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Asimo
Sep 23, 2007




Prior thread's over this way!

So, how do I get in on Goon action?
We've got a global chat channel. Type :ducksiren::frogsiren: /channel_join SuperGoon :frogsiren::ducksiren: into your chatbox. Also note that's singular, supergoon, not supergoons. If you mess that up and ask about why chat isn't working, you shall be publicly mocked.

And... that's it. Seriously. If you play Star Trek Online you can even chat with goon in ChampO from there, and vice versa! There's some goon guilds/supergroups of varying activity levels around, but there's no real pressing need or reason to join one aside from a free costume slot. Guilds require someone to invite every alt you want in, while the chat channel can be joined at any time. There's almost always multiple people on, but not always an ongoing conversation. If it's quiet, speak up! If you hit a lair or a group quest or something, ask for a party!

:siren:Yes, you can play the game for free!:siren:
Despite originally launching as a pay game, Champions Online is now Free to Play. You don't even need to have bought a retail box, and you can even just download it off Steam if you like! A free ("silver") account doesn't have all the options of a paid subscription ("gold") account, and you'll be locked out of freeform power selection, have fewer character slots, and similar things. But you can play the game from start to endgame without ever paying a cent, and while you get more value for your money by subscribing you can purchase several benefits (such as character slots, costume slots, additional archetypes, etc.) from Cryptic's store for one-time costs.

Subscription vs. F2P on their site shows what you can get. My advice to a new player would be to not worry about subscriptions until the point where you find Archetypes confinding, or think it's tempting to buy something off the C-store that a subscription would grant.

:siren:Cryptic founds "Cryptic North" to help develop Champions Online!:siren:
Twelve new staff members, most of the staff of Flying Lab Software (the folks who did Pirates of the Burning Sea). It's not exactly a surprise that ChampO's been... languishing on life support development, so hopefully tripling the size of the team will help things out. :toot:

:siren:Vehicles are here! (11/09):siren:
Yes! All new vehicles! They're kind of like the "Become <X>" devices, except make you a flying tank or a fighter jet and thus are infinitely superior. And you can customize them, add equipment, all that sort of stuff! There's even whole entire missions focused around them, too! A full writeup on vehicles can be found on the official site.

The cash shop ones cost $16.50.:toot:

:siren:The Batman NIGHT AVENGER patch has gone live! (8/28):siren:
Filling an obvious hole in the prior Champions Online power scheme, the patch adds an assortment of utility-gadget style powers, such as a complete assortment of boomerang attacks (and energy builder!), some smoke/gas grenade powers, and so on. It also changes how Stealth worked in the system. Instead of being a somewhat useless power on its own, it's now an offensive passive that include a toggled stealth that deactivates temporarily when you attack or otherwise show yourself and a high-damage ambush-style attack, all in one power pick. A lot of the new powers interact with it as well, or have advantages that make them interact, often doing more damage when used from stealth. In addition there's other related content, like alerts, costumes, and vehicle powers you can buy on the c-store.

Silver players aren't left out in the cold too; there's the Night Avenger hybrid archetype that was released with it.

:siren:Massive changes to the game happened!:siren:
If you've played sometime in the past, a lot of central game systems have changed for the better. If you have a high-level character, you'll definitely be respeccing, and you'll probably need to spend a little time regearing. What's changed? Well, in no particular order...
  • Questionite Exchange: If you've played Star Trek Online recently, this is basically identical to the Dilithium Exchange in that game. You gain ore from doing certain things in game, notably the new daily alerts and all the adventure packs and comic series missions, and can refine a certain amount of it per day into metal, which can be spent either on in-game items (such as travel powers and costume pieces) or converted directly into Cryptic Points. Similarly, you can convert CP into questionite metal if you want a shortcut to some questionite-based reward. The exact ratio will likely vary over time, and someone who's patient can potentially make a profit simply by investing wisely. More importantly, it means the game can now be almost fully free, as anything that can be purchased through cryptic points can now eventually be acquired through in-game resources!
  • Changes to stats and roles: Roles are roughly similar to how they were, but are given clearer names (Ranged Damage, Tank, etc.), but now have fewer penalties and effect how your super stats work; the damage roles give you higher damage from your stats, the support role gives you bonus healing from your stats, and so on. The stats themselves have changed as well; players now have three super stats, one primary and two secondary, the latter having half the bonus of the primary. This makes some builds easier and others harder than before. In addition, stats have different bonuses. Ego no longer interacts with crit and no gives bonus ranged damage, like Strength gives to melee attacks. Presence is a pure healing stat, and no longer affects threat. Dex is back to being a purely crit-focused stat. And the damage and healing bonuses from stats are now soft caps, rather than hard caps, so, say, a bruiser with high Strength is going to have more extra damage.
  • A new Specialization system: Essentially? The talent point system from many other games, such as WoW and TOR. There's four tiers to it, a basic one based off your chosen super stat, two tiers based of roles that you can select from, and a top-tier talent related to the prior three that gives a large static bonus. Note that silver characters are fixed in their tree options, even if they can still choose where to spend talents, but gold characters can choose different trees; this isn't immediately obvious, so be sure to click the arrows before you finalize your choices.
  • The Recognition system: If you've played TOR, this is roughly similar to the planet commendations. If you haven't, in essence you collect medals during specific leveling bands of play (1-10, 11-20, etc), both as random item drops from enemies and as a reward option from quests. You can spend these medals on various rewards, typically things like costume pieces you'd find on enemies in that specific leveling band; note that most of these are also available as rare drops and many can be found cheaply on the AH, so double check first before you spend your medals. It's a good idea to choose medals as rewards while leveling as well as random item drops are usually sufficient to gear a character while leveling.
  • Alerts: Something of a mix between public quests and a public LFG system. They're visible next to the minimap, and if you click one, you get sent into a quest area with other players, and have to do... something, depending on the Alert type. Grab alerts are things like stopping villains from robbing a bank, Smash alerts are a straight up combat event, and Burst alerts are similar to Smash but have unusual environmental variables such as natural disasters. The nemesis' of any PC present can appear during an alert, as well as occasionally various feature characters. Completing them gives various rewards, such as questionite ore. Note that events can be timed, and you can grab additional daily quests for them from Socrates terminals.
  • Mods and Fusion: The item system has been drastically changed as well. Certain types of gear can now accept modifications; think like jewelcrafting in WoW, or item mods in TOR. The item can have up to three modification slots, and mods themselves have no level restrictions, though modded gear can't be used before level 15. More importantly, the old crafting system has basically been torn out and repurposed, and now relates to fusing mods together to rank them up and make them new and better. It isn't clearly explained, so remember, fusing mods unrelated to your crafting skills has higher costs and less rewards, so try and stick to your native skills when you can. All your old stacks of crafting material crap have probably been converted to stacks of modding crap, so be sure to give it a try.
  • Adventure packs are now free for everyone!: Rejoice, silver players!



