Spaghetti Betty

I always do AVs either at +0 or +1. I do like a good endurance test every now and then, but +3 or 4 on some AVs is just murder. No thanks. Too much set up. If I have inspirations, great. I'll use them. Temporary powers have never been my thing. In my experience, if I'm in a situation where I have to resort to using Envenomed Daggers, it's time to reset and try again. My attack rotation is usually so tight that trying to fit in some dagger tosses results in a net DPS loss.

I can't pick a favorite. It's impossible. Instead, I'll do a top 3. Twisted Samsara (Dark/Rad Scrapper) - Far from the first character I made, but quickly became one of my favorites. I made him after the buffs made to Dark Melee. I had never really tried either Dark Melee or Radiation Armor. My first thought was, why don't I make a character that completely thrives on being surrounded by enemies? Fold Space was also just introduced. Needless to say, a couple of costume reworks, a bio, and some levelling quickly made this guy one of my fastest clearers. I've been told having Fold Space is overkill, but it just looks so cool. Porting everyone in, popping Soul Drain, Ground Zero as a mini nuke, then mauling down whatever is left is so satisfying. He's a great AV soloer, too. Avallach's Golem (Stone/Regen Brute) - This was my first foray into Stone Melee. I had been turned off to the set for so long because of its long recharge and heavy end cost. Pairing it with Regeneration seemed like a no brainer. Despite that, building it was confusing as hell. @Hyperstrike helped with that. This toon hits so hard it's ridiculous. There's a reason Stone Melee hasn't been ported to Scrappers, and it's because of Seismic Smash. At full Fury, it'll do about 500 damage easy. Before Build Up. And since I already needed tons of Global Recharge, I can use Stone Mallet -> Heavy Mallet -> Seismic Smash in a pretty solid loop. Brute Max HP cap makes Regeneration one of the more durable armors they can pick. Easily takes +4x8 content. Spicy Red Pepper (Fire/MA Tanker) - My favorite tank by a mile. An in-game friend actually got me onto this combo (I discovered the Brunker way later). Way too much fun. It doesn't even feel like I'm tanking half the time when I'm in a team. Resistances aren't too hard to cap since I'm a Tanker, which is refreshing for Fire Armor. Between Burn and the fast recharging kicks in MA, I'm dishing out just as much DPS as the next Brute, and there's never a dull moment in gameplay. I don't even mind getting knocked around a bit. It's kinda funny.

Don't know if it counts as manipulation, but I get pretty offended when I see common salvage going for more than 500 inf a piece, so I'll dump 200-300 pieces at 100 inf to balance it back out.

Mostly the animations, and the fact that (IMO) Psi Melee just doesn't have as much oomph for a Tanker as it would a Scrapper or a Stalker. The set kind of needs crits to maintain it's identity, at least for me. Sometimes Insight just does not work. Mass Levitate does help your damage mitigation, though. Mobs can't hit you if they're too busy flying through the air.

Gravedigger Slugger: Begone, woman. I must fight now.

He's a comedian made of metamorphic rock. He's...

This mission is a good stress test for my melee toons, so I usually just jump in head first to see how I do. If I bring anything it's a tray of blues for when I eventually get hit with Curse of Weariness. There was a couple of times I said F it and solo'd the 2 as AVs with a fully decked out toon. That was pretty fun. One of a small handful of scenarios in the game where strategy is required depending on the strength of your character.

I feel the same way. PUGs these days can get frustrating. It's probably also my mentality. I don't offer much in the way of leadership unless I have the shiny star. If I don't, I'm a background character. That's why nowadays if I PUG then I lead. And I tank. And I drink. This is not healthy. I find I have the most fun tanking for 3-4 man teams. Much more intimate and requires some amount of synergy. That's not a very common way to play the game, unfortunately.

I like street sweeping when I need a breath of fresh air from running door to door. Some of my favorite zones to sweep are Croatoa, Crey's, and RWZ. Sharkhead gets an honorable mention for having a good variety of terrain and enemy types. In fact, now that there are exploration badge tips, I'm taking a fresh toon through the City just street sweeping until I get all the badges in an area. It presents an interesting challenge if you're somewhere like The Hollows, since you could be level 8 and get the tip drop for the badge all the way on top of the mountain. As for making it more tantalizing for group play again, I like the idea of having one big outdoor mission everyone in the zone works on. Maybe doing so could also spawn some more challenging outdoor threats. Defeat X amount of Hellions in Perez Park and they summon a giant, powerful demon in their desperation. Defeat enough Council/5th in Steel Canyon and they decide to roll out tanks. One can dream.

