GastlyGibus

Perhaps a poor choice of words, but when it's just the Fake Nemesis and me, and I can't attack or do anything to harm him, then yes, it would be helpless. Sure, he can't attack me either, but there is literally nothing that can be done once the power is activated. You are forced to sit there and wait.

I'd be fine with that too. As long as I'm not completely, 100% helpless when it's active, then I'd be fine with it. Like I said, I don't mind MoG on Protectors or the on/off intangibility of Carnie illusionists. There's an actual, tangible (no pun intended) risk and challenge with them, since they are still threats while the power is active. They make you think at least a little bit, because if you are careless they can turn the fight against you. With Fake Nemesis, none of that is there, since there's nothing anybody can do when it's on. You're just stuck there staring at each other awkwardly until it wears off, and it's pointless and annoying.

If it was more like Moment of Glory on Protectors, where I could still attack them and they could attack me, I could then at least see a reason for it existing. It would make them more dangerous and, as you've mentioned before, actually make a strategy worthwhile for locking them down before they can activate it. When the reward is simply saving 20 seconds of time, it's not really a very worthwhile reward. If you're playing on a character or a team that doesn't have efficient lockdown or crowd control, then you're basically punished in a really annoying, pointless manner. "Oops, you didn't kill or lock them down in time, now you get to have a staring contest for 20 seconds." I am well aware of the tell for attacking them again. My problem is that, as I've already mentioned, it serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever. It doesn't make the fight challenging, or difficult, or anything. It's completely mindless and just slows you down for no reason at all.

I don't mind MoG on Protectors, since they can still attack you while it's active, and it actually gives you an incentive for preventing them from using it. They're still a danger while it's up. Same goes for Master Illusionists in the Carnival. That's not my issue. My issue is purely with Fake Nemesis. It's not a matter of strategy, because it's not like Protectors or Illusionists, where there's a heightened danger for them activating it. It literally does nothing at all but waste your time. They can't attack you, they can't buff allies, it's literally just pausing the game for 20 seconds, and you just have to sit there and wait until it's off. Hence why it shouldn't be in the game. It serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever other than to annoy you.

Fake Nemesis mobs using this power serves no purpose at all other than wasting your time. There's no difficulty added, since they can't attack you while it's on. It doesn't make it challenging, it just wastes time and has you sitting there twiddling your thumbs until it turns off. They can't affect allies while it's on, so it's not as if they're providing additional support time for their friends. It literally accomplishes no purpose whatsoever for them or for you other than wasting your time for like 20 seconds. It's annoying, pointless, and should be removed from their arsenal.

I'm not going to be picking sides on the issue of disabling double INF, as quite frankly, it doesn't affect me either way. I, too, am a pretty casual player. I've also got bad altitis and like 30+ characters that I juggle between on a daily basis. But I will say two things. Number one, my level 50 Defender now has four purple sets. Gravitational Anchor, Unbreakable Restraint, Ragnarok, and Apocalypse. I did not spend a single penny on any of those enhancements. Merits can be used to buy purple IO's, and you'd be surprised at how quickly merits can pile up by just running a task force or two every so often. Hell, at level 50, most people do Apex and Tin Mage back to back, which altogether rarely takes more than an hour, and nets you 80 merits alone. Join task forces. Do a single mothership raid. Do a Hami raid if your shard has them (which most do to my knowledge) and you'll be able to afford those very rare IO's pretty easily with merits. Not to mention you can also do incarnate trials at 50, which give you both Astral and Empyrean merits, which can both be converted into regular reward merits at not-insignificant transfer rates. With merits in this game, it is completely possible to fully kit out your character without spending any INF at all. Does it take more time? Yeah, a little, but if you're short on money (like I am, a lot of times) it's not unfeasible by any stretch of the imagination. Number two, as others have pointed out, IO sets are by no means required to enjoy this game. At all. Are they better than regular SO's? Of course, but the entire game was pretty much balanced around SO's, and there's literally no content out there where you'll be booted from the group because your stats aren't "good enough" to participate, unlike several MMO's I know that I shall not name. I have two level 50's. My defender which I already mentioned, and the one I've spent more time on kitting out, and my Night Widow, which I have spent considerably less time enhancing. My Night Widow is still slotted out with 80% SO's, and has maybe one whole entire IO set to her name, and she still plays perfectly fine and does some insane damage. It really does sound to me like you want all of the reward with none of the effort. IO sets are supposed to be difficult to collect, because they make your character obscenely powerful if utilized correctly. You do not need them. They are an entirely optional path for you to take if you really want to push your character above and beyond, but they are by no means essential, and you can still play perfectly fine without them.

