tidge

What has this got to do with anything? My attitude wouldn't change if I had 500 on each server or 10 on a single server. My next characters were self-sustaining after my first one hit 50. I don't care how many level 50s a player has, but if the player is whining that they have no inf or merits and has more than 10 level 50s... I might think that they haven't figured out the game. I suspect that is where @battlewraith is... maybe they figured out MIDS, maybe AE, maybe not much more.... because if you are PLing characters via farm in AE, you should be collecting drops along the way. It should only take 1 hour of x8 farming to get a PVP or purple recipe drop. Having said that: I'm pretty sure I've done a level 50 respec on each of them, many of them have unlocked Incarnates but I generally don't bother slotting post-Alpha incarnates on a character until the character joins some Incarnate content. Several of my characters have multiple level 50 builds. I have had a few level 50s that I delayed the level 50 respec on simply because I wanted to set aside time to test some more things before the final respec... but I am comfortable testing on both Live and Brainstorm pre-50, which it sounds like @battlewraith is not.

Ma'am... this is a rewards-based game for playing the game. If a player doesn't want to play the game but want rewards, use Brainstorm. If a player can't figure out how to earn merits or Inf with ANY of your full-kit characters, consult the guides section. I get it... @battlewraithdoesn't like being told they can't have a thing, @battlewraith doesn't like being told to play on a server that will give them stuff for free. @battlewraith thinks those of us who enjoy playing the game and equipping our characters with pieces you daydream about are the bad guys. I'm not the one being stubborn... I like the game as is and I don't find it to be a chore to enjoy. Trying to dissect @tidge approach isn't going to make anyone feel better about their opposition to my PoV... because I've played the game in a huge number of ways... although I'll admit that any PLing has been limited to seasonal server events or rapid-fire TF participation. I'm not imagining I speak for anyone else in the game, but I have tried to play the game a lot of different ways... and if I wanted to play the @battlewraith way... I certain could, because I'm clever enough to have figured out several ways to have stuff ready for my next 50 alts. @battlewraith wants to judge me for playing one character and using it to get the next one ready... that's being judgemental. When I simply want to test a ful-kit, I go to Brainstorm. I'm sorry @battlewraith is triggered because other players don't have their self-inflicted problems. I'm actually thinking that the OP was made from a point of "OMG someone help me stop making Inf on the market" as much as (or more than) a place of "help people get full kits for no effort."

I guess it's time a variant of this semi-annual post: I stopped trying to use MIDS many years ago (circa Dec 2020?) because the overhead (in terms of both local and networked connections) became too much for my taste. I can understand the inertia trying to keep this thing together, but it should have been refactored years ago. I'm sorry that the folks who want to keep using it have so much trouble with something that ought to be as relatively easy as an update/install, but from the outside this looks to be just one more piece of evidence that this effort needs a serious rework. Even if maintaining/updating it is a hobby... I think it is probably at the point where the hobby needs to level up.

IMO, %damage in henchmen and pets should only be considered based on how many attacks the henchmen/pet will make that might trigger that %proc. City of Data and the Wiki can make this clearer. Dark Servant has a def debuff component in almost all of its attacks, so the Cloud Senses %damage piece is a good choice for it. Some specific advice for pets that have a variety of controls: The Hami-O pieces that incorporate "control" will work to improve all of the control aspects, as opposed to a set-specific control. In other words, if a pet has both a sleep and a hold, you could choose to use a HO to boost the duration of both, instead of slotting just for Hold duration or Sleep duration. For MMs, I almost always try to slot the %BuildUp piece in the T1s. If I have room, I like to have the T1s also slotted with the Overwhelming Force KD piece

I can't speak for everyone else, but on my Blasters I've learned to use DoT attacks in specific circumstances like: Hit a Fake Nemesis before they bubble Hit an enemy who might otherwise 'summon' to keep interrupting them Players who are face-rolling their keyboards might not pick these sorts of things up... and if someone PL-ed up to level 50 without facing a wide variety of content might not pick these things up, but some of us have. From my PoV, Knockback is more than just 'that one power someone else used that upset me that one time'... on my characters that would be specifically bothered by knockback, I have made choices to mitigate uncontrolled knockback. Combat Teleport works well (also works for PUGmates who can't help but spam Fold Space), as do (almost all) AoE immobilizes.

I probably have about 8 pages of characters. Not all of them are 50s. I have 50s with over 300 vet levels. I play my original main every day. The characters that aren't 50 don't have Purples or Superiors obviously. If I was desperate to check their performance, I'd go to Brainstorm. If I had a bunch of 50s I wasn't going to play, I'd strip them for parts. If I had a thousand level 50s I wouldn't need a bunch of free stuff because I wouldn't be playing them. I'm a player not a hoarder. I'm not critical of the way people play... but if a player wants an infinite number of 50s with full kit... I don't know why the game should be changed to support someone's MIDS addiction.

Sorry, I was thinking the suggestion was that the game would automatically gift the seed money to new accounts, not other players/characters. In-game, I see no problem with gifting (or asking!) for Inf. Obviously I see accumulating Inf (and merits, and blah, blah, fishcakes) as no big deal as I simply play the game... it looks a lot like the make everything free request is mostly supported by players that simply don't want to bother with asking or accumulating via play. I mean... I can believe that a player wants to create an unending stream of alts, all full-kitted with wagyu IO sets at level 50+, but that feels like more of a grind to me than simply taking one new character on a 1-50 journey to learn how the powers work, establish macros, etc. I mean... if you already know what a Superior Winter's set is going to do in a power at level 50, I don't see what the rush is to get to that point.

