Leo_G

I suggested similar, but do you think he'd listen to me? Nooooo

I mean, wow is it great motivation to build a special character yourself whose function can be realized with IOs? Like, my main has to be really good with his Katana...a master, if you will. He needs *every* katana power otherwise how can he say he knows everything about katanas (means they have to all be 6 slotted too). And with his mastery of swords, he can cut practically anything...but not with the sword, exactly (he uses a wooden sword...because they're better ). So his attacks are slotted in a way to get good effect from 4 slots and stick a proc in the last 2 slots. The neg energy procs weren't hard to get, and the achille's heel proc wasn't much trouble for half his powers...but that gladiator proc was a killer...but I was motivated to complete his build to fulfill his concept and I learn a lot along the way.

My Fire/Shield Brute I talked about was the most fun character to fulfill to date. Only the fire sword attacks and fire breath. He needed max stats on those four attacks otherwise he wouldn't be effective and the other fire attacks didn't fit his concept. Fire breath needed as much range as possible and when he got to PPPs, the breath attacks from the Mako pool had to be efficient and up often. Collecting, slotting and pulling together powers until I had this awesome dragon guy at 50 felt great. He's not the best of the best, but he's a beast none the less and I haven't even got him any incarnate stuff yet. I'm sure there's an Alpha slot power to boost his range on Breath of Fire even more as well as make his sword attacks faster and more efficient.

I can't say enough how painful my Fire/Storm corruptor was leveling, always bottoming out on endurance at the drop of a hat, but it was still fun. She needed to be constantly raining power on people's heads which meant Rain of Fire and Freezing Rain had to be faster and cheaper (and procced out somewhat). Thunderstorm had to be stackable and still not bottom out her endurance running her toggles. The aim was mainly recharge bonuses so her powers were up faster and bit the bullet on endurance, mostly. I relied on the alpha slot and inspirations to help with endurance as I wanted potency, not efficiency. She required many many tricks and lots of endurance to pull off these tricks. +rech and +Max END were her bonuses of choice(and accolades).

I honestly don't see what's hard about the system. If you can see an angle for a build, but are unsure what you can do to accomplish it, then yes ask for advice. But you really have to know what you want from your character before you go trying to build them.

Practically all my characters use generic IOs except for the handful with special builds (or the ones I tested the waters with regarding IOs and the market early on).

The system is there to give characters flexibility and power but you don't need to take full advantage of everything to get the character you want. Nothing is grueling, unfair or tedious about it.

Heh, I had a build that focused on similar bonuses for my DM/WP Stalker (except for the speed). Mainly for the +dmg as I wanted his critical hits to do a *LOT* of damage. I also changed up the build toward the end as 'good enough' because he was amassing decent +def bonuses along with his maxed HP and good resists. Basically, he was beginning to get too survivable (lol no, I'm serious). If he stopped ever dying because foes couldn't hit him and he kept healing himself, he'd never get around to using Resurgence. Besides, if I occasionally die, someone else might die too...then I can rez, use Vengeance for even *MORE* +dmg and +ToHit

I haven't played him in forever though. Planning to try him and a few of my other Stalkers out come the newest issue.

Note: I don't even play the game that often. I've actually been playing a lot lately (like 3 days a week these past few weeks) but even only logging in twice every few weeks for a few odd hours, I could still build the characters I have with only moderate effort. Sometimes amassing lots of AE tickets on a character was done to buy salvage when there wasn't any on market...or did random rolls with merits and what not for extra cash, but I've only tried to 'play the market' once and it wasn't fun. I don't play the market to make any of my characters.

The way I approach funds is...well, I tend to 'borrow' from others. Once you get and can make inf, there's really nothing hard. Resources are easy to get once you learn.

By then, I tend to send a new lvl 10 character about 5-15mil inf from a 'sugar daddy' character that sits around with 400mil and a pocket full of LotG +rech IOs. The new lvl 10 character uses this to get DOs, SOs and pay for lvl 30 basic IOs. After that, they tend to collect extra $$ as they go. I always send that 5-15mil back to the original character.

This is easier to do because I tend to have themed characters with linked backgrounds. It makes sense that they'd help eachother and I always no who's linked to who and therefore who borrowed from whom.

I think he's working with the Firehose principal. The energy would be greatly dispersed *around* the shield, creating a flow that would repel more of the energy away.

But since the energy isn't like a liquid but maybe acts more like a plasma, the shield may just alter much of the energy as to create a safezone behind the shield far wider than the shield itself.

