SerialBeggar

I struggled with low frame rates a year ago. Over the course of several months, I upgraded all my components (starting from cheapest and least effort) with moderately expensive current model (at the time) components. None of it had any effect until I came to the last item: the CPU. I swapped out my single core CPU to a multi-core (which also involved a new motherboard to accept the multi-core) and finally, my frame rate went back to decent levels (high-30s+ when idle, +/- mid-20s in combat, high-teens during invasions).

Right click the center of a chat window (not on the Chat window's tab), on the pop menu, choose "Channel Search". Search for your server's name (or part of its name). Click the column header to sort. Look at the total membership amount and currently online amount.

Note: a global chat channel can have 2500 members. If you see a the channel with exceedingly high membership, but only a few actually online, the channel may be clogged with old, non-active members. Channel moderators can't kick a member until they're online, so there's no means to clear out non-active members. Occasionally, channel membership migrate to a new channel to get around this problem.

Consider the total online amount (during the times you play) as a more relevant number. You may want to join 2-3 globabl channels in your server until you get a better feel for where the action is.

Note: due to gold spammers, the moderators of many global chat channels have set new members to default to being in "silenced" mode. You'll have to wait until a channel moderator unsilences you. You can still monitor the channel and send tells directly to members. (Right click a channel member's global name and choose chat).

Note: if you're the one recruiting, you can Right click a channel member's global name and direclty invite from the pop up menu without needing to know their character's name.

Note: you can see a list of all online members to a global chat channel (after you've joined it) in your Friends window. "Silenced" members have a square next to their global name and channel moderators have a "star" next to their's. Note: some channels moderators play in hidden mode (to avoid excessive drama) so they may not show.

Note: you may want to organize your global chat channels in one of the spare chat windows, ie the "1 2 3 4".

Note: to switch between chat channels, you can Left-click the channel name on your chat input line to get the pop up with all the channels you're a member of.

A hobby is no fun unless you can throw a lot of money at it.

The forum has been ok for me. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Side note: if you haven't tried it, I suggest going into your Options-->General tab and setting "Show Player Health Bars = Always". This puts a mini health and endurance bar over every player in visual range, including your own character.

This allows you take your eyes off the Team window and still be able to see everyone status. And more importantly, you can see what they're doing (someone being stupid or just aggressive) and what the enemies are doing (sudden additional aggro). You can observe the battle field as a whole and you make informed decisions on fighting, setting buffs, debuffs, area denials, etc.

Also, again, you get a little mini health bar over your own head. Sometimes you're too busy to look up at the big health bar to notice that it's you who's getting seriously hurt.

Things that make you go: hmmm...

Top 10 reasons Santa is a Super Villain.

Tesla Knights - sometimes it seems like I spend half my time on a Synapse TF caged.

Ditto what the others say, plus I've replaced my computer (whole system) 3 times just for this game.

Buying recipes is usually way cheaper than buying the crafted enhancement. (note the above responses on how to make influence).

Do you have some characters that you don't play much with? Use them, ie their Market slots, to place low bids for the Set IOs that you're interested in. This way you don't tie up the characters that you are playing. If you have enough Market slots, you can place bids across a range of levels for the Set IO piece since the performance difference is tiny.

Do you have your own SG Base with storage bins? You can take your time and accumulate your Set IO pieces over time if you have secure bins to use.

I'd also suggest working on assemblng the Sets for one or two powers at a time so the project doesn't seem as daunting.

If you lost some of your UI, type: /windowresetall

For your attacks, are those Range SOs you have? Unless you plan on doing Hover sniping (unlikely since you're a Jumper), you're better off swapping those out for a 2nd Accuracy enhancement. Some people have the opinion that 1 Accuracy is enough. I prefer 2 Accuracies minimum because it doesn't matter how much damage you can do if you keep missing (and wasting endurance).

For both your ranged and melee attacks, I suggest starting off with a standard slotting of 2 Accuracies and 3 Damages. For the optional 6th slot, I'd go with either a Recharge Reduction or Endurance Reduction depending on how the power feels to you.

I'd say that you've got too many slots in Shockwave. In particular, its damage is negligible. I personally do like Shockwave and use it whenever I can to mitigate incoming damage from a large group of enemies. I've found that 2 Accuracies is good enough. If you have slots to spare, you may consider a Recharge Reduction.

Take some of those slots and put them into Stamina. Stamina always gets 3 slots (or a 4th if you want to put in the +end proc IO).

Both Amplify and Build Up have too many slots. 3 Recharge Reduction each is good enough, especially if your other powers have 2 Accuracies.

Similarly, Conserve Power only needs 3 Recharge Reductions.

I guess you haven't had a chance to fully slot out Dreadful Wail. You won't be using it against EBs and AVs though. That'll just get you killed. Anyway, it has a +40% Accuracy bonus on it already, so you don't need alot of additional Accuracy. Depending on how you play, you may want to go with 3 Recharge Reductions and 3 Damages, or 1 Accuracy, 2 Recharge Reductions and 3 Damages.

For your Pool Powers, if you have the Influence or Merits, you can get a Knockback Protection IO and a Stealth IO. This can save you 2 power picks: Acrobatics and Invisibility. The Stealth IO can stack with the Stealth power to give you effective invisibility without the "can't attack" constraint.

With the spared up power picks, you can get the Medicine Pool for Aid Other and, specifically, Aid Self. Let's face it, you're going to get hurt. So instead of relying on your limited supply of green insps, you can just heal yourself with Aid Self. You may also be able to allocate more Inspiration inventory to purple inps or breakfrees.

The Electrical Mastery is a good choice for your Epic Pool set. However, instead of the single target Shocking Bolt attack, you will get more general utility with the Static Discharge cone attack. It synergizes well with Howl, also a cone attack. Since you're already going to be positioning yourself to maximize the effect of Howl, you can follow up immediately with Static Discharge. It'll be a quick 1-2 punch that will severely damage a lot of enemies.

Get some slots in your armor when you can.

I picked up the Axe on 2 characters when Vet Rewards came out. And I soon figured out that it sucked. Consider:

- Sands of Mu = double damage, (reliable) melee AOE (whose range was increased recently), -tohit debuff

- Undead Slaying Axe = double damage (to certain foes who, if they tag you first, debuffs your tohit to emphasize how much of a waste the Axe is against said foes)

I really gave serious thought to rerolling these characters. The only reason I didn't were becaue of the Anniversary badges.

Yeah, the dead leechers piss me off. The no rewards after dying timer should be tighten up.

I did an ITF with my Inv/* Tank once. In the 1st mission's T intersection that has the 2 groups in close proximity, I aggroed both to set up for the AOEs. They were jammed so tight around me that I couldn't move. Unfortunately, my team mates were slow to respond and the Cimerorans were chopping me up badly. Just before I went down, I noticed that my Combat Attributes showed Base Defense = -100%, even though Invincibility's +def should have been maxed out with all those foes around me.

Online make your own custom t-shirts web sites via google. The cheapest method will basically be an iron-on of your uploaded image. If you want a silk screen, those will probably have a higher cost per t-shirt for the initial run along with an extra upfront cost for creating the silk screen template.

Of course, you can always patronize your local printer/print shop.

Any time I make the mistake of clicking an Image Shack image link, my Pop-up Blocker goes into overdrive.