McJigg

I was thinking of doing dark with Mercs for all the -to hit on enemies and healing. I was also considering Demon/Storm, Ninja/Time and Thugs/Nature.

What's a "run"? Are you talking about taking down a Pylon? I'd like to eventually have a 50 of each mastermind primary. Got a Beasts/Cold at 50. A Bots/Poison at 37 and Necro/Traps at 22. I've really been holding back on making the Mercs because.... well yeah, I've never really heard anything positive about them. Even Ninja I heard good things about if you can keep them alive. Better people than I will have some form of idea on what they need to work.

I was doing the Praetorian arcs in Ouro and not a single enemy group (so far) had Qs or Voids. It made perfect sense if course, Preatoria didn't encounter Kheldians, but I agree it was a breath of fresh air.

I still recommend opening with assassin's strike when solo/leveling. The fear effect it causes is nice mitigation if you're still working on defenses. The AS taking endurance but not activating is a lag issue. On your screen you've stopped, and to your system you're standing still and ready to attack. The server on the other hand, needs to acknowledge you stopped first and that may happen just after you hit the AS button. In groups however, or if you don't need the mitigation from the fear, don't AS from hide. Use your next highest hitting move or your target will be dead before AS winds up. Once you have the ATO proc, this will matter more. As you'll want AS off cooldown in combat for the hide proc to trigger for even more crits.

Peacebringers get the flight powers baseline. My understanding is aside from some extra VFX, Energy flight is supposed to be identical to Flight and Combat Flight is supposed to be identical to hover. These days, Hover has a pose that is different from flight, although at launch they use to share the same pose. Leaning forward to fly as such low speeds was seen as... odd, so it was eventually changed into the upright position we have today. Combat Flight though, never got to share this change. It's as slow as hover, but you lean forward and glow a lot. I'd just really like Combat Flight to get Hover's upright position. -McJigg

I started an Ice/Shield stalker this morning. If Grant Cover also grants stealth then that's a huge bonus. I'm used to sets with some sort of heal or self recovery though, just watching my HP fall and hoping the enemy's falls faster is a change I'm not fully comfortable with yet. Maybe all the +def will allow use of Aid Self once I get some IOs.

Dark armor in general is known for being incredibly endurance hungry. My advice is designate some extra enhancement slots towards endurance in the toggles and attacks until you can offset it with set bonuses.

Oh the Behemoths were always the first target, with build up it could one shot them, the issue was more when there's 2 more more behemoths and they get a chance to turn on their invulnerability. Fire Casters are also ranges so their attacks chip away at your health unless you make them chase around a corner for Ice Patch. It's certainly doable, I fought a lot of Circle of Thorns with that character, it's just trickier than other groups. Doppelgangers aren't all the prevalent, it's just a bit of a wall when they do show up. Dean McArthur/Keith Nance arcs you can expect them, you can also usually tell when they're in a tip/radio/paper/morality mission. It's just something you really need to be aware of as you'll be your own kryptonite, and it's not a two way street.

I was playing an Ice/Ice Stalker earlier near Homecoming's release. It's been a month since I touched the character, I changed to plaything something else once I leveled into the 30s. That's my altitis wall. That said, Ice/Ice was a really fun stalker to play. Ice Patch is FANTASTIC for your survivability as once everyone groups around you, it goes down and they continuously fall over. You're basically immune to slows or -recharge. You don't have any psi defense, but as psi damage won't lower your recharge, you can focus on cutting down those who do psi damage unimpeded. The toggles can be endurance heavy but once you get Energy Absorption at 35 it's pretty much a non-issue. Some negatives however. 1.) It will be near impossible to defeat 'doppelgangers' solo. They're going to have the tanker's ice armor, which provides massive cold defense against your cold damage, AND they get the damage aura to wreck your stealth. 2.) Circle of Thorns can be a pain in the 30-40 bracket as both minions (Fire Casters) and Lieutenants (Demons) will do fire damage. You'll have some resist to fire, but no defense. 3.) There's been conflicting reports that the ATO that provides a free placate can get eaten up by Chilling Embrace. I didn't really test that, but can say Chilling Embrace won't ruin Hide. Those aren't what got meto change characters though, the mid-30's is just when I always start looking at other characters to play. I greatly enjoyed the Ice/Ice Stalker.

People tout Time as being amazing in general. I've heard it's amazing with Ninjas. Though I haven't played it, I think it could do well once you have Farsight. Before farsight however, you may have some survive-ability issues with the pets without tankerminding. The -recharge really only takes effect after the alpha where the enemies use all their attacks. Someone more experienced will likely chime in but I can't see it being 'bad'.

