The Secret World: Bees, Bugs and FunCompetence

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Toshimo: Aug 23, 2012; He's outta line...

But he's right!

mango sentinel posted:

So I'm running around Savage Coast with QL6 blue weapon and QL3 green taismans and feel woefully underpowered what am I doing wrong here?

Not pressing buttons every second.

# ? Sep 21, 2013 23:05

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 23:10

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Len posted:

Minmaxing by running straight to a QL6 blue (from the Wabanaki trailer park I assume) weapon would be my guess.

I don't see how that part is a problem.

# ? Sep 21, 2013 23:19

guppy: Sep 21, 2004; sting like a byob

mango sentinel posted:

So I'm running around Savage Coast with QL6 blue weapon and QL3 green taismans and feel woefully underpowered what am I doing wrong here?

Might be your build, might be the stuff you're trying to do. Parts of Savage Coast are harder than others.

# ? Sep 21, 2013 23:35

Variable Haircut: Jan 25, 2012

mango sentinel posted:

So I'm running around Savage Coast with QL6 blue weapon and QL3 green taismans and feel woefully underpowered what am I doing wrong here?

Are you using the dps version of the green gear, or tank? Savage Coast is a bit different then Kingsmouth in that your not supposed to go after more then one baddie at a time.

If you have a blue QL 6 weapon that should be enough regardless of the talismans your using, it could be a problem with your build. But you should be able to upgrade some of your talismans cheap at the auction house in London. Also, if you can catch some goons online we can run you through Darkness War normal which drops QL 6 blue gear.

# ? Sep 21, 2013 23:38

Cleretic: Feb 3, 2010; Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

So with this Agartha event, are we going to be using pure metal for the entire thing, or will we be using the other pure materials too?

Because I'm sitting on bustons of all types of pure material.

# ? Sep 22, 2013 02:05

guppy: Sep 21, 2004; sting like a byob

We believe the latter.

It is possible that you have less than you think relative to the demands of the event, if you want to be able to buy everything.

# ? Sep 22, 2013 02:09

Len: Jan 21, 2008; Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!

mango sentinel posted:

I don't see how that part is a problem.

Because higher QL weapon =/= more power. Without knowing what your build is, what weapons you're using, and overall stat distribution you could I can't say one way or the other. You could be doing low output because you don't have enough hit to actually land an attack or you might be getting blocked a lot, you could be doing lots of crits but not much extra damage. There's also the Funcom Factor where even with the right stats you just miss more than you statistically should be. That happens to Rasheed all the time.

# ? Sep 22, 2013 02:14

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Len posted:

Because higher QL weapon =/= more power. Without knowing what your build is, what weapons you're using, and overall stat distribution you could I can't say one way or the other. You could be doing low output because you don't have enough hit to actually land an attack or you might be getting blocked a lot, you could be doing lots of crits but not much extra damage. There's also the Funcom Factor where even with the right stats you just miss more than you statistically should be. That happens to Rasheed all the time.

Running AR/Chaos right now until I decide if I want Shotty or Ele secondary and get them in parity to where Chaos is. http://www.badomens.net/calculator#01v7g.08fvv.087vvu.073sv.09.0900u7.09.09007vvg.09.09.09.09/3d3l3hb1b53bb7003ab23k3i3eb68000

My items are all hit, pen, or both. I just got Hip Fire, but was running Trigger Happy. Things seem to be going more smoothly now, but I was getting dangerously low around the Akub in the forest and around the Filth to the point where I'd die if another mob added. Now that I'm in other areas things seem to be a little better. I also now have a Q4 blue talisman kit, but not enough fire to build stuff at the moment.

SL 5 AR, Chaos
SL 3 on talismans
SL 1-3 on various other weapons.

mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Sep 22, 2013

# ? Sep 22, 2013 03:11

Brain In A Jar: Apr 21, 2008

Drop Experience for the Chaos elite passive, which will up your damage a little.

I had a rough time in Savage Coast too, and found the KM -> SC transition way harder than SC -> BM.

