Ukase

To my surprise, after publicly denouncing any kind of Dominator as being just useless team trash (AT/Powersets that are only half-way decent on a team, but rubbish solo), I found two combos to be quite enjoyable. Earth/Earth and Grav/Earth. Of the two, I liked Grav/Earth a bit more. The Singularity is by far the best pet in the game. Also, after denouncing Scrappers as weaker than Brutes, I re-learned a forgotten lesson - a scrapper with defensive armor is every bit as good as a brute with the same armor. I still think Critical Hits aren't consistent enough to outperform Fury, but they're still quite welcome and quite good. And, I realized also that I afk during the day enough that in some cases, I'm better off with criticals than fury. Recently, made a claws/SR scrapper. It was quite good leveling up; a bit of a stall in the mid-40's, as despite focus/follow-up/slash being a preferred attack chain, the damage seemed quite insufficent to me in contrast to this ice/shield scrapper I'm leveling up now. A smoother leveling curve, and far, far better dps and survivability. Now, there's no scientific evidence to back that - just my anecdotal perspective. The combo of Fold Space/Build-Up/Frost/Shield Charge/Frost is quite good against +3/6 Rikti, Nemesis (could use a bit more accuracy due to vengeance), council, Carnival, DE & Tuatha, to name a few. The defense debuff resistance offered by Shield Armor is as good as any other set I can think of, off the top of my head. Even the CoT spectrals don't succeed in flooring my accuracy, except the one time I took a team invite into a +5 scenario. And I was the only one left standing, including the tank in several of those skirmishes in that stupid mission, accepted by an XP greedy leader who had no thought or concern about how they were going to complete the mission at that difficulty with that team. But, I digress... In summary, Earth/Earth Dom, Earth/Grav Dom, Ice/Shield Scrapper and what should go without saying for reasons that may not be as obvious to everyone as it is to me - ice/ice blaster. Ice/ice blast is just the BEST AT/Powerset combo in the game for me. And it probably would be for you, too, if you thought like me and played like me. But since you don't, you go ahead and take the fire/fire and die a lot while I never (well, only very rarely) get defeated. Ice patch in lower levels to help mitigate damage. You can respec out of it, and probably should, once you figure out how to navigate battles safely. A quick freeze ray to hold a boss with two applications that generally take less than 8 seconds, while you kill everything else - and that's at level 8. The sustain, Frigid Protection is just crazy good. Blizzard is like Burn, a phenomenal Psuedo-pet that is larger in area and does more damage. The only reason it's not better than burn is a slower recharge.

I think I mentioned, I have a fire/ice tank, (not a farmer) and the way frost performs on it is quite good. And really, if I take a few extra seconds, the frost for the Scrapper is also good. But it's just irritating me that if you imagine I'm "frosting" at three bowling pins (the first one, and the two behind it) and sometimes, it will not damage the one in the second row on the left, and sometimes it won't damage the one in the second row on the right - even though as far as I can tell, my avatar is in the same position. I did have very good luck using doorways as a funnel for the frost, if you will. Got to 38, so I have Shield Charge, so making frost effective is less of a need now. Still, I think the powerset is quite good, even if it takes a bit of practice.

Freezing Touch is nice enough. But it's single target. Frost is superior in that it gets more targets in less time. Simply put, it's better. But that's just my opinion. Why they made it a hold, in addition to being superior damage, I've no idea, but it lends itself to more slotting options, so not complaining. I just want to take further advantage of Frost. It's not burn, but if it were PBAoE, it certainly would seem to be from where I sit. It's strange. I also will use my taunt aura of sorts (Against All Odds) to aggro, go behind a corner or dumpster or whatever, lay the ice patch. 3-5 npcs will flop around, but Frost will only hit 2-3 of them, usually. Not sure why they don't all get damage as they're all in the patch. Surely the patch isn't extending beyond the range of the cone. Maybe it is. I dunno. Just seems strange for it to capture the whole group sometimes and not miss, but not hit half the group other times. And it could certainly be perception bias, but I don't think so. I just wish it were easier to determine the actual range of the cone before firing it. If it's player error - and that's likely, if I don't figure it out by 50 levels, well, I guess I just won't play it and consider it a non-learning experience.

