tidge

Feh, I'm not voting on this one simply because my opinion is that playstyle depends both on the player attitude and the construction of the character via power choices and slotting. I also would like to note that with my favorite Blaster, when I am solo I will usually end up "Blapping", but on PUGs it performs much better when he holds back and uses its cones, AoEs and controls to support the team... and if I am being honest, speeding up clear times by drawing distant spawns (via Snipe) towards the area where the fun is.

RNG hates me: Brute: Fire/Energy Aura. At least I should be able to put him on the AH and flip him.

I have been toying with the idea of a Psi/Mental blaster as well, but don't yet have specific build advice to offer. However: I'm probably going to slot the Cone (Psychic Scream) for Damage/Range along with %damage procs Not yet sure on Drain Psyche, on other builds I use this to 6-slot Preventive Medicine, I will experiment as I level Other attacks will probably leverage ATOs and Very Rare sets; on a longer attack like Psychic Wail I'll probably go 5xArmageddon with a %damage proc.

I'm pretty sure it does. (It doesn't work for Membrane Hamidon pieces) This is what I believe to be the optimal (1), (2) slotting for Mind Link. After this you hit the point of diminishing returns HARD. Level 24: Mind Link (A) Adjusted Targeting - Recharge: Level 50 (31) Shield Wall - Defense/Recharge: Level 50 (31) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed: Level 50 (1) You can boost the the Shield Wall Defense/Recharge to +5 (2) The Shield Wall Global Resistance piece can be added here for the Regeneration bonus, if you don't have it elsewhere and have an extra slot.

Yes.

I have a Bots/Traps, and it the only character that I bother to solo Giant Monsters in PI with. It also has reasonably fast clear times in farms, if that matters, The key, IMO is debuffing enemies and keeping them grouped so that the Henchmen AoE work on as many as possible. Traps is good at this, as are the Knockback to Knockdown pieces. I have take the Photon Grenade (at level 30), Pulse Rifle Burst (level 38) and Mace Beam Volley (Epic) to also apply -Res and Knockdown to support the henchmen.

A boosted common Enhancement scales to all levels, a boosted piece from an enhancement set will cut out if you exemplar for content below level 47. The cutout does not apply to any boosts applied to the Very Rare or PVP sets.

Three 50+5 SO enhancements will be better than two 50+5 SO enhancements, its just that you will be well past the point of diminishing returns on what else you otherwise could be doing with the slot. For example, an attack could probably benefit from some Accuracy and Endurance discounts, or perhaps there is a secondary effect worth buffing? My general rule of thumb is to not use more than two of the same 50+5 SO enhancements in the same power... and if you are starved for Inf, you probably could stop at (two) 50+4.

I always picture Yomo as the guy who flipped enough market items to end up buying Lexcorp, Stark Industries and the Wayne Foundation.

I buy super-packs only when I have a character that needs some ATO, and then that is primarily to satisfy my curiosity about what else comes with them. I'll play converter Roulette to get the ones I want, or ones that will sell. I do this until I have about 2/3 of the ATO I want and then I'll buy the remaining pieces. The extra goodies either stay in email or get sold, depending on my mood.

I'm not a huge fan of the (now current) reworked Energy Melee, but it performs better than what existed previously. Specific to /EM Tankers: I respec-ed my Invuln/EM tank after the relevant Homecoming changes and I'm satisfied with performance. I don't play that character too often (I took him through hella-much content already), but he was pulled out of retirement to help with an otherwise squishy Ms. Liberty TF and he did absolutely fine: AFAIK, the character single-handedly took out two of the potential "key holders" (finding the key on the third) which I thought was impressive for a tank. I think he only took one hit from Lord Recluse, which always looks scary, but thanks to a team buff there was no problem at all... such that I wasn't even worrying about timing my use of Dull Pain or inspirations. I almost want to congratulate the OP for making me think about "Taunt Auras" on my Invulnerability toggles... but then I thought about playing in all those PUGs with Tanks (and Brutes) that don't want to actually take Taunt, instead pretending to think that an aura is going to do the same job. The Blue side WST is currently Positron 2... and that's always a good one to witness some hard fails on that particular score.

Invulnerability has a T9 power?

THE HOOP GAWD DEMANDS MORE HOOPS TO BE JUMPED THROUGH! JUMP! JUMP FOR THE HOOP GAWD!

These are the hoops I mentioned.... but I think you still need to have the minimum level to get the mayhem mission in Peregrine Island. There is a difference from joining a Numina at lvl 35 and waiting for Lord Schweitzer to hand you a mission at level 45 it is a LOTTA levels.

I don't think it is even worth the devs' time to change the script of responses, which is now what the complaint appears to be about.

Some P2W prestige powers are must-grabs for me: Reveal Mission Transporter Team Teleporter Summon SG Base Portal Assemble the Team After those, I'll eventually grab the rest (along with some attack powers), but I want the fast travel options. As far as purely "achievable", the +MaxEnd from Atlas Medallion is reasonably easy to get solo as you level (blue side). Endurance is an issue for everybody, and so even my villains go to the blue side to get this ASAP. Otherwise wait to conclude the LRSF? Sheeyeesh. If you are playing red side content, you can get a couple of the accolades at lower levels than blue side, but my experience is that this requires both discipline (chase specific content, including Mayhem missions) and luck (team up to defeat a GM) which translates into, "not right away". If you have jumped to high level, most of the necessary badges are easier to get... some trivially so (like the debt badge). Another Accolade I prefer to collect on the Blue side is Portal Jockey... not all ATs can collect the requisite Ironman/Ironwoman badge (1 million damage) via regular gameplay. I think I have ONE villain that collected this only by spending many hours in Recluse's Victory fighting Hero "AV"s and bunkers. If there is an irony, it is that Shrouded/Shady Badge is usually awarded to Villains through any one of another mission instances, often MUCH earlier than Heroes can stumble across it. Similarly, Task Force Commander (Blue Side) is much more natural to get than Invader (Red Side), since Invade requires you to hit ALL of the mayhem maps. This is relatively easy to do with a lvl 50 Villain, but it does require jumping through some hoops. On the Blue side, its just running with 7 (or 6) Task Forces.

