Riverdusk

Yep, I always do all the Hollows arcs on new characters now, it is a pretty easy 85 merits. By the time I get through that I also usually have a good feel for the character and if I'm going to want to continue with it. If I don't, at least I earned the equivalent of about 20 million from them during their "trial run".

Nice, was wondering if anyone else a fan of dark melee for stalker, which doesn't seem to get much love. Definitely my favorite. Just love the feel of it, the exotic damage type, the generally quick attacks, the heal, the debuffs. With the buff to shadow maul it isn't so badly low on the aoe scale now (relative to the average stalker set anyway). I also actually prefer the quick casting, quick recharging, and powerful build up (with the ATO proc+Gausian proc in the build) more than soul drain, so what may be a negative to a lot is a positive to me. Edit: Also forgot the built in immobilize in midnight grasp is another boon. Helps keep those AV's from running.

You can also grab the SG invisibility base buff that gives you +stealth to help you get places safely at level 1.

Not sure what age has to do with it, the power hasn't changed. The last one is about any powers that turn people's characters transparent or otherwise hide people's characters/costumes. Other posters in the thread state exactly that. I'd have no problem having min fx options for the powers that bother you as well and you are free to post suggestions stating just that or other alternatives. But you seem to have an issue with a min fx option for the ones that bother me (and others)? Guess that is the difference. Unless I'm making an unfair assumption from your posts, if so then we don't disagree after all.

Just a couple of other threads on it I found from a quick search. I also get the flickering despite lowering my shadow settings. And the thread that shows there are definitely those out there that don't like their characters made translucent against their will (of which fade is the most extreme):

Go with another damage proc. Bombardment: chance for fire is a very good one for them.

One thing to keep in mind with controller's dark affinity secondary, it has a power called Fade that personally I dislike a lot just because of its graphical effect. It is hard to avoid taking it because stat wise it is a fantastic power and one of the best powers of the set. But graphically, I find it horrible. It turns your whole team almost completely translucent (much more so than steamy mist) and gives them glowing eyes for the duration. Often it also has an annoying flickering effect to it that is almost headache inducing. It is bad enough when a power has graphics to it that I don't care for, but I really dislike forcing such extreme graphics on my team mates. Some people can get really annoyed by having their character avatar basically be made to disappear (and all their costume work with it). As it stands now I just can't play the set (just like I use to avoid cold until they finally made a minimal fx version of the shields), If I'm going to avoid taking fade I'd rather just play another set. Hopefully they eventually do something about fade's graphics.

True enough, the extra recharge of ageless is really nice and the way to go if you want to maximize damage. Rebirth though isn't just about its heal, but its regen. Interestingly enough Alpha Vigor also buffs rebirth's regen so combined with the normal regen bonuses most builds end up with you are easily rocking 400% or more regen min and half the time it is 700%+. Enough to take care of the few pot shots that might get you without having to worry about medicine pool. You get extra endurance reduction (very useful for storm) and accuracy on top of it. I'll probably grab both myself. When I feel safe enough that I can just go all out damage Ageless and musculature, when I'm doing tougher stuff, rebirth and vigor. Nice that both ways also help solve endurance issues either way.

Hah, I didn't even see you wrote sleet or else I'd have known what you meant so I missed that. No big deal.

If you plan to play a lot of post 50 you can also just take destiny rebirth. Clarion can be useful as well, but funnily enough I find mez protection is easier to come by now (P2W most easily if you got the cash) than the powerful heal/regen that you get in rebirth.

I'd add freezing rain to that. A stackable -30% resistance? Yes please. Not to even mention the -def, slow, and knockdown.

Dark Affinity-Fade is still the worst. Actually turns your whole team fully invisible with glowing eyes and on top of that gives everyone a headache inducing flicker effect. Bizarrely it does this even though it doesn't even have any +stealth buff to it. It is just less seen (thankfully) since it exists in a controller secondary only.

