View Full Version : Eternal Debt (CoH Rant!)
Sabatini Scratch
05-14-04, 07:42 AM
Ugh. Had a lovely time last night. Got invited into a full group of heroes where I was just about the only front liner, then watched in horror about it as they continually used sloppy techniques in a dungeon to take on CoT Madness mages who enjoyed exploding for 300+ damage before I noticed they pulled them.
1600 worth of debt later I'm still trying to be a good sport about it and stay friendly. I finally get them to agree to take a non CoT mission so some of us can live and we could reduce our debt a little.
The part that truly pissed me off was that the mapserver kicked me off while I was boarding the train. And in the oh...20 seconds I disappeared, they replaced me without a second thought. Fine bit of gratitude since it was my contributions that gave them time to run away.
Yeah thanks for the memories %@#wipes. I'll be remembering you for some time to come while I work off the going away present you left me. Bah.
It's amazing how much playing a Scrapper reminds me of my old school EQ days! Except for the part where I can still actually level despite all the deaths. :)
Ah pick up groups. More often than not, they're like a STD...a gift that keeps on giving.
freonsmurf
05-14-04, 08:38 AM
Whats the name of your main on their sab?
I can Sk ya sometime this weekend.
Ditto. Look for Reverend, and I'll be glad to join up with ya any time. Always looking for more melee types to Heal.
Hell I'm more than willing to team up and let you do buttkicking while the goonsquad pounds on my head.
Dragynphyre
05-14-04, 09:44 AM
What's with some people??
Sort like when you're in the middle of your second Sewer mission taking out Stitcher and his Vhazilok... one of your blasters goes afk outside the mission without saying a word, and you can't even get him to respond to a tell.
Then you pick up a defender to come join you and all is going well even without the other blaster, when all of a sudden, your 2nd blaster says "Bro just got here, bye" and logs off...
...leaving 2 scrappers and a defender in the sewers that were spawned for a 5 man group... the two ice blasters were pretty much all that were keeping the Embalmed Cadavers from exploding their rotten chunks all over you, and holding the Eidolons from turning off your ability to use your powers.
We took the easy way out and left before we wound up incurring as much exp debt as the US has national debt.
Of course now I have to finish the mission, because I've got 3 missions that need to be finished and I think that's the max I can have at one time.
My fav yesterday, groups is 4 14th lvls, a 9th lvl leader, 10th lvl me, and a 13th lvl. After some putzing around with leader not sure which way to go, one of the 14ths says "I don't want to mess with your experience, I'm too high" and leaves. Hell man, get a pair and just say you dont like the way the group was led or that you want to solo or something, but when the majority is your lvl the excuse is gonna obvious.
Sabatini Scratch
05-14-04, 12:08 PM
[quote="freonsmurf"]Whats the name of your main on their sab?quote]
Jack Scratch is my main. Broadsword/Reflexes currently just shy of 13th. I'll keep an eye out for you and Meddik if either of you need a swashbuckling meatshield. :)
Got into another lousy pickup group a few hours ago, but then half the group ditched in a manner similar to what Delissandra described, leaving just me, a tank, and a gravity controller. But I swear they did us a favor by leaving. Once we got down to just the three of us, we did great. Actually managed to work off the monster debt I mentioned above, plus another death I got when the group was full.
Aldarion Shard
05-14-04, 05:09 PM
...leaving 2 scrappers and a defender in the sewers that were spawned for a 5 man group
Thankfully, that aint how it works, afaik - the stuff actually continually re adjusts. Someone left us the other night in mid mission, and stuff turned form orange to blue.
But people suck in this game - no one responds to direct tells. The random invites kill me - No, I wont join your group if you dont send me a tell. Its like a basic literacy test.
Im Phoebus Apollo, Tank, Victory - love to group with some literate safehousers :)
Deltar Battlewall
05-15-04, 12:25 AM
Ah, exp debt. She's an unforgiving mistress. While playing earlier today, I managed to accrue as much as 1902 in debt thanks to playing in a highly overconfident group. ("CoT purples? Bah, we can take 'em! Attack!" ... <BOOM!>) Several hours later, I almost had it all worked off from running around Perez Park shooting anything that moved. Probably would have gotten enough for level 14 had it not been for that.