Okay, that's cool. But why should I play this game? It's free, it can't be good, right?
On the contrary! Despite a somewhat... shaky launch, Champions Online is perhaps one of the most fun MMORPGs to actually play right now, and has been improving constantly since release. In fact, it has several things that other MMOs don't, or don't do as well.
  • Action! It's much faster paced than most WoW-style MMOs. While there's an autoattack, it rapidly builds energy to use on other attacks, giving a sort of ebb and flow to combat that works really well in practice. Characters have high mobility, powers are generally very responsive, and you can even set it up with shooter-style or 360-controller-operated controls. Downtime is basically unheard of; even if the inspirations (buffs) enemies drop don't heal you up, it takes all of ten seconds or less to heal to full even without. You can go at an incredibly fast pace if you like.
  • Customization! There's basically no other MMO that can really compare. The only game that really comes close is City of Heroes (which Cryptic also did), but its older and uglier and generally has less flexibility due to when it was made. If you want to a cyborg gorilla in a top hat, go for it.
  • Naming! It might not sound like a big deal, but names aren't reserved like they are in other games and instead "Character@Account", with the latter hidden in-game outside of chat. Since superhero games live and breathe on building around a specific concept and that plausible character names are often real words and relatively simple, this makes it so much easier to make whatever random concept you want.
  • Chatting! The chat servers are shared with Star Trek Online's, meaning if you have friends there you can keep in touch while playing ChampO, and vice versa! ... Okay, it's not that big a plus, but it's something.
  • Nemesis! You can make your own super-villain opponent once you hit 25 and fight them all the way to the endgame. Their look, powers, and even their minions are all selectable just in case you didn't think there were enough options back during chargen.
  • Fun! ChampO is not one of those DARQUE and SERIOUS games that are still dumb as rocks by try to hide it. ChampO embraces the comic book feel, and you'll be surrounded by bad voice acting, corny writing, and enemy groups that include things like "singing robot cowboys", "radioactive sharkmen", and "HYDRA COBRA VIPER". You'll be rolling your eyes constantly! Seriously this is a plus.
  • Free! Sign up, download the game, and get to it. As mentioned above, you can get from level one to the level cap without paying a dime.
Okay though, that all sounds good. But what's the catch?
You had to ask, huh? While I have a great deal of love for ChampO, there's no point in mis-representing the game. You'll either appreciate it for what it is, or be disinterested quickly. But that's why it's free, right?
  • Bugs. As much as ChampO has improved Cryptic still has a fairly small team on the game, and there's some persistent animation, targeting, and mission bugs that can occasionally annoy. I haven't seen anything game-ending, but you'll occasionally get taken out of the flow.
  • Not very MMO. Champions Online ultimately does not heavily encourage grouping, and pretty much all content can be beaten by a properly-built solo character. Lairs (group dungeons) are the only things really designed for a group, as everything else (including the Mission Packs and Comic Series) scale down to the solo level. Whether this is really a flaw depends on how you approach MMOs; personally I like the lack of any sort of "must raid!" pressure, but if you're the type who thrives on co-op and group action you'll probably have difficulty.
  • Easy. A properly-build freeform character can basically steamroll everything in their path, and the death penalty is minor enough to be nearly unnoticeable (about 10% less damage/healing after you've died often enough). It's only to be expected; there's so many variables in chargen that if Cryptic tried to balance around the top end it'd be nearly impossible for newbies. Archetypes have a rougher time of things as they aren't designed in super-twinky manners, but for the most part if you want challenge you're mostly looking a Elite difficulty instances or Lairs.

Okay, I'm in, and there's a billion options. How do I make a character that doesn't suck?
If you're a free player, this one's pretty easy; there's Archetypes. Think of them basically as "classes" like in most other MMOs, pre-made builds along certain power themes ("big strong guy", "fire controller", etc). Unlike freeform builds, these are locked into certain roles, tank or support or DPS with the powers and chosen super stats to aid in that role. You have a few power choices along the way, and the choice of power Advantages are all yours. Even gold characters can use archetypes, and if you're completely overwhelmed you may want to try one. Except the Mind. Because it sucks. Some Archetypes, generally those released after the game went F2P, cost an extra fee if you're a silver player; gold players get all the Archetypes free however since you could just make them yourself with a freeform character. Also note that archetype characters don't have any choices in how they spend their specializations, as their trees are pre-chosen, but can still spec as desired within these trees.
  • Tank (Protector):
    The Behemoth (Might)
    The Glacier (Ice)
    The Master* (Unarmed)
    The Mountain* (Earth)
    The Invincible* (Powered Armor)
  • Melee DPS (Brawler):
    The Blade (Single Blade)
    The Devastator* (Heavy Weapons)
    The Disciple* (Telekinesis (Swords))
    The Fist* (Unarmed)
    The Jedi Unleashed (Dual Blades/Force)
  • Balanced (Guardian):
    The Grimoire (Sorcery)
    The Void* (Darkness)
    The Specialist* (Dual Pistols/Dual Blades)
    The Savage* (Bestial Supernatural)
    The Impulse* (Force)
    The Night Avenger* (Gadgeteering/Martial Arts)
  • Ranged DPS (Avenger):
    The Inferno (Fire)
    The Soldier (Munitions)
    The Marksman (Archery)
    The Tempest* (Electricity)
    The Scourge/Cursed* (Infernal)
    The Squall* (Wind)
  • Support (Sentinel):
    The Mind (Telepathy)
    The Radiant (Sorcery/Celestial)
    The Inventor* (Gadgeteering)
*Italicized archetypes cost money, either by subscription access or by C-store purchase.

