Tahliah

I very much enjoyed reading this great post, and it sounds like you guys had an amazing time @Dark Current! The ITF is one of my very favorite TFs, so I can't wait to hear how it goes tonight. I am very confident that you will be successful and wreck it!

Not what I meant, did you call in the Ouro flashback arc to the contact after these screenshots? If not, you will not get the "gimp" badges.

Did you call it in?

Welcome home! It's the whole game, and it's amazing to be back. I know exactly how you feel, and I am so excited for you. :) Download it and get in game if you haven't already.

Our sixth all plant troll (and dom) team night was a raging success. We had 12 plant trolls (and doms!) show up and were thrilled to welcome new people to our group and to our sg. Yay! We started out with eight, but we knew that we had at least one more person coming, so we split into two teams. The trollers in their 30's formed a team of four, and the rest of us formed the other team. The 30's team seemed to have had a great time doing one TF (not sure which one) and then getting to lvl 35 for the ITF. They started running it rather late and with just the four of them, so they decided to save the last mission for another day. The rest of us were in Striga and people quickly joined until we were a full team of eight. We had an absolute blast in Striga and dashed through Long Jack's arc and got a good start on Tobias Hansen's as well. It was quite a sight as we all gained levels and the last two of us finally got our Creepers!! I turned my xp back on in the last Long Jack mission and quickly dinged 25 and then that magical wondrous Creeper-giving 26. One of our new Parks and Wreck crew started the night at lvl 2 and ended at lvl 16 with not a sewer in sight. :P I have to say that it was one of best runs in a pool room I've ever been party to (I usually dread that room, but now, I kind of like it). We just blasted (er, strangled and creepered and buffed and debuffed) our way through those capsules (and the vampires they vomited) like crazy. It was so fun to see all the vines and creepers and spirit trees and auras, to hear the snap of speed boost, the gentle jingle of /nature heals, to cheer when our teammates leveled, to just be so in that planty moment that one planter even commented, "just look at that!" Okay, we really were pretty amazing. Heh. In fact, we had such a grand time, that I literally lost track of time. When people started logging to get some sleep before work the next day, I was confused until Irresponsible Creeper pointed out how late it was! So it was off to the base for some post-run toon maintenance (enhancements!), and there we found that Irresponsible Creeper had created our very own beach in our sg. It's so gorgeous! Of course I immediately had to change into a bathing suit . . . all the better to swim with sharks, lounge on a towel, and sip Haze's mai tais. If you are interested in joining us on your own plant troll (or dom), we will be finishing up Tobias' arc in Striga next week and then doing Lars Hansen's to unlock Hess. We meet on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. EST on Excelsior. You can send a tell to any of us or join the Parks and Wreck chat channel to be added to our sg. It's as easy as that! In fact, we had a great new planter do just that last night! When we finish Striga, we will head to Croatoa for some creepy fun wrecking witches and Fir Bolg and Tuatha, oh my! After that, we will likely focus on finishing our TFC as we've only done Posi 1 so far as a team. In other words, lots of great times with great planters to come!

I haven't really thought about it until now, but I do tend to avoid certain zones because I find them a pain to navigate (Bricks comes immediately to mind with all those underground mission doors, which, oddly, I don't mind in Faultline). The same goes for redside, where I pick up fly as soon as possible since I rarely play over there and hate dealing with the doors in and out of . . . whatever. Is Port Oakes supposed to be some sort of weird pod thing? A docked space ship? Shrug. I find it tedious and annoying to navigate. I love gold side and think Praetoria is gorgeous and the storylines are extremely interesting. That said, it's pretty difficult to get through on most of the toons I favor (squishies: blasters, trolls, defenders), so I tend to roll only MMs there (love them!). So I guess I kind of avoid it, at least on anything but an MM. Talos is my all-time favorite zone for travel, shopping, dayjobs, etc. I think Founders Falls is beautiful, but I only really go there for TFs or the Winter event (on live it was less crowded with present openers than, say, PI). I don't care for either of the Wards for the reasons others have stated and also because I play on a laptop, and both zones are sloooooow to load for me (including entering and exiting missions). That's a real turnoff for me and aggravating for my teammates. Otherwise, I go where the content takes me. I do make a point on most toons of hitting the Hollows, Faultline, Striga, Croatoa . . . love those zones and arcs.

