Carnifax_NA

There is a progress-based path though, things like the Lady Grey TF and the other recent end-game TFs (obviously not the i19 ones).

HAHAHAHA!! That's just brilliant.

Well done on an original, well thought out and beautifully executed promotion NCSoft. I doff my cap to you.

This basically. For any of my Brutes it's a buff, simply because I rarely managed to get & maintain to the highest levels of Fury. It's a buff for any Brute at the lower levels because it's easier to keep a medium level of Fury up (especially on Teams where it can be hard to attract Fury from enemy attacks). For top end Brutes who were able to maintain very high levels of Fury it's a bit of a nerf (and rightly so because they were outstripping Scrappers in the damage department).

Normalized would be the phrase I'd use.

Brutes do very well out of the Stamina changes though and Frenzy (the Temp Power you get for being a villain and running Tips to maintain your alignment) is excellent for them, giving them an excellent way to "start from cold".

I thought you'd been replaced by your evil Praetorian double : WalkingThinLady.

(obviously she's not your exact double)

As far as I know the issue is caused by the individual map serving computers which belong to a server get out of sync time-wise. So the system ends up thinking you've jumped back or forwards in time and thus resets things.

It can happen consistantly with a single zone as well, I remember it just happening to Unions Talos instance before. Everywhere else seemed fine but if you entered Talos it would occur.

It also explains why it keeps reoccuring, it's not technically a software bug but more a machine-based one.

This.

Saying Energy Assault got new animations is being generous. It got one new animation which you can apply to two of the blasts, leaving the other two ranged blasts out of luck.

Plus it looks like it was nicked from the i18 mob animations anyway (Praetorian Clockwork) and doesn't really suit my character. I don't want to make an Ironman rip-off character ta.

A mistake I made in the past, most DoTs still check for scourge once, when the attack hits. This is true with both the examples you've listed here. It doesn't matter if the DoT brings them closer and closer to Scourge levels, they only roll for Scourge when the attack first hits.

Rain of Fire, Ice Storm and Blizzard are exceptions, they constantly recheck for Scourge at each tick because each individual tick makes a ToHit roll.

Beep. Wrong again. The damage buffs are equally as useful to you as any teamies you might have with you. Sure some of your teamies might be able to leverage it better, although in the case of Corrupters this is unlikely.

I've also never heard of Flashfire being described as "a Stun debuff". That's a misuse of the term "debuff"

Wrong again I'm afraid, and my witness here is the Fortuna / Widow. Neither has much in the way of DDR yet both are designed around having secondaries build on Defense. Sure they can suffer a cascading defense debuff, but even when fighting enemies with a bit of -defense in their attacks (Council, Warriors) it rarely happens.

You've made this point before and it still isn't true.

Firstly Blapping was popular not because Blasters liked being at 10% HP so they'd have a big damage buff, but simply because the melee attacks hit hard. I've never seen any indication that the Devs didn't want people to do it either. In fact given that the last Control set (one of those "ranged ATs" you mention) added has a PBAOE Drain aura in it it's fairly obvious that you are simply wrong here.

It also means that Elec/Kin might be a good match for the OP. You can be Mr Super Sapper, although the damage before 38/41 (when you get Fulcrum Shift and APPs / PPPs) mightn't be the best.

Other possible "synergistic" combos can be Ice/Kin Controllers (Arctic Air gives you some melee ranged protection, but again you will have low damage for the first 50% of your existence), Rad or Elec / Kin corrupters or Defenders (Rad and Elec have a PBAOE attack, and in Elecs case this can go towards making you a fairly good sapper) and Sonic/Kin Defenders or Corruptors (Sonic is single target orientated and you can use the Sleep & Fulcrum Shift to Fulcrum in safety as it won't wake sleepers up).

The issue isn't just combinations, it's the combination of powersets and AT modifiers as well.

A Fire Control/SD with no Containment wouldn't be that overpowered, if you saddled them with say MM modifiers on everything

It would be too wildly unpredicable though, and people would just flock / build "the best" resulting in less variation rather than more in builds.

Pretty much. Any reviews they've done in the last few years are almost invariably top-end cars starting from Merc and BMWs and heading up from there (with accompanying shots of Clarkson speeding up and down the Airfield / Track and bellowing either "Pooooower" or "Come ON!"). It's pretty rare they'll now review a proper everyday car.

Wait what??

That stopped being the case with the UK version of Top Gear at least 5 years ago.

I've a projected build mocked up at home somewhere which I'll post later.

As per usual though it mostly ignores sexy sets, instead focusing on frankenslotting the cheap and easy ones I tend to thrive on, so it may not be suitable for you really.

For example I know that in my case I'm happy with Power Push, Power Blast and Power Burst slotted with 2 Ruin and 2 Thunderstrike : 2 Acc/Dam, 2 Dam/Recharge (and an extra recharge in Power Burst).

Ditto I always frankenslot my AOE Hold with Acc/Hold/Rech from Essence of Curate, GWs Embrace and Paralytic and top up with another 2 or 3 way from the hold set depending on what I can afford.

I don't really give a fig for Permadom or capped defenses on a Domi so i'm probably little use to you in this case (other than to say Elec/NRG is a very underestimated combo in general).

More importantly it's more FUN being able to shoot things in the face, or (in my case) get them to shoot each other in the head whilest you summon some plantie-tentacle things to do things to them which mean they'll be spending prison talking to the prison counciller and screaming any time they see a spring onion.

A lot of "hands-off" control sets are great for that. Summon your pets/pseudopet, lob in an AOE control and then decide you who'd like to stick Fortitude on and if AB is back so you can turn a Brute or Domi into even more of a killing machine.

Personally I'd avoid Stone Armour because while it is indeed tough it's also slow.

My Dark/WP was the toughest solo brute I had, based on common IOs and frankenslotting.

WP like Smashing/Lethal defense and +HP bonuses as well so there's scope for throwing in set bonuses.

You seem to be under the impression that this game is a democracy. And actually it might be, but the dev team are the ones with the votes.

In other words it doesn't particularly matter what the Aye and Nay player totals are in the least.

They resist all in PvP I believe.

I haven't personally tried them but the MM APPs which they get from Blasters look far more attractive to me than the PPPs. Villains can automatically pick from them when they hit 41.

For more defense Cold Mastery would be a good bet. Frozen Armour is defense based and you can get Hoarfrost too which would work well with BG mode. Hibernate is also interesting for any set with lots of pets (my Illusion/Stormie loves it)

Electrical Mastery is also interesting for more control via Shocking Bolt and EMP and a resistance shield and a resistance God Mode in Surge of Power.