Ukase

Ha! I'm glad you said it would never happen, because I love CJ/SS. All but three of my 30 something level 50's have CJ/SS/FIght/Leadership or CJ/SS/Fight/Sorcery. I do get hasten on all my characters as it's essentially required if you want dish out as much DPS as you can. Anyone that says it's not necessary isn't doing as much dps as they could. That's a fact. There is no way around that fact, either. I understand that there are people who do things differently than I would..and I suppose that's fine. But, me, I like hasten.

Personally - a toggle for the player to choose between secondary effects is pretty clever and creative! The topic of kb is so ...divisive, that the OP is getting mocked simply for bringing it up, because many of you think you have heard it all before. It's hard for me to realize - but the game is getting new players routinely and many others have NOT seen and heard it all before. That said, my opinion is that kb is simply damage mitigation. Some of you simply have no thoughts about the person behind the character that causes kb. You think they're knocking them down the hall to make your life more difficult. They're not. They may lack the recharge to use a single target attack, they may lack the experience to re-position themselves for better use of the attack. A host of reasons. It's no different than the controller or dominator who locks down the mob before they're in a nice tidy bunch for the AoE focused AT to dispatch them quickly. Some players are so bothered by the kb, they quit SGs, sever coalitions and go from global friends to global ignore. That's how sensitive this topic is for some of the less mature players! My challenge for all is to play a blaster that dished out kb to get a better understanding of what's going on behind the avatar. And those that play a character that dishes out KB, play an AoE focused scrapper (no inherent taunt for them) or Stalker...and see what those players go through when teaming with an inexperienced kb blaster/PB/Warshade.

My thoughts: yes please! My reasoning: Hasten/CJ/Fight/leadership/Sorcery When you're a blaster, aside from a break free, or end-game Clarion, there's no status protection, unless you get Rune of Protection from the Sorcery pool. But, if you get that - you're prevented from getting all of the others. This limitation is the only frustrating thing about playing a blaster for me.

As one of those ridiculous badge-hounds, (current count 1511, as many as I can get until the anniversary badges open up in May) there are a number of things I would like to see changed, added, taken away. We're all different - different life experiences, different expectations, just plain different. I completely understand that I take the game a bit more seriously than most. I'm not the most enthusiastic min-maxer I've come across. I belong to a group that actually do respecs for any task force just to eke out a faster time on a speed run. I personally hate doing respecs, so I try to build mine properly from beginning to end. Yet, we have these badges for debt. Nobody said, "Ukase, thou must have all the badges!" Yet, I found myself getting as many as I could. But the few badges I think are just plain stupid are the debt badges. Why should anyone be given a badge for poor performance? And make no mistake - when your character is defeated, you have performed poorly. There may very well be good reasons, but the fact is you got defeated because your character was in a situation that you, the player, couldn't manage successfully. Now that doesn't mean that you're not fun at parties or that God no longer loves you, it just means in that instance, you failed to play your character well. Why should that be rewarded? Only the original dev team can answer that. I suppose, I could look at it as a warning to not team with those players who have too many debt badges too soon. Only 100 badges and have all the debt badges - this is probably not an ideal candidate for an MoTF. So, I would love to see them just removed from the game. Balance between factions: Invader vs. TFC. This just doesn't make sense to me. If I can team up with certain folks that have a certain badge (Hero Slayer/Bloody Hands) on red side, I can take a low level character (presumably with stealth) and zip through all the mayhems for the exploration badges and get that accolade within 10 minutes or so. Yet, on blue side, TFC takes a whole lot more than that. Fortunately, there's Null the Gull to make the side switching virtually painless. Still, I think if a badge (for an accolade) is to mean something, they shouldn't be THAT easy. Of course, nobody's putting a gun to my head and telling me to do things the easy way...but I will almost always follow the path of least resistance. No, I won't get the tasty merits, but I'm already sitting on more inf than I know what to do with. Speaking of inf... There doesn't seem to be any badges for making money on the AH. As EASY as it is to make inf via the market, so many players don't understand how, or don't want to understand how, or just find it absolutely boring to deal with. They'd rather grind it out for inf via missions. That's fine. But, I think EVERYONE should get a badge for taking a set bonus recipe, crafting it, and converting it, if need be, and selling it on the AH for a badge. I know there are certain badges for selling a certain amount of products on AH, but I don't think they're specifically for IOs. People fuss about the expense of certain IOs...if there were a badge for selling 5 LotG 7.5% IOs, I suspect there'd be a drop in price, as all the crazy badge hounds would be selling them - and competition for the sale would drive the price down. Something to think about. It would certainly introduce the bare basics of how to craft/convert/sell a lot moreso than the tedious generic IO badges. But - let's keep in mind that those generic IOs routinely sell more cheaply than it costs to craft them, so that's a win. Personally, I'd like to see a badge for the accumulation of inf. You have acquired 100M, 1B, 10B 100B. (if only there was a place to keep it all...) I could go on, but I've already written too much.

