Lazarillo

Honestly, thinking bad things about Tyrant's underlings would, typically, be pretty good take. If Tyrant had had more takes like that, this whole kerfuffle might've been avoided in the first place. Granted, it's still kind of a bad way to take a good take, in context, but it would've been a start.

Part of the idea in the game is supposed to be (although writers later in the game's life mostly ignored this rule) is that time progresses as your level does. When you're level 1, the destruction of Galaxy City is happening right now. Once your level 50 it was...sometime earlier in your career, though the exact flow of time is up to the player.

I'd really like this to be a thing, mostly because (sorry to say, I guess), I really don't like the idea of showing up in people's streams, and I'd have a better idea of who to avoid.

Oh, thanks for the warning! I knew of said power (I had an SS/EA Brute during the game's original lifespan), but for some reason I was thinking it has a minimal FX customization these days. If that's not the case then that may indeed be a bit of a strike against it.

I just don't like that it locks you into a combat stance, makes you run kinda funny, and last I checked, also prevents using emotes. None of which is eath-shattering, but sometimes you just wanna read about Heroes Halting Havoc, y'know? Appreciate the numbers readouts too, thanks.

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I hadn't looked too deeply at /EA, but it might do pretty well for me too. Interestingly, based on comments here though, too, it looks like it has better DDR than /Shield? Or is that some sort of mistake in Mids? My big thing I want is just sort of a "counterpart" to my /Will scrapper who can survive anything but is kinda easy to debuff to annoyance-oblivion. I want to stride through web grenades, laugh at Sappers, and grin derisively at PPD Kheldians and similar Praetorians that like to stack defense debuffs with big energy damage. /Shield also comes with certain...cosmetic limitations so I'm less keen on it but will toy around with that idea too, regardless, just to see. It is a solid set, from my experience, just one I tend to kinda forget about due to the visuals. But since my concept is pretty open for the character I have in mind, it ain't worth ruling out entirely yet.

Thinking of making a new Scrapper, I've loved Energy/ on a Brute for a long while now, and from the looks of things, it's even more solid on Scrappers, so I'm leaning pretty hard on running it. A couple questions for folks who are a little more experienced than I (or just have some insight into things): 1. Best spot for the Critical Strikes proc? This one's pretty straightforward, I suppose. I feel like probably not Total Focus, since it's the power that would benefit most from actually landing a crit. But beyond that, I'm not sure about bang-for-my-buck. I'm used to Claws/ where it's really obvious. 2. Recommendations for Secondary? Part of my hope with this character is to run some really solid debuff resistance, but I also don't want lots of scattering enemies, which probably means a taunt-effect aura (since Scrapper damage auras, last I checked, don't do much to actually keep mobs from chickening out). I'm leaning towards the suspicion that Invulnerability might be the best combo of those two hopes, but I haven't really ruled too much out.

There's a lot of content that can't actually be done in Ouroboros, though, or which won't be acknowledged as "done" properly after completion if you do it that way.

Claws/Willpower. I haven't been able to find anything that can compare, because it rips through everything and everyone, while being pretty much invincible on the defense side, including having complete mez protection.

Depends a little on the AT I'm playing, and also, I'll note "first to go" isn't always the same as "first to hit". For example, if I'm fighting Rikti, I'll make sure to hit a Comm. Officer with something quickly to prevent any portals from popping up, but it's the Guardians I'm gonna take down fast, to keep them from bubbling all their buddies.

The "plus" is because Cardiac Core Paragon gives a bigger cost reduction than Vigor Core (or, for that matter, Cardiac Radial), 45% vs 33%. I don't believe there's any other difference between them, despite the slightly difference wording, and that should be clear from looking at the real numbers (which both call it "strength to Endurance cost on self").

I love it. Maybe along with increasing/guaranteeing chances to fire, IMO, since I don't really like running the effect lotto, but even without that, one-per-power seems like an effective solution.

