Mezmera

Energy. Stupid good ST dps, you get 3 big extreme attacks. It's aoe is subpar but you can pull some aoe out of procs and such in Mind's aoe powers. I also go with Soul Mastery which is fantastic aoe, it compliments Energy real well. My first toon back was Mind/Dark. My old Mind/Nrg became my main after how well they revamped Energy Assault. Dark is decent because the heal offers strong survivability but its damage is mediocre. Electric is bleh. Has been since they nerfed Havoc Punch way back on live. Counting live I've played all 3 assaults with Mind. My main was the Mind/Nrg but I knew it was subpar and that my Mind/Dark on live was better. Now that's not the case, my Energy assault is so much more fun to play than the others.

So long as its obvious enough that we're not caught off guard with our first inclination being stuck in some hive under some nuclear reactor with a bureaucratic general taking our bullets away from us then all will be fine. I mean I can dish out some mighty harsh language if I need to but if these are truly going to be harder I'll want to prepare myself accordingly. All is well until things start coming outta the walls.

Been there done that. We need fresh creative content that the devs have access to create.

Or maybe we can get some actual hard content for these level shifts that Going Rogue was supposed to be introducing... I'd like to see what they finally have cooking up before we go blaming peoples grandmas for the troubles in the game.

This is why I don't use mids. There's lots of things that changed from live that I hadn't experienced and wouldn't know how I wanted to tailor my characters to fit my playstyle. Upon my return I just built my first characters as I had remembered last on live with the caveat that I knew proc's were a bit different so I tried to take advantage of those new rules where it best fit. I was familiar with incarnates but there was some new powers like the Origin pools and other changes to pool powers that I hadn't experienced which affected my characters more than I had known when first back. Heck I'm even still adapting, I recently changed out a 5th piece of Manticore which netted me a 7.5 recharge bonus for a Force Feedback proc which would net me on average a 30 recharge bonus so long as I am actively fighting. If ever someone asks for a build on something I have lots of expertise on I will give away some of my ancient secrets but try to leave them room to adapt a build to how they themselves like to play.

Blasters are effective so long as scoundrels shoot first.

If you have maybe 100 mil you can scrounge from other toons it's great to build for perma dom for the early levels. If I ever make a new dom I get it PL'd to 30 then go kit it out for perma then play it from there. I'll typically have it so my doms can perma to 25 should they ever exemp. Target some pools with lots of defense powers and slot in some Lotg's.

I did say the pvp proc made Dark Consumption almost as good as a straight sleet. I'll give it a nod strictly for the more frequent use, the proc's debuff lasts for 10s and sleet's is 15s so not much difference plus just about everything is dead within that 10s anyways unless it's an AV which something like Weaken Resolve with Achilles combined with the pvp -res proc will show considerably better resistance debuff than your sleet. Sleet's -res is about the same as the proc and it scales lower the higher level the enemy. Then there's all that added damage you can get out of procs and slotted damage in Dark Consumption plus then by the way it doubles as an emergency endurance refill. Dom builds are tight so I don't depend too much on procs but I do make use of the good ones where I can. Then you have Soul Drain which is your very own personal fulcrum shift that also feeds more good damage, the damage boosted doesn't scale lower based on the level of enemy like your -resist does. Last there's Dark Obliteration which again feeds more aoe damage. The utility of Soul Mastery is far superior to anything you can get out of the pool chasing Sleet. If you're too scared to party in close with the baddies you've just locked down then I guess Sleet is better for your social distancing playstyle. 😛

Don't lead the new person astray with your wonky religion. The dom epic pools are all quite good in their own right. With sleet you can't slot anything beyond what you can get out of its base -res stats and there's not really much else attractive in that pool. Now you can go with Soul Mastery and take Dark Consumption and slot that pvp -res proc into it which is sure fire thanks to the recharge. So you're getting almost the same effect as you would sleet but you're also getting pbaoe damage out of that power plus any other procs you may slot into it and then it also refills your endurance. Then you can also get Soul Drain from that pool which is one of the best powers doms have access to and a great aoe power in Dark Obliteration and arguably the best shield in those pools. Matthew 12:34 😜 Soul Mastery is where it's at.

He was the toughest one on that back in the day. The thunder strikes he called down were rough. You had to take Numina down first because you couldn't have Statesman constantly getting buffed but he was surely the 2nd must kill target after her. They made that SF easier by default taking him out of it. I'm glad to see him coming back, no offense to Yin.

The attractive thing about HC is the larger player base which means a larger pool of resources HC can pull together. I'm more looking forward to considerable content being added. We get Gadgetry then we run the same mundane stuff? You'll throw the Bolero a few times at Recluse then what? We don't need to copy other servers word for word. Sure it'd be nice to get the remaining Origin pool powers but they'll likely find their way into HC in some shape or form. Some ability to flexibly add powers and tinker with them on the fly would be novel but there's broader things that can be accomplished on HC which I'm hoping to see soontm.

