Shred Monkey

Dark is most certainly a melee centric set. But there's no reason for fire to not be in melee as well (pretend fire breath doesn't exist. most of us do.) Fireball and rain of fire hit in a sphere around a target... and inferno is PBAoE anyway, so with all those powers you can stand in the middle of a spawn and hit 360 degrees around you. (tip, hit soul drain before infernal.... and then go ahead and move on to the next spawn because this one is dead.) Also, something I did with my blapper... I turned rain of fire into a PBAoE power with this bind: /bind 6 powexec_location self Rain of Fire ...This way I don't have to do an extra mouse-click to set it down... and I don't even have to have a live enemy targeted, it just casts centered on me.

The best teams aren't the ones with great buffs, solid tanks, and high dps... the best teams are the ones with great comments, solid jokes, and high wit.

-Forming would distract me from the audio book/podcast I'm listening to, but I can do missions with no problem. -I'm probably not going to be on more than 10-20 minutes, so I feel like joining a PUG and leaving after a mission or 2 is better than forming and leaving.

It wouldn't be so bad, but twinshot is one of the worst arcs I've ever played. And worse yet, it's not even a nice intro arc for first time players. It's nothing like the rest of the game. The game is a classic dungeon crawl for 95% of it, but this first mission is all about talking to the right people at the right time and not getting confused by the very confusing dialog. I've been playing this game for years and that mission made me want to quit and go remake my toon so I can skip that arc. I imagine how a first-time player feels.

...and I felt like Sailing Away.

Cara Dune is one of the few people left who are in that "friends of Grogu" group from season 1 besides Mando. But other than that, she has no real plot value other than being another fighter. The actress was great for action shots, but very replicable. I don't think there's any reason to bother trying to keep Cara Dune in future shows, but if they decide to go with a new actress, I'm not going to object to that either. And as for what she did to get fired.... no sympathy from me. Whether you see her as a martyr or a fool, I just see her as unemployed. It's not hard to just stop yourself before you click the submit/send/post button. I do it all the time.

A pet class where the player has decent ranged damage and a pet that can actually tank.

You know... EVERY powerset has an animation option to turn all their powers "dark." So if you want to play a dark concept, but don't like the powerset that's base animations fit best, just go with a blast set that you do like and color it dark. For example I have a toon named Flaming Doom Monkey. Guess how many fire powers he has. One.... I took the fire based judgment. His costume has a flaming aura, a flaming trail aura, and flaming eyes. His attacks all have a gold/yellow flash to their animation. But his his powersets are Shield/Martial Arts. It's a very fun toon to play, and one of my all-time favorite name/costume combos... no actual fire damage needed.

Hero side, generally there's 2 zones for each level. 10-20, your mission contacts, and enemies will be in Steel Canyon and Skyway City. 20-30 is Talos Island and Independence Port. 30-40 is Founders Falls and Brickstown. 40+ is Paragrine Island and it's the only traditional zone for this level. Personally I do street sweep at times, and I usually go with Steel Canyon, Talos Island, and Brickstown, mostly because of zone sizes and ease of travel since I'm usually using ninja run. I do go to Founder's for 37-40 because it's easier to find enemies that high in founders then in Brickstown. There are a few zones that have dedicated story arcs in their zones for a change of pace. The Hollows is nice around level 6-7. Striga Isle around level 22. Croatoa I never play, but I think it's upper 20s. Rikti Warzone arcs become available at level 35 if I'm not mistaken, but I like to save these for when I'm full built and run them at level 54.

When I slot a level 53 HamiO in sprint... that's the final seal of approval.

customizable wizard staffs for all the blasts. Rune animation options for all the shield sets (like we have bright and dark, add flashes of runes and arm/staff waving)

Temporal anomalies? Great Scott!

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a newer/updated source for this somewhere, but I've got this bookmarked for when I don't have access to mid's. http://web.archive.org/web/20140625171903/http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/

I thought base HP was 1338... I swear I once made a joke about it being 1337+1

The first toon I got to level 30 on live was an Invul/Energy tank. I figured out that I could have a complete attack chain with just barrage, energy punch, and flurry (from the superspeed pool... yeah.. that power). My logic was that attacks are probably balanced, so once I have a power up at all times, everything else is wasted. And so, those were the only attacks I took. This was back before invincibility was nerfed, so my survivability was fantastic as long as I attacked multiple enemies. At the time, I thought I had beat the game! Then one day I teamed with a Katana/invul scrapper street sweeping in Brickstown. This scrapper killed stuff literally 10x faster then me, and ALSO didn't die! I stopped playing that tank immediately. And honestly, I don't think I ever made another tank again until homecoming.

