SpittingTrashcan

This thread is one away from being about reducing a complex situation to a facile dichotomy.

Actually, given GG's fairly balanced explication above, I take that back - I leave the above as evidence of my foolishness in making assumptions.

Anyway, I'm liking Praetoria so far, though I haven't seen much. It seems that the developers are emphasizing quality over quantity in the Praetorian content, with relatively few highly polished mission arcs rather than the plentiful but unsophisticated early hero content. Thus far it's working for me, but once I've seen all there is to see in the Praetorian content I'll probably go back to rolling in Atlas or Mercy and doing my early levels in AE arcs. It sure is pretty, though.

I think it also helps that I chose my starting Praetorians carefully. Mindful of the beta testers' comments about heavy ambushes, I rolled a Traps/AR Defender, and between Caltrops, Acid Mortar, Force Field Generator and Triage Beacon I expect I'll manage all right. My Elec/Earth Dominator also seems to be doing well, combining multiple sources of soft and hard control. The Praetorian factions seem designed to particularly aggrieve specialists.

I'm looking forward to playing more, which is something I haven't felt about low-level characters in a while.

Can it be used while Resting?

Speaking personally: I have a Warshade-who-is-not-a-Warshade, with the form powers.

She's a psychopomp for deep-ocean creatures. She channels the souls of squid and lobsters.

Naturally, I tend to fall on the side of "twist the mechanics to meet the concept". But, more importantly, if people refuse to acknowledge the way I want to play a character, I don't worry about it: I just don't play with them. There are plenty of people who will play with me, and if some won't, well, that's on them. Nobody is the boss of all RP, much though some may try to act as if they are.

Hm, synergies.

- Traps/Dark is nice because the -tohit from Dark blasts stacks with the +def from Shield Drone.
- Traps/Dual Pistols has some good synergy. Note that Acid Mortar's -res multiplies the effect of Chemical Rounds's -dam, which stacks with Seeker Drone's -dam as well. The cone and the AoE work well with a crowd of caltropped enemies, too.
- Traps/AR is quite nasty. Up to 4 area attacks (though M30 has a chance of blowing enemies out of the nice trap zone), and Web Grenade allows you to apply the full (hideous) damage of Ignite to a single target.
- Traps/Rad has a boatload of -def, which might be handy in the early levels, and some decent area damage.
- Traps/Ice has somewhat minimal synergy, but the combination of Caltrops, Ice Storm (doing as much damage as the Blaster power) and Blizzard (also doing as much damage as the Blaster power, which is a lot if all the ticks land) can be quite brutal.
- Traps/Energy, um, I don't much like /Energy but I suppose you could use the knockback to bump dudes back into the traps.
- Traps/Elec again lacks synergy, as the endurance drain from Elec Blast tends not to be enough by itself to create meaningful mitigation, but there's some decent AoE to be had.
- Traps/Arch for the most part neither has nor needs any particular synergy: /Arch is just good. Caltrops plus RoA does make a nasty two hit combo that can be thrown from behind cover and kill most enemies before they even reach you.

I probably missed some things. Based on this evaluation, I already have a Dark/Traps corruptor, and I'll be rolling a Traps/AR defender. I know a guy with a Traps/DP and he likes it fine.

I think a bit of historical perspective could be illuminating here. That your pets can zone with you is actually a very recent development; for most of the history of the game, pets would unsummon when their master zoned and would need to be resummoned. Thus, masterminds summoned at the beginning of missions, and traveled between missions unescorted. As a side note, mastermind upgrade powers used to be per-minion rather than upgrading every minion near the target.

Having "grown up" under these rules, I deal with my pets being unable to travel by dismissing them when I plan to travel. The ability to make entities other than yourself travel quickly seems to be a highly valued ability as far as the power designers are concerned. If you do not like the drawbacks of Group Fly, you may wish to consider Group Teleport, but IMO now that the upgrades have been sped up neither are really necessary. Ten seconds at the mission door to summon and upgrade and you're good to go.

Also, for what it's worth, every MM pet does have the Super Leap inherent ability, which doesn't make them move any faster but does let them jump very high, which is useful when they wander off cliffs. They also will teleport to you if you get far enough away, where "far enough away" translates to a distance I have not determined.

