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No real surprise here, except that neither DC nor Marvel filed a response, and that there was a default judgement.

I've been waiting for @Gravitus to suggest a change to the Flight Pool to make Group Fly something you can cast on enemies.

I feel like a better research project would involve "post hoc rationalizations for being a ****."

This is where I am. I think the game is in a really good place with respect to how balanced rewards can be reaped for different ATs, with one exception*(1). Even for the 1% of content that cannot be "solo-ed" by every AT, my personal experience is that some fraction of that can be "handled" by changing tactics, even if it is painful for a player to alter their mental model of "how my character should play (in all content)." Performance from individual primary/secondary powers choices should vary of course! (*1) The one exception is, I think Kheldians... but I think the issue with them is very subtle. Kheldians can survive pretty much all content (typically by leveraging Dwarf form), but aside from a game exploit, Kheldians can't quite sustain damage at higher levels... and the floor for what I consider to be a "higher level" is around level 30. An even level Kheldian simply playing their arcs can run into con-red Council bosses that may not be able to survive or defeat without leveraging extreme tricks.

Agree. With a Storm/Storm character, the big addition to the weather arsenal is Category Five, which for non-Blasters will chew through x8 spawns relatively quickly (when it is available). The other powers aren't slouches, as they offer good powers for set-slotting and/or %procs. Don't sleep on slotting %-Resistance from the Annihilation set. One piece of advice if you are considering leveraging %damage. Gale can take several %damage pieces, but it has a very low base Accuracy. I ended up slotting this with 2x Accuracy 50+5 IOs, and only two %damage pieces (%Lethal, %Fire) on my final build. I had experimented with boosting both Accuracy and Range on it, but I didn't need extra range because the storm powers work best if you draw enemies towards you. As I wrote above, I don't really sweat the Knockback in large spawns, and usually I have something to followup with if need to do so. There is no real reason to take O2 Boost at level 1, so it is likely your build will have Gale in it at some point. I delayed O2 Boost until level 14 on my Storm/Storm, and have it slotted with just a single Heal IO. If you opt for a Controller, I almost always skip the single-target Hold available at level 1. Single target Holds do offer some options for slotting, but my general attitude is that they are an inferior source of control/damage compared to what else you could do with the slots and power choice. If one of my builds has a T1/T2 single-target hold, it is usually because: I wanted a set bonus from a Fold enhancement set (4xBasilisk's Gaze, or 3xGaldiator's Net) I have a strategy to try to get stacking holds on some single-targets (combined with another Hold) There is no other option for damage for the character, so I might accuracy + %damage in a ST Hold.

I want to make the following comment on the topic of "The Immobilize (of Evasive Maneuvers, currently a level 14 pick) would be too strong to make it an auto power". Mystic Flight (a level 4 pick) has a built-in anti-Immobilize measure, Translocation.

FWIW Storm Cell recharges kinda quick (I only have the Vigilant Assault set 2-slotted: Recharge/%Absorb and Damage/Recharge). My teammates don't seem to care, and it doesn't really affect me. We casually/accidentally(?) got Valet on a +4 Market Crash, I don't know that any of us had Incarnates (I don't recall seeing any Lore pets). As a Defender, there isn't much of an onus to provide most of the damage... debuff and "control" is pretty good by itself. I think my slotting is just fine for damage and -resistance. The one compromise *I* make with my Storm/Storm (on teams) is that I try to limit how much Knockback I'll do. My usually teammates and I are all pretty chill about knockback, but I think it is reasonable to pay attention to what other players are doing. For Blasters, I think Storm Blast gets knocked because it needs the Storm Cell to maximize DPS in ways that other Blaster primaries do not.

In PvP zones, I fully expect that PvP can happen. Personally: I'd only "worry" about being defeated 1-on-1 in Recluse's Victory, in the other zones most at-level ATs should be able to make an escape if things are too annoying. It's been years since I saw teams in anything other than RV.

As near as I can tell, I clicked the glowie first. I was running at +1x8 and Silver Mantis was killed by an AoE before I 'rescued' her, I think that jinxed the mission. Clearing all enemies left it hung.

Plant Control is a little OP because of Seeds of Confusion. Carrion Creepers can also be made very powerful. The latter is a serious "fire-and-forget" type power. I want to add this: A Storm/Storm Defender offers very "Controller-like" play style that will get you all of the "storm" feels. Obviously it depends on slotting, but I accidentally took a level 30 Storm/Storm Defender into a level 30 radio mission solo at x8, and it had no trouble, but it was slow. If you have never played Controllers, there are a few things to be aware of. Damage is quite mediocre. Pets don't really overcome this (they help), except at very small (i.e. default x1) content. Controllers can mitigate this by exploring how %damage can be used successfully in some of the primary/secondary powers. Controls themselves can be a mixed bag, because they are single-target or AoE, and enemy critters may have resistance and/or protection.

