Miladys_Knight

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I stuck my +3% IO in deflection so i had it starting at like lvl 10 and used it to level

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I kinda did the same thing except I kept moving it as I leveled.

It started out in deflection. I respec'd and moved it to true grit, then respec'd again and move it to OWtS.

DM/SR works well for cheap though it doesn't really mature until the 30s

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For me it was a decision between it and Conserve Power, of the two it seemed the better choice. Its endurance recovery is good enough to serve as a CP replacement for my BS/SD build, it lasts longer than CP, and it provides a nice boost to my resists/HP for when I get in over my head.

Personally I wish the exotic damage resistance matched the smashing/lethal amount provided. I just don't understand why the resistance bonus isn't the same across the board.

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Just as a side point here. With True Grit slotted for ED capped +Hit points and +max hit points for accolades you are only a hundred or so from the Scrapper Hit point cap when you pop the unenhanced version of the power.

Slotting the base slot with resistance only adds 5.7% to your resistance values 2 slots give you 11.4% which is useful but not stellar. Certainly not considering it's a tier 9 power.

Slotting it with recovery is pretty much the same. If your standard slotting is such that you need to use this as an end recovery power every time it's up some thing is wrong with your standard slotting.

I only ever slot the base slot with a resistance IO. Extra slots are better used other places to get defense set bonuses.

On the soft capped build that I kept it on. It holds a steadfast res/def and I never use it as a "oh crap" power I always hit it with intent.

It gets popped with intent when I have to hit hasten to kill stuff before it kills me. The extra resists are at least mediocre at that point in slowing the incoming damage that gets through the soft capped defense down somewhat and the extra recovery pays for the increased end cost from having my powers recharge 70% faster than usual.

More recovery slotting would be pointless, more hit point slotting a waste, and more resistance slotting marginal at best.

Prior to hitting the soft cap on defense I needed the power more often than it was up and after soft capping I find it annoying that game mechanics (Auto hit powers and defense cascade failures) make it deisrable to keep a so rarely used power.

I do take comfort in the fact that the res/def IO can sit here in the base slot with out costing me a needed slot somewhere else but it is only a small comfort.

Neither good nor bad. An average power. It gives you increased resistances and increased recovery but it's not a god mode power like Unstoppable.

Its decent in places where defense debuffs run rampant or against things that hit really hard, really often like AVs. Things that punch through or ignore defense like quicksand or the AV nictus on the ITF.

For the rest of the game if you soft cap your defenses and have a self heal whether it be siphon life or aid self you can go completely with out it.

Some folks just keep it as a place to stick a Steadfast res/def and then it gets used more as a end recovery tool than as a resistance boost.

All in all for a tier 9 defense power it's pretty meh.

You are welcome of course but don't thank me. If you get some help out of the guide send a PM to the guy that wrote it and thank them. Guide writers rarely get feed back and when they do it's not always positive.

I know for sure that 2 of those folks still play. I'm not sure if Capn still does or not.

If that was an apology, accepted of course.

We all have our roles to play both in and out of game, some are good some are bad. It's up to the individual to judge for themselves. Fingers need not be pointed.

After all if there were no villians to fight what would Paragon's Heroes do?

You know.... a Wentworth's trash bin might be a good idea.

I'd throw all those level 10 taunt IOs that you have to make for field crafter in there for some bag lady hero to dig out and use.

Also all those crap of the hunter recipes and all the Pool C end/rech junk that I seem to get so often.

Someone might get some use out of it, I wouldn't feel bad for deleting it, and it wouldn't be clogging one of my market slots or the SG enhancement bins.

That I treat someone that is acting like a child as a child has nothing to do with the market in general or specific. That it simply my life experience at work.

I have 8 grand children that range from 1-12 years of age. I spent the majority of my adult life doing some type of customer service work and 15 of those years were spent associated with elementary and secondary education.

So that is my personal nature and experience not any thing to do with the market. I'm usually a pretty nice guy and I try to help people the best I can.

It gives me pain to see someone trying to do a job and making it harder on themselves than it should be simply from a lack of knowledge.

It's worse when they have the knowledge but do not wish to or fail to use it and worse still when they find fault with those who do.

When someone blames me for their self inflicted problems my old customer service hackles rise.

If you feel I've treated you as a child you have my apology and a "Preachy" explanation. If you have been behaving like a child I leave that up to you to self judge.

I've tried to be nice, I've tried to help, I've tried to extend a hand.

