CoH Enhancements

World Of Warcraft Stress Test Beta
Word travels fast! Sidney showed me this link last night; Sid, Cytra and I all got signed up, and then I showed Smooches this am and the list was already full! I tend to think this is just their way to get you to pay the $15, but here is the info anyways....

Update! Smooches just got a key so they seem to stall people 6-12 hours. :)

WoW is about to do a beta stress test and hammer the servers with lots of people running around. you can signup for the test here or here
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft/542708p1.html
http://www.fileplanet.com/betacenter/wow/stress_test/index_open.aspx

If you get lucky, you get a key in email and can DL the client. It's massive! over 2gig and it took me 3-4 hours. The stress test is not open yet. My guess is that it will in the next few weeks or less. Check it out. :)

Quistis Warns SP2 on XP Can Suck Turds
Q tells me it made her computer reboot endlessly! Eeeep. She had to reformat. Here is a compatability page at Microsoft.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=884130

CoH Tip No.3 - Enhancements
Today I want to talk about enhancements:

Stores
TOs DOs SOs
Placement
+ ++ Gambling
Slotting
Tip Pooling
Tossing

Stores
Most people know this now but it's good to go over it one more time...I don't think I figured this out until about level 15...you get MORE money selling enhancements at the proper shop. You can sell enhancements at ANY store, but if you sell at the proper origin store, you get 50%-70% more money. It's worth it, most of the time, to try and sell at the correct store.

There are sites on line with maps of the stores and there is even a map hack you can install that shows you where the stores are. I use this page of maps. Now once you get up into the 30s, there are no stores and it becomes a pain in the ass. :) You can still sell at the stores in Talos, but you have to buy from an in player character. I am a mutant and so I have to buy from Penny in Founder Falls. There is a list of the high level stores (players) here. To buy and sell to these players you need to do one simple mission for them. I did all of them since I wanted more spots to sell to save time when hunting.

TOs DOs SOs
TO is traing origin, DO is dual or double origin, and SO is single origin. This may not be the correct advice, but this is how I did it...as soon as I could buy DOs, I never bought anymore TOs, and as soon as I could buy SOs, I never bought anymore DOs. The stronger enhancements are so strong that I feel it is better just to sell weaker and save up.

Players like trading with friends and some people even try to sell on the request channel. I think it's fun to try and trade with friends for the first 15 levels, but it eventually becomes a time waster and I think it is better just to haul all your enhancements to the store and sell them, keep the insp and buy what you really want since you rarely get dropped many useful enhancements. I would not recommend spamming the request channel trying to unload enhancements.

+ ++ Gambling
When you combine enhancements, they go to + and ++. A 15 combined with a 15 will go 15+ and that is really now a 16. A 15++ is a 17. When you get into the levels where you have to + and ++, you might be tempted to buy a cheaper enhancment and take a chance on it working. I've tested this a couple times and it is my experience that you will end up wasting more money by gambling and trying to save cash by going cheap. It's better to buy the most expensive enhancement and combine. If you buy a 10 to add to a 15, it will fail at rate greater than the savings you incure. You might try this test yourself. I personally find the cheapest route is to combine the best or most pricey enhancements. So if you are at 15, buy 15s, not 10s.

Slotting
There are many ways to slot powers. Here are just a couple tips you might find useful.

Endurance
If you don't have stamina and suck on endurance (like me haha), then you should probably have one endurance in all your powers that you often use. One endurance enhancement helps a ton.

Slotting For Damage
On some of your shooting and hitting powers, you might have it set up something like

1 end reduce
2 aim
3 damage

This is a great combo and works well. It really all depends on if you prefer fighting red and purples or yellows. I slot a little differently and you might want to give this a try. I prefer

1 end reducer
1 aim
1 recharge
3 damage

I really like one recharge on my weapons that I fire constantly. I've tested these weapons several ways...I think one afternoon I wasted 500,000 in insp testing everything from 6 damage to 6 recharge and various aim configs. Fast shooting weapons hit max fire speed with only one or two recharges on them. When you add a recharge into the mix, I find that I personally kill bad guys 20-30% sooner. You will drain end faster, but you are killing faster which is safer...you want to get off more shots that the opponent. Check out the top left of this screen shot and see my fireblast and flares. If you have some quick shooting weapons, you might give this configuration a test drive.

Tip Pooling
If you've worked in a restaurant, you've probably heard of tip-pooling. Instead of each waitress keeping her tips, they all pool them and divide them up at the end of the night. I like to do this in CoH! This works best when you are hunting with one friend, two max. Enhancements drop randomly and so always someone gets a bunch and others get none on any given evening. It can be fun to agree to tip pool. You each collect enhancements, then when someone hits 10, he starts to give the other person one or two at a time until they are at ten. He/she gives them the lowest ones in his/her collection.

This helps your small team have more fun and bold. This also saves time. I am huge on saving time when trying for xp and big time waster is "gotta sell". If you all sell at different times, it really slows things down. When you Tip-Pool, you all sell at the same time and everyone is happy with a 10 load of enhancements.

When you get higher in levels, you might decide to toss all TOs and only go for DOs. When you get higher still, you might go for only SOs. When I get to team with Starley in PI, we might agree on a SO run. We toss all TOs and DOs. Sometimes we might trade DOs at the start, just incase someone has to leave early, but then we start tossing them too until we hit the full boat-load of SOs, then off to the Talos stores. It's fun and more xp efficient to Tip Pool. :)

Tossing
I know it hurts to throw money on the street, but there comes a point when going to the store is expensive in terms of time. You will get to a point where TOs are not worth the time to sell...toss them. You will then get to a point there DOs are not wirth selling...don't be scared to toss enhancements when they become more of a hastle do to their low worth. If you are with people and sk-ing a friend, by all means, please don't toss without offering the enhancements to them! This makes them happy and you won't feel as bad tossing them away.

Now there are a few tricks you can do to avoid tossing...this is the time to sell at the wrong store or two the wrong contact. If I have to toss but I am near a store or contact, I will sell. You get less for them, but you get value and you don't waste time. I used to do this constatnly in Brick. Serifina is near the hospital and the scientific guy who sells SOs is down deep in the redzone. I used to run from Serifina to him, sell all TOs and DOs, run back and repeat until I had the pure ten SOs and then off to talos. This way you waste no time and you make some change too.