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There is also a single contaminated that spawns in the train station in Recluse's Victory.

No need to run farms (in AE or elsewhere) as it is relatively painless to make INF on the market itself, especially if you have another toon with some INF to use as a seed. I have bought all ATO and Winter sets from the AH. If you are just getting started in the INF-making game, and your low-level exemplared build can handle Perez Park, blue-side you can run the Matthew Hasby arc in Perez Park pretty quickly for (3? 5?) merits but pop into Perez Park mid-arc to beat up on some Hellion Bosses and Lts for inflated INF (depending on your true level). Tanks (either red or blue) of level 20+ should be able to easily handle the first SSA (Skyway, Cap Au Diable) for 20 merits per week in about 10 minutes. You will probably want the P2W attacks to fill your attack chain, depending on your build.

Here is 'Rust', the Night Widow half of the character. Rust was designed for Melee, with the use of an Epic pool for Ranged attacks (like most of my Melee characters). Generally I find that Rust is slightly less effective for the following reasons I can identify: 1) The reliance of melee attacks means he has got to move to the baddies, and many baddies don't group nicely. 2) His (positional) defenses are slightly less, although they all exceed 45% with his perma-Mind Link. 3) He's a bit of an Endurance hog when compared to Diamonds. I'm still committed to the Presence pool, but only 3 powers to get 6-slot Unrelenting. I felt like I had extra slots, so the choice was between a multi-target Provoke or a single-target Intimidate... and I felt like the single target Intimidate would be worthwhile at level 32, so I opted for Pacify instead. I really like the Widow's Placate, but I couldn't fit it in until even later in the build, so this is just used to get a breather against certain enemies. I'm honestly not sold on the Fitness pool for this build. I'm only getting ~22% resistance to Smashing/Lethal with some minor set bonuses from Reactive Guard (including the HP boost unique). I never use Kick as an attack, unless I've been slowed. I feel like this was a waste of two power picks and three slots. I'm very open to suggestions on the Rust build.

Here's my current take on an Arachnos Widow that uses multiple builds and multiple costumes. I had multiple motivations: 1) Sometimes I'm in the mood for melee play, and sometimes I'm in the mood for more 'control'. 2) I hadn't played VEAT on Live. 3) I have quite a bit of inf to use, so there didn't have to be much skimping between builds while leveling. 4) I was listening to some Judas Priest, and I was wondering what I could do with "Diamonds and Rust". I think I've made some uncommon choices in the builds, so I'm sharing them here. One conceit of the two different builds is that I didn't want to mix melee and ranged attacks from the primary. I have a macro for each build to switch between them. I preserved an 'Arachnos Widow' costume slot as slot 0 which is unused. Build 1 is the melee (Rust) and Build 2 is the ranged (Diamonds). In case anyone wants to see what the macros are: /macro_image "AlignmentPower_FearIncarnate" "Rust" "select_build 1$$cce 2 CCLightMagic" /macro_image "AlignmentPower_Duplicity" "Diamonds" "select_build 2$$cce 1 CCLightMagic" Caveat 1: I'm noobish w/ planners, so apologies in advance if this looks like a mess. Caveat 2: These are NOT the builds used during leveling. Obviously some of the sets wouldn't work during leveling, but generally while leveling up I tried to have powers at the ready to use during Mayhem Missions for destroying objects. Caveat 3: I exemplar most of the time. I'll actually start with the build for Diamonds (the Fortunata), because this one works a little better IMO: Here are my thoughts on the build's bonuses: Recharge: I tried to get as close to perma for Mind Link as I could while still being comfortable with the other powers & set bonuses. I really didn't want to take Hasten if it was only entering the build at level 47. I am certainly gimping the high-level damage (from recharge on Psychic Wail's AoE) by not having Hasten, but it's a button I usually forget I have when I do take it. As it is, I rarely use Combat Jumping except as the LotG mule. Defense: Without Mind Link, at lvl 50 Melee and Ranged defenses are >= 45%, with AoE ~= 39%. Mind Link, is an extra 13,2%. This is a crazy amount of Defense and may be overkill! I'm willing to read other's thoughts on this. ToHit / Accuracy: Most of the bonuses have accumulated from IO sets in pursuit of other bonuses, with the exception of the Kismet +ToHit slotted early (@lvl 7) so that I could delay slotting Accuracy. I keep an eye on the combat logs, and it is rare that I have < 95% chance to hit, but I have been reluctant to pull out the Kismet IO. I can say that the RNG appears to be skewed (looking at 'multiples of 5') such that I often wonder if I should just pull out Kismet to spite the streakbreaker! Recovery/End Usage: Even before Accolades, this build never really had problems with Endurance. I have slotted the toggles with partial End reducers. This may be overkill but I like to run missions with both Sprint and Ninja Run active so I default to conserving Endurance when possible. Here are some of my observations on power choices: I really appreciate the Presence Power Pool, especially for Unrelenting. At the notoriety levels I play This build doesn't get hit very often, and I find that Unrelenting is generally available as a heal when I want it. The 'Fear' controls may not be as necessary for a Fortunata, but at low levels they are great for buying some time, and at higher levels the AoE is especially good at helping out teammates in over their heads. It took me some time to realize this, but Dominate is not as much of a hold as it is a ranged damage power with a hold. I originally had this slotted a little differently, but I've come to appreciate it's damage potential, especially at low levels. Travel Powers: I'm a sucker for Flight (or Mystic Flight). I simply appreciate the freedom of movement and I'm not crazy about the visuals of the P2W options. This build opted for Flight because I wanted the Force of Will pool available for... I'm a little uncertain on the net effectiveness of Weaken Resolve, but I feel like it has been helping on the lvl 50+ Bosses+.

