Lockpick

I took an Energy Melee stalker to 50 last week and it was pretty good. Between AS, TF, and ET I was able to one shot even level minions one after the other. This made progress pretty quick. Once I hit 50 I decided to go back to my KM and see how it compared. Both have EA as a secondary. KM is nowhere close to EM. Not sure if I am playing it wrong or what, but I have to hit enemies multiple times to defeat them. I see everyone say the animation times are fast for KM they don't seem that way to me (except AS out of hide). Is KM as bad as I think it is after my EM experience?

I thinking using travel and exploration to reduce the recharge of a travel power is pretty thematic. I would also suggest that adding pvp gates to unlock pvp content would be thematic. For example, in order to unlock a pvp stealth power that can be purchased from the vendor you have to spend an hour in a pvp zone. Just an example, I'm not suggesting this happen. I would suggest using pvp gates to reduce the recharge of a travel power is not at all thematic. In both cases, if someone wanted the reward they would have to earn it in game. If they did not believe the reward was worth the effort they wouldn't do it. Nothing unreasonable with that position. Another example: There are 9 Hero accolade powers that can be earned. I typically go for the 4 passives and do not go after the others because the effort vs. reward is not good for me. It may be for others. There is nothing unreasonable with that position. Power Effect The Atlas Medallion Auto: Self +5 Max Endurance Crey CBX-9 Pistol Click: Ranged Moderate DoT(Cold) Foe: Immobilize -Speed -Recharge Elusive Mind Click: Self +25% Defense(Psionic), +7.5% Resistance(Psionic) Eye of the Magus Click: Self +Resistance(All but Psionics) +Defense(All but Psionics) Freedom Phalanx Reserve Auto: +10% Max HP Geas of the Kind Ones Click: Self +Recharge +Recovery +Accuracy -Defense Portable Workbench Special (Summon Portable Workbench) Portal Jockey Auto: Self +5% Max HP +5 Max Endurance Task Force Commander Auto: Self +5% Max HP Vanguard Medal Click: Self +Special(doubles Disorient, Hold, Immobilize, Fear, Confuse and Sleep effects)

I'm buying the packs to keep the items, doubt I will sell anything. I was buying 10 to 20 packs per character, but didn't think to document the drops. For my last 2 characters I bought 10 packs and 4 for 14 total. Results: I didn't do rarity or anything, just total drops. Pack Item Pack Drops Brainstorm 12 Candy Canes 9 Catalyst 1 Converter 3 Inspiration 17 IO 15 Merits 3 Respec 1 Tailor 2 Temp 1 Unslotter 3 Windfall 2 XP 1 Grand Total 70

I checked to see if the Winter IOs were on sale and they were not. Is that sale being brought back this year?

I was playing a TA/DP Defender for a bit and was thinking that I would definitely like to see the Trick Arrow powers leveraging Dual Pistols. It would be much more thematic for me than trying to use a Bow + Pistols. I would also suggest doing this with Assault Rifle as well, so 2 new sets: Assault Rifle - Trick Ammo Dual Pistols - Trick Ammo Trick Ammo are configured with a wide variety of payloads which can dramatically change the course of the battlefield. Entangling Arrow = Entangling Ammo Flash Arrow = Flash Ammo Glue Arrow = Glue Ammo Ice Arrow = Ice Ammo Poison Gas Arrow = Poison Gas Ammo Acid Arrow = Acid Ammo Disruption Arrow = Disruption Ammo Oil Slick Arrow = Oil Slick Ammo EMP Arrow = EMP Ammo That is all...

The freebie Menu to unlock locations in LRT is not working.

I've never played Psy/Mental, so trying to figure my path. Trying to build for 45% S/L/R, but not quite there. I feel like I am missing some powers I should be taking. Any thoughts on the build or how to play Psy/Mental?

