Adeon Hawkwood

Except that unless you are planning to never do the trials again you will eventually earn more threads. If you get (say) 7 "odd" threads every trial then after 3 trials you'll be able to trade them for an extra common component.

I would actually say the exact opposite, there is no reason to trade threads for iXP. You will earn sufficient iXP to unlock all four slots well before you get T4 abilities in each slot (in fact unless you get very lucky you'll probably do it before you have T3 abilities). iXP from Trials is free while buying it costs you threads you could use to get more components.

Well dang, I had my incarnatation plans all mapped out and now I'm going to have to reconsider. All kidding aside, it's a welcome change.

Except in that case lying and then saying "oh by the way, we lied but it's fixed now" is a worse PR move than not saying anything.

It's certainly possible, but I find it unlikely. If they are lying then someone will eventually figure it out in a way that proves it which will have a HUGE backlash in terms of PR. So while it is a possibility I find it a very shortsighted one on their part.

Also what's the benefit? Saying "yes, it does work that way, we screwed up and will change it in the next patch" is probably a better PR move than lying and leaving a broken system in place.

It depends on the character but in general running at +8 and then adjusting the level to give a good kill speed is best. In terms of inf recipe drops are your biggest earners (either commons that sell for 80K-100K each or rare ones you can sell on the market).

Level does not impact salvage/recipe drops but does increase inf drops (I want to say it's about 30% but I'm not certain, it's probably easiest to just test it yourself).

I think his point was that you can't set the difficulty to +5.

I've gotten enough Very Rares to fill out all of the new slots on my Trapper without any attempts to "game" the reward system (in fact empirical evidence on my other characters shows I really, really, suck at attempting to game the rewards system). I still need to get my slots unlocked and farm up the commons I need to actually make the abilities though.

Oh sorry, I misread your post. The correct answer it "yes". The system will let you make a bid for all of your inf.

A few days ago in a different thread I was debating with another person as to whether the incarnate content favored melee characters unfairly. Their argument was that melee characters were overrepresented in incarnate content.

I'm going to give you the same response I gave them. Representation alone is not sufficient reason to say something is balanced or unbalanced. It is simply a measure of how much the player base enjoys playing it.

To use an example from another MMO. Characters there are split into the trinity: Tank, Healer, DPS. DPSer's are heavily overrepresented, Tanks are slightly overrepresented, Healers are underrepresented. Does that mean that DPSer's are overpowered? No, the game is balanced around needing all three types it's simply that DPSers are easier and more fun to play so more people play them.

The same is true here. Masterminds are underrepresented because they are more difficult to play than other ATs. Now an argument that the devs should attempt to fix that definitely has validity but that is different from simply buffing MMs.

As for which powers to get in each slot. That's harder to say since it depends a lot more on your build.

Alpha: With Elec/Elec you should have any End issues so you don't need Cardiac. If you are on SOs then Nerve is a good choice since it'll help you hit in the trials (which are at +4). Otherwise choose Spiritual or Musculature depending on which you think will be more useful, attacking more often or hitting harder.

Judgement: Ion. Ok, they'll all work reasonably well but Ion fits thematically.

Interface: Reactive is the most popular, especially if you solo a lot. You might also like Diamagnetic or Paralytic for a bit more survivability when solo. Gravitic is the least popular in general but if you have a sapper build you might find the extra -recovery useful.

Destiny: Clarion is a popular option if you wnat mez protection. Rebirth is nice for a Blaster since you lack many options for regen/healing powers. Barrier is the defense one although I find the duration buff a bit weak (it's good for the first 30seconds and after that it's weaker than an inspiration). Ageless is probably not that useful to you, the recharge is kinda weak, you shouldn't need the endurance and the debuff resistance is going to do you a lot less in terms of survivability than the other options.

Lore: If you want a support pet Seers or Clockwork are best (Clockwork gives you slightly better healing and and defense while Seers gives a damage and to hit boost as well as healing and defense). If you want Damage Warworks is the way to go. That being said the difference isn't large enough to worry to much if you want to select one for theme reasons.

