Sovera

I was testing a character on the dummies and they work, but I can see it being a nuisance if more than one person wants to test, and the whole thing of how long does it take for a dummy to respawn. Would it be feasible to have an instance we could go with pylons so we could just go in and out? Or, hold on, what about a dummy with the same HP that we can place in our base?

I have brought this up in the past almost verbatim. I actually had another long post already typed in the epic AT feedback thread and then looked at it and deleted instead of posting because it was just reiterating what I had already said in the past. It is a design philosophy of the current devs and not something that can be tuned up or down. But at the risk of repeating myself, so much time and effort and coding that ends being effectively wasted because in the end no one touches those sets since they are balanced to the point of becoming milquetoast. I feel that there is a divide because tune ups like Fire Melee were a resounding success but then when we pointed out how Storm Blast was mediocre and some QoL was needed we were told that 'not all sets are meant to be top tier'. My brother in christ, you're making this from scratch, it CAN be top tier so that people will decide based on aesthetics and theme instead of 'this hits harder'.

Nothing beats using the market, but farming the AE is a solid option. Simply playing the game is one as well since we are showered in money at 50.

No need for AHK, you can use the in-game bind system. Something like /bind 1 "powexecslot 1$$follow" will do the trick. Now when you press 1 it will use your power in the first slot and run to (and stay glued to) your target. As for the camera there are a lot of camera options in the options so see if one fits your needs. Check my newbie guide for more 'hidden' things in the options.

A Sentinel would be really easy to start with if you pick Hover with Fly from the Flight pool. You stay at range in the air and hitting mobs and though they have ranged attacks to retaliate they are weaker than their melee attacks. Plus you can either whittle or kill a few before they even get close. Storm Blast/Bio Armor would be my advice since Storm is flashy and cool, and also comes with built in soft CC and debuffs. If you prefer melee then a Fire Armor/Ice Melee is also a good choice with Ice Melee getting Ice Patch at level 20 which will do a lot to keep you safe on top a Tanker's resistances. Unlike other games Tankers here don't need to memorize attack patterns, be forced to lead the group, have to sweat their defensives to survive and etc. They are just expected to jump into the fray before the others and that's it.

To be fair it IS a nice butt.

After all the hype about the sybil clothes I'm surprised at the lack of reaction about them.

I have to agree if you're intending to be in melee then make a melee guy. That said we have petless MMs and whom am I to get in your way. So, lets think it over. You want a sturdy armor set, some CC to help staying alive. Hmm... Stone Blast seems to be good for a primary. Lots of CC will help keeping you safe and you can spam your nuke betweent Stone's mechanics and slotting Force Feedback procs. I would suggest my favorite as well: Storm Blast. It comes chockful with soft CC and debuffs and makes surviving easier. For a secondary I don't think there's a particular reason to move away from Bio. Pop the shield before going into melee to nuke and you'll be soaking the damage with it while dealing the hurt, but I have been pondering Stone Armor lately since defense is superior and you do get some goodies like extra recharge, extra recovery and a damage proc. But you could probably go with Fire Armor since Burn is not only more damage but the fear will make mobs run away... which you don't care since you're ranged and sitting in your patch of napalm. Radiation Armor will give you a PbAoEs extra to toss at the same time you nuke. I haven't had good results with it myself but others have and got solid results in the trapdoor tests that testify to its effectiveness. A Storm/Rad is something I've considered as my next character since Storm is a bit light in AoE so throwing Ground Zero would help with that. Fire Armor has Burn, but Burn is tiny with 8f while GZ is 15. GZ is, unenhanced, only 125 damage which is about half of primary nukes, but extra damage is extra damage.

I've been hankering for a new Storm Sentinel (yes, another) and holding off since seeing this. Soon, soooooon.... Pity we can't get rid of the travel time of Cloudburst though. I accept it's a DoT, we have other powers that are DoTs. But this one doubles the DoT duration by leisurely travelling to the target before drizzling. If we consider 5 seconds DoTs as too long then what do we call a power that can take as much as 6-7 seconds to actually finish doing its damage?

