Ukase

This is always possible. My searches or "search-fu" has always been fairly weak. I'm looking here. I do appreciate your taking the time to explain it. There must be some other page you're looking at, because I didn't see anything like that. I just saw the same power descriptions as there are in game.

Energy Focus? What is it? Using TF gives me a white circle around Barrage. So what? Energy released? So what? I don't see Barrage doing more damage by using TF first. I don't notice anything special other than the red words flashing on my screen. What is Energy Focus? Why is it good? Or is it bad? HC Wiki has nothing about this that I could find. Maybe I missed it.

Energy Aura. If I've played this powerset before, I've forgotten about it, and the character is in the back pages. Hopefully, I'll continue to sift through those characters and delete the ones I'll likely never play again. But, for now, I'm on an energy/energy scrapper. Initially, while it feels every bit as fragile as a controller does in the early levels, things are fairly straightforward. Then, I get to level 22 and have to option to slot Total Focus. I was in a rush, asked Help chat briefly, and just ended up taking it, despite really not grasping what "double Energy Focus" is. I've level 25, and I still await something in game to tell me what this is. I look at the HC Wiki for energy melee, and there's the same description, but no information. Just unparsed data. Anecdotally, I use it, and a white circle goes around Barrage. So, I think...is this that lame combo system? I use it. No extra damage. Why the circle? I do see the words "Energy Released" in blood red letters...but so what? It didn't do anything extra or special as far as I could tell. So, before I go to the scrapper section and ask for help, I thought - I can't be the only one who wants to know what this actually means. Look at all the blank space beneath the description. Surely they could have filled that in with information that would be useful, so I wouldn't have to tab out, visit the forums and ask. Right? So, my suggestion: explain what energy focus is, what it does, and if I should wait until it builds up more before I use Barrage, or should I use it as soon as I can? What if I never use it?

Well, the CoC uses the term "logged in". So, just having the account logged in, even though you haven't selected a character to play yet, whether it's a new one you're making or an established one, this counts as you being logged in. At least, without being an attorney, that's what the words mean to me.

I see this a lot, and to me, it's a clever ploy by the npc. Some of us may not notice, but what they are doing usually, is a "pull". Take note of where they're running to. Anecdotally, there's usually another cluster of mobs within 70 feet or so; they run there and hope you chase them so they'll have help in tackling you. Of course, there's always the times where they run because they're "scared", and this is much akin to another blaster strategy seen predictably in missions in The Hollows in the early issues. Run in, fight as hard as you can, and when you realize you're not going to win, you run as far away as you have to so you can maybe rest and regroup. I see the former a lot more than the latter.

Despite my objections to visiting the tailor, it occurred to me this would be some way to use the countless tailor tokens I have - which I would love to give away, but cannot - so I minimized the two shields and frostwork - which can't be minimized, but I made them white, which is the only thing I could think of to do. So, I laboriously logged in the 11 characters I have and burned through 11 tailor tokens. I only have another 200 or so to go. This took me more than a half hour because the tailor is a sloppy mess to deal with for me, and there's nothing intuitive about it. I would prefer never to encounter the tailor after creation. That's what the nifty prismatics and monstrous aethers are for. To hide my complete inability to make a suitable costume.

So, that necro'd thread with the title "BRB - They can do this now"...I only clicked on it to see if someone was upset about ill-timed bio breaks. I missed that one the first time around. I think I already said I think kb is fine and it's damage mitigation. I get that it can be annoying. But so are stuns and other combat mechanics. Think I like having my blizzard fall on an empty space because someone used fold space? If they take away KB, they have to take away fold space, don't they? lol. Some of you will think I'm serious.

