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I don't have anything with Invulnerability, so I can't comment directly on Unstoppable. I do play several things with a clone of it though: Power Surge (x1), Lightform (x3). I can't say I'm a big fan of the crash, but it's not the WORST tier9 downside out there...even taking into account its situational use, there's a powerset worse off for when it can use its tier9: dark armour. You gotta be dead to even use it, talk about downside! At least you're alive still with Unstoppable (and its clones). MoG used to be worse as well, and it got changed, so maybe there is hope...for you.
Personally, I don't mind the risk the crash poses.

Inheirants carry over, be they fitness, or Cosmic Balance

Warshade. Leveling up there's always a power just on the horizon that you are looking forward to (dark nova, black dwarf, stygian circle, dark extraction, eclipse, quasar, etc etc etc), and at level 50 you are full-on Death Blossum coolness. IOs and iPowers just put icing on that cake.

I'm with Dechs, Atlas Sewers is the worst place I've seen one spawn. I was level 6, and showing off Nova form. It was level 10, and obliterated the HALF DOZEN (or so) teams running around down there. It was a thing of sheer beauty (and terror). This was before i13, but I don't recall exactly how long ago.

Also had them spawn beside the portal in the old Infernal mission, cuz ADDS ins't a problem in that room to begin with...

Speaking of portals, you know those CoT missions with the portal to a random destination? Yeah...on the other side of one of those is bad too.

Then there are the two map locations that cause difficulty even without a Cyst: the "L" hallway with spawns on either side of the turn, AND the balcony above (hope that makes sense), and the hallway that ends with a stairwell, which opens up kind of behind/above the hallway that brought you to the stairs, and typically has 2+ spawns up there (think of a sideways U), often has a door up there too (if that helps).

"Capable of doing many things competently"...
Should be pretty straightforward, just come up with a list of all the "things" characters are capable of, and see which powersets can do ALL of them, or do the most. The more detailed the list, the more accurate the result (ie "def debuff, res debuff, range debuff" vs. "debuff")
I would think. Need some criteria for "competently " though. Is applying a 3%def debuff consistently competent? Or is a 30% debuff every 3mins?

I suspect the most versatile AT would be Controllers, as the combination of control and support covers a significant portion of what is capable in this game. Controller-like ATs/powersets (Dark Miasma) will score well too. As the the single MOST versatile? I'm going to guess a /Thermal/ something.

Well, for me, the characters that "survive" the journey to 50 tend to be the ones that had the ideas that I liked best. Examples: BioStatic, a Radiation Emission / Electric Blast defender, born when his nuclear experiment got short-circuited by a thunderstorm. Or, Baal Rogh: a Dark Armour / Fire Melee tanker, the genetically engineered result of Circle of Thorn Demons, and those Shadow creatures from another dimension. Basically, if you "invest" enough in the background of the character, you might get more life out of it, or at lease be more reluctant to delete it. Even if the idea isn't so great, sometimes the character just gets on a roll (Lighthouse, human only PB, original concept: how shiny can I make a character? or Dysleximouser, human only WS, original concept: poking fun at "cat" themed characters, and ones with "w3yRd" spelling) and finds himself at 50.

Building for a particular task (tanking the STF, off the top of my head), might get you another toon to 50. When I tried that though, once the desired task was completed, the toon was deleted (illusion/kinetics controller, built for the "Illusion Suicide Squad" of the old Hami raids, and way before server transfers were an option).


It sounds like you're just burning yourself out, playing the same toon from 1st level to whatever. Most of us have other toons to switch to, to give ourselves a change of pace, but as you delete yours, you hamstring yourself into repeating this behaviour. You need to find ways to make characters you've become bored with, "new" again. The game has some ways to do this built-in: costumes. Especially now with power customization, changing costumes can provide at least a visual spark for your imagination. Repecs are another way. You're locked into primary and secondary choices, but even after 10 levels (the earliest, I personally, have ever respec'd ;D) a couple of key changes can alter the feel of a character. By level 30, you can practically re-invent yourself! IOs to a lesser extent, and now Incarnate abilites too, can also change (in some cases radically) how a character plays. Or try a level-pact with a friend, or group of friends, with the intent that you only play those toons together as a duo/team (obviously, you can have other teammates as well, as long as you are teammed with each other). Shared investment might prove harder to dissolve.

