Muon_Neutrino

A recap of all of the stuff from the blog that's *new*:

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In-game mail enhancements include image attachments.

i17 new enemy is 'doppelgangers', which apparently look like your character - or the whole team, if you're grouped up.

Praetoria zones are 'Nova Praetoria', 'Imperial City', 'Neutropolis', and 'The Underground'. Nova Praetoria is apparently where Emperor Cole hangs out.

Besides groups we already knew about like the praetorian police, clockwork, resistance, seers, syndicate, and ghouls, there will be another enemy revealed this summer.

Confirmation that demon summoning will hit at the same time as i17. Video on newsarama on monday.

Two *more* new powersets: Kinetic melee for stalkers, brutes, scrappers, and tanks, and electric control for controllers and doms. Video of kinetic melee and pics of electric control will be on the site 'early next week'

Statement that 'all ten basic ATs get a new powerset with this expansion' - if they're counting dual pistols and demon summoning, those two plus kinetic melee and electric control cover everyone, so that does *not* necessarily mean more powerset proliferation.

Issue 19 is 'Incarnates'. The 'incarnate system' is 10 'incarnate levels'. The first level will be available in GR, along with at least some 'incarnate abilities'. The other 9 levels, more abilities, 'new rewards, new zone events, and the "end game system"' will be in issue 19. Are the 'incarnate levels' the end game system or not? GR will be required to play the end game system, so that suggests that the end game system would be separate from the incarnate levels thing.

Q&A stuff:

GR as a concept has been around since at least issue 6, but they weren't happy with their ability to pull it off tech-wise at that time.

Praetorian hamidon is contained, not defeated, and we won't see him, 'at least not yet'.

PvP changes are something that is 'on the slate', but a few issues off. Base raids and items of power 'are also planned on being repurposed but fixed'.

Markets will still not be merged with GR, but 'individual problems will be adressed for characters that are switching' (whatever that bit of marketing-speak means).

For supergroups, if a member swaps sides, they are temporarily removed. If they switch back, they are (automatically?) back in with all prestige included. You MAY be able to join a villain group along with a hero group, but that apparently hasn't been decided for sure yet.

War witch says that they do revisit old zones sometimes, but only when it makes sense - they like making new zones a lot more.

Difficulty won't go up much in going rogue, but "you'll like the incarnate system".

i17 includes vigilance revamp for defenders to 'make them solo better'.

Stories that mention praetoria will get updated in i19 'to reflect the events that happen in Praetoria between now and then'.

Fans wondering about no market merge, devs say there are reasons with database issues that would create problems.

Q: "Any plans for other games in the COH universe, like single player games?" A: "We can't comment on future plans other than what we've talked about here."

More MA maps *are* coming with i17 and GR, but no exact amount given.

There are other new powersets "on the whiteboard" for future use (blogger used the term 'future expansions', but we don't know if a dev actually used those words), includes 'staff use'.

ZOMG i19 is called 'Incarnates'! :O

Ahh, incarnates is the 'endgame' system, must be.

Ooooh two MORE new sets!

Kinetic melee for melee ATs, and electric control for trollers/doms!

And more powerset proliferation! Yay!

And closed beta in the 'next few weeks' - which means i17 will have to hit before that, too!

Alright, here is the basic build I've whipped up. I will stress that this is a framework and a basic outline, no more. I haven't gone over this with a fine-toothed comb to wring every last drop of efficiency out of it. That said, it should be more than enough to give a basic idea of what powers I consider important, how I would slot them with SOs (I usually use set IOs myself), and roughly what levels I would take them at.

Regarding specific design decisions, the most notable is that I put off super jump (of course, you can substitute whichever travel power you like best) until 35. In my opinion, this combo just has too many good powers available early on to jam in a travel as well, but that is personal preference. If you want to move things around to fit it in earlier, powers you could put off until later might include power boost or stone prison. Also, since you've been gone for a while, you probably aren't aware of the 'super boosters' - basically, special origin-themed packs of costume pieces and other minor goodies, available for 10$ each. The 'natural' booster is ninja-themed, and includes a power called 'ninja run', which is basically about half of super jump and super speed, combined. A great many people are using it as a substitute for a 'real' travel power, especially since it unlocks for all of your characters at level 4. If you don't mind spending 10$, using ninja run until you get super jump would also be a viable path.

