squishies recovered to heal him and the blaster revived long enough to blow apart the spawn.
What we learned from this was that we were suffering from lack of damage. But nevermind, we pushed on. Luckily the second room we did had the key. (The fire tank started to rubberband at this point, and dropped once or twice. Ended up me tanking the rooms. Amusingly enough, the rest were all, OH NO, we lost a tank. We lost [name of tank] as if it was doom and gloom. And I was just standing there, silently tanking the rooms like nothing.) Invis'ed past all the other proximity bombs, took the spawn in there, and then the fire tank dropped for good. D/C'ed and never came back. We tried waiting for 15 mins, but no go.
So suddenly, we were short a fire blaster and fire tank. Even I was having some black thoughts about not enough damage and not being able to pull enough away from the reactor.
Anyhow, thanks to experience, this time I was resolved to hit the damn groups on the catwalks the very moment they spawned, get some aggro going before they all decided to charge the reactor. Amazingly, we cleared the first, and the second wave, and the third, though it was a little iffy. Then the waves started getting easier, slightly lower levels, lesser numbers, looks like the spawn generator finally got the idea that we were a 5 man team, not 7.
And then it was THE LAST WAVE. Four groups showed up. I charged one group desperately, trying to pull into a nearby second group. The PB went into nova form blowing stuff away, but drained on end really quickly - ie. no more high damage boom boom. The 'troller and def was by the reactors, ice slicking the other two groups who had charged them, desperately fighting a losing battle.
I let the PB blow stuff up as much as possible, keeping a very anxious eye on the other two below. Eventually, had to go down and help, leaving some remnants behind who would half focus on me (racing to reactor, and then getting attracted by reactor) and some who would hit PB (but I felt he would survive, triage, after all.)
So there were like 2 full groups of skiffs and bots, and the broken remnants of 2 other groups (making up a third group) all attacking from various directions. No way I could taunt 'em all, with reactor taunting also. And then the 'troller and def ate some AOEs and dropped. Then the PB got it. Then the regen scrapper, having too much attention suddenly on him, also keeled over. Oh crud. Noooo....
Fortunately the PB was fast-thinking, and luckily I happened to be standing quite near him. He fed me all the greens and purples he had. That allowed me to garner about 3/4 of the aggro, and stand there, 3/4 hp, and plunging, but rationing purples and greens long enough for the group to 'formulate a plan' - talking very quickly, of course.
The scrapper jumped to the hospital and tried to race back.
Turns out I had one awaken (thank goodness I didn't delete that one, it popped fighting earlier groups.) Between tanking, healing the reactor core (at last, I have figured out how to heal the reactor) and trying to survive/aoe/taunt - talk about massive multi-tasking fun - I passed it to the def with mutation as a rez.
Now the raiders were all standing on their bodies, so I had to sidle away slowly, and taunt and aoe like crazy, and the mass slowly crept over to look at me. There were still two jump bots shooting me, but right under their noses. But of course, with reactor taunt, they weren't going any further. I said so. And I was fast running out of greens.
So the def risked it. He awakened and started to stumble away. I was watching anxiously and trying to taunt the two jump bots standing there. Taunt, combust, breath of fire around, taunt, combust, yadda yadda. HE MADE IT!
He ran out of my sight range. I stopped worrying about him and more about survival and reactor survival again. Damn hard to run up, heal and then run back (didn't want any AoEs bouncing off me to whack the reactor). Thankfully the greater part of them were all focused on me and not reactor. Invul/fire running invic, taunt and aoes generates massive aggro. From there, the optimism suddenly returned. Chain rezz'ing began.
He rezz'ed the controller, who rezz'ed the PB. And the scrapper made it back faster than waiting for either rez to recharge and then got TP'ed in straight.
