Redlynne

That's why I say it warrants more research and noodling around in the build planner (which takes TIME ... unfortunately). But it's precisely those kinds of "well that's odd..." moments that can potentially lead to new discoveries, rather than staying on the already well beaten track and doing the same thing(s) forever.

/thread

/decline The Rikti are in Founder's Falls ... so there's no reason they can be there in Founder's but NOT in Peregrine Island. The other thing to remember is that most of the Rikti we see on the streets are transformed Lost who have become Rikti-fied ... meaning those are HOMELESS PEOPLE you're seeing in the streets of Peregrine Island in the form of (transformed into) Rikti. And I'm not about to believe that Peregrine Island will have NO homeless in the zone.

Except that I was 6-slotting the two Summon powers, which can then be repurposed into 2 of the 3 attack powers that I was adding. And then if I reshuffle slots between the attack powers to align more to 5-slotting across multiple powers, instead of 6-slotting everything, then it's possible to have enough slots for all of those powers. This is true ... but only while those Pets have 1+ HP. However, Pets that are exterminated do not contribute additional DPS beyond what your PC can dish out personally. So what you assert is true, but conditional upon those Pets being able/allowed to continue adding more damage. But if they get defeated quickly then that opportunity is not as ... helpful ... as it might at first appear. So the real answer depends upon how long your Pets can be kept alive (and attacking). Maybe not, but I'm thinking it would be rather FUN to play ... and that's what's most important (to me, at least). Also, depending to the ... shape(s) ... of the powers getting used, there would be a variety of ways to surge types of powers for specific purposes/effects so as to adapt to the current situation and circumstances. Things like being able to lay down 2 cones and 2 target AoE grenade damage attacks to deliver a huge amount of damage in a shorter time frame would potentially be very helpful in somewhat granular time frames, as opposed to calculating damage delivery over an infinite time horizon to determine average damage output. But all of that is stuff that needs more research to get a better handle on the comparison analysis (as mentioned).

