Erydanus

You're not guaranteed any particular item in these packs. You get 1 rare item, which is often the rare enhancement associated with the set but maybe it's a respec (which is basically worthless on HC) or the Windfall power. You get a semi-rare item, and then you get 3 common things. On the AVERAGE, you will get an enhancement in every pack, but that means sometimes you get 0, sometimes you get 1, sometimes you get 2; someone who bought a bunch of winter packs said they got 1.4 enhancements on average. If you just want a rare enhancement, whether it's the winter set or an ATO, just buy it on the auction house, most of them go for right about 8 million. People are buying the various packs for 10 mil, keeping merits & rare salvage, and selling the enhancements that aren't the ones they want for about 8 mil. When the winter packs cost 25 mil, the enhancements were being sold for 22-25 mil. When the winter event ends the price will probably go right back up there. As @Galactron said in the post above mine you do not need to be a farmer to make plenty of money in this game. While I do have a 50 I generally "silo" all my characters other than I now provide generic level 25 IOs in the supergroup base. I have a level 24 alt who was up to 60 mil the other day from playing the market casually as I moved him from day job location to location. I wrote an entire treatise and cost breakdown about how much money you save leveling by crafting generic IOs and not wasting money on SOs, for instance. Other people have literally written out step by step how to make money on the AH and so on.

I'm curious what you went with! Also, was there anything particular about rad armor that was throwing you? I'm doing a scrapper with it and it was just new enough to me I didn't realize what some of the powers did/how they worked until I got right into playing it. Looks like the taunt & debuff aura is what's cut for Hide so that's not a huge difference.

Well remember that time someone got ganked by an ambush while walking up to Valkyrie and he got on the official forums and complained that Positron just stood there not helping and the developer replied "that shit cons gray to me." (It is after all the basis for the name Ukon Gra'i). Of course, now those contacts will help with your ambush or other hostiles. But BAB? BAB is across the street my man. And that shit cons gray to him, so you go in and if you come out screaming and running with Skulls chasing you … maybe he'll help. On a more serious note it is really nice he's there, I like to go train at him to get away from the lagginess of the big crowds around Ms. Liberty.

That's exactly it. Originally you had to choose a patron permanently. Players hated it but Positron stuck to his guns - it was a gamemaster choice he was fixated on though, not a game developer balance choice. Eventually it was relaxed and when going Rogue allowed switching they had to give heroes access to patron pools and cook up some generic pools for villain ATs who went hero. If you ever wondered why the Patron pools are all very similarly structured for villains, but then the generic epics are complete mishmashes this is why. It was one of the few decisions the original devs made that I really strongly disagreed with. (For instance if you look at Ghost Widow's pool for stalkers, and then compare it to the Dark general pool they're very different but actually they could have been about the same; the disparity is so bad it almost feels like you're penalizing yourself to not flip evil and take her pool.)

Oops it's all blurring together now...

Let me remind everyone that Gravity Control used to have an "Assemble the Team" type power called Fold Space in it and it was removed to give us Singularity; our former Tier 9, Wormhole, was then moved lower in the set. I'd personally rather have had them keep Fold Space than Dimension Shift, but as it is now you can get the temp power so it doesn't really matter. I actually don't agree with the fundamental premise of this post, though. The Gravity Control powerset (like all powersets) represents a core selection of abilities and it's up to the player to interpret the specifics; pool powers can be utility tools that are extra abilities for some players or specialized versions of the core powers for others. I love how Redlynne "wormholes herself" with Translocation! Now that's creative. I guarantee you that someone took this set because it was the best way to create the effect of something that didn't have an explicit set or even just did what they want better. For instance I have definitely met players who emulate having the kind of telekinesis that can routinely bind people in place (as opposed to that 1-off push power in some mental/psi sets) with Gravity Control. Maybe someone else customized the power and is calling it magic binding spells. Whatever works for them! But you shouldn't take your personal vision for how the set works and assume everyone else shares it. In direct counterpoint to TC's comment "because who the hell ever heard of a superhero that literally manipulates gravity and yet couldn't fly? " I give you Harry Leland (RIP) a member of the X-men's foes The Hellfire Club. He had a sorta-gravity power, offensive density increase. Basically, his powers had the effect of Crush and Crushing Field and if he hadn't died. maybe he would have done more things along the lines of the powerset. But no flying for him. While it's true many super heroes are able to expand their powers in utility ways to create travel powers and personal defense, not everyone does. Some people can only affect others with their powers, explicitly. It's just headcannon talking here. In conclusion Dimension Shift still sucks, everyone I've played with who has it and used it thought they knew what they were doing but actually still screwed things up, and at least once got me killed. I appreciate that in a set with 6 great powers, 1 good (Grav Distortion Field - it's on par with every other AoE controller Hold, they all got nerfed together) and 1 semi filler power (Crush, which tbh has its uses because it's a mag 4 immobilize and that means instant containment on a typical Boss) there's just 1 stinker that's easy to skip so I can get a superfluous bonus pool power, which in my case actually does happen to be Afterburner.