I found it that way myself, felt really low damage. But then again I was hoping haunts would do damage more similar to phantom army and so was disappointed they didn't seem anywhere even close. Maybe an unfair comparison that biased me against it though. Adding /storm would definitely help (although storm damage is late blooming so you have to stick with it). Personally if you want dark/dark I much prefer going dominator where the damage is better and all that tohit debuffing is really useful in an AT that normally is lighter on defense and debuffing.

Not sure why you think this? They do have -jump, a LOT of it (-50,000% as a matter of fact). Caltrops would probably be pretty worthless otherwise as mobs would also just jump right out of them. Web grenade has the same. I don't believe break frees effect movement so no they wouldn't help. Need to avoid them or get slow resistance.

Yep, I like rune of protection on controllers. Often I'm grabbing arcane bolt for another attack on them and picking up mystic fly anyway, so rune is just right there.

Memory is always a tricky thing, but I'm pretty sure I remember from back on live that sappers were specially coded to only appear 1 max per group just because so many people were complaining about trying to deal with multiples of them per group. Now that would be some craziness. But yeah, I find their danger is overrated as they stand now. Just need energy defense, range defense, controls, a resistance armor set with endurance drain protection (which is most I believe) or burst damage to kill the one per group max quick. Most characters have one or more of those things.

I had pretty good results from ShareX, it is free, and has really good reviews. I used it to capture video from websites, not gameplay though, so not sure if it will do what you want, but can always give it a try. You can get it through Steam or direct. https://store.steampowered.com/app/400040/ShareX/ https://getsharex.com/

People on LFG asking for AT and powersets in order to join their PI radio team. We know you are probably doing nothing but beating up council, any team of 8 can take out groups of council in a blink of an eye at that level no matter what AT and powersets they have. I mean it is their team and "they can do whatever they want with it" and all, but I make it a habit to never join those teams no matter what character I'm playing.

That makes sense since you can slot pet IO sets into tornado (so it is counted as a "real" pet), but can't into lightning storm (which takes ranged damage).

Exactly, scrapper resistance armor sets where scrappers have the same res cap as your run of the mill squishy is the biggest imbalance to me. The damage/survivability ratio is maybe not perfect, but it is pretty good between tank/brute/scrapper...until you try to rely on resistance.

All very good points. Just to clarify though, there is a stealth cap and actually superior invisibility reaches it on its own, at least for pve (200 ft.) and on a controller. I think stalkers are the only ones with a higher stealth cap in my experience. You can hit sup invis and see stealth radius go blue in combat attributes and casting GI doesn't increase it anymore. So, stacking all the others doesn't help any more in that regard and I wouldn't waste a slot on a stealth IO or going for super speed (unless you really love super speed). Not sure it really matters anyway as 200ft I believe is enough to stealth you to almost everything in pve (I think we all know the exceptions). The defenses of any powers of course still stack. Watching threat level in combat attributes it also looks like that is capped at 0 and it doesn't go into the negatives, so I wouldn't go crazy trying to stack that either. Just SI or GI alone will get you to 0. I still took both SI and GI on mine though just for the extra defense and team utility and extra LoTG spot.

There is also kinetic dampener from the P2W vendor. It gives (for controllers) 14.4% s/l defense and 30% energy resistance. Only drawback on that one is you can only buy 1 hour at a time, unlike the other buff you can get that you can stack up to 8 hours. Unlike the other buff though you can turn it on and off so can use it more strategically when needed. Very good one for some of those incarnate trials. Speaking outside of just controllers, it is an amazing one for a dark armor characters as it perfectly fills a weakness they tend to have to energy.

Maybe keep offering both version if you do come up with another. Have to say I love it just the way it is now.

@Solarverse has come up with an amazing mod that is easy to use that fixes this issue (for necro at least). I tried it and it helps a LOT. Can check it out here, anyone that wants it

Yes, noticed sometimes I'd zone and the sound wouldn't be as bad, so probably what you noticed during testing. I'd say vast majority of time it'd be ear splitting though. Anyway, tried it and it is amazing, MUCH better. And you made it so easy. Thank you! My necro is necro/sonic so the twilight grasp thing doesn't affect me. If I switch to character that does use it I can switch the file out easily enough if it is a bother to me (doubtful it would be anyway).