Knight_Errant

There's grading for arcs? When did that happen? I've never noticed it.

I think it's more than two. It seems like some contacts primarily the newer ones (RWZ contacts/The piligrim etc) flag up with a yellow book as soon as they get introduced. It's all rather confusing really...

The Hero's Hero arc should give 19 Merits, the time taken shouldn't affect that.

Soloing on unyielding will not affect whether Tyrant spawns (if you solo he will be an EB not an AV).
You can't complete the arc without fighting Tyrant, are you sure you weren't doing all Maria's stand alone missions? She does give non-story arc missions for all of the Praetorian AVs (excluding Tyrant) so you may have been given all of those first (I had that happen with my main). Check your Clues and Souvenirs tabs, if there's nothing for the arc in there then you've only gone through the stand alones and not the story arc.

It may be that you have too many story arcs on the go for her to get you started on the second Praetorian arc. Try clearing any current arcs you have and then go back to her.

TechnicalUK-ML-1278891-ML-

Everytime I see the title of this thread I think, "Damn! I forgot to put together a solo build for my Empathy defender!" She's been waiting weeks for multiple builds to go live and here's me swanning off the make Shield scrappers

How are other players using their second build on the likes of Scrappers and Tanks?

True. The whole 5 powers thing was completely unplanned and resulted from the outcry over certain powers being replaced in the epic pools.

Personally I don't see the need or urgency to add extra powers to the remaining APP/PPP pools which have 4 powers. But that's just my opinion.

If you're part of a team that's fun to be with then yes.

Doesn't it get boring getting owned by the same PvP opponents every fight?

Hmm, I wonder if that's an undocumented change or some kind of recognition bug.

PvE and PvP have different rules sets now. That's part of the reason we now have dual builds.

I'm almost exclusively a PvE player, all my high level toons use set IOs. They make a major improvement in slotting efficiency.

When was the last time you played? i5?
Perma-Hasten hasn't been around since ED.

If you think the set IOs you have are useless I'll gladly take them off your hands.

Widows and Soldiers use the Brute PPPs.

Has anyone else been getting odd private tells that have only a few letters and no name to reply to?
For example I received a tell like:
[tell]: tein
and
[tell]: ing

Actually Shockwave is a rather important power for Claws, the Knockback is potent enough that it rarely gets completely mitigated by an non-AV npc's resistance. Combined with Focus it forms a core damage mitigation ability for Claws. Mobs can't hit you when they're on their back.
And if you're too tired chasing after mobs you send flying then use a wall as a backstop.

It looks like this may have been done to prevent the farmer practice of "filling".

Good old farmers always finding a way to get the Devs to prune back another aspect of the game they've learned to exploit.

I had my Claws/Regen running around on test to see how the tweaks would affect her in PvE. She seemed just as capable of shredding mobs now as she did back when I made her in i9.
Also, as pointed out, PvE and PvP are pretty much separate matters now.

Just a question. Is this a deliberate change or a bug?
I can see it being an annoyance if the team scatter for some reason or someone goes afk.
Before now a team could proceed regardless of where everyone was. This change/bug will result in alot of standing around waiting or an increase in fiddling around with reinviting.

I think overall a set just for accuracy wouldn't need to be more than 3 pieces in size.
Something like:

Precision
Accuracy
Accuracy / End Red
Accuracy / Recharge

(2) Stun Resist - 2%
(3) ToHit Debuff Resist - 5%

Otherwise it would end up stepping on the toes of other sets. The "Future Sight" example would supercede all of the damage sets if it was just a "generic accuracy" set.

I do wish we had a pic of the pieces on a female model.
I'm not sure what to make of the oversized shoulder spheres and those gloves look like glorified Tae Kwon Do sparring mitts.

Hmmm... Issue 15 on or near April 28th?
I guess i14 will be a Feb/March release then.

Seconded!

Please can we non-creditcard subscribers have some way of purchasing extra character slots and name change tokens? At present there is no apparent way for us to purchase them.

/unsigned
Much as I understand the concern, hell doing this would make things so much easier, it is going too far.
At the moment you can compensate for high cost powers by slotting to reduce End cost. Yes it means you have to compromise the rest of your slotting but that's the payoff. Expensive and hard hitting or cheap and spammable?
On top of that improved recovery only goes so far, actually slotting in something that reduces the cost of all those powers being spammed by ~33% is theoretically more effective. For example, my Night Widow devoured Endurance, even after getting Stamina she would still go through blues at a rapid rate. Once I'd slotted her attacks with some End cost reduction (in the form of Set IOS) the issue was largely solved. My young Tri-Form PB is helping me to look at this even more closely as I can only take advantage of Stamina roughly 1/3 of the time.
I know not everyone has bought into IOs, even three issues on. However Stamina isn't the panacea, making it an inherent certainly isn't. Maybe they need a third look at power costs but given that we can slot to reduce the costs of powers and Set IOs allow us to even mitigate most, if not all, of the effect payoff we had to consider with slotting SOs, I find it unlikely that things will change as we already have the tools to manage Endurance ourselves.

The problem I find with the knockdown in DB is that it comes at the end of the attack. Venegful Slice has something like three ticks of damage before the knockdown takes effect. 1000 Cuts takes even longer. It's only short period but I find it leaves my Db/Regen very exposed. In comparison targets hit by Broadsword and Katana Knockdowns would be just starting to get back up by the time the DB's knockdown effect triggers.
DB users in teams rock because of their blistering pace and AoE effects, but one on one with a Boss I'd rather have a Broadsword.

From the viewpoint of a Bs/Regen main

Broadsword is a pretty good all-rounder. It has the hardest hitting spike damage attack that a scrapper can get and it has some handy secondary effects too.
You get two Knockdown/Knock Up attacks, both of which do masses of damage and make for some useful soft control. Almost all your attacks debuff defence and you get a 5% base accuracy buff which puts only Martial Arts ahead of you in the accuracy stakes.

Parry can soft cap your Melee defence if you slot it for defence and recharge and use it every couple of attacks. It's great for switching from an offensive to defensive fighting style if things get nasty and you need a few seconds to recover. Combined with the Knockdown from Headsplitter and Disembowel you get some pretty decent protection to back up your Regen.
Only Katana, and to some extent claws, can provide you with this level of mitigation in a scrapper Primary set. Dark and Martial Arts can match it to some extent but Dark does it by debuff rather than knockdown and Martial Arts uses a couple of unpopular Stun attacks.

Hasten is useful for Broadsword/Regen as it works well with the self heal clickies and for putting your attack chain into a higher gear.

If you like fly then Air Superiority is a good pool attack to get. It makes for a handy soft control in the early levels and it only really needs slotting with 2x Acc or 1 Acc + 1 Recharge. Later on you can juggle Bosses/EBs with Air Sup, Headsplitter and Disembowel.

Now MoG is effectively a protection version of Build Up it is also great for foiling Sappers and Ring Mistresses in the 40s. If they miss you first time around then they're pretty much dead when you get in melee.

I'd recommend against taking Fire as a primary for a Regen scrapper. What it gains in damage output it loses in mitigation. The same applies to Spines and, to a degree, Dual Blades. At higher Rep levels Regen needs a little something extra to cover its weak Defence and Resistance. Keep in mind that if you can't somehow manipulate the enemy with knockdown, stun or acc debuffs then they will hit you fairly easily and for full damage.