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I try to buy the endurance drain protection buff from the SG base before a Yin. I've stood next to the Super Stunners when they rez, and if it is just me they have next to no HP and get put down quickly. When the Yin TF is being run in some sort of TUFF mode (+4, enemies buffed, whatever) the Super Stunners are often the last critters to be defeted (modulo any other rezzes) so it's not like the whole team can't focus on a newly rezzed one. The Yin TF seems to a never-ending source of complaints that players are "doing it wrong". Life, and the Penny Yin TF, is too short to get worked up over.

The Super Stunner resurrection is IMO one of those things that takes more mental bandwidth to be concerned about than it does to simply defeat them a second time. It's not like every Player, Henchmen, and Pet is going to get away from every Super Stunner. IIRC the rez still requires an enemy ToHit roll. There are SG base buffs that can be crafted before starting the Yin TF.

I also think it is important to have a relatively smooth attack chain for exemplaring down to level 10, exemping down to level 20 should (IMO) have all the tricks to make your AT shine., modulo perma-Domination. The way I approach that is to have at least 3 "attacks" that work exemped down to level 7-10 content, and make sure they are slotted. I also don't rely on Hasten: I see a lot of folks recommend it before level 10, this always feels like a bad choice for me. When I take Hasten, it is never before level 22... I don't have enough powers that can make a difference for! Expensive is in the eye of the customer, it isn't hard to collect enough merits to start to build up an set of ATOs. Another easy set to collect is the Overwhelming Force by doing the summer Blockbuster. I often use that set while leveling up. If you play enough, you will get PVP recipe drops. I use those in characters as they level up.

Hey that is useful, at least for freeing up a slot. There is still the whole "Resistance Resists Resistable Resistance Debuffs", so I don't get super excited about a resistance debuff, even one that lasts 30 seconds.

I agree. Knockdown is quite handy on PBAoE, and wide (and long) cone attacks. I simply have never found Force Bomb to work all that well in an attack chain, even when slotted for KB->KD. There is something about the windup to cast, the mediocre damage (even with %damage), and the practical complication of trying to maximize targets hit that diminishes its value in my play experience.

I have a Beam Rifle/Martial Combat Blaster, I actually picked /Martial because I wanted a less slightly obvious secondary, if that makes sense... my feeling was to "show off" with the Beam Rifle. If you want to lean into the Martial Combat, your build won't look like mine Primary Choices; Single Shot (6x Defiant Barrage) Cutting Beam (3x Blaster's Wrath, %-Res, 2x %damage) Disintegrate (5x Apocalypse) Aim (6x Gaussian's) Lancer Shot (6x Winter's Bite) Penetrating Ray (5x Sting of the Manticore) Piercing Beam (6x Frozen Blast) Overcharge (3x Blaster's Wrath, 3x %damage) Secondary Choices: Ki Push (5x Hecatomb) Reach for the Limit Burst of Speed (5x Armageddon, 1x %damage) Reaction Time (Health, EndMod) Inner Will (6x Preventive Medicine) All taken by level 26. The remaining Powers had very few slots, they came from Sorcery (Mystic Flight, Spirit Ward, RoP) Leadership (Maneuvers) Epic Force Mastery (PFF, Temp Invuln, Force of Nature) <- mostly convenient mules Concealment (LotG mules) I have an Assault Rifle Blaster... when leveling up I tried to incorporate the melee attacks (different secondary than Martial) but they just did not synergize with the AR attacks. YMMV.

I've almost entirely encountered jovial new or returning players that are excited to be back and are completely pleasant in all contexts. There are a handful of folks I'd categorize as having outmoded thinking about certain game elements, but most of them are otherwise pleasant. The few that don't fit the jovial category are mostly ones who don't remember certain things on a spectrum from "where is Kings Row?" to which zones are Blue/Red/Gold (and how to get to them). Only a tiny fraction of those players are frustrated to the point of being sour... the one example I'll mention is the new/returning level 1 who desperately wanted to join a Crey's Folly Jurassik team but had no resources (including a PTA pass) to get there nor did they want help/advice. Not much to be done for that circumstance. I've witnessed two new trolls through the conversation channels. One was having the sort of meltdown that I suspect was 100% performative, as I can't imagine a really new player being both that bitter and also that committed to General chat. If I had to take that dude at face value, I would question why they invested so much effort into learning the chat system before learning anything else about the game.