But I have a subscription! What about Freeform characters?
A lot of people get overworked about these, since there's so many options available. While there are helpful guides around on the official forums and elsewhere, a better idea would be to understand how the powersets are put together, and what you really need in a character. In general if you're inexperienced you'll want to pick a powerset and mostly stick to it, at least until the 20's; this gets you higher-level powers quicker, and the support powers in the set are guaranteed to enhance your attacks and such. What do you really need on a character though?
  • The right superstats.
    What are the right superstats? Well, that depends on the powerset you chose. In general, the stats that the related innate talent associated with your main powerset are usually what you'll want to take, but it's something to experiment with if you want. Whatever your superstats are they'll raise your damage so you always want them fairly high, but you don't want to neglect other stats either. Note that some stats are quite obviously intended for certain sorts of builds; melee combatants are probably going to want some strength, ranged combatants some ego, and so on. With the recent major changes, characters now get three superstats, one primary and two secondary, so it's a little easier to make choices. Note that your primary stat affects the basic specialization tree you get as well.
  • A good single-target attack.
    While not always really necessary, you're going to be fighting a lot of harder targets (supervillains, legendaries, etc) as you go up in levels, and having ways to whittle them down quickly is good. Every set gets a basic single-target attack at first level in addition to their energy builder, but for the most part these get obsoleted by later attacks in their tree. You can respec out of these attacks, and while it isn't required, sometimes you're better off grabbing a different single-target attack in the set or an early AoE power instead. It's something to experiment with in the powerhouse. If you're planning on tanking, or even just soloing most of the time, having a single-target attack with Crippling Challenge is a good idea. It's costly, but massive debuff the target's damage and breaks through blocks.
  • A good area attack.
    This one is pretty obvious. Most of the time while leveling you're going to be blowing up minions. The faster they die, the safer you are and the quicker you level. While not every powerset is equal here, in general you want something with no cooldown since many enemies (even many minions) can stun and interrupt. Personally I strongly prefer cone-based attacks like Submachinegun Burst or Fire Breath for minion-wasting since you can use them at range and the enemies are less likely to run out of the effect, but almost any sort of AoE is good. If you have a melee AoE, get used to finding out which enemies are ranged-focused and head to them, so the rest of the minions dive into your whirlwind of blades anyway as they try to melee you meanwhile.
  • A slotted passive power.
    This is critical, and one of the things that defines a powerset. It doesn't really matter if you choose an offensive or defensive passive for leveling, as enemies die quickly enough and frankly the game isn't very hard, but it can matter later on depending on what roles you prefer. One advantage to defensive powers is that they're set-agnostic, although some get bonuses from certain stats; if you have a lot of Con, Defiance is going to make you nigh-invulnerable regardless of whether you're Super Strength or Sorcery. In most situations, a defensive passive is probably your best bet, especially if you're new or inexperienced.
    Offensive passives are a little trickier, as you'll need to match the damage types of your attacks to what they boost. In general, this simply means just taking the passive the set provides, but sometimes there's other options. Munitions can make good use of Targeting Computer (from powered armor), Kinetic Manipulation (from Force), or Quarry (from Archery), each specializing in slightly different bonuses. Fire, Ice, and Infernal Supernatural can all make use of Firey Form and Ice Form to boost their damage, and anyone can use Infernal's Pestilence (but shouldn't, because it sucks). Sorcery has no less than four different passives of its own that buff groups, but they can also make use of Shadow Form and Seraphim to boost their damage. And this is just a sample of some of the potential crossovers; it's a fun thing to experiment with once you have some practice.
    Note that while you can only use one slotted passive power at once, you can own multiple. There's nothing stopping a Might character from switching between Unstoppable and Defiance depending on whether they're tanking or DPSing, and there's nothing preventing a Sorcerer from swapping from Shadow Form to Aura of Radiant Protection when they get in a group. This is something to experiment with in the endgame though; don't worry about it while leveling.
  • Your set's buff power(s).
    Most powersets have some sort of passive buff or toggle besides their slotted passive power. Most of the ranged sets have an Energy Regen passive power that boosts your energy when you score a crit, or set people on fire, or something set-appropriate. You'll almost always want these early on (possibly even before the slotted passive), but make a note of what stat boosts its effects. Melee sets on the other hand tend to have Toggled powers that boost their damage and provide other bonuses, such as further damage increases when you knock enemies back or stacks of a buff that gives energy and increases damage. You'll generally want these early on too.
  • A block power.
    Unlike the above, this is not quite as critical. In fact I wouldn't even buy one until the 20's. But you'll definitely want one eventually; they give you bonuses or spread debuffs, and the extra resistance while blocking is critical for some of the harder encounters later on. Some block powers (such as Force Shield, Parry, and Energy Shield) have advantages that let them linger on after you block or grant large defensive bonuses; even if they're expensive, these are usually worth the cost.
And... that's it really. Once you have those, you're basically "set"; everything else is further fleshing out an already competent character. This may look like a lot of words, but all I've really done is explain what to do with five or six powers... out of the fourteen a freeform character gets. What do you do with the rest? That's up to you! You'll probably want some sort of healing or shielding power, such as Bountiful Chi Resurgence (and its advantage Resurgent Reiki) if you have a power that grants a dodge bonus; Bionic Shielding or Protection Field are also good choices. Inertial Dampening Field from Force is quite handy too, if you don't mind the endurance cost of running it; the flat damage reduction will basically neuter a lot of minions, especially if you have a slotted defense buff. If your powerset causes certain debuffs, look for powers that exploit them; Feral Supernatural causes a lot of bleeds, so Reaper's Embrace (from Single Blade, which does massive damage to bleeding targets) is a good choice.

Don't be afraid to experiment. Even cross-set builds can work fine, if you have passive buffs that support them! If you don't know where to begin there, take a look at Quarry and Defiance, as both powers are set-agnostic regarding what they boost. If you need more in-depth advice, fellow goon Bluhman has done posts explaining the individual powersets and stat choices in greater detail. Note that many of the powersets have changed or had additions and revisions since the guides were written, but the general advice can still be useful.

So. Uh. Skip the spam. What doesn't work?
The balance in ChampO (well, in PVE anyway) is better than it's ever been after the F2P patch, but there's still some sets that need... work. Archery, Fighting Claws, and Telepathy are currently the weakest sets in game right now. Archery is basically explicitly inferior to Munitions at the moment, and many of its powers have cooldowns (problematic with enemies that stun/knockback), although it has several powers (Quarry, Evasive Maneuvers) that work well with other sets. Fighting Claws is explicitly inferior to the other martial arts sets; it has absolutely no AoE (besides Inexorable Tides, which all MA sets share) and its Form is generally weaker than the rest. Dragon's Claws is the only power in the set worth taking, and it can be taken by other MA characters. And Telepathy is a dedicated support and crowd control character in a game filled to the brim with tankmages and where crowd control is weak enough to be nearly useless. There's not much else to say about it; it doesn't even have a toggle passive, and is in desperate need of review.

Telekinesis and Power Armor have some problems too. Telekinesis is basically weaker than the other melee sets and has some problematic powers; fortunately there's a large patch on the test realm (as of this writing) and it will likely come out a lot better. Power Armor meanwhile works perfectly fine, but the fact the powers work differently than others (being toggled for the most part, and mutually exclusive in use with non-toggled attacks) means it plays really, really poorly with other powersets. Power Armor's buffs are really good, but you want to stay far, far away from its attacks unless you're a dedicated PA build.

Despite my warnings, all of these powersets still work perfectly fine in game. You can and will be able to hit max level, likely with ease. They just aren't as good or have similar competing sets that work better in practice. It's just something to consider if you're a minmax sort.

I hit the endgame! Now what?
Roll an alt. No really. If you're a gold subscriber, you get a free alt slot for getting a character to 40.

