The Star-Spangled Basher, level 28 SS/WP Brute
I ran up against one of Willpower's limitations today. During the Shaper Cult story arch, there's a mission where you face the stone wielding members of the Legacy Chain. My previous experience with these guys was on my Bane and on my old Invulnerability Brute. Both handed the Chain their rear ends. But not this time!
The thing is, the stone wielding members of the Legacy Chain like to stay at range rather than melee you. Willpower depends upon mobs getting into melee for much of its mitigation, and these guys were just not cooperating, so I faceplanted on them, twice, munching Inspirations all the way. They even successfully Immobilized me! That's something that's never happened to me on a Brute before.
In melee, Willpower is golden. If your opponents largely stay at range, you're in real trouble. The good news is that rarely happens in PvE. The Chain is an exception. Barracuda, Metal Shift, and Calystix all fell to Basher, but this one Legacy Chain Boss and his minions handed me my butt.
Sometimes, Invulnerability really does look like a champ (and it is!)
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Issue 13 Day Jobs Explained
An article has been published at the official website detailing just how the Day Jobs system works, and what the benefits are.
It works by you logging out in a specific location for 10 days at a time. You can tell what badge you will get by an indicator under your Health/Endurance display. Getting your initial badge gives rewards such as mission complete XP/Inf' bonuses, large Inspirations, salvage, etc. You also unlock costume pieces appropriate to your character's Day Job. Correction: Day Jobs and costume pieces are actually not linked. From Positron:
Many people came to the same erroneous conclusion that I did, that the costume pieces were unlocked with day jobs. Apparently, they are available to all as of I13 and there is no such link. You know what they say about assumptions! ;)
I now return you to your regularly scheduled post:
Once you get your initial job, you can combine it with a second job (gained the same way you got your first) to get a third badge title and a fun Accolade power (such as ally rez, web grenades and a Baton power).
But here's the kicker: you earn 1 bar of double XP for every 24 hours a character is logged out, up to a maximum of 10 bars of double XP! This is the "On Patrol" reward (everyone gets On Patrol no matter where they log out in addition to the other rewards). It's an altaholic soloer's dream! :)
There's some controversy over Day Jobs not being appropriate for some characters depending upon concept, but the system is easily ignored (no one is going to make you wear the badge title) in such cases.
Also, this really encourages spreading play out over many alts (this is especially true of the double XP), and it lets you flesh out the identities of your characters with in-game mechanics.
The initail bonuses are nice, the Accolades are great, the costume pieces are fantastic and the double XP is just...incredible! Looks like a solid, fun addition to the game!
Check it out at the official website.
It works by you logging out in a specific location for 10 days at a time. You can tell what badge you will get by an indicator under your Health/Endurance display. Getting your initial badge gives rewards such as mission complete XP/Inf' bonuses, large Inspirations, salvage, etc. You also unlock costume pieces appropriate to your character's Day Job. Correction: Day Jobs and costume pieces are actually not linked. From Positron:
Day job badges are NOT linked to costumes.
The day job related costumes are free, unlocked at the start, content in Issue 13.
Many people came to the same erroneous conclusion that I did, that the costume pieces were unlocked with day jobs. Apparently, they are available to all as of I13 and there is no such link. You know what they say about assumptions! ;)
I now return you to your regularly scheduled post:
Once you get your initial job, you can combine it with a second job (gained the same way you got your first) to get a third badge title and a fun Accolade power (such as ally rez, web grenades and a Baton power).
But here's the kicker: you earn 1 bar of double XP for every 24 hours a character is logged out, up to a maximum of 10 bars of double XP! This is the "On Patrol" reward (everyone gets On Patrol no matter where they log out in addition to the other rewards). It's an altaholic soloer's dream! :)
There's some controversy over Day Jobs not being appropriate for some characters depending upon concept, but the system is easily ignored (no one is going to make you wear the badge title) in such cases.
Also, this really encourages spreading play out over many alts (this is especially true of the double XP), and it lets you flesh out the identities of your characters with in-game mechanics.
The initail bonuses are nice, the Accolades are great, the costume pieces are fantastic and the double XP is just...incredible! Looks like a solid, fun addition to the game!
Check it out at the official website.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Weapons Mastery Loses Web Grenade
According to Castle, in clarifying his w00t interview comments on Weapons Mastery changes:
Part of the reason I took Weapons Mastery is that Web Grenade is so good in PvP. A Scrapper's #1 problem in PvP is simply catching the opponent, and without Web Grenade it's going to be a whole lot harder. They're shoehorning in Focused Accuracy by giving it the Targeting Drone animation. Well, at least that makes it a bit more entertaining, though probably thematically inappropriate for Daemodand, my MA/SR/WN Scrapper.
