Riverdusk

And in case it wasn't clear, debuffs and controls work the same. Debuffs are reduced by that amount and controls duration is decreased.

Yep, I'd vote for Barney Miller (the original reference) over any new one.

Well, if you really want to "branch" out, I think plant is your only choice.

Was going to say the same. If you find yourself ever really loving a character and have the inf you could just make an exemp build and a "max 50" build. So far I find myself always moving onto another alt before I get to the point I'd do a build for each, but maybe some day.

Order within sets doesn't bother me. I only require that sets be together if I have a mix. I wouldn't be able to stand 2 of a set, then 1 of another set, then 3 of the original set for instance. A set has to be together. I could even have it 1 and then 5 or 5 and then 1, as long as they aren't mixed up.

Yep, I'd say I'm pretty sure Malaise does. I definitely remember him beating up my super reflexes character pretty good until I realized what was probably happening. But not hard to pack a few purple inspirations to get the psi defense up for those rare times.

Honestly my experience is that PA is pretty well behaved and even without being able to command them found them easier to deal with than most MM pets. It also helps of course that they are invincible and taunt enemies to themselves so you really don't have to babysit them. As to grabbing aggro, I use the macro to cast them directly on who I want them to attack: /macro PA powexeclocation target "phantom army" The stupid one I find is the phantasm that tends to like to run up and try to melee mobs even though it has no melee attacks.

I ended up taking both Sup Invis and Group Invis on my illusion/traps. SI is a toggle and GI is a click, so they do stack although for the stealth SI alone puts you at the stealth cap and the minus aggro cap. The +def does stack though and for traps in particular I like it as it is a way to stealth the force field generator so it doesn't aggro stuff when I just want to run through. Also needed it for the LoTG mule and it was either that or maneuvers, so not much difference and not nearly as endurance intensive. The invis occasionally useful for teammates, although I try to avoid hitting the tanks/brutes with it. Perma PA eventually definitely, but I had phantom army to where it was only down for about 15 seconds even in my mid 20's, so not even that late blooming anymore. Just need to grab IO's early and grab the +rech available from the SG base buff and the P2W vendor. Then you get the occasional lucky "quick reflexes" from secondary mutation too.

I tend to always end up naming my three tier 1's Larry, Darryl, and Other Darryl I figure a lot of the player base of this game tends to even be old enough to get the reference.

When the time comes you might actually look at barrier rather than ageless as @Nyghtmaire mentioned. Between cardiac and barrier you can get all your pets solidly into the 80's min on resistance %. Resistance is a bit like defense in that the closer you get to cap the stronger it gets in a way. At capped (90%) they are taking half the damage they are taking at 80% resistance for example. I managed to get my endurance issues under control (not easy to do with this combo, but doable), and actually went resilient and barrier to absolutely max it. Thanks to them, my pets all have around 87% minimum resistance to all but psi (which is at 'only" 67% or so). When barrier is at higher numbers (during the 1st minute), they are pretty much fully capped at 90% resistance to all but psi and even psi is at a nice number, especially compared to what most other pets can get to. I rarely have to worry about them and they tank quite nicely. Also thought about rebirth, but barrier actually lets them take alpha's better. Maxing my pets tankiness I find more useful than the +rech or +end that ageless gives. I'd also suggest trying to fit in gloom, which is one of the best attacks a MM can get. I add significant dps to fights by spamming life drain and gloom (with 3 damage procs). Sonic is a chill secondary so you have plenty of time to attack. I can understand if that doesn't fit your playstyle or RP though.

Has happened to me a few times, even back on Live with Teamspeak, but very rare. Yep, not a big fan of voice chat generally. I find it awkward and annoying to use (maybe it is the introvert in me), and I play in an environment where I can't be yelling into my computer usually anyway. I typically play with the sound turned pretty low.

Definitely not always the same amount of time. Knockback sometimes ragdolls them and causes them to get stuck on the ground (or on the scenery) for a much longer time than knockdown. Also of course potentially takes them out of melee range from you which can be helpful sometimes. Not arguing for slotting one way or the other, I can see use in both. If you are rich enough there is always the 2nd build option so you have both options.

Haven't tried it myself with a stormie in particular, but I've read of people soloing AV's with nothing but storm powers alone, so I'd bet a Grav/Storm definitely could. Just a matter of building for it. Or honestly just using a bunch of purple inspirations is usually enough to get you through if surviving is the issue. Fights like that are what inspirations are there for. Also depends if someone is talking about a +0/+1 AV or a +4 AV of course.

Well, spirit tree isn't very good as it stands, but you run into the old "cottage rule" at this point so a complete remake would be extremely unlikely. I'd just be happy with a bit of improvement to it. Even just cutting the recharge (and duration) in half would make it a lot more useful for today's game. A static pet of any kind needs to have a pretty short recharge to be of much use outside the rare AV/GM battle. Or it needs a huge buff to its +regen for the short amount of time people might actually stand in range or it needs to be made mobile somehow. Carrion creepers can already be made permanent with some decent amount of recharge (6 min recharge, 2 min duration), and unlike the tree moves with you, so not seeing much need for lowering its recharge. It is borderline OP as it is.