That's what Ouroboros and the Internet are for.

I always knew Nick's Delicious Weenies was hiding something!

This has been happening for a while. While we're on the topic, can I also add that Savage Leap from the Savage Melee powerset on Stalkers does the same thing? It'll throw you into melee range, break hide, and the combat log says it's auto-hit and it gives you blood frenzy stacks, but then nothing else. No damage.

Another one that's not so much "funny" but just gets me every time. During the 3rd mission of the Imperious Task Force: General Atilius: The rumors are true. Imperious can no longer fight his own battles. General Atilius: He has called in help from another land. Yes, you have a good point there, mister Cimeroran who has allied himself with time-traveling neo-nazis and their gang of intergalactic space aliens. 😂

There's only a few examples I can think of off the top of my head. Poison desperately needs more animations that aren't me vomiting up stuff. I built a Mastermind with a Technology origin, roleplaying him as having stolen poison gadgets to weaken people. It's still really weird and awkward how he somehow spits half of his poison abilities. Psychic melee animations are just dreadful. They look so... robotic and weird. I get that's it's supposed to be mental attacks and thus you wouldn't really need to exert much force, but I'd still really like to see some "normal" animations for psychic melee instead of the ones we have. I will also echo what Major_Decoy said, having the beast run animation be a permanent toggle would be absolutely divine on some of my animalistic characters. Please make this a reality!

Alternate thread title: Convince me to play a different primary set. I recently rolled a Bio/Claws Tanker, came up with a costume and backstory I was happy with, and went to town. Normally I have crippling altitis and struggle to get any character past 20 without moving on to something else, but lately I've been obsessively playing my Bio Tanker non-stop. He's at 38 now, and so far I've been feeling so over-powered it's ridiculous. And this is with just SO's. Whether solo or on a team, I seem to be completely invulnerable. Parasitic Aura is a beast of a Tier 9, with a tiny cooldown and near-invulnerability for 45 seconds. I have three forms I can switch to for any occasion. Doing a Penelope Yin TF with lots of Super Stunners? Efficiency Adaptation. Team has another tank and I don't need the extra armor? Offensive Adaptation. I'm the sole Tanker on the team and I need to live? Defensive Adaptation. Basically, the point of this thread is thus: with my Bio-Armor Tanker feeling so massively overpowered, are there any drawbacks to this set at all? I put out some pretty hefty damage, I'm nigh-invulnerable, and for once I have a character with virtually no endurance issues whatsoever. I'll probably go and try other primaries, but I don't think I've ever seen a set that made me feel as powerful as Bio-Armor has.

ParagonKid, I have no idea what you did to break your Tanker, but it seems pretty clear to me that it's something on your end. The gauntlet changes have given both my SR/Kat and Bio/Claws Tanker significant boosts in damage output, to the point where I don't even want to play a Scrapper or Brute anymore. Why would I, when my Tankers can do just as good damage wise and have far more survivability?

I can't say I agree with the claim that Tanks are rare. I see them quite frequently, and I enjoy them very much myself. I agree 100% with what SwitchFade said above. Sure, at level 50 with millions of INF and fully IO'd builds, any class can do most anything. But at level 10? 20? Suddenly having an AT that is bulky and doesn't need expensive IO's to survive is very appealing. I was just on a PuG the other day doing a Posi 1. All of us lowbies. No tank in sight. We ate the pavement often and had many trips to the hospital, because most of our AT's were squishy and we had no decent front line. Tanks might not be as needed once you're all Incarnate'd out, but before then, having a strong, sturdy aggro holder can make or break a team. I play tankers frequently because, while Brutes can be just as good, the Tanker will always have just that little bit of extra bulk, and that can often make all the difference. TL;DR Tankers are still around, and they're still good. They might not be as popular as "the good old days," but they're far from worthless.

