FalafelCopter

I'm a newish player (I`m on my second month, and my highest toon is a 41 elec/elec stalker) that's just starting to get into stuff like the rikti raids and TFs/SFs.

I was wondering if there was somewhere I could look to know which channels to join to find other people who run these things. Channels for pvp and random chatter would be nice too. Thanks guys and I hope to play with some of you!

I just want to add that I`m a recent ex-WoW player who was fairly involved in the raid grind. (I was about halfway through the newest instance)

I am so completely sick of it. I should preface this with the fact that I was a healer. All I was ever allowed to do is heal. I was good enough at my job that I could cheese weaker groups through content that they weren't really skilled enough or geared enough to complete otherwise. I was in lots of guilds over the years doing other things, but one thing never changed. I was responsible for other people's ability to even BE in zones, so I was responsible for their fun.

When the last expansion came along I tried to use the level cap upgrade to switch to a tank, for a refreshing change. I got to the end only to find that there were suddenly too many tanks, and nobody wanted to group with me, even though I was decently skilled. There was a huge shortage of healers though, as always because it's as necessary to have in a group as it is not fun. If I wanted to do the shiniest newest stuff, and if I wanted to play/ be useful to my friends and guildmates, I had to go back to heals. /wrist

Three years of pressing the same three buttons were replaced with 6 months of pressing a new set of 4 buttons to do the same thing. Every time I tried something else, the raid culture made everyone try and push me back into it and made me feel selfish.

Fast forward to now: This game is great for me! Nobody cares what I am and what role I`m doing, they just get impressed when I do it well. When I leave, the team doesn't grind to a halt and disband, they smile, wave, and keep going without me. (No matter what I was on!) I don't have to rush to the end of the game to actually play and I can actually find groups for low level stuff. (Which is like, OMG!)

The moral of the story is that having an incredibly unforgiving endgame (in terms of gear/enhancements) will inevitably cause people to go into those endgame areas undergeared/underenhanced. They will die a lot, and then realize that they die less when they have fairly rigid setups. You will have to have this and that and the other thing. Certain specs will be shunned and certain specs will be so important to success that groups will just sit there for hours trying to find one.* People like me will get stuck doing jobs they don't want to because it's the only way they can get their group of friends through the content, and they'll hate you for asking the devs to make the game more like WoW. >_> Don't ruin this game for me! I just found it, and it's perfect for me right now. <3 I hope it stays strong for another 3+ years for me.
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The rest of this is just further ranting that you can ignore, but it's just more reasons not to make this game raid and gear progression centric:

*Blizzard had to make certain buffs not stack with itself and with other buffs from other classes, because people were just stacking lots of certain classes and ignoring others. This would happen with this game if the endgame was regimented in a similar way. There would be cries for nerfs to the stacked things and buffs to the not stacked thing.

Many other miniscule things that don't matter for anyone but undergeared people beating their face on stuff they shouldn't be in will get huge stupid changes that will take dev time away from stuff that actually matters. I dunno a lot about this game yet, but I`m noticing the leadership pool stacks for instance. I bet everyone would be forced to take it. Heck, I bet people would be forced to not even take their travel powers so they can take more stuff that would make them fight better and clear raid bosses more efficiently. (Like the recharge thing in the speed tree and the endurance thing in the fitness tree.)

You'd probably get laughed out of the room for certain builds too. There would be one build that's good for pve and everyone would be that. All brutes would have to be -insert slightly most effiecient according to elitists thing-/-insert slightly most efficient thing according to elitists-, etc. Pretty much, you'd have to kiss that freedom you have in experimenting with builds goodbye, because everyone would expect you to min/max according to what the hardcorest of the hardcore type up in their blogs.

I've been having a lot of fun with this build so far. (this is my first MM, and I`m still very much a noob.) I had my first taste of pvp last night and got owned repeatedly by some sort of blaster. I wasn't expecting it to be quite so bad, but I would definitely like to level her and maybe see if things will be better when I`m closer to endgame and enhanced properly.

So my questions would be: Am I an idiot for leveling this combo? (I`m aware some people find it boring, but I like buffing, so it's all good on that front X3) Will I with the proper practice, knowledge, enhancements, reaction time, and inspirations be able to take on other players in pvp and do decently? (How decently? Lets say I win a third of a time at least against equally well enhanced players.)

Any tips on building it properly? Skills I should avoid/always get? Particular enhancement sets to look for?

How about pve? Will this combo do alright there? Will I be useful to a team?

I had another question but I appear to have forgotten it.

Sometimes even the good guys have to do things that are against the law. (Look at daredevil, or batman. They use their vigilante status to cut through red tape.)

Either the police don't like them and hunt them, or they support them. But if they support them, they can't do it openly by supplying them with weaponry/technology because then they could get fired.

Step 1: Make friends.
Step 2:

Thank you very much! ^_^ That's everything I wanted to know! *goes off to do that*

Alright ^_^ thanks for that. I have one more question though.

It says if I use the paypal payment method I`ll have to pay for a month before it will apply the month from purchasing the game. This would bring me up to 68 days. I don't have the money to buy that extra month, but I like the idea of being on a non-recurring payment plan. (Just paying for a month and letting it end.)

Would I be able to start with a credit card and then switch to a non-recurring plan afterwards?

I have about 8 days left on my trial, and I would like to upgrade my account so I can talk to people and get my nifty jetpack. If I upgrade now, will I be losing those 8 days?

Thanks