Jade_Dragon

I like all of this.

Well, yes, but the "die" part doesn't exactly make that seem like a very clever strategy, does it?

Honestly, I actually tanked once, on a Stalker, when I duoed with a Dominator. It took some teamwork and strategy, but it was actually quite managable. Basically, I took the aggro to start, and let the Dominator start laying down his AoE controls. As he started grabbing aggro, I fired off my Placate and let him take the hits, while I criticalled. Then I used the extra damage to get aggro back and keep them off him while he backed away.

The issue is that a Stalker, by virtue of his abilities, intentionally throws off aggro. There really isn't any other AT that can do that. He can hold aggro for a short time, but he really is diametrically opposed to the concept of tanking.

Of course, the OP's post was in regards to how best to tank for a Stalker, and I think that's the POV I was really coming from. The Stalker will be throwing off aggro, and it'll be up to the tank to pick it up so it doesn't go somewhere unexpected.

Yeah, but you sure notice the critters that sleep... particularly when they immediately stun, or hold afterwards.

It's not as bad as it used to be, since being slept no longer drops your toggles. I'm not sure if the status protection supresses along with the defense, but even if it does, it seems like when the sleep ends the hold breaks, too. Still, it was incredibly frustrating to be chain held because a Rikti/Lost would use that sleep/hold combo on me.

Hopefully no one here would find this a surprise, but the Stalker is pretty much never going to make the opening attack on a team. He may go into the spawn AHEAD of the tank, simply because he can. But he'll stand there and wait for the tank to make his move. After the tank has aggro and has bunched the group up, that's when you should see the Assassin Strike go off.

The biggest difference you will see between a Brute's damage and a Scrapper's damage is if they are on a team, and their damage is being buffed. The Scrapper will quickly pull ahead under those conditions. Then again, the Brute will be getting better defensively.

I would honestly say that the concensus seems to be that Super Strength and Stone Melee do the most damage for Brutes, while Broadsword or Katana is in the lead for Scrappers. Since they cannot be compared directly, there is probably some disagreement about which is the stronger. I suspect it isn't all that great a difference, though, Dark Melee, Fire Melee and Kinetic Melee all seem to have been studied extensively, and it doesn't look like there's an advantage one way or the other. (KM does have much better damage boosts on a Scrapper, but it's said to have relatively low damage otherwise. So this may be a situation similar to Super Strength)

I hate that. I think it would pretty cool if the devs could expand the macro system to provide some icons, as well as allowing them to recharge on the one power that the macro is allowed to activate. Of course, that would require some changes to the interface, you would probably have to provide some sort of interface linkage instead of writing it as a script.

I will say two things, though. First, for macros that activate a power, you might want to consider putting the power in a detached tray off to another part of the screen. That way you can watch the power and activate it as it recharges. I do this on my Kheldians, since most of the Form macros involve dropping to Human before using the powers. So I have the human form powers in a tray so I can watch them, even when they aren't clickable.

Second, tying chat binds to power use can get REALLY annoying to a team. What I suggest instead is that you define ALTERNATE keybinds for adding the chat. Go ahead and use the regular number keys to activate your powers, and then use a /bind to tie another key to the tray and slot you put your macros in. For that matter, you can just put the macros in the alt tray and use Alt-# to activate them. The main thing, though, is to remember that you don't have to have the macros visible, or tied to one of the number keys for them to be usable.

I have a huge, complex system using macros in non-visible trays to control all of my travel powers and chat binds. I map keys to certain macros, and then I can edit the macros so they have different effects on different characters. (So the same key will turn on Flying for one character and Super Jump for another)

Popmenu Guide

The main thing to remember is the Popmenu CANNOT be customized in game, and has to be exclusive to your computer. If you move to another computer, you lose all your popmenus. This has been an irritation to me, but I've been able to deal with it. The usefulness of it makes up for the somewhat tedious nature of editing it.

The best idea I think is to just set up a standard Popmenu that all your characters can use. You can then add secondary menus for individual characters that might need it. It's a pain if you ever decide you want to edit the functionality, though, so try and anticipate all the functions you are going to need.

Go to your Powers tab in the tray and open it. Then click on Combat Attributes at the top of this popup. This should open a window in the center of your screen. Open up the submenus to select the attributes you want to display, then right click on each and choose to display them. Move the little window that has your attributes to the location you want, and close the big window.

I disagree.

The first and most important reason is that there is no post-20 content in Praetoria. Vigilantes and Rogues cannot exist until level 20 by definition. Thus, by the time they arrive in Praetoria, they will already have outlevelled the content. They will be able to join teams and exemplar down to the levelling Praetorians, just like they can join teams in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles when they don't have Contacts for them, but they won't access those Contacts directly.

