Lazarillo

Honestly, that's one of those powers that hurts a lot more as a player than it would to mobs anyway.

Actually not exactly the case. The Hydra were not created, they were kidnapped. The Rikti basically swiped some of them from their home dimension, and exploited their confused state to use as attack dogs, more or less. You can learn more about this in Tina MacIntyre's missions (even through the Ouroboros options, from the mission chain that gives the Multidimensional badge, though you don't actually have to finish the chain to get the badge, so many people don't).

If this is mission is updated to add the badge, how about giving him his actual costume and maybe a somewhat unique power lineup, rather than just making him a generic PPD Quantum with his status scaled up to AV level?

The music itself in the game is generally pretty good, just really, really poorly implemented. It's short enough that it really doesn't come up during the vast, vast majority of actual gameplay, and it's long enough that the times when you would hear it a lot of cool, contrasting toons is when you're crossing zones, but due to the speed of travel powers and the fact that one tune won't start while another is playing, you usually don't hear everything you "could". Also, whoever chose the music for the Incarnate Trials clearly thought players were going to take the raid storyline to be wayyyyyyyyy more grim than myself or anyone I seem to play with.

Only if the VA enunciates every "-" in "-You- -Will- -Not- -Fail- -Me-"

There's something of an animation problem for AS on several Stalker sets. Specifically: Claws, Dual Blades, Electrical Melee, Ninja Blade, and Spines. All of these sets use a long animation for AS that involves doing a sort of backwards crouch and then lunging forward. However, the "quick" animation seems to be very poor at accounting for the motion, often only playing random fragments of the animation, not playing any sort of visual, or playing the animation afterwards. I'm not sure this is a bug as much just how fast animations "work", and am not exactly fond of taking away options and such, but would it be possible to add alternate animations to the AS powers in these sets, for those of us who are more finicky about wanting animations to play correctly?

So my first thought, at least regarding the self-rez powers in defense sets, is that I'm a heck of a lot more likely to take those than the "godmode" powers that they often stand in for. Self-rezzes do what they're meant to do right "out of the box" with no need for extra enhancement slots and although defeats may be somewhat rare (although I'm a firm believer in "if you ain't dying, you ain't trying" anyway), I'm not sure they present any less situational need than the supercharging Defense/Resistance at the cost of a crash.

So what you're saying is that DM has a...sinister theme?

All the more reason then that time travel would fix it. It's what Mender Silos would want.

Though as noted elsewhere in this thread, it's probably not great for new players, when I think all-rounder in terms of secondaries, I think Dark Armor, generally because it's biggest "holes" (lack of KB protection, low defense, and even slow resistance) are rather easily plugged by IOs and pools, moreso than other secondaries (for example, there's no way to protect against Terrorize for the vast majority of sets). However, since you have to build around it, it's not great for beginners, but once one gets the hang of such things, while /Dark won't necessarily do better than certain specialists in their areas, you can will be manage-ably strong against basically everything, at a point where you also have little-to-no weaknesses (maybe PPD Kheldians...haven't done too much against them with my /Dark Brutes yet). As for the best primary to use, I've played around with Energy and Claws the most, and both do quite well. Energy gets the big takedowns making it a very effective boss-killer (along with stuns to ensure that the more annoying ones that like to pop godmodes and such don't get the chance), while Claws sacrifices some harder control, and deals with more resistance, but instead can crank out some crazier AoE.

I could go for some no redraw there, too (well, for Fortunatas, specifically...Widows don't have to worry so much), as well as Forts getting to recolor their powers.

Brutes (and whatever else) already have a chainsaw set, though, via BS, Katana, or Titan Weapons. Or Dual Blades if one Chainsaw isn't enough.

You could invent a time machine and go back to before when HC patched him to be so?

I do most of my badging on my main main, a Claws/Willpower Scrapper. This is not because the build is particularly ideal for it or anything, but just because, well, it's my "namesake" character in the first place. Of course, I have a few different "Lazarillo" characters and a couple others I also badge with, albeit less fervently, most notably a Time/Rad Defender who had been my "main" back in the late days of the game's original run, up until it was shut down in 2012 (and one of the first, if not the first I remade for HC). Beyond that, I do a little bit of badging on my Fortunata, and my Pain/Sonic Defender, and I've even been thinking about making another (likely a Brute of some variety), but for now, when I'm in a badge-y mood I mostly just focus on filling the gaps on those.

