Kelenar

The -perception prevents them from noticing you by seeing you. It's mostly useful for areas with tightly packed groups of enemies--if two groups are side-by-side, you can Smoke one and pretty much kill the other with impunity. If you make any sort of attack roll versus a Smoked enemy, though, they will aggro on you like normal. Where it does help a little versus single groups is that if you Smoke the whole group and then attack a single enemy from range, the others will be less likely to notice and join in. An AoE like Flashfire, though, will make an attack roll versus all of them and aggro them all, whether or not it hits.

The Stealth analogy really does work. Most things that you can't get away with with Stealth up, you can't with Smoke either.

[ QUOTE ]

<ul type="square">[*]Maintaining the hold
Obviously the only way I could survive the fight is to perma-hold my opponent, which means always using Dominate as soon as it is available. A few misses means they'll break free of the hold and in the case of Ghost Widow, she has two DoT powers which can 1-shot me (Gloom and Soul Storm). While fighting Ghost Widow I cast Dominate something like 1800 times, so statistically I'm going to have missing streaks, and need to insure against those. Most important is to cast Dominate as soon as possible, I found in earlier attempts that the slight delay of including both Blaze and Fireblast on each cycle was too much and the hold was too sensitive to misses. Also, streakbreaker was my friend, all my powers had a 95% chance to hit, so if I missed once, the streakbreaker forced the next power to hit. I'd use this to force Dominate to hit, skipping an attack if necessary.[/list]
[/ QUOTE ]

On this part, I'm just curious about a subsection of your build that ought to be more doable to post--what's your global recharge and how do you have your ST hold slotted? I've long curious about just what it takes to perma-hold an AV with a single hold, but I've yet to really run the math. It'd be nice to see an example of one that works for a baseline.

1. Travel power at 6
2. Blackwand/Nemesis Staff
3. Assemble the Team
4. Freespecs
5. Sands of Mu
6. Trenchcoats
7. Ghost-Slaying Axe
8. Buff Pets
9. Tailor Reduction
.
.
.
9,999,999,999. Supergroup Teleporter
10,000,000,000. Supergroup base items.

Supergroups are for nerds.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Of course, the good guys don't often make a lasting effect either... Croatoa's still infested with supernatural horrors.

[/ QUOTE ]

And don't get me started on Dark Astoria...

[/ QUOTE ]

But for the good guys, winning can often just mean keeping the status quo, which is easy as hell to do. "Oh, you stopped Nemesis' new superweapon? Good job!" Sure enough, the next time I log in, Paragon City hasn't been blown up.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I'm not saying that IO's ARE out of reach, but many people PERCEIVE them to be. Which is why there are so many "stuff is too expensive" posts: normal gameplay is no longer rewarding enough to be able to afford the best enhancements in what people consider a reasonable amount of time.

[/ QUOTE ]

My 'casual gamer' concept stalker is sitting on 32 million inf at level 30, having done NOTHING other than play 'real' content, ghosting anything he could, selling his drops and crafting recipe drops that didn't require him to buy more than 1 bit of salvage (i/e, he got most of the ingredients as drops).

[/ QUOTE ]

This. On the way to 50, I did nothing on my dom but play the game as usual and sell whatever I looted, listing them at vendor price + 5%. I did maybe 2 TFs and rolled the merits from them, and didn't get any particularly good results. The money I got from that (maybe 75 million) was enough to get me within seconds of perma-dom by the time she was in the mid-40s.

But redside is like the Diet Coke of evil. For every mission approaching villainy, there are a dozen "Go drive the Lost out of a sewer so the Freakshow can live there" missions.

[ QUOTE ]
Myth: "Casual" players can't afford stuff because of evil marketeers
Fact: etc etc

[/ QUOTE ]

Might also be a good idea to point out that marketeering is one of the easiest ways to make money for a casual player. Hell, I've made 150 million or so over the past week, and the only time I've done anything in-game but sit around and RP was a few hours spent missioning a new corruptor up to level 8. Also that casuals, moreso than anybody else, might have the best opportunities for low prices because they won't mind waiting two days for a low bid to fill if they only play twice a week anyway.

