Sir Myshkin

I love how most people are just repeating the same response, but in different ways. The diversity of our players 🤣 I remember my first character origin being Mutant, running around and playing for a bit, then rolling another one and deciding to do Magic, and noticing (eventually in the 20's) that there were very specific looks for each of the SO's. My second character I ended up (apparently) experiencing a lot of Magic-oriented enemy groups as I ended up with a lot of Magic SO's. What's interesting about that fact, for me--and why it stuck--is those ones are (imo) the simplest to identify and clearly see their color (yellow=accuracy, etc). Going forward I decided to make all of my characters, no matter what, into Magic Origin because I wanted their SO's to be simply identifiable. Fast forward to Homecoming I made a Robotics/Kin MM as... /em drumroll Magic Origin! I got a /tell a week in to someone going "Interesting Bio, how does that whole tech thing turn into Magic? Like Magic granted or...?" I was like, "What? ...Ooooooh. About that..." So these days it's really about thematic choice, and the illusion that it gives towards the meaning and idea behind the characters more than anything. And easy SO colors.

Yes, you have a ton of easy-to-slot choices for things like the LotG 7.5%, but, again, there's nothing really inherently in the 'Force Field' set that benefits from 200-300% global recharge unlike Cold, Thermal, Time, Empathy, Nature, Traps, Storm (above all else). This concept is really about making dramatic use of that potential up time, and you wont get that from Repulsion Bomb and Force Blast. Bomb just wont cycle enough (once every 10-15/s) and Blast would have to be seriously spammed to get enough chance-triggers to have it go off. You definitely could put FF+Rech procs into those powers and use them for the chance to get those boosts in recharge, for sure, but it doesn't latch on to the idea of having a cycle of main-line abilities constantly grinding out that effect so you virtually live under their benefit. Since it can't really be maintained with just FF alone, I don't see that is really being a "Mad King." Supplementally nice add-ins, but not something you can try and get into a permanent cycle.

There's nothing in Force Fields that benefits from the idea of accelerated amounts of global recharge, so... it'd work, but it wouldn't ultimately be providing anything beneficial. You could still use the tools to focus on getting something like Force of Nature cycled at cap, but honestly a FF Defender can already get themselves to some pretty high positional defense values, so there's not a ton of need packed in there. Force Fields and Sonic Dispersion don't really have a "horse in this race" as the saying goes.

Only when you throw Taunt into the mix, and if it were reduced to a 1 v 1 comparison against any given target and just look at SR's performance (ie Crimson Prototype), the two are going to come out equivalent. I had been so confidant in my KM/SR Scrapper that I intentionally took Confront to pull one-off targets attention and to force-taunt on AV's when a Tank wasn't present on a team. I was also typically the first person to taunt AV's on iTrials like the BAF. Defense, unlike Resistances, don't have any special target values for individual AT's, so everyone plays at the same table.

There are a handful of unique cases where SR, because of being a one-trick-pony, isn't necessarily best suited, but don't discount your abilities across the board. I played a KM/SR Scrapper pretty heavily pre-sunset alongside a Night Widow that I swapped between. I built my defense up to 61% to each positional and I did just fine in Incarnate content. I packed Rebirth Radial as a support heal that'd give me that Regen boost as follow-up and it more than covered me for most scenarios I experienced. There will be an occasional "oops, dead" in there, but it really wasn't that often. Carry a pack of T3 Oranges to super-boost your Resistances in the off situations where your defense is a wet paper bag to an enemy and you'll be fine. Since you're a Tanker it'll be easy to get to 60% Positional, and leave you with room to dig up some S/L Resistance bonuses. Run those with Tough and you should be able to get 40-50% there (at least). The Tanker +Res proc in an attack... the PvP +5%... Also, the scaling resist IO double-dips for you in combination with your natural scaling in SR. Not necessarily something to full rely on, but you get more mileage out of them together, compared to not. The Crimson Prototype is strangely an AV with an attack concept that specifically neuters Defense and Regen focused characters pretty hardcore.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't bother with any of the Prestige (now P2W) attacks on new characters. Given how quickly we can progress to 20 through DFB/DiB with the 2XP I just pull all my attacks as they become available. By the time I'm moving on to other content, the next few levels still go pretty fast and will have the majority of that early core >26 stuff figured out. Plus, DFB's go by so quickly (like, what, ten minutes tops per run?) I don't need to be cycling constant attacks, I'm probably wasting one here or there anyway! Use Brawl! It wont hurt! I kind of find it more of a hassle to claim those extra abilities just for ten levels of over-simplification, just to never use them again. All I grab at his point is: Flight Pack Reveal Inner Inspiration 2XP Even before sunset the only reason I ever claimed the prestige powers was to show off that I'd been in the game long enough to have a Nemesis Staff AND a Blackwand at the same time. Which, honestly, didn't require much (12 and 18 mos wasn't it?). I do miss logging in and getting that instant-stack of badges for "You've been here FOREVER."