If you're doing the Motel missions, they are way overtuned and will likely kick your rear end, so I recommend beelining for the Academy and working on the quests there, then double back to John Wolf for his stuff.

# ? Sep 22, 2013 03:39

Brackhar: Aug 26, 2006; I'll give you a definite maybe.

So I popped this back open after a year hiatus after hearing about the filfth getting into Agartha. drat I fogot how good this game could be. Too bad my blaze/eidelon build seems to have been nerfed from my days of yore.

# ? Sep 22, 2013 04:13

guppy: Sep 21, 2004; sting like a byob

mango sentinel posted:

Running AR/Chaos right now until I decide if I want Shotty or Ele secondary and get them in parity to where Chaos is. http://www.badomens.net/calculator#01v7g.08fvv.087vvu.073sv.09.0900u7.09.09007vvg.09.09.09.09/3d3l3hb1b53bb7003ab23k3i3eb68000

My items are all hit, pen, or both. I just got Hip Fire, but was running Trigger Happy. Things seem to be going more smoothly now, but I was getting dangerously low around the Akub in the forest and around the Filth to the point where I'd die if another mob added. Now that I'm in other areas things seem to be a little better. I also now have a Q4 blue talisman kit, but not enough fire to build stuff at the moment.

SL 5 AR, Chaos
SL 3 on talismans
SL 1-3 on various other weapons.

Some suggestions:

Mostly things are going to die fast enough that if you're pulling from range (with your AR, presumably) by the time they get to melee range it won't be worth using Escalation. Especially if your opener is Slow The Advance.
Opinions vary, but personally I think you should choose either leeching or maximum damage output, not both. (I prefer to maximize damage. Leeching works, and is very safe, but it's very slow.) Currently you're using Hip Fire for damage, but you also have Anima Shot, and you're using two passives to support your leeching (Anima Boost and Experience), one of which is taking up your Elite slot. If you replace those with damage abilities things will die faster.
You can probably make better ability choices for some of your actives. It's pretty standard to use Safety Off (instead of Hip Fire) and Three Round Burst (instead of Fire In The Hole, although FITH isn't bad), although I'm not sure if they're as good when not supported by the right passives, like Ferocity. I'm not sure about Chaos; I know there's at least one ranged finisher, but I'm not sure how it stacks up damage-wise.
Currently you're using the +damage ability for Chaos. Those +10% damage bonuses are good picks, but you probably only want one -- and you want it to be the one you're doing the most damage with. Not only does AR do more damage than Chaos in general, but you're using an AR builder in addition to both finishers. You probably want the AR +10% damage ability instead. I know you might be constrained by your AP budget right now -- if you can't afford anything else good, just bear it in mind for later.
I'm not sure what you should want as an Elite. Most of us use Fluid Defence, and that would probably be my recommendation, but we are also dungeon focused. At any rate, I'd scrap Experience.
If you get rid of Anima Shot and Escalation, you have two more slots to play with. You can put whatever you want there, but remember that if your build already has the best options for damage, you should choose abilities that will give you utility in some way, since otherwise any GCD where you're outside your rotation is giving up damage for no benefit. Some suggestions include Suppressing Fire (AOE AR ability, among the best in the game), Amor Fati (Chaos +damage cooldown), or even Turn The Tables (self-heal from the Misc trees, I don't use this but a lot of people said they like it for questing).
You can ditch some of these other passives. Lick Your Wounds falls off hard by the time you're out of Kingsmouth. You don't need Anima Shot if you don't take Anima Boost. You don't need Intensity if you don't take Escalation.

Brackhar posted:

So I popped this back open after a year hiatus after hearing about the filfth getting into Agartha. drat I fogot how good this game could be. Too bad my blaze/eidelon build seems to have been nerfed from my days of yore.

It's still a solid performer with a good build. Maybe not top of the pack, but very viable. You don't actually need Eidolon anymore, but the rest of the build can stay.

