MTeague

Yea. Whether Super Pack or Winter Packs, I do not buy less than 6 at once. And I try to buy 8-10 at once, just to smooth out the duds, because invariably, there WILL be some duds. I usually get enough out of 10 packs to keep 4 ATO's/Winter O's, post any others I got for sale, and post the Unslotters, Boosters (I flashback a lot and don't care much about them), etc for sale. I don't always get back my full purchase price on the super/winter packs from what I auction. But it's usually upwards of 80% of the purchase price. Brainstorm Ideas pile up in mail until I get like 400+ of them and shazam them all into a bunch of rare salvage to dump into my SG base. Dual Inspirations / Team Inspirations I use for my alts. The MM's get dibs on Team Inspirations. I wish I could hand out the respecs I get from packs, they just pile up and I never respec so much that I need to draw on them.

Adjusting incentives is dicey at best. Like if they gave 25% more inf and merits for redside content for a month to see what impact that had, etc. such wailing and gnashing of teeth you'd see from people who'd feel forced to change sides, even if it were entirely optional. I still don't know how much impact it would have. Some of it, I'm sure is people play blue because people play blue and they want teams so they go where people already are, and all other concersn be damned. But some of it, probably, more people may just enjoy being heroic over villainous. Even if it's harmless villainy in a computer game against pixels that don't hurt anyone real. I mean people may feel that villains are Cooler Than Heroes (ie, Darth Vader vs Obi Wan, Doctor Doom over Mr Fantastic, Magneto vs Cyclops or Prof X, ). But that doesnt' necessarily mean people want to PLAY the villain or BE the villain. I like some of each, and have 12 blue, 12 red, and 6 gold. But my impression is that's RARE, and I doubt it's ALL because of teaming. So is it really worth trying to dangle carrots in front of someone to get them do what maybe they just don't want to do?

Now I want a 2 foot tall Assault Bot that looks like a CL4P-TP unit that's screaming at Jack he's totally going to teabag him.

My Mind/Kin was a very reliable (if slow at first) leveller. Status effects were rarely an issue; I locked down anyone who could Hold/Stun me before they could use those powers. (One reason I really liked Teleknesis levelling up... an extra auto-hit hold, plus the single target hold, pretty much wallops even a boss, before they could lock me down. for the crowds, I had a non-aggroing single target Confuse that I could use at sufficient range they didn't even see me use it, and I had an AE and single target sleep. It was not hard to methodically work my way through them until none remained. Tedious yes, but not hard. The picture changed SIGNIFICANTLY as he levelled up enough to use the Lockdown Chance for +2 Mag Hold and slotted that in both his AE hold (damn near guaranteed to proc) and his single target hold (it's not a unique proc), and of course as he got Fulcrum Shift added to his toolkit, suddenly his damage SPIKED. Regular status protection is still very sweet, don't get me wrong. But there's more than one way to work around it.

Oh man that's gotta hurt. I mean, on one hand, it's not .... that that hard to get the 100 million back... even if you're not a farmer, a couple rounds of converter roulette (1/2 hour to buy, craft, and convert?) and a day or two patience on the AH will get a lot of it back... maybe all. But I would still be /headdesk

I have a Beast / Empathy MM who may only have one epic power total. blueside / committed hero, so Patron Pools are just flat out. Don't care if they might have better powers. They're OFF the table for this character. character concept isn't fire/ice/frost, so that's three ancillary pools out the window. leaves her just Field Mastery, and in there, I can justify Temp Invulnerabilty... and nothing else. So for a what the hell, I'm making her a Kickboxing Empath, who charges right in with her pets and uses Boxing, Kick, and Cross Punch, along with all three Leadership toggles, and some Fly powers. I'll still have most of the Empath powers, and keeping buffs up and healing where required will be more important than cross punching for great justice but... what the heck. I'll see how it works because the other choices aren't doing it for me. On the plus side, I know my pets will be in range of all the pet aura IO's.

Wrestlers. T3 pet, would absolutely HAVE TO be reminscient of Andre the Giant.

Alternately, maybe the exact same sets, but some alternate "skins"? Like... Ninjas you could have traditional Genin / Jounin / Oni, OR, some Knives of Artemis? Still melee + ranged assassins, but different look and feel to the set. Thugs you could have standard Punk / Enforcers / Bruiser, OR, some Family for a differnent flavor of Gang and Gang War? Robots, maybe an alternate set of Council Hoverbots / MechMen / Warcry? gotta be something we could come up with from the list of existing enemies who already have all necessary artwork that would kind of fit the existing themes.

Cops. PPD / security guards for T1. PPD Equalizers or perhaps Shells for T2 PPD Hard Suit for T3. Maybe some melee powers with a nightstick for direct attacks?

