Messages posted by: kyraeu

I'm debating about buying this. The videos make it look awesome, but I'm worried that there aren't enough good levels online for a good replay value and to keep me interested.

I've watched a few of the episodes "on demand", and enjoyed them. Got quite a few to go, and I look forward to watching them. Pretty amazing stuff.

I think the general rule is:

It works in "Instant Action", but not in multiplayer.

Szlat wrote:

As an aside, it looks like things like Vampire get called before double damage gets actioned. Can anyone confirm this is actually the case - if you have a double damage running you only get the same vampire as normal?

I can definitely confirm in earlier druid versions (like, 150s) that the triple doesn't triple your vamp. As for the double, not sure.

Changing gears majorly here. Actually, this thread seems to be going a little off-topic.

It seems like there's a pretty big gap between the day gameplay and the night. I'm usually an afternoon player, and there's usually at least one medic on. If there isn't, I hop on as my medic. Most medics will heal you if they see you've got some damage on you. As a medic, I follow quite a few people through waves trying to keep them alive. After a while, you get used to trying to heal a moving target.

I would love to see more teamwork than we currently do. Maybe once the spheres of invuln and damage come back in we'll see them once in a while. Too bad the sphere of healing isn't even close to being as useful as the blast. But that's another topic altogether.

EVERYTHING PAST THIS POINT WAS EDITED IN

I'm not sure about making everything harder for people just based on their levels. I mean, it definitely makes more sense than the current version, and I definitely like it better. (Disclaimer: I don't have a player high enough to have to deal with the level adjustment) I'd say capping how hard it gets at 150 is probably fair, since that's when you've probably bought everything that will help you in a big way. Everything past that is just icing on the cake... at least, as far as I can guess.

Basing the adjustment on class seems like a little bit of a shaky issue. We've already got the enhanced DB and DR, which are pretty much doing that thing anyway. To give certain classes arbitrary strengths based on their expected playing style might be hard to balance and convince people it's "best". Even so, LAs seem to have consistently better weapons in general... but the LWs can certainly find themselves with a great weapon set once in a while that would take an LA all map to get. I would be (a little) angry if I was doomed to always doing a certain percentage less of damage per shot than an LW given the same weapon. The enhanced DB/DR doesn't seem to make much of a difference (well, the DR doesn't come into play so much) and you actually have to DO something (kill monsters, get XP, buy it) to prove you've "earned" it. Just giving people certain bonuses for being a certain class seems like a bit of a hard thing to choose.

That's all that's on my mind for now.

I've heard some good reviews of this show and watched (sadly) only one episode. I thought it was pretty funny though.

I watch the Colbert Report at the time it's on.

If that was the case for a high level player all the time, I would probably rather not get much higher than level 100, maybe 150. If I was going to have to fight harder monsters with only crummy skills left to buy....

Great thread and all. Whatever happens I'll anticipate it.

edit - May have sounded a bit mean and hostile. I'd rather not be banned. So this part went bye-bye.

Szlat wrote:

"Should Adrenaline Masters be mainly using weapons to kill or magic attacks?"
[snip]
If you say you want both, then you probably also want LAs to have vampire.

Can you explain this one? How does having a choice between two things lead to wanting another? (If your comment was to be rescinded by your editation, then feel free to not answer this.) [side comment - maybe this ties in with your old subclasses idea!]

I would like to see the new blasts become more accessible and actually useful. I think I tried the cheapest blast once or twice before deciding it was pretty useless and too expensive. Would be interesting to see them actually being used. One of the main reasons I'd find them hard to use is that you have to scramble through all the artifacts just to find them.

Other than that, not much to say that hasn't already been said by more prestigious LAs than myself. I'll just add that come what come may, I'll probably play the LA class despite any amount of nerfage. I mean, berserk + double =~ triple, right?

Honestly, aiming the beam is almost unnecessary. I usually just keep pressing USE ARTIFACT USE ARTIFACT USE ARTIFACT really rapidly and try to get my crosshair on the bad guy. Eventually they go down. If it's something that's about skaarj strength, I usually haven't lost any more than 20 adren, if not gained some, even if it's at full health.

I guess I use it like the bolt, but I actually know what I'm going to hit. And it's a lot cheaper.

The poison queen is pure death for anyone without high vamp, as far as I've played. As an LA I can't kill them when they put up the shield, and as I'm usually globing, can't get the adren to keep it up. As a medic I stand relatively little chance in general, since there's no hope to heal as fast as all the monsters around will hurt. Transing away helps sometimes, but not always. Got telefragged doing it once. The null ought to be a little shorter, I think. And maybe the null and poison shouldn't affect you when you're globing?

Flakbags aren't too bad. Good beaming material. Don't do too much damage, but are a bit hard to hit as a medic. As with all flying monsters, though. I think they're alright as is.

Beam warlord is usually no real problem. If the point is to make them weaker than the normal ones, then it's a success. Not too easy, of course, but easier.

On to the more general questions.

