Flux_Vector

It's not always a question of the team being bad, per se, it's a question of the fact that squishies are very unsuited for that part of the trial, because they have weak survivability in moving from objective to objective. In teams where the squishies are dropping like flies in this phase, I invite them to band together and fight their way to what they can, carefully and slowly, while I go ahead on my own.

In two cases I've had truly unready random LFG teams where I was the leader, and divided the tasks up for me to solo the labs while the other 7 players did the warehouse. In one of those two cases, I went on to help them finish the warehouse.

What I like about Warworks is that between the Vickie and ACU, they doing up to -60% -regen, with -40% basically being perma. That's pretty nice to whip out for an AV fight, even without the relatively high damage vickie can put out.

And yet I survive fine in the endgame. I have all five of my incarnate slots filled with very rare powers. I've effectively soloed the entire lambda munitions warehouse part of the trial. I've tanked Bobcat in the Tin Mage TF with Kitty Got Claw's buff on her - and I survived better than the team's brute!

Why could I do any of that if I had inferior defenses? The answer is because of the one-shot code. You can only be reduced to 1 hp from max health. If you heal up to max health between hits, you literally cannot be killed.

That's what soft-capped positional defenses do: make it extremely unlikely you'll be hit twice in quick succession. Aid self then kicks in, letting you burst heal back to full (usually) before you're hit again. When something hits you for 2000+ damage a shot - and things in the endgame do - having 15% smashing/lethal resist and 200 more hitpoints... still results in you being oneshot to 1 hp just like someone with no defenses and base 1051 hitpoints would've been.

1051 hitpoints and 0 resist, or 1500 hitpoints and 15% resist, both give you the exact same effective survivability against the 'massive damage hits' being dealt out by the endgame. Because both are only stopped from dying under that kind of a hit, by that code that leaves you with 1hp. Your defense in both cases is entirely luck-based (on if you get hit again before you heal), and in fact having more hitpoints has no effect on that because healing is done as a percentage of your hp. A 35% aidself heals 30% of 1051, or 35% of 1500 - both characters would need 3 aidselfs to get back to max.

Now you can say that you see survivability gains against non-massive damage, but to that I have to ask... why do you need it? The things I fear from minions and LTs - the only units largely unable to dish out massive damage - are debuffs, not damage. They don't do enough damage to be a serious threat to start with. Only being spiked from less than full hp is going to kill me. When I tackle a spawn I take out things with massive attacks first, like the IDF commanders and their total focus, or the victoria MK-IV and their crits. Those are dangerous.

A couple plinks from minions or shots from LTs aren't, unless they're -def debuffs.

(Edit - to be clear, I think this effect of the oneshot code is BS, and they should redesign monsters to deal more balanced damage output and never be able to one-shot a player from max health to start with, then remove the safety net code. But that's just me. I have little doubt that the massive damage paradigm is a response to softcapping - "since they aren't getting hit enough, let's make the hits huge so they're actually dangerous.")

For most people, relative performance is more important than absolute performance.

People don't want to be minimally strong to be able to play the game. They want to be as strong as their friends.

Unless your friends also all play peacebringers, the only way to be as strong as them is not to play a peacebringer. That is the problem. Relative performance. Not absolute performance.

I don't disagree with you on absolute performance being minimally acceptable for peacebringers. But you're trying to argue that relative performance either doesn't matter, which is simply false because the perception and feel of it causes demonstrable dissatisfaction with PB players.

Or perhaps you're arguing it shouldn't matter and/or that it doesn't matter to you. Which is an opinion, and one you are entitled to. But it's not one that is a fact, it's one that is a belief. You can believe peacebringers are don't suck because they meet minimal standards of absolute performance even though the fail the standard of relative performance.

But that isn't a fact, it's a belief. The fact is that relative to their peers, to the other choices available to players on the AT selection screen, they do suck. The numbers don't lie. They are an inferior choice. Those who choose them are likely to regret the decision once they are able to compare to other ATs and see the relative performance gap. It is human nature to, and MMO player nature in particular. MMO players are competitive, not with the system or the game, but with each other, for performance. Relative performance matters because it's part of what makes the game fun to a large number of people who elect to play MMOs in the first place.

Actually, as far as I can tell the praetorian robots don't have special psi resistance the way that other robots do. At least, when I've used psy attacks on them, they seemed to take 'normal' damage from it.

