Da_Captain

Seems pretty easy to get. I mean doing the WST atleast 3 times a week averaging 10 shards a run would net you the Very Rare in a month. Just saying it is a lot easier than you think, it is going to take a minimum of a month since you need atleast 4 WST to get.

If you suffer from altitis it is going to be rough to get, but I found a toon to cure me of mine.

If you don't want to team you don't have to, however, if you are being rewarded for team content that should tell you something about the game, it's your 15$ (or less). But just because you don't want to do a S/TF don't say it is grinding.

Before this issue came out I did one successful STF, most people didn't like STF because to some it seemed too hard. Afterwards I have been able to do 3, I like the way that the dev team is promoting all content and making sure everything gets played.

Again I would have to say it is far from grinding, even for the badges, you get one at 10 and another at 50. If you do just 2 WT/SFs a week for a year you will have it, how fast you want to get it is up to you.

I have a MA/Inv, that is by far my favorite toon to play, I haven't really thought much about other alts since and was probably my quickest 50.

But anyway, I have him softcapped to all types, except Psi, and as said above doing that gives you some decent positionals, so I would say if you are also running CJ/Hover, and Weave, maybe Maneuvers too, it wouldn't be that big of a problem. Dull Pain for me takes me to the Scrapper HP cap (don't know if that is saying much) and only has 10 secs of downtime.

Yeah going to have to agree with the others, the only thing left for earth based powers are just armors, there would be no way to make an Earth APP without making new powers or making the pool OP with like 4 armors. They used the most of the Stone Melee set (Exemptions are Stone fist, Build up, and Taunt) and one power from the Stone Armor set (The only damaging power in the set), and you already get Earth Control. So the only thing left are defensive powers, I could see letting maybe 3 get through but anymore Armors would serously be overpowering it.

Seeing as how most of my Doms are perma, I skipped Fitness to add more spaces for recharge mules. So once inherent fitness came out, it buff most of my Doms now they don't worry too much about their end bar, or waiting that couple of seconds for Dom to come back up, they stay in Beast mode constently now. But my Mind/Energy has always been a beast and can solo the RSF, now even easier than before.

The Soldiers can stay the same.

Medic - Aid Other is nice, however, if Frag Grenade was replaced with a PBAoE regen aura don't think anyone would be upset. Really you could take away his first attack and replace it with like a PBAoE heal or something (I am a real military member and Medics are considered Non combatants along with Chaplins and aren't really supposed to carry weapons. So conceptually the medic having a gun and a grenade is all wrong. Then again MMs are Villains to begin with so I guess my arguements in null)

Spec Ops - As mentioned by plenty of others lower the recharge for the AoE mezzes and add a stealth strike, make their hidden presence usefull, I mean it isn't going to be gamebreaking since most of their damaging attacks are ST anyway.

Serum - I along with all the playerbase probably wouldn't mind if you broke the cottage rule on this one. I don't even know anyone who has this power.

Commando - I don't have big problem with this guy. Though conceptually it would be nice if he came with either Assualt or Maneuvers. And give him his gun drone back please.

This is just a universal issue here, but, it would be nice if Gun Drone was a perma pet. I noticed for the Malta it is, it even stays out after the summoner dies. I think Blasters should get this to along with the Commando.

Just an FYI, that Speed debuff for the Spec Ops has been removed for sometime now, if you are still experiencing it, you need to bug or petition it. They also no longer toggle and detoggle it, that was a pretty annoying thing between them and the Jounin that was going on, once you enhance them with the Stealth they keep it on and it doesn't come with any debuffs.

As much as things get looked at in the game that are Overpowered (i.e. The old PSW for doms, Blessing of the Zyphers set bonuses, Shield Charge, Fury, etc) I wish they would look at some of the underperforming sets, Mercs has been underperforming for a while compared to other sets and it dissapoints me too because they have some great potential.

But to say Devs don't look at MMs would be a lie, they did change stealth for Mercs and Ninjas, They took away the Bow and Arrows for the Ninjas, and they tryed to make AI changes with the Medic, I hope that love is soon to be shown to the Spec Ops, I mean even at a minimum working on their controls, as far as better duration and lower recharge times would make the whole set a lot better.