It may be worth noting, too, that at least in the old scene (not sure if HC has changed this), Paladins do not despawn, and construction of a new one will not begin if there are already 3 in the zone. So if you want to get the badge, it's still highly recommended to gather teams to defeat any Paladin(s) you see, as you might not get an opportunity for the badge while KR is overcrowded with them.

The problem with waiting for three stacks is that the way they work, you can instantly go from 3 back to 2 in the time it would take you to fire the attack anyway. So I typically just launch AS with whatever stacks I've got.

If I have enough plot power to be sent to another world, I clearly have enough plot power that this would mean I have joined the ranks of the world's many supers. So step one is figuring out my AT and powersets, I guess.

Friggin' ouch. Take care of yourself, too! Also, what's FBSAWiki?

I really don't know what could be done to make the defense set t9s, just sort of in general, into desirable powers. My main is a /Willpower, and I generally don't bother with the t9 because it's got a limited up-time and all the oomph of a medium orange Inspiration. It doesn't allow me to make any concessions in my build because of the timing, and isn't powerful enough to make a difference on the rare occasions I've got a problematic enemy. The other more "godmode"-y t9s are stuck in a pretty similar situation. You have to build to survive all the time anyway, so even the bigger numbers aren't really solving the problem. Sticking a crash on the end that all but guarantees you a faceplant when the power expires makes it decent for buying time, but doesn't let it stand above even a lot of pool powers. Generally, I hate the idea of any primary/secondary powers being considered easy skips, but maybe in this case, that's what t9s should be without cottage rule-breaking (something I'm equally non-fond of).

Hmm, just one? Probably Dominate, then. Quick, inflicts Hold, decent enough damage that it fits pretty nicely into an attack chain for ATs that get it, only typed as Psi for accuracy purposes so it has a high hit rate against stuff that doesn't explicitly have Psi defense (Yellow Mitos!). It's nice stuff.

As I recall, this point was actually raised in the old days, and it was, in fact, explained as "yeah, the name is just crazy coincidence, they are unrelated". Chalk it up to one of the original lore devs liking the name and forgetting it'd already been used, or something. Although even if HC wanted to retcon that (heck, "retcon" might even be stretching it since as you noted, it's not like the game says so), I'd imagine someone like Clamor would've been just as eager to bring down Crey if her real sister/cousin/whatever was the one in charge anyway. Clamor's not the sort of person who needs "justifiable" reasons.

Given that Maria's new arc references Statesman being dead, while the Underground trial references him being alive, but the Incarnate Trials take place after Maria's arc, what we're really looking at is someone having fallen through a time warp. I recommend we put Mender Silos on the case.

Cool, so then, let's just reduce the buff and remove the penalty. You never notice doing no damage, so you won't notice doing slightly less, either, right?

Or just play sets that also control and keep their damage, and will therefore also hold aggro even better. And that's not even getting into all the players who don't play with the intent of tanking in the first place and/or solo. Rage does not stand above all other melee self buff powers because it does not buff the set its in to a level that other sets are not penalized for achieving. The buff numbers are irrelevant if the results the produce don't measure up. Yep, and as noted, that's not what I'm calling you on here. It's not the only set I don't have fun on, either, for whatever reason. But I think what gets me is that it was so close to being a better set and the straight-up buff got pulled. So it gets me more riled up, perhaps (clearly, the true Rage was the journey we shared with our friends...wait, what?).

I must have missed the part where "it makes you useless to the point you might as well alt-tab and do something else every two minutes" is somehow "simply much better than any other power in any other melee set". Rage = The only melee power that penalizes the player for using it Should therefore also be Rage = Should make that melee set stand above others to compensate for that penalty. Thanks to the specific penalty invoked, I'd never call SS fun, personally, regardless. But that's a somewhat different argument, and the point remains that as long as it's the only set that has to pay to achieve mediocrity, it's not balanced.