Shred Monkey

Ever hear that Babbage is up... so you book it to Skyway and then wander around looking for it, trying to get someone to give a location, and then that location wasn't quite right and... oh... he's dead. I feel like that happens to me about 50% of the time i respond to a GM and it's pretty disappointing. So... a few suggestions. 1. Use the tech from the Banner event to give us a way to find GMs more easily. There's a couple of things here... you can give it a map marker, so we can click on it and we use the waypoint tech to guide us.... or we can use that distance trick they have for the final banner boss where you always know how far away it is, and can play "getting warmer/getting colder" game to find it it (I like the first one best, but I'll take anything). 2. Give GMs a HP boost or resistance boost. They don't need to be made harder, (but i'm ok with that, too), but I definitely want them to live longer. 3. While you're at it, update them with the health-bar meter like the newer content. I like that.

Uh, one of these is not like the others..... POWER-LEVELING does not belong here. Here's why. Power-leveling is doing whatever gives the most experience per minute repeatedly and focusing on doing that one thing as fast and efficiently as possible. And here's the thing... no matter what the devs do or don't do, in any game, there's ALWAYS a "whatever gives the most experience per minute." So the activity dev's generally need to do in regards to power-leveling is to keep an eye on the meta power-leveling process and reign it in if it gets too stupid. Or they just don't do that and leave the power-levelers to their little mini-game. OK, that little rant aside... I think further development should be more of what makes a game distinct and great.... in this game, imho, I think that's the newer style mission-arc/task-force content. More endgame content like Tin-mage/Apex/ITF/MLTF/LRSF/LGTF... more zones like Dark Astoria. Also update hami and MSR. MSR turns into a 30 minutes snooze fest I have yet to make it through without deciding to just leave out of boredom. And Hami just feels old and underdeveloped. It needs refreshed with some of the new mission tracker windows and generally just made more difficult and epic. Oh, and one more thing while I'm at it, (dangit there's just too many things that make this game "distinct and great.") I love how finishing a LGTF triggers a Rikti raid... and how Babbage spawns during synapse, and the Malta Goliath triggers from a player mission. More of this! Triggering world events by completing team or solo missions is a really cool thing and I think it really fits the current co-op friendly playerbase and game concept well.

Yeah.. I mean... why not? After all, ten more runs only takes about 11 1/2 minutes. Be careful or you might accidentally start a mothership raid.

I am finding myself (ironically) more confident in the current dev team's talents and decision making then I ever was in the live team ...or really 90% of other games I've played.

Yeah.. Dark Astoria arcs can be solo'd and basically give the same rewards as iTrials. That's what you're looking for.

I think Group Fly needs a re-do because it's not a very useful power. But who cares if you get shifted into the flying position? It's not like you magically float away out of combat range... you're flying... so just keep going while flying. No big deal.

I get it... I understand the backstory here and stuff. I know they're summoned from the well to help us and they're not really real or whatever... but I want my pet to look solid, anyway. Anyone else feel this way?

If you use stealth instead of invisibility and add a +stealth IO to sprint, that gives you full invis when both are toggled on. Perhaps that gives you the extra power slot you're looking for.

I simply wander the vast universe looking cool and spreading my awesomeness. (also, get a 2nd destiny slot... everyone should have team port, anyway, at least at T1, if not T3 for the level boost. And I usually find a reason for a 2nd or 3rd interface slot as well. And possibly more lores options...)

I never really understood why people can't just choose to not care what other people type in a channel. But if a channel has rules, I don't think it's inappropriate to mention when someone is breaking them. But you should also expect people to get defensive when you call them out on something.

Is there a psi damage temp power for killing Cyclops and Minos in the ITF through their T9 power? I know about the vanguard psi bomb, but that appears to be only 3 charges and you can only hold 1 at a time. Any others?

This game doesn't "punish you" for having a sub optimal build. But it does give limited "free" opportunities to change your mind after selecting a power. You can swap enhancements in and out pretty easily, but if you want to replace an entire power or move a slot, you have to do a full respec. There are free respecs, but not unlimited free respecs. I recommend working out your build ahead of time (Mid's Reborn is best tool, but you can do it in a spreadsheet or on paper). I usually find myself doing a level 22 respec build with IOs and either a level 32 or 37 build plan where I start to add some set IOs. Then I do to a final respec at 50. Having a plan allows you to go to the trainer when you level up and knowing what you want, rather then having to live with a decision you haven't completely thought through. As you level up and learn more about your power set, you can go back to the planner and make adjustments to your next respec plan.

