After finishing the Positron TF without any problems the other day, I figured I'd give Synapse a try. At first I tried to recruit for a group, but there weren't any takers. So I got some SG mates to give me a hand filling out a group so I could start a duo with my tanks.
The big question for this one was - can 2 tanks as a duo deal enough damage to take down an AV?
It took about 2.5 hours to finish herding or tank-stealthing all the missions except the last one with the Clockwork King in it. Even the King mission itself was easy enough, no real threat of defeat like in Positron. Until I hit the Clockwork King Arch Villain himself. Basically we were at a standstill, I wasn't able to deal enough damage with just Scorch equipped with DOs. Neither was the King - I had surrounded him with even-con minions and was boosting regen with it. (though I wasn't really sure I actually needed it, it was more of a "Well I herded up this bunch and there is the King, let's add him in." sort of thing)
So while one tank was tanking the mess, I took the other tank out to pick up some IOs from the Wentworths and a tray of small damage inspirations from the Arena. 1 Acc, 2 damage, and 1 recharge DO were replaced with 1 ACC IO, 3 dmg IO. Took about half an hour, cause I was trying to find large damage insps around with no luck.
I went back into the mission, slotted both tanks with the IOs, and the damage was just shy of even. I burned off the insps too, but they didn't really last very long.
So I started using my unslotted Boxing pool power, and that made the difference, I beat down the Clock King with Tier 1 attacks and pool powers. :D
Now, I have the Synapse task force badge and L21 on my two tanks. Wish I'd taken some pictures of it. It's not really an experience I'd care to repeat, there are just so many clear-all missions in Synapse. :P
Upsen.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Positron Task Force Duo
Oh, forgot to mention, I am dualboxing a Positron TF right now with
the 2 tanks - this way I can break it into multiple days, since it is
one of the longer TFs that people generally aren't interested in.
the 2 tanks - this way I can break it into multiple days, since it is
one of the longer TFs that people generally aren't interested in.
I started at L12 and it was TOUGH, the foes are all L15-16 for the
task force. So I went out to Boomtown and blew away some Nazis...
sorry, generic Council fascists and Clockwork, getting up to L14.
Things went pretty smoothly after that. I levelled to 15 in the TF
and I'm on the stage with the Clock boss "Constructor" - I flew both
tanks straight through the map, with a score of Oscillators flying
after me, and I was still able to take out Constructor and all the
fliers with no troubles.
Upsen.
edit - finished with no problems. Sort of anticlimatic. Also the mission timer counts the time you are logged off - no way was I playing 20 odd hours to finish this task force.
More rerolling and LKT-1700 Flight Pack
Well I had fun with the shield set, but I decided that in the end, I
prefer a toggle status protection over a click protection. So I went
back to Willpower/Fire for Tenmos, and gave up on the shield set for
now. I also decided to do the pact with a WP/Fire on the second
account as well, so that it would be able to survive anything the
first account does... and I can basically interchange which window I
play from and it shouldn't really matter. (Plus having 2 sets of AOEs
available every 10 seconds or so? Sweet stuff.)
So they are "Tenmos Steel" (again) and "The Fires of Conviction". I rather like the second name, gets the Willpower/Fire sets both reflected in the name.
prefer a toggle status protection over a click protection. So I went
back to Willpower/Fire for Tenmos, and gave up on the shield set for
now. I also decided to do the pact with a WP/Fire on the second
account as well, so that it would be able to survive anything the
first account does... and I can basically interchange which window I
play from and it shouldn't really matter. (Plus having 2 sets of AOEs
available every 10 seconds or so? Sweet stuff.)
So they are "Tenmos Steel" (again) and "The Fires of Conviction". I rather like the second name, gets the Willpower/Fire sets both reflected in the name.
IO wise it may be a little difficult, since this would mean I
have to double up things if I want the 2 tanks to be fitted the same
way. Right now I have some stuff like a Kismet Accuracy that I've put
on Tenmos that Fires doesn't have, and there is a noticeable
difference when facing red-cons. But I guess what I'll do is outfit
Tenmos properly and let extra drop by Fires' way - after all I went
through a heck of a lot with Aegis of Flame, my first WP/Fire tank,
with just a set of Red Fortune, a few cheap heal set IOs, and a couple
of ACC debuff set IOs.
I also picked up some chopper packs (LKT-1700 flight packs) from the
NCSoft store, to save a travel power pick. The helicopter sound they
make is sort of annoying but I'm getting used to it. Also, it took me
two days to actually get them - I could only add one pack the first
day, and had to wait a stupid 24 hours for the second flight pack.
Why don't they implement a shopping cart at NCSoft I really don't
understand. I mean a lot of people do have multiple accounts that
they may want to modify when something new comes out right? Imagine
if I was a family of 4 trying to get flight packs or something, that
would be 4 days of waiting before everyone got their pack.
Upsen.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Shields, Low Aggro, Rerolling and a Levelling Pact
Well, after about 20 days or so and 38 levels of shield/dark tanking, I got tired of the low aggro generating capabilities of the pairing. I was regularly being out-taunted by invul scrappers running just their invincibility aura, and any time anyone threw an AOE, half the mobs would run away from me and pay the AOE-tosser a visit, usually with pretty messy results. Well, messy in that I would have to jump over to toss in a taunt on top of them, and the enemies would be scattered across our 2 locations instead of nicely packed in. I never had this difficulty with my Willpower/Fire tank, I think it's probably attributable to the /fire aspect rather than the WP/ aspect.
So I rerolled my shield tank as a Shield/Fire, giving up the health leech of /Dark, and getting back some AOE attacks for both damage and aggro generation. I'm sure I can sneak in a Medicine Pool on this guy if I really need something, he is a good one for med pool since defense tanks don't have to deal with a lot of interrupts. We'll see how this one goes, I figure it should be pretty fast - I always seem to go back to /Fire on my tanks.
I also decided to try a levelling pact so I could get a L50 character on my occassionally-active secondary account. You know, the account that is sometimes subscribed, sometimes cancelled, so that you can do a truly secure transfer, or mess around with dual-boxing. Anyways, I paired up the new shield tank with a Kinetics Defender - probablly not the BEST option for the tank, but a generally viable hero that could play on their own merits in a group if I felt like it.
Anyways, that actually took 2 nights and 2 respecs - my Shield/Dark was decently vested in IOs that I wanted to keep, and it meant that 10 enhancement slots were not enough to keep the really important ones. I had to sacrifice a few since I didn't have a 3rd respec option available, but they weren't too much of a big deal as these ones could be replaced for under a million influence each.
Upsen.
So I rerolled my shield tank as a Shield/Fire, giving up the health leech of /Dark, and getting back some AOE attacks for both damage and aggro generation. I'm sure I can sneak in a Medicine Pool on this guy if I really need something, he is a good one for med pool since defense tanks don't have to deal with a lot of interrupts. We'll see how this one goes, I figure it should be pretty fast - I always seem to go back to /Fire on my tanks.
I also decided to try a levelling pact so I could get a L50 character on my occassionally-active secondary account. You know, the account that is sometimes subscribed, sometimes cancelled, so that you can do a truly secure transfer, or mess around with dual-boxing. Anyways, I paired up the new shield tank with a Kinetics Defender - probablly not the BEST option for the tank, but a generally viable hero that could play on their own merits in a group if I felt like it.
Anyways, that actually took 2 nights and 2 respecs - my Shield/Dark was decently vested in IOs that I wanted to keep, and it meant that 10 enhancement slots were not enough to keep the really important ones. I had to sacrifice a few since I didn't have a 3rd respec option available, but they weren't too much of a big deal as these ones could be replaced for under a million influence each.
Upsen.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Halo (the Angel type, not the Bungie type)
I picked up one of the new Halo auras for Upsen Downs on City of Heroes. This is from the new 2008 Winter Event.
Looks pretty sweet. :D
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
End of the 20s. Also Jumping vs Flying.
Shield Tank at L30 now, the 20s went by REALLY quickly.
I went through L21-25 by way of a single Sister Psyche Task Force, and 25-29 in a couple of Citadels.
I guess it's time to start looking into some IO sets. Maybe start figuring out how to add in a couple of sets of Blessing of the Zephyr on travel powers, for +positional defense. It's expensive though, costing a few hundred (500? 600?) merits or about 60 million on the market at the moment. So it'll probably be a while before I have a full set.
At some point I'll have to change over from Super Jump to Flight too. I feel that as a character is levelling, speed is of the essence - you need to get there fast, get away fast, etc etc. Endurance use is at a premium too, so Combat Jump makes the most sense for melee fights, it is really good defensive bang for the endurance buck.
Once I roll into the 40s, the sense of urgency is a lot lessened and I have some reliable defenses and better endurance options. So flight starts feeling like a better option - finer positioning for the big pulls, faster hover due to higher level, and being able to hang permanently in mid air for evil places such as the shadow shard or inside the Hamidon.
Upsen.
I went through L21-25 by way of a single Sister Psyche Task Force, and 25-29 in a couple of Citadels.
I guess it's time to start looking into some IO sets. Maybe start figuring out how to add in a couple of sets of Blessing of the Zephyr on travel powers, for +positional defense. It's expensive though, costing a few hundred (500? 600?) merits or about 60 million on the market at the moment. So it'll probably be a while before I have a full set.
At some point I'll have to change over from Super Jump to Flight too. I feel that as a character is levelling, speed is of the essence - you need to get there fast, get away fast, etc etc. Endurance use is at a premium too, so Combat Jump makes the most sense for melee fights, it is really good defensive bang for the endurance buck.
Once I roll into the 40s, the sense of urgency is a lot lessened and I have some reliable defenses and better endurance options. So flight starts feeling like a better option - finer positioning for the big pulls, faster hover due to higher level, and being able to hang permanently in mid air for evil places such as the shadow shard or inside the Hamidon.
Upsen.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Shield Tank at L21 now
I just finished the Faultline arc on my shield tank the other night. I was impressed at how easily I could do it - did they dumb down the encounters? Or was it the new powerset? Either way, tanking any of the elite bosses was no problem at all, not even requiring any special preparation.
