Call Me Awesome

My recollection is that all of the Signature TF's will always spawn based on their max level... so Synapse for example will always spawn level 20 mobs (modified by difficulty settings). I ran into that a few months ago when I was on a group of level 15-17 players and we ALWAYS faced purple mobs. With the difficulty set to -1 we faced level 19 spawns... a bit of a challenge for minimum level teams. For that reason I always make sure the team leader is at max level for the TF... and if you're soloing one don't try it until you outlevel it.

First, you aren't "locked out" of any pools at higher levels... you DO have a limit of 4 pools + 1 Epic or Patron pool. As you noticed the Epic/Patron pools open at 35, you can immediately select an Epic pool. If you want to use a Patron pool you first need to do the mission arc of one of the Villain patrons to unlock them. For a Patron, first you need to be either a Villain or Rogue (See Null the Gull in Pocket D if you're a hero). Then, go to Grandville and pick a patron arc, I can't recall the first contact, I think he's just outside the door to the villain City Hall? Anyway, he'll have you read plaques inside the Hall and pick a Patron, then he'll send you to talk to that patron. Run the mission arc and you'll unlock all the Patron pools on that character. Keep in mind you can have EITHER one Epic pool OR one Patron pool on your character... plus up to 4 regular power pools. If you've already taken an Epic power and then run a Patron arc then you can respec your character and have your choice. You can have one or the other but not both, and you can pick which one you want when you respec so you can always change your mind.

I'd agree with this, and I've found that Stalkers don't really sacrifice a lot to Scrappers for the extra punch and the stealth capabilities. My Elec/SD stalker is as tough as any Scrapper I've played and the damage is at least comparable if not superior. The only drawback is that it's harder to gather up a bunch of mobs since the Stalker version of SD doesn't have any taunt effect like the Scrapper does. Elec/SD is about the fastest spawn killer I've ever played, of any AT.

Nice, looks like a +4 AV needs over 800 DPS Psionic to take down my Invuln tanker... or over 24,000 Smashing. I don't think I'll find a lot of mobs capable of those numbers. Any possibility of an interface with Mid's? Or an import function of a Mid's export? Because it's based on Google Docs I'll guess that's a no...

Good from a numbers perspective, horrible animation that kills the feel. It's not even the animation TIME that's problematic, simply that it's such a dorky thing. Alternate animation and it's golden.

No, not yet. Check back tomorrow 😀 All joking aside and I'm unfortunately of a vintage to be careful of tossing stones, Taunt definitely has -range in PvE, you can verify this by taunting a target attacking from range and watch them move closer before attacking again.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'd thought it should work well. I'm just playing an AT and sets I've never played before and know that sometimes "looks good on paper" doesn't translate to "works well in game" I'd considered Cold, FF, Thermal and Dark as possibilities and settled on Cold mainly since I'd never played it before but it looked like a good pairing.

No pun intended? 😂 It sounds like a great mechanic, however I'm not sure how it would work. A pseudopet would be the obvious but how does it knock them TO the tanker? As far as I know nothing in the game has an "attraction" mechanic.

Most of the clued in community understand the practical effects, not usually all the math behind it. Look at how many players just know "45% defense" without knowing the reason behind it? I always read what posters like Arcanaville posted on the old forums but mostly I looked for the summary rather than the frequently complex interactions behind it. The concept of Arcanatime comes to mind there.

And the "Wild" and "Domesticated" Scrapper?

I guess I missed that in skimming over the math formulas. May I suggest a "TL/DR" summary would be helpful?

I figured you were something technical in your day job. I've a couple friends like that and I appreciate their know how, I just don't follow them sometimes. All the formulas are good for the math guys but most of the people reading the guide aren't going to have a clue what you're talking about.

I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer here at all, I'm just not a math guy. I'm looking more at constant effects and the practical of "what do I need to get X". Possibly a summary to the effect that "The FF proc will get you an average of x recharge" with some examples for the more math-challenged of us. Like the old guy says "I don't care how the watch is built, what time is it?"

Whatever works for you, I own a Video Production company, I'm not a Math Professor. 😉 I was trying to give some simple thumb rules that most of the playerbase will get more out of. For me and probably the majority of players the math is a "nooooo, it BURNS it does my Precious!" I'll leave the specifics to the math geeks, I just want the practical numbers.

A good choice, some strong resistance buffs for the team with a couple heals, good debuffs and a secondary with a strong -resistance debuff. Also a fairly forgiving and straightforward to play.

