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As I wrote in one of the merged threads, the most challenging element of the nuCouncil was when I was soloing the (IIRC) level 35-40 Warshade arc, and after grinding through the penultimate mission I got to one of the con+1 Archons who hulked(TM)-out and simply pwned me... I had no other enemies left to do most of the Warshade tricks! I did have to rely on inspirations and a Shivan to defeat it, yet at no point did I think the game was ruined by suddenly giving me a challenge in the middle of an ongoing story arc.

It is really easy to get the hero defeats, the Dakota Berg (Brickstown) part of Who Will Die? can have oodles of "named" heroes that count towards Hero defeats.... if you want to quickly unlock the Lord of the Mayhem missions (and don't mind side-switching). It is slightly more annoying to collect appropriate villain defeats without teaming up for some specific content (assuming that the team doesn't skip past the named villains who would count). At least by level 50 it is easy to re-run the PI Safeguard mission to get two villains from each instance. Back to the topic of the Council: By the time the game was sunset, per the Lore it made zero sense that the Council were so weak in content 35+. Per the lore of the game, they should have had common access to the sort of powers and abilities they just got on page 7. From my PoV it was an aberration that they were so pitiful and commonly available for players 45+. Of the original critter groups who "scale up" across multiple level ranges, they were obviously inferior.

I appreciate trying to add a meta-layer of personal enjoyment/challenge, but tying a reward (badge, whatever) to "never being defeated" has so many potential negatives from my PoV: A trivial (or nearly trivial) ability to get the badge through "sitting" (in AE or elsewhere) SO much potential for griefing and/or hard feelings (HAHA welcome to the PI league's team led by a level 6! or OOPS, didn't realize you'd all con at -10) Debt badges actually serve a purpose (red-side accolades)

Hero Safeguard's do allow you to face off against Lord Recluse as he robs a bank!

The radios/newspapers are the way to get Safeguard/Mayhem missions (modulo specific badge unlocks), and the Tip missions are a nice change of pace. They are not gutter content.

As with several other powers and/or slotting choices, I encourage testing "no brainer" choices... in the case of Auto powers... with unslotting some of those Health pieces to see if it makes a noticeable difference in performance.

I don't consider the IDF to be particularly tough; the most problematic thing about them is that so many of them don't move into melee combat. The IDF isn't a common enemy faction in radio missions, and IIRC they only appear as secondary spawns in level 40+ tip missions. At the end of Live, I would probably put Rularuu at or near the top as one of the most annoying groups to face at +4x8. EDIT: Upon reflection, I suppose the new Council remind me a little bit of the Animus Arcana, which can be quite annoying. I think it is possible for players to play the game without ever encountering those however. I liked that the Black Knights would regularly use Taunts, something that was added (or improved) for Crey.

I suppose it is worth noting that the attribute Enhancement values of a "triple" HO (at 50, or combined up) may still be better than a dual-attribute piece from another piece at level 50 (or boosted to +5). I agree that Fold Space probably ought to get Accuracy before Endurance Reduction.

I don't think the original post deserves a thumbs-down for the feels, but I disagree with everything in the OP. The Council was the preferred punching bag because they had mediocre controls, generally sub-standard resistances, and aside from from a couple of types that prefer to stand in place there was nothing about the AI behavior that made them especially annoying to face... they wouldn't teleport, phase, etc. The revamp has given the Council more than what most other factions have, but what they got is 100% in line with what I would expect 35+ level enemies to have... especially given the sort of Lore elements they are supposed to have access to. The only time I was annoyed (but ultimately pleasantly surprised) by the new Council was on soloing a Warshade. There was a final arc boss that became what I felt might have been a little too powerful for a solo Kheldian, but ultimately I treated it like a strategic challenge and dealt with it. I've noticed no real changes on PUGs with Moonfire or Hess. If players are looking for level 50 punching bags from radio/newspaper missions, there are still a couple of other factions that haven't been improved and can be pretty easy to mow down. Yes you might have to face *gasp* Malta Sappers or *double gasp* Illusionists, but my experience is that those groups fall quickly to certain damage types.

