Coyotedancer

Ah, the life of a "unicorn" character... I have a KM/Fire Stalker and a Claws/Fire Stalker. Fire Stalkers of all sorts are rare birds. My Dark/Ice Stalker and Archery/Time Corruptor are also pretty unusual. ETA: If you're really curious just HOW rare your combination is... look here That'll give you the number of them who had made it to 50 as-of March. XD (It looks like there were 25 Fire/Fire stalkers at 50 back in March.... So, yeah. Pretty unusual.)

It's the extra layer of duct tape holding your armor together.

Stalkers could always be dangerous... It was just harder without the fancy toys. XD

My fire-farmer went Mu if that helps your assessment any.

That's mostly because Jimmy is slower than Christmas, and Fusionette has the attention span of a goldfish. She gets distracted and jets off out of leash range. XD Our moving faster than the NPCs is the at the root of that issue for most of them, honestly. It's easy to outpace a lot of them if you have any kind of movement bonuses at all, including basic Sprint. If they don't run into mobs in the meantime, some will try to catch up. Others just give up.

Almost all of the escorts that are tagged as combat pets can follow you to the ends of the earth, Hide or not. That does seem to have been extended to a few non-combat types near the end.

I've more or less mained a Stalker forever, BB. I suspect that I know as well as anyone what they're capable of... That's why I chose to do my beta run through Praetoria with one. And yes, hostage escort missions are, and always have been, a royal pain in the rump for Stalkers, too. We all know that. My issue at the time was with the constant use (I'd say OVERUSE myself, but that's a personal opinion-) of the specific player-targeted ambush mechanics that automatically bypass Hide, which was very much a matter of the mission developer's choice. Ambushes *can* be set NOT to automatically see through Hide, and often are in the "regular" game content. Praetorian ambushes aren't exactly alone in doing it, but over-all non-Hide-busting ambushes are more common than the heat-seekers. The choice to use the Hide-busting version exclusively in all of the Praetorian content was what made me raise an eyebrow. Well... that, plus the dev's reaction when I pointed out that he was pretty much turning Stalkers into Scraps by leaning so heavily on that particular flavor of the ambush code. I'll also gently remind that all of that pre-dated the changes to our Assassin's attacks that allowed "quick use", and before the ATO sets came along with that Hide proc that changed our sneaky little world. Those two changes have made stalking through the ambushes of Praetoria much less annoying than they were at the time.

I'm in the same demographic, there.... I've used it in the past when it made sense to, but none of my current gang have it. The ones I did patron pools with here have all either gone Mu or Soul, typically for theme reasons.

I'm not sure the ambush-a-palooza nature of the missions in particular accounts for that, but it is definitely one of the challenges of leveling characters through that content. I've done it with a few Stalkers since then (Including the Live version of Shade in Shadow, the KM/WP character that I did that beta run with-), but I can't say it's the best experience for that particular AT. It's certainly not the place to "learn to Stalker". You're just not allowed to.

No joke. When the Going Rogue missions and Praetorian zones were in beta, I ran through them with a Stalker... ... and ended up asking if a Stalker had kicked the writers' puppy or something. I was essential told 'My story, my choice. Sucks to be you.' XP So, yeah. They knew *exactly* what they were doing to Stalker players with the endless "heat seeking ambushes" in the Praetorian content. They just didn't care that it turned us into wannabe scrappers.

Not everyone "plays to the meta"... There are quite a few City players who go for theme or personal preference over strict build advantage.

All of the Common salvage bits that Harry finds on his farm runs are now Potatoes. I don't care what the little pictures look like or what the game calls them. In my mind they are ALL gonna be Potatoes.

'Was about to say... I don't think App's problem is really so much a matter of transportation methods. It sounds more like they were just running with a bunch of impatient assholes. (And trust me, as someone who almost exclusively plays fliers, I understand the problem. I've run into groups like that, too. They're halfway done with the map by the time I get my slow butt in the door. <_< It's annoying. But something well beyond the base macro.)

Flea's posts almost always make me grin. And I like reading Chase's fiction-bits.

Someday that has GOT to happen. It has to, The universe demands it.

'Still wish them luck. 'Still expect... well... pretty much nothing but perpetual "updates" ultimately resulting in nothing.

It's not just me.... 😆

Dooooooooo IIiiiiiiiiiitttttt! 😁

*chuckles* I had a friend back on Liberty whose favorite tank (and global name-) was Lord Almighty. That name always made me grin. XD

Yep. 'Another "my tanks always have Taunt"-person here. (My Brutes typically have it, too, since I often find myself playing the tanky role with them.) It's useful to be able to pull things' attention away from your squishier team-mates, and Taunt's a better way to do that than relying on an aura or just punching the goon in the nose. 'Tough to use either of those for the purpose when you're not standing right next to them and all....

Now, if you want rather dramatic, poetic names... Names of the sort you'd find in wuxia fiction, or... well... attached to Exalted characters... Many, many moons ago my friend Voidstate came up with this: http://www.voidstate.com/name_generator/ And then there's this: https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/hero_names.php And this... https://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=superheronameorg And somewhere out there, there's one that does "Adjective Animal" style names... Which is how I ended up with Don Gallo, my swashbuckling "Ruthless Rooster". XD (ETA: I'll post that one's URL if I can find it again.)

'Depends on what exactly is meant by "temporary costume parts"... If it's an entire look like the Halloween costumes? Sure. If you're saying "Oh, look. It's been a month, I better go spend X-number of hours grinding out Thing A or my favorite cape is going to vanish", hell no.

Yeah... It's another "Aion thing" that would just be annoying here... and I'm saying that as someone whose 'Other MMO' *is* Aion. (Or was, anyway. I haven't played in about a year-) City of Heroes really doesn't need forts.

Flashtoo beat you to it. She's had The Saurus since some time last year. XD

I absolutely use capes... Sort of. A lot of my Ornabagan characters are using that one, very scarf-like, "tattered" option as part of their armored outfits, just because it adds some visual interest and marks them as something other than "just another (ie: NPC) Circle Mage/Thorn Caster/Thorn Wielder". I'm also a fan of the Arcane cloak with some of the crew. I like the weight it seems to have and the way it moves. The classic scarf option, likewise. That said... My characters tend to dress like this... ...rather than going for anything like the traditional Superman/Flash/XMen-style outfits. I think Narada may be the only character I have who uses spandex-proper. And even then, her "Avatar of the Goddess" costume isn't exactly a 'classic comic book' affair... Although Semnai totally does the "black leather cat-suit" thing, which may as well be skin-tight spandex. And a few (Like Ajda, the girl in black and gold, bashing the clockworks up above-) use the Imperial Dynasty bits, which are also similar. So, maybe spandex and capes are a matter of degree? Is a tattered scarf really a cape? Is a vintage Emma Peel style cat-suit on par with one of those spandex-a-paloozas from the 70's?