Rathulfr

So what I'm hearing is this: post double-Inf nerf, farm "smarter" not "harder". Farming still generates free Inf, just half as much as it did before, when I could disable XP and exploit patrol XP. But now I can compensate for that by working tickets, crafting/converting IOs, and playing the market a bit more. Yes, it's a bit more work, but still profitable. I do think they need to fix whatever they broke with earning Inf while exemplared, as that was indeed a key feature of the original sidekick/exemplar system. But the patrol XP doubling Inf gain while exemplared is definitely an unintended consequence that turned into an exploit that needed to be nerfed, IMO.

Given limited dev time and resources, I'd rather have new power sets than old ones resurrected. Resurrecting an old set might be easier to re-introduce, but it would take as much time and effort to maintain as a new one. Old sets would still have to go through all of the same QC, testing, and balance passes as new sets. And not all old sets would "be at a disadvantage", if the old set included something that was changed to fix an exploit or nerf an over-performance. Perhaps there was something in the old Dark Melee that needed to be put down/changed, for a good reason? Resurrecting a "legacy" version would be a backdoor "de-nerf", defeating the purpose in the first place. I'd love to have the original Regen or Energy Melee back, but I doubt that'll ever happen. I think it's all too much work/effort for too little gain/appeal. Yes, there's a niche of people (like the OP) who would like this, but that's probably a smaller group than those would prefer shiny new sets, instead. I think that has a wider appeal than simply re-hashing old stuff. TL;DR: "That's a no from me, dawg."

Why are you farming with a blaster in the first place? That seems to me to be far less efficient than a brutes/tankers, which have built-in taunt to keep the mobs from running (as much). And I'm not even mentioning the 75% max resistance (oh crap, I just did, didn't I? oh well). Is it really "farming" if you can't hold aggro and cap resistance? Not criticism, just questions. You do you: it just seems unappealing to me.

Back in retail, there were a few of us that pitched the idea of "banking" XP from deleted characters so that they could be re-used on new alts, up to a certain point. For example, if you leveled up a character to 50 and then deleted it, all of the XP from that character would go into a "XP bank" for your account. The next time you created an alt, you would be given the option to "spend" XP from the bank account on that new alt, up to a maximum of level 25 (so that you couldn't just create instant 50s). You wouldn't have to spend all of the XP, but you could only spend enough to get the next alt to 25. Lather, rinse, repeat as often as needed. But on HC this has less appeal/utility, because of 1000 char slots, unlimited renames, plentiful server transfers, and free 2XP boosters (not to mention the beta server). On HC, I created and deleted at least a dozen alternate versions of each of several characters. I created and played all of them up to the mid-levels, at the very least. Some I've re-created multiple times, forgetting that I tried and rejected them before. The point is, creating multiple different variations of characters is almost trivial on HC. The only "cost" is the time it takes to either level them up by playing, or farming them up to whatever level is desired.

I resisted doing this for so long, but eventually I caved in to peer pressure and made my own Spines/Fire Brutes for quick-leveling alts and generating cash for their builds. I didn't use any IO sets (just a few of the IO procs, mostly for +defense and +recovery/regen), just common IOs. That allowed me to actively farm at +2x8 or +3x8 without much trouble. One or two runs of @brigg's fire farms was enough to get an alt to 22-27 and generate a few million Inf: more than enough for a complete set of 25/30 common IOs for that alt. A couple of days ago, I decided to try to finish the fire farmer builds to soft-cap fire defense on a budget: no ATOs, no Winter sets. I put together a build that leverage multiple sets of Aegis, Mocking Beratement, and Scirroco's Dervish to almost soft-cap fire defense (42.6%) for around 150M Inf. With Agility and Support incarnates, I pushed that up to 44% fire defense. I'm sure it's not the best build for speed clearing farms, but it works for me: I no longer have to constantly chew purples (instead, I'm chewing reds now, LOL).

Yeah, the great thing about purples is that they always convert to another purple, so if you can't sell one, try converting it to a different one.

