Erydanus

More like you found a book of evil spells and read aloud from it and now the dead are rising and your hand is about to be replaced with a chainsaw or shotgun. That said I absolutely agree that the biggest problem with ED was the tactless, hamfisted, disingenuous way it was shoved onto the community which Belle has nicely summarized. It would have been nice if the original devs had balanced the game around it at launch.

One of the biggest factors in defining an Archetype are its caps on various parameters. Right now you have newbie tank and scrapper and you're right they're probably doing about the same damage since you have nothing but training enhancements if that only. You're seeing the tank's slightly sturdier nature start to show itself and it's edging out scrapper but just a smidgen. (Not sure but I'm guessing you're seeing the tank having more hit points which at your level is noticeable.) What you're not seeing is the effect of a high level tank having a higher defense cap and having external buffs lift you to it and a high hit point pool let you take more hits; or alternately a high level scrapper having a damage cap that's blowing the roof off even a brute. Basically, if you were level 50 on a team with a Kinetic defender who dropped Fulcrum Shift during a Rikti mothership raid you'd be seeing the scrapper outdamage the tank by orders of magnitude. However you're talking about a solo experience, and you should ask yourself while soloing what your resources and buffs are really going to be, as well as what teaming do you eventually plan to do. If you are literally just making a character to slowly progress through story and enjoy a slow but safe leveling experience then what you need to do is roll a tank and focus on shoring up your damage and prioritizing it somewhat over your defense because as a soloer you just need to be as selfish as possible so you have a great experience. If you're not teaming with anyone, ever, then skip your taunt and take Leadership: Assault because hey, more damage. Put slots in your defensive shields but slot up your attacks more heavily. That's how you make a solo build. But if you're going to team *sometimes* then you probably do need a regular build or to use the dual build system and have a solo and a teaming spec. On the flip side, you could try building a scrapper spec that plays more like you prefer soloing, but just going by feel I think it would be easier for you to make a damage-up tank work for you than a defense-up scrapper. And while I also like brutes as a nice middle ground but if you don't like the frenatic bambambam play style of a brute then it may not be for you; feel free to skip it! But you know, there's one last option for soloing you haven't mentioned here. Stalker. Stalker got a bad rap in the beginning because it needed a lot of tuning at launch and it has low hp. But it got improved. If you think a stalker plays like a dagger-wielding blapper with stealth I have news for you. It feels like a second "warrior class" compared to scrapper, just maybe dex-based instead of strength-based. I mean, number of hits to kill the first guy? 1, because I shanked him with Assassin's strike from Hide and did triple damage. Number of hits to kill the second guy? Like 3 regular melee attack. Number of hits to kill the third guy who was standing there peeing himself with fear since I shanked the first guy because of the fear effect built into assassin's strike? 1, because assassin's strike just came back up and I placated him and shanked him hard or else if I wasn't able to placate him the auto-crit counter came up. Then I go back into stealth, walk right by that trash group of 3 even con minions who aren't worth my time, and go shank the Tsoo sorcerer before he becomes a problem. I mean for soling at your own pace it's the absolute best. Kill a bunch of guys and then when you get bored go into hide and ninja run to the end of the mission and finish it off. I just finished up the Night Ward content on my Psi-Blade/WP stalker and at one point I had TWO EBs spawn on me and I killed them both. I ate every inspiration I had on me and came through with 10% of my hit points left but I soloed two elite bosses. (To be fair Psi-Blade might be a little OP I'm finding...) Anyway Claws/Invulnerability is an option for stalkers. I just pulled up the planner and it looks like to make room for hide they just combined the resist elements and resist energies powers together which, actually, that's a slot saver. Then they took the Invincibility power that has a taunt aura component and took that out and increased the tohit buff instead. I mean like, DAMN these are good upgrades to Invuln for a soloer and I might be about to roll another stalker at this point. ANYway in the end it's whatever feels best with your play style. Whatever feels most fun to you! Having fun is winning!

Paragon wiki is a COH Titan product. A brief peek at their forums shows people have reported the recent outages and it's something they've had happen from time to time in the past over the last few years. I'm sure that one of their admins will feed the hampsters or pull whatever levers need to be pulled to get it running with more stability soon. My guess is that it's been hammered recently like it hasn't been since Sunset and it may need more resources or maintenance than was expected.

