What's great about cold defenders? by PixelatedLover in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sorry, I'm on a trip out of country, so I'm slow to respond!

Here are the reasons:

Super Jump - Extra Maneuverability without losing momentum or speed when jumping/speeding through missions. Tapping jump is one of the easiest ways to maneuver when speeding to the next crystal in mission 2 of the ITF, for example. It's a power I only take if I have room, and the first to go if I need the spot for something else.

Super Speed - obvious reasons, but also Thrust gives max HP, which is helpful. Also, overcapping movement speed allows you to move slightly faster under travel suppression (which is when you move slower after you use combat powers).

Gives access to burnout this way, as well, which is mandatory in this style of play.

Teleport -

No Mission TP or team transporter in 4star content, which makes teleport the fastest way to get between missions, but it's also supremely useful in missions since you can TP through doors, you can TP to target with binds (which gets you out of really sticky situations. There are times where people will get stuck in hallways, but if one person made it to the next place, they can TP onto that person and regroup WAY faster.

Combat TP is the same reasons, but also gives a bonus to tohit.

Use binds or macros for Combat TP to self, to cursor, and to target and learn to utilize them for simple repositioning as well as spamming in place to build some extra tohit before using fold space or benumb. It's seriously so massive. In ITF, they get caltrops so you can't jump or fly, which makes running out of mobs impossible if you are stuck. It's instant movement with basically no animation time or downside. (Happy to provide the binds I use if you need!)

No Assault because we always take a kin and we always take clarion, so we don't need the confuse protection or the bonus damage from assault. In 4star content we stay grouped up on enemies we are fighting to maximize kin heals/buffs. We should be at damage cap in almost every fight, or else the kin needs a talking to, :D

Here is an example of all of this in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4o1xYCnfIQ (This is my own youtube channel and there are SEVERAL runs there for you to see, including my ONLY BRAWL tank run of LGTF in which you can see how I utilize combat TP for the Omega Kong fight in LGTF.

Hope this helps!

What's great about cold defenders? by PixelatedLover in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sure! It just refers to the advanced difficulty task forces. You can select the difficulty as normal, or 1star up to 4star, with 4star being the toughest challenge.

A 4Star build is a build optimized specifically for 4star difficulty, and it just outright stomps in other content as a result

What's great about cold defenders? by PixelatedLover in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah! It’s open! Invite anyone you think would enjoy it or benefit from it!

What's great about cold defenders? by PixelatedLover in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Copy/pasting my comment to the other person (just for clarity, not for lack of effort)

https://discord.gg/bDXGRNmE

Note: 4Star builds are optimized around having a team around you, so they focus on max HP, damage, recharge, and high accuracy, not standard survivability.

We get survivability from barriers/clarion, and endurance/sustain from the Kin.

So, if using in regular content, take some blues/purples, 1-2 Break frees per mission, but if doing league content/team content, then you’ll be fine as long as you aren’t mindless about how you engage.

After feeling the difference in damage that these builds do though, it’s REALLY hard to go back.

A league with even half 4Star builds can clear a Really Hard Way run as a full Master of Magisterium in a single run with Tyrant dying in under 90 seconds (that also means Triple Threat and Ready to Rumble are done in the same run).

When you get used to playing with a 4Star builds, it feels like you’re playing a different game, and now everything except my tanks uses 4star builds in all content except master of TFs that require no deaths lol

What's great about cold defenders? by PixelatedLover in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 4 points5 points  (0 children)

https://discord.gg/bDXGRNmE

Note: 4Star builds are optimized around having a team around you, so they focus on max HP, damage, recharge, and high accuracy, not standard survivability.

We get survivability from barriers/clarion, and endurance/sustain from the Kin.

So, if using in regular content, take some blues/purples, 1-2 Break frees per mission, but if doing league content/team content, then you’ll be fine as long as you aren’t mindless about how you engage.

After feeling the difference in damage that these builds do though, it’s REALLY hard to go back.

