Hopeling

Obviously they do, but the question was why should they.

Buying recipes with empyrean merits isn't really supposed to be terribly efficient, from what I understand. It's just there so people have something to use emp merits for after they get all their incarnate powers.

The defense in Active Defense can also be enhanced (it's not flagged Ignores Buffs and Enhancements), but Membranes aren't working there anymore, either.

Don't get me wrong, I bought those trays and they're very useful. But I bought them because I purchased >10k points right after Freedom launched, to get Celestial. Only much later did I do the basic math and realize, HOLY COW, I just paid $40 for more convenience in respeccing.

For one thing, Cottage Rule means SS is never getting another AoE attack, unless maybe they decide to add damage to Hand Clap. Even then, it'd be terrible for AoE unless they also removed the knockback.

Moreover, as mentioned, SS is already pretty much the king of melee sets. If it ever gets looked at, it won't be "hey, this set needs more AoE." Best case, it would be "let's revamp this whole set so it has eight pretty good powers instead of three amazing powers and five terrible ones." Worst case, it would be "let's gut Rage and Footstomp and call it a day."

The copy tool has now caught up and put my /shield scrapper on beta, so yes, I can confirm directly that Membranes do not buff Active Defense's DDR.

Yep >.<

They'll still buff defense, but only if it's supposed to be buffable. If you can't slot normal defense enhancements in it, Membranes won't buff it. They'll work fine in Weave, Farsight, or Elude, but will only buff recharge in Active Defense or Power Boost.

I hypothesize that they might half-work the opposite way in something like Mind Link, which can normally be slotted for defense but not recharge, but I have not yet tested that.

Yes, just not enough to punish it nor fix it quickly, using the tools they had at the time, as I said. Eventually, they found a way to fix it that was within their threshold of "we care enough to do this", and now are doing so.

Edit: To clarify, I agree that it is not their level of care which changed (well, I guess maybe that did too, but probably not a lot), but rather the level of difficulty in fixing it.

According to the patch notes, the TuT doesn't even start the TF for you, it just teleports you all to the contact and allows the leader to kick or invite anyone they want before speaking to the contact to begin. Presumably, you can still start the TF manually, you just have to walk to the zone yourself, same as now.

Edit: Here's the exact wording:

Here's what [Umbra Beast] says on beta if I type it in chat:

It was always a bug/exploit, just not one they cared enough to punish or fix. I had long since figured they'd never actually fix it, but clearly I was wrong.

Yes, it does make HOs useless for most of the things players currently use them for...

Compared to what? Certainly not other controller pets. Seems like a good set of attacks, controls, and AoE considering what most of the pets have.

Well, it also appears to prevent enhancing things that aren't supposed to be enhanced at all, like the debuff resistance in Active Defense, or the defense strength increase in Power Boost.

SCR means I couldn't predict exactly how they would distinguish, but it should in principle be possible (and has been done in other games). The best way, IMO, is to give the bonus to the whole team - this encourages solo queuers, but also gives an incentive for partly-formed teams to just hop in the queue and let it fill their last few members so they get a bonus.

I agree that the TuT will and should never become the standard for things like the harder iTrials, but hopefully we can convince people to use it for things where they'd invite the first people to send them a tell anyway, like regular task forces.

A /getglobalname on Freedom says Arbiter Death belongs to @Snarky, and a forum search shows that B_C has claimed that as his global before. So either he sold both his character and his global name, or made it up to save face.

Personally, I don't think it was a great* name in the first place, but I also don't think it's fair to object to selling names in general as some in this thread have done. I've got a couple names I really like, but can't quite make the concept work, or don't like how the character plays, or whatever, so I'm basically sitting on those names forever. If somebody wants the name Bloody Murder on Freedom, for example, too bad, I got here first and sooner or later I'll figure out how to make that name work. But if someone offered me some compensation I'd consider it - they'd get a name they clearly want that otherwise might have been taken forever, I'd get some inf, everyone's happy. In fact, selling a desirable name makes sure that it ends up in the hands of someone who really wants it, rather than someone (like me) who tags the name and sits on it forever without really using it.

*Arbiter and Death are good names by themselves - cliche, yeah, but they're used so often precisely because they're good. However, combining them just seems like "trying too hard to be cool".

There's no NDA, so it isn't against the rules to mention things from beta here AFAIK, but presumably a thread exclusively discussing beta stuff should go in the beta forums.

Every response was also our opinions, to which we are equally entitled. Well, okay, not every post - some people also had facts and evidence that directly refuted your points.