Magneto hasn't been a villain in two decades. But again it also falls in the lack of agency. Magneto, the hero, would help if people need help. He might grump but he would not refuse to help. Magneto the villain would do things for himself, work with others at best and not under them, and then not if he disagrees on the goal. And 'lo to people snarking him to his face. All of these we go through as a redsider. We are snarked to our faces, we are insulted, we are threatened. We are literally treated like idiots and backstabbed. And we take it like a chastised puppy. All of this by little boss level mobs we'd put down in 3-4 hits. It doesn't feel good, y'know? A hero takes the high road because they are a hero, but a villain? It's my opinion that a more epic villain side experience would draw more people in. Number one a choice to beat up an NPC that is threatening or insulting us and henceforth their dialogue is a lot more respectful. Number two mostly ignore the other villains and focus on fighting good guys or stealing from big corps (everyone loves that and each day that passes it just gets stronger) such as banks or Crey. Seriously, we don't rob nearly enough banks or jewelry stores, not all villains want world domination. Number three... perhaps multiple choices for missions. Again, this is a lot of extra work. But, lets say current mission is rob an orphanage. With this change the choice is now rob an orphanage, or break into a jail to free an associate. I know I'm describing radio missions with the latest but as they are radio missions are pretty shallow and are especially not rewarding in Homecoming with how they don't grant merits and double XP eats influence. Number four we stop being treated as a rookie but by level 15 we're already treated as a danger and worthy of hiring. By 30 we get blurbs like 'I had a job and thought of you right away'. By 50 we are a Deathstroke, a recognized name and the NPCs treat us accordingly. I don't feel these are feasible ideas because they involve a hefty rework of the missions and dialogue.

The reason is, IMO, simple: it's niche. We don't root for Lex Luthor or the Red Skull. Plus the blue side is simpler in motivation. We are a hero, we help, bad things are happening or going to happen, we strive towards preventing or stopping them. Red side, we are bad guys. Well, to begin with there is not much bad guy-ing happening for a chunk of the playstyle. We actually go against other evil factions, and yes, it makes sense since we are taking territory, but it should be later. We fight against villains most of the time. Then the implicit narrative of being a bad guy is that we are not altruistic. Helping others? We're helping ourselves. Even the rewards are seldom mentioned and it's worked out as favours or whatever. Tangible rewards like 'do this and you'll get X dollars' or 'do that and I'll get you upgrades to your powers' stated explicitly would flow better. But the very narrative of someone going red side to play is (generalizing) not someone looking to a henchie for the Joker. They want at least to be a Deathstroke. I do play redside very once in a while but I skip all dialogue because it irks me to no end to be treated like crap by the NPCs where in blue side there is no such show of establishing dominance and we're just told of problems that need fixing. My truly unfeasible suggestion would be having more choice in our replies. The NPC is bad mouthing us? We should have an option to fight them. They say to go do this or that and we pick the option we want and that aligns to our idea of how a character would behave. But man, it is nuts the amount of work this would involve for 10% of the population. People STILL do not root for Lex Luthor or Red Skull. In a more simple fashion the suggestion above of a boost in influence gain or merits if playing redside might work better and more players will snowball more players playing.

If it works it works. But I have to appreciate the Dreadful Wail + Burn combo with DW keeping mobs stunned and preventing them from fleeing. I found Sonic to be a bonanza of AoEs (and one of them takes a FF proc) and I don't know if the interaction with Opportunity still exists after both their revamps but it used to be great to spam the defensive. Now I don't think that's going to be all that useful even if it still exists since we cannot reapply on the same target and there is not much point in spreading it at the pace teams kill. I haven't tried Sonic since the tuning patch but I see some of it trickled to the Sentinel. The 2.5 second cones were too much for the damage that they did as I remember hitting +4 mobs for middle double digits. It's no longer a character for me since cones don't do well in solo play but in teams the ability to chain -res cones plus soft CC made me feel pretty useful. Looking at the build I have to agree that Psychic Shockwave would fit for a whammy that would stun even bosses when combined with Dreadful Wail. Dreadful + Burn + Psychic = hurt. But at that point we need to be comfortable with running out of melee range for the cones, then run back in for Burn + Psychic. That's a lot of work. I would swap out of Howl myself and take Shockwave because of the FF proc. That will speed your nuke and Aim.

The thing about Blaster VS Sentinel is not one looked at in spreadsheets but actual tests. What is the best Blaster Trapdoor time? What is the best Sentinel Trapdoor time? What are the best pylon times? In all of these Blasters are comfortably ahead of Sentinels. This does not make a Sentinel useless. WTF. Obviously the glass cannon all damage AT will do more damage than the armored ranged AT. But what about those people who don't want to play a glass cannon? Well then, you get Sentinels! Is the person comfortable being a glass cannon? Then Blaster. A Blaster can reach a Sentinel's durability, but at end game and with a castle of cards of gimmicks, being locked into certain incarnates, IOs, and epic pools. Is the player intent in breezing through leveling, never exemplar, have the know how to build (or copy) a strong build and earn the cash for it, as well as stick to max level content? Then a Blaster. Is the player intending to play at all levels, spend less money, is more annoyed by deaths, and have flexibility in picking incarnates and epic pools (or in my case not even using epic pools in their Sentinels)? Then a Sentinel. Also important in the choice between both is that the extra damage from Blasters comes with the caveat that 'half' of it comes from melee damage. A Blaster that wants to be purely ranged is gimping their damage to, yes, Sentinel levels of damage. Is the player someone who likes going in and out of melee (especially with a squishy character (and for some reason did not just roll a melee character since going into melee anyway))? Then Blaster. Does the player prefer doing all of their damage from range? Then a Sentinel. As a last thing I play/played for a long time and I have yet to see a Sentinel be snarked or refused from a team. This is completely a forum thing.

