Issen

Well, Thugs don't do KB, they do KD with Dual Wield and Empty Clips. I've heard arguments that OF proc in Ninjas is good because of Crane kick, but overall the ridiculously fast attack chains the Genin possess would be a great place for the proc.

Swarm is easily skippable because the DoT is pitiful really (also Lethal. Why are bee stings not Toxic?!)

However, I would NOT skip Ravens if you could at all help it. While conceptually I can understand not liking it, Ravens offers a fantastic means of generating a ton of Pack Mentality very quickly. You can easily pop it in a good sized mob and net yourself 4-5 stacks right off the bat. Enough recharge and you're looking at more.

However, mechanically it doesn't work too well with /Time of course, Time's Juncture means being in melee proximity, at which point maximizing your Raven benefits is more difficult. At that point you -could- argue for using Swarm over Ravens, I think.

Still, Raven's a good AoE tool, and it's -Def makes it an excellent place for an AH proc.

Traps vs. Storm is very much a playstyle thing. Traps is a very passive set. You just drop your traps and let your pets go to town (depends on your primary, actually, I'm Bots/Traps. I no longer even play the guy because he's just too good and I haven't even totally IO'ed him out) whereas Storm forces you to be more active. And the amount of control in Storm cannot be overstated.

Hurricane lets you push mobs into groups for your pets to munch on.

Freezing Rain not only slips them up but debuffs them by quite a bit.

Tornado provides more control and a heft amount of damage on hard targets.

Gust is another great tool for control.

Lightning Storm gives you free damage, combine with Hurricane/Freezing Rain/Tornado for additional giggles.

All that control helps out too. One of my issues with Traps is, when my pets start dropping, mobs don't always give me the breathing room to pop them back up, even with Seeker Drones/Acid Mortar/Poison Trap. Storm's control gives you that breathing room in spades.

...Dark Matter Aura?

Oh, the Tweet Thursdays, I completely forgot about those. Crap. >_<

I hope that stuff goes on sales eventually, I completely forget about the Twitter thing.

Funnily enough, I know a Dark/Energy/Ice Blaster who is outrageously good in PvP by leveraging Power Boost with Dark's -ToHit. Being actually able to use Blackstar would likely cause my friend to have to redo his build if he decided to include it.

I'd definitely say that the Nuke and Snipe changes make /Energy more appealing, but it was already one of the two best picks for Blasters anyway.

The added boosts/powers (Field Operative, Frigid Embrace, Energize) are icing on an already delicious-looking cake.

While /Energy leverages more out of the debuffs of primaries (Aside from those without a big primary debuff), I still see Devices getting a LOT more use, which is great considering it's usually the ugly duckling of Blaster secondaries.

There's always the possibility the ship is destroyed, rather than stolen from you. It would remove it from your possession without it being an obvious power-grab betrayal twist.

Although honestly the betrayal twist wouldn't be unexpected because no-one is really loyal to anyone redside.

Mother Mayhem because everything she did over the course of GR, First Ward, and the Trials was just ridiculous.

The problem with Mot and Hamidon is that they're less sadistically malicious and more "force of nature" now. Hamidon's insane to a level even over Praetor Tilman, and he was even before he morphed himself into an amoeba. And Mot was just a spirit of Death that went over the line.

I think the problem isn't with the Well, but the players attempting to put terms to it.

Maybe the Well doesn't "exist" in our dimension. That is, the Well isn't a physical object in a physical location. It existing in a location is it putting a part of itself there, but the Well itself, or rather, the entity we call the "Well" doesn't exist in our dimension.

The dimensions thing isn't an issue either. Scientifically speaking, there SHOULD be an infinite number of alternate realities. But what if there isn't? What if the number is just so big that it doesn't matter?

As for the "There HAS to be a dimension where this happened", that's not necessarily true. Statistics say that should be the case, but that doesn't mean it has to be. Again, we're applying limited human perception to something. In Darrin Wade's case, you forget that Darrin Wade's plan relied on two things: Statesman and Sister Psyche. That is, he needed a ridiculously powerful psychic with the ability to mind-ride in the manner of Psyche, and the Incarnate of Zeus. Also the MacGuffins needed to steal their power, etc, etc. His plan hinged on all these things existing and being useable.

In ANY dimension where ANY element of his plan either fails to exist or exists no longer means he can't succeed. He also has to be ALIVE as well. It could be the case that Primal Earth WAS the dimension where all the elements he needed for his plan happened to exist in the right order and exist at all. And then he failed.