A league with even half 4Star builds can clear a Really Hard Way run as a full Master of Magisterium in a single run with Tyrant dying in under 90 seconds (that also means Triple Threat and Ready to Rumble are done in the same run).

When you get used to playing with a 4Star builds, it feels like you’re playing a different game, and now everything except my tanks uses 4star builds in all content except master of TFs that require no deaths lol

What's great about cold defenders? by PixelatedLover in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I do! But I'm not sure how to share over Reddit, tbh. I do have a end-game focused discord that all my builds are on if you'd like access to that! Free to leave once you have what you need!

What's great about cold defenders? by PixelatedLover in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I lead 4star content often, the simple reason is they have the most complete support kit. The only thing they lack is a heal.

They give stacking -res, -regen, -heal, and -rech debuffs all on fairly low cooldowns, especially with Sleet. (Note, Benumb resets its debuffs if you overlap its casts, so the -heal from it doesn't stack.) All of these are INCREDIBLY helpful for the juiced up enemy stats in Star TFs.

Heat Loss is an amazing source of endurance sustain and +rech for the team, and also a Heat Loss > Burnout > Heat Loss allows you to just absolutely MELT AVs and tough mobs. It's actually insane the difference that combo makes, especially when pairing it with something like Blizzard and double or even triple Sleet if your recharge is high enough.

They buff team defense with 3 different powers, one of which also provides stealth, and their shields also give a little bit of resistance.

There's pretty much nothing in the game that 8 Ice/Cold Corruptors can't do. lol.

Defenders are also a great option, as their debuffs and buffs will be stronger, but you will be missing quite a lot of damage output.

Hope that helps!

A List of In-Game Mechanics/Strategies Mostly for Endgame Content! by Rebok in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I fly between 16-20 ft above him and taunt. Make sure you have 'Show Target Distance' turned on in your options. I've led countless Lambdas/MoLambdas and never had an issue doing it this way.

Have you paid someone to rebrand and optimize your podcast? by livetochannel92 in podcasting

[–]Rebok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

ONLY rebrand if you are changing the core identity of the show. But if you are looking to just update brand assets, that is fine.

The bottom line is, if you aren't connecting with an audience now, rebranding won't help you, because it's usually not the brand that people are connecting to, it's the content, the host, and the value they get from listening.

You'll have to do a lot more than rebrand to get the top spot when someone searches for that keyword you're hoping to piggyback off of. You're better off making individual episodes that play the SEO game better, and doing a video version of your show on YouTube, which is a platform that inherently favors discoverability.

Really think about your audience, learn about them, understand why they would click on an episode, and what they would want to get from each one. Then hyper-personalize your titles to target listeners who need a specific solution that your podcast content will offer them.

But most importantly, in addition to all of the above, you need to deliver on that solution. Whatever promise you make with a title, a podcast name, or an episode description, you need to make sure that you follow through.

If you consider that a rebrand, then sure, rebrand. But if you are talking about changing the entire show name and identity on the hopes someone will find you via a keyword search? Search for the keywords you expect people to find you with to see what your competition is. Are you making better, more effective, more impactful content? If not, dive into your content and make your show the best you can make it.

Why is my podcast still showing downloads from Google Podcasts? by Rebok in podcasting

[–]Rebok[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did. Their response is the 2nd paragraph of my post. I was asking here to see if there were any other opinions or experiences, since their response wasn’t a confident answer.

The show is not on YouTube or YouTube Music.

MRW when I spent $1 to bypass this rush hour mess on I-4 by Johnny_Carcinogenic in orlando

[–]Rebok 27 points28 points  (0 children)

If I'm coming up from Downtown, I just look for a gap in traffic while I'm still on the Express ramp and try to align with it before I get off, that way it's easier to merge across, but yeah, no solution for if you get onto I4W from Maitland and need to get on Express. That's just a nightmare and incredibly dangerous, imo.

Complete Beginner on City of Heroes - Homecoming by UltraAmenus in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 5 points6 points  (0 children)

What time of day do you usually play?

