Wobegone

Claws is great. Dual blades is great. So is Energy Melee, War Mace, Titan Weapons, Dark Melee, and Katana (these are the primaries I'm most familiar with). Quibbling over the best for leveling is kinda silly. I've soloed with all of those primaries and they're all solid. My advice is pair one of those with either Willpower or Bio and play every solo arc you can for the Merits. Add in a few TFs (solo or with a team) and you'll level pretty fast while you're piling up Merits. You'll have a couple grand when you're finished. even with 2x XP. Then you just need to decide what to do with the Merits. That question is better answered in the Market forum I guess, but I'd buy cheap yellow recipes in bulk, craft them, and convert to Rares.

You should have stopped here and left out the quotes. I do understand anxiety and get where the ops wife is coming from. In this case however, I think @MTeague is correct. Despite a bit of anxiety, I ventured into the PvP zones on my badger late at night and got all of them unmolested on Torchbearer. I saw exactly one other person and they seemed to be badge collecting themselves and we left each other alone. So, my advice to the op is find a time late in the day and badge hunt on Torchbearer (or another quiet late night server) and you should be fine. Edit: I should note late night for me was after 11pm West Coast time.

It takes a minute or two to open up Long Range Teleport, and a few minutes more to open several other zones. I just don't see this as a problem at all. Once you memorize certain exploration locations it's a breeze.

I can see how this might seem so for anyone who didn't play before Issue 17. Vigilance gained a damage buff for a solo Defender, or with one or two teammates. So, from my perspective, the damage remains the same for teams of 4 or more and Defenders get a damage buff otherwise.

I just wanna get a baseline here. Are you talking solo leveling Defenders organically or power-leveling them to 50, loading them with IOs, then soloing?

Like all belief systems, Pacifism has shades of grey. It's a moral philosophy after all. The most extreme version of this is absolute pacifism, which precludes any form of violence, even in self-defense. Another example of pacifism is conscientious objectors like Desmond Doss, a World War 2 medic who refused to kill enemy soldiers and didn't carry a weapon. He won two bronze stars, was injured 4 times, and was awarded the Medal of Honor. My suggestion would be a Mind/Empathy Controller. The problem of course is that your single target hold and sleep do damage. but you could say the damage is non-lethal. It'd be pushing the boundaries, but you could simply come up with your own code of honor and call it something other than pacifism.

The first place I remember seeing it was on MUDs in the mid 80s. Edit: I think I played my first MUD in 1987.

You didn't. And I didn't claim you did. However, In what world is this remotely true without IOs and/or Incarnates? In other words, meta builds (IMHO). Yes, there are a handful of builds where the above might be true with just SOs or generic IOs. Yet your one example of a weak solo build included 23 procs and Incarnates. I don't know about you, but I consider that pretty meta. Look, I know you're kinda getting attacked on all sides, and that sucks. I don't mean you ill-will. I'm not angry or bitter. But you seem uncommonly stubborn when folks give evidence that they don't, and likely won't, make builds I consider meta. And I don't think they're necessarily the minority of the player base. I think the above quote is a gross misrepresentation of the playerbase at large, and gives the impression, to me, that you likely make that statement with the assumption that everyone is using IOs and/or Incarnates. I could be wrong though.

I can kinda see where people get this idea. The following are just from this thread.

Just want to emphasize this as perhaps it's getting lost in the current conversation. Arcane isn't some Greek God of Gaming cuz he can solo a +4x8 with an Ice Controller. He can because he has lores, a giant nuke, defensive buffs, mez protection buffs, recharge buffs, end buffs, etc from Incarnates. And yea, sure, a bunch of procs. Edit: Not to mention unlimited inspirations.

Unhelpful as NPC hitpoints also increase with level. Sure, Incarnates can increase DPS, IOs do as well. Stacking Recharge arguably is the most important factor for increased DPS. Min-maxing is fun for me. I'm not alone. This is entirely subjective, at best. Personally, I think it's a garbage statement. Speak for yourself.

The benefits depend on the rank of (defeated) foe. It'll still work on Minions and Lts. The recharge isn't enhanceable. It ignores enhancements. City of Data says: Player Teammate (alive), Self. CoD says: "Ignores enhancements and other boosts". I'm assuming that means procs, but not entirely sure. Seems to be the same regardless of Archtype. With the number of respecs we get, you can see if it gets any use. However, few level 50 teams need additional +Recovery and -End Cost. So highly situational. I could see it being quite beneficial when Incarnates aren't available though. Plenty of high level builds rely on Ageless.

Groovy. Nuts!

Well, there's easier in that it makes it possible to do a task. And there's harder in that it takes more concentration and effort to do a task. So, chaining inspirations is both easier and harder depending on the point of view. That's all they're saying.

Bio also gets Resist Slow and Resist End Drain early, and additional +End/+Recovery late. My choice would be a Claws/Bio Scrapper.

If speed was a factor I'd probably go with a */Bio Scrapper or Brute. If speed wasn't a factor, I'd agree that an SR Tank would be the safest and easiest. I think a /Bio or /Regen Sentinel would be just fine as well.

Yea, personally I'd drop World of Confusion and pick up Forge. I'd also drop Evasive Maneuvers and grab Vengeance. The extra slots could be spread around. Maybe one for Fly (to make up for the speed loss), two for Forge, and the last two for Hover. I think you could also safely siphon a few slots from Stamina, Melt Armor, and Heat Exhaustion to add a couple slots elsewhere, like the shields. Not sure you need End Reduction in the latter two.

There are some strange responses in this thread. First, the op wasn't referring to 'rescue and escort' missions. They specifically referenced npcs who join you during the mission. Yea, sure they're not the brightest bulbs out there, but if you know they're there and are proactive and aggressive yourself, they do a lot of damage. I've done the mission the OP referred to many times (it's part of the AVs needed for Portal Jockey). When you come across them, get aggressive yourself. They'll help you wreck spawns.

If you can manage to get and keep agro off them, they do a ton of damage.

Aside from what's been posted above, the Shauna Braun and Bobby Curtain story arcs are great. Love the changes to Electric Blast (and as mentioned above but bears repeating, Energy Melee changes). I really love fly on my characters. Being able to fly at Superspeed and Superjump speed is groovy.

At the top of the forums, you'll see Browse, Activity, Account, FAQ, Support, Server Status, Wiki.

Just a reminder that if you send a message, request, question directly to the Dev team, check your Support tab. I sent such a message a couple weeks ago and waited patiently for a Notification or Message. When neither came I had a flash of insight (rare for me) and checked the support tab, and lo and behold I'd received a message the same day, but didn't respond in time and the subject was closed (not a big deal, it wasn't urgent).

This was my perspective. I'd never heard of the guy. No idea about Reddit posts. After watching the video, it seemed to me that most of the problems he described were self-inflicted. I don't wish the guy ill-will, nor do I believe his video was anything other than self-serving unless I have more information. Did he deserve the most egregious attacks? Certainly not (if they're true). I don't think anyone in this thread advocated that kind of behavior. I think you may be misconstruing acerbic comments as callous ones.

He was gonna stream a Hami Raid. One was already in the recruitment stage. He could have: A) Joined in. B) Come back at another time. C) Siphon players and "zerg Hamidon". His own words. He chose C. As for the rest, all I saw was contradictions and dubious claims including having evidence. I dunno about you, but if I have evidence of malfeasance, I'm gonna show receipts. Two questions: Why the hell did I waste 27 minutes?! Am I insane? Why the hell was this posted in the first place? Nothing good could have come of it.