I'll use an analogy, and then point out the problem with my own analogy. The dimensions are a bookshelf in a library. Each book is a dimension, pages being the universe, etc, etc. A library can have a ridiculous number of books, but it's still a finite number. The "Well" is the librarian who shelves, categorizes, sorts, etc each book. The "Well" has the power to do things to a "dimension", but still exists outside of the "dimension".

Of course there are problems: The Well makes itself known in some way in a dimension. A librarian can't write themselves into every book in the library unless they happen to be the author of every book (which would make that author Stephen King, ha ha). Also, Battalion's place in this analogy is nonsensical, because Battalion can somehow alter the "dimension" AND the "Well"

But this brings up an important point. The issue with the analogy is the problem with ANY analogy: it uses human terms and principles to try and put an explanation to something that may not fall into anything humans have the capability to categorize.

It also helps that we have NO information outside of the bare minimum regarding Battalion. We don't know what it is, what they do, how they work, etc. We know they have a physical presence, but it's possible they have an extra-dimensional presence as well. Heck, for all we know, Battalion is unique. There is only ONE Battalion, ever.

The fact is we don't know anything, because the writers are (obviously) with-holding that information. I think the issue is, that we're trying to explain/justify/etc something when we lack the information to do so properly. Rather than try and explain it ourselves with what limited information we have, why not wait for the writers to show us?

My problem with some of the critiques of the writing is that for the characters to do anything ELSE makes no sense. If anything, the "Villains-As-Heroes" thing is an example of them being actually Genre Savvy.

After all, if the City is destroyed, suddenly they've got nothing to do, or most likely, they die along with the City if the entire eastern seaboard goes up in smoke (as is most often the case) Therefore, it's in a villain's best interests to make sure the place stays alive and kicking.

It's been demonstrated time and again that villains either cannot organize against threats effectively because they're too busy in-fighting or manipulating each other to try and one-up their "competition". Mostly because Recluse actively encourages the behavior. It was hilarious on Virtue when there were some big RP plots about villains trying to take out the City, seemingly forgetting about things like Praetoria or Battalion literally breathing down our IC-necks.

Also, villains seem to forget how much Plot Armor they seem to have equipped. Recluse still being in power after Galaxy City boggles the mind (The lore states that the UN recognizes him as the leader of a sovereign nation; so why hasn't war been declared after he attempts to forcibly annex Galaxy City?) as well. Given that only Tower-Powered Recluse is a threat, a sizeable number of Incarnates who just decide they don't want him around anymore could effectively mow through the entirety of Arachnos like people munching popcorn, but it hasn't happened.

As it stands, villains have yet to lose anything or anyone noteworthy, besides Darrin Wade, who tried to have them killed. Meanwhile, heroes are forced to ignore the fact they're walking into ridiculously obvious traps and set-ups (aka MOST of SSA1) and have important people dropping like flies left and right because the writers forcibly demand they keep their hands on the Idiot Ball at ALL times.

Then there's gems like the fact people actually think Longbow is "organized terrorism" etc, etc. Completely ignoring the lore and trying to apply a real-life set of principles to a world where they don't apply. (The principles of a world without superpowers to one where superpowers are common as all hell)

And that's just covering the one issue. Praetoria is a whole 'nother can of worms.

I think people tend to overstate the issues in writing, or try to apply ideals where it's inappropriate.

Bonfire doesn't need the nerf because even if you're a Fire/Kin Controller the damage is pitiful.

Water/Elec Blaster

...He's a Lanturn. *coughnerdagecouigh*

Again, what makes you think the dev's won't give something sets without a snipe so as to make them balanced to sets WITH snipes?

I could've sworn the Devs said sets without snipes got something as well out of the blast changes.

Is there a reason everyone seems to forget this?

I believe it was stated Hawk said something about changes to DP.

I rather have a completely different view of the iTrials, only because there are arcs and content to connect to the various different Trials.

First Ward explains why Marauder wound up being the guard of Lambda.

Quite a mid of the 10-15 Praetorian content has you dealing with the BAF.

Praetor Keyes' entire arc in Neutropolis explains his utter breakdown during the Reactor Trial, something that actually confused me until I went back and played that content. At first, I was always sure he was just nuts, but it's more of "I've absolutely HAD it with this crap!"

The Underground one again, sort of requires some First Ward because of Praetorian Vanessa DeVore, but even then, the Devouring Earth twist at the end (The Avatar) is nice, especially with how they explain it.

My only complaint with Trials so far is that Tyrant's fight still feels a little anti-climactic comparatively to Keyes, where there was a build-up of suspense and what not throughout the entire trial right up until Keyes himself pops up and fights you.