So I had a ... peculiar thought ... yesterday, and opened up the build planner to have a look at it and started getting back some pretty funky answers that I'm going to need to spend more time investigating and noodling around with to see if it pans out to be a worthwhile alternative build choice. Basically, I wondered what would happen if I ditched the two Summons powers on a HuntsCrab and instead went for adding the ranged backpack attacks ON TOP OF the rifle ranged attacks. Yes ... this would mean weapon redraw when switching from backpack attacks over to rifle attacks ... but there's something really ... curious ... that happens to the attack chains and slotting by making this transition to a "blended" HuntsCrab configuration. But let me back up for a moment here to make the thinking about this idea more obvious for those people playing along with the home game version. One of the reasons for wanting to build a (pure) Huntsman with as much global recharge as you can fit into the build (while still adequately supporting other priorities for investments) is because a Huntsman on the Crab side of things can have up to 4 really long recharge powers ... Serum (your Dull Pain clone power) and the two Summons powers @ 35 and 38 for Spiderlings and Reinforcements ... and I suppose Aim (at 90s base) but that's not that big of a factor to build planning, all things considered. Everything else you'd be using is going to fall into the 30s base recharge or faster categories (Wide Area Web Grenade is 30s base recharge). However, if you ditch the Summons then the only really long recharge power you'll have is Serum ... with Aim again not being a controlling interest driving recharge considerations. At that point, relaxing how much global recharge you "need" to put into the build becomes an option, even if it means that Serum is no longer perma. The flipside to this is that the animations on the backpack attacks are really long compared to their rifle animation counterparts (arcanatime/recharge). Have a look: If you take Single Shot+Channelgun and Burst+Longfang and Heavy Burst+Suppression and add up their arcanatimes you get: 1.056+1.584 + 1.188+2.244 + 2.904+3.168 = 12.144s Throw a Frag Grenade into the mix (rifle or backpack, the only meaningful difference is that the backpack version does 3x the Knockback of the rifle version!) and you get: 12.144 + 1.848 = 13.992s 13.992 seconds to animate all of those attacks just once. So you're basically taking 14 seconds to animate those 7 attacks (4 single targets, 2 cones, 1 target AoE). That in turn means that if you're doing a repeating chain with no variations in it, you would only need to get the 16s recharge times under 10.824s so that Suppression could recharge in time to be repeated without needing to wait. 13.992 - 3.168 = 10.824 That means that the total recharge needed on Suppression then becomes: 16 / 10.824 = +47.82% With Mental Training adding +20% global recharge, you would only need an additional +27.82% global recharge from sets in order to be able to perma loop the above attack chain using each attack once (and that's assuming you don't wind up using Single Shot and/or Channelgun more than once per cycle to pad it out and not need ANY global recharge at all!). Add a Venom Grenade into the mix ... extending the animation time out to 15.84s(!!) ... and you basically don't need ANY global recharge (beyond Mental Training) for ANY of your attack powers other than Venom Grenade and Wide Area Web Grenade. And it ought to be a simple enough matter to get enough recharge enhancement slotted into Venom Grenade and Wide Area Web Grenade for them to recharge in under 16s so that you can use them too as a part of every "full" rotation of all of your attack powers. Now, one thing to be aware of is that the rifle/backpack versions of the Venom Grenade and Frag Grenade powers are essentially interchangeable with one another (animation and recharge times are the same, damage is the same, etc.), but they are mutually exclusive of each other. So you can have only ONE Venom Grenade and ONE Frag Grenade ... not both of each. You can't "double dip" on the grenade powers at all. Beyond that, the only difference is that the backpack Frag Grenade delivers (as previously mentioned) 3x the Knockback of the rifle Frag Grenade power. So the easiest way to think of it is that you can only have ONE of each of the 3 Grenade powers (and Wide Area Web Grenade is a rifle only attack power), while the remaining single target and cone attack powers you CAN take BOTH and use BOTH within the same build. This then means you can have: Single Shot (r) Channelgun (b) Burst (r) Longfang (b) Heavy Burst (r) Suppression (b) Venom Grenade (r) -OR- Venom Grenade (b) Frag Grenade (r) -OR- Frag Grenade (b) Wide Area Web Grenade (r) That is NINE total attack powers! NINE! Point being, when you've got THAT MANY attack powers, especially if they're all slotted up, you don't NEED a huge pile of global recharge in order to make a repeating attack chain out of them ... and if you don't need a lot of global recharge to make your attack powers flow smoothly, what DO you need a lot of global recharge for? Answer ... Serum and Aim ... if you don't have Summon Spiderlings or Summon Reinforcements. So the experiment basically involves loading out a HuntsCrab with NINE attack powers, turning global recharge into a "dump stat" for the build and just going in a completely different direction than the stock 'n' standard Huntsman needs all the global recharge build plan. It's one of those cases of discovering what looks like a new island of stability beyond the explored map of what we already know that could possibly yield an entire new set of enticing possibilities for how to play a HuntsCrab as an alternate build. The possibility that has ME most intrigued by all of this is the potential of putting a Decimation proc into Longfang, where it will have the highest possible proc chance, and then routinely following that up with Suppression, Frag Grenade and then Heavy Burst for a seriously HEAVY force multiplier effect from the Decimation Build Up proc via THREE AoE attacks (2 cones, 1 target AoE), since EVERY $Target hit while the Build Up proc is active would receive the damage buff ... and you only need to activate a power before the 5.25s buff duration expires for the buff to apply to that power. This would in turn mean that although the Build Up buff duration is only 5.25s ... Suppression and Frag Grenade have a combined arcanatime of 3.168+1.848=5.016 ... so you still have 0.234s after Frag Grenade to activate Heavy Burst and STILL gain the benefit of the Build Up proc for the entire animation time of Heavy Burst. So even though Suppression+Frag Grenade+Heavy Burst has a total combined arcanatime of 7.92s, it is possible to have the 5.25s Build Up proc from Decimation apply to all three powers due to the timing of their animations. So ... yeah ... there would seem to be some opportunities in a HuntsCrab build that turns global recharge into a "dump stat" for the build in order to focus on 9 attack powers plus the auto/toggle powers of the secondaries, blended with the Leadership toggles and the additional pool(s) of choice ... in order to make an offensive attack chain that can hybridize single target and AoE attack powers with ease and play as a real powerhouse attacker. This would seem to be worthy of more inquiry. The only real "loser" in the switch (as far as I can tell) is ... Serum stops being perma. Oh well ...

It is pronounced (and spelled) ... Murr'kha!

I'm kind of surprised to see that the Weekly Task Forces aren't listed on the calendar. Would seem to be a kind of obvious place to put them for easy reference ...

I'm pretty sure we can RIP that plan to shreds ...

