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I have a Spines/Bio Stalker, but not as a Scrapper. The /Bio Secondary makes the Stalker into a very effective PBAoE murder machine. The subtle differences between those two AT in the Primary give me a little bit of pause, mostly because the Scrapper won't have an Assassin's Strike, so as @arcane wrote the single-target damage may be lackluster for the leveling experience. A recollection of my Stalker leveling experience is that I wasn't impressed with Spine Burst. My final build has it delayed until level 12 and slotted with 5xArmageddon. I think it was that I found the animation to be a little clumsy.

Perhaps what dear @Shin Magmus is trying to say is more like this: "Because of various combat effects, including player RNG rolls resulting in MISS with a single-target attack/control that would have otherwise kept a specific Carnie from phasing, fights with large Carnie spawns feel peculiarly random in ways that fights with other similarly sized spawns do not." Maybe It was in reference to whether or not the enemy Illusionists phase before the player fires off an AoE against their spawn? Both are more annoying than any trick played by nuCouncil. We've all experience an RNG-cursed miss after a Build-Up/Assassin's Strike... but I think all the times I've missed with any attack/control against a phasing Carnie that if it had hit would have either face-planted them or held them, and I don't feel at all bad about those missed AS.

I build with level 50 in mind, but as a practical matter I typically only plot out up through level 32. While leveling: I don't honor what the final build will be in terms of powers or slotting, certainly not in set choices (because Purples, etc. aren't available below a certain level). Every once in a while I will make radically different choices in power pools while leveling up. I like to experiment, and respecs are plentiful. Some things I do while leveling: I often have more +Recovery than what a final build will have. I typically don't multi-slot powers like Build Up even if a final build has multiple slots. When I see a build posted that has Hasten before level 10, I can pretty much guess that such a build was not played organically. There are some powers that simply don't make sense to take very early. Hasten sticks out to me because it isn't commonly taken because there is some later power in the Speed pool that is being gatekept by needing to take multiple earlier powers.

IIRC, Freaks have generally lower XP because they can rez.

NuCouncil used to have no tricks, and were doormats compared to other groups. It is no secret that players would advertise "Council Radios in PI", I am not going to be convinced it is because the OTHER groups in radio options lacked "cool gimmicks". I think it is disingenuous for a "Live Dev" to throw shade at the most recent update to enemy groups when what we had on live was not exactly imaginative. KoV and BP in Dark Astoria... pretty good! Other groups that never got updated on Live? Pretty big blind spot IMO. Personally, I find the Carnies to be the MOST annoying (not the most difficult) at x8, because of the constant phasing, flying and running. NuCouncil, even with an occasional runner, is still easier to deal with. Even low levels have some highly annoying "classic" enemy behavior. I'm thinking of defeat all or even defeat specific spawns were the original CoT spectres go invisible and fly away. Tell me more about the classic non-boring play.

You can right-click on tabs (even ones you have added) to edit what appears in what tabs. I tend to have a dedicated tab that includes cutscene dialogue, npc dialogue, system and rewards... removing those things from the other tabs.

Trap or opportunity for learning? It's hard for me to recall my feels from the earliest days of Live w.r.t. slotting (mostly because debt was so burdensome at launch), but because the leveling experience was so much slower at launch, I remember being able to tell (beyond the red numbers on the enhancements) that my character was struggling upon leveling. I'd combine DOs and SOs all the time. I don't remember feeling like there was pressure to keep all my DOs/SOs at peak performance. Now with so many ways to quickly level by just playing.... I suspect the issue is that some (uninformed) players may want to both level quickly and have those quickly leveling characters perform at a peak levels. This is of course possible, even trivial, but it requires things like: Players need to know about the Invention system and the Auction House, and use them Players need to have a little bit of a nest egg (rather trivial for level 50s to build, assuming they vendor IO recipes) SG storage makes this much easier for multiple characters, but in-game email can also work Once a player gets familiar with those things, DO/SO will stop using head-space.