Unfortunately, I'm at work and can't download the sheet, but I'll give it a try this weekend.

Had somebody AFK over her neighbor's house being on fire in another game...

Myself, I've had to AFK over...
Sudden monitor death
The building's fire alarm going off. At 3 AM. In January. I was in shorts and nothing else. I was not happy standing outside waiting for the fire department.
"A bunch of guys with guns just walked through our yard."
The dog getting into a fight with a smoke detector.
To help gut a deer.
To clean mushrooms.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
i've been afraid of the achievements really, i love the spy but if history has taught me anything, when a new pack comes out that class becomes obscenely overcrowded, and with even two spies on a team, their jobs become hell on earth and frustrating

[/ QUOTE ]

Achievements no longer control the unlocks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not that it's really stopped people, since most public servers I've joined end up with wonderful team loadouts like '5 snipers, 4 spies, 1 scout, 1 soldier.' Sure, they can't earn stuff like that, but they still want to play with the new gear once they unlock it.

On the other hand, fighting an enemy team of all snipers and spies can be fun. They blow up real good.

I'm all for skipping Stone Cages--as an Earth dom, there are a lot more productive AoE controls you can be throwing out. Earthquake is good mitigation by itself, and Quicksand is usually all I need to keep enemies in it for the rest of their short lives. I would take the ST immobilize if you plan to solo, though. With the number of EBs villainside, it's quite nice being able to stick them 20 feet away so they're down to one or two attacks.

On my Earth/Fire dom, I originally took everything from the primary except the AoE immobilize and the sleep, along with everything from the secondary except the snipe. This changed around a bit in the 40s to accomodate some IO mules, but it worked out fine for levelling. I personally also found Consume rather skippable for the build--the few times I wanted more endurance, I could just pop a blue.

My low-level experiences were similar to yours. Stick it out, though. It gets better. By the high 20s, you're starting to get enough AoE mezzes that you can spend the first 5 seconds of the fight getting everybody to shut up, then the rest of your time setting them on fire. By the high 40s, I was street-sweeping groups of Paragon Protectors in the Fab just to have a chance of getting hurt.

Posting this here since the other resistance thread is on a bit of a tangent:

What I'm more interested in is what the average resistances are for enemies who have them. That is, what do we get if we throw out all of the 0s? I've never played a psi blast character, but my friends who have pretty consistently say that it's not resisted much, but when it is resisted, it's like trying to slap a brick wall to death.

[ QUOTE ]
What I really hate are Flashbang Grenades =P

[/ QUOTE ]

Now those, I hate.

... which obviously means that I need to make an MA mission with a faction that's just Malta with PPD Equalizers and Ghosts. If only they were in the same ranges.

[ QUOTE ]
If you're an adult, I dare you to use the term "Bork" in a sentence correctly and tell me the origins of the phrase.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did somebody say bork?!

'cuz I thought I heard somebody say bork!

[ QUOTE ]
/Psi is chosen for one reason by most people: AoE damage. It's the only Dominator set with any significant AoE power at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

Somebody needs to inform my /fire.

[ QUOTE ]
Warhammer LotRO

[/ QUOTE ]

I would so play this game.

Three Rings for the elven kings under the sky,
Seven for the dwarf lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for mortal men, doomed to die,
Blood for the Blood God on his skull throne...

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Whatever you make a Dual Blades character as, keep in mind that the set's animations are much more about speed than force. I made a DB brute who was intended to be an inhuman monster dual-wielding meat cleavers, and then she started dancing like a ballerina on ecstasy every time I got into a fight. Fits much better as a scrapper or stalker set, in my opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]
Picture them giggling as they slowly slice mobs of enemies to bits, dancing in the rain of blood scattered by their shredded enemies, glorying in the agony of their victim's deaths. It feels MUCH more brutish then !

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, I'm sure it can work, but I was playing what was essentially a lumbering cannibalistic Frankenstein monster. My new DB character is a little girl with ribbons in her hair, and it fits that much better.

[ QUOTE ]
Leveller: enjoys getting the next level, the next power, the next set of slots. Enjoys "finishing" a character and starting the next one. The difference between them and Powerlevelers is that speed is not as much of a factor, nor are they always Farmers.

