Parabola

Years ago I suggested something similar. Buffs to enemies that scaled to the number of players in the team (rather than the x setting). This was before hard mode appeared on the scene and I still prefer my solution. It didn't go down very well with the masses if I remember correctly though! I wanted to link it to buffs to the drop rates of recipes and salvage when in larger teams to close the gap with how lucrative it is to solo against hordes of mooks.

How about we ask for additional 'jetpack' variants that fit origins other than tech/natural better. Maybe a magic one could simply have the full mystic flight fx always on or have the character hold a wand or something. A mutation one could maybe force a pair of wings on the character (replacing anything they currently have in the back slot). That way the niche of real flight powers is protected but the utility of temp power flight is a little more available to characters of other origins. As it stands we have the unbalanced situation where freeish flight is available but if I am planning to use it I feel steered towards certain origins. End cost and fx aren't the only limitations of jetpack flight by the way. It's slower (no afterburner) and you lose out on the ability to slot it. When I have created characters that rely on it I've had to burn a slot elsewhere to get a winter's gift slow resist into the build.

Trolling in other words. Luckily the ignore function exists.

I think what you're asking is why do people slot set ios with recharge enhancement values in toggle powers? The answer is for the set bonuses. The recharge enhancement is almost entirely wasted in an always on toggle but bonuses are so powerful it's worth the trade off. In many cases it's also worth accepting a few % off the primary attribute enhancement too for the same reason (often this will only equate to a fractional drop in output value). What set or mixture of sets you want to slot depends on what bonuses are most useful to your build. When you look at builds others have made pay attention to the bonuses they are chasing to see how it fits into the overall picture.

Death mages and carnies summoning dark servants are two that immediately come to mind.

The real point of focused accuracy is tohit debuff resistance (and perception debuff resistance to a lesser extent). Even double stacked rage with all the accuracy bonuses in the world can't always punch through some of the serious debuffs that fly around in the endgame. I build all my tanks to hit +4s (+3 with the alpha shift) without it but I always take focused accuracy as well. I could maybe see the argument that Inv/SS is so uniquely well equipped with tohit buffs that it may be a special case though (and besides Inv is the kind of set that probably doesn't actually suffer too much from a period of complete stalemate - I personally never play it for more or less that very reason; not active enough).

The randomness of converters has the effect of incentivising market use. It is far more efficient to convert into anything with market value, sell that, and use the proceeds to buy what you specifically need. This increases supply overall and I'd be surprised if the Devs decided to mess with it.

We have two powersets for a reason. Ultimately the only way to progress anything in this game is defeating bad guys, and that involves doing damage. Any team member who doesn't contribute to this isn't pulling all the weight they could. There is no buff/debuff/control set that is so active that there is no time for contributing to damage output and force fields certainly doesn't require that kind of input. Play how you want to play but keep your nonsense 'one true wayism' to yourself.

This is going to be a bit anecdotal so apologies for that but the new version of Dominate Will seems badly out of synch. The character animation may be reduced but the projectile is incredibly slow and has a significant delay before it even leaves the character. The overall effect is to create the feel of a much slower power. On paper Mental Blast is the slower power but it plays far quicker. I'm also not sure the enemy alerting is synched up correctly, they seem to be alerting well before the projectile has arrived (or even left), even at shortish ranges (I wasn't aware of experiencing any significant lag while playing with this). This was on a blaster in case the other versions are different.

Don't worry, the choice in this game can be a bit overwhelming. I sometimes wonder if actually playing the game is just filler between time spent obsessively tinkering with builds in mids. A few pieces of advice: This game is balanced well enough that there really is no one best answer (which is equal parts really good thing and infuriating!) The best AT and powerset combo will vary wildly from situation to situation and for the most part even powersets that are commonly recognized as being underperforming are not all that far behind. Tests such as pylons and trapdoor are interesting metrics but they really only test how well a character is suited to pylons and trapdoor. I wouldn't try taking any pylon build I've seen out in the 'real world' as they sacrifice so much durability in the pursuit of dps. Similarly the melee testing threads are interesting information but they only tell you how the powersets perform with those builds, that driver and with a baseline secondary. Builds vary, playstyles vary and synergies between powersets can be exploited to change performance greatly. A word on tanks. Tanks in this game aren't like tanks in other games. They do damage. In many cases an awful lot of damage. In fact they solo extraordinarily well and would be my 'first character' recommendation to any new player looking for a forgiving way to learn the ropes. That said there is one small caveat. Tanking in teams isn't generally all that tricky but it does tend to come with a certain level of expectation. It might not be much more than 'be willing to throw yourself at the enemy first' but it is there. I play many tanks but I generally prefer to solo them, if I want to team I jump on something else where I can be quietly lost without it being too obvious! And, finally, this game is built for alting. I have tried many times to pin down a 'main' character who I would rack up the hours and badges on but in the end something else will always catch my eye and off I go. We have basically limitless character slots and as you've seen, a vast number of AT and powerset combinations to explore. I really would advise trying to not get too hung up on wanting any individual character to be the be all and end all. Nothing can do it all, it's both a blessing and a curse!

