Yomo Kimyata

I suspect that if you look in every AT forum, you will find someone complaining about how their *FAVORITE* AT is *UNPLAYABLE!* and is the weakest of all ATs because it doesn't have the damage of a blaster and the defense of a tank and the control of a perma-dominator. Personally, I have two or three sentinels, mainly for theme, but I don't play them much. If you want ranged damage and good easy mez protection, it's certainly a good way to go. It's much more difficult to get "good" mez protection on something like a blaster, so I think the lesser damage for the higher protection is a fair trade-off.

No, @DougGraves is right. I've noticed this a lot over the last few weeks. You can still occasionally make sales of large in low 5 digit territory, but for the most part it is a buyers' market. I suspect it's that we've hit a critical mass where either enough people use Inner Inspiration powers, or enough people don't seem to need inspirations nearly as much as they once did. Or maybe it's a blip, but it's been going on for a bit.

Well, we have a winner. But first, a monologue: I've conducted a lot of experiments in Homecoming, and this one has been my favorite. It started with a conversation in the Market forum about how much inf people "needed" to jumpstart a new alt. I picked a number that was high enough to add real value for anyone who needed it, but low enough to keep away anyone just looking for a handout. Not a single person sent me a blank email. Well, admittedly you *can't* send a blank email, but virtually every request was thoughtful, kind, and genuine. Many of them were downright hilarious. I kept a list of everyone's global name in a spreadsheet. There were almost no clear-cut examples of multiple accounts (and there was of course no problem if there were!). I got a kick out of seeing what people choose as their online tag. And now I have a list of people that I can (eventually) send inf to whenever I want! I want to thank everyone who went out of their way to tell other people about this giveaway (I'm sure there were many, but @Myrmidon in particular has always been a very vocal supporter.) I did a fair amount of advertising in the Help channel myself, especially back in December. After a year of this thread, there were 522 requests, for a total of 10,535,000,000 inf paid out. The winner of this contest, with a guess of 12bn, is @Midnight Blue Mage! I have sent them a direct message and will be sending them their ill-gotten gains shortly! You're all winners in my book. I only wish that I could, hold on a second, ... Nope, sorry the voices in my head tell me that I can't give every one a prize. Not this time! This giveaway will continue for as long as I'm still around, but I'm not going to keep commenting on it to keep it relevant, so I'll let it drop down on the list of topics into oblivion. Happy hunting! Yomo

I'm totally good with both of these viewpoints. I think it is important to realize that we all play the game the way we want or the way we know. What grinds my gears is when someone else *insists* that I *have* to play their way. Now, I rarely play anything that has any negative consequences (like failing to get a Mo badge or what have you) so that might be different. But if I'm running a TF, and someone wants to walk from Atlas to Founders Falls, power to them. We're not going to wait, but you do you. This is pretty much how I feel about things like KB and such as well. If something really bothers you, say something, work it out, or find someone else to play with politely. This isn't an ideological warzone. The only exception I've made in travel powers was one time I was putting together a Shadow Shard TF and I made sure everyone had TT and a jetpack. Two people on the team didn't, so I gave them each 25mm to go buy what they needed (and what I felt the team needed). Communication. It's good stuff.

We are down to the last few days for the contest!

I’m approaching the end with my blaster, and it has been a fun ride. I still die a lot more than I do on melee alts, and I’m trying to figure out why. My best guess is the lower HP, since I rarely get mezzed. I do get cascading defense failure though. Which brings me to my incarnate selections. I freely admit that I don’t play most of my 50s significantly past opening their alpha slot, so lots of this is still relatively fresh to me. The alpha has two easy choices: Intuition: Radial Paragon and Musculature: Radial Paragon. Hold and range v. Immobilization and endurance mod. I’ll take the former and that’s now at T4, with all others unlocked but none slotted. Lore will be last and thematic and I’m currently not even thinking about it yet. Judgement (sic) is kind of thematic. I generally prefer Mighty for appearance but will probably be Cryonic with a cone to go with Umbral Torrent or Void ina PBaoe to go with black star and atom smasher. Interface is interesting. I could load up on -to hit with Diamagnetic, go tried and true with Reactive, or just have some laughs with Cognitive. The hard choices are Hybrid and Destiny. I’ve never tried Assault,and I do want more damage. But Melee and Support are compelling, and I usually go with support for the endurance discount. Destiny has me all over the map. Historically I tend to go with Vigor for the oh shit heal. Decisions decisions.

