MTeague

Wait. Lughebu et al, are really just a different version of guys looking to charge up batteries?

honestly not sure if it belongs with Minor or Moderate. But that's another reason I'd go straight to Detailed Info.

Nice! Glad you found them. 🙂

I would always just use the Detailed Info for the power in game. In general I would expect Minor < Moderate ~ Medium < Heavy ~ High < Superior < Extreme. But I would never treat the text as more than a *Very* loose rule of thumb, and I would expect variations.

Well. a) I'm sure the playerbase writ large would probably prefer the pet lol. b) it's an interesting option. I'd need to think about how to leverages that most effectively, both for teams, and for soloing. I presume any attack that was initiated before the you entered/exited would likely still hit you, to prevent you from hoping in and out of the sphere and doing quick freebie attacks, or negating a big enemy wind up. The game engine isn't kind to that kind of interruption anyway. if it was legal when it was triggered, it's legal when it connects, seems to be the general rule. Still. For a T9, I presume it would likely have a LARGE to-hit debuff. THAT could be worth it right there, as a kind of back-door Armor power. Also now I'd kind of want to make a Light/Dark controller, in homage to an old old olllllld game. (circa 1983)

With the exception of Shining Motes, this is closer to what I always wanted Illusion Control to be. Deception / Sensory Overload / Sensory Deprivation, not phantasms. I approve! (I'd still prefer a petless version, but eh, I like the T1-T8 enough that I don't care)

I've always liked the float up and hammer down WHAMMO animation on Total Focus. So it's an easy sell to me, esp with Total Focus still doing basically the same animation, but faster. At least, it feels faster to me. I haven't got hard data on that though. My Energy/Energy brute certainly feels like a wrecking ball when I play him. The Stun mechanic on Barrage is nice (too low level yet for Energy Transfer), and can let me park and annoying mob while I pummel his buddies down. The extra AE targets on a "charged up" Power Crash can be nice when teaming. The only "problem" I have now is that I like alllllllmost every single power from his Primary and Secondary trees, and it's proving to be a royal pain to squeeze in all the Pool powers I want. Oh woe is me, I know, I know.... Ideally, I'd still rather not have a charge up/release system at all. But it's not that invasive, and it's cycled around an attack (Total Focus) that I was going to use on cooldown anyway. It's certainly better than combo systems that say "you must attack with A, then B, then C, in order, and if you attack with anything else in between your combo is ruined".

Ice/Ice is where I first saw the word blastroller bandied about. If you're firmly "Damage Is King and I'm Softcapped Anyway", then okay, the mitigation tools may have absolutely no value to you. But the powerset combo allows for a vastly different style of play than say, a Fire/Fire blaster, and frankly, that's a Good Thing to my mind. Plus the proc'ing opportunities aren't to be sneezed at.

I suspect some of that is left deliberately vague so as to better mesh with backstories and headcanons. And ain't no way any developer with even an ounce of sanity would begin to anywhere near the question of "So what about the gods people believe in now? Is <current day religion deity goes here> anything in similar origin to Hequat or Lughebru or Mot or..." and "why don't see <current day religion's deity> showing up like Prometheus does?" Nothing good could *possibly* come from such a venture.

Even if the choices were just "Lockdown's lightning sphere," OR, "No Added Fx" would be fine by me. I don't need to be able to choose a new graphic, just the ability to decline the proc graphic would be plenty good for me. I mean, i'd see it as very very low priority. "Sort Your Socks" and "Dust the Living Room" come long before this. But it *would* be nice. Thematically, it's always a bit odd when my Assault Rifle/Ignite sprays fire and put.... icicles? around people's feet, because Frozen Blast proc'd.

I very much like Mind Control not having permanent summonable pets. ; Confuse means all enemies are my potential pets. That's plenty good enough for me. Confuse already IS my "take control of enemy mob for X time and need to refresh or it can break free". No, I can't order it around. No, it won't zone with me. But those are concessions to game balance that I'm okay with. Singy is a pretty beastly pet for gravity control. But it can't heal me like Tsoo Sorcerors. Fly Trap has some good immobs and damage. But it can't match a Zeus Titan. Animated Stone tanks like a champ. But it's not going to rip things faces off like a Cimeron Boss. And I can confuse several enemy mobs at once and maintain them without much effort. I really don't feel Mind is lacking here.