Meanwhile, I was fast running out of healing options, watching dull pain take too long to recharge. So I had to speak up and beg for heals. "really really need a heal here, guys", and then trust they knew how to creep up and heal from afar without dying. And I did get some 100 hp heals from the emp 'troll and 74 heals from the rad, that allowed me to hang on. And then sweet, sweet dull pain recharged and whoooosh went 471 hp shooting into me, bringing me back from 1/3 hp to 3/4 safety.
And everyone had recovered by this point to give the remaining sky raiders a slow, but successfully whacking. And with the final jump bot dying, that was it. Bing, SUCCESS. From the point of despair, to the euphoria and adrenaline buzz of sweet success.
And it was a team effort. Couldn't have done it without the invul tank and his awaken. Who couldn't have done it without the PB and his inspirations and his damage. Who couldn't have done it without the rez'es from the def and troller and the slicks and holds and various damage (I don't mention debuffs as much because alas, our rad had no RI, which was anathema to me, but I guess that's why people want respecs, huh?), and who couldn't have done it without the scrappers damage and aggro-hold of odd, lone sky raiders which I had to abandon as triage.
Yes, a respec that will live on in memory. Stuff of legend. Just great. We were all buzzing with adrenaline and staying on to celebrate mutual success and flying up to get the Meltdown badge before we broke up.
Great, I send a tell expressing interest, zip to clear my timed mission, and join them. We started with 7. The PB, a scrapper, a def (rad), a controller (ice/emp), a exemp from 50 fire blaster, and two tanks - me and a fire. Looks totally balanced. It was lovely too. Everyone knew what they were doing, we massacred the 25 sky raiders, zipped over to Perez, invis'ed through to the boss and mutilated the spawn also...
Alas, midway through the reactor, the blaster started having connection problems. Dropping off every now and then. Then the fire tanker started whacking the proximity bomb by the door (while invis'ed) with 2 groups of sky raiders about. Sure enough, it blew him to 1/4 hp, me to 1/2 hp, and murdered the def and 'troller. Who happened to be our rezzers. And sky raiders standing right on top of them. Oops. Blaster absent, having lagged and d/c'ed.
So it was up to both tanks, and a not very high damage PB (he didn't like nova form for some reason, maybe allergic to dying) to try and fight two spawns of skiffs and jump bots. Very bad. Used up very many greens and purples and we weren't doing enough damage. So we settled for desperately drawing them away from the fight. Only, it was suggested by the fire tank, and I agreed, but the PB in dwarf form didn't get the message. So both tanks retreated and the crazy white dwarf was still there aggro'ing stuff. Then the fire ran to help, while I was trying to taunt/pull from out of sight, and then the PB died, then the fire's hp plunged, and I ran to help, and by this time was drying up from greens...And ended up dying behind the lockers, having drawn attention away, while the two squishies rezz'ed and stumbled away. Oh well, heroic death. And the fire managed to rest up and take up aggro from there, squishies recovered to heal him and the blaster revived long enough to blow apart the spawn.
What we learned from this was that we were suffering from lack of damage. But nevermind, we pushed on. Luckily the second room we did had the key. (The fire tank started to rubberband at this point, and dropped once or twice. Ended up me tanking the rooms. Amusingly enough, the rest were all, OH NO, we lost a tank. We lost [name of tank] as if it was doom and gloom. And I was just standing there, silently tanking the rooms like nothing.) Invis'ed past all the other proximity bombs, took the spawn in there, and then the fire tank dropped for good. D/C'ed and never came back. We tried waiting for 15 mins, but no go.
So suddenly, we were short a fire blaster and fire tank. Even I was having some black thoughts about not enough damage and not being able to pull enough away from the reactor.
Anyhow, thanks to experience, this time I was resolved to hit the damn groups on the catwalks the very moment they spawned, get some aggro going before they all decided to charge the reactor. Amazingly, we cleared the first, and the second wave, and the third, though it was a little iffy. Then the waves started getting easier, slightly lower levels, lesser numbers, looks like the spawn generator finally got the idea that we were a 5 man team, not 7.