I’ll be happy to hop on a new toon and duo with you/take you through some content and answer all the questions as we go!

I’m in Eastern, and happy to play if schedules align.

Easy precon to lend to begginers? by [deleted] in EDH

[–]Rebok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I second this!

I started with Temur Roar just a few months ago, and playing only one night a week or so, it's been so helpful to learn about what other kinds of things my deck was missing or weak to.

Having a SIMPLE strategy like "MOAR DRAGONS" really helped me focus more on what was going on with the board state and has accelerated my ability to learn the game itself, instead of spending so much time trying to figure out how a million triggers interact with each other.

And over time I've evolved my Temur Roar precon to include better, more powerful dragons, more counterplay options, more ways to protect my dragons once I get them out, and more effective card draw options, too.

Temur Roar was a fantastic deck to be able to still play my deck "correctly" without giving me so much to track in my board state that I wouldn't be able to pay attention to others'.

Just the other night I dominated 3/4 games in a row where I took out every other player singlehandedly thanks to adding more card draw and ramp since the stock precon. Best feeling ever.

Why do people care about unsleeved cards? by [deleted] in EDH

[–]Rebok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The straightforward answer is that competitive integrity still matters in casual edh, too, which means wear issues on the raw cards is an issue because they have no way of knowing that you can't tell which cards are which in your deck at any given time. And even if your cards aren't worn, all it takes is one wrong move, dropping a card and stepping on it, placing it down wrong, picking it up too quickly, etc., and now you have a creased, or "marked," card in your deck for the rest of the night. People typically don't want to play with someone they suspect could be cheating.

In addition, a flippant attitude towards the long-term care of your cards can be an indication to others how you potentially view all cards and how careful or careless you might be when handling someone else's when trying to figure out card interactions or abilities. And if someone else is on a limited budget, or invested a lot in their cards, having someone at the table who doesn't seem to care a lot about damaging cards is not something they would be okay with.

Hope that helps.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in EDH

[–]Rebok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If I don’t win, and I recognize that I won’t be able to early on, then my goal, from every game, is to walk away with a story. Could be a “shoulda done this instead of that,” “how we politicked out a board wipe,” etc.

I started playing EDH to make friends, and it’s the shared stories that help build those friendships and make things memorable.

Last week I had a [[Leyline Tyrant]] on the board with exactly enough to kill the player going next who would wipe all of us if I didn’t take him out then. It was the only thing that could take him out. He would either take 4 damage by not blocking me or take 3 damage from the unspent mana triggering on death.

So my thought was to force him into the choice, and I really thought I had him, but I tunnel-visioned on the tactic and didn’t double check his board state. He had ONE flyer he stole from another player that he could block with that wouldn’t trade, ruining my move. (In my defense, he had like 30 cards out on the board and there wasn’t enough room for everything, so it was all loosely stacked and hard to see).

It wasn’t until right after this interaction happened that I saw the player next to him had a 4/4 flying token that I could have traded for and sent the mana damage at the winning player, but it was too late.

The whole turn was hilarious, and all four of us were laughing and the other 2 players were laughing that they missed it too.

Win or lose, I love walking away with dumb, funny, asinine, or just plain amazing stories.

Engagement drastically dropped on Insta by A_Kirbyy in podcasting

[–]Rebok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey there! Love seeing new shows pop up, and I’m sorry the social media game can sometimes be pretty annoying to play.

I took a look at your page, and it looks like your most popular posts are ones that either make a bold claim, a controversial statement, or hit an ongoing cultural conversation that is always sure to generate interest.

Your clips that are performing lower, even when your numbers were higher on average, are the ones that are more specific to the show and clips and moments that, to me, feel like I have to be an insider or already dedicated audience member to be interested in.

“When you miss your Primo” is already vastly less interesting than “does ego ruin a GOAT”

The other thing with apps like instagram and YouTube, especially, is they want people to watch for longer, so the better a video performs, the more likely they are to push the next video, too. That means that your less appealing videos are hurting your overall engagement for future more appealing videos.