I wasn't sure where the best place to put this was, so General works as well as anything else, I think. I'm currently on an ice/shield scrapper. My first instinct was to make this a tank, because tanks seem to do better with cones, and in my feeble opinion, Frost is the defining power of Ice melee. But, I've got a fire/ice tank, and the angle for cone on that tank is 90, same as with the scrapper. And, with a defensive armor, the 15% difference in resist cap is less important due to the high positional defense. I've opted with what I consider to be somewhat traditional slotting with this scrapper - aside from Frost, where I've got two Ranged IOs, extending the range of the cone. I do this based on my understanding, or lack thereof that the more range the cone has, the more volume it covers, hitting more npcs. Cones are interesting. There was a time when I would take fire breath or frost breath on my blasters because, well, the damage was relatively good. But, the negative about the cone is you have to position your character, or the NPCs in such a way as to take full advantage of the cone. This can slow things down as you may imagine. Enter Fold Space. I noticed the first time I got Fold Space and used it - the way they land after the port is pretty much in a cone. At least, that's what I remember about it. But, I'm not there yet. I'll get it in the next power pick, but not there yet. One of the disappointing things is I can only find a way to use two sets Bombardier IOs (ranged AoE) in the build. Frost, and something out of the epics. So, that's 2 sets of 5% buff in the 10 foot range. Still can only get 10 targets at a time, but right now, I think the max I've gotten is 5, but the average # of npcs is two. The NPCs all scatter around my character like flies. With Burn, not an issue, as it's PBAoE, but with Frost...it takes positioning. Cardiac Alpha is in store for the resist buff as well as the increased range, but here's what I'm wondering: When the Detailed Info tab says 90 degrees...what does that really mean in practice? My last geometry class was...10th grade...1982-83. Isn't this an accurate geographical representation of 90 degrees? I promise you, anecdotally, the angle of my cones are far closer to 45 than 90. Is it an error in the description, or my understanding of angles? Or am I just suffering from perception bias? I kind of wish there were some type of reticle that showed the actual angle before I actually mash the button to execute the attack.

I think we should all be in the habit of playing on all the shards. In the context of my comment, a full league brings no issues for me. Several leagues, however, does seem to cause some lag issues, where we're able to target the next spawn, but not able to hit them as they haven't actually appeared. Or something like that. It's odd. Some folks claim the lag impacts their recharge timers. Only in real extreme cases have I seen my toggles stop "spinning". In any event, I think every system is going to bottleneck somewhere. With some folks, it's the tired old computer they played the game on 20 years ago. For others, it's their horrid cable service that throttles speeds up and down the line. With all the 0's and 1's, it's amazing we have this much stability, really.

I feel as if I should say this: After a number of events, I found that I enjoyed the heck out of being bounced into the sky, easily 2x as high as the GM robot-thing's head. This was about as much amusement as I've had in game, ever, aside from my first successful MoUGT and the Apex mission where we play one-sided dodgeball with blue patches of death. And..uh, given how some folks hate that - maybe I should add I'm not being sarcastic. It was fun, 10xp aside. I did get a bit frustrated at having fared so well xp-wise in the first one, but from that one after, every other one was a touch more disappointing in that more and more folks brought out level 1s - who kill more slowly and at least, anecdotally had a negative impact on XP gain. All in all, still a fun event. It was really the only thing in game that made me feel like pushing back sleep to do another and another.

In case you revisit the forums, or even if you don't - everyone should be aware it's clear you know what you're doing. The raid's lack of ability to draw people has more to do with the server itself simply not having the population to fill the raid as quickly as it could, and well, should. In no way should anyone make the mistake that I implied there was any lack of skill or ability. Just a lack of people.

I took a claw/super reflexes scrapper to 50 without it ...and honestly up until I did Heather Townsend's arc at 50+3 against level 50's did I see any kb. Plenty of KD, but no kb, and I didn't use any kb to kd procs. But, until I hit 50, in pursuit of more xp, I was tackling +2, +3, +4 most of the way.

I'm such an oddball. I've never played any other MMO - except for maybe 5 minutes trying out several others after the shut down.

I did show up for a hami raid. And you guys did one run. I waited 35 minutes to get the minimum 24 and only one run. Not the three I was expecting.

