Yeah. Looking again at the auras and the costs and the number of things to buy... it looks like this event was designed to not go "stale" after a single run. If it's something that comes up for a week every three or four months, then character-bound auras make sense: as Biff says, they're actually pretty cheap.
I'm still grinding out a significant amount of stuff, because... well, honestly, I just don't trust that we're going to see this event again this year, so I want to get everything I consider important from it now. But even so, there'll still be stuff that I want but haven't acquired, so if it does run again in a few months, I won't be sitting it out.
I'm kinda mad at myself, I think I might have influenced the poll by saying "nothing above an 8 without a full dev team." I thought people couldn't read comments without doing the poll first.
The colossus's swordless skewer attack breaks blocks on the first hit (and thus does massive damage and holds on the second hit) a ridiculous amount of the time, even if you start blocking as soon as the tell appears. Should really be looked at - the game provides no defense except blocking, so if you do block, you should get to actually block, not get auto-killed because it decides that your block fails for no reason.
then we have the rewards. this is my first non darkessense/star reward
now can someone tell me what it is and how to useit. NO it doesn't go in the device tray
The drops for the Nightmare Colossus are horrible and probably should be looked into. I've been running this event multiple times per toon (usually three), with multiple toons (running 6 regularly), for the last eight days and have only gotten on rare drop.
That might be something that's supposed to be invisible. Much like the orb it's,s you sometimes pick up. Did that auto-loot into your inventory or did it come from the reward circle?
I give it a 9 and not a 10 because the nightmare collosus itself could have been a bit more exciting. It was still a neat fight for a number of reasons, like giving players points for doing just about anything relevant to the fight including add control and activating a device ( a non-trinity function ), but the collosus itself could have been just a bit more dangerous. The frontward area attacks and the aoe were neat, but there was still a lot of empty space.
The quest mobs however were fantastic and I hope we see a lot more of that kind of stuff - groups of NPCs that make you actually have to figure out how to solo them, or quickly slap a group together out of anyone who happens to be there. Those quest mobs satisfied both the solo-player and the team-player in me. I wouldn't mind if they were a permanent addition to M-city in some locations with a permanent daily quest!
Also the costs for items were just right - I spent just about as much time farming as my attention span allowed and got all the items I wanted - holy water plus a few costumes. Right now I'm casually going at it to maybe get a vehicle, don't really are if I get it before the event ends. Got some stuff as random drops that I gave away/sold to people too!
Recently noticed today that some of the Horrors in Portal Groups appear to have the ability to block disable you...
They've never block disabled me. I would notice too cause I do a lot of blocking in those fights. I actually have one character who is based around the idea of filling your energy bar up by blocking that I've been using.
Yeah, trying to figure out how to make ad-hoc teams work was fun.
Tsin'xing: I'm not a tank, I'm squishy. {some guy dressed like the Green Hornet}: What? You have 10k HP! Tsin'xing: My only defensive ability is block and my def stat is 149... {not-Green-hornet}: *grumble mutter* I guess I'm stuck with tank...
Recently noticed today that some of the Horrors in Portal Groups appear to have the ability to block disable you...
They've never block disabled me. I would notice too cause I do a lot of blocking in those fights. I actually have one character who is based around the idea of filling your energy bar up by blocking that I've been using.
They did something... I went into a group immediately started blocking... was able to block exactly 1 attack before my block was forcebly canceled and then was prevented from blocking again and was taken down to half heath in a matter of seconds... I was flat out denied the ability to block... and I tried again multiple times with the same result... every single time my block was forcebly canceled then prevented from being re-enabled... I don't know what exactly was causing it since there was no debuff of any sort... All I know is it happened, multiple times... and all of this was before any of the NPCs started to knock spam me even...
sounds like you got hit with the knock and the grab and pull at the same time. I've had that happen and my block goes bye byes. I vcan't activate anything for a few seconds, during which I die.
That might be something that's supposed to be invisible. Much like the orb it's,s you sometimes pick up. Did that auto-loot into your inventory or did it come from the reward circle?
that was from a reward circle. I thought i'd got dark essence again, till i tried putting it in the essence pile.
the skewer is long range, I got hit for 14k damage while blocking and at least 50ft from target and then 34k when I ran around the corner at the wrong time, after respawning.
Past the 2oo deaths, nearly at the 250.:)
sounds like you got hit with the knock and the grab and pull at the same time. I've had that happen and my block goes bye byes. I vcan't activate anything for a few seconds, during which I die.
That sounds plausable... I know I had no debuffs appear and my action bar wasn't on lockdown (atleast not visually)... and I did have to hit Resurgeance like a dozen times before it actually activated (granted it didn't do me any good since they knock spammed me to death the instant it activated)
I did Collossus a few times on my Level 11 Void... ok i got bored levelling. NO sidekicking. I was...um.. rotating balls. as long as I didn't attack, the mobs ignored me. 3 successful completions
I've done several collosi where I used a level 13 character. I have flight and I try to stay as high in the air as I can. Then I shoot arrows at the colossus's face.