The other reason is that while Praetoria is not "hero or villain only" content, it is Praetorian content. Just as with the content of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, you are expected to start with a new character with one of the first Contacts of that "side" and level your way up the heirarchy. Once you reach 20, you have the option of moving over to the other side, but you do not start over again. As a "mature" character, more options open up to you that introduce new elements to the storyline, but most of that still builds on your past.

The Resistance and Loyalty arcs, in fact the whole mechanism there, is unique to Praetoria. Which is why I suspect, even if Heroes and Villains prior to 20 are let into the zones, they will not be able to take Contacts. The Praetorian story arcs are for Praetorians, people born in that world. It tells the story of how they get to 20 and leave their home world.

Now, this does not mean that I think that post-20 content in Praetoria will be limited to Praetorians. I am pretty certain that once some sort of post-20 content is introduced, it will be something like the RWZ or Cimemora, in new zones provided for that purpose. They will be cross faction zones in which both Heroes and Villains will be able to participate -- because the Praetorians themselves will be Heroes or Villains by that time.

I like this, and I'm 100% in agreement. It's not the language itself, it is the circumstances in which you are using it. You've got to keep in mind that you are doing the equivalent of walking into a radio station, turning on a mike and yelling into it here. The Internet is a public medium. Which means you have to be more aware of the consequences of your actions and speech than if you were speaking in the privacy of your own home.

I'll also agree with Emberly, in that politeness doesn't cost you anything. If anything, I have found that tact is not held in a high enough regard. It seems as if only abrasiveness and confrontation are respected, which I disagree with.

I personally consider that it defeats the purpose of dual-aspect IOs to slot them at the point where they are only EQUIVALENT to an SO.

Especially on Kheldians, the ability to cram more percentage into a single slot is quite useful. I'll often Frankenslot four of the same two aspect IOs into a power to get 80% in both aspects. Or use a set to get ~80% damage in three slots while still having some Accuracy and End.

Well, Dual Blades could have axe-like options, but if Axe had two axes it would be Dual Axes. Besides, the "unable to use two weapon sets with Shield Defense" rule collides with that.

I honestly would rather see that and Dual Clubs as separate sets.

Not really talking about Proliferation, though.

While this would be helpful, the technology may not exist to keep Heroes from going through the portals to a Villain zone. Or at least, the technology may not exist without making a base like Pocket D, in that every time you enter it you lose all your currently selected missions from the "other side", and all Tips. Not to mention being unable to join team invites for whatever reason.

I expect we'll see more progress on this in I19, but it's not as easy as just dropping a telepad and attaching a beacon to it. (In fact, right now you can earn the beacons, you just can't place them)

You can actually color them differently based on power?

I was thinking they were acting like other weapons. I believe the devs said at one point that you could either change the spines' color, or change the effects color. Maybe they decided to make the effects editable and copied the color over to the spines.

I want to look into this now. Can't you set the color when you select the spine type?

So in fact a level 25 IO will match an even level SO, a level 30 IO will be about the same as a +1 SO, a level 35 IO will match a +2 SO, and a level 40 IO will always beat an SO.

Putting it another way, it is the Patron Missions that are currently locked to the villain side, not specifically the PPPs. You must be a Villain/Rogue to do the missions and unlock the PPPs. But once they are unlocked, you can access them just as you can APPs.

And hopefully, if a mission to unlock them can be added on the hero side, they should become accessible with no problems.

Well, IMHO that's an attribute Invulnerability should have had all along. And which Force Field STILL needs.

Let's face it, Defense has been a broken mechanic the devs have been slapping band aids on since this game was released. Combination Typed and Positional vectors, Def Debuff, and Elusivity have all been attempts to fix it.

Yeah. You'd think, actually, that an obvious solution would be to add the greatest Positional Defense to the greatest Typed Defense. Then you wouldn't have two Types like Smashing and Energy stacking, but at the same time Smashing Defense would stack with Ranged Defense against a ranged Smashing attack.

As long as no Defense power gave you BOTH Positional and Typed, it would work fine. (And of course, now most of them DO) I'm guessing, though, that the engine didn't support that solution.

Your example also confused me. I think you meant to say Energy Blast is Smashing and Energy, not Smashing and Lethal. The Force Field Generators would not have had any Ranged Defense back then, but they would have had equal Defense to Smashing and Energy, doubling the Def if it stacked.

Yeah, that's the reason why Force Fields is both Smashing/Lethal in Deflection Shield and Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative in Insulation Shield, and Melee in Deflection Shield and Ranged and AoE in Insulation Shield. Originally it was just the former, but didn't stack with SR's Positional defenses.

Also, that's why the Pool Defenses (like Combat Jumping) are both "All Types" and Melee, Ranged and AoE. There will always be something that stacks with your other armors, if applicable.

Honestly, I think it would have been better if Defense had only Position, so Resistances would protect against the various types. But that would have been problematic with Ice Armor and Stone Armor, which needed different defense levels against different attack types, and Invulnerability, which needed that hole against Psionics in Invincibility.