Coyotedancer

Mine? The fact that my typing skills, which are poor at the best of times, go *completely* to hell when I try to chat and play the game at the same time. Makes things troublesome, because I prefer active, roleplayed missions over just standing around watching other people chat about things I either have no part in or ACTIVELY DON'T WANT TO have any part in. (About 90% of the "BarP" conversations I've seen, both in the D and elsewhere... I'm looking at you. XD)

It's always fun when you can look at one of your crew and say, "Yep! You are finally complete!" XD

Heh. I've literally never seen that level of discussion happen on regular PUG teams... At best, a leader will start at something like +2 to get a feel for how the team handles, and then they pretty much always kick it to +4 on the second mission. If they don't do that on their own, team members will almost always ask them to. Discussion happens a little more often on TF/SF runs, but not always even there.

I would say that that one HEAT arc (I don't remember if it's on the PB or the Warshade side. It's been awhile since I ran either-) where the Kheldian NPCs your character is sent to find have been pulled apart, both back into their individual selves, is a pretty good argument AGAINST the whole "You ate your host's mind, you evil Nictus you!" idea. Of course, BB may not actually know about that...

I haven't done it myself, but back-in-the-day my husband had a very tanky, very shiny, guardian angel Titan scrap named Principle... His original inspiration was Follow The Light. Seeker of Monsters would have to be a Giant Monster hunting specialist. A big game hunter turned Controller, I'm thinking... I wonder what we could come up with for Being and Nothingness.

Nothing around here is useless, but some things are a little better than others. I don't think it's BadWrong on general principle to point out those differences or to make recommendations based on them. Not within reason, anyway.... Just expressing an opinion or describing an experience with a set is, hopefully, about helping someone else make an informed choice. Case in point? As much as I like Sentinels, for example, I wouldn't ever suggest that someone take Assault Rifle on one without explaining that set's issues to them. I wouldn't tell them NOT to make one if they really wanted to, but I'd think they needed to know what they were getting themselves into.

Yeah... That mission can do that... XD The last time I was in there, a friend and I were flash-back duoing it with my Rad/Dark Defender and her Kin/Shield Brute. We did (eventually-) win, but... ouch. It was not what I would call a Glorious Victory, and neither of those characters are slouches.

I'm not sure I ever have... There always seems to be *some* power in the primary or secondary that I don't feel like I really need, and that I'd rather replace with something from their epic/patron or pool lists.

Wow... Not even an ENTRY for the Shard zones? I love the Cascades and the Chantry. Saint Martial all the way red-side... although I also love the Primeva/Thorn Island parts of Nerva. Imperial is gorgeous gold-side... and I've always been fond of both Croatoa blue-side and Cimerora as a co-op.

And with that, I think I'm out... You're reading a lot more into what I said than what I actually put there, and responding with much more apparent aggression than is necessary. That's not going to lead anywhere productive. Patterns of abuse in the current system are what they are.

That's absolutely become a part of the issue. When you hear the protestors and others talking about a need for chance in the "police culture" or their common practices, that's one of the things they're talking about.... How people of color are treated is a huge part of all this, but it's clear the anger and the demand for change has a pretty wide scope that encompasses all kinds of abuses.

With all due respect to your opinions, Leo, this particular man isn't the first or only case... He's just one of several at the forefront this time around. If it helps with putting things in perspective, consider Breonna Taylor instead.

Before you make assumptions about NCSoft's corporate position on the issue, I suggest you have a look at the statements made by the company's Aion team.

I have been, for what it's worth... But I don't see the reason for a hard line between one space and another. Obviously you have a different opinion.

'50-year-old Southern white chick here... and damned right. I understand some player's desire to keep the "real world" and all of its stresses out of the game. I really do... The City is, in a lot of ways, my escape, too. But the City is made of people and the truth of it is that this is something that's important to more than a few of those people. As long as we can collectively keep our cool, I think its worth talking about.

