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With default toggles (and auto-click) running, my Rad/Dark Tanker was the only one of my characters that couldn't be eaten by Blarf! (I haven't tried all of them, just that this one stood out) Blarf is a very convenient way (at higher levels) to get the debt badges for the red side accolade. I find the little glob to be so much more convenient than trying to get things in Dark Astoria or GMs in Hazard Zones to repeatedly kill me.

That isn't a bad suggestion, but you'll have to pry the Musculature damage boost from my claws!

Posi 1 is so short, and one of the missions is all Clockwork (so KB is pretty much always affecting them, despite KD) I wouldn't sweat it. I love Energy/Martial Blasters, and I'm getting ready to build another one! Besides... it is probably the case that more advanced players will be using Plasmatic Tasers and/or Hand Grenades to get through those early TFs anyway. Specifically for low-level content, when players don't have many slots and likely don't have anything like a full suit of powers, there is no room for drama about what another player is choosing to play.

Circling way back.... I do encourage Kheldians to solo the Kheldian-specific arcs, you get quite a bit of Lore that is otherwise invisible in the game. Without Shadow Cysts, the content isn't nearly as hard, although a few arcs will have a boss/elite boss that might self-rez into an even tougher form which can bring an old-school-struggle feel to a small number of missions.

The level shifts can be really problematic if you don't plan for it. As @Maelwys notes, Tactics is pretty important once you have all three tiers of henchmen, as it's a toggle and it can also be used as a good indicator how close the henchmen are to you (alongside Maneuvers). There are only limited cases where I'd consider NOT taking the Leadership pool on a MM, part of such a case might be... ...If you only planned to use ONLY the T3 henchman, you can be slightly more frivolous with how you leverage the slotting of the T1 and T2 powers (to hold global pieces)... you take those powers as mules, you simply never cast them. Using only a T3 isn't a great performing strategy but it can be fun for role-play and it might be all you want if you take a MM to some trials.

In terms of types of powers, it is perfectly fine. It is possible to build up a decent attack chain with it, and Mass Levitate is fun! For me, it falls into a category with some other sets (like Dual Blades) when against some enemies it begins to feel like I'm taking forever to defeat them, because of damage (and resistance) typing. An obvious fix for this drawback is to try to leverage Epic attacks, but for me I don't like to pick up attacks that late in a build and will usually only do so if it fits the character concept.

As noted, I have more testing to do... but if a power has multiple controls types, for me that usually makes it a good candidate for (Control) ATOs and/or Hami-Os, since the 'control' boosts in those enhancement sets boost each type of control. I don't have strong opinions about AoE holds because the Live devs beat them out of me.

My initial testing with Brilliant Barrage left me unimpressed with it as a source of %proc damage. My initial thinking is that the poor performance was somewhat related to the reasons you don't get %proc damage in a power like Seeker Drones... that delayed effects and the lack of a pseudopet 'body' left behind work against "on cast' %damage (like you can reliably get in the cast of something like Caltrops, whereas teh 'tick' chances aren't good at all) I'm still leveling up my Pyro Controller, and I'm soon to have some extra slots again to try testing Brilliant Barrage with %damage... but for now it is looking like I will lean into it to hold a control set (probably stun, possibly ATO) rather than trying to leverage it as a source of damage.

The economy is both quite stable and somewhat deflationary, so I don't understand what the advantage of raising prices (by whatever currency: Inf, Merits, Aethers) would provide. The only real gaps I see in the market are the non-fungible items (some recipes, some non-set enhancements). Let's not ignore that the market (and merit vendors) is pretty much the means by which we can have a diverse set of fun builds... and not just for +4x8 players. I don't think Winter Packs are a good case study for a few reasons: It was a seasonal sale for items (the packs themselves) that have an otherwise fixed price the rest of the year... so players could undersell the store and make a profit. The contents of the Winter Packs were extra-profitable, because of the sale price. If I turn this around and try to think of where it might even make sense to raise prices... I think we'd be playing a different game. For example, if we had to pay Inf to level up, folks with bank wouldn't care... but new players would be scrounging for Inf after something like a DFB with 2XP. That doesn't seem cool.

I certainly hope I am not misrepresenting anything like 'programming skills' on my part... it's probably been a decade since I had to install anything like a development environment for anything more complicated that quickly navigating a code base and assisting with instrumenting code for low-level testing. For about two decades my own programming has been pretty limited to scripted/configured development, or visual programming systems and their like. I can tinker of course, and trying to get VBA from old office applications to work on LibreOffice, or Android, or whatever is its own form of hell for a tinkerer. I do have the proverbial 10K hours (several times over) logged in everything else relevant for software development, from requirements and architecture through all levels of testing, plus lots of project management. I'm impressed we got the Homecoming code working so well, and my truth is that I'm ok with the pace of releases, and that 'bugs' are typically pretty minor... except of course for some things that work as-intended, but maybe didn't have the best considered intentions.

I don't use MIDS, but after I've played it more completely I can share what the build looks like. The set is a little more support-ish than I usually play so I am still messing around with it, trying powers that are new to me.

