Frozen Burn

I love Dark/Dark. had one on live and I made another here on HC. Shadow maul is worth taking, but because you are aware of the animation time, be careful of it. Don't use it when you know things are happening around you and you don't want to be locked int to that time. Take Shadow Punch too. The damage per activation time is still good. Proc'ing ToF - meh. Sure. I guess. i'm not into proc'ing a ton of things into powers and prefer sets. But yes, this seems like a power that could be proc'd well, if you so choose. Your're not gimped without Death Shroud. And turning it on/off for stealthing is not an issue. No binds or macros needed. It's a great power. But if you don't want it, don't take it. Chasing +Def is certainly a good idea. The strongest builds have a mixture of +def and +res. Since Dark armor is Res-based, adding in +def is a good thing.

Ice/fire/fire Blaster was my first toon ever and I just love Ice blast, so it's closest to my heart. /Ice Manipulation was "meh" back on live and I just made a toon with it to try here on HC. I am sure (and hoping) it's better now. Cold is a wonderful set too, although I prefer it on a Defender. I haven't tried ice melee yet - it's on my to do list. But I also have to give a shoutout to Ice Control. The recent changes with a fear component to the cone and damage added to Ice slick really help. And the Artic Fog confuse is just great as well. My Ice/Cold Controller is one of my favorites. On live I had a Ice/Ice Dom that I enjoyed - I may have to remake that too. So, in answer to the OP - "it depends on what you want to do." I think all ATs do Ice really well. You can't go wrong with any Ice set whether you're ranged, melee, damage, support, or control.

Most certainly Blasters can solo. Blasters are my preferred and favorite AT and mostly play solo except for TFs/SFs/Trials, and even some of those, I solo. Of course, lower-level blasters will have a harder time with soloing +4x8 as you don't have all your powers, slots, or IO sets to help out - even decreased size of inspiration tray impacts your survivability early on. But soloing can be done. At level 50, I solo all my Blasters at +4x8 through the incarnate and regular content that I haven't completed yet. My namesake, an Ice/Fire/Fire Blaster I even farm with at +4x8. Taking and using those CC and utility powers in your secondary, kiting, prioritizing target selection, using inspirations, using IO set bonuses, layering pool and epic powers, maneuvering and positioning yourself - all play a part in your survivability. 🙂

Besides the above old TFs/SFs/trials that USED to be started there, this was - and still is - a way to get the the tip missions that give out badges. Sometimes, people just have bad luck or have no sacrificed enough to the RNG gods to get the badge tip missions to drop. Now, you pay one reward merit and boom - badge mish. 🙂

I love the Galaxy City tutorial. And I like the voiceover too - no issue with it. I much prefer this over the Outbreak tutorial, although I will give Outbreak this... it goes more in depth with explaining things, which can be good for very new players - provided they have the patience to read and learn. But what new excited player wants to do that? 😄

I'm surprised I haven't commented on this thread yet. lol Despite the suckiness of Kin Melee... I do enjoy playing my KM/SR Scrapper (more so solo). I also enjoy her MA/SR sister and the classic Claws/Regen. But my absolute favs so far are Katana/Dark and War Mace/Invuln. Both are beasts and survive practically anything. SO much fun play.

Higher regen rates are dependent on higher max HPs - the more Max HP you have, the more you regen. So, a brute who has inherently (and significantly) more HPs than a Sentinel, will regen better. So, not sure a Sentinel is what you really want to do here. Additionally, Sentinels have a shorter range than blasters, so they could still out damage and kill you if they can stay at their max range and beyond yours.

Any of the main hero TFs: Posi 1&2, Synapse, Yin, Numina, however Manti might be trickier. Could easily do a Dr Q in 1.5 - 1.75 hrs. Or a Justine Augustine in 30-45 mins. No AVs in those. JA is a bunch of hunts and fighting CoT in a few door mishes.