I skipped Detention Field: Far too situational of a power for my taste Repulsion Field: Requires too much of a slot investment to work, and even then it is quite "meh" Force Bomb: I did not need the attack, and I could not dedicate slots to it to make it work "good enough"... I find the scattering enemies to be problematic for the -Res and the AoE radius doesn't impress me that much for the windup. I took Personal Force Field only as a mule power at end-build. I have found that it is not possible to trust PFF to survive alpha-strikes or skate through missions untouched. Making those choices allowed me to fit three powers from Sorcery and Maneuvers into the build by level 20, plus I doubled up on the first two secondary powers. I added the Leadership powers of Maneuvers (6x Reactive Defenses), Assault (IO: Endurance Reduction), and Vengeance (LotG mule). My secondary is Beam Rifle. I wanted more BR attacks early (for concept) so I delayed Repulsion Bolt until level 14. If I had skipped BR's Single Shot I suppose I could have put Force Bomb (6x Defender's Bastion ATO) into the build But I would have to rework the slotting of all my attacks to be able to leverage Force Bomb, which I would probably want to be a Knockdown/%damage power.

My $0.03: The only characters for which I think it make sense to slot the Gaussian's %Build Piece in Tactics (or equivalent) are: DPS characters that will always be surrounded by teammates, their henchmen and/or pets. Crabberminds For low-DPS characters, the extra Build Up, even with it "always proccing" isn't doing that much IMO. Masterminds for example have terrible Damage scales on their attacks... even with it "always proccing" it isn't doing more to improve overall MM performance than putting that slot somewhere else. Crabberminds however can have several pets AND the Crabbermind has a better damage scale for attacks (which it will certainly have before it has the pets). Mileage varies with other pet-summoners, but typically I find that the other ATs either have low-ish damage (such that an occasional %Build Up doesn't really help with Damage) or the pets are too few in number or not near enough the summoner enough to really help with the proc chances. Characters with an Aim or Build Up get the "on-demand" effect, and the Gaussian's set bonuses often help those characters. Even a little bit of slotting can get most Build Up powers ready in 30 seconds or less, and it the proc chance will still be at 90%. I use in Tanker's Invincibility... I see it as a self-multiplier for what an Invulnerable Tanker wants to be doing anyway. My Invincibility slotting usually looks like: (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed (*) Shield Wall - Defense: Level 50+5 (*) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All) (*) HamiO:Cytoskeleton Exposure (Endurance / ToHit / Defense) (*) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up It would be a no-brainer to add a third Shield Wall piece for more Tanker HP, but I am often thin on slots.

I find Status Protection to be less important than Defense values high enough to be capped against +N enemy Lts. and Bosses. I assume FF and Time can do this; I know Robotics/Traps can do this. I definitely think the primary plays into the concern because the henchmen will need to be doing the Bodyguard thing for a mezzed MM. My Robotics/Traps MM can absolutely "lead from the front". The squad has high enough defenses that enemies are pretty much always in the 1-in-20 chance ToHit range... Protector Bots toss an additional shield AND launch seeker drones to debuff enemy ToHit. The Supremacy and global Aura pieces supplement the Force Field Generator's effects. The other items in Traps either draw aggro (Acid Mortar) or keep enemies occupied (Caltrops, Poison Trap). The only status effects I regularly encounter that bother my MM enough to pop an inspiration are: The long duration Fear from Jack In Irons Skull Stare The long duration stuns from Malta The first case is a Giant Monster, the henchmen often don't need my direct involvement for the full duration of the fear... it's just that it is soooo looong. The second is slightly more problematic when the stun hits before the MM has done anything else against two-or-more full spawns of Malta. Malta is otherwise easy to handle/distract with the Traps set. In contrast I never worry about the holds or sleeps.

I was running my 14-point KB Scrapper against Council with the +10 point KB SG base buff and was shrugging off the FREEM! It was nice to see nothing but the message. I probably could get 20+ KB protection on Dark Armor without too much effort, but I feel like I'd be compromising some of my other build choices. I suspect I will be making some slight adjustments to my Dark Armor Tanker who will be coming out of mothballs to get some anniversary goodies.

