Lazarillo

Apologies, I called them your words, but they were Doomguide's. This is where I take issue: ...again, if that's the case, then anyone not building to have more than 45% defense right now is doing it "wrong", and I take issue with that.

If neither is true, why is it that a Scrapper would "get annihilated" on Relentless without doing so, according to your claim?

I'd rather imagine that than imagine only one type of build is considered the right way to play this one.

Which is a damn shame because that just ends up hurting people who don't minmax even harder.

This is very close to an idea that I've had for a long time. I like to call it the "Vanguard", though I suppose that name has certain connotations already in the game. Primary Assault, Secondary Pets. Pet set attacks are replaced by theme-appropriate defensive skills (Ninjas get stuff from Ninjutsu, Demons get Fiery Aura, etc), though I imagine it more as basic armor toggle, second armor toggle, mez protection. Even your idea for an inherent is kind of similar to my own. I expand it a little bit, though. Vanguard Inherent: Tactical Flow - "A Vanguard is master of controlling the pace and intensity of a battle. By focusing fire with unit, each member will do additional damage. However, when the group splits up, they throw the battlefield into a controlled disarray, reducing enemy accuracy." In execution, basically, attacks from the PC and every pet a non-stacking accuracy debuff on whatever they attack (unstackable even from multiple sources, a la Bruising), but also a unique "tag"-type debuff (like Decelerated from Time Manipulation). And damage dealt is multiplied by the number of unique tag debuffs the target has.

It generally does, though the protection you can get depends on the source. IIRC, vectored defenses aren't useful against the most common Terrorize-inducing skills (Longbow pets and enemies that use the Terrorize skill just flat out), though it can be against some of them (KoV, for example).

That also only has 50% uptime at best, so I feel like it's still doesn't overcome what a boon innate Terrorize protection is. Confusion less so, since Tactics can provide that, albeit at low mag, but enough to constantly hold back at least one stack, but that's where Hybrid as a "backup" works a little better.

I feel like it's worth noting that /Dark, /Willpower, and /Shield are the only defense sets that give protection to Terrorize, which is the only status hole that can't be compensated for elsewhere in a build. To that end, I feel like they deserve more respect, at least for people planning to play through a significant portion of the content.

Back in the i5 days of hours leveling in the Hollows, My first-ever character joined on to my first-ever Cavern of Transcendence run. This was, of course, back when lowbies were weak and enhancements were rare and you had to fight all the way to the door and hope nobody got stuck. But as we pushed through the mobs Trolls in the tunnels, my little lowbie Regen Scrapper started feeling more confident, and ran just a little too far to the front and discovered some of the Trolls have bombs. Now as far as why this is relevant to this thread, it's because one of my teammates came up close gave me a wakie, and sent a Tell alongside it, dropping on me quite possibly the most insightful thing I've heard in the game, with linguistic mastery that I've seen duplicated only perhaps by Shakespeare. That one Tell that put everything in perspective? Why can't kids these days be that poetic?

I feel like the VEAT inherent is fine as is. It's not "fun", but the ATs are generally strong and effective with the way it works as-is. Plus, the way things go, changing it to a proc on all attacks would mean VEATs have to constantly deal with "DOMINION!" getting spammed on the screen whenever it went off, and that would get old fast.

In fairness, Doms already have Spines. Also, was Sword+Gun the "power set" for one of the Korean signature characters (though I don't think he ever made it into the actual game)? So it's totally without precedent.

I will go a little on the side of the TC here and note that it's not like such a process would need to eliminate shapeshifting, either. For example, it'd actually be kind of neat to tie form changes to a costume change and "build your own" Dwarf or Nova appearance. NPC models are, honestly, kinda boring. So I get that. And it seems like it need not be an animations issue since you can preview the Nova/Dwarf powers these days in the outfitter, and it'll show an animation in the human form you preview from. So it seems feasible, at least, although whether it's worthwhile is left as an exercise to the reader. But all that aside, Shadow Cloak, specifically, needs a Min. FX version, dammit. My WS gets stuck with an NPC form even when in human form!

