Humility

Ok, so... no shards in DA. Kind of a bummer but workable.

Next step, what about common components for upgrading your alpha? I've run a couple of arcs and saw options for the common thread components, but did not see any options listed for picking up the shard crafted components that I would need to be upgrading my alpha. Did I miss something or is this really the case? Seems like a giant gaping hole in a system oriented toward allowing solo incarnate advancement that I can't get those basic components at all.

Can I create thread components and use the 'downgrade' option to create the shard based components? Without knowing the answer I didn't want to test it out and lose a piece I would otherwise use.

So I could still use some shards and was just curious if they drop in the new DA content. I've gotten a few threads, but I didn't see any way to downgrade threads to shards.

Thanks Guy and Shinobi, that's the kind of feedback I was after. EA is Energy Armor, I've always seen electric done as ElA so I didn't think about it.

Ok so with the new solo incarnate material coming up I actually have a chance to get more than just T2 alpha, so I'm looking around at a couple options for the characters I want to start out with in this content.

Thugs/time MM. Intuition Radial seems like it's pretty much a no brainer choice here. Everything it boosts will be useful. Reactive interface also seems like the most obvious choice. Lots of attacks, lots of aoe, solo so no worries about team stacking. With the kind of toolbox that /time has I just don't think I need any support from Lore, so this would primarily be a concern of getting more damage for hard targets. As I understand it Cims and Warworks are the best choices here, I think I heard something about Storm Elementals too, but not sure. For judgement, with a lot of slows and pets dragging mobs everywhere a cone could be hard to make good use of. My first thought was Ionic just because I kind of like jumping damage. Ion chance to hold or Pyronic disorient are probably my first choices, Void doesn't look bad but the radial second effect doesnt appeal to me much. The Core of all 3 for extra damage could be a good choice too. Destiny... I'm really not sure on. The wiki doesn't seem to have the recasts so I'm not sure the uptime on these and what I should really be shooting for.

The other character I'm looking at is a TW/EA scrapper. I think that the recharge is more valuable to me than musculature, but the secondary effects in Spiritual are just useless for this build. I was looking at Agility on this one, probably Radial. The other slots are mostly just going to be used for extra damage, Reactive, DPS lore pets, Rebirth perhaps, that sort of thing.

Bottom line is, as a strictly solo player I've never had much reason to do research beyond T2 alpha and I'm just not perfectly clear on things and it is very possible there is plenty I've missed. Any feedback on these would be greatly appreciated.

So I am doing tips on my 50 thugs/time. Pull a Rikti tip mission and I simply cannot put into words how frustrating it is to have my pets constantly running everywhere because of all the rikti monkeys leaving little green gas clouds.

I love masterminds. They are great fun. I get incredibly aggravated however with the fact that pet commands simply do not work when you actually need them to.

Caltrops, nemesis gas, rickti monkey gas etc just cause them to be completely out of control. The 'heel' command is practically useless since they will generally run to where ever they were trying to go before turning around and coming back. The 'go to' command is even more useless since your pets will just tag that spot on the ground and keep going like a runner passing third base.

Bottom line, I want my pet class to have pets that I can actually control 100% of the time (barring mez). I know, it's asking a lot.

Sorry... just had to rant a bit.

So I've been tossing around the idea of making a /da brute during the upcoming double XP weekend, and wanted to get it prepped and ready to be level 15+ for the new DiB trial.

I'm just not sure what would make a good pairing with the set. I've got Claws and TW on scrappers already, and a SS brute. I've got a Katana scrapper as well, but it has /regen for the secondary, one of the first characters I made. After experiencing the other sets, I just couldn't do another /regen. I do really like Katana though, seems that the defense bonuses from the Katana set would pair up well on a resist/utility set like DA. The end costs are moderate, it has a cone and a pbaoe. It's the first thing I'm kind of looking at, but I am not overly familiar with many of the sets and just wanted to see if anyone had a suggestion that I hadn't thought of that has particular synergy.

So I've got a couple of T1/2 alpha incarnates right now, as a solo player I never pushed too hard to go farther than that. I have a 49 that will hit 50 today and start gathering shards as well as a fresh 50 from last week that only has T1 alpha.

Aside from gathering shards and making sure I've run the SSA this week for a couple components, is there really anything I can solo that is active in the game right now to prepare for more solo content in the patch that is coming 'soon'?

Please don't suggest running the WST, as that won't help.

So I've done them on a couple of my newer characters, and I know I've done some on a few of my older characters and I would like to go through and clean up a few of the freebie A Merits, but I am not sure which characters have done which steps of the arc.

Is there a badge for each step of the arc, or anything of that nature that I can check to see eon each character which steps they have done so I don't double up and run a portion which I've already done?

So I've been kind of itching to play a spines character and was thinking about probably a scrapper with an armor set that has a damage aura just to double up and see how that goes. I have little experience with the resist sets however, and they just don't seem to offer the kind of survivability you would get with a defense set.

