DSorrow

Base slot in Sprint, Swift and Hurdle. Add LR/Quickness with base slot if you have access to either.

Why don't you do it yourself?

Just grab FSC and an APP/PPP AoE, then get as much recharge as you can and try to push at least melee or S/L def to 25% or more.

I've got Shadow Punch slotted like this on my SD/DM Tank. I use it mostly to keep up the -Res and fill in gaps between MG/Gloom/SL.

Mako's: Acc/Dam
Mako's: Acc/Dam/End/Rech
Mako's: Proc
Crushing Impact: Acc/Dam/End
Perfect Zinger: Proc
Cloud Senses: Proc

It's nice to get two or three of them proccing at once. This kind of slotting also got me what I wanted: 60% Acc Enhancement, a +HP bonus (3k+ HP is very nice) and also makes it worthy as an attack. As Nihilii said, procs will be better than Damage Enhancements very soon in low damage attacks like SP.

I define it based on how much effort you put into it.

I usually marketeer on one character and check the market once a day (5-10mins with crafting and listing) and I'm willing to wait a few days if my listings don't move. I also put next to no effort into finding good stuff to work on, I have quite a few "top-end" characters so I know what's "good".

For a marketeer I'd say that's quite casual, and even then I'm rolling in billions.

I'm somewhere in the middle of it all. I do like my rewards, but I play for fun so I don't do anything that I find boring even if the rewards would be way better than doing fun stuff. For example, farming is incredibly boring so I don't do it even if the rewards can be high. Then again, those rewards help make this game more fun for me. This is the only MMO I know of that lets your characters be absurdly powerful and I like it, but to take them to that level you need rewards. So yeah, I do prefer doing stuff that gives rewards but I won't go out of my way to do something boring to get them.

I wouldn't mind if the Dev's Choice arcs actually made it into in-game arcs. I very rarely venture into AE so I never play most of them.

As for new enemy groups, I think the old ones should be updated first. They just look bad.

Currently doing very casual marketeering, and I don't have any accurate figures, but I'll post what it's been close to the last few weeks.

A-merit generation: -10mil/day (saving up for a Glad Armor unique, buying one every other day)
Marketeering: 150-200mil/day
Drops: maybe 15mil/day

I don't have much time to play so I mostly just do tips to generate A merits for a Glad Armor unique so inf from drops isn't very high. I've also dropped down to very casual marketeering (10 mins/day) because all of my characters I want to IO currently have their builds finished and I'm not leveling anything. Going to roll two more characters as soon as I can think of names for them, but I'm not really worried about their builds because I have maybe 10bil in reserve and their planned builds have no purples in them.

Panacea is a proc so it's best placed in a toggle/passive.

One thing I don't think has been said yet:

If you don't want to use much inf you should look at recipes between levels 46 and 49, those are usually way cheaper (up to 50% I've noticed) than their level 45 or 50 counterparts for no noticeable loss (25.8% enhancement value vs 26.1%, for example). Crafting a level 49 IO also costs only half of what a level 50 would. Then there's also the thing that because recipes/IOs at levels divisible by 5 are for one reason or another more sought after the 46-49 ones often have better availability, and, as I said, cost less.

Guess I'll need to start getting my hands on some extra recipes to stash away

Also seems like I'll need to raise my bids for the purples I'm looking for if I want to have them before this >_>

I never delete any of my 50s because I still have a few character slots left which is enough because getting about two dozen 50s does relieve you of most of your altitis, especially if replaying sets is often boring. I have moved some of them to an inactive server with free transfers (in order to make room), but I only bothered to strip one of the 5 or so transferees. Whether you are able to delete your characters, though, is not within my knowledge, I know I can't bring myself to delete 50s

As for leaving characters behind, I do that too. I simply don't have time to play my 20+ characters so I've basically limited my playing to my favourite six characters or so, but I do pull out less used characters if they're needed. I'll probably get around to unlocking the alpha slots on all of the characters I haven't moved off the server, but getting the actual enhancements is another thing. So far I've only had the time and motivation to get an alpha enhancement on two characters, although some do have a few shards and components collected. Then again, I'm still excited about my Illu/Cold and because I'm collecting merits for a Gladiator's Armor unique (30 of them, gah) I don't have much time to spare for playing other characters.

I do have more free time than the 30-45mins it takes for the 5 tips a day, but I also play other games and have my finals approaching...

That depends on three things, 1) how much Defense and Resistance you have currently, 2) how much maximum HP you have and 3) how much damage per unit of time you're taking.

Regen is "direct" mitigation whereas Defense and Resistance are relative to incoming DPS. They both also multiply the usefulness of your Regeneration and stack in a different manner. Maximum HP determines how much regeneration in HP/s the percentage equals.

EDIT: Results will also differ depending on if you try to calculate an "immortality line" or time to defeat.

A formula you can use for this:

Time to Defeat = (MaxHP / (DPS * (1 - Res) * (Enemy_ToHit - Def) * Enemy_Acc - Regen)

If Regen (in HP/second) is higher or equals the DPS (enemy base DPS, power accuracy isn't applied yet) after Resistance and Defense are applied you can sustain that damage "forever". If Regen is lower than the DPS with the same conditions the formula will give you the time it takes to reach 0 HP. You can use it to try different combinations of Defense, Resistance, MaxHP, time to defeat, etc. to see how much Regeneration would get you the same increase in survivability in each situation. It is very important to note that because Regen works very differently from Res or Def there is no real rule of the thumb for converting it to either of those.

(I hope I got the formula right, a bit sleepy...)

Warshade != Nictus.

