Justaris

It's there. Is it possible you read your map incorrectly or had something else flagged as a waypoint and followed that instead? There's really no trick to it - it's not terribly hard to find. I'm baffled.

Interesting thing about the AOE intangible powers (Dimension Shift and Black Hole) is that slotting them for Intangible Duration doesn't increase the duration - it actually increases the magnitude. IIRC, the single-target intangible powers (Sonic Cage and Detention Field) are already at maximum magnitude by default.

One other really effective use for intangibility powers is to remove one of the Lord Recluse's towers from play while doing the final mission of the Statesman TF. I've done it with Detention Field and with Sonic Cage before and it's very effective, but I've never tried using Dimension Shift or Black Hole. You might need to slot for Intangible, but I see no reason it shouldn't be just as effective.

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Immobilize, Sleep, Stun, Hold, Fear and Intangibility. Those are the control effects in this game.

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You aren't counting Confuse as a control? Or was that an oversight?

He trolled your "the OPs are high" post?

In order to troll, I'm pretty sure there has to be something to derail. Your post was either itself a troll or else just complete nonsense. Quite possibly both.

I'm not sure City_Life is really comparable to UniqueDragon. I think "ubber dragon" would be a fine name though, complete with the spelling error. At least then I'd have some idea why the name was chosen.

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It sounds like the interest on your side may be somewhat misguided, since it sounds like it's generated more by a desire to harm your fellow gamers than to protect the game.

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I don't think you read my post at all. I've let many, many, many things go over the past 5 years I've been here. During my tenure, I've seen my share of Wolverine, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman and other "off color" named toons and did not report them.

Now, according to your response, people like this should be reported because they are "hurting the game". I'm sure to see "BangMeGood" and "D E A D P O O L" this evening in Atlas doing their usual AE PL begging, so I will be reporting them since I don't want to "hurt the game".

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And so you should. All players were asked to report such players a long while ago, after the Marvel suit. Is it the duty of all players to file petitions whenever they see this kind of ridiculousness? Of course not - this is after all a game and one that we pay to play. But for those players who choose to take an interest in the game's welfare and want to assist in keeping the violations under control, it's there.

Should you have been reporting all these people all this time? No, not necessarily. But they are violating the EULA and it certainly isn't immoral to report them as such. If you don't want to hurt the game, then just don't violate the EULA. If you want to help the game, petition the violators. If you just want to play, that's fine too.

If you have in fact been unjustly generic'd then you should be able to successfully appeal and overturn the decision. It's happened before. However, painting anyone and everyone who reports violators as malicious or petty is inaccurate to say the least. Some of us just care.

Also, I feel it important to reiterate again that people who petition as form of griefing against players they dislike are abusing that system and their petitions should, ideally, be disregarded by the GMs that receive them assuming the petition has no merit. I am not defending this behavior.

Just a little pet peeve, but it's Storm/Electric. Storm's a Defender primary. Tanker's an idiot if he needs constant healing from anyone to survive.

Rude tells, stupid tells, barely intelligible tells.

But not blind tells.

Of course, you don't ever need "tank/heals/dps" in this game. That's probably another sign of a poor leader, or at least an ignorant one. I'd say that's one of this game's great features, that it doesn't rely on that tired old MMO formula and instead gives us a game where you don't really need any of those things.

Other than that, some good points.

Probably helped that, being level 8, she got no debt.

Not that debt's anything close to a big deal anymore.

I agree with Boegs.

It sucks when innocent people get generic'd, but that's the fault of the GM making a bad call. Baseless petitions should be dismissed by GMs. Players can and should petition characters they honestly believe to be violations.

I'm aware that some players maliciously use the petitions in an attempt to grief others rather than out of a true belief that a violation has occured, but that's why the GMs review the petitions in the first place rather than the game just automatically generic'ing anyone who gets petitioned.

If there's a miscarriage of justice here, it's the fault of the GM that took action, not the person that petitioned. Not knowing the name or look of the character in question, I can't give an opinion about whether or not the genericing was justified.

That's really all there is to it. TFs are a bit more cumbersome because of the level ranges and the time commitment involved, but once you gather the team together it's really about the same. The hassle there is that you can't SK in people below the range and people above it may or may not be okay with not getting xp, which leaves you with a small pool of folks to draw on for TFs.

The only thing I'd add to the above as far as leading pickup teams is to have your own missions ready rather than relying on someone else to have something that's appropriate for the group to do.

Otherwise you may find yourself with a bunch of people with no missions, outdated missions and/or really difficult missions set on very high difficulty settings. Sure, in that last case you could ask the person to drop the difficulty and give it a shot, but if I get invited to a team, I want the leader to have a plan. Being open to doing the missions of others on the team isn't bad, it's even laudable, but you should have a default plan in place (i.e. "we'll be doing my Nemesis mission in Founders, unless anyone has something else they'd like to get done?").

Not a bad argument for Earth/Storm. Not bad at all. I wasn't thinking about the synergy between Quicksand and Freezing Rain, or about the way the -def would play into Freezing Rain hitting more targets. Better synergy there than I realized offhand.

