Dispari

Doms were pretty low on population for a while there due to their hardcore nature and lack of meaningful reward without a huge investment. Since the buff they've been becoming more popular. When I build teams, my common practice now is to have 2 Doms. I remember before the buff when there wouldn't even BE two Doms in my range online.

They're gaining popularity slowly now. And for good reason. Doms are my new favorite AT. They're redside Blappers with control. I have a Plant/EArth Dom I'm just in love with. If you want a fun experience on a somewhat under-appreciated (still) AT, roll a Dom. A powerful mezzer/flashy power user like my Plant/Earth will catch attention and garner praise from teammates. I've gotten lots of feedback on my Dom since making her. People are quite impressed at what a Dom is capable of these days and I usually get someone in every team I join thanking me, asking me about Doms, or deciding to make one.

You just made a new character, and zoned into Atlas, Galaxy, Mercy, or the tutorial. What do you do now?

My answer/list:
* Drag the chat window to double its size (height) to see more text at a time
* Reduce the size of the top half to about 5 lines of visible text
* Alter the bottom to remove broadcast and add two global channels
* Add a new tab on bottom called "Roleplay" which only has local, emotes, SG, team, and tells
* Open my team/search window; edit the search comment to read "No blinds."
* Click power tray ^ twice to bring up a second and third tray
* Change the middle tray to tray 2, top to tray 3
* Click + to enable a 4th tray; set to 4x3; place on top of the 3rd tray on far left
* Begin monitoring combat attributes: melee DEF, ranged DEF, lethal RES, energy RES, damage bonus; place over inspirations
* Enable pet window, if applicable, and move next to target window
* Move bonus pack items (mission porter, SD, tarot) to tray 4
* Increase size of map, contact, and badge windows
* Open vet rewards; claim powers from months 12, 24, 33, 36
* Move sands of mu, blackwand/nem staff, and pets onto tray
* Move pet to tray 5 (click right on tray 4, set, click back)
* Set mu and stick on tray 1; rearrange powers for a 5-power starting attack chain
* If necessary, place mez powers on tray 2, toggles on tray 3
* Open options, change chat bubble color to something color-themed for new character
* Manually add a few names to local friend list

New in i16:
* Set both auto-accept level ranges to 50
* Set email to be from friends/supergroup only

Things I can't do right away, but do when possible:
* Set team window to show player buffs
* Add Pocket D, base, and mission teleporter to tray 4 (at level 3)
* Make the 4th tray, inspiration tray, and combat attributes fit together neatly

Oh, there's one thing that needs to be mentioned as far as crashing goes. There's one thing that will consistently crash me. Besides the aforementioned Black Market, training, SG window, and just playing a long time.

Deathsurge will always crash me. Fighting Deathsurge always makes my game flatline. No other GM does it, and he can do it even if I JUST logged into the game. I can log in, join a team, start fighting Deathsurge, and crash. It was hell trying to get the badge for beating him.

I have some thoughts on a few power icons. Specifically:

Lightning Rod
Shield Charge
Carrion Creepers

LR and SC are basically the same power. They have the target reticle with a knockback icon. I believe icons should represent their primary function, and knockback definitely isn't the primary function of LR and SC. If anything, they should have the severe damage icon (ala Head Splitter and new TF), because that's what they do. The knockback is just a secondary effect. In fact, the example I gave, you switched TF from a very inaccurate status effect icon to damage. So it seems weird that these attacks would be given an icon that represents their secondary effect.

Carrion Creepers I feel is even less accurate. It does technically do knockdown, but it also immobilizes, and slows. And, in fact, tends to immobilize and prevent itself from doing knockdown. So knockdown is probably the least accurate icon you could do for it. Even an immobilize or slow would be better. However, I feel due to the nature of the power, it should have the Gang War "lots of pets" icon. Carrion Creepers will sometimes knockdown. It will usually immobilize. It will pretty much always slow. But one thing it will ALWAYS do it summon a bunch of pets. If it doesn't, it also won't do any of the other things you could possibly put on the icon either.

Rest of the stuff is pretty great. Just those powers stick out like a sore thumb against all the other good choices.

Dang, it only took one post to derail it into a makeup joke due to the spelling.

Not that there's much to derail. All these "when is _____ happening" threads have the same answer: We don't know. If someone did know, they couldn't tell us.

I have an "If I died, it's my own fault" policy. My characters are generally built tough, and I constantly manage inspirations to have something available. I always keep at least 4 greens and 4 blues on hand, and everything else is converted into purples. It's not the corruptor's fault if I decided to aggro two groups at once and didn't take action when my HP started to fall.

I also have a "no pull" policy. Most of the time anyway. If we're up against Longbow or something I can swallow my pride, but if we bounce up to a group of Council that's close to another one, that's just time for everyone to prove they've got guts! Steamrolling single groups gets boring after a while. I like to do something crazy from time to time. My new catchphrase is "Brutes don't pull," as I Lightning Rod into the enemies.

In canon, about how powerful are the signature heroes? I ask because I have a "powerful" character I play frequently, but I don't want to pretend that she's stronger than notable heroes like Back Alley Brawler or Statesman. Or the various Giant Monsters that roam around destroying things.

I'm curious about things like, could Back Alley Brawler easily lift a semi truck? Can Statesman withstand the impact of an anti-tank missile? Can Synapse break the sound barrier? Could Positron flatten a city block? Some notable heroes like Superman seem to have no limits on things they can do, since Superman is seen moving the planet around from time to time. How do the canon heroes and villains fare?

I actually have this issue too.

During the first 45-60 minutes of play I can do anything I want. After that, hitting the trainer is a 50/50 chance of crash, and WW/BM is 100%. I can also crash opening the SG window. I will also crash if I play for about 2 hours, at a random time, during missions. Relogging to change characters more than once or twice will also do it. The memory usage gets very high until the game just crashes.

It's so consistent and reliable that I've gotten to the point where I just restart the program before doing most of these activities. Doing this will always prevent a crash, since the game will run fine for that first 45-60 minutes.

I've yet to find a remedy outside of just closing and reopening the program. I tried updating drivers, getting a cooling pad, and quite a few other things suggested by friends and forumites. I now just bite the bullet and restart every hour or so.

I feel that HEATs need a buff in a few different regards. I played PB up to about 40 and then stopped. She just didn't do anything particularly well enough for me to enjoy her. And perhaps I was spoiled after having played a Crab and Widow to 50. Comparatively, they just do less damage, have long animation times, aren't as durable, and don't get mez protect outside of Dwarf.

But, having voiced my concerns before, there were enough vocal people that felt they were fine and didn't need to be changed. So HEATs go on my list of things I can't or won't play, like Stalkers.