Yomo Kimyata

Isn't this what frankenslotting is for? I don't have an issue at all with this, but it would really attract people to this one set and away from others. I also would hate to hear the haggling over the set bonuses. Also, I think creative builds are one of the few ways left to reward players who want to put a little thought into solving that puzzle. I'd like to see more of a diversity of ways to get HOs/DSOs at lower levels. They are not fungible across level, so you wouldn't get people farming for a threat DSO at level 10 then flipping it for a profit at lvl 50. People would complain because they would outlevel them, but people would complain regardless.

Got it in one. And that's why we (and by "we" I mean humans, not just Homecoming players) can't have nice things.

I decided to cut my teeth on a "no enhancement" character, partly because it's simple enough to enforce even if you forget to click that little button on the ouro mission selection screen -- just don't slot anything! I went with a Beast/Marine mastermind, and once I hit 15 (which is the minimum for Ouro missions), I started in on blue 1-9 missions at +1/x3 which felt like an ok level. My original plan was to do all 1-9 content blue side, then shift to red side and do the same, and move my way up that ladder but realized quickly that there is a ton of red missions in that range and that I was leveling pretty quickly at regular xp, so just went back to blue and am now only completing 10-14 content that I want to do (basically everything except the Hollows arc and all the goldside content.) "Real" level is at 22 right now, and I'm learning a lot about masterminds (although I have not yet graduated past the three basic MM buttons -- just haven't bothered to set up macros) and marine affinity. I'm popping out a few missions a session although as story arcs get longer that will slow down. Takeaway: completely doable, but this is all low enough level and difficulty settings that I'm not sure how it will work out once I get into flashbacks for the 30s and 40s. Accuracy and endurance are major bottlenecks, and stacking base effects (like Call Swarm and Shoal Rush) is a useful strategy. I'm also realizing that builds for cutting temp powers and travel powers are best set for one off missions, since that stuff gets old real quickly.

It means he's a WINNER!

fair points! I’ve had my knickers in a twist about a lot of things and you’ve helped me realize that some of that manifests against how some aspects of this game. I will work on being more excellent to all!!!

I’m a little surprised that WOs are so competitive now in the /ah.

Hence my “Is it time to make everything free” post. Why not get rid of the word “almost”?

Get your Lotg +rech and your Steadfast protection attuned — they have inherent def and dam res that increases by lwvel

Rather than focusing on price, I’d look at accessibility. On Live a level 10 PvP proc would regularly trade over the inf cap. You could farm for weeks to get that, you could fight pvp against your friend or alt account and hope for a drop over a few months. Now you can do a Hami run and get enough merits, or spend fifteen minutes running missions on a lvl 50 to earn 8-10mm inf. Everything is available now to almost everyone, if they know how. I’m honestly not sure how much better a Shield Wall +res makes my character because I don’t think I have a single character without it

I guess Troo isn’t out there raking it in from winning costume contests like the rest of us.

A few thoughts after looking at this thread again after a handful of months: 1. I’m reading a book on sugrophobia, which is basically the fear of being tricked (the name basically means “fear of being a sucker”). Now, in real life, I have this in spades to the point where I can safely say it is pathological or at least neurologically atypical. And I’ve spent a lot of my life in competitive and/or lucrative spaces where all kinds of people do all kinds of things to get ahead, so I’ve gotten a lot of confirmation bias reinforcement. To a lot of people, working the /AH system, be it through trading or making and selling product, is incomprehensible black magic of the highest degree. It is a skill that may or may not be in their wheelhouse, but to some of them, “marketeers “ are responsible for all the financial woes simply because they are different and unknown. It should come to no surprise that humans are very good at “othering” and ascribing bad intent and pernicious stereotypes to people who just aren’t like them. It’s just like how I know all dominators are sketchy vermin who smell like cabbage because I just don’t see the appeal. 2. Along that note, I think poorly of AFK farming. Not because I don’t understand it or how to do it, but because it feels sleazy to me. I can also manufacture rational excuses why it’s “bad” since it keeps forcing more money supply into the system leading to disinflation which is bad because of some other reason, but to be honest, it just doesn’t sit well with me and that’s just a bias based on my personal experiences and makeup and I can recognize that and try to not let it bias my opinions on other things. Not my circus; not my monkeys. 3. Speaking of disinflation, I do personally think that “the system” would benefit from higher prices, and sometimes I tilt at windmills in order to encourage that. Mea culpa, but I’m not going to stop and I’m not going to feel bad about it, mainly because I do think it’s best for everyone. I also enjoy that I (and clearly a LOT of others) are keeping lots of supply in the markets, although I would prefer it if those listings crept higher over time.

