WumpusRat

Just as an amusement for myself, one of the things I've started to do lately is when any of my characters are defeated (and don't get up via wakie, rez, or anything else) is give them a little random roll of the dice to see if they were "injured" by being knocked around so much. If they are, they might end up with scars or other little "reminders" that they're playing a dangerous game. Especially if they're not the sort to have access to any sort of "miraculous healing". Which can be kind of fun in a way, if people notice. "Hey, how come you're wearing an eye patch? You pretending to be a pirate?" "Uh. No. I got in over my head fighting a bunch of Freakshow, and one of those freak tanks with the giant claw arms actually hit me in the face with it. Destroyed one of my eyes." "...oh." "Yeah. Saving up to get surgery to fix it. In the meantime, I'm talking to a buddy of mine who builds power armor suits, to see if she can build me a freaking HELMET." One of my characters a long while back got so scared of being hurt when she was out adventuring that she stopped going out herself. She was a robotics mastermind and wore a suit of power armor that she built to run around commanding her robots. After getting badly beaten a few times, she gave up on going out with them, and just designed a large robot to run the force fields and cannons, and she runs the whole thing from her lab at home. No personal risk.

I think you're making kind of a hyperbolic take. There's a lot of middle ground between "build for tons of procs" and "do no damage". None of my characters "stand around waiting for attacks to recycle". I build a ton of recharge into my characters. I just don't use procs very much. I also tend not to use hasten unless I'm building a character that needs it for some reason (like trying to make certain powers perma, and thus need a ton of extra recharge). Pretty much all of my tanks can clear out a full +4/8 spawn in around 60 seconds. I tend to run around on +2/8 though when I'm soloing, since it's faster and again, I'm not playing a massive dps character. There was a thread someone had made talking about the various "proc bomb" builds so I went to test and recreated some of his builds to try them out. They'd clear a spawn in about 40 seconds, whereas mine was clearing the same spawn in about 60. To me, that doesn't feel too slow in comparison.

Personally, I rarely use procs, unless the set I want has a proc in it and I want the 6th slot set bonus. And of course the ATOs come with procs, so I use those. But making "proc-bomb" builds and such? Not really of any interest to me. Everyone has their own idea of "fun". If your idea of fun is to jump in and watch twenty different procs go off, that's cool. Mine is to see just how stupidly hard to kill I can make my characters, while still putting out enough damage that it doesn't feel like a slog (which again, everyone has their own opinion on what "slow" is).

Well, there are lots of possibilities that could be done. Admittedly, it would take a lot of work to build all the story arcs and such. But you could have the initial contact start a story/alignment path based on your role, as well. Like under "available missions" from the contact, instead of just the usual (defeat task) and (story arc start) pair, it might have a list like: (Heroic) Help Bob the Outcast leave the group and try to turn his life around. (Vigilante) Help Frankie take down the Troll leader Boltan. (Rogue) Show the Outcasts how to really deal with their enemies. (Villain) Wipe out the Trolls and install yourself as the new leader of the Outcasts in the area. You'd still have just the one initial contact point (easier coding), but that contact could be a source of multiple alignment story arcs. Admittedly, what I'd love to see is a lot more alignment-style missions peppered into the world outside of just tips. Full story arcs that would let you follow a cohesive story that would let you make a choice that could end up changing your alignment at the end of the arc, much like the stuff in Praetoria does.

Something I've thought would be interesting is if the hazard zones could be turned into something that allows for more "neutral" style content. For instance, The Hollows is full of Outcasts, Trolls, Circle of Thorns, Tsoo, and the more monstrous Igneous. What if those groups tried to establish more control by working with the heroes/vigilantes to take out the other groups. Have new contacts open up after defeating X number of Y enemy group. "You have defeated 50 Outcasts in The Hollows, and now Volstagg of the Trolls wants to contact you." Could be several short to medium story arcs per faction, about how they're trying to push out the other groups and make a place for themselves. Perhaps even have them function like "tip" missions in that working with villain groups to help them achieve their goals could be classed as "vigilante", "rogue" or even "villain" alignment missions, with the final one in the arc being a morality mission that could even offer up 4 different possibilities. Taking the heroic path, vigilante path, rogue path, or villain path.

