Yomo Kimyata

While such a QoL would absolutely make my personal game life easier, I also acknowledge that it is completely a first world problem. I was not on Live when they offered the Super Packs for pay, but I can imagine that the intention of the Live devs was that packs would be extremely rarely used due to relative expense. Although the current devs have done a great job of making the priciest items easily available to everyone, it's pretty clear that it put a major computational strain on the system. And the fix appears to have been to put a timed governor on things like opening packs and claiming items from the Character Items menu. I was "lucky" insofar as I was able to offload lots of things from the Character Items menu before the governor was instituted, since the actual opening packs and claiming items from said packs is now onerous enough that it discourages me from doing anything about those items. Again, first world problem! So rather than use packs as a profit maker, I think I'm using more as it was originally intended. If I need an unslotter or three, I pull them off the menu. Claiming converters are a problem, because I rarely need a converter or three, but pulling off 25x merits or three fulfills my needs. I don't care whether or not the devs make it easier to pull things off the Character Items menu. Yes, it would make my life a little easier and probably add to my Smaug-like hoard of useless inf, but I don't know if it would help the "average" gamer or even a majority of them. So I'm not particularly interested other than by noting that sometimes unexpected snafus occur when we make things easier and there is an unexpected strain on the system. On a purely personal basis, I would love to get rid of those damned enhancements, but meh, not a priority for me. EDIT: oops meant inspirations. Anyone want a few thousand team endurance inspirations?

Well, my Time Manipulation powers are strong. Less than 24 hours!

With VERY few exceptions, all my alts have Combat Jumping or Hover (and it's easily 10:1 in favor of CJ). For me, the question is "Which power can I have on 100% of the time that will not annoy me?" Hover is fine when you want to be hovering, but I'm not going to slot it enough for it to be as auto-useful as Combat Jumping is for me.

I think I agree with this. Lots of people look at something that has a different playstyle and say, "This sucks, make it more like what I already know and like!" Case in point: Mind Controllers. As always, if you don't like something, don't play it! But as time goes by you may be surprised that what you like may change.

Really, you can use any type of aaaaaaaarmor set.

RE: Meltdown. It's a great power but keep in mind what it enhances. It takes Endurance Mod sets, but the recovery is not affected, so don't bother slotting it for end mod unless you want a set bonus or a proc. I've found that slotting it for resistance is a bit of a waste, since it will pretty much take me to over 75% on whatever I'm looking at. The damage bonus is nice, but I also very much enjoy the endurance recovery, even unenhanced. I'll usually slot it with 2x lvl 50+5 recharge.

Untrue. Unless we are talking really difficult content, the trinity is me, myself, and I.

It's a different playstyle from the meta, which is softcap defense and DDR and kill everything before the RNG gets you. And it's a fun playstyle, and I've found it as effective as anything else at 4/8. It does deserve some sort of debuff resistance, in my opinion, but there are tools to work around that in the incarnates.

As always, it depends. But a typical regime for me: Do the tutorial and start self-funding. At level 2 I will go to P2W and get Athletic Run, buy a 5k jetpack, and usually spend 10k on Reveal. (Eventually I will get more stuff, like Mission Transporter and Portable Workshop.) For slotting damage powers, I will always start with an accuracy SO, then damage SO, then damage/recharge/endurance as needed. I'll generally slot damage powers to four slots before IOs. I'll buy attuned IOs before I need them (Kismet to hit, Shield Wall proc, Panacea proc, Steadfast Protection proc, Glad Armor proc). And I update my SOs as often as I think about it. I'll usually make a plan in Mids, but that's mainly for power selection. I'm not afraid to respec, so if I need endurance I'll put slots in places that I may take out later. I'll usually start shifting over to IO sets in my mid 20s, and I'm targeting set bonuses like recharge and positional defense. Everything attuned. As I'm approaching 50, I'll start to acquire things for the transition. I'll swap out my attuned PvP IOs for level 50s which then get +5 boosted. Purples also boosted (except procs).

Does Hulk even lift, bro?

Also, Reed Richards can flatten himself. Clearly a pressing issue.

