Ukase

Out of curiosity, page load times have got to be a factor, right? I've teamed with some of you, and have sadly noticed that some of you are already at the end room with the boss by the time I load in - and I am not playing on a Nokia flip phone powered by starved hamsters. It's not state of the art, but it's a decent rig. The more missions, the more seconds a slower rig will cost a team or player. Seems like there ought to be a way to account for that.

I think there's a lot more to this thread than my mind is comprehending. On the one hand, there seems to be a discussion of t-9s, but from reading the original post, I'm not quite sure how it transitioned the way it has. Strong powers and their penalties: So, the blasters have an excellent nuke. It used to drain endurance, but now it doesn't. So, that's a strong power with no penalty. No need to discuss that here. The t-9 for scrappers & tanks comes to mind. It's been so long since I took one...can't even remember the name of some of them. "Unstoppable"? It's a power where you would tend to use it when you're in over your head. Gives a great boost to all resistances and regen/recovery. But after a time, you lose those buffs and crash. Back on live, within my limited social circle, the prevailing wisdom suggested you not take these powers, because if you couldn't handle it before the t-9, how are you going to handle it after the t-9 expires? After all, if you had the dps to take care of the npcs prior to the t-9, you wouldn't have needed to use the t-9. So, it only serves as a set mule now. (unless you're an SO player, forgoing the IO path) So, even now, most avoid those picks because 1) the characters are robust enough without them 2) if you can't handle something without using the t-9, then you're destined to fail anyway. For me, I wouldn't sell you on these because I wouldn't buy them myself. (Again, if I'm using SOs only, that would change my answer) I often think of Super Strength and Rage. But Rage isn't a t-9. And 10 seconds with floored damage is hardly what I would call a crash. You just hop to the next mob and position them, the 10 seconds has passed, and you're off and running. It's an easy sell for me. I'll buy it every time. Focused Accuracy is a tough sell for me, unless I'm going to focus on pvp. Because of the rng and the 95% cap on hitting your target, there's little point to using this turd due to it's extreme endurance cost. That said, if I do want to use it, I use it with the understanding I need to ensure I slot accordingly to allow for the high end use. I think this just comes with experience. You can't often get away with using Focused Accuracy unless you're able to use Consume or Heatloss or transference or ageless, (and other endurance powers) on a timely basis. Beyond these, I can't think of any high cost powers. I'm sure there are some I haven't thought of. But, since I often don't need them, I don't choose them.

You can...for a brief moment, then you're ported immediately to Nova Praetoria. At least, anecdotally, that's what always happens to my praetorians.

Enriched Plutonium 501,000 inf. Definitely overpaid. Greedy bastid marketers. I tried to hold out, but I NEEDED it.

They can probably do that. As long as it's an option.

Hah! That's my preferred travel power, in conjunction with Super Speed. It's not a temp power, it's a variation of sprint. Just remove it from your tray, use Sprint and you needn't fuss with it ever again.

This morning, I was doing a warrior map for Ashwin Lannister. During the mission, I got a couple of temps. One was a 30 minute stealth, and the other was a 10 use self-teleport power. I thought to myself - "Great! Now I don't have to spend time going to test to try this out." I right-clicked to scope out Detailed Info, and it said 10 uses. No mention of expiring when the mission was over. And yet...the mission got completed, and I hadn't tried out the power. I never used it once. I feel a bit ripped off. Yes, of course I know I can go to test server and make a character or respec one of the characters I have there already and try out self-tp & combat teleport. But - my feedback is that it should never be necessary. Going to test server has utility for some, but I've always avoided it because it's just annoying. It's as painless as it can be with the copy character, but for every moment spent there, that takes away from time on the standard server. It just makes more sense to me to have very limited supplies of these temps at p2w for people to try. Clearly, there's already a structure in place to limit the number of temps we can purchase. I should be able to spend a million on a 5 use Self-tp temp, just to get a feel for how it works. I shouldn't have to choose the power, then respec if I don't like it. I shouldn't have to log off, shut the game down, then reopen the game, go on test, respec one of my characters there, and spend who knows how long trying to reconfigure my build and what power to lose to make room for this new one I want to try, or make a new character and then choose the power I want to try, only to then have to close this client down and bring up the standard server and proceed from there. It's a time investment I'd prefer not to make. A quick trip to p2w would be much easier, much faster. At a minimum, temp powers that have a limited use should remain with the character until they're used, or at least have some documentation to let the player know they are for that mission only. High priority? Certainly not. But it seems like an easy thing to take care of.

