TopDoc

Changes in what way?

While the recent Dominator buffs were nice for casual players, the associated nerf to PSW likely reduced their popularity among farmers, and increased the popularity of Brutes.

That said, I think we should really look at something different to see what people are playing. Honestly, the initial AT info is misleading, and probably produces a disproportionately high number of Brutes, Scrappers, and Blasters. People playing around with costumes are probably more likely to pick the top AT (Brutes or Blasters). Ditto for people making fillers, mules, marketeering drones, or other chars where AT doesn't really matter. And someone could make 5 Scrappers before realizing they want something tougher, so those Scrappers last an hour but the Tanker makes it to 50.

So what would be a more realistic way to measure what people are playing? Well the /search list is about the only tool available to players, but I think it'll do everything needed. You can /search and get a list of chars by AT and level, and I think level is important. It can take a while, but it should be fairly easy to log in to every server and get a count of chars by AT. You can add up the total levels of each AT or just count chars in certain level ranges (say around 1-15, 16-39, and 40-50). Maybe I'll do it some night. Or someone else could. Nudge, nudge.

I haven't farmed since before the Dominator changes, so I don't know what my current kill speed would be. I expect it would be somewhat slower, but no idea how much. Plus prices have changed considerably. I specifically listed the IOs I got, so take a look through there and figure it out.

Drop Listing & analysis

Of course that's a somewhat old thread, from before the Dominator "buffs" (which icluded a BIG nerf for PSW).

Cycle time is 9 seconds. Base Immobilize duration is 22 seconds. There's absolutely no need to slot it to immobilize for longer. Slot it for damage.

While I don't think I'd use Inf, I have used the Prestige I earned doing all my farming to improve my personal bases (Freedom heroes, Justice Villains) very recently. Obviously they have to be fully functional (all Telepads, rez ring, and storage), but I've got my sights set higher. After all, what rich person wants to live in a one bedroom apartment? Too bad no one else will ever see the inside of them. I store too many nice IOs to risk inviting anyone in, given the past bugs regarding storage permissions.

Rich means having wealth or great possessions. That "great" means it's relative to everyone else. Inf is a good indicator. I'd say someone with under 10M Inf on a level 50 character is poor, as they can buy just enough to slot out their char with SOs or a little better. I'd say 100M is middle class, able to buy common IOs and some set IOs. It takes probably around 300M on a single char to get into the lower end of the upper class (rich), where you can start buying the good stuff. But just like in RL, rich can cover a VERY wide range. Someone with a billion Inf is rich enough to buy almost anything, but not fully load up on the expensive PvP and purple sets. It takes several billion on a single char to be at the top end of the wealth distribution curve.

Rich is also a moving target, because remember that it's relative. A while ago, 100M was considered rich. If 20% of the player base is doing boss farms in the AE and wisely spending their tickets, soon they will be the rich ones. But if 90% of the player base is doing boss farms, then they are all middle class, and you have to do something special to rise above them. I'm guessing we're closer to 90% than 20%.

Why would I want to? That's not the way I play. I'd rather make 10 billion and use it to purple out my remaining chars. (I purpled my Warshade long before it was the in thing to do, but I've got a lot of 50s to go. Good thing most of my villains are on Justice where I have those Panacea procs.)

The Vanguard Intro is usually pretty simple. Levantera tells you to talk to Borea, who tells you to hunt 10 Rikti, then tells you to talk to Serpent Drummer, who passes you on to Gaussian, Dark Watcher, and Lady Grey. Now one little glitch can appear to break the chain. If you get mapsevered right as you talk to Borea after the hunt, you won't see that you should talk to Serpent Drummer. Your mission may not even change. And if you click on her again successfully, she'll start offering her random missions.

Ignore Borea. She gives infinite random missions, no arcs. Check your missions and look for the one given by Levantera. Follow it till the end. It is a single multi-part mission.

You might also want to check your badge list and see if you have the badge already. It's possible to do Levantera's first arc and therefor earn the badge via Ouroboros.

<Checks sig...>

I'm almost there on my villain, and my hero is looking forward to the 700 club one in the next update or two.

No travel power till 49? I hope you don't exemp much. If so you'll be stuck with a Jetpack.

Superior Invis is a major END hog. I generally prefer Super Speed with a Stealth IO.

I rarely bother with Accuracy in Lingering Radiation. Any mob worth using it on will already have Radiation Infection, though granted I usually have more Accuracy from IO set bonuses. The regen debuff will stack, so I load it up with Recharge Reduction.

Even though you'll rarely be attacked on an Ill/Rad with near perma-PA, I still prefer 2 Blessing of the Zephyr IOs in travel powers for the 3.13% Ranged Defense.

Mutation is a bit END expensive. I usually put in an END Reduction, since you'll pretty much always benefit from that. You already have massive global Recharge Reduction, so slotting more in Mutation won't help it a huge amount. And you shouldn't need to rez frequently given the massive amount of control you have.

EM Pulse doesn't have an Accuracy penalty, but Flash does. You may want to slot a fair amount more Accuracy in Flash to make up for that.

I've heard that after using Hibernate you can't use it again for 120 seconds. You've got enough global Recharge Reduction already to get Hibernate below that, so slotting more won't help. You might want to slot Heal or Recovery, depending on which is usually slower.

I disagree with the postulates, so here's a minor threadjack.

