dugfromthearth

I am glad for IO's in that I buy them at 22, then add as needed but never have to replace them if I don't want to. I hate dealing with enhancements and character planning - IO's has helped reduce that.

I am fine with IO sets, frankenslotting, etc as long as the devs stick with balancing everything for SO's. If other people want to pay to play the game with them I am happy as it means the game continues, but if it becomes forced on us to balance those players I will stop playing.

There are 2 reasons to make a new set - theme, and effect. Theme is just wanting to have a set for X, which can often be covered just by coloring at least looks - make a dark character, color it yellow and call it radiation.

Effects are what really makes a set different.

Defensive sets generally fall into 4 types of defense: resistance, defense, healing, regen
They have utility effects: damage aura, damage buff, to hit buff, fear, +recharge, endurance recovery, stealth

I can see defensive sets for:
Sonic: -res aura, instead of a damage aura. It would up everyone's damage on a team
Psionic: cloak of confusion, instead of cloak of fear from dark, minor confuse (minions only)
Radiation: aura of -to hit, aura of -regen, aura of -strength, make it a weak def/res set with a bunch of aura's that debuff instead. Great in melee, bad at range

I think it would be fairly easy to come up with some sets that play differently. A big issue would be balance - tankers with defender style debuffs on teams could be overpowered.

does Ice Patch / Burn work again?

When I started years ago when tankers were godlike in their defenses (pre ED) I saw a fire/ice tanker who would herd, drop ice patch and then burn and all the enemies just melted while they flopped around. But they changed burn so people ran away and it did not work as well.

does the combo work once again?

I did mean literally "you could play with" not what is the minimum possible the game allows

You have to use a real AT and powerset choices, but you are not limited to level restrictions on them (so you could be an earth tanker with just Granite from that powerset). You are limited to the number of power pools, but not by prerequisites (so you could take just Burnout from Super Speed).

Assume all powers can be 6 slotted but ED applies.

Counting all powers - including free ones like Stamina, and temporary powers.

I'm thinking a brute with granite and foot stomp and a few other filler powers

my favorite powerset by far is dark melee

an early aoe cone
a self heal with an attack
a control (fear)

it just gives you so many more options than most melee sets which are just damge

but, I only have one dark melee - when he gets too high I just delete him and start over

Your goose is as good as mine

Dark/Dark: Goose - every time you hit a foe with a dark power there is a chance of the goose proc which taunts them to chase you

I love the look of the set, but the combos just don't really work. Getting 3 attacks to hit just fails too often. The biggest problem was the Empower which I needed precisely when my attacks were not hitting to get a +to hit. The combo seemed almost to be taunting me - you can't hit your foes, you can fix that if you can just hit 3 times in a row.

I know that the later combos make empower and weaken superfluous, but trying to level with DB it was just sad.

Is the set considered good enough because post 32 it is fine?
Or is there any talk of tweaking it so that it isn't just 3 powers cycled and the rest ignored?

I liked the start of First Ward. I am now on Master Midnight and have little desire to go back.

The story was pretty good. The zone is fine, interesting in places.

What I really dislike is that almost every other mission I am alternating between fighting someone and being their ally. It makes the story feel like I'm just being jerked around. I no longer care about any of the groups because I have fought both with and against them. I appreciate the attempt to have diversity in enemies, but it just killed the story for me.

I have a different perspective I would bet than most on the boards. I never play at 50 (I have one 50 that I literally never play), I level characters, delete them, and start over. I use common IO's and have a few frankenslotted powers (as in maybe 4 powers across 9 characters). So I do not care what level 50 IO'd set characters can do. These comments apply to tankers leveling, particularly up to 32.

1. Tankers are tougher than scrappers and brutes, noticeably so.
2. Tankers are easy to solo, easier than blasters, doms and other squishys - but slower.
3. Tankers are most useful in taking the alpha, they cannot hold aggro for an 8 person team, but someone has to take the aggro and that's where tankers shine.

The problem with tankers are:

1. Their defenses are patchy - a Vahz toxic attack wipes out many tanker sets who have no resistance to it. Or you have melee defense but not ranged, etc. The best solution imho would be to give tankers more HP to start, maybe have them scale differently so they don't top out at more HP than they have now, but make them tougher even if their powers have holes.

2. Lots of enemies are hard to get into melee, they stay at range. This makes it hard to hold aggro, but is a bigger issue for Invuln, Shield, WP which rely upon an aura on their foes for part of their protection. When I am playing I want this changed (think Striga ships), but in reality I don't. Managing the foes is a challenge, and there should be a challenge.

3. Tankers have very little to do. You have several defenses you toggle on. Then you have a few attacks. You can get a snack while your attacks recharge (mace I'm looking at you). I don't think tankers should have more attacks, the real problem is that their defenses are boring to play. I wish there were click defenses (I mean defenses generically, res, def, regen, etc) that you used to take an alpha but faded after 10 seconds. I wish inherent defenses were strong enough you could use those mostly (like soloing), and turn on the toggles for that extra boost when tanking for teams. I can understand having toggle on and forget sets, but it would be nice to have more active sets as well.

4. Tankers can hold aggro on a lot of mobs, and defends against a lot of mobs - but get their AoE late if much at all. I want to run my tanker at x2 from level 10ish and I want him to have AoE's (at least 1) to beat on a larger group. Thorny Assault with Fling Thorns at level 4 is a great example - although that might be level 8 for tankers.

I think really the biggest complaint I have leveling is playing the tough tanker slowly pounding one foe at a time. Give me AoE's. Limit them to hitting 5 foes, I'm okay with that. It's better than one at a time.

I have played blaster, dominator, and corruptor. Note these comments apply to leveling, not playing an IO'd out build that goes beyond the classes abilities.

Blaster is either easier or you are dead. Because if you don't kill them fast they take you out. You also have no self heal, so there can be lots of downtime resting.

Dominator I want to love, I like holds and control. They work solo, but are more melee than ranged and take effort. They are all about upfront control, with no heal if things go badly you get taken out, or have to rest a lot. They are maybe a bit better to solo than a blaster - but an ice blaster with 2 holds is probably about equal to a dominator in soloing. And dom does not get dual pistols.

Corruptor works better. I have a dual pistol/rad corruptor. Against weaker groups I can just act like a blaster and take them out. Against tougher groups I can use rad debuffs and then take them out. I have a self heal to help recover in a fight, and downtime is minimal (accelerated metabolism also means END is less of an issue). I also have played other corrs and they also play well solo.

In summary you can make any of them work solo. Blaster and Dom are more limited in their powers so they are a bit tougher solo. Corrs are more flexible and generally work better. Dual Pistols is a solid but not amazing set. Traps is probably okay on a blaster, not great on a corr - giving up a self heal is a big loss.

I'm a hero. I do 10 heroic tips, then an alignment mission to confirm I am a hero.
Do I then just get alignment merits for playing?
Do I do heroic tips to get alignment merits? Alignment missions?

If instead of being a hero I switch to being a vigilante do I still earn alignment merits as a vigilante? Or are alignment merits just for heroes/villains?

Is there a downside to being a vigilante instead of being a hero?

8 ill/rad

name all of the "lord of illusions"
by alternating capital I and l you can make 8 characters that look like they have the same name