I overheard them talking, “Let’s put some fake trades in the Miracle +recovery history at 13,400,000. Ok? Agreed!”

I was soloing Synapse on a blaster yesterday. Home stretch, about to spawn Babbage. Advertised in LFG channel, got together a league and we took him down quickly. I thank everyone and go to hit the quit league button. My brain was yelling "NO!" but my hand was on autopilot. Quit out of my task force with one real mission to go.

I consider "playing the game" anything directly related to time spent or time I will spend logged in. That includes: -- Reading and writing on these forums. On a side note, maybe it's the smaller population, maybe it's the fact that some of us have aged gracefully, but the interactions on the forums are so much more positive, polite, and constructive than they were on Live. I'm thankful for that, and I recognize that I am also more positive, polite, and constructive than I was on Live. -- Reading and researching ideas on the wiki. -- Working on builds on Mids. I really hope they will have a browser-capable version available sometime before I lose interest in this game. -- Socializing and roleplaying. Although I mostly play solo, it's nice to help people, to be helped, to make and read smart-ass funny comments in chats. My roleplaying is sporadic and mostly in my head, and I prefer it that way. Every once in a while I find myself in the wrong part of Pocket D and some of the stuff in Local is extremely cringy. -- The Market. Oh you sweet temptress. It's soothing and challenging enough to be interesting. It's like sitting down for coffee on a Sunday morning and polishing off the Sunday crossword puzzle before doing chores. -- And then there are missions. I like them too.

Atomic Manipulation has had confuse baked in for as long as I have used it, which admittedly isn't that long. According to the wiki: Atomic Manipulation is a standard power set that is a secondary set for Blasters. "You have complete control over atomic particles and waves, and can use them to disable and weaken your enemies, as well as boost your own power. Many of your powers have the ability to surround your targets with negatrons or positrons. Should you combine both of these in a single target, it will result in Electron-Positron annihilation producing a burst of Gamma Rays which will inflict a small amount of damage, and in addition debuff the target's damage output and accuracy. Enemies also have a small chance of being stunned or confused."

To OP, I'm sorry about your experience. If you are a new player, it is very easy to "learn the ropes" and I'm sure things will get better. There's no reason to get depressed over it -- we are all playing a game (presumably) in order to have a good time of one sort or another. On a much less serious note:

The same thing we do every night, Pinky.

Muahahahahaha! Inventory: That's for other people and the AH to hold. I have many SGs and for the most part I gave up on them shortly after I registered them. Travel? Homecoming is this far away from making an instant travel button to wherever you want to go with zero recharge time. Storage? I can keep up to 1,800 items in each SG. You know what holds more than 1,800? Everyone else. For reals, I don't bother with using SGs to store inventory. I have enough alts that I use them to store lots and lots of work in progress inventory (WIP) in their personal holdings and their AH slots. I don't see the need in holding 10,000 or even 1,000 LotG recharge IOs unless I can quickly sell them for significantly more than I bought them. If someone starts bidding 20mm for LotG recharges, I am sure I can produce 500 in an hour, and 5,000 in a day from what I have on hand. I see the value in holding large amounts of rare salvage, even yellow salvage. But finished product? Not so much. Wait! Don't press that button, that is my secret weakness! Aaargh....

Maybe it's just me, but I find it hard to believe that people want to play blue side because they are "good" while they hack their human opponents to death with a broadsword.

Can you tell us what the other parts are going to be in this series so we can pace ourselves?

I... I... I just assumed that they did? They appear to affect MM pets based on some half assed testing I just did. No idea about other summons.

