UberGuy

I have a DB/Regen who's going to be very, very pleased by that.

If the question is "would we like them to stack?" I know I'd answer yes.

But them not stacking is Working As Intended.

I suspect you might find this guide helpful.

Maybe 41 points of KB protection is a lot more expensive than I realize, but if it's not, I don't pay as much for the rest of that as you seem to.

A wonderful resource on how the game works is ParagonWiki. Like many wikis, it's a player maintained site, so while I find most of its main-stream information to be excellent, be aware that the information on it may be incomplete, out of date, or in error.

Here is a page from that site on Invention Origin Enhancements, the more complex but also more powerful enhancements for your powers. Near the top are links to the more basic enhancement types.

Another program for your character building enjoyment is the very excellent Mids' Hero Designer. There's very little Mids' planner doesn't do. Unfortunately that makes it kind of complicated. However, it's quite fantastic for exploring tweaks to and variations on your characters. Some folks spend more time fooling with Mids' than they do playing.

Finally, all these resources are likely to spawn more questions. There are lots of helpful people around, so don't be shy about asking more questions.

There's not end game content here so much as there are in some other games. That's actually one reason people are often relaxed about the leveling. There are some fairly challenging Task Forces (or Strike Forces for villains) and a couple of raiding activities that call for 45+ characters (and for which being 50 is much better). They are Hamidon raids, where 35-50 people take on a giant multi-part foe, and Rikti ship raids, where a mass of players fight with level-capped (level 54) dimensional invaders on top of a crashed ship. Of the two, Hamidon has more concrete rewards, giving either special enhancers or a fair chunk of Reward Merits, while the ship raid only offers Vanguard Merits which can be spent on less "loot-like" things. The organization required for Hamidon is much higher compared to a ship raid, however.

Exemplar didn't affect it in past years.

It dawns on me that it might be useful to post my understanding of enhancement rules here, because it's relevant to some of the questions in the thread.

I might not have this exactly right, but I think it's fairly close.

My understanding is that there are three categories of rules that affect what you can slot in a power, and what it does when you slot it. The categories are...

1. What of effects a power has on targets
2. What types of non-set enhancers the power accepts
3. What sort of Invention sets a power accepts

Category (2) is usually all the stuff in category (1) plus endurance, recharge and accuracy, where applicable. Some powers have primary effects we can't enhance (Defense debuffs in many Earth Control powers) and some powers lack some or all of accuracy, endurance or recharge (such as passives).

These three rule categories for power slotting are clearly related, but separate. This means they can interact in interesting ways. For example, under category (1), technically slow enhancements could affect Hasten because they boost recharge effects - they're slows when the base effect applies negative recharge bonuses. Now, even if we could do this, we know it wouldn't do anything to Hasten because Hasten is flagged to ignore buffs and enhancements. However, that never comes up because slow enhancements are not on the list of things you can slot in Hasten, under category (2). Finally, you can't slot any set IOs in Hasten because its category (3), is empty.

Multi-function, non-set enhancements seem to satisfy all applicable category (2) limits at once. For example, a Membrane HO is a recharge enhancer, a toHit enhancer and a defense enhancer, all at the same time. Widow/Mind Link doesn't accept recharge enhancements under category (2), but you can slot Membranes in it because it accepts Defense enhancers and Membranes count. While it's there, the Membrane's recharge enhancement will enhance Mind Link's recharge.

Rule category (3) appears to trump category (2). Widow/Mind Link doesn't accept recharge enhancements under category (2), but Mind Link accepts Defense sets, and Defense sets contain recharge enhancers. This isn't the same as the multi-function behavior explained above. Even if there was a pure recharge enhancer in a Defense set, Mind Link would accept it, because it accepts Defense sets, no matter what the individual enhancements boost.

Pet powers can become really confusing with set enhancers. Dark Servant is a good example of this. If you slot a set in Dark Servant, it will only enhance the category (2) attributes of powers he uses if the set type matches one of the category (1) features of the power. For example, Cloud Senses contains accuracy enhancements. However, this accuracy enhancement will only apply to toHit-affecting powers Dark Servant uses. It would not enhance the accuracy of his Petrifying Gaze, because that power has no toHit component. Similarly, if you slot Touch of the Nictus accuracy enhancements in him (which he accepts), they would only buff the accuracy of his Twilight Grasp, and not of his tentacles or gaze.

This extends to procs. If you slot a Touch of the Nictus proc in Dark Servant, it will only go off when he uses his heal, a Trap of the Hunter proc would only go off when he uses his tentacles, etc.

This is why I suspected that the Cloud Senses proc would work in everything except his hold. Procs seem to trigger based off of what category (1) attributes the set enhances. If the set enhances holds, the proc can go off when a power with a hold effect affects the target. If it enhances damage, the proc can go off when a damaging power affects the target*. Cloud Senses enhances toHit, so I figured any toHit debuff would have a chance of triggering the proc. The "accurate" restriction is controlled by rule category (3), and doesn't actually have anything to do with whether the power has enhanceable accuracy. Thus the proc can go off in Chill of the Night, even though that power can't be slotted for accuracy.

* Procs don't seem to care if the effect they trigger off of itself has a random chance of happening. For example, Telekinetic Blast has a chance of KB, but if you but an Explosive Strike proc in TK Blast it can go off whether or not the power's KB chance kicks in.

As far as I know, the above isn't documented anywhere in game. It is also immensely unintuitive. I learned much of it here on the forums; my only significant personal research on it has been related to procs. Hopefully if any of my description above is incorrect, someone will notice and be able to correct it.

OK, I finally stopped poking the Winter event and tested this.

It definitely works in Chill of the Night. I plopped my Dark Servant in the middle of 3 level 50 Dragoons and he slowly killed them all with it. I watched it proc multiple times when my servant was between attacks. I also saw it proc in both Tenebrous Tentacles and Twilight Grasp (lol). In fact, the last poor *** died while held, killed by a proc off of Twilight Grasp.

Edit: Woah. It censors the word s-o-t?

There is still something strange wrong with his phasing at times. I just ran through an event and on the last section (25% health), he never seemed to phase. I and others were still getting damage numbers off of him (and floaters like SCOURGE and CRITICAL), but his health was actually regenerating, and there was definitely a Winter Guardian out at the time.

I specifically noticed this because I was staring up in the air looking for the "UNAFFECTED" floaters, and never got them on that pass. It's already ridiculously hard to tell when he's phased, and this sure doesn't help.

I try not to disparage folks for having different ideas of what's fun than I do, but I find it hard not to poke people who have a different idea of what's fun than I do, yet who stand right next to me in a room full of people like me, doing what we're all doing it and hating it.

That was a helluva sentence.