Lazarillo

Ported a mid-30s Necro/Electric to Beta. Did a mission with my initial build (has Life Drain but no other attacks), respecced and added Dark Blast, did some more. Finally, bumped to 50 and gave it a try with my planned endgame build for the character (with a couple adjustments again for blast-y sake) and did just a little more than that. Overall thoughts: Nice! Necro feels so much more fun with Soul Extraction not requiring me to wait for a pet to have to die (and all the pain of resummoning and such that accounts for). I'm normally very much on the high horse of liking to make click powers perma, but I'm seeing close to 50% uptime and it's generally fun enough that way. I'm gonna try experimenting with a couple other secondaries, too, I think, because as things stand just having a friggin army of souls following me about makes for an incredibly fun MM and I like having excuses to get blast-y. A Demons/Pain concept I've been sitting on for a while might work even better as a Necro if these changes stick. Possible considerations/suggestions: With all the added blasting, Endurance is a bit more of a woe than it was before. This is not, inherently a bad thing. However, it does make me want to...ration a bit better. Would it be possible to use the power-tray ring tech to identify which of the three blasts does or does not have a Specter out and associated with it? That would help give a better idea of which powers might be a priority if I'm trying to bring a shade-y friend back out while also trying to keep my zombies...um...alive? Uh, let's just say upright. Also, this second one I'm not sure about because it's very hard to measure, but may bear looking into. With /Electric, specifically, comes the issue of Chaining powers, with target caps and diminishing effects. I noticed that as I had the Shades spawning, they were getting hit by the chains and, unhealable (and unbuffable?) as they are, the UNAFFECTED indicator was popping up, sometimes a couple of times on the same Shade. If the Chains are smart enough to not count unaffected targets towards their caps and similarly avoid the the lessening effects then this is not an issue. But like I said, it's hard to measure, due to limited duration and the unpredictability of the Chain effects. If some confirmation can be given on this it'd be reassuring (and if, say, the Shades do "use up" Chain effects, maybe it'd be possible to at least maybe make the Shades grant a little bonus static? Wouldn't solve the diminishing effects but would ensure that it didn't waste a hit).

Just for laughs, I made an Illusion/Dark Dominator and ran it through Positron part 1. Figured it'd be a decent test of low-level performance, and also let me see if doppelgangers were doing anything janky for the new set. In the case of the latter: I actually didn't see the Simulacra use a single Illusion power. Part of this may be the "binary" nature of control. If I went too easy on it, I ended up two-shot by its Dark Assault powers. But even when I could kinda keep the balance, it was sticking to ink-shooting and Smite, near as I could tell. That said, the balance was still a little tricky because when I pulled out Phantom Army... Well, Phantom Army is nice. It seems quite potent, and the controls do an excellent job in place of the taunts. Sending them in while I stayed Invisible generally meant alphas got eaten nicely, and pulling them out even when I got a little overwhelmed in an ambush, they started peeling the aggro off. It was a decent spike of damage, too, despite the auto-enhancers not actually putting anything onto them. Single-targets, the constant stun and KD spam really kept the Simulacra occupied, especially. I did pull aggro off Doc Buzzsaw, though. Sets get thrown into the mix and these guys get perma, they're gonna be damned good against anything short of an AV, but they remain decently balanced by the lack of uptime with normal enhancements, IMO. Also, Gleam is pretty.

Kind of a goalpost move from

I'm suggesting that saying you have to take more powers to achieve the level of stealth desired, when there's a 1-to-1 change of the number of powers involved, seems rather disingenuous, is all.

Ah, whoops, you're right. I missed that and thought they said that it was the stealth factor that didn't stack. Enemies that will see you through captial-S Stealth, will see you through all forms lowercase-s Stealth, regardless of how much you stack.

Can't speak to Hard mode mobs, but in those cases, I think the ideal should be, rather than SS, make stealth stack from different sources. You're supposed to be doing HM in teams, after all. Critters, as far as I'm aware, cap out at with bosses having 55 perception in normal content. Anything that sees past that (Rikti Drones, KoA, snipers, Rularuu, etc), just has automatic see-through Stealth and no amount of stacking is going to fool them. ...as opposed to having to take Super Speed over an equivalent power in your primary or secondary set?

Again, I'm not seeing why replacing Super Speed with Stealth doesn't just mean you're using the same number of powers, though (while also adding some bonus defense). Doubly so when Stealth has a lower Endurance cost. And as noted in the other response, you're aware that Stealth alone is maxing you out in terms of invisibility, right?

Running Stealth + Cloak of Darkness/Arctic Fog/etc to stack the Defense bonus, with Stealth alone giving you an effectively-max stealth radius. On current Live, Stealth alone already gives you effectively-max Stealth. You could drop Super Speed from that combination of three, and have no IO in Sprint, and anything that will see you, would see you even with all three. After this change, the same will be the case. Just to be clear, folks are aware that Concealment Pool Stealth got its effectiveness buffed up a few pages back, right?