FINALLY! I've been waiting like... over a month for this to get fixed and testable! These can be rolled now right? RIGHT?! I'm afraid to check.

I can already hear the gears grinding on those All MM iTrials and MSR's

As others have mentioned, if you're not running/double stacking Rage, you'll definitely feel under powered as the set truly needs that ability to really stand function. You also want to get an additional AoE out of your Epic/Patron options (I highly recommend Gloom and Dark Obliteration as key components to a stronger-feeling attack cycle). Next to Titan Weapons, Super Strength is the second strongest attack set Tankers have access to from a raw-output (ST) perspective, but lacks some 'oompf' in the AoE side of things. If you really want those raw orange numbers to fly around, stick with a set that maximizes PBAoE/AoE/Cones to get that. There's plenty of sets that can offer you that utility, and if/when the Beta changes hit the Live, you'll find your general function as a Tanker go way up in performance on those abilities too.

This makes me think of things like Force Bubble with the Terra Volta trial. There are quite a few cases in the game where an isolation tool is actually pretty beneficial. Force Bubble became such an overpowered tool in TV that when folks figured out how to teleport under the reactor and avoid line of sight for attacks, they could indefinitely keep Freakshow off the reactor without penalty, and that prompted the GM's/Devs to get involved and monitor the trials and kick/prevent players from "cheating" through it. Not sure if it would appropriately cover the entire thing, but Shifting the reactor could potentially isolate it from everything but immediate Melee and shut down a lot of Ranged hits. Interesting consideration. There's also the usual tactic of fleeing into the outer room in an overrun event, Shift would easily shut off that route from enemy follow-through for a short period of time but still allow players in/out. Just interesting things it can be used for.

I have to say, Radiation Siphon is probably a far better Swiss Knife than Siphon Life is when paired with the Containment mechanic. Playing Rad paired with DA, I... I don't think I can honestly recall the last time I played where I had to hit Dark Regen for a serious heal. DPS wise Radiation isn't necessarily winning in ST ground fights, but it does really well on clearing a room in a quick hurry. Definitely a solid Solo choice for being pretty decent at both aspects of ST and AoE. I agree that "Solo" should be explicitly one character, alone performing the task at hand, but I don't think you have much to worry about with declarations made so far. Only a few folks have explicitly said if/when/how/why they may have dual//multi-boxed (used another account at the same time).

Dimension Shift gets a bit too much flack for what it can do. Yes it can be used in a detrimental way, but it can also be used in a way that puts the Controller on the offense. It can take a couple of procs and can dish out its own damage, and has no capacity cap so long as the mobs can fit within its radius. From a solo standpoint it’s a super useful tool, especially when paired with Storm as you can summon LR and Tornado inside the shift and there’s absolutely nothing the mobs inside can do about it. You can also Wormhole into the Shift if necessary and instantly negate ~30 mobs from combat. If a team is staying clustered and you do use it loaded with procs, it’s be possible to fire off the shift and the team never even realize. It just becomes another isolated immob to contain spawns.

