Lockpick

I don't believe this to be true. I think many people are not using the existing resources to get the challenge they want. Instead they want the Devs to do all the work for them as opposed to taking ownership of their playing experience. A semi-quote from the thread about the AE missions: 801 is a Series: 801.0 Easy, 801.1 Intermediate, 801.2 Hard (My Benchmark), 801.3 Harder 801.2 is the Standard I judge my builds by, and was the original. If you can solo 801.2 +4x8 with-in the 2 hour timer or less, you are officially Linea Approved. 801.3 is because I had some teams just stomping 801.2. 801.3 departs from the "Soloable +0x0 on an SO build" benchmark. It was rare to have a team steamroll 801.2 like that, but it does happen. 801.0 and 801.1 are for the teams that were struggling too much in 801.2. If there's need I may or may not work on an 801.4 in the future. There are ways to get the challenge you desire without nerfing everyone else into the ground to satisfy your need for harder content. If you use the existing functionality you can create challenging content and invite similar minded people to do it with you. I don't think we should we be relying on the Devs to solve these types of problems that players have when there are ways of solving the problems yourself. Create your own hard mode content Play characters with only SO or basic IOs Don't go the incarnate route Develop a player network of like minded players and create a SG that imposes the limits you want, so you will feel the challenge you desire I meant to reply to a quote earlier where someone said everyone was Superman and no one was Batman. You can easily make a Batman character and I have done so. I limit my power selections to powers that are thematic and I play appropriate content for that character.

We do have that. The hardest content are the iTrials and Hami. In general, you need groups to do that content.

You are right, my apologies. That being said, I think the rest of the argument is legit.

The key phrase is This does not explain the variety of ATs and power sets being created and played though. Were this absolutely true, we would see nothing but tanks, brutes and scrappers and no one would team for anything. Reality and posted metrics say otherwise. " I would guess that most of the Brutes with Fiery Aura as a secondary were not played through; i.e. they played non-AE content and leveled through story arcs, task forces, etc.. My guess is that the vast majority were played in AE in Fire farms. I don't want to be rude, but your arguments are not very strong. Fiery Aura Brutes are well known to be AE Fire farmers, so if you are trying to see what ATs / power sets are logically the most popular it is perfectly reasonable to restrict Fiery Aura. Obviously the best way would be to have the entire data set, but we don't have that, so the option to remove Fiery Aura is reasonable.

I would create a new category beyond Dev Choice (maybe call it Canon Content) and add rewards that are the same as the in game rewards (Badges, Reward Merits, Incarnate Components, etc.). If you do that then I would bet you get more traction. You would also need to add more tags and filtering options to find the content. It would be no different than running Flashbacks, which I would guess a lot of people do. I know I do a lot of flashbacks. People can't complain about not having content when there is a ton of content available that provides the same canon experience and the same Live rewards. Also, you could make the player created Task Force part of the WST to get more people to use it. A ton of ways to get great content of varying levels of time commitment and difficulty. It would just need to be planned out and tested properly.

When you look at this data it does seem to indicate that the ATs are in general pretty close. I'm not surprised to see PB, WS, and SoAs at the bottom. As VEATs they may not have been played much on Live because you had to have a 50 to open them up, so probably less experience overall playing them. In addition, their build mechanics are a bit more complex. I'm also not surprised to see Stalkers so low when thinking back to how they were on Live. Here though I think people are missing the boat. I was a Scrapper on Live and here I play mainly Stalker for melee classes. It is a completely different experience from Live.

I'm not sure what you are trying to show with the chart. What does this data mean really? If you parse the data between AE content and non-AE content I would guess you will find a significant amount of the time played on Brutes is AE and more specifically AE farming. If you throw out the Brute numbers I would say that looking at the numbers seems logical to me. They seems to correspond with the number of posts in the AT sections (somewhat) which might indicate a level of popularity. I'm actually surprised Controllers are higher than Scrappers and Masterminds are as high as they are.

