biostem

I wouldn't say it bothers me per se - I just chalked it up as an oversight on the part of the original devs; They probably didn't expect people to do a lot of "bunny hopping around". I remember before fitness was inherent that a lot of people used to stack SS and stealth, so they'd take hurdle over swift, since the run speed was already taken care of. It may also have to do with swift also buffing fly speed, which is why the run speed buff isn't as much...

SeraphimKensai said: "For some clarification, as was requested via a message to me, I meant as an Auto Power such as any of the fitness powers, except that you would have to buy the power." This doesn't clear things up at all. Either you mean making hasten an INHERENT power, meaning you get it automatically without having to specifically use a power pick to get it, (which is how fitness is currently, upon attaining level 2), or you mean making it an "auto power", which means that you still have to use a power pick to get it, but instead of it being a toggle or click power, its effect is "always on"...

I concur that TW is very slow going early on. I couldn't get into kinetic melee, and the effect of the build-up siphoning damage from enemies, while cool on paper, just doesn't seem like enough of a payoff to me. SS is still a very good set, though. Have you tried street justice, radiation melee, or psionic melee?

Staff fighting is an interesting set. On a Stalker, though, you lose out on the "Staff Mastery" power, and are permanently locked into Form of the Body. It's got some flashy animations, and even a ranged attack later on, which is kind of neat. It's similar to street justice, in that there's a system of building up stacks of "perfection", then using an attack that removes said stacks for bonus effects...

I know this seems way out in left field, but I almost kind of picture this character as an 18th or 19th century writer - perhaps something like a Victorian-era inspired suit or dress...

There are powers in other sets that are auto and grant a recharge bonus, (like lightning reflexes in electric armor). You'd have to knock the value down to around what that provides, then drop it a little lower still, since pool powers generally aren't as good as primary or secondary ones...

My initial guess is because they do lethal damage, but barring that, the quick attacks, the mini-build up effect from follow up, and the mid-ranged attacks from focus and shockwave, play rather nicely with the non-stop fury-induced frenzy that brutes are known for. I'm currently leveling a claws/bio brute, and she's a blast to play. I only just kitted her out with regular IOs the other night, and it seems like a solid set. Do you folks have any insight or other advice? Thanks!

Make a MM with /traps, /FF, or /Sonic, use the bubble for status protection/defense/resists, then take the fighting pool, combat jumping, acrobatics, and perhaps air superiority from flight and/or one of the pseudo-ultimate powers from pools like sorcery, and make yourself tankier. You can use binds to quickly engage bodyguard mode and utilize powers from your secondary to aid you as you go. Alternatively, I've rather enjoyed the nature secondary on a few characters, and it can make for a rather active set. Another option would be to again go with /FF, but use powers like force bolt to position enemies so your pets can dogpile them, (maybe go for it being a "hadoken" a la street fighter)...

Street justice seems like the obvious first choice. It has a combo system that you want to acquaint yourself with, so you can get the most out of the powerset, but it's not really that complicated if you read the power descriptions. Martial arts does offer punching animations as alternatives to the kicks for most attacks. One thing nice thing about martial arts is that for tankers and brutes, one of the early powers, storm kick, applies a defense buff to you, which pairs nicely with shield defense. I also wouldn't rule out super strength - it's a fairly straight-forward set, but if you're willing to deal with the occasional 10-second "crash", one of its defining powers "rage" is quite good. While not 100% up to date, here are some references that may be helpful: Primary power sets Secondary power sets

I think what they're saying is that there should be a "stay" command, that locks the pet(s) in location, so they don't attempt to close to melee or otherwise follow an enemy in any way. Right now, if I issue a goto command for my pets, then issue an attack command, (or if they're in anything other than the passive stance and detect an enemy or are attacked), they likely will move from the spot I just sent them to, especially if they have any melee attacks in their chain.

Even if you took the 3 attacks and made them into power pools, you'd still need 2 more powers to flesh them out. I suppose you could draw from other sets/powers to fill them out, but it'd still be work. Also, what would you replace those attacks with?

We basically have 3 whip attacks and the swarm/bird animations. All the other MM attacks exist elsewhere. If you include a build-up power, and possibly some kind of PBAoE that doesn't use a whip/animal animation, that leaves 4 other powers to come up with. If you're willing to reuse those animations, then it could be done without having to create all new animations. Heck, you could mix the whip and swarm/bird attacks into 1 beast master/animal tamer type set, if you really wanted to.