Interesting theory and can't say I ever tested it myself, I just assumed it worked like other pets do. That dark servant doesn't take pet IO sets (which I always thought weird) might mean it is an exception and doesn't act like most pets for procs. Sounds like @zenblack has already tested it though. Seems like it'd be easy for anyone to test for themselves if they really care to do so. Stick some procs in there and watch the pet combat tab to see when they fire. I'd assume what it does would still show up on that tab, even creepers (which isn't a "real" pet) procs show up on pet tab.

Specifically for dark servant, Cloud senses proc in it is very nice as pretty much everything it does has a tohit debuff. On the other hand, loading up with procs from hold sets doesn't accomplish nearly as much since it just has the one hold attack where they could actually fire off.

Time also has a -resistance debuff that helps out PA damage (which you can proc for even more -res), just that it comes late. Best thing about ill/time combo is the big +recharge it gets (although also late). Makes getting perma phantom army eventually trivial to get compared to most other combos. Between that and the extra +tohit it also gives you, you don't have to find as much recharge or slot as much accuracy to do very well. That frees slots to put in more procs as a way to increase your damage. It's a good combo. Early on for a set as recharge hungry as illusion I strongly suggest at least grabbing the +20% recharge buff you can get from a supergroup buff table (and I don't believe you have to even belong to a SG to use their buff table). For 3 pieces of relatively cheap salvage you can get 1.5 hours worth of +20% recharge at a time. I also suggest the +15% recharge temp buff you can get from the P2W vendor for up to 8 hours at a time (for a total of +35% global recharge you can have starting even at level 1), but the P2W one starts to get a bit pricey as you level, so might be out of reach for a 1st time character unless you do some more serious marketering.

Haven't tried it myself yet, but I agree. Rune of protection with either shield or willpower isn't a bad plan as you could then alternate that with your tier 9 to have pretty consistent extra resistance. Biggest issue probably fitting in all those power picks somehow, but sounds like it'd be very nice.

Katana's good harder hitting (and to me the most fun) attacks come at lvl 26 and 32 for a scrapper, so I'd definitely hang in there before deciding. I love stalkers, but I like katana (and ninj) better on a scrapper over stalker. Lotus drops is too nice to give up imho. Ninjitsu gives you free extra crits and the built in hide which makes it feel semi stalker like even as a scrapper. And Shinobi + ninja run is best travel power. Katana's extra defense in divine avalanche helps make up for ninjitsu's mediocre DDR. Very good combo.

Definitely of the opinion scrappers need their resistance cap raised a bit and not have it be at the exact same level as every "squishy" class out there, but other than that they are fine imo. A pure resistance brute can do almost the same damage and yet be 2.5 times "sturdier" (at capped res=brute taking 10% damage vs scrapper taking 25%). In the meantime I just play defense sets with them and avoid pure resistance based sets.

And those sappers so many fear. You laugh at sappers as they try to drain their friends instead.

This is not "dumbing it down", it is getting rid of an annoying mechanic that forced you to team on certain missions, and not even in a fun way. I like teaming, I don't like forced teaming, especially not for "regular" content, so big hard NO vote from me thanks. LOVE that they got rid of the annoying simul clicks. Things like that to me should be reserved for stuff like incarnate trials if they have to be in at all. And honestly changing it back to the old way isn't going to actually force most people to try and team for them, it just means they become missions a lot of people end up using their "auto complete" on to get by them. Assuming it isn't in Ouro (can you use auto complete during Ouro? Never thought about it before). If not, doing them in Ouro means you get stuck because you can't invite extra people in during an Ouro mission, so that's another bad thing. Potentially I like the idea of extra reward if you do them all at once like the old way though.

One of the great mysteries to me is why that option is set to disabled by default for all non-MM's or even why it even exists at all really. Literally all turning that option on does is then in turn give you another option to actually click on the word "pets" on the team window to THEN turn on the pet window. It's basically an option for an option. I've always said it should be on by default for everyone. If someone really hates having the "pets" option on their team window they could then turn it off I guess. As it works now, I can't even count the number of times I've had to explain in help channel the 2 step process it takes to actually get the pet window to appear for non-MM's.

It's generally strong enough to prevent things from annoyingly running away, but a brute or a tank can pull things off of you easily. Pretty much exactly what I want in a scrapper taunt aura actually.

Willpower, invulnerability, and shield also all have taunt auras on a scrapper. With you on that though. I think the only non-taunt aura scrapper secondary I can stand is Ninjitsu. One, the only other way to play it is on stalker (which also has no taunt aura) and the scrapper version is so much better than the stalker version. And two, Shinobi-Iri makes you so fast that runners aren't as annoying as you can just run (or jump) them down in an instant. Shinobi-Iri +Ninja run = most fun "travel power" in the game and Shinobi-Iri + combat jump = amazing combat maneuvers.