New efforts!

[LaughingAlex]

Actually, a good blaster will tell you "A dead enemy does no damage, and the live ones are next"

Blaster's could be very, very durable if slotted and played correctly.  I was able to wreck some serious pancake on my blaster while taking an extreme beating.  I had even tank kited both Reichsman in Dr Kahn and Battle Maiden on the Apex TF.  Battle maiden managed to drop me a few times but it was doable.

However it was highly based on being free so if you got held or slept or anything.   You were going down fast.  Hold's are a blasters worst nightmare

I generally destroyed things so fast and such I didn't need to go for a cookie cutter scorpion shield build, :).  Although I could have slotted for defenses and I did, I prefered locationals over just smash/lethal/energy as, from my perspective of things, I figured sooner or later the devs were going to catch on and introduce other things.  Besides the character that I'd be tanking Reicksman or Battle maiden was likely one of my corruptors if it was a non brute, or my brute.  I had different characters with different design goals and usually I played them when I wanted to do something differently.

Thing was, my blaster, I used the "active defense" strategy.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Blaster_Strategy

Quote; "Simply put, Active Defense means protecting yourself by removing things that can harm you. For Archetypes with Control at their disposal, such as the Dominator and Controller, this means using mez powers like holds or disorients. For the Blaster, this tends towards being more simplistic; defeat is, after all, the ultimate debuff.
For some Blasters, area effect damage is king. To these Blasters, the plan is pretty simple - if you can wipe out all the minions before they get a shot off, they can't be a problem while you're gunning down the lieutenants and bosses. For others, single-target damage is much more key, and to these Blasters, the opposite is true - remove the lieutenant or boss first, because he will take the most effort, then cut your way through the weaker minions.
But defeating isn't everything. All Blaster secondary sets contain some powers with a control element, such as the knockback and disorient powers available to the Energy Manipulation set or the slow and immobilize powers available to the Devices set. These powers are not there so you can use them to strategically control the battle - they're there so you can use them tactically to control your fight in it, especially by limiting incoming damage."

My blaster was fire/electrical, so i used my rain of fire/fire breath/fire ball to eliminate the minions and severely damage lieutenants, then mop the lieutenants and bosses up in moments as I had very high damage ST due to fire blasts single targets and electrical manipulations melee attacks(except for the slowest one, which did the same damage as havoc punch and took twice as long, besides I had blaze to fire off to).  The "Ranged Area of effect melee blapper hybrid" was probably my favorite character to play.  It was my skill with her, not my build that was the key to my success.  Didn't tank with her on AV's, if I was going to do that with her I'd have invited a few time manips or some force fielders or a bunch of soldiers of Arachnos :).

I also did use the crowd control in the set to exterminate things safely to.

[ivanhedgehog]

I've run a few all troller teams and was just amazed at how fast we could wipe the map.

we ran an all illusionist ITF and it was a blast...letting romulus kill his own fluffies was a hoot

[Serpine]

What about all masterminds, that sounds devastating as well.

Oh I've been on pure teams of high level masterminds. It honestly feels like being part of a swarm of locusts: You don't really have a clear idea where you are going anymore but the collective will drives the gestalt to flow down passages scouring them of everything that moves... It is amazing.

[sindyr]

My current rig uses an Intel CPU (an i3 I was able to get at 25% discount some months back) with an AMD GPU.

I tried very hard to skip over this and not respond - but I could not do it.

Including an i3 in your gaming rig is so wrong, that I'm going to have to ignore anything you say regarding computer hardware from now on. Sorry.

[Fridgy Daiere]

I tried very hard to skip over this and not respond - but I could not do it.

Including an i3 in your gaming rig is so wrong, that I'm going to have to ignore anything you say regarding computer hardware from now on. Sorry.

Considering that many games don't make use of more than 2 cores and rely mostly on GPU and RAM, I see no reason why an i3 is unsuitable for a gaming rig...it would depend on the games he plays, of course.

[LaughingAlex]

That and prices are stupidly high now. Back when the gtx480 was top of the line I paid 600$ for it. Now were up to 1000s of dollars... I finally switched back to amd gpus and cpus after watching prices continually rise.

Amd is about half the price,  (sometimes less) runs cooler and has the same great quality and performance. The only downside being that most games run better on nvidia (atleast that is usually the case)

Thats because, with ATI cards, they always screw up royally with the video drivers.  All the speed in the world doesn't matter if your card crashes all the time due to the software running it.  Really wish ATI would stop messing up with that.  Or, rather AMD these days.

[Mistress Urd]

I tried very hard to skip over this and not respond - but I could not do it.

Including an i3 in your gaming rig is so wrong, that I'm going to have to ignore anything you say regarding computer hardware from now on. Sorry.

Considering I still see folks using Pentium 4s and are convinced its still good enough for the next generation of games, a core i3 is plenty of computing power. Game companies for the PC sadly have to deal with these old legacy PCs using those hot slow, energy hogs called Pentium 4s. Intel knew something was up when hardcore computer folks were trying to jury rig the laptop CPUs into their rigs because they were faster. 

