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Here is something that falls more into the category of "hmmm...maybe" than in the "I never knew that". I was doing some mindless grinding of Heather Townshend's Burden of the Past Dark Astoria arc, when it occurred to me that the eight Knives of Artemis(?) costumed enemies at the end of part two (which disappear without being targetable) could be the ones who reappear in their "final form" as the seven Knives of Vengeance as the final fight in the last mission of the arc. I usually don't grind the other Dark Astoria missions, so I'm unaware if the eighth member of that crew could be one of the other NPCs the player gets to fight.

This was my realization as well (for DNA Siphon); I feel like it is the defining power of the Bio Armor set. I don't know if the Dark sets are any different. Typically (all AT, all builds) I shoot for reducing Endurance costs rather than hoping for a %+End (not named Performance Shifter). This isn't a particularly fair thing to write about toggle-heavy builds, but in my experience simply slowing down on the button mashing is often enough to make a difference in Endurance consumption. Another (slightly related) thing I try to keep an eye on with level 50 builds is Regeneration v. +MaxHealth, and Recovery v. +MaxEnd (and/or global Endurance Reduction). I don't have a conscious rule-of-thumb (obviously for Health there are different scales for different AT), but I find these to be areas of balance/compromise when I am trying to find "one more slot" for a specific power.

I've grown to lurv Force of Will, including its travel power. Takeoff does improve jump speed, but only for a relatively short time (30 sec?). My characters with Mighty Leap are among the fastest to get between missions (judged both against my other characters, and PUGmates) using only travel power, unless some peculiar zone geometry is in play (typically by requiring some degree of Flight). I first took the power because of a character concept that knocks down enemies (non-patch)... see also Wall of Force.... and the pool has become a favorite for certain of my Tankers. The timer on Takeoff is somewhat long (2 mins?), so it isn't something that you can use as part of a regular power rotation. As @UltraAlt wrote, it is a nice way to get the attention of relatively large spawn of characters, in a way that doesn't require paying that much attention to specific targets. One appreciated (by me) side effect of using Mighty Leap in Tankers is that this AT is among the least likely to need either of the Universal Travel global piece (Slow Resist or Mag 4 Knockback Resist) or a Stealth piece... so the travel power can be slotted for Endurance Reduction (or Endurance/Jump) to be always kept toggled on (modulo the amount of other button mashing). Off the top of my head the only thing I actually dislike about the Force of Will pool is the lack of tintable color (or no-effect) options of the powers. Maybe I'm just imagining this defect. I turn a blind eye to the animations being a combination of signature moves from Professor X and The Incredible Hulk.

Disclaimer: I have never played Dark as an armor, neither have I played a Dark Melee. What follows is based (mostly) off of my experience with Bio armor's DNA Siphon. Re: Theft of Essence, as an enhancement set. On characters with click powers (which trigger off enemy targets) that can slot it, it is a reasonable candidate for 3-slotting at low levels because of the +MaxEnd bonus as well as the ability to slot Accuracy/whatever pieces. For me: it is a bit of toss-up between three-slotting Theft of Essence or Touch of the Nictus, the latter's bonus are +MaxHealth and Global Accuracy. The Bio-AT in question ended up being able to manage Endurance with level 50 slotting (and using Efficiency Adaptation when necessary) such that the final (here, a Stalker) build has DNA Siphon slotted as a %damage attack; AFAIK the slotted accuracy is helping the %damage land. I don't know if this is of any value for Dark, I wouldn't recommend this slotting in an Aura. Level 24: DNA Siphon (A) Touch of the Nictus - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge: Level 50 (*) Touch of the Nictus - Accuracy/Healing: Level 50 (*) Touch of the Nictus - Chance for Negative Energy Damage: Level 50 (*) Eradication - Chance for Energy Damage: Level 30 (*) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage: Level 50 (*) Scirocco's Dervish - Chance of Damage (Lethal): Level 50

There are only two circumstances where I ever feel the slightest twinge to tell PUGmates how to play their character, and even in those limited cases I typically keep my fingers mashing buttons or bantering. The first is when I see a Mastermind (with a large number of henchmen) repeatedly dying... I want to believe I am motivated by wanting to make sure the player understands all the mechanics of the AT, but I've played long enough with my MMs that I often do crazy things with them myself. The second is almost exclusively on lower level content when I see a not-so-squishy character that could be able to manage a lot of aggro (solo) but is relying on something exclusively like an aura. Just running past groups on a Positron TF (either part) to wake them up does not mean that you have their aggro under control. I've just been shrugging off this sort of behavior as a sort of player-induced invitation to team wipes.

