ninja surprise

Mebbe, wonder if it got the axe for a faster cast animation.

Am I imagining things, or did Flares previously have an animation where you stand like an X with both hands in the air and Flares shoot out? I can't find that in Power Customization 😞

Congrats on your first 50! Now that you've hit the Big Ding you get to tweak your hero until it's "perfect". Here's some answers for your questions: Now that I am 50, I should slot level 50 IOs rather than attuned ones, is that right? -- Depends on how you play! If you are building for set bonuses and exemp a lot for task forces, trials, and pick-up groups, you'll want Attuned. If you are building for absolute enhancement values, you'll want level 50's and maybe boosted too. The exception being: Purple and PvP IO's give their set bonuses regardless of the IO level, so you can get those at level 50 and still have the set bonuses on a Positron TF. I know most builds go Scorpion Shield but hopefully Charged Armor is in the same ballpark. I quite like Shocking Bolt. -- Go with your heart! People choose Scorpion Shield for the defense, but they build their entire build around that defense. It's totally OK to do the Shocking Bolt instead and will be more fun for you. I am not sure at all about Afterburner, its just a fill the gap choice that can take a LoTG. -- This is fine. Afterburner makes you fly faster right now. When the next patch is released Afterburner will be replaced with a toggle that gives you more maneuverability and defense and your LotG will still fit. I have really enjoyed the Hover blasting playstyle. -- Me too! I'm not really sure what resists / defenses / recharge reduction targets I should be aiming for. -- Basically, you want your big blasts/attacks to recharge quick enough that you can use them in every spawn. Hasten gives 70% recharge bonus, and it's pretty easy to get that via set bonuses without taking Hasten. I rarely take Hasten, I just slot so that my attack gets 2 IO's worth of recharge and I have 2 more IO's worth of set bonus recharge and that cuts every power's recharge time in half. Some people only take 3 attacks and need enough recharge to use them in rotation without pause. But I take almost every attack and use whatever's up because I like the variety. I even six-slot Toxic Grenade because it does as much damage as the T1 blast and I can use it while mezzed. Smoke Grenade was fantastic on live but seems to have been nerfed into oblivion. Is it even worth taking any more? -- Check the Effects tab in Mid's to see what it does. I don't know what the Live stats were but here it makes enemies so they can't see you until you attack them. So you can use it to click a glowie right next to badguys, or turn a Hot door into a Warm door, etc. Up to you. Like I said, I take all the powers because I like clicking buttons 😄 Is 6 slotting my attacks with the same enhancement type the way to go or should I diversify? -- Assuming you mean "slotting with a full set", like putting 6 Decimation in Power Bolt... again, depends on your goal. Frankenslotting is when you take individual pieces from multiple IO sets and it's a great way to maximize your enhanced value and minimize influence cost. For instance, in a power like Rain of Fire I'll put 3 different Dam/Rech in order to maximize damage and recharge since I don't care about anything else. The benefit of slotting full sets is to get a set bonus that requires 5 or 6 pieces. Example: 5 Decimation give 6.25% bonus to global recharge. If you equip 5 sets of 5 Decimation that's 31.25% global recharge bonus, as much as a bonus Recharge IO in every power. Or, Winter sets (like Winter's Bite or Frozen Blast) give a bonus resistance to slow effects when you've equipped 2 or 3 of them, which I love because I hate getting slowed, so I'll get 6 of those and put them in 2 or 3 different powers. Old enhancement practice was 1 Acc, 3 Dam, 1 End, 1 Recharge. With Frankenslotting you can get a better total enhancement values with the same # slots. Hope this helps! And like Flat Line says, you have "alternate builds" you can access by going to a trainer and choosing "switch to an alternate build" or something like that. On each build you can choose different powers and different enhancements. So you can have a pure level 50/incarnate build, and a Positron / low level build, or a max-recharge build, or high defense, etc. Plus you can buy Respec recipes, or do Respec trials, or buy Enhancement Unslotters, and rebuild as often as you want, so you're never locked in if you wind up with a build or enhancement you don't like.