Also note that I never said VEATs weren't potent. I did say that the psi attacks had weaker stats than the claw attacks available to the same VEAT character, and that the fortunata branch would generally be weaker than the night widow branch without an expensive IO build because of their longer recycle time on Mindlink, which is a key defensive and team buff power for widows. These things are verifiable facts you can research for yourself if you're so inclined. If you find statistical errors with my analysis I'm more than happy to be corrected on facts.

I don't think nightwidows are overpowered at base, on SO's. They are very good with them, but unless you use IOs or HOs you still can't reach perma-mindlink, which it's clear neither widow branch was balanced around, in keeping with the design philosophy that dictates IOs and HOs as 'optional' to AT balance issues. Like many other powersets, and especially like defense powersets, widows do grow exceptionally well in power when IOs are added to the equation. In addition to the benefit of softcapping easily, recharge bonuses serve double-duty with helping to make mindlink permanent on widows, allowing for some very high-offense, high-defense builds.

I don't have a lot of time, and there are kinda some complicated issues to address here, so I'm going to be quick but try and hit the important details too.

Fortunata psi/ranged attacks are simply statistically weaker than the widow claw attacks. Overall in the game, melee attacks have a moderate to large advantage statistically over ranged attacks, depending on what sets you're comparing. This is especially true for some reason with psionic damage type attacks, which tend to do less damage by design, perhaps as some kind of balancing factor for their debuffing or the control extras in most psi powersets, or perhaps for their damage type, which in the original design of the game was supposed to be less-resisted.

However, psi damage is not really less-resisted, especially in the end-game. Instead, numerous enemies basically 'shut down' psi damage, such as robots and zombies, and carnies. A few enemies are resistant to physical damages but not psi damage, but other than ghosts and non-praetorian clockwork, nothing is especially vulnerable to it. Generally enemies that resist 'everything' like armored Rikti, Malta or Longbow, also resist Psi, and to the same degree.

Finally, widow melee attacks have been specially designed for us, whereas the psi attacks were lifted from other sets. Our melee attacks have extremely fast animations to go with their higher damage, resulting in much-improved performance over the psi attacks. I think an all-psi fortunata would struggle to reach 70% of the damage output of a melee one, just going off the fact that most of the psi attacks seem to do 70% of the DPA (Damage Per Animation Speed) of the melee ones.

Bottom line: unless you really like being ranged or really like the psi powers, or really don't care about your performance, don't be a psi fort.

Fortunatas do have other issues - the lack of mental training for a recharge boost, and the fact their mind link power has a full minute longer to recycle than night widows, does tend to make them seem and feel worse off until the end-game. Getting mind link to perma is a huge benefit to a widow, but fortunatas almost require expensive IOs to make that happen. Nightwidows can do it much more easily, much earlier, and much cheaper. This makes them far more potent characters in the mid-game and for people without large build budgets.

If you do have the budget, the fortunata's superior breadth of powers - controls and AOEs - are favored by some players. You can still be an effective fortunata without that budget, but you won't be a top tier build, whereas a nightwidow on a modest budget will be a lot closer to the top.

Hope this helps. Good luck and don't give up!

As far as I know, there's no benefit to softcapping your psi defense, specifically, if you have soft-capped positional defenses. The psi attacks that bypass positional defenses should have all been fixed by now, but even if they haven't, they still mainly appear in PVP - and we're not talking PVP builds. Also, you have like 70% psi resist with mindlink up. I laugh at psi. Ha-ha-ha-ha.

I agree with you on purples for night widow - they are really optional. In fact I think the biggest benefit they really offer is the superior procs. Even so, my build's been shedding purples over time. I just don't need 'em. I guess I could keep them as debuff padding and for minorly improved bonuses to recovery and damage in a few instances, but given the 'incarnate softcap' and the fact that most purple sets don't provide positional defense (and the one that does, NWs can't slot)... whenever I go to make a revision to my build I tend to look at what I can do with fewer purples.

Something else I've been doing is shedding max health bonuses for their own sakes. If I get them, fine, but it doesn't seem to matter much if I have 1500 hitpoints or 1250 hitpoints in the endgame content. A hit from an AV basically redlines me, if it doesn't outright oneshot me. Ditto things like crits from Victoria MK-IV's or total focuses from IDF commanders and so forth. If the oneshot code's gonna be catching me as often as it does, I don't feel my max health matters all that much. At worst, I'll get caught by the oneshot code instead of redlined a little more often. I really don't feel extra hitpoints offer a significant increase to my survivability against 'modern' and 'endgame' encounters either way - dying from full requires being hit twice, and whether I'm oneshot-coded or just redlined if I'm hit twice in short order, I'm dead either way. The only defense that feels effective is a combination of luck and healing back to full with aidself between hits.

