InvaderStych

Completely unnecessary, and just asking for trouble; when I run Numina I just keep the list open in another tab, when we get to that point I'll call out to leap-frog and list off the order of the zones. Enough of the team will start calling their zones, and those who are unfamiliar pick up upon what's going on basically immediately. OMFG! So Much This. Telling People What To Do =/= Leadership. Disseminating instructions is often part of leadership, but that is not the same thing as "Telling People What To Do." Wait, acting like a sentient entity that can interact successfully with other sentient entities? Perish the thought. 🤣 In all honesty, this is what I see when I play. I've rarely run into anyone who acts as some of the more intolerant in this thread have described, and I cannot think of a single one of those instances I'd attribute to anything other than a player not knowing they were about to click on what will become a big can o-whoop-ass before the team was ready for it to appear. I have, probably literally, never run into someone who's joined a team just to mess up someone else's day by splitting, stealthing, or "showing-off." Communication is Key. Communication is Your Friend. Communicate the type of "Run" you are leading to your team at a minimum; get more specific as needed.

This bears repeating. Twice.

Are we sure you weren't already on it? Maybe I should have spoke up yesterday in the "Never Have I..." thread with what I really thought of that "humble-brag all the stuff I don't do because I dissapprove of it, but I'm really not an elitist." post and I could have skipped this whole process this morning. 🤣

Yup. I'm the kind who uses the word "Blueside." Who doesn't judge people as morally inferior because they like to play "Redside." Who actually communicates on teams and can adapt to the situation at hand. You know, if an objective can be ninja'd and I've recruited a ninja, I'll ask them to go ninja that glowie. Or when the ITF PUG is running around like headless ground fowl and straggler's are dying left and right, I'll kick it in the main intersection of the cyst room so all those stray ambushes don't make things worse for the players who are struggling to keep pace with the cyst smashers. Or when my team is steamrolling and we've got a defeat all with forks, I'll tell my team to split. If we're struggling, I'll instruct people to stick together. But what I don't do is come to the forums with an elitist attitude about the way others play, then claim in a thread that I've never been an elitist immediately after humble-brag-listing all the stuff I've "never done" that I look down upon that others enjoy doing in game. Yeah, we definitely would not get along in game, and that suits me just fine. 🍻

Please add me to both your Ignore and your Do Not Team With lists immediately. Thank you.

This. I've also never played a Controller.

When I'm waxing nostalgic I go here: https://alt.org/nethack/ I've tried the mobile version, but I'm too clumsy with phone games for something with so many keyboard commands. The web-terminal is perfect though.

Not a quote per se, but feels in the spirit of the thread ...

There are not enough likes available for this paragraph. Or this one.

My personal take on Combat Teleport: I've since cleaned up my act a bit. Mouse4 is still my default for CT to Target. On toons with a tele-nuke (Burst of Speed, Savage Leap), that goes onto Mouse5. I'll have to adjust that if I end up with CT on the Elec/SD stalker, which has 2 tele-nukes. Hmm... There are also much better suggestions in that thread than my own. Probably best to start from the beginning. I highly recommend disabling default Field of View and adjusting the slider to suit your monitor size, aspect ratio, and resolution. Doing so completely changed the Combat Teleport game for me, personally.

As this is how I've leveled all of my post-50 toons, here's the list of the ones I found fun enough to take all the way: Savage/Willpower Brute - Super Easy Mode. "Toggle and Forget" secondary with a fast/active and effective primary. Katana/Rad Armor Scrapper - Solid combo. Self-Sufficient yet still contributes big on teams. Psi Melee/Shield Scrapper - Don't believe the Anti-Hype around Psi Melee. Got to stick it through to 32 to, as PM doesn't make sense until GPB and ML. Fire/Martial Combat Blaster - Mother of Gawd, Martial Combat is fun. Pair it with just about anything. Seriously. For pure "fun factor" during the leveling experience, this was my winner. Honorable Mentions & Works In Progress: Electric/Shield Stalker - I'll circle back to this one eventually. Needed to step away from it after running the entirety of Goldside using the "Switch Sides Every Time" Guide. Beam Rifle/Devices Blaster - Lower levels weren't terribly satisfying with this one, but I'm coming around now that I've fleshed it out a bit and learned to play it better. Most of my other toons are too "experimental" (usually built around some quirk I want to fiddle with) to be considered for the list. Example: I'm working on a Savage/Invuln scrapper because I want to shuttle Gaussian's BU to Invincibility, letting me use Blood Thirst solely for managing stacks of Frenzy rather than wasting it as a traditional, pre-emptive build up. Doing this on a Scrapper because the proc rate on Savage Leap means nearly on-demand crits by placing the +50% ATO in there. Is that an optimal approach, or one that would be super fun to level the slow way? IDK, but I like to fiddle with stuff like that.

I do not. But then again I also didn't remember replying in that thread with a ton of info and links either (which I apparently did, having discovered so while looking for something else in my post history), so maybe don't rely on what I remember. 😄

All of those work in "Auto" powers like Health, Stamina, or similar +HP, +Regen, or +Recovery powers from armor sets or epic/patron pools. Generally speaking they're more commonly slotted in those than in clicks or auras. Mostly for slot efficiency. For example: there are a whole gamut of toons that can drop a Performance Shifter +End into Stamina's default slot and call that slotting done.