I do all of what everyone else has said (except read; I tend to get absorbed in what I'm reading and forget the game completely), and I will also go dancing in Pocket D to get that badge/tp power. You do have to switch dances or move a bit to avoid being logged for afk, but it's something fun to do (I love watching my toons do the "disco" dance, too hilarious) and you get a badge for it. Win-win-win (the third win is that while in there discoing away, you'll typically find a team forming that is something you want to do or need on one of your toons or your friends/sgmates will log in, etc.).

Congrats! Or Conga-rats as we used to say on live. 😉 What to do with a level 50 blaster? Oh my, the possibilities are endless. Do your incarnate stuff and get those fantastic powers. Plus, DA is super fun. Run everything via Ouro for badges, merits, and personal satisfaction. Start badging for fun and profit. Run everything in PI (twice). Do radios, tips, tfs, trials. I have a gazillion toons because I suffer from a pretty severe case of altisis, but I find that the toon I want to run most often is my lvl 50 blaster. I'll run incarnate content, regular lvl 50 content, or anything at all. I'll run her with lowbie friends because I want to do Frostfire and that's where they are, or heck, I'll just grab it via Ouro and do it myself. So fun!

It's also possible that you guys are overthinking this. My BFF from live is also on HC and we rebuilt our mains: his is a wp/ax tank and mine is an ice/ice blaster. We duo pretty much everything, including TFs, just fine. It's as much about playstyle and compatibility (between powersets and the people behind the toons) as it is about powersets alone. If that makes sense? Obviously, you wouldn't want to do that on two emp defenders, but pretty much any toon with a well-built brute will work.

Any proc with chance for knockback/down. I use Ragnorak, but any of them will work the same (if with less chance to fire the proc). I'm a huge fan of procs and use them for def/resistance, too, since I don't pick up tough, weave, etc. on my main. I am mulling over a second build for her that is more focused on survivability than damage, but so far I haven't gotten past mulling because I'm trying to get other toons built and that's taking all my infl/merits. heh

I didn't know that! Glad I do now, though, thanks!

Absolutely, as someone else mentioned illusion controllers were among the first to solo pylons, AVs, GMs, you name it. That's solo. With a brute, you're golden. Yes. Also, -regen isn't the only debuff to consider with AVs, there's all sorts of debuff effects that negate the need for massive -regen (though you get massive -regen with /dark). Get their resistance down and their recharge slowed, and they die faster than they can regen. Also, since a lot of the more difficult TFs (and of course trials) are late game, you will also be incarnate. That's going to change everything for you both. Grab Banished Pantheon as your lore pet (or maybe Longbow for some trials, tfs), and you'll be unstoppable on ill/dark (or ill/cold, ill/kin). You could solo most of your goal content. Not kidding. [edit to add: I hope you update this thread once you decide and you guys get rolling. I'd love to hear how things go as you tackle the various TFs and later trials! You'll need more people for some, like when you have to hit four glowies simultaneously, etc., so keep that in mind. I'm happy to hop on the team if you need me to glowie sit. LOL]

I think for this scenario, I would go ill/cold, ill/kin, or ill/dark. With ill you get Phantom Army, Spectral Terror, and Phantasm (i.e. lots of damage and some control). Also Deceive is very helpful at times; it's single-target on ill troll, but can still be very useful. You also get Superior Invis which will come in handy on a lot of TFs so you can get to the end and TP your brute in to the "real fight" heh. With /cold, you get great shields for your teammate and debuffs. With /kin, you get good debuffs and helpful tools like Speed Boost and Fulcrum Shift. You could even go ill/dark for max pets (with Dark Servant) and great debuffs. /Dark also has great tools like Tar Patch, Darkest Night, and Black Hole (among others, it's a great set). Personally, I would probably go ill/kin or ill/dark, but the other suggestions so far in the thread are all solid.