You can actually predict what sort of drops you'll get, when it comes to enhancements and salvage. Enemies drop stuff based on what sort of group they are. To a degree, at least. There's still a little bit of randomness involved, as well as some overlap. But for the most part, if you want (say) magical enhancements, fight groups that are oriented around magic. Circle of Thorns, Tsoo, Cimerorans, the various Croatoa factions, etc. For tech, you can fight people like Freakshow, Council, Goldbrickers, Malta, etc. For natural, it would be Warriors, Family, Arachnos, Longbow, Luddites, PPD, and the like. For science, Crey, Devouring Earth, Clockwork, The Lost, etc. And for mutation, Infected, Coralax, Snakes, The Lost (overlap a bit with science), Outcasts, etc. So if your blaster is a tech-based origin, hunt a lot of Council and Freakshow, and you should get mostly tech enhancement drops. You'll also get tech salvage. Recipe drops are still random though.

"Aye, lad, that's a tale. Me crew and I were stalking a merchant vessel out near the Pollax Cluster, a fine and fat ship she was, loaded with goods on their way to Cygnus Seven! When they saw us coming, they tried to flee, the scurvy rats, and led us on quite a merry chase. We were about to overtake them and heel to when the captain, desperate to avoid us plundering 'is ship, overloaded the engines' matter reactors, and prepared to take us all to the dark nothingness. Aye, but here's the rub of it. There were a moment, between one breath and the next, when I knew it would be my last, an' I was prayin' to anythin' that would listen to get me out, that I saw it. The black dog. Just there, at the corner of my eye. Watching me." The space pirate's good eye grew wide, almost panicked, perspiration starting to stand out on his brow. "It's me death, lad. The black dog, y'see, he offered me a deal. To save myself from goin' down with me ship. So now 'e follows me about, just waiting. Watching. Sometimes I swear I can hear him laughin' at me, when I'm in a brawl. Knowin' that any second could be me last." The pirate's voice dropped to a near-whisper. "And that's when the black dog'll get his due..."

Personally I'd say no, simply because mechanically it makes SR characters weaker early on. I honestly don't really get the argument, I suppose. You're asking to literally only change 1st or 2nd level. Something that you'll level past in the first 5-10m after loading into Atlas or Mercy. You're not going to STAY with just the passive power, since that would be silly. So what's the point of them rearranging the set? This bit is kind of off, as well. Your only reasoning seems to be "I don't wanna have to run a toggle at 1st level". Yet you're going to pick that toggle up at 2nd or 4th anyway, so what's the point of the devs spending time on rearranging the powers? You're asking them to put in some work purely for YOU, not for the greater good of the game, and even then it's only going to be a "benefit" for 5-10m of your character's initial playtime. Just don't see the point.

That's funny, because almost none of my characters use most of a matched set. It's all various parts pulled together to try and create a cohesive whole. 🙂 Mostly because a lot of times, I might like the shoulders to something, but hate the chest/legs. Or like the chest, but hate the gloves, etc.

The biggest compliment I've gotten for a costume lately was someone sending me a tell going "I love your costume. I'm going to use it for inspiration for one of my characters." To be fair, I AM pretty proud of the suit of platemail I put together for my "D&D paladin" character.

