Luminara

Okay, here's the skinny on Disruption.

The endurance cost is too high for what it does, the target limit is too low for the type of power it is and it isn't a particularly impressive power. The recharge is too long, too, and since it's immobile, it can be wasted if you aren't getting foes into the AoE or have them secured in place before using it.

However, it comprises half of TA's native -Res, it's got a much larger radius than Acid and it lasts up to 5s after the enemy leaves the AoE. It has a total duration of 35s, due to the 5s long pulses. And it can even interrupt powers with interrupt periods (use it on a Sky Raider Engineer, for example, to stop him from summoning that pesky FFG). Something which is also noteworthy is that it can stack with itself, because it's a pet, so if you have enough +Recharge, you can use Disruption more than once and gain the effects of each use.

It has its benefits and drawbacks. Whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks will be entirely determined by each individual's play style.

To really utilize Disruption properly, you have to set it up. You have to use Glue or OSA or Tenebrous Tentacles or something else to keep a spawn (or another player) in place before you pop Disruption. If you don't like setting up powers like that, if you prefer to just run and gun, then skip it. It'll just sit in your tray and wait for you to remember it's there once in a while, and annoy you.

If you're comfortable spending a few extra seconds making sure your foes can't wander out of the AoE freely, and you can manage the endurance cost, or you're determined to go for a high +Recharge build and stack -Res until spawns just give up and lie down out of realization of what will happen if you look at them funny with that much -Res on them, then take it and use it.

Different people are always going to play in different ways, and every power isn't going to fit everyone's preference. Heck, different characters are going to have different approaches. I find that I rarely use it on my TA/A or TA/Dark, but I fire it every chance I get when I'm playing my Fire/TA controller or Bots/TA mastermind, and I'm absolutely drooling at the prospect of getting it for my Fire/TA corruptor (just a few more levels... just a few more levels!). You don't have to take it, but it is useful and it does help. If the endurance cost, target limit and recharge time issues are ever addressed, then I'd recommend that everyone take it and even if they don't like using it, adapt and use it anyway, but until then, it's just not the end-all and be-all of TA and if you don't see a compelling need for it, don't fret over it.

For those who do want to use it, here are a couple of binds which can help make it a little less unwieldy.

/bind shift+lbutton "powexec_name Disruption Arrow"

With that bind, you hold down Shift and click the left mouse button, and Disruption will be fired wherever you clicked. Even straight up in the air.

/bind shift+rbutton "powexec_name Disruption Arrow"

With that bind, you hold down Shift and click the right mouse button, and the targeting ring for Disruption will come up on your pointer. This is for those who prefer to see the rings and target it more precisely. When you have your pointer where you want the arrow to fire, click the left button.

You can substitute ctrl or alt for shift, by the way, so those of you with multiple click targeted AoEs, like OSA, RoA, Disruption, Teleport, Recall Friend, etc., can do it all with just ctrl, alt and shift and the two mouse buttons.

"Pets? What pets? Those aren't mine! I logged in today and they started following me around! I think they're assassins, but they're, like, the worst assassins EVAR. Every time they try to kill me, they miss and end up killing something else instead!"

And now I've got no problem with the creator, either.

So, it's not the server, I've tested on three different servers and had it both work and fail on all three. It's not the Disable FX setting, I haven't changed that at all yet. No patches were released in the last few days. No OS patches within the last few days. No driver or hardware changes in the last few days.

No changes of any kind, but the bug manifests at random.

Maybe... I don't know, maybe creating a TA/Rad as the first action when logging in to the server selection screen? That's the only common point with the failures yesterday morning and tonight. The first thing I did after logging in was pick a server and start trying to create a TA/Rad, and discovered that I couldn't see the Rad blasts or various TA effects.

Feh. I'm dumping it in Castle's lap, he can forward it to QA for analysis.

I logged in to test my Fire/TA controller... it's fine.

Okay, back to the character creator to test TA/Rad again.

And the problem is back. Haven't logged in at all today until fifteen minutes ago, started putting together a TA/Rad on Liberty, got to the power customization screen and no graphics for Rad blasts. The pets for Disruption, Glue and PGA all disappear within 1-2s, no ice block with Ice Arrow, no net with Entangling Arrow...

Argh. It works, then it doesn't, then it does, then it doesn't... this is nuts.

Going to test the FX setting and see what happens.

After reminding myself that I've had a TA/Rad concept on the burner for a while, I logged in this morning to see what costume and power color concepts might catch my eye... and discovered that I can't see any of the Rad powers in the creator. I just created a Fire/TA corruptor earlier this week and had no trouble customizing the Fire blasts, but today I can't see any of the blasts. I can see some of the effects hitting the invisible target (i switched to Ice Blast to see if it was just a Rad Blast issue, but no ice shooting across the screen, just chunks appearing on the invisible target), but other effects, like the blasts themselves, Ice Arrow's block of ice and Entangling Arrow's net, never appear.

I rotated the character to face an appropriate direction so I could see the graphics.

I tried changing the colors and color themes.

I tried changing the brightness.

I reset everything to default and tried everything again.

I logged out and restarted the client, just to be sure it wasn't a one time glitch.

I tried skipping steps in the creator.

I tried going through the creator step by step.

I tried heroes and villains.

I verified files.

I've tried it with different origins, different powersets, none of the blasts are showing up. I just logged back in and tested Fire Blast. Hands show fire graphics, invisible target shows fire splash, but the actual fire that's supposed to be shooting toward the invisible target doesn't appear. I can get the mushroom cloud from Neutron Bomb, but the whirling ball of energy never appears. None of the blasts are displaying for me. I've been logging in and out, testing this, for almost an hour now.

Anyone else not seeing blasts in the power customization part of the character creator? O_o

Everything required to do this is already in the game, except the content.

Fifty missions. At each level, when you visit a trainer, you're given the option to enter a mission and face your nemesis.

We take the custom critter creator from the Architect and use it to design our nemesis at character creation. That nemesis is then stored as if it were one of your characters, to be referenced specifically in and by nemesis missions and nowhere else in the game. Whether it uses up a character slot or not would be up to the developers (though i believe it's a "sacrifice" many would make in order to have a nemesis system).

Missions could be generic (in the same way scanner/newspaper missions are) or tailored for origin, or perhaps even for archetype (presuming the new code added a few issues ago recognizes AT in the same way it does origin).

The "hard" part would be creating all of the missions and dialog for 50 levels of play, five origins, all of the ATs, etc, or enough generic missions to make them seem original throughout 50 encounters.

The point here is that it is possible now. It wouldn't give you random ambushes by your nemesis, or insert your nemesis into existing content, but it's a good start (in my opinion, of course).