I think it was a rare-ish random recipe drop and they were crafted. But they're on P2W now so everyone can have one for a pinch. As a temp power their accuracy can't be enhanced so be sure to eat some yellow candy or apply aim/buildup/tactics etc to make sure you hit. The length of regen isn't very long I think; you may need to keep spamming the dagger attack.

What a great tip! Plus in the character creator/tailor screen you can change the background lighting to bring out your character as well as rotate to profile if desired. So helpful, thanks!

I vaguely recall an offhand comment from an Original Dev about why special characters couldn't be in character names. I don't remember the reason but it was deliberate to limit names to standard letters and numbers. As far as inputting alt codes into chat at least, it actually works. You just need to type the appropriate code in using alt and the 4 digit code for the character, which must be typed on the keypad of your keyboard. (That's just a standard windows thing). So é does not need to be pasted, just alt+0233 on the keypad. Were you guys finding that you couldn't type directly into bios and had to paste from an external source like character map? Or were you using the standard numbers on the keyboard? There was someone in Excelsior Help chat last week who was freely inputting Chinese characters and I think they were typing them directly with a software keyboard...

I'm glad they're only doing a 30 ratio adjustment, I haven't gotten in on this yet -- and honestly I do want the vanguard temp powers and salvage bag as my priority and I need a lot of Vmerits for that. Better they adjust the conversion rate as they are doing than nerf the actual drops.

I'd like the hero-side APPs for Villain ATs to get a serious look at because some of them are bad copy pastes of existing hero classes's APP and some are really deficient compared to the villain option for their AT. Like if you compare Ghost Widow's pool for stalkers to the generic darkness one, her moderately damaging hold with good numbers gets replaced with Petrifying Gaze which was once upon a time a really good no-damage hold that got the Deluxe Nerfbat. Since there's now a Darkness Control set with a new single target hold, that one should be swapped in. Likewise the villain pools for stalkers mostly have a snipe in them but the hero versions which are based on scrapper pools do not they get a rando knockback power instead. And then, yes, we absolutely should have some more thematically matched choices for all ATs. It honestly bugs me more than anything to suddenly have a mis-matched power type crop up on my tight-concept character. With the patron pools you get the hand wave of the archvillains literally sharing some of their power with you. We don't have that hero side (though it would be interesting if we did!) So if an AT has say just 1 or 2 elements in its choices that feels so bad. The original hero APPs are really consistent like you can figure out how they're formulated with a quick look at two of them. They're very check-list like: 1 single target attack, 1 misc buff, 1 endurance recovery or end saving tool, 1 defense shield mostly smash/lethal/element of pool, 1 big gun attack or AoE, etc. So creating new pools should be mostly just pulling out equivalents in different power types to what's already there. It would really be nice to see some of the later power types like sonic and radiation proliferated into APPs. Those are huge holes.

There's a reason for the knock protection that went in to a bunch of immobs in one pass. I'm really sketchy but it Happened For A Reason and when it did a BUNCH of controllers were not happy with it, but the OG Devs stuck to their guns. The blasters chimed in at that point too and some loved it and some hated it. But the OGD were like, "discussion over, it's going to be this way." Maybe someone can wayback that exchange...

