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A couple of rando comments: AFAIK, the Steadfast Protection set piece recipes are only 20 Merits each, so not a big deal for someone who can explore some low-level zones and do a couple of lowbie arcs. For Purple/PVP recipe drops, in my experience it is approximately 50% chance of a drop for clearing the equivalent of 4 'fully loaded' mission (x8) full of non-con-gray critters. This isn't specifically relevant to the OP, except that the OP somewhat glossed over how almost everything (recipes, crafted IOs, salvage) is fungible via the market because of 'bucketing'. the market makes things easier to acquire without having to rely only on Inf. Finally: I want to comment that "target farming" used to somewhat exist for things like PVP recipes, and from a certain PoV... ATO/Winter pieces. The latter don't actually drop, except from pack purchases... so street sweeping for ATOs isn't really a thing and whatever can be done with Candy Canes (I'm blanking on if those can be converted to Winter pieces beyond the Travel set). If there are means to get ATO and Winters besides merits, packs and second-hand AH, I'm ignorant of them. Obviously we have HO/Titan/D-Syncs and the like as drops for specialized content, so the concept is not completely alien to the game. The HC market (and merit vendors) are a pretty elegant solution, and even with targeted content for drops I don't think it would be easier to acquire stuff (for players) than current means of collecting Inf and Merits. It would be an alternative, sure.

...some dogs will yap at anything, all the time, for no reason, just to hear themselves.

I enjoy Controllers. My personal splits are more like 75%/25% (solo/team). If you don't have a concept to lean into, I'll share this personal feel: I'm not a fan of secondaries that lean too hard into buff/heals, unless the primary is one where I plan to take most of the powers ( or take many pool powers early)... because I can delay buffs/heals with very little effect on teams facing normal low-level content. Kinetics sort of fits this bill IMO. My first Controller was a /Kin, I've never really felt like getting back to it, but it was fun to play with (and not need a travel pool).

I kinda love Energy Blast.... and much of the appeal for me is the knockback. I will slot a KB->KD in Nova, because as much as I like seeing enemies go flying into walls, I'm not a fan of tracking down enemies scattered in every cardinal direction. There is nothing else quite like Ki Push followed up with something like Power Burst on the same target. I don't intend to write any more in this thread, as this topic is an old one that I've participated in.. but I agree with @srmalloy comment about learning how to use KB to avoid chaotic scatter is a valuable skill, and with the other comments that KB/KD are pretty good 'soft' controls.

What I'm reading is that players are actively supporting a mechanism being added to the game that could be leveraged to have missions and critters be able to also inactivate Incarnate powers... because if tokens exist from something like Null the Gull, there would presumably be a way for critters or missions to apply the token (temporarily) without player consent.

I never keep rez inspirations in the tray, so "no".

Brutes can have +9% HP if they 3x 2-slot Superior Brutes Fury... is this what you mean?

It's an Idea Police thing.

Someone is ready to kick some [Brass]

Similar to what @Maelwys is talking about, in my own alternate world I'd have the Fury mechanic generate an AoE debuff... that way teammates wouldn't have to be close to the Brutes to benefit. This alternate class would have to have a revisit of balance (for damage... because debuffs don't translate to damage, for aggro, for PToD) but it would be a melee class that does something different.

Of all the things we have on HC, this is probably the most upsetting to game balance (when compared to other ATs)... moreso than any Brute/Tanker debate. It makes Blasters fun, but I think it is pretty crazy that Blasters got both sustains and crashless nukes... not to mention a reworked Inherent that mitigates enemy control powers..

I've never put more than 1 slot in Enflame! If I did, I think I'd probably opt for a two-piece set bonus instead.

I like this: I think there is some sort of cognitive disconnect when thinking: (1) Eliminating/restricting other critical user feedback because critical feedback is bad for a suggestion, and (2) A development team is more likely to implement a suggestion that gets no critical user feedback (maybe because the Devs would take feedback in Beta? *1). Unless somebody believes that the devs are going to (eventually) implement 100% of all suggestions that only have an absence of (negative) critical feedback, asking to restrict feedback on publicly shared ideas would be an example of narcissistic behavior. (*1) We have had (on HC) a small number of cases where the HC team implemented something that generated a reaction of "Who asked for that?" and/or "How did that slip in?"... in other words: negative critical reactions. Some were rolled back, some were not. For the huge number of player-made suggestions, I'd prefer some discourse happen before anyone touches the code. EDIT: The first example of a rolled-back change that comes to mind was the "rolling alignment tips" that would pour in. The obvious "problem" being solved was "what if a player doesn't want the morality tips they have?"... which on its face could be an issue for some players. In practice, players can of course buy any (level-restricted) morality mission they want... and the rolling solution was simply flooding players with notifications and eliminating morality missions that they may have wanted to keep.

