Frozen Burn

People ignore the content because like you said, they've played it for 20 years. But new content, new zones, new mobs... that would engage people. Maybe not you, but it is something new vs. just rearranging your powers. And you are also assuming everyone burns through the low levels and ignores it, when no, not everyone does. I love the lower levels and have friends that also love them. We read through the stories still, even though we've done them for 20 years. Yes, this is a game, and creating more stories, more mobs, more zones, more enhancements DOES do more the the gameplay as it can create new challenges and experiences. It may not be the build testing gameplay you like, but it does in fact enhance and grow the gameplay. And what you are suggesting in your premise IS throwing cosmetics at it and really does nothing for the gameplay itself. You are suggesting cosmetically rearranging your powers - and that will only make the low level content (that you already hate and avoid) easier and does nothing to enhance the game experience itself. Normal content can be challenging, depending on your AT, power picks, how you slot your character, and your difficulty settings. The game is balanced around all this. Allowing higher tiered powers to be available at the low levels changes that balance, and only makes things easier. And you already claim there is no challenge in normal content, so your suggestion just makes it even less so. I too love testing out weird builds, character concepts, and such. But your OP still doesn't present itself with a viable testing arena. If you take your upper tier powers in the low levels, and you mow through already easy mobs at the lower levels - that tells you nothing in testing your build. And if you fight upper level mobs (meaning you're higher level too), well, that also tells you nothing because you have all the powers you would have anyway no matter the order you picked them. But whatever the case, even if this is purely for playing around with a build idea and ignoring content - that's not what Homecoming is about. Homecoming is about the content. Again, there are other servers you can go to right now that will allow you to do what you are suggesting - just pick your powers as you see fit right from the start. Go check it out there.

No need to be snarky or assumptive - and I am not set in my ways - I am open to new ideas and alternative things but only when I think they are good ideas, and what you proposed isn't. Sorry if that isn't what you want to hear. I get that you're bored of low end content and want something - anything - to make it more palatable for you. Nothing wrong with that. But I don't see your premise as a viable option - 1) for the many technical reason listed above; 2) for the Developer's philosophical reasons also stated above that it would go against; and lastly 3) rearranging power orders isn't really giving us anything "new" except a way to cheat at the lower levels. If you're bored with low level content, then volunteer to be a Staff Writer for the Dev team and create more story arcs for us. Bring in new content. That is what we need. Create a whole new zone and backstory with new mobs. Trying to rearrange existing powers isn't new, and as I stated, is just overpowered. (And again, there are other servers out there where you can go and play that way.) Even if what you suggested was implemented, you'd still get bored because the content was the same, and I'd wager you'd get bored even faster since that same content would be a walk in the park and provide very little challenge if any at all due to your higher tiered powers. Edit: Additionally, you do not have to grind to get IOs or sets to play this game - the game is still based off of SOs (except maybe Hard modes). You don't even have to touch the IO system. But really, they aren't a grind and are easy to obtain. There are many threads on how to do so easily and on any budget.

As in your OP example, having Fire Imps (or any pet) at lvl 2 is overpowered. So is a blaster or other ranged AT having their Nuke at lvl 2. Or melee ATs having their T9 "god-mode" powers at lvl 2. Low level critters do lower damage and have lower HPs compared to higher lvl groups that dish out higher damage, have higher HPs & defenses and for when these types of powers that come later in your build are unlocked and needed. It is completely overpowered. And I don't see this as "mixing it up" or "giving us something new." I see this as a way to just freeform your character and cheat the game. I believe there are other servers out there that allow you to do this sort of thing right from character creation, if you really wanted to try it.

Right - Unslotters! Those were in my brain, but my fingers typed Catalysts. lol. Thanks. 🙂

Glad this was helpful for you. Since you are not interested in XP and want to run through all story arcs, I suggest you plan to Turn Off XP before leveling up past your contacts. There is so much content you will out level it. So, given that, go ahead and run at an increased team-size: 0x3 up to 0x8 depending on your comfortability. That will increase your # of drops and increase # of bosses which will give better drops as well. Additionally, as mentioned above, Story arcs award Reward Merits and they will rack up. Use them to buy Converters, Boosters, or Catalysts and sell those on the AH for profit. Then, you can purchase your ATOs or Winter Event IOs and other IOs. Your yellow and rare recipe drops - craft them and sell them. Generic IO recipes - vendor those - you'll get more for them there than on the AH. Save your rare salvage for crafting. White and Yellow salvage can be had cheap on the AH, but you can also sometimes get more for selling them on the AH than vendoring them. Good luck and have fun!