I almost always build Blasters following one of two paths, depending on (mostly) the chosen secondary: Blappers, who will engage in melee combat Ranged attackers, who will almost never engage in melee combat As I wrote above, it depends on what the secondary offers. Some combinations of primary/secondary don't have melee attacks, so blapping with such a combo would be working against what the character is best suited for. For all Blasters: I want enough global recharge to have hard-hitting powers up ASAP. For Blappers: I will generally try to get some layered Defenses, along with something like Combat Teleport to get in-and-out of melee. For ranged attackers: I will try to get all the attacks at a common range number. I also like to mix in more (ranged) control options. If I want to lean hard into something else (the control, the surviving) and still use "blasts" I will roll a different AT (Sentinel, Dominator/Controller/Defender). If I take franken-slotting to mean adding %damage, Ranged AoE attacks is where the payoff is IMO. There are three ranged AoE pieces that can be used in every such attack (Javelin Volley, Positron's Blast, Bombardment). Each does a different type of damage (good against different resist critters) and one of them is a PVP. doing more damage. There is also the %-Resistance proc from Annihilation, plus any other additions that can be made if the attack has a secondary effect like Knockback/Knockdown, -Defense, whatever. There are HOs/DSyncs for Accuracy/Damage, Accuracy/Range, and Damage/Range to support franken-slotting. I think there are a number of excellent set bonuses to be had in Ranged AoE attacks. I quite like Annihilation and Bombardment as sleeper choices. I agree with the general sentiment that bonuses from ranged-attack enhancement sets for single-target strike me as being somewhat lack-luster aside from full-ish Apocalypse and Winter's Bite, but I think mileage varies. Thunderstrike is an excellent inexpensive option for single-target ranged attacks. Snipe slotting is something of a mixed choice for me. I like the set bonuses from Sting of the Manticore best... but they only kick in at levels 32+. I'm almost always slotting something other than Sting of the Manticore in a Blaster's Snipe. I'm about evenly mixed across my Blasters if I use an ATO, PVP Experienced Marksman, or a Winter/Very Rare set in a Blaster's Snipe. Something I notice about my Blaster builds is that I usually have enough attacks to be able to split the Blaster's Wrath ATO, fully slot the Defiant Barrage, mix in a Winter set and still have room to add in set bonuses all over the place.

Activation time should have nothing to do with %proc chances. The only power I can think of that has a different recharge rate based on Quick/Normal "snipe" is LRM Rocket. However, the Quick version of LRM Rocket (Blaster's Arsenal Mastery) still has a very proc-favorable inherent recharge time that I think you would have to do some work to demonstrate that it was noticeably different than for the normal (slow) version.

I came back to this thread because I've started revisiting my multi-form Fortunata / Widow. I had not used a respec on them since before page 5, so they were overdue. I had been pleased with the performance, especially on the Fortunata. It had incredible defenses, even without a quite perma Mind Link. I took that half of the character into the control route, skipping the Widow Training and leveraging the Presence pool for more control + survivability. After page 5, when the late power choices could come earlier I don't find it as 'natural' to slot in the power pools as before. I'll post the build eventually, I'm still experimenting with it. I also have to revisit the Widow half. The big changes to my build (aside from reordering when powers were picked) were: Dropped: Subdue, Aim, Ball Lightning (Mu Patron) Added: Fate Sealed, Psychic Tornado, Hasten Changed some slotting: I am running with fewer set bonuses (taking positional defense hits) for some %damage. Fate Sealed doesn't have slots, and with one fewer attack I sprinkled the freed slots among other powers to improve some quality-of-life and boost some random bits of other powers I felt could use improvement. I made another slight change in parallel with adding Fate Sealed to the build, relating to Dominate. As a single target Hold/Damage, it can take a lot of %damage pieces, but years of play have convinced me that it is better to either leverage Dominate as a single-target damage power (psychic meh) that also has a Hold, or as a single-target Hold that happens to do some damage. slotting it for mostly %damage feels to me like ignoring both of those aspects. Right now, I have it 3-slotted with Gladiator's Net (Acc/Hold, 4x, %Lethal) plus %damage from Unbreakable Constraint and Apocalypse. These are the %damage pieces that offer the highest proc rates and/or higher, not-psychic, damage. I've not been a fan of Psychic Tornado, but previous use of Subdue was driven by available power choices and I had used it to hold ATO pieces. I moved those pieces to Psychic Scream, shuffling the previous franken-slotting of Psychic Scream into Psychic Tornado (better %damage chances, albeit not a cone). If this character was a hybrid, I would almost certainly be using Spin instead of Tornado. I'd previously had three Mu Patron attacks (Mu Lightning, Static Discharge, Ball Lightning) primarily to get set bonuses and to do AoE in higher level content. I found these to be somewhat anemic, so I reconfigured Static Discharge to be a franken-slotted cone (it performs better now, IMO) and swapped the set on Mu Lightning. Hasten was added to the build (quite late)... it doesn't help that much, but my reconfigured power choices meant that Aim was going to be super-late in the build and so I felt that the utility of being able to support teammates for end-game content (slightly more often) was better than a self-boost from Aim. Choices!