In my experience intelligent and reasonable people are those who listen to someone that have more experience, weigh their advice when making their desicion, make use of those things that apply when they try it themselves, and then take the blame when they make their own mistakes.

For the other sort, once you have done every thing you can to help someone, and that person continues to repeat the same behavior in anticipation of different results, it's time to walk away, and let them learn the hard way since that is the only way they will learn.

So.... cya around.

::bows::

These are good places to start.

IO's for Newbs, Casual Playas, & Cheapskates - Capn_Canadian [I9]

The No Numbers Guide to I9 for the Casual Player - peterpeter [I9]

The Viva Las Vegas Intermediate Guide To IO's - Fulmens [I9]

Or an Ice/Elec blaster, or an Elec/Ice blaster, or an Ice/Ice blaster. There's lots of control there.

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It is superior labor and it doesnt take professional "Marketeers" to make the world go round. I have already given one blatant reason why producing new inf or drops is more intensive labor (superior) and the others are not very difficult to understand either. If you missed it, shame on you. I see no way of viewing it in any other logical fashion outside of blatantly deceiving myself.

Nice strawman by the way; did you actually want a reply to that?

Thats it for me, i derailed Fulmens thread quite enough by replying to you in defense of my posts. We must agree to disagree. The continued personal insults against those who dont view the Market as you do, do not solve anything. I made my point, and defended it soundly.



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I have to come to Swell's defense here.

You are assigning a moral value in a place where there is none. That is the real strawman.

What you are saying is that the Farmer is morally or ethically superior because their labor produces a good.

Are you saying that the truck driver that picks the goods up from the farm and drives it to a processing plant is morally and ethically inferior to the famer since he is not producing any goods but is proffiting from the fruits of the farmer's labor?

How about the guy that works in the processing plant to remove the non-edible portions of the product and convert it into table food? He didn't create something from nothing. Is he morally inferior to the farmer?

How about the grocer that preserves and stores the finished food products that come from around the world so that you can just walk to the store and buy it. Is he morally inferior? He didn't produce any product either.

How about you? Are you morally inferior? You didn't put forth any effort to grow the food. You didn't do anything to process it into a useable final form, you didn't preserve it, you just went to the store, bought it, ate it, and turned it into manure but you think that only you and the grower preformed any real service and are there for morally superior.

Ridiculous.

The market has many of the same people as the above. marketeers are the games stock brokers and bankers.

Salvage farmers are the games farmers and if you want the devs opinions on farming see the recent posts on MA and other exploitive behavior. Farmers are not morally superior here they are one of the problems if you read between the lines (and sometimes when you don't) in the devs posts.

I'm a crafter and a marketeer. I provide labor and a service to the rest of the players in the game.

I took MY TIME and MY INFLUENCE to memorize common IO recipies. That means I can craft IOs at 1/2 the crafting cost that others have to pay. It also means that I don't have to pay for a recipe.

I pay going rate for salvage from the farmers. I craft an IO and I list it for the (costs of the salvage + my crafting cost + market fees) * 1.10 for a 10 percent profit. This is more than 50% less than someone who hasn't taken the time or made the effort to memorize the recipe would have to pay to make it for themselves and they don't even have to take the time to put in a bid for salvage or run to a university and craft it. They can put up a bid of exactly what I said above and if one of my IOs is in the market that transaction will complete.

He gets a cheaper IO than he could make himself with no effort on his part more than plunking down a bid at the market.

I make a profit. I've made over a billion influence since I9 doing nothing but that. (I also craft and sell my own drops, commons are not my only source of income.)

As far as selling when I'm off line, why yes I do. Why should only people that live in the Central Time Zone have a chance to buy my less expensive IOs? I play on Justice so do a lot of Aussies. Right before I go to bed at night I craft up a bunch of IOs and put them on the market. I come back the next day they have all sold. Sure some of them were purchased by Night Owls in the U.S.A. but Ausssies, Brits, Koreans, or any other European or Asian players that are awake when I am sleeping have the same opportunity to get cheap IOs from me that anyone else in the U.S.A. does.

tl:dr version - you can take your morally superior/work superior point of view and stuff it.

Lol well not to gang bang you but the sets I was mentioning are mostly inexpensive or less expensive uncommons which for the less often used enhancement types can frequently be had and crafted for less influence than many commons.

The best thing about it is that you don't have to have it "nao". You are perfectly happy with commons so it's not a bother for you to put in a reasonable bid and wait for it to fill. That's the best way to get those things cheaply.