My first Stalker on Live was EM and after the nerfs I stopped playing him. I created an EM/EA Stalker on HC and have already hit 50 (I was off all week, don't judge me). I didn't like the focus mechanic on Beta, but have gotten used to it on Live. I wish the graphics could be minimized. Coloring the powers black helped. I still need to work through incarnates as I only have alpha at T1; the rest are still locked. I played solo, but also did TFs and I now have 3 of the 4 passive accolades. I got killed early on a few times and wasn't sure if it was because of the -hp attack or because my defense failed. It happened a couple of times in a row and I didn't think to check the combat logs. EM/EA pairs very well together. Power Crash worked better as an AoE than I expected. I can one shot 3 baddies by doing AS, then TF, and then ET. I can move through crowds of bads pretty quickly. I was thinking it was OP, but then I thought my Savage/SR can do the same thing using more AoE. Using the BU-AS-TF-ET combo on hard targets is pretty good. All in all it was a good experience, but I don't see it as much different than other Stalkers I have played. I'll play out the passives and the the incarnates and then it will probably get shelved. Still looking for the one character that will hold my attention through 100 vet levels. Haven't found it yet.

That would have set off a shit storm if they had done that. There were already complaints about pay to win and that would sent some players off...

Not true at all. There is a very long thread about this very topic - rewards behind content gating for progression. Some of the posters (including me) believe that some rewards should have to be earned by completing content. Others disagree.

That is why my suggestions are more around the HC team adjusting various settings (Notoriety, Challenge, etc.) and expanding and refreshing AE as well as focusing on the AE community. The only way to get hard mode / incarnate content out regularly is to have the players get involved and create it. The stories that have come out from the HC team are excellent, but to get content out faster it needs to come from the community.

I was in the threads when this came out and did the testing. I expressed my opinion then and tested it again on Live and have expressed my opinion again. I agree with what you are saying to a certain extent (especially about the recharge), but not the way you are saying it. At a certain point after a message has been shared multiple times by the same person it becomes less about the message and more about the person providing the message. We all knew, or should have known, that /enterbasefrompasscode was a GM code and was considered an exploit. We all knew, or should have known, that /enterbasefrompasscode was going to be removed one day. We all knew, or should have known, that we should not get used to using /enterbasefrompasscode because it was an exploit and was definitely going away. We all knew, or should have known, that when /enterbasefrompasscode was removed that if there was a replacement that the replacement would not be as good or as convenient as the /enterbasefrompasscode GM code. We are now at that day where the exploit has been removed and the alternative solution is not as good as the GM code, which we should have expected. What is the point of continually railing about it in an aggressive manner? The decision has been made and we have to live with it. I do feel you pain though. I really do. I thought most of the power adjustments were absolutely not needed. I expressed my opinion vocally during those discussions and the adjustments were made. Unfortunately, we are somewhat powerless in the direction of this game unless we want to set up our instances and I have no desire to do that, so I have to live with the decisions the HC team makes and make the best of it. For the most part I think they have done an excellent job. I also need to remember how miserable I was when CoH shut down and how happy I am to be back in the City. It could be worse. A lot worse...

There is a bug for Faultline and the team said it will be fixed in the next update.

Whose end goal? My end goal would be for the Devs to provide more ability for the players to create hard mode content, so that the incarnate powers would be useful in newly added content. I certainly wouldn't want to nerf the powers as many here are suggesting. The HC team just did a bunch of power adjustments that made some people happy and others unhappy. New content makes everyone happy. Nerfing powers make some people unhappy. Let's go for making everyone happy...

The major backlash seems to be coming from 2 people who are very vocal. I agree with you though. The HC team should have just removed the exploit and provided no alternative. Then in January maybe they could have provided a new power as part of a new update. Instead of all the current drama there would have been some future gratitude.

I decided to check out Regen. I haven't played Sentinel since my DP/Ninjitsu due to the low damage, but I decided I wanted to give Regen a try and see how it is. I built for Range defense and used cheap sets. Any improvements?