The $Target switching alone would get mighty annoying in a hurry ...

And that's not even including turning Time Stop into a proc monster single target attack power...

I just open the options menu and then choose the costume menu. In my case that is \ (backslash) followed by a K (the costume menu default). To my knowledge, the /cc and /costume_change slash commands have always required an argument (the slot number to switch to).

Lee Three = Mind Control Even if you know their name or their face, you won't be able to confirm their identity as being Lee Three. The closest you can come to being someone that no one will recognize is to go with Mind Control. "This is not the Lee Three you're looking for..." /em hand wave Rather than being "a man of a thousand faces" you just simple edit the minds of those who see you so they don't know you for who you REALLY are. I suppose you could get away with Illusion Control instead for Deceive instead of Confuse in Mind Control, but Illusion Control won't let you get away with "ghosting" through your missions in quite the same way that Mind Control can or will. The way that I personally like to play my own Mind Controller is "they never saw me coming and never knew I was there" before every opponent gets defeated. The supporting counterpart to this idea is that when you defeat an opponent you leave no trace yourself in evidence at the scene. There aren't crumbly bits of rock scattered around, or ice fragments that have melted into anything and everything, or scorch marks all over the place ... etc. etc. etc. ... instead, on site security just "fails" to stop Lee Three and no one can figure out how Lee Three keeps doing it. If you want to go Controller I would recommend Mind/Kinetics in this case. However, if you want to play a Dominator instead, Mind/Energy would certainly fit the bill. Who is Lee Three? No one really knows ... Which means that that kind of anonymity and "I didn't see anyone" ought to be the way to go. Then again, if you want to take that thought to its logical conclusion, you might wind up with a Kinetic Melee/Ninjitsu Stalker instead who quite literally "ghosts" through missions "like a ninja" that no one ever sees and therefore can't be identified. And at that point, it basically comes down to ... what are you more keen on playing?

Star City ... /em significant look

Well, if that's the way you want to frame the question, the only way to show you would be to SHOW YOU. From a build planner standpoint, the capability to do so is THERE inside the build parameters. Whether or not you can use it effectively as a Player is something that it is the responsibility of the Player to figure out and determine for themselves (hence, Player Skill being mentioned). After that, it's just a matter of getting "familiar" with the tool at hand in order to learn how to use it most effectively/efficiently.

The original access to the Rikti Crash Site WAS through Creys Folly and through the Freakshow fortified shanty town on the western side of the zone ... kind of like how the Abyss access is on the west side of Eden. That all changed with the introduction of Vanguard and the new Vanguard base and so the west end of Crey's Folly turned into a dead end that nobody needed (or cared) to go to anymore.

I was going to say that Astoria (before it went Dark) would definitely have been a suburbia ... although once the place went Dark ... nobody lived there and the place became a (literal) ghost town. That's why in the Echo of Dark Astoria you can see civilians walking the streets who disappear as you get close to them ... because THEY'RE ALL DEAD and what you're seeing are their ghosts, still going about the routine of their daily lives that they have lost ... which is gloriously creepy (and quite horrible!) when you stop and think about it. However, I also think that Baumton (before it became Boomtown) would have been a high density residential area, with most of the (now toppled) skyscrapers being apartments and residential, rather than being commercial office spaces like you'd expect to see in Steel Canyon, just to the south. Croatoa would qualify at exurbs, since there's barely any town there at all before you've got wilderness area (that's getting wilder all the time). The fact that originally you'd get higher prices for DOs and SOs sold to the "right" type of shop (tech origin enhancements to the tech shop and all that) turned Talos into the go to zone for selling to vendor NPCs since the origin shops were closer together in Talos than in any other zone. That tended to cement the idea that Talos was the "shopping" district for most Players (myself included). Skyway is literally THE ROAD TO NOWHERE. The only notable feature of Skyway is "roads in the sky" that don't connect to anywhere useful, that are all wide enough to be freeways in a part of town that has no use for freeways. I wouldn't call it "living" there so much as surviving there by scavenging. Crey's Folly is an industrial disaster zone that's had "squatters" move into despite the hazards. It's basically abandonded industrial hellscape. If you look at the tram map carefully, you'll realize that the northern end of Brickstown is simply the southern end of King's Row after the War Walls went up. If the War Wall wasn't there on the north side of Brickstown you'd just keep on walking into southern King's Row. What makes Brickstown seem worse than King's Row is the Zig dominating the skyline and all the guys in orange jumpsuits outside the fence (and the fact that Brickstown is a higher level zone than King's Row). To be honest though, I'm kind of sad that there was never a "riot suppression" Task Force developed for Brickstown that would take us INTO the Zig (as Heroes) to prevent the inmates from taking over the asylum (so to speak). Missed opportunity there, I'm thinking. Possibly the coolest thing that could have been done with it would have been to "feature" (by means of bias to the randomizer) NPC groups that the PCs on the team had Defeat badges for ... because you've beaten them before, so now you ought to put your reputation to good use in putting down a prison riot by the types you put into the Zig. That way, although the maps might be the same every run, the spawn groups that show up on those maps could vary widely depending on the team composition and the randomizer biases they'd bring with them into the content of the Task Force. "But nobody listens to Zathras."