I'll give it a shot and see how I like it. Not happy about this change as of right now, though. If I wanted Focused Accuracy, I'd have taken the Body Mastery Pool. I'll bet the same is true of other Weapons Mastery fans.
P.S. The quote feature on blogger is very difficult to work with. :/
2) I misspoke re: Weapon Mastery getting Focused Accuracy. It's Targeting Drone. Functionally, it's *identical* to FA, it just has the visuals and display name of TD.
3) Web Grenade is the power that is being replaced in Weapon Mastery.
Part of the reason I took Weapons Mastery is that Web Grenade is so good in PvP. A Scrapper's #1 problem in PvP is simply catching the opponent, and without Web Grenade it's going to be a whole lot harder. They're shoehorning in Focused Accuracy by giving it the Targeting Drone animation. Well, at least that makes it a bit more entertaining, though probably thematically inappropriate for Daemodand, my MA/SR/WN Scrapper.
I'll give it a shot and see how I like it. Not happy about this change as of right now, though. If I wanted Focused Accuracy, I'd have taken the Body Mastery Pool. I'll bet the same is true of other Weapons Mastery fans.
P.S. The quote feature on blogger is very difficult to work with. :/
Issue 13 Closed Beta Underway
Lighthouse informed the official forums today that Issue 13 Closed Beta is underway as of the afternoon of October 8.
No invite for me, but then if I was offered an invite I'd probably tell them to offer it to someone with better debugging skills than me. I feel it's very important during a closed Beta to have only your very best bug hunters doing their thing so as many bugs as possible can be identified and quashed. Open Beta is completely different, as that is more marketing than serious bug hunting.
Here's hoping the Issue is bug-free enough to get to open beta in less than a month.
No invite for me, but then if I was offered an invite I'd probably tell them to offer it to someone with better debugging skills than me. I feel it's very important during a closed Beta to have only your very best bug hunters doing their thing so as many bugs as possible can be identified and quashed. Open Beta is completely different, as that is more marketing than serious bug hunting.
Here's hoping the Issue is bug-free enough to get to open beta in less than a month.
Listen To Castle On w00t's Podcast
Visit the very ugly w00t website to listen to the podcast, and hear what Castle has to say about the powers changes coming in Issue 13.
An interesting point from the cast: Focused Accuracy seems to have been added to the Scrapper Weapons Pool. I hope they didn't excise any of the existing powers from that set, because I don't like FA very much and I love all the Weapons Pool powers. They are fun, and Focused Accuracy is boring (and for PvE, very much unnecessary).
An interesting point from the cast: Focused Accuracy seems to have been added to the Scrapper Weapons Pool. I hope they didn't excise any of the existing powers from that set, because I don't like FA very much and I love all the Weapons Pool powers. They are fun, and Focused Accuracy is boring (and for PvE, very much unnecessary).
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Meet Bruce Harlick
An interview with mission designer Bruce Harlick is up at the official forums. Check the link in the CoX RSS feed at the bottom of this page or click here if you're nasty. ;)
I have no real comments on the interveiw as it doesn't cover anything that much interests me. The devs will have a better set of tools for designing missions (sorry, stories ;) ) than the players get in Mission Architect, but that's none too surprising.
Next up is everyone's favorite dev, Chris "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce. Quoth the BABs:
I have no real comments on the interveiw as it doesn't cover anything that much interests me. The devs will have a better set of tools for designing missions (sorry, stories ;) ) than the players get in Mission Architect, but that's none too surprising.
Next up is everyone's favorite dev, Chris "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce. Quoth the BABs:
The very first task I was given was the teabag emote, which also lead to my introduction to the infamous Positron. He was extremely confused when some person he’d never met before meekly poked their head into his office to ask, “What exactly do you mean by a ‘teabag’ emote?”This promises to be a very "interesting" interview. :)
Today's DING!s
Debuting on Today's DING!s we have the freshly respeced:
War Furnace, level 10 Battle Axe/Fiery Aura Brute
Having all four of the inital attacks in Axe is helping, but low-level Axe is still very poor at generating Fury. But I now know things do even out later on, so I just have to hang in there.
I can't wait to roll Mace. LOL
War Furnace, level 10 Battle Axe/Fiery Aura Brute
Having all four of the inital attacks in Axe is helping, but low-level Axe is still very poor at generating Fury. But I now know things do even out later on, so I just have to hang in there.
I can't wait to roll Mace. LOL
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