Jacke

Controller's Dark Mastery's Midnight Grasp's Immobilize is flagged to Stack. But its Immob stock duration is just under the stock Recharge, so it'll be hard to get significant stacking. It'll need a lot of Enhancement for both Immob duration and Recharge Reduction. And get a miss and the stacking is gone. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=epic.controller_dark_mastery.gather_shadows&at=controller

Oh, "The Really Hard Way" Badge. I have that on my main Badger. How is that associated with Events? And what was changed that made that more difficult?

Which Badge is that, Snarky?

First, something you may not realise. Everyone chiming in here, no matter how harsh the delivery, is trying to help. They're reading your tales and trying to figure out what went wrong, considering that some of the tales may be incomplete or inaccurate. They're also telling you about the tools the various ATs have to reactively deal with the various threats from the Halloween EBs. BTW, last year, I duoed some of the Trick-or-Treating on a Toon (often a squishy) and my 2nd Account Spines/Fiery Aura Brute, with the Brute set to use its dual auras and Burn to help cook down the Halloween mobs, including the EBs (yes, 2 Toons will encounter Halloween EBs). None of my Toons had as rough a time as yours did. Even when the attention of the EBs was on them. You talk about getting Held. Let me give an extreme example that shows this can be dealt with. Ghost Widow has a Mag100 Hold. She delivers that Hold on the last mission of the Statesman Ms. Liberty Task Force. Good Players like the leaders from "Everlasting TFs" can take whole Teams through these TFs. Despite no Tanker being able to withstand a Mag100 Hold. How do they do that? With the Tanker carrying a preplanned loadout of Inspirations, including a lot of Large [Team] Breakfrees. I'm constantly tweaking the Inspiration loadout on various Toons. Including bringing some Breakfrees when appropriate, even on Melee Toons. As well, I learn the tools and the play rhythms of an AT with particular Powersets and build. Why isn't your Dominator getting into Perma-Dom? It's the major tool of a Dominator and it's why Dominator build support it? And some Breakfrees to handle Mez when it does happen?

Most aura buffs will affect Pets. However, what most Pets don't benefit from are the Caster's Global Buffs, like ToHit and Accuracy. They also don't get Level Shifts either (another Global Buff).

It's...the Love Flea! 😺

The "Cottage" Minipet should be made to look like Baba Yaga's Hut. 😺

I think all the Base Buffs now last 90 minutes.

I agree. This has already started, what with the rat's nest some Powerset Powers have become when you look at them in CoD2. We don't want it to get worse, we want it to get better.

Oh, I almost forgot. If you're doing traditional contacts and hit Level 7, you will be given missions to go into Perez Park. Most of these missions will be suicide to attempt, even with some stealth. By about Level 10, should be safe enough. But that the original mission structure sent brand new Level 7's into Perez Park is just mean.

I know those weird office building maps are because they're put together from pieces. But damn, they're nothing like any office I've ever seen. We're all so used to that particular craziness we just accept it now. Oh damn, you just reminded me of something. Back in the day, if you were going to Kings Row at L5 to go through the original contacts there, you first went to the Hollows and talked to David Wincott, then went to Kings Row. Else your first contact would give you a mission to go talk to David Wincott in the Hollows. I know this was added when the Hollows was put into the game for Issue 2, so those FedEx missions were to direct Players to the new Zone. But that long jaunt back and forth got tiring. I think they were removed at some time. Oh, yeah. 'Course, nowadays MMO time-wasting measures have evolved. Most now involve convoluted crafting. I don't quite like how much time in City is spent on crafting, but it's minor compared to what's in other games. Wasn't that first point already implemented? If a Toon had a mission from before the change, it wasn't changed. But that's supposed to be better now. If it's not, it really needs fixing.

Good thing it wasn't a Chris. Many more ways to get mismatched. And miscorrected. 😺

I'd never quite thought about it that way, but that is so true. I've been around I've done a lot of the traditional content. I have a Completist Toon lingering in the L20-L24 range, so I know the content below that in detail both Blueside and Redside. Another Goldside Completist I finished that L1 to L20 Content. Going Blueside to Redside to Goldside you see the quality of the content evolve. Also, this isn't something that's likely to change. There's only so much Dev time to do stuff and fixing the time-wasting of the original content can't be high on their list. There's also the thought that this is the way City was back in the day and to change it would effectively remove that content from Players. It may be time-wasting, but it's not completely bad. I think it's more likely we'll see more new Contacts and arcs added to various level ranges rather than changes to the original ones. The arcs give out Reward Merits when run Flashback. Maybe change it to give those Reward Merits when run normally. And make sure arcs can't be out-levelled (I know that's supposed to be fixed, but I've got my doubts). As to when we'll see changes, I'd say that'll happen sometime after contact Wes Schnabel is fixed (get him, do everything possible at Level 9 and then again at Level 10, because he won't talk to the Players L11 and up). https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Wes_Schnabel

My main AR/Devices Blaster is the only Blaster I've taken to any Level (long ago L50 and strongly Incarnated). From that, I know for Blaster Epic Pools that Arsenal Mastery, Force Mastery, and the Patron Pools (especially Mace Mastery and Mu Mastery) are good enough. But damn, Dark Mastery is just bad. Fearsome Stare and Murky Cloud look okay, But Possess is bugged, Black Hole is wrong, and Soul Consumption, well, it spawned a whole thread from being so bad.