I mentioned buying the rare salvage in step 7 of my original post. The "Witch Tunnel" mission I mentioned has elite bosses, which are downgraded to regular bosses if you remain at the default notoriety level. Your tip regarding the temp attacks is well taken, thanks!

Hmm... very strange, then. I wonder what the "jumppack on self" effect actually does. In practice, the power does not behave like any actual flight power - it's just a jump with no limit on the height of the jump arc, while you're holding down the spacebar...

It's not really a normal flight power - what happens if you have it toggled on and are pressing down the jump button? That seems to be the only time it actively affects your flight...

While I have no issues with people choosing to level up their alts or other accounts in any way they see fit, (short of exploiting others to do so, of course), one area of focus for my method is that you're doing the work on each and every one of your characters that you level up in the way I described; You don't need to dual-box and you don't need to have another character already kitted out for the task; Just roll any character you want and go to it...

Well, I've seen entries in my combat log along the lines of "Your Reach for the limit" had a 100% chance to hit you (autohit) or something to that extent. Would you happen to know why the 'Show details" for the power in the enhancement window is blank? It seems like it'd be a fairly trivial matter to have it say something like "Whenever you use an attack power, you have a X% chance of triggering 'Reach for the limit'"...

So I rolled a new BR/MC blaster yesterday and took 'Reach for the limit'. I played a bit and while I did notice the icon come up a few time, (from which I could see the exact tohit and dmg buff values), it didn't really give me a good idea of the chance for it to actually trigger. I can only speak from that one experience, but it feels like it procs about 10% of the time, for about a 20% tohit buff and a 35% dmg buff, (IIRC, the icon said +22% tohit and +37% dmg). Does anyone have more specific data regarding this power's proc chance and actual buff values? I noticed it doesn't take any enhancements, either, so I'm guessing there's no way to further buff these values, (except maybe taking hasten to get more attacks in that may trigger it, though I don't know if it has an internal cooldown, either). Thanks!

Under tops with skin, IIRC...

There are many great suggestions. It's just about the work that would be required to do so...

You could use the various siphon animations from kinetics for the ranged attacks - have the set's gimmick be that the attacks apply a thematic debuff to the enemy and a slight buff to you. For example: 1. Siphon might - Uses siphon power's animation - deals light energy damage, applies a minor -dmg effect to the enemy and a minor +dmg effect to you. 2. Body blow - As per the kinetic melee power 3. Siphon agility - Uses siphon speed's animation - deals moderate energy damage, applies a minor -speed and -recharge effect to the enemy, and a minor +speed and +recharge effect to you. 4. Smashing blow - As per the kinetic melee power 5. Kinetic boost - Applies a moderate dmg, tohit, recharge, and movement speed buff to yourself 6. Repulsive aura - Similar to repel from kinetics, only a much smaller PBAoE and also deals minor smashing damage to enemies knocked back. 7. Inertial transference - Deal moderate energy damage, immobilizes the target, and applies a jump height/speed and dmg res buff to yourself. 8. Fulcrum tilt - Deals heavy energy damage and moderate smashing damage to a foe, as they are slammed to the ground. Applies a moderate +dmg buff to you. 9. Vital transfusion - deals moderate energy damage, applies a hold effect to the enemy, buffs your own speed, recharge, recovery, and heals you.

I would love to see this, too, but as Soulstinger pointed out, it is a large amount of work to add that kind of customization to powers, (especially true in the case of MM pets).

Thank you! I'm probably going to roll a corruptor.

Yes, I recall seeing that happen to people. A key difference that I'm trying to acknowledge with my suggestion is that there really isn't a full time staff to sit around checking costumes against names and generic-ing players. A simple block-list *should* be easy to implement, and would require far less manpower, while giving the devs the protection of saying that they have measures in place to prevent base-level infringement.

