Fulmens

I don't think so, for a couple reasons:

1) A lot of people are willing to buy something and convert convert convert "because they heard that you can sell it for zillions" (the word DOES get out; it got out on Luck Charms eventually...) or are otherwise bad at math.
2) We've got a ... roughly... 4-year supply of unloved PVPs being burnt up right now. After those are slotted, used up, gone in whatever way, we're back to replacement rate. Which is still about ten times higher than the old rate of, say, Shield Wall.

If you made 80 billion you burnt about 9 billion in fees, assuming you didn't spend much on buying stuff to convert.

I'm in the "about ten billion" camp myself.

I'm betting on prices going up- not all the way back up, but up. Play the long game, peter, it'll work out for you.

I don't think the system distinguishes between "mission/drop" Rare and "Pool C" Rare. I'm pretty sure I saw a same-rarity conversion go between pool C and A.

Can anyone confirm/deny this?

So does anyone want to take a wild guess at what converters (and the sales volume of really expensive things therefrom) have done to the inf supply?

My guess is this:

About a hundred people made about a hundred billion each
About a thousand people made about ten billion each

Total: about twenty trillion changed hands, two trillion burnt.

Skilled people made 50 million per converter; if we assume a learning curve and say 20 million per converter, that's on the order of 100,000 converters used at a quarter million each, 25 billion burnt on those.
Let's say 10% of those converters come from 1000 hero merits, and half those hero merits are made from reward merits: 500 hero merits at 20 million each = 10 billion burnt on those.

OK, those are relatively trivial sums next to the market fees, but I didn't know that till I did the math.

so 2 trillion inf out of maybe 100 trillion in game. Does that number seem reasonable?

... compared to what? Rad?

It doesn't really count as soloing if a Shivan brings someone along to help.

Beam Rifle looks like it's got a good set of AV-soloing tools- self buffs, regen reducers, lots of big single-target [or ultranarrow cone] hitters. If I was going to try this, and I'm not because I soloed one AV one time (on a Stalker) and that was enough for me, I'd go for all the +HP from accolades, capped Ranged defense and respectable Regen. (five sets of Thunderstrike at 3.75% each, 6% from Steadfast and Gladiator's, 5%ish from Weave, that's 30% for starters. 2.8% (?) from Combat Jump, 2.5% from six Gaussians, after that it gets tough.)

And thank you for such a perfect example of "Everything is fine with Blasters if you have years of experience, build perfectly, play perfectly, and nothing goes wrong."

(see also, eight years of "Why do we even have Defenders/Tanks in this game?")

I would say that, yes, there are probably tips we can give Scarlet Shocker to make her elec/elec experience a better one. The point is not to yell UR DOIN IT WRONG. The point is that you have to be a damn good Blaster to do things that a mediocre Scrapper doesn't think twice about.

The 4/10 patch makes enhancement converters available everywhere: Fort Trident, Astral Christy, Empyrean Michael.

I repeat, enhancement converters are live.

You may fire when ready, Gridley.

At one point I [vaguely] remember a Dev saying that Blasters already have the lowest aggro-per-damage setting the game allows. I also remember Scrapper/Blaster being a "Worst of both worlds" duo (the Scrapper did nothing to keep the Blaster alive including get aggro), and at level 10 Brute/Blaster is probably much the same.

We'll see what it looks like in a few levels, but for now it was a shock that I'd forgotten about.

Fourspeed:

My invuln scrapper used to be TWENTY times tougher than my wife's blaster and you ... didn't think... that was broken*?

* "Failed game design" if that phrase makes you happier. Fixating on stupid BS when everyone knows what we all mean is an internet tradition, I realize.

I have been much slacker than you (collectively), but I had my first run at teaming: my wife's L10-ish Brute ran for about 40 minutes with each of my guys, who are now about level 10.

At first I thought my Scrapper was startlingly tougher, but then I realized that, mostly, she generated less aggro. Blaster was in "enough AOE to annoy the whole spawn, not enough to dramatically injure them" zone. And a knock back cone annoys people a LOT. It will be interesting to see, in a few levels when I've got the second cone slotted, how the aggro-vs.-killspeed ratio balances out. Blaster is slightly ahead, but that's probably because the Brute went into street hunting mode once or twice on the way to the mission. Timing may be a little off, as well, but that'll balance out on the way to 20.