# ? Sep 22, 2013 11:20

Brackhar: Aug 26, 2006; I'll give you a definite maybe.

guppy posted:

It's still a solid performer with a good build. Maybe not top of the pack, but very viable. You don't actually need Eidolon anymore, but the rest of the build can stay.

Oh? Isn't the whole point of the build to maximize crits with Eidelon/Blaze? What would you use instead?

# ? Sep 22, 2013 11:23

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Thanks for the suggestions. A few responses:

I'm using FITH because I'm dumb and forgot Three Round Burst was a finisher.
Escalation and Intensity are there to deal with AoE groups. That should really be Lock and Load but I'm lazy about using that but would probably swap it in for dungeons. Also becomes obsolete with suppressing fire.
I'll replace Experience with Probability
I have both 10% Damage passives, but the Chaos one seems a bit superfluous for only a finisher.
I'm using Hip Fire after skimming a guide, but if Safety Off is really better it's an easy swap since I wriggle room with the corollary passive.
Anima is on there as an oh poo poo to keep me alive in losing fights, but the number of times it's saved me when I would have otherwise died probably doesn't justify using it or it's passive.

So my questions are: aside from Lethality and Suppressing Fire, is there anything else in AR I should strongly consider before moving on? Are there any other inner ring passives that are non weapon dependant I should grab? Finally, between
Shotgun and Elemental, which will be a more useful secondary for leveling with AR?

# ? Sep 22, 2013 12:25

Okita: Aug 31, 2004; King of toilets.

This probably wont help Mango Sentinel much since they already have a lot of points in other stuff, but if anyone is leveling or soloing I'd recommend Hammer/Fist. If I rolled a new character that's the route I would take.

Going into each pull with 5/5 resources for each weapon at the start dramatically speeds up farming/killing things. This is currently my go-to build for running the high exp missions on cooldown in Transylvania:

http://www.tsw-builder.com/#23v231352350306220324222a00p536932121612210530332a01

I use 1 healing talisman, 2-3 tank pieces, and the rest DPS gear for this. I wouldn't take this into a dungeon, it's specifically tailored for soloing missions.

You can do dungeons with this build, it does parse pretty well, but you have to swap out a few things. Use Seal the Deal (from pistols) or Probability as your elite passive and put Do or Die, Reckless, and Full Momentum instead of the healing and impair actives.

The main idea of the rotation is to line up Momentum, Elemental Force, Tear 'em Up, and Seal the Deal procs to drop some monstrous Molten Steel criticals.

First Blood x5 -> Tear 'em Up -> Crack! -> Molten Steel (repeat)

I don't usually count Ele Force charges or anything when I'm soloing easy stuff. If I'm fighting something difficult (that one vampire with like 40k HP for that one mission) I'll make sure all the stuff lines up to do the most damage.

Okita fucked around with this message at 13:30 on Sep 22, 2013

# ? Sep 22, 2013 13:26

guppy: Sep 21, 2004; sting like a byob

Brackhar posted:

Oh? Isn't the whole point of the build to maximize crits with Eidelon/Blaze? What would you use instead?

I'm gonna post my AR/Ele build, but bear in mind I haven't updated it in a while and I'm pretty sure it's not optimal. I un-mothballed it recently because I was bored with the rotations I was using, and made a couple changes, but it can probably be improved. I did pull over 3K DPS with it, which means it's fine for Nightmares even if others can outperform it. Plus, Short Fuse. This is obviously a dungeon build.

Actives

1. Safety Off
2. Three Round Burst
3. Blaze
4. Fire Manifestation (swap to Lightning Mani for AOE if necessary)
5. Anima Charge (swap to Suppressing Fire for AOE if necessary)
6. Short Fuse
7. Do or Die

Passives

1. Closer
2. Iron Maiden
3. Twist The Knife
4. Lethality
5. Elemental Force (I just changed this, not sure if it's better or not)
6. Ferocity
7. Fluid Defence

Make sure you use Anima Charge after your mani -- you want the Anima Charge to fuel an extra Blaze, not the mani.

guppy fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Sep 22, 2013

# ? Sep 22, 2013 13:46

Variable Haircut: Jan 25, 2012

guppy posted:

..Solid Ele Build..

