Ukase

I'm not Obi-Wan, but you don't need to do iTrials to get the t-4 parts you want. There are arcs in DA that award the same reward tables that an iTrial will. The biggest difference is you can set the difficulty for the DA arcs, but the iTrials will be +4 by default. And you can redo the arcs through ouro. The Heather Townsend arc is the first, and by most accounts the fastest of them. That said - if you really want to try an iTrial solo, the only way would be to get the required minimum, say 8 for a lambda, and have the other 7 quit while you remain. If you try to queue it solo, it will state you lack enough people.

I'm finding this not only tedious, but a bit nauseating myself.

Almost all of them. This is how I figured it out. I basically looked at the title and the contact of each arc, and then searched through the Paragon Wiki. If the contact was in Mercy, I did those arcs. It's been a couple of weeks, so I don't remember, but it's all of them except one contact, if I remember right. Just find out who's in Mercy and do those arcs. That said, if it's badges you want - may as well do all the arcs. They'll all help in someway - debt, mez, inf, damage...

I knew my combat attributes showed me as stealthed! That explains a lot!

Well, I certainly can't disagree with what you wrote. I probably should have written things more clearly. I think the experience - not knowing the content, but the lessons learned from getting know the content are what help shape a simple blaster into a really good one. I also didn't intend to suggest the use of macros or binds implied that a blaster that didn't use them was not good, nor that one that does use them is good. Only that their use would suggest someone knows a bit more about the game than someone who doesn't use them. It's not a hard fast rule, just something that I think is likely to be case more often than not. And I probably still didn't express myself very clearly. Sorry!

I really should read through all 5 pages of this, but I'm not. I did read that one felt blasters are the least survivable of the various ATs he/she had played. I see this type of comment in various league chats, broadcast, help channel, lfg, etc. ALL the time about how weak blasters are. Rubbish! Badly played blasters are certainly lacking. But a skilled blaster will outlive many other ATs that are played by equally skilled players. The beautiful balance of damage, accuracy, endurance management, recharge and defense is like a chess game. Advance one piece too far, and you're out of control in other facets. But, with forethought, practice and intelligent slotting, blasters are a genuinely capable AT. The initial question by the OP was answered, and answered well. Other posters chimed in, but the OP thinks the use of damage mitigation from melee attacks "brass knuckles for a guy with a glass jaw" don't make sense. Here's something the OP didn't consider: a badly played blaster will indeed have a glass jaw. But a skilled one will not. And it has less to do with melee attacks, and more to do with the player behind the avatar. What inspirations do they carry? Do they make effective use of binds and/or macros? How much experience do they have with their character and the content? Many of us who played back in the early issues to closing know the content very well. There's just not many surprises. Because we know what to expect, we've learned how to position ourselves for best results. (admittedly, experience has less to do with skill, but it's still a factor) Perhaps a blaster just isn't a good fit.

So...a thought occurred to me after I got a gentle rebuke from Paragon Wiki. I wasn't thinking about how they were trying to keep the wiki as the game was when it shut down - not with the new changes. Just a minor thing I'd changed, the number of reward merits for something. Apparently, I missed the memo on how our HC devs upped the reward merits a smidge, compared to how things were before the shutdown. So, they took my change out. So, with that, I know I'm not the only one who refers to Paragon Wiki for about 95% of things when I'm unclear on the best place to hunt certain things, or if I want to get an idea if I can solo a tf, etc. I'm wondering if there would be someone with more tech-savvy abilities than I have who could just port over a copy of the Paragon Wiki - maybe change some things, like calling it HC Wiki, and then folks like me could begin to update it to how things are in this version. The only reason I make the suggestion is because I was under the impression that Tony V has stepped away from The Titan Network, and that the HC team has arranged some sort of partnership with them. Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding something, but I think a wiki would be quite useful.

Wait - you can get purples with tickets? huh...I need to take a second look. You typed AE, did you mean AH?

You know, I really had no idea how many people had such strong feelings about the AE farm issue - on both sides. 7 pages on a thread isn't gigantic, but the fact that folks are continuing to express opinions and thoughts just shows me how little I know about how other people think.