Why do you feel this is a problem? Coming at this from the opposite direction...let's say all of your current characters were 50s. Where's the excitement in "Double XP Weekends" then?!? How do you pick with character to "work" on when they're all "done"? Other than continually starting from scratch (I hate starting at level 1 ), I don't really see any problem with what you're doing.

That said...how about making new characters in batches? You have the server slots, make 10 new characters at a time (or more!). You might find that you are continually drawn to play 1 or 2 more than the others, keep those, delete the rest, and make another batch. Survival of the fittest .

I'm by no means an expert on this TF, and I've only tanked it a few times, but here's what I do remember...

Riders: not getting hit is helpful. If your defense isn't so great, and your team has no +defense, use insps.

Hamidon: IS nasty. Defense/Resistance isn't useless, but without outside help he will eat you alive. I haven't heard of EoEs working, but I'm guessing lots of people will be trying that this week. The Mito "pattern" is melee vs. Yellows, ranged vs. Blues, and holds vs. Greens. Most teams follow that order, but a strong team can engage two or all colours at once. Keep in mind, once the Greens are held, other attacks will hurt them too. More often than not I carry awakens....

Final Room: last few times we've taunted the AVs to the entrance, beat them down, then spiked the generators and clear until bored. Weaker teams would probably need to clear to each generator.

Any player that is competent with his support powersets can make a bigger difference for his/her team, than the powerset played poorly. We've all seen examples of this (Emps in particular), but for myself, I just struggle PLAYING a Kinetics. To the point I deleted my level 50 ill/kin (way, WAY before things like IOs and server transfers became available).

Having said that, if we talk about the best of the best of the best...I'd put my money on Thermal. Several decent buffs, two decent heals, a rez ally, and a couple decent debuffs. Has it all, and lots of it. Dark Miasma would rank 2nd with a minor buff (shadowfall), a single heal, a mass rez, and decent debuffs. Radiation Emission has a single buff, a single heal, a rez, and excellent debuffs. Cold has several buffs and excellent debuffs by comparison. Empathy lacks debuffs. Etc etc etc. I am only familiar with blueside support powersets, so it's possible there is something redside that is on par given my criteria (Pain?).

My rationale is simple: on a PuG, things can go South quickly, so the lack of healing and/or rezing can be more problematic than the lack of debuffs. If we can't survive long enough to get TO the AV, it doesn't really matter if we have the tools to take down the AV.

[begin rant] Which is my single biggest pet peeve with the LGTF: even the weakened Hamidon repeatedly manages to wipe teams, seemingly irregardless of support on said team. Yes, I know, people do MoLGTFs all the time, I have too, it's still a pain in the sensory perceptor. I know people that don't do the TF just because of that mission. [end rant]

tl;dr: like any other form of mitigation, the best sets are the ones with more than one kind built in.

3 attempts, 1 fail. FYI, GW succumbs to the fly + taunt tactic as long as you can keep her on the ground (or just yoyo up and down if she flies after you). Even if everyone else is in melee, she won't use her pbaoe heal if the taunt-bot is out of range (kinda like reichsman and his pbaoe).

Horror story: I dunno if it was really a horror story so much as several people hadn't done the TF before, including our only Tanker. Like usual, it's the last mission we stumbled on after doing moderately well through the other missions. One of our support toons kept DCing, and eventually never returned, so we were down to 7 by LR. We had an empath and a kin, so our inv tanker should have been ok, right? Well...maybe if said tanker wasn't just on SOs (maybe common IOs, but definately no IO sets), and maybe if said tanker had taunt... Of course, team leader hadn't checked this until the upteenth team wipe on LR, but once he found out, he berates the tanker and quits. His fiancee quits immediately after. And that was it. Never did finish it on my Blaster....

I can't see anyway to have an IO that only Martial Arts could use. Nor an Incarnate ability only available to Stalkers. Anything the devs could come up with, would be slottable in any single target melee power, or available to every Incarnate character.

I don't beleive that you understand how the %Chance to confuse proc works either, which might be part of the problem. The proc has a percent chance to fire every 10 secs (in a toggle like Arctic Fog). It can only hit (confuse) enemy mobs that Arctic Fog has NOT already confused (confusing a confused enemy is pointlessly confusing). So it might SEEM like the proc is jumping from one (Arctic Fog) confused enemy to a non confused enemy, all it is really doing is hitting a non-confused enemy within Arctic Fog's area of effect.

