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I've seen this with SS, CJ and SJ as well. It happens when you zone with the power on. The status bar icons are also not removed if you activate a power that automatically deactivates them (only after zoning), such as switching on CJ after zoning with SJ active.

I just finished this arc on an L28 DP/Nin Blaster with a fairly expensive build for that level. I ran at base settings. She died twice. Once to the fires bottleneck, which killed her before I realized she was even in trouble and once fighting Cortex's respawn when I simply ran out of insps and Smoke Flash failed to hit in time. The combination of the -HP debuff and those fires is a real issue. Having to beat Cortex and all those spawns is just hard. I should have used the elevator to go up and clear spawns to get more insps, but I was too slow to run for it. As for the content itself. I think it's excellent, though I have to say I really dislike Agent Watkins. He's very prickly, taking offense at things that seem pretty minor. I also disliked the "direct order" bs. I decided to run through the arc again with a level 50+3 "speed" toon. In this case a Sav/Bio Stalker. I ran at 0x2yn (because I forgot to reset it for the first 2 missions) and 0x1yn (that's Boss on, AVs off) as I was going for speed. It was a cake walk. With some rubbernecking (I took a few different options in the dialog) and bosses on it took about 42 minutes. This is definitely a Stalker friendly arc, where you can skip much of the hard stuff. Taking out Pathogen was a little slower than I expected. Though waiting out the ambushes before he reappeared actually took more time. The fires aren't a problem on a tougher toon. Though the blinky actually spawned in the bottleneck room, so I had to deal with the flames and spawns I'd bypassed to get it.

My /Elect won't need a respec, just re-slotting, but I will probably end up respec'ing 20+ toons off of I27 changes (mostly Blaster due to secondary changes, Energy Melee and the Teleport pool - the last will be elective though). So even though they all have respecs unused, that runs up to a decent amount of value.

The Patch Notes say Lightning Field will be replaced by Force of Thunder (the last line below). I think their #1 concern is simply not breaking builds. By that I don't mean screwing up your slotting or bonuses, but actually breaking them so they don't work. So they just swap power-for-power and don't worry about the order unless you respec. Force of Thunder Moved from T6 to T8 (see Power Order Changes below) No longer provides a sustain buff Stun changed from Mag 2, Scale 8 to: Mag 2, Scale 8 (non stacking) Mag 1, Scale 5 (stacking) Recharge reduced from 90s to 30s (the live value) Stun chance reduced from 100% to 50% (the live value) Radius reduced to 15ft (the live value) Knockback chance increased from 30% to 100% If you had Lightning Field, it will now be replaced by Force of Thunder and keep the enhancements from Lightning Field

Fire Melee's secondary is DoT. The faster you clear spawns the less value the DoT has. The set also has more ST attacks than it can use. It really needs a balance pass for Scrappers and Brutes.

I don't think powers are re-ordered in existing builds since it would break many of them. They've stated the replacements. So my Fire/Elect Blaster will have Dynamo swapped in for Force of Thunder at level 20. And Force of Thunder for Lightning Field at 38. To get Build Up earlier than 16, where I took it, I'd have to respec. Since it's not being swapped for a different power in the I27, it will simply stay where you took it. If I wanted to I could respec Lightning Field up to level 4 right now, and it should become Force of Thunder in that slot, even though FT is not supposed to be available until level 35.

I tested by using a combination of Stealth, Super Speed, a Stealth IO and the Grant Invisibility Empowerment buff. When completely stealthed relative to a foe's perception (55' or more in these tests) they did not react and there was no effect on them. Hence it was suppressing. Even when the stealth was partially from the IO or Grant Invisibility. However, if I dropped to a level of stealth they could see through (for example, by turning off Sprint with the IO), then the offensive elements of the sustain effected them even before they turned towards me as if they'd seen me. Even if I approached a foe from behind with 35' of stealth they would be effected by the debuffs before they showed a reaction to my presence. I just tested a Stealth IO + Grant Invisibility and that works to suppress the debuffs from Frigid Protection. So my initial tests with the Stealth IO and Grant Invisibility not suppressing the effects are actually just this latter issue with 30-35' stealth not being enough. 55' is enough. I updated the original post to correctly reflect that.