I chose mu mastery simply because I think it has a nice variety of useful tools, the radial (as opposed to a cone like leviathan has) AoE meshes well with the radial AoEs you already have, and red lightning is cool. Of course, that choice is completely up to you. Leviathan for water spout/hibernate or soul for soul drain are also good options, and while I'm not a fan of the mace or the redraw it entails, mace for PFF and poisonous ray may also be useful. You may also wish to spend one of your level 40+ slots on hasten, if you didn't take super speed, since you have all these controls (plus your inherent!) that are on long recharge timers.

I used generic IOs for simplicity. Everywhere you see a level 25 generic IO, you can substitute an SO easily. The level 50 generics in ball lightning, charged armor, and surge of power are there for a reason, however. Level 45 or 50 generics have significantly better enhancement percentages, which is what lets me get away with only 2 resistance in charged armor or 2 damage in ball lightning.

Without further ado, the build. Afterward I'll include some more general comments on playing a dominator.

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Smashing things with hammers for SCIENCE!: Level 50 Science Dominator
Primary Power Set: Earth Control
Secondary Power Set: Earth Assault
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Fossilize -- Acc-I:25(A), Acc-I:25(3), Hold-I:25(5), Hold-I:25(7), RechRdx-I:25(17), RechRdx-I:25(40)
Level 1: Stone Spears -- Acc-I:25(A), EndRdx-I:25(3), RechRdx-I:25(9), Dmg-I:25(36), Dmg-I:25(37), Dmg-I:25(48)
Level 2: Stone Mallet -- Acc-I:25(A), EndRdx-I:25(5), RechRdx-I:25(9), Dmg-I:25(25), Dmg-I:25(37), Dmg-I:25(43)
Level 4: Tremor -- Acc-I:25(A), EndRdx-I:25(7), RechRdx-I:25(17), Dmg-I:25(36), Dmg-I:25(37), Dmg-I:25(46)
Level 6: Quicksand -- RechRdx-I:25(A), RechRdx-I:25(50)
Level 8: Swift -- Run-I:25(A)
Level 10: Hurl Boulder -- Acc-I:25(A), EndRdx-I:25(11), RechRdx-I:25(11), Dmg-I:25(31), Dmg-I:25(36), Dmg-I:25(46)
Level 12: Stalagmites -- Acc-I:25(A), Acc-I:25(13), Dsrnt-I:25(13), Dsrnt-I:25(15), RechRdx-I:25(15), RechRdx-I:25(40)
Level 14: Health -- Heal-I:25(A)
Level 16: Power Boost -- RechRdx-I:25(A), RechRdx-I:25(42), RechRdx-I:25(50)
Level 18: Earthquake -- RechRdx-I:25(A), RechRdx-I:25(19), RechRdx-I:25(19)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I:25(A), EndMod-I:25(21), EndMod-I:25(21)
Level 22: Heavy Mallet -- Acc-I:25(A), EndRdx-I:25(23), RechRdx-I:25(23), Dmg-I:25(25), Dmg-I:25(34), Dmg-I:25(43)
Level 24: Stone Prison -- Acc-I:25(A)
Level 26: Volcanic Gasses -- Acc-I:25(A), Hold-I:25(27), Hold-I:25(27), RechRdx-I:25(31), RechRdx-I:25(34), RechRdx-I:25(42)
Level 28: Seismic Smash -- Acc-I:25(A), EndRdx-I:25(29), RechRdx-I:25(29), Dmg-I:25(31), Dmg-I:25(34), Dmg-I:25(43)
Level 30: Combat Jumping -- Jump-I:25(A)
Level 32: Animate Stone -- Acc-I:25(A), Dmg-I:25(33), Dmg-I:25(33), Dmg-I:25(33)
Level 35: Super Jump -- Jump-I:25(A)
Level 38: Fissure -- Acc-I:25(A), EndRdx-I:25(39), RechRdx-I:25(39), Dmg-I:25(39), Dmg-I:25(40), Dmg-I:25(46)
Level 41: Power Sink -- RechRdx-I:25(A), RechRdx-I:25(42)
Level 44: Ball Lightning -- Acc-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(45), Dmg-I:50(45), Dmg-I:50(45)
Level 47: Charged Armor -- EndRdx-I:50(A), ResDam-I:50(48), ResDam-I:50(48)
Level 49: Surge of Power -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(50)
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Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Domination


Ok, so now you've got your dominator. How do you best set about wreaking havoc with him?