Another thing you can do is work in a few sets that have +end as a set bonus. The more end you have, the more powerful your recovery becomes. I have a few builds that have over 130 endurance at 50th level with all their set bonuses and such. Without any incarnate finagling they tend to have around 4.0/sec recovery. That allows for a pretty heavy end-burn during combat that can keep going for a long time, especially if you've got a panacea and performance shifter proc slotted. But always slot attacks for end reduction, especially the high-end cost ones. And when you're building set bonuses, check to see what the end reduction of the set is before you fully commit it to that power. Some sets have really nice bonuses, but only have end reduction in pieces that have 3-4 modifiers (and thus end up with only around 20-30% total end reduction), so use those on lower-endurance attacks, and sets that have heavy end reduction on the powers that eat a lot of endurance. My health slotting on all my characters is panacea proc, numina's unique, miracle unique. Stamina is performance shifter proc + 2-3 more slots (4 slot stamina if it's a really end-heavy build). Because if you run out of end in combat, you're kind of hosed. So I do everything I can to make sure I never do (though I still do now and then).

There definitely are. I ran a Numina tf last night, and enemy levels were all over the place, even in the same mission. I was 38th and leading it. I had it set to +2. On the first couple missions, everything was either -1 or +2. Then the mission to go into Oranbega, suddenly the mobs were -2. 36th level mobs, when we were all 38+ running at +2. Wtf?

Do you run story arcs, TFs, SFs, trials, kill giant monsters when people call for groups for them, etc? Because all of those will give you merits. Precious, precious merits. Heck, even just running around grabbing the exploration badges nets you merits. Merits can be turned into cash VERY easily. Use your merits to buy enhancement converters or enhancement boosters. 5 merits gets you 1 booster, or 1 merit gets you 3 converters. Converters tend to sell from 50-70k each, and boosters sell for 1-1.2 mil each. I tend to use boosters because the price doesn't fluctuate as much. Generally my goal by 50th level is to have gotten 1000+ merits. Because that turns into 200 million or so. Which, if you're being frugal and using some converters to switch things around and craft some of your own stuff, is enough to put together a decent set-based build at 50th level. You won't have all the fancy bells and whistles like 5 LotG procs, full superior ATO sets, purple sets, etc, but that's something you can work towards. Though with some canny converting you can turn random recipe drops into really nice stuff, too.

To be honest, this really sounds like you're just trolling. Which, to be honest, I don't really appreciate. Arguing for the sake of arguing just bogs discussion down. You're coming across as incredibly condescending, especially with the "you're just not using your pet right, hur hur" post earlier in the thread. Because, after all, pets have a 1-second cooldown, so you can just re-summon them for every spawn, right? Or perhaps you simply take your time and spend 2-3 minutes killing each group of mobs, so that your pet is ready to re-summon for the next group. Who knows. You don't agree because ... you just don't, I guess? Fine. You don't agree. Your disagreement is registered. You can stop trolling the thread now.

Ah, okay. I'll take a look when I get home from work and give a couple a try. And 5-slotting boxing and brawl? Yeah, that qualifies as "wonky" to me. 🙂 But I guess if it works!

I'd be curious to see some of these builds. Because without any recharge bonuses from attack sets, it seems like you'd have to have really wonky builds to get 70-80% global recharge. I mean, I guess if you were using only defense-oriented defensive sets so you could easily stack 5 lotg's as well as other stuff it would be easier, but it still seems like it would require kind of a weird build. <edit> Oh, unless that 70-80% includes the ageless bonus. That would be easier, definitely. <edit2> Also, I'm not trying to go "boo, you're doing it wrong" or anything. I've never actually focused on procs before. I'm too much of a fan of set bonuses. So I'd be curious to give one of these builds a try on test compared to my own builds, to see how mine stack up against them.

Interesting. Are you running every build with hasten or something? Because unless you're stacking tons of global recharge, it would be a bit rough to maintain an attack chain with no/very little recharge in attacks. I guess I just don't get the whole "proc meta" thing.

I'm curious, though. Aren't those charts based on the fact that the characters had tons of procs in nearly every attack? Procs aren't affected by +damage, as far as I'm aware. So by going with lots of procs, wouldn't brutes be kind of nerfing their own damage, when they're running at high fury, or with lots of red insps? <edit> Come to think of it, scrappers would too, since procs can't crit (again, as far as I know). So putting lots of procs in attacks benefits ... tankers. Which might explain why they were doing so much better per those charts. Or am I simply misreading it?