One of the few times a player was a jerk to me without any kind of interaction between me and them previously was when I buffed them with my two cold shields on a cold/ice defender, about 4 years ago. I stopped buffing the league, because they're AoE buffs. If anyone had complained about a lack of buffs, I'd have outed them publicly, you betcha. I still haven't seen the tailor because they had the nerve to insist I go out of my way to a tailor and change how my buffs looked so as to not obscure the costume they had that I never saw before or after the buff in question. (As if I was so familiar with the tailor that I'd have known how to do that, lol) So yeah, anything a player can do to keep from pissing on my leg about their costume and my buffs is a good thing. Now, fast forward a few years later, I'm a bit more sensitive to people's love of costumes. I don't think I'll ever be any good at making them. But lately, I'll use the RNG to make the costume, and then make a character specifically to fit the costume. Or at least try to. But I am not going to visit a tailor to specifically minimize the fx. An ice shield isn't going to kill you, but it might save you.

Sorry, but this is..well, it's not good advice. A good build can be painstakingly difficult to put together. There are never enough slots. And you would have people burn up a slot because of KB. That could be seen as selfish, and frankly, a weak position. I get that improperly timed and positioned KB can be annoying. Even the folks that use kb understand that. But it's just a bad suggestion. People need all the slots they can get to eke out more important things like damage or hitpoints. Anything but kb to kd. There's no point in my explaining how simple it is to deal with undesired KB. That's been done. But I think the players that don't like it cannot or don't want to see it from another perspective. Some players are new. They haven't learned the hover above and "KB" them into the ground, not down the hall. They'll figure it out eventually, or they might just play something like a tank or a scrapper and see for themselves the annoyance that it can be. But wasting a slot is just bad advice. For one, while they're cheap to a veteran player (or most veteran players) to a new level 20, they're not cheap. 2M or so. 7-10M if they go for the best one in the Overwhelming Force set. Now, I'm sure there's a line of players that would gladly pay that for any player to not have to deal with it. Frankly, if such a thing were possible at Null, they'd have probably put it in place already, for free, just to have 100 fewer pages on the forums. KB is damage mitigation. It's every bit as relevant and worth having as the immobilizations that controllers and other ATs use. Or the stun that some energy characters make use of. Or the sleeps, the terror/fear and other mez tactics. It's all mitigation and it all works. If it slows things down a bit, but keeps a player from dirt napping, I'm cool with it.

So, another crazy idea that I haven't allowed to die in my head - make every zone we have co-op, except for pvp zones. Then if it's too crowded for a villain in Pocket D AE..they can go to Nerva, or Cap ...or Faultline. Wherever a PD may be, they can go. Until that day comes - you might try doing what I do. Go to another zone. If you're villain, do your thing in Cap or Port Oakes. If you're a hero, you can do your thing in Faultline, or Skyway. Let's face it - it's crowded in PD AE because it's convenient. But there's nothing in PD AE that's not in every other AE, provided you have base teleport and a base with a trainer, a store, and a merit vendor. (and really, I know some folks don't even have a base - which boggles my little brain - but they can always use the public hubs, they have all that stuff in their bases) The easiest solution, OP, is for YOU to go to another zone's AE. It really is that simple. Now, reading through the posts again, it's clear to me that some will always have some unpleasant taste in their mouth when considering farmers. That's fine. I kind of get it. They're typically one-trick ponies, and some of them don't even do the trick well at all, and need help just to do their map without face-planting. (that's a different discussion there) The idea of creating an area specifically for farmers is interesting if it played out the way Okie hopes for. As for AE in pocket D...the truth is, other than certain times of the year, there's nothing going on in AE anyway. If you took AE out of there, the zone would be dormant, except during February, Spring, Christmas, and whenever someone wants to go use the ski chalet. I imagine the occasional iTrial might form there. Hey, Okie - you could start forming your MSRs in Pocket D! Just kidding. I keep waiting for you to recruit for that from a base, but I know putting the code out and having to repeat it ad-nauseum would be super annoying.

Close, it's the safeguard exploration in the Founder's map. It may be worth pointing out - if you're hero/vig, and you have this, it's called Founder's Protector. So, you could have it, but not be looking for the right name.

