biostem

Martial Combat could make for an interesting Mass Effect biotic, or perhaps a Rifts juicer, if you're familiar with that setting.

Welcome to the forums! I feel like those buff pets are supposed to be squishy, to make up for the buff they provide being free and not taking up any sort of power pick or such...

I have a SS/Elec brute named 'Shock 'n Awesome'. :-)

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).