I've long thought the only way Inspirations "break the game" is when a high-level character exemplars down to PUG with low-level content. Obviously set bonuses from slotting helps, but I can run relatively poorly slotted high-level characters through something like a Synapse with relatively little issue. It's pretty easy for just about any AT to "take the alpha" after popping one (or more) Inspirations. The Inspirations are a HUGE help solo, especially when leveling up. There are a handful of bosses/EBs/AVs that come up in story arcs (some low level, like Mr. G) where at at-level character will probably need one (or more) inspirations to finish a fight. The Kheldians get a couple of level 30ish arcs where a Council transformation of the map's final boss can be a dream-wrecker,

I've subtly tried to incorporate each HO/DS into one or more builds... but there are some where I simply can't convince myself that frankenslotting that piece is better than a different choice of a single piece or pursuing a 2-piece set bonus. For example: I've yet to find a place where a HO that enhances Damage/Endurance Reduction is objectively better choice of a single slot or leveraging (at least) a 2-piece bonus.

I think it is worthwhile to provide some context about "Echo" zones (only accessible through Ouroboros)... because there are a variety of reasons (some overlapping) why we have the Echo zones we have: Echo: Atlas Park is interesting... it is leveraged for exploration badges, but no history plaques. From distant memory, the original Atlas Park map asset was lost, and this map represents a reconstruction of Atlas Park at some arbitrary point prior to a revamp. I have the feeling that this map was developed a sort of proof-of-concept/sandbox effort that simply got added to the game, with the possibility that initial work on this Echo map probably being related to the work done on Recluse's Victory. AFAIK it wasn't even added as a zone until post sundown. Echo: Galaxy City isn't the original Galaxy City (which didn't have an AE building). It was implemented to preserve the History plaques (etc.) when Galaxy City was removed as an actual zone... it was the smallest amount of effort to avoid a lot of grief. I want to say that the original Galaxy City map assets were also lost, but I can't be sure about which ones were lost and which ones were not. It always sounded like there were some bad configuration management practices at one point. Echo: Faultline has a slightly weirder history, considering how and when the original map was revamped, and which parts of the original map were accessible/not accessible. Obviously the map asset was preserved, and AFAIK it only was made available as an Echo because of exploration badges and "because they could". History badges were properly accounted for in the revamp, although Vahzilok spawn points were kinda screwed up for the Numina TF. Faultline was originally a Hazard zone. Echo: Rikti Crash Site is pretty similar to Echo: Faultline in how/why it was preserved. This was originally a Hazard/Trial zone. Echo: Dark Astoria is preserved for history Badges (and kept its exploration badges). The Adamastor event location wasn't here, it was in Talos Island (there is a bicentennial badge in the approximate area where the summoning scroll could be read). This was originally a Hazard zone, Recluse's Victory is not an Echo zone, it's the level 50 PVP zone. I want to note that we didn't get "echo" variants for any of the zones that simply got updates (for universities, auction houses, AE, Midnighter Clubs, etc.) nor did we get an Echo: Boomtown despite that zone getting something of an overhaul. We also don't have an Echo: Port Mercy, presumably because whatever effort went into Echo: Atlas Park was not worth re-doing for the red side starter zone.

Croatoa is pretty bad... those unreliable students report a Pale Giant in the Misty Woods, but he's often roaming the Broken Teeth!

What level are you? Is it possible you out-leveled Dr. Francois?

"Bloody Mary, with extra Mary"

Assuming good will is literally the first GM suggestion in the "Concerning this forum..." As for how I got to the point of suggesting to @battlewraith specifically that the game may not be for them, that was after a whole lotta posts where they didn't want to test their builds on Brainstorm, didn't want to be bothered collecting IO pieces, didn't want to play repeated content to get XP/Inf/drops, was bored with the content they did play, etc... so it isn't as if that is my default response to players. I'm not going to get into a back-and-forth with you two... responding to every post is childish, and it often ends up looking like personal attacks. More threads have been closed because one member simply cannot help themselves but to reply to every post made in it.

There is no practical way to assign XP, Inf, reward drops except for defeating enemies in this game. The only 'alternate win conditions' for solo are for things like a %chance at prismatic aethers for completing missions... but even those missions require some defeat(s). You can of course play costume/base/AE designer without doing any fighting or collecting rewards. This is where I write: The IO system, specifically %damage procs, really help low-DPS ATs progress more like DPS-oriented characters. By far this is the number one reason why we shouldn't be entertaining ideas about a aprocalypse.... %damage procs allow ATs the choice to do more damage than they would by just relying on low/no-damage controls, debuffs, etc.