Gulbasaur

I'm actually fairly solidly Achiever/Explorer. The map exploration stuff was a scavenger hunt. If you give me a ridiculous, convoluted multi-part achievement/accolade that requires an obnoxious amount of travel, I will do it. They could make a "roleplay walk from Atlas Park to [the furthest possible place from Atlas Park]" badge and I would be providing group tours. The knowledge that there were exploration badges with lore did it for me. Doing every blueside and goldside story arc (and most red) was fun, but it was 100% because I set myself that as a goal. My two biggest posts on the forums are my story levelling guides, which do sort of act as a trophy for the story arc stuff.

I love map exploration. I know that's not really content, but getting every exploration badge and exploring places that are interesting but otherwise irrelevant was fascinating. So many zones have so much atmosphere that is overlooked. Eden is *chef's kiss*. Monster Island. The southern part of the Wards. So much good stuff that's barely hinted at.

Alright there, Sniffy Fartstockings... I do agree, though. They're fine, but unless you're going on solo AV hunts on +4x8 what you gain on NW is worth less than what you lose by cutting off the 11/10 awesomeness of fortunatas. I forgot about the debuffs! Good call. I mean, what isn't?

VERY VERY BROADLY Both widow builds have a ridonkulous amount of positional defence and fairly decent (scaling) resists. The melee attacks are a mishmash of claws and spines and the range attacks are a mishmash of psi and mind. The secondary is sort of a mixture of the leadership pool and super reflexes, but better. Night Widow is a mostly melee spec that's sort of a support stalker. They have respectable single-target damage. Fortunata is a range/melee/control hybrid spec that kicks ass and then makes enemies kick each other's asses. They have respectable single-target damage but can also nuke like a blaster and mez elite bosses. People who say night widows are better than fortunatas probably sniff their own farts. Fortunatas are what the cool kids play. Both SoA builds have a hell of a lot of defence and some healing. They can be made very tanky. Bane Spider is a fairly hybrid melee/range spec that's sort of a support stalker who can blast. If you like war mace but wish you could also buff your allies, this is probably the build for you. Crab Spider has a ridiculous amount of AoE damage and can churn out lot of damage when supported by their pets. The crab pack is big and crunchy. "Crabbermind" builds cut through enemies like a buzzsaw, but need ridiculous amounts of recharge to get there. Huntsman is sort of pseudo-build that takes the Bane line but none of the Bane attacks, focusing on the gun skills. They're kind of support sentinels with a bit of melee and respectable damage. They play like the early SoAs, but stronger.

Sadly, I think this has the same issue as Stheno and Shadowstar - Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt are all very wishy-washy in terms of when they're talking about. He's definitely a candidate, though. Let's nerd it out a little. Some assumptions: Primal Earth's timeline is similar to Our Earth's timeline. All terms are used accurately, following modern conventions. E.g. "Ancient Egypt" refers to Egypt prior to it becoming a province of the Roman Empire. Primal Earth's Romulus is analogous to Our Earth's Romulus (i.e. the mythological founder of Rome) and Primal Earth's Stheno is analogous to Our Earth's Stheno (i.e. a Gorgon and sister of Medusa). All myths are true and contemporary syncretic histories are accurate. Nictus age only "counts" from their first merge on Earth as we have little to no data on pre-terrestrial nictus timelines. Some very rough dates: Ancient Roman Period - Romulus and Requiem - ~753 BCE to 476 CE Ancient Egyptian Period - Shadowstar - ~3200 BCE to ~32 CE Ancient Greek Period - Stheno - ~1200 BCE to ~500 CE As Romulus is canonically the first nictus on Earth, and with Rome itself traditionally being founded by Romulus on the 21st of April 753 BCE, and based on the fact that Romulus is a grown-ass man during the Imperious task force, we can rule Shadowstar out. Shadowstar arrived on Earth as a nictus (as opposed to a reformed warshade), so can limit her in the timeline from between 720? BCE to 32 CE. With the first mention of Stheno being before this date, we can immediately remove Shadowstar from the equation, as Stheno's mention in Heriot's Theogeny places her birth before the legendary founding of Rome by Romulus. Now, two questions remain: When did Requiem's nictus arrive on earth, and how old is he/it? When did Stheno encounter the Well of the Furies? The first is, ultimately, unknowable. Pre-terrestrial nictus information is scant, although we can make some assumptions based on what Requiem can't (apparently) do: shapeshift. I would suggest that Requiem's nictus, while powerful, is relatively young (in the grand scheme of things), and may have been born(?) on Earth itself. While not shapeshifting may be a personal or stylistic choice, when faced by eight heros trying to blast you into submission, you'd think turning into a giant teleporting space lobster might be a handy trick to pull out and Requiem's nictus doesn't seem to have the shapeshift memory thing, that I think is implied to be personal and shared/inherited. Stheno, as mentioned above, assuming she has a timeline analogous to Our Earth's Stheno, was mentioned in ~700 BCE, meaning she likely predates that by some margin. Assuming Romulus founded Rome, nictus or no, he is still placed after Stheno. Consequently, I would suggest Stheno is the oldest unless Requiem's or Shadowstar's nictus (nicti?) were just really old when they got to Earth. (I have a masters degree in history, so this kind of nonsense is my thing, baby and I'm throroughly enjoying this discussion.)

