Grey Pilgrim

I may just go for Spiritual and keep my current build going (though I see a few tweaks possible to up my AOE and Melee defense slightly). If I can't take on a canister on Lambda solo after that (so with a +1 level from the Alpha), I may opt for Cardiac and Weave.

Part of me feels reluctant to lose the cap with this guy, but I suppose going for more than I have is overkill in most content still. Still, if anyone has more direct experience and wants to share it, I'd love to hear it.

Blasters are probably where they are going to be for mez protection, but we do have a lot of tools at our disposal.

1. Our mez powers: get them before they get you.
2. Our damage: get them before they get you (seriously, mobs should not react to you until you have a bullet, arrow, flame, energy bolt, etc., in their face).
3. Acrobatics: will let you take one hold without being mezzed.
4. Build for Ranged Defense: they can't mez you if they can't hit you. Also helpful for avoiding damage.
5. Take and slot your Tier 1 and 2 powers: these are all decent attacks, and if you slot them well, you can generally almost make a chain of them (and at least drop a mezzer that somehow mezzed you, freeing you from that worry not too far into the fight).

Okay... I may be doing something else if we aren't starting anew tonight. I need to take some time off from the Ice/Storm Corruptor before I play him again. Just not enjoying him at the moment.

My Grav/Time Controller, Eternal Albert (yes, that is the husband of Queen Victoria... history got it wrong: he just had a steampunk/time accident that made everyone think he had died) is ready to go in Atlas Park whenever we do start. Level 2, unlike some other cheaters out there.

I can't recall, but do the Tin Mage and Apex mobs have the new accuracy level? I don't recall anyone saying there was new accuracy until the DE on tip missions and the Trials, but maybe I just have never seen anyone talk about it.

I do have Tough on this guy already, as he did have issues if his defenses were penetrated (like when fighting DE or Nemesis), so it wouldn't be that hard to drop his ancillary hold and get Weave, but I could only leave it at the default slot. Assuming we get three new slots like the devs are planning, I could then slot it better.

Even with Weave, though, that's mid-50s for melee attacks, and low 50s for ranged and AOE. Better, for sure, but I would need to get Cardiac to run it, meaning less gravy for recharge and the healing powers, which seem like the best thing to get still over Barrier and the others.

I dunno, I'm guessing the biggest turnaround will be in gaining levels via the incarnate powers. Those make a lot of difference in all my characters.

With our new character transfer token, I was able to move my Shield/SS Tanker back to my home server, and I'm wanting to run him at the new Incarnate stuff (I always did like him, and I'm remembering that now after playing him a bit). How does Shields do in the new Incarnate stuff and its higher hit cap? I have the three positions over the normal hit cap (melee is highest, at about 50%), so I know I will be hit more.

That doesn't mean Nerve sounds like a good pickup for me, though, as it only nets me another 2% in defense to each position, which isn't a big help in my position. I did pick up Aid Self with the changes to Inherent Stamina, as my biggest problem before were the occasional hits that came through and not being able to recover from them enough. So I'm thinking maybe Spiritual to get Rage perma, and boost Aid Self (which I wasn't able to slot beyond the default).

I'm on the edge with end consumption, but I'm still getting all the accolades on him. However, I could grab Cardiac and drop a power to pick up Weave, if getting that much closer to the hit cap would be worth it or needed. If not (from other people's experience) I'll go for Spiritual.

Still debating the rest, but I may go for the healing Destiny ability as well, which could get boosted by Spiritual (and would make it better to have this guy on a Keyes run). Anyway, if anyone has further ideas about performance and what to shoot for with Shields, let me know.

So, *ahem* MP. About those earlier questions, do you remember what Ice Knight or whomever does things on your Underground runs? I just want to know how to set things up when tanking. Now that I know the Walker powers (I was treating them like cones, rather than large, targeted AOEs), I'll try to keep away from the group while taunting. That assumes I can get adequate support. But I am wondering if that is the right assessment of things.

And for the lichen walker, is it the glowies in the room he heals off of? Looking for sure on that, but I do want to be sure. There are things to account for that will make this run more smoothly, even if I don't quite like this Trial compared to others.

You exemp down to level 20 for this arc, FYI. It makes sense for the arc, but you may want to adjust your difficulty if you have things set for Incarnate ability.

Really? Where do you get the contact from?

You know, if they priced these things reasonably, they'd probably find a lot of people going "why not? it sounds like fun." Especially since it's celebrating the whole talk like a pirate day. As it is, the price point is ridiculous.