I defeated Lusca (and all tentacles) solo on one of my characters yesterday so there should've been no way to avoid getting the badge, but for some reason I didn't get it. Only noticed it today because I happened to get a debt or an influence badge when defeating it triggering the "Badge earned" text. My character is also a Praetorian so that might be the cause of it.

PvP IO drop rates seem ridiculous only because no other kind of recipes drop from them. I'd think they drop more often than your standard recipes if looking at drops per number of defeats. Of course there's the thing that player characters are usually tougher than NPCs... Still, they're supposed to be very rare.

I think it's completely reasonable that the rare and very rare alpha slots cost many shards. After all, they're supposed to be the top-tier end-game unlockables just like very rare IOs. What makes it all the more reasonable is the fact that alpha slots are purchased with currency that can be stocked up on prior to the release of new enhancements (like IOs), so to have an incentive for people to play new stuff (more than once) they'll probably release with the rest of the alpha slots, they'll have to account for the fact that many people are very likely to have at least a few dozen shards from just playing the game.

Common and uncommon salvage: put up for sale at 1 inf or delete when more inventory space is needed.
Rare salvage: keep it if I'm bidding on or have a recipe that needs it, otherwise put up for sale at ~75% of going price.

Salvage is dirt cheap compared to recipes so I don't know why anyone would go through the trouble to actually store any of it for longer periods of time.

I have no idea, to be honest. I have never even tried anything other than Mace mastery on my Illu/Cold On paper the extra 30% Res Debuff, toxic damage, additional pet and a better (and prettier!) shield just seemed better than Ice mastery. I could be wrong.

I thought it was a bit selfish too, but then again assembling a team would have defeated the intent of soloing at least one of them

I noticed your concern about the attack chain with Poisonous Ray and it is much more valid for a Rad. I run an attack chain of Blind > SpecW > Ray > SpecW > gap. The gap isn't that bad for me because I rely on clickies a lot (PA, Sleet, Benumb, Tarantula, etc.) so very often I have something to fill the gap with. With Rad it might be a bit worse.

I actually do have about 210% "global" recharge when the uncommon Alpha is accounted for, 11% from the part that skips ED and about 4% from the rest. The build is planned with the very rare Alpha in mind so that I don't have to adjust it again when we get that (I'm hoping next issue) and the ~1 second gap between PA doesn't really bother me. Once I get some more purples and the Glad Armor unique (and respec) I'll have very slightly better global rech but will also be soft capped to S/L/Ranged.

I find the Tarantula very nice against stuff that doesn't drop it instantly because it provides an immob (yay for containment) and does almost exclusively toxic damage. I'll have a pet unique in the build when I respec so it should be a bit sturdier after that, but I'm not expecting a miracle. I picked Mace mastery over Ice because of two things, Poisonous Ray does -30% Resistance and because Scorpion Shield is better and prettier than Frozen Armor. I'd prefer Ice Blast for a smoother attack chain but I don't really have a preference on Ice Storm / Tarantula. If I could often set up AoE containment or even containment against AVs I'd probably pick Ice for Ice Storm.

As for GM soloing, I went to Kings to look for a Paladin. I found three on a pile and pulled one, it went down very fast so I decided to solo two Paladins at once. It wasn't really any more difficult. I'll post pics soon.

So after a bad night of sleeping and being extremely bored I decided to go solo some GMs on my Illu/Cold. I was extremely tired so I only realized at the end of my spree that I should be taking screenshots so you'll only see me finish off Lusca and his last four (I think) tentacles. I hope that's enough to convince everyone I actually did this Only used insps against Lusca.

So GMs in order:

Sally. Well, I wanted to start it easy

Jack in Irons. Nothing special, I don't think he ever even attacked me. Phantasm died a few times and Tarantula maybe once.

Eochai. He almost got me... I wandered too close and his PBAoE hold hit just as PA dropped. He got me to red HP by the time I got to summon a new set of phantoms.

Adamastor. He got a few pet kills with Foot Stomp but other than that he was really easy.

Jurassik. He also got pet kills with Foot Stomp, but was a bit sturdier than Adamastor.

Kraken. Probably the easiest GM after Sally, Kraken actually got scared and tried to escape! He didn't even score kills with Foot Stomp.

And then Lusca. He was a different kettle of fish () and I actually had to use inspirations until I got my tactics working, and he killed me twice before I got the first tentacle down due to bad tactics. In the end the fight was quite simple but took ages. I used maybe 8 insps to heal or boost defense during the first two tentacles due to not having a self heal and having only ~20% Ranged Def. During one PA I could regenerate a bit over half my health, and Lusca's ink blast took just under a half of it away so I had to either prevent it from hitting me more than once or heal back if I that happened. Didn't have to use those during the last six tentacles because I changed my tactics a bit so that I wouldn't have to touch insps.

So, my tactics then. I hovered as far as possible from a tentacle so that PA's "leash" would only allow them to attack the one tentacle I wanted to focus on. Usually I summoned PA between the tentacle and Lusca's head just to avoid getting hit with the whiplash attack. It was also because I wasn't entirely sure whether Lusca's aggro was based on proximity or if it was just attacking the largest concentration of enemies because its only attack is an AoE. The rest was just like a normal fight, throw debuffs and attacks at it until it dies Lusca's head was a whole lot easier because I could actually use Tarantula and Phantasm with no fear of them dying. Lusca's head is so wide - unlike the tentacles - that you can summon PA on one side of it and the rest of the pets on the other side so that PA drains all the attacks.

Here are the pics I remembered to take >_>
Here's where I remember I should be taking screenshots
I flew here every time I took a tentacle down to break aggro
Last two tentacles down.


Sushi, anyone?