QFT: I seem to recall that they actually did nerf Hasten at least once, right around the time of ED. In fact, the implementation of ED actually did nerf Hasten, as back then, you could 6 slot it for +recharge.

@tripthicket, as I mentioned in the other thread, what you're seeing may be an artifact of how Mid's Reborn works. It keeps track of the levels as you place slots, but then you can delete and move slots around to other powers as you're working on the build, which can rearrange at what level those slots were placed. There's also the "Auto-Arrange All Slots" feature of Mid's, which will re-sort the slot levels underneath, so that can make the slots appear in a different order. TL;DR: when looking at Mid's builds, ignore the levels for slot placements. They don't necessarily/accurately reflect when slots were actually placed, nor do they matter with respecs.

You mean, like on the test servers, where you can create/equip any level character with any enhancements you like? Or do you mean by just finding some mobs that will attack you from range? I recommend Nemesis Tirailleurs for that. Do the second mission of the Signature Story Arc in Steel Canyon (the first mission is merely convincing Positron you're serious). It's an AP map that's chock full of tirailleurs. In fact, I just did that mission (repeated 4 times, so I could get the Fake Nemesis badge) on my Energy/Devices Blaster, who has soft-capped ranged defense, and I didn't notice anything broken with ranged defense. I barely got hit most of the time as I hover-blasted everything from above.

I've just taken it as a given that all of these completed level 50 builds assume you're going to respec into them at levels 47-50, so you can place the slots as needed without regards to leveling. When you're leveling up, the placement and order of slots is critical, because that's how you power up your build as you progress. But once you hit 50, you'll find that you'll want/need to reallocate some of those slots to different powers. That's why most folks respec at 50 for their "final" build. When I level up, I usually stick to "The Rule of 3" for slot placement. Up until level 30, you only get two slots per every other level, so I usually place both slots in either the power I just picked in the previous level, or (if that previous power doesn't need it), I'll put both slots in another power that doesn't yet have 3 slots. For example, I usually take Fly by level 14 (at the latest), because it's my favorite travel power. But Fly doesn't need any slots, so I usually put the 2 slots I get after Fly into Stamina, so I can put 3 EndMod enhancements there. The same thing goes for the 2 slots after Boxing/Kick: I won't ever use that power while leveling, so there's no need to slot it yet. So those 2 slots go into something else that might need it, like Health. Also, when I'm leveling up, I will put 3 slots in Hasten and/or Assault, because of ED (Enhancement Diversification). The maximum that you can enhance any one attribute with SOs or common IOs is ~99%, which is 3 SOs or 3 level 30 IOs. When I'm leveling up, I want to maximize the recharge of Hasten, or maximize the endurance reduction in Assault, because I don't yet have any other set bonuses. But when I get to 50 and respec, I can reallocate the slots in Hasten or Assault to other powers that need them more, for set bonuses. So I can reduce them to 2 slots each, and use Boosters to max out the level 50 common IOs to +53% each, and cap ED with only 2 slots, instead of 3. The order of placement doesn't matter for exemplaring: you keep the same number of slots in your powers regardless of level. The slots don't "deactivate" at lower levels like the powers do. So if you add 5 slots to your T1 at level 50, when you exemplar down to level 10, you'll still have 6 slots in your T1. Mid's Reborn keeps track of slot placement levels as you create/modify the build. Sometimes, I use the "Auto-Arrange All Slots" feature to shuffle them around a bit when I'm moving/tweaking things. So when you see a completed build like mine and see the levels for slot placements, ignore them. Those are just artifacts of using Mid's to assemble the build. Mid's does not (necessarily or) accurately reflect when those slots were actually placed. None of that matters during a respec, because the respec doesn't know/care when you put the slots.

Oh, ok, thanks. I thought I'd slipped a cog there. 😉

What is "Endmod/Increased Recharge"? I thought the Synapse's Shock unique proc was EndMod/Increased Run Speed? Is the latest MRBU data wrong, or do I need to update it?

