Ep 41 Stat Clamp Quick Start Guide

Discussion in 'Oracle’s Database (Guides)' started by Captain1Dynamo, Aug 25, 2021.

  1. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    For those who haven’t been following the activity in the Testing Feedback forum, here are a few points to help you understand the major changes implemented with Episode 41 and get you started when the Episode goes live.
  2. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Daily Rewards

    There is no more daily Vault. Instead you claim Daily Rewards. To get to them use up on your direction pad. On keyboard use F1 to open the Actions menu, and Daily Rewards are at the top. You claim rewards once per account per day. Most things you claim are account bound (but not everything). Ultimately this is a quicker method than the Vault, but you end up getting less than you would by running multiple Alts through the Vault daily. Example – you’ll only get one piece of gear, and not every day, as opposed to the Vault where you could get one for every toon you ran through per day. So Daily Rewards is a little less helpful in levelling up and getting exobytes.



    There apparently will be a special item each month that members can get by logging in for 21 days out of the month. There are also 7 bonus days built into each month so that if a player misses a day (or up to 7), they can still get 21 days of rewards to get the special item. They'll just have fewer bonus days.
    • Like x 1
  3. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Allies

    When you log in you’ll get a journal mission (Together Unbroken) to visit the new House of Legends. That mission will guide you around the new base & eventually you’ll get another Journal entry called Call for Allies. Essentially Allies are like Pet Trinkets. You call for one in battle, it helps you a bit, then disappears. The difference is that you rank up your Allies like Artifacts, making them more powerful. As you follow the Journal mission, you’ll talk to Cyborg, go through the Batcave for a little fight, then be given an Ally. The Journal mission only tells you to equip your Ally, then the mission is gone and you don’t know what to do next (that the way the mission goes on Test as of today, the 24th). The next step is to fortify the Ally. You are given an Alliance (like catalysts for Artifacts). Instead of Nth metal, you use Ally Favor to level up your Ally, but you get very little Favor to start. Ally Favor is an account-wide item. It’s set up a little poorly. You select & slot it like you would Nth Metal, but if you just click on the item you’ll add your entire account’s worth of Ally Favor. So instead of that you have to use the Load Count U/I to reduce the amount of Favor you add. On PS4 controllers you use Triangle, X-Box use Y. I have yet to figure out the command on keyboard. Anyway using triangle / Y brings up a counter & you can change the amount you add so you don’t waste any Favor (since you’re going to have to use the rest for the rest of your toons). You do your equipping and fortifying from the new Allies Menu (you’ll see the icon between the Traits & Style icons when you pull up your Menu wheel). Once equipped you use the Ally in a fight by clicking R3 on a controller (or on keyboard the letter ‘R’). You’re given one Ally, but you have slots for three. How do you get more? Cyborg is the Ally vendor. He has them, and Alliances (like catalysts) for sale for Source Marks. Different Allies are able to rank up further. Cyborg, Flash & Zoom rank up higher than Oracle, Calculator & Legends Bot, so they cost more. Additional Allies will be available from Cyborg in the future. You cannot equip an Ally into a Support slot until you've ranked them up to level 3. Right now I don't see any Feats for Allies, I imagine we'll probably get some in the future.
  4. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    On Duty

    There is no actual new content (instances) with this Episode. The End Game instances are up-leveled versions of pre-existing instances. There are also no Open-World areas, no Dailies / Weekly Bounties. Future Episodes (42 & beyond) will have brand new instances & Open-Worlds, but not this one. There are three versions of the instances from this Episode. An End-Game regular, an Elite, and the original version. Interestingly there are no Event versions that can be played by low level toons. In Flashpoint toons below level 30 could play the Event versions. But in Episode 41 you’ve got to be CR 327 to play the Regular & Elite, and the proper CR to play the original version (for Science Spire & Phantom Zone that’s CR 100, for Power Core & Inner Sanctum that’s CR 30, for Iceberg Lounge it’s CR 150, and Family Reunion is CR 60). So how will it work in Episode 42 when the original version of new content will be at CR 335ish? Will we lose Events altogether? Guess we’ll find out in November.

