Vanden

Now that all characters have access to both types of epic pool, the need to unlock patron pools is more annoying than ever. While for villains it's not so bad, a hero has to side switch completely to villain, run an arc, and then, if he doesn't actually WANT to be a villain, side switch back to hero. That's 4 alignment missions that could otherwise be earning merits, not to mention it's time-consuming and needs to be done well ahead of time to in order to have the PPPs unlocked when you can use them. Plus, RPers will hate having to do villainly things on their heroes.

So what I'm suggesting is to have arcs to unlock them heroside. Add a Longbow researcher who believes in "know your enemy." He'll send you on arcs to research and eventually unlock the powers of the four patrons. Unlike the villainside patron arcs, you'd have to run an arc for each pool, and you wouldn't get a respec, so villains would still have an advantage there.

I think this would make unlocking PPPs for heroes much less of a bummer.

Way back in issue 3, when the ancillary power pools were added, we could see them as a natural extension of our characters' powers. Our ninja guy could of course throw shurikens, and naturally our fire tanker was able to blast fire at our foes, if only the game would let us. APPs came along, and now we could.

But these days, APPs have been getting the short end of the stick. More and more power sets get added to ATs, with thematically matched primaries and secondaries. They don't, however, get a matching APP. I would say something like half of the themes represented in primaries and secondaries of the archetypes today aren't represented in the same archetypes' APPs. There's no way for your electric Scrapper to shoot lightning at his foes from a distance, or for your stone Dominator to shield himself in a suit of rock armor.

I find this a real impediment to creating characters. To me, the choice of APP is every bit as important to a character as primary or secondary. And I'm not alone; you can see this on the forums when people include APP choice in the shorthand for their builds! Phrases like "SS/FA/Pyre Brute" or "Fire/Fire/Mace Blaster" are proof that people consider them character-defining. These characters undoubtedly have other power pools (it's literally impossible to build to 50 without taking at least two pools), yet it's the APP that warrants mention alongside the primary and secondary.

So if you're like me, I implore you: let the devs know that you consider APPs just as important to characters as primary and secondary. Either here in this thread, or PMs, or when you meet them in-game, anywhere! This is not a petition; it's a call to arms. Go, and let it be known: we want more APPs!

You know, frankly I don't want them to fix Power Push, because it looks stupid. I'd rather they buff the damage on Power Burst to make up for its long animation.

I highly doubt that. Got some numbers to back it up?

It's back to broken again, you're welcome!

Of all the SS attacks, Haymaker's the one that seems most noticeably "pre-nerfed" for Rage.

Other than its activation, it's not.

Talk of prices isn't going to be very constructive for a while, because GR just went Live and price history for every item was wiped.

However, for Foot Stomp I have 5 Scirocco's Dervish (everything but the proc) and a Recharge IO. You might find that you run out of endurance a bit much using this power, so you could also replace the Acc/Recharge in Scirocco's for the Recharge/Endurance from Force Feedback, thought then you'd lose the set bonus for defense against Fire/Cold.

Jab I mentioned in your other thread.

You're leveling this, correct? Not respeccing into it at 50? Definitely grab Rage at 28 if so.

The icon pack has been updated for issue 18, and so has the OP. For those of you whose brand of insanity runs OCD, head on over the Vidiotmaps.com and get yourself the pack!

I'm sorry for those of you who don't like that you have to log in to download it, but Vidiotmaps is a great site that offers much more than the icon pack, so I would consider it worth your time to make a free account.

Tanks are pretty bad at low levels. I was about ready to abandon my Inv/SS in the teens until I read about Havok's Superman build on the forums. That was in Issue 3, so long before the GDN of I5.

All I can really say is get motivated by the fact that later on you'll be awesome and everyone will want to be your friend.

Now that the GR beta is coming to an end, how can I get rid of it? Using its uninstaller apparently uninstalls the Live client, and I understand that just deleting the folder will result in registry errors. Since it automatically installed to my C: drive where I don't want it, I'd like to get rid of it now that it's done with. How should I do that?

You're right! This is a CRIME! Sheila, get me the President!

Power Push?

On my Inv/SS I don't have Taunt. Terrible choice, I know, except when you don't really need it, which is almost always. If you want to be optimal for teams, by all means take it, but 99% of the time you can grab aggro fine without it. Invincibilty is an amazing taunt aura and Foot Stomp ensures enemies are paying attention to you.

Air Superiority is exactly as strong as Punch, and has the same recharge time. It costs like 1.5 end more, which is basically nothing. Definitely worth slotting, since its chance for knockdown is 100% rather than 33 or something.

Laser Beam Eyes I quite like. You can slot an Achilles' Heel in it for a chance for more -Resist, and as a pool power its Gauntlet effect is single-target, making it nice for pulling.

Hurl is nice. Even though it has a longish animation, it's got -Fly for getting enemies out of the sky, which is handy. If it's the kind of enemy that ignores -Fly effects for some reason, the knockback can make them ragdoll, which overrides their ignoring of -Fly. Plus, it's got Gauntlet, so you can use it as a ghetto Taunt. it won't last long, but in all likelihood it'll be long enough to get the enemy into your Invincibility/Foot Stomp tauntzone. Finally, it does as much damage as Haymaker, so with LBE you can contribute decent damage to enemies at range.

Jab's damage is very low. If you're gonna slot it, best thing to do is 4 slots for Kinetic Combat's 3.75% defense buff to S/L. If you can't get this (it's very expensive), you could also put in four slots of Smashing Haymaker for 1.75% defense S/L. Another option is the "buzzsaw" route. Slot it with the damage procs from Touch of Death, Perfect Zinger, and Mako's Bite. If you've got the means, damage procs are also available from the Gladiator's Strike and Hecatomb sets, though those are harder to get.

The mitigation from Knockback is just too good. Anything else feels too squishy. So there.

I don't think there's anything better for survivability than an FF defender, but it's so boring to play as a primary. We need incentive to play it in the form of it being fun for US to play!

I don't know what kind of acrobatic robot eyes you think I have, but those images are way too big for me to get a stereoscopic image going.

I literally can't see the difference.

Give it a personality! A fun one! When you summon it, it would say "Hi there!" When a teammate gets near it, it would say, "Hi, $name! I hope I can help!" When an enemy gets near it it would go, "Ooh, who's that?" and when you leave it it might say, "Hey, where are you going?"