I just took Captain Mako's pool on my Ice Blast/Cold Domination corruptor on live. It's a mix of water, dark, and shark powers, the main prize being Hibernate.

For the base you can buy inspirations from the nurse or any of the quartermasters (Vanguard, Mignighter etc). You can also put from the tech medical an Auto-doc or Combat Logs, from arcane medical a Tree of Wonders or a Contemplation Charts. Of those, the Combat Logs are a particularly nice choice because it's a wall-mounted item the size of a bathroom paper towel dispenser and basically looks like a first aid kit, so it's pretty unobtrusive, while the charts are the size of a sandwich board and the other 2 items are much bigger. I recently stuck a Combat Logs on the wall next to the transporters and it's been very convenient.

How would that work? Unlike Black Hole, players who enter the zone of effect are shifted so even if a purple boss was camping a glowy when you walked up to click it you'd be moved in sync with it so you could brawl it... I got surrounded by mobs on a TF while on a squishy character and someone helpfully cast Dimension Shift on them which did exactly squat since I was already pinned down right there - oh except it made it so the ranged damage other team members were throwing at those mobs got cut off from affecting the mobs on me. If it had been Black Hole I would actually have been protected from the mobs and once I popped a breakfree could have escaped. What would have been better? WORMHOLE THEM OFF ME. Dimension Shift is really only a panic button for a spawn you haven't engaged with and it has a strict 20 second activation limit. If melee types - say a tank - want to run into the effect and grab control in that time it's possible. But it's just too narrow - don't use this power except in extreme emergencies. You'd be better off taking something else.

If you're already 50 I see no reason to gut one character to make another. Sure just roll another alt! You like mace? Sure just use mace again! It's not like I haven't thought about rolling characters who use Psionic Melee in every variation that it appears in... That said I'm concerned you were having such end problems. Sometimes it's not the set it's how you play and how you slot the build. Fiery Aura isn't known as an end hog like Dark is, and it even has CONSUME so changing secondaries may not be the problem. It may be mace that's the problem and it does have some heavy hitting but expensive attacks, so I think it's worth talking about your end problems. I just spent a long time talking about slotting and how to manage end costs for an elec/elec scrapper and maybe some of the info would be helpful to you as well: But the TLDR is I bet you need to slot end reducers into more of your attacks, especially the AoE attacks and the heavy hitters. What I am guessing you did was something like 1 acc, 3 dmg, 2 recharge (or the set equivalent) in most of those big heavy hitters so you ended up burning through your end quickly and strained the build. If you took an Alpha that put an end reducer in every attack like Cardiac, that basically tells you: you should have had an end reducer in all of them all along, and the alpha should have boosted something else (damage, recharge, etc.).

This came up on the weekend because of so much Winter Event content. Some of the "special" bartenders who used to sell inspirations are gone or disabled. For instance, the mask bartender in the Tiki Room used to sell inspirations - it was one of the VIP perks - now it doesn't. There are 3 functioning bartenders who are inspiration stores still in Pocket D. Pollux in the bar over the Architect Entertainment area still sells inspirations and buys your loot, and the 2 stores inside the Arena section do as well (plus sell Arena temporary powers). Just those 3 as far as I have been able to tell, I went around and clicked on everybody I saw.