I personally think the skaarj are in a few too many waves. When I say skaarj, I mean the non-avril-able type, mixed with the lava and ghost sometimes. (In other words, ignoring the skaarj sniper and the one with a shield... and only partially referring to the lava and ghost ones.) Wave 12 used to be a bunch of warlords and queens, AKA: big stuff. Which generally make staying in a safer, not so central area alright, since the things don't move so fast to sneak up on you. But now, the skaarj come around pretty quick and find you. They're also showing up on quite a few other waves, and it just seems like they're around too much in general.

I think waves 13 and 15 have really lost any identity they used to have. Basically, to me, it just seems like a bunch of random monsters. Doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. (Y'know, like the old 11.) 13 used to be fairly easy, with slow-moving brutes and giant gasbags. 15 used to be a little tough, with a lot of skaarj and not much else. There's no real predetermined strategy going into either of them, since you don't really know what you'll get.

ECHO wrote:

I'd say the queens would need toning down if they came in another wave besides 16.

Agreed.

I could probably go on forever about this stuff, but I think I've said too much already.

Not to destroy the possibility, but I've seen times when the timer isn't so accurate. Like, I've been in the game for about 5 minutes, and it reads something less than 2, and gives me an insane PPH.

Actually, you would probably be an exception to the bad generalization that I made.

I was more talking about the players that are generally unaware of what's happening, such as the ones who are very confused when someone's healing them. Or the ones that don't notice that their health is going down and a huge fly is on their tail.

I hope I'm not just digging myself a big hole here. I didn't intend any offense to people by making that comment.

This is my very pronounced opinion on LA'ing here, so just take that as a disclaimer.

I would STRONGLY urge you to get your attack bonus up to 50 and then buy surge 1 and 2 (which cost 10 points altogether). You get double adrenaline for killing things. This makes titan waves adrenaline-fests, and essentially makes every monster worth twice as much adren as usual. You can use, in theory, everything twice as quickly. You can booster much easier. Triple, beam, globe, you name it. Surge opens up a completely different world for LAs, and I'm sure that most of my fellow LAs will agree that it's very very useful. (They might not agree you should buy it now. I bought it very early on and was NOT sorry at all.)

I would also strongly (yet not as strongly, I suppose) urge you to max weapon speed out soon. With your low health bonus, you might want to get HP bonus up to 100 or something before maxing out weapon speed, but it's another world of difference. Especially on titan waves. I'm telling you, if you maxed out weapon speed and got surge 2, you could triple through titan waves and get insane experience. Maybe even use the berserk combo, too. (Haven't tried that one out as an LA yet.) More XP equals more leveling, equals more points, quicker.

In my opinion, going for health will help, but not so much as going for those two core skills. If you think it's just too suicidal to drop everything and go for them, you'd probably know better than me since my LA started out when things were a ton easier. If you reject going for them straight-away, then I'd suggest that you stop with health sometime before maxing it and get both. Maybe when your HB is 100, maybe 150, maybe something that isn't so round. Or maybe drop 5 points into HB every level, and the other 2 into WS or DB.

I'm around level 80, and I maxed out my HB and DR for the past, I don't know, 20, 30 levels. So I suppose I started thinking about them later than you did. I maxed out my WS and DB and had surge before I even started thinking about health. (Then again, it was a lot easier back then. We didn't get the lowlevel assist stuff, but we didn't need it so much.) Right now, I'm saving for ghost. Do I need it? I suppose it's the logical next step. Having leech, drip, and surge 2 (and artifacts 3), I thought I might want to work on them, but eventually the higher difficulty made me choose ghost. But with max HP and DR, I find I don't die all that often (no more than 3 times a map, usually. denial 3 is a lifesaver when I do die), although I do have to globe a bit. Smart healing seems useful, but I don't think that getting just slightly more health justifies spending 15 or 20 points (however much it is for the first level).

I'm intrigued by your choice of quickfoot. I've almost bought it (and maybe powerjump) in the past, but decided I needed the core adren skills, and then health, instead. I like the QF weapons, but how useful are levels 1 and maybe 2, really? I might think of picking them up once I max ghost, and put off the adren skills a little bit (more).

Speed switcher, I find, can be a lifesaver. I have level 1, and it's pretty useful. I'm a weapon maker type of person most of the time, and once I have a good flak, link, and mini I usually beam. But whenever I make a freezing or null, it's useful to hold the monster (say, a warlord or skaarj) in place, and then switch to an energy or piercing. I occasionally go for a vorpal shock, but usually end up giving up or not even trying. (Usually I decide to either beam stuff or go for the vorpal. I usually try for the vorpal, get combo master, then give up and beam stuff.)

Your aversion to the triple is understandable. It's fairly useless except against the big guys (titans, warlords, queens), and except against titans, I usually find the globe a better choice. The beam is, without a doubt, the new triple. I still triple on the titan waves, and it just works for me better than the beam. Maybe if I got awareness (instead of using the poor man's awareness: AKA, the colors on the radar) I'd like the beam better.

Enough of my long-windedness. I look forward to hearing your personal opinions in the future, ECHO, especially as you advance through the levels. Nice to see that people are actually trying out the LA class... since it seems it's rarely really ever played 'round here.

Micron got a score of 23xx on Helmzdeep today. Hope he took an SS!

Yep, that's it. I don't care much for VINV so I don't bother knowing any of the maps.