DC: Universe - Catch All

If any of you PS3 guys are still looking for a bluetooth earpiece for voice chat, Newegg has a Samsung on sale for $21.99 with a $20 rebate, so you're only out $1.99.

Samsung WEP470.

I use the WEP460 myself and haven't had any problems the few times I've tried voice chat. If more people on my friends list had it, I'd probably use it more.

Anyone have any luck with the summoning tree? I got to level nine and just re-specced. Couldn't find anything useful. The guardian just kept getting in the way of my bullets and ruining my hit counter. Nothing else seemd to have any effect.

Trophy Husband wrote:

Anyone have any luck with the summoning tree? I got to level nine and just re-specced. Couldn't find anything useful. The guardian just kept getting in the way of my bullets and ruining my hit counter. Nothing else seemd to have any effect.

The Watcher and shield spells are great. Are you healing or DPS with this? You also might want to use the Powers thread for this question.

At level 9 I got the shield spell. Then I held off on buying Iconic Powers until the level where you unlock the innate stuff (level 22?).

CptGlanton wrote:

At level 9 I got the shield spell. Then I held off on buying Iconic Powers until the level where you unlock the innate stuff (level 22?).

+1 for this. Shooting eye lasers was super awesome, but compared to some of the innate abilities it wasn't that useful.

Anyone on the ps3 right now. Thought people were gonna meet up villianwise on crisis server

So, 8-Bit Jedi and I tried some of the level 30 stuff last night, and I don't mind saying that we were the two suckiest level 30s who ever sucked. We got our clocks cleaned. So I ask, how do you get better when you're already at the level cap? Two things that come to mind:

1) Getting good loot from the endgame scenarios. You know, the ones I currently get stomped in.

2) Re-specing. Right now I do not have a second weapon unlocked. Should I buy one, purely for the sake of getting its innate properties? I have a lot of feats I can chase down to get more skill points, which should be pretty painless.

The game truly does feel completely different at 30. Whether that's a good thing, I'm not sure yet.

The duos are so hard unless you have a healer. I've only got through one out of too many attempts to remember. I have 3 pieces of the faction armor you get before teir 1 but i'm having so much trouble getting through alerst and dous to get the marks needed for teir 1. So frustrated with people leaving during alerts or not playing thier class and just dps'ing. And don't get me started on the voice chat never working. I really like the game but I'm ready to chuck my controller at it lately. I have a bad feeling I should've gotten this for the PC and not the PS3.

I would like to dispute CptGlanton but we did suck really bad last night, I blame him, ha

8-Bit Jedi wrote:

And don't get me started on the voice chat never working.

I have figured it out (finally), one must turn on their mic prior to loading the game for voice chat to work. Since learning this little piece of information I have never had any problems with it.
In addition, there is the option of enabling voice chat among league members if the leader wishes it so. Once enabled all members with this feature will be able to hear one another the moment they log on without the need of a group. I believe the current voice dominance is: Alert (arenas, duos), Group, League.
I hope this information is useful to you.

The level 30 stuff is a pretty big jump in difficulty. People need to play their roles and work together to get through. I personally still haven't made it through all of the hard alerts yet.

The duos are a good place to start. If you can either go in with a friend or get lucky with the queue, you can get through the easier ones and start earning better gear, then move to the harder ones (like the OMAC base), and after that onto hard alerts.

Also, don't forget about the daily challenges, which gives you gear, too.

But yeah your experience mirrors mine. It took me awhile getting killed in duos before I got comfortable enough and geared up enough to where I can blow through them, and now I'm working my way through the hard alerts. The challenge is a lot of fun when you have a good group who know what they're doing, but bad groups can be painful.

At level 22 I've played through a few alerts and have yet to feel like I was part of a group. Generally it's just been a group of random people trying to solo an instance together. Half the time we all haven't even been within sight of each other and when we do get within range everyone is just dps'ing their hearts out. To be fair, I always que as a dps class but the controller, tanks, and healers that I group with aren't really doing their thing. I still remember one moon run where at the end I had 3x the healing of the actual designate healer just from throwing green barrels. And on the ultrahuman run? We completely wiped, so that the boss fight reset, 4 times.

To be fair, the chat system is horrid so coordinating takes far more effort than it should. Oh, and the fact that the mic in voice chat defaults to "always on"? Whose idea was that? In at least 2 runs I've been grouped with people who apparently didn't know their mics were on so I was constantly getting some funky reverb and random conversations. I eventually just turned the whole voice chat system off.

