Adeon Hawkwood

I get that, my point is that it won't save you any time. If it was just a case of trading inf for components it would be one thing, but you have to have inf + threads + uncommon components.

Assume that after converting your astral merits to threads you get 20 threads + 1 Empyrean Merit + 1 Uncommon Component per trial. This is (from what I saw) being somewhat generous with threads and assuming you get an uncommon component instead of a common on the reward table. You need 600 threads, 16 common components and 24 uncommon components to make a single T4. Assume you convert the E. Merits to threads (meaning 40 threads and an uncommon per trial). That will take you approximately 24 trials to get everything.

Now suppose you don't trade your E. Merits in but use them to buy the very rare. You need 200 threads, 16 common components and 10 uncommon components. You'll need 30 trials to get the very rare (obviously) and about the same to get the threads and components (but unlike the above scenario this does not require you to get lucky with the RNG and assumes you are getting common components through the reward table).

Here's the thing, unless the trials are considerably less stingy with threads than they seemed to be in the sneak peek it's probably going to be faster to get the items without spending inf.

Making a rare requires 340 threads or 8 Empyrean Merits. Making a very rare requires 1360 threads or 32 Empyrean Merits. Now unless you convert your Empyrean Merits to threads (which from the point of view of getting rares/very rares is a bad idea) but do convert your Astral Merits you're probably going to get a bit less that 20 threads per trial. So that means 17 trials per rare or 68 trials per very rare in order to buy them with threads.

I just tested it with a power analyzer, they do not resist it. However the problem is the accuracy values you are using are wrong (or at least the Lt ones are). According to the wiki (and backed up by my power analyzer) Lts have an accuracy bonus of 1.15x not 1.1x and bosses have 1.3x (I can post screenshots if you want).

With 1.15x accuracy:
([50.00 - 21.61] - 9.00) * 1.15 = 22.2985%

It's a bit off but bear in mind several of the values used as inputs are rounded for display purposes so the discrepancy is within reasonable limits.

It's in Zombie Man's Incarnate cost guide:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=254950

It's important to note (since many people seem to be ignoring it) that the inf costs are only if you buy the components with threads. If you use trial rewards you don't have to pay anything.

Bear in mind though, it is a more RvR focused game. As such population density matters a lot. An RvR game is more likely to merge servers than a more PvE focused game simply because lower population density has a higher adverse effect on the game.

And this is why price caps are not a good idea .

To change from Hero to Villain (or visa versa) you have to do tip missions. However Praetorians get a special mission that turns them into either a Hero or Villain (thier choice) at level 20 instead.

That is correct.

I don't believe higher rank enemies actually resist to hit debuff just by virtue of being higher rank. They do have an inherent accuracy bonus which makes to hit debuffs (and defense) less effective.

I'm pretty much the same except I use Super Jump as my travel power instead of Super Speed. My sole Controller had Jump Kick for a while because I wanted an extra attack at low levels but I ended up switching it for CJ because I found that I'm used to the combat maneuverability of CJ it's hard to play without it.

My Blaster has almost softcapped range (41%) and Combat Jumping. I don't particularly like Flight/Hover so I take CJ for combat movement and use a combination of kiting, Caltrops, Web Grenade, Electrifying Fences and knockback to keep enemies at range.

I will admit it's a somewhat esoteric build but it works well with my preferred play style.

I'm pretty sure that eating an English Breakfast is considered attempted suicide in the US.

There aren't a lot of mods out there but there are a few nice ones.

The Vidiot Map Pack marks important features (such as badge locations) on your map:
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.ph...maps-map-pack/

Neo's enhancement standardization pack changes DOs and SOs to use the same symbols as common IOs which makes buying them a lot easier:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=228044

I think there are a few others for tracking badges and such but I've never really bothered with that.