Consider /Cold for a secondary. You get Ice Shields to boost defense similar to FF bubbles, but you get a fair array of debuffs in the set, too. You just have to deal wtih teh fact that your ninjas are encased in 6 inches to a foot of ice and still kicking people offside the head. /Time, I've heard nothing but praises of. I have a Time/Energy Defender who I'm going to solo through most of 1-20 Praetoria someday, but so far I haven't DONE anything wth the set. It does sound like you'll want to get quite a few procs for Time though. /Rad or /Poison would boost your minion survival from the other angle. By kittenizing your foes. Debuff your foe to-hit to the floorboards, and they'll just whiff against your ninjas. However, keeping your ninjas on a tighter leash would become more important, since if they follow someone outside of the debuff rage, they will *NFL CRUNCH sounds* pay the price! /Thermal gives you a mix of heals and resist shields, and later on some damage boosting and strong debuffs. It will do nothing to help your minions softcap defense, but, a mix of moderate defense (from Pet Aura IO's) and moderate resists and maintenence heals can get the job done.

I'm quite happy with my Ninja/Cold. Ice Shields and the Pet Aura IO's help keep them standing long enough to unleash their damage.

"A man's got to know his limitations.", however. I do remmber, in early City of Villians, lvl 12-15 or so, groups wanting my Ninjas/Poison MM to send in his Ninjas to soak every alpha. For an 8 man group, with no one healing anyone, just blasting away, vs +4 mobs. All that accomplished to give me massive debt badges. Damn near every other pull I ended up using a wakie. Maybe other people got good exp from it? I sure as heck didn't. This was before IO's existed however. And back then, /Poison was single-target-only for it's early debuffs. At that point, with those tools, against those enemies? What the group wanted was simply unreasonable, and I should have quit out long before I did. I had an iffy combo to begin with, and paper thin pets with not NEARLY enough defense who were going to crumple like tissue paper against a crowd. However, today? A reborn Ninja / Cold mastermind, using 3 Pet Aura IO's and encasing my pets in Ice Shields? That's a very very very different story, and I'd have no hesitation sending my pets in now.

If only it were possible to use CL4P-TP units.

I think Doctor Aeon has some Alternative Energy sources that are worth looking into.

You're free to view it that way. I say it's a cookie *I* baked, and just haven't eaten it *yet*. Maybe you can play 14 hours a day. I play a few nights a week, a few hours a night. I have one 50, one 39, one 30, five or six in the 20's, and yes, a handful of alts (5-6?) who are still level 1. I would not be opposed to a solution where multiple people could use a name, SO LONG AS, it's identifiable who is who. I don't want someone else being a jerk to reflect poorly on me, and if I happen to lose my cool one evening, I don't want it reflecting on someone else. But as long as the game is setup that there can be only one? Then yes, I'm going to keep the names for characters who I'm going to play.

Hm. Seems to me I have a few alts who I'm going to want to level to 6 real soon now.

I hear you. My Main, Cygnus-X1, a Mind/Kin, is recreated exactly as he was on live. Even taking two individual power choices that are situational at best, because that's how he was on live. I would have him no other way. But I had a real conundrum for one of my villians, Hephaesto. His character concept is all "metallic" wherever you would see skin, because he's no longer human. He was tossed into the Hell Forge along with some SuperScienceStuff, and (much handwaving here) was transformed into a being of Living Steel and Fire. He no longer has flesh, or blood, or pity. Only steel and fire. On live, he was a Fire / Thermal corruptor, because I wanted him to THROW fire, not use Fire Swords. But I was never happy with how squishy he was as a Corruptor. Now of course, he's a Fire / Fire Sentinel, and he's FAR truer to the original concept I had for him. I wasn't sure how well I'd like him as a Sentinel becuase he wouldn't be the SAME as he was on live. but, for me, it worked out quite well, and I'm keeping the new one and not looking back. As far as Rathstar, that's up to you. Only you can tell you which one is the real deal. If you wanted you could bridge the gap by headcanoning the "new" Rathstar to be "Son of Rathstar" or something, who took over his dad's suit when he retired (if he's Tech Based), or inherited similar powers (if Mutant), etc. Wouldn't be unreasonable to keep literally the same name if he's stepping into the others shoes.

There's nothing to feel guilty FOR, in my book. Choose to skip a certain power because you just can't tolerate it's animation but like the rest of the set? I got no beef with that. Don't want to deal with Inventions? I might think you're missing out, but I'm not going to diss a player who's just not ready to dip their feet into that pool yet. Or just chose a powerset combination that has no synergy, but you were re-creating a toon from LIVE, or just wanted to try out some combo for shiggles? Why not? This isn't mythic progression raiding in WoW. Optimization is nice. But if my group takes 30 minutes longer than some other group to finish a TF, I probably don't notice or even CARE, because I'm having fun.