    You’ll immediately see that the On Duty menu has been changed. When you open it up you’ll see a new Mode Select screen. On the left side are Quick Play categories. Save the Universe is Episode 41’s content. Latest Episodes are the top three Episodes. Omnibus is every instance. When you click on those links you’ll find each divided by the available content – Solos, Duos, Alerts, Raids. Open one of those categories & you can with one click queue up for every instance in the category. The concept behind this is that players will go into the instance that is filled first, so you quickly go from instance to instance. That means you could end up going into the same instance again & again. And you might never go into a particular instance (the odd thing about Quick Play is that there’s a totally unnecessary Solo category. I guess if just wanted to do something random, you could let the system pick for you. I’ve never been bored enough to do that).

    So, if you want to do a particular instance, Quick Play is not what you want. Instead go to the bottom of the Mode Select Menu to the Custom section & select Custom Play. That brings up the same On Duty Menu that we’ve been using since the start of the game & you can select the exact instance you want.
  5. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Stat Clamping

    You might have noticed that those original versions CR minimums I mentioned above don’t sound right for the instances you’ve been playing for years. That’s because all instances have been reorganized. There are no longer 10 Tiers, there are now 6. Now all instances within a Tier have (or are supposed to have) about the same level of difficulty. So, when you que in, you’ll find you have the same stats for every instance in the Tier. The only exception to this is Tier 6, presumably because the Tier is not yet complete. So, if you’re at the top CR / stats and queue into Wonderverse, you’ll see that you retain your full stats. The devs have determined a range of stats that are appropriate for each Tier. If your toon is lower than that range your stats are increased. If your toon is higher, then your stats are lowered. I’m going to illustrate this with an example in a moment. Now these Tier stat ranges have seen some tinkering during the testing period, so these numbers I use may not end up being exact on Live, still it will give you an idea of what’s going on. For this example I made a new toon, and I looked at an old toon that’s just about maxed-out on stats. For the new toon I used only gear for stats – I didn’t put on any artifacts, augments, didn’t slot any SP, no generator mods, etc. I just opened a gear box for each Tier, played a Solo, noted the stats. Because of the buff up I was able to take this toon through a Solo in each Tier. Naturally Tier 6 was much tougher to get through than Tier 1. Just as an example of how the clamping works we’ll take a look at one stat; Might, and we’ll look at Tier 5.

    For the new toon I used the CR 210 gear box. That gave me a Might stat of 11287. When I went into LexCorp Tower the stat was buffed up to 21310, an increase of 10,000+. And that was enough that I could do enough damage to beat the ads & bosses. Now my old near maxed-out CR 344 toon’s Might is regularly at 94934. When I put that toon into LexCorp Tower it’s CR was decreased to 268, and Might was debuffed to 40718. So, a significant decrease, but still almost twice the Might of the buffed up new toon, and of course, no problem at all getting through the instance.

    Based on this monkeying-around with your stats you might be wondering if there’s much point to doing things like working on your SP, ranking up Artifact / Augments, etc. Well, there is. First, you still need as much as you can get for End-Game instances. Second, all that stuff on top of your gear is the reason that my high toon’s Might is 40718 in Tier 5 instead of 21310.

    So yes, your end game toon is going to be more powerful in old content than toons that have just reached a Tier. But you won’t be able to solo old Raids anymore. The effect of this is that it will take longer to get through old content. You may have to fully play the mechanics. You will have to use roles. All of that together may add up to fewer end game players spending their time on old content – time will tell.

    One other note; I really, really hope the devs are prepared to do adjustments after this goes live. Not nearly enough testing was done to determine if the stats are right (both for us & for enemies) in EVERY instance. From what I saw 90% of testing focused on the up-levelled End Game instances, very little on the rest (especially lower Tier raids). I would not be surprised to queue up for a Tier 5 or 4 Raid to find a massively overpowered boss, but we’ll see.
  6. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Styles

    One last thing I realized just the other day. In the House of Legends you’ll find style vendors for both Heroes & Villains. Both factions can buy, use & get the Feats for all these styles. Yes, heroes can now get Feats for Villain-only styles. And Villains can get Feats for Hero-only styles.

    There's a bit of a bug right now. I had already completed all the styles for both factions, and bought all the styles for both on one toon. Which means the Feats should have popped as soon as I logged in. Instead they're sitting in the Iconic Styles section of Feats as available to badge. I recommend not doing that, most likely devs will correct that sooner or later.

