PennyPA

For me, I see it as fair. What the AT looses solo is more than made up teamed. With my emp/psi def, if I put fort/CM/AB constantly on my friend's blaster when we duo, he is a killing machine that makes up for what we could do individually.

But an emp def is a buffer. A rad def is a debuffer. Can you balance an emp def to a D3 def which debuffs differently from a rad def? Or a cold/ice def with mix of buffs and debuffs? Just what code could be used to balance all this?

Edit: Just checking back in. I forgot to add that rad can buff with AM. Even my D3 def can buff with shadowfall. But in my experience, those powers are not what those powersets are known for. In other words, on my /rad corr, I have never seen a team go "Yay! We have AM and can steamroll AV's!"

Wow, this is tough...

For the most fun and just plain awesome, I got to say my widow. I do have her max'd out with IO's, though. Pre-I16, I would street hunt in RWZ with her against the higher level groups of mobs. Now I am finding the new diff settings really, really fun for missions.

However, for raw power, I have to go with my Bots/Storm MM. Something about soloing AVs and the destruction she causes. I still remember my 1st solo AV fight and having that "wow" feeling after winning.

Interestingly, both are red side. My blue side toons just don't give me that same powerful feeling as the two above.

I am sure others will same similar things, but it is not the profits, but what players will pay.
If a player list something way too high and it does not sell, they made no profit.
If a player list something way too high and it sells, they made a great profit off a buyer willing to pay the price. The seller only listed it at a price they would accept, there is no requirement to accept it as a buyer.

IMO, there are too many "I MUST HAVE IT NOW!" buyers and and items that are in short supply with high demand that make the prices go up.

A couple of experiences with 2 of my toons. My blaster was sitting at 42, on the shelf at the time, and had lvl40 SO's which weren't doing anything. A bit after IO's came out, I went and place 1111 bids for generic crafted IO's. I checked weekly because I knew there would be crafters dumping IO's to clear inventory. And after a month or so, I had all the IO's I needed. I even respec and got some infl back on the old SO's. If sellers accepted 1111, then that is what they got.

More recently, my widow has 3 purple sets (5 slotted). Expensive right? Well, I didn't think so. I put in low bids at the beginning of the year. And slowly over time by July, I had 14 of the 15 IO's I wanted - a few through drops and rest by bids. I had so much leftover inf, I just splurged and grabbed the last one to move on to the next toon. Except for the last IO, I don't think the sellers made exhorbitant profits.

Wow! I just said Buzz twice for the dual blades. Didn't know about that.

Try something like this? Looks like this player got advice and possible friends...just saying...

Ooo, now I want to make a bee toon!

woohoo!

I'll second this. I play regularly with a couple of friends and we did non-standard teams. Plus add in the new diff settings and you can pretty find a "sweet spot" for mobs and levels that work best for you.

And just tossing my 2 inf, MM's can be a bit difficult to learn if you choose that route. I strongly suggest the MM forum and checking the guides/advise. Two good fits would be /dark MM for that extra debuffing and cc to help the stalker out. Maybe another would be /PD MM for the buffs and some debuffing. The pets will draw the aggro and the stalker can come in and pick off mobs.

I have ran an all blaster LGTF. No issues, and recall only about a dozen or so deaths, maybe a few more. This was last fall when we ran it. We hit the 2 hr mark exactly (2:00) and even met the challenge for it.

Also on Victory, Satanic Hamster has lead all blaster TFs and trial for all (including SS) except the STF. So they are done, and blasters come out fine.

It is definitely fun. Although as a duo, my friend and I took my bots/storm and his perma-Dom in +4/team of 8 settings and ran some. Just WOW! Only one wipe when we pulled some extra aggro from a second mass of mobs on a ledge above us. The one thing I haven't tested are the different types - like I avoided Malta for now.

I am in the unsign camp too. My experiences in this (tried very early when I started playing) and previous games have been very negative. In one game that had it built in, every time I teamed, you were expected to be in it. And people would complain that all but one was in the chat. Pretty much the last time you ever saw that person again. Heck, I still recall the riot act being read to me once because I casted a buff spell on a player for an upcoming fight and wasting my magic for heals (the magic points didn't recover outside of rest at that time).

I understand that some players get a lot out of chat and that is great for them. Even with the 3rd party systems being used now in this game, I still get lots of /tells to join Vent or whatever and I have to explain I can't. Adding it in-game would just ramp up that pressure and ruin it for me.

Although based on not a lot of play time for it, this is how I am feeling so far. Just team up and go. And especially not worrying about falling behind or getting to far ahead in certain situations.