tidge

I can take-or-leave leading teams. Frankly, the biggest annoyance I have with forming teams (and to a slighter extent, joining teams) is the gauge of "how long to wait?" before launching content that will close... so TFs/SFs/Ouroboros. I know I *want* to get to the content; I work off the assumption that those who have joined feel likewise. Waiting after a tell is fine, but recruiting for more than 5 minutes seems excessive for most content. I never fuss over AT selection; I roll my eyes when I see those requests. I understand if specific ATs are requested for a specific badge.

I can't get worked up about multi-boxing for rewards except in the open-world... I certainly haven't enjoyed mission teaming when it turned out that one player was multi-boxing, but what happens on an instanced map can stay on the instanced map. I find it insulting when the multi-boxers criticize me for spending 5 minutes to take down a Giant Monster when their preferred approach is to spend 1 minute bringing their alts to the GM and each of them pops Lores for a sub 60-second fight. I know it takes all kinds, but fer crying out loud the Monster might have been there for up to 24 hours! Don't try to sugar-coat and attempt at multi-boxing rewards by advertising "Room for 5 (or 6)"! At least while the Spring Fling is happening, and soon when the Mapserver league starts, the typical multi-box suspects are farming content other than Giant Monsters... which pretty much reinforces to me who sees the open world as a zero-sum game and who does not.

My experience starting solo red-sider has been that the red-siders do accumulate merits "faster" (that is. by level) than blue-siders. The primary advantages that blue side has , in terms of merits, is: It is easier to get (more) zone exploration merits (partially because it is trivial for blue side to get an Ouro portal), but also more zones. It is easier to get on a TF blue side (because population), and TF merit rewards are pretty good!

I haven't encountered that sort of response about marketeering, but I have gotten that exact sort of response by soloing (single-box) Giant Monsters... often from multi-boxers, several of whom commonly "camp" at the Adamastor summoning spot. The typical complaint is griefing somewhere on the spectrum of "why don't you invite all my characters to share the wealth?"... and I have reasons, but none of them are to "make other players poor". As an aside: It's hard for me to take some of these folks seriously, because they have alts with names like "Scrapyard Summoner", "Adamastor Farmer", etc. Like the OP's report of the complaint about using the market to grow individual "wealth", I don't think people who make these sorts of complaints are either thinking things through or paying attention to the game. The market prices have been almost entirely deflationary in the past (almost) six years. If properly dealt with, the giant monsters will be back in 2-to-4 hours, if not sooner. In the specific circumstances of the OP (a conversation during some other player's farming session) it is possible that the other player has a somewhat limited PoV about the game, about builds, and about how to "afford" builds. 20 MInf is pretty easy to spend at a START vendor, but it is a very reasonable (and typical for my alts) "starting kitty" to do a little marketing and crafting while leveraging enhancements stored in the SG base. "Big Money" only comes out if I want a lot of Purples RIGHT NAO, and I suppose at the start of an alts career when I usually make the ATOs available to the new character from one of my previous characters' wealth.

Despite the one major complaint I have had about the way the zones in CoV were constructed (TLDR: the zones drew a LOT of stuff that wasn't visible/accessible on the map, which needlessly stressed commonly used video cards at launch), for the most part I find the red-side zones to be much more cleverly built and a better showcase for map design talents. Also: I think the decision to try to make a "vertical" zone like Grandville was a bad one (*1), but it is clear that it was something that the team specifically wanted to try, and they pretty much learned their lesson. See also the color palette choices for "Arachnos' base" The closest we ever got after CoV to open-world "vertical challenges" were the very limited First/Night Ward. (*1) Grandville has a more annoying issue than "being vertical" IMO: It's the layout/doors/elevators to get to the Patrons/Lord Recluse. I think I see what they were going for, but I find getting to them to be annoying.

Shifting Tides is a "set-and-forget" power that hangs around for a long time and that will be used anyway, with a rather large AoE. I'd keep the %damage in it before I swapped any into single-target powers.

You have to pick either Shoal Rush or Soothing Wave, I recommend Shoal Rush, especially if someone is trying to "proc monster". See comments by @Carnifax. I didn't think it would be a good source of %damage, because "toggle", but I tested it (solo) and found that it was an extremely reliable source of %damage, even after an enemy was defeated (assuming they left a body behind). My final slotting for it was: Positron's Blast Accuracy/Damage/Endurance Reduction 50+5 Annihilation Accuracy/Damage/Endurance Reduction 50+5 Javelin Volley %Lethal Bombardment %Fire Positron's Blast %Energy It works just fine on an ally modulo how close they are, but solo on enemies (at relatively low level) is how I tested its proof-of-concept.

It is impossible to predict what preconceived a random newbie will think about anything. As long as you are aware that you are coming across as wanting to be the word police, also fair.