So, while running Sir Bedwyr's arc, part 4, (doing them out of order) I notice that the npcs are Talons of Vengeance. Beat 100, get a badge. But, when I took out a banshee - no progress on the bar. Curious if that's by design? Doesn't make sense to me. The others give progress, so it won't hold me back - but why wouldn't the Banshees give progress? They are part of Talons of Vengeance.

lol. I have no time for foolishness like the tailor. That's even worse than reading what the contact is sharing to get you to do a mission. It's irrelevant. With the new transparent stealth, I can't see my character anyway. I basically did a load costume from my scrapper to my blaster, and back again. Each one cost me 4 million, so I only had to do it 13 times. Now I can ignore the tailor forever. Such a strange thing..don't you people like your costume when you start your character? Why would you ever change it? Makes no sense to me - but it doesn't have to. City of Options and all that.

Thus, the reason for my post. Playing melee, I don't notice it, as I'm already right there. On my blaster, not so much.

This just happened - and it's probably my fault for being in a rush. In Serpent Drummer's arc, there's an npc to rescue from the Ritki in Portal Corp. I'm on a blaster, I see the Adept on his knees, blast the intimidating figure away - and am attacked by another nearby Ritki - so having killed the initial Ritki, I move on the the other and clear the map. Still one more adept to rescue. I revisit in the right side portal corp building - clear. Roofs, clear. Parking lot, clear. Back areas behind the buildings, clear. Nothing but Vanguard around. I look, and look. And after about 8 minutes, I just happen to come across that same guy in his knees. Still. Despite having killed the intimidating Ritki that was "holding" him. When I got next to him, then he stood up and mission completed. I have no idea what the code looks like. Even if I had a copy of it that I could look at, I'd have no idea (or desire) to look through all the code to find it - but is there a way to have rescued npc's recognize they're rescued when the captor's are defeated, as opposed to having them defeated and being next to them? I mean, I have low expectations for something like this - it's not a bug - but just thought I'd ask.

You know, I'm so glad you posted this! It gave me the idea of looking at the map, instead of at the waypoint door. In the Ouro arc, "Oh Wretched Man", Steal research from the Legacy Chain, the mission waypt. directs to an arachnos base, the same door as the previous mission. But it was a good bit away. No screen shot, as folks can now know to look at their map to find the door, if the waypoint is wrong. Thanks!

Look, I didn't mean to bug anyone by what I wrote. I was lucky - quite lucky. But I see a purple at least once every two days. But - I have a farm toon that works while I work. So, it stands to reason it would see more. The characters I actually level up, they're still quite fortunate with drops. I had a scrapper playing at +3 get one at level 45. The next day, got two more. And that wasn't farming, it was just going through the Sig Story arc out of steel canyon in pursuit of merits. The reason I say make them drop less is because they are too abundant. They should be VERY RARE. They aren't. Heck, we have a trial that every first time character can run and get one, guaranteed! All that said - one man's drudgery is another man's fun. I don't consider it drudgery; I would consider it a challenge. It is quite possible that my characters are just luckier than yours. Evidence certainly suggests so. A copy of my petition: September 25 Windows: Let me start by saying - I don't know if this is an exploit or a cheat. If it were, I wouldn't have been doing it. But, it seems to me FOUR purple recipe drops (times Central US) 6:48, 6:48, 6:52, 6:53 - that seems it would be worth a look. Context: in an AE map, set to +4/8. (Comicon Cave map) Just running through the map like usual. I had just gobbled about 6 medium tier rages.

So...I have 7 mains? That kind of defies the meaning of the word main..

My Two inf: Yes, and no. With AE, either you, or someone else can make a mission with npcs that are specifically designed to be more susceptible to your offense, and less able to handle your defense/resistance. So, it's easier to go +4/8 for a fire farmer in AE than it would be for that same avatar in a Carnie or Banished Pantheon mission, for example. That said, the XP in that fire farm will give less XP than the same difficulty vs a "standard" contact given mission.

Last night, you announced you were forming up, and I was near the end of Dr. Q. I figured there was only 10-15 minutes left, and tried to lfg "join events in progress" and nothing happened after 7 minutes, so I just figured you guys were already done, or lfg just didn't want to work. The hami raid is also suffering from a lack of attendance, so my guess is it's the halloween thing.

