JD_Gumby

NOT when the soloer is going through Ouroboros, as I suggest. If they need help, they'd have to start over as well.

Hmm. I'd swear I'd posted suggestions here to add a L45-50 Ouroboros story arc weekly as a Strike Target (have both it and the weekly TF/SF announced by Ramiel) and have it drop a Notice as one of the end of arc rewards (which would be doubled, of course, under the same rules as the current Weekly Strike Target) if it was completed by a team of no more than 4 people.

It wouldn't be at all difficult to implement and balance, really. Those who love Task Forces would have theirs done in an hour or two, those who don't (or can't, for whatever reason) will have theirs done over the course of an evening with a small team or two (or more!) solo - at a far greater difficulty, especially given that they wouldn't be able to add people to help out once they got started!

In other words, as I expected, excessively punitive.

WRONG. The whole idea is to socialize with other real, live people. That does not mean teaming should be the only way to progress your character beyond any arbitrary point (Alpha Uncommon, in this case) or that you should have an artificial speed penalty (lowered shard drop rate, no way to get Notices without TF/SFs, at least for now, or having to craft purely from those artificially rarer sub-components) imposed on you for not preferring large team or horde content.

Haven't actually seen that - except from people such as you claiming it. What I have seen is objection to gating character progression behind large team-/horde-only content as it is in certain other games.

You obviously haven't read what we were saying. Seriously, why should those who prefer to solo or run on small-team be artificially held back compared to those who prefer 8+ player content? Especially since those who prefer, and routinely participate in, large team/horde content already get greater rewards purely from the larger number of foes they face (and which, except for the AVs, they almost inevitably slaughter far easier than those of us on the lower ends)?

No. However, I do object to it being deliberately made slower - it screams of "Do our large-team/horde content and leap forward, or else crawl to the finish and be glad we let you play at all."

Yes, it is, despite the assurances that soloers/small-teamers will be able to build the components via shards. Remember: we don't matter - only those who like large-team/horde content. Anything we get will be a mere afterthought.

Most likely for a very punitive cost, yes, and thus for an insane time investment given the low drop rate of shards during solo and small-team content.

I've done that. Rarely more than 35%, and even then for only a few seconds at at a time before it goes back down to 10-20% for the next while (if not to 0% because I'm busy trying to find a suitable target rather than just the nearest minion). Defiance's damage boost isn't reliable and isn't really much of a factor, especially in groups, except maybe in the longest fights (ie, EBs, AVs. and GMs).

Yada, yada, yada. Still requires an excessive amount of people and coordination to work together for a long time.

Choice, of course, has nothing to do with it.

In other words, you need a big group - or a huge group.

Rewards based on how much you participated rather than on *if* you participated? Even worse for the more casual player who doesn't have the pimped out build to put up enough numbers. Or who, gods forbid, might need to go off at a moment's notice for 10 minutes to take care of their kid or some other real world issue.

So the Incarnate content is entirely based around you being just another body in the horde rushing through the Trial, making you feel weak and insignificant because you're not accomplishing anything on your own. Yay for contradiction.

In other words, you will need a specific team composition working with specific strategies to beat the Trials, contrary to earlier in the post.

And likely no way to suppress them so that your mid-range computer doesn't slow to a crawl and to prevent griefing at the various spots that people tend to gather. Awesome.

Why should it take longer for those who solo or prefer small teams (for whatever reason)? They are already penalized too heavily with lesser rewards (Inf, XP, and drops) for more work as it is.

In other words, focusing on those who love large teams and hordes. :/

But only for large teams, of course.

The lower-level Praetorian Clockwork have it as well (as my Sonic/Traps Corr found when he started monitoring his regen after getting Triage Beacon; even at 1.54%/s those low-level PClockwork have no trouble getting me down to 0 regen, even if there's only 3 Minions). If the OP could handle it then, that component of their attacks should be no problem later.

Doesn't really make calculation confusing since its value is displayed directly on the power. Well, no more confusing than manually calculating the effects of ED has always been, anyways.

My take on Nerve? Not everyone is IO'd out and uses Mids and/or spreadsheets to maximize their bonuses to Accuracy and Defense. They will definitely benefit from it.

Happens regularly with me on missions where you have a fighting escort (such as the ImpCity Crusader arcs). Very annoying.

Yes, but I was using "maintenance window" as a time-of-day reference for why I chose those numbers. (ie, that it'd happen when someone got in to work in the morning)

Not that it matters now, anyways, since it's definitely up....

Concealment offers nothing. At level 20 the first thing you should do, after 5 radios and a bank job, is run 6 days of tips and three morality missions to get yourself an Alignment Merit and buy a stealth IO (since you're Leaping, an Unbounded Leap: Stealth for Combat Jumping would probably be best). Or save up and use 240 Reward Merits to get it, of course. That will give you enough stealth to go in and safely set up a Time Bomb or Trip Mine under most circumstances (see the link to know what to avoid trying to bomb), though you'll mostly do that solo. Expensive, yes, but definitely worth it.

Beanbag's an EXCELLENT power. Especially if you solo. It can very easily be made permanent, even with only 2 slots total (1 recharge, 1 accuracy), if you're going for global recharge as your main bonuses.

It's not, at least if you solo much. Aid Self will drastically reduce downtime between fights.

Getting to that point, however, is VERY unfun for your Endurance bar. Especially solo.

Elite Bosses aren't really considered solo content and, since it's not a TF, there's nothing really stopping you from hopping on a global and asking for help.

Sure, if you compare 'em to dedicated melee archetypes they're going to come out behind (purely because of lack of defense). But their melee damage is outstanding, at least with a bit of recharge, and is augmented by good ranged attacks (and so what if they're ranged? There's no minimum distance away you have to be for them, after all) and a little bit of control.

The Energy drain in the electrical attacks should be looked at as a nice *little* bonus rather than something to use strategically.