tidge

While I have never tried (nor am I inclined) to try to count the number of enemy mobs I've had aggroed with my Robotics/Traps MM, using the secondary (Caltrops, Acid Mortars) does appear to have allowed the MM to drag more enemies to the henchmen's kill zone. This is one of the reasons that MM has AoE attacks (primary, epic)... those attacks aren't slotted for damage (or %damage), but for getting the attention of as many enemies as possible (ok,,, so I have most of those AoE also slotted for Knockdown and %-Resistance!). I found the MM AoE attacks to be so much more efficient at grabbing MOAR AGGRO than trying to rely on Provoke from the Presence pool, being able to add %-Resistance to them is simply icing on the cake.

Who has time to both notice 'campers' and get upset about it?

SHAME SHAME SHAME! Don't you realize my freshly minted level 8 has perfectly planned every spare slot of enhancement space?! It's is this sort of "gifting attitude" which ruins my inventory management! /s

Aside from the ambush in Perez Park, any member of the team should have no problem with defeating 10 "native level" CoT. A petless mastermind could do it with a couple of applications of Plasmatic Taser. Frankly, the only time I ever saw a PUGmate "camp" in either Talos or FF, that player explicitly said they needed to level up and opted to do it there. While I may miss their help, this isn't a TF that is worth having the entire team move together from zone-to-zone. I can remember this happening only three times. I have two very minor points of irritation with Numina TF (in the revamped Paragon City): Revamped Zones (Boomtown, Faultline) need players who know where to go in the zone to find those targets. Vahz in Faultline are slightly more scattered, but the Council Base should make the Boomtown leg VERY fast. I think I was on at least one PUG where a Super-Speeder went to Terra Volta and (literally) got in over his head when hunting Sky Raiders... because of Zone geography and typical spawn points. Crey's Folly target of Freakshow can be slow if the non-DPS PUGmates go there. The nearest (to SG Portal) reliable group of Freaks are close to even level with the TF, and with the resists, Health and healing... let's just say this is the leg that I often see turn into a slog. It is exceedingly rare that I'm on a PUG where an individual player calls out a zone and then doesn't know where to find the targets. Earlier in Homecoming, I used to see this sort of problem in Atlas Park (Clockwork)... In my mind I guessed this was because so many people "DfB" out of Atlas Park and may never come across them, but for a long time now if I'm not the first one in Atlas Park the PUGmate who beat me there knows where to find them. Personally: I quite enjoy the spiraling "grand tour" aspect of the Numina TF.

Combat Teleport (with ready binds) is very handy during that content.

In Homecoming, aside from very specific attempts to complete particular content with "zero deaths", I'm tossing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ towards casual PUG actions that lead to character defeats in a thread of "worst thing a player can do" thread. The consequences for such defeats is practically nil, and while I am not defending or advocating the practice of griefing other players this sort of action with the blue patches doesn't strike me as particularly different than ignoring spawns/ambushes in other content (ehem, Positron 1, which was one of last week's WTF) .

It certainly could be that Frostfire is capable of giving enough XP to a team of 8 that the team has out-leveled the zone. There is another subtle effect that not every player gets arc rewards like the mission owner (not using Orobouros) does.

Only one you say? I want a boostable Very Rare set of six enhancements for Fear. The pieces ought to offer for single-target Fear attacks the same that Coercive Persuasion offers for single-target Confuse attacks: Fear (Superior) Fear/Recharge (Superior) Fear/Accuracy/Endurance (Superior) Accuracy/Recharge (Superior) Accuracy/Endurance (Superior) Contagious Fear ('Splash' AoE %Fear on adjacent targets) I have opted to suggest piece (3) have an Endurance bonus (instead of Recharge, as other Very Rare sets) and piece (5) with Accuracy instead of Mez, because my own play experience shows that, when not slotting six pieces) I am most desperate for (boosted +5) Accuracy and Endurance cost enhancements in my Controls. The Contagious Fear piece would behave just as the Contagious Confusion piece works from Coercive Persuasion. If we need to tie the set to a piece of Lore, Jack in Irons uses a fear attack, although I'd rather have his name reserved for a a special "Halloween event" set like Overwhelming Force/Winters. As for the Global Set Bonuses from such a hypothetical set, I'd suggest a slightly tweaked set of Very Rare bonuses different for (but slightly more suitable to) the types of AT likely to slot Fear powers. -- (no set bonus for 1 piece) 2.5% Max Endurance 4% Fear Duration 15% Accuracy 10% Recharge 5% Melee Defense / 2.5% Smashing/Lethal Defense

