Lazarillo

Right, but now compare that to the XP you'll get from Council or Sky Raiders at the same level. The rezzed Freaks give the full amount of XP that they normally would but Freaks as a faction give less XP than other factions. However, it's supposed to balance out, because while Freaks give only 80% standard XP, they have a 1/5 chance to rez, and thus give "double". This was changed back during the game's original lifetime.

It is not haiku. Haiku need kigo as well Summer sunflowers

You get their full XP on the second defeat as well, but as an "exchange", Freakshow of basically all types are only worth 80% the normal XP relative to other mobs of their same level.

It's probably worth noting though that if you run away before the damage is dealt, you don't get caught by the rez debuff either. So if one's playing on melee, you can do a jousting-type maneuver where you queue up an attack and run/jump past them. I frequently do this myself, and it's a pretty helpful approach. That said occasionally when on a team someone else finishes one of first, and thus my joust ends up mis-timed and thus it probably looks like I'm running away after it's too late...

Here's the thing: it's so easy to overlevel in Praetoria that before fixing the teaming "issues" they need to make it so that teaming doesn't essentially require you to screw yourself over on plaything through it in the first place.

Is this something to do with the s00per-s33krit beta server for the elites? 'cause it's worth keeping in mind, Bruiser's handclap has been better than SS got since the before-days anyway.

In the 5-9 range, Mr. Bocor's arc, and standalone missions in general, which, while nothing special in terms of story, are a sort of nice "let's be classy, but still be unapologetically evil" atmosphere that works for a low-leveled villain. A few levels beyond that in the 15-19 range, you have The Aeon Conspiracy, and Echo Down the Aeons from Marshal Brass, and Oh, Wretched Man from Seer Marino, which are all really good lore-building/foreshadowing-type arcs. In the 20-30 range, Dean MacArthur is just one of the flat-out best contacts in the game on either side, and is not to be missed. The contact who follows off from him, Leonard, should also be done (as you mostly continue to work with Dean during Leonard's arc, too). Also in the 20-30 is Vincent Ross, who has a pretty good arc for villains who seek UNLIMITEDDDDDDDD POWAAAAAHHH. I find his final mission to be a sort of "lesson" on how absolute power is also absolutely boring, but some people really dig the finale. 25-29, specifically has Diviner Maros who has a cool arc, remarkably snappy dialogue for a 25,000-year-old mage, and his standalone missions are all sorts of cool Butterfly Effect-type preludes to several hero arcs, so if you did a lot of story there, you'll probably enjoy him (but be warned, his standalones aren't Ouroboros, so you may want to turn XP off for a while with him). Note that if you want to do Vincent Ross' arc, too, do Maros *first*, as if you finished Maros' main arc, he'll get involved in the plot of Ross' arc as well. Also if you have the first Infamy badge in time, Doc Buzzsaw is in the 25-29 range, and her mission dialogue is remarkably fun and and hilarious. Her later arc I can take or leave, but the original ones she had were great. Finally, same range (the 20s have so much good stuff for redside!) if you're playing a Rogue, specifically, Bobby Curtin's arc is a Homecoming original, and my personal favorite of all the ones they've done. It's a ton of fun. Level 30-34 range is the Slot Machine. Like Doc Buzzsaw, it requires a badge, though. It's the one you get on HC for defeating 200 Family Minions/LTs, which you also need for an Accolade, so worth picking up regardless. Its second arc is not very villainous, let's just say, but it's just got some darned good writing. You probably want to avoid Vivacious Verandi, as her arc involves you getting bossed around and just sort of taking it, and that bugs a lot of people playing villains. Level 35-39, I'm a fan of Basse Croupier. He's a pretty cool cat, as they say. You also should start your Patron arcs. You can only get the first one before level 40, but they're all pretty generally well-written. Level 40-44, you can get your second Patron arc. The most "notable" contact in this range is also the most divisive: Westin Phipps, the absolute most colossal scumbag, make-you-feel-sick, "shouldn't I have some standards?" kind of evil there is. In some ways, I feel like he's worth experiencing just so you can understand why so many players hate his arcs, but...just know you've gotta have some stomach for them (the only bit of redemption to be found is that you can betray him at the very, very end by allowing a mission to fail...in a lot of ways it feels really cathartic to let that failure happen but you have to do a lot of really bad crap to get to that in the first place). For 45-50, there's two more Patron arcs, and beyond that, Television, which is offbeat and fun, and Vernon Von Grun, who's similarly offbeat, and fun, and full of mad science, and has the best single-mission NPC ally ever, Becky the Tarantula Mistress. Also Viridian, though the hoops you have to jump through to unlock him are insane, his arc is honestly kinda worth it.

It's not a story arc, but rather, a one-off mission, which made it very easy to miss. IIRC, Homecoming added a badge for it as an excuse to get the one-off into Ouroboros. Per the wiki: In Ouroboros, this is listed under Champion (Level 25-29) as "Lost Motivation". It grants the "Pecking Order" badge.

I'm not saying that they're not interesting ideas, but it's kind of incredulous to imply that these are in any way "clever" in ways that current defeat badges are not. Kinda like how people claim the classic-style "Master of" badges are a challenge when if anything, the point of the badges is not to challenge yourself.

Oh, in addition to the ones I already mentioned, I really want to have a Crab Spider Webmaster Gladiator, to use as a badge title for my Arachnos IT guy.

I always assumed they were trying to get people to join their stream via Discord or whatever. "Here's what we're playing now". I know that that's been a thing in the past (TheCape Radio, or what have you), and I've seen people do the same on MSRs, too. Or maybe this is a player who saw the other advertisers and didn't realize they were advertising, and just thought listing music was a thing people do in the game?

One might argue that this should apply to anything that interacts with movement. Group Fly, for example.