The Colossus fight is fine. Nothing special but at least it gives out points more properly than other events.
The mission to fight the Worms should require a few less worms or there should have been more worms around their devices one of the two.
The gateway guards are extremely vexing. It is not that they are difficult for good reasons like having good synergy with each other or attacking in a smart way. They are difficult because they abuse the broken Pull-to, Stun, Knock, and Bind abilities to a mind numbing degree. It is always lovely that we cannot do this stuff effectively to most enemies for whom it matters but they can do it to us regardless of our resistances. The fact that it can be near constant, that it discourages Support characters of any sort joining in (because they will be pulled in and murdered faster than most Tanks can even notice), and that it NEVER stops until you grind away their numbers is just unacceptable. Yes, you should take a particular strategy to which enemies you take out first but it is still not executed very well. It is unintelligent difficulty which I tend to abhor.
The fact that Auras are bound on pickup is a really poor design and has no real excuse.
There is too much grind in this event. I expect there will be some grind but maybe a quarter less would have been good.
It's a shame that the auras are bop, being boa/boe would keep people interested in doing the dailies. As it stands, now that I've gotten the costume pieces I wanted and the power there's no reason for me to continue fighting these irritating mobs.
It's 6 year old game and not breaking into new frontiers. Nightmare Invasion originally had a nice challenge to the colossus event, but that was reduced or completely eliminated. The cosmics hop, which causes a lot of frustration.
The cutscene is okay..... Raz and I could do better, though.
It's 6 year old game and not breaking into new frontiers. Nightmare Invasion originally had a nice challenge to the colossus event, but that was reduced or completely eliminated. The cosmics hop, which causes a lot of frustration.
The cutscene is okay..... Raz and I could do better, though.
It's 6 year old game and not breaking into new frontiers. Nightmare Invasion originally had a nice challenge to the colossus event, but that was reduced or completely eliminated. The cosmics hop, which causes a lot of frustration.
The cutscene is okay..... Raz and I could do better, though.
Strange, the only two fails I'd had with this event happened over the last few days, perhaps due to a lack of interest?
Super-farmy and there isn't really an alternate way to get tokens other than spamming colossus fights or doing dailies. I would've expected at the very least random event mobs would drop one token very infrequently.
Speaking of mobs, the difference in challenge between the two types are just staggering. Horrors will permajuggle you to death if you don't have Con to survive attacks or Str to resist knocks, while the worms deal out less knock while also simultaneously being way less damaging. I'd say that's more or less an issue with the worms themselves since why would an endgame mob be that weak? I'm not sure I like the teaming solution to the problem either since the only way that works out in terms of the Horror's challenge is that it's just diffusing knock to different members of your team, instead of doing something that feels - well, deliberately possible by a team.
I do like the VO and cutscene effort put into the event though. It's put together well, just isn't the funnest thing to endure. Then again I've never been a big fan of the huge 50-100 hero open-world raids due to how they screw with this game's performance. Though I guess there's also the issue that giant monsters tend to just be human-model characters super upscaled and they consequentially don't have the sort of mass or destructiveness you'd expect from an enemy that large. Fact you can't see their attack tells easily due to them being 50 feet above offscreen (when fighting them at ground level) doesn't help.
A bit of a tangent, but enemies that huge probably shouldn't use the tiny floating attack tells anyway. No, that sort of information should be conveyed purely through mass and animation. Therakiel's super-slow sword swings, and Teleiosaur's moveset have the right idea of this, though here's another game's example of what I'm talking about: https://youtu.be/ZGri2CMRi2E
Fact you can't see their attack tells easily due to them being 50 feet above offscreen (when fighting them at ground level) doesn't help.
A bit of a tangent, but enemies that huge probably shouldn't use the tiny floating attack tells anyway. No, that sort of information should be conveyed purely through mass and animation.
This is an issue I've had with giant monsters forever... Though in my experince the comic tells havn't been 50feet offscreen but rather gone entirely... this is the very reason why when doing TA I'm always knocked accross he map by Grond, I actually can't see his tell at all never have been able to either... The same goes for Telieosaur, Kigatilik, Qwjibo, Megadestroids, & Collosus. Any enemy over a certain height renders no comic style tells above their heads ever for me... Up until recently I thought that these giant enemies just didn't have those tells enabled, but a friend tells me that they show for them. Not sure what I've done wrong to have these tells permanently disabled for me though... I've reinstalled my game hundreds of times and even changed to a whole new computer with no change. *shrugs*
The schtick tells actually also appear by their portrait of you have them targeted, but they're easily missable. Because of the new cosmic fights and the nightmare event, I've moved these tells to the near-center of my screen and resized them to about twice the size. They now appear just above my power charge bar, and I hardly ever miss them now. And yeah I play a lot of ground-based melee so most of my fights consist of looking at giant feet all day. Not very exciting and almost always obscuring the tells.