You believe there is a problem with Tanker END efficiency. The root problem is with the Tanker's role. They're the first into combat in most team settings, so they spend more of their time actually fighting than most other ATs. Their lower damage table means it takes them longer to defeat opponents solo. Compared to other ATs, they spend a disproportionately high amount of time in combat, which usually means spending END at a high rate. Any AT that spends as much time as a Tanker attacking is going to see the same issue.

There is one side issue as well. Tankers are more likely to be hit by END draining attacks simply because they're more likely to be hit by any attacks.

HP and END are the big two limiting factors on how fast a character can mow down mobs. Make a good Tanker and HP really isn't a problem. That means END is really the limiting factor, and I doubt the Devs are going to loosen that. Every AT is limited by END. Try making an AV soloer who can attack non-stop for several minutes and you'll find that END is a big factor.

The addition of IOs means Tankers can now kill faster than ever (ignoring the pre-target-cap era). You can ED cap your damage while significantly reducing the END cost of your attacks and toggles, and you can increase your END and Recovery on the side. Willpower Tankers with Quick Recovery helped as well. I suspect Dev datamining indicates that Tankers are doing just fine (compared to before Update 9), and improving as time goes by. That trend will continue as more and more Tankers start using IOs to help with their END problem.

As to stacking Tankers, I know they stack just fine, but that's just me. Here's a little anecdotal evidence (which of course means nothing). I participated in a few AE boss farm with my 42 Rad/Rad Defender over the Double XP weekend. I demorecorded the runs and fed them into my demo parsing script that calculated Damage Per Minute (DPM) for the entire team. The Fire/Kin was on top, big surprise. But the Ice/SS Tanker was a close second, and well above everyone else. Now my Rad/Rad is no slouch. I was in there getting Fulcrum Shift and spamming AoEs constantly. I was well slotted and had a pretty complete build. But the Tanker still did considerably more than me and the damage oriented ATs on the team.

Why did the Tanker do so well? To start, he had Icicles and Foot Stomp. Between Rage and Fulcrum Shift, he was doing great AoE damage. But he was also the first person into combat every spawn. Apparently the squishies were fairly smart, as they waited for the Tanker to establish agro before attacking. But in those first few seconds, the Tanker got a massive head start on damaging the mobs with his AoEs. It takes a Fire/Kin or AoE heavy Blaster to make up for that. In other words, datamining will likely show that Tankers do plenty of damage in teams. Granted the playstyle and build probably had a lot to do with it. But the key point is that Tankers CAN open with AoEs safely, and they have a significant advantage in the damage dealing department because of that. More Tankers means more chars opening with AoEs, and mobs going down faster.

So what's the real problem? Just the impression that people have of Tankers in teams. If I clean up my demorecord parsing program so people can actually see how much damage different people in a team do, then the impression may change. But for now, everyone KNOWS that all Scrappers and Blasters do more damage than Tankers on paper. That means they MUST do more damage in the game, whether or not it's actually true.

It may be time to sell the 6 of so of those that I have. But then I'll have to find something else to spend the Inf on.

It is probably useful to slot it, and even slot it in several powers, but only for PvP. While it won't stack, it will replace. That means a new one will replace an old one, so you may be able to maintain a constant debuff if you have a Dark Melee buzzsaw type of build.

Can you say Broken Links? I knew you could.

Random rolls are nice, but there's no way I'm gonna get a level 25 LotG: 7.5% Increased Recharge by random rolling on my level 50 chars. And that's usually what I want, for exemping purposes.

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I'm noticing that the prices have completely crashed and I'm seeing a lot more for sale all the time.

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Maybe someone who cares (or a group of someones) finally decided to do something about it. It wasn't me, but if I cared here's how I'd do it...

1) Get 7 trial accounts using Refer a Friend.
2) Make up 7 new villains, team them with a farmer.
3) Run them through a big farm, level 14 plus 1500 Tickets for them.
4) Train them all up for 30 Salvage and 12 transaction slots.
5) Load up all market slots with Salvage, 840 total for 250 Inf per item.
6) Some sells instantly, but you have tickets for 472 more Salvage.

It helps if you have a char with Recall Friend to TP the entire team to the Mercy AE, Arbiter, then back and forth between the Ticket Vendor and Black Market.

Each run is 1312 Salvage, 12 runs to fill every character slot is 15,750 Salvage. Plus your Farmer earns some tickets as well, though not as many if he's doing it right.

The problem is, this is a short term solution. You need to repeat this process if you want to make up for the Salvage being lost by people using the AE and not picking it.

As an alternative, try this...

Get a farmer, invite 7 PUG people to an AE farm where they can doorsit, make them listen to a 3 minute infomercial about the value of rolling Random Common Salvage, farm the map, then let them go. Make sure you research price points, compare the returns to Rare Salvage, etc. But obviously you only tell them stuff that will make them think they can get rich off Common Salvage. Repeat, making sure you don't repeat people (track their globals). In no time, you will have a dedicated sales force who will convert all of their tickets to Common Salvage. Best to do this on Freedom, where there are massive numbers of people who will probably fall for it.

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At some point, I think I'll make a 'one billion in a day' goal and just not sleep for 24 hours and not do anything else, and see if maybe I can reach 1.5 or 2 billion

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It should be possible. Based on a Drop Analysis thread I posted long ago, I was making about 60M/hour farming the Liberate TV mission on my Fire/Psi Dom. Prices on purples have gone up considerably, and they were over half my income. Though granted the kill speed on my Dom has probably gone down. I haven't tried her at farming since the Dom changes.