I love my Fire x3 Dom! So much fun! "Burn it - burn it all!" @Snarky if it helps and gives you ideas, here is my build. While I am sure can go without Hasten, I do have it. I already have 1 of Leadership in and you can drop combat TP to pick up your 2nd required Leadership. Miss Blazepassion - Dominator (Fire Control - Fiery Assault).mbd

I too want a mini-mode without a huge bobblehead. I was so excited for this feature for my fairy / pixie toons, but then I saw the bobblehead and was hugely disappointed. At least I made money of the aethers I saved up for it! lol

My DB on live was also a DB/WP scrapper. Loved it. Lots of fun. I currently have a DB/SR Brute. Still lots of fun. Really, if you're avoiding Stalker for now since you're leveling up another... that leaves Scrapper, Brute, or Tanker. Tanker, you'll have bigger AOEs which is really nice, but your attack powers come later. So if you really want to dive back into DB and enjoy it, I would go Scrapper or Brute so you get the attack powers quicker in your build.

Door knocking in a league for the Halloween Event does not produce anywhere near the same amount of the spawns at one time like an invasion event does. So comparing it to the MS event, Rikti invasion, Zombie apocalypse, or Nemesis invasion is not an accurate comparison. You can get heavy lag with all the invasion types, it's just that there are more people who participate in the MS event since it's still relatively new and high XP rewards are really high and draw them in. The other invasion types are not as heavily participated in anymore like they used to since most people already have the badges they offer. I don't think there is really anything the Devs can do about the lag for the MS event. The spawns do not produce any extra particles or graphics that would add to it. It's jut there are SO many people participating in it at one time and you are inherently going to get lag. The best thing to do is to fight on the outskirts / edge of the league where the lag is minimal and you can still function instead of standing in the middle of the group where the lag is the heaviest.

This is a total fallacy and misinformation that started ages ago with the Mothership raid. The event code (and in mothership raids) is ambush code and spawns see through stealth auras and will still spawn / "ambush" accordingly. Turning off those AOE stealth auras is doing people a disservice as they typically provide Res & Def buffs for the teams. Mobs see through whatever stealth is there.

As people stated, FF is just buff and go. You cast your shields, and then blast away. That is beauty of FF - it doesn't take constant management leaving you to blast and fight too. Given this, it's sort of ideal for a Corruptor vs a Defender, although Defender buff values are higher. But in your case of casual gameplay to keep your friend's kid alive - a Corruptor is perfect. As a Corruptor, you'll also do more damage than a Defender. Just lean into your attacks. As for fragility, focus on getting yourself more defense set bonuses since you cannot give yourself shields, but you do get some from your big bubble. Picking up a def shield from your epic, Combat Jumping, Maneuvers, and even if you want to go Fighting with tough and weave, will all help your survivability, but for casual gameplay, that may be overkill. But these are some things you can do to help. And yeah, it's probably just you not being used to a powerset that's cast and leave it alone for a little while. I wouldn't toss your character at all, but lean into. 🙂

HC has also seeded the market with Rares like they have with Common and Uncommon salvage. we typically do not get to the price point at which they are seeded (1M inf).

I have heard this rumor floating around and I will wager this is a false perception. It is not supposed to work like that. Notariety has no impact on the open world or the events. Spawns are levelless and always spawn even con no matter your level or whether you SK'd up or Ex'd down. So, the +4 does not matter. As for team size, even spawning is based on number of people in an area. You can be solo working an event set to x8 team size and still only get your 2-3 minion spawns instead of an entire 16 mob group with bosses like you would in a mission. Only by having other characters around you (not even have to be on your team) do you get increased #s and then eventually boss level, EB level, and GM level spawns. If by chance notariety is beefing up spawns, then this is a bug. A true bug with the event. Although, this is the Mapserver event which is all about bugs, so... maybe that is "working as intended." 😄

^^^THIS! Most people do not realize that Open World Leagues are different than Instanced Leagues (like in iTrials). Open World Leagues, your team is competing with other teams in the same league for rewards. The only benefit is for being in an open world league is the ease of communication and coordinating efforts. So, it's critical that league leaders balance teams out when forming them so that all participants get roughly an equal chance / share. You also have to be within a certain distance of the kills to get the rewards as well - you may get defeat credit towards badges - but to get the XP, Inf, drop rewards, you have to be "close" (and I do not know that distance number). For example, I was on a Lusca league, I died and went to hosp, and they defeated the tentacle while I was there and got no xp, inf, or my reward merits even though I was on the team / league.

