Captain Fabulous

I seem to remember a time when you could stack both sets, but that's no longer the case. Now it's one or the other.

This is also good because if the detective doesn't introduce you to a new contact after the safeguard missions it means you've done everything. Aaron is given by either Sondra Costel or Officer Fields, who are given by Matthew Habashy. They have very different story arcs and you can only choose one of them. A good example of newer contacts/missions where you're not able to do both.

What I mean is, while it's possible to get every story arc or mission you can't get every contact because there is more than one contact that will give the same set of missions? So I shouldn't lose my mind if there are contacts I don't have because others in that same level range have already given me all the available missions? Amazing to me that after 20 years I'm still learning new things about this game.

That any set or AT can be godly with IO sets and globals and that they aren't a measure of how good a set is on its own. The game is balanced around even-level SOs. If you want to know how effective a particular set is or isn't that's what you slot. With enough INF you can make a Defender or Controller godly. It's irrelevant. It's not something most people are ever going to want or be able to do. Pretty much what I said but was then told I was delusional. 🤷‍♂️ Ah, but here's the thing, DEF is very dependent upon what you're fighting. As you pointed out, higher ranking and level critters will be able to bypass more of your defense, not only hitting you more often but doing more damage with each hit. Resistance is the same regardless. The benefit of layered defense and resistance is that the damage is spread out over time, greatly reducing the chance of being 2-shot, and allowing regeneration to do its thing. It also benefits you when you're hit by debuffs, as critters typically will only debuff one layer of protection at a time. On paper it looks better to have a large amount of one thing but in actual gameplay it's not, for a variety of reasons.

So the takeaway is that it's not possible to get every contact in every zone? Or am I missing something?

At most +2/x8, at worst -1/x0, depending upon the character and what I'm doing. Anything higher than +2 I find too difficult to hit consistently and takes too long to kill for my tastes. More often than not if I'm soloing I'm paying attention to the story so I choose to run thru the missions as quickly as possible in order to advance it.

Can confirm. Did a TF with him last night and all he did was try and drain the blood from already-dead critters. 😜

I'm a big fan of Stone. Greatly underrated set. SS is iconic and you can't go wrong with that either. Street Justice is also a fun set. Has a nice crunch to it.

Nope. It reads as "I'm not going to argue with you, believe whatever makes you happy." 🤷‍♂️ It has scaling damage resistance (all but psi and toxic) in the 3 auto powers which kick in when you're at 59% health for ~1% to a max of ~53% when you're at 1% health. While it's better than nothing for sure, it won't stop you from dying from a massive full-value hit when you're between 60-99% health.

I hear they do bus tours of Perez Park.

I guess we'll have to disagree. SR, like Regen, is a one trick pony, and we know the best armor sets have layered protection.

Did I stutter? SR is great until you actually get hit, which is gonna happen on average 1 in every 20 attacks. If you're down at least 1 HP it's very easy to get curb-stomped in one big hit from a +4 boss or AV, and with no heal or +regen you have no good way to recover your lost health without help. You're at the mercy of the tohit RNG. The scaling resists help, but only when you're low on health. Yeah you can fill all those holes with IO bonuses, but you can do that with any set or AT at this point.

Lots of Tanker builds here

Try: /em I don't get paid enough for this.$$petsayall You get paid?!

/petsayall You get paid?!

I am all for a spirited discussion, but I won't argue. It's a pointless waste of time. At some point you just have to agree to disagree and go on with your day.

The game has always been balanced around SOs because that's what's readily available to all players for a fixed price from vendors and as drops. The invention system and AH was always meant to be optional, not required. If you wanted IOs or even sets to become the baseline there would need to be a major overhaul of the crafting system and AH to greatly simply the process, cost, and availability.

LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEROY JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENKINSSSSSSSSSSSS!!! *look it up, kids

Invul, Shield, Bio, WP, and Rad are at the top of the charts because they have layered protections. not because they can easily reach softcapped defense via IO sets. That would be defense sets like Ice, EA, and SR. Regen is a one trick pony, and of all the protection types +regen is the least affective because it's almost entirely a reactive set instead of a proactive set. There's a reason it's so very rare to see Regen characters. As much as you'd like to think, it's not a case of you knowing better than everyone else, or that we simply don't understand how to play it. I don't see the point in arguing about it tho. If you love Regen and enjoy playing it, that's great. At the end of the day that's all that matters.

??? Rad has 2 debuff toggles and a click that reduces critter damage, defense, tohit, resistance, regen, and recharge. Accelerate Metabolism has a straight up +damage buff and gives mez resistance, recharge, and recovery. Choking Cloud will periodically hold LTs and under, and makes it that much easier to hold a boss. It's a pretty awesome set. Gravity's bread and butter power is Propel. Hit a critter with Gravity Distortion to trigger both Containment and Impact and it does a ton of damage. Lift also does more damage than most Controller single target attacks. Grav/Rad is a darn good pairing. I've had one since back on Live.

I think people forget the baseline for this game is even level SOs. Even a tank at level 50, with just SOs, is not going to be able to withstand that kind of assault. People forget just how squishy most characters really are without the IO sets and globals. I am a well-seasoned player, been playing since beta. I have characters of all levels, the vast majority with just common IOs, and even those in the 40-50 range can't easily solo higher than +1/3 or +2/2. And I'm highly-skilled. Imagine what it's like for a new player. The current power divide is HUGE.

I dunno man, I've always found lvl 40+ CoT to be a royal pain in the tuchus. Massive stacking of debuffs.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. There are a few jacket options that aren't available for the female body type, e.g. tuxedo, while the Victorian vest is completely different.

Katana is similar enough to Broad Sword that you can use his any of his BS builds as a reference.

You are correct. Any power not affected by damage mods won't be affected by the Rage crash. Taunt is another good power to use during the crash, especially if you're not attacking and generating threat. I'm pretty sure the Hybrid Incarnate abilities that do extra damage act like procs, and those aren't affected either. But honestly, it's time to get rid the Rage crash once and for all, along with all the other powers that have penalties (protection set T9s mostly).