Call Me Awesome

On it's own with just the defense boosting sets you can have end issues. Add in a couple of sets of Gift of the Ancients in Tough Hide and Weave (4 slots each, all the defense IO's) helps dramatically with 3.6 bonus points of endurance and 4% recovery. I have the Numina unique in Health on CMA and endurance isn't much of an issue.

I also have all the accolades so I already had +10 base endurance (Atlas Medallion & Portal Jockey). I'd say that I'm good for 3-5 minutes of full speed combat before I need to think about popping a blue and Stone Melee isn't exactly light on endurance use. I do fairly strongly suggest getting the accolades; they're well worth having. Atlas Medallion, Freedom Phalanx Reserve, Portal Jockey and Task Force Commander between them gives you 10% bonus endurance and 25% bonus hit points.

It's been happening to me for the last week or so. You're right, it's actually going beyond mere "annoyance" into outright "aggravation"

It's happened 4 times just today. I'm also on Firefox.

Absolutely this, healing is the weakest form of team support past level 20 or so; if I'm putting together a team the LAST thing I'd look for would be a "healer", from the 20's on they're just dead weight more often than not.

There's just SO many better forms of team support than healing. Debuffs to make the mobs helpless and unable to hit and/or damage the team. Buffs to the team's defense or damage resistance so that they don't get hurt at all. Controls so that the mobs are frozen in place unable to do anything while the team mows them down. Best of all, all of the above. Healing is only really valuable in the very low levels before buffs & debuffs start to mature.

The absolute most dominating, fastest moving team combination I know of is 8 Fire/Radiation Controllers thanks to their stacking buffs (Accelerate Metabolism, +damage, +recovery & +recharge) and debuffs (Radiation Infection -tohit, -defense, Enervating Field -resistance) pushing everyone to a maximum efficiency level in damage output while reducing the mobs to the status of newborn kittens.

I understand the annoyance of an aura rocker; and I can see the issue with Shadow Fall, Steamy Mist or similar powers. However if an area of the game forces EVERYTHING off, INCLUDING my travel/sprint powers then I have a problem with THAT.

I found loosing Sprint/Ninja Run to be quite annoying when I went into the Praetorian auction house. I went in at around level 8 to dispose of the junk I'd acquired. Well, I haven't been in there since, I just vendored everything rather than deal with the annoyance, and that was a character with NO toggles beyond Sprint/NR. I'd really be... displeased... with this on, say my BS/Shield scrapper with 7 toggles.

If this kind of detoggling goes in effect in WW then I'll only go there if I HAVE to and vendor most of my drops. I'd expect to see considerably fewer players using WW and supplies would be lower.

I agree with the suggestion up thread to add a "studio b" so those who want to shut everything off around them can have a place to do so without inconveniencing everyone else. Alternately give us a SG base interface with the auction house, that would make everyone happy.

It should for Strigga anyway... since you have to be 20 to switch sides the Hollows is outleveled already. Stephanie Peebles (AKA in my SG "That Smokin' Hottie") is a walk up contact.

You may as well put in some lowball bids on 25-35 recipes; if they don't fill in a bit then you haven't lost anything but if they come through (and you're very likely to have SOME come through in a week or so) then you're that much ahead.

Look for Reactive Armor in the level 25-35 range; usually they're MUCH cheaper than max level (40) ones and you're really not loosing anything. In fact you're gaining the use of your bonuses down to Citadel/Manticore TF level.

Heck, even when things are in high demand you can occasionally get lucky with a low bid... I got a Numina Regen/Recovery unique a while back for under 1 million. I got a full set of Soulbound (purple pet set) recipes for 5 million TOTAL; I just let the bids sit on a seldom played character and after a couple of weeks they'd all filled.

The market's funny; a recipe that sells for 70 million now may be obtainable with a little luck and patience for a fraction of that. You're not going to get a 70 million recipe for 1 million very often but it CAN happen. All it takes is someone to list it lowball and you to have the right bid out.

