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This is how it should be: the other Giant Monsters are not "exploitable" in the same way as Scrapyard. Four hours between spawns, combined with the general improvements to toughness is enough to motivate teaming. Adamastor having a daily limit was targeted at a very specific set of players who (per discussions on the forums) parked themselves at the Adamastor summoning spot and would either resummon the GM or just be present when others resummoned the GM to score 6 merits an hour. They also got the shame of admitting that this is what they were doing! If other Giant Monsters get reward timers, I hope that we'd get the option to buy (via Aether) specific pet recipes as opposed to the random roll. The drop rates for the pet recipes are pretty poor... I have several hundred Merits from Giant Monster drops, but only two pet recipes have dropped. If ALL the GM rewards are put on timers, it will make it that much harder to get a specific recipe. Since the pet recipes are also planned to become non-fungible on the market, this next set of updates could be really miserable for those of us who have characters that want a specific pet.

The Goliath Warwalker in Boomtown has a one hour waiting period before it can be summoned. Deathsurge can be summoned, but the mobiles necessary to summon it are few in number and spread all over the map. Caleb can be summoned, but it is on the day/night clock. The Grim Vale event is on a two hour cycle, but only from the time when the last mobile from the previous event has been cleared. Pretty much all the other open world zone-specific giant monsters are on a four hour cycle, from the time when there spawn conditions have been met.

My "grounded" characters usually keep their travel power, athletic sprint, and sprint toggled on inside missions. If I think I am burning Endurance I will detoggle. I like to keep the travel powers toggled on for the secondary effects like teleportation (targeting a mobile or a location) or PBAoE knockdown.

I play a lot of Robots/Traps, and it is the preferred MM in my stable to other builds. Other pairings are fine, but what I like about the Robots/Traps combo is that through playstyle and power picks/slotting choices it is possible to have a very layered approach to debuffing enemies and buffing the henchmen. This combo's debuffs are more than just applying a toggle or using an aura, so it can be a surprisingly rewarding combination to master. I understand why Robots/Traps sometimes is referred to a "training wheels" combination, yet once those wheels come off, it can be a very high-performing set. The Page 5(?) robotics changes improved the damage output of the henchmen, but moved most of the debuffing elements into the MM primary attacks. The debuffs are less necessary for typical minion/lt/boss spawns, so for almost all content this was a big improvement. The only cases I've experience where this change hurt was that the robotic henchmen by themselves could no longer take down Giant Monsters (or other enemies with bags of HP). I think this was a perfectly acceptable trade off, but at the time I think it caught some players with the Robotics primary off guard. As for "most versatile" on a team... My attitude is that when playing solo your henchmen are your "team", so whatever works for the henches should work for a PUG. As enemy debuffing is the force multiplier for teams, this is the primary reason I lean hard into enemy debuffing for MMs. On the flip side, most teams usually have defenses and resistances (and to a varying degree "health management") covered I tend to not focus on those aspects of MM secondaries. Mileage varies of course, especially across content and playstyle. Whatever you pick, you won't be doing it wrong.

Some folks just want to clear space, and maybe get some auction house badges as well. By some folks, I mean me.

Imma confused. Is the question about naming these as "issues/pages" or is the question about QoL issues? I like that we get new "comic book" content, although I am less invested in the Lore than others. I do think there are a few QoL "issues" that could be looked at, for example: henchmen had their collision boxes removed (for players), but many pets still have them. Umbra Beast likes to pin teammates (and owners) into corners!

The previous system worked fine: If I wanted a specific Tip, they only cost 1 merit via a SG Base. If I had tips I didn't want, I'd just dismiss them. I don't like having to "start" tip missions to keep them, because it is too easy for those missions to screw up things like trying to get to arc doors via Team Teleport and Mission Teleport. Having more than one mission active means that the player has to make sure to set the active mission to the one they really want to go to. Not impossible but enough of a PITA that I never kept an active door tip mission.

As written above, the advantage of the Fast Snipe is that the +ToHit becomes extra damage, up to 22%. IMO the biggest drawback to Fast Snipes is the loss of Range, not damage. I only have one character that leverages the Experienced Marksman Range/Fast Snipe piece. That particular build was designed to have better options than a long ranged Snipe, and also has a lot of +ToHit.

"Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?" I don't mind tips dropping in mission or out of mission. I want them to drop in each circumstance. Previously I would do one tip to get the next one... And after the morality mission I'd street sweep to get a tip... It is the unnecessary notifications that aggravate me. Maybe for my account they could just be turned into Enhancement Catalysts?

The vector of my dislike for this change to alignment tips is the same (as above), but the magnitude of the personal animosity is less. Please roll back this unnecessary change that is also highly annoying.

I'm glad MIDs (whatever version) works for some folks. I gave up on it years ago because (at the time) it was such a resource hog and it felt like it was requiring too much of my PC to do what (I think) should have been a rather straightforward database implementation. I am 100% aware of the complexities inherent to the various character building options in CoX, but as a software designer it felt to me like the focus was more on the bajillion corner cases and less on refactoring the database implementation to run in a more 'minimalistic' way. I haven't seen the code, so this is purely my feels as a consumer. Similarly: I am guessing the UI is designed with whatever the team feels they understand the best, likely because it "works". That doesn't mean that the UI code implementation is the best for all consumers. Kudos to the folks working on it. These days I construct my builds in Excel (of all things!) while referencing City of Data and my Enhancement cheat-sheet. I typically try to approach builds by having no more than three primary design intents (depending on AT and mood) after those I find I can tweak the higher-order effects without needing a MIDS... but I usually only do THAT after some time running the characters. Personally: Ever since Homecoming lowered the level requirements for powers, I have found designing character builds to be easier. Partially because there is less of a need to put 'filler' power choices early-ish in a build, and partially because with higher-tier powers available sooner I like being able to slot those early. At level 50 it makes little difference but I like having more play time with a power as I level.

