Heraclea

I always build for core function first: Tankers for survivability, Defenders for debuff or buff, just about anything else for DPS. My philosophy of tanking is a bit different from some players because I got too used to the pre-incarnate game. My job as I see it is to hold all the aggro until the last boss of the spawn dies, while also watching out for what the other players are doing and trying to intervene if they get in over their heads. This generally means staying on a spawn until the last boss is dead. My task is not to demonstrate how tough I am by rushing forth to aggro another spawn; my task is to shepherd the team through the mission with a minimum of player deaths. This means not leaving bosses in the backfield, and I generally don't move forward until I am sure that they will follow me.

I wonder whether the removal of so many defeat all missions from Synapse and Citadel is that great an idea, given that on a typical hero career I typically coast from level 15 or so to late 20s or early 30s on the strength of the XP they give. Granted, adding a Moonfire or two to the rotation is even more beneficial for character development. I would shorten Synapse, but not that much, and throw in a twist or two: maybe turn one of the defeat alls in Steel to something involving low level Tsoo or Family, and perhaps turning one of the Skyway missions into something with Trolls. Just mixing up the mobs a bit would make Synapse that much less boring while not seriously impacting its XP haul, which remains the chief attraction. The same would benefit Citadel as well; move all of the IP missions to Talos, and throw in a mission involving Warriors or other underused mobs from the level range.

I like accessible. The genius of the game is that any content ought to be clearable with any group of characters. Hamidon is not quite like that. There are many required roles that need to be filled one way or another. I have, for instance, defeated Hami twice on a league with nothing but tankers in it. This meant doing it the old and costly way of clearing mitos several times. It also required kludges like swapping your origin powers for the Tazer Dart, because holds are necessary and many tanker attack sets have none. The right incarnate powers were also key to success; Barrier, which I usually take on tankers, is useless for the raid. Ageless and Clarion are more helpful. Yes, there are powersets that work better in Hamidon than others, and if you want your group to succeed you bring those. The ice/plants blaster I usually bring has been pretty much configured for that purpose. The design of the raid discriminates against ATs and powersets as well. Masterminds are definitely not optimal for the raid, struggle to keep their pets alive, and turn into weaker versions of defenders. There are many buff and debuff sets that just don't help. Many armor sets are at a disadventage too. This guide has details: I have tanked Hamidon on Heraclea, but given my druthers I'd rather have one of my radiation tankers, or even a regen brute. If Hamidon were to be changed, I'd want the raid to be more casual, require less catherding, and not require so many specific powers and abilities. I would support those kinds of changes, but they don't seem to be where you want to take it.

There are IIRC many dropped threads in the lore and storyline of the older game concerning low level enemies. Vague hints about relations between the Skulls and Family, between the Hellions and the Circle, that are never really picked up on. I would create alternative TFs at the Positron and Synapse levels that involve these enemies and resolve these plotlines. Maybe make them unlockables for runnig Shauna Stockwell and Eagle Eye, whose story line touches on the teased Skull/Family relationship but ends abruptly with no real resolution as well. I would make these new TFs an alternative to the Positrons and Synapse, and have them represent an alternative path to the Freedom Phalanx accolade. Give them to Back Alley Brawler, he needs love. Also....

This postage stamp is the map for the first mission of the Tin Mage TF at maximum resolution. Seriously. I make no bones about the fact that these TFs are some of my least favorite content, Overuse of overused mobs like IDF, Warworks, and Praetorian Clockwork are only part of the issue. I realize that this content is supposed to be harder. But it is also frustrating for fixable reasons. These maps are simply too small and at too low resolution, They do not contain guideposts, just brief markers that vanish once an objective is cleared. This means that, in the content that's supposed to be harder, if you die and hospital out you are often left with no clue how to get to where the rest of the team is. This is no fun for completely avoidable reasons. Let's add some permanent waypoints and increase the scale of these maps so people who play them know how to rejoin lost teams.