I was hoping for a water secondary for Doms. Mostly so I could make an Earth/Water Dom with the earth colored orange like Doritos and the water green like Mountain Dew.

That one mission in Shauna Stockwell's arc where you're disguised as a Skull. Protect Stonehenge. Character-by-character context. The 2nd Tina Macintyre mission where you have to defeat all praetorian clockwork? Yeah, my Psi Melee skipped that one. Also, skipping the Atta mission? Come on, man. You bump your difficulty up by +1 and you'll level up at least twice before reaching Atta. Also lots of interesting geometry to kite with.

Spicy Red Pepper, Fire Armor/Martial Arts Tanker Bio included because I feel like it sells the character

I have a Psi/WP scrapper. He's crazy good. I didn't like the animations until I landed on a concept for a blind hero. Now the very lax animations kind of make sense to me. It's not supposed to be super grandiose, since you're essentially making your enemies believe you're swinging a blade at them. That's the way I see it anyways. Also, this set hits stupid hard. Greater Psi Blade is ridiculous. Sure, it takes a little setup, but I can't really complain when Build Up + Insight + Crit Strikes means GPB is 1 shotting +3 bosses. Psi Blade Sweep is an amazing cone move. I think the only gripe I really have is Mass Levitate is kinda weak but works wonders for my set with a Force Feedback proc thrown in there. It offers really good crowd control when you can get it coming back up pretty regularly, and with that and RttC he ends up doing very well in groups. And finally, having skippable options in the set just allows me to spice up the build a little bit with stuff like Moonbeam so that I do have a bit of leverage for dealing with robots. This is just my opinion. My perspective on its damage could be also be skewed by the fact my main 50s are a StJ/WP brute and a Staff/SR scrapper, so I'm used to working a bit for damage.

Gang Panda, Super Strength/Bio Armor Brute

Cyber Flowen, a gamer chick turned psycho vigilante Battle Axe/Regeneration Scrapper (Lots of looks because I can't decide on one)

These days I have way more scrappers and tankers than I do brutes. but my 2 main brutes are still super fun to play. I probably lock harder on my StJ/WP brute than I do on any scrapper. That beast just does not go down, ever, and doesn't really feel like he's sacrificing damage for toughness. Also, Brutes STILL have access to heavy hitting melee sets that scrappers don't. Although the day they proliferate Stone Melee to scrappers is the day I quit brutes.

Global recharge is absolutely out of line. Does that make the game more fun? 100% yes. I can't stand waiting around for my main attack powers to recharge. I much more prefer the rotation-based gameplay high global recharge allows me to have. That being said, I don't mind -recharge being a debuff I can get hit with because that's a gameplay element that makes encounters more interesting. Speaking to the main topic at hand, there's a fine line between "QoL change" and "fundamentally breaking the game". I feel all the travelling changes up this point are more or less on the side of "QoL change". I'm an old school player. I like travelling as much as the next guy, but sprinting everywhere for 14 levels (minimum) was not fun. Going from PI, to Bricks, back to PI, to Founders even with a travel power was not fun (Indigo). I don't understand how ease of travel contributes to this "slippery slope" concern being brought up. You still have to go places, it's just easier to get there. How exactly would that transition into getting rid of the destination completely? That's just getting rid of the "game" part of the game.

Haha, yeah. I didn't realize the connection to the soup brand when I was naming the character. Progresso is italian for progress (according to google). Progress, time, yeah you get it.

Professor Progresso Energy/Time Blaster

Adding a +1 to Terra Volta. Definitely one of the most interesting maps blueside. Would love to see it get some content. My other answer based purely on exploration badge text is the Abandoned Sewer Network.

I got one. What is this supposed to be?