I originally gave this a 5, but I think I was being too generous. I give it a 2. Maybe 1.5.
1) The BoP auras are unappealing and alt-toxic.
2) Most of the costume unlocks kinda suck, except maybe to those who want to be undead furries I suppose.
3) Knockback. Stun. Knockback. Knockback. Stun. Terrible and lazy way to artificially inflate difficulty. Who in their right mind on the dev team thought this amount of loss-of-control mechanics would actually be enjoyable to most players?
4) The dailies are horribly long, grindy, and overall alt-unfriendly. "But wait, you don't really need to do it on all your alts!" "I do if the alts in question want the auras, because LOL BoP!" So I just use my tanky characters to carry my squishy ones through. I could group, but groups aren't always available because they're somewhat soloable by meatier characters. Which leads me to...
5) Too much "group" content. Some (like the colossus) is fine, but the whole event tries to force players to group. What is this, Everquest? It's okay for players to do some things solo in games.
6) Tanking the colossus is unrewarding and annoying. I get that it's important to challenge tanks, but attaching a stun do that frontal attack they use is over the top stupid. The best part is that F-mashing can sometimes cause you to pick up a nearby bench and screw things up even more. Meanwhile, all DPS needs is a pulse, because the big, highly-visible, highly-avoidable massive AoE does minimal damage to everyone it hits in comparison.
7) Finally, the lighting is atrocious. It's low-quality and honestly somewhat headache-inducing.
I'm ready for the Knockmare Invasion to end. Hopefully I'll never see it or anything like it again.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
2) Most of the costume unlocks kinda suck, except maybe to those who want to be undead furries I suppose.
I prefer my Anthro characters ALIVE, thank you very much
I have to remove points from my rating
-5 Bound on character Auras, this is a SIN, its bad and you should feel bad! This desicion to make Alts bound on character on an ALT Friendly MMO disgust me
-1 Annoying Knock Spams Mechanics
-1 Very Few good Costumes
-1 Eye-shore, GOOD GOD! WHO THOUGH THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA TO LOOK AT THIS LIGHTING FOR 3 WEEKS?
I found out that the lighting is used in Vibora Bay Crisis during the face-off with Therakiel and Shadow Destroyer
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergies! Playing since 1 February 2011 128 + Characters (21 ATs, 107 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
I actually have no problem with the lighting. My eyes are light sensitive and I see better at the blue end, so for me it's toned down from the usual colouring.
It's when I have someone in an alert using yellow/orange bubbles, whirlwind and sigils. I can't see a bloody thing on screen, past all the yellow.
The schtick tells actually also appear by their portrait of you have them targeted, but they're easily missable. Because of the new cosmic fights and the nightmare event, I've moved these tells to the near-center of my screen and resized them to about twice the size. They now appear just above my power charge bar, and I hardly ever miss them now. And yeah I play a lot of ground-based melee so most of my fights consist of looking at giant feet all day. Not very exciting and almost always obscuring the tells.
O.o I'm gonna have to find the UI element for that and do the same... having those tells in a spot where I CAN'T NOT SEE THEM will make a huge difference in everything... thanks for the tip...
I actually have no problem with the lighting. My eyes are light sensitive and I see better at the blue end, so for me it's toned down from the usual colouring.
It's when I have someone in an alert using yellow/orange bubbles, whirlwind and sigils. I can't see a bloody thing on screen, past all the yellow.
I too find the lighting more palettable... it's certtainly better than the blinding mid-day light that I keep having the bad luck of zoning into... Any time I load MC when it's noon Map Time I go blind... the ground turns into a bright white mess and any metal or glowing objects are so damn bright that I feel like I'm staring at the sun... and before someone says it, my bloom is way down.
O.o I'm gonna have to find the UI element for that and do the same... having those tells in a spot where I CAN'T NOT SEE THEM will make a huge difference in everything... thanks for the tip...
Yeah, made a huge difference for me. In case anyone doesn't know, F12 brings up the UI rearrangement mode, and the schtick tell box is at the top of the screen, to the right of where your target's portrait shows, and it's named Target Tell. You can resize it by grabbing any of the corners and dragging.
It's ok, though as many said, it overstayed it's welcome, and Auras being BoP instead of BtA automatically made it way too grindy to be enjoyable.
The Collosi I like the challenge, they are not as epic as revamp Cosmic, but they are not a Zerg fest like Takofanes (I think I only know what power set each of the Heroes use based on speculation from what they drop since they go down so fast I can barely see what they are doing). The difficulty still could have been upped a lil bit with some additional mechanics aside from Orb deactivation without drastically affecting the chance of success, but I think it's a step in the right direction for future events.
