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The Auction House probably has common IOs, crafted, available for far less than the cost of buying the recipe and crafting it yourself. I'd just put some bids in on level 30s. Common IOs don't expire, 30s will be better than trying to stick with SOs. SOs are and old, mostly out-dated concept that only has relevance for low-level characters without access to Influense, Merits or already crafted recipes. There are useful crafting badges for level 25s, 30s, 45s, and 50s, so there are often A LOT of those on the market. Some advice for 'stubborn' players who think old school(*1): If you are REALLY starved for Influence at level 41: Run Ouroboros content at lower levels without using the XP boosters... sell your drops. If you run content in the level range 20-30 you should get useful common recipe drops as well. (*1) This is not meant as an insult. The Homecoming setup with the Market and the Merit conversions makes it really easy and inexpensive to kit out characters... but it is not "page 1" thinking. If the game was the same as the early days of Live, we'd all be (re)living what @Ultimo is living.

Spring-boarding from this comment: Writing only for myself: when I initially realized that I could get 'perma-Hasten' from IO set bonuses (Purples, LotG, etc.) I pretty much realized I could skip Hasten altogether and just get significant Global recharge from the set bonuses. In my case, I never was doing "farming" so when the choice of attack IO sets comes down to Purples v. Winters it was pretty much a no-brainer for me(*1), I'll always use a purple set first, and then maybe use 2-pieces from Winters' (for Slow Resistance) in an off-beat attack... and sometimes if a character has hella many attacks one of those will get a Winter set after I've used ATO and Very Rares. (*1) Because of typical Recover/Accuracy/Global Recharge bonuses from the Very Rare/Purples instead of Res/Def from Winters.

Those prices are pretty small potatoes; I'm guessing this is for things like common/uncommon salvage or common IO recipes below a certain level. I predict that eventually you'll either be listing those things for 1 inf or simply selling them at vendors.

I see what you did there. The reduction in self-buffs isn't 100% overlapped with the changes to cones or the overcap reductions... but it does seem (to this guy, *points to self*) that there is probably one-too-many ideas being thrown into the pot of tanker-scale-back. It isn't as if the self-buffs somehow are negating the effects of the overcap or cone changes, are they?

I'm not testing in Beta. I've got one Scrapper that has Cloak of Fear for theme, and a Tanker that has it as an extra enemy-affecting aura effect for teams. I've tended to delay the choice of Cloak of Fear until later levels... for all the reasons everyone knows and a few reasons that most people can figure out after playing with it. I generally have it 2-slotted, one 53 HO Accurracy/Mezz and one boosted 50+5 Acc/Endurance Reduction. I don't think I'm going to start recommending this power based on the proposed i28p2 changes, even if it is an improvement Each of my Dark Armor characters ends up with+14 KB (passive) protection from set bonuses that scale down below level 10 (PVP sets, etc.), and I see no reason to (early-build) swap into a toggle that relies on enemies in PBAoE to get a little bit of KB protection from each enemy. This effect will be appreciated when facing the FREEM-tossing Council, because I'm typically facing at least 6 of those guys. The only thing in my current builds that looks like a "compromise" to achieve the +14 KB is using a Karma where otherwise I might use a LotG global recharge... so I suppose that other players that want to make different choices (using three pieces of Gladiator's Armor and Fury of the Gladiator in Dark armor is a sort of no-brainer for me) might make use of the toggle. The big change I'm facing is "how to fit in Soul Transfer"?

Has the decrease in Tanker self-buffs extended to Inspirations as well?

Changes to cones is another head-scratcher for me... maybe I need to be deloused? The enemy AI and the physical restrictions of which enemies could be hit by a cone, plus the level at which Tankers tend to get cone attacks <- these contributed to me finally feeling good about Tanker cones (with wide arcs). I find it hard to believe that the cones have to be made narrower... just given the way the critters behave.

This sounds like me and my life choices! As I wrote above, my perfectly excellent gaming laptop was my travel choice... and might still be if I didn't have to bring two laptops through TSA... Aside from the extra weight I found unpacking all the laptops to be a real mood killer at airport security, especially when the gaming one has a larger footprint. KTN makes this easier, but then I've still got a somewhat beefy carry-on for plane travel. I sometimes feel like I'm pushing the limits for carry-on as is! I typically don't have enough downtime while traveling for gaming, but had I been able to get a smaller profile laptop with better graphics for similar (cheap) pricing I probably would have done it. The only thing I feel like I'm missing from the budget traveler besides reliable CoX is related... it's much less efficient at doing video and audio processes than my other systems

That was my guess, but I know there was a lot of discussion earlier in the HC life about how to 'gobble reds', so I wasn't sure if some combination Inps+SelfBuff+Incarnates of solo builds were doing it. Any guesses as to why the cap was dropped? This feels (to me) like something that might have been included to make "Hard Mode" types of content (where a couple of Kins and large spawns might appear) moar hard.

