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Some random (recent) observations: 1) I have definitely recently encountered (what I would consider) to be a significant uptick in the number of characters clearly on the spectrum of "this is obviously _____". A few have been bluntly named precisely the comics character along with a costume that precisely matches the comic/TV/Cinematic character, I appreciate the effort, but come on. The most peculiarly ironic example was a hero toon who had a creative IMO alternate name for the character, but the bio said "____ (copyright name) was taken"... tell me what you really wanted to do without telling me what you really wanted to do. Another eye-rolling moment: "Please invite <copyright name> to team".... and of course, "copyright name" isn't the character name, it is "copyright name with laziest possible alteration" that the PUG buddy doesn't even recognize. 2) There have been a small number of characters that are basically skirting the established naming policies re: the pandemic. These could fall into the Gilbert Gottfried (RIP) "too soon?" category. I don't know what the intention of those players are, I certainly wasn't triggered.

So, about Super Speed.... a travel power I almost never take... I decided to give it a "fair shake", 'cuz: I'm know the doors on well-worn TFs, so speeding to them can be second nature (start fighting those scrubs ASAP!) This is a Dominator, so I was going to be in the Speed pool anyway ...and I discovered something really weird about it. If Super Speed is slotted with a Thrust: Running Speed/Increase Running Speed, and Super Speed is toggled on... I also tend to have Sprint and Athletic Run also toggled on, but not Speed Phase, it is possible to run through (some) chain link fences and a few other "see through" map artifacts. If another enhancement piece like a Universal Travel set is slotted in Super Speed, this effect goes away. The posts between chain-link fences will still stop the character. I don't know if this is a bug or "working as intended", but it is actually kind of cool to NOT have to jump over certain map effects.

^ Check this. If you (player) have a storage UI window open when you go to the manage enhancement screen (to try to catalyze), the catalysts are going back into storage.

Speed Phase is not toggled on, only Super Speed, and only when that piece is equipped in Super Speed. Unequipping that piece makes the effect stop.

My question will be about the /Electricity Assault Dominator T9 Secondary power available at level 38. This is a Recharge-Intensive Pet, with all the limitations/timers/lifetimes associated with such. The question involves a single slot that I'm not quite sold on. The current slotting of Voltaic Sentinel for my (level 50, perma-Dom) Plant/Electric is: Expedient Reinforcement (Accuracy / Damage) Expedient Reinforcement (Damage / Endurance) Expedient Reinforcement (Accuracy / Damage / Recharge) Expedient Reinforcement (Endurance / Damage / Recharge) Soulbound Allegiance (%Build Up) Monitoring the logs, I can see that usually the Sentinel gets the benefit of Build Up for one attack; occasionally it will happen twice. Against level 50 carnies, when %Build Up is triggered, it is about 30 extra single-target damage. I like the little sparky guy, but it's already something of a high-maintenance power that isn't something I always keep up. Normally: My attitude is MOAR DAMAGE is MOAR DAMAGE. However... in this case, as the delivery is single-target in a completely uncontrolled manner... What do y'all thing about pulling that %proc out of Voltaic Sentinel and using the slot somewhere else in the build where it can have more impact across all levels? As far as where I would put the slot, the primary candidate power is Health. Currently, I have neither Preventive Medicine (%Absorb) nor Miracle (+Recovery) slotted. The extra Recovery translates to ~ 0.25 End/second... with perma-Dom and no Incarnates I'm on the knife's edge of button mashing, so "dulling that blade" may be useful. %Absorb is pretty much just a warning sign that I'm taking (too much) damage and need to refocus attention. I can use unslotters to switch between those choices. There are lower tier powers that could take a %damage enhancement (or the %Fiery Orb ATO) but I'm otherwise comfortable with the powers/slottings in those powers and don't feel that either of those types of options would really help performance.