I'm not certain I understand the intent of posting that particular graph, Venture, but I think you're trying to dispute my basic premise that level 25 IOs are about as good as SOs. I've seen this type of pushback before and I thought I had briefly explained why I disagreed but let me go into more specifics. I don't consider that graph to disprove my point, at all. (By the way it's already linked to in my post! It's the very first link). Yes, the value of +3 SOs at 38% is higher than a level 25 IO at 32%, and it takes a level 40 IO to beat it; but I don't think it's logical, practical, or reasonable to compare +3 SOs to IOs. In order for that comparison to be valid you would have to have +3 SOs CONSTANTLY which would mean literally rebuying a complete set every level and merging them with the old SOs so as to have level augmented SOs at all times. Using the baseline or +0 value of 33% for SOs makes more sense as they would normally cycle between 38% and 23%. In fact, if you take the average of all an SOs values as it cycles from +3 to -3 you get this: (23.33+26.66+30.0+ 33.33+35.0+36.66+38.33) / 7 = 31.90%. So ACTUALLY the average value of an SO over its life cycle is less than 32% but we can round up to 32% here; using the baseline value of 33% for SOs might be too generous! But in all seriousness I believe the original devs set level 25 IOs at 32% because they knew that 32% was the average value of an SO. I hope we have now buried the idea that +3 SOs are a reasonable standard of comparison. I'd also like to point out that 3 of any 32%+ enhancement is going to land you in the 92-97% range after ED. While leveling I don't typically get 3 damage in my attacks until the late 30s because I tend to diversify and add damage as I level, but for those of you who prefer to max out 1 power right away, ED is actually another reason to not go for 38% SOs because it's just mostly going to waste. At least, in the leveling process context; at 50 if you're trying hard to get that last 1% eeked out of a power I completely respect that. But for leveling, and saving money so you can go nuts at 50, again the 25 IO at 32% is good enough. Unrelated to this concern about if 25s are really good enough, a few people have already posted or messaged me separately about the struggle to get the money to start kitting themselves with IOs at 25. Here are some suggestions: orange rarity salvage typically sells for 1 million inf. Though rare you will probably have a couple pieces by 22. Go to the AH and convert that resource to the cash you need to work with. if you get any set recipes, particularly damage, healing, defense, or resistance, they typically sell pretty well. Not all, some pieces are less desireable or take too much salvage to make. But your typical "something blast accuracy/damage" type recipe will probably go for some pretty significant money. Sell it! You'll get more. you don't necessarily need a full IO set at 22 but you could start with accuracy in your attacks, a little damage, and fill in the rest of your slots as you make more money. It's been a long time but in Ye Olde Days many of us did not fully SO ourselves at 22 unless we had a bankrolling 50 and we got through ok. the costs in these calculations include the opportunity costs; that is, if a piece of salvage would sell for 5,000 on the AH and you have it already, I'm still saying it "cost" you that 5,000 to make an IO because you could have sold it. But in terms of the actual influence you need to buy resources and perform the crafting, if you have some items on hand it'll be lower. you can get generic IO recipes as drops quite commonly and they're often sold on the AH for cheaper than the table cost (but sometimes MORE than the table cost) so be an informed shopper and look up the cost of recipes and hunt for a deal. remember that time, money, and convenience are interrelated. If you set low bids on the AH well in advance of when you need them you will probably be able to build up a bank of the materials you need before you need them. Though if there's a sudden rush on level 25 IO recipes this week, sorry. ^_^;;;

Yeah I put the Memorization badges link right in my guide. There's very specific requirements but the key point is that level 25 and 30 IOs are grouped together. As I wrote, "I would also like to point out that the relevant memo badges for level 25 are obtained by crafting both level 25 and 30 IOs, about 8 of one and 9 of another for the major categories like accuracy and damage;" and that's accurate. For accuracy, it and tohit buffs are one category. You have to craft any mix of accuracy and tohit level 25 IOs, quantity 8 minimum; any mix of accuracy and tohit, quantity 8 minimum, and a 9th IO of one of those two. Damage is similarly paired with knockback and you need 8 & 9 of them. Some of the other categories are less demanding. Defense Debuff, TohitDebuff, Confuse, and Taunt are ALL in one category and you only have to make 2 and 2 badges. That's right, if you make 2 level 25 Confuse and 2 level 30 Confuse you'll unlock the recipes for all 4 of those types of IOs at both 25 and 30. Nice right? As an extra bonus, each 25/30 Memo badge (and ONLY this level of them) grants you +2 salvage storage.

I joined a MSR tonight but it was screwy. My level 36 character did not get sidekicked up to the team leader who was 50+2. Someone said sometimes you have to rejoin teams (that's new...) I dropped and crashed and eventually got back in and got on the team and ...still not SK'd. What's up with that?

Quick question the mothership is dropping regular not vanguard merits? I know vanguard merits were mostly used for costume pieces that are now unlocked but 300 of them gives you a salvage inventory boost so I need them noooowwwwww.

Still with 70 slots total an autosort would be nice. Sort by level, sort by type, etc.

I have literally had someone ask me to explain from scratch all about enhancements to them; they were a new level 50 who got from 1-32 o DFB and then was dragged into some kind of farming missions that PLd them to 50. Thinking this is normal is probably part of the concept that "you must power to max level to begin playing the game" which of course is completely false here. We need to make sure people are informed about their options and if they want to run DFB over and over it's as an informed choice. I personally can't fathom doing content that limits me to about level 5 over and over until I'm 50 but some people are doing that. The other thing is, if the trial produces new players with abnormally poor play skill, then it IS hurting the playerbase in general. Like AE farming it could be an option ... but a subtly discouraged one. Like 1/2 xp after level 10.