Awesome, Neverglade! It will be great to have you with us again 👍 I know I was a minute or so late because there was some kind of download I hadn't anticipated, but when I logged on, there were already several people in the sg eager to get started on our plant troll (and doms) adventure in Striga. We also have a chat channel now--Parks and Wreck--so please feel free to /chanjoin in case people are finishing something up on other toons before switching over to their plant trolls (and doms). The channel is shiny new, but it's going to be helpful to members who are needing to fill out TFs or who want to do something planty and wrecky with our crew. If people are available to help, join, etc., I'm sure they will! If they're busy doing whatever, including soloing, they may not be available, but that's okay, too.

Ha, I don't remember the colors at all! But they didn't overlap, and I think that was the point. We all have different colors running now, so I'm guessing they'll follow that same pattern except for "special" creeper colors. I'm not sure how people are slotting their holds/immobs, but I, for one, am slotting for damage. On an all plant troll team, the last thing I worry about is slotting for immob or hold. LOL I so think we need to do Patron arcs as a team. Can't you just see the planty, wrecky goodness?! Weee! Besides, we will all want patron powers unlocked, so it's a good plan. That said, if you want to run it before we get to that point, go for it. If you want back up, just hit me up.

We do and will always have room for more! I'm not sure what time zone you are in, but "after midnight" sounds a bit later than we are running. That said, please do reach out to any of us, and we will be happy to add you to the Parks and Wreck sg. Many of us have toons we want to play but don't yet have a set sg activity for, or you can just join us in other stuff we're doing via the Parks and Wreck chat channel (we like to badge, do TF's, and etc.). Heck, I have a couple planters who are just chilling in the sg right now: Meadow Creeper at lvl 2 is plant/nature and Over Thyme at lvl 26 is plant/time. And I've spied a couple of alts that our crew has added to the sg but haven't got a chance to level. In other words, there are signs of life beyond this original plant troll (and dom) team, and you and anyone else interested is more than welcome.

Our fifth all plant troller/dom team was amazing fun and the time flew by as we strangled, creepered, buffed, and debuffed our way through Stephanie Peebles' arc in Striga. We really sped through it and had a blast doing so, but as she gives out the missions out of order it became a bit repetitive toward the end of the night as we redid missions to ensure that everyone who wanted to was able to finish the arc (i.e. get the wedding band temp power and earn the 25 merits). We succeeded, of course, but in future, we may want to rethink grinding out arcs that are given out of order to members of the same team. And we may not. Heh. We had a total of eight planters show up, but only seven on the team at one time as one left "early" and one joined us "late" (we start at 9 p.m. EST, but have no set end time and anyone can join if they are running later than 9--unless we are in a TF, for obvious reasons). It was our first plant night with @Strawberry Hazeand it felt like she has been with us all along. Between her dom abilities helping out our resident dom Spring Fury and some extra end and recharge help from Speed Boost and all the glorious planty and secondary goodness from seven plant trolls and doms, we just melted through missions and had amazing fun along the way. After we ratcheted up the difficulty a bit, I (on a /kin) and @StridingWind(on a /dark) had trouble with reliable hits on our heals, so I started just spamming mine since I couldn't rely on it to serve as a last minute "save" for a planter in need of Kelp! Then Termite was amazing with his /nature abilities, I particularly love his mini oasis drops for the team. When we plant a few Spirit Trees on it, it really looks gorgeous, to say nothing of the fact that the combination provides marvelous heal/hp buffs for the whole team. One creative planter said that it would be fun to color our creepers so that they could be easily distinguished from others, so we all declared our choices and think it will be fun to see a crazy mass of multi-colored creepers doing their creepery thing. One intrepid planter pointed out how nice it is not to have to worry about aggro on an all plant team, and it really is a different sort of team in that (and maybe in every) sense. And it's amazing fun! All vines and creepers and auras galore, lots of mushrooms, too, lol. The people who were going to join us last week were unable to make it this week, but we hope to see them in the coming weeks! They are already in an active sg and won't be joining Parks and Wreck since they play their planters for their sg activities, so for ease of communication with them and with our Parks and Wreck sg-mates when they aren't currently running a planter, I set up a chat channel: Parks and Wreck This chat channel is open to anyone who wishes to join us in our planty, parksy, wrecky adventures, so if you are interested in running with the all-plant troll (and dom) group on Tuesdays or with the plant-related themed toons on the third Thursday of each month, just /chanjoin and let us know! One of our members mentioned when we met on Thursday something about new rolls that headed to Kings Row instead of the Hollows, and that sounds fun to me since I've not done much Kings Row since first getting back (and kind of burning myself on it for a short time due to over-enthusiasm at being back and a severe case of altitis, heh). I love doing the game's regular content, so I'm up for rolling new plant trolls/doms and hitting content we missed this time around, including KR. Anyway, that's something we can think about doing on new planters at some future point (or perhaps for some other Parks and Wreck team fun that's not plant trolls/doms). Anyone wishing to join us on their plant troll (or dom) can do so on any Tuesday at 9 p.m. EST on Excelsior. Any level and secondary is welcome, and we have a great crew. Everyone is amazing fun and super nice/easy to team with. Next week, we will be starting out in Striga with Long Jack's arc. His arc, I seem to recall, is given to all team members in the same order, so we should blast through to the third Striga contact, Tobias Hansen, next week.