The best thing about "Franken slotting" cheap sets.... you can get those extra 3 slots you are looking for by using cheap multi aspect enhancers in a couple of your powers to get equivalent performance in fewer slots and then move the freed up slot over to the power that you want it in.

I'd be happy to see your build and even happier to assist you with multi aspecting cheap sets for increased performance if you would like.

I'm not the master at it that Fulmens is but I'd be happy to give it a whirl.

That said, if your personal preference is sticking to commons and you don't wish to budge from that position I'll respect your decision.

So much for keeping an open mind and avoiding being elitists.

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See, preachy again.


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Where do you get preachy again from? That was my first post in this thread. Unless as an elitist you are assigning the sins of others to me.

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Strawman agrument. The fact that some people exploited the base system has nothing to do with this discussion. However I do agree that instead of being rewarded they should likely have lost those bases.


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So you will see me the strawman and raise me 2?

Let me just remind you that Sunstorm's post caters to the market not the marketeers. There is an unsubtle and important distinction there and your post shows me that though you may speak eloquently your guns are still pointed in the wrong direction.

Additionally the change that you bemoan and blame us for impacted us as well.

Converting base salvage into components for use by the base builder was a great assitance in getting the badges required to getting the portable invention table. Some of the current problems you cite are directly related to having to do much more different kinds of crafting (and using up salvage for things that not nearly enough players use [like taunt IOs]) to get that badge and it affects not only the marketeers that are crafters but the badge hounds as well.

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Had the developers left the base salvage alone or allowed base salvage to be sold for prestige instead of inf, the market section would not be facing the level of animosity in this section.

The market is also cited as the reason that we can't store recipes. Additionally the market is cited as to why we cannot mail items and inf (admittedly this only by players).


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And exactly what influence do you think the marketeers had in that? We had no more control over that than you did. Your animosity while it may be warranted is most assuredly misdirected.

You can store recipes in your market slots more recipes than you can carry since they will stack if they are identical. If you hate the market so much it's pretty obvious that you aren't using those transaction slots for their intended purpose and since the devs removed the 60 day rule your can use that storage with out any fear of loss.

Additionally both merits and tickets do give you "recipe storage" of sorts. You can now hold 9,999 merits on each character that's 1 merit short of 400 random rolls.

Edit - before you go all technical on me and say that random rolls are not storage please consider that for 250 merits or less you can purchase from a merit vendor the exact recipe you want at the exact level you want. That is 39 exact recipes you can store for as long as you wish to carry the merits no matter how you may want to twist it

None of those things are good for the market health though they can be useful to both marketeers and non-marketeers.

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Sadly, for every person like Fulmens, I can name at least a half dozen that give the entire market section a bad odor elsewhere. Just like PVP trash talk, having someone crow about how they "stuck it to someone" only causes resentment in other players.


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Oddly enough this is true for every section of the game and forums. This forum not withstanding. Fulmens nor I have any more control over their actions than you do. Again, your animosity is misdirected.

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Except it was the wrong way to do so.


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I see, so as a poor, second class citizen, marketeer that doesn't understand elitist protocol, trying to extending a hand and making the grevious error of extending the left hand when it should have been the right or palm up instead of palm down calls for an increase in misdirected animosity rather than a bit of understanding.

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To make matters worse for the market section, some base builders are upset with loosing the ability to store 2,470 pieces of salvage with the Issue 13 changes. Some base builders are upset that we are pretty much forced to use the market system to craft the items for our base (somewhat lessened now thanks to the Architect). This is because instead of having a special salvage that the group can freely donate, we have to compete with all the other uses for invention salvage. The leading competitor is the market because invention salvage sells for so much.


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Again why are you upset with the market section? What control exactly did we have over that? As I mentioned above that hit us nearly as hard as you for portable table crafting requirements.

As far as being upset having to use invention salvage to craft base equipment your animosity is misdirected. There were no increase in drop rates to compensate for the invention salvage base builders are now taking out of the invention system. Should I be upset with you and this section of the forums and take my gripe out on you because you are taking salvage that I should be making inventions with, out of the system to craft your base teleporters?

The spike in demand from that event and the price increase due to the sudden scarcity was clearly "your" fault for having the temerity to use "my' invention salvage.

Should I also be uspet at the players that used to use component salvage for base empowerments now "wasting" "my" invention salvage for a temporary buff when "I" should be using it to craft a permanent enhancement?

Should I be upset with them for using up invention salvage and reducing the supply and thereby incereasing the price both you and I have to pay for it?