Where are they? in the old Advanced Dungeons and Dragons sourcebooks, obviously.

I very much hope we see a Melee/Support archtype on Homecoming. Do I expect it soon? Hell no. Have I heard a peep about the HC devs feeling like that's a direction they want to go? No. In fact, I dimly recall reading some expressed sceptism on how to make the idea playable at all. I'm still kinda hoping. But it's sorta the same way I'm still hoping to win Powerball. Not really a deep emotional investment to it. Yes, I know other servers have it already, but the point is, I trust Homecoming Devs to EITHER do a professional job and produce a viable balanced Archtype, OR, to not do it at all. I have NO such faith for Cake or Thunderspy or others, and I would NOT want a direct port of any portion of their code without a solid review / QC effort to make sure it was up to snuff.

At high levels, with a decent build, Doms rock up and down the square. At low levels... they can be slow. Which by itself isn't the end of the world. Some characters, if you solo level them, you have to rest practically after every fight. That might be less enjoyable than going "Hulk SMASH!" through map after map, but the point is, that's not really unique to dominators per se. More than one AT has some late-bloomers. Defense based characters used to take it seriously on the chin back when you still needed Training Origin enhancments until lvl 12, and Dual Origin enhancements until lvl 22, because they could just never amass enough defense to go fire-and-forget. Where I do think Doms have some issues, is levelling in particular missions where the boss comes after a dry spell, with a long scripted cutscene,. Something that means any existing Domination will have worn off, and where you mgiht not have enough fodder left over to build up Domination again. This is particularly true if the boss is something very resistance to holds /eye Arachnos Huntsmen, where you might struggle to stack enough hold mag on it without Domination before it smears you. OTOH, some of that is probably my own darn fault for commonly playing at +2x2. But Doms more than any other character, I find myself carefully managing my inspirations and making sure I've got a few reds, purples, and and yellows when it comes time for the big boss during the 1-30 phase. (usually around 30 is when my Doms seem to fully bloom)

well I mean, it can depend if X percent of your team is a 50 exemplared down with wild and crazy set bonuses from purple sets, or if your team is a bunch of folks actually doing it while they're actually lvl 16 or so, no lvl 20 powers available because they just don't HAVE those powers yet, and barely any slots to speak of. And especially back when they might only have had dual-origin enhancers slotted in the few powers they do have, and whiff a lot. Less of an issue now that you can use SO's right out of the gate.

And for a game that lives and dies on Style Points, "cool" matters. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool

/signed /endored

I would not turn off XP at 50. Even If I didn't want to be incarnate on that character. Worst case, okay, all the slots get unlocked. S'ok, I don't ever have to craft a single power to fill them with. But if I later decide to roll with, i *could*. And in the meantime, I can always spend Incarnate Threads to buy Super Inspirations from Luna.

I always got the impression it's supposed to be a time-lag thing. Yea, NOW, when we have all content available to us now, and you might be encountering it in any order at all, i agree, it's a bit janky. But if Mind of a King and Synapse are stories you do very early, where the Clockwork King is still seen as a tragedy/waste of potential but ultimately a menace who needs to be stopped, it makes more sense. LATER, as you do more arcs where he appears and learn more about him, and see him in a more sympathetic view, attitudes can shift. But I think Synpase TF is supposed to be in the "most people don't know any of that yet" part of the timeline.