I'd also add Nature Affinity for a set that's loaded with heals and some buffs. Time is also buffs with a bit of heal. Dark is a bit of heal and many debuffs and some control. I mean literally just pick what sounds good and go to town here!

Almost all Controller attacks are dots, though there are exceptions. Selecting 1 Pool Power, which should probably be Air Superiority or Arcane Bolt, provides a vital attack chain fill as well as soft control and diversifying damage type. Even on a blaster I used to have Air Superiority because he was a blapper hybrid and it was part of his attack chain to knock a foe down and then (I'm foggy here) I think he used his snipe at point blank range taking advantage of the stand-up time. (This was before fast cast sniping).

Right, I did the analysis using just level 25 IOs throughout for consistency. I think if you do some 30s or higher as you level up you will still save a lot. I personally tend to make whatever I have the recipe and salvage for; but assuming you had to buy everything, these are the numbers. Even if you were one of the people who insists they need level 30 IOs at minimum my ballpark take is you'd still be coming out ahead by about 4 1/2 million inf by the mid 40s.

Introduction Hello everyone, over the weekend there were some contentious arguments about the value of slotting level 25 IOs and I am here to end this discussion. I have performed a cost analysis comparing using SOs from level 22 to level 42; that IOs are good to use at level 50 (really level 47) does not seem to be in doubt so I only did this on level 25 SOs to level 45 SOs. Base Values Additionally there seems to be some confusion about at which level an IO is "about as good as" an SO and the answer to that is level 25. A level 25 single attribute SO on schedule A (damage, accuracy, heal, etc) is worth 32% vs an SO worth 33%; with ED, anything 3-slotted would be about 92% with level 25 IOs and about 94% with even rated SOs. IOs with their enhancement split into 2 or 3 are actually more powerful at level 25 but this discussion is about the value of bare minimum generic IO slotting. (Paragon Wiki details relative enhancement values here: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Enhancements#Relative_Enhancement_Values). In order to do this analysis I created a model build based on a Broadsword/Dark Armor scrapper with hasten, combat jumping, super jump, and the fire epic pool. I noted what enhancements were put in at each level and used a very typical, generic build. Most attacks were 1 acc, 3 damage, 1 end reduction, and 1 recharge for instance. Shields were typically 1 end reduction and 3 defense/resist. Looking at the numbers of the various enhancements the sample build uses I think it's a good sample to base this off. A defender, for example, would probably swap out some damage enhancements for heals, but those are the exact same cost. In the end this is just a "typical character" and not an attempt to exactly pin down every character's costs. The numbers will clearly show the value in general. Methods When it came to calculating the enhancement costs I looked up the costs of magic SOs on Paragon Wiki and used the 100% store price costs. (https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Magic_Enhancement_Costs) Some contacts sold SOs for inflated prices in the past so you might have actually paid even more at times for these. For IO costs I used the cost of purchasing the level 25 recipe from the crafting table, the standard crafting cost, and for salvage added 15,000 cost allowance (which is, bluntly, a pretty serious overcompensation because some of the recipes may only use 2 pieces that cost 100 while others may use 3 pieces that routinely do cost 5,000). Thus this is a worst-case scenario estimate and sort of assumes the market is pinched and someone wants to craft all their IOs right this second and is paying top price to do so. Also, level 30 IOs cost approximately 25% more to make than level 25 IOs so the entire analysis can still be applied by just ballpark increasing the cost of IOs and will still yield a similar final answer. Additionally I did also calculate the cost of IOs created by someone with the memorization badges. (https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Memorization_Badges) Memo IOs only cost half the normal crafting cost plus they do still use normal salvage. For example, a level 25 Accuracy IO has a recipe cost of 17,400 and a crafting cost of 34,800; allowing for 15,000 in salvage purchase means that I'm using 67,200 as the cost of a regular level 25 IO. The memo price however is 17,400 crafting fee plus 15,000 in salvage for a cost of 32,400. (The ACTUAL real world cost of that Memo-IO is probably more like 20,000.) I would also like to point out that the relevant memo badges for level 25 are obtained by crafting both level 25 and 30 IOs, about 8 of one and 9 of another for the major categories like accuracy and damage; for niche things like defense debuff and taunt it can be done in much fewer. Thus it is entirely possible to get most of the way to the memo badges by crafting the level 25 IOs for one character and crafting 30s for their future enhancement slots and thus unlocking the ability to outfit your alts for drastically lower price. Results After doing the analysis the results are as follows: Typical cost to SO a character at level 22: 896,760 Typical cost to IO a character at level 22: 2,111,250, a short term loss of 1.2 million inf. Typical cost to SO a character again at level 27: 1,357,344 Typical cost to add IOs to a character at level 27: 536,400, which is still a short term net loss of about 393,546. HOWEVER it's a pure win for IOs from there. Typical cost to SO a character again at level 32: 1,896,276 Typical cost to add IOs to a character at level 32: 517,650, which is now a net savings of 985,080 compared to buying SOs again. (This # is lower than before because I was adding more end reduction and recharge compared to damage but obviously it's pretty comparable.) Typical cost to SO a character again at level 37: 2,743776 Typical cost to add IOs to a character at level 37: 835,950 (more slots hence the greater cost). The net savings of using IOs is now 2,892,906 Typical cost to SO a character again at level 42: 3,691,008 Typical cost to add IOs to a character at level 42: 791,700. The net savings of using IOs is now 5,792,214. So in summary, while it will cost you approx 2 million to equip IOs at 25, 2.6 mil by 32, the cost of repurchasing SOs is rapidly increasing as your enhancements go up in price and the number of slots increases. As of level 32 you will be definitively saving; by level 42 when you buy level 45 SOs you'll be saving nearly 6 million influence and that's with jacked up IO costs in this calculation. It gets better. If you have already made the investment of the memorization badges alone, not even calculating a cheap salvage costs day, the numbers are even more staggeringly in favor of IOs. If you have memorized the level 25/30 IO crafting badges, it will only cost you 156,990 more influence at level 22 to use IOs instead of SOs. At each level the savings mounts up: at 30, you will be 941k ahead, at 32 you will be almost 2.6 million ahead, at level 37 you will be almost 5 million ahead and at level 42 you will be EIGHT MILLION INFLUENCE ahead of buying SOs, 8,217,514 to be precise. So in conclusion: start using IOs at level 22 and use them as much as you can because they are an investment that will save you over five million influence on your character, eight million if you've got the memorization badges. Making at least one of your characters a "crafter" is a solid move. The spreadsheet I used to make these calculations is available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vR-U05KM8gVHTEqnKFVpO_8SxkiEjKcdx4c3pK3Ihlj83K5tuAff9axJKqE8Kj1QQj7BxDviTOQBmAW/pubhtml

