tidge

My 'solution' was to slot the shorter range cones for Range, evening up the range of attacks. This worked fine, up until the Fast Snipe changes. Now my cone attacks have longer range than my Fast Snipes. Full disclosure: I originally delayed the choice of Tentacles until late in the build, this helped keep me from being bothered by the different ranges as much.

I'm effectively doing a "try as much content without out-leveling" blue-side run right now. It is a lot more fun then I expected. Some of what I've done: I'm using P2W, especially for travel/reveal powers, but also for temporary attacks and amplifier buffs (arguably not needed, but they are cheap at low levels). If you are a controller, you should grab the (AoE) attacks. I purposely skipped The Hollows, mostly because I've done it enough that I am bored, but also to have an Ouroboros flashback to use once I burned all the other contacts and still need to level. At level 10, I slotted a few important enhancements, but I didn't really slot sets until level 22. I have done one respec to shift some mule powers I initially took early until later, once I had a few more slots.

I am constantly tweaking builds as I play them, at least until they hibernate. I play them up to 50+, with a couple of respecs along the way. This is the path that helps me decide if a power gels with my playstyle or not. While leveling, I am usually relying on globals and slotting specifically to keep Endurance under control. At 50, I can have set bonuses such that I can remove "training wheels". At 50, I do a LOT of tweaking without resorting to respecs: Unslotters can remove pieces, this lets me see how the power behaves without certain pieces, or with different enhancement sets. I'm often on the lookout for powers I don't use (they often get dropped) or toggles I don't activate (they get delayed in a build) (1) has helped me decide between certain %procs, and example that comes to mind was a Robotics/Traps MM that was considering a variety of different Hold %pieces in Poison Trap as a 3rd %something, I settled on the %Absorb from the Entomb set after a lot of experimentation. I often try this sort of experimentation with %-res pieces. (2) is complicated. It often turns out that a power like Hasten ends up not making any difference in defeat times of "clear all", it's become a power I never add by default and only consider it if I can't otherwise get global recharge where I want it to be. Paying attention to such powers has helped me make choices about how many slots to dedicate to them, and if a power is something like an early primary power, it might just make better use as a mule and not ever be toggled on (even if forced to be taken early). At level 19, aside from a Panacea, and the later-slotted Performance shifter, I'm just slotting whatever drops (including from recipes).

OH may bad... that was an Axe build, not a War Mace build. I do have an WM/Inv Scrapper, but I didn't like how it it played and I didn't feel like rolling it into a Tanker. I guess the Battle Axe played more like I expected the Mace to play!

Does it have to be a Dominator? The reason I ask: Dominators don't necessarily become "invincible" at the end of the journey (don't @ me), but there is a huge shift when they reach perma-Domination that more-or-less will always be something to build towards. You don't have to pursue permadom, but if you have it the Dominator will feel like a different character. I have a very active Mind/Poison Controller that I have a lot of fun playing at all levels, and was fun while leveling too. shown is the final build, but the power choices were roughly the same while leveling (pre-page 5). Two particular build/play choices contributed to making this character fun to solo (and PUG) pre-50: I used P2W temporary AoE attacks to speed up missions (Plasmatic Taser, hand Grenade) ... they still do Controller damage scales, but they help. The build includes a lot of %damage, leveraging the use of debuffs; much of the %damage is easy to include as you level up.

I hear you. I'm slightly tweaked that the lore (as written) implies that choosing to become an Incarnate implies a certain amount of loss of agency and/or negative effects, even "walking the slow path". None of this applies to PCs, except possibly with respect to complaining that we players never got the "complete" Incarnate system.

My Shield/War Mace PIMP build (built for bash and flash, through the life of smash). This build uses neither Epic nor Patron power pools, and also passes on Hasten. The damage comes from %procs in AoE, global recharge, and a (IIRC) single use of a Force Feeback %proc to help out with Shield Charge recharge. The core philosophy of this build is to have as many AoE as early as possible, if you intend to primarily play level 45+ content it should be possible to make alternate power pool choices. This is a wonderful "lets do damage" build, if you want MOAR resists, sacrifice some of the recharge mules to get into Fighting. I respect the choice of Experimentation, its just that Force of Will offers me a good play experience with Tankers. Not everyone devotes as many slots to Taunt as I do, if you want better resists you probably want to slot toggles with 4xUnbreakable Guard pieces, and will have to steal slots from somewhere.