Now I'm not a pro by any stretch of the imagination, and having dealt with a severe case of "altitis" since CoH's original launch, I've looked for ways on how to try out a build and see if I like it. When the game was live, character slots were in much shorter supply, so having so many available to us here is both a blessing and a curse. I'm not going to say that my approach is best, and I've definitely drawn from other guides posted to these forums. Anyway, here is a simple breakdown of what I've found to work *for me* with regard to quickly leveling up a character and building a lot of wealth with them: 1. Create any character you want. One important caveat is to look at what level various powers become available. Keep "level 6" in the back of your mind, (it'll come into play later). For controllers, I lean toward taking their single target immobilize and arcane bolt from the sorcery pool, if they don't have any other good ways of dealing damage against a contained target. Most other ATs don't have this issue, so just take whatever you like. 2. Talk to the respective "P2W" vendor in your starting zone. Get all of the prestige attack powers, one of ninja/beast run, and one of jump pack/steam jump. Also take the double XP buffs. You can also get the prestige starting enhancements, (just be aware that while you can claim multiple of the same type, you can only actually slot 1 of each). I suggest getting the "Inner Inspiration" prestige power, as it grants you 3 medium or large inspirations every 30 minutes, and selling at least 1 of these will give you some easy seed money for the auction house. 2a. Optional: Use the "Inner Inspiration" power (make sure you have room for 3 insps (inspirations)), then sell 1 to the nearby vendor and post the other 2 on the AH (Auction House). I find that lucks sell for the most, and insights/second wind type sell for less. Any tier 3 insps sell for a good amount. Just list them for 1 on the AH, as you'll still get "market value" for them. 3. Defeat a few low level enemies until you get to level 2. Go and train up, and I suggest grabbing another attack power if one is available. 3a. Optional: Defeat a few more until you hit level 4. You can immediately head to the AE building after step 3, but sometimes getting another power before you do so is quite helpful. 4. Head to the nearest AE building, (check your map). I recommend using the run and jump pack powers you selected from the P2W vendor to get up to the balcony on the upper floor, as it'll save you some time having to go into the lobby, then using the elevator. 5. Use one of the AE terminals and search for "tunnel". The current popular one is a Witch Tunnel mission. Select it, choose "Architect Rewards", talk to the contact, then enter the mission via the big portal in the middle of the room. If you've left your difficulty settings on their default levels, then you should just encounter individual witch bosses. Take your time, and initiate combat with the first one you see. They should yield good rewards, and a decent amount of AE tickets every so often. 6. After you complete a run, (during which you should have gained a good number of levels), go back to the trainer and level up. Now, here's where things get a bit tricky - the mission will auto-exemplar/malefactor you down to about level 1, but you'll retain access to all your powers up until level 6. In other words, powers you've selected AFTER level 6 will not be made available to you, while in the witch tunnel AE mission. Keep in mind that around level 10, you'll gain access to an entire new build, so keep your focus on a set of powers available to you from level 6 and under, for the time being. You can always create your "true" build later on. 7. Keep repeating the tunnel mission until you have over 540 AE tickets, (you can check them in your salvage menu). Go talk to the AE rewards vendor, who is up the spiral staircase above the teleporter you entered the mission from. Buy any piece of rare/orange invention salvage and sell it on the AH for 1 influence/infamy. You can list it higher if you're concerned about being undercut or losing money, but that will require about a 10% listing fee. You should be able to get 300-500K per piece of rare salvage. You'll also gain several levels as you progress. Keep in mind that while you won't gain access to powers above level 6, you will still be able to utilize enhancement slots for those early powers. If you keep that in mind, and intend to keep farming, then slot up those early powers to maximize your effectiveness. 8. After you've reached an amount of wealth that you feel comfortable with, and assuming you've reached level 12, (and later 22), then buy yourself some DOs (dual-origin enhancements), using AE tickets. Important note about buying DO or SO enh's from the Architect vendor - make sure to select the origin that matches your character, or you won't be able to slot said enhancements. Also be aware that said vendor doesn't have the full selection of DO enhs, (for instance, they don't sell endurance modification DOs). I also recommend buying a mix of the common tech and arcane salvage items from the AE reward vendor, as you'll need them eventually. The level 10-25 ones should be good for your initial foray into inventions down the line. You'll need about 2-3 million inf to fully outfit yourself with level 25 IOs, (invention-origin enhancements), but that doesn't include all the salvage you'll need, hence my earlier instruction to buy those too. That's basically all there is to it. Keep in mind that this doesn't give you a genuine experience regarding how your character will operate with their full suite of powers, and you're really only going to be fighting weak single bosses in the tunnel mission. You'll also be missing some very good story arc missions if you do this, (though there are ways of revisiting them later on via flashback). Regardless, for those that have played through all those story arcs or just want to quickly test out a build at low-mid levels, then this method is very good. The IOs that I mentioned will also never degrade, so you can use them until you get to 50, then respec to free them for sale or auction. I also want to be very clear that I do not think this is "the best" or the "the correct" way to level and outfit your character. Cheers!