AlwaysAPrice

Valentines and Halloween tips can both be done year round. You can only get them during the events, but you can do the ones you're left with whenever. Re the topic, I'd like having a way to pick up the tip year round, but I'd rather it were both more organic and rare than buying up a bunch of trash salvage to trade in: we already have a year-round Halloween event element, so just make it an occasional drop from zombie invasion Elite Bosses, tempt people into teaming for zombies more often in the off-season.

Generally I'll throw together an 'inf-is-not-an-object' endgame build as soon as I settle on a powerset combo and AT for a character, just to see if there's anything particularly interesting, unconventional, or new to me on paper that will make me want to focus on getting to 50 to experience it in action. If not, I'm just playing it up casually as the mood strikes. I might use that endgame build to guide my power selections as I level, but mostly I ride on SOs and the ATOs + Panacea for the climb and just let the evolving gameplay inform my power picks and slotting on the way up. Come the 30s, when I have more slots to play with and a better understanding of how the individual powers play, I'll start respeccing and experimenting and throwing in any planned non-purple sets where I have the slots to, but I'm also likely to go back and rework the endgame build a fair bit after the hands-on time.

Please. I know UI stuff is always a fiddly/unlikely prospect but if the names can't just be made everpresent and sort the visible to the top while graying out the offline or hidden, just a channel admin slash command rattling off a list of channel members would be a godsend. I've had to clean up SG channels after doing a bit of roster scrubbing for inactivity and the method basically came down to counting how many unique globals characters in the SG corresponded to and comparing that to the number of channel members displayed on the i think channel search? channel info? some window I never use but is there somewhere. A method that's really not that helpful anymore given how many folks might have 2nd accounts for dualboxing or RP purposes that may not be in the SG but could have been invited to the channel to keep in touch while doing alt acct stuff.

Honestly it comes down to aesthetics for me, I've never rolled Kin Melee because I had a build goal in mind, only because I had a concept where the animations were the most appropriate to how I envisioned the character fighting. Of the 3 I have, one is a Tech Kin/Shield Brute who is the closest to the "intended" concept of the set, using power gauntlets to redirect the energy absorbed through her shield. One is a Natural (I think) Kin/Nin/Soul Scrapper for whom it represents a combination of psionic projection and space martial arts, whose combination of Focused Burst, Moonbeam, and Soul Storm makes her just as much fun to play lazily from range as when diving into the fray. The third is a Magic Kin/Dark/Psi Stalker who is a haunted puppet, where Kin was chosen because its hovering animations are just too perfect for herky-jerky marionette flailing and the FX recolor well to suggest ghostly/spiritual energies. I enjoy all three but appreciate it most mechanically on the Stalker, where there's no Power Siphon BS and the combination of Stalker ATOs with crits from hide make Concentrated Strike worth taking (honestly it probably still isn't, I feel like I'd probably be better off sniping or using an AoE to fish for Assassin's Mark when I proc-Hide if I want to stack Build Ups, but look CS is by far the most puppetty power possible in hover).

As a general rule I love playing alongside Dark Miasmists because my main main is one, so I know what they're doing and can put myself where I need to be to get the most out of their various location-specific tools (paying attention to: where's the -ToHit anchor, where's the Tar Patch, where's Fluffy, where are they when they're Twilight Grasping, etc.). Otherwise my ideal Defender to run with is going to depend on what I'm playing and where its build is weakest, but it's not like there's any bad ones I'd turn my nose up at on any grounds other than disliking the aesthetic of some shields. Even Empathy, which probably gets the least love nowadays, is still a blast to team with because I feel like I can take stupider risks to give them something to do and if it catches their fancy to anoint me the Adrenalin Boost Chosen One I am off to the races.

My SS/DA Brute Hamhock is also known as the Stench That Walks, with Oppressive Gloom in particular representing the overpowering reek of death and rotten bacon that follows in his wake and the rest of Dark colored brown-orange-green to provide all the cloudy "stink lines" I could want. Really Opp Gloom is the cornerstone of any overpowering stink gimmick IMO and some other ATs besides meleers get access to it via epics. I'd probably go Corruptor, where Radiation and Dark Miasma and to a lesser extent Poison are the frontrunners in my mind. Rad & Dark give you actual cloudy effects to treat as stinky haze and foul gasses or what-have-you, with Rad pulling ahead for its cloudy sickening Hold aura and multiple gassy looking anchors, though Fearsome Stare could also be treated as a stink cone. Dark & Rad blast as the blast set frontrunners as well, though now I'm idly wondering if Storm Blast's wind & cloud FX might have something to them for this purpose.