I'm hoping that's not such a big issue. Every player has wierdly different costumes. Does that mean their costume files exist on MY computer somewhere if we're both hanging out at Miss Liberty? I doubt it. are full images being transmitted to my computer in real time as they walk around, execute powers, etc? I doubt it. I think what's happening is the Shard / Server informs my computer that they're "using this body type, with these sliders, and these costume piece selections, with these colors", and then it's up to my local client to assemble the necessary legos from the files of all tailor options that are already included in the game install. But the data for a customized pet, I would hope, should be no more additional storage load for any local client or the server, than just another player with another costume. I'd guess one first decisions process is stuck one a) do they want to allow pet customization at all? (and Illusion Control/Phantom Army/Mirror gives me hope that gets a "yes" from the devs) b) if so, do they want to restrict to certain prefab choices? Or, open the gates and let players choose anything. c) If you allow players to choose anything, are they okay with "robots" that don't look the least bit robotic. Beasts that don't look beastly. Undead that look like normal humans. Mercenaries that look like Robots? I'm GUESSING they're still stuck deciding between cooking up multiple pre-fab options per pet type vs just opening the full costume editor. But I have ZERO evidence to back that. Just Wild Posterior Hunches. I know they're smart enough to know people will complain if it's allowed for Thugs/Ninjas/Mercs but not Robots or Beasts or Demons or Undead. Of course, they're also smart enough to know people gonna complain no matter what lol, so, maybe they don't care.

This exactly why my Fire/Fire/Fire Sentinel is a Sentinel and not a Brute or Blaster. (yes, I skipped FSC in his epic pool). And yet... I don't mind the Psi-Blades in Psi Melee. For whatever reason the flaming scimitar is a total non-starter to me, asthetically, and feel like "why concentrate fire into the shape of a blade to strike a physical blow with it, why not just BURN THEM!!?". But the Psi-Blade, work for me. I guess I can see it especially for a character who's background leaves them half-or-totally-untrained, and they're just making it in the shape of a blade, out of instinct, not really knowing HOW, just reaching for the familiar, trying for a knife, to attack with because they don't KNOW how to just do a psionic blast from afar. Why don't I afford Fire Swords the same latitude? I don't know. But that is how the very odd thought process works in my brain.

I hear you. Frankly, I find the 1-44 game vastly more fun than the 45-50 game. There *are* times.... infrequently.... where I do enjoy an incarnate romp. Where I want my main character to go Full Gandalf revealing the hidden power within But most of the time? No. I would enjoy an OPTIONAL difficulty setting for "Disable Incarnate Powers", similar to the Ouro challenges for "No Inspirations", "Enemies Buffed", "No Travel Powers", etc. I have very limited hope of that ever happening. For the time being, @Outrider_01's solution of a Gentleman's Agreement, among a group of like minded people who choose to simply unslot all Incarnate powers when forming up the team, is really the ONLY option for this. Yes, that's a lot more work. No, it's completely not pug friendly. But, well, that's life. Your average pick-up-group player probably doesn't WANT to not have access to their incarnate powers. Even if an optional setting were created, you'd have to advertise it up front and it would probably take you a lot of time in LFG chat recruiting to get a reliable squad. The good news is there is an Awful Lot of 1-44 content. In particular, I think you'd really enjoy First Ward and Night Ward. The story arcs there really kick it up a notch and make you bring your A game.

Nova Praetoria: use the "No Xp" option at lvl 9 / prevent you from dinging 10 for any Nova arcs you want to finish. Imperial City: use the "No Xp" option at lvl 14 / prevent you from dinging 15 for any Imperial City arcs you want to finish. Neutropolis: use the "No Xp" option at lvl 19 / prevent you from dinging 20 for any Neutropolis arcs you want to finish. First Ward: use the "No Xp" option at lvl 29 / prevent you from dinging 30 for any First Ward arcs you want to finish. Night Ward: fuzzier on this one, but I *think* its 39/do not ding 40.

Anyone know if the Redside Brokers have any such TV/Film/Literature connections? I'm kind of assuming no, at least, I can't place a single one of them.

I only rarely deal with invasions because when i logged on that night, I logged on to do various story arcs. I didn't log on for the sake of a Rikti invasion. If the mood hits me? Sure, I'll go. But more often than not I'm firmly in a "Nope, I'm NOT dealing with this" mode.