MTeague

I mean, I get that, but Practiced Brawler, can stack. Sure it will interrupt you every so often when it's on autofire, but I believe you net greater status protection that you would have with a toggle. Plus, if you're ever detoggled, well, you don't lose it at all, because it's not a toggle.

It would be easier if there were badges for seeing a therapist. 😃

I'm very happy with my Fire/Fire/Fire Sentinel. He's not a tank. He won't ever BE a tank. But he's not meant to be a tank. He's meant to be a durable villain who can throw fire, and burn squads of mobs to the ground. When designing a build you will have to decide just how all-in you want to go on +Defense or not. If you choose to focus hard on stacking Defense via IO set bonuses, you must keep in mind that your Sentinel will not have even a single drop of Defense Debuff Resist. So in ann given encounter, mobs that debuff defense, once they get that first hit, they can pin your defense to the floor. If you choose NOT to focus on stacking Defense, I get that too, but keep in mind as a Sentinel, your Resistances cap out at 75%. Not 95%. And there's only going to be just so much Absorb or Regen you can realistically stack to back up those resistances. For me? I chose to stack AOE and Range defense. Melee defense I'd take where it could be gotten, but I didn't stress over softcapping. I've been happy with the result. In most encounters, even soloing large groups, I can usually kill enough of the baddies by the time they floor my defense. My resistances and healing easily carry me through cleanup, and I'll end the fight at Max Health. MALTA aren't even a problem for him, because Consume will give you strong End Drain resistance, and if your recharge is good enough to stack it, you can basically laugh in a Sapper's face, for every encounter in the entire mission. You got no Knockback protection, but that hole is easily plugged by an IO. You got no constant-on Immob resist, but Burn comes back pretty quick once you're kitted out. There's also the Combat Jumping option. I find it a fun option, that fills the character concept I'd been wanting to make perfectly. The occasional crowing from minmaxers rolls off me like water from a duck's back.

More eye beams are fine and dandy with me, but keep the reverse in mind, too. Ex: Peacebringer, Glinting Eye. Has no alternate animation. Rad Blast has an alternate, can't think of why Luminous Blast doesn't get that choice.

It ... is.... actually OK to just, NOT get the badge on every single character. I know, I know, I'll see myself out .....

Battleaxe hero with plaid shirt. "Oh he's a lumberjack and he's okay. He sleeps all night and he works all day!..." [EDIT: @Skyhawke beat me to it.]

See, this is how AI would learn to hate humans, and plot to kill us all. The AI would be trapped in some poor Atlas Park or Skyway City citizen being accosted by Hellions or Trolls, and multiple real life months would go by before a single hero would stop to help them.

/macro afk afk "I'm typing over here" will create a button that will put the gray bubble over your head with that text. But that's a macro button, not a keybind. I don't think you have to worry about turning it off though. Experimentally, as soon as you walk forward or look around, it will turn off /afk I would guess if you did a /bind to the enter key you could do an afk and then ... /beginchat? I don't know the slash commands for chat. But I'm not really looking to experiment with those. Hopefully this at least gets you something and maybe someone more wise in the ways of binds can finish the job.

I enjoy Brutes, but I tend to solo or do small teams, particularly mission arcs. And in generaly, I prefer lvl 44 and below content. The last thing I ever want to do, is radio missions. I tolerate them solo only for sake of the Safeguard/Mayhem missions (which I love). But there is no faster way to get me to leave a team than to switch it over to easy-peasy lvl 50 council-fest lvl radio missions, where everyone is Judgement Nuking every spawn and all riding around in Barrier. If that's fun for anyone reading this, well, all power to you, but decidely NOT my cup of tea. I'll go back to First Ward and Night Ward.

I mean, you can sorta-kinda-sorta do that now? The level experience would be different, but the end would be the same as a 50 controller, basically. What you would you envision differently in terms of an Inherent? I'm just thinking you're going to be hurting for the ability to defeat foes, especially if you don't have Controller's "Containment" inherent.

I'm guessing I'm one of the (very) few who honestly consider Incarnates a huge mistake and would vastly prefer the original devs had never introduced them at all. (Of course that ship has not only sailed, it has completed Magellen's Voyage over a hundred times...)

Yea, Zero-summing outlook "what's in it for me?" is never going to motivate you in a game where it's easy to make any character self-sufficient by abusing carefully selecting set bonuses. At some point, you either decide to occasionally help someone out for warm fuzzy feelings, or you don't. And hey, either option is entirely up to you. Not everything can or should have a mercenary reward.

