eryq2

Originally Posted by Aura_Familia

And of which case he is no longer casual.

Casual pvp died a long time ago.

Originally Posted by KillfanB

I live on bluside and I wanted to make a farming toon for AE,AV's for drops and tickets.

I've narrowed it Down too SS/Fire or SS/Ele armor tanker.

(I'm talking mobs of people not 4 in 1 group)

which build do you think is the best for farming?

Originally Posted by Godpants

Nobody needs the better things in the game. Every single item for sale in Wenworth's or the Black Market that you can't buy outright from another source is a luxury.

It's unfortunate that your cousin can't play as often as he'd like, but come I-17, you can e-mail him a big chunk of INF that will allow him to place bids for goodies that will likely fill during his enforced absences from the game.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat

I've done everything in this game at one point or another, and the drop rate is the same whether you run missions, run farms or street sweep hazard zones. The only thing that matters is how many enemies you defeat- with the mission slider, that variable is largely in our hands.

Payback ran at optimal settings for his powerset and survivabilty- even level, +3 or 4 spawn size. His AoE concentration meant 'normal' contact mission created plenty of opportunities for drops and he was able to clear them in good time.

maybe you're just a crummy farmer?

Originally Posted by Ignatz

I'm a little baffled by the sarcasm in your posts. Nethergoat's experiment was pretty straight forward, and I confirm his results. On the few characters I've soloed, drops were plentiful, and all of them had between 100-300 million Influence left after the final batch of IOing at level 50.

I can only speculate that your soloing includes duel boxing to powerlevel your characters via farms. There are two distinct differences. One is you will get less drops on your lower level character. Second, you won't receive any Merits. Random rolling Merits is a powerful way to get either wanted recipes, or ones that you can sell for very good income.

Nethergoat didn't mention Merit spending, so I can reasonably assume(since his final Influence number is at the high end of my own solo projects) that he received a few lucky drops. This isn't surprising in that even one lucky drop can make a 70 million Influence difference...or more.

Originally Posted by Sam_Sneed

Was personally very disappointed to see that Blasters did not get a new secondary to go along with Dual Pistols. I was hoping for a "natural" KungFu type secondary, but anything would have been nice.

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect

Really? No other set has anything to offer except melee attacks? None? That's quite the generalization there.

Energy has 4 melee attacks out of 9 powers. That leaves you half the set to choose from if you don't want the melee attacks. Except Power Thrust, you're stuck with that. Power Boost, a power that boosts the secondary effects of you other powers, wouldn't an Ice blaster find that useful? Or Boost Range...hmmm, sounds useful for someone who wants to avoid melee, does it not? Conserve Power...stretches your endurance bar so you can blast longer before running out of endurance....sounds like something all blasters could use.

Fire gives you a lot of powers that you need to be in melee to use. In fact, with the exception of Ring of Fire pretty much the whole set requires you to be in melee. Your generalization actually fits this one.

Devices doesn't have a single melee attack in it. Not one. Even Taser has range to it. No one has ever built a Devices blapper.

Electric also requires you to spend a lot of time in melee, but out of that, only 3 are melee attacks (4 if you count Shocking Grasp as an attack, I consider it a hold)

Mental Manipulation also makes you spend time in melee. But what do you get in the set? Melee attacks? Nope, only 2 powers in it count as a melee attack. You get Drain Psyche, one of the most awesome powers blasters have ever been given. World of Confusion, a fairly crappy damage aura with a minor confuse built in. And of the 2 that count as a melee attack, one is Psychic Shockwave, one of the best PBAoE attacks in the game, on ANY AT.

Yes, Ice does give you options other than melee attacks, but so do other sets.

As far as the blapper playstyle goes:

A blaster that uses ALL of his powers will outdamage one that only uses half of them. A blaster that uses only ranged is only half a blaster. On the flip side, a pure blapper who only fights in melee is no better. A true blaster is a damage dealer....it doesn't make any difference at all whether they're dealing that damage from down the hall or 2 feet away.

I'm building an Ice/Electric blaster that will have his melee ability. I don't consider him a blapper....he's just a blaster that doesn't gimp his damage potential by skipping his hard hitting attacks. Especially with Ice as his primary, what possible danger could he be in punching an enemy that is frozen in a block of ice?

Originally Posted by Nethergoat

I don't get to actually play any of my characters a whole lot these days- for me IO'ing them out has to some extent become the game. Popping in and checking the market, picking up and crafting wins, collecting on sales, messing around with builds, all that fits nicely into my current (greatly reduced) gaming schedule.

Running the occasional mission to stress test performance on evolving builds is about the extent of my 'real' gameplay these days.

I have noticed lately that all the changes of the last few years have greatly suppressed my formerly insatiable appetite for new alts- the ability to evolve existing characters via IOs means I can keep scratching that character development itch with characters who've hit the level cap.

I'm sure Going Rogue will reignite my alt-itis though, if we get the plethora of new costume options I'm expecting.

Originally Posted by Fulmens

It's an unfortunate effect [sorry, choir, I'm gonna preach] that people who Want It Nao will buy whatever's on the market Nao. Which is usually level 50's because that's where the play happens and the supply happens. And people who Want It Nao will pay inflated prices.

... and that's why max-level procs cost MORE than lower level ones.

... and that's why it's financially stupid to roll at any level below 50.

... and that's why there's nothing but 50's on the market.

... and so it goes.

(Note: As far as pool B's, anyway, more are produced at level 50 than at level 30-49 combined. In a moment of scientific curiosity/stupidity I tried to corner the entire supply of Mako's Dam/End once, buy new ones, sell a supply of the ones I had and generally raise the price floor. It didn't work, made me cranky, and gave me that very expensive chunk of knowledge. )

Originally Posted by Silas

Fair enough. Thanks for posting the screenshot, although it makes me want to make an elec/sd/blaze even more

I agree that if a mob is one-shotted it doesn't really matter that much how one-shotted they are, I was just pointing out that Inferno does significantly more damage because it means Inferno can one-shot stuff that SC/LR can't. Even though as said before, SC/LR recharging much faster and not crashing your end mean over time they can easily do as much damage.