And then it was THE LAST WAVE. Four groups showed up. I charged one group desperately, trying to pull into a nearby second group. The PB went into nova form blowing stuff away, but drained on end really quickly - ie. no more high damage boom boom. The 'troller and def was by the reactors, ice slicking the other two groups who had charged them, desperately fighting a losing battle.
I let the PB blow stuff up as much as possible, keeping a very anxious eye on the other two below. Eventually, had to go down and help, leaving some remnants behind who would half focus on me (racing to reactor, and then getting attracted by reactor) and some who would hit PB (but I felt he would survive, triage, after all.)
So there were like 2 full groups of skiffs and bots, and the broken remnants of 2 other groups (making up a third group) all attacking from various directions. No way I could taunt 'em all, with reactor taunting also. And then the 'troller and def ate some AOEs and dropped. Then the PB got it. Then the regen scrapper, having too much attention suddenly on him, also keeled over. Oh crud. Noooo....
Fortunately the PB was fast-thinking, and luckily I happened to be standing quite near him. He fed me all the greens and purples he had. That allowed me to garner about 3/4 of the aggro, and stand there, 3/4 hp, and plunging, but rationing purples and greens long enough for the group to 'formulate a plan' - talking very quickly, of course.
The scrapper jumped to the hospital and tried to race back.
Turns out I had one awaken (thank goodness I didn't delete that one, it popped fighting earlier groups.) Between tanking, healing the reactor core (at last, I have figured out how to heal the reactor) and trying to survive/aoe/taunt - talk about massive multi-tasking fun - I passed it to the def with mutation as a rez.
Now the raiders were all standing on their bodies, so I had to sidle away slowly, and taunt and aoe like crazy, and the mass slowly crept over to look at me. There were still two jump bots shooting me, but right under their noses. But of course, with reactor taunt, they weren't going any further. I said so. And I was fast running out of greens.
So the def risked it. He awakened and started to stumble away. I was watching anxiously and trying to taunt the two jump bots standing there. Taunt, combust, breath of fire around, taunt, combust, yadda yadda. HE MADE IT!
He ran out of my sight range. I stopped worrying about him and more about survival and reactor survival again. Damn hard to run up, heal and then run back (didn't want any AoEs bouncing off me to whack the reactor). Thankfully the greater part of them were all focused on me and not reactor. Invul/fire running invic, taunt and aoes generates massive aggro. From there, the optimism suddenly returned. Chain rezz'ing began.
He rezz'ed the controller, who rezz'ed the PB. And the scrapper made it back faster than waiting for either rez to recharge and then got TP'ed in straight.
Meanwhile, I was fast running out of healing options, watching dull pain take too long to recharge. So I had to speak up and beg for heals. "really really need a heal here, guys", and then trust they knew how to creep up and heal from afar without dying. And I did get some 100 hp heals from the emp 'troll and 74 heals from the rad, that allowed me to hang on. And then sweet, sweet dull pain recharged and whoooosh went 471 hp shooting into me, bringing me back from 1/3 hp to 3/4 safety.
And everyone had recovered by this point to give the remaining sky raiders a slow, but successfully whacking. And with the final jump bot dying, that was it. Bing, SUCCESS. From the point of despair, to the euphoria and adrenaline buzz of sweet success.
And it was a team effort. Couldn't have done it without the invul tank and his awaken. Who couldn't have done it without the PB and his inspirations and his damage. Who couldn't have done it without the rez'es from the def and troller and the slicks and holds and various damage (I don't mention debuffs as much because alas, our rad had no RI, which was anathema to me, but I guess that's why people want respecs, huh?), and who couldn't have done it without the scrappers damage and aggro-hold of odd, lone sky raiders which I had to abandon as triage.