There are other mechanism to store pieces (I have some characters that keep HOs in there personal enhancement storage, some characters that stockpile certain recipes, there is email and the auction house and the salvage vault) but generally I execute some variation of what Ukase describes. The closest I come to stripping characters of enhancements is when one of the following happens: I have a low level character that wants an attuned piece, but "storage" has a non-attuned piece at "too high" a level... I'll use unslotters and catalysts on a level 50 to get the piece I need. (using the AH would almost certainly save time/effort/Inf... but I find some peculiar satisfaction in doing this with my roster) I have a character with a second build that can use pieces from an earlier build that exceed some arbitrary, self-imposed limit on 'cost'. I'll unslot (not 'free-via-respec') those specific pieces for use in the second/third builds. I don't have as many different level 50s as others... I occasionally pull mine out of the stable to run x8 or PUG content for merits/HOs/D-Syncs/incarnate/catalysts/AH shenanigans, which I wouldn't be able to do if I had stripped them of their Enhancement sets. Specifically in the case of Catalysts, it doesn't take long to get the daily catalyst drop, but it does take a significant number of defeats. At an earlier point in the game when I needed to accumulate a significant number of catalysts and merits, I would commonly run x8 Dark Astoria content with different level 50s... each one gets a catalyst and it typically takes between 30-50 minutes of x8 map-clearing to get a level 50 PVP or Very Rare recipe drop (Purple drops are not guaranteed!)... in addition to any character-locked arc rewards achieved. There is an upper limit on how many characters I theoretically need to do this, but I have enough variety in my character stable that I'd feel bad about stripping any of them down to their skivvies.

Ehem, first post in the thread: So do you NOT want IOs to "just drop" and do you NOT want to "just buy enhancements" because it is too much trouble to go to the ATM or Auction House? Say what you will, but essentially every character is "crafted" in that there are a wide variety of power pools (beyond the primary/secondary) and there are plenty of slotting options for almost all of them. If simply buying isn't enough, we also have crafting via university workbench, crafting via vanguard base and crafting via the incarnate system. How many more different means of fine-tuning characters and converting Inf/Drops should the game have?

Time to remind folks: You can get any specific Overwhelming Force/ATO/Winter for 100 merits at the ATM. They aren't even recipes like the Very Rare or PVP pieces. Is this too much effort to craft?

It would be more of a challenge to slot a character with all level 1 enhancements. Boosting is allowed of course.