That's not a yacht, that's a space yacht...

If rebalancing Scrappers is needed, maybe it's in relation to their capabilities vs the other melee ATs.

Tankers have the better aggro and mitigation.

Stalkers have the better straight up ST DPS (barring extras like damage boosting secondaries)

Brutes and Scrappers tend to be in the middle, with Brutes having the defensive edge and better AoE in general (again, barring pseudo-pets like Shield Charge and Lightning Rod).

Maybe, if Scraps are rebalanced, it is to make their AoE more potent...but that's just my opinion. I'd probably look into making all Scrapper ST attacks only have 5% crit chance (barring special case powers like Storm Kick or what have you) and boosting their AoE powers to crit 15% on Lts&up and 25% on minions.

I could even see boosting their self-dmg buff mod higher (so BU would be 115% dmg buff) while boosting Stalker self-dmg buff mod to 100%...basically, shave off some dmg from ST attacks but put it back as their self-buff mod. Give Stalkers the better ST DPS while giving Scraps more edge over Brutes in AoE.

Well I try my best too, damnit!

How can you not understand a question? I typed it as plain as day. But to clarify, requesting the APPs be altered to a lower level is not the same as asking for a 'signature' ability.

Because one requires creating a slew of pool power set that have to be fair (if Defenders get pool [x] Corruptors have to have access to the exact same pool [x]) and balanced although if you're just asking for the APPs/PPPs levels be adjusted (again) then you have to have a decently good reason...which I haven't read.

The other requires *knowing* what players want (besides EVERYTHING) to help flesh out their concept. Giving the option of a particularly themed power from another set, while nifty and fun, still has to be moderated somehow.

Basically, what I'm saying is the suggestion reeks of 'pie-in-the-sky' expectations. You may not feel a Blaster getting Temporary Invulnerability at lvl 14 is wrong, but you're not the one to be convinced here. If you want a drastic revamp to something, going on about how you want some sword-swinging flaming detective AT LEVEL 2!!! or whatever isn't persuasive or sane with the game's current system.

This is what I had began to think myself when reading the OP.

The idea isn't so much a "Let's revamp the pools/epics system, gain more options, etc etc," as it is "I'd like to make characters with a unique style, a signature ability, to make them stand out from others of the same AT+powerset+powerset-combo".

At least that's how I read it. The roadblock you run into with the proposed suggestion is...we only have so many power picks. Pushing certain choices forward ultimately pushes other choices back and when they become available isn't really a conceptual issue as it is a QoL improvement. QoL improvements are great, but only within the scope of what's required to gain such improvements and you're wanting to fulfill a concept sooner by revamping the entire system? That's not sounding so great to me now.

That said, do you think you can clarify what it is I'm reading here? Are you A.)suggesting to revamp the whole system just to get more options sooner? B.)Or more 'signature' abilities that'd make one MA/SR scrapper unique from another MA/SR scrapper?

If point A:
-There's other possibilities that may work.
---AT type pools that discriminate by the style of AT. So there would be 'Melee AT pools', 'Ranged AT pools'.
---Taking a pool choice, these would be flavored to add functionality to an AT type and available in the late teens/early 20s
---They'd have to be somewhat generic. For melees, a Gun pool, an Support pool, an Elemental pool. For Ranged, a Fisticuffs pool, a Weapons pool, an Elemental pool.
---These pools would have 4 powers each without any gated prerequisites and all decent powers comparable to the set powers.
---But they would all have mixed themes (weapon pool = Mace attack, Katana attack, Dual Blades attack, Claw attack; Gun pool = Rifle attack, Pulse Rifle attack, Pistol attack, Archery attack).

-Expanding the epics again in a fashion that makes them more true tertiary powersets, unlocked in the late teens/early 20s.
---Add 2 powers to every Epic set (for a total of 7).
---Keep the current levels of the epics in place (only available at lvl 35+) but make the 2 new powers available earlier.
---Follow this formula for a couple of new epic sets, possibly with more themed options like PPD powers, Carnival of Light, Midnighters, etc.