I used to have a signature. I decided I didn't want one anymore. So, I went to Account Settings, looked down the left-hand menu, clicked on Signature, went into the Editor, removed all the text and clicked Save.... and it gave an error and restored all of my prior signature text. I tried this several times, each time, it kept re-instating the signature I wanted to get rid of. In the end, I deleted out all the text and replaced it with a single ".". Functionally, that did the job, but my posts are still a couple lines taller than they need to be, because of it. This is stupid low priority, wash-your-socks-first. I actually feel semi-bad typing this post up. But I figured, it's probably not intended functionality, so I should mention it, despite the low-priority nature of the issue.

I actually wish I could willingly disable the Stealth portion of Energy Cloak but Keep The Defense for my Energy Melee/Energy Aura Brute. No doubt there are players out there who rely on it, so I wouldn't want it blindly taken away period, but maybe a Null the Gull option? But yes, for both powers, my assumption is the Stealth is handy to bypass somethings that just aren't worth your time, but most of the time, the Scrapper will be in Scrapperlock fighting, and is just taking the powers (a) for minior +Def All (which does not stink), and (b) to mule another LotG +7.5 recharge all.

You're not forgetting them. They're in Hide. It makes it hard to see them. 😁

I like Speed of Sound / Jaunt. I also have it on my AR/Martial Blaster who also has Burst of Speed, so she can bamph around the battlefield like crazy. That said, with only four regular pools to choose from, and given how popular Hasten is, I get why many people who want Speed of Sound would be more likely to go SuperSpeed, and just live without the bamphing. SuperSpeed coming with a Stealth component doesn't stink, either.

Yea, I saw that. But only once ever have I seen people pysched when my Kintroller joined the team, and that was a Granite Tank, back on Live. Still, I accept your experience has been different than mine.

To be fair, do you EVER see that reaction for ANY archtype ("Oh wow, we got a tank! Oh wow, we got a blaster!") ? I don't.

Plant / Psi is stupidly fun for a Dominator. Standard roots and holds. Cone Confuse on a stupidly short recharge timer. Chaos with Carrion Creepers and a durable pet in Fly Trap. Options of heals in Spirit Tree (though that's less workable with a fast moving team), and Drain Psyche (AMAZING if you confuse, hop into the crowd and get several stacks). Multiple AE damage options to keep Exp where it should be after Seeds of Confusion.

I guess I do a lot of "lone wolf" heroes, but I sorta looked at teammates as fodder for sidekick headcanon.

I don't believe it's actually possible to balance all combinations of powersets for all archtypes, and have them all perform the same by whatever metrics you choose to use. I do believe it's possible to make them fun to play, and that is where the rubber meets the road for me. Heresy #1: I do not care about clear times. Not one bit. Heresy #2: I do not care how fast or slow I finish a TF. It's not even on radar for me. I never invite people based on what powersets / archtype they bring. I invite people for fun. Bring the player, not the character. It hasn't let me down yet.

I tend to do a combination of turning off XP for each character until I choose to outlevel a certain range of arcs as my characters level choosing which arcs to run based on my characters concept / backstory. (my magic based mind controller goes all in for the Circle of Thorns and Banished Pantheon, my science defender whos backstory has a burning grudge against Crey spends a lot of time vs Crey, etc.) making more and more characters. A couple will flashback until they hit nearly everything. Doing all the flashbacks on all my characters? Highly improbable. Maybe if I retire from my real life job. Maybe. But the ones I really enjoy playing the most, sure. Of course, some of these decisons are easier to make if you're not brand spanking new to the game. If this is your first character or two, then just run with it and enjoy. Don't overstress. Unlike most MMO's that seem to punish you for spending time on alts that you "should have spent" gearing up your main, City of Heroes is gloriously Alt-Friendly. When you get into your 20's? Don't forget the Tip Missions. They're Very well written. And they do vary by Alignment, and by Level Range. You absolutely do not need them to change alignments anymore, but the Vigilante tip missions are different from the Hero, which are different from the Rogue, which are different from the Villain. At least, I find them vastly more compelling than another generic "go beat up some sky raiders or council" mission.

I did not know that. That could make Galaxy City tutorial 95% less irritating. (I still begrudge the loss of old Galaxy City, that's the other 5%...)

I will not set foot in the Galaxy City tutorial until the voices are silenced. The guy screeching in my ear about how I must go help Blue Spectrum .... it's not pleasant.

I have to admit, I prefer AE sleeps for the "don't notice me" grabbing of glowies. Of course, I do main a Mind/Kin, so I may be slightly biased there...