What you are blaming me for is no more my fault than the above is yours. Only the point of view has been changed. The shoe is on the other foot and it looks pretty funny with my work boot on your pedicured tootsies.

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Then there are those that do treat the market system as PVP. There are also others that oppose suggestions based only on the market's health.


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Yes and so what does this stawman have to do with any thing. If you want to go there bases were originally intended for PvP use.

I13 caused base raiding to be turned off because the pathing intefered with the base revamp and decorating bases.

Should the people in the PVP Base section of the forums be upset with you?

After all "your" changes to the game have completely prevented the thing that "they" find fascinating about the game from being done.

Base raids in PvP bases don't exist right now. Your section of the game still works though I13 changed it. You got increased function while they got shut down. Should they blame you?

Let me just leave you with this thought. Had the devs implemented inventions with out the market just how easy would it be to IO out your toon?

You wouldn't be able to trade cross server. You wouldn't be able to trade in different zones. You'd have to join a trading channel just to have a chance of transferring goods and that wouldn't even get you in touch with all the people on the server and you'd both have to be logged in at the same time to make a trade.

It would be like HamiOs all over again. Inventions can't function with out the market and vice versa. Sure you can ignore one or the other but it makes doing one with out the other much more difficult. That is the market health the devs are talking about not the marketeers or the market section of the forums.

If you don't like the market and don't want to use it you don't have to all the tools are in place so that you can use inventions with out it. Flashback and other tools provided will even let you gather everything you need for base equipment with out setting foot in the market.

If that's too difficult for you, you can always go back to SOs we all went 8 issues without inventions and SOs still work fine. I have 2 SO'd 50s that I still play.

Anyway it goes though there's no call for "you" to be mad at "me" for changes that someone else made and I have no control over.

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4.) Force Bubble's one of the goofiest powers the devs ever designed. It's nucking futs to think that the single target heavy hitters, like Cosmic Burst, don't have the base range to reach out FB's edge

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It's my believe that Force Bubble was the devs' attempt to create a "Wall of Force" power, a barrier that foes could not penetrate that could be used as a shield by the team. Unfortunately, there is no such barrier, and thus the mechanism of repel had to be used in its stead.

Therefore, because of the speed of movement of most foes, the time between tics of the repel, and the possibility that a foe may be resistant, it has to have such a huge radius because that is the only way to ensure it will keep foes out of its center 99% of the time. This is, to my mind, the largest flaw with the concept. (Now, if it slowed foes trying to enter it, it could be a smaller radius...)

I agree that Castle would never introduce any major changes, but minor tweaks, like adding DefDebuff resistance to the existing bubbles, shouldn't cause any "cottages".

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Then, logically, it sounds like Force Bubble should have a large - range component such that targets outside the bubble could NOT reach those inside the bubble. This effect could be turned off for PVP.

Targets would be pushed away and due to decreased range would be unable to hit those in the center. Taadaa, pseudo wall of force, no?

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No. That goes down to exposing an AT to no risk. Taunt now does what you are talking about but only for 5 targets max. Scrapper confront is the same but max of one target.

Doing this to force bubble would do it to ALL targets in the fight and those behind the defender could perpetually be in range of their own attacks and simultaneously out of the mobs range.

The devs eliminated 0 risk for ranged ATs that's why all the mobs in the upper level game have snipe or longer ranged attacks. They want even ranged boosted blasters to be exposed to "risk"

First to respond to the OP, no I have never used the influence to prestege conversion. It's not even close to reasonable.

As for the rest of this post sorry for the length and if you want the tl;dr version scroll down to the last line.

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To whom it may concern at this point,


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I believe that it's time to weigh in here as this is going completely down hill and a quite innocent question that sought only knowledge is being trashed and vilified by some of you. The OP, who is actually one of the Market Forums more altruisitc members, is being treated by some as little better than a terrorist.

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I think the Market is completely out of control, and that is because of the Marketeers that control it.


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My wife and I are the proud owners of a 15 million+ prestege base on Justice Blue side that houses only our alts. We started it back when the costs of plots, rooms and equipment were much more expensive and you had to decide between earning prestege OR influence.

It was extremely hard for us to get a functional base going AND enhance our alts. We literally had to choose between group earning or individual earning and not just for our personal base but for the large Public SG base that we also belonged to.

When the market was introduced we saw it as a huge boon. We could now stay in SG mode 100% of the time and sell our drops to allow us enough influence to slot out our toons at the same time. That's when I became a regular in the market forum.