Regarding Stheno She drank from the Well of the Furies, and was "known as" a Gorgon and the sister of Medusa. It's stated also that she hid for "centuries", not millenia, but that's probably by the by. Assuming that this Stheno follows the same timeline as Greek Mythology Stheno, she predated Heriot's Theogeny, compiled in c. 700 BCE. Regarding Kheldians Confirmed here. Yep - Roman badge: "You've defeated the great usurper Romulus Augustus, first to merge with Nictus Aliens. With his defeat, you've thwarted his plans to build temporal strongholds throughout time and space." However The wiki says "Romulus Augustus met his end in the past when Sister Airlia convinced Imperious to sacrifice his own life to kill Romulus using a ritual she devised." This is confirmed in Who Will Die? Episode 5 with "Do you feel that, Statesman? It's the same power that killed Imperious and Romulus." Not Romulus Augustus, then. He's canonically dead. Prometheus was my other thought, but was refers to himself as a Titan and was therefore presumably born immortal, and didn't become immortal, per the confines of the original question. Shadowstar's warshade/former nictus counterpart is still in the runnings for oldest immortal (within a reasonable interpretation of the word, having effectively increased her lifespan by millenia) who is still around. She doesn't seem to leave City Hall since Galaxy City was destroyed, although she's not present in Positron's task force so she clearly didn't stay around for this long by getting into danger. Stheno, using our world's timelines, is also a candidate, although her Primal counterpart has a significantly different origin than our world's Stheno. Both "Ancient Egypt" and "Ancient Greece" refer to periods of time that are really, really broad and encompass thousands of years, so it's a toss-up between them, really.

Shadowstar, specifically the kheldian/nictus Shadowstar and not the human host Shadowstar, has been around since "Ancient Egypt", which spans a fairly colossal period of human history (some 3000 years can be classed as Ancient Egyptian, as it's a pretty vague label). The "natural" lifespan of a unmerged kheldian is 5-10 years, so one could argue that Shadowstar is the oldest mortal-made-immortal by moving down a line of hosts for millenia as being merged seems to effectively prolongue a kheldian's lifespan indefinitely.

I think my build has higher base resists but slightly lower overall defence. I think it slightly depends on your playstyle - personally, I don't think it's a problem that needs solving. I can solo AVs on my fortunado, so they do survive quite well enough on just high defence. You'll be relying on inspirations for heals, but that's what they're for so that doesn't bother me overly. I'd be a bit concerned about the constant endurance drain of Tough; fortunatas haemorrhage endurance, even on a well made build. I've just noticed you don't have a travel power - the P2W vendors have a couple of flight powers, if you need one, although they do cause power lockout.