Probably. Although I suspect most people who have excess billions store it as market bids. I tend to place stacks of 10 bids at 200,000,000 each on gladiator's armor globals. They won't fill and it stores 2billion in one market slot with no change of bids combining.

No

It isn't as good, but it might be good enough.

Fully slotted Tough and Weave for a Defender provide 23.4% S/L Resistance and 7/8% Defense to all.

Barrier Core Epiphany is "permanently" up but does not have the same effects for the entire duration. Over a period of 120 seconds you will get:
90% resistance and defense for 10s
32.5% resistance and defense for 20s
7.5% resistance and defense for 30s
5% resistance and defense for the last 60s

So for Resistance Barrier will be better than Tough for 30 seconds out of every 120 (or 25% of the time). The rest of the time it will be quite a bit worse than Tough against S/l damage but better against other damage types (which Tough does not resist).

Barrier is pretty much as good or better than Weave for 60 seconds out of every 120 (or 50% of the time). The rest of the time is will be about as effective as Weave if you hadn't slotted it.

So Defense wise Barrier is almost as good as Weave but you'll need to find another 2.5% worth of defense bonuses if you want it to be as good. Resistance wise it's quite a bit weaker against S/L resistance but does provide resistance to everything which Weave doesn't.

Another option you might consider is taking the Ageless Destiny. If you take the Core path then it provides a refill of your blue bar upon casting plus a huge recovery boost (minimum +100%) which will be permanent at tier 4.

The problem is that the majority of leagues are entering pre-formed which REALLY skews the wait times. If you don't want to wait then your best option is to go to whatever co-op zone is popular for forming leagues and join a pre-formed league (RWZ is popular on a lot of servers).

That will (supposedly) put you into a league that's already in progress. The downside is it only does it if the league is less than the minimum required for the trial which is not always a good sign (since it means one or more people already quit that league).

Good point I was talking more about the general case (can you tell I don't play melee types a whole lot). You are correct that Tankers do not resistance cap themselves either but they get closer to it than Brutes/Scrappers. Brutes are slightly more survivable than Scrappers but the difference in their survivability is a lot less than the difference in the survivability of Brutes and Tankers for the same powerset.

As with all Alpha Slot boosts the resistance acts as if you have slotted additional enhancements in your powers.

That means two things:
1. It increases the base resistance provided by your powers
2. It is partially affected by ED.

In your case both Invulnerability and Unyielding provide a base resistance of 10%. The bonus from cardiac is therefore a maximum of 2% resistance from each power assuming no ED. In practice you apparently have the powers already ED slotted so the enhancement from the Cardiac is reduced from 20% to about 14.3% which means each power will get a 1.43% increase in it's resistance so your energy resistance will go from 32% to 34.86%.

I'm not really sure what you're expecting here. There is a finite amount of content in the game and if you solo a lot you will end up doing a large chunk of it leveling up. At that point your only real options are:
1. Run repeatable content (either the stuff you mentioned or the team content)
2. Re-run content that you already did either using Ourobous or by teaming with someone who's already doing it.
3. Use the AE.
4. Play a different character.

So... yeah. Even if you're missing some of the contacts Gruumch mentioned you will reach a point where your only options are the ones above.

No, you're getting the impact of the proc correct, it's just that you're putting in a power that will cancel out the effect.

Since KD and KB are the same effect mechanics-wise the KB protection in Fire Cages makes it's targets immune to KD as well.

Actually the -kb is a separate effect that will be applied whether or not you stack enough magnitude to immobilize the enemy

Fair point. I was generalizing somewhat. To be completely accurate a Brute has, on average, slightly higher survivability than a scrapper, slightly lower damage than a scrapper and aggro management that is almost, but not quite, as good as a Tanker's.

I tend to describe Brutes as having the damage/survivability of a Scrapper because while that is not quite 100% accurate it's close enough for most purposes. Brutes and Scrappers have the same numbers for their secondary powers and neither can reach the resistance cap anyway without outside buffs or god-mode powers so to a first order approximation their survivability is pretty much equal. All other things being equal the Brute will be slightly more survivable than the scrapper but the difference is small enough that it would be hard for the average player to notice the difference.