Bow: +30 Defense & Toughness; +60 Might; +3 Restoration; +4 Vitalization; +1% Critical Attack Chance; +2% Critical Attack Damage; +12% Critical Healing Effect; +3 Stealth Rating
Brawling: +18 Dominance; +3 Restoration; +70 Health; +1% Critical Attack Chance; +12% Critical Attack Damage; +3% Critical Healing Chance; +2% Critical Healing Effect
Dual Pistol: +70 Might; +45 Restoration; +15 Vitalization; +14% Critical Attack Damage; +1% Critical Healing Chance
Dual Wield: +18 Dominance; +60 Might; +48 Restoration; +4 Vitalization; +1% Critical Attack Chance; +14% Critical Attack Damage
Hand Blaster: +18 Dominance; +70 Health; +60 Might; +3 Restoration; +2% Critical Attack Damage; +1% Critical Healing Chance; +12% Critical Healing Effect
Martial Arts: +25 Health; +70 Might; +45 Restoration; +14% Critical Attack Damage; +2% Critical Healing Effect; +3 Stealth Rating
One-Handed: +45 Health; +70 Might; +3 Restoration; +15 Vitalization; +2% Critical Attack Chance; +14% Critical Healing Effect
Rifle: +70 Health; +10 Might; +19 Vitalization; +3% Critical Attack Chance; +3% Critical Healing Chance; +2% Critical Healing Effect
Staff: +30 Defense & Toughness; +18 Dominance; +25 Health; +10 Might; +4 Vitalization; +3% Critical Attack Chance; +14% Critical Healing Effect
Two-Handed: +70 Health; +15 Vitalization; +3% Critical Attack Chance; +2% Critical Attack Damage; +4% Critical Healing Chance; +2% Critical Healing Effect
Just added this to the OP of the Power discussion thread.

As in other MMOs, depending on other people you don't know to run Instances can be a pain in the neck, but it sure is aggravated in DCUO because the chat system is garbage. I haven't had any problems with Alerts though, because I play a controller and I only do stuff with 2 other friends of mine, a healer and a tank and we we are all on Vent really coordinated.

Most instances that we run, we pretty much finish them with the 3 of us. I'd say that 80% of the time, the random DPS guy that joins our team, as soon as the instance starts, charges in the middle of all the mobs and gets annihilated while we just sit back and see if he/she will get a hint that our Tank should be the one engaging in battle first. Some people do realize that and wait for us to properly pull the groups and work with us as a team, but like I said, the majority of them don't and just quit after a couple deaths.

I'd definitely not have the will to keep playing if I was not with these 2 friends of mine. The game does have a lot of nuances as far as team mechanics go and it's beautiful when everything clicks together and you progress through instances without too much trouble, but if people are not playing their roles and just jumping in the middle of mobs and DPSing them out, things will go wrong fast.

I'd love to see an actual DCUO tank/healer combo in action. How do tanks in this game even hold aggro? Do they have taunt abilities or just aoe damage skills? I honestly have no clue.

Basically, ever time a tank deals damage to something they taunt it onto them for a short duration. Only... some things seem to ignore that. The stuff I've read was pretty unclear.

It's when tanks use their powers. All of a tank's powers have a taunt that lasts 8 to 12 seconds. Note here that this applies to powers and not to attacks (weapon and movement attacks), so the tank has to cycle through powers carefully without burning through all their energy or they'll lose aggro.

There has been a bug with mental controllers causing more hate than the tank's taunt, but that's either been fixed or is being fixed soon (I haven't kept up with it fully). Other than that, the taunt's always worked from what I've seen.

I've been playing a lot of level 30 duos on my healer with a friend who's a tank, and it's pretty fun. I've also done some duos with a controller and that works, too.

My guess regarding the sometimes poor teamwork you guys are seeing is that it will work itself out.

I think that a lot of the endgame stuff will get explored right now - heck, it's not even possible to be outside your 30 day trial yet. But when many of the new (and sometimes younger) subscribers drop off, I think many of the people remaining will be more willing to learn a team role. I can't even stand to read the general chat window when I'm not in an instance by myself due to the number of idiots. But like most games, I think much of the audience will move on to the newest thing in a bit leaving a better player/idiot ratio.

Just a reminder, if you're really into this game, the $30 for three months thing supposedly begins tomorrow. $10/month is a steal if you like this game at all, in my opinion.

Yeah, I agree, players are getting better and better at the end game stuff. I think the real issue is that the 1 to 30 treadmill is so easy comparatively that it doesn't teach people how to play their roles in a group, so when they hit 30 and run into the wall of difficulty they aren't prepared. But that's just an issue of experience, and as people play through the level 30 stuff they get better at it, plus they get better gear.

I'm not worried or bothered by it. Perhaps some of the later alerts should be harder to introduce players to the concept of roles and teamwork prior to 30, but otherwise it's not a problem. Just expect to see the difficulty ramped up at 30.

I'm just frustraded lately that the only way I can get through a dou is if i'm paired with a healer. I thought they were set up so that any 2 classes could get through them. Obvioulsy having a healer makes things easier but once again shouldn't you be able to get through a dou with any combination of classes. I have a feeling that many people playing on the PS3 don't understand the whole class thing and are just DPS'ing but hopefully as we go along and we get past the free month more competant people will remain in the game and I can finally get some dous and hard alerts done.