    A method you can use in the meantime - acquire a style of any kind for your toon. When you equip it, all the Feats you're owed are unlocked. If you have every style already, then I guess it'll have to be when you open your first piece of Tempus Fuginaut style gear. Thanks Run from Danger Man!
    • Like x 1
  7. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    No Additions

    Based on previous Episodes you might be expecting to get a few things that you won't be getting in Episode 41. There are no Generator Mods, Adaptive Augments, or Artifacts for this Episode. (Origin Augment & SP levels are increased, but that's really it). This Episode is going to have very short period before Episode 42 (only three months), so there's not a lot of content. As designed there are three instances the first month (Science Spire, Phantom Zone, Power Core), three the 2nd month (Iceberg Lounge, Family Reunion, Inner Sanctum) and three more (Wonder Woman focused) the third month. It's a little unclear if the 2nd & 3rd months' instances will be additions or substitutions. In other words, will End-Game first month versions of instances be available through the entire three months? Hopefully yes. Either way opportunities for Episode currency are reduced from previous Episodes. That's reflected in a (slightly) lower cost for best-on-vendor gear. I'm expecting there will a mid-Episode cycle style addition to the vendor, but that may not happen. Also, the BOV gear set doesn't raise your toon's CR a full 10 points. And there are very few Feats for this Episode.

    The concept about Save the Universe is to; once in a while have future Episodes set up like Episode 41 highlighting a few older instances that are levelled up to End-Game for a short period of time. Then when the next Episode drops, the up-levelled instances disappear. So when Episode 42 arrives, (my understanding is that) these End-Game versions of Power Core, Inner Sanctum, etc, will disappear, and only the original versions in the lower Tiers will remain. But the next time a Save the Universe Episode arrives the highlighted instances should use the same currency (Time Grains). If anyone knows better on all this, let me know.

    Rip Hunter has the new gear for this Episode: Fuginaut is the levelling gear, Max Item Level 287; Orrery Guardian is best-on-vendor, IL 300. Rip also has the OP item for sale (Decrepit Time Hunter Gloves), and the associated catalysts.
    • Like x 1
  8. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Note these changes from the Update Notes:
    • Unbalanced groups in Omnibus Alerts/4-Player Operations no longer receive the “Roleless Buff”
    Which means you're going to need to play roles in Alerts more often.
    • Source Mark Rewards removed from episodes 38, 39, and 40
    So if you want Source Marks, then you have to play old content from Tiers 1-5.
    • Like x 1
  9. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    One other thing to be aware of:

    When playing the up-levelled instances, you get a lot of loot choices. Some are for end-game gear, some are Item Level 280. So don't pick the wrong Item Level piece of gear.
    • Like x 1
  10. Jack T. Chance Devoted Player


    What's the command on a computer keyboard? Not everyone plays on a console.
  11. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Yeah, I'd love to know. I've been pushing random keys & haven't found it yet. If someone knows, please post & I'll update that section.

    Same for bringing up the unit count U/I on Ally Favor.
  12. Red Five Developer

    On keyboard use F1 to open the Actions menu, and Daily Rewards are at the top.
    • Like x 4
  13. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    TY!
    • Like x 1
  14. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Say, what's the command for the Unit Counter on keyboard? (for Ally Favor) Thanks!
    • Like x 1
  15. RunfromDanger Man Dedicated Player

    if anyone reads this. When you claim a new style it will trigger the feats. Go to Bones or to the Watchtower/HoD and get a skin or emblem or something like that, claim the style and the feats will trigger.
    • Like x 1
  16. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Excellent tip, I'll update that section, thanks!
  17. Magnificent Loyal Player

    Any chance of having the system do a check against whether you've claimed your Rewards for that day and if not then it pops up as you log in?
  18. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Tip: to fulfil Steve Trevor's missions, make a group with people you know can play well, then queue for Omnibus. That way you meet the requirement & have a better chance of getting through the instance.
  19. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Tip: From what I've seen, the absolute fastest way to get Source Marks is to do the daily missions from all the Open World areas (from BOPtropolis all the way down to Ace Chemicals / Stryker's Island.
  20. Epiphany New Player

    any idea on what's the cr requirements for fos walkins now? I'm around cr 86 and don't see them