Adeon Hawkwood

It's a neat idea. My only issue with it is that is would effectively change Empathy form a pure-Buff set to a combined Buff/Debuff set. That isn't inherently bad but I do like the idea that thematically Empathy is a pure buff set (in fact the ONLY pure buff set). Changing it to a combo set would be like fixing Trick Arrow by giving it a Healing Arrow.

That being said I don't think it's a coincidence that the only pure Buff set and the only pure Debuff set are consistently ranked as some of the weaker sets but I'd still like to see them fixed without changing their nature.

Well if Fortitude was a group buff then it would affect you while solo, which would help solo Emps a lot.

Yeah I can't help thinking that instead of assaulting the Keyes Island Reactors we should have just given him a subscription to an online dating service. It probably would have been a lot easier.

Shriek, Scream and Howl are indeed your key attacks in Sonic although some of the other attacks are borderline. Shockwave offers an additional AOE attack if you slot it with the KB3KD IO, it's not great damage-wise but it does have a large area and if you use it after Howl it'll benefit from the resistance debuff (as well as giving enemies another stack of it). Shout is nice as a strong attack but the cast time is stupidly long which is why a lot of people skip it.

Siren's Song is a great power for soloing but isn't much use on a team, so whether you take it will depend on your preferences.

Amplify and Dreadful Wail aren't that great now but I would definitely pick them up in I24. In the case of Amplify the change to PPM mechanics for procs means that if you slot it with a Gaussian: Chance for Build Up IO it'll have a 90% change of giving you a 130% damage boost instead of 50%. Combine that with the crashless Dreadful Wail and you've got a strong combo.

I don't really care for Fighting on a Defender, I'd much rather take Leadership to help the tema but YMMV.

The nice thing about Time though is that if you pick up a Power Boost effect (either Power Build Up, Power Boost or Radial Clarion) and use that right before casting Farsight you can pretty easily soft cap without Fighting.

For example PBU has a 98.34% power boost effect so for Farsight you'd get: 12.5% * (1 + 0.95 + 0.9834) = 36.66% Defense. Add in Maneuvers (5% Slotted), Combat Jumping (2.5% unlsotted) and one of the 3% IOs and you can hit the softcap easily.

Alternatively it's pretty easy to build a Time for the softcap without Power Boost and then use the Power Boost to get you closer to the Incarnate Softcap.

Well currently it doesn't, that will only happen with the I24 changes. Also it only counts enhanced recharge, global bonuses don't affect it (but Alpha slot probably does, I'm not sure about that).

Sure you can. Take a look at set bonuses. The ones that "Improve Healing" don't buff self heals with Toxic resistance. Incandescence and Clarion both claim to improve heals but actually only improve certain types of heals.

Personally I lean towards "never get fixed at all". The root cause is something pretty integral to how the enhancement system works to fixing it is almost certainly a huge PITA. I think they'd need a lot more incentive to fix it than one pool power.

As for changing Field Medic I find that extremely unlikely. The purpose of that power is to make Aid Other and Aid Self more effective and it works just fine for that (since both of those will benefit from it). I doubt that the devs are going to change it just because some powers in other sets don't benefit from it.

Well the Analyze Weakness and Siphon Insight procs are each 20% so you probably don't need Tactics to hit 22%, just a Kismet if that is your goal.

Personally though I think you're going to end up disappointed. The proc rate on those is only 10% and you only have one power that can take it. I don't know what attack chian you're planning on but you're only going to be able to fast snipe basically once after every 10 Slashes (with an extra snipe every 100 slashes from the proc in Moonbeam). If you are going to go the proc route then I'd suggest using Dark Melee, Broadsword or Katana and slotting the proc in as many powers as possible.

Regarding the PPM changes the final chance will depend on how much recharge you slot in Slash, roughly:
No Slotting: 19.2%
1 SO: 15.4%
2 SOs: 13.2%
3 SOs: 11.8%

Comparing Farsight to Fortitude, while Fortitude does have three effects it's worth keeping in mind that Time has a lot of other synergistic effects while Fortitude is the main buff for Empathy. I think that the To Hit buff would need to be dropped to 12% or so but I'm not sure that the Defense and Damage would need to be dropped.

That's why I use four slots (in Farsight which is pretty much the same slotting-wise): 3 x Membranes and 1 x LotG 7.5% IO .

This would also help with the fact that Empathy is a set where the main damage mitigation (Fortitude) is single target in a game which is focusing more on multiple-team content.

You know that must have been awkward.

Positron: So Kit, congratulations on tying the knot. I just need to take your fiance's measurements so I can build a robot duplicate of her.

Kit: ...

It is but Scrappers/Stalkers have much worse uptime for FastSnipe than any other AT that has it (except maybe Dominators but they can get it with power boosted tactics if they want).

Yeah it would be good to work that in there somehow. The thing is I wanted to avoid the whole running around Paragon shutting down dozens of portals that the original one had.

That being said... in Mission 4 you could have the back part of the Nemesis base overrun with Rularuu so you have to fight through them to get through the portal and then once you go through it fight through a few more to escape from the cave that it's located in.