Love how your bad breath knocks down anyone foolish enough to take a whiff. I'm working on the same combo, trying to get it tougher than a scrapper. I have it as a Tank already and it's great, but Tank damage isn't giving me the big grins.

The only thing that's changed in Stone Armor is in the old days you could only run 1 toggle at a time.

Nooooooooooooooo.... The obvious method is Carp Melee! As you slap a chump with a carp, the scales and guts spatter off onto other nearby critters causing minor damage but also temporary blindness, nausea, and choking. Your carp deteriorates over time, resulting in the need to summon a Fresh Fish perodically. Like a "alter density" toggle on Gravity Control that changes all the Gravity control powers so that instead of immobilizing or holding in place, the affected targets are drawn towards each other as if by a gravity well? Or towards the caster, she/he being the Center of Gravity? And the more critters you get into your gravity ball the more crushing damage they take?

Not sure if it's what you mean, but I wish the powersets had a "tweak the damage type" adjuster. Mostly to match the costume creator, but also to add flavor to the powersets. Kinda like the Switch Ammo thing in Dual Pistols. Example: You pick Claws. In the Costume Creator you switch them to one of the energy/glowie skins. Then in Power Customization you move a slider to change your damage to 50% energy, 50% lethal. Or you pick Super Strength, pick a sick bubbly aura, and then adjust your damage type to smashing/toxic. This way you could pick a powerset that looks like what you want and change the damage type to match your concept.

And also, not being able to call the detective on the police radio or cell phone. Traveling like a magnificent super hero and getting stuck on a telephone wire or bush. Or in a building, getting hung up on a chair or the protruding edge of a wall at a corner. Hitting "Mission Teleport" and being sent to the first mission in the list instead of the mission I had selected because I forgot to click "Set Mission" after talking to the contact. If a critter dies while I'm activating an attack/buff, the power fails. When I pick a target for Ion Judgement and the target runs off across the map away from any other critters and the Judgement doesn't Jump 😞

I'm fighting Carnies now and not getting detoggled while held. But I had an oddity where I had Fly and Hover active, turned off Hover, and Hover did a 60 second cooldown. Haven't been able to repeat it though.

Getting back to real Focused Feedback: On Beta, it appears that being held detoggles Hover and Evasive Maneuvers. I'm on a Beast/Kin MM on a Council map and when the Vamps hold me, those two turned off. Trying to do more testing. Otherwise I enjoy the new Hover, Flight and EM. Super Speed is amazing, although it seems random when Momentum builds up. Maybe it's because I'll do a bunch of little jumps while running through a zone to get over fences, bushes, etc. I wish Speed Phase worked for those obstacles! So I might be spending Momentum on little jumps and don't see it build up for a big jump. Speed Phase is fun and it's great not having to worry about half the obstacles in the map.

It's fun! My boy Ground Combat brings the smash and does great against most of the troublesome enemies, including the bird-women in Dark Astoria, Malta, Carnies, etc. Seismic Smash even holds the Master Illusionists if I do it right. I don't even have resistances as high as possible, just defense capped and whatever resist I got on accident.

The objection actually seems to be "Right now I can toggle on all my travel powers and under the new system one of the toggles automatically turns off". Speed of flight doesn't even come into it, only that one of the toggles deactivates. Nevermind that with 1 pick, Fly, they go as fast as what now requires 3 picks. For those who currently use Afterburner as a high-defense PFF to sneak around maps, it's a nerf to completely lose that functionality. Not sure where I fall on min/max vs theme, but I nearly always pick Mystic Flight. For me, Flight has always been the most consistently useful travel power, both for traversing zones and instance maps. I'll fly through caves, office buildings, and the outdoor maps looking for glowies, hostages, or that last hidden mob in a defeat-all. I use Translocation to get across a zone faster, and inside maps when a spawn is blocking a door I'll TP past them into the room behind them. With the new changes, I know a few toons I'll change to Fly, and may even drop Combat Jumping for the first time ever if Evasive Maneuvers provides enough immob protection. I'm likely to switch a bunch to Super Speed and Speed Phase, because momentum leap means not having to find a ramp in Steel Canyon or Skyway, a Steam Jump can get me up the web in Grandville, and Speed Phase can get me through all the spawns I want to ignore on the way to the Thorn Tree on Miss Liberty's TF, etc. (Right now I Afterburner through the CoT.) I'll still likely never take Super Jump because it randomly gives me vertigo. I don't like falling. I like the changes to the movement pools. In comics the heroes that fly can fly really fast so I never understood the justification for it being slow, and unenhanceable for speed.