The colossus invisible sword thrust seems to hold you *through* blocks with ridiculous frequency (feels like 50%, which is way too high. Really, anything above 'never' is too high - a block should be a block, period). Combined with the massive DoT that accompanies it, this is pretty much death for non-tanks, because it'll kill you before you z-mash out. Yes, even with a Con SS. And considering how often my non-tanks end up tanking the colossus, that's rather aggravating.
The size of the cylinder on that attack is also annoyingly large. Characters who are like 40' back get hit by it, even though they're well beyond the visual display of the attack. (And characters who move around while targeted by it can and do drag it into characters who have no reason to believe they're in the kill zone). If something is going to kill you, you should see *something* hit you.
Also, the colossus fight makes it painfully obvious just how bad most tanks in this game are. I can count on one hand the number of tanks I've seen who can reliably hold aggro, and one of them is mine. Although its such a pain to tank that if there isn't a decent healer, I'd rather aggro the orb mobs.
Whomever thought scaling damage by hp and ignoring damage resistance was a good idea needs to stop game design forever. Invulnerability's flat damage reduction might as well not exist, thanks for making my tank wish she took defiance and had 4 advantage points to spend elsewhere.
(Also, the massive AoE is not blockable. It checks to see if you blocked for damage and possible DoT application, but it doesn't use your defense to determine damage, does not block like other attacks, and does not trigger block effects like parry's damage return. So lovely to have game mechanics and then not use them.)
I think the solution for not surviving his impale move when you're not a tank with Con SS, is don't aggro him.
You don't get better rewards for placing higher on the chart, and the participation threshold is so low that you can place for rewards if you join the fight when he's at 1/6 health. So if you're doing superdope DPS, just hang back and don't DPS for a while, or go help the orb people; you'll get points for doing that, too.
The thing's meant to be tanked by a tank. Not to make fun, but the complaint is kinda like saying "How come my DPS can't heal as well as a healer?"
I think the solution for not surviving his impale move when you're not a tank with Con SS, is don't aggro him.
You don't get better rewards for placing higher on the chart, and the participation threshold is so low that you can place for rewards if you join the fight when he's at 1/6 health. So if you're doing superdope DPS, just hang back and don't DPS for a while, or go help the orb people; you'll get points for doing that, too.
The thing's meant to be tanked by a tank. Not to make fun, but the complaint is kinda like saying "How come my DPS can't heal as well as a healer?"
Yeah, and most Tanks in this game... can't. Stacking a ton of Con and generating pitiful amounts of threat might make you survive, but you're also not doing your job. It's not unreasonable to expect tanks to be able to keep a single target off you as dps.
I'm not just talking tanks who i might trade aggro with occasionally. I mean tanks who *never* establish aggro from t=0 of the fight. I've seen far too many colossus fights where aggro jumps between dps characters (who proceed to block until he switches targets) and is never held by a tank despite 3 or 4 of them hitting him. Those tanks are useless. All the dps can't go deal with orb mobs,
Your position is also no defense of an attack which holds you *through* your block. That should really be fixed.
The Nightmare colossus battle is certainly more fair then the battle with the Mega destroyers or the mechanon infected mega Destroyers. There are a couple cheap attacks sure, but this is something a tank and a healer can protect the group from, the tank keeping agro while backed against a wall, and the healer helping to keep the tank alive. Over all this is a boss battle I rather enjoyed. Sure, we get some cheap shots now and then, sometimes you'll be standing next to a tank or between a tank and the boss when he uses one of his special attacks, and that will kill you, but it's by no means as unfair as getting killed by the massive AoE blasts from the Mega Destroyers that you can't see coming because there's two of them.
I'll give it a strong 7 right now, and upgrade that if they tie the event together with some future content.
I mean, we have a nightmare invasion but simply fighting whatever comes out of portals is hardly an effective way to stop it, nor does it explain who or what is behind this event.
This is currently us fighting giant Mechanons. We need the rest of the story to tie it all up.
But new vehicles, costumes, auras (even if I think the BoP is flawed, and it should be no worse than BoE), action figures, and even a new power? Yes please.
1. The auras being stuck on one character alone was enough to kill it for me. But add in the korean-level grind that it took on these extremely tedious mobs, dealing with people that refuse to work together made it an unbearable, head-to-the-keyboard, slog. Then, tag in the knock/tp removal spam and it's up there into the range of I hope that I never see this one again.
knocking a few points off of my original vote, its dragged on to long, the costume bits are meh at best, skulls have very limited use. auras being bop is horrible, portals and mob are too strong especially with stupid knocks, while vortex dont have enough worms to finish daily mission. also why worms not count towards perk?
Yeah, and most Tanks in this game... can't. Stacking a ton of Con and generating pitiful amounts of threat might make you survive, but you're also not doing your job. It's not unreasonable to expect tanks to be able to keep a single target off you as dps.