8-Bit Jedi wrote:

I'm just frustraded lately that the only way I can get through a dou is if i'm paired with a healer. I thought they were set up so that any 2 classes could get through them. Obvioulsy having a healer makes things easier but once again shouldn't you be able to get through a dou with any combination of classes. I have a feeling that many people playing on the PS3 don't understand the whole class thing and are just DPS'ing but hopefully as we go along and we get past the free month more competant people will remain in the game and I can finally get some dous and hard alerts done.

I played healer for a long time in WoW and I'm honestly not surprised DCUO has built their system so a healer is required. It just seems pretty natural to me, one guy whups up, the other guy patches him up.

Sucks for me since I haven't built a healer yet.

8-Bit Jedi wrote:

I'm just frustraded lately that the only way I can get through a dou is if i'm paired with a healer. I thought they were set up so that any 2 classes could get through them. Obvioulsy having a healer makes things easier but once again shouldn't you be able to get through a dou with any combination of classes. I have a feeling that many people playing on the PS3 don't understand the whole class thing and are just DPS'ing but hopefully as we go along and we get past the free month more competant people will remain in the game and I can finally get some dous and hard alerts done.

I've found that you can get through most duos with any of the two classes, but they have to both be playing their role. If either or both is damage it's gets pretty difficult. Also, if both classes are the same, it gets hard.

Are you talking about having trouble with two different classes, e.g., tank and controller?

I think one thing that may be frustrating some players is that switching between roles is barely mentioned in-game and having skills whose functionality completely changes depending on your role could also be confusing. For instance, if I'm in DPS mode my bomb causes fire damage to the enemy, if I'm in control mode the bomb restores power to my allies, I I had heal mode it might heal my teammates. So you have to be mindful of which mode you're in and you also have to remember what your skills do in that mode.

I understand the whole role concept I just have a bad feeling many people playing on the PS3 do not. I understand that for many on the PS3 this is probably thier first MMO but the game does a very poor job at defining what roles do, let alone how to play them. It's nice all classes can DPS but for a person starting out new to MMO's where is the explanation of what thier role is. And yeah, where does the game tell you powers have differant effects depending on roles. I know it is in the power description but a new person probably does read all of that let alone navigate all the menues to find all the relevant information. I like the game and am having fun but being one of the first MMO's on a consol Sony really dropped the ball on educationg all the new players to an MMO. I don't mind when I play poorly and fail at a game but when i have to pair with randoms and they dont know whats going on because the game doesn't explain roles/powers, then i get frustrated. And even then its not the random's fault but the developers.

Yeah, I agree with that. The game does a poor job of explaining roles and power interactions and such. The first time I played through in beta, I missed the message on how to switch roles and didn't even realize that I could even do that. It wasn't until live that I realized how to switch roles.

Any PS3 people gonna be on crisis tonight? I'm up for some game time fun!

So I got a $25 gift card from Amazon, and I picked this up you filthy enablers. Between this and Champions Online, only one hero game can win. Hint: It'll be DCUO.

Budo wrote:

and I picked this up you filthy enablers.

Welcome Budo! I thought you were still waiting on an answer for your question over in the DCUO league thread. I tried taking a few screenshots for you but couldn't figure out what the key was.

EDIT: It's F9 on the PC apparently

So my first impressions (1 hour) of the game so far are kind of mixed. The character creation compared is pretty bad in comparison to CO. The targeting is really all over the place (albeit I admit I am playing with mouse and keyboard, since I'm pure PC), but the flying is really smooth and they move you around pretty quickly.

The UI is as bad as they say, and the social aspect is not good.

With that said, I see a lot to dig in this game. I love the ice powers so far for Blizzarella, and I like I can equip gear yet keep my costume locked in. The game needs work, but I have to admit I'm intrigued to see where tey go with this.

I'm enjoying it enough to lock in the three month thing, which I already did.

I agree with your comments, though. The UI is okay in some areas, and abysmal in others. It never reaches such lofty heights as "actually useful" or "wow, it's cool that you can do that".

The targeting is horrible. What they need to do is let you set some toggles. I can think of some useful ones, such as "While in combat do not target objects if the targeting button is held down" or "Hold targeting modifier button to target objects" or "Target the closest motherf*&(ing mob instead of the one in the HUGE group you're not ready to fight and holy s(*& you just drew a truckload of aggro, sorry about that".

I don't have any in-game friends so I can't comment on the social stuff but I can't imagine it's that great. SOE has a lot of experience in MMOs so you'd think that would have actually been the most polished portion of the game, but I guess not.

I really need to find a league on my server posthaste. I have one character at cap and another who will probably be there before I go back to work tomorrow night, so I am ready to explore some of the end-game stuff.

One of my friends got this for his birthday last week on PC so he's trying to talk me into grabbing it to play with him.

Which servers are the GWJ leagues on? In case he starts without me at least I can get him on the right servers to play with later.