So I am playing this game now. I have a month's worth of Gold.
I am enjoying tinkering around with builds more than I am enjoying playing the game, but I enjoy the builds A LOT and the game just okay so this is all good.
I'm looking for a decent heal to pair with my Ice tank (okay I know this is not all that efficient but hey) to replace the toggle from Power Armour that removes by ability to do ANYTHING while it is running.
He's got Sparkstorm with the 'make it a toggle' advantage (which lets me keep aggro when the Power Armour heal toggle is running), Vile Cyclone with the 'pull enemies in' advantage, Invulnerability and the click buff that goes with it, and a bunch of Ice powers. Con as a main superstat, Endurance and Recovery as secondaries. It is all over the place, but lots of fun.
Any suggestions on streamlining the build some?
Why would you use the power armor heal on a non-power armor character?
And why sparkstorm on an ice character?
I have an ice tank myself. He uses Defiance as his passive, Ice Blast with crippling challenge and hard frost, and Avalanche with challenging strikes to maintain aggro. As far as healing goes he has bionic shielding, resurgence, and masterful dodge + bountiful chi resurgence w/ resurgent rekei advantage (these two powers together are a super duper heal + invincibility/get out of jail free card).
The rest of the build is just ice crap for flavor.
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
Thanks for the input, I'll ditch the toggle heal (ugh it is bad) and pick up another.
Sparkstorm is just need as the 'press button, receive aggro over time', that and I was having trouble picking powers. It melds well with Vile Cyclone, and is easy to use.
The power armor heal is ok on a ranged (not lasor sword) power armor character. I use it on one of my characters who is specced that way, and it's semi-decent. You can't use any of the better heals with PA stuff cycling, so you're sort of forced into using it in that case.
But outside of the ranged power armor toggle character it's really bad. Like, really bad.
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
Yeah, saw it was a toggle, and thought it would only lock out other chest-based toggles and figured that as I didn't HAVE any other toggles it would be fine.
Turns out not only locks out chest-based Power Armour toggles, but ANYTHING that isn't a shoulder/hand toggle, too.
Still need to spec that thing out. Tonight, I shall do so.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
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KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
Okay, so I might as well fully respec this ice tank dude.
The Chill/Cold Snap stuff has synergy with crit, right? So I might be best served building Dex, going with Lightning Reflexes/Bountiful Chi Resurgence/Masterful Dodge as my core defense, and picking up Hunter's Instincts or Killer Instincts for the energy returned on crits? (I could pick up Ice Form for when I want to shift into a more offensive build, too)
If that's the case, is there a power that can replace Vicious Cyclone+Vortex Technique to pull enemies in on me for better Ice Wall -> Shatter combos?
Okay, so I might as well fully respec this ice tank dude.
The Chill/Cold Snap stuff has synergy with crit, right? So I might be best served building Dex, going with Lightning Reflexes/Bountiful Chi Resurgence/Masterful Dodge as my core defense, and picking up Hunter's Instincts or Killer Instincts for the energy returned on crits? (I could pick up Ice Form for when I want to shift into a more offensive build, too)
If that's the case, is there a power that can replace Vicious Cyclone+Vortex Technique to pull enemies in on me for better Ice Wall -> Shatter combos?
Chill/Cold Snap is really something to worry about for Ice DPS, I wouldn't try to work that synergy into a tank. While the energy recovery and sustained dps is nice for frost breath/shatter spam, it's not a really great aggro-grabber and it caps out at three targets.
The Cold Snap buff is also something that is mainly meant to work with Ice Form, an offensive passive.
I would go with an out of set defense passive, Invulnerability or Defiance (and between those I'd choose Defiance for the energy regained on being struck since ice powers are endurance hungry).
-edit-
Everyone should work crits into their build though. Dex secondary, Con primary, and Int/Rec/End secomndary most likely.
Also, as a general rule of thumb for tanks, don't get carried away with attacks and elaborate combos. You need to stock up on heals, active defenses, and at least one active offense (for breaking free of holds).
Your energy builder, a single target attack that can have crippling challenge, a good spamable aoe that can carry challenging strikes, and possibly a third attack as a 'big attack' if you find that your single target attack with cripple isn't effective enough when soloing (but it's almost all you'll use while grouping).
