Adeon Hawkwood

No it isn't. It is, however, the best Interface by a large margin in most situations, both solo and teamed.

Solo Reactive interface provides a very large damage boost. Teamed the relative damage boost is smaller but it's still more useful than debuffs since most teams do not need the other reactive debuffs against normal enemies and AVs resist debuffs to much for them to be useful there.

I think this is a valid point. A specific Incarnate power is actually decreasing the effectiveness of some of your existing powers which, in general seems like a bad idea.

However, I do not think this is something the devs should fix. The problem is they can't please everyone. If they changed it so that reactive (specifically) does not work in sleeps we'll get people complaining that reactive does not work in sleeps.

Given that we'll get people complaining no matter what I'm inclined to say go with the option that requires the least programming time .

The badges in question are day job badges. I believe that as a Rogue you can earn credit towards them (up to 503/504 hours*) but the badges themselves will not be directly awarded to a rogue.

To get them on a rogue what you must do is: Switch alignment to Hero/Vigilante -> Earn Both Badges -> Switch Alignment back to Rogue. When you initially earn the badges they will be called Shop Keeper and Entrepreneur but when you switch to a Villain/Rogue alignment they will be renamed to Price Gouger/Free Trade Advocate.

*I haven't directly tested this but on a sub-35 character I was able to earn up to 503/504 credit towards Vanguard Recruit so I expect the same process applies.

It means someone else posted before you. The term originated in Journalism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoop_%28term%29

No it lasts for the entire duration (at least for Force Field, Power Boost does not work at all with Cold Dom).

It's a problem with the overall power system. Basically due to the way things are set up Damage and Resistance Enhancements function the same way. This means that Damage Buffs increase the effectiveness of resistance powers. To counter this ALL resistance powers have to be set either to not accept resistance enhancements (i.e. Deflection Shield) or have to be set not to accept external buffs (as is the case with Cold Domination's Shields). Since the shields are set not to accept external buffs Power Boost does not work on them.

Or you could do both at once and accept a slower rate. Run the trials and use the components to get incarnate powers and use the merits to buy other stuff.

Power Boost doesn't work on ice shields (they are tagged to not accept buffs since they also provide a resistance buff).

Well I guess at least some good came of all pets wanting to get into melee.

True, but the other thing to keep in mind is the playtime and effort for each one.

A-Merits are soloable and running 5 tips goes very quickly if you stealth.

E-Merits require a large team and take longer.

I don't buy that. To my knowledge there is no other case of a power set power being balanced around the assumption that you have a particular pool power.

10:1 seems awfully high considering the time (both play time and calendar time) required to get them.

I don't disagree with any of that. To be honest it's the Fortitude bit that really bugs me. It just seems counter-intuitive to how resistance is handled both for other sets and NPCs almost as if Crabs are expected to be getting more S/L resistance from somewhere.

I realize you're being farcical but I think this does illustrate that the core difference of opinion we have here is one of how balance is defined.

In my opinion the true "cost" of a power is not measured in recharge, endurance or activation time but in the power choices and power slots that it uses up.

For an example let's compare Fortitude and the new versions of Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield. For convenience the shields shall be treated as a single power called Inflection Shield. SO slotting is assumed since that is what the game is balanced around.

Ok, what is the "cost" of the powers.
Fortitude uses up 1 power choice and 5 power slots (assuming 3 defense and 3 recharge SOs)
Inflection Shield uses up 2 power choices and 4 power slots (assuming 3 defense SOs in each power)

So from a character creation point of view Fortitude is using one fewer power choice but one more slot. In general this means Fortitude is "cheaper" than Inflection Shield.

Of what buffs do the two powers provide:
Fortitude:
+15% enhanceable defense to all
+31.25% damage
+18.75% To Hit

Inflection Shield:
+15% enhanceable defense to all except psionic
+40% toxic resistance
+86.5% End Drain/Recovery Resistance.

Relatively similar benefits, Fortitude is a little better due to covering the Psi Hole and providing secondary buffs that are more frequently useful as opposed to the more situational secondary buffs in Inflection Shield. Overall though the key bonus from those powers is the same (+15% defense).

So we have two powers with very similar effects but one requires spending 2 power choices instead of 1. So are what balances them? The answer is uptime.

Inflection Shield can be up on all members of your team simultaneously giving it an effective uptime of 700%. Fortitude on the other hand has an effective uptime that is a bit less than 400% on SOs (roughly 365% with SOs and no other recharge buffs).

So Fortitude uses only one power choice and provides a slightly better buff but has half the uptime of Inflection Shield. Now with these changes Inflection Shield does have an advantage in End Cost and Casting Time but the casting time difference isn't that major and since Inflection Shield is mostly used outside of combat anyway I don't feel that a high endurance cost would significantly change the relative balance of the powers.

Don't forget the "Trapdoor is impossible" threads.

Well actually it says: "Rare, Very Rare and PvP". So while it's a given that we will be able to purchase Very Rare (i.e. Purple) and PvPIOs for the new merits it doesn't automatically follow that we will be able to purchase them with both types of merits. If astrals can only be used for Rare recipes and Empyrean for VR and PvP recipes the statement given would still be true.

Damn straight. They really should have released it yesterday. Seriously devs, WTH?

FWIW I think the increased end costs for MM buffs make sense. The way I see it it it's an anti-zerg measure. If a pet dies during a battle you have a strategic choice to make regarding rebuffing immediately or waiting. Now if we had to recast the MM pet buffs every four minutes I'd be PO'd as well but since they last until the pet dies I'm cool with them being expensive.

For the other buffs we do have to recast every four minutes so the strategic casting is lost and a lower end cost makes sense.