The truth is, there are several approaches to take, all should work, but none will work well. I've done what I call a drop challenge, where you slot only what the rng gives you, if you can use it. Although, you don't have to use anything just because you can use it. My biggest stickpoints were when "Beginner's Luck" runs low enough to notice at level 17. Part of this was because I am supposed to increase the difficulty to +1 at level 15, then +2 at 25, +3 at 35, +4 at 45. I've yet to get past level 23. Or was it 27? Probably 23. I forget. It made me really excited to get recipe drops and SOs. The use of p2w was not allowed, unless the item was free - like Sands of Mu and the like. The other sticking point, particularly in late teens, early 20's - endurance. Radiation, with Accelerate Metabolism was very helpful, particularly so on the Defender. My Dark/Rad defender did the best. Dark has a debuff component, which made things easier to hit most of the time. The AM was good for end recovery. The heal was all but useless, as it drains as much endurance as it heals, if not more. If I go that route again, I won't even slot it, I don't think. Unless I got one of the heal procs in a drop. I tried a bio/claws brute, which did comparatively well with this challenge. As you might guess, the efficient adaptation was in use far more than offensive, for sure. But, still, because I wanted to push myself, the mobs in First Ward thought I needed a lesson in humility and it was over. And this was using enhancements that dropped. I gave up on the concept of the challenge because it just takes too long to wait for more endurance. End mod drops are like 1 out of 175. Pretty damn slim, considering you could go from level 1 to 30 and not even get 100 enhancements, I don't think. (never actually tried to see, but it doesn't seem to be that many.)

I think if they do events like this again, they should reduce the zone cap to 50. When things bog down like that..well, it takes away from the fun.

One thing I noticed - the mobs in this event don't seem to drop any salvage. The odd enhancement or recipe, maybe. But no salvage. But I definitely noticed when outfitting my own with an oblit set which I don't normally keep in base because they tend to be cheap. But I ain't paying 8m for an oblit. It's crazy to see how lazy or ignorant some folks are - the multi-strikes are still selling for 500k, and it only takes about 30 converters (sometimes less, sometimes more) when they're attuned. If you're one of those that buy them at level 50, it's closer to 9-15 converters to get the oblit you want.) There were maybe 4 of a few in that set. So, since my new 50's needed to unlock vet levels, and the lowbies that are invading these events drag the XP gains down to less than what my farmer can do, I just parked the alts in the farm, and have made half a bill just from the drops in half a day. It really irks me that the lowbies are coming to PI instead of going to Skyway or Steel. They really messed up a good thing for me. I went from making 5 levels -from 45 to 50 in one event to making only one level, and in the last event, I didn't even make one level, because half the team was less than level 20. The league itself only had 4 level 50's. There I was, I'm on a level 42, so I didn't think it would be well received to lead a league unless I was 50. So, I asked for an invite, and got one by a level 30. And once the league was full, the dude didn't even pass the star. Nevermind my AoE power I got at level 38 I couldn't use...grr. I gave up on this event Sunday morning. It just pissed me off from that point. I get better xp in a farm then this event with all those lowbies there.

Perhaps a list of volunteers could be made to commit to helping with these events in this very thread. And, when you have 18 to 24 volunteers for a specific date & time, the group can knock the event out and plan for the next date/time. There are a number of folks who used to hop from shard to shard to maximize merits. If the time of the event is right, no reason it can't happen.

Well, I transferred a character over there - a couple actually. The time it took to complete one raid in the Abyss was longer than the time it takes to complete three raids on Excelsior. And that's not counting the time it takes to form. I completely get that if the league were full, instead of having only 24, it would be just as fast. But, the truth is, it's not full, so it's not as fast. I want to help, but I'm one player, and unless another 2 dozen agree to make the transition, it's a real waste of time. Like 30 minutes on Excelsior is 60 minutes on indom, just because it takes so long to get enough people.

In my honest opinion, you're ....not quite right. The brute and scrapper may have the same modifiers, but brutes reach the resist cap quite easily, as do scrappers. But, the brute's cap is 15% higher. The HP is also significantly higher. The scrapper's crits are nice, but they are not consistent. Woefully so. You can slot them with the right procs, and sure, they go off, but do they go off reliably when your foe is at full health, or when all you needed was to take off a sliver to finish them? The brute also has an inherent taunt. With the scrapper, you have to choose the right armor set to get a similar result. If it were me, I'd make both, but if I could only make one, I'd go with Willpower/SS brute. But there are factors to consider. Both are solo friendly. If you afk a lot - like me - that's important. But, given how fury drops when idle, the scrapper can be a better choice. Just depends. With Willpower, given a lot of the regen potential in the armor set, and the brute's higher hp, it just makes sense to me to go with the brute. Scrappers still have a role, but until the crit's can be better timed, more often than not, I'd go with the brute. But, really - make both. Slot similarly. You tell us what's best.