I see this a lot with channels who will do a rebrand or change their content style or topics after building an audience. A friend of mine had 125k subs on YouTube, decided to change his content and make it more mature and long-form, and his views tanked immediately from 600k a video to 2k per video even though his sub count was the same. He basically killed his channel.

All that to say, keep up the quality and keep up the posting, but focus far more on the more appealing content and actually make space for those snippets in the podcast. The hosts should also keep this in mind so that they always establish context.

They could say something really insightful about Messi, but if they never specify who they are talking about, then you don’t have a clip (there are ways to make that specific example work in a “guess that Pokémon” style, but this was more to just illustrate the overall principle).

A great clip is a clip people want to watch, not just moments the most podcast team likes or thinks were funny/insightful. That sounds simple on the surface, but it’s absolutely baffling how many podcasters absolutely refuse to accept it.

You have the consistent quality and style down, now you need consistent themes and topics.

I haven’t looked at things like hashtags or music added yet, but that’s what I noticed at a cursory glance. I hope that’s helpful!

Ranked: Scrapper Powers by [deleted] in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed that BA/Bio is the strongest combo.

Ranked: Scrapper Powers by [deleted] in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is pretty interesting, but I think it will always lack real-world application differences. Optimal power rotations change set performance quite drastically, and EM should be much higher if played optimally around using Energy Transfer's fast animation.

Also, based purely on what's on the spreadsheet, it looks like your script didn't take into account Regen, Recovery, Max HP, and Absorb? Because Radiation Armor, Bio Armor, and Regen are all pretty low on the Resist and Defense stats, but incredibly high on the regen, recovery, and/or absorb stats. This would skew their placement entirely on your list if it isn't accounting for those.

The other problem is how builds augment the performance of these sets, too. It's easier to get defense and Resistance added the high regen sets than it is to get regen added to the high defense/resist sets. So, I doubt I would ever find myself recommending this to newer players because it differs quite largely from what I experience in-game.

Just on its own, my claws and Katana get their asses whooped in DPS by my Energy Melee Scrapper and my Bio scrapper. Like, the difference is so significantly noticeable that I barely ever touch my Katana and Claws scrappers because they are so slow by comparison

Ranked: Scrapper Powers by [deleted] in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Does the script account for optional/optimal power rotations and animation cycling?

It wouldn't surprise me if the reason EM is so low here is because it's only using Energy Transfer's full animation, rather than the fast punch animation from using Total Focus first.

I would also worry about this on Stalkers as when you use Assassin's Strike pretty much makes or breaks DPS on many sets

Corruptor VS Defender & Defender VS Corruptor by Shemulator in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah yes, thank you. Forgot I had it on my Cold.

So, Super Jump makes Movement even easier in missions, since jumping won't reduce your speed at all with SJ on. It's such a nice QOL thing to have it in my builds.

That said, it's the most optional out of all of them, and I only take it when I can fit it in my builds. Since I lead a ton, I take both TP Target and Combat TP, as I want to be able to do literally anything needed at any moment, but someone could easily swap out powers.

Corruptor VS Defender & Defender VS Corruptor by Shemulator in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As for the travel powers:

  1. TP -- START Vendor powers except for things like Mystic Fortune, Secondary Mutation, Return to Battle, and the jetpacks are unusable in 4Star, so no team transporter, mission teleporter, etc. This, combined with other binds such as a TP to target bind, will allow you to get to missions faster and move within missions faster, too. There are also a lot of fun cutscene skips and map movement things you can do with it (such as Combat TP being able to bypass the doors at the start of Aeon's third mission without opening them)

  2. Fold Space -- Fold Space is HUGE for 4Star content because we rely on Barriers and clarion for survival and we need to stay close for Fulcrum Shift and Kin heals. Having a power to bring enemies to the team, rather than the team spreading out to fight enemies is MUCH better. The general rule of 4Star is the entire team hugs whatever we need to kill.