I hit 32 today and got the 32 upgrade. It's hard to put into words just how much of a damage upgrade it was. It feels similar to when bots first gets it's 32 upgrade and you think something in the game broke from how fast everything melted. 26-30 I spent quite a bit of time fighting Freakshow, I didn't have time to do a Freakshow mission before work but I did a quick Tsoo mission and the boss at the end did not feel like a boss at all. Granted, a Tsoo boss doesn't exactly have the same lethal resist as a Freakshow Tank, so I look forward to fighting one of those to see a more direct comparison.

I recently went through Ouroborus to finish every 1-20 Praetoria mission for the accolade. However for Collapsing Support (Neutropolis Crusader, Ch. 4) - 18.48 under the Keeper of the Peace level band (levels 20-24) I hit a speed bump. You are brought down to level 20, but no matter how I set my notoriety, Maelstrom spawns as a level 24 boss. Even if set to -1/x1. This is also a Single Player only mission, so you can't being anyone else with you for help. In full disclosure, I did eventually manage to beat him, being a mastermind has it's perks. But I don't see many other ATs being able to handle that as this level.

I'm playing Beast/cold myself, hit 30 last night with it. So far I've no major speed bumps. I solo'd through Praetoria with enemies set to x2 from the start. Even got down the elite boss Protean from that post-Praetoria story line done with no issue. I admit, I took no travel powers, opting instead for that panther form from the Pay 2 Win vendors. I think it's equivalent to Ninja Run. Took Aid Other, Aid Self and Field Medic, that helped a lot. The ice shields did well enough I took Assault over Maneuvers in the early levels and just took Maneuvers now as my level 30 ability. I'm now having no issue soloing at x3 but some groups take longer than others. At 28 I could frankly AFK when fighting the lost at x3 but we'll see what some of the more interesting enemy groups bring now that I'm just getting over 30. Freakshow take some more management but that's partially from just how long it takes to bring them down. The minions heal, the lieutenants rez and Tanks are pretty resistant to lethal, but they tend to be harmless as infrigidate saps their recharge. Haven't had too much experience throwing out benumb yet but it feels good to use. So far have skipped frostwork and snowstorm. Excited to see how the level 32 upgrade will change things. Planning on going down Chill Mastery for my epic pool. So far have been very happy with Beast/cold.

Even Everlasting launched I remade my stalker as Ice/Ice. Having a lot of fun with it, thank god for minimal FX. Ice Patch and Chilling Embrace help make it pretty defensible before getting any real enhancements slotted.

Been using Ice Armor on my stalker with the minimal FX option, absolutely loving it. Liked the set enough to wonder if the blockyness would really have been that bad. Fought a doppelganger who had the full block armor, and.... Yeah, no way I'd have been able to stomach it.

I think this will largely boil down to the old Soldier vs Spy choice. Brute Strength (Bane) or Intelligence (Widow) Warrior (Bane) or Rogue (Widow) Gork (Bane, or maybe Widow) or Mork (Widow, or maybe Bane) Captain America (Bane) or Black Widow (Widow) Laser Mace (Bane) or Wrist Blades (Widow) Bane (Bane) or Widow (Widow) Armor (Bane) or Spandex (Widow) Or reverse those because that can all change based on backstory and post-10 costume (aside from Mace/Wrist Blade Choice)

I really like Poison on my bots Mastermind. Envenom is super strong and doesn't get enough credit. I'm at work so I can't check exact numbers but it's along the lines of -30% defense and -20% resistance to the main target and smaller debuffs in a small AoE. When there's a key target (such as an Arch-Villain), that's giving all your bots (and team mates) +30% accuracy and +20% damage. It's also -regen, and -heal. This is the key move that will let you solo Arch-Villains and Elite Bossess. If you don't have a tank, than Weaken is the move that will prevent that key target from killing anything in the time it's alive. Jump in and spread Neurotoxic Breath to severely slow an entire group. Everything else except Poison Trap and Noxious Gas is good for groups. Poison Trap I never found much use for. Noxious Gas is better on other primaries with melee pets.

Although I moved to Everlasting, on Torchbearer I played a Psi/Willpower stalker that I was having a lot of fun with.

I never bothered with TOs. I'll slot any DOs or SOs that drop but right from 15 I'll start crafting what IOs I can. You don't out level IOs so once I've filled a slot the bonus is permanent. I'd try for set bonuses now and again but mostly just standard IOs filled out my character. At 50 is when I'd start actually bothering with sets.

Hey Torch team, Earlier tonight during some the instability, an extra character appeared on my list that I did not make. If I click on it, "InvalidPlayerInfo" appears in a window. More information can be given either here or in private if required.