Shred Monkey

1. Yes. I find it easier to find teams then on Live. 2. Some.. but this was never a huge thing on CoH. 3. Yes, they do. And Welcome Home.

I hope you don't feel Under my Thumb, if you can't get no, Satisfaction. After all, You Can't Always Get What you Want.

/TA should be up there with the secondaries.

The reason you don't see Spines here is because they are traditionally terrible at single target DPS. Back on Live, when the pylon test started, I doubt Spines could even overcome the regen to beat a Pylon. AoE damage is where Spines shine. I'm sure a spines/bio stalker can beat a pylon in today's game. But it won't be an impressive time relative to other sets.

Careful Billz.... You know what they say. Once you go blaster, you never go... um.... faster? Does that work? Not really, but you get what I'm trying to say. This may change your playing habits, forever. (btw, Nice build Nemu).

My solo toon is my beam/devices blaster. He's solo'd every GM (except Paladin, but it's not for lack of ability). He's solo'd a ton of TFs, including LRSF, MsLTF, Apex & Tin Mage. He generally walks through most content very easily. And here's the rub; I almost never play him. Instead, I play my Fire/Energy blapper almost exclusively. He brings more damage to a team. And he benefits more from being on a team. And solo, I can still do +4x8 and solo AVs. I just have to pull and kite and use inspirations and strategy a lot more. And, most importantly, he's just a lot more fun. (plus, IMHO, he looks much cooler)

And actually, I typically select minimum values. Like 45% smash/lethal defense, and then maximize something like recharge or resistance.

Yes. all levels of salvage have a chance to drop. BAF is an iTrial that is usually run by a league of 3 teams.. (24 people). If you watch the Looking For Group channel, you'll see them being formed pretty often, and usually they run more than 1 at a time. The leaders usually give instructions as you go, so don't be afraid to join one and just learn as you go.

Running DA mission arcs. This can be done solo. Each arc gives 1 Emp merit for completion and you can chose a 2nd as your reward. The first one (Heather Townsand) is the one most people farm. There are no kill all missions and no AVs. In my experience, it is usually faster to choose an incarnate component drop so you can choose something you need instead of the emp merit. Unless you're just a few emp merits away from your goal, it's usually more efficient to gamble with the drops. The drop rates are decent. Usually by the time you have all the components to build 2 tier 3s, you have gotten at Tier 4, too. Tin Mage and Apex task forces (in Rikti Warzone). Again, each TF gives 1 Emp merit for completion and you can choose a 2nd as your reward. Also, as someone mentioned above you can get Emp merits from running iTrials. BAF is the most common one and frequently is being formed in Ouroborus. Just watch LFG channel. Astral merits, earned during iTrials can be combined to make emp merits by Luna who is found in Ouroborus. Also empyrean merits can be mailed to yourself from other chars on your account. So once you've got all your tier 4s, you can save them up and send them to your new toons.

Really? I didn't know that. Personally, I'm still shocked they ever made AE give rewards at all, but at least they got 1 thing right.

This code is going to cause hard working people to loose their jobs and... um...so... I just realized, I don't know how to make that argument sound credible. OK.. how about this... OMG, now that everyone will have the power to create an ultimate build, everyone will be super overpowered and nobody will feel special. How could you, you evil communist bastard! Dooooooommmmmm!!!!! But, seriously. Cool stuff. I started reading the thread and thought, "oh geez, this'll be a can of worms." But now, I think you're on to something. Keep it up.

It's going to depend on your build. I mean, if you happen to be a spines/fire brute, then a fire farm is the obvious answer. Outside of farming, I would suggest level 54x8 teams in PI or 54x8 teams in DA. And 54x8 kill most ITFs. And obviously, the better the team is, the faster it will go. Also, badges like this just happen whether you're focused on them or not. It's sort of a "watched pot never boils" thing. You'll get it from just playing the game. The influence badge comes WAY before the damage given, taken, and healed badges.

I've never put these 2 together, but I've played them separately. DM/Bio softcapped to non-positional types would be pretty hard to kill. Self heals on top of defense, resists, absorbs, tohit debuffs... even a sleep aura. AoE damage would be weak... but that's most (not all) stalkers.

Just to be sure the tower data is being identified properly, the table below is from Paragonwiki.com: I'm 100% certain the buffs are attributed to the correct towers. I believe the magnitudes of the buffs are accurate as well. Killing the blue tower means you will no longer need above soft-cap defense. Killing the orange is what allows you to hit him. Killing the green is what stops him from healing faster than you can do damage. Killing the red reduces his damage significantly. Most runs I'm on skip the blue tower. Some runs I've been on skip the red tower, too.

When I hit level 50 I always go back to Ms Liberty to level up.

If I am running on a street, I stay in the right lane. This includes not cutting corners at intersections. If I come up behind a car, I jump it carefully in order to not disrupt them.