Disclaimer: I almost never take Super Speed as a travel power. Truthfully, I only rarely dip into the Speed pool. I was leveling a new Dominator, so perhaps it is easy to imagine why I might wade into the Speed pool, and I opted to go up into my knees, as it were. I happened to slot the Thrust (Running Speed / Increase Run Speed) piece... there was no real reason: I happened to roll into it during an enhancement conversion, I know the zone geometry pretty well, so I wanted to see if I could use it to "speed" to missions on PUGs (ehem, Synapse). I started noticing on instanced maps that I could Run through certain map geometries... I assumed it was a map/server glitch, but it was repeatable. I then noticed I could do it on the open-world maps (Peregrine Island especially). as I hit level 50, I respeced and replaced the Thrust piece with a Winter's Gift (Slow Resistance)... and noticed I could no longer run through map artifacts! I swapped the pieces and it returned! Basically: If it is possible to "see through" a map artifact, it becomes possible to Super Speed through them. This includes chain link fences (but not posts) and transparent walls (like on many Praetorian maps). This is cool, but is it intended? I haven't gotten it to work in Pocket D.

While I appreciate that y'all are looking for new niches... IMO a new Issue/Page simply means that more new characters will be made, a few older characters will be respec-ed, and it means that sales will increase on all the old favorites. If I wanted to try to predict an impact from AE changes, I would consider the potential impact for less AE farming to have on supplying raw materials to the Auction House. I'm well aware of the (quite right, IMO) theory of worrying about inflationary pressure from Inf farming, but it is hard for me to gauge the impact of past AE changes... especially since I never AE farmed for influence; I did occasionally use AE farms for drops, years ago. The post-Incarnate Vet Levels XP (to me) falls into the category of things that I simply didn't know were a thing that people really cared about. I'm just as surprised to find out that anybody really cares that some folks are leveraging it.

If only the General Discussion threads didn't get locked, so we could at least get the whole "history is written by the winners" vibe. I find it tedious to track down the old "sky is falling" threads annually.

This is about me: I find Dominators to be the most fragile characters and mine tend to live on a razor's edge. My Dominators are almost always the characters that I don't even notice are at very low Health until it is far too late. Sometimes I want this play style because the game is "rather easy" otherwise, but it is peculiarly stressful.

I mean "simple" in that the henchmen would not be jamming, just on the way to the jam.

Sorry: I'm still not joining Discord!

There are a large number of Ouroboros arcs which give players the ability to farm doors. The most straightforward (Blue side) is Aaron Thiery in Atlas Park, as it is literally the only door mission in the arc... although players may not have a wide variety of (non P2W) attacks to use, and may have some Endurance issues due to the level of the arc. Making a TF team (or wait for others to) battle the doors in the Yin TF is something I find rude. It is thankfully very rare, but if the TF leader is going to go for THAT badge, you had better believe that I'll be aggroing as many mobs capable of granting Tankbuster and Assault and Battery as possible.

In terms of "simple" customizations, I'd like to be able to strap guitars to the backs of my Ninjas.

There are quite a few of the 'non-accolade' SF/TF I enjoy, but I like Penelope Yin's TF best for PUGs. Have all the missions in the same zone, with same doors is a true blessing. I especially like that it occurs at a level when every different AT ought to have blossomed into their team role, and at a level where most set bonuses should have kicked in. This allows higher level (exemplared) characters to turn up the difficulty. Oy, ToHit matters! I like that it is so scalable once in the missions. I believe that there is some fraction of players that simply don't know how scalable it is: I've had PUG leaders of "Speed Yin" ask me "WHY ARE YOU SKIPPING THOSE GROUPS?" (can be done in every mission, IIRC) and I've also had PUG leaders of "Defeat All Yin" ask me "WHY ARE YOU OPENING THOSE SIDE DOORS?" The only thing I don't like about that TF is the 1% of PUGs lead by someone who thinks that this TF is the best way for them to work on the Doorbuster badge.