If I'm playing on a team of people I don't know very well- let's say on a Fire/Elec- I have two choices. I can only shoot what I know I'm going to kill; that's conservative play. Or, if it looks like things are going bad, I can take that bet that enough damage, fast enough, will change things.
Fireball, Fire Breath, Blaze on the way in, two fast Elec melee attacks, Fire Bolt on the way out: If I don't die partway through, that is a LOT of damage to a lot of guys in under ten seconds. For high level fights, replace Fire Bolt with Inferno if it's that kind of party.

It's damage like anyone else delivers... but more so. If anyone else on the team is doing anything, the minions are gone and so are damn near all the lieutenants, and any bosses are easy meat for the rest of the team.

Yeah, you have to have blaster-sense ("This fight is going ugly in about four seconds") to even try it, and then you have to ignore that blaster-sense and open fire... but it does turn the tide. It just does it before most people are aware that there's a tide to be turned.

Yeah, that's what I usually do with any character that I'm doing much soloing on- DO's at 15, IO's at 20, SOs or new IOs at 25.

This isn't practical for hours of play, but don't they still sell the non-BreakFree mez protections in one of the PVP zones?

*checks Paragonwiki*
Strength of Will . Three minutes of moderate mez protection- I don't know what "moderate" means but I vaguely remember from 2004 it would be like mag 2 or 3.

The traditional problem is "if everyone has mez protection, why put mez in the game?" And the traditional answer is "Well, they went WAY FREAKING OVERBOARD ON MEZ in an attempt to stun melee types back when they first added level 40-50 content."

Personally, I was amazed they didn't dial back mez protection when they dialed back the rest of the protection sets in I5-6, but that boat sailed a long long time ago.

Level 20 isn't where I'd pick and stick: three level 25's give roughly the effect of four level 20's, so there is a significant difference in performance.

Note on using alts as moneybags:

They have to be L10 to mail the inf back to you.

Otherwise you'd have to either level them to 10, or buy something obscure from yourself, old-school style, and give up a 10% handling fee to Mr. Wentworth.

As a "Burn the inf!" guy, you know which side I stand on.

It doesn't have to be conclusive to be illustrative.

I haven't examined this sort of thing since ... I don't know, since they put the wolf farm on a timer? I for one want to know how it feels these days.

Eldagore said

...waitaminute.

Lightning Rod does *MORE* damage than Nova [in a tight radius]? And it goes to the people who are 6+ times tougher than blasters?

I remember now why I gave up on nuke discussions now.

/e goes looking for a puppy to kick

It's going to be interesting seeing my blaster and scrapper at level 15. I don't have really quantitative results yet, anecdote is not the singular of data, etc. but here's what I'm seeing:

A) I play my Scrapper a lot more aggressively. Some of this may be the "if you run, you don't go to Valhalla" attitude I play Scrappers with. [1] Some of it may be that Dark/SR benefits from the stacking defense you get when you keep hitting people. But the fact remains that I went to the hospital, like, three times, punching people all the way back to the mission, vs. once on the Blaster.

B) At level 7, there's a huge advantage to back-to-back Sands of Mu/Shadow Maul combo. This will probably go away around level 22. The Blaster has no such benefit... unless you count the ability to hit six guys, regularly, with Energy Torrent.

C) Even with all that, they're very comparable in level after about 1.5 hours of play each.

Irrelevant) Both of them are looking good to crack half a million on the old level 10 challenge, selling everything for cheap at Wents.

Nothing contradicts my gut feeling that Blasters are going to do really well for the first 15-25 levels then fall off a cliff, mezzed and two-shotted, but we'll see about that.

[1] Also if you run, they get a shot at your back AND you don't have that chance of a last minute critical. If you want a mathematical justification.

I have vague plans to do a similar, but far less detailed, analysis. Report every 5 levels or so (after the first 10 or 15) by clicking an "M"-name NPC: hours patrolling, debt incurred (measured by badges).

I'm watching this one eagerly!

Arcanaville said

Hmm. En/Mental. KB cone, -rech cone, KB burst. I like it.

(Is there a better way to do that? Experimentation is needed!)