If point B:
-Simply create 1 new pool for each AT. This would be the AT signature pool powers (Dominator Signature pools, Blaster Signature pools, etc).
-These pools may contain up to however many balanced powers the devs would be comfortable with and able to balance. So there may be 12 powers, 15 powers, 25 powers in this pool.
-Taking a pool choice with it, you can choose only one (possibly 2 depending on how the powers are balanced) powers from this pool.
-The pool would be a mixed theme of all powers pulled from various sets (maybe even adding newer ones as one-off dev-made powers) that are just as fully capable as the regular primary/secondary set they're pulled from.
-Options may include Siphon Power(kinetics), Dual Wield(dual pistols), Howl (Sonic Blast), Quicksand (Earth Control) and similar type options for a Scrapper; Soaring Dragon (Katana), Swoop (Axe), Siphon Life (Dark Melee), Energy Absorption (Ice armor) and similar type options for Defender.

The way I look at this is, you'd want a change, correct? Well that's more likely if you see way to make it occur within the limits of the system (or at least only minor tweeks to the system) rather than a complete revamp. If your angle is 'Black Canary's Canary Cry' or 'Deadpool's sword+pistol', you only need 1 (maybe 2) powers to sell that sonic cry or pistol shooter theme, not an entire set of powers.

And if you're trying for 'Iron Man', well you have to look at the character as a whole. He can fly, he's got armor, he's strong, he can shoot repulsor blasts...that's the *whole* of the character, not part. Don't expect to get a *whole* character by lvl 20. I'm sure Iron Man had to go through his prototypes to get the sleek suite he has now...

Didn't we get something like that with the Autumn Pilgrim pack thingy?

But it's hard to imagine what the future trends are when we're still talking about the ones on the horizons like the Club clothing line, the tights thread and the Chinese new year armor.

Personally, I think more attention could be paid to animal parts. So many things that could be added (ape, insect/beetle, ram/goat, shark/whale) along with more accessories like hands, feet, tails, wings, and beast/monster options to go with other available pieces like hats, hoods, shorts, skirts, so on and so forth.

I have to agree, I don't know why everyone has such a boner for per-foe buff auras. It only gives the impression it actually has an affect on sustained survivability (which it doesn't, unless you're killing minions very slowly) and encourages herding behavior. Worse yet, the moment knockback rears its head, *EVERYONE* complains about their buff auras.

I always viewed the buff auras as a *bonus*, not a necessity.

I'm all for thinking up a new mechanic/power for the set, though. As for alterations to Elude, don't forget the runspeed buff. That's one of the things I use it for. I'd also think about improving its resistance to runspeed and jump debuffs while using Elude.

Yeah, Liberty is nearly full for me. Only 2 slots left. But I don't have any defenders on Liberty so not sure how teaming goes. I just join teams when I can. Most of the characters on that server are stalkers, a brute, some doms, and my uber awesome most powerful character incarnate-spank-yur-bum Fire/Storm Corruptor

I say Lib is my 2nd home but I probably spend more time there than Protector

Sounds nice. I may just give Champion a whirl. Thinking, if I get a bit more guidance, I'll try testing the waters with new characters first before starting the transfer process.

I'm always friendly (you'd never guess that by how I post here), and I often semi-RP by how I talk. But for whatever reason, since I picked up my defenders after neglecting them for over 2 years, I don't run into the same players very often.

I will do that.

Mind you, I don't *want* to leave Protector (do you know how much server transfers are!? I'm too cheap to afford that!!). But when I log on, check channels and ride the train to various 'hotspot zones' to listen for broadcasts, put up my flag and solo half an arc (so probably, like an hour) only to be forced to log out out of boredom, I don't want to blame my character (she's so sweet), or the community or the game...I don't want to blame anyone. I just want to have fun

I just got home now and I may log onto her and finally get her to 30 (she's 28) solo, then start the respec on her other suit...but I might also just get bored and log onto my alt-main on Exalted and do some tips...dunno. We'll see.

When proposing changes, I like to have a strong link to concept and your change makes very little conceptual sense. If anything, it's *harder* to dodge a tornado of psionic energy, a shower of brimstone or a curtain of bullets than it is to dodge a focused burst of psionics, a stream of heat or even a shot specifically aimed at your face.

Putting AoE defense before Ranged is just bad (especially considering there are more ranged attacks than there are AoE...every enemy has a ranged attack, not all of them have AoEs).

How I'd revise Super Reflexes? Well, I'd keep it the same. If we really needed to relieve the lack of AoE defense, pushing the set to open powers sooner (only for SR) might do that trick. Similarly to how travel pools can open powers sooner without prerequisites, powers in SR might open up earlier than other armor sets. Concerning balance, I don't see this as being a problem...you can only pick 1 power a level anyway, and for SR it'd all be defense.