I'm not just talking tanks who i might trade aggro with occasionally. I mean tanks who *never* establish aggro from t=0 of the fight. I've seen far too many colossus fights where aggro jumps between dps characters (who proceed to block until he switches targets) and is never held by a tank despite 3 or 4 of them hitting him. Those tanks are useless. All the dps can't go deal with orb mobs,
Your position is also no defense of an attack which holds you *through* your block. That should really be fixed.
Well that's just an unfortunate pug then. It happens. I've been in plenty of fights where the tank(s) held aggro pretty well. And I mean, as melee DPS, I hate the bad-tank-hot-potato game it causes, since I end up whiffing so many haymakers, but the fight is still manageable. Even when I die a thousand times because I grab aggro and I'm no tank.
As far as the unblock able stun goes, while I agree with you (and why I didn't offer a counterpoint), I don't think it'll stun if you block early enough, but it has to be like SUPER early. I don't get stunned if I was already blocking by the time he starts the attack. It definitely should be more lenient than it is though.
Well that's just an unfortunate pug then. It happens. I've been in plenty of fights where the tank(s) held aggro pretty well. And I mean, as melee DPS, I hate the bad-tank-hot-potato game it causes, since I end up whiffing so many haymakers, but the fight is still manageable. Even when I die a thousand times because I grab aggro and I'm no tank.
If it was rare it would be one thing. It's not. As I said, I can count the tanks who have actually held aggro on one hand. It's a small number. I'm sure there's another handful at times i'm not doing my colossus dailies.
Its not just unfortunate pugs, its most pugs that lack tanks which are worth a damn. Unfortunate would imply its rare. It's the predominant condition.
We all know the tanking mechanics are opaque and terrible in this game. The tanking mechanics need an overhaul, badly, and that (rather than endless cosmic revamps) should be the priority if they're going to insist on developing content that requires tanks.
As far as the unblock able stun goes, while I agree with you (and why I didn't offer a counterpoint), I don't think it'll stun if you block early enough, but it has to be like SUPER early. I don't get stunned if I was already blocking by the time he starts the attack. It definitely should be more lenient than it is though.
I have been stunned if i'm already blocking when he starts. It doesn't happen often, but i'm not blocking that early often because, most of the time, either i'm a tank who needs to do something to maintain aggro, or i'm a dps who he switched to and then started it. Situations in which i would have cause to be blocking before he starts it are few, so the instances of it breaking block in that situation are also few. Based on my own experience, i have no reason to believe its any less frequent if you were already blocking.
And regardless, it's still a stupid mechanic. There's no tell on the player's part when its 'too late', so its punishment with no feedback on what you can do to do better. The only thing the player can see is when the attack happens. (And letting any block which is active when the attack goes off be equivalent would tempt players to risk fate and keep attacking till the last possible moment - with the risk of missing it and taking the full hit. But the feedback would be immediate and obvious).
I've not seen many Collossus fights where the tank actually died. But I have seen some where it'd jump around and switch between several people. Not sure if all of them were tanks or not though.
Then, tag in the knock/tp removal spam and it's up there into the range of I hope that I never see this one again.
the TP removal powers were actually removed (hurhurhur) entirely from the horrors at the start of week 2, because after that patch, i never got NTTG'd at all by them
We all know the tanking mechanics are opaque and terrible in this game. The tanking mechanics need an overhaul, badly, and that (rather than endless cosmic revamps) should be the priority if they're going to insist on developing content that requires tanks.
All they really need is:
1) Challenging strikes removed as an advantage and instead, made a baseline feature applied to enemies by every attack made by someone in the tank role.*
2) Crippling challenge's extra threat + taunt effect only usable in the tank role.*
3) Tank role* threat generation greatly increased overall. By greatly, I'm talking about upwards of 600%-800% what it is now. A tank's job is to mitigate damage and keep their allies safe, both of which aren't always possible when they're too busy playing threat-o-war with random dps.
4) Maybe not as necessary as the other 3, but the energy penalty is unpleasantly aids-worthy and should be removed.
* These also should apply to hybrid-role characters using bulwark from the protector specialization tree.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
Overall, I've enjoyed the Event and the mob of players hunting Colossi. It's pretty good, though the early TP disables were and knock/stun spam is a bit irritating on those occasions where nothing you do as a player can keep you alive. Still, I've worked out how to solo the Dailies if I must. I also like that the Colossi include rewards for damage, tanking, healing, and interaction (early bugs on the Orbs were fixed fairly quickly); that ensures that everyone that participated somehow gets credit without encouraging too much laziness.
The duration, while long, is actually kind of nice. I could have farmed much of what I wanted in two weeks, but a spare week of Dailies makes it a whole lot less tiresome. The ability to miss a day (or go for an extra whatever) is really kind of nice... plus, it keeps Millenium City rather interesting.
Some stuff is a tad expensive, like the single character items and the Skulls (400 Coins per Skull option is a bit much), but I've managed to get a nice array of goodies doing the Dailies. I did find it interesting that The Void didn't Bind (and thus could be sold to other players) while the Auras are single character items... but that's why I didn't buy any Auras yet. Maybe if I have some leftover Coins I'll reconsider. In any case, I pretty much aimed for the reasonable things and the rest are there for those that really wanted to pursue collecting them.