I've been playing a Hasten-free Shield Defense/Battle Axe with lotsa AoE and %damage, and I rather like the way it plays on both solo and teams. I've made an effort to leverage Shield Charge, Combat Teleport and Axe Cyclone, along with Wall of Force, to target/hit/reposition enemy mobs and clear maps quite quickly. The large AoE with %damage cut through spawns must faster than I expected. It is a very scrappy Tanker. The biggest weakness with my build that I've noticed is with Psi (especially non-positional, I'm at 26% Psi resistance)... I could make an effort to close that particular hole, but it would mean compromising on the %damage procs in a rather serious way. Non-Incarnate solo positional defenses are around 40% without the Fighting pool. It should be easy to take this combo to better resistances and defenses (using different pool choices)... it would be less scrappy, but on teams that needed a tougher Tanker they probably would not notice the reduction in offense. I've been tempted to do exactly this with the second build, but I can't quite the first one.

Some more personal experiences: I always defeat the mobs that spawn from "naughty". I am working from the assumption that there are a fixed number of mobs to defeat before a WL will spawn. This may be why teams opening presents "feel" like they are able to better spawn a WL. Solo players only get 3 mobs per "naughty". If a WL has spawned, a second one will not spawn. I don't know this, but last year I could not get one to spawn and then I finally found it in an odd corner of the map. The WL will spawn where a present used to be, in place of the present respawning. I recently got one to spawn during a Paladin construction event in KR, right next to the construction site (while on a team of about 5). This was after opening a present, being naughty, and defeating the spawn (from the present).

This hypothetical player could leverage a wee bit more by using the vault, but the point stands: whatta waste of time (even if using a macro) and effort. With over 15K bids on common salvage outstanding, the BIN price was something like 200 Inf.

That sounds like the great Empyrian sell-off to me.

Is this the Christmas Cheer as trademarked by Amway?

The bolded part of the (snipped and) quoted post is why I think the on-going play in the common salvage market is coming from a very poorly informed place. I'm trying to catalogue what I can imagine is the thinking behind 45K bids at 809 inf for common salvage. (1a) It could be a buy-it-nao play to have crafting supplies on hand (for many characters) with the intention of trying to accumulate badges. (1b) It could be a buy-it-nao play to have crafting supplies on hand (for many characters) with the intention of trying to enter the market as a seller. (1a) doesn't make sense to me, except that if a player is REALLY committed to such a bit... such that they ALSO want to burn Inf at a crafting table (instead of buying recipes too)... this is one way to burn a lot of Inf and also get something equally ephemeral (badges) in return. This strikes me as such a peculiar waste of Inf and Auction House slots (not to mention time) that I can't imagine a player who has accumulated Inf thinks this is a good idea. (2) It could be a player who thinks they are going to "corner the market" on some (or all?!) common salvage. No current player on Homecoming should believe this is possible. I can't rule out that this sort of thinking is a leftover from Live, or possibly from a relatively new player who has been playing on another server. It's not a huge amount of Inf to try this, so it could be someone who has done some farming with a relatively new character and feels like this is their path to bajillions. I find this to be almost believable, because it would take a lot more Inf to try to corner the market on popular crafted pieces (e.g. Luck of the Gamblers) and flip them... but the market would adjust to basically waste that player's time (and Inf). I don't put much belief in this, because it also requires the creation of a lot of characters to place the bids. (3) It could be a player just trying to get attention. This feels entirely plausible. The world is full of narcissists. As I wrote, it doesn't take much Inf to do this, and so with relatively small amounts of Inf and not enough imagination to brew up a new character to play, I can imagine a bored player doing such a thing. Hey, she got my attention! (4) It could be "revenge" on folks who craft, in an effort to slow them down. There is a public perception that folks who craft enhancements with the intention of putting them on the market are bad for the game. There is also a public perception that groups like "farmers" and "marketers" are at odds, and that each is somehow in opposition to the other. I don't think these are popular opinions; I don't even think that many players hold both of them simultaneously. I have read enough posts such that I can believe that there is at least one player out there who has a relatively modest amount of Inf (and enough characters created) that is willing to be an AFK Market Griefer.

I usually try to remind PUGmates on the Penny Yin TF to consider getting the Endurance Drain Resistance and Increased Recovery buffs.

A new player may not know these things: The salvage markets were seeded. 42K bids (it was closer to 50K a few hours ago, but I've been dumping commons) is unusually high. Even during periods of crafting/converting it is more likely to see 4K outstanding bids on uncommon salvage. The salvage market is fungible, by rarity. It is impossible to corner the market on any particular salvage type. To put the silliness of this effort into perspective: If a player wanted to try to set a flip-point on common salvage at 1K inf (*1, why?) it would take (only) 50M inf to place 50K bids. This is a nigh-trivial amount of inf for a level 50, even for a non-farming player. It's almost easier to accumulate 50 Minf (for an average level 50) than it is to simply claim and delete 50K salvage from the AH. (*2) (*1) The seeded price of commons is higher than 1K. A level 50 SO vendors (on average) for ~15K. A level 50 common IO vendors (on average) for 100K. Common salvage drops are still common, so there will never be a "shortage" of them... the worst that this player could do is reduce the mass fungibility of the items, at which point the devs would probably simply re-seed the market (if they didn't prefer the Inf sink). (*2) Driving up the price of common salvage past the seed point (and holding it there) would almost certainly just encourage players (who crave specific common salvage) to farm Inf, which will have the side effect of farming common salvage as well. EDIT: I should note that it is not particularly difficult to get specific common salvage types, but it may be easier for some AT than others. The most difficult items will likely be low-level salvage for players that cannot run solo at 0x8 in a given level range... but with set bonuses it is possible to exemplar to that content. As an experiment I was taking an exemplared (at roughly level 30) mastermind (while in Aaron Thiery's blue-side AP arc) into Perez Park to street sweep for boss badges as well as salvage, before I knew better.

