Saikochoro

I’m going to recommend going with energy aura. It is top tier. Easy to get good recharge. Easy to softcap defenses. Good heal and endurance tools. You can easily pick up rune of protection to have really solid resists 50% of the time. I personally don’t mind the lack of AoE on ninja blade. In fact, I like it’s single target focus as that is what I focus on when I play stalkers. If I wanted to focus on AoE I’d play a blaster. This is the build I currently use on my ninja blade / energy aura stalker. Note: totals include hasten (3 seconds short of perma without boosters) and rune of protection (50% uptime).

All of your alts are the immortals. They have fought each other until only a few remain. The Gathering has commenced. The remaining few must fight to the death. There can be only one. Who will win the Prize? While all of my alts have fought valiantly best, only 4 remain for The Gathering. - Saiko - Dual Pistols / Martial Combat Blaster. - Kurayami - Dark Melee / Shield Defense Scrapper. - Sinja - Ninja Blade / Energy Aura Stalker. - Itami - Savage Melee / Energy Aura Brute. Sinja stalks Kurayami to a dark parking garage in Peregrine Island. Intending to finish the fight before it begins, Sinja gathers his strength a focused it on his specialty strike from the shadows. To his dismay the strike glances off Kurayami’s shield that was raised just in time. Now fully aware of the threat, Kurayami takes advantage of Sinja’s failed strike and bashes him with his shield. The fight ebbs and flows as they trade blows, but as it progresses Sinjas superior conditioning gives him the advantage. Near victory Sinja pushes with everything he has, but in a last ditch effort Kuraymai becomes one with his shield. A burst of the Quickening ensues three lucky strikes from Kurayami as he finishes his foe and absorbs his energy. Miles away on top of a large warehouse in Independence Port, Saiko looks down at his target on the ground below. As he lines up an opening salvo when the brute savagely leaps up to his perch on top the warehouse. In a burst of speed, Saiko leaps back and fire off the first shot. Saiko has the advantage of range, but the brute is relentless and seems to only grow stronger with each hit. Closing the gap, Itami viciously rips at Saiko. His blows nearly end the fight, but Saiko manages to channel his ki into a massive push the knows the brute off the edge of the building. Still struggling on the ground, a piercing bullet rips through his skull, and Itami’s energy is absorbed by Saiko. They meet on a small dirt hill near the monorail in Talos Island. Kurayami stands shield at the ready staring into the eyes of the gunman opposite him. Saiko answers the glare with a flourish of his pistols tossing them in the air and then firing a double shot at the knight. Kurayami easily blocks the attack and leaps to Saiko to bash him with his shield. Known for his reaction time, Saiko leaps back in a burst of speed. Saiko rains bullets on Kuraymai as he approaches, but each bullet merely pings off the shield. Right as he get near, Saiko unleashes a full on hail of bullets, many of which rip through his opponent. Weathering the storm of attacks with half his strength left, Kurayami unleashes his fiercest attack on Saiko. The devastating attack immobilizes him as though gripped by some unseen force. Kurayami follows up with another unholy attack the siphons the life right out of Saiko and gives it to him. Kurayami then begins to drains Saiko’s soul for additional power in preparation to smite his foe to the ground. Near collapse, Saiko drops his pistols. He closes his eyes, channels his inner will and breaks free of the midnight grasp. Slowing time around him, Saiko leaps into the air and kicks Kurayami in the face. Leaping backwards, he follows up with a powerful ki strike to the chest the pushes Kurayami backward in a slow motion. Saiko then jumps up with a spinning kick that knocks Kurayami on his back. Picking up his pistols Saiko walks over to the prone man. On the ground gasping for breath, Kurayami looks up at Saiko as he levels a single gun at his head. Kurayami closes his eyes and does not see the flash of the muzzle. The last thing he hears is a ringing blast. He does not hear Saiko proclaim, “There Can Be Only One!” not does see massive eruption of Quickening as Saiko wins The Prize. Who of your alts will make it to the time of The Gathering? Who will be defeated in the final fight? Who will proclaim, “There Can Be Only One!” and win The Prize?

If you prefer range, then I’d either go blaster or sentinel. Blaster will have better damage, but sentinel will have better survivability with a smaller investment. I think sentinel will overall have a smoother leveling experience, however I think blasters have overall more potential once both have a full build. I have a beam rifle / energy aura sentinel that is quite amazing. It has great defense, can pick up rune of protection to stack resists, and has a heal and endurance recovery. Beam rifle has respectable damage and should clear things fast enough. If you want to take on some more risk for a more fast paced play style then I would go with a blaster. Nothing is more fun than a dual pistols / martial combat blaster. With somewhat of an investment it can solo with the best of them. Keep in mind though the hail of bullets (the dual pistols nuke) is currently bugged and not doing its full damage. The devs are aware of this though and have a fix planned to go out sometime in the hopefully near future.