Yes, you are correct. The drop rate is much higher for inspires, so in disabling small ones, it does give more opportunity to receive larger ones for when the RNG decides you get one. 🙂But it doesn't mean those small one turn into medium or large insps - just keeps your tray open for them to come in. For me, the RNG hates me - so when I disabled them for the badge, it literally killed me a few times due to the lack of medium of large inspires as they just didn't like dropping for me. lol 😄

Disabling certain drops does not change the quality of the drops. It just eliminates you from receiving the lower tiered drop outright and lowers the quantity of drops overall received. It does not covert that roll of a drop from a lower tier to a higher tier. For instance, if you defeat a group and the system rolled its chances to award these 8 drops for you: Generic IO recipe Generic IO recipe Common salvage Common Salvage Uncommon Salvage Uncommon Recipe Rare IO Recipe Rare Salvage And if you disabled all common and uncommon drops.... you'd only get the Rare Recipe and Rare Salvage (2 items) in total. The other 6 Generic and and Uncommon rolls would not be converted into Rare rolls - you just would receive nothing for those reward drop rolls because you "rejected" receiving them. (If it did convert, everyone would do this and rake in the moolah.) Even with inspires, disabling the little ones does not increase the amount of medium or large ones received - those still occur at same normal frequency. The roll and awawrd of the little inspire still happens, but you just outright reject receiving it. And your overall drop rate will be lower because you've rejected a portion of them. For leveling up or being a new player, I advise against disabling these as the "trash" drops do hold value when vendoring. And at least uncommon IO Recipes can made, converted, and sold for profit. By disabling drops, you're basically refusing this portion of income, but not gaining anything in its place. But it is good for higher level and well-established toons that don't want/need/care about the trash drops, though.

To be clear, as a Resistance, you can contact and do SOME Loyalist arcs, and as a Loyalist you can do SOME Resistance arcs. You just cannot do the "extremist" arcs of the opposite faction. Here's a chart showing the arcs you can access with your alignment: Alignment Crusader Warden Responsibility Power Loyalist X X X Resistance X X X I hope this helps clarify things for you and anyone reading this. Mr G is a Loyalist Power contact so certainly, as a Resistance member, you would not be able to do his arc. But you could do Loyalist Responsibility arcs. And in Imperial City, those contacts are: Interrogator Kang Alec Parson Investigator Whitworth Chance McKnight

Welcome to Blasters! I know I'm late in posting this, so you've probably already made your choices, but here are some some others tips/tricks/advice/answers to your OP. Yes, blasters can solo quite easily. Some EBs can be challenging, and AVs even more so and you'll need lots of temp powers and inspires, and your wits. But in general content - you can solo just fine even at increased level and numbers of mobs. However, there are things you should be aware of too... Inspirations are your best friend - use them. They are not a weakness, but instead make you stronger! They will help keep you alive when you need them - it's what they are there for. Pop them before going into fights you know will be tough - less time reacting to incoming damage and better to pre-empt it from the start. Keep break-frees with you - again, even use one before you enter combat where you know you will get mezzed so you can just keep on attacking without stopping. Out of purples, oranges, and greens? Take those reds and yellows and burn things down faster (if you havent' used them already. lol)! On the note of break-frees and being mezzed - Blasters get "Containment" as an AT bonus power. Your T1 & T2 Primary and T1 Secondary can still be used while mezzed! Many will drop these T1 powers from their builds, but they can be life savers for when you're out of break-frees. Your T1 immob (or similar for sets that don't have an immob initially) typically does more damage than your T1 primary - so, they can be worth slotting up for damage. I recommend taking all 3 powers, but at least take 2 of them (and remember to use them) for those times you are stuck mezzed with no way out. Kite - move, position yourself, don't stand in one place for too long. Line up your cones, bottleneck a group in a doorway for your AOEs, etc, etc, etc. If teamed and you have unwanted aggro - move TOWARDS your tank/brute/scrapper and pull the mobs into their taunt radius - or move TOWARDS your defenders/corruptors/controllers/MMs for buffs, heals, and assistance. I see too many Blasters try to run away from their aggro and end up running away from their teammates too, and then they die alone and out of range of any help they could have received. Use your crowd controls - they may do little damage and you think "I'm a blaster and do only damage - bah" and these might be skippable, but no! They keep you alive when used. A held/stunned/slept/mezzed foe is dishing out 0 (zero) / nada / nil damage to you. Even immobilizations can keep the foe only using lower damage ranged attacks instead of heavy hitting melee attacks. Every bit helps. Target selection / awareness - actively switch between high-priority targets. Keep the one(s) you want mezzed / at bay while burning down another. Concentrating on one mob at a time can be deadly to you, so be aware of all the mobs, pick your targets to control vs. kill first, and go to it. Every foe group may give you different priorities. Regarding your question of Secondary set choices - as mentioned above by others, avoid /Mental for your first blaster. Take one that has a toggle sustain (highly recommended). /Ninja can be fine with it's click sustain, just have to put the sustain power on auto-fire. /Energy with Energize is just the same other than the mechanics of discounting End vs. granting extra End - one is not necessarily better than the other. Regarding Drain Psyche in /Mental.... it IS a very powerful buff and debuff. But it's difficult to get perma and you'll still want to slot up Stamina for those times when it's still on cooldown and the buff is gone, or when it misses, or there is only one foe (like an AV/GM). It's a great -regen power for AVs and GMs, but not very good as a true "sustain" power like all the other secondary sets. All my /Mentalists slot it for heals/regen/recharge instead of endurance, and then have the Panacea/Numi in Health and 3-slot Stamina old-school-style like any other toon. Additionally, as mentioned above, you have to go into the middle of a mob to use it, and the more foes, the better it works - if you're not comfortable being a naked armorless blaster standing in the middle of 10 -16 foes and pulling their hatred - avoid this set until you're experienced enough and comfortable enough to do so. /Mental is a great and very strong set that I highly recommend, but perhaps not for a beginning blaster. Regarding Storm Blast - fun set! But a lot of DoT and not much burst damage. Soloing will be fine. I've solo'd mine up to lvl 40 so far and only teamed for TFs. And I'm currently running at +1x4. But really, I would not recommend this primary for a first time Blaster as things will not die as fast as other primary sets with lots of burst damage. Mine is Storm/Temporal and I am beefing up my defenses to play in melee range and to use Fold Space from Teleport pool to pull mobs flung or running away from my nuke. Or to put them more into my AOEs. I also have a Storm/Storm Corruptor who plays at range - lots of damage, being dished out, but Storm primary is indeed Slower with all the DoTs. The quick snipe is my go-to for when I need something to die fast. Good luck!