My default/starting point is: Tier 1: (A) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Damage: Level 50 (*) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance: Level 50 (*) Soulbound Allegiance - Chance for Build Up: Level 50 (*) Expedient Reinforcement - Resist Bonus Aura for Pets (*) Sovereign Right - Accuracy/Endurance: Level 50+5 (*) Sovereign Right: Resistance Bonus Tier 2: (A) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Damage/Endurance: Level 50 (*) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Endurance: Level 50 (*) FREEBIE (*) Call to Arms: Defense Aura for Pets (*) Call to Arms: Accuracy/Damage (*) Edict of the Master: Defense Bonus Tier 3: (A) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Accuracy/Damage: Level 50 (*) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Damage/Endurance: Level 50 (*) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Damage/Endurance/Recharge: Level 50 (*) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Recharge/Pet +AoE Defense Aura: Level 50 (*) Superior Mark of Supremacy: Accuracy/Damage: Level 50 (*) Superior Mark of Supremacy: Endurance, +Resist (All) +Regen(Pets): Level 50 If I have another power that can take some of the global pieces, I will add them their (so for Demons: Hell on Earth). If T1 has a good opportunity for a %proc (Robots and KD for example) I will move the Freebie slot to T1 and move a global to T2. As I noted above, this is just a common starting point for my MMs. In my Experience, the T2 can benefit from a little more Endurance reduction to keep pace with the other tiers, but that will depend on some other factors. I typically value Recovery more than Regen on MMs, so that 's my explanation for which ones get catalyzed and which ones do not. Some folks like the %BuildUp in the T3, but I prefer it in the three T1, who need extra help because of level shifts.

Thanks for all the work @Shenanigunner, I've used your resources to improve my own CoX experience.

Which circle of Hell am I being damned to for having: a) Only 1 level 50 b) exactly 14 c) about 50 d) exactly 78 e) 1000 and not a character more I hope it has free WiFi!

We really should rename "Melody" to "Demeter" to transport the living dead to Peregrine Island!

Yep, that's pretty much it. I don't why some people think you can't figure things out. Is this when Matlock gets the judge to pause the trial?

The one character I play every day, I kinda have to pay attention to merits... and incarnate threads... and monstrous aethers... and salvage... because that one bumps up against the ceiling for those things rather frequently. AFAIK I'm not anywhere near the 1000-per-server on characters. When I get a flashing "character limit exceeded" I'll probably start paying attention to such a thing. I pass no judgement on anyone for not knowing what the upper limit on things like salvage storage, merits, etc. is.

My comment was more along these (hypothetical) lines: Let's say the team is working on new power sets, changes to (control, tanker) powers, Gian Monster updates and new zone content. With good CM and branching, they could decide to rollout some subset and then branch in the other stuff at another time. I don't know that they aren't doing this, but the sheer amount of changes in i28p2 makes me wonder why we didn't get something more piecemeal like (an attempt to tie certain things together on my part): 1) New armor sets, tanker changes 2) New Control sets, control set changes (including adaptive recharge) 3) Khallisti Wharf 4) etc. I can speculate why, but for testing purposes, there was a hella much in this most recent page.

Me too... but folks will ask for things "for free", and the Dunning-Kruger effect is observable, which is why I've been impressed.

Both! (although the initial summons isn't something I pay attention to, so *shrug*). Slotted Recharge has no effect on henchmen, except the ability to recast the summons sooner. Even with the MM/pet global pieces, I find there is a need to slot Accuracy/Damage/Endurance reduction. the T1 henches need more Accuracy than the T3 because of level shifts, so it becomes something of a balancing act. Usually each tier of henchmen gets 2 pieces of Mark of Supremacy.

I get that it is a volunteer effort... but it is probably better to describe this as an amateur effort. This isn't meant to be insulting! I'd be an amateur myself if I tried to mess with the code (n the development side, although I have been paid for database design and GUI design/coding in another life). I've managed dozens of software development efforts, with budgets ranging from a few thousand dollars to nearly a million dollars... so from that PoV I think I can genuinely say that I'm unimpressed. Since I long ago stopped using it, I'm not qualified to point at anything specific (see @Luminara post above, I guess) but from many years back I could see that MIDS was being really sloppy and resource-intensive... and (again, from long ago) I felt that the package should have been a lot more "local" and less reliant on requiring users to install development kits or .NET frameworks, or whatever. I'm capable of doing those things, but even in 2020 it felt like this was a losing battle (for me, obviously I can't speak for the folks messing with it). I use a simple excel template where the only smart thing it does is count slots and add up whatever bonuses I want to track (Recharge, Accuracy, KB protection, whatever). I've somewhat internalized the enhancement values from the sets I typically use, and if forget (or don't know) the base values of a power I'll double-check City of Data against the game. It isn't providing anything like the functionality of MIDS (of any era) but it suits me. The one thing I used MIDS for was from an earlier era of the game when I'd specifically try to optimize attack chains with timing and recharge effects... but in practice I found I couldn't really trust such numbers (except at ~50) so I kinda gave up shooting for perfect min-max attack chains. For some powers that I commonly use in different builds I've probably only got (at most) three different slotting choices (at level 50), each one solves a different 'problem' better than the other two choices.... so in many ways I've already constrained my build choices without need MIDS to convince me I've made the 'best' choice. I am aware that I make one common 'mistake' (waste really) that a program like MIDS would help me minimize... I occasionally have overkill on slotted accuracy (+global accuracy, +ToHit)... but in practice this just means that I could change something like a single piece from Accuracy/Range to Damage/Range... and I figure this out from in-game testing instead of trusting the computer.

More like a happy person that doesn't count good days.

I think there is some wisdom here: We probably could have gotten only one of (three? four? I've lost count) major updates present in i28p2 and things would have been copacetic. Obviously the dev team has to keep track of branching and leverage some good configuration management practices, but I sort of expect that, even from volunteers.

It's honestly not something I think about. To me, they are characters and not possessions.