Well, you asked for "unusual" so I was trying to avoid Dark sets in general. But yeah, such a combo also seems totally appropriate.

I occasionally play a vampire Illusion/Savage Dominator. It's pretty outside the box, but feels like a nice mix with the sort of feral blood-crazed creature in the secondary (including a heal that isn't explicitly draining life, but is based on lusting for blood), with some dark magic-y feeling stuff. Ravens, confounding visions, etc, all feels in spirit. Maybe Mind instead of Illusion if you want something a little less...flashy.

On Everlasting, MoKeyes have a team of cycling Incan-ers to ensure the team avoids the green stuff, so that everyone can earn the badge, Avoids the Green Stuff. They typically test check before the run starts to make sure everyone's got auto-accept on so that the strategy can work.

I read this, thinking, "I bet all they did was add the purple bit, and everything else was originally the same". Then I checked the original Paragon Wiki (which is still up in archive form). That's exactly what they did, just plugged in the bit about Statesman being killed. Everything else is the same. They did that in various places across the game, just kinda throwing in halfhearted bandaids for the sake of whatever weird thing was behind that idea.

The Knives of Artemis are one of the deadliest groups of mercenary combatants in the world. It is rumored that they number no more than 100, but no one is certain. Masters of stealth and reconnaissance, they are highly skilled with all weapons, but the crossbow is their signature. To that end, I maintain we absolutely need one for defeating 100, with a description along the lines of "Though the true number of Knives of Artemis in the world is unknown, you're pretty sure you've taken every member down at least once." And a second for defeating 100 in a single mission, maybe something like "Definitely more than 100. You checked."

Actually, story is a big reason for the difference between the two, to the point there's a reason I really like the ITF, and think the ASF is some of the poorer content the game has to offer. The ITF is made to be a TF in terms of story. Almost all the critical storytelling is in quick blurbs that fit into ambush lines, mission objectives, or even better yet, shows a mastery of visual storytelling (coming round the corner and seeing...those robots in mission 3). The ASF, by contrast, is something that in terms of story really wants more to be an SSA, basically impossible to follow if you're not the leader and getting the big, long info dumps and talking to all the NPCs. And then in terms of mechanics, it wants to be a raid, having complex mechanics (often which are not as well-explained as they would be in typical Incarnate trials). It honestly feels like a crash course in how not to do a Task Force, while the ITF in its classic form, is more or less the perfect distillation of putting one together, from the development side.

I mean, what kind of third-rate vampire has a reflection?

So you're specifically focusing on playing only content where Shards don't drop, complaining they don't drop, and then claiming that's a reason that they shouldn't drop in any other content as well? ...so that means that that nobody should get them ever, and nothing should be done to compensate for the lack of them? To be clear, I'm not necessarily knocking people for going "this is too complicated I don't want to do it". I think PAPs are complete waste of time, but I don't advocate for them to be removed just because I think it's a dumb system. Since as it is, you can ignore Shards if you don't want them, why not do that, and let the people who want to engage with that system, do so? Nor am I necessarily insisting that the current system needs to stay. Simply that any "solution" shouldn't add grind for no reason. If Shards are taken out, then Threads should be increased to compensate for what could be done before their loss. If Notices are taken out, then E-Merits should as well.

Whereas by the time the other slots are unlocked, I often already have t3s for Lore and Destiny already crafted from my Emps and Threads, and also have a t3 alpha from Shards and Notices. I mean, that seems clear enough (not just from this thread, but I see it in Help chat a lot too). Lots of people wasting way more time because they don't want to pay attention. But I don't really see a reason to remove the advantage from people who do. Granted: ...this is closer to me anyway most of the time, because frankly, even with Shards, I find the late game too grindy. So you're hurting me less than you probably think you think you are. But I do think it's unfortunate that I don't get to see well-oiled teams working together as much, so I am a little saddened by the idea of having even less of an excuse to play "live".

But 26 levels you don't have to do to finish your build. You could play an alt (or use those 26 levels to fund an alt, giving you more time you could be playing your main). Anyone who plays this game grinds, to some degree or another (unless, I guess, they just play on Beta only and auto-completes every build). "Playing for fun" doesn't mean you're not grinding it. If you had no intent on finishing your build, why do any Incarnate-ing at all?

Sure: How many Vet levels? Because assuming the typical drop rate for threads, those 135 shards that you wasted by ignoring would've gotten you "fully T4'd out" around with about 14 fewer Vet-levels worth of grind. What it comes down to is pretty simple: Removing Shards without increasing threads increases grind. Period. Full stop. You are taking out a drop and replacing it with nothing. Just because you don't take advantage of it doesn't mean that the extra work you force on yourself should be forced on individuals who make better use of what's given to them.

And yours ignores, once again, that relative to the cost of the components they're used for, Shards drop at effectively the same rate as threads, sometimes even better, depending on the content (and in fairness, sometimes threads drop at a better relative rate than Shards, too, though in both cases, that's only for very specific content...99% of the game, they drop at equal ratios according to their value). When Common-Uncommon components only cost 4-12 Threads, and Rare-Very Rare only cost 1-2 E-Merits, then the ratio would matter. If you want to drop shards from the game, then that ratio needs to be accounted for. If the issue is with shards rendered obsolete faster, then don't tie it to drop rate, I suppose, but rather, Vet levels as well, and make each one that gives threads give about 50% more, and that would also account for the waste from flat out removing an alternative path (and maintain the 10 E-Merits per WST for equivalent ratio on the rares).

This is kind of a misconception of itself, because it doesn't treat the Incarnate system as, well, a system. Saying something is only good for Alpha ignores the fact that any Threads or E-Merits wasted on something that could be done with a Shard alternative, also means you don't have them towards work on another slot.