Re: Force of Will I didn't do this with a Fortunata, but with a Mind/Poison Controller. I should note: This character's entire schtick is that he (unintentionally?) causes mobs to fall down, make mistakes, etc. so the Force of Will pool offered some interesting choices! I removed the Sorcery Pool (Mystic Flight, Spirit Ward, Rune of Protection) and Hasten to replace those powers with Mighty Leap/Stomp, Weaken Resolve, and Wall of Force (from Force of Will) and Aid Other (Healing pool, to replace a lost Preventive Medicine %absorb mule). I rarely used Hasten (it was a level 49 power pick) and between Mind, Poison, Force of Will and Primal Forces Mastery the character is never waiting for something to recharge. Mighty Leap is fine, but the addition of Stomp as a long-recharge "knock 'em down" power fits this character perfectly. Wall of Force is a great cone for %damage powers, I especially like that I can have those two AoE attacks at a relative low level (compared to the Primal Forces Mastery cone attack). The main "compromise" I had to make with the Controller was that the Sorcery pool was primarily mules... that is no extra slots (except weirdly in Mystic Flight), even Hasten was only single-slotted. This meant that dedicating a full 6-slots to Wall of Force and finding a home for the muled ehancement in Rune of Protection. Ultimately I feel like I didn't have to make serious compromises for the Controller, but with any of my Fortunata builds I don't know that I'd be able to slip Force of Will powers into the build before the Epic levels (assuming I want to keep Presence pool, the Fortunata just doesn't have as many "skippable powers") nor would I be able to have many slots to dedicate to the new powers. I'll keep mulling it over.

With the ability to softcap (Incarnate!) positional defenses, and with a large number of PBAoE options, Fortunatas are often best played in close quarters with enemies. I've finished leveling up a Dark/Rad Defender that has a significant number of PBAoE and (target focused) AoE attacks/aurae/patches... it isn't quite able to wander into a spawn of +4/x8 and then aggro them, but once some sort of control/debuff has been tossed at them it can Combat Teleport into the spawn and do its thing. That character also has some cone action, so I have a macros to Combat Teleport into the the spawns and another one to pop backwards to cast the cones. If I have a teammate who is taking the aggro, unless I have a character that is explicitly ranged base (that is, multiple cones or one that needs a wide view of possible targets) I'm generally in the mix.

Is this different than buying (attuned, e.g. ATO) Enhancements or (level 50) Recipes from the merit vendors? I recently decided to clean out some SG storage by kitting out a second build on a semi-neglected character that had thousands of reward merits. There were a handful of missing pieces from PVP and Very Rare sets for that build, and I simply didn't want to drive up the "Buy It Now" price of those pieces (or play converter roulette for so few specific pieces) so I just filled out the build with Merit purchases. In the case of the recipe buys: I did have to go to the AH for a couple of pieces of rare salvage, but otherwise it was relatively painless.

I haven't ever chosen it, so the "clarification" is that I may have looked at some old description of the power. 🙂

All good suggestions so far. My advocacy of the Presence pool (primarily for Widows/Fortunata... honestly any Defense-based AT) is based on (both of) the final two options: Unrelenting is the crown jewel, as it offers an offensive boost as well as a "keeps you refilling" that works nicely with scaling damage resistances. It is worth 6-slots (Preventive Medicine) The self-rez may be the lead in the advertising, but it works better if used while alive, IMO. Invoke Panic is a PBAoE mini-nuke (with %damage)/control. Fortunata can have many different control powers, and since they tend to be (positional) defense-based, more subtle control is better. I typically don't have enough slots to really make this sing. I'm less sold on the picks necessary to get you to (either) of the above, as you must choose two of the following: Pacify doesn't trigger any of the "good stuff" (i.e. criticals), but it can be used to get (a little) breathing room in certain content. Provoke looks good on paper, but the taunt is NOT an auto-hit, and the number of enemies affected is small. Intimidate ends up being the best of 3 bad choices, at least for VEATs that will have other %fear effects.. or team with players that also have Fear powers I experimented a little with Force of Will, I keep meaning to take a Fortunata and go deeper into it (than just Weaken Resolve) but have yet to do so... I just have to make the commitment to drop one of the other favored pools. I generally don't recommend powers that have crashes (Unleash Potential) but if I was already going to have Unrelenting in the build, I could see Unleash Potential as a mule (Power Transfer %Heal) that only occasionally gets used. I used to really like Weaken Resolve, but when Homecoming nerfed it (not a bad decision, but *sadface*) it did make the power worse. Now it is one of those powers that I don't have many slots for and I typically only use when teaming against AVs/GMs.

Badgers or Baggers?