I could have blamed all of the base building difficulty we faced on the PvPer's, the PvP base designers, or the Base builders here and loudly proclaimed that it was all their fault, that it was so time consuming and grindy for me to get a functional base let alone an asthetically pleasing one, but that would have been as completely inaccurate as the above is.

If you must lay blame, put it where it belongs, in the hands of the people who actually have control of the code, the devs.

I could have claimed that magic desks and magic doorways were "exploits" and the base builders that used them should be banned and get all bent out of shape that they actually wrote GUIDES to teach other people how to use the "exploits" but I didn't.

I took it at face value that some folks had learned an easier way to do something and wanted to share with the other folks in game, to help them, and save them the trouble of learning the hard way.

Most of the folks in the market forum are just doing the same things that you all are. Congratulations you on your successes, sympathizing with your failures, and teaching the open minded how to do something better or easier with out having to learn the hard way.

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The Devs cator to them, like this is a new form of PVP, as referenced several times above.


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This statement is so bereft of facts that it is painful.

The devs do not cater to the marketeers. The devs have NEVER made a single post in the Market Forums since it's inception. We have been asking for several things that are quality of life issues and would help both new and old players get more out of the market with less effort.

The only post that a red name has made in the Market Forums EVER that had something to do with the market was Ex Libris. She made one post and she was posting on Positron's behalf. (Tell me why, if the devs cater to the market, that Posi couldn't be bothered to come in to even type his own post.)

Long and short of it all, the official post we got from "Posi" via Ex was that we weren't getting any of the things that we were asking for. She continued on her own behalf to let the folks in the market forums know that on her personal account she used the market in the EXACT way that the market haters hate.

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I use the Market to IO my toons because there is no other way to accomplish that task.


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There are lots of other ways to IO out your toons. Run taskforces and story arcs your self for merits and recipies. Use the Mission Architect in the same way to earn tickets and get recipe rolls. Trade amongst the members of your super group.

What you are really saying is the market is the Easiest and Fastest way to do that but you hate the idea of wasting your time learning how to do that either efficiently, inexpensively, or patiently and the devs should have created a store for your convenience. There are several market folks that have written guides so that you don't have to go to the trouble of learning the fastest or most efficient way to "Purple out your warshade as a casual player" but your response isn't thanks for the help it's "you guys suck, you are the reason that every thing costs so much." It's much the same as you blaming the doctor for being unable to cure a terminal illness.

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I have said, and will always say that the prices are extremely excessive, giving the rate people can earn Inf, and drops in the game.


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Market folks like numbers, human psychology, and like to be able to verify facts. We wondered at the inception of the market why prices were what they were. Some of the market folks decided to gather some data and see.

What was discovered was that even a non-damage dealing Arch type can make roughly a million influence an hour soloing at level 50. I participated in that research with an SO'd Forcefield/Psi/Psi defender (not an AT and combo known for massive damage)and I was able to come in consistantly at 750,000 - 1,000,000 inf an hour.

It's not hard at all for a damage dealing Arch type like a blaster or a scrapper to pull in 2 - 3 million in an hour . Most farming builds can pull in 5 - 7 million an hour and one power gaming Fire/kin player was able to pull in an excess of 20 million per hour.

So with a little quick, dirty, and not perfectly accurate math: The ITF is the merit standard for recipe rolls equalling 1 roll in an hour. If anyone can earn a million in an hour at level 50 then any particular recipe should be worth 1,000,000 at level 50. Except you don't want what ever that recipe is. Your scrapper isn't going to get much use from that Sting of the Manticore recipe. If there are 74 recipes in the drop pool and only one of those is an LotG +7.5 you won't get one every time you run a task force. If you have to run a task force 20 times to get that LotG then it should be worth 20 million right? Except there are 74 recipes in the pool not 20. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to actually figure out why those things cost so darn much.

Building on that its not hard to figure out why luck charms are 50-70,000 a piece. Someone with a level 50 has a level 7 alt they want to twink with level 10 accuracy IOs. They get out the 50, go sneeze on a dozen minions, walk to the market and plop down 50k each for the luck charms with out so much as batting an eye. It's not the marketeers. Real marketeers don't bother with margins that are so low. Transaction slots are finite. Luck charms are not something that gives a good return for the opportunity cost.

Once a level 50 is fully enhanced with what ever the owner wants then, any time that 50 plays he creates influence that never has to leave the game. He doen't need to spend it unless he wants to. It's similar to having a printing press in your basement and being able to crank out as many dollar bills as you care to take the time to produce. Having more influence available to spend means that people don't mind spending more and this is how inflation (and price increases) occur.

