Chirikiti

From my experience there is no best AT for TFs. Nothing is needed. I have yet to be asked my AT or powers when joining a TF and never encountered a 'we need this AT now' when in one. Even just the LFG or various channels. Virtually all calls are LFM. Not looking for Tank, or Dom or Corr or whatever. Everyone just plays what they have fun playing and we do the TF. About the only time any specific AT is talked about is a Cuda and maybe a Miss Liberty. Other than that you can win any TF with any group of ATs from my experience. Virtually nobody asks for specific ATs for TFs. Occasionally you'll see in LFG wanted CC or Healer (more often) or need damage dealer. But that's about it. And even then I would argue they are possibly asking for something too narrow. Need a healer? Well that crowd controller may very well make healing unnecessary, or that aoe damage dealer specialist. Could be server culture I don't know, I'm on Torchbearer, but I occasionally pop over to Excelsior, seems the same. Maybe a better question is what do people like to see on a team. I like /rads and /kins can be fun. But nobody fusses with team composition except possibly people married to an outdated idea of trinities and whatnot. Play what you want and join what you want with it.

I made it a point on live to solo all the non-tf content (story arcs, mayhems etc) on my two mains on the highest difficulty setting. This sorta meant something when there was only SOs and maybe some Hami hehe. When Going Rogue came out I took my main over to hero and did everything from the lowest to highest level. I preferred to experience new content solo AND I found at lower levels soloing was faster leveling than teaming (Not a fan of blue-side content. Much of it is from the 'if you make it take a really long time artificially, they'll have to sub longer' school of game design, including the zone design and under 50 TFs.) As for here. Given a second chance to play I wanted to play allll of it so, soloing the normal content was a must. But it was the TFs/Trials/Giant Monsters which really held my solo interest. To-date I've solo'd all the TFs/Trials and GMs except: Barracuda, Kahn, Miss Liberty, ASN and Council War Walker (it's annoying to spawn and people show up) and Lusca (I forgot this was even a thing 'til this week O_o) SOLO TFS AND GMS: ***** NOTE ***** If you log in a second account to help with the tough parts of a TF/SF (say a hover brute during the miss Lib towers or some sort of helper for Reichsman, then you are NOT soloing it, you are duo'ing it. Other wise one could log in 4 accounts on 4 machines and 'solo' stuff'. Solo means your one toon and what you can bring to the table. ***** NOTE ***** (nothing wrong with a duo, my MLTF/Kahn/Apex duo's are in my bio) *** Note *** Personally, soloing GMs I don't use Lores for them. I started my GMs solos without using them so that's my standard. Other people's mileage may vary. That being said...I also intend to use 'em for Council WW and whatever else is left ((lazy hah)) Quick notes: Shadow Shards TFs bite. I did enjoy Faathim TF though and was my first oh man this guy is sorta hard AV (after having done all the other blue side TFs) Citadel or Manti- whatever one you kill the rather tough bald guy AV in... oooh shit you mean another AV spawns? (Mother mayhem I think)...oh now I have to fight the first guy again (I was not expecting these to happen from the TF description hah) Posi 1- barely a TF Yin- Faster solo than with a team Silver Mantis- The final mission took longer than the whole rest of the TF (all those turrets) MoLRSF- Fun TF anytime. I basically fought everyone and everything instead of Mind-Dom-Cheesing them. Except the last mission, it's hilarious fun to see Yin gank all her friends. She really does a number on them hah. She wasn't too bad herself, dangerous, but in a manageable way Apex- My first lets do a fake try see if it's viable wasn't the best, I dicked around on the police steps with the final 6 WW too long trying to be too clever, and my BM fight wasn't really planned out and she one-shotted me in melee range through a fresh barrier, an ultimate, and a couple super insps. My successful second attempt went mmmmuch more smoothly and in about a 1/3 of the time, I played it much smarter with BMaiden. *Apex is my fave content in the game. Love it. So winning this was a must. Tin Mage- Not my fave in general, I see it as the price of admission to an Apex hehe. Still can't solo Apex and not solo Tin Mage. Except Tin Mage is all freakin robots (psi not the most damaging vs robots and inanimate)...and there was the 4 AV problem at the end. Tanking all 4 while fighting each one in turn? oi I don't remember my opening move buy I did fight Neuron alone (these guys are tough), and the 2 AV WW spawn. I think I died to them or bobcat not sure which. But I found some interesting mechanics. They follow you on the map no matter where you go. I load back into the map and they are right there at the spawn point zap dead hah. Okay insp up a little first. Then it was a straight tank both and take them down. Tough fight. Which leaves Bobcat. F**kin Bobcat. The 1-shotter. I had a devil of a time with Bobcat. One-shotted me a number of times...and I was getting weary. So I said alright I'm using everything at my disposal (added in a Shivan, a signature summon, and I used all my Nukes). Win! phew. THAT was the toughest one. Market Crash- My first foray was a I don't know anything about this so lets do a recon-solo see what it's all about...oh AV okies. Oh same AV fine. Oh look another freakin' giant robot. Okay well if I can solo the Kronos Titan GM with no lores etc I should be able to do this....nope. I was completely bamboozled by a giant KB, wtf?! I don't ever get KB, and then that threw me off...dead. So I ignored MC-solo until last week. Everything went smoothly...honestly it was a little bit easier than I expected considering my first disaster of a try. Solo MOLGTF, MoITF, MoLRSF Giant Monsters- Scrapyard was hard. His regen even with drain psyche is through the roof, lots of reds Kronos Titan GM- I'm still sorta amazed cuz you know /psi vs robots...not the worst, lots of reds. I highly recommend soloing TFs (and content in general) or Duo-ing/trioing them. You learn a LOT about NPC and powers behaviour, observations you'd never see in a team, and new ideas on how to approach problems. -Number-Six THE Mind/Psi Dominator (=p) Vet level 565