Something I've noticed lately while leveling up my newest gravity troller -- the singularity is SLOW. Jebus, he falls behind so easily, even when I'm just jogging along. If I take off and fly, he'll end up miles behind me. I've heard the reverberant pet is the same way (likely uses the same code for speed/pathfinding, since they're very similar). Maybe buff up their flight speed a bit, to let them keep up with their creators more easily?

I've noticed that a lot about the singularity lately too. It's so insanely slow, and gets stuck on all sorts of things. I wonder if the pathfinding AI is just borked for them (they likely use the same one). Maybe I'll toss up a suggestion on the forum to improve the flight speed of singy and reverb. Because it's annoying how easily singy falls behind, even when I'm not moving quickly.

I'm more or less the exact opposite. I love pet classes. Always have. Probably why masterminds are my favorite AT. But I don't think a pet "defines who you are". Certainly for MMs they're the vast majority of your damage, and your defense (bodyguard mode), but you have control over them. With troller/dom pets (other than illusion, since PA is one of the key features of the set), I treat them as just bonus stuff going on. On my grav trollers, singy is basically just a floating "get the eff off me" zone that hovers around me. I don't pay much attention to it, other than to occasionally snicker as I see helpless enemies floating around, or go flying away. I don't go out of my way to bring it into combat, since enemies always end up charging me, and thus singy just starts slapping stuff around on its own. Essentially I treat the pets as a "bodyguard" of sorts, who just hangs around me and engages anything that gets close enough to be a threat. I rarely use lore pets except against big bosses/GMs/AVs, so when they come out they're already going to be engaging something. The only time I really work to position my pets is with PA, since they definitely seem to have a very short tether. But I tend to always build for perma-PA, so once the fight is over and I'm moving on to the next one, it's about time to summon another set anyway. And I always try to pick lore pets that go with my theme. If I can't find one that does? Ehh, I don't bother to use them. Am I "nerfing" myself by not getting them? Sure, probably. But to me it's "form over function". As far as the symphony pet goes, I haven't tried that set yet, as I just came back to the game a couple months ago after other stuff kept me busy for a couple years. I'm curious to try it out, as I have a "D&D Bard" concept that I think it would work for. Thinking symphony/kinetic troller. Though everything I've heard says that symphony is kind of an iffy set in general, and the pet is even moreso.

I generally keep track of: Current HP (I like knowing the number, since there's no numerical display on your hp bar) Recovery rate Endurance spend Resist (usually S/L, though sometimes energy, psi, or something else) Defense (smash/lethal, ranged, positionals, etc, depending on what sort of character I'm playing) Exp to next level Influence

I use AE tickets to stock up on rare salvage all the time. A lot of times I'll level a character up through arcs into the teens, and then use AE to grind them up to 22nd so I can slot 25th level IOs. I probably have tens of thousands of tickets lying around, and a crafting area in my supergroup base with salvage bins for everything. 15-20 of every common, 6-7 of every uncommon, and 5-6 of every rare. If I ever need to craft something, it's all right there to do.

I've seen some odd level disparities in TFs of late. Just last night I ran a Yin with some people, and in the SAME MISSION I saw -1 minions, even-level minions, and +1 minions. So no difficulty changing was going on. On a Numina today I watched enemies change con mid-fight. Looked into a room, saw a bunch of red-con minions, then when the team ran in to fight, they were suddenly orange con. Weirdest thing.

She's not my main anymore, but she was for a while. My darkside tanker Maxima (she's more of a rogue, as she occasionally forays into doing something vaguely noble out of self-interest, or just to mess with other villains). "Only a Lad" by Oingo Boingo. I have the lyrics to the song in her bio, with some slight changes to turn it into "Only a Lass" (her real name is "Jane", so instead of the song saying "Johnny" I replaced it with "Janey", and of course all the he/his/him's with she/her.