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Every character gets: Envenomed Daggers (sooner or later, you will face an AV) Plasmatic Taser (sooner or later, you will be on a Synapse TF) Jump Pack (because it increases travel speed while active) Self-Destruct (because sometimes you have timed out on all the other travel powers) The timer-base travel to mission powers When I can, everyone gets: Shivans, they are simply too handy. Not every character needs them (at level 50), but every character can use them Depending on power choices, I will occasionally buy jetpacks. I don't like NOT having a travel power, but I have at least one build that I felt I couldn't slip one in for the concept, so he has a Magic Carpet. The temp power I wish I could buy (please someone tell me this is true!) is something that does a mag 3 Immobilize. I find it weird I can diminish GMs Regeneration with Envenomed Daggers but I can't buy something to single-target immobilize. The damage scale for P2W attacks appear to follow the AT scale, which seems kinda sad to me.

I don't like this slotting: Level 16: Dehydrate (A) Devastation - Accuracy/Damage (27) Devastation - Damage/Endurance (29) Devastation - Damage/Recharge (29) Devastation - Chance of Hold (31) Numina's Convalesence - Heal (31) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery First: Those two Numina's pieces are better in Health... the regen bonus(es) from the set nicely play with what Health will do with slotting (less so for a Corruptor than a Tank/Brute, but if more regen is what you want...) I slot Dehydrate with 3xJavelin Volley (boosted) and 3xTouch of the Nictus. I don't find it to be a great %proc power, but I do keep the %Negative in it. You probably want the Miracle +Recovery piece, as well as the Performance Shifter %+End, Panacea %+HP/%+End and an EndMod piece in Stamina (to boost recovery) I also try to slot sets that will give Endurance reductions, global Endurance Discounts, +MaxEnd, or all of them. Annihilation is good choice. You should probably experiment with your toggles, and figure out which ones you rely on that could take some Endurance reduction. I also encourage you to experiment by not using Hasten. Hasten has an endurance cost, and it causes you to use more endurance (if casting).

I'm in agreement. Because of the nature of this particular %proc, I have a small supply stashed at the SG base, but the typical price (attuned, on the market) is perfectly reasonable. It's not a trivial set/piece to roulette into, but the supply I keep is entirely from RNG. The extras go into the AH, and if someone is pulling a slight profit off of what I dump, more power to them. I suspect this individual is also helping keep the prices of the less interesting EndMod sets afloat. The new HC sets aren't bad, but a player has to lean pretty hard into certain power sets for 5/6-piece sets of them to be really good options. I think I've only got two characters that do so.

You can get the Caregiver Day Job badge in Outbreak.

On the topic of slows, I have a couple of characters that as-built, appear to be completely immune to the effects of slows in non-incarnate content (a lot of incarnate content to, but I don't tend to play that as much). And then while leveling a character I ran afoul of x8 Knives of Artemis... oh yeah, I remember!

I almost always have that badge unlocked from Mayhem Missions. IIRC the 45-50 mission set in PI will be chock full of Paragon Police if set to x8. They will be kheldians, so fun times. There are large spawns of them hovering above the skyscrapers.

The group I was thinking would offer the most consistent opportunity to be clustered are Praetorian Clockwork. In the Blueside missions that face them (in large spawns), they strike me as almost always being "too spread out".

I'm here too. I will say, using the Teleport Pool to help teammates keep up, and to grab runners making a mad dash, is VERY appreciated.

I am always surprised when I see players on large PUGs using Fold Space. This may be just me: I find it slows down most PUGs, because a teammate just stepped on my tactical awareness of the situation. I can sort of see what a player is trying to do with the power, but it resonates a little too closely with old feelings of "wait while I herd the map". The only times it really bothers me: I'm using a placed effect, and now some fraction of the enemies are no longer in the area of effect. I'm playing a character with single-target attacks, and my target just got yoinked away. I never grief a PUGmate for using the power, but more often than not when I see Fold Space used, that's my sign to move onto the next spawn (or the target the mobs that Fold Space didn't catch).

I just dropped into to write: Inspirations are there to be used.

My memories of the pre-ED era were primarily that I was making some rather iconoclastic choices with slots for survivability and QoL... I enjoyed having the ability to make some oddball choices, but the game is much more enjoyable now for a wider spectrum of ATs and build and slotting choices. I would never want to go back to the days before ED.