Oh, and the variety of materials on the Bat Wings is a great feature! Glowing Psionic Bat Wings... I really need to come up with a character that'd make sense on.
Well, if you only need one for the entire account.. why not make them an account unlock?
That would be awesome, and would get me to actually bother more with the Auras in a general sense. I tend to want the option of using things wherever it turns out they work... so account unlocks serve as a much better motivator for me. Case in point, I unlocked Holy Water despite being new and only a Silver (and therefore I have no Freeform slot to even use the Power), along with pursuing the Costume unlocks (other than the Skulls, but I already mentioned them). The single character unlocks (and even the Vehicles, since I don't have access to an Account Bank as of yet) are a bit of a moot point for me, since I don't really know if I want/care to use them on a given character and they're useless for future ones.
O.o I'm gonna have to find the UI element for that and do the same... having those tells in a spot where I CAN'T NOT SEE THEM will make a huge difference in everything... thanks for the tip...
Yeah, made a huge difference for me. In case anyone doesn't know, F12 brings up the UI rearrangement mode, and the schtick tell box is at the top of the screen, to the right of where your target's portrait shows, and it's named Target Tell. You can resize it by grabbing any of the corners and dragging.
Now that's helpful info; thanks for that. Despite usually playing as a healer (and therefore I keep an eye on whomever the Colossus is targeting, in addition to the folks that actually Team Up), it seems like a really good idea to move it a bit.
As a side note, dealing with the Orbs is easier if you keep a lock on the Colossus. The DoT that's applied by its BOOM keeps you from doing your job for a little bit after getting hit, so it's better to Block it even if that means interrupting a deactivation in progress. DoTs from the mobs can do the same, but usually those are aimed at the Tank/DPS/Vehicle covering the Orbs.
Comments
I'm still grinding out a significant amount of stuff, because... well, honestly, I just don't trust that we're going to see this event again this year, so I want to get everything I consider important from it now. But even so, there'll still be stuff that I want but haven't acquired, so if it does run again in a few months, I won't be sitting it out.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
now can someone tell me what it is and how to useit. NO it doesn't go in the device tray
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
The quest mobs however were fantastic and I hope we see a lot more of that kind of stuff - groups of NPCs that make you actually have to figure out how to solo them, or quickly slap a group together out of anyone who happens to be there. Those quest mobs satisfied both the solo-player and the team-player in me. I wouldn't mind if they were a permanent addition to M-city in some locations with a permanent daily quest!
Also the costs for items were just right - I spent just about as much time farming as my attention span allowed and got all the items I wanted - holy water plus a few costumes. Right now I'm casually going at it to maybe get a vehicle, don't really are if I get it before the event ends. Got some stuff as random drops that I gave away/sold to people too!
They've never block disabled me. I would notice too cause I do a lot of blocking in those fights. I actually have one character who is based around the idea of filling your energy bar up by blocking that I've been using.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Tsin'xing: I'm not a tank, I'm squishy.
{some guy dressed like the Green Hornet}: What? You have 10k HP!
Tsin'xing: My only defensive ability is block and my def stat is 149...
{not-Green-hornet}: *grumble mutter* I guess I'm stuck with tank...
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My characters
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
the skewer is long range, I got hit for 14k damage while blocking and at least 50ft from target and then 34k when I ran around the corner at the wrong time, after respawning.
Past the 2oo deaths, nearly at the 250.:)
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My characters
The mission to fight the Worms should require a few less worms or there should have been more worms around their devices one of the two.
The gateway guards are extremely vexing. It is not that they are difficult for good reasons like having good synergy with each other or attacking in a smart way. They are difficult because they abuse the broken Pull-to, Stun, Knock, and Bind abilities to a mind numbing degree. It is always lovely that we cannot do this stuff effectively to most enemies for whom it matters but they can do it to us regardless of our resistances. The fact that it can be near constant, that it discourages Support characters of any sort joining in (because they will be pulled in and murdered faster than most Tanks can even notice), and that it NEVER stops until you grind away their numbers is just unacceptable. Yes, you should take a particular strategy to which enemies you take out first but it is still not executed very well. It is unintelligent difficulty which I tend to abhor.
The fact that Auras are bound on pickup is a really poor design and has no real excuse.
There is too much grind in this event. I expect there will be some grind but maybe a quarter less would have been good.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
The cutscene is okay..... Raz and I could do better, though.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Speaking of mobs, the difference in challenge between the two types are just staggering. Horrors will permajuggle you to death if you don't have Con to survive attacks or Str to resist knocks, while the worms deal out less knock while also simultaneously being way less damaging. I'd say that's more or less an issue with the worms themselves since why would an endgame mob be that weak? I'm not sure I like the teaming solution to the problem either since the only way that works out in terms of the Horror's challenge is that it's just diffusing knock to different members of your team, instead of doing something that feels - well, deliberately possible by a team.
