Projector

FWIW Even though I have no idea who they are, I have always liked playing with Arcane and think he/she/they are a solid person. 😄 I am confident in saying this because the number of people I find truly distasteful is staggeringly small, so the chances that Arcane is on that list is incredibly low. Oh, and if I ever happen across who you actually are in-game, I'm 100% sending you a middle finger trophy. It's too funny of an opportunity not to take.

I'm not trying to paint you as a "retard," nor would I ever use that word to address another person. I am only being thorough to make sure everyone understands, not just you, since our conversation is publicly visible. I also find that being thorough is a sign of respect as it shows I'm spending more time invested in this conversation and trying to reduce potential misunderstandings. Clearly I have failed since you both see it as obnoxious and have still misunderstood me, so to hell with that, then. I'll be brief: If you had indeed meant the word "free" the way I interpreted, the rest of the conversation would be be from a false premise. No point in carrying on a conversation in which we are not working from the same starting point, so I chose to engage with that, first. “are some costs and time sinks not acceptable, or, even, good?” Yes, some costs and time sinks are unacceptable and bad. Some being acceptable is not enough of a reason to keep any specific one. Removing unnecessary ones reduces friction in the player experience and I think addressing QOL issues like this helps keep players engaged and interested. I believe the cost of keeping unwanted powers a higher price to pay than I find that the reduced cost of replacing the power is a detriment, and I do think that such a change would improve player experience overall. I also agreed with your original suggestion to place limits on this, so making it a one-time or few-times thing would not be reducing the cost to near-zero within that framework.

Sure thing. First, if I believed time sinks were 100% inherently evil, I wouldn't choose to play any MMO. I can't quote within a quote, so here's what else you've asked me to respond to: "If it is so wrong to argue that maybe you shouldn’t get new Incarnate powers for free, I need to know why you don’t think the same about levels, IO’s, accolades, badges, temporary powers, prismatic aether costumes, etc. If my logic is so flawed, those all need to be free with zero time investment too, no?" Your logic is flawed, because the foundation of your entire point is not what OP, or anyone in this thread so far as I can tell, is asking for. The inherent cost of an incarnate rollback or respec would be that you lose the incarnates you had, not that you get additional things for free or no time investment. The workaround to getting incarnate components for "free" already exists via transferring unused emp merits from other toons on the same account, which still requires that toon to have gotten those merits in the first place. But there is no world in which the current or proposed systems would give incarnate powers to anyone "for free." You already invalidated both of our earlier arguments by claiming that mine wasn't compelling to you since we could find analogies for either side. If that invalidates my argument, logic would follow it would do the same to yours if we are acting in good faith. Now, your argument against this change is because of something this change wouldn't even give? Based on your wording, it seems like you are somehow mixing two ideas: 1. A respec which allows you to choose new Incarnate powers at the cost of old ones. 2. A respec which allows you to choose new Incarnate powers but also somehow lets you keep the ones you already made. #1 is what OP has requested. #2 is what people are turning this into by adding terminology like, "free." It's a disingenuous framing of the topic using inaccurate rhetoric. At least when I accidentally project my own assumption onto an argument, I have the excuse of it literally being my name. 😄 (That was meant as comic relief via play-on words, not as an insult, I promise!) ___________________________________ In case what I've said isn't clear, let's say I have Barrier Core Epiphany (T4) and want Ageless: Under the current system, to get Ageless Core Epiphany I only have 2 options: grind out the merits/threads on that toon or transfer them from another character on the same account that already got them, but hasn't used them. At the end, I would have both Barrier AND Ageless. The cost is my time and effort. With the respec feature, If I have Barrier Core Epiphany and want Ageless, I could use the limited rollback functionality to trade Barrier for Ageless. At the end of it, I would only have 1 of the 2 Destiny powers, not both. Instead of costing me my time, now the cost is losing what I had unless I choose to rebuild it. If I want both powers, I would still have to put in the work, just like before. I'm a player that runs T4 Incan Core, T4 Barrier Core, and T4 Ageless or Clarion on virtually every single 50 I make so that I'm always able to contribute when needed, and in both systems, I would still need to grind out everything I want, with the one difference being that I would no longer be punished for random mistakes nor for grinding them out on toons I end up disliking. If anything, this actually makes those emp merits we get through vet level 99 more meaningful because now I know for sure I can find at least one T4'd incarnate setup for my toon that I really like with the rewards that the devs are giving me for continuing to play my toon. In the current system, if I misclick, misread, or am otherwise uninformed, I am punished for it by having the components I worked for being gone forever, but the incarnate respec system would make those mistakes feel way less severe. I am failing miserably to understand how giving players opportunities to undo/remake choices they don't like is a bad idea or poor game design. Also, to address a different point you briefly mentioned: perhaps my sarcasm in my first post was a bit too far in what I implied about you or others opposed to such a change. I standby the overall examples, but I shouldn't have spoke condescendingly in giving them and I apologize for doing so.