You should have the 25% damage all the time since it's a toggle and has no downtime. It costs you 7% to all resistances though but Tankers are well equipped to deal with that. I only soloed AVs with Fire Armor since it's my baby but it depends on your attack set rather than your armor set. Also depends on the enemy. I had a great leveling experience with Stone Melee up to fighting the last AV in Manticore and then its stupendous Smash resistance made it so I couldn't dent its regen. If we look at single target damage then Bio is better than Fire, and both are better than Radiation Armor. If we look at AoE then Radiation Armor can be first if you trick out Ground Zero with procs (and perhaps Radiation Therapy too), Fire Armor second, and Bio's 25% damage does not help as much when it comes to AoE since damage pales to having another AoE. So you can have the best of both worlds by playing something like Rad Armor for more AoE and then couple with Energy Melee, the strongest ST set. I did this combo with Fire Armor and really had no complains with Fire helping Energy's mediocre AoE and Energy's ST pairing well with Fire's ST boost in the form of the second build-up (Fiery Embrace). Something like Rad/Fire Melee is also a strong pairing since Fire has two PbAoEs and then you add Rad's while the ST is pretty snappy and probably close to EM.

For what you say go with Rad. But as Bzz... Bzk.. As Berserker said both will do the trick. Rad is more defensive with a shield and endless endurance. Bio is more damage oriented with a permanent 25% to damage with Offensive Adaptation while also having a shield and good resistances. To be honest both can be very survivable. They are Tankers, they are survivable out of the box. But Rad will be more survivable all around, IMO. It is the meta tank for a reason.

Raw damage I would say Super-Strength. Double stacked Rage is hard to beat and the accuracy bonuses allows to faff around with the rest of the build's slotting. But even with trickery and damage procs and a secondary that survives Rage crashes it can and does become annoying to have the constant 10 seconds of downtime. Also, the AoE starts late at 30 but can be paired with Fire Armor to have it at 18. Honestly I'd love to get my hands on SS but Rage crash is a nuisance. Also, smash damage ends being resisted a fair bit. Energy Melee is the ST beast, but, eh, in our world 'beast' is something that is 30 seconds faster. It's not like in OG Titan Weapons where it meant over a minute. So despite Energy Melee being the strongest ST it does come with some caveats like a messy ST rotation and mediocre AoE (the cone is just eh). But, the CC Energy Melee has is pretty potent and even AVs can be made to stagger. It pairs well with Fire Armor for the second build-up power it brings as well as a much needed second AoE to help clearing mobs. Also, Burn is a good filler to help with the messy ST rotation I mentioned above. As everyone else mentioned already Fire Melee is probably the best allrounder now. Two PbAoEs so no need to aim, exotic damage, a snappy ST rotation with no lengthy animations. It lacks the oomph of EM but it also does not have the lengthy animation of Total Focus. Don't sleep on Battle Axe though. Even though it's Slash damage it has even better ST after the tuning patch and good AoE. The only set with an AoE that pulls mobs in (even though technically it's not adding anything to the game it's fun), it adds soft CC, AND it takes a FF proc so it speeds all of the build's cooldowns. It's one of the few sets (Stone, Martial Arts, Kinetic Melee, Claws) with an AoE that allows this and this has an effect not gauged simply by looking at the powers and numbers when heals, Build-ups and etc all recharge faster.

You've hit it. At some point I found the peak gaming was doing endless runs of Mephisto in Diablo 2. I would wake, sometimes early, then grab my crapstatic amazon, teleport to the map, wander around to find the entrance to the third level, kill the boss, collect my crap loot (I wasn't even geared for magic finding, or had the fancy teleport armors, or a good fast killing character), log off, repeat until midnight. And to the me at that time that was the best thing EVER! I don't think it's going to be fair comparing our 20 year ago selves to our present selves.

Check the newbie guide in my signature, at the risk of re-re-re-repeating myself on the subject. I've added a lot of the stuff we re-re-repeat, and there's probably some stuff not spoken about since it's taken for granted that everyone knows (right, sea people!?!).