Yeah fair point. I kind of agree about where 'the game' is. I still wouldn't actually slot for it though!

Huh ... interesting. Presumably the power is flagged to ignore accuracy so maybe not? But then again what on earth is the mechanism for a proc to make a to-hit check entirely independently of their host power? Is it affected by global accuracy and to-hit bonuses I wonder?

It wouldn't do anything - beta decay is auto hit. Hence the change they made.

In general defence debuff isn't considered hugely worth slotting for. Most people build with plenty of accuracy and to-hit for normal situations, and in teams there is often some tactics running somewhere. For those situations where defence debuff might be considered useful, enemy pops a tier 9 for example, you would need so much defence debuff to make a dent that it's not really practical. I'd consider whether those slots could be more gainfully used elsewhere. My default beta decay slotting is simply an Achilles heel proc in the base slot.

26 these days but agreed with your whole post. Claws is the scrapper set as far as I'm concerned. Great aoe, great single target. It has the most natural home for critical strikes of any set I've tried on a scrapper too.

Both Bio and Rad really love recharge to cycle their healing/absorb/regen/proc bomb powers more often. Rad does provide a bit of its own but Bio is entirely dependent on what can be provided from elsewhere. Fire Melee doesn't give you any slots for FF+rech so of the two I'd probably lean more towards Rad for this pairing. Martial Arts would be a great pairing for Bio (although it would also complement Rad) - in fact I'm currently looking at rolling a Bio/MA myself. In general I think Rad is the sturdier of the two outside of really high recharge builds (Bio can be seriously tough when you get the tier 9 up more than it's down). In terms of fun I like them both - I like having active mitigation. Overall I probably favour Bio as it has more buttons to click and it does more weird and interesting things, but I always pair it with powersets that I can stuff FF procs into.

Try running hover and fly at the same time.

I've had a go at what this combo might look like if I built it. It's soft capped to ranged (more or less) and with 5 force feedback procs (all the empty slots) it should recharge plenty fast enough too. Not sure what I'd do with the last two power picks - they'd need to be one slot wonders.

Well that looks pretty conclusive to me, thanks so much. Good news for powers such as carrion creepers that love both recharge and procs.

Most (all?) pet summon powers can be slotted with recharge but the pets attack powers are coded to ignore recharge to stop the AI derping out. So my question is does recharge slotted in a pet summon also get ignored by the pet powers when they check for proc chances?

I've said this before but this is exactly the kind of commentary I think should be released when changes first hit beta. Yes, there are now going to be arguments about the commentary rather than the changes themselves, but having some context for the changes is just so useful. Thanks for taking the time.

Is this a dual box question? If so seriously consider making the support character a mastermind. That way you can have reasonably hands off support and more offence in a single package.

Bio/stone is excellent, probably my favourite toon. I'm currently levelling a bio/ss which is good but a bit more awkward due to feeling forced into the fighting pool early for cross punch. Boy does it do damage though! Both sets synergise well with bio. Basically anything that can slot ff procs in aoes is a winner. I've looked at /stj a few times for another bio pairing but have always felt a bit disappointed in the single target damage given that's supposed to be a strength of the set. That might just be an on paper problem though and I'm sure I'll level one at some point. A further mention for /stone. Bio loves two things: recharge and control. The clickies need to be recycled as fast as possible and then given enough breathing room for the regeneration to work. The combination of aoe knock-downs and stun is hard to beat for this. Mine is built all out for damage, proc'd to the gills, and is still highly survivable because of this. Also having a mag 4 fast activating hold is just awesome. It can solve so many problems.

Very excited to have a play with AR and Psychic Blast - I have concepts that have been waiting for those revamps for a very long time :). If we're looking at Dark Blast would it be possible to give some attention to the way the cones line up?

I run the hollows arcs on every new alt. I consider it a rite of passage of sorts and you get a couple of badges, a load of merits and you open up the cavern of transcendence trial. I also love the old school vibes of the place. I only wish perez park had similar content.