Diabolique can KB a granite tanker without Rooted and one of the Rikti bombs can knock back a Granite+Rooted tanker... although the latter is a repulsion effect and may well be unresistable.

Outside of a VERY few situations you won't need Rooted to avoid KB; you should only need it if:
A. You're facing something extremely powerful... GM, really nasty AV or the like.
B. You're facing end drainers like Malta Sappers or Carnies.

For all other fights I'm using either Rock Armor/Rooted/Stone Skin or, if the mobs are tough/numerous enough, Granite armor WITHOUT Rooted. If you find one of the rare mobs that can beat Granite's -KB protection then pop Rooted on and continue tanking.

They do indeed, although I've only once gone through a radio mission without having at least one drop... last night I had 2 drop from the very first group and a third dropped about 3 groups later.

As je saist said any monitor will work; I've been running dual monitors on several machines for over 10 years now, CRT's to flat panels.

I recently bought a pair of 24" Asus VE-245 monitors (~$250 each at Best Buy) and they're beautiful things; 1920x1080 resolution and great color. True, they aren't up with the Samsung 24" professional series monitors I have on my work machine but they didn't cost $1,000 each either I've also bought a smaller 22" Asus, the same series but the smaller unit for around $150; it looks just as good as it's big brother.

Connecting dual monitors is dead easy these days, your vid card should have 2 DVI ports... just plug each monitor into one and when Windows boots open the vid card control panel and tell it to use the 2nd monitor.

I haven't used anything Acer in 15 years... they had an absolutely horrendous reputation for poor quality back then. Undoubtedly they've improved since the only worse manufacturer in the mid-90's was Packard Bell but I haven't touched an Acer since. I got burned really badly by an Acer piece of junk in the 90's so I've avoided the brand ever since... quite possibly unfairly. It's the same reason I avoid Seagate hard drives, you remember the hardware that fails in the middle of a job with the client sitting in the studio

Oh, and make sure the power's off when you're blowing out the dust bunnies.

One or the other of these is very likely your problem, it really sounds to me like you're overheating... that will cause a spontaneous reboot every time. The fact that it does it shortly after you start the game is a likely giveaway that your video card is getting too hot. Ancient video card drivers can cause oddball issues as well, snag the latest from www.nvidia.com.

Pop the cover on the machine and evict the dust bunnies from the fans and heat sinks (Make SURE you hold the fans still while you blow them out... spinning fans while cleaning is a bad thing. They make a dandy generator and can feed back electricity into the computer.) If you haven't had the case open in a few years you're sure to have crud in the box.

While you have the case open power the machine up and verify that all fans are spinning freely (DON'T clean things with the machine running).

Look at his registration date, he just started playing Ditzy so cut him some slack.

In answer to the question, no there's no way to control any of the Controller pets; that ability is the exclusive province of Masterminds. It's true that the monkeys tend to be hyperactive toddlers with ADD but you'll learn how to lead them around and (hopefully) keep them focused on the same group you're working on.

Yes, they will occasionally go running off and get into trouble; that's just something you'll need to put up with. Surprisingly you'll find that you can keep them somewhat under control with practice although there will always be times when they run off and bring friends back to meet you. They're very effective at dealing damage as is the whole Fire Control set. Their, um, impetuousness, is the price you pay for their ability.

In my opinion mainly this... you can have a tanker with near Granite levels of durability without any of the drawbacks. It also is excellent at holding aggro thanks to a very strong aura in Invincibility.

Shield will do more damage and can be quite tough itself, but it's short of Invuln in peak survivability. Stone can best the durability only at the cost of mobility, recharge and damage penalties. Willpower can be built to impressive durability but it's pathetic at holding aggro.

All of these contribute to the popularity of Invuln, however it's ALWAYS been a popular set simply because, well, you think of a really tough character as being INVULNERABLE.

Psychology does come into play here and the idea of playing an Invulnerable tanker did play a part in my choice to roll up CMA in issue 3... I'd played a blaster to around 20 and was very tired of constantly faceplanting so I wanted something that wouldn't die. Well, what could more sum up the idea of "you can't hurt me" than being Invulnerable?