You know... the interface incarnate slot is pretty worthless anyway in terms of DPS, and there's one option that has -runspeed and another one that has immobilize. I'm not sure if these really work reliably, but I'm looking into it.

OK... First. I'm a type of player who does focus on just a few toons. I have around 30 alts now, but generally I have a tank, an AoE damage specialist, and A ST damage specialist. I play them up to a maxed out build and just keep playing them. Occasionally I make a new alt, and they either get retired or replace one of those 3 toons. Now, with that said, I think there needs to be an endpoint to our "growth." For my own sanity there needs to be a point where I am not chasing 1 more point of damage. As of now, I never farm. I have a personal position against this type of activity as it takes away from so much of the actual "fun stuff" in the game. But if I'm in a position where there's a enemy I can't kill at Vet level 1 that I will be able to kill at Vet level 1000... I'm gonna farm the heck out of that toon to get to vet level 1000 and hate myself the whole time. And if 2000 vet levels makes me even stronger, then I'm going to keep on farming... and if it never stops, the entire game will change for me and it will be only about building a better farmer. I know it's silly because this change is something I could completely ignore (just like I ignore farming today), but knowing myself as I do, I won't do that. That change would destroy the game for me. This doesn't mean I'm opposed to doing something with vet levels that grants increasing power... but there has to be an endpoint or I will keep chasing that carrot until I run myself to death.

I find blaster builds tend to be much tighter then other DPS AT builds. An awful lot of those +def bonuses from attack sets need all 6 enhancements. So unless you're willing to give up a lot of self-survival and go full DPS (I wouldn't recommend that), you probably won't have room to frankenslot your powers for both procs and damage.

Both can perform well but play differently. Katana has a +defense power (divine avalanche) to add survivability. It has a normal build-up power. It has has a mix of ST and has 2 AoEs. Generally, it's a very "normal" set with the defense bonus being it's one special trick. Dual Blades has a combo system that gives bonuses by using it's powers in a certain sequence. Dual Blades has 3 AoE powers (though it's common to skip at least 1 of them. Dual Blades uses Blinding Feint in place of it's build-up power so instead of having burst damage from a click power, it can have a smaller boost up all the time (and double-stacked even). Also it's big "POW" attack is a decent sized cone, so it's pretty common to target a boss with your ST attack chain and see LT's and Minions die from the splash damage. I personally like Dual Blades. It feels fast and performs well. But I do hear some people complain that they don't like the combo system or they don't like the over-the-top animations.

I wonder if when you've used LFG it puts you in some sort of already "queued for team" status that makes you not able to be invited by some methods and not others. I've noticed that after using LFG to port somewhere. If you click on the Team tab you get a system message, "No longer looking for a team." (or something like that)

This sounds pie-in-the-sky... but back in the 90s, I played (and dev'd briefly) on a MUD that did exactly this. It worked, too.

Almost? I couldn't hold them back. Welcome home.

You should also be warned. You'll very often join a team one mission before they all decide to "log off" for the night. You see, your awesomeness will fill many players with feelings of envy and inadequacy. This results in players frequently quitting your team to go make a blapper themselves. #BlasterEnvy is real.

Customization (or just more options) for MM Pets. I've never been able to make a mastermind because every single set has something I that sets off my OCD-senses. Minimal FX option for every power. More endgame TFs.... and/or just make every TF have a level 50+ version. Add level 54 Elite Bosses with interesting mechanics to every endgame enemy group, so if you choose to fight at level 54 you'll get regular EBs spawned. And something personally specific... make an Opaque version of the at "Brain Tank" costume head piece.

Thanks for the update. I've not felt the need to check other places since I'm quite happy here. From what you've described I'm not missing anything. And just to add a different perspective on this... The game can be played with SOs. But the *GAME* for many of us includes creating builds in mid's, and spreadsheets to min/max our toons both during for use on endgame, and even while leveling up. If I couldn't ever actually create those builds in-game, then, no, that would not be fine.