The UI scrollbar issues are not limited to the Incarnate menu. See also the Recipe crafting menu, the Ouroboros menu, etc. As most everyone else wrote: The Incarnate system is possibly the most confusing aspect of "character building", as it includes unlocks, crafting, and multiple possible power picks. My own biases: I tend to ignore the Incarnate system and content. I like that I can now solo it, and earn it without grinding on PUGs as on Live. I will eventually slot Alpha, to get the +1 level shift, and to get more oomph of some set of attributes. The other attributes and tiers will usually only get slotted when I want to play with buddies in "Incarnate" or "Hard Mode" content. Personally? Originally (Live) I saw the Incarnate system as being mostly a way to get powers that my ATs couldn't normally have: AoEs, Heals, Shields, Pets, whatever. I used to like this, now I'm less inclined to think this is necessary, even for solo play. I never took Enhancement Diversification personally, but I won't ignore how Alpha can improve performance.

IIRC, the original DO/SO drops being usable by characters (by origin) were supposed to be handled by the character picking contacts that were offering specific enemy groups. This is manifest in the pre-40 content when introduced to (and before selecting) contacts when the player is informed which enemy groups a contact will offer missions for. Early contacts will be more explicit about which origins they align with. Back-in-the-day, there were more resources out-of-game to be able to learn which groups favored which SO/DO drops. The Invention systems (even common recipes!) essentially supplanted DO/SO. Mathematically, I see no real reason to worry about SO/DO once a character can slot level 25 common IOs. If folks want to play with DOs/SOs... I feel that those players have made a choice such that they probably shouldn't need the game to be modified to support a version of the original, unmodified version of the game. As an aside: because of the rewards associated with crafting level 25 and 30 common IOs, the market place (introduced at the end of the IO tutorial, should have plenty of enhancements at those levels, for relatively cheap.

Excellent point made: I can offer my own guesses as to why folks prefer farming... but they would simply be guesses. From my own, extremely limited "farming" experience, I can say I did it explicitly for: random drops, and "daily rewards" used to build up a "nest egg" that has been used in the many subsequent years to improve the play experience of subsequent alts I honestly never considered AE farming for XP... mostly because it is pretty easy to get as much XP as fast as I want otherwise... and I don't usually "want" fast XP. I can post my impressions what other "farmers" have liked during the assort "rage quit" periods... there is some number of "farmers" that simply want as much as possible for as little effort as possible (my words, not theirs). This was most noticeable IMO when the changes to Vanguard, and later Empyrian, merit rewards occurred (see also the "level 49 cheat") ... I write IMO because there is no in-game reason to have been hurt by those changes except in the raw accumulation of MOAR. The MOAR certainly can be used in different ways, but the in-game economy was being affected in some peculiar ways that the devs felt like they should step in. I think it is self-evident that many players absolutely will accept and migrate to content that they feel is offering them the most (in-game) rewards for the smallest amount of effort... this is human nature. It see it manifest in game quite a bit: Torchbearer's "Saturday Night Synapse" started as a sort of fun stress test of giant monsters in-zone, but the total number of players simply calling out in zone for "overflow" makes it somewhat obvious that some fraction of players are just there for the merits. The last several months don't look like "playing", at least not to me. The change to the Ghost of Scrapyard rewards, after Monstrous Aethers were introduced. It used to be incredibly difficult to get players to go to "red side", up until it became widely known that this GM could be trivially farmed. Torchbearer has hours upon hours of leagues constantly resummoning and defeating that Giant Monster.