It's still around.
http://home.netcom.com/~shagbert/pages/munchkins.html

I'm not sure I'd agree with that. Pen and Paper games exist as a continuum. At one end you have the Wargames which are almost entirely mechanics focused with the story being essentially just an excuse for a fight. At the other end you have the "story-driven" RPGs that have minimal mechanics for character interaction. Most RPGs exist somewhere in between.

Now I'll agree that the systems towards the "story-driven" end of the spectrum have a primary focus on actual role-playing but at the other end of the spectrum that isn't always true. Games at that end of the spectrum do tend to be closer to Wargames with the focus less on character interaction and more on beating people up and taking their stuff.

Dungeon's and Dragons is a good example. While it does have a setting it mostly plays like a squad-level Wargame and 4th edition moves even further in this direction. I think this is partly why so many RPGers dislike D&D, in many ways it's made to appeal to the Wargamer more than the RPGer.

My response was more about Forbin's statement. I don't really care about the OP's request one way or the other since it's a feature I'd be unlikely to use but at the same time wouldn't negatively impact me if it were added.

The problem with this is two-fold. First off most ATs fit into more than one category. Secondly Healing is not a category by itself. There are no Healing ATs, instead a number of ATs with Buff/Debuff powers get healing powers as well. However it's important to realize that in terms of damage mitigation healing powers are a LOT weaker than other forms of damage mitigation.

If you go with:

• Damage Dealer
• Tank
• Support

That does give you a rough framework but most ATs will fit into multiple categories. Additionally some ATs can change category based on different power sets and builds. For example a Scrapper with Shield Defense will be much "tankier" than a Scrapper with Super Reflexes. This isn't because Shield Defense is inherently tougher than Super Reflexes but because Shield Defense is one of the few Scrapper secondaries with some aggro management capabilities.

The other issue is is the idea behind "Support". There are 6 ATs that have what I consider support powers in one of their power sets. However, depending on the AT and the exact power set the support they provide can vary substantially. Additionally Tanking can also be viewed as a form of support, it's damage mitigation by inducing enemies to attack the target that can most effectively handle it.

However with that in mind here is how I would class the different ATs, I have listed which categories each AT mostly falls, roughly in order of how common/important the category is.

Blaster: Damage
Defender: Support/Damage
Controller: Support/Damage (more support than the Defender, but less damage and damage comes later)
Tanker: Tanking/Damage
Scrapper: Damage/Tanking (Tanking ability depends a lot on the Scrapper's secondary but all Scrappers can at least take an alpha strike reasonably well).
Warhade: Damage/Tanking
Peacebringer: Damage/Tanking/Support

Brute: Damage/Tanking (has the aggro management of a Tanker but the damage and survivability of a Scrapper)
Corruptor: Damage/Support (basically an inverse Defender)
Dominator: Damage/Support (like a Blaster combines melee and ranged damage but also adds a Controllers ability to control mobs)
Mastermind: Damage/Support/Tanker (Tanking is doable with most MMs but requires build choices not all MMs choose to use)
Stalker: Damage (similar to a Scrapper but a focus more on attacking single tough targets instead of AoE, can theoretically do some tanking but doing so goes against their main playstyle)
Arachnos Soldier: Damage/Support (along with Widows is the least Supporty of the Support ATs, some SoAs also do a bit of Tanking but this is not a hugely common build style)
Arachnos Widow: Damage/Support (along with Soldier is the least Supporty of the Support ATs)

You are hardly the first RPGer I've seen with this attitude and it always irritates me. There are many, many ways to play RPGs and there is no "one true path". It's not a matter of skill or experience, it's a matter of preference.

Some people enjoy playing solely to gain power and use it to vanquish more powerful foes. Others prefer to minimize that sort of thing and focus on the story. In my experience, however, most people prefer a middle path where they combine story telling with the chance to punch monsters in the face.

At the end of the day what really matters is that everyone involved has fun. Most of the horror stories you hear about RPG players really come down to having a player whose personal style and preferences were incompatible with the rest of the group (although in some cases the problem player is deriving enjoyment from upsetting the others which is a different topic).