I can’t imagine it would be bad. I honestly can’t think of any primary that EA wouldn’t help. I don’t have any experience with kinetic melee so correct me if I am wrong. Isn’t their damage buff tied to stacking power siphon? I’m not exactly sure how it works, but am I correct in assuming lots of recharge would help with this? EA will help give a lot of recharge when you have a several enemies on you.

I feel like there has been a lot of miscommunication in this thread. Some things I have noticed. 1. Fact that farming was nerfed. I don’t think that any reasonable person is claiming otherwise. Farming was nerfed and that is fact. It is perfectly natural for gamers to be upset about something they enjoy being nerfed. Emotion is not always altruistic. Farmers can be upset even if they know and understand, and even agree, that it was needed and done for the health of the game. It still negatively affected their chosen play style. 2. Marketing is faster than farming. Again, I don’t think anyone is denying this. Marketing can amass wealth much faster than farming with less of a barrier to entry. That is very true. I think all of the discussion of economics centers on why this doesn’t affect the game economy the same way that farming does. It is based around inflation, which influence generation drives and influence shifting does not. I think most farmers understand this. I think some people are conflating point 3 below with this point. 3. The nerf targeted inflation rather than income gap. This I think is the real issue that is causing all the misunderstandings. IF income inequality was the real target than marketing would have been targeted as well. However, Jimmy clarified that inflation (income generation) was the main target of the nerf, not income inequality. However, this was qualified slightly by stating the same thing switchfade has been saying. By targeting inflation, the buying power of the influence that each player holds is more valuable than it otherwise would be. Income inequality is really a separate discussion. 4. Antagonism towards farming. I think there definitely is a portion of the player base that has a biased antagonism towards farming. They believe it is a lesser way of playing and thus shouldn’t be allowed or shouldn’t be rewarded. Thus they agree with any nerf to it regardless of the underlining reason. Jimmy has stated they aren’t targeting farming based on this antagonism. They even stated earlier in the thread that farming can have a positive affect on the game by making goods available and keeping a steady supply. This is why income generation was the target. Not farming as a whole. That said, Jimmy does plan to destroy afk farming with a vengeance at some point in the future. AFK farming =/= active farming. Active farming is fine. 4. Antagonism to marketing. I think this is similar to the antagonism towards farming. Some people just think it is a lesser way of playing the game. They use disparaging terms of playing the market for enjoyment. Just like farming, and any other play style, it is an equally valid way of playing the game. I think farmers have some sour opinions of marketing’s because of point 3 above. Marketers in general can be more wealthy than farmers and thus feel like they should have been targeted first. I think understanding the target of the nerf helps with this. Even more so than farming, marketing has a positive affect on the economy by making desirable goods available. The reason it is more positive than farming is that is does this without causing inflation. 5. Final thoughts. Some of the kindest and most generous players I have met have been both farmers and marketers. I think everyone should respect each person’s way of playing. The only possible exception to this is afk farming, which Jimmy vehemently denounced. His denouncement of afk farming however does not include all farming. Still I think we should be respectful of everyone. Farming, marketing, teaming, soloing, badge hunting, story content, role playing, etc are all EQUALLY valid ways of playing the game. I think we can all do better in trying to be understanding of each other especially when things affect our chosen way of playing the game. We all enjoy the game. Sometimes we have to take a bullet for the team (farming was the sacrifice this time). It is better to mend feelings and relationships than to pour salt on the wound. We need community not division.

It is true that marketing can amass wealth faster than farming. I don’t think anyone is disputing that. However, Jimmy already confirmed that the target of the nerf was to reduce influence generation as opposed to merely closing the income gap. As switchfade explained in great detail, by reducing influence generation the buying power of EVERYONE is better off. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t rich, middle class, and poor people in terms of influence. It just means that the influence that each person holds is more valuable than would otherwise be if influence generation (farming) was left unchecked. Amassing wealth via the market does not create influence. It merely moves it and in the process deletes a portion of the influence in each transaction. Farming was really the only real thing that was noticeably negatively affected. And that was intended. Farmers are allowed to be upset about the nerf. However, it was intended and was done for the overall health of the game economy.

That’s a good point. Unfortunately I got most of the AoE defense from the the critical strikes set bonuses and resistance sets, which don’t seem to have a lot of options for ranged defense. Only get a little from reactive armor.

Yeah I understand defense is definitely worth more. I just wasn’t sure if it was worth roughly 35% additional resistance across the board when in a crunch. I think if I’m being honest I want to use build 2. I love rune of protection. I just don’t want to regret not having ranged soft cap purely from my build. I guess I could always respec if I hated it.