I guess that's fair, but I feel like that's still...not really as bad as you're describing? No offense, seriously, but Sprint + Stealth IO has a lower endurance cost, so less "tax" anyway, and you get the full movement benefit in combat (whereas SS, last I checked, still suppresses)? You do have to add the IO, admittedly, so I see why there could still be some beef, but in that case, you can now run Concealment-pool Stealth alongside your other powers, which is higher than Sprint, but lower-cost than Super Speed, still, and in that case, adds Defense. So you get an option that you don't have on live (assuming you have room for another travel power in your build, admittedly), in addition to one that you already have, and feels more efficient.

Unless I'm misreading the note, or misunderstanding your claim, that shouldn't be the case. None of the powers in question had their Stealth potency reduced, so any set that needs a Stelth IO for "full" stealth post changes (Cloak of Darkness being one of them), already needs a Stealth IO for "full" stealth pre-changes.

Two very initial considerations, just based on the notes and what I've seen in the character creator. Any thoughts? 1. It's always kinda bugged me that Gash and Swoop are so nearly-identical in terms of animation (same goes for Pulverize and Jawbreaker in Mace). Any chance at all that one or both might get an alternative one, to allow them to be more distinct? 2. One of the set's biggest limitations has always felt like Beheader being kind of a red-headed stepchild due to the low relative DPA (in this case, an issue shared with BS). The base DPA was improved with this, but somewhat ironically, since all the others got better numbers now too, it still lags. Is there anything to be done for that, perhaps?

There are special sets enhancements in the game, two per Archetype, which can be slotted into any damaging primary or secondary power (or for Controllers/Dominators, a primary or secondary control power), give exceptionally good set bonuses, and have unique procs designed to help the various ATs at their respective specialties. For Stalkers, the procs are one that causes you to re-enter the "Hidden" state (without losing aggro though), guaranteeing that your next hit will be a Critical (usually best in Assassin Strike). The other gives all your attacks a small chance to immediately finish the cooldown on Build Up. These "ATOs" are Attuned automatically, meaning they can be used starting at level 10 and their stats scale based on your level, all the way up to 50. Once you hit 50, you can use an Enhancement Catalyst to make them Superior versions, which have even bulkier set bonuses and proc chances/numbers (but will still retain their powers if you Exemplar down to a lower level).

Not my main, but I have an alt like that. A Praetorian, named "Grroowlll", because the Powers Division admin that forced her to sign up thought they were being funny.

Yes it is. See the guide here:

I'm not really sure I like the idea of running into someones leftover ToT EB, either. If anything, I've seen people miffed in past years about ToT "leftovers" that were just the normal classes of enemies.

Not super thrilled about the idea of EBs spawning in randomly when Trick-or-Treating. Some of my characters aren't really built for that.

A "sleeveless trenchcoat" category that allowed wider glove options by enforcing no sleeves (like the current sleeveless jacket and sleeveless robe options) would be nice. I mostly just want to take a page from Dark Watcher's book, admittedly, and make a Vanguard uniform that uses the coat and Vanguard gloves...

Have you maxed out her contact meter? If so, then that's normal, not a bug. Contacts introduce you to the next tier up when you hit that point, even if you aren't of sufficient level to get missions from the new contact yet.

This was more meant to address the idea of mez protection on squishies in general being lacking: make it an option for function (at least at max level) without impairing form. As it were.

If they'd just give us a Minimal FX version of Clarion, all mez protection issues would probably be solved...

Pre-"page 4" wasn't compel either. The fact remains that nothing about taunt was changed until/unless you go over the aggro cap.

Taunt wasn't changed, though. It still has its -Range component and still tends to incline enemies closer towards you. The aggro changes should only cause enemies to peel off and stick to ranged if you're already at max aggro, which under the old rules, would still mean they'd be attacking your buddies instead of you.

I feel like, given the nature of Time's Juncture helping to make you surprisingly tanky (especially on a Defender, but on other ATs as well if well-supplemented), pretty much anything involving Time Manipulation is gonna do you pretty well as a sort of front-line support. The big weakness it has is mez protection at least until endgame and Clarion becomes a thing (and even then if you don't like being covered in rings, I guess). I suspect Faraday Cage might mean similar with Electric Affinity, especially since it does have mez protection built in, but I haven't played much of said set. Also, this might be blasphemous to suggest around here, but it might be worth noting that the Rebirth community also has the Guardian AT, which is basically an attempt at a sort of wide-range emulation of VEATs (combining Assault sets and "defense" powers that incorporate benefits to your team), and fit the roll you're thinking of fairly well, to my mind.

It does more or less have one, it's just not really fully explained except in the final clue (which disappears quickly 'cause you have to read it between the last AV, and the final mission getting turned in), and a little bit in the final mission turn-in (which only the leader can see). As mentioned, it kinda suffers from the way story interacts with SFs, but it's kind of an amusing turn of events. Throughout the SF, Tarikoss makes it clear he is, like, super, puppy-kicking evil and he only wants to do business with people who share his decidedly negative take on morality, but that if you can get on board with a guy like him, he'll share the power you can all gain by helping him bind the demon. It's made pretty obvious that you shouldn't trust a guy like him and even the "heroic" NPCs warn you that you shouldn't let him take you for a ride. So it's pretty obvious that he's planning to use you to tap all that demonic power for himself. And then at the end...

Clones/Duplicates of my MM. Probably with a preference for Thugs or Demons, maybe Ninjas.