Without_Pause

I should add, there was some wonkiness with the polls as T1 powers were listed as under 100% when they were still mandatory, but the thread talking about what percentage of the player base taking powers within a powerset was a gold mine for figuring out what to pick at least on the initial go of playing a new powerset. This would be all the more interesting now that players aren't forced into taking T1 secondary powers.

Power Transfer: Chance of Heal Self in Stamina and Call of the Sandman: Chance of Heal Self in PGA help out nicely in this regard.

Something must be up, as I know of no plans to move it.

Strongest how? En doesn't have DoT which is what is going to be an advantage for a Corr versus a Blaster. En gets better DPS wise once you added in KB to KD IOs oddly enough, and you will want to do that as Kin absolutely doesn't want things being KBed away. I like En, but I prefer it much more on a Blaster.

Fire/storm also has to balance Hurricane and Hot Feet so I would lean Fire/rad.

Back on topic, I just wished the Homecoming Stats thread was done once a year. This way we can look if changes to sets mattered and changes in what is getting played is happing. Is the new unicorn the same as the old one?

Started my day selling stacks of uncommon salvage for 500k-1m per stack. I am listing them for 1k and they sell instantly.

I haven't built one although I need to work on a Time/dp which should be easy enough since I've done Time twice now. I would try to focus on one of the two powersets and then go from there. The attacks might be the easiest since the ATOs get slotted there. Figure out what you are building for. DP likes to be in melee so S/L and Range Def will be easy targets to go after. Outside of that, Recharge and the End to pull it off. Resist will be nice, but with Defender's Resist cap and lower HP, I don't worry about it too much. One note on slotting. If you don't need to 6-slot an attack for the bonus, skip the D/R IO. Either save the slot or stick a proc into the 6th slot. This can make it easy to get 2 damage procs into an attack.

Even if you factor in Live, I don't think I have done Hamidon 5 times. It might be 3, so I'm oblivious to the rewards outside of the HO.

In my Fire/time controller I put the -Res proc into Slowed Response over the Chance for Lethal. If you can find the slots, Time's Juncture can fit two damage procs in it as well.

Energy Aura. I could at least see the case for Elec if you were going Brute or Tank, but Scrappers have a lower Res cap. An Energy/ea Scrapper is great. I got mine in the high 30s before I realized I just don't like Energy Melee nor Elec Melee for that matter. I can't fathom Bots/time MM not wrecking so many things. If I were to make one MM, that would likely be it.

How many Hamidon runs are done if HOs aren't tied to it?

On Live I simply didn't slot until 12 and grabbed level 15 IOs. Towards the end it was getting to 22 and then slotting. Hitting 12 in this game even without 2x XP boosters is still so easy. Give me a decent session, and I can hit that 13 as listed above. Sure, SOs at that level are better, but IOs are far more versatile and attuned ones grow with you so there is no need to click on Upgrade.

My Fire/time controller says 'Hi.' Yes, that's post Incarnates. No, that's not a confirmed finished build. And yes, those numbers were higher until I decided to get Chrono Shift to be perma. Point is, if you want to bring in self buffing into the conversation, don't bring Time in as an example.

On my second account I have currently 5 characters. I have 37 on my main account. Many of these builds aren't 50. Some likely will never be. Some will be deleted. I would be fine saving one per account. There are still so many great names to be had. Most of my cherished names are honestly on the more recent side.

Have it where level 50s can lose their names after a number of years. Give the players the ability to select one or more characters as an 'Icon' so that name stays. Maybe even do it to where people can pay for it, and use the money as a way to pay for the monthly cost of running the game. There's very few names I would be disappointed to lose, and even fewer of them would I even think others would want.

I've recently thought about a Symphony/dark Dom, but for 'generally useful,' a Def is going to win out.