You have your opinion, ShardWarrior has his, I have mine, and many others have their opinion. You will likely have a hard time getting consensus on what should be the number of mobs a player can take on. And that's okay because everyone should play the way they want. That is why it is more important to focus on varying levels of content with varying levels of difficulty as opposed to focusing on buffinf/nerfing. If you have enough content with varying levels of difficulty then everyone can play the mode they find fun.

This is exactly why I stated to use AE to create new content. I really don't think people (The Live Devs, the current Dev team, or the players) are realizing how powerful AE can be for the game. Probably because it has a reputation for being mainly for farming. We have a great community of people that are very creative. We could use AE to do things like: Story arc of the month with titles and badge awards Create incarnate content with incarnate rewards Create story missions with merit rewards Create new task forces Create hard mode content Create new badges to go along with the created content All of these things can be done with some minor tweaks and some time commitment by volunteers. Maybe some people feel this way, but I have a hard time worrying about someone else. I am interested in what I find fun. When I first came back I was on a DP tear playing DP on various characters to find one to be my main. No one is going to say DP is OP. Now I am on a stalker kick. I could care less if a TW/Bio scrapper can clear mobs before I can in a mission. I can find ways to benefit a team no matter what AT I am playing and at the end of the day it is about enjoying the experience. On another note, I did want to mention that I really appreciate the Dev team bringing back this game. It was a horrible experience when it shut down and I could never find a replacement. Extremely happy it is back and wanted to express my gratitude.

Surprisingly enough, I agree with some of the comments @Noyjitat is saying, although I would suggest the tone is aggressive, which dilutes the message. Agreed, same with SWTOR. Buff, buff, nerf, nerf, buff, nerf, ad infiitum. Game balance is extremely tricky and you will eventually find yourself doing nothing but game balance. We have so many combinations with ATs, primary/secondary power sets, and epic/pool powers that there are an enormous number of combinations. On the TW front, who cares if it over performs? The set plays horribly from my perspective, so I assume people are playing it for the extra damage despite the quirky mechanics and if it is nerfed, you will see fewer players playing it. If everyone was playing a TW/Bio character my opinion might change a bit, but they don't. I see very few TWs when playing. I agree that the focus should be on "new powers or proliferating npcs powers, making new powers for incarnate and tf bosses to make them more challenging in hard mode trials. You could be giving us more difficulty options and those mentioned hard mode trials and that would give us the challenge we need instead of breaking everything." Many people optimize their builds, then complain about how easy the game is. Once buffs/nerfs are done they will do the same. There is no stopping this element, so I would suggest more options for power sets and new difficulty modes are the way to go. I would also like to see more rationalization of rewards and the ability to propagate content from AE to Live or at least provide rewards. Example - There is some AE arc that is supposed to be extremely challenging, but I have not played it. If it is hard as everyone is saying, why not make it a new type of Dev Choice that provides merit or incarnate rewards? Shift the burden of story content to the community and focus on the easy wins like bug fixes and new power sets. Of course, this doesn't mean to not buff or nerf where warranted, but it should be rare and shouldn't be a core focus. If 90% of the population is playing TW/Bio Scrappers, ok maybe a nerf is needed. That is not the case.

Currently working on a KM/EA and I'm not really sure how to slot Energy Drain and Energize. I am planning on: Energy Drain: 3 End/Recharge Set IOs 1 Energy Manipulator - Stun Proc Energize: 3 Heal/Recharge Set IOs Absorb Proc I saw some posts stating that Energy Drain is great for defense, but I looked at putting defense IOs in Energy Drain and it didn't seem all that great. What am I missing? Build:

I would be okay with that if the recharge was lower.

I would be fine with that. It would be an interesting challenge...