I normally attune most of my IOs, however the final powers in your build - the 41 and up, which are usually epic picks - might be better off boosted instead so you can get the most bang out of them, provided you don't desperately need their set bonuses. Most of the higher level TFs will scale up to 50 so exemplaring isn't an issue unless you say, run an ITF at exactly 35; you'll have all your powers and want to use them, and you can therefore benefit from those epic attacks being really powerful. Just a thought, it depends a lot on what content you play.

Katana is a pretty solid set so it's not like you need something to cover for it. When you're talking about getting DPS from your scrapper secondary all I can really think of is "set with damage aura" basically. So here's a few thoughts: - Willpower has basically replaced Regeneration for that type of build. It trades off some regen for some layered defense and resistance. For a lot of us, WP is Regen 2.0. It won't add dps directly but as another viable set with Quick Recovery you can really go ham without ever worrying about end. Just mentioning because of your previous Regen experience. - Radiation Armor is the new hotness. It's actually a little weak on smashing/lethal so Tough and Weave will likely need to be in your build (and that's coming from me, the person who rolls his eyes when controllers and blasters take Fighting) and has a hole to Cold (Lady Winter, OUCH), but actually resists Toxic and has some Psi coverage. It has a really interesting Taunt Aura with -def and -tohit in it. Softening up your foes will help DPS. It also has a health sucking power that does a little damage and -regen to foes. Notably the Tier 9 is a damage boost instead of a summary-of-defenses type power. I've currently got a Dual Blades / Radiation Armor scrapper going and it's very enjoyable. - Dark Armor is the classic high self-sustain, high damage, goodbye my end bar set. It's got both a damage and fear toggle but it's costly to run, expect to buy recovery IOs to boost what stamina can gives you. Great for soloing maybe too much for a team most of the time character. - Electric Armor is a favorite of mine and it does have a damage aura. It's resist based so normally needs defense building, may be a good choice for regular teaming especially if you know you're getting defense buffs. - Fiery Aura has Fiery Embrace, though it does a lot less damage buff to non-fire attacks. Probably better saved for a concept build. - Bio Armor has Adaptation which is basically a stance select and it impacts how some of your other powers function, I think. You can toggle into a defense up damage down stance, or a damage up defense down stance, or an endurance conservation stance. Some people get kind of peeved when they have seen the actual numbers from the penalties but others just love it. Of these all I'd actually recommend Radiation Armor myself. I've customized the colors to represent something other than radiation and it just really WORKS for me, you know?

Wow you were lucky. I was moaning on /help on Excelsior and someone said one of their Praetorian missions bugged so hard she had to reset it 9x before it worked and after describing it I realized it was the Syfotine industries one which I was on. But yeah 3x the map's cleared, all glowies clicked, all boxes of weapons broke and the mission just … stops.