Um..have you ever heard of crafting? Don't make your alts craft for themselves. Each character can grab the required salvage from the storage within the base, run to the crafting table and create that very recipe for your alt. Stash the IO in the base and your alt can pick it up when convenient. So easy! You don't need to send recipes through email. Every day, you should craft the recipes you get. Don't have all the salvage? Check your stock. Still don't have it? Place a bid or wait until you do. Problem solved!

Hate to break it to you - but if anything, the drop rate should be decreased. I got 4 in a span of 7 minutes. I even sent a petition to see if there was some kind of bug, as even though I like purples and want them to drop - the purples, the reward merits, the influence - it all comes so easily, so quickly, that I'm actually in the hive and saying to myself - why am I here? I already have 10k merits across three of my more-often used 50's; I have transcendant merits stashed for my next 50s, I have billions of influence. There really is no motivation aside from badges and to read silly commentary from the players around me. So...no! I've gotten 60 purples over the past 3 weeks. I just gave away 4 sets yesterday because I have no use for them. I'd sell them - but I don't need the inf, either. And I know some folks haven't made their billions and don't want to tank the prices for those that rely on them. Purples should indeed be very rare. A farmer who farms day and night should only see them once a week or so, in my mind. That said, the reason purples just sit in my base is the bonuses, unless you're chasing recharge...they're next to useless. No defense or resistance buffs in any of them. They should sell for 5M or less. They're just not that good. My ill/rad, Dom - they love 'em. My PB and WS will love 'em too. But the rest of my toons...meh.

I have this problem on certain maps. Change the map. All fire farms are basically the same npc, just a different costume.

I think I understand this. I'm what you might call "goal-driven". I look for ways to challenge a given character to keep things interesting for me. I seldom use p2w 2xp because 1) it's at the cost of influence & 2) it removes opportunity to discover how well certain powers are slotted and working within the attack chain. This "smoother" experience you're speaking of, it's in the game already. Or maybe I don't understand what you mean by smooth? Your xp per kill goes up as you level up. But, because we have more powers, it stands to reason that the next level requires more xp - there's more to learn! As for deleting 50's...I've never done that. I just let 'em sit. And I guess I certainly could respec 'em, get out the IOs and then delete them and start over - but each character of mine gets the 4 primary health/end boosting accolades. I don't really want to delete a character that's had that time invested. I think your problem is that you're simply bored with certain characters. And that's fine. You look to AE to get you over certain hurdles because it's effective. Heck, why do you think so many use AE? Because it works! Perhaps you need to consider not looking for levels. Look for badges. This will cause you to seek out content and to stop looking at the XP bar. XP will come! You don't need to seek it out. Now with Vet levels, it never stops unless you stop it.

I am not one of those folks who farm reward merits to make inf to go to the tailor at level 5. or 10 or even 50. With the exception of one character that I made too short - none of my characters have ever needed to go to the tailor. It's not like I can really see their costumes anyway. Most are stealthed, and the ones that aren't are buried in a pile of npcs. Is there a trick to this "spend 50 million" at the tailor? I just redid everything, and it cost less than 2million. I have ZERO interest in spending hours on this. I just want to give the tailor 50 million and be done with it. Is there a way to make it more expensive? Not to mention the 50 some odd free tailor tokens that will remain unused... What options cost the most?

In my mind, I always felt like those with high badge counts were simply....better. Better players. Better teammates. Obviously, it's not a 100% correlation, but in my experience in playing, the people that have the higher badge counts know more about the game, the game mechanics, and are almost always willing to help someone else get a badge to the point of near selflessness. Just anecdotal, of course. Opinions will vary.

I've played a couple of Sentinels to 50 +3. There's just one thing that doesn't make sense to me about the AT. Scrappers have the same resist cap as a Sentinel, yet Scrappers get to dish out a LOT more damage. The damage output should be pretty much the same for both. One is primarily melee, the other ranged. Other than that, the damage output should be the same. It really is that simple in my mind. May as well play a blaster. With IOs and the Epic pool, the two ATs are not that different, aside from mez protection, but with Clarion and Rune from sorcery pool, a blaster can work around that pretty simply. Something needs to change with this AT.