Coyotedancer

I don't recognize any of those names, I'm afraid... But still... Welcome, fellow Libertine! 👍

Dennu the Grav/Dark Controller made it to mighty level 9 yesterday. We had great fun comparing notes about who saw what when she hit something with Propel. 😆

/Bio Stalkers are Love. Stabby, stabby love.

<_< >_> Too much monkey-business?

Well, yes. Obviously. People's goals and priorities aren't all going to be the same. Not every Dominator is going to have, or even want, a Patron pet. Of those that do, not all of them would have the build space or desire to pick up Spirit Ward. My point isn't that 100% of everyone ever will want or need it, or that it's The Optimal Choice(tm) for us all. My point is just that the power... and the pool as a whole... probably shouldn't (And I would argue, won't-) be seen as one that's "only going to be for Pet ATs". (ETA: Also keep in mind that I was trying it out on Tosca over on closed beta, where Build 4 and its tweaks to the powers are active... The END consumption of that version is still likely to bite unfinished characters, but isn't quite as steep, which helps the situation some at least. It's .39/s rather than .52/s.)

[Olive voice] You bwoot! [/Olive voice] *slaps with purse*

Also, just a reminder that you don't have to be a "Pet AT" to have pets... The Spirit-Ward-as-Leashed-Toggle may not be great for scattery human-controlled team-mates, but it works just fine on Lore, Patron and mission pets. Trying it out over on closed with my Energy Mage, Tosca (Electrical Dominator) and her Mu sidekick (Yes, his name is Mario. 😝 ), it seemed to work just fine for them, for instance. Adepts are glass cannons, so the extra absorb was nice. And they tend to stay close enough that leash range wasn't an issue.... So, yay. Thumbs up there. I still think the END cost is going to be a little brutal on lower-level characters... Especially Masterminds, whose pets are great candidates for the power now... But when have leveling Masterminds ever NOT been in the soup when it comes to the state of their blue bars?

I'm a nutter... I tend to read everything. But, as others have said, the Clues are usually the least useful bits involved, since they're rarely in any kind of order that makes sense.

Well, I guess that does make it crystal clear which group of players' feedback actually matters...

Nope. Like I specifically said in my post about testing the prior version, my Mastermind doesn't even have Hasten. Amtes isn't a recharge-focused character. That's actually one of the reasons I liked the longer duration. If I hit RoP, I could be pretty sure that at 90 seconds it would last long enough to finish the particular fight I needed to use it in... Which was good, because I *also* knew it wasn't going to be back quickly enough to use it a second time. The current version coming back more quickly is fine as far as that goes, but at 40 second duration? I find it going down in the middle of things, when there are still mushrooms standing. (Solo-only, remember. My demons are tough as nails... but without a team to help destroy things? They're not always assured of clearing out big groups of goons quite THAT quickly, especially given the "runner" issue.)

I mentioned this to Mr.Coyote... who, back in our Liberty days, took a Mercs/Dark named Hollowed all the way to 50... and he said: "You have my sympathy." He grumped about Hol all the way through leveling him. 😝

I'm still iffy on the leash issue, personally... How that plays out using it on other player characters, anyway. For pets it'll likely work out fine, but the way other players bounce off around corners and across the map, keeping them in range may be a little dicey. Also, while no trouble to maintain on a finished 50+ WIllpower character, the END cost might feel fiercer at low to mid level on a character without a complete build. I can't really test that myself with Shonokin, but hopefully someone who has it on a lowbie can transfer them over and give it a try. Arcane Bolt I actually like. I have it on Shonokin as a filler attack, and it works just fine for that now. Admittedly the stacking coming from ALL THE THINGS is kind of wierd... But not so strange as to be badwrong.

I sometimes forget what having good damage is like if I've spent a lot of time on my support characters or Sents and then bounce back to a Stalker or Scrap. There's almost always that moment of "Holy crap. I just stabbed that one into next week!"... followed quickly by "Well, yeah. Build-up. Assassin's Strike. Character built for damage. That's what's SUPPOSED to happen." 😝

Going into base editing mode so you can reset that by clicking on the bin itself and setting the permissions there isn't exactly intuitive. I wonder how hard it would be to make that a Supergroup permissions setting?