The only thing I would change about that build is to replace Closer with Highly Strung, you already need to do a little micro management to line up Elemental Force with Blaze so you might as well get a 10% damage boost to all your attacks.

# ? Sep 22, 2013 15:56

Bursk: Nov 12, 2007; Bank of Bursk

HughGRect posted:

Pro Tip for anyone getting ready to dump pure metal's into the event, keep a bunch for the next steps.

Can you maybe elaborate on this? I discovered today that I can use my free 21 black venice marks to get QL10 barrier pots, which I can then turn into pure metal (if you'd like the ones you gave me back, please say). So I currently have 40+ pure metals, and I'm wondering why I shouldn't just turn them all in now for slivers. What's coming next that I should keep them for the time being?

Also, should I try to get some cheap pure dust, fire, and water from the AH? I don't have any of these currently as I've just arrived in SC.

# ? Sep 22, 2013 16:46

Stangg: Mar 17, 2009

Are there any trial keys going at the moment, would be very grateful.

Thanks!

Stangg fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Sep 22, 2013

# ? Sep 22, 2013 17:12

Bursk: Nov 12, 2007; Bank of Bursk

Stangg posted:

Are there any trial keys going at the moment, would be very grateful.

kaylie dot smith at btinternet dot com

Check your email

# ? Sep 22, 2013 17:22

Variable Haircut: Jan 25, 2012

Bursk posted:

Can you maybe elaborate on this? I discovered today that I can use my free 21 black venice marks to get QL10 barrier pots, which I can then turn into pure metal (if you'd like the ones you gave me back, please say). So I currently have 40+ pure metals, and I'm wondering why I shouldn't just turn them all in now for slivers. What's coming next that I should keep them for the time being?

Also, should I try to get some cheap pure dust, fire, and water from the AH? I don't have any of these currently as I've just arrived in SC.

There will be 3 more phases after the current one and all require pure metal to complete. The process is going to be the same, just each phase will require additional material and provide more slivers during turn in.

Go ahead and keep the ones I gave to you.

# ? Sep 22, 2013 17:28

Bursk: Nov 12, 2007; Bank of Bursk

Cheers, bud.

Edit: And I'll go ahead and get some pures for the other three materials (unless you suggest otherwise).

Bursk fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Sep 22, 2013

# ? Sep 22, 2013 17:32

Variable Haircut: Jan 25, 2012

Bursk posted:

Cheers, bud.

Edit: And I'll go ahead and get some pures for the other three materials (unless you suggest otherwise).

That is a good plan, also try and pick up some of the pure runes for the last version of the turn in. This post details what each phase will require

# ? Sep 22, 2013 17:43

Bursk: Nov 12, 2007; Bank of Bursk

Sweet. Ah, seems I need to register for that site. Will do that now.

Edit: Application submitted. Thanks again

Bursk fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Sep 22, 2013

# ? Sep 22, 2013 17:56

guppy: Sep 21, 2004; sting like a byob

HughGRect posted:

The only thing I would change about that build is to replace Closer with Highly Strung, you already need to do a little micro management to line up Elemental Force with Blaze so you might as well get a 10% damage boost to all your attacks.

I don't actually pay attention to Ele Force. I should probably do that.

# ? Sep 22, 2013 20:00

OneEightHundred: Feb 28, 2008; Soon, we will be unstoppable!

guppy posted:

[*] Opinions vary, but personally I think you should choose either leeching or maximum damage output, not both. (I prefer to maximize damage. Leeching works, and is very safe, but it's very slow.)

"Paladin" builds in this have the problem of needing a lot of heal rating to outpace damage and not building off-hand resources, which costs them a lot of damage. They're pretty pointless in general because there is nothing in solo content that you can't kill before your max health runs out by just adjusting your max health, and if something doesn't kill you, then you just Taco and you're back to full in a few seconds.