My Ice tank uses Ice Blast and Avalanche for 99% of everything. I think I have snow storm for lulz, but it doesn't see a lot of use. I leave the Ice walls and shattering to my ice dps character.
Good lord, my little healer feels useless against Gravitar. Okay, so I'm actually pulled up from level 36 and most of my gear is level 30 blues, but christ, her little double-tap will kill me even through block. And there doesn't seem to be any indication it's coming. So I just sit in my self-res circle, do damage, heal people and hope that once she kills me and my self-res goes on a cooldown she doesn't do it again for another minute.
I watch other people get hit, they barely lose half their health by two full hits. Me, the first blast just barely leaves me alive and the second finishes me off. I popped a self-res consumable and she blasted me dead again before the animation even relinquished control to me.
Also, I seem to be like The Ultimate Tank. It doesn't matter if it's pugs or with a friend (freeform, threat-specced) tank, I can usually pull aggro just by doing piddly damage and my aura ticking heals. Do a big heal and it's like sticking an "Eat me now!" sign on my chest.
Oh good Christ, trying to do Despair Incarnate solo as a healer is fucking impossible. His life drain is literally faster than my DPS. And all of my damage powers are charge powers, so blocking his powers (to stop life drain) means my damage output literally goes to zero.
Welp, that's 2 hours wasted doing everything up to the final boss for no reward.
Oh good Christ, trying to do Despair Incarnate solo as a healer is fucking impossible. His life drain is literally faster than my DPS. And all of my damage powers are charge powers, so blocking his powers (to stop life drain) means my damage output literally goes to zero.
Welp, that's 2 hours wasted doing everything up to the final boss for no reward.
Grab another player, or spec into another damage power. Plasma Beam with its plasma burn advantage should be enough to melt anything in (normal difficulty) PvE.
Aftershock episode... 2? Boss I think. Can be a bitch and a half. I hate that boss, I hate all lifedrain bosses. It's a seriously broken ability when npcs use it.
Yeah. I guess it's okay on a team, when the guy holding aggro can block and others wail on him, but solo? Yeah, I hope you have some way of either doing damage in between his attacks or can just plain out-DPS his drain.
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
So double Q weekend is a lie.
Don't get me wrong, you do get more questionite, but the calendar questionite things aren't doubled, and neither are the 1500 boxes.
Yeah. I guess it's okay on a team, when the guy holding aggro can block and others wail on him, but solo? Yeah, I hope you have some way of either doing damage in between his attacks or can just plain out-DPS his drain.
Nooooo.
Never try to outdamage a life drain. Always block. Always. You just have to do enough damage in between lifedrains to down the boss. But missing even one block undoes a huge amount of work, providing you even survive the lifedrain itself.
-edit-
The caveat here of course is that it is possible to have insufficient damage to kill that boss in between his lifedrains. I have certainly had this experience with certain bosses on certain healing-focused characters before.
If it feels like the boss is impossible due to not enough dps, it probably is. Go get help.
So is there still much of a PA Presence in this game anymore?
There hasn't been a strong one since shortly after launch. If you can find some cool people to play with, do it. I'm not currently playing myself. I always think I'm done with the game, then I'm not and I'll play it for a month and usually level a couple characters to 40 and then de-sub again for a while.
It's a really fun game in short doses. Sadly it just never got the development support it needed back when it needed it to expand the content. Now it's stuck in a cash shop hell cycle of lock boxes and not-spaceships that no one wants with very little development. The old 'dungeons' that needed tuning never got them, and were all but abandoned in favor of the 'episodes' which were then abandoned in favor of alerts. People whined for hideouts, which were added (and added nothing to the game) and then abandoned.
The game makes me sad because it has certain things about it that are really great, but it's missing too many elements.
Ah that's too bad. I'm the Robot Pirate in the thread title, but never did finish leveling him. I wanted to get a superhero fix in, and was thinking of subbing for a month but that doesn't sound very appealing the way you describe the current state of the game.
Yeah, I had fun for a couple of weeks on my archetype character, procured enough Questionite to buy one of the costume packs with the recent sale and am about ready to put it down again for a while.
Fun game in short bursts, but as he said, sort of lacking content to have staying power.
