Without_Pause

It's like 10x XP. The impact of it is talked about in the market section.

I have two schools of thoughts. 1. Use Mids to plan out a build and get the numbers down as well as you can. I can do this more with things I am comfortable with and I know I can crank out a build after 4+ passes. Then I roll the character. 2. Wing it. Seriously. You can get to 50 just fine on common IOs. Adding anything from the rarer IOs is just gravy even if it isn't the ideal slotting. I don't use 2x XP boosters pretty much ever these days unless it is a build I am really comfortable with and just wanting to get it to 50. Lesser known builds, I feel like I want to slow level it and even solo to where I get a proper feel for it. I soloed a Ice/stone Brute to 50 because of this. I'm doing normal leveling/soloing for a Grav/ta partly because I enjoy playing it and want to savor the ride to 50. Also, I feel like I don't know what I'm doing with building it. I actually refuse to really even look at a person's build because I want it to be "mine." So yeah, I'm winging it. Trying out "all the things." See what works. Seeing what doesn't. There was a time I also grabbed numerous uncommon recipes and even ones without 6 in a set for lower level slotting. I even grabbed one with just 3 in a set. I would frakenslot away. Again, any bonus is exactly that. We get so many respecs, additional builds, and unslotters there's no reason not to experiment away and embrace a flawed and messy build. Builds are just so different to do across all ATs there isn't a good way to find set in stone guidelines. The closest thing I have to a generic list is this. Know where to slot the ATOs. Know where to slot your ones offs, see auto powers. Know what sets give you the set bonuses you need. Know the slots you need to get said bonuses. Add in procs where deemed beneficial. Not all procs are worth slotting. Make sure you have a proper end recovery/end drain balance. Can get the recharge to perma anything you need.

I have one level 50 for StJ, and I only recently rolled a MA/sr specifically so I feel less comfortable officially saying on it, but my lean has been StJ. It has a bit more AoE and Crushing Uppercut hits like a truck. MA has fast cast times outside of Eagle's Claw as where all of StJ is fast and it is a smooth playing set. Brutes and Tanks get a Defense bonus from Storm Kick so an argument could be made MA is better on those ATs.

While not restricted to Indomitable, it might be interesting if servers held a "<server name>" night where people are encouraged to run characters on a server even if you need to transfer one in for that time. I will say red side has picked up on Excel so I assume that means from people coming on over.

Integrated graphics on a laptop. I use Intel as well and CoH has never played nice with it. I know another game became unplayable far worse than CoH from when I use to play it on a desktop PC after I tried on my laptop. Normal everyday Atlas gives me issues. Zone events are slide shows. I tolerate them for the badges. I logged on tonight to team and just saw a flood of mapserver teaming so I went and soloed. Note, a number of other games and them being more modern play absolutely fine on my laptop. My sold and bought stacks are about 1/10 of my buying pile. Granted I have 10 stacks of recipes being bid for. Still, supply is well behind. I can list IOs at normal prices and have about half of them go instantly. No desire to price gouge. I can see where by the time I can IO out a small number of builds and still be a billion ahead.

Likely explains why some bids have been slowly coming in versus what is expected. I don't have a decent enough graphics card to deal with the game as is. This event made it many times worse so I avoided it as much as possible. Even the small mobs didn't seem to be anything great. I'm sure I will forget this in time for next year's event. Maybe by then I will have a computer worth tolerating it.

Follow up. It took some time to feel more comfortable with color changes are there are a lot of colors, and it felt like any change simply didn't work. I can't even imagine trying to come up with as many colors as Mark did. I did simplify them in a couple of spots as secondary colors don't work out as well as I wanted. Most of the characters didn't work with the nature aspect so I canned that right away. I might add it back in to the first one at some point. Faces are essentially placeholders. Same color for primary and secondary for the belt FTW. Gravt/ta. I had the leaf cape as the original cape, but changed it to a different cape which was used in other characters. The quiver just worked so I kept it. Currently running with two variations and doing colorized powers based on the costumes colors. I just looked. I don't have the silver version of the outfit and powers uploaded. Powers mimic the silver in the cap, chest, shoulders in that one as well by matching the cap and chest. They fly and having the original shoulder armor didn't look right. I put the emphasis on the chest area. I'm not sure I have ever rolled any sort of Grav is my 10ish years playing the game. I did TA/a to the mid 20s on live and rerolled. Really liking this and at 25. Arcane Bolt to light Oil Slick. Lil' Red Cap. DB/sr. Secondary powers colors mimic the armor. Chest is a lighter red than the cap, cape, and belt. I had it all being the same red and it felt like it was too much. The fade aspect to the cape using two colors didn't work for me. Oh if it were the trim instead. Amazing Gracie. Claws/nin. Never done Nin. The key was the look of the claws and a decent glove. I love Claws. I don't like how most of them look. Lord Breaker. MA/sr. A number of gloves work. This is one of them. This has potential for other builds. I might have done 10 levels of MA on live, so wanting to give it a genuine go. A bit closer to what Mark had with the gold.