Less on their worth, more on the fact that their purpose has changed. The Merit System on Homecoming was given a QoL alteration in its costs, so where the Hero Merits used to be worth a considerable exchange, they're not so much anymore in regards to time/merit balance. They exist simply because they must (they're baked in at this point).

There's a question to be asked here. Why do you think this?

This is gold right here. I can say I wasn't cognizant of that mission providing a repeatable bonus like this. Just ran it casually today with a bit of wandering and reading a bit of the arc stuff, making sure I had the expectations of each mission right, and roaming the maps a bit extra and still knocked it out in 20 minutes. Was also surprised that even at 0x4 "50" it still applied the Incarnate shift and made everything grey/green/blue. Super easy to flip through. Definitely a >10/min capable arc and has a great reward roll chance for incarnate parts. I'll definitely be using this one to build my second set of Incarnate enhancements.

The reason you see a difference on attuned versus a level 25 of the same IO is because attuned sets are level-equivalent (they level with you, exemp with you). They are ultimately a better choice if you plan on exemp'in down at all. The only scenario where I'd suggest it being worth boosting a specific enhancement would be one-offs and basic IO's, or in situations like proc slotting a power and using a slot or two for Dual/Triple IO's to max out those values as much as possible for those two pieces. Also, you can attune one piece out of the set in a single ability, and still retain equivalent set bonuses (if I recall correctly). Meaning you could attune the 7.5% Global LotG, and 50+5 the rest of the pieces and still get the collective bonus. Yes, there are several AT-O's where 2 or 3 pieces have a beneficial bonus that exceeds going for a full set. Masterminds and Scrappers are two other cases. One of the MM sets gives +10% Global Rech at two pieces, and one of the Scrapper sets gives a big push to S/L Def at 3, so it is common for people to slot them accordingly and catalyze them into Superior status. Very rarely will you ever see someone slot an entire set into one ability, and only catalyze half of it.

Powerhouse did not say he was going to blanket nerf procs, but specifically that (many months down the road) [they] plan on looking at how procs interact with Epic/Patron pool powers as procs are inadvertently leveraging the long recharge of those abilities which was intended to limit them, and is instead being used to over-extend their power. I was gonna post a further retort in defense of Trick Arrow, but ultimately I walked that one up the plate knowing I could defend it without consideration, but it's better to just let others have their opinion on the matter without turning an innocent thread into a debate. 🙂 I already posted the video evidence of what it can do and that's enough proof of its ability.

If you leverage the procs over global sets you could probably get away with some pretty good proc ratios. I went the direct route with TW/Regen and filled it with as much global recharge balance as I could pack, plus Spiritual to the point where the FF+Rech proc only takes a bit (~8-10/s) off of Instant Healing (and hardly nothing off pretty much anything else). If you do a FF+Rech leveraged build though, that truly would be a "Mad King Special" for sure as it'd only be powered through combat! Going that path would also allow you to utilize more extra slots for defensive bonuses. Aw, but a proper archer doesn't have any issues taking down an AV on their own.

Do iiiiiiitt 😁 To be fair, Electricity Manipulation has two of the strongest attacks for Blaster secondaries in Charged Brawl and Shocking Grasp (proc'd). I've got my own Elec/Nrg Blaster (only one) set to get the Musculature Radial and Preemptive Interface to max out his endurance sapping capabilities without gimping damage capacity. Poison is a killer debuff set, especially in a single-target scenario. It was never designed to be "the healer" in a group. I'm honestly surprised no one's tried throwing Trick Arrow under the bus yet. I'd have to get my pitchfork, torches, and shovels out.

By technicality Virtueverse was set up under the pretense of being "For Virtue" but that's always been because Virtue was the unofficial home of Roleplay. There's a "Welcome" message on the front page of the site now that extends that same purpose that "All are welcome" to use the site for their characters, RP or not.

