WumpusRat

You don't need anything other than just the Stealth power itself. You can walk right up to mobs and they won't see you, no proc or anything else required. Generally when I take it on a character I have either the LotG global or that + def/end just to make the toggle a bit cheaper to run. On a setup that needs every last bit of defense to reach various caps (both normal and incarnate) that 2.5% or so defense can push you over the edge into the soft-cap range. But it's not always necessary. Stealth is incredibly handy to have, though, and I tend to take it on any character that I can justify their concept as having it.

I don't have many punny character or pet names. The only ones I can really think of would be: My little goblin mage's earth elemental, that she's named Muffin. My bard's reverberant pet named Tempo.

Thematically, a lot of it depends on the character, at least to me. For instance, my shield/axe tanker is a D&D Fighter, so most of her defense would be blocking things with her shield, parrying, stuff bouncing off her armor (since she wears full plate), etc. For my invuln/ss tanker, she's basically just "nigh-invulnerable(tm)". Stuff bounces off of her without doing any damage. The staff/sr scrapper is a Monk, so her not getting hit is literally just her shifting out of the way of an attack, or using Evasion to "hide behind the air" and avoid aoe damage. 🙂 One of my dark armor characters is a girl who is followed around by countless spirits. They just like her and want to protect her. So her damage mitigation and defense is the spirits absorbing the brunt of the damage for her sake. Another dark armor character is a D&D Warlock, so her resilience is simply healing the damage after it's done, so quickly that it heals as soon as it's inflicted, though it's still painful (her patron doesn't mind her suffering PAIN, just not lasting damage). Could go on, but generally the concept of the character dictates to me how their defenses "work" from a story perspective.

My elec/elec defender begs to differ. Short Circuit slotted with Power Transfer followed up by Ball Lightning pretty much flatlines every enemy blue bar in the vicinity. And between the minor end drains on all the other attacks, they don't come back unless they manage to run away for 20-30 seconds. Once I added the preemptive radial interface to boost her end drain even further, it just got seriously unfair for the mobs she goes up against. She's even drained some AVs down to flatline within 10-15 seconds. It depends on your expectation, honestly. On a large team that's steamrolling everything, yeah, end drain is pretty useless. Stuff dies before it can really make a difference, except on the occasional AV or GM. Though draining GMs down to zero end IS pretty fun. But then again, the secondary effects for a LOT of blast sets can be seen as kind of minimally useful on a team that's crushing everything. -Def from radiation or seismic? Eh, everyone's got 95% to hit anyway. -rech from psionic or ice? Stuff dies before their powers cycle anyway. Dot from fire? Yeah, the extra damage is nice, assuming the mobs survive long enough for the dot ticks. Etc. Where end drain really shines is solo, duo, or in a small group. Then draining enemies' end becomes really impactful, at least in my experience. I haven't been disappointed with any of my electric characters at 50. I have an elec/elec defender, an elec/bio sentinel, and an elec/elec blaster. All of them do really well. The "shocked" effect is a nice chunk of bonus damage that hits pretty much everything you shoot at, and you get end back in the process. The thing is, you can slot your powers to increase the end drain. I know not many people want to, because "moar damage is bettah!", but some sets (like Power Transfer and Synapse's Shock) have plenty of +damage set pieces as well as +end modification. Certain powers are obviously more effective at draining than others (Short Circuit and Thunderous Blast are monsters when it comes to draining endurance). Course, if you go with the "2 hamis and the rest procs" slotting setup, then yeah, the end drain isn't going to be as significant. But it's definitely possible to turn an electric character (especially a defender or corruptor) into an endurance-shredding monster that makes Sappers green with envy. I think "stacking charges of end drain and then it finally drains the mob" would be less effective than it is right now. As it stands now, you can fire off one power and drain a chunk of end from mobs, rather than the game having to keep track of all your stacks on every mob. Not only that, but electric blast sets already have a stacking effect on yourself with static, leading to the "shocked" bonus damage/end restoration effect. I guess it depends on what you want out of end drain. Do you want it to be majorly impactful on a big team? Well, then you might have to actually look at all the other secondary effects and go over them, as well, as most of them are so-so at best on a team that's steamrolling stuff. If it's meant to be "effective for four-star stuff", then that's such a niche application that it doesn't feel necessary to adjust multiple powersets' effects just for that one situation. Solo, duo, or a small team, end drain can be hugely impactful. I'd worry about making it TOO effective, if you're trying to scale it up so that it's really impactful for a full team as well.

