Yomo Kimyata

I guess this one is *kind* of a Praetorian Clockwork tribute...

They have been bucketed, so they are held in the database as Thunderstrike and don't have a specific level assigned to them until you buy them. This might give a better and fuller explanation:

AAAAARRRGH! So sorry, anyone know how to delete those extra images?

I apologize for reposting this so soon:

Send any and all to the giveaway in my sig!

No escalation or disingeniousity intended or interpreted! What I have seen, both in game and on these forums, is that people who solely use SOs either: 1. Choose to use SOs for their own personal reasons, knowing that they could get more bang for the buck from IOs. Nothing I can do about this. Choice is choice. 2. Can't afford the inf or the time to get IOs yet, but are working towards doing so. Lots I can do about this. Lots I *do* do about this. Education, giving inf away, etc. What I interpret from your comments are that you believe there is also a sizable portion of the community (5%? 50%? 90%) that use SOs because that is all that they have available, and they have no choice other than to solely use SOs. I really haven't seen these people, and maybe I should have put "mythological" in parentheses. I don't doubt that some exist, but I have to think it's a really really small percentage of the population on HC. So small, that I don't advocate balancing *new* level 35+ content around them. I do not advocate developing anything that takes away from anybody. I would never advocate rebalancing all current content for IO use. But developing future content that is balanced around what *I* perceive the vast majority of players use, yeah, I do support that. There are no gates preventing anyone from using the IO system, only choice, and if you choose to take the slow path, that's cool with me, but please don't ask everyone to balance their play around your choice. I'm saying "choice" a lot, and if anyone has no choice and is being forced to use a suboptimal system, let's focus on that and fix it. I absolutely understand that others may feel differently, and I'm going to use an almost certainly broken analogy. Let's say you choose not to fly for whatever reasons. Getting to Hawaii without flying is possible (take a boat, swim!) but is a lot more work and expense. If you can't fly because of a crippling condition, I am sorry, and I may be willing to chip in for your boat fare or your swimming training. But regardless I'll be waiting on the beach in Waikiki to greet you with a fruity rum drink. Again, just my opinion. Nothing to get worked up about.

Hmm, my experience has differed, but that's cool. I have not brought anyone completely new into the game, but I spend a fair amount of time talking to self-professed newbies when I'm giving away inf. I don't hear from them that they are intimidated or confused by the IO system or that they don't want to look at it and just use SOs. They have no idea what TOs or DOs or SOs are, but they know IOs. I hear from them that they want to figure out a way to afford "the good stuff". Now, that is certainly a biased sample set since generally I am giving away inf, but it is indeed my sample set. I hear your concern that you are not fighting for yourself. But I have to wonder, based on my personal experience, if the theoretical people you are fighting for really exist in large numbers, or if it is rather a general moral construct that "we *should* base this around the lowest common denominator, the mythological person who only knows how SOs work but can't quite grasp the small stepto the world of IOs. I don't know, honestly. Just my observations and opinions, and as always, yours may vary!

I'm going to go a little against the grain here. I find it hard to believe that a significant percentage of the posters here, or even of the players on HC, are unaware of the invention system. Yes, there should be more teaching tools, but I've never seen even the newbiest newby choose to go the TO/DO/SO route by choice. Instead they are seeking the funds to go the IO route (which I am happy to provide). If one chooses to use SOs rather than IOs, that is probably a question of economics or personal challenge. In my opinion, for high level (35+) content, yes, I would like to see new material designed for "stronger than SO" builds.

Not to toot my own horn, but toot-toot.

I apologize if this has been covered already, but my search fu is weak. I've got a few theme characters who specifically have one enemy faction as their main foe. I was hoping to find a list of missions that developed the lore for each enemy group and to play through them all. I would have expected that to be in the wiki, but I cannot seem to find it there. What I have been doing (let's take DE as an example): Determine enemy origin (I believe DE are mutation). Establish enemy level range (I believe 25-50). Search every origin contact in that level range for missions. Play them. There's got to be a simpler way, and I'm sure it's staring me right in the face. Any thoughts?

Someone I know begs to differ...

I love Confuse powers. I don't care if they are efficient or optimal; they are fun! The IO sets do need an overhaul though, just like all non-hold, non-knockback mez sets need an overhaul. There's simply no reason to slot anything other than Malaise or the purples. To @tidge's point, I don't know why anyone bothers to sell them in IO form. That said, sometimes I'll buy confuse recipes in large blocks for rare rouletting.

I'd be careful about making assumptions based on outstanding bids in the AH, since it would be very easy for one person to skew those numbers. Let's call that the, um, the Yomo(tm) Effect. I can tell you that every day, about 100-300 unique "must haves" trade, which tells me that there are 100-300 new characters who use IOs entering the fray.

