Parabola

Stalker because assassin's strike replaces the laughably misnamed 'greater' ice sword. Ice armour is thematic and good on stalkers too.

The bonuses are not evenly distributed. As a rule positional defences tend to be the 5th or 6th set bonus and so favour 'full set' builds. Typed defences are often available with lower investment (kinetic combat at 4 slots, eradication at 3 for example) and so are easier to fit in around other priorities like procs. On the resistance side certain types are a lot easier to build up than others. You can pick up a fair amount of s/l resistance from set bonuses you pass on the way to something more interesting (and tough of course), and you get a big chunk of f/c from purple and winter sets. Psy res can also be built up pretty effectively with 5 impervium armours (that 6% io is not unique) and other bonuses. E/n is more difficult to build up though and toxic similarly. So it really comes down to what gaps you are trying to plug. On the defence side tanks have such high modifiers I rarely feel the need to build for defence on a defence armour. So I'm generally more interested in adding resistance to both resistance and defence sets. Then it comes down to gaps; one of the things that makes radiation armour so strong in my eyes is the way it dovetails so well with the io system. It needs some s/l res added and the psy hole plugging, both of which are easily achievable and then you are left with a cold hole that is rarely an issue.

I solo pretty much all the time so in theory I could split my time evenly between the factions right? Nope; blueside, all the time. Every now and again I try redside thinking I'm missing out and I never stay long. I don't like the zones, or the enemies, or find the content any more engaging than blueside. I suspect that part of the problem is that heroing is reactive and so fits the medium, villainy is supposed to be proactive but you can't do that with pre-written content. So basically you end up doing missions that are almost indistinguishable from blueside missions but with a grimy coat of paint. I'm not sure there actually is anything that could be done that would encourage me to visit redside more often. Certainly without ruining it for people that like it the way it is. If the redside AT's hadn't been brought over I probably would dabble a little more but as it stands there's not much to draw me to it.

Because this is an incentive to balance the load on the shards and everlasting and torchbearer are presumably more popular than reunion or indomitable.

I'll be honest, I'm surprised it took this long for a 'not playing if ncsoft are involved' post. I don't agree with the thinking but I was expecting to see more of it. Anyway, congratulations to all involved. Looking forward to the upcoming release and all future developments!

If you are interested in teaming to learn the ropes I'd go for a ranged damage dealer so you can watch how other players perform their roles from relative safety and with little expectation. Blaster if you want to live by the seat of your pants, sentinel if not, or maybe corruptor if you want a more involved team role. If you want to solo then I'd recommend pretty much any of the melee archetypes. Tanks sound like they are a teaming only option but they are very strong in just about every area of the game and are forgiving while learning. Be aware that taking them into teams can come with an expectation of role fulfilment though. The only archetypes that come with something of a warning label for newcomers are masterminds, controllers and dominators. Pets can result in unwanted aggro (attracting more foes than the group can handle) and certain control powers can upset teammates if used indiscriminately. All the archetypes are great though so the best advice is to play the thing that you most like the look of.

Moar powerset revamps please 🙂. In terms of return on effort it must be the most efficient thing to do. I am perfectly happy to replay all the old content on a bunch of new or rerolled characters. The revamps to stone armour and melee spawned the better part of a dozen characters and months of play.

I admire the dedication necessary to level fire/fire to 50 on all four melee AT's. That's a lot of crossover. Bit sad to see the demons/thermal is the only one not to make it to high levels, out of all those listed that's the combo I find the most fun. Earth is another element you could try. You might need to get creative with a buff/debuff set though.

All the story arcs are available via the flashback system in ouroboros. Between that and trials/task forces where you are automatically exemped, most of the content you'd actually want to play is available to go back to. If you really want to experience all content 'at level' then the trick is to turn off xp at every level that ends in a 4 or a 9 (4, 9, 14, 19, 24, etc.) and keep talking to contacts until they are exhausted. Be aware that there are a lot of missions that could be described as filler, things like hunts, particularly blueside. I've started several 'do everything at level blueside' runs but never completed it. Trying to run all the story arcs via flashback is more doable and frankly more fun (and profitable in terms of merits).

I only take something other than fly if I can't afford the extra power pool. I have a couple of characters who are so tight on powers they have to live without a travel power altogether and they have been designed to look ok with the generic jetpack. Flight is convenient, fast enough, and just feels right in the game.

After a bit of futzing around this just about works, thanks. For anyone that's interested I had to install a new browser that allows extensions (kiwi on android), and then the dark reader extension. The settings that seem to work are theme: light and mode: static. The forum looks ugly and runs badly but it displays as black text on white.

Hey @Cipher, It's basically as I say, white text on a dark background is headache fuel. Googling it people talk about a blurring effect called halation, and also that it's particularly bad if you have astigmatism which fits as I do in one eye. Unfortunately I also get migraines and this is a definite trigger. Sadly I don't know of anything that helps other than rendering websites and documents in dark text on a light background... I have resorted to copying into blank word docs before but that's not really practical for a forum.