I'm reconsidering my opinion on this since starting a tank version of my DM/Elec brute. I realized while comparing my builds that the Brute has an advantage in the utility department -- both in that the secondary effects appear to be a bit stronger for Brutes (though this is inconsistent in the epics, where Dark Oblit has higher -ToHit on a Brute but Darkest Night is wildly stronger for a Tank), and in that Brutes can generally get away with skimping on or outright skipping damage enhancement to crank the power's other effects and expand their set slotting options.

For me it's because back in the day I was under the impression that Shifter was only better than an IO as a third slot, where normal enhancement would be ED'd into irrelevance when dealing with 50+ IOs -- maybe a second slot if running an End Mod Alpha. But I haven't actually bothered to look into whether that was changed by PPM or any other updates in the last 12 years (or how right it even was in the first place). Napkin mathing after a look in Mids suggests you're right, but I'm still inclined to keep to straight EndMod when single-slotting for the reason suggested by the second question; when I'm direly low and Hasten is blinking, I don't need that to be the minute Shifter's like "ehh maybe next time".

Panacea proc in Health and 50+5 EndMod in Stamina. If I have to put a slot in either I feel like I've failed in some way.

Give Electric Armor a whirl, it's a very strong resist-based set and endurance is its main gimmick. It has capped Endurance Drain resistance, the heal provides endurance discount, and in the rare event you still get sapped or just bottom out from going too hard, you have Power Sink to quickly refill with. Between Sink and Lightning Field you can also sap everything around you to empty yourself. It gives you a chunk of extra global recharge in Lightning Reflexes, which adds to tightening up your attack chain to contribute to your AV-dropping damage output wishlist point. The two weak points to keep in mind: elec offers nothing in the way of Toxic resist unless you pop Power Surge, and Grounded, which provides your KB and Immob protection, requires you to stay near the ground for that protection to be in effect.

I really really like this idea, particularly Lift/Propel/Psychic Tornado as the basis for the personal attacks. I'd lean into borrowing from Grav with the "boss" pet and use Singularity as a starting point for figuring out its powers, just reskinned to look like Spectral Terror, and stay away from Dark powers in general since those are part of Necromancy's shtick. This could be pretty easy to flesh out with existing assets and would have a lot of conceptual freedom as a mix of grav, psi, and maybe illusion elements, representing anything from spirit summoning to illusory phantoms to holograms and force fields.

I've only played it as a Brute and Scrapper and love it on both, but I do think the spread of utility would make it most useful in the role of a Tanker. Heal and endurance recovery for added longevity/sustainability and -ToHit to both build on your other defenses and give your teammates a little extra protection from your target's AoEs.

For any of you who've had the time to delve in and explore this and/or other community servers, what's it like to get to experience the game you worked on now strictly as a player, seeing how it's evolved under the direction of some of the very people you used to make it for? Any favorite new stuff or "why didn't we think of that" moments?

Hadn't taken a close look at Dom Dark Mastery yet but this is really goofy. I can understand the power being generally weaker, it's opening tier in the pool so it doesn't require any additional power picks, and a dominator isn't a support AT, so the recharge, radius, and effect strength all being lower than any Dark Miasma version all make some sense to me. Adding a to-hit check does not. At all. The recharge doubling is already enough to push it out of One Slot Wonder territory, it doesn't need to be made multiple enhancement dependent too. Meanwhile comparing Dom Tar Patch & Sleet to their Corruptor secondary versions in Mids gives me further wtfs. Sleet's recharge increase is only 50% while its duration gains 15 seconds, and its debuff strength is identical while Tar Patch's is 25% weaker. Tar Patch does get a duration buff for doms at least: a whole 0.5 seconds. Edit: Can ignore that bit, Mids not as up to date as I thought. It's hard to imagine how this could be WAI and not a situation along the lines of "oops, made a Tar Patch with ToHit checks to weaken it in the hands of the updated Circle of Thorns but accidentally gave that version to doms instead".