I think there's a lot left to be desired in the above build. A lot. Some seriously wonky numbers or good numbers in wonky places. About 12 -14 things need to be addressed by my reckoning. So I fully endorse it. Cheeseman and Slim have some good advice. Though i disagree strongly with at least one advocated power. "Ugh... There are still so many people who are... Confused about confuse."---yeah, don't bother, they should learn by doing and experience. -Number-Six

I'm not the one to do so since I am unfamiliar with both sets really. But I did play around with the idea in a Pines build soooo if it were me: In my fire build I skipped pets, I hate them. I think smoke is a waste of time in general and here the -to hit is negligible seems I also don't like immobilizes, they're not locked down just can't move so personally I'd skip that too Cones nope I'd skip that as well same with caltrops but I can see the benefit here with the slot sooooo (you can maybe see why I never finished/played a fire/ heheh =P) -Put a set piece in stamina. -Your missing the Shield Wall global + resistence, I'd steal the chance for -hit off of flashfire and repurpose it to that -The whole decimation set in trickshot maybe-damage and acc better -Envenomed blades I'd try to do something with set piece-wise gain some sorta bonus either 2-slot or increase, I dunno, maybe lose a few sec rch buutttt I see it's near the duration so... -Same with hot feet -Repurpose your +regen regenerative tissue slot, maybe, from health you won't notice it that much if you want an extra slot somewhere -I'd look at some endo or recovery...But no experience with Force Field so no idea if it's on all the time (I run 7-8 toggles and I rarely turn off super speed, but I also build with more end and recovery in mind) Notes: This is an early somewhat quickie look so I just went for the sorta obvious stuff I'm no expert on fire/ tried on live for a bit, and MA I have no experience with I have a dif play philosophy, I dislike immobs and hate pets, and care little about AOE I prefer resistence over defense My build went through 12 iterations at least before I was close to perfect (for me). Once you play this build and work up more capital and merits. Play with it in the builder. There's some set pieces that I have used but don't and re-arranged a lot of 'em. You maybe find that to be the same. If nothing else I would set piece the ones that don't have set pieces but can. Even a 2-slot set piece can increase your recovery That's all I care to comment on because of the preferences I just mentioned. There's almost for sure reasons behind certain choices that I'm ignorant of having never played this style dom. But I think my minor suggestions (set piece stamina, shield wall, moving a slot or two around) seem decently valid. Although I really do think you could do without smoke and add in something else superspeed (this is suuuuuuper useful) or tactics maybe. /waffles hand. That's the best I can do without making a radical change in the whole build philosophy hehe. Hopefully someone with more experience with these sets chimes in. And I'm sure you'll have different ideas about it after playing through a decent amount of content and seeing how this version works. Have fun -Six

I liked your pun 😃

They do avoid it, to their detriment (sometimes, many Dom sets work/synergize without melee). Some just have 'oh squishy not getting close' mentality which is fine if that's your playstyle but not close to the truth really Elite Bosses Combat Jumping Super Jump Number-Six is me, my main, my Dominator hehe (and Praetorian-Six which is an exact clone of my main in the same server. So nice gotta have it twice hehe)

-I was thinking more the uber mezzing Domination affords. I'm locking down everything everywhere, and while my defenses aren't what they could be they don't need to be and are sufficient for... well everything. - Mind is really the only one I like and consequently play (tried many others)...I think it's perfect and nothing should be messed with. (But I AM biased since, I can do anything (everything) on my mind-dom hehe) -I think f**cking with stuff is a baaad idea. Just going to ruin stuff.

