DougGraves

Totally. At higher levels characters are so overpowered individual powers do not matter much. Which is why I don't play at higher levels. I want my choices and actions to be game changers.

Don't blasters have dual pistol primary and a martial arts secondary that let's them have a sword? I saw a blaster with a sword, asked him how and he said martial arts.

The problem is that you are playing at high levels where the game is trivially easy. My dog can run a Pug TF with 7 random ATs (because Snarky quit) and steamroll it. That is the level at which terrible players play because there is no need for player skill except to kill helpless foes slightly faster. Play a level 19 character in the Hollows where actual player skill is required. The players are better. My dog has confirmed that at high levels the game is so ridiculously easy that ATs don't matter. She also swears she advertised the TF as a speed TF.

Control - Electric or Plant. Static field and Seeds of Confusion give good AoE control every fight. Static field is not as good control but can be dropped from around a corner. Ice slick would be better than static field but it makes clockwork and some others get knocked away so it is not useful in a lot of low level TFs. Defense - Radiation. Gets good early with no END problems and a self heal. Support - Thermal or Dark. Thermal is much better support. At low levels it keeps a team alive on its own with the shields and the healing. Dark has a cone fear every fight, so it gives a defender or corruptor control as well as support.

It's more like "using spices besides salt and pepper changed dinner for me"

I remember the primary was seismic. I don't remember the secondary for sure but I think it was pain.

I joined a pug TF. I check the other characters powers to see what sort of support they bring. One character was a level 22 corruptor. They had 1 power from their primary. They had 3 sorcery powers, 3 presence powers, and a teleport power. Now I am big on power pools these days but that build made no sense to me.

No, you should have debuffed it or buffed your damage.

There are a lot of ATs. When I join a team I am excited to see some of them and not others. (I'm most excited when I join a team and get leadership buffs because I know those players think about teaming). Note that I play mostly dominators. Here is my list - what does yours look like? Top Tier Tanker - The biggest benefit to a tanker on a team is that they keep the teaming moving and generally together. Too many teams without a tanker stand around looking at a spawn until some blaster opens up and gets destroyed by the alpha. And while brutes can tank, players with tankers usually have more of a team oriented approach. But more than 2 tankers and I wish we had something else instead. Controller - They support and control. The best addition to a team. But more than 2 and the extra control is wasted. Defender - Almost as good as a controller due to the support. And I am never sad to see a defender. Corruptor - A bit below defender. It's not that the support is that much weaker, it is that they are usually are less team oriented than defenders. But I am never sad to see a corruptor. Mastermind - This should be higher as MMs can tank and support, but I find few MMs tank. So this is just below a defender. And too many MMs are annoying just because of all the pets getting in the way. Stalker - I used to lump stalkers in with "other" but their ability to take out bosses quickly has won me over. AoE is so common the minions and lt's tend to go down quickly, leaving a drag out fight against bosses. And some bosses are painful. But stalkers change the game, taking out the bosses quickly. So stalker is the one damage AT I am happy to see. Second Tier Brute - if we don't have a tanker, but only if we don't have a tanker. Otherwise they are just damage. PB/WS - if we don't have a tanker, but only if we don't have a tanker. Otherwise they are just damage. And frankly I don't know the difference between PB and WS. Soldier/Widow - by mid levels the team buffs are nice. At lower levels they are just damage. Dominator - If we don't have controllers and if there are no more than 2 of them. Bottom Tier Blaster - just damage Scrapper - just damage Sentinel - just damage

Takeoff is a rip off. If you want to get somewhere fast you need an airline. I've been trying to post helpful links to call airlines for just this reason, but someone keeps deleting my threads.

There are no sets that I notice being very common in low level PUGs. So I can't say that any set is particularly rare.

I play a different character every time I log in. Not necessarily a new character. I have 50 or so I rotate through.

I almost always team. And I like to play a character that really makes the team work - for the most part that means controller. Control plus support (which means a lot of healing at low levels) makes teams work. The problem is low level controllers are terrible at doing damage. So if there are other support characters I can end up doing very little. I like dominators as a solo playstyle but they do not support low level teams as well. But with the addition of the medicine power pool for healing, my dominator can heal when needed. I have settled on two basic builds I can switch between - one with aid ally, aid self, combat medic and the other with assault, tactics, and stealth. Playing with several teams I have found that they lacked other healing and I played the medic each time. So now I can solo a dominator and then switch to a healing build if needed. Or just stick with my leadership build. And if we have a lot of support I can just focus on doing damage. I have also added arcane bolt to my controllers which dramatically increases the damage they do, but I think I'll mostly stick to dominators for now.

I like cones because they rely on player skill. I tend to prefer a playstyle that requires me to be skilled rather than one that uses character power to make up for my lack of skill.

Congratulations!

One thing I find amusing about this game is that I sometimes have to ask "is the fire on our side or an enemy"?

And I never said I was going to stay for the whole TF

I assume a TF will not be speed unless it is advertised as such. But sadly I do expect they will be at +0 and be ridiculously easy unless advertised differently.

That may be the case for you with a planned built. But I had a kinetic build that was terrible about running out of END. I respec'd with a ton of END reduction. Then I got to level 28 and discovered I got Transference which restores my END. It is not uncommon for powersets to have holes that get filled with powers later on. For those of us who do not plan our builds in advance, it makes sense to see how things turn out before respec'ing.

I was going to say I don't use any mods but I must be using vidiotmaps. And I want to make the sound louder for glowies but I can't be bothered to spend the time learning how to do it. And I have an excel spreadsheet for tracking my characters.

I slot with all SO's at 19. I have tried using the AT specific sets from merits but I just don't have enough slots at 19 to make 6 slotting something worth doing. My lvl 29 characters do usually have an AT IO set. I rarely use any other IOs. My fire/fire tanker does have the KB resistance IO. My AR corruptor and maybe one or two others use KB>KD IOs. And I have one character with with two IO's to give more END (miracle and something else).

I turn off xp at 19 so these characters will never get any higher. I find the game in the mid-30's to be trivially easy and boring.

For instance do you have just the END that you need, or do you slot the max you can for END and just make sure you have enough? Do you check to see if 1 Recharge enhancement is good enough or if you want 2? I'm making lvl 19 builds so enhancements are tight. I'm trying to play the builds to see where I can scrimp on them, but playtesting then doing a respec and then starting over is time consuming. So do you playtest and refine your builds repeatedly or do you just make sure it is good enough and not worry about making it perfect?

Let me explain. Healing is the ability to restore health to a character when it is below its maximum level. And it is doing it at once, rather than by buffing regeneration. A build is a set of powers and enhancements. Characters can have 1-3 builds. Aid Other, Aid Self, and Combat Medic are healing powers. Combat Medic does not heal on its own, but it improves the healing of the others. So a build which differs from another only by having 3 healing powers is a healing build.

I love controllers for support, but I like soloing dominators more. Now I've discovered I can make a dominator with the medicine pool as a healer as an alt build. So I am going to make them with a damage build and a healing build. I'd like to make more builds for them - a soloing build with stealth maybe. So how many build slots do characters get and do you have to unlock them? Also - are respecs by build or total. If I do a respec TF do I get one respec to use with any build, one for the build I was using, or one for each build? Is there a guide to using multiple builds? I bet Snarky didn't read this far.