/umactually I don't know if it was the *main goal*, but you could only get to lvl 40 in the earliest game.

/agree x10. If you are a player that feels that Group Fly is griefing, go to Null the Gull and make your choices. I've been surprised to see non-MMS take it, but it does offer a pretty fast flight with an excellent amount of control so I can see some appeal for non-MMs. /echo. I have Provoke as the choice of taunt on one of my Night Widow's 'shallow in the Presence pool' builds for the exact reason that it is multi-target option. The Fortunata certainly could use it for the same reason, but she made a different choice: I've also chosen Pacify (on the 'deep into Presence pool' Fortunata build that has plenty of other means of grabbing aggro), and I will admit that this entry power into the Presence pool is of limited use. If only it would allow Widows to get 'Hidden' status! That being written, there are a couple of situations when I find myself using it: 1) Boss+ fights. The Fortunata build with Pacify is short of perma Mind Link, and Pacify keeps the biggest thing from attacking until I can re-fire Mind link (or whatever else). 2) At low levels because that Fortunata build is going deep into the Presence pool, Pacify is chosen at lvl 14. That build doesn't pick up it's 5th dedicated 'attack' until level 32, so Pacify is used as one more means of slowing down incoming attacks from large enemy groups, if necessary. Often it is not necessary, but I've found it being used against groups like Freakshow which have the chance to self-rez, as the self-rez can really break up the flow of solo combat.

I will also chime in that the early days of the game (at low levels) were frustrating, the two biggest things I recall: 1) The general slowness of attack chains. This was primarily due to having to burn power choices to get to Stamina, but also because... 2) Delay of a travel power (requiring another 2 power picks) until level 14, which got in the way of picking attack powers. I remember first getting the Sands of Mu (and at higher levels, a Nemesis Staff) as temporary powers (as mission rewards) and all of a sudden it felt like my character was actually taking the fight to the villains! I remember doing a LOT of street sweeping because just getting between contacts (and their missions) was extremely tedious. I recently recreated this feel via Ouroboros by turning off travel powers, temp powers, etc. during a low level flashback mission...ee gads what an experience!