See also Heinlein's "All You Zombies".

I can see that this topic has become somebody's white whale.

See here

I have a 'concept' character that is a Dark/Time blaster; I find that I'm only using the secondary about 20% of the time (no pun intended), except for Chronos (on auto-fire, cue the pearl-clutching). The build ends up as a perfectly acceptable DPS, but I can switch to more of a control mode if that's what is needed. This may not be the most optimum DPS build (or playstyle), but I'll include it here to see how I've done some of the (primary) slotting. If your secondary doesn't include a similar power, I'd just put Aim where Chronos is and slot it the same. (I see a lot of builds skimp on slotting the "Build Up" power but having it up every 22-ish seconds with a 90% chance to %proc and get the set bonuses is simply too good to pass up IMO)/ This build has "too many" attacks, IMO. The heavy slotting on Arcane Bolt is part of the concept, and I don't do much Blapping (although it can get into melee when it needs to do so)... and Repulsion Bomb is essentially taken and slotted a mule for Set Bonus reasons. I essentially considered the concept to be "complete" at level 32, with the exception of the mule powers and the auto-power Time Lord at level 38. For me, this means that the build plays rather consistently across almost all of the content I enjoy. Full disclosure: This character rarely uses powers like Tough, Hasten, Rune of Protection, Aim or Temp Invulnerability unless I'm in some sort of challenging content... however I run low level TFs at +4 without having access to the powers, so I may have a different calibration than other players.

Here is an odd occurrence: Circumstances: Playing a lvl 50 Spines/Bio Stalker. In the Television arc mission "Wipe Out Malta Cell". Using Offensive Adaptation. I defeated a Hercules Class Titan just after two of them had trigger the merge into a Zeus Class Titan (perhaps a toxic DoT? logs are unclear as my 'combat' log doesn't track the enemy 'self-defeats'). The second Hercules Class Titan became invisible, unselectable with 'TAB = Next Target' , although I could see its attack animations. I eventually defeated it with my PBAoE.

I would recommend looking at Mids (or the equivalent), if only to see the effects of enhancement diversification/boosting. especially in the Defense powers. You can play around with unslotters as well, if you are more of a hunt-and-peck sort of builder. I think the Kismet piece is probably in an ineffective spot, since you will only get the bonus when Weave is toggled on (in this build). I don't know what levels you are playing at, or if you really care, but typically if I want the extra +ToHit, I will put it in as early (per level) chosen defensive toggle as possible, balancing against potential other slotting choices. I think on a similar build I have it dropped into Agile (because I felt could sacrifice a little bit of the extra ranged defense)

You should be aware: swapping builds forces a timer rest on all your powers, include prestige powers.

Citadel's TF is a very good example of regular content where I think "splitting the party" is a pretty natural approach: It has several "defeat all" missions, where the entire point of success is to eliminate all enemies. There is a radical difference in increasing effectiveness between having two 4-person squads and the increase between a single 7-person squad that adds an 8th member. It includes a 'delivery mission'. Only one person can complete this mission It includes a 'defeat x' mission in an open zone. It happens at a high enough level where individual ATs ought to have fully come into their role, and have the slots to make their powers (and if chosen, set bonuses) strong. I feel similarly about the (blueside) Numina, Manticore, Moonfire and Penny Yin TFs... although the lower in level you go the less access to powers (and set bonuses) characters have. I have NO DOUBT that at least one of my characters recently caused grief for a (large) mid-level PUG. The leader had the mission difficulty cranked WAY UP (see below) before I joined with a melee character that could hold its own. I found that I was both getting in the way of others and that some pets (decoys) would end up blocking me, or otherwise the enemies were falling before my animations landed. I wasn't tanking, so after convincing myself that the other 7 players could handle single groups I branched off to battle 'distant' groups so that we wouldn't draw too much aggro. The other 7 players were objectively less effective without me sticking close... When I saw them struggling I would try to rejoin to assist... but every time this happened it was because of accidental over aggro. I felt like it would have been MORE of a jerk move to intentionally over-aggro BEFORE the rest of the team did it naturally. A note about WAY UP difficulty: In my experience, there are primarily two things about +4x8 content that cause struggles at mid-levels and below, Final (player) To Hit chances fall, so enemies are not as "controlled by KO" as quickly, Other controls work less effectively against enemies... and of course, those precious AoE controls are going to upset enemies! If a team doesn't have (enemy) debuffs or (ally) buffs... there is only so much "team talk" that is going to help teams! I do try to make suggestions based on powers I see being used, but beyond passing inspirations to struggling teammates (but only if they actually have the sense to be using inspirations and thus have free slots), I don't know what else to do?

Do you routinely take longer than 5 minutes to complete a TF?