Don't worry, this thread isn't as active as I thought it'd be, but I'm still keeping an eye on it. I'm gonna give someone else a chance to look at yours so I don't look like I'm endlessly plugging my own arcs. I appreciate your review though, and I'll definitely play through yours soon. If nobody else posts a review in the next week, I'll go ahead and post mine here for you. 😄

I understand that, and I do mostly the same with DO's/SO's until 50. My advice was basically "learn how to sell stuff" because I figured, having played before even City of Villains, they wouldn't know about the Auction House at all, since that wasn't added until Issue 10. Even if you're just going with SO's, if you don't use the market at all, you simply cannot afford to buy anything. I just rolled a new tanker, for example, and I've been pretty much teaming up exclusively with him. He's at level 28 now, and not counting money made from selling on the market, I've only made about 500,000 total over that time. Considering most SO's from vendors run about 20,000-30,000 a piece, you'd probably only be able to buy like a dozen or so enhancements before all that cash is gone.

Seeing as you haven't played since City of Villains, and seeing all the advice at marketeering, I'll just give this piece of info for you. Learning the ins and outs of the Auction House/Market is really the only reliable way of making money in this game. It's something that I wish would be fixed, but the influence rates from just playing the game are abysmal, and if you want to get even just regular Single-Origin enhancements, it's absolutely crucial to learn how buying and selling works and how to get the most bang for your buck. It might seem intimidating at first, but you don't have to be a super savvy investor to make decent cash in this game. Go check out the market section here on the forums and you'll find some incredibly helpful stuff. Also, I'll add this little tidbit that can be helpful. If you click on the "powers" button right on the top of your power tray, at the top of that menu is a button called "combat attributes." You can click on that and it'll bring up a menu that has all of your characters statistics, and shows which powers or effects are increasing or decreasing those values. You can even use it to monitor things like your total amount of influence, your current level, how much experience until you level up, etc. In addition, if you right-click on any of the options on this menu, you can bring up a permanent little window that'll stay on your screen so you can see that attribute all the time. It's incredibly helpful, even if you just want to keep an eye on how much money you have or how much EXP you need to level up.

I'm gonna go against the grain here and say that I don't think some armor powers should have a Min-FX option. I will say that some powers are definitely in need of a graphical tune-up, but thematically, if you pick Stone armor, and your character just looks like a regular spandex-wearing hero with no added effects, it just wouldn't make any sense, would it? "Why are you moving so slow, Rad Rockster?" "Oh, I have Granite Armor toggled on, you can't see it though." I know I'm the odd one out here, and I know the rebuttal is "but it's OPTIONAL, GastlyGibus! You don't HAVE to turn it off if you don't want to!" I get that, but even still, I just feel like if you're going to roll a set like Stone Armor, and your costume idea somehow doesn't include your character being covered in actual rocky formations, well, why are you rolling Stone armor then? Likewise, if I'm rolling Fiery Aura, and my concept doesn't involve me being engulfed in flames, what's the point? I'm not trying to be mean here, just throwing in my two cents. I get that it's silly to expect realism in a game with super-powered flying people in spandex, among other things, but having a Stone Armor character, or an Ice Armor character, or Fiery Aura, or any kind of powerset with active effects, and then taking away those special effects, seems kind of strange and immersion breaking to me.

I made a lobster. Wouldn't say it's my BEST design, but it's a character I'm really happy with, so I figured I'd share. Lobster Lenny, the Bio/Claws Tanker, coming to a team near you!