This is because Tina was replaced later on in the game's life to give her an overhauled appearance and change the story arc she gives to reflect the new Praetorian content. The same actually happens to Maria Jenkins. Any missions you do for either one through Ouroboros will result in an error when you try to teleport to them.

I got more the implication that Hamidon and Mothership raids are generally just "carried" by a small number of good players and that 30-40 of the people involved are basically do little more to contribute than your average farm "sitter". I can see where the idea might come from, though I'm not 100% sold on it, personally.

Then that's not intuitive. "Intuitive" means you can figure things out just by seeing it right away.

Dense? Unclear? At any given time, it's extremely difficult to figure out what's going on or why, not just in gameplay but also in story, and particularly on the gameplay side, there's very little idea of what is being done to you or how you avoid things. For one example, the one run I did (not likely to do it again until it becomes soloable and I can learn the story) I was constantly getting spammed about "DIMENSIONAL INVERSION" or some such on the screen. There's no real instinctive response to whatever the hell that means. It's not the only such mechanic, either.

All of them, except maybe whichever poor schmuck tried to make a buncha supers fight to the death when they didn't wanna. Superheroes (and supervillains, really, dammit) are all about beatin' the odds.

Is "intuitive" the word you were going for there? "Not hard to figure out"? "Easy to guess what you're doing"...? 'cause that's not a word I'd use to describe the ASF.

To be fair and clear, the "Merit rewards reflect completion time" is a policy set by the Paragon Studios devs, and reflected a time when the game was built around far more grindy advancement systems, as well. As of yet, we really haven't seen what/how the HC team thinks of meting out rewards. The only thing they've really messed with, as far as I recall, are Mothership Raids, which generally net you about 40 Merits for 30 minutes of action. If that is the gold standard, then hooboy, there be nerfs a-comin' (imagine Hamidon only being worth 20 merits, for example). Though this is partly why I imagine HC has been fairly hesitant to mess with such rewards, especially given how non-grindy the current system is anyway. People who want the "rewarding" content can run that, people who want variety can run many things, and we have systems like the Weekly Strike Targets in place to give a little bit of intersect. With that in mind, I don't really think I'd be for the initial topic suggestion, either (though I do think/wish similar enemy buffs should be better evaluated...to me, annoyance factor is not difficulty factor, per se, and "they're more annoying now" is more what happened with Crey).

Elude is honestly only just one facet of a much larger problem. Defense set t9s need to be...reevaluated overall anyway. Elude is kind of a net loss because it's so easy to get /SR to soft-capped defenses anyway. Stuff like Unstoppable and Power Surge aren't really much better. And even the low-crash stuff like Strength of Will tends to make you pay for what's little better than an Orange Inspiration.

Is there any thought/consideration to making a "SSA-style" version of the TF? The story seems interesting but too much of it is hard to get when playing with a team, particularly a TF team where the leader can quickly change/advance objectives without context. It would be nice to solo it and see what all the nice setpieces are actually about.

My main, Lazarillo. Conveniently, for in-character reasons, the character Lazarillo is represented by like 14 different alts and counting. My altitis need not bow.

FWIW, I originally built mine with Dark Mastery, too. Soul Drain is good, good stuff and Dark Consumption is also nice for the aforementioned Endurance issues. I ended up swapping the pool when I re-did the build for the sake of getting permanent Chrono Shift without Hasten (another power I just have personal beef with, to a degree, but you can probably make the build more optimal by using).

You are correct, though I've had a few times in the last couple weeks where the response was "we don't have to do that you'll get it eventually if you keep doing the TF". Hence why I've been double-checking things, and wondering about the past and intent of the badge, too.

If I were to guess, it's to "balance" things a little with Kitty's Got Claws. Since Neuron makes more clones after Bobcat gets defeated, you end up with that badge if you leave him alone and focus Bobcat, just like you get KGC for doing the opposite. I'm not sure whether or not that's a good reason, but that's at least some train of logic... May just be the Mandela effect on my part, then. Personally, even if not, I'd rather more people thought that since it's that way now...less explaining to do when the echoes of "you'll get it by continuing to do the TF" rear up again.😅