Sailboat

What little we know about beam Rifle states that it starts out weaker then some ranged blast sets, but affects or debuffs the enemy in a way that increases the damage as you use it. That reminds me of the Scourge mechanic. This is purely speculation, but it seems to me that Beam Rifle might turn out be very nice on a Corruptor for fighting hard targets like AVs.

AVs resist debuffs heavily, but Scourge is not a resistible debuff, and I'm not sure if Beam Rifle's mechanic will be a regular debuff or perhaps some other kind of damage-increase mechanic (such as Blaster Defiance). Although a simple resistance debuff sounds a bit too much like Sonic Blast to me, even if it is (and thus heavily resisted by AVs), it might still be very hard-hitting on AVs, when combined with Scourge and a secondary that debuffs.

Since you can only cash in alignment merits once/day, you can't spend a lot of them unless you're saving up for a Purple or PVP IO. But several characters cashing out alignment merits could by an entire set and e-mail it to one of your characters. Since I tend to shop for several things at once instead of one thing every other day, I like to run tips on a range of characters and keep a few alignment merits on them all so I could force-buy several IOs at once when the mood strikes. Extra merits earned on a character after I've banked 2-4 get spent on sale items for cashflow.

Since I'm not going to make a whole bunch of tip-hunting specialists, I just use, you know, everybody.

Can't use Mid's from here, so I'll stick to generalizations.

I adore Claws/WP for general use.

Willpower is durable, handles a broad range of unusual damage and status effects, poses no difficult choices while leveling up, gives you tons of endurance, and is almost completely fire-and-forget, allowing you to concentrate on clawing. Its major drawbacks are some weakness to really heavy burst damage, limited defense debuff resistance (DDR), and the fact that when you DO get in over your head, there aren't a lot of ways you can react...no heal to hit, no special clickable mitigation, and your Tier 9 is only incrementally stronger, not an order of magnitude better, so using it doesn't always turn around a crisis.

Scrapper Claws are fast and easy on the endurance, while providing a variety of entertaining effects, and Spin is probably the best PBAoE in the game.

That said, for AVs, it's not your best choice, as a significant part of your mitigation comes from multiple foes, and it isn't AS strong against burst damage as some secondaries (AVs are the biggest hitters out there).

Dark also fares better with lots of fodder for the fantastic heal, and neither adds much damage output (Dark's damage aura is great for crowds, but less important for fighting AVs).

Electric, however, not only gives you solid resistances that will blunt burst damage, it also gives you +recharge to significantly help you crank out the top-end dps chain, and also a damage aura to boot, for a little extra help whittling down AVs. It doesn't have defense, and will need it, but you'll want to invest in high defense if you're building anything for late-game AVs.

Therefore, if you're primarily AV-focused, I recommend Claws/Electric.

Claws/WP has been a blast though.

This just got posted:

Heads up: it ain't so.

Scorch is an excellent place for it. Go ahead and six-slot that power, too, if you're cycling it twice in your attack chain.

If you're out of vetspecs and/or TF respecs, bear in mind there's almost certainly a freespec coming with I-21, so you're in luck.

What is meant is that "random" creates clusters of occurrences and droughts when occurrences are few and far between...and that the human genius for pattern-seeking leads to misinterpretation of such clusters and droughts VERY easily, leading to topics like this appearing with suspiciously non-random metronomic regularity in the forums.

I don't think the drop rate is low, but I personally have experienced times when a particular character cannot seem to generate a tip, despite waxing hundreds of mobs laced with bosses and LTs. At times like that it seems like changing characters for a while helps, as the new character quickly gets tips. It's probably just an illusion caused by my frustration being ended.

Eventually I change back to that first character, and have gotten two tips from one spawn.

I doubt the tip drop rate changes, per se, and it seems sufficient most of the time.

It does sometimes feel like it's not working, however. I suppose it's possible that some kind of "flag" that prevents or allows tips gets stuck and needs to be reset? That might be independent of the actual rate when the flag is properly set.

Or maybe I'm making an assumption based on that same pattern-seeking behavior to which all humans are prone?

They work really well together.

Your picks so far look solid to me, except that once you reach SO level of enhancement, you'll only need 2 recharges in Active Defense.

Get a few slots into Parry soon. Also, once you hit DOs, I like to have end reds in my attacks even at the expense of some damage.

You have two power picks open before your next critical power, Against All Odds. If you are getting travel powers, now might be the time. Otherwise starting Boxing & Tough with an eye toward Weave later is good, or Build Up and something else.

After AAO, I'd pick up Whirling Sword (it's not the best PBAoE, but it IS one, yay!) and then Phalanx Fighting (even if Weave is available at 20, get Phalanx first, it's passive with no end cost.)

Then you hit another stretch of two picks where you could get pool powers like Weave and Hasten, before Disembowel (it is both hard-hitting and offers some mitigation through knockup). Then 2 more "your choice" picks...although you eventually want Grant Cover, it doesn't have to be here; you could get the Medicine pool or fill in stuff you missed earlier.

Then Headsplitter and Shield Charge and, if you want it, One With The Shield (You can use it to mule the Steadfast 3% even if you don't like to click it). After that you're into your epic/ancillary!

If you slot and use Parry you will find this a very tough combo.

Are you sure that referred to non-travel pools? Travel pools have in the past been treated differently, and particularly when they made the "City Traveler" vet reward that let you pick a travel power without a prerequisite, a LOT of players assumed that meant non-travel pools too. There were a number of posts on the forums about it.

So I am a bit concerned the same eagerness might be leading to the same confusion in this case, until I see absolutely specific confirmation.

I don't know about "catching up," but one of the attractive features of the new model is that you'll be able spend resources (Paragon Points, Empyrean Merits, cash, ect.) to target specific rewards YOU want, instead of getting whatever was scheduled as a Veteran reward. So instead of waiting through months of free costume tokens and respecs, you should be able to ignore those and spend your resources on whatever you do want (subject to the limitations of the "Tier" system which I admit I have only glanced over).