Rathulfr

Here's mine, as a starting point. It's primarily ranged DPS (no blapping), I took Hover/Fly and Stealth for thematic reasons, skipped Hasten (unconventional!), and I'm sure my Incarnate choices aren't optimal. But it works for me and I like it. YMMV

I played each and every one of the characters to 50 (they were not AE PL'ed after level 22), as I was trying out different builds to see what I liked. I just transferred them to the other servers as I went along, reserving the name. I do bounce around to different servers from time to time. My original SG was on Bree, then Torchbearer, then Indomitable, and finally on Excelsior. I also do some "lite" RP on Everlasting when the mood strikes, and I have a good friend who's exclusive to Everlasting, so I moved my "main" there, to play with them. I also occasionally hop on the Discord voice-chat, and join teams on the other servers if that's where the action is. So I don't think I'm "name-squatting" by maintaining 4 different Rathstars (although I really only play 2 of them routinely) on each of the different servers.

While I wouldn't necessarily leave, I would be sorely put out. It's why I have a level 50 "Rathstar" on all 4 servers.

Historically, Excelsior and Everlasting usually jostle with each other for the highest pops, while Torchbearer and Indomitable battle for the basement. So I'd prefer to see Excelsior (1st) merged with Indomitable (4th), and Everlasting (2nd) with Torchbearer (3rd). That should split the NA pop evenly between two shards. That doesn't address the character name issue, though. That's still going to be an extremely tough nut to crack, and painful for everyone involved.

Yeah, I was hoping that would be fixed soon, too. I guess now it's just Soon™. 😒

Which is why I always secure my character names on both the source and destination servers before and after transfers by using a couple of the free renames and disposable placeholder toons.

My point is that there are no victims. Knockback is a normal part of routine game play. The only "victims" are those who whine about being slightly inconvenienced on their steamroll teams.

I respectfully disagree about the toggle thing fixing everything. I suspect that adding that toggle would just become an undue burden on players with knockback, as teams would begin discriminating against those who choose not to use it (as I would not). There's enough "KB-shaming" now: a toggle would institutionalize that. I do agree that knocking back responsibly is on me as a player with KB; however, I also believe that it's on other players to expect to encounter knockback as a normal challenge of routine game play, because the devs intended it to be that way (regardless of their subsequent efforts to mitigate some -- but not all -- of it). Dealing with knocked back mobs is something that players have to expect and adjust to like any other condition, such as mobs that run away, or mobs that are held/immobilized out of range, etc.

Now that everyone's nostalgia craving has been sated, and the looky-loos have looked and loo'ed, and the novelty hunters have hunted all the novelty to extinction, all that's left is us die-hard fans. It happens with every MMO after launch, and after each expansion. This is acclimatization, and it's just human nature. Even I've toddled off to try a few different games recently, after being non-stop CoH for 6 straight months since April. CoH is my home, but even I like to go out to eat every now and then, when I'm tired of eating leftovers.

I always defer to the wisdom of @oldskool, especially in regards in Sentinels, because he's one of the few who has actually taken the time and made the effort to thoroughly play them and is honest and fair about their strengths and weaknesses. He's contributed heavily to the Sentinel forums, and I respect his numerous posts on the subject (and others). And I definitely admit to knowing little about Defenders, because I just don't like playing them.

@kelika2 seems to have compiled a pretty good list right here! 😄

Wow, so many different ATs and power sets have knockback: it's almost as if you'd think the devs actually intended knockback to be a part of the game, somehow. I wonder if anyone else noticed this?