Thank you for this bit of info. This makes sense now. I've always wondered the same thing about the teleport beacons. Villain beacons are always in order of zone level, but hero zones are quite a mess due to hazard zones and some lower / mid level ones coming into the game at a later date, like Striga.

Agreed. Especially since some bases are on other servers where I most likely do not have a toon to go view it. Yes, I can transfer, but then I have to transfer back or leave the toon, where I really don't want to or generally don't play, yadda, yadda, yadda. Just a couple pics of the winning bases would be nice. Don't need a full spread.

Mystic Fortune also has one that will take away like a qurter of your HPs... I think it's "Death" that does it, even though the Wiki doesn't mention it. MF and SM both came into the game together. A buff for yourself, or a buff for your friend, but there is a chance of downside. Yes, you can turn into a monkey and possibly die, or you can take a quarter of your friend's HPs and potentially kill them while they are in battle (if they accept the cards being tossed at them). A game without any downsides at all is no game at all. So many things in this game are easy to walk through, these are just 2 things to roll the dice with. Don't like the potential consequences, then don't roll the dice on them. It's that simple.

I don't use the LotG set at all - I only use the special IO for the +global recharge and that is it. Otherwise, the set is pretty useless overall. To me, Reactive Defenses and Shield Wall are far better sets than LotG. If you're 3-slotting: Shield wall gives same Regen Bonus but more HPs than LotG Reactive Defenses gives more useful S/L resistance than the regen and more HPs than LotG If you're 4-slotting: Shield Wall's E/N resists is more useful than LotG's +Acc, which you can get from so many other sets in your build. Reactive Defenses' F/C is also more useful than the +Acc from LotG (plus you're also getting that +S/L resist from the 2 slots) If you're 5-slotting: Still use 4 of Shield Wall or 4 Reactive Defenses (with one being their unique) and the LotG Def/+Global Rech - this is far better than 5 LotGs. The S/L Resist Bonus on LotG's 5th slot is nice, but it's also a fairly common bonus across other sets, armors, etc that you can get it from, and it's benefit doesn't outweigh the more useful bonuses from the 2-4 slots of Shield Wall or Reactive Defenses. 5-slotting Reactive Defenses for the End Discount can be useful for End heavy builds - but then I'd want to invest a 6th slot to add in the LotG special (unless I had enough defensive powers to slot 5 of them elsewhere). If you're 6-slotting: Still use 4 of Shield Wall or 4 Reactive Defense and BOTH of their specials + the LotG Def/+Global Rech. No need to 6-slot any of the 3 sets except for maybe Reactive Defenses for the End Discount and +Recharge on the 5th and 6th slots. Again, maybe 5-slot Reactive Defenses and the LotG Def/+Gobal Rech.... but, nah, not for me. ...in my opinion of course. 🙂

What do you mean tag? Like category? They are "Event" badges and listed there in your list. 🙂 If you ever need to know how a badge is categorized or where it is listed, you can go to your "Most Recent" list and hover your mouse over the badge, and it will show you Accomplishment, Accolade, Achievement, Day Job, Exploration, etc, etc, etc.

It very well could be a Sentinel issue. I can confirm it is working fine on my Blaster and Corruptor. Hopefully, there are other Storm Sentinels out there that can weigh in. too.