That isn't good enough? Well, to be honest Champions Online has always been a little sparse here, but as time has gone along they've been adding more endgame content, or group-focused content that works at every level. There's Lairs, such as facing off against the angel Therakiel or going against your nemesis. More recently however have been the adventure packs! More in-depth than a mission and longer than a lair while scaling in size and reward to the size of your team, they're quite fun and can be replayed as much as four times per day if you're so inclined. As of the latest patch, these are now free for silver players too!
  • Serpent Lantern!
    Face off against VIPER and their supernatural allies! The first adventure pack and probably the weakest, but it does have several interesting gimmick boss encounters, and the largest percentage of bind-on-equip drops, if you had an urge to go farming.
  • Demonflame!
    The world is in danger! Face off against Luther Black and his DEMON organization, and stop him from gaining the powers of the Kings of Edom! A much better paced romp than Serpent Lantern, taking place in both Millennium City and the Qliphothic Realm (think "magic hell dimension"). The final encounters present a bit of challenge too.
  • Resistance!
    Travel to a parallel dimension to defeat Shadow Destroyer it was the alternate-universe Defender all along while gaining help from an unlikely ally it's Dr. Destroyer! The most complex of the mission packs, and it shows where the developers are starting to get into the swing of scripting encounters. And there are some big surprises in store at the end you ride a giant robot!
Beyond that, Cryptic's started doing with ChampO what they tried with Star Trek Online, having weekly mission releases that play into a larger story arc. Unlike the Adventure packs, Comic Series are available to everyone for free, including silver players. There's only one currently, but Cryptic's mentioned plans to tie the missions together into a seamless Adventure Pack-style whole once it's done.
  • Aftershock!
    A sort of sequel to the Demonflame adventure pack. The heroes head to aid an UNTIL base in North Africa, only to find that things have gone horribly wrong inside, and are drawn into the Qliphothic Realm once more! In addition to the boss drops, there's the potential for other awards (such as Sidekick devices) if you succeed at optional objectives.
  • Whiteout!
    It's in Canada, there's aliens. Several interesting puzzle-based missions, as well as good old fashioned brawling with shapeshifting aliens, complete with a unique boss fight at the end! Bonus: a cameo from your Nemesis.
Any other tricks or things to know?
If you're a Gold player, sign up for the Public Test Realm. In addition to the obvious chances to mess around with patches before they're launched, you can :siren:try out C-store purchases at no cost:siren:. While most of them are pretty obvious in what you get, the fact there's no refunds for C-store purchases is probably enough motivation to test things out there instead. You can even try out builds and the like, as there's an NPC outside of the Millennium City powerhouse that will boost your level (to any multiple of 5, anyway.)

If you want a gold subscription cheap, go and buy a retail box. They're only $5 or so these days from Amazon, Best Buy, and the like, and even if you have an active account they give you a month free. Quite a bargain. Note however that you can only activate a key from any particular retailer once, so don't go and buy ten boxes from Amazon or something equally dumb.

When you save a costume, it actually saves it as a jpg file, with the costume's data in the image's metadata. This means you can browse your costume gallery quickly (even if the actual image is low-quality, to keep file size down), and also easily upload and share them if people ask.

What's that about a weapon draw macro?
Normally there's no way to pose with your weapons drawn, if you're a powerset that uses them. Despite there being pose and walk animations for weapon powers, usually they automatically get sheathed/vanish a few seconds after using an attack power. But! There is one (probably a bug, but an unfixed one) method of avoiding this. First, add:

/bind KEY PowersCancelAllActivations

Of course replacing "KEY" with an actual... key on your keyboard you'd use. (Do I really have to clarify that?) Then all you need to do is get your weapons drawn normally; doesn't have to be in combat, you can just wail on a destructable object or something. Hit your key (let's say F12 for this). Then activate the power again, and hit the key again. So basically, use it twice in quick succession. This confuses the game a bit, and hooray, your weapon stays out. It may take a few tries to get the timing down though; if you're having trouble, wait a few seconds between attempts so you aren't messing up an otherwise successful go. It also only lasts until you activate an attack power again, but the only point of this is to prance around a costume contest or something so hey.

Upcoming releases!
Unfortunately, while Cryptic used to keep a Calendar on the official site listing upcoming releases, they've since stopped this since being bought by Perfect World. Any upcoming info has to be found off their official forums, twitter, or similar methods these days. In general though, Cryptic is basically the anti-Blizzard in terms of updates, favoring smaller but more frequent content additions, especially since the F2P patch has given them lots of :10bux:. If it's been a while since something's been added, there's probably a larger patch en route.

Outside links:
  • Champion Builder: A program allowing you test builds out. Somewhat superfluous these days since gold accounts can use the test realm and silver accounts are limited to archetypes, but it's potentially handy still.
  • The official manual: This doesn't really exist in hardcopy, and is somewhat outdated and useless these days, but it's worth a read for new players anyway just to see what features you may be missing out on.
  • Champions Online Wiki: It's a bit spotty in its coverage of mission content, and some information on it is out of date, but there's not much competition for info sites at the moment.
  • Ultra Fighting Team Millennia Ranger:: Here it is! Recorded by Songbearer. This happened way early in the game's life, the supergroup broke up after the goonrush lost steam (to the best of my knowledge), and the bug that allowed for a GIANT ROBOT has since been fixed. :dealwithit:
Some screenshots, just for the sake of it!


Asimo fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Jun 22, 2013

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Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Reposted for new thread!

Most Costume contests are dumb. The categories are dumb and the people who host them often choose their friends and well known players.

They're outdoing us, people. We can be dumb. We're good at dumb. Bluhman has generously offered to bankroll a Goon costume contest with 3 prizes of 100g (Or more with smaller prizes if we get a lot of good ideas, I guess?)

The idea is currently that we come up with a bunch of really dumb and/or extremely restrictive categories that we do not announce beforehand. Then when everyone is gathered, we announce them one by one. "Okay everyone, for the next round please switch to your Breast Cancer Awareness costumes" etc. It doesn't have to all be one way either, we can mix it up. If a joke works better being named after the winner is chosen that's fine too.

Alternately if we don't get enough good categories we have the old standby of Worst (Which of course you only announce after the winners have been chosen and named.)

So share your themes, and any other ideas you might have (Example: The Lightning round. The judges run down the contestants lines with Superspeed, not stopping to look at anyone along the way.)


Edit: Jan has pledged another 100g.
jjac has offered 100g.
delfin has offered "some hundreds".