You know, since you already robbed the bank, all you really need to do to protect the bank is to tell the robbers that there is no more money.

You must return to contact.

I've been thinking about this in terms of temp powers. Plenty of defense-based armors have some level of DDR, but the rest don't, and if you don't have a defense-based armor primary or secondary, you are out of luck with DDR.

Thank goodness that the Council show up in every level range! Punching Nazis is never beneath my notice.

Third time's the charm. Having reread @Shenanigunners posts yet again, I now interpret this as a look at the power Staff Mastery and the forms therein on a more technical basis. The way I see it, each form has three aspects: 1. What happens as you build up (up to 3) levels of Perfections in each form. 2. What happens when you execute Eye of the Storm with 3 levels. 3. What happens when you execute Sky Splitter with 3 levels. RE: 1, Body has the most overall useful effect, IMO. I do not have the numbers in front of me, so this is not a mathematical analysis. Extra damage, even if it is of a type resisted heavily, is good. Extra recharge is also good, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, staff lends itself to high recharge builds and a little more marginal recharge isn't as useful as a little more marginal damage. Endurance discount can be very useful, but I usually address this in other ways (although I have a nascent Dark Armor/Staff where this might be more useful). Remember that the bonus/discount lasts until you discharge it -- you can get three levels of Perfection and use attacks other than EotS or SS to keep the bonus at its max. I often do this when I'm fighting a single target like an AV. RE: 2 and 3 (bonus damage), the amount of damage is not insignificant, but it is significantly less than the base, which is always smashing. I've never found it to be worthwhile to choose a form because my opponent has a lower resistance to psychic or energy damage, since that's maybe a quarter of the smashing base. Instead I look for ways to make the smashing damage count for more. RE: 2 (effects on opponents), the -7.50% resistance debuff from Body makes all of your smashing damage count for more. I try to layer this with other -res debuffs, like Achilles Heel or Annihilation or Fury of the Glad or Melt Armor or whatever. It adds up in my experience. I've not found a real use for slowing the target slightly (Mind), and I'm not a fan of defense debuff (Soul) since you have to be able to hit them in the first place in order to make them easier to hit, so I try to accomplish that in other places. RE: 3 (effects on self), I can't claim I really notice this one way or another. Then again, I really dislike Sky Splitter for the needlessly long animation and the strange split of the damage into two parts, so I may not use it as much as others. When I'm playing a staff fighter, I'm all about AoE until there is only one target left. This may be heresy, but I would consider skipping Sky Splitter on some builds. But probably only consider it. Based on this, it is clear to me that Body is far and away the best default form for my playstyle, but I'm certainly willing to learn some new tricks if there are any out there!

Apologies, I read the initial post as asking specifically about the different stances. I really like staff and certainly have more 50s with it than any other melee set. I like it best with Bio Armor, which helps with the damage. I like to put a Lotg +recharge in Guarded Spin, a FF +recharge in Eye of the Storm, Serpent's Reach, and Sky Splitter, so it lends itself well to high recharge builds. The only thing to get used to is that if you are playing something like Regen as a secondary, you need sometimes to preemptively heal because you may get locked into a long animation. That said, my staff/regen brute is amazingly robust. I truly never use any form except body. That said, Body is pretty darn good.

You can use Soul early in the game, like @Sakaisays. I have never found a use for Mind. I like staff best on Stalkers because if, *if* you die, you don't have to remember to turn the Body toggle on. So, no, you are not missing anything.

I do not take the T1 immobilize powers, except possibly in late game to try and stop AVs from running. I would love a compelling reason to take them, but low damage spread out over a long period of time means I'm wasting time and endurance with additional attacks trying to knock off my opponents before I immobilize them to death while they keep shooting at me. More damage? Front loaded damage? New immobilize sets? I dunno.

I first read this title as “lost 20lb” and I was thinking “Congrats! What’s your secret?” EDIT: I didn't mean to sound unsympathetic. That really sucks. You earn the coveted "Brutal, Juice" award:

Cash and equivalents: 203,970,084,062 as of last time I logged on each of my alts. That's subdivided as: 135 bids in the AH for 1bn apiece on items that currently do not exist in the game 20 emails for 999,999,999 a piece (will move these to bids at some point) 48,970,084,882 inf spread across 129 alts I'm not counting inventory, just straight cash, homie (h/t Randy Moss). EDIT: I know, I thought it would be higher too!

I've actually taken a little time to take stock of a few things, one of which is how much inf I actually have, how quickly I can extract it from the AH, etc. I figure at this point, there are very few things I'm not willing to be completely transparent about. So if you're curious about something, I'll tell you what I can (unless it's one of my two secrets...)

What it is.