Lazarillo

The latest big patch fixed the animation issues "No Redraw" caused for various weapon sets. Now it's just a matter of proliferating said option to Spines, and VEATs, and epic/patron pools...

I'd hate to see Confront changed to be AoE or a *vomiting noises* gap-closer. It's honestly pretty great right now as a pulling tool and for peeling tough enemies off of squishier allies without interfering majorly with mobs or tanking. Plus, it's nice for certain raids/trials and such for picking up slack from all the Brutes, especially, who are too cowardly (or too farm-obsessed) to take their own taunts. If Confront were to get an AoE component, I could see it as maybe something more like a ranged ST taunt (with a higher magnitude?) so it keeps its current functionality, but maybe with a PBAoE taunt effect (along with maybe a minor immobilize), to prevent enemies from running away from you. Basically, you keep what you "have" in terms of aggro (which is zero if you're pulling), but can add to it.

Given that, per the Newspaper missions, there's a "Freedom Phalanx" MMO on Primal Earth, I'd assume GoP is its evil mirror-universe counterpart.

If you stealth past NPC allies so they don't follow you, you don't lose any!

'twould be nice, and for Clarion, too (hell, more for Clarion, since it creates more "noise" directly over your costume). But alas, 'tis not so at this time.

It has less to do with who you have to talk to and more that if you don't do Montague in advance, you outlevel Mercedes as she has a very narrow window to start her arcs,

In my experience, it's generally more than sufficient. I main a Claws/WP, and stuff still doesn't run from him.

She used to be a lot worse than she is (most notably, she had a self +Perception buff that meant she'd aggro enemy NPCs from extremely far away, even while you were fighting something else). The original devs fixed her up, but for many, the memory is ingrained...

If you finish it before 20 you also unlock Mercedes Sheldon's arcs.

I've always hated the qualifications for the "master of" TF badges anyway. Rather than just expand them in this fashion, I'd rather see any new or revamped approaches to them (or similar) work more like Apex/Tin Mage/Incarnate Trials, and reward "Master of" badges based on going above and beyond in terms of achieving the goals of the missions.

I often skip it, more 'cause the ambushes are annoying and time consuming, than anything. The EBs can be a little tough, but the Vanguard one is usually not a problem unless she gets you with Curse of Weariness (gotta bring the temp power!), but can be done without even using Inspirations for me, typically. Honoree is requires some skittle-popping, but beyond that, usually goes down okay too. And it's not hard to pull them separately, in my experience. But Rikti drones are up there on my list of "fun-killing" enemies, and having to wait for waves of them if I want to handle the EBs toe-to-toe is a pain. Doubly so when my goal is usually to unlock my Alpha quickly.

I feel like, given Dominators are the only AT with access to Assault sets, that's a fairly poor use of developer time. Doubly so since there are more "Assault"s than Control sets. So if more Dominator sets were made, it would make more sense to me to make new Control sets, since those could be used on multiple ATs. Though I'll admit I have a very love/hate relationship with the AT, so maybe that's narrow minded. After all, HC has provided a bunch of new Blaster secondaries, and those are also of somewhat limited use on the AT scale, and admittedly, Assault sets are probably much easier to make than Control sets (which will likely be much heavier in terms of VFX). But still, I feel like more Assaults aren't really needed right now.

I mean, the ghost only lasts for, what, 3 minutes? Seems like if you killed them, it didn't take anyway.

Decimation already gets quite close to the ED-cap anyway at the level-40 equivalent. You'd be looking at a best case scenario of 3% more damage (less, if you have any damage buffs at all thanks to bonuses in your build, or teammates) in maybe a couple of powers at most. Seems like it'd not be worth the effort.

Yes, they are. Same with several of the AVs in Mizz Libby heroside, too, just as an FYI. While you can generally smash through the LRSF these days with a heavily Incarnate-d team, bear in mind, it was originally designed to be the villain equivalent of a Hamidon raid. So crushing a team that's sub-level-50 is, for better or worse, entirely what that fight is designed to do.