Jane's Addiction - Three Days

I think you're right about this. I use judgment only at the beginning, for the monster hunt, and the after-party, for chasing down buds. Even if I didn't save it for the buds and used it at the burn, it's just one long and slow attack with a long recharge. I do use assault hybrid for the burn, of course, But TBH and IME the biggest advantage incarnates bring to the raid is the ability to use threads to supply themselves with Super damage inspirations, which seem to outclass the effect that Assault has. And those inspirations are available to any level character. What you're up against is the collective knowledge and experience of the player base. I do not pretend to have mad gaming skills. What I do have is a character that I chose to mold towards the needs of a Hami raid. The ice/plants blaster that is my chief Hami raider brings several things to the table: three spammable ranged ST holds, a solid single target attack chain, and a useful Destiny click (Clarion). As such the character excels at getting rid of both blue and green mitos, and does blaster-scale if not top level damage against the big blob. I did not roll this character with the purpose of making an ideal Hamidon raider, either. In fact, the character was rolled to claim a jokey name. As has happened before, as I played the character the possibilities of the powers available became clearer and a plan began to take form. The existing Hamidon raid is not too easy. It is, however, familiar. We know what it needs. (If I were really into masterminds, I'd think it needs to change, too.) If you choose to change the mechanics or create a new different Hamidon raid, the players will eventually figure that out too. I don't raid Hami to develop my raiding character any more. Rather, the raider contributes a steady stream of inf tranches and Hero and Transcendent merits that sit in email until I roll another alt. Your new and harder Hami raid will also inspire dedicated builds. If you change the existing mechanics and obsolete the current raider characters, people will be upset. If you add a different Hami raid to the game with harder mechanics and bigger rewards, the players will figure it out and farm it the same way we do the current raid. That will in turn lead to still more power creep. The only thing this will do is change the Hami FOTM character types. And in the end, those who want Hami raiding to be an exclusive l33t thing will be back to square one. Don't forget that the critters you're trying to build fences to keep out are semi-intelligent monkeys with posable thumbs.

I've often said that Kallisti Wharf needed to be threatened with destruction by giant monsters from time to time. This would be a good place to spawn a zone event Hamidon invasion. So long as the spawns avoided the Market Crash contact and door areas and the Statesman statue, they would inconvenience no one. Plenty of water for an Abyss or Lusca style event.

Gounod - Faust Waltz

For generic IOs and SOs, 2 eed reduc is good for the lowbie attacks; as you get higher level you'll want to replace one or both of the end reduc's with a recharge in the higher level attacks.

After a session, always retire to somewhere that a crafting table is available and see what set recipes dropped. Craft every set recipe that dropped and that you have salvage for, no matter how useless it looks. If you play like me, and not everyone does, reward merits are easier to come by than inf; I run many task and strike forces, especially while levelling. At any rate, if you have merits, remember this: stuff like boughten recipes and ATOs all require even lots of multiples of 20 and 50. This means that any 'odd' merits are spare change. Buy converters with your spare change merits and gamble on your useless crafted set IOs until they land on something that looks useful. For many set categories, it's also worth it to do a two merit category conversion (e.g. Confuse > Confuse) to move from Uncommon to Rare. At level 50 many categories are guaranteed to move this way; there are exceptions (EndMod, Sniper, and Ranged AoE are the three big ones). It helps if you have a SG base. I make concept bases and create families of characters that fit the concepts. AAR, having a solo vanity base or two really helps this process. You will probably have any piece of salvage your dropped recipes call for, so if you get a useful one or any purple or PvP recipe, you can craft it quickly. This way, if converter roulette lands on a set IO that any of your characters can use, that's a keeper and you can move on to the next. My characters form a commune. And there's always email. At any rate, frankenslot freely while levelling. Most set IOs benefit more than one aspect of a power; accuracy/damage is a perennial favorite. Use them if they fit, even if they don't match; you're getting more benefit per slot this way.

I've said it before and will here too; if you want to play a support role in melee you roll a tanker, it's what we do. Tanking is all about the soft control of taunt and taunt auras for starters. At least some melee attack sets are rich in control (think Ice Melee, there are others) and debuffs (Dark Melee, and there are others) that at least ought to count as support. The same is true of some armor sets, inc. Ice, Dark, and Radiation. The fact that no one plays up these aspects of the AT and treats Tankers as a slightly tougher but low damage version of Brutes is an indication of how relatively weak support is generally in the steamroller era.

So who besides myself has taken to calling a summoned base portal a 'basehole'?

A lot depends on what you want to do with the character. Tanking brute? Dark Melee is your best friend. Team oriented boss killer? The new Energy Melee works well for the purpose. Farmer? Spines is probably still your best choice, but several primaries work well: Mace, Super Strength, and even Dual Blades can be made to work well.