Maybe it's a combination of Dark Melee's Siphon Life attack together with the excellent defenses of the shield tank. They had trouble hitting me, and whatever they did do to me, I was getting back every time my Siphon recharged.
It was over way too quickly.
If there is anything I dont like about the Shield set, it is that you have pick between:
- micromanaging the status protection and setting an auto-firing attack.
- auto-firing the status protection and hitting your basic attack manually.
I guess it's not that bad but I think I prefer toggle status protection for the convenience.
Upsen.
Maybe it's a combination of Dark Melee's Siphon Life attack together with the excellent defenses of the shield tank. They had trouble hitting me, and whatever they did do to me, I was getting back every time my Siphon recharged.
It was over way too quickly.
If there is anything I dont like about the Shield set, it is that you have pick between:
- micromanaging the status protection and setting an auto-firing attack.
- auto-firing the status protection and hitting your basic attack manually.
I guess it's not that bad but I think I prefer toggle status protection for the convenience.
Upsen.
Left 2 Die
I saw T online last night and we did another 2-player level of L4D - this time it was the airport scenario, Dead Air. I thought it was going to be at a radio station or something like that from the name.
It was as always a lot of white knuckle excitement, with a huge mess of zombies everywhere. The levels are all very open as it does take place in an airport terminal, which really favoured the mad zombie rushes over the survivors - at least in doorways you can pick off the foes a few at a time, but wow, this was a total free-for-all.
I imagine the tactics we used on normal difficulty wouldn't "fly" at all in a harder setting.
I picked up 6 achievements off this session.
Do Not Disturb - T and I snuck past all the witches, wow.
No-one Left Behind - all 4 of us made it - we didn't have to run past hordes of zombies as in No Mercy.
Dead Baron - Finish the Dead Air Campaign (I guess its a pun off the Red Baron)
101 Cremations - there was a LOT of gasoline cans and molotovs around.
My Bodyguard - Most people got this in their first day of play, but I didn't, I guess its because I was usually the point man. But I picked it up this 2nd session anyways.
Dead Stop - Punched a Hunter in it's face, while it was in mid leap.
We need to get a 3 or 4 player game going some time, come on people.
Upsen.
It was as always a lot of white knuckle excitement, with a huge mess of zombies everywhere. The levels are all very open as it does take place in an airport terminal, which really favoured the mad zombie rushes over the survivors - at least in doorways you can pick off the foes a few at a time, but wow, this was a total free-for-all.
I imagine the tactics we used on normal difficulty wouldn't "fly" at all in a harder setting.
I picked up 6 achievements off this session.
Do Not Disturb - T and I snuck past all the witches, wow.
No-one Left Behind - all 4 of us made it - we didn't have to run past hordes of zombies as in No Mercy.
Dead Baron - Finish the Dead Air Campaign (I guess its a pun off the Red Baron)
101 Cremations - there was a LOT of gasoline cans and molotovs around.
My Bodyguard - Most people got this in their first day of play, but I didn't, I guess its because I was usually the point man. But I picked it up this 2nd session anyways.
Dead Stop - Punched a Hunter in it's face, while it was in mid leap.
We need to get a 3 or 4 player game going some time, come on people.
Upsen.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
New shields option in CoH
Well I gave it a bit of a try as a tank, and I don't really know how good it will really turn out. It looks pretty cool with the shield there and all but I don't know if I like the numbers that much.
Here's the power list breakdown.
1. Deflection (15% def melee)
2. Battle Agility (15% def ranged/aoe)
These 2 powers are not too bad, and have a pretty standard toggle cost at .21/s They offer blanket defense against all. Most tank sets dont have defense. The only one that does is Ice at 17% and not across all elements - it doesn't do fire or ice defense and the energy/dark defense comes pretty late, well into the 20s.
The first one has some resist to Smashing/Lethal at 15% as well, about half the level offered by other sets (20%-30%)
3. True Grit (15% resist fire/cold/energy/negative/TOXIC Passive! +some hp too)
This is a very all-in-one power and being an auto power is pretty damn powerful. The amount is not that high at 15% resistance but it is ALWAYS ON. Plus the higher defense levels mean you get hit less often anyways. (we hope)
4. Active Defense
This is the status protection power, and has the same magnitude as the other status prot powers out there. However, this one is a click power like the one in Super Reflexes. Thus if your endurance gets bottomed, you get to keep your status protection. However the disadvantage is that you either set it as your auto-fire power or you risk forgetting to keep your status protection active.
Need to slot for recharge reduction - it lasts 2 minutes but takes a base 3m20s to recharge.
5. Against all Odds (+10% damage per foe in range, max 10)
This is the aura taunt power - it is an offense-only power! Usually aura powers are defensive in nature, so you try to get close to mobs to boost your defenses. So you aren't really reliant on the foes to keep your defense/resists strong. This is is the same weaker taunt level that you find in the Willpower set. 10 target max seems to mean you cap at +100% damage.
edit - not exactly 10% per foe, just the first foe - the rest are a fair bit lower and I typically see about 15% to 50% damage bonus. I use it as a herding tool right now at L12. The range on it is pretty small at 8ft radius.
Also there *is* a damage debuff on the foes so I guess it does help defensively too
6. Phalanx Fighting (+5% def melee/ranged/aoe per ally in range, max 3 Passive!)
The range of this power is a 8ft radius around yourself - so while up to an additional 30% defense against all sounds really great, it is going to be a rare situation to see.
It's an Auto power though so damn, it is basically free except for the power pick and slots.
edit - hey you buff yourself at all times for 5%, sweet. Gotta be a bug though. 8) Also additional teammates seem to buff for about 3.75% with a single training origin enhancement installed.
7. Grant Cover (+7.5% buff to teammate defense)
.16/s toggle, 15 foot radius, not too bad. Definitely not a force field defender though!)
8. Shield Charge
A teleport attack - seems to have decent knockdown & smashing damage too, 60ft range. Could serve as a travel power supplement maybe? Not really, it has a 1m30s recharge time. :P
9. One with the Shield
Tier 9 emergency power.
2 minutes of do-it-all with proper tank resists, and endurance recharge.
Recharges in 6 minutes, no recharge reducers allowed. Penalty is the lighter -60% endurance crash, no health crash involved, like Willpower. Could be useful. I didn't use the Willpower version cause it was already reliable enough without it, but this guy might need it once in a while due to the nature of defense tanking as opposed to resistance tanking.
So all of the powers are sort of useful. I wonder what secondary I should pair up with it? :P
edit - I paired it up with Dark to have some minor health draining and endurance draining. The end drain should negate any disadvantage from the tier 9 power. Not much in the way of AOEs though, so bummer, I'll have to rely on team damage - no super self-herd/killing I guess... but that is why I have my wp/fire tank.
Also -acc is better than disorient, or knockdown/knockback for herding.
Upsen.
Here's the power list breakdown.
1. Deflection (15% def melee)
2. Battle Agility (15% def ranged/aoe)
These 2 powers are not too bad, and have a pretty standard toggle cost at .21/s They offer blanket defense against all. Most tank sets dont have defense. The only one that does is Ice at 17% and not across all elements - it doesn't do fire or ice defense and the energy/dark defense comes pretty late, well into the 20s.
The first one has some resist to Smashing/Lethal at 15% as well, about half the level offered by other sets (20%-30%)
3. True Grit (15% resist fire/cold/energy/negative/TOXIC Passive! +some hp too)
This is a very all-in-one power and being an auto power is pretty damn powerful. The amount is not that high at 15% resistance but it is ALWAYS ON. Plus the higher defense levels mean you get hit less often anyways. (we hope)
4. Active Defense
This is the status protection power, and has the same magnitude as the other status prot powers out there. However, this one is a click power like the one in Super Reflexes. Thus if your endurance gets bottomed, you get to keep your status protection. However the disadvantage is that you either set it as your auto-fire power or you risk forgetting to keep your status protection active.
Need to slot for recharge reduction - it lasts 2 minutes but takes a base 3m20s to recharge.
5. Against all Odds (+10% damage per foe in range, max 10)
This is the aura taunt power - it is an offense-only power! Usually aura powers are defensive in nature, so you try to get close to mobs to boost your defenses. So you aren't really reliant on the foes to keep your defense/resists strong. This is is the same weaker taunt level that you find in the Willpower set. 10 target max seems to mean you cap at +100% damage.
edit - not exactly 10% per foe, just the first foe - the rest are a fair bit lower and I typically see about 15% to 50% damage bonus. I use it as a herding tool right now at L12. The range on it is pretty small at 8ft radius.
Also there *is* a damage debuff on the foes so I guess it does help defensively too
6. Phalanx Fighting (+5% def melee/ranged/aoe per ally in range, max 3 Passive!)
The range of this power is a 8ft radius around yourself - so while up to an additional 30% defense against all sounds really great, it is going to be a rare situation to see.
It's an Auto power though so damn, it is basically free except for the power pick and slots.
edit - hey you buff yourself at all times for 5%, sweet. Gotta be a bug though. 8) Also additional teammates seem to buff for about 3.75% with a single training origin enhancement installed.
7. Grant Cover (+7.5% buff to teammate defense)
.16/s toggle, 15 foot radius, not too bad. Definitely not a force field defender though!)
8. Shield Charge
A teleport attack - seems to have decent knockdown & smashing damage too, 60ft range. Could serve as a travel power supplement maybe? Not really, it has a 1m30s recharge time. :P
9. One with the Shield
Tier 9 emergency power.
2 minutes of do-it-all with proper tank resists, and endurance recharge.
Recharges in 6 minutes, no recharge reducers allowed. Penalty is the lighter -60% endurance crash, no health crash involved, like Willpower. Could be useful. I didn't use the Willpower version cause it was already reliable enough without it, but this guy might need it once in a while due to the nature of defense tanking as opposed to resistance tanking.