Dominators, in my book, tend to play somewhat similar to blasters. Neither AT has much of anything in the way of *passive* damage mitigation, so they both have to rely on active and preemptive mitigation through mezzing and defeating foes before they harm you. While they share primaries, I find that they don't really play like controllers - they have a much more 'flat out' and 'on the edge of your seat' feeling.

In practical terms, this means that you have to actively apply mezzes and/or hammers-to-the-head to every foe you want to keep from attacking you. You need to get used to keeping an eye on the pulse of the entire fight, getting a feel for where mezzes will be needed, how soon they'll be wearing off and from which foes, and where the damage is likely to be coming from, all before any of it actually happens.

To me, playing a dominator is an exercise in exhilaration. If you're on your game, you're untouchable, but make a mistake and your lack of passive defense could easily see you splattered against the nearest wall. It's got all the excitement of playing a blaster, but with (usually! ) less debt. You're an offensive force with a hide of tissue paper - but as long as you keep it going, no one will get a chance to exploit that.

But make no mistake, you can splatter things just as much as you can be splattered. Dominators nowadays are pretty competent damage dealers, at least if you aren't too timid to wade in and use the melee attacks - and with /earth, you *will* want to use those beastly attacks. For me, playing a dominator in normal content is some of the most fun I've had in this game.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn't mention the downside - those annoying foes at the end of the normal content which is so much fun. Elite bosses which are downgraded AVs retain the AV mez protection (commonly called the purple triangles of doom, or PTOD), which makes them an absolutely royal pain in the butt for doms to solo. Basically, for 50 seconds out of every 75, they are effectively immune to every mez except immob and sleep. Even inside of domination, you're not realistically going to hold them. And since any uncontrolled EB is *easily* capable of ripping your face off in 25 seconds, let alone 50, that's a problem. Simply put, your primary is *not* capable of keeping you alive against the vast majority of PTOD EBs.

So what do you do in those cases? Well, that's where your insp tray comes in. If you know you're coming up on a PTOD EB fight, stock your tray with purples and reds. 4 small purples or 2 medium purples will cap your defense for 60 seconds, and loading up on reds will aid you in killing the EB before your purples run out. Medium purples are especially effective since you only need half the space, allowing you to go twice as long before running out. I stockpile these as I get them, keeping 4 on hand at all times and putting the rest in either my base or auction slots. You can also usually buy these on the market for reasonable prices - if you've used some, just place some bids for 5-10kish inf before you log out and you should have them next time you log in. PTOD EBs are certainly a nuisance (and some of them are more annoying than others, too), but they're definitely not deal breakers if you know how to handle them.

On the other hand, EBs which do *not* have purple triangles (the most common of which is probably the longbow ballista) are fun fights. They take 3 applications to hold (2 under domination), so it's doable but they'll likely get free if you miss - which to me makes it more of a fun challenge rather than an annoying slog.

Now, as for your inherent. I'm sure you've already figured out the basics, but just in case, I'll go over them. You will notice an extra bar under your health and endurance bars - this is your domination bar. It fills up as you use controls and attacks, and decays (very slowly) if you don't do anything. Once it reaches 90% full, you get a sparkly aura and the domination power itself becomes usable (assuming it's recharged from the last time you used it, anyway). Click that and you've got 90 seconds of awesome. While active, dominaton gives you mez protection, increases the magnitude of your mezzes so that you can more easily catch resistant mobs like bosses or fortunatas in one shot, and increases the duration of your mezzes to boot. When you click it, it also completely refills your endurance bar. It can even be used while you're mezzed, so it can act as a kind of breakfree, as well. It has a 200 second recharge, so by default it can be up for a maximum of 45% of the time - if you can find sufficient enemies to fill the bar before it recharges, anyway.

I find that I tend to build up domination and then hold it ready for dangerous situations. When you get mezzed without a breakfree, when that extra spawn comes barreling in from the side, when you've got a room just full of baddies staring you down, when that nasty (non PToD anyway) EB decides he wants your face for lunch, or when you find yourself out of end in a big fight - that's when I find domination most useful. You can, of course, use it whenever you want - and I would suggest doing just that until you get a feel for how long it lasts and what can do do with it. You'll also probably find yourself using it for endurance refills significantly more often during the pre-stamina levels.