Agreed. Back-in-the-day, FlyingCodeMonkey (That's Mr.CD-) and I ran duo pretty often, and that was always good fun. XD

My usual response is to point in the direction of the Shard when I see complaints about the game being too easy. Those Rularuu in large numbers? They'll beat you up and take your lunch money. XD

Since I've stacked up more than I'll ever need myself... and with a friend recently tossing a chunk of INF at me with the message "Help me spend this!"... I've taken to gifting attuned procs and specials to people. I love to run my support characters with mid-level teams, and I've always looked at people's character information panes when I do that... reading bios, seeing what badges they have and that kind of thing... These days, if I notice that the character doesn't have, say, any Perf Shifters or Gamblers or a Numi special listed among their IOs (and you wouldn't believe how many people I've come across, with characters in the mid-to-late 30's, who don't have any IO set bits at all-), I'll grab a goodie or two from my email stash and drop 'em on them. Usually with a /tell to the tune of "As thanks for making the City fun!" It's made some people grin... and the City can never have too many budding proc-fans. XD

That would explain it, I guess. I know I haven't come across a lot of them in the-game-at-large.

There seems to be a certain perception among players that if you *aren't* running at +4/x8 at all times you're a wimpy diaper-baby loser... Even if you're on a character that doesn't really have the build to handle that difficulty well. That's sort of silly... but when so many of us are over here telling the world "the game is too easy!" and "It's all a cake-walk" and "OMG I can play by rolling my face on the keyboard", I guess it's understandable.

So... Just for fun, I went through and made a list of all of my current level-50's (That's all but three of my entire list of "active" characters at this point-) and where they are in the "How Common IS This Combination, Anyway?" ranks. I was a little surprised at how few there were of some and how many there were of others... Only 13 Broadsword/Bio Brutes? Huh. 267 other nutty people went for PsiMelee and Energy on their Stalkers? Unexpected. But cool. As-of the March data, Ferrian the Claws/Fire Stalker was a Unicorn, with no 50's of the type, but I know a few other people have leveled those since then, so no clue how much company he has out there now. It'll be fun to see how much all of the numbers have changed by the time the next set of data comes out. As for me? The obvious WP/Bio/Dark/Time/Stalker/Sent/Defender fan-girl... I need to branch out more. I think I'm going to go look at the lists and build another less-than-10 combination of an AT I don't have yet. Maybe I need to look at Doms. Tavaris Dark/Bio Sentinel 1 of 60 Artemian Psy/Bio Sentinel 1 of 61 Code Merlin Fire/ WP Sentinel 1 of 67 Shonokin Dark/WP Sentinel 1 of 23 Winterslight Fire/Ice Sentinel 1 of 9 Kaikara Kin/Bio Stalker 1 of 16 White Thorn Kin/Bio Stalker 1 of 16 Windwhispered PsiMelee/Energy Stalker 1 of 267 Ferrian Claws/Fire Stalker 1 of ? Code Mordred DB/Bio Stalker 1 of 19 Restless Ghost Street/Bio Stalker 1 of 123 Abyssal Blade Nin/Bio Stalker 1 of 17 Red Traveller Kin/Fire Stalker 1 of 4 Void's Thorn Dark/Dark Defender 1 of 240 Andris Kinetic/Electric Defender 1 of 155 Narada Nature/Water Defender 1 of 87 Edratarees Thermal/Fire Defender 1 of 73 Graceful Ivory Mask Time/Dark Defender 1 of 36 Orevial Rad/Dark Defender 1 of 67 Semnai Broadsword/Bio Brute 1 of 13 Haroeris Claws/Fire Brute 1 of 173 Xhelethe Katana/WP Scrap 1 of 106 Karnaim Titan/Bio Scrap 1 of 593 Gentleman Spectre PsiMelee/WP Scrap 1 of 39 Carwyn Staff/WP Scrap 1 of 109 Nehemes Water/Dark Corruptor 1 of 66 Deigan Archery/Time Corruptor 1 of 14 Aegis of Serenity Illusion/Time Controller 1 of 330 Amtes Demons/Time Mastermind 1 of 166 Khalil al-Jinn WP/Street Tank 1 of 101 Bahir Peacebringer 1 of 1397

Forgot to come back and mention it, but Ferrian… my second Unicorn- the Claws/Fire Stalker... did finally make it to 50. I just started working on his iToys. XD

Show me the link where the Homecoming devs have stated any change to that standard.

You want that changed? Present your case to the devs. For the moment, "balanced around SOs" is still the game we're playing.

I have a Titan/Bio scrap myself. I know how the combination handles... I'm just reminding, as usual, that we can't really base discussions of how over- or under-powered a set may be on how they function under the influence of IOs.