I haven't taken a Placate-ish power since before the previous rounds of changes (to the power, to the set options). I am now leveling up a Stalker with Placate and I like it! With one slot? I'd probably just go Recharge. I want it available as often as possible. It looks like the stalker version doesn't take Accuracy, so usually this means it is an 'auto-hit' but I haven't done testing to see if it ever misses.... my character is too low level and doesn't have it slotted yet. My current Stalker has a 5-piece slotting of Mocking Beratement planned (not using the pure Threat piece). I don't have the slots for the 6th piece bonus (from that set) and the effects of the extra global recharge would be somewhat minimal for this build. If it turns out that I don't "need" that set's extra Defensive boosts, I'll pull slots from Placate. I like the +MaxEnd from Mocking Beratement, so I'd probably keep 2 slots in the power.

Writing only for myself: I check the Initial Beta release notes, and then I will follow some fraction of the subsequent updates for those that interest me. I full admit to NOT reading the official page 7 release notes because... well... WALL OF TEXT. I do eventually circle back to them, but I have to admit I never expected a change to the TIP system... especially in an area that I don't recall anyone asking for. Specific to alignment TIPs, the only ask I ever recall players asking for was the ability to pull TIPs from previous level ranges. So bad on me for putting it in the BUG forum without checking the actual release notes. Mea culpa. EDIT: I want to add this bit of my annoyance of this change: I don't know what problem/issue this change addresses. We always had the ability to pick any alignment tip mission we wanted using a SG base device, for the cost of a single merit. If we needed 'room' for the mission, it was trivial to dismiss another alignment mission.

I agree: Invulnerability (on Homecoming) doesn't have to worry so much about Psi damage, with a caveat. When Psi enemies appear, the biggest issue with them IMO is that there are several groups that are not easily gathered (because they have mostly/exclusively long ranged attacks) and so Invincibility is less likely to be boosting a Tanker's Defenses (when a non-ranged dogpile is defeated). IMO knowing that there are groups that don't "swarm" a Tanker (IDF, Seers, Rularuu for example) is my favorite reason to leverage slotting choices that most Invulnerable Tankers will do anyway, like picking/slotting Positional defense boosts (Weave, Maneuvers, Combat Jumping) Scaling Damage Resistance +Heal/%Absorb ...And of course there are individual pieces that can layer on extra resistances, as well as set bonuses. I do typically add a little bit more Psi Resistance to Invulnerables but only after planning to hit (some/all) of the bullet points above.

I tested with a non-50 defeating (nu)Adamastor the first time: 10 Merits + 6 Merits (no threads, obviously) EDIT: I went back and tested with a level 50, and got 10 Merits, plus 6 Merits plus 5 Threads (plus Monstrous Aethers) . This is a pretty generous drop IMO.

IIRC Auto powers act as if they are being triggered every so many seconds... 10? Those reactivations replace the previous application (with same duration), which is why they will be 'perma' in an auto power. Some enhancements have Global effects that work like an enhancement set bonus that does not need to be triggered.

I decided to try nuLusca with my monster hunter. I did get 22 merits (plus 1 pet recipe, + 2 monster Aether's) but it took me 30+ minutes. I didn't think this was a good use of my (solo) time. Those aren't terrible rewards for time spent, but I could have spent the same time in a less stressful set of SSA1 runs ... Likely 5 of them... In the same amount of time.

50s would get 10 merits + 5 threads IIRC, maybe that is what you saw?

As @Infinitum wrote above: it is really hard to go wrong with most any Tanker. I have also watched Tanks drop in Health and then the Regeneration plus Scaling Resistance cuts in and then the Tank's Health is idling at some value. There are corner cases of content that can cause grief.... Like -MaxHP attacks. The 'tankiest' Tank will have to plan for all the corner cases too.

First time in the 24 hour period was 10 merits (and still is). Subsequent defeats in the same 24 hour (more like 18 IIRC) were 6 merits. As others have written: waiting for the timer to reset for 6 merits is not an efficient way to earn merits.

I'll repeat: Many melee characters have Taunt as part of an aura, and those auras rarely get detoggled. Generally it is a good idea for a Tanker/Brute to get in the habit of casting actual Taunt powers as well, for a variety of reasons. There is no reason to be upset and suggest micro-managing of Tanks/Brutes playstyles, especially when the problem as described here (confused players targeting leaguemates) isn't unique to Tankers/Brutes.

You also don't need to be durable or high-level to run SSA1, and it can be infinitely re-run for 5 merits. Once you know what to do, it should take under 7 minutes for a vast majority of characters.

Hoo boy. I find this to be a pretty clumsy implementation.

I can't tell if it is event related or alignment, I suspect the latter. My level 50 is constantly getting Tip notifications. I have 3 valentines and 5 alignment missions.

With ONLY (non set) IOs, being "well rounded" will probably involve specific power choices to mitigate debuffs, improve Accuracy/ToHit, and self heal. With sets, it is reasonably straightforward to mitigate those sorts of concerns via slotting on just about any tanker. In general terms... At 54x8 settings, plan to be hit and make sure you can hit back.