Or applying for a job. "Okay, your appointment is at 3:30, come up to HR and we'll do your interview." "Sure, how do I get to HR?" "Hoo-boy. Okay, so, on the first floor, you want to take a left, circle around to a large room that has four hallways out of it. Take the hallway on the right, then take a right when it hits a T-junction. There'll be an elevator at the end of the hall." "Okay, that's fine, then where?" "So now you'll be on the second floor. Head down the hallway until it hits another T-junction, and take a left. Follow that one until it hits another T, and take a right. Then up a flight of stairs, past the break room, down a flight of stairs, and around a corner. There'll be another elevator. Take that to the third floor." "Wait, why not just take the first elevator straight to the third floor...?" "That's not how elevators work in Paragon. So anyway, now you're on the third floor. Head around the corner to the left, and into a huge open room. You might have to jump over a railing when you first come into it, unless you want to walk down the stairs and across the room, then back up a flight of stairs and over to the stairwell that's just to the right of the door you came in through. Once you get through that doorway, head down the hall, down another flight of stairs, and take a right. HR is the last door on the right." "...this sounds really insane." "Yeah, wait 'til you have to talk to Fiscal. They're on the 6th floor..." "Eek."

There are a few things here and there that still portray the game as being in the 2000's instead of the 2020's. Mr. G's rogue arc, for instance, mentions that "you're trending on some popular blogs" when you're doing your big power play. Not "social media", it specially says blogs. 🙂

I have an elec/elec defender that I play as a sapper, as I've got both some end drain bonuses in several of her attacks (especially short circuit) as well as the incarnate ability that adds end drain to all her attacks. The difference when I play her vs groups of mobs vs other characters is pretty substantial. I can dive into a giant spawn of mobs even on +4/8 as a solo defender, rip them all down to zero endurance, and just stand there picking them off as they stare helplessly at me, occasionally throwing a weak attack. So yeah, end drain isn't as instantly obvious as slapping a hold or a stun or a knockdown on an enemy, but once you get them down to zero, they're basically a paper tiger that you can kill at your leisure.

I haven't made any characters with "multiple forms" yet or anything. Though I do have one that I COULD do something like that for. She's a bot/ff mastermind who pilots her bots remotely (she's a bit of a coward, and doesn't want to get punched in the face by some super-strong person intent on killing her, so she just controls all the bots from her little command center elsewhere), so the "main body" is just another robot, that I tried to make look as close to the tier-1/2 bots as I could. Same arms, legs, etc. It's just there to provide bubbles and buffs to the other bots, that deal all the damage. In theory I could have her create a singular bot (that would probably be much larger) that has a wider array of functions, and so could make it into a blaster, sentinel, or something else. Or a melee-version of the robot for a brute, tanker, or something else.

Redside definitely makes you feel (at least as far as what you're fighting within the missions) like you're getting to the point of making a real name for yourself among the powerful. You're going toe to toe with the Vindicators, the Freedom Phalanx, punching Big Named Heroes(tm) in the face regularly, etc, once you get into the 25+ range. Once you hit Nerva you'll get missions to go after individual named heroes like Aurora Borealis, Luminary, etc. On the hero side, you're generally just facing off against "Family boss mob with a name", "Carnie boss with a name", "Council Archon-of-the-week", etc, unless it's in a TF. It's only at 40+ that you really start fighting Big Names(tm) solo. Course, the downside is on redside a LOT of the contacts treat you like you're mud on the bottom of their shoe, rather than someone who could snap them in half. I actively try to avoid working with Hardcase because of that. And any time there's a mission where you get to punch him in the face, I'm all in. But then there's Dean. Everyone's favorite contact. Because D-Mac is awesome.

