Bill Z Bubba

That right there is what to keep in mind.

I'm not in any way against vulgarity except when I am. I know my son hears everything I normally spew while he's at school, but I choose not to cuss around him. This doesn't mean I don't slip up from time to time.

The other side of my opinion is that we do have a profanity filter in this game and those offended by such language should be using it. Parents should make sure that it's enabled before allowing their kids to play. None of us should ever hear from a GM that we were reported for foul language.

But it happens because this is America, Land of the Offended.

Example: Turn on hover.

In other words, you have a belief that you won't even bother attempting to back up with any kind of evidence. Got it.

Since you've learned that your less than well thought out opinions are usually knocked out of the ballpark with ease, you should probably take it to the next step and not bother sharing such thoughts in the first place since they contribute nothing of worth to the discussion.

What HAS been shown in this and many other threads is that it is NOT a commonly held belief amongst the player population that soloing AVs or finishing the ITF in 26 minutes or running Master of TFs are the benchmarks of a good character or group of characters.

What is common to see is that those that have pulled off such stunts do so with planning, time and work all based around a proper understanding of the game's mechanics and while usually giving up something else in the process.

In my case, as I don't get to play nearly as much as I used to, I only have one character that gets tweaked regularly with the min/maxing mindset. One character that I use to farm for inf and merits so that I can afford the goodies necessary to keep him at the top edge of performance.

And the amusing part of that character? He's not very good at anything when compared to some of the other min/maxed creations out there.

Without a damage aura, his farming speed is on the low end. Without a self-heal, when a fight doesn't go his way and he runs out of green insps, it's game over and a trip to the hospital. I ran an STF with BZB the other night. I faceplanted once while getting to LR and then another 8 times while we tried to take down the towers and LR himself. My posted pylon time isn't even in the top half of the times posted.

Does any of that actually bother me? No. I've pulled off some fun crap that I didn't expect to pull off and I've got more improvements coming with I-19... just like everyone else.

And that's one character out of... what.. 16 or so on Pinnacle? Do I or anyone else think that all those other characters suck or that they're useless? Of course not. I don't expect ridiculous things. I understand that to accomplish tasks certain steps must be taken first. I know that the fire*3 tank that I'm now planning to become my main farmer is going to be designed specifically for that purpose. His mitigation won't be that great. His single target damage won't be very good either. But he'll be melting through +0/x8 spawns in ways that my other two main characters can't even dream of.

Will this new tank be able to solo AVs? Not with the build I plan for him. Is that working as intended? Yes. Could I redesign him so that he was an AV killer? I don't know. I wouldn't bother while using FA because I don't consider it a strong mitigation set. Were I to want an AV killing tank, I'd look to the sets that would give me the best starting point for single target damage and overall mitigation.

Back on point, people that think every AT in the game with every powerset combination should be able to accomplish what everything else can; or those that think a character is useless unless it's got a 4 billion inf build; or those that spend years ignoring the reality of archetype balance because they can't one shot an AV with their medium damage archetype are not thinking clearly. And that's being as nice as I can be.

/shakes tiny fist of rage at blocking claws/shields

So it's your belief that the opinion of the majority of players is that if you aren't IOed to the gills and soloing level 54 AVs that the character is worthless? I'm at a loss as to where this belief of yours comes from.

Aren't we regularly told that most players don't even bother reading the forums or use Mids for their character's builds? Aren't we regularly told that most players are just happy to get on a team?

Can you in any way point to some proof that the majority of players have the opinion you think they have? Using myself as an example, I have two characters out of a full stable of characters on Pinnacle that I min/max at all and the second one is currently using a build I threw together in about 10 minutes in Mids. And yet all the other characters I'm bouncing around on Pinn with are in no way worthless to me or to the players I team with on the rare occasion I team.

So where does this belief of yours come from?

As I've told you before, that description fits the tank perfectly. He has the mitigation to stay alive indefinitely thus allowing him to slowly whittle away at his target over time.

AVs are only staying alive against you because you obviously don't know how to build for taking them out. The tools are out there. You choose not to use them. YOU are the problem. Not the description.

Sounds like a jerk. You could have easily quit the team and started a new TF with a team that would have sped through it in probably a quarter of the time it must have taken him.

I'm all for soloing TFs. It's fun when you have the time to kill, but there's certainly no reason to bother with it when you're not solo. If you do, you're wasting the time of 7 other players.

Why anyone would put up with that kind of behavior escapes me.