I like how there's a 'weapons' tab in the character / costume creator, but you can't actually change anything. Like, the default option is the only option for the dropdown box.
I also like how there is one non-paywall jacket - the trenchcoat - and it clips through every possible accessory and looks terrible.
Keep in mind you don't unlock most of the costume options until you get your character out of tutorial zone and to like level 10 or so. Then it unlocks loads more.
You can go to the Power House if you want to experiment with your available points (you can train through the trainer and then respec those points for free, they will only finalise when you leave the Power House), or in the world you can just click the little lightning icon on your UI, but then you can't undo them without spending some in-game cash.
Glal on
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
The other point is that the tutorial doesn't really do anything aside from introduce you to basic controls and combat. You level up, but you don't get any new powers, points, or anything. That doesn't happen until you make level 6--which happens pretty much automatically once you're out of the tutorial.
It does kind of feel like CoX, as far as running around the city being fun in itself & running across street skirmishes is concerned.
The combat is... bleh. I don't like not having a defensive power pool & having to carry around green consumables, and the energy mechanic is gimmicky at best (it doesn't help that the game is extremely loose when ti comes to it's animation frames, so you can't build meter and then cancel into whatever you want right away - often some dumb animation decides it needs to finish it's loop, then your buffered attack comes out... ideally. Sometimes your character finishes the animation and then just stands there until you hit the hotkey again.
Plus, melee's always awkward using a 3rd person camera perspective with WASD movement.
I might see if it'll read my gamepad.
Also... for the life of me, I cannot understand how cone AoE works in this game. Sometimes I line up guys in my front arc and they all get hit, sometimes I line them up and only one guy gets hit.
It does kind of feel like CoX, as far as running around the city being fun in itself & running across street skirmishes is concerned.
The combat is... bleh. I don't like not having a defensive power pool & having to carry around green consumables, and the energy mechanic is gimmicky at best (it doesn't help that the game is extremely loose when ti comes to it's animation frames, so you can't build meter and then cancel into whatever you want right away - often some dumb animation decides it needs to finish it's loop, then your buffered attack comes out... ideally. Sometimes your character finishes the animation and then just stands there until you hit the hotkey again.
Plus, melee's always awkward using a 3rd person camera perspective with WASD movement.
I might see if it'll read my gamepad.
Also... for the life of me, I cannot understand how cone AoE works in this game. Sometimes I line up guys in my front arc and they all get hit, sometimes I line them up and only one guy gets hit.
Once I was used to CO combat I wasn't able to play CoX again. It has its issues, but overall the combat portion is... a lot better.
The game has direct 360 controller support, it'll even switch on appropriate icons when you plug it in. Just make sure to check the camera/control settings once you do to customise things like auto targeting and alike, the defaults are there for K&M.
I liked CO's combat, however it did feel a bit loose re: reaction time to button presses. I suspect it's simply because I'm in Europe and they only have US servers.
If your AT isn't working for you try another? However, if you want actual pools you will need to subscribe and get access to freeform, alas.
Alright; this is much more enjoyable with my controller.
...How come there are so many different currencies in the game? Like, I get that the Zen bucks are for the cash shop, but why are the in game funbux divided-up?
The crystals are there to enable flow between in-game and real money currency. Basically, everyone can only accumulate them at a specific rate and large amounts of them are needed to unlock specific costume pieces, sets and so on. You farm some up, exchange them for Zen, thus allowing you access to cash shop without spending money.
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
The crystals are there to enable flow between in-game and real money currency. Basically, everyone can only accumulate them at a specific rate and large amounts of them are needed to unlock specific costume pieces, sets and so on. You farm some up, exchange them for Zen, thus allowing you access to cash shop without spending money.
I think he was referring to Resources.
And Acclaim.
And Drifter Salvage.
And MCPD Recognition.
And Nemesis Tokens.
And Primus Recognition.
And Silver Champion Recognition.
And Snake Gulch Snakebucks.
And UNITY Merits.
And UNTIL Recognition.
...there's a lot of different in-game funbux. I don't know why.
The crystals are there to enable flow between in-game and real money currency. Basically, everyone can only accumulate them at a specific rate and large amounts of them are needed to unlock specific costume pieces, sets and so on. You farm some up, exchange them for Zen, thus allowing you access to cash shop without spending money.
