tidge

Specific to Range enhancements: For characters that will be making attacks almost exclusively from range (e.g. something like Archery/Trick Arrow) I prefer to boost the range of individual powers to try to get all of the attacks in roughly the same ballpark. The global Range boosts are fine, but I dislike that they increase the range differences between attacks as much as they increase the ranges of individual attacks. MMV.

I agree that avoiding all the melee/armor proliferation helped to define ATs. The biggest 'but balance!' issues stem IMO from consideration of performance at level 50... and HC's (good, IMO) change to give all ATs complete Primary *and* Secondary choices by level 30 hasn't helped discriminate between the melee ATs in lower-level content either.

I was concerned about changing slotting of my Rad Armor characters, but after playing with them on Live I didn't feel the need to make any changes. Ground Zero's target cap being scaled back is not something I see as a 'nerf' but more of a correction, Radiation Therapy is where I thought I would make big changes (to focus more on the self-heal, possibly saving some slots) but ultimately my builds have been smooth enough I didn't see any obvious place to make a change... that is, I'd go from one set of marginal improvements from area to another.

For Lord Recluse, you are going to want a fast recharging Dull Pain. The Energy Resist is not nothing, but my experience is that Dull Pain and Destiny Healing goes much further for Invuln tanking of LR. The MLTF is one of the few areas of the game where my Invulnerability Tanker ends up using Hasten (for Dull Pain).

I feel obligated to toss in: I think Conditioning is one of the worst Inherent abilities. Maybe it would make more of difference if we didn't already have the Fitness pool on every character, On paper it looks good "who doesn't want more Recovery or Regeneration?" but in practice those boosts don't mean much for those ATs. I'd much rather it was simply a +5% MaxEnd rather than be just another contributor to an already asymptotic boost. My Widows are the only characters I feel like I have to rely on Incarnate Alpha abilities to keep going at high-level content... without Hasten being used... and it isn't as if I'm ignorant of how to address Endurance issues.

There are the logs, which is IMO key to understanding. It is typically necessary to set up to monitor specific things in specific windows (like 'Pet Damage' for instance). Just looking for floating numbers during testing also helps. There isn't IMO much reason for a player to assume they have near-perfect knowledge of the game... for example, I'm not sure that in-game there is any explanation of damage types/resistances, debuffs/buffs, or how Defense works ... let alone defense types. From memory there is a brief explanation of levels and ToHits in the Outbreak tutorial, I cannot recall if Destroyed Galaxy City does as well. Red Side tutorial always seems to be more about just running around the map. I think there is sometimes a base assumption that is basically "%procs are the magic way to do more damage" which ignores all sorts of things such as: Accuracy and ToHit (of the power, pet, hechman, pseudopet), especially for +4 difficulty settings Which effect is actually being used, and how often (i.e. some power sets can be slotted but may not be leveraged all that often) If the %proc is enemy-affecting or character-affecting If something different happens on-cast versus 'in-combat' ...even before we get into how often a %proc might actually fire.

Is this when we share that there is a city/islands map in addition to a zone map?

Solution: Wait 95 seconds before your next cast of judgement.

Those of us who've been around long enough know what will get a thread locked without also being worthy of warning points... I'm not saying there is or isn't a backroom deal in place.

Most of my Controllers still need to lean into a single-target START attack, for pretty much all levels, just to be able to finish off minions.

Widows *are* slightly hard to play at low levels, especially without slotting. I recall soloing the Hollows arcs and they were pretty gruesome. Redside Widows were similar, but I guess I didn't notice as much drag, but I was enjoying Lore and arcs more there so I didn't feel as held back. Perhaps the enemy damage resistance was more favorable to my damage typing at those levels. A couple of simple notes: The toggles aren't providing much benefit at low levels, but they still cost Endurance (as does Sprint). My recollection is that low-level Widows take several attacks to be able to clear even a typical x1 spawn. Eventually the scales of enhancements begin to help, and with respectable slotting in attacks this becomes less noticeable.

I agree with Senator @macskull ... there are no problem with %damage procs. If %procs are seen as a problem it would actually be that it is possible to achieve absurd levels of Global Recharge (which is just fine by me BTW). %damage is a pleasing option for some builds to leverage to make it so that they don't have to wheez through content when they lack damage powers. If someone makes the choice to use %procs, via franken-slotting, they are sacrificing set bonuses.

From another era...

Even simpler: a data point is a discrete bit of knowledge; information is the relationship between multiple data points.

IIRC, the "+" signals the rest of the macro/bind to start on press, complete on release. I'm glad it worked for you.

