Cybercel

Surely Silver Mantis and Clamor would be better, they seem to have some tastes in common.

While I'm here, I'll put in a vote for Clamor in answer to the original question, too - the safety-pinned fishnets are great, and I like madborgs.

She just looks like someone out at a psytrance night.

I have to admit, I have always liked The carnie back-decorations, though. And some of the tops. And the boots. Just the colours combinations at times, oh dear...

If you're considering /Fire, have a look at Elec/Fire, too - not for any sensible reasons, it's just one of the more fun AoE toons I've ever played, and it was certainly very flashy. I prefer the level 32 Elec Blast power to the one from Fire Blast, too.

Mind you, I had no mitigation unless you count the pet Empath (a friend I was duoing with) that came with me on all teams. We did have good fun though, especially as the Empath was /Elec, and we found that between us, we could drain things of endurance... occassionally before they fell over burning.

I've played both /Energy and /Elec to 50 as blappers. Both were very fun, and how both play will obviously be very much affected by your primary.

I played the Sonic/Elec first - I did quite a lot of soloing on her (which she was very good at), but also joined teams and generally felt very useful despite being mostly single-target (I didn't take the cone from Sonic). I didn't find her too prone to dying, I could generally take out anything that was attacking me, and did honestly feel I was playing more of a Scrapper role on teams, bouncing around to take out mobs attacking other squishies and so on. She was extremely fun to play, I was a bit shocked when she got to 50 really as it was never really a grind. I wasn't on my home server, so it was almost all solo and PuGs, and she waltzed through it.

Next I made the Ice/Energy. I didn't do this so much because it was an FoTM powerset, I just really like Ice Blast and was wanting to try out /Energy after getting the first blapper to 50. Some people had told me they found it boring, but she was very fun (and very quick!) to level, but it was almost all done as part of a duo with a Rad/Sonic Def. They were brilliant together. Post-50, I found that solo she felt a bit meh, that she couldn't stand up on her own nearly as well as the Sonic/Elec, and that on large teams I just feel a bit useless, especially if running low level TFs. I just end up feeling like I could be contributing more on another toon. However, I suspect this could be changed with a re-build; she's still really oriented towards the duo I levelled her in, and I've no doubt she's still very fun to play in that situation - it's just not one I find myself in much since I got her to 50, as I tend to play my 50s more in TFs.


Obviously these are very much personal experience and opinion rather than the hard numbers, but in the end, you're better off on the set you find more fun, or that fits how you'd like to play better. Best to pick one and try, and if it doesn't fit (or you have so much fun you want to do it all again), try the other! I'd suggest asking about for primary suggestions too if you're not sure, as that certainly makes a huge difference - neither of those were the first /Elec or /Energy I'd tried, they were just the first that I enjoyed and stuck with.

I can greatly recommend Sonic/Elec as a very versatile combination though; I'm tempted to pay to move mine to my home server or level another, as I'd love to have two different builds on her to make use of the different possibilities!

I've always suspected that a server-list merge might actually increase the population of the EU servers.

Aside from US and Canadian French and German speakers wanting to try out playing in those languages, I think there might well be a bit of shiny-new-thing effect; people might well try out the two English-speaking servers just because they're new, or to interact with people they now know via the forums. Shift workers might find they're busier at more convenient hours for them. And maybe some of the European players who joined US side either by accident or because they wanted the higher population servers will come back, if we all have access to all servers.

Apologies if anyone's mentioned this as I've not read through the full thread, but I think the best solution would be a server list merge, but then some kind of labelling to give people an idea of what the servers are like - either based on language and geographical area (to help people understand what time zone it's in, and therefore when it's likely to be busy). So something like EU-FR, EU-DE, EU-EN would cover the language of the servers, and also makes it clear the population is likely to be on at European peak times. It could be very discouraging for people otherwise - for instance, a new US player makes a toon on Union at 10PM EST and wonders why there are only 20 people on.

I'd love it to happen, anyway - Union would still be my home, but I'd be glad to see new blood, and I'd probably at least try a second server from the US list - if nothing else, it'd be nice to have somewhere that's populated at different times so when I'm up in the middle of the night there are people around!

Not all teams fighting high level stuff are like that, by any stretch. Bad teams happen in all different situations, and it's not at all wise to put the difficulty right up if you're not sure the team can handle it (for any reason, whether that's related to the toons or player ability), or if the people in the team aren't likely to enjoy fighting that way.

Absolutely: CLICK HERE FOR PRETTY


That's really good to see. Here's hoping it's sooner rather than later, I can only go so long without a really silly ITF.