Hold my beer. I have a couple builds that go wide and deep into the Presence pool and another that is narrow. The narrow build is simply to get to Unrelenting for the self heal. On high Recharge builds I have found that Unrelenting is available more often than I want a green inspiration. The Preventative Maintenance IO set is a good fit here. I've been a fan of the Medicine pool but Presence is a better 3-power path to a self-heal IMO. YMMV The deep build includes both Intimidate and Invoke Panic 5-slotted on the way to 6-slotted Unrelenting. I appreciate the extra control these provide at low levels, and in Mayhem missions both can be used to destroy objects! At higher levels (and larger team sizes) the single-target is less useful, but as a follow-up to the AoE you can get the magnitude needed for bosses. The two initial choices are very situational, but neither is completely useless and both are fine candidates for single-slotting. The most truly useless power in the Homecoming configuration is Long Range Teleport. There are so many better options for getting to the zones accessible to LRT that there is no need to waste a power pick on it.

There is in Spanish.

No. It is only if attuning the IO makes it "Superior" will a set be 'broken'.

I have to agree. Once you have so many catalysts it actually seems to me like a waste to not use them.

The second statement is very good advice; the first is subjective. You can always sell crafted non-attuned IOs and try to buy back the same IO at the same price, and you may only be out the 'vig'. The vig should be less than the roughly 2.5M inf you might make by selling a catalyst. However: that (approximately current) selling price for catalysts is actually depressed compared to other things that can be made from merits(*) so it isn't irrational to use an accumulated pile of catalysts to convert crafted IOs that are normally farm more than the sales price of the same IO as attuned. (*)There are many different opinions on what to do with accumulated merits. If you affiliate with one of the schools of thought that you should just convert merits into Enhancement Converters, it shouldn't be hard to convince you that the (current) market for Catalysts seriously undervalues them, and not just because of the auto-attuning.

I'm referring to the crafted IOs which belong to Enhancement Sets, such as Bonesnap (for Melee attacks)

Here is a slightly different take on the (commonly given) advice above: I have quite a few characters that don't run into serious Endurance problems, and so the Panacea proc is more than enough for them, even allow them to run with Sprint on at all times. This is dependent on attack chains and toggles, but if the character has other set bonuses and +End accolades extra Recovery may not be necessary. I will grant that I almost always have 2 slots in Stamina for the Performance Shifter +End proc and another Endurance IO. (I like the movement bonus from 2-pieces of Performance Shifter, but with so many 'rescue' missions I'm seriously considering avoiding all +Movement bonuses). Similarly for +Regeneration, for characters with sufficient Defense (or lots of HP) I find I don't always need more Regeneration. On characters with a healing power, I include the Preventative Medicine +Absorb proc there. I agree with the wisdom that PM ought to be slotted either 1-slot (the proc) or 6-slot (for recharge bonus), but depending on the actual power (and build) a second slot to get more Heal and/or Recharge may be worthwhile. Since this post has been heavy on the healing, here is my general approach to healing at level 50 (and beyond). At endgame I try to have some mechanism by which I can either heal a significant chunk of my health bar, or I have some mechanism such that health can regenerate at such a rate that I don't worry about taking damage. My current favorite approach to the former has been to use the Presence pool to 6-slot Unrelenting (with Preventative Medicine). This isn't a pure heal, but on Defense based builds (which also have the Reactive Defenses Scaling Damage Resistance proc) this works really well. With enough +Recharge it's ready every 3 minutes or so.

You only want 'max level' enhancements for 'generic' IOs, and once you hit 50: (some) Purple and PVP(*1) IOs. For almost everything else(*2) you should consider having the catalysed version of a set IO. If you are going to exemplar, generally you want catalysed versions of IO sets. Note that Purple sets 'automatically' exemplar. 'Generic' IOs and PVP IOs will 'auto' exemplar up to the level of the IO. IIRC These should work as low as lvl 7. The 'set' IOs really ought to be catalysed, but they will have lower limits (below which they will not work) and often an upper limit (beyond which the bonuses will not grow). (*1) I always catalyze PVP IOs when leveling up, because I spend a lot of time with a character before it gets to level 50. This lets me slot it ASAP. If I want 'more' from a PVP set at level 50, I will just unslot the catalysed version (for use by another alt) and get a fresh lvl 50 version (to boost). (*2) For non-PVP pure 'proc' IOs, the minimum level is adequate.

I find it difficult to give up on 6-slotted Thunderstrike even with the means to opt for far pricier pieces, especially if the attack isn't cut out for procs. I'm always surprised and grateful how cheap that set is.