So all of the powers are sort of useful. I wonder what secondary I should pair up with it? :P
edit - I paired it up with Dark to have some minor health draining and endurance draining. The end drain should negate any disadvantage from the tier 9 power. Not much in the way of AOEs though, so bummer, I'll have to rely on team damage - no super self-herd/killing I guess... but that is why I have my wp/fire tank.
Also -acc is better than disorient, or knockdown/knockback for herding.
Upsen.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Fantastic Contraption
Someone at work tried this game out and got everyone hooked on it. You are supposed design an automated system to move an object from point A to point B, while handling all the obstacles thrown your way. Horribly addictive.
http://fantasticcontraption.com/
http://fantasticcontraption.com/
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Left 4 Dead
Usually I have a slight aversion for zombie and horror stuff, it really isn't my thing. But this game was pretty well done - the zombie 'infected' are believable within the setting and the discussion and responses from the 4 main characters are fun to watch. (even if they are a bit cliche)
I played the No Mercy level in the solo game on Normal difficulty. In this scenario, you have to make it from a rooftop safe spot to a hospital, since a helicopter is announcing they are picking up people there. Wading through levels and levels of infected, it was a lot of fun. Ammo is never really an issue unless you spray at every noise you hear. Even the default unlimited-ammo pistols are pretty good unless you're fighting some of the top level foes.
I was also surprised at how playing with surround sound on was really useful for figuring out where the enemies were, especially the crying witches you are supposed to avoid. Usually surround is more of a window dressing, nice but not needed. But here it was important, and I imagine in the expert difficulty it will be indispensable.
I got about half way up the hospital's renovation construction area when T popped online and asked if I wanted to try and multiplayer it. I hit the reply button and started texting him back and realized that the game doesn't pause when you are in the community menus - you actually have to hit the start button to pause the solo game before you go do texting etc.
We started fresh on No Mercy again, and in multiplayer, the infected seem to be placed randomly. A few times there were witches directly in the path that were not avoidable, and we had to take them down. I actually lucked out with a shotgun blast on one of these unavoidable witches, getting the Cr0wnd achievement for blowing off her head in one shot, and the Witch Hunter achievement for taking her down before she hurt anyone.
After we reached the end and were trying to make it to the helicopter, I was unfortunately knocked off the building before I could get in - the game ended with a movie credits roll that started off with the line "In memory of Upsen Downs". Blah! I didn't get the level completion, and T had to get going. So I decided to give it another shot on my own. (with 3 computer NPCs)
It took a few tries and some pipe bomb hijinks, and I got everyone to safety, but I still didn't get the level completion achievement - why?? Eventually I re-read the actual achievement text and found it said it was awarded for surviving the 'campaign' - perhaps it means I have to play in the campaign mode instead of the solo mode to get it. Oh well. I'll get it some other day I guess.
As an aside, the pipe bomb is great - it attracts the infected to it! So if you are getting overwhelmed, a pipe bomb will totally distract everything over to it, taking them all out when it blows up... though I don't think it attracted the crying witch this one time we tossed one almost next to her. It was very useful during the last few frenzied moments of trying to get on the helicopter.
I don't know how well the game will fare for longevity - we finished the whole scenario in under 2 hours and it was 1 of 4 available. But it was definitely a lot of fun.
Upsen.
I played the No Mercy level in the solo game on Normal difficulty. In this scenario, you have to make it from a rooftop safe spot to a hospital, since a helicopter is announcing they are picking up people there. Wading through levels and levels of infected, it was a lot of fun. Ammo is never really an issue unless you spray at every noise you hear. Even the default unlimited-ammo pistols are pretty good unless you're fighting some of the top level foes.
I was also surprised at how playing with surround sound on was really useful for figuring out where the enemies were, especially the crying witches you are supposed to avoid. Usually surround is more of a window dressing, nice but not needed. But here it was important, and I imagine in the expert difficulty it will be indispensable.
I got about half way up the hospital's renovation construction area when T popped online and asked if I wanted to try and multiplayer it. I hit the reply button and started texting him back and realized that the game doesn't pause when you are in the community menus - you actually have to hit the start button to pause the solo game before you go do texting etc.
We started fresh on No Mercy again, and in multiplayer, the infected seem to be placed randomly. A few times there were witches directly in the path that were not avoidable, and we had to take them down. I actually lucked out with a shotgun blast on one of these unavoidable witches, getting the Cr0wnd achievement for blowing off her head in one shot, and the Witch Hunter achievement for taking her down before she hurt anyone.
After we reached the end and were trying to make it to the helicopter, I was unfortunately knocked off the building before I could get in - the game ended with a movie credits roll that started off with the line "In memory of Upsen Downs". Blah! I didn't get the level completion, and T had to get going. So I decided to give it another shot on my own. (with 3 computer NPCs)
It took a few tries and some pipe bomb hijinks, and I got everyone to safety, but I still didn't get the level completion achievement - why?? Eventually I re-read the actual achievement text and found it said it was awarded for surviving the 'campaign' - perhaps it means I have to play in the campaign mode instead of the solo mode to get it. Oh well. I'll get it some other day I guess.
As an aside, the pipe bomb is great - it attracts the infected to it! So if you are getting overwhelmed, a pipe bomb will totally distract everything over to it, taking them all out when it blows up... though I don't think it attracted the crying witch this one time we tossed one almost next to her. It was very useful during the last few frenzied moments of trying to get on the helicopter.
I don't know how well the game will fare for longevity - we finished the whole scenario in under 2 hours and it was 1 of 4 available. But it was definitely a lot of fun.
Upsen.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Trade-ins at Electronics Boutique
Well I dropped by the EB Games on Saturday and ditched a huge pile of old games. It was a little heartbreaking to see how little some of the games were worth, but all they were doing was taking up shelf space. So I guess it was all right.
I ended up getting Call of Duty World at War, Left 4 Dead, and Rock Band 2 after the trade-in. Mostly cause these games are ones that are supposed to be decently multiplayerable with the guys.
I also picked up Sylpheed for $5 and the first Naruto game for $10.
The funny thing is that out of all these games, I think I've spent the most time on Sylpheed so far. It was sort of annoying at first but then I discovered that the fighter-to-fighter missle lock ons dont require you to have your ship pointed at the enemy, just your helmet - which means that the right joystick can be used to turn your head about for targeting, as well as the right stick click padlock view. The game became a breeze after that and was pretty fun.
Upsen.
I ended up getting Call of Duty World at War, Left 4 Dead, and Rock Band 2 after the trade-in. Mostly cause these games are ones that are supposed to be decently multiplayerable with the guys.
I also picked up Sylpheed for $5 and the first Naruto game for $10.
The funny thing is that out of all these games, I think I've spent the most time on Sylpheed so far. It was sort of annoying at first but then I discovered that the fighter-to-fighter missle lock ons dont require you to have your ship pointed at the enemy, just your helmet - which means that the right joystick can be used to turn your head about for targeting, as well as the right stick click padlock view. The game became a breeze after that and was pretty fun.
Upsen.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Gow2 - finished single player game
Well, I finished the 1-player part of the game.
I played at the hardcore setting until a point where you are looking for a path into the underground locust city and are fighting along the river bank - the action got just too hot to do on hardcore alone - I kept getting murdered by this flamethrower guy in a walled up part of the ruin. I turned the difficulty down to normal, got past that section and left it that way, I'll try the hardcore difficulty in multiplayer when I have someone more reliable than the computer AI to play with. IE, the multiplayer that I still haven't finished with E.
The game wasn't too hard on normal. I guess I should have turned the difficulty back up, but I didn't. I think I only died in a few do-or-die scenarios - I got chainsawed to death by the main bad guy once, and I slipped off the ice a few times to my doom. Other than that, it was pretty straightforward and sort of like watching a cheesy but fun interactive movie.
Upsen.
I played at the hardcore setting until a point where you are looking for a path into the underground locust city and are fighting along the river bank - the action got just too hot to do on hardcore alone - I kept getting murdered by this flamethrower guy in a walled up part of the ruin. I turned the difficulty down to normal, got past that section and left it that way, I'll try the hardcore difficulty in multiplayer when I have someone more reliable than the computer AI to play with. IE, the multiplayer that I still haven't finished with E.
The game wasn't too hard on normal. I guess I should have turned the difficulty back up, but I didn't. I think I only died in a few do-or-die scenarios - I got chainsawed to death by the main bad guy once, and I slipped off the ice a few times to my doom. Other than that, it was pretty straightforward and sort of like watching a cheesy but fun interactive movie.
Upsen.
Friday, November 14, 2008
GoW2 Solo on Hardcore
Well since it's been a while since I played and I haven't managed to catch up with E, so I decided to try a bit more last night. I found T online but he was giving W a hand with finishing off GoW1, I guess so W can unlock the characters for the multiplayer modes.
So I started up a single player game on Hardcore. (Though it seemed to say that a friend could drop into the game at any time) It was quite a bit tougher than the normal game mode. I don't think I died (do-or-die situations aside) as much in the Normal mode when I was playing with E, since the NPCs tended to rush the foes - I could go slowly and hang back a bit, picking things off from a distance without worrying too much about enemy retaliation. If they did start shooting at me, NPC Dom and Carmine generally got the aggro back and I could shoot some more.
The only real problem was the stage where I was on the transport and trying to do a do-or-die scenario - shoot down spore pods and shoot down reavers before they knock you off the road and down the side of the cliff. I think I heard "shoot that **** before it hits us!" a dozen times. I always got killed by the reaver that sideswipes the transport. The turret gun just couldn't lay down enough fire due to overheating. Ditto for trying to use the shotgun and the chainsaw rifle, not enough to kill it before it rammed me twice and off the road.
Eventually I figured out that the turret chaingun has a cooling system activated by the reload button. I didn't think that the gun would have a reload system cause it didn't have an ammo count, so I'd never tried it during the co-op game with E. That made the gun MUCH more usable and I dropped the reaver on the very same run.
Oh the exploding Tickers can hurt you pretty badly in Hardcore. one of them will take you to the brink of going down, 2 will turn you into chunks.