If we were re-equipping SR in light of the improvement of other sets? I could easily see rolling some of the passives together and/or adding effects to existing powers. But vs making the set more defensive, I'd always opt for more offensive capabilities. A confuse aura/click that simulated your movements causing friendly fire, along with a temp 'alignment change' so enemy AoEs will have a chance to hit their allies. Someone once suggesting adding a chance of Fiery Embrace proc (per attack) to Lucky so occasionally your hit will do fire damage. Stuff like that...

Dark Armor is almost as closely balanced by its numbers as it is its endurance costs. I think much of the trade off with DA stalkers is that, practically half the potential toggle endurance costs are cut off by the lack of Death Shroud and the slightly higher (and now definitely more than 0) cost of Cloak of Darkness. Basically paying for the same base survivability but at a cheaper cost.

I wonder how boring that'd be, how loud people will whine they can't skip over cutscenes to get to their farmed rewards, how annoyed people will get that dialog scrolls too fast between NPCs and how many threads will be made explaining how much of this a waste because people just speed run it anyway.

A more likely solution would be weekly dev publications that do this *outside* of the game so that they may leave the meat of the game (combat...characters can't DO anything else in the game but take action. They cannot negotiate, find clues, crack codes, track suspects, build solutions, etc. because STILL people will complain "My character wouldn't negotiate", "My character can't talk", "My character doesn't build technology") *inside* of the game.

Exposition is lovely...when you don't have 7 other people breathing down your neck because they've done the arc 15 times already. Your solution seems to fail to take that into account.

Just got to read this part.

OMG! Tearing up! Hiccups from laughing so hard

/Mr. Grey

How awful.

/Mr. Grey

Agreed wholeheartedly. I'm not sure which I'm more disappointed with, that so much of the playerbase are cynics or are jaded with the in-game characters or lore or that the devs seemed to pander to that sense, just giving them more fuel for their internet flames.

And I wonder, did the writers devise this so well that we all walked into this obvious trap? I mean, they outright told us who was gonna die. That wasn't the hook, everything else was. So is it possible they wrote this in a manner to make the story so 'bad' (for those that absolutely cannot tolerate some of what the plot holds) just to brilliantly mirror our own harsh and conceded vitriol back at us? Needless to say, I didn't run any of the chapters until they were all released so didn't know how the whole thing shaped up until afterwards.

It was a fun ride at face value, putting some fun imagery of my characters interacting with the fights and heroes. But when you explain it that way, Mr. Grey, it really does make this whole thread quite hilarious.

I like to make my characters with flaws and frailties, to make them 'human' (not in the actual race-sense) so when I got to interact with the FP, it made them feel like we were on the same level...not in power but in prowess.

Now I need to pick a character to run the villain side arcs on

/subscribeto_Mr._Grey_newsletter

Well there was clearly a sign in the bathroom saying "All staff must wash hands" with a little hand-washy picture under it, but I walked in, stepped up to the other urinal while he zipped up and walked out.

It gave the impression that he didn't wash his hands (and I was still holding myself so couldn't go see if he had washed elsewhere). Even if he wasn't handling food (which he was), you'd still want to at least pretend you washed up especially if you're the supervisor.

I didn't make a big deal out of it, just mentioned that I probably wouldn't come back (which I wouldn't have anyway since I don't eat fast food to begin with) and he just apologized, gave me a refund and a shake to go with it. He even asked me to do the online survey.

But the little story was suppose to have something to do with asking for something else in light of a minor drawback that is evident. I doubt me making a stand about how unsanitary restaurants are will change the 90% of them that are bad (although if they're so bad, yes, get that one *fixed* or shut down) but the 2% that are kinda in the middle, I can weasel a bit more service than what I pay if their flaws are apparent.

Well, off the top of my head...

=+chance of secondary effect? Using a power a non-drawn state drastically improves the chance of an effect going off (only for powers with a % chance effect). I wonder how powerful that would be making your Mace 100% stun from its attacks if activated from an undrawn state? Or to make IO procs activate more often.

=thematic draw attack? Only examples I can think of would be Katana and Dual Pistol. The quick draw western might be emulated by a short term +def/+ToHit buff when activating with redraw. And for the Battojutsu samurai having insanely powerful strikes when starting from a sheathed state can be emulated by either an extra 'proc' of dmg only activated from an attack with redrawn animation or a short duration -res effect from an attack with redrawn animation.