Adeon Hawkwood

Huh, I did not know that about Tanks (way before my time). Thanks.

FFG is 15.5% defense ED capped
Protector Bot is 7.5% unslotted (you can defense slot them but the loss of accuracy or damage can hurt on an SO build)
Scorpion Shield or Frozen armor are 21% S/L defense if ED capped

That gets you to 44% S/L defense. Taking any other defense power (Combat Jumping, Hover or Maneuvers) or putting a single Defense SO into Protector pots puts you at the soft cap.

You can actually get to about 41% on everything except psi with just SOs if you take FFG, Protector Bots, CJ, Maneuvers and Weave and ED cap all of them but that requires more in the way of build sacrifices.

Sure, he's making the point very poorly but I think it is a valid complaint. After all even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

There is some validity to that, but it also means you are required to stay with team members to get your full effectiveness which is not always the best option (such as the weapon phase in Lambda).

The amount it gets used does not have any bearing on the issue. The two questions that need to be addressed are:
1. Are there people who will benefit from being able to use this in trials?
2. Does it provide a significant power boost to people using it?

Now Ninja Run clearly answers Yes and No. People who skip travel powers benefit, but it provides no real benefit power-wise other than allowing them to run away.

Similarly the origin powers do provide an benefit to some players (a smaller group of players than NR but still some players). Unlike Ninja Run it does technically provide a power boost, but the boost provided is minuscule and not going to change the balance of the trials.

Nope, in fact I would say the case of the Trick Arrow character is more deserving than the Ninja Run character.

A character using NR for travel made a conscious decision to skip the travel powers int he pools available to all characters. The Trick Arrow character, on the other hand needs a specific damage type that could conceivably not be in his selection of Primary/Secondary/Epic. The first two are not changeable after character creation and while the third one is changeable from a mechanics point of view changing the selection of Epic pool has a much stronger impact on character concept than simply selecting one of four available travel pools.

As for alternative options, the NR character has alternative options as well. He can slot run and jump speed IOs from various sets or purchase the GvE Jump Pack. In fact, his options are more prolific and reliable than those available ot the TA character.

I'm going to have to agree with TCS here. If "keep Ninja Run in because some people use that as their sole travel power" is a valid argument then "allow the origin temps because some people use them as their only means of lighting Oil Slick Arrow" should also be a valid argument. As for IOs, the game is not supposed to be balanced around IOs, and a chance for energy damage is not a reliable way of lighting it. Or to but it antoher way, they should disallwo Ninja Runa nd people who don't want travel powers can slot Gift of the Ancients Run Speed IOs.

Oil Slick Arrow is (to the best of my knowledge) the only power in the game that specifically requires you to use another power to get the full benefit. Further it requires another power with a specific quality (dealing fire or energy damage) that a Trick Arrow character will not automatically have available in their Primary/Secondary/Epic power sets. Using Origin Powers to light it is a tactic used by plenty of TAers who lack appropriate powers in their main sets.

It's unlikely to happen simply because I imagine the devs want people to do the trials to get them instead of buying them.

As for no-market trades, why bother? If you make them tradeable people will sell them, no question. Allowing them to be sold on the market means we won't have to put up with a ton of people sitting in atlas park spamming "WTS 100 threads, 1million inf each, pst with offer".

However as TCS said allowing them to be traded will encourage even more attempts to game the system.

The semi-compromise solution I'd kind of like to see is making them "bound to account" meaning you can transfer them between different characters on your account but can't trade them to other players.

Pretty much, you definitely have a larger margin for error than I do (through Aid Other, Frostworks and being further over the defense cap). I have enough survivability for most things but when things go wrong I go down fast.

On the other hand I have a resistance shield instead of defense so against enemies that deal primarily S/L/E damage I'm pretty tough (psionic on the other hand rips right though me since I can do basically nothing against it other than use inspirations).

Actually I don't, I can't stand the graphics of Hasten.

Excellent .

It gets even worse if you start looking at the buff/debuff sets. Take a mix of Radiation Emission and Dark Maisma then throw in the FFG, Oil Slick Arrow and Fulcrum Shift.

Something Like:
Twilight Grasp (or Healing Aura if you want a weaker but more reliable heal)
Tar Patch
Darkest Night
Enervating Field
Force Field Generator
Lingering Radiation or Poison Gas Trap (there are pros and cons to either choice but it's worth taking one)
Disruption Arrow
Oil Slick Arrow
Fulcrum Shift

Offensively it has -80 resistance to all, tons of damage and nice -regen. Defensively you've got defense, -to hit, -damage, mez protection and a powerful heal just in case.

Part of the problem is that holding aggro by just spamming provoke is tricky. Taunt effects do generate a moderate amount of threat on their own but their real value is that they act as a multiplier to the threat you generate with damaging attacks. Provoke alone is ok if you are focusing on a single target (since you can repeatedly provoke him) but against multiple targets it's hard to keep it up.

If you want to hold aggro really well the optimal strategy is provoke -> damage -> provoke -> damage etc. Traps, unfortunately is not particularly effective at generating threat on the user unless you make extensive use of Trip Mines.

Personally I find the cast time of Trip Mines annoyingly long so I mostly rely on Photon Grenade and Electrifying Fences to generate threat (the latter isn't slotted for damage but I use the Musculature Alpha which helps plus damaging powers with a debuff supposedly get a threat bonus).