Couldn't care less who you are in game versus forum, I'd give you the same snark. In fact, you'll probably get it even worse in Discord from me. Only difference is I'm slightly more "eloquent" in text because I have more time to think and edit versus the impulsivity of my cynicism via voice chat. Voltor losing his shit over something is far from an acceptable bar to set when demonstrating whether or not a change is worthwhile. But based on your seemingly random reference to him, I can safely assume we have played together, if not actively play together currently. I never said these things were a waste of time, at least not objectively. Subjectively, yes, it does suck to want to do something different with the people you play with and have to spend so long getting setup, but I don't consider it a "waste" of time, moreso just how I chose to spend that time, but if I could accomplish the same goals while spending that time doing other, more meaningful things, than great. And people using the "that's what the test server" is for--I guarantee you coding an incarnate rollback is way easier than shifting the culture in such a way that would regularly allow for things like iTrials to happen meaningfully on the test server. Most people don't want to spend their time doing something when the reward for it can't even be meaningfully used because it's stuck on the test server. Lord knows with my luck I'd get nothing but VRs on test server iTrials and nothing but commons on Excelsior. By the way, where's the concern for all those players that spent all that time building out incarnates and everything only to discover their toon is still weak or just not fun to play? There's a remedy for enhancements in that I can strip a toon of its enhancements and save a billion influence to pass on to another toon, but no such remedy for all the hours sunk into grinding incarnates. How is that honoring the hours that were put in? The line of convenience is always going to be entirely speculative, as well, and I see nothing wrong with adding convenience when the path do things the "hard" or "long way" still exists and is available for those that want to do it. They added double exp for those that don't value low-level content or play, and they added "disable exp" for those that value low-level content and exploring those story arcs, and neither really suffers all that much. You want to travel the long way? Don't use travel powers, Ouro, the Train, Ferry, or Long-Range Teleporter, or SG Bases. You want to play without respecs? Roll a new toon every time you want to use different powers or change slotting. Yet all those conveniences do nothing to curb the internal rage I feel when I have to click an elevator door 1,500 times just to go to the next floor (IYKYK) You may not find my argument compelling, but historically in society, the debate between "the way things were" and "the way things could be" has always strongly trended one way. Sometimes we've come out better for it, other times we've come out worse for it. That said, I do not find your argument compelling that adding a limited incarnate rollback function somehow invalidates those who prefer to get their incarnates the old-fashioned way or those who already have invested that time, and in my opinion, I find such a feature a greater act of respect toward those who have, and an acknowledgement that the old method wasn't good enough. In my opinion, the strongest argument against incarnate rollbacks would be the potential for a decrease in incarnate-based content being run when you don't have to grind out so much content. In smaller shards, I could see that being a real issue where getting enough people together to run larger-scale content is already problematic, but I have no data to back up what is only a concern. But the only position I've really seen communicated by anyone in this thread opposing the idea is some odd fascination with having their past efforts validated, but maybe we can fix that with a badge called "10,000 Hours" that says, "I got all my incarnates the long way" and players lose the badge if they use the rollback feature. Or, if this change were to actually happen, DM me and I will personally buy you an custom engraved trophy that you can display at home to show everyone who enters how much time you spent grinding out incarnate components, but be forewarned, the trophy itself will just be a middle finger.