A word of advice: AFAIK, the GMs which spawn in a zone (via zone events, not sure about GMs that spawn via a mission arc or something like a Nemesis Invasion) are essentially scaled to the maximum level of that zone (per the levels seen when taking certain forms of transit). So in practice, a Halloween "pumpkin patch" GM that spawns in Atlas Park will have fewer HP than the same Halloween GM that spawns in PI. It was my experience (from years past) that I could tell it was taking progressively more time to solo defeat the same holiday GMs as I moved from Atlas Park, to Hollows, to Skyway, To Faultline, to Peregrine Island. The Kings Row Paladins are towards the low-end by nature of the zone they spawn in. I'm not sure of a good way to get a feel for this besides the holiday GMs. Maybe the PI mission Adamastor v. the summoned Adamastor? If there is a key to soloing AVs, it basically comes down to do more damage than they heal. Debuffing their Regeneration, applying -MaxHP, and turning up the DPS (-Res helps, but you still have to overcome the healing). You also have to survive their attacks, but a LOT of characters can do that.

Apropos of (almost) nothing: Experienced Marksman is one of those PVP sets that almost never makes it into any of my builds. Scrappers/Stalkers who pick up Epic snipes always got for Sting of the Manticore; Blasters usually have other better options (including ATO). I think I have one cone-favoring Blaster (with a Snipe taken at a low level) where I crunched the numbers and the (boosted) PVP set turned out to be the best choice for that build... without using the Fast Snipe piece. A lot of the calculus on this character involved consideration of the levels of content I often play. I know that I didn't make the change of Enhancements for this character until after the change to the range on Fast Snipes... prior to that change I felt like my Blaster had a really good balance with the ranges of his attack powers and would use the (Fast) Snipe to pick off enemies that don't move (e.g. Snipers, Marksmen) or enemies that start running away. I was seriously tempted to change one of the slots to a Range IO 50+5, but it was the imbalance between ranges in Fast/Slow Snipes that bothered me more than whatever the final number was. When I get Experienced Marksmen recipe drops, I almost always craft them for spins of the converter roulette wheel.

Aside from a new power set (I've also been waiting for a set like this for a specific character concept), the ones that directly appeal to me (at this moment): Croatoa zone changes to help with the GMs and Events. I still encounter players that simply don't believe the entire spawns need to be cleared (even in Kings Row), so at least being able to spot the level-less mobs with /optionset showvillainname 1 should make it easier to convince open-minded players how these events actually work. The minor tweaks to Water Blast. I really like this set as it is, but there is some real clunkiness to Tidal Force accumulation/use, and Water Jet was always dropped from my builds at level 50+. The beta changes are not by any means over-powered, but I do see how these will help smooth out the experience of the Tidal Forces gimmick for ATs that choose this set. I appreciate that TPTB can look at a 'gimmick set' and see something that clearly isn't working (in a 'the juice is not worth the squeeze' kind of way). Weapon Redraws will probably improve QoL, but it has been a while since I've done a lot of playing with weapon sets,

Now being tested on the beta server: Water Blast Powers should build up Tidal Force stacks even if they miss. Enhanced Water Jet This power no longer has a lockout window. Tidal Forces Tidal Forces should clear all existing stacks of Tidal Power before applying 3 stacks. These changes blunt several of my (relatively minor) criticisms of a set that I think is already pretty good; none of these changes are going to hurt it. For my Blaster play, I feel like I am still unlikely to pick (Enhanced) Water Jet as a ST attack in a level-50 build (when global Recharge can be enough to smooth out attack chains without it) but I can see how these improvements will help folks that choose to lean into them. The biggest fix IMO is the behavior of the set on a missed attack. CoH play already has a serious bias towards AoE attacks, so the uneven accumulation of Tidal Force when using ST attacks has IMO added a level of clunkiness to this feature of Water Blast.

I was happy to see this in the Patch Notes (currently Beta testing): Zones Zone Adjustments Croatoa: Any enemy mobs involved in the Croatoa Vale War event where Eochai and Jack In Irons fight are now set to ignore combat mods, making them level-less and easier to identify which mobs must be defeated to progress or bring the event to its intended conclusion. Eochai and Jack In Iron's solo spawn events now have a Zone Event message that will broadcast when they spawn by themselves. I realize that not everyone uses /optionset showvillainname 1 but this small change will make it easier to reset the zone event. Thanks dev team!

