ClawsandEffect

That's 42% defense from a defender who is also running Maneuvers.

Add Combat Jumping or Hover and a Steadfast Res/Def and you're soft-capped.

You can get really good amounts of defense out of Farsight if you stack it with other sources.

One Time Manipulation character isn't particularly impressive, but multiple TM characters will get stupid powerful pretty quickly. The fact that the individual powers aren't that strong on their own just means the set will stack very well with itself.

It very much IS the Willpower of support sets. It has a wide variety of effects, but it doesn't specialize in any one thing.

Rad and Dark will out do it with -regen.
Kinetics will out do it with +recharge and +damage.
Thermal will out buff it.
Empathy will out heal and out buff it.
Cold will out buff and out debuff it.
Even Poison will probably out buff it.

Time Manipulation isn't more powerful than any of those sets at what those sets do well, in fact it is weaker than most of them in the specific effects. But from my limited experience so far it is more versatile than most of them.

Time has a trick for any situation, but if you want to come prepared for a specific situation, bring something more specialized for that situation.

The downside to that idea is that it would change how OUR powers worked too. Since NPCs use the same powers we do for the most part, changing them to straight line trajectories would force us to have to aim our powers manually as well.

I don't know about you, but in a game that still has rooting, I don't want to try and aim my powers manually, especially in cases where the enemy is flying or running away from us.

As a general rule: The brute will level faster, due to fury giving them a huge damage boost early on, before you can decently enhance your powers. After SOs the scrapper catches up.

Really, I've found it's pretty much a wash between scrapper and brute. I just go with whichever one strikes my fancy at the time of character creation (assuming the powersets I want are available to both)

You're on Virtue and you call it a dead server? You DO realize that Virtue is one of the 2 most populated servers we have right?

Also: This.

If you have all the best stuff, but you aren't having any fun playing the game....you're doing it wrong.

It's not necessary at all. It IS fun to have characters that can do things they weren't intended to though. Soloing a Giant Monster with a Defender is an awesome thing, and soloing AVs with a scrapper is just as fun.

I'll let you in on a secret (well, not really a secret, but still): I do not actually have the vast majority of the IOs you see in builds I post. When I work out a build, I view it more as something to work toward. I have never had the cash to put together a build in Mid's and log in and buy it all at once. If I put together a nice build, and I'm really interested in building that character, it will take me several months to finish it. (Hell, my BS/DA scrapper took almost 2 years to finish, I still need a couple pieces for him to be honest)

Bottom line: Just because you see a lot of expensive stuff in a build doesn't necessarily mean that person actually HAS all that stuff.

Just a quick note:

You don't HAVE to wait until level 47 to start slotting IOs. In fact, if you're aiming for adding defense to a Dark Armor build the two best sets for that cap at levels 30 and 35 respectively (AND one of them will help with endurance issues).

Always remember: A set capping at 50 does NOT automatically make it better than a set that caps at a lower level. And with all the various ways we have of acquiring things, price is not even a factor anymore if you're patient enough.

As an example, one of the sets that I mentioned above is Eradication. The set bonuses it gives you are 1.8% max End, 3.13 E/N defense, and 2.25% Max HP (highest non-purple HP bonus). The set caps at 30, but you only need 4 pieces of it at most, so you can fill 2 more slots with enhancements to make up any enhancement deficiency in the set. I like 4 slottying Eradication and adding 2 Scirocco's Dervish in to boost the enhancement values.

That's an interesting idea.

I don't think it should apply to ALL single target attacks though. It's pretty hard to hit more than one person at a time with a power like Cobra Strike or Crane Kick.

I'm okay with Incarnates. It gives my 50s more to do, but I don't feel like I HAVE to do it. I can run a trial if I see one forming when I'm in the mood for it, or I can do something else instead. I was always pretty ambivalent about the whole thing, and did not understand the people who had to have everything the system offered RIGHT NOW.

I'll eventually get my main completely Incarnated out, but since I don't plan on going anywhere, I'm in no rush to do it.

I'm REALLY enjoying:

-Time Manipulation. Paired with Fire Blast on a defender it's pretty awesome. I also have an Illusion/Time controller (might be a future GM soloer in the making there)
-Katana and Broadsword on brutes. remade my BS/DA scrapper as a brute on the VIP server, and rolled up a Katana/Electric brute as well.
-New character creator. I like the way the new one is laid out, it's a little more intuitive. I also like that you can preview pieces you don't have yet.
-For the most part I like the Paragon Points system (even as slow as the market is). I can get things like JUST the Barbarian sword, or JUST the minotaur head, without having to buy a whole booster pack to get them. There are so many costume pieces that I have never once used sitting in my creator, that I only have because I wanted a few pieces out of the booster pack. I didn't have any trouble navigating the market, it felt pretty intuitive to me. Maybe that's a case of my brain working differently than some people's, because lack of intuitiveness is one of the complaints about it I've seen.

Something I would still like to see (but probably won't): I like that they are proliferating more powersets, but I still would like each AT to have ONE set that is exclusive to it. As of right now, the only exclusive sets left are Ninjitsu, Ice Melee, and Illusion. And I'm betting Ninjitsu and Ice Melee will be in the next round of proliferation at least. But that's a minor gripe. I'm pretty sure this one is long past being a possibility.

Oh yeah, almost forgot: I LOVE the Regen buffs. Longbow don't completely kill my regen anymore.

The mission content is okay.

I was more thinking about the visual update.

Maybe a new contact or two, or clean up some of the more monotonous arcs.

It's a "not even considering buying" for me. Unlike a lot of people, I build my characters for concept first, and then powergame them within those constraints. Example: I don't give a chrome-plated turd that Blaze Mastery is the best APP for scrappers, I won't take it if it doesn't match my concept.

Since I don't currently have any character ideas that call for a red rocket board, it will sit in the store unpurchased until such time as I do. It's going to be there for a while.

And it doesn't invalidate a damn thing. How exactly does a travel power that you cannot use ANY of your powers while using invalidate anything? With Flight, if something attacks me while I'm traveling through a zone, I can fight it off without having to shut my travel power off. Rocket Board doesn't give you that option.

Also, how many people use the travel pools JUST for the travel powers? No one takes Hasten, Combat Jumping, Hover, Air Superiority, or Recall Friend? If you choose to ignore travel pools in favor of a power that shuts off all your other powers, you're welcome to do so, but you're going to be ignoring a lot of other useful powers as well.

Doom? Not even close.