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A few days after the end of ToT and the market price is around 1.3M per aether. This is me trying to guesstimate demand: When I see players using an obviously non-temp costume, it is pretty much always mini-mode. I suppose some players can be using effects that I don't notice. I know a handful of players that run certain characters always using a specific costume. On my one character that I specifically wanted to have mini-mode, I ended up not liking the way the collision box worked... I think the mechanic is fine, it was simply too disorienting for me. With the name release, I expect a slight uptick in characters that use costume toggles, but I expect (in my imagination) most of those would be Tier 1 costumes. I see regular Labyrinth runs on another (less populated) server. As near as I can tell based only on participants, it is a sort of farming exercise for players' characters that would otherwise be 99% engaged with things like ToT/April Fools leagues, periodic Giant Monster Hunts and the like. It seems as if it is mostly something to do while waiting for one of the multiple daily Hamidon raids. No judgement, and no way to tell what if anything makes it to the market from any of those. I'm still hoarding my Aethers... mostly because I wanted to see how long it would take me to earn over 1500. I'd sold some along the way, burned a few more but otherwise they feel like a nest egg that will never be hatched.

Do we all still agree that Seeds of Confusion is the elephant in the room? Setting aside the level at which Seeds of Confusion can be taken (it isn't a T9!), differences in cast/arcana time, Endurance cost, etc. the base accuracy of 1.0 compared to Mass Confusion's 0.8 really sticks out like a sore (green) thumb. Even Terrify doesn't get a 1.0 base accuracy! +1. I'll repeat/clarify: I'm mostly ok with the balance among the higher-tier AoE controls (when only looking at the higher-tier controls), but as soon as I look at Seeds of Confusion, or the recharge times, base accuracies and (potential) secondary effects of t9 nukes (plus damage, natch), I kinda wonder why the higher tier controls still have such mediocre values. With T9 nukes having base accuracies above 1.0, I see no reason to keep the slower-recharging T9 controls to have accuracies below 1.0. I'm not an automatic advocate for reducing recharge times, only because it's hard to know what the effect would be (blah blah game balance). It's clear that the game has an underlying philosophy that all enemies (PvE certainly) in a spawn shouldn't be 100% controlled 100% of the time (using IOs).

I found Energy Aura to be surprisingly good on Sentinels, but I don't think of it as "easy mode". Bio on a Sentinel looks to be somewhat set-and-forget (compared to other ATs) but I think it probably has more clicks (plus adaptation) than I'd recommend for a no-brainer armor. I think Super Reflexes, Willpower and Invulnerability are good choices for (mostly) set-and-forget. Super Reflexes has a click that I'd probably eventually put on auto (working on an early level SR Sentinel now), Willpower will need some thinking about slotting of the toggles. Invulnerability's Dull Pain is probably a power that wouldn't necessarily need to be used all that often. I'd still take it, and probably eventually 6-slot it. FWIW, My #1 Sentinel is (with accolades) is one of the few characters I have that passively sits at the maximum health for its AT. That's the Energy Aura with the (auto) Power Armor.

I *think* what the request should be (for maximum chance of being implemented) is: The "below the knee" of Monstrous Legs should be experimented with as "Boots", since Boots can exist with skirts/shorts, and The "Bottom" texture of Skirt/Shorts needs to exist to match whatever ends up as "Boots" The obvious problem is that the current Monstrous Legs have 'Feet' connect at an angle different from how 'Boots' connect to the upper legs. EDIT: I recognize that this would not like NOT give the "tippie toes" leg art, but it would probably allow more variety than simply adding one or two skirts/shorts to Monstrous Legs. In the meantime, the only option I've found to have something like a skirt for Monstrous legs is via the various 'Belt' choices on the 'Upper Body'. In a similar vein, I find it annoying that 'Monstrous Fur' isn't more available with 'classic tops'; I've had to use 'Chest Details' on top of Monstrous Fur... often I can get a look that kinda works (for me), but the choices always feel weirdly limited.

But Moe, I've never observed Sally drop her mini-pet recipe!

I had two (older) level 1 characters with names I was pretty much just sitting on, and after the name release policy I got two names I had wanted for specific concepts that I hadn't yet played. On a whim, I wanted to minimize any stress over potentially "losing" those names; I took each of these four through either blue or red play, with no XP boosts. Three of the four used only minimal P2W/START purchases (1-hour booster buffs, a travel, 3 prestige attacks). I played the tutorial and then did the starter arcs (Hasby, Kalinda and whatever came next). The longest it took me to get a character to level 6 was something like 50 minutes... that was a redside Stalker... but 50 minutes was about what it took for the others that didn't have Day Job/Patrol XP, A fifth (new, level 1) character for a concept I am somewhat excited to try went through blue-side to level 7 in about 30 minutes, despite spending time to get the Isolator badge in Outbreak. That character did have 2XP, and I was also careful to pace myself and grab Patrol XP from the exploration badges (Atlas Park, Ouroborous, Echo Galaxy City) to maximize XP returns as needed. I only complete Hasby's arc, started the next one but got to level 7 by street sweeping in Echo Galaxy City. TL;DR: go ahead and play that character a little.