The VirtueVerse is back to being active and going strong again. That was the traditional place RP'ers used to collect and share their character driven stuff.

Actually, you do in contrast to the level shift between you and the enemy you're fighting. There is a shift in the mechanics of the game that make it harder to hit an enemy the higher its level (up to a specific ceiling). In order to effectively roll normal hit chances against a +4 enemy, you have to be at 95% equivalent accuracy. Right now the only way your build can manage to do this is while under Build Momentum's +ToHit for that 10/s window, once that falls you're heavily reliant on team members providing external To-Hit buffs. If you were to run into a map solo, against +4 enemies, you'd be missing a considerable amount of your time. That's not theory, that's just factual to the mechanics of the game. It doesn't mean you can't hit them, but your odds of doing so are incredibly lower. As it stands, and as Caulderone pointed out, your build can barely hold up against +2's. If you're spending a lot of your time teaming with others who play with Tactics, or other +ToHit providing powers, then that'll compensate for sure, but from a self-sufficiency aspect that many players on the forums try and hone in on, your build is lacking in that regard. You don't even have to focus that accuracy inherently in the individual powers, there's a lot of global options for getting there as well between set bonuses and things like the Kismet +ToHit. Take your Weave as an example: you have nearly all of your Resistance values over-capped, and yet you still have powers grabbing tiny set bonuses that create that over-cap. If you flipped Weave to a 4-piece of Luck of the Gambler you'd snag a 9% Accuracy bonus. In Rend Armor, toss out the two Crushing Impacts and fill with two more pieces of Hecatomb and you'd gain 10% global recharge and another 15% accuracy. Also, why don't you use Rend Armor?! That power sets you up great for Momentum, and hits the target with -Res.

Personally I think this would be one of the coolest, simplest options to diversify Masterminds. The assets for the characters are already in existence, just move them over into the MM AI. What I think would be a pretty cool way to give choice, but also give a lore-connective aspect that doesn't create an over-powered or under-powered solution would be to have 2-3 groups available at specific level ranges granted by an auto-power that only can be selected when the player is in that specific level that causes them to summon minions based on the selected toggle. So like levels 1-15 would be Outcasts, Skulls, Vhazilok. Then 16-25 Clockwork, Family, Tsoo. 26-35 Crey, Freakshow, Council. 36-50 Banished Pantheon, Nemesis, Circle of Thorns, Malta.

When I did the collective testing I did try both going in stacked, and non-stacked just to compare, but the realism of the situation is that, in general play, the character is going to be actively engaged in double-stacked Rage, and it's not like any one of us would intentionally go into an AV fight at half power in the first place, so it's not breaking the spirit of the test (in my opinion). It's no different than folks calling a "pre-pull" phase for things like Ageless or Hasten, as an example. To a degree the buffs that occurred on the Test server were/are designed to restructure the intention of the -Res offset by putting that raw value directly into the damage of the AT, versus falsifying it through -Res in a ST situation. Idealistically, against something like the Pylon, a Live build and a Test build should perform somewhat similarly. What I am curious on, however, is how closely you aligned your build with the proc configuration I used. Something that's very specific to this situation is the Live build is punishing the Pylon with -Res from its T1 attack, which actually results in Procs doing more damage comparatively than in my run on the test server. Your inclusion of Jab into the build was probably offset by that factor alone, and helped maintain a similar time. There is a possibility that the Live build could feasibly do a tad better, if the chain was more honed in to only use Jab exactly when it was necessary. This same reason could also be why you'd feel "general play" currently on Live feels lack-luster. Your T1 isn't being applied to every single target (necessarily) in a way that damage spreads fairly, especially not in an AoE standpoint. Knockout Blow will still hit hard, but not quite as hard as if you'd tagged a target with -Res first. What I find pretty neat is that you independently ended up with a time range fairly consistent to what I landed on. Nice work.

If the damage balance (buff) manages to eventually make its way to the live server, you'll be in for a big surprise in performance. We're going to need a soloist support group for Crimson Prototype...