If I understand it correctly - having an 8th tray would be useful, sure. But..honestly, the times of it being useful are so rare, that I don't think it's worth the time. I respec'd a level 50 and held all my enhancements from my build after (deleting the character as I wasn't going to play it ever again)..and why would anyone need more? There's a finite storage for a reason. The more each character can stash, the server has to keep track not only of each slot, but what's in it - and the fact that nothing is in it. We think - oh, it's just one tray..but for each character in each account..that's a LOT.

I thought #23259 was pretty good.

I think this is a great idea, and nice of you to offer the incentive. You may already plan on it - but I am positive, just like in the old days, there might be 10% of the user base that visits the forums occasionally. And maybe 10% of those would see this opportunity. Perhaps make it part of the MotD?

I can certainly understand the frustration. I've been on the paying and receiving end at least twice. I like Roderick's suggestion of a slider.

Just my hunch - but looking at the badge leaders who have 1525 (which include the anniversary badges I don't have) none of them have the nemesis event badge, so pretty sure it hasn't happened for whatever reason.

It boggles my mind what the devs were thinking when they had Dream Doctor give an iTrial as a mission. I also auto-completed it without a moment's thought. The Trial is easy enough to run, if you can find an adequate number of competent people to join - but that takes a lot of time I'd rather not spend. I'd also have to consult the guide on Paragon Wiki on which heroes to free, because it's never really clear from within the trial what the best choices are. Easier to auto-complete.

The only badge I know about that is unobtainable at present is the one for the Nemesis invasion. We simply haven't had one yet. Not sure why. The rest are obtainable because there's got to be at least half a dozen folks that have every badge. (discounting bug hunter)

In fairness, I have not taken any /SR character to 50. The last time I made one, on live, it didn't seem to have any resistance..but I'm a bit smarter and more creative with slotting now. That said...just looking at damage base...the Sentinel just doesn't have it at this time. Hopefully, this will change.

The ONLY advantage a well built sentinel has over a well built blaster is status protection. And, with rune of protection, and clarion - not even that. At lower levels, the blaster will outshine a sentinel easily, with wise use of inspirations for both. But - ultimately that comes down to power selection priorities, slotting and the skill of the player behind the character. Sentinels can farm - but they shouldn't. They just aren't as good at it as a brute. They don't dish out the damage a brute will. "Fire support" on a farm? Nonsense. A farmer's purpose is to defeat mobs quickly solo. Otherwise, you might as well just team up for task forces and make merits as well as full xp in lieu of nerfed XP in AE. A brute, even with the recent lowering of the damage cap, will outdamage a sentinel. Period. No exceptions. A sentinel is a good first character for a new player to level up, due to the safety of attacking at range and status protection. Even poor slotting and half-way decent power selection will give a fair amount of resistance or defense, depending on the power sets. An experienced player may enjoy a Sentinel more than playing a blaster for a number of reasons - but for dps, the blaster wins that battle hands down. Easily. Every time. No matter what the power sets are. I'm not saying a Sentinel doesn't have a place in this game. It does. I have three of them at level 50. I have multiple spines/fire brutes - one on each server to stash loot in my solo SGs on each server. (I rotate their play, based on server load, how many converters they have and other factors) Without question, my preference is to play a blaster. It's far easier for me to mash a button to blast than to run into melee and mash a button. Less traveling is always good. My heart goes out to melee that do the Apex TF and need to dodge the blue patches while trying to get their shots in. Ranged > melee, every day in every way. But that's my bias. If your blaster is dying it's because you lack the experience or patience to play it properly. And there's many ways to play it properly. Almost without exception, the few times my blasters get defeated is on MSRs before level 50 and occasionally during incarnate trials or Tin Mage. Bobcat has this one attack that seems to get me one out of three times. Other than that - it just doesn't happen. The mobs don't hit very often when you're soft-capped on defense with max hp. There are true fire farm builds, and there are hybrid farm builds. All of my farm builds are softcapped to fire defense AND s/l, with very close to 90% s/l resist. They do not struggle to survive in ANY content at +4/8. But - all of my builds are what I would consider kitted out. Some builds may be better, but not by much. They certainly work for me. So - the question is - which deals more damage? The blaster. Which is more survivable - the brute, simply because it has the same defense as the blaster - but much higher resist, and a higher damage cap. So, if you're on a team that gives buffs to damage, there's a great opportunity for both to shine - but the brute can shine more because of the higher damage cap. That's just my opinion - and opinions will vary.