Here's my character list, since their builds are where pretty much all of the INF I've earned ends up. Dancing with Death Mages, or, a Coyote's Inevitable Case of Altitis - Roleplaying - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com) No. You're not getting their build details. I don't use MIDS. 🤣

Baby Shark might save you... Although then you'd have THAT ear-worm stuck in your head all day...

I'd say keep the common recipe drops on. Vendoring them adds a bit to your returns, Not a fortune, mind, but a few more million is a few more million.

Even though I don't have billions laying around, I really can't consider myself "poor" by any stretch of the imagination. I've just never been much for stockpiling INF just to see a big number... I plow the majority of what I make right back into my crew's builds, or into my IO stash for future projects. Not all of my "finished" 50s have super high-end UberL33t builds (Those are reserved for a handful of favorites and my farmers- 😝 ), but they are all in what I would call at least Solid mid-range territory. Depending on their AT and what I have to buy vs what I already have in the stash, that usually represents somewhere around a 200-300m investment in each of them. Multiply that by a crew of 60 and you're looking at something like 15+ billion without even getting into what's in storage or free-floating as raw INF... 'Not bad for a humble farmer, and certainly "enough" when it comes to meeting my own needs... even though it's laughable compared to what the high-end marketeers could find under their couch cushions.

You have more faith than I do in human beings not starting with a desire and then finding reasons to justify it as the right and proper course of action. But that's a subject that goes way, way beyond changes in game design... Anyway, I'm off to try out Arcane Bolt on the only character I've ever taken it on. I usually don't mind stacking mechanics... They work just fine for my /Water types... So I have some hopes for that one. Enflame I can't try out. I've never used it on anyone, so have no basis for comparison.

Maybe it just comes down to the power being someone on the dev crew's proverbial personal bugbear? A power they just intensely dislike for whatever reason, and would love to flat-out nuke from orbit if they could? Taking a heavy nerf-bat to it may be the next best thing in that case. If it becomes even more uncommon a pick than it already is, I could see that being counted as a win for someone who really wanted it out of the picture. We all have something like that, I think... Some bit of the game we want to punt right into a volcano... 😝

17m for your 50 on a map with two characters on the team sounds about right... Your farmer would average a little more themselves if they were solo, but I've found taking a second fifty from your alt account in with you (Like I tend to run Ossuni and Barn Cat-) gives better returns over-all, since they'd get about that 17m each. Once upon a time, farming was more profitable, and that may be the era of the numbers you're remembering... Repeated nerfs over the last two years have reduced returns quite a lot. Most of us who still do it as active farmers (rather than AFKs-) aren't really in it for the INF, I suspect. Marketeering is a better return for less investment. We just still do it to level alts or because it's sort-of a zen thing that we enjoy.

Time-wise, I can swing almost anything with enough warning... Like I said, though, Saturday afternoon/evening Pacific time is already booked. That's Wolfepack time. Hangin' with the fam. Teaching Coyote-nephew how to be a red-side Pinball WIzard. 😆

And like any other toggle it's going to have a "leash" range, rather than just being fire-and-go-about-your-business. 'Better hope that danger-prone team-mate stays close! 😝

At this point, I'm just resigned to having my Mastermind carry twice as many Breakfrees as she currently does. And Spirit Ward (which I have on quite a few of my magi-) will go from being a "Toss this on a team-mate who looks like they need a quick second or two of breathing room to get things back under control" to a pure set-mule for a Numina pair for the regen that I'm unlikely to even keep on a tray. Crap occurs. That's life. Although, to find one small silver lining... I guess I'll be able to respec the members of the gang who have RoP and get a slot back. WIth it no longer taking recharge at all, there's no reason to have that second slot with a recharge enhancement in it that I typically put there. That'll be useful. Some of those builds are pretty tight and one free slot to put elsewhere will make things easier for a few of them.

Playing the aggro-magnet, it makes me feel like I'm failing to do my job. Playing the defender/controller/whatever squishy, it makes me think "Why am *I* having to deal with this jerk? I have better things to do than trying to smack some stray around with my less-than-stellar damage." For every X-amount of time I spend dealing with that Lt in my face, that's x-amount of time that I'm NOT spending doing my own job for the group. Keep in mind, I typically run my support types with mid-level teams, not end-game wrecking balls, so that probably colors my opinions. Wrecking balls don't actually need their defenders for anything but a little extra Pew Pew. Mid-level? The story is often somewhat different.