tidge

Sometimes, but not always./ Perhaps a status affect application is forcing redraws..

Invulnerability is hard to "get wrong", I see a few things I do differently (which I've posted elsewhere), with the primary points of difference for me: I never slot more than 3 of Shield Wall I 6-slot Preventive Medicine on Tankers. There isn't much content you should need "perma" Dull Pain for, but I smell what you are cooking. YMMV, but I like the Kismet unique in Tough Hide, and some Franken-slotting in Invincibility. On the offense side, I personally don't like taking Epic/Patron pool attacks to complete an attack chain. Dark Melee can feel like a lot of "waiting around", at least to me. Touch of Fear doesn't suck on Tankers.

My Robotics MM still does a redraw when switching between the Pulse Rifle and the Mace. Am I supposed to visit the tailor to get rid of the redraw?

JE certainly didn't come across well in light of the ED discussions. I have a narrow list of gripes relating to his leadership/game choices, and ultimately ED is pretty low on my personal list of gripes. If other Dwarven clans want to carve his sins into their Book of Grudges, I can't take that away from them. I'm amazed at just how much fun the game was (and still is) despite having huge amounts of pain early (the potential for crushing debt, the inability to truly FLY until level 14, gasping at the Blue bar, travel between zones, etc.) and the painfully tacked-on things like PVP, AE, and the Incarnate path/system, Shadow Shard, not to mention some later power sets with peculiar balance choices. I'm quite surprised that the IO crafting turned out to be as good as it *is*, but that took the fungible marketplace (including merit purchases) to really hit its full potential IMO.

A few things come to mind: During Live: The market was pretty bad, and using the AE to generate Inf was pretty easy. Also, Inf was pretty much the only reliable way to kit out characters. During HC: The market is excellent, and AE hasn't really changed (modulo certain general game changes that also affect the AE) and we have multiple reliable ways to kit out characters. There definitely appears to be a number of folks that approach HC with a set of beliefs that resonate very strongly with "during Live" thinking, and a number of folks that view (some fraction of) HC changes as "worst idea ever", and some number of folks who are in both camps. Complaints about "marketeering" and "flipping" appear to me to be firmly rooted in some die-hard beliefs about the market, as well as generation of Inf, from the days of Live. (AE) Farming does serve an important role in the HC market, as it provides a reliable stream of raw materials for the (fungible) auction house. Some elements of (AE) farming have gotten worse for some farming activities... specifically for (nearly) automatic rewards that could be converted: for example Rikti Mothership Raids' Vanguard Merit conversions and never-ending Empyrian Merit conversions... but from my PoV those (especially the Empyrians) were like whipped cream, chocolate toppings, and fresh fruit on top of a pretty rick cheesecake... and that didn't really go away, except that a new level 50 has to grind out the same Empyrians after vet level 100 (or just live without them). I mention the last point because I believe it is possible for some Farmers to be bitter enough about the change to Empyrians to throw anger at just about anybody, including folks who make Inf from the market.

And I came here just to gripe about the weapon redraw animation for MM's Patron Pool Mace Mastery!

The Microfilaments (and DS, and Synth versions) are the only enhancement pieces capable of boosting Run/Jump/Fly with a single slot, MMV if the Endurance Cost reduction is also part of the thinking. As noted by @COH Radgen above: if a character has multiple forms of run/fly travel, slotting this sort of piece in Swift provides a boost to each.

I am not a fan of the "dual" inspirations, almost entirely because they cannot be combined. I almost exclusively have them turned on (if I remember to do so) for MMs, since I usually have some pet (or pseudo pet) that can benefit from Red/Yellow. The MM ends up gobbling the others as they drop.

I'm trying to imagine a suggestions forum where no suggestion is allowed to have potential shortcomings pointed out, and then folks who made the suggestion are left wondering why they didn't get what they wanted... and then I remember a local church with a "silent prayer" wall. Of course, I don't get to read those prayers so I have no idea what folks are praying for or if their prayers are answered.

As near as I can tell, the "baseline" level of acceptable-to-devs direct rate of merits-per-unit-time for solo-play averages to approximately one merit-per-minute. There are ways to do "better" than this via conversion of other rewards, multi-boxing, alting against the daily/weekly timers, joining late to certain events, etc. I think the simplest way to accumulate merits with almost no special effort is to repeat the "Who Will Die #1" arc ad nauseum blue side, solo at x1. The first time is for 20 merits, the first repeat during a week is another 20. It takes less than 7 minutes (I've cracked 5 mins several times for full-kits) to do for at-level 20 characters (i.e. "not a level 50"), and is 5 merits each time.