I do think there are different drop rates for different tiers of inspirations, but I don't think there are different drop rates among inspirations in a tier (other than the 0% Iron Wills+)... at least not by "feel". I want to disclose that I always "reject resurrection" inspirations (I just keep some in email), and I am 50-50 on if I have team inspiration drops turned on (Tankers, MMs almost always; Blasters, Scrappers almost never, other ATs depend on other factors). I often have a "special tray" set up with macros to combine reds/yellows/blues into either heals or resist effects; I find that I can typically build characters that don't "need" red/yellow/blue for most content, but enemies can cause me to "need" greens/pinks. MMV based on AT and content of course.

*) Go online to find a 1+ year-old thread to offer some necromantic advice.

It's hard to follow some of the alt-radio ramblings, but if CoX required players to "solve puzzles" by moving boxes and flipping levers (a la Half-Life, or gawd help us Myst) I think I'd check out. I'm also not looking for 372 hours of potential dialogue from clicking on every NPC in the game, a la Deus Ex.

For the Blaster's Epic Dark Mastery, I think a Tar Patch probably be either OP (on a Blaster). If someone was looking for powers (for an Epic Blaster) to replace those last two powers, I feel like the choices would be something more like: Black Hole -> Haunts (Mu gets a pet summon at 38) Soul Consumption -> maybe a PBAoE aura toggle that does minor damage and provides a minor heal? To Compliment Dark Consumption/Soul Drain? A replacement for Soul Consumption is, at least in my cranium, a little difficult to parse. I feel like in order to really channel the complete Dark experience it should be a toggle. Most Blasters have a sustain that really ought to be meeting their needs in either/both Endurance and Health... so a long recharge PBAoE click that requires an accuracy check is highly inferior... even with the enemy-affecting features. I think Black Hole makes enough sense (*1) as an Epic Dark power for Blasters, so maybe just Soul Consumption -> Haunts? (*1) As long a such a power exists in the game, I think Black Hole is exactly where it should be (for Blasters), even if tactically it is of limited use.

I'd knock down the Hero "Cloud of Odorous Smoke", because this mission can become impossible to complete, yet not fail.

I often try to run content organically (that is, at level) but if I was committed to that and tried to recruit teammates, it is an almost certain guarantee that I'd out-level some fraction of the content I intend to run. Like others, I have disabled earning XP to get the "organic" feel, but often I'm just going through Ouroboros (or Schweinzer/Haskell) to get to specific content. An improved set of rewards for going through Ouroboros, or organic play-thru, isn't something I need. Often when I am running low-level Ouroboros content I can turn up the spawn sizes to get more rewards (XP, Inf, drops) that way. IIRC, there are some rewards (e.g. temp powers like Peebles' Ring?) that are better if achieved through organic play, which always struck a sour note with me. I am tempted to write something like: "Learning the Lore is its own reward"... but because of choices the Live Devs made, much of the Lore is a hot mess. I do think that solo missions at-level can help players learn many things about their own powers, and how certain enemies behave (AI, special resistances, and with powers like debuffs) but I don't know that such knowledge can actually be learned, or if learned how useful it could be (see the bold reactions to FREEM! for example)

From my PoV, the non-Patron Blaster pools appear to have a rather odd assortment of powers that don't quite overlap (with each other), and somewhat echo primaries/secondaries which inspire them.... avoiding certain types of powers. Despite my crack offering side-eye to the hugely improved Blaster nukes, Defiance, etc, I'm not actively trying to make Blaster's Dark Mastery be bad, it is more (from my PoV) that there isn't much else to work with given the constraints without making Dark Mastery more like another pool. I see it sort of like the Presence Pool, for which it makes very little sense (to me) to generally want two of those first three powers (which have anti-synergy, for the most part), except to get access to the last two.

In this Thunder Strike example, are you considering the inherently lower damage done to targets which aren't the main target of the attack? EDIT: I want to be clear: I see folks post builds that misunderstand the importance of accuracy slotting in %damage attacks. I also don't think most players understand how RNG itself (as a flat pseudo-random generator) is going to make it extremely unlikely that a 4th proc would hit (even with a 90% ceiling and a 95% ToHit ceiling).

I believe the answer is "no". I will typically place the macro_image in a tray below the default power to be able to monitor the timer.