I do not want War Mace or Broadsword to have a "Cyclone" power - I'd rather all three sets NOT be a copy of one another and they instead get something else or stay as they are.

Certainly! Here is my Psy/Temporal Build.... Lots of fun and one of my favs! Librarian Archivist - Blaster (Psychic Blast - Temporal Manipulation).mbd

Oh that's right... there is DFB in Mercy. I never run it there, so I always forget it. And I was looking at someone else's post that said there wasn't one there. Thanks for the reminder.

As mentioned above most of all the zones (other than hazard or PvP zones) already have a TF/SF or Trial. However, an SF for Port Oakes would be great - and would give more content for Villain side. Gold side TFs - I'd be for that. I love Praetoria and it could be a way to get more content - and perhaps, it could be lvl 20+ content as well to keep you in Praetoria longer post-Neutropolis/First Ward/Night Ward. TFs with mish's all in same zone - no thank you. If you actually bother reading the content of the TFs/SFs, there is generally a reason for going to the different zones. It also makes the TF/SF seem grander and it's a bigger deal to tackle the issue at hand. Staying in the same zone is boring and monotonous. And your contacts deal with things across the whole city and not just their zone. (This also relates to your last point about Posi 2 TF and Faultline - it's fine as is, imo.) As Mentioned above too.... moving Apex and Tin Mage to PI would not allow Villains or Rogues to join in them. And if you ever play through Praetoria and read the content - the Praetorian problem is not just a "portal corp" problem and is also a villain-side problem. Also, Vanguard, especially Dark Watcher, is heavily involved in the final arcs of Praetoria - so it's perfect that both Apex and Tin Mage reside in the RWZ.

Hi and welcome to the game! Certainly understand your frustration. As mentioned above, just speak up and let people know you're unfamiliar with the TF and someone will help - we've all been there. But additionally, make sure your Nav window is open. The next mission of the Task Force will show and it will state where the location is. And you can get there by tram, gates in the war walls, Ouroborus portal, base portal, or Long Range Teleporter. The portal most go through is Ouroborus (the gold inifinity sign portal). Once in Ouro, turn around and click the portal you came out of and you can see all the other zones you can quickly go to the limited zone options. Many have a Supergroup base and can quick travel to it, and use a portal to any of the zones in their base. If you do not have a base, that's ok! There are many public quick travel bases to use. If you're on Torchbearer server, feel free to use mine. Type in chat: /macro STA enterbasefrompasscode STA-8822 this will make a grey button in your power tray labeled "STA" - short for "Steel Transit Authority," the name of the SG. Then when you're ready to travel, click your "Teleport to Base" power from START vendor, or Long Range Teleport Accolade Power, or stand near a base portal, and then click this macro button and you'll go to my base. You'll then see portals for all the zones in front of you that you can quickly go to. There are vendors, trainers, buff stations, costume editors, work benches for crafting, etc all right there for your quick use too. Good luck and welcome to the game!!

Well.... for Dr. Q week,... I usually solo about 35-40 of them and team for about 5-10 of them. NOW who's crazy?! 🤪 🤣

I don't auto complete unless bugged. I don't accept timed missions unless I know i have time to complete it. But... if we're talking missions that we hate and if there was ever one I would auto-complete, it would be the "Defeat all Clockwork" in that square towered factory outdoor mish. I think Unai gives it? Can't remember. Too many nooks and crannies for them to hide, they wander, they fly/run away - even if you methodically go through the tower, there is always a couple that escape and you have to search to find any of them before that red arrow shows up to point out where the last one is. I hate that mish with a passion. I should auto-complete, but for some reason, I drop to -1x1 and suffer through it. Why? probably because I always forget about the auto-complete option. 🤣

I get your reasoning, but that buff to Freeze Ray (and other ST mez powers in non-snipe sets: Suppressive Fire, Screech, Tesla Cage, etc) was made by the HC team well after the set was created by the original devs - and it was to help balance the set because they have no snipe and was missing that extra in combat damage (Tesla Cage, in the case that while Ellectricity does have a snipe, it doesn't have a heavy ST attack like other sets). So, you cannot look at it from purely a damage/rech time/end cost standpoint when comparing powers' "roles" or reasoning for being in the set entirely. But still, for Ice Blast, you have FR as the ST hold, Bitter Ice Blast as your heavy hitting ST attack, and Bitter Freeze Ray with even higher damage still (essentially in place of the snipe power). But the ungodly animation time makes BFR less useful like a fast snipe in combat, so there is a loss of damage output, hence the buff to FR. If the OP gets their wish and BFR gets a fast snipe option, then FR would have to go back to normal low damage hold - and I'm not a fan of that.

Souvenirs happen at the end of story arcs... so just run some arcs and you'll get the badge!