Yes, a respec that will live on in memory. Stuff of legend. Just great. We were all buzzing with adrenaline and staying on to celebrate mutual success and flying up to get the Meltdown badge before we broke up.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Evil Twin
Another few insane 8-man +4 to +5 missions and I'm now level 26. A friend I met invited me into their supergroup. Well, it's generally okay. But today, I met my EVIL TWIN. The other tank of the SG.
An Invul/SS who took jab, punch and taunt, and every single primary he could think of. Okay, that's cool, but his 'tude drove me up the wall. He was the classical egoistic, ME ME YOU GUYS WAIT HERE tanker.
He needed to herd. So what did we do? Sit and twiddle our thumbs. I got bored shitless and suggested I go pick up the other side of the mission, so I did, and the stupid git got in too deep, picked up 3-4 groups, I saw his HP plunge, then he lost control of his horde, and it massacred the PB with 2 quantums in there, one controller and about two blasters. Sighs. Go figure, and I was busy amusing myself with two groups who had boxed me in, so I couldn't rescue - and frankly, didn't feel like rescuing either.
And he took sooooo long before charging into things. My god, he had more defence and resist than me, and he took 15 minutes to decide that he could aggro level 29s (+3s).
I'm thinking maybe this theory of States is not gonna work, because two tankers can't ever be on the same team. We all need to do things our way. :) We all need to be the "I'm right" guy. I do try not to be so offensively arrogant, I always try and share credit with the team, and I never never backseat drive blasters or healers, I just do my tanky thing through sunshine, fireball or rain (evil evil rain, cackles).
But if there's one thing I do need, it's a fast pace. I can't stand creeping around corners in a group, I can go play a stealth blaster for that, or a stealth game. That's why I love being tank, I can set the pace, I can charge into things and just crank things up to WHOOOO, and kinetics are my favorite bros, because it ramps from WHOOOO into WHOOOOOOOOAAAA.
The straw that broke the camel's back was my evil twin saying, "wait here, ill scout." 3 minutes later, he hadn't moved. Then he walked forward. To the junction where all of us could see him. Where we had previously cleared a group of 29s. And swiveled. 360 degrees or so. And then didn't move from there. Er....
Nevermind, I'm faster solo'ing. Hilariously, I managed to quit team, "wife aggro" is so convenient, fly over to the other zone where my mission was, herd up my mission and aoe them to death and finish the mission - and the rest of the SG was still in the same mission. I'm now in a second timed mission, I wonder if I can finish it before them? Even while blogging? :)
It seriously boggles me. Why do people like to do the same thing over and over? I herd in my solo missions, because I'm not waiting anyone wait, it challenges me to stack 'em, and it's convenient because my def goes up when I'm surrounded by a clump. But there's no real NEED to herd an 8-man mission because the spawns are already very nice sizes. Unless you know there's 2-3 groups all facing towards one room - and you want to save your team from being ambushed from 3 directions at once, THAT's when you herd.
Oh well, someone will probably be real miserable in I5. And while I won't be a super-duper happy camper either, I do think that the invul/fire with aura, aoe, and multiple attacks will have a much better time in I5 than the one trick-herd'em up pony with only taunt and shabby attacks. And people better learn how to read aggro, rather than wait for a tank to say "Ready!" all the time before attacking. Only time will tell, I suppose.
An Invul/SS who took jab, punch and taunt, and every single primary he could think of. Okay, that's cool, but his 'tude drove me up the wall. He was the classical egoistic, ME ME YOU GUYS WAIT HERE tanker.
He needed to herd. So what did we do? Sit and twiddle our thumbs. I got bored shitless and suggested I go pick up the other side of the mission, so I did, and the stupid git got in too deep, picked up 3-4 groups, I saw his HP plunge, then he lost control of his horde, and it massacred the PB with 2 quantums in there, one controller and about two blasters. Sighs. Go figure, and I was busy amusing myself with two groups who had boxed me in, so I couldn't rescue - and frankly, didn't feel like rescuing either.