I didn't do the math myself, not my forte. But, someone in league was saying that (paraphrased) Normal XP X 2XP X + X 10xXP ,plus the double of the base XP would be 11XP. So, seems to me - losing the inf from the 2xp buff when you can get 10xp and the inf that goes with that...lose the 2xp buff during the event.

So, during the Map Server event, I noticed that my new level 50 character opened the Alpha slot with a quickness. Certainly not going to complain about that. While I was looking at the incarnate XP roll in, I noticed something that may have been occurring for years, but I'd never noticed. Given that 2xp is supposed to expire when you ding 50, I'm not sure why, but I was earning no influence during the Map Server event. Further investigation suggests that when the incarnate slots are unlocked, the inf will begin to be earned. So, armed with a few threads, given the scale of 10x, I thought perhaps it might be worth using a few threads and some inf to unlock the slots faster. Well, at 1M per 2%, I determined it really wasn't worth it to me. But, then, I looked again, and noticed that there was no way to blow influence and threads to unlock the hybrid slot. It's not a complaint; just something I noticed. So, I figured I would make this suggestion: enable us to blow some inf and/or threads and unlock the incarnate slots. It can be the same horrific exchange that there is for the Alpha/Judgement/Interface & Alpha/Destiny/Lore slots. As much as I'd love a "1 Billion for t-4 in all" as an inf sink, that might take one too many carrots away from this donkey and remove any motivation to move. But spending some inf to open a slot faster, even though it's a waste of inf, it would be something I would use from time to time. Even more often if it were just inf as opposed to inf & threads.

Shhh...don't tell them. You must pretend that you worked tirelessly for hours on end to replicate this effect!

Of course you may. How much you want? Note the date. It is April 1st!

So, I've just been playing a new-ish alt for about a week, and instead of letting the inf stack up, I've just been giving it away in small amounts to random teammates. I was a bit surprised to hear these folks "saving up" for this enhancement or that one. It's a place I guess I used to be at, but I don't remember ever really struggling for inf. In any event, there are a dozen or so more players who should have a team teleport if the chose to get one, with a little extra for whatever they felt like. All I've been doing is crafting and converting my drops and giving away the profits. Seems kind of silly, but I guess there are still a fair number of players who've just never gotten around to learning how to make inf the easy, but occasionally tedious way.

Given the mission was about the Devouring Earth and the Unity Plague, I think you win!

I can make some guesses. I could certainly create some words to fit the abbreviation. Saw this on the mission door; not the first time I've seen similar signs on the doors of missions. But what does the acronym M.U.R.C stand for?

I can only say it's anecdotal, but I'm noticing that sales have slowed down a bit, particularly during the week. Myself, I've made my billions, and currently have NO characters with any open bids, or items for sale in the AH. Why? Well, I don't want to make any more characters just to hold inf, and have run out of room in my emails across all four accounts. I even stooped to buy converters to keep my farmers and flippers topped off. Paid less than 70k, too. Now they're all maxed out at 10k converters, poised to strike should the mood strike me. My more active marketing character had a bit of a lull in sales, it took a full week for 300 IOs to sell, contrasting with a couple of days. This is in part due to some competition, as someone deemed that my list price was too high, and they undercut me by 700k. I struggled with this. I have the resources to simply buy them all and relist them at what I deem to be the proper price, but that seems like a bad move. For starters, it fuels this upstart player with more influence to make more IOs and continue to undercut me. Secondly, it isn't the best thing for the community to have a higher price to pay. So, once those IOs sold, I simply stopped. It feels weird. And what's bugging me is it's not taking as long to level a character up, because I'm not crafting, converting, selling. Just plucking what I need from my base as I need it, or buying "now" what I don't have already made, or buying a substitute IO and using my merits to get converters to change the substitute IO into what I actually want. So, I have to wonder about any new player who seeks to market. I think there's still a way to eke out half a billion, if they have an understanding on how the market works, and if they know what to craft and what to list. But, I don't think they can do this in a day anymore, at least, not consistently. Possibly on the weekends. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope so. It could be fewer players, or maybe the players we have are now finally figuring out how to get what they want without paying my evil prices.

As much as I think the Instanced MSRs are better, if you're wanting more folks, that's not the best path. Even though I avoid MSRs with my sub-35 characters, a LOT of players think any level 1 can show up (I've seen 'em!) and contribute. (I haven't seen the contribution, they're defeated fairly often) Still, it adds to the numbers, and if they're a buff/debuff character, scaled to level 49, if they have some of the key powers, they can be useful.