I ran through the Blaster sustain powers again to check their new behavior. Unexpected results are once again in orange (I've re-classed some of those I found surprising in the previous test even though they haven't changed - such as the tick rate for the Absorb on Frigid Protection). Things that have otherwise changed are in green. On the Stealth suppression of offensive attributes of the sustains I didn't exhaustively test each one, I tested one after another and checked different things with each. I did go back and test everything on Frigid Protection, but that's the only power that got all of the tests. I used a variety of toons this time, both in and out of AE. Atomic Manipulation / Metabolic Acceleration: Nothing suppresses, not even the Recharge bonus. Devices / Field Operative: The Regen and Recovery don't suppress, the Def does suppress. Darkness Manipulation / Touch of the Beyond: The buff remains, but the power isn't usable while mezzed. The +Regen no longer scales off of foe level. The power says it has Fear Resistance and the Detailed Info lists a very short Terrorize Protection (which would match the Patch Notes). There is no Res(Fear), so that part of the short description is wrong. The brief Terrorize Protection often fails to apply, and the Mag scales with the target level. The Duration may also be scaling with the target level, but the short duration makes that hard to be certain of. Energy Manipulation / Energize: Just what you'd expect. The buffs remain, but the power can't be clicked while mezzed. Electricity Manipulation / Dynamo: Works as expected. The damage suppresses while the Regen and Recovery do not. I tested Super Speed, Stealth, Unbounded Leap Stealth IO and Grant Invisibility Empowerment buff as sources of stealth. 35' of stealth doesn't seem to be enough to suppress the debuffs. 55' (Stealth IO + Grant Invisibility) does however. Fire Manipulation / Cauterizing Aura: The Recovery doesn't suppress, the HoT keeps ticking and breaks Sleep. The damage suppresses when mezzed and while stealthed. Any foe that could possibly see you seems to break the stealth suppression. The foe-facing effects appear to come back on even before you are actually seen. That is, before the foes turn to face you. Even a -21 Minion will break the suppress (and immediately thereafter your stealth) if you come within perception range. Ice Manipulation / Frigid Protection: The Recovery and Absorb both continue to work while mezzed. The slow does suppress. The Absorb appears to be ticking every 0.5 seconds instead of every 2 with the effect at 1/4th strength. The Slow suppresses when Stealthed in the same way as the previous two powers. Martial Combat / Reaction Time: The debuff suppresses while the Absorb does not. The debuff also suppresses when stealthed. The Absorb appears to be ticking every 0.5 seconds instead of every 2 with the effect at 1/4th strength. The description of the power still says it ticks every 2 seconds. Also, on further testing prompted by Keleko, the +Recovery buff is not working at all (I guess I wasn't looking at the total +Rec when I tested this, just to see if the Reaction Time buff stayed on). Mental Manipulation / Drain Psyche: Works as it always has. Ninja Training / Kuji-In Toh: Click buff that works as expected. Plant Manipulation / Wild Fortress: Working as expected. The Absorb, Recovery, Confuse Prot and Toxic Res all remain when mezzed. Sonic Manipulation / Sound Barrier: Working as expected. The Absorb, Recovery, Sleep Prot and Smash/En Res all remain when mezzed. Tactical Arrow / Eagle Eye: The sustains (Reg and Rec) do not suppress. The Acc and Per bonus and ToHit Debuff Resistance do suppress. Temporal Manipulation / Temporal Healing: The Absorb and buffs do not suppress when mezzed. However, there still seems to be an issue with the latter. The +Recovery, Rech, Slow and Reg Debuff Res often disappear when zoning and may or may not come back on. Toggling off-and-on doesn't guarantee they'll come back either.

Since it spends Energy Focus, would it be grossly over-powered to simply put the Chance to Stun boost and -Special/-Regen on all three of these powers? Stacking the effects with Stalkers and Scrappers is the only concern I see, and there are some ways around that with non-stacking effects (though it might be too messy to be worth the effort). It would be nice not to have to pick one of the powers specifically to get the benefit.

After zoning activating Combat Jumping does not remove the Super Jump icon from your status bar. The power effects turn off, including the END cost, but the buff icon remains until you cycle the power on-and-off. [Edit:] The reverse is also true. SJ does not cause the CJ buff icon to be removed from the status bar.

These are typos in the introduction before the start of the arc. (For some reason I can't insert text before the spoilers.)

