Yomo Kimyata

What gets me the most about incarnates is that there are SO MANY of them. Welcome to the pantheon of ultimate godhood, Squirrel Girl! You are number 2,312,165 and we will be assigning wings and manna as soon as your turn comes up. I don't want to put barriers in place to keep anyone away from it if they want to work for it, but I have always thought that limiting incarnate status to one or two per account or server would be a nice compromise.

In practice, I find that Unleash is up about 1/3 to 1/4 of the time, and at 60 seconds it's a nice long buff. I wouldn't characterize it as an occasional power. My go to slotting is probably: Lotg Def/Rech, Lotg +recharge, Shield Wall Def+5, Shield Wall D/R +5, Panacea H+5, Panacea H/R+5. The set bonuses aren't spectacular, but they are something. Lvl 53 HO/DSO are also good here. If you are looking for a little slow resistance, 3 slot Synapse Shock for 10%. There's something in this power for everyone! With respect to Focused Accuracy/Targeting Drone: I'm at the point now that I just slot it for end reduction. The base value is good, but the 60+% to hit debuff resistance is great.

I've often wondered what your slotting style was when you pause at particular levels. For me, when I'm at 19, I'm mostly slotted with SOs since they are so much more powerful than IOs at that level. I'll also make sure I have Panacea + in Health, Perf Shifter + in Stamina, Shield Wall + and Reactive Defenses +, usually Kismet +, Steadfast Protection +, Glad Armor +, Celerity + in Sprint. I might have started to put in Winter Sets or ATOs. In general, I like to play and build organically, and almost all my projects tend to have *something* new about them to me. So if I find myself being lower on endurance than I like, on an odd level I'm putting some help into Health or Stamina. If I don't have extensive experience with a new power, I'll check it out and respec later if need be. I think I respec a lot more than the average player. That's in part because I really don't mind the process. I have so many alts that generally by the time I get to respeccing one, it's like looking at a time capsule and I'm all "What the hell was I thinking in April 2020?". But my builds also go in (hopefully improving) trends. I spend a lot more on slow resistance. I really enjoy having an "oh shit" button or two. I'm trying to keep a supply of respec recipes available in the /AH at pretty much my cost level. As far as overkill, I very rarely make characters that I think can be overkill. I mostly make melee, and almost all of those are scrappers, and none of them are immortal. Tanks, even brutes to some extent, are too simple to make unkillable for my purposes, since my perception is that the currently damage to survivability tradeoff is way out of whack.

Why not both? I'm currently a huge fan of Unleash Potential since it provides defense, endurance recovery, and healing for 60 seconds. I 6 slot it every time and adjust the slotting to whatever I need most on the character.

Ice is a great set. Personally, I don't take either Ice Sword or GIS because I hate the look of it, but Frozen Fists works just fine. I like to look at the probability of the proc going off, based on the number of mobs I think will be hit by the attack. So I tend towards something like Frost since I expect that for most of the time that attack will be hitting three or more mobs and the odds of the proc NOT activating across those three or more is generally going to be pretty high. Then again, you want to make sure that the proc will be active for the big hitters you want to follow up with. If I put it in Frost, then there is 1.575 seconds of active time left out of the 3.25 seconds the proc effects are active. That's enough time for the proc to be active on any other attack, but not enough for two (it's close, but Freezing Touch takes 1.18 seconds Arcanatime, and the shortest animation time before effect is Frozen fists at 0.500 seconds). If I put it in Frozen Aura, and I am fighting three or more mobs, then the proc goes off almost all the time, and with 1.739 seconds left you can get off Freezing touch and then either Frozen fists or Ice Sword. If it goes in GIS, then your active time left is 1.975 which is just enough for Freezing touch and then Frozen Aura (but not Frost). In general, all I care about is the next attack, but there are some chains where you can get off two.

True. But you and I know how many packs you had to open to get there. And we are in a "Well, if I can do this with a lot of clicks and effort, why don't you just make it so we can do it instantly?" stage of the game. Having 25k merits in character items (which any one of us can easily do!) is considered a privilege, for some reason.

I have learned a LOT about building from @Nemu. They are my "Most Valuable Teacher". That said, I suggest you learn by playing. If you are trying to keep people alive on a Hard ITF with a power set you don't know much about, maybe play that set a lot for lower stakes. This is a pretty easy game, after all.

story arcs will be the fastest way. If you do signature story arcs (Who will Die, Pandora's box) you will get extra merits for a few missions once a week.

Not a drawback at all. CONSUME!

I'm trying to solve the problem, which is not always the perceived issue. That's why I get paid in winter os.

Do you want merits specifically, or do you want inf?

There are all kinds of reasons to make a second build. However as Snarky has noted there is a cooldown on switching (which you can do via macro or bind). This cooldown seems to interrupt every toggle and treats every rechargeable power as if it was just activated. I'm looking into a dual build character where it has one build to fight through the mobs and a second to fight the AV or GM. The cooldown isn't a problem if you have a minute of two to prepare.

Not that I know of, but since attuned and non-attuned purples are in the same bucket, you can sell the attuned one and buy a non-attuned one. This guide may help:

That's because the sun came up.

Cloak of Fear: 2x 53 Endoplasm (Acc/Mez), 2x 53 Enzyme (To hit debuff/End), Nightmare 50+5 Acc/End, Unspeakable Terror stun proc Weave: Lotg +recharge, 2x 53 Cytoskeleton (Def/End) Cloak of Darkness: lotg +recharge, 2x 53 Cytoskeleton (Def/End) Unleash Potential: 2x 53 Membrane (Def/Rech), 2x D-Sync Conduit (End Mod/Rech) Darkest night: 3x lvl 53 Enzyme (to hit debuff/End)

This is it except the HOs are messed up still. I'll fix it soon.