If they are intending to craft, they are doing that in an incredibly inefficient way: I found an alt with a storehouse of level 25, 30, 45, 50 common recipes (the ones with badges that provide extra inventory space)... I put them on the market for 1 inf each and they barely sold. I ran some missions to accumulate a large number of level 50s, repeated again (and it pains me to not vendor those, but only at 100KInf each) and the same thing. A few players are going to be able to vendor those at a profit, but I doubt they are going to crafting badges. I also don't think that they are crafting to play converter roulette, because converter prices remain low (and stable). I don't keep (or accumulate thanks to P2W choices, or market) enough non-common recipes to figure out if there is a particular niche of non-common recipes to guess if the player in question is likely working in some specific area. I also always avoided Defense sets (they always struck me as too crowded a niche) to tell if someone is in that space.

I am not now, nor have ever been, a "market whale"... simply because I have not needed to be one. My roster's wallet has been mostly "steady state, with profits" for almost two years now. I see some peculiar market variations from time to time, but the ones I notice look more like efforts to lose inf rather than accumulate inf. Recently (last month, and again just this week): It appears that (effectively overnight) there are 40K outstanding bids on common salvage for ~500 to 800 Inf. It takes a LOT of effort to put in that many outstanding bids! Even trying to maximize such an effort requires creating a LOT of fresh characters and claiming Inf (presumably already in email). This behavior looks pretty much like someone doing it for the lulz, or has a peculiar theory based on the Live market ("They are after me Lucky Charms!"). I don't think it is someone going after crafting badges or flipping/vendoring, as I dumped a LOT of recipes on the market for 1 inf, including common level 25, 30, 45, 50 these simply did not sell at a rate I'd expect for crafting/vendoring to get badges. I grok that these recipes can be bought at a workbench... but it is always cheaper to buy them off the market. I don't think it is part of a "classic" marketing strategy, because Enhancement Converter prices remain low. It's converter roulette that both makes the market work AND provides the ability to ignore the market (with catalysts).

...and we're back! 40K+ outstanding bids on common salvage.

I try to minimize the number of times I distribute Duplicating Gift (in a zone), only because leaving more characters without it allows the people gifted the gift to also get the badge by gifting it to others. Of course, it is impossible to know who needs either badge, but early in winter events there are always a large number of freshly-minted characters.

I always revisit this thread whenever Terror Volta is the WTF. I'm not sure there is any content in the game better suited to the BAMF LIFE.

I don't AE farm, but I have done something like farming with nothing like the 'classic' farm builds (that is: I have no Brutes above level 16 and no "damage aura" characters that I can think of, except possibly for a Dominator with Hot Feet). The content that makes me think I'm close to farming, is 'at-will, on-demand': Heather Townshend's (Dark Astoria 1) arc at either 0x1 or 0x8. Small spawns to "farm" the arc rewards (sometimes including Super Inspirations), large spawns for drops. SSA (speedy) for merits, sometimes mindlessly for threads or Astrals Tip (and Ouroboros) Missions at 0x8 for defeat (mostly) badges, and just to fill up on raw drops (e.g. level 50 common recipes to craft for badges) or junk to toss on the AH for badge reasons Hamidon raids (not exactly "on demand"!) for merits and HOs. Less so MSR (for Vanguard merits) but sometimes. In no case is raw Inf my reason for 'farming', but it's not like I throw away Inf that comes from those trivial exercises. Since it is the drops I crave, I don't have to run at +3 to get the drops I want. To answer the title question of the thread, when I am doing the above at 0x8, I've used my Fortunata, Mastermind (Robotics), and Dominator (Plant), as I've found that they clear maps rather quickly. The Robotics Mastermind is very easy to have at the defense cap and keep aggro pouring into kill zones. The other two have decent AoE AND spawn confuses... many enemies in the game are weak to their own attack types and it takes very little effort for a solo player to get on the "I did damage" list to be considered for a drop. I like the way my AoE Shield / Battle Axe Tanker plays in 0x8, but I have to drag bosses between spawns to clear maps since it takes that much more effort to finally defeat those guys to claim their rewards.

...and then presumably the players who play on the "classic build server" would be restricted to only posting in a single "classic build shard" sub-forum, because there would be no reason for them to engage with any discussions outside of their frozen-in-amber code base. Hard No (for many reasons, not just my response above).

From my PoV, the only thing you missed was the opportunity to teach him that it is more appropriate to refer to a "bunting of red flags".