If you really need defense, then defensive cooldown abilities are a much better idea because their cooldowns are short (most of the CD will burn off between pulls) and they do a much better job of handling high-damage situations since the amount of damage they prevent scales with the amount of damage you'd take. Just do the smart thing and blow your CDs when you're about to take unavoidable damage, not when something is winding up an avoidable AOE attack.

The only heal I'd really recommend is the Regeneration passive for Martial Discipline because it's bugged and heals for a lot.

quote:

[*] I'm not sure what you should want as an Elite. Most of us use Fluid Defence, and that would probably be my recommendation, but we are also dungeon focused. At any rate, I'd scrap Experience.

Cool, Calm and Collected tends to be better with junker gear because it's ridiculously easy to get crits without gear with Elemental Force, penetration is better but it's also more gear-dependent.

mango sentinel posted:

Finally, between Shotgun and Elemental, which will be a more useful secondary for leveling with AR?

Ele is pretty special-purpose, i.e. something you take when you need a purge, the manifestation damage buff, Short Fuse, or you're running a finisher spam build like Bloodshot or Clearing the Path with Closer and Highly Strung.

Shotgun is probably better for soloing. Shotgun Turret is an incredibly good finisher for solo stuff, Breaching Shot is always good, and the good skills in it (i.e. Striker, Out for a Kill) tend to come early.

# ? Sep 22, 2013 21:49

Velveteen: Sep 17, 2011; I'm the type of pony everypony should know

Recently started this game and I play a healer. Just beat the gatekeeper healing test awhile ago and I'm not sure how to get into nightmare mode. What is this 18s everyone keeps talking about and everyone expects you to be geared or experienced. All this signet and glyph and black bullion thing is making my head spin. I got some from a quest and what item do I buy first?

# ? Sep 23, 2013 00:06

Dry Hump: Sep 14, 2013

Velveteen posted:

Recently started this game and I play a healer. Just beat the gatekeeper healing test awhile ago and I'm not sure how to get into nightmare mode. What is this 18s everyone keeps talking about and everyone expects you to be geared or experienced. All this signet and glyph and black bullion thing is making my head spin. I got some from a quest and what item do I buy first?

18's are the first three dungeons in nightmare mode, which are Polaris, Hell Risen, and Darkness War. You can get to nightmare dungeons by making a left at the platform that takes you to the Kingsmouth Portal and then making another left to ANOTHER portal, and there you are. Black bullions are gotten from looting the corpse of a nightmare boss. Make sure you do it every time. You can spend them at your faction headquarters at the Nightwatch dealers, or whatever they're called. I don't know much about healing though, so I can't really tell you what to glyph/signet, but make sure you roll need on Nightwatch Glyph Toolkits until you have enough to glyph all your equipment for at least one set (Healing/DPS/Tank).

# ? Sep 23, 2013 00:16

Len: Jan 21, 2008; Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!

Velveteen posted:

Recently started this game and I play a healer. Just beat the gatekeeper healing test awhile ago and I'm not sure how to get into nightmare mode. What is this 18s everyone keeps talking about and everyone expects you to be geared or experienced. All this signet and glyph and black bullion thing is making my head spin. I got some from a quest and what item do I buy first?

18s are doing the first three dungeons. There is an in game channel /chat join noobmares for helpful pubbies that can get you through your first few. If you want goon help your best bet is to be in mumble. There isn't always a big crowd but those of us that idle there can usually get a hold of enough to fill a group. As for the order to buy things I'll wait for someone else to chime in with that.

# ? Sep 23, 2013 00:17

OneEightHundred: Feb 28, 2008; Soon, we will be unstoppable!

Noobmares are usually a clusterfuck of people dying horribly from standing in poo poo and failing DPS checks, and healing is the least gear dependent role by a lot, so you're probably better off farming elites for a full blue set of heal gear from elites and then going straight to the usual NM pickup avenues.