The best reason IMO for slotting Coercive Confusion in an AoE control was, IMO that with a reliable %proc chance, it became practically unobservable to 'miss' hitting every critter in the spawn because of 5% RNG... the followup rolls of the proc always (per my observation) hit the enemies. I think I did see times when teh magnitude of a Confuse wasn't enough for Bosses, etc. but otherwise every critter in a spawn would get the Confuse effect, even if some of them only had the short duration version. Having written that, %damage in a Confuse AoE wasn't a bad thing, as any %damage got you on the list for potential reward drops, even if the critters defeat each other.

Thanks! This is basically what I did (years ago) to try to understand 'nerfs to Brutes'. The biggest one I see is the top value for Damage Buff... I'll leave it for others who routinely and consistently crossed from 700% towards 775% to say how they were affected. I remember many people being upset about 'massive nerfs', and maybe those players favored Brutes? The items in that category are (from memory): 1) Defense (& attack) typing changes which meant players chasing single resistances (for example S/L or F/C) became vulnerable to content that they had not been vulnerable to previously. 2) Fire melee set changes (that came to include Defense Debuffs), which was most noticeable for fire farmers 3) Changes to the in-game rewards, like scaling rewards of Empyrians, lvl 49 XP->Inf going away, conversion rates of Vanguard merits, etc... many of these were targeted at AE (and some non-AE) farm-ish activities for the economy of the game and nothing to do with performance. It's not a secret that in the early days of Homecoming, 'Farming with Brutes' was typically the default advice (for those who wanted to farm). I'm wondering the 'nerfs to farming' have gotten confused with 'nerfs to Brutes'. None of the three changes I listed were targeted at Brutes, although #1 had a larger impact (from my memory) on ATs that were capable of exceeding a very high resistance cap.

Just some personal comments, based on a few recent posts: I used to feel the same, and how I mitigated this feeling of drudgery (on solo) was: At low levels, I use START attacks. They still have terrible damage scales, but they are damage. At medium+ levels, I add %damage. The damage procs are pretty much the only thing that keeps Controllers having solo times within an order of magnitude as other ATs. For teams... usually it is the case that a couple of powers offer the same type of control (e.g. Holds) as a ST and AOE. I usually try to make sure I can stack those (on single targets) I try to stay with the players that aren't rushing off... and if everyone else is, I tend to stay with the 'slowest'. Controllers have to be careful, because in my experience they can accidentally grab 'too much' aggro and are far more subject to controls and damage than something like a Blaster.

I want to toss this out here as a potential Live v. Beta test: The Penny Yin TF is one I use (Live only) to test performance differences for different ATs (to speed it). Tankers, Scrappers and Stalkers do best, with times typically just over 10 minutes. The times can vary because of the many different enemies that can self-rez, but I find it to be a good measure of a full-kit performance.

I don't think the current beta Tanker rollbacks are unwarranted, or even qualify as nerfs... so no panic on my part. As I've often written, I like the game best when there isn't an order of magnitude difference in mission completion times for different ATs run by the same solo player. I'm thinking about mid-levels 30-45 content when we start getting a lot of 'defeat all' missions with enemies that have a significant number of extra tricks. Historically (old history), one of the ways I found for solo Tankers to speed this up has been to pull as many enemies along as possible. For small spawn sizes these changes shouldn't really affect Tanker times.

Congratulations, you've discovered the weaknesses in the attempt to leverage this sort of strategy. It isn't even just the two things you've identified! Fold Space requires an investment in two other powers from the Teleport pool. Combat Teleport is awesome, everything else is a lemon hoping you'll invest in a lemonade stand. 'Recharge Intensive pets' are things I rarely dedicate more than 4 slots of Expedient reinforcement for. They do need accuracy slotting. They tend not to have enough attacks to leverage %Buildup or other damaging %procs. The control-oriented pets can benefit from some other slotting tricks, but they are a mixed bag. Long recharge powers require recharge clotting, and a power like Fold Space requires Accuracy. This is a LOT of slots for "one stupid trick." I don't know what would be a better use of slots and powers would be for your build, but I'm sure I could pick an Epic I like more (like Fire Mastery) where I can build towards the debuff and self-rez.

I gotcha, but remember the Blaster panic when Rune of Protection was made to not be affected by Global recharge? As things stand now, it isn't particularly difficult to craft a Blaster with at least one 'Break Free' powers, high global defenses and a self-rez. From memory, the typical issue characters have with Trapdoor is the -Perception from Arachnos.

I agree with Senator @Neiska response above, with slight additions: Blasters "two sets" of attacks is allowing for ~2x higher tier attacks that can be chained because of high Global recharge, One of the largest advantages of Blasters having attacks in both primaries and secondaries is the greater variety in slotting opportunities for (IMO, the better) set bonuses. In the case of #1, I think we can make a strong case that Blaster DPS is as large as it is because of Global recharge... and if there was a 'diminishing returns' on Global Recharge only affecting Blasters... I think we can reliable predict what the reactions would be. If "Tankers kill too fast because targets" is a problem, I think there is an argument to be made that maybe Blasters are achieving too high of a DPS because of global recharge (and crashless nukes, etc.) This is NOT an argument I would make, because the game was a lot duller when it was a grind. In the case of #2... "the game isn't balanced around IOs"... yet... It does usually sit uncomfortably with me that all flavors of blasters can slot their ATOs in either Primary or Secondary powers, which gives them even more opportunities to slot the offensive Winter, Very Rare, and PVP sets too. This isn't a freedom of slotting choice that most other ATs have.