My strategy is to remove accuracy until I notice I’m starting to miss, but after damage is effectively maxed, put in as much accuracy or to hit as you want. In particular, note if you have some/any -to hit resistance. I’ll often run Focused Accuracy (with maxed endurance reduction) just to avoid seeing my to hit drop into the red against foes like Circle. You’re still going to miss 5% of the time, and that’s the injustice of it all!

Well, shoot, why not make Moment of Glory a toggle as well then?

True, true, but I'd hardly call those *pressing* issues.

One of my pressing issues is that Iron Man doesn't actually iron anything.

How about this?: You get a random power from one of your teammates which replaces one of yours. It could be Hover. It could be Accelerate Metabolism. It could be Boxing. It could be Fulcrum Shift. And you could lose Headsplitter, or Parry.

Only at parties.

I’m not going to say this is Lex Luthor, in your eyes, but I tend to use Time Manipulation as a proxy for superior planning, or even luck.

I think it depends on whether the low level is a new player or not, and the only way to know that is to ask them. I've had people drop SOs on me on a level 2, and then I pull their global and email them a bn inf. I appreciate their wanting to help, but not everyone wants or needs to be helped in that way. Maybe they don't even know how to sell anything yet, or maybe they are running a fund-your-own-way challenge. Actually, I find the dropping of garbage items pretty offensive. If you want to give me money, give me money. Don't give me your rubbish.

Guarded Spin (like Titan Weapon’s Defensive Sweep) is a pretty nice power. It hits up to five opponents and if it hits any one of them you get 11 1/4 melee defense unenhanced (I’ll put an attuned LotG proc which might get you to 15). It’s up constantly and the Defense stacks. Damage isn’t killer, but there’s all kinds of fun things to do. lately I 4-slot it with Armageddon (including the proc), the Lotg, and the overwhelming damage/knockdown proc. Marvelous

I realize that I may be one of the only people who keeps an eye on this, but that's well over a 200k increase since earlier this summer.

Every new character I make goes to P2W and gets athletic run and buys a 5000inf jetpack. In addition to Sprint, I am perfectly happy just running with that through the game. Sometimes I go back and pull up a character I made back in 2019 with Super Leap, which has always been my favorite of the "original: travel powers, and sigh with nostalgia. The vast majority of my characters have Combat Jumping and that is a great always on power to keep all the defense procs running. If I feel theme calls for flight, then I can use Hover the same way, but I'm less likely to keep Hover on all the time. The new power pools (Experimentation, Force of Will, Sorcery), however, were game changing. Thanks to the power of Adrenal Booster/Corrosive Vial, Unleash Potential, and Rune of Protection, I see no need to not take whatever travel power is a pre-req and slot it with the Winter's Gift Slow resist proc. Infiltration is good (and misdirection is GREAT!), but I generally don't like Stealth as a power pick and Grant Invisibility feels like a wasted power.

@Snarky has a lot of knowledge on things dark, but I have a few comments from a scrapper viewpoint (and I am in the process of trying out a few things with my 50 WM/DA scrapper): Both the toggles are useful, but I'd understand not taking Cloak of Fear -- it's an extremely inaccurate and high endurance toggle. Although if you do take it, my endgame slotting is 2x lvl 53 Endoplasms, 2x lvl 53 Enzymes, and Unspeakable Terror +stun proc. Because you should always take Oppressive Gloom -- it's low endurance, and with your heal up so frequently you'll never even notice losing health from it. Anything you can do to stack stun is useful. Put a Triumphant Insult proc in some of your AoEs if you can fit it -- it's a terrible proc by itself but getting more mag to your stun from Oppressive Gloom is always nice. If you do take Cloak of Fear, taking the Presence pool for Invoke Panic also stacks Fear mag nicely. On the flip side, against enemies without defense debuff, defense works just fine. I wouldn't build to the soft cap but more is always better than less.

Debuff powers that ignore resistance. Boy, would that be terrible, if someone or someones had something like Enervating Field that ignored player resistance...

What is true is that once upon a time, you could slot it for range. Headsplitter with a few Centrioles in it was pretty ridiculous!