The only reason I considered being short on ranged softcap is because it was the hardest to chase and I feel like most mobs get into melee if they can. I know some stay ranged, but it seems most get up in your face first chance they get. Oh I definitely could keep rune and get ranged soft cap a number of ways. But every single way I can think of gives up damage or recharge or both, which I didn’t really want to do. I didn’t think about darks -to hit though. That is a good point.

I have mainly been making scrappers and stalkers, but one combination that I found to be very fun on a brute is savage melee / energy aura. It is fast, has good AoE and single target damage, and is very survivable. I lost interest in several brutes and gave up on them all except for this one.

So, I decided to revamp my dark melee / shield defense scrapper. I was able to give myself better damage, recharge, and mitigation. I have two options though: build 1 and build 2. Build 1 has me softcapped to all positionals with <30% resistances to all types except s/l which is almost 40%. Build 2 picks up rune of protection (50% uptime), which puts s/l at 74%, f/c at 63%, e/n/t in the 50s, and low Psionic resistance. Even without rune my resistances are about 10% better across the board than build 1. The trade off is I only have 41% ranged defense (still softcapped for melee and AoE). Both options have the same recharge and damage. Only the mitigation is different. What do you guys think about relying on phalanx fighting to fill the gap to soft cap ranged? I know it requires being near teammates, but I will honestly be teaming 95% of the time. I suspect at least one teammate will probably have maneuvers too. I generally don’t like relying on teams or incarnates to fill in defense gaps. But I’m still pretty close on range. I was also thinking that ranged defense isn’t as important as melee or AoE, though I may be wrong. Do you think having 50% uptime on pretty solid resists is worth giving up 4% ranged defense?

I am going to necro this thread as opposed to starting a new one because I am on the fence with the same question. I want to do AR primary, but can’t decide between devices and EM for the secondary. Things to consider: - I want the mass majority of my active playing and damage to be coming from my primary powerset. - I have zero interest in using either trip mine or time bomb in devices. I will be teaming for the most part and just don’t have the patience for those. - Gone drone sounds cool, but have never been a huge fan of pets. - Caltrops was toxic web nade seem decent, but mainly would take them for set bonus slotting and then use them when I see fit. Not high on my priority list. - I definitely like targeting drone and field operative. Those are the main things that draw me toward devices. - boost range is the main thing drawing me toward EM. Though if mids is correct on the effects of boost power, it will be insanely easy to over softcap defenses with that on. - I like build up. - Although it would not be a high priority EM seems to have good melee options for the mobs that get too friendly. - I like idea of field operative better than energize, but still like energize just fine. I use energy aura on a lot of melee toons so I’m used to it. Those are my more detail thoughts. So the real questions are: 1. Is taking devices worth it if the only reasons I consider it is targeting drone and field operative? 2. For those having had boost range on AR, would you ever go back to not having boost range without groaning? Any further opinions would be greatly appreciated! I will honestly probably end up leveling both, but want to start with one that will keep me interested.

I think the conversion process is actually pretty easy once someone gets the initial run down. People just need to be exposed to it. I don’t think the system itself needs changed. Perhaps a tutorial, similar to the crafting tutorial, would be in order. A short tutorial arc that has you gather a couple recipes, gather salvage, gives you 12-15 converters, then has you craft and convert. The recipe drop could even be fixed to be a valuable type (such as defense, resist, or healing). It could have you first convert by type. Then convert within set. It would award a useful IO that could be sold or used. Then have a second conversion mission that has you convert by rarity. The recipe used for this could be one of the types that is guaranteed to turn rare in one conversion (such as slow movement). Then the player could use what they learned in the previous conversion mission to convert by type to hopefully a good IO. Then advertise the tutorial with a welcome message for a few weeks.

Totally understandable. Our goal was different so I completely understand not being satisfied with the results.

Oh the glory of converters! You really can’t overstate their worth and benefits to the game economy.

The way I did it was buy 20 yellow recipes at the end of a play session. Convert the merits I earned during the play session to converters. Then the next day at the beginning of the play session craft the recipes, convert, and sell. Took about 20 minutes. Then pick up the cash the next day or two. And repeat each day I was able to play. I don’t have a huge amount of wealth, but I was able to fund my builds.

Yeah I really really hope they are going to be able to achieve it. Only thing I can think of (don’t know if possible) is a way to detect if a hero is moving as well as if the only powers being “used” are toggles and the one auto power. Then suspend the not logging out when in a task force for AE content. Put a timer of say 5 minutes and if the above criteria are met the hero is logged out. The player would be forced to be more active. I truly hope they minimize the effect on active farming as much as possible though.