I unslotted my alpha while having the guide smack my toon while resting, so I took more damage. A suggestion for others to consider.

I actually just t-4'd a fire/elec/mace today - aside from the Alpha..it's only t-3. Still need to do 2 more weeklies because I'm too cheap to use emp merits on Alpha slots. My build is very similar to this - except instead of red fortunes, I used Shield Walls to take advantage of the increased max health bonuses, and instead of Rectified Reticle, I used 3-slot Gaussian's for more HP. My net result is a little less defense with a capped HP. That said - while I'll always love fire primary - I wasn't a fan of the secondary. Thunderstrike is more of a mule power than anything else because of the lengthy animation. I've gotten accustomed to toggles like Frigid Protection and Cauterizing Aura. So much nicer than Force of Thunder, imo. There's a reason fire/fire is so popular. Because it truly is better, at least for my play-style.

You should get bored with your brute. Or any other AT you farm with. Why? Because it's not challenging at the hardest difficulty setting. That's why you should afk farm with your brute and goof off and play with your blaster. But that's just my opinion.

I use mine to craft...but I guess I'm in the minority. I can't remember the last time I sold any salvage.

I get the OP's point. The end cost is high. Apparently, they reduced the recharge time on this temp, without adjusting the end cost. So now, when we use it when recharged, we lose more end than we did previously. My suggestion is to replace the 3 SOs with some IOs and take advantage of the invention system and get some recovery buffs. Should you have to do this? Probably not, but you should do this. If this small effort runs you out of endurance - the problem is that your toggles don't have enough end reduction slotted to use the power as often as you're using it. No big surprise there. Either slow down the use of it - or fill your insp tray with 10 blues and have at it. Should you have to do this? Probably not. But if this is the biggest problem we face today, call it a win.

I certainly understand that nobody's putting a gun to my head to do any incarnate content. I further understand that nobody's making me use primarily shards to craft my alpha component. What I'd like to suggest is that the Notice of the Well be allowed to be earned more than once a week by doing the Weekly TF. Here's what I've been running into: I ding 50 on day 1, do the unlock arc and do various content - mostly hami raids, msrs and, of course, the weekly tf. Right now, I'm sitting on all I need to get my t-4 Alpha, but because I used the notice from the TF I just did to make my first t-3, now I need to wait 2 weeks to do the next 2 weeklies, or relent and use threads/astrals/emps to do it. There are 5 other slots to work on and they don't take shards. Makes sense to me to use shards as much as possible. Until we get more end game content to do - it's repeating the same things over and over with my character - except, I've just repeated the same things over and over with my previous characters. I do get that we're lucky to have the game back. It's a good problem to have. I'd just like to be able to earn another Notice of the Well, either through running a second weekly, or maybe something else. Perhaps a hami raid reward table option? Or an SSA reward table option?

Emphasis added by me. I completely agree with this. I could easily PL my characters, but then I wouldn't be very good at playing them. Pressure makes diamonds, and all that. You simply need to play your character under difficult circumstances to learn how to handle difficult circumstances when you face them. Face different factions that dish out different types of damage to identify your weaknesses and address them if need be. It does nobody any good to be capped to s/l, but run out of endurance when facing Freaks in a Market Crash.