I was faithfully using the Tequila launcher. I made the switch to the HC launcher; it was painless (this time). I hadn't stuck with Tequila completely out of stubbornness, I want to say that shortly after the HC Launcher made its debut that the install attempt had some sort of pain that I really had not been expecting. The current package worked smoothly.

On my Dark/Electric Tanker, I skipped Oppressive Gloom (the Stun toggle) because I have a more reliable Lightning Clap. Otherwise... yes I took Death Shroud and Cloak of Fear. I delayed taking those toggles however, as they don't have very good Accuracy on top of the Endurance costs. I put a Kismet +ToHit piece in Cloak of Darkness to help with those, but each of them still needs a lot of help. My slotting on Cloak of Fear ended up as 6x Siphon Insight. I convinced myself that applying a PBAoE -ToHit was probably better than whatever the Terrorize is doing.

About this... I think it does make life easier if only one of the first doors (the ones between the hallway and the "belt" room) as opposed to the second set of doors between the belt room and the reactor room (the little foyer)... because the ambush spawns in the hallway. It is easy for one player to hold aggro and also allow teammates more lines-of-fire to use powers if they can come to the belt room as opposed to someone in that little foyer. If only one of the first doors is open, pretty much any of my level 50s can hold off the entire hallway ambush spawn indefinitely. The only "smart" use of the foyer IMO is for the first defeat of Clamor; If she can be kept in the foyer she has seriously reduced lines-of-fire, and more teammates will stay away from the one teammate she has put her debuff toggle on. That trick also helps to break up the two spawns. Often, some fraction of the team can't get through the foyer... it's far more of a choke point for the players IMO.

I'd plan for 5xLotG Defense/Recharge pieces, as well as a Kismet +ToHit in an Auto power. I'd go deep enough into the Fighting pool to get Toughness, to use as a mule power for Gladiator's Armor *Def), Steadfast Protection (Def) and Unbreakable Guard (+MaxHP). There are pretty much only two Enhancement set Bonuses I like from Defense sets, YMMV: 6x Reactive Defenses 3x Shield Wall (and I pretty much only like this one because I can boost PVP sets to 50+5, and it has a nice Global) Aside from attuned pieces of Reactive Defenses and the LotG Global Recharge piece, I am either using boosted Defense IOs (cheap!), boosted 50+5 pieces, or Hami-O/Dsyncs (if Endurance is a factor). Depending on other choices in the build, I would probably go 2x 50+5 Defense IOs in Dodge and call it done. My recollection of SR is that it needs very few slots to have excellent positional defenses. Once any individual power is at the point of diminishing returns, use slots to get Enhancement set bonuses elsewhere to push the defense values.

I approach Scrappers as @Uun , here is my general take: Scrappers typically have attacks with fast inherent recharge times (less than 10 seconds), so %proc rates will be low. Scrappers typically have single-target attacks, so a %damage proc in a ST attack will only hit that single target. Scrappers have a good damage scale for melee attacks, so enhancing damage yields excellent results on average I feel that Scrappers benefit from set bonuses a little bit more than some other ATs, so leaning into the set bonuses is preferred. YMMV I do try to franken-slot %damage in Scrapper ranged attacks, especially if those ranged attacks are AoE. I tend to favor Barrier on my Scrappers that have typical Defense values 10% (or more) below "soft cap". My scrappers draw a lot of attention, but with relatively little AoE I find that the enemy critters can get a LOT of swings on them. My builds also tend to have enough power variety in them (that is: I don't design precise attack chains only using a limited number of attacks) so I lack room for teh sorts of powers that can boost defenses across the board.

When the build is complete, I'm sure I'll be at 14. This is at or above the sort of protection I typically have from other armors. Here is another re-leraned lesson about Dark Armor, but about offense. My build includes Cloak of Fear (for thematic reasons). I knew it had a terrible Accuracy and I have plans to mitigate that, but what I'd forgotten was that while using it, and while it is missing (with poor ToHit chances) it was basically ruining my AoE Streakbreaker chances by pushing all my AoE attacks into the ghetto of requiring more misses to get a Streakbreaker. I picked the power knowing full well that it barely rises to a mediocre level of utility, but this extra level of minor handicap has me seriously considering if I want to keep it. I probably will, again because of theme, but it will always slightly bother me. When the build is complete, the final Accuracy of Cloak of Fear should be on the order of 110%...but I think I'll be delaying it until much later in the build.