They probably mean that the Origin pools that we do have are already hardly selected by most people that don't realize how good they are. The Sorcery pool was a good pool for some AT's because how OP Rune of Protection was and yet when they were revamping that pool last update the devs talked about the statistics about how many leveled out 50's selected the Sorcery pool it was selected at a rate of less than 5% and it was better before. Which I'm sure that 5% selected rate would likely apply to Force of Will and Experimentation as well. Showing just how niche these pools are in the minds of most players even though they are arguably some of the best pools. So the HC devs may be thinking why introduce more niche pool sets when they can repurpose the powers into other things they may be looking to revamp.

Ascendancy is a very good set. Like @MoonSheep I slot that whole set into my most used lead in ST control like Dominate. The damage boost it gets you is quite nice and the bonuses are great too. The other set does need some work. I wouldn't have a problem if they reconfigured that set into an assault set that could be slotted into damage powers.

It's not another servers "idea" though. These origin pools were all dreamt up by Paragon Studios. There were to be origin pools for each origin which means a few more were accounted for and was in the coding passed along in sekret. Building onto that coding with their own ideas sure no need to be a lemming to another server in that regard. But there's no reason not to have the other missing origin pools. I think they're just going to hold off on introducing those other ones so they have some original powers they can pull from when they choose. They can introduce some new power sets with some of those powers and call it fresh.

Carrot on stick my friend.

Another thing to consider is how procs interact in powers with long recharges. Your aoe hold and confuse are good places to pull sneaky good aoe damage on top of your regular attacks. Total Domination I typically set 5 of the purple hold set w/the proc plus I add in the pvp dmg proc. They each will usually fire on more than half of the targets affected by that hold for 80-100 additional damage each.

That's what the 2nd builds are for. You show up to the party on your damage build and make them clamor for your tank build. 😜

Pretty sure your teammates still benefit from defense values you slot for in this. If you're only going to short slot it Lotg is a fine slotting. But I have a few slots to spare here and there and to be considerate to teammates I try to buff their defense a bit more plus getting those nice bonuses from Reactive along with that scaling damage resist.

I don't use mids. I'm pretty proficient in math and like to tinker. I can pass along some hieroglyphs though for the Shield powers. Battle Agility - 6 Shield Walls Deflection - 2 Aegis w/psi resist, 1 Impervium psi resist, 3 Lotg True Grit - 2 Impervium armor w/psi res, Steadfast unique, 3 Preventative med w/absorb Active Defenses - 50+5 Recharge Against All Odds - 50+5 End Redux Phalanx Fighting - 1 Lotg +recharge Grant Cover - 3 Reactive Defenses w/scaling res Shield Charge - 6 Armageddon One with the Shield - 6 Unbreakable Guard I target hp and psi resist bonuses along with any other resist bonus. This is my full on tank Recluse build though. I have a 2nd dmg proc'd forsake others build.

Tankers are nigh invincible, all of them. My only tanker is a Shield tanker, she's a blast to play. The offensive attack in the defensive primary is a great addition to your arsenal at no cost to your survivability. You can get 3200+ hp, capped positional defenses, a debuffing taunt shield that lowers enemies damage around you while powering yours, a shield that offers teammates a large amount of defense, and great resists and capped resists in spurts if you take and use the t9. Only thing Shield really lacks is a heal but you will hardly ever notice the need. Supremely well rounded power set.

I might be a culprit here. At times I will just go and clean out my character's pool when I see my tabs start turning red. I'll list the good stuff for the bottom price showing last and I will list anything less than a million for 5 inf. If I'm undercutting the vultures all the better! It's my way of giving back if not directly. If it's a marketer that gets my stuff odds are it's @Yomo Kimyata which I've just saved myself some time giving people money directly since he will do it for me.

It's like hosting a poker game where anyone can gamble and quit at their leisure but the dealer takes 10% of every pot. Nothing is being generated, values are just transferring. Ultimately the 10% of monies is being removed from the table to not be seen again, unless you start looking around at all of Jimmy's new toys. Jimmy is 100%. The house always wins. Always....

Niet. As I did not answer in the specific context asked to explain my reasoning I'll just leave it at this. There's many viable methods to earning things in this game available to all, to each their own.

Welcome! Like others are saying if it's task forces you seek the most optimal choice would be to start out as a Hero. Blue being the oldest is the most fleshed out, Red has better writing and more character but a little more lacking in the TF department, although once you get to mid-20s and 30's I find the Villain TF's to be better quality and in more quantity by then. Going Rogue was the last expansion which was yet another tutorial zone but they really honed their writing and crafting of content with that expansion but they didn't get a chance to fully develop it like Heroes and Villains. I do recommend playing TF's a lot since they are a great way to get merits which help you get special enhancements for your character.

They really amped up those tanker aoe's. My StJ tank has always had that spinning roundhouse aoe kick that was meh that I took to slot a purple set. Now it feels like I'm in a Van Damme triple take action shot roundhousing everything in sight.