And he took sooooo long before charging into things. My god, he had more defence and resist than me, and he took 15 minutes to decide that he could aggro level 29s (+3s).
I'm thinking maybe this theory of States is not gonna work, because two tankers can't ever be on the same team. We all need to do things our way. :) We all need to be the "I'm right" guy. I do try not to be so offensively arrogant, I always try and share credit with the team, and I never never backseat drive blasters or healers, I just do my tanky thing through sunshine, fireball or rain (evil evil rain, cackles).
But if there's one thing I do need, it's a fast pace. I can't stand creeping around corners in a group, I can go play a stealth blaster for that, or a stealth game. That's why I love being tank, I can set the pace, I can charge into things and just crank things up to WHOOOO, and kinetics are my favorite bros, because it ramps from WHOOOO into WHOOOOOOOOAAAA.
The straw that broke the camel's back was my evil twin saying, "wait here, ill scout." 3 minutes later, he hadn't moved. Then he walked forward. To the junction where all of us could see him. Where we had previously cleared a group of 29s. And swiveled. 360 degrees or so. And then didn't move from there. Er....
Nevermind, I'm faster solo'ing. Hilariously, I managed to quit team, "wife aggro" is so convenient, fly over to the other zone where my mission was, herd up my mission and aoe them to death and finish the mission - and the rest of the SG was still in the same mission. I'm now in a second timed mission, I wonder if I can finish it before them? Even while blogging? :)
It seriously boggles me. Why do people like to do the same thing over and over? I herd in my solo missions, because I'm not waiting anyone wait, it challenges me to stack 'em, and it's convenient because my def goes up when I'm surrounded by a clump. But there's no real NEED to herd an 8-man mission because the spawns are already very nice sizes. Unless you know there's 2-3 groups all facing towards one room - and you want to save your team from being ambushed from 3 directions at once, THAT's when you herd.
Oh well, someone will probably be real miserable in I5. And while I won't be a super-duper happy camper either, I do think that the invul/fire with aura, aoe, and multiple attacks will have a much better time in I5 than the one trick-herd'em up pony with only taunt and shabby attacks. And people better learn how to read aggro, rather than wait for a tank to say "Ready!" all the time before attacking. Only time will tell, I suppose.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Footsteps on The Path of Temporary Glory
I can't help but make a record of this journey as an I4 invul. I have -never- leveled this fast. That's about all I can say. I jumped 2 levels today, from 21 to 23. Tanking reds and purples. Looped into a Striga mission at 21 and everything was 24-25.
Maaan, it wasn't until I managed to pick up brimstone, crystal, yadda yadda, that Ragnarl could acceptably stand in a group indefinitely and not die.
The invul was doing it without even SOs. Granted, sometimes one or two hits would leak through, but that's what respites and the odd kinetic heal was for...
Then I got SOs, and built in resists for the first level, and defence into invinc for the second time I got enough influence to buy some. (It's not even complete yet.) But I could then run into +3s and be no worse for wear except for a stream of -1s from the Family's tommy guns. (With 800-900 hp as a tanker.)
It's scary. I sacrifice speed to get these kinds of results on a stoner. Lord knows how ice tankers feel. Invuls are the masters of resistance, and yet their invincibility stacks rock armor-like defence on them.
I may not agree with the method or the timing, but I can see from an academic perspective why invul needs to be brought back in level with the other tanker sets (and why ice needs a boost, etc.) The only thing that boggles me is, academically speaking, how would one tweak the sets in a CoH context to make them play uniquely different and yet function at roughly the same level?
Stoners could be the masters of both defence and resistance. Tough, but slow. So the defender they benefit most from is a +speed kinetics.
Invuls could be the masters of resistance, so they would benefit from an ff'er.
Ice the masters of defence (ha!), and corresponding sonic 'fender.
Fires would have mid-line def and resist for their damage capability.