I think he was referring to Resources.
And Acclaim. -Is PvP currency, most games actually have more than one PvP currency
And Drifter Salvage. -This is lockbox currency. Yes, lockboxes are horrid. You can thank asia.
And MCPD Recognition. -The rest of these are all basically "reputation" currency. There's no rep system but these substitute.
And Nemesis Tokens.
And Primus Recognition.
And Silver Champion Recognition.
And Snake Gulch Snakebucks.
And UNITY Merits.
And UNTIL Recognition.
...there's a lot of different in-game funbux. I don't know why.
Are you subbing, Ender? You can mix and match powers from different sets as a subscriber. It's really what made the combat and character creation more interesting than CoX for me at least.
My friend recently played this again for a bit. I was thinking about it too but I was a bit turned off by the accusation that they've done comparatively little in terms of development over the last few years. Having taken a break from this for what feels like 4 years or so now, it looks like very little has been added to the game over that time. Am I wrong?
They added a bunch of adventure packs (scripted multipart missions) and the ability to queue for a set of group-versus-boss events that yield various bonuses. There's like 10-15 of them and they cycle the ones that are available to queue for once an hour, not a bad way to get money/EXP boosts/real cash exchange fodder while you do other stuff in the game.
They don't add much for perma-subs, but there's plenty new there if you've not played in a while.
Posts
Why would you use the power armor heal on a non-power armor character?
And why sparkstorm on an ice character?
I have an ice tank myself. He uses Defiance as his passive, Ice Blast with crippling challenge and hard frost, and Avalanche with challenging strikes to maintain aggro. As far as healing goes he has bionic shielding, resurgence, and masterful dodge + bountiful chi resurgence w/ resurgent rekei advantage (these two powers together are a super duper heal + invincibility/get out of jail free card).
The rest of the build is just ice crap for flavor.
Sparkstorm is just need as the 'press button, receive aggro over time', that and I was having trouble picking powers. It melds well with Vile Cyclone, and is easy to use.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
But outside of the ranged power armor toggle character it's really bad. Like, really bad.
Turns out not only locks out chest-based Power Armour toggles, but ANYTHING that isn't a shoulder/hand toggle, too.
Still need to spec that thing out. Tonight, I shall do so.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
The Chill/Cold Snap stuff has synergy with crit, right? So I might be best served building Dex, going with Lightning Reflexes/Bountiful Chi Resurgence/Masterful Dodge as my core defense, and picking up Hunter's Instincts or Killer Instincts for the energy returned on crits? (I could pick up Ice Form for when I want to shift into a more offensive build, too)
If that's the case, is there a power that can replace Vicious Cyclone+Vortex Technique to pull enemies in on me for better Ice Wall -> Shatter combos?
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Chill/Cold Snap is really something to worry about for Ice DPS, I wouldn't try to work that synergy into a tank. While the energy recovery and sustained dps is nice for frost breath/shatter spam, it's not a really great aggro-grabber and it caps out at three targets.
The Cold Snap buff is also something that is mainly meant to work with Ice Form, an offensive passive.
I would go with an out of set defense passive, Invulnerability or Defiance (and between those I'd choose Defiance for the energy regained on being struck since ice powers are endurance hungry).
-edit-
Everyone should work crits into their build though. Dex secondary, Con primary, and Int/Rec/End secomndary most likely.
Your energy builder, a single target attack that can have crippling challenge, a good spamable aoe that can carry challenging strikes, and possibly a third attack as a 'big attack' if you find that your single target attack with cripple isn't effective enough when soloing (but it's almost all you'll use while grouping).
My Ice tank uses Ice Blast and Avalanche for 99% of everything. I think I have snow storm for lulz, but it doesn't see a lot of use. I leave the Ice walls and shattering to my ice dps character.
I watch other people get hit, they barely lose half their health by two full hits. Me, the first blast just barely leaves me alive and the second finishes me off. I popped a self-res consumable and she blasted me dead again before the animation even relinquished control to me.