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This whole thread appears to me an attempt to get all us Base Builders to join them, and help drive prices even higher.


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Yes, it was an attempt for understanding, reaching across the isle, and getting base builders to join but not to raise prices. To lower them. An influence sink is a way that games like this remove most of the excess influence that is being produced like I demonstrated above. This game has a total of 5 influence sinks. Costume changes, difficulty setting changes, market fees, converting influence to prestege, and buying enhancements whether it be SOs or spending the crafting costs to create IOs (that don't degrade and never need to be replaced, compounding the possible problem of inflation.)

Some of us wanted to know if the influence to prestege conversion was being used enough to be effective at removing some of the excess influence. Why is that you ask? Because high prices harm low level and new players more than any other. It becomes a barrier to entry. How many times have you seen a player post, "50,000 for a luck charm? By the time I've got 50,000 I'll be high enough level that I won't need the luck charm!" Players that face this situation may decide to spend their real life gaming money on another MMO instead because something like this happened as one of their first impressions of the game. This harms all of us that enjoy this game. More players mean more real life cash for game development, it means more and larger teams, more team mates, more SG members able to earn enough prestege to explore the fun that can be had by base building and the joy of constructing a larger, more elaborate and more beautiful base.

We were hoping we could join with the base builders (since you folks actually DID get some attention from the devs in I13, a trick we certainly haven't been able to pull off)in requesting that the devs actually LOOK at making the influence to prestege conversion WORTH using to take some of the excess influence out of the system and help reduce prices for the brand new player AND make it easier on the brand new base builder to get a fuctional and even elegant base a little faster and a little easier than we all were able to do for ourselves, but I guess that was too much to hope for.

I may be a marketeer first but I am assuredly a base builder second as my wife has made it my responsibility (mainly be refusing to do any of it herself )to keep our base on red side as well as blue, both functional and beautiful. This issue affects all of us both base builder and marketeer.

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I did pretty good building my Base/SG with me and three folks I know. I'm on the second to the largest Secured Plot.

As I said up-thread I only Convert if I need a little more Prestige to finish a project, and convert only what I need.

My SG is where it is because of dedicated players. Not the Market, or the Conversion Factor.

I don't want to become a Marketeer.

No thanks.

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Thanks for keeping an open mind.

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4.) Force Bubble's one of the goofiest powers the devs ever designed. It's nucking futs to think that the single target heavy hitters, like Cosmic Burst, don't have the base range to reach out FB's edge

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It's my believe that Force Bubble was the devs' attempt to create a "Wall of Force" power, a barrier that foes could not penetrate that could be used as a shield by the team. Unfortunately, there is no such barrier, and thus the mechanism of repel had to be used in its stead.

Therefore, because of the speed of movement of most foes, the time between tics of the repel, and the possibility that a foe may be resistant, it has to have such a huge radius because that is the only way to ensure it will keep foes out of its center 99% of the time. This is, to my mind, the largest flaw with the concept. (Now, if it slowed foes trying to enter it, it could be a smaller radius...)

I agree that Castle would never introduce any major changes, but minor tweaks, like adding DefDebuff resistance to the existing bubbles, shouldn't cause any "cottages".

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I do remember reading that about the force wall concept in a dev post (I think one of Castle's) at one time or another.

Cutting Force bubble's radius to 20 and doubling the frequency at which it ticks "should" provide much the same repel protection to the squishies as the current version. It would also have the added benefit of allowing the melee preferring players to benefit from both Force Bubble and Dispersion Bubble rather than be annoyed by one and no longer protected by the other.

Only the force fielder would incur much additional risk as the other squishies could be further behind the FFer rather than in front of the FFer.

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A Lysome
Undermined Defenses End/rech
Undermined Defenses Rech
Achilles Heel chance for resistance debuff.

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For the Inventions uneducated, what's that in equivalent enhancement values? Say, in compared to SOs or commons? I'm not really sure what those do

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This will give you:

33.3% more accuracy. (That's 118.5% with Unenhanced TD running.)
33.3% more defense debuff (that's 18.7% defense)
26.5% end durance discount. (Dropping it to 8.43 end per activation)
68.9% more recharge. (That makes it recharge in 26.6 seconds rather than 45 seconds, without hasten)

The Achilles heel proc gives you a 20% chance to do an additional 20% resistance debuff and the 2 pieces of Undermined Defenses gives you a 2% global damage increase (this aplies to ALL your non-pet/psuedo pet damage powers except those powers unaffected by outside damage buffs)

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If it were me targetting drone would also have some extra +to hit slotted in it.