I was fiddling around with a "max sniper range" build the other day. On a psi/nrg blaster I could get a psionic snipe to reach out to around 400+ feet away. Further than max render distance. Though I'd often lose targeting beyond around 360ft or so. And stuff would still aggro me even from that range.

And of course neither of them dare say a word about old grandpa Newspaper, the one who points people towards them. They know what side their bread is buttered on, after all.

My personal favorite is introducing people who avoid Carnie missions (since few groups seem to actively pick missions with them) to just how fragile Carnies are to lethal damage.

I have a bunch of SGs that are just me (or just me and one or two other people), and a couple characters in larger groups. Generally when I start making characters, I'll end up with a "theme" that a lot of times kind of overlaps with other characters, so I'll lump them all into one SG. For instance, my aliens that are hunting Rikti are all members of a SG that is "Members of the Sanguine Dancer Crew". They have their own base (the ship) and such, and has around 15 characters in it. Another would be all my D&D/Pathfinder characters, who are part of "Greyhawk Adventurers", and likewise have their own base and such, and has around 30 characters. Plus a few more, but you get the idea. If they could turn the Vault into a mass shared storage facility for all your characters and divorce storage from SGs, that would be pretty cool. Would certainly make things more flexible. Though I'd probably still have several SGs of my own just for sorting all my characters into.

LotG isn't a proc, it's a permanent buff. Sudden Accel isn't a proc, it's a behavior change from knockback to knockdown instead. Not only that, but I actually mentioned KD procs in my post, which you snipped out in favor of cherry-picking that one half-sentence. And considering this thread is almost entirely about damage procs (which I was pointing out in my post), this seems like needless semantics on your part.

That sounds like it would be an interesting group for an AE arc. "The monsters that hunt the monsters." Basically some very, very black-ops group that even Malta is terrified of.

This is correct. If you have any patrol exp the debt comes out of that first. I THINK it was that way back on live, too. Though patrol exp built up more slowly. With the exploration badges granting patrol exp now, it's incredibly safe to faceplant. Just grab an exploration badge or two, and you're set.

"Don't heal me, my Defiance is at max right now!" Headbanging Blasters riding the redline of 10 hp.

I think part of the "problem" with procs is that when they first came out, there weren't all that many damage procs. There were a bunch of different types. Immob procs, stun procs, damage procs, etc. But since almost nobody bothers to actually USE the non-damage procs (other than the occasional use of Lockdown +2 mag or some knockdown procs), the procs that have been added have mostly been damage procs. And with more and more options to stack bonus %dmg onto powers, and the oddball way that the "proc per minute" thing functions (I put a proc into my enforcers on one of my thug MMs to test it, and the freaking thing went off 18 times in one minute), people found out they could just stack scads of global recharge and go wild with procmonkey builds. Seeing people argue that "the ideal" slotting for an attack power is like 2 hami's and 4 procs is kind of ridiculous, imo. I have a few characters have use procs. Mostly my trollers, to turn one power into a potential "thump" rather than grinding stuff down. But I can do it without procs, too. Just takes a few seconds longer. I think if they were going to "balance" procs they should just have them set for like "can only go off once every X" or something. That way procs are a nice bonus, but you don't RELY on them to do damage.

On the other hand, I absolutely LOATHE having to do that in other MMOs. The moment CoH created the exit mission button, every time I'd play another MMO that didn't have it I'd finish a dungeon and sit there at the end thinking "Man, now I have to slog all the way back to the exit to leave...plus there are going to be respawns in the way...ugh..." The instant-exit just feels more cinematic. After all, who wants to sit through ten minutes of watching the adventurers backtrack their way through the dungeon they've already cleared? "Hey, there's that pit we almost didn't see the hidden cover to." "Yeah, that would have been nasty." "Good thing we saw it." "So, anyone want to get a beer when we get back to town?" "Sure, sounds good." "...are we there yet?"