If the problem is that a new character on their first alt doesn’t have enough inf, I can accept this. The only strategy in this game currently is how to bootstrap yourself to a point where you are throwing off more inf than you are consuming. Rather than increase the inf creation for everyone, how about we focus on new players on their first alt? Currently I give start up capital to anyone who asks for it, but only once per global account. I’d be fine if the first character on a new account gets some start up money directly from the game. Because the sheer quantity of people who would use this as an inf farming exploit would dwarf the very small number of new players on their first alt. Be the change you want to see. Give inf away to new players!

Sure I’d use this. It’s pretty much how I use the current 2x. Maybe you should charge for it like booster buffs.

I am NOT a tanker builder, but this seems doable. I think the damage is probably lower than I would like, and I'm sure I'm not taking advantage of the tanker ATOs properly, but this seems to look interesting (and pricy!). I'm just exporting the datalink since it seems to screw up the HOs and DSOs: Running Darkest Night, even with 3x lvl 53 enzymes, plus Cloak of Fear plus other toggles means using your endurance tools appropriately! Unleash Potential is not only an oh shit defense button, but also an oh shit endurance button. I'm not sure how well Kinetic Melee -dam debuffs stack across powers, but it looks like Burst is going to do your heavy lifting there, and with Darkest Night you should be debuffing enemies to about 60% of their normal damage. Your defense debuff from Cloak of Fear and Darkest Night should be a ridiculous -30% -- that number will drop to a small fraction of that versus anything with AV resistance, but everything else will be cowering, staggering, or just plain whiffing. Your Achilles heel will be to hit debuffs.

I would think a Dark Armor/Kinetic/Soul(for Dark Obliteration) tanker would be ridiculous, but you'd need to manage that endurance veeeeeery carefully.

This is the thing that I think damage reduction is supposed to be most useful for. Everyone slags on Kinetic Melee (well, I can't blame them for the look and feel), but they are safer than, say, energy melee since they are taking less damage. And their team is also taking less damage. But people don't care (and rightfully so) because survival is much easier to achieve and much harder to assign value towards than, say, damage inflicted. I don't think people are posting Trapdoor times if they are defeated, for example. It's survivor bias! And I highly doubt anyone is saying, "thank goodness we have a kin melee on the team, we are all going to be taking 5-10% less damage!".

I've been trying to log onto your website, but using my social security number as my login and password doesn't seem to be working. Should I try replacing a "3" with a capital "E"? I'm not sure if your system accepts a password of just numbers.

Lots of good one/two hit wonders: Concealment: Stealth and/or Infiltration Experimentation: Speed of Sound if that appeals as a travel power Flight: Air Superiority, Hover, Fly Force of Will: Weaken Resolve, Mighty Leap Leaping: Combat Jumping, Super Jump Sorcery: Mystic Flight Speed: Hasten, Super Speed Teleport: Combat Teleport For your purposes, I'd probably go with Combat Jumping for the ability to mule defense sets and it's a good mini-travel power that you will always have on and Hasten. This is as good a place as any to ask if anyone has any good words to speak on Misdirection from the Concealment pool? Placate is meh, but 15 seconds of -11.25% damage resistance is a nice damage boost for a few attacks once every minute or two.

My two inf: Regeneration is one of the harder sets to play at a high level, and that has less to do with the thought that it is a bad set and more to do with the fact that recent sets have been overtuned. Radiation Armor and Bio are great, super-powerful sets (and should probably be nerfed a little). They are, in my opinion, the top top tier and what I do NOT want is for Regen to get buffed to that level or higher. A reason that Regen is actually a great defense is that many of its powers are, actually, skippable! This means a good builder can dip deeply into pools and epics and create some real masterpieces that you may not be able to do, for example, on Bio (since I might skip one power in Bio armor). Regeneration could use some more debuff resistances, simply because it has almost none. I cannot recall ever fighting a group of enemies and getting destroyed because my regeneration was debuffed, so I don't worry too much about that. Getting 100% slow resistance is easy enough with a strong building knowledge and a bunch of superior winter-os, but an extra 20% might be nice. I'd actually like to see some recovery debuff resistance, and maybe a little something else for flavor. Fast Healing -- Ironically a better power now that you don't have to take it at origin. Skippable in my opinion, although I generally like to add it in as one of my last power picks. Reconstruction -- Core part of the set. Looking good. Quick Recovery -- IMO absolutely skippable with all the endurance tools in this set and available through builds. Should have some bells and whistles and debuff resistances added to make it more relevant. Dull Pain -- Core part of the set. Looking good. Integration -- Core part of the set. Looking good but I wouldn't mind making it more interesting. Maybe take away a little of the regeneration and add a little defense, like 3-5%? Resilience -- Core part of the set. Looking good. Instant Healing -- I like this power since it's a thinking person's oh shit button. I rarely use it in play though, and skippable if you have enough other oh sit buttons. You should be able to survive easily while it is active, so long as you activate it before you need it. I think putting it back to a toggle would be the equivalent of making Shadow Meld a toggle -- a constant I Win button. Revive -- Skippable, although I think giving it the Rise of the Phoenix treatment from Fiery Aura would be appropriate. Moment of Glory -- Core part of the set. Looking good. If you want a walk-away-from-the-keyboard-and-farm build, this isn't for you. You are definitely rewarded for build knowledge and having enough funds to equip the build. Having said that, I fully expect the HC team to buff the hell out of it, make it top tier, give it to tanks, and then sit back as people start to complain that Willpower now isn't strong enough for their AFK farmers.