I do like the VO and cutscene effort put into the event though. It's put together well, just isn't the funnest thing to endure. Then again I've never been a big fan of the huge 50-100 hero open-world raids due to how they screw with this game's performance. Though I guess there's also the issue that giant monsters tend to just be human-model characters super upscaled and they consequentially don't have the sort of mass or destructiveness you'd expect from an enemy that large. Fact you can't see their attack tells easily due to them being 50 feet above offscreen (when fighting them at ground level) doesn't help.
A bit of a tangent, but enemies that huge probably shouldn't use the tiny floating attack tells anyway. No, that sort of information should be conveyed purely through mass and animation. Therakiel's super-slow sword swings, and Teleiosaur's moveset have the right idea of this, though here's another game's example of what I'm talking about:
1) The BoP auras are unappealing and alt-toxic.
2) Most of the costume unlocks kinda suck, except maybe to those who want to be undead furries I suppose.
3) Knockback. Stun. Knockback. Knockback. Stun. Terrible and lazy way to artificially inflate difficulty. Who in their right mind on the dev team thought this amount of loss-of-control mechanics would actually be enjoyable to most players?
4) The dailies are horribly long, grindy, and overall alt-unfriendly. "But wait, you don't really need to do it on all your alts!" "I do if the alts in question want the auras, because LOL BoP!" So I just use my tanky characters to carry my squishy ones through. I could group, but groups aren't always available because they're somewhat soloable by meatier characters. Which leads me to...
5) Too much "group" content. Some (like the colossus) is fine, but the whole event tries to force players to group. What is this, Everquest? It's okay for players to do some things solo in games.
6) Tanking the colossus is unrewarding and annoying. I get that it's important to challenge tanks, but attaching a stun do that frontal attack they use is over the top stupid. The best part is that F-mashing can sometimes cause you to pick up a nearby bench and screw things up even more. Meanwhile, all DPS needs is a pulse, because the big, highly-visible, highly-avoidable massive AoE does minimal damage to everyone it hits in comparison.
7) Finally, the lighting is atrocious. It's low-quality and honestly somewhat headache-inducing.
I'm ready for the Knockmare Invasion to end. Hopefully I'll never see it or anything like it again.
I have to remove points from my rating
I found out that the lighting is used in Vibora Bay Crisis during the face-off with Therakiel and Shadow Destroyer
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
It's when I have someone in an alert using yellow/orange bubbles, whirlwind and sigils. I can't see a bloody thing on screen, past all the yellow.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
The Collosi I like the challenge, they are not as epic as revamp Cosmic, but they are not a Zerg fest like Takofanes (I think I only know what power set each of the Heroes use based on speculation from what they drop since they go down so fast I can barely see what they are doing). The difficulty still could have been upped a lil bit with some additional mechanics aside from Orb deactivation without drastically affecting the chance of success, but I think it's a step in the right direction for future events.
The colossus invisible sword thrust seems to hold you *through* blocks with ridiculous frequency (feels like 50%, which is way too high. Really, anything above 'never' is too high - a block should be a block, period). Combined with the massive DoT that accompanies it, this is pretty much death for non-tanks, because it'll kill you before you z-mash out. Yes, even with a Con SS. And considering how often my non-tanks end up tanking the colossus, that's rather aggravating.
The size of the cylinder on that attack is also annoyingly large. Characters who are like 40' back get hit by it, even though they're well beyond the visual display of the attack. (And characters who move around while targeted by it can and do drag it into characters who have no reason to believe they're in the kill zone). If something is going to kill you, you should see *something* hit you.
Also, the colossus fight makes it painfully obvious just how bad most tanks in this game are. I can count on one hand the number of tanks I've seen who can reliably hold aggro, and one of them is mine. Although its such a pain to tank that if there isn't a decent healer, I'd rather aggro the orb mobs.
Whomever thought scaling damage by hp and ignoring damage resistance was a good idea needs to stop game design forever. Invulnerability's flat damage reduction might as well not exist, thanks for making my tank wish she took defiance and had 4 advantage points to spend elsewhere.
(Also, the massive AoE is not blockable. It checks to see if you blocked for damage and possible DoT application, but it doesn't use your defense to determine damage, does not block like other attacks, and does not trigger block effects like parry's damage return. So lovely to have game mechanics and then not use them.)
You don't get better rewards for placing higher on the chart, and the participation threshold is so low that you can place for rewards if you join the fight when he's at 1/6 health. So if you're doing superdope DPS, just hang back and don't DPS for a while, or go help the orb people; you'll get points for doing that, too.
The thing's meant to be tanked by a tank. Not to make fun, but the complaint is kinda like saying "How come my DPS can't heal as well as a healer?"
