Grey Pilgrim

I forgot characters technically have a Mag 1 protection out of the box, so Acro gets you to Mag 3 (it's not exactly intuitive, so I forgot that I had learned this years ago). Thought it was just Mag 2 on its own. Anyway, I'll point out yet again that I was just saying it was overkill with an IO... I'd probably go for one or the other. Now that I have recalled that it gets you to Mag 3... I might try to fit it in on some builds, actually.

Obitus, like I was saying on Power Boost, it's a nice temporary thing, but 15 seconds isn't too long. If anything, on my Blasters I'm more nervous about a long fight with a boss or EB than the alpha strike from a mob, and PB is only going to help so much with that. Anyway, I wouldn't structure strategy around this too much, but use it as a nice boost when needed. I probably wouldn't use it for defense if you only have CJ as a toggle, too (good to think about what powers you have overall for this approach). Still, it's a fun approach that I haven't really tried much on my EM Blasters.

Actually, I would strongly disagree with that statement of Hera's. I think the Apex TF is more of a requirement of tactics, rather than build... but if I was going to narrow it down to something, having resists and a heal are actually more beneficial, I would say. The swords and Hydra do a lot of defense debuff and are +4, so being able to take a hit well is a good thing. Sure, my Shield Tanks or others that are more defense based should have pretty high defenses, but it could be an issue, depending on the build. And those Nanite patches are autohit, so I'd rather have a heal for those "whoops!" moments than not. Given that, DA, FA, and EA are in a better boat, as their heal comes up a lot more than the other sets.

In the end, though, Apex is more about strategy than anything. The first Pylon room in the sewers works nicely when tanks and such can pull the rikti off the ranged characters that are taking down the pylons. Same thing for during the Battle Maiden encounter: one tank can keep her moving out of the patches that melee characters make around her, another can pull swords and warriors off of ranged attackers so they can focus on Battle Maiden. That's what I had the team do on Heraclea's first Apex TF, actually, and it worked well (we earned the "Master of" on that run).

I've heard about plenty of melee heavy or melee only Apex TF's that have succeeded, so it can be done, too. So there shouldn't be any discounting of melee characters (Tank or otherwise) on the Apex TF as well.

Defense certainly helps on the Tin Mage, though. Seem to be more clocks running around outside on that first mission than you get on Apex (might have just been my experience, but it almost is worse than the Police Department assault on Apex). AOE defense helps with mines while fighting Director 11, and he hits hard, too. Lot of debuffs from Warworks means defense is nice for the other missions, too. You can dodge some of those slows. Neuron's end drains and Bobcat (if she has Vengeance) also make more defense nice. Still, that's almost more reliant on team buffs than just a tank build on its own.

On my Blasters that only have a single slot on it, I usually use it between fights to recover faster, or retreat if a fight is really going south. Works pretty well, and I save green inspirations that drop for when I need them in a fight.

I don't get what it is, but people are hellbent on saying that Dual Pistols underperforms, when it's middle of the freaking road. It does decent ST damage and great AOE damage. There are minor things that I would tweak, yes, but I could say that for any number of things. I still want a little more tweaks for Fiery Aura, but I'd be foolish to not acknowledge that the set performs just fine by game standards--better than fine, even.

Strato's earlier statement highlights similar viewpoint issues that people can have (not saying Strato has them, just that he pointed out a viewpoint issue people can have) about the game. Some players, ATs, and sets can go beyond +1 x5 for their difficulty, but it's not an issue if that's where you need to play at, or even play lower. I play lower than that on almost all my characters, as otherwise it takes me longer to finish missions than I want (which I like to do), or I just have less fun. A Blaster soloing at x2-4 for me is usually going to be leveling plenty fast, and quite good.

For some players, that's not as far as they want to go, but it's good to realize the level I play at is beyond what the game is balanced at. Anything more is gravy, and wanting more than that is an artificial expectation. You can have the expectation if that's your idea of fun, but wanting the game balanced to that artificial level is going above and beyond what a developer is going to go with.

I acknowledge the slight benefits, but how great is mag 2 protection? Most holds in the game are beyond that (if any NPC ones are below that... I can't recall), so the hold resistance seems more beneficial to me. *shrugs* I was more questioning having both Acro and the -kb in the build, as you don't need both, in my experience. He also had a lot of toggles going, too, so adding Acrobatics on top of that seemed excessive.

