MTeague

Though I will admit, I was hoping Mender Valen would look like a human-Minbari hybrid and have an assistant named Zathras.

Blueside, 20-24 range. I did it just a few days ago via Ouro

Early redside missions, you're treated as a lackey. And I'd argue that's to be expected. You may have potential but you're the new whelp. No one fears you yet. Later on, the tone changes to to respect, and even caution in dealing with you. My playtime goes Blueside 40% / Redside 40% / Goldside 20% But while I would very much encourage people to try redside if they haven't, I don't know that I see it as a problem to be fixed. If someone really doesn't enjoy being a video game bad guy, I'm not going to tell them they're doing it wrong. I will say one thing that helped me get into Redside, was creating one redside nemesis / foe for each blueside character, and having a headcanon of who would win each match, individually, and how it would all pan out if it came down to some epic 5-on-5 or 10-on-10 clashes, and which characters would change sides along the way.

.... then we need football helments as costume options so I can wave my hands and call out an audible and change them from Shotgun to Wishbone, etc, with one Ninja-In-Motion running sideways behind the line.

I'd be happy with being able to see, up-front, before I take the power, exactly what IO Set Categories it can take. I've been surprised a few times. So far, I only know of a way to do that in Manage Enhancements AFTER I've already taken the power. Not on the respec screen, and not in Manage Enhancements for a power I don't own yet.

Reverse Scourge might be just a wee bit too powerful if just flipped high vs low health. but if it did best crit chance at full health, AND dropped to zero at like...60% or 70% health... maybe then. Would still just ERASE minions, but minions aren't a big worry anyway, and you'd have to ask yourself when is the breakpoint worth it. Some of the other suggestions though I would run screaming from like a vampire in the sun. Remove +Mag of Domination? Egads.

Actually....not even 1/3'rd IO'd yet. He's still lvl 22. But he's fun and I only see it going up from here. Would not surprise me at all that someone else also has a "Malta Man" among their alts though.

I tend not to buy superpacks until I mass up like 100 mil, and then I buy 9 of them. I never buy packs unless I buy 6+ though. I know, I know, random is random, but I feel like if I only get 1-2 I'm *begging* RNGeesus to give me duds. More and it evens out. Goods news is any ATO you get is convertable and the result can only be another ATO.

Didn't know there was such a thing as a "Days Won" leaderboard. Have to say it's entirely irrelevant to me.

Perma Hasten is not that that important (although it is *nice*). Perma Dom.... you CAN play a Dom without it...but.... oh god it's SO good, totally worth the hassle. Slotting to Perma Dom, one early decision is are you basically rushing to 50 and then slotting everything or do you plan to do more oldschool levelling. If you slot as you level, you can probably get to permadom around lvl 32, give or take some. Just takes a lot of slots to get the set bonuses. I'd also recommend picking up Secondary Mutation from P2W vendor. It's not always gonna give you the "Right" buff, but Quick Reflexes from it is a +30% global recharge boost. Can take you from "alllmost but not quite there" to "awww yeah baby, permadom is on". LotG +7.5%'s are good. you want 5 if you can fit them. My permadom has only 4. I evaluated all set bonuses and all slotting as I levelled based on "how much recharge will this get me". If I could get recharge AND defense, that was a happy coincidence. But +recharge is king until you have slots to spare. Damage will just happen on it's own. I really don't think it's worth trying to get +damage from set bonuses on a Dom. Nice if you can work it in with other stuff, but it's so far down the list of things to care about. And you'll do plenty good damage as a dom anyway. I haven't done much with earth, dark, or thermal since I came back to the game, so I'll let other posters comment on thsoe.

