Lazarillo

Soul Drain's in Soul Mastery as well. So that won't be in Dark Assault either.

For what it's worth, I'd like to see Moonbeam left out as well, but I don't particularly expect it. At least, as it is, it'd be an easy "skip" choice. All the same, what I'd really like to see instead, is Death Shroud.

My Elec/Ice Stalker uses the Thunderhead aura, and I've used the color options to basically make both the ice and the cloud to all sort of look "fused" as one single point of armor. Hence, the ice crystals are just part of the cloud around him that's being used for defense.

Guess we know who's gonna die in the SSAs now.

Haunt sounds a lot like Phantom army, is that about right?
I really, really, really want a Dark/Dark Dominator right about now.

I'm trying to think of reasonable and polite way to express how absolutely horrible this idea is.
I'm failing, for the most part. Not because the idea isn't horrible, but because it's so horrible that it's really, really hard to be reasonable and polite.

Incarnate level Banished Pantheon? Incredibly sensible, and quite interesting. Maybe they won't screw this up.

Maybe.

I am expecting it to be absolutely nothing worthwhile, perhaps even comical in how badly it's implemented. I wouldn't mind being wrong, but given what we've seen so far, that's what I'm expecting.

What I would like to see are a series of multiple story arcs with a base difficulty around the range of Ramiel's (possibly with level 54 enemies like the raids, or, better yet, that scale gradually upward, but allow for Incarnate shifts), which can, with a little bit of supplementing from the raids, be enough to get to Rares without any repetition of content, and possibly even VRs over the long term. But I know the Incarnate system well enough by now not to expect that.

I suspect it will be some time yet before more slots are made unlockable, for a variety of reasons.

First, there were comments that the Devs wanted to introduce more powers for the current slots before adding more slots. Now, that has happened with the most recent update, and most slots feel fairly "complete" now, but players still seem somewhat unsatisfied with the options for Judgement, so I suspect the Devs will want to finish rounding that out before going on to the next tier.

Second, and we'll know more about this tomorrow, supposedly, but there's the upcoming solo-alternative for the Incarnate system. This is another aspect I would imagine the Devs want to get rolling before they add new slots, so that the non-raid crowd has at least a little bit of time to "play catch-up" as it were.

Third, there are sure to be some balance issues. The first five powers, alone, have drastically altered gameplay at level 50. There's going to need to be careful testing of new types of powers to ensure they don't overdo it, while still keeping the new abilities desirable.

Fourth, I also recall statements that adding four abilities at once in i20 was too much, too quickly. Assuming the Devs have acknowledged this mistake and want to work against it, they need to finish building an appropriate amount of playable content to go along with the various slots as well. This takes time.

Finally, there's the storyline aspect. It makes the most sense to add new slots when we start to handle the "coming storm", after we've settled matters in Praetoria, and while we're making progress, there are still at least a few loose ends left to tie up on that front.

All in all, while there's nothing concrete said, unless they say something at the player summit tomorrow, I'd say the best expectation would be i23 at the earliest, but probably i24 or i25.

Absolutely unsurprising. Thankfully, I don't view Help by default.

I don't particularly have an opinion on this either. Yeah, there are some real lemons in that spot sometimes, but hey, if nothing else, it's a power I can just delete from my tray and not waste any slots on. Since the introduction of inherent Fitness, slots are at a much greater premium than powers anyway. That said, a bit of devil's advocacy:

Regarding the "must take an offensive power" argument...I am truly and honestly trying to think of a situation where the tier-1 of a secondary is an attack power and the tier-2 isn't. I can see why ensuring that every character can attack is important, but not any situations where this particular argument applies.

Regarding the "Stalkers need to take Hide" argument...does that mean, too, that Domination should also be placed in the first tier for all Assault sets, for example? Or rather, does it mean that Hide should exist as an inherent power?

I'm not sure I want to encourage any further connection between this game and the word "grind"...