roleki

My mind says "no no no" but my body says it even louder.

I have target macros ranging from generic (target_custom_next enemy alive) to specific for a given enemy group or event that I swap out as the case may be. On my melee-types, next to that target macro I have a button that goes "powexec_name Jaunt$$powexec_location Target Jaunt" and between the two, I'm always where I need to be, hitting whoever needs to be hit next. The only time I really 'follow' an enemy is if we're chasing a Drop Ship in RWZ. And I suggest you never, ever put a Council Wolf on follow.

If a 'perfect build' is one that does exactly what it was designed to do, then this would be my candidate: my Fire/Force Field Controller. The basic concept is to knock bad guys on their ass from distance, close in to pin them there, and destroy them. In practice, it plays more like a Spines/Shield Scrapper than any Controller has a right to, and it's the way that gets done that endears this build to me. Every single power, slot, enhancement and bonus serves a specific purpose towards the execution of the overall concept; it's not exactly rocket science or anything, but in as much as it can be, this is essentially a swiss watch that shits out Imps at 49.9 defense to everything but Tox/Psi, drops a Bonfire every 12s, has four ways to knock a mob flat, and hits a sustained 280 global recharge in combat. It's taken me forever to write this post, because talking about it only makes me want to go run around on it and I have fairly poor impulse control. Speaking of, here's the build: ETA: @oedipus_tex I'll try and get a video of this up as soon as I can make it not look like crap. 4k is good for gaming but all my videos end up looking like this:

Fixed.

Not really a bad BUILD decision, but... The first thing I do when I roll a new character is /cleartray, then expand the three trays, put a fourth one up top of the UI for toggles, and a 5th one to the left of the power trays. I then go in and set up attribute monitors for Ranged/Melee, Damage Bonus, Recharge, Regeneration, Recovery, Consumption, ToHIt, and Hold Protection. Then I go in and put the single target powers in tray one, AoEs in tray 2, and buffs/debuffs in tray 3, go to P2W and get my temp powers/buffs and so on. I say all this because I do this on every new character, like clockwork, including my first Dominator. Nobody told me Domination was linked to a button, so I ran around like that for ~20 levels before I mentioned to a friend how much this Dominator sucked, and yadda yadda yadda, one "You're such an idiot" later I located the button and suddenly that Dominator got a lot better. Along the same lines... I don't get SR Scrappers, at all. I know people seem to like them, but every SR Scrapper I've built withers in content that even my squishiest Controllers saunter through easily. Does Super Reflexes have a button I am missing? As far as a real build decision that was bad, I made a Fire/Nat Controller, and for whatever reason decided to go all-in on the Medicine pool, even Field Medic. Every time I fire this one up, I encounter an incomprehensible tray full of green icons that, when clicked, deliver scads of disappointment.

I run a dual build on my En/En Blaster - the team-friendly edition with all the KB:KD enhancements I could scrounge up, then one that actually slots to enhance KB so I can amuse myself with all the ensuing wonders.

I wanted to find out what DB was about so I wound up taking all the powers needed for Weaken, Empower, and Attack Vitals; I really only use Blinding Feint->Ablating->Vengeful->Sweeping (Attack Vitals), occasionally dipping down to Typhoon's Edge if I'm surrounded by nerds. In any event, in my power tray, slot 1 is Blinding Feint, 2 is Ablating, 3 is Vengeful, 4 is Sweeping. Then in the tray 2, I have Nimble Slash in slot 1, Ablating in 2, Blinding Feint in 3, and Typhoon's Edge in 4. If I get bored with tray one, I'll fire off Nimble Slash->Ablating, then either Blinding Feint (for Empower) or Typhoon's Edge (for Weaken). Also, just wanted to add that I've searched the forums for the mythical better-than-combos attack chain, but all I find are references to its existence, so until someone actually shares their proof first-hand, this fabled attack chain is just a girlfriend in Canada.

I run a long list of controllers, corruptors and defenders, but had just kind of 'accepted' the fact that debuffs take forever to unload, but last night I was running my Dark/Storm controller and it struck me just how LOOOONG it takes to drop Tar Patch compared to how (relatively) instantly Lightning Storm and Tornado fire off. Side by side, the difference is kind of ridiculous.

My first thought is a Fire/TA Corruptor... they're extremely cheap to build, bring truckloads of debuffs, some status protection (eventually) and they squirt fire everywhere.

Among others, I've got a Fire/Storm and an Illusion/Storm, and while both are astounding, when it comes to street-level violence, neither holds a candle to Grav/Storm. Grav/Storm is just ridiculous at commanding an encounter - there is nothing in the game that imparts a sense of 'control' more than the ability to dictate not onoy where the fight takes place, but who is allowed to participate, and whether they'll be permitted a chance stand up at any point. Add to that the advantage provided by the ability to bring additional mobs to an existing Lightning Storm killzone, where stacked LS and Tornados turn bad guys to mulch in a matter of seconds, and you're looking at a pretty effective combination of powers.