I think I'd personally still favor Ice/Storm over it for synergy, but not by much.

If Storm is a lock, I'd recommend Ice Control or Illusion Control, with more or less the same force.

Ice Control has really great synergy with Storm since you can really, really slow things with that combo. There's also a lot of really good control in Ice to supplement the battlefield manipulation you get in Storm, resulting in a real powerhouse of crowd control. I also think the two powersets pair nicely with each other thematically, as there are several cold-themed powers in Storm Summoning (Snow Storm, Freezing Rain).

Illusion Control is more complementary than synergistic. Storm plugs the holes in Illusion rather nicely and helps bring you up to par as far as battlefield management, which is an area Illusion tends to fall short in. On the flip side, with Phantom Army along you really don't need a Tanker for your TFs. That's not to say it's not very handy to have a Tanker (always will be, if they're halfway competent), but PA can tank most AVs just fine and you can usually kill them before it expires if your team is good.

So there's my two cents. Pick either Ice or Illusion. Nothing wrong with Plant or Earth as choices either, I just wouldn't recommend them quite as strongly given a Storm Summoning secondary.

As far as TFs go, your major contribution as an Illusion Controller is going to be Phantom Army, a power which basically allows you to summon an unkillable group of pets to tank for the team for a bit. This can be very, very helpful when fighting AVs, especially if the TF doesn't have a Tanker. It's also great for dealing with an inadvertantly added spawn, ambush, or other situation in which tanking is needed on two fronts at once.

Phantom Army opens at 18, so it's not available for Positron, but should be for all of the other TFs. Illusion/Radiation is a classic AV killer build and Phantom Army is a huge part of that.

As far as what to pair with Illusion, the suggestions for secondaries really don't change. Storm and TA offer good battlefield manipulation in control, debuffs and KB to offset the relatively light control of Illusion, so those probably have the most synergy.

For the OP's purposes I'd recommend Storm, Thermal, Radiation or Sonic to pair with Illusion, in that order. I'd have put in TA as well, but the OP specifically stated he didn't want TA and would prefer not to have Rad.

Posi's something of a special case, since there's no AV and there's a lot of Vahzilok that put the hurt on low level characters. Crowd control and being able to keep the team standing is going to be more critical than debuffs (though properly applied, debuffs are one method of keeping the team standing - but the usual emphasis on debuffs for AV killing isn't there).

I'd suggest either Earth or Ice for a primary that will be powerful for those early TFs and keep going strong. Illusion is a great choice too, but largely for Phantom Army, meaning that it's not as good for Posi but a contender for Synapse on up.

As far as secondaries go, Storm is great if you feel comfortable making use of the knockback in a constructive way. Especially early on, that's going to be a large part of what you bring to the table and Gale can be one of your greatest assets or a huge liability depending on how you use it.

For TFs, if we're skipping over TA, Rad and Empathy, I'd suggest either Thermal or Sonic. Both offer a good mix of buffs and debuffs.

To answer your most recent question, yes, I expect that an Earth/Storm would do just fine.

On the theme of clueless Granite tankers, I've got a recent one. I was doing some idle badge hunting on my 47 Rad/Rad Defender when I get a tell inviting me to a scanner team in PI. I check the inviter to see if I have any Notes on him (got into the habit of that lately after getting burned a few times) and accept.

So I arrive in PI and there are two other folks on the team. The inviter is a Dual Blades/WP Scrapper and seems new but reasonably competent. He pays attention, he sets missions promptly, no big deal. Asks a lot of questions about the game, the enemy groups, etc.

The other team member is a Stone tanker, one of those who's respecced and dropped all the armors after getting Granite. So the team leader gets a Carnie mission. You can probably guess where this is going. I suggest that the tanker switch to Minerals. He says he has Granite so he doesn't need it. Tank proceeds to die a lot.

Tank complains that the mission is too hard for us (settings unchanged from previous) so the leader, trying to be accomodating, switches from scanners to getting missions from a contact. So he goes and talks to Tina, and gets the Psychic Clockwork King mission. I explain that our Tanker is going to have a hard time with that. Leader listens, but Tanker shouts me down. You can guess what happened from there. Go ahead, guess.

Added a positive Player Note for the considerate newbie Scrapper and an intensely negative one for the not-so-new should-know-better Tanker.

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Defender damage is sub par overall. Once it is accepted you get used to it.

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Yep. Despite apologia, the fact remains that defenders hit like girls with muscular dystrophy. I know it's for balance. It's just one of those things that makes you sigh when you are reminded of it. Defenders are still an amazing AT, but just like scrappers aren't known for their debuffs, defenders aren't known for their damage dealing.

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I agree Defendes really do bring alot to the table. There is no shame in doing less damage then others.

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Please name one thing that the defender brings to the table that is not better brought by controllers?

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Nukes.

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And damage in general. Most Defenders do significantly more damage than most Controllers (with Fire Control being the obvious exception).

There's also the numerical advantage in stronger buffs/debuffs, but as previously noted that's a distinction that few players will notice in practice. It is, however, significant. It also applies to pool power buffs from Leadership.

