Thirty-Seven

You can "haz" when the power set is ready. Soon™

Thanks for some more awesome ideas!

However, I think I have settled this little issue: I took the Nictus idea upthread and ran with it, letting it roll around in my head.

What I came up with is "Void Spectrum," he's part Nictus, part living Shadow Cyst Crystal and part stolen body of Blue Spectrum from the tutorial! He's using the darkest colors I could get to look right for the Bio Armor, and the Mutant pack's sword for Broad Sword, I think he will be a ton of fun to play, here's what he looks like so far:

Thanks for the ideas, Kangstor, but it seems like most of them are pretty specific to sets I simply won't be playing with Bio Armor (see OP). Oh well, still cogitating on this, methinks I have some time yet.

I would never have thought to go a Nictus angle. I sorta like the idea there for the villain version. I will have to keep that on the list of ideas for sure. Not totally sold on the idea though.

Since the moment I heard about a new armor set coming out, I have been excited to play it. However, without seeing exactly how the idea of Bio Armor (formerly Symbiotic Armor and Bio-Organic Armor) was represented, I was hesitant to begin planning a character. Now that I have seen what the powers look like, I definitely know that I want to play it, the potential costume options for the assymetry and the ability to choose which armors give your character extra geometry seem very cool.

There's just one problem: I have no idea what type of character I want to make, and there are a few limitations I have imposed on myself as well which I will explain in a bit.

I knew that I was going to make a Scrapper from the get go... but what kind?

I don't ever have more than one of a given Power Set on my account at any one time if I can help it... so that means my only primary options for this character are War Mace, Broad Sword, or (if I delete an underplayed alt) Fire Melee. With that in mind, what the heck type of character should I make? Hero or Villain? Why does he have his powers, and why does he do what he does with them? Oh, that brings up another character restriction: I only play male characters.

My current character on Beta is a War Mace/Bio Scrap who is a city employee who became infected by some stray toxic waste while doing his job inspecting a length of sewer under Kings Row. After that incident he began growing strange plates of hardened tissue that allowed him to deflect damage! Wielding his trusty wrench, he fights crime as {Placeholder Name}. I am not pleased with the character due to his rather boring "regular dude in an orange vest" costume and somewhat hackneyed backstory.

Any thoughts?

I don't mean to belittle the obvious work and statistical analysis that went into this, but how are all these numbers worth anything at all when no one has actually experienced this change yet? Especially in light of just how edge case the builds discussed here would have to be, not to mention there being no way to actually have the damage numbers here occur in the real game due to things like mez, teammates, spawn placement and moving between them, etc.

It's common when new enemies are added to the game files that some bit of code or whatever gets left out that makes enemies tally for certain badges. It is rather routine to see: "X now count for the Y Badge" get added to patch notes. It is likely an oversight. Toss a /bug at it and maybe also PM Zwill asking him to forward the info to the appropriate Dev (unless you happen to know who the badge Dev is, I am not sure... though I seem to recall TheNet taking a shine to them).

Edit: Also, check the faction first as Ironblade suggests.

Can't you find a few Failed Experiments during the Great Escape zone event in Neutropolis? IIRC, you may have to run it a few times.

[Edit: Dang, ninja-ed.]

That would be how I read the post as well, Bill.

To answer the question as it was asked: No, all [Taunt] powers as used by Tanks are exactly the same.

Taunt auras are a seperate matter.

Any chance of seeing some Absorb action happening to Force Field to keep it from continuing to be a one trick pony?

Possibly an Absorb pulse on Dispersion Bubble?

I was under the impression that Praetoria lies along the Gulf of Mexico someplace. Formerly, I thought that Praetoria was actually in Europe, but I was quickly disabused of that notion.

I don't know that I would call myself a good leader, but the teams I lead don't seem to complain (in fact some have complimented me) and I don't often fail Badge attempts in iTrials (with the notable and obnoxious exception of the Avoids the Green Stuff badge).

But, I can say that when I was on my first iTrial, I hated every minute of it. I really really disliked not knowing exactly what I had to do, and I felt like 23 people were staring at me not knowing what to do. This was probably a few weeks after BAF and Lambda were dropped in our laps. But, as I ran them, and especially future trials, I grew to like them a lot... and eventually grew courageous (or fool-hearty) enough to begin leading them.

I think the one reason that I do well as a leader is because I had so much experience NOT being a leader. What I mean is, I had a lot of time to watch what other leaders did right, and where leagues started to have problems and the good and bad way leaders tried to solve them. I learned early that YELLING THINGS IN ALL CAPS doesn't help, much. Blaming and throwing league mates under a bus doesn't help either. Nor does being really immature and rage-quitting when something doesn't go exactly right.

What does work well is knowing what you are doing before you go in. Making sure as many folks with you know what to do as well. And be willing to modify tactics on the fly if you league starts to falter OR in the case of some leagues, starts to do things in a way you weren't expecting.

So, my words of wisdom for all would be leaders (if you can call it wisdom) is spend a lot of time as a non-leader... even well after you are confident you know what you are doing. There were, for a short while, iTrials that I had only been on when I was leading... I learned a lot when I joined someone else's run.