It was pretty smooth sailing until the stage in sinking Ilima where you come across those creature riders at close range - you can't chainsaw them and they do oneshot kills - I decided to call it a night there after getting shredded about 6 times.
Upsen.
So I started up a single player game on Hardcore. (Though it seemed to say that a friend could drop into the game at any time) It was quite a bit tougher than the normal game mode. I don't think I died (do-or-die situations aside) as much in the Normal mode when I was playing with E, since the NPCs tended to rush the foes - I could go slowly and hang back a bit, picking things off from a distance without worrying too much about enemy retaliation. If they did start shooting at me, NPC Dom and Carmine generally got the aggro back and I could shoot some more.
The only real problem was the stage where I was on the transport and trying to do a do-or-die scenario - shoot down spore pods and shoot down reavers before they knock you off the road and down the side of the cliff. I think I heard "shoot that **** before it hits us!" a dozen times. I always got killed by the reaver that sideswipes the transport. The turret gun just couldn't lay down enough fire due to overheating. Ditto for trying to use the shotgun and the chainsaw rifle, not enough to kill it before it rammed me twice and off the road.
Eventually I figured out that the turret chaingun has a cooling system activated by the reload button. I didn't think that the gun would have a reload system cause it didn't have an ammo count, so I'd never tried it during the co-op game with E. That made the gun MUCH more usable and I dropped the reaver on the very same run.
Oh the exploding Tickers can hurt you pretty badly in Hardcore. one of them will take you to the brink of going down, 2 will turn you into chunks.
It was pretty smooth sailing until the stage in sinking Ilima where you come across those creature riders at close range - you can't chainsaw them and they do oneshot kills - I decided to call it a night there after getting shredded about 6 times.
Upsen.
Monday, November 10, 2008
GoW-op 2 player game.
E and I gave this game a shot on Friday night in co-op mode. E played Marcus and I played Dom, and we spent about 4 hours in the game. It was pretty good, the mechanics of the game were pretty much the same as the first one, with it's take-cover mentality, tough-to-kill foes, and do-or-die(-and-replay-it) scenarios.
I was pretty bad at it. I was knocked out of action a lot but the NPC rookie kept reviving me. (Its ironic that I'm supposed to be the hardened veteran here).
The chainsaw gun never felt like it had enough ammo and I was always out. I probably just have to practice and keep my bursts shorter. The gun is great when you do have ammo though - it hits without delay like the Locust rifle and has a decent range. The chainsaw function is a godsend too. Even if it locks you in the animation sequence for a painful 2 or 3 seconds, you can be sure that enemy locust is hit and downed.
Unfortunately, during a really rushed section on top of the Betty armoured vehicle, I ended up dropping my chainsaw while in dire need of a weapon with ammo in it. The game saved before I could get it back, the weapons were bouncing around on the deck. Dammit! I had to go for many scenes without it, relying on dropped locust ammo and close range shotgun shots.
In the four hours of play we went through a LOT of scenes. But I think they tried to cram too much story into too short a time. I felt like we were always being rushed along, characters introduced, characters leaving.
There were some neat weapons and concepts along the way though - there was a new mortar launcher weapon that we could choose the range it hit at. There were also some nice portable chaingun turrets as well, even if they did slow us down a bit - sort of like the ones in Halo 2, except it had a heat meter in addition to an ammo count.
In the underground sections, you could use the indigenous rockworms as cover, except the worms really didn't like me and ate me on 2 occasions. I thought they were supposed to be vegetarian? The first one even snapped it's neck in half in order to turn around and get me, killing itself in the process.
Another thing about the game is that it felt like every short scene was giving a 10 point achievement. That's way too often and too automatic. They didn't feel like they meant anything since we were just playing through the game normally. :P
We wrapped up the game somewhere down the bowels of the planet (or was it in the bowels of some giant animal?) and we'll pick up again another day.
Upsen.
I was pretty bad at it. I was knocked out of action a lot but the NPC rookie kept reviving me. (Its ironic that I'm supposed to be the hardened veteran here).
The chainsaw gun never felt like it had enough ammo and I was always out. I probably just have to practice and keep my bursts shorter. The gun is great when you do have ammo though - it hits without delay like the Locust rifle and has a decent range. The chainsaw function is a godsend too. Even if it locks you in the animation sequence for a painful 2 or 3 seconds, you can be sure that enemy locust is hit and downed.
Unfortunately, during a really rushed section on top of the Betty armoured vehicle, I ended up dropping my chainsaw while in dire need of a weapon with ammo in it. The game saved before I could get it back, the weapons were bouncing around on the deck. Dammit! I had to go for many scenes without it, relying on dropped locust ammo and close range shotgun shots.
In the four hours of play we went through a LOT of scenes. But I think they tried to cram too much story into too short a time. I felt like we were always being rushed along, characters introduced, characters leaving.
There were some neat weapons and concepts along the way though - there was a new mortar launcher weapon that we could choose the range it hit at. There were also some nice portable chaingun turrets as well, even if they did slow us down a bit - sort of like the ones in Halo 2, except it had a heat meter in addition to an ammo count.
In the underground sections, you could use the indigenous rockworms as cover, except the worms really didn't like me and ate me on 2 occasions. I thought they were supposed to be vegetarian? The first one even snapped it's neck in half in order to turn around and get me, killing itself in the process.
Another thing about the game is that it felt like every short scene was giving a 10 point achievement. That's way too often and too automatic. They didn't feel like they meant anything since we were just playing through the game normally. :P
We wrapped up the game somewhere down the bowels of the planet (or was it in the bowels of some giant animal?) and we'll pick up again another day.
Upsen.
Elite Armour set finished, woohoo!
I obtained the last 2 pieces of the Bio-E elite armor on Sunday. It was a win and it pulled me out of my farming hell, but a little disappointing at the same time.
I was travelling from the start of WS3-4 to the usual spider farming area when a lowbie joined me - he was about L17. I had a bit of trouble with his accent at first, and I was still mid fight with about half a dozen dark elves and 3 missile goblins, so I told him to just hang tight.
Eventually when it was calmer, we had a bit of a discussion. He was asking me to powerlevel him from 17-20, which he felt was a dead-spot, and he was offering whatever I wanted in payment for it. So I told him what I was looking for - the rest of my Elite Armor set, so I could get out of the spider farm.
He said he had a Bio-E and a full set of Elite armor. (Actually he said he had 14 characters spread across a few memory cards, all with elite armors) Imagine my surprise when he said he was willing to part with whichever parts of his Bio-E armor in exchange for the power levelling!
I was stunned. This stupid Elite armor that was giving me grief for the past 3 weeks was being offered to me for about 15 minutes worth of powerlevelling.
So I did it. I think the fellow had a special technique with the trading using his multiple memory cards, so that the items went into my inventory without getting deleted from his. I guess that the game doesn't tag each piece of armor with an ID.
So now I have all the armor, even though it was kind of a cheap way to do it. However, it means I'll be spending weeks less of mindless spider farming because of it, so I guess it is a good thing. (the wife will probably be happier too)
I got the completion for the Elite Armor achievement when I put the last piece on. (completing all 1000 points for the game, my first complete game 8)
I dyed the whole set a nice red colour to get rid of the default green/blue scheme.
Maybe I'll post a pic of it later.
.JPG)
Upsen.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Gears of War 2
I picked up GoW2 today at lunch - can't wait to log in tonight. I wonder how the co op will be? We'll see soon enough I suppose. Game starts at 9pm.
Elite Armor - Getting Closer to Completion
Last night I picked up the leg armor for the Elite Armor set, which brings me up to 5/7 pieces now. Just 2 more to go - the arm and hand pieces.
The success of the spider farms really do depend on a patient and stable host. I've been in a number of them where the host is a non-talker. I've even been in one where the silent host looked like they were about to die, and instead of biting the bullet and respawning, decided to quit the game (and so it automatically kicks me out) So much for helping them stay alive numerous other times getting to the spider farm.
Anyway, this probably means that I will be hosting more often than joining farms... and only till I get the other 2 elite bits. :D
Upsen.
Head Mainframe of the Flesh Architect
Chest The Flesh Architect's Sterile Core
Arms The Flesh Architect's Grim Reach
Gloves The Flesh Architect's Digiclaws
Legs Metal-Shanks of the Flesh Architect
Boots Balance Augment of the Flesh Architect
Weapon The Flesh Architect's Incisor
The success of the spider farms really do depend on a patient and stable host. I've been in a number of them where the host is a non-talker. I've even been in one where the silent host looked like they were about to die, and instead of biting the bullet and respawning, decided to quit the game (and so it automatically kicks me out) So much for helping them stay alive numerous other times getting to the spider farm.
Anyway, this probably means that I will be hosting more often than joining farms... and only till I get the other 2 elite bits. :D
Upsen.
Head Mainframe of the Flesh Architect
Chest The Flesh Architect's Sterile Core
Arms The Flesh Architect's Grim Reach
Gloves The Flesh Architect's Digiclaws
Legs Metal-Shanks of the Flesh Architect
Boots Balance Augment of the Flesh Architect
Weapon The Flesh Architect's Incisor
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
La la la Rock Band
On Saturday night after a huge dinner out, I played some Rock Band at a friend's place.
We had played it before when it first came out, and we were fairly decent at it, having worked our way up to the Hard difficulty and passing it without too much problems, we had maxed out our fan base on the easier settings.
But Saturday, we had to go back down to Medium and Easy difficulties to stay alive through the songs. I had the worst of it as the vocalist, since not only had I forgotten a good chunk of the songs, my voice was also pretty rusty from not having sung in too long a time. My voice cracked about half way through the second song we played, I think it was one of the Oasis ones, Don't Look Back in Anger. Anyways after some coughing and clearing my throat, I continued, but I think I sounded funny all night. (partly cause of the rusty voice, partly cause of the rusty skills.)
I know I failed Reptilia - did I ever do that song before? I had no idea how to sing it.
