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One recommendation that I often make for all Widows is to see how your build plays without Hasten. My experience has been that the power is basically a trap that makes you spend much more Endurance with only marginal improvements. I will concede: improving the uptime on Mind Link is better than marginal, but writing only for myself I was only very rarely teaming with others where I felt like I needed Mind Link up 100+% of the time, and that was in EXTREME content where I am not sure my PUGmates had paid that much attention to their builds or what they were doing in most fights. I'm not saying immediately respec to remove Hasten, I'm simply suggesting playing content without it being used to see how the build does. I will add this: on my builds with Hasten, I rarely take it so early in a build as level 6, as typically there is another pool that offers me a third power I could really use by level 14. In my experience, the payoff Hasten offers is only for powers that come much later in a build (e.g. nukes, long recharge boosts/heals). Another suggestion I have for the build posted just above by @Scarlet Shocker: When builds don't have an auto power that can take the piece, move the slot and Kismet +ToHit piece into the earliest defensive power that you intend to have toggled on. The +ToHit bonus only works in powers that are active (including auto powers), so I am pretty sure it is wasted in Elude. Similarly, the slotting of 2 pieces of Numina's in Spirit Ward seems to be a mistake... because you will have to use the power to get the unique bonus. I know on one of my Tankers (larger base HP, so keep that in mind) I get better total regeneration rate by slotting those two pieces of Numina's in Health (along with another global), because slotting a HP/Absorb piece in Health also boosts regeneration. I would use Spirit Ward as a mule for the Preventive Medicine %Absorb piece, as it is one of the rare enhancements that doesn't have to be in an active (or available!) power to trigger. The %Absorb, along with Scaling Resistances, are some of the slot-and-forget choices that make Widows that much harder to finish off when they start taking damage. In that same build: you find yourself with some Endurance problems and you want to keep Sprint toggled on, you may find that you don't need the Stealth piece and you can improve the Endurance budget by slotting Endurance reduction in it.

Not precisely "pulling": A single BAMF macro works fine for melee; my characters with cone attacks have a second one (that doesn't require selecting a target) to followup with the ranged AoE attacks. Obviously I have to not make a terrible mistake in the direction I am facing when activating it. /macro_image "DevouringEarthSeed_Hematic_Seedbuff" "BAMF" "powexec_location target Combat Teleport" /macro_image "DevouringEarthSeed_Hematic_seedblood" "Back" "powexec_location Back:25 Combat Teleport" I try to find a couple of images that have similar colors (for each) when I set these up, and I generally try to find images of a color that stand out (that is, different colors than the primary and secondary) in my power tray. All characters with Combat Teleport get this mouse-bind as well. /bind shift+lbutton "powexec_name Combat Teleport"

I have been exclusively playing my Robotics/Traps/Mace MM since page 5. I have the MM (personal) attacks slotted for set bonus, and a little extra(*1). My thinking was to improve my own Endurance, and add something that would act as a force multiplier for my henchmen. I went the %-Resistance and Knockdown route as the force multiplier. Obviously, any slowish AoE is a good candidate to try for %damage from procs, but the Endurance penalty for MMs has historically been such that trying to eek out more damage from personal attacks has not been a priority for me. (*1) I have two 5-piece sets of Annihilation (mainly for +MaxEnd, global End Discount, and the %-Res) and one 6-piece Sudden Acceleration. On my build, each of the three attacks (Photon Grenade, Pulse Rifle Burst, Mace Beam Volley) also has a KB->KD piece (using the Overwhelming Force where necessary) Depending on the MM build, and how you plan to play it (very active requiring Endurance, or less button mashing) I can see going for set bonuses that improve resistances for the MM, to help with Bodyguard mode.

I don't know what other self-imposed constraints you have, but 4-slotting Strangler with Basilisk's Gaze is an easy way to get 7.5% Global Recharge... which ought to be helpful if you are chasing PermaDom. Edit: Sorry, I didn't read closely enough that Strangler was already part of the build!

A word of caution: This is an observed dangerous behavior (Brutes, or anyone else really, relying on proximity or auras): waking up multiple spawns to "speed up" (especially low level) missions. The caution is this: we may be playing with mates that have AoE which will grab the spawns' aggro while you are hopping about. I don't play Brutes, I will do the exact same behavior on certain ATs, but each has a different way of trying to keep the aggro to themselves when leveraging a "prime the next group" approach. Tankers: This should be obvious: Taunt the enemies in the distance, use (PB/Melee)AoE for Punchvoke, use ranged AoE (P2W, Pools) to excite ones in the distance. Controllers/Dominators: Have the AoE ready, including Immobilizes and Sleeps, patches when available. Defense-based characters: Stay with the spawn, keeping their attention. Blasters: I try to work a control-component into (long-range) cones. %Knockdown is an easy one to work into cone attacks at low levels. Masterminds: Let the henchmen take the abuse. On many pick-up teams, it's my "control" characters that often take a LOT of fire, but even a purple-constructed and exemplared character is likely staring at a death-by-debuff in a Positron 1 or (more likely) 2 TF if teammates are casually aggroing multiple groups.

I was considering making a separate suggestion thread but here goes: Can we please get a Back-Alley Brawler in some sort of seasonal costume? (during the Winter Event) Even a Santa Hat would be a nice touch.

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.