Fulmens

It used to be that when you sent out a broadcast like "Who left their L48 Malta by the train?" generally either the original owners would fix the problem, or some high level Samaritan would take care of 'em. Sometimes I was the Samaritan.

I don't know if that still happens, and it probably varies from server to server.

I said a fair bit in the other thread.

I solo quite a lot on a lot of Blasters that are far from softcapped. I have one (I think) that's "one small purple from softcap to four damage types" and that's fine for me. If you want a Blaster with SR level defenses, the old joke was "Claws/SR".

Any time you are a sucker because you chose thing X instead of thing Y at chargen, before you knew better, there's something wrong with the game. I was there back when Ice had twice the DPS of Energy because of activation times. It was broken and Ice got slowed down while Energy got sped way, way, up.

Basically IO'd blasters kinda make you a sucker for picking a Scrapper. Build Up, Aim, Fire Ball, Fire Breath, Psychic Scream _and_ 45% Defense? Yeah, that's basically a primary and two secondaries.

Did anyone say MA/SR yet?

*makes Bruce Lee taunt gesture*

Can I help you with that, Thaumator?
/e slap

You can't afford a purple set. True.

You can afford to frankenslot about twenty characters, though.

As far as "what to buy"- I'll buy those three random rolls (I give you the money, then you roll, then you give me whatever you roll.) 20 million inf each, any time under level 41. For reference, a 240-merit recipe is going for about 200 million these days. One million per merit seems like a fair price to me.

It's probably the randomness. It would take a really ridiculous amount of data to tell.

Congrats on your windfall, either way!

Welcome back to Paragon City!

Depending on the PP, they may also be running "10% hit points, 90% resist" at the same time, so when you DO hit you're doing single-digit amounts of damage. I recommend something like "stacked holds" or "Well-timed knockdown" combined with rapidly delivered, overwhelming damage. One nasty trick my SG's latest team has been using is "no endurance, no Moment of Glory".

( Read the text on small vs. medium vs. large yellows; you really CAN'T eat enough smalls to make a difference. )

I'm restricting myself to one bit of advice [like I try to for new players; my "off" button is hard to find.] Enhancements/money, I choose you!

For your first character, my advice is to stick with the enhancements the game sells in stores (or if you feel like getting fancy, generic IO's at level 30.) Training enhancements, then at level 12 dual-origins, then at level 22 single-origins.

There are two parallel systems of enhancement: the first one, and only one for about the first four years, is where you go to a store when your enhancements start "going yellow" and buy new ones. As you go up levels, the old enhancements will start to rot and work less well. You can use from +3 to -2; after that they "go red" and give you NOTHING. Sometimes you will get a drop you can use, which is a rare bonus.

The newer system is the "Invention system." You get recipes [1-shot blueprints, basically] and salvage from badguys. You can try to sell these things to other players at Wentworth's (or the Black Market) or you can try to use them; you can buy other things. So if you need "two blobs and a gear" and you have only one blob and two gears, you can try to sell a gear and buy a blob with the money.

You can get considerably more power from inventions, but with very few exceptions you don't need them. I'm going to give seemingly-bad advice here and recommend you get ripped off. The auction system is "highest bid gets lowest sale price" so if you list everything for 1 inf you will get the highest bid out there. Which may still be very low as someone tries to get bargains by underpaying.

If you list every piece of salvage and every recipe for 1 inf, you will get between 1/3 and 99% of what you could get if you were really, really clever and aggressive and got the "true value". This is still enough inf that you can afford all the SO's you will ever need, with a lot of money left over. There's bizarre inflation in the game, so there are individual items that sell for, like, the price of ALL THE ENHANCEMENTSS YOU WILL EVER NEED FROM LEVEL 1 to 50. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on whether you're buying or selling.

So until you are interested in the invention system, just list everything for 1 and take what you get. (I'm not a marketer who will rip you off. I hunt much larger game.) If you ever run short on cash following this advice, send a tell to @Boltcutter and I will set you up with 10 million inf.

Grats! And a stylish, understated bit of mad science always makes a good backdrop.

At one point there was a half-elbow attempt at a conspiracy to buy up the said luck charms, which would force me to burn 18 billion to even collect my loot.

Two or three people mentioned it, I said I'd be willing to buy up all the LC's under a million, some people half-joked that they'd put up some LC's at 1.999 billion, and it looked like it was going to get real ugly real fast.