The rules are a bit complicated. If it's a one-off bonus (like the 3% defence enhancements), it'll work as long as you have access to that power. The set bonus level is also relevant. It's lowest level minus three, so if it's a level 20-50 enhancement, the set bonus kicks in from level 17. The power also has to be useable. Purple IOs break the rules and the bonuses scale all the way down to level 1. Personally, I like the confuse effect in general. Total Domination is good if you like holds. The CC proc in Confuse is pretty nice, though. Totally up to you. However not picking one of them earlier will severely impact your survivability if you do exemp; they're both panic-button powers that basically turn off all incoming damage from anything below a boss for your whole team. Nemesis have fairly high mez resistance and are generally annoying. Rularuu mobs are a pain in the bum. Generally, the Shadow Shard is bad news for forts. Toxic damage is a bit of a weak point because it's not covered by the scaling resists but that's only really relevant in the sewer bit in Apex (or Tin Mage?). Confuse the sappers! Personally, I don't take it. It's a one-slot wonder, so if you want to shove it in as a late power choice, I don't think you could go wrong with it. Honestly, it looks solid. Your low level attack chain will be a bit chaotic if you do things like low level task forces, but that's not unusual. I wouldn't bother with the fighting pool - you're using up two power picks for S&L resistance. I like having a fully intact separate melee and ranged attack chain - redraw is something that you'll either hate or barely notice, but it's worth mentioning. Welcome to the dark side!

Hah, my old supergroup. Some of us used to post each other baked goods. I met up with one person in real life years ago and it was like cathcing up with an old friend. We had an active supergroup that was part of an active coalition and it was really fun. I find Everlasting can be a bit cliquey and it's hard to find a way in at times, not that I mind PUGing. Sadly, because I'm a halfwit, I can only remember two character names (Black Light and Thief-Taker, you there?) and the rest is lost to time. I also sort of miss the old Store missions, where you had to open up contacts. IOs killed that a bit as they level with you.

One can only assume so. It would seem impractical otherwise. If you carry on long enough, you'll develop Female Accomplice With Independent Origin Who Intermittently Uses Your Branding N+1.

And his trusty sidekick, Disposable Teenager N+1.

Thinking about map stuff, there are a couple of things in the early game maps that made me wonder why the devs just never did anything with them. There are some really cool map areas. The shantytown in Crey's Folly. Monkey Island. The broken city in Eden. So much of it has 10/10 atmosphere and whoever was putting those maps together clearly enjoyed what they were doing and did it very well, but it was just never used. Some are clear "street sweeping" areas, but there is so much cool map stuff with lore that is just never really touched. It's a bit less prevalent redside (although I do think some redside maps feel a bit rushed), although the Wards both have a bit of it going on too. Striga is probably the most "integrated" map, in my opinion, as the task forces and story arcs there use the map for storytelling.

I kind of agree, particularly with the cape and aura missions. They were kind of character milestones. The only things you really "earn" on a character now are the accolades. The P2W/premium rewards stuff I could take or leave - it wasn't in the early game so for me it's not a problem.

I remember the first Valentines missions where you needed both heroes and villains onside. I brought my peacebringer and dwarfed up mid-fight and got a whisper from a villain asking me "how did u do that?" because he'd never seen it before.

For me it was Croatoa and the AVs there. I remember waiting for the zone to download in issue... 4? It was literally magical.

These were mostly things that were changed on Live, but I think one or two were Score/Homecoming changes. These are mostly things you can do as a self-imposed challenge, but I kind of miss the enforced difficulty. Too much of a good thing? The slog between zones is something I have a sort of nostalgia for - I find I end up just teleporting around now. There used to be two monorail lines, leading to a moment where you'd have to brick it across Steel between missions. I oddly miss that enforced down time between missions. Quantums absolutely murdering Kheldians and those tanky void cysts. I know it was blatantly unfair, but back in i3 Kheldians were New Game Plus so the extra difficulty was a neat mechanic. Old-skool Defiance. Yes, it was a silly mechanic, but Blasters getting stronger as they took more damage was fun. Alignment lockin for Redside and Blueside starters and the ease of swapping alignment. I know it kind of hampers creativity a bit, but before Going Rogue combat had a different flow on each side. So... what are you nostalgic for? Put on those rose-tinted spectacles and reminisce with me.

