MTeague

I haven't used Claws/EA, but I do have a Claws/SR, and there's a fair bit of overlap. Note: depending on your influence, how fast you make it / farm / enjoy marketeering, etc, you may see some of these as pricey. That's fine. Build them up over time. They can be goals, not necessarily something to slot right away. But if you're rolling in the dough, hey, sugar-daddy away. Steadfast Protection +3% defense all, Gladiator's Armor +3% defense all. Get ASAP. You get two Resist Damage passives in EA, so you don't even need to pick up Kick/Tough. For Maintenence Heals that just passively happen: Panacea Proc: big help vs endurance, too Power Transfer Proc: when I can afford a slot for stamina, I like. Maybe also good for your clicky-End-Leech power. Shield Wall +5% resist all proc: because it's literally too good not to slot Reactive Defenses Scaling Damage Resist: same. /EA is Typed defense, so slot with that in mind Kinetic Combat, good Smashing/Lethal defense at 4 slots Eradication, good Energy/Negative defense at 4 slots Winter-O's generally have nice Fire/Cold defense, esp Avalanche. Naturally, work in your ATO's in there somewhere. When you can fit them, I like having a few source of -% endurance cost of all powers. Unbreakable Guard is a good source of this to tuck away in a Resist power (either one of your passives and/or Tough), you'll want it's +7.5% Max HP unique anyway Annihilation is a source of this, and comes with a -RES debuff proc, never sucks. Reactive Defenses is a source of this, and if you six slot one of your defense toggles with this, you get +8.75% recharge for your trouble. not too shabby. Preventative Medicine is a source of this, and the Absorb proc is always worth slotting even on it's own. This one might not be feasible to work into /EA though, trying to remember. You'll probably end with a moderate weakness to Psionic defense. It's hard to stack big numbers for Psionic defense specifically. But you should have very good numbers for the other types, and the set bonuses providing half-positional-defense vs corresponding type helps a lot too. For your attacks, Focus and Shockwave are very nice. I actually skip them, but that's for OCD reasons where I want to make physical attacks with the claws rather than have waves of force. By the NUMBERS though, that's a bad decision for me. I should be taking Focus and Shockwave. Spin is happiness and light. Eviscerate, many people hate the length of the animation. It hits QUITE hard on a scrapper though, I'd take it.

I think a Tanker will have a wider-area AoE attack that can hit more foes per activation. But the Sentinel may have 4-5 different AoE attack the can chain together, vs a Tanker having like, 1, maybe two if they got Crosspunch. Sentinel armor sets are Scrapper levels of durability; Tankers and Brutes can build up higher. But that said, a well built Sentinel, much like a well built Scrapper, can still take an awful lot of incoming punishment. They won't be able to hold aggro well, but a Sentinel or two to soak the alpha strike and a mix of other AT's coming in right behind them will do right fine for most content.

When I lead teams, I never go above +3, because if anyone lower level joined, they'll be sidekicked up to -1. Because any +4's to me, would be +5's to whoever is sidekicked. That's just unkind. I know, many players will view it as "but I can kill them all easy, sidekicks should just sit back and enjoy the easy XP". And I can respect that view. But it's that whole thing where I absolutely LOATHE the feeling of being carried, and when I lead, I assume (correctly or not) that anyone I invite probably feels the same way. Frequently, I'll have it set at +2 and no higher unless requested by the team, particularly if there's a bunch of MM's on the team. If I plan to do a specific story arc, I absolutely advertise that up front, so that players know it will be that arc, and not a round-robin of missions from each player.

I do enjoy cutscenes. I think the ones in the game, are generally speaking well done, particularly First/Night Ward and the various "Choices" in Praetoria's 1-20 arcs. I'd be willing to give audio a fair trial; however, I'm nervous on audio, because of just how incredibly BAD I consider the Galaxy City Tutorial to be. The audio there is so horrendous, I've actually developed an entirely irrational hatred for the character of Blue Spectrum, even if that hatred should be more properly directed at the NPC blaring over the radio at you. When character concept demands someone start in Galaxy City, I mute my headphones for the duration. Seriously the Galaxy City tutorial is a textbook case of how NOT to nag a player, for it's entire duration. Plus, you'll have some players who simply are deaf, or hard of hearing, or who's playing situations (sleeping baby, etc) require them to play without sound. So as long as I have an option to disable audio and use close captioning, then sure, experiment away with audio. Lord knows they can't do worse than Galaxy City, short of actually using nails on a chalkboard.

So, a major shift to focus on the Family?

Many people spend all their time on a Lvl 50 doing Peregrine Island, ITF's, iTrials, and an occasional Dark Astoria. But many other people may spend the same amount of time on their nominally level 50 character exemplared down, doing Ouroborous Marathons. "endgame" varies by player. If you'll be exemplaring down a lot, then those incarnates may be completely out the window for you. Someone who mainly exemplars basically has no Clarion, no Ageless, No Barrier, no Lore pets, your Alpha doesn't matter, no Hybrid, etc. That may shift the math a lot to how much you might keep feeling blasters as squishy vs not.

I acknowledge this produces mathematically superior numbers in many situations. I can't do it. I keep feeling a great disturbance in the force, of millions of potential set bonuses that cried out, and were suddenly silenced.

I'm okay with AE having that level of detail as an option.... but .... keep a "Baby's First AE Builder" option too lol to just handle the 10 thousand details that go into a stellar base that most of us are simply too unskilled to use properly lol

Aw man, for a half second, I thought you meant Indomitable will came with a Power Boost effect, and I'd been Captain Oblivious all this time, never knowing what I had lol. (and was wondering how in gods name anyone would ever take any other epic, if that were so....)