/shield can stack more DDR with its mezz protection. /sr as well. I just know what soloing /ea at x8 can do when -Def comes calling. On the flip side, it is basically a non-issue for my Stalker who solos at +3/x3. I'm not sure on Nin's numbers, but they would be lower as it has a heal and lower Resist. I only recently rolled one, so I don't have first hand experience enough to say how good it feels. Stone is honestly pretty care free in how much it covers although Incarnates further adds to it. It obviously isn't attractive, but you can minimize it, and Energy resist is poor although capping its defense certainly can be done. Energy doesn't feel like that big of an issue, but I can cheat a bit with Ice melee. It can absolutely cakewalk certain Psi based missions where an /ea would pause at. My Ice/stone Brute basically laughed at running end game missions with packs of Psi-Cops and their ranged attacks. A Sapper can be pretty easy to handle if you can mez them. I'll take Malta any day of the week compared to the mass horde of Mu while doing x8 soloing brings. They absolutely shred my Rad/fire Brute.

Melee heavy teams seem more likely than heavy support ones, but I say this as someone who plays on Excel. I wonder as the population goes lower if more and more people won't seek out more solo friendly builds.

Dark/ta Controller and do the same so you can light Oil Slick.

But I do. It would feel more like an activity versus playing a game.

Depends on the map. Farming a map while hovering with mobs only having melee attacks is, well, insulting.

That's what Rebirth and Melee is for.

I find I still need Ageless on a /en build as the DDR isn't top shelf. I would go /shield. It will add what you want, add more AoE to EM, and wreck all the things.

Peak fire farming is still about Fire Def/Res, recharge, end, and damage. Hover blasting makes it a bit easier as you just need to cap Ranged Def for the def aspect which you can do by default and thus without changing a build for it. Capping Fire Res would mostly be grabbing the Fire Epic armor. IOs and Incarnates offer so much recharge it lessens the advantage of using a Kin. I don't have a Controller for farming as I have two Brutes built for it.

I was on a team today doing missions in Atlas and both other players mentioned having under 500 on them. I was on a newer character myself, and I just email enhancements as needed, so they were poor as well. At some point I should toss come currency around on my guys so they can help other players out. Granted, I should toss some currency on guys just to get some of the TP options opened. I delete guys too often so I feel like they have to earn that.

A controller feels more spell based than melee. Like, I could see something like a battle/war mage tank who's staff is used a an actual weapon versus casting spells. I can kind of see Corr, or Def, but I would still lean Controller. When I made a spell caster type I did Ill/dark. It depends on what kind of caster. Personally, I could do a very D&D fitting character and make them Plant/ta. A mage tends to have a backup weapon as need be. That doesn't help you, but I'm just saying a spell caster can be fairly open.

Either or with StJ. I like the higher HP with a Brute, but Scrapper ATOs are more fun. I keep trying SS waiting for it to kick in, but it simply doesn't. At some point I'll dust off my SS/elec Brute and give it a final go.

I take Body at times because it uses so few slots I can chuck them elsewhere. Also, not all melee builds need ranged attacks. Sayin that, I did take Soul for my Ice/stone Brute as that has helped with my attack chain and more AoE.

Note, Sentinels have a cap to their targets, possible lesser issue when soloing, but Beam with the way it chains ignores said cap. I believe /rad for them ignores it as well. Beam/mental also have two ways for -regen although that largely depends on how much big game hunting you want to do. I like /temp on a Blaster as well. Time for a Corr or Defender would be good.

To be honest, I play aggressively. I had less end issues when I held back and played casual.

I was playing my Rad/bio on that, IIRC. Not sure if it is related or not, but the Posi got bugged and had us on repeat for a mission. We disbanded and reformed although only a few came back.

What makes it worse/funnier is that it is Claws. Not Claw, but Claws.

More Grav/ta. Did a Posi 2 and hit and 19. Only genuine support as there was a Dom, but they are only kind of support. It was rough. But that can happen with a Post TF in the right instance. I will say I did get on a team with a defender and was welcomed when they saw I added control and the defender mentioned about how their job was going to be easier. That team did go smoother. It would be interesting to see how I would have done on the Posi in a similar situation having further leveled up and using any slotting. A con for me in terms of ranking Traps is how much better off the set is when you have time to actually set up.

I know I don't need it on a Scrapper, and I think it would be easily skippable outside of that where Spin has a longer recharge. I need to get back on my Claws/wp Brute to be honest to see how close I am. I need to fix the Incarnates on that build as well. /elec should be able to pull it off though at least in my head. I don't have a recharge number to make FU + Spin + Shockwave gapless. DN will be more helpful solo, but I would honestly wonder how much it is needed.