Thinking about it, I'm going to suggest a kinetics/assault rifle defender as probably the worst solo choice. In kinetics: Poor self-sustain if you want to play at range- Kinetics has the second strongest AoE heal in the game, but it's enemy targetted and can miss. To be healed, you have to be both in melee range of enemies, and pass an accuracy check, which is actively made harder to use by: Repel - a power that constantly pushes enemies away from you with knockback, meaning if you are using it, you'll have to herd enemies into a corner to get a semi-reliable heal Underwhelming debuffs - 20% recharge debuff and -25% damage debuff, which are fine but scales with purple patch stuff so you will have a harder time fighting harder mobs Buffs that don't benefit you - Speed boost? Not for you. Increased density? Not for you. Yeah, you can pump up the damage, but only if you live long enough to do any. In assault rifle Long animations - middling damage, long animations. A lot of your time will be spent waiting for an attack to go off while you just absorb damage, unable to hit Transfusion. No aim - so it gives no benefit to Kinetics. Three cones - cones can work well with other cones, but kinetics requires you to play up close if you want to heal. Two unhelpful AoEs - Kinetics likes enemies to be clumped together for Fulcrum Shift and Ignite creates a stationary patch. Galaxy Brain's Blaster Primary Comparison: Standard Environment Testing puts AR as second-to-last above Sonic... on a Blaster. Sonic on a Defender is much more workable, and of the two, I'd suggest that Sonic's Amplify pushes it into a better position for acting as a good combo with Kinetics. The best AR has is one -DEF power, helping your heal (or buff/debuff powers) land. If we're looking at more anti-synergy, I might suggest Power Mastery as an epic power pool choice; it's a solid choice for most defenders, but doesn't really solve any problems a solo kinetics player has. Conserve Energy reduces endurance cost and kinetics has Transference, which is an instant endurance heal. Power Build Up is just not much use - by that point, you'll have fulcrum shift so your damage will be capped and yeah, your heal will be better, but you're still in melee range. I'd also argue that Kinetics benefits least from the Defender Inherent (which isn't great to begin with). You'll be able to pump yourself up to Blaster damage, briefly and with long gaps in between, but only by repeatedly opening yourself up to higher damage.

Oh you sweet, summer children. All of those of you planning to buff your pets... that you won't have for another 31 levels. Remember "solo anything" was the criteria. How are you gonna solo Positron 2 with that, huh? HUH?! No poop for you! Jack all's gonna happen for the first 31 levels. Mind solos very well and FF gives you mez protection. Pets aside, I will say that controllers are much too safe to be considered the worst at soloing. You can lock down anything below a boss before they even see you for a long time and Containment means they do a respectable amount of damage. The goal is to find the worst... and you all seem to suck at it.

Traps is a very, very solid set as long as you don't move around too much. If you actually play to its strenghts and kite mobs into your trapped area, it's really strong. Sadly, the average team doesn't use line-of-site aggro management and it's generally just more efficient for a tank to kind of roam around randomly and expect the AoEs to follow them. Agree. They actually solo pretty well and exemplar down immaculately due to how strong the forms are for the levels you get them. I'd actually argue that Kinetics is one of the harder sets to solo with because so little of it benefits you. You've got a heal, some damage buffs and a recharge boost without the endurance boost to back it up until much later. You've got a weak recharge debuff, a weak damage debuff, if your heal misses you get no healing. You have to stay in midrange, which means melee in all practical terms, so you have to deal with the increased damage. It's a long road to 32 before you hit Fulcrum Shift.

It's basically the same skin but without the arachnos spider legs. A lot of hair and face options have been opened up on the female model. Nothing revolutionary, I'm afraid.

Claws is sort of too familiar and I don't like repeating sets. Thank you, though. I played around on Beta and... I think I have come to the same conclusion. It feels like it lacks synergy with itself, if that make sense. You're speaking my language. I'm used to either playing on my Tanker where the aggro is mine and you will give it back or my widow that occasionally has Provoke and I have to actively maintain aggro so that's actually really useful.

Desperate times call for desperate measures... not everyone has the chance to walk up to Ms Liberty with their new hero licence. Sometimes you have to fight for something to call your own! It's a good experience, although I admit that sometimes the gloom can get to me a bit. Spending time in the Wards can help break it up a bit and towards the end you end up in sunnier climes. Do it!

I'll also vote lost cause. It's a power I really wanted to make work, but it's out of sync with procs and it's just not very good to start with. You can sort of make it work with the Contagious Confusion proc, but even that's very underwhelming.