Ah, the whole superfluous thread issue. There really should be an option to turn off threads on a character because at a certain point they are of no more use to your character (assuming you are T4 in every incarnate that you want to be) and you can't trade them. (I do not think you should be able to trade them, myself.) But back to the inspirations. I use a lot of them, especially on new characters. Mostly large, since I seem to be able to buy them in bulk for about 1,000 a piece and then if need be convert them to what I want. I spent a bit of time trading super inspirations, but stopped quickly. You can buy at 5 and sell at 10, which is good, but the consistent volume is not there. So what is it worth? To me, I would have to start with the value of a large inspiration. Call that 10k. I can see a case for Super damage, endurance, health, resurrection but I wouldn't ever use any others unless they dropped in play. Personally I only use team inspirations with masterminds, because I'm selfish like that. So maybe 10x a large? I'd probably buy some at 100k, but 1mm feels like a waste of inf. I have no experience with the level shift ones. Again, just my opinion on a relative value play.

This is indeed true, but the main reason I use that proc there is that it is *HILARIOUS*. Also adds damage.

[NPC] Doc Quantum: If only the world were as interesting as you, DEFC0N Zero...!

My objection is not the cost of converters (although even 4 boxing four alts to vet level 24 gets you 640 E Merits or 6,400 merits or 19,200 converters is a good start, but that lasts me a few days, and I have more preferable ways of getting my converters), but it's the opportunity cost of time. Let's say you have this recipe and all the salvage to create it. You could craft it and convert by rare until you get something you like (NOTE: Steadfast are uncommons, so you would have to convert an Impervious Skin by Resist Damage to get there). OR: You could sell the rare for something like 400k, and put in bids for 10x level 10 Horrors at 10k a pop, then spend 20 converters to turn them into lvl 10 Unspeakable Terrors. You now have 10x the initial seed IOs for about 1mm more in cost. Or you could buy them at level 15 or 20, which will give you a better yield for *fewer clicks*. Or you could buy 10-100 of a different recipe that would give you twice as much value per click. If you just want to craft and convert one recipe, have at it! Nothing wrong with that. But I work in volume and I would much rather sell the salvage and buy 40x uncommon recipes. That's how I roll.

I use Combat Jumping early and often. Since it’s usually one of my first defense power picks, I two slot it early with Kismet accuracy and Shield Wall proc. Later I’ll add a slot for the Reactive Defenses proc. And eventually I remove the Kismet and replace it with a Lotg proc.

I'd say it's practice, but a few guidelines: 1. I always craft PvP and purple recipes, and I will convert them into something more expensive if need be. 2. I almost never craft rare recipes UNLESS I can very quickly and cheaply make it into something I can sell right away. Even if I have the rare salvage on hand. I'd rather vendor the recipe and sell the rare salvage on the AH. Example: I will craft a Reactive Defenses (because I can easily make that into a LotG) but I will not craft a Lockdown because I can't change that into something worthwhile except by chance. 3. Opinion vary on this, but I personally don't craft yellow recipes at level 50 UNLESS I have the common and uncommon salvage on hand and don't have to bother buying it. The crafting cost is too high. I WILL craft every single yellow recipe (unless it sneakily requires rare salvage) at levels 1-49. Then I will usually change it into a rare and play rare roulette. A loose guideline is if I can end up with a rare IO -- any rare IO -- at something under 500k inf in cost, then I can make that into something worth my while.

My advice in quote. Many of them I would not have chosen to craft, but once you have them, this is what I would do.

MuahaHAHAHAurgh, *cough cough cough* Much like we used to post a new thread every once in a while when things were too quiet, I wanted to start a new thread. If you want to brag, give advice, complain about how much better things were back in the good old days, whatever! It's your monologue. I'll start with a bit of a strategy I use when I need a WO set, I want it right away, and I don't want to pay buy-it-nao prices. Despite the fact that I own plenty of these things, I can't be bothered to send myself emails or put them in base storage. So let's say I need 5 Avalanches. What I do is buy 5 Winter Packs (still available under 25mm!) and open them. If that doesn't yield you 5 WOs, then buy another pack. Anyway, many people don't seem to realize how easy it is to use the converters/merits that you will get in the pack to make exactly what you want. There are only 5 different sets, and it will take on average only 4 rolls (at 1 converter each) to get the set you want. And converters are free! Or at least already included in the Winter Packs you just bought along with a lot of other stuff that will make you whole. Then when you have five of the set you want, you will probably only need to convert in set for one or two of them. And sell off everything else you got. Is this cheaper than buying a full set at instant prices? In my experience, usually, and it's a lot faster than putting in bids and waiting. I also will do this when there is a disparity in prices among sets, which is often. Next!