ClawsandEffect

Just about the ONLY way you can get any use out of Time Bomb is on a character with an AoE sleep (or similar power that prevents an entire spawn from moving or acting)

My Sonic/Devices blaster had loads of fun with his Time Bomb, but it recharged way too slow to really be useful aside from "Wanna see something cool?" moments. I respecced out of it ages ago and haven't missed it.

With a Traps Defender you could get some mileage out of it if you take Mass Hypnosis from the Psychic Epic pool, otherwise you'll find it's pretty much useless.

Don't even try to use it on a team, you'll just be wasting your time.

For a solo Kin/Sonic I would definitely skip Howl. You can always do a second build for teaming if you like.

Your best tactic for survival will be Siren's Song/Fulcrum Shift(which doesn't wake them) and then wake them up one at a time with Screech and ST blast them to death. That way you can take advantage of the fact that the rest of the mob is sleeping, and the one you're actively fighting is stunned, leaving you VERY safe.

I believe Garent says to skip Amplify because if you play it right you will be at max damage potential a lot of the time and Amplify is wasted at that point. You should already have plenty of accuracy so the to-hit buff is kind of redundant as well. I would probably skip it as well on a Kin/Sonic soloing build, you can take something else that you will get more mileage out of in it's place.

I got burned by this one myself.

I lost a full set of Decimation (minus the proc) and a full set of Posi's Blast (minus the proc). I had them sitting in emails while I leveled the character that was meant to receive them (Fire/Regen scrapper in the 40s, was going to slot them in Fire Blast and Fireball)

I sent in a petition about it because I was completely unaware that there was a time limit on emails. Now that I know it is WAI I'm expecting a polite version of :"Tough ****" in response. Had I KNOWN about it I would have claimed them long before they were deleted.

I don't have a problem with a time limit on it, what I DO have a problem with is that most people are going to find out about it when their stuff gets deleted, since I don't recall seeing anything anywhere that informs us of the time limit.

I have no plans on going anywhere until the force me out at gunpoint.

This game allows me to bring characters to life that I don't have the time to write about, and is probably the closest I will ever come to my childhood dream of writing comic books.

Since I started playing, I met a wonderful woman on Pinnacle, and my entire life changed.

I went from living my parent's basement, unemployed, with a severe case of depression and borderline alcoholism ------ to being happily married, owning my own home, gainfully employed in a position that provides benefits, and expecting my first child in early October.

All that happened in 3 short years, and none of it would have happened without this game. So in a very real way, I have this game to thank for the fact that I'm still alive, relatively sane, and not in prison.

A large part of why I stuck around, aside from the above factors, is the community here. In my time here I've forged some friendships with people that I have since come to consider real friends (not just people I game with online). When I've been bummed out or stressed about something I'd log in on my main to thrash some stuff, and someone in PinnBadges would make me crack a smile and shrug off my bad mood.

Some of the best things to ever happen to me were because I decided to waste my time playing video games

I love my Broadsword.

I like to imagine the look of terror on my target's face when I lean back for a Head Splitter.

Thoughts running through their head include:

"OMG, OMG, OMG, it's gonna crit, it's gonna crit, IT'S GONNA CRIT!!!!!"

"Eeep!"

"Damn, my underwear WAS clean."

"**** me"

Among others

To clarify my earlier point, which I crammed in at the last minute of my previous post:

The problem being addressed here is that new players feel slighted because veteran players have stuff they don't, correct?

Your "solution" is to add another tier of veteran rewards starting approximately now.

Fast forward 2 years.

Now there are 8 year tier 1 veterans AND 2 year tier 2 veterans.

That means a player joining 2 years from now will have even MORE stuff to complain about not having. Instead of solving the problem, you have compounded it.

I read your OP, and to be perfectly blunt about it, I found it asinine.

Your "Pay to catch up" idea is BUYING VETERAN REWARDS, but you put a different spin on it so it doesn't sound like that's what it is. But if you strip away the marketing jargon you have: Pay money, get your next reward now instead of 3 months from now. How does that not meet the definition of buying vet rewards?

I explained the problem with the second tier of vet rewards in this post. All it will do is give new players who join later on even more stuff to complain that they don't get.

In reading your OP again, I have to say it REALLY sounds like you're trying to justify the entitlement issues of the "WANT IT NAO!!" crowd.

They weren't here, so they haven't earned the rewards they are clamoring for. If they stick around they will earn them at the same rate as everyone else.

No one gets a second tier of rewards to soothe the sting of not getting their way, and no one can pay to get their stuff faster. It's fair, it's balanced, and it SHOULD NOT BE CHANGED!

The vet system is absolutely fine like it is.

The people complaining about it are looking at it as being unfair to new players because verterans have things they don't have access to yet.