What were you doing during all of this? What was the rest of the team doing? Why would anyone stay on a team where this was happening?

I have to ask: Who gave you the idea that an AT's worth was based on its ability to solo AVs?

It certainly wasn't me. Or Werner. Or Iggy or any other regular posters to the scrapper boards. It wasn't Arcanaville. It wasn't Castle or any other developer. So where did you get that idea from?

Nor does anyone with a brain say that it is. So let's look at those job descriptions, shall we?

"No lone criminal wants to cross paths with a Scrapper - because odds are that only the Scrapper is going to walk away."

Translation: Single target killer
Archvillain: Single target

Working as intended. Does this mean that the job of all scrappers is to solo AVs? Nope. Their job is to attack hard targets and hopefully walk away victorious.

But we all know that there are other powerset combos that can also take out AVs. As with scrappers, we must ask "what are they giving up to be able to pull that off?"

Can that FF/ENE defender solo a few AVs? I've never heard of it happening, but at the same time, he can softcap defense on every one of his teammates.

My fire/fire tank probably won't be able to solo AVs but I have little doubt that he'll farm far faster than my claws/sr scrapper.

And once again we start to see what the term "balance" means around here for those that have a grasp of the concept.

None of my characters are awesome at everything. None of them are supposed to be. I have one with high ST damage that can solo a lot, but not even close to all, AV/Hero class enemies as long as they are even level. I have another that has vastly more survivability than the first but can't push out the same kind of damage. I have a third that when done will wade through standard spawns far faster than either of the first two.

I repeat: No character is Ever supposed to be awesome at Everything. There are some that are better at one thing while being worse at another. There are some that are good at everything but not the best at everything. This is balanced. This is working as intended.

This is why there are no obsolete archetypes and there won't be until NO ONE plays them.

Then scrappers should be able to buff their teammates just as well as defenders.

Then stalkers should be able to draw, hold and survive aggro just as well as tanks.

Blasters should be able to control spawns as well as controllers.

These three statements make just as much sense as your statement. Which is to say, none at all.

Pretty sure that wings still flap with every version of jump and fly regardless of how you get it. Course, you also have the pack in question crammed into the middle of your wings and clipping heavily with them...

For the record, both of my min-maxed main characters have fly. Once you get the 60 month vet reward and especially after I-19 and fitness going inherent, there really won't be any reason for those wanting fly NOT to take it.

BZB's I-19 build doesn't even slot more than a single basic lvl 50 flight speed in it and he'll still be at the fly speed cap.

Edited for missing word.

Look everyone: Butane's once again, as usual, ignoring every single case presented to him where scrappers and brutes Don't have the survivability necessary to stay upright to accomplish a task because those facts interfere with his argument that all tanks should be untouchable, Hamidon soloing gods!

We're all shocked at this, I'm sure.

1.5 hours for 1.5 HV merits per night... when I'm not allowing myself to be distracted. 1 hour for 50 reward merits. 30 minutes for the 5/6 tip missions. Granted, I've got inf stored up so I'm not also forced to farm for inf to cover the 20mil conversion cost.

Still going to take much longer at 10 HVmerits per SHO/HO, but you don't run the risk of getting a bunch of HO/SHOs you don't want.

Conversely, as Lothic stated, it'd be easier to farm AE for and hour, sell the recipes and buy the HO/SHO you needed outright.

You play on Pinnacle? If not, then no, it wasn't me. Come to think on it, I solo my own AE farming, so I seriously doubt it. On top of that I haven't sat in a mission while someone else did the killing since around issue 3 and hated it then. Good thing you said "pretty sure." On top of all of that, if I were to ever find myself on a team with you, I'd quit in a heartbeat. There's no way in hell I'd ever sully my playtime with the likes of you.

As for the rest of your post, more whining. Don't like teams of 7 blasters and your tank? Don't be on them.

Tanks are unpopular? No wonder with people like you running around the forums constantly crying about how they aren't scrappers. They are a niche AT. Designed for a specific role. Don't like that role? Don't play tanks.

It's a wonder that my brother never seems to have the same gripes as you when his main is a tank. Unlike me, he loves teaming and loves being the damage soaking aggro magnet that he is. Because of this and the SG he's part of, he always levels new characters faster than I ever can Because he teams so much.

Well.. it's not really a wonder. He understands how things work around here.

EDIT: Side note: I'm playing a tank right now. I'll be soloing him from 1 to 50 as I do so many of my characters. And I won't be whining about his damage output because I know how to build my characters to not suck.