Doing both: Slotting the Pet Summons Power with ED-capped Accuracy. Taking Tactics (even just the base slot) or having a reliable -Def on the targets the Pets are attacking. will get virtually all Pet Powers to that final 95% chance-to-hit in +4 content, even with some padding to allow for not-quite ED-capped Accuracy or debuffs. It's mostly needing to adjust the Power Slotting (as few IO sets will provide that much Accuracy) that I think a lot of Players of Controllers aren't commonly doing.

Can you explain this more? (Current seems so hard to catch the Paladin assembly events. Though I've not gone to KR to be sure there's no Paladins wandering around and hanging out there wait for the event.)

I'm not absolutely sure of this. But as perma-Domination is a necessity and needs 124% Global Recharge, doing that without Hasten will probably result in a warped build that pursues as many Global Recharge IO bonuses as possible and misses out on so much more. Just take Hasten (and thus 1 of 4 Pool Picks and 1 of 24 Power Picks) and using it will give more build flexibility.

I've thought about Beam Rifle quite a bit. Currently have a BR/Devices Blaster and a Time/BR Defender (who needs a new build). Beam Rifle is weird. Best ST chains don't use the T1 or T2 (on non-Sentinels). Gotta enhance Cutting Beam's range, probably a full 6-set of Artillery. Wondering about going for a Beam Rifle Sentinel, as it gets a sort-of AoE Power instead of the Snipe.

Also, a Power that can't get a cycle time down to about that of a T9 Nuke in a build (around 60s), especially with a much shorter duration, is really only useful as a Panic Power.

Are there many Toons outside of Farmers, those doing the Apex and Tin Mage II Task Forces (locked to +4), and 4* Advance Mode aficionados doing content at +4 ? I know there are Players who will try their Toons against +4 content to see how tough they are. But I suspect they don't run at that Notoriety that often. Also, good point bringing up those other uses for multiple builds. I would still try to have a single build for all (like I do with my Spines/Fiery Aura Brute), but I can see the benefit being greater for others that I've not yet done. There's been a lot of side comments by the Devs in various places. More for those in testing. The Aprocalypse is coming. It will be a rebalance. There will be change.

What @tidge said. Maybe some builds will take Dark Mastery. But it won't be for Dark Consumption. Especially when a Power has a Base Recharge so big a build will be lucky for it to have a final cycle time of under 3.5 minutes. Powers with that sort of final cycle time that don't have a equally long duration are only good as Panic Button Powers. Example: Mastermind Traps Detonator. And even fitting one of them into a build (fixing the Epic Pool Pick and taking 1 of 24 Power Picks) demands it be good enough for that investment. Dark Consumption ain't such a Power.

There have been many changes I didn't like (eg. most of Tactical Arrow's Arrows not getting 80ft range). But I think the Devs do work to try to make all the changes close to the best they can be. (There were a lot of Closed Alpha changes that weren't ready for Issue 28 Page 1 that were dropped to not slow down the release and to get them better when they do come out.) The Aprocalypse has been coming for years, as the current Proc PBM system has serious issues. But such a big change needs to be done right. Which includes addressing whatever good the previous Proc system has been doing. I will be there for the Aprocalypse endeavouring to make sure issues like balancing between ATs is addressed at the same time. The Aprocalypse will come.

I did look at this in detail. There are already Pets with 1,2 Base Accuracy (Fire Imps, Gun Drone, etc.) but also those with just 1.0 (Jack Frost, etc.). Right now with such variety, some Pets are favoured and easier to build for (Fire Control really just needs to slot the Fire Imps Summon Power with ED-capped Accuracy to get about a final 92% chance-ToHit against +4 targets). Making them all 1.2 Base Accuracy just levels the playing field. As for the effect at lower Notoriety with a lot of Procs, well, the solution for that is coming: The APROCALYPSE. While we can do multiple builds (2 before L50, 3 at L50), I would strongly advise against it. I tried to do so while levelling and it was such a pain I rerolled the Toon to clean up the mess. The only multiple build I have is my main, AR/Devices Blaster, with a build each with Arsenal Mastery, Force Mastery, and Mu Mastery. The 3 builds only differ in 3 Powers involving the Epic Pool. But it's an administrative burden, especially as I have a copy on both CB and HC. I change something about the main part of the build, I have to do 6 Respecs. While this administrative burden may be lesser if the builds were for radically different reasons, I would really try to avoid it. My Spines/Fiery Aura Brutes for AFK Farming have a universal build I can use for regular play just to keep to a single build

I disagree. Mostly for Combat Jumping and Super Jump. Just because a change is done to the Flight Pool doesn't mean the other Travel Pools have to get the same treatment. Currently, there's a reason for the difference in all 3 cases. But I think Hover and Fly are the most similar. Hover has air control and defense, Fly has speed. But unlike Combat Jumping and Combat Teleport, Hover has been used for a (slow) Travel Power. But as @tidge and others have pointed out, it is kind of silly how the Flight Pool has gotten to the point where multiple toggles are running just to fly. With side features, but basically just to fly.

I'm mildly interested in this topic, but all that text makes my brain hurt (going off to relax with some General Relativity and its differential equations 😺 ). I was about to turn on the @Bionic_Flea Light but I see Flea has already arrived to lighten the mode and the typeface density. 😺