JD_Gumby

I was on Justice when the event started. I was lucky to get 2fps when looking at the battle under Atlas from the steps of City Hall. Went inside as Streng and Frostlings started attacking me. They followed. Then the announcement of a Rikti Invasion in Atlas. Then I died and it took almost 2 minutes for the go-to-hospital panel to show up.

This bodes badly for my badger on Freedom getting the Winter Lord's badge (or the ones for Halloween Jack & Eochai, if those're the versions that show up).

Wiki mentions:

"IMPORTANT: MNU files must have at least one line containing a carriage-return at the end of the line above the first "Menu" entry. It can be blank, a full comment, or just the comment tag (//) or any number of those lines otherwise it will not function."

Unclear in the OP's pastings whether or not this was already taken into account in their file.

If you have Radiation Emission, either primary or secondary, no one cares what your other set is, really, just so long as you keep Enervating Field & Radiation Emission up and spam Radiant Aura & Lingering Radiation.

Hate to be the one to have to say this, plainguy, but Mids' numbers & crunching the numbers for offense by hand are actually very, very misleading. They assume you're doing nothing but laying out the damage, that your timing is perfect (if you pay attention to DPS).

Most importantly of all, crunching the offensive numbers doesn't (in fact can't) take into account the overall effects of any non-damage aspects (such as the knockback from much of AR, Beanbag's & Taser's disorientation, Web Grenade's -recharge, the difference in your hit:miss thanks to Targetting Drone, the far fewer attacks from critters on that field of Caltrops, the safety provided out of battle, or when preparing for battle, by Cloaking Device & Smoke Grenade, etc.) to the powers and how they relate to your actual tactics and performance in-game.

Pure damage output isn't everything when it comes to evaluating the performance of a set.

If you go with Fraps, grab VirtualDub. Load the GIANT video Fraps creates in it, then Video -> Compression and select something like XVid or MPeG4 or whatever, then File -> Save as AVI. That'll get the gigantic video Fraps created down to a more managable size (I get it down to about 10% when converting to XVid, with no real loss in quality that I can see; YMMV with better graphics cards and monitors, of course)

It has *not* been replaced by stealth IOs for the vast majority of players. Not everyone has 240 merits or a couple of hundred million Inf to spend on one.

Justification? Stealth is you being sneaky, taking care to not make noise or to be seen. That tends to slow people much more than having a Cloaking Device or being shrouded in Steamy Mist or whatever.

The movement penalty is nothing, really, compared to the safety it brings while traveling (especially on a character with Ninja Run + Hurdle for their travel power). And who cares about its -fly speed penalty? You don't need it while flying, anyways, since the only things that are dangerous to you while traveling are Sniper types, which see through all stealth anyways. And even a single Endurance Reduction at DO or SO levels is enough that the End drain won't likely kill you forget to turn it off when you start fighting.

Simple solution: Solo. Or be a better player when on teams.

Web Grenade on Bosses or tough LTs or a Radiation Emissioner's anchor (assuming, of course, the idiots in the group don't see the green glow and decide that means the anchor has to die ASAP) to ruin their recharge rate.

Caltrops to distract foes that the Tanker/Brute hasn't got time for and who you don't really want in the battle yet.

Smoke Grenade to get everyone past a spawn that you don't want to take time to kill, for whatever reason or to keep a nearby spawn out of the battle 'til the team's ready for it.

As for AR's knockback, well, choose your targets better - don't target directly around the Tanker/Brute with Buckshot & M30 Grenade, or Slug if you're targetting through a melee type. Unless, of course, you've got a Controller or Dominator with you who's got most of the spawn locked down with one of the good immobilizes that have -knockback, then go wild.

Use Beanbag a lot. There are many Lieutenants you might like to keep out of the action, after all. Stack it with Taser for Bosses if you're the type who doesn't mind being in melee range at times.

Flamethrower and Full Auto are, of course, always welcome by just about everyone. Snipe is good, too, especially if you're playing with other Blasters that are willing to coordinate their sniper attacks to take out a Boss before the spawn even knows you're there.

You'll want to respec later on, most likely, but a very good early tactic, especially if you have to solo, is to lead with Fire Cages, then stack Char (your single target hold) and Ring of Fire on your priority targets. Concentrate on single targets, only splitting up your Char & RoF targets when you've missed someone with Fire Cages.

Basic slotting for the single target attacks will be 1 Accuracy, 1 Endurance Reduction, 1 Recharge and 3 Damage (I advise getting them to 4 slots each ASAP - Acc/EndR/2 Dam - with the rest of the slots when you've got nothing better to do). Fire Cages should be slotted for 2 Accuracy at first, aiming eventually for 3 Accuracy, since it starts at x0.80, plus whatever suits your fancy (haven't gotten high enough with one to figure out the rest - probably End Reduction, since I find I lack the self control to not hit it whenever it comes up, and 2 Damage).

The Mastermind's job is to manage and buff their pets, not the other players. You want buffs for the players, bring along a Corruptor (or, in coop, a Controller or a Defender, of course). We won't mind if he or she doesn't buff our pets and concentrates on buffing players. Of course, since most of our buff sets have one power that's useless on pets, we'll gladly use it on anyone else who happens to need it (ie, the rez). And obviously our debuffs'll be out for anyone to make use of.

It's only ever rude, on the same team, if you target through a melee character with knockback attacks and haven't cleared first with them. With any other attacks or AoE buffs? Of course it's not rude. Well, maybe when it comes to Brutes and you start Holding the stuff he's got attacking him, but that's a general thing and not specific to targetting through.