Someone described games on a PC as a Porsche 911 on a jammed freeway and a Sony PS3 as an Acura Integra on an open racetrack.

Well, believe what you want sindyr, you don't know what games are being played, how frequently or what the person's budget situation is.

This statement by fifth horseman is correct.

I'll be the one to vocally disagree.
Performance is not decided by clock rate alone, nor number of cores.
Intel doesn't have octa-core CPUs in their consumer desktop range, only the horridly overpriced "enthusiast" range.
For $200 you can get a Core i5, which will run cooler, consume less power and provide approximately 10% better performance per core than your FX-8350. As far as gaming goes, that is more important than number of cores, since it will affect any game regardless of how well or (more commonly) poorly it is optimized for multi-threaded operation.

[chuckv3]

I have the same bias about GPUs because in the earlier days I had nothing but problems with ATI/Radeon/AMD, and nothing but WOW with NVidia based cards. Even if Radeon quality is fine now, they lost my brand loyalty vote years ago.

[Mistress Urd]

Thats because, with ATI cards, they always screw up royally with the video drivers.  All the speed in the world doesn't matter if your card crashes all the time due to the software running it.  Really wish ATI would stop messing up with that.  Or, rather AMD these days.

I have two AMD GPUs and I don't have any of these crashing issues you speak of. I also have two nVidias and they are also free of crashing problems. A little bit too much hyperbole there? Do you even own an AMD/ATI video card currently?

[Acanous]

I still run with a Radion 9600 >.>

I'M SAVING UP FOR A NEW RIG OK

my motherboard won't take anything new anymore, so I need a whole new everything.

[dwturducken]

I know I'm a little late to the Facebook discussion (bordering on "necro-ing" if you go by page count...), but I've found that it's best for my sanity to ignore Facebook for anything but keeping up to date on family happenings. Beyond that, well... Lemme put it this way: Here, we sometimes can get a little snippy with each other and often lean toward rude, though not usually intentionally, we mostly avoid the traps of the darker "Rules of the Internet," as they apply to forums and message boards. On Facebook, it's like the majority of people are using those Rules as a checklist...

We can't stop them from talking, but Facebook trolls, like anywhere else, feed on attention. Don't feed them. :)

Unless they're family. Then, I got nuthin'.

[LaughingAlex]

I have two AMD GPUs and I don't have any of these crashing issues you speak of. I also have two nVidias and they are also free of crashing problems. A little bit too much hyperbole there? Do you even own an AMD/ATI video card currently?

I did until about a year and 7 months ago or so, and I couldn't play skyrim and city of heroes at the same time due to driver issues.  It'd crash constantly(and such I had to reboot my machine entirely) with the wrong driver in city of heroes, including even some most RECENT drivers at the time.  It was made all the worst when skyrim came along, and then that game would crash with drivers that worked with city of heroes.  Even some recent drivers released AFTER skyrim were unusable with skyrim because they'd produce artifacts and everything else.  I was so agitated I decided to hell with it and go back to NVidia.  Later I'd replace the nvidia cards coolant block with an arctic cooler on it.  I had no regrets as I never had any video card crashes since.

Seriously, I wasn't going to put up with instabilities across different games due to driver issues from proprietary makers.  I play a wide range of games at times, I don't need to be constantly looking for software to change my drivers constantly putting extra overhead on my systems just to play what I want to play on my systems.  Stability over speed.  The saying "slow and steady wins the race" honestly is my logic for my choices.

[LaughingAlex]

I know I'm a little late to the Facebook discussion (bordering on "necro-ing" if you go by page count...), but I've found that it's best for my sanity to ignore Facebook for anything but keeping up to date on family happenings. Beyond that, well... Lemme put it this way: Here, we sometimes can get a little snippy with each other and often lean toward rude, though not usually intentionally, we mostly avoid the traps of the darker "Rules of the Internet," as they apply to forums and message boards. On Facebook, it's like the majority of people are using those Rules as a checklist...

We can't stop them from talking, but Facebook trolls, like anywhere else, feed on attention. Don't feed them. :)

Unless they're family. Then, I got nuthin'.

Yeah some people I met in the CoX community I unfriended and distanced myself due to the kinds of things they said.  They don't represent the rest of us.

[MWRuger]

I generally destroyed things so fast and such I didn't need to go for a cookie cutter scorpion shield build, :).  Although I could have slotted for defenses and I did, I prefered locationals over just smash/lethal/energy as, from my perspective of things, I figured sooner or later the devs were going to catch on and introduce other things.  Besides the character that I'd be tanking Reicksman or Battle maiden was likely one of my corruptors if it was a non brute, or my brute.  I had different characters with different design goals and usually I played them when I wanted to do something differently.