While I find myself saving it mostly for emergencies, you can get away with defining 'emergencies' pretty broadly, because it doesn't take *that* long to recharge. In fact, the requirement to have enemies to beat on is actually usually more of a hindrance than the recharge is. As long as you keep the remaining stocks of foes in your mission in mind, you can easily use domination fairly often.

I wouldn't really worry about IOs yet, save that until you've gotten used to the game again and are ready for something new. There's no rush, SOs still work as well as they did before, after all. The only thing I would worry about for now in regards to the IO system is to sell your salvage and recipes on the black market to help fund your SOs. Just drop your stuff on, see what prices people are paying for them, and if it seems worth it, sell it. If you get a lucky drop, you could net millions of inf and set yourself up with SOs for a long time.

Alternatively, if you want to get slightly more ambitious, look into 'generic' IOs. These basically do the same thing as SOs, except their strength doesn't degrade as you level - you can use the same level 25 generics all the way to 50. Level 25 is where generic IOs equal the power of SOs, so I often slot those at 22 instead of SOs. A level 25 generic usually costs more than an SO (although making it yourself instead of buying it pre-made often lets you get it cheaper), but you'll usually save money in the long run since you don't have to replace it every 5 levels.

As to which powers to take, I would skip stone cages, salt crystals, and mud pots. Everything else from earth/ and /earth I would take. Doms don't get containment, so absent that need all stone cages is really good for is drawing copious amounts of aggro from immobilized but still shooting foes on to your squishy self. Salt crystals is just a mediocre PBAoE sleep, and mud pots has a tiny radius, minor damage, and totally redundant mitigation considering you shouldn't be meleeing unmezzed opponents anyway.

Slot fossilize, stalagmites, and volcanic gasses as controls - a mix of accuracy, mez, and recharge. All three are worthy powers to 6 slot. Stone prison is just for immobilizing pesky EBs - 1 acc is fine, add an end if you like. Quicksand should get 2-3 recharge and optionally 1-2 slow, depending on how many slots you have available. Earthquake only needs 2-3 recharge, and stoney should have 1-2 acc, 3 dam.

All of your attacks can be slotted more or less the same - 1 acc, end, and rech, 3 damage. Some people don't like tremor and hurl boulder on account of their longish animations, but I would say at least try them first - as you said, respecs are plentiful. If you end up not wanting to use hurl boulder, you could slot up stone prison as an attack and use it instead - it's damage is DoT, but it still does scale 1 damage overall. Power boost should get 2-3 recharge - its best use will be with stalagmites, so try to keep their recharges balanced.

Once I get back to my home computer later I can post what I would do for a leveling build, as well as some overall tips on dom playstyle.

Ill/rad is indeed a powerful solo character, and is generally accepted to be one of the more powerful controller combos overall. I wouldn't say that it needs to get to any particular level to get 'good' - while of course you will get more powerful over time as you gain new powers and better enhancements, you're pretty good from the get go. Ill has some nice early goodies with the extra attack and confuse, and rad's early blooming bag of tricks can easily carry you until you get the big illusion powers later on.

In terms of which powers to get fast, I would divide them up as:

Powers which must be taken, and as soon as possible:

Blind: nothing mysterious here, it's your single target hold. Its quirk is it has a chance to sleep foes which are effectively touching the foe you target, but the radius is so tiny it never really happens. To pay for this it has a 9 second recharge instead of 8 like most ST holds, but that penalty is minor. Being able to slot sleep sets as well as hold sets could have some interesting possibilities, but mostly it's just your ST hold. Slot accordingly - 2 acc, 2 hold, 2 rech is the default SO slotting.

Spectral wounds: a single target ranged attack with a twist. The way this power works is it does scale 1.64 damage - the damage equivalent of an 8 second recharge attack like power blast - while only having a 6 second recharge. However, after 10 seconds, scale 0.64 of the damage will heal back. But if you kill the foe before 10 seconds are up, you get to keep the extra damage, and either way it is a potent attack that a controller doesn't usually get this early. Slot as a normal attack - 3 dam, 1 acc, end, and rech is pretty standard.

Phantom army: one of the best control powers in the game. Spawns three invincible, taunting decoys that follow you around for 60 seconds, absorb large amounts of attacks, and also beat things up for you. Some of the damage they deal heals back, like spectral wounds, but they still deal a goodly amount (especially once enhanced). On SOs I'd slot 3 recharge, 2 dam, and an acc. One of the nice things about this pairing is that while phantom army's damage can't be increased by buffing them (since they ignore buffs), it can still be increased by debuffing the enemies, which rad is good at. Rad also includes AM to help PA recharge faster.

