Bosstone

Oh, I'm well aware. But it's not a 'hahahano', so there's always the chance Z will mention it, it'll get approval, and I'll be wrong.

Fair point, and if I hadn't already done an Elec Brute I'd probably roll that up.

TW/Energy has something going for it, though: the ability to cloak with a giant sword. In your face, Stalkers.

Which is why players hollered for the ATIOs to be available in-game; because they are more important.

Heck, a single DFB gets you to about level 7, some SOs, and a buff. Run it once, skip Atlas to Kings Row, grab a radio, do some missions and a safeguard, get the contact of your choice, and away you go.

Brute /EA has a taunt aura in Entropic Armor, too.

Anything else would have been a lie or too vague for satisfaction. Z's cooler than that.

I've done it before. Pre-Inherent Fitness, I intentionally leveled my SS/Elec Brute up without Stamina. Admittedly it was a bit of a struggle, but I darn well did it. I don't fear endurance loss as much as a lot of players do. There's plenty of ways to mitigate the End usage, and the DPE on this set is better than average anyway.

And sure, it's the same old content, but I'm looking forward to doing it with a genuine melee AOE powerset, not just one that has a couple decent AOE powers. Plus I've never used Energy Aura before. I've got five 50s and a sixth at 46; going through the game again isn't anything I haven't done before.

Far as I know it's whichever you like. I think Scrapper will give the most consistent damage, but it'll do that for any powerset. I'm going with Brute because Energy Mastery has both Superior Conditioning and Physical Perfection, whereas Body Mastery only has Physical Perfection.

Plus, you know, it's freaking Titan Weapons. That screams Brute.

Yeah, I'm afraid I just don't find that compelling. I get what you two are driving at, that since you don't remember it's like you got to play them for the first time again, but all that means is you got to replay uninteresting and unmemorable missions.

Only if you use the villain skin.

Except that, again, unless you chose your origin specifically to get a particular starting contact, you don't actually have a choice. Flavor, I'll grant you, but again we're talking about levels 1-5 here. Not a whole lot of time spent or flavor available.

The real choice comes when you start picking contacts. "See this guy in Kings Row, he's been dealing with the Clockwork and Skulls," or "See David Wincott in the Hollows" or "See this woman in Atlas, she's been handling the Hellions." There's your freedom to choose, and none of that has been taken away.

Yeah, in some respects the game has been made more linear. I miss Galaxy, I used to start most of my characters there. But in some respects, linearity is a good thing, particularly when we're talking about a new player experience. You've got to get newbies a solid grounding in the game first before turning them loose, or they're going to get confused or bored and walk away. Veterans should be spending so little time in Atlas that it's really not a big issue -- not because they're powerleveling, but because they know how to play the game. On the whole, this is just small potatoes.

Don't kid yourself. There may have been a lot more contacts in Atlas, but the biggest differences between them were their names. You still faced Hellions, Skulls, Clockwork, and Vahz to one degree or another, and you do the same now. Most of the contacts didn't even have story arcs, only a couple missions, and half of those were pushing you to go talk to Wincott or a Security Chief in another zone.

The Atlas contacts are more linear in that you see the same ones, but the arcs are higher quality. That helps pull new players in; I know I felt like I was just uselessly spinning my wheels with old contacts, whereas here I feel like I'm actually doing something and pursuing a plot. I've had many characters fall by the wayside before level 10 because I just felt so directionless.

If you don't want to deal with Twinshot (I agree her personality is grating), you can always hit up Kings Row to do paper missions and get oldschool contacts, go to the Hollows which haven't been torturous since the revamp, go to the AE, or do whatever. The sewer trial lets veterans speed past Atlas so they don't have to do the same arcs over and over.

And on a wider scale, you can always start new characters in red or goldside. Past level 20, you can always switch back to blue if you want. Goldside itself has 4 different paths to go down (not counting going undercover), plus repeatable missions if you're tired of the story.

The previous illusion of choice was removed, but functionally we still have the same options. You only "have" to go to Twinshot once in order to learn about Kings Row, and once you know you can go there at 5 you're golden.

I know folks in here have said they like to take their time and play with solo arcs, but come on. It's levels 1 through 5. Even if you never do a single mission and just street sweep, it takes like half an hour. Atlas Park is such a minor part of your character's overall career that it's hardly worth getting up in arms about.

Sometimes that's just not really an option, whether from a mechanic or thematic standpoint.

Paragon's generally pretty good about that by throwing things into the Flashback system, but obviously that doesn't help lowbies.

Definitely. I don't care if I'm the star or not, I just want to contribute and have some of my own fun. Tough to do that when the tanker opens up with a Judgement and decimates the spawn in one go.

When running on steamroll missions with my Blaster, I used to gauge how soon the team would finish with the current spawn and run ahead to the next so I could use my LRM before the rest of the team vaporized it. Not because I wanted to show off how awesome I was, but just so that I could use it in a meaningful way.

I'm...pretty sure that's exactly what they did. The early missions on both blue and red side have been completely revamped. These new missions are, in fact, what are being complained about in this thread.

No, I was mainly hoping that people wouldn't work themselves up into a moral outrage and instead just not buy the packs.

It's a moot point now, so I'm not going to spend too much more time on it.

Point me to where I can buy team inspirations that will immediately heal all my Bots in a heated firefight, or will buff everyone's defense instantly without me having to spend 7 purples and the time needed to activate them all, and I'll readily agree.

Obviously their usefulness is going to vary based on personal views, playstyle, and AT, but you see my point, I hope.