"But maybe also regarding "Are you NUTS?! Melee?!?!?!"" I'm not sure of what basis "are you nuts?! melee?!!!?" comes from. Don't be afraid of melee. It's awesome. If other people are wtf then they don't know. I'm the first one in at the AVs/Ebs. I extensively use melee and am almost always in super proximity to the everything right in there with the sents and tanks and scraps and brutes. I rarely stay at range unless I really need/want a tactical overview of the situation. I only use SJ and CJ I sorta want to say more, there's some other observations buuuut that's getting to close to disclosing my build/play style. =p - Number-Six, THE Mind/Psi Dominator, Solo're of TFs and GMs, Carrier of Teams.

They don't get domination. Plus Mind's don't need pets not because mass confusion makes your foes a pet, but because they just don't need pets. -Mind/Psi Specialist

You could do better with 3 hours of DA story-arc flashbacks heh. Also could we change Apex/Tin Mage to later? My two absolutely favourite pieces of content are the WST during the International Film Festival =p (just my luck hah)

I've done most of these solo. Still a few on the list. Interesting topic. I've never put much thought into it. But expecting actually new content on a wide basis seems unrealistic Options to tweak your difficulty/mission parameters sound good and might work with the right risk/reward templates, as a number of people have suggested ideas about. Seems an easier option that gives choice to people. I'll add this observation: the merits system makes it wayyyyyy easy to trick out, early and fast. I realize it was that way on live (I disliked it then too and the cash shop crap), not advocating an impossible change, but it makes leveling and 50+ tricking out easy-mode. Which frankly I'm cool with now/really. It's fun to build toons and then see what you can do with them enhancement-wise and and play-wise. Incarnating (for me) was way easy too. Hit 50, 3-days later a t4 incarn in very power. No ITrials. (I think this may be an outlier though, my Toon does extremely well in DA/Incarnate content which and suffers little effect from the strengthened enemies. I doubt my burdgeoning Corr will fair as well as fast, we'll see) Game is what it is. And outside of the suggested difficulty-options ideas not sure there is much to be done outside of choosing to play in such a way that it is challenging for you. p.s. I have yet to see a team-wipe. Forgot it was even a thing. Except for maybe that 1 tin mage I was on where half the people were dead every mission and I had to carry the team.

No. Sorry, it's just for me. I'm the only Mind/Psi Dominator But I will give a quick critique of this build Too many powers with limited utility. Missing multiple of the best powers Endo recovery is low Resists are waaaay low It's not even perma hasten with hasten on Damage is low on every attack The number of slots and what's slotted are wonky...some are overslotted and some are underslotted in a big way, with bad enhancement choices/ For starters.

Dominator...hmmmm I just don't remember ( a couple months ago and the first I ever tried on live) as being overly difficult. Could be AT dependent though, which is something I admit I tend to overlook. Do Ice Mistral then for an intro. *The ambushes at the end are nowhere near as intense or fun heh. Yeah now that I'm thinking about it I may walk back my Mortimar statement. I don't remember for sure, but thinking about what I would do concerning the 3 AVs at the end would be to sleep 2 and fight 1 at a time.

Most SFs and Trials are soloable. I've done all but the biggies, MoLRSF and ITF and Apex are on the agenda. The shadow shard ones are 90% travel O_o and not that fun at all. I liked Faathim though, that one is pretty good. Katie Hannon was interesting, last 2 of the 10 battles got rather difficult but fun. Eden trial with the crystal monster and the giant doors have to bust through was interesting too, I started this on a whim, just to see what it was about because nobody runs it. Some you can't even consider tfs, posi 1 and 2 for example, and Yin can be done faster solo than with a group heh. A nice introductory SF to solo is Mortimar Kal on Villain side.

Alright you have a point, it was early and I was surprised because...I think EB with purple triangles aren't the difficulty being represented. I mean you fight these while leveling forget level 50. I never use Accolades, demoninc or force of nature or whatnot. Or Pets. Or Temp Powers. And I solo AVs and Giant Monsters. let alone purple-triangle EBs. And this is while leveling too. - Insp loadout like mentioned is important. -Playing your toon in a variety of situations and observing and experimenting with methods. Leveling normally goes a long way to this. Experience. -Some -regen "...but if you want a character that can take anything the game throws at them solo, a Brute is probably your best option, maybe a Mastermind with a good debuffing secondary like Dark, though going /Traps would allow you to solo AVs/GMs because -regen." - A Dom can do what both that brute and MM can do. Or maybe I'm wrong maybe it's only mine =p

