Ukase

I knew there was something I didn't think about. And you're absolutely correct. It can't be auto, because it's not perma out of the box. Shame on me for even making the suggestion. Thanks!

Surely a bot would use capitalization and avoid horrific typos, no? As for balance - let's just get some teeter-totters in game, and work on that balance. I put my blaster on one side, you put your character on the other and see if we can't find the proper balance.

I suspect they made accounts on those platforms to "reserve" the names should they decide they need to use them in the future. As for Bluesky, this forum is the ONLY place I've ever seen it mentioned. I had to google it to see what you were referring to.

I know right off the top that some players dislike the idea that most other players take hasten. They see this as some sort of anathema for reasons of their own. Some folks think hasten should be relegated to characters whose AT, powersets, back story make sense to have it. I'm not one of those people. What's fun is different for all of us. I have thought briefly of any kind of circumstance when I had hasten and would prefer not to see the effects. The only thing I come up with is maybe roleplay, or a costume contest. So, just an add-on thought. Make Hasten auto-fire. Give the option in the tailor for hasten to have no visual effects. The advantages would be Dominators could put Domination on auto-fire instead of rigging up some crazy file bind system. Other ATs could also take advantage in some way, I'm sure. I do grasp that some ne'er-do-wells might use such a thing for ill-gotten gain, like AFK-farmers being able to use their AoE power that much more quickly. (That's probably splitting hairs on ill-gotten gain. Those farmers did earn the enhancements, and took the time to figure out how to rig their characters to do such things. And if it weren't fun for them, they wouldn't do it) Still, it was a thought, figured I'd suggest it. I'm certain the same folks that hate every other suggestion will chime in as to why. Sometimes, I see their points. Sometimes, I don't. Fair enough. I'm still waiting for a day when we can choose if we want a toggle to be automatic, instead of having to toggle it on/off every time. I suppose that shows how lazy I really am. I just can't be bothered to mash one more button.

While I appreciate the tip, for this guy, that's taking things way too far. It's just too convoluted for me to wrap my head around. If the character were the only character I played, I could see taking the trouble. But, I tend to level them up, and then park them, and start on something new. For several months, I'd even thought of playing just a few characters, and did delete almost 70 level 50 characters, but man, that was tedious work. I fully understand why we can't auto-fire more than one power. Although, it would be nice if Hasten were just a built-in auto power in the first place.

I'm at level 21 with a Beam Marine now - and it's been fun. Granted, I've brought this thread back from a recent death, but folks may want to know the two work well enough together to suit me. It's still early yet, but so far, it's fun. And, I was doing it as a drop challenge. But I felt discouraged because I wasn't getting the right salvage to utilize some good recipes I got (like a kismet and a glad armor). I was getting the converters, but old habits die hard. I'd thought about burning merits for random salvage as a bit of a cheat, and still use the drop challenge rules, but when I got 8 of 12 Symbiotic Armors...I said screw it. That's enough wasted merits. Now that I've decked it out in the better enhancements, it's more fun. But, if anyone else is crazy, the marine secondary is fantastic for drop challenge efforts. But you will want to do the dfb for the recovery boost.

Candidly, most folks play the game for fun, right? I would hope that's the case. Now, fun is subjective, of course. If we were to survey people on if it was more fun to win a fight, or lose one, well, I think most folks would rather win. So, it does stand to reason folks are going to fit as much recharge in their builds as they can afford. And, by afford, I mean not just the influence cost, but the opportunity cost. If we pursue recharge, often that comes at the expense of defense and other worthy combat attributes. But sometimes, the best defense is a smoking hot offense. Kill them before they kill you kind of mentality. For all of us, there's a balance. Some lean towards chaos (more recharge) and some lean towards order (more defense/resistance). I am not real clear why people using 5 lotg's would "depress" you. I usually only use 4, because that's usually all I can fit into my builds. Combat Jump Maneuvers Weave Epic armor if it's defensive, and the AT allows for one. On my blasters, there's seldom an option for a 5th one, unless I wanted to forgo hasten and the speed pool and opt for the flight or invis pools. And I'm not likely to ever do that because flight is comparatively less fun and not really that fast in my opinion. (which is rarely typical, so take that with many grains of salt) But it just makes sense to grab as much recharge as you can fit. I can't think of any reason to not do so. I can kind of see folks avoiding hasten - maybe they hate the fx, or the sound, or just don't like choosing the same power pools on every character. But, if you can get that kind of recharge with one slot - that's not anything to be depressed about. That's something worth being overjoyed about. I could make a case for doing a respec at level 50 and doing away with some, as there are enough attacks at that level where you don't need that much recharge, but in the early levels, you want all the recharge your endurance can support. But that's just my 2 influence.