I use %damage because it wasn't all that long ago that it wasn't uncommon for folks to refer to global enhancements as "procs", and there are other categories of "procs" that are almost never what folks are referring to in "proc monster" type considerations. I can't help if other people are confused, but my use of %damage is to make it clear that *I* am referring to enhancement set pieces that include a PPM damage chance. For "Damage Enhancing" in the context of slotting I just use the words "Damage", just like I use the words "Accuracy", "Endurance Reduction", "Control Duration", etc. My suspicion is that many people go right into "procs for damage" without even considering something as basic as Accuracy slotting, and you won't find "%Accuracy" used by me in any context (except to explain I won't use the term).

One reason I don't typically add %damage to single-target attacks (if not in a set I will be using anyway) is that often the extra damage in the single-target attack isn't helping me (or a team) clear large spawn sizes faster or with fewer clicks of attacks. For an early career character that can take some level 10 %damage pieces in a single-target T1... sure, that speeds up clear times at those levels, but for DPS-focused ATs such things become far less important with slotting and more attacks.

Mileage varies, but my experience with Corruptors is that they generally perform better with set enhancements and minimal %procs... but I'll try to offer a suggestion to the question as asked, let me get this out of the way I see two main reasons to pursue %damage, and neither is "because I can" The primary/secondary isn't bringing enough variety in damage types (ur-example is Psychic damage, which gets highly resisted by certain enemy types especially end-game) There are powers in the primary/secondary (or pools!) that will reliable do more damage (on average) to more enemies than just slotting those powers with damage enhancements In other words: If you want to leverage %damage on a Corruptor, as well as see some benefit from Scourge, I think you want to focus on the Secondary and Pools (probably Epic/Patron) for the %damage. I think Marine Affinity is a strong candidate. T1 Shoal Rush is a large AoE that can get both accuracy pieces and several %damage. T3 Toroidal Bubble is a good mule for useful pieces, and it comes early. T4 Whitecap is a fun PBAoE attack power that can also take Accuracy/Enurance pieces and many %damage options. T5 Tidepool shouldn't be slotted except maybe for Endurance Reduction. T6 Brine will mesh well with all sources of damage, including Scourge. T7 Shifting Tides is a surprisingly good AoE %damage power (when spawn sizes are increased) T8 and T9 Barrier Reef and Power of the Depths are solid. If you %proc out the secondary, and set-slot the primary you likely won't have many slots to add to Epic/Patron powers. I rather like Soul mastery for %damage but I don't think you would need it with Marine Affinity.

A few things. 1) There is effectively a "no player tributes via NPC" policy in place (for HC-created content); this would extend to making enemies from PCs. 2) Players that don't want to go to red side will not go to red side. Some players cannot be drawn to red side (or gold side) by any incentive, some players only go reluctantly. I don't want to be too critical of players that make that choice, but I'd prefer to not read the umpteenth version of "The buildings are ugly" and "But I have no agency!" reasons. I get it, some folks just want to stay blueside... it's a valid choice but it is one that prevents them from seeing a lot more of the game.

My thoughts/experiences on Skyway City Troll Raves: Currently, there is only a narrow window for when it is possible for characters to handle the Supa Trolls *and* also get XP from them. The times I've used Supa Trolls for XP (reasonably often for blue side!) I tend to level up from them PDQ. If they were level-less, I'm neither sure it would make sense for characters below level 12 to be "hunting" them, not that above level 16 they should just be anything but fast(ish) defeats for badges seekers. The SupaTrolls are basically threading the needle of level ranges in the zone, just like the ghost freighter spawns.

Setting aside any potential secondary effects due to enemies in melee range; I have a hard time noticing if (some) taunt auras make a significant difference. On teams... I feel like they help when I also have a Scrapper with (PB)AoE attacks if no one else is trying to get aggro. Solo... I can occasionally see that if *I* move away from certain types of enemies that I've been engaged with, those enemies sometimes decide to come with me. The main lesson that Scrapper 'taunt auras' have reinforced is that "just running past" an enemy with an aura toggled on is not actually any good for "grabbing aggro". Solo... yeah, an enemy will pay attention to the ONE PC they notice... but on teams that does not mean that the same critter is going to pay MORE attention to someone that sped past them than a teammate attacking them.

