Dr Harmony

You can probably solo like a Blaster or Dominator - hold first, then damage.

Against three minions - sneak in with Arctic Fog, and Bitter Freeze Ray number one, then Freeze Ray number two. They arent fighting back, and not running, so drop Ice Storm, which will make #3 panic. Bring him down as fast as possible, while reapplying Freeze ray on #1 and #2 to keep them held.

Movement speed and To Hit are irrelevant if the enemy is held, so slot your attacks for damage.

Cold Domination is hard to solo. I've picked up Aid Self on my Fire/Cold Corrupter and its helped a lot, but I have much less mitigation in my primary than you do.

Out of shrinking, growing and stretching, shrinking's the easiest to do in the way its done in the comics.
Your character model can get smaller, and this ups your stealth and defence.
(I sort of did this - made a SS/WP Brute with three alternate costumes - 4ft, 6ft and 8ft, and set up binds to turn on my Stealth IO equipped sprint power with the 4ft costume. Having a Stealth power that dropped your character scale even further would have been very cool. )
Hitching a ride on a teammates shoulder would be a very cool extra, but require a whole bunch of new tech.

Growth's a problem because we often fight indoors. You're in a Council tunnel, what happens when you turn your Growth toggles on? We'd still have to limit to 8ft pretty much, or have all maps marked with a ceiling height that you grow to.

Stretching's a real nightmare.
If you look at how Reed Richards or Elongated Man use it you have:
- ranged punches. Not too hard, but the graphics might look a bit wonky, especially with costume options other than spandex.
- toggle hold on a target that uses up one limb. The other limbs can still be used to fight, eg wrap left arm round one enemy and punch the other with your right arm 40 ft away. This would never fit into Cox's engine.
- turning into a flat sheet to hold a bunch of enemies. Even harder, and trying to not clip with terrain would make this impossible.

Best we could probably get is a longer ranged melee set with Telescopic Limbs (say 20-30ft), which would be kind of cool.

You use 3 level 50 IOs in a few places, like Granite (twice) and Hasten. Are there any places where you could get away with just 2 of these, possible boosting them with Enhancement Boosters to up the value?

Im pretty sure you can get close to the ED cap this way for 2 slots.

How much does it hurt your defences taking the KB IO out of teleport? Its solely adding 1.875% AoE defence, half of that to fire and cold. And I take it youre mainly investing in typed defence rather than positional?

The Regen Tissue unique in health would be my next target if you're looking for more slots.

It depends how much you want it.

If a particular character has caught your imagination and you want a powerset or costume piece or whatever, I say go for it now. At some point the game will stop or you'll go off it and those Paragon Points will be worth absolutely nothing, so enjoy them now. Leave saving for real life.

(The same goes for influence, merits and everything else in my opinion)

I've used Kick as an actual slotted attack on a number of tanks - replacing the Tier 2 attack with it in order to get to Tough.

My Willpower/SS tank I definitely did this. I know I lose some damage, but not enough to really notice in the course of play, compared to the noticeable improvement in survivability that Tough gave me.

On other characters Boxing/Kick end up going unslotted.

I really cant see the Fighting attacks being replaced with a mez protection power. People choose epic pools, powersets or whole archetypes to get that - now way would it be handed out as a Tier 1 pool power.

They were buffed recently (in the last year or so).

Resist Elements (Fire/Cold passive) gives 20% Runspeed/Recharge debuff resistance

Resist Energies (Energy/Negative) gives 25% Recovery/End Drain Resistance

Neither of these are game breakers, you still can't charge into a pack of Malta Sappers like an Electric Tanker can, but they help, and make these powers more attractive.

I'd take them if you can, with Resist Energies preferable to Resist Elements.

Is this Thursday Night (EST) or Friday night?

I'd recommend starting over with a new character using powersets you haven't tried before.

I've played on and off for years now, and have over ten level 50s, some of whom are incarnated out, but there's a whole heap of stuff I havent touched still.