Yeah, I had Sprint and Ninja Run going. I have silver on both events and until I get real board of everything else I won't be going for the gold anytime soon, 25 secs seems easy enough to get, just have to get the route perfect, and 50 seconds on the other is going to be needed to be aided with some SB. All in all, they are both pretty rough until you can get the routes down, once you get the routes down all you need to do is get the speed.

/Energy is a great win with it. Boost Range is great for Electron Haze, I even took Stun and it stacks well with Cosmic Burst for bosses, and Power Boost keeps them out for a long time.

/Fire is good because Rad/ has irradiate which goes well with Fire Sword Circle and Combustion. But I am a fan of Mezzes so I went with Energy route over damage.

/Devices to me goes with everything.

If you are 18 here are some key powers you should have.

Char, I heard that you said you had it so that is a plus

FlashFire, nice AoE control for fire, allows you to take multiple targets out of a fight, even at lower levels you should still be able to have it up atleast every other mob.

Fire Cages, nice damage and goes well with FlashFire to turn it from an AoE Stun to an AoE hold. If you toss the Posi proc in it, it adds a quite noticable damage boost. Use a higher level alt to get 2 A merits grab the level 20 recipe, craft it and slot it, and you are good. Also will keep enemies from running out of Hot Feet.

Some nice utility powers to have.

Hover or Combat Jumping or both, adds a nice little defense bonus, and a nice LotG spot, even if not going for permadom it is always nice to have more recharge for controls.

Maneuvers, Great power for you, your team, and your pets. Recommended for most ATs. Also another great LotG spot.

Smoke, if you have the room, mean for regular enemies it is a great power. It's a low to hit debuff but when stacked with the defense from the other 2 powers it puts you at about 10% pop a luck and now you are at 22.5%. If you have the room it is a nice power to have if not, don't lose sleep.

Things that weren't commented on.

Fiery Assault, Yeah, pretty self explanitory. You should have everything offered up to this point, the only one I can understand, somewhat, is combustion, and that is if you were trying to stay out of melee range, but that isn't a case since you have Hot Feet, so you should have every power.

Cinders, Pre SO levels I don't really like AoE holds for Trollers and Doms, they require a lot of slotting, they need Accuracy, Recharge and Duration, and none of which are that noticable til later levels, I mean you could get it and slot it so that when you get to the later levels all you have to do is enhance it, but if you grabbed it at 20 and slotted it 21, You should be good for SO slotting by 22.

On a final note. Don't be afraid to use insperations.

Doing the Hero Alignment Mission of Destroy the Bomb Triggers for the second time. After I fight the first boss (5th Column Oberist or something like that) You have to find Maelstrom. Well I go looking for him and then all of a sudden out of nowhere a message in my message box pops up saying that you have Defeated Maelstrom and his minions but he got away, but I haven't touched or even seen him, and the bomb trigger box pops up to destroy it. I would have thought is was just a glitch, but this has happened to me twice.

I decided to Cardiac, after testing a couple in beta. The Cardiac Radial for my Inv, now I run all toggles plus tough, weave, and manevuers and my end bar does not suffer, took 3 TFs to get it but it was quick.

Yeah, Invul is a bad combo for you. WP might be good for you, one of the great things about Invul is that it has 2 skippable powers.

If you are squishy on an Invul Scrap then you are fighting too much Psi. My SO'ed Invul Scrap Tanked Rommy and after the Red Tower went down filled in for the Tank that DC'ed on our STF.

Invul is Frontloaded with a lot of resists and great defenses without any outside investment other than power pools. Easily able to cap resists to the most common used element in the game and have great resists to all elements other than one. I like Invul better than /SR because, though you are not able to get as high defense debuff resistances, you do get a good amount with a heal and more resistances. I love is so much better than /WP because you get overall better resistances (even with SoW running, if you take all the autos with /Invul + Unyielding, you get better all around resists) also comes with better debuff resists. Though WP gets better regen, Invul gets a self heal. The great thing about WP over Invul though is that they don't have any big holes, while Invul has a huge gap to Psi and if untouched will hurt you everytime.

But I have both an MA/WP and MA/Invul at 50 it took a lot more IOs and sacrifices to make my WP durable than it did for my Invul.

I kept it on EB settings, I soloed it just fine there. I would rather become an Incarnate first an then prove points later.

Yeah, I think it is i19, because just like it did on beta, it tells me I need to update my graphic card drivers on the login screen, something it didn't do on live before. (something I probably need to really do)