Aid self does really bite into pylon times. So does mind link, which has about the same animation speed. When I test for the sake of pure testing I get a friend to come tank the pylon for me, taunting it away at range. I guess having someone shielding and healing me would work too. But I don't really think aid self is very optional for someone who's serious about endgame play, for the reason I described above. A bit of resistance and some extra hitpoints and regen won't stop you from getting oneshot-coded, and then you really wanna burst heal. I don't think I could even carry enough greens, especially not small greens, to keep me going through a whole lambda trial - and the greens would mean I don't get to carry other inps instead.

I guess my thing is, I'm not gonna take tough for a set bonus, and the resistance even isn't really worth it to me when I'm softcapped. I've already got the mako's in some attacks; crushing impacts in some others, etcetera. It's not a knock on anyone who does, it's the way I build. If I have a choice, then I'm gonna take powers I want and will use, then make the best slotting out of them that I can. On an MM, well, I can see that being a little different since a lot of their primary powers are pretty optional (ie, anything that doesn't work with the pets).

However, specific to things like tough specifically... unfortunately, because of the inability to stack resistance with IOs, I basically don't think it's worth it for anyone who doesn't already get resistance elsewhere. You can benefit pretty well from getting maneuvers/weave/etc on a character and using IOs to get 30% defense even if you can't afford a full softcapping 'mega-build.' But you can't do that with resistance, not even to 30% (which is a low value itself). It's made me fairly unhappy with resistance sets, on the whole.

Throw in the 'things hit for massive damage' paradigm we're seeing more of (mobs with total focus, or crits) and I'd rather be missed a lot and occasionally get unlucky, but back it up with aid self so I can heal, than take steady damage that's high even if I resist it by 50%. The one-shot code triggers on me a lot, but that's because I survive until the next hit lands. Resisting 50% of a one-shot is meaningless when the next one lands anyway...

Well, to be fair, my heavily-slotted health is partly because I got a lucky panacea proc drop one day in Warburg... I wouldn't expect everyone to have that. I would even consider just slotting the recovery procs and panacea if I had other places to put those slots, but I'm getting extra recovery and max health out of slotting health up a bit, and some regen. It's not a bad deal, especially in terms of 'average performance over time.' The panacea proc also provides a little extra endurance.

As for stamina, performance shifter has 4 very good set bonuses - max health, damage, recovery, and AOE defense. I don't think it's a bad idea to 6-slot it and get all of those. And again, an extra recovery proc is included. It's not a bad deal, IMO.

Plus, the only major alternative places to put those slots, really, are taking extra attacks I don't need and/or would rarely use. I'm able to 5-slot tactics with gaussian for similar set bonuses for the same reason... really, noplace else I want to put the slots. I could shift my build design more, but I tend to try and avoid taking powers simply as set mules. My build's more based around powers I actually want to use. Also, I'm married to combat jumping, because I just plain love it and the mobility it affords in a fight.

Recharge improvement caps at +400%. That means that because of the recharge formula of "recharge time = (base recharge) / (100% + buffs/enhancements - debuffs)" you can only get a power down to 1/5th of its base recharge time.

Because light form has a 180 second duration and 1000 second recharge, the fastest you can possibly get it recharging in is 200 seconds, and then further recharge improvement will no longer affect it. So it will always have a 20-second downtime, no matter what you do.

The problem I have with smoke grenade is that even slotted fully out it's only -5% to -6% to tohit. Even though it's unresistable, that value's tiny. An 87.5% resisted (AV debuff resistance level) darkest night or radiation infection is till -9-10%, ie, almost double. It'd help in av fights if you had more tohit debuffers to stack with, for the sake of your teammates, but it won't do a whole ton for you yourself, in my opinion and experience.

I guess YMMV. At the end of the day, that's the great thing about having a broad selection of powers and choices: you can pick what you want to use and skip what you don't.

As for my build, my build's meant to hit a balance on what I consider important - end use vs damage output vs defense. I like aid self a lot better than green insps on the whole, but it might not be for everyone. Any build I post I sort of post in the intent of showing ideas, not trying to convince people to adopt that exact build. But forums being what they are, I can see how it might come off as the opposite.