It's an interesting idea to load a power up with multiple but I think it would be better to just sit on them and add 1 to each new attack power as you get it. And be thoughtful; I think the chance of knockdown proc is the most valuable for a new character. If you slot it into your AoE you can potentially knock down multiple guys at once and that is great damage mitigation for a low level character.

That's actually a good way to go though orange-rarity salvage normally sells for 1 million though maybe you hit the posting fee cap. Make level 25 generic IOs instead of buying SOs. They won't expire and all the money you'd waste getting SOs will be saved and you'll be flush later. Even if you don't have enough money for full IOs start with accuracy in your attacks and fill out from there.

The tailors who can change body elements and scale are "plastic surgeons" and the tailor in icon in the back right corner is one; not sure which FaceMaker is one; they're labeled though. Note that there is now an actual ICON in Atlas Park right across from Miss Liberty (who is also a basic tailor). As noted, Trina in the Tiki Room is also one and the Tiki Room is red-side .... with Tiki mask doors you really can't miss it. Floorshow by the BP. If you haven't explored Pocket D in a while do so - there's an Architect area, arena, Rikti monkey fights and currently the ski lodge is up.

Well it's annoying but I just see it as those are the breaks. If it was autohit would it work on purples? Would it only work on things that were within a certain range or if you had a certain level of tohit/accuracy going? Would it apply in the middle of a hot combat if you used Placate to rehide? Messing with it just seems like opening up a can of worms. I just tend to use a yellow inspiration if it's really important.

No the powers were moved over, so the display is different than before. It's in the I25 patch notes. (I think the intent was to make Kheldians power selection screen look more like Widow/Spider screens.)

Me too. There's like 4 different posts about this. XD