InvaderStych

Actually yes, but not the one that you think. The most important thing is that this game has enough character build permutations that we can all approach them in very different ways. This change actually makes me want to use Travel Pools again. Full Stop. Before i27 Page 1, the only "travel" pool powers my toons ever took were Hasten and Combat Jumping. After Page 1 CJ had to get dropped in favor of Combat Teleport. Still no true travel powers on my toons. After Page 2; Hover Melee is finally responsive enough - and with CT one can actually 1-button click into melee range, unlike the utterly, completely, hopelessly useless "Follow" button which never ever brought any of my toons during testing (Live and HC) into melee range AND if used on a target that was moving, never moved my toons at their full speed anyway - sorry, rambling, point is that once Page 2 goes live I'll likely be dropping an entire pool (usually Leadership) in order to have actual travel on my toons again. Setting aside that people more intimately familiar with game mechanics than I have already given more than enough numbers to make their point; you've completely forgotten that while you're complaining about moving a slot or two around, some of us are re-thinking several power choices, and are actually sort of stoked about it as buying the same P2W/Temp travels all the time has gotten old across the past year. Even if the result is I end up dropping whatever Leadership picks I cram into a build - thereby hypothetically "weakening" the build - the net gain in overall game enjoyment is worth the trade off, imo. I say hypothetically, because I noticed that one toon I copied netted a little more +def when swapping into Flight, but that was a quick and dirty build and a little more +def at the cost of Perception from Tactics, or more rarely +dmg from Assault. Yeah, idk, I'm not savvy enough to make that call. All that said, yeah, take a break bud. I found HC last March and a couple months ago took a bit of a break myself - not out of frustration, but a break all the same. A brief reset of context from time to time tends to keep me closer to "level." Or whatever terminology works there.

Not sure what they are currently working on as a solution, but similar asks in the beta feedback.

Pretty much. I keep going back to my Rad/Rad tank hoping I'll get over the Kirk-Fu animations, but then no. Every time I go to roll the set on a scrapper I can't bring myself to do it with the tank still stalled.

Poor Man's Poison - Hell's Comin' With Me

Welcome Back! The good news is that in the year I've been here I've not once seen a pick-up team be particular about what ATs are on board. Figuratively Anything can be built to solo steam-roll missions that would seem baffling to consider back when PB/WSs were added to the game. 😄 So ..... While it sort of depends your preferences, when I found HC I wanted something with minimal complexity for the first run to 50; I'm going to echo Brute along with the others. More specifically <your favorite primary>/Willpower/<your favorite Epic/Patron Pool>. Why Willpower? No clicks to manage, easier on the blue bar than most armors, and gives comprehensive +def/+res although not as much as you'd get from other armors with bigger numbers in places but holes in others. Also, it goes with any primary; so in the character builder you can skip over to the customization screen and preview animations if you want. Pure easy mode. That way I could focus on remembering how to actually play the game. FWIW: I went Savage/WP, but there's no wrong answer for picking a primary for this one. ----- I am sure there is a support analog for "easy mode," but I am too unfamiliar with those ATs.

Apologies if I missed any additional replies in this vein while glossing over the intense discussion in which I had no dogs, but is there any possibility that a Stance solution might be applied for Hover/Fly? Same method as the recent addition of Ninja/Beast run stances?

Two things: Love the changes to Flight Pool. I actually want to use Hover Melee and Flight for travel now. Hover + Evasive Maneuvers + Combat Teleport: Second: The defense bonus from Evasive is dropping during combat as expected, but I don't think Combat Attributes is keeping up with the change. Defense total drops, but Evasive continues to show the same buff. I could be mistaken about that. 😛

Blood Thirst cancels Exhausted and grants 5 stacks every time it is used. That's it's purpose. It's only a 41.6/33% dmg buff; so it's not really worth wasting at the start of a melee as one would with BU. SL (from range, 1-3 stacks) -> RF (spends) -> BT (5 stacks)-> <attack chain> Insight Lockout (Psi Melee) is a true lockout - Concentration should behave like Blood Thirst and cancel the Lockout but it doesn't.

Give Scrappers the radius buffs which were recently given to Tanks. /flamesuiton

I think it's the one where it's damage calc was bugged in mids, or maybe the in-game desc was wrong? FWIW: Mids lists it as 3.5PPM; so basically the common dmg PPM we'd expect. Most of the lower chance procs are the special effects: Deci Chance for BU is 2PPM, I think Entropic Chance to Heal is 2 or 2.5, etc, etc.

Spose & Ekoh - Cooped Up

Edit: No wait, I might have this totally wrong. Wouldn't the Trapdoor mission keep you at 50+1; so the equivalent would be a non-incarnate at +3x8? The other two level shifts are only active in DA, iTrials, and the Belladonna/Number Six arcs, right? Either way, I was going to say that the iPowers toolbox of the Post-Incarnate toon should result in a faster clear time against the same relative con level than a Pre-Incarnate (same toon, same build).

Lots of excellent ways to tune /DA for looks, and it's a solid secondary - classic top-tier scrapper territory. As an alternative, Psi pairs very well with /SD - and the "Energy" shield pretty much looks like it belongs with the Psi attacks if you make them the same color. Bonus: Shield Charge is both a revelation on Scrappers and bolsters one of Psi's pain points. Which is not meant to dissuade you rolling Psi/DA, as that's got nice synergy with Psi/ as well. I just mention /SD in the event that part of your frustration with the looks of secondaries has been the heavier visual effects - which /SD doesn't really have.