Awesome. So it looks like regular XP is approx 3x and Incarnate XP is 10x. 👍

Yep, there is a max recharge to all powers - it's 1/5 of the base recharge. So, divide you base by 5 and that's the fastest recharge you can get a power to. So, no need to worry about memorizing a chart... unless you really suck at math. 😄

The ONLY change that Empathy needs is with Clear Mind. Either... Make an AOE, or.... Make the buff last longer, or... Shorten the cast and animation time, or.... All of the above or any combination of them! 😄 Everything else is fine with Empathy, imo.

I like the idea of this new AT and it seems that it will play just like a lot of Blappers - going in and out of melee to shoot as well as utilize melee powers. The only issues i see with this are the "Tank" part and aggro management and armor caps to support being int he Tank role. If this type of constantly moving AT is pulling aggro and is meant to hold it, you're pulling mobs all over the place as you move around and not keeping them in a concentrated area - like a tank or brute would. It would actually cause more problems the solve with gameplay - your team would hate you. Also, Sentinels armors would probably be too weak to handle all that aggro and hate at a 75% resist cap, so that would have to be adjusted. Yes, some sentinels can handle a lot of hate and aggro, but they have PBAOE powers that rely on surrounding mobs for survival - as noted in OP, the Skirmisher wouldn't have that. So, Resist cap level would have to change. I think removing the "gauntlet" and "taunt" ability from the AT and not using it as a Tank is what would make this a viable AT. Perhaps keep a single target taunt like scrappers, though. But let this be a bridge between a Scrapper and Sentinel. I would definitely play one then.

Welcome to the club. Blasters are blasterifric and blastabulous. 😄

I agree, no real need for End Redux, and yeah bonuses have to give better than what we get frankenslotting. But I think Recharge could be there for those powers that are clicks and have both Heal and EndMod (some blaster sustains, Ad Boost, Chrono Shift, Power of the Depths, etc to name a few). A 4-pc set wouldn't really get us much more than what we have with frankenslotting now, so definitely would want a 6-pc set. And I would think it should be a set that has no proc in it - we're already so proc heavy elsewhere. And full proc-less set could get us to the ED cap (95% or more) on bonus of the power's attributes vs what we get now with 3 heals / 3 Endmods values (~90%). Or perhaps 2 sets... one without a proc getting us to full ED values on Heal and Endmod, and one with a proc that provides typical 90%'ish values for the proc lovers out there. 😄