The reason you struggle to fill teams is, just my own anecdotal experience, teaming with you is less fun than teaming with others. The bringing in of a new server is a good thing. More shards means more options for names that may not be available on the more populated ones.

I find myself envious of the enthusiasm so elevated one makes a spreadsheet to track each character/powerset combo. I've tracked the loot and stuff on a spreadsheet, but never the powersets. I should probably do that, and it would prevent me from discovering I have 3 ice/cold corruptors, and 4 fire/fire blasters.

So, I read this in context, and in context, I'm not sure I agree. Depends on "utility" I suppose. For both end/hp, sure, use the Numina before the Miracle. But if it's specifically stamina a player is concerned about, I would use the Miracle before the Numina. Maybe something has changed? I remember reading about 18 months ago, maybe, a player mentioned they had forgotten to reslot their numina after a respec. And then noticed that if they played for several hours and never realized it, maybe it wasn't doing as much as they'd thought. (paraphrasing) I wish I could cite the post, as I read it in the HC forums. And another player did some testing and verified as far as Stamina goes, the numina comes last in order of benefit. But, I've not been paying full attention as of late, and things may have changed.

I'm frugal, but even I can agree with this one.

I am in the minority, but I fail to grasp why anyone would want to spend hard earned cash to travel to see people that play a game they play online. What's the draw? Where's the value in that? Curiosity as to how much Cheeto dust is on our fingers? The dulcet tones of a kitten avatar? Now, in certain cases, I know there are groups of folks who formed an SG back in retail, and teamed up for the most part exclusively and would chat over Ventrillo or another voice chat service. Or in today's case, Discord. Hearing folks communicate over voice can certainly allow you to feel like you know someone a little better than the chat in game. In those cases, I can see the value. But, other than that? A very easy "have fun, I'll save my funds for something else".

I have had strange experiences leading tfs. Not all the time. But, here's an example. Positron caps at 15. So, I always wait until I'm level 15 before I lead it. And invariably, there will be a player who's higher than level 15 that thinks I should hand the star off so they can have more of their powers. I explain to them it wouldn't make any difference, as we're going to be exemplared to the cap of the tf - level 15. They'll get powers up to their level 20. Having a level 50 lead it would make no difference. The TF is still going to cap at 15. I explain this to them and they think I'm wrong. Thankfully, they just leave the team because they didn't want to team with an idiot. It makes me chuckle. This happens maybe...once every 5 or 6 characters I put through a positron tf. It never seems to happen with any of the other TFs, though. Weird.

Typically, my order of operations is: T-3 alpha. Sometimes I use threads, but usually shards and the notw. Depends on if there are some itrials I want to do instantly. Once I get t-3 alpha, I will typically bring 2 alts with the primary character through the Dark Astoria incarnate arcs and collaboratively complete all but the final, then do the final mission 3 times for 3 reward tables for each arc. I'll use what threads/emp merits I get to craft first: Lore, then Destiny. The reason is for the level shifts. One, it makes the DA arcs faster to zip through, and 2, the level shifts help get you into some of the higher level iTrials. Most of the time, other folks are spamming judgement before I do, generally making it useless anyway, and interface...I know it works...but I don't really miss it if it's not slotted. And lores are very useful for various trials and such. Once I get all t-3, then I check on the shard collection for the alpha, and by the time I get t-3 in all, I have enough shards to make the t-4, but I tend to have to wait an additional week to get another notw to craft the t-4. Then I t-4 the others in close to the same order: Lore, Destiny, Hybrid, Judgement, interface.

I don't know if I shared this one yet, and I'm too lazy to sift through the previous pages to find out. Last November, I made "Naughty Zoot". I am amused every time I log in and see the character name.

I have a clear memory of making a broadsword/invuln scrapper on retail. And then I made a katana/invuln. Things have probably changed a bit for them since, but then they were pretty much the same animations, just slightly different damage and end usage. Other than that, to me, it was the same powerset with different names. The old devs were clearly lazy and in a rush to get new stuff out. I look at thermal and immediately, radiation comes to mind. There's a lot of overlap between various powersets, but katana and broadsword are just too similar for me to consider them different sets. They're the same thing. At least they were. I made them when HC first popped up, but have since deleted them because I wasn't playing them. Changes to each like the changes to battle axe would be welcome.