POV: You're on a snowy hill about to get hit by an avalanche

As long as I've been playing this game, I've never given Dark Armor a fair chance. With this build, I figured, why not play on the strengths of having a bunch of secondary control effects and take that to the moon? So, between Cloak of Fear, Oppressive Gloom, Ice Patch, and Frozen Aura, taking hits in melee should really be a non-factor. I also pumped up recharge as much as I could to keep Dark Regeneration up as many times as possible. With a Panacea: Chance for +HP and End in that along with Rebirth, I'm hoping endurance won't be as much of a drag as it looks on paper. So, I bring this to you guys for thoughts and feedback. This will be my first time taking a Dark Armor tank all the way, so advice to get through the rough levels of progression would be much appreciated. This Hero build was built using Mids Reborn 3.0.2.19 https://github.com/Reborn-Team/MidsReborn Click this DataLink to open the build! edgy name: Level 50 Natural Tanker Primary Power Set: Dark Armor Secondary Power Set: Ice Melee Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Leadership Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Death Shroud -- FuroftheG-ResDeb%(A), ScrDrv-Acc/Dmg(37), ScrDrv-Dmg/EndRdx(39), ScrDrv-Dam%(39), ScrDrv-Dmg/Rchg(39), ScrDrv-Acc/Rchg(40) Level 1: Frozen Fists -- SprMghoft-Acc/Dmg(A), SprMghoft-Dmg/Rchg(5), SprMghoft-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), SprMghoft-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(7), SprMghoft-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(7), SprMghoft-Rchg/Res%(9) Level 2: Dark Embrace -- UnbGrd-ResDam(A), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(13), UnbGrd-EndRdx/Rchg(15), UnbGrd-Rchg/ResDam(15), TtnCtn-ResDam/EndRdx(17), TtnCtn-ResDam(17) Level 4: Murky Cloud -- UnbGrd-ResDam(A), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(19), UnbGrd-EndRdx/Rchg(19), UnbGrd-Rchg/ResDam(21), TtnCtn-ResDam/EndRdx(21), TtnCtn-ResDam(23) Level 6: Obsidian Shield -- GldArm-3defTpProc(A), StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(23), StdPrt-ResKB(42) Level 8: Dark Regeneration -- Pnc-Heal/+End(A), Pnc-EndRdx/Rchg(9), Pnc-Heal/Rchg(11), Pnc-Heal/EndRedux/Rchg(11), Pnc-Heal(13) Level 10: Taunt -- Empty(A) Level 12: Cloak of Darkness -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(48), RedFrt-Def(48), RedFrt-Def/Rchg(48), RedFrt-EndRdx/Rchg(50), RedFrt-EndRdx(50) Level 14: Frost -- SprFrzBls-Acc/Dmg(A), SprFrzBls-Dmg/EndRdx(33), SprFrzBls-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), SprFrzBls-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34), SprFrzBls-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(34) Level 16: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), BlsoftheZ-ResKB(50) Level 18: Cloak of Fear -- DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb(A), DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(25), DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb/Rchg(25), DarWtcDsp-Rchg/EndRdx(33) Level 20: Ice Patch -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 22: Super Jump -- Empty(A) Level 24: Boxing -- Empty(A) Level 26: Oppressive Gloom -- AbsAmz-Stun(A), AbsAmz-Stun/Rchg(27), AbsAmz-Acc/Stun/Rchg(27), AbsAmz-EndRdx/Stun(29), AbsAmz-ToHitDeb%(29) Level 28: Freezing Touch -- Hct-Dmg(A), Hct-Dmg/Rchg(40), Hct-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Hct-Acc/Rchg(42), Hct-Dam%(42) Level 30: Tough -- UnbGrd-ResDam(A), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(31), UnbGrd-EndRdx/Rchg(31), UnbGrd-Rchg/ResDam(31) Level 32: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(33) Level 35: Greater Ice Sword -- SprGntFis-Acc/Dmg(A), SprGntFis-Dmg/Rchg(36), SprGntFis-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(36), SprGntFis-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36), SprGntFis-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37), SprGntFis-Rchg/+Absorb(37) Level 38: Frozen Aura -- Arm-Dmg(A), Arm-Dam%(43), Arm-Dmg/Rchg(43), Arm-Acc/Rchg(43), Arm-Dmg/EndRdx(46) Level 41: Focused Accuracy -- GssSynFr--ToHit/EndRdx(A) Level 44: Physical Perfection -- PreOptmz-Acc/Rech(A), PreOptmz-EndMod/End(45), PreOptmz-EndMod/Rech(45), PreOptmz-EndMod/Acc/End(45), PreOptmz-EndMod/End/Rech(46), PreOptmz-EndMod/Acc/Rech(46) Level 47: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 49: Build Up -- GssSynFr--Build%(A) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Gauntlet Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A) Level 2: Health -- NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Mrc-Rcvry+(3) Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A), PwrTrns-+Heal(3) Level 50: Cardiac Core Paragon ------------

Expanded aura options. More separate limb options. Maybe I want a firey right leg. Why shouldn't I be able to have flies only around my head? Also, an afterimage aura would be really cool.