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Years ago (in the HC era) I came to view Hasten (and the inevitable pursuit of perma-Hasten) as a character design trap. I know not everyone sees it this way, but initially (on HC), I saw that it was possible (yay easy to acquire enhancement set pieces!) and straightforward... I remembered the long recharge times of some attacks (and other powers) on Live, so: Why wouldn't everybody go for perma-Hasten? Here are some things that contributed to me changing my mind, such that I now very rarely ever take Hasten. I find the Speed pool to be underwhelming. Super Speed is my second-to-least favorite travel power. I don't need/want anything else the set offers... so taking Hasten was minimally burning one of four pool choices and possibly forcing me into a travel power that I can make work but don't like. I can get respectable global recharge from slotting set enhancements (including the LotG pieces) that are easy to acquire and make the powers they are slotted in better (i.e. Purple Very Rares) I have taken (accurate!) criticism that I "chase Global Recharge, why not just take Hasten", but then the criticism is followed with "How to get perma-Hasten"... so irony-poisoning sets it. I often have another power that I want on auto (more than Hasten). I know how to juggle auto powers, but I find it to be clumsy. I don't like relying on a proc for "perma" anything; sorry Force Feedback %+Recharge. I certainly can build for perma-Hasten without it, but with some of the positive press this piece gets, you might come to believe it single-handedly is granting auto-wins on all content. This is a precious slot that could almost certainly be better used (in whatever power it is placed in, or elsewhere) Finally, I'll be somewhat judgemental. I think it is crazy to take Hasten at level 4, and it is probably a bad idea to take it before level 18. I recognize that there are some ATs with primary/secondaries that might have four powers from both the T1 and T2 choices where only two are needed... but the way I see it, taking Hasten as the third power pick pretty much tells me that they player is not really focused on low (for arbitrary values of "low") level content, and might be the kind of player teammates will be waiting for as they magic carpet around the zone. Who knows what other oddball compromises will be in that build? This is not a criticism of builds that explicitly are only going to play level 45+ content... but I can't recall ever seeing a build with Hasten at level 4 that was advertised as such.

I don't think 'flipping' (i.e. buy an exact item at a low price, sell the exact same item at a high price) can be considered to cause inflation (on HC) most items are fungible, so even other items on the market can "become" that one item there is always a source of more items for the market (without considering fungible and convertible nature of the market goods) If the market niche is small, it might be possible to set/semi-control a narrow window between buy/sell prices, but the vig is working against this.

Morality and Alignment missions are mostly in the zone you "start" them in, so let those be your stand-in for radios. The devs probably won't implement level-appropriate radio missions because of how the Safeguard/Mayhem contacts work, also cutting down on PLing in starter zones (which don't have radio/newspaper options now). I have thoughts on the subject of this wall of text: The only part of open-world Giant Monster hunting that annoys me are the players (solo, multi-box, team, league) that don't "clean up" to reset certain events. I understand the excitement of taking down a Giant Monster (or two, or three) but that excitement was only possible because someone reset the previous event. I solo hunt Giant Monsters frequently and regularly. I also join and form teams to do so... but there is no propriety on the open world. The primary reason I solo them is because on average it takes me shorter amounts of time to find, defeat, and clean up than it takes to form a team (or league, or whatever). The non-summonable monsters will be back in 1/2/4 hours with necessary 'reset' conditions met. Over the years I've developed a very good sense of how long it takes me to solo each zone event Giant Monster with and without using Lores, except for the Rikti Dropship! I mention this only because I have gotten grief from some players when I'm on minute six of defeating a Giant Monster that has been in the zone for hours... so I am not unaware of how some players view monster rewards. Another reason I mention this: I am 100% serious that the team of level 50s doesn't need four sets of Banished Pantheon Lore summons to defeat Adamastor. Players are generally less interested in (zone event) Giant Monster rewards when there is another source of easy rewards... so spring fling, Mapserver, Trick-or-Treat, etc. Even the usual hourly Adamastor Multi-Boxers seems to have slowed down on some servers.

Specific to this question: Tanker AoEs have (now) been increased (in most attacks) so that it no longer takes Tankers an order of magnitude longer to clear up typical spawns (that are mostly minions) than other ATs. Prior to this Homecoming change, I had Controllers that could clear maps faster than Tankers, entirely because of the AoEs available to Controllers. Incarnates don't really enter the equation IMO, except for Destiny, because it can be used to cover whatever a single tanker may be "missing". In the build I posted above, that build uses Wall of Force to "close the gap" with other Primary/Secondary Tankers in terms of AoE clearing of scrubs... at least with those that don't also use the Force of Will pool. I like Wall of Force because it is available so early... and because Invulnerability can (IMO, YMMV) delay one (or more) of the resistance toggles it is easy to have that attack ASAP. The only pool power I like as much as Wall of Force for Tankers that can be taken earlier is Combat Teleport.

