biostem

Not sure what you mean, as there is only "bio armor" within the game, that's why I asked if you were suggesting a new blaster secondary. regardless, that would be better proposed in the suggestions section, perhaps with an outline of how such a set would function in-game...

A key here, as you touched on, is availability of AoEs and other considerations. For instance, a dark melee character, who wants to leverage soul drain, wants more targets rather than a few really tough ones. Similarly, there are several armor set toggle powers that provide a greater benefit the more enemies that are around them. On my sentinels, which tend to be more single-target focused, I'll prefer fewer, tougher opponents. It all comes down to AT, powersets, level, and play style...

Just a note on the above combo: "World of Pain" is kind of a lynchpin of the build, so I slotted it to get it to be permanent. It provides a damage, tohit, and resistance buff to all in range, which is really nice! I also opted to take stealth, so I could drag my animated stone into enemies so it got aggro, since controllers lack the mastermind's ability to command their pets.

One combination that I really enjoyed, but was more of a "defensive" playstyle over a damage-dealer, was earth control/pain domination. It's superb for supporting a team, but solo it can be a slog. Still, if you want to try something different, give those a try!

Clarion's got you covered, in that case...

It has 2 digits, so why no allow up to 99...

I think the confusion stems from soul drain being BOTH an AoE AND the source of your damage and tohit buffs, so it feels kind of counterproductive to use it right away, while it itself can't benefit from the damage and tohit buffs, so it almost feels like a wasted AoE. That being said, I don't think the other dark melee attacks, nor the set as a whole, underperforms by any significant margin...

The question that comes to mind is if, for instance, a ranged IO checks if a power is in fact a ranged AoE, or if when implementing IOs, the devs simply added tags to powers, and it merely checks against those tags, regardless of what the power actually is, (so theoretically you could put the "ranged AoE" tag in any power, and such an IO could then be slotted, even if it was sprint or something). If the IOs check against the power's properties, however, then it'd be fairly easy to see that this power deals lethal damage, so can therefore take one of these proposed "Lethal IOs"...

Out of curiosity, do you tend to avoid build-up type powers as well, because besides needing targets and dealing damage, they kind of serve the same purpose...

Obviously we would need an official answer on the matter, but if armor toggles can simply check how a power is coded with regard to what damage type they deal, I see no reason why an enhancement couldn't do this to see if it could be placed into a power or not. I don't think you'd need a new system or anything - the meta-data is already there!

Aren't all the dual pistols powers actually hard-coded with all the different damage types & effects, and simply checks which ammo type toggle is active in order to apply that effect. You couldn't realistically go back and re-code all other powers to include the extra effects...

Well, maybe instead of all that, simply have a set that can only be slotted if the power deals the appropriate damage type. This hypothetical set could include damage or other procs, and since it simply checks if the power deals the correct damage type in order to slot it, you wouldn't need to specifically modify the power...

Not so much damage types, but I think we need IO sets that combine a mez effect with damage - most, if not all of the hold sets, for instance, do not buff damage at all, yet nearly all such powers *do* deal damage. A quick check here seems to hold true for other mez effects as well...

Welcome back! You may want to check out this link to see what each server's population is like. Excelsior tends to be the busiest server, but if you're looking to roleplay, try Everlasting. Cheers!

This pretty much summarizes it - it's an easy 1-stop click to basically cover all your bases that works in pretty much all content.

To elaborate, savage melee has a mechanic called "blood frenzy", which provides a recharge reduction and end cost reduction buff with each attack, then some powers use up these stacks for added effects. I tend to try and maintain the stacks, as I much prefer the buffs than the bit of extra damage or other effect you get from using up those stacks. With regard to the armor sets, look at it like this: Radiation armor is the more straightforward of the 2 armors I mentioned; It's mainly resistance-based, but offers a self heal and end recovery buffs, not to mention a fairly power absorption shield and a self heal, to keep you on your feet and fighting. You also get yet another recharge reduction buff from the set, so in conjunction with savage melee, you're powers will be up & ready very often. Bio Armor is a bit different - It does much of what radiation armor does, with the key difference being the "adaptation" power. This power allows you to switch between 3 different modes - efficient, offensive, or defensive. These modes impact how your other armor powers function - they can even add additional effects or boost your own damage. You get a little defense, some resistance, and other effects.

The very high defense it grants disproportionately helps a lot with the new "Star-difficulty" or "hard mode" content that was added. In general, though, I advocate taking whichever destiny power you like most. That being said, you will be able to craft multiple destiny slot abilities eventually, so you can switch between equipping whichever one suits your (or your team's) needs the best...

With the various new sets that the Homecoming devs have added, (seismic blast, storm blast, etc), has there been any thought given to adding more Ancillary Power Pools. (APPs)? I could see something like a storm APP for blasters, which incorporates some of the storm summoning powers, possibly with a "storm armor" toggle, which provides an effect somewhat like steamy mist, or maybe a self-affecting O2 boost with a longer cooldown, etc...

This may be my bias showing, but I'd say something like savage melee/bio armor or /radiation armor.

It's really not relevant. The "reflections" aren't a 1-for-1 copy of the existing enemies - look at the Carnival Seneschal and the powers the lore one gets vs the regular enemy group version. For all intents and purposes, it's a wholly new (friendly) NPC that just so happens to use an existing character model...

I'm not against that, but it wouldn't be Vahzilok.

If they kept them the same schedule as regular range enhancements, then the max would be about 56% or so, and I don't think there are any that would turn into circles as a result...

Do you mean widen the angle of cones? A regular range enh does expand the size of the cone, but the angle remains the same. Being able to widen the angle of cones might be too good, (though if the maximum number of targets remained the same, it would simply make it easier to hit more targets in normal play).

Do you mean a fire/bio sentinel, or are you proposing some sort of "bio manipulation" secondary for blasters?

That, or just make the Abomination faster...