I've just discovered Cold Domination in the past couple of weeks.
Never played Trick Arrows
Never played a Mastermind beyond the 20s
I've never got a Brute beyond the 30s (doing that now and finally got to Footstomp after 5 Superstrength characters)
There's Energy Aura, all the newer powersets, alternative Stalker builds to my MA/SR. Havent played a Blaster for some time, maybe Dual Pistols.

I still find suboptimal teams who need to work together and struggle through basic content. Its also nice to also have the option to play with heavy hitters who trivialise the content every now and then. I get to be powerlevelled or powerlevel others without having to pair everyone up.

I love where the game is now compared to when I started.

I'd second Borea's repeatable missions. They're all in one zone. Rikti do Lethal, Energy and Psi damage, which you have excellent resistances to, and have no Fire Resistance. The pesky drones sit in Burn patches and have no defence to them.

And you get Vanguard merits as in addition to all the other usual rewards.

The biggest slowdown is the teleporting Headman Gunners - just ignore them when theyre the only ones left, and let them come close in the next group and get finsihed off in the AoE carnage

The Afraid response has been removed, but the Scrapper version still sends enemies running just due to the damage.

For Brutes and Tankers, this doesnt happen because, I believe, the Taunt component in Blazing Aura is enough to make them stick in the fire patch.

Fire Armor without Fire or heat could still make sense.

You're fairly tough, can heal yourself, damage people around you, can extract energy from those around you and tend to explosively revive yourself.

Could be radiation-based, generic magic, or a nano-tech effect or whatever you want it to be.

(Apart from the fact you're visually on fire)

I'll be running an in-character Moonfire Task Force this weekend and intend to recruit through the Virtue RP Revival channel at these times:

Saturday 17th 6pm PST
Saturday 17th 9pm EST
Sunday 18th 11.30am South Australian Time

Further details are on the Hero League International website here:

http://hli.guildportal.com/Guild.asp...picID=10066315

I also think that its left deliberately vague.

That's the best way to do it in a game that encompasses many genres, the main one of which (superhero comics) is known for armoured genius inventors fighting alongside Norse gods and other such juxtapositions.

Its part of the patchwork way an MMO like this should work. If you want your particular character to interpret it as a Kabalic Qlipoth, Niflheim, an inverted anti-matter universe or black orgone dimension you can do so, without being told you're wrong by a game manual.

Yeah, I'll probably give it a go for the Tanker at least.

Another interface question - Reactive visibly produces flames on its targets - so I think I'll avoid it for my Stalker. What about Cognitive and the other damage proc-ing interfaces? Do they have visible effects too?

I've got a couple of Martial Artists - a Electric Armor Tanker and a Super Reflexes Stalker. For both of them I've considered using the Cognitive interface with its chance for confuse, to simulate that Nightcrawler-ish thing of getting people to hit each other while you dodge and weave around them.

Has anyone else tried this, and how did it work for you?

I imagine it'll work better on a Tanker. You typically have more enemies around you, and they survive longer, and the damage field can proc. My Stalker is single target only - anyone she touches who'd be susceptible to the confusion is going to go down pretty quickly, and thats if they're not already knocked back or stunned.

Am I wasting my time on a gimmicky idea here?

A few years back i was in SCORPIO, a SHIELD-like supergroup.

They were split into 5 divisions: Psi Division, Meta Division and so on, one of which was the highly trianed non-powered agents like you're describing. I don't know if they're still active, or if you'd be happy with a more mixed group than that, but they were pretty cool to work with.

I can see the dog putting me off from playing this set for a good while - it really narrows down the concepts that fit the set somehow.

Similalry, I hated Jack Frost (and Fire Imps to a lesser extent) on my mutant X-Men style controllers way back. Even my current earth pet is far from ideal for Dr Harmony - who powerwise is effectively like Firestorm.
Most control sets it feels like I need a lame excuse as to what I'm doing in game when I hit 32, or skip a very effective power.

I'd pay for more neutral optional models for all the control set pets. Something more like Singularity would be great as an alternative.

Sonic Blast is worth trying on a Defender. The damage isn't much lower than on a Corrupter, but the Res debuffs are significantly better from both your primary and secondary.