That's because is it is, at higher levels. Defenders start off with a lower base damage modifier than Sentinels, but once their debuffs kick in, and they get slotted with damage procs, Defenders will melt faces. A friend of mine builds Defenders that do more damage than Blasters, and of course they destroy AVs (where debuffs matter more than sheer DPS). A well-built Defender with a skilled player at the keyboard is a force of nature with which one does not reckon lightly. I just can't stand leveling Defenders -- it's far too tedious for my ADHD. 😄

When I came home, the first thing I did was recreate my Energy² Blaster main from retail, which I played from I2 until sunset. While I was leveling him up, my altitis kicked in and I thought I'd try out this new Sentinel thing. I was in love! That Energy/WP Sentinel rocketed to 50+3 T4, and I enjoyed almost every minute of the ascent. This was the feeling I had wanted from my Blaster since I2, but could never get, because the Blaster constantly got mezzed or routinely faceplanted. The Sentinel was almost indestructible, and felt powerful. I played around with about a dozen different Sentinel builds, just try out all the variations that appealed to me. Fire/Regen is the one that had the best bang for the buck, but my heart wasn't fully into the concept. So I must admit that I did miss the damage, especially at end-game where the durability of the Sentinel is less important. It takes forever to kill things defeat enemies, and on teams I was outgunned by just about everyone else besides dedicated tanks and healers. So I went back to playing a Blaster, Energy/Temporal this time. The difference in damage output was starkly obvious (of course, given the higher base damage modifier, natch), and the built-in sustain toggle (Temporal Healing) made a world of difference, too. Eventually, with the right sets equipped, it's almost as durable as the Sentinel: there's still a gap there in mez vulnerability, but there's enough defense to keep that from being terminal. I settled back into the Blasters camp. I returned to my abandoned E² Blaster and figured out how to use its sustain power (/powexec_auto Energize, which is markedly different from retail). But even so, I still like the Sentinels: I just wish they would do a smidge more DPS. I understand they can't buff them too much, or else they'd be OP mage-tanks. I understand that there needs to be a tradeoff on less damage for more defense. But right now, the delta is too great, so my Sentinels collect dust while I play my Blasters. The good news is that they might buff Sentinel damage in the near future. Captain Powerhouse has indicated he plans to replace their Inherent with something else entirely, which might help, too. Until then, my Sentinels stand watch over my character selection screen, instead of the streets of Paragon City.

That was a bug? I thought it meant I had unlocked a "Super Mega Incarnate" power. Darn. 😞

And this is the reason why I never roll up new characters on gold side. Don't get me wrong: I love how Praetoria looks, and I like the missions, but not at level -- it's simply too brutal. I've been going back to Praetoria through Ouroboros, so that I'm properly slotted for it, instead.

This is what I do. Two Perf Shift (End Proc + EndMod) and one 50+5 EndRec.

Wow, perfect summation. I will be stealing -- ahem -- using this metaphor from now on.

The Orville is better Star Trek than STD because it's made by people who know and love the source material better than those hired to make STD in the first place. This is STD's fundamental problem, and no amount of "wait, it got better in the second season" is going to fix that.

I couldn't get past the first two episodes of STD (and all that acronym implies).

This is why I'll be avoiding Picard, as well.

What @NNDeepdish means is that question 2 presupposes an answer to question 1 that's logically exclusive of "I do not want any changes..." If my answer to question 1 is "I don't want any changes", then I have no answer for question 2. However, the poll requires that participants respond to both questions 1 and 2, even though logically, it's possible to answer 1 without having an answer for 2. So question 2 needs a corresponding choice for "N/A" or "I don't want any changes".

If this were limited to just you, that would be one thing. But I've lost count of how many other people have told me (the guy with a couple dozen or so ranged characters above level 35) that I shouldn't be 6-slotting IO sets in my ranged attack powers, or that I should put SA KB2KD in the 6th slot of all my KB powers, or "meh, the 6th slot is never any good anyway, so you should slot proc X, instead." I used to argue with them, but then I gave up, and now I just smile and nod and ignore them.

They are all siloed, and doing their own thang. Some of them are rabidly anti-Homecoming, so the mere suggestion that they would be "playtesting for Homecoming" made me snicker and would inflame them tremendously.