I created an outdoor council mission in AE that I run my unemployed 50s through once a week or so; soon as they level-up, get a catalyst, or complete the mission, they go back into the garage and I go do something else.

I don't know what this guy is talking about. Whenever I fire off Radiation Infection, I take advantage of the downtime by doing some stuff I've put off, like filing my taxes or tearing down, refurbishing and reassembling an 1886 Waltham pocketwatch. By the time the animation is complete, I'm back in the good graces of my wife, the government, and all the amateur horologists in the neighborhood. And if I'm REALLY lucky, the mob I debuffed hasn't 'accidentally' been insta-smoked by a Tank standing 500 f'ing feet away with the ridiculous AoEs they've been gifted.

Don't sleep on Corruptors! They can dole out scads of buffs/debuffs AND hit like a truck. They're about my favorite AT these days.

I don't like the idea of wasting the devs limited time, but if they did away with the 'secret' archetypes forum, rename the "Archetypes" category to "Powers and Archetypes" then create a generic "Powers" subforum right there ahead of 'Blasters' in the treeview, then fill that with the crap that keeps getting moved out of general, I think that would go a long way towards getting these discussions hammered into the right subforum at the outset, and give the GMs more time to do more important GMstuff. Maybe?

Reading this thread and the Proc Doom thread makes it increasingly clear that we're never going to become one of those Star Trek planets where everyone wears the same clothes. Good luck getting invited to the United Federation of Planets wearing all those jorts and sweatpants.

Decimation and Gaussian's Proc deliver the exact same boosts (+100% damage and +40% ToHit for 5.25s) and both are limited to 1-per. Personally - and maybe, weirdly - I find room in just about every build for the Gaussian's % but have never added Decimation's to anything. The only reason I can think of is, the CD on things that I slot Gaussian into almost guarantees it will fire every time, meaning it can be 'planned' around, whereas Decimation seems 'less reliable' since ranged attacks usually have a quicker recharge. All that said, and oddly enough... I just got around to slotting my first Claws scrapper this weekend (Claws/WP) and I have been agonizing over Follow-Up. My first pass was to put the full Superior Critical Strikes set in FU, since THE attack chain seems to just be FU->Spin->Shockwave, but I can't help but feel that's "doing it wrong" somehow, and why I am here looking at other folks' Claws builds in the first place. I don't know where else would be 'better' to put the +50% crit in Claws, since everything is just so fast, but, thought I would check here. In any event, I'm pretty sure that Claws/WP is the absolute laziest combo in the game. I click three buttons a total of 5700 times, then the mission is over.

I've got a TW/Fire; I opted for high melee defense out of the box to go along with the capped S/L/F. Standing still, it's got ~48 melee def and it regularly gets pumped over 100 via Defensive Sweep, not for any practical reason other than to frustrate +4s. In any event, slotted as such I don't *need* Ageless but I like having it around. I've kind of slacked off running my TW stuff since the changes; not because TW is bad now, just that after so much time running the old TW, it doesn't feel right. It's still a perfectly viable set as-is.

@Redletter Ha! That is a great recap of what I've experienced so far and, unfortunately, what lies ahead for Ballistic Medicine. Thank you for that!

Let that be a lesson to all you people who looked at what I wrote and said "Well, there's somebody who doesn't know what the hell they're talking about." In the end, it was all worth it.

+1 to everything @MTeague said. Also, if you go the 4-wide Unbreakable Guard route, stick the +MaxHP unique in whatever power gets Steadfast Protection +Def unique, as that will shore up the +Res you lost in the 4th slot of UGuard.

Could be a localized (extremely rapid and short-lived) reduction in pressure, but then you'd expect people caught in that to be disoriented and suffer DoT from ears popping and whatnot.

If I have the option, I always take the AoE sleep over the AoE hold, especially in Ice. My thinking being, the long recharge time on AoE holds makes them more of a panic button than a tactical cornerstone, so the AoE holds end up collecting dust when you're on a team because it's not needed, and it ends up collecting dust when you're solo because you end up saving it for when you REALLY need it, and you almost never do. AoE sleep, on the other hand, is available often enough to fit into a workflow solo or team, and on Ice it's a good opener for you to get into the midst of the mob and let Arctic Air do its thing. By the time sleep is broken, the mob is either confused, flopping around or immobilized (or some combination of the three) with their movement and recharge floored... that should be enough to get you through that mob and onto the next.

Sure, right? But when it comes to General Discussion, pretty much everyone else is Finn the Human, while I am Jake the Dog.

Next you're going to tell me that Laser Beam Eyes can miss a target that I am looking at.

Just returning to arch one eyebrow at the fact the "Heroes are murderers" thread is still going strong while the "Villains are sore losers" thread got insta-locked so as not to offend Villains. DON'T YOU KNOW THAT CODDLING THEM IS WHAT MAKES THEM VILLAINS???? ETA: Dang it. What I should have said is "DON'T YOU KNOW THE CODDLING THEM IS WHAT MAKES THEM VILLAINS???? NOW I HAVE TO MURDER THEM!!!!"