That would help remind people that portals are a two-way street, especially if Dr. Q mentions it in his debrief for the mission ("Rularuu were breaking through? It's a good thing you got there when you did or they could have overrun the entirety of Founder's Falls").

Persoanlly I'd be against an Incernate only Shadow Shard revamp. What I'd much prefer to see is the current Shadow Shard zones revamped as is (and preferably made co-op) with additional Incarnate-Only Shadow Shard zones added on (since lore-wise there are several more areas of the Shadow Shard).

Hmmmmm…. Dr. Q is a bit trickier. Unlike Faathim he doesn’t have any cool locations or fights built in so there isn’t a lot to build on. The basic premise that Crey and Nemesis are setting up illicit portals to access Firebase Zulu is sound but lacking in hooks for fun fights. That being said I think you could build something from it using the premise that the easiest way to find where a portal comes out is to step through it and hope for the best. With that in mind here is what I would do:

Mission 1: Dr. Q tells that an exploration team has gone missing. Tracking devices in their equipment has allowed them to be traced but he needs you to rescue them and find out who kidnapped them.

This is a relatively simple hostage rescue/boss fight mission taking place in one of the standard Shadow Shard caves against Crey.

Mission 2: Dr. Q is concerned that Crey have apparently set up an illicit portal into the Shadow Shard and explains that it needs to be shut down immediately. Thanks to an interrogation of the boss you captured in the first mission and tracking the retreating Crey forces he has a good idea of where the Shadow Shard end of it is. The problem is that the portal in Paragon City really needs to be shut down as well and he has no clue where that would be.

Therefore he asks you to go to the location of the Shadow Shard end of the portal, place some explosives to blow it up and then enter the portal to find its location in Paragon City. Once you’re through he’ll remote detonate the explosives to avoid you getting trapped between two Crey Forces.

The first part of this mission takes place in a standard Shadow Shard cave map except that the final room features a large portal (and some cool looking equipment). Once you use all of the bomb glowies you are able to step through the portal and emerge in a largish Crey Labs style map. An alarm goes off, your presence has been detected and a security lockdown is in effect.

The second part of this mission is longer and has a number of goals. The characters have to:

• Place explosives to destroy the main portal
• Search several computer databases to find out where Crey got the portal technology from (a clue from one will reveal that they got it from Nemesis)
• Destroy a LOT of equipment for supporting portal generation (you don’t have to destroy everything, there are more destroyable objects than you need but they are all weak objects you can pretty much single shot)
• Defeat a number of named bosses to get the codes necessary to pass through the security doors and out of the base

Basically the idea is to have something that feels almost like a Mayhem mission (because Mayhem missions are FUN). You’ve entered this large base through what is effectively the back door and need to fight your way out. However in the process you need to blow up the equipment here to stop Crey recreating the portal. The map would be pretty linear so you shouldn’t need to double back. The ideal is that while you could stealth the mission, it’s more fun not to.

Eventually you reach the exit and emerge in Founder’s Falls.

Mission 3: You call Dr. Q who is concerned about the fact that Nemesis apparently also has portal technology. He asks you to talk to Maxwell Christopher who directs you to a Nemesis Army base here in Founder’s Falls.

This is basically a standard glowie hunt and boss kill mission which gets you the location of the Nemesis Army portal in Paragon City…

Mission 4: You’ve located the Nemesis Portal in Paragon City but unfortunately Dr. Q has been unable to locate the paired portal in Fire Base Zulu so it’s time to go portal diving again.

This mission is basically Mission 2 in reverse. You are fighting your way through a base full of Nemesis (Automatons near the entrance and Nemesis Army deeper in) in order to get to the portal and jump through it. The base has lots of nice shiny equipment to destroy (can you tell I like Mayhem missions?) and various bosses who need to be defeated before you can progress deeper.

Eventually you jump through the portal, detonate the explosives on both sides and reemerge in FBZ.


Mission 5: You check in with Dr. Q who needs one more thing from you. When you blew up the portals a bunch of Nemesis and Crey forces were left stranded in the Shadow Shard. They have teamed up and are attempting to capture Firebase Zulu itself so that they can get home. General Hammond’s forces are hard pressed and need support.

The map is a clone of Tempest Sector (the island just outside Firebase Zulu itself). You need to break the back of the Crey and Nemesis forces by defeating a number of them and killing their leaders (kind of like the last mission in the ITF). The Nemesis forces are lead by the “Nemesis?” AV while the Crey forces would need a new AV of some kind, probably a giant robot because why should Malta get all the cool toys?


Well, that’s how I’d do it. It would still be on the long side for the newer TFs (probably pushing 2 hours) but I think it could be made enjoyable enough to make it interesting. After all, how often do heroes really have the chance to actually destroy a villains base? I think the basic setup of one mission to find the base and one to destroy it would work well and doing it twice is enough to keep the basic plot without dragging to much. The fifth mission is not strictly necessary but I like it when TFs end with a good boss fight and this seems like a good way to fit one in as well as wrapping up some loose ends (specifically, what's to stop the Crey and Nemesis still in the Shadow Shard from building a new portal?).

