Rathulfr

I've highlighted the key phrase that makes it obvious to everyone: Fire/Bio. Anything Fire/* or */Bio, much less Fire+Bio, should be considered an outlier, since both of those sets have built-in advantages over other sets. Comparing Fire Blast to any other Blast set is a non-starter, as is Bio (the poster child for a brokenly OP set) to any other mitigation set.

This is precisely the nut of the problem for me. Since I logged on to my very first Blaster in I1 or I2 (I forget exactly when), I've wanted to play a purely ranged damage dealer. I was immediately dismayed by the Blaster secondaries, which contain so many melee attacks, and by the PBAoE nukes in the primaries. I never could get the hang of mixing ranged and melee attacks, never mind playing an active "blapper". So I just shrugged and adapted into a ranged-only style and ignored the melee attacks in the secondaries. Yes, I realize that put me at a bit of a disadvantage in the DPS e-peen measuring contests, but I noticed no actual disadvantage in game play (aside from not eating floor as much because of reduced exposure to melee attacks). When I discovered the Sentinels of Homecoming, I was overjoyed! Finally: a ranged-only DPS AT that I might enjoy (sorry, Corruptors/Defenders just don't do it for me). I really loved playing my Sentinels at first, until I could no longer ignore their lackluster damage. I understand that there has to be some trade-off between damage and durability, but it's obvious that the disparity is too much with Sentinels. Why don't Scrappers with the same secondaries suffer the same disparity in their DPS? I'm not suggesting that Sentinel DPS needs to be the same as Scrapper DPS, just that the disparity between damage and durability in Sentinels should be less severe than it appears to be with Scrappers. Which brings us back to @oldskool's point: just what is a Sentinel supposed to be? We've seen @Captain Powerhouse suggest that they might be considered more like "ranged Scrappers". If so, why is there such a disparity in damage vs. durability? Maybe instead of making Sentinels more like Blasters, maybe we should be talking about making them more like Scrappers? Maybe Opportunity needs to be changed to a ramp towards a burst of crits for a short period (different from the Scrapper's random crits), or maybe a chance of crits for all team members for a short period, or maybe just a higher chance of crits for all team members on just the target of Opportunity (instead of the -20% resistance)? If we brought Sentinels to parity with Scrappers, that might eliminate the unfair comparisons to Blasters with their rotational fast-snipes and Defiance, which @oldskool points out as the non-trivial, significant, difference between Sentinels and Blasters. I don't know for sure: I'm just thinking aloud here.

@Mike Morbid, I was on a couple of times this weekend looking for you, but I couldn't track you down. I'd like to add you to the SG and give you leadership privileges. We also need to nail down a time to meet our new toons and play together. Everyone else in this thread that wants to can /gfriend me, as well. My global is in my signature, below.

That's the proper name of the ITF.

For me, it was circa 1975.

I remember. I also remember being able to buy two comics, one candy bar, and one soda for $1. I'm old as dirt, apparently.

What server are you playing on that gives you 1500 slots, instead of 1000?

You're welcome. It's a relatively new fork off of the original ParagonWiki.com.

Yes, you can slot Swift, Hover, Fly, and Afterburner to increase your flight speed. However, there is a cap on flight speed without Afterburner: 58.63 mph. So it's generally not necessary to waste slots/enhancements on these powers for flight speed. Usually, I put one flight speed enhancement in Swift, and that's sufficient. I will put the universal travel +KB protection proc in Fly, LotG +Recharge in Afterburner and/or Hover, and/or the Kismet +ToHit into Hover. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Flight_Powers#Flight_Speed

QFT: on Retail, I had exactly one (1) character with complete IO sets at shutdown, because IO sets were so ridiculously overpriced it was simply unaffordable/unattainable to do otherwise. The fact that I have four (4) fully-equipped characters at 50+3 today astonishes me.