I have my tanker's Chain Induction 5-slotted with Hecatomb, plus a PVP %proc. IIRC Chain Induction creates a pet that 'lingers', so %procs shouldn't be a complete waste. Even though many of my builds utilize %damage, I consider it important to maximize a characters performance by leveraging set bonuses. Chain Induction straddles a somewhat arbitrary line for me because it's inherent recharge should be fine for a Very Rare %proc (4.5 PPM) but it is getting enough Recharge from the set slotting that the %proc chances for the 3.5 PPM pieces start to fall off. Since the PVP %damage pieces do inherently more damage than other (non-Very Rare) %damage, that is how I landed on my slotting choice. In the case of my build choices for that character, the sixth slot in Chain Induction happens to be the one that I would first move if I thought it would be better used elsewhere,

If a power cannot be slotted with a "common" IO of a particular attribute, than the portion of any Hami-O (or D-Sync) that would normally enhance that attribute is wasted in that power. In contrast: Most(*1) powers that can accept types of enhancement sets and the enhancement set contains a piece with enhances an attribute that could otherwise not be slotted with a common IO, will be enhanced. A commonly misunderstood slotting suggestion is that putting Hami-O Membranes (+Defense / +ToHit / Recharge) in a power like Mind Link will improve the Recharge times, it will not. The ToHit and Defense buffs will be enhanced. However slotting Adjusted Targeting's (a ToHit buff set) Recharge piece will enhance the recharge. (*1) Some powers, such as Rune of Protection, have been coded to ignore Recharge, so even though it can be slotted with Recharge pieces from Resistance sets, those won't improve recharge times.

I have my 50+ Tanker's Thunder Strike slotted as follows (the build also has global Accuracy and ToHit bonuses): Level 16: Thunder Strike (A) Multi-Strike - Accuracy/Endurance: Level 50+5 (*) Superior Gauntleted Fist - RechargeTime/+Absorb (*) Scirocco's Dervish - Chance for Damage (Lethal) (*) Eradication - Chance for Damage (Energy) (*) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Damage (Psi) (*) Explosive Strike - Chance for Damage (Smashing) I tried a lot of different ways to slot Thunder Strike on my Dominator, as well as trying a rather wide variety of approaches to to facing critter spawns... and I simply could not find a way to justify including it in the Dominator build. My disappointment with it is one of the reasons I rolled up the Tanker!

My hot takes I see a lot of folks PUGing with Warshades; I observe Peacebringers in fewer (non-zero) numbers. Writing only for myself: there isn't as much room for variety in play with Kheldians as there is from other ATs. My PoV is that because the options for personalization are almost exclusively in the slotting (of nearly all the same power choices) it is really hard to even judge (from teh outside) the performance of any given Kheldian build/play. Personally, I think there remains some lingering feelings about Warshades being OP because of the old "MF Warshade Guide". Even though I personally find Warshades to fun to play, and I like being able to fill different roles... I think there are plenty of other ATs that can end up being built to be much more impressive than WS. No. I don't quick-shift via macro-dancing. I do change forms constantly, but I don't use the 'exploit'. In my experience: Kheldians cannot solo defeat typical AVs or GMs. Maybe I'm just not L33T ENUF, but I tried a speed run of the Yin TF (default settings) and my Warshade took twice as long as a Tanker/Scrapper/Stalker and even longer than a Controller. Both my Warshade and my Controller needed to summon a Shivan to defeat Clamor. Generally *I* don't consider using Lores or other summons as having a build "able to solo", as most 50+ characters can duo just most AVs and GMs. If I had to self-assess what my problem was: There was no easy way to debuff, do enough damage, and stand fast against the AV. Maybe with the quick-shift exploit, but otherwise it was an incredibly annoying grind. I don't think there is much of a difference in either solo or PUG play, except that the WS can IMO do more with larger spawns.

IIRC, the "outer radius" offers its own chance to %proc (on legitimate targets), but I honestly can't recall if I ever saw the initial target get hit by a %proc from the "splash". If the power is tagged to "exclude the main target", then obviously the primary target would not be subject to a second %damage. Attacks which hit multiple targets ought to have the same %proc chances for all targets of the attack, I believe I've seen this on the Sentinel's Refractor Beam (from direct damage, not Disintegration spread) The %damage is definitely not wasted on a Tanker's Thunder Strike. It is a very well-performing power on Tankers. I hated Thunder Strike's performance on my Dominator (no matter the slotting), and ended up removing that power from the build.