Question about the level-less enemies in the Grim Vale War: Zones Zone Adjustments Croatoa: Any enemy mobs involved in the Croatoa Vale War event where Eochai and Jack In Irons fight are now set to ignore combat mods, making them level-less and easier to identify which mobs must be defeated to progress or bring the event to its intended conclusion. Eochai and Jack In Iron's solo spawn events now have a Zone Event message that will broadcast when they spawn by themselves. Question: Does the level-less apply to the mobs that spawn with the non-Gim Vale fight Jack in Irons and Eochai as well? I have been reluctant to test if 100% of their initial spawn needs to also be defeated to get them to respawn (zone geometry, and I don't like leaving things 'unfinished' if it will prevent re-spawns) I'd prefer if these spawns also appear as level-less, as I feels like they need to be cleared off the map in order to get the GMs to re-spawn. I offer the following anecdotal evidence: There can be long periods where Jack in Irons (and to a lesser extent) Eochai don't spawn (outside of the Grim Vale) The mobs that spawn with Jack in Irons (when he isn't spawned 'sleeping') and Eochai (when it isn't spawned in 'tree mode') will scatter wildly... this is especially true of the red caps. Specific to Jack in Irons and his Red Caps: There have been occasions where I've encountered this spawn when it's been bumbling around parts of the map where Fir Bolg will often zone, and as they have scattered from my character's attacks I have lost aggro on them as they get more interested in the Fir Bolg and never 'came back' to where I expected them to. This behavior reminds me of the 'grand rubble' that will spawn from a Jurassik Rubble... sometimes those (grand-) Rubble can end up some distance from where Jurassik was defeated (typically from knockback, but occasionally for other reasons).

I've tried a variety of travel pools with MMs, nothing is as satisfying for me as Flight (w/ Group Fly) There was a time (on live, and early HC FWIW) when I felt that the Teleport Pool offer exploration of some peculiar corners of game play(*1), but I still felt it was inferior to simply having all the henchmen and pets in the air. (*1) I think (trying, because ToHit) to teleport enemies to a spot is generally a waste of time, no matter the setup. I would use it as a long range "pull", and I'd use the group teleport options to move (already summoned) henchmen around the map... but I only found these strategies to be useful if I had mission difficulties set WAY too high. I love Combat Teleport, but I simply can't imagine getting it to work for any of my MMs.

I'm smiling thinking about a zone where a never-ending series of geriatrics dispatch characters on missions: "Be back before my stories!", "Get home before dark!" It wouldn't be fair to count Mr. Pither's Efficiency Effort arc, as the entire shtick of that arc is timed missions. Setting that aside, I can't say that I ever felt that Grandville had more timed missions relative to Peregrine Island. At some point during Live, the level 40-50 zone contacts were changed to have (more) timed missions to discourage farming.

A balcony suitable for delivering Shakespeare!

With no numbers to back up my feelings: I have a preference for Defenders, for a mix of historical reasons (They came first! They were Blue-siders!) and personal reasons (look what I can make this character do! Woo-hoo, Imma gonna RAD that AV!) Yet... when I sit down to plan a character, knowing that I will mostly play solo, and that I will be unlikely to "rush to 50"... I almost always start with the Corruptor concept because I typically want the powers in the Corruptor primary sooner than I would get the same powers if they were the Defender secondary... and I can tolerate getting the Corruptor secondary powers later in the build (than if they were the Defender's primary). Occasionally there is a power that I simply enjoy too much and so that flips the math. The choice often comes down to "which powers do I want to define the character for mid-level content?"