I definitely don't want to diminish the dedication of folks working with legacy code for a rather complicated problem... but I long ago stopped using MIDS variants for personal reasons: It seemed like it needed a LOT of extra resources to install (and run?), far more than I expected for what should be essentially a database tool For me, someone who is familiar with the sets usable for powers, and can reference other sites (City of Data!), the primary value a tool like MIDS would provide would be to see relatively tiny fractional changes between relatively major changes in power/slot choices. It was during an attempted MIDS install, during a period when I was feeling like I should give it another chance, that the HDD it was being installed on bricked itself. In reverse order: (3) This is the most personal, and it isn't fair to assign blame to MIDS, but hey... it happened! (2) I am not now, never have been, and at this point incredibly unlikely to become the type of player that sweats out an extra point of damage, or 0.3% defense, or tries to build a "perfect" attack chain, or similar. I don't want to yuck in the yum of players who want to go "crunchy", but my perception is that such players often present this attitude with such an intense level of detail and content constraints that I find myself wondering how mellow they would be in other, less structured, content. (1) From the outside... this is very hard to gauge, but having worked professionally on a significant number of software projects, most of which involved legacy code, this project feels like it needs to be refactored. This is a nearly impossible thing to ask a team of volunteers to do, because folks will work on the parts they want to work on. As for how would I refactor/redesign such a tool? #1 I'd start with the Pareto principle and recognize that "80% of the development effort is focused on 20% of the features"... so delay/eliminate the 20% of the features that are going to consume huge amounts of coding. It is fine to put hooks in place for future efforts, but don't try to develop a core that does everything. If I had to guess what 80% of teh user base wants: A graphical interface that allows, once an AT is selected Choice of primary/secondaries Power choices (including from pools, etc.) and slot placements Appropriate/allowable enhancement slots for chosen powers, plus set bonuses "Totals" for powers (considering ED, natch) and "globals" (including "toggles") Saving/exporting/importing builds Things like "DPA", even though it is considered critical to some players, could probably take a bake seat for 80% of the user base. Heck, even though I use procs, I'd probably be able to live without an explicit calculation for "%proc" chance to start. Even though *I* go for accolades... and even Incarnates... these are other considerations that *I* think might complicate getting a smoothly working product. #2 is more code-specific, and likely unfair because of my unfamiliarity with the code base... I'd try to make the database (of classes, of power sets, of enhancement sets, etc.) completely standalone and "distributable" such that a local version of the database could be relatively trivially installed/modified/updated locally by users... and if necessary refactor the database. I want to believe the database is relatively well-constructed, because of how well City of Data shows things... but years ago it felt like there were a number of database issues with the MIDS variants. Similarly... get the core UI working, and come up with a way that it wouldn't need to be tweaked.

Does he remember how needlessly grindy the original Live Incarnate content was? Does Phil ever recall the other level 35+ groups? The nuCouncil and nuCoT are no more "annoying" to fight that Rularuu, Nemesis, MoG PP, Carnie Illusionists, etc.

Hard disagree. I'll describe a just-this-week experience of getting a blue-sider to level 24. I'll note I have "starting funds" and a stocked SG base. 1) Launch the character in Outbreak, bought some START stuff (AoE temp attacks, 8 hours of buffs (24 Kinf at level 1), some travel stuff, disabled some drops... but no 2XP) 2) After Outbreak, went to AP. Still no 2XP. Did a scrub arc and the first Matthew Hasby. I want to note that while in Atlas (and later zones) I was careful to never have more than 10 bars of Patrol XP (mostly from exploration) 3) at level 5, I went to KR to do 3 radios and then the first Safequard. 4) Went to Hollows and completed the Flux arc 5) Went back to KR and did the second safeguard to unlock the "Save the Fortune Teller" contact. 6) After these, I was at level 15 (leveraging patrol XP), so started Montague's arc (still haven't finished it) because I then did 7) 3rd Safeguard... and I verified that if you already have Montague, detectives in neither Steel canyon nor Skyway City will give a new contact! 8 - Joined a Positron 1 9) Did the 4th Safeguard (Summon Teammates!), started doing TIPs (which are fun content IMO). This isn't a trash experience! Notice I didn't include a DFB, and I barely touched "regular contact" missions. I've already out-leveled the "newer" content in the Hollows, Steel Canyon and Faultline... and I have only the first TF completed. I still have many zones to use for Patrol XP (also, day jobs). My experience red side is very much the same, except that PUG SFs are fewer in number. If I feel like I've entered a doldrums period after level 30, I'll do the PVP zones content, Ouroborous initiation, join some more TFs, etc.

