DSorrow

And I'm thinking Earth/Fire/Fire currently. Both controls and damage seem spectacular for this combo, and I haven't taken any of the sets to 50 yet (although *Fire/Fire resembles Fire Blast a lot).

Before I get around to working out a build, is there anything I should know about this particular combo? Strengths and weaknesses? And would something else be a better suited primary for a Dominator whose goal is to lock down the spawn and then proceed pretending to be a Blaster?

Guys, time to put on your aluminium foil hats because the flippers are out there watching you!


Anyways, as someone who has never had any interest in economics and never studied it, I'd like to say a few things about all this...

• Flippers drive prices down.

This concept is not really that hard to understand, and I'll explain it to you as I understand it. First of all we'll have to establish two entities: Production and Consumption. For Production to give us supply, Consumption has to give us demand. There is no point in supplying the market with large amounts of any item if there is no demand. When a flipper enters the scene and starts flipping something, say, Alchemical Silvers, he is going to put out a large number of bids, thus creating demand and a bottom price for Alchemical Silvers. Production now has an incentive to start supplying. However, when the supply gets larger and larger, it is hard for a single flipper to manage all those items and a few bids are going to slip by to patient people.

A price cap is formed also by the flipper. He has to value his product at a price people are willing to pay and also at a price that can compete with other sellers. It has to be low enough that his stock sells first: if no one is willing to pay that price or someone else's stock sells first, the flipper gets zero income.

What happens exactly is that the bottom price of the item is pushed slightly up, and I think this is what you (EmperorSteele) don't like. People can no longer get all the Alchemical Silvers they want for a bottom price, but they are now protected from price surges that sometimes happen (remember salvage during the AE craze?). I would call all this flipping stuff paying a premium to the flipper for protecting the price of the salvage from surging, much like paying a premium for crafted IOs just because someone else crafted them for you. Someone out there is doing you a service, and as is common practice, you pay for that service.

• Quickly and cheaply are often two mutual things.

ES said earlier in a post that a flipper who buys the Respec Recipe for 151mil prevents the other people from getting it quickly and cheaply, and instead they have to pay 175mil for it. I'd like to point out that the flipper might have got it cheap, but 99% of the time they don't get their stock quickly. Again, by getting your product RIGHT NOW, you're paying a premium. Much like in real life, if you order something and have it brought to you by the fastest mail service, you'll be paying more than what you would have to, had you just been patient.

• The price people pay is a price they think is fair. Always.

This I think is completely self-evident. There is no outside force compelling you to pay that much for the item, you can always leave a bid and wait. Of course, if your bid is way lower than the value of the item perceived by the community, it is unlikely that you'll get it any time soon. However, if you want the recipe fast, you bid the current perceived value, which you think (maybe even subconsciously, if nothing else) is fair because you just typed it there with your own fingers without someone else making you do it.


As a real-life economy hater, it feels so wrong typing all this...

I'm swapping both of my lvl 50 tanks from Pyre to Soul. Mostly because Soul gives me everything Pyre does and more.

Gloom > Fire Blast (Gloom does better damage and has a useful secondary effect)
Fire Ball ~ Dark Obliteration (Fire Ball does more damage, but Dark Oblit has a useful secondary effect)
Darkest Night >>>> Char/RoF (-15% ToHit and -20% Damage is great for ANY powersets)

I think (not having played Elec Control) that the big tools for sapping in Elec are Static Field (even though it's a sleep, use it every spawn!), Conductive Aura (you'll want to live in melee range), Elec Fences (staple for many controllers to spam AoE immob) and Jolting Chains (does KD too, spam it).

I don't really bother with TOs at all. Even TOs that drop. I haven't really noticed TOs having any influence on how fast I get a character to DO levels. Typically I start slotting stuff at 12 with DOs, reslot DOs at 17, get SOs at 22 and move on to lvl 30 IOs at lvl 27. Then I may frankenslot stuff at 30+ if there's enough supply that I can get my uncommons RIGHT NAO.

I really like slotting common IOs at 27 because they are about the same as even lvl SOs, but they never degrade.

Your build looks very solid. I think it has too much of a focus for F/C Defense, though. I find they're so rare and often come with a S/L component that it's not worth using set bonuses for F/C Defense.

I'm quite happy that I don't really delete characters. I just use free server transfers to move unused ones to a server where I don't play. This way, if I somehow want to play them again I can just move them back to my main server.

This post very much makes me want to call the troll busters.

You can pick Ancillary pools on both sides (that is, Blaze, Body etc), while PPPs are only available by completing the patron arcs which are found redside.

I would recommend one of these: Mu, Blaze or Body. Mu or Blaze if you want more AoE, Body if you have endurance worries.

I don't see why you should gimp your build to be able to do Posi TF solo slightly faster.

You can use temporary phases, stealths, insps and whatever so a special Posi build isn't really needed. Besides, you have barely anything slotted for damage, it'll take you ages to solo it with that build just because of the lacking kill speed.

Focused Acc sounds pretty much useless for most Controllers. Either you have enough Debuffs not to need it or you just pick Tactics for yourself, your pets and your team.

If you solo most of the time and want survival plus utility, the top sets are Dark, Traps and Rad. Cold is up there, too, but it hasn't got as much survival as the others, so for a soloist it isn't the best choice.

As for secondaries, Sonic, Archery, Rad and Ice are my favourites.

I have taken Tough and Weave on all of my Scrappers. That's I think 8 of them at 50 or something, and I seriously couldn't imagine building a Scrapper without Tough. Weave, sure, as an SR you can still easily soft cap without Weave.

Tankers, on the other hand? I have two of them at 50 and neither has the Fighting Pool. Tanks in question are Ice/SS and SD/DM. Both have a -DMG aura, the other has a great AoE KD (Foot Stomp) while the other has a Heal in his attack chain, so they don't really need the added S/L Resistance and both of them are soft capped without Weave. Both are, however, swapping Pyre Mastery for Soul (Gloom, Dark Oblit, Darkest Night) for better ST Damage and more -DMG when needed. The -ToHit is also valuable against enemies who use Def Debuffs.

ETA: I pick Fighting Pool on my Scrappers mostly because they have lower base values for defensive powers than Tanks. This allows me to use set bonuses not only for survival bonuses, but also for offensive bonuses making a very sturdy and capable Scrapper. Then there's also the thing that I greatly dislike traditional godmodes (hard crash) and have picked those on exactly zero of my characters. I prefer the new type of godmodes, but don't pick them on all of my characters if I think more valuable powers are available. Most of my characters need those godmodes very rarely, so I just stick to Eye of the Magus most of the time.