K and I cracked it open again on Sunday at home, and I was a little bit better than before - I should keep at it a bit, there looks like there's been a lot of stuff released for RB in the interim period where we'd all stopped playing it.
I wonder if I can pick up a used Rock Band 2 for cheap somewhere?
Upsen.
We had played it before when it first came out, and we were fairly decent at it, having worked our way up to the Hard difficulty and passing it without too much problems, we had maxed out our fan base on the easier settings.
But Saturday, we had to go back down to Medium and Easy difficulties to stay alive through the songs. I had the worst of it as the vocalist, since not only had I forgotten a good chunk of the songs, my voice was also pretty rusty from not having sung in too long a time. My voice cracked about half way through the second song we played, I think it was one of the Oasis ones, Don't Look Back in Anger. Anyways after some coughing and clearing my throat, I continued, but I think I sounded funny all night. (partly cause of the rusty voice, partly cause of the rusty skills.)
I know I failed Reptilia - did I ever do that song before? I had no idea how to sing it.
K and I cracked it open again on Sunday at home, and I was a little bit better than before - I should keep at it a bit, there looks like there's been a lot of stuff released for RB in the interim period where we'd all stopped playing it.
I wonder if I can pick up a used Rock Band 2 for cheap somewhere?
Upsen.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Co-op Spider Farming
Goes much faster in co-op than in single player. Why? Cause one player can rush into the room to pick up the items while the other player holds the door open. No need to wait for the items to reach their timer limit and automatically go to your inventory. Also having some human company changes this farming from mind-numbing to tolerable. (not to mention possible trading with them)
Anyways, that's what I spent a couple hours last night doing this with some online player commando. I kept him alive through some of the more dangerous pickups with my bio-e, clearing status effects etc, and he beat down the spiders like a hot knife through butter. In the 2 hour span we played, we got at least 12 different red drops, mostly runes, but included my 4th elite armour piece - the Flesh Architect's Sterile Core. A lot of health on this piece at 30%, maybe it will help me through some of those missile barrages? (probably not, haha)
One thing I noticed about this farm is that you definitely need some ballistic range boosting, otherwise you will set off the whole room. A Commando has no problem, nor does a Cybernetic who has some ballistic range increase in his Cyber skills. Some runes could probably do the trick as well, but if you don't have any, then you are not going to have a lot of success with ranged fighting. You'll probably have to rely on running in to melee the spider while the whole room goes active on you, and have a co-op player holding the door open in the back. (risky but possibly more exciting, and probably not as fast as a Commando doing it.)
Gears of War 2 comes out soon, I may have to get that.
Upsen.
Anyways, that's what I spent a couple hours last night doing this with some online player commando. I kept him alive through some of the more dangerous pickups with my bio-e, clearing status effects etc, and he beat down the spiders like a hot knife through butter. In the 2 hour span we played, we got at least 12 different red drops, mostly runes, but included my 4th elite armour piece - the Flesh Architect's Sterile Core. A lot of health on this piece at 30%, maybe it will help me through some of those missile barrages? (probably not, haha)
One thing I noticed about this farm is that you definitely need some ballistic range boosting, otherwise you will set off the whole room. A Commando has no problem, nor does a Cybernetic who has some ballistic range increase in his Cyber skills. Some runes could probably do the trick as well, but if you don't have any, then you are not going to have a lot of success with ranged fighting. You'll probably have to rely on running in to melee the spider while the whole room goes active on you, and have a co-op player holding the door open in the back. (risky but possibly more exciting, and probably not as fast as a Commando doing it.)
Gears of War 2 comes out soon, I may have to get that.
Upsen.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Too Human Online Co-op
I wasn't having much luck with finding the elite red armour on my own, either in the Campaign mode or online mode hosting a solo game, so I decided to join in a few public games on the match making system in the game. Selecting custom match to pick out fair Round Robin games, I checked what L50 games there were going. There were a good page and a half of matches, though it would have been nice to have an option to filter out the ones that were too low level.
One thing that surprised me was the lack of talking in the game. Some didn't speak English, all right, so the game doesn't really NEED you to always be chatting and talking about something, as long as you could say "lets go this way" or "help!" or something.
Other players were totally silent, as if they didnt have a microphone plugged in at all. I mean, how are you supposed to be co ordinate a co-op game?
As a matter of fact, when I finally heard someone actually say "Hello there, watch out for the trolls", I was surprised enough that I did get hit by the troll's ice AOE. :D It was my 4th game and about 5th hour of play over the course of a few days.
Still no luck with the Elite Armor, but I did pick up a necrotizing Weapon+Armor based rune, and I traded a purple rune for a red weapon based leech rune. (They needed a particular purple rune and I happened to have it - very generous of them!)
Upsen.
One thing that surprised me was the lack of talking in the game. Some didn't speak English, all right, so the game doesn't really NEED you to always be chatting and talking about something, as long as you could say "lets go this way" or "help!" or something.
Other players were totally silent, as if they didnt have a microphone plugged in at all. I mean, how are you supposed to be co ordinate a co-op game?
As a matter of fact, when I finally heard someone actually say "Hello there, watch out for the trolls", I was surprised enough that I did get hit by the troll's ice AOE. :D It was my 4th game and about 5th hour of play over the course of a few days.
Still no luck with the Elite Armor, but I did pick up a necrotizing Weapon+Armor based rune, and I traded a purple rune for a red weapon based leech rune. (They needed a particular purple rune and I happened to have it - very generous of them!)
Upsen.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
In the NORN's Favor
I finally found time to hunt down the last well* I'd been missing. It was actually near one of my favorite spots to fight in Hellheim - there is one part where there are 2 parallel walkways, a low one on the left and a high one on the right. The left spawns regular undead when you walk on it and the right high path spawns a lot of polarity undead etc. Once you are almost at the far end, a dragonhead ship pops up and unloads a bunch of goblins to fight you.
Anyways, just after you finish off all those foes and grab the spire loot, instead of heading for the door, follow the right edge of the walkway, and go down the short ramp. I've looked down the ramp a couple times before at least, but somehow missed that there was a well down there. Maybe it was cause of the fighting that always goes on at that point.
I'm just one achievement away from getting an all-clear on the list. :D
Upsen.
* Well #15 from the other day's list
Anyways, just after you finish off all those foes and grab the spire loot, instead of heading for the door, follow the right edge of the walkway, and go down the short ramp. I've looked down the ramp a couple times before at least, but somehow missed that there was a well down there. Maybe it was cause of the fighting that always goes on at that point.
I'm just one achievement away from getting an all-clear on the list. :D
Upsen.
* Well #15 from the other day's list
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Trying the email option
So let's see how well this works.
Oh as for the picture, it's a picture I found on the net of Konata, one of the characters from Lucky Star - they're supposed to be a bunch of high schoolers in Japan, but usually they are drawn and animated as little cutesy dollops of sugary sweetness rather than anything resembling a teenager. This particular fan pic makes her look like her appropriate age I think, very nice.
edit - line breaks mess things up ugh. Had to edit this post to remove them.
Farming is getting to me
I am getting pretty sick of farming for red drops. Last night I drifted off a number of times while resetting the spider, and I'd only done it for about an hour or so. Maybe I'll just start playing normally again and see what comes. The game's become pretty easy at this point - either the foes drop like flies, or you get dropped by a crazy missile swarm, or for those non Bio-Engineers, any dot-capable foe, especially ballistic immune trolls, and polarity explosions.
I am seeing necrotizing in virtually EVERY fight so that's probably another reason I'm getting an easy time of it.
Whatever the game is, when I have a character hit max level, and all that's left is to complete equipment, I find I lose a bit of the playing enjoyment. I mean, I'm killing off all these foes that are worth no points, and might drop usable loot once every week of daily playing. I get a bit of a rush I guess, when I see the xp meter going up, the whole carrot on a stick thing maybe. At least at some point, I will get more points to spend, guaranteed. This loot collection thing is really random and irritating, it just gets to me.
Anyways, I haven't seen the usual bunch playing this game and there's rumblings from my friends about playing the next game coming out, so that might be it for Too Human. But dammit it would have been nice to have a full set of elite armor for that missing achievement.
In the Norn's Favor seems to be well covered in this thread, still have to do this one too:
http://www.toohuman.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5525
Hall of Heroes (4 wells total)
Well#1: Compulsory
Well#2: Opens the 3 doors to the two arenas and the obelisk
Well#3: Below the balcony 2 rooms further in from well#2.
Well#4: Compulsory
Ice Forest (4 wells total)
Well#5: After first jump, break the wall to your right
Well#6: Compulsory
Well#7: Compulsory
Well#8: After speaking to Hod, turn around and go back the way you came, it's behind you.
World Serpent (4 wells total)
Well#9: Compulsory
Well#10: Compulsory
Well#11: In section 3-4 it's in the first room after the indoor bridge, down a ramp at the far end on the left.
Well#12: Compulsory
Helheim (5 wells total)
Well#13: After the APCs blow the front doors off, enter and keep left, it's at the far end.
Well#14: Keep following the long walkways to the next open area, it's down a tunnel to your right at the far end, or you can reach it earlier by taking the first turning on your right which leads to the same tunnel.
Well#15: Next open area has two walkways turning left at the far end. Cross them, turn left towards the next set of doors, then keep to the right, there's a craftily hidden very short ramp going down to the well on the right hand side.
Well#16: After beating Garm and riding the lift up, blast open the wall on the right side, the well is in the room revealed.
Well#17: Compulsory.
Aesir (1 well)
Well#18: Leads to Cyberspace in the Hall of the World Tree.
I am seeing necrotizing in virtually EVERY fight so that's probably another reason I'm getting an easy time of it.
- Bio-E elite spear
(The Flesh Architect's Incisor from the Cyber Bio-E set) - maxed Submunition Distributor skill
(from Cybernetic skill tree, increasing proc rates) - a 3rd tier weapon charm called the Epic Necrotizing Focus
(ranged necrotizing!) - an orange rune that increases status effect chance by 1% while using a 2-hander.