Some ideas from SG chat:
Costume that most makes me hungry for a Quizno's sub. Chicken Carbonara ONLY.
Costume most reminiscent of my fallen idol Jimi Hendrix RP'd by teenage superhero Purple Haze
Female costume most likely to be created by a male
A talent round
A Q&A round
Most likely to make me go watch Twin Peaks for a 5th time
Best Hulk/Iron Man costume. No clones.
Costume that best represents the number I was thinking of
Best Demon Device costume (Or any other device)
Best Millenia Ranger homage
Costume Edward Cullen would choose second over Bella
Costume that most closely resembles the score to the film The Titanic
Best use of costume piece 'bare hands'
Costume that makes the dead pixel in the middle of my screen turn the prettiest color
Best costume whose theme song could be 'No Rain' by Blind Melon
Best homage to Rainbow Unicorn Attack
Costume I closed my eyes and pointed to
Costume I would buy if it went on sale but not at full price
Miming
Corny Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Romance Novel Covers (Emphasis on CORNY)
Lords and Ladies FROM SPAAAAACE
Foxbat's #1 Fan
Manimal Hunter
Slendermen and Women (Tall, thin, long-limbed costumes)
MAXXXX mass/height slider
gently caress the Ocean
Cosplay Disasters
Snake Gulch Park Employee
Most Likely to Appear in a Sex Offender Registry
Rocket-Powered Hobos
IT CAME FROM CLUB CAPRICE
Famous Historical Figures Made Appealing to Anime Nerds
The Bitter Taste of Defeat and Lime (Neon Green color scheme)
Free/Silver Costume Pieces ONLY (no unlockables either)
Rejected VIPER Armor Suit Designs
Bootleg Versions of Famous Heroes
A Tribute to Rob Liefeld
Closest Resemblance to Abe Vigoda
Most Likely to Perform at Eurovision
Person Who Gives the Judges the Largest Bribe
Denied Entrance To Club Caprice Because, C'mon, Seriously, Look At You
Largest Disconnect Between Character Name and Appearance
Most Punchable Face / Costume
Best 1960s-1970s Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Character so totally rigged for El Kabong
Best Combination of Antlers and Necktie
Most Likely to Have Been Shoved Into a Locker in High School
Best Powered Armor Suit with a Monocle
Capt. Thalidomide's Hall of Fame
Best Charlie Sheen
Best Philandering President
Best Zombie Billie Mays
Best Board Game Character caught in a strip club
Best-Dressed Farm Animal
Best Arnold Movie Character in a Comedy
Best Casey/Caylee Anthony (too soon?)
Most accurate A-Team
Closest Eric Estrada during CHIPs
Best Simultaneous Parody of Hulk & Deadpool
Best Nightmare On Sesame St.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


My vote is "character that most closely resembles their player".

Also: The dark ages costume set is apparently missing a part or two, you may want to hold off there if this is important.

Did the last mission of Aftershock, and it's pretty fun. Not very long, maybe twenty minutes, and heavily boss-focused. In fact, it's nothing but boss encounters, three of them, although one is in a "vehicle" and the last is a team-based battle against multiple supervillains. If you don't have an overpowered defense-based build, you may want to prepare a little ahead of time. The special reward this time is a headpiece a Crown of Edom, naturally, nothing too exciting by itself but it has a little particle effect to go with it.

Asimo fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Jul 7, 2011

delfin
Dec 5, 2003

SNATTER'S ALIVE?!?!

Asimo posted:

My vote is "character that most closely resembles their player".

I'm really hoping I don't win that.

Try not to stare.
You'll believe a groin can fly.
These supervillains don't go off unless you hit them JUUUUST right
The costume randomizer: the greatest thing
Though sometimes the randomness is deliberate.
Paint chips: America's snack
Bringing sexy back.
Don't forget that you get multiple costume slots per character. Is today a green day or a blue day?

Who's collecting the costume fund resources?

delfin fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Jul 8, 2011

Bluhman
Nov 7, 2009

Low morale causes the golems to dance in panic.
The OP link to the CO-Wiki also goes to the manual page. Just pointing out.

I'll also post a few advice tips for each of the elemental projector sets, while I'm here, each centering around getting the most damage out of each:

Fire

- The main multi-target combo for fire is Fireball(with Unstable Accelerant) and Conflagration. Fireball is a fairly potent AoE burst-damage blast, but is also a bit high on energy and slow to fire. With the advantage, though, it weakens the fire defense of the targets it hits. Meanwhile, Conflagration is a fairly damaging AoE with good energy usage and a wide hit radius. Combined with Fireball's defense-weakening mechanism, Conflagration does serious damage, even if you're not using an Offensive passive.
- To backup fireball, Fire Snake is another good choice for wearing down enemy defense. An interesting thing to note about Firesnake, though, is that it actually reduces enemy defense against all elemental damage, so even an Ice or Infernal build can benefit from it.
- Pyre and Flashfire are close relatives, and behave somewhat similarly; Pyre is a point-blank AoE fire explosion that, if fully charged, creates a burning patch of ground. Flashfire creates the burning patch directly underneath an enemy instantaneously, but also has a cooldown, so you can't use it rapidly. These moves are less critical for their damage, and much more that they apply the clinging flames debuff with great probability, meaning if you're using Thermal Reverberation, an energy return move that works off of burning enemies, these two moves are quite critical to keeping your energy up. Pyre is very useful for tank-type characters, while Flashfire can pretty much be used by anyone.

Electricity

- If you're going to focus on using electrical attacks, it's imperative you pick up Ionic Reverberation,the electric energy return mechanic, as electric attacks are very endurance heavy. At the same time, most electric attacks apply the Negative Ions debuff fairly regularly, which means that you'll have a very good chance of getting energy back with this the more electric attacks you use.
- For multi-target damage, it has to be Gigabolt. In the past, this move used to be stupid powerful, outdamaging pretty much any other electric move. In addition, it also used to be an endless feedback loop of Ionic Reverberation energy returns as it has a very high chance (50%) of applying Negative Ions on multiple targets. Now, since the rate of energy return on Ion-Reverb has been tweaked, you can't really do that anymore, but if you have the energy to do it, Gigabolt spamming can total most enemy mobs very quickly. If you're concerned about aggroing mobs behind the current mob you're targeting with Gigabolt, you might want to also look into Lightning Storm; while not nearly as outright damaging, it's a lot more sustainable and won't ever accidentally hit enemies further away than you want to hit.
- Your best bet for single-target damage is Lightning Arc. On first glance, it's a fairly unassuming attack that does moderate damage to a single target that ramps up over time. If the target you are hitting with it is afflicted with Negative Ions, however, the damage ticks increase fairly substantially. By the end of a maintain of Lightning Arc, you'll be hitting your target for Gigabolt-spam damage levels, with way more energy efficiency, as the Ionic Reverb kicks in.
- While it isn't strictly required for a good Elec build, Thunderstrike is a great choice for a PvE alpha strike, as it hits for great damage in a tight circle. If fully charged, every target it hits will be afflicted with Negative Ions, allowing you to use your other main combat attacks with more energy return.