I played a mind/martial/psi focused on being an in-the-mix meleer regardless of domination state for a while. That build ended up soft-capped to melee and ranged and capped to Smethal resist, and still had a sizable window to maintain perma Dom...which admittedly makes that defensive overslotting totally irrelevant most of the time. But when it is relevant it feels pretty badass. It seems like it would be more often relevant for ill/ though, because from the little experience I've had with ill/ doms so far it's focused more on distraction than lockdown. There will usually be enemies loose, spread out and/or staggering around to hunt down which could have you stray into the sights of other things that aren't mezzed. I like Dragon's Tail with the mind/martial, don't feel like I have the attack chain issues with it Luminara described (I mostly alternate Thunder & Spinning kicks between Tails with Trick Shot or Dominate filling gaps as suits what's left of the spawn) but I ended up dropping the similar Rending Flurry on my ill/savage just because things were just always too spread out from Gleam & Phantom Army to get anything bunched up enough to make the most of it. I revisited the mind/martial as an ill/martial after the set was ported to doms but that version's only in the 30s so far and I haven't sorted its build out yet, but I'll attach my mind/martial if it can provide some general ideas - older build, not updated with new power ordering. You mentioned wanting to pick up mez protection where you can and expecting this not to be comparable to a permadom build, but don't forget Domination is mez protection (not in a figurative "mezzed enemies can't mez you" way, it literally provides full status protection for its duration) and since you'll probably want recharge for offensive purposes anyway you could easily end up with permadom, and thus mez immunity (not to mention endurance refills that greatly reduce what would otherwise be a stark need for +recovery), without even necessarily trying. Especially with Defense being one of your goals, you'll probably be after some combination of pool toggles that will give you several places to hold LotG +Recharges as a starting point. Psi is not the greatest epic overall but it works pretty well for your goals here: Link Minds is a big chunk of Defense that doesn't just benefit you but your team as well, and Indomitable Will is...well, almost pointless, unless you're going up against Carnies or Rikti (it gives a massive chunk of Psi Defense), BUT it requires no slotting to do its one job of "protect me until Domination is ready" and is the perfect spot to hold a Shield Wall unique without needing an extra slot. ...also, giving the OP another read, it isn't explicitly stated but it almost sounds like what you're actually planning is a "petless MM" take on the dominator by not even using controls at all? If so, awesome. Ill/'s probably the best set to do it with because it's the one with inventive alternatives to control to play around and deal more damage with, and I can attest to the effectiveness of a defensively built /martial -- I can go long stretches solo where I don't even bother to throw out a mass control because I'm just fightin' stuff, mez-protected and refueled by permadom (and still get some incidental domination popups on Thunder Kick and World of Confusion). Inmi Xayn Again - Dominator (Mind Control).mxd

Oh, that's definitely just put an ice/rad on my to-do list.

Each Alpha provides enhancement to a few or several power qualities. So, what powerset combinations have you played, or thought about, that let you squeeze the most benefit - or more than you expected - out of any particular T4 Alpha? A couple of mine below. For reference: Agility Core: 45% End Mod, 33% Recharge, 20% Defense Agility Radial: 33% End Mod, Recharge, and Move Speed, 20% Defense Cardiac Core: 45% Endurance, 20% Range and Resistance Cardiac Radial: 33% Endurance, Fear, Sleep, and Absorb, 20% Range and Resistance Intuition Core: 45% Hold, 33% Defense Debuff, 20% Range Intuition Radial: 33% Hold, Damage, Slow, and Defense Debuff, 20% Range and ToHit Debuff Musculature Core: 45% Damage, 33% Immobilize and Defense Debuff Musculature Radial: 33% Damage, Immobilize, Defense Debuff, End Mod, and Run, 20% ToHit Debuff Nerve Core: 45% Accuracy, 33% Hold, 20% Defense Nerve Radial: 33% Accuracy, Hold, Taunt, Confuse, and Fly, 20% Defense Resilient Core: 33% Resist and Immobilize, 20% ToHit Resilient Radial: 20% Resist and ToHit, 33% Taunt, Immobilize, Absorb, and Stun Spiritual Core: 45% Recharge, 33% Stun and Healing Spiritual Radial: 33% Recharge, Healing, Stun, Slow, and Jump, 20% ToHit Vigor Core: 45% Healing, 33% Accuracy and Endurance Vigor Radial: 33% Healing, Accuracy, Endurance, Confuse, Sleep, and Fear Two of my favorite builds make very good use of Musculature Radial: a Rad/Dark/Dark Corruptor and a Dark/Elec/Soul Brute. I trade the extra Damage of Core to instead amp up the secondary effects of both the primary and secondary on both builds. Since the brute uses Soul Tentacles and was recently respecced to use Super Speed, she manages to get some use out of every part of Musc Radial except the def debuff. Dark Obliteration slotted with an Acc -ToHit set plus the alpha lets her blanket the spawns she's fighting in a sizable chunk of -ToHit in addition to what her melee attacks dish out, all while rapidly sapping through a Lightning Field and Power Sink that are both heavily slotted for EndMod so boosted past ED by the Alpha. One of my more niche selections that doesn't make use of everything the alpha has but taps more than I realized when I picked it: I have a kin/nin/soul scrapper where the character used to be a mind/martial dom (RP happened, powers changed), so I went Intuition Radial with the new build just because that was what I used on the original, and it's worked out surprisingly nicely. She's well equipped for ranged fights with Focused Burst holding her Critical Strikes, then Moonbeam and Soul Storm, so she gets utility out of the Range, ToHit Debuff, and Hold elements along with the damage boost to all the rest of her fighting.