To tell you the truth if you're rolling up your first character you may want to try a Scrapper as a "learning" character. Scrappers have very good damage and enough durability to be somewhat forgiving of rookie mistakes. When they mature they have fantastic damage and durability second only to tankers. They're also the most straightforward characters to play... you run up and punch the bad guy in the nose. Simple, direct and to the point without worrying about buffs/debuffs, control or other finer points that other AT's specialize in.

Once you've the basic mechanics down you may want to try other AT's (our version of classes) and powersets. All AT's can be very capable but some are more demanding of player skill and game knowledge than others.

Well, the only one I've located so far is the Hospital.

Put in bids on lower levels and let them sit... here's a little tip for you; the difference in your resistance between slotting level 40 Reactive Armor and level 25 is... 1.1%. (S/L resistance only drops by 0.1% from over the 90% cap to 89.9%) You only loose around 3% going down to level 20 Reactive Armor in your resistance numbers so buy what you can find and afford... don't be afraid to drop down into the low 20's for an IO.

I haven't really looked at the market right now but you could get the IO's in my soft cap guide (level 25-35 recipes) in the neighborhood of 70 million or so about a month ago. One thing to be aware of is that thanks to Going Rogue and the market merger everything listed on the market was removed... it may take a little bit for the market to stabilize and everyone to relist all the items.

I realize that 70 million sounds like a LOT of inf, but in today's game it's getting into the range of chump change for a high level character. A level 50's earning power is pretty phenomenal... just running missions it's easy to pull in 3+ million per hour, sometimes MUCH more and that doesn't include selling your drops in the market.

On my last character, just by playing the game and selling my drops at the market I had over 50 million at level 35... and that was after buying all the IO's I needed. At 45 the character has something around 300 million cash in hand and a full set of IO's, again from playing normally and selling the drops. I didn't provide any seed money and didn't play the market beyond dropping by and listing my drops for a bit below the going rates.

You mentioned you were 35 now... I'd worry about grabbing the IO's as I could afford them, to start with your best bang for the buck would be the Smashing Haymaker sets and the Mocking Beratement taunt set... you should be able to get all of those really cheap... the MB taunt set shouldn't cost more than 50k per recipe and they use cheap salvage.

You don't need to have everything at once, each piece of the IO puzzle adds to your ability and they will work all by themselves, they just build on each other.

Just play the game and make sure you sell your drops... common recipes (like "Invention: Accuracy" and the like) are best sold to a vendor as are some IO set pieces; until you get a feel for what's valuable check what the market price for all your set IO recipes is; the vendor won't pay diddly for those anyway ($10k for a level 50 rare) but some of them are worth tens of millions to players.

That was my main complaint as well; the auction house is pretty but large and being reduced to base walk speed is irritating.

I'd really hate it with my BS/Shield scrapper though... 7 toggles to reactivate

Guardian frequently seems to be in the top 5 as well... at any given time any of those servers may be in the #3 spot. I've seen Infinity be #3 when I first log in and drop to #5-6 an hour later. Server load, outside of Freedom/Virtue, seems to be fairly balanced.

Last night at around 8PM EST Guardian was #3 behind Freedom & Virtue... when I swapped characters around 9PM Guardian was #5. I think it's safe to say there isn't a true "#3" server.

As of 4:50 PM EST today, Friday 8/20 the server order is:
Triumph
Pinnacle
Champion
Victory
Guardian
Protector
Justice
Liberty
Infinity
Virtue
Freedom

A few minutes later Victory had swapped places with Liberty

Check out my soft cap guide for slotting advise. You're looking at slotting for the whole character so just looking at the secondary is of limited use.

In general, for single target attacks slot the Smashing Haymaker set and finish up with two IO's from Pounding Slugfest. This ties into the rest of the Invuln build in order to build defense.

Other IO's you'll want are Reactive Armor (4 slots, all the resist IO's) in your armors, Doctored Wounds in Dull Pain and the Steadfast res/3% def unique.