Erratic1

Depends on what you think the purpose of a damage aura is. For me, it is generally a tool for keeping things interested in me without me hitting them directly. YMMV. As goes the comparison of Blazing Aura and Dragon's Tail... I do not think a passive, toggle ability from a defensive set should really compete with an active ability from a damage set in terms of dps. 5.8 dps is 46% of 12.48, delivered far more endurance efficiently. The character making use of Blazing Aura + Dragon's Tail will finish off their group of opponents in under 70% of the time it takes the person who just has Dragon's Tail (and that assuming they have gotten it down to firing every 5 seconds). As such they will have been exposed to fewer attacks. (Of course, nobody is going to actually fight a spawn using just those two attacks.)

The biggest downside with Shield, as goes damage, is that when you are not fighting a pack, the damage boost from Against All Odds is minimal. As goes the lack of damage aura...you could pair it with Radiation Melee and get one there. Between the damage aura, splash damage via the Contamination mechanism, and the fact you squeeze a heal out of consuming contamination it might not be a bad pairing, even if a bit endurance intensive.

I got this far and pretty much stopped. I seriously hope you reported this message and encourage you to do so if not. I disagree, vehemently in cases, with other posters here, but the above is not disagreement, it is personal attack and harassment.

StJ's mechanic involves building combo points--not something I would say is low maintenance. I would look at a powerset where there is either no or a minimal mechanic to keep track of. As goes low maintenance with (some) benefit from FF, go Invulnerability. It has one click-to-activate power--a heal. In theory you should not be using it much.

People fondly misremember "the old days", actually forgetting all the warts, pain, and time spent doing things which were minimally fun, if fun at all. Routinely when an opportunity to relive those days is provided (think other games) there is a splash, a bunch of people flock to relive those days...then population plummets as reality hits. I remember street grinding in Atlas and Brickstown, the annoyance and deadlines of snipers in Founders Falls as you tried to get to missions while also not getting too close to Devoured Earth encampments. Nothing I really need, though more power to those who presently think they do (until they find out otherwise).

I used to get thanks for making use of intangible powers in desperate and appropriate situations on my Gravity characters, but I have to say the uses were not frequent. I shudder thinking about the one team I was on where the person used their intangible power on every pull. EVERY PULL! They seemed to think they were making life better for ranged characters, but I could not see why I would want to get close to targets to be able to impact them and so excused myself from that group.

That is what I have done, 😁

I am playing him exclusively with friends whose ability to play varies, so he is only level 26. Still, Seismic brings a nice chunk of control (which I knew going in from having a Seismic/Time Blaster) with its knock ups and knockdowns. Throw in Fear and Tar Patch and at times it feels borderline abusive with all the ways you have to keep things in a tar patch, particularly when you can sneak up on most things via Shadow Fall. But that is facing the things you face in the 20s (redside) and there are plenty of opponents with nasty tricks of their own which will likely be more unpleasant. Hopefully it holds up at higher levels.

I made the Seismic effects as dark as possible to suggest solidified darkness. (Yeah, I know its not a recent post.)

Energy Melee

You would be far more correct than the acronym. Metagaming - Wikipedia

One wonders if it has become necessary to add, "This is a joke" to comments. In any event, the person had narrowed their choices down to Tankers and Scrappers (which arguably says something, but I am not getting into that).

Do not listen to Snarky. Invoking Brutes means an inevitable devolvement of the thread into how Tankers can't go back...NO WAY! WE SUFFERED LONG AND HARD AND DESERVE EVERYTHING WE HAVE NOW!!! Scrappers still manage to come ahead of tankers for damage done and can be made plenty tough.

May be worth keeping in mind some enemies debuff To-Hit and when you're down to just the final, big foe (Elite Boss, Arch-Villain) you will not have much in the way of Invicincibility stacks. FWIW, my StJ/Inv Brute has Focused Accuracy (admittedly does not have Claws...but Claws has to hit in the first place for you to get its To-Hit buff) and has to toggle it on from time to time. You might want to be prepared to grab Tactics or Follow-Up if you find yourself whiffing against harder targets.

Do what feels good (though I really cannot see doing without Power Crash unless it is somehow specially awful on Scrappers).

Yes, I realize how they drop. Like I said in my post, I clear out the low price selling stuff. And yes, I realize how lower level characters get level 50 recipes (because I am selling those all the time). As I noted, one character was unlucky and another was (roughlyish) at expected. I suspect some personalities are more prone to noticing unlucky breaks than lucky ones. As a case of lucky breaks, I bought 6 copies of the same enhancement from Preventive Medicine last week because they were selling for way lower than the rest of the set (well under half in fact) and the idea was to run all but one through in-set conversion with expectation that half would turn into something useful. Four conversions in each had turned into something different, so I was only short one enhancement for set completion. Which is likely to be remembered by me 2 years from now...the lack of purples on a character or the lucky conversion streak? Betting the lack. Check with me in 2 years.

I just successfully manage to fill the last recipe slot on my veteran level 24 sentinel with a non-basic, crafted recipe. He has not run Market Crash. The routine has been to clear out basic recipes whenever his 80 slots were filled. Mind you, I have not actually kept every non-basic recipe. I tend to go through the recipes and sell the ones which low sell prices and which I know I have no build across my hundred or so characters would use. How many cheapie, non-basic recipes has he sold? No idea. I would guess probably no more than 40. He has not a single purple recipe. Effectively he has had 120 slots to fill and has only kept set recipe drops. If what I am reading is correct purples drop at a 2.4% rate? So on average one might have expected 2.8 purple drops? Or turning this around, there was a 97.6% chance of not getting a purple drop, so the odds of no purples at all in 120 tries would be 1-0.976^120=5.4% I think it is fair to call that unlucky. Of course I have other level 50s. My "flagship" character has 3 purples. Take out that he has done Market Crash and he's roughly at the expected number. Hmmm...not sure I want to trawl through all my 50s and try to remember who has MC'd and who has not.

3 times in the last 24 hours.

I laughed so hard at this. 😁

"Assassin" has negative connotation, but that is what James Bond is--an assassin for His Majesty with a license to kill. We root for him because the people he targets are incredibly malign. "Stalking" has more recent negative association, but it merely means to stealthily approach. And it is Forbes telling people, "Why You Need A Mastermind" 😁

I find a lot of the, "PUGs are horrible" sentiment on the forums to be overblown. However, I have to admit to wondering about the Kinetics possessing character who only once managed to provide a buff and never, so far as I experienced, provided a single heal across an entire TF. Why have the powerset and the powers if you're not going to use it?

I have quite literally -=NEVER=- had a character where the primary and secondary were thematically the same and had very little problem justifying any of the well over a hundred characters I have made. Just sometimes you have to lean a bit harder into comic book physics than others. 😛 Taking such an approach has been part of my toolset.

I can see the merits in doing a full set at a time. *faint* The sad thing is in none of my many melee character builds does Hecatomb play a part. 🙁

He's been around for 40+ years...he's probably earned a costume slot or two. 😁

Not sure I would call Gladiator a hero. 😛 But yeah, I mentioned to a friend last night that Cap does wear briefs but of the same color as he leggings. Colossus I think is a onesie because otherwise the top wouldn't stay on (but if we're going that way the only way Dagger avoided exposing herself was the use of glue).