You make a good point on tediousity since I can have only one mission going on at a time, but I feel that leveling goes rather quick nowadays. Running solo stuff at x8 gets that xp flowing and that should be doable even at no enhancement for a lot of ATs. Plus, there are always xp boosters if temp powers are allowed.

It appears that is the inverse of the personal debuff from 1 -- all enemy accuracy and damage are buffed +50%.

Valid observations and questions, and I appreciate your posting them. This was partly a way for me to learn more about the flashback system, partly a way to interact with the community, partly a search for an interesting challenge that I can complete with no rewards without getting bored enough to stop, partly a spiteful snapback to people who complain how difficult it is to walk across the street and kvetch about why they aren't getting greater rewards to do so. I'm a puzzle solver by nature, so the question is not "what will enable me to run without enhancements?' but "what will most easily allow me to run without enhancements while keeping me engaged?" I'm also torn between trying something I can learn more about, like a beast/marine mastermind, or doubling down on something like a kinetic melee/willpower brute which will be godly after the inevitable buffs.

It's nice to see someone talking about balance. Admittedly, it's difficult to balance across ATs through regular play as well as endgame god play. It's also difficult to compare across ATs unless they share similarities (scrapper/brute/tanker, defender/corruptor). I don't think that ATOs should be considered mandatory (who said that?!?) for either regular or endgame play, and thematically I'd like it if they either did more of what makes the base AT great, or compensated for their great weaknesses. That said, I'd wield the nerf bat a lot more than the buff bat, but that should come as no surprise to long-time listeners.

That's useful terminology, thank you. I'm guessing that buffed and debuffed each can be done on just about any character, albeit slowly. No insp, probably as well, but no enhancement would need to be a specific build and possibly specific ATs/primaries/secondaries. I'm envisaging running 15-50, and probably focusing on one or two specific enemy groups for the lolz. The idea of doing every contact and every mission seems tedious to me, but then again I'm not undead.

Here's my concept: once a character gets to lvl 15, he moves into Ouroboros/his mother's basement and spends the rest of the game doing solo flashback missions with the same challenge settings for every mission. Clearly I will eventually get all the flashback badges, but I mainly want to make sure that every mission has an external challenge setting so that I get used to setting it before every mission. I'd like your thoughts and or personal experience with these: 1. Players are Debuffed. This seems doable. At first glance, the debuffs seems to be -50% accuracy and -50% damage. Anything else I'm missing? 2. Enemies are Buffed. I'm not sure how this translates, and I'll probably get the power analyzer out at some point, but if anyone knows offhand on exactly what this means? 3. AT Powers only. I'm assuming that this excludes pool and epic powers, so that would put a big crimp in survivability? 4. No travel powers. This seems trivial, yes? 5. No temp powers. Seems pretty easy, but there are probably a lot of temp powers I'd have to give up that I don't even realize are temp powers. Like Reveal? 6. No inspirations. This actually seems like one of the hardest. 7. No enhancements. I'd think this impossible, but then again I was on a Lady Grey TF the other day and realized halfway through that my scrapper had almost nothing slotted since it was an alternate build I hadn't built out yet. But solo means I'm not getting buffed by anyone else. Any relevant thoughts or experience?

I seem to recall that people bitched about this all the time, and I get that because it sucks to get drained. I don't have the least problem with sappers, literally, since there is only ever one per spawn and a sapper can't drain me if 1. they can't hit me and/or 2. they are already dead. The part that mystified me was when people were willing to burn down the castle over resistance to regeneration debuffs. I don't think I've ever been defeated because my regeneration rate was debuffed from 200% to 100%, or even 500% to 250% but I've been defeated a bunch when a hit got through my defenses/resistances. That's how I played high end regen -- a series of (hopefully) well timed oh shit buttons. Also, I'd be far more concerned with healing debuffs than regeneration debuffs (and those are two different things, although the healing one has a negative sign to it). Absolutely, but it is pretty easy to get to 50-100% slow debuff protection through enhancements and set bonuses. No real need to make that an inherent part of the power set, imo.

