Riverdusk

Yep, game seems to use UTC time for most things (definitely can confirm that's when it determines "Date of appearance" in your character description. Still throws me that it changes so early for me (4pm my time). Funnily enough it seems to use local time for date of SG join. So I often have characters showing in game having joined my supergroup the day before the game says they were created.

I've seen people call out specific targets on that TF quite often. Maybe I'm the only one but my main problem with following that particular instruction is a lot of times I have a hard time distinguishing which shadow is which. I'm getting old so maybe it is just my eyesight. In that particular situation as described, by the time I'd get close enough to maybe see which one was the widow, she'd probably already have thrown her grenade. Best I can do is if someone does give that direction is to try and target through them, but funnily enough that doesn't always work out either as they don't often stay focused on a single target either.

There are a LOT of cone attacks that use PBAoE sets. Shadow Maul, Eviscerate, flashing steel, etc, etc.. Almost every melee set has PBAoE cone attacks. The main difference is typically the short range and that they aren't able to be slotted for range. Therefore my point stands, if Frost is unable to be slotted for range and with its short range, then logical consistancy means it should be a PBAoE. But yes, I agree it is probably just a bug considering all the other versions allow it and easiest fix would be to allow range and the issue is fixed and it'd then make sense being a Targetted AoE.

Couple of issues I've seen with Stalker's version of Ice Melee. First is that the power "Frost" won't take range enhancements. Stalker is the ONLY AT that can not directly slot Frost for range. Tanks, Brutes, and scrappers all can. IMO if just the stalker version not taking range was deliberate as some kind of weird "balancing" decision, then it should be reclassified as a PBAoE for sets. It doesn't make logical sense the way it is set currently that a Targetted AoE power can't take range enhancements without using the famous weird IO hack way of doing it. Second is that Ice Patch is showing for Allowed Enhancement Set Categories: "Universal Damage Sets" and "Stalker Archetype Sets" It actually takes neither of those sets.

Oh, and btw what is up with Ice Patch saying it takes Universal damage and Stalker ATO sets when it actually doesn't? Not that universal damage would even make sense, but being able to throw some Stalker ATO's in there could be useful. Weird display bug that one is.

You won't see it on the tooltip, you need to go to "Show Detailed Info" Notice how my frost now says 12.35 ft under Power Range. I have the posi and a detonation Damage/Range slotted. When using Alpha incarnate that number did not change. I did not test with Hami-O's. I also confirmed as I said using RWZ test dummies by getting to a range where it would give me the "out of range message" and then put in a Posi Dmg/Rng IO and it then letting me fire the power (and vice versa, I tested it several times to make sure). Did that on test server of course to not waste IO's, unslotters so that I could test it several times. Edit: I also tested the alpha Intuition the same way several times and it did NOT improve the range. Also note that things like Widow's Mind Link work the same way. You can't slot for recharge directly, but a set IO will let you reduce its recharge, such as a Def/Recharge IO. So I know for a fact this is not a unique situation. That one will also not show on the tooltip, it will only show the reduced recharge on the "show info" screen. Another Edit: Checking the character builder I have it appears every other AT that has ice melee CAN directly slot their frost for range, so stalkers not being able to do so seems like a bug in itself.

Did some testing using RWZ practice dummies and can confirm IO's (and I'd assume Hami-O's) work, unfortunately using an alpha slot that has a range enhancement did NOT work. That's a shame, was having dreams of getting a frost with an 18 or so foot range. 😄

Had a question about Frost. I noticed you can't directly slot it for range, but if you use a set IO that has range (like positron blast's dam/range IO), it seems to increase it. Does that also work for incarnate alpha slots that increase range (like Intuition?). Guess I could test it on Pineapple if no one knows off hand...

I'd be amazed if anyone in a teaming situation would care if you used lions or not. More likely they'd be grateful for 2 less pets in the way, as long as you are also using your secondary. I don't think they'd really notice what epic pool you use either. When I team I sometimes don't use my tier 1 pets and no one has ever said a word. For solo it is all a matter of perspective. It'd be slower, but up to you if it is too slow. Once you get the big wolf I'd try it with just the dogs and see how it feels.

I remember back on live several people suggested the SG limit should be on number of accounts rather than players. So if you had 50 alts in a SG it'd still only count 1 against the SG limit. Probably a technical reason why that isn't so easy to do, although always thought it was a great idea.

Defender's resistance cap is 75%. I agree it being more clear in game would be nice, but you'll find a good resource here for a lot of the games caps: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits Overall that wiki has a lot of good info for you and is worth taking a look through. It isn't being updated anymore for changes Homecoming is making, but the vast majority of it is still good.

I thought I was bad, it took me about 3 years to get my first 50 on live (2004 - 2007). I've managed to get one 50 here so far. That 50 took me close to 100 hours of playtime per the old trick of clicking on an NPC who's name starts with "M" to find your hours played on a character. Yes, I take my time, obviously. Good luck to you!

Pretty sure there is no such setting. I know people have been asking for that as an option. I especially heard quite a few asking for it with the intro of the panacea proc with its constant floating heal number above your head every few seconds. Some of the absorb shields can get pretty obnoxious too.