One thing I'll note though is that I find my musculature alpha's damage contribution is kind of eclipsed by my reactive interface proc. I don't see a need to run both, and that's why I built around cardiac and added pool assault to the build - it's basically 'half a musculature' while still coming out ahead on end expense, and it's still pretty close to musculature + reactive.

I'm aware of the end reduction formula. However, Widow attacks have very high end costs and very fast animation times - they were rebalanced according to a different formula than other claws style attacks, and do not receive the claws 'bonus' of an end discount in their balance formula. This results in a very high end burn per second of continual nonstop attacking for even a well-slotted widow.

Adding the extra endurance reduction from cardiac shaves 2 end per cast off slash, 1.5 off lunge, 1.2 off followup, etc, in my build even though the attacks have 55 to 67% end reduction from slotting already. Since I'm using 5 attacks every ~6 seconds, and attacking about once every 1.2 seconds as an average guesstimate, even with 66% endred in your attacks, on the back of an envelope here it looks like using cardiac is saving me roughly a full 1.3 end per second.

By my calculations that moves me from emptying my end bar in 51 seconds to emptying it in 123 seconds.

Just a quickie cause I'm spectating the incarnate rewards trainwreck in the dev corner and wanting to get ingame...

I use cardiac for easier sustainability. Higher DPS at a higher burn rate actually results in less damage per end bar. I judged that doing 10% more damage per second (which is about what I got out of using Musculature Core Paragon) wasn't worth literally halving my "time to empty" on end.

By going cardiac I get nearly double the damage output before I have to chomp blues, hit elude or FON, or so on. It's a tradeoff, but it's one I think favors cardiac in practical play. If things are dying super fast such that end isn't an issue, then a little more dps isn't an issue either. If they aren't, then end is an issue, and a little more dps isn't helping.

As for the defenses, I don't aim to incarnate softcap on my own. Anything about 45% is debuff padding in standard content and if I start cascading, I have elude for that. Because I've got aidself I can run with the Barrier destiny buff for extra defense and resistance, instead of probably wanting a rebirth radial for regeneration and a burst headl. So I get my incarnate-tier survivability from that and aidself.

I am aware of how accuracy works. However, IO builds give you a bunch of bonus accuracy as a side effect of slotting other useful bonuses, and slotting attacks with IO sets tends to put 30-60% accuracy into them to start with. That's the equivalent of 1-2 extra SO's of accuracy enhancement to all powers and is 3 to 6 times the effect of CT:O, just as a side effect of your build. That's without even counting your +tohit buffing. Plus, I haven't been hit with enough tohit debuffing in PVE to make a huge difference to my accuracy rate in ages. With 20% +tohit from stacked follow up, and another +20% from TT: Leadership and Mind Link, even without tohit debuff resistance it would take more than a fully-slotted radiation infection or darkest night to bring my +tohit down to 0. And then that just makes me "only as accurate as anyone who doesn't have my buffs."

I suppose if I end up standing in multiple hurricanes or chill of the nights at some point, and am also immobilized so I can't reposition myself, and I don't have yellow (or convertible-to-yellow) insps, and force of nature is down, and I don't have anyone else with tohit buffs on my team, my lack of CT:O for tohit debuff resistance might be a problem.

I can't match your numbers for eviscerate, at least, not when using my builds. Swipe's always better for me, if slightly. It's probably a slotting difference, likely related to the fact that your build has Swipe 4-slotted with no damage procs, and Eviscerate is 5-slotted, with a damage proc. 6-slotting both, Swipe with Mako's Bite and Eviscerate with Obliteration, has swipe coming out slightly ahead, for me.

You don't have to have been around long or been a highly active forum poster to make a good point.

The point that Arcanaville, despite her intelligence, competence, and past record, should either be hired-slash-headhunted by the dev team, perhaps as a consultant, or else treated with no more seriousness than any other player, isn't a bad one. Not because of anything negative about Arcanaville, but because it's bad public relations on the part of NCSoft/Paragon Studios. It's not an attack on her, her credibility, or her contributions.

It's pointing out an elephant in the forums' room: the fact that Arcanaville is given a higher degree of consideration by the devs is fairly clear, but how much of a higher degree, and when, isn't. That's sort of the worst possible situation, too, because if it were entirely secret nobody would know; if it were entirely transparent everyone could appreciate being levelled with honestly. With its being an "open secret," people who fall into the category of "not being Arcanaville" are entirely reasonably in feeling slighted by the devs - not only is someone else clearly being given more weight than they are, but nobody's even telling them how much more and on what issues.