I haven't PvPed with a Tanker since Live (pre-Incarnates), although I have PvPed against Tankers on Homecoming. These experiences are minimal; my Tanker held off an entire team (that I don't think was playing smartly), I slew opposing solo Tankers. My solo Tanker was Invulnerability, and it wasn't a ton of fun to play in Live PvP... but it didn't have anything like the enhancements we can have on Homecoming. There was occasional retreating because incoming fire from ranged attacks would eventually wear it down. On Homecoming, my Tanker slayer was a Stalker...Bio Armor was more than enough of an armor set to stand toe-to-toe with a couple of Tankers (one was Rad) and the damage was enough to get them to retreat (and/or defeat them if they had poor recharge on a key power). I don't know that Bio's tricks would be enough for a Tanker... it would almost certainly do better 1-on-1 against a melee opponent. My instinct tells me that if a player wants to have a nigh-unkillable (in one-on-one, or maybe one-or-more-than-one) Tanker in PvP, an absolute must will have to be a reliable, fast-recharging self-heal and maximized health. Boosting Regeneration will certainly help (if HP are near max), but mostly because there will be no way to avoid taking damage. Defense values won't count for nothing, but those "(near) softcap" numbers shouldn't mean much against an opponent who has well-slotted their bread & butter attacks with sets. You will want that Scaling Resistance piece for sure! You'll need "complete" resistance/protection to controls, including knockback. You'll need to have Endurance spending and Recovery under control, because if the wrong toggle drops it will likely be game-over. From my limited PvP experience on Homecoming, its kinda dull to 1-on-1 with most any AT, because it is pretty much always possible to run away (if the players are prepared to have to do so). Ganging up on a solo player in a PvP zone has no appeal (to me) unless the solo player is explicitly trying to fight more-than-one at once. The last thing I'd add, and this is just (hopefully informed) speculation: Any PvP Tanker should probably have a build specifically for PVP. The sorts of choices commonly made for PvE (franken-slotting for %damage, skipping/minimizing Taunt) are not going to well-serve a player in PvP. Extra attacks from Epic/Patron/Pool powers are highly unlikely to be valuable (beyond set bonuses from slotting). This is not so much advice to "boost everything", but make wiser choices of powers and slots that will benefit the PvP play.

Ha! I was using a text form of another character, so thanks for that catch! I've been building all my new characters in excel, so for a legible text I have to do it manually.

I use Cyrillic in chat, I kinda wish I could also rename pets... but alas, the name entry won't take them.

How did "someone" delete "someone else's" characters? I'm guessing that this wasn't the original player, but rather someone else with access to the original player's account?(*1) Ok, so maybe there is a huge calamity therein, but there is quite some time between Summer 2023 and November 2024... and I know this will come across as being insensitive... but by waiting until 04 November 2024 it really seems like the name wasn't that important. Even if they couldn't have gotten the character(s) to level 6 (takes me about an hour to solo, not using any XP extras), just logging into the character is enough. Writing only for myself: I have some named characters I really like, but I can't quite get around to playing them/crafting a build plan for them... if I lose those names, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . A fraction of those I've at least logged in to buy the names a few more days. Some of them I've been motivated to play! (*1) I'm still somewhat confused, because if the characters had been deleted, then the name(s) would have been available before the name release went into effect. There has to be both a complicated chain of events that leads to both the deletion and subsequent "name release" that I can't help but think of this

This is the level 50 build. The power selection was identical for leveling up; I can explain how I was slotting during leveling but with some experience I think most folks can figure out what works for them. I don't MIDS, so it is text, which make for easier forum discussion IMO. I don't think there is much magical about this build; I'm posting it because for a couple of reasons: I wanted to see how satisfied I'd be using Savage Melee on a Scrapper I wanted to see how satisfied I'd be using a slightly off-brand Armor Savage Melee is probably "better" (damage-wise) on both/either a Brute or Stalker... IIRC Fury improves the damage-over-time components of Savage Melee, and (from a quick glance, but no real study) I think it would be slightly easier to slot the Stalker's secondary, and the Stalker's ATO %procs would provide more damage than the Scrapper's Criticals (for the primary). Energy Aura is probably not a top tier secondary, as it has some holes that need attention. A Brute's higher base HP would probably be better... I found that the various holes were most problematic until I could get more %healing and better global recharge values. Generally: The build is weakest in the 15 seconds when Energize is not providing more Regeneration.... I have Energize on Auto, so when facing tougher spawns I will sometimes wait before engaging them. I skipped Hemorrhage. This build is slow(er) to defeat single hard targets without it, but I didn't need it for a decent attack chain, I generally prefer the large PBAoE from Rending Flurry (and I put a %-Res piece in that to sort of make up for using it against single targets), I didn't see a set bonus I really wanted from another single-target melee attack. Some comments on Force of Will, since I took all five powers. The slotting on Mighty Leap is mostly a Quality-of-Life choice with a smidge of typed defense boosts. Pulling two slots from this is possible, and I *think* the Energy Negative/Fire/Cold typed defenses are the same (or slightly better ~ +0.4) if one of those two slots is dedicated to a Defense IO 50+5 in Power Shield. Wall of Force is IMO important for Melee characters like this. The %procs are pretty reliable, and compliments the damage-over-time... plus knockdown! It requires two earlier pool picks; the build above has Project Will is chosen for the set bonuses, specifically Psi defense and global recharge. Winter's Bit offers some great 5 and 6 piece bonuses too, but I kinda hate the Psi (and Toxic) hole. I took this before Weaken Resolve, just to have a ranged attack at low levels... but as a practical matter for most (lower level) content, Weaken Resolve is more useful (in my experience)... especially since I can choose to use it and then get all my attacks in afterwards. Unleash Potential is an emergency measure for effectively soft-capping most defenses, and a good home for the Reactive Defenses set. It is available every 3m45s or so. I may revisit this primary/secondary combination with a Brute, mostly because I think leveraging the Brute's ATO pieces and inherently higher HP would be interesting. For both the Brute and Stalker I'd try to incorporate Taunt (or Placate), so there is another twist for me!