Welcome back to the game!! Despite the Blaster vs Sentinel decision, there are things to consider when deciding between Dual Pistols or AR.... AR is cone heavy and lends itself better to staying at range while DP is more PBAOE / mixed playstyle. So, depending on your playstyle preference that will impact your choice there. Both are viable and can be successful either as a Blaster or Sent in end game. Given AR lends itself better to staying at range - it does have M30 grenade, Buckshot, and Slug that KB which can be useful. However, they won't entirely help with being swarmed as you sometimes can get with certain mob types. Blaster secondaries have a wide variety of tools, controls, and damage powers to deal with swarming mobs, but you'll have to be comfortable with being armorless until you get up in levels and get your epic shield and/or Fighting, Leadership, or other pools for more defenses - as well as slots for getting those Def/Resist set bonuses. Blasters can be built to be very survivable which is why I hate the term "glass cannon" - they are not as fragile as they used to be back in the day. Blaster deaths are usually by player error / misjudgment. So, I prefer to think of them as "living on the edge of a cliff" - you're fine doing your thing as long as you don't mess up and walk off that cliff plummeting you to your death. 😄 AR/Devices Blaster is a classic combo and can be devastating to pull mobs into your ambush of trip mines and gun drones - so much fun! ...but can be slower gameplay. AR/Energy is also classic and has great melee tools and stuns for those pesky swarmers, and boost range really helps the cones. Sentinel secondaries (armors) can help you stay alive, and some might have some PBAOE powers to help (like Bio, Rad, etc), but you're still faced with attacking foes at point blank range with cones and blasts. That's not a big deal, but for some, it may be. Dual Pistols lends itself to being up close to mobs due to the nuke being PBAOE. Then targeting a foe near you with Bullet Rain, it's like another PBAOE despite it being a Targeted AOE. (And Executioner's Shot (ST) just looks awesome at point blank range - especially when it really is the kill shot. 😄) Pretty much all Blaster Secondaries can greatly enhance the Melee / PBAOE playstyle of DP. I would stay away from /Devices as it lends itself to being at range and ambushing. Sentinel Secondaries will of course offer you your shields with things for being up close and personal with mobs. Some things to note about Sentinel vs. Blaster when choosing.... Sentinels are considered (by the Devs) as "ranged scrappers" and they are based off that model. So, given that... Sentinels, while they have vastly improved in recent years, still have a lower damage modifier versus a Blaster. Sentinels have a lower target cap than Blasters. Sentinels have a shorter range on their attacks than Blasters. ....the shields / armors are the trade-off. Personally, for me... I have a Beam Rifle/Rad Sentinel. It's a beast and I took Provoke for taunting so i can tank - and i do. It's that sturdy and good. But I still prefer my Blasters. 🙂 I kill faster and AOE more mobs, and I am just as survivable (even though you're living on the edge of cliff). I tend to blap with my Blasters, so the shorter range of the Sent is not an issue for me. But I have friends who play nothing but Sents and love them to death. So, hopefully all this will help you with narrowing down your choices. here are some of my DP builds that I Blap with: DP/Mental - a PBAOE juggernaut DR/Ninjitsu - a Melee kill machine DP/Sonic - complete with Fold Space to bring more into PBAOE range! Kiska Nikolaevna - Blaster (Dual Pistols).mbd Phantom's Sting - Blaster (Dual Pistols).mbd Johnnie Hertz - Blaster (DP-Sonic).mbd

Wow. Seriously? Having a bad day? Need to vent more? lol 🙂 Sorry if my posts crawled under your skin for whatever reason. 🙂 However, you're missing the main the point - Axes and blades, despite having other costume effects that might suggest otherwise, still do lethal damage - which still fits as they are at the core a bladed weapon. Clubs and maces that have fancy effects, still, at the core, do smashing damage. Wanting the extra / secondary energy, fire, ice, etc damage on top of the primary lethal or smashing holds no argument here as we're talking straight up smashing damage (all clubs) versus lethal damage (all blades). Otherwise, each costume piece would have to have it's own powerset depending on whatever secondary effects it might appear to have - and yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath for that. I stated in my first post - I'm no Dev. I have no clue what it takes to create a set or rework one which is why is stated I "feel" like it would be easier. So, obviously, of course, without a doubt, feeling something might be easier clearly has no weight. Duh. Don't really have to point that out. However, in general, reworking things tends to be more buggy than just creating something new from scratch. This is just common sense knowledge. But, in this case I could absolutely be totally wrong. Just giving us new costume options for holding clubs in the Dual Blades set? Ok, fine, whatever. Yeah, that would be easier than creating a new set - i would imagine, i really have no clue as I'm not a Dev. Maybe it's not? But it's also not optimal as again, we're faced with bludgeoning items in a lethal set, like with TW having lethal items in a smashing set. Many people posted how they didn't like that, and with OP also adding in that they wanted DB to be reworked and renamed to accommodate this request for dual clubs, it makes sense to create a new set (dual clubs) that does smashing - so it then makes us all happy we have it, we all have a new set to play with, and it helps us all to not have to suspend our disbelief as much. Versus... just new weapon skins on an old set and we have to suspend our disbelief even more. I'm not knocking yours or anyone's opinions here as I want Dual Clubs too! I was just offering a different solution to reworking an existing set by giving us something new that could make all parties happy. Don't like it - totally fine and valid. But personally, I'd rather have a new set to play with instead of respecing my DB toons for whatever changes happen in the rework - you know there will be some - and this adds to the overall "easier" for not just Devs, but for us players too. And if it's just adding clubs and maces to Dual Blades costume editor? Well, fine - but others can enjoy it, I won't. Peace.