By the time a team gets to the reactor room, everyone on the team should have a very good sense about what a team can handle. In case there is any doubt specifically about Freakshow (because maybe players were sleepwalking through the first two missions?) the first large room + doors gives a team the opportunity to see how they do(*1) against multiple spawns of Freaks. A team that has steamrolled the second mission in the Yin TF should be able to handle a near-instant resummon of Clamor. The primary difference in the reactor room is that Clamor applies Radiation Infection. The player who gets that toggle really has to pay attention that they aren't debuffing their teammates. Standing next to teammates while suffering Radiation Infection is a far bigger behavior problem IMO than dealing with a couple of extra spawns. (*1) The most typical problems I see PUGs having on a Yin TF are Not being able to hit the enemies Constantly getting hit by enemies The first is primarily because of poor slotting choices. For an exemplared team of level 50s this is only seen when applying atypical settings to the TF. The second is more common, but as I wrote above... if Clamor is debuffing a whole team (because players are not paying attention) yeah, things can go pear-shaped. The Endurance loss against Freaks can be a PITA, but Endurance management is a key feature of the game.

Re: Yin TF and the Reactor Room. If a leader specifically asks us to NOT click them, I won't click the PCs If it doesn't come up, and the team is manhandling the enemies, I am inclined to resummon Clamor ASAP. If a team leader says they want speed, I expect that the team leader wants us to resummon Clamor ASAP. If a team leader makes a fuss about how we need to wait for the ambush before clicking the PCs... I am leaving the reactor room to intercept the ambush.

I want to say that I once knew Dark Armor didn't include any form of Knockback protection, but it has certainly been re-learned! We occasionally have threads like this, but it has been a while. I almost always drop a +4 KB protection piece in all my builds ASAP, and the current /Dark Scrapper also had a +3 set bonus for a total of 7. I typically use Positron's TFs to judge how I am feeling about KB... and things seemed good. I suppose I could have been lulled into a sense of security from teammates, but between those TF and solo, I was feeling good... my mistake. Getting knocked down is one thing, but getting knocked away from the spawn I am trying to fight/use to heal is murder! Ranges are short and I have multiple PBAoE that won't help me if I am tossed across the room. I am aware of the SG base temp power, but I don't like relying on those to cover this sort of problem. A relatively easy change of my plans from 3xOverwhelming Force to a PVP set gets me +3 more points... no big deal I was just hoping to use some OF pieces. 10 points should be enough except for a couple of things. Setting aside FREEM! the worst is happening when multiple enemies hit me with KB. The defenses on this character are going to be mediocre, and I would have to make serious compromises to my power choices to make significant improvements to defenses. I'm thinking that I should just go to 14 points of protection by swapping a LotG for a Karma. I have a couple of long-recharge powers, by my calculations it is roughly 4 seconds max difference in recharge times of the longest wait powers. The attack chains are already pretty smooth with simple slotting and minimal global Recharge. If this turns out to be overkill, I can always unslot. So what say you all? My experience has been that 7 is effectively the same as 4... but is 10 really enough for x8 spawns of enemies that will be focusing fire on me? Is 14 going to cover me?

I oscillate between: Building characters that are effective, but not in an obvious way Building characters that have defects (that may or may not be obvious) but lean into fun, demonstrative powers The first is when I'm making sure the character has high survival skills first, and then concentrates on its "AT thing". These tend to be the sorts of characters that can be solo on a TF with little to no problem. The second is when I go hard-concept, sacrificing the sorts of things that I think of as "collective wisdom". For example, not taking the Fighting pool for Tough/Weave even though it offers some obvious survival benefits. Sometimes these characters end up almost as able to survive crazy situations by leaning into the crazy concept. I enjoy the second more, but these can be sometimes frustrating. One example comes to mind: I have a Defender who is designed to be a force-multiplier. It can survive a +4x8 onslaught solo... but it has to be quick, and a second simultaneous onslaught is not something it can stand toe-to-toe with. It may look glorious while this is happening, but that character performs much better with an ally close by doing their thing. I honestly don't know if teammates for that character realize what the debuffs and buffs are doing!

This is the current state of affairs. This is the part of the suggestion that feels slightly entitled to me. If the proposed box is checked, all anyone will know is "did someone check a box?". It won't impart any special knowledge if the character is "being used" (maybe it is just holding inf, salvage or enhancements?) or if has been "forgotten about." Don't get me wrong: I think the person who took the name first is entitled to it, I simply cannot think of a better measure than this. I also don't see what the big deal is about not having any form of communication with someone else... who happens to have taken a name that someone else wants. As @Ghost wrote: Why would a player not check the box that they want the name they just came up with?