biostem

I think player expectation needs to be tempered; While there are ways to accumulate the funds necessary to fully slot your character, even at lower levels, it must be stressed that it is ok to not be fully slotted at all times. Further, things like DFB and the early buff to help low level characters hit more, not to mention how lower level enemies are easier in general, are there to make said early levels a smoother experience.

This is actually a fun combo. I rolled a war mace/ninjitsu scrapper because I wanted a "better" stealthed mace user than Banes, (this was before the update). Titan weapons also makes for a fun pairing with ninjitsu.

I think part of the problem also is this sense that you *must* be, or strive to be, fully slotted all the time; It's ok to not have all your slots filled, and instead focus on those areas that are critical...

Those things are not new player/beginner friendly, and do not take into account all the other benefits I brought up in radiation armor, (additional +recovery, absorption, a self heal that is more readily available, etc).

See, I've had the opposite experience; Defense based sets, IMHO, only come into their own later on. Don't get me wrong, I love me some defense-based armor sets, but not for a beginner.

I'll try to be as charitable as I can, here, but the way the current costume system works, pieces must fall into one of the existing categories, with all the requirements and limitations that entails. For instance, there is no ankle slot/section; There are legs and boots. Same for monstrous hands - they are their own category that basically consists of the regular ones with extended fingers with more pronounced claws - they simply may not be able to include any overly bulky pieces there. As for the Sibil outfit - it seems they had to shoehorn it in by taking up the belt and cape slots, so they may have to manually add other options in manually, and there may not be adequate geometry to substitute any other belts, (at least not terribly thin ones).

To be honest, I think the best starter armor set for tankers is radiation armor; You get 2 additional sources of end recovery, (gamma boost & particle shielding), solid resists, a self heal, and a debuffing taunt aura. You don't need any special slotting, (other than throwing 3 recharges in the aforementioned particle shielding to make it perma and setting it to autofire). Treat ground zero as a click PBAoE damage power and don't worry about its ally heal effect at first, and either ignore meltdown or only treat it as an "oh sh!t" power and not as a standard part of your kit. For melee sets, I'd ignore any with special mechanics for now, and probably recommend battle axe or war mace since they are hard hitting and straightforward to use.

A power must be built to accommodate having its animation time truncated. The OP's suggestion would require retooling all existing powers, which is very unlikely to happen...

This would basically be the melee equivalent of dual pistols, in that this "Omni-Club" would have different damage types & effects, depending upon the "weapon-mode" you choose, (which would be its own power). The weapon modes would be: Blunt, Resonant (Sonic/Energy), Toxic, and Umbral (Dark). The general breakdown of each weapon mode is as follows: - Blunt has a chance of stunning or knocking down and deals smashing damage. - Resonant applies a -res effect instead and deals some energy damage. - Toxic deals toxic damage, a -regen effect, and an additional DoT effect. - Umbral applies a -tohit effect, perhaps with a couple of powers also applying a fear effect, and deals negative energy damage. 1. Swift Strike - Quick single target attack 2. Purposeful Blow - Slightly slower and harder hitting single target attack 3. Bludgeon - Slower, heavier strike. 4. Change Weapon Mode - Provides 3 mutually exclusive toggles, (Resonant, Toxic, and Umbral, with none toggled on equaling Blunt mode). 5. Arcing Strike - Cone attack dealing moderate damage. 6. Taunt/Confront 7. Spinning Truncheon - PBAoE attack, moderate damage. 8. Decimating Blow - Heavy single target attack 9. Calamitous Strike - A PBAoE attack where you rapidly alternate between weapon modes, sending out a shockwave dealing smashing, toxic, energy, and negative energy damage, applying a variety of debuffs as well. This power would function the same regardless of the weapon mode you have toggled on. This set would utilize existing animations drawn from war mace, battle axe, broadsword, and so on, just to keep things simple, as well as utilizing existing weapon models.

