biostem

This is one of those areas where digging too deeply undermines a lot of suspension of disbelief. I mean, what about her gut biome? At least we could argue that there was some record how how things should be for the humans who traveled from the real world to the grid, but for beings born there? Is the digitizer going to "invent" a suitable micro-biome for Quora? Heck, even in the Fifth Element they had to take steps to acclimatize Leeloo to Earth's environment during her reconstruction...

Forcefields is a set that doesn't provide an obvious and clear "green number" when it's working, like heals do; The benefits come from every attack that doesn't hit you or your teammates, and people tend to remember the times something doesn't work, rather than when it does. You're also playing at a level range where the enemies are getting quite a bit tougher, but your powers may not be slotted to achieve a level of protection that's in-line with what you're running up against. The 2 biggest advantages to FF, as others may have mentioned already, are the relative simplicity of the set, (just apply some buffs and move on to the next thing), plus you have a reliable way of providing status protection to yourself and your teammates. I mean, all you really need is 3 defense enhancements in each of deflection shield, insulation shield, and dispersion bubble, and then you're pretty much set, and that's before discussing what you can achieve if you also include leadership, maybe grant invisibility, your APP/PPP shield, (if you take one), and so on...

Essentially, if I had my "drothers", you'd have to take the 1st power that summons the partner before being able to take any of the other powers. That would include some basic attacks so that pet wouldn't be useless. After that, you could then optionally pick one of the 3 attack-type powers to further distinguish just what kind of partner you wanted, (I tried to keep them fairly generic to cover a wide variety of concepts). If they could be made to be mutually exclusive, (which, yes, I fully recognize is not likely to happen), then such a selection would consist of more than the 2-3 powers I mentioned, and would instead totally replace the base powers, and consist of more than stated beforehand. The final power would simply be to up their survivability. I fully admit it's not the most streamlined approach, but I do think it could cover a lot of concepts, and being a regular power pool, would also be available to all ATs and even existing characters, (if they respec or were still leveling up and had pools/power picks left)...

So this suggestion would be for a special pool power set. The idea is that you can call upon some sort of "partner" to assist you in your heroism or villainy, (or wherever you lie between). It would hinge on some ability to customize their appearance, (a big ask, I know, but I'm hoping that in the limited scope of this single power set, they could adapt the phantom army mirror customization option or just access a costume save file somehow - if not, this partner would act as a permanent summon, so you could just use the mirror option as-is and just change your own costume "off screen", summon them, then change back). 1. Summon partner - This would be the basic summon power that the others in the set all act upon. The partner starts out with some basic melee attacks, (brawl, boxing, and something like the origin knife throw power), as well as some basic resists. Ideally, this power should allow us to assign a costume save file to it, or barring that, at least have the mirror option from phantom army and maybe a few other generic models, (male, female, huge). 2. Small arms training - Provides a few conventional weapon attacks - I'm thinking a few of the more straightforward dual pistols attacks. 3. Elemental training - Provides some basic elementally-themed attacks - An ice blast, a fireball, a lightning bolt, etc. 4. Exotic training - Provides some basic, but more exotic attacks - A dark blast, a radiation blast, and then maybe a psychic blast. 5. Defensive training - Provides some DEF to your partner as well as a self heal. Again, a huge "like to have" would be for each of the attack-type powers to be mutually exclusive, granting your partner even more abilities from the selected category, but barring that, being able to take more than 1 would result in a partner with a lot of attacks, but I think things could be balanced to not make them too OP...

I've used those boots with darker colors for the normally glowing parts, and they do not leave a trail, (at least I didn't observe any FX from them with such darker colors chosen)...

I have a 50+3 Dual Pistols/Ninjitsu Sentinel that is tons of fun to play! I also have a 50+3 Assault Rifle/Invulnerability Sentinel that is tanky as heck, but fights can drag on. I also have a 50+3 fire/devices blaster which is quite powerful and entirely ranged.

I have this idea for a joke character that is themed around heat/fire and various forms of syrup, (be it maple or that fake sugary junk some people use instead). I don't have a particular AT or powersets in mind, besides something heat or fire related, and something that roughly approximates whatever syrup-themed powers would be like. Your thoughts & input are warmly welcomed!

Well, I wouldn't give this hypothetical AT bodyguard. I'd probably give the character some version of "punchvoke", then secondarily give the character's own attacks a debuff that, when placed upon an enemy, increases the damage and tohit your pets have against such afflicted enemies...

Have you considered just not getting hit? 😋

Well, if we wanted to develop this AT further, I'd move the attacks from the MM sets to their APPs, so they'd still see some use, and of course you can stick with the APP that fits thematically with the primary. I wouldn't go with a full armor set because I feel like those have gotten enough of the copy-paste treatment, (with AT tweaks), already...

I can't recall if I made a similar suggestion or just responded in someone else's thread, but one idea was to remove the MM attacks from their primary sets, replace them with themed armor toggles, then give them something like an assault secondary plus a fitting inherent...

APPs/PPPs already provide ranged options for melee ATs and melee options for some ranged ATs. Personally, I'd rather see something besides attacks/armor or armor/attacks., but it looks like a well detailed suggestion!

Claws tend to have fast recharges on the powers, and you generally only need like 3-4 attacks to have a solid attack chain, so skipping the fastest T1 attack isn't a bad move to make, especially if there are other options that would serve you better down the line...

What!? Not nature secondary? What are you "farming", inertia??? 😝

I would add-in this point to clarify that the uniform need not reflect the *actual* appearance of your character, to help avoid any confusion. PBs and WSs are energy beings with human hosts, so they'd, for the most part, appear as normal humans unless transformed into a nova, dwarf, or possibly light form...

Of course they are entitled to place whatever restrictions they want, but that doesn't mean it makes sense to an outside observer... Do they not accept blue-skinned aliens or people with animal features?

Except Superman/Clark Kent outwardly appears perfectly human. How would that work for someone clearly non-human? Are you taking the approach that they employ active holo-emitters or something?

In a world of meta-humans, aliens, mutants, and other such atypical people, why would the height and face options be restricted?

I tend to take vorpal on my melee characters, since it's a "ranged-melee attack", (the optional def bonus is nice, too)...

The base stealth power won't allow you to get up to melee range for most enemies, but it will allow you to get closer. Stack it with a stealth IO to widen that margin. It's an edge to allow better positioning, but not the level of invisibility that stalkers, for instance, can get with their hide power...

Merits, IMO, are one of those things you want desperately at first, and then, as you keep playing that character, you accumulate more than you can use...

I have specifically avoided the lightning/elec judgment power specifically because of the longer animation; IMHO, that is the price you pay for the increased damage, high target count, and optional AoE hold...

I don't typically play blasters, when when I do, I try to take on groups with the advantage of surprise, (I almost always take some stealth power), and with an overwhelming opening salvo - The nuke is one way to achieve this, and with the right build/set bonuses it can be made available quite often.

It's because you are its underling and it, the boss...

Looking at the screenshot again, at least to me, her eyes match the hottest part of the sword, which seems appropriate. I tend to similarly match any eye aura to the hottest/brightest part of other glowing effects on the character, because it just seems they should be equally as intense...