Could be mistaken, but I seem to recall that it was Immobilizes, not Slows, that were once known as Snares... for some reason I have that in my brain. Are you sure it was slows?

I agree with the rest. It seems an especially fuzzy line because of the close association of -movement and -recharge effects in Slows.

While these could both be labeled debuffs, a sufficient amount of the former results in what could reasonably be termed a control effect as a boss that takes ten minutes to reach you standing across the room is unlikely to land many blows and should be child's play to kite around. While it's not officially control, I can see how the matter could reasonably come up in such a discussion.

With regard to Force Bubble, while the preceding is all true, I have to smirk at the image of one of those tankers or brutes who feels they absolutely always have to herd everything being stymied by the very same sort of "I will always do this one thing that I do" mentality.

And for the OP's benefit, Force Bubble is an amazing power that benefits anyone who can attack from range. It's up to the person driving the hamster wheel to ensure that those who need its protection are getting it while at the same time not screwing up the ability of the melee ATs to perform their roles. In this sense it's the same as really anything else that people get upset about. The problem isn't with Force Bubble, or Hurricane, or Gale, or whatever, it's with players using them poorly. Be observant, be courteous, be intelligent in the use of your powers, and I doubt there'll be a problem. And if someone tells you to turn it off just because, feel free to ignore 'em just because.

Then the answer is yes, you can do what you're asking with a PB. With a Warshade too, really. It plays differently, but can accomplish the same result.

With that said, I would not advise you to attempt to assume a main tank role for a group if you have not previously been able to get into and play a Tanker at some point. A basic understanding of how aggro works in this game is critical to effective tanking. Tankers get Gauntlet to make it easier for them to gain aggro, something you will not have as a Kheldian. Your skill at tanking has to make up the difference and if you have no experience as a Tanker, you may not be a very effective main tank. There's more to it than just taunting.

Basically, as a generalist, you can step into several roles (area effect damage dealer, tank, boss killer, crowd control) but you're never going to outshine the specialist in that role. Which is the way it should be. You're not going to out-damage the Blaster, out-scrap the Scrapper, out-control the Controller or out-tank the Tanker. Each of these is going to be better at what they do because it's what they do.

The strength of the generalist is the ability to be all of these, albeit to a lesser degree, at the same time. You won't out-blast the Blaster, but you'll out-blast the Tanker. You won't out-tank the Tanker, but you'll out-tank the Controller. You won't out-control the Controller, but you'll out-control the Scrapper. You get the idea.

Like the old saying goes, "Jack of all trades, master of none, ofttimes better than a master of one." Playing a generalist can be tough, though, because it requires you to know enough about each of the roles you're stepping into to perform them reasonably well. The best Kheldian players tend to have experience playing many different ATs for this reason.

If you're looking for fast attack, then probably the single best fit would be a Brute (villain) since a Brute's Fury is pretty much designed around the idea of fast, constant melee attack.

Hero-side, either a Scrapper or a melee-specced Blaster (commonly called a "Blapper") should do the trick. The Blapper will do more damage, the Scrapper will be tougher.

You've got some options.

Peacebringers can tank well, but if you're making a PB solely to be a 'main tanker' then you're probably better off with a Tanker. The appeal of the PB over the Tanker is that it can tank and fill other roles to some degree. It's a generalist.

If you're only looking to fill one role, you don't want a generalist. You want the specialist for that role. In this case, a Tanker. If you want a damage-dealing, control-using powerhouse that can also tank in a pinch, then the PB's for you. If all you care about is being main tank, then be a Tanker.

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I'm going to assume someone just had a bad day

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Week. I've been in pain for a week, to the point of crawling around on the floor at work, clutching my chest and side. I wasn't expecting to still be experiencing pain like this almost four months after the surgery, and it's put me in a foul mood.

That doesn't excuse my behavior, nor do I expect it to be excused, but I did feel that you deserved an explanation.

And an apology. I am truly sorry that I went off on you like that. I should've closed the browser window and gone to bed, or outside, or taken more Tylenol, or anything other than blowing up at you. I let my judgment lapse and my frustration take over. I'm sorry.

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Apology accepted, consider it forgotten. I'm sorry to hear you've been in pain, and relieved to discover that my original impression of you is correct after all. Get well soon!

Same here. Generally speaking, I refer to "mobs", "MOBs" or "a spawn" when referring to more than one enemy. I don't think there's really much confusion between the gaming definition of mob and the lexical 'gaggle of unruly people' definition.

At least, I've never seen anyone genuinely get confused in that way in-game or here on the forums.

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That leaves Flash Arrow (which I'm not sure should count) and Entangling Arrow (single-target immobilize).

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Flash Arrow? While I can see the -speed in Glue Arrow as having some control like applications(Keeping groups bunched.) I can't see how Flash Arrow can possibly be thought of as a control. It doesn't hold or immobilize. It doesn't even slow. Its debuff with no control or even control like abilities.

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Which was why I said I wasn't sure it should count - I was just trying to figure out where Luminara was coming from and, as the flames upthread amply demonstrate, boy did I ever guess wrong.