Independence Port is the commercial shipping hub for the city. There isn't a "shopping district" that meets the expectation of being a big box mall or even an outdoor fairground/flea market. You just have occasional shops scattered around, only some of which can be entered (because there's services inside of them for PCs).

Homecoming is undergoing emergency maintenance. We'll be back shortly.

You might want to rethink your opinion on Gale, particularly on a Mastermind. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/13363-guide-mastermind-secondary-t1-powers-useful-for-proc-monstering/ Storm Summoning: Gale (lowest possible recharge enhancement) Positron's Blast (3.5 PPM), Ragnarok (3.5 PPM), Javelin Volley (3.5 PPM), Annihilation (3.0 PPM), Frozen Blast (2.5 to 3.5 PPM), Explosive Strike (3.5 PPM), Force Feedback (2.0 PPM) 2.0 * ((8 / ( 1 + 0 / 100 )) + 2.17) / (60 * (0.25 + 0.75 * (1 + 50 * (11 * 80 + 540) / 30,000))) = 12.22% (Force Feedback) 3.0 * ((8 / ( 1 + 0 / 100 )) + 2.17) / (60 * (0.25 + 0.75 * (1 + 50 * (11 * 80 + 540) / 30,000))) = 18.32% (Annihilation) 3.5 * ((8 / ( 1 + 0 / 100 )) + 2.17) / (60 * (0.25 + 0.75 * (1 + 50 * (11 * 80 + 540) / 30,000))) = 21.38% (Positron's Blast, Ragnarok, Javelin Volley, Explosive Strike) 2.5 * ((8 / ( 1 + (5.11875 to 18.55) / 100 )) + 2.17) / (60 * (0.25 + 0.75 * (1 + 50 * (11 * 80 + 540) / 30,000))) = 14.69% to 13.39% (variance due to recharge on attuned Frozen Blast set) 3.5 * ((8 / ( 1 + 23.1875 / 100 )) + 2.17) / (60 * (0.25 + 0.75 * (1 + 50 * (11 * 80 + 540) / 30,000))) = 18.21% (Superior Frozen Blast) And that's not even including putting a Sudden Acceleration KB>KD into Gale so as to have a 50ft Cone Knockdown "on demand" every 8+2.17=10.17 seconds (or faster with global recharge lowering the base 8s recharge time) as a battlefield ON THE GROUND NOW!!! power for all hostiles. So if you 6-slot Gale, I would recommend a common Accuracy plus the Sudden Acceleration KB>KD proc ... leaving 4 open slots for other procs, including the option of the Annihilation proc for -Resistance debuffing. Point being, you can turn Gale into a serious battlefield soft control power that deals damage if you invest into it.

Hey! 👊 To be fair, the Lightspeed build for Peacebringer doesn't "fully" come together until you've got Superior/Purple 50 slotting fully built out ... but it IS possible to build in enough recharge to not need Hasten. However, that's a long road. I personally prefer to not have Hasten in my builds if I can help it and not need it, since that leaves open the autofire option for a different power.

As a Controller, the best Defense you can have is Lockdown of whatever is hostile (and aggroed). If they can't attack you, you've got all the "defense" you need ...

Only because it's a Nemesis Plot Hole ...

You can already do this, to some extent, by use of coalitions. It's not EXACTLY what you're looking for ... but it's close enough, kinda sorta ...

Just don't be a Derek...?

Uh ... the reason is in the server names? Because Everlasting is ... as advertised ... EVERLASTING ... And Reunion ... no one can stop a good Reunion!