Plus the extra surviaibility from the Th Hit debuffs in Dark Misama are better on a Defender.

I havent played the new Gravity.

But with both Time Manipulation and Beam Rifle, I found I enjoyed the sets a lot more if I stopped worrying about who had the special set buff/debuffs on them and who didn't. They only increase the magnitude of power effects by 20% or so, so using a heal or debuff without first tagging the target isnt a waste.

I just use Temporal Selection as a regen and recharge buff and Time Crawl as a recharge/regen debuff - the extra effects are gravy.

Impact's probably the same. Back when I played a Gravity Controller I'd typically apply Gravity Distortion first anyway to stop my target fighting back and set up containment. So the new Impact mechanism won't really change how you play much.

I think that Electrical Blast does get the short end of the stick.

Replacing the Tier 3 Blast with Voltaic Sentinel doesn't help with an archetype that specialises in burst damage.

In order to leverage Short Circuit's endurance drain you need to slot for end mod and recharge, and so you may end up skimping on your damage slotting.

The secondary effect of endurance drain in the single target attacks is laughably small - you'll probably kill a boss before the drain on Charged Bolt and Lighnting Bolt have any effect.

Contrast this with say Ice Blast, where you'll stack -60% Recharge, or Sonic with -40% res, or Enegry Blast, where the boss will barely get to stand up.
All these secondary effects happen without any extra animation or endurance or loss of damage. Electric Blast forces you to stand in almost melee range and use a very slow animating power (Short Circuit) to get any benefit.

From Saturday 24th March onwards I'll run these two regular RP-Friendly events asscoiated with the Hero League International:

In character Weekly Task Force
Either Saturday or Sunday 1130 my time (+9.30 GMT). This roughly translates as 4PM PST or 7PM EST on the day before for most of you.
I post details at hli.guildportal.com under the General Discussion Forums, which can be read by non-members without logging in.

HERO Corps Training night.
Dr Harmony, the HLI's Singapore representative (and Class 5 Atomic Superhuman), often leads new HERO Corps recruits on brief sightseeing tours of the city and its supersrime activity. Level 50 in-character hero tips in Atlas Park, in the evenings in ther Aussie and Asia-Pacific time zones. I'll try to make this an official regular thing on Tuesdays, and kick this off Tues 27th March.

Get your new character's minds out of the sewers and join me for some decent powerlevelling in exchange for in character chat, or bring an experienced mentor along to help out.

Contact: @Carla Simone

I've respecced last night from having all 6 in Stalagmites to having the Chance for Damage proc in Fossilise.

I've lost 3.13% Ranged Defence ( dropping me from the magic 32% when not hovering to 29% ) but gained about 40% damage in the run of things.

I'm much happier with the new set up.

I like the way this set's designed in that it offers a valid build choices.

1) Get the defence bonus by slotting all six in a power like a ST hold, but lose damage in the actual power.
2) Split the proc off and get the big recharge bonus in an actual control power like Stalgamites. Then slot the proc along with other IOs for more damage or more recharge witrh Basilisk's Gaze.
3) Have both the big bonuses in Stalgamites but lose the damage proc stacks - this gave me one stack most of the time, since I open with Stalgamites.

There are too many no-brainer choices in the IO system - this one has made me make some hard choices.

If you want to increase the magnitude of your holds, you can sort of do it by slotting the Lockdown or Devastation procs into your hold.

These both add a 20% chance for an extra Mag 2, which will be enough to instantly hold a boss. When the extra hold does goes off, it adds an electrified sphere Tesla Cage graphic.

Very cool.

I've been running in-character Weekly Strike Forces and other weekend events with the Hero League International, and have often called on the local heroes of Paragon to make up the numbers.

I'm out of regular play action for a few weeks, but I'll make sure I join your channel and incorporate its members into these events as a first port of call.

I'd also be interested in helping to build up a decent channnel membership during off-peak hours, so I'll spread the word amongst my global firends who also play during the Aussie/Asia-Pacific evenings.