For my Blasters that have both a Build Up and an Aim, I typically delay the choice of Aim until close to level 50 (assuming I need no other powers and have no need for Enhancement mules earlier). I will have the Gaussian's in the Build Up, and I often try for 6-slotting the entire set. The Build Up powers, even without Hasten (or Incarnates) can achieve an almost 20-second recharge with a 90% chance of the Gaussian's proc going off (which lasts for 10 seconds). Usually I don't have the slots to do justice to both powers, and as @kelika2 wrote above, a tight build could have as few slots as possible simply to fit the %Build Up proc plus recharge. It's a weird effect of my build approaches, but for my Blasters I almost always never have a better (late) choice of a power than just adding the long-skipped Aim to the build, partially due to lack of extra slots. In a build that actually has the extra slots to do both... I would suggest looking at which enhancement set bonuses are being sacrificed from other powers, and consider moving slots to those powers to get 6th-piece bonuses. Often the 6th piece bonus is offering more survivability to the Blaster class, this is especially true of the damage sets.

I think it is ok to dislike just about any (and all) aspects of the Incarnate system. It's so obviously bolted on, and mostly segregated from, the original concept of the game that I spend so little mental effort thinking about a viable rationale for why certain characters now get powers that are fundamentally outside of their ATs. I see the incarnate system as little more than "Always wanted an AoE attack?" or "Always wanted pets?" or "Need MOAR Enhancement?", "Here ya go!". When I do think about it, the part of the Incarnate Lore that sits wrong with me is the retroactive explanation of some NPCs as being Incarnates, especially Positron. My Blue incarnates solo that guy's Task Force (all versions, all parts) and he just stands around on a little stone pedestal. My Red siders repeatedly punk him before Incarnates, and as Incarnates too.

Two big issues stand out to me: One bit of the Lore that has always bothered me is the weird hint in the Scholastic history badge about the link between Superadine and dimensional research. This especially bothers me because of the supposed manufacture and distribution of Superadine via the Skulls/Family. Given that we never see anything like a "recruitment drive" for Trolls (even their raves are simply all Trolls!), nor anything like the recruitment/hangers-on we see with Skulls, Hellions, or Council, I always assumed that the Trolls are actually extra-dimensional creatures... contrary to whatever the Midnighters and the Regulators would have us believe about Trolls being mutants. The later Praetorian arc that involves Malaise bringing drugs to Primal Earth almost feels like a loose end that is supposed to be tied with this, but as we see absolutely nothing like Trolls red/gold side, and they are pretty much ignored after level 20 I feel like this was just something that was walked away from. I would have preferred that the Praetorian story didn't progress to its end. It never made sense to me that the Praetoria zones we so good looking and well-designed, but would fall to Hamidon... the Rikti, Nemesis and Devouring Earth are constantly doing things like taking down Paragon City's War Walls and invading, so I just didn't want that story to go the way it did. I blame Incarnate content. I would have preferred that Gold-siders got their own Epic ATs ("PEATs"). My rough concept was that (like VEATs) you are nominally loyal to Cole, with one path being an Assault Trooper who could go either the "Heavy Trooper" router or become a Hybrid Devouring Earth Soldier, or another class that could opt to go the Seer route or have your mind placed into one of the Praetorian Robots (shades of Malta, with a suitable nasty twist like Nightstar). Basically instead of letting Praetoria crash and burn, Cole has leveraged even more desperate measures for his devotees. They'd get their own arcs like HEATs and VEATS.

There is supposed to be a cool down period when swapping builds, someone cross-post in the bugs forum.

Super Jump

I'll do the same trick if I am soloing Synapse's TF and feel like I want Babbage merits.

Those OG blue side contacts (level 1-4, 5-9)... starting with the ones in city hall, don't have story arcs that offer merits. Players who leverage the contacts introduced later (Matthew Hasby, Sondra Costel, et al.) can get story arcs without dilly-dallying with an "introductory" mission. It is trivial to outlevel these, especially with 2XP of course. Redside, IIRC, every one of the initial contacts immediately offers a new player an arc with merit rewards.

I have suggestions: 1) For leveling characters, run arcs. My recollection is that red-side arcs (from contacts) give merits (and at a better rate) whereas the blue-side OG contacts don't really start offering merit-rewards until later... and only if you get to the point where they offer them to you. I want to note that if you run with XP boosts (and to some extent, with XP on!) a red-sider will out-level content quickly and have to turn to Newspaper missions to get new contacts, so it can be something like a merit-defeating feedback loop. 2) Leveling red-siders should consider tip/morality missions, especially to reinforce the feel of villainy. It takes 10 to get the 40(?)-merit morality mission. I suspect that very few players who complain about the "total lack of agency" in the Rogue Isles have regularly done this content. There are different tips at 20-29, 30-39, 40-50. 3) For level 50+, as mentioned (while I was typing this up!) The Ghost of Scrapyard is the easiest of the GMs to spawn (and find). This will be a bit of a grind, and it is not easy for solo characters below 50. Level 50s can also do #1 through Ouroboros, and can cycle through the same batch of Tips at level 50. Special extra: the Signature Story Arcs exist on red-side as well, the first one in "Who Will Die?" is a fast one to re-run (faster than Ghost of Scrapyard, for sure). The first time you run a SSA you earn 20 merits, and you can earn an additional 20 merits each week by running it. It offers 5 merits while the rewards timer is active.

