UberGuy

They did say that according to info communicated by attendees. However, I have also heard that they backtracked on it. I have only heard that once, recently, and it was the first I heard of it. I found the notion depressing.

Yeah. I wonder what they've done.

I think it's going to be pretty interesting, because even if it doesn't include any changes to the information displayed, just how they display it could have impacts on people's buying and selling habits.

For example, today prices are often highly siloed, where prices of the same item at even adjacent (and non-maximum) levels will have distinct and often very different price trends. I presume this is because you have to somewhat laboriously expand items in each level to compare their prices, so people just look at the item they're selling or buying and list or bid based on the history for that specific item and level without comparing it to nearby levels. Changing how that's laid out could change the cross-level pricing structure.

Heh, BBQ.

Based on my own DB/Regen (who obviously does want Hasten for the /Regen side of things), I'd say no, you don't have to have it. It depends on the combo chains you're looking for and how much global + slotting recharge you have in the attacks in question of course, but I find I can basically sustain my chain of BF + Attack Vitals with Touch of Death in my attacks and 55% global recharge.

The only time I like Hasten being there for DB is when I miss or get my chain out of order (usually because I want to use Sweeping Strike to hit a cluster of foes right away) or when I want to cycle rapidly between Sweeping Strike and Typhoon's Edge, usually when I'm surrounded and want to clear foes rapidly.

I'm with the turbo-charged scrapper vets here. +Def is more likely to do more to increase your time-to-defeat than +HP will.

Just 20% defense is a 40% reduction in average incoming DPS. To realize that same (average) benefit on time-to-defeat you'd need total extra HP equal to 66.7% of your base.

And that's just for 20% defense, which is a somewhat conservative target.

Now, random stuff is random. How it's going to work out is a function of what you're fighting and how likely your defense is to make foes miss. Low-ish values of defense "feel" like they're doing more when you're fighting something where the incoming damage isn't real spikey, like standing in a big pile of minions and LTs. That sort of situation creates lots of smaller attacks. On the other hand, if you run up to an AV, odds are still good it's going to hit you several times in a row and ruin your day. But more HP probably isn't going to make the AV's attacks feel that much better either.

Ideally, you pump up both HP and Defense.

Some times, people drop Ouro portals near Hami. They're essentially lightly griefing the raid, as the usual intent is to get someone to accidentally click on it instead of Hami, causing an opening in an otherwise full zone. (Light grief to the raid overall, major downer to whoever gets caught by it.)

Anyway, this seems to make "meandering Hamidon" very likely. I have no idea why it would cause that, but it's one thing I've seen pretty consistently correlated with him moving, and has seemingly caused him to move multiple times in the same raid. He has moved in the past before we ever had Ouro portals, but it was always extremely rare.

Yeah, there's really not a major loss if you slot 4 KC and 2 other enhancers, chosen to cover what the 4 KC leave lacking.

Pool B drops seem to be a sight more common than rare pool As. In other words, you're a lot more likely to get a particular pool B drop at the end of a given mission than you are to get any particular pool A drop from defeating a mob. I can go months without seeing a particular pool A, but I am usually swimming in pool Bs of all sorts.

If I really want to do this (and I actually really don't want to fully switch sides with anything) I'll just give the inf/goods I don't want to loose to another character.

Really, though, this is stupid. Whether they want it to be or not, influence and infamy have always been currency. They need to get over this RP crap that it's your "cred". And I'm not saying RP is crap, I'm saying this particular contrivance is crap that's anchored in RP concepts.

Edit: Of course I'm making a worst-case assumption with the above. Carefully re-reading the article, they might not mean loss of inf. I'm setting my bar at "cynical" on this one though, and betting that's what it means.

Nope, I haven't. I didn't mean to suggest it's possible for arbitrary sets using Katana or Broadsword. I think I just merged two semi-related thoughts: it's not generally possible, but it's possible with Katana | Broadsword. I should have been more clear that even then it's not always possible.

I take one of several approaches. I don't usually like to be below 95-100% slotting for the primary attribute of my powers (so damage for attacks). Skipping the straight damage IO will leave you at around 90%.

If I want good recharge slotting and the power itself has large base damage and a large base recharge time, I'll skip the proc. That's for PvE, where the proc is primarily used to increase DPS. In PvP, you might want the proc on a large scale attack to try and deliver better spike damage.

If I want the proc (usually in a small-to-mid scale attack with fast base recharge) I skip the damage, but usually add another "frankenslotted" sixth slot to the attack. I usually pick an dam/end if I can get it, since this maxes out my ED damage and improves on something purples leave a bit to be desired on compared to a lot of more mundane attack sets - end reduction.

If I want either to use just 5 slots in the attack, or to put something completely unrelated to damage in the 6th slot (such as an unrelated proc or even a generic level 45-50 end reducer) I usually skip the damage/recharge. I tend to do this in attacks that already have low base recharge and when I am going to have good global recharge bonuses. Unless you have super tightly tuned attack chains, you probably won't notice the difference on anything with a 4-6s base recharge time, especially if you end up with 40-60% or more global recharge.

My recommendation is the following, in rough order of increasing "awesomeness". All the above assume you don't have any in-powerset +defense - if you do, you can probably hit higher numbers.

• ~20% defense in either melee or lethal/smash, ~10-15% other or possibly nothing in other. Almost any build should be able to achieve this with Weave, CJ or Hover, and a few powers slotted with the "good" +Def melee sets, like Touch of Death or Kinetic Combat.
• ~25-30% defense in either melee or lethal/smash, ~20% in other. If To do this you're going to need Weave, CJ, squeeze in +defense sets that give 2.5%, 3.13% or 3.75% defense wherever you can, but if you can't equalize the defense types, probably focus on melee or lethal/smash, depending on what you're building up (positional or typed).
• ~45% in either melee or L/S, and nothing in other postitions. This can very durable, but is potentially prone to sudden collapse due to debuffs from unprotected vectors. In my opinion this works best with typed defense capping L/S defense using Kinetic Combat, because this defends against a lot of bullets, which are a common form of ranged defense debuff tossed out by mobs. There are exceptions, and they'll be painful if you're relying on this defense.
• ~25-30% defense to all positions or types. This is basically going for broke, and you might need to do some unusual things to fit in all the slots you need to raise all your defenses this high all around. Note that this doesn't mean you're gimping yourself in other areas, but you might make some noticable tradeoffs. You don't have enough defense in any position to ensure that debuffs don't land on you, so cascade failure is still a problem, but at least you're more or less well-rounded. This kind of build is actually quite hard to do with typed defense if you don't start with some defense in your powersets. Sometimes this will be better than the previous options, sometimes worse, depending on what you're fighting and what sort of powers they're flinging at you.
• ~45% to all. This isn't generally possible for Scrappers that don't have some defense to start with unless they're using Broadsword/Parry or Katana/Divine Avalanche to cover the melee position and loading up on Blessing of the Zephyr to get the other two positions. If you can do this on top of other mitigation types, you've got something really, really strong to play with.

The attack is Sweeping Strike, the DB attack that opens up at level 26. The visuals are all regular in-game effects. Those energy blades are the Vanguard "costume" pieces for the Dual Blades, recolored to the general theme of the costume, and the little sparkly explosions actually appear whenever you hit with a bladed weapon in most attacks in most powersets. I just happened to snag a screenshot of it just as they went off.