I don't have access to minitab or JASP, but I can back-of-the-envelope offer these numbers for sample sizes, to give you an idea of how much data you would have to collect to tell the difference between 95% ToHits (H0) and an alternative hypothesis of 95.2% ToHits (H1). For 80% Confidence and 50% Power, you would have to see something like 7927 hits out of 8329 attempts. For something like 95% Confidence and 80% power, I think the necessary number of swings would have to be on the order of 145.5 million. This of course isn't the test I would do: I would try to count "misses", where the null hypothesis (H0) is 0.05 and the alternative hypothesis is something like 0.055 (H1, honestly this is just a guess). I think the numbers for 95% confidence and 80% power are only 12251 "swings", and if 653 (or more) "misses" occur that would reject the 0.050 miss rate in favor of the 0.055 miss rate. I don't know that I believe the miss rate to be 0.055% (or higher!) but for the frequency at which I see a MISS floaty when targeting con-grey spawn sizes smaller than 10 with AoEs, makes me feel that the miss rate is greater than 0.050. For example, for 80% Confidence and 50% Power, it would only take a minimum of 78 misses from 1412 swings to reject 5% in favor of 5.5%. "Science" doesn't like such low Confidence and abhors such low Power... but the low power is a type II error about accepting the 5.5% miss rate as true, not an assessment about that the 5% miss rate. I feel that 80/50 is fine for "gut checks" that something isn't right about the null hypothesis.

I have no comments on any specific build, but I feel like adding this: Endurance burn/Recovery (on a pre-incarnate level 50 build with accolades) is something I try to remember(*1) to evaluate. It isn't unusual for me to discover that a particular character doesn't need all the +Recovery that it may have needed while leveling up. Sometimes this is from set bonuses, sometimes it is because of Enhancement's boosting Endurance reduction. [Also note: I rarely use Hasten, so I typically neither have the eventual Endurance payment nor the faster cycling through certain powers.] If @KaizenSoze says Endurance isn't an issue, I have no reason to doubt it. (*1) My evaluation is typically as simple as using an unslotter and running though a variety of content. Sometimes I'll notice Endurance spend is more of an issue at lower levels, but not always... especially once Accolades are in the build and if powers used at lower-levels have Endurance reduction.

Maybe these thoughts will help to narrow the selection? I'd ignore any Scrapper (primary) that includes damage-over-time as a significant portion of the damage dealt. This is based on my own experience with a Savage Melee Scrapper... the Criticals don't occur with DoT, so something liek a Brute would be better because Fury does boost that damage (I realize Brutes were not in the ask, just saying). This wasn't directly mentioned, but sometimes there is a sort of obsession with %damage from procs. Scrapper combos should do 'better' than Tankers where %damage isn't the end-all-be-all. In other words, trying to leverage %damage instead of improving damage (and other attributes) from Scrapper attacks is probably tilting the advantage to Tankers. In order to get the most out of the Critical Strikes ATO %+Critical Hit proc, you want to have attacks to use that have favorable "arcana-time minus animation-time-before-effect". See this post for the explanation and some examples.

This. Just vendor those enhancement drops. As a practical matter, unless a player is playing a somewhat peculiar corner of the game (e.g. low levels with a high spawn size and NoXP) the enhancement inventory shouldn't be filling up with DO/SO drops faster than they can be sold.

It wasn't what the OP wrote, but @Rudra is correct that the ask is (indirectly) to be able to 'street sweep' whatever enemies, in whatever zone, in order to: Never face higher-con opponents, and Get drops (including XP and Inf) from all enemies This outcome isn't really isn't really ideal IMO, because we've already repeatedly seen, over-and-over-again, multiple times, repeatedly, that players will always flock to content where they can get the most reward for the least effort, and if 'street sweeping level-less Skulls in Perez Park' (for example) became the new hotness, we'd see a LOT of players migrate to that kind of content (as opposed to AE farms, PI radio missions, whatever FOTM). One of the core aspects of the CoX model is that the open-world zones really are, for the most part, tied to player level. In old-school terms: players don't continue running Keep on the Borderlands for their entire D&D career! Generally, the level-less spawns serve two purposes in-game: Zone events, which can happen in (almost) any zone. Critters are level-less to attract interest across entire player base. These enemies self-clear when the event ends. GM add-ons, which have to be defeated in order for the GM event to respawn (also Zig Breakout). These critters are level-less to offer rewards for resetting the event (and these crtitters are somewhat easy to find)

This was from a long-ago thread where IIRC a player was not accounting for something that wasn't logged.

Sometimes when I've decided I don't want that 50+5 IO I'll convert it (if it is a set piece) to a piece I do want, or I just save it.

Winter (and other Event) pieces, level 50 PVP Recipes, and Purple Recipes are 100 merits at merit vendors. Those items cane be sold (and/or crafted and then sold) on the AH. 1 Booster requires 5 Merits, 1 converter requires (effectively) one-third of a merit. Catalysts require 20 merits each, but lets ignore those since they regularly drop(*1) The 'rosetta stone' for merits->inf is probably converters, since they are in high demand. So if a converter is 50 kInf on the AH (or 150k-per-merit), the "100 merit items" would have to cost more than 15 MInf (not counting the 10% charge at the AH for selling) to yield better return than converters, the 20 Merit items would have to be selling for more than 3 Minf to be a better deal than converters (for selling).