Well, I've been slowly selling off my catalyzed winters and making bank. I still have more than I'll use in quite some time. I'm tempted to not buy anymore if they go on sale, but the merits, the boosters, the amplifiers...hard to say no to when the inf can be re-made so easily just by selling one catalyzed Winter-O.

Just as a fun fact or two, I figured I'd share this. It's a couple of weeks before the winter event, assuming it actually will begin on the first Tuesday of December. There are a number of silly players who endeavor to get all the badges on 1 or more characters. As I'm one of them, I'm quite comfortable labeling people with a badge count of 1551 as silly. And folks, who are also a bit similar to me that have more than one character with all the badges - well, these folks are just plain insane. I don't know the reason why, but it came up in a discord I am in about the price of candy canes. Someone said 5M. Last I had checked it was 5k, lol. Turns out, this morning, the price was 50k. Seems a bit high to me, but there are less than 2000 of them. 1591 as of this morning. If you have a surplus of them, given that winter is coming in a couple weeks, I won't dare suggest you'd get 5M for 1 of them, but I do think 50k is quite feasible given the short supply at the moment.

When you click on the door - you should get some dialogue where your contact is working on his end to get you access...or something along those lines.

If one tries this - the key is to do so on something you don't mind keeping if it doesn't work.

I confess - I haven't done this with winter packs, but I have done this with certain goods. And it works, particularly on the weekends when folks are more impatient due to scheduled start times of various iTrials.

So, my thoughts are that Super Speed is superior to all the travel powers, by far - until you head to the shadow shard where flight or teleport are almost mandatory, unless you're content to use the geysers, which are the fastest - once you learn where they are. But they are not often going to get you there in a direct path - unlike teleport or flight, which will. Teleport has come a long way, particularly in this latest patch. But, I still prefer Super Speed. But - I don't rely on SS all by itself. Depending on the character, I'll either do radios in Kings Row until the Safeguard mission for a raptor pack, or I'll just buy a jet pack from p2w. I bind my L key to the jet pack, and as I use my arrow keys to move in whatever direction, I'll toggle the L for the vertical when needed, then toggle it off when it's not. I have two characters that are opting to omit leadership in exchange for the teleport pool. But they'll get SS, too, at least until I get used to TP self, and find ways that are as fast as SS within the mission. TP Self may win out, but that will take some practice on my part first. But until then, SS is king. I can stealth just about any mission that only requires glowies for mission objectives. I can escape needless aggro zipping through higher level zones for badges. I really don't see a downside to it. Unlike flight which is just slow. And cumbersome in a mission map. (But I think you can get used to that, or I could, rather, if I tried to do so) Still, the stealth, plus the speed...it's just more useful than SJ or flight. TP now has an effect which temporarily renders you unaffected, so you needn't worry about higher level mobs, provided you keep teleporting. Useful, but still not as good as SS if there's a phone call or some other real life issue that would cause you to stop looking at the screen. All of that said, the only reason to embrace it is to try something new, or to be stealthy. If you're one who likes to clear maps and gobble up all the xp you can stand, it may not be very useful to you. But it's definitely going to save you a little time between missions in almost all zones except the shadow shard, and perhaps Boomtown, Faultline, Mercy and Grandville. (if you don't have a jet pack as well)