It just doesn't work that way for anybody, really. Assuming you're not fighting severely higher level foes the best pattern for slotting any attack with SOs/IO equivalents is probably: Accuracy, Damage, Damage, End Reduction, Damage, and then for the 6th slot pick this way: if the attack needs more recharge, Recharge. If you routinely fight much higher level mobs you can add a 2nd Accuracy, if it's a crazy fast power then possibly a 2nd End Reduction (because the cost of spamming a cheap power can add up). (You could also add a proc in to any attack but I'm trying to stick with basic IO recs here; proc-fu can get complicated fast.) For basic defensive toggles like your typical shields, at leveling ranges just shove 3 resistance or defense in them to start; at level 50 if you switch to level 50 IOs they have so much higher value that it would be worth your time to get a Def/End or Resist/End for the third slot as you're triggering enhancement diversification's diminshed returns at that point so you might as well put half an end reducer in. It's not really important to put end reduction in basic defense toggles that cost about 0.26 end/second while leveling; damage auras or higher cost toggles like Leadership somewhat can benefit. If this seems weird consider this: you have 100 endurance to start with and recover 1.6 end/second base, Stamina raises that to 2.08 end/second. Common protective toggles like Charged Armor only cost 0.26 end/second. Most melee sets will have 2 damage protection toggles and a mez protection toggle. So that's 0.73 end/second being spent so you're still recovering 0.87 end/second. Where does your End go? Attacks. Suppose you do Build Up (5.2), Thunder Strike (10.19), Jacob's Ladder (8.53) and finally a Havoc Punch (6.86) because some dumb minion probably lived somehow; you just spent about 31 endurance out of your 100 total. It'll take you 35 seconds to replace that. If you had 1 end reducer in the 3 attacks (not build up) you'd only have spent 24 end and would take 28 seconds to replace it. Where the problem comes in is when your attacks miss, or they just don't hit hard enough and you have to attack again. It's the long fights because you miss or don't hit hard enough that really are what kill your endurance. As long as your fights don't go on too long normally your end bar can replenish. That seven second difference might not seem like a lot, until you consider how quickly you're going from group to group. Recovering all your end seven seconds faster each time is what makes it so you can do 4 groups before you run yourself out of end instead of 3 groups. In the example above I said it would take 28-35 seconds to replace that end, but you're not going to stand there doing nothing, you're going on to the next group and blowing them to bits. That's fine, you're going to spend another 30 end or so doing that but while that's going on you're going to be replenishing the end spent in the first fight at the same time. It should be natural to see your bar lower, come back up a little, go lower, and so on, as you go group to group. Whenever you do get too low you're going to have to eat a blue inspiration or use your Power Sink or just take a moment to stand there and recover. (Fighting end drainer mobs like other lightning users may speed the drain up, but your basic powers also have the ability to return a few points of end to you too so that may help a lot; it's not worth slotting Charged Brawl and the like for end mod though, we're talking about getting back maybe 1-2 points of end.) Now when you add a more expensive toggle like Lightning Field to the mix the situation gets a bit tighter. Damage auras typically cost twice that of a personal shield, and Lightnign Field in fact costs 0.52 end/second. As you recall from 2 paragraphs up you're already spending .73 end/second so adding this power raises your total to 1.3 which is a lot, but hey inherent stamina so you're still recovering a good amount of end (and by the way these numbers are for UNSLOTTED stamina, 3 slotted stamina goes up to 2.48 end/second recovered). I personally feel about 2 end reduction IOs is good for a damage aura and then 3 damage, and a proc. At low levels the best choice for a proc is the Prestige Enhancement from P2W that gives chance of knockdown but you could also pick psi damage or even both if you're cruel. At this point a typical character using just completely generic IOs and slotting stamina and their attacks well should be doing ok. I know a lot of people feel they must have a Miracle or Numina proc in every build and it's kind of becoming expected even when it's not necessary. It does support a really nonstop playstyle and protects you somewhat against end drain foes, but it's all a matter of situation. There are sets that are actually more expensive to run; I know Dark Armor has a reputation of being an end sucker, and it really is! It has four defensive toggles (which are actually only .21 each) and two offensive toggles, and they all add up to 1.67 end/sec drain which is enough to ZERO your recovery if you haven't put enhancements in Stamina for end mod and reducers in the toggles. I think my post is kind of huge so I will end the general advice on slotting here... Edit: and Eran added a basic build similar to what I was going to post after so that's covered. As someone who's played an Elec/Elec brute before I can tell you that you should get a knockback protection IO into your build very early because grounded comes in annoyingly late and is unreliable. This eliminates the need for Acrobatics, and also Spring Kick is way too similar to Lightning Rod so I'd drop them from your build and pick other things but that's totally up to you. Combat Jumping is dirt cheap so putting a karma knockback protection would be my rec and I would cram it in by level 10. I'd also consider the electrical (Mu Mastery) epic instead of Body mastery, which is a total waste on a build that has Power Sink already. The snipe and ranged AOE attack will be great on a scrapper.

