Yomo Kimyata

I see a complete sea-change from Live with respect to the value of flippers, and in this case I'll define it rigidly as someone who buys all available supply at a given price and relists it, presumably at a higher price. On Live, things were rigidly defined, and not fungible. If you wanted to set a monopoly on level 10 Panacea E/R enhancements, that was pretty easy to do, even with the limited number of market slots and character slots. Nowadays, if you want to buy out an entire category and relist at a higher price, good luck, because the replacement cost of that inventory is astoundingly low. That said, there are absolutely times I buy 50-500 items (and I'm not even talking salvage) if I feel that I can turn it around at a higher price because, hey, I can.

I don't roll a lot of natural 1s, but I'm definitely getting 1-3 way more than 15% of the time...

It's always been that way for Overwhelming Force, ever since they introduced it.

If you look at the trading history, well, there is none. Not a single Strength of Will has traded since Homecoming launched. But what is interesting is that in theory you can get Strength of Will inspirations from chasing bounty in Siren's Call in PvP(lol). I have zero interest in that personally! Indeed, that was how I store(d) most of my influence. I went with Iron Wills since they are currently not in existence at all. I may put some bids in on Strength of Will for giggles to see if anyone actually is willing to farm for them, but it's not really high on my list of things to do. "Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!"

one way to look at this as an optimization problem is: given a team size and difficulty setting, what results in the greatest rewards in the shortest time with the smallest probability of catastrophe. And, for what I’ve seen of the meta, HC’s managers have had such a ridiculous hard on for tankers that it is difficult to make the argument that you can optimize with a scrapper over a tank for 8 person teams for any common sets. “Ability to abuse”indeed. However, I play solo mostly at high levels, and even though this isn’t exactly rocket surgery at any level, I find that my optimization is always scrapper focused. I’m going to send Batman after the Joker, rather than have Superman throw him into the sun. I’ll play chess, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to win a tic-tac-toe tournament. So play what you will but homecoming made tanks into the tank mage class and that’s not going to change. That said, I’ll pit my solo 4/8 times as a scrapper over anyone else’s tank

For your example, ask yourself what sort of set bonuses were you looking for in the first build and how will they differ for the second. Off the top of my head, shifting from SR to Willpower means you lose a lot of defense and gain other forms of mitigation in terms of damage resistance and healing. I'd look at the set bonuses for your attacks and try to work in a lot more melee defense, for example.

Dual Blades and Ninjitsu are two of my least favorite sets -- I tend to go with "interesting" secondaries like Bio or Radiation and thus I'm focusing more on solo survival. Alpha: I usually go with with Musculature Radial Paragon, since blue bar = life, but I'd go core if you have no problems with endurance. ninjitsu has a relatively sucky endurance power, but if you're good, Core is great. Sometimes I go with Intuition Radial if I'm running something with a lot of slow powers. Judgement: As you wish, but I also usually go with Void Radial. fits my play style and less damage inflicted is good. Interface: I generally go with Reactive Radial at this point in time. I feel it's better overall bang for the buck than Degenerative Radial. Lore: I rarely take it, but when I do it's about theme. Up to you. Destiny: As mentioned above, it's worthwhile having more than one. I like Ageless because of aforementioned blue bar issues but the debuff resistance is really nice when I'm playing a character without any DDR and when my defense gets nuked into the red, it's a lifesaver. Hybrid: Assault Core is my goto, but if you are playing a defense-based secondary, Melee Core serves as a bit of an "oh no!" button.

Kismet: too darn hot.

Sometimes, and only sometimes, I try to find a power or two in the epic/patron pools that I can build a character around. Sometimes, it's futile (I still cannot find any scrapper that can make good use of Mace Mastery).

I keep trying to get out but you all keep pulling me back in. I just picked up Density's Child (Grav/Dark troller) and Manifest Density (Grav/Traps troller) on Everlasting.

SOs are more powerful than Invention IOs in terms of pure enhancement power until you hit something like 30, but set bonuses and special IOs are totally worth it earlier if you can afford it. Not to toot my own horn, but you might want to check this guide out to figure out what and when:

Ultimo: "Yoo hoo, over here!" Chi Master: "Yoo hoo!!!" Ultimo: "Look at my interpretive dance, villain!!!" Chi Master: "You call that dance?!? Watch this!"

I certainly believe you as well!

New costume, costs 4mm prismatic aethers. Tier 9!

I certainly believe Widower, but reading this tells me that I have vastly mis-estimated the HC community. -- I can't speak for how many active users there are, but my best estimates are roughly 10k within an order of magnitude, so fifty new characters in 2024 per active user. -- There is no way that half a million Steadfast Protection +Def sold in 2024, and I cannot imagine why any person would not slot one. This goes for all other items as well. Demand for IOs plummeted this past year. I'm guessing that a majority of this was name camping, but if people built a half million of new characters that are being played, yay!