Disclaimer: I realize that Dominators make (IMO) extreme choices with set bonuses & powers, so I'm just going to riff in a rather unfocused way. I absolutely don't think you need to change your build. I think you made the right choice with Contagious Confusion in the single-target confuse. Domination makes the (completely random, unpredictable) suggestion to have that piece in the AoE confuse especially weak. Personally: I don't like to rely on Force Feedback +Recharge for Perma-Dom, but I understand its inclusion.... especially if a global recharge (set) bonus has bee sacrificed for %procs. If you have permadom, you may not need the second slot in Health for Recovery. I have been using Force of Will, I can understand your feels. For what it is worth, I rarely take Weaken Resolve so early, but I understand how pool power selection works. I want to say that I always consider your precises slotting, but I feel that I have typically backed away from the HO and just gone with Accuracy at 50+5. when paired with the Achilles Heel piece. If it is a 1-slot-wonder, I go with the Lysosome HO. I typically try to use Wall of Force as cone-base %damage proc power. I see what you are doing with it. If you decide to drop this pool, play with the Presence pool before going to a well-worn pool like Fitness or Leadership. You will get a different type of play experience with Presence. I love the 6-piece bonus for Reactive Defenses, but I wonder if Preventive Medicine isn't a better choice for Unleashed Potential. Ultimately it is the recharge time of the power that I think you want maximized, so I'm just putting this out there. I see that set in Drain Psyche... good place to include a great set, which may be key to permadom... yet Drain Psyche is one of those powers that benefits from Accuracy and takes some decent %damage. I don't really suggest a change, but here is some slotting for it I have used: Theft of Essence %+Endurance Preventive Medicine %+Absorb (always works, even if power is never clicked) Preventive Medicine Heal Touch of Nictus %Negative Touch of Nictus Accuracy/Heal Touch of Nictus Acc/End/Recharge Also in the category of early power picks, I usually defer the LotG mule picks until late in the build... I like having 'clicky' powers available at low levels. I wouldn't put a second slot in Personal Force Field, except possibly to hold a mule. I've found it to be a rather unreliable power especially when things are going poorly.

I vote "Lost Cause". I realize this was posted in the Blasters subforum, but I don't even think World of Confusion is the best mule in its Epic pool(s).

I don't have many Dominators... the ones I have are because I had an idea for a character concept that leveraged some of the 'control' sets but I wanted a peculiar bit of offense. I am leveling up a Plant/Electric Dom right now... Without all slots, accolades, or 50+ set enhancements it's been a fun, combat-oriented puzzle dealing with certain arcs (The Envoy of Shadow made me recall how much trouble that guy was on early Live!) The heresy for this character has been: in the absence of perma-dom (please no stories on how you achieved permadom at level 25, thanks in advance) I've primarily only been using Domination to refill the blue bar and/or to break free of mez. This is only a tiny fraction of what it is "for", but this character is (essentially by design) peculiarly fragile. I also find an odd challenge in Dominator builds in that quest for perma-dom... selecting enhancement bonuses for global +Recharge is, if I'm honest, too much of "simple constraint" on build choices for my taste. I understand (for all AT) wanting to be able to have maximally efficient chains of powers, and minimal cycle times on certain key powers... but I don't grok maximum Recharge, except in the case of Perma-Dom. On many of my oddball concepts, I simply like to see effects that I'd have to do without if I simply wanted to minimize clear times and/or maximize survivability (again: I don't need any particular rebuttals about how you "have it all" on your builds... thanks in advance)

Last night I had a case where I knocked a Devouring Earth Lt into the ceiling where it spawned its eminator! Luckily those have a timer. That same mission made me grumpy because a spawned Swarm became part of the 'defeat all' and those things (now, for a long time) run-and-hide! If there is a mitigation (not a fix), I feel like it would have to be something like a trigger for the map whereby if everyone leaves that the mobs get the equivalent of a /stuck command applied to them. In my experience, this has been so very rare that I don't know if it is really necessary. There have been a handful of times (in 2+ years) with non-targetable mobs where I didn't have some sort of PBAoE and I had to reset the mission.

The two things about my (past) niches I would pay attention to was the ratio of supply to demand, and of course recent sale prices. If the supply suddenly outstripped demand, it was usually a sign that someone else had moved in... and if the sale price lowered, that was the indication I was being undercut.

I haven't done "spreadsheets", I can't speak at all to staff/elec melee, and I have not ever taken -ToHit Incarnates... but I do have a Dark/ Blaster, and Dark/ has a -ToHit component... I can believe that -ToHit is over-rated on +4/x8 content, That character has done a LOT of +4/x8 PUG content and some solo (at 35-50, generally incarnate bores me solo) and here are my clearest memories: The -ToHit debuff doesn't last long, and only applies to targets hit... and not every target gets hit Eventually something hits, hits HARD, or gets a critical control/debuff... and then the adjective "pear-shaped" enters the conversation With small spawn multipliers, or a teammate (even just one) taking aggro (including taking enemy AoE away from the Blaster), Dark/ is just fine... but chances are that such a teammate taking the aggro is already capped at most defenses anyway, so -ToHit may only be reducing the opportunities for a cascading defense failure (for them). Having a single teammate doesn't even mean that a 2-man team can't take more than 17 at a time... it's just as important to have someone else there when things go pear-shaped. There is of course a different (Interface Incarnate) issue that -ToHit does not speed up defeat times for enemies; Diamagnetic's %-Regeneration effect on certain 'sacks of HP' creatures is probably more important. I don't solo enough with incarnates in play to make a serious assessment.

