Yomo Kimyata

You answered your own question! You may not care to, but anyone seeking to reward themselves with challenge certainly would. In my opinion, and in my personal philosophy, it would separate grinding for reward from playing for challenge. If you want to play -1/x8 council farms and I want to play +4/x8 Carnie missions, great! And as you say, you would get to choose to fight who and what you please, so you could get the same rewards as I would and have a much easier time of it. Win win! After all, the game as it stands doesn't *really* reward based on difficulty. It rewards on number of enemies you defeat and to a lesserextent relative level of those enemies to you. It's pretty much hairsplitting though, unless you are really grinding hard for that last drop of inf or xp. Recently I ran two defeat all council radio missions, one at +0/x1 and the other at +4/x8. The inf earned on both of them (vendoring all drops) was more than 1mm and less than 2mm. In my eyes, that difference is negligible. The xp difference was probably significant, but I didn't track that. And finally, in my personal experience, once you are defeating +4/x8 handily, you're pretty much post-reward anyway. I have a handful of alts that frankly have won the game of Homecoming. I play them when I want to feel really overpowered, but there's nothing left for me to do with them. That may just be my thought process though -- everyone is going to play for their own reasons.

Actually, if I had my druthers, one would get the same reward from +0 as you would for +2 (or +6 if it happens). I mean, you get the same reward from a +1 Council minion as you do from a +1 Carnival minion, so why make the distinction one of reward? Maybe we would see teams doing +0/x8 Carnie missions in PI rather than +4/x8 Council missions. Who knows? But I don't have my druthers, so the point is mainly moot! I do agree that more enemies should lead to more rewards, but my opinion is also that I'd like rewards to be capped at x8 for much the same reason I don't want the aggro cap lifted. It's just fishing with dynamite at that point. But that opinion is also mainly moot, since I'm almost completely lacking on druthers.

Coming at this from the concept angle... Most of my solo gameplay is on redside nowadays. I still hate the color scheme, but the play is much more challenging there. And I also have been doing a lot more RPing, at least in my own mind, so your post got me thinking. Most of my redsiders, almost all of them, aren't what I would consider evil at all. They aren't murderers or torturers, but they *are* thieves and/or megalomaniacs and/or really flawed people. They're greedy and selfish, sure, but not truly *EVIL*. For example, I've got a whole gang built around a mastermind bank robber with a heart of gold. I've got another group who are personifications of the seven deadly sins. For me, something that is truly evil would be something transcending what I normally understand of the human experience. I have zero interest in roleplaying a mass murderer, or a tax collector, for example; that's probably too close to what we see as evil on a day-to-day basis*. But my most evil villain is inhuman insofar as his sole goal is to destroy the world (and himself) in nuclear holocaust. To me, that's evil in a way that steps outside of what we live with (I hope. I *really* hope.) Coming back to your final question, one aspect of evil that resonates with me is an unstoppable force that is coming to get you eventually. Think Jason Vorhees -- slow but inevitable. Also, I think of debuff powers as being particularly nefarious. I'm finding radiation and bio tanks and brutes pretty effective as villains. * I must admit I do have a villain in the planning stages who is a telemarketing bot asking about your vehicle's extended warranty...

I'm with you on this one. If you are geared up enough to tackle +6 instead of +4, then you are pretty much post-reward. Although I do think it would be fair to ask for EB quality xp/inf for defeating an EB rather than a boss.

Bio works on everything (I cannot verify that on sentinels, not enough playtime!). I have a broadsword/bio brute that I am trying to fine tune. For broadsword, you want recharge and -res debuffs. Same for bio armor. I play bio very aggressively and much more like Regen than most people. If Divine Avalanche is in your attack rotation, that will probably keep you well above soft cap melee defense most of the time. But remember that bio has no defense debuff resist, so you can (and will) quickly go from 45% defense to -45% defense, so be ready with your heals. I'm working on something like this:

This is *probably* some variation of the display bug, because that just shouldn't happen (exceptions occur; see below). Lately I've noticed something I always have bids in on slip in a sale for 1 in the last 5, and I've been writing that off to ghosts in the machine. Ura, can you clarify? If this is the locked market bug, then it can occur when you have bids and offers on the same item on the same *character*. The queue treats different characters, even if they are on the same account, as different actors. But if you are referring to a different bug, I'm all ears!

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.