I agree with most of what you've said here, @Ukase. But I do take issue with some of your criteria for a decent blaster: you may count only those who use binds and/or macros as a well-played blaster, but some blasters (like mine) don't rely on binds or macros at all. You also give a lot of credence to experience, and while this is important, it's not a compelling argument. Of course I can run DFB, Frostfire, [insert any mish/tf/trial] as TEH best. All I have to do is run them a bazillion times. That's not a good blaster, that's someone who knows that content well and can therefore (and only therefore) excel. A "good" blaster doesn't need to run memorized content to shine; we are awesome in any content, even that we don't know like the back of our hand and play on autopilot. If all I ever did was [insert "x" trial, raid, whatever], of course I'd excel at it. A monkey repeating the same content would excel at some point. "I'm the best at the content I constantly repeat" is not the same as "I'm a good blaster." Not even close.

As a blaster who avoids melee like the plague, I might agree with you . . . and long ago did think that melee on a blaster was silly and senseless. But I no longer feel that way. Not only do some people play "blappers" super well (see the video), but even for we range-preferring blasters, melee is sometimes necessary to get out of sticky situations so you can get back to range. My main is an ice/ice blaster, and from early game through incarnate, I've found myself in tight situations where Ice Sword (and later Freezing Touch) come in very handy. Keep in mind that the blaster secondary melees also have mitigation factors that mean, for example, I can swipe with Ice Sword or stomp out Freezing Touch and slow/hold melee foes even if they aren't killed (and they won't be by Freezing Touch, obviously , but often are by Ice Sword). This give me precious seconds to get out of there and back to range. Likewise, Ice Patch, not technically a melee "attack" can be a wonderful melee "tool"; drop it, and as your foes flop around, get out of dodge and then pick them off from range. (Of course ice patch comes in handy in a variety of instances, like in doorways and such, but for melee help, it's invaluable if you find yourself zerg rushed.) I don't pick up Frozen Fists because I stay out of melee as much as possible, but it makes sense if others wish to play more melee in their game. Another good reason to pick up melee secondaries on a blaster is to have a place to put procs and/or to frankenslot for groovy set bonuses that add to your blastery goodness but cannot be placed in your primary powers. Sure, you can blast in melee range, but having an extra option (or two) is always nice for specific situations. Or, as others have mentioned, just don't get them at all. Shrug. It's up to you. Another example is a new toon I'm running, a rad/plant blaster. Super fun combo, btw. I was running with a friend last night who also has a blaster with /plant secondary, and he mentioned that he plays his much more melee-heavy. And that's fine. With /plant, as with most other blaster secondaries, you can tailor your toon to your style and needs based on your power selections. I didn't take early melee secondaries, except one, but he chose to take more. I'm going more for mitigation in terms of holds/toxins because that's what I prefer. That's cool, right? If I don't want them, I can choose something else, and if he does want them, he can choose them. Win-win. That said, I will probably pick them all up as I level just to check them out and see which melee I want to keep (yay respecs!) . . . because I will keep one or two for the reasons outlined above. tldr: yes, melee attacks on blasters do make sense.

Not specifically, but I did name my fire blaster Fyre Flye as a private nod to Firefly. I love both of your names/concepts, though! Maybe I can do an "Ambassador" toon.

