MinMin

Yes, in all fairness, I didn't feel that Lemur Lad was attacking me personally at all. And he wasn't in possession of all the information anyway ie., I've already sent PMs to the community team on this issue.

But as far as talking for everyone goes, I did put this in my OP: "Obviously, the customer group who pays attention to these is not large, but I think we'd appreciate a slightly more professional approach." The "we" being the people who pay attention to these announcements.

Can we get better quality with these, please?

There does not seem to be a consistent format or any particular set time in advance for the announcements to occur. Obviously, emergencies are one thing, but surely planned installs can get a consistent announcement time.

The problem of not having a consistent format is obvious when you look at some of the annoucements over the last month. The times that are announced are not always given with links to timeanddate.com (last night's one), or given with wrong links (the 10th November one), or even a completely different time format (the 30th October one, CST instead of PST).

Obviously, the customer group who pays attention to these is not large, but I think we'd appreciate a slightly more professional approach.

Day 31 - Curse you Charlie!
Mr Stross is still keeping me from spending a lot of time on Capella, but I do get an hour or so in tonight. Newspapers and mayhem to unlock Hardcase and then a couple of his missions. A lot of people don't like this contact, but I've always enjoyed going up against Wailers and the "saving St Martial" thing has never really bothered me. When he sends me out of zone I take the opportunity to do the first couple of Kristof Jaeger's missions.

I now have Mynx lined up, which should be very interesting. Due to her immunity to immobs I've always found her a bit tough so she's a good measure of Dominator effectiveness.

Day 32 - Install
A late night at work means I attempt to get on about 5 minutes after the servers go down.

/Earth picks up with the Mallets and Seismic Smash, but it never really gets any good AoE attacks (still better than Energy though).

Personally, I'd consider /Fire. Plant doesn't need mitigation from its secondary and /Fire will give you great ST and good AoE with a terrific utility power in Fiery Embrace.

I've taken a Plant/Icy to 50 and that was a lot of fun. Icy Assualt s good all-round set with both good ST and AoE, but it's not the monster that Fiery Assault is.

Yeah, slotting Seeds with a little range is a good thing. I believe Malaise's Illusions has some range in it.

It's going to be tight.

My recommendation is to make sure that your travel power is Super Speed so that you don't have to take Hasten as additional pool power.

As for the powers in your primary and secondary:

Must
Dominate, Build Up, Lightning Bolt, Terrify, Mass Confusion, Charged Bolts

Good
Confuse, Mezmerise, Levitate, Static Discharge, Havoc Punch

Good, but either situational or skippable
Mass Hypnosis, Telekinesis, Total Domination, Charged Brawl, Zapp, Voltaic Sentinel

Bad
Thunder Strike

Of course, opinions may vary.

I'm a bit behind - this post is going to be a quick catchup.

Day 26 - Super Lollie Powers - ACTIVATE!
Wednesday is our VG event night and we'd previously decided to give the Halloween event a bit of a sendoff. By the time I get there, most of the festivities are over and we're trying to spawn Jack in Irons in Sharkhead. Unfortunately on this night we just spawn Eochai over and over with no appearance by Jack.

The piccies of all the debris left by the crystal-themed Earth Assault powers a few posts back come from various encounters with Eochai. The comments were something about a demented candyman and defeating Giant Monsters with lollie attacks. (Aussies and Kiwis tend to use the term "lollie" rather than "candy").

After the team reduces to the point where GMs aren't viable I get some help to take down Calystix which is much appreciated. Even with one extra person (and I had three), Calystix is much easier to take down.

Day 27 - Maintenance
I do manage to get on for about 45 minutes before maintenance and I used it to help out some friends doing L22 cape missions. After those we make a run at Ashley McKnight's CoT mission with all the bosses and the Guardians of the Amulets but we run out of time before maintenance to finish it.

Capella Rising does hit L30 and I take Crushing Field as an experiment.

Day 28, 29 and 30 - Busy weekend
For various reasons I don't spend much more than half and hour each on Friday and Saturday that may or may not relate to a new Charles Stross book. Sunday I do get to play for an hour or so, but I mostly solo while trying to educate a mate about Brutes. Much becomes clear when he realises that Energy Melee has changed a lot from how it used to be.