Issue 1: The level cap for Tankers is increased to 50; the level cap for Brutes remains unchanged.

This makes me wonder about the Tanker-targeted scale changes to self-buffs (and debuffs). I'm not thinking these changes are the end-of-the-world but they have the stink of "everything and the kitchen sink" being thrown into the mix (to scale back Tanker performance). My opinion: the majority of the inspirations do what Tankers do via having to pick powers... and not all Tanker primaries are created equal... so if enemy is dead before needing most of a Tanker can bring, it's not like most content requires a Tanker. Not needing an AT doesn't bother me, I'm more interested in seeing regular mode content be able to be completed in roughly the same amount of time across ATs. I don't farm, and the stuff I solo that might look like farming isn't at +4, so I won't notice as much of the effects of those as others might... but on +4 team content I can't say that my Tankers have been providing that much of the teams damage... although I have been applying debuffs when possible (and when they would make a difference).

By many accounts, the only reason Scrappers pull ahead of Brutes (to the limited extent Scrappers pull ahead) is because of the Scrapper ATOs (increasing critical chances, *1), so I really want to know what it was that "kneecapped" Brutes. I think everyone can agree that Tankers pull ahead (again, to the limited extent shown in Ston's tests) were because of %damage chances improved by the +AoE +Cone changes to Tankers (which are going to be addressed in i28p2, scaling those back). (*1) I think Brute ATO procs are mediocre, but I'm not sure they are the worst. I don't think that ATOs should be what the ATs are balanced around.

No real recommendations, but I can share the following: CoX plays great on my couple-of-years-old Lenovo Legion "Gaming Laptop". This machine travels, but it was slightly bulkier than I prefer, especially if I have to travel with multiple laptops for business. It is the extra 230W power supply more than anything else, although my laptop carry-on get cramped. To support my business travel, I recently bought a slightly older refurbished Dell Latitude. It can play CoX, but without a dedicated GPU it is a somewhat miserable experience. I somewhat expected this. The biggest drawback for me of a 'small laptop' when playing CoX (after GFX) would be the size of the keyboard.

I was disappointed that this was only one of two "Reaver" GIFs I could find pre-made. Somebody ought to throw the Book at them.

IIRC, the article casually mentions "Kallisti Wharf" in the context of "missions"... but that is it (aside from them "OMZG, Controller Nerfs incoming!"), but *shrug*.

Long ago I started to use the %Psi piece in Taunt, but I found that it wasn't a great use of a slot: The %damage piece still requires a ToHit roll, even if the Taunt effect does not. Threat pieces have minimal choices for Accuracy. This lack of Accuracy choices is probably an oversight, as there are powers that don't have auto-hit components for Threat. Generally I prefer the set bonuses from Mocking Beratement Psi damage ends up being resisted hard by many enemies. I do often drop the %Psi piece into other Tanker attacks, when I want the extra proc (or off-type damage).

I'm not on Discord, and so I can't comment on whatever might happen there, but... I've read the articles (not the attached comments section) and I don't think the article is particularly well constructed. (-1) The initial diversion into "why speed, bro?" struck me as a little too antagonistic... at least for what followed. (+1) Controllers can be slow at doing damage, especially when compared to other ATs... but there is a more fundamental issue that I don't think the author understood 'why speed?' matters (to all ATs) (-½) 99%+ of the games rewards are for defeats. <- This is the #1 reason IMO to try to 'balance' ATs such that they can solo complete standard content taking amounts of time that are roughly the same order of magnitude. Controllers can be there, but they need to make certain build choices and/or leverage damaging attacks from START vendors (the latter, especially for low level content). Let's face it: There is no other reward schema that makes sense for CoX; changing this would fundamentally change the game. (-½) I think the article misrepresented what the i28p2 changes are doing to Controllers. I'd dock more here, but the (not mentioned in the article) +Regen critter changes will slow down Controller clear times (for bosses) (-1) The doubling-down on "Controllers being nerfed" by calling out Seeds of Confusion... especially on an opinion piece about "game balance". We all know that Seeds is a level 8 pick that is better than the level 26 Mass Confusion ('better' because of base accuracy, if nothing else). If nothing else, we knew that eventually this T5 power was going to be readjusted for 'balance'... it would be pretty difficult to make new Control sets that could compete with Plant Control. The closing with "I don’t generally play Controllers" is somewhat telling IMO. I'm neutral (leaning negative) on the ignoring of %damage from procs while mentioning +4/x8 content (and Hamidon raids). %damage helps Controllers (and other ATs) so I just can't tell if the author is ignoring them or doesn't know about them. The mention of the "purple triangles" is IMO a weird editor's choice... was the editorial team expecting controllers to all of a sudden lock down AVs without trying, or was it throwing shade that they think controllers aren't needed for some content? (hint: no AT is needed.)