Estarriol_EU

I might be able to do it on Saturday (level 37ish Grav/FF), but what time?

[ QUOTE ]
IIRC, didn't they just decrease power effectiviness in I5, keeping RES caps the same?

[/ QUOTE ]

That was my impression. The idea wasn't to make it impossible for people to have godlike defenses, but to prevent them from having them easily/solo.

The idea was to make buffs always very welcome, and to make it so that a high level tanker doesn't make all other forms of support unnecessary.

A single high-level tanker with a defender sidekick can be very very tough still.

John Wednesday, Tanker, Fire/Fire/Fire

[ QUOTE ]
I can't really contribute here but is an epic power pool a more powerful set of moves for a set?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not really. It's more of a "branching out" thing.

Every non-Kheldian AT gets to open up an "ancillary pool" at level 41, of which there are a choice of a few for each AT. That ancillary (or "Epic" pool) has four powers and works much like a power pool, and grants powers related to a single theme that are not exactly the normal sort of thing that AT gets.

So, for example, the scrapper and tanker ancillary/epic pools tend to grant ranged attacks and status effects such as holds, Controller ancillaries tend to grant defense and direct damage, etc. It's a nice way right at the end of the game to flesh out a character that little bit more and make them feel more well-rounded.

Think of them more as a tertiary power set that only opens up at level 41 and you probably have the right idea. So instead of being a Mind/FF controller you might become a Mind/FF/Fire controller, with /Fire being the ancillary pool.

I'm playing both a PB and a WS up at the moment, and they certainly feel epic. They may not *always* have as much damage as I'd like (especially the WS), but they can do things that no other AT can do.

IMO, no AT better shows how skilled the player behind the keyboard is than a WS, and a PB is very close behind. That alone makes them genuinely "elite", and gives me an excellent epic feel.

My WS is mid-teens at the moment and just pulling off something like [TP into group of mobs -> Mire -> Detonation -> TP away -> Nova form -> AoEs] makes me look and feel like a god of destruction. And nothing I have ever played has the sheer sustained single-target *and* AoE damage output of my PB... but only because I'm playing it well. That is quite a reward in itself.

It's fascinating how each player seems to be comfortable with different means of control. I'm a heavy user of chord keys, I find overloading keys to be really helpful (e.g. H = heal other, lshift+h = heal self).

I agree with Macros being nice because they're easy to interrogate, btw. My form change/tray change shortcuts are all macros for this reason (Ctrl+1 = Human, Ctrl+2 = Squid, Ctrl+3 = Lobster). I make heavy use of /bind_savefile and /bind_loadfile to make managing binds easier - this also helps to keep binds as standardised between characters... every time I create a new character I load my standard binds from file and then customise only as much as I need to.

The binding to another key in a macro is interesting but isn't it simpler to just use something like this:-

/bind o "powexec_toggleon Quantum Shield$$powexec_toggleon Shining Shield"
/bind lshift+o "powexec_toggleoff Quantum Shield$$powexec_toggleoff Shining Shield"

Then pressing "o" will turn Shining Shield on, then Quantum Shield the next time it's pressed (assuming neither was on to begin with). Pressing "o" while holding the left shift key will turn both armours off.

Note that such multifunction toggle-ons read from end to front when determining which armour to turn on first. So my girlfriends Ice Tanker Bind reads something like

/bind numpadenter "powexec_toggleon Icicles$$powexec_toggleon Chilling Embrace$$powexec_toggleon Glacial Armor$$powexec_toggleon Wet Ice$$powexec_toggleon Frozen Armor"

i.e. The most essential armours you might need when just rezzed in combat or ambushed go up first. powexec_toggleon is very convenient in this way.

And yet... it's remarkably useful at times already. I can think of plenty of times in the game when being able to make the whole team fly would be very useful... various trials and TFs mainly.

I'll do my best to be there with my Tank. Happy to be on any duty required of me. I'll even give tanking the big guy a go... seen it done many times on the US servers.

Two questions regarding Group Energy Flight for anyone who has played around with it:-

1) Does it really grant the -ACC as suggested in the power description? I ask as the -ACC was removed from Fly a little while ago, and obviously it would be much more useful as a power if it didn't grant -ACC.

2) I've read suggestions that Flight Speed enhancers in this power only enhance *your* speed, not that of your passengers. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Many thanks in advance for replies.