Without_Pause

I don't need status protection to like a build. I, in fact, played support as a default on HC and thus played a lot of builds status protection free. It took me years to play the character who became my namesake here and thus gain status protection. I even took a hardcore blaster to 41. I tend to prefer power sets which get out of my way(see /wp). Even if you have enough slots for it and on auto, there are times when auto doesn't kick in and I have to click it to make sure it goes off. To me that's needlessly fiddly. More so when the vast majority of defense sets don't use this mechanism. "But you are missing out on powerful sets." Yeah, I don't care. I prefer sets which are fun early and not waiting for things like attack chains to finally come together at level 26, 32, 38, IOs, etc. Note, I rerolled a TW/bio brute in the 30s because it wasn't fun. "Dude, that build is broken if you invest in it." Do. not. care. (points at alias) FYI, I actually do have a few /shields builds, but at no point do I see preferring them to builds with toggle status protection and none have hit even 40. I don't have to have status protection. I just don't want to be given it and fiddling around with it.

Also why I don't play them.

Likely why despite my attempts to like Shield I can't put it into my upper tier of defense sets.

What works for fire farms isn't really what works for end game content. For fire farms, fire armor. For end game content, not fire armor. It also depends on how much you are willing to invest in it. If you want something which top tier, then TW/bio is in the running, but it is going to cost to get it to where it can be. I found it a bit underwhelming in its 20-30s. If I wanted something to farm S/L maps and for general content, I would pick Spines, Rad, or TW with /bio or /rad. Also note if you are creating a fire farmer for the drops, you are literally wasting your time as influ/time is better generated through the market. If you want to create one to dual box and PL friends and SG mates, then by all means do so. This is why I suggest going for a general build versus a fire farmer. I honestly only really use my fire farmer to dual box.

The problem I've found is I HAVE to bump my bids or they sit no matter how long I'm willing to wait. I am borderline having to double my bids in places to get similar traction as before. Even with bids below the last 5, bids can be 175% of what I was bidding before and still sitting.

I feel like shouting from the mountain tops you can stack those other powers with Sonic. You are comparing apples to oranges.

Technically the scrapper version will benefit from Follow Up more. Also, the ATOs for scrappers are better in terms of creating higher DPS.

Hulk. In all seriousness, how do you define strongest?

Higher than scrappers? Yes and also yes.

It is similar to Follow Up in that you will get the buff to stack so one use of it might not seem much, but as longer the fight goes on you should be seeing better numbers for damage on top of what Fury is adding, which also might be why it doesn't feel so powerful by itself.

Dark or Rad would likely be my picks with Shield. SS is going to be end heavy. Rad would likely be as well since it has a damage aura, but not on the level of SS. End issues so far on my Rad/shield scrapper haven't been that bad. A friendlier take on SS would be StJ which has solid ST and AoE. I've done a couple StJ/shield characters but none to 50. Neither were brutes although I don't think it matters that much.

Without currency sinks or caps on items this will ultimately just delay the inevitable slow increase of items traded between players. This was covered on Live. Currently builds are vastly cheaper than they were on Live, but Live also had years worth of a player base building currency. There's currently nothing preventing from it happening again.

Jack taking back CoH would have been a WAY better April Fools joke than tiny togas.

People are also focusing on the secondaries, but Grav has a much better ST attack chain and Elec is on the lower damage side. It is proc friendly, but I'm not sure if that translates well enough into being something built for AVs and more so compared to something which out of the box has an effective ST attack chain. Oh, and if you think end drain is going to save you against AVs, well, I got news for you. It won't.

I played an Ice/Ice tank on Live which I liked. I have thought about rolling another Ice here, but just haven't. I have played /fire to 50 twice but only for farming. My sliver of experience of using /fire outside of a fire farm wasn't fun. I know I have seen /fire brutes outside of AE, but I just feel like they would be more work than I would want to put into one. I also can't recall the last time I saw one on a level 50 team. The only reason I see to roll a /fire brute for me is to dual box it. Depending on the concept, Ice/fire blasters can be incredibly good when invested in. I believe someone soloed the ITF with one using restrictions.

Yep. Went to play CoH to further reduce stress for a bit, and then 8 person team trying to get through doorways with 8 tiny togas. I logged after that.

One problem with April Fools is how few of people are good at it. #notsorry Maybe in a screwed up time like this something like this works for some people. But for others, well, yeah. I have been a pure ball of frustration, anger, and anxiety the past few weeks and this is one of my only escapes. I'm going to play for a bit, but I don't want to play.

I won't say it creeps me out, but I'm REALLY not of fan of April Fools, and right now(insert stuff going on my life outside of the obvious), I have so little of tolerance for this. This is my escape when I desperately need one. But hey, here's a tiny guy to follow you around. But why? Don't you get it? It's a tiny guy and that's hilarious! (beats head against desk)

As someone who put in nearly 100 levels of Kin/elec and Elec/kin in via defender and controller, I'm not surprised. I'm hoping Wind control finally becomes a thing so the stacking -dmg is actually useful versus end drain. Also note the defender was my main so I played it a lot post 50.

On topic, I went Mind/dark and outside of the PBAoE, it is fairly smooth as a ranged Dom, and the mixture of damage types will help out in the endgame. But yeah, still just 22 but my Earth Dom is holy shirt balls amount of fun and I know it is only going to get better.

I think the most interesting aspect is how little of slotting it seems to need.

I would pick something like /elec since it offers a damage aura and +recharge with only one real click so you can stick to attacking. Skipping a damage aura, I would go /wp and go after recharge bonuses and Incarnate related powers for more recharge.

My vote for all-purpose farmer and regular content would be Rad/bio brute. It would just farm S/L maps. Also note if you want currency/time, farming isn't the ideal. Playing the market is.

I think the biggest factor is people are using uncommon recipes to do enhancement conversion on so they can flip them on the market so people need bulk amounts of yellow salvage. I currently sell my yellow and orange salvage on the market at super low prices and then go and buy whatever I need at the time I do. I put in prices I feel I'm willing to pay. With enough alts to wait on those bids to come trough, I tend to get what I want at the price I want to.