My original character on Day 0 Live was an Invulnerability/Energy Melee Tanker. On Live, this was neither a favorable Primary nor Secondary. The Primary fell behind the "no risk XP" of Fire, and "rooted". The Secondary stun effects were problematic because of critter AI/movement. Things got better (ehem, Unyielding), up until the Stuns from EM were seen as being lopsided in PVP, and then that era's EM rework kinda ruined the single-target focus of the secondary. Jump to now, on Homecoming: This is an awesome combo (current EM isn't quite what I wanted, but it is perfectly fine... I think it was a minority of folks that liked the ST Stun, and I feel that not having it was sort of a backwards look at PVP balance) and the primary doesn't even really have the "Psi Hole" that used to fret a lot of players of old. Invulnerability is pretty easy to slot to increasing levels of awesome... I find it to be so easy that when I'm casually making a build with an armor that I don't particularly want to see graphics I have to go out of my way to make a different choice. Other choices do exist, but I find a cookie-cutter Invulnerability build to be something easy to work with for 95% of the game's content. Energy Melee... as noted by others... doesn't have an impressive set of PBAoE (especially with Invulnerability as the primary) to leverage improved radius for %damage slotting. This has the effect of Invuln/EM tankers falling behind other Tanker combos for the measure of "cleaning up scrubs". I think this is pretty close to my current "general purpose" build for post-page 5. I have a second build with some slight tweaks for "harder" content, but this build was used to face-tank Lord Recluse on a successful Master of Ms. Liberty run.

100x this: I kinda wish more folks would think about (and if necessary, be more explicit) divergent styles of play/content whenever an argument about X being "moar betta" than Y. I've seen enough in-game variety to know that no build "solves" 100% of the game. Anyone who thinks so is probably only 100% playing of what they have "solved"... there will always be corners of game content where a different build would handle those corners better. Many folks who may have reached excellence at 99% of the game will have a second, slightly different, build for some content.

Like @Frozen Burn I never view the multi-slot bonuses from LotG favorably. Occasionally, if a power is going to hold the Def/+Recharge piece and is a toggle and is going to hold three slots total, I will opt for Defense and Defense/Endurance Reduction... but otherwise I think the set bonuses from LotG are pretty much rubbish. I'm not even inclined to chase the potential extra Regeneration from 2-slots, although I think I have at least one Tanker build where a second slot is a 50+5 LotG Defense piece. I'll add this small bit of personal experience: Since I tend to have "mule" powers for LotG at the end of a build, I will try to experiment (via unslotters) pulling out a LotG to see if it has any meaningful impact on my play experience. If I can't see a difference between having it and not having it except on some spreadsheet I try to repurpose my choices. One example is in late choice travel powers (e.g. infiltration) where I can swap in the 20% Slow Resistance piece from Winter's Gift. I don't tend to use that many Winter sets in my builds so that source of Slow Resistance is often something that ends up improving Quality of Life/Play for the character. On that final point: There aren't that many global pieces in sets other than Defense that have convenient no-extra-slot power choices without having to a take prerequisite powers or get locked into a Patron/Epic/Origin pool. The Preventive Maintenance %Absorb is the only one that comes to mind other than the Universal Travel pieces and Defense pieces where it is easy to pick a single power from power pool and get whatever bonus.

[because falling in combat isn't the end of the world]

I feel like the old, end-of-Live, team knew what they wanted to do, and also what they were comfortable with. The last round of planned changes (Live) IMO thoroughly had the thumb on the scale for Blasters. Global recharge is definitely a big benefit for Blasters, *and* having an option for large Global Recharge somewhat mollifies concerns over something like AoE Controls (i.e. Controller "nukes") having ~4-minute base recharge times. Obviously there are many powers in the game with recharge timers with a base recharge of greater than 4 minutes. I recall a sort of constant undercurrent of discussion on Live relating to "Should Hasten be made inherent?"... I don't think it was as popular as "Should the Fighting pool be made inherent?"... but it always felt to me that some of the IO set pieces exist to (my words) paper over both those sorts of questions. Certain IOs provide some of what players likely want from those powers (e.g. Hasten, Tough, Weave) and while those sorts of singleton IOs exist (also, multi-piece set bonuses), it would be easy to say "Those powers won't be made inherent" without generating agita in a majority of players. As for "Why is it in a Defense set?" I can only guess. My guess is that among all the game mechanics, Defense is likely the attribute that a majority of players would seek out anyway, more toggles yields more (or layered) Defense, and that there are (as noted) a LOT of powers that provide some Defense. The only other basic game mechanic that is as uniformly available to all ATs are attacks, and those have a (better) Global Recharge bonus available through slotting Very Rare sets. Other game mechanics like Heals, Buffs, Debuffs, and even Resistance are rather limited in choice compared to Defense options (across all ATs, whatever primary/secondary).

After I've spent almost all my slots enhancing the values of powers from my Primary, Secondary, and any critical pool powers (for my playstyle), I typically don't have any slots to dedicate to several powers. As a result, I almost always look for 'pool powers' that can hold a single enhancement piece and offer me some sort of 'global' benefit. The Luck of the Gambler +Recharge (which scales down to level 22, if attuned) is a very useful piece, but is isn't the only one.... but the other straightforward options for one-slot-wonders include things like KB protection (travel powers, defense powers, resistance powers), global defense boosts (resistance powers), scaling damage resistance (defense powers), global resistance (defense powers), etc. If you look at enough builds, you'll see those also used... so this may not help any feelings of iconoclastic depression. Once one of my builds has more than one power with a recharge time base of 2min+, you had better believe that more global recharge is valuable to me!