I will second Blessing of the Zephyr as a set. The (Superior) Winter sets usually offer hefty Defense for 5 and 6 slotting. Mocking Beratement is a good choice when seeking Defense improvements (and should be cheap). I admit that I am disappointed that the Tanker archetype IOs don't yeild more Defense than they do.

One point about macros (that I initially overlooked) is that a macro button which calls a click power won't show that the click power has not recharged.

I haven't farmed a Mayhem Mission but it doesn't take that much effort to collect 25 Hero pelts to be able to use the Port Oakes contact to redo missions. I think the named Hero's from Tip missions also count, as it feels like my most recent Villain got the badge without much extra effort.

The Kelly(?) Uqua arc Redside is a deceptive arc with some very disturbing implications.

IIRC the 'stores' are (generally) located below the lowest 'floors' of zone maps. It would make sense that lobbies and such follow that design. I haven't tried this since Live, but it used to be possible to TP Foe Mobs into certain stores because the range wasn't so great. I don't know if anyone has looked into the map assets. I think the Skyway City 'hole' was fixed on Live (falling, falling, falling) but I wonder if the Red Zones ever got touched up. From memory: Port Oakes buildings used to extend deep below the ground (wasting graphical resources). I know there is still a minor non-intersecting element on the North Shore of CapAu.

MM: Triage Beacon is skippable, but I respec into it at 50 for 0x8 content. It is for the pets, not for players. I get a lot of mileage out of Caltrops and Acid Mortar. The Mortar (and FFG) grabs aggro. Caltrops keeps MOB in the area I want. The power I hate is Web Grenade. It isn't worth slotting. I hate having to take it at lvl 1. It doesn't stick the 'crazy runners'. I like Seeker Drones, but it is hard to see what they do. I always skip the Trip Mine.

My MM certainly could have skipped an Epic Pool but the extra shield and ranged attack from Mace Mastery was a better fit for making him slightly more 'Tankery' My Controller opted for all five powers from the Soul Mastery set. She'd be pretty dull at higher levels without those powers. My Tank certainly appreciate the Ranged attack from the Epic pool, but he didn't really need much else.

Blueside: I find myself missing (because of outlevelling) certain zones. The 'central' candidates are Skyway and Founders Falls. I will go out of my way to get the Store missions from both Brickstown and FF before I outlevel them. The next generation zones like the Hollows, Faultine, Striga, Croatia are all fun, but easy to miss. I will admit that I don't like the Talos Island map: I hate having to zoom in to see the center, and I hate when missions end up in the far flung corners. The only Hazard zone I avoid is Boomtown. The inherent mess of the zone just isn't for me. The only reason I go there willingly without a mission is by wandering either one of the Sewer Networks. I like Bloody Bay the most of the PVPzones. Each has a different flavor but that's the one I like best. Redside: I prefer the designs here, although I try to get out of Mercy ASAP. I seem to outlevel Nerva without trying. Gold-side: I love seeing stars at night! If not for Gold arcs I would never have visited the underground outside of instanced missions. The Wards are best experienced by doing all the arcs, but it isn't for every toon. The Shadow Shard is a place where I have played a bit...but it is dull.

Until a toon gets ToHit/ACC buffs, the Circle of Thorns are very frustrating. After that (and Knockdown) is overcome, they are mostly chumps... Except when hiding their 8 objectives. I don't mind the villains that phase/MoG/shield nearly as much as I do those that simply flee for the hills at Mach 6: Slag Golems, WarWolves, and CoT Spectres. With enough Perception you can at least track down the Spectres... But those others don't suffer speed suppression like PCs. The only villain group I actively avoid are Nemesis, because of the Snipers/Comets. For me it is the combination of spotting/sniping from across the map with the AoE damage. In concept I like the challenge (especially for squishies and MMs) but in practice it makes me run through missions faster than I like. I suppose we never got long range spotters that charge in for Melee because it would make farming too easy (a la old school DE swarms). I enjoy Carnie missions a lot. I like that their different classes have both different looks and different powersets.