Have you ever done an indoor mission, fought the stuff that was incredibly hard at the beginning, then as you go in deeper it gets rediculously easy?
ShadowCross
05-15-04, 05:21 AM
Have you ever done an indoor mission, fought the stuff that was incredibly hard at the beginning, then as you go in deeper it gets rediculously easy?
Yeah, about 1 in 5 is like that.. pretty annoying.. usually starts with yellows + oranges and then in the end you fight 10 greys at once :(
*psst* Join the Safehouse Redeemed guild! :p I usually group with people I know from boards. I've yet to have a really bad grouping experience.
PsiKoTicK
05-15-04, 07:29 PM
I'd join you guys, but I'm on Justice (some people from my EQ server are there, and I know some of them IRL.. one is a coworker/friend, etc)...
I've only had one bad grouping experience, and that was because noone listened to me when I Said "Don't do... sonuvab..."
Was only 2 deaths tho... my XP debt comes from doing solo door missions and the boss being a dark aura scrapper and just sucking up ALL my health... and dropping my accuracy to nil, so I miss every hit on top of it.. did that like 4 times in a row, then had some friends help.. hehe... easier with friends.. :X
And the blaster is like... SO much easier than the scrapper... the scrapper just gets pounded... the blaster either hovers out of range, or locks them down with ice and blasters from a distance... groups die to the AE, my scrapper doesn't have an AE yet (the spin kick thing)... so... groups hurt a LOT more... tho with stealth I can normally pull a lot less than all of them.. sometimes... except when the group doesn't listen... heheheh.. I need to get taunt to pull singles.. :X
One thing to say:
Purple bosses on solo missions SUCK.
We had a hella hard mission. Lost abes suck!
DarthEnder
05-17-04, 04:13 AM
I know its a bit off topic, but theres a trick to the exploding CoT mages.
Supposedly they only blow up when one of two conditions are met.
1. They are the last mob in their group alive. Solution, just leave a minion alive till last.
2. More than one hero melees them at the same time. Solution....don't let more than one hero melee them at once. If you got a bunch of mages, have the melees each take one.
PsiKoTicK
05-17-04, 07:16 AM
I've heard the same things, and they supposedly also apply to the embalmed cadavers (the Vahz exploders).
But...
I was in a solo mission, so I KNOW I was the only one hitting the mob... and I go after the exploders first (aka, I go up, smack them, and then run VERY fast the other direction) and they went boom, even though there was 2 other zombies chasing me now (so the group was alive) and I was the only one that touched them. Life mages did the same to me a week or so ago.
The ONLY thing I can think of is that since I use Stealth all the time, the other mobs never agroed, so the exploders think they are alone... or something.
Dragynphyre
05-17-04, 07:22 AM
I found that if you really apply a ton of damage to the exploding Vahz, and kill them before they start doing the jiggle dance, they don't blow up. Guessing that CoT might be similar - haven't run into one of their exploders yet.
The Vahz embalmed simply walk up to the first person and try to blow up, regardless of any conditions. You can interrupt their explosion procedure by hitting them while they're still crouched down (if you miss a shot, jump back because he's gonna blow).
For the CoT mages just watch his hands - when they both start glowing yellowish green he's gona blow in another second or two; get back quick (while I've been able to crane kick them to knock them backwards before they explode, I've never interrupted a mage explosion like an embalmed explosion).
And Dahne, remember it's just "Redeemed", not "Safehouse Redeemed" - The Safehouse doesn't have any official guilds. But purple bosses on missions do suck (I had a level 20 boss on a level 16 mission, and ended up dying although I was able to release the last prisoner just before he finished me off). I did end up soloing a purple level 20 lieutenant at 16 though, but I nearly died, retreated once, and used up all my inspirations to do it. It's a little something I can brag about, but it's not something I want to try again (it's "The Daring Nightprowl", not "The Suicidal Nightprowl").