Which is why I said, earlier, I'd like some idea of

1) Whether this is temporary - I'd be happy with "we're not sure right now" even, if that's the truth of things.
2) If it is, if it's a high priority.


That doesn't mean I want a timescale, or anything even vaguely precise. I just want an idea of whether the devs even understand that some of us love doing TFs/SFs on high difficulty, and whether it'll ever change back. Again, if the answer is "we really can't say right now, but we understand your concern," I'd be happy just knowing they're aware of the issue.

I don't really care about player supposition on the matter, because let's face it - we're all guessing.

I'm a developer myself, and I'm all too aware that users often get the idea when you say something is temporary, it'll change soon, when by the time you get to it, develop it, and test it, it could be months away. So all I want to know is whether it's on the radar or not.

If you want to talk of perspective, maybe you should take your own advice and try seeing things through other people's eyes. Different things matter different amounts to different people. This one's pretty high up the list for me, and for quite a few people I play with, and I'd like to get some info for my own sake and to pass along to others, if possible. No nerd rage, no anger, just wanting some information and think it's fair enough to be a little sad about this.

If you'd read the end of my post, you'd see that I think that way too. I just don't think an explanation of whether this is temporary or not is very much to ask for.

A couple of us have asked for confirmation, that's all. I don't want to base things on assumption in either direction, I'd just like a clear-cut answer on whether this is temporary or not - and preferably, if it is temporary, whether it's a priority thing to sort out or not.

I was actually having a conversation about this yesterday. I do wish the datamining included difficulty level (maybe it even does already), and that rewards were based on this. Not just because I'd tend to get more as I do ramp the difficulty up, but I'm continually frustrated by people who do just run everything as easily as possible - not because they need to, but because it's a quick way of getting the rewards.

I suspect that if the rewards went up, some of these people would use the higher difficulty levels. And even better, it might get some people who think they can't play those difficulty levels to challenge themselves and realise they can!

On the other hand, it would need to be carefully balanced. I realise some people, or some characters or combinations of characters, do honestly have a tough time with the higher difficulty levels. The difference shouldn't be too great, just great enough to coax some more players over to a more challenging (and potentially very fun!) style of play.

Of course, all this is fairly meaningless if TFs and SFs can't be run on high difficulty anymore, anyway.

I realise this wasn't aimed at me, but I have to say this. Point A there is just pure opinion. Sure, if you're not someone who runs a lot of TFs and SFs on high difficulty, of course it's not that bad. For those of us who do this as a major part of our gameplay, it's a pretty big deal.

To try and give you some context, I took some time off this game (as I do whenever I feel it's wearing a little thin) and waited out I16's arrival. The biggest change for me was the difficulty levels. I can make the game fun again - and now I'm back to being on every night after an issue pretty much gone. This is probably the second most important issue for me, after the one that brought in IOs - as in, these are the two issues I would say, most of all, have kept me playing this game.

I play TFs and SFs more than normal missions normally, so to hear the difficulty levels I've been bouncing around all excitedly about since the first announcements came out won't work on them? Yeah, of course I'm dissappointed. This doesn't make the game just a "bit less fun" for me, it is a pretty major change, and not one I find positive.

Now, if this had been confirmed as temporary, I'd not be concerned - I can completely understand doing a quick & easy fix for a major problem, then following it up with a properly done change. But until it is confirmed, I will be concerned, and I think other people have the right to be as well. You can bet people would be complaining if it'd been the other way, and the fix was to only allow TFs to be done on +3 or +4... and even though I'd love that (Woohoo! I'd never have to put up with a pick-up team insisting on lowest difficulty when I know we could do better again!), I'd understand other people not liking it.

Most likely - and I appreciate it, I wouldn't have known until go-live otherwise as I don't always keep an eye on the Test forum. Knowing has given my coalition a chance to run a high level TF before it becomes impossible.

Are you just sending random people tells, or people who've said they're recruiting?

I ask because I get quite a lot of (usually new-ish) players who send me random tells asking to join my SG. The SGs I'm in both hero and villain side are pretty much closed-door; it's a bunch of friends, and new people only really get recruited if they're friends of members, or people we've teamed with a lot and get along with, but the SGs aren't massively active because it's just a few of us who mostly play on and off, and all of our alts. I've tried to politely explain that we're not recruiting to people who send me tells, but they surprisingly frequently either get really annoying (begging, won't stop asking, etc.), or even argumentative. As a result, I've just about stopped responding. I doubt this is just happening to me, so it could explain some of the lack of response!

Of course there's always the simpler explanation that people are base editing, or my usual trick - standing by the market, wandering off, and then getting booted off for being AFK.

Now, is that real-life farming, or real-life flipping?