And that's not really fair to Arcanaville either, since it can tend to attract negative attention and argumentation to her posts.

I do understand that NCSoft/Paragon Studios probably can't afford to match Arcanaville's current salary. It's clear she's very well-educated and skilled, and from what I understand of the gaming industry, most people working in it are doing it out of a passion for gaming and/or because of their creative sparks, not for the big bucks. But really, anyone regardless of competence or lack thereof, whose ideas or outright work was being used this extensively by a development team, should be credited officially at the minimum, and probably paid, too. And if it's not being used as extensively as it appears, that should be clarified, instead.

Smoke grenade isn't always on passively, and in most teams actually using it is highly optional: a 3.75% to 5.5% -tohit on most spawns isn't that important and wouldn't matter to any of the teams I've been on lately. Especially because they're probably splitting up to take on 2-4 different spawns at once. That may or may hold true for everyone. But at the level of build I think we're talking here, it's optional to the point of 'maybe replacing it with assault to get a smidge more DPS will work better in practice.'

The -tohit is indeed tagged as unresistable ingame in the power description, which is interesting. I think I'll be checking that out on test to how it affects AVs, where that might matter. If unresistable also makes it ignore the purple patch, that could make it into a power I'd be more inclined to advocate taking as a valid option for incarnate trials. Adding some tohit and smoke to your arsenal on top of decent defenses would make 'incarnate softcapping' a little easier, and give you a tool that helps the squishies not get squished in the lambda temp power phase. I'm not going to assume any of this though... it's just something I'll spec a copy of my character into on test and check out with a power analyzer sometime soon.

As for eviscerate... its DPA is lower than swipe unless you assume it hits multiple targets. Base DPA in ingame numbers is 55.39 for eviscerate and 69.68 for swipe. Arcanatime numbers from Mids would be 54.74 for swipe and 53.31 for eviscerate. So swipe's significantly better if you take the ingame numbers, and just very slightly better if you take the out-of-game numbers. I'd say the tradeoff is end cost vs hitting multiple targets there. Your choice entirely. Personally I'd use swipe, it's rare for my widow to need to pull aoe duty on a team, and judgements are just going to make that rarer and rarer.

Hmm kind of an old thread but I'll chime in here anyway.

Pylon testing has shown me that the best practical attack chain, with "practical" being defined as "works reliably ingame with achievable levels of +recharge in your build while not being overcomplicated" available to a night widow (Follow Up - Slash - Lunge - Strike - Swipe, or Follow Up - Lunge - Strike - Swipe - Slash depending on your preference) is about 10% stronger than the Follow Up - Lunge - Strike - Swipe chain available to both widow types, with all other factors being equal.

In practice the night widow's access to slash will amount to a stronger effective single target damage lead in regular content, since in regular content there's target-changing and movement, which force interruptions into your attack chain and cause it to reset before it uses its weaker attacks or at least, make your harder hitting, slower-recycling attacks more available when you're actually attacking. But either widow will put out exceptionally good melee single-target damage. I wouldn't choose one branch over the other based on the damage difference alone here, I'd look at their other powers - and my build budget - first.

The night widow's advantages, other than extra damage overall and extra bursts, are the availability of Elude for combatting cascade failure and helping with end management, the presence of mental training in their power selection, and a faster recycle time on Mind Link. Mental training and Mind Link's speed for night widows make them a lot easier and cheaper to build well, in practice. No-purples night widow builds are very, very competitive with heavily purpled ones in practical gameplay, both according to theory and what I've seen ingame. The night widow's drawback is that you have a limited scope to your abilities, which are more focused into essentially making you a claws/SR scrapper with very nice team buffs but a fairly limited bag of other tricks.

The fortunata's advantage, meanwhile, is their bag of other tricks. You can get strong single target and area control capabilities while providing the same team buffs as the night widow, having nearly the same passive survivability (which would then become superior survivability when your control is factored in to the picture), and more area damage output options. You also have the option of dealing some psy damage, which can become an advantage in praetorian content and against the increasing number of boss enemies who use Unstoppable in taskforces and tip missions. And you still do nearly as much single-target damage as the night widow, which is enough to make a lot of scrappers jealous. The downside to fortunata is mainly that because of the lack of mental training and the longer recycle on mind link, having a 'top tier' fortunata build, with perma-mind link and competitive +recharge to a night widow, is not cheap or easy. Expensive IOs are required, probably including at least -some- purples.