You can use a single period, hyphen, or apostrophe to mix things up a bit. I also like to use rhymezone.com and thesaurus.com if I am having a difficult time coming up with a name. You can also replace a capital i with a lower case L or an o with a zero. I tend to follow the "necessity is the mother of invention" type of approach when it comes to character naming...

That is certainly one approach. Me, personally, I'd use the inf to craft as many level 25 generic IOs as I had components for, since they never expire and will be good enough till you hit 50, then you can run end game content to buy or craft set-IOs and the like.

I'm not going to tell anyone what to do, but I would *never* use reward merits to buy SOs... Much better, IMHO, to buy something like an enh booster then sell those for inf, then use the info to buy SOs...

Fit a few tunnel farms into your rotation. Use the AE tickets to buy orange salvage. Sell them on the AH for 300K+ inf. Use that inf and some common salvage (also bought from the AE vendor as needed), to craft and slot level 25 generic IOs, then stick with those until level 50+.

I'm not against some sort of "super awaken" inspiration, but you have only ever been able to combine 3 of the same insp's into one of the same tier, not a higher tier or functionality.

Ninjitsu is like a swiss army knife; You've got the base level defenses, then a self heal, a self end recovery power, stealth, a confuse/blinding cone and a placate. SR does one thing and does it well, (ignoring the scaling DR since you need to be hurt for it to kick in). I have played both fairly extensively, and for overall content, I prefer ninjitsu. That being said, if you combine SR with a set that meshes well with it, (for me that's DM or RM), it'll be a better experience.

Go solo an empathy defender on +4/X8. No, not every AT or powerset combo can nor should function equally in all environments. I've already stated in various ways and places that MMs do need some love, but expecting that the baseline/test case should be "ALL content" is simply delusional...

I start off basically treating my sentinels like a ranged scrapper - with their more single-target focus, I take out problematic targets before the melee ATs even engaged, and you have the survivability to stay on your feet. Later on, you can almost take on a tank role, opening up fights from range and being able to withstand the alpha strike. I have many 50 Sentinels of various builds & powerset combos, but tend to prefer the more defense or hybrid-based armor sets. Lately, I've been on a bit of a ninjitsu kick, but energy aura is also quite good. My only contention with the latter is that you need top get close to enemies to restore your end. This may not be a problem if you have a blast set that supports getting that close, but for me, I tend to prefer keeping a bit of distance so I can leverage my ranged attacks and avoid the more damaging melee ones.

I think there's a bit of confusion as to what the achievable baseline should be; It's +0/X1. If you can complete those missions, from a broad perspective, everything is WAI. That being said, I would love to give MMs a better way to summon & upgrade pets mid-combat, as well as some aggro management tools to help keep enemies off of them.

It depends what you're actually celebrating. For instance, a newborn is in their "first year of life", but what you celebrate is years completed - so 365 days after the birth you celebrate their first birthday.

Thanks for the clarification. Still, doesn't help in non-incarnate content.

That still, ultimately, puts them lower than the MM themselves, though, yes? So the pets would get like +3 from your level shift, then -1 or -2, so a net of +2 or +1, which still isn't great, especially since some enemies are even above level 54...

I think the HC devs have addressed a small portion of this frustration via the now enhanceable def/res MM pets get via their upgrade powers. That being said, I think the level penalty for the T1 & T2 pets should be removed. Further, I'd love to see something akin to the different side of the hybrid support incarnate tree, where a MMs own buff powers have an increased effect on their pets. Further still, perhaps supremacy could be given an additional click ability, which essentially summons a fresh set of pets, which receive all upgrades that the casting MM owns, (recharge time can be adjusted for proper balancing).

Could you post your system specs? Maybe we can provide practical solutions for you...

Not a bad idea, but I'd rather it not be something tied to just that single power. Maybe tie it to the 1st melee power the scrapper takes, instead, (treat it like a short-term buff), since said power is mandatory.

I'd love to see scrappers get a more reliable source of crits, kind of like how stalkers have their inherent 10% + 3% per nearby teammate.