I break it down this way Excellent choice of secondary. Drain Psyche is amazing, both to heal you and so that you are your own AE -Regen debuffer. And Psychic Shockwave is FUN once you slot it up. HOLDS: Both Mind and Plant have quick casting single target and AE holds, no edge to either primary there. Mind Control can take Teleknesis, which is a Toggle-Hold, and can be very nice for extra lockdown when levellling... but you already get Domination. TK's nicer for a controller who can leverage TK+single-target holds to keep a boss locked down. A Dom typically won't need this. Still, it's an extra kind of hold, and is a minor point for Mind, I think. CONFUSES: Plant gets Seeds of Confusion early, and omg, it's arguably one of the better powers in the game. Cone Confuse. Immediately, you turn a swarm that would overrun you into a swarm too busy beating each other up to notice as you ping them to make sure you get exp. and with Psychic Scream, you can tag the entire lot of them in one it. I think this gives Plant a very decisive edge. Seeds does require you to run into midrange, and you will likely take a few hits as you cast it. But once it lands, nothings going to hurt you. And then you can close to melee and Drain Psyche all of them. Mind gets a Non-Aggroing Single-Target Confuse that you can cast from signifcant range. This is very nice for a controller who would need multiple casts to confuse a boss. It's less important for you, since you could have Domination going and one cast is plenty enough on a boss. But if you want to be a manipulator who works from the shadows, consider this. Once you get Mass Confusion, then Mind is every bit as good with Confusing enemies as Plant.... except... the Recharge time on Mass Confusion is much higher than the recharge on Seeds of Confusion. Mass Confuse can probably hit more targets reliably, and you can cast from far enough away you don't eat incoming firepower. But Seeds is up EVERY fight. I can't say that for Mass Confuse. SLEEPS: Mind's AE sleep is much better. Lasts MUCH longer, castable from well outside aggro range, causes no aggro. Mind is just better here. I dont' think it outweighs the Confuse though. Mind also gets a ST Sleep, where Plant does not. Again, points for mind, just not sure it's enough points, for a Dom. PETS: Mind gets no regular pets. You could argue every valid confuse target IS your pet after you confuse it, but.... not entirely the same animal. Plant gets a full-time pet in Fly Trap Plant gets a very strong quasi-pet in Carrion Creepers. Which is also DAMN FUN to see an amazon jungle of vines going wild on a good-sized spawn. IMMOBS: Mind gets no Immobs. Plant gets a single target immob, and an AE immob. Admittedly, I'm not a giant fan of Immobs.... an immobilized mob can still shoot you, debuff you, etc. But they at least can't melee you IF you stay at range.... thing is though, ... with Psi Assault... you're going to be in melee range a lot. So honestly not sure how much immob's are more than just an AE dot for you. FEAR: Plant gets no Fear Mind has a nice Cone Fear, that's up pretty often, and can do decent damage to a group depending how you slot it. Fear is nice soft control if you don't hit them. But your confused foes can hit them and won't think twice about it. For a Dom, I give it to Plant.

Also, even if you dont' want to do the story arcs through Ouroborous itself, you can still use Ouroboros as a checklist. Clicking on the Pillar of Ice and Flame to get the list of arcs available in Ouro will show a star next to the arcs / missions you have already completed.... regardless of it you completed it via Ouro, or the oldschool way by finding the contacts in the wild. I would definitely leverage Ouro just to check what is there vs not before you level past the various lvl breakpoints. I have to admit, I would find it difficult to do what you're doing. I always do a random sampling of story missions on each character as they level. My tanker did the Hollows, my Storm defender did Faultline, my Scrapper will be doing Striga, etc. And my Controller did some of everything magic-related...and esp all of Croatoa.... while levelling. But do to ALL of them? Man.... it would be.... quite tempting.... to level up high enough to slot Attuned IO's and build up some set bonuses, and then go back for the marathon. My controller is a flashbacking machine now, but he's got lots of purple sets and bonuses too. I salute your persistence.

I will be here until (god forbid) a day ever comes when they turn off the lights. I enjoy teaming. But I solo probably over 50% of the time and I have no problem with it, since I really crave well written stories, and teams NEVER allow time enough to read anything. I still team, I just.... might then solo the same missions on a different character not long after so I can read everything.

Repel could make an awesome "Freight Train! Coming Thru!!!!" plowing through big groups of mobs. Back on Live....I and another player... I think a Defender? Were abandoned in the middle of Perez Park, the covered area, back when that was a thing and groups went there. There was a mostly-wipe, we had wakie'd. Half the team went to the hospital and quit team, one other survivor suicided, went to hospital, and quit team. We didn't wanna die. XP debt and all. (early game, we cared about such things lol). So I said, okay, let's do this. Told him to get sprint going, and fly for the sky as soon as we got to open terrain. I activated Repel, chewed my last Luck insp, and just barreled through like 5-6 different spawns of CoT at a dead run as we ran through the forest. "Bowling for Mages" style. I still have Repel on my main to this day because of that. It's also sometimes handy to bounce a confused mob closer to the mobs I want the confused mob to fight.

Ah! Good. That makes it.... far less intimidating.

My Sentinel is only lvl 29, so, probably not a fair trial yet. But so far, I don't feel the need for them to be fixed/buffed at all. I wouldn't turn it DOWN but... okay their DPS is lower. Big woot. It's not horrible, and it's not like you can't do anything with them.

I would skip it. There's a bazillion fantasy games and MMO's out there. And I don't think you could really DO same game, same powersets, and have it FEEL like a traditional fantasy setting. You'd still invariably be "Comic Book Superheroes in Fantasy Land". Now, yes, many good things taste great together.... Chocolate and Peanut Butter not least. But I prefer my comic book heroes separate from tolkien / wheel of time / other high fantasy settings.