Dechs Kaison

I've emphasized this part for a reason.

I understand all that. That's your main. I've done the same with my main character in tweaking to get it just right. Mids can't tell you everything about how a character will perform. I was commenting on the fact that he shouldn't need that many respecs on every single character.

I do agree that $10 is pricey for a respec and that a batch would be much more appealing. As it stands, I'd much rather spend the inf for one on the market.

I find it hard to believe that you burn through all three trial respecs and what is likely two vetspecs or more on every one of your characters.

If you do change your mind that often, I highly suggest using one of the build planners.

I think you're just missing the point. Everything in this game has to be able to solo.

Everything has to be able to contribute damage.

Free.
Good.
Online.

Pick any two.

Now, in my opinion, this is a good use of one of the personal attacks. The stun isn't perfectly reliable, but it's better than nothing and has the chance to stack with the seeker stun, protector stun, and the protector seeker stun. Likewise, life drain can be a great "attack" when you're tankerminding. Enough health to keep yourself alive when taking a ton of attention.

If you're going to take a mastermind personal attack, you should do it for the utility, not the damage. Again, this is only my opinion.

Sure, the pulse rifle blast works well enough for that. I just feel that there are much better ways to do it.

Summoning the seekers in the mob is generally the safest alpha you can take. Opening up with a group immob is going to result in optimized damage on the enemies. My favorite alpha strategy is to simply jump into the group and throw down my caltrops (a wide area damage and debuff which helps hold aggro) which have a chance to knockdown and then throwing around my immobs and the poison trap. Between those three, nothing gets out of the burn patches and I can clean my way through +3/x8 spawns of most anything.

But this game is about having fun. If you want to be able to shoot the bad/good guy in the face with a pulse rifle that can singe his eyebrows, you're free to do it. As I've said, I won't kick anyone off my teams for their builds, and the reason is fun. To me, fun is being able to kill anything. To you, it seems, fun is looking cool or feeling like you're contributing damage. Who am I to judge that?

I'm not. So, please, don't take anything I say as condescending. It's your $15 per month, play how you like. I'm only offering advice in terms of performance because that's what I find as fun.

As Negate said, the ST attack won't do you anything for drawing aggro. It's not wrong to take the power, but it is wrong to take it for aggro purposes. You're not going to do enough damage to raise in threat above your bots and you can only hit one target. Taking provoke from the presence pool hits several mobs at the same time, is almost always enough threat to get aggro, recharges faster and costs zero endurance.

Again, taking the power isn't wrong. I've never excluded someone from my TFs for their build. But taking it for aggro purposes is wrong, because it doesn't accomplish what you're trying to do with it.

It'd be like taking a hammer with you to plant some trees. A hammer is a great tool for nails, but it's not going to dig a hole. Get the right tool for the job.

Maybe so you can solo AVs or GMs.

Seriously, even in normal play, triage beacon keeps you alive. It boosts your regen and your bots. I took provoke to keep the attention on me. The damage is split pretty evenly between me and the bots, which makes Triage Beacon enough to keep mine and my bots' health topped off all the time.

The pulse rifle blasts (even if fully enhanced for damage, end reduction, recharge, accuracy plus a proc or two by some miracle frankenslotting) will never compare to the damage of the bots. The attacks do too little damage for too much endurance, and to waste the slots enhancing them for anything other than set mules is borderline stupidity.

Maybe I'm not doing it right. I don't have any pulse rifle blasts. The only trap power I skipped was detonator. I took teleportation, hasten, provoke, and leadership as my pools. Maybe I'm doing everything wrong.

I can solo +2/x8 Malta with bosses. I leave AVs turned on because I don't notice EBs. I've done the same thing on my side of the map that seven other people did in the same amount of time. I've never once wished for pulse rifle blasts, and triage beacon keeps me alive.

I don't know why you're having this issue, but I always have something to do with my bots/traps. If you haven't already, turn up the difficulty. At this point I only run x8, even in mayhem missions. Provoke is practically on auto attack (I taunt like your sixth grade bully), and I spam both of my immobs (webnade and Mu cages) as they're available too. Caltrops is on high recharge and I threw in the knockdown proc (little tip for endless amusement there; they TRIP over little pointy things). I'm also micromanage-y with my bots. I bound shift+click to "petcomall goto defensive". Finally, if you're like me and have managed to softcap to both ranged and AoE (or perhaps S/L), you can drop a trip mine or two mid-fight.

Do you understand what an influence sink is?

Spending 2.5 billion influence at the market does not "sink" 2.5 billion inf. It sinks some of that (250 million, to be precise), but certainly not the majority of it. All you have done is move influence around, not "sink" it.

But Mass Confusion doesn't alert mobs to your presence, can be fired from farther away, can hit more targets, and isn't a cone.

I think this is done by the speed you hit the ground at, which is dependent upon how far you've fallen. The game doesn't remember how high you were when you started falling, though.

I like the idea of -fly for a few seconds, especially if you are 500' above the ground. Footstomp from sky-high becomes suicidal and prevents exploiting!

There you have it, folks. Golden Girl admits that the Resistance is evil.

This message is sponsored by Dechs Kaison, now accepting applications for "profit sharing anarchists." We're good people. We share.

I can count to 1023 on my fingers.... does that count for anything?

Whole hell of a lot of this.

Also, I can't afford another power pool pick. Honestly, I have four power pools already, I can't fit another one to get aid other.

Presence.
Hasten.
Teleport.
Leadership.

I think this is the best analogy I've ever heard.

This power is amazing on my tank. With softcapped S/L/E/N on top of DA's resists and Dark Regeneration... if it killed me, we need a silly strong auto-hit disorient to recover.

But this isn't the same thread. It's revision two of the first thread. This was supposed to be a little heavier on the sarcasm and a little more detailed.

But that's just it! I'm not trying to be funny. I'm trying to make a point. The ATs are different.

A brute can do things a tank cannot. A tank can do things a brute cannot. A corruptor can do things that a defender cannot. A defender can do things a controller cannot. Does any of this mean we need to "fix" it so everyone can do everything? No! Because you end up at the conclusion I came to in the OP. Everyone will be the same and there won't be a point for ATs at all.

I wrote this whole thing to make that painfully obvious. The ATs are different. They do different things. Please understand that it needs to be left that way.

Seriously, check your sarcasm meter.

I return this *facepalm* to you.

I already answered that.

This is (in my opinion) a much better worded version, and touches on more subjects. The editing I went through was rather extensive.

Thank you for taking the time to read it.

Please tell me you guys didn't think I was serious. Are your sarcasm meters broken?