That said, the ultimate deciding factor should be what capability you want your character to have. If you want to be a kick-butt, team-buffing melee, you should pick night widow. If you want to be more of a hybrid who's a solid melee but with a grab-bag of tricks and abilities, be a fortunata.

I see a lot of things in your build I like, but also things I'd change.

First and foremost is that CT: Offensive is a waste, you've got TT: Leadership and followup. CT offensive is just throwing a power away for a widow compared to the effectiveness of tohit buffing.

Eviscerate is a cool power, and it's nice to have a second melee aoe for packed crowds to work with spin, but it's not a viable single target attack for us because of its slow animation. FU-lunge-strike-swipe when you can't FU-slash-lunge-strike-swipe. You can probably drop it without any trouble if there's anything else you want to have.

Smoke grenade is a questionable pick as well, IMO. You don't really need it for yourself (mask presence and a stealth proc grant you full invisibility) and the debuff is too minor to matter to a team. And at the higher end of performance teams demolish spawns or all have individual stealth capability, and don't need you to lay smokescreens for them.

Using your build as a guide for your budget, I came up with this:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.93
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Natural Arachnos Widow
Primary Power Set: Night Widow Training
Secondary Power Set: Widow Teamwork
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Medicine
Power Pool: Leadership

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Swipe -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(3), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Mako-Dam%(42)
Level 1: Combat Training: Defensive -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 2: Strike -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(7), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(7), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15), Mako-Dam%(43)
Level 4: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- RedFtn-Def(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(37), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(37), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(39), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(43)
Level 6: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(15), RechRdx-I(17)
Level 8: Follow Up -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(9), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(9), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(11), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(11), GSFC-Build%(13)
Level 10: Indomitable Will -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
Level 12: Lunge -- Hectmb-Dam%(A), Hectmb-Dmg/EndRdx(19), Hectmb-Dmg/Rchg(21), Hectmb-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(21), Hectmb-Acc/Rchg(23), Mako-Dam%(45)
Level 14: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 16: Spin -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(17), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(19), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Oblit-%Dam(37)
Level 18: Slash -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(23), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(29), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(29), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 20: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 22: Foresight -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(33), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(33)
Level 24: Mind Link -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(25), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(25), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(27), RedFtn-Def(27)
Level 26: Mental Training -- Run-I(A)
Level 28: Tactical Training: Leadership -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(48), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(48), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(48), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(50)
Level 30: Mask Presence -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 32: Poison Dart -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(33), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(34), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34)
Level 35: Dart Burst -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(36), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(36), Posi-Dam%(36), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(46)
Level 38: Aid Other -- Heal-I(A)
Level 41: Aid Self -- IntRdx-I(A), Numna-Heal(42), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(42), Numna-Heal/Rchg(50), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(50)
Level 44: Tactical Training: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 47: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 49: Elude -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 50: Cardiac Core Boost
Level 0: Born In Battle
Level 0: High Pain Threshold
Level 0: Invader
Level 0: Marshal
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- ULeap-Stlth(A)
Level 1: Conditioning
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Heal(43), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(45), Numna-Heal(46), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(46)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(39), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(39), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg(40), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(40), P'Shift-End%(40)
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The trials already have objectives that award teams for completing them: phase changes and achieving badge conditions even if you already have the badge, both reward Astral Merits. Remove the participation system entirely and make a random reward table pop at the end of the trial.

Make Astral Merits convert into useful things besides 4 threads. Perhaps even let them convert in some number into the much more valuable and rare/very-rare convertible Empyrean Merits. Or directly into rares/v-rares, or a 'random roll' - say, 5 or 10 astrals rolls you a random salvage item that has the same chance of being a common-uncommon-rare-veryrare as the reward tables for completion, but doesn't give you a choice of which specific salvage item it is.

Problem solved, IMO. People are rewarded for succeeding and succeeding at "skill goals" - the badge conditions - that encourage teamwork and cooperation to achieve. They could instead opt to run 'speed runs' for quick completion for the phase change merits at a higher pace than working in concert, but options aren't a bad thing and I can't imagine that getting a bunch of bonus merits wouldn't at least be competitive with speedrunning.