I noticed, probably due to the changes they did to root times and such, that Vorpal Judgement now ends with an unskippable little crane stance animation that I wasn't always seeing before. However, I don't think it's actually lengthening the amount of time before I can act again. It's just, before, there was a delay in other powers, now, it's just still being "locked" in the Vorpal animation.

At the risk of stating the obvious, put it on auto? Ctrl+click it and you should see a little green ring. That means it will automatically activate as long as it's recharged and the bar is sufficiently high. For a Perma-Dom, this means it won't drop (unless you'd get slowed, or something, below the threshold, in which case it would drop anyway).

I have generally opposed this in the past because No Redraw didn't work right anyway, but i27.2 seems to have finally fixed this issue, so now I'm all for it! And for Mace Mastery epic stuff for other ATs. And for Spines! No Redraw ALL the stuff!

Given that Dominators have no way to heal/buff them like Controllers do, pets almost always feel too flimsy anyway. And similarly, given Dominators already crank out plenty of damage, I end up questioning how much difference the pets really make (especially if aforementioned flimsiness means they're dead half the time anyway). I think Mind/ honestly offers greater mileage for having wider utility instead.

Thanks for the commentary. Yeah, Leviathan is for theme, so I plan to stick with it despite knowing I could do better. And yeah, also, I'm mostly thinking "tank" only in the sense of "the character goes in first, instead of the pets going in first". And on teams it'll probably play more...traditionally like an MM than a "true" tankermind. It's nice to know that as long as I don't forget my secondary, or anything (unlikely, I think), it should still be able to work, more or less.

Just curious what people think of the practicality of this idea. It's nowhere near optimal, of that I am certain, but I really liked the idea of creating a Mastermind that leads from the front lines, rather than hiding behind minions, as it were (ironic, I suppose, given the latest changes that totally pull a "we have reserves" approach to MMs!). The idea is that debuffs from Time Juncture + the Lich (even at their most basic levels) plus various Defense buffs put my MM and all the pets at effectively the soft-cap, so long as the MM takes point, letting the t1 and t2 zombies follow in. The MM has melee attacks for flavor; I'm not sure how practical they'll be (though like I said, they're more about concept than anything). I also have no idea how the Lich is really "supposed" to be slotted, so I just went with a fairly MM-standard setup for enhancements that works in all the various aura buffs. Thoughts?

I know how the "best" use of it works, I just don't really feel like, given how much more "effort" it takes compared to other sets, with how closely the management works, that it's comparatively rewarding. Basically you have to do more, to get the same results. And Psi is similar, with the addition of a luck factor to make it even more annoying.

I have two main beefs with Psi Melee: First off, the animations are cool, but the SFX played when you miss sound like nails on a chalkboard to me. Second, insight is janky. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you want it, but can't get it, sometimes it would be better to "save" it because what you need it for isn't ready, but it expires. And then you get locked out for an arbitrary amount of time. It's like all the worst parts of the Savage Melee mechanic (which I'm also not fond of), combined with the worst of the ones from Water Blast (probably not surprising that both Psi and Savage were half-baked, unfinished sets at the time the game originally ended). "Psi Melee" is a cool concept but I just can't see myself wanting to dedicate much time to a character with it.

If that's the crazy, then gimme my straightjacket, 'cause I'll maintain it. Then again, I won't play SS anyway because I hate the way Rage works, so probably my opinion doesn't matter? I will admit, I like the Punch animation on most the weapon sets, where the satisfying heft is, well, satisfying. But empty handed, it looks awkward, and is most certainly not a "punch" at all in the first place (the alternate animation does fix that, but I dislike that it and Haymaker have the same alternate animation, so I can only change one, and then I wanna get Air Superiority, too, and...yeah, we could go on all day). Gimme something outta your avatar, instead.

I just want to say I like every single one of these points. The badge ones, maybe could be "stop an invasion in every zone" (so Rikti, Zombies, Nemesis, or Banners, but not separate ones for each), but the idea of some sort of distinction for defending every zone is a neat one.