I just wanted to see if they are viable on their own for mid level play at a reasonable solo pace. I guess I would consider that to be +0/x4 or greater. Will I have to start stacking IOs with defense bonuses to get any kind of reasonable play experience?

So I was tinkering around with my second (premium) account and wanted to see about the possibility of a 1 month AE license or something for it. It's currently only tier2 so it can run AE missions but gets no XP or anything. I just wanted to see about opening up Xp on that account for a month.

I found IO and WW licenses, I found extra publish slots for AE but I can't find anything that would let me run AE for some XP on that account. Someone in /help said they had seen it there but couldn't remember where it was found.

Anyone able to point me in the right direction?

So I've been tinkering on a thugs/time MM and was thinking about tossing some procs into Distortion Field and Juncture and I just wanted to be sure I had my thinking right on these working that way.

Field takes hold IOs so I can toss in the chance for psi and chance for (something) sets, while juncture takes slow and there is a chance for smash proc there. Both powers list *target* slow/etc effects so the proc will trigger on targets within the field right? Is it a chance to proc every 10/20 seconds or something?

Thanks for any info!

I have a question about this...

Do you have to have a level locked toon to do this? I have used my a-merits pretty much exclusively for buying specific recipes. Does the level slider not work when making a reward roll? For specifics you can choose what level you want, if you can do the same with random rolls then you would not need a locked toon. Does the slider not work for reward rolls?

So a while back, maybe a month or so I grabbed Titan Weapons and decided to give it a go. I had seen much raving on the forums about how well it pairs with EA and what a great combo it is, etc so I decided to run with it. Now I'm going to share the ugly truth that most people don't put into their posts talking about it.

This combo is HORRIBLE and painful to play. Saying it has endurance issues doesn't begin to describe the misery of playing this combo. I slotted a miracle recovery at 18 and had stamina 3 slotted with a performance shifter +end proc added in at level 30. Every attack other than Defensive Sweep had at least 2 end reducers in it and some had a little bit extra from frankenslotting. I carried a tray full of blues and used the recovery serum temp power almost every mission. Leveling was still PAINFUL. Recovery Serum only has 40% up time, while I could defeat things quickly I was constantly sucking wind. I coughed, wheezed and gasped for breath like an asthmatic in a marathon.

Then came level 35 and Energy Drain. It was nearly orgasmic. Going from constantly running dry to being able to refill your bar every 40ish seconds with a recharge in it was just amazing. The difference was just astounding, it was a completely different game and with the addition of just one power and suddenly I was tinkering between x5 and x8 depending on the enemy type, softcapped to s/l and 38-42 on f/c/e with neg a bit behind with only light IOing. It was a completely different game. It was like viagra for my blue bar.

... Yes, this post is intended to be a bit tongue in cheek, but at the same time it's a little bit serious. Energy Drain is really fantastic but it comes very late in the game and everything before it is just painful. I suppose if you're just going to get powerleveled or something it's not a big deal, and it wasn't too painful on a team but I mostly solo and it was just harsh. Worth the payoff in the end, and it will likely be the character that I end up pimping out when the new solo incarnate content is released. I almost exclusively solo, so while I have a couple characters with the alpha, I haven't done much more and I was tinkering with different ideas of what I wanted to use when it became available.

So I'm working on a TW/EA build and its the first time I'm playing a defense based character (well, aside from bots/traps and thugs/time MMs) so I'm really not familiar with what kind of slotting I'm going to be looking for. If anyone has a link to a basic build I can look over that would be very much appreciated because I'm fairly lost on where I'm heading specifically with IOs. I've done a very little bit of tinkering with defense sets, but mostly I had looked at positional before, so typed defense is pretty much new ground for me.

I know this is a popular combo right now, so if anyone has a build on hand or link to one here on the forums I would be most appreciative. I did a search for tw/ea and it came up with nothing.

Thanks all

I read something a while back that left me a bit confused on this and I just wanted to see if I could get some clarification.

Lets say for example I run SSA 1, 2 and 3 on my level 30 villain. I choose a villain merit on each step. Now, if I repeat the arc immediately I cannot choose the merit, is that correct? I seem to remember something about being able to run it each week but read something about only 1 merit being able to be chosen after the first play through. Not really sure if that's the case or if I can still choose a vil merit at each step of the arc? In regards to once a week... is that a full 7 days from when you do it, or reset with tuesday maintenance?

Thanks for any clarification!

So I took a little break and came back. All of a sudden I have no power in my base. The SG is just myself and my sons, none of us were playing for a bit so nothing changed with the base. I have a basic generator and 2 circuit breakers which appear to be doing nothing.

I tried selling the generator and purchasing a new one, but it doesn't seem to have changed anything. Upkeep is paid, don't see any other issues. Any ideas?