We were recently discussing this Epic set in the Blasters forum, mostly about the 600 second Soul Consumption, with the consensus that it really isn't likely to be worthwhile to take. As a power, it isn't radically out-of-line with most of the non-Patron level 44 powers, and as a fan of the Presence pool's Unrelenting, I can almost see how those powers' attributes echo. Personally, I wouldn't revamp this pool unless literally nobody is taking the powers. It's not as if Blasters haven't gotten a LOT of great things since launch. The recharge of Soul Consumption can stand as a sour testament to the original Blaster T9 nukes.

IIRC, Thunder Strike is a particularly poor choice to try for %damage, except on Tankers because of the extended range of splash/"excluding the main target" for Tankers.

I dunno about this, at least in terms of practical performance when it comes to making choices about leveraging %damage. Setting aside likely sacrifices from eschewing set bonuses (when frankenslotting) there is the %proc rate and final ToHit enemy chances (for the actual attack, and then the %proc) that get considered when I frankenslot with %damage. At least for me, there are plenty of powers that can accept a lot of different %damage pieces, but in which I rarely slot any %proc outside of a set bonus because the net value (on a map) is quite low, for example single-target holds. I'll also write that I put thought into %damage usage with respect to how I intend to play the specific character. I solo a LOT, so adding %damage to a low-DPS AT improves solo performance. I have a recent level 50 Blaster that would have been almost entirely Psi Damage (and sorry, I'm not taking power pool attacks on a Blaster unless there is something really special about the animation, or I absolutely need a pre-req) so I tried to augment the Psi attacks with enough non-Psi %damage for those fights against robots, etc. that would otherwise be incredibly slow. From the outside, it may look like some of *my* builds might be lazily dropping in %damage with some frankenslots for attribute boosting (I usually try to enhance Accuracy and Endurance, at least on non-DPS ATs, occasionally Accuracy and Range for cones), but I assure you that there is some thought behind my %proc usage. Now, having written all the above, I have seen some builds that looked to me like they did make choices about %damage that did not look well-considered. I'll occasionally point out what I consider to be sub-optimal choices, but it is impossible (at least for me) to know if the player is number-crunching/theory-crafting, or observing performance in game, or just strolling through a specific kind of content that makes it hard for them to evaluate potentially different slotting choices. FWIW, I definitely think that it is worthwhile to use unslotters to try different combinations of enhancements in-game to test performance in situ. This is a lot less painful than a complete respec, and can inform potential future changes to the build.

I realize I'm chancing an "umm, actually" response, so I want to make it clear I'm NOT challenging the statement that "all you need to fly is Fly", because technically Fly could be replaced with Hover, or a temp power, or a teammate with Group Fly, or blah blah blah fishcakes. The point about having to have multiple toggles on is about maximizing the utility basic travel power flying. Flying with just Hover is painfully slow. Flying with just Fly is speedy, but greater endurance cost and no "flight control". Evasive Maneuvers is necessary power for on-demand boosting of flying speed, with some other effects that are roughly on the order what Combat Jumping provides (for a higher Endurance cost). Then there is the (current) Afterburner toggle for more zip (if Fly is toggled on). Those three (and sometimes four) toggles are used if the player wants travel speed and control that is roughly equivalent to what a character using a different travel pool gets by simply lifting a finger from the keyboard. (I am aware that other travel powers may have their own weirdness vis-a-vis "control" or only offering JumpSpeed or RunSpeed but not both.) If the player has pets or henches that they also want to Fly (because they don't inherently Fly), then Group Fly gets toggled on as the fourth/fifth toggle. My ask is that Evasive Maneuvers get turned into an Auto power. I'm ok if it has to become a "Level 20" pick. I'm ok if it loses even more immobilization protection relative to Combat Jumping. It simply strikes me as weird that in order to improve either Hover or Fly I need to have another toggle, especially when I look at the (pick only one) Origin pools that combine multiple types of travel options (albeit limited ones) with a single level 4 power pick. I've looked at other power pools for a similar sort of power that improves other, earlier powers from the same pool and the closest I can find is the non-toggle Field Medic from Medicine.

My point was more along the lines of how %proc damage is a pretty good equalizer across all ATs (and drives a sweet variety in build choices), and that some players see the corner-case of the Changeling exploit similarly. I personally don't use the Changeling trick because it 100% seems like cheat code, whereas we've had a decade of %proc and fun for everyone except possibly that one edgelord on some "speed leaderboard".

It's really not that hard, assuming that players actually clean up the event (during AND after construction). The events are IIRC on the same 4-hour timer. It is almost never a stray Paladin, it is almost always a stray clockwork preventing the restart of one of the three sites.