I can't speak for how it was pre-patch, but post patch...I noticed the creepers would often get smacked by the npcs. My combat log said a vine was defeated. There's no pet window, so no idea how many of them there are to begin with. Still...the power is excellent in conjunction with roots. I've never had such fun playing a controller.

I don't hate it. But there are times when it is annoying because it increases my risk. Labyrinth on Excelsior is predominantly run by Goddess Laucianne. A large number of her SG mates are PBs that as most know are woefully short on slots. I cannot blame those who don't use the kb-kd IO because it's a wasted slot, imo. But when that malevolent fog I was blasting gets kb'd into mobs that are +7 to me, that now creates a level of risk I'd rather not assume. All they had to do was attack from above, or move to the other side, but very few are that savvy about positioning, or it's just more fun for them to let things loose and not sweat it. Sometimes it goes somewhere safe, but I still have to reposition myself - as do they - and it can slow things down a few seconds. Not the end of the world, but still a minor annoyance. Generally, when I encounter KB, I consider the source, and the context. Like that scaffolding/bridge that the team attacks Dr. Vahzilok in the Positron II TF. Now, we have to potentially sift through a fair number of other cadavers and reapers to end the tf if we can't find the one that got knocked off. These situations are when it's most annoying. But, in a mission...if I'm melee, I hit the F key. If not, I blast per usual. While I grasp that melee folks might find it more annoying, it's not the end of the world.

Just anecdotally, I know that if you ignore the Hellions starting the fires, and you're the only one putting them out, things can go badly, and the building explodes with something crazy like 10k worth of damage. Or is it 100K? It's more hitpoints than my characters have, I know that much. Your strategy has to change if there are other folks putting out fires or worse, killing the Hellion fire starters. When they kill them all - you have no more fires to put out. Where's the fun in that? So, if you have any control over it, the only time to waste the Hellions are when the fires are growing faster than you can put the fires out. Using the temp, it might be good to put out 4-5 fires, waste a few Hellions, put out another fire or two. Just depends on how much fire there is when you get there, and how fast you can put out the fires.

I've never taken Entangling Aura on any of my natties. And I like them just the way they are! Mind you - the only content the natties do are hami raids. I've leveled one up organically, the others in a farm. On the last run, I don't choose a reward, so I need to have a different character to use the following day to get those extra 40 reward merits. Yet, when I exemp to pursue badges and such on them, they do very well. Solo'd all the red side tfs but Aeon just fine. As for my blasters, my fire/mc blasters spend a lot more time in melee than my ice/ice. But they all go in and out of melee. That's just part of being a blaster. Not "Blapper" which is as clear a misnomer as I can find, for all blasters are blappers, and all blappers are blasters. So why even have the word? A ranged blaster is just a one-dimensional blaster. But that's another topic. As for the controller...well, I'm no expert. My least played blaster has logged more time than all of my controllers put together, probably. So far, with this ice/dark...glacier makes going into melee necessary. No idea why it was designed like that...but it is what it is. Fortunately, shadow fog lets me do what I need to do before the npcs know what's up. Usually. It's the first character I've played where I thought group fly might be worth taking. But I quickly suppressed that thought. Taking on the seeds of hamidon in First ward..and all my dps was on the ground...ugh. But other than the MSR drop ship and the arachnos flyer, there's no other instances I can think of where flight might be useful.

I appreciate the suggestions. I'll head to brainstorm and see how different uses of AA plays out. I've never used Hot Feet. Hot Feet should be available for brutes, tanks and scrappers - the characters that stay in melee. The way my characters tend to hop about, it's not a good fit. Still, I'm going to go back to the drawing board, and try to give your suggestions a chance. I think my way is probably a little too boring anyway. Edit: On Mids, I have a rule of thumb. The recovery metric has to be roughly 2 units over the end drain. With Fade and soul absorption off With Fade and SA on This build is nuts. I'm not even trying to build for resistance or defense. (vengeance is not on) The problem will be if the flow of battle gets mucked up somehow and there are no mobs with souls to absorb. But I guess I can turn the toggle off if that happens. Exemplaring might also be an issue. Time will tell.