Don't try to drag me into whatever the "freedom" argument is. I'm exercising my freedom to not care.

I don't use MIDS, so I don't know if this applies or not to the build: I kinda hate Thunderstrike as an attack, except on Tankers. I like it more on Tankers because of their increased AoE... I tried to make it work on a Dominator, and it was (on that character) essentially a mediocre ST attack with a very low chance of actually adding any damage to any other critter that was not the original target. It comes early enough as a power pick that a Scrapper ought to be able to test in out through regular leveling, so don't take my word that it may be a skippable power. Lightning Clap is an interesting power. I feel that it needs a KB->KD piece in it for the melee types, but beyond that you have options. I like to have it 5-slotted with Absolute Amazement, but you could do some minimal franken-slotting to leverage an Explosive Strike %Smashing piece to get some damage from it. I tend to not add Forced Feedback %+Recharge procs, but many people swear by them.

I see the fine line that is trying to be walked by using the adjective "self-imposed", but as far as I am concerned there is no practical difference between self-imposing a player cap (on something like a TF/SF) and self-imposing a time limit for "how long am I going to recruit for ____?" Writing only for myself: I don't like to spend more than 6 minutes recruiting for TF/SF. Unless I feel the assembled group is under-powered for the task, I'll launch with team sizes of less than 8. Also like others, I absolutely play with buddies where we occasionally don't open smaller teams on TFs to the public... this isn't because we're elitist, it's because we are cornballs who don't mind more of a challenge for game content we've all played many times before.

I'll admit: I actively avoided trying the page 6 Storm Blast... mostly because it felt like it was "the flavor of the month", and a little bit because it seems like it took particle effects to eleven. From the outside, peering in at Storm Blast, I wonder if this is one of those sets I'd like more on an AT other than Blaster. For a point of comparison, I like Beam Rifle a lot more on my Sentinels and Defenders.

One things I was disappointed by over a recent weekend was a single player reacting very negatively in LFG to requests by players to be sitters in AE farms. The public hostility was not really needed. Personally? I don't see the fun or necessity to be a farm sitter. The game has so much content! I would prefer to play with folks that have explored their powers and build choices through experience, but another player's lack of experience or bad build choices doesn't affect my fun. Every once in a while I end up on a PUG where another player has (what I perceive as) a peculiar sort of opinion about "how the game works"... it could be because they remember some old advice from Live, it could be that they only know other MMO, it could be they have lived a rather sheltered experience in CoX... I don't think *I* have failed them because their perspective is different from mine.

The Fear and Threat sets are quite deficient. Each has a pair at level 10-30, and a pair at 20-50. Far fewer options than any other "control", hard or soft. (snicker "several") With the exception of the final piece in the 10-30 pair, each set offers exactly the same enhancement elements, so no practical variety of options for enhancement. Each Threat set only one Accuracy boosting piece, despite the large number of threat powers with actually require Accuracy (Presence Pool, most auras, Tanker attacks, etc.) No Threat set includes an Endurance reduction boosting piece. The set bonuses for slotting the 10-30 Fear sets are incredibly similar. Neither Threat nor Fear has a Purple, Winter, or PVP set. The HO/DS options for Threat are severely limited, the options for Fear are slightly better. For comparison: Sleep, Confuse and Stun have Purple enhancement options. The only things that I can see Threat (or if you prefer, the original "Aggro") and Fear have in common are that over the decades the way the critter AI reacts to those two effects has been modified... yet even after the Live aggro changes, there really was no reason to keep the enhancement options for Threat to be so pitiful... even considering potential PVP affects, which always seemed to be a bugbear for the Live devs. Now that HC has reworked "Threat", there is IMO a greater need than ever to add some variety to its enhancement options. Fear is in a somewhat better state for enhancement boosts, with an obvious gap: There is nothing available for slotting single-target Fear powers that makes them useful for late-game play. In comparison with other "control" sets: A single-target Confuse can be slotted with a purple %Contageous Confusion piece, which offers the chance for the single-target to become a sort of AoE A single-target Hold can be slotted with a %+Mag piece, which offers the chance to Hold a boss (without having to cast two different holds) The Immobilize purple set offers a %Hold (on top of the immobilize), which can be an additional stack of Hold magnitude Holds have a kazillion %damage options, which allow single-target Holds to become damaging attacks