Regarding Shadow Fall versus Darkest Night: Phrox has the right of it, IMO. I put in SF early mostly because I didn't expect you to accept a build that had it later. Swapping DN and SF should work fine.

Regarding Recall Friend: I think I have been negligent in failing to make clear just how rarely stealth is of any value whatsoever. In other games, enemies pose such a significant threat that you can't reasonably run past them, there's no aggro cap and thus no limit to the amount of threat you can generate by running around, and there are non-combat objectives that it's worth skipping past enemies to get to. In City of Heroes, the enemies are generally there to be fought, and fighting them offers better rewards for time invested than skipping past them - to the point where stealthing is actually considered annoyingly counterproductive behavior, as the team would rather have you with them helping to defeat swarms of enemies. The candy is inside the dudes, not behind them. The number of times where it is actually useful to avoid enemies I can count on two hands, and the number of times where avoiding enemies actually requires significant stealth or the assistance of someone who does I can count on one. You don't need Recall Friend. You really, really don't.

If you still must have it, you can swap out Petrifying Gaze for it.

(Incidentally, this is also the fundamental issue with Stalkers: they're stealth and assassination masters in a game where there's neither value in sneaking past enemies nor in defeating single targets quickly. They fill a conceptual need, but they don't fill a gameplay niche.)

I'd just like to point out the problem with gating respecs behind a difficult trial.

This is how I'd do it.

01: Dark Blast - One of your two good single target attacks. Give it 5 or 6 slots with 30-60% acc, 90% damage, 30-60% endurance reduction, 0-60% recharge.

01: Twilight Grasp - Early on, it's a decent self-heal that splashes to teammates. Later, it becomes a spammable damage, tohit, and regeneration debuff, good for helping to neuter and take down single hard targets. 4 to 6 slots, 30-60% acc, 90% heal, 0-60% recharge, 0-60% endurance reduction.

02: Gloom - Your other good single target attack, unusually strong for its cast and cycle time. Slot as Dark Blast.

04: Tar Patch - A powerful movement and damage resistance debuff. Note that debuffing damage resistance also debuffs resistance to damage debuffs, meaning that Twilight Grasp is even more effective against targets in the patch. At least 3 slots, at least 90% recharge.

06: Hover - It's Hover. It's also a somewhat expensive toggle to run. If you have room, consider adding a slot or two for endurance reduction. Early on, it's fine with just a Fly.

08: Swift - Don't put Flightspeed in this, as the bonus is minuscule. Put in a runspeed instead for when it's inefficient/unnecessary to run Hover, and call it done.

10: Shadow Fall - It's Shadow Fall. Another expensive toggle. Put in two endredux; after that, whether to enhance its resistance or its defense depends on how the rest of your build works out.

12: Fearsome Stare - Keystone Power. Cannot emphasize enough. Slot for accuracy, recharge, and tohit debuff. 5 slots at absolute minimum, 6 vastly preferable.

14: Fly - One Fly and done.

16: Tenebrous Tentacles - Your first powerful cone. Slot it as an attack. It is possible to get quite fancy with IOs here, but save that for later.

18: Health - That little regeneration boost is more useful than you think, and eventually some very nice IOs can go here. Early on, put in 3 slots and 90% Heal and call it a day.

20: Stamina - Vigilance covers a lot on teams, but this one is key for soloing. 3 slots, 90% Endurance Modification, done.

22: Night Fall - Your second powerful cone. Slot as an attack. Remember that it is longer and narrower than Tenebrous Tentacles.

24: Hasten - Because you want to have Tar Patch and Fearsome Stare up against every spawn. 3 Recharge enhancements, 90% recharge.

26: Darkest Night - Not necessary for fights against minions and lieutenants, but good against Bosses and higher. One endurance reduction immediately, 3 tohit debuffs at your leisure.

28: Petrifying Gaze - A situational power, but the situation is not uncommon: a single obnoxious minion in a spawn who you'd rather not give a chance to use their obnoxious powers. 4 slots should be enough, with 30% acc and 90% hold, but you can add more to taste.

30: Howling Twilight - It is a strong area stun and regeneration debuff that also happens to resurrect any of your nearby teammates. Put in a recharge in the default slot, and a few more if you like to have it available more often.

