Wing_Leader

True!

But I'm assuming that everyone will eventually start joining tips teams and will either lead them (by doing all the recruiting) or have their tips missions chosen by the team leader when his/her own run out.

Really? I have an old inactive account that I'm pretty sure was my CoV beta account. I logged into it last night and found some old characters still there. *shrug*

This trope conveniently neglects to add this necessary bit of dialog:

"But if we take down the Great Barrier, the Big Annoyance will return and we'll need the Great Barrier again. Might as well just leave it up and save ourselves unnecessary stress."

I think this bears some elaboration. The key word in the above, for me anyway, is hybrid. I'm told by a friend who sort of follows the ups and downs of MMOs in general that quite a number of other games have converted to a pure "free plus microtransactions" model and ended up going from About To Be Dismantled to Raking In More Than They Ever Dreamed Of With Subscriptions. This suggests that the non-subscriber (the microtransactions) side of the ledger is where the real money is, and that a "hybrid" model is kind of like a strange compromise designed to minimize revenue potential.

NCSoft may say they are hoping to use the hybrid model as a gateway drug to obtaining more subscribers, implying only a minor side benefit of additional revenue from subscribers due to microtransactions, but that seems to fly in the face of recent experiences elsewhere in the MMO industry that demonstrate the vast amounts of money to be made from the microtransactions alone (and the diabolical illusion that the game is "free" simply because there is no monthly subscription cost).

I really have no sense of the speed with which spam accounts get banned (as a practical matter given the demands on the GMs), but I don't think RMTers would need to hit every server. Even a little experience with CoX teaches one that Freedom and Virtue get the lion's share of players and are therefore easily the best targets. And $5 opens /tell forever for that account, right? It's not a monthly fee is it? If so, a single $5 expense compared to $15/mo is a pretty huge difference and explains, to me anyway, why RMTers would never invest in real subscriptions but might not blink at free accounts with a one-time $5 "cost of doing business" fee (per ban) if it earns them hundreds or thousands in the process.

Right, so an RMTer who spends $5 can be assured of being able to do business for quite a while before a /spam report gets their account banned, yes? Given how much these guys presumably make, $5 per spam account every few days sounds like a drop in the bucket. Is that really going to be enough disincentive? RMT (as a whole) is, after all, a multi-million dollar industry, isn't it?

Absolutely. And I look forward to doing the Incarnate Trials and all the TFs that I missed out on since leaving the game three years ago. I just didn't want to have to engage in anything resembling "grinding" to become end-game worthy, that's all. Everyone here has put my fears firmly to rest.

You may end up being right about that. But I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that subbers who go premium do so because they don't want to spend any more money on the game, period. They don't intend to "make another purchase", content with what remains accessible to them as a preemie.

Except that has to be weighed against the % of existing subscribers who elect to drop to premium status.

Well, I don't have Tornado or Lightning Storm yet. This toon just turned L32 after all.

As for the others, well I use Hurricane very situationally, and almost only in emergencies. I use it when the ranged squishies start to aggro another mob by accident or an ambush hits us from behind and I need to keep the adds away from everyone. I'll also stand at a "Protect" target with it on so that mobs can't get close enough to hit with melee attacks. Or if the entire team gets overwhelmed I'll use a little bit o' Hurricane to keep the nasty melee-oriented mezzes away from my teammates. As soon as the situation seems under control, I turn it off immediately. Gale is similarly situational and probably gets used even less than Hurricane. I didn't pick up Freezing Rain because most teams with tanks or PBAoE scrappers seem to hate it with a burning passion.

Just out of curiosity, what would the recipes for those sets sell for by themselves?

I have found that trying to figure out how to optimally "integrate" with a team is less important than knowing how to just play your own AT (and power sets). Worry less about what everyone else is doing and just concentrate on doing what is smartest given what your character can do and the situation.

For example, I am currently leveling an Ice/Storm controller. In most of the teams I end up on, the general strategy seems to be aggro the next mob (or two if the team is cocky) and just try to kill everything before dying. Hell, most teams don't even bother to rest up a little between fights and just dive into the next one while at half endurance (or worse). Well that's all find and dandy, I suppose, but trying to adjust your own play to "fit" within such an uncoordinated free-for-all style of team play is almost pointless. Consequently, I find that I am much more successful if I just do what I know is best for the situation, regardless of the particular wackamole actions of my teammates.

So, I lay down Ice Slick whenever it cycles back. I con for the Boss (or whomever has the most hit points and will last the longest) and put Snow Storm on him. I then try to stand where the action is with my -SPD toggles on, fire off my AoE immobs/slows, and generally try to just keep the enemy mobs from attacking as often as possible. I doubt the rest of the team has much appreciation for what I am doing or that the main reason they aren't getting attacked very often is because of all the annoying mist/snow/ice/fog all over the place, but it doesn't matter. I'm doing my job and my teammates are living longer because of it. That's what a support toon does, after all.

But the key point I'm making here is that my own strategy is pretty independent of the other ATs on the team. What I'm doing is "optimal" for my AT in 99% of all cases and doesn't really need to be adjusted based on team composition.

Oh, and Kinetics is the tits. If you decide to try a Kinetics defender, advertise that you are Kinetics defender (don't just broadcast, "Lvl # Defender LFT"). You are the game's equivalent to a crack dealer and everyone wants what you are selling, well, once you are high enough level to have Speed Boost anyway. And if you find a Kinetics Defender looking for a team, snatch them up. Though beware the Speed Boost addiction...(and don't be surprised if said Kin Defender is bad about keeping everyone's SB running...playing a Kin Defender isn't easy and there seem to be a lot of lazy Defenders out there).