Or for people who want the defense IO mule they previously used Afterburner for.

Nope, it's a bonus buff. New Fly is as fast as old Fly + old Afterburner. New Afterburner is a brief turbo-boost on top of that. So with just one power pick you're going as fast as you used to with two picks, and the bonus speed boost has you going even faster still.

Yes, another benefit being that Shield does weird stuff with Beast Run. I had to change Stances because it was so weird.

Maybe rename it to "Turbo Boost" to avoid all the confusion people are having about being sad that new Afterburner doesn't work like old Afterburner? Turbo Boost: A temporary boost to your maximum flight speed. Toggle with a 30 second duration and a 60 second cooldown

Current Afterburner works like running a map with Personal Force Field on - super high defense while moving through hostiles. Not always for retreating, I use it to fly through a map to the objective. Since the defense doesn't suppress in combat, it doesn't matter if things are attacking me. I still like the new version better. Yep, excellent comparison.

Kinda agree with you here, except that not every creature flies at the same speed and humans can go really, really fast in the air due to technology.

I'll usually take Elude and put a single EndMod in it. I'll use it on the rare occasions that a Sapper gets a lucky hit or I otherwise completely forget to watch my Endurance and run out and toggle-drop. With one click I'm soft-capped again and gaining endurance and back to Scrappin'... easier than running around like a friggin squishie trying to click blues and get the toggles back on.

I've long wished for some sort of ultra-minimal shield. Or better, a "no" shield where my costume's armor is the shield. Either like the Winter Soldier using his metal arm as a shield, Cap's two minimal punchy-shields, or like a forcefield shield using an Aura FX. Lots of concepts where I want to use the Shield powerset but not have a shield.

Yep /altinvite name to get your alt into the SG, then /promote name to give them ranks. Don't need to promote if you give every rank full access to everything though.

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Since there's no notes about it, I take it Translocation still can't be enhanced and never gets the slots that the game says are added while leveling up? I really like the changes to Flight and flight speeds. I usually take Mystic Flight so I can recover endurance in-between teleports and I'm grateful for this smidge of a distance increase. (clarification: I like to teleport, but it's nigh impossible to cross a zone without running out of End. So I'll fly a bit, teleport 'till half exhausted, then fly and recover endurance, eventually arriving.) BUT I have a bunch of characters that'll probably respec into Fly/Hover/Evasive, and I might even take Super Speed every once in a while now that it gets some vertical! Good stuff, thank you devs!

My biggest disappointment was an Ice/Titan that I grinded up to the high 40's. I've had good times with Ice Armor, with an Ice/Stone being one of my favorites on live. But this, despite being soft-capped, having endless endurance with EA, despite Titan's rumored fantastic damage, it was just a drag. My Spines/Ice Scrapper could defeat stuff quicker. So I stripped it and transferred it to my "archive" server where I keep an SG and base full of my cast-offs, just in case I want to play one of them to remind myself to not make another.

And for more variety, here's what I'm running. Now that I look at it I realize it's ridiculous having Inexhaustible 6-slotted instead of Parasitic Aura. I need a respec. Still works though! Attack chain is: Soul Drain, Gloom, Midnight Grasp, Shadow Maul, Siphon Life, DNA Siphon, and then repeat whatever's recharged. I haven't tested out the new Touch of Fear yet to see if it's worth taking. You can easily swap Hover/Fly/Afterburner for any other travel power.