When @Bopper speaks, people listen. 😄

ibid.

I suppose that means @Myrmidon wants us to end the "discussion". 😆

BTW, in case you're interested, here's my Energy² Blaster build. Feel free to use it as a starting point for your own.

My first and main character, Rathstar, is also an Energy/Energy Blaster, going all the way back to I2 in 2004. He was the first character I resurrected on Homecoming, and I also created several variations of him with different secondaries and also as a few Sentinels. Energy blasting is why I love this game, especially with knockback. Knockback is integral to making my Energy characters feel powerful, so there's no way I would ever slot KB2KD in all of my KB powers. However, I have found value in doing so on my AoE powers, for the exact reasons mentioned by the OP: it does make me a better team player. So Explosive Blast and Nova are the only two powers I take that get KB2KD IOs. I leave the KB in my single-target powers for these reasons: I want to maintain that original feeling of powerful that made me fall in love with this game. It is an essential tool for managing aggro and mitigating damage when solo. With KB, a mob has to get back up and either attack me from range (where I have strong ranged defense) or run back to get into range for a melee attack (by which time I might have moved, meaning they need to keep running and not attack). With KD, they just get up again and punch me in the face (where I have weak melee defense), almost immediately. To me, that time difference where a mob has to move or adjust their attack type makes KB more valuable than KD. Most of the IO sets for ranged attack powers have bonuses for ranged defense in their 6th slot, so giving up that 6th slot for KB2KD eliminates that ranged defense. I haven't found any other combination of IO set bonuses for an Energy Blaster that can compensate for the loss of ranged defense bonuses. @Abraxus, I'm glad you've "come home" to both HC and Energy blasting: I'm honored that you're among our ranks. I hope we get to team someday soon!

Here's my 50+3 EB/TM Blaster. Very similar, except I go for soft-capping S/L defense again. I'm considering replacing Explosive Blast with End of Time, so that I have a mini-nuke at level 16. I think it might be a nice one-two punch with Nova.

Hmm, I guess I didn't understand those. Thanks for correcting me. But if that's the case, then wouldn't soft-capping S/L defense still make sense for dealing with melee, instead of resistance?

Right, which is why I focus on both ranged and smashing/lethal defense, not resistance. Almost all attacks have one positional tag and at least one (usually two) damage type tags. If you counter either position or type, the attack fails to hit. So if you fail a roll on position (ranged), but succeed on type (smashing), the attack misses. If you cap ranged defense, but don't cap smashing/lethal, you're still vulnerable to getting hit by ranged attacks that contain the smashing/lethal damage type. This means that you should always strive to soft-cap at least one positional tag (ranged/melee/AoE) and at least one (or two) damage type tags (S/L/E/NE/F/C/P). Since smashing/lethal are the most common, and those most commonly paired in IO sets, it's easy to soft-cap S/L defense. As a Blaster, you're covering most bases with R/S/L defense. Soft-capping S/L defense also helps with melee attacks, because many melee attacks include the S/L damage type. So even though you might not have any positional defense against melee, your typed defense against S/L has a 50-50% chance of keeping you from getting hit in melee, too. It's not perfect: but it works a lot better than no defense at all, and slightly better than eating 25-40% guaranteed damage with resistance alone. (edit) Excerpt from http://web.archive.org/web/20120904080030/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=115184

Quick question: why sacrifice S/L defense for resistance? I'm just curious what you're thinking there.

I am all for buffing Energy Melee to some semblance of its former glory. I have an Invuln/EM Tanker that I'd love to dust off and play again.

And just when I thought the "Nerf Hasten" threads were the worst, too.

You know, I do believe I owe you an apology, then. I thought you were rallying to support the OP, and it appears that I am mistaken. If all you're doing is relaying what the rational choices would be if the alternatives were taken away -- and no more than that -- then I have no reason to complain about your replies, or to accuse you of something that I inferred, but you didn't actually say (the whole "forcing" thing). Please forgive me for this carelessness. I do apologize for that.