Since my comprehension is poor, explain to me how they 'lost the (Homecoming) name' prior to the name purge release.

The story about 'hard times' seems worthy of sympathy, but this situation does not read to me as 100% sincere. For example: if the player was able to login 72 hours after name release, what was stopping them from logging in the day before name release.... And why do they have similar names they are willing to 'trade'? It sounds like the player in question may have so many names that they are more like a burden than anything else.

I have had *one* player hint that they wanted my SG name since the (second) go-live Homecoming day. That happened in the first three months.

I don't understand? Does the message mean that they are playing some sort of name economy, and/or "the one that got away" is the most important of the bunch?

OP can download and Install the halloween pigg pack, and use it while traveling through zones to find pumpkins. 🙂 Or use the elevator.

Heh. I was on two different Blue TF PUGs yesterday, each one had a mix of no fewer than 3 Tanker/Brutes. Taunt was never used, despite a couple of squishies getting flattened. I'll be kind and just guess that each of the Tanker/Brutes thought one of the other two was eventually going to Taunt.

I ended up renaming two characters with names I wanted long ago upon character creation which had previously been "camped". I debated if I really wanted to do the rename(s) and I decided to, basically because I'd already invested time in those characters, originally wanted those names, and One character's original (to me) name was a simple extension of the name I originally wanted but could not get One character's original (to me) name was supposed to be a pun, but since the pun name was not available I had gone with the non-pun version I was thinking about playing up a new character with from scratch for #1, but I wasn't planning any changes I can't do on a second build so *poof rename*. For #2, while I got comments on the character's non-pun name, I'd rather have the pun name! There were two names I wanted from my Live roster that weren't available.

/bind o "target_custom_next enemy alive unseelie$$target_custom_next enemy alive horde$$target_custom_next enemy alive hell" It will find things like hordeling, so it isn't perfect.

I've seen up to three batches of pumpkins in a zone at once: two were defunct, the other was "active".

There will always be seven Unseelie court that spawn with each (Holiday) Monster. Until those seven spawns are defeated, the (Holiday) Giant Monster will not respawn. This is the same type of "gate" that affects the KR Paladin, the Croatoan spawns (Grim Vale and Wandering), and the leftover rubbles from Jurassik. The Unseelie court are all fliers, so they will move a maximum of 200 feet when they decide to flee. It takes less than a minute for them to come back to their pumpkin patch.

For a long time (on Homecoming) I'd add the MVAS to my cadre of Robotic Henchmen. It used to be one of the pets that was visible/selectable in the Pet Window, but that changed at the time of the most recent MM revamps and the proliferation of the mini-pets. My vague memory is that I bought it, and it could have been with just about any currency: Vanguard Merits, Merits, whatever. Is it possible that the recipe doesn't show up in the Vanguard base until you have some minimum number of Vanguard merits? I want to say I went looking for it with some characters that have relatively few Vanguard Merits (under 500) and didn't see it.

(Imma guess it was two scrappers, because I think the stated limit on multiboxing is for three) Tanker+AoE Scrappers doesn't sound radically different to me than the multi-boxing Masterminds in open-world maps chasing Giant Monster rewards. I see several of them (different players!) every day.

I've got one (from before the proliferation of the GM mini-pets) but for the life of me I can't recall how I got it.

The request to "slow down XP" maybe sounds reasonable to some people, but IMO anyone who thinks turning off XP isn't a viable solution is probably not thinking things through. I don't understand why "I want XP, but less of it" is even a thing, since the "AE Inf Nerf" for level 49s... which happened about a million years ago on Homecoming. The initial OP request sounds like it is motivated from some old farming guide from the early days of Homecoming, with an unstated "less XP more Inf, please". Immediately something that comes to my mind: The current way Patrol XP works (especially with exploration badges) would certainly be the next thing that players unwilling to turn off XP to end up clutching the pearls about. As a practical matter, there are only certain levels where XP has to be turned off in order to experience "all the content" at level.