Update. One of the sillier things I've done. I made an ice/dark controller again, without constraints, because I wanted to get a feel for what the character would actually play like. Now, Bad HOs is sitting in Ouro at level 50, unslotted. It's never killed a thing. But Apache Frost is level 38, and resting in RWZ as I've come to realize that Arctic Air and Cold Snap are fairly worthless. I was in an MSR, and had just chosen Arctic Air because I felt like I might finally have enough end recovery to use it a little bit. And I was running out of endurance even with all the buffs in the MSR. So, I'm going to respec and get rid of it. Seems a shame, because thematically, it would make sense. But the end cost is 1.04/s - and that's the highest end cost for a toggle I think I've ever seen. Does anyone use this power? Is it just for the opener, then you toggle it off? That's what I'm thinking. But, Glacier works just fine. If I get a bit more recharge, it'll be up every group. The damage is ...well, poor. And Jack Frost is not the best pet. I tell him to attack my target, and he'll run back 40 feet to blast him instead of blasting him at 5 feet. Still, the combo with dark is nice. Dark is just a great secondary for the controller. It's odd to me that with all the slotting choices for dark servant, pet enhancements aren't one of them. I figure tar patch is debuff enough, I'm using him as a mule set for Gravitational Anchor. I've got Fade and Soul Absorption perma. Ball Lightning...I can proc it, or I can just go with the full power transfer set. The extra recharge really doesn't help me. But I was thinking of using an alpha that boosts recharge, so it would potentially gum up the proc effectiveness anyway. I'm sure I've overlooked something. I'm tempted to forgo the teleport pool for the fight pool, and I currently have sorcery in lieu of leadership, but Spirit Ward on a pet? I've seen the videos - but my secondary doesn't really help Jack out much. If I were Natty, with the tohit and damage boost, I could see it. But what's the point? He's not going to hit any harder with it. And I'm only running at 0/8 or +1/8, depending on the mobs. I could go higher, but the bosses take too long to kill as it is. And, when I get mezzed, Spirit Ward toggles off, and I have to take time in the midst of the chaos to put it back. I just don't see any real benefit for the pet. And, I'd lose out on the leadership pool, which is giving me 15% global recharge. Sorcery is just not that great of a pool with Rune of Protection being so bad with the horrific recharge. And having to turn on fly before you can teleport...that's just lame in my eyes. I gave it a shot on my plant/dark controller. Just not a fan. Apache Frost - Controller (Ice Control - Darkness Affinity).mbd

I am not so meticulous as good @lemming is. But given some of the "drop challenges" I've tried at various times, the HC wiki tells us this: Now, given the 1/175 for Jump, the 3/175 for run, the 5/175 for Fly...perhaps we should all choose TP as the travel power of choice, as the range is a whopping 17/175. No idea why the distribution is the way it is. Source is here

I like it.

This is kind of interesting. On the one hand, I'm trying to put myself in the OP's shoes, but they don't fit my feet. Unfortunately, and I could certainly be wrong, but it doesn't matter what any of us think, but the issue - as I've understood it - is that the shield limits the utility of a two handed weapon system. I'm not saying it can't be done, or shouldn't be done, or should be - but I believe the animation and activations would make it problematic. And, if it's problematic, maybe it's better to work on something else. <shrug> Leaving the "can they" and "should they" questions aside, it'd be great for you to get what you want here. But, I'd like to get a horse head in the tailor, too. And it seems like that'd be way easier. Well, more specifically a donkey head. My alt Donkey Hotey is being insistent.