If they were at least affected by recharge buffs, that'd really be all the fix I'd need to make them a little more than a flavor novelty, something I'd actually think about when making build decisions. But I think I mentioned in some other thread on the topic some while back that I wouldn't mind seeing the alignment powers divorced from Morality and granted in some other way to represent a character's Methods: Inspirational, Intimidating, Mischievous, and Violent, or something along those lines that could be mixed and matched with Morality, which would just continue to govern zone & content access. So you could be a Violent Vigilante, an Inspirational Rogue, an Intimidating Hero, a Mischievous Villain, etc.

Speaking as someone who has actually had someone go out of their way to camp names identified with me and my friends (back when the VIP server opened on Live), this is a wild extrapolation. While the back half about "they just must not have loved the game as much as i did" is certainly smug nonsense, the situation the first sentence describes is clearly: they got some good names early and at some point since then, "at least one" (definitely happened once that they clearly remember, maybe more) of those names was recognized by another player who mistakenly assumed it was held by the same player they knew held it on live. There's nothing to suggest the names were grabbed because they were used on live, the quote just has a finder's keepers attitude about the ones they have. You see a name that belonged to a friend on live and go "HEY FRIEND" and they go "do i know you". You can see character names in many parts of the game besides Atlas Park, including multiple text channels that broadcast to everyone playing who has it on a tab. LFG is how I found out my friend who mained Stranglehold on Virtue is not the Stranglehold of Everlasting, for example.

Makes me wonder if an enhancement could be made with the effect of cancelling/zeroing-out the effects of the power it's slotted in. Call it a Null Origin enhancement, then you could slot a NO in Swift and Hurdle.

Saw mention recently that the issue with DP/Tac Blasters that causes either the left pistol or the bow to be invisible depending on which you edited last is a known issue that, like any other, could be addressed whenever someone with the know-how ever has the time and interest. So just putting in a request that if that ever does make it onto the agenda, a 'None' option be added for the left pistol slot beforehand. That glitch has provided a way to create single pistol users, which is just kinda fun, and enabling that without it would open that visual/RP option up to other ATs and powerset combinations. Most Dual Pistol animations look fine with the left gun missing, since most ST attacks focus on the right hand (or in the case of Dual Wield use both at once so there's still clearly a gun being shot) and the AoEs are frenetic enough one hand being empty is barely noticable. Pistols and Suppressive Fire are the only powers with left-hand specific animations and even then those two have multiple animations, so they actually only use the left hand half of the time (side thought that occurred as I typed: would be neat if "Right Only" and "Left Only" could be added to those power's customization options with "Original" continuing to alternate). (While I would favor a None option being available to every weapon -- hell Shield too, now that we have asymmetrical shoulders/gloves to let us chunk up our defending/bashing arm ourselves -- just for the sake of enabling whatever creative takes people could come up with to explain their invisible weapons in the context of their character's other powers, my only actual suggestion/request here is to give the option to the left pistol, since the bug ever getting fixed would impact existing characters.)