Beta Decay is pretty good for this trick. My still-leveling Rad/Rad tank has 4 in there: Zinger, <shield breaker I think>, LadyG, and Cloud Senses. Likely not the best use of slots, but fun for giggles.

This is all well and good, but doesn't fully explain why it doesn't take ATOs. Both Shield Charge and Savage Leap have odd mechanics yet accept them fine; additionally all the other dmg aura powers will slot them. Thought I could be mistaken and there are a couple others that cannot, but the ones I've tried can. And, no I'm not just asking because I want to slot the CritStrikes proc in there on a Scrapper, really. 😉 No. 🤣 Really. 🤣

Mega Drive - Converter

Critical Strikes +50% is the only one that is tied to activating a power; Scrapper's Strike +2% (+3% if Superior) is always on in any power. Having said that, I never really solved the former to my satisfaction on my Kat/Rad, so curious to hear the answers as well.

Hold on, people actually stand around and wait for the duration? The ones that are lucky enough to pop MoG can just be ignored until it's down. They'll follow you for a good long while zipping in and out of their max range. The ones that don't are easy enough to find later on the fairly rare "defeat all" missions that have them. There's figuratively zero reason to wait around.

Ok, if it isn't too late to start the paths <OR> if you're both inclined to roll from the beginning to take full advantage of the "undercover" options, then this is the best way to Goldside: Ran a stalker through this, starting with the Loyalist track from the Tutorial. Took me a few read-throughs of the guide to get the hang of when to turn off XP and what order to run the arcs in, but it was absolutely worth doing for fun factor. Could easily be run as a duo, you'd just have to make identical choices during the solo only missions. If she wants to see Goldside, might as well go all in. There's a surprising number of merits to be had by the end of it all as well. FWIW: I'd try something thematically matching, especially for a Goldside run. Build a little backstory into it. (says the guy who's yet to actually enter the bio's in his imagination onto his characters, and who is also probably stating the obvious) Or be her "Summoned Elemental" of some sort. Tank/Brute for aggro control; something with good AoE; Savage/Ice, Rad/Ice - or Spines/Ice (invert for a tank) to just slow everything down to a more manageable pace. I've been contemplating a spines/ice scrapper for a while now, just for giggles. Doesn't have to be ice, could be anything with the right costume, tinting, and bio. Could a similar effect from a sent or corr, but I'm less familiar with everything that isn't melee. It's a shortcoming, lol. 😛

Recently discovered; instantly obsessed: Mdou Moctar - Tarhatazed https://sahelsounds.com/artists/mdou-moctar/

Interesting approach; maxing the sets strength (AoE) by ensuring the proc is up when Leap is used as opposed to shoring its weakness (ST) by trading that for the 90% fire chance by placing it in Leap - pulling crits on VS-MS-RF (consumes stacks). I can see how that's smoother, but not sold on taking Hem to get there. 😄 I might not have been clear; never considered the crit proc in VS. FF +rech went in there on my svg/wp brute, and when I started svg on a scrapper I did the same. In scrapper world I don't think I've tried the ATO 50% proc anywhere but Leap. I am torn though; svg/sr is great and all, but the mechanics of BT are leading me towards re-rolling svg/invul so that Gaussian's can drop into Invincibility and BT can be used as the stack replenisher it's meant to be. (The +dmg isn't that much compared to traditional BU powers). OTOH - I'm also curious to try svg with either /rad or /dark, so wtf do I know, lol. 😄

Insight wholeheartedly supports this proposal. At least with Savage you can bypass the lock-out by popping Blood Thirst. With the kind of recharge you're describing above, seems like placing the crit proc in Leap, then using VS->MS->SS->(I think you can VS again by now) would be a better choice, even for ST. Leap should be around 12-15s recharge at that point, irrc. Shred should also be skipped completely. Even before fully built anytime you'd use Shred you're better off using Rending Flurry.

Fixed to make it unique or fixed to remove to timing conflict?

This.

For @StriderIV by request. A more sensible variant of my Psi/SD. For the peanut gallery, disregard the level at which TKB is selected - this was an experiment to see what she would be like with that instead of LBE and it was the least effort to just swap them. Accolades on to reflect in-game setup. Carries both Assault and Melee Hybrid T4s, the latter used to get closer to iCap as needed. Massive credit/thanks to @Werner who's (whom's?) SD/MA tank I shamelessly copied to come up with this. Any comments/suggestions, particularly with iPowers (Ageless experts?) are absolutely welcome. I don't consider myself all that excellent at mids, lol, I just snag ideas from the boards and mush them up together. Oh, make no mistake, I absolutely love mine - the Kat/Rad was intended to be the main, but the Psi/SD got a ton more time, attention, and inf. And you are totally correct; it is a brutally good combo, but I'm not sure I'd make the case that either PM or SD is "best" on a scrapper. SD/ tanks are complete beats right now, and with Stalker's crit tricks that might be the sweet spot for PM. Not that it matters in any practical sense; splitting the thinnest of hairs on that comparison, imo.