Call it power creep or game design, or mature player base, but I feel like most content in this game provides no challenge for 8 man teams. I don't mean to get into why, or complain. I just think this is true and starting my post with that as my initial premise. So last night I ran a +4x8 ITF on my blaster with a 5 man team (not my idea, but I liked it). It was still pretty smooth run, but felt better. It was closer to the difficulty/challenge I want to play it. I felt like we were all adding value and contributing to our success. There was a reason to stay together and use all of my powers instead of just 3-4 big attacks. I guess I'm posting this is because would like to see more people doing this. I would like to see 3-5 person teams more common. I'm not suggesting the team size cap be reduced. I'm just encourage player base to go outside the box and not fill every team.

I always liked the idea of a Sonic/___ blapper. Using siren's song to sleep a group, then going through them with single target melee attacks and -res attacks (and probably air superiority for perma-knockdown until I get IO'd out defenses). I think sleep seems more reliable then -end from electric or some other 'pseudo control' options. On live I leveled a concept like this into the 20s, but never really get into it. This concept is probably better solo then on teams.

Great Guide. I would add a little more to the "stand somewhere else" section. And that is this; if you are not in melee range, you are 100% immune to all melee attacks. Whereas, if you do stand in melee range you can be hit by all attacks, both ranged and melee. While this seems obvious when I phrase it like I did, it is not a small thing. Most melee attacks hit harder than ranged attacks and a lot of enemies do not have enough ranged attacks to keep firing them non-stop. They end up standing still or moving (not attacking) for much of the fight while they wait for a ranged attack to recharge. As a result, staying out of melee can effectively mitigate well over 50% of incoming damage. In fact, while there are some very painful exceptions to this, I estimate that against most enemies groups, 75-90% of the potential incoming damage can be avoided by simply staying at range. Furthermore, this is on it's own "layer" that goes on top of all the other "layers" you have listed. And lastly, staying out of melee range doesn't take any investment at all.

Welcome back. And no... nothing has changed. Accuracy enhancers are the solution and I wouldn't bump the difficulty bar up in level until you've got some decent slotting done.

I was going to say, Pistols/Katana is pretty common in comics/anime. Plus you can use other weapon models to do some stuff... like glowing katana and electric blasts to be a jedi/sith knockoff. I bet there are some other models that lead to other fun concepts.

instead of goign negative.... give powers a large but brief recovery rate debuff. Same effect, but not a hole you can't dig out of.

Heres what interests me... the ones with low or no 50s, but a lot of attempts. These are things people thought they would like, but quit after they got into it. Like... what's wrong with a Beast/Traps MM that over 300 people started and didn't finish this combo?

One thing that has me constantly considering MA on a stalker is that it has several attacks at 10 seconds and they're all high-ish in DPS. This means you can build a chain that always critical hits with your assassin's strike. However, the thing that keeps me from building one is the lack of AoE damage that just comes with the stalker AT in general. If I did decide make another stalker though, MA would be where I started.

Just wanted to add, that I think it's a real shame, too. Electricity looks cool and unique visually and conceptually it can be explained by technology, or magic, or science... or just about anything.... I think it would be very popular if it was stronger. I think they should make some of the big attacks hit MUCH harder, but add a end cost that makes them difficult to use, or perhaps make them only available at 95% or greater end... then make other powers add end to your bar (they can keep draining foes, though that's not the important part). Thus creating a "build up power from foes, then throw it back on them" type feel.

Yes, DA arc is in Oro.... and it's broke up into chapters so you don't have to complete it all at once... and it gives Incarnate rewards for completing as well.

Right now when you drop a stack of something into the AH, it always asks you how many you want to drop in. And the default quantity is whatever the last quantity was. It would be really nice if it defaulted to a full stack so we don't have to move the slider or type in a number. It's a small thing, but I'd sure appreciate it.

I think it should be a click power that gives flight for 60 seconds to everyone in a large AoE range and has a cool down of just a few seconds. Any penalties should be removed. You should also have an option to choose to not accept similar to the way you can choose not to receive speed boosts from Kin. (I forget where I saw that.... the P2W vendor maybe?) It would still be a pretty worthless power, but it would at least not be a terrible power. And mastermind pets should by default have maximum flight speed so they always keep up.

The whole instanced-dungeon-crawl mission system of this game goes overlooked, imho as to one of the things that make this game great. Some games have 2-3 endgame dungeons to crawl though with a team. This game has dozens if not hundreds. And I fully agree.. DA is epic.