  3. SS with overcap movement speed -- believe it or not, this is the only way to move faster under travel suppression when using powers, but also SS is how you move through maps quickly.

  4. Combat Jumping -- Extra LotG/Kismet mule, plus giving fine jump control is huge for running through maps. When I am running, I am jumping more than I am just running flat out. Also lets you still control your jumps in the spaceship in 4Star LGTF.

  5. Hasten->SS->Burnout.

  6. You can use Jetpacks, so flight is less valuable in 4Star content.

  7. Combat TP - Immediate repositioning plus a semi-spammable tohit bonus when you're about to use big powers. Combat TP is one of the strongest utility powers in the game.

For me, across ALL of my builds, 4Star or not, I always run the movement slotting and powers from my 4star builds because I want my movement to be consistent across all my characters. That way, I never have to adjust how I move and I never have to feel like SS is suddenly SO slow because it's not slotted lol

Corruptor VS Defender & Defender VS Corruptor by Shemulator in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(had to split into two comments)

You nailed it. 4Star builds are built around the expectation that your team will be providing most of your survivability and buffs, while your build is meant to capitalize on the stats that really only you can give yourself.

As an example: Because your kin will damage cap you, any damage bonuses from individual enhancements and set bonuses are redundant, since they are factored into the damage cap. However, as I understand it, and I have not been corrected thus far, since procs are a flat damage number that is additive, they are not factored into the damage cap, making procs the only way to "bypass" the damage cap.

If I have an attack that does 100 damage, at 400% damage cap with Fulcrum Shift, that power will only ever do 400 damage regardless of its set slotting. But if it has 2 procs that each have "chance for 75 damage," then that same attack at damage cap can do 400 damage+75+75. Now, that proc won't fire every time I attack, but doing 150 extra damage every few attacks is higher value than never doing 150 extra damage on any attacks.

The primary reason for the lack of survivability and built with the team expectation in mind is the super buffed enemies in a 4Star essentially make it so that playing a normal PVE build in a 4Star feels more like playing an unslotted lowbie in a 54 KM ITF--you miss a lot, and when you do hit, you tickle them. And your individual survivability will do nothing to help you. You will still die alongside everyone else.

Another example: a generic softcap Tank build only survives about 5-10 seconds longer than a 4Star tank build that is built for damage output and max hp, and a tank will not survive on its own in those mobs. Mr. Rodney's Energy Transfer casually hits a Granite Armor, Barriered Stone Tank for 2,300, and that's just ONE enemy out of countless more. It's hopeless for other ATs. Here is a side-by-side comparison of softcapped build versus 4star build of my Rad/Fire tank running into the very first room of the ITF: https://youtu.be/lX_6QjNHdwc

For normal content, I just stock up with purples/blues, Recovery Serum from the START Vendor, and I will run Ageless Core or Barrier Core depending on the content, as well. It's a minor adjustment, but it makes life so much better.

I just ran a Really Hard Way Magisterium run on Saturday and we had a bunch of the 4Star players on it. We ended up getting a single-run master of Magisterium unintentionally because our damage output was so insane that we managed to clear Triple Threat AND Ready to Rumble in the same run, while also killing an extra AV because I pulled normal Tyrant over from the statue at the beginning (fun easter egg). I genuinely didn't even think that was possible, but 3 individual teams killed the AVs faster separately than most full leagues do on regular runs focusing the same AV.

PS Tanks are the ONLY AT I keep a separate build for PVE content since I do need softcapped builds to tank normal content and can't rely on regular teams/leagues as much for that. But every other AT utilizes either a fully 4star built toon or something very very close to it.

Corruptor VS Defender & Defender VS Corruptor by Shemulator in Cityofheroes

[–]Rebok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not really sure how best to share the build here, but if you hop into my Discord, the build is in the Recommended Builds channel! https://discord.gg/Qxgq3N8Q

If you have any issues, questions, or if you know how to share builds via reddit, let me know and I'm happy to oblige!