Thing was, my blaster, I used the "active defense" strategy.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Blaster_Strategy

Quote; "Simply put, Active Defense means protecting yourself by removing things that can harm you. For Archetypes with Control at their disposal, such as the Dominator and Controller, this means using mez powers like holds or disorients. For the Blaster, this tends towards being more simplistic; defeat is, after all, the ultimate debuff.
For some Blasters, area effect damage is king. To these Blasters, the plan is pretty simple - if you can wipe out all the minions before they get a shot off, they can't be a problem while you're gunning down the lieutenants and bosses. For others, single-target damage is much more key, and to these Blasters, the opposite is true - remove the lieutenant or boss first, because he will take the most effort, then cut your way through the weaker minions.
But defeating isn't everything. All Blaster secondary sets contain some powers with a control element, such as the knockback and disorient powers available to the Energy Manipulation set or the slow and immobilize powers available to the Devices set. These powers are not there so you can use them to strategically control the battle - they're there so you can use them tactically to control your fight in it, especially by limiting incoming damage."

My blaster was fire/electrical, so i used my rain of fire/fire breath/fire ball to eliminate the minions and severely damage lieutenants, then mop the lieutenants and bosses up in moments as I had very high damage ST due to fire blasts single targets and electrical manipulations melee attacks(except for the slowest one, which did the same damage as havoc punch and took twice as long, besides I had blaze to fire off to).  The "Ranged Area of effect melee blapper hybrid" was probably my favorite character to play.  It was my skill with her, not my build that was the key to my success.  Didn't tank with her on AV's, if I was going to do that with her I'd have invited a few time manips or some force fielders or a bunch of soldiers of Arachnos :).

I also did use the crowd control in the set to exterminate things safely to.

This was the strategy that I used as well. And I also went for positional defense. My blaster had T9 PBAOE so he would drop a purple, maybe a a red or yellow for overkill purposes, hit buildup, and leap into the middle of the mob at +4x8 and cut lose. It was gloirus to watch them fall. Then leap back and range them as much as possible.

[Mistress Urd]

I know I'm a little late to the Facebook discussion (bordering on "necro-ing" if you go by page count...), but I've found that it's best for my sanity to ignore Facebook for anything but keeping up to date on family happenings. Beyond that, well... Lemme put it this way: Here, we sometimes can get a little snippy with each other and often lean toward rude, though not usually intentionally, we mostly avoid the traps of the darker "Rules of the Internet," as they apply to forums and message boards. On Facebook, it's like the majority of people are using those Rules as a checklist...

We can't stop them from talking, but Facebook trolls, like anywhere else, feed on attention. Don't feed them. :)

Unless they're family. Then, I got nuthin'.

Yes, Facebook should be the next myspace. Let the trolls there troll each other until even they get bored.

[Dev7on]

The Mortimer Kal SF, right. Briefly spaced on the name, I've been zonked for the last several days. Ugh. (That's also the arc where we first really see that Posi and Numina are more than 'just friends', if memory serves. Whatever.) And yeah, I agree with Felderburg that the MKSF was the first step in showing Posi taking Incarnate levels. And the ironic thing is, in the comics, he wasn't SUPPOSED to be the one to get the Flames... Prometheus was originally in the process of giving them to Manticore!

The problem is that the canonicity of the comics and the novels has always been sketchy at best. And trust me, I argued HARD that we NEEDED an arc of "The Day The Powers Went Out." But, unfortunately, no such luck. On the bright side, we DID get an arc for "Smoke and Mirrors," which was arguably the best of the Top Cow comic arcs. :)

FYI - I have ALL of the CoH comics in PDF saved on my computer at home. If they're not made available elsewhere, I'll be happy to post them in my dropbox or something. (And I have a few of the actual physical ones too - was so happy to get the one with Positron on the cover, given TCOSR and all.) :D

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

When Prometheus gave Positron his flame does this means that he's half Incarnate?

[DarkCurrent]

No, because my dominator took it from his cold lifeless fingers.

[Battlechimp]

Oh I've been on pure teams of high level masterminds. It honestly feels like being part of a swarm of locusts: You don't really have a clear idea where you are going anymore but the collective will drives the gestalt to flow down passages scouring them of everything that moves... It is amazing.

I remember being on an all MM team.  3 of them were thugs.  3X Gang Ware fare one one fight.... half the team got disconnected....

[The Fifth Horseman]

Including an i3 in your gaming rig is so wrong, that I'm going to have to ignore anything you say regarding computer hardware from now on. Sorry.

*chuckle* You wouldn't be wrong IF an i5 was within the budget range for this build. :)
Except it wasn't and the i3-4130 was discounted to a point where the difference between it and G3220 was $20, so *shrug* I went for it. It's a stopgap, but for now works well enough that replacing it is not an urgent priority.
The entire PC was assembled on a $500 budget, with the focus on making it a decent basis for later upgrades.
Hence this and some other oddities in the configuration that would not make a shred of sense otherwise.
"Trust me, I know what I'm doing" :p

[Mistress Urd]

I remember being on an all MM team.  3 of them were thugs.  3X Gang Ware fare one one fight.... half the team got disconnected....

On an all MM team everyone could probably drop the tier 1 pets and won't notice much difference in performance but have a lot less lag.