Sorry I didn't get the chance to reply to this post earlier. I actually have a Dark/Dark blaster I've been leveling myself and it took a bit of time with it to get some insight. I'm sure you're probably well along now but here are some suggestions I have for a leveling build which may be of use to the next person who comes along. One thing particular to your build is that I would not take Hasten at 4. You need more attacks to use at that level over getting the recharge down. Hasten is better taken 20s IMHO. Now what I would be down with taking at a really low level is Hover so you can slot it with a knockback protection IO (or even just to actually hover in combat all the time for its own limited knockdown protection and defense ). However taking Hasten, Hover, and Fly all below level 10 while actually leveling would be a really unpleasant experience, even if you rely on Sands of Mu and Blackwand for extra attacks, I think. 1. Moonbeam should be taken as early as possible (probably for all blasters now) as it can be routinely used during combat as one of your fast, hard-hitting moves. It is expensive so you might want to slot it with 1 end reducer before you start slotting it for damage - snipes are that good. 2. Soul Drain is your build up, I would try to get it in the build as early as possible, same thing for Aim. In fact Aim, Soul Drain, Moonbeam at point blank is a boss killing tactic. 3. Touch of the Beyond, despite the name, is a ranged attack and it helps with recovery so I would also try to take it immediately. 4. Death Shroud was more end manageable than I expected, especially with inherent Stamina and Touch of the Beyond, I don't even have Dark Consumption yet. (I jammed it into my build around level 18 in the middle of a Synapse TF; no regrets.) For a new character, taking the P2W prestige enhancement with a chance of knockdown and putting it into your damage aura power can be tremendous mitigation. 5. I think Umbral Torrent is one you can skip for a while, at least until you can get the knockback to knockdown IO. What I did instead was get Tenebrous Tentacles right away at 12 and rely on them as my cone AoE damage. They are less damaging and shorter range than Umbral Torrent, but the cone's wider and the recharge is faster. They've been fine to use as my main AoE on Yin and Synapse task forces, for instance. When soloing, I'm using my single target attacks primarily; moonbeam almost always kills something and the combination of gloom, Dark Blast, Penumbral Grasp, and later Abyssal Gaze is easily enough damage and control to lock down the other 2 mobs (as most spawns are 3 mobs). 6. I'd skip Dark Pit, I think it's complete trash; it's just a mag 2 stun with a short duration, and it's 15% lower innate accuracy. (It's one of the several Dark Defender powers that got nerfed along with certain controller powers.) As it's the 35 power, just take an epic at this point instead.

Thanks for the tip!

First thanks to Redlynne for doing this guide and giving me the nudge to start doing this content again as I had been meaning to. Now as to this comment from Scientist, I was using the guide as a springboard and actually doing a slightly different path, but trying to keep his comment about contacts skipping forward in mind. I stayed resistance to 8 when I got a call from Marchand for the first time, he sent me right on to Mr. G. I thought I had missed out on contacts but it just took me a little bit to realize that you actually can self-introduce to the contacts, so even though I had been given the breadcrumbs to go to Imperial City at 8, I was still able to do Deputy Assistant of Information and Chief Interrogator Washington. Let me stress that, you can self-introduce to contacts. It's not just that some of them are gated behind alignment doors, you may have to just walk up to them (or the ones in the open) anyway. Finally, unfortunately, I have found these missions somewhat clunky/buggy. I had 3 missions on my first day playing my Praetorian alt jamm up. One I used a complete on, another I reset 3x until the boss who wasn't spawning to let me finish the mission showed up, and the third one (Syfotine Industries) is still broke after 5 resets; I will soon have another skip up to use on it. So be prepared to reset, call a GM, or use your mission skip with these.

I wasn't going to suggest this, but since you were able to adjust the damage resistance icons color a bit, I'd like to suggest you adjust Staff's power icons. I find it very hard to read them - they're so pale it looks like brawl over and over in my tray. Seriously it's such a light yellow I can't distinguish them from temp powers and the definition of the little symbols is just washed out. My vision's not 100% but these are the only icons in the game I actually have a hard time reading. If you could just darken the color or even pick a new one that would be great.

Still bugged! Right now. Same issue, same boss not spawning. Have used my skip on another buggy mission earlier today. Maybe Praetorian characters could be given an extra mission skip allowance. People on Help channel are saying several are buggy.

No he spawned just fine for my team on Excelsior about an hour ago. It's probably one of those un-reproducible glitches that just happens once in a while.