I gotta say, it is not offensive in the least to me. If this kind of thing offends you, things like driving in traffic must cause you to seek medication to handle the stress. I am just stunned that you took offense to a harmless joke. Maybe you're just having a rough day? It certainly happens to me often enough.

I just use the page down and find a way to click the entrance. Perspective changes the angle, usually. And if you get closer to the door, you can usually push the pets out of the way.

Finally, my "search-fu" was strong enough to find this, rather than post my own suggestion. Example: I'm on a level 13 defender at the moment. I was in Skyway grabbing explores, and I see the Troll Rave going on. I thought, those supa trolls are good xp. I'll go clobber some of those. I ran into a couple, 600XP with the 2xp buff going. Nice! I get to the point on the map, and there's a level 50 dominator laying waste to the bunch. I can't complain, as it's nothing I haven't done myself for various badges. Yet, if I join their team, I'd get badges, fine. But no xp, which is what I'm there for. And..candidly, I would feel stupid asking a level 50 to exemp down to my level, as he's clearly there for the badges, not the xp. Two opposing interests. They don't need to be in opposition, but in this context, they are. For events like these, they should be level-less, and scaled to whatever level the player is. This way, I could be SK'd, and get the xp I want. And, the other player would probably welcome the help as it would be a little more difficult than laying waste to grey mobs. The badger in me hates the idea, because I want to knock these out quickly. But the lowbies I play want to grab the XP. So, there's the rub. I think making them level-less is probably more in line with the spirit of the game.

So, Chaos Spiel is easily awarded - you don't even have to defeat anything. You simply select the Nemesis option. Now, I wasn't paying too much attention. I was solo, and while I'd read it would be spicy, it was actually the first option I selected. (don't ask me why, lol) I met with death almost instantly. But I still got the badge. The timer was still running, so I just switched alignments and ran it as vigilante a couple of times and a rogue a few times to get the rest of the badges. It was indeed chaotic. An aptly named badge.

Some folks do. They are in the Jack Emmert camp of "The only reason to play an MMO is to team". I am not in that camp. I would be if I found enough folks that were aligned with how I generally like to do things - and even more critically, when I'd like to do them. But, even then, particularly during the day, I can go afk with little to no advance notice. Generally fine when solo, but when teamed, that's just not fair to the team.

While what you say is true, I'm pretty sure a lot of farmers have a fair number of alts. After all, I think that's why at least half the folks with a farmer made the farmer in the first place - to fund the alts. So, at least from what I've read in various chats and Discord, one aspect of discontent is those folks who are farming could be doing a Synapse with the player who can't fill their team. I certainly can't speak for anyone, but that's some of what I get from various posts.

The truth is, you'll get a number of answers. And in some cases, they're all correct. And they're all wrong. Ultimately, it depends on how you've slotted your powers. DPS relies on not just recharge and damage output, but also survivability, and accuracy. There are some petless MMs that will outdps that one fire blaster that is played by an 80 year old. Or an 8 year old. It all depends. As a rule, it's hard to argue against ice or fire blast. The numbers suggest fire does more damage...but ice has freeze ray which improves survivability by a fair margin.

There usually two missions I auto-complete. The first Infernal mission given by Maria Jenkins, as there's a later mission in her arc where we have to defeat Infernal, so there's no reason to do the first one, unless you just like clobbering demons. The 2nd one is the defeat all in Black Scorpion's patron mission. But the rest of them, I generally do. I might, every now and then auto-complete some stupid hunt mission, because they just shouldn't even exist in game, in my opinion. Hate 'em. I'll do them for the merits, but I certainly don't do the story arcs because of them. I do the arcs in spite of them.

I have a clear memory on retail of various controllers and defenders getting a little upset because fire tanks didn't need their help to clear a map. Mind you, they had a use if you wanted to clear the map faster. But a lot of farmers just didn't want to share the XP with them, as they were trying to PL another player with a "bridge". So, as fire farming became more prevalent, there was a lot of discontent because a number of the squishy classes weren't getting teams like they had before. And while in today's version of CoH, people get more irritated about a new player getting to 50 and not understanding the basics, there's still a number of folks who are irritated that the folks farming aren't playing with the rest of the community in general.