If we were to apply the same mechanic to a single target melee critical hit effect, it could only affect a SINGLE TARGET who wasn't already critted by the activating power...x% of the time at that. It would boost your crit rate, technically, but there's no way for the proc to target an enemy that the power it was slotted in didn't also target.


Make sense?

The mitigation discrepency is due to one simple fact: Eclipse is a unique power. It is a permable crashless "tier 9", click power that carries over into forms, that also recovers end on activation.

VS.

Lightform: Unstoppable clone, non-permable, severe crash (hp+end) "tier 9" click power that does NOT carry over into forms.

Here is an area where I think WSes might see a nerf coming as opposed to PBs getting a buff, unfortunately, as this power is significantly better than any other tier 9 defensive power (if only because it's permable) regardless of AT.

I did two STFs last night, once on my Dark Armour/Fire Melee tanker, and once on my Radiation Emission/ Electric Blast defender. Both runs had two capable tankers. Paired with my DA/FM was a SD/? We easily tanked the 4 AVs at once. When it came to LR, me and an Empath defender went after LR, while the rest hit the towers. I was doing good, I thought. I had enough defense buffs to put me around 75% melee. Sitting pretty beside a tower to heal off of. Then wham wham, two shotted. Another wham and the emp was down too as I was in mid self-rez animation. I regained aggro, kept him occupied for about a minute, then wham wham again (didn't have the defense buffs after rez). The Shielder hopped over and took aggro, I hosp'd and took his spot on the tower team (they had just finished the red tower when I went down for the 2nd time).

When I was on my defender we had a Willpower tanker, a Fire tanker, and a Stone brute. Again, handled all 4 AVs without significant issue (some deaths, but no panic attacks). LR on the other hand...for support we had my Rad (not so great for healing a tanker vs. LR), a kin, and a cold domination. Still couldn't keep either of those "tanks" alive...until, the WP flew around taunting LR and flying away...essentially joust-taunting . Hey, whatever works right? I don't know how IO'd those guys were, but my DA has some significant IO investment (using Dechs Kaison's as a rough guide). LR, while buffed by the towers, is VERY tough to just go toe-to-toe with. Not impossible (I've seen some Stone tanks do it), but very tough without support, and even with support your best bet is: TAKE OUT THE TOWERS ASAFP.

I can (in Mids) get my ELA/KM tanker to within a small purple of the softcap (36%ish iirc), so i would assume War Mace could as well. It requires some things that I don't know if I'd actually do in game though: running weave, combat jumping, hover, and manouevers. Could probably lose hover in place of the PVP 3% IO (gladiator something), but still. Not pretty. I'll probably build to closer to 20% defense in game and go for some more recharge (hasten) instead. El K'Boom is only level 35, so still time to figure things out

Thanks Joe

My Earth/Cold: Junk from Space, probably "rocks" "better" Cold seems to a real late bloomer though...

Given the choice between -def and ANY OTHER DEBUFF though, I can't say I'd choose -def if I was looking for "debuffs". Off the top of my head, defenders typically have access to: -res, -regen, -recovery, and -tohit, in terms of significant (10%+) debuffs. I would pick any of those over -def, even -tohit will do more for the team's survivability.

I'm not dismissing -def, or saying /Rad "isn't really a debuff", but if I were putting together a PuG TF, and had one spot left, and we were in desperate need of debuffs... -def (or /Rad) wouldn't even be an option. I would swap toons.

I use WADS plus X and SPACEBAR to control movement on my toons. It's a combination that's been around on PC games for a very long time, so I am used to it. I use TAB for targeting (Shift+Tab, and Ctrl+Tab as well), and 1-6 are close enough to WADS that those powers are activated via keyboard. I will use mouse-clicks for 7-0, and anything in trays 3+ (I have at lease 4 trays on all lvl 50 toons). I use the NumPad for binds now, as I've found I tend to forget binds if I haven't played that toon in a while . Nothing like rediscovering them by accident when I've forgotten/missed hitting Enter or Backspace to chat .

I know it's not the most efficient, but...this isn't a twitch-reflex game. Even when my mouse skills fail and a teammate or myself dies...well, there are powers in the game for that (vengence, fallout, rezzes, etc), so, I'm just "helping" .