Makes sense, except they've nerfed fire's burn, defence for 95% of the time often tends to be less beneficial than resist for 100% of the time, and then you wonder why people would need tanks when they could just put ff'ers and sonics together to make everyone tanks, hrm. Oh well. I give up. Too much thinking = brain hurt and/or depression.
Just gonna have my fun now, and switch alts when I5 hits, until it's no longer fun.
Maaan, it wasn't until I managed to pick up brimstone, crystal, yadda yadda, that Ragnarl could acceptably stand in a group indefinitely and not die.
The invul was doing it without even SOs. Granted, sometimes one or two hits would leak through, but that's what respites and the odd kinetic heal was for...
Then I got SOs, and built in resists for the first level, and defence into invinc for the second time I got enough influence to buy some. (It's not even complete yet.) But I could then run into +3s and be no worse for wear except for a stream of -1s from the Family's tommy guns. (With 800-900 hp as a tanker.)
It's scary. I sacrifice speed to get these kinds of results on a stoner. Lord knows how ice tankers feel. Invuls are the masters of resistance, and yet their invincibility stacks rock armor-like defence on them.
I may not agree with the method or the timing, but I can see from an academic perspective why invul needs to be brought back in level with the other tanker sets (and why ice needs a boost, etc.) The only thing that boggles me is, academically speaking, how would one tweak the sets in a CoH context to make them play uniquely different and yet function at roughly the same level?
Stoners could be the masters of both defence and resistance. Tough, but slow. So the defender they benefit most from is a +speed kinetics.
Invuls could be the masters of resistance, so they would benefit from an ff'er.
Ice the masters of defence (ha!), and corresponding sonic 'fender.
Fires would have mid-line def and resist for their damage capability.
Makes sense, except they've nerfed fire's burn, defence for 95% of the time often tends to be less beneficial than resist for 100% of the time, and then you wonder why people would need tanks when they could just put ff'ers and sonics together to make everyone tanks, hrm. Oh well. I give up. Too much thinking = brain hurt and/or depression.
Just gonna have my fun now, and switch alts when I5 hits, until it's no longer fun.
More Invul Musings
I really wonder what the dev's baseline and yardstick is. Because I've never leveled so damn fast before. It's incredible just how many mobs an invul can handle. Suddenly I understand how come that invul tank could grab two purple sky raider groups and be quite quite unscathed. Obviously, on xp-greedy Freedom, I've made quite a few controller and damager 'friends' who are drawn inexorably to the pace of an invul-twogroupsatonce 6-8 man mission. Kheldians have to be an invuls best friend. The nova damage is incredible, even on +2 to +3 mobs. Just needs to be a smart Kheldian. Ran with 3 pbs/ws who were very good, and then ran into a ws who just couldn't handle squid form at all, and prefered to run around as a dwarf whacking stuff when what we needed were damage dealers. Oh well. You get all sorts.
If there's one thing this hiatus did me good, it's that nothing really fazes me any more. I don't get upset by idiots running around doing weird stuff. I find it funny. Just have to stay away from the elitist scorn on the boards.
Alas, my friends'll probably outpace me by the week's end, since my timezone will go back to normal - unless they happen to be Aussies, which would be superb then.
No wonder the invuls are screaming fit to bring the house down, if this is what they're used to. Once I hit lvl 22 or so, I might switch over to Test and see how badly invuls have been shot in the knee. Or maybe I should wait till 24 and the respec.
If there's one thing this hiatus did me good, it's that nothing really fazes me any more. I don't get upset by idiots running around doing weird stuff. I find it funny. Just have to stay away from the elitist scorn on the boards.
Alas, my friends'll probably outpace me by the week's end, since my timezone will go back to normal - unless they happen to be Aussies, which would be superb then.
No wonder the invuls are screaming fit to bring the house down, if this is what they're used to. Once I hit lvl 22 or so, I might switch over to Test and see how badly invuls have been shot in the knee. Or maybe I should wait till 24 and the respec.