The Plex has it right. This game breeds the 'stand strong, gird your loins, don't move, tank it all' that people die from things they could just walk out from. Enemies debuffing? Kite for a bit until the debuff runs out. Lots of enemies? Pull them. But no. Gotta jump in, face first. To be fair the game also allows it. We're super and it shows, but those conditioned reflexes work against the player when something moderately hard is tossed their way.

You were a better Oubliette than me 😄

Nay. I'm as guilty as some here for the snarky answers (@Snarky ever reaching pervasive influence, mebbe? Lets go with that) but even if Comet may have not done the best introduction they still seem genuine. It's up to us not to fan it instead of paying lip service to being 'one of the best communities around'.

As the years go I changed my low level approach. Now I no longer do AE or DFBs or teams other than Synapse (takes too long to solo so I always team for it). My run is always starting by saving the guy's wife, which then opens the cop contact, which ends with the Arachno collaborateur. I don't remember their names... Anyway, that leaves me at level 9 which is good enough to start my TF trek but with some merits to my name. I only resume teaming at 40+ for ITFs and Tinpexes. Before that I used to do the kill witches in the tunnel AE mission since one map would leave me at level 12, then solo TFs except Synapse. Before that I used to grab the new alt and another account and do two AE farms which would leave it at level 23. Solo TFs, etc. Very efficient and the best way IMO since I can slot most powers straight away instead of playing with empty slots and then resume low level play. Solo TFs except Synapse. Before *that* I used to create a team and run two DFBs and then create a team and start an all TF run from Posi 1 onwards always teamed up and that's how I played for the longest time.

To be fair it's been 20 years and memories may have been distorted. One thing I do understand is loving to feel like a super-hero, @CometCometh, and here I'm 100% on your PoV, but this game is singularly well equipped to let you do that. Unlike games like WoW where we face a group of 3-4 mobs in an instance (and in a team, unable to solo those 3-4 mobs) here we can wade into a group of 10-12 mobs while solo and cackle as we destroy them. Funny enough my advice for new players is a trusty Fire Armor/Ice Melee Tanker (people in this forum must be tired of me harping about it). It's the Allrounder build in my signature.

- Early game IS boring. Even I will say that. We are just so used to it we don't notice it anymore, but, few attacks, endurance running out, waiting for attacks to recharge while we stare at the mobs, then whiffing, etc. But the good news is that with the double XP you get from the P2W vendor the early game flies. Eventually the goal is having just enough powers (not too many that they are not used) but not too few you have to wait until another power has finished recharging. Some powersets can do with as little as three attacks and some as much as five. If you're expecting a dynamic rotation it will not happen as there are no variables. So if you set your powers as 1,2,3, then it will be always be 1,2,3. - Map design will mostly not change. Some rare maps are open world but most will be inside offices and warehouses and etc. - Questing is questing. It's the same in every game? Something bad is about to happen, please go kill X of Z to prevent it from happening or find X of Z items. That will be the same through the game. By level 22 things will get better in terms of feeling more solid but it doesn't mean the early levels have to be a slog: - Take your first two attacks since they recharge the fastest and can be respecced out later. - Take the free attacks from the P2W vendor (especially the free IOs). Take the double XP. Very much in particular take 8 of each Amplifier (8 of each will cost 23k which is nothing) at level 1. - Use your Origin Power (it's not by default on the bar, but if you press P it can be found (someone with Natural origin will have throwing knives, someone with Technology Origin will have a Taser, etc). This power is super useful up to level 10 or so and is meant to help with the lack of early powers. By level 10 there is barely a point in using it since it will just chip an enemy and we will still be using one of our attacks to kill a mob anyway, but I find myself using it as a filler until the 20s or have a better fleshed out attack chain. - Use and abuse inspirations. Purple ones (Luck) are the strongest so try to keep a few in reserve for when in trouble, yellow ones are the ones I find super niche and not worth keeping (your mileage may vary) and if you're playing any of the melee classes or a Sentinel then the protection against mez inspirations are also useless. Get rid of those and make use of the more useful purple, greens and reds. If possible replenish these via the /ah since /ah can be used anywhere as long as it is the open world, Check my newbie guide for more tips.

I'm trying not to snark because everyone likes what they like, but yeah, his only point is that once there was no longer a way to herd a whole map and defeat them in complete impunity then the game wasn't fun anymore. What am I to argue about that? I can't say you're wrong for enjoying that gameplay. It sounds more like a Cookie Clicker idler where numbers go up. I can see why the devs changed it.