For Power Boost... how much is it really going to help? Yes, it can boost Combat Jumping and Weave (and Scorpion Shield), but it's for a 15 second stretch... you can probably give it about 50% uptime with good recharge for it, but it seems like getting more out of other powers you pick or IOs is a better way to. I'm not saying you can't use it, and it's nice if you have room for it, but it's not a make it or break it power. It's all about making a build work overall (both for fun and performance).

Thanks! It does take a lot of work to write this guide (worked on it in the little free time I have for a few months before I actually put it out at first). And the revising took a bit as well. That all feels worth it when I know it helps people out.

For the defensive one, I have room for three slots in Stamina, and you can get and HP and recovery boost bonus from those. You need four slots to get that from Performance Shifter, and I do not really have room to go for four slots in that build. For the offensive one, that could be a nice add on rather than regular IOs, but I was trying to make that as much of a budget build as I could... even though that's an iffy definition with sets of Obliteration in there. The Performance Shifter Proc is expensive, but you can use one hero or villain merit to get it, actually.

Still, I haven't found myself needing it. The defensive build can go constantly without the cardiac boost, and if you don't have Maneuvers going (found this out when I was on a team without quite enough debuffs, and it took us 40 minutes to defeat Reichsman... Consume and the recovery in the build was enough, and I was constantly attacking him that whole time). With Cardiac... sheesh, my Blue bar never drops and I honestly don't really need Consume unless something has some major recovery debuffs. Even soloing Carnie maps set to four doesn't get me much.

The offensive build is a little lower on the recovery, but it does okay. I've actually found that build to be better when I exemp, and I like the defensive build for anything in the +40s, as it handles the exotic damage in there better. Still, one slot for end mod in Stamina, and one for the Performance Shifter proc is not a good way to go. If you average out the recovery, I believe that 2nd slot with the proc will get you more endurance than just one end mod. But that's averaging it out over time, mind. The proc may or may not be that nice to you.

I came in on the first page and said yet again (said it in a bunch of threads) that Dual Pistols is a middle of the road set... then my account lapsed while I was gone for the holidays, so I didn't comment anymore. To be honest, this topic has been done to death since Dual Pistols was introduced, with some people saying it stinks, and then people that actually look at the numbers and performance point out that it's a middle of the road set. Best I can figure is that people want new sets to be better or almost as good as all the top sets in the game, even though you have to have average performers (or else everything is going to play the same).

I know I'm hardly the only person to think this, as plenty have said it in other threads. Probably gave up on this thread as it has been said so much before.

I really do honestly thing Executioner's Shot should do a little more damage to help out its longer animation time (since lowering the animation time would make the power look weird). However, it's not far off from other heavy, short range blasts, and is actually on par with Shout there. I'd say Piercing rounds should do -res with any ammo type as well. But I don't know if those are big enough grouses to get Black Scorpion and the other powers people to do more (not sure who is in charge of powers now, to be honest... just know a few that work on them).

For your build, do you want to have a combo of Ranged and S/L damage? I went for Ranged and Melee on my DP Blaster (to stack with HoB), but he relies on the ranged much more. Your S/L defense isn't going to stack with HoB, and getting mezzed will drop a lot of it, so it might be a good idea to get more ranged defense bonuses to go with it. You could get some by pulling some slots from Stamina... six slotting it with Performance Shifter doesn't seem like the best allocation, but it's up to you. Heck, even if you keep that at six, Efficacy Adapter might be better, as it offers a recharge bonus, which is nice for Pistols and HoB. Six-slotting Aid Self might also be overkill, and expensive with a set of Numina's. You can get ranged defense from cheaper sets, and Doctored Wounds is a cheap set that has good enhancement numbers, and a recharge boost at 5 slots.

Also... no punches? Energy Punch and Bone Smasher are fast, and nice to be able to pull out on anyone that gets close to my Pistols Blaster... can easily drop a minion with those, or almost defeat a lt. If nothing else, you can use power thrust on a boss that gets near you and activate one of the punches right after, and you'll smack them while they're flying through the air. You can go back to shooting after that and have an attack or two off by the time they're back on their feet.

Anyway, just some things to think about.

