Fulmens

Another way of thinking of it is that lower level characters have less business to do.

Level 22, you have something like 32 slots total. Level 50, you have 93. 1/3 the market slots for 1/3 the character slots might be a reasonable view to take, if you were throwing guesses up.

Or you could think of it as another reward for levelling up, like the extra character slots are.

you see me trollin'
your forums
it's apparent I'm too white and nerdy...`

Still representin' the 908. Suburban lawnz and starbizzles.

I picked my Blaster because nobody brings the damage any more. If there's the slightest scariness in the content, I bring along a Forcefielder and the scary goes away.

My forcefield experience is a couple years out of date, but when I was a forcefielder I could actually invite myself to teams- search on "Blaster", click on a greyed out name, and ask "Does your team have any use for a Force Fielder?" I'm pretty sure that some guys actually beat up the team leader and took the star away from them to invite me.

When I was forming the team, it was like "Forcefield, three blasters, and anyone else who's around." It's like there's a bug zapper about eighty feet in front of the party. It's not a playstyle you see much, because everyone wants someone ELSE to be the force fielder, but it's a very effective one.

KitsuneKnight: I'd be very, very surprised if that were true. That's the politest thing I can think of to say about it.

Rad/Sonic defender.

Fire/elec blaster. Maybe Fire/cold if I'm afraid of getting hurt or something.

I knew a guy who used to buy people's souls for $10 when they were drunk. They'd sign a piece of paper and go get a couple extra drinks.

The next day if they wanted to buy their soul back, he'd charge em $20.

hasn't happened yet with level 50 Crushing Impacts, Thunderstrikes, or Doctored Wounds...

Two things:

1) Starflier- "Semantics" makes a large difference in this case. You see the number of posts by my name? I got about a thousand of those posts arguing the scrapper case on the blaster boards, back when scrappers were at 500% (+400%) and blasters were at 400%(+300%) and the number of people who mixed up +400% and 400% was large. In some cases

2) OP: Tanks are a LOT tougher than Scrappers or [usually] Brutes. Scrappers and Brutes get 75% of the buff values from defensive buffs (look at [unyielding] and for the green name, change from one to the other), which has a nonlinear effect on actual survivability. To [attempt to] explain: Let's say you have a tank with 88% Smash/Lethal resistance and a Scrapper with 66% Smash/Lethal resistance. Same powers, slotted the same way. Hit them both with a Freak Tank hammer doing 1000 points of damage. Scrapper takes 340 points. Tank takes 120. That is NOT "33% tougher." It is roughly three times as tough.

Another thing: People aren't quite as SG-centric in this game as they are in others. The current trendy way to find people to do things is global channels- if you pop on to RF2009, for instance (Radio Freedom, originally) there's a couple dozen to a couple hundred people on, generally on Freedom, and you can probably find 4 people interested in any given activity. Obviously noon on a Wednesday the numbers are lower than 8 PM Friday. If you find people you like and work well with, /gfriend them (they may refuse, for any reason or none; I assume people reject the invite for some reason that has more to do with them than it does me) and you will eventually have a fairly reliable group of people to work with.

Tough challenges: Statesman's TF, the Imperious TF, and Recluse's Strike Force (Villainside) all have medium chance of completion. Many people talk about them like there's no challenge- but there's a lot of play and learning (and teambuilding experience) that goes into doing them regularly, fast, and with a high degree of success. The Sewer Trial is, or used to be, infamous for turning disciplined, efficient teams into chaotic turkey shoots. I'm 1 for 2 on Sewer Trials, with 4 years between tries; about 4 for 6 on STF's, maybe 8 for 10 on ITFs, and 1 for 1 on RSF's, but I was with a VERY experienced and skilled team leader.

Edited to add:
"Is it the same rehash of the same experience with a slightly different skin all the way through? "
There are badguys with distressing new powersets and tricks, especially in the 40+ game. So it's still "beat the badguys, complete the mission, next" but there's a distinct chance of getting ground up and spat out. (Malta, I'm lookin' at you.)

I don't know if I'd recommend Fire/* for a new blaster. It's really short on active mitigation. On the other hand, if you WANT to know if Blasting is for you, I recommend the following:

Sewer (or whatever) up to level 8 on a Fire/En blaster, taking Fireball at 2, Fire Breath at 8, and Build Up at 4 or 6.

Go to the "Racetrack" in Perez. Target someone near the back of a nice big group of 8 or 10.

Hit Build Up, Fireball, Firebreath, running in until the Firebreath goes off.

Shoot the 1 or 2 survivors.

I have a vague idea in my head about what's coming up. Like Whisper said, you will get people looking for precise advice here- especially if they're coming from a game where you need a very optimized build to get picked by the cool kids.

None of my business, I'm sure, but what are you planning on doing on another server that's worth $20 to you?

What's an example, for you, of a decent price and low volume? A million inf each and "last five in three weeks" is not something I'd pursue.

If the bottom falls out of a particular IO at a particular price, I usually let it sit through the next Monday. Weekend prices are not the same as midweek prices.

Edited to add: I don't deal in stacks of 10 because I get bit by price crashes all the time, and because I have 30-40 "possible good price" things rattling around in my brain. I like micromanaging and don't mind taking the time. So my experience may not match yours.