After chatting about builds in Gulbasaur's topic on widows I have been working on a Wolf Spider Huntsman (Arbiter track, thank you). Basically I like the general gameplay of the AT but I don't like the cybernetic spider arms or the bane spider mace (though at least THAT weapon is customizable). So I've been trying to develop a viable (though obviously not optimal) build just using the Huntsman powers and the couple Bane secondaries that don't invoke the dreaded mace. Unfortunately this means Build-Up is not available as I checked the animation on the test server and it whips out the mace upon use. I considered 2 major ways of "plugging the holes" in the build from not having the Bane mace attacks (and having no Tier 9 attack!) and they were to go deep into fighting or/and leadership. Coupled with the 20% recharge passive the huntsman got I thought this would be a piece of cake to get perma-hasten on, as it would be trivial to find room for 5 LOTGs in a build with double maneuvers and weave, and in fact I tried slotting several powers with 5 Red Fortune + a LOTG procs (that's 5%+7.5%) however I ran out of slots for attacks by a pretty severe measure. (Well I don't normally take fighting or bulk up on LOTGs so this was probably inevitable). And in truth I was struggling to find a reason for perma-hasten though of course more recharge = more ability to spam everything in general. That said after I abandoned that iteration it did occur to me that you really could do a great support oriented build on a huntsman. Skip fighting but go ahead and take double leadership and add the medicine pool, and focus the slots in your attacks into the AoE attacks with the idea that you're going to be a "leadership beacon" and just lay down suppressing fire with your grenades while passively buffing people and doing combat medic work. It could be a really good build in a static group that was low on support but could benefit from stacked leadership, someone to "clear mind" the one controller or defender in there with you; heck if you were to play with an Illusion controller the AoE web grenade would be setting up containment for them and boosting their damage output a lot. But anyway, back to the drawing board. One thing that was clear from the weird mix of powers that Huntsmen get was that they are primo candidates for proc-fu, and I opened up Gulbasaur's guide to the survivability procs and I started the build by loading literally all of them into the build. This let me 6-slot the bane spider armor with the full set of Unbreakable Guard and then turn around and cram Steadfast and Gladiator's Armor in the weaker Wolf Spider Armor passive. I then six slotted health with literally every health proc (including the regenerative tissue one) and then sticking a 2nd preventive medicine (heal) in for a little bit of actual enhancement and a single smash/lethal resist bonus. At this point I thought I had a decent middle of the road huntsman build on track and was thinking about what to do for higher level damage and I looked at Call Reinforcements sitting there at 38 and the Speed pool in Mids right next to it resting on Hasten... and saw Burnout. And then I knew. Taking a page from the Crabbermind build (right? that's what I'm doing here, right?) my goal became to then squeeze Burnout into the build and toss the fighting and leadership stuff so I could take a patron pet power and make the theme of the build to use hasten to use burnout to use the 2 pets which are on 15 minute timers faster. (Not that I would go incarnate crazy with such a niche build, but I assume Burnout affects Lore pets too?). From there it was mainly a case of making sure the 2 ATO sets were in powers that could use them and then just fill in something that looked expensive and overpowered in the other attacks. (Seriously I hit the wall, I could probably frankenslot some of the attacks to reclaim slots for webnade and soul tentacles and even tacticsbut I am fried...) Clearly some good powers are slot starved and actual play would probably reveal a lot. For instance I am probably overdoing it with +recovery procs but at the time I put that in I was expecting to run 6 leadership toggles and be attacking sooooo.... Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.962 http://www.cohplanner.com/ Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Natural Arachnos Soldier Primary Power Set: Bane Spider Soldier Secondary Power Set: Bane Spider Training Power Pool: Speed Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery Villain Profile: Level 1: Pummel -- CrsImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(A), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(3), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(3), CrsImp-Dmg/Rchg:50(5), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg:50(5), Dsrnt-I:50(7) Level 1: Bane Spider Armor Upgrade -- UnbGrd-Max HP%:50(A), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:50(7), UnbGrd-Rchg/ResDam:50(9), UnbGrd-EndRdx/Rchg:50(9), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx:50(11), UnbGrd-ResDam:50(11) Level 2: Burst -- WntBit-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg:50(A), WntBit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(13), WntBit-Dmg/Rchg:50(13), WntBit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(15), Dcm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:40(15), Dcm-Build%:40(17) Level 4: Wolf Spider Armor -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+:30(A), StdPrt-ResKB:30(25), GldArm-3defTpProc:50(25) Level 6: Single Shot -- Thn-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Thn-Dmg/EndRdx:50(27), Thn-Dmg/Rchg:50(27), Thn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(29), Thn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(29), Thn-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(31) Level 8: Heavy Burst -- DmnofArc-Acc/Dmg:50(A), DmnofArc-Dmg/Rchg:50(31), DmnofArc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(31), DmnofArc-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(33), DmnofArc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(33), DmnofArc-Rchg/-DmgFear:50(33) Level 10: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- Rct-ResDam%:50(A), Rct-Def:50(34), Rct-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(34), Rct-Def/EndRdx:50(34) Level 12: Venom Grenade -- Rgn-Knock%:50(A), Rgn-Dmg/EndRdx:50(36), Rgn-Dmg:50(36), Rgn-Dmg/Rchg:50(36), Rgn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(37), Rgn-Acc/Rchg:50(37) Level 14: Bayonet -- Hct-Dmg:50(A), Hct-Dmg/Rchg:50(37), Hct-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(39), Hct-Acc/Rchg:50(39), Hct-Dmg/EndRdx:50(39), Hct-Dam%:50(40) Level 16: Wide Area Web Grenade -- GrvAnc-Acc/Rchg:50(A), GrvAnc-Acc/Immob/Rchg:50(40) Level 18: Frag Grenade -- SpdBit-Acc/Dmg:50(A), SpdBit-Dmg/Rchg:50(40), SpdBit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(42), SpdBit-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(42), SpdBit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(42), SpdBit-Rchg/Global Toxic:50(43) Level 20: Combat Training: Defensive -- ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP:50(A), LucoftheG-Rchg+:50(43) Level 22: Mental Training -- Run-I:50(A) Level 24: Cloaking Device -- LucoftheG-Rchg+:50(A), LucoftheG-Def:50(43) Level 26: Tactical Training: Leadership -- GssSynFr--Build%:50(A) Level 28: Surveillance -- AnlWkn-Acc/Rchg:50(A), AnlWkn-Acc/Rchg/EndRdx:50(45) Level 30: Hasten -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(45) Level 32: Super Speed -- EndRdx-I:50(A) Level 35: Burnout -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(45) Level 38: Call Reinforcements -- HO:Lyso(A), Dmg-I:50(46), Dmg-I:50(46), RechRdx-I:50(46), RechRdx-I:50(48), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(48) Level 41: Soul Tentacles -- Acc-I:50(A) Level 44: Darkest Night -- EndRdx-I:50(A) Level 47: Summon Widow -- SlbAll-Build%:50(A), SlbAll-Acc/Rchg:50(48), SlbAll-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(50), SlbAll-Dmg/Rchg:50(50), SlbAll-Dmg:50(50) Level 49: Tactical Training: Assault -- EndRdx-I:50(A) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Conditioning Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A) Level 2: Health -- Mrc-Rcvry+:40(A), Pnc-Heal/+End:50(17), Prv-Absorb%:50(19), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+:50(19), RgnTss-Regen+:30(21), Prv-Heal:50(21) Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%:50(A), PrfShf-EndMod:50(23), EndMod-I:50(23) ------------ ------------