Well a character that can softcap himself, deal tons of AoE damage and have a half dozen pets out is a force to be reckoned with. Admittedly making a build that can do all three at once requires some sacrifices but it is doable (in my case I opted to just softcap Ranged Defense while maxing out the AoE damage and Pets but I've seen some builds with defense softcapped to all positions).

The worst part is, most of the Shard TFs actually have a pretty cool story it's just the long mission list that makes them annoying.

Take Faathim the Kind. The basic plot that there are 5 different villain groups fighting to try and gain control of the Storm Palace is a pretty interesting setup. The problem is that this requires nine separate door missions (plus the three kill alls to "prove yourself") to get the seven keys needed to stop them.

If I were redoing it I'd probably do it something like this:

Mission 1: Faathim tells you that you must prove yourself by clearing a cave of Rularuu. The "door' for this mission is a portal inside his death star thingy. This is a pretty standard cave map full of Rularuu. After completing this he gives you a small crystal that will allow him to communicate telepathically with you (i.e. his cell phone).

Mission 2: Ok, this mission is going to be the meat of the TF, it's a huge map with several stages and a bunch of AVs.

Faathim tells you that several forces are fighting to control the master of the Storm Palace and that you must prevent them from doing so and instead use the keys yourself to enter the Storm Palace and confront Lanaru.

The door for this mission is a either the Hortha vine leading from the Chantry to the Storm Palace or a nearby glowie teleport thing if that can't be done. The mission map itself is a reconstruction of the Storm Palace zone complete with gravity geysers (possibly split into multiple sub-maps if necessary due to size, if this is done the gravity geysers could function as "doors" moving you between map sections).

When you zone into the map you're greeted by General Hammond who has established a fire base and field hospital to help you out. He gives you a little pep talk to assure you that his men will help hold the areas you clear (ideally as you clear the monuments his party moves up lagging about one monument behind you, if not maybe put a teleporter at the hospital in the style of the Underground Trial).

The basic goal of the mission is to travel to each of the seven monuments in the Storm Palace, defeat the AV guarding it to get the key and then activate it. The areas in between the monuments will have some additional enemies. In general the areas between two monuments will consist of either forces loyal to the AVs at each monument or alternatively combats between two different forces, i.e. if Nemesis is at the Monument of Torment and Mother Mayhem is at the Monument of Malice then the area in between would have a mixture of IDF and Nemesis Soldiers with some groups fighting each other.

The Monuments and AVs in order would be:

Monument of Anger: Preatorian IDF with Malaise as the AV
Monument of Malice: Preatorian IDF with Mother Mayhem as the AV
Monument of Torment: Nemesis with the "Nemesis?" Archvillain
Monument of Hatred: Nemesis with the "Nemesis?" Archvillain (yes, you'd fight him twice. Why? Because it's funny)
Monument of Fury: Rikti with Hro'Dtohz as the AV
Monument of Destruction: When you arrive here there is no AV but there is a group of Malta fighting the Rikti. Faathim contacts you telepathically and tells you that the Malta have recovered the key and retreated to Paragon City, however he can track them and will open a portal for you. The portal takes you to a small Malta Base style map where you find and defeat a Malta AV (either a new one or possibly a Kronos Titan if a suitable outdoors map style is used) to recover the key and then return to the main map to use it.
Monument of Madness: Once again you are to late finding only a group of Circle of Thorns guarding the Monument. Faathim again opens a portal to a graveyard in Paragon City where you defeat Baphomet to recover the last key.

Activating the final monument completes the mission. Exiting the mission on completion places you in the Storm Palace near the overland Monument of Madness.


Mission 3: Faathim now tells you that the time has come to confront Lanaru the Mad. This mission is essentially identical to the final mission of the current TF. Go to the big room, fight the giant AV. Have tea and crumpets.

Membrane Exposures FTW!

Yeah a well built Crab Spider is one of the most awesome characters in the game.

I'll also second Mortimer Kal as a quick and fun Strike Force. Heck, if I'm taking a hero redside to unlock PPPs I'll frequently run Mortimer Kal as well just for the heck of it.

Or more likely: Field Medic will buff self heals except when those self heals take resistance enhancements. I will be very surprised if the fact that having resistance means that powers have to be set to ignore buffs things gets fixed in I24 (fixed eventually, maybe, in I24 no way). I also can't see the devs going through ALL self heal powers in the game and making them immune to outside buffs (which would be a specific nerf to those powers) just to make them all behave the same with one power.

Heck, Aid Self doesn't have an "unresistable" tag on its heal so it will benefit from the heal resistance portion of Field Medic while the majority of other self heals won't but I really, really doubt that the devs will change that either although for a different reason. It's done that way so that self heals in armor sets work when your healing is debuffed by enemies (such as Hamidon) whereas Aid Self shuts down. This is a case where game development has overtaken the original goals. Powers with negative healing resistance are pretty new so originally having a power be immune to healing resistance was an unquestionable bonus. Now it's still probably a bonus overall (since situations where you have healing resistance debuffs tend to be more dangerous than the opposite) but it's not as clear-cut.