Fist/Blood is an absolute cakewalk for healing, get Shadow Medic, Cold Blooded, Exquisite Corpse, Empowerment, and you're pretty much done.

As far as glyphs and signets:

Signets are a separate slottable for items. Signets are the grindiest exchangeable items in the game right now, so you should NEVER slot one on an item that isn't a custom purple (read: one you bought from Nightwatch dealers). DO NOT slot them on Nightmare drops.

Dropped glyphs you can do whatever with, they're worth basically nothing because the good glyphs are crafted and upgraded using Nightwatch kits.

OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Sep 23, 2013

# ? Sep 23, 2013 02:50

Cleretic: Feb 3, 2010; Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

HughGRect posted:

That is a good plan, also try and pick up some of the pure runes for the last version of the turn in. This post details what each phase will require

On the other hand, we've slowed down a lot. We've been on the fifth light for a while, probably because we've run out of 'spare' pure metal. We might get more sliver output from the later missions, but in my book getting to what gives us the tokens, sooner, is a better thing.

Also, these might not be final. Funcom might tweak things in one direction or the other depending on how satisfied they are with how the current phase went.

# ? Sep 23, 2013 03:09

Velveteen: Sep 17, 2011; I'm the type of pony everypony should know

Thanks for the responses. Ok I'll give noobmares a try and see how I do on healing.

# ? Sep 23, 2013 03:14

novaSphere: Jan 25, 2003

Phase 1 just ended about 10 minutes ago.

# ? Sep 23, 2013 20:58

guppy: Sep 21, 2004; sting like a byob

Ended due to time, or to getting enough Pure Metal? Is the next phase started yet?

# ? Sep 23, 2013 21:09

Cheston: Jul 17, 2012; (he's got a good thing going)

guppy posted:

Ended due to time, or to getting enough Pure Metal? Is the next phase started yet?

Well, there's a mission. And a portal to step through

**I'm not gonna spoil it, but this is actual gameplay.

***And it is delightful

*****30-minute cooldown, the mission takes about ten minutes in good gear, and it rewards one Fragment. No new items in the event shop.

Cheston fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Sep 23, 2013

# ? Sep 23, 2013 21:16

Variable Haircut: Jan 25, 2012

Cheston posted:

Well, there's a mission. And a portal to step through

**I'm not gonna spoil it, but this is actual gameplay.

***And it is delightful

*****30-minute cooldown, the mission takes about ten minutes in good gear, and it rewards one Fragment. No new items in the event shop.

Group or solo?

# ? Sep 23, 2013 22:02

Len: Jan 21, 2008; Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!

Cheston posted:

Well, there's a mission. And a portal to step through

**I'm not gonna spoil it, but this is actual gameplay.

***And it is delightful

*****30-minute cooldown, the mission takes about ten minutes in good gear, and it rewards one Fragment. No new items in the event shop.

You should have at least warned us that this is Funcoms standard Wave Defense.

# ? Sep 23, 2013 22:11

Cheston: Jul 17, 2012; (he's got a good thing going)

Len posted:

You should have at least warned us that this is Funcoms standard Wave Defense.

Look at it!

look at it

# ? Sep 24, 2013 01:55

Cleretic: Feb 3, 2010; Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

It's a pretty badass mission, but I think it could benefit from a bigger payout in exchange for a longer cooldown. One token for what the mission is is pretty low, and a half-hour cooldown to make up for it's a bit weird.

# ? Sep 24, 2013 02:32

Brackhar: Aug 26, 2006; I'll give you a definite maybe.

Cheston posted:

Look at it!

look at it

Yeah, screenshots for this event are what brought me back to the game. As someone interested in the story of TSW having the filth invade Agartha is super cool.

# ? Sep 24, 2013 02:34

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 23:10

Len: Jan 21, 2008; Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!

Cheston posted:

Look at it!

look at it

Yeah it looks neat but it's a long hallway with lots of trash, a wave defense, trash, a big guy, trash and a big guy.

# ? Sep 24, 2013 03:13

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > The Secret World: Bees, Bugs and FunCompetence

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