30% buff, but actually that also scales with level and doesn't get to +30% until level 20. At level 1 the vigilance solo damage buff for defenders is only 6%. https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Inherent_Powers#Vigilance

Yep, I dislike that same animation on Ripper for spines as well. Although I guess spines feeling clunky seems not as bad as it does on claws.

Certainly. It did seem to work from the quick testing I did by just getting to a rough distance and aiming at hellions in Atlas park and trying fire ammo and getting "out of range", immediately switching to cryo and it let me shoot.

Was just looking at starting a Dual Pistol Sent and enjoyed @oldskool's guide. Very good job. However, I also stumbled upon something just tonight that I never knew about them and I've never seen anyone else mention (not that I couldn't have easily missed it of course). That is that using Cryo ammo gives you a +33% range buff! The only place it is even mentioned is on the actual "Cryo Ammunition" power you get after taking swap ammo. Its text reads "Cryo Rounds are more aerodynamic, being able to travel a greater distance" and under power info it shows, " +33.30%% strength to range on self. Ignores buffs and enhancements. unresistable" That actually puts all the single target DP attacks back to the same as a blaster's range I believe and makes Empty clips, ironically, have better range on a sentinel than any other AT. You have to give up the nice extra damage of the fire ammo, but I thought that was a cool little thing (excuse the pun) they added for sentinels to make the cryo ammo more useful in some situations. I have a dp defender as well and didn't see that same text on the defender version of cryo. I thought that should be added to the guide, unless it was already added somewhere and I missed it.

You aren't the first person I've heard say that and I'm not sure why. You definitely CAN use Shinobi-Iri with combat jumping. I am using both at the same time on my character right now. The only conflict is Ninja run and combat jumping, those two you can't use together.

Don't really have a build handy, but going by the Kaeladin's dps spreadsheets Dark Melee with even just 1 target in soul drain is near the top of scrapper ST dps if you have enough recharge to keep soul drain up most/all of the time and are using the ideal attack chain. Add in the bonus damage of shield and if it can't do it, not sure what else can. DM/Bio would probably be the one even better with both its damage bonus and its -regen. I'd definitely give the nod to TW/Bio and DM/Bio as the ultimate melee AV (or pylon) killers. But then bio has a much tougher time getting the defense you are asking for. Oh, one hint, you might try Leviathan mastery as your epic pool choice. Have heard Water Spout helps a good deal against AV's/Pylons. Can also put an achilles heel -res proc in it.

Was just going to say the same thing about Kuji-in Rin, not necessarily a bad thing to have it double stacked. It gives ninjitsu some of the best psi resistance of any set, very nice to have when you run into those few psi attacks that don't have a positional vector to them and otherwise blow right through your defense. But if you are desperate on slots it can be sacrificed down to 1 slot.

Probably tough to get to 58.5 s/l defense with it, without some trickery, but just to note, Willpower also has a taunt aura. The taunt aura is considered a weak one, but it is enough in my experience unless you are trying to actually pull aggro off of others with their own taunts. As a scrapper I just want it good enough to keep things from running off every time their health gets low and it works for that. Not sure why dark/shield doesn't work for you, seems like it could hit all the marks (except maybe the rare non-positional psi), unless you just didn't care for the "feel" of the combo. Going back to WP, it is one of your rare ones that does have some specific psi defense/resistance built in.

Honestly the thing that's always bugged me about grave knights is why they don't have some lethal resistance. They are basically skeletons. If anything swap out the toxic resistance for lethal.

As I mentioned those are exactly the characters I don't take SS on as something like shadowfall + Celerity: stealth IO gives you that invis, so SS isn't needed. So, on those characters I feel free to go with fly or SJ. 😀 Most of my other characters I go SS in order to get that full invis, SS + Stealth IO, since they don't naturally have their own built in stealth to stack with the IO.

Actually defender range scale is .65 and blaster is 1.125, so more like 58% of a blaster's, unless they changed things since Paragon Wiki's shown values. Also the math doesn't quite work out that simple once you add in enhancement or other damage buffs that are common. That 30% damage buff is to that low defender base damage, not enhanced damage. The 30% helps, but it does fade somewhat once the blaster puts in even the standard +95% worth of damage enhancements and pulls much further ahead with their much higher base. By my calculations solo with the +30 Vigilance bonus defenders are doing more like 67% of a blaster once they both slot the standard +95% worth of damage enhancements in an attack. Things get more complicated though as then you add in potential debuffs/buffs the defender might have, procs, etc. I agree with your first statement completely though.

I pick super speed usually on any character that doesn't already have their own stealth power in their primary or secondary sets. Super speed combined with a stealth IO is easy full invisibility. In other words to me super speed is a stealth power that happens to make you run real fast. I could take stealth itself now since the annoying -runspeed to it was dropped, but often I don't have room or I've already used up my 4 power pools (and I'm usually already picking up hasten anyway.) And yes, when I do grab super speed I always get combat jumping to go with it, gives you enough vertical to get to where you need to go almost always. I can put on a temp jet fly pack for the rare times I need it (and just a 1 hour fly pack will last almost forever when you are only occasionally using it for 5 seconds at a time here and there.) Even if fly speed was increased I don't think it'd change things much for me.