While leveling,as soon as level limits allow me to use the extras from the SG base storage Level 2: Health (A) Panacea - +Hit Points/Endurance (*) Miracle - +Recovery Level 2: Stamina (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End (*) Performance Shifter - EndMod This slotting tends to pace the +BlueBar for my characters' needs, plus a little oomph on travel speeds. I usually end up with another power for slotting Preventive Medicine, occasionally I have a power that is best suited for using Panacea as a set, so sometimes that global goes elsewhere. Some characters end up not needing the Miracle +Recovery piece. Any character that I expect to be constantly taking damage will get a Power Transfer %Heal. Tankers will have 2x Numina: a Health and the +Regen/+Recovery piece. I usually don't go out of my way to get +Regeneration, except on high-HP characters that will regularly be taking damage. Every once in a blue moon I will put the Synapse's Shock EndMod/+Running speed piece in Stamina, this is usually when I am using Infiltration as the primary travel power.

Trying to make sense of the Live-thru-sunset "Timeline" has always bothered me, mostly blue side, but to some extent red side as well. I blame Who Will Die? and the burning down of Praetoria. The first thing that bothers me about WWD? (and similar plans to have certain characters disappear/switch roles) is that it explicitly breaks the "evergreen" nature of game content. The best example of a series of arcs that puts all the toys back in the box where you found them is the complete First Ward arc cycle, at least as far as the arcs only in the First Ward are concerned. The second thing is this: in order to even pretend that WWD? happened, content for perfectly fine mission arcs was changed... including as near as I can tell some lines of dialogue in A Hero's Epic that don't really make sense unless you had been playing the game through sunset and kinda remember when certain things happened. Anywho to speak to the initial post, I'd put all of Who Will Die? between the Peregrine Island Flashbacks and the "current" Peregrine Island 40-thru-50 arcs. I think you will also want to include some of the Valentine's Day Event arcs as well, plus the MLTF and LRSF... there are only a tangential connections but some of the dialogue in some of the Incarnate content feels to me like it references (or ignores) some of what happens in those.

I have a Water/Atomic, and it is definitely a Blapper. I can't imagine playing Water/Energy and wanting to stay at range only. I realize that there are different opinions about the following, but I skip Water Jet from the primary, even after the fix to the way the power works with Tidal Force. I suppose if a player is skipping all the melee attacks it will be useful.

I use the same bind for targeting Sappers, DE Cairns (because of the resist protection they grant) and (Cimeroran, primarily) Surgeons. The other thing that will be learned through game play is which Inspirations to gobble, and when.

I suspect the problem isn't primarily "picking a character". As others have replied, I see some things in the OP that raise my eyebrows. Specifically: Investing some time in the game, using some common content (i.e. blue side 40+ tips, blue side arcs, a handful of red side arcs) should get every player familiar with the ways to handle Malta Sappers. I would not consider a player that struggles against sappers to be ready to consider solo AV fights. "One easy trick" for starting to deal with Sappers (or any particularly problematic enemy) is to invest 5 minutes into learning about targeting binds. Something else that ought to be done with the time investment is to learn how to monitor certain (personal) character attributes. Some things (such as endurance spend) can be monitored via the health bar, but many important game effects are trivially able to be monitored using the Powers > Combat Attributes > +Base > right-click method. I commonly only monitor 5 attributes: Base ToHit, Last Hit Chance, and each of the Positional Defenses. Those stats, plus the green/blue bar, give me an excellent idea of what enemies might be doing to my character that are making me suffer. There are other important game effects, but even on characters that have better typed defenses than positionals, once I know what the relative values are, and I am paying attention to what enemies are doing, I find this is all I need for a character I understand. Finally, it is important to do a variety of content to learn how resistant certain enemies are to your damage type(s), as well as what other tricks they will play on you. You have to learn how to address each of those issues.

