Crystalline

What I have been seeing is that, apparently randomly, the whole map will be grayed out and all icons (i.e. stores, trains, etc.) will be unset. If I manually re-check the options to see icons in the little popup menu, they all come back. I have not found any pattern to it so far. I took my main to First Ward and her whole map was clear with icons in place. On the other hand, characters in zones they frequent have had the grayed out/no icon effect.

QR

Yep, he's active for my main as well. I haven't noticed on my other 50's, but I too went to talk to him when I noticed on her, expecting maybe he had something new. I assume it's a bug, unless the arc's been made repeatable for some reason. Probably should have bugged it, but didn't think of it at the time.

I absolutely love my claws/nin stalker in BAF and Lambda. I find that she does have trouble with Keyes, but I most often run Keyes on my sonic/pain corr anyway.

Is she contributing? I certainly think so, although I suppose some might argue the point. More so in Lambda, because she can solo crates and acid containers. Of course, I realize other ATs can do that, as well. But she brings damage, good survivability (really), and now that she's Incarnated, she's bringing those powers to the table too. Even in Keyes, where she doesn't fare as well in terms of survivability, her Rebirth is certainly helping. But what's critical to me is that I love playing her. Yes, I want to contribute to the team/league, but as part of that team effort I get to have fun too. She brings enough, more than enough, really, for me to enjoy the experience of playing her and not feel like I'm somehow leeching off the league.

And yeah, I've never been turned down for a spot yet. I've also lead a couple of trials with her. So far, nobody in any trial I've been in has had anything to say about the presence of stalkers in the league, and I've been in leagues where I was not the sole stalker.

Thanks for the update, Avatea. I am relieved that existing Level Pacts will be maintained.

I rather like Keyes. There is one thing I would change about it; I'd just get rid of Entanglement. It's one more thing to look at in an already very busy encounter, and as far as I can tell, it's pointless. I spent a lot of time in my first runs, on my corruptors, trying to avoid the Bubbles of Opposing Color because I had the impression Entanglement was a Bad Thing. Then I did the trial on a melee character, my stalker, and quickly learned that we could all gang up on AM and simply ignore the stacked Entanglements; if it wasn't having any noticeable negative effect on me, I doubt it was hurting the tanks and brutes.

That said (WARNING: anecdotal "evidence" imminent), I can't help but notice that I seem to be in a minority. There are plenty of people on the forums that seem to think it's great as is; a few have even posted in this thread. But in game, I see lots of people forming BAFs and Lambdas. Some Keyes, but certainly not as many. Even on league chat, it's not uncommon for people to discuss how much they hate it, although some will do it just for the merit. I've been fully expecting the devs to announce changes to the trial; specifically, I expected them to change the pulse (either by making it pulse less often, or for less damage) and to somehow simplify the final battle. I didn't anticipate the move to simply making the rewards greater, but I can see the point; it's a longer, more complex trial, so I think a greater reward is appropriate. Still, I have to wonder if it's a "first step", as in, "we'll see if this will get more people playing it, and if not, we'll consider changes to the trial itself."

1. Corruptors
2. Stalkers
3. Brutes
4. Dominators, Controllers
5. Tankers
6. Defenders
7. Scrappers
8. Widows *
9. Blasters, Masterminds

* I didn't like my one experience with a Night Widow too much, but am trying the Fortunata path now.

- I haven't played a Soldier but intend to at some point.
- I haven't played a Peacebringer or Warshade and so far, have no interest in doing so.

Hey, Organica, I know I'm late with the congratulations (work is really cutting into my forum time), but Congrats on 50!

Sam, I see a Change Card link under Billing Summary in the NCSoft account screen.

EDIT: Hmm...come to think of it, that might be just the card you need to have on file so you can purchase things like character slots and respecs from the login screen. So...not sure. In the past, I believe I did have to effectively cancel and resub to change info, and it was indeed a scary process. I don't think I ever lost anything, such as vet time, but could not say with 100% certitude.

I'd personally love to be able to change Origin. That's mostly because my main has had the 'wrong' origin since I created her; as a new player, I failed in my reading comprehension of the Natural origin, which is what she should be. By the time I realized it, there was no way I was recreating her. I don't consider it to be terribly critical, but I think it'd be a cool change if the devs ever find the time.

As far as DOs and SOs go, I suppose forcing a respec at the time of the change would be one solution. But to be honest, I don't quite understand why there's any need for having different enhancements for each origin anyway? It's not like a level 35 Magic Damage SO has different stats from a level 35 Tech Damage SO (I assume, anyway. I use IO's almost exclusively).

<QR>

I endorse these changes. Particularly like the elemental casters. Thank you for listening!

As always, thanks so much for posting this, Von Krieger.

Have you considered using Steamy Mist + Super Speed for stealth and forgoing Superior Invisibility? That's a tip I picked up, I think, from several posts in the Controller forum, and I've been very happy with that setup. My Ill/Storm had significant difficulty with the endurance needs of SI. Granted, I think he was created before Stamina became inherent, but I still find end consumption to be his biggest challenge (well, besides his player).

Three workarounds were pointed out to me by people on the forums:

1. Star swapping
2. Leader entering the mission last
3. Kicking and re-inviting.

(And also, I see a 4th one in this thread; didn't know about TPing )

I've tried 1 & 2 and both have worked. However, in the case of #2, you can get messed up by a slow loader. I routinely play with somebody who loads very slowly, and I found that if I entered the mission after her, but still loaded before her, I got the breakage. The solution was either to wait until she told me she was in the mission, or to just pop back out and back in again.

I just started a fire/rad. She's only level 6, so I have no idea how she'll be at higher levels, but so far she's a lot of fun.