Ice

- Ice isn't really built entirely for damage, focusing a lot more on holding and freezing enemies. However, there is one standout power: Avalanche is the Ice equivalent to fire's conflagration and electricity's lightning storm, hitting for devastating damage in a wide circle. If you're focusing your character on Dexterity, taking the advantage of Serrated Shards is a must (Checking with an outside source, they say you need a 40% crit chance and a 100% severity for Serrated Shards to be effective vs. Rank 3.)
- Most of the damage gotten out of ice was achieved by using Shatter after summoning up ice structures like Ice Barriers or Ice Walls, back before Avalanche was introduced. Though good burst damage, it's a fairly complex setup, and really is a lot less straightforward than just avalanching everything to death.
- If you're set on going with ice, you'll actually find one of the simplest ways to get good single-target damage out is by using Ice Blast + Hard Frost: Since chill is a fairly common debuff applied by your build, using Hard Frost very well takes advantage of this, making even taps of this attack a reliable source of damage.

Force

- Force is also not a pure-damage build, coming out as the all-rounder of the elemental projector sets. The one big-hitter of Force, however, is the Force Cascade; a gigantic, super-damaging blast wave of damage. The big downside of this move is that it is extremely costly in terms of energy; it's nothing like Gigabolt, which you can just repeatedly fire off to do damage. In order to get the most out of the cascade, you need to have high energy reserves and a way to get an energy form. I actually wouldn't suggest you use Kinetic Manipulation at all with a Force-Cascade centric build, as it offers little to no support in terms of energy handling. Instead, take Quarry, as the intelligence stacking will severely improve your energy efficiency. Mind that this doesn't count as an energy form, so on one hand, you'll not be able to fire off a fully charged cascade by default, but on the other, you won't lose your primary damage buffs once you fire a shot off. To alleviate your lack of energy form, you should take active click powers which enable them, such as Immolate or Field Surge. Probably the most reliable and quick way to get a nice, simple Energy form activated is to take the advantage on Force Bolts: Energy Refraction, as the mini-shield it generates does count as an energy form and will allow you to fire off a good shot of your cascade.
-While I'm here, I might as well also discuss the big cherrypicker power of force: Inertial Dampening Field. IDF acts like a miniature version of invulnerability's flat damage mitigation, making rapid hitting, low damage attacks a lot less daunting. Especially in solo play, the effect is noticeable in making your character quite a bit more hardy, and if your build already is handling energy well, tacking IDF onto it wouldn't be a bad idea at all. Also, don't rank it up. The difference between R1 and R3 IDF's is roughly 12 damage, which is utterly miniscule. Just take it, toggle it, love it.
-Speaking of energy, Force also hones one of the most valuable blocks in the game for characters who need extra energy: Force Shield + Force Sheath. In addition to generating more energy when taking hits while blocking, the advantage makes the energy-return on hit mechanic extend for a while after you're done blocking. If you enter battles right after tapping the block key, you can build energy that way alongside your normal energy builder and other energy return mechanics.

E:

Asimo posted:

Power Armor meanwhile works perfectly fine, but the fact the powers work differently than others (being toggled for the most part, and mutually exclusive in use with non-toggled attacks) means it plays really, really poorly with other powersets. Power Armor's buffs are really good, but you want to stay far, far away from its attacks unless you're a dedicated PA build.
This is true for pretty much all the PA attacks. However, Chest Beam is a very notable exception, as its high energy cost, powerful blast, and defense debuff make it actually really versatile for other characters. I have a robotic might tank that uses it, and he does absurd damage with that combined with demolish; he could probably outdamage some of my Blaster/Scrapper type characters while both defense debuffs are up.

Now with pictures. And a few spelling corrections.

Bluhman fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Oct 31, 2011

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

It should probably be noted that Unstable Accelerant applies on tap, so midfight you don't have to wait for the long charge.

The second picture in the OP, after the lizard in bondage gear, is what Gigabolt looks like. Gigabolt is awesome, use it.

Bluhman posted:

This is true for pretty much all the PA attacks. However, Chest Beam is a very notable exception, as its high energy cost, powerful blast, and defense debuff make it actually really versatile for other characters. I have a robotic might tank that uses it, and he does absurd damage with that combined with demolish; he could probably outdamage some of my Blaster/Scrapper type characters while both defense debuffs are up.

Laser Sword is another.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Bluhman posted:

The OP link to the CO-Wiki also goes to the manual page. Just pointing out.
It works fine to me! I have no idea what you're talking about. See for yourself! :tinfoil:

Dammit.

Also, Bluhman's tips are excellent. But yeah, I should clarify; the toggled Power Armor attacks don't play nice with other sets, but the non-toggled ones are fine to play around with. Only real downside is particle damage is only boosted by a few other offense passives; aside from the generic damage boosts like Targetting Computer and Quarry, I think it's just Electic Form?

If you really want to take advantage of Shatter, Frost Breath and its advantage is the quickest way to stack chilled, and after two or three ticks you're almost guaranteed to have most of the enemies in nice and destroyable frost cages. Still more setup than most energy sets though.

Asimo fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Jul 8, 2011

RUM HAM
Sep 25, 2009

My costume dump (click for bigs, posting for the new thread):

The costume creator is easily my favorite part of the game. Let me know if you'd like me to put together a concept for you - I can't get enough of creating new costumes and will soon run out of alt slots. D=

Crimecock:


Air Raid Siren:


Droid Mayweather Jr.:


Shock Lobster:


Techlar (feat. Gauntlet chainsaw):


Bottom:


Captain Asinine:


The Union Jackhammer:


MANTIS:


The Astro Glider:


Special Ed:


Robbin Da Hood:

J3ng4
Nov 22, 2006

Bitches love my tool time
I fully support this game. Goons have the best ideas for heroes, and they'll answer any question you've got. I don't play too often but it's refreshing when I do, none of this raid schedule "be here at X time" type of things, or bust your rear end for gear. Plus the city is fun to swing around in.

J3ng4 fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Jul 8, 2011

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

The Supergroup rename function is the best.

Crocoswine
Aug 20, 2010

Category ideas:

Boo Radley
Biography With the Most Cliches
Plaid
Most Racist Depiction of a Minority
Angst Angst Angst Angst
Most Expensive Costume (Costume with the most premium parts)
Creepiest Fetish
Most Similar to the Basic Costume

randombattle
Oct 16, 2008

This hand of mine shines and roars! It's bright cry tells me to grasp victory!



I can win any costume contest with the amazing Shaden Von Onyxdarkblack!