I feel for you. It does suck to cannibalize alts. I also didn’t have the patience to earn the required influence through the market or farming. If I’m being brutally honest, especially given Jimmy’s most recent reply, I don’t think this will change. If anything it may be nerfed more. Though I don’t believe so much so to make it not worth it. They don’t hate farming (other than afk farming). I’m just not sure how they are going to attack afk farming without normal farming being touched. I know this answer doesn’t sit well with probably most people. But I find that I have the most success with doing a balance of different things. I know I said in another post that I “like” farming and playing the market. That isn’t actually true. I don’t “like” doing either. I just like the rewards of doing them. What I “like” doing is playing fully kitted out level 50s without slogging thru level 1-49. I just put in the leg work to fund them. This is honestly the only game I have ever played the market on. I do it because it is easy and efficient. This is also the only game I have ever farmed on. Again, because it is the easiest way to get to level 50. I have zero problem with farming or marketing as an activity though. I think they are both just as valid as playing story content. But I think you, I, and others who want lots of expensive builds fast will feel nerfs less if we all do a bit of marketing, a bit of farming (many many different ways of farming), as well as a bit of traditional teaming. That way any targeted nerf only affects us a bit. That is just my opinion though. I think they are doing their best to make any one way not “required” to leave options open. I think there will always be the most optimal routes though. That’s why I generally use each most optimal route.

I’m going to be honest with you. I have gutted more than a few characters recently for their IOs as well. However, there are a few caveats. I power level my toons to 50 with double xp. I enjoy lots of alts, but do not enjoy not being level 50. I plan out my builds and they are all expensive (300-600m). This week I made 6 or 7 new alts. I didn’t have the money to cover them. The power leveling process did fund portions of it. I didn’t particularly feel like doing the enhancement converter routine lately, so I decided to cannibalize less used toons. I think I probably would have had to do that anyway before the nerf, but not as much. Like I said, it was a nerf. That said, in my anecdotal (key word) experience, I have seen prices drop somewhat across the board for several of my go to sets. Not a huge drop, but one that I noticed. I plan to spend about 2k converters in the next couple weeks to due the enhancement conversion routine to fund more alts. That will give me even more of an idea if prices overall have dropped. Just for info when I place things for sale I always put in a price around 300-500k less than the last 5 listed depending on the price (except for bugged displays like miracle + recovery). Speaking of miracle - PSA - never bid more than 4.5 - 5m even when the last 5 indicate they have been selling for 10-18m.

Only quoted the main argument. The market is in fact one of, if not, the most accessible ways of making enough influence to pay for whatever your game needs are. More so than optimal farming for sure. And it comes with the side benefit of making desirable IO available to others and keeping their prices in check without adding influence to the economy. All the start up capital that is needed can be done in one task force. That will earn more than enough merits to fund the initial start up. After that it is extremely simple to use converters to make a decent amount of money. There are plenty of detailed and super easy to follow guides that explain it. There really isn’t anything more accessible. It is even more accessible than farming task forces because you don’t even need a team or any sort of build. There can be varying levels of success, but anyone can start with absolutely nothing and still earn enough for a completely purpled out build within a week or two. Whether or not people enjoy it though is a different matter.

I think it’s naive for people to think it wasn’t a nerf to farming. It definitely was, but it was still done for the overall health of the economy. I honestly think it was done less to reduce income inequality or more to reduce income generation, which is what farming is best at. To reduce the total amount of influence entering into the economy farming was targeted. I know some people hate farming and everything it stands for. And some people hate marketing and everything it stands for. I like doing both. Both do have positive affects on the market in making desirable goods available to the masses and keeping prices in check by keeping a good supply running. It was the influence generation that was targeted in my opinion. But yes, it was a nerf. That is definitely a fact.

Lately, I have power leveled all of my new alts to level 50 since that is where I have the most fun. So, I buy them their full build (however much it is), give them 500k cash, and then send them on their way.

Worst I did was buy a defense unique for 100m instead of 10m. This was for my very first set IO build and was before I started doing the converter routine to make money. It wiped me out completely. It was pretty crushing. But it turned me on to converters because I needed a way to make back my influence to fund my first set IO build.

Yep. I started doing this several months back and was surprised how easy it is to make money. I actually haven’t done it for probably 2 months though. That coupled with me power leveling about 6 alts in the last couple weeks has made me go broke. I’ll have to build up a good stash again. Good thing I have about 1.5k converters from the merits I’ve been earning lately.

I agree about thunderstrike . It is a great boon to ranged defense as well as chasing after e/n defense. I’m suprised it’s not more expensive. Not that I’m complaining though.