Gravitro

Unfortunately it never gives me that option. Doesn't look like there's anything I can do, I tried abandoning my other quest but its a chain too, and I tried speaking to a GM to clear my old mission but he wasn't able to do so, I still have the last stage to speak to a non-existent NPC.

Well, there's no way I can ever get rid of the mission that no longer exists, and one of my arcs seems to be an endless cycle of follow on missions so that will be stuck in my tray forever. The other is just one of those tedious "Kill 50 x missions" so hopefully if I drop that it won't automatically cycle onto something else. I'll have to wait a couple more days for the option to be re-enabled though. And no, it won't let me join other instanced missions while I have a full quest log, so I can't play until I clear some space.

It's still quite unbelievable they have a system where you only get 3 quests options and have no option to abandon an arc because it is boring and you want to group up for some fun, only a limited option to abandon quests because they are bugged. I'm finding it nigh impossible to have any faith in developers that would do something like that, even if I do remember enjoying it back in the day.

When you get a group of people together they are going to want to do the most interesting, rewarding or highest level mission available.If I have a mission that no longer exists, a low level grinding mission and some random quest arc then I'm never going to be able to get a group for any of them. Either I grind through the quest arcs solo, roll a new character or cycle quitting the missions every 3 days until I finally reach the end. None of these are impossible, but they don't really warm me to the idea of getting back into the game.

I haven't played this game in 2 years, and with the reactivation it's easy to see why. I'm allowed three missions, which I can't quit, and if I complete any of them another one just sprouts up to replace it. Suppressing the urge to rant about how utterly stupid this system is, is there anything I can do to escape this cycle, other than to complete the two missions I have that actually still exist and all of their subsequent missions until I'm finally allowed into group content?

It's very late blooming, easily resisted and has annoying activation time issues. On the plus side you get a disorient and a load of area effect attacks. There are a few things that will make you regret Assault Rifle. You want to be powerful early, you want to take a lot of attacks early or you want to be able to nuke.

What you do have to watch out for is what you take with it. Traps is a tempting one for the theme, the only problem is that Traps certainly is gimped, and has little synergy with Assault Rifle to boot. You can get by with Assalut Rifle/Traps but it's no Ice/Dark.

By the time you've finished the game Assault Rifle does almost catch up with Fire. It still lacks a nuke and has some other issues but it has roughly comparable powers everywhere else and even a couple of nice bonuses. As a Corrupter though it does have major problems with activation times and as any class needs a good ability near the bottom of its secondary. Annoying, sub-par and in need of love but not totally gimped.

What is gimped is Traps. While this kind of powerset is harder to judge than straight up damage we have a pretty clear path going on.

Blasters have the same primary's as Corrupters, but do 33% more damage. If Corrupters are supposed to be balanced with Blasters the difference must be in their secondary.

Traps Corrupters share 4 abilities with Device Blasters. What's more they have to wait until later to get two of them, and one of them is classed as their ultimate. It's fairly common to recommend one of the Device abilities over the Traps specific one.

Assault Rifle/Devices is a pretty good Blaster powerset, not THE best but among the best. Assault Rifle/Traps is one of, if not the worst Corrupter powersets, and compared to any of the ones that feature neither of the two pools, by a very significant margin. It's not a question about preference, unless you are talking about preference to being a good soloer and/or a useful team member to being neither. I like everything about the powersets except being a total anchor.

Because it's part of my nature I can't stop doing comparisons like this. While conceptually I liked the idea of AR/Traps I can't help but be bothered when I find it was such a bad call, it's just part of my nature.

Fire and AR aren't really all that different. Both do damage, both have a lot of AoE attacks and neither have any great special abilities. But Fire does more damage, earlier, faster, over a greater area and requires less endurance to boot. I'd be better off if I didn't worry about these things, I took these powers because I liked the concept and thought they'd be fun. But whenever my group sends a request for a healer I realise it's my fault, whenever they are looking for a damage dealer I realise it's my fault. If I'd taken Fire/Kin I could have fulfilled both those roles and had a great buff to boot. As is I feel like an anchor.

Firstly, sorry for going off on one I really need to wind down before I shoot my mouth off.

I was comparing the two powers directly but the problem lies in that area attacks don't tend to be needed more than a few times, and with Flamebreaths initial kicker it will always do better than the straight damage/recharge time would suggest.

The other issue comes in the backup from Traps. An AR/Traps Corrupter has to take at least 4 powers from Slug, Burst, Buckshot, M30 Grenade, Web Grenade, Caltrops and Triage Beacon. If you respec out of Buckshot and M30 you have to respec into two equally sucky powers.