When looking at Tier 9 crash powers like Elude and Overload it seems many people skip these powers because they believe the powers only add to already existing attributes (such as defense) so the use is limited and the crash at the end is a pain. It seems many people skip these powers (I generally do as well). My suggestions is to add a minor accuracy and damage buff to these powers. This might incentivize people to take them because they are not just getting endurance and defense (for example) but some extra accuracy and damage to help with hard targets. It might also lead to more build options because you may be able to skip Assault and Tactics in the leadership pool.

I like rewards! I like having a goal to chase and getting a reward that feels worthwhile. I always pursue the 4 passive accolades because the rewards are nice and the journey to get them seems just about right to me from a standpoint of time investment, risk, and reward. I was thinking last night that it would be nice to get a passive accolade for finishing the 4 shadow shard task forces. I don't think I have ever completed all 4 task forces on a character due to their length and the pains of traveling the shard, so it seems to me a reward would incentivize the TFs. The 4 TFs are: Explorers and Exploiters: Dr. Quaterfield The Legend of Ruladak: Sara Moore The Saga of Faathim: Justin Augustine The Saga of Lanaru: Faathim the Kind For rewards I was thinking about several options: A passive that reduces the recharge time of the Team Transporter and Mission Transporter prestige powers by 50% A passive that increases movement speed by 7.5% A passive that increases defense by 1.5% A passive that increases resistance by 1.5% In addition to the accolade passive there there should be a title and badge for completing all TFs. Any thoughts?

All true... I thought the speed buff issue was a bug and would eventually get fixed.

You should really try as an Archery / Ninja Tools blaster. If you haven't played blasters much you will find the survivability much greater than Live. I can usually get blasters with soft-cap Ranged and S/L which make them pretty survivable. Add Clarion incarnate and you will have few issues. Mez issues are not bad while leveling as long as you take your first 2 primaries because with your first secondary power you can continue to attack while mezzed.

Has anybody tested putting Endurance or Sleep Procs in Electric Melee Attacks? I'm curious how the Chance of Heal Self and the Chance for + Endurance will work in some of the attacks to help manage endurance and health.

Why?

WHUT!? I may have to check out PVP...

I don't know that I could limit myself to one thing, but I will limit myself to 2: Mutli-Power Set Builds I would love to take a character and use the additional builds to level additional power sets. Maybe force the Primary to stay the same and allow multiple secondaries. I start off as a DP/MC blaster, but I want a DP/Devices as well I can level one build to X level and then switch to an additional build where I can select a different secondary I choose Devices and then have to start again from level 1 I can switch builds as needed, so I might be level 50 on my DP/MC and level 20 on my DP/Devices I would also add additional builds, so I could have a DP/MC, DP/Devices, DP/Ninja, DP/EM, etc. Extra slots I would love to earn extra slots and expand total slots for powers

I rarely exemplar. I play the character to 50 through a combination of solo story missions and teaming (DFB, DIB, task forces). Once I hit 50 I work on any of the 4 passive accolades that I haven't yet achieved and work on incarnates. I'll play that character until all incarnates are T4 and maybe a bit beyond, but then I start a new alt or take one that is mid-level and go through the 50 journey again. I'll occasionally pull out a shelved 50 to move around for day job badges, an iTrial, or for Hami raids, but for the most part they get rarely played.

On Stalkers I tend to use Ninja Run + Sprint (with Stealth IO) as my ground travel power and I will either take Fly or a Jet Pack for vertical movement. I usually get SS on most characters, but that is more for the extra stealth than just the speed. With Stalkers I don't need the extra stealth, so usually go with Fly. A lot of my builds will have 7.5% speed sets to improve speed and I usually will only take Combat Jumping if I need the defense. Otherwise I will just keep Ninja Run on. It's expensive in terms of endurance to run NR in combat, but I can always toggle it off if I have endurance challenges.

I thought it was a global proc and doesn't need to hit for the BU recharge to happen, so you could slot it anywhere. I usually slot the AM set in the T1 power just because it is isn't a damage proc.

The Preventive Medicine Absorb proc is global, so it shouldn't matter if it is in a passive or a click, right?