SpittingTrashcan

The lack of difficulty adjustment in Praetoria is problematic, but adding difficulty adjustment would also be problematic. Right now, by playing through every mission of every contact along a single path, a soloing character tends to enter the level range of the next contact group just as they finish the prior group, and hits 20 right around the time they finish their last set of contacts. I'm pretty sure this is deliberately calibrated. Adjusting difficulty down would mean less XP per arc, and soloing characters would end up forced to either street-sweep, take additional missions from the other path in their faction (which they may be trying to avoid), or hunt down contacts of the opposite faction.

Whether difficulty adjustment is more important than XP calibration is a matter of opinion, of course, but it's an exaggeration to say that there is no reason not to have difficulty adjustment in Praetoria.

Penelope Yin is not on the map; she's being held deep inside the BAF. Fortunately, you should be able to call her as soon as you get her as a contact, because she's contacting you telepathically. That's how it worked for me.

Don't detectives and brokers only move into Active Contacts when they're offering a Safeguard or Mayhem?

Destroyers are a little whacked. They appear to have in the neighborhood of 1000% mez resistance, which means you can mez them - and then they shake it off in under a second. Fortunately, Elec has a backup plan for that kind of nonsense: end drain. Lay down Static Field, toss Jolting Chain and Tesla Cage, and eat insps to survive until they're drained, and then clean up with pummeling. It's rough, but doable.

I don't think the idea of giving mobs mez resistance so that they're harder to lock down is necessarily a terrible idea, but I think the amount of resistance is considerably higher than would be wise. Something in the neighborhood of 200-300% resist, so mezzes last 1/3 to 1/4 as long, would be challenging but not outrageous.

Off the top of my head, I'd suggest moving the mass immob back, and getting Build Up earlier instead. It's nice to be able to spike your damage against enemies that laugh off mez.

It makes perfect sense to me: Tonaka is basically insinuating that you lack a developed theory of mind. Which is pretty much what I've been saying: you demonstrate an inability to reason about how someone who doesn't know what you know would think given the knowledge that they have. Or are you ready to present the case for why a citizen of Praetoria, raised on propaganda, leisure, and mood stabilizing chemicals, unaware of the secret crimes of the state, and extremely aware of the threat that still lurks outside the sonic fences, would choose to beat down two policemen and free a terrorist?

To be somewhat more on topic, it's important when playing through GR to maintain separation between what you as a player know about Praetoria and what your character could be expected to know about Praetoria. From the perspective of a Praetorian citizen, Marcus Cole is the savior of humankind (from a real and present threat that many Praetorians experienced directly). Praetoria is one of the last bastions of civilization in the middle of a horrific wilderness. Under these conditions, the Praetorian laws are strict, but not inconceivably so - compare with measures such as food rationing, conscription, communication surveillance, and censorship of news in wartime. Note that I am not endorsing any of the above, but I am pointing out that citizens of a democracy have accepted such measures before. This is a historical fact, and it is relevant.

Yes, I have read the Praetorian Atrocity List. However, I emphasize once again: the average Praetorian knows none of this. If you sign up for the Resistance, even the Warden path, your first step in this direction is to kill, or at least beat into unconsciousness, two police officers who are in the middle of arresting a terrorist. Then you talk to the leader of a group who you have been repeatedly (and accurately!) told are actively tearing down the fragile foundations of your refuge against savagery.

How this can be construed as the obviously heroic thing to do is a little beyond my reckoning. But then again, maybe some people just don't know how to put themselves in other people's shoes, and instead act on what they, the player, know, and not what their character would know.

I also like how good and evil blur in GG.

I would strongly recommend that you do what Raptis suggests, and get Jolting Chain, Tesla Cage, Static Field, Charged Brawl, and Havoc Punch as soon as they are available. Tesla Cage, Jolting Chain and Static Field will be your bread and butter survival tools for most of the game, as they prevent enemies from attacking you. The ST and AoE immobilizes are not nearly as useful; at best, they prevent enemies from getting into melee, and since you want to be in melee, to use Conductive Aura, Charged Brawl, and Havoc Punch, they are not going to do you much good.

Perhaps tangential, but I've been finding Jolting Chain very useful on my Elec/Earth, using this procedure:

1. Drop a Static Field. Enemies are sleeping.
2. Run into melee and Jolting Chain. Enemies are knocked down.
3. While enemies are getting up, Tremor. Enemies are knocked down again.
4. By the time the enemies get up, they're sleeping again.
5. Use single target hold and attacks until Tremor recharges. Repeat as necessary.