There doesn't seem a good reason why Buckshot should compare so unfavourably with Flamebreath since it's a relatively simple comparison. It's just a shame no-one ant NC seems to have bothered to do the math.

Bah, I really should have made that post later in light of clear reason. The numbers you've provided do look in the ballpark. Also I noticed the argument you made against using cones as single target attacks is one based on endurance. That's down to a question of doing damage quickly vs conserving endurance. Against 1 enemy both Firebreath and Buckshot are an inefficient use of endurance, but it may be worth taking the loss in order to do damage more quickly especially with Flamebreath. Flamebreath is a fine use of endurance against 2 targets but Buckshot still looks very dodgy indeed. For Buckshot to be worthy as a power choice next to Slug you must continually hit 3 enemies with it which is very optimistic for a small cone.

But the real thing is Buckshots lousy damage rate which tends to require about 25-50% more time to kill enemies compared to Flamebreath. This is obviated a little in real circumstances that Flamethrower compares more favourably compared to Fireball but it doesn't save Buckshot from being an extremely sucky power.

You're poor theory does perhaps hint how the developers could have made such egregious miscalculations about the effectiveness of AR.

Firstly you should start every fight with all your powers charged. If you get to fire and reload Flamebreath then you would immediately fire it again. Buckshot would get get 3 attacks to Flamebreaths 2 giving it a rather derisory 7.5999 damage to Flamebreaths 9.75. In terms of endurance both would clock in at 30. In ideal circumstances and at those numbers Buckshot could occasionally level and with a lucky Scourge even slightly exceed Flamebreaths but far too rarely to make it useful. Don't forget in optimal circumstances where the enemy is defeated by the first wave of attacks Flamebreath does 4.875 to Buckshots 2.5333.

Also any slack jawed idiot knows it's better to do damage than not. Refusing to use Flamebreath on a single enemy because of inefficient recharge rates is a bit baffling, particularly if you aren't expecting to meet a group in the next 16 seconds.

Lastly the figures you've quoted seem to be wrong or out of date. Whenever I've used it, even unslotted Slug has always done significantly more than twice the damage of Buckshot, and has always recharged significantly faster. However since then I've neglected Buckshot so hard numbers would take some time and expense to work out.

Actually no, Buckshot and M30 do about 40% of the damage of Slug so they need to hit 3 enemies to do comparable damage, and even then they cost far too much endurance, recharge far too slowly, and gain far too much aggro to be worth using, let alone taking. When you consider that Flame Breath does significantly MORE damage than Slug even when used on a single enemy you begin to realise that the devs are slack jawed idiots without the slightest clue about balance.

You know there's something wrong when a supposedly group oriented character (she sure as hell can't solo) gets booted from groups for being useless, while solo-oriented characters stay on. Traps desperately needs buffs but since the devs do nothing but nerf indiscriminately I can only hope that the next random nerf hammer falls less severely on her than other characters, and she'll be somewhat useful by comparison.

Sigh.

AR at best seems horribly unsuited to being a Corrupter powerset. The animation times are very fast when the rifle is out which is all well and good until you find yourself needing to use the secondary. Buckshot and M30 are a total joke which doesn't quite seem fair. I'm not sure why they gave Corrupters this as a power set but not Electric Blast.

Really though for all AR is a bit crappy it's traps which needs some loving. If Web Grenade is supposed to be the equal of a heal then why do Corrupters only do 75% blaster damage? Surely if the Blaster secondaries are an equal to the Defender ones then Corrupters, Defenders and Blasters should all do the same damage. And how a small slow move is supposed to be the equal of Tar Patch or Lingering Radiation is something I'll never know. As for the traps themselves I thought that since they have the disadvantage that they have to be prepped in advance they would have an advantage to compensate but it really doesn't seem to be the case. If the devs are too busy nerfing to attempt to balance the pools then surely they should give out power pool respecs.

I've got one of these to level 14 and I'm becoming aware of the fact she's no good. Most of the early powers are total [censored] and while AR looks to get some interesting stuff later on to balance it out /Traps increasingly looks like taking Gimp Self. A good chunk of the powers come from a secondary I took a 25% damage hit to avoid while the others just don't seem to pull their weight to compensate. Acid Mortar is nice but it's no Enervating Field and I just can't see the other powers coming even close to compensating.

Can AR/Traps ever be a useable powerset or should I stop throwing good time after bad in levelling her up?