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Well, the stuff I fight is even con or +1, which puts them at a worst case scenario of base to-hit of 0.65. With the ~14% to-hit buff from Targeting Drone base and 42.4% accuracy slotting, I'm actually overshooting the cap to ~123% before rounding. I lost my to-hit formula rig when I switched computers, but I'd say I'd need at least 15% defence on the enemy to start feeling the effects at all, and at least 20% to drop below the magic 90%. A lot more when we facto in Surveillance's defence debuff, more like 25-30%, which is actually around the level of things like Earth Thorn Caster Stone Skin, I believe.

What do you do with the to-hit buffs and defence debuffs on yours?

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Using 3 slots in TD and with 3 end red SOs reduces it's end cost to .16 end/sec.

Slotting 3 Cytos in TD gives .16 end/sec AND raises the hit buff from 13.9 to 21.6%. TD gives a 55.4% resistance to to hit debuffs which means that dark and rad powers can still cost you a good chunk of your acc.

You mentioned Earth Thorn casters and I mention this because Earth Thorns are usually accompanied by Spectrals which means you can be debuffed AND trying to hit armored targets at the same time.

It doesn't cost you any extra slots for the increased performance and there are times that it can be useful.

Slotting the end/hit buff parts of the hit buff invention sets allows you to get similar increased performance from this power prior to when you can slot HOs.

Having a bit of extra accuracy in Surveillance lets you actually hit a hard target with it and apply your extra defense debuffs and reduce their resistances. Things like Rikti Drones and MoG'd Paragon Protectors come to mind.

Also the defense debuff from Surveillance is a click. That means that if you subsequently get mezzed TD supresses but the extra def debuff from Surveillance remains for its duration which helps since you only get burst, slug and your tier 1 secondary to finsh them off with in that case.

Also pick up some accolades. There are several that give you permanent +Hit points.

Picking up Taskforce Commander, Portal Jockey, and Freedom Phallanx will you give you a total permanent hit point increase of 20%

Most mobs deal some smashing or lethal damage. If you pick up Resilience and Tough you can get 20-25% resistance to these 2 damage types. Cutting down on incoming damage gives your regen rate the time it needs to do it's job.

Later on you can pick up additional defense and resistance from Invention set bonuses.

Given your conditions I would slot it with:

A Lysome
Undermined Defenses End/rech
Undermined Defenses Rech
Achilles Heel chance for resistance debuff.

It's a good power to use on Boss class and higher mobs.

If it were me targetting drone would also have some extra +to hit slotted in it.

Franken slotting the End/Hit buff pieces from different hit buff sets would be a good way to go. It's cheap and gives you more performance out of the same number of slots.

You could also slot Cytos if you are level 47 or higher but that's not a cheap approach.

The one that kills everything in the mission, with out dying, using your own playstyle preferences.

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I got a Steadfast Res/Def this weekend from a solo mission with two bosses in it on my lvl 19 Tank. I was thinking at the time that those only dropped in TF, but this explains it.

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Steadfast Res/Def is a pool A uncommon recipe tha exists in the level range of 10-30.

Pool A drops are mob drops which means that any non-pet class mob between level 7 and 33 that is capable of dropping recipes can drop one of these.

The level of Pool A recipes is determined by mob level (+/-3)rather than player level.

Pool C recipes are determined by the actual character level rather than exempted level.

Prior to merits Pool D levels were determined by your exempted level.

When you roll random PoolC/D at the merit vendor the final recipe level is determined by:

1) Your character level.
2) The level range that you selected to roll in (you can exclude some recipes sets completely by making appropriate choices here)
3) The min/maximum level that the recipe exists at.

If the recipe exists at your level that is the level you will receive it at. If it caps out prior to your current level you will receive the recipe at the maximum level that it can exist.

If the recipe exists only at a higher level than you currently are (you can roll in the 35-39 range as soon as you can slot level 35 IOs which would be level 32) you would get the minimum level recipe in that case. (Sting of the Manticore recipes begin at level 35 and unless they have fixed the bug you have to be level 33 to slot level 35 Sting of the Manticore enhancements)

I don't know if the Pool C/D recipes from boss drops uses the Pool A rules (mob level +/-3) or the Pool C rules (your actual level) perhaps someone else could enlighten us on that point.