Heyas Termite and all! I was curious about this, so we decided to run the Peebles arc to see what happens when a toon hits 26. A few of the Parks and Wreck crew happened to be on, so we had a great time running the first part of her (very long) arc. I was the only one running a Tuesday planter, Over Thyme, for this experiment. She was 25 (now 26), and I'm not running her on Tuesday because I'll be on my /kin. Everything was going great until I dinged 26, then Peebles gave me Tobias Hansen for a contact (not Long Jack). Long Jack, when I clicked on him, also sent me to Tobias. I am still getting Peebles missions, however, so I will be able to finish her arc on Over Thyme. This is probably fine for many, but I wanted to mention it since we have quite a few toons that are 25, including Termite, Irresponsible Creeper, and Haze. It won't affect anyone else since I'll have xp turned off on Power Plant. (level 24) and will be able to get the missions for the team. If you also want to ensure you get the missions, including those from Long Jack, you may choose to turn off your xp, too, until we get to Tobias (the third Striga contact) because he and Lars, the fourth and final contact before Hess, are lvl 25-29). I think, but am not positive, that you can finish an arc that you start even if you subsequently outlevel the contact. If this is so, then we can turn xp back on after we start Long Jack's arc. I do not know if he will give missions to a toon who is 25, but it seems likely that he will since Peebles did. I have no way to confirm this, though. Earning or not earning xp, including double xp and etc., is completely up to individual planters, of course, but I just wanted to point this out for anyone interested. At some point before Tuesday I hope to finish up Peebles' arc so that I can verify that I cannot get a mish from Long Jack (it seems highly unlikely given that she gave me Tobias already, who is usually unlocked by Jack). On that note, it's a long arc. We likely won't finish it on Tuesday. Just a heads up. 😎

I'm torn on this. On the one hand, I vividly remember getting my first cape and unlocking Cim costumes for the first time. Ditto the witch's hat. I felt like I had "won" and that I had earned my new costume pieces and "deserved" to don them. That said, I rarely bothered to go out of my way to "earn" these things on more than one or two toons (except capes, since there were always people outside Icon to help with the kills). If it's a grind, it's not going to attract people. Rather, they will do it to earn the badge on their badger (and few to no alts) or to get that "must have" item for RP or thematic reasons. Me? I don't need (or even now have) every toon in a cape or sporting those oh-so-horrible Cim sandals. Maybe if HC goes this way, they can make the rewarded item/power/badge/whatever account-wide? That, at least, would be a decent compromise for those who are happy to get that "i won" rush . . . but will never replicate that initial "rush" on multiple alts (hence the grind part). Yay! I got capes was a thing, for sure, but the "i won" wears off precipitously.

This toon is gorgeous! People should join us on non-troll Thursdays just to see him and to see Gone With The Wind (super creative costuming by @StridingWindthat turned out amazing).

This had me concerned, so I logged on to see if I could still get missions from Stephanie Peebles, and I got it on both my /kin (lvl 24) and on my /time (lvl 25). Termite and Irresponsible Creeper are both 25, too. I'm not sure about everyone else as our levels range. Also, Peebles is lvl 20-24 according to Paragon Wiki, so after the first mish complete for 25s, she may just give us a new contact or not speak to 25s at all. I'm not sure, but I can do the first mish on Over Thyme to find out.* In the meantime, I am planning to simply turn off xp on Power Plant. (lvl 24 /kin) for most of the first two arcs (both Peebles and Long Jack are 20-24), then turning it back on for the last two arcs (Lars and Tobias Hansen are 25-29). That way we can do Striga, get the goodies, and unlock Hess. How does that sound to everyone? *[Update: Okay, I wasn't going to be able to sleep tonight until I knew the answer, so I just ran the first Stephanie Peebles mish (a street hunt, kill 10 Council) on Over Thyme (lvl 25) and got the next mish in the arc, so I think that those who are lvl 25 will be fine in Striga in terms of getting the missions.]

Bwahaha! Some people don't like to be specifically named, so I wasn't sure whether to credit the sly and handsome genius who came up with "Kelp!". Now I know. Hey you guys!, it was our very own sly and handsome @StridingWindwho first said "Kelp!" That's going to catch on for sure; I know I, for one, will be using it. (still giggling)