Riverdusk

I haven't really done much testing on procs in tornado or water spout, but one big difference between the two to note. Tornado does knockback, water spout only does knock-up. So, I tend to skip slotting a kb to kd IO when I take water spout. I can maybe see some still taking it as the knock-up is high enough of a mag that it can still be somewhat annoying to melee when it flings them up REALLY high sometimes, but I find there are better ways to use that slot since it doesn't scatter things around nearly so much as tornado does.

I find that a little funny as if anything I tend to forget to keep the -res disruption field toggle going, but I definitely try as it is such a good power. Mostly is an issue on maps with any kind of elevators because annoyingly the toggle turns off almost every time when the team has to use one. It triggers the "target is too far away so toggle is turned off" thing that disruption field has unless you hit the elevator at almost exactly the same moment. I'm constantly casting the shields, but I'm also a MM. MM's probably actually make the most consistent buffers because we want to keep our pets alive. We just happen to hit the rest of the team in the process. 😄

Agreed. Some might say just play a bane soldier, but that just isn't the same. Could also try a WM/Ninja scrapper and I have been tempted as with ninja you still get the guaranteed crit from hide and a guaranteed crit on clobber sounds amazing, but still wouldn't be quite as nice as having it on a stalker.

I'd still like to see triage beacon (and spirit tree) have their recharge cut in half (could also cut duration in half to keep it "balanced"). That alone would make it much more useful as you could get it out more often. Most of the time a team moves on way before the duration expires anyway. Seems like an easy fix.

Wes Schnabel has been bugged for a while now, you can do a search on his name and you'll see the threads on it. Athena should be working fine. When you actually get arcs is often random and you'll sometimes have to do a lot of their non-arc missions before they'll start the arc.

Purple patch. I heard the "self cast" thing before so was thinking effectiveness of interface debuffs were not affected by level differences, but now it sounds like perhaps everything is. Would make the small -15% regen you get for each stack of diamagnetic even more tiny against the AV's you actually need it for if it is reduced by level difference as well. Easy enough to test for myself, but if you happened to already have done so...

Did you happen to test the interface procs as well? Like for example the tohit debuff and -regen of diamagnetic?

I hit up an NPC who's name starts with an "M" and checked my play time on my last couple of 50's (I only have 3 total at this time) right near when they hit level 50. I took 60 hours and 75 hours on the two to reach that level with the way I play and level up. Even shaving that down to about 50 hours per 50, and even playing 16 hours a day, it'd take me about 18 years to play all 2113 combo's to 50 with the way I like to play. I don't think I'll be trying this myself, but good luck to you @BasherBot. 😄

Yep, you'd have to click on their name to check it. There is an option to have it "Always Show" under Options-Windows-Reticle, so you'll also see it immediately if you are within sight of them. About as good as it gets for now.

Except for Vengeance, unless you're nemesis and get to cheat.

Duo MM's I think would be pretty fun and amazing, but I'm a big MM fan, so might be a bit biased. Controller wouldn't be bad either so you can lock everything down and don't have to worry about your pets chasing after runners. The new pet AI and all the slows in /time don't make that something critical to have though. Go with what seems most fun. This game is easy enough you don't have to min/max to be effective with any duo really.

To an extent I'd say yes. They don't taunt, but if you have them attack first (and especially if they are one of the sturdier combo's) it can take enough of the edge off those first strikes, as long as you aren't getting too crazy with difficulty. Sounds like you want a smooth journey on the way up, so I'd probably do something with /time which I feel is one of the strongest and easiest to use secondaries. If you stick with it, later on it can almost make you all into tanks. Almost any primary would work, thugs or bots or even beasts to stack the defense with early would probably be best.

Have to take dispute with this being a DM stalker. With the buff to shadow maul, DM's aoe is not much different than ninja blade/broadsword now, they both have one wide cone. Only real advantage is golden dragonfly's absolutely tiny cone, which in my experience isn't something you can ever count on. Could even argue that shadow maul is better than NB or BS's one wide cone as shadow maul is harder hitting and a longer recharge, so it crits harder and is more procable. Shadow maul also has a 10 target cap instead of only 5. Energy melee and martial arts are the only "real stinkers" now, as they have exactly zero aoe. That's what I put on the level as "stinker".

Agreed on this point and that @Sir Myshkin made as well. Don't have this combo on a scrapper, but on my DM/SR stalker I tried both and generally found rebirth more useful than barrier, even with siphon life. I'm thinking things like Rularuu eyeballs who just tear you up almost no matter how much defense you have, fighting AV's like Malaise that throw out a ton of non-position psi attacks....or of course a few lucky hard hits in a row against you no matter what that siphon life can't keep up with. Between rebirths huge heal and then its huge +regen (definitely go regen side), it really fills in that gap nicely against the few things that get through. You could also of course eventually get both and run barrier in i-trials if you feel the need and equip rebirth for "normal" content.

EA is overall a very well balanced set with a lot of layers. It has the 2nd highest innate defenses (only slightly behind SR, although typed instead of positional), and then also has a built in heal, endurance management, a +recharge bonus, and some basic level of resistances. Nothing wrong with shield though, I'd say shield trades some survivability for better damage. Shield has a damage bonus and an extra aoe attack. Shield is also generally going to be better against psi attacks as most psi attacks have a positional vector to them and EA doesn't have any built in psi defense. EA would have to try to get psi def/res from pools/IO's.