Isn't "a single power with a reasonable activation time (long enough to be interruptible and prevent mission abuse, etc.) to teleport to a base via its passcode, that I assume starts unlocked on a toon or has a simple unlock (you didn't specifiy that), that needs no prerequisite power used before it, and has a 60s-90s cooldown" basically the /ebfp? The only difference is you are adding a few seconds to activation so it can't be interrupted and you are giving it a CD that is longer than /epfb, but much shorter than any other similar TP power like Oro portal. I just don't see that as a starter position. I would love this type of power and I would really love it if it was a reward for doing some content. I just don't see it happening...

I've been playing with it some more since it hit Live. I created a new character and have been gathering zone exploration badges generally while waiting for team content. I don't find the gathering of a badge per zone to add zones to LRT to be an issue for me. I was generally in the zone anyway, so getting a badge was relatively quick. I did go to my base and use the beacons to hit some zones to specifically get some of the badges to add zones to LRT, but again, I was waiting for a team to fill anyway. I will agree with others that I think the recharge is to long. I find myself not using the power because I'm afraid I will use it and then need to use it within the 10 minute limit and it won't be available. I know there are many other options, but this has been my experience. I really liked another suggestion in the thread that would lower the recharge of the LRT power for getting all the exploration badges in some zones. This aligns very well with another thread where we have been discussing adding additional rewards to content. If there was a way to reduce the recharge time one minute for every zone where all the exploration badges have been found and cap the recharge to somewhere between 2 and 5 minutes I think that would be a win.

Tactical Arrow was just adjusted. You may want to look at it again before selecting it.

Would love to see both of those ideas become Judgement powers. When I turn 35 I generally start an ITF and run it as team leader. Never had an issue. Sometimes I may want to give the team lead role to a 50 and I will, but it's my call to make.

Faultline is not appearing after gathering exploration badges in the zone. Added to the bug reports forum as well.

A couple more: Get a badge and a 1% passive movement speed buff for completing the missions in a grouping listed in the Oro portal. This missions could be done as you level or through flashback. There are 8 groupings, so a total of 8% movement buff could be earned: Level 1 - 15: 20 mission arcs - Reward = badge and 1% passive movement buff Level 16 - 19: 7 Mission arcs - Reward = badge and 1% passive movement buff Etc. Complete all Unai Kemen missions - Get a badge I like movement speed buffs as rewards because I don't think they are OP and there is a cap of movement speed, so if you earn 15% movement speed through these type of rewards you still are limited by the cap.

What time sinks are you referring to? We are talking about adding rewards to existing content. It's the exact same content, but with additional rewards for doing it. Example: Add an accolade badge and passive power that provide 5% movement speed for completing all 4 Shadow Shard TFs and some exploration / history badges I can only speak for myself, but I would like to see rewards added for content that does not have rewards today. We would have to be careful not to add rewards that would be over powered. I have mentioned some previously. Some others: Defeat all the named Giant Monsters and get a badge Complete all the TFs for a faction and get a badge and an unlock of some sort I really like the branching stories gate. The Laura Lockhart story arc was very well done with doing the original mission then doing it through Flashback for additional choices and a badge. Made the entire experience very rewarding. I wouldn't mind seeing a few more like this, but you wouldn't want it to become a common occurrence.

Going around getting exploration badges to populate LRT destinations. Went to Faultline and got 2 or 3 explorations badges and Faultline is not showing up in LRT.

The reality is that they cannot create "new challenging content" in any meaningful way. They have provided 4 story arcs that have been pretty good IMO, but those arcs have come out over 1.5 years and 2 of the arcs have alignment restrictions. Until the HC team unlocks the ability of the player community to provide content with rationalized rewards there will be limited content pushed to Live. The HC team could implement new rewards for existing content that is lacking said rewards pretty quickly. This would give more incentive to do content that I expect is often skipped today. I also think they could do other improvements that allow the players to customize content pretty quickly as well. I won't go into details because I have done so a number of times in different threads, so no need to repeat. It just doesn't seem to be a focus area. The focus areas seem to be more about wholesale balance changes to existing sets and disrupting the movement speed of certain sets. Odd priorities in my mind, but it is what it is.