I mean, bear in mind, that that's assuming you're using Tanker multipliers. The mag when an NPC uses it will likely be somewhat different. As to the main question, I feel like it's unneeded on the whole, since there are ways to build around it through sets and pools. Heck, in that regard, it's one of the easiest effects to compensate for. Compare to 7/11 having no Terrorize protection, nor any way to add it to their build, or a similar number lacking Confuse protection (and only by dipping a couple times into the Leadership pool can a small amount of that be gained). Or any large number of status holes suffered by most other ATs. KB protection is one that the game already has plenty of.

I mentioned this a month or thereabouts back in a discussion of the Aeon SF, but ITF is also a great example of how to tell a story in a TF. It's not a complicated story, in all fairness, but because it stays straightforward, it's possible to understand what you're doing and why just from things like NPC one-liners and the way mission objectives are strung together. It helps, of course, if you've done the "A Path Into Darkness" arc before, but it's not necessary. But the point is that, yeah, it's not just fun to play, but it's also well-executed in terms of storyline. Not perfect, but leagues better than most group content; it's one of maybe four-ish that actually pulls off feeling like effective group-written content. I do have one beef with the gameplay, and that's the lack of use for control powers in most of it. Controllers, at least, have their debuffs, but I usually feel kinda anemic if I bring a Dominator on it.

I do make some Heroes, yes. Crazy, I know.

I'm not especially fond of them. They're boring (less boring when pulling, but still hardly exciting), and yeah, the grindiness of the badges is discouraging, and on Everlasting, at least, the sort of off-color chat that goes on in Local during them doesn't exactly create a pleasant mood. If the badges were less grind-y, at least, they might be fun to occasionally dip into. But as it is, they just end up feeling tedious.

He can "absorb powers" and if saved, he's shown using what appears to be Energy Blast attacks. So Kin/Energy (or the reverse) seems reasonable. Amusingly, I'd been thinking about this a lot recently, too, as I had a concept for a villain that literally got their powers from taking the villain choice in the tutorial, and so wanted to combine a "natural"-ish set with one that might occur from siphoning his power.

In fairness, /Shield gets Terrorize protection, too, but has other more cosmetic problems for me (which is neither here nor there in a power comparison, granted, but is why I tend to semi-forget it), plus click mez protection. I think Bill mentioned it either here or in the other power comparisons thread? Time clickin' mez protection is time not smitin'. As for other Def sets, depends. Defense still isn't a guarantee, after all. Plus AFAIK, Longbow Terrorizes are all unvectored "psi defense only"-type hits, so most defense sets won't offer notable protection there: IIRC, /Stone is the only set that actually offers Psi Defense, no?

Given that two of them are in probably the most common enemy group redside, and another is all over DA... Yeah, I honestly have a hard time playing anything but DA or WP these days because I'd say a set that can do something that can't be achieved with build tweaking is much valuable than a set where I can't compensate for its weaknesses via other means.

Rad Armor doesn't have any way to get Terrorize protection in the build.

Gimme no delay on Will Domination (the animation is fast, but the effect is so slow) and I pretty much figure it's good to go. Unless you're fighting robots. Or worse, Carnies.

Appreciated, guys. Doesn't talk me out of it, but helps me understand what I'm in for! 🙂

Hmm, it seems to be about on par with others, though maybe it's more about the animation times and/or the lethal/toxic damage combo (or now that I think about, the fact that it's on par...after factoring in the DoT damage?). That's fair. I actually like most of 'em (not Spine Burst, admittedly), but that's always gonna be kinda subjective (like I don't enjoy Axe/Mace because of recycled animations within the set, among other things). I'm guessing that's not where the F-rating comes from in this case, though, but maybe we're all more slaves to style than I was thinking!

So, legit curious, why does Spines rate so low for Brutes? I mean, I know it's popular for farming, but outside of that, it seems exceedingly rare, and the initial post here ranked it an "F". Does it really do that abysmally? And if so, can someone explain, perhaps, how it malfunctions so badly? Just sort of looking at it, it seems like it should be pretty nice and Brute-y to me, but I don't have any firsthand practice with it...

I like this idea, and it'd be fun to be able to trick-or-treat in a wider variety of zones. Only difference of opinion is, say, use GM code on the door spawns so that they just always con at-level, or similar.