Riverdusk

The only time I even consider broadsword is if I want to play a sword set with shield. It is the one advantage BS has over katana since for some reason in this universe you can hold a much bigger broadsword with only your right hand, but a katana takes both hands. I know it is an animation issue, but I find it amusing. Edit: I do think it works best on a stalker. Considering stalkers are at least partly more about the front loaded damage vs. dps over time, the extra bit of extra base damage that broadsword gives is sometimes more useful. And stalkers can't get battle axe or mace.

Only thing I'd say should be looked at is the balance between orange resistance and purple defense inspirations. It has always seemed off. I'd buff orange ones a bit and nerf purple ones a bit. Doubt it'd ever happen though. Oh, and being able to store inspirations in email and grab them during missions is a bit cheesy, but not sure if anything can be done about that. Otherwise, they are fine imo.

Very interesting. The one time I tried beam sent it felt kind of slow and clunky. The difference between feel and actual numbers I guess. Might have to give it another try. Thanks for the work on this.

Easiest time I ever have with this is with a plant dom. Save dom for that fight and hit them all with seeds. Fight is over baring a situation like above where they have a chance to buff up with crazy defense or something. Also actually often easier and faster to solo this one than doing it in a group. But of course, where is the fun in that?

Necro is especially adept at it now with the addition of the specters, considering they have a taunt. Just like illusion controllers, having a taunting pet really helps take the heat off of you (and your more valuable pets in necro's case), to safely take out the big targets. Necro doesn't even need crazy recharge to pull it off like illusion does, as the specters just spawn and quickly respawn if defeated. All you need to do is keep blasting.

2 months? I think I remember back in the day on live it took me like 9 months before I finally made it to 50 for the first time. Yes, after many characters. Sounds like you are doing fine.

Running tactics should increase that a bit, but point taken.

You'd be surprised. This is far from the first time triage/spirit tree have been suggested for an update. Usually been a couple of vocal critics of the idea of it being changed in any way that show up. Surprised we haven't seen them yet (hides).

Supremacy is a 60 foot radius. That is pretty big. I've never really noticed getting out of range of it a lot. It is the same as the leadership powers (which most MM's tend to take). So, that would be another way to monitor it, if you are within range of maneuvers/assault/tactics, then you are within range of supremacy. Nothing against the suggestion though if it is an easy thing to do.

And Invuln - 50% Willpower - 17.3%

I absolutely love choking cloud myself. If nothing else it acts as a sort of "melee defense". Things that get close tend to get held pretty quick before they can do much to you. I also find it much more useful than the once every couple of minutes, at best, EM Pulse, so why not. A choking cloud tic is actually quicker (2 seconds) than trying to cast EM Pulse (2.93 seconds), and of course, choking cloud keeps going. Have to admit where it really shines more than anywhere is on my illusion/rad controller though, fantastic for setting up containment. 😀 I use to be so-so on choking cloud myself as I swore I remember it didn't use to be nearly as good. I checked the old Tomax website and saw there that the tics use to be once every 5 seconds instead of 2, so that would explain it. Not sure exactly when they buffed it, but it is SO much better now. Another advantage of rad is personally I think you can take everything worthwhile in 6 power picks. I always skip the rez and fallout, and almost always skip EM Pulse. In my experience 90% of the time before you can even get the rez off the person has already hit a wakie or a temp self rez, or someone else has rezzed them. That goes double for fallout as then it is also likely by the time you use tp other and try to hit fallout, the mob is already dead anyway. Maybe if you are in a really coordinated team (that is also not steamrolling), but I found that exceedingly rare. Does leave you more room for other things than most powersets and without really skimping on the power of what the set can do.

I've had 2 characters now where I get the power from the START vendor right at level 1 and the very first time I ever use it I turn monkey. Only 2 times in probably a couple hundred characters, but I always figure it is an ominous sign for those characters.

Yes, and I do the opposite leveling on the way up. I turn off common recipes until I get near 50. Until you get to the higher level ones they don't sell for much at all and I figure I might as well get badge credit for rejecting recipes.

@MegaloRob I suggest doing all the story arcs in the Hollows (levels 5-15). You get an extra bonus merit drop and badge for doing all of them. Pretty sure you end up with something like 85 merits just from doing them all including the bonus. Not to mention they are some of the more fun arcs in the game.

I wouldn't mind a "defeated" counter added to those info terminals though. I'd find it interesting. And no one sees that info but you, unless you decide to share it.

He is the brute squad.

I do know I always cringe when I'm doing the Stephanie Peebles Striga arc with a psi user and the mission pops up where the entire map is nothing but robots and it is a kill all. I must have my wedding band temp power though, so I always slog through it. Most of the time I don't think it is too bad, especially as a blaster who a lot of times is overkilling things anyway.

Plasmatic Taser from START is probably my most used true "temp" power (and not prestige which are perm and free). It is fun, quick to cast, and does decent AoE damage, and is actually amazingly cheap in inf for what it does. Especially at lower levels when most character's have limited aoe it really helps clear the early mobs. I play a lot of controllers and the buyable temp attacks tend to be great for them especially because of their limited attack options, no matter the level. Envenomed dagger of course for AV's and recovery serum for easy big recovery boost when you need it are also high on the list. Kinetic Dampener also sometimes (the perfect temp power if I ever saw for dark armor characters especially). For non buyable temp powers though I tend to do the same as probably most and hoard and almost never use them. I have gotten over my hoarding of inspirations though and I am almost always clicking those. From my observations on a typical team, most people hardly ever even use inspirations, not to mention temp powers.

Guess that shows how long it has been since I've done an MSR. Never even heard of that particular joke.

SR also has Quickness which helps. Ninjitsu is another one that I find it less an issue as it also has a built in move speed buff power. Actually even a bit better as Ninja's also includes jump speed, not just run speed. I found it kind of fun and thematic to quickly jump after them to them to slap them down as they tried to run away. It'd actually be cool if all the scrapper sets that didn't have a taunt aura had a movement speed buff instead imo.

Energy Aura armor set gives different amounts of energy and negative defenses. Epic set Mace Mastery scorpion shield is another common one for a lot of my characters and it gives smash/lethal/energy defense and yet zero negative defense. Mu Mastery charged armor is my favorite go to when I want resistance instead of defense from an epic set and it gives smash/lethal/energy resistance, no negative resistance. I actually run into splits of types all the time personally, although it is more common from the epic pools.

As mentioned, they actually have an xp penalty compared to other groups, and they were already buffed with super stunners (which certain of my builds find a PITA already), so I'd say no.

Basilisk Gaze is probably the most common low level set I use. A defense bonus and a 7.5% recharge bonus with only 4 slots is pretty good and usually 4 is good enough for a hold power to get the job done. Also much more likely to go ahead and boost rather than attune the sets that cap out at level 30. Getting the set bonus down to level 27 isn't too bad. And, surprisingly, a 30+5 actually beats an attuned level 50.

Could just add this kind of stuff to the "info terminals" that are everywhere if they wanted to do so (that almost no one ever looks at). Don't think we need "ouro billboards" for it.

I know unpopular opinion, but I kind of miss prestige. I always wished they'd just made things super cheap instead of going absolutely free. Cheap enough that a solo SG would still be easy enough to build with a minimal investment. I'm a big fan of a 'sense of progression' and there isn't any anymore for SG building. Cheers to those that just want a creative free playground though and some of the bases out there are amazing.