Of course they get things you don't. They did something you didn't. They had a subscription 5+ years ago, you did not. You are not entitled to something they got for doing that when you did not do it.

A couple real world examples:

Asking for the veteran rewards early is exactly the same as getting hired at a new job and demanding the top pay rate for that job on your first day. Yes, the guy who's been working there for 5 years gets paid more than you. That's because he has done something you have not, in this case, retained employment there for 5 years.

It's also similar to joining the military and demanding that you receive the same privileges as a corporal or sergeant before you even finish basic training.

The people complaining that it isn't fair are being told the same thing you would be told in either of those situations. Which is, essentially, you will get those rewards when you have earned them, just like everyone else, and not before. The people who have those rewards already didn't do anything special to earn them, and when you have achieved the same milestone you will get the exact same rewards.

No one is special, or more important than anyone else. You cannot spend more money than the next guy to get more, or get it faster. Everyone is subject to the exact same rules, and money does not change those rules for you. And that is exactly how it should remain.

A new tier of veteran rewards would create the exact same problem a year from now, when new players will want twice the amount of things they haven't earned yet.

No issues with this idea.

Wouldn't mind being able to change my epic pool without redoing everything else.

You want to make the 60 month possible for brand new players to buy?

Fine.

That'll be a one time fee of $900.00 please.

What? $900.00 is too high for just the ability to skip a prerequisite to a travel power?

Well that's what the people who HAVE that reward have paid, so it's the only way it would be fair.

I'm difficult to impress with ideas, but I like this one.

I hate having to hop from character to character just to find out who has the Luck Charm I need for a recipe, and that would make it much easier.

I don't say this often, but........../signed

There are tons of reasons.

Posi's answer sums up one of them in inarguable terms, since it came from the head honcho himself.

Exploitability is another reason.

Super Reflexes and Shield Defense scrappers get really really powerful at high levels when they have all their powers, but both are kind of squishy while you're getting them there. If full respecs were allowed you could level up as a Katana/Willpower scrapper (which is a much easier character to play at low levels) and then switch over when you get to a level the set you want gets powerful at. Or level a Willpower tank and switch over to Stone so you can have Granite Armor without having to play the set through 32 levels of relative squishiness (for a tank at least).

A third reason: Just because you know how to play a scrapper at level 50 doesn't mean you automatically know how to play a corruptor at 50. It would create a lot of players with very little idea how to play their character, because they respecced into a different AT at 50 that they have little or no experience with. Even within ATs you'd have problems, an Ice Tank doesn't play like a Dark Armor tank. Just because you've played one does not mean you know how the other works, because you haven't spent the time learning it.

It isn't about money, it never HAS been about money.

It's about the developers doing something nice for the players that believed in the game enough be loyal to it, when they could have played something else any time they wanted.

It's not how much money you've given them they are rewarding you for. What you get for the money you give them is the game itself.

They are rewarding you for your loyalty to their game over other choices you have available to you.

Allowing brand new players to BUY the reward they gave out for being loyal would cheapen that loyalty a great deal. It would show the people who have been playing for a significant length of time that their loyalty means less to the devs than a quick buck, which is NOT a good formula to ensure future loyalty from those people. A large part of the reason there are so many loyal players in the first place is that the dves have shown over the years that they actually CARE about their players. Selling loyalty- based rewards to people that haven't earned them would undermine that.

Plunking down money for something does not show loyalty, it shows that you have a credit card and some disposable income, nothing more.

But I suppose I can't expect the "I WANT IT NAO!!!" people to understand that the devs don't care how much they are willing to spend on buying something, because it isn't for sale.

Gah.

Again? Really? This needs to be brought up yet again?!?

Veteran rewards are in NO WAY WHATSOEVER tied to how much money you have paid. They are tied to how long you have been playing the game.

You get the 60 month veteran reward for playing for 60 months. If you have not played for 60 months, then you have not yet done the thing the reward is for.

You wouldn't put someone in prison for a crime they haven't committed yet, would you? Of course not, that wouldn't be fair. If someone buys a gun and a ski mask you can't put him in prison for armed robbery, because the offense hasn't happened yet.

Rewarding someone for something they haven't done yet is exactly the same as punishing them for something they haven't done yet. It is not fair in either case.

Currently, veteran rewards are ONLY reward we have that cannot be gamed or exploited to receive faster. They are perfectly fair. If you want the 60 month reward, play for 5 years and you will get it, and you can be assured that everyone else who has that reward waited for 5 years too. No one gets the rewards early just because they can afford to plunk down a sum of cash.

Except when you attack with Stealth on it suppresses both the stealth and the defense.

Superior Invisibility doesn't suppress either, hence why it is called "Superior" Invisibility. The end cost is high because you can do anything you want and still keep your stealth.

Regular Invisibility's end cost is, honestly, kind of irrelevent since you can't do anything with it on.