I almost always take Air Superiority and put 3 of these in that so I can perm-knock down a single target. And then I put the other two in attacks either the t1 or t2 attacks that will give me an attack up all the time (and use brawl sometimes if needed). This usually gives me an attack chain I use up through level 22 when I implement a full build. The procs I consider just bonus. If they go off and do damage, great... but the recharge is what I'm looking for. And the fact that you don't out-level them since they act like attuned IOs.

Yeah... I've not made a TW/bio scrapper for pretty much this reason. I'd not seen either of these sets before Homecoming (I missed the last year or so of Live, so not sure what the status of these were)... but I remember reading through them when I got back and thinking, "wha? that's broke as heck." Edited to add this counter argument: When I took my StJ/Bio stalker through the AV arcs at +4, the final battle with the Mot Monster was fantastic. It lasted 10+ minutes and the whole time I was using every regen and absorb power I had keep my health up until I could popped rebirth again. I was using my inspirations in emergency only to make them last. With my last inspiration used and my health dropping dangerously low, I struck the winning blow and emerged in glorious victory. My face hurt from smiling the entire fight. I remember thinking, that was the most fun I've ever had in this game. But when I took my Beam/Devices blaster to the fight, I just hovered over the guy and took him down in 4-5 minutes with no effort at all. I could have been watching TV and eating a sandwich and the fight would have had the same result. Maybe not glorious, but effective.

I suspect you're correct. I've been doing my own stupid tricks with my beam/devices blaster. The obvious ones to benefit ranged are Apex and ITF, but I really think almost everything is easier on a ranged toon as long as you have a real DPS chain without going into melee. Gonna throw out another challenge for the group. Level 54 AVs. Outside of DA and Ape-Mage you're gonna be -3 to these guys which really cranks up the difficulty. They're much harder than the level 50 versions. I think Siege may be the toughest I've done (he has a heal). He's harder than most GMs. I haven't gone though the Red Side bosses, yet so they may be more difficult.

Field operative may be the best sustain power blasters can get. Gives health, endurance, and defense. No click required. Targeting drone is very nice. Gives damage and tohit and again, no click required. You can try some other stuff, but nothing else is really needed from the set. And guess what? That's not so bad. You get everything you need from a secondary in 2 powers that you just turn on one time and benefit from 100% of the time with no interruptions to your damage output. It's not flashy... it's not special... but it's good. If you want an all ranged blaster and are OK with your primary attacks being all you use, devices is a great option. (trick arrow is another great option).

The set is great if you do have a way to manage endurance. My recommendation would be to add a 7.5% recovery buff (enhanceable) per target hit to Dark Regeneration. It fits thematically and since it has some requirements to get the most out of it, it won't be game breaking.

The best bet is to find an active SG and chat there. I doubt any SG's have constant chat going 24/7, but most SGs monitor and enforce some rules and it only takes a few people to get a decent conversation going.

When that happens to me I try to play it cool, like it was planned. Because I think the team can handle more groups at the same time. You know, I'm just pulling another group for us to slaughter. that's all.

And successful LRSF as well. First few missions no problems. In the 3rd mission I fought Numina and Sister Psyche in the air to split them from the other 2. I took out Numina first cause she can heal others. I kept a purple inspiration in me to account for sister Psyche's psi attacks. Remaining 2 were no problem. I was surprised, but the fight with Swan, Luminary, Mynx and Valkarye was cake. None of them have -defense, and only Luminary can fly, so I fought her first, then the other 3. Ms Liberty is easy after you hit her with the special weapon. The last mission is where it gets hard. Again, I fought the flyers in the sky to split them from the non-flyers. After several deaths, I discovered Positron, for some reason, falls out of the sky every 10 seconds or so for no real reason. Which is actually nice so if I fight up high by the blimp, he's only there part of the time. As before, I fought Numina first since she heals others, all the while keeping a purple handy in case positron hit me with -defense. Then I took out Citadal. He hits really hard in melee. I tried kiting him around to stay at ranged...but he was too fast to do it while hovering... when i switch to fly instead of hover it became much easier and I could stay ahead of him enough to greatly reduce the number of melee attacks he used. He does some kind of tier9 type power where his defense goes way up and you miss a lot.. my hit rolls went down into the 30s for about a minute. He healed back more than half his hp, but I finished him before he did it again. This left only Positron in the air. I restocked my purple inspirations and finished him off. Everyone else is on the ground, so it's just a matter of hover blasting them down. BABs has unstoppable, so you have to take him down then watch him regen back to 75% health and then take him down again. Others are just normal AVs. I did kill Yin's pet cause it was healing her, but it was pretty small heals. I Pulled out my Lore pet on the last AV just to finish it faster, but it wasn't needed. It was another good challenge. Learned a lot about how the Strike Force works that you don't get to see in a typical team run, like who has a T9 power, and I never knew Numina was healing, etc. Anyway another notch on the belt. That just leaves Barracuda and Kahn for level 50 TFs to solo on this toon. Not sure those will be possible.

OK.. Level 54 AV Siege. I want to see a defender who can solo him. Go.