Roleplayer/RPer: Enjoys the role-playing aspect of the game, from having a specific concept for their character that guides their costume and/or power choices, to creating an entire life story, to interacting with other players while staying "in character" as much as possible.

Marketeer: enjoys "playing the market", maximizing their Influence/Infamy through buying and selling at Wentworth’s/the Black Market. "Ebil Marketeers" are claimed to be manipulating the market to their own advantage.The actual practicality of that is a subject of much heated debate.

Pugger: enjoys playing on Pick-Up Group teams.

Fighter/Combatant: the actual combat itself is the Fighter's primary reason for playing the game.

Sweeper: enjoys "Street Sweeping" - defeating the "local" mobs found throughout the game, both on the streets and elsewhere in the various zones . Frequently used for full levels' worth of XP at low levels, often used to get "those last few XP" at higher levels.

[/ QUOTE ]

I enjoy getting new powers to use, to the point that I practically refuse to exemplar before level 50 and rarely consider playing a powerset more than once unless I downright love it. Depending on the character, I'll either get this XP by teaming or street-sweeping (my current scrapper has gotten to 43 on street-sweeping), but since I can't stand unchallenging combat, I'll usually get bored with anything too easy. Since my characters tend to have lifespans best measured in weeks (see leveller), I don't even bother trying to join SGs anymore, so I focus on playing in PUGs when I team. I marketeer to make my characters have enough cash to afford good builds by the time they're level 40 or so. On the occasions when I don't feel like levelling or marketeering, I RP.

Pff, back in my day, about half of this was true for the Posi. I think my first run took 13 hours.

[ QUOTE ]
Seriously though, regardless of the previous sale prices for an item, you should always start your bidding at 1 and increase in increments of 5 to ensure you don't overpay like the OP did here.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm only 20,000,000 bids away from that purple recipe!

[ QUOTE ]
Heck, even just adding the effects that can already be in missions would be great.

The Ghost missions in Croatoa (I think it's these missions) have some clouds as you go through them that lower your accuracy and speed.

[/ QUOTE ]

And perception too, I think. At least they used to.

[ QUOTE ]
sadistic rectum

[/ QUOTE ]

... would make a good name for a metal band.

[ QUOTE ]
Well, L13 now, and STILL enjoying it. He's still got minimal defense and almost no offense, but he's balanced at least,

In a different thread there were a few comments about the build, but nothing here, and it's here that I had hoped to get advice, since I don't play Defenders much and have little confidence in Force Fields...

I'd been thinking of switching to Medicine for Aid Self in place of Leadership. What say you, veteran Defenders?

[/ QUOTE ]

For a team build, I'd say no. Def-capping your team &gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt ; Aid Self. Since you mostly solo... well, it's a bit of a harder choice.

Napkin calculations with numbers from City of Data suggest you'll be at about 27% defense with 3-slotted Dispersion Bubble, Tough, and Weave. If you plan to try to get 18% more from IOs, I'd hang onto Maneuvers. If not, you might get more mileage out of PFF + Aid Self than the defense from Maneuvers.

Personally, if I had the money, I'd try to slot to the defense softcap over Aid Self. Not getting hit in the first place is usually the better plan for squishies, especially ones with no mezz protection.

[ QUOTE ]
Good point. Magic origin is probably the most open-ended.

Vampires?
Angels/Demons?
Magicians?
Time-traveling confused fantasy characters?
Cultists?
The possessed?
Those using magical artifacts?
Ghosts?

[/ QUOTE ]
Werewolves, elementals, nature spirits, cursed people, priests, gods, fairies... the list goes on. Whereas tech basically gives you the options of robot, cyborg, or guy using high-tech weapons and armor.

Although on the other hand, I like Science because it's similarly open-ended, but it's rare as hell, so what do I know?

[ QUOTE ]

Before I9, did you hear people complaining that things were too expensive? That they could not outfit their character in whatever way they wanted with no effort?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. Like my original defender who couldn't afford a full set of SOs until the 30s and had to get loans for costume changes. And the way I hated Hamidon raids, but knew that my characters would do much better in PvP with HOs. I probably wasted days worth of time on that Jello mold.