I liked the *Cough* Online implementation of power armor. It was fun. I don't know if it's easily importable into this game, or if it's something this engine can handle, or if it can be easily made to work with other parts of the game (Granite Armor has caused a tremendous amount of headaches with new powersets, for instance) but I'd totally build a FF/MechaWeapon defender.

As mentioned, it's almost impossible to get a high bonus in accuracy without slotting some accuracy in a bunch of powers.

I would like to also mention that I slot a lot less accuracy in general than most people. I'm happy with 50% -ish in most powers on most characters. There's a lot of powers that have built-in To Hit bonuses, there are a lot of teammate "accidental" To Hit bonuses and defense debuffs (got Fort? got AM? anyone hitting with AR/broadsword/katana? any rad powers? ) , and there's not really a lot out there that does much dodging. So my trays fill up with yellows and I convert them into other things.

If we're going to redefine being a big shot from HAS a billion to CASUALLY BURNS a billion, which nobody has suggested but me, we need some sort of rules for the screenshot.

Something like this obviously works, but that had no purpose but to destroy inf.

I'm thinking something more like this (but, obviously, with more stuff being bought/sold). There's evidence of 76 million being spent in the chat window- 40 million from selling and 36 million (implied) from buying. There's also the billion-inf listing fee, by implication, but that's old news.

Any suggestions on better ways to show that you're SUCH A BIG DEAL THAT YOU SPEND A BILLION IN MARKET FEES are appreciated. If you're really cool you spend a billion and make a profit doing it. (Pictures of profit not shown.)

So who wants to start the Iron Man Screenshot club? Show a screenshot where you're burning a billion in market fees. Selling,buying, whatever.

... I probably just want to do that because I have one of those screenies already.

Big thanks to Acyd Rayn for coming out and stabbing people in the back while I stabbed 'em in the front.

We got about 20 merits each and I rolled a LoTG +7.5% (level 33, recipe, on market for 201 million.)

See? Lunch is good luck!

You can never go wrong with MOAR DAMAGE. Blasters, Rad/Sonic defenders, whatever.

As always, DrMike, there's the difference between "everyone can do it" and "anyone who wants to can do it." Real-world example: let's say there's a shortage of nurses. (there were panicky news articles about it some time back, I haven't done any research. There probably is. ) If the 10% of unemployed Americans ALL decided to become nurses, they couldn't do it. But anyone who wanted to become a nurse could do it and get a job.

It has been pointed out that I failed to mention server.

Teenage Wildlife is a Freedom VG.

Teenage Wildlife will be hosting another Ouro run, 3 Eastern/12 Pacific/interpolate as needed, villainside. The plan is to run around, do some Ouroboros missions, get some merits and XP. It's not really deep. We have a Pillar of Ice And Fire, so you don't have to be level 25 to get in on the action. I'm @Boltcutter, going to be on as Self Forging Weapon. We will meet up at the Cap Au Diable SG entrance.

Teenage Wildlife is a VG created to introduce mid and low-level rare recipes onto the market, to help with the "50 or nothing" situation we have now. I'd like to make this a quasi-regular event.

Teenage Wildlife, the villain counterpart to Midlevel Madness, will be hosting another Tuesday Lunch With Evil. Since I got much greater response for the later showing, it will be at 3:00 Eastern/Noon Pacific. We're going to run around, do some Ouros, get some merits. Violence can be the answer!

We'll be meeting up by the Cap Au Diable SG entrance. I'm @Boltcutter, going to be on as Self Forging Weapon. The SG has a Pillar of Ice And Fire so you don't technically have to be level 25 to join the team.

I'm going to do another Tuesday Lunch with Evil. Sorry, I'm an absentee SG-lord.

Welcome! Something I'm going to mention: beyond first and second, population numbers don't mean much. Someone posted numbers a while back, I wish I remembered them more clearly, but either "Freedom and Virtue combined had more people playing than the rest of the servers, combined" or "Freedom and Virtue EACH had more people playing than the rest of the servers,combined."

The other servers move around a lot in the list, so you could have [making up the specifics] more people on Champion than Infinity at 6 PM, but more on Infinity at 10 PM. The only thing I can really guarantee is that you'll never see anything but Freedom or Virtue in the top 2 slots.

Five semesters?!? What the heck do they teach in semester five, mind control?