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Some observations on Headquarters, having played around with multiple ones on the test server:

Each character gets their "own" HQ. You still have to own/purchase the "type" of HQ to have access to it, but you can pick different options for different characters. For example, say you only had the "Cave" HQ. One character could have a cave with rusted metal and 60's tech, another could have a volcano lair, and another could have a jungle cave with an open roof, all without paying extra. If you wanted a Moonbase for a character though, then you'd need to buy it.

The different bases have differing amounts of customization, partly due to I suspect some being more completed than others. The Cave has the most by far, with the Sanctum and Moonbase being roughly similar, and the Basement having almost none at all, with most options being "default" or "nothing here". I imagine it'll be fleshed out later, but if you're concerned about that sort of thing don't pick it.

Of course, that's what you get for living in mom's basement. :chord:

Also yes, low gravity is an option for the moonbase.

whatspeakyou
Mar 3, 2010

no fucks given.

FlyinPingu posted:

Category ideas:
Most Racist Depiction of a Minority

I saw a black guy with a afro, tattered clothes, and a rope belt with the name "Obsolete Farm Equipment" last night. He wins.

whatspeakyou
Mar 3, 2010

no fucks given.

J3ng4 posted:

I fully support this game. Goons have the best ideas for heroes, and they'll answer any question you've got. I don't play too often but it's refreshing when I do, none of this raid schedule "be here at X time" type of things, or bust your rear end for gear. Plus the city is fun to swing around in.

This game really is the best for "gently caress around all day" and the CCs are the best to crash with crazy characters. I think I showed up to one two weeks ago as a ned flanders hulk character named Hulkily Dokily.

Edoraz
Nov 20, 2007

Takin ova da world :cool:

randombattle posted:



I can win any costume contest with the amazing Shaden Von Onyxdarkblack!

Hahaha, what the hell is going on here?

rocketrobot
Jul 11, 2003

Edoraz posted:

Hahaha, what the hell is going on here?

Looks like all glowy costume pieces turned up to 11.

Tsurupettan
Mar 26, 2011

My many CoX, always poised, always ready, always willing to thrust.

I'm working on a character perfect for the Basement hideout: Orangefinger, the Space Elf Samurai High Technomagelord. Or, at least he is in his tabletop game. I want him to use a katana, and various magic/technology based pets, but I'm not sure where to start on powers. It feels weird mixing melee ability with stuff like pets/ranged abilities. There's a metric poo poo ton of pets to go around.

Bluhman
Nov 7, 2009

Low morale causes the golems to dance in panic.

Tsurupettan posted:

I'm working on a character perfect for the Basement hideout: Orangefinger, the Space Elf Samurai High Technomagelord. Or, at least he is in his tabletop game. I want him to use a katana, and various magic/technology based pets, but I'm not sure where to start on powers. It feels weird mixing melee ability with stuff like pets/ranged abilities. There's a metric poo poo ton of pets to go around.

The good thing about pets is that they don't really scale much with any stats anymore, so any build that doesn't have terrible energy issues can feel free to use them.

The bad thing is that they hold you back on powers that make you more powerful, and can be very aggravating to level with (especially if they're melee pets.)

Probably the most moderate and easy-to-use pets would be the support drones, as they usually don't rush off ahead into battle, and at rank-3, they almost always will point their healing beams in your direction, and they heal a lot.
edit: I am terrible with phpbb tags.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Asimo posted:

Also yes, low gravity is an option for the moonbase.

It's not an option. You can't turn it off.

Tsurupettan
Mar 26, 2011

My many CoX, always poised, always ready, always willing to thrust.

Bluhman posted:

The good thing about pets is that they don't really scale much with any stats anymore, so any build that doesn't have terrible energy issues can feel free to use them.

The bad thing is that they hold you back on powers that make you more powerful, and can be very aggravating to level with (especially if they're melee pets.)

Probably the most moderate and easy-to-use pets would be the support drones, as they usually don't rush off ahead into battle, and at rank-3, they almost always will point their healing beams in your direction, and they heal a lot.
edit: I am terrible with phpbb tags.

Well, none of the energy unlocks seem very viable for this set up, being pet focused and all (plus a katana attack or two). Maybe just focusing on rec/end and taking something like, say, Aura of Primal Majesty to boost them further?

Bluhman
Nov 7, 2009

Low morale causes the golems to dance in panic.

Tsurupettan posted:

Well, none of the energy unlocks seem very viable for this set up, being pet focused and all (plus a katana attack or two). Maybe just focusing on rec/end and taking something like, say, Aura of Primal Majesty to boost them further?

Literally everything works with Aura of Primal Majesty. Heck, if you superstatted Dex/Ego with AoPM, it would probably work; by the time you reach 40, you'll have at least 300 in both your superstats and 100 in every other one. You'll be landing criticals much more often than other builds, have much more energy capability with high Rec, End, and Int, even your heals operate at increased effectiveness, and, like Quarry, you're set-agnostic, so you can throw any balance of blade vs magic in there and it would still probably work.

Since you'll be landing criticals a lot, I'd maybe suggest using the Form of the Tempest, which will make your melee strikes do even more damage as you build focus stacks through critical hits, and also returns energy as you do this. If you still need help with energy, you might want to take a look at Force Shield with Force Sheath, allowing you to restore energy whenever you're hit.

If it doesn't sound like your thing, I'm almost certain you could build a single-blade character that uses some pets and just stacks Rec/End (at least one of the two) a bit on top of his Dex/Ego superstats.

Tsurupettan
Mar 26, 2011

My many CoX, always poised, always ready, always willing to thrust.

Bluhman posted:

Literally everything works with Aura of Primal Majesty. Heck, if you superstatted Dex/Ego with AoPM, it would probably work; by the time you reach 40, you'll have at least 300 in both your superstats and 100 in every other one. You'll be landing criticals much more often than other builds, have much more energy capability with high Rec, End, and Int, even your heals operate at increased effectiveness, and, like Quarry, you're set-agnostic, so you can throw any balance of blade vs magic in there and it would still probably work.

Since you'll be landing criticals a lot, I'd maybe suggest using the Form of the Tempest, which will make your melee strikes do even more damage as you build focus stacks through critical hits, and also returns energy as you do this. If you still need help with energy, you might want to take a look at Force Shield with Force Sheath, allowing you to restore energy whenever you're hit.

If it doesn't sound like your thing, I'm almost certain you could build a single-blade character that uses some pets and just stacks Rec/End (at least one of the two) a bit on top of his Dex/Ego superstats.

Thanks for the advice, I put something together that might not be bad. I'll have to play it a bit and see how it goes.

randombattle
Oct 16, 2008

This hand of mine shines and roars! It's bright cry tells me to grasp victory!

terminal mehmet posted:

Looks like all glowy costume pieces turned up to 11.

You can't have darkness with out tons of light! So clearly I had to make the brightest character possible for my darkness guy. It just so happens that there are a lot of parts that offer a ton of glow on them.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

What costume pieces are those, by the way?