Also, I seem to be like The Ultimate Tank. It doesn't matter if it's pugs or with a friend (freeform, threat-specced) tank, I can usually pull aggro just by doing piddly damage and my aura ticking heals. Do a big heal and it's like sticking an "Eat me now!" sign on my chest.
Also the Gravitar fight is stupid. It's always been stupid.
Welp, that's 2 hours wasted doing everything up to the final boss for no reward.
Grab another player, or spec into another damage power. Plasma Beam with its plasma burn advantage should be enough to melt anything in (normal difficulty) PvE.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Don't get me wrong, you do get more questionite, but the calendar questionite things aren't doubled, and neither are the 1500 boxes.
Nooooo.
Never try to outdamage a life drain. Always block. Always. You just have to do enough damage in between lifedrains to down the boss. But missing even one block undoes a huge amount of work, providing you even survive the lifedrain itself.
-edit-
The caveat here of course is that it is possible to have insufficient damage to kill that boss in between his lifedrains. I have certainly had this experience with certain bosses on certain healing-focused characters before.
If it feels like the boss is impossible due to not enough dps, it probably is. Go get help.
There hasn't been a strong one since shortly after launch. If you can find some cool people to play with, do it. I'm not currently playing myself. I always think I'm done with the game, then I'm not and I'll play it for a month and usually level a couple characters to 40 and then de-sub again for a while.
It's a really fun game in short doses. Sadly it just never got the development support it needed back when it needed it to expand the content. Now it's stuck in a cash shop hell cycle of lock boxes and not-spaceships that no one wants with very little development. The old 'dungeons' that needed tuning never got them, and were all but abandoned in favor of the 'episodes' which were then abandoned in favor of alerts. People whined for hideouts, which were added (and added nothing to the game) and then abandoned.
The game makes me sad because it has certain things about it that are really great, but it's missing too many elements.
Fun game in short bursts, but as he said, sort of lacking content to have staying power.
I'm sure this will not turn me into an (even more) bitter and cynical person.
I also like how there is one non-paywall jacket - the trenchcoat - and it clips through every possible accessory and looks terrible.
Oh my fucking God why is this thing so awful?
I leveled up a bunch of times, but I don't see points I get to spent or new powers to pick or anything. How does that work?
It does kind of feel like CoX, as far as running around the city being fun in itself & running across street skirmishes is concerned.
The combat is... bleh. I don't like not having a defensive power pool & having to carry around green consumables, and the energy mechanic is gimmicky at best (it doesn't help that the game is extremely loose when ti comes to it's animation frames, so you can't build meter and then cancel into whatever you want right away - often some dumb animation decides it needs to finish it's loop, then your buffered attack comes out... ideally. Sometimes your character finishes the animation and then just stands there until you hit the hotkey again.
Plus, melee's always awkward using a 3rd person camera perspective with WASD movement.
I might see if it'll read my gamepad.
Also... for the life of me, I cannot understand how cone AoE works in this game. Sometimes I line up guys in my front arc and they all get hit, sometimes I line them up and only one guy gets hit.
Once I was used to CO combat I wasn't able to play CoX again. It has its issues, but overall the combat portion is... a lot better.
I liked CO's combat, however it did feel a bit loose re: reaction time to button presses. I suspect it's simply because I'm in Europe and they only have US servers.
If your AT isn't working for you try another? However, if you want actual pools you will need to subscribe and get access to freeform, alas.
...How come there are so many different currencies in the game? Like, I get that the Zen bucks are for the cash shop, but why are the in game funbux divided-up?
I think he was referring to Resources.
And Acclaim.
And Drifter Salvage.
And MCPD Recognition.
And Nemesis Tokens.
And Primus Recognition.
And Silver Champion Recognition.
And Snake Gulch Snakebucks.
And UNITY Merits.
And UNTIL Recognition.
...there's a lot of different in-game funbux. I don't know why.
Various ones, but the one closest is probably in the ren center, off to the side of the tailor kiosks. He sells health packs but also buys junk.
My friend recently played this again for a bit. I was thinking about it too but I was a bit turned off by the accusation that they've done comparatively little in terms of development over the last few years. Having taken a break from this for what feels like 4 years or so now, it looks like very little has been added to the game over that time. Am I wrong?
They don't add much for perma-subs, but there's plenty new there if you've not played in a while.