^ This is the advice to follow ^ Low damage AT(*) typically get %damage, higher damage AT benefit more from enhancing recharge and damage of (attack) powers. There are of course some non-attack powers in DPS AT that are amazing with %damage (e.g. DNA Siphon on Bio Defense) I've had mixed results with %-Resistance. It can work wonders on teams, and for non-DPS characters I have to get a reasonable %proc attack chain to maximize such a thing solo. (*) Masterminds are a special case. The endurance costs are so high for MM attacks that slotting for %damage is not worth it IMO. Better to slot for %-Res or some sort of "control" (including knockdown).

Anyone bored of TFs (Blue) could try SFs (Red). There is no guarantee that folks won't play those on cruise control, but the person who starts teh arc gets to set the parameters. Respecs (less so Treespecs, IMO) can be short, mindless fun that can be scaled in difficulty. Blue side: The classic 6+1 TFs are necessary for an accolade, which makes this (points at self) player more than willing to run them as strictly perfunctory. After I have the accolade, I'll play them at whatever difficulty.

Torchbearer hosted a Synapse last night that finished in EXACTLY 1:30:00, which was the time goal set. We got both a "mission succeeded" end-of-arc panel, AND a "mission failed" message when leaving the last mission map.

I thought I'd add this bit of hardware information; I was yesterday days old when I (re)learned this: Power Supplies/Chargers matter! The short version of the story starts that a (older, upgraded) Lenovo gaming laptop I've been using has an off-brand, wide-input AC-DC power supply for years with no issues. It is a little bulky, so I played around with a new OEM charger (from Lenovo), with identical input/output ratings. Basically I wanted a spare charging brick, and was looking for something with a slightly smaller footprint. HOWEVER, the OEM supply was making my laptops input/charging circuit run VERY HOT, even without doing much. The laptop takes a rectangular slim-tip input. This specific problem is relatively well-reported... with the consensus being that the (internal to laptop, mating part for the) rectangular slim-tip connectors is not making a good connection. This is completely believable, as voltage drops (due to reduced current-carrying capacity... typically this is conductor cables being too small/too long) can cause the receiving circuits to work harder... I used to obsevre this is distributed DC-DC systems. Yet the laptop doesn't run hot with the 'off-brand' charger, and the weak-point in this scenario is usually identified as the internal laptop connector. Calipers (checking dimensions) and DMM (checking output) don't reveal anything different about the output end of the charger Full disclosure, I could not test the outputs under load... nor did I bust out the o-scope... which really ought to be the test approach, but there is only so much effort I'll go through to debug somebody else's electrical design. The main differences between the branded OEM charger and my perfectly good 'off-brand' are: The OEM charger lacks a ground plug on the input The OEM charger lacks a ferrite bead on the output Generally, I'm less concerned about the EMI choke (ferrite bead) for personal use... but the lack of a ground plug really bothers me. With the OEM charger lacking BOTH of these, it makes me wonder how serious the design and manufacturing tests of the charger actually were. Ferrite beads are often added to power cables as a result of a 3rd-party testing lab, so while by themselves they don't indicate a whole lot... leaving them off is a cost-cutting move... as is not including a grounding plug as well as eliminating all the conductive material that goes with it, along with whatever it would be used for inside the "brick". I decided to post this here, as my gut instinct would always be to go with OEM components... but this appears to be a case where the OEM is cutting corners. I agree that the design of the slim-tip connector mates is rather peculiar (for current carrying) but I think there is more going on than just flagging the connection at the laptop as the weakest point. There is absolutely no reason to add to the heat load of a laptop, and running the internal DC-DC circuit hot is only going to degrade the life of that circuit.