Yomo Kimyata

To date, I've never gotten a dominator past the 30s, so maybe this is something that becomes clear at end game, but... So, I see that domination is good. It does a lot of good things, and I understand that when we get good things we like to get them *all the time*. 90 second duration and 200 second recharge, yup, yup, easily doable. The good things: Doubles the mag of mez and increases the duration by 50% at regular mag. This is great at low levels when you are trying to stop that boss, but it seems to me that once you get higher levels and more mez powers and more slotting, it's not as great. Sure, you can mez AVs, but only when the purple triangles are down, and you can do that even without double mag. So good things, but not world beating in my opinion. Complete endurance bar filled. Now this is great! And having it fill every 89 seconds automatically is good on average, but certainly at early levels I feel like I would prefer to have it when I need it. Mez protection. This is also great! And having it up constantly means you don't ever think about it. But I'm used enough to squishies without mez protection that I know I can get it elsewhere, or at least figure out how to mitigate it. I'd be totally happy activating it when I was mezzed, like Rune of Protection or popping a breakie. So it strikes me that I would in general rather have domination on demand, rather than on auto. The rub here, of course, is that if domination expires and hasn't been renewed within 90 seconds, you have to build it up again from scratch. So it seems that the time it takes to rebuild is the problem and that's why autopermadom is the standard. So my questions to you dominating folks are: 1. Does my analysis make sense or am I missing something(s)? Are there other reasons to keep it on auto? 2. How long does it really take to build up domination from scratch once you are, say, 40+ and nicely equipped? Let's assume solo but running x5-8. I know that I could just figure this out on my own, but as of now I clearly have difficulties sticking with the AT long enough to find out. Thanks in advance!

*Looks left.* Seen bigger,

This has been a useful thread for me, thank you. I recently came up with a name that *begs* for a fire/fire something. My distaste for elemental swords is well documented, but I was able to come up with something that I will hopefully find informative and engaging.

My attitude is that white numbers mean you have a lot you want to say, while green numbers mean that what you said resonated with other people to some extent. I like the forums because it's generally a pretty organized system. I particularly like learning new things, or even seeing new opinions. If I were a newcomer to this forum, and I saw opposing opinions on a topic of interest, and one person had an order of magnitude or two more posts or reputation, I'd still test it out myself but be more inclined to listen to the one who seemed more fact based. At this point, I've learned a lot and some of that is what specific forumites are good at. Some have good levels of expertise; some are funny; some are asshats; some are useless; and most (including me) are a combination of all of the above depending on the time and the subject. I have to think that any new member to the forums has the same ability to figure that out as I do. I think I'm pretty free with the like or thumbs up. It doesn't cost me anything to validate someone else if it's a real validation. We're all more or less on the same team, after all. I don't think rep as it was was discriminatory in any way, just like I don't think life discriminates against 5-year-olds when compared to 25-year-olds. This is Trooth.

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!".