Lazarillo

Is the belt supposed to just kind of...stop like that, or are this set's pieces actually clipping with other pieces from the same set? I don't see anything there particularly worth the money...the set works decently for a bunch of badguys in uniform, but not so much for player pieces. When they inevitably roll out "Thorn Pack 2" for another five bucks, we'll see if there are any decent pieces there, but I rather doubt it.

As I recall, in this particular mission, it doesn't really help that the Resistance stealth is actually ridiculously buff. Base Empowerment buffs don't help, and IIRC, it takes two small yellows to make them visible (1 medium yellow will work, but those aren't as easy to just run to the contact and purchase). The mission itself is fairly long...running in and out multiple times because you have five minutes of inspirations and twenty minutes of mission really isn't acceptable either.

But honestly, at baseline, I'd say that if you're playing smart at +0/x1 and chugging inspirations that fast, there's still a balance issue. There's no other group out there that's going to make you do that. And really, "get inspirations" isn't a challenge, any more than "get a Mastermind" for Barracuda.

I like seeing challenges in this game, but it's better to define a challenge as something that makes you play smarter, first and foremost, rather than just running back and forth to stack the deck. Put another way against the Inspiration argument, let's take Hamidon. Your group is going to need EoE Inspirations, more than likely, if they want to do a successful Hami-raid. But I guarantee you that having fifty players each with a full 20 EoEs is not going to win the raid for you. Heck, having fifty players who somehow have 200 EoEs each still isn't going to magically fix everything. That's because Hami requires strategy (it may have become rote on some servers, but it's still strategy). Hence, Hami works well as a "challenge". These Resistance don't require anything except to make you slog to and from your contact repeatedly.

On the one hand, I can see the reasoning behind it. Most of the individual AT forums are pretty slow compared to, say, Player Questions or City Life.

HOWEVER!

I think simply the fact that, in game, you have multiple ATs popping up under multiple categories, is reason enough to understand that merging certain ATs' forums just isn't going to work well. Furthermore, merging like ATs still isn't going to work. A Dual Blades/Willpower Stalker plays hella different from a Scrapper or Brute with the same sets. And similarly, a DB/WP Brute, isn't much like a WP/DB tank, either. Similarly, within just the Mastermind AT, and the various EATs, you have people playing as tanks, as support, or as big damage, depending a lot on which sets they use and their general style.

If you're dead set on merging the AT forums, I'd do a few broad categories based around playstyles rather than ATs, and then naming ATs that are "possible" examples, but not restricting them to a single spot. "Squishy damage", "Crowd Control" (Controllers, Dominators, Fortunatas, Masterminds) as just a couple examples. Not too different from the original proposition, but more focused on build style than AT, and as you can see, with certain forums open to multiple ATs. Even this way, you could still probably cut the number of forums in half, at least.

It's still not that great, but it's better than saying "Blasters and Corruptors over here", "Defenders, Controllers, and Dominators here", I think. You might have to repost a few of the sticky guide listings in multiple forums, but it'd make for more ease of discussion.

I also wouldn't really bother with a separate forum, honestly, with build help if you go this way.

Honestly, I like it. I got quite a bit of mileage out of it, teleporting from the far side of IP, or from Striga (especially handy for that one fedex mission near the end of Moonfire), or as a direct link to Peregrine Island.

That said, I can see it being pretty useless for villains, since everything's connected to the ferry anyway, and the lack of hazard zones or cross-alignment areas for Vigilantes and Rogues are both disappointments.

It's good enough for me...but it could be a lot better.

Only managed to do the first two arcs this weekend before I out-leveled the whole area. My own fault for waiting 'til the late 20s to start out of how buff I heard the enemies are (and they really weren't...so far at least). Really enjoyed them. It's a great setting, though I'm not sure if it's connection to Praetoria serves or detracts from it.

Though on the "Praetoria" side of things, it's nice to see that the story takes my view of Calvin Scott and runs with it.

They've been like this since day one of i18, well before the trials started showing up with them. And yes, it's damn annoying. But sadly, it seems they're meant to work this way; it has nothing to do with bleeding from the Incarnate raids.

I'm not usually one for speed-leveling an alt, and heck, not normally one for Defenders in general, but I've been having so much fun with my own Time/Rad that he just made 32 last night after less than a week in use. Time's Juncture + Irradiate makes me happy in all sorts of ways. I feel like a tank, against non-mezzing enemies at least.

It's 59%.

I believe the common answer is "we know people want it, but it would take too long, and we'd rather use the animation time for straight-up new powersets".