A few things: Almost all of a MM's offense comes from the henchmen, so each tier should be slotted for both Accuracy and Damage. Endurance reduction slotting does affect the henchmen attacks. Robotics doesn't offer a slot to mule the Global Resistance/Defense pet enhancements from various sets, so I end up sprinkling those among the different tiers of henchmen. Slotting 2x Superior Mark of Supremacy three times (once in each henchmen tier) is something I find valuable. The Protector Bots' Force Shield is something like +13% Defense for all positionals, and most damage types For me, this left me with one "free" slot in the Protector Bots (once I did not have to slot KB->KD after page 5), I now slot T2 as: Level 12: Protector Bots (A) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Damage/Endurance: Level 50 (*) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Endurance: Level 50 (*) Hami-O Defense/Endurance (53 or alternatively a 50+5 piece) <- This is the "Free slot" in my build (*) Edict of the Master: Defense Bonus (*) Call to Arms: Defense Aura for Pets (*) Call to Arms: Accuracy/Damage Improving Defenses (when cast by the Protector Bots) by single digits does IMO survivability across all content. I couldn't think of any other use for the slot that would pay bigger dividends on average. In the slotting shown, I have the 2x ATO set bonus, I felt I wanted more Accuracy and Damage so I added the Call to Arms piece. That piece maxes out at level 30, but since MMs can burn Endurance at a heavy clip, I opted to add the slight Recovery bonus from having two pieces of that set attuned. I started with a Luck of the Gambler Defense/Global Recharge piece in place of the Hami-O, but I found that the extra Global recharge wasn't doing anything noticeable for my build. The Global Recharge only applies to the Mastermind, not the henchmen. For a long time I was running just a simple Defense IO (50+5), but after the page 5 revamp (Robotics overhaul, including the addition of the Maintenance Drone as well as the elimination of almost all of the Knockback from Robotic Henchmen) I felt that the Protector Bots were making more attacks and burning down their Endurance bars faster than the other henchmen, so by adding slightly more Endurance reduction to them, their Endurance burn rate is now closer to the other tiers. Personally, I think there is only one %proc worth slotting in any of the Robotic Henchmen: Soulbound Allegiance - Chance for Build Up; I put it in the T1. The Overwhelming Force %Knockdown is good, especially in the T1 henchmen, but I don't think it is as important as either the %Build Up or having all the Resistance/Defense global pieces. EDIT: I'd keep this slotting, even with /Dark. I don't always position my Robotic Henchmen near enough to the Mastermind to get all the Aura Bonuses.

I think it was in page 4:

Whups... meant Repair, which I don't think anyone really took!

What I've been doing for slots on my Dark Armor characters to hit 14 points of KB 3 slots of Gladiator's Armor to get +3 KB protection (I pick Dark Embrace, this is also a healthy amount of Resistance) 3 slots of Fury of the Gladiator to get +3 KB protection (in Death Shroud) 1 Steadfast Protection +4 KB protection 1 Blessing of the Zephyr +4 KB protection or 1 Karma +4 KB protection (use both if the Fury of the Gladiator bonus is not used) I'll craft a SG base +10 KB if I think I'll be encountering FREEM! IIRC the FREEM is 20 points. I tried +8 and +11 points for a good deal of content; neither was enough. 12 was not a practical value to test (recently), yet I feel like past testing had me trying for at least 13 points.

I have a FF Defender built as a force-multiplier for teams, and yet I still find Force Bomb to be unnecessary. My thinking goes as follows, YMMV. +20% damage could be 2 more damage per tick, it could be 40 more damage from a single ally. If I'm on a team with multiple damage dealers, some of whom are already near their cap (via personal slotting, or external buffs)... it is highly unlikely that the application of -Resistance from a Force Bomb (an AoE attack) is actually going to reduce the number of attacks those hypothetical teammates are going to have to make... even assuming that any of the critters caught in the FF Defender's Force Bomb are still around to suffer the -20% Resistance. There is content where the 10 (or fewer) critters hit by a Force Bomb don't fold after a second attack (from the allies, after I have also hit with Force Bomb), but from my PoV application of -Resistance has to reduce the number of necessary attacks from each ally by at least 1 per critter, otherwise the -Resistance isn't actually improving defeat times. My experience: For most team cases where -Resistance does improve defeat times, it is because there is one or two hard single targets. In those cases, I have found it more valuable for my my -Res debuffer to have faster-firing -Res options that I can direct at different targets... often because the targets aren't close enough to each other, not because I misunderstand certain elements of -Res stacking (or not). In those cases, Repulsion Bolt is "enough". I won't argue against a second, different, source of -Resistance (or other debuff), and Force Bomb can fulfill a couple of different roles, but so can Weaken Resolve. There are obvious differences between the T8 FF power and the first power selection from the Force of Will pool... but if it is -Resistance for single hard targets, I think there is a strong case to be made to take that Force of Will power earlier than level 22. For one thing, the Force of Will ranged cone attack (Wall of Force) could be taken as early as level 14, also does Knockdown and can also be slotted with %-Resistance... and is IMO easier to target multiple enemies with. I may as well be a Force Multiplier as early as possible, if that is what I want to lean into.