Masterminds are an AT that can't enjoy "Scrapperlock" nor can it "roflstomp" missions like other AT... it doesn't make them bad, it literally just requires a playstyle that doesn't often make sense for other ATs. On a team with other ATs that are playing quicker, MMS will feel less useful... but changing the playstyle to match the other ATs is chosing to play in a way that isn't typically suited for MMs. Solo MMs still have to deal damage to complete missions, collect INF/drops, but they have to do it in a different way. As has been pointed out in this thread, and many other places, a MM does its magic via the henchmen (who are not pets), most of which will have a 'negative level penalty' relative to the MM. The henchmen have to be slotted to address the level shift... if you don't believe me, try running a +2 mission (through Ouroboros) on any other AT with "Enhancements have no effect" to get a sense of what the T1 henchmen are facing at even-level content (for the MM)... it gets worse when the MM scales up difficulty levels! With the above in mind, MMs have to consider several different things to maximize their performance (or DPS, if you prefer to think in those terms), listed in roughly the order I would rank them from most important to least (all are important!): The enemies have to be debuffed, to do less damage and to take more damage (via -Def and/or -Res) The henchmen have to be buffed, in order to hit and to do damage The henchmen have to live through fights (in order of usefulness: +Def, +Res, and way behind IMO are +Healing and respawning) Henchmen can also be 'kept alive' via other actions by the MM, in rough order of value (as judged by me): MM attacks, preferably AoE, preferably with a debuff of some kind, to get and keep aggro on the MM MM pets (not henchmen) and pseudopets which will occupy the attention of enemy mob(ile)s during fights. MM effects (Enhancement IOs for defense/resist... don't forget Supremacy also boosts levels shifts for Incarnate content in addition to standard Accuracy and Damage boosts) Provoke (I find this to be almost completely useless in practice, because it requires Accuracy slotting and has such a small target cap... yet many players still recommend it so I include it here) to try to directly keep aggro on the MM. I have a general opinion that MMs simply won't appear to be as useful on typical teams/leagues because of the nature of how the AT completes its goals. I have found MMs to shine in certain team situations: During invasion events: target through henchmen (or pets), as the server-side AI detects valid targets before the client-side can detect them! When a team is getting over-run, pull the henchmen close to the MM and switch to Bodyguard/Defensive mode. I've had MMs survive what would have been a TPK simply by holding fast in tight quarters. Henchmen can be dispatched to attack distant enemies... either ones that are running or against a new spawn if no one else in the group can take the alpha strike/holds (Positron 2 TF is content that demonstrates this pretty well IMO, but it isn't the only content)

As was mentioned, -def isn't part of the equation, but I Spines/Bio is a very team-friendly Stalker IMO, because it offers several AoE options in addition to typical single-target stabby-stabby: DNA Siphon is the real gem, as it plays nicely with %procs in addition to helping the Stalker... and it also grabs aggro Throw Spines is a ranged cone that takes many %procs... it's "only" 10 targets, yet boosting range makes it very helpful, especially when Ripper (a melee cone, don't %proc this!) sends enemies flying backwards I'm not a huge fan of Spine Burst but it does take useful Enhancement Sets. Parasitic Aura is -DMG, which teams should appreciate (if used as an "alpha strike"). Impale is also not a favorite power of mine, but the -Fly and Immobilize effects bring utility. The /Bio defense isn't directly helping the team, but /Bio Stalkers can be very difficult to insta-kill and the secondary has the tools to recover from incoming damage. This has some positives (my opinion!) for teams: If Stealthing/Hiding to a mission objective in a crowded room, a Spines/Bio Stalker can almost always survive and clear any nearby spawn faster than any other AT. The most problematic enemies will be those that have strong resists to the Stalker's damage... TBH, the enemy damage resistances are the most frustrating part of Spines/Bio. If simply grinding through x8 maps, a Spines/Bio Stalker can handle a lot of aggro, and since it can deliver some power AoE "alpha strikes" of its own, they really help to keep the team moving. With the ST attacks, they can switch up to Boss-murder as needed.

Rando comments: The existing choices of Threat sets is poor. There isn't another piece that offers Threat/Accuracy! There are plenty of powers (Presence pool, many Auras) that could really use this type of piece. There are other simple combinations that are not well represented. Try looking for Accuracy/Endurance pieces that can be slotted and boosted to 50+5! There are some, but they are also weirdly rare (IMO) given the large numbers of different sets that exits for certain types of powers.

I always tried to start in Galaxy City, so its "destruction" hit me right in the feels... see also Dark Astoria. In the case of the Incarnate revamp, I mind less, as it sort of explains some of the things you learn along the way, and plus without the 'mist' it is easier to appreciate the map. Lore-wise? After the tutorial, I think only Twinshot's arc goes back there. I can't recall if Dr. Graves links to it.