I need to know what you were thinking when you joined a pickup group in the 1st place. When I can't group with someone I know I solo. It's getting tough to solo at 15th with the Blaster sometimes, but you really learn what you're capable of. When my friends are on I group.
Works out well for my xp AND my blood pressure.
Lenilya
05-18-04, 11:39 PM
/glares at Creepy
So THAT is where you've been! :lol
ShadowCross
05-19-04, 01:49 AM
moved to CoH because it's not much of a rant anymore :)
Morvran
05-19-04, 04:46 AM
Pickup groups are sometimes necessary....and they aren't all bad. The most frustrating thing to me though is being in a group that is slow. They can't decide where to go, they putz around talking, or they just take on groups of greens. My problem, however, is that I have a hard time ditching a group, so I often put up with it for too long.
They are really bad in Perez Park but later on in Boomtown they get much much better (for the most part)
Dr. Cold 17 Ice/Rad Controller
Kungfoocious 10 MA/Regen Scrapper
Molecule Man 5 Kinetics/??
Victory Server
Faultline groups are pretty good too.
Kind of imagine the Unrest/Upper Guk/Lower Guk progression in early EQ days in terms of player skill levels.
Question on this, how fast should I be lvling? Started last night at 5k needed for 13th, and 2.5 hours later logged with 2.2k needed. I think thats ok for half grouping, half duo and casual missions.
pimpsareus
05-19-04, 11:15 AM
While soloing Embalmed Cadavers they only exloded when i didnt attack them first. If i went after em and kept on hitting i seemed to interrupt the blow animation and he never did. I could be wrong though =p
ANd yeah... i tend to avoid big groups, i try to invite 1 or 2 people and do missions as a duo/trio. But sometimes they invite their friends, and their friends' friends, etc etc and it ends up full... which is when i retire =P I HAVE found a couple of really excellent people though and yesterday we had a trio of blaster, Radiation Defender, and me, Tank. We rocked all through Steel Canyon. It was great.
Embalmed have about 2 seconds buildup where they can be interrupted. If you have fairly fast attacks you can consistently interrupt them and stop then from exploding.
Kinda off topic a bit, but if any of the officers are on, Firey Fury would love to join Redeemed. She is now a level 23 Fire / Devices Blaster.
Im very picky about groups i join, i will accept the random invite, see whats goin on, but i also have no qualms about leaving soon after. As long as the core of your group is + / - about 3 levels you should do okay. Also missions in general will be better than grinding in boomtown. One, you fight the same level mobs, but don't have to run so far to get them. Two, the misson completion bonus, yeah its not that big. However, when you do a mission group the whole night, it really starts to add up.
the one thing you want to realize is that based on your AT ,you might want a group size of 3 or 4,or 6 or 8. For scrappers,the biggest problem they have is being paper tanks,as a scrapper i can take down alot of blue-white mobs easy,a small group of yellows. But going up against a yellow+ 2 oranges is alot tougher for me,then for a blaster that can kite them.
even beyond that, depending on your weapon/damage type you have to change your tactics somewhat. As a katana scrapper,with cone and aoe attacks i do better against larger groups,as it multipy's my DPS vs just taking out 1 mob.
For ma/claws or spines your probably better off taking out 1 orange boss at a time, as your powers are typically non aoe.
basically,you just need to play to your charecter's strengths not its weaknesses. There is alot of room to play with it,so it doesnt mean groups always have to be An exact formula,but there are some guidelines that will help remove debt.
Spines are ok AE late in the game, our last three primary powers are a toggle PBAE slow (nice power once I realized its pathetic damage wasn't the focus) and two cone attacks. We also get a half-decent PBAE at level 2, but it's expensive and has a significant recharge, so it's slot intensive if you want to focus on it.
But anyway, if your group is five blasters and maybe a defender, please don't invite me. I'll just hold you back.
Like I'm worried about pace of advance that much. You need a group look me up.
mythas - you can snag an invite by either me(rewo), zulian(or shemer), or vesparo