It's not that hard to make money in this game: there are numerous forum posts that explain it quite well. The easiest is simply picking up zone badges for Merits and then buying Converters with those merits and selling those on the AH. One hardly needs to be a Gordon Gecko Master of the Universe marketeer to do that. As someone who has a baker's dozen of level 50 characters, less than half of them are fully equipped with IO sets, and only a third of them have "purples" of any kind. I've never spent more than 20M Inf on any given Enhancement, and only then because it was unavoidable at the time I wanted to equip that particular character. I've never had more than 500M Inf at any one time (and only for that one specific character): I usually average about 150M Inf total across all servers/characters. All of those characters were equipped by simply playing the game, playing the market, or AE farming with a Spines/Fire Brute with Common IOs (not sets!) at +2x8 or +3x8. It was only last month (after a year) that I decided to equip my farmer with IO sets, and I did that without any ATOs, Winter Sets, or purples. I think I spent a total of 200M Inf on that build, and now I can run fire farms at +4x8. Doing so I make about 30M Inf for completing all 5 Comic Con missions in about 30 minutes. That's 30M Inf cash only, before I sell any Salvage, Recipes, or Enhancements on the AH, which usually doubles that amount. This is post-nerf earnings, not pre-nerf. I only run my AE fire farmer when I need to either (a) level an alt to 27 to equip level 30 common IOs, or (b) generate cash for the few IO set procs that are common to all builds (Miracle +Recovery, Numina's +Regen, Steadfast +Def, etc.). That means I don't farm all that often, because it is boring. But an hour or two a few times a month is usually enough to equip my alts sufficiently. That's actually far less tedium than I've endured in other MMOs to get good gear.

General goes into its own tab named "General".

Are you saying that Nick hides the weenie?

I just noticed that you can spell "BANKSY DFS" with the alphabetic avatars.

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

My main is the character with which I most identify on an emotional level, the character I enjoy playing the most above all others, and the character that made me fall in love with the game in the first place. For me, that was my original Energy/Energy Blaster, Rathstar, created in I1 or I2 (I wasn't there at launch, but I did join shortly afterwards in early 2004).

I play Blasters (and Sents) because I'm too lazy to chase down runners and hate having to be within 5 feet of a target to kill arrest it. I also love being able to one-shot minions and lieutenants before they even know I'm there.

You're welcome, glad to do it. Please be sure to /gfriend @Rathstar so that we can communicate when we're on at the same time. I'm usually on evenings and weekends, US Central time.

Interestingly enough, I've never ever had more than 500M Inf at one time. I usually have an average of around 150M Inf total across all ~40 characters. However, whenever I do get a character to 50 and deem it "worthy" of a complete build, I'll farm and market the amounts I need for the IO sets for that particular character. So I don't have billions of "liquid" Inf laying around. However, I probably do have a couple billions worth of IO sets equipped on my level 50+ chars (less than a dozen chars). That said, I don't really need you to send me Inf, @Ukase -- I was just kidding around. However, I certainly wouldn't refuse it. 😘

Using the D100 scales posted earlier, I rolled a Dark Armor/Fiery Melee Tanker, and named him "Flameshadow". I then created a new SG named "Frozen Felonies Fellowship": base passcode is FROZEN-14581. I'll set up portals in it for ease of transport, but I won't commit to any design beyond that, so that anyone else who wants to do in earnest can have fun with that. Character Description: I was enjoying a hot fudge sundae in the Frozen Felonies ice-cream shop in Atlas Park when a beam of energy crashed in through the roof. It bathed everyone in an eerie glow that grew brighter and brighter. My ears rang until I thought my head would explode, and then I passed out. When I awoke, I found myself imbued with strange new powers. I could surround myself with dark energies, and manipulate fire in my hands with the merest thought. Others in the shop were changed as well. We all decided to band together to combine our powers as a force for change in the world. We became the "Frozen Felonies Fellowship"!

PM sent.

More questions: Will we be forming a separate SG for this? If so, who will do so? If there are no volunteers, I will volunteer. When will we play together, if at all? I'm available US Central time, usually evenings and weekends. Can we use one of the many HC Discord voice channels for audio chat? I really enjoy using the HC voice channels, even when I'm not teamed with the folks there. It's nice just to have chatter in the background when I'm playing. Shall we all put elements of the OP's story in our bios? I think it would be fun to do that.

I think that would depend on the effects of the energy beam. It might be appropriate for some, but not all. I, for one, despise the costume randomizer since they added tails and animal parts. Besides, if we've "chosen" to band together as super-heroes/villains as a consequence of being hit by the ray, then I don't see why we wouldn't also choose our own costumes. I'll probably make mine as ridiculous as possible, of course.

Great idea, @Mike Morbid! I'm interested, but with one caveat: don't let me pick/roll, because I don't trust myself to not cheat and just roll something I'm already comfortable with. I'd prefer that someone else roll/pick for me at random, just so that I have absolutely no control over the process -- just as would've happened had I been sitting in that shop at that moment. Also: I'm partial to Blasters and Sentinels, so don't give me a Blaster or Sentinel! 😁

Send it to the global handle in my sig, below. 😆