So very much this. Emphasis obviously mine. However, against my better judgement I'mma take the proverbial bait and add a few direct responses anyway. First, do yourself a favor and stop looking at finished builds on the forums. Without knowing what sets you are looking at there are a whole host of reasons for this - most often it's DPA: Damage Per Activation Time. The DPA on Beam Rifle's T1 is absolutely insane. Taking Fire Blast without Fire Ball - a fast activating early AoE is, imo, gimping one's self. Hemorrhage from Savage Melee is one of the most worst and most broken attacks in the game. That's why you see savage builds focused on the T1, 2, and 3 attacks. There's a whole lot of depth to character building around these parts, and there are often multiple reasons to make one choice over another. Fantastic! Though "Dedicating to a Role" and "Building a sub-optimal toon because one doesn't understand the underlying mechanics" are not the same thing. To wit: This ... This is just .... I mean. WTF? This makes me a Sad Panda. By not taking those /Kin powers that MM is doing both its pets and its team-mates a grave disservice. I know if I was rolling with a /Kin and never receiving Speed Boost or seeing Fulcrum Shift I'd wonder what was amiss. And I certainly wouldn't feel that the player behind said toon was "dedicated to their role." Just. No. Go back and read through The Tank Gods thread. Rather than wait I'll just say that I'd team with every single one of those "50/50" tanks that are soloing challenge level content. That way I know they'll be able to keep pace with my alpha-soaking scrappers and my teleporting steam-roller: the fire/mc blaster. 😉 Seriously. I'd wager that the "solo challenge" builds the that thread would do just fine in those rare instances where you actually, really need a full on tank: MLTF for Recluse, someone to keep Hami's attention, MO runs through iTrials, and the various 801 AE challenge missions at high difficulty settings. Struggling to think of other instances but there are some more I'm sure. There's stuff where a well-rounded team is advisable (DA, LGTF, etc), but where you need a "Dedicated Tank?" Not really, very few of those. Not do dismiss tanks. Tanks are currently "Absolute Units" right now. Just to say that the traditional role of "Dedicated Main Tank" is rarely, if ever, needed in The Cities. Barely scratching the surface of possibility. My advice: Pick the thing you enjoyed playing the most so far, and slow-road level it to 50+3. Thank me later. Don't PL, Don't Farm. Take your time; experiment with different powers. Use a second build to go in a different direction than the main build and see what works and what doesn't. Respecs fall upon us like Rain on the Plain in Spain. Use them. I mean, I try to give ppl the benefit of doubt these days: In the OP's other threads mentioned by @Carnifax I made the assumption that @Diantane was working their way through the usual "Experienced MMO Player New To City Of Heroes" stumbles and adjustments. But seeing that thread you've linked was a year ago, idk. The threads do lack the wanton malice of trolling, so further benefit of the doubt it is. 🍻

Yeah, that could work very well. I run the two dmg procs from the purple sets (Melee and Hold) since any more than that would cut into critical damage for a scrapper. Insight is pretty random, but it is strong when pops. It would be better if Concentration granted Insight and/or cleared the Lockout timer, but I do watch for it. As a bonus, Psi Melee wants lots of recharge, so /SR gives a little head start on that.

Hmm.. Psi Melee on a tank might be quite good. PBS is a very good cone, but ML is rather small in radius. Tanker AoE buffs would be interesting to see for those powers. FWIW: My Psi/SD is a scrapper, and when Insight is up and Greater Psi Blade crits, the Big Orange Numbers are extremely satisfying. She's obviously not as durable as the tank version would be, but I'm willing to wager she hits significantly harder. 😉 /Nin, /EA, /SR. and /SD all thematically pair well with the Psi Melee. Shield Charge helps shore up the lack of AoE in the set quite nicely. It's also good for chaining knock-up with Charge, Mass Lev, and Mighty Judgement. Meh. The -rech is mostly incidental. AV resistances tend to cancel out the effect. Though in long solo fights at +4x8 I suppose it does start have an minor effect on lts and bosses, now that I think about it. Now the hold in Greater Psi Blade ... the one that is a massive 14 seconds long* when Insight is up, *that* is worth leveraging. * - Greater Psi Blade is a Mag 3 Hold for 9.5 seconds (City of Data says 100% chance). With Insight it's flagged for Mag 3 at 14.5 seconds. I am reasonably sure that those are individual effects, not additive ones. If I am reading City of Data correctly the buffed Insight version replaces the normal one.