Kelly Nemmers I'm level 32, on an ice/dark controller First mission - Defeat Tuatha in the Misty Wood Neighborhood. Clearly, I'm in the neighborhood. Yet, these defeats aren't counting. (Some are, that were further away) Weird. DIdn't have this problem with my alt last week. I basically followed the same path.

Why? Buff up and hit him. 30 seconds later, you get paid. The signature ability of the fire tank is burn. Back in..issue 4 or 5, maybe, they put fear into it, hoping that the xp greedy fire tanks would invite others to help them corral the npcs into the burn patch. It worked for a little while, but really most folks just started playing other characters, until they removed the fear fairly soon after they put it in. I've never played a storm defender, so I can't speak on what it's signature ability is. I do think that while your repel might be useful for all kinds of things, just because it's not useful in BAF prisoner phase doesn't mean it's taken away. I experience this often with my stealth. I'll be in a mission, stealthed to 65 feet, and yet, a mob will see me. Did it take away my stealth? No. It just had better perception. Same with these prisoners. Never doubt a prisoner's resolve. They've got nothing but time to think of how to get a specific task done. You could lock one guy up in a building with only a cigarette, and another in a building across the street with a lighter. Given enough time, if the two know about each other and what they have, they'll find a way to get that cigarette lit.

Matthew Habashy's arc. You enter this map, and the building's on fire. And yet it has you take an elevator to the next floor. So, that in itself is pretty stupid behavior, even if my character does have super powers. And if the room I need to get to is on the 2nd floor, why don't I just fly through a 2nd floor window? Why must I almost always use a door? This entire game requires a suspension of disbelief. Why should a story arc where the contact wants you to do silly things be any different?

Interesting signature at the bottom of your post. The majority is often wrong, but I don't know that it makes anyone an idiot. Here's my point of disagreement with your premise. You see predictable outcomes as boring. I think there are so many trees in the way, you're missing the forest. I'm not a game designer. I'm not a math guy. I can do math, if I need to, but it's not something I embrace, unless I'm analyzing earnings per share, or something that really matters in real life. Now, that's not to say what you really want - some variability in outcome isn't a good thing. It's perfectly fine for a strategy to no longer be viable because the mechanics, or even in some future update in 50 years has AI taking over what the npcs will actually do, and they make adaptation of the players necessary. But if I look at what you suggest, here's just an example of what I see happening for my own experience. I have a level 30 ice/dark controller. I have shadow fall, so it gives stealth to my pets, (I presume it does. Doesn't matter) I enter a mob of 11 npcs, because at least on the last map I was on, there were 11 ghosts in each group. I enter in the middle and use Glacier, and it holds most of them. The cap on this power is 16, so if the accuracy/toHit check passes, I'm fairly safe. But, even with my pets Jack Frost and Dark Servant, my dps check bounces like the check I wrote to Dominos when I was a freshman in college. I just don't have much of it. I can never clear these mobs before that hold duration expires. But, Jack is pretty good at dps, and he can clobber a few of them, while my immobilizers and ice slick and the debuffs from tar patch and my dark servant help keep me from getting clobbered. Now, if you had your way, I'd go in with this strategy, and sometimes it would work, and sometimes it wouldn't. And you know what the end result would be? A reroll into a blaster. There, there isn't a strategy. Just kill them. The only variability is the accuracy. The dps is a given, as long as I'm accurate. What you're after is a different game. Not this game. And that's fine. I get it. Who doesn't want a challenge from time to time. You can get that variability through Ouro by removing your temp powers, or your incarnate abilities. Or even your enhancements. It's certainly not the same kind of random challenge you want, but it's still likely to scratch this itch you want.

I actually like this idea, but my concern would be that people would lean towards not teaming to avoid it. Maybe reduce the duration to 5 minutes. I've had characters that were doing very well solo, on challenging settings. Only to team up for a tf, keep those same settings, and teammates get you killed by aggroing a group and then running next to you and you take splash damage, while you're focused on something else, like reviving a teammate, or killing the last mob of the the previous group.