Spectral terror: your 'other' staple AoE control. It summons an immobile pseudo-pet that casts fear in an aura around itself, while also debuffing their tohit (which stacks with RI). It lasts 45 seconds and recharges in 45 seconds, so it's perma out of the box, and it really needs little slotting. It'll fear an entire group as long as you like, and really all you need to do is put a recharge in the default slot. This is what you use when PA is recharging.

Phantasm: your pet. Flies, shoots things with energy blasts, and summons an invincible taunting decoy of its own. The nice thing is that his decoy can be perma, as long as his AI doesn't spazz out and he casts it on time. He can help take some of the heat off of you with his decoy, and between his flight, decoy, and knockback he rarely dies. 1 acc, 3 damage is plenty enough slotting for him.

Radiation infection and enervating field: the toggle debuffs. RI debuffs defense and tohit, enervating field debuffs damage and resistance. RI makes the early game much easier and safer by allowing easy hits and mitigating far more damage than your controls can at that stage, and enervating field increases your kill speed. Just be careful not to lay them on a foe which will flee, since you can aggro other spawns easily. RI should be slotted 3 tohit debuff, 1 end, and enervating field just needs 1-2 end.

Accelerate metabolism: one of the best buffs in the game. Buffs damage, recharge, movement speed, endurance recovery, and mez/enddrain resistance, and no need to chase after everyone to buff them one at a time - plus it buffs you as well! The recharge is especially welcome since it helps PA come back faster. 3 recharge first thing, and 3 endmod later on if you have the slots.

EM pulse: one of the three best AoE holds in the game (EMP arrow and volcanic gasses are the other two). Compared to standard AoE holds, it has twice the radius, almost twice the duration, a 50% chance for mag 4 instead of 20%, standard accuracy instead of a 20% penalty, and the only downsides are a 5 minute recharge instead of 4 and 15 seconds where you can't recover endurance. 2 acc, 2 hold, and 2 rech and it will serve you well.

Powers which are good and should be taken at some point, but don't necessarily need to be taken instantly:

Deceive: a single target confuse. This can be used in two ways. The first is as an alternative to blind which also has a longer duration - basically, as an extra ST control. You can also try to leverage the confusion aspect - contrary to popular opinion, as long as you don't let confused foes kill each other entirely by themselves, you don't lose much XP. It doesn't need to be taken immediately, but I would still take it pretty early as it is quite helpful before you've got your AoE controls. Standard control slotting works, although you can get away with less because of its very long duration.

Flash: a 'normal' AoE hold. It doesn't have any of the advantages of EM pulse, but it's still useful. Having both flash and EM pulse actually leaves you freer to use both, since you know that if you use one, you still have the other ready for emergencies. Definitely don't take it until you can give it SO grade enhancements and a decent amount of slots, though, cause unenhanced it really is pretty poor.

One of the two invisibility powers: useful for stealthing missions, traveling through high level areas, and just generally sneaking around. For solo I would suggest superior invisibility, as it is less fiddly than group invis, but they both work. Take it when you have room.

Radiant aura: you have to take it, but that's OK, since you'd want it anyway. It's nothing earth shattering, but it is useful to top yourself (or your team) off after a fight. Healing is not the be-all end-all of mitigation in this game, but having the ability is useful. Slot for heal with a bit of endredux and recharge as well.

Lingering radiation: slow and -regen debuff. Mostly used against elite bosses and AVs, it's very useful when you need it, but not really needed most of the time. It's not a toggle, so it needs recharge, and it also needs accuracy.

Powers which might be occasionally useful, but are skippable:

Whichever invisibility power you didn't already take: while having an invis is useful, having two is pretty redundant.

Mutation: the ability to raise an ally is useful, but if you mostly solo it's hard to justify the power slot. Wakies can handle those duties if you do team occasionally.

Fallout: occasionally useful, but like mutation hard to justify if you rarely team.

Choking cloud: this is just relatively mediocre. Low accuracy, low magnitude, high endurance cost, and generally doesn't justify a power pick, especially since it's the only thing in either set that wants you to close to melee. A fire/ or ice/ controller would be able to stack it with their existing auras, but on an ill/, I'd just skip it.