As for stopping enemies running away, between Electrifying Fences and Web Grenade it's not a major concern .

Yes, if you lose a lot of bots they will sometimes take a while to get to you (you are the last person they shield after other pots, your FFG and your Acid Mortar). YMMV on whether you want to rely on it. Personally I am happy to rely on it and use inspirations when I need to but I know there is a school of thought that advocates not relying on it.

Using that method Ageless provides:
0.7 points per second for 10 seconds
0.4 points per second for 20 seconds
0.2 points per second for 30 seconds
0.1 points per second for 60 seconds.

If you multiply that out and average it over the 120 seconds you get 0.225 points per second.

They all said I was mad when I took 2 of the Pulse Rifle attack and an aoe immobilize but I showed them!

Muhahahahaha.

It's a matter of personal preference. The stories in the game are interesting but at this point I've read them all, either from doing the arc or simply reading the story on the wiki (and for me at least the two methods are equally enjoyable methods of enjoying story). Therefore at this point the story is pretty much irrelevant to me playing and enjoying the game. I like to know it's there but repeating 1 story 20 times isn't really any different from repeating 10 stories 2 times each.

For what it's worth I hope they do eventually add something like that.

The nature of any end-game progression system is that the further it goes the fewer people will reach the "end" point. Positron has talked in the past about eventually adding more incarnate powers past the first 10. The problem I see with that is that as they add more powers the content will need to be tougher to compensate which in turn means fewer people with the gear to handle it. A "gear reset" system where the older slots become easier to get as time goes own will allow the devs to push the incarnate system further and longer without locking out new players/characters.

As for devaluing efforts, how? My efforts to get incarnate stuff are MY efforts. The fact that other people end up getting the same stuff more easily doesn't change my accomplishments. It's like the people who got MoLGTF with the bugged Hamidon, sure other people have MoLGTF but that doesn't change the fact that the irst group were able to do it in the face fo a massive bug.

These don't exist in the form you seem to think. Yes there are powerful attacks but they either give you warning (i.e. Nova Fist) or are relatively survivable (the BAF Cannons). The point is that avoiding these attacks is part of the fun.

The only time I've noticed real lag on the trials is the prisoner phase of the BAF. Personally I think that is actually something to do with the prisoners rather than the number of players.

The majority of missions in the game basically come down to one of two things:
1. Locate a point somewhere in the map and kill/click on something there
2. Kill everything on the map.

The only variance is the aesthetics of the mission which also repeat frequently enough that I lose interest. With that in mind the variation in teams is primarily limited to my teammates, what power combinations they have and how they play.

The trials provide the same teammate variation as normal missions and are a lot more interesting than normal missions. Sure, it basically comes down to the same two objectives but they are presented in a more interesting way than with normal missions.

Now in complete honesty, if it wasn't for the powers I probably wouldn't run them as much. This isn't so much an issue with the trials but more about me. When I play I like enjoyable content but I also like to increase in power. Without enjoyable content I wouldn't have any interest in the incarnate system but without the incarnate system I wouldn't have much interest in the trials either since I'd rather play a character that can increase in power. The rate at which I increase in power and the content I run to do so is essentially immaterial as long as I feel liek I'm progressing and the content is reasonably enjoyable.

This really isn't the case in these trials. The worst situation is Siege in the BAF where you can get a critical buildup of 9CUs that prevent you from taking him out. Even there though I've seen a team reach that point but then manage to rally together and take them down to get back into the fight.

Again, I haven't seen this as a major issue. One of my Incarnates in an MM and I've been doing fine on the trials. The weapon portion of Lambda is a bit hairy but even there I can participate with a lot of resummoning.

iXP is primarily based on the damage dealt by your team (as opposed to the league as a whole). There also seems to be some evidence that different characters on the same team can get different amounts but this hasn't been fully tested.

Shield Defense also has a non-damage aura.

Realistically yes. There might be a few TFs inserted here and there but unless something radically changes I would expect the incarnate content to be trial focused.

Similarly I would expect each new tier of slots to have it's own salvage. The practical reason for this is to move people into newer and more challenging content. When the next tier of slots are released the new content will almost certainly assume a certain level of access to the old slots (at the very least I imagine it'll assume a +3 level shift) and be balanced accordingly. A new salvage type means you have to do the content balanced around the existing slots to unlock the new ones rather than using the existing slots to faceroll through the existing content.

The jokes on them, I always keep my toggles on during costume contests.

Although now that i think about it, keeping Cloaking Device on might explain why I always get missed for rewards.

My only real complaint about this number is that common components are actually rather unlikely to get for most people (based on forum reports and my own experiences). I tend to end up getting uncommon components which are the least useful in terms of Incarnate progress (only need 2 for each very rare, they break down into half a common component which means slower progress compared to getting a common drop and I can't upgrade them to rares since I'm spending all of my threads on common components).

I agree with most of this. My only real complaint is that MM's damage is more heavily affected by the purple patch than other ATs.

I don't consider it a deal breaker but it is frustrating that the lower tier pets deal so little damage compared to their normal damage.

At +0 the pets deal 100%/90%/80% of their base damage, this is their "normal" damage. At +3 they deal 65%/48%/30% of their base damage which works out to 65%/53%/38% of their "normal" damage levels. Other ATs will deal 65% of their normal damage consistently so it seems unfair that MMs deal less than that from two of their "attack" powers.