Bionic_Flea

It's there. Look in tough.

Here's my Earth/Earth build:

Do you mean orange/rare salvage or +damage inspirations or something else?

Pun intended? I looked over the build and it's certainly interesting. It seems more like a Mastermind build in some respects. Much of the damage is coming from the pets while you provoke, debuff, and terrorize the neighborhood.. I wonder if it would be worth pushing that idea further and picking up the seer for say . . . possess. Slight loss of recharge for an extra damage pet. And if we drop presence pool (although somewhat contrary to this exercise) and pick up Combat Jumping and Shadow Field with a set of Unbreakable Constraints and some shuffling of IOs we end up at 176ish global recharge, 5 pets, and enough -tohit, -damage, +defense, regen, and healing to keep those pets, yourself, and anyone else upright while your enemies are afeared, held, disoriented, on their backs, or just plain dead. Interesting indeed.

I KNEW it!

The fear and -tohit are separate affects. Also, not all fears have -tohit as an additional affect.

I skant even . . .

I Sikh what you did there.

I'd call that a close and personal relationship. I itch your back, you try to scratch mine . . .

But Jimmy, why can't I use my close and personal relationship with you to invoke fear in the hearts of other players?

I had forgotten that a successfull Assassin Strike has a chance to inflict fear on those close to the target. Dark/Dark stalker with Water Spout, presence pool, and the vigilante power, fear incarnate, might be the most fear you can get out of a CoH character. I had made similar builds to Yomo's stalker and SuperPhysx's scrapper but as Brute and Tanker. I'll post below for comparison: Brute Tanker

I'd love for there to be insect themed power sets! And this was a nice layout and plan for a control set. My only criticism is the low mag controls. I understand your thinking behind it, but it just makes it a weak control set compared to all others. To work, the recharges would have to be super fast and the endurance costs super low. And even then it just becomes the tedium of having to activate and animate the same power twice to get the effectiveness of a single application from another control set.

I came back to make this statement but DSorrow beat me to it. Having account-bound items will not diminish farming. People want what they want and they want it now! If they could not buy on the /AH they would farm merits for the deterministic purchase or farm more AE to get more drops that could be converted or shared with an alt.

No, thank you. I like being able to sell and purchase purple IOs at my own convenience.

Oooh! I forgot about [fear incarnate] and that [water spout] had a fear component. Good ones!

While I appreciate all suggestions, to be eligible for the prize you have to submit a Mids build. That lets me look at the nitty griitys and have an idea of the IOs I'm gonna have to buy.

Phobophobia - the fear of fear itself. I was trying to think of a character that would use Fear to the maximum extent possible in the game. I also want this character to be a viable soloist and able to fill their traditional AT role in a team. I've designed three different characters and have ideas for a few more. But I wanted to see what the rest of you crazy, creative people could come up with. To encourage participation and make a contest out of it, I will choose one build from those submitted. The winner gets a PL to 50 and all the IOs for the submitted build. The winner will be chosen by me based upon: 1) generous use of fear-based powers; 2) apparent ability to reasonably solo +1/x8 or higher (at level 50-sooner would be bonus points) based on having sufficient defense, resist, heals, or other mitigation; 3) sufficient single target and AoE damage to be able to complete these missions in a reasonable time; and 4) ability to fulfill a standard AT role, meaning that a tank should be able to take huge amounts of damage and maintain aggro, a defender should be able to buff and debuff, controllers should be able to lockdown groups, blasters, scrappers, and stalkers should lay down some major DPS, etc. At the end of the contest I will post my builds as well and make a character. Even if I go with one of my own builds, I will select someone to win the prize. Ready, set, go make fearsome characters!

So people are paying you 1 million inf to open the pack and keep all the non-ATO goodies!

This is going to make people spend more money on SOs. That may be the plan. Get people to buy and continue to buy SOs to keep them in the green. While I think influence sinks are generally good, this (along with the Auto-purchase) is a regressive tax that will hit low information and low influence players and will not affect power gamers at all. I haven't bought SOs since before the official game was closed and I don't intend to start now.

My suggestions: 1. Don't buy TOs, DOs, or SOs. It's OK to slot what drops. If you can't slot it, vendor it. 2. Vendor all common IO recipes (unless you are going for badges). 3. Craft everything you can if you don't have to buy salvage, especially lower level recipes. 4. Post your crafted IOs on the market. Price it 1 inf lower than the average price. If you find the price is too low, grab it, convert it, re-list it. 5. Plan your build on Mids before buying anything. 6. Buy attuned sets as you can afford them while leveling. You'll never have to replace them. BUT you can buy a cheap attuned set today, and then replace with a purple or other more expensive set later using unslotters or a respec. Save that cheaper set for your next project. Additional thought: Do things that get you merits! AE farming is fine and radios/newspapers are fine but don't limit yourself to those. Run story arcs, TFs, and get all the exploration badges in a zone to get merits. Trade merits for converters. Use converters to turn junk IOs into highly desired IOs. Many people sell the converters. That's certainly easy enough. But I never sell converters; I use them.

Challenge: Accepted!

Can I have your stuff?

Correlation is not causation. Prices could have gone up because most of the country (or planet even) have been told to stay at home . . . or because there is a new set and power pool and people need to slot their new toys. Both of those increase demand, which results in increased prices. Prices go up and down all the time. If it stays up over a long period, then you may have an argument.

Playing soccer with my boy . . . and his giant pet tarantula . . .