Everybody forgets about the second build! I do too! And there's a 3rd when you go Incarnate which I think some people don't even know about! I think the reason I remember it is that I used to very commonly have a 2nd build where I took hover & fly for convenience while base building (and I built a lot of bases on a lot of servers so it was a habitual thing).

I will say that I don't think you have to usurp taking the alpha and trying to tank to do a lot of good on a team. If you think about it, just having your (disposable) swarm out, they're going to be picking up stragglers that maybe the tank doesn't. At least on the teams I've been on lately the tank is not actually working to keep mobs off the damage and support. They're rushing into a pack and taking alphas and holding attention long enough for some big AoEs to drop and then (and I'm not liking this but it's what I'm seeing) they just rush to the next big mob leaving a lot behind. And when you're say a controller or defender trying to finish off this guy or that guy, often he's got 2 friends who start to draw a bead on you. I saw this happen on some +4 ITFs and really those Cimmerorans hit like Mack trucks. Who came up the rear, picked up the leftovers, and helped us finish off the ACTUAL mission targets of the Nictus crystals? The mastermind.

It was definitely a niche use but it had its benefits. Like, I had a leveling pact with a buddy. We were doing the same missions anyway but the pact made sure we dinged together in case of debt being a factor or one of us being online and getting in on say a giant monster before the other one did. It also felt kind of like we were a special team. But I knew a LOT of couples who routinely did this. Also I think it was an artifact of a time where the leveling curve was more steep and debt was a bigger issue. So, not as important now and with the amount of effort it would take to implement, probably not worth it. 😞