Check out the Defender forum, particularly some of the threads on Empathy. Yes, it's a popular set. Yes, it's the typical "Healer" set (although its buffs are better). However among those of us who've played this game for years the term "Healer" is a negative one. The reason is that Buffs and Debuffs are extremely powerful in this game and FAR more useful than simple healing. Yes, healing has a place, but it's generally a third choice behind player buffs and enemy debuffs to limit damage in the first place. Healing is also completely reactive while buffs and debuffs are proactive and drastically lower the amount of damage your team will take in the first place. If given my choice I'd rather have a Radiation Emission, Dark Miasma, Kinetic (YES!), Cold, Thermal, Nature, etc defender than an Empathy on the team. Storm can be a fantastic set _in skilled hands_ but I see way more of them that simply create chaos and cause problems with the team, so many of it's powers are too chaotic in most cases. I've seen some great Storm characters but most are a liability rather than a benefit, this is NOT a set for the beginning or average player. (Frankly I think it's better as a Controller secondary since they have an AOE immobilize that prevents Storm from scattering the mobs to the 4 corners of the map.) Also remember that a Defender has a secondary set for dealing damage, you're cheating your team if you don't contribute damage in between buffing and debuffing. Some of the secondaries also have strong debuffs attached to them.. Sonic Blast deals a strong -resistance debuff to the target so everyone does more damage to that target. Radiation Blast deals a strong -defense debuff so the target is easier for everyone to hit. Dark Blast has a strong -to hit debuff which causes the target to miss more often. ALL of these effects STACK as well. There's some combinations that can absolutely cripple an enemy's ability to hurt your team... for example a Dark/Dark Defender can floor an enemy's ability to hit your team making it nearly unable to attack. A Rad Blast defender can make your team hit the mob 19 out of 20 attacks by reducing it's defense. A Sonic Blast Defender can make the enemy take 50% or more damage by reducing it's damage resistance. Even if your secondary Blast set doesn't have any debuffs attached to it (Fire for example) you're still going to be contributing damage and killing the enemies faster. As the old saying goes, Dead Mobs deal no damage.

Way too complicated for me. I'd just take a goal, like say perma-Phantom Army on an Ill/Rad controller. It takes just about 300% recharge to get that... 95% from ED capped recharge in the power, Hasten at 70%, Accelerate Metabolism at 30% leaves you with needing just about another 100% to find in global IO bonuses. 5x LotG = 37.5%, you need another 63% recharge from other bonuses. On Live my Perma-PA Ill/Rad controller had a global recharge of 205% which was just over the amount needed. I also had Perma Hasten and Perma AM as a byproduct. Perma Hasten needs about 90% global recharge on top of the 70% provided by the power itself, for many characters it's not that hard to get. I have it on my Elec/SD stalker and got it almost as a byproduct of the build rather than something I was specifically going for. I imagine most players looking at recharge heavy builds are trying for something specific with Perma Hasten being among the most common. The heavy math formulas aren't needed, Mid's will handle the number crunching for you. The Force Feedback proc is too unreliable to count on for a goal, it's simply a bonus when it does fire... it also only lasts 5 seconds further limiting its value. You can work all the complex mathematical formulas if you like but why bother? Work out the build in Mid's and you'll get the numbers anyway without needing more advanced math.

Escort missions suck, plain and simple. They loose you if you have stealth. They loose you if you move faster than they do. They loose you if they get distracted by mobs (some of them that engage in combat). They get stuck behind an obstacle and can't figure out how to get past it and you loose them. Frankly if possible I never take escort missions. If I have to I auto complete it if possible.

But it doesn't sort anything, you need to type a character name. Kind of limited utility.

As far as I'm aware being Vigilante or Rogue alignment allows access to all zones in the game. Vigilante is basically Hero and can only get hero missions but has access to Villain zones and can join Villain teams. Rogue is the same from the Villain side, access to all zones but only can take Villain missions, but can join Hero teams.

Many of them also have a large KB applied as you rez to give you an extra few seconds to get yourself in order along with the untouchable portion. I can attest that the untouchable portion does NOT last long enough for you to retoggle more than one or two powers so it's recommended to exit stage left posthaste and THEN get everything up. I typically eat a purple as I'm rising from the floor and toggle mez protection (depending on character) then get some distance to retoggle. It does seem like simply changing the pet upgrade powers to passive would solve the problem; I don't have enough experience with MM to say if it might cause additional problems though.

I really can't imagine needing that much. On my incarnated out 50's I'll use 3 trays for powers with tray 1 being the combat powers, tray 2 things like Nukes and others I have bound to a key and need to keep track of recharge, tray 3 is "Misc stuff", tray 4 is usually toggles, tray 5 will be things like O Portal, Team Teleport, Mission TP, Recall Team and the like. Sometimes I'll have a tray 6 with chat macros and that's all I need. The most I've ever used is on Tri-form Kelds with tray 1 the Human powers, tray 2 the Nova and tray 3 the Dwarf with a form changing macro that swaps the bottom tray to the appropriate one for the form I'm using. Still, that only adds up to 7 trays total even if I fill one full of chat macros. Most of my characters never use more than 4 trays altogether. Things like Walk, Power Slide and so forth are never used and never get to a tray; the P2W attacks tend to disappear from the trays once the character outgrows them. The wimpy origin attack power never even makes it to the tray even at level 1.

That would be a good combo, particularly once it matured thanks to all the KD in Stone Melee. An Ice tank hardly needs the extra attention getter of Fault but the AOE KD and proc potential would be highly welcome.

I was starting to plan my build and notice that Gang War has a recharge of 600 seconds and says that they will "wander off after a while" but I can't find any information on their duration. From the description I understand they don't stick around like the other minions... are they a 60 second duration like Phantom Army? 120 seconds?

Rad is the swiss army knife of debuff sets, it's good at everything. You have the Def/Tohit debuff of Rad Infection, the -res debuff of Enervating Field, the -regen/speed/recharge of Lingering Radiation. You also have a nice AOE hold that includes a -regen debuff in EMP. On the buff side you have the fantastic Accelerate Metabolism giving the team +recharge/recovery/damage and a moderate AOE heal. Another bonus of Ill/Rad is it's MUCH easier to get perma-phantom army thanks to the 30% +recharge in AM, something that's a game changer for the set. One of my guild mates back on Live wrote a guide on the set, there's an archive of it here: https://guidescroll.com/2011/07/city-of-heroes-illusionradiation-controller-guide/