I think frequency limits, or even the way to access the incarnate respec being limited would be good boundaries. The influence cost is "meh." What I disagree with is the "middle finger to veteran players." As a veteran player, I don't feel that I would be getting a middle finger if suddenly they made incarnate respecs possible. If anything, I would feel they are honoring my future time, instead of costing me future time because of some weird desire to honor my past. Cars are more convenient, faster, and all-around better than horse-drawn carriage, but it's too bad we couldn't have cars because the horse-drawn carriage people would have their fee-fees hurt. The best way to honor our investments of the past is to make the future better and easier. That's what progress is. And I for one would be far more motivated to play other toons. Legitimately, if I'm out of emp merits on a toon and need to craft a new Destiny for whatever reason, it's arguably faster to just farm up a brand new toon with the same powersets than it is to roll the dice on reward tables by grinding out iTrials and the Heather Townsend arc. In a pinch though? Doing an incarnate rollback every so often would actually solve a major issue, AND it would make Star content even more accessible to people, as I have newbies show up wanting to learn all the time who don't have the right incarnates and cannot craft them. They didn't know for whatever reason, and they are punished for it. My time means much more to me as I get older, so while in the past, I wouldn't mind investing so much time and it wouldn't bother me, now it starts to, and I feel the cost more and more. Especially with issues like Carpal/Cubital tunnel. But you best believe I'm dreading making incarnates and doing accolades for the 4 new toons I just made because a group of my friends are wanting to test/try a few things. Yet those friendships mean enough to me that they currently win out over the time cost, but if I could have the time with those friends while minimizing the time spent getting to that point? Oh what a dream. If I could roll back a toon that has sat unplayed for 4 years and could move those emp merits to a new one? Hell. Yes. That would be INCREDIBLE. Give me more time to play the content I actually enjoy with my friends so that I have to spend less time grinding rewards to be able to. The Accolade investment on it's own is roughly a 5- or 6-hour investment per character without a team. 2 hours for Sheer Willpower (if someone already has Mark & Recall, and you arena between TFs to reset its cooldown) 20 minutes for Invader 2 hours for High Pain Threshold/Demonic 30-40 minutes for Born in Battle IF you have Trapdoor plus at least 2 slotted healers 60-90 minutes for Mark & Recall, and that's if you do the tip missions really optimally and have the Monitor Duty Teleporter 60-90 minutes for GEAS if you get lucky with zone events, have a team of at least 2, someone has the TF unlocked, people have the Tank Summon from START Vendor, AND someone has Mark & Recall. If done optimally, Katie is done in 10-12 minutes. It's rarely done optimally. So yeah, I gladly welcome that middle finger. Hell, I hope the devs put a bow on it when they give it to me, and I will receive it as the wonderful gift that it is. But please, by all means, go on about how "back in your day you had to walk 5 miles through 20 feet of snow uphill to get to school--both ways."

Just to clarify, if you want the bind to aim at your cursor, it should be "powexeclocation cursor" and if you want it to aim at your target, it should be "powexeclocation target" So, Cursor and Target should never be in the same bind.

Oh! My bad, I just assumed flight would be more forgiving since I didn't know any context. then in the build I gave you, swap out the Flight pool. Take Combat Jumping instead of Hover, Take the two slots from Flight and put them in SS so you can 3-slot the Thrust set in it for more movement speed, and then make sure you set them all to minimal FX at the tailor for max realism 😄. Then instead of Evasive Maneuvers, you can take Maneuvers on it's own. I did make another build for you though that would be closer to what I would use with this toon. One thing that I thought would be a lot of fun to try, though not sure how effective it would be: Pop 2-3 purple inspirations and a break free (unless you don't expect any mezz protection), jump in between a couple mobs, pop Disruption Arrow and Glue Arrow down at your feet, then hit Fold Space > Rain of Arrows > Acid Arrow > Explosive Arrow. I imagine it would be super satisfying in something like a Kill Most ITF. Acid Arrow should land before RoA hits, so you should get the full benefit still, and Glue Arrow will ensure they can't get away from you in time. I also use a number of binds to make TP way more usable. I'll share them here, but you can assign them to whatever key you want. Just change out the letter after "/bind" and replace it with whatever key you want to bind it to. /bind z powexeclocation cursor teleport /bind v powexeclocation target teleport /bind g powexeclocation cursor combat teleport /bind c powexeclocation self combat teleport /bind b powexeclocation target combat teleport The combat TP to self is super useful because Combat TP gives tohit with like 0 animation time, so you can quickly stack 3 combat TPs in place and boost your tohit even more, and the TP to cursor is super helpful to get through blocked doors or TP quickly down hallways. I know a lot of people use macros for location-based AoE powers, but I don't like using macros for them since I can't monitor their cooldowns like other powers, so for powers like Rain of Arrows, Glue Arrow, Oil Slick Arrow, etc, I will put them where I want them on my trays and then rebind the key to "powexeclocation target." That kind of bind will make location based AoE powers work the same way powers like Fire Ball or Ball Lightning do. The only time to be careful of this is that it won't work while targeting through a teammate, so if I try to use a bind like that on Rain of Arrows while targeting through a teammate near me, I'll just fire Rain of Arrows on my teammate instead of the enemies. Here are some examples: I usually keep Rain of Arrows or whatever nuke I have in Tray 2 slot 1, which is alt+1. So, I would bind it as /bind alt+1 powexeclocation target Rain of Arrows If done right, you'll see the number under that tray slot disappear since since a specific power is now bound to that key instead of that tray slot. Disruption Arrow: /bind KEY powexeclocation target disruption arrow Oil slick arrow: /bind KEY powexeclocation target oil slick arrow Glue Arrow: /bind KEY powexeclocation target Glue Arrow You can also use your cursor to still aim them, just change "target" in those binds to "cursor" and it will aim wherever your cursor is when you hit the bind. The downside to this method is that in fights I use a mix of clicking powers and using my keyboard, so often times my cursor is down at my power tray. That's why I use Target instead of Cursor for these powers. To anyone else reading this who may ask--yes, you can use these binds for any location-based AoE -- Rain of Fire, Shield Charge, Blizzard, Lightning Rod, Ice Storm, Sleet, etc Trick Arrow - Archery Defender (more aggro).mbd