The requirements of the Lambda Trial temp power badges would have to be changed, though, to balance it against the BAF. I routinely run master BAFs, I simply don't have the right combination of friends with -regen, -res, and psionic damage to comfortably try for master lambda on a regular basis. We would happily run without using acid temp powers every time, though, if we didn't have to eschew getting any grenades and effectively do a master-style run but without gathering grenades to get that badge. Notification of who uses temp powers in Lambda would be nice too, so that anyone who ruins the run can be appropriately dealt with.

Secondarily, notifications when someone clicks the tower glowies in the BAF, and notifications when Nightstar and Siege have 'left their areas' would be useful. Maybe have their hp bars or names change color when they're in "Keep 'Em Separated" position, so people can move them back where they belong if necessary. The first is just to prevent griefing and intentional run failures, the second is to make it easier for the widely-spaced teams to tell if their counterparts are in place.

I think the counter might be to turn away from Monty. One of the other midnighter AVs in there says something about having to remember to cover her eyes or look someplace else. I assumed that was a clue about how to counter his ability without necessarily needing to trial and error it.

If you just have to turn around, the short timer might be enough.

Or it might be bugged. And/or I might be wrong on my guess that the devs were giving us a hint on how not to be screwed over by a new npc power without any instructions. I don't know.

It depends on if you mean alchemy as a sort of realistic 'precursor to chemistry' or alchemy as a sort of 'pseudo-magic,' in my opinion.

For pseudo-magic alchemy, any elemental power would fit but I'm especially fond of the Earth-type sets here. Earth control in particular with a sort of 'pouring your reagents on the ground' thing, and getting a reaction of quicksand or a gas cloud or fossilization.

For a chemistry precursor, poison springs to mind immediately, but the suggestion of trick arrow isn't a bad one either. I can't think of anything particularly better unless you want to start getting creative, in which case Storm Summoning might be an option, with your alchemy causing 'weather reactions' or something. Like 'cloud seeding that works' or whatnot.

I realize that correlation is not causation and that I haven't done a statistically significant number of tests or used any consistent testing methodology.

However, anecdotally. My night widow almost always gets the uncommon table. She has exactly 4 times gotten the very rare table, and exactly 11 gotten the rare table. Otherwise, she has almost always gotten the uncommon table. In fact for the first 3 days the trials were out, despite running them several hours a day, I didn't even know that the 'threads table' and the 'commons table' were different things. I'd never seen either.

When I do get commons or threads, it has always been when I was leading and providing instructions and direction to the team. I have never gotten above an uncommon while leading and directing my team. It may be that because widows are a very high-speed attacking AT, my frequent attack use when I'm not typing much provides very high 'participation' and my less frequent attacking when chatting doesn't. Maybe 'participation' is graded by ATs, or by powersets. But then that'd punish people with fast animating powers for leading or talking, and not people with slow animating powers. Which is unfair. But then, people with slow animating powers don't get to attack as often even if they want to. So that's another type of unfair.

Most issues and concepts I can see going into the participation system are similar - no matter how you 'grade' it or judge it, it's going to have bias, and it's going to blindly follow that bias because it's an algorithm, not a human being. That bias is going to be projected onto the devs, in turn, because it's representing their ideas to us, the players. The devs, via this game mechanic, are judging our behavior and performance in the trials and giving us a grade at the end. A for very-rare, B for rare, C for uncommon, D for common, and F for threads.

People who are getting D's and F's are, in my experience, increasingly deciding to drop out of 'how the devs think they should play school.'

The bottom line to me is that the system simply by existing has a very strong appearance of being unfair and judgemental, and ought to be scrapped. However complicated it's made, it'll never be more fair and balanced than rewarding people for completion with a random reward table selection, and rewarding people for skilled completion with 'more things to buy with astral merits that you get extra of for achieving badge goals.'

Double-edit: Let the players police themselves for leechers. Under a random + astrals rewarding scheme the only way to leech is to obviously sandbag by door-sitting, laying dead, staying in the hospital, and so on. This is much easier to spot in play than 'participation gaming' which has to be done actively, but via activities that either contribute only tangentially to team success, or run counter to team success (generally the latter, such as allowing prisoner escapes, or simply being play that puts other teammates at risk).

Also, I've habitually run the BAF as a master trial for several days. I saw no correlation with master BAF success and improved rewards. I almost always got uncommons still, and when I was leading I would sometimes get commons or threads.