For attacks with high base damage, on ATs with good damage scalars, I typically won't franken-slot for %damage, although if a %damage piece is in a set, I am likely to include it on the path to a set bonus I am chasing. For attacks that deal damage-over-time, any %damage from a proc will be "front loaded", sometimes I find that it is better to get the damage up-front. If a power is going to have an inherent recharge less than 12 seconds... I find that it is typically not worth investing hoping for %damage. Those attacks are most likely to get set bonuses. Enhancement Diversification is independent of %proc pieces. The %damage is independent of the AT damage scalar effects, which means that a %damage piece will add the same amount of damage for all ATs. Some folks will make a point about how the %damage can help a character get past the Damage cap, but I find that to be a sort of corner case. Note: I don't play Brutes. I think it will be very hard to be at the damage cap solo, and I think it would have to include Incarnates, Inspirations, and/or something else (Scrapper criticals?) or those hypothetical Kinetics who happen to be standing by. With single targets... it is almost as important to weigh more recharge than it would be %damage! I almost never seek to put %damage into a single-target power unless: The character is below level 10, because of the START Enhancement pieces. which can be slotted right away at lvl 1 The character has low (or no!) DPS single-target attacks (by the time they can slot %damage) I don't need a set bonus from whatever power. I am desperate for some "off-type" damage for the primary/secondary I am playing. For example: Single-target holds are often early for low-DPS characters, and they can slot some %damage early from low level sets. That combination could help a Controller do more damage at early levels, if the proc rates are favorable. Ultimately, most Controllers will probably get better results (faster clear speeds) with %damage in the AoEs. It used to be common to see folks recommending putting %damage in every power that can take them,,, but I think that is a bad choice.

I agree, and probably wrote (somewhere) that I don't think "more enhancement slots for Kheldians" is the answer. I see a bigger obstacle being this: even if I lean hard into one (or two) of the different forms (via dedicating slots), I'm pretty much stuck with playing a pretty mediocre whatever (Blaster, Tanker). VEATs don't leave me with this feeling, because even with a "second" set of primary/secondaries, I can tailor those VEAT builds... I'm not "stuck" with either the powers from the baseline or from the chosen path... but with HEATs I pretty much get the powers from the other forms, and there is no real tailoring of a build... except possibly in human-form-dominant play... but that choice is sacrificing what make the HEATs unique.

I want to bandwagon what @kelika2 wrote. Generally I find the Sentinel Epic/Patron powers to be "clunky" to use with the Sentinel primaries, the powers are somewhat late in the build for my taste to "improve" playability, and I personally disfavor single target attacks coming at level 35+ for ATs that have already had a primary full of single-target attacks. Obviously, if there is something in the Epic/Patron that fulfills a concept... go for it! The one sort of pick I can see making strategic sense would be to pick an AoE immobilize if you are the sort of player that is really bothered by Knockback. IIRC the AoE immobilizes provide Knockback resistance to the affected targets.