Without wishing to be 'that guy' I hope this is being looked into? I'd like to join in the current excitement but I can't comfortably use this website without the light theme (white text on a dark background is a headache trigger).

The light theme seems to have disappeared?

I remember back in the day joining a pug on a rad/something defender. I was promptly told by the team leader something to the effect of: 'couldn't find a real healer, you'll have to do, put your aura on auto and don't use any of your other pointless powers'. Ah, great days. *Wipes away a tear of misty eyed nostalgia*

Check out stilettos with the bio-organic pattern. With the right colouring they flow very nicely into the metal bottom pattern.

Or Barbie has been added to a banned words list and you got caught in a sweep?

And clear communication has the same value everywhere.

That's not the problem. People are having trouble with the op because you've left out the words that would make it read as a suggestion rather than a statement: Taunts do illusion damage that heal over a set time. This is a statement, and a factually incorrect one in the current game. I suggest we add illusory damage to taunts. This is now a suggestion.

Early levels on a /dark can be a little rough because you are hurting for recharge to get your important powers available for each spawn. But once you can get tar patch and fearsome stare up often enough it should become a breeze. The tactic is fairly simple: apply darkest night to something and retreat around a corner. Drop tar patch where you stand and wait for the mobs to group up in it. Step out and fearsome stare them, then attack with everything else. Rinse and repeat for most of the game. Defences are good to have but you can do enough tohit debuff that you should be able to handle mobs that aren't too much over your level.

Elec/dark corruptor would work very well. Toggle pull into tarpatch, fearsome stare and then drain both health and stamina. Should be very safe and will look great.

Aoes: The golden rule of course is to build and play in the way that suits you. A lack of aoe is an absolute deal breaker for me with any archetype and any build. Aoes do tend to have longer cast times than single target powers (and greater end costs, lower damage etc). But of course they can hit multiple targets so the damage per animation (dpa which is the most important measurement of power performance in the game) is actually higher as long as you are targeting a group. 6 slotting: Yeah the powers that jump out are tactics and the defensive toggles. Luck of the gambler for example is a great set but a blaster has very little to gain by 6 slotting it. The defence enhancement is nearly capped with just three pieces (def/end, def, def/+rech) and the later set bonuses aren't really worth it when you aren't stacking a lot of resistance. With both defence and resistance the more you have the more useful adding extra is up to the caps. Blasters start with nothing so they are well advised to focus their efforts narrowly on one or two things, generally ranged defence or s/l defence. Accuracy: The highest chance to hit that you can have while making any attack is 95%. There is always at least a 5% chance to miss. The general wisdom is to build with the goal of achieving this 95% against +3 enemies. This is because the alpha shift means that in level 45+ play you won't fight mobs over +3 (hard modes may be different(?) but you would be teamed for that), and at lower levels you generally don't crank the difficulty up anyway. In the options of mids there is a setting for relative enemy level, set that to +3 and then look at the accuracies of your powers. Anything over 95% is accurate enough for most content. I'm running out of time for the rest of it. I'll try to post a build a bit later to show you how I'd go about all this. Are you absolutely set on ice manipulation? It really is a very blappy secondary and other sets offer more if you are playing entirely at range.

A few thoughts: No aoe apart from blizzard?! Lots of six slotted support powers that aren't gaining you much. Way overboard on accuracy. Blasters are generally 'full attack set' type builds and so tend to have plenty of both slotted and global accuracy. I can't see what tactics is gaining you. Once you take vengeance out (which I'd drop altogether as it's the poster child for situational powers) defences are unfocused and lacking. Get ranged to the softcap, then whatever s/l you can muster, or just build for s/l. I don't see the steadfast protection proc anywhere which would help. I'd drop victory rush and slot some end mod in frigid protection, then remove all the extra slots in health and stamina. Blaster sustain powers are so powerful that's all the end you'll ever need. Freezing touch, ice patch and frozen aura are all good powers to consider but if you are going ranged only then they may be more situational. That said if you aren't completely set on theme and are determined to play only at range then other secondary power sets might have more to offer. Tac arrow is very good at range. Hasten isn't mandatory but it would certainly help to cycle your big hitters quicker.

Don't completely discount the idea of building for ranged defence on a squishy that plays in melee a lot. Particularly one that is running a slow field (not to mention the avoid effects). Melee attacks are very short range and you will in all likelihood be kiting a lot, even small movements (which you should probably be constantly making) will force enemies to use their ranged attacks. Ranged defence will also protect against quite a bit of Mez and it's a lot easier (and cheaper) to build for on a blaster.

Grav/traps troller? Maybe with quite a bit of the fighting pool (and a lot of imagination!).