Today in Anthem

Touché, my cynic, elephant-memory friend, touché...
Ah well, I should consider it as paying it forward to the rest of the server, I guess

This weekend was somewhat better. I think I snagged about 4 leggos in 10 or so cata runs on GM2. It's not at the point where i'd like it yet (about 1 per run?), but I suppose it didn't feel like the game was  making fun of me anymore. Also, through some sort of jezus miracle, all 4 of them were things I didn't have yet. 2 were even new usable things for my ranger build!! Progress, hallelujah!

I have gotten badly into rangering over the weekend. The main reason is because my main (storm) just limps behind so much in terms of raw damage. And yes, I know better than anyone he's not supposed to be the dps, but the proc nerfs hit him hard, and what can I say? Deep down inside I am a vanguard type player: high risk, high reward. And that doesn't match with storm anymore. SO I switched to ranger. And boy oh boy. Can this dude dish out some DAMAGE!.? The combo damage is about triple the storm's... and I don't even have all components at legendary yet. I'm now at the point where I scream at everybody: "goddamit stop detonating, you're wasting muh comboes!"

But ah well, team effort and everything...

In any case, I did find a new favorite thing to do.
It used to be Glacial beaming an entire group of enemies and ponder infinity-detonating them simulatiously, and blowing them apart with a grand orchestra or mark of wrath proc destruction.
My new favorite thing is applying fire and acid through 5 shots of ranier's blaze (and the ranger's component which applies acid on a hit streak), throwing a sticky grenade, and while the grenade is ticking away it's timer, attacking with melee. This results in 2 ranger combo's being detonated near-simultaneously, and makes for 300k+ damage in under 5 seconds. This wipes out the legendary dominion freeze beasts instantly. It's always a personaly challenge to melee explode as close as possible to the sticky

I also observed with the storm, that I THINK glacial beam detonates 2 combo's if fired once at a target which is primed with 2 elements. This could eb interesting interesting but I haven't verified this through playtesting yet. I'm currently considering how to abuse this (What I'm currently thinking of, is prime fire by ranier's and lightning with the melee, and then detonating with glacial. This would be a very good way of spreading doubled up DPS ticks in a group quickly)

Next up, I might try to pug the cataclysm at gm3 with my ranger. Maybe see if the leg drops are better there.

Lastly: You guys htink that tomorrow we'll get new war chests? I've given up on getting the storm's melee legendary, and basically just been saving up crystals I really want that ranger support which gives extra charges



EDIT: Oh, and one more thing: the servers seem to be having a bit more people around again (luckily), because I have had very little trouble matchmaking for the cataclysm.

A team tip of the hat to you, sir.

Well, there sure as hell ain't no synergy between Colossus and Interceptors - I can barely figure out where the enemy is to melee with all the F/X explosions and fire, and camera shaking/jolting. Lotta jolting.

Fun figuring out whose fire is that anyway - theirs or ours? Cuz very different implications for my shields.

In these cases Truth of Tarsis is a little more of an attractive option.

Had a nice cataclysm run in which two players dropped out early but the other guy stayed and we duo'd the whole thing, ending up with 5.2 million regardless. Fun match.

I've been trying to complete The Heart of Rage, but I haven't actually been able to start that mission. Haluk and Faye are hanging around the Javelin, and I get the scene every time I talk with them. Only I actually deploy on another mission that is on the map. I wouldn't mind so much, but having the "let's finish this!" scene, then going on some small mission for Matthais is a little annoying.

I'll get the correct mission eventually.

For what it's worth, the few times I played interceptor, I also found it impossible to play without spark dash
And yeah, it's nice to use the venow blades and not go around stealign everybody's primers willy nilly. Makes the interceptor less... mindless, but more tactical. I just don't know what to use for gear in the other slot... maybe one of the new gears?

Only had time for one cata run, so I took my storm for the last melee daily challenge in the hopes of a legendary, but alas...

As a comfort, I did get 2 legendaries, and had a fun group. The legendaries were even new items I didn't have yet (although the inscriptions were useless):
- a vanguard's token, which now has the possibility to make my storm nigh-immortal in combination with softened blows
- a radiant fortress (<-- really happy with this one!), but inscriptions were 'meh'... I keep all my sucky legendaries though, in the hopes that one day we'll be able to customise our gear.




In that last thought, how would you change the crafting system?
Personally, I'd keep what is, but add 2 things:
1) Consume an item of equal rarity with the inscription on it you want to transfer to the final item.
2) Consume an item of any rarity (+ embers of said rarity) with the inscription on it you want to increase on the final item (which already needs to have the same inscription). The increase amount depends on the rarity of the item and the original inscription amount (e.g. if a blue has +50% armor, only 5% is added (10% of original), but if a legendary has 50% armor, 25% is added (50% of original))

One point of attention though, this might create impossible to balance builds. Hence, I propose introducing a ceiling for inscriptions. For example: +300% (<-- arbitrary amount I just chose, needs to be chosen based on a balanced amount) damage is the maximum damage bonus you can achieve through inscriptions.

What do I mean? Well, let's say you have a ponder infinity (which adds 165% damage while hovering) with an inscription of +200% gear damage, a weapon equipped which has a javelin-wide +150% elemental bonus, and the component which adds 60% damage if the focus gear is used.
Using the gear on the ground would give you +300% bonus (200+150, but the cap is 300, so the final 50 is ignored).
Using the gear while hovering and after using the focus gear would give you +525% bonus (300 capped, plus the gear bonuses)

This seems pretty fair to me:
- it doesn't invalidate previous efforts
- it allows you to work for your build, which has a feeling of progression
- it doesn't make balance impossible for bioware
- it makes sure every loot drop has a use, even blue, which makes it so the current loot drop rates don't need to be changed
- it still requires you to find the original legendary item you wish to improve.

Managed to get the focus challenge on Casjas forge. Also finally found the "relics" or whatever to open the vaults of the approach. I'm getting there...

Floor is lava: Jump to the pillars. Fire coming from the edge of the area in radius towards Vara: fly to her and melee her few times at least . Fireballs: You can hear and see sizzle before they ignite. You need to carefully jump from pillar to pillar to avoid them as the floor is usually lava too and you are overheated.

I only know the couple basic puzzles and one extra stability sign. The puzzle in the middle, down in the sand with 3 echo locations, we havent solved yet. Got two echos but third we havent found. My swedish friend just said he has solved something so I'm heading in to see what

For anybody interested in a more in-depth guide to the Cataclysm I'll just leave this here. Feel free to sticky or whatever mods if people find it helpful. Not sure if it will be regularly updated with the new content but I can ask the guy who runs the site this guide is hosted on as I play with him every now and then.

Anthem Cataclysm Guide

I find this to be a good strategy.

Sometimes they show you a secret you didn't know.

Okay I am pissed as hell.

Ranger was already Powerful enough, and storm was way underpowered. But now they give ranger a gear (new frost grenade) which basically provides him limitless combo's through re-priming???!!? AND A MULTI_DETONATOR?? (new pulse blast)

STORM SHOULD HAVE HAD THAT FROM DAY ONE!! ffs. Now there is absolutely zero reason to play my storm anymore

3 gm3 catas 1, 1 legendary. Much loot. Very improvement. Great wow, bioware.