I haven't had the time or inclination to start up a new regen, and my mindset is definitely biased by how I was able to make old regen work like a well-oiled machine, but my thoughts right now are: Fast Healing -- skippable. Regeneration is always nice, and the new resistance to regeneration debuff is also nice, but I often find better places to use a power slot. Reconstruction -- absolutely not skippable. Core power. Quick Recovery -- skippable. Lots of ways to manage your endurance nowadays, although endurance debuff resistance is nice. If that number were higher, like 50%, I might have to reconsider skippability. Ailment Resistance -- absolutely not skippable. This is a do-everything power now for one slot. Integration -- absolutely not skippable. You need your mez resistance. Resilience -- not skippable. This is a rinky dink power, but you need resistance. Instant Healing/Reactive Regeneration -- skippable/not skippable. Too late Mom, the mob has spoken. In old regen, I always put in Instant Healing as a pro-active oh shit button for very little slot cost. Reactive Regeneration brings back immortal mode so you don't need an oh shit button anymore. Second Wind -- technically skippable, but why would you? Like Ailment Resistance and Reactive Regeneration, this has become a magic do-everything power now. Moment of Glory -- classic oh shit button. Regeneration does not seem to need an oh shit button anymore. I'd still keep it, but I'd want to level up a new character to see if it's necessary.

I've got only one character out of hundreds with this power (and I respecced out of it recently), but this seems like an etiquette being enforced from someone who doesn't have it and wants this behavior from someone who does. It takes me no more than twice to figure out that someone has fold space, and it doesn't take me much longer to figure out who it is. Generally, at that point I just start following that person around because: 1. I know there is very close to a zero percent chance if I ask them to NOT use it or to announce it every minute or two before using it that there will be compliance; and 2. How much longer am I really going to be on a team with this person? It's not like we're married and have to communicate about things that annoy us about the other. That's just my approach, partly because I don't love needless conflict, and mainly because I'm probably not going to be able to influence a complete stranger's gameplay because it's something I personally find annoying. It's not much of a problem, and it's one of short duration.

I never claimed no fleas were harmed in the *reading* of the post.

I had that same question not that long ago. I think that since the prohibition is based on consent of the owner/resident, a court order does not allow vampire policemen to enter. I also believe that if a person is made into a vampire, they are allowed entrance into any household they were considered a part of beforehand without post-conversion permission.

Going back to the title of this thread, I think Flea should go knock themself back. No fleas were harmed in the writing of this post. They are essentially immune to knockback due to their exoskeleton and size.

I'm going to try to address the issue again, foolish me! Kinetic Melee has three basic things that categorize it as a distinct set, to me. 1. Many/most of its attacks provide damage mitigation in terms of -damage for a short period of time. I believe that when the set was designed, there was a conscious effort to reduce damage inflicted when compared to similar sets that do not also provide damage mitigation. Fair enough, makes sense to me. 2. Many/most of its attacks are back loaded. This isn't just that they are long animations (like Radiation Melee, Kinetic Melee has some slow attacks and some fast attacks) but that the animation time before effect tends to be close to total animation time. As a result, you queue up a three second attack, and two and a half seconds later your attack takes effect. Some of this is psychological (people seem to really want to have effects after half a second rather than after two and a half seconds, even if they are rooted for three seconds regardless) and some of this is having your target defeated between the time you activated the attack but before it takes effect. This was an interesting style choice that I find truly annoying. 3. Concentrate has different mechanics than Build Up, and I'll leave that to you to figure out if that's better or worse than Build Up. (Stalker/Scrapper only) Getting a critical strike on Concentrated Strike doesn't do extra damage, but instantly recharges Concentrate. This only works on Scrappers and Stalkers because Brutes and Tankers don't get critical hits. Annoyingly, the scrapper ATO procs have no effect on the critical rates of Concentrated Strike, which is a crying shame since otherwise you could make an interesting critical monster. Most of the complaints are about point 1, which is that the set doesn't do enough damage in comparison to others, but I suspect that a lot of people who have really played the set are pretty bummed out by the second point as well.