I've attached the kind of build that helped me out when I was learning the game. It's going to be very forgiving for being poorly positioned or overextending yourself. As you get more used to the game, your powers, and how to play your AT effectively, you'll likely want to respec out of things like the Fighting Pool. You shouldn't need all the survivability from the toggles when you learn how to use positioning, line of sight, and inspirations to your advantage. I'm at a point now where I go full aggro on my builds and just carry a bunch of purple and blue inspirations with me if I need them lol. Note that builds like this are expensive, but it has a lot of built-in survivability. You'll still want to pop a purple or some orange inspirations on occasion or if you're up against a lot of different damage types, but this will help you a lot more. Ageless Core Epiphany for the Destiny Incarnate slot will cover your endurance issues, but another option might be to go Barrier if you want more survivability in the moment and run Musculature Radial or Cardiac Core for your Alpha. I will say, you're playing a Defender, which has low damage already, and you're playing archery, which is also low damage. So you're always going to feel low on damage here. The Corruptor route would have been the stronger option, for future reference. I also gave you flight and Super Speed so you can explore a couple of different ways to travel. Personally, I always go Super Speed and Teleport, because you can always get a jetpack from the START Vendor, but the Flight will definitely help you keep enemies at range. That being said, before you get Ageless built, I really don't have much of an idea on how this will treat your endurance, so pick up some Recovery Serums from the START Vendor to help as well! The ideal opener on new mobs would be launch Rain of Arrows and immediately after activate it, use Explosive Arrow. The delay will ensure that Explosive Arrow keeps people in the full damage duration of Rain of Arrows. And you have Burnout to do it again immediately (though burnout has an 8-10 min CD). Rain of Arrows is the most important power in Archery and is the source of most of your damage. Learning how to use Acid Arrow and Disruption Arrow to maximize your damage output is massive, too. Try different combos of attack chains and see if there's a safe way for you to land both powers before even using Rain of Arrows, as it will REALLY hit hard once you have their resistance and regen debuffed to hell 😄 Ice Arrow is going to hit hard, but also has a good debuff element to it, as does Acid Arrow. Those two will help your damage output significantly. If you're soloing a lot, I would also recommend picking up Envenomed Daggers from the START Vendor as well. I take those on every single toon I make. If you need some influence to get you started, email me in-game: @Project0r . I suck at checking forums, so I may not see your response here in a timely manner lol Happy Day-saving! Defender (Trick Arrow - Archery).mbd

Super Strength is going to be your best bet for the Tank skin, seeing as Tank Smashers already use Hand Clap. Electric Melee could be interesting too, with Lightning Rod almost looking like you are charging up all your cybernetics to unleash a surge of electricity all around you. As for the Rikti Tank, I would probably go for a weapon build like a Broad Sword, Battle Axe, or Titan Weapons. I'm pretty sure there's a Rikti sword in the customized weapons part of the costume creator, so you can check each one til you find a weapon that you think would work with the Rikti skin you want to use. If not, going for a diff AT and doing something like Psi Blast, Mind Control, etc. Could be interesting too. Or Psi Melee might work, but I have a feeling some of the animations will still look goofy with the RIkti skin.