Pool powers:

Two pool powers I would consider taking are air superiority and hasten. Air sup gives you another single target attack, which will greatly speed your solo killing, and it's not like held or confused baddies will be hitting you anyway. Hasten gets both AM and PA back sooner, so while I'm not a member of the 'always take hasten' crowd, it definitely is appealing here.

This would suggest taking either fly or super speed as your travel power, simply to save power slots. Both would work, of course - it's personal preference here.

Aside from these and stamina (which you *definitely* want), I wouldn't suggest taking many pool powers. Ill/rad has a lot of good primary and secondary powers, and things like leadership are of limited utility compared to them.

For ancillaries, I think any of them will work well. You get more attacks to help your soloing, an armor if you want it, and a couple of special abilities. Fire gets end recovery and a self-rez, ice gets an extra AoE and hibernate, primal gets power boost and conserve power, psi gets click mez protection and the useless wold of confusion, and earth gets a beastly melee attack and dull pain. All of them will serve well, I think. One thing to note is that illusion has no easy way to set up AoE containment, so AoE attacks aren't as good as you might think.

[edit: huh, that was my 1,000th post, didn't notice at the time ]

Eislor, I would indeed prefer to use sets such as obliteration, etc. The problem is that, looking at the market, a level 31 obliteration set seems to be running about 45 million *before* salvage and crafting. Add in another ~20 mil for the LoTG, aegis, and kismet, and you get 65 mil, which is about 4 times more (at least) than I've spent on my entire build so far.

If money were no object, I would certainly make use of sets like Oblit, LotG, and similar powerful sets. However, I made 40mil before this character was 20 by buying, crafting, and reselling a few IOs, and I expect that to be enough to fund her entire build, less perhaps the perf shifter proc. Having such a build means I don't need to worry about making money, which I prefer.

That's not a bug - it's just defaulting to PvP mode where it shows the PvP stats for powers, the base PvP resistance most ATs get, etc. In the upper right corner is a button where you can toggle between PvP and PvE modes. Just hit that and it'll go back to normal. I believe that they have said it will default to showing PvE stats in future versions to avoid this confusion.

Yeah, axe does get much more interesting weapon customizations than mace does. I still wish there was some sort of energy mace, the tech mace looks more like a piece of modern art than a weapon to me. I just want something that glows to match the rest of my tanker's costume.

I would go absolutely nuts with something like this. I don't tend to accumulate or spend large amounts of inf on my characters, so I habitually frankenslot and therefore don't worry much about set bonuses anyway. But some power categories have absolutely awful selections of sets for frankenslotting (curse you targeted AoE!), so I would be estatic if I could create a 'generic' dam/end/rech for my TAoE powers, for example. I often run into times where the dual or triple aspect set IO I want for my frankenslotting just doesn't exist - mez/rech for non-hold sets, TAoE triples, dam/rech for pets, anything/rech in slow sets, etc.

To implement, I wouldn't make these separate drops. I would have these be made by combining crafted generics in a special interface (probably add to the crafting tables). Thus you don't need to add any new recipes, don't need to dilute the drop tables, and don't need to worry unduely about them being hard to find.

I wouldn't necessarily make them tied to a specific type of power, like melee acc/dam vs ranged acc/dam. There are already so many possible enhancement combos that subdividing them again by power type would lead to an absolutely ridiculous number of possible 'generic set' IOs - remember, these would presumably be tradable on the auction house, so there'd have to be listings for them. I would simply make it so that you can't slot a multi-aspect generic into a power unless the power can take *all* of the enhancement types the generic is made from. Thus you don't have to worry about people sneaking in enhancement types they're not supposed to.

On most of my meleers, it's super jump because it requires little slotting, CJ provides an often-useful minor defense boost, and they can be slotted with BoTZ. It's also relatively concept-neutral and can be fairly easily waved away.

What I tend to use most often, though, is fly. It's one of the most iconic superpowers ever, and I really enjoy flying around. Air superiority is amazingly good for a pool attack and I often use it to fill out melee chains or for a bit of extra damage on controllers and the like, and hover is also often useful to avoid melee foes. The biggest reason, though, is that it's the only set-and-forget travel power. I play on a 4 year old laptop which (along with numerous other issues) has severe loading lag in outdoor areas, so the other travel powers frequently bring me to grief as I super speed off edges or fall from the sky into the middle of spawns due to my computer deciding to freeze for 5 seconds to load some random piece of geometry or texture. With fly it doesn't matter if my computer spazzes out.