I suspect that the EU players will get access to the North American Test and Beta servers while the EU Test server will be decommissioned. Having two "Test" servers isn't really needed for the population that does testing so the only benefit is to test different code revisions simultaneously which is what the current Test and Beta servers already do.

It's not at all weird. The Incarnate system is intended to require significant time to get high in it. As such the devs are pretty much assuming that people will choose to focus on a small number of characters.

I don't make that much but with my current marketeering I'm making somewhere between 300 million and 500 million a day (at a guesstimate, I'm to lazy to keep detailed notes).

No. I enjoy marketeering for the sake of marketeering but at the same time I don't really have any solid plans to actually spend any of it. I suspect that I'll eventually get around to spending it but I'm not sure on what. With the Incarnate stuff I'm spending most of my time playing three characters who already have pretty high end builds and there doesn't seem a lot of point in IO'ing a character I'm not going to play.

The thing is it's a re-valuation. Yes it takes 20 threads instead of 4 shards for a common component but threads drop a LOT more frequently than shards.

If I do a kill most ITF I get 1 common component and on average 3-7 shards so say 2-3 common components total. The Lamda Trial gives (going by memory): a few threads from drops (say 2-4), 3 Astral Merits (equal to 12 threads) a common component (worst case) and an Empyrean Merit (equal to 20 threads). So all in all it works out to about... 2.75 common components.

Yes if you try to progress in the new slots using the old content the difficult is quintupled but if you use the new content the effort required should be about the same per slot.

Which has knockback. In any case my point was that no secondary effects made it low on the list for proliferation, not that it ruled it out entirely. Additionally, Archery was not proliferated, it was added to defenders when it was released.

I agree. Personally I have 3 characters I'm working on incarnate stuff for and I doubt I'll even get very rare in all 5 slots for all of them. I've gotten their Alpha Slot V.R. but honestly the difference between rare and very rare isn't that huge.

My initial goal when I20 comes out will be to get a Rare in each slot for each of them. However I'm not as concerned about getting the very rare. Oh, I'll work towards it but since going from rare to very rare requires about 4 times the effort required to go from nothing to rare (baring a lucky very rare component drop) and doesn't really provide that much advantage it's a long term goal that I'm not to concerned about.

Don't forget the EATs, they are all essentially Assault/Armor Powersets to some degree or another.

I'm not sure the SoA branching method would be the best option for the hard suit wearer, I'm not horribly against it (since it is a cool mechanic) but I can see some issues.

The core problem with a powerset that requires special, permanently visible costume pieces is how to implement them without removing the ability to have a "down time" costume. The Crab Soldiers were implemented with a permanent backpack and plenty of people complain about that, how would people feel about a permanent suit of power armor?

The only practical solution I can see is for a Toggle style power like the Kheldian Forms. The difference is this toggle being active is a requirement for all other powers in the set rather than just a few (it would also be nice to have customization options for it, but that's a different problem). As such the toggle needs to be available at all levels. The simplest solution there is to make it the level 1 secondary power so people are forced to take it. Unfortunately this doesn't work so well with a branching tree like the SoAs, it could be implemented as an inherent power but that is kinda messy.

Personally if the devs ever do decide to implement a PPD EAT I think a simple character progression makes more sense than trying to do an VEAT style branch if they want to implement a PPD Hardsuit option.

Finally regarding options, I'll add that PPD Hardsuits are the only living PPD that can't really be emulated in game (drone can't either but they are robots). Awakened Division are just Peacebringers. Psi-Ops are Mind/Psionic Dominators. Even the various SWAT teams are essentially combining Assailt Rifle with either Traps or Devices (admittedly with some variations such as glue grenades in place of caltrops). Hardsuits are the only ones that I think would offer an interesting gameplay variation (I think all of them could offer interesting stories).

It works out about the same in the end since with the gladiator proc you don't have to pay the market or for salvage (ok, technically you can sell the LotGs off market, but people rarely do).

But yeah, from an Inf making point of view trading A-Merits for LotGs makes more sense.