(couldn't find a web source for this one)
Whatever the game is, when I have a character hit max level, and all that's left is to complete equipment, I find I lose a bit of the playing enjoyment. I mean, I'm killing off all these foes that are worth no points, and might drop usable loot once every week of daily playing. I get a bit of a rush I guess, when I see the xp meter going up, the whole carrot on a stick thing maybe. At least at some point, I will get more points to spend, guaranteed. This loot collection thing is really random and irritating, it just gets to me.
Anyways, I haven't seen the usual bunch playing this game and there's rumblings from my friends about playing the next game coming out, so that might be it for Too Human. But dammit it would have been nice to have a full set of elite armor for that missing achievement.
In the Norn's Favor seems to be well covered in this thread, still have to do this one too:
http://www.toohuman.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5525
Hall of Heroes (4 wells total)
Well#1: Compulsory
Well#2: Opens the 3 doors to the two arenas and the obelisk
Well#3: Below the balcony 2 rooms further in from well#2.
Well#4: Compulsory
Ice Forest (4 wells total)
Well#5: After first jump, break the wall to your right
Well#6: Compulsory
Well#7: Compulsory
Well#8: After speaking to Hod, turn around and go back the way you came, it's behind you.
World Serpent (4 wells total)
Well#9: Compulsory
Well#10: Compulsory
Well#11: In section 3-4 it's in the first room after the indoor bridge, down a ramp at the far end on the left.
Well#12: Compulsory
Helheim (5 wells total)
Well#13: After the APCs blow the front doors off, enter and keep left, it's at the far end.
Well#14: Keep following the long walkways to the next open area, it's down a tunnel to your right at the far end, or you can reach it earlier by taking the first turning on your right which leads to the same tunnel.
Well#15: Next open area has two walkways turning left at the far end. Cross them, turn left towards the next set of doors, then keep to the right, there's a craftily hidden very short ramp going down to the well on the right hand side.
Well#16: After beating Garm and riding the lift up, blast open the wall on the right side, the well is in the room revealed.
Well#17: Compulsory.
Aesir (1 well)
Well#18: Leads to Cyberspace in the Hall of the World Tree.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Elite Armor, and Farming blah.
Only 2 things left to do in the game - find all the wells (I guess I'm still missing some secret area well or something, I think my stats chart says I've found 13) and get a 7 piece Elite Armor set.
I guess I can find a walkthrough some time and get at the wells, but the Elite Armor set now, that is a different story. I was occassionally getting red drops off Grendel, but it doesn't seem to happen often enough to play through Hall of Heroes over and over again with the intention of completing a red armor set.
I found a little trick off a youtube video of how to farm a particular spider. Basically what you do is you take a (laser) rifle or cannon into level 3-4, and fight through until you get to a smallish reverse-C shaped green room. There is an optional well at the bottom of a ramp attached to the far end of the C. The other way to describe it is the room before the conveyor belt room. For me, I usually find a Troll - Spider - Troll set of foes in that room.
From this C-shaped room, you step up to the next door so that you are looking into the belt room. Standing on the grey pad is best, the farthest spot you can stand while getting the door to open. As the doors open, you'll see a spider standing at the base of the robot arm. If you time it right and start firing/aiming as the doors open, the spider doesn't respond and just calmly stands there and eats laser fire. Nothing else in the room will spawn either if it's done right. Occassionally the spider will arch back from the damage and the damage stops briefly. It takes my Bio-E two rifle clips (330ish damage) to take one spider down this way. Either way, you will find that the spider will die and drop loot. Sometimes it drops RED loot. If you want the loot that it drops, just wait around a bit, eventually the dropped loot will come to you automatically. You can laser the goblins and elves that spawn while waiting in the C-shaped room, or you can back up a bit so the doors close and you're not at risk from getting hit by some evil status effect. (as a Bio-E I didn't really care)
Here's the trick part - if you back away from the belt room door and head down the ramp to the well, the belt room resets. You have to just get both feet on the ramp and you're good. When you head back to the belt door, you will find another spider waiting for you. Kill it, check if the loot is worth waiting for, and reset when ready.
Things that can go wrong:
- You get too close to the door and you activate the whole room. They won't run into your room, but you will have to deal with the spider shooting arrows at you and random artillery fire from 2 dark elves. If any of they are status effect guys you'd better have a heal+status effect fix on hand to save yourself. Which leads to the 2nd point:
- If you die, you appear in the conveyor belt room with the door locked behind you. (just as a side note, a laser *rifle* is able to take out the spider's arrow automatically if you are locked on the spider - the firing paths intersect and your laser can deal enough damage to take it out. the cannon isn't in a high enough position to do this.)
- If you do try to take out the spider after it's active, you have a limited amount of time before the game decides to despawn the spider. I don't know if it's cause the spider is standing too close to the robot arm base and gets pushed in somehow, or if the spider can't reach you, I just know it happens when the spider is active.
- You fall asleep while farming and accidentally run into the room.
I did it for about an hour or so one day, and I got a set of red pistols (yuck) and 2 red runes (bleh). No Elite armor yet for me. I did find a red laser cannon in the shop though that looks like it can do the spider in 1 clip, at about 470 damage. Though I dont really know if it makes any real difference.
I wonder if having all the section tokens helps? I didn't have the Hall of Heroes tokens when I was trying this.
Upsen.
I guess I can find a walkthrough some time and get at the wells, but the Elite Armor set now, that is a different story. I was occassionally getting red drops off Grendel, but it doesn't seem to happen often enough to play through Hall of Heroes over and over again with the intention of completing a red armor set.
I found a little trick off a youtube video of how to farm a particular spider. Basically what you do is you take a (laser) rifle or cannon into level 3-4, and fight through until you get to a smallish reverse-C shaped green room. There is an optional well at the bottom of a ramp attached to the far end of the C. The other way to describe it is the room before the conveyor belt room. For me, I usually find a Troll - Spider - Troll set of foes in that room.
From this C-shaped room, you step up to the next door so that you are looking into the belt room. Standing on the grey pad is best, the farthest spot you can stand while getting the door to open. As the doors open, you'll see a spider standing at the base of the robot arm. If you time it right and start firing/aiming as the doors open, the spider doesn't respond and just calmly stands there and eats laser fire. Nothing else in the room will spawn either if it's done right. Occassionally the spider will arch back from the damage and the damage stops briefly. It takes my Bio-E two rifle clips (330ish damage) to take one spider down this way. Either way, you will find that the spider will die and drop loot. Sometimes it drops RED loot. If you want the loot that it drops, just wait around a bit, eventually the dropped loot will come to you automatically. You can laser the goblins and elves that spawn while waiting in the C-shaped room, or you can back up a bit so the doors close and you're not at risk from getting hit by some evil status effect. (as a Bio-E I didn't really care)
Here's the trick part - if you back away from the belt room door and head down the ramp to the well, the belt room resets. You have to just get both feet on the ramp and you're good. When you head back to the belt door, you will find another spider waiting for you. Kill it, check if the loot is worth waiting for, and reset when ready.
Things that can go wrong:
- You get too close to the door and you activate the whole room. They won't run into your room, but you will have to deal with the spider shooting arrows at you and random artillery fire from 2 dark elves. If any of they are status effect guys you'd better have a heal+status effect fix on hand to save yourself. Which leads to the 2nd point:
- If you die, you appear in the conveyor belt room with the door locked behind you. (just as a side note, a laser *rifle* is able to take out the spider's arrow automatically if you are locked on the spider - the firing paths intersect and your laser can deal enough damage to take it out. the cannon isn't in a high enough position to do this.)
- If you do try to take out the spider after it's active, you have a limited amount of time before the game decides to despawn the spider. I don't know if it's cause the spider is standing too close to the robot arm base and gets pushed in somehow, or if the spider can't reach you, I just know it happens when the spider is active.
- You fall asleep while farming and accidentally run into the room.
I did it for about an hour or so one day, and I got a set of red pistols (yuck) and 2 red runes (bleh). No Elite armor yet for me. I did find a red laser cannon in the shop though that looks like it can do the spider in 1 clip, at about 470 damage. Though I dont really know if it makes any real difference.
I wonder if having all the section tokens helps? I didn't have the Hall of Heroes tokens when I was trying this.
Upsen.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Unstoppable: Ice Forest
I finally picked up Unstoppable: Ice Forest a couple days ago, by playing a new character with my improved skill ability of having played 3 characters to 40-50.
What I did was start a new bio-engineer character and ran him through Hall of Heroes (world 1) - I skipped optional areas and if a door opened I didn't bother sticking around to finish off all the foes. This was to keep the character level low. Thus, I get to play Ice Forest at a low level as well. Ice forest took this particular bio-e from Level 7 to Level 18 at the end.
When a low character plays, you never see ballistic immune trolls or super missile swarms, nor do you get 4 trolls in one hallway. So the low level character going through Ice Forest only had to deal with dark elf bosses and at most, ballistic immune polarities that could be taken out with a laser rifle (basically the KLOBB rifle when it became available). The worst of it was probably one of those platforms where there would be a hammer troll, assault troll, and assorted dark elves and goblins, but it wasn't too bad to just keep them all at range, build up combo meter with air juggles on the trash, and just bio-e healing to correct any status effects or damage.
HOD's jumping platforms went down easily with a slug rifle, laser takes too long against those platforms. The last fight was just a series of dash attacks/finisher and roll away, zap him with the laser to keep him rolling and not shooting. His defeat came in short order.
Anyways, it took a while due to the length of Ice Forest, but it worked.
What I did was start a new bio-engineer character and ran him through Hall of Heroes (world 1) - I skipped optional areas and if a door opened I didn't bother sticking around to finish off all the foes. This was to keep the character level low. Thus, I get to play Ice Forest at a low level as well. Ice forest took this particular bio-e from Level 7 to Level 18 at the end.