That's looking very much better. It's good enough to use a a guide to follow as you level up, see how the powers perform and which powers best suit your play style.

You can tweak individually as you go along.

For Stealth IOs for Sprint. Celerity +Stealth and Unbounded Leap +Stealth are the choices. Unbounded leap are usually cheaper but make sure you take the time to scout prices in higher and lower level ranges.

Stealth IOs always provide the same level of benefit no matter what level they are. The level on a stealth IO makes very little difference, only what level you have to be to slot it.

As long as you still have the power it's slotted in available to you when exemplaring the Stealth IO will function even if it's a level 50.

Also look at costs of both buying a pre-crafted IO and buying the recipe, the salavege, and assembling it yourself. It is usually much cheaper to buy and build rather than just buy.

Also use patience when at the market. It's not very hard to come up with things for 80% of the going rate if you are willing to wait a week or 2 for your bid to fill.

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The problem with scrapper primaries and secondaries is that none of them suck.

Same question on just about any other AT board would get you some decent answers.

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Troof. Scrapper Primaries and Secondaries (especially the secondaries) are the best balanced they have ever been in the history of the game.

Edit - now if they would just give us a bit more selection in Epics, Scrappers would go from gold to platinum.

//Dark for Epic is perfect for synergy.

The reason that some epics have more powers is that in I13 the devs decided to retool many epic pools and "replace" the little used powers in these pools.

There was a great (and not unreasonable) outcry from the portion of the player base that actually used the little used powers and the devs made the smart choice and "added" the new powers to the Epics rather than replacing the old powers.

There may well be more added Epic powers to the not yet touched pools some time in the future.

Well now you've gone over board a bit on accuracy.

Usually for most powers (base 75% accuracy) 1 Acc, 3 damage, and 1 rech, 1 end are good if you are fighting even con and +1 level enemies. Some powers have a lower base accuracy, like controller AoE immoblizes (base of 67.5%), and always need 2 accuracy enhancements. Some powers like Char in the Fire Epic have a 90% base accuracy and can get away with a single Acc enhancer even vs. +3s.

If you are fighting +1s and +2s then you can usually get away with a single acc enhancement and alternate Aim and Build Up for the to hit buff (the hit buff in these 2 powers are affected by power boost) and fill in with yellow inspiration.

If you are going to be fighting +2s and +3s or higher most of the time you will want 2 Acc enhancements in each of your powers. The main reason for this is Purple Patch and mob ranks reducing your effective accuracy.

Mids will tell you the base accuracy on each of your powers and the totals after slotting so you can make adjustments. Anyway you go though there is a floor and a ceiling. You always have a 5% chance to hit something (the floor) and can never have a higher than 95% chance of hitting something (the ceiling).

If you want a more detailed and much more math intensive look at accuracy, defense and to hit I'd reccomend that you read Arcanaville's guide to defense.

Some low end cost powers or very long recharging powers can get away with no end reducers and on the flip side some fast recharging high end cost powers may need 2 end reducers and no recharges to fit well with your playstyle and attack chain.

Also don't be afraid to slot inventions early. There are several good guides in the market forums on how to get started. I'd recommend Capn_Canadian's - IO's for Newbs, Casual Playas, & Cheapskates , Peterpeter's - The No Numbers Guide to I9 for the Casual Player , and Fulmens - The Viva Las Vegas Intermediate Guide To IO's.

You can also find most anything you need to know in Guide to Guides, that Zombie_Man is awesome about keeping up to date each issue.

@Besserwisser

I know what you are talking about my main is an Energy/Energy/Force Blapper I created right at the end of I4. That blapper has about 7% total defense and spends 95% of the time in melee range.

I also like having other options and getting to use other play styles. I have an Arch/Energy/Ice Hover blaster that is soft capped on ranged defense and some where in the 30s to AoE. That toon AoEs to death, from range, most every thing but bosses before they can even think about getting one or two shots off.

@Largo

4 pieces of Kinetic Crash give you 3 points of KB protection not 4 and the 2 pieces that you need Acc/Knock and Acc/Dam/Knock can be a bit on the pricey side. 3 points isn't quite enough, some grenades and a few other attacks will still get through that mag of -KB. 4 points is enough for most every thing except some AVs, Fake Nems, Croatoa Witches, and Hami. You need 11 or more for Fake Nems (10 makes it KD) 12 or more for Croatoa Witches and 13 for Hami. Scirocco will still KB you though 13 points.