I've run into this with the unholstered versions on DP/Tac, just had a look in the creator and looks like holstered versions do work the same way. Basically: whichever weaponset you edit last is the one that will "stick". If you customize a gun, the bow will end up invisible until you change it. If you customize the bow, the left pistol goes away until either gun is changed. I've actually been relying on this to play a single-pistol blaster for years. I'd somehow assumed this was an "acceptable jank" concession to shortcomings of the costume system, the best that could be done when Tactical Arrow was created to allow it to pair at all with DP, but now I've just gone and checked while I have the creator up and TA/DP does not have this problem.

I have a lot of these tbh, but the one that really sticks in my craw: Null the Gull alignment changes. If it was a thing you could only use before level 20, when Tips to make the shift properly become available, and didn't grant the badges/temp power, or even if it could just be used once per character without any other restriction, I'd be fine with it (though I suspect the badges part is a "has to be this way" for the game to recognize your alignment/function correctly when you do real alignment missions later). As it is, it's just a cheat/test feature that belongs on beta only. There's 161 alignment & morality missions that are all more engaging and usually worth more XP than any radio (and mostly speedable when you do just want quick alignment progress, for which the 5/day restriction is long gone), why disincentivize some of the best PUG content in the game? (that said? 100% grateful for the option whenever Halloween and now April Fool's roll around) As for the biggest improvement, gotta second the earlier mention of SOs from level 2. Massive game changer. That coupled with the earlier availability of primary and secondary powers has truly reinvigorated the early game for me: I'm playing ATs I'd never given a fair shake or only grudgingly endured before. That performance boost against an early game still balanced for TOs and DOs just plain feels good and lets me get a feel for the actual oomph of my powers early on, something I used to have to slog to 22 at half power for a real taste of. I've never run into the significant difficulty with Praetorian content I've often heard about but I imagine this has been a godsend for Praetorian lowbies too. Exploration badge tips are also just. Really good. Both from the QoL aspect of de-Easter-Egging the badges into a little piece of flavor-rich casual game content that encourages you to look around at the game world, and for the effort and quality that went into writing up each zone's guide concept and interesting mission text for each individual badge. Actually kind of makes me regret when I grab a badge out of chance or habit because now that's a tip I'm not going to get to read til the next character.

Honestly I don't think it needs improving, it's a situational effect that is really powerful as-is for soloists and small teams, it's just less important for a large team with enough layers of taunt, harder control, or support to withstand adds - but even then, it can still be an extra layer of security if you're sleeping a side of a sizable swarm most of the team's target-capped AoEs aren't extending to. That said, I wouldn't mind if it was improved, because while it is useful as it is, it sure is lackluster compared to any other control. If it were up to me, I might add multiple tapering effects of lower magnitude and longer duration to every sleep power, like the wear-off of Destiny powers, call it a Drowsy effect or somesuch, that instantly applies a Sleep as normal at the combined magnitude. Then a couple seconds after a Sleep is broken, if any Drowsy effects are still going on that target, give it a chance scaling with enemy rank (less likely to resleep bosses, moreso minions) to either reapply a new Sleep at the current remaining magnitude or dismiss all Drowsy from that target. So a chance to function a little more like Fear, for a longer potential time on weaker enemies, but still essentially fragile. I like 2 best of your initial proposals but that may just be because I play a Spines/Bio stalker who runs Control Core for sleep aura lulz and adding extra damage to that would be hilarious. With 1, maybe a way around the problem of fine-tuning the damage required to break the sleep would be to make an alternative condition numbers of hits of any magnitude taken in close succession, so occasional light splash damage from weak AoEs may not break it but anything ticking rapidly does. 3 I'm not a fan of, to me it just sort of turns Sleep into an engine for more Hold, instead of expanding on Sleep as its own concept. As to 4, like with 1 I like the essential idea of making Sleep less binary but the fiddly and far-reaching extra work involved in classifying every power, let alone developing extra buffs/debuffs that only interact with one kind of control, sounds like a non-starter.

Eyeballing visual guides with the grid disabled requires a level of pixel precision that is easily undermined or made more complicated by lighting, the highlight box, base lag, mouse sensitivity, and/or the user's degree of control over their hand. Grids help limit just how uncooperative the game can be.