Thank you, @roleki and @Pzn for taking the time to reply. I suppose for me it's a playstyle issue - I don't care to pick and choose when clearing mobs. There are folks who play this game in a multitude of different ways. I'd wager 50% of them are far more efficient than I am, when it comes to traveling through a map, developing attack chains for maximal DPS, etc. This is why I tend to level up a character, as opposed to just PL and then work towards t-4. I am going to fare better trying different attack chains in various circumstances to see which attack is my opener, and which one is next, etc. It's just my process. When I determine which one I think is optimal, I'll move the attacks so they correspond with the number row atop my keyboard. Thinking of holding off an attack in order to get a crit on a higher HP target..I've done that, it's just not my preference. I prefer to be a bit more ...mindless, I'm sad to report. Mash 1, 2, 3, on to next target if dead, or 4,5, until or unless 1, 2, or 3 has recharged. Far more less to think about, and I believe, ultimately, faster for me. It works. At least, it has so far. Not saying that method wouldn't work with a scrapper, and ensure crits have a greater chance of firing. I just prefer the consistency of the brute. And I've never seen the ATOs as less then great. I tend to split up one of the Scrappers ATO sets, for the HP boost, because scrappers HP is so low without some buffs. When I learned my blasters are at 1847, and my scrapper is just at 2k...no. That's too low for a character that lives in melee to suit me. They don't dish out enough damage for that lower hp. Scrappers are weak & feeble compared to my blasters, really. But that's likely more due to my inability to build a scrapper properly, and my being far more experienced in playing a blaster.

So...let me learn something here. How is it that you can reliably predict when you'll crit. Anecdotally, I seem to crit when the npc already has 1/4 to 1/8 hp left. How would you guarantee a crit? This has been the primary reason I've always gone brute over scrapper. Fury is superior to the overkill of a crit on an NPC that's already 3/4 defeated in my experience. If you can do as you say, please share how this is done.

I'm too listless to come up with the list.

For me, nothing is finer than Blizzard. Far superior to Nova because you can drop it at a distance, minimal risk of getting stunned/mezzed.

I probably shouldn't say anything, as it's been almost a couple of months. But, it's beyond my control, really. Brute ATOs "absolutely shitty"? That's madness. Scrapper ATOs best in game? That's purely your opinion, which you're entitled to, but please don't state such things, lest some unknowing player come along and assume you've got some sort of data to back that up. The Brute ATOs are quite excellent. What's interesting to me is I often see scrapper builds that only use one set of the Scrapper ATOs, and sometimes, just the proc of one set. Whereas, with brutes, I've never seen any brute build that didn't use both sets. (unless they were going for a pure SO or common IO build) And, as far as door to door with a group, whatever covers a hole in a scrapper from buffs, seems like it requires you to be in a group. Why be tethered to other players just to enjoy your character? I mean, if they're on and you're on - great - but if you need a team to play your character to its potential, then the case can be made you're on the wrong character.

To each their own, my friend. Worst case, I have to start over from scratch, lol.

Marine X, While I applaud your initiative, I think there are some things you may not be aware of - or perhaps I misunderstood something. Let's say you do have a Slow IO. Why would you slot it & catalyze it? You'll get the same inf for one that's attuned as you would one that is not. The level 22 IO is in the same "bucket" that an attuned version of the same IO is. Let's say that I missed something in your post, and the idea was to slot it on a lower level character, say level 25. And the Slow IO in question is level 50. In this context, rather than having your controller slot it, attune it and unslot it so your lowby alt can use it - you're far better off selling it unattuned, crafted level 50 and re-buying it for the same price as attuned. Yomo goes step by step on how to do this somewhere in this forum subsection. For the sake of efficiency when crafting, a lot depends on the scale you craft at. For someone like me, one character is insufficient. This is because of one issue - salvage storage. Max my character can hold is 200. So, when I bid on 5x 54 level 10 pvp IOs, that's 5 pieces of salvage for each one I happen to acquire. If I get about 100 recipes, that's 500 pieces of salvage, which is 300 less than the 200 I can hold. (which requires level 50, purchase of 10 extra storage slots from Vanguard computer for 500 vg merits, and a slew of crafting badges to get from the default 172 to 200.) So, this is what I do. Which, I'm not doing now because I don't have any good places to stash the inf, outside of AH bids. And I'm not comfy with stashing inf that way, because then, only one character can access it, unlike email - accessible by all alts. As you can see, there are 36 "stacks" of 5 of each salvage in the level 1-24 tier. As I grab 5 of the pre-purchased that I need in my character's inventory to complete the purchase, I re-bid for a "fair" price - one I'd be willing to sell for and anticipate someone bidding on. Because I don't want to wait 24 hours, it's generally 500k for rare, 2k for uncommon, 300 for common. Perhaps a little higher, or lower, depending on market conditions. This is just for recipes in the 10-24 range. I have a similar character for the 25-40 range, and my farmers tackle all the crafting for 41 to 50 recipes, because they always have the salvage. If they don't, the recipe stays in inventory until the salvage drops, which is tends to do as I farm. For whatever reason, in AE, the mobs drop both arcane and tech salvage, so there's never a need to use the AH to grab any missing item. Some days, I'll have a dozen recipes waiting on some uncommons or rares, while other days, I can craft everything because the RNG likes me more than most of the other players. I used to have a base filled with salvage. I'd kept it alphabetically, 5 of each. Then I kept it in tiers by level. I finally opted to stash purples instead of salvage, resorting to the method demonstrated and explained above. I used to have an alt that would grab things from a storage SG and hand them to a lower level character leveling up. That got expensive, (opportunity cost) having a character stand idle in a base waiting to be needed. Far more profitable to have the character in a farm making inf, than sitting idle until needed. I finally just sold all the surplus out of the extra bases, and consolidated to the one. This method seems to work the best. One area that I should address: Superior ATOs. To make them superior, you have to slot, then catalyze. And your character needs to be that AT. I used to convert them to Brute ATOs and let my brute do this, because then, the Brute ATOs sold for much more inf than the others. But, there's a lot of competition in this niche, and I finally just opted out, and let something get by me. Cost me a lot of converters to convert all the non-brute ATOs to brute ATOs just to slot and catalyze. I still made influence/profit, but it was time consuming, and I can make the same inf in less time/hassle in other ways. So, I just use my alts that align with the ATO type in question and let them do the catalyzing and selling. Puts all those catalysts that drop on them to good use, too. In Summary, while I like the way you're thinking, I think you're going it at the wrong way. But, again, I may have misunderstood your intentions.