My final-build slotting of Dark Regeneration is: Touch of the Nictus Acc/End/Heal Touch of the Nictus Acc/End/Recharge Touch of the Nictus %Negative Theft of Essence %+Endurance Obliteration %Smashing Eradication %Energy IIRC Touch of the Nictus can't be slotted until way after level 22, so I'd just slot for Accuracy and Endurance reduction (IOs) before then. I don't sleep on slotting it for Endurance reduction on Dark Regeneration, as its cost-to-cast is rather steep. I find that the %proc chances are improved with more Accuracy slotting in the powers themselves, as I believe that there is an additional ToHit roll (beyond both the initial necessary ToHit and any %proc chance) for %procs in all powers (to prevent AutoHit powers from having ceiling %proc chances). I believe that a player's Global Accuracy/ToHit bonuses do not get factored into this extra "ToHit" roll for %proc effects. Because Dark Armor relies so heavily on Dark Regeneration to survive (more so than any toggle except for Obsidian Shield), if you don't add KB protection into the build you will eventually find yourself unable to click on Dark Regeneration when you want it (ehem, FREEM!). I shoot for 14 points of KB protection, because adding 10 more points from a SG base buff makes you functionally immune to FREEM! Dark Embrace can take 3 pieces of Gladiator's Armor (for 3 points) Death Shroud can take 3 pieces of Fury of the Gladiator (for 3 points) A travel power can take a Blessing of the Zephyr unique (for 4 points) 4 more points can be had from a Defense (Karma) or Resistance (Steadfast Protection) mule. You could probably stop with 12 points of KB protection (sort list by magnitude), but I find that those PVP sets are pretty good choices for their enhancement effects (since they can be boosted to 50+5), and 10 points is "not always enough" when facing large spawns, so I end up with 14 before considering a SG base buff. The only reason I can think of shooting for 18 points on an individual character (via slotting) is to (with a SG base buff) stand fast against Waterspouts, or if engaging in PVP.

A possible Enhancement piece that could be slotted which would allow a "small amount" of JumpHeight/JumpSpeed (*1) to be "not suppressed" is what I was thinking of as the only "obvious" (to me anyway) thing missing from Jump(s) as a Travel power. I suppose such a thing could be worked into a power pool similar to the OP suggestion, but since multiple pools include "Jump", I was thinking more along the lines of the enhancement pieces that offer "Fly protection", "Run Protection" etc. Teleport would still be the odd man out, but it got its "hang time" addressed IIRC. (*1) I can't be sure, but I think it is the JumpHeight suppression that takes me out of the game immersion the most. Often this is because I simply want to get over some map obstacle and suddenly cannot. There is another case when I am using the Experimentation pool's Speed of Sound, hit the space bar, and all of a sudden I feel like an at-launch level 1 character again. I suspect the latter is because there is no JumpHeight component to Speed of Sound, but often it feels like it isn't even accounting for any slotting of Hurdle.

I believe I noticed during the April Fools' event that the zone map for Grandville would include an indicator for the Rogue Mapserver. If this was working as intended, would it be possible to add this functionality to track the Arachnos Flier(s) in Grandville as well? I want to single out the Grandville Arachnos Flier(s), as opposed to asking this for all Giant Monsters for the following specific reasons: The Flier(s) is one of the few Giant Monsters that moves from where it spawns The path of each Flier is well-established, but different depending on which of the Fliers spawned The Flier(s) move relatively quickly between landing spots The Fliers will despawn themselves The "4 hour" timer announcement is relatively easy to miss The only other "wanderers" I can think of, that I wouldn't want map indicators for, are: Caleb. I'm reasonably sure that Caleb being non-trivial/hard to find is an "as intended" feature of the big ghost Eochai/Jack in Irons. They don't wander too much, and they have associated spawns that need to also be defeated for them to respawn; I don't want any more reason for players to be sloppy about ignoring those. Paladin. The pathing of Paladin(s) is pretty much set modulo some other zone events. As with the Croatoan wandering versions of Jack/Eochai I wouldn't want a map indicator because it would further reinforce sloppy clean-up of the associated spawns IMO. I feel that the other zone monsters (including the Holiday events) shouldn't be trivial to track down, as they can be a surprise to players in whatever zone. It's more that the Arachnos Flier seems more like the kind of thing that would be known where it is.