Daemodand

Stalkers really do need to be looked at again. It isn't fair that Scrappers out-damage and out-survive them. Brutes recently had Fury mitigated to keep them from stepping on Scrappers' toes too much, Stalkers need a buff to give them indisputably better damage than Scrappers given how much squishier they are.

P.S. This is another reason why making Incarnate rewards tied to teaming was a bad idea. Some Archetypes and powerset combos really do have a tougher time finding a team, especially in the crucible of the tougher Task Forces. Here's hoping for soloable options in I20.

That's good to know, thanks everyone.

I may just go ahead and do story arcs on my Rogues/Vigilantes anyway just to get away from the Tip grind I seem to be falling into with my Heroes and Villains.

I like a good story, but wow, Alignment Merits are amazing.

When you confirm your Rogue or Vigilante alignment, you get 30 Reward Merits. Do you also get 30 Merits when you reconfirm the Rogue/Vigilante alignment?

My momma always said, copy tool is as copy tool does. Life is like a copy tool. You never know if it's gonna work. Run B_Witched! Run!

Maybe the War Witch you see in Pocket-D is the Praetorian War Witch that followed Apex home, and the ghostly War Witch you see in Croatoa is the spirit of the original?

The difficulty slider goes all the way to +4x8, so I'd say Incarnate abilities will come in handy for non-Incarnate content. Very much so.

1-50 in 9 days?

I'd love to see Super Reflexes on a Tank, and Ice/Ice on a Brute.

I've been playing an Ice/Ice Tank, and it gives a really unique melee play experience. Scrappers and Brutes should both have it (and IMO most likely will get it, it's just a question of when).

/SINGED

So which standing army would win in a 2-way, all-out war? Lore and game mechanics are both valid to consider.

Arachnos vs Longbow:
Game mechanics wise, I think Castle a long time back said that in a large engagement Longbow tends to win. I don't remember specifically why, but I think stacking Leadership buffs might have something to do with it.

Lore wise I think Arachnos is actually the stronger of the two armies, especially on an individual unit basis. Consider the raw power of Bane Spiders (especially the Executioners) and Night Widows, for example. But, the infighting represents what is probably a major drain on resources. And Lord Recluse hasn't pulled the trigger on a full invasion of Paragon City. Could it be he suspects, or even knows, that Arachnos cannot win such a war?

So Longbow wins, here.

Longbow vs Imperial Defense Force:
So Longbow has large-scale synergy, but is it enough to overcome the IDF? The IDF, again is much more powerful on an individual unit basis than Longbow, even moreso than Arachnos. The IDF is easily more powerful than the spiders overall. Mechanics wise, I think they probably have Longbow beat, but I don't know, I only suspect.

As for lore, I think even though to IDF is so very powerful, they have a serious manpower problem (see: Devouring Earth/Hamidon ). Even Arachnos with its infighting could probably overwhelm them with numbers. The IDF is like Vanguard in this respect: very powerful units, but with an inability to field enough of them compared to the other forces.

This one I think is a stalemate. The IDF is more powerful, but Longbow can throw the kinds of numbers at them even they'd find hard to deal with.

Vanguard vs. IDF:
This would be an interesting war. Two armies, smaller than everyone else's, but with the most powerful units. IDF can probably field somewhat more units than Vanguard, as Vanguard is famously starved for manpower (so much so they take help from anyone who is willing with an open door recruiting policy).

This is a close one, but I think the IDF would have the right combination of power and numbers to overcome Vanguard.

I don't consider Wolf Spider Armor optional. Without it, you will be mezzed (I speak from personal experience. Learned the hard way to take it.) It brings a bit of extra Resist along for the ride, which can't hurt. Well worth the pick.

You might want to get better Enhancements on that character, too. At level 45 you should be using level 45 Common IOs at a minimum. They have a big enhancement advantage over level 25 Commons.

As a hardcore soloist, I find that the Shard drop rate is just fine. Keeping my difficulty settings to +0 for level and x4-8 players gives me a drop rate that I find more than sufficient. I find the drop rates to be a bit too generous, in fact, given the extreme amount of power you can get out of the Incarnate system.

I don't view it as the only avenue of my characters' progression though. I see Shards in the overall context of many rewards I'm generating in my playtime: Inf, recipes, Alignment Merits, etc. So I keep Shards in perspective and if none drop in a particular play session, it doesn't frustrate me because my character is still getting stronger with all the other rewards.

I absolutely agree the Incarnate system should be kept solo-friendly, and soloable Incarnate content should absolutely be added in the near future (heck, I think there should be solo-friendly versions of all the TFs in the game, just with storyarc-level rewards). But the Shards are dropping at a rate that is commensurate, maybe even too generously so, with the level of power you can gain from them. IMHO it's well-balanced.

P.S. Heck, I've even been temped to play the Apex TF. Not for the components but just because it sounds like something so completely different. And I've been wanting to see Apex in the game for a long time. Too bad they messed up his costume, though.

Given all the advancements in melee armor sets, I'd really like to see an update to this.

My suspicions:
Willpower is too strong.
Energy Aura is too weak.
Electric Armor is vastly improved.
Invulnerability is still a solid, middle-of-the-pack performer, like it's always been.
Dark Armor still beats them all...except for Willpower.
Super Reflexes is the Golden Fox of powersets.
"Powersets" is one word.
"Powersets" is a word.
People still ditch Regen when they see the green/variously colored stars flying out their pants. Seriously. This is the reason I've never been able to level a Regen.

Inquiring minds want to know all this and more, next, on a very special "Scrapper Secondary Comparisons"!

That is one ugly website. How far TV Guide has fallen.

Watch this Three Stooges movie, instead.

Yep, Ninjitsu doesn't have any KB protection.

And high school kids didn't look that young when I was in high school. Based on my 21+ year old memories.

Time Tunnel had one of the saddest endings I've ever seen. Those poor schmucks are stuck in a permanent time loop.

/SIGNED

Just take Brute SR and port it to Tanks. The uberness of easy softcap would be offset by the few shortcomings the set has. Personally, I call that balanced.

Sure, sets like Shield and Ice have Defense along with other tools for survival, but since they don't get to keep their Defense, they need those tools. SR has no such problem. It keeps its defense, thus no extra tools necessary. SR is the Golden Fox of powersets, after all. Stripped down, sleek, and highly effective.

You know, that's the only thing that's keeping Energy Aura on the low-end of survivability: it depends on its Defense every bit as much as SR does but it lacks the Defense Debuff protection it needs to keep it so it gets squashed in situations where SR wouldn't. Of course, its 100% vulnerability to Psi doesn't help much, either. SR at least gets to mitigate 99% of the Psi attacks in the game because they're positional.

P.S. Don't underestimate the value of the scaling Resists. On a Scrapper they're very helpful, on a Brute they're incredible and on a Tanker they'd be amazing (but not unbalancingly so).