I have it on one of my main's builds (his I21 build). Its long cast time (3.07s) is the main drawback. He's Fire/En/Force in that build, so I used to lead off with it, then Fireball and Fire Breath. That's enough in his build to wipe out the non-Bosses in the spawn before they get back up. His HC build (which is a max DPS build) replaces it with Bonfire thanks to the KB downgrade specials. Longer Recharge (120s vs 45s), but 25' radius instead of 15', more total mitigation, and only needs 2 slots (the KB downgrade and a TAoE -Res) instead of the 6 I have in the old build. Comparing it with Force of Thunder... Repulsion Bomb: 45s Rech, 3.07s cast, 21.14 END, 62.56 Damage, 70' Range, 1.2x Acc, 15' radius, 16 targets, KD, 40% chance of Mag 2 Stun for 9.54s, +6.20% Defiance damage Force of Thunder: 90s Rech, 1.23 cast, 13.00 END, no Damage, no Range, 1.0 Acc, 20' radius, 11 targets, 30% chance for KB, Mag 2 Stun for 9.54s + Mag 1 for 5.96s, +2.50% Defiance damage To me, Rep Bomb is clearly the better power. FoT has better Stun and Radius and a much faster cast, but the lack of Range, the KB instead of KD, lower target cap and acc, lack of damage and doubled Recharge time more than offset that, IMO. You can't get Rep Bomb until 41, FoT is available at 35 in this build. So, basically, you'd lose it for L30-35 content. Force of Thunder has basically been turned into Dark Pit minus the Range and with a KB component that is probably a net negative. It sucks.

(Bold and red text added.) The Patch Notes are a bit misleading then.

Would it be at all possible to make the Upgrade button sell the DOs/SOs you have slotted at vendor costs to reduce the net cost of upgrading?

Ah, that second colon is supposed to be a decimal point then.

You can go into Options->Keymapping, pick something you want bound to the button, left-click on one of the settings to select it, then just click the button you want bound there. That will tell you what the game sees the button as (if it sees it at all).

Is there a reason for the double "Untouchable" status when using Teleport? One expires with the Hover component as expected, the other about 2 second later.

My testing at low levels makes it clear to me that INF can be an issue with the new system at low levels. Mind you, you don't HAVE to use the system, so it's a net win for everybody regardless. With some lucky salvage drops you could probably fund yourself just using the AH, but it would be a hit-or-miss thing. With a level 8 toon running at normal XP I earned enough INF to buy a level 5 SO and two level 10s. I had a level 4 and a level 5 SO as rewards. I couldn't afford to upgrade the 4 from red status. I did spend 10k on Reveal, which would have allowed me to buy another level 5 SO. And I used a few inspirations when my tray was full. Other than those insps and a Rare salvage, I sold everything that dropped (including the vast majority of my insps, especially those from Inner Inspiration) to the vendors. I ran arcs from St. John Smythe, Habashy, Costel, Thierry and Twinshot (I'm at Help Defend Shining Star's Base in that one, so not done yet). I earned 9 RM and got that Rare salvage. So if I used the AH I'd have about 400k more INF from the salvage (at current market price for that one). If I used both the Merit Vendor and AH I'd have about 2.2M INF total. My RM-to-INF Conversion suggestion would provide 900k INF from the RMs without using the AH. Which would get me to level 21 (from level 8 ) at 2x XP based upon my 1st test (it cost me about 600k to buy what I needed and then upgrade to level 17 SOs at level 14). The one Rare salvage sold in the AH would be close to doing that too. And I'd be certain to get enough drops to fund the rest. A proviso on that is that you might not have the SOs at the lowest levels, as you'd need to hold off until you got that first Rare salvage drop. So, based on my one complete and two incomplete tests, I'd say you need to have some luck and use the AH, or use both the MV and AH to fund the new SO system. With my suggestion it would become an either-or on the AH and MV (and there'd be no luck involved, just waiting to get your first RM from an arc or - as I do it - the AP explores), without it you need to at least use the AH. As expected, just trying to go off of drops and vendors isn't going to work.

While the Patch Notes imply that TOs still drop, I've not received one TO on three new start test toons. One played to 10 at 2x XP, one to 8 at normal XP and this third I just ran for this response to 5 at 2x XP. The last had 10 DOs and no TOs drop. I didn't count the number of DOs on the 1st two.

I just tested this with a new toon and that appears to be the case.

I tested this with another Sleep power (Siren's Song). Frigid Protection doesn't break Sleep. Do you have a proc slotted perhaps? If not, it may be a problem with Frozen Aura itself. I'll try testing that. I think on a Blaster upping the Radius to match a Tanker's at 15' might be a good idea however.

I don't think the extra range was intended to be one of it's schticks.

It would be nice to be able to monitor your Absorption as you can your Current Hit Points.

Sonic Barrier is missing the Power Customization option to show floaters (it shows them in all three current options however).

I pretty much just convert RM to Boosters and/or Unslotters (Special Salvage) and sell them at what I think of as the "overnight price" (meaning they might not sell immediately, but will probably be sold when I log in the next day). I'll pay the 2-3M "rent" to wait and get the mortgage on the house I really want. That is, use SO to tide me over to 27 when I'll start slotting sets instead of slotting Common IOs at 22 as I do now.