I'm not just talking tanks who i might trade aggro with occasionally. I mean tanks who *never* establish aggro from t=0 of the fight. I've seen far too many colossus fights where aggro jumps between dps characters (who proceed to block until he switches targets) and is never held by a tank despite 3 or 4 of them hitting him. Those tanks are useless. All the dps can't go deal with orb mobs,
Your position is also no defense of an attack which holds you *through* your block. That should really be fixed.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My characters
I mean, we have a nightmare invasion but simply fighting whatever comes out of portals is hardly an effective way to stop it, nor does it explain who or what is behind this event.
This is currently us fighting giant Mechanons. We need the rest of the story to tie it all up.
But new vehicles, costumes, auras (even if I think the BoP is flawed, and it should be no worse than BoE), action figures, and even a new power? Yes please.
As far as the unblock able stun goes, while I agree with you (and why I didn't offer a counterpoint), I don't think it'll stun if you block early enough, but it has to be like SUPER early. I don't get stunned if I was already blocking by the time he starts the attack. It definitely should be more lenient than it is though.
Its not just unfortunate pugs, its most pugs that lack tanks which are worth a damn. Unfortunate would imply its rare. It's the predominant condition.
We all know the tanking mechanics are opaque and terrible in this game. The tanking mechanics need an overhaul, badly, and that (rather than endless cosmic revamps) should be the priority if they're going to insist on developing content that requires tanks. I have been stunned if i'm already blocking when he starts. It doesn't happen often, but i'm not blocking that early often because, most of the time, either i'm a tank who needs to do something to maintain aggro, or i'm a dps who he switched to and then started it. Situations in which i would have cause to be blocking before he starts it are few, so the instances of it breaking block in that situation are also few. Based on my own experience, i have no reason to believe its any less frequent if you were already blocking.
And regardless, it's still a stupid mechanic. There's no tell on the player's part when its 'too late', so its punishment with no feedback on what you can do to do better. The only thing the player can see is when the attack happens. (And letting any block which is active when the attack goes off be equivalent would tempt players to risk fate and keep attacking till the last possible moment - with the risk of missing it and taking the full hit. But the feedback would be immediate and obvious).
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My characters
the TP removal powers were actually removed (hurhurhur) entirely from the horrors at the start of week 2, because after that patch, i never got NTTG'd at all by them
1) Challenging strikes removed as an advantage and instead, made a baseline feature applied to enemies by every attack made by someone in the tank role.*
2) Crippling challenge's extra threat + taunt effect only usable in the tank role.*
3) Tank role* threat generation greatly increased overall. By greatly, I'm talking about upwards of 600%-800% what it is now. A tank's job is to mitigate damage and keep their allies safe, both of which aren't always possible when they're too busy playing threat-o-war with random dps.
4) Maybe not as necessary as the other 3, but the energy penalty is unpleasantly aids-worthy and should be removed.
* These also should apply to hybrid-role characters using bulwark from the protector specialization tree.
The duration, while long, is actually kind of nice. I could have farmed much of what I wanted in two weeks, but a spare week of Dailies makes it a whole lot less tiresome. The ability to miss a day (or go for an extra whatever) is really kind of nice... plus, it keeps Millenium City rather interesting.
Some stuff is a tad expensive, like the single character items and the Skulls (400 Coins per Skull option is a bit much), but I've managed to get a nice array of goodies doing the Dailies. I did find it interesting that The Void didn't Bind (and thus could be sold to other players) while the Auras are single character items... but that's why I didn't buy any Auras yet. Maybe if I have some leftover Coins I'll reconsider. In any case, I pretty much aimed for the reasonable things and the rest are there for those that really wanted to pursue collecting them.
Oh, and the variety of materials on the Bat Wings is a great feature! Glowing Psionic Bat Wings... I really need to come up with a character that'd make sense on. That would be awesome, and would get me to actually bother more with the Auras in a general sense. I tend to want the option of using things wherever it turns out they work... so account unlocks serve as a much better motivator for me. Case in point, I unlocked Holy Water despite being new and only a Silver (and therefore I have no Freeform slot to even use the Power), along with pursuing the Costume unlocks (other than the Skulls, but I already mentioned them). The single character unlocks (and even the Vehicles, since I don't have access to an Account Bank as of yet) are a bit of a moot point for me, since I don't really know if I want/care to use them on a given character and they're useless for future ones. Now that's helpful info; thanks for that. Despite usually playing as a healer (and therefore I keep an eye on whomever the Colossus is targeting, in addition to the folks that actually Team Up), it seems like a really good idea to move it a bit.
As a side note, dealing with the Orbs is easier if you keep a lock on the Colossus. The DoT that's applied by its BOOM keeps you from doing your job for a little bit after getting hit, so it's better to Block it even if that means interrupting a deactivation in progress. DoTs from the mobs can do the same, but usually those are aimed at the Tank/DPS/Vehicle covering the Orbs.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My characters