I believe those are simply vanity pets; they will have no effect on gameplay.

There are PVP sets for Resist and Defense, but I hear you.

That was the ask. The ask is specifically not about Knockback, because enhancing Knockback is enhancing magnitude and not duration. As I wrote above, the game already has a sort of piece, but they only exist as HO/DS and are limited to Accuracy/Mezz and Damage/Mezz, and offer no set bonuses. There are other combinations of useful Enhancements (in a single piece) that either don't exist (for some sets) or are few-in-number (for some sets), like Endurance Reduction/Recharge, which is a combination from the two existing "Universal Damage" sets.

Not true, For example: Hold sets cannot be slotted into Immobilize powers. The only pieces that increase control effect (edit: duration) that can go into each are some ATO (but primary/secondary only AFAIK) and HO/Sync pieces like Endoplasm and Peroxisome. Don't be hung up on the "Damage", it is the Mezz/Control part that I'd like a Universal set for.

For comparison, here is my Dark/Dark Controller build.

From my experience, the only thing that gets players to go to Red/Gold en masse is cheap and easy XP/Inf from Mapserver leagues.

...

This is just speculation, but if a player with a low screen resolution clicked all 10 trays open, and the trays auto-populated as stacks, the player might lose the (x) to close them. I'm not a hater on the ask, but as I wrote: I don't know that this change would be harmless to every potential player.

On Blasters, I skip Water Jet. I just want to get that out of the way so that my bias is not unknown. I don't want to repeat the reasons here, but some HC changes a while back so that Water Jet doesn't consume Tidal Power on a miss make it better than it was. The short version of the Blaster/WJ story is that single-target WJ was keeping me from optimal AoE damage from the Blaster and reducing spawn clear times. Sentinels are not Blasters natch, and unless the secondary has some (likely PBAoE) %damage potential, I wouldn't be quick to skip Water Jet. IIRC Sentinels only get one potential PBAoE %damage power Parasitic Leech (T9) whereas other Bio Armor ATs get two. For early levels, I think your attack chains will be a little uneven, so I wouldn't sweat figuring out a near-perfect one yet. As you level up and get set bonuses you will probably find yourself doing less swapping between Adaptations as well. Eventually work Tidal Forces into the build. It is a middling sort of build up (IMO), but it will help a lot at higher levels. Good luck!

This would (I think) be a niche implementation that could have negative effects for other niches of users... such as anyone with a small display setting. In either case, I think both are snall groups and the current system seems to handle both equally.

@MoonSheep pretty much hit all the points I would make, so I'll just re-state this one: IMO a LOT of the builds I see have (by my judgment) seriously over-estimated the importance of things like "Defense Softcaps" and "Resistance Caps" (especially Smashing/Lethal). There *are* narrow content windows where these things can make a difference (even if a player has well-built and well-played teammates) but for most content it barely matters. I often feel that most characters would just be better with a self-rez power! Long-time players will remember classic arguments like "going from 85% resistance to 90% cuts your damage taken by one-third!" while simultaneous ignoring how much health-per-tick will come back from a Tanker/Brute, and the effects of things like Scaling Damage Resistance, etc. The HC change to damage-typing also had a subtle impact to simply trying for overkill on S/L. The "S/L is the most common damage type in the game!" argument doesn't sway me; IMO how a character deals with S/L should help establish a baseline of performance and not some special niche that can be filled by any rando character. Full disclosure: I do sometimes still go the route of the Fighting pool for some characters in order to ---/Tough/Weave but in practice I almost never toggle on either Tough or Weave. Sometimes I am guilty of this (because selfishness)... but usually it manifests as picking a potentially early ally buff as a later power pick and not a flat-out non-slotting of powers I've actually taken. If I have a choice, it will be a S/L resist buff that I delay, see my comments above.

The set I think is overdue is a "Universal Control" set. Attack powers have no shortage of sets (including ATO and Winter)... and there are "control" powers that often have multiple potential status effects. It bugs me that we have Hami-O and D-Syncs that can fill this niche, but such (relatively) limited choices for the levels 10 thru 47 journey. I also feel that there is a subtle asymmetry between the ATOs for different ATs (that is, which primary/secondary powers that can take certain ATs ATOs) that might get smoother out with a "Universal Control" set... plus it could narrow the gap between control powers which have a LOT of set options (e.g. Holds) with those which have fewer.

Every player can already set themselves up to play the way that has been described as "hardcore", so why the demand for all this extra effort? It's not like a YT viewer knows if there was really ice water in those "ice bucket challenges".

Maybe I have accidentally gotten developer privileges, because otherwise I'm seeing some pretty weak suggestions that probably should have been kept private if they don't want public criticism.