Or do you still have the costume file saved by any chance? I have a character that really needs to glow, but all of the pieces I've found show through too well.

randombattle
Oct 16, 2008

This hand of mine shines and roars! It's bright cry tells me to grasp victory!

The most glowy pieces in the game are the stone armor pieces but I mixed and matched a few others to fill in the gaps.

I've still got the character on my account for when I want to fly around and freak people out. It's even pretty glowy when you have the glow turned off.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Aphrodite posted:

It's not an option. You can't turn it off.
Well, theoretically an option. :v:

Cryptic...

Bluhman posted:

Literally everything works with Aura of Primal Majesty.
Am I the only one who isn't that fond of AoPM? I mean the bonus is guaranteed to be useful to you (and everyone else on the team), but in general there's diminishing returns on the effects of superstats past a certain point, and it doesn't give anything close to the defensive/damage bonus of a proper passive. Granted, it is a unique bonus not really granted by any other power, but it seems like something you'd rather have on a teammate that you can leech off of than on yourself.

Granted, my pet-based character is Invention (although with Ritual of Arcane Summoning too, since hey it's almost a robot) with minimal attack powers, and winning most fights is basically the equivalent of "aim at enemy, set attack drones into turret mode if it's something difficult, win". Between support drones, bionic shielding, Aura of Radiant Protection, and Inertial Dampening Field almost nothing short of a Legendary poses an appreciable threat. But that helps less for the arcane-type summon builds.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Asimo posted:

Well, theoretically an option. :v:

Cryptic...

No, the bug is that the option appears, not that it doesn't work. You're not supposed to be able to toggle it.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Aphrodite posted:

No, the bug is that the option appears, not that it doesn't work. You're not supposed to be able to toggle it.
Huh. Well, I still see no downside. :colbert:

delfin
Dec 5, 2003

SNATTER'S ALIVE?!?!
The thing about AoPM is not so much that it gives you a huge superstat boost, because the diminishing returns curve does kick in, but that it boosts all the OTHER stats quite well. AoPM + Rank 3 = +70 to all stats at L40 at all times. That means you're looking at a base of 80+ all-around, which can change up what kind of endgame equipment you seek out and how high you can get your offstats.

That's one reason that Rage of Majesty (Enrage + AoPM + Energy blaster build) is the flavor of the month. With all your stats boosted significantly, you can use Enrage to your advantage easily (eight stacks for increased damage) without having to use certain melee attacks or Unbreakable w/adv to keep it running.

Bluhman
Nov 7, 2009

Low morale causes the golems to dance in panic.

Asimo posted:


Am I the only one who isn't that fond of AoPM?

There are ways to completely break it. For example, Enrage stacks; with around 300 strength as a superstat, a single stack of enrage is going to give you a damage boost of around 20%. With full stacks running, you do damage pretty much on par with an offensive passive, alongside your other superstat, which I'd recommend to be con (to lengthen the duration of the Enrage buff and grant extra health) or int (to shorten the duration of the Enrage recharge and increase energy efficiency), you'll either have incredible amounts of health (a little over 9,000 at level 40) or excellent energy efficiency, alongside good energy reserves and a nice heal rate.

I've heard of people doing similar things with Dex/Ego AoPM build, but actually haven't seen how well that would handle, mainly because it doesn't have the crazy base enrage damage backup, which can apply to any damage at all.

Fake E:FB :v:

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Well, there you go then. If you need an example of the sort of twinkery you can accomplish in the freeform chargen system, that's one! :v:

doomfunk
Feb 29, 2008

oh come on was that really necessary
all over my fine carpet!!
A team full of Presence-superstat AOPM characters with Palliate does some really, uh, interesting things in terms of their ridiculously uptuned damage/efficacy, as well.

Have a slow build of Palliate chaining onto one prime target, who then dishes out The Biggest Whammy.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

It seems that the math on Melee passives has been broken for... ever.

They just discovered it as part of the TK review.

Ame posted:

So, without getting too into it, the math for the melee passives is just kinda wrong. It makes for high values of damage bonus when you are low rank and low Super Stat, but gets progressively less good as you increase rank and Super Stat value. At Rank 1, the melee passives are better than a Rank 1 equivalent Energy Form passive until you reach a combined total of ~900 Super Stats. At Rank 2, that number drops to a combined total of ~680 Super Stats, and at Rank 3, it happens at a combined total of ~500 Super Stats. And even before that point, at Rank 3, the melee passive is only providing a marginally better damage bonus than the Energy Form passives.

This is not what was intended. As such, I've replaced the formula for Id Mastery with a corrected formula, such that it will always be providing a higher damage increase to melee Ego damage than Ego Form does to all Ego damage. We'll be including that change in an upcoming PTS push, and doing some testing. This formula change will also affect WotW and Unstoppable. At Rank 1, the 3 melee passives will get slightly weakened, losing up to ~5% damage bonus if you have low Super Stat values. At Rank 3, with combined Super Stat values of ~300, it will go from 64% to 71%. With combined SS of ~600, it will go from providing a damage bonus of 77% to 100%.

It might change the AOPM superiority a bit when it goes in.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Huh, this will probably have wide-reaching balance consequences in the long run, especially since they've done an entire melee review already balancing around the old numbers.

Bluhman
Nov 7, 2009

Low morale causes the golems to dance in panic.
Hahah! Melee already was powerful enough before they noticed this.
It'll probably make Quarry-based melee builds a little less effective in comparison, though.

Vermain
Sep 5, 2006



Bluhman posted:

I've heard of people doing similar things with Dex/Ego AoPM build, but actually haven't seen how well that would handle, mainly because it doesn't have the crazy base enrage damage backup, which can apply to any damage at all.

You can get around this if you're melee by using Form of the Tempest. My current character gets +22% damage in Sentinel with every stack, plus the insane energy boost every time I crit. I also have a better healing output than most other passives can grant, with only Seraphim really beating my numbers.

Even if they do fix the math on the offensive passives, I'll still stick with AoPM, just because it's super crazy for wishing away all of your energy issues and still provides really good damage.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

It does make you look like you haven't bathed, though.

Also new rule for our CC: NO COWBOY ROBOTS.

Allatum
Feb 20, 2008

Pillbug
I don't see too many people who are melee focused actually use the melee passives. Usually it's defiant, AoPM, or LR. Granted, this is from the narrow grouping of people I find in the T4 arenas.

Quarry is still best anyways. :colbert:

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Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Allatum posted:

I don't see too many people who are melee focused actually use the melee passives. Usually it's defiant, AoPM, or LR. Granted, this is from the narrow grouping of people I find in the T4 arenas.

Quarry is still best anyways. :colbert:

Arenas are different. An offensive passive is suicide there.

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