Shred Monkey

I think it really depends on how aggressive you want to be. If you want to be able to run into a spawn and open with your PBAoE then blap down the survivors, then you probably need more survivability than if you're going to follow a tank in and carefully beat down the bosses with single target dps. I like to run scorpion shield and have 45% ranged, and 45% S/L defenses. This tends to also give 45+% to energy due to using scorpion shield and getting a lot of energy from the same IOs that give ranged. I see many others opt for one of the resistance epic powers so they have high resists to S/L while running tough and, for example, fireshield. Also, knowing your enemy is important. If you target the enemies with -defense and kill them fast, they are less likely to hit you and trigger a cascading defense crash. And don't forget, just because you melee doesn't mean you have to stand in one spot like a dimwitted brute. You can jump back and throw some ranged attacks to kite some enemies if you get in trouble. Enemies don't attack when they're moving. This can be a very useful tool to the smart blapper.

I only know enough to ask this question, but not enough to answer it... Is there some trick we can do where we turn the string "@shred monkey" into an ascii code or hex code and then use that instead of the string that has a space in it?

why do they come to me to die? why do they come to me to die?

How does this work? I usually use the run or jump version so it's on when that toggle is on, and off when it's not (that's right, isn't it?) How does the teleport version work in a click power? Does it last for a certain duration? Or is it always on outside of combat? or something else?

That CTRL+Subtract bind is great. I have it setup to alt+pagedown myself, but it's very easily swapped on the fly. I highly recommend using it. It's important to have that space at the end so you can begin typing immediately and have the format right. One of my toons uses a bind that calls a macro that calls all 10 macros in tray 4. Then I swap out the 10 marcos in tray 4 with various marcos I have saved for common targets. Also it's pretty easy to edit a macro, by rightclick-edit so there's a few generic target binds I edit in that bar as well. However, I don't like that this method takes up screen space by having extra trays on the screen screen full of macros.

Most of the RWZ enemies are challenging. The Vanguard Sword, Nemesis, some high end AVs. Furthermore, unlike the DA missions, you don't get the benefit of being level 53, so if you play at +4x8 it can be some of the hardest content in the game.

Clearly you were helped by your advanced degree in sarcasm.

I do, sometimes, miss that feeling from other games where you have just one character. You know people though that character's eyes and they know you as that one character. You deal with that character's flaws and strengths as they come. There's enjoyment in that process. But this game is not that. It's basically a character creation sandbox game. To limit yourself to 1 toon is like saying once you beat Bowzer, the game is over and you can't play it anymore.

Yeah that'd probably be the end of the game for me. But to answer your question, my Fire/Energy blaster would be the one that remained.

Defenders are important! Because, if it wasn't for defenders, we wouldn't need the other defenders.

I think Stalkers, Scrappers, Brutes level up much easier then Tanks and Blasters. But once you hit the endgame, Tanks can boost their damage and Blasters can boost their survivability to the point that in-between ATs are left being "best" at nothing.

I'll try to keep this brief (the reality is, it is FAR from brief). I usually start a toon in a spreadsheet building attack chains. This tells me the recharge I need and powers to select. It tells me if I need hasten or not. It tells me if I'm attacking from melee or ranged. It tells me how many damage procs I can fit in. Once all that is established, I open up mids and try to make a survivable build that runs that attack chain. Generally if I can't achieve a minimum level of survivability while running my planned attack chain, I don't make the toon. Other times I start with a minimum level of survivability in Mids, and then I get the attack chain spreadsheet out and try to maximize damage output with the left over slots and powers. If the damage output stinks, I don't make the toon. If all that ends up with me satisfied, I will then calculate my initial attack chain. I do a level 22 builds and attack chain. And usually another level 32 or 37 build and attack chain that gets me though to level 50.

Yeah.. this is why I almost always use natural origin. If they happen to pick up some technology or magic or get mutated by an accident later in life, they're still good. But it's much harder to explain how they go the other direction.

Jump Kick! YES!

Oh goodness no... it's clearly NOT this ... no sir. Can't be that. Nope.

I'm sort of like this... actually I'm the marketeer's favorite player. I sell every drop I get for 11 inf. And I buy everything I use at the pay it now price. The only time I don't pay full price is if the AH is out, then I either use merits to buy the recipe or do an in set conversion. I also don't farm, and the only form of "marketeering" I do is to use my merits and threads to buy stuff that sells at top value... and even then I list at sell it now pricing to get money quick. The secret to how I'm always able to buy what I want is that once I hit 50 and get fully built, I keep playing that toon. I don't keep track, but I would estimate most of my fully built toons earn more then 1.5X their build's value in influence before I create a new alt.

-- It deflates the economy by removing Inf. Not entirely accurate. It serves as an influence sink. It sets a rate at which influence is removed from the economy. This, balanced against the drop rate to influence earned ratio, (which is how they can manipulate supply of both goods and currency) will cause an economy to be stable. If you change the rate, we will see inflation or deflation before you get a new point of stabilization. If you remove the influence sink completely, we'll have infinite spiraling inflation. --It prevents users from using AH for storage. Totally wrong... you can drop stuff in AH for free. No need to list it and pay money. Maybe they meant influence storage. But the mail system is a more convenient option for that. --Many incoherent replies to the effect of "What, you've never used EBay, you [moron | newb | drunken fool | time waster]?" Yeah... lazy answers at best, ignorant answers most likely. --It's an immersion thing that makes it feel real. I don't think this was the intent. From what I've seen of the Dev's actions and occasional posts, they understood the importance an influence sink quite well.

Nice! I can add this to my back backstory. Flaming Doom Monkey caused the housing crash of 2008.

I have many toons on my back page named Something Something MonkeX. In fact, most of my new alts start as concepts that I borrowed. And then they get tweaked in costume and name until they're wholey new by the time they are 50.

If I'm not mistaken, AR has the most AoE from Ranged attacks of any set. Being able to do AoE damage is a big part of this game's general gameplay. And doing it from range is a huge boost to survivability. That said, it's got those old school long activation times in several powers that make them appear weak you crunch numbers. It's due some love, IMHO, but it's not as bad as some make it out to be.

I gave myself the challenge of making the most powerful level 12 toon I could. I came up with a katana/rad brute. Katana for divine avalanche and a solid attack chain, and /rad for early help with endurance and a toggle status protection. Brute so I could benefit from fury and not have to slot damage. When I built him I had to run DFB repeatedly (level locked so I stayed at 12) to get a bunch of SO's to pimp him out. But now that you can buy SOs and upgrade them, that part (and it's a very powerful part) is easy. I primarily use him to street sweep anything up to +3s. And I recently put combat teleport on him, making him just a blast to play with around Steel Canyon and Skyway City, I've taken him on Posi runs, too, just as a fun run.

I was curious how much resistance and defense this gives.... apparently it doesn't currently do anything.

Obviously this situation is different then a game with a payed dev team, but under normal circumstances a game like this deserves to have a GM dedicated to new costume creation.

The Steel Canyon signature story arc. It has a visit to positron, then a board train mission. Although for some reason this board mission can't be done from Ouroboros, if that's important to you.

It's actually a bonus because you can click it early and have a double stack of it's defense debuff resists... which is just right for covering that last bit of gap in your survivability.