Lazarus

Which is a much different deal as those people have their higher-level teammates backing them up, which is much different than trying to solo critters who are really balanced for a level much higher than what you are.

I'm apparently the one person who doesn't complain when the cistern room shows up.

I really hate these because they make the "Find arcs my level" option utterly useless and clog up the search results. If I see 1-54 I skip it without even reading the description.

Your mileage will vary, but for every person who feels "driven to beat this arc" there will be a dozen who will feel like your arc is a waste of their time and move on to something else. It's not like a canon arc where it has to be completed or will sit in the missions window forever, dropping it is an option for AE arcs.

This is rather subjective of course as nobody can agree on a minimum level for being overpowered. Giving someone an AV or EB as an ally would definitely be overpowered, though exception can be given if there is no Pet version of that canon EB and they are required for a decent story reason. However, people will complain that anything from Minion to Boss is overpowered.

I judge it based on the powers of the ally and what they are there for. If they're just there to lend a hand instead of just running off when rescued and nothing more than a boss appears in the arc, then a LT or even a minion is fine. However if this is someone to help out with an EB fight, then a boss is going to be wanted else a LT could die in a single hit and be useless for most of the fight.

Then again, if you're giving multiple allies then you might want to make them individually weaker. I've gone either way depending on the situation, a few arcs have 1 or 2 bosses in a mission while another gives you several minions and LTs instead.

Strongly agreed. Defeat Alls definitely should be used sparingly and wisely, usually on nothing bigger than a small map and there should be a good reason for it. Before giving a defeat all, ask yourself what the end result in the long run is for the story. Do you really need to defeat everyone or just take out the leaders to break morale and let the calvary clean them up? If you just need to talk to the boss, is there a reason that you couldn't just escape after interrogating him or force him to call off his men?

Oh hell no. Worst incident of that I had was a Ice/WP Boss who rezzed twice before he finally stayed down.

Definitely, those text fields exist for a reason and seeing a nav bar like that is just plain sloppy and incompetent.

At least tell us something about the customs. Even if it is a generic description of the custom group it's a start.

If you're going to use chained objectives, make sure that the map will place them in a linear sequence. This does mean limiting yourself a bit since there is only Front, Middle, Back. Also, make sure that the map doesn't have Middle spawns that are placed before the Front spawns show up.

I steer away from humor arcs in general, they're really too subjective and rarely have I found one to actual be funny. The funniest ones were more subtle and not trying to shove jokes in my face.

Other things I hate:

• Inconsistent level ranges. You can specify the lower and upper levels of the missions in the arc independently of the enemy groups in them, MAKE THEM ALL THE SAME unless you have a very good story reason not to. I don't care that we get XP while exemplared and keep the powers up to 5 levels above our combat level, I don't want to be bouncing all over the place and losing powers and set bonuses for no reason. I especially don't want to go from fighting Crey to Vahzilok and then suddenly to Malta or some rubbish.
• Blue cave maps. They hurt my eyes and as someone who has been cave exploring the looks makes no damn sense.
• I don't mind the brown caves as long as the 'layer cake room' is not present. I hate how the walls, cieling, and floor are the same shade so that it makes the holes in the floor near-invisible.
• I don't like escorts that don't have a good story reason as to why a simple hostage release wouldn't do.
• I hate seeing the following powers on customs: Build Up, Unyielding, Instant Healing, Rise to the Challenge, Rage, Knockout Blow, Total Focus, Energy Transfer, Darkest Night, Gang War, Blaster Nukes. Some of these are not so bad on a canon mob as they have lower stats than customs do, but the mezz protection powers are very unfair to those who rely on controls and nobody likes attacks that can one-shot a Scrapper right through all their resistances.
• I don't like scavenger hunt maps. You know, ones like the Tech Labs where three different elevators all lead to three different floors and you will likely have to backtrack all over the place.
• I don't like seeing Random for the map and a bunch of objectives. Random maps are very hard to design right when you have more than just a boss fight and maybe a glowy as the spawn order and even the number of spawns allows is not consistent throughout the map set. You could very easily get hit with a mission that is incompletable and I'm not going to restart just to see if I have better luck next time.

I'm wondering just when he did that, since we fight Lillitu quite a few times redside all the way into the 40s without Infernal around. Did you mean the Praetorian Infernal?

If a Stalker can do it then why not?

Never actually played a damage capped Mace Brute, have you? Last time she was capped out she was smacking Rikti minions around for 1000 damage with just the first couple attacks. Now I wish I had saved that damage log but I can't be bothered to keep arguing with fools who think that Tankers can outdamage Brutes.

Yes, a single Kin can easily damage cap a Brute. At that point even the tier-1 attacks in a Brute's primary can exceed 1000 points of damage.

And if any other ATs with ally damage buffs like Forge, or better yet a 2nd Kin, are on the team then the Brutes don't even need to worry about Fury as they'll be hitting that 850% cap even with Fury at 0.

The Tanker capping out at 400%? That's the damage cap of the Dominator AT, who can dish out more damage than a Tank as well as using their control powers to keep the team safe.

What a bunch of wusses those heroes are. Villains don't even check what ATs are present inside the Winter Realm before taking on the big snowman.

Maybe, but the Tank I had sat on a shelf for 4 years because of how lame she was until I rerolled her an an Earth/Earth Dom. She's much more fun and kills several times faster now.

My Willpower Brute never took the self-rezz cause she just about never died and when she did, it was well after the Tankers bit the dust.

3 Damage SOs in every attack is not slotting for damage? Missions still took forever to solo compared to all other characters.

So the Devs finally realized that we're damn sick of Nemesis and didn't make Going Rogue yet another one of his plots?

My Elec/Dark Stalker, made ages before the Electrical sets were ported to Tanks and Scrappers, played just like a Scrapper with stealth right from out of the gate. The difference is that she has the massive damage of Assassin's Shock when it's needed and the criticals can be a lot more predictable when coming from Hide than the random-as-hell crits that Scrappers get.

Last LGTF I took her on half the team kept forgetting that she was not a Brute.

Tankers are among the last AT I look for when filling out a team, and unlike with VEATs they're not last just because of attitude issues with the people who typically play them.

As if Defenders weren't already semi-redundant since Controllers get most of their primaries as well.

Agreed.

Stalkers will be fine, they won't become more popular but they won't become any less popular. They've always been a niche AT.

Blasters will have some competition with Corruptors, who don't do as much straight-up damage but bring more buff/debuffage, healing, and can even get their own mezz protection.

Tankers are pretty much screwed. All a Brute has to do is take Taunt and they're the same thing as they have the same def/res caps but much higher damage capabilities. The Brute can actually kill all the aggro piling on him rather than standing around looking pretty.

Virtue has the highest per-capita of all non-humans and human-hybrids.

I like these three.

The nominees of the official contest didn't get any special title or symbol, temporary or not. What makes you think that the winners of the unofficial contest would get any sort of thing?

We should form a club.