I can see this method being similarly useful for any Dom with a PBAoE attack. Jolting Chain lets you soft-control enemies that you're about to hit with PBAoE, so they don't all wake up at once and punch you. By the time JC and the PBAoE finish, they're sleeping again. Additionally, JC has a bit of endurance drain, which stacks with the sapping from Conductive Aura and Static Field. And having effective end drain at level 12 is amazing.

I think that Jolting Chain will work fine with procs that affect the target of a power, since for each jump, the target is an enemy. I don't think that it will work with procs that affect the caster of a power, since for each jump after the first, the caster is a momentary pseudopet that casts the jump and then disappears. So, yes to damage/stun/etc procs, but no to Force Feedback.

Incidentally, the Performance Shifter proc will work - it'll give each jump a chance to grant 10 endurance to its target. Performance Shifter, you so crazy.

At level 8, I'm finding that Jolting Chain and Tremor are a lovely combination: the enemies get bounced by Jolting Chain, and are almost back on their feet by the time Tremor activates and knocks them right back down again.

I'm also finding that Conductive Aura is not a good power to use on teams at the moment, as it draws aggro and doesn't provide enough of a survivability boost to make up for the extra hate. I expect this to change at level 12 with Static Field. It also caught me by surprise that Conductive Aura is not autohit.

I definitely agree with the OP that this combo is very, very slot hungry. There are so many excellent powers, and many of them benefit from significant slot investment. Six slots in the hammers and Seismic are a must of course, and Tremor and Fissure also benefit from heavy investment and Force Feedback procs. Conductive Aura has amazing potential, as do Synaptic Overload (particularly if the Contagious Confusion proc chains!) and the Gremlins. And of course once you hit the APP levels it would be foolish not to add Sleet and Ice Storm to the party.

My current plan is to cut deeply into Jolting Chain. Sure it could take five slots of Decimation for the recharge bonus, but I think it'll work OK with just an acc and maybe an endredux. Health and Stamina could also get by on two slots with the Conductive Aura making up the difference... hm, hm, hm.

Hm.

What if Repulsion Aura dealt damage and/or a debuff to each target it kicked? The conceptual rationalization being that you are using your force shields offensively to slam enemies away from you, which ought to hurt somewhat. Right now the endurance cost for Repulsion Aura and the superior size and effectiveness of Force Bubble make it an underperformer, but using FB and RA to cram enemies into a corner and crush them to death sounds like it could be quite a bit of fun...

In early levels, I tend to use it in three circumstances:
1. When I am mezzed, or when I am about to attack a group that contains a significant mezzer.
2. When I am low on endurance.
3. When I expect to fight a boss within the next 90 seconds.

Later on, I just use it whenever I feel like. Note that on teams, the Domination bar fills up faster.

I'm finding it challenging, but not excessively so. As noted above, Primal Earth has its share of nasty low level enemies - CoT, Vahz, Clocks - the main difference being that there are also squishy soft Skulls and Hellions to fight at the low levels, and we already know to pick on the wimps. Praetoria is more consistent in its difficulty across factions - I've been pressed to some degree by everything I've taken on so far.

It may also be that Praetorian content is designed around the fact that inspiration vendors are a lot more accessible - your contacts sell the full gamut immediately, and there's a nurse in the hospital who will sell them too.

The first thing you should know is that you really don't need to worry about this yet. You do not have to be at the softcap to any defense in order to have a functional and effective character at any level.

If you ask how to softcap a BS/FA on the Scrapper forums, I'm sure someone will oblige you with help. The Broadsword power Parry will probably be the single largest contributor to reaching the softcap on a budget, as it boosts your Melee and Lethal defenses on each hit. But I wanted you to know first and foremost that it is not in any way necessary - it's a way to pursue outlier performance.

Stop calling them demons! They may be ugly but they have good hearts. It isn't their fault their mom lived downwind of Terra Volta.

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet: Lightning Field and Power Sink combine to give you mitigation through endurance drain. If things don't kill you in the first 10 seconds of a fight, they're not going to be able to kill you thereafter, because they won't have the endurance to do so.

Also, Lightning Field adds quite a bit to your damage output especially to multiple targets, and while it doesn't crit and you have no Fury to fuel it, it is boosted by any other +damage effects you may have on. Claws/Elec or DB/Elec or Dark/Elec are all good combos to leverage this benefit - KM/Elec might be too.

In my experience, /Elec is a fine set for SO to mid-budget IO builds. I've heard of people doing amazing things with /Elec and heavy IO slotting, but at that level a lot of what I've said no longer applies as IO bonuses begin to eclipse the natural benefits of the set...