I honestly rather wonder if an MA set for Blasters is in the works... we saw Shields on NPCs before we got it, after all. Maybe I'm hoping too much, but it's a possibility, especially given how few secondaries Blasters have compared to other ATs.

Yup, works nice on my Archery/Devices Blaster. He's a hover blaster, so he can get in close to use it on those pesky bosses. Most excellent. I definitely wish Stun for EM had a little range.

As others have said, it's up to you. If you like the character, you'll continue to like it (most likely). Especially if you have gotten into the 30s with it. Any AT is worth IOing out if you enjoy the character. Me, I slot most of my Blasters for Ranged damage, and I enjoy them the more they can dodge stuff. Grabbing Aid Self is nice for the inevitable hits that make their way through, of course.

And really, there are a lot of sets that are not THAT expensive and are still beneficial to your character. I made an IO build for a Blaster when I came back to the game (right after IOs were introduced), and I was able to slot that character as I leveled up. He had one lucky big drop that he sold, but all of my characters I have made since have made good money just selling what dropped for them. I can now afford to start getting IOs for them sooner rather than later, but they would all be able to do it on their own. If anything, it's even easier to do now with the merit system.

Basically, I don't have any characters that do not get IOs. I find the IO system fun, and it makes my characters even more fun to trick them out. If you like a character, I would say it's worth doing.

Drat, you beat me to it! But indeed, there is something about going after everything as a wall of fire that is spectacular. You do great damage, and you're tossing fire everywhere. Burn, baby, burn! Yeah, yeah, yeah! The Midnight bomber what strikes at midnight!

Ummm, other good flashy powers: Energy Blast, Kheldians, Martial Arts, Storm Summoning, Fire Control, etc. There are more, but that's a good spread over a variety of ATs, I think. I've found all of them to be quite visually fun and fun to play.

War Mace most certainly did have its animation times shortened. Many Mace users were quite happy about that, and we were finally able to put our enormous "Fix War Mace" thread to sleep when Castle made the adjustments to Clobber, etc. later on (like an issue or two... it was a good 6-12 months after the animation changes).

No, it's an irony, because before, there was no redraw penalty: now there is. But players asked for it, and rightly so... it was overall a buff to weapon powersets. It's ironic because players can now "rightly" complain about redraw, when they couldn't before the changes. I put "rightly" in quotes, because redraw is really not that much of an imbalance at this point, as you put it. It really doesn't affect weapon users that much, especially if you think a little about what powers you are using and when, and the overall effect to what you are able to do is negligible.

Do I wish the redraw penalty was gone? Sure. I'd like to be able to use build up and then not have to wait for redraw before I use Hail of Bullets in the middle of a mob. But it's not hurting me that much (even when the RNG is not nice to my Blaster). I try not to make too much out of something that really is not that big a deal if I think about it. And I do like the accuracy increase in weapon sets, even if that's not that big a deal either.

As for Posi's statement (whether he really said it or not), it's about perspective. When people forget why something happened, they often fail to appreciate that event. A common foible of humanity, perhaps, but one that is worth learning. It's certainly showing its truth in this thread.

Someone said it did on my Tin Mage run, and I thought they knew about it for sure. Not sure what their source of info was, so you know how that is. They could have been wrong.

He has always run like crazy for me. Even with 2 tanks taunting him, he'd run about sometimes, then come back. Makes his badge even more annoying to get.

Yup, they were rather humorous.

Ouch, Ele. You cut me and my Peacebringer real deep there. You ATist.

Et tu, Justaris? Et tu? What Stalkers stealth to the end and sit there, anyway? Heck, people on the Stalker forums have been mocking people that suggest doing an AS, waiting for Hide, then AS again for years. Stalkers are best played sticking and Scrapping. If anything, I'd say they have a bit more interesting tools to do the job than Scrappers, though I certainly enjoy them, too.

Not sure that was really ever in doubt, but he's been giving previews that the movie was greenlit a long time before it really was. Should be good though, as he really is a lock on that character.

If anyone is able to see an old Royal Shakespeare Company movie about Shakespeare (back when Mckellan and Patrick Stewart were with it), it's well worth the watch. The director asks McKellan to do a famous line/paragraph from one of the plays in about 4-5 different approaches to the character (all in about a minute), and McKellan nails each one. He is quite good.

*snerk*