32: Dark Servant - Fluffy is a tiny god. He packs his own Twilight Grasp, Tenebrous Tentacles, Darkest Night, and Petrifying Gaze, and a special aura: Chill of the Night, which damages and debuffs tohit of nearby enemies. Be aware that slotting enhancements into him only benefits the powers for whom those enhancements can provide benefit, and also be aware that his powers cannot have their recharge time reduced through any means. With that in mind, slot him for Accuracy and Tohit Debuff, since all of his powers debuff tohit.

35: Assault - It boosts your damage, and also that of Fluffy, and oh, if you have teammates hanging about it helps them too, to the tune of +15% damage enhancement. It also consumes quite a bit of endurance, so give it 2 or 3 slots of endurance reduction.

38: Tactics - Since none of your other powers reduce enemy defense or increase your own tohit, you may find yourself having trouble with enemies that have high defense or strong tohit debuffs. Tactics helps with that, for yourself and Fluffy and also associated hangers-on. It also eats as much endurance as Assault, so slotting up endurance reduction as well as tohit buff is recommended.

41: Dark Consumption - A PBAoE that damages enemies and transfers endurance to you. Handy for keeping your other powers running. It does involve wandering into melee range, but when your enemies are immobilized, feared, stunned, and tohit debuffed to hell and gone that's not so terrible a prospect. Slot one acc, and then recharge and endurance modification to taste (it's on a rather slow timer).

44: Dark Embrace - Boosts your resistance to smashing, lethal, and negative energy damage. Handy in and of itself, and also a good home for a number of fancy IOs if you're inclined in that direction.

47: Soul Drain - A PBAoE that damages enemies and increases your own tohit and damage for each target hit for 30 seconds. Same caveats as Dark Consumption, but the benefit is quite sizable. Needs a bit of accuracy and a full complement of recharge.

49: Oppressive Gloom - A very endurance-cheap aura that stuns nearby enemies at the cost of a tiny bit of health. This power is insanely good, and with slots getting tight at the end of the build, it's handy that you only need to slot one or two acc to get its full benefit.

Of the above powers, I would call the following key: Dark Blast, Gloom, Tenebrous Tentacles, Night Fall, Twilight Grasp, Tar Patch, Fearsome Stare, and Dark Servant. Everything else is nice but not strictly necessary and can be rearranged or swapped out to taste. The Fitness chain and Hasten are strongly recommended, however. One popular variant build swaps in Tough and Weave from the Fighting pool on top of Dark Embrace and Shadow Fall, and uses set bonuses to build for high resistances and defenses, resulting in a solo powerhouse at the cost of some team synergy.

In terms of strategy: I would recommend fighting large groups, even solo - try x3 or higher. Open up with a Fearsome Stare, aimed to hit most of the enemies, and immediately follow with a Tar Patch and Tenebrous Tentacles. At this point, every enemy in the spawn should be one or more of: immobilized, slowed, feared, tohit debuffed. Then just go to town with your AoE and ST attacks until everything falls down, using Twilight Grasp for spot heals if necessary. Lather, rinse, repeat. If a boss or higher rank enemy is present, drop Darkest Night on 'em to open and then proceed as usual, focusing ST attacks and Twilight Grasps on the boss.

You can also use Darkest Night to pull enemies: activate it on the farthest enemy back, then duck around the corner as it finishes activating. He'll come running and bring all his friends with him... right into a Tar Patch. At this point, proceed as above. Giggling maniacally is optional, but highly recommended.

I like to think that the name is a subtle jab at players who are angry that the game does not make them feel sufficiently important.

Historically, the developers could generally be relied on to favorably consider changes that, in their view, reduce the skill requirements for some niche activity, in the hope that participation will increase.

Historically, the results have been... mixed.

In other cases I have advocated bribery as an alternative method to improve participation. But everyone who can be induced with bribes is already marketeering. It would be nice if the developers took a more hands-off approach here, merged the markets and then waited to see how it worked out. But the developers are not scientists - they have a tendency to confound their own experiments by changing multiple variables at a time. I would not be surprised to see many economic measures implemented concurrently with the market change, and the landscape shifting wildly as a result - not necessarily toward anything resembling the developers' intention, either.