In the old game I had a tradition; I'd roll a new melee character every Christmas Eve, in honor of Heraclea's birthday. This is Bonquers. Perhaps not the most original concept I've come up with. But I like the fit between the powerset and the name, and the mismatched boots, shoulders, and gloves really works with the concept as well.

I find that my chat logs are filled with so many things, from NPC chatter to global TF recruitment and social channels, that it is difficult for any one of these venues to monopolize the conversation. And FWIW, I find the tone of the conversation in General on Torchbearer, where I am usually found, to be head and shoulders above that found in other games.

The Mountain Goats - This Year

I don't think I have a MIDS build for the character. It's fairly standard and based on general principles: five slot the single target attacks with four Kinetic Combats and a random Acc/Dam, either the Nucleolus or a random set IO; five slot all of the armor toggles with Aegis. You will want Conserve Power (or Sup. Conditioning on a brute) and Physical Perfection here; these are plsces for one or two extra Performance Shifter procs.

My rule of thumb on a blaster is to take and slot both the t1 and the t2 in the primary, and the t1 in the secondary (which may not get slots). Because these powers can still be used while mezzed, one or the other of them is an ideal place for the mez protect proc from the one blaster ATO. And since you will want to six slot your ATO power. I never take armor set T9s that have drastic crashes when they wear off, or which are self rezzes that are useful only when already dead.

My Dark Armor tanker has Savage Melee for the secondary, The other pairing I'd recommend for Dark Armor is Staff. Both of these attack sets build endurance discounts that will help a lot. I frankly wouldn't recommend any Dark Armor character as a new player's first character. You will enjoy that character a lot better with the support of an established patron character who can supply the attuned Panacea, Miracle, Numina's, and Performance Shifter IOs that will make building, levelling, and playing the character fun. Dark Melee's best features are the consistent -tohit and the fast recharging attack that's a self heal. Its weakness in the AoE department have been somewhat improved, but it still lags behind. Not a farming kit. Before Incarnates, this was the premier melee set for characters that wanted to survive it all. It is at its best on tankers IMO. I've never thought that Dark Melee really had a lot of synergy with Dark Armor. It works best with generalist armor sets like Invulnerability, Shield, and Willpower. Dark Armor's forte is the best self-heal in the game. It doesn't need a healing attack. Invuln's self heal is very slow, and Willpower doesn't have one at all. All of these armor sets feature defense, and defense and -tohit are basically the same thing mechanically; both make it less likely that enemy attacks will hit at all. Dark Armor is almost pure resistance, and while it works a lot better to add a bit of defense to a resist armor than to add a bit of resistance to a defense armor, the ability of Dark Melee to supply what other armors don't get natively makes those pairings work well. But any armor set becomes tankier when paired with Dark Melee.

The main advantage of Savage Melee is its endurance discount, which is largely lost on Bio. Spines is good, and might look good with the armor set, or at least as good as its possible to do with either Bio or Spines. You can do the whole mutant monstrosity thing this way, and the two make sense to pair conceptually. Bio's recovery advantage will help with Quills. The new Energy Melee would also make a good pairing, since Bio has a damage dealing aura, a mostly single target set that excels at taking down a hard target fast has much to recommend it. Sets like Broadsword or Martial Arts that offer defense boosts will also work well if you want a tanking brute. I will say that I was underwhelmed by Broadsword's performance on a BS/Energy Aura brute. Bio may improve its efficiency and AoE potential. If you want to be tanky and have a lot of regeneration, Dark Melee is also worth a look. That would be a good look for Bio as well. (Looking good is half the battle. When I made a new Energy Melee brute, I went with Fire for the armor set because I've always thought the two looked good together.)

Beethoven - Emperor Concerto

This is disappointing, but so it goes. Thanks for the responses!

This does not seem to be working. Hurricane is still scattering mobs, making it still so situational that it probably will just be left off, since it always seems to do more harm than good. Do I simply need to respec out of Hurricane?

Eventually I will get all my chosen incarnate powers to t4 on my most played 50s. At this point empyrean merits get hoarded. When you collect 50 of them, you can turn them into a Transcendent merit. These go in emails to myself. This way every fresh level 50 can collect a Transcendent merit and turn it back into 50 Empyrean merits. This will be enough to get their Alpha, Lore, and Destiny built up to t3 immediately upon unlocking. After those, the rest of the system can wait and will be upgraded in the fullness of time if I like the character well enough.