Jacke

Dang, Flea. You're ancient! (I'm ancienter!)

@smnolimits41, what @biostem and @Snarky and @Ukase and @Clave Dark 5 said. I suggest picking an AT and then asking for a good Powerset combo for it. I did find it odd you suggested a Scrapper or a Mastermind. I don't think there's any two ATs that are more different.

I have a single SG Anchor Toon on Excelsior who's not even cracked L10, so I won't be able to participate, @Snarky. However, I've been on RHW runs on Everlasting wtih the Everlating TFs. I think your plan is good. To you who are about to die (several times), we salute you. I'm also looking forward to the post-iTrial Snarky post. I expect it to SHINE! 😺

I think the hypotheses put forward by both @MsSmart and @Rudra are both plausible. What was actually going through the minds of the original devs...? (For all we know, both sets of assumptions, maybe?) We already know they didn't appreciate the quantitative features of the game design, far less than anyone steeped in one of the many existing pen+paper RPGs would have. As they thought scaling up the hopefully balanced values of a Toon by a factor of 3 would still be balanced. Because of the Global Defense Nerf and Enhancement Diversification, we know they were wrong in that belief. I often say that when I look at a RPG game and see the PvE and PvP use similar systems, I think it well designed. That comes from what I learned from City, seeing the way that Toon Powers' Mez durations and magnitudes get scaled down in the PvP values. Which came from having those Mez values hit a Player is very unfun. In PvE, the Mob Powers' Mez durations are much less. It's still rather unfun. I had a phase in which I put Rune of Protection on near every Toon build and at as low a Level as possible, making it available in as much Exemplared Content as possible. I've moved away from that, as I realise that a variable amount of Breakfrees that I can readily supplement between missions is often good enough. (And Rune doesn't cover all Mez effects.) On some builds, I still take Rune. Others, I don't. Still is irritating to get Mezzed. Whether something more needs to be done about it, not sure.

I was a bit more positive in my post than I actually am. But only a bit. I originally thought Hover cut down the length the Toon was out of action. Then I read that it didn't (can't remember where or when). I thought back remembering when I had a Toon Knocked while hovering. And that I couldn't be certain, but thought the amount of time out of action was about the same as when on the ground. But without the movement back. I'd really like to know one way or another, for sure. But it's rare now I take the Fly Pool. If I have a flying Power (as opposed to a flying Prestige or Temp Power) these days, it's almost always Mystic Flight. Adding in Teleporting is very convenient.

One thing I've noticed is that Rare Salvage is solidly always below 500,000 Inf each. Sometimes gets to 400,000 Inf. And the price only moves slowly.

Hover doesn't provide any real protection against being Knocked, just prevents a Knock moving the Toon. The Toon still loses the ability to act for the same amount of time.

I use Custom Window as well. It really is a glitchy part of the game UI. I have two of them and have the custom.window file set to Read-Only to stop some of the glitchiness. It's very powerful, but you've got to learn how to tame it. I really wish it received some attention to fix it.

Welcome! Some of us have been playing this game since 2004 May. A rare few were on the original Closed Beta and were playing it even earlier. I got started late. In 2005 August. Here's a Macro that will help you here. It toggles on and off No Experience Earning. Macros by default show up in your Power Trays as a grey disk with the text in the Macro command. Here I call it "oXP" for option XP. /macros oXP "optiontoggle noxp" When NoXP is on, the growing horizonal bar on the Levelling Widget will change from violet-pink to black.

For Badging purposes, I go to Fort Hades in NE Port Oakes to not only get the Pirate Badge but also the Spectral Badge. They're both for 100 Pirates defeated, but to count for the Spectral Badge, the Spectral Pirate needs to be defeated near one of the Arachnos Spectral Traps to count. Have to use a weak ranged Power (Origin Power is good for this) and lure them over to one of the Traps and defeat it. That then counts towards progress on both Badges. Have to watch out because you often get other Spectral Pirates appearing when you're trapping. Including Levelless Bosses who can be tough to put down. Ran my main Badging Toon through these while Exemplared down to L15 (via an Arc in my SG Base Pillar of Ice and Flame). New Spectral Pirates only show up when dark (so after the Hour and Half-Hour times on the clock). Got defeated a few times when mobbed by more Spectral Pirates appearing.

I've tested this. The Spectral Pirates that spawn from these chests do not count towards either the Pirate Badge nor the Spectral Badge. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Spectral_Pirates https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Pirate_Badge https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Spectral_Badge I've not seen the AV.

I read https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Conprint_(Slash_Command). More importantly, I logged in and did some testing. First, you need to use "<color red>" and "<color2 red> tags to change both the top ("color") and bottom ("color2") of the printed test. Second, the command interpreter in City is very fiddly, especially about nesting quotes (" " and <& &>). I could do a direct use of "conprint" via the Chat window and it would work: /conprint "<color red><color2 red>Hello world!" But I couldn't make a bind that assigned that to any KEYNAME that would work. The first token ("conprint") in a variety of quoting styles either worked but didn't interpret the "color" and "color2" tags; or it didn't work at all, giving an error message when I pressed the assigned KEYNAME. As /showbind is limited in how it displays what is bound to a KEYNAME, I often couldn't see what was wrong, just that it had to be wrong as pressing the KEYNAME didn't do what the direct "conprint" command was doing. From @BlackSpectre's testing, I think @AboveTheChemist has the way to work around this problem. In my own work on City UI customization, I too have found that loading a keybind from a keybind file can make work what doesn't in other ways. That is the way to do this: What is different here is that in loading from a keybind file, the correct command line gets assigned to KEYNAME such that when the KEYNAME is pressed, conprint is invoked with a string argument in which it can see and properly interpret tags like "color" and "color2". Nesting of the quotation marks are stripped in a way that works. To find out more about that, check here: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Bind_load_file_(Slash_Command) Note that in file pathnames, Slash "/" will work no matter the operating system. Yes, this is all very fiddly. Such is what happens when things are not very carefully designed from the outset.

I always want Teleport Target on all my Toons, primarily to use it to assist Teammates. Alas, most Toons already have 4 other Power Pools in their builds, so even if I could free up a Power pick, I often can't have it on a Toon. I don't use Combat Teleport at the moment. I will be checking it out soon. I have stealth on all my Toons so I often just run in with my short/melee-ranged Toons. I only have Fold Space on my Fire/Rad Controller, using Teleport Target and Teleport to unlock it at L28. It's not one of the few Toons I take Hasten on, so the final build only gets the FS recharge down to about 43s at L50, with Incarnate Agility Radial Paragon just under 40s. Use it to pull in mobs onto Hot Feet and Bonfire. But just running at the mobs would likely do as well. The Fire/Rad Controller build is from 2024 April, so I will get around to reviewing it and perhaps change it. I will likely drop both Teleport and Fold Space.

I've looked at this as well. In some ways, Dark Regeneration provides almost too much Heal, but does so at a high Endurance cost. I was told that now it's better to take Obscure Sustenance while Levelling and then at L50 respec into a build that uses Dark Regeneration. OS provides Recovery, Regen, and ToHit and Recharge Debuff Resistances besides its smaller Heal, which works without needing to hit an enemy. I'm considering sticking with OS even at L50, because especially with builds that cater to Exemplaring down to run WSTs, the broader effects of OS may just be better overall.

If there's anyone I'd appreciate a chance to be snarky and betray, it's Lt Harris.