I think it's going to be kind of like the other new travel tier 5s, where they're fun, but not going to be must haves. Which I suppose is a good thing, but I do wish these would be easier to pick up. I'd like to pick up Spring Attack for fun on some characters, and Afterburner on others, but I just don't know if I can justify the power picks, etc.

I think SA is just good enough to pick up if it sounds good, though.

Beam doesn't have much, but what it is is Knockdown. Think just three powers have it in there. The first two tier powers, and the narrow cone like Piercing Rounds from Dual Pistols.

Probably some info around about Street Justice on the beta forums, since it was on there for awhile. It's kind of like Beam in that it does quite well at ST damage, and okay at AOE. Basically, it has combo moves that move a counter up by 1 every time you use them. Then you have finishing moves that do more damage and secondary effects the more combo points you have (capping out at 3... so 2 ups your damage some, but 3 does the most).

It's a great set. I had a lot of fun with it before they took it out of beta. No brainer buy there, if you like melee ATs.

The heroside ones seem to work much better. The training one I haven't gone all the way through, but it did have some story things that were interesting (Twinshot seems to be related to Maelstrom in some way). The Atlas Park arcs are great, actually. They tie in very nicely with the Shivans hitting Galaxy, and explain why there is gang activity in such a pristine part of the city.

It works well for the first few levels, if you don't feel like burning through them via the Sewers (and you can run those and then the sewers, if you want).

For those that prefer Blasters to Corruptors and Defenders (like me), it works well enough for Blasters. It leans a lot more to AOE, and hits really hard for ST damage. I feel relatively safe in saying that my Beam Blaster drops bosses and EBs faster than my other Blasters, and that's after playing one on test in the 20s and 40s (after level bumps). He didn't have as many IOs as my other Blasters, so he did get hit more often (I go for defense on my Blasters), but he did do well.

That said, Beam does okay for AOE. Its nuke is somewhere between the crashless and crashing nukes for recharge, and is in the same boat for damage, so you'll be able to use it fairly often. Out of their, the main AOE power is a big cone, if with a short range. Still, it shouldn't be hard to hit most of a mob with this. Your other cone is extremely narrow (like Piercing Shot from Dual Pistols), but you can easily line things up to hit two mobs with that attack before leaping in, and that power hits quite hard as well.

Interestingly, I was having a hard time finding a pairing for it, as I have a lot of /En Blasters already. Fire is actually fun, and you can match up the colors relatively well. Its AOEs can help make up for Beam's weaker performance in that category as well.

The main reason I'm always going to like BAF and Lambda more than Keyes and the Underground are that the former two do not rely so much on "cheating," or design that breaks the normal setup for the game. Yes, the BAF has the uber mez resistance of the runners, but that's not all the runners, and you'll still see that kind of thing from certain important targets. None of that design really asks you to have a specific team requirement, other than someone that can take the heat from AVs. Which again, is not all that uncommon.

The two new ones ask heavily that you have certain powersets or Destiny powers. People complain about how the bomb phase of the Underground requires much of the team to do nothing, but that's just a badge, at least, not the entire Trial.

I don't know that I'm going to feel comfortable tanking for the Underground unless I pick up Clarion on my tanks, and I find that more than a little ridiculous. Clarion is of no use to them in pretty much any other content (I'm hard pressed to think of anything that can be fixed by a break free, and even then could be sat through without too much worry). I'm sure that some part of dev thinking is okay with this, as it requires more trialing on ONE character to get another Destiny power, but I'm not happy about it in the slightest.

Yes, you can try to get teammates with Clarion or other powers, but I saw how much help they were last night when said teammates either do not know what is required of them, or they don't do them. I'm not saying this in a mean way, either, just in a way to show that I do not like how this new trial is set up. I'm sure my Earth/Storm Controller with Clarion will be immensely useful on this trial (which is nice, he didn't seem worth bringing on Keyes), but it's still an iffy design.

I might be more okay with it if the numbers were not so high either (giving an instance where Clarion is needed is kind of nice, after Keyes). Someone last night said that the hold from the walkers was Mag 100? Not sure if that's right, since I didn't have time to look, but Amygdala's Mag 20 confuse number is quite high as well. That is not a common mez that people have protection to, and most powers that do (like Steamy Mist) would require three up to combat it (assuming those numbers stack).

I dunno, it's feeling like things are so out of whack because of the numbers offered by some Incarnate powers. And also design which I as a player can do very little to counteract, or requires strategy that I personally hate in other MMOs.