Usually... the arc owner already has the badge (from the GM spawn) so you don't get it again. I am positive that (at least in 2019) players who don't have the badge will get it for helping with the final clear-the-map mission. It is a timed, mission... so you can't get that mission and then keep it uncompleted, but it is a high-level arc so it isn't that hard to clear the map. You will have to coordinate with any teammates of course, as some may jump into the mission without waiting.

To answer one of the OP's questions: At the end of teh Wildflower arc, there is a 90-minute timed mission (via "board transit") where the Kronos Titan appears (as an Elite Boss, if you want). Players who join the mission owner for that mission (and the owner) can get the badge that way (if they don't already have it). As the mission owner, this was how I helped @Heraclea (as Heraclea, RIP buddy) on Torchbearer get that badge. If there was ever a character who deserved "Mistress of Olympus", it was that character.

Catalysts end up being pretty cheap, in that every level 50 gets 1 every 24 hours, assuming that they are defeating enemies. After a a couple weeks every fresh level 50 should have enough to convert all of their ATO (if all 12 are slotted). Catalysts can also be put into SG storage. As further evidence of alternate ways of doing things: if I end up with non-catalyzed enhancements (<level 50) that I'll use in typical (future) builds, during respecs I will swap in the non-catalyzed pieces (for catalyzation) so that I can drop a previously catalyzed piece. Sometime I do this just with unslotters. I could get more "value" by using the AH to do the catalyzation (and selling catalyzers) and simply pay the vig, but I see no need to scrimp or accumulate more Inf.

Some time ago.... I want to say that converting a boosted Very Rare into one of the %proc pieces DIDN'T turn it red, but I can't be certain as I wasn't rolling for the %proc. I also noticed that recently it was having this behavior (see my other threads on slotting Howling Twilight, I was trying to convert some spare 50+5 pieces into something else).

My sloppy and (market) inefficient approach to ATO, (catalyzed) PVP, Winter-Os, and Overwhelming Force pieces is driven by: I have my (small) fortune (Accumulated Inf, Merits, Catalysts) I have an SG base with pieces usable by sub-50s (that aren't used on lvl 50 builds) I play through content to get a feel for a character and its powers Since my characters are spending significant time below level 50, A new character typically grabs those pieces I identified to slot... it saves me the trouble of worrying about enhancement bonuses giving out (especially after the inherent bonuses for low-level characters fade). When those characters are "done" with the pieces they go back in the SG base. Where do they come from? I typically just buy packs (or open already bought packs on other characters) and play a little bit of converter roulette. In my mind I have some vague ideas of which ATO (and Winter) pieces will be worth more on the market to be able to afford a buy of any pieces I want. This is sloppy and inefficient, but it gives me a reason to open packs for other goodies. For those times when I want a specific piece that I am reluctant to spend Inf on the market, I absolutely will spend merits. Aside from Anniversary Badges, I usually find myself only spending merits on Converters and Boosters... sometimes Unslotters if I don't want to bother pulling those from email (or when I have discovered I have extracted all of them already!) I wouldn't do this if I was Inf-poor (on Homecoming, with the AH & fungible asset updates), but as I mostly play arcs TFs/SFs I usually find even a fresh level 50 with ~1000 Merits... not enough by itself for a full suite of Merit-Vendor supplied enhancements, but more than enough to combine with my other stuff (including the Inf fortune) to kit out the first level 50+ build. Every character is on its own to supply pieces for second and third builds!

I don't "power level" via AE. I also don't judge players who do so. I do harbor a personal suspicion that there may be elements of the game they are missing, even if they've "done it all before", but I don't think it is worth entering a debate on the topic... it's a game that can be played different ways. I have only occasionally run missions in the AE, XP on/off wouldn't change my opinion of it.

If the alternate to crafting recipes with a workbench, salvage and Inf is the mechanism by which Incarnate powers are crafted... imma stay with workbench crafting m'kay?