Incredi-brawl

Thank you! I believe in integrity in my challenges, so the only concessions I made were ones I genuinely felt I needed to, and I made sure to list those concessions out specifically. I am pretty sure the only auto power I took was the alpha and only because I needed the level shift 😄

IF anyone has T4 barrier on any toon, regardless of build, I will be happy to bring you on a 4Star. Depending on your power sets, I may ask you not to use certain things at certain times because some powers can cause a failure of certain objectives outright, such as uncontrollable pets, but otherwise, anyone is welcome. 🙂 Just hit me up. Also happy to invite anyone to my public discord where I usually schedule and host runs throughout the week. And yes, you can even bring a Sentinel 😉

Except the meta runs already include Clarion and Incandescence, and the Barrierless runs I just referenced use Rebirth and even Ageless Radial. KM 4Star ITF runs sometimes use Ageless Radial. Meta Aeon runs swap to Clarion Radial during the last mission for the range boost, and Corrupted runs, which are a type of run where you only use Corruptors, Tanks/Scrapper-tank, and Blasters, but don't allow Kin, Nature, or Cold, utilize Ageless Core as well. Not really sure what you're looking for at this point, because if your issue is cookie cutter teams that all use Barrier, I've just given you a ton of examples that didn't use barrier, have varying ATs, with even a widow tanking instead of a tank, and hell, I've tanked it with a toggle-less tank that only uses Brawl. And any change that would make "bigger defense and to hit numbers" irrelevant would be a change that would likely affect full 8-man teams. Regardless, it's been consistently true throughout the majority of this game's history as far as I know that the smaller you make the teams, the more restrictive the team comps get. That even applies to iTrials (for some master of attempts). You say they are Charity ATs...but with the way the game is designed makes it so that in your scenario, the stuff that is currently considered meta would only be even stronger. One example: the reason we don't need Dominators or Controllers in Lady Grey is because every AT has access to holds, and it's just a fact that other ATs also offer more damage. In LGTF, if you hold Dragon, his stats drop considerably. Turns out though, that it's just faster to DPS him outright than it is to try and keep him held the entire fight. The DPS you lose trying to keep him held is worse than the reduced DPS you do when he isn't held. Same is true in ITF--if you hold the Emerald barrier nova, it becomes unkillable and Romulus' Regen drops to 0, making him easier and quicker to kill....except that you lose more investing resources in trying to keep that nova held than you do by just, again, outright DPSing and debuffing Romulus manually. The mechanics exist to do everything you're describing and to open up and encourage different strategies...the issue you moreso have is that most people don't want to spend hours doing one thing when they could spend one hour doing multiple things...so the speedier tactics seem to win the day when it comes to hard mode content, and as someone who leads them regularly and teaches people them constantly, I am in that camp. Leading these things is straight up exhausting, and doubling or tripling the amount of time I have to spend leading them is a prospect I dread lol The problem is moreso in how the power sets have been developed and how the proliferation via patron/epic pools impact that as well. As I said, you can basically do whatever you want. Just have to be creative with the team.

@Rudra is correct. Making the teams smaller would only further limit which ATs and powersets get brought. It's also worth pointing out that you can currently do any of the 4Star content any way you want, so long as you are hitting certain stat minimums regularly. I've seen teams of all Dominators complete 4Star ITF, all Masterminds complete Aeon and LGTF, and I know of one group that has done Barrierless runs of LGTF, Aeon, and ITF, and each with less than 10 deaths. The LGTF was 30:11 with only 1 death, the ASF was 52:54 with 4 deaths. The comp even includes a Dark Miasma Controller (because of Fade + debuffs). Also, the only deathless LGTF I am aware of was done with all Defenders. I've completed 4Star TFs with 6 people because of DCs, as well. It just largely depend on which roles DC lol. Honestly, if I have 6 Meta characters on the team, I can bring literally whatever for the last two slots and it would be exactly the same, just slower. That's really the only difference the added challenges give: It's slower. If you want to challenge yourself further in hard mode content, the means to do so are already there, you just have to dream up some crazy team comps. Happy to help you with defense/resist thresholds if you need! Proof of barrierless LGTF and Aeon is below, names blurred out for obvious reasons. The Widow was also the tank for both runs. If you want to do something different, no one is stopping you, just like no one stopped these teams 🙂

And then there’s me 🙂