When a low character plays, you never see ballistic immune trolls or super missile swarms, nor do you get 4 trolls in one hallway. So the low level character going through Ice Forest only had to deal with dark elf bosses and at most, ballistic immune polarities that could be taken out with a laser rifle (basically the KLOBB rifle when it became available). The worst of it was probably one of those platforms where there would be a hammer troll, assault troll, and assorted dark elves and goblins, but it wasn't too bad to just keep them all at range, build up combo meter with air juggles on the trash, and just bio-e healing to correct any status effects or damage.
HOD's jumping platforms went down easily with a slug rifle, laser takes too long against those platforms. The last fight was just a series of dash attacks/finisher and roll away, zap him with the laser to keep him rolling and not shooting. His defeat came in short order.
Anyways, it took a while due to the length of Ice Forest, but it worked.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Going Commando
I tried the commando once near when I started playing Too Human, got one up a few levels to get the achievement for playing all character classes to Level 10. I remember dying a lot to stupid things. I thought meh, it's okay.
However, this time around when I tried it, knowing the enemies made a HUGE difference in survivability. The only trouble comes from certain resistant trolls, especially if they have a bomb launcher. Aside from that, the game is a lot easier since you dont have to worry about polarity foes blowing up next to you as much, since you can blast them away. I found that a lot of polarities are immune to gunfire, but not immune to the laser rifle's secondary blast. 3 ticks and they are dead. This makes the laser rifle extremely appealing even though there are no specific commando bonuses for laser rifle. I just use the bonuses off Rifle Damage from the commando plasma right path, and the reload bonuses off the Human skill list. (I'm going to get a few more points in to get the additional combo level at the end of the tree, can always use that.) So I guess I'm a plasma commando, more of a 80-20 split between laser-plasma, since sometimes plasma is easier to use on trolls in tight spaces. If it was multiplayer with no pausing I'd just stick with the laser, I'd think.
I haven't really had too much trouble with combo levels - Normally the commando kills so fast that a combo level will build up, and in a pinch, I can juggle something and lase it to death since we get more points off an air kill.
One of the best bonuses for me seems to be ballistic juggle time - with about a +30% or so bonus, I can do a single juggle long enough to take a goblin boss from full health to dead. Unfortunately I upgraded past the piece of armor that I'd slotted the juggles in, and I'll definitely have to build another one once I find some more.
I picked up Unstoppable: World Serpent with the commando - Ice Forest is still a bit too rough, the length of stage 2 has always meant an unlucky encounter with a dot-effect death. (usually from a ballistic-immune troll) One of these times I'll luck out and get away with it, or maybe try it with a friend some time.
However, this time around when I tried it, knowing the enemies made a HUGE difference in survivability. The only trouble comes from certain resistant trolls, especially if they have a bomb launcher. Aside from that, the game is a lot easier since you dont have to worry about polarity foes blowing up next to you as much, since you can blast them away. I found that a lot of polarities are immune to gunfire, but not immune to the laser rifle's secondary blast. 3 ticks and they are dead. This makes the laser rifle extremely appealing even though there are no specific commando bonuses for laser rifle. I just use the bonuses off Rifle Damage from the commando plasma right path, and the reload bonuses off the Human skill list. (I'm going to get a few more points in to get the additional combo level at the end of the tree, can always use that.) So I guess I'm a plasma commando, more of a 80-20 split between laser-plasma, since sometimes plasma is easier to use on trolls in tight spaces. If it was multiplayer with no pausing I'd just stick with the laser, I'd think.
I haven't really had too much trouble with combo levels - Normally the commando kills so fast that a combo level will build up, and in a pinch, I can juggle something and lase it to death since we get more points off an air kill.
One of the best bonuses for me seems to be ballistic juggle time - with about a +30% or so bonus, I can do a single juggle long enough to take a goblin boss from full health to dead. Unfortunately I upgraded past the piece of armor that I'd slotted the juggles in, and I'll definitely have to build another one once I find some more.
I picked up Unstoppable: World Serpent with the commando - Ice Forest is still a bit too rough, the length of stage 2 has always meant an unlucky encounter with a dot-effect death. (usually from a ballistic-immune troll) One of these times I'll luck out and get away with it, or maybe try it with a friend some time.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Necrotizing Goodness
Yesterday, in the weapon shop, I found a red spear, worth something like 1.4 million. Luckily I hadn't been spending much so I had more than enough to cover the cost of purchase... I could have bought 2 even.
Anyways, it was meant for cybernetic classes and was called the Flesh Architect's Incisor. It was totally worth the purchase, as it made fighting the masses of foes SO much easier. Soon as a proc occurs, a good sized pool of toxic liquid appears where the foe is, and they die. Other foes touching the pool take damage and then die too, leaving behind their own pools of necrotized toxins. I've seen this pool travel along the length of a room and around a corner due to the new foes coming in and getting necrotized while I'm just standing there watching. I can probably say goodbye to ever getting any Combo-meter=50 charms done though.
Even better is that I now have a Necrotize charm about 60% completed too, which should make for even more frequent proccing, and proccing at range as well. (the spear based necrotize doesn't affect the ranged weapon it seems)
I ended up getting rid of the Skuld's Embrace skill and putting those points into more points for the Cybernetics tree. I went down both sides of the Cybernetics tree. :D more Procs/Spidertime and more ammo/range/penetration!
Upsen.
Anyways, it was meant for cybernetic classes and was called the Flesh Architect's Incisor. It was totally worth the purchase, as it made fighting the masses of foes SO much easier. Soon as a proc occurs, a good sized pool of toxic liquid appears where the foe is, and they die. Other foes touching the pool take damage and then die too, leaving behind their own pools of necrotized toxins. I've seen this pool travel along the length of a room and around a corner due to the new foes coming in and getting necrotized while I'm just standing there watching. I can probably say goodbye to ever getting any Combo-meter=50 charms done though.
Even better is that I now have a Necrotize charm about 60% completed too, which should make for even more frequent proccing, and proccing at range as well. (the spear based necrotize doesn't affect the ranged weapon it seems)
I ended up getting rid of the Skuld's Embrace skill and putting those points into more points for the Cybernetics tree. I went down both sides of the Cybernetics tree. :D more Procs/Spidertime and more ammo/range/penetration!
Upsen.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Too Much Too Human
After hitting 50 with my cybernetic bio engineer character, I went back and started playing my cybernetic defender again, to try out some of the melee techniques I'd learned while playing the squishier BioE.
When I first started playing, I had no idea that rolling was a powerful mitigation power - I figured it just let you get away from melee and aoe blasts. I was totally wrong, rolling is an amazing damage mitigation tool - you don't take any damage if you time the roll correctly! Even knockdowns can be avoided (too bad you can't avoid freeze with a roll, only with a well timed jump) Anyways, back to the actual point - I was now a rolling demon with my defender, now that I knew how to avoid the extra bit of damage that my defender used to always absorb standing up.
Besides that, I found that aerial attacks were still useful for a defender even if his hang-time in the air is minimal - you can launch a foe, do an air-slide to them, and set off a finisher attack before they drop back down, and it usually kills whatever it is. The other handy part about the air-slide finisher is using them against trolls - even if you skip the launch step, you can still jump, airslide to the troll's chest, and do a finisher. It takes all the armor off the upper body of the troll in one big hit, and all you have to do is roll around to behind the troll and then mount it's head for the kill. It made troll killing a heck of a lot faster. This was a bit risky on the BioE but it was easy peasy on the Defender, cause of his knockdown immunity. You may take a spot of damage but you will always get into position on the first try.
I was able to get past a lot of things I wasn't able to handle very well previously with these 2 techniques. The Defender's now L50 as well. (and it seems to have gotten a lot more red pieces of equipment than the BioE, I wonder why? Luck?)
I also decided I don't really like the BioE mind control power (Skuld's Embrace) at L50 - there are too many missiles in the mix. Since the AI's AOEs always hit everyone (friend and foe alike) you can get screwed over by a badly timed "friendly" missile barrage as you are meleeing away. At least when all the missiles are aimed at you, you know where they will land, and you can react accordingly. If some are aimed at you and some are aimed at the enemy, you will eat missiles wherever you go - it is hard to tell where the next barrage will land.
Also it's made me time out of a couple of timed secret areas.
What else is there - oh yeah, I heard that the respec cost caps out at 1,000,000 or so bounty. It's getting kind of expensive to respec but at least I know it shouldn't get any more extreme.
Now that the Defender's at 50, I'm not entirely happy with him either. I really miss the BioE ability to heal damage, even if they took a lot more in the first place. At least you can decide when you want to heal, rather than cross your fingers for a health orb.
So the current character I'm playing now is a Human BioE - it's a lot more flexible than the cybernetic one since you can build ruiners much more quickly with the improved hit rate. It's too bad the ruiner doesn't actually siphon enemy health to you like the description says.
I may stagger the development of this human BioE with a human Commando - I hear they are the characters of choice for loot runs since they can dish out ranged damage in the range of 1000-2000 points per shot - that's just a little less than what my Cybernetic BioE is doing per melee swing. :P It takes me a good hour or two to get through hell with the regen waiting etc, but these Commandos can do it in under half an hour? Wow. Plus due to the reliance on ranged weapons, you can basically set up your melee weapon as a ranged weapon buff receptacle, since you would only be using it to set up a juggle.
I have a cybernetic commando already at about L27, who is doing all right... I'll probably build a new human one for comparison. I think the human one will probably be able to dish more damage with it's faster reloads and rate of fire, the cyber one seems to be more focused on range and sustained fire.
Upsen.
When I first started playing, I had no idea that rolling was a powerful mitigation power - I figured it just let you get away from melee and aoe blasts. I was totally wrong, rolling is an amazing damage mitigation tool - you don't take any damage if you time the roll correctly! Even knockdowns can be avoided (too bad you can't avoid freeze with a roll, only with a well timed jump) Anyways, back to the actual point - I was now a rolling demon with my defender, now that I knew how to avoid the extra bit of damage that my defender used to always absorb standing up.