As mentioned, not a bug. Night Widows have smoke grenades which cause the blind effect. You can counter it by using yellow inspirations, tactics, +perc SG empowerment buff, or a +perc IO (in the tohit buff set). The SG buff and IO +perc values are rather weak though, so not entirely sure how well those work by themselves. There are other various powers that also grant +perc (a few armor powersets have them, some buff powersets, also focused accuracy in epic powerset).

Another often overlooked help is the +recovery buff you can get from a SG empowerment station. It is a 17% recovery buff (which is a bit better than having an extra Miracle slotted). It lasts for 1.5 hours at a time (despite its description saying only 1 hour), and only costs 3 pieces of cheap salvage. Also can be renewed in seconds thanks to the quick SG tp code. I use the recovery and recharge (easy +20% global recharge) SG buffs almost constantly on my characters now. Keep stacks of the salvage needed for them in a salvage storage rack right next to the buff station. I do like body master too though (focused accuracy and energy torrent are also great imo), so nothing wrong with that epic.

I find it pairs very well with Necro actually. It can be a long road, but once you throw in some extra resistance on top from incarnate powers (resilient and even the bare minimum 5% you are guaranteed with barrier) you can get all your pets to 87%-90% resistance to all (except psi). Psi rests at about 66% minimum (bit lower for the lich). Note that psi is a hole in sonic (and thermal), and that necro and bots are the only two pets that have some built in psi resistance as far as I've noticed to help cover that particular hole at least somewhat. Bots/sonic could also be pretty amazing, but they lack a melee oriented pet to use as a disruption field target. A grave knights is perfect to throw disruption field on. Barrier also gives zombies some defense (along with maneuvers and pet IO's of course) and as noted they also have a ton of tohit debuffs they toss around (go diamagnetic interface if you really want to supercharge that). So, they can quickly end up "effectively" defense capped (except against AV's who resist it of course) as well. Every pet can then heal itself through life drain (not a ton, but usually enough to handle the small % of damage that gets through). You also get a self heal in necro that helps make up for the absence of a heal in sonic, which is another point that makes the pairing nice in my book. Honestly the biggest headache leveling this combo up was endurance, moreso than the pets being especially squishy. Especially since I also like to actually attack when I use necro, throwing out glooms and life drains for myself. I managed to eventually get endurance under control with IO slotting and the +end accolades, but you could also go cardiac and still get most of the extra resistance boost. I do agree with @Force Redux that time, cold, and nature also are good choices for necro though and his summary of all the sets is excellent! Can see Necro/Sonic discussed more here:

Yes to both of your questions. Star ratings are global and are actually saved locally to your computer. Only time you'll lose them is if you switch computers without transferring the file "playernotes.txt" from your CoH folder.

Yep, unlock them from the P2W vendor and I get them all the time. Great for my MM. I hate the not being able to combine them though. I swear I've gotten like 50 of them to drop so far since I unlocked them and not a single team defense one among them (which would be the most useful for my near resistance capped zombies). Plenty of greens, yellows, reds, oranges, blues, but not a single purple. Starting to wonder if team defense ones can even drop. And no I don't have defense inspirations turned off.

You can use macros to make it much easier though. I can soul extract a lich on demand by pressing these two binds (I use numpad divide and numpad multiply). /bind divide "petcom_pow Zombie dismiss$$petcom_pow Grave dismiss$$releasepets" /bind multiply "powexecname Soul Extraction$$petselect 0" Someone else may be able to come up with a better way. Course you then still have to resummon and buff them all again, but it does make it a bit quicker. I still tend to only bother when I really feel the need for the extra firepower though and yes it is mostly used for the pet IO's.

Ah, misunderstood what you meant by that. I don't use a hero builder (I have my own spreadsheet I use to build), so not familiar with the tricks needed to use it. Makes sense.

Not had a lot of experience with thermal, but for your other questions: Most of the incarnate stuff affects the pets (alpha affects their slotting, destiny can protect/heal them, they proc interface (diamagnetic is a good choice if you want to make them more tanky to stack even more -tohit), hybrid support even doubles its effect for pets). Kismet only affects you. Unless I'm missing something, not sure why'd you'd take arcane bolt instead of just taking gloom. Gloom is a much better attack. Do NOT delay taking dark empowerment past level 32 when you can first take it. It is a HUGE upgrade to all your pets. It is also what gives the self heal power to all your pets, helping them to stay alive. Also gives better attacks to your knights, and fearsome stare to the lich, which also helps keep your pets alive.

Did you have all the pet IO's slotted in your previous attempts? They make a huge difference. Got my necro/sonic just to 50 recently and I didn't have too many issues during the trip up. Sure, the pets die occasionally (I find that true no matter what combo you use unless you are just soloing on lower difficulties), but far from constantly. Tends to happen when they get spread out enough to start to lose some of the protections being close to the MM gives them (like maneuvers and my dispersion bubble). In tougher content you may need to keep them close by and maybe try to let the tank/brute take that alpha before you order them in. Also not saying zombies aren't on the squisher side because honestly they are compared to some other MM pets, but if you like them for the theme/aethestics (like I do), they are definitely workable. I exemp'd down and joined a level 24 team just the other day and a demon/nature MM on the team even commented "How are your zombies so tanky? My demons are getting slaughtered" I noted he didn't have the pet IO's yet and told them they help a ton. And of course incarnate powers take it to a whole nother level once you get those. As to secondaries, /Time is definitely one of the tankiest in my experience. Between all the slows and defense and the very nice aoe heal, it is one of the easiest to use to keep everything alive. I'd definitely recommend it if you are having troubles.

And the Rularuu eyeballs who get +100 tohit. Some of the Shard TF's can be a pain.