If you have the money, you will never slot anything TO, DO, SO or ever again. Common IOs can be crafted/had for cheap. I can slot out a build of level 25 IOs at around 2-3 mill. If you feel the need to slot out level 30-35s, I don't think it is going to be that much more. You can be level 50 with those common IOs and be fine for general content. That's what I did until I finally broke down and learned how to do builds on Homecoming. In all of my time on Live despite having billions of influ I rocked out level 25 common IOs. SOs are a god awful terrible money sink of yesteryear. I literally don't understand the slotting of one. If you are new and thus poor, don't forget you can grab uncommon IOs versus the in demand ones. I have grabbed uncommons for 100k where the more popular ones sell in the millions. A number of the crappy IO sets have all of 3-4 IOs. Early on a number of powers will have all of 3-4 slots put into them until later. The devs understood this. Frankenslot if need be. An Acc/End from one set and a Acc/End from another is better than a common Acc and End. You get a free respec every ten levels. Use them. In terms of currency, I make a new character. Solo Matthew Habashy's arc. Do a DFB. Complete the first two contacts of Hollows with grabbing a team for Frostfire because that's an easy fill. You should have enough Merits to convert those over to 84 Enhancement Converts. While there are far better uses for those than selling them on the Market, selling all of them at 70k generates 5.88 million - fees. So yes, you can instantly afford a level 50 build of level 25 common IOs while being all of level 13, or so. I recently did that on a controller. Generate enough seed money so you use the converters for actual converting and that near six mill can be done in a few clicks. Getting seed money is more annoying than hard and you only really need less than 2 mill. Do the above and get your initial currency, and then do Posi 1 & 2, to get more Merits. You are off and running. Said controller is 16, has yet to do either Posi, and is sitting at roughly 40 mill. I've become hellbent on doing Posi 1 at level 17. That's where the good stuff starts with End Mod. You also get a chance to slot up a level 16 power which odds are is important. If you have the influ for PVP and ATOs, then great. It's perfectly fine to slot in some level 15 commons or attuned uncommons. The cheap stuff is great to have on hand until you can hit level 27 and hopefully start to respec into some of the better sets. Strip out the lesser stuff, and store it in your base for the next characters. Since you are using IOs, you won't care about the new character's origin. Synapse and Citadel are slogs and most in need to being redone. New TFs are nice, but those do need to be revisited.

Uncommon salvage is silly now. I saw multiple buys at 50k-100K. I spent the weekend adding storage for uncommons and dumping what I had in there and using it to fuel my recipes to convert. I rarely dual box these days, but at this point I can grab a couple 50s and blow through some content while working on their incarnate abilities. So congrats evil marketers, you've made me 'farm' again. 😉

I've seen a few 'Not really Hulks' running around as of late. What I don't get is Hulk's look isn't really all that great. I can make a Hulk type character and make them look far better, but here we go 'green skinned guy in pants #over 9000!'

Empathy for Defenders is due to 'We need a healer" trope and Kin on the others simply due to Fire's damage in both cases. But still, TA would instantly drop to under 1% played if Defenders could self buff themselves. Traps which gets played even less would also not benefit from this. Yes, Traps is at least middle ground for MMs. It's the only AT which gets even remotely decent play out of it.

If a Kin can SB themselves than the need for Transference becomes incredibly low. If you can't see the issue with Thermal and Sonic getting shields themselves, then we are agreeing to disagree. FF and Cold is less of an issue since capping Def in the needed places isn't that difficult.

I recently made a Savage/rad Brute using the black and blue color scheme. I used the thorn pattern, and wile I do like it, this is pure, "Son of a...That's even better."

A Kin is going to get numerous attempts at pulling off Siphon Speed. It would be incredibly abnormal for that to not hit consistently. Kins don't lack endurance due to Transference. Yes, it needs to hit, but as someone who has taken Kin to 50 more than once and one of them was my main, End really isn't an issue. Based on March 2020 data, Emps were more than double Kins as the most played Defender in terms of ones at 50. TA and Traps combined weren't even 10% of Emps. Now imagine Emps being able to self buff. FYI, TA was 1.6% of Defenders at 50. That's outright unicorn status even before a huge change to the AT in which they benefit nothing from it.

Kins essentially already are buffed. You are really only looking at ID as something they don't currently benefit from. People are also missing the fact that TA would completely miss out on self-buffing the caster.