A point of clarification. When I buy common salvage for a high price, it's not because that price is insignificant to my PvE earnings (although it is, somewhat). I buy it to craft a recipe sooner, and the difference between 500 inf and 100,000 inf is not a significant portion of the 1M+ inf I expect to gain through the overall transaction. I could wait to get the 500 inf brass, but then I'd be waiting to get the 1M from the crafted enhancement and meanwhile the bid would be taking up a market slot and the recipe would be taking up space in my inventory.

Of course if I'm planning on mass-producing something, I'll bid 500 on a stack of 10 and come back tomorrow. But I generally don't do that, because punching dudes for drops is more fun to me.

The distinction between justification and necessity is, in these times, crucial and frequently overlooked. A rough heuristic for the difference is that an action is justified when it has been determined in advance that, regardless of the outcome, the action is an appropriate response to the circumstances, while a necessary action can be shown as the path to the desired outcome only in hindsight.

For example: pursuit and questioning of a person closely matching the description and last known whereabouts of a criminal is justified even if that person does not turn out to be the criminal, because we wish for the police to pursue suspects: the consequences for being wrong are acceptable. However, coercing that person into confessing a crime is not justified, even if that person did turn out to be the criminal, and even if it can be proven that the coercion was the only way to conclusively apprehend the criminal, because we wish for the police not to coerce confessions: the consequences for being wrong are not acceptable.

Things get more complex when we consider the idea of a system that always makes correct decisions. If the Seers, through experimentation, have been shown to be completely accurate in predicting which citizens will and will not go on to commit crimes, are arrests based on that information justified?

Such experimentation would require the authorities to stand back and wait for someone already determined as likely to commit violent crime to actually commit a crime. The more evidence these experiments generate for the Seers' accuracy, the more the public - particularly victims of violent crime and their loved ones - would demand that the police stop sitting on their hands and start making arrests based on Seer evidence. Imagine the news reports: grieving family members shaking with outrage that the police knew that horrible person was going to kill their parent/child/spouse, the Seers told them so, and they did nothing...

It doesn't require a super-dictator to make people accept thought police.

PS: In this thread, many will be compelled to respond to a person acting as if they are incapable of nuanced moral reasoning.

I now have an image of a doctor gravely explaining to some crying parents that due to their baby's high bone density, he is destined to be a Tanker and thus cannot remain with them in the Etoiles.

I accept that starting alignments will be restricted by archetype, but I cannot discern the fictional or mechanical reason why this should be so. There may be a practical reason: it could be that archetype is not an independent value from alignment in the character creation process, so that trying to make a villain tanker would shunt you over into creating a brute (for instance). This would be pretty silly, but then again they did roll their own market database. In that case, I would just like to note my strong preference for independent side and alignment and hope that the code team will have time in the future to implement it.

It's a little too late to mention it now, I suppose, but when leveling my Soldier, I found Pummel immensely useful. The stun kicked in fairly often and provided helpful mitigation. Eventually, going all ranged with WAWG, Venom Grenade, and Heavy Burst becomes more feasible, though.

SOAs tend to have layered defenses from several powers, so they take some time to get going - but eventually they can become quite survivable if you have money. And I suspect you will have money.

I'm going to guess, based on the way that other effects work, that negative knockback isn't "knockback in the other direction" - it's knockback protection.

I have a question, actually, since I've seen more than one person suggest knockup as an effect of Crane Kick. What makes you feel that Crane Kick, as it is animated, should knock an enemy upwards rather than backwards? It looks like a very strong horizontal force to me.

I would like to see the lowest successful transaction price in the past minute, five minutes, hour, day, week, and month. Making the impatience tax explicit and quantified would be helpful, I think.

Edited to add: This would be the conservative suggestion; the liberal suggestion would be a full price/time graph for the past month.

Hey, does anyone else remember how power effects can be different between PvE and PvP, and how that means that we don't have to argue about how changing a power for PvE hurts it for PvP or vice versa?

I'm running -1/x6 on my Elec/Nin, but he doesn't have AS, which makes him a bit of a special case. My MA/SR is more typical, and I run him at +2/x1. For conceptual reasons, he also fought the minimum possible number of enemies to complete missions. It was interesting.