Thanks @Snarky, Did a couple more missions last night and realized a couple, needless, sources of my frustration: 1 - Running The Graveyard Shift solo at 21 while running an "unfamiliar toon" was probably not the best idea I've ever had in The Cities. 🤣 2 - I'm running Beam/Dev for this - which means my toon is holding a rifle, something I've not done in this game. Because of (various other games over the years) my brain has certain expectations of "gun wielding" characters - namely that they don't stop moving to fire. I realized that when I'm holding down one direction or other to strafe and the toon stops to fire my brain is responding with "WTF!!! KEEP MOVING!!!" I'll have to learn to drop that expectation. Oddly, non-weapon blast sets don't trigger this part of my brain. 3 - Related to 2: My first blaster taken to 50 and beyond (Fire/Martial) leans heavily into Combat Teleport. Being able to hit a key-stroke and port 40' backwards, or click to port with precision makes the "strafe-stop-strafe-stop" seem ... cumbersome ... by comparison. Evasive Maneuvers does mitigate this, and last warehouse room in the penultimate mission in that arc was actually quite fun once I realized that Item #2 was a big source of the character flummoxing me. I expect my internal comparisons to fade with time spent on the Beam/Dev. ---- All that said, Beam Rifle is quite amazing. Plugging away at the lumbering Vahz zombies and downing them in a shot or two was oddly satisfying. It took a couple of attempts, but I even managed to reliably take out Zoombies with a combination of Web'nades, Caltrops, and extreme strafing.

So... Who's got tips, tricks, macros, or binds for actually playing a hover blaster? I'm crashing into ceilings, losing elevation when looking down at targets, and getting visually flummoxed when they cluster up directly beneath me. Cracked the early 20s on this character; starting to like it more, but ooooh-boy am I clumsy with it. The build is the easy part, lol.

I used it for Preventative Med (The +absorb and a Heal piece) for a little extra S/L resist. Apparently I have a Perf Shifter Proc in there too, but that could definitely be dropped, because .... Need? No. But Accurate Healing has some nice pieces in it. You can use the Heal/Recharge piece from Theft of Essence without measurably impacting the proc rate of the power. Add the +End piece from the same set and it's a veritable font of infinite endurance. I also played around with putting the Knockdown piece from a Winter set in there. Very interesting results, but probably not keeping that setup. There's also a Negative Dmg proc in the Accurate Healing sets that is good in this power as well. FWIW: "Accurate Healing" doesn't necessarily mean +Accuracy Enhancement. It's just a classification for powers that require an enemy target to fire off their healing effect. The sets will have +Acc in them (where standard healing sets don't), but there's no need to slot those in RT. It's not, between ToE+End in RT and the boost from Particle Shielding, a /Rad with endurance problems is one that needs a rebuild. Put an Achilles here in the default slot and call it a day. Love/Hate relationship with this power. Hate the Activation Time (3s) and that the animation doesn't fill the time so you're sort of standing there for a moment. That said it's a solid pick. All those various enhancement types mean you are spoiled for choice with dmg procs. My preference is to pair them with 1 or 2 Acc/Rech pieces from the same set. Honorable Mention: Meltdown. Scrappers get a 41.25% damage buff from this power, and it's "crash" is rendered irrelevant by /Rad's various endurance tools. It's worth the extra damage for this one, and can also be single-slotted with various useful unique pieces.

Buena Vista Social Club - Chan Chan (Originally by Compay Segundo) Posted for the 25th Anniversary of the release. http://www.buenavistasocialclub.com/

That's sort of explanatory. My Kat/Rad scrapper rarely needs the heal, but her not casting Forge that pushes it over the top though. I want my +dmg! 😄 By comparison, I took Longbow on my Blaster for the usual "I plan to run this toon on teams that have requirements" reasons mentioned in the OP. The Longbow Warden drops their powers on cool-down, especially the heal aura. Just spamming it away. Robo Drones would be the other one I've played the most - did these for the +5% def to all bubble to get my other scrapper closer to the iCap, situationally. Works nicely, though being a bubble sometimes the pet can't keep up. Definitely more active than the Senshal though. The Assault drone, when properly placed, goes completely ignored by AVs which is nice for the -regen, minor though it may be.

Went with these because they seemed like the sort of folks that would have partied at my toon's warehouse before the Shivans took out Galaxy City. Ring Mistress is great, she wrecks faces. However, the Seneshal never does anything. At least not on my scrapper. To the point where even team-mates have noticed her inactivity among the visual din. Highly disappointing. She'll drop forge maybe once, then spend the rest of the time either doing her nails or uploading TikTok videos or some other nonsense until her timer expires. Okay, I'm being hyperbolic. 🤣 Seriously though, there is something amiss with that pet. When I say others on teams have commented on her inactivity I'm genuinely serious. No hyperbole there.

Someone else will have to report their actual in-game numbers. I don't have a DM/SD; but I do know it's a good combo from back in the day. I might have had one during Live. My /SD scrapper is Psi/, and that's a whole different kind of thing. 😛 It's a base 10% heal, can be enhanced, but idk if that's something people do. Max enhancement would probably cap the heal around 19% ish. Significant if one were to slot that way. But it's a good DPA attack to boot, so it's part of DM's regular attack chain (unless that's changed recently). So it's more about the consistent influx of green bar than it's strength in an individual application. 🍻

I have a scrapper that supports this.

Pardon me kind poster, do you have a newsletter to which I may subscribe? I had a notion a while back for rolling some combination of Nature and Dark, but never quite settled on an AT.