I'd absolutely prefer this method. I do think the -Recharge scheme is likely easier to code, but .... I do see where -Recharge will reduce damage over the course of a fight, but still allow for lots of unpleasant incoming burstiness if the EB/AV/GM has several attacks come off cooldown all at once. On the other other hand, I can also see problems if an EB/AV/GM doesn't *have* any smaller attacks, only the Big Whammies. Might require recoding them to have smaller attacks to fall back upon. And hopefully it wouldn't break them the way MM Pets AI used to get screwed up.

Maybe the same way Immobs can apply a -Movement debuff against things that are too strong to be Immob'd, some kind of -Recharge against things that have Hold/Stun/Confuse/Fear applied, but the mez protection is too strong for the control to "Stick". The -Recharge reflecting a "partial" Hold, where the foe can still attack, but sluggishly? or in the case of Confuse/Fear has to spend extra time mentally focusing themselves before they attack? EDIT: and no application of the -Recharge if the control takes full effect. If it really IS held, then the hold is enough.

Exactly. It always bothered me a little it didn't look more like Barney Miller.

As much as I loooooove Controllers, I sort of get the bind the devs are in with them. If we're too good it's City of Statues, and every big ticket encounter is trivialized. But as it stands now, as you say, the Controller is largely unable to reliable Control the most dangerous foes who you probably need controlled the most. And it's... dicey... if you're a solo Mind/ controller when you get to anything with purple triangles. Yea, you can defeat the AV.... maybe.... with mass amounts of Reds, Purples, and by propping up a Shivan with your secondary. More likely than not you just have to team. And that's not necessarily the worst of all possible answers. Teaming shouldn't be completely anathema. But I can't say I don't get jealous of some of my other alts when I'm dealing with Envoy of Shadow, etc.

I don't know. You'd have to both have the same final "Morality" mission in your mission log. So few people do tip missions, that I haven't actually been in a team with anyone when that happens. I suspect if you both did legitly have the same mission in your log, you'd both get the merits and both missions would be completed at the same time.

Air Sup!

Now I have to make a beam rifle Sentinel or Blaster with a gold shirt (alternate costume where it's ripped....) and black pants and boots.

*very* interesting, I didn't realize slotting affected the end drain resist as well as the end gained.

Just make the Hat and Hairstyle independant choices,, with "Bald" being one such choice. I can understand certain "hairs" may not make sense and just not be available to be used with a hat. (tall spikey Mender Silos hair, or giant exposed brain, etc) But should be able to do long hair, or a low ponytail, or a crew cut, or barbarian hair, etc, regardless of if you wear a Fedora or a Santa Cap or a Bandana.

Consume in Fiery gives you 2 minutes of 50% end drain resistance, which is quite nice. In Epic Pools, "Conserve Power" was an Old Standby to survive crashes back in the days when people used T9's. It can still save your bacon if you get Sapped. Also, don't forget certain team buffs Force Fields: Remember that Support set everyone pans as useless? It provides Endurance Drain resistance, too. Storm Summoning: O2 Boost: that weak single target heal stormies get? Provides 75% Endurance Drain resistance Electric Affinity: Faraday Cage. tougher for tanks, since you ideally want the protection at all times, but Elec Affin is good at spiking your recovery as well admittedly, a lot of players are focused on a "solo solution", and, granted, self-sufficiency is nice, but... we're allowed to team, too 🙂

"Remember Caesar, Thou Art Squishy." Built properly, that can stop being true when you're high level and have your slotting mostly complete. But during levelling? remember that phrase. Now that said, squishy or not, sometimes melee is the RIGHT place to be. Assault Rifle/Martial Combat is chockfull of Knockdowns. Between Ki Push, Storm Kick, Dragon's Tail, Buckshot, Slug, Sniper Shot, you can EASILY take a boss from full health to dead before it can ever attack you even once. Plus, keeping a baddy on it's butt in a corner with an Ignite patch is just fun. Personally, I find Blappers far more fun than Hoverblasting or trying to be an orbital platform of doom. But sometimes you pay the price. If you ARE going into melee, you should know how you plan to handle bosses, or large swarms. Also, you should have a GTFO card or two. I'm a huge fan of Speed of Sound / Jaunt for this. But a PBAE slow, whether it's an aura (ReactionTime, FrigidProtection) or a patch (Glue Arrow) is also good to help you get distance when it's time.

Have you tried /Martial Combat blaster secondary? (I always want to say Martial Kombat....) Admittedly, that's Kicks, not sword strikes, but an Archer with a side of Martial Arts seems like it could be plausible for your concepts.

Well in the case of

It's from the Hypothetical Support powerset. Other powers include Imagine If You Will For The Sake of The Argument Suspension of Disbelief That last one is hugely popular, since it prevents people from complaining that Faster Than Light travel isn't possible when watching Sci-Fi

Huh. I actually like that events proceed somewhat and that it goes from "All's Well In Emperor Cole's Mighty City" to "Invasion!" (Admiral Sutter/Colonel Duray) to "Angry Hamidon is Angry" to "Exiles On Primal Earth / New Praetorians". Admittedly, some of this is knowing that certain Praetors finally get what's coming to them. There are some NPC's I feel bad about their ulimate fates, but if they are not SEEN to die on screen, they can always be added in later. Heck even if they ARE seen to die on screen, we've seen War Witch return from literally beyond the grave. Death is really only a speedbump in comic-land, if the author wants the character to be re-introduced. And if the HC Devs never re-introduce certain characters, well, we can do it via some AE missions.