I start with: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=dominator_control.plant_control.carrion_creepers&at=dominator and then go to https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=pets_creeper_patch there are three powers listed: Bramble takes Slow pieces: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=villain_pets.creeper_patch.bramble&at=minion_pets and has a target cap of 16, 20' radius Vines is a (pseudo)pet https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=villain_pets.creeper_patch.vines&at=minion_pets that has two attacks Single Target Vine Smash https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=villain_pets.creeper_vine.vine_smash&at=minion_pets that takes slow and damage and KB pieces Single Target Vine Thorns https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=villain_pets.creeper_vine.vine_thorns&at=minion_pets that takes slow and damage pieces Carrion Creepers is a (pseudo)pet https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=villain_pets.creeper_patch.carrion_creepers&at=minion_pets with one attack AoE (5 targets, 8' radius) Entangle https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=villain_pets.creeper_entangle.entangle&at=minion_pets that takes immob and damage pieces. Note that any attack that does damage can take (and leverage) a "universal damage" piece. This power has another factor that (to me) confuses things: the patch "follows" the caster and summons vines, each summons has a chance to trigger more %damage... this reminds me of the way some AoE that target an area (rather than being cast ON an enemy) can apply %damage to enemies in the area of effect. I'd be lying if I said I could see precisely HOW to tell from CoData how this works under-the-hood (for teh wide variety of different powers), but from in-game observation getting a reliable "on-cast" application of %damage , I try to decide if that is "good enough" to stick with %damage.... Carrion Creepers turns out to be good "on cast" as well as "after cast"! TL; DR: Practically, I look at the powers in CoD and while leveling I slot an accuracy piece and then I play with different %damage and check the logs... often I create a separate tab just for "pet damage". This is how I determined my slotting for Shifting Tides, Corrosive Vial, Tornado, Singularity, Dark Servant, etc. as it is slightly more complicated than just trying to cram every potential %damage piece into every power.

I've been underwhelmed by %Fiery Orb (and %Energy Font, FWIW) such that if a build is approaching 'tightness', those IOs are near the top of the 'chopping block' list. To extend upon @Uun advice: check the City of Data for pet/pseduopet attacks to get the best idea of which %damage pieces are likely to be. My default slotting (at level 50) for Carrion Creepers is 2xGravitational Anchor (for Accuracy/Recharge and Accuracy/Immob/Recharge) 3x %damage from Ranged AoE, and then one %damage from Slow.

Sometimes I see the pre-reqs as "gates", sometimes I see them as "design requirements allowing for more powerful later choices". One example: no matter how weak the actual damage could be for an attack like Cross Punch, players would still be able to slot it with %damage pieces, so removing the pre-requisite picks would almost certainly mean that something else about Cross Punch would have to change, in the interest of balance. I know the mantra "sets aren't balanced around IOs", but there simply aren't a lot of examples of primary/secondary sets where AoE attacks are available without first having to choose something else. If there were no pre-requisites for power pools, I'd have characters with only Unrelenting (from Presence), Mighty Leap, Wall of Force and Unleash Potential (from Force of Will) leaving me with two other pools to pick from, and (in this example) 3 more power picks to leverage.

This isn't a terrible request, as there are powers that could benefit beyond simple franken-slotting. There are 'new' enhancement sets (in the "travel power" category that *i* never consider using.. if this one didn't excite me I would simply choose to not use it. It would likely have to fall into a new category, with two sets... like Accurate Healing or "Running" (kinda sorta)

I have a full set of Sudden Acceleration slotted into a (Robotics) MM's primary attacks. That character happens to bring a lot of KD anyway, and I wanted to also leverage the +MaxEnd +MaxHealth and +Global Recharge. I normally only specifically focus on KB->KD when: I can turn a damaging power into a (soft) control The power would otherwise scatter enemies 360° (Sudden Acceleration's piece is good here, as it is not unique in case the Overwhelming Force piece is somewhere else) In my experience most single-target and cone attacks become "soft control" with practice. KB from teammates IMO is not as problematic as enemy critter AI.