Sooner or later the AE farmers hit max inventory and max auction house inventory and they want to farm even more, but something has to sell. So they would start re-listing for cheaper. It only takes a few undercutters before more would join. When there's a cieling on how much you can stockpile at any one time preventing you from obtainnig more, its a powerful incentive to sell for a more modest price. I admit though, I'm sort of waiting for the day when a few farmers have all 100+ toons completely tricked out with everything they could possibly want and then sit at the screen wondering what's the point of farming anymore. I imagine at that point they either have to learn to enjoy story arcs exploring the rest of the content or they would just stop farming. But I also admit, that's probably me projecting, since I never saw farming as remotely enjoyable.

Well, here's the thing. If that brute is on a team of 7 blasters? Then okay, they can't do that that much to help him. He's gonna die a lot. Although IF, all 7 had Manuevers, and stayed in midrange of him, he'd get a HECK of a defense boost... But if that team of 7 "squishies" include... a couple defenders... or corruptors.... controllers or MM's.... maybe a widow/soldier... he should be getting some decent team buffs. Heck, even some stalkers and scrappers, if tricked out would be easily able to help the guy soak an alpha strike. And controllers could do the oldschool lockdown to help the SO'd brute stay alive. I don't know. I admit I don't team more than 50% of the time. But when I do team, I very much adjust my playstyle to help out the person who's struggling the most. Whether that's leftover habits from being tank/healer/cc in other MMO's or just because I think "team" should mean more than "able to enter the same mission", I find myself doing what I can to make sure no one's dying repeatedly.

That's it. I'm rolling a Praetorian Mercs/Rad tomorrow.

My Beast/Empathy ("Dog Mom") would probably be considered .... very sub-optimal. Esp since in addition to the pets and the empath buffs, I've worked in Kick AND Boxing AND Crosspunch instead of the direct attacks in Beast Mastery. But Kick/Boxing/Crosspunch cost FAR less then the Beast direct attacks and let me charge right in with my doggos and kittehs and go Tankermind. And they actually get.... pretty decent... if you take all three. It went from being a "lol, what the hell I'll try it" experiment to a pretty fun character.

I've got an Earth/Poison. Not everything will carry over, but Earth can be take quite a number of Procs... and if you might be soloing at all, it's... probably a good idea to put several procs in your AE Immob. Should be able to get 4 dmg procs no problem if you wanted. (Earth tends to be light on damage.... the -Res debuff will help offset that, but my Earth/Poison has some -Res debuff as well, and it was still painfully killing things at low levels before I sugar-daddied them with several procs.)

The REAL killer? The one that can leave me wincing in pain as I debate whether I should try to get in a catnap before work or just suck it up and finish the all-nighter? Civilization 4 Beyond the Sword. So many years later, that "Just....one....more....turn!" is as strong as ever. City of Heroes doesn't do it to me nearly to that degree. Although, I type this now at 2:22 AM my time when I shoulda been in bed 3 hours ago sooooooo yea. But hey, tomorrow is Presidents Day, so it's a no-work-day for me. 🙂 I do find though, there is a massive disconnect between what the average person thinks of as "spending a lot of time on a game", and what a long-term gamer thinks of it. I mean, I remember people at work being astounded/horrified reading a news article that said some gamers can spend 10 hours a week in a game. I just thought to myself, "you are not ready for this knowledge" and said nothing. 😀

Given how many times I see the same questions to certain things in Help chat, I'm very sure there's a chunk of the playerbase who has never touched the forums or the Homecoming webpage for longer than necessary to register their account so they could play the game. And hey, I can't call that wrong as such. I do know I've often said something about "Converter Roulette" and gotten tells from people asking what I mean by that, and then going into tells with them for 5 minutes or so to explain what it is and how it works. Often the person's mind is blown, they were just totally unaware of how converters can be put to use. I do point them at the forums after that, but who knows how many read it or not.