Several of my newer characters, though, are forgoing normal travel powers in favor of swift+sprint+hurdle+ninja run. It only costs 1 power pick (whichever of hurdle or swift you weren't already planning to take) and is close to the effectiveness of super jump or super speed, which is great for characters with tight builds.

Problem is that if all three blow dom at the beginning of the fight, they might be screwed when it drops. It'll be down for nearly two minutes, and my guesstimations suggest it might be hard to maintain enough hold mag over that period if none of the three were in domination. It would heavily depend on exactly which holds the doms have and how they're slotted, of course.

Katana didn't get the broadsword or dual blades ones because neither of those models has a hilt long enough to accomodate two hands, which is required for the katana animations. BS and dual blades got the katana one because having too *long* of a hilt isn't a problem, but having too *short* of one is.

My question to you is: why a gaming laptop specifically? Will you actually be wanting to game frequently in different locations? Because if all you're wanting is to do some gaming at home, and also have a laptop to carry around when you want to do laptoppy things, I would personally get a desktop and a cheap netbook. My guess is that you could probably get roughly equivalent power out of a desktop *and* get the netbook for about what you'd spend on a gaming laptop.

I did what you are thinking of 3 years ago when I went off to college; I bought a relatively expensive, high powered laptop so that I could both play games and have a laptop to carry around. It worked well enough for a while, but now I'm sitting here with a laptop whose hardware is horribly out of date and can't be upgraded, whose battery has degraded enough to the point that it can't really be used as a mobile device anymore, and which wasn't ever *that* useful as a mobile device to begin with due to short battery life and high weight.

Netbooks didn't really exist at the time I made my purchase, but if they had, I think I would have been better off splitting the money I spent on this laptop between a netbook and a desktop. I would have gotten a laptop that was actually useful on the road, and a gaming platform that wouldn't have had the overheating problems my laptop has and would have actually been upgradable.

I am a relatively knowledgeable computer user but not a techie, I wouldn't really know where to start recommending specific laptops/computers, so take it with a grain of salt, but my opinion is that unless you are specifically looking to take your gaming platform on the road frequently, you might be better off with a desktop and a netbook.

The short answer is, "yes, but". Tohit debuffs and defense do go in the same place in the tohit equation. If you have 42% defense and your enemy is under a 3.75% tohit debuff, that does work out the same as 45.75% defense.

However, if I were looking to build for S/L def on a WP, I would most definitely not stop at 42% and hope the aura carries the rest of the way. First off, many of the foes you fight won't be in range of the aura 100% of the time - if you jump into a big spawn of council, for example, many will just stand on the fringes and shoot at you, out of range of your aura. Second, the effectiveness of the aura's debuff can be lowered by the purple patch. Against +3s, for example, your aura is down to about 2.5% debuff. Fight +4s and it's at about 1.8%. In other words, the mitigation offered by the debuff goes away when you need it most. Finally, relying on the aura to just barely hit 45% leaves you no margin at all against defense debuffs, which willpower has little resistance to.

For all of those reasons, I wouldn't rely on your aura's debuff for any real mitigation. I would instead just aim to hit 45% defense (and preferably 3-5% more) out of your own resources.

Yeah, I would take PGA over flash. As MM says, PGA isn't a control power. The sleep is low mag, unreliable, and easily broken. PGA is a damage debuff. The way I usually use it is to layer on top of the less hard controls such as earthquake, to make the few hits that leak through hurt less. It's no magic bullet (or arrow), but it does help.

A heroic nin stalker wouldn't be the same thing as a /nin scrapper at all. Basically, ninjitsu scrappers wouldn't be tied to the assassin strike/hide/placate mechanics, would consequently have much looser builds, have more HP and higher base damage, and thus would play entirely different. The closest you could really come would be to take a /nin stalker heroside, skip AS/placate, never use hide, and in general run around like a scapper with less HP who had 2 powers removed from his primary (including an AoE) and one removed from his secondary, and frankly I really don't want to do that.

Well, there is a way to *silence* some game sounds if you find them annoying. As this thread explains, you can put a '1 second of silence' sound file with the proper name in the proper place and the annoying sound won't play any more. Not quite what you're looking for, but I believe it's the most we're allowed to do at this point under the EULA.