Besides that, I found that aerial attacks were still useful for a defender even if his hang-time in the air is minimal - you can launch a foe, do an air-slide to them, and set off a finisher attack before they drop back down, and it usually kills whatever it is. The other handy part about the air-slide finisher is using them against trolls - even if you skip the launch step, you can still jump, airslide to the troll's chest, and do a finisher. It takes all the armor off the upper body of the troll in one big hit, and all you have to do is roll around to behind the troll and then mount it's head for the kill. It made troll killing a heck of a lot faster. This was a bit risky on the BioE but it was easy peasy on the Defender, cause of his knockdown immunity. You may take a spot of damage but you will always get into position on the first try.
I was able to get past a lot of things I wasn't able to handle very well previously with these 2 techniques. The Defender's now L50 as well. (and it seems to have gotten a lot more red pieces of equipment than the BioE, I wonder why? Luck?)
I also decided I don't really like the BioE mind control power (Skuld's Embrace) at L50 - there are too many missiles in the mix. Since the AI's AOEs always hit everyone (friend and foe alike) you can get screwed over by a badly timed "friendly" missile barrage as you are meleeing away. At least when all the missiles are aimed at you, you know where they will land, and you can react accordingly. If some are aimed at you and some are aimed at the enemy, you will eat missiles wherever you go - it is hard to tell where the next barrage will land.
Also it's made me time out of a couple of timed secret areas.
What else is there - oh yeah, I heard that the respec cost caps out at 1,000,000 or so bounty. It's getting kind of expensive to respec but at least I know it shouldn't get any more extreme.
Now that the Defender's at 50, I'm not entirely happy with him either. I really miss the BioE ability to heal damage, even if they took a lot more in the first place. At least you can decide when you want to heal, rather than cross your fingers for a health orb.
So the current character I'm playing now is a Human BioE - it's a lot more flexible than the cybernetic one since you can build ruiners much more quickly with the improved hit rate. It's too bad the ruiner doesn't actually siphon enemy health to you like the description says.
I may stagger the development of this human BioE with a human Commando - I hear they are the characters of choice for loot runs since they can dish out ranged damage in the range of 1000-2000 points per shot - that's just a little less than what my Cybernetic BioE is doing per melee swing. :P It takes me a good hour or two to get through hell with the regen waiting etc, but these Commandos can do it in under half an hour? Wow. Plus due to the reliance on ranged weapons, you can basically set up your melee weapon as a ranged weapon buff receptacle, since you would only be using it to set up a juggle.
I have a cybernetic commando already at about L27, who is doing all right... I'll probably build a new human one for comparison. I think the human one will probably be able to dish more damage with it's faster reloads and rate of fire, the cyber one seems to be more focused on range and sustained fire.
Upsen.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Freedom Server
One of the things about playing Villains on Champion is a lack of group play - perhaps there are not a lot of low level people playing, or perhaps they just prefer to solo, but I have done level 1-20ish there many times over, almost all of it solo.
So, I figured I could give it a try on a more populated server and see how it is. That's why I headed off to Freedom. It was pretty good right from the start, there is always someone looking for more team mates, either in tells or on broadcast. I've gone up from L1 to L16 in just 2 sessions of play. (about 3 hours a stretch, I think)
I started a brute, since my wrist is still kind of messed up from my previous Mastermind foray. Dark/Willpower, I just can't seem to get away from WP, the recovery portion of the powerset is just too good to miss out on. Anyways, let's see how this works out... so far it's pretty quick and easy to find groups.
Upsen.
So, I figured I could give it a try on a more populated server and see how it is. That's why I headed off to Freedom. It was pretty good right from the start, there is always someone looking for more team mates, either in tells or on broadcast. I've gone up from L1 to L16 in just 2 sessions of play. (about 3 hours a stretch, I think)
I started a brute, since my wrist is still kind of messed up from my previous Mastermind foray. Dark/Willpower, I just can't seem to get away from WP, the recovery portion of the powerset is just too good to miss out on. Anyways, let's see how this works out... so far it's pretty quick and easy to find groups.
Upsen.
Monday, September 22, 2008
What the Carp (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome)
Well all that mastermind playing took a toll on my left wrist - I'd put the all-attack command on the 1 key, and the move-to command on Alt-1, not thinking about the stretch I would have to put my fingers to while using my usual ESDF movement key layout. (and I used my ring finger to hit it, not my little finger) I was fine for a couple of weeks, then suddenly this pain started... instantly I knew what caused it... Hindsight can be so damned clear, but only after the damage is done.
It'd happened before a long time ago when I was playing way too much Everquest, that time it was my right hand from mouse overuse. I basically had to correct the position I held the mouse, and I just played through the pain until it went away. What can I say, I was an EQ addict.
Anyways, I'm not as stupid as I used to be (or at least less addicted) so I took a bit of a break for the past week and let my hands rest. It seems to be mostly recovered now. I'm going to let my masterminds lay low for now though, go back to playing something with a little less micromanagement for a bit. Maybe a brute or something.
Upsen.
It'd happened before a long time ago when I was playing way too much Everquest, that time it was my right hand from mouse overuse. I basically had to correct the position I held the mouse, and I just played through the pain until it went away. What can I say, I was an EQ addict.
Anyways, I'm not as stupid as I used to be (or at least less addicted) so I took a bit of a break for the past week and let my hands rest. It seems to be mostly recovered now. I'm going to let my masterminds lay low for now though, go back to playing something with a little less micromanagement for a bit. Maybe a brute or something.
Upsen.
Friday, September 12, 2008
New Villain
I've been experimenting the past little while with a thug/storm villain on Champion - the storm set is pretty interesting, it's my first shot at playing a stormie of any sort. However it's not really good at covering healing with just it's O2 Boost power... so when things got tough, the thugs just kind of wilted, even with all the leaderships from the enforcer and myself. After about 18 levels of it, I was getting a bit tired of it. Sure the toggle power is a good one, and gale can do some crowd control, but when your minions are all in the red, it isn't quite enough. So I deleted her and split the concept into 2 different characters. (yay for alt-itis, bleh)
First off is a thugs/dark to cover the healing angle and still have the cloaking and toggling going on... but I still wanted to do a storm mastermind more. So I paired up bots/storm since I know the protector bots do healing/repairs on the other robots, keeping things topped up. So I'm on my way up the lowbie ladder again, currently running at L11. The protector bot at the next level will tell me if I'm happy with this build or not... we'll have to wait and see.
Upsen.
First off is a thugs/dark to cover the healing angle and still have the cloaking and toggling going on... but I still wanted to do a storm mastermind more. So I paired up bots/storm since I know the protector bots do healing/repairs on the other robots, keeping things topped up. So I'm on my way up the lowbie ladder again, currently running at L11. The protector bot at the next level will tell me if I'm happy with this build or not... we'll have to wait and see.
Upsen.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Too Human Multiplayer
Last night I had a good session of Too Human with a friend - I was on a Defender and they were on a Commando. We both happened to be L30 so we didn't have to go character juggling and finding odd alts to play, which was cool.
This game needs to address the problems it has with level disparities... The first time I played multiplayer, I logged in a L6 into a game a friend had and he was L40. I died pretty much every encounter even if I tried to stay at range... things were one-shotting me. It really turned me off the multiplayer game at first.
We went through the World Serpent stages, and then Helheim to a little past GARM. I discovered that my Fire-setting ability was locked out in his game's cyber space, which was kind of irritating. I mean, I should be allowed to use if if I'd gotten the ability on my own right? :P
The end bosses are really easy when you have 2 players, one person flees and the other one guns down whatever it is.
Unfortunately we both bit it a couple times so no achievement for surviving the whole level.
We picked up some decent equipment, and I managed to get a weapon that does 1000+ base damage. A couple pieces of red armor too, which cost an arm and a leg to build from blueprints.
Ended the night at L36, 6 levels in about 3 hours, much faster than in single player I think.
This game needs to address the problems it has with level disparities... The first time I played multiplayer, I logged in a L6 into a game a friend had and he was L40. I died pretty much every encounter even if I tried to stay at range... things were one-shotting me. It really turned me off the multiplayer game at first.
We went through the World Serpent stages, and then Helheim to a little past GARM. I discovered that my Fire-setting ability was locked out in his game's cyber space, which was kind of irritating. I mean, I should be allowed to use if if I'd gotten the ability on my own right? :P
The end bosses are really easy when you have 2 players, one person flees and the other one guns down whatever it is.
Unfortunately we both bit it a couple times so no achievement for surviving the whole level.
We picked up some decent equipment, and I managed to get a weapon that does 1000+ base damage. A couple pieces of red armor too, which cost an arm and a leg to build from blueprints.
Ended the night at L36, 6 levels in about 3 hours, much faster than in single player I think.
Monday, September 8, 2008
First Post
Gods I hate when people do "first post!!1" and add absolutely no content. So anyways, this is still a first post and a quick hello to add some content here.
I'm Upsen, not a pink kitty named Aeris from VG Cats, although I did admire her sarcastic little ways, which is why I selected her for my avatar for the City of Heroes Forums a few years back. I haven't really kept up with reading the comic though for the past while, maybe I should go back and take a look.
I play City of Heroes mainly, though I've dabbled in other games, most of which I no longer play.
As so to be clear about a few things I am a guy, even if I do play female characters about half the time. It just happened that the first chara I got up to L50 in CoH happened to be a female. I have a tendency to create a lot of alts and it was rare that I got something up to max level in a game, so I stuck with the name since it was my "L50, woo woo" character, the one that I got to go places and do things with.
The name doesn't come from Auntie Mame, nor is it a race horse, nor is it a Dwarven town. It was a punny name for the the Super Powers that the character had - Gravity control (get it? gravity? Lift? Bounces foes up and down?)
I tend to play tank style characters more than other types nowadays, no matter what the game is. It's nice be able to survive more than most, even if you aren't the biggest damage/killer around. So if you are a CoH player on Champion looking for a decent tank, I'm generally up for tanking whatever encounter you have in mind.
Although I have to admit I haven't played CoH in the past little while cause of a few Xbox games, urgh.
Upsen.
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