That actually reminds me, back near the end of live my bf at the time and I created a pair of characters named Bare Bear and Bear Bare, who had boots, gloves, bear ears, and a domino mask, with the chain wrapped waistband and shoulders, with everything else being "bare". Dark skin with the eden and bikini bits as close as possible to the skin color. It was silly fun. 🙂

I've barely done anything with the mapserver thing. I used it to finish off the incarnate unlocks on a couple of characters, got one from 49.5 to vet-1 with it, and out of curiosity hopped into it with a level-1 to see how far a single event would take me. Ended up getting to 16th with her. Beyond that, I've just killed a few of the mapserver monsters when they've popped on me when I'm wandering between missions or using the AH, but nothing much beyond that. Just "being 50" doesn't really matter to me if the character doesn't have a personality and a concept. I enjoy the leveling process and seeing how a character evolves, and how their personality evolves as I play them. Some I've started out with a particular idea and powersets, and after 30-40 levels thought "This isn't really working, I'll shelve this version and start a new one that better fits the concept and personality".

Oh, you sent a message? I never got it, sorry! Sometimes I go afk for a while while dealing with rl stuff. And if it's in in-game mail, mine's always packed full of recipes that I send back and forth between characters, so I never know if I've gotten something new. 🙂 I'm at work right now, so I won't be home 'til midnight pst. But if it's earlier in the day tomorrow (before 3:30pm which is around when I need to get ready to leave for work) then I could show up. Also, "she" btw not "he". 🙂

The thing is, if the team is moving so rapidly that they're insta-wiping spawns and sprinting to the next one, faraday cage isn't really needed. But when you hit things like AVs, or big pitched fights with lots of tough mobs (like the wall of cyclops and minotaurs in the third ITF mission, or the robot control box, etc) then having faraday cage can be quite nice. And of course everyone loves having it when you're fighting an AV or GM. I've seen tons of people praise having faraday cage present when fighting Romulus at the end of the ITF, and when someone else uses it I love having it there as well. The base recharge on FC is only 10s, so even minimal recharge in the power and some global recharge will get it down to 4-5 seconds. If groups are wiping spawns of mobs and getting to the next one in less than 4 seconds, then you're likely running on such a low difficulty that even the squishiest blaster isn't in any real danger. 🙂

It's been tried before, but the problem is that you're down three minions, meaning the bodyguard split becomes 40% for you and 20% for each minion, instead of 25% for you and 12.5% for each minion, meaning you and your minions take a good chunk more damage per hit. Not to mention that unless you're fighting purely purple-con mobs, the tier-1 minions DO churn out a pretty good chunk of damage. Also, mastermind attacks have such low scaling that your personal attacks won't really make up for having those three extra minions. Bear in mind that the number of targets on the field also contributes to your own survivability, as well as the survivability of your other minions. If it's just you, the two tier-2's and the one tier-3, there are only four targets for enemies to pick from. Which means more damage dumped onto the other minions, meaning they'll end up dying faster. If a tier-1 dies, you can toss another one out without a big loss to your damage output. If a tier-2 dies, it's a bigger loss. If your tier-3 dies, it's a substantial loss. Even more so if you've only got three minions on the field to start with. You'd have to play much more carefully, and at that point why not just take the difficulty down a notch and use all six minions? Additionally, when you start doing incarnate content, all your pets are level-shifted up to be equal to you, so skipping the tier-1's would greatly reduce both your survivability as well as your damage output. When you get all three of the incarnate level shifts going, all your pets are level 53.

According to probability chance, 31 attempts at a 10% chance would be about a 96%. So a 4% of it not happening. Rare, but possible. 28 attempts would be about a 94% chance, so 6% of it not happening. 10 attempts would be a 65% chance, so 35% of it not happening. And 4 would be a 34% chance, or 66% of it not happening. So while it's pretty slim odds of all of those (particularly the 31 and 28) not hitting, it's not unheard of. Not one in a million by any stretch. About one in twenty. Since I figure each character would have to calculate the odds individually, rather than all total.