I'm surprised. I've solo-run everything in game story arc/mission-wise on what's now +3 on my Dominator. You can soooo solo that content (all content) on a Dom, even with an SO build. Did it again here too. Both hero-side and villain. "A good insp loadout goes a loooong way to covering up deficiencies for a short while" - Totally, I thought this would have been sorta obvious. -Number-Six

Technician Taylor- Bravo for the Shadow Shard (Villain) 3 fast mish, 12 minutes total 13 merits Level 50 plus: DA story arc flash back #1 or #2. 1 emp+1 common AND a choice of a second emp or an Incarnate Loot Roll (c-vr). 2 empyrian merits=20 merits. Time to complete 10-12 minutes.

I don't think anyone was implying that you would flip a switch hehe I think it would be worth the time and effort. Way more people prefer it. Way more people pvp'd. And it was way more fun. I concur with everything Cenozoic said above including helping fund and test.

Drain psyche is about tanking -regen not healing one's self. I slot it for endo recovery with an eye towards rch set bonus. Mind/Psi is my specialty you can get low on endo even with Domination popping every 60-odd seconds (not the kind of low where you'll run out/detoggle but still). Running 7ish toggles with perma hasten attacks can do that hehe. But yeah it's a -regen vs target tool, not a healing tool far as I am concerned -Number-Six (Torchbearer) THE Mind/Psi Dominator

Not an impressive build -Number-Six THE Mind/Psi Dominator

I only play a Mind/Psi Dominator here....and wow, doesn't do anything particularly well?! It locks down everything, no problem, and does everything well except aoe but that's not needed*...nor pets. -Number-Six (Torchbearer) Solo'er of all SFs and Trials Carrier of Teams Locker-down and Destroyer of Everything {_____O_o_____} /mumble Doesn't do anything particularly well. Hah! *fast enough you can simulate AOE lock down/damage by playing well **I don't use TK, though Mesmerize has some interesting applications which I see little used by others. Side-note I've teamed with a couple Thorny types who seriously impressed me (a tough feat for another Dom hehe) with their AOE. So go for something like that as was suggested above P.S. Thank you for writing Mind/Psi and not Mind/Psy

Shards are by far the worst way to incarnate anything even one's first alpha. Or did you mean threads?

Doms are my thing. I've never taken a self heal on any of 'em. They don't need them. Even if you are leveling through the content like I do. I'm always surprised to see one with aid self or whatever. Definitely can perma without hasten, hasten adds a nice buffer and way faster control/attacks. So obviously I take it and perma that too. FIghting/Leaping/Speed/Leadership/Psionic Mastery (I hate pets, don't need em, and the screw up my s**t)

Interesting topic and observations. Here's some observations and anecdotes. -Lots of people stick to a few of their tricked out 50s and that mostly it. Most of the people I SF/TF with will be on a familiar toon and will occasionally alt to another tricked out 50. -Merits. Merits accumulate over time. And you can farm them. People without farmers (and with) with lots of merits are going to use em for 100 merit recipes. I have a base that's filling up because I'm at the merit cap and almost 1000 emp merits, and accumulating Villain merits. By the time I may want another 50 alt I'll have enough enhancers stored to create 2 or or 4 AND the merits will accumulate in th emean-time. -Merit farming: Pre-50 I use Tech Naylor flashback 13 Merits in 12 mins. Pretty good. Apex/Tin mage (I just love playing these 2) but you gain 80 merits and 4 emps so 120 merits bam! AND it's worth running a second time (because they're super fun heh) for another 80 merits (including the emps) ((These can take as little as 12-15 mins to complete) Tips 40 merits SSA 20/20 then 20 once per week Speed SFs/Tfs serious you can bang out 4 of these in an hour as most will well know DA Flashback(s). 2 empyrian merits (20 merits) in 11-12 minutes.(+ 2 incarn loots, by far the fastest and easiest way to t4) With some or all of these merits pile up. Why wouldn't you use em for 100-merits recipes. -Interest/Summer Time. Interest will wain over time especially leveling and going through the whole thing in tricking out. More people with free time in summer. It's not a sandbox game (not trying to start something) but the content is the content and peeps will become familiar and tire of same (1 answer to this on an individual level is alts soooo....) I still want a farmer though. I enjoy farming, put on a movie or whatever and relax. But I won't have to buy anything because everything will be crafted and ready and bought with merits mostly (what else are you going to do with em)

DA gives more threads, more incarn xp per unit time, more emp merits (1 per run automatically), and yes no astrals, than any BAF ever could. ANNNND you can run them with people just as you can a BAF but as many or few as you choose for those who will bring up the I like to group point (I do too).