I'm gonna have to say no to this, I don't think it should be allowed. As others have said, this game is all about creating alts. Furthermore, for some players it can be a detriment. The whole point of leveling up at a steady pace is to learn all the ins and outs of your character; how the powersets work, what scenarios to use which powers in, how effective they are, etc... Being able to just respec into a completely different set throws all that learning out the window. Some folks might be really knowledgeable about how sets work, but others aren't. Even from me, having played this game since live and having rolled literally hundreds of different characters over that time, there are still power sets I've never even touched, and I have no idea how they function. If I were to respec my Trick Arrow defender, one of my main, most played characters that I know inside and out, and change him to, say, Thermal Radiation (a set I've never played) I'd be totally clueless and slot him all wrong, not to mention having all of my enhancements and IO sets rendered useless. It's why I've never powerlevelled any of my characters and why I always advise against it. The leveling process is there to help you learn your character. I was there on live to see the scourge of the AE babies, the new players who skipped straight to 50 and had no idea how to play their character. Even though a lot of us here are vets, there are still new people joining the servers who are just learning the ropes, and I'd really hate to see them accidentally ruin their character by switching to a totally different set. Just roll an alt. It's as simple as that.

I could be wrong on this, so any other users, feel free to correct me on this. From the way I understand it, the First Ward is a dead zone. Tyrant and Anti-Matter virtually nuked the whole place to contain the Devouring Earth, and killed most everything inside of it. As such, it's basically used as a form of exile for particularly troublesome individuals, or an escape for people trying to get away from Praetoria proper, not including the few people who managed to survive the initial destruction. The way I see it, it's basically like the Fallout world, if you've ever played the Fallout games. Everything is destroyed, and the only people left have formed their own little pockets of civilization, all just trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. There doesn't seem to be any way for them to go back to Praetoria even if they wanted to, and thus there's no real interest or concern from Tyrant to control the region like he does with his own city, so he's basically abandoned it and left it for dead. As such, the conflict of "Resistance versus Loyalists" doesn't really exist, because the Praetorian "government" doesn't really care about it. The D.U.S.T troopers use it for target practice, and the Mother of Mercy hospital is there to keep all the seers away from prying eyes. For the denizens there, it's a battle of survival. The Talons, the Carnival, the Compound, the Midnight Squad, and everyone else there are pretty much engaged in a never-ending turf war, fighting each other for food and resources. I imagine nobody there has a particular love for Emperor Cole, but given that First Ward is completely shut-out from the rest of Praetoria proper, it's not much of an issue to them. Like I said, imagine it like the Fallout series, like New Vegas in particular, where you've got the New California Republic, the Legion, Mr. House, etc, all just trying to survive in a wasteland.

All of my original screenshots were destroyed when my hard-drive got fried a couple years back, so I can feel the pain too. But I think I found a little workaround from a roleplaying perspective, at least for myself. I remade my original Tanker from live, Smash Zone, on homecoming, but I tweaked his costume a bit from what I remember making. Toned the colors back so they looked faded, made him look older, and I'm basically playing him as Smash Zone, but aged and pseudo-retired. I'm kind of playing him like Back Alley Brawler, as in he doesn't go out and save the day as much as he did, but he sticks around to show the new heroes around and teach them. Just an idea if you're into roleplaying with your characters. Maybe they're older and their costume has aged with them, or maybe someone new came along and took up the mantle ala Miles Morales from Spider-Man, so their "new" costume is altered slightly for their own wants. That's the way I'm handling it, at least.

I absolutely love it! Thank you so much! I took the costume and made a few little modifications of my own, and this is the final look.

So I'm here with another request. I would like to fall in love with my Beam Rifle/Time Blaster again. xD The theme I've got for him is he was a former member of the Praetorian Police force, and an avid tinkerer who was promoted to powers division after inventing a non-lethal beam rifle and a "temporal displacer" for his time powers. I have him on heroside now, level 35, Technology origin, and I just can't get a good look like I do with my other toons. I'm looking for a good "protector" kind of costume, if that makes sense. Something that would inspire a normal citizen, since that's kind of his whole schtick. I'm roleplaying him as having a difficult time reconciling his desire for peace and safety with the fact that his former dimension of Praetoria was basically an authoritarian dictatorship. If you need more info, I can gladly provide. This is his current costume, and it's not bad to me, but I'm struggling to come up with additional looks. Thanks again in advance!

For all of the (totally deserved) flak that the VEAT arcs get on redside, I always liked Jenkin's quote when you have to get the list from him. "Hey, it's [Player]! How's things going? Why are you looking at me like you want to beat me up?"