Um... how about "Why should Brutes should have performance equal to Scrappers in terms of +4x8 DPS, by whatever measure?"

Perhaps I am waiting to see a cogent argument why Brutes should outperform Scrappers in terms of +4x8 DPS, by whatever measure.

As pointed out many times: Fractions of damage performance literally don't matter on team content, plus that being able to solo 50 +4x8 doesn't look anything like a PUG group at level 25. Proposing nerfing Scrapper ATOs because in some 50 +4x8 a Scrapper "tests better" sounds like it is coming from the Harrison Bergeron School of Enforced Mediocrity. Comparison of solo performance at +50 +4x8 might mean something after your testing includes the same content for other ATs and see how close average Controller (or VEAT, or whatever) times look like before we get hyper critical about Scrappers (with ATOs) outperforming Brutes. Focusing on Scrappers/Brutes/Tankers strikes me as being skewed by intense tunnel vision.

It should be relatively easy to set up a bind, I think the primary complicating factor (for me) with Soothing Wave is the cone is forward facing. Assuming that you already have something targeted, you could try this: /bind b "+$$powexec_name Soothing_Wave$$follow" Holding the "b" key should start you following (doing the turn-to-face) the pre-selected target, releasing the 'b' key should cast Soothing Wave. If for some reason the command parser does it in reverse, try: /bind b "+$$follow$$powexec_name Soothing_Wave" It may help to set up a quickly click like /bind ctrl+lbutton "target_friend_near" or /bind ctrl+rbutton "target_enemy_near"

Hmmm... looks like word salad. My statement is: That is: A Scrapper or Brute teamed with 7 other players isn't well represented by a solo Scrapper or Brute on an AE simulator set at x8.... most of the games content isn't established as being a solo player at x8 (or +4x8, if you prefer). Some players may spend all their time doing this, but that wouldn't make it a majority of the game's content.

Except this isn't indicative of an individual performing as part of a team, which was what I thought this message referred to:

I really liked this idea, until I realized that there would be a new class of farming to create alts just to collect the seed money. As I noted, I typically seed all my new characters with Inf, so this was the source of the initial appeal.

I am unsure of a way to objectively measure an individual AT's damage-dealing performance on a 8-player team.

There is this chestnut: "The game is not balanced around IOs" We are each repeating things that have been said many times, so I'll repeat this: the type of content where the differences between Scrapper and Brute performances show the above types of differences are not representative of most of the game's content... if anything, those areas are quite narrowly specified. There is so little juice to be squeezed out of this argument that it sounds like simply wanting one more drop of juice than someone else might have.

Why is there a thought that Brutes should meet or exceed Scrapper performance by this one measure?

This is essentially what I did, although I put a macro in my power tray to do it.

TBH, on Tankers I would often try to lean into the Leadership pool (and similar ally-benefiting Destiny, Hybrids) specifically to buff teammates, especially those that have to stand within melee range of the enemies I'd be tanking. Even though @Maelwys and I landed on different sides of the buff/debuff idea... I think we have some evidence that the devs (and certainly some players) are hyper-focused on damage differential at an extreme edge of performance (where several ATs are already narrowly clustered around some impressive times). I wouldn't recommend a change to Brutes based on what @Maelwys or I have proposed, only because the reaction would be "you ruined my favorite character"... and I think this reaction would be less histrionic *1 (if Brutes became buffer/debuffers) than the claims that Brutes are ruined because Scrappers/Tankers outperform them by 1% per "Ston tests". (*1) A radical change like we propose would almost certainly require respecs across the board, and if the Fury was granting a enemy debuff (or ally buff) it is hard to imagine Brutes staying within 1% of other melee AT, per whatever measure.

I think I understand the complaint (it sounds like one I share!) but in practice I've found that the colors I choose for one set are often not a good fit (i.e. they don't match) for a different set.

A couple of rando comments: AFAIK, the Steadfast Protection set piece recipes are only 20 Merits each, so not a big deal for someone who can explore some low-level zones and do a couple of lowbie arcs. For Purple/PVP recipe drops, in my experience it is approximately 50% chance of a drop for clearing the equivalent of 4 'fully loaded' mission (x8) full of non-con-gray critters. This isn't specifically relevant to the OP, except that the OP somewhat glossed over how almost everything (recipes, crafted IOs, salvage) is fungible via the market because of 'bucketing'. the market makes things easier to acquire without having to rely only on Inf. Finally: I want to comment that "target farming" used to somewhat exist for things like PVP recipes, and from a certain PoV... ATO/Winter pieces. The latter don't actually drop, except from pack purchases... so street sweeping for ATOs isn't really a thing and whatever can be done with Candy Canes (I'm blanking on if those can be converted to Winter pieces beyond the Travel set). If there are means to get ATO and Winters besides merits, packs and second-hand AH, I'm ignorant of them. Obviously we have HO/Titan/D-Syncs and the like as drops for specialized content, so the concept is not completely alien to the game. The HC market (and merit vendors) are a pretty elegant solution, and even with targeted content for drops I don't think it would be easier to acquire stuff (for players) than current means of collecting Inf and Merits. It would be an alternative, sure.

...some dogs will yap at anything, all the time, for no reason, just to hear themselves.

I enjoy Controllers. My personal splits are more like 75%/25% (solo/team). If you don't have a concept to lean into, I'll share this personal feel: I'm not a fan of secondaries that lean too hard into buff/heals, unless the primary is one where I plan to take most of the powers ( or take many pool powers early)... because I can delay buffs/heals with very little effect on teams facing normal low-level content. Kinetics sort of fits this bill IMO. My first Controller was a /Kin, I've never really felt like getting back to it, but it was fun to play with (and not need a travel pool).