Capella Rising hits 31 and I get some much needed slots into Wormhole. Looking forward to Singularity at this stage.

It comes down to either a recharge build or a ranged defense build IMO and the benefits of a recharge build far out-weigh the ranged defense build.

Add in that when you get to a reasonable amount of recharge and Domination can be made permanent and I think that's a winner.

That's hilarious. My graphics settings are set to performance so I don't get to see that.

I've had a very positive response to my Grav/Earth one. I got quite a few comments on the thread while the rep comments were active and I've had good response in game too.

It's been a worthwhile experience and I recommend it. (Well, not the Grav/Earth )

No, no. Most of us are still IN the Asylum.

Most internet forums make you realize that internet access from mental hospitals is excellent.

Aussie heroes do that too.

I'm also thinking Aussie heroes know not to swim North of the Tropic of Capricorn unless they have high lethal and toxic resistance.

Day 24 & 25 - Not much happening
Various things IRL prevent me from getting on for long either day.

While I am on, I get Capella Rising through the Diviner Maros arc with only the final mission to complete. That means that I've had to defeat Metal Shift twice and it would be fair to say that I found that very hard going. His regen rate is only slightly outpaced by Earth Assault damage output, and when not in Domination, misses with Gravity Distortion are unforgiving.

I'm quite concerned about Calystix. I might need to actually bring a team for that one; which is yet another sign for me that this character is sub-par. Most of my Doms don't have an issue with the EBs in this arc.

Hi all. Niviene's latest announcement has tonight's maintenance hitting at 10pm Sydney/Melbourne and 9pm Brisbane.

That's not the case, her timeanddate.com URL is incorrect. It's actually an hour later than that.

We got off on a tangent when I suggested a ranged defense build of Earth/Earth would work for a Freak pile. Purely speculative though, and I'm happy to say that I'm mistaken.

All that being said, I'm not even sure that an AE Freak pile was the situation that the OP was intending to invoke.

It's probably still the best Dom option, although Fire/Fire may be close. Are you sure you want a Dom for this though? I've been told that Brutes do this better.

I have one Aussie-themed character at the moment: Min Min. She's the character in my avatar at the moment. She's more Oceanic in origin rather than in style though. As a blue-skinned mutant with glowing eyes even before her powers began to emerge, she picked up the Min Min name from her appearance in the dark. As in the Min Min lights. Her backstory has her as foreign student doing Metahuman Studies at Paragon U.

I used to have a much more aussie-themed character in Roo Shooter, a mutant kangaroo with a penchant for heavy weapons and advanced military technology. One of my favourite character concepts actually, but the AR/Dev Blaster is (or was; this was a fair while ago) a gimp's gimp and I really couldn't stomach playing it so he got deleted ages ago. I will probably remake him as a Traps/AR Defender or AR/Traps Corruptor at some point.

Day 23 - On and off
One of those days where I'm on and off all day but never for very long. I finish off the Ourobouros missions as well as the last couple of Lt Demitrovich and I start on Diviner Maros. Seismic Smash proves its worth and when I eventually ding 29 it really becomes a force to be reckoned with.

I do have one aesthetic issue at this point though:

Stone Spears ... SMASH.
Stone Mallet ... SMASH!
Heavy Mallet ... SMASH!!
Seismic Smash ... um ... where's the SMASH ... there should be a SMASH!!!

Can't argue with the maths; the numbers DO look impressive. But where's my SMASH sound effect and the screen shake?! One of the main reasons I've got this far is the sheer visceral pleasure of the Earth Assault melee powers, and this one is a big disappointment on that front.

So I'm heading towards 30 (albeit slowly, I think I'm 2 bubbles in), but at this point I'm not sure what to take at that level. I'm tossing around Crush, Crushing Field, Dimension Shift (ha!) and the Medicine or Teleport pools. If I take Medicine I'll probably skip Mud Pots, but I'm thinking I want to take it to see if I can make it work as a Proc holder.