The term "solo" is largely up to interpretation. You can EASILY solo the major tfs - Posi 1,2, Synapse, Citadel, Yin. Manticore is a bit tougher with 2 avs, but can still be done. Numina is very simple to solo. The key is to find something to "tank" the AV while you dish out damage. Your options: Summoned Pet from p2w, Vanguard Heavy (HVAC) that you get for 150 VG merits (or is it 250?) or a lot of other options - like the temp fire shield from Stephanie Peebles, or the Cryonic Armor from ..I want to say Barry Gosford. Or just purchase a kinetic dampener from p2w. The other things you need to do are to have a build that has some defense so you're not hit every time. If you don't, you'll need some lucks, the bigger the better. But the more defense your build has, the longer your characters can last. You also need to understand strategy when facing certain AVs. Marauder, Nosferatu, Protean - don't stand in melee with these - do them at range. Kite them, fly overhead and blast them. As you play more, you'll learn various tips and tricks to fighting avs. I can't speak for everyone, but I suffered a lot of dirt naps before I learned how to handle them. It takes practice.

So, what you're saying is you want a brute.

That is simply a bad decision on your part. Sands of Mu is a power that can't be enhanced with IOs. Ergo, no accuracy! It's a fine attack if it would hit more often than not. So - you simply take it out of your attack chain at level 12 or so and forget it exists.

Time is our most precious resource. I can accumulate money, but I can't accumulate time. (unless I'm in prison, I guess) So, I like to get things done sooner, rather than later. So, Ageless is my favorite because it helps me get things done sooner. Rebirth, Barrier - these two are nice - but mostly situational. I tend to use these for the benefit of those in the league/team, not myself. Clarion is a nice crutch, useful for Underground trial and MSRs. But in typical tfs/missions - I never use it. Fortunately, we have the option to make them all. Incandescence has really only one use - shard tfs. Other than that, I can't fathom why anyone would waste more than 60 threads on it. Interface is ...well, what needs to be tweaked is being able to see the damage or debuff it does. I check my combat logs and I see "Interface hits Tyrant for .00005% Toxic damage", but I honestly have no way of knowing if it actually does anything unless I check there. I can see my ATO proc work. I can see the Panacea work. But I can't tell that interface does anything outside of the combat log. Hybrid - I can at least see in Combat Attributes that it does something, but this should be an auto power, not a toggle. We have enough buttons to mash already. Judgement - Who can complain about a nuke? As far as future incarnate powers - if we get them, I am hopeful that the diminishing returns of Emp merits and threads are adjusted accordingly. Before we get more incarnate powers, it would be helpful to have a reason to use them. I know that a lot of people find this game "too hard" and some find it "too easy". We have a difficulty slider, but when you're +3, and the mobs are set to +4, they're really only +1. So that should maybe be addressed first.

I have thought about this...but then I think again. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. I have often thought about making a new character, calling it some fitting name, making a new SG, and announce that I would take any player that wanted a billion influence by level X, all they would have to do is play for an hour a week with their new character with my new character and we'd all do the same things - explores for reward merits->converters. Log off in Ouro at level 2-4 after having placed for sale converters. Rejoining a week later to the next part of making scads of inf. Sounds fine - except for the part where some would say - let's go do dfb! (or something far more fun to them than sifting through AH looking for recipes that can be bought for x, only to sell them to the vendor for x + y.) I wish I'd known about the forums of CoH when I first got the game in Issue 3. Seriously, I never knew they existed until someone told me. I literally had no idea that I was clueless. I thought I was doing quite well. Did a respec against the sky raiders, and I was the only one who wasn't losing endurance. Turns out, I wasn't slotting 1 acc, 5 damage. I was slotting one of each DO or SO that the power would take. 1 acc, 1 dam, 1 range, 1 end recovery, 1 recharge, 1 of ...and when I came to a power that took 8 kinds of enhancements...I'd asked how I could get a 7th and 8th slot and explained what I was doing to a teammate - then I got educated. Poor fellow had no idea how clueless I was, and neither did I. He said he was sorry, but all he could tell me was to go to the forums, because he didn't have the time to explain things, and referred me to the forums. Learned quite a bit on the forums! But it was also then that the game became more about math, and less about fun. No good success goes unpunished, I suppose. I'm more than happy to explain to anyone how to make influence if they want to know. But how to slot, how to play "well"...that I won't do, because I've really no way of knowing if my way of slotting or playing is any better than anyone else's. (I have a hunch I play more efficiently than most, but probably don't have nearly as much fun because I do most of it solo.)