It should be noted however, that there's really no need to earn BAZILLIONS of merits. It's cool if that's your thing and all. I'm definitely in teh "Casual Merit Earner" grouping, doing mostly story arcs, tip missions, and the occasional TF when the mood strikes me. I do not farm and have no interest in it. I do like doing a bunch of Ouro for a few characters redside and a few characters blueside. But I only really need (where need = kinda want, would feel put-upon without them) enough merits to buy about 90-100 converters that I shazam into 30-40 rares that sell for 1-4 mil each. As long as each cahracter does that every so often, I have NO trouble buying attuned set pieces of whatever set I want for my next couple of levels. When the inf piles up to 100 mil or so, I'll either buy some superpacks or winterpacks and mail around or convert the ATO/WinterO's to whichever alt can use them, and then do more story arcs for more merits to start the cycle over. Sure I COULD focus and earn lots more inf per hour and lots more merits per hour.... but as long as my alts are tricked out with attuned set pieces in every slot.... I don't feel any loss.

I'm fine with a new power being created. I don't want my existing teleport changing out from under me. Bamphing away from a 17 piles of caltrops on a Knives of Artemis map, or straight up and away from a mass of melee mobs, or around the inside of a warehouse in combat has saved me several times. I suspect I would be far better able to "nimbly move around a battlefield" with the existing power than what is being proposed here.

Kintrollers are fun. My main (used in my avatar) is a Mind/Kin controller. Very fun. But I've been wondering how an Kinfender or Kinrruptor plays. Has to be very different without controls and without MM pets just blasts and kin powers to shape the battle. Definitely on the to-do list. I also strongly endorse a permadom. My Plant/Psi is just amazing.

Water Blast I'm working with for a Water/Sonic corruptor. Not fish-themed as such, but name is Deepfathom, and concept is a mutant heavily adapted to water, sonic worked in on a Sonar angle.

The other toggles may have issues, but i can probably patch around things with IO set bonuses. Groups will probalby kick me if they realize I don't have Granite, but eh, it's a Brute and my 28th alt, he'll be able to solo just fine lol.

The only way I will ever be able to make a Stone Armor character is by NOT taking Granite Armor, Ever, not even on an alternate build, and just running the lower level toggles. Also, @siolfir, I thank you for the posted screenshots. That's confirmation that Ablative Carapace still hurks up a shell around you even with minimal effects on, and FOR ME, that means the set is dead to me until there's something less ugly or a true no fx option for that specific power. I'd suspected, but had not KNOWN that it still does that animation. Apologies to anyone who really likes that power but I just.... can't.... get past that animation.

I haven't tried Dark Control yet, but I have a Plant/Psi permadom and she is canned destruction, only, no can. Just destruction. Admittedly, it helps that Plant Control also favors a Captain Hit-and-Fade partial melee, as you run into midrange to get good coverage with Seeds of Confusion and go from there. But I do love /Psi Assault. Drain Psyche alone is worth the price of admission, given that Dom's have very few self-healing / maintenance options, and the fact that it comes with a GIANT -Regen debuff and you can have it up almost all the time as you get to Permadom is huge. Psychic Shockwave is awesome. Sure single target it's not so great but it melts a spawn nicely, AND comes with a good chance for Stun... AND that stun is boosted by Domination. And by the time you get it, you're probably rockin' so much haste you can fire it off like every 10 seconds. Psychic Scream is a a nice cone. Animation is longer than I'd like it to be, but really, probably no longer than Fire Breath / Frost Breath. Solid damage though. TK Thrust is a you love it or you skip it. I recommend it though. You'll be in melee a lot anyway, and it can hit hard... and it's Smashing Damage, very nice against Robots when so much of your other damage is Psi. At low levels you may want to keep the Knockback for a soft control / ragdoll control. Once you're at midgame, I'd think about tossing a Sudden Accel KB to KD in it.

I rocked Praetoria 1-20 soloing an Arch/TacArrow Blaster, +1 with Bosses. Died far fewer times than any other Preatorian run I've done yet, and was surprisingly resilieant when I learned to leverage Glue Arrow as a kiting tool, Web Arrow to keep Ghouls from being next ot each other to stop them from healing, and Ice Arrow to lockdown one long enough to kill a few others. Reduced incoming damage by QUITE a bit, and outgoing damage was still plenty good.