The game is set up with a reward structure, and the reward structure *is* part of the game. I don't have to imagine that. I can relate to people wanting insta-50s and full-kit builds... and while that is possible, it is not how the game was initally built... even if it is practically achievable, but a player has to engage with the game (not MIDS) some way besides just typing "I want". I don't care if it is via farming, constant raids, play-through-to-50, or marketeering. Each of those is actually engaging with the game. The lack of imagination being demonstrated IMO that hypothetical players are so superior to the game we actually have that the game has to make it easier for them to get what they want. People who want builds & characters without engaging have Brainstorm. Nothing is holding anybody back except stubbornness about not wanting to engage in the game that everyone else is playing. What is it @battlewraith actually wants from the game?

@Maelwys I love ya pal, but you have got to let this one go: It is simply too easy to reduce your argument to "Nerf those other Melee ATOs" or "Gotta give Brutes something to hang with Scrappers/Stalkers in terms of DPS." A wall of text with a bajillion points of nuance doesn't change the overlapping Venn diagrams for the above simplifications and your argument. Furthermore, when you start arguing about IOs (specifically procs), it isn't as if you are offering a comprehensive review of all procs and what powers they can be slotted in, let alone all other ATOs.... things that not every player uses, so this argument you want to make can't apply across the game or player base. You are pointing to a tree, when what the rest of us are wondering why you can't see the forest.

The suggestion to use Brainstorm was for people that don't want to play very much but want only level 50+ characters with whatever they want for zero effort or cost.... especially for case when the imagination is providing an unending roster of level 50+ builds, all of which must be insta-50s with full-kits. AFAIK, Brainstorm hasn't had a wipe in quite some time. I have difficulty imagining wanting to invest significant play time in a character and also seeing the game as a 'grind' to the point of actually being unwilling to level up. I must be an inferior player because I use the leveling experience to test out powers and slots, get costumes right, work on macros.

Who wants to play with such people?

Asking for a friend: Is this "hundreds of hours" played on a character all at 50+, or is it leveling up a character from level 1? I've been suggesting the Beta server to the players that only want to play at level 50, immediately slotted with a full-kit that they don't want to pay for, and who have more-or-less said that a hundred hours is something they wouldn't accumulate for a long time, certainly not on only a single character.

I will skip 2XP, and I will often turn off XP altogether, just so that I can do more arcs. I find it practically impossible to do all of the Hollows with XP turned on, Faultline is a balancing act. Red side.... fuggedaboutit with XP turned on. The game doesn't start at level 50! (*1) Even without turning off XP. I rarely get a character to 50 without it having something on the order of 600 merits, and then playing it at 50 is when the drops really start to accumulate. I am unaware of any player being kicked from a team, or being looked down upon because of the way they've built their character, except in the self-confessed cases of the fragile team leaders who kick because they are mentally offended by Kheldians, MMs, knockback, whatever. I've been doing low level content where level 50s have apologized because they haven't got their characters "slotted" yet, and our teams have had to apply some assurance to those players to believe... (*1) it is of course possible to spend bank on characters below level 50 (ATO, Winters, PVP are all decent sets that can be slotted quite early in a career)... but without the slots, and things like Beginner's Luck and all the personal buffs available, there is less immediate need (in my experience) to slot anything until about level 15. With a SG base, I find it trivially to store pieces (like attuned PVP sets) for reuse, as those recipes drop across pretty much the entire content spectrum of the game.

I'm never in a rush to 50... but around level 12 I'll start slotting. My older characters have usually made some ATO and sub-20 pieces. As I've written elsewhere, it is pretty easy to have a previous level 50 get a new character set up with some gear. I am remind that on Live, the one thing that made the biggest impact for me was the prestige (subscriber) powers. They really smoothed out the play experience for a lot of my characters.

*shrug* I don't really have Endurance problems... the henchmen don't run out with my slotting of them, the MM don't use Hasten, and I don't proc out my MM attacks (instead they are slotted with sets with Endurance Reduction pieces and also provide bonuses). The sets I use in my MMs tend to offer +MaxEnd and/or Recovery and/or Global Endurance discounts. Plus accolades, natch. The only times I come close to running down my blue bar (that aren't related to something doing Endurance Drain) is in drawn out fights (5+ minutes) when I've done something like taken the 90 minute attack speed boost and I'm running an additional toggle... my main MM has a bunch of defense/resist toggles that I typically don't even bother turning on, although with the increased ToHit given to Giant Monsters, I will occasionally do so now. The 90 minute recovery boost from the SG base covers me here. So in other words... not getting tuckered.

Double-Inf for no XP was turned off because Farming with (lvl 49 IIRC) sitters was yielding 2x Inf rewards.... so adding almost as much Inf as 2 level 50 sitters, but not as many drops.