This is definitely not-a-bug, but I wasn't sure where to post. TPTB should feel free to move this thread. Why does the page for Mind Control include a note on Levitate that the knockup is on Dominators only? I have had a Controller for a long time and the power has been sending single-targets up into the air. Is it because of the different coding between Controllers and Dominators?

My preferred way to address the OP would be to replace the Unbreakable Constraint set with Gladiator's Net; this set can also be boosted to 50+5). This will get you 7.5% global recharge. If you want the Hold to be slightly more %proctastic, you could opt for 4 pieces of Basilisk's Gaze (a level 10-30 set), leaving room for two (more) %procs but getting the same 7.5% bonus. Knowing nothing else except that this character has the epic Psi, I would not be using World of Confusion even as a place to slot Coercive Persuasion or Ragnarok. World of Confusion has a miserable radius, and a terrible %proc rate. The %Contagious Confusion is (almost entirely) wasted in an AoE. It is much more useful in a single-target power (hopefully the set is in the single-target Confuse) Better to put the slots into Link Minds and slot 5 Pieces of Adjusted Targeting for 5% more global recharge for a good power (this wouldn't be my first choice, but you can get lots of recharge and still squeeze in a LotG)

Roots is the power where my Plant Dom has Superior Ascendency of the Dominator - Recharge/Chance for +Damage (along with 5 other pieces of that set) slotted.

I've been experimenting with it on a level 20 Blaster (I have XP off most of the time; the character has been played for almost 2 weeks, so I am logging time with this power), specifically for the -Resist Damage. I have not seen particularly promising results with it. Some could be because of level, but it is a long-recharge power which requires a ToHit check, and requires two early power picks (I chose Infiltration and also Grant Invisibility as a mule). I plan to respec out of it at either level 24 or 26. It simply feels like it has cost me too much in terms of opportunity of other power choices for the little yield it offers. I want to disclose that I have been playing this character as a "Blapper", so this isn't a case where I have specifically chosen a PBAoE power on a character that isn't close to enemies.

Those should still be in your powers, although you will have to add them manually back to your tray. (Timers reset when switching builds, FWIW)

I use them, generally up until I can slot level 25 IOs, or there is some set bonus I really want before that time (e.g. an ATO, or from a PVP set). If nothing else, they speed up getting the Isolator badge on new heroes.

I dunno, those defenses look paper thin.

At this moment in time, I'm playing a /Atomic Blaster that is level-locked below 20 specifically to revisit more of the 'classic content'. This means my current experiences with the power don't have a lot of extra slots (for anything, let alone FF +Recharge!), or exemplared effects from global pieces, etc. My own attitude will of course be different for a full-kit character exemplaring down (which was the subject of the OP, I know). As an aside, I have a personal peculiarity with respect to almost every toggle power: I often find myself running content without them on at all. Often I'm forgetting to put them on, sometimes I just want to see how the characters perform without them (generally worse, ehem Sustains and Hide) but some toggles have very little noticeable effect, I can easily imagine that Beta Decay can fall into that category for certain content and play styles.

Fold Space is always something I consider taking on a Tanker, but I have never taken it, because: I don't want to slot it for Accuracy, Recharge, or Range to make it more available. Tankers already have large AoE, so more positioning of enemies is less necessary It doesn't work on level 54 bosses, AFAIK With Combat Teleport, I can get to that problematic spawn (or single mob) just as easily as tossing out a Fold Space I am trying to keep an eye on the larger battlefield, but if I observed something I'd want to engage, I'll either toss Taunt, a ranged attack, or my Tanker at them. I have played in PUG with a Tanker who uses it, and while I can adjust, frankly it feels like it is (at best) simply breaking up what I am trying to do, at worst it reminds me of "wait here while I gather the map" (except that it doesn't grab the map faster than the rest of us can deal with it). Hasten is one of those powers that I find works well on some characters, but generally play is smoother if I just build for recharge from LotG and set bonuses (this is true for Dominators too, which want to hit perma-dom without relying on Hasten or Force Feedback). My simple calculus is if it takes 2 clicks of two different powers to defeat a mob (or a spawn of mobs) it takes a long time for the benefit of the extra global recharge to manifest itself... again, assuming 25%-65% from sets plus whatever I can scrounge from LotG. I recognize that if an attack chain is min-maxxed such that the character has the minimum number of attacks which generate an uninterruptable attack chain exists as a possibility for narrow ranges of content is something that can be pursued, but that is not for me.