I completely get why you'd catalyze something like a Glad Armor Resistance IO. But the 3% def (All) ? No need. Works the same. Same case for the Panacea and the Shield Wall. But, I get your point. It would be tedious to craft/convert a ton of IOs.

Well..when you're rogue or villain, The Ranged Summons pet isn't Positron, but Scirocco, and his powers don't do nearly the dps or debuff that Posi's echo does. I'd go with the tank option and use Lord Recluse. The good news is, you're on test, so you can burn through temps and get more by simply re-copying the character to Beta if you need to retry. Try a heavy - from the vanguard base special computer. Also, be sure you've adequately buffed before starting - i.e. defense, survival, offense amplifiers from p2w, maybe some sg buffs from the empowerment stations, frost bite, Winter Ward (pocket d elf by the slopes) and yeah, a Shivan wouldn't hurt.

Um...you may not be aware of this - but pvp IOs are had for 2M, plus the cost of crafting & converting. Now, I can hear the rebuttals: "I don't enjoy that." or "There's not enough recipes" etc. This is just one recipe of 54 types of different pvp IOs. (9 sets, 6 each) If you place 5 bids for each one at 2M each, by the end of the day, you should have anywhere from 80 to 120 of them. Maybe more. When you craft level 10's, it only costs 3600 inf to craft, plus 600K for the salvage, at the most. 2.6M, sell for 8m, or give it away. Or, craft 3, sell one, give away 2 to cover the costs of making 3. I have literally made billions doing this, often a billion in a day. I know it's feasible.

If you're going to give the lotg 7.5% recharge/def IO, may I suggest it be attuned? This way the defensive portion levels up as they play. Granted, it's a meager number either way, but every bit helps. In my own humble opinion, while not every build can make space for them, here are the mainstays that I try to incorporate in my builds: Kismet 6% Perf Shifter +end Miracle +recovery Numina +regen/recovery Panacea +HP/End Steadfast Protection 3% def/Resist Glad. Armor 3% Def/TP Unbreakable Guard 7.5% HP Reactive Defense 3% Resist (the wording on this is misleading, but my combat attributes shows at least 3% resistance out of combat from this gem. Shield Wall 5% Res(all) Lotg 7.5%/Def x 5 Blessing of the Zephyr KB prot. Celerity: Stealth

I'm not in a position to confirm the upper limit on HC now, but it's at least 9. The Paragon Wiki states that it's 10, and your SG would make the 11th.